The Tim Ferriss Show - #743: Dr. Jane Goodall and Cal Fussman

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by 8sleep. I have been using 8sleep pod cover for years now. Why? Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like a fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. 8sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heat wave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive.

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Starting point is 00:01:53 sleep, cognitive health, hormone support, and more. I've been testing their products for months now, and I have a few that I use constantly. One of the things I love about Momentous is that they offer many single ingredient and third-party tested formulations. I'll come back to the latter part of that a little bit later. Personally, I've been using Momentus Mag 3-in-8, L-theanine, and apigenin, all of which have helped me to improve the onset quality and duration of my sleep. Now, the Momentus Sleep Pack conveniently delivers single servings of all three of these ingredients. I've also been using Momentous Creatine, which doesn't just help for physical

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Starting point is 00:03:49 Momentous ships internationally, so you have the same access that I do. So check it out. Visit livemomentous.com slash Tim and use code Tim at checkout for 20% off. That's livemomentous, L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com slash Tim and code Tim for 20% off. I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers from every field imaginable to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply and test in your own lives.

Starting point is 00:04:48 This episode is a two-for-one, and that's because the podcast recently hit its 10th year anniversary, which is insane to think about, and passed 1 billion downloads. To celebrate, I've curated some of the best of the best, some of my favorites from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited to give you these super combo episodes. And internally, we've been calling these the super combo episodes because my goal is to encourage you to, yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks, but to also introduce you to lesser known people I consider stars. These are people who have transformed my

Starting point is 00:05:26 life and I feel like they can do the same for many of you. Perhaps they got lost in a busy news cycle, perhaps you missed an episode. Just trust me on this one, we went to great pains to put these pairings together. And for the bios of all guests, you can find that and more at Tim.blog slash combo. And now, without further ado, please enjoy and thank you for listening. First up, Dr. Jane Goodall, English primatologist and anthropologist, considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots and Shoots program, building a better tomorrow by empowering young people to affect positive change in their communities. You can find Dr. Goodall on Twitter and Instagram at JaneGoodallINST.

Starting point is 00:06:19 I would love just to spend a moment, and we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, but discussing Louis Leakey. And I've read various accounts of how you connected with him, but I'd like to hear it directly from you. And perhaps you could describe what it was that he saw in you. But that initial contact and how that came to be is of great interest to me. So if you could speak to that, I would appreciate it. Okay, well, I'd been staying with my friend for about, I suppose, a couple of months. And somebody said to me at a party, if you're interested in animals,

Starting point is 00:06:55 you really should meet Louis Leakey. He was curator at that time of the Natural History Museum. But of course, he's best known as a very eminent paleontologist. He'd spent his life with his second wife, Mary Leakey, searching for the fossils of Stone Age ancestors across Africa. I was very shy back then, but I rang the museum and said, I'd love to make an appointment to meet Dr. Leakey. And a boy said, I'm Leakey, what do you want? But anyway, I was so passionate about animals. Anyway, I went to see him, and he took me all around.

Starting point is 00:07:33 He asked me many questions about the stuffed animals that were there. And I think he was impressed that because I'd read everything I could about Africa, I could answer so many of his questions. Well, I mentioned earlier that boring secretarial course that I did. Two days before I met Leakey, his secretary had suddenly quit. He needed a secretary, and there I was. You never know in this life. So I'm suddenly surrounded by people who can answer all my questions about the

Starting point is 00:08:07 mammals and the birds and the reptiles, the amphibians, the insects, the plants. It was heaven. Oh, you asked Lakey's, what did he see in me? He had a feeling that women made better observers. He thought they were more patient. He also wanted somebody to go and study chimpanzees because of his interest in human evolution. So the fossils of early man that he was uncovering, you can tell a lot from a fossil, about whether the creature walked upright, the muscle attachments, the wear of the tooth shows you roughly the kind of diet but behavior doesn't fossilize so he reckoned there was a ape-like human-like common ancestor about six million years ago just now generally accepted and that he thought well if jane finds

Starting point is 00:08:59 behavior and chimps and humans today that is similar or the same. Maybe it came directly from the common ancestor and has been with us through our long separate evolutionary journeys, in which case he could have a better way of imagining how his early humans used to behave. So he wanted a mind uncluttered by the reductionist thinking of the animal behavior people at the time it was a very new science they were anxious to make it a hard science which it shouldn't be and so the fact i hadn't been to college was a plus and the fact that i was a woman was a plus so i was just lucky he seems to have picked the winning lottery

Starting point is 00:09:46 ticket, or at least a very formidable combination of traits. And if we take that mention of patience or his belief that in part women make better observers because of more patience, if we flash forward then to you landing in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, if I'm getting the pronunciation correct. I was watching the first Nat Geo, or maybe not the first, but believe it took something like five months of constant effort and having chimpanzees flee from your presence to finally be what we might call accepted. And I have two questions related to that. The first is, what do you think made the difference? Why did they go from fleeing to accepting? And second is when you first really had the opportunity to look deeply into a chimpanzee's eyes, what did you see? And just as importantly, what did you feel? In the movie, it sort of looked as though they suddenly accepted me. It wasn't like that. It was very gradual. And it was partly thanks to this one male who began to lose his fear much ahead of the others. I called him David Greybeard because he had a lovely white beard. And because he began to let me get closer and closer, I think if I came to a group in the forest and he was with that group,

Starting point is 00:11:26 because they separate into separate small groups and sometimes they learn, but if he was there, then the others were ready to run, but he was sitting calmly. And I suppose that made them feel, well, she can't be so dangerous after all. So gradually I could get closer. And the first time I came close to a group that didn't run away, I think was one of the proudest moments of my life. You know, I'd made it just in time for the six months money ran out. So the fact that I'd seen David Gravier use and make tools

Starting point is 00:12:00 for fish for termites, thought to be something only humans were capable of. That's what brought the geographic in right at the beginning, six months after the study began. They agreed to go on funding it. Was David Graeber the first chimpanzee that you were able to get close enough to sort of connect eye to eye with? Definitely. What did you see and feel when you had that opportunity?

Starting point is 00:12:30 Well, I saw that I was looking into the eyes of a thinking, feeling being. And it was not so surprising as you might think, because I'd always felt that animals were thinking, feeling beings. But with a chimpanzee, they're so like us, behaviorally and biologically, that it's not like looking at another human. It's different, and I can't explain how it's different. But it was a very magical moment, because he looked back. That was the thing.

Starting point is 00:13:06 He didn't run. He just sat there and looked back at me. I would love to ask questions about what we might learn and what perhaps you've learned about human nature or even questions that have been raised in your interactions and observations of chimpanzees. And you mentioned it briefly, but it's hard to overstate just how incredible and shocking and world-shattering for many people it was that you observed chimpanzees not just using tools, but constructing tools for, in case consuming termites i mean it made news around the world you had many other observations i believe also that you know the belief that chimpanzees were purely vegetarians also you observed not to be the case with their consumption of other primates. And you noted,

Starting point is 00:14:06 and I know this was a real, in some eyes, a faux pas at the time, real personalities. And you might have been accused of anthropomorphism and all of these things. But you observed

Starting point is 00:14:15 different personalities in different chimpanzees. And I thought perhaps we could just start with a story. And that is the story of Old Man and Mark Cusano, if I'm getting the pronunciation right. And old man had been in a medical research lab. He'd been captured from the wild. His mother was shot.

Starting point is 00:14:54 And he was called old man because an infant chimp who's distressed and frightened, they have wrinkled faces and they huddle and they don't look very old. And he was lucky. He was about 12. And for some reason, he was now more used to the lab. And he was put on an island with three females, two of them from medical research, one from a search list. And Mark Cusano was employed to look after them.

Starting point is 00:15:22 And he was told, don't go anywhere near them. They're vicious. They hate people. They're much told, don't go anywhere near them. They're vicious. They hate people. They're much stronger than you. They'll kill you. So he threw food from his little paddle boat onto the island and began watching them. And a baby was born. So old man was the father. And he felt, you know, these are such amazing beings. I must have some kind of relationship with them if I'm to look after them. So he began going closer and closer. And one day he held out a banana in his hand. When old man took it, he said, I know how you felt when David took a banana from you.

Starting point is 00:15:59 One day he went onto the island. One day he groomed old man. One day they played. And old man laughed. And they became basically, it was a friendship. And then one day, Mark slipped. It had been raining. Fell flat on his face.

Starting point is 00:16:20 This unfortunately frightened this infant who was the love of old man's life. Old man used to protect him and carry him and share food. Well, the mother, hearing her child scream, raced and attacked Mark, biting into his neck. The other two females to support her ran in, one bit his wrist, one bit his leg. And Mark thought, well, how on earth am i going to get away from them because they're much stronger than us he looked up he saw old man thundering across the island with a furious scowl on his face and he thought his time had come to die and come to protect his precious infant but what old man did was to pull those three screaming, roused females off Mark and keep them away while Mark dragged himself to safety.

Starting point is 00:17:10 And I met Mark when he came out of hospital. He said, no question, old man saved my life. being abused by people can reach out to help a human friend in time of need, then surely we, with our greater capacity for compassion, can do the same to the chimpanzees in their time of need. Thank you for telling that story. To what extent, if we take an example from your personal experience, and I know very little about Frodo, but Frodo seems to have been amongst the chimpanzees you had exposure to, one of the more aggressive. But I'd love to hear you speak to this. And how would you explain the variance among chimpanzees? Was it also in appear to be innate? Did it seem to stem from some type of trauma? How did you think about that and perhaps Frodo specifically?

Starting point is 00:18:11 Well, they're all different. Some are much more aggressive than others, just like we are. And Frodo was spoiled. He was a spoiled brat. His mother was the highest ranking female at the time, Fifi. He had one older brother who always came to his defense, as did Fifi. And so he always got his own way. And he was a real bully. So it's two young ones playing, same age as him perhaps, and he came to join them. They would stop playing immediately because they knew if he entered the game, he'd suddenly become rough and cause one of them to be hurt. So it wasn't just humans, field assistants, and especially me that he targeted with his displays, hitting over, dragging. I got it worst of all. I was stamped upon. But he was not trying

Starting point is 00:19:07 really to hurt me. He was trying to assert his dominance. And I guess they don't realize quite how strong they are. I mean, if he wanted to kill me, I wouldn't be speaking to you now, that's for sure. Is the assertion of dominance, and I don't know how much of this is conscious and I don't know how one would even know, but is that a conscious or potentially conscious political maneuver to get better access to resources and so on? Or is it really just a conditioned behavior based on, as you said, being spoiled and that just being some type of primitive drive that they have and perhaps even we have? dominant not through aggression, but through being smart. Some of the males get to the top by sheer aggression, by bullying, by swaggering about, waving their arms. They remind me so much of some human politicians. It's not true. But there are other males who get to the top by

Starting point is 00:20:19 skillfully forming alliances, and they only tackle a higher-rank ranking male when their ally is there to support them. And then there are some who just persist. They persist in charging towards groups of superior males who are grooming each other, startling them so that they run away. And in the end, this was Goblin. In the end, I think the other males thought, well, he's just going to go on doing this. All right, let's just let him get to the top. We don't care anymore. That's how it seemed. And he ran 10 years, and he was small, and he wasn't very aggressive at all.

Starting point is 00:20:55 I recall a few years ago speaking with a friend of mine who I consider to be a good father, a good parent, and I asked him what advice he would have for someone like me, considering having children. I have none of my own yet. And his advice, he had a number of pieces of advice, but his first was, teach your children to be optimists. And it seemed like a precursor or a prerequisite for so many other things. And I'm looking at a Time article, Time magazine article that is, that you wrote in 2002. And I just want to read one paragraph and then ask you to elaborate or speak to it. Here's the paragraph. The greatest danger to our future is apathy. We cannot expect those living in poverty and ignorance to worry about saving the world. For those of us able to read this magazine, and my side note, or listen

Starting point is 00:21:50 to this podcast, it is different. We can do something to preserve our planet. You may be overcome, however, by feelings of helplessness. You are just one person in a world of six billion. How can your actions make a difference? Best you say to leave it to decision makers and so you do nothing. Can we overcome apathy? Yes, but only if we have hope. And I'd love to hear you speak to that and also just to how you cultivate hope, whether that's in yourself or the people you speak to. Well, you know, I have my reasons for hope, which I'm always sharing with people. But this thing of people feeling helpless because they don't know what to do, this message of our youth programs that every individual makes a difference. And, you know, if it's just you picking up trash,

Starting point is 00:22:37 if it's just you saving water, then it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. But because people are becoming more aware all around the world, then there's not just you but thousands, millions of people picking up trash and saving water. So the message again being think about the consequences of the small choices you make every day. What do you eat?

Starting point is 00:23:03 Where did it come from? Did it harm the environment? Was it cruel to animals like the intensive farming? Is it cheap because of child slave labor somewhere? Make ethical choices. And because millions of people are making ethical choices, we're moving in the right direction. All of our young people, you know,

Starting point is 00:23:22 they're influencing their parents and their grandparents i know that because the parents tell me so you know my reasons for hope number one is the youth as i've said because they're just so inspiring and secondly to start by saying it's very bizarre but what makes us more different from chimps and other animals is this explosive development of our intellect. I mean, look at what's happening now with just social media. It's one example. You and I talking, we're far apart. We're reaching millions of people. I mean, it's quite amazing, isn't it, when you think about it. So how odd that this most intellectual creature is destroying its only home so there seems to be

Starting point is 00:24:07 this disconnect between the clever brain and the human heart just love and compassion and you know we're thinking about how does this help me now instead of how does it affect future generations so now we're beginning to use our brains or scientists to come up with more and more sophisticated technology that will help us live in more harmony with the natural world. If governments would sponsor clean green energy rather than succumbing to their ties with the oil and gas industry. We could be more or less off the grid in many countries today. China and India are moving in that direction rapidly, and the UAE as well. But each one of us can use our brains to think about the environmental footprint we make each day.

Starting point is 00:25:01 And then there's the resilience of nature. I tell people stories about areas that were totally destroyed, rivers, lakes. Lake Erie was so polluted that it caught fire. It was so polluted. And now there's fish swimming in it because people cared. Animals on the brink of extinction are being given another chance. We just have to save the habitats. We have to change the mindset of those companies that want to destroy a tourist to make money out of wood or destroy forest to get minerals out of the ground to make more money. But then we've got to solve poverty because, as you quoted earlier, if you're really poor, what can you do except cut the last tree down because you're desperate to grow food to feed your family, eat the cheapest junk food because you've got to do it to live. and the unsustainable lifestyle of the rest of us. But you know, my last reason for hope is this indomitable human spirit,

Starting point is 00:26:08 the people who tackle what seems impossible and won't give up. And they may die as a result of their conviction, but in the end they succeed. You also seem to be, aside from an expert storyteller, very good at using imagery or symbols. And sometimes stories themselves are symbols. But could you describe Mr. H? Who is Mr. H? Mr. H was given to me 28 years ago by a man called Gary Horn, which is why he's Mr. H. Gary went blind when he was 21, decided to become a magician. Everybody said, but Gary, you can't be a magician if you're blind. He does shows for children. I've watched him three or four times now. And of course, he sets his props up ahead of time. Children don't know he's blind, and at the end he'll tell them,

Starting point is 00:27:08 and he'll say something might go wrong in your life you can't tell. If it does, don't give up. There's always a way forward. And he does scuba diving, cross-country skiing, skydiving, but I think most amazing, he's taught himself to paint. And when he gave me Mr. H, he thought he was giving me a stuffed chimp. But Mr. H has a tail, and I made him hold the tail. He said, never mind, take him with you, and you know I'm with you in spirit. So he's one of those examples of the indomitable human spirit doing skydiving when you're blind, teaching

Starting point is 00:27:47 yourself to paint. And there's a picture in this, he's done a little book called Blind Artist, which you can only get on Amazon. And there's a portrait of Mr. H. He's never seen him. He's only felt him. And it's unbelievable. And Mr. H, if I'm not mistaken, has been many places with you. I don't know if you still have Mr. H. Boy, indeed I have. I definitely have Mr. H. He's in this room with me. If I forget to take him to a lecture, there's sure to be a child who bursts into tears that I wanted to touch Mr. H because I tell them the inspiration rubs off. You said that your friend told you to teach your children to be optimistic.

Starting point is 00:28:31 It's really, you can't teach them that, but you can tell stories and tell stories about people and encourage them and support them. I mean, so many parents have set views on what they want their child to be. And the lesson I get from my mother is nobody was thinking about going to Africa and living with animals when I wanted to, except a few explorers, you know, wanted to shoot them and put them in museums. But when everybody laughed at me and said I'd never get there,

Starting point is 00:29:03 I was just a girl, it was a war, we didn't have money, mom said if you really want something like this, you're going to have to work really, really hard, but take advantage of every opportunity, and if you don't give up, you'll find a way to do that or something, something else that you really, really want to do. That wisdom I take and share with young people everywhere, especially in disadvantaged communities. And I wish mom knew how many

Starting point is 00:29:31 people have said, Jane, thank you. You taught me that because you did it, I can do it too. I'd be curious to ask if you had a billboard, metaphorically speaking, that could get a message out to billions of people. It could be a word, a phrase, a question, an image, really anything. What might you put on that billboard? Remember that you make a difference every single day. Perfect. That could not be more perfect. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. There is a lot happening in the US and global economies right now.

Starting point is 00:30:19 A lot. That's an understatement. Are we in a recession? Is it a bear market? What's going to happen with inflation? So many questions, so few answers. I can't tell the future. Nobody can. But I can tell you about a great place to earn more on your savings, and that's Wealthfront. Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. And right now you can earn 5% APY, that's

Starting point is 00:30:39 the annual percentage yield, with the Wealthfront cash account. That's more than 10 times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. So why wait? Earn 5% on your cash today. Plus, it's up to $8 million in FDIC insurance through partner banks. And when you open an account today, you'll get an extra $50 bonus with a deposit of $500 or more. There are already nearly half a million people using Wealthfront to save more, earn more, and build long-term wealth. So why wait? Visit wealthfront.com slash Tim to get started. That's wealthfront.com slash Tim. This was a paid endorsement by Wealthfront. And now, Cal Fussman, New York Times bestselling author, writer at large at Esquire, international speaker, and host of the Big Questions with Cal Fussman podcast.

Starting point is 00:31:33 Find Cal on Twitter and Instagram at Cal Fussman. Cal, welcome to the show. Thank you. I have arrived. You have arrived. and I've been a fan of your work for so many years and the subtleties are just so powerful. And I thought that this time we could turn the tables and I could interrogate you in public. I love asking you questions about your process and you've been so generous with your time in terms of reviewing some of my episodes, providing feedback. So first and foremost, thank you for your work and for all of the help. I'm delighted. You're good. You're good.

Starting point is 00:32:32 I think I have a lot of room to improve. And so this is one of these episodes where I'm a little self-conscious because I know that I have a very unusual memento-like, sometimes non-chronological approach to interviews. And for that, I'll apologize in advance, but we can do a post-game analysis afterwards. So perhaps we could just start with something that we were discussing before we hit record. So we were talking about the live event that was here in LA at the Troubadour. And we were doing a bit of analysis. What went well, what didn't go as well as planned and so on. And I mentioned that, I suppose, due to also some insecurities of a sort,

Starting point is 00:33:17 that I try to, when I do these rare live events, if it's say two hours long, I'll stay for an additional two or three hours and do Q&A or something like that. And you said that straight out of Quincy Jones's book. And so I know this is an unusual place to start, but maybe you could just provide that anecdote because it seems like you have an endless trove of these types of anecdotes. But why Quincy Jones? Quincy Jones will go to a book signing. There will be long lines of people and he will not sign his name and move him on next. He will stop, ask everyone who they are, engage in a conversation, and then write a personal note in his book to them. And the line may be around the block. He'll be there till three in the

Starting point is 00:34:05 morning, keeping the people of Barnes & Noble open because he wants to make it a joyous experience for everybody. So bravo, you followed the master. Inadvertently. This story, of course, if we rewind the clock, begins at the beginning. And where did you grow up? I actually am ashamed to admit I don't know the childhood background. Where did you grow up? I'm born in Brooklyn and moved to Yonkers, New York, where I did second grade and third grade. And that's where I had, when I think back on it, like a pivotal moment asking questions because that time, second grade, was the time that I was sitting in Miss Jaffe's classroom

Starting point is 00:34:58 and she came into the room. She was out for some reason. When she came in, you could look at her and know something just happened that I don't know, but it's different from anything I've ever seen before. And this was November 1963. And it was Ms. Jaffe who told the class that President Kennedy had been shot. And so we all got sent home, found out that he had died. And I really would love to see myself on videotape like that night because I knew, man, something is going on here. They explained to me that Lyndon Johnson was a vice president and he was now going to become the new president. And I'm thinking, man, what must it be like to be that guy? What is he feeling? Here he was. I know he probably wanted to be the president, but he couldn't be the president. And then he was the vice president.

Starting point is 00:36:10 And now the president gets killed and he gets to be the president. So I picked up a piece of paper and a pencil and I just wrote to Lyndon Johnson. You wrote a letter to Lyndon Johnson? I wrote a letter to Lyndon Johnson and said, what does it feel like? And about six months later, I got a letter back. That's incredible. And it was from his personal secretary, Juanita D. Roberts. And the cool thing about it was, the first sentence was, thank you for the friendly thought in writing. So I don't know what I wrote him, but somehow I must have tried to make him feel comfortable that this question was coming.

Starting point is 00:36:52 And then the second question was, an answer to your query. And what that said was she was treating me like I was legit. Yeah. You know, I had just turned seven. Bonafide adult. Exactly. And, you know, when you did the interview with Ed Norton, he talked about having a mentor in high school who treated him like an adult.

Starting point is 00:37:19 That's right. And that is what that letter felt like to me. And only now, when people are starting to ask me questions, did this come to me. But that's when I realized that asking questions is kind of natural for me. So that was in second grade? Second grade. Now, I have to ask, when you wrote the letter, something you backed to second grade, and was it written on paper that had the

Starting point is 00:37:46 dotted line in between the intact lines for the lowercase letters? Do you recall what kind of paper it was on? I don't know. It's probably on loose leaf paper, if I was making a guess. I wish, you know, I was talking to the historian Robert Caro, who wrote volumes about Lyndon Johnson. Also wrote The Power Broker, am I right? That's right. Incredible book. Exactly. And this guy has spent decades knowing everything about Lyndon Johnson as possible.

Starting point is 00:38:17 And I'm telling him this story, and he's like getting goosebumps when I say Juanita D. Roberts. You got a letter from Juanita D. Roberts? And he started asking me all these questions about the letter and where it could be and how I sent it. And I realized as he was doing it, yeah, he was made to be a historian. Nobody else in the world would have gotten that high over the words Juanita D. Roberts. But some people are just born with the proclivity to do certain things. What do you think, even if it's God-given talent, what makes you or gives you a gift for questions? I think part of that has to do with the evolution as an interviewer, as a journalist, because as we talk it through, you'll see that I interviewed differently when I was, say, 18 than when I was 24 and differently in my 40s than I was when I was 25. So it really is like a lifelong voyage of learning about questions and reactions. It's only when I started to think back on that first letter that I realized, okay, this is, I guess it would sort of be like being a basketball player

Starting point is 00:39:47 and you know that you're born with big hands. If I go up for a dunk, I can grip the ball with one hand. Carmelo Anthony can't. It's like a big secret. He can't get his hands around the basketball. He's great, but some people are just born with big hands and some people don't have big hands. And I'm only now starting to realize, okay, I was kind of born to do this. Did your parents facilitate that and cultivate that in any way? Or was it not, it was the nature more than nurture in the household? Maybe they did in that my dad loved sports. And I grew up in the 60s at a time where Muhammad Ali came into play. He was my childhood hero. And in some sense, that was the start of it. Because he was more than my hero just because he was the heavyweight champ of the world. And he could dance and make sure nobody ever hit him.

Starting point is 00:40:55 And then when he wanted to hit you, he could hit you 16 times before you even blinked. It was more than the fact that he could make predictions with poetry and make you always laugh. His actions made you ask questions. He would take his Olympic gold medal and throw it in the Ohio River and it would make you wonder, hold it, how is it that a black guy can go win a gold medal in Australia and come back after representing his country and not be able to sit at a lunchroom counter at a Woolworth's next to white people? He would defy the government and refuse draft induction, wouldn't go into the army and basically say, hey, I ain't got nothing against Nobya Kong. And he would make you think, hey, what is going on over there in Vietnam? So that was a huge, huge part of my childhood.

Starting point is 00:42:00 Did you have any particular career aspiration? What did you want to be when you were a kid, say from second grade onward? Were there any particular professions that you knew you wanted to go after? Two things. I wanted to see my face over a column in a big city newspaper. And I wanted to write a magazine story about Muhammad Ali. Wow. Very prescient. No, I knew what I wanted to do. Only later, after I'd done it so quickly, did I realize what am I going to do now, which we can get to. So you mentioned 18 and 24, so two very specific ages. Take me to,

Starting point is 00:42:48 say, 18 and then 24 and contrast your two styles. But if you could tell us where you were at those two points also. Sure. So when I grew up, I grew up thinking interview was meet the press. I grew up thinking it was what happened in a locker room after a sporting event. So I knew in order to achieve my dreams, I need to go to journalism school. I asked around and found out University of Missouri had one of the best. So that's where I went. And I learned to ask who, what, when, where, and why, and went through the whole journalism cycle. This was also an interesting time. It was a time of Watergate. So journalists were seen at the highest point that maybe they've ever been. It was really cool to be a journalist. A journalist actually brought down the president when they called him lying. So it was a great time. And I went into sports.

Starting point is 00:43:54 So basically, after I graduated, four months after I graduated, I was sitting ringside when Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight championship for the third time. A year after that, if you lived in St. Louis and you opened the post-dispatch sports section, you saw my face over a column. And a year after that, I went to the big time, New York. An amazing magazine called Inside Sports got started up. How old were you at the time? I was 22 by then. And basically this magazine was really unique.

Starting point is 00:44:30 It was set up in the day that Sports Illustrated was as big as it gets. And it was set up to compete with Sports Illustrated. And it brought in all these great writers. And so I'd be going to the bar at night and sitting next to Hunter Thompson, the Gonzo journalist, and be throwing back shots. The next morning, I'd be getting up and going on a plane to Pittsburgh. Wait, hold on one second. You did shots with Hunter S. Thompson? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:44:57 Okay. We're going to come back to that. Please continue. Oh, man. So it was this magazine attracted all these writers. And the guy who started it was a guy named Johnny Walsh, who went on to start SportsCenter for ESPN. So he just had one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen at the time. I didn't really even know what a Rolodex was. And I walked into Inside Sports for the first time. It was a Friday afternoon. And I called him up. And I said, hey, if I come into New York to work, I'm not asking for a job. Just make sure I don't starve. And he says, come on in. So I show up at the office at like four o'clock and there was two guys with a dolly stacked with beer, case after case of beer.

Starting point is 00:45:59 And I got in the elevator right behind the dolly. They hit the same floor number that I needed to go to. And they just rolled it out into the offices of Inside Sports. And I said, this is where I need to be. And this magazine attracted guys like David Halberstam, who's a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, the best of the best. And basically, I got to sit next to all of them. I was only a kid. I was 22. And every night everybody would go across the street to a bar

Starting point is 00:46:31 called the Cowboy. Tony, the bartender was behind the bar. And at the time I had no money. So they would put out these little hors d'oeuvres for people. That was like where my dinner would be if the guys with expense accounts weren't going out later. The mixed nuts and olives. That's right. That was dinner. Or happy maraschino cherries. But it was great because you're sitting next to Frank DeFord, who was like the big sports writer of his day. A guy named Gary Smith came to work there. He was a National

Starting point is 00:47:05 Magazine Award winner for many, many years. And it was just a blast. It was the best time. Sounds incredible. And then, like a lot of artistic successes, it was not a commercial success. And like a lot of startups, it went belly up. Sounds like the Paris Review and many, many others. There you go. And so here I am in New York. And basically, I've now achieved everything I set out to achieve when I was a kid. And I'm looking around saying, what am I going to do now? Where am I going to go? I had no idea. Inside sports was not a job. It was an experience. It was an

Starting point is 00:47:47 event every evening. Who's coming tonight? And I didn't know what to do. So I called up my mom and dad and I said, you know, I think I'm going to take some time off and travel. My mom, who's always really supportive, said, oh, Cal, that's wonderful. And little did she know when I said it that I wasn't coming back for 10 years. But I didn't know it either. I just bought a ticket to go over to Europe, left with a few guys, and that started a 10-year odyssey of Cal going around the world. Okay.

Starting point is 00:48:25 Let's pause for a second. I want to do some backtracking here. Okay. So the first question, and I have not forgotten about Hunter S. Thompson, but when you said, please correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but I don't need a job, I just don't want to starve. And he said, come on in. Why did he give you such a warm welcome? He had actually reached out to me.

Starting point is 00:48:45 And again, this went back to University of Missouri Journalism. That's where he had gone to school. So I found all through my travels, this school and its network, I was always linked to them in some way. And you knew who was really good from that school. Everybody knew it. And so if I found out that somebody was doing really good work and they were an editor and I knew they went to the University of Missouri, it's an easy phone call for me to make. And it's interesting because I didn't make those calls often because there was a like a nexus of the people

Starting point is 00:49:27 bumped into people and you were verted to the right place and so when Inside Sports folded ultimately one of the editors there got the job at the Washington Post Sunday magazine. But when I was traveling around the world, I basically, I didn't really write. And I have so many questions about the travel. The preceding contrast. So if we looked at, say, how you interviewed and asked questions when you were at the tail end of your first professional gig and then at the tail end of Inside Sports, what changed? Nothing really changed there. Basically, the idea was to get the information you needed for a story, to fill out a story. And so back in that day, I know it's hard for sports writers to believe it,

Starting point is 00:50:24 because they asked me to speak at colleges in front of journalism schools. And in the 70s, women's sports got no coverage at all. They would beg you to go into to go to their games, go into their locker rooms, whatever you wanted. I was talking to a university in Nebraska journalism school. They can't even interview women's volleyball players in a very relaxed fashion. They have to go through the sports information office and they won't be able to ask like personal questions. So it's a completely different time. When I would go out to do a story, I might spend like a week, two weeks with somebody.

Starting point is 00:51:14 And now that just doesn't happen because of all the proliferation of media and everybody's asking for that time. So it's pretty much shut down. So basically you got to hang with people and the questions basically filled out the story. But for me, it was very different than the next stage because that first stage was very who, what, when, where, and why, and what might've been underneath, what was your childhood like,

Starting point is 00:51:45 and it filled out a sports story. The next step that started when I was about 23 or 24 was completely different. And that was, just to place it in the timeline, that was before you left? Oh no, this was the moment I left Inside Sports, shut down. And there was actually like a run on the bank to go over. Seems pretty common. People to get their last checks. And right after that is when I decided to start traveling. And that's where interviewing changed for me forever.

Starting point is 00:52:25 Two quick questions before we get there. So the first is, what was it like doing shots and having drinks with Hunter S. Thompson? It was fantastic. He was a very funny guy, and it was all anecdotes. There were a bunch of people in the bar. Everybody was telling stories. It's completely natural. What's kind of interesting about my

Starting point is 00:52:47 memory of it is later on i interviewed johnny depp who played hunter thompson and he just reached into this vegetable plate that was in front of a hotel. You're talking about Depp? Yeah, Depp. Okay. And pulled out a carrot and put it in his mouth the way Hunter Thompson had, like he was smoking like those long cigarettes. And he became Hunter S. Thompson. It was wild. And he said, yeah, it comes out in me every now and then. The thing about Hunter S. Thompson, you think about him almost as a caricature. But like at the bar, he was a regular guy

Starting point is 00:53:26 just telling stories. I remember him telling stories of being a bowling writer in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And we'd be laughing about things like that. So it was very human. The conversation wasn't with the caricature of Hunter Thompson. It was with the guy. And when you went out to drink with the guys, hopefully with the expense accounts, what was your drink of choice? Did you have a go-to drink? Back then was before I knew anything about wine. Back then it was Guinness or Black and Tan or maybe gin and tonic. Those were the three things. You know, one time I remember this really crazy. You want to know why inside sports went out of business.

Starting point is 00:54:13 They had one of the photographers who had worked with sports illustrated in the past. And so I was sent out on a story with this guy and this guy was saying, Oh, I got to show you how to use an expense account. I could see you're a young novice here. And like, before we do any work, he was straight to the bar and I'm saying like, are you sure? Like, maybe we should go out and interview with some. No, no, no. And he starts to say, you know, I think we need to have some green chartreuse. Oh, Lord.

Starting point is 00:54:46 What? And this guy must have knocked the barbell. And his point was, look, this is how we do it at Sports Illustrated. Like, if you don't run up a barbell like this, you know, nobody's going to think you're big time. Sounds like fear and loathing in Las Vegas. It was a little like that. It was all, I guess, day to day event. And I was like meeting the athletes that I grew up watching on TV and talking to these sports writers. And it was one of those times that comes around once in a life. And then when it's gone, you can never really have it again. Because part of it is your naivete

Starting point is 00:55:31 making it so grand. And then it was over. The magazine was dead. And oh, man, like, at the time, I thought I got another like 50, 60 years to live. What am I going to do? So how did you decide on travel? I didn't know what to do. And I had met when I was in St. Louis, a woman from France. She came from Montpasier. And she says, oh, like you have to come visit Montpasier and pick the grapes. So in my mind, I always thought I've got to get to Montpasier and pick the grapes. So in my mind, I always thought, I've got to get to

Starting point is 00:56:07 Montpasier. And so we bought a ticket. I bought a cheap ticket to Iceland Air. They would land you in Iceland and then fly you into Luxembourg. And the idea, I guess, was to get you to somehow stay in Iceland. It still is. They still sell it. It's like the stopover destination. Stay for a few days, please. And you know what? People should, because one of the Playboy centerfold photographers told me that that was one of the best places that he'd ever been to in terms of meeting women. He said it was outrageous.

Starting point is 00:56:47 You'd go there on a Saturday night, and everybody knew everybody, but by four in the morning, people were naked doing cartwheels on top of the bar. Who would have thought of it from Iceland? Iceland, it's a limited number of activities if you're there, depending on the time of the year. But I actually went to Iceland for the first time with my family to see the Aurora Borealis about two winters ago. Just glorious. Fantastic. Entirely mystical, word-defying experience. It really was fantastic. So that's maybe the other more brochure-friendly side of Iceland. But yeah,

Starting point is 00:57:27 a lot of booze. A lot of booze. A lot of booze. If you're telling me... And elves. They like elves and gnomes also. But booze. No, that sounds like a magical moment in your life. It was. It was. Did you have a notion of what it would be? And then did it top it like by 10 times? Well, the backstory, not to turn this into, well, I guess it is the Tim Ferriss show. Here we are. But the digress into my own stuff for a minute is my mom had always talked about wanting to see the Northern Lights before she passed on. And this came up many, many times.

Starting point is 00:58:03 And eventually I was like, fuck it. Why haven't we gone to see the Northern Lights? Let's figure it out. And that's how the trip came about. And in my mind, of course, the image was informed by the photos that I'd seen. And it turns out that the colors that are captured by all of the photographs or the equipment that I've seen are very different when you see the phenomenon in real life with your own eyes. And it's just the most ghostly, fantastic, meaning like phant and we were there for, I want to say, 10 days, which is important because you could have a few days of cloud cover. And if you're only there for a night or two nights, you could go all the way out to the middle of nowhere in Iceland or Norway, for that matter, or other places and never see it. But we saw it, I want to say, like seven out of 10 nights.

Starting point is 00:59:06 It was unbelievable. So it exceeded all expectations. It was really, really a trip to remember. I just got to ask you one more question. What was your mom's, what did your mom's face look like when she got the view that she wanted to have? A kid in a candy store or the description that came to mind first was like a baby who opens their eyes and sees like their favorite mobile above them. Like just that completely dazzled

Starting point is 00:59:37 look where there's nothing else in the world that exists for them in that moment, but just the pure joy of that experience. It was great. I mean, one of the most gratifying things for me, certainly, that I've ever done for my family, which makes me feel like a bad son, but for saying that it took me that long. But it was a great experience. I will say for those people listening who are thinking about it, when I say there are very limited activities, I really mean it in Iceland. And we stayed at this place called Hotel, I think they pronounce it Rangau, but it's Ranga, R-A-N-G-A, which is in the middle of nowhere. And if you do go, two things to note, it's dark all the time. And number two,

Starting point is 01:00:17 there are activities that you can pay for, but they tend to be on the expensive side. So you can take like a helicopter over live volcanoes, which actually was phenomenal. Or you can go say snowmobiling, et cetera, but they all tend to be on the pricey side. So you do need to check your budget before you sign up for something like that. And yeah, it was glorious. But the, so Iceland, so you got a cheap ticket on Iceland air.

Starting point is 01:00:41 Cheap ticket on Iceland air and landed in Luxembourg. And I was with a bunch of friends. And how many friends? Let's see. There were very interesting. I had, I mentioned one, his name was Gary Smith. But for these purposes,

Starting point is 01:00:55 I'm just going to say there was a friend who was very skinny. Can't wait to see where this is going. And a friend who was portly. Such an underused adjective, portly. And I am completely, these are my best friends. Okay. The skinny guy, the portly guy. And the skinny guy was just coming off a divorce and had basically felt like his whole life had been constricted in this box around Wilmington, Delaware, and wanted to go out and just see the world,

Starting point is 01:01:37 see whatever was out there. And of course, my eyes are open to this because I didn't know what I was going to do, where I was going to go, but I wanted to see the world too. Let's go pick the grapes. And then the portly friend was a guy who was kind of like the mayor of his job. And the mayor of his city in terms of if you go to the bar in St. Louis, he's the fixture. Everybody loves him, knows him. And it's the bar, the restaurant, everything is very kind of fixed. The mic was always his, or he could hold court. Holding court. But even more than that it was you knew

Starting point is 01:02:25 if you were in st louis you knew if you went to llewellyn's bar at 8 30 you were gonna see him and accordingly you know where he was gonna have dinner is only one of a few places if you wasn't at one you can go to another you You know the bookstore he walked into, the place across the street where we got chocolates. So he lived on sort of a ritual. So now the three of us are let loose in Europe. Now the portly guy's only got like 10 days. He's on vacation from his job. The skinny guy who's been working at Inside Sports with me, he's got some time now. And I'm just kind of walking around with my eyes open, wondering where this is all going to take me. So we go to this mountainous town. We end up in a mountainous town in Italy. It had two names because these countries would get involved

Starting point is 01:03:27 in wars. And then sometimes they would be, wherever the winner was, they were named. So I remember the German sounding name was Dorf Tirol. And it had a huge mountain. And we found out that on this mountain, Ezra Pound, the poet, had lived in this castle. So the skinny guy is like, oh, look, got to go see Ezra Pound's castle. So we got to take a hike up to this mountain. And the portly guy is coming along. And we're having a great time. We're talking and the breathtaking scenery. And we get to this castle and we meet some people and they say, oh, if you would just

Starting point is 01:04:10 keep going over this mountain, you will have an unforgettable experience. There is a farmer there that is living. You literally will go back to the 18th century. That's how this farmer's living. Just keep on going over the mountain and just walking down this trail. Not many people go over the mountain, but if you do, you will find this farm. It will put you up for the night. Sounds like the beginning of a dirty joke. And so we start to get up to the top of the mountain. And now it's like getting darker and darker and darker.

Starting point is 01:04:47 And maybe it's eight o'clock. I don't know what time it is, but we've reached like the peak. And now we almost can't even see where we're walking. But the skinny guy knows if we get down this mountain, we're going to have an experience like no other. And that's what he was wired to do. And the portly guy is saying, hey, like, fettuccine is being served down in the restaurant. And they both look at me and say, okay, what are we doing?

Starting point is 01:05:21 And what do you think I did? Oh, this is a toughie. I want to say that you went for the village, but by the very fact that you asked me, what would you do? And you love both of these guys. And you know that one guy really wants to go over the mountain. The other guy really wants to bet. I'd say you can always get fettuccine. It's not going away.

Starting point is 01:05:42 But easy to say as the armchair listener of stories, as is the case right now, what did you do? Well, I looked at them both and then I just realized, look, if something were to happen, like going down, I'm going to regret it. And I knew in that moment, you know what? There's going to be a lot of those moments where I'm heading over the mountain. That was the moment I knew I'm going over the mountain. Not tonight. I'm going to make sure my portly friend is taken care of. He eats his fettuccine. In a few days, he's getting on a plane. He's going to go back home. But after that, I'm going over the mountain. And that's what set off the trip. And it became completely

Starting point is 01:06:29 addictive because I woke up every morning not knowing what was going to happen. And then you asked before, okay, well, where does the interviewing shift? So what happened was I had hardly any money. And I would go to a bus station or a train station, and I would just walk up and say, where's the next train leave at? Where's it headed? And they would say a name. I'd say, okay, I want a ticket. So I would buy the ticket. Destination had no meaning to me whatsoever. What had meaning to me

Starting point is 01:07:10 was I never been there before and I'm going to take this trip down the aisle. The trip down the aisle was where all the stakes were because as I'm going down that aisle, I've got to look for an empty seat next to somebody who seems interesting. Somebody I can trust, somebody who might be able to trust me because, and the stakes are high, because I know that at the end of that ride, wherever it was going, that person had to invite me to their home because I had no money to spend night after night in a hotel. I was going to ask you how you paid for the trip. So it was just savings-based until it was extinguished? Well, there was very little money. I'm trying to let you know that the stakes that were involved when I got on that train, it was not, it was like an athletic event where you were going out and you had to get

Starting point is 01:08:13 a roof over your head that night. And I'll tell you how seriously I took this. And I'm going to tell you a story after this, which shows you what I learned. I'm walking down that aisle and I see an empty seat next to a beautiful woman, right? I look at her hands, no rings. She's looking at me. She's smiling at me. She could be a supermodel. I swear I walked right on by. Why? Because there was no way she was taking me home. There was no way she was taking me home. Now, nobody can see me, but if you saw me, you would know

Starting point is 01:08:50 the supermodel was not taking me home. Hey, you know, in fairness, Billy Joel got Christy Brinkley. No offense to Billy Joel, but he, and I'm not comparing you to Billy Joel, I think you're a very handsome man, but just to say, I'll tell you a story about this. I think you're a very handsome man. But just to say, these things happen.

Starting point is 01:09:07 I'll tell you a story about this. I came to later regret that. All right? So this is years later, and I get set up working at Esquire, where I do this What I've Learned column. And I get set up doing an interview with Petra Nemkova, the supermodel. And I'm waiting for her. She's supposed to arrive at like eight o'clock or something. And she's late. So I'm sitting there waiting for her.

Starting point is 01:09:35 And then she sits down and we start talking. We had this amazing conversation. People may not know, but she was in Thailand when that tsunami hit in a bungalow with her best friend who basically lost his life. And she was swept away by the tsunami and narrowly survived. This is an amazing story. It took an hour and a half just to tell the tsunami story. And she's telling me these great stories.

Starting point is 01:10:02 And we're really hitting it off. And the interview is supposed to go for an hour and a half. Like we're at four hours and it's not an interview anymore. I feel like completely connected to her the way I would have been had I met her on a bus or a train. And I said to her, I said, Petra, I really, I'm going to tell you something. I apologize. And she said, what for? And I said,

Starting point is 01:10:25 because all those years, those 10 years I was traveling around the world, if the empty seat was next to you, I would have walked right on by you just because you were good looking. And she had a very amazing reaction. She grabbed me by the hand and squeezed my hand. And she said, well, don't worry, Cal. Tonight, I sat next to you, which is very cool. But it made me realize, and this is really, if you're a good guy who's a little scared to approach that woman, you should remember that story because they want to be treated normally. And I was talking to another actress about this and she really started riding me.

Starting point is 01:11:14 She said, okay, so you don't take that seat and now some asshole takes it and I got to put up with that asshole for the next hour and a half. Thank you very much, Cal. So you walked by this woman when you got on the train, walked down the aisle, you choose survival and housing over the perspective. Walk by the supermodel and I'm looking, looking down the car and okay, that grandmother with no teeth, eating the crackers out of her purse. There's the winner. So I walk up, sit down next to the

Starting point is 01:11:56 grandma. Let's say we're in Hungary. And this happened in many cultures. But for the sake of this story, and this happened in Hungary, I sit down next to her and I'll ask her about goulash. Now, of course, she can't speak English. My Hungarian at that point is, hi, how are you? I need to go to the bathroom. And some of the younger people on the train are watching me and grandma try and talk to each other. And naturally, they come over and they start to translate. He wants to know what makes a great goulash. This grandma's chest just bursts with pride. And now she's talking about her grandmother making goulash, her mom making goulash, all the ingredients that go into goulash, how they got to be put together just the right way. And then she looks at all these young Hungarians and said, you know, I've been riding on this train for decades.

Starting point is 01:12:59 Not one of you has asked how I make my goulash. This American, he asks. You tell him he has to come to my house because I am going to prepare him goulash so he knows what it's like to eat goulash and hungry. All the people on the train come along. Now I'm staying with grandma. Not only does she invite the people on the train, all her neighbors, all her friends, her relatives. Now I'm at the table, a room full of people. They're all surrounding me. The goulash is in front of me and I slowly lift it to my lips. I taste it, my eyes shut and I smile. And there's just a roar from this place. He loves grandma's goulash.

Starting point is 01:13:49 So the party goes on for like four days. And during the party, one of the neighbors says, well, you know, have you ever tasted apricot brandy? Because nobody makes apricot brandy because nobody makes apricot brandy like my father. He lives half an hour away from me. You got to come to taste the apricot brandy. That weekend, we're tasting apricot brandy, having a great time. Another party starts. Another neighbor comes over to me. Have you ever been to Kishkinhalas, the paprika capital of the world? You cannot leave Hungary without visiting Kishkin Hallas. Now we're off to Kishkin Hallas. I'm telling you, a single question about goulash could get me six weeks of lodging and meals. And that's how I got passed around the world. That's incredible. 10 years, 10 years. So what else did you learn about asking questions?

Starting point is 01:14:51 Or if you want to tackle it a different way, feel free to take it any direction, but what are some common mistakes that people make in asking people questions, whether it's on a train or otherwise, but feel free to tackle either. You know what? That's a good question for a little later because that's what I discovered later on at the time. And I'll bring it directly toward hiring people where questions are being

Starting point is 01:15:21 asked of job candidates, like, what's your biggest weakness? Which they've already prepared like two hours on how to answer that question. You're not going to get a spontaneous good response to that. I work too hard. Sometimes I get accused of being too detail-oriented. You got it. You got it. Nailed it. That is the wrong question. But we'll get to that because I wasn't there yet. I didn't even know what I was doing other than, okay, you've got to figure out a way to make people trust you through your questions. And I no longer had to fill out a story. I didn't need a who, what, when, where, and why. It was just pure curiosity. And then it zoned into this basic fact. People want to talk about their lives. And often, especially if you go to a small town somewhere, people,

Starting point is 01:16:27 they may not be able to talk so much about their lives because everybody talks about everybody in these little towns and everybody knows the gospel. Everybody knows the feelings and you have to keep some things to yourself. But if this guy comes into your house and he's from 7,000 miles away, you can open up in ways and tell him things you would never tell people close by, knowing he's going to leave. And keep in mind, this was a day, there were no cell phones. There was no social media. There was no Facebook. There was no going on the internet and finding out what this person just told me. It was like a secret.

Starting point is 01:17:16 It was a safe haven. Yeah. I was completely safe for these people. Not only that, but I was a safe haven for a lot of women because if they were in a small town and they are meeting somebody from their small town, everybody's going to know about it. But if you meet this traveler, your eyes are going to be open to this new world. Plus, you can go over to the next town and have a meal and start talking and get to know each other. And you're kind of free of all the constrictions

Starting point is 01:17:54 of where you live. And so, in a way, I became handsome, I can remember in college going into a bar in Colorado and all the guys were like six foot, I don't know what it was at night, but everybody was like six foot four or taller, you know? And like the girls were over six, but I'm just kind of walking around. I'm like much smaller. And I just realized there was, I don't fit in here. It's just a different, I'm not handsome here. It's like every Dutch or Swedish party I've ever been to. Okay. So there you go. I'm traveling around, right? And I meet a six foot two Dutch girl and want to share a room as we're traveling. Okay, fantastic. It was so easy because we were in a different place.

Starting point is 01:18:52 And once you're traveling, you're a much different person than you are when you're at home. People see you differently and they treat you differently. You see people differently too. Yes. Wouldn't you say? I mean, in a sense that I don't recall who said this initially, but people will travel to the other side of the world to pay attention to things that they routinely ignore at home.

Starting point is 01:19:13 Bingo. Yeah. And it seems like a modern day, or I should say a different manifestation of this is sitting down on an airplane next to someone. And you can get people to open up or they'll volunteer to open up or they'll volunteer to open up in ways that they might not to other people because they assume

Starting point is 01:19:30 rightly in most cases, they're never going to see you again. That's it. A hundred percent. And when you talk about seeing people differently, when you're waking up in the morning and you don't know what's going to happen. And then you meet somebody. The person becomes like the most fascinating person on the world in that moment. And they feel that because you don't know their life. So you're starting to ask them questions. They're getting this attention. It's like you're, I don't want to say you're making them into a rock star, but they're

Starting point is 01:20:02 getting the same kind of attention. The questions that are coming, why did you do that? What kind of friends do you have? What's this culture like here? And all of a sudden, they're feeling like they're in the spotlight, and it feels good. And for women, it feels great. Because also now, and I'm sure, if you're feeling boxed in, and you meet somebody from afar, oh, I wonder what it's like in America. Maybe he'll like me. Maybe he'll take me home with him.

Starting point is 01:20:31 Maybe I can visit. And so all of these conversations are just filled with possibilities and potentials. Yeah. It's beautiful. In both directions too, I think. I mean, I remember just in some of my travels, i mean in my uh i remember just in some of my travels i mean you you come across not just the natives but you meet other people who are traveling from distant lands and kind of finding their own way in the same way that you are and

Starting point is 01:20:54 you start to wonder like well maybe i should visit turkey maybe i should visit the paprika capital of hungary and it's just that the endless possibilities when divorced from the routine of your life at home that are so exciting. It's that. And also, I remember that the skinny guy were in Yugoslavia. And this was right before the Olympics in Sarajevo. And it was cold. And I remember we looked at each other and just, you know, it's like too cold here. We didn't have winter clothing.

Starting point is 01:21:29 And I said to him, you know, there are camel races in Douze, Tunisia. And like a day later, we were in Tunisia. We just got on a flight and flew to tunisia and headed to deuce we missed the races but but you know the next thing you knew like we've got pictures of us in like the middle of the sahara desert and so there was just the possibility of and look it's even more like that now where you got the internet to help you connect with somebody. You can get on a plane and be in a different world. Sure. Couch surfing. I mean, there are cost-free options out there. If couch surfing was here when I was going around

Starting point is 01:22:20 the world, I don't know, I might still be going. I might still be going. I'll tell you that it was the end of the trip that changed my style of interviewing again. But if I could have been couch surfing, I can't even imagine the potential I would have had because from what I'm told, like you get rated, isn't it? It's sort of like Uber, you rate the driver. So you rate the place you stay and they rate the guests. So basically I'm coming in with all these stories to regale you from these different parts of the world. I'd get A ratings across, I'd get five stars across the board. And then everybody would want, come to my place, please come to my place please come to my place but there was none of that and every day you had to get on and i had to get on the train or the bus unless people were passing me around after a while

Starting point is 01:23:14 it became easier and easier because it was well you know i got a cousin here and then i'd get off the train and the cousin would be waiting for me. And a party would be waiting for me at his house when I got there. So really, it was like a 10-year party. I do want to get to the end of the trip and the impact on the interviewing. But first, and I can't believe I haven't asked you this before, but how did you hone your ability to tell stories? Because you're very good at asking questions, but that doesn't automatically make one good at telling stories.

Starting point is 01:23:49 Maybe part of that is through writing, because that's what I was doing. I would interview people, and then I would have to put what I got down in a specific order or a nonspespecific order in order to manipulate people into leaning closer. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? What's going to happen? Meaning like an in media arrest, sort of in the middle of the action type of start to pull them in? Yeah, something exactly. You started to pull them in and then you wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Now you have to go back to the beginning. I suckered you in here. But then there are other more complicated ways where you don't start that way in the beginning and you save it for the end, but you do it in a more nuanced way.

Starting point is 01:24:37 It's almost like, okay, I'm reading, but what is something? Could you give me an example? And I i'm so curious because for people who aren't writers maybe i mean if and i'm not going to lose track here but i haven't been journalism school but when i've taken some writing classes they talk about like the lead and you get at least for non-fiction stuff right you get a couple of statistics you need a couple of quotes like three people is a trend and then you sort of piece it together. Don't bury the lead, meaning bring this sort of attention-grabbing piece to the top, and so on. We talked about briefly the in-media arrest. What would be a more subtle way to approach an opener?

Starting point is 01:25:14 Okay, so just say you had a murder story, and you were operating by that principle in journalism, like put it right at the top. And then, okay, this horrible thing happened. Let's go back to the beginning. And then now you've got to add everything up to see why that moment happened. Another option is to start it in like a very ordinary way with just a twist that tells you something's going to go on here. I don't know. And you just keep reeling them in slowly. Just give a little more. Oh, man. And then they met this person. What's going to happen now? And then you save it till near the end of the story. Part of the problem is when you do that in a magazine, they'll give it away in the headline. I was going to ask about the headline.

Starting point is 01:26:12 Yeah. But you can still use that tactic of telling a story that slowly grabs you in and it just puts out a little bait and gives you that smell of something interesting here. And then you're dragging the line so that they've got to keep following it. And they're feeling, you know what, something big is behind here and make them get to the end. And then if you can deliver, I don't want to say it's orgasmic, but... You know, it's funny i was thinking of like this sexual analogy though it's like it's instead of the such as the wham bam thank you ma'am quick fix it's like okay i didn't think that i needed some tantric sex and two hours

Starting point is 01:26:54 of this turns out it's pretty great and then you get the payoff you're like you know what that was totally worth it that's you just named it it's the tantric sex. The tantric structure. Storytelling. That's it. Sting would love it. You know, six hours. So at the end of your travels, what happened that affected your? Okay, so I'm going around.

Starting point is 01:27:20 I'm going and having a great time. And after 10 years, I mean, I got a pretty good network of people. So I don't really even have to rely on meeting somebody. Grandmother's eating something. Yeah. Because enough people know me. And when you're in Brazil, oh, there's this farm where they grow the cocoa beans. Like, great couple. Just go there. Like, we'll send a letter in advance.

Starting point is 01:27:50 They'll be expecting you. So I am, at this point, it's almost like I'm a guest that's now expected. Part of the family. Really, I'm part of the family before I even arrive. And a friend, this skinny guy, the skinny guy got married and he decided to take a year and spend it in Cochabamba, Bolivia. So I hear that and I'm thinking. I hope his wife did be knew that plan before signing up. No, she did.

Starting point is 01:28:23 Okay. I mean, that, and that, that was it. Let's do something. We don't have any kids. Let's do something outrageous that nobody expected. And so naturally I hear Cochabamba, Bolivia. Hey, I was in Peru. Now skinny guy's moving to Coach Obama. Hey, I'll spend a few months in Coach Obama. So I'm there and I get a call from the Washington Post Sunday Magazine. And again, going back to this nexus, the guy in charge had worked at Inside Sports and now he was in charge of his own magazine. And he called me up and he said, you know what? We're doing an issue about great beaches around the world.

Starting point is 01:29:06 We know you've been to Brazil before. Is there a story about a beach in Brazil that you could write up for us? And at the time I said, look, I'm in Cochabamba, Bolivia. You would think it's crazy, but I was really getting into Cochabamba, Bolivia. It's a completely different culture. And there's an Altiplano. It's a landlocked nation. You really are experiencing something different as a traveler.

Starting point is 01:29:36 But I said, OK. You know what? I said, I actually heard of a beach in Brazil. You might not want me to go there because you're probably doing this as a travel issue to basically hook up with travel agents and airlines so people can go to these destinations. This beach that I heard of is on the north of Brazil. From what I heard, you can't even get there unless you go on like a crude sailing vessel and on muleback. And the editor is saying, you know, why don't you just check this place out? So I say, okay. And

Starting point is 01:30:14 I leave Cochabamba, I go to Brazil and I end up in a city called Fortaleza. And just as I arrive, the first trip to this isolated beach, sand dunes that look like they're straight out of the Sahara, but it against like the most sparkling waters of the Caribbean. The first tour bus is going to go to this place. They're going to be dune buggies. We don't have to go by mule. We don't need the crude sailing vessels. And I'm just right on time.

Starting point is 01:30:52 And so first bus leaves midnight, Friday night. And I buy my ticket, get on the bus, and I let down my guard. And I spoke to the beautiful woman on the bus, on the way to the enchanted beach in Brazil. And that was the end of the trip. And I would tell you the rest of the story, except it takes two hours to do. We'll be at a, well, you're not doing it on tape, but if digital has any limits, we'll be out of there. The important thing about it was that was a moment where my style of interviewing had to change again because I was no longer traveling around the world. This woman and I got married, moved to New York, started to have kids, and then I began to write for Esquire magazine.

Starting point is 01:31:48 And all the things that I learned on buses, trains, I was then able to project into Esquire's What I've Learned column, which consists of interviews with the most celebrated, accomplished, and creative people on earth. I have the handy recorder, the H4N on top of one of these. In fact, the What I've Learned, this is the third volume, is that right? That's the third volume. These interviews have been done for almost 20 years now with everybody from presidents to premieres to movie stars, basically people that you know. The idea is for me to interview them and using their own words, show them in a light that you never really knew. So you think you know these people, and then you listen to their experiences and you

Starting point is 01:32:47 say, whoa, I never knew that about Robert De Niro or Mikhail Gorbachev. So that is where these conversations on the trains were so important because I did not approach these interviews with Woody Allen or Wolfgang Puck, George Clooney, as if I was a journalist. I approached them as if they were sitting on the train next to the empty seat, and I just sat down next to them. And that is where the evolution continued until actually very recently. It was 20 years. So it took me like 10 years to understand that an interview was more than meet the press, but then another 20 to figure out that it was more than sitting down with George Clooney and having the time of my life because a crazy thing happened to me, caught me completely off guard and made me think about interviewing in a whole different way. And this was only very recently. Can you talk about that or should we keep that off? No, a hundred percent. Can you

Starting point is 01:33:57 mention that just because you brought it up and then we'll, we'll dial back the clock. Sure. And can I show you something first? Also, I've digested this entire thing with highlights and so on their notes on writer's block, Jody Foster's comment, one of my favorites, just for folks in the end, winning is sleeping better. I just love that. So good. Highlighted Woody Allen. It just goes on and on. So I love this entire compilation and encourage people to check it out. But what changed so recently? So I was asked to give a speech on a cruise and I never, ever, ever went on cruises before. In fact, I got to say, it's almost laughable because there are certain people like they hear cruise and they turn up their nose. And I think I was one of those people. In fact, I had a friend who's a writer

Starting point is 01:34:47 and his wife wanted to go on a cruise and she kept on pestering him, pestering him. And my wife finally said to him, why don't you take your wife on a cruise? And he said, because I draw the line. I said, oh man, maybe I think about cruises that way. And then I was invited to speak on a cruise, but it was a special cruise. It was a cruise called Summit at Sea.

Starting point is 01:35:17 Yep. I'm one of the Summit series guys. Okay. So you know these folks and basically it's a cruise ship filled with 4,000 entrepreneurial minds. And that was wild to begin with because I had limited experiences with entrepreneurs. And then you put yourself on a ship with 4,000 entrepreneurs, your life is going to change. A lot of potential energy. Yeah. It's like Ted plus Coachella plus infinite amounts of alcohol. There you go. And you can't even get on an elevator without meeting somebody. Somebody on the elevator is going to say, what's your name? I'm Michael. This is where I work. This is what I do. Who are you? I felt at the end of like three days, my head was really, it was like getting pumped up with helium. I was about to explode. It was

Starting point is 01:36:16 amazing experience. And like you're sitting down and like at dinner and the guy next to you said, oh, this is the rocket ship I'm building. You want to see? And he pulls out his phone and he shows you his rocket ship. This is like wild. And it was like traveling around the world, except the world came to you. I think Jane Goodall was there also. I mean, it just goes on and on. And like the world is coming to you and wanting to hear you and tell you what they're up to.

Starting point is 01:36:46 So like in three days at Summit at Sea, you literally can go around the world. And I was totally unprepared for this. I was asked to give a speech called Decoding the Art of the Interview. And I'd never spoken before, didn't know what it was going to be like. But I have experience with Mikhail Gorbachev and Donald Trump and De Niro and Muhammad Ali later on in life that they're good stories.

Starting point is 01:37:16 And so I've been telling these stories as I was traveling around on Saturday nights and people always, oh, tell Ali's story. So I knew, okay, I don't know how to give a speech, but I can tell these stories. And so I go up and I tell my, and here's the thing about it. There are 20 events going on at once. Generally, when you look at that, what I've learned column, I'm invisible. I don't write a single word.

Starting point is 01:37:43 I just interview them the subject and then put it down in their own words. So I'm not a guy who you would ever see on TV that you would really know. I'm invisible. Yeah, there are people who know what I do and people in the know will come up and tell me, hey, I respect what you do in odd ways. But I'm figuring, okay, I'm on this cruise ship, maybe 20 people are going to show up at best. And in fact, I had read Pencils for Promise by Adam Braun. And he talked about giving, it might have been his first speech. And I guess he was expecting a crowd and he had maybe six friends attending and only one person other than his six friends showed up. And he went

Starting point is 01:38:34 out and he gave this speech. And what he realized was you give the speech as if that one person is the entire audience. And it turned out that she was so enthused that she later went to work for his charity. So I went in prepared. That book prepared me. If there's one person in there, I don't care. I'm going to give that person the best. I'm not going to be disappointed. I'm just going to go out. I'm going to tell my stories, give a few lessons, and let's see how it goes. Maybe the same day that I'm supposed to speak, they move my event. So it's now even in the program. If you're going to my event, you're going to the wrong place. So now I'm thinking, okay, I'm down to like 10 people.

Starting point is 01:39:21 That's cool. I'll speak to the one. The time for the speech comes, people start filing in. And I had set up this speech around wine. And there's a reason for it because when one of the stories we could get to a little later, I went out to learn about wine by becoming the sommelier at Windows of the World at the top of the World Trade Center right before the planes hit it. So I'm very attached to wine. And what I wanted to do was to have everybody drinking a glass of wine while I told these stories. So if I messed up, they were still helping. Also, yeah, helps with reality bending also.

Starting point is 01:40:00 That's right. We set it up so that all the wine is there ready to be served to people as they come in. Budgeting for 10 people. Well, no, I said, okay, there are like 150 seats. If 150 people show up, fine, have the glasses and the wine, but let's face it, you may only go through a bottle. So they were all prepared and place seated 150. It's this funky nightclub. And all of a sudden the time starts to roll around and I'm watching and people are just flooding in. They take up all the seats. And I was very specific to the people serving the wine. I set up this speech to have toasts throughout to keep everybody's involvement going. So everybody had to lift their glass and like scream with me to keep everyone engaged. And so I said to the people

Starting point is 01:40:54 delivering the wine, look, I need you to be able to walk down this corridor down the center and keep everybody's glasses filled because it's bad luck to toast with empty glass. And so we're all set. And now every seat's taken. And there's still like 10 minutes before the speech set to start. And people are still coming in. And now they're coming down the aisle and they're sitting like at my ankles. And they're filling the aisle.

Starting point is 01:41:24 They're cross-legged in the aisle. They're sitting behind the bar. That's right. Taking up the foot space. To the back, the complete back. And now there's a line of people that can't get in. I've become like the hottest nightclub in New York City. And I'd never done this before. Not to derail this, but what do you attribute that to?

Starting point is 01:41:44 I think what happened is they switched you with richard branson in the program i'm just messing with you no that's good we'll have to work that work on that next time i think what happened is we titled it Decoding the Art of the Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, Robert De Niro, and Donald Trump. And naturally, it said, like, Cal Fussman has interviewed these people, but people came in wondering, what's it like to interview Gorbachev or De Niro or Donald Trump? And we'll definitely dig into some of that. Okay. And so I'm watching all these people flood in and now the aisle is completely cluttered. I can't get wine to people. Now I'm starting to freak out because I don't want people

Starting point is 01:42:38 toasting with an empty glass. And the back of the room is like, it's getting jam-packed. And so I just said, well, just go out and give your speech. So the speech, it lasts for about an hour. And I guess a really good response. But what was surprising about it was afterwards, like there's a long line of people to see me and they're business people. And the first couple that came up, two women, they say, okay, you taught us about asking questions. We got a problem. We are really passionate about our business. We can't seem to find people to work for us that are just as passionate as we are. What can we do? What can we ask? I said, oh, that's easy. Just tell them the Dr. Dre story. Dr. Dre story, yeah. I said, I was interviewing Dr. Dre and I said to

Starting point is 01:43:41 him, what's the longest you've gone working on a passion project without sleep? And he said, oh man, when I'm working on something I really care about, I'm in the zone. I don't think about sleep. It's just, I go until it's done. Could be 72 hours. So I said, just tell the person you're interviewing, Dr. Dre, he goes 72 hours. What's the longest you've ever gone on a passion project without sleep? You'll be able to tell something about that person by their answer. And look, they may tell you, you know what? I get eight hours sleep every night because I come to work every morning fully charged.

Starting point is 01:44:28 And you're going to know, hey, maybe that's the right person for a certain job in your company. It's not going to be the most completely passionate person, but maybe they're the person that's got to do something nuts and bolts. Maybe they're the CFO or the guy who interacts with Wall Street. Exactly. Or gal. And so you will find out through that answer something that's going to help you make a decision. And if your girls are looking, you can tell they're looking at it. Okay, that's our question.

Starting point is 01:45:01 We'll tell them the Dr. Dre story. And then people started coming up to me running successful businesses who had to hire a lot of people all at once because the business is doing really well. And you could tell they were nervous because all of a sudden a business that starts with an idea and only them is now taking on a thousand people in a year. How are you sure that those thousand people have what you had when you started the company? That essence, because if they don't have it, the essence of the company is no longer what you wanted. And guys like that and women are coming up and saying, you know, next time you're in San Francisco, can we get together? Because I can tell there's obviously an issue with hiring. And it's funny because now I'm starting to ask everybody about it. And I'm really becoming very conscious that this is an

Starting point is 01:46:10 issue that's really important to a lot of people. Oh, it's the challenge. We were chatting before we started recording about Silicon Valley and some of the issues surrounding attracting and retaining top talent. It's the fundamental challenge for a lot of these startups in particular, when you go from perhaps hiring, say, if you bootstrap for a period of time, 10 people in a year to hiring 10 people a day or a week. It's a massive challenge putting together a process for that. So question for you about the presentation. So if we were to try to decode, decoding the art of the interview, if we're were to try to decode, decoding the art of the interview, if we're going to try to meta that and decode the presentation itself,

Starting point is 01:46:50 what story or stories, and I don't think I've heard any of them for that matter yet, did people seem to respond best to? There's one that I have tucked in the back of my mind, because when Alex, mutual friend of ours, asked me if I had heard this story and I said, no, he was just, I'm not going to say disgusted, but just speechless at how I had not managed to hear this yet. But what did people respond to best in terms of stories? Interesting. Different people respond differently to the different stories. One, if I was deconstructing the speech, one of the things that I wanted to do was to explain how much you can do with a single question in a short amount of time. And to back that up, I told a story about my meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Starting point is 01:47:46 So I'll take you back to, say, 2008. I think it was February. We're in New Orleans. And in a hotel lobby, I'm all set to interview Mikhail Gorbachev for Esquire's What I've Learned column. We got an hour and a half. And fully prepared, ready to go. Couldn't have been happier.

Starting point is 01:48:09 And I get a call. I pick up the phone. Hi, Cal. It's the publicist. Sorry to, so I have to pass this on, but the interview with Mr. Gorbachev is going to have to be cut short. And now I'm thinking, oh man, oh, what was it going to be down to an hour? Because that's the thing with

Starting point is 01:48:30 this, what I've learned column, I can't fluff it up. I can't fill it out. I can't use my words. They have to be Mikhail Gorbachev's words and they have to be wise words. I need at the very least an hour to extract. Yeah. Move into his soul in a way that makes him feel comfortable and extract that wisdom at the very least 45 minutes. So I say to her, okay, okay. How much time do I got? 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Are you, I don't want to say, are you nuts? But it's impossible. I can't do this interview in 10 minutes. Cal, Cal, look, I understand. But a lot of very important people have been added to the list. See, Mr. Gorbachev, there's nothing we can do about this. Do you want the 10 minutes or not? What am I going to do? Say no? Okay, I'll take the 10 minutes.

Starting point is 01:49:31 So I'm sitting down and I'm thinking, and the more I'm thinking about this, the worse it's getting. Because, number one, I'm knowing that all of my questions are going to be translated into Russian. And all of his answers are going to be translated back into English. So you actually have five minutes. Yeah, we're moving down. Plus, you're going to sit down, and you're going to exchange pleasantries. It's not going to start in a finger snap. Two and a half minutes.

Starting point is 01:49:57 Yeah. It wasn't two minutes, but it wasn't much more. And so the publicist leads me into the room, and at this point I'm thinking, okay, if it's two and a half minutes, but it wasn't much more. And so the publicist leads me into the room. And at this point, I'm thinking, okay, if it's two and a half minutes, like, do your best. And I look up and like, there he is, Gorby. And he's a little older than I remember. He's about 77 at the time. He was in town to speak about nuclear weapons and why they should be abolished. And we sit down and I'm looking at him and I just know, just know he's expecting my first question to be about nuclear arms, world politics, Paris Troika, Ronald Reagan. He's just ready. So I looked at him and I said, what's the best lesson your father ever taught you?

Starting point is 01:50:46 And he is surprised, pleasantly surprised. He looks up and he doesn't answer. He's like thinking about this. It's as if after a little while, he's seeing on the ceiling this movie of his past. And he starts to tell me this story. And it's this story about the day his dad was called to go fight in World War II. See, Gorbachev lived on a farm, and it was a long distance between this farm and the town where Gorbachev's dad had to join the other men to go off to war. And so the whole family

Starting point is 01:51:27 took this trip with the dad to this town to wish him well as he went off. And Gorbachev is talking about this trip and he's providing these intricate details and I'm transfixed. And I'm saying like, oh my God, that's the worst possible question. This interview is going to be over. He's not even going to get to town yet. So finally, they do get to town. And Gorbachev's dad takes the family into this little shop. And he gets ice cream for everybody. And Gorbachev starts describing

Starting point is 01:52:07 this ice cream and the cup that it was in. It's an aluminum cup. And as he's telling me, it's almost like he's got his hand out in front of him and the cup's in it. It's that vivid to him. And it's as if in this moment, we both have this same realization. That cup of ice cream is the reason that he was able to make peace with Ronald Reagan and end the Cold War. Because that cup of ice cream, just the memory of it, is the memory of what it felt like for his dad to go off to war, for him to see his dad going off to war. That cup of ice cream in the memory was the dread that he knew of the possibility of never seeing his father again. And we are looking at each other like, oh man, this is deep. He didn't expect it any more than I did. Just at that moment, knock on the door.

Starting point is 01:53:06 It's the publicist. Publicist comes in, very officious. Skorbachev, Cal, time for the interview is up. And he looks at it and he wags his finger. He says, no, I want to talk to him. Publicist puts up her hands. Yes, sir. And she backs out sheepishly. The door shuts. Conversation continues. Now we're getting deeper. Ten minutes later, another knock on the door. This time the publicist comes in a little slower.

Starting point is 01:53:36 Mr. Gorbachev, Cal. Gorbachev says, no, I want to talk to him. She backs out. Ten minutes later, knock on the door door this time she's in a panic because the train cars are just piling up please i've got the mayor of new orleans right outside there's a long line of people we're way behind schedule and Gorbachev just smiles. And he didn't say anything, but the look on his face was, hey, what can I do, Cal? So I said, thank you. I knew I pushed it to as long as it could be pushed. And I left.

Starting point is 01:54:18 And the interview was a success in that it had a little story like that. And people could understand something about Gorbachev that they might never have known. But for me, when I look back on it, what I realized was the power of the first question going straight to the heart and not the head, because it was that question that went into his heart that took us to that very deep place and enabled the interview to continue to go. And because the interview could go, I was able to fill out the page for Esquire. Otherwise, that would have been it. There would have been no way the interview would have run.

Starting point is 01:55:15 So lesson number one, when people ask me what tips would I give, is aim for the heart, not the head. Once you get the heart, you can go to the head. Once you get the heart and the head, then you'll have a pathway to the soul. And so basically the speech was lessons tied to stories that backed them up. And whether it was with Gorbachev or Donald Trump or Robert De Niro or Muhammad Ali, each story allowed the listener to understand something very basic. So I'm going to pick a name that we haven't heard yet, just because this is the one that made Alex dance around, because that's all he could do to respond before he insisted that I ask you about it. So Julio Cesar Chavez. That's another story. And it goes back to a time when I was a teenager. And again, as I started out, you knew that my childhood hero was Muhammad Ali. So I followed boxing. And naturally, I wanted to fight. Where I lived, there were no boxing gyms around. What we had in New York was a tournament called the Golden Gloves. Golden Gloves, big deal. Yeah. Sponsored by the Daily News.

Starting point is 01:56:31 The final sold out Madison Square Garden every year. I had no idea how to fight. And I wanted to do it. So basically like a month before the Golden Gloves started, I showed up at a gym that was a few towns over in a bad neighborhood and said, like, I want to train for the Golden Gloves. You had to be 16. I just turned 16. I entered. And this manager pulled me aside and said, no, no, no, no. That's not the way it works. Like, you don't know how to fight. You don't know anything about fighting. What you do is you come here every night and we'll teach you. And within a year, we can put you in with people who have your experience and you'll learn. And then a year from now, you'll have some experience and you can go into the golden gloves. You know, if you're good, you'll, you'll do okay. I said, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. I came to fight. Thanks pops. But listen,

Starting point is 01:57:30 that's right. And basically I wasn't on the tall side. So there's a short guy in a very short arms and you know, my style was basically, you know, Hey man, I'm just going to rush across the ring and I'm just going to start throwing punches. Joe Frazier style. That's right. And you'll see what happens. Because Joe Frazier knew how to fight. Right, right. All I could do was just throw reckless, wild, crazy punches one after another. I was in good shape. So I could throw punches three minutes around, just start to finish. And it was

Starting point is 01:58:08 actually, for the people in the gym, it was kind of comical to watch because, you know, everybody knew that when I finally got in the ring, one of two things was going to happen. Maybe I'd be able to just simply overwhelm whoever was in the ring just by sheer virtue of I'm coming at you to throw everything I got and I'm not stopping. The Tasmanian devil strategy. That's right. You got it. And so the month passes or so, and it's time for my fight in the Golden Gloves. And there was somebody at this club that was going to represent me. And I show up at the club. He was going to drive me into Queens, New York. I was living at Long Island at the time.

Starting point is 01:58:50 And I was all set. And so I show up for my manager to pick me up. He's not there. Lifted the altar. Right. No, I don't have a manager. I don't have a lift to get into this place. And there's no cell phones. You know, you're standing by a payphone throwing in quarters, like, who can

Starting point is 01:59:11 help me? I got to get to the fights. I got to fight. And of course, everybody in the school knows about this. And so it's at a high school in Queens with a very large gym arena. It's like a Catholic school. And I managed to get somebody to drive me down there and arrived just in the nick of time. But now, like, I'm all nervous just to get there. And I'm able to check in. I wrap my hands, get my gloves on. And out of nowhere comes my opponent in the dressing room. And in the most casual way possible, he just puts out his left hand and says like, Jesus, that was his name. But you can tell, not only like, was there a scar down one side of his face to his lip, but you could just tell he had done this like 400 times before he was eight years old. This is like checking in for work. That's right. It's complete.

Starting point is 02:00:15 And so now I'm starting to like realize, oh, this could be like a predicament. And I get somebody who's never, I've never met before to work my corner. And this guy has no idea of my style. No idea. He thinks like, okay, I know how to fight. And so he says, okay, kid, listen, when, you know, we're going to go in the ring, I want you to just take it nice and easy. You move around a little, show him the jab, and let's see what happens. So start to walk in the ringer. And this is like mid-70s. In fact, it's not too, not right around a few years before the Rocky movie came out.

Starting point is 02:01:03 You know, The great white hope. Well, I'm like the only white fighter on this card and 90% of the audience is all white. Okay. So when I come in the ring, it's like the great white hope has finally arrived. Like people are standing, cheering, going nuts and looking around. And it's like, it's surreal. I've lost sense of where I'm at. And this one year I got, okay, move around, jab. I've forgotten who I am. And we get to the ring, go to the center, get the instructions, and I am like completely lost. I do not know what happened. All I remember was getting up, actually my eyes opening, and seeing like three fingers that were very blurry, and then like I'm hearing four, five, six, and I get up. And now I can kind of see clearly and Jesus is coming at me and his right hand comes back and it's like right in front of me,

Starting point is 02:02:18 right in front of me. And the bell rings. And so I go back to the corner and now I'm pissed. Like what, what just happened to me? Like get in there, throw your punches, just go at him. And I'm sitting on the stool. The manager is saying something.

Starting point is 02:02:36 I don't even hear what he's saying. Cause all I'm hearing is myself just screaming at myself, throw punches. Remember who you are. In the meantime, the ref is coming over and he's saying like, son, are you okay? Are you okay? I'm saying, of course I'm okay. I'm going to kick his ass. I'm going to come out. You're going to see some punches. Next thing you know, like the referee is like waving his hands and stopping the fight.

Starting point is 02:03:01 I didn't respond to him. I was like, I was out. So this dialogue that you were having with yourself, like that was entirely internal. That's right. I had no idea. The worst part of all this is my dad is in the crowd and he brought two of his. Right? So now you can imagine what I'm hearing. Like anytime there's a family reunion, anytime this comes up, we need a funny story. It's like, oh, remember Cal and the Golden Gloves. And so I'm hearing this again and again and again over the years. And finally, must have been, well, almost 20 years later, right after I meet the woman in Brazil, she moves to New York, we get married, and I'm watching the TV, and Julio Cesar Chavez, the great Mexican champion, junior welterweight, 140 pounds. He was 85, 86 and 0 at that point.

Starting point is 02:04:07 And I'm watching him on TV as he's cornering an opponent. I got a big bag of chips between my legs. And at this point, or right after the marriage, he's put on a bunch of weight. So I got a beer belly. So I got a beer in one hand, chips in the other, belly between them. And I'm screaming at the TV, come on, finish him off. What are you doing? Finish him off, Julio. And my wife looks at me and says, hey, like, calm down. We've heard your boxing stories. Because that was the first thing when my family met her that they indoctrinated her. You know about Cal and the Golden Gloves, don't you? So I look at her, I look at the TV, and it's clear what needs to be done here, because I've got to get my manhood back. And I said to my wife, you know what?

Starting point is 02:04:57 You see that guy on the TV, Julio Cesar Chavez? I'm going to fight him. And so naturally, my wife like, you're crazy, forget it. You know, we've heard the story, but now I know I have to do this to close this chapter in my life,

Starting point is 02:05:20 no matter what. No, just to place it, so at the time you're writing for Esquire. Actually, when we moved to New York, I had written or I was writing for a magazine called GQ. And the editor at the time, or my editor at GQ, was a guy named David Granger, who later became the editor of Esquire. And when he did, he brought me and a bunch of writers with him. So this all started at GQ. And the day after my wife is laughing at me, I march into David

Starting point is 02:05:50 Granger's office and I say, hey, you want to buy a story? I'm going to go fight Julio Cesar Chavez. He says, what? I give him the background. And he said, all right, let me go in and check what my boss. Let's see what our insurance policy looks like. Oh, they made me, that was the first thing. You're going to have to sign documents saying we're not responsible for this. This is all on you. I said, that's fine. And I go down to the Times Square gym on 42nd street at the time. And up these rickety old wooden steps, it was like something out of the past. Like you could literally hear each foot that you put down. And then there's like the drumbeat of the bags and you walk up there. And since I had followed boxing, I knew who people

Starting point is 02:06:42 were. And I just start looking around at the trainers. And there was a guy I recognized. His name was Harold Weston. And he had fought Tommy Hearns, the welterweight champion. Tommy Hearns was nasty. Yeah. And he had actually done pretty well. He was a very slick boxer.

Starting point is 02:07:01 He wasn't that tall. And Tommy Hearns was like 6'2", 6'3", tremendous reach and an unbelievable power in his hands. And I think that fight went a while. I know Tommy scored a TKO, but Harold had done pretty well avoiding the punishment. And so I went over to him and I said, hey, I'm going to be fighting Julio Cesar Chavez. You think you can train me? And now he's just like, what is this? Who are you?

Starting point is 02:07:32 Who sent you here? Looking for the hidden cameras. You got it. That's exactly it. And then he's calling. This guy says he's going to fight Julio Cesar Chavez. Everybody in the gym is laughing. Are you a professional? No.

Starting point is 02:07:46 I'm like, are you an Amchuel? I had one fight in the Golden Gloves 20 years ago. It didn't turn out. And now Harold's saying, like, okay, okay. You're really gonna do this, huh? I'll tell you what. You come back tomorrow

Starting point is 02:08:01 at 3 o'clock and we'll do a little workout. And we'll see. So I come back tomorrow, like three o'clock, and we'll do a little workout and we'll see. So I come back the next day and this guy, he just tortured me. The whole point was, get out of here. You're not fighting Julio Cesar Chavez. You have no idea what it's like to be a boxer. A little respect for the craft here. And after three hours,

Starting point is 02:08:32 literally I was reduced to tears again and again and again. And I just kept going. And I remember getting home to my apartment and like I rang the door, the door opened. I literally collapsed into my wife's arms. And it's like, she dragged me to the tub and we had hot water going. She threw in some Epsom salts and I just like laid in there for like three hours, unable to move. And when I left the gym, everybody in gym was placing bets, whether I was going to come back the next day. And when I left the gym, everybody in the gym was placing bets whether I was going to come back the next day. And I did. And that was the first moment where, hey, that's interesting.

Starting point is 02:09:13 And he said, okay, I understand you're writing this for GQ. He was a fashionable guy. So that lured him in, you know, the style element. And he said, so you're really going to do this? And I said, yeah. I said, look, I'm just asking for one round with Julio Cesar Chavez. One round. That's it. But I'm going out there and I'm giving it my all. He said, well, look, let me show you ways to get through that round. Now, remember, this is a slick boxer. I'm going to teach you how to move and you will survive. We can do this. If, remember, this is a slick boxer. I'm going to teach you how to move and you will survive. We can do this. If he's taking this really seriously, you're going down, but we don't know how he's going to react. Maybe he'll be curious and I will teach you

Starting point is 02:09:56 how to move around the ring and protect yourself so that you don't die. And now in my mind, I'm also now thinking about the fight between Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard. I don't know if you remember, it was the second fight. No mas. No mas, that's right. Where in the middle of the fight, we don't know what really happened. It's never fully been explained. In the first fight they had, Durand won by a decision in Montreal. And afterward, he went back to Panama as a national hero, 50,000 people waiting for him at the airport. And he just had like a three-month binge party and gained like 50 pounds. In the meantime, Leonard, after his first loss, went back home

Starting point is 02:10:47 and was training the next day for the rematch. So they set it up to have an immediate rematch six months later. And after maybe two months left, Durant started to train. Now he had to take off 40 or 50 pounds. He was in no condition to do this, but he dramatically lost the weight. And we'll never know, but he was overweight a few days before the fight. Now, whether he took X-lax or something to purge his system, or whether after he made the weight, he went out and ate three steaks and a bunch of orange juice. And we know that his stomach was not in the best of shape. But we also don't know if when he got in the ring, his stomach was bothering him or Leonard

Starting point is 02:11:38 adopted a style that wouldn't allow Duran to hit him and basically broke Duran mentally. So we don't know if it was his stomach or his mind or both, but midway in the fight, Duran basically just throws up his hands and says, no mas. No more. No more. And Leonard celebrates and everybody watching was in disbelief because for 20 years, Roberto Duran had been the epitome of the macho man. He was like Mike Tyson of the lightweights in his era. He just bored straight ahead. Nothing could stop this guy. He was relentless. And to see him quit was what I felt about my somehow eradicate all that feeling. And I had to do it in a way that's left me with some shred of pride at the end. So Harold says to me, okay, look,

Starting point is 02:12:36 I'm going to teach you how to move. And he was like a very classy fighter. And as he's showing me how to move around and avoid punches, I said, no, Harold, no, no, no,

Starting point is 02:12:48 it's not, not the way we're going to do this. No, no. The first time I got in trouble because I didn't go out throwing punches. And that's how I'm coming out this time. I'm coming out to throw punches and I want to do it just like Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier's a short guy, stocky arms, just bobbing, weaving, coming straight ahead. And Harold says,

Starting point is 02:13:12 no, no, no, I'm not going to do this. Because basically, now I'm asking Harold to teach me a style that is going to bring all of my energy, full focus, full bore, straight ahead, right at one of the most damaging punchers. Incoming missiles. That's right. And so he's just fighting with me. There's no way. I'm not being a party to this. If we do this, we do it smart and you come out alive. Like you're not going in there like Joe. There is that gal. You're not smoking gal.

Starting point is 02:13:49 Smoking gal. That's right. And I said, no, I want you to teach me like Joe Frey. And he said, okay, you want to be smoking, Joe? I can teach you how to be smoking, Joe. And he pulls out a rope and he sets it from one, the top of the ropes on one side of the ring to the other. And he makes me start bobbing and weaving under this rope.

Starting point is 02:14:11 Now, anybody who has never done this before, like after a minute, your thighs are burning. And basically, Harold's idea is I will make him do this so long that he comes to his senses and fights the way I tell him so I can protect him. But I just, no matter how much it burned, I just got down low and I just bobbed and weaved and moved my head. And then he'd take me to the bags. And now he's teaching me how to throw punches because I didn't know how to do any of this stuff. And then you have to get in the ring. And now, like, I'm 35 years old, and all these kids are like 19, 20. They love to get in the ring because they want to beat the crap out of me.

Starting point is 02:15:01 And believe me, you know, they were because I did not know how to fight. But every day I just kept on going back. I literally trained like a fighter. It must have been for like four months. And plus, on the other hand, I had to figure out a way to get Julio Cesar Chavez in the ring with me. He had no idea this. He had no idea that you're in this intensive training camp with no agreed upon fight. No, not a clue. He doesn't know that I exist. And I am training three hours every afternoon, plus running in the morning, plus calisthenics at night, eating just the way Harold's telling me. My weight goes from, I was about 165.

Starting point is 02:15:37 Now I'm down to less than 147, closing in on 140. Chavez fights at 140. At this point, he's 87 and 0 with, I don't know how many knockouts, but I think it was in the 80s. Very high percentage. Yeah, very high percentage. I remember also, just as a side note, I was mystified and just captivated by Julio Cesar Chavez that at some point, it looked at x-rays of his head and his skulls like twice as thick as normal human beings. That's right.

Starting point is 02:16:07 So he was used to coming straight at people and absorbing whatever punishment they were dishing out in order to land his shots. And believe me, when Harold heard that I was doing it, he said, look, Cal, I know a guy who fought Julio Cesar Chavez. His name is Juan Laporte. Okay. Basically, after that fight, Laporte was pissing blood for a long time because one of Chavez's biggest shots was his left hook to the liver. And he's saying like, you don't understand. This is a professional

Starting point is 02:16:42 athlete at the top of his profession. You know, a lot of guys think, oh, if I was out on that football field, I would have made that catch. You know, they see a professional drop the ball. I would have brought that in. And lots of times they drop passes that the rest of us might have caught. But you don't understand what it's like to be up against a professional athlete until you are. Because even these amateur kids were knocking my head off every day. But I just kept on coming back up them steps, kept on coming back up them steps. Finally, a friend of mine, the skinny guy

Starting point is 02:17:18 writing for Sports Illustrated, had been sent to do a story about Julio Cesar Chavez. So while he's out interviewing Julio Cesar Chavez, he says to him, oh, by the way, you know, I got a friend who wants to fight you. Is it okay if he comes and fights you? Julio says, sure. Like, send him over. He only wants one round. Fine, fine.

Starting point is 02:17:40 It'll be great. So now Julio has said yes. It's like, I'm just imagining, it's like it's like i'm just imagining it's like if your second grade self in a different era had written to tiger woods being like my friend in second grade wants to play you in golf like sure yeah why not send him over yeah i think and like julio is a very he's a fun loving guy soving guy. So maybe he saw it as a joke. I don't know. And so at this point, it's like months I've been training.

Starting point is 02:18:11 Now you look at my body, man. I got a six-pack. And now I'm getting in a ring. And I was up against an amateur who was really beating me up badly in the beginning. And then one day, he threw a right hand in my head. And I ducked under it. And then one day he threw a right hand in my head and I ducked under it and I clocked him with the right hand and he just went sprawling backward. And now like it started to think, okay, Julio, are you ready? Are you ready for this? All the people in the gym are laughing. That's all part of like a community where where, what is going to happen?

Starting point is 02:18:48 And so at this point, GQ, meanwhile, is funding this. They're funding all the training, and they're going to fund my trip to Mexico. They've got to send photographers. They'll send my wife. Now I've got an entourage coming down to Mexico to fight Julio Cesar Chavez. And he's training to fight Pernell Whitaker. This is like the biggest fight in his life. And he's actually not really training that hard.

Starting point is 02:19:17 We're supposed to have our fight like while he's in training. And I'm saying that he's going to different towns and having parties. And so I'm starting to think... This is after you arrived. This is after I arrived. So I didn't know. I thought, well, maybe he's normally like this. But something in my mind was saying, man, if he's fighting Pernell Whitaker, he should be a little more focused than this. So I'm waiting for this appointed day and Harold West and my trainer knew the president of the World Boxing Council,

Starting point is 02:19:51 Jose Suleiman, who like set up a weigh-in and GQ made me a robe. And like Julio was very amused by all this. If we went out running one morning and the thing about it was Julio trains in Toluca, Mexico, high altitude. So that was my first moment where I said, uh-oh, this might be an issue. Yeah, because I trained really hard back in New York, but all of a sudden at altitude, you're not

Starting point is 02:20:20 the same. And so we're running in the morning and it comes to this day where, okay, we're going to do it. So I show up. I got my GQ robe on. They invited kids from their neighborhood in to come witness this. And like the kids thought like, oh, this is a fight. And so Julio is set up. I'm set up. We're ready to go. The one thing Julio said was, look, I can't wear

Starting point is 02:20:47 eight ounce gloves like you're going to wear because I'm scared I'm going to hurt my hands. So I'm just going to wear training gloves. But other than that, and I said, no headgear. I said, this is a fight. I'm coming to fight you. So he just wanted to protect his hands. And so he had these white gloves. I wouldn't call them pillowy, but there was cushion in there. What were they, 12 or 16 ounces? Yeah. I don't know if they were 12 or 16, but they weren't eight like mine. That was the only difference. And Jose Suleiman, president of WBC, has the guy ring the bell. And all of a sudden, I go charging straight in the style of Joe Frazier, right at Julio Cesar Chavez. He looks at me, and he's used to coming straight ahead. And now he's saying like, what's going on?

Starting point is 02:21:41 Now, here's the thing about this. Harold said to me, look, you don't understand how good he is, how quick he is. You have no chance of hitting him. Do you understand me? Like all the work you did, there's only one chance you have. And I'm going to tell it to you. You listen to me. You listen to me. Good.

Starting point is 02:21:57 This is the strategy. I want you to throw just like I've been teaching you. Left jam, right hand, straight right hand, left hook. Okay? He's going to catch those punches. I want you to do it again. Left jam, straight right hand, left hook. He's going to catch those punches. And I want you to do it again. Left jam, right hand, left hook. And he's going to catch them again. And I want you to keep on doing that again and again and again. Do it 20 times. And then on the 21st time, if you're still standing, because we don't know, he may just hit you in the liver and that's the fight.

Starting point is 02:22:38 If you're still standing, if you do that 20 times in a row and you're still there, go left hand, right hand, and then come back with another right hand. And so bell rings. And now he's like circling around trying to figure out like, who is this lunatic coming at me like Joe Frazier, bobbing, weaving, snorting. I mean, I could sound like Joe Frazier, but he's so fast that just like Harold says, I throw the left hand, I throw the left jab, he catches it. Throw the right hand, he catches it.

Starting point is 02:23:10 I throw the left hook, he catches it. Like the first time I did it, he said, okay, I know what you got. And I'm just going to see how much you can take in a little while. But we'll play this out. We'll play it out. And so I keep storming in. I keep throwing these three punches. He keeps catching them. He's moving me around, but I keep throwing these three punches again and again and again. Finally, two minutes into the round, I go left jab, right hand. And then you could almost see him lifting his hand to catch my left hook. And I just throw the right hand and it just socks him in the jaw. And he looks at me and he sprawls backward as a way of saying, oh, okay, you caught me. Okay, okay, okay. He goes back like he's staggered. And then he smiles at me and says,

Starting point is 02:24:07 okay, now we're going to fight. Now we're going to fight. He comes in on me and he throws a left hook to my liver. I'm telling you, it was like someone took the pipe of a Hoover vacuum cleaner, attached to the vacuum cleaner that was on full blast sucking up and just shoved it down my throat, down to my stomach. And it's like my whole stomach is coming up through my mouth, right? And I said, and the thing about it was I just started throwing punches back. It was his way of just saying, I'm going to give you just like a little taste, but now I'm firing back because as bad as I was hurt, this was my moment. I had to avenge what happened to me when I'm 16 years old and I'm firing back. Now he's starting to like,

Starting point is 02:24:56 now he's starting to hit me. And so the rounds over. I go back to my corner. My lips are blue. The altitude and that one shot literally took everything out of me. But in my mind, I did it. I'm here. I did it. And Julio, he's training for his fight. He looks over at me. He says, otro? You want another and i said si mas and we did another one and then in the second round that he really started like he was having fun but he was starting to tag me pretty good and you could tell jose suleiman is watching this and he's saying a minute and a half into the round, ring the bell, ring the bell, before we have a gringo casualty on our hands. That's right. And so the bell rings, I go back to the corner and we embrace. He was really wonderful about it because what was cool about what he did was he treated me, now that I think about it, he treated me like the assistant to President Johnson treated

Starting point is 02:26:08 me. He didn't laugh. He saw my punches coming. He saw what I could handle. And then when he saw that I had outfoxed him for a second, he said, okay, I'll lift the game, but I'm not here to level them. And so it was a really wonderful experience. I mean, they had been teasing my wife, asking her how much insurance we had and stuff like that. But at the end, he really rose to a high level in the way he handled the whole thing. Because at the end of it, I walked out of it after going through everything I did. I pushed myself as far as I could go. I got hit in the liver and I came back. So now it's just a good story. When you spoke to your wife after the two rounds later that night, or whenever you actually had a chance to decompress and be by yourselves, how did she describe what was going through her head as she watched

Starting point is 02:27:05 you guys after the first bell ring? I think she was pretty scared. I think she probably was watching with her hands over her eyes, but with her fingers spread so that she could see. And I think she was really proud. And you know And the thing about it is you realize it's not so much about winning and losing. Although my kids, it's crazy, because my kids hear the story, and they tell their friends in junior high school or whatever, and their friends are like, did he win?

Starting point is 02:27:40 They have no concept. But the thing is, I did win because I confronted myself. I had to go up those rickety steps every day. I had to get the crap beaten up out of me every day in order to learn how to duck a punch. And I did. I pushed myself as far as I could go. And now I get a great story out of it. And there's no more when I I talk about the golden gloves,

Starting point is 02:28:05 it's just a funny part of the story. It's not something that eats at me anymore. I need that part of the story to set up the ending. So I'm thankful that happened to me because without that, without a, I wouldn't have done B, which led to C. That's a healthy way to think about a lot of things.

Starting point is 02:28:23 I suppose if people, even if they're not storytellers or writers, if they think about their mishaps or some of the challenges they've had is the part A they needed to set up part B. You know what? It is a great way of looking at life. And man, I have taken a beating so many times. And one of the great things about telling stories is when you realize that, okay, this beating I just took, maybe I can use that to get an advance from a magazine to do something cool. And again and again, I use my mistakes, foibles, humiliating moments to come back and try to make some sense of them and triumph over those moments. And again, you don't have to be perfect.

Starting point is 02:29:17 You don't have to win. But you have to look deep inside yourself and know that I respect myself for this. And to this day, like I really do it. It gets complicated when people look at the picture, I get a big picture at home of me hitting Julio and people look at it and it looks real. It looks authentic.

Starting point is 02:29:42 It is real. It is real, but it, it lends people to say, what happened? What was the result? The result was I survived. So Cal, there are so many more stories that even if not on tape, I will have to ask you about, but perhaps we'll do a round two.

Starting point is 02:30:01 I mean, we have to talk at some point about Muhammad Ali. We have to talk about Trump. We have to talk about De Niro. There's so many other things. The James Beard Award, I mean, the list goes on and on, but I know you have a dinner to get to. Do you have a little bit of time for some of my customary rapid fire questions? I love those questions. All right. I hope I have rapid fire answers. They don't have to be. So that's the whole twist on the phrasing of the rapid fire questions.

Starting point is 02:30:29 The questions can be rapid fire, but your answers can be as long as you would like them to be. I love those questions. All right. So the first that I usually start with is when you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind and why? And you mentioned him during the course of this interview. There are two people. One is this kid, Alex Benayan, who's 23 years old. He was in school at USC, and his parents had basically raised him to be a doctor to the point where during Halloween when he was a kid, they would dress him up in scrubs. Just get the point. That's where you're headed. And he gets to college and he's got a stack of biology books next to him and he just can't do it. He's really smart, but he's just not linked to it. And he starts to wonder, what am I doing here? He's going to school at USC. It's a great school. And he starts to wonder about this word success. And he goes to the library and starts to look at biographies of people who he deemed to be successful to see what the definition of success was. And he's reading biography after biography. And he realizes that the book that I'm looking for doesn't exist.

Starting point is 02:31:47 I need to go out and to interview these people to find out what they think success is. And so he did. And on his journey, one of the people that he went to interview was Larry King. And he actually met Larry outside of Whole Foods, went running down. He saw Larry pushing his shopping cart, went running down the street, Larry King, scared the bejesus out of Larry, and asked if he could interview Larry. And Larry invited him to breakfast. And when he arrived, Alex said, I'm writing a book and Larry said to Alex, well, if you're writing a book, then you should talk to this guy. You should talk to Cal because he's written two of my books with me

Starting point is 02:32:34 and he can help you. So Alex did get to sit down to talk with Larry, but I became very close with Alex at that point. So when I think of success, I think of everything Alex was trying to find out. That's one. The second is another boxer, George Foreman, who you might remember.

Starting point is 02:32:57 My mom's favorite boxer. Really? Oh, yeah. Because she remembers old George. The old George. Now, the old George was a bigger Mike Tyson. Oh, my God. Terrifying.

Starting point is 02:33:07 Tyson was, what, six feet maybe? George Foreman was 6'3", 220, and just had a string of vicious knockouts and won the heavyweight title by knocking Joe Frazier down six times. One time, he literally hit him with an uppercut and uprooted Joe Frazier like he was a tree stump. It looks like a superhero movie. For people, I'm sure you can find footage of it, but if you look at George Foreman, Frazier, knock down or knock out, the footage is unbelievable. And you're looking at somebody there who George Foreman grew up in a very tangled situation. His personality was formed, one, by living in poverty.

Starting point is 02:33:52 He would go to school in the mornings with a brown paper bag that had no food in it, and he would blow it up to make it look like there was food in it so he wouldn't be embarrassed in front of the other kids. On top of that, his siblings, his sisters, would make fun of him. He was younger. They would say, you're a mo-head. You're a mo-head. And George Foreman had no idea what a mo-head meant, but he knew it wasn't good. And he would hear that and he would chase his sisters around when he heard, you're a mo-head, you're a mo-head. And finally, years later, he grew that and he would chase his sisters around when he heard, you a mohead, you a mohead. And finally, years later, he grew up and he found out what they were saying.

Starting point is 02:34:31 George Foreman's mom was married to Mr. Foreman, but they separated for a while. While they were separated, her mom went off with a guy named Leroy Moorhead, conceived George, conceived George, and then went back to Mr. Foreman. And so when he was born, his siblings who were Foremans were calling you a Moorhead, you a Moorhead. And so there was this angry part of George. Very angry. To the point where he told me people would be scared to ask him for an autograph. When he would walk into a place, people would look down. And he had this surliness was a big

Starting point is 02:35:16 part of his demeanor. And when he went to fight Muhammad Ali in Zaire, he was an undefeated champ, people feared for Ali's life. And in fact, Ali would not watch George Foreman hit the heavy bag. It was too scary. This guy could hit that hard. And what Ali saw was George Foreman had so much anger in him that when he came out, he just came out to bludgeon whoever was in front of him. And Ali had a sense that if he could make Foreman expend his energy and not land those punches, have them punches come off his arms, if he could infuriate Foreman to the point where Foreman lost his cool and punched himself out, he figured out a way to win. And naturally, in the heat of Africa, it was basically Ali set this thing up perfectly. Foreman arrived with a German shepherd, not knowing that the Zaireans

Starting point is 02:36:16 had in their history a memory of German shepherds being brought in by the Belgians to keep them under control. So the Zairens immediately hated George Foreman. And a chant grew out of it, Ali Boumaie, Ali, kill him. And the bell rang, and George Foreman came at Ali, and Ali didn't move. He just kept his back against the ropes with his hands up. This was the rope-a-dope? This was the rope-a-dope. And George Foreman is just slugging away. And Ali would open his guard up just a little, and close his guard. Foreman just getting more and more infuriated. Just punch after punch, first round, second round. Those of us who are watching, and I was watching on closed circuit television on a big screen in St. Louis at the time, you're almost crying because you were screaming at Ali, get out of the way, dance,

Starting point is 02:37:10 do something. We couldn't see what was happening, that he was just, he kept talking to George. We couldn't hear him talking. Oh man, that's it? That's all you got? Foreman is just throwing shot after shot after shot. And then all of a sudden, in like the fourth round, you see Foreman throw a shot and Ali just duck under it and then just throw a jab straight back in Foreman's face and Foreman's head snapped back. And we realized, oh my God, he's punched himself out. As the fight continues, a few more rounds, Ali nails him in one hand, and it's so hot. Foreman's exhausted. Ali nails him with a right hand. Foreman goes down, can't beat the count, and he's crushed. It must be akin to what Ronda Rousey, for those who are younger and watch mixed martial arts,

Starting point is 02:38:00 what Ronda Rousey went through after her recent defeat. You think somebody is invincible, and then all of a sudden, they're on their back. One head kick later. That's right. And George Foreman, for like 20 years, could never get another title shot. He retired. And he did something, and he told me what he did. And he said, this is the hardest thing when you talk about success. I asked him a question about success, and he said, the hardest thing you can do

Starting point is 02:38:29 in life is to change your character. And basically, in his early 40s, he came back to boxing. But he was completely different. He was no longer the surly guy. He was a guy who would do ads for eating hamburgers, smiling and laughing. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I remember his, I want to say I remember his comeback sort of promotional videos where he'd be going for his boxing run and people would be handing him food. That's right. That's right.

Starting point is 02:39:01 That's right. And he starts his comeback at, I think, more than 300 pounds. Big guy. He's a big guy and he starts his comeback at i think more than 300 pounds big guy he's a big guy and he's in his 40s but it's what he changed in his head now he was smiling what did he do to change that he realized that surliness and that anger is what brought him down against Muhammad Ali, right? So fast forward, he's 45 years old, and he gets a heavyweight title fight against a guy 20 years younger named Michael Moore. Oh, I remember. Southpaw.

Starting point is 02:39:37 Southpaw, who is much faster, a little lighter, but should be able to move around George with ease and just put punches into George's face without George being able to respond. But here's the thing. Foreman came into the ring wearing the exact red trunks that he was wearing when Ali hit him and put him down. And when Moore's trainer saw that, he recognized it and thought, uh-oh, something's up here. And basically, George didn't waste any energy. He rearranged his character. And Moore, the first nine rounds, just completely outboxed him, moved around. George just kept his hands up, tried to land, could barely even land. And his face started to get swollen. And the 10th round started and his trainer, who coincidentally was Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's trainer,

Starting point is 02:40:40 who was in the opposing corner in Zaire, basically said to him, George, you're way behind. You got to do something. And George just kept moving forward and without wasting energy, just saw one moment and he threw a right hand and he still had the power. He still had everything that he had when he was young power-wise and he clipped Moyer straight on the jaw, and Michael Moore went down and couldn't beat the count. And Foreman went over to the corner, got down on his knees, thanked the Lord. And to me, that was a symbol of success because he needed to change who he was in order to have that success. And he did it at 45. So that's the best answer I can give you.

Starting point is 02:41:32 Ah, love George Foreman. This just reinvigorated so much more enthusiasm about learning more about George. And I remember, ah, it brings back so many memories. Because I remember that fight also, I want to say George used what I want to say was the crab defense. In other words, he didn't hold his forearms together perpendicular to the floor, but they were kind of crossed over in front of his face. Such a good story. Well, it was all designed to, he knew he was going to endure punishment and he knew he had to do it in a way that expended the least amount of energy, and he knew he just had to put himself in the right position to land that one shot. So it's a beautiful story to see somebody take their weakest point and do something within themselves to change who they are.

Starting point is 02:42:27 And the history repeats itself. Irony of that fight that he won also is that Michael was known as a very angry guy, had a criminal record and probably lost for some of the same reasons. That's right. In fact, I'd have to go back and watch the fight, but I'm sure his trainer who was like aware was probably saying, you know, you're way ahead, take it easy, stay away. And he probably said, what are you crazy? I got this under control. Boom, one shot. Yeah. Incredible. What is the book or books you've given most as gifts other than your own, which obviously for people listening, you know that I'll link to everything in the show notes as well.

Starting point is 02:43:08 Hard question to answer because it's almost like wine. Every meal, you're going to have another experience with different people, different food. So if I meet somebody, I like to give books that I've loved. And like I mentioned, meeting Alex, and he says to me, he didn't know how to write a book. And he's like, I want to write a great book. You could just tell it was bursting out of him. And so I gave him Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude for him to know, okay, if you've never written a book and you're going to tell somebody you want to write a great book, all right, read this and know what a great book is. And so my gifts tend to judge what the person needs and then fill that need. And they're no different in wine. If somebody's having a steak,

Starting point is 02:44:04 I'm probably not going to give them a Riesling. I'll give them something to complement the steak. and then fill that need. And they're no different in wine. If somebody's having a steak, I'm probably not going to give them a Riesling. I'll give them something to complement the steak. So I'll give you a more specific circumstance. So let's say that someone came to you and they said, you know what? I'm a board billionaire, and I want to give three books to every graduating high school senior in the country this year. Wow. What a question. Okay. One book that people should read. And in fact, I got it with me right now. One of the blurbs on this book actually says, as Toni Morrison, this is required reading. Wow. That's a strong endorsement. Yeah. And Toni Morrison's a great endorsement. Yeah. And Toni Morrison's

Starting point is 02:44:45 a great African-American writer. And this book is called Between the World and Me. And it's by a guy named Ta-Nehisi Coates. And it's a letter to his son about being a black male in America. And I think it is required reading just because if we want to understand what is going on, we see what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. It just seems like it's a month after month after month, we see protests and problems. And this is just a way of redirecting your eyesight to a place that you normally wouldn't go. And it's an amazing thing about this book because as I'm reading it, I was walking down the street and I passed a news box with the Los Angeles times in it. And on the front page, there was this statistic that said that basically every juvenile that's incarcerated in, in the state of California,

Starting point is 02:45:54 it costs us $260,000 a year. And you, more than any Ivy league education. There you go. And think of that. If you took that money and put it into lifting that same kid, who knows what would happen? You know, there's DNA involved. There's a lot of stuff involved. But it just made me realize, why aren't we putting the resources in before rather than just paying this money out? We don't

Starting point is 02:46:28 even know that we're putting it out. And so it's just a book that makes you see the world differently. Another book that I would recommend, it's a book that I'm reading now. And just for those people wondering, Between the world and me, this is a short book. This is about 130 pages, National Book Award winner. I will order that as soon as we finish this chat. The second book, is it okay if I give you two? You can do two. I can do two?

Starting point is 02:46:56 Just because these are two that I'm reading now. So it's just hot off the press. It's a book called Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln. I'm carrying it around with me as well. This is amazing. Yeah. You hit me at the right time with this question. It's written by James C. Humes. And there's, for anyone who wants to speak, and if you're a high school senior, at some point, you're going to have to get up and speak.

Starting point is 02:47:28 It's a great book because there's all kinds of tips on everything about speaking. Subtitle, 21 Powerful Secrets of History's Greatest Speakers. There's this great anecdote in this book that really helped me as I was preparing to give my speech because it's preparing to give my speech, because it's hard to memorize a speech. And then I'm reading about Ronald Reagan, known as a great communicator, American president. Well, you know, when he spoke, he riveted people. And when he was a young man, again, we're talking about basically the same age as the people you just mentioned. What would you recommend for the high school senior?

Starting point is 02:48:07 Actually, Reagan was just getting out of college, and he got a job in radio in Iowa. And he was very good conversationally on the air, but then it came time to read the advertisements. And for some reason, he was so stiff and awkward reading these advertisements that the advertisers basically said, get him off the air. And they fired him. And he went back to his room and he's like feeling horrible about it because he loved being on the radio. He loved communicating. And he wondered, what can I do in order to get my job back? So I guess FDR was doing the fireside chats and he realized how riveting those were. So he got those chats and he started to read them. But what he did was he would look at the words and then almost memorize the phrase in his head, then look up, and then say the words conversationally. So he wasn't trying to memorize them by reading it off the page.

Starting point is 02:49:17 He would just take a few of the words, then look up, give you those words, look down. He would never speak while he was looking down. And then he went back to radio and that's how he did his advertisements and it worked. So it's a great, the book is just filled with little tips like that, that will make it so much easier for anybody who's got to get up and give a speech. I am going to get another book for my list. Do you have any favorite documentaries or movies? You know, it's a really interesting question. I probably would have told you that there's a movie, Cinema Paradiso.

Starting point is 02:49:58 Oh, great. You love that movie? Great film. Okay. I would mention that, but something happened to me recently where a documentary and a movie came together that provided this amazing experience. The documentary was called Man on Wire, and it was about Philippe Petit's walk on a wire across the towers of the World Trade Center. And it's an amazing documentary. Everything that he had to go through to, almost like a spy or an espionage agent, figure out

Starting point is 02:50:27 how to get up on the roof. We're not even talking about how do you walk a rope? That's one thing. But then to wonder, how do you get to the top of the World Trade Center as it's being built and get a wire from one side to the other to stabilize it at night when nobody's watching. And the documentary takes you through the whole thing. It's just amazing. And the way they pieced it together with the alternating sort of black and white reenactments, just the cinematography and the pacing is genius.

Starting point is 02:51:00 Yeah, it's definitely my favorite documentary. But then, last year, Robert Zemeckis did a movie called The Walk. Is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt? That's right. I haven't seen it yet. Oh, here's the thing. I saw this movie nine times. The Walk? The Walk. I saw this movie nine times, but you gotta see it on 3D IMAX because one of the innovative things about this film on 3D IMAX is you literally feel like you are on the wire. I mean, people left the theater vomiting.

Starting point is 02:51:38 I knew everything about that story because, as you mentioned, i worked at windows of the world so when i was serving wine at the top of windows of the world every day i was looking down at basically what philip petite was looking down at when he was crossing this wire and i seen the documentary so i knew that basically not only did he walk on the wire, but he laid down on the wire on his back. Unbelievable. And then the police are coming and the police had been like haunting him for years because wherever he would try and juggle or walk the wire in order to get people to give change, they would be trying to chase him away. And so he had this cat and mouse game going with the police all these years. And now he's on the wire more than 100 stories above New York City.

Starting point is 02:52:29 And the police are there and they can't touch him. He can do whatever he wants on this wire. And so like the tables are turning. And yet in this movie, when he steps on that wire, I knew everything that was going to happen on that walk. I'm begging him. No, don't do it. Don't do it. Please don't do it. I completely suspended my disbelief. And let me tell you how much. I started taking people night after night to see this movie again and again, because I want to gauge their reactions.

Starting point is 02:53:02 Gave them motion sickness pills beforehand. I told, I warned him. I say, if you got a fear of heights, don't come. Go watch Robert De Niro and The Apprentice or whatever they call that movie. What hit me was there's this one scene in the movie where he's learning how to walk the tightrope. And this is back in France. That's where he's from. And he's like two steps away from getting back to the platform.

Starting point is 02:53:28 And he slips and has to catch the wire with his hand. And he's like 50 feet above ground or something. And he manages to get back to the platform. And he comes down and his teacher is there. And his teacher basically says to him, it's the last two steps. The people who die, they die in those last two steps. Remember that. And in fact, Philippe Petit was paying him to get those lessons.

Starting point is 02:53:57 And when Philippe Petit went to give him money for that lesson, the teacher said, no, this lesson you get for free. This doesn't cost you anything. So I knew this story cold. I'd read his book. I'd seen the documentary many times, and I'm watching this film. And when he falls down early on to get that lesson, it's shot in a way where the pole literally comes out of the screen right at your head. Okay. So the first time you're just swooning, not swooning, you're swaying immediately like to the right or the left to get out of the way. Okay. So now I'm watching the second time. I know this pole is

Starting point is 02:54:37 coming at my head every time on the ninth time poles coming straight at my head. I'm ducking out of the way. It was that visceral and experienced. And the direction was just amazing. I love the acting. And so if you can see that movie on 3D IMAX, please do. It's just wonderful. Well, I guess I'll put out a call or a request to perhaps the people involved with

Starting point is 02:55:06 making that film, if they happen to be listening or if you know the people involved, since people might not get to see the theatrical release in 3D, talk to the people working with virtual reality, get in touch with the Oculus folks or some of these other studios, Daiquiri or whomever might be able to translate some of this to an immersive experience for folks. Because that's coming down the pike too. Wow. That'd be beautiful.

Starting point is 02:55:30 You know, I feel like we're just going to have to do a round two sometime, but I'll ask- You know, I'm going to come back anytime. I'll ask three more. Okay. If you could have a billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would you put on it? One word. Listen.

Starting point is 02:55:45 Listen. I don't know what reaction that would get, but I would like to see the reaction on people's faces when they saw that. Because I think that listening is not an art form. Well, it is an art form. People just aren't using it as an art form, but it is an art form. And a lot of great things could be achieved through listening. What advice would you give your 30-year-old self? And if you could place us again where you were at 30. Okay.

Starting point is 02:56:26 I would not give myself one word of advice, and I'll tell you why. Because if I would have given myself that advice at 30, it would have moved me maybe one centimeter in one direction that put my life in a different place. And I needed to be on a very specific seat, on a very specific bus, at a very specific time in order to meet the woman that became my wife and as the mother of my kids. So I couldn't have that moved in any way. I needed everything to happen just the way it did in order to have that moment, in order to have the rest of my life. So after that, I'm sure there are times where I have given myself advice. Really, the time I needed advice was when I was in college and there was so much offered and so little I took advantage of. What would your advice be to either your kids or to people going into college?

Starting point is 02:57:27 They say, Uncle Cal, what should I take? I just don't even know what to do with myself. Okay. Paradox of choice. I can't figure it out. If they want to travel, you get a chance to learn like four languages, five languages, and it's going to be so relaxed. All you got to do is just go into the class and then meet somebody from the opposite sex who speaks the language. And you're going to be going out and talking in the new language. And you could do that over and over again in college. You got that time. One of the things, if it was me knowing that I wanted to be a writer or knowing that I'm now going to be speaking and I'm going to be speaking about questions that people ask when they're hiring, I would love to have studied human behavior. Because I know that when a company is looking to fill a job,

Starting point is 02:58:30 if the person doing the interview understands the role that needs to be filled and understands human behavior, they can ask questions to the applicants that will fill that role in a really good way. That's my hunch. Have you ever heard the story of the book that Newt Gingrich used to navigate politics, at least one that he's credited with a lot of whatever success he's had? Chimpanzee politics. I'm not kidding. I am not kidding. I'm going to write that one down. I'm going to go home and order. I am not kidding. So what about as a writer or to a kid who's graduating from college and says to himself or herself, should I go on to get my MFA or continue to say, go to a specialty journalism school or writing school? If they'd only taken maybe one or two classes

Starting point is 02:59:23 that required a lot of writing, what advice would you give to them? I would tell them just write. And the great thing about it is, okay, I'm not knocking the schooling because as we talked about earlier, I owe everything to the University of Missouri Journalism School. It set me on my way and then the connections. On the other hand, all you need to do to be a writer is to write. And not only that, but all you need to do is to find places that are interested in taking your writing. Doesn't have to be for much money, but you can go out, especially now. You don't even need a physical publication. Now you can just create a blog on the internet, just start writing. So I would advise people to just, if you want to be a writer,

Starting point is 03:00:13 write and just keep writing and keep writing. If you have the means and the will to go to school and get a teacher or teachers that can help you through even better, but nothing should really stop you from writing. And you shouldn't use, well, I need to go to school first as an excuse to put off writing. I need to make the school make me right. You make you right. Yeah. You don't have that intrinsic motivation. It's going to be hard to make anything happen because you won't always have a school teacher to whack you with a ruler. That's right.

Starting point is 03:00:48 And not only that, but the other thing is just put yourself in a position where you have no money and you need to write something to make money. If you need to eat, unless you can find a bar that's putting out olives and little ticket fingers, you're going to write and get paid so that you can eat. I remember talking to a friend of mine who's journalist, writes for a number of very well-known newspapers. And he always laughs when he has to listen to book authors like myself sort of whinge and pontificate about writer's block and he just scoffs at the whole idea he's like i don't have the luxury of having writer's block he's like i have a deadline

Starting point is 03:01:32 a deliverable or whatever it is you know 4 p.m 5 p.m he's like no i can't muse about the subtleties of writer's block because i mean he has to ship like he has to he has to ship words every day or whatever it might be every week. What are your thoughts on writer's block? If that's not too general a question. No, I only had it once. Okay. I only had it once.

Starting point is 03:02:00 And what happened was I was writing for Esquire and working on a column called The Perfect Man. And the idea was basically in line with this conversation. I was going to take all my flaws and all my mistakes and then go to experts who were going to teach me how to overcome them. And then I was going to write about the experience so that everybody could have the collected wisdom. And so I learned how to walk through using Alexander technique. I learned how to publicly speak by going in a boxing ring with Michael Buffer and announcing a fight. Sounds like a fun gig. That was great. I learned how to lose weight by going to Jack LaLanne, who was the exercise champion of his day. And I went through, learned how to barbecue through Stephen Reikland, author of the Barbecue Bible. And one of the last things I did was go to learn about wine.

Starting point is 03:02:49 Because if you are a man, you want to have a feeling that you can go into a restaurant with a group of people, the wine list comes to you, and you don't feel like, oh, man, what am I going to do? I don't know what's what here. And then you don't know if the waiter is going to try and unload a lousy bottle that they can't sell on you or a bottle for a lot of money. You're helpless. So I wanted to learn enough to know how to walk into a restaurant with confidence and

Starting point is 03:03:22 order what I want. And the solution to that was to be trained to be the sommelier for a night at Windows of the World, which sold for a time more wine than any other restaurant on the planet at the top of the World Trade Center. And I had no idea where this adventure was going to send me, but it took me two years to learn all about wine. Because you then find out you have to go to these places where they make the wine, and you have to understand the difference between all of the varietals and the wine list of windows of the world. It was hundreds of pages. To know all those wines, it was almost impossible, but you start to get an idea.

Starting point is 03:04:07 And I had world-class sommeliers teaching me. And for one night, I was the sommelier at Windows on the World. It was an amazing experience. One of the great things I did is I had a guy who I knew come in. He brought his wife. It's like the first couple of the evening. And I seated them right next to a window. So you're looking down on New York from 106 stories or whatever. And I had a bottle of champagne, L'Ordeau champagne from France, which it basically was

Starting point is 03:04:41 like a $10 bottle of champagne. But nobody knew that. And this had been served at the Assemblée Nationale in France. It was like a basic bottle of champagne. But I took it out to their couple. They were celebrating their anniversary. And I walked over with a flourish. And I announced that I was serving Lordeux champagne and that it had never been served

Starting point is 03:05:06 at these heights before and it would never be served at these heights again. This woman looks at me. She didn't know who I was. Her husband did. She just broke out in tears. Then the husband had never tasted the champagne before, but they both poured it. They both put it up and oh, cow, like we never knew what champagne was before this moment. And it teaches you that the wine and the moment are inextricably linked. And I can take a great moment and make a great wine out of it. And I can take a great wine and make a great moment out of it. In any event, the evening transpired and it was great, but it was profound. It was also funny. I'd spill wine on people's, down a glass

Starting point is 03:05:53 because I had to be moving really quick. There was a lot of people. And I, ah, that's inexcusable. That should never happen here. That bottle is on the house. And everybody at the table, oh, this is great. And people at the adjacent table saying, come over here, spill some here, spill some here. And we get through the night. It's a delightful time and really memorable.

Starting point is 03:06:33 Now I go home to write the story and I start to go through my notes because it's taken me two years to get this experience and the planes crashed into the world trade center and i remember going to the ground zero like a week later the military took me around in a humvee and i guys still was so overwhelmed that I was almost knocked out when I saw it. Because I remember seeing like there was this thin coat of white dust over everything. And you could see in a parking lot this coat of dust over the cars. And I actually said to the guy in the army who was taking me around, I said, why don't those people come back and get their cars? And he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, Cal, those cars don't have any owners anymore. And it's very hard to explain the enormity, but I just couldn't write. How could I translate this experience of utter joy, learning all about this amazing beverage that transformed lives, meeting all these friends along the way, wherever you would

Starting point is 03:07:37 go, it was like traveling around the world again. It would just open up a party and that party would invite you to another party and another party and another party. And so there I am having this amazing experience. And then on top of it, for one night, I was the sommelier. And not only that, but at the end or toward the middle of the night, somebody, like people were pressing $20 in my hand. They thought I was really the sommelier. And a few days later, somebody who came in that night, and nobody knew that I wasn't

Starting point is 03:08:11 the real sommelier. Somebody came in like three days later and asked for me. And so I was feeling so good about the experience. And right after that, the planes came in and took the towers down. And now I've got to write the story about this. And the editor, he now knows. He's basically bankrolled this thing for two years. Same guy who bankrolled me going up against Julio Cesar Chavez bankrolled the wine story.

Starting point is 03:08:39 I'm flying around the world. He's the wines in France, wines in Italy, the wines in Germany, going to California. And he allowed me to go through the whole experience. And now he knows something amazing has got to come out of this. Because I saw how much he put in. And we all know this seminal moment in American history. So he's got to step up to it. And I couldn't. I would stare in front of the computer for hours at a time and nothing would come out. Like my eyes would be bleeding. And every time I would have to go into the office to see the editor, like I knew, we both knew, like, where's the story?

Starting point is 03:09:28 Where's the story? Years started passing. And he started to do things to try to like help me and push it out of me, whether it was lighthearted or hey, you know, it's like years now, the movie Sideways, which is about wine, had come out. Wine is really hot now. Now is the time. So the editor is really trying to push the story out of me in the best way he can. Might be lighthearted with a little offhanded joke. It might be, hey, come on, it's years now.

Starting point is 03:10:01 We're waiting for the story. Movie Sideways comes out. It's a big hit in the wine world. And now he's saying, you know, this is the time that the story needs to come out. I can't do it. I go to the computer almost night after night and it's the most painful thing

Starting point is 03:10:18 because I never had writer's block before, but there was just nothing that would come out of me. It just wasn't, it was like a nothing that would come out of me. It just wasn't, it was like a wine that wasn't ready to be served. It needed to be in the barrel, only you don't know how long it needs to be in the barrel and you're feeling all this guilt. And finally, I just took all my, I had these copious notes in boxes and I put them down in the basement. Just, okay, let me just get it out of my face. Because every time I would go into my office, I would see these boxes and I would just flinch.

Starting point is 03:10:52 Oh, it seems like a huge, just anxiety trigger. Yeah. I mean, the undone homework assignment. The ultimate undone homework assignment that your boss has basically bankrolled for a couple of years. And so you basically know that you can't go in with any more big ideas until that is completed. And so it really affected me, but there was nothing I could do about it. And I put these notes away in the basement.

Starting point is 03:11:24 And then we had this terrible ice storm. I was living in North Carolina at the time. And everything turned into mold in my basement. And all the notes got black. Oh. So I had like no notes of anything. Basically, everything had been wiped out. My notes were ground zero afterward. And now, like, how am I going to do this? But, you know, there was a writer who taught me something very early in my career. His name was Harry Cruz.

Starting point is 03:11:59 I don't know if you've ever heard him. No. He wrote a book called Feast of Snakes. And if you're a young man, and Harry Cruise also wrote for Esquire, if you're a young man and you don't even know how this book would translate now, but it was a real kind of macho- What was the name again? Feast of Snakes. He wrote another book called Car about a guy eating a car. This guy was out there. And as soon as I read these books, I just said, I got to meet this guy. I got to meet this guy. So I started to tell

Starting point is 03:12:34 people, you know, I'm going to go meet Harry Cruz. And people started looking at me saying, are you sure? I said, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, his drinking is legendary. Plus the amount of drugs that he puts in his body, you're not going to be able to stay with this guy. You're going to hurt yourself. And so naturally I get in my car, I drive 20 straight hours down to Gainesville, Florida. This is when I was living in New York. And I go drive right up to his house and knock on the door. And there's no response. Knock again, no response. And I could almost hear like a snoring.

Starting point is 03:13:15 So I just opened the door. Oh, my God. Florida. And Harry is laid out on a lazy boy chair with like an empty bottle of rum on his belly. And I get close to him and he just, his head is just moving around. He's like getting himself out of sleep. He said, what do you want? I said, like, Harry, I just read Feast of Snakes. I just drove 20 hours straight to see you. Well, why don't you drive over to Gator Gulch and let's get us some alcohol? I drive over to the Gator Gulch and I think that was what it's called, something like that. And they've already got like a carton filled with alcohol for me to bring back.

Starting point is 03:14:02 The usual. Yeah, the usual. The usual. I come back and we start drinking. And naturally, after a little while, I've just been driving for 20 hours. And now I'm drinking and I'm starting to float away. And he's getting more lucid. And this is before the drugs came out and I said to him, Harry, you're a writer. Do you keep a diary? How can you drink like this and do all these drugs and remember anything? And he looked at me and he smiled and he said, boy, the good shit sticks. And it was that line that saved me when I needed to write the wine story, because I always knew the good shit sticks, the moments that were truly great were the moments that I needed. And almost 10 years passed. And in a chance meeting with a woman who was in a position, it was a terrible position.

Starting point is 03:15:08 She had loved her husband. Her husband had died. She was alone. Time had passed. She was ready to go out and meet somebody again. And she said, I'm older. I've never really dated. I don't know what to do. And I said to her, join a wine class because you will meet people. And just by the way they talk about their wines, you're going to know if you should like them or not. And she said, wow, that's a good idea. And something in that conversation opened up a pathway. And then I was sitting, I went to a bar and I'm sitting down. And remember, this whole thing started with me just wanting to be able to give somebody instruction. When the wine list came before me, I could give the way to instruction. This is what I want without feeling like I didn't know what I was doing. So I have this conversation with the women and a couple of nights later, I said, you know

Starting point is 03:16:10 what? Let me, let me just write down the good shit, the good shit that stuck. And I'm sitting at a bar and I'm writing down all the stuff, the good shit that stuck. And the bartender's pouring drinks. And a waiter came back with a Italian dessert wine. And it was a white wine. And the waiter said to the bartender, the people, they don't like it. They say there's something wrong with it. And so it was Vincenzo. And so the bartender was a young guy, and I think that he really didn't know much about wine.

Starting point is 03:16:50 He was like a college kid to the bartender. And so he said, well, look, you know, Vincenzo, it's not cheap. And I said, wait a minute, let me smell that wine, because he brought the wine back. I said, pour a minute, let me smell that wine, because he brought the wine back. I said, pour me a glass. And so I swirled it around. I put it up to my nose, and I said, no, it's no good. And the way I said it, I must have said it with such conviction that the bartender said, oh, okay. You said it the same way that Jesus said his name to you in the locker room.

Starting point is 03:17:21 That's right. That's exactly it. I knew this wine was no good. And so the bartender said to me, well, like, how'd you know? And we got into a conversation and he had told me that he had been in a choir. He said, I'm not really a bartender. And he explained that when he was young, he was a singer and he had actually gone to the Vatican and sang in a

Starting point is 03:17:45 choir for the Pope. So I said, okay, fine. Then you understand this. When you put that wine to your nose, all right, listen to it. You can tell that as there's something certainly in the taste, maybe you can get it from the smell. It starts out okay, but there's somebody singing off key in there. And I don't know if it's the way the wine was stored, but in the middle of that taste of wine are off key notes. And I don't know, maybe the wine was a little corked. Maybe it was just the way they stored it. But as soon as he heard that, he realized that it translated for him.

Starting point is 03:18:26 And okay, when somebody in the choir's got a voice that isn't hitting what the rest of us are hitting, it's a problem. And he understood that. And he looked at me and he said, thanks. And I knew that was the end of the story. And as soon as he said it, I went to the keyboard and I wrote the whole thing out. Do you recall the title of the piece? Yeah. It's called Drinking at 1300 Feet. Drinking at 1300 Feet.

Starting point is 03:18:54 Yeah. Cal, you're a great man. You're a very, very generous person. And I want to let you get to your dinner and would love to direct people to where they can find you and more about you because you've spent a lifetime gathering, unearthing, and telling other people's stories. Of course, you've told some of your own,

Starting point is 03:19:17 but I want to hear more and more of these stories. Next time, I feel like we should have some wine. Okay. Next time, we will do this with wine. But where can people find you online? Okay, they can go to calfussman.com. That's C-A-L-F-U-S-S-M-A-N.com. Dot com.

Starting point is 03:19:35 And send a message. I'm just starting to speak. Anybody interested in listening to some stories or getting tips on interviewing or tips on interviewing or tips on interviewing for a job, I'm here. Go to the website and they can click on the contact form or something like that to let you know.

Starting point is 03:19:53 Are you on social media at all? Not really. This is all like a new adventure for me. I don't even know how to promote myself. It's just happening. Maybe I can give you the choir acapella analogy version of this type of thing. Cal, this is so much fun. I always love our conversations. And as always, thank you so much for taking the time. It's a beautiful experience. I hope we have many more. And

Starting point is 03:20:18 let me tell you something. You are really good at what you do. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants and you've been very, very generous with, with your time and with your advice. So I really do appreciate it. And for everybody listening, thank you for listening. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then

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Starting point is 03:23:58 off. That's livemomentous, L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com slash Tim and code Tim for 20% off. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. I have been using Eight Sleep pod cover for years now. Why? Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heat wave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive, pulling the sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #743: Dr. Jane Goodall and Cal Fussman

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