#242: Phil Keoghan -- The Magic of Bucket Lists and Amazing Races

Phil Keoghan (@PhilKeoghan https://twitter.com/PhilKeoghan) has worked in television for almost thirty years on more than a thousand program episodes in more than a hundred countries. His work has earned him numerous awards, including ten prime-time Emmys. He is perhaps best known as the co-executive producer and host of CBS series The Amazing Race http://www.cbs.com/shows/amazing_race/, currently in its twenty-ninth season. But there is much, much more to Phil's story, including unbelievable bucket lists, near-death experiences, and more. As just one example... In 2013, he decided to retrace the 1928 Tour de France riding an original vintage bicycle, with no gears, to tell the forgotten underdog story of the first English-speaking team to take on the toughest sporting event on earth. This experience was captured and turned into the brand-new film Le Ride http://philkeoghanleride.com/, a gorgeous documentary and the first to be shot on a Sony F55 camera in 4K, which is equivalent to Super 35mm film. There are many takeaways from this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim. I've spent the last year wearing underwear from these guys http://meundies.com/tim 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I've ever owned. MeUndies are designed in LA and made from sustainably-sourced fabric that's three times softer than cotton. Even better, it includes free shipping. If you don't love your first pair of MeUndies, they'll hook you up with a new pair or a refund. If you love the product, they have a subscription offer where you can save up to 33% after your first pair. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim http://meundies.com/tim to see my current faves (some are awesomely ridiculous, like the camo). That's MeUndies.com/Tim. http://meundies.com/tim This podcast is also brought to you by Headspace https://www.headspace.com/tim, the world's most popular meditation app (with more than four million users). It's used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it. Try Headspace's free Take10 program https://www.headspace.com/tim -- 10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It's like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn't need to be complicated or expensive, and it's had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free https://www.headspace.com/tim for a few days and see what I mean.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 00

  No, what is the appropriate time?

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by MeUndies, which I'm wearing right now. I've spent the last year or so wearing underwear from these guys nearly 24/7, except when I'm having fancy time, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I have ever owned. If you can imagine really awesome graffiti that you've seen in cities like LA or elsewhere, then turn into a print and put onto underwear, you get the idea. There's also some weird stuff, like Halloween-themed camo, which I have for myself. MeUndies, designed in LA and made from sustainably sourced micro modal. Why is this important? It's three times softer than cotton, and you feel that difference on your loins. Ladies and gentlemen, they feel great. And if you don't love your first pair of MeUndies, they'll hook you up with a new pair or a refund.

• 1:08Tim Ferriss?

  What kind of person sends in used underwear back to someone? I don't know. That makes you a strange person. Maybe you should sell them in Japan or something. But if you love the product, and they make great gifts also, and for those people wondering, I go boxer briefs. If you love it, they have a subscription offer where you can save up to 33% after your first pair. So check it out, meundies.com/tim. You can see some of my favorite underwear. And also plenty for the ladies. That's meundies.com/tim.

• 1:40Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Headspace, the world's most popular meditation app. I have it on my phone. I use it all the time when I'm in Ubers, when I'm in airplanes, when I'm in those in-between spaces, and I want to do some good for myself. Across all of the guests that I've had on this podcast, more than 80% have the common behavior, the common habit of some type of meditative practice. It does not have to be complicated or expensive. Headspace is meditation made simple. I've used it for 100 ...of sessions myself. It provides guided meditations that you can use whenever you want, wherever you want, whether on your phone, computer, or tablet. They have sessions that focus on everything from decreasing stress and anxiety to eating healthier, sleeping better, and even being more creative.

• 2:25Tim Ferriss?

  But I suggest you keep it simple, simple, simple. This has had a huge impact on my life. Try their Take 10 program. It is fantastic. 10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It costs you nothing. Try it out, and I promise, and I don't do this very much, that you will see a significant benefit from it. Download the Headspace app and train your mind for a happier, healthier life. Learn more at headspace.com/tim. That's headspace.com/tim.

• 3:02Tim Ferriss?

  I'm being watched right now. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show. I'm gonna whisper right now, and just assume that all of you have ASMR fetish or preference. And if you don't know what ASMR is, you should look it up. There's a huge community on Reddit, for instance. It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, and that's why I'm also gonna bite this piece of shortbread right now.

• 3:27Tim Ferriss?

  I'm whispering because I'm in a Lufthansa lounge at JFK. That one's free Lufthansa. Call me. And I can't be my usual boisterous self, but as per always on the Tim Ferriss Show, it's my job to deconstruct world-class performers, people who are very good at what they do, people who have interesting stories and very specific tactics or recommendations that you can implement in your own life. I'm gonna finish that shortbread. And my guest today, it's very appropriate that I should be in the airport because he travels more than any human being I have ever met. I've seen videos of him shaving in airport and airplane bathrooms, for instance. Phil Keoghan, that's K-E-O-G-H-A-N.

• 4:11Tim Ferriss?

  You can say hello on the Twitters, at Phil Keoghan. Has worked in television for almost 30 years on more than 1,000 program episodes in more than 100 countries. His work has earned him numerous awards, including 10 Primetime Emmy Awards. He is perhaps best known as the co-executive producer and host of the perennial favorite CBS series, The Amazing Race, currently in its 29th season. But there's a lot more to Phil's story than you might know of or expect, including unbelievable bucket lists and how important they are to how his life has been run and improved and

• 4:50Tim Ferriss?

  many of the decisions that he's made, a near-death experience, probably more than one, and much more. He is very good at proactively creating adventures for himself, and he's also a very impressive athlete on multiple levels. For instance, in 2013, he decided to retrace the 1928 Tour de France, riding an original vintage bicycle with no gears, weighs about, or I'd say at least twice as much as modern bikes, to tell the forgotten underdog story of the first English-speaking team to take on the toughest sporting event on Earth. He captured this entire experience and turned it into a brand-new film, documentary, called

• 5:31Tim Ferriss?

  Le Ride, L-E, space, R-I-D-E, a gorgeous doc, and the first to be shot on a Sony F-55 camera in 4K, which is the equivalent of super 35mm film. And you can check that out at philkeoghanleride.com, and we will talk a lot more about that. But there are many things to take away from this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. So, as I always say, without further ado, here is Phil Keoghan. Phil, welcome to the show.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 6:05Tim Ferriss?

  I am excited to have you here in Austin.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Rainy Austin.

• 6:09Tim Ferriss?

  Rainy Austin, to sit across the table.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:12Tim Ferriss?

  And to talk about your life and experiences. I don't even know where to start, and there are a few options, and I think I'm going to go with humor first.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:24Tim Ferriss?

  And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit, and then we'll spread out in both directions chronologically, about Milli Vanilli and Dreadlock twirling.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Wow, yeah. Milli Vanilli. So... I started in television when I was really young, like eighteen. And I really wanted to be a cinematographer and make, you know, tell stories with a camera, be in television. I was not popular with my family for making that choice because I wanted to go straight out of high school into working in television. And there was no, there were no degrees you could get in broadcasting or communications degrees. And so against my family's better wishes, I went and took this job. It was hard to get where I was a television assistant. And, and then miraculously that led from me being a camera assistant to then being in front of a camera.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  And I guess I was twenty and I was working on a daily live show. It was called Three Forty Five Live. That's how the thing went. Three Forty Five Live. Because it was on at three forty five and it was live. And so anybody who was anybody who came to New Zealand, came on this show, Three Forty Five Live, Monday to Friday. And so Milli Vanilli make their way to New Zealand. And this is when they were like, they'd won the Grammy for Best New Artist. There were those songs, you know, those great songs, Blame It on the Rain. I'm trying to think of what the other songs were, but anyway. They came in and they were beautifully dressed and it like, like, looked like models, male models. The dreads were all beautifully kept and, and they wouldn't sit down on the chair.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  And then the manager was talking to them and there was no sort of like lead up to the, to the chat. They just sort of were off on one side, talking amongst themselves. And then we were about to go Three Forty Five Live. And then they sat down at the last minute and we're on the show live and- Why didn't they sit down? They didn't want to crease their pants, is what I suspected. Because the pants had these beautiful creases in them. And like I said, they were like beautifully dressed, a lot of attention to detail. And so they, they finally sat down and then in the middle of the interview, I'm looking across, I think it was Ed Fabrice, because it was Robin Fabrice, and I noticed that

• 8:41Speaker 03

  the dreadlock is detached from his head while he's twirling it. [laughing]

• 8:48Speaker 03

  And I was like, ah, like, I'm figuring that, you know, this is, I'm looking to see what, whether it was noticeable on the monitor. And then I sort of turn around and I see behind me, the manager is like gesturing to them to tell them that the dreadlock had become detached. Now, I mean, I should have just gone with it, but I don't think they really had a sense of humor. I don't think they would have thought that was funny. They were way too concerned with how they looked. That would have been very off putting.

• 9:19Tim Ferriss?

  How many segments, if you had to guess, in total, do you think you've done of television? Of any show?

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Impossible to, I don't know.

• 9:31Tim Ferriss?

  Hundreds, thousands?

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Thousands, yeah. I mean, I, I'm gonna be 50 this year. I started in front of a camera at 19. So what is that, 31 years? I don't know. I don't know. I did a lot of live television. So I did this show 345 Live for a year. So there was 200 and something live shows. And then I did a daily live show called Breakfast Time in the early 90s. Tom Bergeron was the host, and then there were a number of us who were out on the road doing basically anything we wanted to do. They gave us a satellite truck, a camera operator, and a production assistant. And we could go anywhere in America to do five stories from anywhere in America. And we would go every day live, and we'd have to

• 10:16Speaker 03

  do two stories from that place, live. Everything from hand feeding sharks live, to changing a light bulb on the Verazano Bridge live, to milking spiders, to being in a coal mine or whatever it was. And so that was over the period of four and a bit years, that would have been close to 800 shows.

• 10:35Tim Ferriss?

  And how old were you at the time when you did that?

• 10:37Speaker 03

  That was, I was 24, I think, somewhere, 24, 25.

• 10:41Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so before we go...

• 10:44Tim Ferriss?

  Into the nearer future.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:46Tim Ferriss?

  From Milli Vanilli.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Near future, I like that, yeah. Half my life ago.

• 10:49Tim Ferriss?

  That's right.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:51Tim Ferriss?

  In the, in the grand scheme of the universe, the, the blinking of a firefly. Back to age 19.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:58Tim Ferriss?

  And you had an experience that it seems has framed a lot of what came afterward. And I was hoping you could describe what happened.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so when you're 19, most 19 year olds, they don't think they're going to die. I certainly didn't think I was going to die. I was invincible. We used to do ridiculous things, think that we were somehow protected by the speed gods or whatever it was. And so we did things that we probably shouldn't have done. And now, I think, looking back on it, I'm just lucky to have got to this point in my life, I think. But, you know, we like putting ski bindings and skis and strapping them to a roof rack of a car and then going into a tuck and seeing how fast we could drive the car. And, you know, as, as fast as we possibly could.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Anyway, I, I was doing a story about a 22,000 ton shipwreck that had sunk in, in New Zealand. And it was down about 120 feet underwater and it was on its starboard side. 22,000 tons is like, it's as big as, you know, a cruise liner that you see going around at the ports around the world. And big, really big.

• 12:14Tim Ferriss?

  And 120 feet.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  It's deep.

• 12:17Tim Ferriss?

  For people who've never done any scuba diving, unless you have special equipment, I mean, that's not a lot of bottom time.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Exactly. So, most recreational divers get certified to dive to about 60 feet. The best stuff that you see underwater is generally in the first 30 feet. Because once you get past 30 feet, the color changes. You, you lose all the reds and everything becomes very blue. So, I always say to people, "Look, you don't need to go deep unless you're going onto a wreck or something, some real reason to go deep." The only reason to go deep is, you know, if it is a wreck, you can get great diving in 10, 15 feet of water with the coral close to the surface, the colors are brighter and so on. But this wreck was deep. And, and, and as you said, the deeper you are... The faster you chew through air and you eat up air and that affects how long you can stay

• 13:06Speaker 03

  down and the longer you're down, deep, the more nitrogen you get in your blood and so it's it there's a real science to diving and you have to be super careful is you're a diver?

• 13:17Tim Ferriss?

  I am.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you you understand that?

• 13:19Tim Ferriss?

  Seen people get nitrogen narcosis.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:21Tim Ferriss?

  At exactly 120 feet, I saw a guy start to try, he tried to take off all of his gear and just drop it in a small group and he was stopped by a dive master.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  That was the guy that worked at Chippendales, I know the guy.

• 13:33Tim Ferriss?

  No, this is a different guy.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  No, a different guy, okay, no, but uh, but people, yeah, I've seen the same thing, they take the regulator out and they start having conversations with fish.

• 13:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  It's not a good idea.

• 13:42Tim Ferriss?

  No.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  It's getting narked.

• 13:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, so that's all the more reason to get properly certified. So, um, I was with some very experienced divers and way more experienced than me and they were, they were doing the salvage and we were going to be the first people to shoot on the ship, get to go inside the ship and explore it. And the, the cameraman that I was with was also very experienced, but because there was, uh, because there's so much silt inside the boat and there was a current as well rolling through the boat, we were, we, and we, in those days, we were shooting on film. It's not like today where you could go down with a great GoPro and some lights and, you know, you could film for a couple of hours. We had a two and a half minute roll of film in a 100 foot daylight spool roll that was

• 14:28Speaker 03

  in a little housing inside the, so literally that's the only amount of footage we had to shoot on film. That's how long I go back. So the, the plan was that we would go into the ballroom of the, of the ship and big, big ballroom and then the crew would come in from another door and we would meet in the middle so that we didn't stir up all the silt going into the same entrances. We'd swim towards each other, they'd get us coming towards them. And so we go down and what I know now is if you go into a wreck, you tie a line on the outside of the wreck so that you have something to follow out if something goes wrong. These guys were so familiar with the wreck and so experienced and knew the place so well.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  They didn't tie a line on and I just sort of followed them in not knowing that that was sort of what you should do. And you know, the other rule with diving is you never leave your dive buddy. So I'm following this guy and I was too scared to tell him because I was trying to be a man that before that I was really claustrophobic. So I go in this little doorway and it would have been like, let's imagine a small window, like two by three, we go through this little porthole. And then we start weaving our way through the ship and I, as we're going deeper and deeper and deeper into the shipwreck. I'm completely disoriented and I have no idea where I am.

• 15:51Tim Ferriss?

  My hand sweats just listening to the description.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, and I started to breathe, like breathe. But every time I sort of like was at the point of tapping him to go, you know, I gotta get out of here. I feel panicky. He just kept disappearing deeper and deeper and deeper and another corner, another corner. I thought, and he was moving quickly because he's, he's used to being in this wreck. They're doing the salvage on this thing. So finally we, we come into an opening and then he shines a light around and there's this huge ballroom. Now the ship is on its starboard side, on its right side. So all the tables on a ship are all bolted to the floor. So imagine the tables on a right angle to us. And then he gestures to me to hold on to the table.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  And then he told me on the surface that he, we were going to switch out the lights to save battery power because it's cold. And now we don't have a lot of, uh, we've got seven mil wetsuits on, it's pretty cold. And you can feel kind of the current pushing through the ship. And that's why we're holding on to the table so we didn't drift in, you know, through the room. And now we're looking ahead and he sort of points at me and looks ahead and says, that's where the crew's going to come out. And I knew that that's where they were going to come out. So I was like, okay. So we're waiting with the lights off in the dark and I'm processing all of this and starting to try to slow my breathing down and like, stay calm. It's okay, you know, you're with an expert, everything is good. And, uh, after what seemed like, like minutes, oh, I wanted to turn my light on,

• 17:18Speaker 03

  but I also didn't want to do it because I thought he'll think I'm a wimp. Like, why am I turning my, I just wanted to turn my light on to see where I was, like to have some, some sense of where I was. He flicks his light on, like in Halloween when you take your light and you put it at the chin and you make yourself look scary. Right. That's all I remember. The light went on, he's pointing from his chin looking up. He looks scary. Then he gestures me with his hand, puts it out in front of me like, wait. Then he points at my hands on the table and gestures for me to hold on to the table. And then boom, he just disappears around a corner. And I don't have my light on, he's got his light on, and the light disappears and he's gone. Well, in that moment, I'm like, why is he leaving? Why did he just leave?

• 18:03Speaker 03

  So, in my haste to find my light, I start flailing around, let go of the table, and I feel myself drifting away from where the table is and drifting into the ballroom. And I just went into a mad panic, and I couldn't find my light. By the time I found my light, I'd silted up all the water around me, I couldn't see anything. And now I don't know where the table was that I was meant to hold on to. And I'm looking ahead, I can't see any lights, I can't see him. And I started to breathe really, really fast. And now you're a diver, you understand this. But when you dive, and for anybody who's never had a regulator in their mouth, if you breathe too quickly, there's a little diaphragm that allows for exhalation and inhalation

• 18:45Speaker 03

  in the regulator that you put in your mouth to suck in air. If you go too fast, the diaphragm can't keep up with the speed of inhalation and exhalation, and then you start to suck water. So I started taking little bits of water and I'm beating the valve and just panicking, like mad, mad panic. And I thought, I have to get out of here. And all you want to do is just get out, right? But I don't know how to get out. I don't know where up and down is. The bubbles don't go up when the ship's on its side like that and you're deep down. They hit the walls and then they run up the walls, they follow weird paths. And I thought, I have no idea where I am right now. I can't even see where the table is, and panicking, panicking.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  And I knew that someone had died in there. Someone had gone in there and got disconnected from a group and he had died and drifted off into the ship and died. I also knew that one of the engineers never made it out when the ship sank in the first place.

• 19:42Tim Ferriss?

  And just to set the stage also for people listening, I remember when I did a dive at the Blue Hole in Belize, which is about 120 feet. This is when this guy got narked. It takes so long to get down because you're equalizing.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:56Tim Ferriss?

  By the time you get down, at least we were told at the time with the gear we had, you have eight minutes.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:01Tim Ferriss?

  So all of this is happening.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, very quickly.

• 20:04Tim Ferriss?

  Very quickly.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Very quickly. And we weren't on nitrox. Nitrox, as you know, is a mixed gas that you can get where it has more oxygen and less nitrogen, so it increases your bottom time. So this is pre-nitrox days. And so, yes, you're absolutely right. We had a very limited window, which is why he must have gone off to find the crew because he realized we were eating up a lot of time. And where were they? Where were the crew? Well, I don't remember exactly how I got from there to the boat. But this guy obviously came back to get me. And really, it's all a blur between panicking, mad panic, eyes like wide, like saucers,

• 20:47Speaker 03

  to being on the boat, to looking up into the sky and seeing the most amazing blue I'd ever seen in my life. Like, just looked like totally surreal. And then, and I'm lying on the ground, like breathing, and I look up and all these faces looking down. Phil, you good? You good? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. Like, trying to play like nothing happened. But my heart is pounding, like pounding. And I was so, like, the feeling, the feeling of euphoria, the relief of being alive, to know that I was alive, was like nothing I'd ever experienced.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  And it really was, all this stuff, it was as if my IQ went up 25 points in that moment. You know what I mean? Because I was like, how dumb were you that you thought you were going to live forever? How dumb were you that you've been doing all these dumb things in your life and you have really have no purpose in life? And I started to think about, this is all happening while I'm having these conversations with them, but I'm like, I'm thinking, man. I, I love girls and I haven't even like really explored that whole world and

• 22:04Speaker 03

  That's like the second or third thing that comes up. It was actually right up there. I mean, I was Of course. My sexual prime. I mean, come on. It was right up there. I don't want to say it was the first thing because I don't want you to get the wrong idea about me, but it was up there. And I was like, damn, you know, you've got a lot to do with your life. So, no, but there were all these things that came to me and a lot of them were very selfish. I was 19 years old, so

• 22:27Speaker 03

  I got myself together and I, I wanted to find a piece of paper and a pen. And I just wrote down just everything that I felt like I had all the time in the world to do. And that I had to get down on a piece of paper to get out to go, okay. This is not a dress rehearsal. You can die, you will die. You don't know how long you've got before you die. You better figure out what you're doing with your life and you better get on with it straight away. And one of the first things on my list was go back in the shipwreck. Seriously, because I thought I cannot walk away from this fear. I was so petrified of what had, had happened.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  And I, and I decided I would explain to the diver, you know, that I found it challenging. He knew that. Challenging. But I said, it was like, kind of like falling off a horse. I really felt like Gotta get back on. Gotta get back on. I have to go back because if I let this fear get on top of me. With some string or some rope. Well, I didn't actually go back with string because I didn't even, I didn't, I didn't have time to do the lesson about the string. But I, but I went back with, by disclosing a little more of my fear to the other diver and he was more honest. And, and then he, when he knew that and we had to get this thing shot, he was obviously more aware of, you know, he thought I was so, because I was so gung ho, like he didn't have any indication that there was any fear in me at all.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  But then I kind of said, you know, listen, man, I, I really freaked out. He goes, oh, no kidding. And I, and I said, but I need to go back. We've got to go back and do this. And we went back and we did it and we shot it and that was the start. That was the first thing I ticked off my, my list. Question for you. So when you decided to go back down. Yeah.

• 24:10Tim Ferriss?

  As you're dissenting-

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Still petrified.

• 24:11Tim Ferriss?

  And getting ready to go through that tiny opening.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:15Tim Ferriss?

  What was the self-talk? I mean, it's a long time ago, but what is your self-talk like in a moment like that?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Well, it's something that I've used a lot since then, which was, instead of internalizing everything, I looked out. And what I realized was that this guy was super experienced and had been down on that shipwreck many times, and come out of there successfully many times. And if I followed his procedure, and if I observed him being an expert doing something, and looked out at that, rather than turning it back into my own head about what I didn't know and what I couldn't do, that I was in good hands. So, ever since that moment, and all the crazy things that I've done,

• 25:05Speaker 03

  I've taken a tremendous amount of comfort in being surrounded by people who I know are better than me at doing something, who have tremendous expertise at whatever they're doing, and to really observe them in that moment, when they are in their...

• 25:21Speaker 03

  When they are using expertise-

• 25:23Tim Ferriss?

  In their elements.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  That is taken possibly at least 10,000 hours to get to, and to look at it in a way like, wow, how cool is that? I'm with this person, man or woman, whoever it is, that is allowing me, giving me the privilege to be with them, to do what they do so well. And they're a specialist, and they're so good.

• 25:44Tim Ferriss?

  And so you would be explicitly reminding yourself of all these things if you're going into a situation that is provoking nerves and fear? Is that-

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:54Tim Ferriss?

  The voice inside the head?

• 25:55Speaker 03

  It is. It's... I made up a quote, which I really, that I share with a lot of people, which is, "Focus on what you do have and what you can do, instead of what you don't have and what you can't do." And I really am a big believer in practicing to change mindset. So, my daughter, who's 21, I say to her, "El, you're young, you have this amazing, pliable brain." I said, "If you practice..."

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Being an optimist now, at this young age, by the time you're my age, with 10,000 hours of practicing being an optimist, you're going to be an amazing optimist. If you practice focusing on what you do have and what you can do as opposed to what you don't have and what you can't do, you're going to be so good at using what's around you and focusing on what you can do with it, that the negative stuff will be there, but it's going to be squashed by this positive energy that you have. And I said, the last thing you want to do is get to my age and be somebody who is so practiced at making excuses and so practiced at being a pessimist, that it's hard to make the turn. You don't want to be 50 trying to make a turn,

• 27:09Speaker 03

  being an expert as a pessimist. And we've all met them.

• 27:12Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  And you meet a pessimist or somebody who's great at excuses. Sometimes I will hear excuses and I will laugh out loud. And the person will look at me like, "What are you laughing at?" And I'm like, "Dude, you are unbelievably good at excuses."

• 27:27Tim Ferriss?

  Expert, black belt.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  You are a black belt in excuses. And so, and I never think it's too late to change. I'm just saying that it's harder to change. Because I really believe like the mind is like a sponge. And it's harder and harder to keep that sponge moist as you get older.

• 27:47Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  But I really started to practice that. So I've, all my life, I've tried to put myself around people and I've gravitated towards people who see that things are possible and that anything is possible. And to me, it's like magic. I feel like I'm around magicians who make things happen out of nothing. And I feel very honored that with all the stuff that I've done in my life, I've met so many of these people.

• 28:19Tim Ferriss?

  So I want to talk about optimism and learning or teaching optimism. Because what you were just saying reminded me of a conversation I had with a close friend of mine. He's not much older, but a bit older. He has a number of kids. And I asked him when we were hiking once. What would your advice be to a first time parent? And he said, really, it's only two things. And he said, number one, your kids don't owe you anything because you chose to have them.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:47Tim Ferriss?

  Number one.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 28:48Tim Ferriss?

  Number two is teach your kids to be optimists.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:52Tim Ferriss?

  And he said, if you teach them to be optimists, they can handle almost everything else.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  That's great advice, by the way, and I totally agree with it.

• 28:58Tim Ferriss?

  How would you or how do you help to cultivate optimism in your daughter or in other people? What types of patterns would you interrupt? Or what types of things would you have them do? Does anything come to mind?

• 29:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think we're going to those two points that you mentioned. Practice optimism, right? So one of the rules that we had in our house with my daughter is, and we all had to correct each other from time to time. We had this game where nobody was allowed to say, I can't. We took I can't out of the vocabulary in our house. And we all did it. But we all got better and better at not doing it. And I wanted my daughter to practice that. And she'd said, well, Dad, there's just certain things I can't do. And I go, yeah, but you don't want to be saying or perpetuating the idea that you can't do something. So find another way of saying that you find something challenging

• 29:56Speaker 03

  or that it's difficult without saying I can't. Because we don't know what we are truly capable of. We have no idea what our full potential is, which is the exciting part of living, right? We have no idea where we're going to end up or how we're going to get there. So if you take that out and you say, I find this really challenging. Is there a way that you can help me do this? You can identify something that you find really challenging. But take that out of your, take I can't out of your vernacular and you'll be in a much more positive frame of mind. With my daughter, and I think with kids when they're young, just...

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Allow them to dream without putting your own limitations on what it is they think they can do, or they say they want to do. I remember my daughter came up to me when she was about nine. I would always read to her every night. That was my thing. I would read some piece of a book to her. So we had that time together.

• 30:54Tim Ferriss?

  Any favorite books? Do you remember?

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Well, we read all of the Harry Potter books together. I read every page to her. My daughter's quite a sharp cookie, and sometimes I'd be tired and I'd skip a few pages of the book, but she'd remember every single page. And she'd go, Dad. And I'd go, I'd go, what? And she'd go, you skipped a part, didn't you? Like, oh, I'd have to roll back. To me, it was just about that one-on-one time where, you know, we were together and I looked forward to it. And the other, the other rule I had was if my daughter ever asked me to do something, no matter what I was doing, no matter, even if I was on a deadline, if she said, Dad, can we go play with the dog, kick a football, play volleyball, will you read to me? That I would always say yes. That was the thing

• 31:39Speaker 03

  I, the rule that I had, which I really value.

• 31:42Tim Ferriss?

  What would you say in that case, in moments when you are a very, very busy guy? You have a lot going on. You've done so much. Let's just say hypothetically, and I'm sure there were these times, that you are under a crunch deadline. There are people, maybe metaphorically yelling and screaming because they want something by a certain time, and your daughter comes up to you and asks you for something. And I'm not going to ask this for everything, but I'm very curious. What would you say to yourself, or what was the way that you would ensure that you said yes? Does that make sense? Aside from practice, of course, it takes practice, but...

• 32:16Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's the, the idea that in life, life is a series of moments. And what will you remember at the end of your life? You know, when you take your last breath, what's the last thought you're going to have as you die? You know, what is that? Is it some moment with somebody? Is it some regret? Is it, you know, you want to die, I think, in peace, and with something special. And so... Those moments where your kid asks you to do something, they're limited when you have them. It's a gift, right? That the whole idea that you have a child, you never get that back. The deadline thing, there were many times where I put what I was doing on hold and spent the time with her and then it cost me into the night trying to make up the time. But I can't even remember what it was I was trying to get done.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  But I do remember the moments with her.

• 33:02Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  So in the long term, those are the moments that you remember. I couldn't tell you what deadlines I was rushing to get done that I theoretically sacrificed to go spend time with my daughter. So I say to a lot of people, I was forced into creating this life list and writing this book and trying to help other people with my philosophy of no opportunity wasted because I had this experience. A lot of people don't have that experience. And I say to them, if you were to take your last breath tomorrow at 3 o'clock, what do you think would be the last thing in your mind? I kind of get them to just project to that. And it could be something as simple as, I always wanted to write a book. I always wanted to start my own business. I always wanted to play the guitar. Or I always wanted to spend one-on-one time with my dad.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Or I wish that I'd repaired that relationship with my brother because we haven't spoken.

• 33:51Tim Ferriss?

  Is that a good way to start such a list? I always wanted to...

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. I really think when you put something down on paper, it sounds so simple. It's like a pen and a piece of paper. Just write down something. I really believe that it's not a small thing. That's like, almost like a contract that you've made with yourself. Just putting it down. The other thing I say to people is, don't just put it down, but write it down and then put it on a sticky and put it everywhere where you go, where you have like little moments when you're brushing your teeth or when you go out to get your keys from the garage and you put the sticker next to the keys. Things that you... Places and wall spaces that you repeatedly hit on the refrigerator, places that your mind goes to every single day around the house, in the car, wherever it is,

• 34:40Speaker 03

  little reminders of, well, why am I not doing that?

• 34:43Tim Ferriss?

  So I want to touch on a couple of things you said. The first is a recommendation for people who are listening because that had a huge impact on me, which is an article called "The Tail End", written by... Someone named Tim Urban, who has a site called Wait But Why, which is very intelligently written. And this was recommended to me by a friend, Matt Mullenweg, who's also been on the podcast. And coincidentally, he recommended it to me, I want to say, a few months before his father unexpectedly passed away. And the point of the article, and I'm not going to do it justice, everyone should read it, was that it was effectively directed at kids, kids who are now adults. And it was an encouragement to spend more time with your parents, because it said effectively,

• 35:27Tim Ferriss?

  by the time you leave high school and leave home to go to college, you've spent, say, 80% of the total hours you will ever spend with your parents before they die. Wow. Now, you could look at it the other way around, right? As a parent, that by the time your kids leave high school or leave home, you will have spent or had the opportunity to spend 80% of the hours you're ever going to spend with them together. So that makes perhaps, that type of framing makes it easier to push off the deadline and sacrifice a little bit of sleep. So that article had and continues to have a big impact on me. The second was more of a question, I suppose, about the "I can't."

• 36:07Tim Ferriss?

  And I really think that our words, our language reflects our thinking in a very, very important way. So word choice has, over time, become more and more important to me. And I've tried to fix certain tics, for instance, this is going somewhere. For a long time, I realized I was very lazy with adverbs, and I used "pretty" too much. "Oh, that's pretty good. That's pretty smart. Oh, that's pretty interesting." And it was such a garbage word that I used as filler. So I forced myself to say "fucking" after "pretty" every time I said it. So I'd have to say, "That's pretty fucking interesting. That's pretty fucking difficult", to pattern interrupt, because I would embarrass myself in mixed company.

• 36:52Tim Ferriss?

  And that is how ultimately I ended up... Stopping using this adverb, at least as much as I used to. And I've tried to help other people who have tics like um or like to do something similar. And there are a couple of different approaches. What would you say if you caught, say, your daughter saying, "I can't"? Was it just, would you just raise a finger? Or what was the button that you would push?

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Well, it got to a point where she would catch me too, because I would say it. And so it would just be, "Ah, hell", you know, it's like, you know, we would just call each other out. It was more that we were, she became hyper aware of it because we pointed it out to each other. And I became hyper aware of the times that I would sometimes say it too. Funny you should say about word choices. One of the first shows that I ever worked on was called "That's Fairly Interesting".

• 37:43Tim Ferriss?

  I wanted to talk about this, so yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Okay, so this speaks to the New Zealand psyche. So in America, we watched a show in America called "That's Incredible", "Well, John, that was incredible", in New Zealand, there was a tendency for high achievers to understate their achievements. Okay, so we in New Zealand could not have said, "That's amazing", we had to say, in a New Zealand accent, it would be, "Oh, yeah? That's fairly interesting." And the other thing we would say is, some New Zealander could do something that was groundbreaking, but in New Zealand, because it was a New Zealander who had maybe achieved this groundbreaking idea,

• 38:28Speaker 03

  we would say, "Oh, it's pretty good", or they'd say, "Oh, yeah, that's pretty good for a New Zealander". And I was, I was talking, I did an interview with Peter Jackson, and he said, the number of times that a studio would call his agent, panicking about something that Peter Jackson was making, because they'd get on the phone with Peter Jackson, and they'd say to Peter, "How's it going? You know, how's the cut going on the film?" And Peter would say, "Oh, yeah, no, it's pretty good. It's coming together and looking pretty good." And all the executives back in LA would start panicking because they'd be like, "He sounds less than enthused that this is gonna work." So then he'd get off the phone and then his agent would call him, "Peter, Peter, what's

• 39:13Speaker 03

  wrong? Is there a problem with the production?" And Peter goes, "No, it's, it's fine. Why?" He goes, "Well, they're panicking. They didn't think you sounded very excited about what's going on." But that's, that's a huge part of our, our psyche is understating what you're doing.

• 39:27Tim Ferriss?

  Now, I'd love for you to elaborate on why that's the case. So one of my closest friends is a Kiwi and he loves New Zealand, but he has mixed feelings because he talks a lot about tall poppy syndrome.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:42Tim Ferriss?

  Could you, could you maybe explain what that is?

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Oh, that's one of my favorite topics of conversation. If you imagine a field full of poppies, they're all beautifully uniformed and all the poppies in the field are, you know, at the same exact height and you look out and it's so comfortable to look at because every single puppy is within a millimeter of each other and it just looks so lovely and uniformed. And then you cast your eye over to the other side of the field and you see, "Oh my goodness, there's a puppy sticking up and it's taller than all the other poppies. What could that possibly be? Oh, that's some guy showing off. He thinks he's better than all the other poppies in the field and he's sticking up there showing off.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Well, we'll fix that. Get a pair of scissors and you cut that tall poppy down and now everything's beautiful and uniformed again and we don't have to worry about that tall poppy, do we?" So it's, it's part, it's, it's, it's part of our psyche to keep everybody like the common man. So the New Zealand rugby team, they're called the All Blacks. We wear an all-black uniform. We have a silver fern on the uniform. The most successful sports team in sports history.

• 41:01Tim Ferriss?

  And if people haven't seen the Hakka.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 41:04Tim Ferriss?

  They need to watch the Hakka.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Just Google that. Just go New Zealand All Black Rugby Team Hakka.

• 41:10Tim Ferriss?

  H A K A?

• 41:11Speaker 03

  H A K A. It's a Maori name, which is a Maori war dance. And they would, and now a lot of American football teams have actually copied it as a way of getting psyched up. But when the indigenous people of New Zealand, the Maori people, before going to war, they would get themselves psyched up doing this Hakka. And it involves a lot of different moves and slapping themselves and basically getting themselves hyped and ready to go. And now we use it as a way to get hyped before our rugby games. And if you see this, it's pretty powerful. So the All Blacks have a winning percentage, I think, of over 75% in the last 100 years, right? Very rarely do we lose. But if you speak to any of them, and they're being the world champion, the only rugby team in the world to be world champions three times.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Only rugby team in the world to win back-to-back championships. If you talk to an All Black and you go, "Wow, you guys are amazing. You get incredible players. The best. You're the best." An All Black or a New Zealander who's a high achiever will tend to undersell and go, "Oh. Yeah, no, it's really nothing. We were just, you know, we just went in and did our thing and yeah, we just happened to beat the other team, but they played really well, the other team. Yeah, but you beat them 85-0." "Well, yeah, no, but, you know, we just had a good day and, you know, hats off to the other team." And that's what you do. You undersell. And then it's part of our psyche to be just like everybody.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Now, it's hugely endearing in one way because New Zealanders, and I feel like I'm one of these people where I perform better when the expectations from me are lower than when people expect a lot from me. I don't cope with that very well. When I have to go do a speech, I do a lot of speeches. When everybody's expectation of my speech is that it's going to be, you know, I'm going to head it out of the park and it's going to be really great. It makes me nervous because I feel like, okay, so you feel like I'm meant to hit this mark. Where do I go from there? I don't know where to go from there. I have to like hit it out of the park twice? I don't know. What do I do?

• 43:17Tim Ferriss?

  Just to get a passing grade, right?

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Exactly. Whereas if people's expectations are, "Oh, we think Phil will do a good job and, you know, should be good." If their expectations are there, then I love that space that's left for me to go punch above that and go hit it out of the park. Right, because there's nothing better when you exceed people's expectations. So I think New Zealanders, they always try to underplay where they're at so that they can exceed expectations. So what you find with a lot of New Zealanders is incredibly hardworking. They'll tend to undersell themselves and they tend to surprise. They tend to come out of nowhere and just like, I had no idea you could do that.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  And so I've just finished working on a project for the Smithsonian Channel where I talked to a bunch of New Zealanders about inventiveness, because if there's one word I would use to describe what kiwis are, they're incredibly resourceful and inventive. We've invented a lot of amazing things. And we find ways of doing things new in different ways because we're kind of forced to think. And I love that about our culture. But sometimes when we come to an environment like in America, we're a little reluctant to put our hand up and go, I got this. And other people who sometimes make a lot of noise, maybe don't have the same skills, but they're much better at making a lot of noise.

• 44:43Tim Ferriss?

  Just because this is one of my favorite topics. That's not really, topics isn't the right word for it. One of my favorite things to observe is kiwis and Aussies going after each other.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, that's just boring.

• 44:56Tim Ferriss?

  So. Now, what are the most common go-to insults that Aussies use against kiwis and vice versa?

• 45:05Speaker 03

  Well, all sheep jokes.

• 45:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Go across the Tasman, right? A lot of people don't realize that it's a three-hour flight between New Zealand and Australia. We still have people calling up New Zealand tourism going, how long does it take to drive across the bridge from New Zealand to Australia?

• 45:21Speaker 03

  And you think I'm joking?

• 45:23Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  No, no, because Sydney and Auckland both have bridges that look quite similar. And they think that if you drive over the bridge from in Sydney or in Auckland, that's what's on the other side. So they're like, what? Hold on a second.

• 45:38Tim Ferriss?

  Makes me feel a lot better about the US now.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Three hours? What are you talking about? So we're like the little brother. Okay, so we're, we're four million people. They are twenty something million people. Okay. So we've always felt like they're the big brother that wants to beat us up, but we're going to prove ourselves to the big brother. So, yes, any sheep joke, we don't need to go into the details.

• 45:59Tim Ferriss?

  Lots of sexual innuendo.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:01Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, come on. This isn't family programming. What's, what's one good one?

• 46:04Speaker 03

  Well, the one that gets told a lot is, why do Australians make love to sheep with their gum boots on? So the hind legs of the sheep can be held in the gum boots. Or why do Australians make love to sheep on the edge of cliffs? So they'll push back harder. I mean, there's, there's, look, I mean.

• 46:21Tim Ferriss?

  That's pretty good.

• 46:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, well.

• 46:23Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I mean, it's, if you need some quick draw ammo, I mean, that's, that's not a bad one to have in the back pocket.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  But I've been to rugby matches in Australia where you stand up in your chair. And if there's an Aussie behind you and they know you're supporting the old blacks, they'll pour some beer down the back of your chair. And listen, it's, it's, it's a healthy rivalry, I think, you know, it's just, it's just that the Australians, the Australians to me are, are closer to the American culture in terms of their sports psyche. They are really good at sport. You want to talk about believing in winning. Australians really, I think, exemplify that. New Zealanders, I think, less so. Again, I think New Zealanders, they want to come in under the radar and then exceed expectations. So they don't tend to use the same kind of psych up and there's a lot of like with the cricket matches.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  They call it sledging, you know, where the Australian cricket team are, are out there on the pitch in the middle of the pitch and they'll be just. Going at the, you know, the opposition to talk them, psych them out, basically. They have that edge about them.

• 47:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the Australians do seem to do more of that.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they're very successful, by the way. I don't want to, like, I mean, you look at the number of medals they win at the Olympics per capita, it's pretty high. We're up there as well, but I'm saying the Australians, they're, it's, it's, it's a, it's a great rivalry. Let's just say that. And I married an Australian, by the way.

• 47:46Tim Ferriss?

  No, I know, that's just part of the reason I brought it up. So the, the Australians also tend to get, well, it depends on how drunk and sharp the Kiwis are at the time, but a lot of convict jokes get thrown at the Australians as well. For those people who want to be amused or completely confused,

• 48:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:01Tim Ferriss?

  or maybe both, by Kiwi slash Australian humor, there's a video that, I feel like it was watched by everybody in New Zealand at one point, called Beach Days.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  Oh, Beach Days, bro.

• 48:13Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, Beach Days, bro. Has to do with a whale and I think it's a seagull, among other things. You guys can look that up and chances are you will not understand what's going on.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, but we, we, we have this, look, I think there's something like a half a million New Zealanders living in Australia. It's like, it's like a huge portion of New Zeal- of, of the New Zealand population live in Australia. I mean, because it, but now a lot of Australians are wanting to come to New Zealand because our economy is, is, is doing okay.

• 48:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:44Tim Ferriss?

  It is, I think, it does feel like a sibling rivalry.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  New Zealand is the last habitable landmass on earth to be populated. We had, we offered a lot of land incentives to the Irish, English and the Scots. A lot of Dutch came over in the 50s. We're a very young country, like, super young country. And in 1880, if I'm not mistaken, the population was something like 80% men in New Zealand, which is where all that mateship came from. Probably a few sheep jokes as well, but.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  But, you know, we're a super, super young country. Now, Australia had a tremendous number of criminals go there because England didn't want them, you know, that's the English for you.

• 49:22Tim Ferriss?

  Sullying territory.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Oh, let's send them way down there to that penal colony down in Australia. That'll fix them. So they, they sent them down there. They're, you know, rugged bunch. But don't ever confuse New Zealanders and Australians. We don't like that. We don't like that. Just like Canadians a lot of times, don't we?

• 49:39Tim Ferriss?

  So I was gonna say, does one get more offended than the other? Because for instance, like if you call an American Canadian, we're like, eh, whatever.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:45Tim Ferriss?

  Canadians get very, in general, I love you guys Canadians.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  I think we're probably more sensitive.

• 49:50Tim Ferriss?

  A lot of Canadian friends, but Canadians are more sensitive.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  I think, I think New Zealanders are probably more sensitive about it. I think Australians are, you know, they probably care less than we do.

• 50:00Tim Ferriss?

  So, so I wanted to ask you about low expectations versus high expectations because I remember a friend of mine, Naval Ravikant, once, once said, he said, if you want to be happy, and I'm paraphrasing here, but if you wanted to be happy, spend time with people who are less successful than you. If you want to be successful, spend time with people who are more successful than you.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:18Tim Ferriss?

  So you've spent a lot of time in New Zealand as well as in the US. I remember at one point when, and I'm dubious of how these things are determined, but the, the Danish beat out people in Bhutan and elsewhere to be voted the happiest people in the world.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  Wow, Bhutan was, is the, isn't it the kingdom of happiness?

• 50:36Tim Ferriss?

  Well, they have the gross hap, what is it?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Happiness.

• 50:39Tim Ferriss?

  Gross national happiness.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:41Tim Ferriss?

  Which I think is actually just a propaganda tool to distract from lack of GDP growth, among other things. But the point I was gonna make is that I, I asked a number of my Danish friends about this and they said, in effect, it's because we have such low expectations. That's why we're happy. Our expectations are so low. Now, at the same time, you've achieved a lot, you've done a lot, and you've spent a lot of time in the US where I, I would say a lot of people might argue that when expectations are higher and people expect you to do greater things, you do greater things. And clearly, when I'm looking at, and I'll, I'll just read off a few examples here, if we look at some of the things that you've done.

• 51:25Tim Ferriss?

  So no opportunity wasted, N O W. You have, I mean, we could go on and on. I could just spend 20 minutes reading these, but putt of golf.

• 51:31Speaker 03

  Don't do that.

• 51:32Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not going to do that. A golf ball across Scotland, finishing in St Andrews. Complete the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. We're going to get to this in detail, but ride the 1928 Tour de France on a fixed gear bike, correct? I mean, they're the same equipment that was used.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  Actually, it was a single-speed bike.

• 51:47Tim Ferriss?

  Single-speed, I'm sorry. World record bungee jump with seven or eight adventure crazies. It just goes on and on and on. You have this long list, and if you had really, really low expectations, could you actually set these types of goals and achieve them?

• 52:03Speaker 03

  Well, I'm never, it's not that I've ever had low expectations.

• 52:07Tim Ferriss?

  But this is something I battle with personally, so that's why I'm asking.

• 52:10Speaker 03

  I've never had low expectations. I've always had this desire to do new and different. If there's one thing that I would like to be known for, it's that I'm prepared to try something new and different. I like to be surrounded by people who see, again, what they do have and what they can do as opposed to what they don't have and what they can't do. So nothing drives me crazier than being surrounded by people who immediately start with a wool of no, or immediately start with not having the vision to see that the impossible can happen. And I've been lucky enough to be around people who have achieved extraordinary things, and it feeds me. You know, Malcolm Bladwell says, "Anything new and

• 52:55Speaker 03

  different is most susceptible to market research." And I really feel that so many people apply potential and possibility based on what does it compare to, what can we compare it to, will it work? There's a fixation on this idea of failure. I find people talk a lot about things failing in a negative way. I've failed so many times at so many things, but I try not to call them failures as much as I just call them giving it a go. And if there's one thing that I have, that I love about positive people is that they are prepared to give it a go. Positive people just are constantly putting themselves out there to fall on their face

• 53:38Speaker 03

  and eventually they stumble on something that works.

• 53:41Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any favorite failures that come to mind? And what I mean by that is a failure that somehow laid the groundwork for a later success? Does any, any particular failure come to mind in your mind or what other people might consider a failure that actually was a blessing in disguise?

• 53:57Speaker 03

  I've tried to put together, you know, early on in my career, tried to put together, show ideas that I thought would really work and they just didn't really work. But it was all the groundwork to be better the next time I tried to get something to work. And I've been involved with a lot of things that are pretty mediocre. But again, I really do believe in trying and trying and trying again. You know, when I was young, I learned how to play the violin when I was three years old with the Suzuki method, which was rote learning, where you would be in a room with a whole bunch of people and you would play tunes over and over and over again. And then eventually I could play by ear. And when I was seven or eight, my mom's a music teacher, I learned how to read music. And I became quite proficient at playing the violin. I used to go to a music school in New York. I was living in the Caribbean. I grew up in the Caribbean.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  I used to fly from Antigua in the Caribbean, go up to this music school for up to nine weeks.

• 54:47Tim Ferriss?

  This was, and the travel was due to your, your father's job?

• 54:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, my, my dad, my, my mom and dad traveled all over the world. They lived four years in Canada, eight years in the Caribbean. We lived in South America, through the Caribbean, lived in Australia. And I went to this school and, and, and I was probably the worst musician out of all of these really talented kids. I was strong enough to get into the school, but certainly not the best. And I remember being surrounded by this most extraordinary talent, some of the talent that has gone into play in the New York Philharmonic. But a big part of playing the violin and being successful. Particularly at that age was just practice and practice and practice. I remember how hideous and horrible I sounded, you know, starting with some new pieces early on.

• 55:33Speaker 03

  But you'd play and play over and over and over and over again. You could say that the first performances that I made were a failure. And then with all of the work and the effort, you end up with something that sounds halfway decent. So I really do believe in the idea of perseverance. And I feel that a lot of people stop short at achieving goals because they're not prepared to risk failure. We analyze failure, particularly as we get older, more and more. So I always try to encourage that with my daughter too, is say to her, give it a go. Just give it a go and see what happens. You never know where it's going to take you. And what you learn and what you fail at may help you with something else.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  You may not understand how they're related now, but five years from now, you're going to draw on that. It's about life experience and just putting your hand up and saying, yeah, I'll give it a go. And that's definitely something that is a New Zealand trait. Yeah, yeah, I'll give it a go. Fake it until you make it. I mean, that's a huge part of our psyche. Like just give it a go. And I meet a lot of people who have way more talent than me at doing a lot of things. And I'm amazed at how reluctant they are sometimes to step up and just, and I'll pat them on the back. I'll go, hey, you got this, dude. I'm prepared to give it a go and you're better than me. Come on, get up there.

• 56:49Tim Ferriss?

  Get amongst it.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, get up there. So I think that comes a lot from the way that we talk about it in our culture. You know, because we celebrate success. But I think we should also just celebrate people giving it a go.

• 57:06Tim Ferriss?

  Give it a go, definitely. Well, I think it's also dependent a lot on where you are, even within, say, the US.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 57:12Tim Ferriss?

  Where, say, I live in Silicon Valley, I live in San Francisco, where there is very much a supportive environment for giving it a go.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  Giving it a go.

• 57:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  And those people are on the cutting edge of, they're like the pioneers of where we are at right now. Trying new and different things. You know, the famous story of the guy who wrote up the idea for FedEx, you know, they all thought he was crazy, new and different, right? It was like, what do you mean? We're going to have these central packaging locations and you're going to fly everything? You're like, you're flying everything there and then you fly them. That doesn't make any sense.

• 57:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  I think he failed too.

• 57:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you gotta, you gotta, I think you gotta see or something. I feel like I want to say it was a business school final project.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  Platform.

• 57:52Tim Ferriss?

  Got a, got a barely passing grade or something along those lines. Yeah.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  And so what my frustration is a lot of people who are in decision making positions tend to be the least creative and the least visionary. They're much more about nuts and bolts and analyzing. And we would not have gone to the moon. We would not have done all the crazy things that we have done in this world. If people did it based on what we knew at that time.

• 58:17Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  We've done all these extraordinary things because some crazy people said, I'm going to give it a go and we'll see what happens.

• 58:23Tim Ferriss?

  If your daughter were putting together her own no opportunity wasted bucket list.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 58:29Tim Ferriss?

  And she said, Dad, I'd love some help. How can I, can you help me make this as good as possible? So she already has, say, 30 things listed and she's, I'm worried some of these things are frivolous. I'm not really sure if they're good items to have on the list. How would you respond?

• 58:42Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, there are two kinds of lists, I think. One is the very personal list that you have that you might want to really keep secret. Because I do believe sometimes when you put things out into the universe to other people, it can pick up momentum. And also I believe that sometimes if you put something out there, there are negative energies sometimes with some of the people that might hear of something you're trying to do and knock you down. Because maybe they have their own frustrations or they have their own preconceived ideas about what's possible and they can put a black cloud over what it is you want to do. But I would say to my daughter, first of all, believe anything is possible and give it a go. I remember when she was nine, she said, Dad, I want to be a professional tennis player,

• 59:27Speaker 03

  a wildlife vet and photographer, professional photographer, professional photographer, wildlife vet and professional tennis player. The rational part of my brain is thinking, how is that? Like if I was giving advice and she was about to make the choice that day or she was working out how she's going to do it. You could say, well, that's not really practical because listen, if you want to be a professional tennis player, it's going to take these many, this many hours. If you want to be a photographer, it's going to be this. And if you want to be a wildlife vet, you're going to have to do this, that and the other. But instead. I remember making a deliberate effort to say, "That's great. Where, how are you gonna do this?" Like, I wanted to understand what was in her head. She says, "Well, I was thinking, I could work like on some kind of research project,

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  and then I could train, I could work out a way to train, and then I could take photographs while I'm doing my work, and then I could fly to Europe and I could play, you know, in the circuit there, and then that'd keep me really fit and focused and everything. And then at night, I'll work on my photographs, and then I'll go back and take fi-" Like, she had a vision in her head about how she was gonna- Who am I to say to her, "It's not possible to do all of those things"?

• 1:00:35Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I, maybe she will, you know, could've found a way to do that. I don't know. So, I wanted her to feel at that age, "Yeah, okay. Go for it. Give it a go. See what happens." You know?

• 1:00:50Tim Ferriss?

  So, you are often associated, you're associated with a lot of things, but with The Amazing Race. How did you come to be part of that show?

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  It's a good story. I, uh, I came to America when I was 23, 24. I thought I wouldn't get arrested because I had a New Zealand accent at the time, and I was told, "Nobody wants a New Zealand accent on television," and this is the early 90s. And they weren't wrong, 'cause, and then a guy took a chance on me. His name was Jack Sussman, who is now at CBS. And he gave, he gave me a shot to host a show on VH1, and that opened the door. And then, once I got in, 'cause none of my credentials from before in New Zealand meant anything in America, not like today, where you could be a host of Dancing with the Stars in New Zealand and then use that to leverage getting work here. They didn't understa- "Oh, what's this show? That's fairly interesting."

• 1:01:39Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds exciting.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  Sounds really exciting. Um, in America, we got, "That's incredible." Uh, so, anyway, so, there's a reason for me telling you that, just because he was later at CBS. Then I had this show where, that was set up by an Australian by the name of Peter Faiman, who directed Crocodile Dundee, and he was setting up FX Networks. And he took a chance on me to be one of the field people with that show. I was telling you, Tom Bergeron hosted. And I did that for four and a half, five years. So, he took a shot on me, because there were some people like, "You're gonna put a New Zealander on the air?" But anyway, that gave, gave me a lot of American TV experience. And then we did a show together on Discovery Channel and I worked with a cameraman who shot this adventure series, it was called Phil Cogan's Adventure Crazy, was following

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  my list of things to do before I died, shot all around the world. That cameraman was being considered to shoot Amazing Race and they looked at his footage and saw me in his footage and then said, "Who is that guy?" And the EIC, Executive in Charge of Production on Amazing Race, had worked with me on that show and he said, "Oh, that's Phil, I just was working with him." And CBS was aware of me because I'd been passed over for Survivor, it was between Jeff Probst and I for that job, and a big concern again was that I was a New Zealander. And then finally, I remember I met with Les Mumez and he said, "This is the second time

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  your name has come across my desk in the last, I think it was a year," and he said, "I'm gonna give you a shot." And I remember I got shortlisted down to three, then to two, and then Les had this conversation with Mumez and then we just had to get sign off from Jerry Bruckheimer and Bertram Van Munster and Ali Starganeri and Jonathan Lippman and the network and all the executives who were involved in the show and they said yes and then I had a shot.

• 1:03:33Tim Ferriss?

  How many, how many shows or how many episodes have you done at this point, would you say, if you're just guestimating?

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  I'm guessing it's gotta be 300, 400.

• 1:03:44Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  It's a lot. It's 29 seasons of 12 and 13 episodes a season.

• 1:03:49Tim Ferriss?

  And those 12 and 13 episodes are each shot in a window of, what?

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  21 days.

• 1:03:54Tim Ferriss?

  That's insane.

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  So 12 shows in 21 days, that's a part that a lot of people don't realize is how intense it is.

• 1:04:00Tim Ferriss?

  Just the logistics, just getting the visas alone for everyone.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, the team that I work with, I'm lucky to be a part of a great team and going back to your point before about working, I've been lucky enough that that's been my experience throughout my career, that I've been surrounded by people who are better than me at doing certain things and as a team member, you wanna try to match the level of their input, you wanna be, you wanna be known as a valuable team player. My grandfather always said that you could build a stereo system, but the stereo system only sounds as good as the weakest link in the stereo system. Same thing, I guess, with a chain, right? It's the same thing. And so you always want to be somebody who is higher up the chain, who is really a strong element in that team, in that framework. But never the biggest chain.

• 1:04:47Tim Ferriss?

  Never the biggest target.

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  Well, because, but then you stop, then you, that's not a good feeling. And I've been, I've been in those situations.

• 1:04:53Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I see what you're saying, right.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  Where you feel like you're the most experienced in a team. And to be honest with you, I don't really like that. I really love looking across at somebody in a team that I'm on and going, man, they are so experienced and so much better. I've been working with 60 Minutes Sports and working with the people who produce 60 Minutes and being surrounded by those storytellers. You know, you feel like you're 18 again and you're starting back at square one.

• 1:05:15Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I remember some advice that I was given quite a while ago, which was if you're the, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

• 1:05:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good one.

• 1:05:23Tim Ferriss?

  So a question to you about hosting. What are the most common mistakes that come to mind that novice TV hosts make?

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  I think where they make it about them. I think the best hosts, and again, this is only my opinion, the best hosts are the ones that can facilitate a conversation with the least number of words where you've done your research and then you basically are letting them go. You let them go. And you're, you're there to just keep things moving and you're there to make them look good. And the better you make them look, the better you are. Where I get turned off with some hosts is where they feel like they have to one-up the person that they're meant to be.

• 1:06:03Tim Ferriss?

  Showcasing.

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  Showcasing. And I see that a lot of times where, and it's finding that balance. Finding the balance of really connecting with the person, but ultimately letting them be the guest and giving them the last say, or the last word, I guess. You want to make them look good. You're focused on that.

• 1:06:20Tim Ferriss?

  Are there any particular hosts or television personalities, it could be radio, doesn't matter, you looked at or do look at as the epitome of that? Are there, are there any role models that you grew up looking towards? Or even now, where you say, if you had to create sort of this, this super host and you could combine two or three people, do any names come to mind?

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  I love the way Jimmy Fallon plays with his guests, but he's always willing to back out and let them shine. He is really good at that. I just think that takes a real skill because he himself is so talented as a performer, but he has that ability to like step back and say, you're the star on my show, do your thing. Makes it, he really has a way of having fun and relaxing. And I think he's got so much better at it, too. I think when he first started, he was trying to find his way and now he's, he sort of hit the sweet spot. What's interesting now is, is so many people are watching Colbert because he's got a much more of a political message and people are gravitating towards that more than they are the fun stuff. Right. You can see that in the ratings. I love Jon Stewart's style.

• 1:07:29Speaker 03

  I love Colbert's style. I was a big David Letterman fan. I love Carson. I'm sort of new to podcasts, so I've been listening to a lot of different podcasts. I was saying to you before, I love the piece you did with Arnold, you know. I like, I like that you're so well researched with your guests and you draw stuff out and hit them with things that they don't necessarily see something coming. Cause I think preparation with a good host is so crucial. Yeah. And I'll tell you who else is, for a lot of people, it's surprising, and that's Howard Stern. He has a way of getting people to open up. Yeah, Howard's a Jedi when it comes to. He's really good. And I personally wasn't surprised because I've listened to him for a long, long time. My favorite part of what he does is talking to people. I love conversations.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  A good story, you could be sitting around a campfire and if it's a good story, it just works. And I think that's the real measure of somebody who is a good host. So let's talk about stories for a second. Are there any particular books besides, besides your own that you would, that you've gifted to people or that you recommend a lot to other people? Yeah. Every year I read The Old Man and the Sea, The Hemingway. Yeah, great book. It's so easy to read and it. It is such a strong message.

• 1:08:43Tim Ferriss?

  What do you get out of that book?

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  Well, I left home pretty much at the age of 13 and went to boarding school and I haven't lived at home since then. And I've been independent for a long time. It forced me to grow up. And then I've been financially responsible for myself since I was 18. So I grew up, I feel like I grew up, had to grow up really quickly. But, and one of the reasons that I've set up so many adventures with my dad is because I missed a lot of time with him between 13 and 18. All those holidays through 13 to 18, in those really influential years, I had a lot of time with a grandparent, with my grandfather. My grandfather was born in 1912. He was the, the ducks, I don't know what you call it in America, but he was the brightest kid in his middle school.

• 1:09:25Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, he was the valedictorian of his middle school?

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  Valedictorian, yeah, of his middle school. And he was given a scholarship to go away to a college where they were, a Catholic college in Christchurch, which was over the mountains, over the southern Alps in New Zealand. For one reason or another, he wasn't given that opportunity and didn't get to go to that school, go to high school. And he became a bike mechanic in his teens. And very quickly put himself through becoming, becoming an A-grade mechanic. And then worked as a mechanic up until he was about 65. And he was at the same place for many, many years. But my grandfather was unbelievably smart and never got to fully realize his potential academically. But he used it, he used his

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  intellect in other ways. And I spent a lot of hours with him in his workshop where he was a gunsmith. He would fix guns. He would bed guns. He, he, he was absolutely meticulous, had the most incredible tools. If he didn't have the tool, he'd make the tool.

• 1:10:26Tim Ferriss?

  This is in New Zealand?

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  This is in New Zealand.

• 1:10:27Tim Ferriss?

  Not a place known for guns?

• 1:10:29Speaker 03

  Uh, well, a lot of people do have guns.

• 1:10:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  But for hunting and my grandfather was a sharpshooter. Actually, a number of my family members were, were sharpshooters in the war. But it was quite a big sport in New Zealand, target shooting.

• 1:10:43Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  And, and, and he got me into it at a very young age. I, I made the New Zealand under 25 team when I was at 16, I think, with him being my coach. But I spent a lot of hours watching him. And, and, and target shooting is all about focus and discipline. You have to be so meticulous to be a good shooter. Dropping your heart rate, feeling, you know, connecting with the rifle and really seeing clearly and making sure you pull the trigger. It's like, there's so much involved. It's such a mental sport. Anyway, I spent so much time with him and I learned so much from him. I think because of that, and he invented an outrigger sight. His friend went blind in his right eye, and he was on the New Zealand team. He couldn't see out of his right eye.

• 1:11:28Speaker 03

  And my grandfather had a dream that if he built an outrigger sight, if he moved the sight, the distance of the pupil between the right eye and the left eye, that this guy, Morris Callaghan, could look through his left eye, close his right eye, look through his left eye, and then have this outrigger sight that was offset by the distance of his pupil at the other end of the barrel, and he would be able to see and shoot. And sure enough, it worked. My grandfather got up in the middle of the night, built it.

• 1:11:54Tim Ferriss?

  That is hard to make.

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, and now you can buy it off the shelf. My grandfather never patented it. But that was how his brain worked. And so I think because of that relationship, I have a tremendous amount of respect for older people who have so much to give. And age discrimination, to me, is one of the biggest crimes that we have, where there's such a focus on young, and this is the new thing, and this is the new way, and we need young people. And I'm all about that, because young is new and different. I'm all about that. But I'm also a firm believer that we are wasting a tremendous amount, a tremendous talent pool of people in this country, who could share their wisdom and their life knowledge with young people

• 1:12:39Speaker 03

  who maybe have lost their way, or where we tap into that resource. And, yeah, it's sort of very sad to me. When I hear, when I hear it and I see it, I see it a lot in my business, "Oh, we don't want the guy who's 60 who wrote the script. We want the 25-year-old kid who's got this great idea." Well, yeah, sometimes that guy who's been writing for 10,000 hours actually might be able to offer you something.

• 1:13:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  Maybe we can learn from that guy.

• 1:13:07Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned the marksmanship. You also have a long history with cycling and have done quite a lot on two wheels. Could you tell us a little bit about your latest documentary? And what I'd love for you to comment on is... How you chose this project and choose projects in general? Because you have many different options. You can do many different things. So how do you choose something like this to focus on? And can you tell us a little bit about it?

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  You know, I think one of the reasons that this project came about is I feel I'm I feel I'm open to anything happening at any moment. I believe in magic. I believe I believe in not planning too much ahead, being receptive to what might come tomorrow or who I might meet and being open to the possibilities that come from those meetings and books I read. And so I found this book at an airport. It was a tiny little book with some publisher that I'd never heard of, written by some guys that I'd never heard of. And it said, "The first New Zealander to ride in the Tour de France in 1928, seven-time New Zealand champion Harry Watson from Canterbury, New Zealand." I'm like, "Hold on a second. I love cycling.

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  I love cycling history. How do I not know who this guy is?" I read the book in one sitting and I know some professional cyclists. I emailed them and said, "You ever heard of this guy, Harry Watson?" And they were like, "Harry who?" Seven-time New Zealand champion. So I read the book and then I find out that this guy, Harry Watson, used to go over to Australia and ride in these races with the best riders in Australia. And there was only one guy over there who could beat him and they would go back and forth, winning races. But he would go over there and take part in these amazing thousand-mile races, come back to New Zealand, not say a word to anybody, would never make it into the press. It would make it in the press that he won like a New Zealand championship, but nobody had any really real idea of the caliber that this guy was riding at.

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  He had records that stood for like 50 years in New Zealand. And I just became so fascinated with the idea that this guy was the epitome of what we talk about when we talk about an understated New Zealander. Like you don't talk about your achievements. You don't show off about your achievements. Like he was the poppy that, well, he never actually grew up to be chopped off. He just went and achieved things and just kept it all really low.

• 1:15:33Tim Ferriss?

  Low profile.

• 1:15:34Speaker 03

  Low profile. So I looked at it and then I started doing some research and this is with my wife and I'm producer partner. And the more we researched, the more we realized... The 1928 Tour de France had the first English-speaking team that competed and it was this one New Zealander and three Australians went six weeks at sea, all the way to France, with one set of rollers between them on these old heavy steel bikes, rocked up there to the start line in Europe, and the Europeans were like, "What the hell are you doing here? Where have you come from, you guys? Do you not realize that we're the best riders in the world? The toughest sporting event on earth, you're gonna come here and try to school us? Who are you guys?" And they were only four guys, they were meant to team up

• 1:16:16Speaker 03

  with six other riders to make a team of 10, like all the big riders, but the other riders didn't turn up, the sponsors fell through, so now they're over on the other side of the world, four against 10, and 15 of the 22 stages were team time trials, but they refused to give in. Press wrote them off, everybody wrote them off, and they decided they were gonna race. And it's not like, you know, you could send out a tweet and say, "Hey, I'm looking for some riders," or, you know, call up, they just couldn't get it together. So the four, they're at the, at the, at the starting line. And the sad part of it all is that this story has all been lost because they've, they're gone. And it started digging around, digging around, and I thought, you know what? The only way to, this story needs

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  to be told because it's like these unforgotten underdogs. The highest attrition rate in Tour de France history in 1928, it was brutal. I thought the only way to really tell this story is I need to find one of those old bikes that they rode, I need to find the old route, I need to find where they went, I need to go and ride it, stick to the same schedule, and then juxtapose 2013, my ride, with their ride in 1928. Match up old photographs, look for old footage, and tell this story so that it isn't forgotten. It was like, not like it was ever really known in New Zealand, but like, that we tell this story.

• 1:17:36Tim Ferriss?

  What is the name of the documentary?

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  It's called Le Ride.

• 1:17:38Tim Ferriss?

  Le Ride.

• 1:17:39Speaker 03

  Le Ride. And, and I made another film called The Ride, not to be confused with That Ride, which was across America.

• 1:17:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47Speaker 03

  I, I need to get more creative with the names, I think.

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  It was the hat.

• 1:17:52Tim Ferriss?

  Then you could do it in South America, it's "L" ride.

• 1:17:54Speaker 03

  See, I had "the" ride on my hat. And I thought if I just, you know, all I have to do is just change, you know, one, I just have to take out two letters, put an "L" there and boom, I've got the same hat.

• 1:18:03Tim Ferriss?

  Ready to rock and roll. So, how, how long was the course then?

• 1:18:08Speaker 03

  3,338 miles, an average of 150 miles a day.

• 1:18:13Tim Ferriss?

  Not flagrant.

• 1:18:15Speaker 03

  This was brutal. Single-speed bicycles, marginal brakes, bikes that weighed twice as much as a modern bike does today. 132,000 vertical feet. The death stage, by the time they'd got through eight stages, they went from 168, starting in Paris, to 100 after eight stages. By the time they finished the death stage, the ninth stage, the winning time in 1928 was 18 and a half hours. It was 200 and something miles and over 20,000 vertical feet in one day, over five major climbs in the Pyrenees that separates Spain and France. 18 and a half hours, the winning time. What was really cool about this story was, this is 1928, this is 10 years after World

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  War I. Nothing has or has had more impact on New Zealand than World War I. 10% of the New Zealand population went to Europe, went to Gallipoli, went to all these places in Europe to fight alongside Mother England in World War I. 10%. Imagine that. On ships, they traveled to the other side of the world to fight. So, everybody has lost relatives or has a relative who fought in the war. So, the French people remembered the Anzacs, the Australian and New Zealand troops, that had only been in France 10 years before, fighting in the trenches in northern France against the Germans. They remembered that sacrifice.

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  So, when the French people realized that this small, untested, underdog team were taking on the best riders in the world and that they were going to ride around France, they got out on the streets and they cheered this underdog team. And they not only won over the public, they then won over the French press, and then they won over the other riders. And by the end of the ride... Three out of those four riders made it around France. Only forty-two riders out of one hundred and sixty-eight riders made it. They made it with four against ten.

• 1:20:13Tim Ferriss?

  That's insane.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  And world-class riders, like, these guys were world-class, but that nobody knew. If you were to say that, like, if that was a headline in New Zealand that they made it, people, I mean, I just don't think in New Zealand, people understand, because cycling is such a complicated sport, I'm not sure if they truly understand the significance of how incredible that achievement is. And he's not in the sporting Hall of Fame, Harry Watson. I think he should be. If he was an all-black, if he was a rugby player, he would be. So Hubert Opperman, on the other hand, was knighted. Sir Hubert Opperman, he was a politician. He was instrumental in getting rid of the white Australia policy. He was, and there's statues for him in Australia. But in New Zealand, this guy who's from my hometown, there's nothing.

• 1:20:56Speaker 03

  And I'm trying now to raise the money to put a permanent fixture in Christchurch over one of the cycle ways to, for us never to forget him. But the film is certainly helping.

• 1:21:06Tim Ferriss?

  Where can people find the film?

• 1:21:09Speaker 03

  Philcoganlaride.com. And, and my name is a crazy spelling.

• 1:21:14Tim Ferriss?

  I'll put it in the show notes for people so they can find it.

• 1:21:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can't even spell my name. Sometimes it's so hard to spell.

• 1:21:20Tim Ferriss?

  So I encourage people to check it out. I watched the trailer. And just the very beginning, when you guys are riding on these old rickety bikes across cobblestones, just getting started.

• 1:21:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, not, not a good idea. Can I just say, this is not a good idea, by the way? I mean, yeah, not a good idea. Try, to try to make a movie while you're taking on the biggest physical and mental challenge of your life, not a good recipe for making a movie. That's just not a good thing to do. That death stage I was telling you about?

• 1:21:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:51Speaker 03

  Took us twenty-three and a half hours to finish. We had seven stages over two hundred miles on those old bikes with no gears. I jacked my hip up for like about 15 months. I had like this crazy pain in my hip. I couldn't get rid of it until I got a standing desk, by the way. That's what fixed it.

• 1:22:10Tim Ferriss?

  Standing desk.

• 1:22:11Speaker 03

  I got a standing desk, boom, within three weeks.

• 1:22:14Tim Ferriss?

  All right, so let's talk about a few things like that because before we started recording, you pulled up a microphone because we were looking at my current audio setup, which is a Zoom H6 with some basic XLR cables.

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  Great setup, by the way.

• 1:22:25Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. Very simple. As Morgan Spurlock put it to me, "Once you get fancy, fancy gets broken." This is not fancy. I have a Shure SM58 stage mics here.

• 1:22:37Speaker 03

  He's an interesting guy, isn't he?

• 1:22:38Tim Ferriss?

  He is an interesting guy.

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  We were on Oprah together once.

• 1:22:41Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, is that right?

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:42Tim Ferriss?

  That must have been a trip.

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  2001. That was the first time I met him. With 2001, we were both on Oprah.

• 1:22:47Tim Ferriss?

  On Oprah.

• 1:22:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:48Tim Ferriss?

  Wow. That's a hell of a place to meet. And you brought up a microphone because you often have to do pickups, audio on the road.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  A lot.

• 1:22:56Tim Ferriss?

  And it's a Shure MV88 Digital Stereo Condenser Mic, which plugs right into the Lightning port on an iPhone.

• 1:23:04Speaker 03

  Recommended to me by the guy who mixed "The Ride," our film, really talented guy. He actually also mixed "Hidden Figures." He's a passionate cyclist. And yeah, I just, I thought, well, if this guy says it's good, it's gotta be good.

• 1:23:19Tim Ferriss?

  And you tested it out. I'm always curious about travel mic options because even with the amount of gear that I have, it weighs a lot to truck around and carry around this stuff. But what other gear or tools are must haves for you when you're on the road? Are there any particular, maybe non-obvious gizmos, gadgets, ways of packing, not packing, anything that comes to mind that you've found is necessary for your survival on the road when you're doing these 12 episodes in 20 days? I'm not gonna call it a death march, but I mean intense travel schedules.

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I get that question from people about what to pack, what to travel. I am crazy about technology. Like, I love technology so much. My first job I mentioned was as a film camera assistant. And then watching my grandfather as a gunsmith and then being a camera assistant was great because you had to be so meticulous about looking after the gear. I always have been enamored with what's the latest, greatest craze and what can you do with technology? A friend of mine says, "Isn't it great living in the future?" And I totally agree with him. I think it's so important to keep up with the technology and just how you and I are sharing, "Oh, this, try this mic, this is great." And then I see your setup and, you know, every, you keep learning all the time, right? You see how people do things and how people pack.

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  And the cameraman that I've been working with for 25 years, every time I see him, he and I are big repurposers. So we were like, we love finding the best ways to repurpose things, new ways of doing things. And a big part of that is in technology. That said, I'm also old school. I also have had a Moleskine diary that I write into that I've had for 30 years. So I'm kind of like, when you see my, the stuff that I travel with, I have like really old school, you know, paper and pencil and then all the way through to the latest technology. So this film that we shot, "La Ride", we shot, was the first documentary ever shot on a Sony F-55 4K camera. That, at that stage, it never shot a feature film, you know, the equivalent of Super 35mm and digital.

• 1:25:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  And then beautiful Angino glass and that sort of thing. I think you're crazy to travel without some means of capturing video or audio. I am amazed at what, without mentioning a name, but I'm amazed at what a smartphone can do. Blows my mind. I, you know, the new phone that I have has two lenses in it. The, the audio quality is extraordinary. I just shot this project for Smithsonian in 4K. We're actually doing it in UHD and there's a shot that I needed. And I was sitting somewhere where there's no way I was going to get a camera there in time or in the space where I was. And I pulled out this cam, this phone, set it to 4K

• 1:26:08Speaker 03

  and we cut it in as a quick cutaway shot on my phone. It's, I love that.

• 1:26:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it is amazing.

• 1:26:14Speaker 03

  And I love that I can, 5 o'clock in the morning, walk out into my dad's garden with this little microphone, plug it into my phone and be standing there surrounded by all these birds. And you heard the quality.

• 1:26:25Tim Ferriss?

  No, it sounds right.

• 1:26:26Speaker 03

  I just love it.

• 1:26:27Tim Ferriss?

  What would, what would be, let's just say, a purchase of less than a hundred dollars? If something comes to mind that has most positively impacted your life in recent memory?

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  Less than a hundred dollars?

• 1:26:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Speaker 03

  Probably the biggest impact for something less than a hundred dollars would be a Moleskine diary.

• 1:26:43Tim Ferriss?

  Moleskine diary?

• 1:26:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've had, I've got them all lined up from every year since, I've had them since 1986. So in there, in a very tactile way, movies, I have like lists in the back, movies, books. And then I write in the back the name of the book and then who recommended the book. And then I make a little note and then I tick them off. And then when I've read the book, I write to the person who recommended the book. And they were like, I recommended that? And I'll be, yeah, you did. And then I'll tell them where and when.

• 1:27:09Tim Ferriss?

  So you have an index of books and movies in the back of the diary?

• 1:27:12Speaker 03

  In the back of the diary. And then every year, if there's something that I haven't read or found in that year, like sometimes some really obscure things, I'll transfer those over into the next year. But now Moleskine has this crazy pen that has a little camera on it that records everything you write digitally on paper. And then you can email, like you and I could be talking, I'm writing some notes, just like your book there. And then I just tap the pen on a little. envelope icon and I can text it, email it, post it, whatever. And it's recorded on, when you go back, it's all recorded back on your computer.

• 1:27:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's very cool. I use a tool called Evernote and something called Penultimate for similar purposes. What do you write in your journal? In the sense that do you sit down at a set time? Do you tend to every night sit down and diary? What is?

• 1:28:07Speaker 03

  I'm not a diary guy like that as much as it's more just ideas or sketches. I just came up with a new name for something that I'm, for a brand that I'm wanting to explore, developing. I just wrote down the name. It was a sort of free association and I arrived on this name and I was like, boom, I love this name. And then I went and looked it up and it was available. And so then I, you know, did a trademark on it. And then I started sketching with it. So a lot of times it's just fleshing out ideas. I also use it for meetings. So every time I meet with somebody, I put the date, I put the time. My mother taught shorthand. I wish I'd learned from her, but I write down key elements of the meeting.

• 1:28:52Speaker 03

  A lot of times I can remember the pages. So I'll go, that's right, I met with Tim. When was that? Oh yeah, that was, we met in 16. And then I'll go back into the diary. Again, they're all chronological and I can remember roughly, or I'll just look it up in my calendar. That's the easy way. But a lot of times I'll challenge my brain. I'll go, yeah, it was April. And then flick through to that part and look at the notes.

• 1:29:14Tim Ferriss?

  That's what Robert Rodriguez, filmmaker, director, writer and so on, also does. He keeps copious notes.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  I love notes.

• 1:29:23Tim Ferriss?

  On meetings and then he transfers them, I think to a Word doc at roughly midnight. And that way he's able to go back and search, which you could do with some of these newer technologies.

• 1:29:33Speaker 03

  Well, he would love this Moleskine diary because it's the same thing. But he wouldn't have to double transfer because it converts it into text.

• 1:29:41Tim Ferriss?

  Automatically converts it.

• 1:29:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, let him know.

• 1:29:43Tim Ferriss?

  Well, he's here in Austin. Phil, this has been great fun. Where can people, and of course, I'll put this in the show notes as well for people listening, but where can people say hello to you on social or elsewhere?

• 1:29:53Speaker 03

  A lot of people contact me through Twitter is just my name, @PhilKogan.

• 1:29:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Can you spell that for those people out there who are spelling challenged?

• 1:30:00Speaker 03

  You really think they're gonna remember this?

• 1:30:02Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. My listeners are bright people.

• 1:30:04Speaker 03

  All right, so Phil, it's the ordinary Phil, P-H-I-L, and then Keoghan, which is K-E-O-G-H-A-N. And my website is just my name, PhilKogan.com.

• 1:30:18Tim Ferriss?

  They can find you.

• 1:30:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. People have a way of finding me some way.

• 1:30:24Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Phil, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate you carving out.

• 1:30:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, listen, it's great to be here.

• 1:30:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  I know you've talked to a lot of really cool people and it's nice to be here, spend some time with you.

• 1:30:34Tim Ferriss?

  Likewise. No, I mean, these are great stories and everybody listening, think about 3:00 PM tomorrow.

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:40Tim Ferriss?

  That's your deathbed. What are you gonna say? I wish I had, I wish I could put together that list. And also, as always, you can find links to everything we've talked about, the new film, and where you can find film, everything, uh, where you can find film, where you can find film and Phil.

• 1:30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:57Tim Ferriss?

  And everything else, The Old Man and the Sea and so on, in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast. And you can also find every other episode. 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, it could include gizmos

• 1:31:37Tim Ferriss?

  and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've 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 Headspace, the world's most popular meditation app. I have it on my phone. I use it all the time when I'm in Ubers, when I'm in airplanes, when I'm in those in-between

• 1:32:21Tim Ferriss?

  spaces and I want to do some good for myself. Across all of the guests that I've had on this podcast, more than 80% have the common behavior, the common habit of some type of meditative practice. It does not have to be complicated or expensive. Headspace is meditation made simple. I've used it for hundreds of sessions myself. It provides guided meditations that you can use whenever you want, wherever you want, whether on your phone, computer, or tablet. They have sessions that focus on everything from decreasing stress and anxiety to eating healthier, sleeping better, and even being more creative. But I suggest you keep it simple, simple, simple. This has had a huge impact on my life. Try their Take 10 program. It is fantastic.

• 1:33:05Tim Ferriss?

  10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It costs you nothing. Try it out and I promise, and I don't do this very much, that you will see a significant benefit from it. Download the Headspace app and train your mind for a happier, healthier life. Learn more at headspace.com/tim. That's headspace.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by MeUndies, which I'm wearing right now. I've spent the last year or so wearing underwear from these guys nearly 24/7, except when I'm having fancy time, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I have ever owned. If you can imagine really awesome graffiti that you've seen in cities like LA or elsewhere,

• 1:33:48Tim Ferriss?

  then turn it into a print and put onto underwear, you get the idea. There's also some weird stuff like Halloween-themed camo, which I have for myself. MeUndies, designed in LA and made from sustainably sourced micro modal. Why is this important? It's three times softer than cotton and you feel that difference on your loins. Ladies and gentlemen, they feel great. And if you don't love your first pair of MeUndies, they'll hook you up with a new pair or a refund. What kind of person sends in used underwear back to someone? I don't know. That makes you a strange person. Maybe you should sell them in Japan or something. But if you love the product, and they make great gifts also. And for those people wondering, Igo boxer briefs. If you love it, they have a subscription offer where you can save up to 33% after your first pair.

• 1:34:32Tim Ferriss?

  So check it out, meundies.com/tim. You can see some of my favorite underwear. And also plenty for the ladies. That's meundies.com/tim.