The Tim Ferriss Show - #285: Preserving Human Life, Battling the Busy Trap, and How to Stay Focused -- M. Sanjayan

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

M. Sanjayan (@msanjayan) is a global conservation scientist specializing in how nature preserves and enhances human life. He serves as CEO for Conservation International, having joined CI in 2014 as executive vice president and senior scientist. He has led several key divisions including Oceans, Science, Development, Brand and Communications and Strategic Priorities.Sanjayan holds a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his peer-reviewed scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature, and Conservation Biology. He is a visiting researcher at UCLA and distinguished professor of practice at Arizona State University.Sanjayan has hosted a range of documentaries for PBS, BBC, Discovery, and Showtime. Most recently, he was featured in the University of California and Vox Media's Climate Lab series.Sanjayan is a Disneynature Ambassador, a Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and a member of National Geographic Society's Explorers Council. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I've been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that's onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.This podcast is also brought to you by 99Designs, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99Designs.I used them to rapid prototype the cover for The Tao of Seneca, and I've also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you're happy with or your money back. Click this link and get a free $99 upgrade. Give it a test run...***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? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.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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that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out if the spirit moves you today's guest is m sanjan phd oh my goodness are you in for a treat you're going to hear about everything from monkeys and birthday cakes to building a personal board of advisors for yourself i'm not going to give you the bio right this second because you're going to hear it from a live recording the live recording was taken at Sixth and I, very famous historic location in Washington, D.C., sixthandi.org. You can check them out, where I interviewed two different people in separate sessions. Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL and known for many other things, and then M. Sanjan, who you are going to hear from next. Enjoy. Everybody loosened up?

Limbered? All right, let's just jump right into it. So this is going to be fun. I've been looking forward to this, trying to make this happen, hoping to make this happen, and here we are. So let me just jump right into it. Our next guest is M. Sanjan, PhD, a global conservation scientist specializing in how nature preserves and enhances human life. He serves as Conservation International's chief executive officer.

We have met before, and we'll get into that. Sanjan joined CI in 2014 as executive vice president and senior scientist and has led several key divisions, divisions, I'm just underscoring that for you guys, including oceans, science, development, branded communications, and strategic priorities. That sounds like a lot. Sanjan holds a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his peer-reviewed scientific work has been published in journals

including science, nature, and conservation biology. He is a visiting researcher at UCLA and a distinguished professor of practice at Arizona State University. Raised in Southeast Asia and Africa, Sanjana's background and expertise provide a unique lens for hosting and co-hosting a range of documentaries for PBS, BBC, Discovery, and Showtime. Most recently, he hosted the University of California and Vox Media's Climate Lab series. Sanjana is a Disney Nature Ambassador, a Caddo Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and a member of the National Geographic Society Explorers Council. He posts frequently from his

expeditions at msanjan, that's S-A-N-J-A-Y-A-N on Twitter. Please welcome to the stage, M. Sanjan. All right. So I want to start with something we were discussing very briefly before we get up here. And I said, wait, wait, wait, don't tell me. I want to hear the story, but let's save it. What is your full birth name? Audio, audio Microphone check Hello, hello, hello There we go Okay Can you guys hear me? Okay

First of all, Tim called me up yesterday When I was in Botswana Getting on a flight 22 hours to get here And said, hey, are you in D.C.? Because I'm going to be there. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not just arriving, but that day. And he's like, well, I'm there for 24 hours, but hey, I'd love to see you. Do you want to come to this thing?

Oh, by the way, do you want to be on stage? And I'm not very good at saying no, which we'll get to, having listened to this last podcast about saying no to things. But I feel so much better today because I realize it isn't a last minute invitation because he did the same thing to Steve Case. He's really good about it. Okay, so I'm a Tamil. I'm from Sri Lanka. And some of us are just given one name. So on my birth certificate, it just says Sanjay.

But my dad's name, which I use as a last name, like from my American passport, is Muthulingam. And I don't use it much for two reasons. One reason is an obvious one. Because if someone said Dr. Mukulingam, it'd be my dad who would look, not me. So I don't associate it distinctly with myself. That's the reason I've told everyone. The reason I don't tend to use it,

and I've never, ever told this to anyone, at least not in a public audience, is that when I came to America, people have this obsession about what your name means. They always ask you, like, oh, wow, cool name. What does that name mean? I don't go around going, like, Michael, what does your name mean? And I'm just like, I'm an angel.

It doesn't come up. But they do tend to ask that of foreigners for some reason. And the problem is this name Mutalingam quite literally means giant pearl penis. And until I was like a junior, I was deeply like conscious of that and I would never say it and then one day in a bar somehow it kind of blurted out and the reaction I got was really? and so

then it became not a problem anymore sort of thing that sounds like a last name meaning I would shout from the rooftop you know what lingam is right look it up like lingam that's right? You guys look it up. Like lingam. That's like a phallic representation.

So it's like penis. It's the same thing. And muttu means pearl. It's actually mother of pearl. So, yeah. That's exactly right. It's like the hope diamond of penises. Yeah, I know.

It can be fantastic. It's the best last name ever. I know. Or adopted last name. Yeah. There we go. So I think the most logical segue here is to ask you about bullying during your childhood. We've suffered, many of us, through bullying.

And I want to talk about a monkey. A monkey who stole your birthday cake. How do you know that? Can you explain what the hell is going on here? Yeah, could you please explain monkey birthday cake story? Well, I'll do that very quickly because that actually comes to one of your questions that you ask people, which is about a strange habit. So one of my strange habits, unusual habit, is that I like to do something new,

something I've never done before. I like to try it on my birthday. And that's a tradition. It's been everything from like writing poetry to learning how to snowboard when I was 45, to fly fishing, to learning to bake a beef wellington, right? So it could be anything, but I've never done it before. And I did this, I instituted this as a practice about 15 years ago because I would always get very depressed on my birthday. Because what happened on my birthday was that, this is a long story, I have to do it very short,

so a very quick version is... No, no, no quick version. It doesn't have to be short. So we're five years old. We just moved from Sri Lanka to Sierra Leone, West Africa. And not just in town, We were like in the bush, in the country, like way out there. My mother, amazingly, so in Sri Lanka, I was like a little prince. I had these amazing cakes, like, you know, battleship cake, you know, entire zoo cake. I mean, it was like that kind of cake. And then we went to Sierra Leone, and my mother, and we had to sort of

flee Sri Lanka in the middle of the night, you know, because of troubles in the country, and my mom actually packed, which is amazing, I think back on it, like a pound of flour, and like icing sugar, because we came to Sierra Leone on December 4th, and my birthday was on December 26th, and she knew this, and so out there in the middle of the jungle, she baked me a cake. It was a simple little round cake with chocolate frosting, which is like the simplest frosting you can get, right? Basically, you can make it almost anywhere. And I didn't like it. So I was crying. I was weeping. I was unhappy about it. My mother eventually got tired. She said, you know, like, that's it. Here's the cake. Put it on the table. She goes in to take a bath. And I kind of stopped crying, as you do when you're five,

and no one's watching, and I walk into the living room, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of something, and I turn and look, and there's a monkey, and the monkey is holding my cake, and the monkey looks at me, and I look at the monkey, we're both like, ah, the monkey's like, and then it jumps, it jumps on the windowsill and flees, it like goes, gone. And I go screaming in, the cake, the cake, my mommy, my cake, like just that kind of thing. My mom comes out. She's like worried, petrified. She'd only been in the country for a few days at that point, like 22 days, shaking me. She's like, are you okay? Are you okay? Like the cake, the cake, cake. She goes to the window.

She goes to the, no cake there. She goes to the window and our house is on stilts to avoid flooding in the rainforest. And she looks down and the, no cake there. She goes to the window, and our house is on stilts to avoid flooding in the rainforest. And she looks down, and the cake is down there. And she turns to me, and she says, you wicked, wicked child. Your birthday is canceled forever. We will never do birthday again. Just wait till your father comes home. And that was it. And now I'm on the floor. We will never do birthday again. Just wait till your father comes home."

And that was it. And now I'm on the floor. I'm like, because for a child, injustice is like the worst thing ever. So since then, like, birthdays have been really, really difficult for me. It's also on December 26, which is not great, you know, for lots of reasons. And so it creates this gigantic sense of anxiety. It's never good enough. It carried right into adulthood.

It was very, very destructive to everyone around me. And even today, by the way, when we get together with my family, even today there is discussion about whether I threw the cake out the window or not. And the power of storytelling, this is what's happened to my mind. I start thinking, did I really see that monkey, or did I actually throw the cake? I don't even know after a while, which is sort of interesting.

So anyway, that's a very long story, but that's it. Sorry. That is a great story. Thank you. I want to hear the monkey's version of that story. At some point, I'll track that monkey down. That'll be a really awkward podcast. How did your parents or how did your family end up going to Sierra Leone, of all places?

My dad got a tax in the middle of the night. You know, my parents are the mildest, meekest-mannered Asians you can possibly meet. My dad's an accountant. And, you know, he never, like, even now when I travel, Botswana or Namibia or Indonesia or Colorado, Aspen, the same advice, don't talk to strangers, be careful what you eat, you know, like, it's the same kind of, like, meek, careful advice. But they had this one gigantic moment of courage, which I still don't understand, because even today it would be a massive deal to do. But these Asians who never have left the country decided to pick up their five-year-old and one-year-old, and over a weekend decide that

the country was getting politically really bad, and with two suitcases and only the jewelry my mother had, just left. And the only place my dad had a job offer was in Sierra Leone as an accountant for a forestry company. Later on, his career just took off, and he did great, but it just was this unbelievable thing. And not just the capital, not Freetown. Like, this is like where Ebola was, like, recently, right? I mean, this is where there was a 30-year civil war in Sierra Leone. We didn't just go to the capital. We went 200 miles in the interior and lived in, like, a treehouse

with quite literally monkeys, obviously, around us. And I don't get that. I still ask them then. They're like, yeah, you know, we just, it's just sort of typically, like, we didn't have a choice, you know. It's like the two lotteries you win, you know. The parents you have, that's one lottery. You don't get picked that. I won that one. The country of your birth is your second lottery. I sort of snuck into that one, but those are the two things, and Steve's completely right. You know, all of the

other things in your life tend not to matter as much as those two lotteries that you get. So let's talk about the factors, or maybe if you could describe for us how you ended up in science and then conservation. Yeah, sure. Look, you know, I always loved nature. I loved animals. I think all kids love nature and love things that move. And as you get older, it kind of gets beaten out of you, right? You just get stopped encouraging to do that. But my parents just let me do that because it's the only thing that was sort of around me.

And I fooled them for a long time thinking I was sort of in pre-med and kind of went further and further into that sort of realm, until eventually, very late in my sort of, I had my master's and just getting into my PhD, I sort of realized that there's actually a career that was actually open to Asians in thinking about the environment and thinking about conservation and thinking about actually saving the planet. You could actually do that, respectably so, for most of your life and be okay with it. It took a lot of convincing for that bigger family to sort of get that.

You know, once I got my PhD, I tell a story. I went back to Sri Lanka and my grandmother, I overheard her telling her friend who's like across the wall, like kind of leans over, and they have this conversation. My grandson is back. He's a doctor now, but not the kind who saves people. And my grandma, she had to add that, right? And I started thinking about it, and I'm like, really, isn't that what we're actually trying to do? Because ultimately, it's all connected. People need nature to thrive, and that is one virtuous cycle. But it was a fooling game, and I bet many, many people who follow their, quote-unquote, passion,

try to find their way, do a lot of fooling around, fooling of other people, fooling of social circles. I was just lucky, lucky, lucky enough that there was enough there, and I finally realized that I could actually do this. What was the triggering event that you were getting at the time? So your master's and PhD were in what? Sorry, where were they? The fields. What was the concentration? I mean, it was biology for my master's and then wildlife and genetics for my PhD. And was there a conversation or a book or something that proved to you that conservation could be a path you could embrace, or was it... You know, honestly, I wish there was something more epic on that.

I mean, I think there were two moments in my life where I made these big leaps. The first was coming to America, deciding that I wanted to be here for, like, graduate school or, like, for my higher education. And that was because of Bruce Springsteen. Kid you not. Kid you not. That's how we picked colleges back then, right? Because you didn't have, like, I didn't have, like, well, I didn't have the Internet. I definitely didn't have any way of knowing, like, why America would make sense for me. I had very little concept of America. But someone gave me that Nebraska album. And I remember looking at the cover of that album,

and something about that cover, and something about the songs in that, and the last song on that album. And it just made you want to think of sort of endless possibilities and sort of wide open spaces. And I always felt confined in my life, confined by society or by whatever. I was always a stranger in a strange land, no matter where we moved, because we moved around a lot throughout Africa and sometimes into Asia. And I just felt that that was a big leap, like taking this sort of bet to come to America. And then the second one, I think, had more to do with, I had an amazing advisor, a guy named Michael Soule, who was like the father of conservation biology. He really, he coined that word, and he put it on the map.

And, you know, 20 years ago, he was the guy. And I was lucky enough to work with him. I just cold called him and sort of pestered him until he took me on as a student. And I think that made me realize there was a path there. So you mentioned this professor. Could you remind me of his last name, the pronunciation? Sule. S-O-U-L-E.

Now, I've read that he told you your job as a graduate student was to train yourself as a critical thinker. I believe. Maybe that's the internet lying to me again. But... No, so what was true was, like, so I was eager to save things. Like, you thought that that's what you did, and, you know, I wanted to go save wildlife. And he said, no, right now your job is to just do a really good piece of science. It's actually good advice.

Like, do a really hard piece of science. It's actually good advice. Like do a really hard piece of work so that you'd own it and you'd know that once in your life you could do that. And there's time enough later to save things. He tells me now that he might not have said that advice today, but at that time it made an impression on me and that's sort of what I did. Why wouldn't he give that advice today? Did he explain? I think he is so distraught about what has happened in the last 20 or 30 years to our planet. And so am I. And I think we all are really impatient.

And I keep waiting for other people to see something that I have seen. And very, very few people around me somehow seem to have that gene turned on. And I think that impatience is what sort of makes us sometimes be irrational, but other times just feel desperate. So the intention, just to take a step back, so you guys have the meta-context here. No, no, no, what are we doing? That's the question of the evening. So initially I was like, you know what would be really fun is to have Steve Case come up, who's in the book, and ask him questions that aren't in the book.

And then to have someone, you, come up and ask the questions that are in the book. But then, of course, we get the birthday cake and the monkey and we're off on a completely different landscape. So I'm going to bounce around between questions that I'm dying to ask, but then the questions that I feel like would be fun to sprinkle throughout. So there's going to be very little connective tissue. It's going to be like the worst edited movie you've ever seen. What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life

in recent memory? That's a really hard question for me because I don't buy a lot of stuff. I'm a total snob when it comes to like the stuff I own and the reason for that is because I travel incessantly and when I travel I just have one bag and I have to take it so everything I own has to do like double duty and so I'm very very very picky about like either simplifying or just taking exactly what I like so I can't think of something really easy that comes to mind under $100 that I could just name. Icebreaker Underwear. So Icebreaker is a great company. They produce amazing stuff all out of merino wool.

Merino wool, yeah. A New Zealand-based company. I think you and I both know the founder, Jeremy Moon. And I like his personal ethos, and his stuff works. I don't get paid by this company anything like that But that's probably the last under hundred dollar purchase. I made that I love do you have a Go-to bag you mentioned you have one bag have you vetted a lot of bad? Yeah, so I used to love this Victorian ox bag. They don't make it anymore. So the problem with

It's just kills you, right? Like, it really kills you. Like, you just figure out that there's something that works really well, and then they go and change it. Like, shoes, like athletic shoes, oh my god, do they change it. And there's a whole race to change it fast. So this is really a hard question because I now use a 2Me bag. And I like it because I like the four wheels. I also like the sturdiness of that bag. It's heavy. That's the downside on it. All right. But I'm getting older, so I can't really carry things on my back anymore. So I need a very specific four wheel to me back. Do you have, do you have a protocol for surviving or maintaining your sanity and health for really long flights? Like that flight from Botswana, where I ambushed you with this invitation. Uh, is there anything special you do? I mean,

I've, I know friends who carry saline misters for their noses or wrap their heads in all sorts of weird contraptions to block out sound and light, or do you just go out and you're done no you know i try to be like as comfortable as i possibly can during the flight um i mean it's just the usual stuff i try to get myself on the new time zone fast i'm very strategic about how when i drink coffee or anything like coffee or tea very strict about the timing on that. I tend to fast a little bit on flights. I don't eat a lot just because I can catch up later and it always makes me feel a little better. I guess that's sort of it.

Like sometimes you get, like it depends. It really, like I did this flight and I'll be absolutely honest with you. I fly so much that sometimes I'm flying in business class, especially very, very long flights when I have to like land there and get into meetings., I fly so much that sometimes I'm flying in business class, especially very, very long flights when I have to land there and get into meetings. Sometimes I fly in economy. I did this very

long flight from Sydney to Johannesburg. And I'm in the back of an old 747 middle seat with these two very nice but large Samoan gentlemen on either side of me.

Who, as... The plane hadn't even really taken off. They both fell asleep, and their hands kept falling into my lap. Like this, boom, like this. And I had to, like, lift and put it, and then, like... And, you know, that kind of flight, you just have to just completely do this mind shift. So what you do... so I stripped all my stuff off, got really like into like my jeans and a t-shirt,

sort of curled up, made my little space, and then started playing this game. So all you have to do is think about what worst form of transportation you could be stuck in in that moment. So you just have to think, well this could be Mombasa to Kampala so you just have to think well this could be you know Mombasa to you know like

Kampala you know truck ride right now in the back of like a local bus you know and you'd like oh my god this would be so much better than that like I can like order food I can get drinks and I mean like you got just infinitely infinitely better

infinitely better so that's the trick like I once had to spend an entire month in a very small cabin on a boat I mean, like, you got just infinitely, infinitely better. Infinitely better. So that's the trick. Like, I once had to spend an entire month in a very small cabin on a boat. No windows. It's a research vessel. I'm stuck in there with another roommate. Tiny for a month. And I, and we had food, literally cans of food under our bed.

That's how small the whole. But I kept thinking, this is like a sleeper suite on Singapore Airlines. Like, $20,000 ticket right now. Because I can sleep, there's a shower, like I can walk around, and it just makes you feel so much better. So that's the trick with distance. Anytime there's phase constraint, just think of what's worse and then just mind shift. It works. No, no, it sounds like a fantastic trick. I'm still thinking about the thick Simone hands landing in your lap.

If you were to, we were talking about one of your mentors and the advice he gave you. If you were to have the opportunity to teach, say, give you three options, a ninth grade class, college freshman class, or college senior class, you choose one of those three, and to teach a seminar or class of your choosing, what age would you choose, and what would you teach? You have a semester. So tell me again how old people are at ninth grade, because I can go to school. Ninth grade is 15, 14, 15, I would say. 14, probably. You know, I probably teach that freshman seminar class freshman college freshman college because I think

I have relatable experiences that I can translate to that group and it's still early enough for their trajectory to make a big difference so that's probably why I picked that group and what would I teach? Yeah, what would the class be?

And it doesn't have to be, there's no prereq, there's no... It'd be like, how to get shit done. This is a good subject. It's like so much stuff that we learned in college is wasted. Like, you just think about the vast amounts of stuff that they taught us that we never never ever actually use Like that so I would love to look I would probably teach a class like being really honest because I do Teach at university so it probably be something about biology and something about the environment right so chances

I will be in that thing might be a it might be a class in communication So because I've done like enough television work and stuff like that to be able to do that legitimately. Or storytelling. But I would probably teach a class in biology, but if I really could get away with it, I would do something like all the things you wish you'd known getting

into this, or how to organize your life to get stuff done. Be kind of in that vein. I'd actually just basically take some of your books, crib it, into this or how to organize your life to get stuff done, be kind of in that vein. I'd actually just basically take some of your books, crib it, regurgitate it. So I wanna ask both about the getting shit done freshman seminar.

No, no, no, but let's just as a thought exercise, if it were instead, just so you don't have to think about the entire semester, if it were just, just so you don't have to think about the entire semester, if it were just a three to four hour seminar, what would be some of the key principles or strategies or anything that you would want to hammer home?

You're getting me after a really long flight, so it's my brain. I can also buy some time by asking you what you would teach in a storytelling class. So no, let's stay with the first one. Or... No, I'm kidding.

All right. So the... What was the question again? Sorry. The question was, if you have a three to four hour seminar on getting shit done, what are some of the...

any of the key messages or strategies or anything that you would emphasize? So. Because you get a lot done. I mean, I've observed how much you do and it boggles my mind. I don't know how you stand on peace. Yeah. It boggles my mind. I don't know how you stand on peace. Yeah, so the... Look, you know, some of the principles that you'd probably want to try to get into is, you know, dealing with focus, right?

So this is a major challenge, especially for younger people, and it's not getting any better. And I have the ability, right? And it's not because I have some magical ability, it's because you just practice it, of intensely focusing on one thing for a few seconds or for a few minutes.

And I think that ability to intensely focus on something and not be distracted from anything else is a very useful habit to have. And so I'm very good at, like, when you're one-on-one, you can be one-on-one and you can be very focused. I think that's true for storytelling. I think that's true for really getting information out of people. And I think helping people

focusing on one thing and then switching to another as a serial focus is a very, very useful practice. I think that we waste enormous amounts of time pretending to work. And we can just sort of get rid of that whole thing.

I think we're not honest with ourselves about what we're really good at and what we're not good at. And in a very early success to life is being absolutely brutally honest at what you're not good at, and you can compensate for it to some ways, but just don't, like, you ask people, so what do you think you're good at, and they'll sort of tell you their resume, or they'll recite you that sort of,

and that's not particularly useful. I'll tell them about the things that I wish I had done. I think every student that's going through should take a class in ethics. I think every student going through should take a class on communications and storytelling. I think every student who goes through should think about how during their four-year or three, whatever their college term is, spending a little time working on something that is completely unrelated to their primary area of interest. That was probably the best thing I ever did when I was going through the American education system, is that during the summers, I was restricted on what jobs I could do because I was a foreign student. I would go and work at the World Bank.

And for a biologist to be walking around at the World Bank was a very strange thing at the time. And it was unbelievably useful to me. It was like the most useful thing I did. Really? Why was it useful? Because it just put me in touch with a whole bunch of people who were completely unlike me and who would think about the world in a completely different terms. I'd go in there and they'd be like, you must be an economist.

I'm like, no, I'm a wildlife biologist. And they'd be like, wow, that's crazy. What are you doing here? But I just started realizing how they worked and how a whole different set of rules applied and how a whole other institution was working on problems. And it just opened my eyes. It just opened my eyes. The easiest thing would have been for me to go work for a nonprofit

like the one I work for now, like Conservation International and the Nature Conservation, I didn't do that, I really particularly went and got jobs in areas that had nothing, nothing to do with my primary area of interest, just to see what it looked like, and the best, the funnest things in the world are all on those angles, right, when you can bring two different fields together, there's so much gold in those angles. You do that all the time, actually. And I've really, you know, learning how to exploit that is often your little trick to getting a head start. It makes me think also of career advice that I've heard from both Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, and also Mark Andreessen in different senses, but they've said this is more Scott Adams

and his writing, that there are different ways to quote-unquote succeed. One is you can try to be, say, top 1% of 1%, like a Michael Jordan, in one skill. That's really, really, really, really difficult. The other approach is that you could be, say, in the top 10% in two typically uncombined areas, right? So you have Scott Adams,

who would say himself, he's not the best artist, he's not the best comedian, but he's unusually good at combining both of those things. And in the world of business, it could be, say, a JD plus computer science or softer skills. And I've heard Warren Buffett talk about his best ever investment being, I believe it was, Toastmasters or some equivalent public speaking course. Because you layer that on top of almost anything and it automatically puts you in a position to have a really unfair advantage.

So storytelling, you were kind enough, we were trading some notes before this, and you mentioned storytelling. So this is one thing I highlighted of notes that you sent to me, which was storytelling is one way to rule the world. And another friend of mine who's been on the podcast, Chris Saka, who's just an incredible investor, hilarious guy, but he originally trained to be a lawyer, and he was beaten soundly at one point by this guy who got up after Chris had presented all of his spreadsheets and all the data, and some guy got up, I think it was in Arkansas or Texas or somewhere, and he was like, well,

you know, you can't lead a horse to water or something. You just start speaking in like five or six different parables and completely kicked Chris's ass. And so Chris concluded that stories beat spreadsheets. How have you developed your ability to tell stories or how would you recommend people develop perhaps books, tools, practices, the ability to tell better stories? Because I think it's, as you've said, so, so, so powerful. Right. So I really agree with what you just said. And I think storytelling is one really powerful way to kind of rule the world.

And a lot of people that we kind of look up to and think about, like, you know, from Einstein to Elon Musk to Steve Jobs, they were really powerful storytellers in their own way, right? So they had this ability through words or through images to really

convince you that you could do something that no one else could think about. And just that mind shift that they created propelled you along with their vision, and all of a sudden you were doing it. And you can absolutely learn those skills. You can actually get better at it. So when I was in high school, I was painfully shy.

Like, painfully shy. I wore very thick glasses, had long hair. I did get beaten up all the time. It was, I went to school, for my high school, I went to school that was like Hogwarts without any of the magic. And it was really, it was tough. But I had a break, and the break was, this is such a funny break. So I was sent to boarding school in England, this was in England, for a year. And the break was that we had a debate team, which is quite good, and it would go up against like Eaton and all the other schools like that.

And the kid who was supposed to be like the main kid for this debate team, you know, got ill. And they suggested that I fill that role. And I did. And, you know, I really had to, the first time I did this, you know, they make fun of my accent because I had a bit of an accent. I didn't actually have much of an accent,

but in their minds, I had a very strong Asian accent. And what I did was I started the debate with that very, very strong, I just overemphasized. Everyone laughed at me. I laughed at myself. I got over it. And I moved on.

That's not a big deal to do today. But when you're 14 or 15, it feels big and scary and really hard to do. And I realized that there was power in that. By the way, we went all the way to the finals and this kid then got well. And then they kicked me off the team, and then this kid actually lost. I'm not saying anything here, but this is exactly what happened to my life. Like, literally, I, like, three debates, three rounds. Like, we were doing fine. The team was doing great. Okay. He had chicken pox, and then he was out of quarantine, so he could come back on the team, and then I was off.

Okay, so you can practice and you can get better. So I practice, and I think about it, and I think about how people tell stories. Even Tim, like, you look at Tim's, you open that first couple of pages, he talks that little story that he puts in there about, you know, what he was grappling with in his college days. It immediately captivates you. You just immediately want to know more and read more, right? So there's real power there. And you can develop and get better at it.

So what are some of the ways in which you can do this? So you have to be genuinely interested in the stories you're telling. You can't fake that. Like, if you're interviewing someone, you've got to be actually a fan of that person. If you're not a fan of that topic or that person or not genuinely interested, it's just not going to work. Right?

You've got to own that story. It's got to be all you. You can't bluff a story. You can't kind of lie about it. You can learn a story and repeat someone else's story. But you really have to own it in like a deep, deep sense of it. You have to know when to stop. You have to know when to, you know, the message is also important, right?

So there's something I often say. Like it's not just the story, but it's also the kind of stories you tell. And they have to be true to who you are as a storyteller. So look, I'm not a professional like teaching people how to tell stories. I can't do that professionally. I know I do it. I know I practice it. I got it from my parents.

I think it's a wonderful craft to think about. Read books and read books and figure out what piece of that is really catching your heart. It always starts with the heart. It always comes from a place of commonality and laughter and love or pain or something from the heart before you can engage the mind. And those sorts of stories always tend to win. So I want to underscore something you said, and then I want to

ask about this very, very clear smirk that came on your face when you just said something a second ago. But I think the going for the heart or noticing what captures the heart applies to questions too. So for instance, Cal Fussman, who was one of the main writers of the What I Learned column in Esquire for a long, long, long time, I want to say 10 plus years, interviewed Gorbachev. And all these people routinely would get told right before an interview, yeah, this hour-long interview, you now have five minutes. And so you would have to hook someone like Gorby into continuing to talk. And he'd think about his questions, and then he'd say, you know, tell me about when your father left for war, and was there any particular lesson he taught you? And he would go for the emotion first, and that would then allow him to get to the headier questions later.

So I think that it applies to not only the telling of stories, but the asking, the eliciting of stories. And good storytelling is that, right? So in a good story, a really phenomenal story is one where you actually are having this relationship with the audience, and it's a two-way story. When people do that magically, you're at a whole other kind of level

of it. When you talk about how you organize your questions, it sounds just so simple. Like, okay, he's got a bunch of questions. There's so much thought going into it because you're actually engaging a story. You're doing it in that way so that you can get the whole thing kind of coming out.

Yeah, absolutely. The piece that I wanted to ask about, maybe it was just because you enjoy smiling and do it so well, but you said you have to know when to stop, and then you had this big grin on your face. Maybe that was just me noticing something that wasn't there, but what's behind knowing when to stop? What's the opposite? What does that look like? Just telling a long story that goes on too long? So the best storytellers leave you wanting to

hear more. The best comedians just absolutely leave you wanting to hear more. There's a real art to that. You can't give it all away. You have to leave the audience saying, I wanted to hear, like, tell me more, like, and that's really important about knowing when to be able to stop, and you can over-explain things many, many ways, and I'm really in our particular today, by the way, so I'm apologizing a little bit for that, but that's a really important skill to know, like, when does that story end? Don't bury the punchline, you know, like, you know, like, so many times, it's like, there's a whole wind-up

where I'm going to tell you now a story about a monkey that stole my... Don't do that. Just go right into it. Because you have them at the first minute. And then every minute after that, you're going to start losing audience share. So you want to get it fast and get right into it as fast as you can.

So I want to talk about... By the way, can I tell you one thing about that? Yes, of course. So, you know, when I was talking about the message and the message about owning a story, go do this when you get a chance, when you get home. You know that

song Respect, R-E-S-P-C-T? You know that song, right? So who sang that? Aretha Franklin. Everyone knows Aretha Franklin. Everyone can hum it right now. If I played it to you, you'd know it in a heartbeat. She's not the one who actually first sang it. It's actually done by Otis Redding. Same words, same song, very different meaning. The song is really like exact opposite of what Aretha makes that song to be. Otis Redding's song is like, you know, I'm working all day, woman, and I'm like putting food on the table for you. And like, when I fucking come home, I'm so sorry I said that. No, no, no. I think it's in his song.

When I come home, all I want is just like some goddamn respect. Right? That's his song. Never made it big, but Otis Redding was a big singer by then. It's a decent song. Decent blues song. She owned it. She completely, same words, but just the way she put that story together,

her complete ownership of it, and who will forget her spelling of that, just makes her, like makes her the one who remembers it. Later on in life, Otis actually sort of kind of complained slightly about her taking the song and making it so huge that no one remembers that he's the one who recorded it and sang it and performed it for at least two years before she came along.

So you want to hear two stories, same story, told in different ways. Listen to those two songs. That's amazing. I had no idea. I want to talk about some of the stories, and stories may not be the right word, but narratives that have stuck with you. And I'm going to prompt it with a question, and I can certainly cheat a little bit and prompt, but what is the book or books you've given the most as a gift and why, or books that

have influenced you? Yeah, Tim and I have talked about this a little bit. So for me, books are like all about the moment and the emotion that I'm in and the person I'm giving it to is in. And so I can't tell you that there's one book that has predominated how I give, because I love books, and I love to give books and I carry books around. And even today I brought two books for you to autograph that I'm giving away, right? So there's an act of giving and a book is a wonderful way to convey something to

another person. Books that I've loved giving away, Norman Maclean's River Runs Through It. I read that book in so many different ways, in so many pieces. It totally influenced my life in terms of fly fishing and finding sort of magic in words and that quiet space. He also wrote that book when he was 71 years old. Kind of really the only big book he

wrote. He said, 71. And you think about all this bullshit about creative genius being in the young and all that, as you get older, you start appreciating that if Norman could do it at 71, maybe I could do it, like, you know, not quite at 71 yet. Another book I really liked, more recent book, is Stanley McChrystal's Team of Teams. Completely different reason.

Just a really clever, smart book about how to organize businesses and enterprises for today's world. And he takes this sort of experience from the army in Afghanistan and sort of, you know, and brings it over to sort of your life or my life and makes it kind of relevant and meaningful. I found it very influential. I've given away quite a few copies of James Nestor's book, The Deep, which you might have read, right? You've read his book. I haven't read The Deep. You know, that book is pretty damn good. It's about free diving, which I knew nothing about. And that was one of my birthday things. That was like two years ago. So I thought, I'll try this free diving thing because I read Nestor's book. And it's amazing. The physiology of the human

body and what it can do is amazing. So I read this book. It's about freediving, a very scary, very sort of can be a very dangerous sport, but also an amazing sport because it completely changes the way you think about your body and what you're capable of. And I thought, right, this book inspired me. I'm going to go try and take a lesson in freediving. So I went to Hawaii around my birthday, and I took a lesson from a very, very good, you want to do this with someone very, very good, and I did. And this woman, Shelly Eisenberg, who was my teacher for the day, you know, basically, look, this is what she did.

Within three hours, I could hold my breath for like maybe 45 seconds, maybe a minute, like if I tried. Within three hours, three hours, just by doing exercises with me, she had me at two minutes, ten seconds. That floored me. It'd be like saying, how fast can you run? I'd be like, okay, I can do like a nine-minute mile, and you're saying, well, give me three hours,

and I'll get you down to like a six-minute. Like, you just couldn't do that. And that floored me. And she's like, yeah, like, let's keep going. And like, sure enough, you know, you're doing three minutes. You're doing three minutes within 24 hours. Unbelievable. True story.

It can do it. Everyone in here can do that too. That's why that book was so kind of mentally transformative. I feel obligated as the person who, certainly not a doctor, and you've heard this before, I don't play one on the internet, but you have to be very, very careful with this type of training.

So do not take the DIY approach. I know people who have died, and I know people who have come very close to dying from shallow water blackouts. And when you, depending on the technique, if you blow off a lot of CO2, you won't sense that you're going to black out before you black out. You're fine, and then you're blacked out. But you don't really want to have happen in any amount of water, right? You could Jimi Hendrix yourself, or it could be in

a thousand feet of water. Same outcome. So be very, very careful only with supervision, but it is fascinating. Yeah, I mean, two Navy SEALs drowned in a training feet of water. Same outcome. So be very, very careful, only with supervision. But it is fascinating. Yeah, I mean, two Navy SEALs drowned in a training exercise in San Diego, like, two years ago. Just the two of them, just trying this out. And breaking the rules about the number one thing with this is, which is, like, you're doing it with a buddy

who can do this better than you can. And she goes, and you definitely want to do this. And that's why I didn't just try this. I read his book. Then I went and got like one of the best teachers and I spent time with her. And that's why I think it's amazing. Billboards. Let's talk about them. If you could have a giant billboard anywhere with anything on it, billboard with a message that you would get out to millions or billions of people, what would it say and why?

I'm going to take an easy one out. I'm going to use one of the slogans that we at Conservation International use in some ways, which I would probably say something like either people need nature. That's not obvious enough. I'd say nature speaking. I might say nature's speaking. I might say nature's screaming. And I'd like to put those outside every place where there's this quote-unquote natural disaster,

which is usually a human disaster, that was exacerbated by just not listening to nature. That's what I'd do. And I'm always influenced by, you drive across this country, you see these signs for like religious purposes, right? Like so-and-so deity will do this to you or not do this to you, if only you believe. And I was taught, well, why don't we put that same kind of effort into putting billboards up that says nature's screaming or nature's speaking? When are we going to listen to something like that? So that's probably what I'd

put on it. So I really want to, and this isn't just professional courtesy so we can talk about the work you're doing, conservation and the state of progressive destruction of our natural habitats and surroundings causes me a lot of anxiety, personally. In part because I feel like, for instance, a study comes out on metabolism, and there are a bunch of conflicting headlines, and things are poorly interpreted by certain media. I can parse it. I can go to PubMed. I can figure out what's what.

But in the world of conservation or trying to do the right thing, I sometimes feel lost in the sense that I attempt to do the right thing when I perceive it to be the right thing, and then I find out, oh, shit, that type of wild-caught fish or farmed fish is exactly the opposite of what I should be doing, or whatever it might be. What are... You can have a lot of people listening to this,

people in this room and people on the podcast. What are some of, if people want to think more precisely about this and feel like they can take proactive steps, what are some of the most common misconceptions about conservation? Or what's a smart way to just approach thinking about it? Right. So the first thing I would say is don't let perfection and trying to find the silver bullet keep you out of the game. So we were both recently at Summit in Los Angeles. And, you know, I heard people talk about philanthropy and giving and wanting to find, like, the most perfect way to give. And I was sort of struck by how many people around me all nodding. And I used to think to myself, like, really? Like, yeah, okay. I want to make sure my dollar goes the furthest as well. There's so many other things in

life which we waste all the time, and why this one we want perfection. So, you know, when someone says to me, like, tell me the one thing I can do to change the planet, like, guess what? There isn't. So there's lots of things, and it's messy, and you're not always going to get it right, and is it better to drink out of a ceramic cup that you have to wash in hot water or a, you know, a styrofoam cup? Those are important questions for you to think about, but ultimately they shouldn't stop you from getting engaged. So the truth of the matter is very, very, very few people are actually engaged in like trying to care about the fate of our planet, the fate of where we live and our kids' lives. And I just want to get more people in it. And I think

if more are in it, then absolutely we'll come up with more honed solutions. But it shouldn't stop you from getting in it. So that's, like, my first thing I would say. If you want to make some small changes in your life, like what you eat and how you cook it makes a huge difference. Like it's probably the one thing that you could do to being thoughtful, like whether it's farm court or what, I mean, that's a useful question to think about

and try to get the least, the best pathway there. And I can answer that for you. Like there's like Seafood Watch that the Monterey Bay Aquarium puts out, gives you a reasonable pathway. But how you cook and how you waste food, like wasting food, is a big, big deal. Like your energy output on those is like

completely outweighs what car you drive or anything like that, right? So that's just something simple you can do. You know, get engaged in the political system. I think it really does matter. I mean, it really does matter, right? So there was this kind of crazy decision very recently on wanting to, at this moment in time, when all these crises are going on on the planet, on overturning the ban on importing elephant heads from trophy hunting

from Zimbabwe and Zambia. Like, that actually somehow became a priority for the administration. Like, all of a sudden. Like, we're going to, like, overturn the ban so that any hunter who goes to Zimbabwe or Zambia and shoots an elephant can bring the ivory and the head into the country.

Like, why is that all of a sudden the thing to do? And people really got upset about it. And believe it or not, it kind of did change something. At least for now, there's been a reversal of that decision. So the administration has decided to, like, wait on that for a while. So make your voices heard. It's important that you make your voices heard, and don't sit this out.

Are there any other resources that you would suggest people look to, like Seafood Watch, or any other websites, where people could find simple things they might not think of, like the slower shipping, to make an impact? I mean, just assuming these people are busy professionals with high demands on their time, where would you suggest they look? Okay, so, and without being totally self-serving, so I will say, like, so my own organization,

conservation.org, decent website, you'll find lots of ways in which you can be engaged. The Nature Conservancy, nature.org, decent website, lots of ways you can get engaged. Environmental Defense Fund, they do a lot of great work, particularly in the United States around climate. World Resource Institute gives you the macro picture. They have great graphics, great infographics, gives you sort of the macro picture. They have great graphics, great infographics, gives you sort of the macro picture. I did a series recently on Vox, V-O-X, with the University of California called Climate Labs, which is just these eight-minute, very short, digestible little videos on something like

food waste. Slightly irreverent, slightly counterintuitive, simple ways in which you can either get engaged or make a change in your life, it can have an impact. And so we took a bunch of different topics, like shipping, and did these short videos on it. It's called Climate Labs on Box. So those are sort of things that come quickly to mind. But here's the most important thing. Seriously, I really mean this. We really are on a race to save the planet. I really, really believe this. You know, here's the thing. We're the only generation who actually has some foresight. Like, think about this. In the entire history of humanity, we had to, like, rely on, like, crystal balls and, like,

you know, like, I don't know, like, a burning bush, right, sitting where we are. To give us a glimpse, to give us a glimpse of where we're heading. And now we actually have some data. We're the first generation in human history to see the entire, I met John Glenn before he passed away. Amazing guy, amazing American. Just American to go around the planet, see the whole thing. I asked him. He said, yeah, it blew me away. I never thought we could see the whole planet all at once. Like, if you were standing on a flat earth, you know, if you're standing on the seashore, you see about seven miles. After that, the horizon dips away. And as long as humans have been around, we've been climbing tall and taller mountains, towers, trees, to be able to see what's over the horizon. What are we looking for? We're thinking about a lion that's over the horizon that might bite us or looking for opportunity?

Now, in our generation, we can see the whole thing. Not only that, we're also mostly all connected. There is no reason for us not to act right now. And believe me, that window is small. And if we don't do it, I swear, generation will look back and say what a waste. You had that opportunity when the opportunity cost was actually relatively cheap. The price of conservation will never get

cheaper in the future. It's as cheap as it's going to get now and it'll only get more expensive. So not acting now is crazy. And that's why people who've done the giving pledge like Steve Case and others, I so applaud that. Because they're not just saying,

we're going to leave this for future generations to deal with. They're saying, we're going to deal with it now, because right now is probably the cheapest to be able to deal with it. So, I'll ask just a few more questions and then we'll do some audience and then we'll head off to tequila shots, whatever comes next.

But I really want to ask you what you've found helpful for training humans to think more long-term. Because it strikes me that if you look at history, and you don't have to go very far back, but you certainly could, that we've evolved for millions of years,

effectively, to survive until puberty, have sex, and procreate. Yeah. That's basically it. I mean, that's Darwinism at work. And people will act in their intensely, I mean, worst of interests, long-term for short-term gain.

How do you train people to think more in longer-term time horizons and in ways that are more communal and not individual? It seems like a very tough task, but a very, very, very important one. What are some of the most effective learnings or lessons that you've had with that? So I don't know. That's the truth of the answer. I don't know how to fundamentally beat evolutionary biology. It is so hardwired into us. The people who do and do it rationally, so you look at what Charlie Munger says, right?

He says, look, we basically, our investment technique that he and Buffett use, is just don't do anything stupid over the long run. Pretty much that. He basically says that, right? It's surprisingly simple, but incredibly hard to follow. Incredibly hard to follow. And the people who do it tend to be sort of investors and others who sort of faithfully follow a system. But even they get spooked, as we've seen many, many times over, right? So it's very difficult to beat it.

So I'm not trying to do that. I'm just trying to figure out how I can make you changing your life for the betterment of the planet in your own enlightened self-interest. And the better I can do that and tell you that it's actually going to make your life better now, now, now, now, not even your kids, but your life, the better chance I have of promoting change. The interesting thing is it doesn't have to be rational, because we do so many things that are

completely irrational, and so it doesn't have to be rational. It can be very emotional, and it has to be about your own enlightened self-interest. It can't be about the future. So I think at some point we'll have to do a round two, but... Look, that's just my... I'm stuck. And any help you have and want to throw it my way or our way, we'll take it. But I'm actually stuck, because I know much better communicators than I am, and far smarter people than I am in my field, who are basically stuck as well.

Well, to that point, my next question is going to be, what ask would you have of people listening? Is there anything that you're looking for? Any particular type of help, or just next steps that people, you would like to see people take? Because you have, you can have a lot of people listening, people in all different walks of

life, different sectors, every possible place imaginable. What would you like them to do or consider? So the most important thing you could do for me, or for us, or for this cause, is to be a messenger. It really is quite simply that. Because the people who are more likely to listen are people like yourselves. They're more likely to listen to that message coming from you than if it came from me. And that's really proof.

Like, so I strongly believe in that, right? So messenger matters as much as the messenger. You can reach audiences that I could never reach. So being that messenger to carry that message into your community, into your church or synagogue, your place of worship, your school, your community, your family, is far, far more useful than me trying to just get my voice to be bigger and bigger and bigger. Thank you. And where can people say hello to you on social or learn more about what you're up to? Is Twitter the best place? I'm sorry? Is Twitter the best place? Twitter is a good place. Facebook

is also really good because it allows a longer conversation to sort of occur. So, you know, I can easily be found as msanjan. And so I'm on Facebook. And that's a good place to also engage. I mean, Twitter is fine too. And then conservation.org. Yeah, and conservation.org. So, you know, I think our website and our social media platform is a great place to engage. Perfect.

Particularly for a DC audience, but I think also for a global audience. This is, I think, a good place to grab just a few questions and then we can close up and have some tequila, give George Clooney a few hundred million more dollars.

If anybody knows a Casamigos story, what a story. By the way, while he's thinking about that, one other book I want to mention to you guys, especially for this town, is a book called Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard. It's a fantastic book. She's a great author, and she talks about President Garfield and being shot

and how his life could have been saved if they had only listened to the surgeon who gave them the advice, but he was sort of ignored because he was this black surgeon in the Union Army, and instead they took another route. And it's just a fascinating story about race and technology at the cusp of a really important moment in our nation,

but a president that very few people had heard about, but who, if he had survived, would have completely changed the course of our country, probably for the better. So this is a question from Bill from Long Island. It's addressed to me, but I'm going to ask you, since I've talked ad nauseum about my mornings. What does the first 60 to 90 seconds of your day look like? I'm going to modify this, but he's asking, what do you do to jumpstart the first waking moments? Do you have any

morning rituals or routines that are consistent for you? Anything that you do in the first coffee? Yeah, to jumpstart my day? Yeah, or just anything that you do as part of your routine in the mornings. Yeah, so, you know, I often put, like, the toughest things I need to deal with and the most creative things early in the morning. It's just as simple as that. I tend not to check my email until I'm actually starting work. That's just something I, my work email until I'm actually starting work. It just really clutters the mind. And so what happens with email is, especially for my

company, because it's a global organization, so I get emails in the middle of the night. And so they pile up. And so if I find out that if I open my day by checking email, I get diverted into all these other small things that I am very bad at saying no to, so I kind of

ruin the rest of that day. And rather I sort of want to set my agenda, then look at it and deal with the ones I can deal with and ignore the others. This is a question from, it's either Eric or Aaron, I'm not quite sure. Who is your most recent mentor and what has that person taught you?

I mean, we could make that, if you have an answer for that, great. Otherwise, we could modify it to just be what is a recent lesson that you've learned or insight. So, you know, that's a good one because it kind of harkens back to, you know, tribe of mentors. So one of the things that I did that I found very, very useful in my life, and I think for many of you, you could apply it too,

is that some years ago, I created a personal board. So a group of individuals who would personally spend a little bit of time investing in me and my success. And I didn't do this because of some grandiose notion of who I was, but it struck me that whenever you wanted like letters of reference when you go for a job, you always then have to like sort of scramble around and try to catch up to people who you haven't spoken to for a long time and hope they'll give you this letter. And they really don't know you by that point. And life has sort of gone by. And what happens if I had a group of, say, five individuals that I would pick and I would make a promise that I would never solicit them for money, which I've kept up, even though

some now do give to CI, but that's not the purpose. They don't belong to my organization. They're not my board for my organization. They're my personal board. They're great people. And I would just say to them, listen, can you do this for me? I'll meet with you two, maybe three times a week. We'll have coffee or lunch. Two or three times a week? Sorry, two or three times a year. Okay, I got it. It's like, man, this is a really generous board. Sorry, sorry. And we'll, you know, we'll just have a little, you know, conversation and a catch-up, and I can just occasionally ping you for guidance. That has been incredibly, incredibly useful. I picked some great people. You might know some of them, but it's been very, very helpful.

Okay, so I want to dig into this because this is really interesting. So your personal board. By the way, they all said yes. Not one person turned me down. Well, yeah, how can we not get into this? Now, I want to mention, just as a side note, because people might find this helpful, something that I found very helpful from Chris Fussell,

who co-authored Team of Teams with Stanley McChrystal. And he was Stan's aide-de-camp for quite a long time in JSOC. And advice that he was given was, at all times, you want to surround yourself with at least three people. Someone who is doing an excellent job of what you hope to be doing, say a few years from now. Someone who is doing a better job than you are in some capacity at what you're doing now. And then somebody who is doing something you used to do, but is doing it much better than you did. And that was how he ended up seeking out people to surround himself with. How did you choose, since they all said yes, I guess you reached out to five or six people,

right? Or how did you choose those people? What were the criteria? You know, look, I wanted people I respected. So that was sort of important to me. They had to be people I really sort of respected. I wanted people who were not in my field, because I had plenty of colleagues in my field. I wanted people... So I'll give you some names. I don't think it matters that much.

So Tom Tyranny, the Bridge fan. He's also the chairman of the Nature Conservancy now. Really smart guy. He kind of gets how businesses should organize. He sort of just this, he coached me on how to get the CEO job for Conservation International. And the tips he gave me were incredibly valuable, like incredible. I never realized that you could actually coach your way into a job. And that guy really helped me do that.

So that was one. Paula Kerger, she's the president of PBS. Amazing woman, very unusual. She was a development staff, so she asked people for money and then rose to the ranks and ended up running PBS. She also is across the road from my office, so it's kind of easy to sometimes see her. Really smart, very thoughtful, wonderfully kind, generous person.

A guy named Seth Nyman, Crosspoint Venture Partners. He's run his company. He's also a race car driver. That guy interviews CEOs for a living. So his whole job is about interviewing CEOs and deciding which ones he wants to bet on as a venture capital guy. Really useful for me as I'm thinking about what qualities and attributes I want to strengthen as a CEO. So I sort of looked at it that way as I created thinking about what qualities and attributes I want to strengthen as a CEO. So I sort of looked at it that way

as I created this group of folks who could sort of help and guide. Were they people you'd had contact with before? Yeah. No, no, they were all people who had somehow been in my orbit. And then I thought, well, let's just try to make this formal in some way.

And let's just see if they would agree to do this. And they all said, yeah. And one or two of them said, yes, so long as you do that to me in return, which was a very nice, flattering thing. I'm sure it doesn't work that way. But that's been very useful. And believe me, I did end up using that board

when I went through the CEO search. So 150 days ago, our founder, who had been running Conservation International for 30 years, stepped down, and I became the CEO. And last year, the board went through a very challenging process of trying to decide who the next CEO and what the next leadership team would look like. And it's a very scary moment for an organization because over half of the CEOs who come in after a founder fail. And actually, if you want to get the job, you want to be the one in waiting. Seriously, that's what typically happens. New CEO comes in, they fail, and either

the old CEO comes back or the person in waiting kind of gets the role and then runs it. So it's fraught with challenges and dangers all over the place. And I really didn't think I would get it. I thought there was a chance I would get it, but I was really worried about it for lots of reasons, including my color, to be absolutely honest. And this mentoring group, honest to God, coached me. Them and a couple of other people really helped coach me through this. Can you share any of the advice? Yeah, one really simple one. So this is such an amazing thing. And I've applied for other jobs before, like kind of like the CEO or top level person job

and not got that. Three times in the past, I've been rejected for that. Get very close and then somehow either they talk me out of it or I get rejected. Here's what I was doing. So they would ask me, so do you, like, tell me about this. So why do you want this job? And I'd be like, well, look, I've got a good career. I don't really need this. But, you know, if it was the right thing, you know, you kind of had this, like, kind of long, meandering story about saying, you know, I'm not totally vested,

like, yeah, I could do this, but I could do lots of other things. And I actually feel that way in a lot of ways, right? So in a lot of ways, I think I'm definitely, I didn't this, but I could do lots of other things. And I actually feel that way in a lot of ways, right? So in a lot of ways, I think I'm definitely, I didn't start my life thinking, I want to be the CEO of Conservation International. It was never a dream. It was never a goal, never a goal. The goal was to have impact.

I didn't really care how I had impact. But what these guys said to me was, like one guy actually said this to me. He said, that is not the right answer. I want you to repeat after me. Say, I will walk through a wall to get this job. He said, now say it. I'm like, really?

Say it. I will walk through a wall. He says, now, when you go into that interview, they're going to ask you this question, and I want you to repeat this. I will walk through. So he did. First question, why do you want this job? Tell us what prepared you for this job.

I said, let me make one thing clear. I will walk through a wall you want this job? Tell us what prepared you for this job. I said, let me make one thing clear. I will walk through a wall to get through. And they all went, great. Because guess what? Most times when you're hiring people, and I do this all the time. I hire people all the time. And I'm so amazed that I didn't listen to my own rule. You want someone who gives you the confidence that they will solve the problems that you don't want to deal with. You want someone who's coming in and say, you know what, I got this. You don't want someone to come in and say, I don't know if I really want it, convince me, and then start negotiating day one.

You don't want to do that. It's a very, very simple rule. So whatever job you go for, start by saying, let me be clear, I really want this job. I will walk through a wall to get this job. Now let me tell you what makes me so great for this. And then just lay it out. You can negotiate later. It's a really simple one. When you sent the emails out to recruit this X-Men team of mentors to the formal structure, well, a couple of questions, and this won't go on for hours, don't worry, guys, even though it could, and it might later with tequila.

I don't know why I keep thinking of tequila. We can psychoanalyze that later. Do you interact with these mentors as a group, or is it all one-to-one? It's one-on-one, although they know about each other. One-on-one. Because getting them together as a group would be too difficult.

Impossible, yeah. Do you block out, say, a week every quarter just to schedule them in batches? Yeah. I did not... I schedule it around travel that I have in the city, so I do this as much as I can in person. Unless I have a crisis or an emergency, I just need to get on the phone and then they're always willing.

Like, I literally... Today, I had a little mind crisis. I literally had a CEO of a company. I didn't want to name that. But enormous, enormous, enormous company. And he returned my call today. It's so flawed. It's like, I'm so sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

And I'm like, are you kidding me? And he's like, you know, once you get that relationship with that few individuals, it does work. It can really work very well. Did you make, did you say, hey, let's grab coffee and then make the pitch in person? Or did you lay it out in email? I made it, no, I don't think I did by email. I think I did all by phone or when I met them in person after the first coffee. So the people I knew well, I did by phone.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I do take it sort of seriously. So when I go to see them, there are two things that I never make informal, right? Two things that I never make informal. One is when I talk to my board, my organization board, or my group of mentors board, which means I put on a shirt. I kind of, you know, I put on a jacket if it's appropriate, I just whatever way you want to do it it's not about dress code, but whatever way you want to do it, you want to make sure they understand

that you are using and taking their hour really seriously so just don't waste time with that. The other thing I do I always take seriously is when I ask people for money something that I never do kind of on the, I I ask people for money, something that I never do kind of on the... I never ask someone for a donation or to fund conservation international when I'm having

a drink with them, or when I'm like fly fishing with them, or going on a hike with them, because people don't want to be hit up all the time for the same... You want to just go do that and enjoy it and have fun. And then you want to say, can I meet with you at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon, or can I meet with you at 8 a.m. tomorrow, today, whatever it is. You want to just clean up, show up, and be straight about it. I said last like two questions, 20 questions ago. But when you're preparing for one of these meetings, what does it look like?

I mean, you're trying to make, you have 60 minutes with such and such super hotshot. What's the format of the hour? It often depends. At this point, it depends on what the major thing that I'm dealing with has been and what's been kind of bugging me on my mind that I really want. Could you give an example or is it too personal? No, I mean, look, there's no, it's not a big surprise. Anytime a founder leaves an organization, there are... So here's a really legitimate answer. So I was not the only internal candidate going for this job. There were two other very, very good candidates for this job as well.

And they both could do this job. They both could be CEOs. And my number one task, as soon as I knew I was going to get this job, was to figure out a way to keep them. It almost never happens. And think what you've just done. You've now lost the second best person to run your organization. You just walked out your door. It almost never happens. So that was something I prepared for. I thought about how I might try to approach it. I went to them and I said, this is a problem. It's a big problem.

Tell me what I need to do to be able to do this. And they gave me some of, not all of them, I mean different people and you gotta pick and, you know, you gotta filter that advice. But the two individuals I went to gave me incredibly good advice that I followed to a T and it served me well because I think it served me well because both those individuals are incredibly valuable and still part of contribution and attention.

Well, on that note, I want to thank you for so much good advice. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, M. Sanjan. 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

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