Speaker 1: Bob, Well, I'm so grateful for your time and your wisdom. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether there's any wisdom, but I always
Speaker 1: enjoyed talking about these kinds of topics because usually we
Speaker 1: don't in life, and to me, these are probably the
Speaker 1: most important topics that we can talk about because the
Speaker 1: foundation of our life. Yeah, exactly. And I do really
Speaker 1: believe in the sharing of experience because it's identifiable. It's
Speaker 1: it reminds us that we're part of something that, however
Speaker 1: isolated we feel. There are people, you know, you would
Speaker 1: be identifiable as an extraordinarily successful person, but it's good
Speaker 1: to know that you are a person to best compliment,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have thank you. Hello, I'm Mini Driver.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Many Questions Season two. I've always loved Christ's Questionnaire.
Speaker 1: It was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where players
Speaker 1: would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing
Speaker 1: the other player's true nature. It's just the scientific method really.
Speaker 1: In asking different people the same set of questions, you
Speaker 1: can make observations about which truths appeared to be universal.
Speaker 1: I love this discipline and it made me wonder what
Speaker 1: if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
Speaker 1: greater depths would be revealed if I ask these questions
Speaker 1: as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all
Speaker 1: these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I
Speaker 1: wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a
Speaker 1: pertinent to a person's story. They are when and where
Speaker 1: were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
Speaker 1: about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: What question would you most like answered, What person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 1: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 1: your life that's grown out of a personal disaster. And
Speaker 1: I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
Speaker 1: I am honored and humbled to have had the chance
Speaker 1: to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
Speaker 1: all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
Speaker 1: which questions felt closest to their experience or the most surprising,
Speaker 1: or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
Speaker 1: today on many questions is the co founder of MTV
Speaker 1: and I Heeart Media, where he is the current chairman
Speaker 1: Bob Pittman. Bob is a media entrepreneur who feels to
Speaker 1: me like he's sort of in a league of his own.
Speaker 1: He's had so many interesting and creative incarnations in a
Speaker 1: ton of consumer focused industries. Just to give you an idea,
Speaker 1: Bob has been CEO of a Well Networks, six Flags,
Speaker 1: Theme Parks, Century to any One real Estate, and a
Speaker 1: World Time Warner, as well as being CEO of clear Channel,
Speaker 1: which was what evolved and expanded into the current I
Speaker 1: Heeart media. So it's extraordinarily varied. He's one of the
Speaker 1: most interested people I've ever met, and when you're having
Speaker 1: a conversation with him, ideas sort of spark off each other,
Speaker 1: creating this brilliant feeling of forward momentum. And given the
Speaker 1: scope of his success, it feels like, you know, he
Speaker 1: could probably sit back and enjoy the extraordinarily diverse fruits
Speaker 1: of his labor. But whenever we speak, I always get
Speaker 1: to see the perspective of a person who is constantly
Speaker 1: looking forward and is interested in the exploration and unfolding
Speaker 1: of life, not just business. It feels like a weird
Speaker 1: time to be asking this first question, but it's always
Speaker 1: pertinent within peacetime or war, But when and where were
Speaker 1: you happiest. I hope that I'm happiest right now. Someone
Speaker 1: told me when I was a young man, said, you know,
Speaker 1: most people never live because they're in the past, with
Speaker 1: their regrets, in the future, with their worries, and they
Speaker 1: never get right here, right now. And so I try, I,
Speaker 1: as a human, not always successful, to sort of understand
Speaker 1: that and try and be happy wherever I am, whatever
Speaker 1: I'm doing, and at the moment I'm alive. I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of happy moments, but I want this to
Speaker 1: be the happiest moment, and I want to appreciate this
Speaker 1: moment the most of any moment I could have. Is
Speaker 1: that part of the contingency of happiness fear is presence
Speaker 1: and appreciation. It's just a good way to say it,
Speaker 1: I think so. But it's also I just don't want
Speaker 1: to think, well that I was happy, then why am
Speaker 1: I not happy now? I mean to me, happiness is
Speaker 1: one of those things that I can either choose to
Speaker 1: be happy or I can choose to be unhappy. And
Speaker 1: how do I get myself in a frame where I
Speaker 1: just look at things and go I'm happy. I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean sometimes just saying it.
Speaker 1: It's tricky with circumstance not lining up with one's expectations.
Speaker 1: And even though I think that expectation might be the
Speaker 1: deadliest psychological weapon that we have against ourselves, of expecting
Speaker 1: reality to conform to what it is we want as
Speaker 1: opposed to being in the business of what it is,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think I think one of
Speaker 1: the worst things we do. And it's gonna sound very weird,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean it this extreme, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say it this extreme. The worst thing we do is plan.
Speaker 1: Plans don't come true. Something wonderful can happen. But you know,
Speaker 1: plan we sort of develop, I think to reduce our
Speaker 1: fear of the future and our anxiety about the future.
Speaker 1: But to me, you know, I do I have a plan.
Speaker 1: Of course, in business, I've got to a game plan
Speaker 1: we lay out the year. But it's interesting. Even at work,
Speaker 1: we have a weekly meeting what we call our strat
Speaker 1: com and it's the senior leaders of the company, and
Speaker 1: the goal is to adjust the plan because we know
Speaker 1: no plan, and even in a week the plan has
Speaker 1: changed that this plan is not going to come true,
Speaker 1: and you know, the plans, I hope it's a dream.
Speaker 1: It's an you know, as you say, an expectation. But
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we get ourselves off track by saying
Speaker 1: I plan something, and I'm unhappy because it didn't come
Speaker 1: out as planned. Wait a minute, you made the plan. One,
Speaker 1: you make another plan. Make a plan work about exactly
Speaker 1: as you want. It bedevils a lot of people and
Speaker 1: leads people astray from their own enjoyment of this journey
Speaker 1: we have called life, you know. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, this thing, it ends the same way
Speaker 1: no matter what we do. You know, most business they go,
Speaker 1: you know, the means, it's not important, it's just the end.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? Life, it's the opposite. The
Speaker 1: ends the same no matter what you do. So it's
Speaker 1: all about the journey. And I think if we can
Speaker 1: begin to get an appreciation of that journey, it not
Speaker 1: only makes it better for us spiritually, mentally, etcetera, but
Speaker 1: also even in business, it makes it better because which
Speaker 1: is realistic about there's so many variables you can't control,
Speaker 1: stop trying to control. But if we know these things,
Speaker 1: why do we persist? Then with the expectation of circumstance,
Speaker 1: either conforming to the idea that we have about what
Speaker 1: a good version of that is, like when everything does
Speaker 1: as we've just seen in the last two years, how
Speaker 1: things come apart in an instant. Why are we still
Speaker 1: so attached as humans to this idea of it working
Speaker 1: out as we envision it, as opposed to going, let
Speaker 1: me stay incredibly loose and fluid with the vessel that
Speaker 1: the things I want is going to come to me,
Speaker 1: and because maybe it's going to be different. I think
Speaker 1: the ambiguity and the randomness makes people very anxious. And
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable, and I think if they can do a
Speaker 1: plan and say I've got my five year plan, I've
Speaker 1: got my one year plan, I have my weak plan,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm gonna do, I know what's coming
Speaker 1: for me, it goes ah. I've reduced the anxiety, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's healthy. But I will tell you
Speaker 1: some people criticize me because a year so ambiguous, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not being clear, And I go, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be realistic that there's only so much that's knowable in life.
Speaker 1: I think is more of a random walk than it
Speaker 1: is a planned experience. I look back, and you know,
Speaker 1: even talking about business, I look back on my business
Speaker 1: career and go, gosh, it's been a series of meteors
Speaker 1: flying out of the sky and hitting me on the head.
Speaker 1: It's that kind of randomness that my career has been about.
Speaker 1: And when I was a young man and I thought
Speaker 1: I had a plan, that plan fell apart really quickly,
Speaker 1: and thank goodness, I sort of opened my mind to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll do that. Then if that's popping up, and
Speaker 1: in my personal life as well, is you know, you think, gosh,
Speaker 1: I know what's going to be great for my kids.
Speaker 1: I know what my kids should do. I know what
Speaker 1: school is, you could do. M Wow. It's like that's
Speaker 1: not at all what happens. And if I try and
Speaker 1: force my kids into my plan for them, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing them a favor and I'm not doing anything for
Speaker 1: my relationship with them. It's this idea of how do
Speaker 1: I do active listening and really try and understand the
Speaker 1: moment and where they are and how I can support
Speaker 1: them as opposed to try and get them to conform
Speaker 1: to my plan. Yeah. I think it's actually the secret
Speaker 1: of happiness. In fact, that's what I think happiness is
Speaker 1: is being able to let go of what you think
Speaker 1: happiness should be and allow it to be what is
Speaker 1: and fit yourself. There's a great quote I can't remember
Speaker 1: who's William James or something about our experience is what
Speaker 1: we attend to j unit. If you look at something,
Speaker 1: it can only look like this. And my happiness and
Speaker 1: my everything, my business, my relationship, my everything is hung
Speaker 1: on it looking this way. Well, it's It's also one
Speaker 1: of those saying as reality is what you perceive it
Speaker 1: to be. And you know this whole discussion now about
Speaker 1: is does the universe create consciousness or does consciousness create
Speaker 1: the universe? I mean you get the very fundamental levels
Speaker 1: of existence and and so you know, when you get
Speaker 1: down the happiness is. I think the challenge is to
Speaker 1: be happy with what we have, when we have it,
Speaker 1: how we have it, and to accept happiness as opposed
Speaker 1: to reject happiness. I agree so eleanor Roosevelt. People are
Speaker 1: as happy as they make up their mind to be.
Speaker 1: I like that. I always say that, Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: very good line. She was cool. I liked her, Yes,
Speaker 1: she was very cool. In your life. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster. Sure,
Speaker 1: when I was six years old, I was at a
Speaker 1: family reunion and Thanksgiving and a little farm outside of
Speaker 1: Holly Springs, Mississippi, and one of my uncles put me
Speaker 1: on a horse to give becoming. All the kids ride,
Speaker 1: and the horse reared up, threw me off, stepped in
Speaker 1: my face, and I lost an eye. Valued lucky the
Speaker 1: horse didn't kill me, So I'm lucky that all I
Speaker 1: did was lose an eye. But having a artificial eye
Speaker 1: growing up made me a bit of an outsider. I
Speaker 1: was the kid with the glass eye, and kids are
Speaker 1: not young kids especially can be extraordinarily cruel, not accepting.
Speaker 1: But I think that experience gave me the feeling of
Speaker 1: what it feels like to be on the outside, what
Speaker 1: it feels like to be an outsider. Gave me a
Speaker 1: little bit of detachment from being on the inside and
Speaker 1: allowed me to sort of grow into being myself. Probably
Speaker 1: helped with my empathy and developing that, and I think
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't be anywhere near the human being I
Speaker 1: am without having had that what you would consider to
Speaker 1: be a you know, a personal disaster. But ultimately, I
Speaker 1: think if I look back on my life and say,
Speaker 1: why am I here at this point instead of somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I have to attribute a lot of it to what
Speaker 1: I got out of being the kid with one eye. Wow.
Speaker 1: Were there any other children that you grew up with
Speaker 1: who had either a disability or had some other challenge
Speaker 1: that they were dealing with or were you Were you
Speaker 1: really isolated in that experience? I was probably the kid
Speaker 1: with the problem. I mean, I think today we would
Speaker 1: probably identify some of the kids as having dyslexia. You know,
Speaker 1: dyslexia was undiagnosed back then, and you know, you had
Speaker 1: these kids that were thought to be dumb that we're
Speaker 1: not all done. They were brilliant, but they had dyslexia,
Speaker 1: and so the issues like that that I look back
Speaker 1: on now and gosh, it's very clear what was going on,
Speaker 1: But at the time it was more physical. Do you
Speaker 1: have an arm, a leg, ni or something missing? It
Speaker 1: was isolated, but it was also allowed me to build
Speaker 1: who I am, and I certainly wouldn't trade it for anything. Now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what person, place, or experience, most of all to do
Speaker 1: your life my mom and dad. I couldn't have asked
Speaker 1: for a better childhood. If you know, there's a parental
Speaker 1: lottery I certainly wanted. And you know, I lived in
Speaker 1: a house where the words you couldn't say was hate.
Speaker 1: We don't hate anything, honey, And it really set me
Speaker 1: on the course. I'm not saying I've lived up to
Speaker 1: all those expectations, but I have them at my core,
Speaker 1: and I I am very grateful for him, and I
Speaker 1: think that certainly shaped me. I also think I have
Speaker 1: to say I was shaped by I grew up in
Speaker 1: Mississippi in the fifties and sixties, which was segregated. When
Speaker 1: I started school, there were black and white schools. There
Speaker 1: were colored only bathrooms and white only bathrooms. When I
Speaker 1: graduated from high school, our school was about fifty fifty white, black.
Speaker 1: So everything happened in that period. I was going to
Speaker 1: school in the Civil rights move But so you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's influenced I think by whatever, that big thing that
Speaker 1: overhangs them in their childhood, and that probably for me
Speaker 1: was the one that hit me the most. And so
Speaker 1: as a result, I sort of still see that in
Speaker 1: society and and look forward and notice it. Did you
Speaker 1: talk about the civil rights movement with your parents, like
Speaker 1: did they address it with you or was it more experiential.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and my family, it was a big issue,
Speaker 1: and everybody there was working on it, at least the
Speaker 1: people I knew, working and trying to work for change.
Speaker 1: My dad was a Methodist minister, and in Mississippi they
Speaker 1: had a Black They have conferences in the Methodist Church,
Speaker 1: and they had a Black conference and a White conference
Speaker 1: of the same geographic area. And my dad made it
Speaker 1: his mission to integrate the two and to combine them,
Speaker 1: which meant the Ku Klux planking. After my dad a
Speaker 1: few times when I was a little young to sort
Speaker 1: of understand the impact of that when that was going on,
Speaker 1: and then after they merged that, my dad was in
Speaker 1: the by that time in the acutive branch of the
Speaker 1: church and worked on trying on what he called reconciliation,
Speaker 1: is trying to get people to join together and sort
Speaker 1: of you know, move past it, and you know, mentors
Speaker 1: some of the black ministers as they went into some
Speaker 1: predominantly white churches and really tried to change the tenor
Speaker 1: of things. But there are, you know, awful stories to
Speaker 1: go with it too. My mother's first cousin, who she
Speaker 1: was very close to it or like a brother, was
Speaker 1: the school superintendent Philadelphia, Mississippi, and he had thrown some
Speaker 1: clansman's kid out of school for harassing a black child,
Speaker 1: and they came one Friday night, shot up his daughter's bedroom,
Speaker 1: and my mother's cousin want up committing suicide and just
Speaker 1: sort of couldn't see a way out, felt torn between
Speaker 1: doing the right thing and protecting his family. And they're
Speaker 1: awful stories like that, and you know, certainly, you know
Speaker 1: that pales in comparison to the stories that the black
Speaker 1: community suffered through and the horrors that they dealt with
Speaker 1: and the degradation. I think for all of us who
Speaker 1: were there. My mom and I were watching them mpr
Speaker 1: s along the Civil rights movement in the nineties. We
Speaker 1: were in New York and watching it together and my
Speaker 1: mother turned to me with tears and just go she said,
Speaker 1: For the life of me, I can't imagine how we
Speaker 1: let that go on. And I think there's something in that.
Speaker 1: When you grow up in things a certain way, at
Speaker 1: what point do you look around and say, hey, this
Speaker 1: isn't right. And the lesson I've tried to take out
Speaker 1: of it that goes beyond this is what am I
Speaker 1: seeing today that's not right? But I'm just not noticing
Speaker 1: because it's quote unquote normal, and I think there's probably
Speaker 1: a lot of them I'm not even seeing right now,
Speaker 1: but I at least try to look for those. And
Speaker 1: as we look in the world, is what is happening
Speaker 1: that's not right? What moment do you notice it? And
Speaker 1: then when you notice it, what do you do about it?
Speaker 1: But I think as human beings, we all have that obligation.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, unfortunately I have something in my past that
Speaker 1: was so horrible and the fact that my mother looking
Speaker 1: at me at that time, I mean I still remember
Speaker 1: that and saying, yeah, my mother grew up in and
Speaker 1: sort of didn't see it, didn't sort of see what
Speaker 1: was possible and uh, and then did take an action
Speaker 1: and they could have people have seen it earlier. Do
Speaker 1: you look today and do you feel whether it's a
Speaker 1: similar or maybe it's akin to the ground swell of
Speaker 1: change that is hopefully happening in some of the systemic
Speaker 1: ship that exists in our world. Like having seen things
Speaker 1: really shift in the sixties, do you think that that's
Speaker 1: playing out now? You know, present world collapse? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I think we're finding. You know, there are
Speaker 1: things that are falling apart, and there are things that
Speaker 1: are growing and blossoming. My dad used to talk about
Speaker 1: and I talked about somebody did something terrible. He says, well,
Speaker 1: I believe in the redemptive power of love, and he
Speaker 1: was talking about forgiveness, that we should all have an
Speaker 1: open heart to forgive, because if somebody says something wrong
Speaker 1: to someone, hey, here's what's wrong with that, and give
Speaker 1: them the chance to say, wow, you're right, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and sorry means something. Apologies do mean something. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love the old things, slow to blame, quick to forgive.
Speaker 1: I think there's always a room for them, and always
Speaker 1: room for love and our hearts to accept that people. Basically,
Speaker 1: I think most people want to do good. I think
Speaker 1: most people want to do the right thing. There was
Speaker 1: time at which, you know, and I'm sure we've all
Speaker 1: had it, which I've been in a meeting, someone says
Speaker 1: something and it's off, and after the meeting, I'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you maybe didn't realize it, but
Speaker 1: you said this, And almost always they're horrified. They're mortified.
Speaker 1: They go, I didn't even realize that. I didn't see
Speaker 1: it that way. I feel so badly, and so I
Speaker 1: think that's actually most people's feelings. And at work, I
Speaker 1: try and push upon our people that don't be afraid
Speaker 1: of the mistake because we learned from it. I forget
Speaker 1: who it was said I either win or I learned something.
Speaker 1: And I preached to my kids that, you know, a
Speaker 1: failure and success are the same thing. They're just a
Speaker 1: stepping stone. They're not the end. And what we call
Speaker 1: the failures, I step on that stone and I go
Speaker 1: another direction on what we call it success. I step
Speaker 1: on that stone and keep going in the same direction.
Speaker 1: But those aren't the ends. They're just merely a step
Speaker 1: on the journey. And I think if we can wrap
Speaker 1: our heads around the fact that we're constantly moving, we're
Speaker 1: constantly growing, we're constantly changing, then it allows us to
Speaker 1: be a little more gracious with our forgiveness and our understanding.
Speaker 1: Being a preacher's kid, always remember vengeance as mind say
Speaker 1: of the Lord, Wait, what does that mean? Vengeance's mind?
Speaker 1: That God was like, only I can have vengeance. Don't
Speaker 1: have vengeance. That that's not for humans to have, that's
Speaker 1: not for you people. Yeah, yeah, God, I wish he'd
Speaker 1: I wish you'd given us a proper list. This is
Speaker 1: really not your cast out because he ate from the
Speaker 1: tree of knowledge. I want a really specific list. It's
Speaker 1: why I do this podcast because I like very specific questions,
Speaker 1: so I can have very specific answers and try and
Speaker 1: understand the meaning of everything. What relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you? I think it has to be
Speaker 1: a mother child relationship, which is one of the most beautiful,
Speaker 1: pure relationships I've ever seen. I mean, I'd love to
Speaker 1: say it's dad gile because I love my kids and
Speaker 1: I hope they love me as much as I love them.
Speaker 1: But I actually think there's something about the mother and
Speaker 1: child childbirth with a child, I mean, that experience that
Speaker 1: just sort of indescribable bond I think is pretty polperful.
Speaker 1: It's sort of hard to imagine love could be any
Speaker 1: deeper and impurer than that. Was that observable because you
Speaker 1: were there at the birth of your children, or because
Speaker 1: you've observed their relationship with their mother. I think both,
Speaker 1: and also the relationship with my mother and watching other
Speaker 1: people with their mother. I have a close friend who
Speaker 1: was the victim of just a awful abuse as a child,
Speaker 1: and I said, how do you cope with it? And
Speaker 1: she said, I think about that abuser as once was
Speaker 1: just a baby and their mother loved that person, and
Speaker 1: I try and take it back to love as opposed
Speaker 1: to what they became, and I go, wow, that is
Speaker 1: like so advanced, because I'm not sure I could ever
Speaker 1: bring myself to do that, but I do think this idea,
Speaker 1: and it was one of the ones that sort of
Speaker 1: keep me in and sort of focused me again on
Speaker 1: that mother child old love. It being so pure that
Speaker 1: it's what we sort of all aspire to in some
Speaker 1: form or another. That's so interesting. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you're right, like there is it's unadulterated, you know. It
Speaker 1: is the version of unconditional. Yea completely unconditional, and it
Speaker 1: may turn into something that gets distorted over time, but
Speaker 1: at that moment, it's this sort of truly unconditional love.
Speaker 1: I hope what we all can achieve and strive for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sure looks like some people don't want to strive
Speaker 1: for that, or they don't know the power of it,
Speaker 1: you know, you see, unconditionally except for and no, no,
Speaker 1: there's not no except for Look, it's easier for me
Speaker 1: to talk about it because I had that for my
Speaker 1: mother and I know people that didn't have it from
Speaker 1: their parents. It's a much more difficult experience for them.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the regret of parenting issues. But if
Speaker 1: you've got it, you can always call upon it. And
Speaker 1: it's that sense that it's always there omnipresent gives you
Speaker 1: this security to go through your life with sort of
Speaker 1: a base. And I think people who have not been
Speaker 1: even that gift have a lot of work they've got
Speaker 1: to do that. Fortunately I don't have to do. So
Speaker 1: I'm not judgmental about the issues they deal with because
Speaker 1: I understand that they're going through something that I can't
Speaker 1: totally relate to. It's funny, I think about a lot,
Speaker 1: maybe since Mom died, the love for a mother and
Speaker 1: the love for my child. It's like, what's it cooled?
Speaker 1: Is it a double helix? The shape of the DNA
Speaker 1: keeps going, Yeah, So what quality do you like? Least
Speaker 1: about yourself? Lack of patience? I run things too quickly.
Speaker 1: I want to move too quickly through things. I don't
Speaker 1: sometimes take the time. We're just talking about active listening, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I keep wanting to jump to a conclusion and jump
Speaker 1: to an action, and jump to the next step and
Speaker 1: not sort of savor at the moment, take the time
Speaker 1: to sort of let it all unfold and blossom. So
Speaker 1: patience is not a virtue of mine, but I work
Speaker 1: hard at trying to compensate. When you're impatient, what are
Speaker 1: you impatient to get to? That's exactly the point. Nothing.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to have that impatience. I can take
Speaker 1: a beat, I can listen a little longer. I think
Speaker 1: a beat between the last thing someone says and what
Speaker 1: I say. I can think about it a second. I
Speaker 1: tend to move too quickly to action, and again I
Speaker 1: try and modulate it. I have some degree of self
Speaker 1: awareness that may have self control, and I do work
Speaker 1: on that. Going back to the point about happiness, it
Speaker 1: does interfere with my happiness and others happiness. If they
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not listening to them enough and I
Speaker 1: have taken the time to truly consider everything they have,
Speaker 1: it sounds like I'm moving too quickly to a conclusion. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's harder for them to be happy, and it's harder
Speaker 1: for me to be happy. Do you think there's anything
Speaker 1: other than catching oneself in the moment of doing these
Speaker 1: things that we would like to change? About ourselves that
Speaker 1: when you're doing it and having an awareness of it
Speaker 1: is how it evolves. I can have some self awareness
Speaker 1: and began to control it to a certain degree. I
Speaker 1: stopped working in two thousand and two completely, and I've
Speaker 1: been working full time since I was fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: probably never taken more than a two week vacation ever
Speaker 1: in that period of time, and my vacation was like
Speaker 1: long weekends or something, and always thinking about work. And
Speaker 1: when I stopped working, it took me about two or
Speaker 1: three months to come off the adrenaline addiction. And then
Speaker 1: I discovered that it's actually possible to be bored, and
Speaker 1: I began to enjoy boredom and go, Wow, I'm bored
Speaker 1: right now. I'm just gonna wallow in this boredom. And
Speaker 1: I think that my patients got a lot better because
Speaker 1: I just sort of wallowed in the moment and accepted
Speaker 1: whatever it was as interesting. Boredom was suddenly interesting. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a great sensation boredom, and get excited about
Speaker 1: whatever life threw me at that moment and not feel
Speaker 1: like I had to quickly do something. You know, when
Speaker 1: I first stopped working, if I went to the beach,
Speaker 1: if I was lying on the beach. I go, what
Speaker 1: am I gonna do now? What I was lying on
Speaker 1: the beach, and then at a certain point I began
Speaker 1: to go, Wow, this is great. I'm just lying here.
Speaker 1: And it was a real transformation and gave me an
Speaker 1: insight that I can still use even though I've gone
Speaker 1: back to my adrenaline addiction and I did go back
Speaker 1: to work, and my impatience is still a problem for me.
Speaker 1: I can call upon this time I had to go
Speaker 1: boredom is good, and I should look for a little
Speaker 1: more of that and a little bit of that ah
Speaker 1: time where I don't have to process anything, I don't
Speaker 1: have to have an opinion. I can just let life
Speaker 1: drift over me a little bit. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: the opposite of impatience. Yeah, it's interesting. We spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time being bored when we were kids, because
Speaker 1: I was you know, obviously they want cell phones and computers,
Speaker 1: and my son sometimes I say, put the phone down
Speaker 1: and stare out the window and see what happens. And
Speaker 1: he does and he's like, it's so weird. You kind
Speaker 1: of go into a trance. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like my whole childhood. Well, you know, in
Speaker 1: my childhood, my parents had turn off that TV, turn
Speaker 1: off the radio. Oh, which is funny because you the
Speaker 1: went and put the radio on television with MTV. So
Speaker 1: there's always something that kids would occupy themselves, whether people
Speaker 1: will rather than just enjoy ourselves and our space. And
Speaker 1: it's hard sometimes to feel comfortable with yourself in that
Speaker 1: space because you really have to confront your space and
Speaker 1: you have to live with you. There's nothing to distract you,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to keep you busy, there's nothing to drive
Speaker 1: your ambition. But I think it's wildly helpful. And when
Speaker 1: I can have those moments to recharge my batteries, I'm
Speaker 1: so much better at all this other stuff that I
Speaker 1: think is better if I keep working. But I discover
Speaker 1: again and again it's actually better when I recharge myself
Speaker 1: a little bit and then come back to the task.
Speaker 1: And I find that if I'm working on a problem
Speaker 1: or trying to come up with a creative solution, even
Speaker 1: looking for a line in an advertising campaign, that the
Speaker 1: best thing I can do is sort of okay, low myself.
Speaker 1: I'll understand and then forget about it. And at that
Speaker 1: moment where I'm in my most zen moment down in
Speaker 1: my alpha state, which for me is about a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute hot shower in the morning where I just like
Speaker 1: zone out. Suddenly the answer just pop in my head.
Speaker 1: And I have run out of the shower so many
Speaker 1: times with a pen and a wet piece of paper
Speaker 1: writing a speech, writing down something because it comes to me.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a great lesson in that, which
Speaker 1: is it's not going to come when you try too hard.
Speaker 1: It's gonna come in your most relaxed moment, in which
Speaker 1: you're just letting things drift over you. That's an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of trust that is required to let go of,
Speaker 1: I think, being into control. It's interesting when I was
Speaker 1: a young man, I would give speeches, and I would
Speaker 1: write the speeches and slavishly read them, and at a
Speaker 1: certain point I realized I could do a much better
Speaker 1: talk if I just got up and talked. So I
Speaker 1: would have maybe three points scribbled down, a little note
Speaker 1: and get up and start talking. The scary thing when
Speaker 1: you do that is you have to go on to
Speaker 1: your point about trust trust yourself, because suddenly I'm standing
Speaker 1: in front of all these people and I've really thought
Speaker 1: of nothing except a couple of things I want to
Speaker 1: talk about, and I just go with the flow. And
Speaker 1: I find when I do that, it's much better. It's
Speaker 1: much more of what I really want to say. I
Speaker 1: think people enjoy it more. It's more relevant to them.
Speaker 1: And even sometimes we're doing a you know, I'm doing
Speaker 1: a speech for the company or something, and I've got
Speaker 1: to do that inspirational closing. I don't have any idea
Speaker 1: what I'm going to say, and I just step out
Speaker 1: there and start talking. And that's one of the ones
Speaker 1: where you really have to just trust that it will
Speaker 1: come to you. But boys, it's scary at that moment.
Speaker 1: Now I've been doing it long enough that I probably
Speaker 1: not scared enough. But it's just to sort of relax,
Speaker 1: go out there and whatever is in your mind, your heart,
Speaker 1: let it start coming out, and just trust that it
Speaker 1: will be the right thing. As opposed to them, I
Speaker 1: said the wrong word, I stumbled on a word, or
Speaker 1: I said no one cares about any of that. I
Speaker 1: think here about your message, well, I wholeheartedly agree, I
Speaker 1: really do. I think that so much is about letting
Speaker 1: go untrusting, and we don't do that. We don't because
Speaker 1: I think I think it goes back to planning. We
Speaker 1: think you have to have a plan, you have to
Speaker 1: have a script, but you have to have a preordained
Speaker 1: idea of what you're doing, when, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: a random walk life. It's not prescribed. And yet I
Speaker 1: honestly think it's fair of death. I really do. I
Speaker 1: really think that the distraction and the planning and this
Speaker 1: idea of control is because we know, like you said,
Speaker 1: where this ends, this is where it's going. But if
Speaker 1: we actually lived with that idea, there is a clock ticking.
Speaker 1: Don't waste a single moment. What worrying about the moment
Speaker 1: not looking like you think it should? I think it
Speaker 1: is mortality. I agree with you. I think that is
Speaker 1: a big consideration for people, and it drives us more
Speaker 1: than we recognize. I didn't realize until my mom died
Speaker 1: that it was a huge consideration. It's actually incredible. It's
Speaker 1: actually in an extraordinary moment because you can use it
Speaker 1: like rocket fuel to just be that. I'm no longer
Speaker 1: available to judge whether this looks like how it should.
Speaker 1: In fact, the words should I've said this before and
Speaker 1: this podcast. My mother used to say, the words should
Speaker 1: should be buried in a big hole in the backyard.
Speaker 1: Your mother was very enlightened. I think the loss of
Speaker 1: our parents does something to us. All. My mom died
Speaker 1: in her sleep, and so I didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to be with her as she died. My dad was
Speaker 1: dying and died slowly, and my brother and I sat
Speaker 1: with him the day he died and held his hand
Speaker 1: as he died in this weird way. It was such
Speaker 1: a beautiful experience to be able to share that moment
Speaker 1: with him. Because I think we're so afraid of it,
Speaker 1: we want to avoid it. But I went on the
Speaker 1: journey with my dad. I'm still here, but it was
Speaker 1: you know, it's a lot of talking to my dad.
Speaker 1: It's okay, you know you can, you can let go.
Speaker 1: We love you, and sort of all the reasons why
Speaker 1: he had a wonderful life and why we love him
Speaker 1: so much. And with my mother, I sort of missed
Speaker 1: that moment, although I had a great relationship with her
Speaker 1: and felt very close to her, and even after her
Speaker 1: death that's I still feel her presence. But I think
Speaker 1: you're exactly right. It were sort of fearful that we
Speaker 1: want to run it away. I had a house of
Speaker 1: Mexico for about twenty years and I got to know
Speaker 1: Day of the Dead there, which is turned out to
Speaker 1: be one of my favorite holidays because it is so
Speaker 1: contrary to what we do in America. And in this
Speaker 1: little town, Sam Miguel, day and day there was a
Speaker 1: ex pats cemetery and there was a cemetery for the locals.
Speaker 1: And on Day of the Day, it's so sad because
Speaker 1: there's no activity in the cemetery for the ex pats.
Speaker 1: It's dark, and in the other they're celebrating the life
Speaker 1: of those people and they have their food out, their
Speaker 1: favorite songs. They're acting as if they're still alive and
Speaker 1: still a part of them. And I just thought such
Speaker 1: a beautiful experience to accept death and to sort of
Speaker 1: put it into your life, as opposed to, as you
Speaker 1: point out, spend your whole life trying to avoid the
Speaker 1: existence of it. Bob is not only a wonderful podcast guest,
Speaker 1: but he is also a wonderful podcast host. You can
Speaker 1: listen to his own podcast, Math and Magic wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts, and while you're at it, check
Speaker 1: out the i Heart Radio app for radio stations, music,
Speaker 1: and more podcasts. Many Questions is hosted and written by
Speaker 1: Me Mini Driver, Supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Lavoy,
Speaker 1: Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by Minni Driver,
Speaker 1: Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by me Mini Driver.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day,
Speaker 1: Lisa Castella and a Nick Oppenheim at w kPr, de
Speaker 1: La Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly
Speaker 1: solicited tech support, Henry Driver,