#145: The Interview Master: Cal Fussman and the Power of Listening

This episode is very special to me and features a verbal Jedi who never gets interviewed himself: Cal Fussman. Cal (@calfussman) is a New York Times bestselling author and a writer-at-large for Esquire Magazine, where he is best known for being a primary writer of the “What I Learned” feature. The Austin Chronicle has described Cal's interviewing skills as "peerless." He has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with the icons who’ve shaped the last 50 years of world history: Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, Dr. Dre, Quincy Jones, Woody Allen, Barbara Walters, Pelé, Yao Ming, Serena Williams, John Wooden, Muhammad Ali, and countless others. Born in Brooklyn, Cal spent 10 straight years traveling the world, swimming over 18-foot tiger sharks, rolling around with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and searching for gold in the Amazon. He has also made himself a guinea pig — Cal has boxed against world champion Julio Cesar Chavez and served as a sommelier atop of the World Trade Center. He now lives with his wife—whom he met while on a quest to discover the world’s most beautiful beach—and his three children in Los Angeles, where he spends every morning eating breakfast with Larry King. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years and I love audio books. I have two to recommend: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Vagabonding by Rolf Potts All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is go to Audible.com/Tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose between more than 180,000 audio programs. That could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or even a class. It's that easy. Go to Audible.com/Tim and get started today. Enjoy! This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it’s all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams. Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you—for free–exactly the portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts /iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews! For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast . Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday . For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts . Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books . Follow Tim: Twitter : twitter.com/tferriss Instagram : instagram.com/timferriss Facebook : facebook.com/timferriss YouTube : youtube.com/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld , Hugh Jackman , Dr. Jane Goodall , LeBron James , Kevin Hart , Doris Kearns Goodwin , Jamie Foxx , Matthew McConaughey , Esther Perel , Elizabeth Gilbert , Terry Crews , Sia , Yuval Noah Harari , Malcolm Gladwell , Madeleine Albright , Cheryl Strayed , Jim Collins , Mary Karr, Maria Popova , Sam Harris , Michael Phelps , Bob Iger , Edward Norton , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Neil Strauss , Ken Burns , Maria Sharapova , Marc Andreessen , Neil Gaiman , Neil de Grasse Tyson , Jocko Willink , Daniel Ek , Kelly Slater , Dr. Peter Attia , Seth Godin , Howard Marks , Dr. Brené Brown , Eric Schmidt , Michael Lewis , Joe Gebbia , Michael Pollan , Dr. Jordan Peterson , Vince Vaughn , Brian Koppelman , Ramit Sethi , Dax Shepard , Tony Robbins , Jim Dethmer , Dan Harris , Ray Dalio , Naval Ravikant , Vitalik Buterin , Elizabeth Lesser , Amanda Palmer , Katie Haun , Sir Richard Branson , Chuck Palahniuk , Arianna Huffington , Reid Hoffman , Bill Burr , Whitney Cummings , Rick Rubin , Dr. Vivek Murthy , Darren Aronofsky , and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .