EXPLAINING His “Be Nice” Tattoo, Which Started as the Letter “B”
“It was a note to self to just be kind, be thoughtful, benevolent . . . just be a good guy. Sometimes, I thrash about, and it’s a little reminder. Note to self. It grew into ‘Be nice,’ plain and simple.”
Culinary School—A Potatoes-to-Potatoes Comparison
“I went and talked to a chef, and I said, ‘This is what I’m thinking about . . . I’m either going to ask you for a job or I’m thinking about culinary school.’ He said, ‘Here’s the deal. You can come here today, and you can ask me for a job, and I’ll say, “Yeah, great. Here are the potatoes. Get peeling.” Or you can go to culinary school, spend two more years of your life preparing, spending $30K or $40K a year in bills to be there, then, you can come to me and ask me for a job, and I’ll say, “Yeah, sure. Here’s a big pot of potatoes. Get peeling.” Same thing.’ I was like, ‘Okay, I’m pretty good at math. I got this. Where are the potatoes? Let’s do it.’ So it was that simple.”
Going on Offense—Deliberately Avoiding the Hotbeds for Better Access
“There were these two chefs I wanted to work for in Tucson, who are great—well regarded on a national level. Nobody wanted to move there to work with them, so [if I went,] I could get immediate access and supercharge my learning and my path. So I did. I went to that second chef, and I said, ‘Hey, man, I want to work with you. This is why I’m in Arizona,’ and he said, ‘Great. What have you been doing?’”
TF: Richard got the job. This is very similar to the “going on offense” philosophy and decision-making of Chris Sacca (page 164), who first introduced me to Richard. Competition is overrated (see Peter Thiel, page 232), and sometimes you can you push a rock downhill instead of uphill (see Seth Godin, page 237).
Don’t Work for the Awards, Make the Awards Work for You
TIM: “What do you think financially successful people who are generally unhappy have in common?”
RICHARD: “Misplaced goals. I think chasing the financial is not the right way to do it. That first chef who gave me that first wine job, he was great. We were overlooked for a couple of things in the press, and I’m new in this food and wine world. He said, ‘Look, Richard, if you work for the awards, you don’t do good work. But if you do good work, the awards will come.’”
✸ Advice to your 25-year-old self?
“Don’t be so fucking shy. . . . Dude, I can still think of instances within the last 24 months where I think, ‘Man, Richard, I wish you had been more forward. I wish you had asked for X instead of being so subtle and implying it.’ I try to go for that subtle, elegant thing, which sounds really nice. I think part of that is actually being shy. Sometimes, the clues that you put outwardly are too subtle to be heard, or someone is just talking louder than you.”
✸ I think you’re a spectacularly good teacher. If you were teaching a ninth-grade class, what would you teach?
“Love yourself . . . You’ve got to love yourself before you can love others. Without it, nothing productive is going to happen, and we can all bang our heads on the wall.”
Spirit animal: Grizzly bear
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Mike Birbiglia
Mike Birbiglia (TW: @birbigs, birbigs.com) is a one of the busiest comedians in the world, both behind and in front of the camera. He started as a standup comic and has reached the height of his field—an international touring solo act that blends theater, film, storytelling, and standup comedy. His projects range from sold-out tours and New York Times bestsellers to feature film and regular appearances on public radio’s This American Life, where he has a meaningful collaboration with host and producer Ira Glass. Most recently, he is the creator, writer, and star of the film Don’t Think Twice.
Art Is Socialism, but Life Is Capitalism
“My wife made the observation that everyone’s equal on stage, but off stage, they’re completely unequal.” Mike wrote down, “Art is socialism but life is capitalism,” and that became a guiding principle for his film Don’t Think Twice.
Only Emotion Endures
Mike cork-boards his walls and pins 3x5 cards to them. One of his favorites is just three words from Ezra Pound, which Mike considers one of the best quotes for writing: “Only emotion endures.”
Silence Sometimes Speaks Louder Than Words
TIM: “With someone like Ira [Glass], or anyone else, is there a particular way that you elicit feedback to make it as helpful as possible?”
MIKE: “Usually, I will tell people bits and jokes over the phone, partly because they can peacefully give feedback in a way that’s not judgmental. When you’re face to face with somebody [and say a joke, they can] feel the pressure of ‘Oh, I should laugh or I should politely respond.’ On the phone, it’s pretty easy to skim through stuff, and I can hear when people are interested by what’s being said. Quentin Tarantino—I’ve read this—will call people endlessly and pitch them movies that he’s working on. He says he doesn’t even have to hear the laughter; he can hear in their silence what their interest level is.”
Write in a Trance and Act in a Trance
“I try to write before my inhibitions take hold of me. I try to do 7 a.m. Because I’m an actor, as well, I always say, ‘Write in a trance and act in a trance.’ You don’t want to think consciously about what you’re putting on the page. A lot of times, I’ll write in my journal as though it will never be seen by anyone, and then, more often than not, the things that I put in my secret journal are the things that I publish.”
Mike!!! You Have a Meeting with Yourself!
“Actually, this is a real quirk that I rarely admit to anyone, never mind in public. To finish the script, I found that I kept putting it off, and I was analyzing my habits. [I realized] I was putting off writing the script, but I wasn’t putting off having lunch with Brian Koppelman [page 613, a mutual friend] or having lunch with my brother or whatever. . . . So I thought, ‘I’m always on time, and I always show up to things, so why don’t I do that for myself?’ So I put a handwritten note next to my bed that said—and it has three exclamation points—‘Mike!!! You have a meeting at Café Pedlar [where I was writing] at 7 a.m. with your mind,’ which is so stupid. It’s so embarrassing to admit, but it worked!”
✸ Recommended podcasts
Sleep with Me: Mike falls asleep to this podcast. Mike is famous for his very real sleep disorders. He once jumped out of a second-story window while sleepwalking and nearly killed himself.
Scriptnotes: This has come up with at least a half dozen guests. Legit advice from legit doers.
✸ What would you put on a billboard?
“I’d put it in Times Square and it would say, ‘None of these companies care about you.’”
How to Approach Celebrities (and Get President Obama to Say “Poo”)
“I met [President Obama] 2 years ago, when my wife was pregnant. Our whole thing was, whenever we meet someone who we know doesn’t care about meeting us, my wife and I always try and come up with a trick question that throws them off. They kind of have to answer, or have to think about it. I give this advice to people. If you ever see Jimmy Fallon on the street, don’t say, ‘I love The Tonight Show!’ Just say something like: ‘What do you think of kiwi?’ and he won’t be able to not be like, ‘I love kiwi!’ Talk to people about a thing they didn’t think they were going to talk about. Then, next thing you know, you’re talking to Jimmy Fallon about kiwi and you’ll have that for your life.
“So our thing with Obama, because my wife was 4 months pregnant but we hadn’t told anybody yet, was ‘Why don’t we tell him you’re pregnant?’ So when we get to the front, I say, ‘Mr. President, this is my wife, Jen. She’s newly pregnant but don’t tell anyone.’ And he couldn’t help it. The president of the United States couldn’t help but say, ‘Well, am I first to know?’ And my wife says yes. She asks, ‘Do you have any parenting advice?’ And he says, ‘Well, get some sleep.’ And we’re like, ‘Ha-ha’ because he’s the
president. It wasn’t that funny, comically, but he’s like your boss times a million. But then he got better, because he goes, ‘No, actually, I’ve got something. When you bring him home, the poo . . .’ The president said ‘poo,’ and the moment he said ‘poo,’ I thought, ‘This is the greatest day of my life. I could die right now and I’d be fine.’ He says, ‘When you bring him home, the poo doesn’t smell. It doesn’t smell like adult poo. Adult poo smells bad.’ Then he looked at me for affirmation, and I was like, ‘Absolutely, Mr. President; adult poo does indeed smell terrible. Thank you for inviting me to the Poo Seminar 2015.’
“And he goes, ‘And when you bring him home, babies crave structure in their eating and in their sleeping. Breastfeeding doesn’t always work out right away. There’s going to be a little bit of wonky. Don’t freak out. And if the sleeping doesn’t work out right away, don’t freak out.’ And he paused and he thought about it and he goes, ‘That’s actually some pretty good advice.’ He complimented his own advice. I’m telling you, the best thing to do is give people questions they’re not expecting.”
✸ Advice to your 20-year-old self?
“I would say, ‘Write everything down because it’s all very fleeting.’ I would say, ‘Keep a journal,’ which I have but I would have been more meticulous. Then I would say, ‘Don’t bow to the gatekeepers at the head of, in my case, show business, but at the gate of any business or any endeavor.’ Don’t bow to the gatekeepers because I think, in essence, there are no gatekeepers. You are the gatekeeper. . . .
“Don’t waste your time on marketing, just try to get better. . . .
“And also, it’s not about being good; it’s about being great. Because what I find, the older I get, is that a lot of people are good, and a lot of people are smart, and a lot of people are clever. But not a lot of people give you their soul when they perform.”
The Jar of Awesome
This was not my idea. It is thanks to an ex-girlfriend who is a real sweetheart. She made and gave me the Jar of Awesome as a gift, because I’m very good at achievement and historically not good at appreciation. Here’s how it works:
There is a mason jar on my kitchen counter with jar of awesome in glitter letters on the side. Anytime something really cool happens in a day, something that made me excited or joyful, doctor’s orders are to write it down on a slip of paper and put it in this mason jar. When something great happens, you think you’ll remember it 3 months later, but you won’t. The Jar of Awesome creates a record of great things that actually happened, all of which are easy to forget if you’re depressed or seeing the world through gray-colored glasses. I tend to celebrate very briefly, if at all, so this pays dividends for weeks, months, or years.
The Jar of Awesome has had a tremendous impact on my quality of life. It sounds ridiculous to admit and my 20-year-old self would probably vomit, but—man—it works.
I keep the jar where I will see it constantly. Each time the name catches my eye, a little voice in my head says, “Things aren’t so bad, Eeyore. Perk the fuck up!” I came to realize that A) If you’re serious all the time, you’ll wear out before the truly serious stuff gets done; and B) if you don’t regularly appreciate the small wins, you will never appreciate the big wins. They’ll all fall through your fingers like sand as you obsess on the next week, the next to-do, the next thing to fix. This makes “success” a Pyrrhic victory at best.
Now, if you don’t want to have a jar with “Jar of Awesome” written on it, you could just put a huge star or exclamation point on the side. However, the more serious you are in “real life,” the more ridiculous I think you should make it. Who are you trying to impress? If you have kids, get them involved. Many of my fans now have their entire families developing gratitude using this simple, low-tech godsend.
Cultivate the habit of putting something in every day. Can’t think of anything? “I didn’t die today!” is a reliable winner. That’s totally awesome compared to the alternative. Look for the good, practice finding the good, and you’ll see it more often.
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Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell (TW: @gladwell, gladwell.com) is the author of five New York Times bestsellers. He has been named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine and one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers. He explored how ideas spread in The Tipping Point, decision-making in Blink, the roots of success in Outliers, and the advantages of disadvantages in his latest book, David and Goliath. In his latest project, the Revisionist History podcast, Gladwell examines the way the passage of time changes and enlightens our understanding of the world around us.
✸ What did you have for breakfast?
“I had a cappuccino and a third of a croissant. I love croissants, but I think one should eat the absolute minimum in the morning. . . . That’s one of my rules.”
✸ On lapsang souchong black tea
“Some people smell it, and they just run in the opposite direction. They don’t even think it’s tea. There’s a little coffee shop where I often go in the morning, and they have it. I think I’m one of the only people who orders it.”
TF: Lapsang souchong has a very smoky, peaty flavor. It reminds one of my friends so much of whisky that he used it to cut back on drinking alcohol.
✸ How do you decide how to start a chapter or book?
“It’s not a math question where there’s only one answer. So, as long as you understand there is not just one good answer, it takes the pressure off. Typically, I might try out several openings. It’s made easier by the fact that I don’t start at the beginning. Once you don’t start at the beginning, your life just gets so much simpler.”
TF: Search “5 great examples of in medias res” for more on this approach. In medias res literally means “into the middle things” in Latin and refers to beginning a story (chapter, novel, movie, video game, whatever) in the middle or at the end of the narrative. I’ve done this with all of my previous books.
How Malcolm Learned to Ask Questions
His father, a mathematician, taught Malcolm to ask questions upon questions:
“My father has zero intellectual insecurities. . . . It has never crossed his mind to be concerned that the world thinks he’s an idiot. He’s not in that game. So if he doesn’t understand something, he just asks you. He doesn’t care if he sounds foolish. He will ask the most obvious question without any sort of concern about it. . . . So he asks lots and lots of ‘dumb,’ in the best sense of that word, questions. He’ll say to someone, ‘I don’t understand. Explain that to me.’ He’ll just keep asking questions until he gets it right, and I grew up listening to him do this in every conceivable setting. [If my father had met Bernie Madoff, he] never would have invested money with him because he would have said, ‘I don’t understand’ a hundred times. ‘I don’t understand how that works,’ in this kind of dumb, slow voice. ‘I don’t understand, sir. What is going on?’”
(See Alex Blumberg, page 303.)
✸ Malcolm’s role models in the public speaking world
“Niall Ferguson, the historian, gave a birthday toast, which is just the best toast I’ve ever heard in my life. [It was] so much better than anything I’d ever heard. It was on another level.”
✸ What’s bad advice that you hear being given out often?
“The worst advice that, in general, we give in America is that we terrify high school kids about their college choices. All things related to college fall under the category of bad advice. As you will find out when you listen to my rants about college [on Revisionist History], I think the American college system needs to be blown up and they need to start over. . . . Am I so inspired by what I learned during the day that I want to be talking about it at 1:00 in the morning? And do I have someone who will have that conversation with me and who will challenge me? That’s it. Everything else is nonsense.”
Spirit animal: A mid-sized mutt of very unimpressive lineage—a little shy, relatively friendly after a while, slo
ppy but not too wild, quite loyal, a good sleeper
* * *
Stephen J. Dubner
Stephen J. Dubner (TW: @freakonomics, freakonomics.com) is an award-winning author, journalist, and radio and TV personality. He is best known for writing, along with the economist Steven D. Levitt, Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, Think Like a Freak, and When to Rob a Bank, which have sold more than 5 million copies in 35 languages. He is the host of the massively popular Freakonomics Radio podcast.
A Lesser-Known Favorite
We both absolutely love Levels of the Game by John McPhee, an entire book about a single tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner in 1968. It’s a short 162 pages and the New York Times gushed, “This may be the high point of American sports journalism.” It’s Stephen’s most-gifted book for adults. For kids, his most-gifted book is The Empty Pot by Demi.
✸ Any quotes you live by or think of often?
“Enough is as good as a feast.”
When to Put Away Your Moral Compass
“If you want to solve a problem—any problem that you care enough about to want to solve—you almost certainly come to it with a whole lot of ideas about it. Ideas about why it’s an important problem, what is it that bothers you exactly, who the villains are in the problem, etc.
“So if you’re an environmentalist, and you believe that one of the biggest tragedies of the last 100 years is people despoiling the environment, the minute you hear about an issue that kind of abuts the environment, whether it’s honeybee collapse or something having to do with air quality, your immediate moral position is, ‘Well, I know exactly what the cause of that is. It’s caused by people being stupid and careless and greedy’ and so on.
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