#760: Robert Rodriguez and Susan Cain

0:00:06 I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had the experience of traveling overseas and I try to access something say a show on
0:00:12 Amazon or elsewhere and it says not available in your current location something like that or
0:00:15 Creepier still if you’re at home and this has happened to me
0:00:18 I search for something or I type in a URL
0:00:24 Incorrectly and then a screen for AT&T pops up and it says you might be searching for this
0:00:32 How about that and it suggests an alternative and I think to myself wait a second my Internet service provider is tracking my searches
0:00:34 And what I’m typing into the browser
0:00:40 Yeah, I don’t love it and a lot of you know I take privacy and security very seriously
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0:05:33 At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking
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0:05:57 Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show
0:06:08 Where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers from every field imaginable to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply and test in your own lives
0:06:14 This episode is a two-for-one and that’s because the podcast recently hit its tenth year anniversary
0:06:19 Which is insane to think about and past 1 billion downloads to celebrate
0:06:26 I’ve curated some of the best of the best some of my favorites from more than 700 episodes over the last decade
0:06:31 I could not be more excited to give you these super combo episodes and internally
0:06:36 We’ve been calling these the super combo episodes because my goal is to encourage you to yes
0:06:42 Enjoy the household names the super famous folks, but to also introduce you to lesser-known people. I consider
0:06:49 Stars these are people who have transformed my life and I feel like they can do the same for many of you
0:06:53 Perhaps they got lost in a busy news cycle. Perhaps you missed an episode
0:06:55 Just trust me on this one
0:07:00 We went to great pains to put these pairings together and for the bios of all guests
0:07:10 You can find that and more at tim.log/combo and now without further ado, please enjoy and thank you for listening
0:07:13 First up Robert Rodriguez
0:07:21 Screenwriter producer and director of Desperado from Dusk till dawn the spy kids franchise
0:07:24 once upon a time in Mexico
0:07:26 Frank Miller’s Sin City
0:07:32 Machete and we can be heroes and founder of L. Ray network
0:07:37 You can find Robert on Twitter and Instagram at Rod Regas
0:07:47 How do you use journaling? I started, you know with the word processing way back, you know when I first started filmmaking the first
0:07:50 When I sold El Mariachi in Columbia hired me
0:07:55 First thing asked for was an Apple laptop computer, which was the very first one that came out
0:07:58 They know what it was. I was the only one on the plane with one
0:08:03 I was writing my screenplays and I would continue my journal which I’d started by handwriting it
0:08:09 It really started I think in college my dad gave me a day planner one of those day planners
0:08:13 And I started using it and I would write the things you’re gonna do on the left side
0:08:18 And then you would write what you ended up doing that day on the right and even though I was in college
0:08:20 I would try to push myself pretty hard. I would look and I’d go wow
0:08:23 I didn’t have very much to write about myself at the end of that day
0:08:28 I’m gonna have to give myself more things on the left so I have more to write stuff on the right
0:08:31 It really made you reflect on your day realize I didn’t I didn’t do much today
0:08:37 And so those got really full and I became a filmmaker right away El Mariachi got made and then during the process of El Mariachi
0:08:39 I remember
0:08:43 Keeping a really dense journal because it was an experiment
0:08:49 It was really a test film and that was during all parts of the process for all all parts of the process because I thought if I’m gonna
0:08:51 Go take on this endeavor. I know a lot of things aren’t gonna work out
0:08:55 It’s my first feature film. No one’s intended to see it. It’s really a learning experience
0:08:59 I’m just gonna go make it and I’m gonna be able to look back on my journal to see where I messed up
0:09:03 It was really gonna be a document so I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I could go back and track
0:09:08 Why did the exposure not work and I’d be able to go back and go? Oh, I didn’t do this and I didn’t do that
0:09:13 It was really gonna be a record of failure rather than a document of success in any way
0:09:15 it was really about
0:09:21 recording a methodology for a project a specific project and as the process went on right away as I started
0:09:27 Editing it. I kept track of that I sold it pretty quickly and then I was in Hollywood and that was like now
0:09:31 I really got something to write about I was writing down all the weird stuff that was happening
0:09:36 Finally, I decided to put out a book on just the making of a mariachi and I kept journaling from then on everything
0:09:41 Which was rebel without a crew rebel without a crew and I would find that you meet the same people over and over again
0:09:44 Like I wrote down very specifics of people that I would meet casually in Hollywood
0:09:49 Knowing we would run into each other again and they know being great collaborators 10 years later
0:09:53 You know or showing up in things and I’d be able to go back and read them stuff from the early days
0:09:54 They would blow them away
0:09:59 So when you write these down for instance don’t go into computer so I can find them and I do in my year
0:10:02 So do you do it by hand and then input it into a computer? No, I do them all in the computer
0:10:06 So I have a little alarm that goes off at midnight to make sure because around midnight’s usually a good time
0:10:11 And I’ll write something down because I found that even when I just wrote some items down
0:10:15 I could go back and fill them in later because you would remember and would always would shock me would kept it going
0:10:19 It’s when I would go back and review the journals at how many
0:10:25 Life-changing things happen like within a weekend or things that you thought were spread out over two years were actually
0:10:27 Friday Saturday Sunday and that Monday
0:10:34 I mean so many occurrences happen in chunks to blow you away things that kind of define you and you use some word
0:10:40 Do you use a different application? How do you always just used word because I was the first thing I had on Apple laptop
0:10:42 They’re about a thousand
0:10:45 Sometimes a thousand two thousand pages per year Wow of journals
0:10:50 Few days or I’m sorry a few pages per night on average
0:10:55 Yeah, few pages per sometimes some some hardly anything some things are bigger and sometimes it’s a cheek sometimes
0:10:59 I’ll clip like reviews or conversations I had that have been written down somewhere else
0:11:02 And I’ll throw them in there too everything goes right in the right date
0:11:08 And so I could search by date and I can kind of cross-reference stuff which is I would just say for anyone’s a parent
0:11:12 It’s a must. It’s a must because your children and you forget everything, you know
0:11:16 Within a few years they’ll forget things that you think they should remember for the rest of their lives now
0:11:20 They’ll only remember it if it’s reinforced and I’m a real family man
0:11:21 So I really love every birthday
0:11:28 I’ll go tell my kids again because they forget by the next year what their first years were like cuz I’ll just read those journal entries
0:11:35 And it blows them away, you know, or they’ll say hey, we should go camping again. I go camping. Oh, yeah
0:11:40 I remember that time we went camping and I put the tent in the backyard and had electricity going through we had fans
0:11:43 We’re watching Johnny Quest and we’re playing I must have
0:11:49 Journal on that and I must have video so I would go year by year. I just searched camping camping camping
0:11:56 Oh May 4th 1999 we went camping. Oh, it’s on tape 25 of this particular tape
0:11:59 I’d go find the tape and show it to them. I’ve tried showing the tape
0:12:04 They didn’t have to go camping again. They just relived it relived it and there was better than we even remembered
0:12:06 so
0:12:12 Capsulating stuff like that was just really important reminds me of something. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about but my
0:12:18 Mom when I was 15 I spent a year abroad in Japan as my first time overseas and I was in a Japanese school
0:12:22 It’s the only you know, where’s Waldo American kid in the entire yeah, I think it was 5,000 students school
0:12:27 Japanese family and of course I assumed at the time I was going to remember everything that happened
0:12:29 But my mom to her credit
0:12:33 Every time we had a phone call would get off the phone and write down what I had said
0:12:38 Wow, and so she has this record of my experience in Japan that I have no record of and of course
0:12:40 I don’t remember any of it without that kind of queuing. Yeah
0:12:47 Part of that came from I read about a diary my mom tried to keep when we were really though and it had
0:12:49 Very few entries
0:12:53 But one of the most defining moments when she pushed me into a pole because I wouldn’t go jump in
0:12:55 She knew I just needed a push and I felt totally betrayed
0:13:01 Angry with it it was in there, but had her side of the story and of course it was correct
0:13:06 But I wish she had written more so I thought I’m gonna make sure I write and now it’s become an addiction
0:13:10 And I and it’s just so necessary me you ask her girlfriend or your wife
0:13:12 What do we do last year on your birthday?
0:13:17 They won’t remember a year goes by you will not remember the details you go back and you see the journals
0:13:20 It’s even better the second time you live that again, and you realize the importance of it
0:13:21 and when you meet someone
0:13:28 You think might be a recurring figure in your life or you meet someone who ends up being a teacher of some type
0:13:29 Mm-hmm
0:13:34 How often do you go back and review the notes or do you is it really just in time information?
0:13:37 Not just in case so when you when you realize oh my god
0:13:40 I’m gonna be meeting say Francis Ford Coppola for the second time
0:13:45 I should probably go back and look at what happened in the first meeting or is it something that you proactively review
0:13:50 It’s only gonna need to know because there’s so many things you mean you’re you’re really I’d tell myself
0:13:53 I want to be the guy looking through the windshield not the rearview mirror
0:13:58 But sometimes you can see better through the windshield if you look through the rearview mirror and look at some of this stuff
0:14:01 That’s gone on and seen kind of makes sense of where your
0:14:05 Relationships are going or what you’ve learned and it blows me away sometimes
0:14:09 I’ll just go ahead and look somebody up you know that I’m about to meet with I just met with Jim Cameron
0:14:11 We have always talked like four hours
0:14:15 We hadn’t seen each other in a few years and they looked up old stuff and I was like oh my god
0:14:18 Do you remember we did this this time at him 20 years ago
0:14:21 And we’d been friends over the years and they totally forgot when I went and showed him
0:14:25 Desperado for the first time before it came out just to see what he thought
0:14:29 He’s watched it in his screening room, and he gave me two little manuscripts here
0:14:34 Why watch your movie you go read couple of my treatments one of them was for spider-man and one of them was for avatar
0:14:40 This was a 1994. Wow. That’s how long ago he had that and how much that was going in his head
0:14:42 I thought wow
0:14:46 To keep something that was that visionary and you had that long waiting for the technology to come
0:14:51 Those kind of things made you realize some of these projects. I’ve had for ten years
0:14:52 I should go re-bring them back up
0:14:57 I wonder and I have I have since then dusted off something that I’d had 15 years and
0:15:02 Sold it and now I’ve just finished a screenplay for it. So you mentioned Jim Cameron
0:15:09 I had an opportunity to I met him very briefly through the X Prize and Peter D. Mendis and those guys and
0:15:14 As part of the experience it was a fundraiser for the X Prize. We all got
0:15:19 Staff or crew shirts from avatar, right and the shirts said
0:15:22 It said something along the lines of hope is not a strategy
0:15:26 failure is not an option luck is not a factor and
0:15:30 Jim is known for being very demanding not in a bad way
0:15:34 But I thought that shirt was just it spoke volumes
0:15:38 I think in so many different ways about sort of his process his mentality
0:15:45 How do you keep morale high when you’re working with a crew and maybe like you said you’re doing like an exterior
0:15:49 Shot in Austin and people are just suffering and sweating and so on fatigue
0:15:52 Do you have any tricks or?
0:15:57 Approaches that you use over and over again to keep kind of morale high and get the best out of people
0:16:00 I’ve worked with the same crew for some of them for 20 years
0:16:07 And so they kind of know already the philosophy I tend to have and I’ve learned this not through filmmaking
0:16:13 But through other disciplines sometimes working with painters and with sculptors and musician friends because what I found
0:16:15 It’s kind of why I do so many different jobs is because
0:16:19 Creativity is in job specific. I mean if you know how to be creative
0:16:25 You can literally jump from job to job with no training and do them pretty well because the technical part of any job is 10%
0:16:30 90% of that is creativity if you already know how to be creative you’ve kind of got the battle
0:16:34 You know half B, which is you don’t need to know you don’t need to know what notes specifically
0:16:37 You’re gonna play when you get on stage and do your solo everybody will go. What did you just play and you’re gonna go?
0:16:41 I don’t know. Yes, it’s to me fun though. How do you know what you’re playing just now?
0:16:46 I don’t even know what I played. I said, well, it was fantastic anybody tape it. No, that’s another one
0:16:50 It goes off into the air, you know, I guess any of the greats, you know painters
0:16:56 I studied under a painter Sebastian Kruger went all the way to Germany to watch him paint to figure out his trick
0:16:59 How does he do it because I tried to do what he did and it looked like garbage
0:17:04 He must have a special brush much to have special paint and a special technique and I go
0:17:09 No, he’s just doing starts with the mid tones just knocking in some highlights a little bit on the chin
0:17:11 Then he goes to the high and how do you know where to go next because oh, I never know
0:17:15 It’s different every time that drives me bonkers. We need so how come I can’t do that
0:17:19 And I go sit down and suddenly I could do it it blows you away
0:17:24 So I take those lessons back and I teach my actors that I teach my crew that so just to don’t need to know
0:17:30 Yeah, so since it started pause, but this is so fascinating to me. So what clicked what was the realization when you sat down?
0:17:35 And so you get in your own way thinking that you needed to know something a trick or a
0:17:39 Process before it would flow if you got out of the way
0:17:45 It would just flow what gives you permission to let it flow sometimes if you take four years of schooling or you study under somebody
0:17:49 Then you’ve suddenly given your permission to let it flow and I know you’re a guy who likes to take a shortcut in
0:17:51 Here’s the shortcut just get out of your own way
0:17:57 Right you just opening it up the pipe and that creativity flows through and as soon as your ego gets in the way and you go
0:18:03 But I don’t know if I know what to do next. You’ve already put I in front of it and you’ve already blocked it a little bit
0:18:06 I did it once but I don’t know if I can do it again
0:18:10 It was never you the best you can be is just to get out of the way so it comes through
0:18:14 So when an actor comes to me or crew member goes, I’m not sure I know how to play this part
0:18:18 Or I’m not sure I know because that’s beautiful because the other half’s gonna show up over there
0:18:19 They say knowing to have the battle
0:18:23 I think the most important part is the other half not knowing not knowing what’s gonna happen
0:18:27 But you trust that it’ll be there when you put the brush up to the canvas
0:18:30 It’s gonna know where to go and the further you’re out of the way of it
0:18:35 It’ll just happen so the trust comes first and trust comes first you have to trust first and then it’ll happen
0:18:38 And I always point it out when it does I point it out
0:18:41 You’ll see it and I’ll point it out when it’s gonna fall on your lap
0:18:45 Or I’ll just call upon you to come up with something and you will and I’m gonna point out because that’s the magic
0:18:48 You’re just gonna be open to it. It’s all attitude. There’s nothing wrong that could ever happen
0:18:53 I remember I’m from desktop on the film the special effects guys
0:18:59 Put too much fire and the explosion and the actors come running out of the building and the it’s in the movie
0:19:03 You see the building blow up the bar at the end and the fireball if you were to continue
0:19:07 But I cut away it just kept going and engulfed the whole set and that was the first shot
0:19:11 We still needed lots of other stuff to shoot with it and they’re like, okay
0:19:17 Everyone else is freaking out the production designers cry and those all their work and mean my assistant director
0:19:21 He came over and he goes you think what I’m thinking. Oh, yeah, this it looks good the way it is
0:19:25 It’s all charred. Let’s just keep shooting and we’ll do the repair
0:19:28 You know little repair these been done for next week and we’ll shoot that exterior next week
0:19:34 But let’s just shoot let’s just keep shooting sometimes you use those gifts because nothing ever goes according to plan
0:19:38 And sometimes when I hear you know new filmmakers talk they talk all down about their film
0:19:41 No, well nothing worked and it was a disappointment. It’s like oh, they don’t realize it
0:19:45 That’s the job the job is that nothing is gonna work at all and you go
0:19:47 How can I turn that in a way?
0:19:52 To turn it into a positive and I get something much better than if I had all the time money in the world
0:19:56 Yeah, and I love those experiences so much that I would purposely
0:20:03 And I talked to Michael Mann about this and Michael Mann director’s chair because we talked about manhunter once years ago
0:20:08 And he retell me the story and he didn’t have any money. He’d fired the effects crew
0:20:14 It’s some of the really cool staccato editing was really to cover up the fact that they didn’t have effects and I didn’t know that
0:20:18 I always thought it was a stylistic choice. He goes no because we didn’t have any money or time
0:20:21 And I had the covers cut it in myself and I was throwing ketchup on the guy in between and I put it at it
0:20:24 I was like, oh my god. I thought that was brilliant stylistic choice. No
0:20:28 I said, I’m gonna do that for all my movies now
0:20:30 I want all of them to not have enough money not enough time
0:20:37 So that we’re forced to be more creative because that’s gonna give it something to spark that you can’t manufacture and people will tap it
0:20:39 Or they go, I don’t know why I like this movie. It’s kind of a weird move
0:20:43 But there’s something about it that makes me want to watch it again and again because it’s got a life to it
0:20:50 Sometimes art is should be imperfect in a way the point you made just a minute ago about creativity
0:20:55 Transferring from one area to the next to seemingly unrelated
0:21:01 Skills and areas I think is really important and I cannot recommend highly enough that people check out the director’s chair
0:21:07 and one of the one of the terms that jumped out which you kind of mentioned in your last example was the gremlins right and the
0:21:14 Gremlins and turn to you how do you embrace the gremlins right and turn them to your advantage and the you know the example of the ending of
0:21:21 Back to the future and how like the church down and all of that was because the studios just refused to finance this more
0:21:25 Kind of spectacular ending things that you would think that planned for four years
0:21:30 Yeah, we’re created at the last moment and you guys couldn’t believe that myself. That’s why I enjoy doing those interviews
0:21:34 I truly want to know these things because they still blow me away the creative process blows me away
0:21:38 And it applies to so much that even if you’re not a director or a filmmaker you watch that
0:21:46 You see people talking about the creativity and creative process and you see how it applies to anything that you do how you raise your children
0:21:50 how you cook food how you run a business, you know creativity is so much a part of that and
0:21:58 When people say, oh you do so many things you your musician your painter you you know you edit your composer
0:22:02 Cinematographer you the editor is saying you do so many different things go. No, I only do one thing
0:22:09 I live a creative life when you put creativity in everything everything becomes available to you anything that has creative aspect
0:22:13 Is suddenly yours to go and do there’s no separation between work and play. I mean I
0:22:19 Work quote unquote in my house. I mean, that’s why I write my scripts come up with my ideas
0:22:22 While I’m playing with my kids while I’m cooking them a meal
0:22:27 Which is a creative exercise art you can eat in itself and you go upstairs and do some editing
0:22:30 Yet it is seeing you I can already hear the kind of the music for I’ll walk over to this room
0:22:33 I’ll do music for it. I mean then you know and I’m not sure how I’m that’s character
0:22:39 I’m gonna get into this character said maybe I’ll paint him first and to kind of see visually what he looks like or musically
0:22:43 What he sounds like and you can work completely non-linear that way because you realize I
0:22:49 Can do anything I want because everything can be creative even the business call suddenly you go
0:22:53 This is kind of out of my league, but me had my creativity to it
0:22:56 And maybe that’ll solve something no one else would be able to solve and sure enough
0:23:02 You can always rely on creativity to sort of win the day and in a lot of areas and with say
0:23:08 El mariachi, I’ve heard a couple of different versions of this financing, but I’d love to know how you
0:23:14 Financed it because I’ve heard experimental medical procedures. I’ve heard
0:23:19 Selling your sort of body to science. How was that financed?
0:23:23 Yeah, that’s one of the strangest things the legend kept growing around El mariachi
0:23:27 And it’s one of the few times you’ll hear a legend where it was all literally true
0:23:28 I mean it was
0:23:32 It was as crazy as it sounded but back then, you know, I mean I was from a family of ten kids
0:23:36 There was no borrowing from mom and dad to go make a movie. Yes, that was on me
0:23:41 I was already paying my way through school and I already had two jobs. I had a job as a cartoonist
0:23:45 I had a job working at the University and barely making rent and tuition
0:23:51 So to go make a movie even though, you know, people would sell 7,000 that’s so cheap for a 16 millimeter movie
0:23:55 Oh, yeah, you got $7,000 sticking out of your pocket. Who has that?
0:24:00 So you had to kind of take down a score and the only way you could actually go do a big number
0:24:04 West to go to this. It was one of the biggest universities in the country at the time
0:24:08 They had this thing called a pharmacot, which was a medical research facility
0:24:11 And it’s only like a fourth stage where it’s already been tested many times
0:24:15 And this is the final before they get FD. You’re not replacing you. They’re not they’re not like, you know
0:24:18 Mixing a couple things together and give it to you and say, okay, let’s see if it works
0:24:23 They’re really kind of seen but they need healthy young specimens between the ages of 18 and 24
0:24:25 And so that’s college students and they all need money
0:24:28 So you go in for a weekend and make 500 bucks, which would be my picking cushion
0:24:34 I would go in there for the longer ones. They were like a month where you would be paid for your time rather than your pain
0:24:39 And I would write scripts while I was in there and you make two thousand three thousand dollars
0:24:43 It’s real money in a month real money when you’re not having to pay for food and rent anything now
0:24:45 You have to eat. Oh, so you were housed there your house there
0:24:49 Yeah, you’re housing you can’t leave and you got to eat and shit and pee at a certain time benefit though
0:24:54 Right because you’re they’re covering some of your what would otherwise be expensive. It was a great deal
0:24:58 And so I did a couple of those and one of them was a drug that’s on the market Lipitor
0:25:02 Cholesterol lowering drug. That’s the one I was on so I got to eat bacon
0:25:06 Okay, I got to eat a high cholesterol diet
0:25:12 I use that money to go and make the film because I had an idea we could sell it for at least double what we made it if we
0:25:16 Kept the budget really low. I didn’t know so I had to just make it for as little as possible
0:25:21 Most of that money went to just the film stock and I really didn’t think anyone was gonna see it
0:25:25 It was really just a test film. That’s why I did it in Spanish. I did it for the Spanish market
0:25:29 I was already had a bunch of award-winning short films, but I needed to practice telling features
0:25:34 So I thought I’d just make a bunch of features for the Spanish market just to get some seasoning do all the jobs myself
0:25:39 Because I couldn’t afford a crew and that way I’ll learn them all if I can sell it for twice of what I put in
0:25:41 That’s like the best film school. I’ll learn every job
0:25:43 I’ll do like two or three of these things cut them all together
0:25:49 Take out the best portions and use it on my demo reel and then use the money that I make to go make a real first
0:25:56 film English language American independent film the first one got released by Columbia Pictures and I was shocked
0:25:58 how did that happen and
0:26:04 Who took a chance on you or how did you increase the odds of that happening because I guess it was Sundance
0:26:07 Is that was that the trigger? No, I was already bought by Sundance. It was already bought by Sundance
0:26:10 So how did that happen? I had this crazy idea
0:26:14 I had made this short film by myself was a wind-up camera was eight minutes long
0:26:20 It was called bedhead. It’s online and I utilized it to use slow motion and all kinds of things that I couldn’t use on a
0:26:25 Video camera. I really wanted to show off what I could do with that little camera as a world world or two camera
0:26:28 They’ll wind up ones. I mean a piece of junk but it could do stuff
0:26:33 It couldn’t do a video shot that put it in festivals and won a bunch of festivals and I was like wow
0:26:38 I did that all by myself with $800 it’s eight minutes if I did that times 10
0:26:42 I could do an 80-minute movie for $8,000 or less because it would be dialogue scenes
0:26:45 It wouldn’t be wall-to-wall action like that short film. I could pat it out
0:26:50 I could probably do it for five grand I felt like I was getting away with something coming up with this idea thinking
0:26:53 How come no one’s ever done this before let me go try it this summer
0:26:57 I mean try it for the Spanish video market because they make them for like 30 grand, but I’ll guarantee no one sees it
0:27:01 I’ll call it a mariachi, which is basically if you’re going to the action section
0:27:07 You won’t buy a movie call a random movie called the guitar player that promises no action at all
0:27:11 But I just thought you know had a sense of humor and I thought let me make it kind of don’t really want people to see it
0:27:14 I just want to be able to test out these ideas and see if it’s possible
0:27:19 Shot shot shot cut it cut it cut it went to sell it in LA because that’s where the distributors were for those
0:27:25 U.S. Distributed Spanish language movies because you would just look at the video box and all the companies were like on Wilson Boulevard
0:27:27 So I drove up here with my friend Carlos
0:27:33 And the in I had was there was going to be a 25th anniversary of the Texas Film Commission in Austin
0:27:39 and a bunch of people from Hollywood that Governor and Richards was trying to invite in and I saw the list of people and one of the
0:27:44 Agents from ICM called Robert Newman was going to be there and I thought maybe I can try and slip on my short films
0:27:50 Well, the whole thing got canceled and fell apart. So when I was in LA, I called ICM up cold
0:27:54 I looked him up in the film book called him up. This was in 1992 and asked for Robert Newman’s office
0:27:58 And they put me right through he was a new agent there. He didn’t have any directors yet
0:28:00 I called up his assistant and said hey, can I talk to Robert Newman?
0:28:04 He was gonna come down to this 25th anniversary thing and they said oh
0:28:08 Said yeah, what happened with that? I was already to come down. Oh, I don’t know
0:28:10 But I was gonna show you my film and I’m here in town
0:28:14 I wanted to drop off my award-winning short film in a trailer for a movie I made for $7,000
0:28:16 Okay, drop it off. I couldn’t believe it dropped it off
0:28:20 He called me back up the next day. Hey the machine ate my tape
0:28:27 He actually watched it couldn’t believe it went made another tape give it to waited over the weekend and I got to call
0:28:33 And he says I love the short film, but I love the trailer the trailer for this movie the mariachi movie
0:28:37 I mean, it’s like a world-class trailer because I kind of I knew people can watch the whole thing
0:28:39 So I was pretty good at it. I kept this really snazzy
0:28:45 Trailer that just made you want to watch the movie and he said it. How much did it cost again? It’s at 7,000
0:28:48 Well, that’s pretty good. Most trailers cost 20 or 30. No, no the whole film cost
0:28:53 So come on. I know the whole thing I shot it. I shot it really little budge
0:28:56 But I’m gonna can I come up and talk to you so you had me come up and I told them
0:29:01 I plan on making two or three of these like a trilogy of these guy with a guitar case as
0:29:08 Just a test and I’m wondering what else I should put on my demo tape because you know my award-winning short films been doing well
0:29:13 I think it was all kind of like a dollars trilogy and I could get you work right now off of this
0:29:18 So really because yeah, I send this to the studios just put subtitles on it and I’ll send it to him
0:29:21 So I subtitled it send it he got me a two-year deal right away
0:29:26 Columbia pictures not to even release mariachi mariachi was just a calling card, but it happened to so quick
0:29:33 I mean, I was really young was what 22 23. I really thought I was gonna make some test films first and have a chance to come up with
0:29:39 What my big idea was. I mean, I wasn’t no rush. I really wanted to be prepared. I really wanted to learn every job and really know
0:29:43 What I was doing so this suddenly caught me by surprise because now they’re asking well
0:29:47 You’re a filmmaker now and he even wrote me down as a writer director. I guess a writer director
0:29:49 I guess I wrote the scrubs. Oh, yeah, I guess I’m a writer director
0:29:52 I really thought of myself that way and I was suddenly
0:29:58 Young kid plunged into this world and I suddenly have to come up with a bunch of original ideas because this was my shot
0:30:03 It was too quick. Yeah, they call it not prepared. So I thought well, look you guys like the mariachi
0:30:08 Why don’t we just remake that remake it with like Antonio bandedis in Spain and we’ll just cast it up and just remain
0:30:09 They said, okay, that’s a good idea
0:30:15 But we want to test screen on mariachi first to make sure people aren’t think that’s a downer ending when the girl gets killed
0:30:20 So they made a film print they tested it people liked it the way it was they decided to take it to festivals
0:30:25 I completely protested. It’s like this was my practice film. No one was ever supposed to see this
0:30:30 Give me $2,000 my debut baton ball. Don’t put this out for the world to say it’s out
0:30:32 I should if I knew people were gonna see give me $2,000
0:30:33 I’ll go reshoot half of it
0:30:37 Just knowing people were gonna see it as my first film and they said now you don’t know what you have here
0:30:44 It’s very special and they took it out and they went to tell your ride Toronto and the the head of Sundance came to me at Toronto
0:30:47 So don’t show it at any more festivals and you can bring it to Sundance and put it in competition
0:30:52 Because you know, he knew it would do really well there and it once and I was already bought by Columbia
0:30:55 So I was one of the few films usually that it’s already had a distributor
0:30:57 and we took it and I
0:30:59 Had a great little talk
0:31:02 I would do before to set it up because I had to disclaim why it was the way it was
0:31:05 And so when you see the Columbia logo come on in the front
0:31:10 Local probably cost more than the whole movie when everything you watch after that
0:31:14 Just know that I how I did it. I wanted people to know how I did it
0:31:18 I really wanted to deconstruct how it was done because I would have wanted to know that as a film student who felt
0:31:23 Coming from a family of ten kids living in Texas people constantly saying you want to be a filmmaker?
0:31:28 Oh, you need to move to LA that you could stay where you are and come up with something that could be sold
0:31:29 I wanted others
0:31:34 I just wanted to get on top of mountain tell everybody so that’s why I put out a book and that’s why even before each screening
0:31:35 I would explain
0:31:40 How it was even possible because I knew they would be wondering because nobody had really ever done it
0:31:44 It wasn’t that it was impossible just nobody had done it before no one ever thought that way people kind of forgot
0:31:49 That’s how movies really started. It was always like a couple guys with a wind-up camera and Buster Keaton in front
0:31:55 It wasn’t a business yet when it became a business suddenly everyone had a job and you needed 200 people because it was now an industry
0:31:57 That’s not what the art form was originally
0:32:03 It was just the manipulation of moving images and you can do that with two people one person that was a breakthrough idea
0:32:07 And so be able to tell them I just took stock in what I had my friend Carlos
0:32:11 He’s got a ranch in Mexico. Okay, that’ll be where the bad guys at his cousin owns a bar
0:32:17 The bars was gonna be the first initial shootouts were gonna be all the bad guys hang out his other cousin owns a bus line
0:32:22 Okay, they’ll be an action scene with a bus at some point. There’s a big action scene in the middle movie with a bus
0:32:25 He’s got a pit bull. Okay. He’s in the movie. His other friend had a turtle
0:32:31 He found okay the turtles in the movie because people will think we had an animal wrangler and that was suddenly raised production value
0:32:35 See I wrote everything around what we had so you never had to go searching
0:32:39 You never had to spend anything on the movie the movie cost really nothing
0:32:42 It was really just the the fact that I wanted to shoot it on film instead of video
0:32:47 So that it would look more expensive and try and tell people, you know made it for 70,000 try to sell it for like 70,000
0:32:55 Said it ended up going to Columbia and getting released and that story really when we won Sundance the audience award
0:33:01 My acceptance speech said you’re gonna get a lot more entries next year when people find out that this is the one that won
0:33:05 Movie made with no money. No crew. Everyone’s gonna pick up a camera start making their own movies
0:33:10 And it’s been flooded with entries since then it was really a real change in the paradigm
0:33:14 And it was only out of necessity. It wasn’t my big idea that it could be done
0:33:16 I really just thought I don’t want to take anyone with me
0:33:20 Even my best friend wanted to come help on my movie shoot from mariachi. I said no
0:33:26 So I gotta go to Mexico and this camera bar, you know, it’s probably gonna break down the first day
0:33:30 I don’t want to jinx it if I start bringing too many people down. I don’t mind failing
0:33:32 I just don’t like failing at a bunch of other in front of a bunch of other people
0:33:36 So where they go back and they say Robert trying to make a movie for no money
0:33:45 I really didn’t think it would work and I was surprised and that’s the best I tell people is just be naive stay naive
0:33:51 Throw it away. Don’t overthink it. I didn’t overthink it at all because I would have treated it completely differently
0:33:56 Had I thought I would ever even show it to anybody and I thought it would go to a festival and I would submit it
0:33:58 I would have spent ten times as much
0:34:00 I would have gone and borrowed money and done all instead
0:34:05 It was like one take one take one two everything was one take even if it didn’t work because I had the film so expensive
0:34:08 So I would go and it was a noisy camera. It was a soundless camera
0:34:13 I mean, it would make so much noise. You couldn’t record sound. So I had to record sound the way you’re doing right now
0:34:18 Right, so I would shoot a take put the camera away get the sound out put the mic up close
0:34:21 So for those people, yeah, we have two mics attached to a little recording device
0:34:25 I would put the mic as close as you have it. So I got great sound, but it was out of sync
0:34:30 But you kind of talk in your own rhythm. So if you say hi, my name is you know Robert
0:34:36 Put the camera away. Okay, now do the audio. Hi, my name is Robert the kinds of comes in pretty much get a little sync
0:34:38 I don’t like rubbery lips if you look at mariachi
0:34:41 It’s all in sync except where it started to get out of sync
0:34:46 I cut away to the dog or I cut away to a close-up and it created this really little snappy editing style
0:34:50 But it was really just to get it back in sync because I couldn’t stand that but that was the whole idea
0:34:54 You know, it’s like, let me just try and do all these things myself and see if we can put it together
0:34:55 it reminds me of
0:35:01 Jack Ma, I mean it’s very consistent among these people who seem to come out of nowhere and build something very big
0:35:06 Of course, there are exceptions, but Jack Ma of Ali Baba. I said, you know, we had a couple of advantages when we started
0:35:08 We had no experience no money
0:35:15 No plan and so every dollar we spent we had to consider very very very carefully. Well, my plan was I had a really good plan
0:35:16 This was the plan was
0:35:22 I’m gonna go shoot one take of everything because the film is the most expensive item if I just shoot two takes
0:35:27 You know one just in case I’ve just doubled my budget so one take I’ll cut it together
0:35:32 The stuff that I need to come reshoot will only reshoot that will only get those shots
0:35:36 He never come back and reshoot by the time you get back up there back to Austin
0:35:43 You figure out a way to cut around things that were like not done right or a little slow or and I never came back
0:35:45 And reshot anything you end up just working with what you got
0:35:50 But it left me off got me off the hook from being too precious is by knowing I had that safety net
0:35:55 Which I never ended up using so if you can do that for yourself, you know in any area that you’re in
0:36:00 Try to just go free with abandoned and sometimes, you know, they say that for writing a book or writing a script
0:36:05 Just right don’t keep rereading each page and going oh, it’s not good enough and then tear it up and throw it in the trash can
0:36:06 You’ll never get anywhere
0:36:10 You got to just get momentum get it down and keep going and come back later with fresh eyes and look at it again
0:36:12 Now that you have access to so many resources
0:36:15 what are practices you have or
0:36:24 Principles for maintaining that scrappy creative mindset right because if you you don’t have to have many constraints if you don’t want to yeah
0:36:28 At this point are there ways that you try to simulate that or there’s a couple things with that
0:36:32 This is freedom of limitations, you know, there’s almost more freeing to know I
0:36:39 Got to use only these items turtle bar ranch. You’re almost completely free within that. You know, you almost can do
0:36:42 not anything because that would be almost
0:36:46 Too many options, but you’re just put into a box is one of my favorite moves
0:36:50 I did with Quentin was called four rooms where they said we’re all doing short films
0:36:55 We’re all have the same criteria has to be set in one room has to be New Year’s Eve and you have to use the bell hop
0:36:59 The freedom of limitations was enormous
0:37:04 I mean you watch that short and it goes all over the room by the end we burn down the room
0:37:10 I mean, it’s it’s almost a some more exciting to know that you were in a box and you could be creative within that box
0:37:13 So now that so many things are available to you you want to limit yourself in a way
0:37:20 So I try to limit time and try to limit money so that we can really get still keep that essence of creativity
0:37:23 And deliver on the screen something that just looks much bigger
0:37:28 So that you can retain your freedom creative freedom because if you start spending more money
0:37:36 Suddenly the financiers rightfully so the studios or you know, the executives will be over your shoulder constantly
0:37:41 Questioning every move you make because they want their money back, but if you keep the budget low
0:37:46 It’s a win-win situation and the movie does great. It’s a great success of the movie doesn’t do great
0:37:50 It’s still a success because it didn’t cost very much and it’ll make back its money over time
0:37:52 That’s kind of where I’ve kind of lived and breathe
0:37:55 I’m about to jump out of the box a little bit more and do some things that are a little bigger
0:37:59 Just to learn more you could you just learn more when you go and do other kind of assignments
0:38:04 But where it’s really the most fun and that’s why you guys how do you keep the morale high?
0:38:08 The morale is always high on the set because they know we’re just being creative. That’s the name of the game
0:38:14 It’s not looking for a result. It’s like how can we just keep ourselves jazzed about this?
0:38:24 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we’ll be right back to the show this episode is brought to you by element spelled
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0:39:30 and
0:39:36 Now Susan Kane
0:39:43 Number one New York Times best-selling author of quiet the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking
0:39:51 Which spent eight years on the New York Times bestsellers list and bittersweet how sorrow and longing make us whole and
0:39:57 Award-winning speaker whose TED talks have garnered more than 46 million views
0:40:02 You can find Susan on Instagram at Susan Kane author
0:40:07 Susan welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me
0:40:12 I have been looking forward to having you on the show for some time and
0:40:17 We have a lot of terrain to possibly cover so we may end up having a part two and three
0:40:21 But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I thought that we could look at
0:40:28 Public speaking just for a second because many people will associate you with this blockbuster
0:40:30 mega hit of a TED talk and
0:40:34 Rumor has it that you
0:40:41 Straight in the delivery room from the get-go were a natural born killer on stage. This is true
0:40:45 Were you born a spectacular public speaker? Oh my gosh
0:40:52 Okay, well everybody listening you can’t see Tim right now, but he has a very devilish smile on his face
0:40:57 because of course the answer is the complete opposite so I
0:41:03 Had a lifelong while dating back to middle school. I know exactly when it started
0:41:09 I had an almost lifelong fear of public speaking and a lot of people say they’re afraid of public speaking and you know
0:41:15 They’re telling the truth, but like they didn’t have a fear the way I had a fear of it. It was so extreme
0:41:21 What was the triggering event? Oh, okay, the triggering event was I had recently switched to a new middle school and
0:41:25 I was in an English literature class
0:41:31 And I probably appeared to the teacher in that class to be not a shy person at all because I love English
0:41:35 So I was always participating. Anyway, she called me up to the front of the room
0:41:38 We were doing Macbeth and she called me up with a friend of mine and she said okay
0:41:44 You’re gonna play Lady Macbeth and your friend Rob is gonna play a Macbeth and just improvise this scene and
0:41:49 for me as a shy person in a new school, this was like
0:41:51 total kryptonite and I
0:41:55 Couldn’t say anything. I just completely
0:42:02 Blanked out and just stood there dumbly at the front of the class and finally just had to kind of sit back down
0:42:07 Red-faced not having said a word. That sounds terrible. Oh my god making my palms sweat
0:42:16 Just listening to it. Yeah. Yeah, you know and I know this now now that I’ve studied all this stuff that if you have an experience like that
0:42:18 It gets encoded into your amygdala
0:42:25 Which is the part of your brain that registers all your fears and then the amygdala for the rest of your life is doing its job by saying
0:42:31 Oh, you know, I’m gonna steer you clear of any situation ever approximating anything like that literature class ever again
0:42:33 so
0:42:38 After that any time I had to give a speech and I did it, you know, I used to be a lawyer and on Wall Street and stuff
0:42:40 Anytime I would do it
0:42:48 I would just sort of suffer my way through and I would always lose five pounds because I couldn’t eat before like for a week before
0:42:56 Then I started writing this book quiet after I had left law and I really really really cared about it
0:42:57 You know
0:43:01 It was my dream come true to be a writer and I cared so much about the ideas in the book
0:43:07 And I didn’t want my fear to stand in my way and I was giving this Ted talk
0:43:12 So I had to overcome it. How did the opportunity for the Ted talk come about?
0:43:17 So I had a friend who worked at Ted told him about the book
0:43:20 And he kind of passed on the idea to the curators at the time
0:43:26 And I think that they understood that most of the Ted audience is really introverted
0:43:29 And so they knew that it would relate with their audience
0:43:35 And I think that that was probably why they invited me in and I mean I’ll come back to how I overcame my fear in a minute
0:43:41 But I will tell you they turned out to be so accurate that after I gave the talk
0:43:48 You know, I came down off the stage and I was absolutely mobbed for the whole rest of the week by every single other audience member
0:43:51 Who are all coming to tell me, you know, that’s my story too
0:43:56 And I’m going around pretending to be this very confident extroverted person and that’s not really who I am
0:44:01 So amazing. Yeah, prison company included. Oh, yeah
0:44:06 Absolutely, I will steer us back and you will also bring us back to what we were just talking about but
0:44:14 Last night at a group dinner, which I helped organize. Keep in mind at a wonderful restaurant here in New York City called the Lillian celebrities place
0:44:20 I had to take four or five bathroom breaks, which were not to use the bathroom
0:44:24 It was just that is what I do at any dinner of more than one or two people
0:44:31 I have to exit not just the conversations, but the environment to just
0:44:38 Recharge my batteries and gather my bearings for a few minutes and then go back on it’s it’s like you’re feeling a kind of over-stimulation
0:44:44 Overstimulation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s so interesting because I’ve heard you talk before about
0:44:51 Moving to Austin and having these group dinners and I thought oh, that’s so interesting that that’s what Tim wants to do because I
0:44:57 Would never choose to socialize that way. I always love to socialize one-on-one almost the way we’re doing right now
0:45:02 Yeah, sitting here just talking. There’s a kind of boiling point for me in terms of size like four to six
0:45:09 I can handle and it depends for me also on the environment. I think more so than the number of people
0:45:13 So when I do these group dinners, I will generally host them at home or
0:45:19 Have them at one of my friend’s homes right not in a popular restaurant
0:45:25 Yeah, like I did last night. So I’m just gonna say what what’s interesting about that is how strategic
0:45:30 You are about it and I really noticed this with people. So we were just talking about Ted
0:45:34 I was just talking to Chris Anderson who runs Ted about this whole phenomenon
0:45:39 And he describes himself as an introvert to you and he said he loves group dinners
0:45:45 If there’s a specific topic that everybody is gathered there to discuss and he knows it’s gonna be something really substantive
0:45:47 Then he’s in his comfort zone, you know
0:45:52 But if it’s just kind of this amorphous socializing, he wants to leave. So just on the tactical practical side
0:46:00 I also tend to very frequently cook the meal for the group so that I have a task
0:46:03 while people are arriving and
0:46:09 Talking also deliberate because I’m often inviting people who don’t know one another
0:46:15 So I want them to have a chance to chat without having me as a mutual crutch if that makes sense
0:46:17 Yep, but in any case
0:46:21 Yeah, no, and that’s a really common strategy and I hear that from many people
0:46:28 Yeah, but I can play extrovert. I’m good at playing extrovert, but up until say 6th grade
0:46:29 I wouldn’t even go out to recess
0:46:35 I would sit on a step and read usually books about sharks and fish because I wanted to be a marine biologist
0:46:37 But I wouldn’t even go out to recess. Wow
0:46:41 So a lot of what you talk about and I’ve written about certainly strikes a chord now
0:46:43 I feel like I want to ask you so many questions
0:46:50 Well, I’m sure if we talked about if we could go back and talk to 6th grade you right this minute
0:46:57 Like would 6th grade you have any idea that you would have the life path that yours has taken that’s so public
0:47:04 Absolutely not. No, definitely not. I mean what happened in 6th grade also just for people who might be wondering
0:47:08 Well, what happened in 6th grade if it’s up until 6th grade what happened in 6th grade or I should say more accurately
0:47:14 The summer of 5th grade is that I had a huge growth spurt and I had been bullied really badly
0:47:18 I was born premature and very small and I was bullied really really badly up until
0:47:26 The end of 5th grade then I left to a summer camp and gained about 30 pounds of muscle and grew four to five inches
0:47:28 over the summer came back and
0:47:32 Then it’s like a captain America. Yeah, yeah, exactly
0:47:37 And then the bullies who had been accustomed to bullying me tried their usual playbook
0:47:42 And I just went on this vigilante spree like the Punisher and that changed the dynamic social
0:47:47 So I was able to actually go outside and do things that I wanted to do
0:47:53 Recess from that point on so it didn’t mean that I socialized a lot more, but it has more mobility
0:48:02 So that is that is what happened, but like you and this is part of the reason why I wanted to start with this
0:48:09 Question about overcoming a fear of public speaking is that it’s when the people see the finished product
0:48:16 It’s easy to assume that it comes from an attribute as opposed to a skill. Yes, and
0:48:20 in fact a lot of what appears to be
0:48:25 Natural appears only to be natural because it started off very very unnatural
0:48:31 And someone has worked at shipping away at it over time. I think that’s true
0:48:34 I think so often when you see someone who’s really good at almost anything
0:48:40 It’s because they actually started out exactly the opposite and then they cared so much about fixing that problem
0:48:44 Yeah, but in terms of how I overcame that fear and I have this kind of
0:48:52 Evangelical desire to share it because it was so extreme. I feel like if I could do it then I know anyone can overcome any fear
0:48:58 So first of all, I spent years sitting in therapists offices kind of coasily discussing
0:49:04 Well, what might be the sources of this fear and you know, what do I trace it back to and and that does no good at all
0:49:09 I’m actually a big believer in therapy, but not for this type of issue
0:49:16 So what really does it if you’re afraid of something you have to expose yourself very slowly to the thing that you fear in
0:49:21 Really manageable doses so you can’t start off by giving the Ted talk
0:49:28 So in my case I signed up for the seminar and it was a seminar for people with public speaking anxiety here in New York and
0:49:32 You know, you’d get there and on the very first day
0:49:34 All you had to do was stand up
0:49:42 Say your name sit back down declare victory. You’re finished and that’s it. What was the organization?
0:49:46 Oh gosh toastmasters or something. No, and I am a big fan of toastmasters
0:49:53 But this was almost like more remedial than toastmasters like yeah, this is like pre toastmasters. Yeah, so
0:50:00 The guy’s name. He’s amazing. His name is Charles de Cagno and you can find his organization
0:50:04 It’s speak easy calm and I think it’s spelled with three E’s perfect
0:50:08 I’ll put a link in the show notes for people as well. Yeah. Yeah, I really recommend him
0:50:12 Yeah, and so, you know, you’d come back the next week and maybe you’d stand up
0:50:15 And he would do these things like he’d have people stand on either side of you
0:50:19 So you didn’t feel all all alone up there on stage. It’s brilliant. Yeah. Yeah
0:50:24 And then the audience would ask you questions like where are you from and where’d you go to college?
0:50:28 You know, so really easy stuff you answer the questions and you’re done
0:50:33 And it’s like if you do that little by little by little you actually really can overcome it
0:50:41 It’s kind of crazy, but true, but I will say having said all this still, you know, there’s something about a tend talk
0:50:44 That’s on some whole crazy other realm of
0:50:50 Yes, public speaking nerves and even if the setting is exactly the same. There is a
0:50:53 performance anxiety
0:50:58 Associated with that three letter acronym for sure. Yeah, we were talking about this before we started taping
0:51:00 Yeah, so many of the speakers are really
0:51:07 Practiced on stage and yet you see them minutes before they go out and they’re sweating bullets and they’re they’re all losing it
0:51:13 Yeah, we were chatting for a second about then Chris Anderson could certainly correct me and blank in the exact term
0:51:16 But there’s some space right next to the stage
0:51:20 behind the curtain called the Zen room or the
0:51:27 Relaxation cube. There’s some very pleasant sounding name for this space and it’s intended to be the next up
0:51:32 batting cage for the two or three speakers to come and I remember
0:51:36 It’s probably 15 or 20 minutes before I was supposed to go live or no
0:51:42 It couldn’t have been that it was probably an hour before and I really didn’t want to be around a lot of people and in the green room
0:51:47 They’re all sorts of staff and lots of people milling around and working on production and I thought to myself
0:51:49 I need to go to the Zen room. We’ll just call the Zen room
0:51:54 And so I walk out to the Zen room and I won’t mention names, but there are like three just
0:51:57 Killers these are
0:52:01 Consummit professionals who have done this type of thing thousands of times people
0:52:04 I look up to and would love to someday have a coffee with and they are
0:52:07 freaking the fuck out
0:52:11 And I was like not helping not helping I need to leave the Zen room right now
0:52:21 So yes, it’s a different beast. So how do you go from talking about your favorite color on stage with two people next to you to Ted then?
0:52:29 Okay, so I graduated from that to Toastmasters, which I also completely recommend and should I describe what that is?
0:52:32 Yes, please. Yeah, okay. So Toastmasters. It’s a worldwide organization
0:52:37 You can absolutely find one near you because they’re everywhere and it’s basically this
0:52:42 non-for-profit thing where you sign up for a group that meets near you and
0:52:46 Once every two weeks you get together and you practice public speaking together
0:52:50 And they have this ritualized way of doing it and some of the time you’re practicing
0:52:57 Speaking off the top of your head and sometimes it’s a prepared speech and it’s just kind of giving you that exposure therapy of
0:53:03 You know putting you in the beast of the thing that most frightens you you have to show up every two weeks and do it
0:53:07 So I did that but then the next stage after that and it was my husband’s idea
0:53:12 I hired a coach for the full week before the Ted talk
0:53:20 It was really amazing guy named Jim Fife who I also completely recommend and since then he has coached many other Ted speakers
0:53:25 So I worked with him morning till night for a full week before the talk for you
0:53:33 Yeah, and what did the working with him look like okay, so he he did a really brilliant thing
0:53:39 He was very psychologically attuned and I said to him, you know, I’m really comfortable in
0:53:45 General talking to people one-on-one and kind of like cozely sitting on a couch and talking about life
0:53:51 I love that for me at that point though getting up on a stage and holding forth was the hard thing
0:53:54 So he said okay, let’s practice your talk
0:53:58 Sitting on the couch and just talk to me about it
0:54:04 And we did that for like two days and it was only after that that we then moved to the stage and started getting into kind of
0:54:07 The theatrics of it that kind of transition was so helpful
0:54:16 It’s I just want to note that this is I spend so much time with it. I’m so obsessed with good teachers
0:54:18 Yeah, good coaches
0:54:24 This is very common where they will effectively say let’s start from where you are right now, right?
0:54:30 They will always return if they sense any type of overwhelm or fear to bring you back to a point of familiarity or comfort
0:54:32 Yeah, and then edge into
0:54:36 Sort of the next concentric circle of yeah is your limit of comfort
0:54:42 Yeah, and I think they also have to show a lot of non-judgment because I had some dark moments during that week
0:54:48 you know for me this was the abyss and I was just hanging out in the abyss for a week and
0:54:54 So he saw me, you know, I had only just met him and he saw me not in the most flattering circumstances
0:54:56 And yet I didn’t feel embarrassed by that
0:55:03 There’s anything about anything in the beginning to assess you or establish a baseline or was it more of an interview?
0:55:08 That he used like an intake. Do you remember what it wasn’t really formal like that, you know
0:55:11 He’s such a human guy. It was just like we were just talking
0:55:15 Yeah, yeah disguised as intake smart fellow
0:55:20 Yeah, and then so the amazing thing to me now is I
0:55:24 Now super ironically have a career as a public speaker
0:55:31 Like I travel the world going and giving talks to all different companies and conferences all over the place
0:55:35 Like I asked you well if we could tell sixth grade Tim where he would be
0:55:38 What would he say and I say that to myself, too
0:55:41 Like if you could have even told me eight years ago, but this would be my life
0:55:44 I would have been so shocked by it and now I’ve come to like it
0:55:47 So do you have any particular?
0:55:57 Pre-game ritual or anything that you did in the hours leading up to your talk that helped or that you didn’t do
0:56:02 I have things now back then. I just suffered but what do you have now now?
0:56:07 I have a few things. I mean I do deep breathing just like everyone else
0:56:10 I’m sure you’ve heard that a million times, but it’s got to be real deep breathing
0:56:14 You know where you really feel your belly and your diaphragm filling up
0:56:18 but for me what I also do is I
0:56:23 Usually think to myself and I do this especially when I’m speaking to an audience that I find more
0:56:28 Intimidating, you know like a group of finance people at an investment bank or something
0:56:31 I will say to myself there
0:56:36 I am sure is one person in this audience who has a child who is shy or introverted and
0:56:44 If that child has a better life because of one tidbit that that person hears today, then it’s all good
0:56:46 And that pulls me out of myself
0:56:47 instantly
0:56:50 Yeah, it gives you also a hurdle that you can clear
0:56:54 For winning the presentations that speak
0:57:01 Right, it’s a manageable goal, but I think it’s it feels deeper than that to me. It feels also like I
0:57:03 Think when people get nervous about speaking
0:57:06 Obviously, they’re really nervous about being judged, right?
0:57:12 But this completely shifts the energy where it’s not any longer about how anybody judges me
0:57:14 It’s about
0:57:20 Can I help that kid out there? I want to say also that part of the reason I am
0:57:22 more than happy
0:57:28 Actually excited to spend so much time talking about this is that it is not specific to public speaking, right?
0:57:31 This just happens to be a very common
0:57:37 Fear and perceived weakness of many many many people. Yeah, so yeah as a side note
0:57:41 What Warren Buffett says is his greatest ever investment?
0:57:46 Put more specifically a Dale Carnegie course that he took in public speaking, right?
0:57:53 Because it magnified his ability to do almost everything else to make it effectively both in spoken word
0:57:59 But also in the written word in some respects. Yeah, I’ve never I don’t think I’ve ever I’ve ever spoken about this
0:58:01 but I also did Toastmasters and
0:58:08 If you have trouble finding it oftentimes there are large companies that will have within
0:58:12 their HQ or any large
0:58:18 Location their own Toastmasters group and that’s actually how I found it in San Jose initially was at Adobe
0:58:21 so I would go in and I would do this Toastmasters and
0:58:26 your description of having this very logical progression of
0:58:30 Small wins layered upon small wins getting up on stage and then getting off stage
0:58:35 I’m getting up on stage having two people next to you and answering a few questions and getting off stage is
0:58:37 so
0:58:39 incredibly effective and
0:58:46 I’m laughing right now because I remember when I was preparing for my first
0:58:50 Presentation at South by Southwest. So this is a very large
0:58:56 Festival and conference in Austin, Texas and the timing was 2007
0:59:02 It’s about I want to say a month month and a half before my book is going to come out my first book
0:59:04 Which I’m very nervous about
0:59:09 There had been no speaking slots, but I had pitched Hugh Forrest at the time
0:59:16 Who I’d been introduced to that I would take anything available corner of a room hallway
0:59:21 If there are any cancellations, I would really appreciate that the opportunity
0:59:27 To speak at the event and lo and behold there was a last-minute cancellation not by a keynote speaker
0:59:33 But by a sponsor who is going to have a stage to pitch their products from and in this makeshift cafe
0:59:38 And I was like I’m in I’m in but I was so incredibly nervous about this
0:59:43 That in the beginning in particular, I was and this is true today
0:59:50 Too nervous to practice my rough rough draft of the presentation in front of people. Yeah
0:59:54 I guess and so what I did I was staying in a guest bedroom at a friend’s house
0:59:58 he had three Chihuahuas and I went outside as playing the Chihuahuas and
1:00:01 They followed me into the garage. I was I practiced in the garage
1:00:05 I didn’t want to practice in the house where my friend’s wife was and
1:00:07 I gave my presentation
1:00:14 I felt reasonably confident about the content, but I wasn’t comfortable with any of the performance aspects of trying to keep attention
1:00:23 So I gave my draft of this talk over and over again until I could get the dogs to sit and stare at me
1:00:28 Somewhat bewildered but to hold their attention. That was the litmus test for me
1:00:34 Wow to graduate to giving a rough draft in front of humans for those people out there
1:00:40 Who are wondering whether this all comes naturally to me. It does not at all
1:00:45 Have you talked about that before or is this the first time? I don’t think I don’t think I’ve talked about that
1:00:49 certainly I don’t think I’ve talked about it on the podcast and
1:00:56 For the Ted talk also something I did which I did not do for the South by talk, which I thought
1:01:03 Really made a difference was I practiced giving the talk in front of small groups of strangers
1:01:09 Once I had a reasonably polished version and I asked friends of mine who worked at larger companies who had teams
1:01:14 during lunch hour if there was if there happened to be an empty conference room could they
1:01:19 Invite people to hear a rough draft of a Ted talk and then I would ask them for feedback
1:01:23 And usually there was enough time that I could give it two or three times so I could actually incorporate their feedback
1:01:28 Give another version and once I’d given the second version
1:01:34 There are a lot more people in the room who are willing to be critical the first round you get one or two
1:01:36 yes, that’s so true and
1:01:41 This is just something I’ve thought about a lot because I’ve been so nervous about public speaking for so long
1:01:44 And it by the way doesn’t really go away like I at least for me
1:01:45 I still have those nerves
1:01:50 But with Ted very specifically I assumed and this came from sports
1:01:54 But I’d never applied it that I was going to be my heart rate was probably going to be 30
1:01:57 beats per minute higher than normal and
1:02:03 That it was not just important for me to practice the content but to practice under
1:02:08 The physiological stress that I would probably experience when trying to deliver the content
1:02:13 So I would do a bunch of push-ups in another room and drink
1:02:21 To double espressos and wait for it to hit and then go in and give my dress rehearsal to see if I could handle that stimulation
1:02:24 that was so so smart and
1:02:32 You know listening to that story is reminding me of this crucial step that I left out in a lot of ways a kind of
1:02:35 Mistake that I made which is you know, I told you I worked with that guy
1:02:41 Jim for a week who’s amazing and I thought I was pretty well ready at that point so I
1:02:49 Talked to my friend Adam Grant who’s a very dear friend very good speaker to and a really good speaker and who also started out as a
1:02:53 Very nervous and by his description a terrible public speaker
1:02:56 He says he used to get like terrible reviews from his students
1:03:00 And he just worked and worked and work at it and now he’s the most popular professor at Wharton
1:03:05 But okay, so I was talking to Adam about all this and so he said
1:03:08 So I’m leaving for Ted on Sunday morning right to fly out to California
1:03:13 Which is where it was at that time and he says oh, I’m gonna pull together a group of friends
1:03:15 And you can practice your talk in front of them
1:03:18 And so this is Friday night and I’m leaving Sunday morning
1:03:24 And so I show up at this apartment full of Adam and his friends and I think that I’m pretty well done with the talk and
1:03:31 This is the first time that I’m giving it in front of any kind of group because I didn’t have the foresight of what you just described and
1:03:34 Not only was I so nervous
1:03:38 But I realized from the feedback that a lot of the content was all wrong
1:03:44 And it’s Friday night and I’m leaving you know like the next day basically or the day after the next day
1:03:46 so I
1:03:49 Went home and I just spent the whole entire night
1:03:56 Rewriting the whole final third of the talk and then I’m like on the plane going out to Ted trying to memorize the new talk
1:03:58 I don’t recommend
1:04:00 kind of approach
1:04:03 But you need to get real people in front of you
1:04:11 This is just like entrepreneurship and people who try to get the product perfect before exposing it to any perspective clients like you really need
1:04:14 to get into
1:04:21 The messy reality of what a live audience or a real customer looks like and the same was true for me
1:04:28 I made a lot of changes in the last few days, which I thought we’re just gonna be fine-tuned right and then you and I was like
1:04:31 Oh, actually, I really need to completely change by 30% of this
1:04:33 yeah, and
1:04:38 I was very very nervous before the Ted talk and I came off stage and I did not think that I
1:04:42 I didn’t think that I blew it, but I didn’t think that I did a great job
1:04:46 I came off stage thinking that there were definitely bits and pieces. I could have done better
1:04:53 But seems to have worked out. Okay, wait, but I want to come back to one thing that you said for the benefit of people who are listening now
1:04:56 so you said
1:04:58 That you still are really nervous when you give a talk
1:05:05 But are you really as nervous as you used to be because I I really want people to understand that you can get to a point
1:05:08 You might still have butterflies. It’s not like the nerves completely
1:05:14 Disappear, but they get to in my experience and from all the literature that I’ve studied on this
1:05:19 They really do get to a point where you can manage them and the difference between manageable and non manageable
1:05:23 Is gigantic in terms of its effect on your life and your career and everything
1:05:30 So I just want to make sure yeah, I can clarify. So it depends a lot on the event
1:05:33 Right, so if it’s
1:05:36 We’re going to do a q&a and it’s a friend of mine interviewing me on stage
1:05:41 That’s not from my perspective really public speaking. I mean it is but at this point
1:05:46 I could do that with zero preparation if it’s anything resembling
1:05:54 A keynote if it is tim on stage talking to an audience and they expect something that has been well rehearsed
1:06:00 My physiological response is still very strong. I get really sweaty hands
1:06:06 I pace I have very minimal contact with anyone beforehand
1:06:09 But let me mention a few things number one
1:06:11 and
1:06:12 both
1:06:14 Mike Tyson
1:06:18 And dean martin used to vomit before nearly every performance
1:06:23 But the way that they psychologically contended with that
1:06:25 Evolved over time
1:06:32 And since I mentioned mike tyson customado who was the trainer who really in a lot of respects. I think boxing
1:06:38 Scholars or boxing fans would agree made tyson into what tyson was at his prime
1:06:44 As an athlete used to say something along the following that the hero and the coward feel the same thing
1:06:52 It’s how they respond. Yes. Oh, I so believe that yeah, and I mean there is no courage without the presence of fear
1:07:00 And for me, I have come to see those physiological symptoms that used to make me panic
1:07:06 That used to make me feel like I was doing something wrong that used to make me feel like I was unprepared
1:07:09 As simple precursors to a performance
1:07:12 The way that I frame them for myself
1:07:17 Is completely different and I’ve learned to view it as this
1:07:20 energetic asset
1:07:25 That I can use yeah, and that has made all the difference
1:07:30 It has decreased in some circumstances, but certainly before ted. I mean I had given hundreds
1:07:33 of different presentations and
1:07:36 It was like I was getting on stage for the first time
1:07:38 In part also for people who don’t know
1:07:43 They are very as they should be strict about
1:07:46 Many things at ted including running over. Oh, yes
1:07:50 If running over I mean then I want to say and this is exactly what they should say
1:07:55 But in effect they say if you run over by you should not run over number one
1:07:59 Do not run over if you run over if you get to the point where you’re like 30 seconds over
1:08:01 We will come up and remove you from stage
1:08:07 And while I’m preparing and while I’m rehearsing one of the things that made me most stressed out is that
1:08:10 My finish times were really variable
1:08:15 And I would say like 30 40 percent of the time I ran over then other times
1:08:21 I would run two minutes under but miss something really really important. Yeah, because I was rushing and I was like good
1:08:28 God, this is just a crapshoot like I am at the craps table with my timing and that
1:08:32 Really was a concern for me. So that was another element
1:08:39 That made ted unique for me was that degree of cutoff
1:08:43 Yeah, I felt that way too and I did end up going over by over a minute
1:08:48 Ah, good for you. And there it is. And there we’re just like we cannot stop this performance
1:08:51 I don’t know about that but
1:08:55 But I want to say also for anybody who is listening and who
1:09:00 Is right now in the grip of this kind of fear and isn’t sure whether they can really get past it
1:09:04 Um, also like what is waiting for you on the other side of it is so
1:09:09 Gigantic because there’s just there’s something weird about public speaking where
1:09:13 It has such disproportionate value to
1:09:18 In a way what you’re investing in it, you know, like you’re going up on stage for 18 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever
1:09:23 Or or maybe within your own workplace, you know, even giving a two minute talk
1:09:28 Suddenly everybody is regarding you as a leader and as
1:09:35 Someone who they can turn to in a new way from if you hadn’t been willing to put yourself forward in that way
1:09:37 Definitely. I mean, there’s there’s public speaking as
1:09:43 The force multiplier for the value of your other skills, which is absolutely true
1:09:51 And then public speaking in a way is also a wonderful diagnostic tool and what I mean by that is I remember talking to
1:09:55 a friend of mine who
1:09:58 he’s a wealth manager for a lot of
1:10:02 buckety mucks who you would recognize and
1:10:05 He said I know them
1:10:11 Generally better than therapists. They’ve been seeing for a decade within the first few hours because
1:10:14 Money brings up everything
1:10:16 Talking about money. It brings up
1:10:19 The full spectrum of someone’s
1:10:21 insecurities fears desires
1:10:23 neuroses
1:10:25 sex also true
1:10:32 And public speaking, I think if it makes you remotely nervous when you start to learn public speaking like it at least for me
1:10:36 It kind of brings up all your stuff. So if you were simply interested in
1:10:38 personal growth
1:10:42 it brings to the surface many different pieces of your
1:10:47 Personality and psyche that you can then work on in a way that transfers to other areas
1:10:54 So that to me with my experience and I find really interesting. It’s okay. Well, maybe you don’t have to play
1:10:56 can hide and go seek
1:11:03 with talk therapy for 20 years to find all of the bits and pieces when if rather than following these different gingerbread trails
1:11:06 you can use certain
1:11:08 fearful circumstances
1:11:10 To just bring it all right
1:11:14 Or a lot of it to the surface. That was my experience. I’m not saying it’s true for everybody
1:11:19 But it was one of those things like talking about money talking about sex or public speaking
1:11:21 It’s like, okay. Now we just bring everything to the forefront
1:11:27 So for me that was also uh, even if I had not had any interest in getting on stage and giving presentations
1:11:31 Yeah, it would have been valuable. Yeah in and of itself. Yeah, no that makes complete sense
1:11:36 Are there other things that you’re fearful of or have been afraid of that you’ve overcome?
1:11:39 No, I mean that was really the big one for me
1:11:47 But yeah, we were talking about this before I guess, you know, my bug-a-boo in general is that I just tend to be a worrier
1:11:48 So
1:11:53 Other than the experiences I had with public speaking. It’s not like I have full on panic or anything like that
1:11:55 It’s more like it’s a
1:12:00 Very familiar companion for me. So I’ve had to just come up with various hacks around it
1:12:02 What what are some of your hacks?
1:12:05 This is going to get us into another big topic, but why not? Why not?
1:12:12 So for example when I stopped practicing corporate law and I decided that I wanted to be a writer
1:12:14 I told myself that
1:12:18 It’s really hard to make a living as a writer and I said, okay
1:12:21 The goal is to publish something by the time you’re 75
1:12:27 And at the time I was 33 at the time that I said that and I kind of did that instinctively
1:12:33 Because I was always doing these hacks of like just wanting to completely take the pressure off of something that I otherwise
1:12:37 Loved so deeply and like I just knew that if I
1:12:40 Turned this thing that I deeply loved into
1:12:45 A source of like this has to be the place where I make my living
1:12:49 This has to be the place where I derive some kind of professional stature
1:12:52 It was going to soak a lot of the joy out of it
1:12:59 And so that’s the kind of hack that I just naturally do on a very related note
1:13:05 Could you give us a little bit of context around the leaving law like why you left law?
1:13:07 and then
1:13:09 You decide you want to be a writer
1:13:16 And you kind of alluded to it, but does that mean that suddenly your rent is dependent on writing?
1:13:20 Right. Okay. So I had wanted to be a writer from the time I was four
1:13:25 And then for a whole bunch of reasons and like so many people
1:13:30 I took some creative writing classes in college and I decided, you know, I’m not actually that good at this
1:13:36 And I need to make a living and I also kind of had a desire I think to show myself that I could be
1:13:40 Out there as a kind of alpha person out in the world of finance or something
1:13:46 So I went to law school and I practiced law while street law for almost a decade
1:13:49 And during that time that I was practicing law
1:13:55 It was so all-consuming that I completely forgot about the fact that I had wanted to be a writer
1:13:59 It wasn’t like, you know, I was walking around conscious of this broken dream or something
1:14:05 I’d completely forgotten and the first few years of practicing law. I really loved it
1:14:09 It was just this kind of crazy adventure that I was on and as the years went by
1:14:13 It started to get really tough for me. You know, I’m not
1:14:16 A very natural lawyer in a million different ways
1:14:19 But I was on this partner track and I was committed to it
1:14:24 And then came the day and I think I may have told you about this in earlier correspondence
1:14:29 but then came the day when a senior partner in my firm walked in and said
1:14:34 I was supposed to be up for partner that year and he said, well, we’re not going to be putting you up and
1:14:40 Funny thing is to this day. I don’t really know if he meant we’re not putting you up ever for partner or
1:14:44 Just not anytime soon. I don’t really know what it meant. All I knew was like
1:14:48 Number one, I burst into tears and number two
1:14:54 Here was my get out of jail free card. So three hours later. I had left the firm
1:14:58 Like I was gone. I took a leave of absence and I just started
1:15:01 Bicycling around central park. Like I didn’t know what I was going to do next
1:15:05 But as soon as that space opened up
1:15:08 That I now had free time for the first time in like 10 years
1:15:14 I started writing and I had no idea that was going to happen. It was almost like in a movie
1:15:17 That’s cool. Yeah, it’s I’ve just been waiting for you
1:15:23 Yeah, I mean literally I like I remember that night, you know, like kind of curled up on my sofa in my apartment
1:15:27 And I just started writing on my laptop and and then a week later
1:15:30 I signed up for a class in creative nonfiction at nyu
1:15:32 and
1:15:36 I just had this complete feeling of certainty that this was what I wanted to be doing
1:15:39 And zero expectation that I would make a living out of it
1:15:41 So and this this is a really important thing
1:15:45 I think I think if you have that kind of a creative dream and a creative love
1:15:51 You have to do everything you can not to spoil it with the pressures of paying the rent and all those other things
1:15:55 Or the pressures of needing to derive professional status from it
1:16:00 So I set up a little side business teaching people negotiation skills
1:16:02 And that was how I was paying the rent
1:16:10 But the thing I was really doing in my heart was this beloved hobby of writing. This is super super super super super important
1:16:11 and
1:16:12 there are
1:16:18 I think it’s true in creative fields, which is pretty much every field but just for the sake of illustration
1:16:20 writing music etc that
1:16:27 Also in entrepreneurship you hear these stories of desperation where a necessity is the mother of invention
1:16:29 and
1:16:31 You know but a bing but a boom
1:16:34 Magic wand and then there’s a billion dollar company or there’s
1:16:42 J.K. Rowling or whatever it is, but those are in my experience the outliers at those they make for great
1:16:44 cover stories and magazines
1:16:46 but the fact of the matter is that
1:16:52 From what I’ve seen certainly with the guests on this podcast is that for instance, so Minccianani who has
1:16:57 a number of mega successful novels, but he had a
1:17:02 SAT prep counseling service that he offered
1:17:09 Well past the point that his first book was successful because he wanted to always feel like he had a safety net
1:17:13 So that the writing would not be tainted or even subconsciously
1:17:16 influenced to match the market or
1:17:20 Whatever the the lens might be come by this pressure
1:17:26 Yeah, and that is something that whenever possible has come up as a really valuable
1:17:32 I suppose on one hand financial sort of survival mechanism, but even more so as psychological
1:17:39 Through a freeing device. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, I think we’re so addicted to having a really glamorous narrative for things
1:17:43 and the glamorous narrative is you know, you you had so much courage you
1:17:49 Took the risk, you know, you you were dependent on this company or this book or whatever and if it didn’t work
1:17:50 It was going to be a disaster
1:17:54 But you know you you were the one who beat the odds like we love that narrative
1:17:57 And for most people that’s a really bankrupt narrative
1:18:01 And there’s a kind of deeper glamour actually in the kind of story that you just told
1:18:09 Because the glamour comes from you’re you’re doing everything that you can to deeply protect the thing that you love most
1:18:11 definitely
1:18:16 Now the book itself people may not know backstory. I’m sure a lot of people don’t
1:18:19 How long did it take?
1:18:20 to
1:18:22 Get that book done
1:18:27 Okay, so i’m laughing because it took a really really long time, especially by tim ferris standards
1:18:34 I like I listen to you and like look at your life trajectory. I’m like, how does he do that? But
1:18:37 Lots of cheating with format is the short answer
1:18:40 But I don’t want to take a self-track
1:18:42 so
1:18:46 Yeah, it took from start to finish. It was about seven years
1:18:49 I will say in my defense that during those seven years
1:18:52 I also had two children and was raising them
1:18:57 So that was part of it. But I also just think i’m kind of a slow writer
1:19:01 like I like to really really think about everything super deeply and
1:19:04 What I think is probably people might not know
1:19:09 I had a deadline as all writers do and I turned in some sort of draft upon
1:19:13 My deadline coming to you, you know after 18 months or two years
1:19:18 And my editor basically read it and said this is terrible
1:19:22 And she said, you know go back and completely throw that out
1:19:25 Start from scratch and take all the time that you need
1:19:29 And you might think that when that happened that I would have been really bummed
1:19:31 But I was actually elated
1:19:37 Because I knew that it was terrible and I knew that I needed much more time and I had no idea what I was doing
1:19:39 I’d never written anything before
1:19:44 So yeah, I was just really happy to have that time and it’s actually really unusual
1:19:47 Like usually in publishing they had given me a big advance for the book and usually
1:19:51 They want their advance back and they’re not willing to delay like that
1:19:58 So that was very understanding editor. Yeah, she’s brilliant and I’m working with her again on my next book
1:20:04 It’s also smart in the sense that a mediocre book is more of a liability than no book at all
1:20:07 Yes, yeah for everyone involved for everyone involved
1:20:13 Yeah, and because you know, I have this philosophy about writing that it’s the deep love that has to be protected at all costs
1:20:18 Because of that, I don’t care how much time it takes, you know, like I’m just
1:20:20 Interested in doing it as well as I can what is your
1:20:25 Writing process at this point look like you had your experience
1:20:32 With that book and now when you are writing do you have a daily practice? Does it go through phases of?
1:20:36 research period then organizing
1:20:39 then putting all of that into
1:20:46 Pros through synthesis. What are your writing routines or how do you think about writing these days? So for me? I take
1:20:53 Whatever thesis I’m working with and then I spend a year or two just walking around the world
1:20:55 Looking at everything through the lens of that thesis, you know
1:20:58 So it used to be introverts and now it’s onto a new topic
1:21:04 And I’m taking crazy notes through that period. You know, so every conversation that I have every book I read
1:21:08 It’s all going in. How do you take and organize your notes? Do you do it?
1:21:11 Notebooks, do you do it?
1:21:14 Digitally, what are the the end of this is nerdy, but no, it’s not
1:21:20 I’m into it because a lot of writers do it differently. The reason I’m laughing is I’m thinking
1:21:24 When you hear my answer, you’re going to know that I need a consultation with you for the next book
1:21:27 I don’t do it in a super systemic way
1:21:32 I basically all those conversations all those ideas and notes and thoughts I’m having I
1:21:39 Stick them all into one word document and that document becomes about seven or 800 pages by the time I’m done
1:21:45 And then I go through that document and I’m kind of tagging as I go along and then I’m separating everything out by topic
1:21:50 So I end up with like eight or nine loose leaf binders that are organized by topic
1:21:55 But in each of those binders, it’s just like one big one big massive notes
1:22:01 And then I think about where do I want everything whenever I’m emotionally moved by one of the ideas that I’m taking notes on
1:22:06 I try to write out the riff around that idea right then and there because
1:22:10 You don’t know if that emotion is going to come back. So you have to capture it when it happens
1:22:15 I think it’s a perfectly fine system. Uh, so you feel like technology must have come up with something better
1:22:19 Like I do it in microsoft word. There are there are probably better tools
1:22:24 Available, but I would say also that a lot of people confuse
1:22:29 New tools for better content is very easy
1:22:34 At least let’s speak for myself for a second when I’m writing I have to
1:22:39 disallow myself from thinking about say marketing because marketing is
1:22:44 Fun and exciting and to you easy for me
1:22:48 Because I whatever had insomnia as a kid and watched too many infomercials or something in any case
1:22:52 It’s a way to procrastinate doing the harder piece, which is
1:22:56 The actual research and digging and pros. That’s the hard part for me
1:22:58 Always has been but it’s the most important part
1:23:03 and I think similarly a lot of folks can become consumed by
1:23:08 upgrading their tools multiplying their tools versus just
1:23:11 The words you got to put the words in
1:23:13 And I have some questions about this word doc though
1:23:18 So when you’re going through and adding things to the word doc and you come in and you’re tagging things
1:23:23 So you can separate them and you mentioned binders. So you’re printing this stuff out and then separating them
1:23:29 Does that mean that when you put in a new note in the word doc you go to a new page if it’s tagged differently
1:23:33 So you can separate them more easily later. Does that make sense as opposed to
1:23:38 Each time you add a note then hit return twice and then add a new note
1:23:42 If they’re tagged differently, it would seem like you would have to cut up the page into multiple pieces
1:23:46 So do you start a new page? Are there any particular ways that you?
1:23:49 Tag for instance, would it be a chapter name?
1:23:55 Or would it be a theme what would the tag look like a lot of questions a topic or a theme and
1:23:58 Yeah, so every time I’m adding a new note
1:24:00 If I know that it relates to something I’ve already done
1:24:05 Then I’ll search for the thing I’ve already done so I can add it to that section to make it easier later
1:24:06 That makes sense
1:24:10 But you know sometimes I don’t or I can’t think of it and then I’ll just add it to the end of the document
1:24:15 Which control f right word. Yeah. Yeah good to go. Yeah simple simple works
1:24:21 Robert Rodriguez the filmmaker keeps a journal. I think he does puts it in almost every day at midnight and it’s
1:24:28 Word doc Word docs. Yep. It works. Yeah. Yeah, I actually I will say I tried for this next book
1:24:30 I spent a few days
1:24:36 Reading the instructions for Scrivener one of these programs Scrivener’s and I just ended up thinking, you know, this isn’t for me
1:24:38 It looks great
1:24:41 Scrivener well some other time we can sit down
1:24:48 That is one tool that if you set it up really simply and you don’t use 98 of the features
1:24:51 I find really useful just because
1:24:57 You can create a view by which you see all of your separate documents
1:25:00 Or actually I should say rather you see your tentative
1:25:03 table of contents on the left side
1:25:08 In a vertical pane and then you can look at what you’re on the right hand side then I would have it set up so that I have
1:25:14 Two split windows so the left hand side you see your table of contents and then there’s a research and then you have whatever research
1:25:20 You want that way you can be working on a document in the upper right hand pane while you have your research
1:25:25 That you’re wringing off of in the bottom right and if you decide to move docs around to see how it affects flow
1:25:27 It’s just drag and drop. It’s actually quite wonderful
1:25:32 They did have some issues with footnotes or maybe I was just too technically incompetent
1:25:36 At one point when you then had to export when the publisher insists on say word
1:25:42 Which maybe that’ll change at some point but getting a little geeked out but scrivener. Have you scrivener for
1:25:46 Almost all of my books. There may be one exception
1:25:49 I think for our chef because of how visually intensive it was
1:25:55 Was done outside of that and in terms of routine or ritual you spend a year
1:26:01 Gathering these notes. So then you have your maybe more. So yeah or more. So you have 700 to 800 pages
1:26:07 It’s a big word doc. Yeah, and then what happens. Yeah, so then I spend the time sorting them out
1:26:13 So I get to the point where I’ve got my eight or nine loose leaf binders that are more or less organized by what the chapters are
1:26:19 Going to be. Yeah, and then comes the time to write during which I’m still doing more research, but I’m starting to write
1:26:21 for me
1:26:23 the writing like the
1:26:28 Sitting down with my laptop and thinking about it all that’s like I want to say it’s my happy place
1:26:33 But that’s not really the best description. It feels like it’s this place that I go
1:26:37 Deep in my mind and I really love being there
1:26:42 And it’s like no matter what happens to be going on in my outside life
1:26:48 I always have those few hours a day where I’m going to a cafe or a library or whatever
1:26:52 and I’m sitting with my laptop and my cappuccino and
1:26:56 I’m just doing it like I’m stressing the emotional aspect because
1:27:00 That’s so huge for me and I feel like I train myself
1:27:05 To associate writing with all of these pleasures of you know sitting around in cafes and things like that
1:27:08 Do you have a consistent time?
1:27:13 When you sit down with your cappuccino and do this. Are you a morning writer or are you a
1:27:17 Catch-us-catch-can writer? Are you an evening writer? I mean you also
1:27:19 Have kids. I mean you have other obligations
1:27:24 So when do you tend to do your writing or do your best writing? You can answer it however you like
1:27:27 Well, I mean there’s what I do and there’s what would be ideal
1:27:32 But as you say I have kids so my routine is that I drop my kids off at school
1:27:33 That’s at around eight
1:27:39 Then I go and I either play tennis or do yoga every day and then after that I do my writing
1:27:45 And that’s a pretty good time for me. But what time of day would that typically end up being?
1:27:49 Yeah, that probably ends up being around 10 or so that i’m starting
1:27:53 Yeah, but if I had no other obligations
1:27:58 The best times of day would be more like either seven in the morning and also super late at night
1:28:01 So two time periods that I have no access to for this stage of life
1:28:07 And you start writing this is really I’m interesting to me. Hopefully interesting and other people
1:28:09 To start let’s say around 10
1:28:16 Do you break for lunch? Do you skip lunch? Do you have a standard type of lunch that you would have?
1:28:19 And the reason I ask is that I think part of the reason
1:28:26 So many writers seem to work between the hours of say just make this up but 10 p.m
1:28:29 and
1:28:33 7 30 a.m. And they tend to either be night owls like me
1:28:39 Or early risers is that there are fewer distractions and they get a relatively uninterrupted block
1:28:43 Of three to five hours. But if you’re starting at 10
1:28:47 Then most people that have lunch scheduled
1:28:54 Shortly thereafter like two hours later. Right. So do you break for lunch? Do you have something really small?
1:28:55 How do you handle that?
1:28:59 Because for me just speaking personally, it’s like if I might have time
1:29:01 Of course, I have time for a five minute phone call
1:29:04 but if I do a five minute phone call about something very
1:29:07 mechanical or mundane like
1:29:10 Calendaring stuff or whatever and I’m juggling
1:29:13 15 pieces that were on paper in my head
1:29:17 I kind of have to start over a lot of times like I drop all those balls
1:29:22 I’m juggling right right right because of the task switching. So I’d love to hear not that that’s true for everybody
1:29:26 But it’s true for me. What is your schedule look like then once you sit down?
1:29:31 I’ll just kind of go until I realize that I’m not concentrating well anymore and
1:29:36 Very often that happens after two or three hours and I just have to take a break
1:29:39 I have a lot of discipline if my brain would cooperate
1:29:43 So I would happily sit there for seven hours until my kids come home from school
1:29:46 But at a certain point I’ll notice that it’s just not coming anymore
1:29:49 And so then I’ll take a break and I’ll eat or something like that
1:29:52 But you know, I would say like you were mentioning
1:29:58 Well, people might work at night because it’s when you get uninterrupted time and I think that that’s one factor
1:29:59 but
1:30:02 I also think the reason that those hours tend to be so good
1:30:07 So nighttime is when your cortisol levels are really low, you know, which of course is your stress hormone
1:30:10 and so I noticed this in myself all the time that
1:30:17 The ideas that I come up with late at night are different from the daytime ideas because they’re completely
1:30:20 unfettered by any stress
1:30:25 And so I’ll just I don’t know. I just make different kinds of associative leaps and there’s
1:30:30 There’s like a softness and an ease in my thinking and my feeling about the ideas
1:30:34 So I think that’s one advantage of late night writing and then in the morning
1:30:40 You’ve got the high cortisol, but you also have the sort of acute attention. Yeah, I can totally see that
1:30:45 I can definitely see that I also find that writing late at night if I’m writing it too in the morning
1:30:52 It’s very hard for me. I remember I want to say it was ein rand who wrote a she had a book about the craft of nonfiction
1:30:54 And there was some
1:30:57 It wasn’t a metaphor. I think it was a real world example
1:31:01 But in effect she’s saying writers many writers will do almost anything to not write
1:31:07 And there’s the story about the white tennis shoes like I have to clean my white tennis shoes before
1:31:11 Before I’m going to write because I’m going to go out and when it’s two or three in the morning
1:31:16 Like I have to check email to make sure x is just not a viable excuse
1:31:23 So it also just removes a lot of bullshit distraction that I would impose on myself to avoid doing
1:31:25 What it is that I find hard
1:31:29 I so relate to this like when so when I was writing quiet. I suddenly
1:31:35 developed this idea that I had to learn everything in the world about digital photography
1:31:40 Like and I was reading all these books about it and the rule of thirds and all this stuff
1:31:44 And I have never had any interest in photography before or since
1:31:50 It was just these two weeks of mania where I didn’t want to have to be looking at that manuscript over there
1:31:57 Are there any particular I mean you are student of the craft, right? You’ve taken creative nonfiction courses
1:32:02 Are there any particular books or resources or?
1:32:05 writers who have had
1:32:09 A significant impact on how you view or practice writing
1:32:12 Oh, gosh. I’m sure the answer is yes
1:32:17 I can try to buy some time if helpful draft number four by john mcfee
1:32:23 I think is is really I was very fortunate to spend time with him when I was an undergrad in college because he was teaching a
1:32:27 Yeah, but that’s where I took my creative writing classes. Yeah, so the structure
1:32:34 thinking about structure in the way that mcfee thinks about structure saved me because I
1:32:41 Thrive with some type of predetermined blueprint for structure. It’s very hard for me to
1:32:44 Just freehand flow of consciousness
1:32:51 Let things take some emergent form. It’s very hard. I do know friends who do that really really well that terrifies me
1:32:56 So I need the scaffolding right bird by bird by and oh, I love that book
1:33:00 That’s a good book bird by bird for people who don’t know the book
1:33:05 I will say just before getting into a short description has
1:33:11 Saved at least a half a dozen friends of mine from the precipice
1:33:15 meaning they were at the point of throwing in the towel and just
1:33:21 Quitting their books and they were all writers in this case. They were at the point where they’re like, I’m done. I can’t do this
1:33:25 It’s too stressful. I don’t like this. I don’t want to do this. It’s going to be terrible
1:33:29 and they were going to in some cases return their advances and just walk and
1:33:33 I want to say at least half of them
1:33:35 read this book
1:33:38 Went on to finish their books and their books went on to become New York Times bestsellers
1:33:41 So talk about an important window
1:33:46 for making a decision and the gist of the book the title I should say comes first from
1:33:49 I think it was her brother
1:33:54 Ann’s brother and lamada is a writer and her brother had this experience where he’d had something like an entire
1:33:56 semester in
1:34:00 I’m making this up. But let’s just call it fourth grade to prepare for
1:34:03 this end of semester project
1:34:07 And he was supposed to put together a term paper on birds or something like that
1:34:10 And it was like the night before he hadn’t done any preparation
1:34:15 And this poor kid who granted kind of deserves it because he didn’t do any prep
1:34:21 But nonetheless is having this like nervous breakdown at the kitchen table with like 15 books about birds and he just is paralyzed
1:34:24 And I want to say it was ann’s
1:34:29 Dad who came over and like put an arm on his shoulder and said just take it bird by bird buddy bird by bird
1:34:32 Something like that
1:34:34 And it’s sort of a psychological
1:34:39 life raft break glass in case of emergency kit for writers
1:34:43 Who are just hitting that point like maybe you did with the photography were just like
1:34:49 I want to do anything other than look at that screen or that page. I just I can’t handle it
1:34:51 And I don’t know what to do
1:34:56 So for that reason not necessarily for the nuts and bolts of the writing process itself
1:35:00 But for the psychological component, it’s like if you had a if you were a top athletic coach
1:35:04 And you had your sport specific technical coach and then you had a mental
1:35:11 Like toughness coach who also doubled as a shrink like the mental toughness coach who doubles as a shrink is the bird by bird
1:35:15 Yeah, I’m remembering. She also talks about shitty first drafts. Yes
1:35:20 And just those three words are incredibly helpful because you know when you’re looking at your draft
1:35:25 And it is always really shitty at the beginning and so just knowing. Okay. That’s what it’s supposed to be
1:35:29 Yeah, but yeah, you know the other thing that’s been really helpful to me
1:35:33 So I told you I started taking that creative nonfiction class at NYU
1:35:37 And all of us who took that class got along really well
1:35:42 So we formed a writers group after the class was officially done and we stayed together for years
1:35:47 And we would meet once every week every two weeks and read each other’s stuff
1:35:52 And especially at that stage that really really helped, you know getting the feedback
1:35:58 But also having the kind of camaraderie and support system and in fact totally isolated
1:36:04 Not feeling isolated and I actually met my literary agent from one of the people who was in that group
1:36:09 Who was a publishing lawyer and I said, you know, I have this idea for this book about introverts
1:36:15 Which at the time to me seemed like the most idiosyncratic project on earth, but she said
1:36:17 When you’re ready, I know the right agent for that
1:36:24 And that’s a really serendipitous thing when I put together the proposal for the book that became quiet
1:36:29 I sent it out to that agent who she recommended and to four other
1:36:33 Super amazing agents two of whom I had connections to and
1:36:35 every single one of the other ones
1:36:39 Past and some of them said, you know, I really like the writing
1:36:43 But I think this topic is not commercial enough and I just don’t think it’ll sell
1:36:45 So could you come back with a different topic?
1:36:50 And my the guy who became my agent instantly saw what the potential was going to be
1:36:54 And we’ve been together ever since and I feel like I owe him everything and I love him
1:36:58 And his name is Richard Pine if you’re out there looking for an agent
1:37:02 And I think about this story all the time not only because of book writing
1:37:09 But because all these people these other agents these are experts and these are the culturally anointed gatekeepers
1:37:11 and they know what they’re doing
1:37:17 And yet they didn’t see this one particular thing and I think that that happens all the time. Totally. So
1:37:22 No, I’m glad you shared that and I had a very similar experience. I reached out to I want to say it was four
1:37:32 Agents who were introduced by a very successful author who I’d met something like seven years earlier by volunteering at a non-profit
1:37:37 Which is a great way to meet people above your pay grade as a side note just like filling water glasses for panelists
1:37:43 Works really well. So I had the right introduction the writing. I didn’t think my writing was
1:37:46 Tolstoy or anything, but it was it was passable
1:37:48 and
1:37:50 complete rejection
1:37:55 from three of the four this was the four hour work the four hour work week two of them were not were
1:37:58 Pretty heavy-handed about it
1:38:02 The one of the third july I remember named jillian manas a very good
1:38:06 Agent and she passed but she gave me a lot of really helpful feedback
1:38:10 She didn’t say this won’t work. She just said I don’t think
1:38:12 This is the right fit for me, right
1:38:18 And that that one fair enough, which is totally fair. Yeah, but like here’s a bunch of advice and one of the pieces of advice
1:38:20 She gave me actually wow, I haven’t thought about this forever
1:38:22 was
1:38:26 Think of each I was intimidated by the prospect of writing a book. I never written a book before
1:38:31 She said treat each chapter like a feature magazine article beginning middle and end
1:38:38 Self-sufficient yeah each chapter can live on its own and I’ve followed that advice ever since yeah
1:38:43 That’s great with nonfiction. Yeah, which makes it easier to write also because if you get stuck somewhere
1:38:47 It’s not like you have to cross that bridge to get to a chapter
1:38:52 That sequentially should show up three chapters later. You can treat it in a modular way, right?
1:38:55 If you get really bogged down you can skip
1:39:00 Which also in some cases like the rest of my books leads to a book that can being read
1:39:02 non sequentially in any case
1:39:08 So three out of four turn it down finally signed with my current agent Steven Hanselman
1:39:13 Who I still work with to this day very similarly. Yeah, and
1:39:18 He had just become an agent. Wow. He had just become an agent
1:39:20 But part of what attracted me to him was that
1:39:25 He had a long career as a very successful editor
1:39:31 And was also just is just an eclectic guy went to divinity school plays in a jazz band
1:39:34 I mean really like my kind of my kind of person. Yeah
1:39:37 And then we went out to sell it
1:39:44 And I always forget if it’s like 26 or 27, but nonetheless it was like somewhere between 26 and 28 publishers turn it down
1:39:46 Really? Yes. Wow. And then the
1:39:51 But you only need one that’s the thing. It’s like it’s not about how many people don’t get it. Yeah
1:39:53 It’s about having the right
1:39:56 person or people who do get it
1:40:00 And I mean which is so clear with your book, right? It’s like you don’t need
1:40:03 All the people in the world to think it’s a good idea
1:40:09 You don’t need half the people in the world think it’s a good idea. You need the people who it resonates with
1:40:14 To have it resonate. Yeah, that’s right. And it does not need to be does not need to be millions of people
1:40:18 It could be but it doesn’t have to be and I had a note down also to just
1:40:22 And we don’t have to necessarily spend a ton of time on this but just to clarify
1:40:24 the
1:40:28 Talk about introversion versus shyness. I came across this when I was doing
1:40:31 A bit of homework
1:40:33 Which is people think of say bill gates, right?
1:40:39 It’s sort of maybe a one example of someone who could be useful and distinguishing between the two, but could you
1:40:46 Clarify what an introvert is or how you define introvert. Yeah, how it might differ from from somebody who’s shy, right? Yeah
1:40:49 introversion is really about
1:40:57 The preference for lower stimulation environments and you can trace it to your neurobiologies
1:41:01 Like introverts have nervous systems that react more to all the incoming stimuli
1:41:06 And so that means that we’re kind of at our most alive and happiest and switched on
1:41:11 When things are a little more chill around us, which is probably why when you’re in those group dinners
1:41:15 You’re going to the restroom every so often because your nervous system wants to tone it down
1:41:21 And extroverts have the opposite situation and the opposite liability and because for an extrovert
1:41:25 You’ve got a nervous system that’s reacting less to stimulation and that means
1:41:31 When you’re in an environment that you find too quiet you start to get really listless and checked out
1:41:33 So that’s the liability there
1:41:39 Shyness and I always feel like my work has to do with both introversion and shyness by the way
1:41:42 But shyness is much more about the fear of social judgment
1:41:49 So you’ll know if you’re a shy person because when you encounter someone who has a neutral expression on their face
1:41:54 You will have a tendency to read disapproval in there and to react really strongly to the disapproval
1:41:58 You feel kind of really unhorsed by it and it can take different forms
1:42:01 So it could be if you’re a public speaking or it could be
1:42:06 A job interview or any kind of situation where you feel you might be evaluated
1:42:13 So in reality lots of introverts do tend to be shy and vice versa, but not necessarily at all
1:42:19 I don’t know Bill Gates personally, but my guess is that he’s an introvert but not especially shy and then
1:42:22 somebody like an Eileen Fisher
1:42:29 She’s got this wonderful and I think it’s been decades now. Um, super successful fashion brand
1:42:32 She describes herself as a shy extrovert
1:42:38 So like she really wants to be around people all the time. She wants to be connecting all the time
1:42:43 You know, you talk to her she’s constantly like setting up this workshop and that program and you know
1:42:47 You look at her life and she’s always surrounded by lots of people and things going on
1:42:50 but she’s often feeling intense discomfort and
1:42:57 Needing to work through that wild. Yeah, I would certainly describe myself as an introvert and
1:43:02 I never knew quite how to frame it until
1:43:05 Coming across your definition of preferring lower
1:43:08 stimulation or
1:43:13 Environments or environments with fewer stimuli except I’ve ever since I was a little kid been very sensitive
1:43:16 I mean my sight is very sensitive, right?
1:43:22 My hearing is very sensitive. Yeah, but I’m not shy in the sense that I don’t
1:43:26 I want to engage and ask questions and interact
1:43:35 But if the volume is turned up too much or there are too many speakers metaphorically or or physically I I have a lot of difficulty
1:43:42 Parsing at all, but you don’t have like a shyness would be like, you know before you go into those group dinners
1:43:48 Are you feeling a kind of social anxiety? No, right? Yeah, that’s the difference. Yeah. Yeah
1:43:52 Yeah, there are so many questions that I want to explore
1:43:56 But let’s uh because we have maybe 10 or 15 minutes more
1:44:01 Let’s ask a few of the questions that I that I always like to ask sure
1:44:05 Are there any books that you have given the most to others?
1:44:09 As a gift or any books you’ve gifted often to other people
1:44:11 I think that the book I’ve probably
1:44:16 For the last few years been giving out the most is Waking Up by Sam Harris
1:44:21 Which yeah, it’s fantastic. It’s such a fantastic book and it was really for me
1:44:27 Completely life-changing. I think for probably the reasons it is for many people, which is
1:44:35 I hadn’t really known much about meditation before reading it and because I think by my
1:44:39 My nature. I’m sort of a cross between a skeptic and a mystic or something
1:44:46 You know in the skeptical side of me and it it’s a pretty deep skeptical side
1:44:51 It really needed somebody like Sam who’s such an extreme skeptic, right?
1:44:55 You know and then who very conveniently spent like what 28 years of his life or something
1:45:02 Investigating all these different spiritual tools and then reporting back on them. You know for me that was a narrator
1:45:05 I could really I felt I could really rely on fantastic book
1:45:12 You know, I just I have to I just think you’ll we were talking a bit about Sam before we started recording because
1:45:17 We were both, you know, sort of fanboying and fangirling about these meditation app and
1:45:21 Handful of other things, but I haven’t told you and I don’t know if I’ve even mentioned this
1:45:25 Publicly about here we go. So the first time I met Sam
1:45:29 This relates to Ted went to Ted for the first time as an attendee
1:45:32 Which by the way was too much stimulation. So I never went back
1:45:36 Interesting. Yeah, but I went to Ted for the first time as an attendee
1:45:41 And I was invited to one of these group dinners, right? And so I go out to this group dinner
1:45:47 And we’re eating dinner and off to the side on a separate
1:45:52 Table, there’s this tray of brownies and I love brownies. It’s one of my weaknesses
1:45:57 It is an Achilles heel and I have zero portion control and these brownies are large brownies
1:46:00 And I sneak over kind of in between courses and I’m like, you know what?
1:46:04 I’m going to skip one of the later courses and just substitute the brownies because I love brownies
1:46:07 and so I eat two of these brownies and
1:46:08 about
1:46:13 20 minutes later, the host who I shall not name comes up to me and he goes, Tim, did you eat any of the brownies?
1:46:16 I go, yeah, I had two of them and he goes, okay
1:46:21 Everything’s going to be fine. And I’m like, wait, what? Everything is going to be fine. What the hell are you talking about?
1:46:24 They were heavily dosed
1:46:26 pod brownies
1:46:33 And I am not a habitual pot user and so I suddenly in the middle of dinner
1:46:41 Just get hit by this tsunami of cannabis and you combine that with my discomfort with high stimulation environments
1:46:43 And I’m like, I need to get the hell out of here
1:46:48 So I excuse myself to go to the restroom and by this point
1:46:54 I’m already a huge fan of sam. Yeah, but I’ve never had any contact with them
1:46:56 so I run off to the bathroom to escape
1:46:57 and
1:47:03 I open the door and literally like at the sink run straight into sam Harris in the men’s room and I’m like
1:47:06 Sam Harris
1:47:08 high off my rocker
1:47:13 And that was my first and he looks at me kind of like he’s like, hi
1:47:16 It’s kind of sideways because I’m just just beyond
1:47:23 Reality at that point and that was my first meeting with sam. That’s hilarious. And did you tell him your brownie story?
1:47:27 I did I did tell him which he appreciated because he does have some history with yes, he does
1:47:33 Altered states, but yeah, no, I found that book and the subsequent meditation app
1:47:38 And all of it incredibly helpful and fantastic the one piece of it that
1:47:42 I’m kind of trying to explore separately because I feel like
1:47:45 He looks at much less is the whole
1:47:49 tradition of loving kindness meditation and all the meditations around that
1:47:52 So that’s really really of interest to me
1:47:56 So I’m sort of charting a different course there and I’ll tell you like even just last night
1:48:01 I was interviewing on stage this guy. Heyman sunim. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him
1:48:05 But he’s a a really renowned zen Buddhist monk from korea
1:48:11 And his books are all number one bestsellers and korea and lots of other countries, but here he’s less well known
1:48:15 But anyway, he has a new book out. So I was doing this interview and
1:48:18 We’re up on stage so you can see the audience
1:48:24 And it happens to be a pretty formal audience. So before we start the audience is kind of sitting there
1:48:29 Kind of still in their seats and then he opens by doing a loving kindness meditation
1:48:34 And it was so amazing to see the transformation on their faces
1:48:38 And he did this for maybe one or two or three minutes like it wasn’t long
1:48:43 Yeah, and you know, suddenly they’re totally smiling and they’re open and they’re happy
1:48:46 It’s remarkable. Yeah, it’s remarkable. And I think it’s so
1:48:53 Weird and dispiriting how in the mainstream media and in corporate life
1:48:57 I mean, it’s great that there’s been this incredible embrace of mindfulness meditation
1:49:02 But I think there’s a kind of allergy towards going too much in the loving kindness
1:49:08 Direction. Um, and I spoke to Sharon Salzburg about this. Who’s one of the great teachers
1:49:14 And she said that people have this sense that it must be phony like that you couldn’t possibly
1:49:19 Actually have those feelings and so it kind of gives them a sort of creepy feeling to do it
1:49:22 Totally, but I feel like that all needs to get
1:49:25 completely rethought loving kindness the label I think
1:49:28 Smells of kind of hand-wavy
1:49:31 hippy
1:49:37 Associations and therefore people veer away from it. Yeah, or if they have sensitivity to that stuff, which I
1:49:39 Do and have for a very long time
1:49:43 But so did mindfulness for many years
1:49:47 Absolutely, you know, but that’s been recast but I mentioned that as a contrast to my
1:49:53 Then subsequent experience with loving kindness meditation also called meta me tta meditation
1:50:00 Which I was introduced to not first by jack cornfield. I did spend some time with him
1:50:03 Who’s sort of of the same cohort as Sharon Salzburg?
1:50:06 They’re close friends and Sharon’s been on the podcast
1:50:10 But meng chad meng tan of google actually you started this
1:50:14 Class within google called I think it’s search within yourself
1:50:16 It was a course that included many tools including mindfulness
1:50:21 And he has a book called joy on demand, which is fantastic. I thought it was a fantastic title
1:50:23 I was like, I could use join demand. Let’s take a look at this
1:50:28 And there’s a very short part in that book which ended up excerpting for I want to say
1:50:32 tools of titans about loving kindness meditation
1:50:39 And he tells the story of this woman who as an experiment guided or suggested by meng
1:50:44 Did a one-minute loving kindness meditation on the hour every hour for one workday
1:50:49 And she picked people who were walking about at the office or so and she came back and she said that is the
1:50:54 Best day I’ve had at work in seven years. And I think part of that
1:50:56 is at least for me
1:50:58 That’s I am very
1:51:05 Historically, I’ve been very trapped in my head. I’m very prefrontal. Yeah, and I come from a family of
1:51:09 Warriors people who are warrior or warrior
1:51:15 Warriors not not the not the battle axe type but the like larry david type
1:51:17 Yeah, yeah for one of those two right and
1:51:20 When you are consumed with
1:51:23 worry or anxiety
1:51:28 And this is not my description, but it’s been described to me as being trapped in the future
1:51:32 Like depression is being trapped in the past anxiety or worrying is being trapped in the future
1:51:35 And it’s also at least for me. It’s a focus on the self
1:51:40 It’s like me me me it’s all things that might happen to me things that I should do
1:51:46 And the loving kindness meditation which can be so short and have an impact
1:51:53 Gets you unlike most types of mindfulness practice that are popular or becoming popular in the west
1:51:56 It gets you out of yourself. Yeah, and
1:52:03 I recall when I was writing tools of titans. I decided to take mangs advice and I did loving kindness for
1:52:07 Literally two or three minutes every night
1:52:12 I was at this hotel and they had a dry sauna and I go into the dry sauna really late because I was doing my writing
1:52:14 Really late right and just do
1:52:19 Two to three minutes of thinking about a friend and wishing them happiness and seeing them smiling and giving them a hug
1:52:23 and having them smile back at me and wishing me the same and it was
1:52:29 transformative as regards with regards to my mood. It was really just incredible. Yes
1:52:37 Low dose really really low dose and I’m curious you mentioned that you were thinking about or meditating on loving kindness to your friend
1:52:40 Did you also start with a traditional
1:52:46 Practice of wishing it to yourself or is that less comfortable? This is a great question. So I did not
1:52:48 It did not even occur to me
1:52:50 to do this
1:52:53 until years later when I
1:52:56 went to my first
1:53:02 Seven day might have been 10 day silent meditation retreat at spirit rock right and jack cornfield was there
1:53:06 And I went in they check in with you to make sure you’re not having a total psychotic break
1:53:11 For a few minutes every other day and I had this meeting with jack and one of his
1:53:18 Co-teachers for the event and we were talking about loving kindness talking about loving kindness and as I was leaving
1:53:21 The woman with jack said
1:53:25 Just out of curiosity. Have you been doing any loving kindness for yourself and it struck?
1:53:30 I don’t know how to describe this in a way that doesn’t make me look like an ass
1:53:33 But it just struck me as such a silly question. I was like, no, of course
1:53:35 I haven’t been doing it for myself and then I realized
1:53:38 how much that
1:53:43 Probably explained a lot of my problems and she goes. Yeah, you might want to try that. Why don’t you experiment with that?
1:53:49 And I remember jack later saying, you know, and I’m paraphrasing but you know, if your compassion doesn’t include yourself
1:53:54 Then it’s incomplete. Yeah, and that is and you can’t really give it to other people in a complete way either
1:54:00 Right. So that has become probably I’m so glad you asked that one of the biggest changes in
1:54:01 my
1:54:10 I could call it a mindfulness practice, but my way of relating to the world and thinking about helping others has been actually taking time to
1:54:19 Show or think on self compassion specifically for myself at a handful of younger ages. Yeah. Yeah, which I do at meal times
1:54:21 and
1:54:27 Might talk about that more at some point, but yeah, that’s that’s become really it’s become a very very very very important ritual for me
1:54:32 But I don’t think you’re alone. I mean Sharon Salzburg mentioned to me that many
1:54:38 People have trouble. I mean the traditional progression of the practice would be start with yourself and then, you know
1:54:41 Move progressively outward to other people in your life
1:54:45 And she said many people have trouble beginning with themselves
1:54:50 And so I was really struck because last night this man came and soon him who I love began
1:54:53 In this meditation by directing it to ourselves
1:54:58 And I asked him about that afterwards and he seemed kind of puzzled by the question
1:55:02 Which made me wonder if this is a uniquely American problem. I don’t know
1:55:08 This reminds me of the story I heard of this
1:55:13 I don’t know what it was. Nepalese or I know buddhini’s monk who came to the us any
1:55:16 He was in a car on the way to some event
1:55:21 This was in the us and there are these people running, you know jogging on the side of the street to get in shape
1:55:26 But they’re just they looked like they were dying. I mean they looked like they were running from hyenas and he was just like
1:55:29 Are they okay? What’s wrong with them?
1:55:32 It just it was so foreign
1:55:38 Um, my goodness. So we have just a few minutes. Let me ask you
1:55:44 The billboard question. Uh, so if if you could put a message on a billboard
1:55:48 This is metaphorically speaking to get a message a quote a question anything
1:55:54 Non-commercial out to millions or billions of people. What might you put on that billboard?
1:55:56 I think I’d probably put
1:56:02 This one aphorism that I’ve loved since high school. I think which is only connect by em forster
1:56:06 Only connect only connect. Yeah, like that at the end of the day
1:56:09 That’s all that really matters. What does that mean to you?
1:56:13 It just means connecting on some really
1:56:19 Deep level with the people around you and that might sound like
1:56:23 An ironic aphorism for someone who wrote a book
1:56:28 About introversion, but to me those are not contradictory things at all
1:56:31 You know, and so for me like connection
1:56:34 It can happen in person for sure, but it could also happen just by listening to
1:56:40 Music that’s really touching you and you feel completely connected to this musician who may not even be alive anymore
1:56:44 You know or a writer who might not be alive anymore, but they’re expressing something
1:56:50 Deep and unchanging about what it’s like to be human. So those I think there’s kind of nothing
1:56:53 More important than that only connect only connect
1:57:00 Is there anything you’ve done that has helped you to more deeply or frequently experience those moments or any
1:57:03 advice you might have for people who
1:57:06 want to
1:57:11 Cultivate that so aside from meditation, which I am a huge proponent of but
1:57:17 I think you really do have to pay attention to what works for you and it really is so different for everybody
1:57:21 You know, so for me, I love to have deep one-on-one conversations
1:57:25 It happens through music. It happens through literature and those
1:57:29 That’s how it happens. Um, but I think it it really is a different answer for everyone
1:57:35 But I’ll tell you and this is maybe a different topic, but the whole
1:57:41 idea for my next book came out of one of these kinds of experiences, which is
1:57:46 I have always had a love of bittersweet and minor key music
1:57:50 And and the book’s not about music, but I’m going to tell you this story anyway. Okay
1:57:53 So when I was in law school
1:57:58 I was listening to music like that in my dorm and a friend came by and he was kind of a funny wise guy
1:58:01 And he said, why are you listening to this music to commit suicide too?
1:58:03 And
1:58:07 You know, and I thought it was funny and I laughed but I thought about it for decades afterwards
1:58:12 Like I was thinking well, why is it first of all, what is it about our culture?
1:58:17 That makes this music so suspect that you would make that kind of joke and also
1:58:22 What is it about the music itself that for me is not suicide inducing at all? It’s like it’s the opposite
1:58:25 I feel when I hear music like that completely
1:58:28 connected to
1:58:29 everything
1:58:34 Because it’s like the composer is expressing some really deep truth about what it is to be human
1:58:39 So I’ve thought about this for decades and and the place that i’m going with this next book is
1:58:40 I think that
1:58:45 Tuning into the sorrows of the world actually is a kind of secret superpower
1:58:52 That we’re not really allowed to access very often because of course we live in this culture that tells you
1:58:55 Don’t go there and always wear the smiley face and and so on
1:58:58 But if I can say like even look at somebody like you
1:59:06 Even before you started being really open and upfront about some of the demons that you’ve struggled with which by the way
1:59:10 All the honor to you for doing that. It’s amazingly brave and generous
1:59:13 But even before you did it and if you had never done it
1:59:15 I don’t think you would have been
1:59:20 Touching all those people the way you have all these years if it weren’t for those sorrows
1:59:26 I agree. Yeah. Yeah, so it’s all about that. I’m excited to read your next book. Thank you
1:59:31 I think that’s a really really really really really important topic. Yeah, I think it’s really important
1:59:37 I think we’ll have to do it around too in that case. I would love that. That would be awesome. I just have to write a little faster
1:59:44 I will I will happily wait for your best work. So thank you. No need to rush
1:59:49 Well, Susan, this has been such a joy and I’m sure people can hear it
1:59:51 but just to
1:59:56 Maybe underscore the point. I mean you are a very present person when
2:00:01 you’re speaking with someone else and I can find you feel that in the room
2:00:04 And so you’re you’re walking the talk
2:00:10 Which is always refreshing and not always the case. So thank you for taking the time today. Thank you so much
2:00:15 I really enjoyed it. Yeah, and I’m and I will link to everything in the show notes for folks
2:00:21 Including the the name of the Korean monk that I couldn’t spell to save my life at the moment
2:00:26 But we will have links to everything at tim.blog/podcast and you can just search Susan
2:00:30 And pop right up people can find you
2:00:35 Online presumably where are the best places to say hello learn more about what you’re up to?
2:00:38 Well, best thing is to sign up for my newsletter
2:00:42 Which you can get to if you go to quiet rev.com, which is for quiet revolution
2:00:48 So you’ll find it right there on the home page. There’s a sign up form and there’s a newsletter that goes out every week
2:00:56 So that’s the absolute best and then I’m also super active on LinkedIn and on Facebook. Great. And is that simply
2:01:02 Susan Kane because I think Facebook correct me if I’m wrong. I think it’s author Susan Kane. Oh gosh. Thank you for saying that
2:01:05 Yeah, so on Facebook. It’s author Susan Kane and on LinkedIn
2:01:08 I actually don’t remember but it’s part of the LinkedIn influencer
2:01:11 I’m sure if you put in LinkedIn influencer and my name
2:01:13 It’ll pop right up. Yeah
2:01:16 And then twitter may be less active
2:01:20 Yeah, I am on twitter but a little less active at Susan Kane at Susan Kane. Yep
2:01:23 And
2:01:28 Can’t wait to see the next book and continue to follow your work. Thank you so much. I will say the same to you
2:01:30 What is the next book?
2:01:34 What is the next book? Well, you know based on the an episode that came out a few days ago
2:01:37 I think it’s going to be this book that I
2:01:40 Have been waiting to give myself permission to write which is about
2:01:43 It’s not that it’ll be
2:01:49 A close cousin to what you are thinking a lot about right now. It would be
2:01:55 How to pay attention to the psycho emotional
2:01:57 undercurrents and
2:02:00 components of life very closely and
2:02:03 how to use tools both
2:02:07 On the beaten path and off very very very off the beaten path
2:02:08 for
2:02:10 finding resolution for
2:02:13 problems or challenges or
2:02:15 insecurities
2:02:19 Or trauma that are at least in current conventional practice
2:02:23 Considered very difficult to treat or untreatable. So that would be
2:02:30 As far as I can tell and I’ve been gathering notes for about five years now. That would be the thrust of it. That’s going to be
2:02:33 Your most important book
2:02:35 I hope so. What’s your timetable?
2:02:38 What’s my timetable?
2:02:40 It’s
2:02:43 Well as who was it? I think this was this something I heard on a tv set once
2:02:48 They didn’t want people to rush, but it was the just was people need to rush and they said
2:02:53 But they didn’t want to say that and make people panic. So they said we need everyone to move with purpose
2:02:57 So I think my answer is move with purpose
2:03:02 but not in haste because I want to treat it with
2:03:07 The depth and thought that it deserves. So I don’t want to rush
2:03:15 We’ll probably write it without signing before selling anything or signing any contracts. I’ll probably
2:03:21 Oh, you’ll write the whole thing. I’ll probably do it on my own time. Oh, interesting. Okay, but it is atop if not the top priority
2:03:27 Wow, so so are you like working on it every day right now? I am in some fashion working on it every day
2:03:29 but it’s going to be a while before I get to the
2:03:32 composition pro stage
2:03:37 But the vast majority of the work that I do on my books is the experimentation and the traveling for
2:03:43 Subjecting myself to all sorts of unusual things and the note taking and the organizing of said notes
2:03:47 And I’m doing some piece of that almost every day. Wow
2:03:53 Yeah, oh, I’m so glad you’re doing this book. Yeah, so if I can help, you know, if you want an early reader or whatever
2:03:58 I would love to awesome. It’s completely at my alley. Well likewise likewise. This has been so much fun
2:04:05 And until next time. Thank you so much. Thank you so much and to everybody listening
2:04:07 Same
2:04:10 Until next time. Thank you for listening
2:04:13 Hey guys, this is tim again
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2:05:17 If you’d like to try it out, just go to tim.vlog/friday type that into your browser tim.vlog/friday drop in your email
2:05:19 And you’ll get the very next one. Thanks for listening
2:05:27 This episode is brought to you by ag1 the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health
2:05:35 I view ag1 as comprehensive nutritional insurance and that is nothing new. I actually recommended ag1 in my
2:05:41 2010 best seller more than a decade ago the four-hour body and I did not get paid to do so
2:05:45 I simply loved the product and felt like it was the ultimate
2:05:51 Additionally dense supplement that you could use conveniently while on run which is for me a lot of the time
2:05:54 I have been using it a very very long time indeed
2:06:01 And I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement and the true answer is invariably ag1
2:06:08 It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road
2:06:15 So what is ag1? What is this stuff? ag1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins probiotics and whole food source nutrients
2:06:21 In a single scoop ag1 gives you support for the brain gut and immune system
2:06:29 Since 2010 they have improved the formula 52 times in pursuit of making the best foundational nutrition supplement possible
2:06:33 Using rigorous standards and high quality ingredients. How many ingredients?
2:06:39 75 and you would be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient-dense formula on the market
2:06:47 It has a multivitamin multimineral superfood complex probiotics and prebiotics for gut health an antioxidant immune support formula
2:06:54 Digestive enzymes and adaptogens to help manage stress. Now. I do my best always to eat nutrient-dense meals
2:07:00 That is the basic basic basic basic requirement, right? That is why things are called supplements
2:07:05 Of course, that’s what I focus on, but it is not always possible. It is not always easy
2:07:10 So part of my routine is using ag1 daily if I’m on the road on the run
2:07:17 It just makes it easy to get a lot of nutrients at once and to sleep easy knowing that I am checking a lot of important boxes
2:07:23 So each morning ag1, that’s just like brushing my teeth part of the routine
2:07:29 It’s also nsf certified for sport. So professional athletes trust it to be safe and each pouch of ag1 contains
2:07:34 Exactly what is on the label does not contain harmful levels of microbes or heavy metals
2:07:41 End is free of 280 band substances. It’s the ultimate nutritional supplement in one easy scoop
2:07:44 So take ownership of your health and try ag1 today
2:07:51 You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin d and five free ag1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase
2:07:59 So learn more check it out. Go to drinkag1.com/tim. That’s drink ag1 the number one
2:08:07 Drink ag1.com/tim. Last time drink ag1.com/tim. Check it out
2:08:12 I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had the experience of traveling overseas
2:08:16 And I try to access something say a show on amazon or elsewhere
2:08:20 And it says not available in your current location something like that or
2:08:23 Creepier still if you’re at home and this has happened to me
2:08:31 I search for something or I type in a url incorrectly and then a screen for AT&T pops up
2:08:37 And it says you might be searching for this how about that and it suggests an alternative and I think to myself wait a second
2:08:42 My internet service provider is tracking my searches and what I’m typing into the browser
2:08:44 Yeah
2:08:46 I don’t like it and
2:08:51 A lot of you know I take privacy and security very seriously. That is why I’ve been using today’s episode sponsor
2:08:53 express vpn for several years now
2:08:57 And I recommend you check it out when you connect to a secure vpn server
2:09:02 Your internet traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel that nobody can see into including hackers governments
2:09:06 People in starbucks your internet service provider, etc
2:09:10 And no, you’re not safe simply using incognito mode in your browser
2:09:15 This was something that I got wrong for a long time your activity might still be visible as in the example
2:09:17 I gave to your internet service provider
2:09:20 Incognito mode also does not hide your ip address
2:09:24 Also with the example that I gave of you can’t access this kind of that content
2:09:29 Wherever you happen to be then you just set your server to a country where you can see it and all of a sudden voila
2:09:34 You can say log into your normal amazon account as opposed to being routed to dot uk or whatever
2:09:42 And uh everything works so express vpn protects you and enables you because it encrypts and reroutes your network traffic through secure servers
2:09:46 So even though your traffic is still passing through your internet provider
2:09:51 Now they can’t read it express vpn is so fast. Also, it doesn’t bog things down at all
2:09:57 I usually forget that I even have it on I can stream high quality video no lag or buffering
2:10:02 Even on servers thousands of miles away gives me access to servers in 105 countries around the world
2:10:07 Which is very helpful as I am constantly traveling and love to do so
2:10:12 It’s easy to use you just choose a server location and tap one button to connect you do not need to be
2:10:16 Technologically savvy you don’t need to know anything about how it works
2:10:23 It’s just one click and it works on every device phone laptop tablets even TVs
2:10:28 Express vpn has really changed the way I use the internet and I can’t recommend it highly enough to check it out
2:10:34 Right now you can go to express vpn.com/tim and get three extra months for free when you sign up
2:10:43 Just go to express vpn expresvpn.com/tim for an extra three free months of express vpn
2:10:46 One more time expressvpn.com/tim
2:10:48 You
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