#150: Morgan Spurlock: Inside the Mind of a Human Guinea Pig

This is an interview you've been asking for since before I started the podcast: Morgan Spurlock. Morgan Spurlock (@morganspurlock http://twitter.com/morganspurlock) is an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker based in New York. He is a prolific writer, director, producer, and human guinea pig. His first film, Super Size Me http://www.amazon.com/Super-Size-DVD-John-Banzhaf/dp/B0002OXVBO/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, winning Best Directing honors. The film went on to win the Writers Guild of America Best Documentary Screenplay award as well as garner an Academy Award nomination for Best Feature Documentary. Since then he has directed, produced, and distributed multiple film, TV and digital projects, including the critically acclaimed CNN series Morgan Spurlock Inside Man http://www.cnn.com/shows/inside-man, the FX series 30 Days http://www.amazon.com/30-Days-Season-Morgan-Spurlock/dp/B000EXDRZ8/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, and the films Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? http://www.amazon.com/Where-World-Osama-Bin-Laden/dp/B0018PH3NI/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Confessions of a Superhero http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Super-Hero-Matthew-Ogens/dp/B001AQLR6E/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Freakonomics http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Steven-Levitt/dp/B0047UJBP4/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Movie-Ever-Sold/dp/B004UXUV98/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, and many others. Morgan's latest project is a tech startup called Clect http://clect.com/ (homepage http://clect.com/, AngelList profile https://angel.co/clect-collect-together), which is a community for the high-spending collectors community with a one-stop marketplace where people can browse, sell, and buy collectibles of any type imaginable (Star Wars, Smurfs, Comics, a Millennium Falcon made from motorcycle parts http://clect.com/FullCard.aspx? CardID=11913, etc.). Imagine Comic-Con meets Pinterest and eBay. In this episode, we cover a ton: How Morgan got his biggest breaks and, in some cases, made his own luck How he builds rapport with people and gets them to open up Tips for aspiring creators and filmmakers How to get people to care about important issues Favorite books, documentaries, movies, etc. Morgan's thoughts on the future of media and storytelling Enjoy! This podcast is brought to you by Wealthfront https://wealthfront.com/tim. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it's all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams. Check out wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they'll show you—for free–exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by 99Designs http://99designs.com/tim, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99Designs. I used them to rapid prototype the cover http://99designs.com/tim for The 4-Hour Body, and I've also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service http://99designs.com/tim. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you're happy with or your money back. Click this link http://www.99designs.com/tim and get a free $99 upgrade. Give it a test run. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I answer your personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, we're just seeing appropriate timing.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, etc. And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim.

• 1:08Tim Ferriss?

  Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, etc.,

• 1:50Tim Ferriss?

  can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest $830,000. ...account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on the show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast.

• 2:32Tim Ferriss?

  But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free. There's no downside that I can think of. Just take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by 99designs.

• 3:14Tim Ferriss?

  When your business needs a logo, website, business card, thumbnail, or any other design, I recommend checking out 99designs. I use them myself. I've used them for many years. I use them to create book cover prototypes for The Four Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. I've also used them for banner ads, illustrations, and much more. With 99designs, you get a variety of original designs from designers around the world. Give your feedback and then pick your favorite. Your happiness is guaranteed. So check out some of my competitions and designs and some of your competitions and designs from fellow Tim Ferriss Show listeners at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, you can get a free $99 upgrade on your first design. So check it out. 99designs.com/tim.

• 4:01Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where each episode it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, cereals, whatever it might be, that you can test and apply in your own life. And this episode is an interview you've been asking for since before I started the podcast, Morgan Spurlock. He would also have been on my top 10 dream list when I was drafting up potential guests for this podcast in the very beginning. Morgan Spurlock, @MorganSpurlock on Twitter, is an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker based in New York, which is where we did this interview, in his office. He is a prolific writer, director, producer, and human guinea pig. His first film, which many of you will know, "Supersize Me," premiered

• 4:46Tim Ferriss?

  at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, winning Best Directing honors. The film went on to win the Writers Guild of America Best Documentary Screenplay, as well as garner an Academy Award nomination for Best Feature Documentary. Since then, he has directed, produced, and distributed a ton. Multiple film, TV, and digital projects, including some that I love, arguably even more than "Supersize Me," and I enjoyed that movie a ton, including the CNN series Morgan Spurlock: Inside Man, the FX series 30 Days, and the films Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden, Confessions of a Superhero, Freakonomics, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, which we talk about quite a bit in this podcast, and many,

• 5:24Tim Ferriss?

  many others. Morgan's latest project is a tech startup called Collect, C-L-E-C-T.com. Check it out. C-L-E-C-T, like collect. C-L-E-C-T.com, which is a community for high-spending collectors with a one-stop marketplace where people can browse, sell, and buy collectibles of any type imaginable. And for a nerd like me, this is just heaven. Star Wars, Smurfs, comics, a Millennium Falcon made from motorcycle parts is one actual real example. If you go to the website, you can see that. Imagine Comic-Con meets Pinterest and eBay with a lot more thrown into the mix. And as someone who owns 10,000 polybagged, cardboard-backed comic books at home, yes, I am a dork. In this episode, we cover a ton, and I wanted

• 6:09Tim Ferriss?

  to ask- Morgan many of these questions for years. We talk about how Morgan got his biggest breaks and in some cases made his own luck. We talk about tips for aspiring creators and filmmakers, how to get people to care about important issues. That is a very tough needle to thread. Favorite books, documentaries, movies, etc. Morgan's thoughts on the future of media and storytelling and much, much more. Before I recorded this episode, I threw up on Facebook and Twitter a request for questions for Morgan and there were two links that popped up a couple of times that I wanted to address because it underscores a scientific literacy problem that I want to highlight. So everyone listening, if you haven't read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre or the appendices,

• 6:53Tim Ferriss?

  which are an excerpt from that in The Four Hour Body, you should read these because a number of folks asked, "Well, why are there particular articles that have trouble replicating the results that Morgan had?" And supersize me. The first one, which is related to a teacher who lost 61 pounds using caloric restriction but with junk food, losing weight, does not apply. It is fundamentally completely a different protocol. So that you can just dismiss out of hand. And then the second one was related to a study by Fredrik Nyström in Sweden. And the article that was most often cited was actually preliminary data. And the preliminary data, as it turns out, just like with split testing, ended up getting

• 7:37Tim Ferriss?

  flipped in a lot of ways when it got to the final results, which I tracked down. And ultimately, the results are as follows, and this is from Skylar Tanner.com, but it is a reprint effectively. Others suffered almost as much as Spurlock, with one volunteer taking barely two weeks to reach the maximum 15% weight gain allowed by the ethics committee that had approved the study. And it goes on to say that these results are highly individualized. And this was a study that allowed exercise. And I should highlight, that is not what Morgan did. So again, you need to be basically scientifically literate to assess when the media spins studies to serve their own interests in the form of a headline very often. So I feel very comfortable supersizing me at this point. And there are some people who said it's impossible to eat 5,000 calories a day.

• 8:22Tim Ferriss?

  I would beg to differ. You can eat a lot more than that on a daily basis. You can read The Four Hour Body for more on that. With all of that said, please enjoy my wide-ranging conversation with Morgan Spurlock.

• 8:35Tim Ferriss?

  Morgan, welcome to the show.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Thank you. I'm stoked to be here.

• 8:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I'm really excited to be in your offices finally. I know we've had a couple of lunches, a couple of dinners over time.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:44Tim Ferriss?

  And it's nice to see the operation. And I thought, we were talking just before we started recording about breakfast and you said, "Well, I don't usually have breakfast, but if it's a breakfast meeting, I can't be the guy sitting there kind of judging the other person."

• 8:56Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 8:56Tim Ferriss?

  Do you get that a lot after supersize me?

• 8:59Speaker 00

  What happens more than anything, whenever I'm at a restaurant, people will walk by and they'll look at what I'm eating. And sometimes they'll comment. And so they'll look at what I'm eating and sometimes they'll see what's on my plate. And then other times they'll walk by and be like, "Better than McDonald's, right?" And I'm like, "It's been 12 years." Like, I'm gonna be, that is my, I'm married to that forever.

• 9:19Tim Ferriss?

  It's your thing, yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  It's my thing. I'm okay with that.

• 9:21Tim Ferriss?

  I was at the Russian baths yesterday here, just about to pull off the underwear. And there were two fans who walked up and they're like, "Hey, trying to get four hours worth of sauna in 15 minutes?" And I was like, "Yep, I kind of deserve that, I guess. I'll be the four hour guy indefinitely."

• 9:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:36Tim Ferriss?

  When somebody asks you, "What do you do?", how do you answer that?

• 9:41Speaker 00

  I say, "I'm a storyteller. That's what I am. I'm a professional storyteller."

• 9:47Tim Ferriss?

  Where did that first start in terms of being bitten by the bug? Was there a particular experience or mentor who steered you in that direction?

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, my mom was probably the biggest one. When I look back as a kid, like, I loved comic books. I started drawing and writing my own comic books when I was really young, just in a notebook like this. Like, I would make the squares, draw the blocks in, draw the characters, tell the stories. And so, yeah, I mean, that was when I was like, maybe eight or nine years old. My mom was really encouraging of that. So I think she was probably the first one. And then, at the same time, they were, you know, it was the 70s, so the parents took you to see things you should never take kids to see in movie theaters. We didn't wear helmets on bikes. We didn't wear seatbelts in cars. You packed 10 kids into the back of the cutlass and took them to baseball practice. But like, so my parents would take me to see movies like Jaws, The Exorcist, things you would never take a kid to see today.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  It's just wrong in so many levels, but... So they would take me to see these movies, but these were the movies that made me want to make movies. Like, I loved horror films. And so like the movie Scanners, like when that guy's head exploded in Scanners, that was the moment where I said, I have to do that, whatever that is.

• 10:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Now, what was it about the head explosion? Was it just the shock value, the ability to grab someone's attention?

• 11:01Speaker 00

  And just the way that it looked, like the, for, because when I was a kid, I originally wanted to be Rick Baker. I wanted to be Tom Savini. Like, when I saw American Werewolf in London, I mean, it blew my mind.

• 11:10Tim Ferriss?

  That's a great movie.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  It's a great movie. And what the effects did then, and these were all practical effects from his hand growing to his snout growing. Um, there was no CGI. It was all, there was all things that somebody made and created and figured out how to do. So that was kind of the bug that I had first. It was kind of wanting to be in that side of it. And then, once I learned, you could actually go to college and learn how to make movies and, you know, direct movies and produce movies. I said, well, that's the path I want to go on.

• 11:31Tim Ferriss?

  And so you went to, you attended film school?

• 11:33Speaker 00

  I went to, I went to film school first at, at, I tried to get into USC's film school and I applied. I got into the broadcast journalism school. This was like in 1989. And so I said, well, I'll go to USC. I'll go there. Cause like, if you're going to make movies, you gotta go to California. You gotta go to Hollywood. And I grew up in West Virginia. And so Hollywood was a million miles away.

• 11:50Tim Ferriss?

  Good wrestling state.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Good wrestling state, great state for wrestling, um, even, especially when they're not family members. But, um, so I went, so I went to Hollywood because I said, this is where I have to be. And so every semester I would apply to film school at USC and every semester I would get rejected from film school at USC. I applied five times. I still have all the rejection letters. I keep them all. I kept them all. And so finally, the fifth time, I was like, I can't keep putting all my eggs in like this USC basket. And I was so stupid at the time. Like, I wouldn't apply to UCLA just out of principle, which is so dumb when you think about it. Because UCLA is in such a better part of town. It's such a more beautiful campus.

• 12:26Tim Ferriss?

  So you just adopted the rivalries, you know?

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Already. Like, I was a Trojan through and through. I was like, I'm not going to go to UCLA. I'm not going to even apply to their film school. So I applied to NYU and I got into NYU. And so I moved to New York and New York is so much better for me as a person. I think, I think it suits my personality much more, not to mention my skin tone, because I'm spectacularly pale.

• 12:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we're, but we're both on the pale end of the spectrum. How did it fit your personality?

• 12:47Speaker 00

  I see, I think that I grew up in a, in a place and in a family and in a culture where you mean what you say and you say what you mean. And that's kind of how I was brought up. And I think that New York is very much a city that, you know, says what it says and means what it says and will tell you to your face, you know, it'll stab you right in the chest and tell you like, you suck. And here's why. And this is what we don't like about you and what you do. Whereas in, uh, you know, Los Angeles, it's the inverse.

• 13:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it is the inverse. In LA, at least, well, I should say, New York around there, if it's about money, you know how to interact with someone. And if they're blunt, it might be abrasive, but at least it saves you time.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  And you know where you stand. At least, I know from the, I know from minute one where I stand with somebody in New York City. Whereas in LA, you talk to somebody, and the whole time they're talking to you, they're like looking over your shoulder to see who more important or more interesting might be coming into the room.

• 13:34Tim Ferriss?

  That's so disconcerting. Like, my first few trips to LA, I was like, what is happening right now?

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Like, where's, where's, what, is somebody else here? What about, what about me? I'm here, I'm here.

• 13:45Tim Ferriss?

  The experience in film school, what were the most important lessons that you learned in film schools?

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Well, the cool thing was, I mean, at NYU, when I was at film school there, is it taught you the hustle. Like, the thing about NYU is you had to raise your own money for your movies. You had to, you had to find, by hook or by crook, any way to make the film. So, I mean, that was, it was so realistic. I mean, it was a much more independent mindset, I think, of preparing you for life after film school. Whereas at USC, like, if you were in film school there, they paid for your movies.

• 14:14Tim Ferriss?

  You're pampered a bit.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they, and they own your movies. Like, so basically USC pays for your films, then they own the films after.

• 14:19Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, I had no idea.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, because it's kind of part of their legacy. Like, people who go through the directing program, we pay for the films, but now we own Ron Howard's movie, his student film, forever. Um, so I think for me, it prepared me much more for what was coming next, which was the hustle. You know, what, what you have to do when you get out.

• 14:36Tim Ferriss?

  What was your first, uh, in your mind, major project after film school?

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Um, what was my first major project after film school? I mean,

• 14:46Tim Ferriss?

  And by major, I mean in your own mind.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  In my mind. I tell you, there's, well, there's, there's an interesting thing that had happened to me after film school. So, um, I got a job. My first job was being a PA on The Professional, the Luc Besson film. And so,

• 14:59Tim Ferriss?

  That's a pretty sweet gig.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  It was a pretty sweet gig. And so here I was, I was 22, 23 years old.

• 15:03Tim Ferriss?

  A lot of film.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it was awesome. Like, it was so exciting to get to be on this movie and kind of see him. And so I was kind of schlepping, you know, being a PA for the next three, two to three years, working on any movie I could get on. So I was a PA on that movie, and then I was on, I worked on Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, and, um, Barbe Schroder's Kiss of Death. And so it was on Kiss of Death. Where I got offered a job. I got a friend of mine a job, a girl named Sarah Casper, who I went to film school with. She produced my senior thesis film. It's one of those things where you get out of film school, you finish your senior thesis film, you're like, now I'm gonna send this out to film festivals. This is gonna win all kinds of awards. Hollywood's gonna come calling. I'm gonna get my big movie. And then none of that happens.

• 15:41Tim Ferriss?

  Then nothing happens.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Nothing happens. You convince yourself that I'm gonna finish this thing and everything's gonna change, and I'm gonna get these big movie deals. And of course, none of that happens. You know, probably to point 00001% that happens too. Everybody else it doesn't. And so I got out, you know, that didn't happen. So I was like just hustling through, you kind of inching my way up the ladder of production. And I got a friend of mine a job on this movie in the casting department. She was working for a woman named Tracy Moore Marable, who I, to this day, I look at as kind of one of my mentors because she changed my life completely by what happened next. Sarah was casting for this job for someone to be the spokesperson for Sony Electronics. She goes, so yeah, she goes, I can send anybody in for this. You should go audition for this job. And I was like, I don't have an agent. She goes, I can send anyone. It doesn't matter.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  And so I went downtown to pick up film from set one day, dropped it off at Technicolor. On my way back to the office, I ran an audition for this thing. And two weeks later, I found out I got the job. And so everybody in the office was like, oh, my God, that's great. Congratulations. Here's a bag. See you later. Like, everybody was so happy I was leaving. It's like, they're like, good, get out. Peace out. Get out of this movie. And so for the next two and a half years, I traveled around the country working for Sony as like this carnival barker onstage. Like that, so they went to trade shows, they went to sporting events, they went to colleges, you name it. And they were one of the sponsors of the Bud Light Pro Beach Volleyball League.

• 17:02Tim Ferriss?

  So it's sort of like Ron Popeil origins, like selling Sony from the state?

• 17:08Speaker 00

  It's a big show. It was this giant tour truck that, when I first went on the road with it, it was all about Sony Auto Sound. Like Sony had launched this big car stereo division. So it was all about getting people, and I didn't have to know anything about the product. I just had to get people to come over. And so I would just like, on the stage, say, come on over, check this out, blah, blah, blah. And people would come up and tour the truck and look at everything. And then the next year, it became Sony Playstation. Then the next year, it became Sony Vio when they launched their computers. And while I'm on the road with them, my boss on this at the time, a guy named David Lacks, said, "We need to make a video about this tour and what we're doing. Um, who should we have do that?" And I said, "You should have me do that." I said, "I went to film school. Let me make that." And so I made this film for them about this, and then I made a bigger film for Sony about MiniDisc. Then I made a bigger film about something else for them.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  And then probably then my biggest project that I ever did with them was their kind of CES at the Consumer Electronics Show in like 1990.

• 17:57Tim Ferriss?

  It's like Burning Man for nerds.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Totally. It's like Burning Man for nerds. It's exactly what it is. Like it's super nerd prom. And so I made kind of their CES experience movie where you went into this theater and, I mean, they spent millions of dollars on it and it was like the biggest thing I'd ever done. So the biggest thing I did out of film school, the first biggest gigantic thing I did was that.

• 18:16Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  And so, and it was so like off track of where I thought my career was going to be going or what I thought I'd be doing, but little did I know that all of those things that I was doing were ultimately putting me on a path where I am now.

• 18:26Tim Ferriss?

  So this is a sort of a theme that recurs a lot in these interviews with, say, for instance, Jamie Foxx, where these things that were seemingly unrelated to his end destination prepared him perfectly for it.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 18:36Tim Ferriss?

  And I was going to ask you a little later in our conversation about how you build rapport with people.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:42Tim Ferriss?

  But, uh, let's dig into it right now. So if I watch, say, Inside Man, which I love, or, uh, you know, 30 Days.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:50Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, I'm consistently impressed with how you get people to embrace you from different worlds and accept you and trust you. How did you develop that? Or have you always been hardwired for that?

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Well, I think the biggest thing you have to do is, is you just have to listen. The minute you start listening, it's amazing how people will talk to you and how people will embrace you. We live in a culture where we don't listen to begin with. I think that's one. Um, and I think we also live in a culture and we live in a world where a lot of people aren't honest with each other and just don't kind of openly have conversations with you and, and talk about things that are hard to talk about or talk about things that may be um, difficult or, or hurtful, um, or potentially hurtful. And I think that if you come into those types of moments, just, I think, um, Wanting to kind of wanting to understand and wanting to understand where somebody else is coming from. It doesn't have to be confrontational, doesn't have to be ugly. You can have a really

• 19:43Speaker 00

  honest, above board conversation that is meaningful. And I think that's so for me, I think that's the biggest thing is I think the best thing I do sometimes is shut up and listen.

• 19:53Tim Ferriss?

  So if you had, let's just say you were teaching, went back to NYU and you were giving a guest lecture to would be documentarians.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:02Tim Ferriss?

  And somebody came up to you and they said, you know what, I just had this incredible opportunity. I'm actually going out this weekend to interview 10 people for my film for the first time.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:12Tim Ferriss?

  I've never done this before. How do I get them to open up?

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:15Tim Ferriss?

  What would you say to them?

• 20:16Speaker 00

  I would say first, talk about things that they care about, you know, get them to talk about things that are meaningful to them in the beginning, things that they like, things that they love. You don't want to go right in to like, so what's it like to have cancer?

• 20:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  You don't want that to be the first question. You want to kind of work up to this because you want to, you want to have, it's a relationship. You're building a relationship with someone over the course of a conversation and you want to have them trust you. And part of what you also want to do in that conversation is offer up things that are similar and kind of where they're coming from or experiences you've had that kind of put them in a comparative level. And I think that then you kind of build up and build up and then you can start chipping away at the information you really want. But you need to take the time to build that that relationship, I think.

• 20:59Tim Ferriss?

  The providing of

• 21:01Speaker 00

  See, that's me ruining the podcast right there with my

• 21:03Tim Ferriss?

  No, that's okay. This is cinema audio verite. The, the advice you

• 21:10Speaker 00

  I'm that guy in the movie theater.

• 21:12Tim Ferriss?

  I'm that guy. The advice you just gave about being, well, I'm paraphrasing here, but being vulnerable yourself to elicit vulnerability was also something that was underscored for me by a guy named Neil Strauss, who's an author, but wrote for Rolling Stone and New York Times, did a lot of interviews. And it's incredible how that gear shifts the entire dynamic.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Why Warrior Poets? Why Warrior Poets? Yeah, so that's the name of your company? This is the name of my company, and it came a few years ago by, I'll give credit where credit is due. There was a former assistant at the Gersh Agency, who's now a full agent, a guy named Sean Barclay, who, right after Super Size Me, I went out to LA to have, you know, it's like when you go out and they have the meetings, like, "We want you to meet all these people." The Death Star meetings? Yeah, you have all the Death Star meetings, and so I'm being driven all around town, meeting with all the studios, meeting with all the folks, and so, as I'm being driven around by then-assistant Sean Barclay, we're just talking about, you know, what I want to do, what I want my, what are we gonna do next? And by that point, we'd already sold 30 Days. 30 Days was already gonna be the thing we did after Super Size Me.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  And so we're just talking about kind of the path that I want to be on, and the stories I want to tell, and, you know, what's important to me. And then I said, "I'm starting a new company. I need a new name." Because my old company, this is, I'll have a quick aside. My first company was a web company. So we started off in 2000 with a web company. The idea, as the bubble was exploding, was I wanted to create a content company where we would create programming online and then springboard it off to film or television. So we created a company called The Interactive Consortium. Terrible name. Terrible name, but it's had "interactive" in the title, so it must have been something. And it was a consortium of talented people that came together to tell stories. And so there was logic in my mind, but the name was terrible. But we called ourselves The Con for short, because we called ourselves The Consortium, and it was The Con.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  If you look at Super Size Me at the beginning, it says "The Con," that's the title at the beginning, which I thought was a great name for a company, not when you're trying to raise money. It's not a good name for a company. It's not a good, when you're chasing financiers, you don't want to be called The Con. J.D. Salinger and Associates. Exactly. J.T. Marlin and Associates. And so that was the previous name of the company. I said, "I want to start a new company." And so he said, "Well, what about Warrior Poets?" And I said, as a big Braveheart fan and as a Scotsman, I said, "What, because I'm Scottish and because of Braveheart?" He goes, "Warrior Poets has nothing to do with Braveheart." He goes, "That is a phrase that was stolen by Mel Gibson for the movie." He goes, "Warrior Poets were around throughout history. Like, these were people who were poets or who were..."

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Musicians or who were who were people who entertained the masses with their wit and their and their and their writings, their music. But when time came to fight for what they believed in, they would lay down their instruments and pick up swords or pick up or pick up whatever they had to go fight for spears to go fight for what they believed in to fight for their country. And I was like, I said, that's exactly what we are. I said, we are warrior poets. Yes, that's the name. And so that's where it came from. And how do you choose your project? Sure, to be more specific, how did you decide to do 30 days after Super Size Me? Because I mean, bam, suddenly, the iron, you know, the the iron's hot. Yeah. And this and this was before. So we got the idea for 30 days before Super Size Me was

• 24:23Speaker 00

  even finished. So we were in post on the movie. We said, I said, I decided we had just submitted the movie to Sundance. So we hadn't even gotten into Sundance yet. We just submitted the film. And I said, we should have a test screening of the movie, just so we see what's happening. And because that's what you did. You had test screenings. The studios all did it. I said, we should do what they do. To be successful, we should do that. So we got clipboards because clipboards make you look 30% more official. And we stood outside of the Angelica, right up the street on the corner of Houston and Broadway. And we said, excuse me, as people were coming out of the movies, we're like, would you like to come to the test screening of a new independent documentary? And people are like, oh, yes, I would. That would be great. And so we signed up like 50 people who came over to the Goldcrest screening room on the west side. And it was myself and my two editors, Julie, Bob, and Stella, went over to the screening. And the 50 people watched the movie. And then after the film, this one woman stood, we came down front,

• 25:08Speaker 00

  and we said, anybody have any questions or anything? And this one woman said, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for making this movie and showing the world finally how terrible these corporations are, that they're screwing us, and they're killing us. And then a guy on the other side of the room said, hold on, what movie did you watch? He's like, what are you, you out of your mind? Because that's not what this movie is about at all. And so they start, you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy, you're crazy. So they're yelling at one another. And I just leaned over to lean over to my editors. And I'm like, this is awesome. This is amazing. This is gonna be huge. Incredible. But it elicited this like awesome visceral reaction in people. Like it really struck a chord. And so the next day, when we were back in the edit room, I said, how do we do that every day? How do we do that every week? Like, how do we transition this into something?

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Because the film, and the film was fast. Like, I got the idea for the film on Thanksgiving of 2002. And a year and a day later, the day after Thanksgiving 2003, I got the phone call that we got into Sundance. So, I mean, it was fast.

• 26:04Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, that's really fast.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  It's really fast. For a doc, it's super fast. Like, from idea to, like, delivery in the film festival.

• 26:10Tim Ferriss?

  What happened on Thanksgiving that triggered this idea?

• 26:13Speaker 00

  I was sitting, I was sitting on my mom's couch in a spectacular tryptophan haze when a news story came on about these two girls that were suing McDonald's. And so these girls said, "We're fat, we're sick, and it's your fault." And I was like, "Well, that, come on, that's crazy." Said, like, "You're gonna sue somebody for, you know, selling you food that you bought that you ate, and then blame them for it." I said, "How can you do that?" And then a spokesperson for McDonald's came on and said, "You can't link our food to these girls being sick. You can't link our food to these girls being obese. Our food is healthy, it's nutritious, it's good for you." And I was like, "I don't know if you can say that either." And I said, "'Cause if it's that good for me, then shouldn't I be able to eat it for 30 days straight with no side effects?" And I was like, "Oh, that's it, that's it." And so that was, that was the, that was the moment. And then, yeah, so then a year later, we got into the festival. And, and so as we were in the edit, I said, "How do we do that? How do we do that on a regular basis?"

• 26:58Speaker 00

  And we said, "Let's make it a series, let's make it a series where..." And then the original idea was it was gonna be me in every episode, kind of putting myself into these situations, at which point my girlfriend said, "You're not gonna have a girlfriend very long." Because it's basically then I'm gone for six months at a time when we do that, six episodes of that show. But as soon as the movie exploded at Sundance and we sold it, I was on a plane to LA, and we sold that, we pitched that show and sold it to FX the next week. So it was a week after Sundance, we'd already sold that. So the movie wasn't even in theaters, and we'd set up that show.

• 27:26Tim Ferriss?

  And in 30 days, were there any particular shows or...?

• 27:33Tim Ferriss?

  Proposals that you weren't able to make, whether with that or Inside Men, was there anything that got vetoed?

• 27:38Speaker 00

  The only thing that ever got vetoed is when we were doing the immigration episode, I wanted to have-

• 27:43Tim Ferriss?

  Great episode, by the way.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Thanks. No, I mean, I'm really proud of that show.

• 27:45Tim Ferriss?

  Really strong episode.

• 27:46Speaker 00

  And for me, the best episodes of that show are the shows that I'm not in. Like, I understand why everybody's like, no, the ones that you're into are the best, but it's like, but that's, for me, that's not the best. Because the best proof of that show is people who have to defend their beliefs. And when somebody has to get in there and basically to people that disagree with them or contradict them to say, here's what I believe and why, and to have the courage to continue to, one, have those beliefs be questioned, and also be open to kind of seeing the world in a different way, takes a tremendous amount of courage. So, I mean, I think that's, I love those episodes. But the immigration episode, when we first came up with that, I wanted to go across the border and have a coyote bring me over. I said, I want to go to Mexico, and I said, and I want to come over with a bunch of illegal immigrants and who are basically sneaking into the country with a coyote and show how it's done.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  And Big FX lawyer said, no. And then I said, well, come on. And then FX said, well, let's talk to the Fox lawyer. So then they went to the next person above them.

• 28:37Tim Ferriss?

  Now, the coyote being the term for someone who facilitates this process.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  That's right. So, yeah, the coyotes are the guys who bring you across over the border illegally. And so then I went to Big Fox's attorney, and Big Fox's attorney was like, absolutely not. And so that was the only thing that I really wanted to do for the show that we wouldn't, because they basically said, if I did it against their will, and I just, because I said, why don't we just do it? We'll just go shoot it, and we could put it in the show. And they're like, if you do that, then, you know, they basically threatened to like, cancel the show and then take us off the air and not insure us. And so I said, all right, we won't do that.

• 29:08Tim Ferriss?

  And you're like, ah. And they're like, if you hadn't asked us, we'd have plausible deniability, but now you've gone and screwed both of us.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Now, you've gone and brought it up. Yeah. So now it's, I'm a real believer in that it's better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission these days. Yeah.

• 29:22Tim Ferriss?

  What, for someone who's unfamiliar with your work,

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:27Tim Ferriss?

  If you had to choose, say, two or three films or television episodes that you would, if you could make mandatory viewing for all Americans, what would they be?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Let's think. I mean, it supersizes me. I feel like everybody's seen. So I feel like everybody, I'm stopped by people all the time who've seen that, which is still mind blowing to me. Um, but I think, um, in 30 days, I love the, uh, the prison episode of 30 days, I think is a great episode people should watch, um, especially as we live in a country where we're still sending people to prison and we've turned prisons into profit. Um, I think it's a, it's a, it's a great episode to watch and it will make you so angry. So I think that's, that's one. Um, I love Greatest Movie Ever Sold. I think Greatest Movie Ever Sold and just the conceit of that film is spectacular. For people who haven't seen it, I'll just give you the quick rundown. It's a movie about product placement, marketing and advertising where the whole film is paid for and made possible by product placement, marketing and advertising. Very meta.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  It's spectacularly meta. It's so good. Um, Maine and Tail, one of my favorite sponsors of all time is a sponsor of that movie. For those who don't know what Maine and Tail is, Maine and Tail is a magical shampoo that is for both horses and people. So, yeah, which I, which I also love. I love, cause, cause you know, how many times have we all been there where we're in the shower with our horse and, and we say, why? Yeah. Why do I need two products? Why, why is there just not one shampoo for both of us?

• 30:55Speaker 00

  I'll tell you, I'll tell you a quick story, which is my favorite things when we were making that movie. Cause when I saw this, I found it and you see, you see in the film, when I find this in a store, like I had no idea this existed and I find this product and I'm like, it is one of the greatest days of my life that I have found this product that I'm, and you read the label and it gives you like the instructions on the back of a bottle of Maine and Tail are amazing. Like it tells you how to use it to wash your horse. It's ridiculous. And so I keep, so I start calling Devin Katz. Devin, who is now a very good friend and he's the president of the company. So I'm like calling him, I'm stalking him, trying to get him to return my call to be in the movie, to be in the movie. And finally he calls me back and he says, um, he goes, so, so just tell me, what is this movie about anyway? So I explained to him what the movie is and he goes, so what, so how would you see us in the movie? Like how would we, because we don't pay

• 31:40Speaker 00

  to be in movies, you know, we don't do that, you know? So, so how would you see it? And I said, okay, well here's, here's how it is. So now picture this. So it's a close up on a bottle of Maine and Tail and the camera slowly starts to pull back. And as the camera pulls back, you see me washing my little boy's hair. And the camera pulls back a little bit more and then you see me, and we're in a bathtub and you see me washing my hair in the bathtub. And then the camera pulls back a little bit more and it pulls back more. And then you see me turn to my left and I'm washing my Shetland pony. And the guy goes, and then the phone is silent for a minute. And then he goes, that's the greatest integration I've ever heard in my life. That's amazing. He goes, oh, that's fantastic. Oh, for a minute there, I thought you were gonna do something weird with the product.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  But then he goes on to tell me, he goes on to tell me, because apparently it was in the Will Ferrell movie Blades of Glory. And he said, he goes, so, so I said to Will, I said, listen, I just want to make sure, like, you're not gonna do anything like masturbate with it, are ya? I was like, I love that, that's where he draws the line of what's weird. So like, Will Ferrell masturbating with mane and tail in Blades of Glory would be weird. Me in the bathtub with a horse, totally fine.

• 32:48Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my God.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's amazing. So wait, so, so back to the original thing. So there's that movie, um, Inside Man, there's so many episodes of Inside Man that I love. The season one of Inside Man, we do an episode about elder care. And this is on Netflix. All three seasons of Inside Man are on Netflix. All three seasons of in, of 30 Days are on Netflix. Season one of Inside Man, we do an episode about, uh, about elder care, where I move in with my grandmother. And it is, it, for me, it's one of the most raw, honest and powerful things I've ever made.

• 33:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, awesome.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:21Tim Ferriss?

  The, the marijuana episode also.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  It's super, super strong. Such a good show. And it's like, that guy, Steve DeAngelo, and what they're doing up at Harborside Medical in, in Oakland is phenomenal. Like, cause you go there, you have these visions of what dispensaries are gonna be. And everybody thinks they're like dodgy and shady and it's gonna bring crime to the neighborhoods. And this place is beautiful. It looks like a health clinic. You, and they run it like a health clinic. They have, they have, uh, health instructors who are there. They have Reiki instructors, they have psychiatrists that you can meet with, not to mention all the product that you can buy there. I mean, and it's run like a proper clinic and it's phenomenal. Like, that's how every clinic in America should be, like, every dispensary should be.

• 33:57Tim Ferriss?

  When did you go, just since we're talking about health? I think it was Inside Man, uh, when you went to Thailand, Bumrungrad?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Bumrungrad, yeah, Bumrungrad in, in, in Thailand.

• 34:06Tim Ferriss?

  Which is incredible facility.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  It's phenomenal.

• 34:10Tim Ferriss?

  Would you ever, why or why not would you go to Bumrungrad for medical treatment yourself?

• 34:17Speaker 00

  I mean, I would, I would go back after being there. I had such a great experience. And depending on what I had to have done, like, if I had to have surgery that had real serious recuperation. Where I was going to be laid up for like weeks, going there and having the surgery done and then knowing that I'm going to be on a beach for like the next four weeks in a place that's going to cost me a fraction, I think is worth it. And I've spoken to people who since that episode have gone there for medical procedures, just because they saw that show and they're like, it's half of what it was going to cost me in the States, or less. You know, it's remarkable.

• 34:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, particularly, I mean, if you're doing, say, an elective surgery or something that doesn't have, you're not having a brain tumor treated necessarily.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Or might not be covered.

• 34:59Tim Ferriss?

  Or might not be covered, exactly. I mean, I went to Nicaragua at one point, this is when I was writing The Four Hour Body, and realized, wait a second, if I just do, say, my, my full panel of blood testing at what is considered sort of the highest end, and I don't necessarily recommend Nicaragua for everybody, but while I'm there on vacation, it will pay for my vacation.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:18Tim Ferriss?

  Which was incredible.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 35:20Tim Ferriss?

  And not only that, but they did STAT, which means, for people who aren't familiar, you get your results back in 24 hours. So it was like literally turned around everything in the hospital in four or five hours. It was just phenomenal.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Well, that's what I love. When I was at Bummer and Grad, you'd get a blood test, everything's in one building. So you'd get a test done downstairs, and then I'd go upstairs to see my next doctor. And whether it was an MRI, or a blood test, or other, other panels they were doing of your blood test, I'd get it done downstairs. And by the time I got upstairs, the doctor already had all the results, like in real time. They were getting the results done, because they also processed the blood in the hospital. So it wasn't being sent out to a lab like they do here in the States. You didn't go down to the, what are those lab clinics that you always end up going to that are all pop ups?

• 36:01Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, LabCorp.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  LabCorp. Yeah, you go to like a LabCorp, where it's like a guy in like a basement with like-

• 36:05Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, well, you feel like you're going to a methadone clinic. It's rough.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  So dodgy. But it's like, everything, everything in one place. And you, and part of the reason, they said, why we can do it so cheaply is because everything's under one roof. We're not kind of third partying anything. I was like, I'm there. And I'm like, why can't we just do more of that here? Why can't that just happen here?

• 36:23Tim Ferriss?

  Medical tourism. That's, I feel like I should, I should, uh, well, people can watch the episode.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  People can watch that episode. Yeah, they can watch it. It's a, it's a season three of Inside Man.

• 36:31Tim Ferriss?

  Bumrungrad. B U M R U N G R A D.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 36:34Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, people will be very, very impressed. It's, it's

• 36:38Speaker 00

  It looks like a four seasons.

• 36:39Tim Ferriss?

  Not at all. Yeah, exactly. It's not what you would expect at all.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:43Tim Ferriss?

  One of the questions that came quite a bit from my fans was, how do you get people to care about important issues? In an environment where there's such a deluge, such a barrage of noise?

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:56Tim Ferriss?

  How do you accomplish that?

• 36:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a great question because it's like every day we feel like, are we doing anything that actually, are people paying attention? You know, you, you hope that you make things that will make a difference or that people will listen to, or at least create some level of empathy and, and change a viewpoint for someone. And I think that, I think the hardest thing is one, getting people just to watch. So I think once you get them to watch, I think that the, the way that I hope people get affected is because when we tell these stories, I get affected by them. Um, once you get immersed in them, and I mean, you know this better than anyone, is once you kind of get into these worlds and see it, it's a part of you forever. Like that becomes a part of your life. And whether it's me going to a foreign country for medical tourism, or, um, you know, me,

• 37:38Speaker 00

  was I was doing in, in, in this past season where I'm just like eliminating toxins from my house, all these like poisons and cleaning products and stuff that we use every day that we just don't even realize. Um, I think that, uh, I think for me, it's, it's taking people on this vicarious journey with me. And so long as I am open and honest with you, then you're willing to pay attention. And I think that's a big one. A friend of mine, a few years ago, gave some, gave me some good advice where he said, uh, he said, you can't be afraid to show your scars. He goes, that's, that's, that's what you, that's who you are. And he goes, and you can't, you have to continue to stay true to that. And I think that's, it was some of the best advice I ever got.

• 38:16Tim Ferriss?

  What would you consider some of your scars?

• 38:18Speaker 00

  I think it's just being open and honest about your life. I think it's, you know, talking about the fact that, you know, I'm divorced, talking about the fact that, you know, I, uh, you know, kind of what led to that and, and, and being open and honest about your life and the things you've experienced and not being afraid to talk about that, you know, your upbringing and how that affected you. I think the more you can have those, that, that honesty in those relationships that you build with people, that creates a trust and it creates a trust, not only with the people who watch the show, but with the people that you're talking to.

• 38:49Tim Ferriss?

  If you are looking at a particular idea

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:53Tim Ferriss?

  That you want to put forth in the world or explore and it could be adapted to documentary format or television format. What are the factors that lead you to choose one or the other?

• 39:04Speaker 00

  You mean whether it's movie or TV?

• 39:05Tim Ferriss?

  That's right.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  I think it's about, I think it's, it's can it sustain? One, because there's some movies that are meant to be, some ideas that are meant to be movies and there's, and you see this a lot of time when you watch documentaries, when 45 minutes in, you're like, this should be done now. As, but, but everybody wants to make a feature movie like, no, no, I'm going to make it a feature. And it's like, no, this should have been about 40 minutes, 45 minutes, 50 minutes. But they end up making it 75, 80 and that last 30, you're just like, oh, it's just trudging along and it should have been over. So for us, we avoid that by never kind of putting ourselves there. And so we say this is, this, there's things that are meant to be 90 minutes because they're big, big, deep explorations. But especially now, there's other ones that you can take to TV and I can have an even deeper exploration if I can do two to three episodes on it, or four episodes on it that are hour long and then you can have a real deep dive into these topics.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Um, I think that, uh, so for us, well, I mean, this, that's why it's great. Like I love being a storyteller right now. I love being a content creator, being a filmmaker, a director, whatever you want to call it. Because there are places now to tell all these stories, whether it's 90 minutes or 30 minutes or 20 minutes or 10 minutes or three minutes. Like we made an amazing bunch of movies, um, a few years ago, uh, called Focus Forward, um, that GE paid for where we basically made these three minute short films that were all about people, innovators around the world, people who are doing incredible things. Um, and each one of these movies were three minutes long and they're powerful. They're, they're so beautiful and, and inspiring. And now like they've seen, like they've been seen like a hundred million people around the world because it's one of those where anybody will give you a round of boxing. Like anybody will give you three minutes. And once you watch one, then you'll watch two, you watch three.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  What we saw is whoever, if you, if you made it through one, then you watched five. The average was five, which is awesome.

• 40:42Tim Ferriss?

  So going back to the guest lecture at NYU.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:46Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm gonna.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  They're gonna be calling me soon now.

• 40:48Tim Ferriss?

  I know, I know.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  Hey, we heard the lecture, we heard the podcast and Tim's right, you should come to a guest lecture.

• 40:54Tim Ferriss?

  Just incepting the administration at NYU. And so you have all these bright eyed, bushy tailed students who are, say, fixated on the feature film documentary. And they say, I know you say that we could do these short things, but you know, really, really obsessed with this idea of doing a feature. What warnings or advice would you give them? And I just want to repeat one thing that you mentioned before we got started. We were looking at my, the audio equipment I have here, which is very simple. It's a Zoom H6 with XLR cables that plug into.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Simple is good. Yeah, simple, good.

• 41:25Tim Ferriss?

  SM58 Sure mics. And we were talking about fancy, every time I try to get fancy.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  Did they give this to you or did they get a free plug there? I hope they gave that.

• 41:32Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, no, Zoom, that one's on me. Next time, call me. And you said, once you get fancy, fancy gets broken.

• 41:40Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 41:41Tim Ferriss?

  And it's just such a nice mantra, I think, to keep in mind. And that could really help someone. What warnings or advice would you give to aspiring documentary filmmakers?

• 41:50Speaker 00

  I mean, I think the biggest thing is we try to over complicate things when you start making movies or even TV shows, whatever it is. Like you, you have these grandiose ideas of everything that you need and everything that has to, has to be done. And especially today, like the YouTube-ification of content creation and content consumption has shifted our concept of what, what it means to make something good or palatable. We are infinitely more forgiving of stuff that looks dodgy for good story. You can sacrifice quality for great story. So for me, it's like, it's all about the story. It doesn't matter. Like I'll watch shaky camera footage now, I'll watch somebody's like shitty thing on their phone, so long as it's a great story. And I'm engaged because we've gotten to the point now where we are past that. We're forgiving of all that.

• 42:30Tim Ferriss?

  It's true of audio too.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's true of audio. Like you'll, so long as I can hear it and it's not just the whole time, I will, I will be, I will still be forgiving of it. And I think that's what I tell, I tell young filmmakers all the time is story first. It's all about the story. It's like everything else about what you want it to be or how long you want it to be. It should be as long as it needs to be ultimately, but it's all about the story. And if you've gotten a beginning and middle and an end and you've told your core in 40 minutes or 60 minutes, then don't stretch it out because now you're just putting, you're dressing up something that doesn't need it.

• 43:00Tim Ferriss?

  If you wanted. To give people examples or resources for masterful storytelling. Are there any particular books, films, resources?

• 43:09Speaker 00

  I mean, for me, the best, the best resources are the movies themselves. Like, I mean, I am such a, I am such a movie freak. For nonfiction movies, like if you're watching nonfiction films, like my favorite nonfiction film of all time, which kind of pushed me to seeing documentaries, excuse me, seeing documentaries as like a viable outlet for my creativity as I got older, was, it was when I was in college, I saw the Joe Berlenger and Bruce Sinofsky film Brothers Keeper.

• 43:34Tim Ferriss?

  Brothers Keeper.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Brothers Keeper, which is one of the greatest films I've ever watched. This is like, see, this is New York City, as you guys can hear, this is what happens in New York. We get a train going by, you can hear everything rumbling in the office.

• 43:42Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds like an earthquake.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  It's an earthquake, like all the glass is shaking, it'll stop in a second. This is, this is New York. The, so it's a film called Brothers Keeper, and I saw it in a movie theater, uh, cause I heard everybody talking about it, and I was like, I have to go see this film. And it was the first time, I think, I probably ever paid to see a movie, a documentary in a movie theater. And, um, cause I, I was in film school, so we were watching a lot of docs in school, but never, but never in a, actually where I bought a ticket. And so I bought a ticket, went to see this film, and the film is so good, it's so dark, and it's so creepy. And it's about these three brothers where one of them is accused, it's in upstate New York, so it's like these three country brothers, where one of them is accused of murdering another one. And as it goes on in the trial of this guy being brought up for, on murder charges, that there was like, there was like incest,

• 44:28Speaker 00

  and it's like, I mean, it gets dark and weird and so good. But that's one of those films where that, that, there's, there were so many levels of emotion you feel when you're watching that, and it was so beautifully shot, and one of, years later, when I got to meet Joe and Bruce, I just, I mean, I gushed over them. Like, this movie, I was like, that movie changed my life. Like, it is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen in my life. And I, to this day, I mean, I'm still such a fan, like, when I see people, I'm a little fanboy, when I see somebody that I look up to, it's like, I, I will go over and just like, and just like, cover them with fangirlness. Yeah. Who else falls in that? I mean, Errol Morris is a genius. What was that? Errol Morris. Errol Morris. Errol Morris, who is like that guy, his, the amazing, here's the thing about, if you, if you go to Errol Morris's website, Errol Morris is such a craftsman. Could you describe who he is? I apologize.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  So Errol Morris is, Errol Morris did The Fog of War. Ah, which I still haven't seen. Errol Morris did The Thin Blue Line, like years ago, Errol Morris was one of the guys who started putting like real dramatic, produced recreations in movies. Like when he did Thin Blue Line, people attacked the film, and this is crazy to think about, back when he made this in whatever, 80 something, they're like, this isn't a documentary. It's like you got, you got, you got fake, you got actors in there doing things. You got stuff that you staged. You staged things in a movie. That's not a documentary. And when you look at that, like the movie is gorgeous, but it, but it set the tone. And it's like, it basically changed what we think of what a documentary could be. And so, um, you know, the same thing happened years later. I remember when I was on a panel with Al Masles and Al Masles,

• 45:52Speaker 00

  this was like right when Super Size Me came out, and Al Masles told me, um, he goes, he goes, yeah, what you do, that he goes, what you do isn't documentary. He goes, you don't, he goes, you don't make documentaries. And I, and again, it was like, there was a transformational moment, um, of I think what people's interpretation of what a doc could be was. Why did he say that? Because he saw it being like from a first person standpoint, he didn't see like me telling a first person story as being a documentary. Um, same thing. He didn't think Michael Moore made documentaries. Um, and so he, so that was, so that was kind of his idea. But like Errol Morris, you know, back to this amazing craftsman, like his stuff is so beautiful. And if you go to his website, like how Errol Morris like really pays the bills is he makes commercials. Um, cause it's not, it's not like we're going out and buying boats, making documentaries. So let's be honest, like we don't have like a fleet of Ferraris outside.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  It's like you, you make these movies because you believe in them and what they represent. But if you go to his website, it's like, and I think it's errolmorris.com, I'm not sure. If you go there, it's like, it has like all these commercials that he's made and just experiments that he does with the cameras, which is awesome. Like, and you see like how he, he will take somebody's crazy commercial money and do something he's never done. And then once he tries that, he starts to apply those tricks and transplant it to his movies. That's cool. It's so cool to see, but it's like, he's a, he's a talent. Like I have mad respect for him. And then there's somebody like Steve James, who I think Steve James is just a great storyteller. Steve James did Hoop Dreams, he did Stevie, he did Life Itself. Um, apart from Steve James just being an epic human being, like he's a magnificent human. Like I'd say all the time, like when I grow up, I want to be Steve James because

• 47:20Speaker 00

  he's a, he's just a great individual who treats people well, you know, is, is, you know, will return anybody's phone call, talks to anyone, is the last guy to leave when students are asking him questions, you know, I, I really admired that. And so there's, there's things like that that I take from people, but, but he's also a great filmmaker, you know, he really believes in what he does. And so I think when you look at his films and he's one of those guys who makes movies over years, you know, like he'll make a movie for like five, seven, eight years and, and that type of dedication I really, I really look up to.

• 47:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's a huge commitment.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 47:52Tim Ferriss?

  And on the, on the point of films, so do, do you still, why still make films? And the reason I ask is that

• 47:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:00Tim Ferriss?

  When we're talking about formats and say the future of media, I think about this quite a lot. There are people who say can create very, very popular blogs.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:09Tim Ferriss?

  And then get courted by the big publishers in New York City and publish books. And the book still to this day, for whatever reason occupies a unique part of mind space in human beings. It just carries a level of gravitas that is not associated with the internet, right? Quite wrongly, I think.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:28Tim Ferriss?

  But people can become sort of part of the cultural zeitgeist and have a real impact with books in a way that is very difficult with something that is viewed as ephemeral online.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:38Tim Ferriss?

  Do documentaries still have that, and maybe it's just something I perceive, but that difference compared to say TV or is that, am I making that up?

• 48:47Speaker 00

  No, I mean, I think that what's happened though now is there've been a couple of things that have happened. One, on the heels of like HBO and Netflix and Showtime and especially Netflix, where more people I think have seen things I've made on Netflix than anywhere else, which is fantastic. I think that they have created a larger audience for documentaries than ever before. And I think that type of hunger is what's also starting to drive this push into smarter nonfiction television, both from a Netflix standpoint and from a television standpoint. What happened in television is there were all of these people. All these networks and it started with like FX. First, it was HBO who raised the bar for scripted television. Started making scripted television beyond what any of us thought was possible for TV. I mean, they just started crushing it. And so then other people said, well, we should be creating that level of television.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  That's when I was working with FX back in the day, John Landgraf, brilliant guy. One of the smartest TV people you'll ever meet in your life. Said that's what we like. We want to be HBO for for commercial television and that's what he created. Like he was the champion that made that and raised that bar for FX and then, you know, then Showtime did. And now, if you look across the spectrum of TV, every network has at least one amazing show. Like USA has Mr. Robot, which is spectacular. Like every you go down the line, everybody's got one big, big fiction show. But nobody had smart nonfiction. Everybody kind of left that down here. It was lowest common denominator. So while the rising tide lifted all the ships for fiction, it didn't happen for nonfiction. And now people are realizing as as they're abandoning ship with these all these crappy TV shows that we're missing the boat.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  There's higher expectations from our audience and now they're starting to push that. You know, as HBO did with the Jinx and again HBO leading the charge of

• 50:20Tim Ferriss?

  The Jinx was great.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  It was fantastic. They said, let's show people that you can make smarter nonfiction.

• 50:24Tim Ferriss?

  Talk about dark.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Dark, so dark. And so then there was that. There was Making a Murderer on Netflix. And now everybody's like, oh, people want to see smart nonfiction. We should be doing that. Which is great for us. It's great for people like Alex Gibney.

• 50:37Tim Ferriss?

  Who's that?

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Alex Gibney, who did Smar- Enron's Smartest Guys in the Room. He did the Scientology movie.

• 50:43Tim Ferriss?

  Going Clear.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  Going Clear.

• 50:44Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, God, another creepy one.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Alex, he's he's a great person you should talk to on the podcast. He's an amazing filmmaker. Again, somebody I really look up to because I think he's he's incredibly cerebral, very smart.

• 50:54Tim Ferriss?

  That was, I mean, the amount of data crunching and just review.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:59Tim Ferriss?

  Required to make Going Clear was so evident in the making of the film.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  And he's he is a deep researcher and I really, I think he's fantastic. But but it's one of those things that for people like us who've been kind of living in the space and making this type of content for a long time. It's fantastic because now it just opens up and broadens the spectrum. So for me, I feel like there's still a place to make movies. And and then there's now there's a now there's more places to make smarter TV, which I think is really exciting.

• 51:27Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think you will be, if you had to speculate, what do you think you'll be creating in five or three, five or 10 years, whichever you want to choose?

• 51:36Speaker 00

  We're about to start doing some really awesome VR projects, like that'll be this year. We're gonna be doing some incredible stuff. We've held back, I didn't want to kind of jump in early as everybody else is kind of jumping on this VR bandwagon. And we've been, we've been smart about what we've been navigating through and the projects that we want to make. And so that's, that's gonna be something that's gonna be real. And, and I think that VR has the ability to become an empathy machine. I think it has the ability to put you in places and experience things and feelings in a way you never have before. So that's super exciting for me, as somebody who, you know, believes that you can actually, you know, start to chip away and make the world a better place with entertainment. You know, I think movies and TV shows have a profound impact on our belief system.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  And I think that there's just something we can do there. So for me, I think that's, that's where we'll be. I think we'll be doing, I mean, in five years, probably won't be exactly five, maybe closer to 10, but there's gonna be one pipe that delivers everything. There's gonna be one pipe where I watch everything, whether it's on my TV at home, on my, on my tablet, on my phone, it'll be everywhere. It's gonna be one pipe that feeds everything. And that's gonna be an exciting time for a couple of reasons, because now anything I want to see is suddenly gonna be right at my fingertips, wherever, whenever, wherever, I'll be able to watch anything. Awesome. But simultaneously, you're gonna be to the point of, still back to the YouTube-ification of our viewing habits, where how do you now, how do you now bring eyeballs? How do you let people know it's there? And I think that's the next step. You know, there were three stages of, real shifts in entertainment that I think were big. And one, the first one really helped me,

• 53:02Speaker 00

  because it made Super Size Me possible. And there was like this democratization of, of production, democratization of cinema, where suddenly anyone with a camera and a computer and a good idea could make a movie. That was huge. So now, suddenly, everybody had access to the tools. You could put in the sweat equity, you could make something really cheaply and easily get it out for the world to see. Next was kind of this democratization of distribution, where now I didn't need to have, you know, Sony or Paramount put out a movie in a movie theater, I could put it online. Now anybody in the world could have access to my content, you know, via YouTube or via Vimeo. But now, how do you get people to see it? That's the problem. So it's out. out there, but it's invisible. Now comes the next big step, which will be huge as the pipelines converge, which is almost like this democratization of curation, this democratization of marketing.

• 53:46Speaker 00

  How do now we point people towards what matters? And that's where it's going to be influencers, there's going to be people like you, it's going to be people like me, who people trust. And those voices are going to be even more resonant as we move forward, because people are going to trust in them even with even more, I think, importance.

• 54:05Tim Ferriss?

  Here, here. Yeah, I agree. I was a VR skeptic until I had a demo with the HTC Vive, with running Valve software in Seattle, where I was fully kitted out and in maybe a 20 by 20 foot space.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  And where you can walk around.

• 54:21Tim Ferriss?

  We can walk around.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Walls come up.

• 54:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 54:23Tim Ferriss?

  And what just what struck me as someone who for long, long time listeners of this podcast know, I may or may not have dabbled in various types of plant medicine or other molecules. The time distortion that I experienced in that immersive VR, which is still Model T by comparison, looking towards, say, what's going to exist three years from now.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:46Tim Ferriss?

  I thought I was in for five or six, no, no, I thought I was in for five or six minutes and I was in for almost 25 minutes.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 54:52Tim Ferriss?

  And that's when I was like, okay, there is something really fundamental going on.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:58Tim Ferriss?

  And you said this empathy machine, I mean, just like the simulacrum and the ability to elicit emotion is so far beyond anything coming from a flat screen.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 55:11Tim Ferriss?

  It was just mind blowing.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I was just at, I was just at Google this past week and meeting with their VR guys and seeing some of the stuff they're working on and you, it's like you're in the matrix. Like suddenly it's like, it's the closest thing I could imagine to suddenly being Neo and taking the pill and being thrust into the machine that, that, that I could. And it's, I mean, what's coming is incredibly exciting. Yeah, and it just says, and as a, and as a content creator and as a storyteller, it just makes you realize we've barely begun to scratch the surface of what's possible. Like it is, as you said, it's a Model T. Like it is so early and it's, that excites me. Like we've always been a very early adopter of technology. I, you know, we've always been, we've always tried to be a little ahead of the curve and, and what we use, the tools we use to tell stories. And so for me, I think this is going to be incredible.

• 55:54Tim Ferriss?

  Which filmmakers out there do you feel are pushing the envelope in terms of technology or innovations in the space? Cause I know, for instance, like James Cameron.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  James Cameron's phenomenal. I mean, James Cameron, I think, invented the camera that he used on the last movie. Like it was him and his partner created the Pace Cameron camera to use on Avatar. Like they changed the whole box that made that movie.

• 56:15Tim Ferriss?

  It's bonkers.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  He invented the technology that created like the, the, the, what was it? Like the chrome, the chrome cop in Terminator 2, because everybody's like, we can't do this. And he's like, I'll fund it myself.

• 56:27Tim Ferriss?

  And what's, what's so cool about that?

• 56:28Speaker 00

  He created Lightstorm to basically do that technology.

• 56:31Tim Ferriss?

  Which, correct me if I'm wrong, because you would be the person to correct me.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:34Tim Ferriss?

  That the Abyss, which I enjoyed, but was not, I understand, a commercial success, is where he honed that technology that later enabled him to,

• 56:43Speaker 00

  To create that.

• 56:44Tim Ferriss?

  Use it in Terminator 2.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  That's exactly right.

• 56:46Tim Ferriss?

  Which is such an awesome story.

• 56:47Speaker 00

  And it was out of that, yeah, because it was out of that where he, that's where he got the idea of what could happen with this other character and what it could be. And he poured all his own money into making that a reality, which I love. I mean, I'm somebody who fly, I mean, I'm a real believer that you should always bet on yourself first. And pre, when we made Super Size Me, I remember I was, uh, because this was right when we sold our show to MTV, the first show we created online, when, you know, from the Interactive Consortium, when we had that company.

• 57:11Tim Ferriss?

  The con.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  So here's the con. So when we created, the first show we created under the con was a show called I Bet You Will. And so we sold that show to CBS and then to MTV and then 9/11 happened. So we had proof of concept. We proved that we create, could create programming online and springboard it off. So we created the first show to really go from the web to television as a series, sold it to MTV, then 9/11 happened. Everything stopped. Like production just came to a standstill in New York City. So we had no money. Um, I was evicted from my apartment. I was sleeping in a hammock in my office. That was, so that, so every morning I would get up and go to the gym around the corner, the New York Sports Club to like shower and work out. I was in great shape because I didn't have a choice. Um, and then I would come back to my office and we had, I still had people coming to work and to make sure that they could pay their rent and, and pay their bills, I took out credit cards. And so I was basically paying their rent with credit cards. I was paying their bills with credit cards.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  I was paying credit cards with credit cards and I amassed about a quarter of a million dollars in credit card debt. Um, in, in about a year.

• 58:01Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so, but I still had an office and I still had a business and I was like, I'm not, I was like, you know, I'm still betting on us. And so that's when MTV greenlit the series and we did 53 episodes of that show. And during that time, I paid off like $50,000 worth of that debt. And then when they canceled it, I had another 50 grand in the bank. And I was like, well, I could either pour this $50,000 into that bottomless pit of debt, or we could make a movie. Because we owned all the equipment. Again, it was the same thing. We had the cameras, we had the computers, let's make a film. And that film was supersized me and it changed everything.

• 58:30Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, wow.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's why, I mean, like, James Cameron is one of those people that I really look at and admire, because he will always bet on him. And he'll always bet on his ability. If you haven't read the New Yorker article about James Cameron, when he was making, when he was making Avatar, not only is he a genius, but he also is a bit of a bully and says like some terrible things to people who work for him. Like, there's some of the greatest lines that you'll ever hear him say to human beings, which there's a guy who's like rigging lights. And he says to the guy, and he goes, watching you lights like watching a monkey fuck a football. And he yells to another guy, he's like, hiring you was like firing two good men.

• 59:05Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, ouch.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  Some of the lines are phenomenal. It's like, I really, and I worked with, but here's the thing, but it's like, I mean, part of me is he may be saying this, and I worked with a guy years ago, a guy named Gene Lick, who ran a printing shop back when I was in college. And I worked for, I worked for Gene through a friend of mine at NYU, who worked there, ran the print shop. And so, I would go to this print shop, and Gene was one of those guys who would basically yell and scream at the top of his lungs and say terrible insulting things that I thought, I thought it was spectacularly funny, and really entertaining. And, and so for me, but I also think he did it in jest to be funny, even though he was mean about it, but he was also saying it in jest to also make other people laugh, which I feel like James Cameron's doing the same thing. But it's, so Gene, you know, rest in peace. He was, he was a phenomenal guy.

• 59:50Tim Ferriss?

  James, this is a quick side note. I remember-

• 59:55Speaker 00

  Has he done the podcast?

• 59:56Tim Ferriss?

  He hasn't. I would love to do it with him. I've met him once. I went on a zero-gravity, like a zero-G flight-

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:00:01Tim Ferriss?

  Where the, like, the payload was ridiculous. I mean, we're really fortunate the plane didn't go down, because it was like Elon Musk, James Cameron, like, you go down the list, it was nuts.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:00:10Tim Ferriss?

  And I had a chance to get some swag, Avatar swag, because it was, it was, obviously, I paid for the flight-

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Tim Ferriss?

  And brought a reader along, actually. Who won some type of competition I'd thrown and we all got T-shirts that had been given to the staff and the crew working on Avatar and that shirt was great. The shirt said, and I might be getting this slightly wrong, but it was in huge font right across the check and it's a chest. It said, "Hope is not a strategy. Luck is not a factor. Failure is not an option. Hyphen James Cameron." And I was like, wow. It's like, setting the tone. Setting the tone for production. And I wore that shirt when I was writing The Four Hour Body, which like just about killed me, literally and kind of figuratively.

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Tim Ferriss?

  But what an experience. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's like, is there anybody you know who is that exacting and forward thinking who isn't brutal in some respect?

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  I mean, I think, no, because part of me, it feels like you have to be so steadfast in your belief. You have to, because if you don't drink the Kool-Aid, nobody drinks the Kool-Aid. Um, I mean, it's gotta be, who's the other person that's probably in that, in that same type of state? Like Kanye is Kanye there? And I mean, Kanye's probably on even a different level of than like James Cameron, but, but comparable, I think, and kind of maybe a mega, mega maniacal way. Um, but I think that, I think you have to, you have to believe in you first. Torre, um, who's the, he's a great writer, commentator, uh, was, he told me the story where he went to Kanye's house once. And so he's in Kanye's house and inside Kanye's house, there's a big giant poster of Kanye, like right inside

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  the living room. And so, and so Torre said to him, he goes, um, he goes, Kanye, why do you have a giant picture of you on the wall? And he goes, well, I gotta cheer for me before anyone else can cheer for me. And I was like, there's some fantastic logic in that.

• 1:02:10Tim Ferriss?

  That's actually a good response.

• 1:02:11Speaker 00

  There's some good logic in there.

• 1:02:12Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know if I can stomach the grief I would get for putting a huge like Tim Ferriss.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  Poster yourself.

• 1:02:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, like Burt Reynolds centerfold, kind of. I don't know if you've ever seen White Chicks. There's this one, Terry Crews. I don't know if my friends will let me get away with that.

• 1:02:27Speaker 00

  Well, as you come into my office and there's like, there's like posters of the films that like I've made in the wall. So it's like, that's my, I guess my Kanye moment.

• 1:02:34Tim Ferriss?

  Gotta cheer for yourself first.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:02:37Tim Ferriss?

  I know we only have a few more minutes.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:02:39Tim Ferriss?

  So just a couple more questions and then hopefully we'll do a round two sometime. But the, I'm not going to go through all my usual rapid fire questions, but one I would love to ask is, what is the book that you've gifted most to other people?

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  Oh, um, I tell you what, there was a, I gave the Bhagavad Gita to a lot of people.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  This was right after, I guess it would have been right after my son was born and then right after I got divorced. Somebody gave it to me and, and I got a lot out of it. And again, there's been multiple, multiple interpretations, multiple writings of it.

• 1:03:15Speaker 00

  But there was one in particular interpretation, I can't remember who the writer was, the guy who basically did this, this translation. But I gave that book to, I don't know, a couple dozen people who they're like, yeah, I'm just like, I'm having, I'm having a hard time right now. I don't know what to do. And I was like, you should read this book.

• 1:03:30Tim Ferriss?

  This is one of these books that has come up so many times in my life that I have not yet read. So this might be the final.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna send you, I'm gonna send you the translation that I read.

• 1:03:39Tim Ferriss?

  Cool.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Tim Ferriss?

  I appreciate it. It's, it's kind of like the tout ditching. It's like I put it off for, I didn't put it off, it just never took the step to read it for decades and decades. Cool. This is good. This is a nudge that I need. And we talked about technology earlier. You have a lot of irons in the fire.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Tim Ferriss?

  Would you like to tell people about what you're up to in, in the tech space?

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  Um, yeah. So we, uh, this is, this is a great thing. I was just out at Jason Calacanis's launch in San Francisco.

• 1:04:06Tim Ferriss?

  Big event.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  We had a, we had a company that had been in his incubator slash accelerator for the last four months called Collect. And this is a, a company that you can go to, you can go to clect.com or you can download the apps in the iTunes store. But it's a, it's a, a company that is.

• 1:04:21Tim Ferriss?

  Spelled as you would expect.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  C L E C T.

• 1:04:23Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. So. It's the whole genesis of this and what it is, it's basically like a geek collectible marketplace. So anything that is geek, anything that you would imagine at Comic Con that you love from, you know, Walking Dead to whatever, you know, posters to action figures, whatever those geeky things you love. Vinyl, like I collect a lot of, a lot of like, uh, like vinyl caricatures, caricatures made by pop artists. So anything, no matter what it is, is that you can like find it on collect. And so I was being chased by, I was finishing a movie in London and the founder of the company, this guy, Steve Bromwell, was chasing me, chasing me, chasing me. And he finally said, uh, and I said, what is it? And he goes, you're the only person that's gonna get this, like you'll understand. And a couple of years ago, I made a movie with Stan Lee and Joss Whedon about Comic Con.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  And then two years before that, I made the Simpsons 20th anniversary special for Fox. Like, so I'm, I'm like a geek to core, into my core. Um, and so I said, what is it? Show it to me. So he showed me just like a flip deck of what it was and I was like, I love this. And so we sat down, we talked about the company. I came on board as one of the, one of the founders early on, um, put money into the company. And it's one of those where I just, I believe in this, like of the, what is it? I think it's $18 billion a year that's spent on eBay. A third of that, $6 billion is everything that lives within this geek space. So I think there's a great place to give people a better experience where you can actually have a geek to geek experience. So there's a, there's kind of a great social atmosphere to it. Um, but then there's also the ability to buy, to sell, to trade with fellow geeks and, and, you know, feel like you're actually getting something you love. So that's, that's awesome.

• 1:05:50Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any particular favorite categories or items that you've seen on the site?

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh, there's so much fan art, like there's so much stuff that people create on their own, which is awesome. And so I love seeing the stuff that people draw on their own, posters they create. Uh, it's, it's spectacular. So for me, I love seeing things like that. Um, I love the people who have stuff that's still in the original packaging that's been on their shelves since like 1960. Some people have like original Star Wars toys from like when you and I were kids. It's still in original packaging and like, that's, that is dedication.

• 1:06:18Tim Ferriss?

  It's a lot of dedication, a lot of self-control too. Even when I was a little kid, I still have all my old Star, like original Star Wars toys.

• 1:06:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Tim Ferriss?

  But like the heads are gnawed on.

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:26Tim Ferriss?

  The hands always got chewed off because I was a little animal.

• 1:06:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I still have, like I have my original Darth Vader carry case that's in my kid's room that I wouldn't let him play with for years until like last year, when I knew he wouldn't totally like junk all the toys. So now he can actually play with the action figures.

• 1:06:40Tim Ferriss?

  So, CLECT.com.

• 1:06:43Speaker 00

  Correct, yeah, and so, uh, yeah, we just went through, we just went through like our, our kind of seed round, it's, it's, it's exciting, it's a cool thing, and it's, it's like, I love, having had my first startup, you know, which I started, you know, what was that, 16 years ago, and was going around and doing all the angel meetings back then, I mean, for me, it was exciting to kind of be back in that space, and it is, it is a very similar hustle to raising money for movies, um, you're just talking to, I think, a lot smarter people, like, the people that live and breathe in that space are-

• 1:07:08Tim Ferriss?

  Or people who, or people who pretend to be a lot smarter.

• 1:07:09Speaker 00

  That's right, that's true, that's true, you meet, you meet a lot of them as well.

• 1:07:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, last, last question before we, we wrap for this, this round one, is if you could put a billboard anywhere with anything on it, not an advertisement necessarily for anything you're doing, what would you put on it?

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  Um, oh, I feel like right now, it has to, it would have to be, uh, have to be something Trump-related right now, I just, I would, I would have to have something with like his, with his tiny little hands and remind people like what that means when he gets to the White House, "Do you want these little hands on the button?" I feel like I want people to say-

• 1:07:47Speaker 00

  "Do you want these puckered lips yelling at foreign dignitaries, do you want these little hands on the button?"

• 1:07:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. Oh, please, God.

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  It's, it's, it's becoming for reals right now, it's like-

• 1:07:57Tim Ferriss?

  It's terrifying.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  It's unbelievable, yeah, I'm in, I'm in awe, I'm speechless, I'm absolutely speechless, I feel like, I feel like it's, it is-

• 1:08:04Tim Ferriss?

  Takes a lot to make Morgan Spurlock speechless.

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  But I feel like I'm in the middle of a reality show, you're watching, it's like, "How is this actually happening? I don't understand how this is happening."

• 1:08:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Oh, good golly, Miss Molly, yes, it is, uh, these are, these are scary, desperate, and surreal times that we live in.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  Completely.

• 1:08:19Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, where can people find you online, learn more about you, say hello on social?

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, on, on Facebook, on, which is just, you know, me, it's Morgan Spurlock, then on, on Twitter, at Morgan Spurlock, uh, Instagram's at Morgan Spurlock NYC, um, Snapchat, you'll be able to track me down, I'm all over, I'm all over the, all over the social media.

• 1:08:39Tim Ferriss?

  All over the interwebs.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  The interwebs.

• 1:08:40Tim Ferriss?

  Which do you tend to, what is your primer, what do you, if-

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  I'm on Twitter all the time, because Twitter has become my newsfeed, like, Twitter is my AP.

• 1:08:47Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  Like, I'm on Twitter all day long, and it's just constant updates.

• 1:08:50Tim Ferriss?

  I use it in the same way.

• 1:08:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I love that. It's like it is a constant news source where I'll check into other newspapers along the day. Like, you know, I'll check in with the Times and or like, you know, Talking Points Memo or the New York Post or whatever, because the New York Post is spectacular and you have to. But I feel, but it, but it, like the Twitter, I'm on, I'm on, on Twitter all day long, five, like eight, nine, 12 times.

• 1:09:11Tim Ferriss?

  At Morgan Spurlock.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  At Morgan Spurlock.

• 1:09:13Tim Ferriss?

  And I'll give you, just since we're talking about tech, one tip that I've found really useful, which is a service called Nuzzle and Use Easy EL.

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:09:22Tim Ferriss?

  Made by a friend of mine, which effectively looks for patterns among the people you follow. And it will take, say, the top five stories.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:33Tim Ferriss?

  That are being spread and pushed out by the people you already follow.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  That's awesome.

• 1:09:37Tim Ferriss?

  And create a digest for you.

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  That's smart.

• 1:09:38Tim Ferriss?

  So it's a really, really cool service that I'm surprised Twitter didn't make it sell.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  You're saying I should stop following Kim Kardashian if I'm gonna find out.

• 1:09:46Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it depends. Depends on who else you're following, I guess. You might want to stop following all of the Kardashians.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:09:54Tim Ferriss?

  Well, this is great fun.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  This has been awesome.

• 1:09:56Tim Ferriss?

  Really fun to hang out and to be continued. And to everybody listening, of course, show notes, links to everything that we discussed, you'll be able to find at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. And Morgan, thanks so much for taking the time.

• 1:10:10Speaker 00

  Great to see you, man. Thank you.

• 1:10:11Tim Ferriss?

  All right, until next time. Thanks, guys.

• 1:10:18Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends,

• 1:10:58Tim Ferriss?

  for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

• 1:11:22Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by 99designs. When your business needs a logo, website, business card, thumbnail, or any other design, I recommend checking out 99designs. I use them myself. I've used them for many years. I used them to create book cover prototypes for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. I've also used them for banner ads, illustrations, and much more. With 99designs, you get a variety of original designs from designers around the world, give your feedback, and then pick your favorite. Your happiness is guaranteed. So, check out some of my competitions and designs, and some of your competitions and designs, from fellow Tim Ferriss Show listeners, at 99designs.com/tim. And, right now, you can get a free $99 upgrade on your first design.

• 1:12:06Tim Ferriss?

  So, check it out, 99designs.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So, the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra-wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them.

• 1:12:49Tim Ferriss?

  And, this is because they use smarter software, instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, etc. And, I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2 to 5 minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they've put you in. And, if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And, here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis, but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax-loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio... Across more than 10 asset classes and dividend reinvestment add up to very

• 1:13:34Tim Ferriss?

  large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et cetera, can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on the show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that

• 1:14:17Tim Ferriss?

  invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free, there's no downside that I can think of. Just take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim.

• 1:15:00Tim Ferriss?

  And until next time, thank you for listening.