#308: Inside Out with Katie Couric

Katie Couric (IG: @katiecouric https://instagram.com/katiecouric/) is an award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder of the non-profit Stand Up to Cancer https://www.standuptocancer.org, which has raised more than $500 million to fund scientific research teams. Katie launched her production company, Katie Couric Media, in 2015. Since then, the aptly named Katie Couric Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/katie-couric/id1134154895?mt=2&at=1l3va5V&ct=tf has featured conversations with some of the biggest names in politics, media, and popular culture. Katie's documentaries include Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01N2ARHRE/offsitoftimfe-20 for National Geographic, Under the Gun http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01FWOKBRK/offsitoftimfe-20, which aired on Epix, and Fed Up http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00MRHF9LE/offsitoftimfe-20, which can be found on Netflix. Katie's six-part National Geographic series is called America Inside Out with Katie Couric http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/america-inside-out-with-katie-couric/, and I recommend you check it out. Katie joins CBS as the first woman at the helm of an evening newscast after a 15-year run as co-anchor of NBC's Today Show https://www.today.com. Her awards include a duPont-Columbia, Peabody, two Edward R. Murrows, a Walter Cronkite, and multiple Emmys. Enjoy! This podcast is brought to you by Peloton https://www.onepeloton.com/, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I've been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I answer your personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  Now would have seemed like a pretty time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

  subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A G one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 1:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it's my job to attempt to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they come from the worlds of sports, business, entertainment, or otherwise, to distill the habits, routines, belief systems, life lessons, et cetera, that hopefully you can use or find impactful in some way. And this episode is one of those episodes that I was very, very nervous about. And that doesn't happen to me terribly often, but it was the case this time around because I was asking questions of someone who is no stranger to asking questions herself. Katie Couric, at Katie Couric, is an

• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

  Award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder of the nonprofit Stand Up to Cancer, which has raised more than $500 million to fund scientific research teams. She launched her production company, Katie Couric Media, in 2015. And her podcast, the aptly named Katie Couric Podcast, features conversations with some of the biggest names in politics, media, and popular culture. Couric's documentaries include Gender Revolution, subtitle "A Journey with Katie Couric", which was for National Geographic, Under the Gun, which aired on Epix, and Fed Up, which can be found on Netflix. Couric's upcoming six-part National Geographic series, America Inside Out with Katie Couric, premieres on April 11th. And I recommend you check it out.

• 2:55Tim Ferriss?

  We dig into the reasons why, but the subject matter is, in many cases, very, very fascinating to me. Katie joined CBS as the first woman at the helm of an evening newscast after a 15-year run as co-anchor of NBC's Today Show. Her awards include a DuPont Columbia, Peabody, two Edward R. Murrows, a Walter Cronkite Award, and multiple Emmys. She has spent a lot of time in the trenches. She has interviewed some incredibly, incredibly influential, powerful figures who have helped to shape the culture that we're currently a part of. And I was nervous coming into this one, which you can hear in the audio, you can see in the video on my YouTube, youtube.com/timferriss. And for that, I apologize.

• 3:40Tim Ferriss?

  But hey, you know, we're all human. And I'm very impressed by what she's done. And hopefully, do that justice with digging into some of the areas that I attempted to dig into. So without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with the ever-impressive Katie Couric.

• 4:01Tim Ferriss?

  Katie, welcome to the show.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Thank you very much. This is fun. And I like the setup, and I like the view.

• 4:07Tim Ferriss?

  The view of beautiful Austin, Texas.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really been fun, actually. This is my first South by Southwest.

• 4:15Tim Ferriss?

  Welcome to the chaos.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  I know people call it South by. I'm gonna make it even cooler and call it SB.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  But it's been really fun to be here and it's been really interesting for me. So, thank you for having me on the show.

• 4:28Tim Ferriss?

  Of course, I really appreciate you making the time. And I'll be honest, I feel a little bit like that petulant Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars. Everyone's like, "Oh, come on," when he's hanging out with Obi-Wan and just missing the point. Because I'm sitting here asking questions of someone who's asked more questions of more presidents and dignitaries than I'll ever even have a chance to meet. So, I apologize in advance if I make any novice mistakes.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Oh, stop. But you know what? I think that if you just are curious about people and your curiosity is genuine and you're truly interested in someone, I think that's really what makes a good interviewer. And so, I think you have that in state, so I think you'll be fine.

• 5:14Tim Ferriss?

  I want to jump into something that I found in the course of doing my homework that led me to a number of different questions. And I said, "If I would ever have the chance to ask?" And I was like, "Wait a second, I do have a chance to ask." So, this was something I found via NPR in an interview format. And they were asking you if there was any story that made your reputation or if there was a moment like that. And again, the internet sometimes misquotes things, so you can correct if need be. But I'll read a little bit and then I want to ask a follow-up question. So, I think I got noticed when I was doing a tour of the White House with Barbara Bush. I didn't think that President Bush was there. And suddenly, I heard this cocker spaniel or Springer spaniel. Ultimately, ends up, we arrive at Milley, that's Milley, coming into the room. And President Bush was following him.

• 5:57Tim Ferriss?

  And suddenly, I had to do an interview with the President of the United States that I wasn't prepared to do. I was just getting a tour of the White House. So, that was sort of where I found my career path before my eyes. But I was able to come up with enough questions to keep him there for something like 19 minutes and 20 seconds. So, that last sentence was the part where I was like, "Okay, I have to ask you. If you could just walk us through that and how on earth, do you recall any of the questions? Do you recall how you kept the President?"

• 6:25Tim Ferriss?

  On the hook, so to speak. Yeah, or just any recollections from that because it's just conjures such an incredible image in my mind.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Well, you can imagine, you know, when you've prepared for an interview and something completely unexpected happens. So, I had prepared endlessly to talk to Barbara Bush about the White House. It was the anniversary of the White House and she was giving me a tour and we were going to be talking about Dolly Madison's tea set and we were going to talk about the ball and claw, legs on some of the chairs and all kinds of things and paintings and desks and accoutrements that are part and parcel of the White House. And suddenly, as you described, it was like, and I was like, oh, God, oh, God, what's going on?

• 7:13Speaker 03

  And I, for some reason, thought that President Bush was out of town or that he had an appointment and that he wasn't going to be around. And it's not often that you have the President pop in to say hi and you have no questions for him. So, you just had to, that was where the rubber met the road and I just had to pull all these questions, you know, pretty much out of my ass to ask the President, you know, the most powerful man in the free world. So, I think I asked him about Iran-Contra. I asked him about, he was running against Bill Clinton, so I asked him about that campaign.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  I'd like to re-watch that, actually, to see how it plays out today and what I remember. But I just kept on firing away and I remember his upper lip started kind of quivering because I think he too felt suddenly put on the spot.

• 8:11Tim Ferriss?

  He wasn't prepared.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  He wasn't prepared either, exactly. And we just had this very intense kind of rat-a-tat-tat back and forth. And finally, I remember Marlon Fitzwater came in and I said, oh, my gosh, here's Marlon. And I think Mrs. Bush, everyone was basically saying, okay, that's enough, enough is enough. And I remember saying to the audience at the time, the viewers, that Marlon Fitzwater was pulling out whatever was left of his hair because he was pretty bald at the time. And, yeah, that was, that was...

• 8:44Speaker 03

  That was a very kind of intense situation for me. But it also showed that I could think on my feet. Now, in fairness, I also had my executive producer, Jeff Zucker, peppering me with questions behind the scenes through my IFB. I think he was nervous.

• 9:00Tim Ferriss?

  The IFB is the earpiece.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, that if I had had a moment and suddenly had nothing to say, that he was going to leave. And of course, as somebody who really understands television and understands audiences, he wanted to keep the president on the hook as long as he could.

• 9:15Tim Ferriss?

  Keep him on the ropes.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, but it was fun. And I remember afterwards thinking, oh, my God. And it was well received. I think Tom Shales, who's the TV critic for The Washington Post, wrote a very flattering article following that. But that was, I think, very important because, you know, when I did that job and I decided I would be the co-anchor of The Today Show, it was really important for me, as a female in the business, to be taken seriously and to not be relegated to the cooking and fashion segments. In fact, when I got offered the job, I said to Michael Gartner, the then-president of NBC News, "I'll only do it if it's a 50-50 division of labor between me and Brian Gumbel." And I said, I had covered the Pentagon, I had worked very hard in local news, and I'd

• 10:00Speaker 03

  gotten some very good advice early in my career to not be typecast as the cute girl who does features. So, you know, it was important, and that was validation in a way that, yes, I could have a fun personality, but I could really get serious and ask serious questions, penetrating questions, when I needed to, even if I wasn't prepared.

• 10:23Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, I want to ask you about the chutzpah and where that comes from, but is that a trained skill? Is that something innate to you? How did you end up developing that level of, aggression is too strong a word, but that ability to capitalize on an opportunity like that?

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Chutzpah, I think, is a good word, or moxie. My dad used to say I had a lot of moxie, which I love that word.

• 10:47Tim Ferriss?

  It's a good word.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, you know, I don't know, I think it's inherent in my personality. I think I have been pretty guileless, if that's kind of a synonym for moxie, in a way. I mean, I think I've always been pretty uninhibited and very open and very willing to go there, wherever there might be. And I think I've always had a fair amount of confidence in myself, although it's wavered, you know, from time to time through the years. But, um, yeah, I think, I think having super supportive parents obviously probably fed into that. Um, but I also think it's a little bit in my DNA as well.

• 11:29Tim Ferriss?

  A little hardwired.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do. I actually do. And, uh, been sort of always fairly fearless and not hesitant to be out front and running for vice president when I was in fifth grade and president of my elementary school when I was in sixth grade and wanted, always wanted to be a student leader and that kind of thing. Very Tracy Flick.

• 11:50Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  From Election. Would you like a piece of gum? Did you remember that movie? Did you see that with Reese Witherspoon?

• 11:56Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yes, actually, I have seen that.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  It's actually a very, very funny movie. It kills me. But, um, I'm not too Tracy Flick-ish, but a little. And, um, so, so I think I just have always had, had the chutzpah.

• 12:07Tim Ferriss?

  All right. So I have, you have forgotten more interviews than I'll probably ever do. But even in my short stint doing a podcast, we're just around 300 right now.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Wow, that's a lot.

• 12:21Tim Ferriss?

  It's a decent number. I mean, I'm getting-

• 12:23Speaker 03

  So do you do it every week?

• 12:24Tim Ferriss?

  I publish, on average, six a month.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Six a month?

• 12:28Tim Ferriss?

  Six a month. So there-

• 12:29Speaker 03

  And is it, what is your publishing schedule?

• 12:32Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, the publishing schedule is two weeks per month we'll have two episodes and two per month we'll have a single episode. I'm thinking of reducing that down to once per week.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 12:42Tim Ferriss?

  But I record them, I typically record them in batches and then schedule them out in advance, particularly if they're more complex involving video.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  So, um, do you find that sometimes they're not topical because you don't do them around the time they're published?

• 12:55Tim Ferriss?

  This is a good question. So I deliberately avoid topical subjects.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 13:00Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, this is-

• 13:01Speaker 03

  That's smart, I guess, so they can be evergreen.

• 13:03Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. And this, there are trade-offs, though. So there are people who I've watched very closely who are in my, let's call it peer group, in the, in the podcasting world, who are very, very good at-

• 13:15Tim Ferriss?

  Tracking the headlines, finding names, inviting those people on and riding the wave of Google juice effectively, the trend in traffic and search queries to drive traffic to their podcasts. That's very, very effective, but I don't want content. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and I've been very, I shouldn't say I've been unfortunate, I think it's part of life, but I've had a number of very close friends and also family members pass away in the last, say, 12 months. And it just reminds me that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and I don't want to have put out only subject matter that has an expiration date. I really want it to last. So whether it's a blog post or an interview, I'd love for there at least,

• 13:58Tim Ferriss?

  even if there are topical components, to be themes and lessons that transcend a certain period of time. And that actually leads me to my question, which is even in my relatively short stint.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Nice segue, by the way.

• 14:15Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you, thank you. No, it's true though, because what I'm dying to ask you is related to nervousness. I've had a number of interviews and episodes where I've really been nervous for different reasons. And that has led me to prepare in different ways and respond in different ways. Are there any interviews that come to mind over your career that you were particularly nervous about beforehand?

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think throughout my career, obviously dignitaries, heads of state, I remember I interviewed Duster Arafat, I was very nervous about that. Ross Perot was very pugnacious and kind of ornery and you never knew what he was gonna do. I think, you know, live interviews are really scary.

• 15:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Because you can't, you know, edit things out, you can't ask a question over again in a more eloquent way, and you're really on the spot. So I think live interviews would make me nervous. I remember I was supposed to interview with Tom Brokaw, OJ Simpson, after he was acquitted.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  And I was a nervous wreck at the very thought of it because I thought, first of all, I'm not a prosecutor.

• 15:36Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  I, my husband, who had passed away later, but who was alive and covering a lot of the OJ trial, knew everything. He was a criminal defense, white collar criminal defense lawyer. And I just remember thinking that this is just a no-win situation.

• 15:53Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  First of all, I can't retry the case, nor could I.

• 15:57Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  Because I don't really have the talent or the skills to do that. And secondly, it was so divisive and polarizing, that whole situation, and so racially charged. And I, at the time, and still do to a certain extent, just hated, like, people attacking me. And I thought it was just a no-win situation. So when he bailed, I wanted to do a happy dance. I was so excited. So, you know, situations like that would make me extremely nervous when I saw so much risk and so much downside and very little upside.

• 16:30Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  But, but I think whenever I'm interviewing people who are really smart and really knowledgeable about a certain area, and I don't know nearly as much as they do, that can be hard. And I think also, when you're interviewing somebody about a wide range of public policy, and you're not, you're not necessarily a policy wonk, that's challenging too. But, you know, to go to the White House and interview a president, either live or even on tape, is really stressful. Interviewing Sarah Palin, when I interviewed her.

• 17:07Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Because I thought it was so important to strike the right tone, ask the right questions. And it was a very critical time, I think, to understand her motivations and actually her abilities. So, I, I still get nervous when I have big interviews.

• 17:27Tim Ferriss?

  In the case of, let's take Palin as an example. How did you prepare for that? Can you walk us through?

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:33Tim Ferriss?

  Some of your preparation?

• 17:34Speaker 03

  Well, I think I worked with my friend, Brian Goldsmith, with whom I do a podcast. He's sort of my partner in crime on the podcast. He's a very, very smart. Person who really follows politics and public policy very closely. And we worked together at CBS. And when I found out she was going to do the interview, we just immediately started to read everything we possibly could about her, about Alaska, about, you know, everything that was germane to that, the presidential campaign, what was going on in the country. I called Madeleine Albright, I called Sam Nunn, I called Richard Haas, who's the head of the Council on Foreign Relations.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  I called people and I said, hey, I'm interviewing Governor Palin. Of course, everyone knew was in tune with what was going on in the campaign. And I'd say to them, what do you think are some of the areas that you think are really important that the American people need to know about and hear her perspective on? So I would ask people, I think I asked a few other correspondents about it, read a lot. And, you know, you also have to make some very difficult choices. Right. Because as you know, you know, there are probably a lot more questions than you have time for than your guest has time for. So then we had to winnow them down.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  But it was also really important for me to, you know, make sure my tone was right. Yeah. That my approach was right, that I remember going in and saying I would have an almost Parkinsonian affect with very little facial expressions. I didn't want people to misinterpret that I was looking at her like, what? Right. A scance. And Madeleine Albright offered me, I think, the best piece of advice. She said, just let her talk. Hmm. And I think so often in conversations, I don't know if you find this true in a podcast, because it may be different since things can be edited, but you try to fill the empty spaces. Right. And people feel very uncomfortable with silence.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  And I know I do because I want to make sure that I keep the conversation going. And then, of course, in live television, you can't have these, you know,

• 19:57Tim Ferriss?

  Dead zones.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  Dead air. But I, I really took that advice to heart. And I wouldn't jump in, I wouldn't jump in to rescue her if she was giving a convoluted answer. I wouldn't jump in if she felt awkward. I wouldn't jump in if she paused. I just let her talk and didn't, and I really resisted that temptation, which I have because I'm a pleaser and I want to make sure people feel comfortable. So, we spent probably three solid days preparing for that interview. And I really wanted to ask questions that required accumulated knowledge and critical thinking. So, I wanted to talk about big issues. And, you know, honestly, I'd look at some of those questions and I'd say, I

• 20:43Speaker 03

  don't know how I would answer that, but I'm also not a public policy expert.

• 20:47Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  But I tried to ask questions that weren't gotcha questions, even though she insisted they were, but that people deserve to know, A, how much she knew about any given subject and how she would approach it and what her thinking was. And what became abundantly clear is she just wasn't ready to be put in this position. She wasn't ready for prime time. And it had nothing to do with her gender. I just think her experience and her perhaps lack of intellectual curiosity did not equip her to do an interview about substantive issues facing the country or the world.

• 21:31Tim Ferriss?

  Let her talk. I really love that. So, I got, have had the chance to become friends with someone named Cal Fussman, who's one of the senior writers who worked on the What I Learned column for Esquire for decades and has interviewed a million different people. And I, I asked him for feedback when I was starting the podcast to read some of the transcripts and to see if he saw opportunities for improvement. And he said, such a nice guy, real sweetheart of a guy. And he said, let the silence do the work. Because I was trying to rescue people. If I asked a question and I started meandering or something like that, I would jump in. And he goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to give them more space and give them time to follow up or to add to their answer.

• 22:16Tim Ferriss?

  But it's, I think it's very unnatural, even if you're not a pleaser as a human being in conversation, it's unnatural to leave a lot of space.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:25Tim Ferriss?

  But as an interviewer, it's really, it seems really, really useful.

• 22:31Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned Ross Perot and him being pugnacious.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:35Tim Ferriss?

  Is there a toolkit or a more effective way to respond to someone in an interview if they are ornery or pugnacious?

• 22:45Speaker 03

  Combative.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  I don't know. I think, I think it depends on the situation.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  I remember he was like, Katie, Katie, Katie, you know, sort of admonishing me like I was a misbehaving fifth grader or something.

• 23:01Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  But I think, you know, that's a hard, I don't know. I think you just have to kind of stand your ground and not be intimidated. I think people like that want you to back down or want you, want to make you uncomfortable and, and, and make you ill at ease and catch you off guard. So I think you just have to really work at maintaining your composure and not be thrown by it. And that's very hard on national television to not be thrown by someone kind of scolding you.

• 23:34Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Well, you mentioned the facial expressions and so on, which is something I haven't even considered because this is my very first few experiments in video. So I'm not, now I'm like, oh my God, what have I been doing with my face? But if you're being scolded on national TV, it's not just what you say, it's also how you respond.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Right, of course.

• 23:53Tim Ferriss?

  Visually.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 23:54Tim Ferriss?

  So you really have to have trained a poker face or at least some awareness, self-awareness.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:00Tim Ferriss?

  Through the profession. That seems really hard.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  I would definitely, I would definitely get fired if my thought bubbles ever became public. That's for damn sure, but.

• 24:10Tim Ferriss?

  On the flip side, are there any interviews that you, that come to mind? You've had so many, but where after.

• 24:19Tim Ferriss?

  You're done. You just, in the moments finishing the interview, think to yourself, "God, I hope the equipment was working. Like, I really hope we caught that because it was so good." Are there any that come to mind where you're like, "Oh, wow, that was really, that's one that I'm really proud of?"

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, a lot. I think one that's sort of, that I usually dust off when I'm asked this question is one I did after the massacre at Columbine High School. And it was four, maybe 4:00 a.m. Colorado time is how many hours behind New York? Two or three? Is it three?

• 25:00Tim Ferriss?

  Mountain time?

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Two.

• 25:02Tim Ferriss?

  Two.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  So, it was 5:00 a.m., and it was April, and yet, and so the sky was pitch black, but it was snowing. So it was this very dramatic scene. And I interviewed Michael Scholes, who had lost his son Isaiah, and Craig Scott, who had lost his sister Rachel. And they were so broken, understandably broken, shattered, not even broken, they were shattered. And it had happened the day before. And they came on The Today Show, which I think is always such an interesting thing. Why do people in this grief-stricken state come to talk about their loved ones? I've always been fascinated by that and thought

• 25:48Speaker 03

  it would be a really excellent thesis for a psychology student about grief and sort of the public acknowledgement of grief. And anyway, they came and, and it was just a heartbreaking interview. And to witness them kind of looking to each other for comfort. Michael Scholes was a big, burly, black guy. And Craig Scott was this sort of angelic, tow-headed teenager. And I've actually stayed in touch with Craig Scott. And they held

• 26:25Speaker 03

  hands during the interview. And it was just, it was sort of the, the personification of loss and sorrow in these two people. And

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Just holding on to each other for dear life. It was really profound. It was really, I was witnessing it less. I was witnessing it more than interviewing them. You know, because they were in this particular space and I was an observer, really. So, I always think about that interview as being, after it was over, a really important interview for people to watch. And I hope I handled it in a sensitive, thoughtful way that both respected them as human beings,

• 27:23Speaker 03

  but also guided them so they could express themselves. You know, there are situations where you just really want people to, you really want to help them get through it. I mean, there are all kinds of situations. I'm sure in all the interviews you've done, there are some cases where, you know, you want to afflict the comfortable. And there are other cases when you want to comfort the afflicted. And that was definitely the latter. And so, just helping them through it. And that was a really, I don't want to say special, but significant experience for me as a person.

• 28:05Tim Ferriss?

  So, I want to, I want to explore this. I'm writing down that line. There are times when you want to afflict the comfortable. Times when you want to comfort the afflicted.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  Well, that's what they say is a journalist's job, right?

• 28:14Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, I've never heard that before.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  No?

• 28:15Tim Ferriss?

  No. That's really useful heuristic. I want to talk about grief a bit. So, I've, you know, I've lost a number of, like I mentioned, close friends and a mentor in the last 12 months. And you mentioned your husband, who passed away earlier.

• 28:38Tim Ferriss?

  And if I get any facts wrong, obviously, please correct me.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, don't worry.

• 28:42Tim Ferriss?

  But colorectal cancer, forty-two. I'm forty, which really caught my attention. And my, the first time I had an opportunity to go abroad, outside of the United States, was to Japan as an exchange student. And I lived with a family, went to Japanese high school, and I'm still close to that family, twenty-five years later. And the father in that host family is my second father, effectively. And I'd planned on bringing my American family to Japan later this year to meet them for the first time, my two families. And I just found out that my host's father is in the hospital, late-stage, very aggressive cancer, diagnosed as metastasized, probably will pass away in the next two months. And...

• 29:27Speaker 03

  What kind of cancer?

• 29:29Tim Ferriss?

  It's, I would have to go back to the email because it was very emotional and then cognitively difficult for me to translate because it's in Japanese. And it was all specialized medical terminology.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 29:42Tim Ferriss?

  But it's, it's in the lung, it's in the liver. Lifelong smoker, very typical for Japanese of that age. I think it might be also esophageal, but, and it's, I know that it has, it's now also in the lymph nodes. So he's intubated in a hospital and only the mother and the brothers can, can visit. So this has had me thinking about grief and is there anything I should do in advance to prepare for that? And I'd just be very curious, if you're willing to talk about it, to describe your experience of grieving. And you could start at any point in time, but as it relates to your experience with, with your husband, and certainly after that, we can get into it.

• 30:27Tim Ferriss?

  But I mean, you've done a tremendous job of, of highlighting the types of diagnostic tools and preventative tools people can use, which we'll talk about. But...

• 30:38Tim Ferriss?

  I don't even know how to think about grief. I mean, I don't know if I've allowed myself to ever experience it before, but I know I'm gonna be hit with a hammer.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  I thought, though, you had a couple of friends and a mentor.

• 30:48Tim Ferriss?

  I did. No, I did. They have passed away. And it's been very recent that it hasn't been this close. Like, these are friends, but they're not a second father to me. And I think, in a sense, the mentor who passed away did hit me pretty hard. But I've only in the last six to 12 months actually been allowing myself to feel more things. That's a much longer story. But I've had a lot of-

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Do you have a kind of conflicted relationship with this person?

• 31:15Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, no, I've had a lot of armor for decades that I've built up over time for a lot of different reasons. And it's been very useful for some things, for protecting me. But I've realized that it also keeps a lot in that is very ultimately corrosive. So I'm trying to develop more of an ability to feel instead of looking at it as a liability.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  Gosh, I don't know. How do you describe grief?

• 31:45Speaker 03

  I mean, I can talk a little bit about my personal experience. You know, I had a, I was on top of the world, had this great job, had two beautiful children, and of course, a wonderful husband. I have to say, we were having challenges, some challenges in our marriage, because I think I had this just sort of out-of-the-blues success and suddenly became a household name and had all this attention, which I think can put a lot of pressure on a relationship, where suddenly it doesn't feel, the power dynamic doesn't feel as equal.

• 32:20Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  But, you know, we were, we were really, you know, in love and enjoying our lives and-

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, just out of the blue. Jay hadn't been feeling well. He had been tired. He'd been traveling and we kept thinking, you know, we have two little kids. He's covering the OJ Simpson trial. He was, uh, you know, his schedule was crazy. And then out of the blue, he just was doubled over in pain and our nanny, who was Irish at the time, called and said, Jay's doubled over in pain and, uh, I don't know what to do. So, he didn't have a doctor, like so many young men. Yeah. Which is, you know, if anybody takes, there are many, I think, takeaways from our conversation, I hope, but one is that men, especially, I think because women go see gynecologists,

• 33:19Speaker 03

  honestly, that a lot of men don't go and get physicals or they don't even have a GP or an internist. And Jay was one of those guys. He played lacrosse and football and, and college and was, never smoked ever. I don't think he ever even tried a cigarette. He never, I don't think he even tried pot ever. It's sort of crazy when you think about it. Drank moderately, uh, took pretty good care of himself, I mean, and, uh, and it just, boom, he had stage four metastatic colon cancer. So, we went from one day, just everything was great. We were buying a house in the country and, or had a house in the country and were really

• 34:02Speaker 03

  enjoying that. And Jay was riding horses in Central Park and doing his thing professionally. And I was at the Today Show and our girls were great. And, uh, we had, I mean, Carrie was less than a year at the time, or just had turned a year old, when he was diagnosed on April 3rd, 1998.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  1997, sorry, he died nine months later in January. But, you know, it's just, it's so, it's so debilitating and shattering and destabilizing. And, you know, it's such a process and I was in such denial. And he was one of these very smart people, but he didn't want to know about his health. He didn't want to know the gory details. I don't know why, because he was so smart, intellectually curious and interested. And I don't know, maybe he knew. So I kept all this stuff from him, which I really regret. I would say, oh, there's only shadows on your liver. Don't worry, it's gonna be okay. We're gonna figure it out.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  I remember sending his scans to NIH, you know, because I had a lot of connections because of my job. And I remember very prominent cancer scientists calling me and saying, oh, God, this is, this is really bad. I arranged for him to get a hepatic artery pump, which pushed the chemo directly to his liver that was covered. I mean, the tumor burden on his liver was awful. And anyway, so I was, I went into, I think my, my husband, John, says I'm very good in an emergency. You know, I get very focused and very proactive and driven.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  And I went into, I am going to try to fix this mode. And so I was sort of doing that, I think, to avoid the grief, because I had to do something. And it was just, I mean, what can I say? It's the worst thing in the world to see someone, first of all, your life just changed in a instant. Then to see someone suffering, then to try to figure out how can you help somebody? I mean, it's just, it's really overwhelming. And, you know, I think my grieving process began.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  The day he was diagnosed, because my doctor, who was the internist Jay went to see when he was in this pain, you know, he pulled me aside into one of those little patient rooms in the hospital and said, it's, it's, the, this is really bad, that the prognosis is very bleak. So, what do you do with that, except for do everything you possibly can to change the outcome, which you realize you probably can't change? Anyway, it's a very challenging thing to deal with, but, you know, I, maybe my regrets will help you with your situation in that.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  I never really said to Jay, what are your hopes and dreams for your kids? Can you write the girls a letter? Can we videotape you, talking to them? To say, everything I wanted to say to him, because that was an acknowledgement that he was gonna die, and I just couldn't do that. So, maybe if things are so bleak for, this person is so special to you, first of all, you need to tell him.

• 37:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  And you need to write him, maybe go see him, and feel that, that you don't have any regrets.

• 37:49Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you.

• 37:55Tim Ferriss?

  So, the only segue I can possibly think of from that is very closely related.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  You can always go, what I used to do on the Today Show, on a lighter note.

• 38:04Tim Ferriss?

  Well, this, this is, I mean, I suppose on a lighter note, although it's, it's a shade of the same color. So, there's a very interestingly titled paper in an academic journal, and the title is, quote, "The Impact of a Celebrity Promotional Campaign on the Use of Colon Cancer Screening." The Katie Couric effect. And it goes on to detail the increase in the number of colonoscopies because of your awareness campaign or campaigns. So, and I was looking at this, I've read a lot of studies, and P-values, so the likelihood that it could be attributed to chance, is really, really, really low. I mean, it's, the data are really compelling, looking at this.

• 38:47Tim Ferriss?

  Can you, can you tell us the story of how it happened?

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Well, that's a University of Michigan study, I think, that paper, and I think it was in the Annals of Internal Medicine, possibly, which I think in this case should be called the Anals of Internal Medicine. But I basically really wanted to educate people, because I didn't understand colon cancer, I didn't, I'd never really heard of it. I guess I had vaguely when President Reagan had a polyp, and I thought, gee, I have this opportunity, I have this bully pulpit, I have a platform to educate people. So, again, Jeff Zucker, who at the time was my executive producer, he ironically had also been diagnosed with colon cancer in his 30s.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  And so, he was a very receptive audience for my idea, and I said, can I get a colonoscopy on television? I don't, I'm too young to get one, you know, I wasn't 50 yet. I was only 41 when my husband died, but I said, we need to demystify this procedure. So, that was my thinking, to just educate people. And, and it was sort of, this was before people were doing things like this and talking about it, but it just seemed a perfectly logical thing to do, and I think it was very helpful for me in a situation where I felt so powerless, and I don't know about you,

• 40:19Speaker 03

  but that's the worst feeling in the world, to feel powerless.

• 40:22Tim Ferriss?

  I don't like that feeling.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  No. And so, here was an opportunity for me to use whatever power I did have to maybe help other people and possibly even save some lives. So, that was really the thinking, and

• 40:38Speaker 03

  You know, that that sort of started me on a journey to be a cancer advocate for all kinds of cancer and to continue emphasizing the importance of screening. I'm taking a very well-known person to get his first colonoscopy next week. And, you know, I really appreciate people's willingness to talk about this and to spread the word and because it's so preventable. It has a 92% cure rate if it's detected early. And it's the second-leading cancer killer of men and women combined. So I feel like, you know, that will probably be the first line in my obituary. I hope it won't be journalist, but it will be sort of cancer advocate.

• 41:22Speaker 03

  And and it's something I'm really proud of that I was willing to do.

• 41:27Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I would say even at this point, it could be the first line in certainly a number of measurable senses. So you're co-founder of Stand Up to Cancer, and that has raised more than 500 million at this point to fund scientific research team. That's a lot of money.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  That's a big chunk of change.

• 41:46Tim Ferriss?

  It is a big chunk of change.

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that was started by nine women who together were frustrated with the pace of cancer research. I think Stand Up has really changed the paradigm of how cancer research is done. It's really emphasizing collaboration rather than competition, getting these institutions and, you know, pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms to actually talk to each other to pool their resources and and their brain power, really. And it's been adapted by people like Sean Parker and Joe Biden when it comes to the way they're approaching cancer. So it's been a phenomenal thing. I'm so proud of these women, so proud of these scientists, because at first they weren't too jiggy about collaborating.

• 42:32Tim Ferriss?

  Well, that's a really complex, potentially complex problem to solve.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  And sometimes it's worked better than others, quite candidly, but... Uh, you know, we've been able to get three drugs approved by the FDA and a lot of promising research done because the scientists are willing to work together.

• 42:54Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  And it just makes all the sense in the world, but it does, it's against our kind of very primal impulses to, you know, be credit mongering and not want to share the spotlight with people. So it's, it, it, at times it's been challenging, but now that it's been great.

• 43:10Tim Ferriss?

  What are the, the ingredients or the strategies that your team has used to encourage these people who have not previously collaborated to collaborate?

• 43:19Speaker 03

  I don't know, you know, I think their sheer, it's, I, I, I don't give the organization any credit, it's their sheer decency.

• 43:26Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  And their, their desire to really help patients.

• 43:30Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  And to come up with better treatments for so many people who have suffered from this disease and lost the battle. So I think that, you know, it was just different, you know? People don't like change, as you know.

• 43:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  And it was the ju- just a different way of doing things. And as I said, I think in some cases, maybe it hasn't been as successful as it could have been, in other cases, it's just been amazingly successful. So, you know, these are the real heroes, by the way.

• 43:59Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  These cancer scientists, first of all, they are ridiculously intelligent, brilliant people. And, you know, these are the people who should be on the cover of celebrity magazines and they, we should be doing award ceremonies for them. They should, they should be the real rock stars of our culture. Unfortunately, they don't get much attention, they don't get that much funding, they just don't get what they deserve as far as I'm concerned. So they're amazing, and that's been another really gratifying part of this work is to

• 44:38Speaker 03

  get, get to, getting to know these scientists who are so selfless and so hardworking and so dedicated to helping people.

• 44:48Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to ask you about how you choose projects. Because we just discussed, it seems like a very natural consequence of your personal experience, and then capitalizing on the platform and the assets that you have. It was a very natural fit. I can only imagine that you get hundreds and thousands of proposals that I'm sure other people help vet with basic criteria, but-

• 45:13Speaker 03

  I don't really.

• 45:13Tim Ferriss?

  You don't. So how do you select? You must have so much inbound, and certainly throughout your career, I would imagine. I don't know.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't really. I've worked for companies, you know. I worked in local news and jumped around, which you sort of had, you know, at the time, you kind of had to do to get experience and become competent in, you know, reporting and doing on-air work. And then I worked at companies like NBC for 15, maybe 20 years if you count my time covering the Pentagon and working in local news, so probably 20 years. Then went to CBS for five. Then I did a talk show for two. Then I worked at Yahoo for four. So I've really worked for big companies, servicing them and doing what I needed to

• 46:03Speaker 03

  do to hopefully contribute to what, you know, their general mission was. And now I'm sort of, I don't know, I'm just kind of at a weird place. I do things that I believe will have impact, that give me creative freedom. Sometimes I miss working for companies because I love working with people. I'm a super sociable person, and I like, I really get energy from other people and the atmosphere I'm in. But now I'm just trying to figure it out, and it's hard because- The landscape is so fragmented and there's so few communal experiences.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  When I did the Today Show, I sort of felt like, oh, not everybody, I didn't, I wasn't that egotistical, but I thought, oh, a lot of people are kind of watching this and it felt kind of like a community. And now, I mean, a lot of people still watch the Today Show, but it just seems there's so many options and so many things to do with our time and this attention economy that Tristan Harris talks about. Do you know Tristan Harris?

• 47:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I know of him.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  I love him. You would love him.

• 47:16Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, he's a fascinating guy.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  He's 33 years old. He's an amazing person. I interviewed him for my Nat Geo series, but, you know, so I just try to do things that I'm going to enjoy, that I think will somehow contribute to the conversation and that will get some attention, but that's hard, you know? So I think right now, you just have to do things you really enjoy and like, you know, devoting your time to.

• 47:44Tim Ferriss?

  What are you devoting your time to right now? And I'm thinking, maybe that's a bit of a leading question, or I suppose, I suppose what I'm hoping to explore a little bit is American Inside Out. And if you could tell us what that is?

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:00Tim Ferriss?

  And why you chose to do it?

• 48:01Speaker 03

  Well, I decided to leave Yahoo when it was bought by Verizon. No hard feelings. I just, it was never really the right fit for me and I've, I've talked about that a little bit with Kara Swisher, who I'm sure you know Kara.

• 48:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I've had Kara on the podcast.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's great. I really like Kara. I just like her no BS.

• 48:23Tim Ferriss?

  Very no BS. She's great.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Way, yeah. And I, but I also think she's a very kind person. Probably not everyone who she's written about feels the same way, but. I wanted to, I wanted to explore some of these issues that I thought were not getting attention. Biz Stone, in this book I wrote about advice, said if you see a need, fill it. You know, in terms of what to do with your life, or if you're entrepreneurial, or if you wanna, if you wanna be of service to people. And I think, basically, don't we all want our work to matter? I think. I don't think making money is the be all, end all for people. Maybe it's easy to say that once you've made some money.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  But I wanted to explore these topics that I thought were getting short shrift in the media. That, that, everything is so ephemeral now. Yeah. You can't even remember, partially because there's so much happening at once. You can't remember what Donald Trump did two days ago, or you can't remember, I mean, it's so much. It's TMI, isn't it? Yeah. And I think you, you can't even digest it and think about it and contemplate it. And I felt like, everything's happening so fast, can we think about things a little more? And what are some of the things that I believe we should be thinking about? And it was, they were things that were happening before our eyes, but we weren't really giving

• 49:52Speaker 03

  them any consideration. So, I had done a documentary for National Geographic called Gender Revolution, about our changing notions of gender, and how we're, people are not really binary as much as they used to be, with very specific male, female, blue, pink, you know, traits, and you grow up and you're this way. And now, I, this whole notion of gender fluidity, and kind of being non-binary and all this stuff, was, really, they were relatively new concepts for me. And I had whiffed on an interview I did with Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera, less with Laverne, but with Carmen, when I asked her, uh, an-

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Inappropriate question about her genitals, basically, her private parts. And I taped the interview and at the time, I thought she was quite offended and told me why. And I said, I'm, when the producers asked, I said, keep that in because I want people to understand why that's an offensive question.

• 50:58Tim Ferriss?

  If you don't mind me asking, what was the question?

• 51:00Speaker 03

  I said, what's the situation with your private parts?

• 51:04Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  You know, about gender reassignment surgery.

• 51:07Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  And it's just grossly inappropriate. But I didn't really know that. And I was trying to do, believe it or not, a public service by at least talking about transgender individuals and trying to help people understand it. So my motives were actually pure, but my question was really clumsy. And I kept it in the show and it got just, I remember I was on a plane going to CES. It was my birthday. And I looked on Twitter and, oh my God, I'm surprised there wasn't smoke coming out of my phone because it was just merciless. I mean, the scathing criticism I got. And I, of course, regretted that I kept it in, but I kept it in for the right reasons too.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  But I ended up, long story short, sorry I'm going on and on about this, but I ended up saying, you know, I want to learn, I want to understand. I felt bad. I also felt, you know, defensive and upset. But ultimately, I said, I need to educate myself and I need to help other people understand this community. So I did a documentary called Gender Revolution for National Geographic and they were quite pleased with it. And I was happy that I was able to do it and I'd learned a lot. So then they came back to me and they said, would you like to do some more? So I didn't have a job at the time. And I thought, and I think this is sort of the new way of Working, you don't necessarily work for one company, right? You do it more project by project.

• 52:37Tim Ferriss?

  For sure.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Um, and I've really done so, pretty much every job in network news at this point in time, so I said, sure, I'd love to, and I came up with six topics that I thought deserved a little more analysis or exploration, and that's the series. And it's really been interesting and really, really exhausting.

• 53:00Tim Ferriss?

  What are some of the topics?

• 53:01Speaker 03

  So, I'm doing, the first one is called rewriting history, but I'm spelling it R-I-G-H-T-I-N-G. And it's really about our memorial landscape and Confederate iconography, statues, monuments, that led me to Charlottesville right before and during that quote unquote alt-right rally that, by the way, is not Charlottesville, Virginia. People have now associated this kind of bigotry and disgusting white supremacy as being relating to Charlottesville. It has nothing to do with Charlottesville. They picked Charlottesville because I think it's a progressive town.

• 53:39Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  And, um, so it's, it's really on how these Confederate statues are dividing us, that they're so important for some Southerners who see it as celebrating Southern heritage and so offensive to Black Americans who feel they are a real poke in the eye and supporting people who wanted to perpetuate the institution of slavery. So I just wanted to peep, I wanted to hear more about that, where the controversy started in Charlottesville. It was started by a 16-year-old African-American high school student who started a petition.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  And I went to see Mitch Landrieu in New Orleans. I talked to Julianne Moore, who did a petition to change the name of her high school in Northern Virginia. And then I went and talked to Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, who is just one of my personal heroes, about his project, which he's doing. You would love him, a lynching project where he has collected soil from the lynching sites, from 4,400 lynching sites throughout the South. Because that's a chapter of our history that has literally been buried. And, well, not literally, but yes, literally and figuratively been buried. And he has taken the soil with the help of descendants of people who have been lynched

• 55:05Speaker 03

  and put it, the soil in mason jars with the name of the lynching victim on the jar. And he has a whole memorial that he's opening in Montgomery in April. He's a very deeply thoughtful person. Does a lot of work with mass incarceration and with sort of the long tail of slavery and how it's affected race and African Americans in this country, long past the Civil War. So, anyway, that's kind of like, I mean, where can you really watch something like that on television?

• 55:41Tim Ferriss?

  And is the, is the, what would be success for you? Not in terms of views or anything like that, but the, the impact of an episode that on, say, a viewer? Is it, is it that they change their mind? Is it that they, they view an issue that before was just a soundbite or two headlines? And they see the shades of gray in something that is actually very nuanced? What do you hope it will do to people?

• 56:04Speaker 03

  I think number two would be really good, you know, a deeper understanding. A, a, I guess, remembering.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  What it feels like to have empathy for somebody's point of view, to have more context, to be able to talk about it in a more educated, intelligent way. To, I don't know, you just, there's so much surface stuff. You don't really know what's underneath, what lies beneath the story. And oftentimes, I think if you do a little digging, then you just have, you just understand it more and you can talk about it in a in a less knee jerk way, in a more nuanced, less emotional.

• 56:58Tim Ferriss?

  Empathetic.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  Empathetic way, you know? These statues for a lot of people are deeply, deeply offensive. And I don't think they belong in public squares, in public spaces, which are very important, you know, in terms of setting the tone for a community. That's why urban planners spend a lot of time thinking about these things. And it's, it's just thought provoking. And I don't think we think about these things enough or have an opportunity to really talk about them. So that's just one. I'm doing one on what it's like to be a Muslim in America right now. Because there are so many prejudices and misconceptions about Islam, about Muslims. And 50% of Americans say they've never met a Muslim.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  And so I'm trying to introduce some of them to those people, to Muslims virtually. And, you know, I don't know, I'm trying to just foster some kind of deeper understanding and connection for people with things that may seem foreign to them, with, with things that they may feel strongly about, but don't necessarily know why. Maybe it's because their friends do.

• 58:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, maybe their beliefs aren't actually their beliefs at all. They're just the beliefs of their parents or their... Co-workers or whatever it is that they've absorbed.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:17Tim Ferriss?

  They didn't arrive at it through thought.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 58:19Tim Ferriss?

  It's they arrived at it through environment.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  What they've been fed from their, from their news feeds.

• 58:24Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  Through like-minded people who share their beliefs. And I don't know. It's, it's kind of ambitious to even want to do that. And, you know, I just have to keep trying because that's what I enjoy doing. And I do think that I possibly could be a helpful conduit for people, a proxy for the average Joe or Josephine who is curious about the world and wants to understand it better and wants to meet people and talk to people and see if they can, I don't know, try to make sense of it all. I don't know.

• 59:01Tim Ferriss?

  I think that's, I think that's a very noble objective.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't.

• 59:05Tim Ferriss?

  I think, I think if you aim for that, even if you partially fail, you will still, you will still create a lot of positive change. Right?

• 59:14Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 59:15Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, that would be certainly what I would tell myself.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think you've got to try. And I do think this younger generation is much more receptive to,

• 59:28Speaker 03

  you know, trying to change the world in a good way. You know, you see those kids in Parkland, Florida, and it's just so moving. And so, you know, I'm hoping, I'm hoping that it will, you know, maybe, I don't know, get people to talk to their friends about it and maybe counter some of the stuff that they're seeing and say, actually, you know, white extremists have committed three times the violent acts that Muslim extremists have committed since nine eleven or in the last fifteen years. But the media coverage leaves you with the perception that's not the case.

• 1:00:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  And so, we can all kind of just be more aware and more critical and not in a negative way, but critical thinkers about the kind of information that's incoming.

• 1:00:18Tim Ferriss?

  And we only have a few minutes left. If you had a billboard, metaphorically speaking, and you could put a word, a phrase, a quote, any type of message or question to get out to millions or billions of people, what might you put on that billboard?

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  I'm watching three billboards right now. So, all I can think of is the billboards that Frances McDormand put up.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  You know, there's so many important things, right? I guess I would say something about voting. You know, if you don't vote, you can't complain.

• 1:00:54Tim Ferriss?

  Ah. And there are a lot of ways to vote, too. I mean, I understand the literal.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I think for me, it's actually voting in elections.

• 1:01:03Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:01:04Speaker 03

  Because I, I think it's what, 55% of Americans voted. It was the worst turnout in, since, I think, in 1994 or something. And, and I just don't understand how people can be that apathetic. They have to care about the country and they have to educate themselves about the issues. And I just, it's just infuriating to me that people don't vote. And so, especially in the midterms, and they need to, they need to really hold our politicians accountable. And if they want to, you know, be the change they wish to see or whatever, they need to

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  get involved in the political process. So I think that's what I would do. Like, it infuriated me if people didn't vote in the last election, or they threw away their vote by voting for someone that just would never be elected.

• 1:02:05Tim Ferriss?

  Had no chance.

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  Right. And I felt like saying to them, that's a vote for the other person. If you're comfortable with that, you know, just so you know, that's helping elect someone you may not want to be president. And so, I just, I just hope people take that really, really seriously. And I, I don't know. I just hope they vote for people for the right reasons, too.

• 1:02:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And to focus on action instead of complaining. I think that you can simulate, you can create the illusion of action by jumping on social media and complaining, but...

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  Well, they call that slacktivism, right?

• 1:02:42Tim Ferriss?

  Slacktivism. Yeah, you need to actually get up off your ass and make things happen. And part of that is engaging in ways like that.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. But that's, I think, what would you put on a billboard?

• 1:02:56Tim Ferriss?

  Damn flying question. I would say I might put up, I've thought about this of course because I ask this question a fair amount. I would, I would put up, I'll give, I'll give two answers. I'm gonna cheat. But the one that I usually say is you are the average of the five people you associate with most. Psychologically, emotionally, politically, physically, you are going to be the average of the handful of people you spend the most time with. So pick those people very, very, very carefully. And the, the other I am actually stealing from BJ Miller, who's a hospice care physician, also triple amputee. He was a warning story when I attended Princeton because a few years before, he had been climbing on this commuter train called the Dinky, and was wearing a big

• 1:03:40Tim Ferriss?

  watch, and electricity arced and burned off three of his limbs.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:03:45Tim Ferriss?

  And he's since became-

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  At Princeton?

• 1:03:47Tim Ferriss?

  At Princeton. And he's since, he, well after that point, became an MD, has helped a thousand plus people to die with terminal diagnoses in something called the Zen Hospice Center. But he, he's since expanded beyond that.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Where, where is that hospice center?

• 1:04:02Tim Ferriss?

  San Francisco. And they have a very uncommon approach to death and, and shepherding people from a terminal diagnosis to ultimately passing. And they do it in a really beautiful way.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:04:18Tim Ferriss?

  That, that I think lends peace to a lot of people. And when I asked him this question, he also in turn, he said, got it from a bumper stickers. Who knows who ultimately said this? But he said, I would put on a billboard, don't believe everything that you think. And I thought that was really profound to contemplate.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  That's good for my series.

• 1:04:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Don't believe everything that you think. So I revisit that a lot myself. And that can be your beliefs about other people, but also your beliefs about yourself, the stories, the narratives that you escape to, that ultimately don't serve you.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  He, um, sounds like a remarkable person. Has he gotten a lot of attention?

• 1:04:57Tim Ferriss?

  Not enough, not enough attention.

• 1:04:59Speaker 03

  Because I think he's like, of course, I immediately think this isn't a person I should

• 1:05:04Tim Ferriss?

  You would love this.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  Do a story on.

• 1:05:06Tim Ferriss?

  You would love him. He's incredible.

• 1:05:08Speaker 03

  So does he have prosthesis?

• 1:05:10Tim Ferriss?

  He does. He has, he has prosthesis or prosthetics and, and he-

• 1:05:15Speaker 03

  Prosthesis, yeah, prosthetics, whatever.

• 1:05:18Tim Ferriss?

  Whatever it is. He has those. And we actually talked on the podcast, at some point he mentioned in passing, he was like, well, the other week when I was riding my motorcycle, and then he kept going, and I said, wait, hold on, you're missing three limbs. You have a motorcycle? And he told me about this process he went through with the help of many people to custom modify a motorcycle. He wanted to be on a motorcycle to feel the wind in his face, and he rides a motorcycle.

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:05:42Tim Ferriss?

  He's a fascinating guy and hilarious.

• 1:05:45Speaker 03

  What's his name?

• 1:05:45Tim Ferriss?

  B.J. Miller.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  Is he married?

• 1:05:48Tim Ferriss?

  I don't think so, but I'm unsure.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you met him when he spoke at Princeton?

• 1:05:53Tim Ferriss?

  No.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  Or this happened to him at Princeton?

• 1:05:55Tim Ferriss?

  So I heard about him. I saw him initially in the, I believe it was the Princeton Alumni Weekly, the alumni magazine, and I tore out that page and I said, one day I'm going to track this guy down. I put it into a scrapbook. And that was before I ever started the podcast. And then at one point, I don't know how it happened exactly, it might have been an email from someone else who said, do you know who, it was an email from someone else. It was from a scientist at UCSF. Said, well, da-da-da-da, something, something, B.J. Miller. And I said, wait a second, that rings a bell. Google search, oh my God, that's that guy years ago. I said, someday I'm going to meet. And I said, I'll do one better. I want to interview him. And that's how it came to be.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  And so have you become friends?

• 1:06:33Tim Ferriss?

  I would say we're definitely on friendly terms. I still haven't met him in person,

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, well, you have to do that.

• 1:06:39Tim Ferriss?

  It was remote. And he's, he's an incredible, incredible man.

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  You should do your podcast, you know, like on location sometimes.

• 1:06:47Tim Ferriss?

  I would, I would like to do that.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  Because it really does lend a different feel to the podcast. You could go to his, actually, it would be incredible. You should go to his hospice.

• 1:06:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 03

  And you should talk to some of his patients. That would be so profound. And then put together, I'm talking to your producers over there, and put together something that would be really beautiful. Because people, myself included, really don't-

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  Still don't know how to talk about death.

• 1:07:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  They are terrified of it. I am.

• 1:07:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  And I think that you would be doing such a public service to help people kind of get a different perspective on dying, if that's possible.

• 1:07:36Tim Ferriss?

  If my own thinking about the subject is any indication based on conversations with people like BJ and based on speaking with someone like you and asking about grief, this is why I'm asking, because I don't yet feel like I have a complete toolkit for even thinking about it.

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  Well, you should also read Sheryl Sandberg's book, Option B, which I thought was really brave of her to write with Adam Grant, who's also great. You should interview Adam Grant, too.

• 1:08:00Tim Ferriss?

  Adam's a good guy.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  You must know Adam, right?

• 1:08:03Tim Ferriss?

  We've traded email before.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  He's fantastic, yeah. But you should read that book, because I think it might be very useful for you.

• 1:08:10Tim Ferriss?

  Great. No, I'll take a look at it. And I actually was at a group dinner with her, you know, then-husband, just a few months before everything happened. You just never know. I mean, what if it's...

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  Right? You just never know. I always think, wouldn't it be cool if people had a crystal ball and they would see what's coming? That's such a, you know, it's always such a mystery, like, what's around the corner? And, you know, if you could somehow have a glimpse into the future, it's just crazy to think, but of course you can't. But sometimes I think about that.

• 1:08:50Tim Ferriss?

  I do have two friends. I believe Kevin Kelly's one, who's fascinating, fascinating guy, we could talk about another time, has an Amish beard, spends time with the Amish, but he's a technology futurist with an impeccable track record.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:09:06Tim Ferriss?

  Lives in Silicon Valley, has built his own house.

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  And he spends time with the Amish?

• 1:09:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. It's all because he's fascinated by how they choose to adopt technology or not.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:09:13Tim Ferriss?

  And in any case, he and another friend named Antonio have Excel spreadsheets or clocks that they look at every morning that, based on actuarial tables, tell them how many years, months, days, hours, and minutes they have left in their life, just as a reminder of their mortality.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Jesus, no, thank you.

• 1:09:33Tim Ferriss?

  Intense. But...

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  That is intense.

• 1:09:36Tim Ferriss?

  So... We are at time.

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:09:40Tim Ferriss?

  And hopefully, we can continue the conversation someday.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've really enjoyed talking to you, and I would love to interview you at some point.

• 1:09:47Tim Ferriss?

  That would be an incredible honor. I would love to do that. And in the meantime, people can see you at work and doing what you do best, America Inside Out, which premieres on National Geographic, I believe, right?

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Tim Ferriss?

  On National Geographic Channel, April 11th at 10:00 PM. Six-part docu-series, so I will link to that in the show notes, as well as to everything that we've talked about already.

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  Thank you. I really appreciate it.

• 1:10:12Tim Ferriss?

  Of course, who listen, and those of you who watch, tim.blog/podcast is where you can find links to everything on social media, @KatieCouric on all the socials.

• 1:10:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, it's, gosh, it's such a full-time job servicing all these social media platforms, isn't it?

• 1:10:30Tim Ferriss?

  It can be.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  But it's also really fun. I mean, I have to say, I really, I really enjoy using Instagram. Because it's a way to feel, I don't know, you do get a sense of community with Instagram.

• 1:10:43Tim Ferriss?

  You do. It has, it has the feel of a friendlier neighborhood, too.

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  It does.

• 1:10:46Tim Ferriss?

  Compared to some of the others, which...

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  Yes, compared to Twitter, which can be.

• 1:10:49Tim Ferriss?

  Feel more like a neighborhood where you walk down the street whistling, and people just throw potted plants at your head.

• 1:10:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:10:53Tim Ferriss?

  Which isn't always how you want to feel.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:10:56Tim Ferriss?

  If you want to, if you want to be an insomniac, yeah, check your Twitter feed right before you go to bed.

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I had a very funny situation where I couldn't sleep one night, and I got on Twitter. I was using my device way too much. I did a whole hour on technology for this series as well. And suddenly, I'm in a conversation with Chrissy Teigen, Valerie Bertinelli, and one other person. I want to say Anna Gasteyer. We're all talking about not being able to sleep on Twitter. At like, 3:00 in the morning. It was so insane. And I was like, okay, this is social media.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  Who'd have thunk it?

• 1:11:36Tim Ferriss?

  Who'd have thunk it? You're only, you're competing against companies who put billions of dollars into R and D to throw everything scientifically vetted at your brain to distract. So you're completely outgunned. You're outgunned.

• 1:11:49Speaker 03

  I know, and that's one of my hours, and that's what I talked to Tristan about, that they manipulate you to keep you addicted with absolutely no responsibility or understanding. And should they? I mean, do you think that tech companies need to be held accountable for that?

• 1:12:08Tim Ferriss?

  I think tech companies ultimately, if they're going to be as all encompassing as they certainly appear to be, do have a moral obligation to think about the intermediate and long-term implications of some of these technologies, even if they're just trying to protect their bottom line. So for instance, I mean, hopefully, I'll take another minute or two, but if you look at autonomous cars, so self-driving cars, well...

• 1:12:35Speaker 03

  Three million jobs, right?

• 1:12:37Tim Ferriss?

  So if you, if you, you can look at the job shifting, but you can also look at, let's just say, the decision-making that will have to be embedded into the code itself. So if you have a car, let's say a car gets hit by a huge hailstone, which these things happen, right, whatever it might be, or a ball comes into the street and throws the car off course, and it has to choose between hitting, say, three schoolchildren on one side of the street, or 10 elderly people, how does it make the decision? And it's going to have to make a game time decision. Or are there times when the car sacrifices the driver? Is that dependent on your insurance premium? Is that, there are some really gnarly moral problems and ethical challenges that previously

• 1:13:19Tim Ferriss?

  were relegated to thought experiments, like the, you know, the sort of trolley scenarios and things like that. So they will, they will need to have ethicists and so on to help advise the programmers who are developing the code so that these machines can make decisions. So yeah, they, they have to think about it. It's crazy, though.

• 1:13:36Speaker 03

  Sounds like Black Mirror, doesn't it?

• 1:13:37Tim Ferriss?

  I know. The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson, thank you for that, and Katie Kirk, thank you so much.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  That would be a good billboard.

• 1:13:46Tim Ferriss?

  It would be a good one. And I would have to give Dear Mr. Gibson a lot of credit for that. But everybody, check it out, American Side Out, and Katie, hopefully to be continued.

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  Thank you, and so nice meeting you.

• 1:13:58Tim Ferriss?

  Likewise.

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 1:14:01Tim 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 world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 1:14:43Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by soothe.com, the world's largest on-demand massage service. I have been broken so many times over the years that I usually have bodywork done at least once a week. I have a very, very high bar for this type of thing and I was very skeptical of Sooth until I tested them, not once, but I would say at least a dozen times around the country in different cities.

• 1:15:27Tim Ferriss?

  I do not accept anything less than excellent for any type of soft tissue treatment and would not suggest that you accept anything less than excellent. So I can affirm personally that Sooth delivers a licensed, experienced, and above all, effective, in my book, massage therapist in the comfort of your own home, hotel, or office in as little as an hour. So you can think of it as Uber for massages, available in 55 cities worldwide at this point, across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. So you can relax just about anytime, anywhere. And I've tried many different types of massage that they offer and the process is super, super simple. Download the Sooth app, that's S-O-O-T-H-E.

• 1:16:10Tim Ferriss?

  Go to soothe.com, choose the kind of massage you want. You can select Swedish, sports, deep tissue, or even couples massage. I usually do deep tissue myself, or I'll do couples massage and then tell both of the therapists that I'm actually intending to get a four-handed massage instead of having two people get two-handed massages, if that makes sense. Then you set the length of your massage, whether 60, 90, or 120 minutes. If you're looking to get fixed, I usually do 90 or ideally 120. You select the gender of your therapist and then boom, you're done. And you will see who picks up the call. The service is available from 8 a.m. to midnight and Soothe brings everything that you need to create a spa experience in your home.

• 1:16:52Tim Ferriss?

  And the therapist handles all of this, the massage table, linens, oils, music, the whole nine yards. So try it out. Download Soothe and as a listener of the show, you'll get $25 off of your first massage when you enter the code TIM25, all caps, T-I-M-2-5. Again, download the Soothe app and use the code TIM25 for your $25 discount. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. And I'd heard about Peloton over and over again, but I ended up getting a Peloton bike and the whole system after I saw my buddy Kevin Rose. I've known him forever, some of you know.

• 1:17:32Tim Ferriss?

  And he showed up at my gate at my house a while back and he looked fantastic. And I asked him, I said, dude, you look great. What the hell have you been up to? Because he's always doing a weird diet or another, but it only lasts like a week or two. So he always regresses to the mean after like 75 beers. And he said, I've been doing Peloton five days a week. Now that caught my attention because Kevin does nothing five days a week. And you know, I love you, Kevin. But it really piqued my curiosity, ended up getting a system and it's become an integral part of my week. I love it and I really didn't expect to love it at all because I find cycling really boring usually, but Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right

• 1:18:17Tim Ferriss?

  into your home. You don't have to worry about fitting classes in your schedule or making it too Studio with some type of commute, etc. New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite New York City instructors in your own living room. You can even livestream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors, or find your own favorite class on demand. And in fact, Kevin and I rarely do live classes, and you can compete with your friends, which is also fun. Kevin, I'm coming after you. But we usually just use classes on demand. I really like Matt Wilpers and his high-intensity training sessions that are shorter, like 20 minutes. And I think Kevin's favorite is Alex, and everyone seems to have their favorite instructor, or you can select by music, duration, and so on.

• 1:19:02Tim Ferriss?

  Each Peloton bike includes a 22-inch HD touchscreen, performance-tracking metrics. I think that, along with the real-time leaderboard, are the main reasons that this caught my attention when cycling never had caught my attention before. It's really pretty stunning what they've done with the user interface to keep your attention. The belt drive is quiet, and it's smaller than you would expect, so it can fit in a living room or an office. I actually have it in a large closet, believe it or not, and it fits with no problem. So Peloton is offering all of you guys, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show, a special offer, and it is actually special. Visit OnePeloton, that's O-N-E-P-E-L-O-T-O-N, onepeloton.com, and enter the code TIM, all

• 1:19:47Tim Ferriss?

  caps, T-I-M, at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. Now, you might say, " Meh, accessories? Wait, I don't need fancy towels or whatever, other supplemental bits and pieces." No, the shoes you need. You need the clip-in shoes, and those are in the accessory category, so this $100 off is a very legit $100 off. So if you want to get in your workouts, if you want a convenient and really entertaining way to do high-intensity interval training or anything else, or you just want to get a fantastic gift for someone, check out Peloton. OnePeloton.com and enter the code TIM.

• 1:20:27Tim Ferriss?

  Again, that's O-N-E-P-E-L-O-T-O-N.com, and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off any accessories, including the shoes that you will want to get. Check it out. OnePeloton.com, code TIM.