#406: Bob Iger — CEO and Chairman of Disney

As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/, Robert A. Iger (@RobertIger https://twitter.com/RobertIger) is the steward of one of the world's largest media companies and some of the most respected and beloved brands around the globe. Since becoming CEO in 2005, Iger has built on Disney's rich history of storytelling and innovation with the acquisitions of Pixar https://www.pixar.com/ (2006), Marvel https://www.marvel.com/ (2009), Lucasfilm https://www.lucasfilm.com/ (2012) and 21st Century Fox https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/21cf/ (2019), and the landmark opening of Disney's first theme park and resort in Mainland China, Shanghai Disney Resort https://www.shanghaidisneyresort.com/en/ in 2016. Always one to embrace new technology, Iger has created an ambitious direct-to-consumer strategy that leverages Disney's unparalleled creative content across new platforms, including the new Disney+ https://www.disneyplus.com/ streaming service, ESPN+ https://plus.espn.com/, Hulu https://www.hulu.com/, and Hotstar https://www.hotstar.com/in. Iger serves on the boards of the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum https://www.911memorial.org/ and Bloomberg Philanthropies https://www.bloomberg.org/. He is a graduate of Ithaca College https://www.ithaca.edu/. His new autobiography is titled The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Lifetime-Lessons-Learned-Company/dp/0399592091/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=offsitoftimfe-20&linkId=fc5a45e4306537eb279b7ade5fd09407&language=en_US, which offers stories and lessons about structuring, dealmaking, leadership, and optimizing fear metabolism. Please enjoy! *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor http://tim.blog/sponsor. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. 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• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

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• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:51Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:35Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:56Tim Ferriss?

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• 3:36Tim Ferriss?

  be swimming, it is very rarely running. But my subjective experience supports what some of the research would seem to indicate, and that is that you can work out, say, up to 15 to 18% longer if you're looking at high-intensity interval training, HIIT, for instance, and at recovery times. So the, let's call it the refractory period for getting back to peak power output, for instance. So I use Beat Elite, just used it this morning before a 30-minute, somewhat intense swim workout. And I have found that particularly for someone like myself...

• 4:20Tim Ferriss?

  Who has really terrible endurance genetically speaking, my presets are horrible, that it really does allow a 10 to 20% boost in shorter workout performance especially. Although I do know people who've used it for 20 mile runs, 30 mile runs, much longer endurance events. And they've got all sorts of different points about the mechanisms of action and so on. But suffice to say that it is a lot easier to consume Beetle Elite than to eat the nitric oxide equivalent of six whole beets, for instance, much more rapidly assimilated. And it tastes great.

• 5:02Tim Ferriss?

  It will also stain your pet polar bear, or your white cotton, or your down pillows. So don't spill it on anything, but it does taste delicious. I tend to mix this into a shake that I have pre-workout in the mornings. So there you have it. I've used Beetle Elite for a number of years now. It is trusted by hundreds of elite teams, athletes, and organizations all over the world. And it is also informed sport certified, which means that it is certified to not contain any banned substances. So if you're a competitive athlete, that is one fewer thing that you need to worry about. So take your performance to the next level with Beetle Elite. Try it out.

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• 6:11Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, aka Tim Tim Talk Talk for you long-term listeners. And yet, it is my opportunity and privilege again to interview a world-class performer, to try to tease out the habits, routines, belief systems, lessons learned, etc. that you can apply to your own life. And the subject today, the interviewee, is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Walt Disney Company, Robert A. Iger, also known as Bob Iger. You can say hello on Twitter @RobertIger, I-G-E-R. He is the steward of one of the world's largest media companies and some of the most respected and beloved brands around the globe.

• 6:55Tim Ferriss?

  Since becoming CEO in 2005, Iger has built on Disney's rich history of storytelling and innovation with the acquisitions of Pixar in 2006, Marvel in 2009, Lucasfilm in 2012, and 21st Century Fox in 2019. These are gigantic deals, and we'll talk more about them. And he's also responsible for, he was at the helm for, the landmark opening of Disney's first theme park and resort in mainland China, Shanghai Disney Resort in 2016. Look up that just to get an idea of the magnitude. It is incredibly large. And, speaking of incredibly large, under his watch, Disney's value has roughly 5x'd.

• 7:35Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know what the exact stock price is at the time of this recording, but quintupled. Quintupled the stock price and the value of the company. Always one to embrace new technology, and that is a huge asset and perspective that he's brought to the table. Iger has created an ambitious, direct-to-consumer strategy that leverages Disney's unparalleled creative content across new platforms, including the new Disney Plus streaming service, ESPN Plus, Hulu, and Hotstar. Iger serves on the boards of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and Bloomberg Philanthropies. He is a graduate of Ithaca College. His new autobiography is titled "The Ride of a Lifetime," subtitle "Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company." It's a great read.

• 8:20Tim Ferriss?

  Who is obsessed with deal making and structuring and negotiating. This book has tons of war stories and lots of detail for anyone who is similarly interested. And I would say overall, the book is really less about how to become a CEO, although it covers that and how to lead and more about how to think about fear and live with less fear, metabolize fear differently. So with all that said, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with none other than Bob Iger.

• 8:55Tim Ferriss?

  Bob, welcome to the show.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

• 9:00Tim Ferriss?

  I have been studying the path that you have traveled to get to where you are. And it's such an embarrassment of riches from an interviewing perspective. It's hard to know where to begin, but I was taking a look at a few different chapters in your life and in your book. And I thought we might start with if you could tell the story of your whiteboard session with Steve Jobs and the the pro and con list. And you can give context however you think is best.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Sure. I called Steve Jobs with a crazy idea. The idea being that Disney should buy Pixar. And one of the things I learned when you mentioned to Steve, you had a crazy idea. He needed to hear it right away. So even though I wanted to wait and tell him in person, he forced me to tell him on the phone. But instead of either laughing me off the phone or rejecting it summarily, he invited me up to meet him at Apple to discuss it further. And some time after the phone call that I had made, I had found myself sitting in

• 10:11Speaker 03

  the boardroom at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, alone at a long, long table. With a whiteboard on the wall that was almost as long as the table itself, so many, many feet. And Steve said we needed to have an exercise to discuss the pros and cons of Pixar being bought by Disney. As I probably should have expected, Steve was the one that held the writing instrument and stood at the board. So he was kind of the conductor of the session in more ways than one. And he said something like, you know, you go first, and I didn't really have the guts to go first.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  I said, no, you go first. And he wrote pros and cons, just as you expect, and started listing a set of cons that seemed like a mile long to me. They were so numerous, so much so that I said to him at some point, when he had said to me, why don't you name a few pros? I said, it hardly seems worth it. You've listed so many cons that I don't really see how we go forward. And he said, no, no, you got to come up with a few. And I did. I suggested a few. Actually, to his credit, as I recollect, he had a couple as well. But by the time we were done with the exercise, the list was still far more tilted in the

• 11:40Speaker 03

  con direction than the pro direction. So I reiterated to him my pessimism about doing anything, basically saying, given the fact that the cons are so more numerous than the pros, maybe this is just futile. He said, no, not at all. Just sometimes a couple of really big pros are far outweigh many, many cons, which I thought was quite interesting. He was able to look at this list and not count the sheer number of items, but tally up the kind of the relative importance or lack thereof of the items. And that led to him saying something like, let's keep the door open. We should continue to talk about this.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  What do we need to do next? And that led to my saying, I think I need to visit Pixar. I think the way I put it, see what's under the hood, suggesting that I look under and take a really close look at the engine that was Pixar to see whether I could get at whether the value was there for us to buy.

• 12:45Tim Ferriss?

  And some of the cons that Steve put on this board were seemingly so strong that you couldn't possibly overturn them or outweigh them or counterbalance them in the sense that some were Disney's culture will destroy Pixar. Your board will never let you do it. And distraction will kill Pixar's creativity, all caps.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Thank you. By the way, you're quoting from my book. I don't have it in front of me. But yes, those were all things that he said. Of those three, by the way, I think we both felt that it was not a foregone conclusion that the Disney board would let us do this. But that was not the biggest deterrent, at least not that day. He had really, really strong feelings about the culture of Pixar and the need to protect and preserve it. And his experience with Disney, while it might have been good at one point, had turned horribly bad.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  And he viewed Disney as an overly bureaucratic, overly process-oriented, not overly collaborative culture. And he thought that if we owned Pixar, that type of culture would obliterate the culture that was at Pixar. And he felt that Pixar culture was more responsible for their creative success than any one thing or any one person. And so, and this actually played out in great detail as the negotiations were on, his desire to make sure that even in a full-blown sale to Disney.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  That Disney would not, in effect, impose its culture on Pixar to the detriment of Pixar. And that was a theme that not only dominated the negotiation, but actually, once we went forward after the deal was done, we took a lot of steps to see that that didn't happen.

• 15:01Tim Ferriss?

  I have a few questions about this specific meeting and also your orientation going into a meeting like that. I recall watching an interview you did some time ago, this is a few years ago, with Kara Swisher and Marc Andreessen onstage. And you were talking about how, at one point, as it relates to earnings calls and so on, speaking publicly about the challenges and the, and I'm paraphrasing here, of course, but the difficult, perhaps obstacles or threats, gives you increased credibility than when you were talking about the things that you're excited about or optimistic about. And when I was reading this description

• 15:46Tim Ferriss?

  of the meeting, I had to wonder what your read of Steve was in the room as he was writing down all these cons. And was he playing the reluctant seller to hide enthusiasm about possibly getting the deal done? Or how did you interpret the feeling in the room at that point?

• 16:13Speaker 03

  I never detected that Steve was ever acting, or trying to act, or saying anything, or trying to communicate or convey anything to me, other than what was really true or what he really believed. That this was not a charade in any way. I think he was...

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Intrigued with the notion of selling Pixar, which is not something he had been thinking about very seriously. But he hadn't yet come to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do. He came to the conclusion that it was the right thing to seriously consider. And so I felt that everything he was putting on the table in front of me, or on the board in front of me, were things that he genuinely believed or was concerned about. And so authenticity was, to me, very apparent that day. And actually, it was always the case with him as I came to both learn and appreciate.

• 17:22Tim Ferriss?

  I had read in a separate profile, and please correct me if I'm getting this wrong, that Steve used to call you, now it says Saturday mornings, I don't know if it was limited to Saturday mornings, but when he thought a film was a dud. Is that true? Could you elaborate?

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Steve, I sensed while he liked his quiet time and he liked to be still, never allowed himself to be quiet or still for too long. And weekends sometimes, I think, got a little quiet for him. And so he would call me on a fairly regular basis on weekends and actually say, "I was just bored, so I called you." I don't think I said that in the, I don't think I wrote that in the book. So the calls were often not about anything, just about things. In other words, "Hey, let's talk."

• 18:21Speaker 03

  You know, it's Saturday morning, it's usually late Saturday morning or late Saturday afternoon. "Let's just chat, like, what are you doing?" And what I loved about those calls is, he was generous, too. I could easily ask him the question, "Well, what are you doing?" And there are times he'd go into a dissertation about some... Product he was developing at Apple, for instance. So it became like almost this private lecture series that I was participating in.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  I came to really appreciate those calls. And there's one particular one that you mentioned. He called Saturday with something specific on his mind. It was actually, I think, a Sunday that time. And he said, hey, how are you? Which was very quick often. I went to the movies last night with my son Reed and we saw Iron Man 2. And it sucked. Like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Not even give me a chance to say, oh, you saw Iron Man 2? That's nice. No, it was like right, you know, stream of consciousness. No pause. I saw Iron Man 2 and it sucked. Oh, I remember saying to him, that's interesting. I, you know, I respect your opinion, but it's not consistent with the opinion of many others. It did extremely well.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Like, you know, the, the audience voted and they liked it. And he chuckled, he said, well, I just, I thought it was terrible and so did Reed. And that was it. That was it. And I, I think I said at that point, well, you're entitled to your opinions. I, I, one of the things that I loved about my relationship with him, and I give him all the credit for this, is he quickly brought our relationship to the point where he could say things to me

• 20:08Speaker 03

  that were honest and sometimes, well, harsh in a way, but without meaning to harm anybody. In other words, I never felt threatened. He challenged me, but I never felt threatened or abused or, or criticized to a point of it damaging me or my, my, my reputation or my, or my, uh, my, um, relationship with him.

• 20:36Tim Ferriss?

  So I'd love to hop backwards in time, although I suppose the recollection of this is, is present tense. But for people who don't know the name, and I, I, I looked up some video to try to ensure I'm pronouncing this correctly. Rune Arledge.

• 20:55Tim Ferriss?

  That name came up very close to the whiteboard story that we were discussing in the following context. One of the things I've always instinctively felt, I'm quoting here, and something that was greatly reinforced working for people like Rune and Michael, is that long shots aren't usually as long as they seem. Could you describe what you mean by that? And how that was taught to you, or how you absorbed it from, say Rune in this example?

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Rune Arledge was president of ABC Sports when I started at ABC Sports in the mid 70s, and someone I worked for for 10 years. He worked for me for 10 years as well. And then he also became president of ABC News. And he established a reputation in both places as being a gigantic risk taker, a showman, an innovator, and someone with an incredible eye for a great story. And he's given credit for basically being the father of modern day television sports coverage. And one of the reasons, and which he deserved, by the

• 22:10Speaker 03

  way, and one of the reasons he gets that credit is that he was willing to try a lot of big things, things that had not been done before, and go places that no one had ever gone, tell stories that no one had ever told. Just generally, he was quite an innovator. And one of the things that I quickly learned from Rune is, he had a lot of big ideas that he would turn then to his team, which I was a member, and ask us to implement them. And it's very easy sometimes when someone brings a big idea to you to say, well, that's almost

• 22:50Speaker 03

  impossible to do, or this will never happen, or I don't know how I get that done. But working for him, you quickly learned that he didn't take no for an answer. And he expected you to pull out all the stops. Never, by the way, forcing us to, you know, suffer a loss of integrity, or do something that wasn't morally correct. But he certainly believed that All the energy in the world should be should be applied to getting a tough task done, or all the ingenuity. And I loved, particularly in my twenties, when I started working for him, I loved that

• 23:30Speaker 03

  lesson, because he didn't take no for an answer, and I think there's a lot of value in that. So he could ask us to do things. I remember once he asked me, when I was a lowly programmer for a program called ABC's Wide World of Sports, to get the rights to the World Table Tennis Championships, which were going to be taking place in Pyongyang, North Korea, as a for instance. Not the easiest thing in the world to even figure out how to do, but it resulted in meetings in Beijing and with the North Koreans, and ultimately getting the rights, and then having to deal with the US State Department, who wouldn't let ABC Sports pay the North

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Koreans directly because of sanctions, and having to pay World Table Tennis Federation out of Wales, the money that would then go to the the North Koreans, and so on and so on. A near Herculean task, that in Rune's mind was never particularly Herculean, it was just something he felt we should do. And we got the rights through tremendous amount of perseverance and ingenuity, and sent a crew into Pyongyang, North Korea, in I think 1979. What I remember is that it was the first US crew of any kind, television crew of any kind, that went to Pyongyang since before the Korean War.

• 24:48Tim Ferriss?

  You you strike me, and have have always struck me, as as I've followed much of what you've done in the world, as an exceptionally good and creative deal dealmaker. And I would love to know how that, if that's, I mean, I'll I'll I I take it to be true, but. Where that was cultivated, or who helped you to develop that skill to think through something that others might give up on, like this task you were given, and to find the workarounds, to look for the possibilities instead of just staring at the obstacles?

• 25:31Tim Ferriss?

  Who helped to cultivate that in you, or teach you that ability to deal make?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Well, as I think back on this odyssey of a career, and I'm often asked, how did you get where you are? I will answer the question directly, but three things have come to mind in terms of contributing to my success. Two are not relevant to this question, hard work and luck. The third one is mentorship. I worked for some incredibly talented people, talented creatively, talented from a pure business perspective, and they either consciously and proactively taught me a lot, or I simply learned by watching

• 26:13Speaker 03

  them, learning from them through observation. And one would be the ability to negotiate. And Michael Eisner was great at that, Roon Arlidge was great at that, a few other of my bosses at ABC Sports, a man named Jim Spence was particularly good at it. Just people that were constantly kind of going head to head with some entity that was selling something that we wanted to buy, knowing that they had to buy it because it was important to the organization, they needed to get it fast so that no one else did, and they needed to get it the best possible price. And so I watched people do that, and not only how

• 26:58Speaker 03

  to get the best outcome, but how to get the best outcome the fastest, or how to even convince someone who wasn't even intent on selling something to sell it to us, which was the case with Steve at that point, it was the case with George Lucas, a number of years later, Lucasfilm was the case with Ike Perlmutter and Marvel. These were businesses that were not necessarily for sale. That, you know, we had first convinced, I guess I did in all three cases, them to sell, and then convince them to sell at a price that made the most sense, not only for us, but for them as well. But I had great, I worked for great people and for over a long period of time, you know,

• 27:41Speaker 03

  it was, I was in the business for 30 years before I got the job as CEO of the Walt Disney Company. 30 years, that's a lo, that's a long education.

• 27:51Tim Ferriss?

  It's a long education. And I would say that you seem to have done a very good job of learning lessons and then implementing skills along the way. I mean, there are people who make the same mistakes for 20 years or 30 years or more. And you've evolved over time. When you look back at whether it's, say, Jim Spence or the other people that you named or your own experience, what are some of the things that separate a good negotiator from a great negotiator? Because the, the criteria that you mentioned for some of these negotiations, getting,

• 28:31Tim Ferriss?

  getting the deal done quickly, getting the best price possible, form what would seem to be a pretty difficult cocktail. So what, what in your mind separates the A players from the B players from a negotiation standpoint?

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Well, I think, first of all, the thing that sets a good negotiator apart from a bad negotiator is one that gets a deal done. It starts there. In a way that I think is satisfactory to both sides. I've always been a big believer, and this is sort of cliche, but a negotiation should be, should work both ways, the buyer and the seller should come away both feeling good about it, or maybe not both not feeling good about it, I'm not sure. But I happen to believe that a good negotiation is one that is conducted efficiently and effectively.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  I don't think it's something that should be necessarily protracted, because it takes a lot of time and energy. It should be one where the value that is seen by the buyer is delivered through the transaction, by the transaction, which means that the price and the circumstances ought to, in some form or another, conform to the value proposition. That's really important. I like being very honest. I like getting to the heart of a negotiation fairly quickly. I like putting my cards on the table instead of keeping them completely close to one's vest. There are times, though, in a negotiation where I've found you do have to get up and

• 30:08Speaker 03

  walk away from the table if the terms that you're looking at just do not make sense, and be willing to lose a deal if you can't get the right terms. I've done that a number of times. But that's, I think, just good, honest negotiating. I don't approach negotiations with the need to win. I approach them with a need, with a desire to close a deal. I guess winning, that certainly contributes to winning, closing a deal. But when I mean winning, I mean winning on all points, on all terms, et cetera. It's not necessary to me.

• 30:43Tim Ferriss?

  What do you say to your team, or at different points, your bosses, or other people who, within your organization, were hoping for a deal to get done, that you've rejected because you could not get the terms that you wanted? Is there any way that you, you've learned to communicate that to other people who are part of a team, who may have had more of an emotional attachment to a certain outcome? Or is everybody just on the same page from the get-go, and you don't have to have that conversation?

• 31:20Speaker 03

  No, I usually like to have a conversation with some member of my team who is entering in or embarking on a negotiation to get something. I usually like to have an understanding about what the expense of the, of the, whatever the acquisition is, will be. In other words, set parameters. Go out and get it, provided it's within a certain guidelines or expectations. And if you can't get it at that, walk away, or let's have one more discussion. I like, I like those that are negotiating on our behalf. And things that matter to the company to the point where they're brought to my attention

• 31:59Speaker 03

  to know at what point walking away is acceptable, at what point in effect not getting something is okay because it's it's it's not it's no longer affordable or it's no longer justifiable from a from an economic perspective. Is that what you're trying to get at here?

• 32:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that yeah, that's that's, I think, what I'm getting at. And I think what I'm also kind of not tiptoeing, but moving and circling around is a broader topic of of risk taking. You mentioned that Rune was a risk taker. You have a reputation as a risk taker, but from at least what I can see, you strike me as also very systematic, very calculated in the best possible way. What was your first or any early exposure to risk taking, whether your own or someone else's that you learned from? Does anything

• 32:58Tim Ferriss?

  come to mind as as as early influences in that regard?

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Well, I saw a lot of risk taking at ABC Sports, but it was like, looking back, they're kind of quaint risks or modest risks. I have to think about what some of those were. But, I mean, look, Rune was the one who stepped up early on and spent big money on buying rights to the Olympic Games and to covering sports, say, the Winter Olympics that were not necessarily sports that America was that familiar with. And there are athletes who were not in any way household names, but he believed that he could he could turn the Olympic Games into into or find the stories in the Olympic Games that would be of great interest to people throughout America.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Regardless of what country the athlete was from, regardless of what sport they're in, as a for instance, I just watched that happen time and time again with him.

• 33:56Tim Ferriss?

  Looking at the picture that the headlines paint of your various mega successes, I'd love to go all the way back to the very beginning at ABC and, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but I want to say that you've mentioned that your first boss at ABC said you weren't promotable. Is that true? And if so, why were you looked at as unpromotable?

• 34:28Speaker 03

  He was a, it turns out, he was a thief. And he got fired, actually, I think he was let out of the building, I'm told. I wasn't there when it happened, but I think possibly with law enforcement people present because he had been caught embezzling. But at the time, we were covering an event in New York and we had to get some pickup trucks for the event. And this is really kind of obscure, but this is how it happened. And I joked to someone, it was a coincidence that I was moving apartments in New York that weekend. Wouldn't it be great if I could use the pickup truck over the weekend to move my furniture?

• 35:11Speaker 03

  I was actually just joking. They, because the pickup truck wasn't even in my possession, they passed that along to this particular boss who was threatened by me already because I had been reluctant to carry out some of the orders that he had wanted carried out, mainly using company property for his personal gain. And so he already saw me as a threat. And when he heard this, he called me into his office. He never challenged me at all on the pickup truck issue at all, but he simply said, I don't really believe you have

• 35:52Speaker 03

  a future here. In fact, Iger, you're not promotable. And I'm giving you two weeks to find another job in this company, or I'm going to fire you.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  And it wasn't until later that I found out that what it's what had sparked this was someone spreading a rumor that I was potentially gonna use the pickup truck.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Which was just silly.

• 36:16Tim Ferriss?

  So what then happened in the subsequent two weeks?

• 36:20Speaker 03

  Well, I was, I took him very seriously and I, there was a job posting system at the company. It's kind of funny how quaint it was then. This is 1975, where there was a clipboard in the lobby, near or near the lobby of most of the buildings that ABC was in. And on the clipboard were postings of open jobs at the company in various divisions. So I literally left his office, went down and looked at this clipboard to see whether there are other jobs at the company that I might see myself doing, so that I could get out of harm's way. And low and behold, there was a job at ABC Sports. And what was coincidental

• 37:04Speaker 03

  about that is that I had been assigned to work on a Frank Sinatra concert at Madison Square Garden. And it was produced by Rune Arlich, who was head of ABC Sports. So Rune brought a lot of his ABC Sports production executives over to help produce the Frank Sinatra concert. So when I saw this job at ABC Sports on the job posting system, I called people I had worked with on the concert. They immediately said, well, come on over and we'll talk about it. And because they knew me from the work I had done on the concert, they said, they hired me on the spot. So it kind of, I talked about luck contributing greatly to my success. It was just a matter of luck that I had worked on that show and

• 37:48Speaker 03

  that Rune had produced it. And that the very people who would save me from this boss who would deem me unpromotable were people that I had worked with some months earlier and were willing to take me in. Uh, which proved to be uh, just fantastic. I worked at ABC Sports for 13 years, 10 of them for Rune Arledge, and worked my way up to the point where I had been Senior Vice President of Programming at ABC Sports, which then led me to other big jobs at ABC, all coming from that one moment of one being called unpromotable, and going to a job posting system and finding a job.

• 38:25Tim Ferriss?

  So wild how the little things, the seemingly little things

• 38:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 38:30Tim Ferriss?

  coalesce at these points.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  I think that's true in life in many respects, you know, our, our lives in a way are a collection of little things, little occurrences, that loom large and become much bigger as, you know, life goes on. It's, and turn basically completely change the direction of your life, you know, based on something you never would have expected could or would.

• 38:54Tim Ferriss?

  That's, it's really remarkable. And it also brings to mind, you know, reading about many of your experiences, and I, I'm blanking on the attribution of this, but I read an essay not too long ago that talked about something called the, the luck surface area. So not to discount luck as a factor, but that there are things you can do to increase the surface area on which luck can stick if it happens to cross your path. And uh, I, I do like to explore habits in this podcast, and one of the, there, there are a number of habits that, that come to mind as it relates to your life. What is, one is exercise, and

• 39:36Tim Ferriss?

  uh, it seems to be something you take very seriously. And I'm, I'm wondering if you could speak to what role you feel exercise and fitness has, has played in your trajectory, or I, in, in life, I suppose broadly speaking. I can dig into more specifics if helpful, but I'd love to.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  No, I, I'd be glad to describe that and, and respond specifically, but I also want to come back to that whole notion of, you know, can you increase the incidence of luck? Or can you position yourself in a way that takes better advantage of, of luck than, than, than others perhaps? So on specifically regarding exercise, uh, I exercise really for three reasons. Uh, one is, uh, health. The second is vanity. And the third is sanity. Uh huh. Um, the health part, my parents both had heart attacks at forty. Wow. And I learned at an early age that, um, the, the, a healthy lifestyle could ultimately save my life.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  They lived till they were eighty-five, by the way, both of them. But they, they didn't live healthy lives and I wanted to lead a healthy life and a long life. So I, I changed my diet and exercise at pretty much an early age. I'd say at twenty or twenty, certainly under twenty-five years old. Um, second, I like to look good. Um, you know, maybe we all have a little bit of vanity in us. Uh, I guess you could argue that maybe looking good is a contributing factor to success. At least research suggested it is. I've never really thought of it that way. But, um, keeping myself fit, so I just look better, uh, makes me feel better.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  And then the third is actually just as important as the first, and that is I need quiet time. I need alone time. I need a time to be still with my thoughts. And exercise provides that for me. It's solitude, except for one day a week. I, um, when I take a bike ride with friends, I pretty much exercise alone. I have a trainer come in a couple of days after I've exercised alone. But I exercise alone six days a week. Uh, and it gives me the time to dream, to think, to create, to organize, to prioritize, to reflect, you name it.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  And I find there's an energizing quality to all of that, but there's also a calming quality. And it has served me extremely well, almost to the point of being a savior of sorts. Meaning in, in the most.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  I don't know, pressured times and the busiest times and times of either the most uncertainty or the most concerned, I have that quiet time to exercise and give me a chance to either rejuvenate or put things in perspective. So huge value to that.

• 42:42Tim Ferriss?

  What, for instance, this week, you could pick any day, yesterday, today, tomorrow, what does your regimen look like, just in terms of specifics, what time of day, how long, what type of exercises, what do the details look like?

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Well, today is slightly abnormal, but not very, because I flew to New York from LA late yesterday afternoon. So last night would be my first night on East Coast time this week. But I got up at 4:30 and 15 minutes later, I was on what's called a Versa climber, which I have in my apartment in New York. It's my go-to cardio exercise during the week. I ride a bike on weekends. And it's not necessarily for the faint of heart. It's something I've been doing since maybe 1991 or 1992. And it simulates climbing. It's

• 43:45Speaker 03

  a post that goes into the air, maybe about 10 feet, and it has hand grips and foot pedals. And you raise your arms and your legs in coordination. And it's as though you're climbing up either a ladder or stairs on the side of a building. And I listen to music when I do that. I have a television on, but with no sound. And I like listening to music every day, too. So I have numerous playlists, or I'll just listen to an artist or an album. And sometimes I can close my eyes because I'm basically tied into this thing in some form. It's not easy to fall off. You don't have to have your eyes. You're not going

• 44:27Speaker 03

  to run into anything because you're in one machine. So I did that for 45 minutes and did a little bit of stretching and some ball work afterward, had a cup of coffee and read. Looked at the newspaper and then got on with my day. It's obvious, the obvious need to shower and shave and put on your, your work duds and, and out the door I went. At about, this morning, about seven thirty.

• 44:53Tim Ferriss?

  What do you put on the television that you have on mute?

• 44:56Speaker 03

  It's either a local news show or one of our TV stations if I'm in, in the States. Or ESPN. If I'm outside the country, typical, there's a TV in the gym that I'm working out in. It's typically not within my control.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  I've watched many, uh, Chinese television news program or, or, um, or, or soap opera.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  That time of day.

• 45:24Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, boy, yeah, this, another time we could talk. I know you've spent a lot of time in China. I actually went to two universities in China a long, long time ago. And we ended up, the students in this dormant, foreign experts dormitory, they called it. Would watch these, uh, Kung Fu soap operas effectively. To pick up the, the language, which was, uh, turned into a really pleasant routine.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  By the way, I think at one point there was a foreign experts hotel in Beijing. I don't know if that still exists. Or a foreign experts building in Beijing.

• 45:59Tim Ferriss?

  It's, it was a very flattering, uh, it was a very flattering term to have applied to us. Uh, while keeping us conveniently separated from the rest of the student population.

• 46:12Tim Ferriss?

  But, uh, it was, yeah, fascinating time. This was, this was not to digress too far, but this was back when the, and I'm, I'm sure you remember these days, the, when the bicycles, I mean, the sea of bicycles. Was still a phenomenon. And, uh, remember buying.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  Late nineties, actually.

• 46:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I was there in ninety six and it was still, uh, when, uh, as a, as a poor student. Uh, we would buy these long, green People's Liberation Army jackets for the winter.

• 46:47Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, what a trip. Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  What I remember most then about China then was, yeah, the bicycles would be on the top of the list. The fact that. People were no colored colored clothing, really. It was either black or gray or dark green.

• 47:03Tim Ferriss?

  Very drab, yeah.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  There were no colors. And in the winter, people would stand on street corners with with either pieces of charcoal or burning things or cook either cooking or burning to keep warm. So there was a smell of charcoal in the air throughout Beijing.

• 47:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  In the winter, then, yeah, it's changed a lot.

• 47:23Tim Ferriss?

  It has changed tremendously. I mean, not not a back then, not a not a Gucci or Prada store in sight.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Or a Mercedes or Ferrari.

• 47:33Tim Ferriss?

  Or Mercedes or Ferrari.

• 47:34Speaker 03

  Or Nike, for that matter, or Disney, even.

• 47:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, things have changed a lot. But before I totally lose the thread, because I'm so interested in this particular facet, among others, on the exercise front, you mentioned that you do your solitary working out and then have a trainer come in, at least a few times.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  Twice a week.

• 47:57Tim Ferriss?

  Twice a week. What do you do solo on those days and what do you do with the trainer?

• 48:02Speaker 03

  I do, I limit myself to only thirty minutes on the VersaClimber. And he comes in afterward and we lift weights and stretch. At the ripe old age of sixty eight, lifting weights alone could be just a little dangerous.

• 48:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  So he helps me. First of all, he motivates me. He's actually a friend, too, so it's nice interaction. He shows up at the house at five, twice a week.

• 48:27Tim Ferriss?

  A good sport.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  When I'm in L.A. He's a nice guy. He's a good friend. And and he makes sure that I don't kill myself. But he also, he pushes me enough, but then it keeps me within some guidelines to stay safe. And I like that.

• 48:43Tim Ferriss?

  I I've read from a diet perspective that you don't eat much in terms of carbs, but that you do love pizza. Is this is this accurate?

• 48:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I I I don't eat bread or pasta. You know, save for the very occasional. It's a holiday, so I allow myself a bowl of pasta. But I gave up all bread. I'll never have a sandwich. I had a turkey burger for lunch today without the bun. That's sort of typical. But I am a pizza devotee and it is one of my vices.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  There aren't many and I allow myself a good pizza meal maybe once a month. Maybe sometimes I stretch it to two, but those are my carbs.

• 49:29Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have a favorite pizza? I mean, if you have, is there a specific pizza that is your go to favorite pizza?

• 49:37Speaker 03

  And I try to find a good pizza in any place that I go. Um, there are many, but no, I'm, I'm not really favorite in the sense that I'll. Any pizza is a good pizza to me.

• 49:55Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, well, there's of course a, just a, an ocean of fantastic pizza in New York. There's a lot of good pizza in many places. Austin, where I'm sitting right now, also has some really good pizza, surprisingly. Home slice and a number of others. So the next time you're here, uh, that could be, that could be allocated to the sanity bucket.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  What I, what I do though is I find myself, cause there's also a lot written about food lately. And whenever I see an article about great pizza in a city, I save it. So the most recent one was a New Yorker article, which is about the slice renaissance in New York. Meaning pizza by the slice. It appeared maybe two or three weeks ago in New York. So there's, they listed a place called Norm's in downtown Brooklyn. That I'm destined to try out this holiday vacation. But, uh, so it gets a renaissance of pizza by the slice.

• 50:49Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, when you find something like that at this New Yorker article, how do you save it? What is the actual process of saving something like that?

• 50:56Speaker 03

  I'd say I copy a, I read the New Yorker on its app. I copy a link or I copy the whole article and I put it on an email and I send it to myself. So I literally sent a, I've shared the slice renaissance with you from the New Yorker.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  With a link that said something like Paulie G's pizza by the slice or something like that in the link. Yeah. And that sits in that I'm now looking at it. I just pulled it up and I sent it to myself on November 18th. And so here I am in New York. And I will refer to that link and my sons who are 21 and 17 and like pizza will come in and the two of the three of us on Friday or Saturday will put our our cold weather coats on and head out into the cold New York air looking for a good slice of pizza.

• 51:52Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that sounds perfect. That sounds so much more appealing than than like warm and sticky plus pizza. The cold actually really lends something to it.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  I think that's right. It's funny. I think I've had pizza in Austin, but I don't remember from where.

• 52:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, there's a there's a pretty there's a decent selection. I mean, it is a food town. Do you limit yourself to do you have a hard cutoff at one slice? Or do you allow yourself to let loose?

• 52:20Speaker 03

  I let loose. If I'm sitting down having a pizza, it's a special moment. One slice would one piece, one slice would not do it. I see there's an eater Austin, we're of course totally off track here, but I'm now looking. Dasano Pizzeria, Little Deli Pizzeria, Pint House Pizza, any of those familiar Tony C's coal fired?

• 52:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yep. Pint House is right next to a paleo restaurant. So you could go to Picnic, P I C N I K. This is on Burnett Road for your paleo meal in the morning and then walk 50 feet after a coffee to have the pizza at Pint House.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  All right. I see it's on Burnett Road. Yeah. Funny. That's one thing, by the way, thanks to the internet. Oh, Dasano is on Burnett Road too, is you can pretty much find good pizza in any town in the world, thanks to the internet. Just just all you have to do is best pizza in and you get a pretty good list.

• 53:22Tim Ferriss?

  Shazam. So, so I'd love to ask you about preparation. I was texting with Adam Grant, who's been on this podcast and you you recently spoke on stage and

• 53:35Speaker 03

  At Wharton.

• 53:36Tim Ferriss?

  At Wharton and were very generous with students, which Adam really appreciated.

• 53:42Tim Ferriss?

  And the, I was texting with him, asking him what he thought might make a good topic or question to explore. And one of the things that he mentioned, and I'll just quote here, I don't think you'd mind. He prepares, this is he, meaning you, prepares a lot more than most CEOs for meeting new people, maybe partially because he's an introvert, which he mentioned on stage. What's his prep process? Do you have a prep process for first meetings with certain types of people?

• 54:12Speaker 03

  Yes, I don't, I don't have the time to prep for everyone.

• 54:18Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  But I'd say 75% of the time I do. And it's actually quite easy. I'll just go to the internet and type someone's name. And I'll often first look at a Wikipedia page, just to get a general sense. And then I'll see some things. I like that, like, for instance, you know, in your case, I want to look at things that you've done. I'll try to look at work. I'll try to look at news to see if there's something particularly new about you. My recollection about you that stood out is you, what you either were born in East Hampton or you grew up there.

• 54:56Tim Ferriss?

  I was a townie with a rat tail in the Hamptons.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I was a Long Island boy after I was born in Brooklyn.

• 55:04Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  So that struck me as interesting. And then coincidentally, I, the person who helps me manage my money, when he heard that I was writing a book, said many, many months ago, that if I'm going to sell books, the person I should ultimately sit down and talk with is you.

• 55:22Tim Ferriss?

  Well, please, please thank him, thank him for the kind words.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  He did that because he, I was it Tim Geithner? I can't remember what he, there was one, someone that you interviewed. That he had heard. Anyway, but I typically will do nothing. It's not overly interesting research, I think, but I try to just get a feel for somebody, you know, whether they sometimes it's a small thing, whether they have kids or not, you know, where they're from, how old they are, even every once in a while, find out someone, you know, may have the same birthday as I do, or I don't know, there'd be something that'll stand out that just enables me to connect with that person in some more meaningful way than

• 56:09Speaker 03

  than just sort of, you know, a rote interview.

• 56:13Tim Ferriss?

  Well, a little bit goes a long way. And I, I want to jump from the, the micro to maybe it's macro, but I've certainly read numerous instances of you talking about the importance of optimism as a leader. And I think I read a quote that you'd mentioned, nobody wants to follow Eeyore, right? Oh, bother. And I've been thinking a lot about this recently for a whole host of reasons. And you mentioned your sons, 21 and 17. How have you, if you've thought about it consciously, taught your kids to see the world through

• 56:57Tim Ferriss?

  a lens of optimism? Are there, I hate to use this word, but mantras? Are there books that you recommend? How, how do you cultivate that in your kids if you've thought about it?

• 57:09Speaker 03

  No, I have thought about it. I don't know that it's the first lesson or the most important lesson that I'm teaching them. But and some of I find what you do in educating your kids is you lead, is you teach by example, or you lead by example. I, I, and I talk about optimism often.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  But I want to make sure that people understand what that means. I think it's important to be a realist. So I'm not one of these that believe that everything will work out fine all the time. But I do believe that making sure that the possibility of something working out fine is very apparent, is right there, instead of the opposite, this will never work out, or there's no way we will accomplish this, or there's no way we can do this. And it's part of it is, I hate to use the word stick, or the term stick-to-it-iveness, but it's having the, it's being, it's having the, being able to be persistent, I guess,

• 58:12Speaker 03

  really working hard, trying hard to get something done or accomplished, instead of, it's kind of what I talked about earlier even with Rune, instead of immediately concluding, well, this can't happen, or this won't happen. So it's, I guess, that's in part aimed at doing, at being productive, getting things done. But I think it also applies to outlook on life or aspects of your life. I think if you look at everything through a dark lens, meaning, meaning dark and gloomy lens, then you tend to, I think it becomes a deterrent to having the energy to be happy or having the energy for things to actually work out right.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  It just creates a negative energy as opposed to the opposite. I think you need a positive energy for your life to be positive. So it's, it's not, it's, it's not accepting the negative in a variety of different ways, but instead, accepting the possibility of things being positive, turning out all right.

• 59:21Tim Ferriss?

  Right. The, the conversation so far, with the exception of the first boss at ABC and the truck fiasco.

• 59:34Tim Ferriss?

  Have focused on some of your successes, and it's a long list, but some of your successes have to try to flesh out the picture of you as a human being. Would you be open to describing a more challenging time that you've gone through and how you have navigated your way through it or out of it? And I mean, any example would do, but would you be open to sharing for people who might otherwise be intimidated and think, oh, this guy hits a homerun every time he steps up to the plate? That's not me. Therefore, whatever conclusion they might come to, is there a difficult experience or a difficult time that you could talk about navigating?

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, first of all, I have no, I have no problem whatsoever talking about such things. Interestingly enough, I don't see myself as a person that hits a homerun every time he steps up at the plate. Maybe because I'm not convinced that the next time I step up at the plate, I'm going to hit a homerun, or that every time I step up, I will. I don't view things, I think of the possible, as I said a few minutes ago, I always think there's a possibility, but I never believe that it's a given, ever. And so I don't really view myself as someone that succeeds at everything I do, because I don't know that I will. And I've been fortunate that I've succeeded in a lot of what I have done, but it doesn't

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  mean that I will succeed at everything I try to do. I, I think the, I haven't, I have not, fortunately, in my adult professional life, have faced, I faced challenges, but not much adversity. What I mean by that is, I don't really remember any particularly dark period of time where...

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  Other than I want to talk about the succession process, which I wrote about at length. But other than that, I haven't really experienced that. While I was trying to become the next CEO of the Walt Disney Company, there was a conventional wisdom that existed and was very, very apparent to me that I would not get the job or that I was the wrong person for the job. And so I faced a significant number of naysayers that in even some cases that tried to convince me that I shouldn't even try because I was not going to get it. I was not going to win.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  And I never gave in to that. But I will say that for a considerably long period of time, meaning well over a year, I faced a lot of doubters that if there was a struggle, it was making sure that those that were doubting me did not cause me to doubt myself. Even though the outcome was thoroughly uncertain, I never got to the point where I felt it was completely uncertain. And as long as it wasn't, or as long as it was open, I was going to continue to try really hard to get the job.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  That would be one. And then we can talk further if you'd like about the adversity I faced with a father that was suffering from severe manic depression, which was more of a, that was a childhood experience that I had versus an adult experience.

• 1:03:11Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let's, let's talk about, if you're, if you're open to it. Thank you for putting that on the table. The challenges or your experience with your father. I had a conversation not long ago with Ken Burns, the documentarian, who also had a father who I think in this day and age would probably be diagnosed with bipolar or manic depression, whatever the current DSM diagnosis is. Could you, could you speak to that experience and what that was like for you?

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  I recognized from a very early age that my father had severe mood swings. And meaning, he did not present himself consistently to, to us as a family. And that was manifested in a variety of different ways, but the one that I used, the, uh, example I used to describe it is, he would come home, he commuted to New York City to a suburb that we lived in that was about an hour away. I could be up in my room on the second floor of our house doing homework or something, and I could hear the door open. I would always anticipate him coming home because it meant that we were going to have dinner together, and I looked forward, I looked forward to seeing him most of the

• 1:04:28Speaker 03

  time. But I could typically tell what kind of a mood he was in by how he walked up the steps, sometimes passing my room completely, um, because he was not in the mood, or sometimes opening the door and expressing some frustration about something, and sometimes not, sometimes showing interest and love and giving me time and, and being just generally upbeat about things. But it was very, very inconsistent, and I remember that from an early age. I also witnessed him lose his temper in, in, in ways that never made us feel like

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  we were in harm's way, or that anything bad was gonna come of us physically, but he could get angry very fast, and he did so very often. And the anger was not particularly pretty to look at. And this was not just someone, you know, getting mad at something and then getting over it. This was like a deep-seated anger at someone or something, expressed in, in pretty dark ways, meaning, again, not apparent beha- aberrant behavior, or not something you'd say, this guy's a psychopath, but, um, you could clearly see him.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  Be in or go to a very dark place.

• 1:05:55Tim Ferriss?

  What is, how do you relate to anger after all of that experience? If you feel anger arise in you, how do you, how do you relate to anger? And I know that's a very broad question, but this is something that I also can think about in for my own sort of personal navigation of life, but how do you relate to anger?

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  I think it's a, actually, I think it's a good thing to think about. I, I, I know when I was really young that I had a tendency to, to, to lose my temper like him.

• 1:06:34Speaker 03

  And I, I've, as I got more and more in tune with his issues, I became more and more capable of controlling mine. And I was able to suppress my expression of anger in a very, very effective way. And that has served me well and lasted pretty much a lifetime. I feel sometimes it building in me, but I am, I am able to recognize either what it is or where it could go and take the necessary steps to,

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  to contend with it in a healthy way, which sometimes means letting it surface, but letting it surface in ways that are either aggressive or is

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  potentially harmful to me or to others. And I, I learned, I definitely learned to contain my mood, my anger, maybe even how I express my mood because of him. I did not, there was a picture I was seeing of someone's behavior. And I, even before I had an ability to understand exactly what the root cause of it was, that I did not in any way want that, I did not want that picture to become my life or part, or, or to basically maybe the center of it.

• 1:07:57Tim Ferriss?

  I was, so anger has been an emotion that I've, I struggled with for a very long time. I think I've improved quite a bit for, I think, some very similar reasons with similar origin stories. And I was reading a profile in the New York Times and I'm chuckling because this is sort of deja vu all over again for me as well. So here's, here's the quote. Says, you know, I'm very organized and neat. If I got into the kitchen and Willow's been in, that's your wife, and she leaves a cabinet open, there was a time when I would actually get mad at that. You've got to be kidding. Why would I get mad at something like that? It's pausing for a moment, thinking, does this really matter? So I'm curious to, I'd

• 1:08:40Tim Ferriss?

  be curious to hear from you, because I think this will sort of ring familiar for a lot of people listening. What changed between the, it used to upset you and now you are able to kind of digest an experience like that that previously would have maybe thrown you off in, in some way or just irritated you? What, what has changed?

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  Well, I think some people improve with age, not everybody, but maturity, having the ability as you get older to recognize what is important about life, understanding sometimes the hard way by losing people you're close to, that life in fact is not, is not endless, that it's, and in fact, it's, it's short and the understanding that because of that, that there are things in life that just are, are not, not important enough, don't rise to a level of, of causing anger, sorrow.

• 1:09:47Speaker 03

  Conflict or whatever and keeping cabinets open to kitchen is one of them. Uh, look, by the way, I, I, I still, I'm borderline at times. My wife likes to keep newspapers that have, you know, piled up for a week. And it used to be a time when I would just on like a Wednesday, I'd throw out Mondays and Tuesdays just because I didn't like the clutter. And now, um, you know, I, I, I just see them. I pause for a moment thinking why do we, we really need those newspapers piled up? Then I realize, well, what the heck do I care? What's the difference? Why does that matter? Walk away.

• 1:10:24Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:10:24Speaker 03

  And so the same thing that sort of walk away and do not allow things that really don't matter to matter. Make sure that the things that really do matter in fact matter. It's kind of that simple and I don't know. I think part again, it's age, it's, it's trying to be self reflective, your own behavior and what it can mean to others and sort of the old don't sweat the small stuff. It's very true. But you know, I know we're all human beings and we all can. And there's still some things, as I said, and I don't like being late. Um, I get very anxious about that.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  Um, you know, like it's just, uh, again, I think a lot of it comes from, from not only maturity, but it's almost the, there's a cruelty to growing old in a way because it means the end is nearer, but there's also a lot of value in growing old.

• 1:11:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I would imagine, uh, I mean, I'm, uh, I'm certainly, I don't feel old, but I'm 42 or 43. I always forget. Uh, my girlfriend reminded me the other day. So that may not be a great sign.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  How old is she?

• 1:11:39Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, she's 10 years younger, so she's got, she's got a leg up, um, in more ways than one, but she, uh, yes, she reminds me of how old I am, but, uh, I've noticed that even compared to say that my twenties, that I have to be more aware of. Energy expenditure, right? I mean, and I do exercise, I do everything that I can to maintain fitness, but I would imagine as you get older also, like if you do let the small stuff sweat you, you're just going to kind of brush off all of this extra energy that would be better allocated elsewhere. And maybe it's more obvious. I don't know. Just thinking out loud.

• 1:12:20Speaker 03

  I think that's some of it. Yes, it's where it's completely wasted energy when you think about it, both physical and emotional energy.

• 1:12:29Tim Ferriss?

  When we were talking about optimism and I asked you about your, your kids, one of the comments you made was, I'm not sure if that would be the most important lesson or something along those lines. What do you feel some of the more important lessons might be or character traits that you are hoping to instill or have instilled in your kids?

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Well, big one is, well, there are a bunch of big ones. Being humble, keeping things in perspective, really important. We try always to help them understand that we lead an extremely special life, privileged life, that it didn't happen by accident. And it shouldn't be expected, they shouldn't expect that it will happen to them. But they have to, they have to, one, appreciate it, two, work for it, and simply not take things

• 1:13:35Speaker 03

  for granted. It's really important. I'd say that's one. I'm a big believer in being true to oneself. Until you're true to oneself, you can't be true to others. We try to teach that to the kids in various ways, but it has to do with being sort of self honest. And which is not easy to teach teenage boys, by the way.

• 1:14:04Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, what would be one of the approaches that you take with that of one of the various ways that you might try to teach that or coach that?

• 1:14:20Speaker 03

  Well, that's a very good, that's a very tough question. I'm gonna think about that a little bit.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  We tend to be quite transparent with the boys. In that, you know, we don't want them to see a life that is

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  pain-free, or glossed over, or

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  not without anxiety, or challenge, or whatever, even though there's a lot about our lives that is anxiety-free and challenge-free.

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  And we like admitting to one another if we're pained, if we're chagrined, if we're

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  in some form or another.

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  You know, not in a good mood, for instance, we just, I guess.

• 1:15:22Speaker 03

  It's just, again, it's really trying to be honest with one another. I'm not sure all parents do with kids, I don't know. And that, you know, like, it's hard, I think, as children, it takes a long time for you to understand that your parents are human beings, and that they have their faults.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  I think one of the reasons that happens is that parents often try to hide their faults from their kids. Because you don't want your kids to see you in some human form, right?

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  We try not to do that. I don't know, I don't, it's not necessarily, we don't necessarily talk that way to one another, "Hey, let's show our faults to our kids today." I think it's just the way you behave.

• 1:16:04Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think, looking at...

• 1:16:09Tim Ferriss?

  Fifteen years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company and having had many conversations, certainly about the stories and learnings in your book. Are there any particular lessons or stories that you think and wish people would pay more attention to?

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  I think more than anything, what I want people to come away with is that from the outside, looking in, this looks probably like a straight line up from bottom to top, you know, sort of one step after the other, each step, a step higher in responsibility, authority, compensation, whatever, but it doesn't really happen that way. It's hard work and facing unknowns and rising to challenges and getting lucky. And what I'm trying to impart there more than anything is, even if it looks easy, it's not.

• 1:17:12Speaker 03

  It always takes all sorts of other elements, including hard work, to succeed at something. I think I'm not sure that I had anything else in mind and that it also is not necessarily part of a plan. I don't think life is as planned as young people think it is.

• 1:17:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  That's another thing you learn, you know, in your sixties. So often, I'm struck often, people say, when did you want to be CEO of the Walt Disney Company? Or did you always want to be CEO of the Walt Disney Company? Well, I say, you gotta be kidding me. Of course not. I didn't know I was going to be CEO of the Walt Disney Company until the board called me and told me I was getting the job. And I didn't really want to be CEO or expect that I could be until we were bought by Disney in 1995. And I thought, wow, I'm now part of a company that, since I was at or near running the company I was with, maybe the chance existed that I could ultimately run the company I was now owned by. But it wasn't until then.

• 1:18:20Speaker 03

  It wasn't something I grew up thinking about.

• 1:18:23Speaker 03

  By the way, one thing you brought up, you mentioned luck and people increasing the opportunities for luck.

• 1:18:29Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  Before we talked about exercise.

• 1:18:31Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:32Speaker 03

  The one thing that strikes me there, I don't think this is necessarily about creating more opportunities for luck, but I have found that oftentimes doors opened on opportunity for people and not everybody is able to walk through them for a variety of reasons. I've always been really fortunate that whenever a door opened, meaning a door to opportunity, I walked through it. I never walked away from it. And I don't know whether that is tied to putting yourself on the line, taking a risk, allowing yourself to be challenged by new responsibilities and maybe different form

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  of scrutiny or being a fish out of water. I don't know, but... Or even things as simple as being willing to move. I've found a lot of people, when doors open, they're not as capable of walking through them for whatever reason, sometimes just by the way self-doubt.

• 1:19:33Tim Ferriss?

  And by move, you mean just move forward or physically move?

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  No, I was even talking physically. I moved from New York to LA and from LA to New York and from New York back to LA and I said, "Okay, put me in. That's an opportunity I'm gonna take advantage of, but I have to move to get it." Now, that's the easier said than done.

• 1:19:49Tim Ferriss?

  [laughing]

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  There are families at stake and I guess you could argue that maybe I was selfish in that regard, although the decisions were never made unilaterally. I had willing spouses, but I've also met a lot of people who just say, "No, not gonna do that. No, too risky for me to move." Or... And I was lucky in that regard. But what I'm also talking about is people who are reluctant to take on something new simply because they're not sure of themselves and whether it's sort of whether they'll finally be discovered.

• 1:20:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  And I never worried about that. Oh, boy, he made, you know, being tested at something else. And what if I'm not good?

• 1:20:39Tim Ferriss?

  Are there any, any books or philosophers or leaders who you've not necessarily directly, but leaned on to develop what strikes me as a very, and I mean, this is in the most positive sense, a very sort of stoic philosophy. When I was reading, for instance, in your book about meetings with the board and talking about an inability to change the past and looking forward to the future. I mean, a lot of it resonates, at least for me, is, is very practical and stoic, very kind of Marcus Aurelius like. Are there any, any kind of leaders or philosophies or books that you've leaned on to help you

• 1:21:23Tim Ferriss?

  stay the course in this way and walk through these doors of opportunity?

• 1:21:26Speaker 03

  I've never really read a business book in my life.

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  I read autobiographies, they're a little different. Though, I, I read and studied Churchill carefully over the years. And he faced a tremendous amount of adversity and, and doubters along the way. And, and, and also, unlike me, he was involved in some really colossal mistakes, including the tragedy at Gallipoli in the, in the world, pre-World War One era, for instance, where he had, I think he was Secretary of the Navy. And the onus was on him, the major naval disaster.

• 1:22:15Speaker 03

  He ran for and won, ran for and lost more elections than anyone else in the history of, of Great Britain. It says a lot.

• 1:22:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, he's like the Babe Ruth of, of British politics.

• 1:22:26Speaker 03

  Yes, I, I, I always was struck by someone who, from the outside, or at least history kind of shows him to be this immensely successful world leader, when he wasn't always that way. He got thrown out of office, actually, as the prime minister and came back and he got unelected at some point and came back and saved Great Britain. And maybe you could argue the world from the throes of Nazism, you know, was thrown out again when the war ended, actually. He was voted out when the war ended and then came back again. Anyway,

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  I took a lot from him. Not sure if there are others, really. No, I've read a lot over time, a lot of biographies, a lot of novels as well. Churchill would be the only one I could think of that stood out.

• 1:23:22Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:23:23Speaker 03

  And saying Churchill is a role model is a little bit over the top unto itself. But what the heck, right?

• 1:23:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, you've got Churchill and then I suppose, back in the day, Ian Fleming novels. Am I getting that right? Did you read any Ian Fleming?

• 1:23:40Speaker 03

  I did. I read, I read most of his Bond novels, starting junior high school, which would have been the early 60s. 63, 62, 63, 64, 65, that era. Yeah, of course. From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice. Sure.

• 1:24:04Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you've, and now you have chronicled your own adventures in the ride of a lifetime, which I really recommend to people. I think it gives a window into, as you said, the non-linear path that you have, that you have traveled and how it, you've been very, very good at capitalizing on doors opening to opportunities, but it hasn't necessarily reflected a grand 60-year master plan for life, right? But you have been really willing and able to step through doors and take what others would perceive as large risks.

• 1:24:49Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any quotes? I'll just ask a few more questions. Do you have any quotes that you think of often or try to live your life by? Do any any quotes come to mind? And if not, that's okay as well.

• 1:25:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, the great one is the Teddy Roosevelt quote about about fail. If you're going to fail, fail daring greatly. You know that quote?

• 1:25:10Tim Ferriss?

  I do.

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  I can read it to you if you like.

• 1:25:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, please.

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  I just want to make sure I'm now calling it up because I know it, but I don't want to. I don't want to screw up on any part of it. It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out have the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best in the end, the triumph of high achievement.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, who at best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. It's that last part, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

• 1:26:21Tim Ferriss?

  So fantastic. Thank you for reading that. That is also.

• 1:26:29Tim Ferriss?

  That is also what LeBron James has kept in his locker since beginning his career. It is.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:26:37Tim Ferriss?

  It is. It is. I.

• 1:26:39Speaker 03

  I did not know that. I gave that inscribed to all senior management at the company many years back.

• 1:26:46Tim Ferriss?

  What a great gift.

• 1:26:48Speaker 03

  It is a mantra of mine, and I think it says a lot about what I've done. At least if you're going to fail, fail daring greatly.

• 1:27:00Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think that's, I think that's a fantastic place to wrap this up. And I also think that it's a, that could be the, the very, very long subtitle. Option B for the ride of a lifetime, this book that I'm holding right in front of me. And this, this has been a lot of fun for me, Bob. I appreciate you taking the time. And is there anything else you'd like to say or suggest to people? Any parting comments, anything at all that you'd like to add before we, before we come to a close?

• 1:27:36Speaker 03

  No, I enjoyed this thoroughly. I think you covered some really interesting topics.

• 1:27:43Speaker 03

  You, you got under my hood a little bit in a good way.

• 1:27:50Speaker 03

  Not in a way that made me uncomfortable or at all, but I think in a, some things I haven't talked about specifically. No, I enjoyed it completely.

• 1:27:58Tim Ferriss?

  Well, thanks so much. And for people listening, we're going to have show notes, links to everything that we've discussed, including the book and everything else in terms of resources at tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday? That provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered.

• 1:28:40Tim Ferriss?

  It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance, and it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Humans Beat Elite.

• 1:29:18Tim Ferriss?

  The product is Beat Elite, not meat elite, not beet, B E A T, but beet, B E E T, elite, which you might consider an endurance superfood, or what they would call a nitric oxide activator. Really, all I care about is this product. Beat Elite was introduced to me several years ago by a multiple-time world champion, and has since been recommended to me by multiple world-class athletes. And I use it pre-workout for endurance training. That could be cycling, that could be swimming, it is very rarely running.

• 1:29:59Tim Ferriss?

  But my subjective experience supports what some of the research would seem to indicate, and that is that you can work out, say, up to 15% to 18% longer, if you're looking at high-intensity interval training, HIIT, for instance, and at recovery times. So the, let's call it, the refractory period for getting back to peak power output, for instance. So I use Beat Elite, just used it this morning before a 30-minute, somewhat intense swim workout. And I have found that particularly for someone like myself,

• 1:30:39Tim Ferriss?

  who has really terrible endurance, genetically speaking, my presets are horrible, that it really does allow a 10% to 20% boost in shorter workout performance, especially. Although, I do know people who've used it for 20-mile runs, 30-mile runs, much longer endurance events. And they've got all sorts of different points about the mechanisms of action and so on. But suffice to say that it is a lot easier to consume Beat Elite than to eat the nitric oxide equivalent of six whole beets, for instance. Much more rapidly assimilated, and it tastes great. It will also stain your pet

• 1:31:25Tim Ferriss?

  Solar bear, or your white cotton, or your down pillows. So don't spill it on anything, but it does taste delicious. I tend to mix this into a shake that I have pre-workout in the mornings. So, there you have it. I've used Beetleleap for a number of years now. It is trusted by hundreds of elite teams, athletes, and organizations all over the world. And it is also informed sports certified, which means that it is certified to not contain any banned substances. So if you're a competitive athlete, that is one fewer thing that you need to worry about. So, take your performance to the next level with Beetleleap. Try it out.

• 1:32:06Tim Ferriss?

  Go to livehuman.com/tim to get 20% off your first purchase. The team at HUMAN, that's the company, is making this offer exclusive to you, my dear listeners, so check it out. Go to livehuman.com/tim. Super simple. Livehuman.com/tim. Give it a shot. This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is a global creative platform that makes it easy for you to find an amazing designer and create designs you'll love. From logos to branding, packaging to books, you name it, they have it. And I've used them for just about everything. 99designs is the go-to creative resource for any budget.

• 1:32:49Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:33:32Tim Ferriss?

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