Ep 20: Dan Carlin - Hardcore History, Building Podcasts, Creativity, and More

Dan Carlin is the host of my favorite podcast, Hardcore History. But... what?! History?! I know. I thought the same thing. How could a history podcast have a cult following? And yet it did. During research for launching The Tim Ferriss Show, I asked many of the top dogs on the iTunes charts: what is your favorite podcast? Almost without exception, the answer came back: Hardcore History. Since then, I've become friends with Dan (and more obsessed with his show), and this episode explores all the questions I've been dying to ask him, whether related to his early experiments, his "radio" voice, creativity, building podcasts, and much more. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed doing it. Best, Tim

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

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show. Thank you for tuning in. I'm going to start with a quote. This one is from Steve Jobs. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." Good advice. The second thing I'm going to give you to start off is a probably useless way to remember how large Mount Fuji is, and that's 12,365 feet in terms of altitude. And the way you remember that is 12 months in a year, 365 days in a year. So you're welcome. This episode features Dan Carlin. Dan Carlin is hugely impressive to me, which is obvious when you listen to my initial

• 0:40Tim Ferriss?

  ramblings, and I am clearly nervous and I stumble over a bunch of words, which is hilarious. So I hope you enjoy that awkwardness. Dan has done many things in his life. He's been on radio, he's been on television, but the way I came to know him was through Hardcore History, which is an incredible podcast, and you should put aside for the moment any reservations or doubts you have about a podcast based on history. Of course, this podcast, Tim Ferriss Show, is about deconstructing excellence. And if you listen to one episode of Hardcore History, you will realize how absolutely stupendous and amazing Dan Carlin is. So we get into, among other things, his early beginnings,

• 1:23Tim Ferriss?

  stumbling in the beginning, first versions of the podcast, how he grew into it as a full-time profession, his influences, his habits, his rituals, the things that he would do differently, the things that he would tell himself when he was 20 years old, and on and on and on. The point being to pull out tactics, routines, tools that you can use, not only in podcasting, but well outside of podcasting. These people who are good in a particular arena tend to have a lot in common with people who are the best in other arenas. As always, this podcast is supported by you guys. So if you do like this podcast, please visit fourhourworkweek.com/books. That is the home of the Tim Ferriss Book Club,

• 2:07Tim Ferriss?

  where I list a handful of books that have had a huge impact on my life, my career, and I guarantee you'll be extremely impressed and happy with them. It's not too many, and they'll link through to Amazon where you can take a look at these various books and audiobooks. So it's fourhourworkweek.com/books. Without further ado, hope you enjoy the podcast, and thanks for listening.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would be an appropriate time.

• 2:40Speaker 02

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

• 2:51Tim Ferriss?

  Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, ladies and gentlemen, and I have a treat for you. We have Dan Carlin on the phone. And Dan, I have to tell you, I have had some fantastic folks on this podcast so far, and I've met a lot of people in my life, and I have been so nervous about this particular conversation for weeks now. And the part of the reason is, there are very few podcasts that I actually listen to on a regular basis. And I'm hoping that by the end of this conversation, everyone who listens to this will, at the very least, listen to one full episode of Hardcore History. And this is somewhat akin, given that I'm a novice in the podcasting arena, to me getting

• 3:34Tim Ferriss?

  in front of a crowd of tens or hundreds of thousands of people and trying to, say, have a pass with a famous NFL quarterback, or do a foul shot competition with a top NBA player, or something like that. I've been so impressed by the quality of your podcast, and we've talked about this before, recognizing the amount of time and energy that you put into each one of these. And we'll jump into things in a second, but just as context, I had asked a number of My very close friends who are involved with audio production and podcasts as well as video, what their favorite podcasts were and almost without exception Hardcore History was listed in the top three for every single person. And of course, the first question I

• 4:19Tim Ferriss?

  asked myself was, how could a history podcast be one of the most popular podcasts out there? And I remember downloading the very first episode that I heard of Hardcore History, which was The Prophets of Doom. And I looked at the length, and I think it's well over four hours if I'm not mistaken. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm going to download this. I'm going to just get a taste for it for the first five to 10 minutes to see if I can learn anything about the style. And then that's going to be it. And I have digested now dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of your content. So first and foremost, thank you for putting so much effort into each of these episodes.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  I don't always know how to react to such nice things that people say. I mean, it's a fantastic compliment. And I always tell people that I would love everyone in their lives to get that feeling of that something you did was so well received by people. It's I feel very fortunate and a little like I stumbled into this and like you can't even really take credit for it. You just kind of fall into something that after you fall into it seems like where you should have been all along. So I feel like a really lucky guy to have stumbled into something that seems to be so well received. I appreciate that. And yeah, four hours. I mean, if you had told me when we started doing Hardcore History that I was going to be doing four hour shows, I think I would

• 5:42Speaker 03

  have canceled right then and there. So not only do you not want to listen to it, I didn't want to do.

• 5:47Tim Ferriss?

  So that's actually where I was hoping to start naturally at the beginning and give people a little bit of background on how Hardcore History came to be. Because I remember you mentioned in a previous conversation that it started off very, very differently. So I'm curious to know how it came to be and what your expectations were at the time, because certainly it's become an entity unto itself and it's turned into something very, very big. But how did it's how did it come together and how did it start off?

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Well, maybe other podcasters listening to you will be able to relate to this. I've started a lot of shows in my life, and a lot of them were radio shows and whatnot. And the one thing you learn when you start these shows is that all you can do is come up with a concept and then try to take that concept where you think it should go initially. And then, once you do that, whatever you create is going to evolve. And some of that evolution is in your control and some of it isn't in your control. I always say, find your favorite TV series. Take something like Seinfeld, for example, and then go look at the first five episodes. And you'll notice that it's not really Seinfeld yet. They haven't figured, it hasn't evolved into what really works and they haven't find, but then eventually it finds its stride.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  And so, when you listen to our early episodes, they don't sound a lot like what we're doing now either. And, and, I mean, length is a perfect example. There was a time where we were really scared of approaching an hour-long program. And we used, I remember one time, it was with our Apache Tears episode, the ones we did on the Apaches. And we were approaching an hour and then I got a finished product. It was like one hour and 15 minutes. And I said, "We're canceling this show. We have to, we have to dial it back. We cannot do over an hour because no one will listen." And so, I think the fact that the audience had proven receptive gave us a feeling that there was some freedom here to go a little farther and then a little farther. And I'm shocked that everybody can listen to it that long.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  Editing it for us, we dread hearing it over and over and over again. So, so, so I'm really not on the same wavelength with a lot of the listeners.

• 7:54Tim Ferriss?

  Well, speaking as someone who's written a 420-page book, then a 592-page book, and then a 670-some-page book.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, those are nightmares. It's the same thing, nightmares.

• 8:07Tim Ferriss?

  It really does take on a life of its own. And I'm really glad you brought up the Seinfeld example because I remember... Looking at, say, some of the, the current versions of podcasts when I, when I was considering doing my own, looking at some of your newer episodes, looking at some of the more polished Joe Rogan episodes, which are also monsters, looking at many different types, and then someone recommended that I go back and look at, say, the first one or two episodes that Joe did on video, and they're hilariously amateur. I mean, really, really hilarious. And if I hadn't done that, I think I would have been too intimidated to get started,

• 8:49Tim Ferriss?

  because I would have falsely assumed that the polished format that you've arrived at is where you started, and that that reflects an intrinsic ability that I entirely lack, which could also still be true. But what I'd, I'd love to know is, with Hardcore History in particular, and we'll talk about the podcast, I also want to talk about history, but were there any particular tipping points that, that helped you start to form it into what it is now? And I'm sure it's still evolving, but were there any particular tipping points, whether it was in popularity, specific episodes, aha moments, that come to mind for you, content or format-wise?

• 9:29Speaker 03

  I think we had ideas when we started it of things we wanted to do, and then a couple of shows into it, you could start to sense that these were elements that you should have in every single episode. So, for example, somewhere along the line, I'd always had these, these sort of Twilight Zone kind of ideas about history. And when we could start to, to say, okay, every episode really is successful if it has some of those, some of the drama, some of the narrative, some of, so you start to, to figure out what the ingredients in your creation are. And, and once that's the case, then you can start to say, it's not so much a formula as a checklist, and say, okay, every good episode that we

• 10:10Speaker 03

  do should have A, B, C, D, and E. And I'm not sure when you start that you're totally aware of that. You're still playing around with the ingredients and the mix, and, and we still do that. I mean, each episode's gonna sound different because we wanna put extra cumin. In this one and less hot sauce in that one. But but at the same time, you don't really know what what's working in the first few episodes. And so somewhere somewhere around like um, we did one called Step Stories early on, which is sort of a loose look at all the different people and the culture and history of the of the giant flat area, you know, that starts in Eastern Europe and goes almost all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And we did a show like that, and it was the first time I think we had hit the sweet spot with all those elements.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  And when you heard it, you just said, OK, that that's significantly better than anything else we've done. And that's when you sit there and go, OK, well, we we figured out how to do this, kind of. And we're going to start to not mass produce it, but we're going to make sure that we do a better job in every later episode that incorporates all these things that we think start have started to blend well.

• 11:12Tim Ferriss?

  I am currently listening, or I should say, re-listening to The Wrath of the Kons, which is a a audiobook or three worth of content in and of itself. And it seems like, having polled my 500,000 or so people on Twitter, that that is one of the most popular series, so to speak. And I'm curious to know if there are any episodes that you thought were going to be a huge hit that were not, or if there are any episodes that were completely out of left field, a huge a huge home run.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Well, it's nice to hear you say that, because I think I left a little bit of my sanity with that Wrath of the Kons series. And and the truth is, is that the longer multi-part series, where we take on some big issue that takes four or six episodes, hours long each, and you have an audiobook at the end to do, are so challenging, because you have all these loose threads that develop while you're doing the story. And then by the time you hit the middle of the series, you have to start tying those threads together. And it becomes, you know, I'm in one of these things now. We're talking about the First World War, and we're in episode four. And all of a sudden, the whole thing is unraveling in front of my face. And it it does it does challenge your sanity a bit. I'm always surprised when the shows are well received.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  So I don't have anywhere I was going, oh, this is going to be a home run. I'm always sure I screwed up one way or the other. So it's never, never happens that I'm sure it's a hit. Oftentimes I release something and I just brace myself for what I'm sure is going to be this negative response. Prophets of Doom that you liked. I did a thing at the end where I said,

• 12:48Tim Ferriss?

  I heard it.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like a disclaimer saying, this didn't come out the way I wanted and people liked it anyway. So that's usually what happens. I'm a little bit more of a perfectionist. I, I was reading a book the other day on the Rolling Stones and they have this picture in it of their guitarist Keith Richards just hanging over this audio board. And you can see he's been up for like days and they're, and they're on like the 100th take of this song. And this album is overdue and the whole, and I thought to myself, it's not all that different than what we're doing here. And so, so I'm always sure that this next show we're going to release is going to destroy our brand forever. And that I'm never going to live up to the hype and that, that I'm, the sanity has been left in the studio somewhere. Prophets of Doom is a perfect example.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  The Apache Tears show where we, I think it was the first one, either we were near or over an hour. I was sure people were going to freak out about that. So pretty much every episode I release, I'm sure that's the end. We screwed it up.

• 13:45Tim Ferriss?

  And you mentioned the aspect of tying loose ends together. And this is something I feel very familiar with, just having put together books with multiple storylines and dozens of different components. However, with the printed word, I have the luxury of being able to go back, copy and paste, cut out sections, translate them to other areas. But with audio, after you've recorded, say, two, three episodes, you really have to work with, I would imagine on some level, what you've already done. So I'd love to hear how on earth you prepare for these things, what the process currently looks like. Because when I listen to the prophets of doom, and at the end, like you said, the disclaimer came out

• 14:28Tim Ferriss?

  where you say that it didn't really turn out the way you expected it to or wanted it to. And that you'd, you'd actually recorded, and I have to just hear it from the horse's mouth here, I recorded. A complete version of that episode that you then scrapped, I just couldn't fathom taking the time to record that and then scrap it and start over. I mean, it just blew my mind. So could you talk a little bit about the process? How do you research? How do you choose topics when you're going after an episode like this? Because it sounds very masterfully delivered. So one of the thoughts that occurred to me, for instance, was how often do you stop? Like, how long does it take, in other words? And so on and so forth. So I'd love for you to just discuss, if you would be open to it, to kind of start to

• 15:12Tim Ferriss?

  finish what the process looks like for putting one of these shows together.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Well, let me back up, because you talked about doing a book, and there are similarities when you do these really long podcasts, especially these series. We have a name for it in-house. I call it the Blue Room. And the Blue Room is when you've heard the piece so often, and this happens with reading, too. So I'm sure you have the same problem with books, where you've now seen it so often that you lose the ability to absorb it the way a new listener would, or a new reader would.

• 15:43Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  And it destroys your ability to judge what you have. So I mean, it's the only time I get jealous of like, the TV networks and stuff, where they're able to bring in test audiences, and show them something that they put together and just say, okay, so what's your reaction to this? Because they have the same problem, we do, right? They get the Blue Room, but they have the chance to expose a few people to it and say, okay, is this good? We've lost all sense of direction on this. Now, the bad part of that is then you can, then the audience can start driving it. You don't want that either, from a creative sense. But when we hit where we are in this show now, I haven't the slightest idea if it even makes sense anymore. Or like, you'll hear something, and you'll go, this sounds remarkably similar to something I think I said seven hours ago in part two. And so

• 16:28Speaker 03

  you, and like you said, at least it's easier to do that in the written sense, but the same problem exists. So when you say, how do you do these things? The reason it gets complicated where we are now, is that I have to write some of that stuff down and say, no, you talked about this already. Don't talk about this again.

• 16:46Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  As opposed to saying what I'm gonna do. And it's part of keeping the, you know, don't cross the streams like they said in Ghostbusters. It's trying not to cross tangents and streams. And, and, and the only part that's a saving grace in the episode we're doing now is in the First World War, things are repetitive and it's actually a part of the story. That's how people at the time felt like, oh my God, we're still going through the same. It's the same movie over and over again. So if I make the listeners feel that way in the show, I can, the cop out is going to be able to say, and I'm going to say it, well, now you feel just like the people in the story. So if I sound repetitive, we were after that. So, so if you ask how I do it, I, I really do, I pick subjects that I already know about. And then I begin the research from there.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Cause I always tell people, someone will say, can you please talk about the history of Southeast India? Or something and I'll say, you don't want me to talk about that. I don't know anything about that. And you can't educate yourself to a reasonable standard in the short period of time we have. I have, it's enough for me to pick a subject I know a lot about. I know a lot about the First World War and I've read 50 books since we started this thing. On top of that, what's amazing to me is how much has changed since I thought I learned about these things. Maybe, maybe the 1980s, I, I, I was really into that subject for a few years. And you go back and you think, well, there can't be that much more about this 100 year old subject. Since then, you couldn't be more wrong, right?

• 18:12Speaker 03

  There's books and revisions and new points of view and it's, it's insane. So I pick these topics I already have a good foundation for. And I've thrown away, by the way, you talked about throwing away shows. I threw away a show on the Greeks and the ancient Persians. I think I threw away one of the Apache shows. So I've done this before, but I pick a, a, something I know a bunch about. And I, I think about it. And this is the thing that listeners never give me any time for, because basically I'm behind schedule when I start. And the listeners are always wondering what I'm doing, but you actually have to sit down a little bit and think. And, and just, and just sit in the shower and just go, what's weird about this story? And what turns me, you know, and that's where you come up with these weird sort of things.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  And, and those things are the pillars we sort of build. The show around, I always say it's a little like, our style is jazz like, or Led Zeppelin used to have a line for how they constructed their work. They said, they said our format is tight but loose. And that, and that's kind of how ours is where, where there are these mileposts that I set that I want to get to. But within those mileposts, I have all this room to sort of, you know, go off on a, yeah, guitar solo for a long period of time. Or like tangents, if you can't stand tangents, you can't listen to my stuff. Cause that's, I mean, it's like, the tangents are maybe the pillar of the show. We just go off on all these avenues. You couldn't structure it if you tried to write it out that way. It wouldn't work.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  But I think it does come across perhaps as disjointed sometimes, or maybe this solo has gone on too long and we need to get back to the format or whatever. But I do, I go into the studio with kind of a concept and an approach I want to try to, to, to make work. And it doesn't always work out. And I'll go in there and usually I'm, you know, coffee used to work so much better for me in the old days. But, but I'll have a bunch of cups of coffee. I'll get in there and I'll just start talking about it. And usually it's pretty good for a while and then it breaks down at some point and that's where I'll stop. And then I'll, I'll pick up from just before it broke down the session before. And we'll try to string something together. Now sometimes I'll go and listen, I'll go,

• 20:19Speaker 03

  oh wow, we really left this part out. Or, oh, that's, there's a mistake in there we have to fix. And so there's going back and pulling the Rolling Stones in the, in the studio, obsessing over take 99 of, you know, one of their songs. And we, we do some of that now too. And we do a lot more than we used to. Because when you're doing four and five hour episodes, you can't keep it straight. So we're constantly re-listening to the stuff. And it's become a lot more structured than it used to be. I used to be able to walk in there and say, if we get lucky, I'll walk out of the studio with a whole hardcore history show for you. That doesn't happen anymore. Um, so you sort of run out of gas, I guess is what I'm saying.

• 20:59Tim Ferriss?

  And when you're planning, let's just say, a single episode, not a series, but a single episode that could be two to four hours in length, how much of what I hear as a listener is scripted out, is written out in long form? What do your prompts look like, or your props, so to speak? Because I'm thinking about how I prepare for, say, a keynote presentation, a 60-minute keynote presentation. There are cases where I'll have portions that are verbatim, that I'll memorize, just for delivery's sake, say, at the beginning and the very end. Then there are, in some cases, bullet points that I use to break, say, a section into three parts, so that it's easier to rehearse, as well as nail repeatedly. But I've been mystified trying to figure out, because I'm just purely guessing, what you

• 21:44Tim Ferriss?

  have in front of you when you're recording? And, sort of, generally speaking, how often you take breaks? For instance, say, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes? What does that look like, these days, when you're doing a single episode as opposed to a series?

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Well, I hope you can tell that there is no script, because there is no script. And we hope that that's why it sounds natural, like it does.

• 22:06Tim Ferriss?

  Well, the only reason that I ask is because it sounds so polished, without the ums and ahs that I'm accustomed to hearing from almost everyone that I've ever heard in long-form conversation, that it just seemed like a superpower to not have a script, I guess.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Well, let's understand that there's definitely editing going on there. I mean, I'm sure that we've taken out some ums and things like that before. But, I mean, you know, I did radio for a dozen years before I did podcasts, and I did television before then, and ums are a pretty basic thing you work on. It doesn't mean we're um-free, it just means that I'm less likely to pull an um than I might have been. And I always said, you know, we kind of had an advantage when we got into podcasting. Well, first of all, we got in so early, it was a little like the Oklahoma land rush. It was nice to get in there so early and sort of claim your little zone. But also, I wasn't learning how... To do proper mic technique, you know?

• 23:07Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  I think I was, I was starting at a little bit of an advantage. And so the ums fall into that category a little bit.

• 23:14Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  In terms of, um, I mean, we do write down, for example, if I've got a twisty idea that I want to make sure to include, I might write down the twisty idea and then post that up on the cork board to remind myself that in this 20-minute segment today, you want to hit that idea. I also find, you know, what you call primary source accounts. So somebody's in the first world war and there's, they talk about what it's like in the trenches and I'll know that I have that piece. And so I'll have a note that says, okay, page 246 of this book, you know, and I'll have marked that guy's quote. And so I'll know I have that.

• 23:49Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  And, and, but I don't know exactly when I'm going to get to it. I just know that's, that somewhere in today's session, you're probably going to run into the point where it's logical to put that primary source quote in.

• 24:00Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  So that, that's how I organize it. Otherwise, it's, it's a free-form sort of improvisational talk.

• 24:08Tim Ferriss?

  God, it's amazing. I, I want to give people a couple of different options for places to start with hardcore history because it really, I'm seldom as impressed as I have been with the entire show, but...

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Stop it, dude.

• 24:20Tim Ferriss?

  No, I know, I know.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Stop it.

• 24:21Tim Ferriss?

  I know, I'm making things awkward.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  It's nice of you, I appreciate that. Everybody, a lot of good people out there.

• 24:25Tim Ferriss?

  There, there are a lot of good people out there, but I've sort of gotten stuck on hardcore history, so I feel like I need to satisfy that fix first. But one thing I think that you do very, very well, and I, I'd like to ask you how much of this was learned over time. And also, I'll get to the second part, but you do a very good job of pulling listeners into the episodes. And the, the example that jumps to mind is you might have a description, say, in the case of Wrath of the Khans, of some of the historical context, some of the, the various cultures and steppe communities in different areas. And then you'll say, you know, imagine if you will... That you have an entire army comprised of circus trick archers.

• 25:08Tim Ferriss?

  And then not only do they have bows, but the bows are 130 pound pole, which happens to mean more to me these days because I've been playing around with archery. And I know how hard it is, at least for me, to repeatedly pull, say, a 55 or 60 pound bow. So the fact that they could unleash, you know, 60 arrows a minute or whatever it was. But you pull people in with the, you know, imagine if you were and then doing hypotheticals with, of course, the Martians and so on. The verbal delivery that you have, which is very polished. And of course, you've done a lot of radio and a lot of television. But if someone feels self-conscious about their own vocal delivery and they want to podcast, maybe I'm projecting here, but how would you suggest that people work on that skill

• 25:51Tim Ferriss?

  and try to refine their delivery to get a little closer to what I would consider very, very professional in your case?

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Well, I appreciate you saying that because I came up in radio at a time, the tail end of what maybe you could call the big voice era, where radio was still, this won't mean anything to all of the young listeners, but like a Gary Owens deep, you know, classical, almost stereotypical, old fashioned broadcaster style with the deep pipes are the way the guys used to describe their voices. And when I came up, I remember the boss at the radio station where I worked. I mean, at one time he actually suggested I have like adenoid surgery or something to maybe get that deep voice that was the classic that they were looking for. And I not only didn't have that, I didn't want that. I just wanted to talk the way I talk.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  And then somewhere while I was doing that, that whole deep voice thing went out of fashion and everybody was more looking for a unique, you were looking for your own voice, right? A unique voice that sounded like no one else. And luckily, just having your own voice, as long as it didn't grate like nails on a blackboard, which some people said mine did. So it's an acquired taste maybe, but having your own voice became the real preferred. And all of a sudden, everybody's saying, gosh, it's so great you have your own voice. And all I'm thinking about is all those years that that was the one thing everybody didn't want me to have. So when you say to a listener, how do you get more polished and broadcaster like? There's a process you're gonna go through if you start podcasting or whatever,

• 27:23Speaker 03

  where you figure out what your voice is, and it shouldn't be something fake. It should be your voice, but maybe you take it down a range, maybe. Because we've all got a vocal range, right? From the highest you speak to the lowest you speak. There may be a sweet spot in there, and it might not be the way you always talk, or you might wanna talk in that tone more. I think personally that there is no perfect voice. And I think that as long as you like it and you sound the way you wanna sound, that that's especially in this world. I mean, what I love about the podcasts and the internet is that there's so many potential people out there listening that if you just be yourself, you're going to attract listeners who like that.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  And then you never have to fool around with trying to be someone else to please your audience, because the people you've attracted are there because they like you already, right? I don't think you should try to develop some style other than just polish your own style. The ums are a perfect example, but listen, I bet if you wanted to, you could weave that into your style where that's almost your thing, right? I mean, we talk around here a lot about turning negatives into positives, or lemons into lemonade, or creatively taking a weak spot and making it a strong spot. I always was heavily in the red, as they say, when I was on the radio, where I yelled so loud, and I still do, that the meter just jumps up into the red, and they would say, "You need to speak in this one zone of loudness,

• 28:52Speaker 03

  or you'll screw up the radio station's compression." Well, after a while, I just started writing liners for the big voice guy to, you know, "Here's Dan Carlin, he talks so loud," or whatever. And I just said, "This is who, that's my style, I meant to do that." And as a matter of fact, if you do it, you're imitating me. So it's partly taking what you already do and saying, "No, no, no, this isn't a negative. This is the thing I bring to the table, buddy."

• 29:18Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  "I copyrighted that. I talk real loud, and then I talk really quietly. And if you have a problem with that, well, you don't understand what a good style is, Tim."

• 29:29Tim Ferriss?

  I like that. I will, I will, I think I shall capitalize on that.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  Copyright your faults, man.

• 29:35Tim Ferriss?

  It reminded me of actually an experience that I had with writing The Four Hour Work Week. It was my first book. I was very nervous about it. And when I first started, and I'm not sure how many people know this, I wrote the first four or five chapters and I ended throwing them all out because I was writing in this very pompous sort of Ivy League style that I thought sounded very smart. It came off stilted and it was very unattractive. So I tossed it. And then I tried to write in an amusing fashion. I thought I needed to be funny. So I was like, all right, I'll be funny. I should stop being so serious. And it came across very slapstick Three Stooges. So yet again, I had to take these four or five chapters that I'd spent weeks on and throw them out and ultimately found

• 30:19Tim Ferriss?

  my own voice, which was really just discovering something that was latent and that people felt in conversation by having two glasses of wine and starting to write as if it were an email to two specific friends. And that is when I finally found the proper balance, which was intrinsically how I spoke to my close friends about serious subjects after a couple of glasses of wine. Was there a point, and also brings to mind, there's a friend of mine named Gary Vaynerchuk, who became well-known after doing something called Wine Library TV. And if you look at the very first, say, 10 episodes, especially the first few, he's really subdued. And you learn later, of course, he's sort of grown into himself

• 31:03Tim Ferriss?

  and he has a very bombastic style, but that's who Gary is. But it took him a long time to get there. And were there any sort of points for you, aside from embracing this extremely flexible vocal range that you talked about, where you kind of got comfortable in your own shoes and were able to not, no longer conform to other expectations people had of what a good, say, radio host was or podcaster?

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Well, if you go listen to even my earlier podcast, the one thing you're gonna notice is I talked faster, I was louder, I was more aggressive and all, and people go and listen to it now and go, "God, when did you slow down?" Or, "I'm glad you slowed down," or something like that. And I always say, "But it wasn't intentional. I just got older and the coffee doesn't work as well." And yet, and yet, it slowed me down to a level that more people are comfortable with than the way I used to be. But it wasn't intentional. I mean, I would have been perfectly happy attracting whatever audience liked that style more. But I think there's a natural aging. And I mean, I think you hear it with singers or anyone else,

• 32:11Speaker 03

  where the style doesn't change because the singer doesn't like singing the way that they used to sing. They just, their voice is different and their energy is different. And luckily for me, me getting older and slower and mellower is easier on more listeners, I guess, than the style I had when I was younger. And I'll tell you what I miss. As I get older, you know, I've gotten to the age now where sometimes I'll reach for some fact or something that's in my memory banks, and it takes longer to get than it used to. In the old days, I was so fast. And it wasn't just vocally, it was indicative of how fast my brain was working and my mouth was trying to keep up with my brain.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  And now my brain has slowed down. And so, and so I feel like an athlete who's past their prime, right? Who's saying, "I used to be able to run a 4340, man, and now I can't do it anymore." But the people like it slower. So in a funny way, I've aged to a point where more people are comfortable listening to my middle-aged style than they were listening to me when, when they used to call me "The Angry Young Wolf," back on, if you can believe that. Yeah, so.

• 33:17Tim Ferriss?

  Could be worse, could be worse. That's, that's.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  That was one of the better nicknames. It's a lot worse than that. It's a lot worse than that, dude.

• 33:24Tim Ferriss?

  So who are some of your favorite podcasters or radio personalities or people on audio? I guess what I'd love to know are people who've inspired you or people you admire in the audio medium, as it were. They could be living, dead, current.

• 33:40Tim Ferriss?

  Up and coming, really doesn't matter, but I'd be curious to know who you have looked up to or admire in that world.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Well, I appreciate you saying living, dead, long, because here's the dirty little secret of my life, and it's very hard to explain to people. I do not consume much media anymore that is not text-based. So people will say, have you seen this show? Or have you seen this movie? Or have you listened to this podcast? And I can almost say with 100% certainty, no. And it's gonna get me into trouble. I tell other people, I'm gonna rip off some well-known movie or TV show theme or something someday without knowing that I've ripped it off. You know, I almost did once, I did this thing once where I had this great comparison for this one episode we did, and somebody who listened to it before I released it, thank goodness, had to tell me that I was just giving the listeners the plot of Avatar, which

• 34:29Speaker 03

  was, which was the big movie out then that I hadn't seen. And I thought, that's a great way to stumble into a copyright infringement, or look like you're ripping somebody off. So I haven't really consumed media in a long time, and it's not on purpose. I just, I'm not in a place in my life where I have that kind of time right now. But of course, we were all influenced by people. I had, in the same way you were talking about how much you're, you know, you like interviewing me. Well, I like interviewing people, and I like to interview James Burke. And we did in the show, the guy was the famous host of the Connection series.

• 35:00Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  The day the universe changed, you know, Irish guy. And as someone with Irish genes myself, I admired Burke from a long time ago, and the way his wonderful mind thought, and the way he would, he would string ideas together. And so for me, you know, Gwyn Dyer, we had Gwyn Dyer on the program, a Canadian journalist who did a wonderful series when I was growing up on war, that got me where I live somewhere deeply. You know, I was an old, when I was a TV reporter, I was on a CBS affiliate. And at CBS, the, the soul of Edward R. Murrow sort of runs deep. And so those of us who were serious about reporting, which was not all of us, took a real, I mean, that was a really important thing for people,

• 35:43Speaker 03

  especially of a tradition, history-minded kind of thing, to look up to and to shoot for. I mean, you know, sometimes you aspire to be things that You know, you can never quite achieve, but the attempt to reach those heights, even if you fall short is a good goal to set. And so those are the kind of people that I look up to. And I think a lot of times when we're doing, especially the hardcore history podcast, you look at people like Orson Welles and people who were involved in audio when audio was the main medium. And say that those people did a lot of things that we could recreate again. When you talk about like a theater of the mind approach. Little known fact, we used to do theater of the mind stuff on the older history shows.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  And, and if you listen really carefully, we, it's crazy because we put this immense amount of effort. Hard to even describe how much effort, basically composing an audio score for these episodes. But we wanted to make it optional so that you didn't have to hear the score if you didn't want to. So we made, so we, because we didn't know if it was a plus or a minus. And we thought it might be a plus to the people who liked it, but a minus to the people who didn't. So we made it so quiet that you literally have to, have to sit in a room and put your headphones on and crank it up. And get into it, we have candles on or whatever the listeners do. And then you can enjoy it. But if you're in your car or on the bus or what, you won't hear it.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  And, and people loved that. It was all theater of the mind. And I, I, that's the way I loved it too. I mean, if I could do it anyway, again, I would throw the theater and the optional theater of the mind stuff back in it. But it was like doing an episode after you'd already finished an episode. I mean, we'd have to do the show and then score the show. And it just, at a certain point in order to free up, I mean, we already weren't getting shows out fast enough. We had to drop that. But if I could ever do it the way I want to again, I would go back to scoring the shows with sound effects and little hums and drones. And because we've got whole, I mean, you can go back and listen, a bunch of our shows have all these, it's not quite put on the Wizard of Oz at the same time we start the podcast and you'll follow along.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  But there's, we do a lot of fun stuff that I miss. I mean, in bubonic nukes, the one we did on the Black Plague. My favorite part of that whole episode is at the very end, we're talking. Talking about how you may think that this is a long time ago. But you know, it might not be as long as you think. And then we have the sound really quiet in the background of a laboratory beaker dropping. And then you hear a red alert alarm going off like, like you just, the CDC lost a flu virus or something. And so I used to love the potential of throwing in the Orson Welles Theater of the Mind type stuff. And so when I look back on, on the greats of the past, at this point, I'm almost looking back on them the way Led Zeppelin looked at

• 38:32Speaker 03

  bluesmen that they could rip off. I'm trying to find little techniques that can steal that they used to do. But, but yeah, so I mean, I wouldn't say that there are specific individuals as much as, oh, my gosh, that's a great show. Or that's a great idea. So I'm not listening to a great song. I'm listening to a great riff and going, oh, I love that little drum beat right in there. I could rip that off. Or, you know, so, so, so right now that, that's more influential to me than any particular broadcast. But yeah, I, I loved so much growing up, obviously.

• 39:01Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned text. I am a really avid reader, love books, always have. And it's clear that you do a ton of research for these shows. A couple of questions related to books. What is the book that you've given most as a gift to other people?

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness.

• 39:18Tim Ferriss?

  Or books.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  You know, I have to tell you the truth. I don't do that either. And people say to me all the time, can you recommend a book for A, B, or C? And I rarely do because I'm not reading general stuff a lot of times. I'm reading really weird sort of books that would like, like you get into this World War I stuffy that I'm into now. So then you're finding these weird little things that aren't going to mean anything to someone unless they've read some of the other books that I read before that. So my stuff is not real useful to people. I'm trying to think what, if anything, I gave to, and I'm a really horrible gift giver too, Tim. Thanks for exposing all of my weaknesses here publicly. That's what, that's why my wife is so fantastic at gift giving. She makes up for me. I'm gonna have to pass on that question.

• 40:02Tim Ferriss?

  No problem.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  I don't want the answer.

• 40:03Tim Ferriss?

  All right, no problem.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Bad gift giver, that's my answer.

• 40:06Tim Ferriss?

  Bad gift giver. Are there any, all right, let's take a different tack. Do you have any favorite documentaries or movies? I know you don't consume a lot of media these days, but what I'm trying to figure out is what, and maybe this is a separate question, but what made you so fascinated in history? And I know you've studied it before, but for a lot of people, they take the viewpoint that, well, history's in the past. I don't feel like getting into esoteric aspects of old civilizations when I should be focusing on A, B, C, D, or E. Of course, there's a lot of practicality, I think, in studying quite a bit of history, which tends to repeat itself. But I'm trying to identify for someone who is not, aside from listening to the podcast, of course,

• 40:49Tim Ferriss?

  which I think is the easiest answer, to get someone hooked on history, even indirectly, are there any documentaries, movies, books, anything that come to mind?

• 40:59Speaker 03

  That's a bunch of different questions.

• 41:01Tim Ferriss?

  It is. That was loaded.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Let me take them one at a time. Some of the movies that I enjoy watching, it's so perverse to bring them up because they're not good movies a lot of times. Like, for example, I tell my wife, if it has time travel in it, I'm likely to watch it, whether or not I have any interest in, I mean, that's what gets me. Forget about, oh, this is a great film. I have to, I'll give you a perfect example. There was a movie, I think they did it in late 1970s or maybe 1980, I think it came out, called The Final Countdown. And it's relatively horrible, as a movie goes. But it doesn't matter. The story is about what if a modern aircraft carrier went back to the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack? And so it's taking on Japanese zeros with modern airplanes?

• 41:48Speaker 03

  And forget it, the story can suck. Now I'm in, right? That's all I need. The acting can be terrible, I don't care, see? So that's a perfect example of a movie that would grab me just, okay, conceptually, I'm all in.

• 42:01Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  You don't even have to execute it. And listen, with our podcast, I mean, we kind of go there sometimes, too. Hopefully, these twists are enough to disguise the fact, maybe we didn't tie this other thought together so well, or I go off on too many tangents. The other point about, I mean, I think you're striving to try to find how the history bug got started in me, and I think we've been trying to figure that out in my family forever. My mother's concept is that I was somehow born with it. Because I was into it at such a, you know, I mean, you could give me history-related things at Christmas when I'm four, and I'm into it. And there's no explanation. I just think you have to suggest that a lot of us are hardwired to like this or that.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  And in my case, you know, I mean, some people you give a musical instrument to, and oh my God, they're four years old and they're playing like a teenager. For me, it was, it was stuff from the past, and I don't know. But I've been into it since I was very little, which is, it's so weird to me to be able to make a living doing something. That's what I mean, when we started this conversation, I said, you know, I've really been fortunate to fall into something that you almost seem to have been born to do. And I don't know how I got so lucky, but everybody should have this feeling, you know, to feel like, God, catching a football, just I've been doing it since I was two, it's the thing I do best in life, and somebody gave me a job catching a football. So, I mean, that's how I feel, that there's a little bit, you know, when you talk about

• 43:28Speaker 03

  being born to something, I guess what I do is storytelling, because that's what people tell me I do.

• 43:33Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  I think there's a storytelling gene, you know, and I think, I think it runs in families. I think the Irish people in my family could tell a hell of a story long before I was on this planet. And if you're lucky, you get some of that. And so I think there's a bunch of those elements that just work in our favor, and we're taking our strengths and running with them. And so when you talk about how you put a podcast together, one of the things I would suggest that people do is build it around what you do well, you know? And so, and so I feel like I'm just utilizing whatever talents I was born with, and it's working out, I mean, that I can do this instead of working on the assembly line is one of the great gifts in my life, you know?

• 44:15Tim Ferriss?

  It seems, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that Hardcore History at least has existed since 2006, is that right?

• 44:21Speaker 03

  You might know better than I do.

• 44:22Tim Ferriss?

  Something along those somewhere.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  I think the other podcast is 2005 and Hardcore History comes sometime after that.

• 44:28Tim Ferriss?

  Right, so you this, like you said, you've you've been in this game or in this medium for some time. When did it occur to you that you might be able to do this full time? When did that transition take place? And when was there a particular moment that stands out to you when you realized that?

• 44:45Speaker 03

  People have been telling me for a long time that we could do this, long before I thought we could do this. I had a guy hire me, a tech guy hire me back in 96 off the radio to do our show on the internet. And I looked at him like he was crazy because I did, because one, the internet wasn't that wasn't that old. And two, there wasn't, the mechanisms didn't exist. And he said, well, that's what my company will do. We'll invent the mechanisms to do this and you'll be like the test case, right? You'll show people, it never went anywhere. But ever since then, the discussion of how do we put Dan on the internet? Has been going on amongst people that I just had to trust, knew better than I did about that. And the implication always was that you would have more listeners.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Cause I was always, I always say I was, I was the messed up part of the radio station's day part. Whenever I was on, because I just was a Martian. I never fit, I mean, I'm apparently was good enough to stay employed, but I never fit with the rest of the programming. And so, so the attitude was that's what the internet's for. You'll be able to reach this mass of people that are above and beyond your normal talk radio show demographic. And that turned out to be true. But the implication was that if you had a bunch of listeners, you'd be an idiot not to be able to figure out one way or another, how to get, how to make money off of that. For me, what saved me was the listeners. They treated, I mean, I went to a bunch of people before we started asking for donations.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  We had done the show for years before we asked for any donations or any money or anything. And I went to a bunch of experts I trust in business and law and a bunch of other areas. And I solicited their advice and said, if we ask the listeners to donate to this. Will that work?

• 46:25Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  And every single one of them said, not a chance in hell. Really, really, really intelligent, smart people. And I, and I was dissuaded and I thought, oh my goodness, all these people are. And we thought, well, let's just do it anyway. What are you gonna lose? We're just asking the listeners if, if you, if you think what you heard was worth a dollar, give us the dollar. Save up till you have five and then give us five, whatever. And oh my gosh, that's changed our lives. And so when I talk about how fortunate I feel to be doing this, let's not forget who I owe for this. A bunch of people who didn't have to pay, we give them away for free. They didn't have to do this. I mean, it's like what Radiohead did when they put that song out on the internet instead of, instead of putting it on the radio

• 47:08Speaker 03

  or, or selling it as a CD and saying, just give us what you think it's worth. And it worked out better. Now, I don't know if this is sustainable, right? I don't know if this is a flash in the pan or whatever. But at the moment, what people have done is make possible professional amateur media. I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that's what we are. And, and so I owe a lot of people out there, listening to your show and mine and lots of other podcasts for giving me this blessing that I do. And I mean, I talk about it too much. I'm sure it gets old, but I wake up in the middle of the night and just say, thank you, you know? It's crazy to me.

• 47:46Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I'm going to tone down my over the top praise, but I mean, it's, it's very clear that you put a lot of effort, a ton of effort and prep into the episodes, which I think is part of the reason why people are so willing to donate. For instance, what has been the most popular episode to date? If you had to guess or popular episodes?

• 48:04Speaker 03

  They say in, in history, like if you're the History Channel, for example, that the subject that people get the most excited about is the Second World War. That's why I think they did it to death on the History Channel and stuff like that. Because it's almost something you have to screw up to not do well with. The only real time that we've touched that subject dead on. Is when we talked about in a multi-part series, the eastern front in the Second World War. So basically, the war between the Germans and the Soviet Union, although there were a lot of other people involved. Most Americans, and I didn't realize this actually, don't know much about that because they hear so much about the stuff that our side was involved with.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  That to them is a part of the war that that essentially gave us the advantage of taking that subject that's gold, right? Second World War, it's history gold. And yet, a part of it that people weren't aware of. So it's like finding new World War II stuff.

• 48:58Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  I mean, if you're on the History Channel, you go, guess what? All this World War II stuff you haven't explored yet. I mean, oh my, it's like finding gold. And so we we told this story and people love it.

• 49:08Tim Ferriss?

  This is the ghost of the Ostfront.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Ghost of the Ostfront. Yeah, Ostfront is the German word for eastern front. You know, if you took, and I think we said this in the show, I can't remember what we said yesterday, much as what we said then. But if you take just the eastern front of the Second World War and isolate that as its own war, it by itself is the biggest war in human history, all by itself. And so I think the stories that come out of that and the horrificness and the feeling of the people who must have been trapped, you know, in that dynamic are such that people listen to it and I think can really relate. And and again, having having a new World War II subject, especially one that's so big. I mean, when you hear that, you really understand that the war was probably won or lost on the eastern front.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  And so I I think it had all the elements right there to be a really popular episode, if I don't screw it up, right?

• 49:57Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, it doesn't seem like you did. The what what episode did you have? I I know how stressful it must be.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  It is. I want to, people don't understand it. It's become a lot more stressful than it used to be. All all good stuff. I'm glad to be doing it, but but we're stressed right now, for example.

• 50:16Tim Ferriss?

  So what, whether it's with stress or without, which, which episode or episodes did you have the most fun personally recording, whether it's researching or recording?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Oh, I could cheat on this answer though, because we did three interview shows before the audience informed me that they get hugely let down when they finally see a hardcore history show, you know, after waiting forever for a new one, and instead of being what they expect, they get an interview show. But I like, the interviews are fun because you can do them in real time. I mean, you basically take an hour, talk to someone you admire for an hour, and then you have a show. Oh, my gosh. You know, I'm on three months now, working on the latest hardcore history show. So I love that, and I get to talk to, to people that I admire like James Burke. But in terms of the other shows, I won't lie to you, none of them were easy, and they get harder. And, and I don't know why I keep

• 51:10Speaker 03

  doing that to myself. My wife was saying, why don't you just pick a nice, small, easy topic and do that? And I don't know why, because there's something about feeling like I'm pushing myself. I mean, if I have some creative brain cells, I am using every single one of them. I will not be able to say, as I'm laying on my deathbed somewhere, that I didn't push myself to the limit. And on these shows, we'll go from that Mongol series, which, like I said, I think I left some of my sanity in the studio, and decide to do the First World War after that. What sort of masochist does that, Tim?

• 51:48Tim Ferriss?

  I think, yeah, I think we're cut from the same cloth.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Who's, who's doing the thinking in this company? But, but, but, so the answer is, is just when I think I'm gonna have some fun with one of these things, I decide to take on something that, listen, there's no question, by the time it's done, it's very satisfying to say, hey, people liked that. We did a lot of good, hard work, and it paid off. But while you're in the midst of it, and first of all, I'm not sure it isn't gonna crumble like an airplane crash, you know? I don't know that, that we're gonna get to show five, and the whole thing's just gonna fall apart. So it's nice when it's over to know that it worked out, but I'm always feeling like, like, I'm not having a ton of fun while I'm doing it. But I, but, but I am. It's like working on some big account, if you're an account executive. And, and you're so happy

• 52:34Speaker 03

  when it's over, and you go and you toast the, the team you worked with and all that at the end. It's very satisfying. But while you're in the midst of it, There's a lot of stress and pressure and deadlines and all that, but listen, that's life, right? I mean, nothing's like, you always have that.

• 52:46Tim Ferriss?

  No, it's, uh, it makes me think of my experience with publishing where after each book, I tell myself, you know, the next book's going to be a short book. I always say that. The next book's going to be a really short book, gonna take it easy.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  Crank it out fast.

• 53:00Tim Ferriss?

  Crank it out fast, it'll be nice and bite sized. And then of course, after I have some type of series of nervous breakdowns every year and a half or three years, someone asks me, well, or they imply, you know, I assume the books must get easier. After you do the first book, the second must be much easier than the third, must be just rote by that point. I say, no, because I take everything that I've learned that, that should and could make it easier. And then I just double what I want to do or triple what I want to do based on that new efficiency. So I end up doing just as much, if not more.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  No, it sounds exactly the same, exactly the same. And, and, and you know, listen, from a creative standpoint, you shouldn't want to have it any other way, right? If you're the Rolling Stones and you're Keith Richards in that, in that studio on the 100th take, you want to be working that hard because you want to, I mean, you know, there's an old line that, that when you reach the top, the only way to go is down, right? And so, so when we hear that we just did an episode, that people say, well, that's the best episode you ever did, we instantly think to ourselves, well, you don't want to do anything worse than that. That becomes the new minimum standard, right?

• 54:04Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  But, and truthfully, if you don't give them something as good as that next time, they're going to say, well, you know, it's not as good as that other thing. So, so we always feel, and I think you do too, I think everybody does when they're doing creative work, the next thing needs to be better than the last thing. So you're continually saying, oh, sure, I didn't go in, I almost went insane the last time, I'm going to go insane the next time. It's the only way to ensure that I'm, I'm, uh, I'm pushing the limits, right?

• 54:30Tim Ferriss?

  Right, yeah, the high watermark must be surpassed.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  How does Michael Jackson do better than Thriller, right?

• 54:35Tim Ferriss?

  Oh God, I don't even want to think about that, but that would be, yeah, I can't even imagine. The, um, one of the many things that comes up listening to hardcore history is military history. And certainly with Wrath of the Cones, the Explanation of different techniques and approaches like the false flights or the false fleeing, I found endlessly fascinating and it's and it sounds like that's that's something that is fascinated you in military history. Are there any particular people or techniques or strategies that you found most interesting? I know that's a very big

• 55:09Speaker 03

  No, I'm thankful that you find it interesting because I think and again, something for podcasters who are who are just starting out, maybe to pay attention to is if you talk about what you find interesting, eventually you will acquire a listenership that likes that too. And so a lot of times I'll wonder if I'm not getting too deeply military on some of this stuff. But then I realized that the people who are listening, if they're still listening, liked that military stuff from earlier episodes, that was my focus in college was military history. And so that's what I've always been interested in. I don't do rainbows and unicorns is what I always tell people. And it's dark. I'll tell you something on your show, no one else even knows him.

• 55:51Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful.

• 55:52Speaker 03

  We're working on artwork for the specific shows that we've done. I've got an artist

• 55:56Tim Ferriss?

  Very cool.

• 55:56Speaker 03

  And it is so dark and our artwork is dark anyway. And I showed my wife the other day, I was so proud of it. And I said, honey, look at this, look at this art and, and she comes over all excited to see the art and I can watch her face drop and she goes, it's horrible. I said, I said, do you mean it's bad? She goes, no, it's just so dark and terrible. I go, the listeners will love it then. I said, it'll just be just what we're after. It matches the subject matter perfectly. So, I mean, but look, it's what I like. And you just figure, if you try to make a show based on what you think other people will like, eventually you will have a show that you don't like.

• 56:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's a great point.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  And so you have to do what you like. And that's why this internet is so wonderful and all these billions of people out there. If you only suck up one tenth of 1% of the pie of internet users that like your weird stuff that you bring up, that translates into a lot of people. I always tell folks, I'm like a street performer. Really, Tim, I mean, that's what I do. I'm like that guy, the mime on the street corner, or the guy who plays the violin and he opens up his violin case and you throw pennies on the street corner to the guy who plays the violin. I just work a really busy street corner. And that's what this is, is that, is that, you know, if you're a niche market product, the internet is a place where that niche can can still translate into a ton of actual

• 57:17Speaker 03

  people. So don't water it down. You know, there's a, there's a phrase, and we've all heard it, but we don't think about what it means. If you go on television on a TV network, you are broadcasting, right? You are reaching a broad segment of the audience. The problem is, is that to broadcast, you have to water things down and widen them out to the lowest common denominator. We podcasters are narrow casters, not broadcasters. And you can't lose sight of the fact that that's, that's not a bug, it's a feature. You know, you want to be a narrow caster, and you want to have this niche that's all yours. And so if you're talking about invisible unicorns that you see on the weekend, make that yours, man. You do the physical unicorn on the weekend podcast, and anyone else who does it's ripping

• 58:02Speaker 03

  you off, right?

• 58:03Tim Ferriss?

  I told you never to tell anyone about that. I'm really upset.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  That's right, man. The Sasquatches in My House podcast. I mean, that's how it should be. I don't think that when you're talking about a program that that you should do it for other people, do it for yourself. And military history is where I live. I think the other thing that that I have to keep emphasizing, and I don't think you should be afraid of this too, if I've learned anything from the podcasting, it's don't be afraid to do something you're not qualified to do.

• 58:32Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm, I like that.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I tell the story all the time, is that I didn't come up with the hardcore history idea. I have far too much respect for historians to have thought that I could have done that as a history major with a degree. I mean, the one thing history majors know is how great historians are, because we read them all the time, right? So I used to tell my stories that I've told my whole life, and I was telling them around the dinner table, and my mother-in-law said to me, you know, because I was already doing one podcast on current events and stuff, and she said, why don't you do a podcast on the stuff you're talking about here at dinner? And I said, oh, I couldn't do that. I said, it's history, and I'm not qualified to talk about history. I don't have a doctorate, I'm not a historian. And she said, I didn't realize you had to have a doctorate to tell stories. And I thought about that for a minute. I thought, well, listen,

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Most of the great historians from the non-modern era didn't have doctorates either. They're just storytellers too. As long as I'm not purporting to be a historian and as long as I'm using their work. And what I always will say is, let's say there's a historical controversy. I will tell you the controversy, then I will say, well, here's what historian A says about it. And here's what historian B says about it. And I've been surprised how much the listeners like to hear about what's called historiography, which is the process of how history gets written and made and interpreted. They love hearing that. And so you'll actually talk about the different theories. And so I'm not making this stuff up. I'm using the experts to tell you a story. And the story is the part I'm qualified to tell you.

• 1:00:00Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no, that's one of the, one of the aspects of the show that I most appreciate is that you'll, you'll point out the contradictions and you'll also talk about the different schools of histories. You'll have certain types of revisionist history. You'll have different political leanings and how they interpret events. Say in the, the Spanish-American War, found, you know, the events in Cuba fascinating as well as the Philippines. And really helping people to realize the biases at play in a lot of the reporting and writing that we might otherwise assume to be objective.

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Well, give you a perfect example, and we talked about Rome, ancient Rome in the Republic period. And, you know, the reason that people look at that period and think it looks a lot like our own is because you can see some of the same political dynamics at work broadly speaking, right? You know, obviously, there's a lot of time elapsed. I often say to people, imagine that there's a Fox News in ancient Rome and an MSNBC in ancient Rome. So a left-wing version of events and a right-wing version of events. Because what they always say is history, journalism is the first draft of history, right? So then imagine that only one of those narratives made it into your history books, right? Rome as seen by Fox News or Roman politics as seen by MSNBC.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  And how you can tell the Roman story that way. And if you do it and you contrast the two views, it sounds even more modern. So I do. Think that it actually sheds light on the events to point out the different way. I mean, the Apaches, a hundred years ago, those are red murderers killing good Christian white settlers. Thirty years ago, it's terrible, horrible white people murdering blameless Indian. I mean, you go through these periods where the entire focus and the public mood changes, and we write history a different way. Those are fascinating in and of itself because it also teaches you that there isn't necessarily truth here. There's just the current perspective that's in vogue.

• 1:02:00Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, absolutely, and I'm actually reading a book right now called Dying Every Day, which is subtitled Seneca at the Court of Nero. And it's a very fascinating account of Seneca that tries to reconcile at some level the opposing views and mythologies and facts surrounding this character Seneca, who was a very famous Stoic, but at the same time was very, very wealthy. Some people called him opulent and just trying to point out the backgrounds of the people who wrote these histories or who had these accounts, who were in some cases his political enemies. It's really fascinating thus far because I'm a huge fan of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and a lot of these philosophers.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  I like the hedonistic Stoics. That's my favorite. Exactly. See, you point out how much money is that's the best kind of Stoic to be, the hedonistic. It's like premeditated spontaneity, you know?

• 1:02:59Tim Ferriss?

  Let me, if I could shift gears a little bit, ask just a handful of kind of rapid fire questions. And I'm having a lot of fun. We could do this for a long time, but I want to be respectful of your time. But I'd love to to throw off a couple of rapid fire questions, and you can take as little or as much time answering them as you'd like. You have your hands in a lot these days. You're doing quite a few different things. What do the first, say, hour or two of your day typically look like? What are your morning rituals?

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  I've had the same morning ritual for a long time. It's the old talk radio show host or reporter ritual where I get up and I'm really gonna some one of these days when books and newspapers go away, I'm gonna be really sad because I have to start with the newspaper like an idiot nowadays. I bring it in, I get the cup of coffee out, I start with the newspaper, then I go online. If I see any stories that pique my interest, I'll print them out, I'll put them in a folder. And then the next time it's time to do a current events program, I'll look in the folder and see, you know, we're on like 275 of those or something. So it's getting awful hard to find new things to talk about that I don't feel like we've already done. But I spend the early morning while I'm waking up, the first cup of coffee or 10, catching up and reading mostly current event stuff.

• 1:04:10Tim Ferriss?

  What time do you wake up?

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  Oh goodness, well, it's summer vacation now here at my house. It's based on the children's schedule. So when, when it's school time, it's like, you know, 7 a.m. and we're up and at them. Now I can sleep a little bit later sometimes, but I have a, I have a sweet spot in my production ability where I'm at my best talking. And it's usually from about like 9 to noon or 1. And so that's when I like to be in the studio. I hit like 2 o'clock and all the coffee in the world's not keeping me, you know? And, and so that, that's why we're having this interview now, Tim.

• 1:04:42Tim Ferriss?

  Right, I remember the scheduling.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I have this awful problem and when I'm dealing with East Coast people, it's really awful. So I try to get into the studio when, when I've got a decent amount of energy. And then by the time I'm out of there and done, then I'm spend the afternoon getting back into reading research, because there's a lot of reading to do. And I'm not, I'm not the world's quickest reader. And so I, I also have a very tough time trying to figure out opportunity costs. You know, one of the things that, that a lot of podcasters start to learn, once their podcast becomes popular, is you're running a business now. And, and that's not the part that most people, yours truly included, thought of when we got into podcasting, right? You think about the product. You don't think about the, the edifice and structure that you have to maintain to keep the product going.

• 1:05:28Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  And I'm not gifted at that stuff. And so what people will often say, like on Twitter and stuff. Wonder what you're doing in the three months since the last time you put a history podcast out. And you can't, you can't even begin to tell them all, I mean, just the website alone that I've been working on for years. The time wasting that goes on in my life and certainly I could do it better. But like people will come to me and say, Dan, could you do this or you do that? And you get these opportunities thrown your way because of the podcast and you think to yourself, I can't get a podcast out in three months. How am I going to take advantage of any of these other opportunities that come my way? And so, so I'm wrestling with how I do more because people have given me these chances based on the fact that these listeners are so kind to listen to the show. I don't know how to do them.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't know how to run this business. So it's all I can do to get these shows out. So when you talk about how you do these things and I wrestle with the business side of this every day, to be honest.

• 1:06:25Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I will, uh, we've, we've chatted about this before, but if I can help with any website stuff or whether it's WordPress related or otherwise, I'm happy to, to.

• 1:06:34Speaker 03

  Be careful, Tim, I could abuse you worse than you've ever been abused. So let's, let's stay, let's stay frank.

• 1:06:40Tim Ferriss?

  I've, I've heard, I've, I've, I've heard about your bookshelf full of, full of tomes about medieval torture. I know how you operate.

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  People who promised to help me with websites.

• 1:06:50Tim Ferriss?

  What is the newspaper that you read? Is, is there one newspaper that you consistently read?

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  Yes, the stupid local one here in Burg that just gets delivered to my front door easily. And the funny thing is, is everything I read in it's been printed two weeks ago on, you know, the internet. But I still just like some old person have to do, and I, and I have to read it all the way to the end of the comics. Like some, like some person with OCD or something. I, I just, I can't help myself. And when I, when I was in TV news before the internet was doing news, I used to get like five newspapers and you know, and I'd go through every one of them all day like an idiot. I don't, I don't do that anymore, but, but yeah, just the silly local paper here in my local Burg.

• 1:07:32Tim Ferriss?

  I love it. And when you're, when you go online to potentially find interesting current events or, or angles to print out, what, what are those sources? Are there any particular sources that you repeatedly visit?

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  Well, a lot of, Twitter has turned out to be a really good way for listeners to share with me things that they think I'd be interested in. And then they get a pretty good idea of the sort of things I like. But no, I go everywhere. And I might start with Google News and then just, you know, I check out all the British newspapers. I check out the major American newspapers. There's some in Canada. And then I like going, wonderful thing about the internet, the ability to kind of go local. So if you're reading about stuff between the Israelis and Palestinians, for example, I like looking at the newspapers from the Middle East. I like looking at various, for example, if you're looking for the Israeli side, there are different Israeli newspapers with different perspectives. And so, so when I'm delving deep, it's wonderful to have the

• 1:08:27Speaker 03

  internet that allows you to three dimensionalize in a way that was not possible when I was getting five American newspapers in one day, to really, I don't know if you end up being more intelligent on the subject, but you could certainly give multiple viewpoints. Does that make sense?

• 1:08:44Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, definitely. I remember my first real extended trip abroad in college. This was after being in Japan as an exchange student, but I was in China, and I found the local English newspapers contrasted with the International Herald Tribune to be really mind opening, because I'd never been exposed to two extremely different viewpoints on what I perceived to be exactly the same phenomena, or current events. Really was a, was a, was an eye opening experience for me.

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  And the Tribune's what we always read when we're out of the country.

• 1:09:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it was all I could get my hands on.

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  I know. I've been there.

• 1:09:22Tim Ferriss?

  What, just to completely shift gears, when you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind?

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness. You know, Tim, I don't know. You've thrown some questions at me today, and I'm this verbal person, and I'm usually pretty quick on my feet, but I don't know how to answer that, because my definition of success is perhaps a little, a little different. You know, I was arguing with somebody once about ambition. And we were talking about whether ambition was genetic or not. And we were discussing

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  Happiness and I was trying to make the point that that successful being successful in life means you're happy, but that some people have to achieve certain things to be happy.

• 1:10:06Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:10:07Speaker 03

  So, so in other words, I know people who can do nothing in their lives and be happy with that.

• 1:10:12Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  So to me, they're successful, right? But there's a lot of people who say, well, no, no, no, if I, if I don't make a bunch of money, or if I don't achieve something, or if I don't create something, or, or, or if I don't, you know, if you don't reach these particular goals, then I'm not happy. So in other words, success for them requires, in order to be happy, requires that they do these other things to find happiness. So the me being successful is being happy. And so there's lots of people out there that I think have managed to be successful, who, who most of us have probably never heard of. I tell you what, there's a part of me that's even jealous of the people that can manage to be happy without having to do a bunch of things to get there.

• 1:10:53Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely.

• 1:10:53Speaker 03

  You know, and I, yeah, I think, I mean, people look and say, isn't it great what's going on with your podcast? And I said, yes, because it makes me happy, not because of any other amorphous or even concrete goals, making this much money, or getting this much notoriety, or whatever, you know, going on Tim Ferriss's show and having him say all these nice things about me is wonderful, but the show itself makes me happy and, and that's, that's where the success comes in. Now, if we didn't make enough money to live, I wouldn't do the show, so I wouldn't be happy, you know, so I mean, it all kind of boils down to the same thing. We need different things to be happy, but happy and successful are the same thing to me.

• 1:11:28Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:29Speaker 03

  Does that make sense?

• 1:11:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, no, that makes sense.

• 1:11:32Speaker 03

  The roundabout way of answering your question.

• 1:11:34Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, very, but no, it's a good answer.

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  Restated the whole goal of the question. Sorry about that.

• 1:11:38Tim Ferriss?

  Very clever of you. No, the, what, what would be failure to you then? Would it be being unhappy or is it something, is it something else entirely? And that, that could even be as it relates to the podcast, if we wanted to, to try to constrain it a bit to make it easier to answer.

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  I tell you, I'll tell you, here's, here's the worst part about having a podcast that people think are successful, is if you've never made it successful, then you haven't screwed anything up. You took a chance and you failed and that's part of life and it's. Part of learning and it's part of success, actually. But if you manage to create something that's successful and then you screw it up and blow it. That that to me seems much more of a tragedy and a personal failure than than never having gotten one off the ground at all. So I I think I was rather devil may care when we started these podcasts now. All I'm thinking about is if I don't do this Blueprints of Armageddon, part four, and have it be really good. Then then I've screwed up the golden goose, right?

• 1:12:32Speaker 03

  So so failure to me is really, you know, like Keith Richards would have said in that Rolling Stones. Uh, studio, you're only as good as the last thing you put out. So failure is not putting out a piece of good work at this point in my mind.

• 1:12:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, no, I I definitely get it. I mean, I think especially with the sophomore act, for me at least, with the second book. Brought a lot of stress with it and it really.

• 1:12:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, you feel really under the gun with the second book. It's a perfect example.

• 1:12:56Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, very similar feeling. Uh, if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  I'd be more productive. I think that's pretty easy. I got out of the booth today in the studio and I didn't have anything useful. I've been working on the same part for like three days now and you're just ready to smack walls. I mean, to to sit there and be so unproductive, even though, you know. And I learned this, um, I learned this writing as well, where, you know, I I remember writing something and setting myself a weekly total that I wanted to hit. Right? So every day I wanted to write this many hundred words and I would feel productive. And then you would get to the end of the week and you'd need to edit what you wrote. And you get rid of five thousand words or something and you just you you think to yourself, oh, my God, what what did I waste all that time for? And and I think that's that's how creative endeavors often are. So so like, you know, you asked me how these programs go.

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  There are days when I'll go in there and not like anything I do. Uh, and and they just feel like such waste. I could have used that time so much more constructively. Had I only known it was going to be a wasted day at the microphone, right? So, yeah, productivity, I'd love to be more productive. I'd love to be able to multitask. I can't multitask either.

• 1:14:07Tim Ferriss?

  Don't you think, just to touch on what you just said, don't you think though that sometimes that that day of seemingly wasted recording is necessary to gestate?

• 1:14:19Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:14:19Tim Ferriss?

  To get to that one paragraph that is the one that everyone quotes?

• 1:14:25Speaker 03

  You are absolutely 1,000% right. And that is what, yes, you're fumbling your way to glory.

• 1:14:31Tim Ferriss?

  That's my, that's my, my MO.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Fumbling your way to glory.

• 1:14:35Tim Ferriss?

  Should be the name of my next book.

• 1:14:36Speaker 03

  Next book. I think we have a T-shirt at least. Yeah, no, and that you're, you couldn't be more right about that. And I keep trying to console myself, saying that it wasn't actually a wasted creative day, even though 500 people on Twitter said, where the hell is the next show, Carlin? Get off the beach with your Mai Tai. And you know what I love, Tim? I love that there are people out there who literally think I wait until the last second, and then I walk in and four hours later, we have a show and I was just making you wait. I love those. Those people think I'm Frank Sinatra. I love those people, right? And you know what? And I'm going to start to cultivate that image, that I really don't do anything until the last second. And then, yeah, okay, I'll give you a show. Maybe tonight after

• 1:15:21Speaker 03

  dinner, I'll crank one out for you. I mean, you know, you talk about making yourself an immortal legend, right? I just do those shows in real time, Tim.

• 1:15:29Tim Ferriss?

  No, absolutely. Yeah. At, at one take, Carlin, just.

• 1:15:31Speaker 03

  I'm Frank Sinatra.

• 1:15:32Tim Ferriss?

  Let me know how you like it.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  I come in at midnight, keep the band up late, and then I just, you know, we're out there with an album.

• 1:15:38Tim Ferriss?

  So, speaking of Mai Tais, you walk into a bar, what do you order from the bartender?

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  Something straight. You know, I come from a family on both sides of old fashioned men. And that's the only way to describe them. I don't smoke cigarettes like they did. But it's hard to totally get away from your roots. And they were hard drinking. See, they were so much tougher than I am, too. I don't have the toughness, but I can drink like they drank. And so, so if I'm going to sit there, if I'm going to go to a bar and drink, I'm going to drink a straight whiskey, or a straight rum, or a straight vodka, or something like that. I don't fool around.

• 1:16:16Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right. Why skip the foreplay?

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  That's right. Come on. Get some production done, right?

• 1:16:23Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm, so I'm going with the Sinatra theme that you set. So we talked about Sinatra, we talked about drinking. What's the first face that comes to mind when you think punchable?

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  Punchable? Oh, you know, I get so.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  I have, see, and this is where like if you get to my old shows on politics and current events, I sound so much angrier. I think when I got into politics as a teenager, I got in it from a, and I think a lot of teenagers, when they get to politics or early college students, it's out of anger. You start to see the world as it's been created by the generations before you, and you just feel like it's so screwed up, and how can they deal with all the injustice in the world, you know? And so, that's how I got into political talk radio, for example. It's just, I was so mad at things that I saw that were just wrong, in my opinion. As I've gotten older, I think I've been able to see more perspectives,

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  and maybe be able to walk a mile in the other guy's moccasins a little bit better. But so, when you say, you know, people that you would just want to punch, maybe it's a holdover, wanting to punch them from years and years ago, but the people that drive me crazy, I'm gonna answer this question a certain way.

• 1:17:34Tim Ferriss?

  We get downgraded to slap.

• 1:17:36Speaker 03

  I'm not, I'm not recrafting, I just want to tell you that there was a wonderful series called Hell in the Pacific, and it's on the Second World War in the Pacific Theater, and I think it was made by a British company, and I remember being shocked because it had footage that we don't, or we didn't show much in the United States, of really horrifying Pacific battles. And they interview a US veteran who didn't die that long ago, his name is Eugene Sledge, and his nickname when he was in the Marines was Sledgehammer. And he is, he went on after he got out of the service to teach a school, a college, I think it was Georgia, and he's the most soft-spoken, wonderful, sweet, southern gentleman you've ever met. And the whole Hell in the Pacific series starts with him saying that no one

• 1:18:20Speaker 03

  who's even yards behind the front line in war knows what it's really like. And nobody who does, who hasn't been up there, should be able to send young people off to war. If you haven't been, and he means right on the front lines, you have no place doing that. The people that drive me crazy are the people in American politics who are, I mean, who see war as the answer to everything. And I don't even mean war, I mean... Some of these, John Bolton's the guy I always use. He's the former American ambassador to the UN. Just another one of these guys that himself avoided military service, but sees sending other people to go do that as his answer to every problem. And I guess that just drives me nuts. Because as a guy who talks about military history all the time,

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  and who hears these accounts of veterans and realizes how often their lives are forever altered, even when they come home in seemingly one piece, you just want that to be such a really well thought out decision when you decide to have people suck up that lifetime of damage for some cause. Just like Eugene Sledge was saying, you know, anyone who's gonna send someone off, you gotta have a really good reason. And I feel we've got a lot of people in the public sphere that didn't do this themselves, but for any reason are willing to go send other people. And they just make me angry like I'm 16 years old and into punk rock, which I'm still into, and mad. And you do, you get Irish and you just, I'm ready to become a stereotypical, you know, punch somebody in the mouth.

• 1:19:48Speaker 03

  And it's really, it's really a piece of me that's mostly dead now, that comes back and haunts me at moments just at the wrong time.

• 1:19:57Tim Ferriss?

  It's always at the wrong time.

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  It's always at the wrong time.

• 1:20:01Tim Ferriss?

  So, speaking of punk rock, what are the most frequently played bands or songs on your, whether it's a computer, iPhone, or otherwise?

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I go through, I go through phases where I just kill something, you know? And I, I'll just, I'll get back into the Dead Kennedys. And then it's like two weeks of just nothing but that until I can't listen anymore. And then I'll move to, I've never quite discovered the variety as the spice of life thing. I have to like eat all sushi for like two weeks until I can't have anymore. And then, you know, and I don't like sushi, but I just, it was an example. And that's how I am with music. I mean, I would buy back in the days of record albums, the new record album and play it 200 times and then never want to hear it again. Or, you know, so, and I like all the old stuff too. When you go back to like Lou Reed or The Seeds. Or to me, even Jerry Lee Lewis is punk rock. To me, that's an attitude, not a... Not a sound.

• 1:20:55Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  So, so I just like all those. To me, music is about so much more than the listening experience. That's just a basic philosophy in music. Is it about the technical expertise of the musician or the beautiness of the melody? Or is it about tribal drums that get your blood going? And, you know, and I'm much more of the tribal drum person than I am about, you know, I work with a lot of audio people. And, and for them, they want to hear technical expertise and wonderfully crafted. And I want to hear something from the soul, you know?

• 1:21:23Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, for sure. I'm just getting into hand drums. So I'm, I'm all about the drums.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  It's very, it's very emotional and ancient sort of.

• 1:21:31Tim Ferriss?

  I love it. So last question, potentially, if you could give one or two pieces of advice to your, your 20 year old self? What would it be?

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  Oh, I think about this all the time. I remember coming out of the television station where I was a TV reporter and I was working the night shift. And I had just worked on some stories all day and was just thoroughly unsatisfied with them by the time they, they hit air. And I remember walking out of the station at like midnight and it was up on the top of this mountain, beautiful place. Uh, and, and I remember looking out and just saying, oh my God, when am I gonna like this? You know, when, when am I gonna, when am I gonna really be, be happy with the work that I'm churning out? So I look back on that all the time when I think of where I am now and just think if I could go back and just tell myself, don't stress about it. It's all gonna work out in the end. Wouldn't any of us like to know that?

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Just, just tell me it's all gonna be okay and I can get by in my twenties. The twenties were really, really hard for me, I thought. And if you could have just said, stop worrying, it's all gonna be okay, although I'm assuming it's all gonna be okay, Tim. I still don't know that. Um, but I, but I think I would have saved a ton of emotional stress and worry. I'm, I'm, I'm a natural born worrier and I think it would have been nice. Although if you'd have told me that, I might have relaxed so much that that reality might never have occurred. So, you know, that's why you can't go back in the time machine and step on the butterfly. You'll screw up everything.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  So I won't go back and tell myself that, Tim, because I'll screw up my future.

• 1:22:59Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. But if there's an aircraft carrier headed back to Pearl Harbor, you'll at least sit down and watch the movie.

• 1:23:05Speaker 03

  I don't know how I wouldn't. I don't know how I could avoid that. All you have to do is come up with a good concept that I'm in.

• 1:23:12Tim Ferriss?

  So Dan, this, this has been a lot of fun. I want people to listen to more of your stuff. What episodes would you like people to listen to? What's the starter kit? If you want to get people hooked, I have my own thoughts, but, but what episodes of hardcore history would you recommend people start with?

• 1:23:29Speaker 03

  Well, I wouldn't start with the really old ones because I don't think they are representative of what we've evolved into. It's not that I don't like them. It's just, I think that people who liked the really old episodes sometimes miss the way they sounded and the people that like the current ones don't as much like the old ones. So I'd start, I'd start with something new, just because if you like that, you might get more of it. If you listen to the old stuff, you're not getting any more of that.

• 1:23:52Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:23:53Speaker 03

  I think I would simply pick it based on the subject matter. So pick, we have a certain number of shows. We usually leave the new shows up for a year or two before we, or three, before we remove them to the paid archives. So we should have a decent mix of things. We do something called Blitz Editions sometimes, which were supposed to be shorter, but they aren't shorter, uh, cause I'm too long-winded. But, but they just, they turned out to be about slightly different focuses. So instead of focusing on an event, one of the Blitz Editions that we did focused on, you know, were people in the old days tougher than we are. And I think, I think the question we asked is, could you beat your grandparents in a war? And then we did another one on, I think we called it intoxicated prior, oh no, history under the influence, we called it. And it

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  was the hidden effect of intoxicating substances maybe on the past. And so those are the way Blitz Editions more look at weird subjects like that. And then the other episodes look at historical events. So I would say, pick one that sounds like it's an interesting piece of subject matter and then keep your fingers crossed that we, that we pulled off that episode halfway decently. And that, and that's how I would do it.

• 1:25:00Tim Ferriss?

  And that's the, that's the gateway drug into hardcore history. I would say for those interested in my, my personal Recommendations. I have yet to dislike any of the episodes. I think Wrath of the Khans is outstanding. If you're interested in warfare and tactics and the lore of not Genghis Khan, but Genghis Khan, I guess it turns out.

• 1:25:21Speaker 03

  That's right, Genghis.

• 1:25:22Tim Ferriss?

  Then I think that's a fantastic series. The Prophet to Doom, I gotta say, I know you weren't happy with it for whatever reason. I know you have your reasons, but.

• 1:25:32Speaker 03

  No, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Because I was saving that story. That is one of the great twisted history stories of all time. And I remember thinking to myself, okay, you are halfway to a good show before you say your first words with this story. And so I had really high hopes for how great, because it's just the story itself is so wonderful. You don't need Dan Carlin to make it better.

• 1:25:53Tim Ferriss?

  You had too much performance anxiety.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 1:25:57Tim Ferriss?

  I really enjoyed that episode. You teased the hell out of it in the beginning. I gotta say, I was getting antsy for a little bit in the very beginning, but.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  I was giving you context, though. You have to understand the reformation for that thing to make sense.

• 1:26:13Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no, I love the reformation, but the lead is fantastic. I'm not going to give away too much of the story.

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would tell you, listen, don't listen to that one. There's too much setup.

• 1:26:24Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm going to let people explore. Where can people best find you on the interwebs? Where would you like people to find you online?

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  Listen, you can get the free shows from our website at dan carlin.com. They're obviously on iTunes as well. You can get the old shows off our website. I think they're a little cheaper off our website, but you can get them on iTunes as well. Type my name into the search engine somewhere. The right thing should pop up. Listen, I'm just happy you're sharing my stuff with your listeners. I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 1:26:55Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my pleasure. This, I just, having attempted to do some form of a podcast myself now for a little bit and having listened to a lot of podcasts, the amount of effort that you've put into each of these episodes is, I think, magnitudes of order better than most audiobooks. And that's saying, I've listened to hundreds of audiobooks.

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  Oh man, think about this. This is the real key. The real key is that we live in an era where we can do this stuff. Because I can tell you right now, you look at podcasting and there's about 20 or 30 really creative podcasts out there that you would never be allowed to do in a million years in the media 20 years ago. And yet, when you listen to them, you think it's just brilliant, right? And so if we're lucky enough to be in that category where you go, oh gosh, this is something that would never be in the mainstream media. And I'm so glad I found it, then we're really fortunate. I, to me, that's, as somebody who came from that media, and by the time I left it, it was so the opposite of creative. The fact that we could, we've got this blank canvas where we could be creative again, what a great time to live, right?

• 1:27:56Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing. I mean, you've got, you know, everything from, of course, what you might expect, like the This American Life, to say, Welcome to Night Vale, which is like one of the weirdest things imaginable, which is, as it stands, I mean, always in the top 10 on iTunes. It's a hell of an open playing field. And like you said, narrow casting, it's, it's, it's just ripe for the picking. People can be as weird as they want to be and they'll find their audience if they're passionate enough about it, so.

• 1:28:23Speaker 03

  And listen, if you're gifted, I always think about it this way. Can you imagine someone as gifted as Eddie Murphy when he first showed up on the comedy scene? Or Richard Pryor when he first showed up on the comedy scene? If they simply, you know, the, the mic can be bad, the audio can be bad, you might not get shows out very frequently. But if Eddie Murphy were simply doing a podcast today when he first started out, that would be his ticket to fame and fortune without ever needing to make it on a Saturday Night Live first or anything like that. I mean, this is, this is direct media to the public. We've never had it like this, and I'm not even sure it's gonna last. This is, this may be a wonderful little golden opportunity in human communication. Take advantage now. If you've ever thought of having a podcast, it's a good time to get in.

• 1:29:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, well, Dan, this has been a blast. I really appreciate your time. I'm gonna continue to listen again to the entire series of Wrath of the Guns, which I use for my morning walks. Everybody, everybody.

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  You're as twisted as me.

• 1:29:23Tim Ferriss?

  I know, I know. You're gonna start getting weird letters from me soon, but I recommend everybody check it out. And if you've ever thought of starting a podcast, well. Maybe now is the time to do it and I'll be writing a lot more about that. So Dan, I appreciate it. I will, I will talk to you soon and really good hanging out. Thank you very much.

• 1:29:41Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me on, man. And listen, continued success. You're doing great.

• 1:29:44Tim Ferriss?

  Alright, thanks, man. I'm, I'm just, I'm still on the training wheels, but I'm learning as I go. So thanks, thanks again. I'll talk to you soon.

• 1:29:51Speaker 03

  Anytime.

• 1:29:52Tim Ferriss?

  Alright, bye bye.

• 1:29:57Speaker 04

  If you want more of the Tim Ferriss Show, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or go to fourhourblog.com.

• 1:30:03Speaker 05

  F-O-U-R-H-O-U-R-B-L-O-G dot com.

• 1:30:06Speaker 04

  Where you'll find an award-winning blog, tons of audio and video interview stories with people like Warren Buffett and Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park, the books, plus much, much more. Follow Tim on Twitter at twitter.com/TFerriss.

• 1:30:19Speaker 05

  That's T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S.

• 1:30:21Speaker 04

  Or on Facebook at facebook.com/TimFerriss. Until next time, thanks for listening.