For quite some time, I have had long drives. Music was good, talk radio was okay, audio books were entertaining, but when I stumbled upon podcasts, I was hooked. The media being named after a device which is no longer produced (meaning soon people will wonder where the name came from) is an odd piece of lagniappe that makes me truly love them.
I listened to every Car Talk episode for fifteen years. Mike Rowe’s podcast for the curious mine with a short attention span morphed into a long form but is still good. There is only one podcast I recommend more than Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. His Hardcore History Addendum is also exceptional. In my opinion, there are only three real journalists worth reading/listening to in the United States: John Archibald (two-time Pulitzer Winner), Dan Carlin, and the man that is the most recommended podcaster. A friend of mine suggested I listen to Tim Ferris’s podcast, where I was introduced to Cal Fussman—journalist, storyteller, and questioner extraordinaire.
Besides being a journalist, Cal is a storyteller. And what stories there are. The stories he lived traveling the world without a home for ten years are phenomenal. Cal has a story about Mikhail Gorbachov. If you only hear one thing, listen to this. It shows Cal, the master-questioner, at the top of his game hitting in the heart to gain the head. He had an impossible task, a ten-minute block of time to glean insight normally needing at least ninety, and pulled it off. But Cal’s skills as a storyteller make it so that they don’t even have to be his stories for them to be incredible. Cal has told some Satchel Paige stories that were better than Satchel could have relayed.
Because of his storytelling abilities, he was introduced to Larry King to help Larry write books. Ten years of sitting at the breakfast table with Larry helped him get introduced to Alex Banayan, who introduced Cal to Tim Ferris.
After a couple of episodes, Tim turned over the reins of his podcast to Cal to interview Larry King. Larry was the King of interviewing. And he handed the baton to Cal on, in King’s words, The Fussman Files. Personally, I had never liked Larry King until that interview. Cal changed my opinion on many people with his interviews and it was predominantly because of his ability to ask questions.
Cal’s podcast, Big Questions with Cal Fussman, is a question asking display. It’s not about the questions, except that it is. Cal asks questions that aren’t the obvious ones. Asking questions that make people look up and think knocks people off their guard, but also makes them think of the deeper meaning to the answer. It gets to the heart. Once he’s gotten into their heart and their soul, they give him access to their heads. He doesn’t ask the obvious, but he still gets answers to those questions, too.
A lot of this skill, he honed on his trip around the world with no home. For ten years, he roamed, visited, and witnessed the world in all its curious glory. He would board the next train to wherever and walk down the aisle, looking for where to sit. The seat made all the difference. He had no money for hotels, so he had to engage the person he sat next to and get an invitation to stay with them. He didn’t sit next to a good-looking woman because that would end the trip. Sitting next to a grandmother, however, would earn a night and a good meal that started a party leading to a family member or friend saying, “come with me” and the next adventure. He later learned that he could connect with the good-looking women, too. Which would have helped them. But ultimately, he was right. The first time he engaged ended the journey as the future Mrs. Fussman brought him home.
The trip evolved, as a story does. The story got refined and better with time. Like a fine wine. Which brings us to the penultimate story. “Drinking at 1300 Feet.”
I put off reading the story for a long time. Then, when I finally prepared myself for it, I opened the article and still left it unread. I stirred it around and peered into the glass. I breathed deeply to experience the smells. I swished it around my mouth until I indulged. And what an indulgence it was. Worth every second of the wait, the sample, and the deep draught of words into my soul.
Over the course of my time listening, I have heard the Gorbachev story evolve slightly. Hearing it live from the man himself was the greatest opportunity I have yet experienced in my own journey to become a better question-asking, storyteller.
I have asked three questions of Cal that got the “look up” response. But they weren’t the heart-stabber questions. I learned that just getting the response is easy, it is still the content that matters. You can ask a question that hasn’t been asked, but it won’t always give you the heart. I have a fourth question to try when next we speak. It deals with the Dr. Dre scenario: How much time have you spent on a project without sleeping? It shows your level of passion and dedication to the task. My question, though, is whether that level of effort resulted in the best result? Did Dre’s 72 hours without sleeping give him the recognition, the fame, the money, the career? Did his effort create the thing for which he is most known, or simply the thing Dre most wants to be known for?
You may take my recommendation and listen and not like him. You may listen to him on Big Questions, or on Tim’s podcast, or any of the other shows I’ve found him on. You may not like his voice, his style, or you may not connect the way I have over the course of 8 years of listening. He may not be your glass of wine, but he is my friend and mentor for storytelling and for asking questions. I’m not where I need to be yet. But with Cal’s help, I will be.