The Tim Ferriss Show - Ep 58: How to Create a Blockbuster Podcast (Part 1)

Episode Date: January 29, 2015

How do you create a blockbuster podcast? This episode explores the tips, tricks, and best practices of a master. My guest is Alex Blumberg, who cut his teeth on the king of all radio shows (This American Life) and recently co-founded Gimlet Media. Gimlet swiftly conquered the iTunes rankings with two blockbuster podcasts: Reply All and StartUp. Podcasters everywhere asked: how the hell does he do it? This episode provides some answers. The discussion is split into two parts, and we cover a ton. Please listen to both parts, as they work together. We discuss what Alex learned from Ira Glass, his field recording gear, the nuts and bolts of producing world-class audio narrative, and much more. Part 2 also features a preview (5 min) of my episode with Arnold Schwarzenegger! Show notes and links mentioned can be found at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alex, welcome to the show. Alex? Optimal minimum. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

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So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where I deconstruct world-class performers of all sorts of types, ranging from billionaire investors to chess prodigies, to actors, to writers, to athletes and everything in between. In this episode, we have a real treat, and it's a two-part episode with Alex Bloomberg, who is very well known as a producer for This American Life, co-host of Planet Money, and also the co-founder of Gimlet Media, which has currently two blockbuster podcasts, Startup and Reply All. And in the first part, which you're currently listening to,

we are going to talk to Alex about all sorts of aspects of the business of storytelling, the art of storytelling, including gear that he uses, etc. The second part is going to be an excerpt from a class that he taught on creativelive.com. Normally costs about $100. And I advise that company. So I was able to pull out about a half hour of his teaching a class about the art of the interview, crafting the perfect question, etc. That is part two. I implore you to listen to both. I really enjoyed this. And without further ado, please enjoy Alex Bloomberg. Alex, welcome to the show. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

And I have to start off because we have been scheduling and I know you're racing to get a show out the door. Does it ever get any easier? I hope so. I really hope so. It is it has been Yeah, I, it's just been, I mean, it's sort of an insane project what I'm doing, which is trying to, you know, create a regularly occurring documentary podcast about a company that's starting up, while at the same time trying to start that company. So it's been sort of like, it's, because both of them are sort of full-time jobs. Um, so yeah. And how do you, how do you balance, because I've listened to every episode of startup and have followed it very closely for a whole host of reasons. How do you balance the real time documentary nature of it, of the show with planning, say an editorial calendar and actually having things locked and

loaded and ready to go in advance? Oh, uh, well, I don't balance it. That's the problem. Like we don't have things locked and loaded and ready to go in advance. Like we don't, we, we were, uh, editing the, we were, we just finished editing this week's episode this morning, and then we just tracked it. That's why I was a little late with you. I was tracking it in the studio today, and then it will go up tonight. So that's how close to the wire we are. I mean we're just – things are – and you'll hear this episode is all about – it's all about burnout. And it's all about –

I was wondering when that episode would come yeah yeah um because there's a period where where i think there's a period in a company's life where people are like well this is just the startup this is the startup experience and then there's a point at which maybe like probably right about around where we are four or five months into it where you're like it's a startup but it shouldn't be this hard. And so, so we sort of realizing like we have to, we had to, we have to, we have to change some things. We have to add some more support. And part of it's just like, you just don't know, you know, like I didn't know.

I mean, you know, you don't know what's possible. And so, so we started out, I think we just didn't have enough capacity to do what we were trying to do. And what does your current team look like? Well, first question is, what is tracking? I'm still a novice at this, and I have a ton of questions. But what is tracking exactly? So when you're doing sort of a documentary-style podcast, which is sort of the kinds that we do where, where you're, we have a script. And so what I'll do is I'll go out and I'll gather tape in the field and I'll record different conversations with people and then I will edit those down. And so I have a

bunch of sort of like basically selects tape, tape that I've gathered and I've edited down and cut. So it's like, you know, I'll have like a, maybe like, you know, 25 minutes of edited edited tape and then what i have to do is stitch that together with a script and so i'll write the script and then we'll do edits on that script and so i'll read it aloud in the office we'll all sit around a table sort of like a table read i guess i'll sit around i'll read my script and i'll play the tape that i've cut from the computer where it's supposed to go in the story and then people give us notes on the script and sort of say, this part was dragging and this part should come earlier. And this part you can just totally get rid of.

It's boring, whatever. And then you rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. And then finally you get to the final script. And then you go into the studio and track it. And that's when you actually just lay down your voice tracks. And then those all get mixed together into the final product. Got it. And the, the, the actual reviewing of the tape. So you capture a lot of interview, uh, obviously, and I, in one of the episodes of startup, you had one of your employees

reviewing those tapes. Do you personally review those tapes or do you have someone do a first pass and attempt to pull out the interesting stuff? It goes both ways. I mean, usually I've been the one getting the tape. So I have heard it because I was there, you know, I was there, you know, with the microphone and the recorder. But usually it's my producer who actually does a first pass through and pulls all the selects But usually it's my producer who actually does the first pass through

and pulls all the selects. Got it. And what are the criteria for pulling the selects? What makes something worth being in the show? I think what you're asking, Tim, is what makes good tape, which is basically the question.

That's right. That's exactly what I'm asking. That's the question that has consumed my life for the best 20 years. So I have an answer for you. So I think, I think when, you know, one of the things that there's a couple of things that you're looking for when you're going through the tape. So because I have a script, because I'm narrating it, I can sort of say pretty much all the, all the basic information, usually better than anybody that I'm talking to. So what I'm going for better than anybody that I'm talking to. So what I'm going for are specific moments when I'm talking to people. I'm going for specific

moments that have some kind of deep emotional resonance or where something very live and unexpected has happened or where there is just very authentic emotion has been expressed. And those are the moments that I go for. It's almost sort of like if I'm talking to somebody about whatever, I don't know. Just to borrow an example from my Planet Money days, bond prices. What I don't want is somebody talking about bond prices. I want somebody expressing some sort of emotion about it, if that's possible. Because I can do all the nuts and bolts sort of information transfer.

And so what you're looking for in your interview subjects is something that you can't provide yourself, some unique perspective. The other thing that you're going for, the other thing – so that's one whole category of good tape is sort of like emotionally resonant, emotionally authentic or something where something interesting or unexpected has happened sort of in the moment. The other category is somebody just telling you a really good yarn, like a really good narrative. And so that's the other thing that we look for is sort of like sort of at This American Life,

we had a term for this. We just call it an anecdote. But what we really meant was a little story. And so, like, just for an example, if I start to talk to you and I say, you know, Tim, this morning I was leaving my house. I was walked out the door and I was like, I looked up in the sky and I saw something that I couldn't believe. Like, you want to hear what I said next, right? Right. It's a very unfulfilling story. So that's the story.

Like we are hardwired to be like one sequence of action, another sequence of action, and it's going to build towards something. We want to hear what it's building toward. And if I say to you, I saw something I couldn't believe, a cloud, you'd be like, that's a boring story. But if I said, you know, a UFO, then you're like, oh, that's an interesting story. So, but the mechanics of it, the fact that it's a story and it has a beginning and it sort of – and it has like a narrative progression and sort of, you know, sort of rising action. Human beings, I think, are sort of hardwired to want to pay attention to that. That's what we've been telling each other for 40,000 years. And so those are the other things you're going for is like people telling you stories. And the process – I'm so fascinated because I'm struggling with this myself.

The process of putting together an episode, especially when you currently have the real the real time aspect of it, which seems to complicate matters tremendously. Um, if, uh, how many people do you currently have working, working on each episode of let's just say startup and what are their roles? Yeah. I mean, so that's the thing about this stuff is that it's like, it's so much more time consuming than um than than the other sort of main kind of podcast which is out there which is a straight interview podcast like which we're doing which is which are also like all these elements can be possible in those kind of podcasts as well and so what we're doing is sort of so like i go back and forth like is this insane to be spending all this time producing 20 minutes of one kind of podcast when another kind of podcast you could produce in 20 minutes.

You know what I mean? And so what we have is we have – so right now on Startup, it's just me and my producer, Caitlin, and then another employee, Lisa, who's going to be producing the second season of Startup. That's not quite enough. Startup comes out every two weeks. So we can barely – and because I've been doing this for so long and I've internalized so much of this stuff, like I'm probably more productive at it than somebody else. But so we can barely – we're not quite getting by with that. But we would definitely need – you know, we need some more, we need another body or two for sure. And aside from the producer, you also have an engineer who does post cleanup and that

type of thing. Yeah. Sorry. So we have, yeah. So, so on staff is it's me and Caitlin, our producer and, and Lisa. And then we also have other people on staff who can help with the edit, which is a really, really important part of it. So there's other people. So then we'll usually have one or two other people sitting in to do the edit.

So where I sit around and do the table read, they'll give me notes and sort of say this part was slow, this part wasn't. So that's a really important thing. And then we also outsource our transcripts. So we have people logging all that tape so that it's easier to go through. So we have people providing transcripts of the tape. And then we have an engineer who mixes the episode, which is, you know, basically everything from doing all sorts of things that I don't understand, like putting compression on it and making it sound really good. But also just sort of like putting it all together, making it sound good, making the levels right, all that stuff. Got it.

And the one thing that struck me about reply all the other show that I've been listening to from, from gimmick media is, was listening to the launch of that and how the hosts decided to join forces with you. And one of the things they mentioned was wanting you as an editor or having you run to them, run to and from the two shows, working with them as an editor. Does that primarily mean that you're working on the script and reviewing the transcripts or what, what, what is, what are you doing as an editor? Yeah. I mean, I think what I think of myself as, and I think one of the reasons that I started this company, I think my primary skill, like the, probably if I had to say like, here's the thing that I am best at, it is at being an editor and being an editor means, um, that you like, and the way I think about it, it's sort of like from the beginning, it's basically being a collaborator with the hosts, with the talent to getting, you know,

the best show that you can get. And so I try to, so, you know, like what that means is that when we have a weekly story meeting for Reply All, where we'll sit around for, you know, we'll talk for two hours, we'll talk for an hour about, you know, what are the stories that they want to want to pursue. And we'll think about interesting angles to go at that story with, we'll decide if they're if it's worth it or not. And then we'll sort of plan like, okay, who do we want to talk to? Who would be some interesting people to talk to in this story? What questions do we want to ask them? Like the questions are really important. Like if you go out and you ask and you don't ask the right questions, you can come back with nothing, you can come back with nothing.

You can come back with no good tape. And so you have to sort of design your questions so that you're sort of giving yourself a higher chance than average of getting good tape. And then – so we do all that. And then when they do, when they come back and they write the script, then I'll go through the script with them. And usually we do at least one pass but but sometimes two and maybe even three passes, depending on how tricky a story is, where we'll really dive in deep and sort of get into the language and sort of say this, you know, you're saying this, but it's not quite right. And so it's just, it's, I mean, it's, I think when people see it for the first time from the outside,

it's like, they can't believe how much, how much actual work goes into the making of this stuff. And I'm not sure, you know, like one of the big questions is sort of like how much, like a lot of those shows have that amount of labor embedded in the programs that they're putting out. Like I come from This American Life, which is where I learned all this stuff. And like, you know, there's even more sort of editing and production work that goes into making those shows. And I know certainly Serial, they were working on that for a year at least. So, so, so it, you know, so, you know, so I, so I think it's related, but I'm not, I'm not sure.

Oh, it's massive. I mean, I, I was, I was blown away and not terribly surprised when I heard that Serial had a team working on it for a year prior to the launch. It didn't surprise me at all. I mean, as someone who's a very plotting writer himself, it didn't really surprise me. How did you decide? Well, actually, before I jump away from the editing, what do you do as an editor differently from other people? Because you're clearly very good at it. What do you do as an editor differently from other people? Um, I, well, I think. Because you're, you're clearly, you're clearly very good at it.

I mean, the output of the shows reflects that. So the question is, you know, maybe why aren't other people better editors or what do you do differently? Um, I think, I think there's a bunch of things like I, so I first, I think I learned, I think this American life was a real editing shop. And I think it was – it's a pretty special place. Like in that Ira is really – he's a really great editor. But he's also very encouraging to people to sort of do their own thing.

Like it's his show but he really encourages you to do your own thing within that show um so every when i worked there every story that i thought i that i wanted to do that i could that i could sort of make a good case for i was able to do and i was able to write it myself so i think part of being a good editor is being sort of is wanting to encourage others to sort of like is having that feeling that like if if we're on this together, I can take – my ego feels like I got some of the credit because I was in there from the beginning. But you're also happy to share the credit with the person who's doing the story. So I think part of it goes back to that, sort of how do I think of myself as an editor? And at This American Life, it was like sort of an elevated job.

And then I think partly it's sort of like when I got to NPR, I realized that like the conception of the job was, you know, your reporter goes out, they come back and then they play you a story and you're basically, it's not to time, it's to time. You know, you make a couple of suggestions.

I didn't understand this part, I didn't understand that part. But you're not like thinking big about like, well, what's the idea that we're trying to go towards with this story? What's the new thing are we trying to say? What's the interesting thing? What's the new thing that we're going for here? If we're doing a story that's been done a lot, like, I don't know, politics or homelessness or whatever it is, like something that you've heard about in the news a lot, race, like how are we going to talk about it in a different way,

in a news way, in a surprising way? And a lot of the work that makes a story good goes into the very beginning. And I think that's a lot of editors don't think about their jobs that way. And I think that's why it's – and so I think that helps me. You know, if I'm in there from the beginning and sort of talking about it, it's easier. The other thing – one other thing that I think about editing, and just quickly, is that, like, one of the biggest jobs of the editor

is just paying attention to your own boredom. You know, I think people who get into journalism get in because, like, I'm interested in the world and I have a natural curiosity and I want to satisfy that curiosity. But, you know, you gotta, you're still like, you've got to keep, keep your audience interested and, and, and the editor can help do that. Like the editor, if you, if you, you have to be curious about the world, but you also have

to know, like you have to have this sense and you're listening to your boredom. It's something that I had to learn to do, but once I did, it's, it's really helpful what are the symptoms of boredom so i i know that might sound funny but uh what are the things what are these symptoms of boredom that maybe you didn't listen to uh in the early days as much well i think you try to sort of like if there's some if somebody reads something that is like it's something that you like, that you work together. They're sitting across the table from you and they read something that doesn't – is like maybe like sort of a boring sentence or they've come through a boring thing or somebody is talking on tape and you don't quite know what they're saying or what the point is.

Because you like the person and because you're a human being with decent human emotions, you'll be trying to think that like, oh, well, probably what the person was saying was this and so therefore though that all makes sense because you make up for the reporter who's doing the read and that's good

that's decent human behavior to try to meet somebody halfway and be understanding and empathetic to what they're saying but there's something that happens on the radio or in audio when you're listening. The listener doesn't do that. And so you have to train yourself out of that instinct to make up, to sort of fill in the gaps with what people are saying.

So one sign is just this sort of glimmer of like, wait, I'm confused here. And it's often at the back of your head. You don't quite get it. But you have to pay attention to it because you sort of get what's going on. But there's like some, like, there's some question in your mind is like, is that the thing that's going on that I think is, I think it is, but it's a very, very slight, you have to train that to sort of come to the beginning of your brain, to the head, to the forefront of your brain, that feeling, because the minute that feeling happens,

you know, this is a spot that needs to be edited. And the other part is just sort of like, you know, you, you, you, you know, you find yourself drifting in an edit. And if you're drifting in an edit, it's not your fault. It's theirs. You know what I mean? That's harsh. But that's what you have to do. If I'm reading through and somebody who's listening to my story is drifting, that is my fault.

I have to keep you from drifting. And so the same thing is if the shoe is on the other foot, then the same thing is true. If you're the editor, your job is not to be engaged. Their job is to engage you. And, and so, and so you, so the minute you feel yourself drifting, that's another section that needs to be edited. you brought up things being unclear or hard to understand. When I found as a writer, when I send things to my friends who are writers to have them proof a chapter, if I ask them to indicate, if I first ask them to indicate what they like and dislike, they might try to appease me or feel badly about hurting my feelings. So I always start with just point out what isn't clear.

And that usually yields a much better result because it's, they don't feel like they're being as judgmental towards me personally. Right. So I always find that a really helpful place to start. And that's even more important in audio because audio is like, you can't go back and reread audio. You know what I mean? Well,

now in the age of on-demand audio, you can go back. This is truer back in the radio days when there was literally no mechanism to go back and relisten. But, but you, And so what happens is the minute you're listening, if you're confused, you're like, wait, what was that thing? And you try to figure in your brain what was the thing that was confusing you. And then your brain has taken its eye off the ball, basically, and had not listened to the next sentence that's coming out. And then it's like a train wreck. You never catch up. You know what I mean? So one moment of confusion can utterly destroy an otherwise beautiful story,

you know? And so you have to be on, you have to be on, you know, a special guard about that in audio, I think particularly. What, uh, what does a producer do? So this, this has come up quite a bit. You mentioned you have a producer, for instance. What does, for startup in particular, what does the producer do? What is their job? I know. It's one of those words like manager, which is like, wait, what's a manager? You know, you can, yeah.

So a producer, I think, also has many meanings. But in my case, what a producer does – so my producer helps me think through the interviews I'm going to do. Often we'll listen back through the tape, transcribe the tape sometimes or make sure that it's transcribed. She will pull the interesting pieces of tape. Usually we'll consult about it, but then she'll go and actually produce a session in the editing software that we use that has the pulls that we want. She'll also think through like how to structure each episode and all sorts of other things. Like when I was at This American Life, my job was producer. That was what I was called. And you basically help build the story with the reporter. You're really sort of like a partner in the creation of the story. And the reporter's voice is doing it and the reporter is often sort of like writing and in some cases finalizing the writing.

In some cases really doing most of the writing. But really you're a team. And structuring the story is so important, again, in audio especially, I think, just because you can get so confused easily. So generally what the producers are in the audio world, are they experts at sort of structuring the story? Like how does the story what's, how does the story begin and what are the emotional moments that we're leading to and how do we contextualize

those moments with script? So often when I was a producer at This American Life, we'd be working with writers who were really good writers who had not done that much audio. And often what I would do is I would cut the tape and then I would have, and then we would meet and I would just sort of talk them through. Like, so we would have gone out and done a bunch of interviews. I would cut down to the moments that we were going to use. And then we'd get back in the room and I would tell them like, okay,

here's how I think you can start. And here's what I think you want to say to start it up. And then we're going to go to this piece of tape. And this is the first piece of tape we're going to use. And it introduces this character in the story. And then from there, you're going to want to write something like this and sometimes i would have dummy language in there and i would basically provide a roadmap for the for the reporter or the writer that would sort of lead through the tape

and and get to a finished piece so that's that's that's got it that's what they do yeah and and at at gimlet media which is of course a much smaller operation than This American Life, who's handling releases and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, the producer would be doing that as well. So that's the funny – Yeah. like transcribed tape and they also sort of like handle all the details and make sure that the plane tickets are purchased and you know you know various people have been set up and booked into various studios and all that sort of stuff with with uh i know we're getting into some nitty gritty stuff but i'm so fascinated by and then we're going to go kind of broader picture the what type of editing software do you use uh pro tools pro tools yeah and uh with with reply all for instance which is is perhaps a

little more can be planned a little more in advance how how from the initial idea pitch meeting to the finished episode how long does that currently take and how far out have you planned already not necessarily gathering all the info and doing the interviews, but decided on the subject matter for episodes. Well, I mean, we're not as far planned out as we want to be. Um,

you know, we have, we have, we're, we have things on the calendar going out maybe a month or two month and a half. Um, but you know, it's, it's always a race every week to get everything done. so, out maybe a month or month and a half. But, you know, it's always a race every week to get everything done.

So especially as you'll hear in the next episode of Startup. But – and so some of those are just ideas. Some of those are like, you know, there's – all the tape is in and it's been edited and we just have to sort of like wrangle it into shape. So, yeah. So, but I would say that we don't have anything. We've never had – our goal is to sort of get to a point where we can have everything, where we can have – we can be a week ahead. Like we can have next week's episode in the can this week, done, recorded, the ads put in, everything done, take, I'm an avid hyper graphic note taker. I heard Chartbeat mentioned in one of the episodes. What type of tools do you guys use for organizing all this stuff besides Pro Tools?

What are the software or the whiteboard? I mean, what do you guys use? We use actual whiteboards. We have little whiteboards that float around the office that have sort of like the checklist of everything that needs to be done every episode. You know, sort of like – just sort of like – just the basic stuff that you forget. Like, you know, did we get the ad copy correct? Did we get the – did we email all the people? Did we write the copy for the web? Did we – all that stuff, you know.

Did we get the list of songs that we're using in the episodes that we can put them all the people? Did we write the copy for the web? Did we, all that stuff, you know, um, did we get the list of songs that we're using in the episodes that we can put them on the website? Um, and then, um, and then we use, and then we,

we have a lot of, we do a lot of collaboration. So the, most of the stuff that we write, our scripts are all written in a, in a Google doc. Um, and we have multiple people editing through the Google Doc.

That really changed my world when that came around. And that's fantastic. We use Slack at the office like the younger guys do. I don't really know how to use it, really. But I think those are the main ones. Like the Google Docs are sort of the main thing that we use to sort of collaborate right on. And then actual whiteboards. We schedule stuff through Google Calendar also.

Do you use any kind of project management software like Basecamp or Asana or Trello or anything like that? I have worked on projects where I've used Basecamp before. Like when we did our website design, we used Basecamp with the design team that was designing the website. And that was really useful. Like I find Basecamp to be useful for like distributed teams. When I was at Planet Money, we did this big sort of crazy project where we followed a T-shirt around the world as it got made. And we did this sort of elaborate web – interactive website about the project where we had all these videos and stuff like that.

And that was like a couple different teams, one in New York, one in D.C. And we used Basecamp for that project as well. And that was really helpful. On a day-to-day basis, I don't use it as much just it as much just because it's pretty simple what we're doing the bulk of our work is sort of like you know managing wrangling tape and writing scripts that's sort of like

that's the day-to-day what I'm doing every day is that essentially what do you guys currently use for capturing tape in the field in terms of equipment? We use flash card recorders and nice microphones. We use these Tascam recorders. Some of us use Sonys.

But they're pretty nice broadcast quality. They're not the nicest, but they're the pretty nice ones. Um, and then we have nice mics. Now, what type of, uh, if, if, you know, offhand and I, I'm involved with creative lives, so I managed to grab a PDF of your, some of your gear. I don't know if it's changed since then, but I'm a, I'm an advisor for creative live. And by the way, it's, I, I'm going to, I'll link to it in the show notes for everyone, but the, been very impressed with the class so we'll come back to that oh thanks

but just just the the master class and in asking questions so of course i have performance anxiety right now but uh that's that's hilarious you're you're around me uh yeah well that's why that's hilarious that you're anxious around me yeah well that's why that's why I decided to swing completely the opposite direction and ask very boring hyper specific

tactical questions I mean the concrete details that's another one that people forget like people go too broad and I think what's often interesting

is the nuts and bolts of people's process so these like I must you know like I think often I'll ask these exact kind of questions, like sort of like on a day-to-day basis, like what are you actually doing?

Like I did, yeah, I do these Squarespace, I do these ads, right, where I just interview somebody in the company about what their job is like and the company that's sponsoring us. I guess we're going to do one of these ads later. But my goal there is just to try to find one sort of like – I call it like a vivid moment. A moment where it's sort of like – and so one time I found myself talking to a treasurer of one company. And I was like talking – and like I wasn't getting very much vivid stuff. I was like sort of like what's it like to be a treas like I wasn't getting very much vivid stuff. I was like sort of like, what's it like to be a treasurer? And wasn't getting very much.

And finally, I was like, do you actually sign your name on the checks? And he was like, we have an auto signer, but sometimes I actually sign the checks. And then we got into this whole discussion of sort of where he sits when he signs the checks and how he signs them and how much time he allocates. And how long it takes. And does he block it off in his calendar? And that was like by far the best moment of the interview because it felt all of a sudden you were like, you actually, it felt real, you know, and you got a real sense of sort of like the details of this guy's life. So

I'm all for these, these kinds of concrete questions. Okay. Well, I'm going to follow on with, with some, some digging then the, I noticed in the list of equipment. And again, I'll, I'll link to all this in the show notes for people, the, that you have a boom mic and I have, for instance, a, a zoom recorder, a H4N, and I have another model. So two, two follow-up questions. Is there any reason you chose the task cam over the zoom or anything else? And then the second is what do you use the boom for? Because I'm just, when I'm sitting down with someone, I find these handheld Zoom recorders, for instance, work quite well by themselves. They work even better with a lav mic or something like that or just a handheld stage mic connected with XLRs. What do you use the boom mic for?

I mean, I can give you a lot of BS about it. But the truth is it's like habit, basically. These are the microphones that we started using at This American Life. When I first got truth is I don't, it's like habit, basically. Like, these are the microphones that we started using at This American Life. When I first got there, I didn't know anything about audio. I am not a super technically, like, I know a lot about, like, story structure. I don't know

very, I don't know, I know exactly what I need to know about recording equipment. I'm not super tech-savvy that way. And so partly, it's just just sort of like those are the ones we use, and I got used to them, and I can hear this. Now I understand. Like when I'm out in the field,

I know exactly what I need to do with that particular mic to get the exact sound that I want to get, and I don't have to mess around with something new. The one thing that I will say that I think the reason – so the TASCAM, that was just – that was a recommendation that I read on a website and I bought it and it's worked for me, although there are certain things that I don't love about it. So I feel like you're fine – whatever works for you, you're fine with there. So the mic is more important than the recorder. And my – so that was – so part of it is just sort of habit.

Part of it, the real part, I guess, is that as long as it's a directional mic, what I'm trying to do often is get intimate, conversations. And so if you have an omnidirectional mic, which is the mic's recording pattern is picking up from all around the whole field of, you know, where you're recording, you know, you just have to be, you have to worry a little bit more about placement and you just, you sometimes don't get, it doesn't feel like they're as present.

Whereas if you're using one of these sort of unidirectional boom mics like the one I use, it's really weird. Like when you point it at somebody, you can hear them. And when you point it away, you really don't hear them very well. It really drowns out all the surrounding sound. And so what that means is you get this pretty nice, very, very intimate sound. And then if you're in a, in a place where lots of other stuff is happening around and you want to document the fact that you're out in the field

and there's a rodeo going on behind you or whatever, you can just, when you're done with the interview, you just point the mic at the rodeo and get that ambience. And then you can just use it as an ambience bed. Um, so, so I like, so I like the intimacy that you get with a, with a, with a nice tight boom mic. What, no, that you get with a nice, tight boom mic. No, that makes perfect sense. What numbers do you check on a daily or weekly basis? And not to beat a dead horse, but do you guys use Charpeet? Did you end up using that?

And what other numbers besides just straightforward kind of revenue numbers for sponsors? What kind of stuff do you guys check? I mean, if anything, I, again, I'm, I'm,

I'm, I was obsessively checking our SoundCloud numbers because we host on SoundCloud. And so I can see, so in SoundCloud feeds are iTunes. So every time somebody's any, anytime somebody who subscribed to Startup, it downloads to their phone. That registers as a play on SoundCloud. So SoundCloud was documenting – was sort of capturing both the people who are listening, streaming it through the web or through our website or whatever, and the people who are downloading it onto their phones through iTunes or some other podcatcher.

So it was a one-stop shop for our listening numbers, basically. And so I would check that. And that was pretty much everything that I checked. I didn't, you know, I know PJ and Alex, the host of Reply All, are much more tech savvy and much more, you know, sort of aware of what's going on. And so every once in a while, I'll ask them sort of like, what are they looking at? And they look at chart beat a lot. But, but we haven't, I don't look at that that much.

Got it. So, so I want to rewind the clock a little bit and just, I'm looking at, I'm looking at your bio and it says you've worked as a social worker, a caterer, an eighth grade science teacher and a graduate-level journalism professor. Tell me the story of how you got to radio, if you could. Yeah, the story – I guess the story starts – I was in – I was a teacher. I taught eighth- science. Um, and I was,

I did that for four years and I, this was in Chicago. How old were you? How old were you at the time? Basically right after around what time? Yeah, this is in my, in my mid to late twenties.

So starting at like maybe like 24 to the time I was 28 or something like that, 28, 29, I was a teacher. um, and I that, 28, 29. I was a teacher. And I had – basically it starts like I'd always been interested in this kind of, I guess what you'd call long-form narrative nonfiction. You know, like I had read, you know, a couple of magazines since the time I was in high school.

Like I liked the New Yorker magazine and I liked Harper's magazine. And I liked these kind of – and I would read these books of like, you know, sort of like, you know, Joseph Mitchell, who's this sort of famous old, you know, nonfiction writer. And I would read, you know, E.B. White and stuff like that. John Hershey, you know, the guy who wrote Hiroshima. So I – is it Hershey? Hershey, right? And so I was into that kind of stuff. And then I would – but I never – for some reason – and I was a pretty good student and I did OK.

But somehow it never occurred to me that I could actually do that for a living. And I don't know why. Like I really don't know why. I just somehow thought that like the people who did that were some sort of different world of people that like I would never be able to access that world and like now it's ridiculous like the thought that like you know an upper middle class jewish kid could ever make it in the media world like how you know of course like how could that happen i don't know why i was so uh i don't know why i was so why i i think it was just like a profound lack of i didn't know why I was so – I think it was just like a profound lack of – I didn't know anybody who had ever done that. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was like not super provincial but just certainly not a media capital.

And so people who succeeded became doctors and lawyers and that was sort of it. So anyway, but then I started dating a girl from New York when I was in Chicago and that was more of where media happened and she knew people who were actually getting jobs at magazines. I was like, oh, getting a job at a magazine is an actual thing.

And then we dated for a while. We dated for like four or five years and then she eventually broke up with me which was one of the more profound experiences of my life. And that was really what kicked me in the ass and sort of was like – and that happened right in my late 20s. And that was when I was like, OK, well, if you're going to – like I don't know what you're – you know, I was telling myself like it was basically spite. Like I was worried. Her plan was to go back to New York and go to film school. And I was just like terrified that she was going to become a famous director and I was going to be sitting around supervising recess. And so it was really that that was like, OK, you got to try to – you know, this has been this dream that you haven't really admitted to yourself.

So you should just try to do it. So I started trying to freelance and I had an internship at Harper's Magazine that I successfully applied to and got over the summer in between one of those years when I was teaching. And then eventually through Harper's I met – I got a job as the administrative assistant at This American Life, which was the public radio program and podcast that was just starting. This was back in the – I guess back in 97, October of 97, when I got that internship – when I got the administrative assistant job.

And it had been on the air I think two years at that point and had become sort of – had already made a name for itself but wasn't the beast that it is today, the podcast kingmaker that it is today. So that's where – that got me started you know i so i was an administrative assistant i sort of learned on the job it was like four of us back then it was ira three producers and me um and uh what a perfect perfect timing man what a great job yeah just the four of you. That's amazing. You know, Ira really had no idea what he was getting himself into, like a weekly hour of documentary radio where like the standards are higher than anybody has ever had before. Like he is a perfectionist, you know, and I learned a lot about the value of being a perfectionist from him. So but like, you know, the fact that he was trying to produce that with, you know, three producers who didn't really know what they were doing because nobody knew what they were doing. He was trying to invent it. So it was all hands on deck.

And so occasionally I would get to produce stuff or help with the editorial side of things. And so I learned on the job. But then there came a moment where I was like – I'd produced this – I'd actually produced semi. Not what I would call producing now, but I assisted in the creation of one of one of our big early shows, which was an hour long documentary about Harold Washington and the first black mayor of Chicago. And it was sort of a hit, you know, in the early days. And I came in after and had been just a bear to produce. And I was working all kinds of crazy hours. And I came in after it aired the Monday after it aired and fully expecting like,

okay, now I've succeeded. I passed this test and now I'm going to be made a producer. And I said, I wanted, you know, what, what did he think? Was he going to make me a producer? And he was like, no, I can't. I don't, I don't have money to make you a producer. I don't have a position open. Uh, and I need an administrative assistant. And I was like, oh, well, if you ever did have money and the position open, would you hire me? And he was like, oh, well, if you ever did have money and the position open, would you hire me? And he was like, I don't know. Probably not because you don't have the experience still that I need. There's other people now who have that experience.

And I was like, well, what do I need to get that experience? And he said, well, I don't know. You probably should quit and start freelancing. And I don't think he thought – and now as a CEO of my own company, I have this experience all the time where I'll sort of think out loud and I don't realize that the people I'm talking to are like hanging on every word. I'm sure that was what happened with him. But to me, I was like, okay, well, you've just given me the map of how I want to get my dream job. So I'm going to quit. So I put in my notice and I arranged like a loan from my parents to help me live for the year, like 10 grand.

I was like, if you give me 10 grand in lieu of graduate school, I'm going to make it as a freelance writer. And we – and I did. I just tried to freelance and I got stories in magazines and newspapers and stuff like that. And I continued to do radio. And then a year and a half later, I'd sort of built a little freelance career for myself and which was going pretty well. And then there was finally an opening at this American life and things had been going so well that I actually was like, Oh, I'm not going to apply for that because now I've doing this other thing. And then finally somebody was like, this was your dream job, right? And I was like, yeah, I guess it was. And then I applied. And

then immediately I was like, I really want this job. So, and then I got it. So that was, that was, that was how that happened. Wow. So when you were freelancing the, how did the, let's see here, the writing that you were doing, did you find the writing took off more so than the radio? Were they taking off in tandem? Did the radio start to outpace the writing? How did that, how did that go during your year of freelancing? Well, one of the things that I learned at that, one of the biggest lessons I learned is never ever return your key card. Uh, so I still had my key card from WBEZ, uh, the radio station where I've been working. Coming up, why good radio doesn't necessarily apply to television, the value of perfectionism,

and the good and bad habits that Alex picked up from This American Life and Ira Glass. But first, a word from our sponsors. The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at onnit.com forward slash Tim.

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forward slash Tim. You can also get a free $99 upgrade. If you want to give it a shot, that's 99designs.com forward slash Tim. And now back to the show. Did the radio start to outpace the writing? How did that, how did that go during your year of freelancing? Well, one of the things that I learned at that, one of the biggest lessons I learned is never, ever return your key card. So I still had my key card from WBEZ, the radio station where I had been working.

And so I could come in and I had some freelance projects that I was still working on at that station. So they had hired me to help produce this poetry series they were doing. And so I was picking up freelance work both in radio and on the writing side. And it was pretty equal. Like I did a big radio documentary and I did something for a show called The Savvy Traveler, which was a travel show back then. So within the public radio world, there was enough stuff that needed to be done and not that many people who were sort of free to do it that I could pick up sort of work at that point as well. So it was about half and half.

Got it. And how did you come to then co-found Planet Money? Because, I mean, and what was the timeline between landing that dream job as producer and getting to Planet Money? So that was, I guess there was a year. I mean, no, there was a decade in between. Getting the job, I got the job in 99. And then Planet Money started in 2009.

And one of the nice things about working at This American Life was that the job was constantly changing as I was there. So I never got bored. I started and I took a long time. The learning curve was pretty steep to get good at producing documentary radio. So the first couple of years, I was just trying to get my head above water and figure out how this stuff worked and what people were talking about in these edits and how to become better at recognizing good moments and all that stuff. And then 9-11 was – I mean it sounds cheesy and trite to say it. But like 9-11 sort of changed the focus of the show quite a bit.

We did a couple of shows on 9-11, and then we just got, I think it made us a little bit more, I mean, we'd always been serious journalistically, but I think it felt like we were able to tell kinds of stories that were both sort of journalistic and human in a way that felt like it filled a niche a little bit. So we did a lot of reporting on that and on the war, and we went to an aircraft carrier, so that sort of changed. And then we did a TV show in there too. So we did this big TV show for Showtime, and I was an executive producer on

the tv show so then i was like spending you know three or four years learning how to do tv which was a whole other huge learning curve and man did we get our asses handed to us there like we thought we were storytelling experts and then we got into this new medium and we're like nothing we know works you know could you give some examples? Because, yeah, I'd love some examples. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like. Or an explanation of why it doesn't work.

Why didn't it translate? Well, everything that I laid out to you about like what's good tape, you know, what you're going for in a radio interview, like that stuff doesn't apply to TV. So like what I'm often, you know, you can make an amazing radio story out of one or two people telling a story that happened to them in the past. Like, you know, one of my first, I won a big award called the Third Coast Audio Award at This American Life, which was essentially two people, a brother and a sister talking about a story that happened to them 60 years ago. And it was just the two of them talking and we intercut them and we put in a little bit of script. And it was like one of the most moving stories that I've ever produced. And like that's death on television. You can't watch people telling a story about something that happened a long time ago.

Something about it just does not work. And we would try to produce these things and we'd be watching them and we'd be like bored out of our skulls because there's just like, you just need so much more visual information than just watching people talk. So that was one of the big lessons

is sort of like, it made me realize like, oh, TV, that's why reality television is so big. Like you can do it. You can produce a story from the past. But to do it, you have to just feel – you have to give people something to watch. And so you have to invent an entire visual story to go along with the story that the person is telling.

And that's just – And that's really expensive. So if you look at like an Errol Morris documentary or something like that, where like there was that one where he – What would be an example of one of those documentaries? So like The Fog of War? The Fog of War was one that I thought about a lot. So that's the one where he interviews – who's he interview? What's his name?

The guy from Vietnam. I haven't seen the movie. OK. He interviews a famous general from Vietnam who is one of the ones that sort of like was – came under a lot of criticism. He – and it's a lot about like what went on back then in Vietnam. And if you watch the movie now – and I watched that movie around this time and I was like, oh, look at what he did. He filled every second, every frame with like invented imagery that he had to invent and

come up with. And it's so time consuming and so expensive versus- Sounds like Man on Wire. Yes. And Man on Wire, exactly the same type of thing. And if you watch that movie now, they have to do so much work to keep the screen covered with interesting things to watch. Versus if you just take your average reality show where you've got like two family members fighting with each other, that's the narrative crack in visual terms. Like we are hardwired to watch that stuff.

And it's so much cheaper. You just turn the camera on and you watch two people fighting and you want to watch it. You know what I mean? And so, and so it made me realize, oh, that's why TV is the way it is because that's what we want to watch. You know, we don't want to watch, you know, we want to watch things moving on screen. So, so it was really, it was really hard. And so we had to think, we had to think entirely differently. We had to think entirely visually, like what's an interesting visual story versus an interesting audio story. Yeah. And I suggest anyone listening who enjoys reality television, not learn too much about how it's produced because it will, it will shatter the veneer. I remember I was talking to

this guy who's worked on a bunch of reality shows you would recognize, and he said, have you ever noticed how many of the arguments happen with people standing up in the kitchen and someone's always mixing something? He's like, do you think that happens naturally? I thought it was like, that's a good point. They are always arguing in the kitchen and someone's just absentmindedly stirring something that we never really find out about. Right, exactly. But I wanted to come back to perfectionism because you mentioned you learned the benefits of working with a perfectionist, or maybe you said being a perfectionist. And you also mentioned

the New Yorker. So I had a chance, I was very fortunate to have the chance to study nonfiction writing for a semester with John McPhee, who's a staff writer for The New Yorker and just a phenomenal, phenomenal writer with the greatest attention to detail and structure of anyone I've ever met. But I'd be curious to hear sort of what did you learn from working with Ira? What are the benefits of being a perfectionist or working for one? I think basically it just – what I learned is that a lot of it is just about the effort you put in and it's not about – like you have to have a creative brain and like part of it is that. You're just sort of born with – I guess partly you're sort of born with part of it at least. But like watching Ira like sort of like work, a lot of times he just keeps thinking about it longer than other people keep thinking about it. And then eventually he comes up with an idea that's good. And it just made me realize like that's how people get to good ideas is they go through a lot of bad ideas first.

And that there's not really – like occasionally a good idea comes to you first if you're lucky. But like usually it only comes after a lot of bad ideas. And so what being a perfectionist is is sort of just like putting in a little bit more time to think through the level one or the level two ideas and try to get to something that's a little bit deeper. And I think that's why we do as many edits as we do because often what happens in an edit is you'll take a bad idea and you'll make it into a good idea over the course of several edits. And you'll have an idea that's in a script that's sort of like, that's just getting you from one point to another point. And then you'll be like, you know what this is like? It's like this. And you'll come up with a good metaphor. And then you'll be able to like, oh, that's a good metaphor to put in this part of the script. It'll really make it sing. And then eventually you'll get to a part where you're like, oh, it feels like a revelation will now happen at this point in the piece. Whereas before it was just moving from one thing that happened to the next.

So I think that I learned that. And then- Are there any examples? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. I'm going to come back. No, I was just going to ask you, are there any examples of, perhaps from Startup and Reply All, but it could be from previous shows, of a specific bad idea that was turned into a good idea or that became a good idea?

Yeah, I mean, it happens every single time. So I'm trying to think of one that I could share that was like, that's like, that's easy enough to explain. Let me think for one more second. I don't know. This might be hard to do. Sure. We can,

we can, we can, we can come back to it. I want to feel free to pick up where you left off. Yeah. Yeah. Let me think about it. I can come up with an example for you,

but okay. Are there any habits that you picked up from Ira or the, this American life team otherwise that you, you still have any particular, any particular working habits, but either, either or both. Um, so the good habit that I picked out is that I picked up is sort of like like being committed to excellence like that is something that I learned and I learned it from

Ira like I think he really just hated to have something go out when it could have been better and if he had an idea of how to make it better he would always always try to make it better and still does. And that's like – that was – and I was not that way.

I was sort of like the kind of guy who was like, yeah, it's good enough, you know. And what I realized is that – and I – but I – that was sort of a – I think being that way is a little bit of a dodge or rationalization or an emotional sort of like thing you do to sort of like not actually try to make things good. You know, because trying to make things good is scary and you might fail and people might say it sucks. And we all know that. And so we all like find our ways of rationalizing with it and rationalizing. And that's what I was doing. I was like, it doesn't matter. It's OK.

And so working with Ira, like I was like, oh,'t matter. It's okay. And so working with Ira, I was like, oh no, this is a guy who really cares about making it good. And of all the things to care about in the world, that's one of the better ones. Just to try to make something excellent. There's a lot of things you can care about and that's a good thing to care about.

So I learned that from him. And there's a certain uh comfort with crisis that he had that i'm afraid wore off on me also um that i don't think is a good thing i think that's a bad thing um uh can you give any any any particular moment come to mind and yeah let's leave it I mean I think I mean he just the show would was always like for the entire time I worked at this American Life

it was always like up until the very last minute it was getting produced and edited and you know it was always like it was you know you would be shocked probably like 20 to 30% of the time you were like is it even going to go up? And that's crazy.

Over like 15 years. That's a lot. To be like 20% to 30% of the time, are we going to make it this time? And then at a certain point, I was like, oh, yeah, we're always going to make it because we always make it. But still, it's always right up into the last minute. And it's better now. It's way better now. And they've gotten processes in place and stuff. the right up into the last minute and um and it's better now it's way better now and uh and like

they've gotten like processes in place and stuff but uh and part of it is just audio is real time so even if you've been doing it for a long time you just can never quite get your head around how long it takes um but part of it is uh but part of it is just sort of like he's comfortable with that and i think in a certain way it focused his mind, I think. And I think it also focuses my mind, I think. Like I've noticed myself doing – like this episode recently, like, you know, I'm the one who's writing it and I've got a whole bunch of other things that I have to do on top of writing the script for this week's episode.

And it's like I sit down and I try to think, but I'm worried about this thing and I'm worried about that thing. And in the back of my mind, in this bad part that I learned, I think, but I still have Monday morning at 5 a.m. I'll just get up early. I still have that in the back of my mind. And at that point, I'll have no choice, and I will have to make it good. And so I'll just leave it until that moment. And I don't think that's not good.

And what it does is it drags everybody else into your crisis. And so Caitlin, my producer, is dragged into my way of dealing, my way of managing my time, and my way of sort of trying to make things good. And that's – I don't think she likes it. And I didn't like it when I was a producer. Like I felt like why is he saving everything until the last minute? And I'm doing the exact same thing, you know, to my style. So I think that's because I learned all those – you know, I had 20 years of learning like, yeah,

it always comes out, you know, it's fine. So it's bad, but it's bad, you know, so. Yeah, I've learned that I've developed a similar level of comfort with crisis and last minute turnarounds. And, uh, I, from personal experience, learned the hard way that that is a very fast way to burn people out who haven't been conditioned and, uh, how you can lose really good talent. Unfortunately, um, the, uh, the commitment to excellence, are there any stories that come to mind of particular time, for instance, you handed, you, you passed something on to Ira that you thought was good enough and he was like, no, not good enough and gave it back to you. Did that happen? Um, yeah. Oh, I mean, all the time,

like every single thing I ever read or did, uh, was it was never – I never – and this is not an exaggeration. I don't think anybody ever in the history of this American life has ever had this happen where they'll read a draft, even if it's the second or third draft, and it'll be like – and the answer is like, all right, it's all done. There's always a new tweak and there's always something that can make it better. Uh, and,

um, often there's like big thoughts. And so, and, and again, like, and in the beginning it would sting a little bit. It would be like,

I just want to do one thing where it's like done. And I'm, I did it right. I took it really personally. Like I'm not doing it right. And then it was only over time that I realized that like, no, you're not, nobody does it right. Like the first draft always sucks, always, for everybody. And you just got to get over yourself a little bit. Like it's not about you and your ego, it's just about trying to make it better. And then, and then I realized there was like, there was like,

that's really useful to be able to have that muscle of like, sort of like, okay, I trust myself enough that I'm not a complete idiot. But that it's always, you know, and I can be made better by other people's input and ideas. That's essentially what an edit is. And that's also a really good way of going through the world, you know, um, is to, is to try to be open to what people are telling you. Um, so that was a really, I think that's, you know, the commitment to excellence means being comfortable hurting people's feelings and being comfortable having your feelings hurt, uh, and to try to take the feelings out of it. Um, and, and, and just talk about like what the thing you're trying to do is, uh, and that that's, that was, that was really useful to learn. And, and would, uh,

would Ira ever just say, this isn't good enough, give it another shot? Or was it always very specific feedback? Always very specific feedback. Always very specific. Got it. Not do it again better. Like that's sort of like – Yeah. And that's also I think what being a good editor is because he's such a – he was such a master of like the form that he could tell you what was wrong.

And he could tell you like this isn't working for this reason. And often it's like, it's like really stupid little things. Like, so for example, I can give you an example of this. Like from this current episode of Startup that we just did, we, it's all about burnout.

And basically we made the stupid decision to, it's coming out today. I think it'll be up by the time this posts so people can listen to it. But it's – basically we had this situation where like the hosts of Reply All were working. They ended up – they were working late sort of like every day for like weeks. And this was over the holidays when we made the stupid decision to try to put up a show on Christmas and on New Year's Eve. Uh, I don't know why we didn't take the week off, but we didn't, I think we felt like we

were just new. We were just starting. So it wasn't, it wasn't too early to take time off or something. Um, so they were crashing, trying to get these shows up on Christmas Eve and on New Year's Eve. And the shows weren't coming together very well. And they were just working really, really late. And then one of our – Lisa started recording conversations with them about like how they were feeling.

They were feeling super burned out. And it's really good. It's really good tape. And so that's what the episode is about. And we were scripting the episode. And I started by – – this all happened. It came to a head when I was out of town. I was in San Francisco where my wife's family lives.

We brought the kids out there over the holidays, but I was like – it was supposed to be sort of a vacation, but I was basically working the whole time. But there was a day or two that I didn't work. So I started the story by saying all this happened while I was on vacation. It was just like one line. But it, that one line put this whole, like, and the story was pretty good. And we were just telling the story and we were like, we were playing all this pretty entertaining tape of people talking about how burnt out they were and how their whole feelings about their jobs had changed. And it's all very real, very raw, very entertaining. But something about me saying that I was on vacation had this whole scoldy tone all the way through it,

which is sort of like I leave for one day and the whole place goes to hell sort of, which was not intended at all. It had that feeling. It sort of cast the entire episode in this sort of like unpleasant light. And so that's what I'm saying. Like it was – and we were doing these edits and we were like this should be good. Like the tape should be good. But when we were listening, we were like I have this – I don't like it.

It's making me feel bad, not good. And it was – and it wasn't until I was like – one of our – Starley put – I think one of our other employees put her finger on it. She was like, that's the thing that's making it feel bad is that – just that line in the beginning where you just sort of – it colors the whole way you're hearing this thing. And so we just recrafted the beginning to be about like this transition in a startup's life where you go from trying to raise the money to all of a sudden you're running the running the organization right and they're two totally different jobs and like this is an episode about how we were trying to manage the second phase of actually running the company and dealing with our employees and so that gave it a much better context basically to listen to the story in how far into the episode did you put your finger on

that and and fix it so from the from the from the first kind of pitch meeting or decision to make the episode about burnout how what what amount of time elapsed before you're like oh okay that's the that's this issue we need to fix uh it was probably like we did the first we did this edit and we actually put together a rough mix which we all listened to over the weekend and that was the one we were all like freaking out because it wasn't working at all and we're like oh my god this is a stinker and and the rough mix is like missing music it's just a bunch of tapes strung together yeah yeah it's i mean it's a little bit more than that because it was like we we had a really good guy doing it but yes it was like a the levels weren't all mastered and

everything like that we knew that we were going to come back do you do scratch do you do like scratch audio for the script as well or no we we had recorded the script we had recorded the script so we'd done the whole thing like we'd it was it this was actually more work than we normally do normally this would have been a second edit but we were like sort of behind the guns. We were like, well, maybe this will work. So, but it didn't. So it was essentially like a second edit. And we did the second edit and we realized that it wasn't working. And then it was over the weekend, basically, that we were thinking about it. And then this morning was when we sort of like I came in and rewrote the top based on sort of notes that Starley had given me last night at 10.

And there was a couple other things that were happening in the episode that were also sort of like robbing it of its power that we changed as well. But yeah, it was probably like a couple days of sort of like sitting and thinking with it. That's the other thing that I learned from Ira also about excellence. Like excellence is just tricks. You know, it's just managing your time and your expectations. Because there's this panic where you do, like when I first heard the rough mix, I was panicked because I was like, this is bad. This is a bad show. But like, but I have seen,

but then I had to remember like, okay, but you thought some part of it was good in the beginning and you have to go back and remember what was the part that was good

and there's some reason that something that was good has now become bad. There's something that you're doing wrong that you have to fix. It's not a, it's not a crisis.

You know what I mean? It's just sort of like it's a problem to solve. And, you know, and that's, it's just hard to remember that sometimes like you just get, and I think that's what, you know, with experience, you start to realize like you've done it enough times, like you've taken something that was bad and you've made it good that you realize like it's, it's, it, it, it's not the end of the world or it's not even, it's not like something that can't be fixed because that's the feeling. You feel like, oh my God,

there's nothing to be done. Like the thing that I thought was good is bad. So I'd love to talk about, ask just a few more long form questions, a couple of fast ones, and then we can wrap up. But I want to talk about turning a bad situation into a good one.

Very specifically, I'd love to chat about startup episode number nine, we made a mistake. And sort of about being attacked and villainized. So maybe just for context, if you could explain to people what that mistake was, and then I'd love to dig into that a little bit. Yeah, so we do these ads on the show. We have two ads in the middle of the show.

And we produce our ads documentary style. So what we try to do is we just try to interview people either in the company or users of the company about their own real experiences. And we turn those into little 45-minute long segments as our advertisements. And one of our sponsors was Squarespace and the website company. little 45 to a minute long segments for, for as our advertisements. Um, and one of our sponsors was Squarespace and the website company.

And what we were doing is we were talking to different Squarespace users about, um, their Squarespace sites. Uh, and we'd found this kid, this lovely, charming little boy who had a Squarespace site, uh,

that he used for for minecraft and we'd done this interview with him and it would have been lovely and um and then we put it up and we realized that we had never told him or his mother that it was for an ad we had just and she had the impression that this kid was going to be on This American Life, like that her son was going to be on This American Life. And then she heard from a friend that it was actually used in this ad. And then she got very upset. And she went on Twitter and was talking about it on Twitter. And she had a large Twitter following.

And so a lot of her Twitter followers were upset as well. And then we started digging into the details and it was like a little bit even worse because it turned out that the email that we'd sent to her had sort of, you know, given the impression that I did still work at This American Life, which made it seem even sleazier. I don't know, it was just, it was like a really bad screw up on our part

that seemed to her quite logically and rightfully that had been on purpose and an intentional deception. And I enjoyed the episode for a host of reasons. But I mean, the first of which is we all make mistakes. The second of which is how quickly things can spiral or seemingly spiral out of control with the internet and social media and how much of a crisis it can seem like. And just like you working as a producer, you know, I've been sort of on the front lines online for a good period of time now. So when someone's like, oh, like this, this like parody piece came out about your book in the New York Times. And now I'm just like, huh, huh interesting i guess i should take a look at it later this afternoon i don't have the like oh

my god the sky is falling everything is over right uh response not always which we very much had i definitely realize that now like it was like sort of like and there was a couple people who were sort of visiting the office around that time and they were like we think you're overreacting and it was like it just which we definitely were, I think. But it definitely, it did feel like this, like the company was so new and so young. And, you know, we've managed to do this thing, which I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull off, which was sort of like to document making all these mistakes, you know, and still have people like along for the ride with you. You know what I mean?

Right. And like, because a lot of times when you make mistakes, you're not at your best, you're at your worst. You know, it's your sort of your unpleasant side or the part of you that's sort of a dick or whatever is sort of coming forward. And to sort of air all that and still have people sort of on our side and supporting the company and supporting the show. We felt like we were already walking a tightrope and this felt like this was going to be the thing that knocked us off. Um, and no, definitely.

And what I was curious to ask you is as someone who's been on the documenting side for so long, uh, looking at different situations, documenting other people's lives, perhaps painting them not in a negative light, but in a neutral or comprehensive light. If you went back to, say, interviewing people and covering people for hard-hitting news or something like that, has your viewpoint changed or your feelings about that? Because a lot of journalists absolve themselves of the damage they might do to someone if it gets a lot of clicks or a lot of views

or a lot of listens. I know that This American Life, at least all the episodes I've heard, are very constructive, but I'm just wondering how your how your feeling about how your feelings as a journalist or documentarian, uh, changed as a result of becoming a target yourself. Well, I think I definitely, um, you know, you, you, yeah, I've, I definitely, um, have changed, uh, from, from where I was in the very beginning.

When I first started, I was never like a gotcha journalist. I was never like out for the expose. And so like that wasn't – and at This American Life in particular, that's one of the other things that I think I learned a lot from Ira is that he really didn't like he didn't want to just do the story where you didn't get the comment from the person who was supposed to be the villain in the story or whatever like he really was trying to understand everybody's point of view and that's what makes that show great and I feel like that was an

amazing lesson to learn but it was you know in beginning, I didn't take it that I didn't take it as seriously as I do now. Like, I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever left anybody. There's one story that I regret, where I was doing it was a story about testing in North Carolina about standardized testing. And I interviewed a bunch of different people in North Carolina who are sort of pushing this pretty heavy standardized test thing in the state. And I ended up interviewing one of the main guys who was behind the testing thing. And it got into this really testy interview and – testy in a bad way, not about testing. And I think – and he accused me of having an agenda.

And I did, like, I didn't, I was a teacher, I didn't like standards tests. And I was, I told myself at the time that I was an open minded person, I was trying to like, I was trying to be, you know, I was trying to do this in an open minded way. But I think looking back on it now, I would have, I wouldn't have, I would have done it now, I would have done it differently. I would have tried to find every side of it instead of just trying to tell the side that I wanted to, which isn't to say that you don't – if you have a point of view that you believe to be true, you can't tell that point of view. But it's just – it's always a better story when you're trying to understand the other side. And in fact, the other, yeah. So, and I, and I feel like now that I am, you know, and that, you know, getting it back to your question of sort of like being on the other side of this whole sort of Twitter thing, that's how I felt. I felt like

totally misunderstood and that like people had not bothered to figure out like what had gone on with me, even though, I mean, I didn't feel misunderstood because I felt like once I understood what was going on, I, I totally got why they thought what was happening was happening and it did look really fishy. So, so I, I get it, but, but you do feel like, wait, I just, this is just a mistake and there's no way to convince people of that. You know, it's really scary. And so, yeah, so I have a lot of, and I see that happening in the news a lot, I think, where like, you know, journalists take it, you know, sort of take it out on somebody. And where I feel like all the time, there's another story there.

Yeah. No, definitely. And I, you know, I made a decision early on not to attack people on my blog, for instance, which was really the first property that I focused on. And partially because I felt like to attack people and tear things down is kind of cheap applause. It's going for cheap applause. It's like doing a bit on George W. Bush with a series of jokes as a standup comedian. It's like, okay, like at, at the worst point in his, uh, presidency, it's like, of course you're going to get some claps, but it's like, you can do better than that. I feel like he can. Um, so I I'd love to, uh, I've been just very impressed with the, the shows that you've done

so far. I really look forward to what's coming down the pike, but I'd love to ask you some sort of rapid fire questions. And by rapid fire just means I'm asking them in short form, but you can feel free to expand if you'd like. Is there a particular book or what is the book that you've gifted to other people most often given as a gift oh man um uh what is the god i don't i don't even know it's been like so here's this here's the horrible thing i am so bad now about reading uh you know i think and i blame my my young, which is also bad. But seriously, ever since I had two children, so I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old, and I'm doing this job now, and my wife has this really demanding job, and we just literally have no time to read. So to me, books are almost oppressive because all they are are just sort of guilt and reminders that I don't have any free time. So I can't, I don't, I would, I don't even see them

as gifts anymore. All I have is negative associations with them. They're homework assignments. Yeah. They're just, I just feel guilty and sad. I'm hoping, and I've heard that that changes. And I actually – it's funny. I had this experience yesterday or two days ago where I like actually like I read – I had a free moment and I read something that a friend of mine recommended on Twitter. And it was this blog called The Tusk. And it was this – just this really lovely essay by this woman who was working in San Francisco. And it was the first real sort of like time that I sat and just read, done the thing that I love doing,

which is like reading a really nicely crafted piece of writing. And I was like, oh, maybe things are starting to turn now. And it was just so foreign. I hadn't done it in like four years. And I was like, okay, I think I'm going to start to be able to get my life of the mind back soon. It's one of the more ironic things

about, one of the more paradoxical things about producing all this content is that I don't, the amount that my diet of what I read and listen to myself has just gone so shriveled. It's so sad. Does any favorite documentary or documentaries come to mind?

Yes, documentaries are an easier answer. I loved Man on Wire. That was like one of my favorite things that I've ever seen. Yeah. Oh, you know the book that I read, though? There was a book that I read that I thought was just unbelievably fantastic, which was called On the Run. On the Run. Yeah.

Alice Goffman. And she's a sociologist. And it was just sort of like basically she ended up sort of like living in this black neighborhood in Philly. She's a white sociologist. She ended up living in a black neighborhood in Philly for like 10 years. It started as like a just sort of like just, it's this book that I haven't really, like I haven't read before where like she totally became to,

she totally lived life through, through their eyes and sort of internalized everything about what it was like to be sort of like a poor black man in Philly in sort of an increasingly police presence neighborhood. And it was just devastating and amazing. And like it just made me like understand everything that's happening in the country in a different way. You know, so because I like a lot of white people, I think had this feeling of like, sort of like, whatever, however you feel, like there's always

this feeling of like, why, you know, like, well, whatever. It's like a, it was just, it was an amazing, it was an amazing book. Great on the run. All right. Wrote that down. The, um, when you think of the word, uh, when, or when you hear the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind and why? success is a funny thing. You know, like Barack Obama is a very successful person. I mean, I feel like there's like, when I think of success, I feel like there's two layers of success. There's sort of the outsized success that is like, you know, we're just sort of like amazing

people who I feel like have skills and abilities far outside my own succeed. And that's where like, you know, sort of like Barack Obama is like that sort of like, wow, how did, you know, how did that guy become president? Like somebody, you know, sort of like Bill Clinton, same kind of thing, like sort of like where you come from, like, you know, not a background of privilege necessarily. And you've you've you're just you've got these oratorical skills and you do, you know. So that's one thing.

But then other, you know, there's other people who just sort of like have managed to like carve out a nice life for themselves, which I feel like also is just sort of like is successful where they have like, you know, they have like a, you know, they have people that they love and they have, you know, they have friends and family nearby and they've arranged their lives so that it's, you know, they have like time to actually take pleasure in the things that give them pleasure. And by that standard, I'm not very successful myself. Like, who do you,

who do you, who do you, uh, who would you like to emulate more? Are there, are there any particular people in your life or people you know of that you'd like to emulate to sort of carve out that type of the life that you want for yourself?

You know, I don't think about that stuff very much. Like I really wanted, like when I was younger, I really wanted a mentor. You know, I really wanted somebody who I could learn from and learn how to, what my life would be like and like learn a skill and learn, you know, something that would give me meaning in the world. And when I started working in this American life, that's what I felt like I found. I got like, I was like, okay, now I have a path that I'm on and I'm going to be on that path. But once I was on that path, it was like, now I'm just sort of like pretty consumed by it, you know? And I don't, who am I trying to emulate? I'm not really trying to emulate anybody, I don't think.

Maybe I'm not being honest with myself. But I just – I feel like it's like I have a very particular thing I'm trying to do and I feel like sort of too busy to like with that thing and I'm too focused on that thing to look around for other people that I would be emulating here. You know what I mean? Like I'm pretty – I've always been a little tunnel vision that way. Like I'm just like – I just sort of dive into the project that's before me. Are there any, are there any, now that you're a co-founder yourself of a startup, are there any particular founders or CEOs that you admire? Um, I, yeah. Who might not, who might not be the barack obama's in their respective fields right so not necessarily a zuckerberg or someone like that but someone where you're like okay the that that person is handling things in a way that i might want to at some point or um anyone who

particular particularly impresses you or that you admire you know know, I don't know that many entrepreneurs. You know, like I come out of public radio. Most of my colleagues are still in the world of audio. And I haven't met very many people. So I don't even know how to answer that question. Like I think the one thing I will say is that the more I've started running my own operation, the more things that I've realized, the more things I like about the way, the more things I learned from Ira that I think are useful, um, from Ira Glass at This American Life. Like I think – like I do – like the ability – like he really was – like the thing that he did really well was he made people excited about the mission.

And he did that by caring about the quality of the thing that you were – the thing we were putting together and he made it feel meaningful. And I think that's really important. And so, so that's one of the things that I've held with me. I think that was really, really important. Uh, and I, and I try to do that as well. Well, if you don't, if you don't have any, uh, co-founders or CEOs next time you're in next, next time you're in San Francisco to visit the, uh, the in-laws or the wife's family, we should put together a dinner of some type just for just for the hell of it i think that that that'd be a good time i mean you get like i mean who do you do you have people like that that you're like oh that's that guy's doing it well she's she's really got to go on like i do i do i do uh and you know one of them is a close friend of mine who was in your first episode. That's Chris Saka.

Oh, right. So as an investor, I've been an early stage investor in a lot of companies, whether it be Twitter or advisor to Uber, et cetera, Evernote. And Chris was one of the very early mentors I had. And he's a close friend, but he also is very, very good, obviously, at the early stage startup game. So it was really Mike Maples Jr. initially, and then Chris Saka, and also a guy named Naval Ravikant, who are spectacularly good at what they do. And they have a methodical way of dissecting certain types of problems. And so I try to, I, I enjoy learning their respective recipes.

You know, they're kind of algorithms that they use for evaluating things because, uh, they're all clearly effective, but they're also sometimes very different, which I find fascinating. Um, so in the,

in the startup world, since I'm not, there are people just because I'm running, you know, I have my own fledgling podcast and then the blog, which is much more established and so on. There are people in the, and I don't really love the content creation label, but people in the content sphere, whether it be audio or written word or even video and television that I really respect a lot. I find what Morgan Spurlock does very fascinating, for instance, who was kind of in front of

the camera and behind the camera, but now does both, including things that make him very much behind the scenes. So yeah, I mean, I guess I've been on my own. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I know a couple of people who are working with his company and he seems to, yeah, it seems like a great, he seems like he's doing a really good job running.

Yeah, yeah, he's a great. Making it a nice hub for where cool things can happen. Yeah, he's very good at establishing rapport with just any group you can imagine. So with Inside Man, I think it is. I don't think it's Inside Job, Inside Man. It's really, yeah, it's just incredible to see how quickly he can establish rapport with people.

So I'm going to ask you perhaps the opposite of the word successful, not failure, but what's the first face that comes to mind when you think of the word? And you're a very nice guy, so this might be hard to answer, but what's the first face that comes to mind when you think of the word punchable? Punchable. Oh, Tim. That could be your answer, too. Yeah, no, I'm just trying to decide.

So I will tell you this. Like I feel like coming from – I guess coming from the – like the nonprofit world. Like where I never had – this is the first – this is my first full-time job in the for-profit sector. It's being the CEO of my own company. Since I was like a – It's a hell of a way to start. And I think, and coming from the public radio world and the nonprofit world at large, like I do think there is a way that we conceive of,

we conceive of ourselves as punchable in that world. Like that we're like not – that we need – that like we need to be shielded from this world of profit and like somehow that there's like a – that it's dangerous and it's filled with people who will sort of eat you for breakfast. And I think – I mean that's like a gross exaggeration. Lots and lots of people in the nonprofit world are like – this is a gigantic, gigantic overgeneral to do, you know, from like some sort of like, you know, angry or sort of like, you know, macho or malevolent forces in the for-profit world. And that's like, you know, and that's been one of the nice things. And maybe, you know, who knows, maybe I'm going to like get like my ass kicked soon. I probably will.

And like I'll be like, you know, God, I wish I was still in the nonprofit sector or whatever. But there's something about like just sort of going out and being part of this sort of, you know, market economy in a really, really straightforward way that's freeing and it doesn't feel like, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, it feels like the way it should be and not scary.

You know, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I think that it gives you, I've, you know, I work with a number of nonprofits like DonorsChoose in New York, which is run really leanly, actually, very much like a for-profit in that way. But the for-profit word gives you some metrics that are very clear to play with that I think can be freeing in a way because there's very little ambiguity about it. No, that metric thing was huge for me. Yeah, it was like sort of decisions. You make decisions, then you end up making decisions for all sorts of other weird sort of arbitrary reasons which like does the director like it or do our donors like it or you know rather not like do people like it this is something that

should be in the world you know that people value enough to pay for yeah yeah definitely uh if now on that point you've you've uh you've you've kind of uh not switched teams it's not like they're opposing teams but you've you've done a lot since you you were you were first teaching eighth grade science obviously uh what would the old what would the old you say to the new you or what would the old you think of the new you uh the old me would think of the new me. I think it depends on which stage you go to. But like, you know, going back to like, you know, sort of the college and post-college, like the old me would think, would probably think the new me was some kind of sellout maybe.

I was never that like sort of like that strident ever. But I was definitely more strident than I am now. And I definitely would have, you know, and I was definitely sort of a little bit more suspicious of the profit motive when I was younger. So I would probably be like, what, you know, like, what have you done with your life? I mean, the old me would also be like, you're an old man and all you do is like go and you have like these two kids that are just, you know, I would have looked at myself with horror. I'm sure like my life, I never, I haven't seen a movie in God knows how long I don't travel anymore. Uh, you know, so, all right, one more question for you. So if, if you could give your 20 year old self, uh, one piece of advice, what would it be?

This is going to sound corny, but don't be so afraid. You know, I think I organized a lot of my choices based on sort of what I thought I could do rather than what I wanted to do. And I did that because I didn't want to try to do the things that I wanted to do because I was afraid I would fail at them. So I think I organized a lot of my life around fear for this first, you know, that first decade after college. And I would tell myself, don't be afraid. You know, go out and just, like, fall on your face a little bit more.

It's all right. That's good advice. So, Alex, just in closing, I face a little bit more. It's all right. That's good advice. So Alex, just in closing, I know you have to run. Where can people find more about you, about what you're up to? Well, you can listen to the Startup Podcast. It's all right there. And that's at our website, gimletmedia.com.

Both our shows are there, Startup and Reply All. And all sorts of stuff about our company and about me.com. Both our shows are there, Startup and Reply All, and all sorts of stuff about our company and about me. Wonderful. All right, Alex, I will let you get going. I really enjoyed the masterclass. I will put tons of links in the show notes for everybody, including links to the shows, to Get In The Media, to the gear that you use in the field, to Creative Live Class, and much more. So thanks so much for the time. And don't forget, this is a two part episode with Alex, and we're going to give you a sample of that next part, the art of the interview, which is a class of his. It is fantastic. So we'll give you a few minutes of that and please continue listening. But first, just a short word from our sponsors.

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So this is a story that was on This American Life a while ago. And the setup is that it's this actor, Tate Donovan. And Tate Donovan was a sort of a character actor. He'd been, you know, sort of on a couple of different shows, but he didn't get recognized very much. And then he had like a stint on Friends. And all of a sudden he was starting to get recognized. And it was really exciting for him to be recognized because he finally got to be the celebrity that he always wished that he could be, the celebrity that he would have wanted to meet before he was famous. So when he got recognized, and this story happens when one night he was out at this Broadway show, and a lot of people were coming up to him and being like, hey, I saw you.

And he was able to talk to people and be very magnanimous and say, thank you so much. It really means a lot. And he was posing for pictures for people. And at the show, it was happening over and over and over again. I was exactly how I wanted to be. I was doing it. I was doing great. And then the kid with the camera came along. This nervous kid, I don't know, he must have been 16 years old. He's in a rented tuxedo, unbelievably shy and awkward, and he's got acne, and he's got a camera in his hand.

And underneath the marquee is his date, who is literally like a prom dress, and she's got a corsage, and she's really nervous and sort of clutching her hands. And he sort of comes up to me, and he sort of mumbles something about a picture. And I'm like, I just feel for him. So I'm like, oh, absolutely. My gosh, sure. No problem. My god, you poor thing. And I go up to his girlfriend, and I wrap my arms around her.

And I'm like, hey, where are you from? Fantastic. Going to see the play. That's great. And the guy is sort of not taking the photograph very quickly. He's just sort of staring at me, and he's got his camera in his hands, and it's down by his, like, chin, you know. And she's very stiff and awkward, and I don't know what to do.

So I just lean across, and I kiss her on the cheek. And I'm like, all right, come on, take the picture, hurry up. Do you guys want to find out what happens next? That's a story. When you want to, so what, that is the power of a good narrative. So when I talk about, I'm talking about like those two basic things you're going for, emotion and narrative. We as humans are hardwired, I believe,

to listen to narrative. And it's a very simple, sort of the mechanics of narrative are very simple. There's like a sequence of actions and there's sort of rising action and it's culminating in something. And you were in the middle of that sequence of actions, and you were about to get to the culmination, and I stopped it.

And it's frustrating. And you really want to know what happens next. And you would never, if you were listening to this, have turned off that podcast or that radio story at that moment. And that is a good story. And that's why you want to operate in stories. That's why when you're interviewing people, you want to get their stories out of them. And you want to get them talking in stories, because stories are what we want to hear.

If you enjoyed this episode, you're going to love what I have coming. All sorts of crazy experiments, incredible guests, and you can very easily not miss any of it. Just subscribe on iTunes, or you can check out all of my guests, as well as my blog that has one to two million readers per month at fourhourworkweek.com. All spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com. That's where I chronicle all of my insane self-experimentation, and I would love to hear from you. So please reach out to me on Twitter, twitter.com forward slash T Ferris, T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, or on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash Tim Ferris with two R's and two S's, of course.

And until next time, thank you so much for listening.