#752: Terry Crews and Richard Koch

This episode is brought to you by Mementis. Mementis offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, including sports performance, sleep, cognitive health, hormone support, and more. I've been testing the products for months now, and I have a few that I use constantly. One of the things I love about Mementis is that they offer many single ingredient and third-party tested formulations.

I'll come back to the latter part of that a little bit later. Personally, I've been using Mementis Mag3 and 8, L-theanine, and Apogenin, all of which have helped me to improve the onset quality and duration of my sleep. Now, the Mementis Sleep Pack conveniently delivers single servings of all three of these ingredients. I've also been using Mementis Creatine, which doesn't just help for physical performance, but also for cognitive performance.

In fact, I've been taking it daily, typically before podcast recording, as there are very studies and reviews and meta-analyses pointing to improvements in short-term memory and performance under stress. So those are some of the products that I've been using very consistently, and to give you an idea, I'm packing right now for an international trip. I tend to be very minimalist, and I'm taking these with me, nonetheless. Now, back to the bigger picture.

Olympians, Tour de France winners, Tour de France winners, the US military, and more than 175 college and professional sports teams rely on Mementis and their products. Mementis also partners with some of the best minds and human performance to bring world-class products to market, including a few you will recognize from this podcast, like Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Kelly Starrett.

They also work with Dr. Stacey Sims, who assists Mementis in developing products specifically for women. Their products contain high quality ingredients that are third-party tested, which in this case means informed, sport, and or NSF certified. So you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else.

And trust me as someone who knows the sports nutrition and supplement world very well, that is a differentiator that you want in anything that you consume in this entire sector. So good news. For my non-US listeners, more good news not to worry about Lamentis ships internationally, so you have the same access that I do. So check it out.

Visit livemomentis.com slash Tim and use code Tim at checkout for 20% off. That's live Mementis, L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com slash Tim and code Tim for 20% off. This episode is brought to you by eight sleep. I have been using eight sleep pod cover for years now.

Why? Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. Eight sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I'm excited to test it out pod for ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically more on that in a second.

First, pod for ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heatwave, or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive pulling the sheets off closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down. This solves all of that. Pod for ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience.

And for those snore heavy nights, the pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus with pod for ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand. You won't need them because these steps and metrics are integrated into the pod for ultra itself. They have in-perceptible sensors which track your sleep time, sleep bases, and HRV.

Their heart rate tracking is just one example is at 99% accuracy. So get your best night's sleep. Head to 8sleep.com slash Tim and use code TIM to get $350 off of the pod for ultra. That's 8 sleep, all spelled out 8sleep.com slash Tim and code TIMTIM to get $350 off the pod for ultra.

They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Live in the book. Ladies and gyrms, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show where it is my job to sit down with world class performers from every field imaginable to tease out the habits routines, favorite books and so on that you can apply and test in your own lives.

This episode is a two for one. And that's because the podcast recently hit its 10th year anniversary, which is insane to think about and passed one billion downloads. To celebrate, I've curated some of the best of the best, some of my favorites from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited to give you these super combo episodes.

And internally, we've been calling these the super combo episodes because my goal is to encourage you to yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks, but to also introduce you to lesser known people I consider stars. These are people who have transformed my life and I feel like they can do the same for many of you. Perhaps they got lost in a busy news cycle. Perhaps you missed an episode.

Just trust me on this one. We went to great pains to put these pairings together. And for the bios of all guests, you can find that and more at Tim.log slash combo. And now without further ado, please enjoy and thank you for listening.

First up, Terry Cruz, former NFL player, American film and television star of the Expendables. Everybody hates Chris and Brooklyn 99 host of America's Got Talent and best selling author of six books, including his memoir, Tough My Journey to True Power. You can find Terry on Twitter and Instagram at Terry Cruz. I thought we'd start somewhere that perhaps people wouldn't associate you with if that's even English, but you guys get my drift and that is art.

So I went on to your Instagram profile not too long ago and I saw a number of different profiles. And then I started digging and I didn't want to tease out too much because I want to talk about it. Can you tell us a little bit about your background with art? You got to know.

I mean, growing up in Flint, there were a number of obstacles. I mean, crazy, crazy obstacles because I grew up at the height of the crack epidemic and also the demise of the auto industry. So there were two things happening at once and they were both horribly bad. I mean, it was like the 80s, probably late 70s, all the way through the 80s into the 90s was literally the walking dead.

And it was real. I mean, you had people who were cracked out. I had friends, family, who one day, you know, whatever good people the next day, they were stealing everything you had. All the way to everyone you knew were losing their jobs and it was a panic.

And I remember there was two ways out. And one was through music and performing another way with athletics, but art, you couldn't get paid doing art. You know what I mean? It was everybody's a wonderful picture, but you're a starving artist.

That's the whole term. And I remember just saying, okay, I'm going to do this art thing, but I had to do the football thing too. And these were my ways out. Now, I didn't believe that I was actually going to get any kind of light as an artist, but I had one teacher, one man, Mr.

Eicholberg. I'll never forget this. He's a Terry. You are an amazing artist.

He was like, I'm an art teacher. You're better than me. And he said, you can go somewhere with this. And I was like, okay, but you know, nobody's gonna pay me to do this.

And nobody's good, but I got to use football. Well, he filled out all the applications for me. And I didn't even know. This was crazy.

And he took my pictures and my paintings and everything that I did. He took them and got them photographs, did all this stuff, sent them to Interlochen Arts Academy. Now Interlochen is this world famous big deal. Big, big deal.

Arts camp up in northern Michigan, near Traverse City. And you studied with people from all over the world. And he literally came to me and told me he already built out everything. And he said, Terry, you have a scholarship from Chrysler, all right, to go to Interlochen Arts Academy.

And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, first of all, I didn't think it was possible. This is the deal. There's a lot of things.

It's weird because you got to let people believe in you, but I didn't believe in myself. And when I got a chance to go to Interlochen and study with people from Europe and from Brazil and from, and these were mainly music students and they had art students and it was just this incumbent from Flint. I mean, coming from the hood. And then this changed my life.

When I remember we had, and it was really big on competition, very, very big on competition. It was like, if you were a violinist, you had to be the first chair and second chair. And I remember all these kids were disappointed because they kept moving down and they would just feel like they were crushed. And the same thing with art, we had to do two drawings and we had the whole class doing all these drawings.

And they said, put your drawings on the wall and don't put your name on them. We have this guy coming from a Cleveland Institute of Art. He's going to judge each painting. And we want to see who's the best.

And I was like, oh man, you know, and so I did my deal and I put all, it was a wall full of art. The art guy pointed at mine and he said, that one's the best one. But he went all the way across the room and he said, that one. And they were both mine.

And I was like, now, light is a confidence game. Because then you could tell me nothing. I was like, damn it, I'm good. I got two arrogant.

And I got arrogant. And then you have to be humble some other way. But that let me know, I was like, why can I do it? I can do it.

I'm really good. I see people, it's all over the world. And then I got a scholarship to Western Michigan University in art. But it was small.

It wasn't full right. It was a small deal. So I got an art scholarship and walked on to the football team. And my mom passed away about almost three years ago.

And she always would tell me she was like, whatever you do, I know you're doing all this football stuff. You're doing all this other thing. But never forget, you're an artist, babe. You're an artist.

I'm telling you, when I see what I'm doing right now, and I get to do so many things that so many people never got to see, I get to go so many places and do so many things that none of the people who wanted to were able to. I feel like there is a responsibility. But also, if I don't do it, everything they've gone through, it's nothing. So the way I approach things is really, it's kind of for everyone else.

I have to try it. I have to go for it. And I knew even as I was doing football and I was doing all this stuff, I remember once, because football was hard. Football was a very, very, again, another competitive deal.

You would get on a team and I would get cut. I was like, I have to depend on this art thing, because this is what got me here. And so I would go back in the locker room. And this is how I was married.

I had two kids at the time. I would go back in the locker room and go to the players and I would ask them if they wanted their portraits painted. And the weird thing is they were like, oh, man, come on, man, you can't do it. And I was showing my portfolio.

And they were like, damn, dude. And I was like, man, I want to paint you over this big, I'm going to put you and you're going to be a giant over the city. And I can have wings and let me tell you, football players are the most egotistical people in the world. They were like, oh, damn, yeah, man, I want the wings, dog.

How much better way, man? And I would do these masterpieces. But I have to tell you this, too. I did have a scam.

I had a scam. This is a scam in college. In college, I would, because what happens, I'll play football. But when you play football, you don't get money for supplies.

You only get book loans. See, scholarship is a chip. All you got, I'm telling you, NCAA is a chip, dude, the whole deal. You are not a student athlete.

You are a semi-pro. That's all it is. There's no student in it. Just put it right now.

And what was crazy is that I was like, hey, but I want to study art. They're like, why don't you just study business or something? So it's easier to get by. Because the whole thing is just getting by.

Take a class or you can go to football practice. But I'm an artist. Now, okay, whatever. So I would go to these labs and I would make, and this is what I had a plan in the summer, I would make probably 10 paintings.

And then I would make four of them really suck. They would be really, really bad. And I would bring those in and be kidding. And these were these labs.

I would go to the teachers. I was like, man, what's wrong with this? Like, help me out here. You know, he was like, oh, Terry.

Oh my God, look, okay, we're gonna work on your perspective. And we're gonna do this. And I was like, yeah, I know. And then I'll go home.

And then I go to practice. But like a month and never do anything else. I had the paintings done. Then I bring another one in.

I was a little bit better. And then we say, I did this the whole semester. And then I would bring out the masterpieces. And I was, he had out later, I said, look how much you helped me.

You took me from here to there. You were awesome. And I was like, again, the whole thing was a scam. But I had to survive.

I had to burn away to stay in school. Because this is the thing a lot of people don't know, is that they could take a scholarship. It was crazy. It was one of those things where you're there as a body.

And if you don't perform, don't find a way to get ready. When I was looking at your history and your book and your backstory, one thing that I paid attention to is a pattern was an uncommon degree of self reflection. And that's why I wanted to be one of the clock a little bit back to high school. One of the stories that you put in tribal mentors is related to my question related to favorite failures or a failure that set you up for later success.

Could you tell us a little bit about that? Oh, man. Yes, 1986. That was my senior year in high school.

And I went to Flynn Academy. And it was a classy school. But we were highly ranked in the state. And I was used to be a basketball player.

I mean, it was hard to believe now. But basketball was a big sport for me. But I was the starting center on this team. And what was wild is we were picked to go all the way in the state.

We had a superstar on our team. And we had a really, really good team. We played against the school who decided not to play. It was a district championship.

It was right at the beginning of the playoffs. And these guys would take the ball down the court and pass the ball to each other at the top of the court and wouldn't play. And we had a coach who was like, well, you know what, I'm going to beat you at your own game. So we stayed in his own.

So we said that the whole time, I'm telling you, it was the most boring game of all time. We just sat there with our hands up and they passed the ball. And if anything happened, somebody went and got it and it was scored two and it was just a mess. So the score was really, really low.

They were up 47 to 45. And it was literally under a minute. And I'm freaking out because now we're going to this evidence, we're going to lose because I'm going, man, this is a dumb defensive strategy. Anyway, we should have been going after it.

But what happened is a guy threw the ball, their guy threw the ball across court. I intercepted it. And with literally five seconds left, they go. And I take the ball all the way down the court.

You got to understand, I'm thinking, I had visions of, oh my God, this is the thing. I'm the hero. You know, the heart is like pounding. You can see I'm already at the party, you know what I mean?

And I go with this layup and I figure it up there and it totally gets around the rim and it rolls. Let me tell you that place goes nuts because it was the upset of the year. And I collapsed in a heap. And I know my life is over.

And you got to understand. And this is another thing. Shame among men. It's like, oh, how could you do that?

Man, other players were yelling at me. The coach, I was in the locker room. He was like, you had no business taking that shot. And I stole the ball.

He wasn't like, we didn't have a shot anyway. But he was like, you have no business taking that shot. You should have passed it. Man, it's your fault.

And everybody in the room was like, yeah. And I was like, they didn't let me off one. And I remember just going, oh my God. And I went in the paper and the paper next day was like, cherry, it was like, he missed.

And let me say, it was the most dark. I mean, when you're 16 years old, I was, I mean, beyond crut. One guy was telling me, I got to fight after the school and the whole thing. And I was just like, this is awesome.

It's horrible. And so it was a couple of days when I was in the deepest phone, I'm sitting on my bed. And I shared my room with my brother. But for some reason, he wasn't there.

I always remember being there. I don't remember being alone except that time. And I remember being alone. And just thinking about, man, I should have passed it.

I should have passed it. Maybe I messed up. And what else could I have done? And then another little voice.

He said, I took the shot. I took the shot. And I was like, I did. I did.

And it was kept. And I kept thinking. It was like, man, look, when you had the chance, when everything was on the line, you took your shot, man, you did that. You did that.

And all of a sudden, I was like, that's right. That's right. I took it. And I learned from then on, I said, man, wait a minute.

If I win or if I fail, it's going to be on my terms. It's going to be up to me. I, if I have the opportunity, I have to go for it. And then I felt really good about losing the game.

It was really, it was totally now. This, you can call it re-braining. A lot of people have scientific ways or psychological ways to, you know, to do things. But I learned always to kind of reframe things so that it's to your advantage.

You know what I mean? And you look at these things, like, wait a minute, you took the shot, man. And this is another thing because what's so crazy is that no one ever remembers that game is one of the least important things in my life. But the lesson I learned is still guiding me today.

The fact that go for it, take your shot, take your time. When you get that thing, when you have that opportunity, don't mess it up. Because this is another thing. And I want to tell you, Tim, the scariest thought ever is one thing that blew me away is that you really do get what you want.

And let me tell you what I mean. There have been times when you can be self-destructive. And you think it's something else, or you think, like I discovered it for a long time. Like if I show up late or something twice, I don't want it.

And you get what you desire. Everything about you, you get what you want. Now, the way your life is, truthfully, you would. And now that's hard.

That's hard to say because I'll be like, oh wait, there's so many other options. It's this and this and this. But the truth is, is that if you wanted something different, you'd change it. And that hit me.

Like it's scary because if I failed, or if I didn't, if I showed up wrong or messed up on something, I was like, I didn't really do what it took to get it. Again, that comes from taking that shot way back in high school. So one of the things I really appreciate about you and that led me to want to reach out to you is how forthcoming you've been about your difficulties and some of the challenges you faced. Because I think a lot of folks, we see on magazine covers and so on, unfortunately give people the impression that they're flawless.

They've all figured out and then people feel uniquely flawed in some way that they're damaged because they're not that person. That's unachievable. Could you share with us a story of any dark period in your life and how you found your way out of it, things that helped you too? Now to get your way out of it.

You know what? I'm upset about the story, which changed my life. I literally just got my first job in entertainment. I was on a TV show called Battle Dome where they literally put me in a cage and I fought my way out.

It was so entertaining. It was pre-MMA. People hadn't seen blood on TV yet. We were like the first.

It was really nuts. People were bleeding going to the hospital. It was called real warriors, real pain. I played this character called Tea Money.

Actually, my wife's pet name for me now. She's like, hey, Tea Money. We call this the Christmas from hell because here I wanted to come home. I went home in Flint, Michigan with my family.

You got to say, my kids at the time, I had three. I had five total now, but I had three kids at the time. The girls were, and they were all girls. They were very small.

They had never grown up with violence in the house. They'd never seen it. So I told my father before I came, I said, hey, man, don't act up. Do not act up.

He said, I ain't gonna do nothing. I'm bringing the family. I know it's Christmas time. Just relax, man.

We're gonna be there to be fine. We get there. We're having a good time. My wife and I are going out.

We're actually a driver to Detroit to hang with friends. I get this call. It was panicked. My aunt called me.

He's a cherry. Your daddy hit your mother. In front of the kids, he got mad. He knocked her tooth sideways.

I told him. I told him. Now, literally, I stopped the car. We're turning around.

I told my wife, okay, we're gonna go over my ass. I take the kids, go to our ass house. The whole thing, I'm done. I'm dealing with this.

First of all, I went in this house. He was had to nerve to still be that. And I said, dude, what are you doing? He was like, shut up.

Leave me alone. I can do it the hell I want. Boom. Let me tell you something.

I beat this guy for about an hour. He was pleading for his life. I was like, I'm not a child anymore. I am a grown ass man.

And how does it feel? You are about to get what my mother has felt. And I laid it on him. He was hurt, bleeding, laid out.

I'm surprised I didn't kill him. And I felt now one ounce better. I remember falling on the ground crying in tears. It didn't make me feel one bit better.

Now one. Like, now I was just down there with him. This is the revenge I've dreamed about my whole life. And now nothing?

Now I'm just like you. And I remember just feeling empty, cold. It's probably the darkest place I've ever been. Because this is the man who's the reason I'm here.

And I put him in his place, so to speak. And I never forget it was just the most hollow, hollow feeling I've ever had. We got out of there. It took me years to overcome that.

Like, we got out of there. I got the kids out. We never came back. I mean, we never forget the holidays.

We're not doing this. But after years of therapy, and this was literally about my six or seven years ago, when I'm talking about happening, like 99. Okay. So I go back and I go back to my father.

And I've been listening to things and trying to do this thing correctly. And I remember I just said, I have to find one thing that I can tell him that he did good. And I said, and we call him Big Terry. His name is Terry too.

So he said, Big Terry, man, I want to thank you. Because if it wasn't, it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here. And if I had to choose my parents, I'd choose you. Because the truth is he's the reason I'm here.

If it was another person, I'd be another person. So I said, if I had to choose my parents, I'd choose you. And let me tell you something. He just broke down.

He said, Terry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for beating your mom. I'm sorry for everything. I listen, man, those words broke him down.

He cried in my arms for about the same time as I was beating him years earlier. And I was like, this is not how though. This feels good. This is healing.

And I said, man, I have to use my strength for good. Because everybody can knock somebody out. But to give a hug with muscles is a whole nother matter. And I said, that is how that's the vulnerability.

That's the authenticity. That's where real healing takes place because Shane wants punishment. He just wants to get back. Boom, boom, boom.

And it's temporary. But guilt develops discipline. When you admit I was wrong. Shane is one's secrets and you don't say anything.

But guilt says I did it. I'm sorry. And then you develop discipline to change. Man, I get it was one of the darkest periods in my life.

But totally reversed. And I decided that's going to be my life. This is who I am. Now, some people got their ass whooped up.

I'm trying to tell you, I'm between them. I'm trying to tell you. One thing is some people try to take that and be like, I can put you on my air. Get out of it.

But what I want to say is the big thing was that I knew that would never be the only way I would ever use that is to protect. Not to get back. Not for revenge. There's a time.

But I'm telling you, man, that was a period that I learned forever. Now again, my father, I wish I could say he changed. He kind of went back through his old ways. But I'm healed.

And I did the things I needed to do. I'm going to ask one more question. And it's related to a question that I posed to you in the book because whether it's looking at some of your early decisions as a child or the toughness that you showed in athletics or doing what other people might consider risky by trying to create your own category in many different worlds or having that second conversation with your dad. I think there's a quote that really exemplifies you.

And it's actually a quote that you gave me in the book. And it was in answering the question, if you could have a giant billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? And it begins with God will not. Could you give us that quote, please, explain its importance?

Oh, man, God will not have his work made manifest by college. Ralph Waldo Emerson is my favorite quote. I literally have it in my dressing room, put on the wall in giant letters because fear begets more fear, but courage just begets more courage. And like you don't even get to be born unless your mother has the courage to have you.

Any great thing, just literally creating a business to making art, it takes this courage. It takes this willingness to be looked at, to be judged. You have to face down your fears, and you have to step outside and go. And it helped me to just lay out what I was afraid of because that's the big thing.

You have to ask yourself, what are you scared of? And then you have to attack. You have to literally have to lay out. I remember now you tell about your swimming experience.

I was always, you know, you when you grow up in the ghetto, they kick you into the pool and these are not good experiences. Okay. And so, you know, we didn't grow up on a nice pool in the beach and the whole thing. It was like the hood and it's like, oh, man, it's not good.

So my first experience was horrifying. I was drown. And so then one of my fears was swimming. And I remember when I had a house with a pool, and I remember going in the backyard and just diving into the deep end over and over again to get rid of the fear.

And it's weird because you're getting near the edge and you go, man, you know, I am, I have to beat it. So I was just jumping and just keep jumping in and keep jumping in until you're not afraid anymore. Because remember, it's a confidence game. And that quote, just when you think about anything that's made and anything that's created, anything that you see that you admire, it takes so much courage because people are going to judge it and people are going to say, ah, that sucks.

You know, especially in the age of the internet, who are we? You know, everybody's coming in and chipping in with whatever they have to say and you have to be willing and you have to be vulnerable. This is why vulnerability is actually strength because the vulnerability is part of courage. You have to be willing to let people judge yourself, willing to let people hear your song, willing to let people hear you sing.

And it's so wild because I'll never forget. I've got a story for that. It's that the first time I ever got a movie, it was a big movie. It was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It was called The Sixth Day. And I'll never forget it. I'm like, I thought it was going to be like a quick role. It turned out to be a big job that worked six months in Vancouver.

And I'm like, oh my god. And the first day I was on set, I had to say this line, Adam Gibson, come with us, you know, please come with us. And I remember they said, action, I walked up on Arnold and I said, Adam Gibson, we need you to come with us. And he turned and looked at me and I was like, oh, let me just Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And wait, and I mean lightning fast, everything went through my head like you don't deserve to be here. You're just a dumb football player. You are a first. These people are going to figure you out.

You are fake, you're a phony, you fool everybody. It's a wrap. They're going to find out and they're going to kick you out of here. And that's lightning fast.

And then something was wrong with the camera. They were like, oh, you know what? We got a problem with the lights and we got to give us five minutes. This was all split second.

And I remember I know I was broke. And I remember I just went to the side and I was like, Terry, you survived NFL. Do you want to, and I left NFL, I was sweeping floors. I was doing security.

And then I went to acting and I said, do you want to go back to Sweden floors? Do you want to go back to security? They make it in their cities lines, man. And I literally was cussing myself out.

I was like, yo, get some guts, dude. And I walked back in there and they were like, actually, I was like, Adam Gibson, you know. And Arnold was like, this guy like his energy. He's got a lot of his amazing.

I like him. And let me tell you after that, I learned going in. Question. Question.

There's never been a time. I've been acting for almost 20 years and never been a time. And that's why I want to demystify this thing. I've never been a time that I don't have those bubbles right before.

I never, ever, it's always there. Don't let anybody trick you and act like, oh, man, I'm good. And if they act good, they don't care. I'm trying to tell you, if you care, you're going to always be nervous.

You're going to always have to face it. But when you walk in, turn into a mirage, and it just starts to disappear. I remember when I said white chicks, it disappeared. I remember I was rolling and I remember, I was kidding.

I remember when I was like, you got any notes, kidding. He was like, man, do what you do, man. And I remember just blowing. And I remember just blowing.

And people who know, and that a lot of people here who understand it, if you ever been in the flow, it's amazing. Like there's a time when all the writing just comes, the lines just come, the job is smooth. You're like, man, I can do this all day. That's by practicing, facing that fear, fear, fear, just going in, going in, going into that zone.

Man, it's a high, like you will never, ever, ever, ever experience. I encourage everyone. And I'm not here to demystify it. You will be nervous.

Always. But go anyway. It's beautiful. Terry Cruz.

All right. But I was just thinking that you had reinvented the talk show. And when I was 17, and I had the first job in Windsor, England as a van driver for a firm of wines and spirit merchants, they were called Laudibondes. And they were probably about the most old fashioned wine and spirit retailer you could possibly imagine.

And one of the things which they did was deliver wine and spirits to quite a distinguished bunch of people, actually, I used to drive into Windsor Castle and give the Brigadier his gin and so on and so forth. But one of the other people that I used to visit was Michael Parkinson. And Michael Parkinson, as you know, was a very successful sports writer and broadcaster who then branch down into doing chat shows. And some of the stuff which he did was marvelous.

I saw a clip the other day of him talking to David Bowie. And it was fantastic. They were really enjoying themselves and they were moving very smartly from point to point. And that made me think about you because I think you reinvented the chat show on podcasts.

And it's just amazing. So anyway, that's my non-story to start with. Well, give me time to disappoint. And I appreciate the kind words.

And I should also say for people listening, those people who perhaps have read the various policies on my website will note or receive one in my autorespons via email will know that I say, I don't give quotes for books. I don't do forwards. I don't do and I have a very long list of do not do's. The reason that I've made an exception is that and if anyone else fits this bill, feel free to reach out because I know it's going to be approximately zero.

If you've written a book like several of your books that have traveled with me for more than 10 years from place to place that sit on my shelves face out as a reminder, feel free to reach out. But that is going to be a very small number indeed. And perhaps we could start. This isn't exactly the beginning, so to speak, but with the Bodleian Library.

And if you could explain what that is and take us into context from there, I think that would be helpful. The Bodleian Library is a fantastically beautiful building in Oxford, very close to the college at high as that. And I used to sit in there in the stacks and look out of the window whenever I could. But the great thing about it was that it had almost any book that you could possibly imagine.

One day, I decided that I wanted to read a book which I had read about called The Course of Economic Theory, but it was in French written by our old friend, Villefredo Barrezzo. And it was published in La Cern in I think 1896 and 97. And I have no idea at all, Tim, why I wanted to read this book? Because it wasn't part of my coursework or anything like that.

But that was a book in which I discovered the 1820 principle. And he didn't call it the 8020 principle, as you know. But nevertheless, he had all these algebraic equations which showed the wealth distribution in England in the 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, and also in Italy, France, Switzerland, other countries over those periods of time. And what he found was that there was the same pattern of distribution of wealth against the population.

And a remarkably similar chart could be drawn from the algebra for any of those countries or any time in order to show what proportion of wealth was owned. And of course, it was a very small number of proportion of people who actually owned most of the wealth or earned most of the money. So you might say, well, that's very arcane, and it's not particularly interesting. But I instantly thought, I can use this, I can use this to cheat in my examinations without actually cheating.

And so what I did was to say, well, I do know that I'm going to have to write 11 papers, three hours long each, at the end of my time in Oxford. The Oxford degree is entirely determined by the final examinations. There's no assessment current, or there are no previous examinations at all. So it's a very, very important thing.

But I had noted that on sample papers, there were something like 50 questions or whatever. And it's impossible to imagine that I could actually research or do work on 50 questions times 11. So I thought, well, maybe if there's 8020 principle applies, there will be some questions which are asked much more frequently. And lo and behold, I got the papers for the histories and for the last 20 years.

And it was absolutely true. There was always a question about French Revolution. There was usually a question about the Russian Revolution. There was always a question about the origins of the causes of the First World War and so on and so forth.

So I said to myself, well, I don't need to study very extensively. You could write the answers to three or four questions. It was your choice during three hours. So what I said was, I will research six subjects, no more for each paper.

And I will be word perfect. I will have very obscure quotes. I will use foreign languages that I don't actually understand. Absolutely word perfect.

And if I do that, I don't have to do much work and I will get a top degree. And lo and behold, that is exactly what happened. And then I thought to myself afterwards, God, this man, Barreira was quite under something. So that was my introduction to the 8020 principle.

Perhaps I'll never look back in some senses. You know what is well, to me, so funny about that, in part, is that I did something very similar. I just was not aware of Pareto at this point. But when I was doing my undergrad, I, not halfway through, began asking teachers to give them some degree of sort of plausible deniability, because I was hesitant to ask outright what is going to be on the exam, because they're not supposed to answer such questions.

But I would ask teachers, or I would say, whether I know I need to study everything that we've covered for the exam. But if there are any particular areas you think I should focus on, would you mind telling me? And they were very forthcoming. So it ended up having a very similar effect, although I definitely was pleased that in most cases, not everything hinged on final exams.

I think I probably would have been crushed under the psychological intimidation of that type of sink or swim setup. Yeah, I was quite nervous in my sense. But I found a solution to that, at least in the afternoon, was that after the morning paper, I would go down the pub and have a couple of pints of beer. And I found that kind of mind.

And it was notable that I got better results in the afternoon than I did in the morning. Well, that could be in one of your next books, if you have covered academic hygiene and preparation. If we're looking at formative periods, let's just say, high school, college, university, however we want to label it, I'm looking at notes as I do in these types of conversations from an interview you did with Boeing Boeing a long time ago. And I'll let that that I know very well.

And one of the questions posed was, what advice would you give to a smart kid who's now in high school? And you can feel free to fact check this and correct, but the answer I'm just going to read briefly, and then I have a follow up. Discover what you're best at doing and enjoy that is different from what all of your peers are doing that requires relatively little effort from you, then put huge effort into honing that skill so that it becomes monstrously greater than anyone else's. Keep demanding that each year you make your peculiar talent more peculiar and much more potent.

Use the skill to make the world more interesting place. Don't care about making money. If you have a fantastically different and useful skill, everything else you want will follow. So I have two questions.

Accurate or not accurate, quote, secondly, what is your peculiar talent and how did you discover it? Well, it's totally accurate and it's very easy to give advice and perhaps less easy to originate the advice or at least to exemplify the advice. I was always very, very interested in history because it enabled me to develop a certain skill in analysis with non quantitative analysis. I'm absolutely hopeless at numbers, but in terms of understanding structures, in terms of understanding trends, in terms of really getting to grips with what might have happened that other people had not noticed.

Then that's what I did. And I came up with some pretty wacky ideas during my time studying history, but I thought that they were plausible and the examiners must have thought so. I mean, for example, it seemed to me that Hitler had been copied pretty much what Lenin and Stalin had done. So of course, Hitler was a great anti-communist and they were great anti-Nazis.

But he actually had followed Lenin's policy, for example, of a one party state, which no one before Lenin had really done, and of death camps for dissidents and enemies of the regime. Again, no one had really done that certainly not on such a ruthless scale as Lenin and later Stalin did. So it was my theory that Hitler had based his policy on the Bolsheviks. And that's just a little example.

I'm not absolutely sure that's true, but it's plausible. And it's sort of trying to winkle out things that might be true, which are interesting and important, but which no one else has spotted. That's what I try and do. That's what I enjoy doing.

So you mentioned hopeless with numbers. No, or maybe I injected the hopeless, but you were very self deprecating with respect to numbers and numeracy. And yet, people would look at your track record of investing as an example and ask, how can that possibly be the case? So again, in my notes, I have Betfair here, which I would love for you to explain, but it adds that you couldn't use their website.

Now, please explain. Okay, well, the way of reconciling those two apparently different things, I do have a very good track record. Thank God. I've been very lucky or very fortunate, at least in my investments.

But it's not based on being an analyst in the conventional sense. I got fired from the Boston Consulting Group because I was no good at doing financial and market analysis, despite the fact that I was quite good at doing some other things, which they didn't value very much. It is true that I'm not particularly numerate, but I believe that's a skill which is readily available for other people. And as far as Betfair is concerned, I based my investment, as indeed all my investments are based on the Star Principle, which was something that the Boston Consulting Group themselves had invented way back in the 1960s.

And this is the old chart of the Dog Stars, Question Marks, and Cash Cows. So I never make an investment unless the business is a star business or has the potential to be a star business. And BCG's definition, my definition of the star business is that market leader in a niche, a defensible niche, where you can protect it against other people, other competitors, and a high market growth rate. BCG said more than 10%.

I've really tried to aim at more than 30%. And the thing about Betfair was that a friend of mine in 2001 came along and said, we started this betting company. And I'm a gambler, I like gambling. And we think it's completely different from anything else because it's not a bookmaker.

And I said, well, what do you mean? And you said, well, a bookmaker is someone who makes a book and basically offers odds to punters gamblers who might want to bet on it. But Betfair doesn't do that. What it does is it started an electronic market, which enables people to either act as a bookmaker or to act as a punter.

So you can go onto the site and you can see, post it up there, the odds other people will give. And the odds for the punters are vastly better because there's no bookmaker's profit. Now I said, I can't be true because Betfair has to make some money. How do they make money?

What's their business model? He said, well, they have a very small commission, which they take and they only take that on winning bets. So I said, well, that sounds like fantastic ideas. What's the problem?

And he said, well, do you want the real truth? And so I said, of course I want Anthony, of course I want the real truth. What's the problem? He said, well, no venture capitalists, no professional financial firm would invest in this company.

When they first had their round, they started about six months previous to this. And he said, and there was from their point of view, a very good reason for that, which was none of the managers in the business had any experience. I said, oh, you mean they didn't have experience in the industry? He said, no, no, they don't have experience in the industry.

Well, one of them used to be a professional gambler. But that's not experience which venture capitalists would recognize as being compatible. And he said, no, they never run anything. So you're telling me that I should put money into a business that has people running it, they've never run anything else.

He said, well, one of them used to be a financial debt person at Morgan Stanley. And he was making, you know, he was trading loans and doing that sort of stuff. And he said, you know, trading loans is not a million miles away from running a betting exchange. But the truth was that they really were all sports enthusiasts, all gambling enthusiasts, and none of them had any experience of management, which explained why it was only friends and family who'd been able to invest in what would be willing to invest in this particular company.

So I said to Anthony, well, what's the attraction? He says, it's a star business Richard. And Anthony had worked for me in L.E.K. And also in a company we set up after L.E.K.

called Strategy Ventures. And so he knew that I knew that Way to Make Money in investing in small businesses was to actually invest in something which could be or was a star business. Well, even though it was tiny and even though it was losing money, it was clear that there was indeed a star business. And why was it clear?

Because no one else was doing what they were doing. Their business model was completely different. Their cost structure was completely different. Their customers were completely different.

All of their customers were sophisticated and quite large, and all of them. But most of them were sophisticated and quite large gamblers. And so they didn't compete with Ladbrooks or Corals that holds the other British bookmakers. And in fact, they didn't compete with anybody because there was nobody.

There was actually another firm set up originally in San Francisco called Flutter. It had a slightly different business model. So it had no competition, it had infinite relative market share. So I said, well, that's fantastic.

So he said, well, let me give you the website. You can go on and see how it works. Well, unfortunately, I couldn't because I didn't know how to work the website. And I went along and talked to the people and just tried to make sure that it was indeed a star business.

And that I thought that it could actually get some professional management later on. And so after an hour, I decided to invest £1.5 million in that business. And they were quite shocked by that. They said, well, are you sure?

And I explained to them what a star business was and how it was wonderful and how they should be very pleased to be having star business and all the rest of it. But they were quite taken aback at that. And they had been trying to raise money again from institutions that all said no. And the mates that they had put the money in originally didn't want to put more money in, particularly as they used that money much more quickly than expected.

The reason they used the money much more quickly than expected was that the growth was fantastic. It was a tiny, tiny business. But it was growing up 40%, 50%, even 60% a month. And I said, well, the other thing, which I believe in the part from the star principle is the compound growth rate.

And so I looked at their financial projections and I thought they're incredibly conservative considering the market growth rate. And so I invested. And I went onto the board and about four years later, the chaps had an away day at which I said how wonderful star businesses were and so on and so forth. And then I said, and actually, last week, I decided it was time that I actually learned how to use the website that you have.

And they all felt about laughing. They thought I was joking. And I said, no, I did. I think it's great website.

And they said to me, well, how did you possibly have invested in the business without sort of going on to the website? And I said, well, it's a star business. And they said, I think I went down in their estimation quite considerably as a result of that mission. And of course, now I use the website.

Most days, I think it's a wonderful website. I've sold my shares. I'm not advertising the company or anything like that. But I ended up making about 100 million pounds profit out of that investment.

So that's the power of the star principle. So how can someone who's not numerate make money out of what is generally a highly numerate industry? Well, the answer to him is very simple. I believe in principles and I believe in the star principle.

And it works. I'm the only investor in the world that does this. And I think I'm the only investor of the world of my scale that doesn't employ anyone. And that does it on the basis of probably about a day a week of work.

I do use my personal assistance to do some of the work. I do use contacts for special particular jobs. But you know, I don't have any staff. And you know, we're going to kill people this and say, well, your portfolio is excellent.