Cal Fussman Interview (Full Episode) | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

1. 0:00 – 3:49

   Cold open banter and sponsor messages before the main interview

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      Optimal minimal At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

   2. CFCal Fussman0:06

      Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:10

      What if I give the order?

   4. CFCal Fussman0:12

      I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:16

      The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I've used for years. I love audiobooks, and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's amazing. You will thank me. The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life and formed the basis for a lot of what became The 4-Hour Workweek. So all you need to do to get your free audiobook and a free 30-day trial is go to audible.com/tim, and you can choose one of those two books, The Graveyard Book, Vagabonding, or more than 180,000 audio programs. So that could be a book, that could be a magazine, that could be a newspaper, could be a class. It's that easy. Go to audible.com/tim. That's audible.com/tim, and grab a book. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, et cetera, and I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim, take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just wanna take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that, or, as I would, you can set it and forget it, and here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et cetera, can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything they charge, .25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials, so I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, uh, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000

2. 3:49 – 9:04

   Who Cal Fussman is and why Tim wanted to interview the interviewer

   1. TFTim Ferriss3:49

      managed for free if you decide to open an account, but just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast. It's free. There's no downside that I can think of. Just take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of various types from all fields, including entertainment, military, academia, research and otherwise, sports, et cetera. This episode is a very special one and features a verbal Jedi who never really gets interviewed himself, Cal Fussman. You may not recognize that name, but that is going to change. Cal Fussman, @calfussman, C-A-L-F-U-S-S-M-A-N on the Twitters, is a New York Times bestselling author and writer-at-large for Esquire Magazine, where he is best known for being a primary writer of the What I Learned feature. Now, What I Learned, what is this? Well, it is comprised of interviews with icons that you will recognize. The Austin Chronicle has described Cal's interviewing skills as, quote, "peerless," end quote, and I would have to agree with that. I've met a great many writers and interviewers, and Cal is just hands and heads above everyone else. I'm not sure if that makes any sense. I've had quite a bit of wine. It is about 1:00 in the morning in New York City, in the land of chaos, and that sounds like the right expression to use. In any case, Cal has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with icons who've shaped the last 50 years of world history, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, Dr. Dre, Quincy Jones, Woody Allen, Barbara Walters, Pelé, Yao Ming, Serena Williams, John Wooden, Muhammad Ali, and countless others. Born in Brooklyn, and this is the part where the bio sounds unbelievable, and as far as I can tell, it's totally true. Here we go. Born in Brooklyn, Cal spent 10 straight years traveling the world, swimming over 18-foot tiger sharks, rolling around with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and searching for gold in the Amazon. He's also made himself a guinea pig. He's boxed against world champion Julio Cesar Chavez when he was undefeated, and served as a sommelier atop the World Trade Center. He now lives with his wife, whom he met while on a quest to discover [laughs] the world's beau- most beautiful beach, and his three children in Los Angeles, where he spends every morning eating breakfast with Larry King. And that is in fact how I met Cal for the first time, was at this particular breakfast at a Jewish deli with Larry King, where Larry eats Honey Nut Cheerios and that is it. Go figure. In any case, you guys have to check out Cal. I really love this conversation. He's been a mentor to me in this game of interviewing and asking questions, which is really about not just probing into the lives of others, but thinking more clearly yourself, and Cal is really the open- Obi-Wan Kenobi of this particular area of expertise. So I hope you enjoy. Check him out. I wanna help out Cal. He is doing a lot of interesting stuff and expanding outside of writing. So be sure to check out his website, Cal Fussman, C-A-L F-U-S-S-M-A-N.com. Say hello. On Twitter as well, @calfussman. And without further ado, as I always say after a long intro, please enjoy my conversation with Cal Fussman. [upbeat music] Cal, welcome to the show.

   2. CFCal Fussman7:40

      Thank you. I have arrived.

   3. TFTim Ferriss7:42

      You have arrived, and I'm so excited to have you here, because we've gotten to know each other a bit over the last however many months, and it's been such a joy because as I've tried to delve into this craft of asking questions and crafting conversation, I've realized there's a lot to it. [laughs] And I've been a fan of your work for so many years, and the, the subtleties are just so powerful, and I thought that this time we could turn the tables and I could interrogate you in public. Uh, s- [laughs]

   4. CFCal Fussman8:16

      [laughs]

   5. TFTim Ferriss8:16

      I love asking you questions about your process, and you've been so generous with your time in terms of reviewing some of my episodes, providing feedback. So first and foremost, thank you for your work and for all of the help.

   6. CFCal Fussman8:31

      I'm delighted. You're good.

   7. TFTim Ferriss8:32

      [laughs]

   8. CFCal Fussman8:33

      You're good.

   9. TFTim Ferriss8:34

      [laughs] I, I think I have a lot of room to improve, and so this is, this is one of these, uh, episodes where I'm a little self-conscious, because I know that I have a very unusual Memento-like, sometimes non-chronological approach to interviews. And, uh, for that, I, uh, I'll apologize in advance. But we, we can do a post-game analysis afterwards. [laughs]

   10. CFCal Fussman9:03

       [laughs]

3. 9:04 – 10:28

   Quincy Jones’ book-signing lesson: making every interaction personal

   1. TFTim Ferriss9:04

      Uh, so perhaps we could just start with something that, uh, we were, we were discussing before we hit record. So we were talking about the live event that was here in LA at The Troubadour, and we were doing a bit of analysis, what went well, what didn't go as well as planned, and so on. And I mentioned that, I suppose due to also some insecurities of a sort, that I try to, when I do these rare live events, if it's, say, two hours long, I'll stay for an additional two or three hours and do Q&A or something like that. And you said that's straight out of Quincy Jones' book. And so I, I, I know this is an unusual place to start, but maybe you could just [laughs] provide that anecdote, because it seems like you have an endless trove of, of these types of anecdotes. But why, why Quincy Jones?

   2. CFCal Fussman9:47

      Quincy Jones will go to a book signing, and there will be long lines of people, and he will not sign his name and, "Move them on, next." He will stop, ask everyone who they are, engage in a conversation, and then write a personal note in his book to them. And the line may be around the block. He'll be there till 3:00 in the morning, keeping the people at Barnes & Noble [laughs] open because he wants to make it a joyous experience for everybody. So bravo, you, you followed the master.

   3. TFTim Ferriss10:26

      [laughs]

4. 10:28 – 17:10

   A second-grade question to Lyndon Johnson—and learning the power of being taken seriously

   1. TFTim Ferriss10:28

      Inadvertently. Uh, the, uh, the story of course, if we rewind the clock, begins at the beginning, and where did you grow up? I actually am ashamed to admit I don't know the childhood background. But where did you, where did you grow up?

   2. CFCal Fussman10:45

      Uh, born in Brooklyn, and moved to Yonkers, New York, where I did, uh, second grade and third grade. And that's where I had, when I think back on it, like a pivotal moment asking questions. Uh, because that time, second grade, was the time that I was sitting in Miss Jaffee's classroom and she came into the room. She was out for some reason. And when she came in, you could look at her and know something just happened that I don't know, but it's different from anything I've ever seen before. And this was November 1963, and it was Miss Jaffee who told the class that President Kennedy had been shot. And so we all got sent home, f- found out that he w- had died, and I just, I really would love to see myself on videotape, like, that night, because, like, I knew Man, something is going on here. And they explained to me that Lyndon Johnson was the vice president, and he was now going to become the new president. And I'm thinking, "Man, what must it be like to be that guy? What is he feeling?" Here he was ... I know he probably wanted to be the president, but he couldn't be the president, and then he was the vice president, and now the president gets killed, and he gets to be the president. So I picked up a piece of paper and a pencil, and I just wrote to Lyndon Johnson.

   3. TFTim Ferriss12:41

      [laughs] You wrote a letter to Lyndon Johnson?

   4. CFCal Fussman12:43

      Wrote a letter to Lyndon Johnson, said, "What does it feel like?"

   5. TFTim Ferriss12:48

      [laughs]

   6. CFCal Fussman12:50

      And about six months later, I got a letter back.

   7. TFTim Ferriss12:54

      That's incredible.

   8. CFCal Fussman12:55

      And it was from his, uh, personal secretary, Juanita D. Roberts, and the cool thing about it was the first sentence was, "Thank you for the friendly thought in writing." So I don't know what I wrote him, but somehow, I, I must have tried to make him feel comfortable-

   9. TFTim Ferriss13:14

      [laughs]

   10. CFCal Fussman13:15

       ... that this question was coming. [laughs] And then the second question was, "In answer to your query..."

   11. TFTim Ferriss13:22

       [laughs]

   12. CFCal Fussman13:25

       And what that said was she was treating me like I was legit.

   13. TFTim Ferriss13:30

       Yeah.

   14. CFCal Fussman13:30

       You know, I w- I had just turned 17.

   15. TFTim Ferriss13:32

       Bona fide adult.

   16. CFCal Fussman13:33

       That e- exactly. And, you know, when you did the interview with Ed Norton, he talked about having a mentor in high school-

   17. TFTim Ferriss13:42

       Mm-hmm

   18. CFCal Fussman13:42

       ... who treated him like an adult.

   19. TFTim Ferriss13:45

       That's right.

   20. CFCal Fussman13:46

       And that is what that letter felt like to me. And only now when people are starting to ask me questions did this come to me, but that's when I realized that asking questions is, is kind of natural for me.

   21. TFTim Ferriss14:03

       [laughs] And that was at, that ... So that was in second grade.

   22. CFCal Fussman14:05

       Second grade.

   23. TFTim Ferriss14:06

       Now, I have to ask, when you wrote the letter, something you back to second grade, and was it written on paper that had the, the dotted line in between the intact lines-

   24. CFCal Fussman14:17

       [laughs]

   25. TFTim Ferriss14:18

       ... for the lowercase letters? What type of ... Do you, do you recall what kind of paper it was on?

   26. CFCal Fussman14:22

       I, I, I don't know. It's probably on loose-leaf paper-

   27. TFTim Ferriss14:25

       All right

   28. CFCal Fussman14:26

       ... if I was making, making a guess. I wish... You know, I was talking to the historian Robert Caro, who wrote volumes about Lyndon Johnson. And then, and this-

   29. TFTim Ferriss14:35

       Also wrote The Power Broker, am I right?

   30. CFCal Fussman14:37

       That's right.
5. 17:10 – 19:40

   Early curiosity shaped by Muhammad Ali—and childhood career goals

   1. CFCal Fussman17:10

      That's a good, it's a good question, and m- maybe they did in that my dad loved sports. And, you know, I grew up in the '60s at a time where Muhammad Ali came into play, and so that ... He was my childhood hero. And in a some sense, that was the start of it, uh, because he was more than my hero just because he was the heavyweight champ of the world, and he could dance and make sure nobody ever hit him, and then when he wanted to hit you, he could hit you 16 times before you even blinked. It was more than the fact that he could make predictions with poetry and make you always laugh. His actions made you ask questions. He would take his Olympic gold medal and throw it in the Ohio River. And it would make you wonder, "Hold it. How is it that a Black guy can go win a gold medal in Australia, then come back after representing his coun- country and not be able to sit at a lunchroom counter at a Woolworth's next to white people?" He would defy the government and refuse draft induction, wouldn't go into the Army, and basically say, "Hey, I ain't got nothing against no Viet Cong." And he would make you think, "Hey, what, what is going on over there in Vietnam?" So that was a huge, huge part of my childhood.

   2. TFTim Ferriss18:56

      Did you have any particular career aspiration? What'd you wanna be when you were a kid, say, from second grade onward? This... Were there any particular professions that you knew you wanted to go after?

   3. CFCal Fussman19:10

      Two, two things. I wanted to see my face over a column in a big city newspaper, and I wanted to write a magazine story about Muhammad Ali.

   4. TFTim Ferriss19:23

      [laughs] Wow. Very prescient. [laughs]

   5. CFCal Fussman19:27

      Uh, no, I knew, I knew what I wanted to do. Only later, after I'd done it so quickly, did I realize, oh, what am I gonna do now? Which we can get to.

6. 19:40 – 34:09

   Journalism school, sportswriting culture, and Inside Sports (plus Hunter S. Thompson at the bar)

   1. TFTim Ferriss19:40

      So, so you mentioned 18 and 24, so two very specific ages. Uh, take me to, say, 18 and then 24 and contrast your two styles, but if you could tell us where you were at those two points also.

   2. CFCal Fussman19:57

      Sure. So, like, when I grew up, I grew up thinking an interview was Meet the Press. I grew up thinking it was what happened in a locker room after a sporting event. So I knew in order to achieve my dreams, I need to go to journalism school. I asked around and found out University of Missouri had one of the best, so that's where I went. And I learned to ask who, what, when, where, and why, and went through the whole journalism cycle. This was also an interesting time. It was the time of Watergate, so journalists were seen, like, at the highest point that, uh, maybe they've ever been. It was really cool to be a journalist. A, a journalist actually brought down the president when they caught him lying. And so it was a, it was a great time, and I went into sports. So basically, after I graduated, four months after I graduated, I was sitting ringside when Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight championship for the third time. A year after that, if you lived in St. Louis and you opened the Post-Dispatch sports section, you saw my face over a column. And a year after that, I, I went to the big time, New York. An amazing magazine called Inside Sports got started up. It was-

   3. TFTim Ferriss21:30

      And how old were you at the time?

   4. CFCal Fussman21:32

      I was 22-

   5. TFTim Ferriss21:35

      22

   6. CFCal Fussman21:35

      ... by then. And basically, this magazine was really unique. It was, it was set up in the day that Sports Illustrated was as big as it gets, and it was set up to compete with Sports Illustrated, and it brought in all these great writers. And so I'd be going to the bar at night and sitting next to Hunter Thompson, the Gonzo journalist. We'd be throwing back shots. The next morning I'd be getting up and going on a plane to Pittsburgh or-

   7. TFTim Ferriss22:06

      Wait, hold on one second. So you, you did shots with Hunter S. Thompson? [laughs]

   8. CFCal Fussman22:09

      Oh, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

   9. TFTim Ferriss22:10

      Okay. We're gonna come back to that. Please continue.

   10. CFCal Fussman22:13

       [laughs]

   11. TFTim Ferriss22:14

       This is... Oh, man.

   12. CFCal Fussman22:16

       So it was, th- this magazine attracted all these writers. And, and the, the guy who started it was a guy named John A. Walsh who went on to start SportsCenter for ESPN. So he just had, he had one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen at the time. Uh, I didn't really even know what a Rolodex was, and I walked into Inside Sports for the first time. It was a Friday afternoon, and I'd called him up and I said, "Hey," like, "if I come into New York to work, I'm not asking for a job. Just make sure I don't starve." And he says, "Come on in." So [laughs] I, I show up at the office at, like, 4:00, and there was two guys with a, uh, a dolly stacked with beer.

   13. TFTim Ferriss23:13

       [laughs]

   14. CFCal Fussman23:14

       Just, like, case after case of beer. And I got in the elevator right behind the dolly. We, they, they hit the same floor number that I needed to go to, [laughs] and they just rolled it out into the offices of Inside Sports and I said, "This is where I need to be."

   15. TFTim Ferriss23:31

       [laughs]

   16. CFCal Fussman23:32

       And it, this magazine attracted guys like David Halberstam, who was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Uh, it just, the best of the best. And basically, I got to sit next to all of them. I was only a kid. I was 22. And every night they would g- everybody would go ac- across the street to a bar called The Cowboy. Tony the bartender was minding [laughs] the bar. And, like, at the, the time I, like, I had no money, so they would put out these little hors d'oeuvres [laughs] for people. That w- that was, like, w- where my dinner would be if-

   17. TFTim Ferriss24:08

       [laughs]

   18. CFCal Fussman24:08

       ... the guys with expense accounts weren't [laughs] going out later.

   19. TFTim Ferriss24:11

       The, the mixed nuts and olives.

   20. CFCal Fussman24:13

       That's right. [laughs] That was dinner.

   21. TFTim Ferriss24:14

       Crabby Maraschino cherries.

   22. CFCal Fussman24:16

       But it was great. Because you're sitting next to Frank Deford, who was, like, the big sports writer of his day. A guy named Gary Smith came to work there. He was a National Magazine Award winner for many, many years. And it was just a blast. It was the best time.

   23. TFTim Ferriss24:35

       Sounds incredible.

   24. CFCal Fussman24:36

       And then, like a lot of artistic successes, it was not a commercial success, and like a lot of startups, it went belly up.

   25. TFTim Ferriss24:45

       Sounds like the Paris Review and many, many others.

   26. CFCal Fussman24:47

       There you go. And so here I am in New York, and, and basically I've now achieved everything I'd set out to achieve when I was a kid. And I'm looking around saying, "What am I gonna do now? Where am I gonna go?" I had no idea. Because I knew if I took ... The, Inside Sports was not a job. It was an experience. It was an, uh, uh, an ev- an event every evening. Who's coming tonight? And I didn't know what to do, so I, I called up my mom and dad and I said, "You know, I think I'm gonna take some time off and travel." My mom, who's always really supportive, said, "Oh, Cal, that's wonderful." And little did she know when I said it that I wasn't coming back for 10 years [laughs] , but I didn't know it either. I just bought a ticket, uh, to go over to Europe, w- left with a few guys, and that started a 10-year odyssey of Cal going around the world.

   27. TFTim Ferriss25:52

       [laughs] Okay. Let's ... Okay. Let's hit pause for a second. I wanna do some backtracking here.

   28. CFCal Fussman25:58

       Okay.

   29. TFTim Ferriss25:58

       So the first question we're gonna ... And I have not forgotten about Hunter S. Thompson, but when you said I d- I ... And please correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but, "I don't need a job. I just don't wanna starve," and he said, "Come on in," why did he give you such a warm welcome?

   30. CFCal Fussman26:14

       He had actually reached out to me. Uh, and again, this went back to University of Missouri Journalism. That's where he had gone to school. So I, like, and I found all through my travels, this school and its network were al- I was always linked to them in, in some way. And you knew who was really good from that school. Everybody knew it. And so if I found out that somebody was doing really good work, and they were an editor, and I knew they went to the University of Missouri, it would be ... It's an easy phone call for me to make. Uh, and, and, and it's interesting 'cause I didn't make those phone call, have to make those calls often because there was a, like a nexus that people bumped into people, and you were furted to the right place. And so when Inside Sports folded, ultimately one of the editors there got the job at the Washington Post Sunday Magazine. But when I was traveling around the world, I basically, I, I didn't really write. I-
7. 34:09 – 46:26

   Choosing uncertainty: the moment Cal decided to keep “going over the mountain”

   1. TFTim Ferriss34:09

      So how did you decide on travel?

   2. CFCal Fussman34:12

      I didn't know what to do. And I had met, when I was in St. Louis, a woman from France, and she, she came from Monpazier. And she says, "Oh," like, "you have to come visit Monpazier and pick the grapes." And so in my mind I always thought, "I've got to get to Monpazier." And so we bought a ticket. I bought a cheap ticket through Icelandair. They, they would land you in Iceland and then fly you into Luxembourg, and the idea I guess was to get you to somehow stay in Iceland.

   3. TFTim Ferriss34:52

      [laughs] It still is.

   4. CFCal Fussman34:52

      Yeah. [laughs]

   5. TFTim Ferriss34:53

      They still sell it.

   6. CFCal Fussman34:54

      It is.

   7. TFTim Ferriss34:54

      It's like the stopover destination.

   8. CFCal Fussman34:56

      [laughs]

   9. TFTim Ferriss34:56

      Stay for a few days, please.

   10. CFCal Fussman34:58

       And you know what? People should, because a, one of the Playboy centerfold photographers told me that that was one of the best places that he'd ever been to w- in, in terms of like meeting women. Uh, he said it was like outrageous. You'd, you'd go there in, on a Saturday night, and everybody knew everybody, but by 4:00 in the morning, like people were naked doing cartwheels on top of the bar.

   11. TFTim Ferriss35:27

       [laughs]

   12. CFCal Fussman35:28

       And like, who would've thought of it from Iceland?

   13. TFTim Ferriss35:30

       Iceland, you know, it's a limited number of activities if you're there, depending on the time of the year.

   14. CFCal Fussman35:35

       [laughs]

   15. TFTim Ferriss35:35

       But I, I actually, uh, went to Iceland for the first time with my family to see the aurora borealis-

   16. CFCal Fussman35:42

       Oh

   17. TFTim Ferriss35:42

       ... about, uh, two winters ago. Just glorious, fantastic, l- just entirely mystical, sort of a word-defying experience. It really was fantastic.

   18. CFCal Fussman35:56

       But-

   19. TFTim Ferriss35:56

       So that's, that's maybe the other [laughs] more brochure-friendly-

   20. CFCal Fussman35:59

       [laughs]

   21. TFTim Ferriss36:01

       ... side of Iceland.

   22. CFCal Fussman36:01

       You know what?

   23. TFTim Ferriss36:01

       But yeah, a lot of booze.

   24. CFCal Fussman36:03

       If you're tell-

   25. TFTim Ferriss36:03

       A lot of booze

   26. CFCal Fussman36:04

       ... a lot of boo- if, if you're telling me that-

   27. TFTim Ferriss36:06

       And elves. They like elves and gnomes also, but [laughs] yeah, booze.

   28. CFCal Fussman36:09

       No, that sounds like a magical moment in your life.

   29. TFTim Ferriss36:13

       It was. It was.

   30. CFCal Fussman36:14

       What, did you have like a notion of what it would be, and then did it top it like by 10 times?
8. 46:26 – 51:47

   Survival-by-curiosity: using questions to earn trust, meals, and a place to sleep

   1. CFCal Fussman46:26

      interviewing shift?" So what happened w- was I had hardly any money, and I would go to a bus station or a train station, and I would just walk up, say, "Where's, where's the next train leave out of?" Or, "Where's it, where's it headed?" And they would say a name. I'd say, "Okay, I want a ticket." So I would buy the ticket. Didn't... Destination had no meaning to me whatsoever. What had meaning to me was I'd never been there before, and I'm going to take this trip down the aisle. The trip down the aisle was where all the stakes were because as I'm going down that aisle, I've gotta look for an empty seat next to somebody who seems interesting, somebody I can trust, somebody who might be able to, to trust me because... And the stakes are high because I know that at the end of that ride, wherever it was going, that person had to invite me to their home-

   2. TFTim Ferriss47:35

      [laughs]

   3. CFCal Fussman47:36

      ... because I had no money to s- to spend night after night in a hotel.

   4. TFTim Ferriss47:39

      I was gonna ask you how you paid for the trip. So it was just savings-based until it was extinguished or-

   5. CFCal Fussman47:47

      Well, there was very, there was very little money. I, I, I can't... I, I'm trying to let you know the, the, like, the stakes that were involved when I got on that train.

   6. TFTim Ferriss47:57

      They were very high.

   7. CFCal Fussman47:58

      It, it was not... Uh, it, it was like an athletic event where you were going out, and you had to w- you had to get a, a roof over your head [laughs] that night.

   8. TFTim Ferriss48:10

      Right.

   9. CFCal Fussman48:10

      And I'll, I'll tell you how seriously I took this, and I'm gonna tell you a story after this which shows you what I learned. I'm walking down that aisle, and I see an empty seat next to a beautiful woman, right? I look at her hands. No rings. She's looking at me. She's smiling at me. She could be a supermodel. I swear I walked right on by-

   10. TFTim Ferriss48:40

       Why?

   11. CFCal Fussman48:40

       ... because there was no way she was taking me home. There was no way-

   12. TFTim Ferriss48:44

       Understood

   13. CFCal Fussman48:44

       ... she was taking me home.

   14. TFTim Ferriss48:45

       That is-

   15. CFCal Fussman48:46

       Now, nobody can see me, but if you saw me, you would know she, the supermodel was-

   16. TFTim Ferriss48:51

       [laughs]

   17. CFCal Fussman48:51

       ... not taking me home.

   18. TFTim Ferriss48:53

       Hey, you know, in fairness, Billy Joel got, uh, uh-

   19. CFCal Fussman48:55

       Chr- Christie Brinkley

   20. TFTim Ferriss48:57

       ... Christie Brinkley.

   21. CFCal Fussman48:57

       That's right. That's right.

   22. TFTim Ferriss48:58

       So not, no, no offense to Billy Joel, but he-

   23. CFCal Fussman49:00

       [laughs]

   24. TFTim Ferriss49:00

       And I'm not comparing you to Billy Joel. I think you're a, a very handsome man.

   25. CFCal Fussman49:04

       [laughs]

   26. TFTim Ferriss49:04

       But just to say, like-

   27. CFCal Fussman49:06

       No, I'll tell you a story about this

   28. TFTim Ferriss49:07

       ... these things happen.

   29. CFCal Fussman49:08

       I'll tell you a story about this, that I, I came to later regret that. All right? So this is years later, and I get set up, um, working at Esquire, where I do this What I've Learned column. And I get set up, do an interview with Petra Nemcova, the supermodel. And I'm waiting for her. She's supposed to arrive at, like, 8:00 or something, and, and she's, she's late. So I'm sitting there waiting for her, and then she sits down, and we start talking. We have this amazing conversation. I... People may not know, but she was in Thailand when that tsunami hit, uh, in, in like, a bungalow with her best friend, uh, who basically lost his life, and she was swept away by the tsunami and narrowly survived. This is an amazing story. It's like, took an hour and a half just to tell the tsunami story. And she's j- was telling me these great stories, and we're really hitting it off. And finally... And the interview's supposed to go for an hour and a half. Like, we're at four hours, and it's not an interview anymore. Like, we... I feel, like, completely connected to her the way I would've been had I been, met her on a bus or a train. And I said to her, I said, "Petra, I, I really... I'm gonna tell you something. I apologize." And she said, "What for?" And I said, "Because all those years, those 10 years I was traveling around the world, if the empty seat was next to so- it was next to you, I would've walked right on by you just because you were good-looking." And she had a very, uh, amazing reaction. She grabbed me by the hand and squeezed my hand, and she said, "Well, don't worry, Cal. Tonight I sat next to you," which is very cool, but it made me realize... And, and this is a, this is really, if you're a good guy who's a little scared to approach that woman, you should remember that story because they wanna be treated normally. And, uh, I was talking to another actress about this, and, and she really started riding me. She said, "Okay, so you don't take that seat, and now some asshole takes it."

   30. TFTim Ferriss51:39

       [laughs]
9. 51:47 – 1:09:13

   The goulash question: how a single conversation created weeks of connection

   1. TFTim Ferriss51:47

      So you, you walked by this woman when you got on the train, walked down the aisle.

   2. CFCal Fussman51:52

      Walked down the aisle.

   3. TFTim Ferriss51:52

      You choose-

   4. CFCal Fussman51:54

      Okay

   5. TFTim Ferriss51:54

      ... survival and housing over-

   6. CFCal Fussman51:57

      That's right

   7. TFTim Ferriss51:57

      ... the prospective romance.

   8. CFCal Fussman51:59

      Walk by the supermodel, and I'm looking, looking down the car, and, oh, okay, that grandmother with no teeth-

   9. TFTim Ferriss52:08

      [laughs]

   10. CFCal Fussman52:09

       ... eating the crackers out of her purse.

   11. TFTim Ferriss52:11

       [laughs]

   12. CFCal Fussman52:12

       There's the winner.

   13. TFTim Ferriss52:14

       [laughs]

   14. CFCal Fussman52:16

       So I walk up, sit down next to the grandma. Let's say we're in Hungary, a- and this happened in many cultures. But for the sake of this story, and this happened in Hungary, I sit down next to her, and I'll ask her about goulash. Now, of course, she can't speak English. My Hungarian at that point is, "Hi, how are you? I need to go to the bathroom." And some of the younger people on the train are watching me and grandma try and talk to each other. And naturally, they come over, and they start to translate. "He wants to know what makes a great goulash." This grandma's chest just bursts with pride, and now she's talking about her grandmother making goulash, her mom making goulash, all the ingredients that go into goulash, how they gotta be put together just the right way. And then she looks at all these young Hungarians, said, "You know, I've been riding on this train for decades. Not one of you has asked how I make my goulash. This American, he asks. You tell him he has to come to my house-

   15. TFTim Ferriss53:38

       [laughs]

   16. CFCal Fussman53:38

       ... because I am going to prepare him goulash so he knows what it's like to eat goulash in Hungary." All the people on the train, they come along. [laughs] Now I'm staying with Grandma. Not only does she invite the people on the train, all her neighbors, all her friends, her relatives. Now I'm at the table, a room full of people. They're all surrounding me. The goulash is in front of me, and I slowly lift it to my lips. I taste it. My eyes shut, and I smile. And the, there's just a roar from this place.

   17. TFTim Ferriss54:17

       [laughs]

   18. CFCal Fussman54:17

       "He loves Grandma's goulash." So the party goes on for like four days.

   19. TFTim Ferriss54:24

       [laughs]

   20. CFCal Fussman54:26

       And during the party, one of the neighbors says, "Well, you know, have, have you ever tasted apricot brandy? Because nobody makes apricot brandy like my father. He lives half an hour away from me. You gotta come to taste the apricot brandy." That weekend, we're tasting apricot brandy, having a great time. Another party starts. Another neighbor comes over to me, "Have you ever been to Kiskunhalas, the paprika capital of the world? You cannot leave Hungary without visiting Kiskunhalas." Now we're off to Kiskunhalas. I'm telling you, a single question about goulash could get me six weeks of lodging and meals.

   21. TFTim Ferriss55:13

       [laughs]

   22. CFCal Fussman55:15

       And that's how I got passed around the world.

   23. TFTim Ferriss55:18

       That's incredible.

   24. CFCal Fussman55:18

       10 years.

   25. TFTim Ferriss55:20

       So-

   26. CFCal Fussman55:20

       10 years

   27. TFTim Ferriss55:20

       ... so, so what else did you learn about asking questions, uh, or if you wanna tackle it a different way, feel free to take it any direction, but what are some common mistakes that people make in asking people questions, whether it's on a, on a train or otherwise? But feel free to tackle either.

   28. CFCal Fussman55:45

       I th- You know what? That's a good question for a little later because that's what I discovered later on. I, at, at the time, and, and I'll bring it, uh, directly, uh, toward hiring people, um, where questions are being asked of job candidates like, "What's your biggest weakness?" Which they've already prepared like [laughs] two hours on how to answer that question. You're not, you're not gonna get, uh, a spontaneous good response to that.

   29. TFTim Ferriss56:18

       I work too hard sometimes. [laughs]

   30. CFCal Fussman56:20

       That's ... [laughs] Yeah.
10. 1:09:13 – 1:17:35

    From the road to Esquire: meeting his future wife in Brazil and bringing train-style interviewing to icons

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:09:13

       Uh, so at the, at the, uh, at the end of your travels, what happened that affected your ...

    2. CFCal Fussman1:09:22

       Okay, so I'm going around, I'm going, having a great time. Uh, and at this po- After 10 years, I mean, I got a pretty good network of people, so I can ... I don't really even have to rely on meeting somebody-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:09:40

       [laughs] My mother's eating something.

    4. CFCal Fussman1:09:41

       Yeah, that was ... [laughs] Because enough people know me, and when you, when you're in Brazil, uh, oh, there's this Fazenda de Cacao, this, uh, farm where they make, uh, grow the cocoa beans. And, uh, like great couple, just go, just go there. We'll, like we'll send a letter in advance. They'll be expecting you. So I am ... At this point, [laughs] it's almost like, um, I'm a, I'm a guest that's now expected.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:10:18

       Part of the family.

    6. CFCal Fussman1:10:19

       Part, part ... I'm, I ... Really, I'm part of the family before I even arrive. And I, a friend, this skinny guy-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:10:26

       [laughs]

    8. CFCal Fussman1:10:27

       ... the skinny guy, got married, and he decided to take a year and spend it in Cochabamba, Bolivia. So I hear that, and I'm thinking-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:10:42

       I hope his, hope his wife, Debbie, knew that plan before signing up.

    10. CFCal Fussman1:10:44

        No, she did.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:10:45

        Okay.

    12. CFCal Fussman1:10:45

        I mean, that, and that, that was it. Let's do something ... We, we don't have any kids. Let's do something outrageous that nobody expected. And so naturally, I hear Cochabamba, Bolivia, "Hey," uh, I was in Peru. Now skinny guy's moving to Cochabamba. "Hey, I'll spend a few months in Cochabamba." So I'm there, and I get a call from the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, and again, going back to this nexus, uh, the, the guy in charge had worked at Inside Sports, and now he was in charge of his own magazine. And he called me up, and he said, "You know what? We're doing an issue about great beaches around the world. We know you've, uh, been to Brazil before. Uh, is there a story about a beach in Brazil that you could write up for us?" And at the time, I said, "Look, I'm in Cochabamba, Boliva-" You would think it's crazy. Uh, but like I was really getting into Cochabamba, Bolivia. It's like completely different culture, and there's Altiplano that it's a landlocked nation. You're, you really are experiencing something different as a traveler. But I said, "Oh, okay. I, you know what?" I said, "I heard, I actually heard of a, of a beach in Brazil. You, you might, you might not want me to go there because you're probably doing this s- as a travel issue to s- basically hook up with, get travel agents and airlines so people can go to these destinations. This beach that I heard of is on the north of Brazil. Uh, y- from what I heard, you can't even get there unless you go on like a crude sailing vessel and on mule back." And, and the editor's saying, "You know, why don't you just check this place out?" [laughs] So I, I say, "Okay." And I leave Cochabamba, I go to Brazil, and I end up in a city called Fortaleza.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:13:00

        Fortaleza.

    14. CFCal Fussman1:13:01

        Fortaleza. And just as I arrive- The first trip to this isolated beach, sand dunes that look like they're straight out of the H- Sahara, abutted against, like, the most sparkling waters of the Caribbean. The first tour bus is going to go to this place. There are gonna be dune buggies. We don't have to go by mule. We don't need the crude sailing vessels, and I'm just right on time. And so first bus leaves midnight Friday night, and I buy my ticket, get on the bus, and I let down my guard, and I spoke to the beautiful woman on the bus on the way to the enchanted beach in Brazil, and that was the end of the trip. [laughs] And I would tell you the rest of the story, except it takes two hours to do. We'll, we'll be at a ... Well, you're not doing it on tape, but if digital [laughs] has any limits, we'll be, we'll be out of there. But that, the important thing about it was that was a moment where my style of interviewing had to change again, uh, because I was no longer traveling around the world. Uh, I, this woman and I got married. We moved to New York. We started to have kids, and then I began to write for Esquire Magazine. And all the things that I'd learned on buses, trains, I was then able to project into Esquire's What I've Learned column, which consists of interviews with the most celebrated, accomplished, and creative people on Earth.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:14:59

        And I have, I have the, uh, the handy recorder, the H4n, on top of one of these, in fact, the What I've Learned. This is the third volume? Is that right?

    16. CFCal Fussman1:15:08

        That's the third volume. Uh, these interviews have been done for, um, almost 20 years now, uh, with everybody from presidents to premiers to movie stars, uh, basically people that you know, and the, the idea is to, or for me to interview them and, using their own words, show them in a light that you never really knew. So you're, you think you know these people, and then you listen to their experiences and you say, "Whoa, I never knew that about Robert DeNiro or Mikhail Gorbachev." And so that is where these conversations on the trains were so important because I did not approach these interviews, uh, with Woody Allen or, uh, Wolfgang Puck, George Clooney, as if I was a journalist. I approached them as if they were sitting on the train next to the empty seat, and I just sat down next to them. And that is where the evolution, uh, continued, uh, until, um, actually very recently. It was 20 years. So it took me, like, 10 years to understand that an interview was more than meet the press, but then another 20 to figure out that it was more than sitting down with George Clooney and having the time of my life. Uh, because a, a crazy thing happened to me, caught me completely off guard, and made me think about interviewing in a whole different way, and this was only very recently.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:17:01

        Can you talk about that, or should you keep-

    18. CFCal Fussman1:17:02

        Oh, yeah

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:17:02

        ... that off?

    20. CFCal Fussman1:17:03

        No, 100%.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:17:04

        Can you, can you mention that just 'cause you brought it up, and then we'll, we'll dial back the clock?

    22. CFCal Fussman1:17:08

        Sure.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:17:08

        And, and can I show you something first also? Uh, so I've, I've digested this entire thing with highlights and so on. There are notes on writer's block, Jodie Foster's comment, one of my favorites, just for folks, "In the end, winning is sleeping better." I just love that. So good. Highlighted Woody Allen. It just goes on and on. So I, uh, I love this entire compilation and encourage people to check it out. But what, what changed so recently?

11. 1:17:35 – 1:31:58

    Summit at Sea: an unexpected audience, and why hiring questions became Cal’s next focus

    1. CFCal Fussman1:17:35

       So I was asked to give a speech on a cruise, and I never, ever, ever went on cruise, in cruise, cruises before. In fact, I, I g- I gotta say it, it's, it's almost laughable because there are certain people, like, they hear cruise, and they turn up their nose, and I think I was one of those people. In fact, I had a friend who's a writer, and his wife wanted to go on a cruise, and she kept on pestering him, pestering him, nah, uh, like ... And my wife finally said to him, "Why don't you take your wife on a cruise?" And he said, "Because I draw the line." [laughs] And I said, "Oh, man, maybe I think about cruises that way."

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:18:24

       [laughs]

    3. CFCal Fussman1:18:26

       And then I was invited to speak on a cruise, but it was a special cruise. Uh, it was a cruise called Summit at Sea.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:18:33

       Yep.

    5. CFCal Fussman1:18:33

       And so-

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:18:34

       Run by the Summit Series guys.

    7. CFCal Fussman1:18:35

       Okay, so you, you know th- you know these folks. And so basically it's a cruise ship filled with 4,000 entrepreneurial minds. [laughs] And that was wild to begin with.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:18:51

       Oh, yeah.

    9. CFCal Fussman1:18:52

       I, because I had never ... I, I had limited experiences with entrepreneurs, and then you put yourself on a ship with 4,000 entrepreneurs, your life is gonna change.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:19:05

        A lot of potential energy. Yeah.

    11. CFCal Fussman1:19:06

        Yeah.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:19:06

        It's like, it's like TED plus Coachella plus infinite amounts of alcohol. [laughs]

    13. CFCal Fussman1:19:11

        [laughs] There you go. And you can't even get on an elevator Without meeting somebody, somebody on the elevator is gonna say, "What's your name?" "I'm, I'm Michael. This is, this is where I work. This is what I do." Well they, "Who are you?" I, I felt at the end of, like, three days, uh, my head was really... It was like getting pumped up with helium. I was about to explode. Uh, it was amazing experience. And like you're sitting down and, like, at dinner, and the guy next to you says, "Oh, this is the rocket ship [laughs] I'm building. You wanna see?" And he pulls out his phone and he shows you his rocket ship. This is, like, wild. And it was, it was like traveling around the world except the world came to you

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:19:59

        I think Jane Goodall was there also. I mean, it just goes on and on

    15. CFCal Fussman1:20:03

        ... A- and, like, the world is coming to you and wanting to hear you and tell you what they're up to. So, like, in three days at, at Summit at Sea, you, you literally can go around the world. And I was totally unprepared for this. I was asked to give a speech called, like, Decoding the Art of the Interview, and I'd never spoken before, didn't know what it was gonna be like. So but I, you know, I have experiences with Gor- Mikhail Gorbachev, and Donald Trump, and DeNiro, and Muhammad Ali later on, uh, in life that they're, they're good stories. And so I've been telling these stories as I was traveling around on Saturday nights, and people always, "Oh, tell Ali's story." So I knew, okay, I don't know how to give a speech, but I, I can tell these stories. And so I go up and I tell my... Uh, and, and here's the thing about it, like, there are 20 events going on at once. Generally, when you look at that What I've Learned column, I'm invisible. I don't write a single word. I just interview them, the subject, and then put it, uh, down in their own words. So I'm, I'm not a guy who you would ever see on TV that you would really know. I, I'm invisible. So I'm thinking, h- you know, how... Yeah, there are people who know what I do, and people in the know will come up and tell me, "Hey," like, "I, I, I respect what you do," in, in, in odd ways. Uh, but I'm figuring, okay, I'm on this cruise ship, maybe 20 people are gonna show up at best. And in fact, I had read, uh, Pencils for Promise, uh, by Adam Braun. Uh, and he talked about giving, uh, it might've been his first speech, and I g- he, I guess he was expecting a crowd, and he had maybe six friends in, uh, [laughs] attending. And only one person other than his six friends showed up. And he went out and he gave this speech, and what he realized was you give the speech as if that one person is the entire audience. And it turned out that she was so enthused that she w- later went to work for his charity. So I went in prepared. That book prepared me. If there's one person in there, I don't care. I'm gonna give that person the best. I'm not gonna be disappointed. I'm just gonna go out, I'm gonna tell my stories, give a few lessons, and let's see how it goes. Like, a f- maybe the same day that I'm supposed to speak, they move my event, so it's now even in the program, if you're going to my event, you're going to the [laughs] wrong place.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:23:00

        You're going to the wrong place.

    17. CFCal Fussman1:23:02

        So now I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm down to, like, 10 people. That's cool. I'll speak to the one."

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:23:08

        [laughs]

    19. CFCal Fussman1:23:11

        The time for the, the speech show comes, people start filing in. And I had set up this speech around wine, and there, there's a reason for it, 'cause when one of the stories we could get to a little later, I was... I went out to learn about wine by becoming a sommelier at Windows of the World at the top of the World Trade Center right before the planes hit it. Uh, so I'm very attached to wine, and what I wanted to do was to have everybody drinking a glass of wine while I told [laughs] these stories. So if, if I messed up, they were still having a good time. [laughs]

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:23:48

        Also, yeah. Help- helps with reality bending also. [laughs]

    21. CFCal Fussman1:23:51

        That's right. So I have it... We set it up so that all the wine is there ready, ready to be served to people as they come in.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:23:58

        What, budgeting for 10 people? [laughs]

    23. CFCal Fussman1:24:00

        Well, no, I said, "Okay, there are, like, 150 seats. If 150 people show up, fine. Have the glasses and the wine, but let's face it, you may only go through a bottle." So they were all prepared, and place seated 150 at th- this, this funky nightclub. And all of a sudden, the, the time starts to roll around, and I'm watching, and people are just flooding in. They take up all the seats. And, and I was very specific to the people serving the wine. I set up this speech to have toasts throughout to keep everybody's involvement going. So everybody had to lift their glass and, like, scream with me. This is to keep everyone engaged. And so I said to the people delivering the wine, "Look, I need you to be able to walk down this corridor down the center and keep everybody's glasses filled 'cause it's bad luck to toast with empty glass." And so we're all set, and now every seat's taken, and there's still like 10 minutes before the speech set to s- start, and people are still coming in. And now they're coming down the aisle and they're sitting, like, at my ankles, and they're filling the aisle. They're se- cross-legged in the aisle.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:25:20

        They're sitting behind the bar.

    25. CFCal Fussman1:25:21

        That's right.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:25:21

        Taking up the foot space

    27. CFCal Fussman1:25:23

        To the back, the complete back, and now there's a line of people out that can't get in. I've become, like, the hottest [laughs] nightclub in New York City, and I'd never done this before.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:25:38

        What do you tr- not to derail this, but what do you attribute that to?

    29. CFCal Fussman1:25:42

        I, I think what happened is we-

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:25:46

        [laughs] They switched you with [laughs] Richard Branson in the program?
12. 1:31:58 – 1:41:09

    The Gorbachev lesson: starting with the heart to unlock depth fast

    1. CFCal Fussman1:31:58

       Uh, interesting. Different people respond differently to the different stories. One, if I was deconstructing the speech, uh, one of the things that I wanted to do was to explain how much you can do with a single question in a short amount of time. And to back that up, I told a story about my meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. So I'll take you back to say, uh, 2008. I think it was February. We're in New Orleans, and I'm in a hotel lobby. I'm all set to interview Mikhail Gorbachev for Esquire's What I've Learned column. We got an hour and a half, and fully prepared, ready to go, couldn't have been happier, and I get a call. I pick up the phone. "Hi, Cal." Uh, it's the publicist. "Sorry to r- so I have to pass this on, but, uh, y- the interview with Mr. Gorbachev's gonna have to be cut short."

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:33:12

       [laughs]

    3. CFCal Fussman1:33:14

       And now I'm thinking, "Oh, man. Oh, what, w- uh, what is it gonna be down to an hour?" Because that's the thing with this What I've Learned column, I can't fluff it up. I can't fill it out. I can't use my words. They have to be Mikhail Gorbachev's words, and they have to be wise words. I need at the very least an hour to-

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:33:35

       Extract that

    5. CFCal Fussman1:33:36

       ... yeah, move into his soul in a way that makes him feel comfortable and extract that wisdom. At the very least 45 minutes. So I say to her, "Oh, okay, okay. How much time do I got?" "10 minutes."

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:33:50

       [laughs]

    7. CFCal Fussman1:33:52

       "10 minutes? Are you n..." I don't wanna say, "Are you nuts?" But it's impossible. I can't do this interview in 10 minutes. "Cal, Cal, look, I understand, but a lot of very important people have been added to the list to see Mr. Gorbachev. There's nothing we can do about this. Do you want the 10 minutes or not?" What am, what am I gonna do, say no? "Okay, I'll take the 10 minutes." So I'm sitting down and I'm thinking, and the more I'm thinking about this, the worse it's getting because number one, I'm knowing that all of my questions are going to be translated into Russian, and all of his answers are gonna be translated back into English. That's g-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:34:40

       You actually have five minutes.

    9. CFCal Fussman1:34:41

       That's, uh, yeah, we're, we're moving down. Plus, you're gonna sit down, and you're gonna exchange pleasantries. It's not gonna start in a finger snap.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:34:51

        You have two and a half minutes.

    11. CFCal Fussman1:34:52

        Yeah, ex- it, yeah. It wasn't, it, it wasn't two minutes, but it wasn't much more. And so the, the publicist leads me into the room, and at this point I'm thinking, "Okay, if it's two and a half minutes, like, d- just do your best." And I look up and, like, there he is, Gorby. And he's a little older than I remember. He's about 77 at the time. He was in town to speak about nuclear weapons and why they should be abolished. And we sit down, and I'm looking at him, and I just know, just know he's expecting my first question to be about nuclear arms, world politics, perestroika, Ronald Reagan. He's just ready. So I, I looked at him and I said, "What's the best lesson your father ever taught you?" And he is surprised, pleasantly surprised. He looks up, and he doesn't answer. He's, like, thinking about this, and he's l- it's as if after a little while he's seeing on the ceiling this movie of his past, and he starts to tell me this story. And it's this story about the day his dad was called to go fight in World War II. See, Gorbachev had been on, lived on a farm, and it was a long distance between this farm and the town where Gorbachev's dad had to join the other men to go off to war. And so the whole family took this trip with the dad to this town to wish him well as he went off. And Gorbachev is talking about this trip, and he's, like, providing these intricate details, and I'm transfixed. But I'm saying like, "Oh my God, [laughs] I, that's the worst possible question. This interview's gonna be over. He's not even gonna get to town yet."

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:36:59

        [laughs]

    13. CFCal Fussman1:37:01

        So finally they do get to town.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:37:04

        [laughs]

    15. CFCal Fussman1:37:05

        And Gorbachev's dad takes the family in to this little shop, and he gets ice cream for everybody. And Gorbachev starts describing this ice cream and the cup that it was in. It, it's aluminum cup. And as he's telling me, it's almost like he's got his hand out in front of him and the cup's in it. It's that vivid to him. And it's as if in this moment we both have this same realization. That cup of ice cream is the reason that he was able to make peace with Ronald Reagan and end the Cold War. Because that cup of ice cream, just the memory of it, is the memory of what it felt like for his dad to go off to war, for him to see his dad going off to war. That cup of ice cream i- in the memory was the dread that he knew of the possibility of never seeing his father again. And we are looking at each other like, "Oh, man, this is deep." He didn't [laughs] expect it any more than I did. Just at that moment, knock on the door. It's the publicist. Publicist comes in, very efficient. "Gorbachev, Cal, time for the interview is up." And he looks at her and he wags his finger, he says, "No. I wanna talk to him." Publicist puts up her hands, "Yes, sir," and she like backs out, like sheepishly. The door shuts, conversation continues. Now we're getting deeper. 10 minutes later, another knock [laughs] on the door. This time the publicist comes in a little slower. "Mr. Gorbachev, Cal." And Gorbachev says, "No, I wanna talk to him." She backs out. 10 minutes later, knock on the door. This time she's in a panic. [laughs]

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:39:05

        [laughs] 'Cause the, the, the train cars are just piling up. [laughs]

    17. CFCal Fussman1:39:09

        [laughs] And I said, "Gorbachev, please, I've got the mayor of New Orleans right outside. There's a long line of people. We're way behind schedule." And Gorbachev just smiles. And, and he, he didn't say anything, but the look on his face was, "Hey, what can I do, Cal?" So I said, "Thank you." Like I knew I pushed it to as long as it could be pushed. And I left, and the interview was a success in that, you know, it had a little story like that, and people could understand something about Gorbachev that they might never have known. Uh, but for me, when I look back on it, what I realized was the power of the first question going straight to the heart and not the head. Because it was that question that went into his heart that took us to that very deep place and enabled the interview to continue to go. And because the interview could go, I was able to fill out the page for, for Esquire. Otherwise, that would've been it. There would've been no way the interview would've run. So lesson number one, when people ask me what tips would I give, is aim for the heart, not the head. Once you get the heart, you can go to the head. Once you get the heart and the head, then you'll have a pathway to the soul. And so basically, the speech was lessons tied to stories that backed them up. And whether it was with Gorbachev or Donald Trump or Robert DeNiro or Muhammad Ali, uh, each story allowed the listener to understand something very basic.

13. 1:41:09 – 2:20:16

    From Golden Gloves humiliation to fighting Julio Cesar Chavez (two rounds in Mexico)

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:41:09

       So I'm gonna pick a name that we haven't heard yet, just because this is the one that made Alex dance around because that's all he could do to respond [laughs] before he insisted that I ask you about it. Uh, so Julio Cesar Chavez.

    2. CFCal Fussman1:41:25

       Yeah, that, like, and that's, that's another, [laughs] that's another story. And it, it goes back to-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:41:32

       [laughs]

    4. CFCal Fussman1:41:33

       ... a, a time when I was a teenager. And again, you, as I started out, you knew that my childhood hero was Muhammad Ali, and so I followed boxing. And naturally I wanted to fight. Now, where I lived, there were no boxing gyms around. What we had in New York was a tournament called The Golden Gloves.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:41:56

       Golden Gloves, big deal.

    6. CFCal Fussman1:41:57

       Yeah. Sponsored by the Daily News. The final sold-out Madison Square Garden every year. Now, I had no idea how to fight, and I wanted to do it. So basically, like a month before the Golden Gloves started, I showed up at a gym that was a few towns over in a bad neighborhood and said, uh, like, "I wanna train for the Golden Gloves." You had to be 16. I just turned 16. Um, I entered. And this manager pulled me aside and said, "No, no, no, no. Wait, that, that's not the way it works." He's like, "You don't know how to fight. You don't, you, you don't know anything about fighting. What you do is you come here every night, and we'll teach you. And a year ... And within a year we can put you in with people who have your experience, and you'll learn. And then a year from now, you'll have some experience, and you can go into the Golden Gloves. You know, if you're good, you'll, you'll do okay." I said, "No, no, no, no. You don't understand. I came to fight."

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:43:01

       [laughs] Thanks, pops, but listen.

    8. CFCal Fussman1:43:04

       [laughs] That's right.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:43:06

       [laughs]

    10. CFCal Fussman1:43:06

        And basically, I w- I was not ... I, I wasn't on the tall side, so I was a short guy and a sh- very short arms. And, you know, my style was basically, you know, "Hey, man, I'm just gonna rush across the ring, and I'm just gonna start throwing punches."

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:43:24

        Joe Frazier style.

    12. CFCal Fussman1:43:25

        That's right. And you'll, you'll see what happens.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:43:27

        [laughs]

    14. CFCal Fussman1:43:29

        Because j- like Joe Frazier knew how to fight.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:43:31

        [laughs] Right. Right.

    16. CFCal Fussman1:43:33

        I ... All I could do was just throw reckless, wild, crazy punches one after another. I was in good shape, so I, I could throw punches three minutes a round, just- Start to finish. And it was a, it was actually, for the people in the gym, it was kinda comical to watch because [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:43:54

        [laughs]

    18. CFCal Fussman1:43:54

        You know, everybody knew that when I finally got in the ring, like one of two things was gonna happen. Uh, like, it, maybe I'd be able to just simply overwhelm whoever was in the ring just by sheer virtue of I'm coming at you to throw everything I got and I'm not stopping.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:44:14

        The Tasmanian Devil strategy.

    20. CFCal Fussman1:44:16

        That's right. You got it.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:44:17

        [laughs]

    22. CFCal Fussman1:44:18

        And so the, the, the month passes or so, and it's time for my fight in the Golden Gloves, and, and there was somebody at this club that was gonna represent me, and I show up at the club. He was gonna drive me into Queens, New York. I was living at Long Island at the time. And I was all set. And so I show up for my manager to pick me up and he's not there.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:44:44

        [laughs] Left at the altar.

    24. CFCal Fussman1:44:47

        Le- [laughs] right. Now I, I don't have a manager. I don't have a Lyft to get into this place, um, and there are no cell phones. You know, you're standing by a payphone throwing in quarters like, "Who can help me? I gotta get to the fights. I gotta fight." [laughs] And, you know, of course everybody in the school knows about this and, and so it's at a high school in Queens with a very large gym arena. It's like a, uh, a Catholic school. And I manage to get somebody to drive me down there and like arrive just in the nick of time, but now, like I'm all nervous, uh, just to get there. And I'm able to check in. I wrap my hands, get my gloves on, and out of nowhere comes my opponent in the dressing room, and in the most casual way possible, he just puts out his left hand and says like, "Jesus." Like, that was his name. But you can tell, um, not only like was there a scar down one side of his [laughs] face like to his lip, but you could just tell he had done this like 400 times before he was eight years old.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:46:01

        [laughs] Right. This was like checking in for work.

    26. CFCal Fussman1:46:06

        That's right. It, it, it's complete. And so now I'm starting to like realize-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:46:13

        [laughs]

    28. CFCal Fussman1:46:15

        ... "Uh-oh," like, "this could be, like, a predicament."

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:46:19

        [laughs]

    30. CFCal Fussman1:46:21

        And th- I get somebody who's never, I'd never met before to work my corner, and this guy, uh, has no idea of my style. N-
14. 2:20:16 – 2:33:59

    Rapid-fire: defining success through Alex Banayan and George Foreman’s character change

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:20:16

       All right. So the, [laughs] the first that I usually start with is when you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind, and why?

    2. CFCal Fussman2:20:23

       And you mentioned him during the course of this interview. There are two people. Uh, one is th- this kid, Alex Banayan, who's 23 years old. Uh, he was in school at USC, and his parents had basically raised him to be a doctor to the point where during Halloween, when he was a kid, they would dress him up in scrubs.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:20:46

       [laughs]

    4. CFCal Fussman2:20:47

       Just like, "Get the point? That's where you're headed." [laughs] And he gets to college, and he's got a stack of biology books next to him, and he, he just can't do it. Uh, he's really smart, but he's just not linked to it. And he starts to wonder, w- w- what am I doing here? He's, he's going to school at USC. It's a great school. And he starts to wonder about this word success, and he s- goes to the library and he starts to look at biographies of people who he deemed to be successful to see what the definition of success was. And he's reading biography after biography, and he, and he realizes that, "The book that I'm looking for doesn't exist. I need to go out and to interview these people to find out w- what they think success is." And so he did. And on his journey, uh, one of the people that he went to interview was Larry King. And he actually met Larry outside a Whole Foods, uh, was... Went running down. He saw Larry, like, pushing his [laughs] shopping cart. Went running down the street, "Larry King." Scared the bejesus out [laughs] of Larry, and asked if he could interview Larry, and Larry invited him to breakfast. And when he arrived, uh, Alex says, "I'm writing a book." And Larry said to Alex, "Well, if you're writing a book, then you should talk to this guy. You should talk to Cal 'cause he has written two of my books with me, and he can help you." So Alex did get to sit down to talk with Larry, but I became very close with Alex at that point. And so when I think of success, I think of everything Alex was trying to find out. That's one. The second is another boxer, George Foreman, who, uh, you might remember. Did George-

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:22:55

       My mom's favorite boxer.

    6. CFCal Fussman2:22:56

       Really?

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:22:57

       Oh, yeah.

    8. CFCal Fussman2:22:57

       Okay.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:22:57

       'Cause she remembers old George.

    10. CFCal Fussman2:22:59

        The old George. Now, the old George was, uh, was a bigger Mike Tyson.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:23:05

        Oh my God. Terrifying.

    12. CFCal Fussman2:23:07

        He was like... Tyson was, what, 6' maybe? George Foreman was 6'3", 220, and just had a string of vicious knockouts. Uh, and won the heavyweight title by knocking Joe Frazier down six times. One time, he literally hit him with an uppercut and uprooted Joe Frazier like he was a tree stump.

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:23:30

        It looks like a superhero movie.

    14. CFCal Fussman2:23:32

        That-

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:23:33

        For people, I'm sure you can find footage of it, but if you look at George Foreman, Frazier, you know, knocked down or knocked out, I mean, just the footage is unbelievable.

    16. CFCal Fussman2:23:42

        And you're looking at somebody there who, George Foreman grew up, uh, in, in a very tangled situation. His personality, uh, was formed, one, by living in poverty. He would go to school in the mornings with a brown paper bag that had no food in it, and he would blow it up to make it look like there was food in it so the other... He wouldn't be embarrassed in front of the other kids. On top of that, his sis- his siblings, his sisters would make fun of him. He was, he was younger. They would say, "You a mohead. You a mohead." And George Foreman had no idea what a mohead [laughs] meant, but he knew it wasn't good. And he would hear that, and he would chase his sisters around when he heard, "You a mohead. You a mohead." And finally, years later, he grew up, and he found out what they were saying. George Foreman's mom was married to Mr. Foreman, but they separated for a while. And while they were separated, her mom went off with a guy named Leroy Moorehead.

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:24:52

        [laughs]

    18. CFCal Fussman2:24:54

        Conceived George, conceived George. And then went back to Mr. Foreman.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:25:01

        Ah.

    20. CFCal Fussman2:25:02

        And so when he was born, his siblings, who were Foremans, would call him, "You a mohead. You a mohead." And, and so there was this angry part of George.

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:25:14

        Very angry.

    22. CFCal Fussman2:25:16

        Uh, to, to the, to the point where he told me people would be scared to ask him for an autograph. When he would walk into a place, people would look down, and he had this, uh, this surliness was a big part of his demeanor. And when he went to fight Muhammad Ali in Zaire, he was a undefeated champ, uh, people feared for Ali's life. And in fact, Ali would not watch George Foreman hit the heavy bag. It was too scary. This guy could hit that hard. And what Ali saw was George Foreman had so much anger in him that when he came out, he just came out to bludgeon whoever was in front of him. And Ali had a sense that if he could make Foreman expend his energy and not land those punches, to have them punches come off his arms, if he could g- infuriate Foreman to the point where Foreman lost his cool and punched himself out- He figured out a way to win. And naturally, in the heat of Africa, uh, it was basically Ali set this thing up perfectly. Foreman arrived with a German shepherd n- not knowing that the Zaireans had in their history a memory of German shepherds being brought in by the Belgians to keep them under control. So the Zaireans immediately hated George Foreman, and a chant grew out of it, Ali Bomaye, Ali kill him. And the bell rang, and George Foreman came at Ali, and Ali didn't move. He just kept his back against the ropes with his hands up.

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:27:06

        This was the Rope-a-Dope?

    24. CFCal Fussman2:27:07

        This was the Rope-a-Dope. And George Foreman is just slugging away, and Ali would, like, open his guard up just a little, says, "Is that all you got?" And then close his guard [laughs] and Foreman just getting more and more infuriated, just punch after punch, first round, second round. Those of us who were watching, and I was watching on closed circuit television on a big screen in St. Louis at the time, you're almost crying because you were screaming at Ali, "Get out of the way. Dance. Do something." We, we couldn't see what was happening, that he was just... He kept talking to George. We couldn't hear him talking. "Oh, man. That's it? That's all you got?" And Foreman is just throwing shot after shot after shot, and then all of a sudden, in, like, the fourth round, you see Foreman throw a shot, and Ali just duck under it, and then just throw a jab straight back in Foreman's face, and Foreman's head snapped back. And we realized, oh, my God, he's punched himself out. As the fight continues a few more rounds, Ali nails him with one right hand, and it's so hot. Foreman's exhausted. Ali nails him with a right hand. Foreman goes down, can't beat the count, and he's crushed. It must be akin to what Ronda Rousey, for, for those who are, like, younger and watch mixed martial arts, what Ronda Rousey went through, uh, after her recent defeat, where you-

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:28:30

        That's right

    26. CFCal Fussman2:28:31

        ... you think somebody is invincible, and then all of a sudden they're on their back.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:28:35

        One head kick, one head kick later.

    28. CFCal Fussman2:28:36

        That's right. And George Foreman for, like, 20 years could never get another title shot. He retired. And he did something, and he told me what he did, and he said, "This is the hardest thing." When you talk about success, I, I asked him about succe- I asked him a question about success, but it... And he said, "The hardest thing you can do in life is to change your character." And basically, in his early 40s, he came back to boxing, but he was completely different. He was no longer the surly guy. He was a guy who would do ads for eating hamburgers, smiling and laughing.

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:29:26

        [laughs] Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I remember his... I wanna say I remember his comeback sort of, uh, promotional videos where he'd be going for his boxing run, and people would be handing him food-

    30. CFCal Fussman2:29:37

        That's right
15. 2:33:59 – 2:41:57

    Books to gift: perspective on race, and practical speaking tools

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:33:59

       Yeah. Incredible. What is, uh, the book or books that you've given most as gifts, other than your own? Which obviously for people listening, you know that I'll link to everything in the show notes as well, but, uh ...

    2. CFCal Fussman2:34:13

       Hard question to answer because it's almost like wine. Uh, every meal you're going to have another experience with different people, different food. So if I meet somebody ... I like to give books that I've loved. And so I, like I mentioned, uh, meeting Alex and, and h- he says to me, "I wa-" He didn't know how to write a book, and he's like, "I wanna write a great book. I, I wanna ... " You could just tell it was bursting out of him. And so I gave him, uh, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude for him to know, okay, if you're gonna ... If you've never written a book and you're gonna tell somebody [laughs] you wanna wr- you wanna write a great book, all right, read this and know what a great book is. And so my, my gifts tend to judge what the person needs and then fill that need. So if ... And they're no different in wine. If somebody's having a steak, I'm probably not gonna give them a Riesling. I'll, I'll give them something to complement the steak.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:35:22

       If you ... So I'll give you a more specific circumstance. So let's say that someone came to you and they said, "You know what? I'm a bored billionaire, and I wanna give three books to every graduating, mm, high school senior in the country this year."

    4. CFCal Fussman2:35:40

       Wow. What a question. Okay. Um, one, one book that people should read, and in fact, uh, I, I got it with me right now, and, uh, I think ... L- let me, uh, pull it out here. It, one of the blurbs on this book actually says, uh, as Toni Morrison, "This is required reading."

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:36:09

       Wow.

    6. CFCal Fussman2:36:10

       So th-

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:36:10

       That's a strong endorsement.

    8. CFCal Fussman2:36:11

       Yeah. And Toni Morrison's a great African American writer. And this book is called, uh, uh, Between the World and Me, and it's by a guy named Ta-Nehisi Coates. And it's a letter to his son about being, uh, a Black male in America. And I think, I think it is required reading just because if we want to, like, w- understand what is going on, we, we see what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. Uh, like, it just seems like it's, oh, month after month after month we see protests and, and problems. And th- this is just a way of, to redirecting your eyesight to a place that you normally wouldn't go. And it, it's amazing thing, uh, about this book because as I'm reading it, I was walking down the street and I passed a n- a news box with the Los Angeles Times in it. And on the front page there was this statistic that said that basically every juvenile, uh, that's incarcerated in, in the state of California, it costs us $260,000 a year.

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:37:42

       That is a lot.

    10. CFCal Fussman2:37:44

        And you-

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:37:45

        More than any Ivy League education.

    12. CFCal Fussman2:37:47

        Th- there you go. And think of that. If, if you took that money and put it into lifting that same kid, I d- who knows what would happen. You know, there's DNA involved. There, there's a lot of stuff involved. But it just made me realize why aren't we putting the resources in before rather than just paying this money out we don't even know that we're putting it out. And so it's just a book that makes you see the world differently. Um, another book that I would recommend, it's a book that, uh, I'm reading now

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:38:29

        And just for those people wondering, Between the World and Me, this is a short book. This is about 130 pages, National Book Award winner. I will order that as soon as we finish this chat. But you mentioned the, the sec-

    14. CFCal Fussman2:38:42

        Uh, s- second book ... Is it okay if I give you two? 'Cause these two are coming-

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:38:46

        You can do two. Absolutely

    16. CFCal Fussman2:38:47

        I can do two? Uh, it's just because these are two that, um, I'm reading now, so it's just hot off the press. Uh, it's a book called Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln. Uh-

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:39:03

        I love the title

    18. CFCal Fussman2:39:04

        ... and, um, I think I'm carrying it around with me as well.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:39:08

        [laughs] This is amazing.

    20. CFCal Fussman2:39:10

        Yeah. Uh, you, you hit me at the right time with this question. It's written by James C. Humes, and there's ... For anyone who wants to speak, and if you're a, a high school senior, at some point you're gonna have to get up and speak. It's a great book because there's all kinds of tips on h- everything about speaking.

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:39:35

        T- subtitle, 21 Powerful Secrets of History's Greatest Speakers.

    22. CFCal Fussman2:39:41

        There's this great anecdote in this book that really helped me as I was preparing to give my speech, uh, because it's hard to memorize a speech. And then I'm reading about Ronald Reagan, like, known as The Great Communicator, American president. Well, you know, when he spoke, he riveted people. And when he was a young man, so you ... Again, we're talking about basically the same age as the people you just mentioned. What would you recommend for the high school senior? Uh, actually, Reagan was just getting out of college, and he got a job in radio in Iowa, and he was very good conversationally on the air, but then it came time to read the advertisements. And for some reason, he was so stiff and awkward reading these advertisements that the advertisers basically said, [laughs] "Get him off the air," and they fired him. And h- he went back to his room, and he's, like, feeling horrible about it because he loved being on the radio. He loved communicating. And he wondered, "What can I do in order to get my job back?" So I guess FDR was doing the fireside chats, and he realized how riveting those were, so he got those chats, and he started to read them. But what he did was he would look at the words, and then, like, almost memorize the phrase in his head, then look up, and then say the words conversationally. So he wasn't trying to memorize them by reading it off the page. He would just take a few of the words, then look up, give you those words, look down. He would never speak while he was looking down. And then he went back to radio, and that's how he did his advertisements, and it worked. So it's a great ... It's ... It ... The book is just filled with little tips like that that will make it so much easier for anybody who's gotta get up and give a speech.

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:41:52

        I am going to ... Yet another book for my list. [laughs]

    24. CFCal Fussman2:41:56

        [laughs]

16. 2:41:57 – 2:48:28

    Favorite film experiences: Man on Wire and The Walk in 3D IMAX

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:41:57

       Uh, do you have any favorite documentaries or movies?

    2. CFCal Fussman2:42:00

       You know, that's, that's a really interesting question. I probably would have told you that ... There's a movie, Cinema Paradiso.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:42:09

       Oh, great film.

    4. CFCal Fussman2:42:10

       You love that movie?

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:42:11

       Great film.

    6. CFCal Fussman2:42:11

       Okay. And I, I, I, I would mention that, but something happened to me recently where a documentary and a movie came together that provided this amazing experience. And, uh, the documentary was called Man on Wire, and it was about Philippe Petit's walk on a wire across the towers of the World Trade Center. Uh, and it's amazing documentary. Uh, everything that he had to go through to, uh, almost like a spy or an espioni- espionage agent, figure out how to get up on the roof. I mean, uh, we're not even talking about how do you walk a rope. Uh, that's one thing, but then to wonder how do you get to the top of the World Trade Center as it's being built, uh, and get a wire from one side to the other to stabilize it, like, at night when nobody's watching. Uh, and the documentary, like, takes you through the, the, the whole thing. It's just amazing.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:43:13

       And the way they c- they pieced it together with the alternating sort of black and white rec- reenactments, just the cinematography and the, the pacing is genius.

    8. CFCal Fussman2:43:22

       Uh, uh, yeah, it's definitely my favorite documentary. But then la- last year, Robert Zemeckis did a movie called The Walk, which-

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:43:31

       Is that, uh, Joseph Gordon-Levitt?

    10. CFCal Fussman2:43:33

        That's right.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:43:33

        I haven't seen it yet.

    12. CFCal Fussman2:43:34

        Oh. I, I'm tell- I, here's the thing. I saw this movie nine times.

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:43:39

        The Walk?

    14. CFCal Fussman2:43:40

        The Walk. I saw this movie nine times, but you, you gotta see it on 3D IMAX because one of the innovative things about this film on 3D IMAX is you literally feel like you are on the wire. I mean, people left the theater vomiting.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:43:59

        [laughs]

    16. CFCal Fussman2:44:03

        Uh, and, and it ... I knew everything about that story because, uh, as you mentioned, I worked at Windows of the World. So when I was serving wine at the top of Windows of the World, every day I was looking down at- ... basically what Philippe Petit was looking down [laughs] at when he was crossing this wire. And I've seen the documentary, so I knew that basically not only did he walk on the wire, but he laid down on the wire-

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:44:33

        That was-

    18. CFCal Fussman2:44:33

        ... on his back

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:44:34

        ... unbelievable.

    20. CFCal Fussman2:44:35

        And [laughs] it just... And then the police are coming, and the police had been, like, haunting him for years, 'cause wherever he would try and juggle or walk the wire, uh, in order to get people to give change, they would be trying to chase him away. And so he had this cat and mouse game going with the police all these years, and now he's on the wire, [laughs] like, more than 100 stories above New York City, and the police are there, and they can't touch him. [laughs] And he can do whatever he wants on this wire. And so, like, the tables are turning, and yet, in this movie, when he steps on that wire, I knew everything that was gonna happen on that walk. I'm begging him, "No, don't do it. [laughs] Don't do it. Please don't do it." I, I, I completely suspended my disbelief, and let me tell you how much. I, I started taking people, like, night after night to see this movie, again and again-

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:45:32

        [laughs]

    22. CFCal Fussman2:45:32

        ... because I wanna gauge their reactions, and-

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:45:34

        Gave them motion sickness pills beforehand. [laughs]

    24. CFCal Fussman2:45:36

        And I told, I warned them. I say, "If, if, if you got a fear of heights, don't come. Go watch Robert DeNiro in The Apprentice or whatever they called that movie." Uh, what, what hit me was there was this one scene in the movie where he's learning how to walk the tightrope, and this is back in France. It's where he's from. And he's, like, two steps away from getting back to the platform, and he slips and has to catch the wire with his hand, and he's, like, 50 feet above ground or something. And he manages to get back to the platform, and he comes down, and his teacher is there. And his teacher basically says to him, "It's the last two steps that, that everybo- the, the people who die, they die on those last two steps. Like, remember that." And in fact, Philippe Petit was paying him to get those lessons, and when Philippe Petit went to give him money for that lesson, the teacher said, "No, this lesson you get for free. [laughs] This doesn't cost you anything." So I knew, I knew this story cold. I'd read his book, I'd seen the documentary many times, and I'm watching this film. And when he falls down early on to get that lesson, it's shot in a way where the pole literally comes out of the screen right at your head, okay? So the first time, you're just swooning, uh, not swooning, you're swaying immediately, like, to the right or the left to get out of the way. Okay, so now I'm watching the second time. I know this pole is coming at my head [laughs] every time. On the ninth time, pole was coming straight at my head, I'm ducking out of the way.

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:47:26

        [laughs]

    26. CFCal Fussman2:47:27

        It was that, uh, visceral an experience, and, like, the direction was just amazing. I, I loved the acting. And so if you can see that movie on 3D IMAX, please do. It's, it's just wonderful.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:47:45

        Well, I guess I'll put out a, a call or a request to perhaps the people involved with making that film if they happen to be listening or if you know the people involved, since people might not get, get to see the theatrical release in 3D, talk to the people working with virtual reality. Get in touch with the, uh, the Oculus folks or some of these other studios, uh, Daiquiri or whomever might be able to translate some of this to an immersive experience for folks, uh, 'cause that's coming down the pipe, too.

    28. CFCal Fussman2:48:15

        Wow. That'd be beautiful.

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:48:17

        Uh, you know, I feel like we're just gonna have to do a round two sometime, but I, I'll, I'll, I'll ask-

    30. CFCal Fussman2:48:24

        Hey, you know I'm gonna come back anytime. I'll, uh-
17. 2:48:28 – 3:15:11

    Billboard message, college choices, and why writing happens when you write

    1. TFTim Ferriss2:48:28

       Uh, if you could have a billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would you put on it?

    2. CFCal Fussman2:48:36

       One word. Listen.

    3. TFTim Ferriss2:48:39

       Listen.

    4. CFCal Fussman2:48:41

       I don't know what reaction that would get, but I would like to see the reaction on people's faces when they saw that. Uh, because I think that people don't... Listening is not an art form. Well, it is an art form. People just aren't using it as an art form, but it is an art form. And a l- a lot of great things could be achieved through listening.

    5. TFTim Ferriss2:49:10

       What advice would you give your 30-year-old self, and if you could place us again where you were at 30?

    6. CFCal Fussman2:49:18

       Okay. I would not give myself one word of advice, and I'll tell you why. Because if I would've given myself that advice at 30, it would have moved me maybe one centimeter in one direction that put my life in a different place, and I needed to be on a very specific seat on a very specific bus at a very specific time in order to meet the woman that became my wife and is the mother of my kids. So I, I couldn't have, if... I couldn't have that moved in any way. I, I needed everything to happen just the way it did in order to have that moment, in order to have the rest of my life. So after that, I'm sure there are times [laughs] where I'd have given myself advice. Really, I, I... What... The time I needed advice was when I was in college, and there was so much offered and so little I took advantage of.

    7. TFTim Ferriss2:50:29

       So what would your, what, what would your advice be to either your kids or to people going into college? They say, "Uncle Cal, what should I take? I just don't even know what to do with myself."

    8. CFCal Fussman2:50:41

       Okay. Well-

    9. TFTim Ferriss2:50:41

       Paradox of choice. I can't figure it out

    10. CFCal Fussman2:50:44

        ... yeah. If they want to travel, you get a chance to learn, like, four languages, five languages, and it's gonna be so relaxed. All you gotta do is just go into the class, and then meet somebody from the opposite sex who speaks [laughs] a language. And y- you know, you go, you're gonna be going out and talking in the new language, and you, you can do that over and over again in college. You got that time. Uh, one of the things that I would... If it was me, knowing that I wanted to be a writer, uh, or knowing that I'm now gonna be speaking, and I'm going to be speaking about questions that people ask when they're hiring, I would love to have studied human behavior. Because I know that when a company is looking to fill a job, if they unders- if the person doing the interview understands the role that needs to be filled and understands human behavior, they can ask questions to the applicants that will fill that role, uh, in, in a really good way. That's my hunch.

    11. TFTim Ferriss2:52:06

        D- have you ever heard the story of the book that Newt Gingrich used to navigate politics, at least one that he's credited with a lot of whatever success he's had? Chimpanzee Politics.

    12. CFCal Fussman2:52:19

        [laughs]

    13. TFTim Ferriss2:52:20

        I'm not kidding. I am not kidding.

    14. CFCal Fussman2:52:22

        I'm gonna write that one down.

    15. TFTim Ferriss2:52:24

        I am-

    16. CFCal Fussman2:52:24

        I'm gonna go home and order it

    17. TFTim Ferriss2:52:25

        ... I am not kidding. So, uh, what about as a, as a writer or, uh, to a kid who's graduating from college and says to, uh, himself or herself, you know, "Should I go on to get my MFA or continue to, say, go to, uh, a, a specialty journalism school or writing school?" Um, if they'd only taken maybe one or two classes that required a lot of writing, what advice would you give to them?

    18. CFCal Fussman2:52:51

        I, I would tell them just write. And the, the great thing about it is, okay, the... A- a- and I'm not knocking the schooling because as we, we talked about earlier, I owe everything to the University of Missouri Journalism School. It set me on my way, and then, then the connections. Uh, on, on, on the other hand, all you need to do to be a writer is to write. And not only that, but all you need to do is to find places that are interested in taking your writing. Doesn't have to be for much money, but you can go out, especially now. You don't even, you don't even need a physical publication. Now you can just create a blog on the internet and just start writing. So I would advise people to ju- if you wanna be a writer, write, and just keep writing and keep writing. Uh, if you have the means and the will to go to school and get a teacher or teachers that can help you through, even better. But nothing should really stop you from writing, and you shouldn't use, "Well, I need to go to school first," as an excuse to put off writing. I need to make the school make me write. You make you write.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:54:14

        Yeah. If you don't have that intrinsic motivation, it's gonna be hard to-

    20. CFCal Fussman2:54:17

        It... Yeah, it's, yep

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:54:18

        ... make anything happen because you won't always have a school teacher to whack you with a ruler.

    22. CFCal Fussman2:54:22

        That's right. And not only that, but the other thing is just, uh, put yourself in a position where you have no money, and you need to write something to make money, and you'll [laughs] if you need to eat... And, you know, unless you can find a bar that's putting out olives and little chicken fingers-

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:54:40

        [laughs]

    24. CFCal Fussman2:54:41

        ... you're gonna write and get paid so that you can eat.

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:54:45

        I remember talking to a friend of mine who's a journalist, writes for a number of very well-known newspapers, and, uh, he always laughs when he, when he, when he has to listen to book authors like myself [laughs] sort of whinge and pontificate about writer's block, and he just scoffs at the whole idea. He's like, "I don't have the luxury of having writer's block." He's like, "I have a deadline, a deliverable at whatever it is," you know, 4:00 PM, 5:00 PM. He's like, "No, I can't muse about the subtleties of writer's block." [laughs] Uh, because he, I mean, he has to ship. Like, he has to, he has to ship words every day or whatever it might be, every week. And, um, do you, do you, uh... What are your thoughts on writer's block, if, if, if that's not too general a question? Just-

    26. CFCal Fussman2:55:35

        No, I only had it once.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:55:37

        Okay.

    28. CFCal Fussman2:55:38

        I only had it once. And, uh, what happened was I w- I was writing for Esquire and working on a column called The Perfect Man, and the idea was basically in line with this conversation. I was going to take all my flaws and all my mistakes, and then go to experts who were going to teach me how to overcome them, and then I was gonna write about the experience so that everybody could have the collected wisdom. And so I learned how to walk through using Alexander technique. I learned how to publicly speak by going in a boxing ring with Michael Buffer and announcing a fight.

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:56:19

        Sounds like a fun gig.

    30. CFCal Fussman2:56:20

        It w- that was great. I learned how to lose weight by going to Jack LaLanne, who was the exercise champion of, of his day. And I w- went through, learned how to barbecue through Steven Raichlen, author of The Barbecue Bible. And one of the last things I did was go to learn about wine. Because if, if you are a man, you wanna have a feeling that you can go into a restaurant with a group of people, the wine list comes to you, and you don't feel like, "Oh, man. What am I gonna do? I don't, I don't know what's what here." And, and then you don't know if the waiter is gonna try and unload a lousy bottle that they can't sell on you or a bottle for a lot of money. You're, you're helpless. So I wanted to learn enough to know how to walk into a restaurant with confidence and order what I want. And the solution to that was to be trained to be the sommelier for a night at Windows of the World, which sold for a time more wine than any other restaurant on the planet at the top of the World Trade Center. And I had no idea where this adventure was going to send me, but it took me two years to learn all about wine. 'Cause you then find out you have to go to these places where they make the wine, and you have to understand, you know, the difference between [laughs] all of the dif- the varietals and, and the, the wine list at Windows of the World it was, like, hundreds of pages. To know all, all those wines it was, was almost impossible, but you start to get an idea. And I had, like, world-class sommeliers teaching me, and for one night I was the sommelier at Windows on the World. It was an amazing experience. Well, one of the great things I did is I had a guy who I knew come in. He brought his wife. It's like the first couple of the evening, and I s- seated them right next to a window so you're looking down on, on New York from 106 stories or whatever. And I had a bottle of champagne, Lord Dau champagne from France, which it basically was like a $10 bottle of champagne. But nobody knew that, and this had been served at the Assemblee Nationale in, in France. It was, it was like basic bottle of champagne. But I took it out to the couple, they were celebrating their anniversary, [laughs] and I walked over with a flourish and I announced that I was serving champ- Lord Dau champagne and that it had never been served at these heights before and it would never be served at these heights again. [laughs] And this woman looks at me. She didn't know who I was. Her husband did, you know. And she just, like, broke out in tears. And then the husband had never tasted the champagne before, but they both... I poured it, they both put it up, and they, they said, "Oh, Cal," like, "we never knew what champagne was before this moment." [laughs]

Episode duration: 3:22:21