Healey Cipher: Don't Be a Jerk

Sam's Interview with Healy Cipher, host of the Don't Be a Jerk Podcast. Also the first NBN episode to be recorded in a real studio. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is NBN No Bad News Welcome to NBN No Bad News.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I'm your host Sam and today is a very special day. I am basically doing a collab with Healy Cypher. You may know him from the podcast Don't Be a Jerk. This interview is a bit of a recap of where NBN started. If you don't know the origin story, it's a great episode for you. And if you already do know the origin story, you might learn something new. It's a bit of a long interview, so let's get right to it.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Sam, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

No, we met because you won a local entrepreneurship contest.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

And you pitched this wonderful concept called the No Bad News Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Which the moment I heard about it, I was instantly excited to hear about. And it was because you were tired of hearing scary and sad news. Can I can I hear the origin story of why you decided to pitch NBN?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

So as as you said, my school was having an entrepreneurship competition. And like all my other friends, I wanted to enter.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Um they came up with all these ideas, a sushi restaurant, apps for app store, all of that stuff. And I came up with NBN no bad news. So I never actually set out to be a podcaster. I wanted to enter the competition. And then I won.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Uh and I got so much positive feedback about my idea, I was like, well, now I have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

You do have to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

And it's a great thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

My first episode wasn't the best, but I just needed to get something out there. So I got it out there, and I've been doing more episodes. I've done six episodes.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Six episodes already. Yes. Heck yeah. And I think I remember talking to you about it, Sam. You said there was like a moment in the was it you were in the car driving to school.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

And you're listening to a radio or something.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

So I was listening to the radio and I was like, wow, this news like is not good at all. Like, this news sucks. So I wanted to make a radio station. Turns out that's hard. Um so I decided to make a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Heck yeah. So I have I I because I was so excited about this episode, I did some research and I was thinking, I was like, you know, why is it that the news is so negative? Like, what are the reasons for that? So, some interesting things. Um, the probability of making the New York Times most emailed list by emotion is if you elicit by headlines anxiety, awe, or anger. Think about that. And if you look over time at the amount of money that used to be put into newspapers and a journalism, which was all ad spend, it used to be a lot. And then all of a sudden, a couple things happened: Facebook, Instagram, and Google. And all the money went from what used to be in a newspaper is in good journalism to trying to get people's attention in social media. And so what happened was you had all of these journalists now who are, or, or radio show hosts, as you heard, who were trying to get attention. And they were like, Well, how do we get clicks to get paid? That's how we make our money. We got to use anxiety, awe, or anger. And what's happening as a result of this, as this is the whole point of what you're doing, which is what I love, is the media is now feeling a huge amount of misunderstanding in the world. And I wanted to show you these charts because it's kind of crazy. So check this out. So here is a chart about the perception of reality versus US crime rate. And so if you look at studies, most people say they believe that every single year there's more crime than last year, and things are worse than last year.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

But the reality is look at this, see this chart?

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

There is less violent crime on the planet than ever before in human history.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

There is less poverty on the planet than ever before in human history. In fact, average health, average quality of life is the highest it's ever been in known history of our species. Yet all of us think stuff's going bad. And a lot of it is this root cause of the news is always bad. You need more good news. I'm sure you feel that. Yeah, if it makes you just feel like I don't want to hear any bad. I the other morning, I was thinking of you, I was, I put on um, I shouldn't mention the radio station. I don't, I don't want to, you know, brigade them, but uh, I put on this news station that used to be really positive. Like I remember growing up to listening to this when my parents would put it on. And it was like, here's the cool things that are happening around the world. And it was so negative, I turned it off. And I was just like, hey, do you guys want to listen to Enya? So I listened to our Enya CD. I'm like, yeah. And what about the, you know, like the news you choose to talk about? You know, do you do you um do you like hear about it? Do you do research? I'm so curious. Like you you find news, I assumably you want other people to hear is positive things. How do you find the news?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Four out of six of my um podcasts are like based out out of SF Day. Okay. So I can interview people from SF Day that I know.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Wonderful. Um What is SF Day, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

If someone doesn't know what that is, San Francisco Day School, SF Day is my school. Yeah, I'm in fifth grade there. And um yeah, so I mostly get news from there.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

So you find great people in your community and you get news from them. Yeah. Super smart. So here's a question.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

But I'm trying to expand.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Okay. Okay. Well, let's let's use this as a platform to expand.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Okay, deal. Deal. Now, why do you think adults consume bad news? Do you think they like it?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

I don't think they like it. I think it's what the system serves them. As you said earlier, it's what they click on. It's what they so once once they click on it, the system serves them more and more of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yes. Yes, that's right. I was reading this book recently called Stolen Focus, and it's all about how hard it is for people to have um longer attention spans these days. And I thought the promise is this is relevant. And I thought it was something to do with like the introduction of phones or the internet. And while that did accelerate it, it turns out the beginning of people's um attention spans going down was the invention of the newspaper.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Really?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Because humans, like we want to be positive and happy.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

But part of the reason we survive as a species is we kind of like pay attention to the maybe bad stuff that's coming. And so for a while, you can only really pay attention to the bad local stuff that you knew in your town. But then a newspaper comes around. And now you can read the bad stuff happening in the county or the state or the country or all over the world. And so you try to consume all this stuff. And then as a result, you can't retain it all because you know we're humans with limited brain capacity. Yes. And it's kind of led to this interesting thing. But I one of the things that that struck me was that there's something in our nature where I think we want, like, I don't think we like hearing bad news. Yeah. We want good stuff. Yeah. We want to feel good. But we seek out bad news sometimes because we like want to make sure we're gonna stay safe. Yeah. Which is like kind of crazy. Okay. So um here's a kind of fun thing, which is solutions-focused journalism uh research suggests that adding credible responses and solutions can increase audience hope, efficacy, and motivation to act without denying problems. And so uh I have a question about your first five or six episodes, which is what is one of the episodes where afterwards you felt powerful because of what you talked about or what you heard?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

I think I made, as I talked about the Chet Kittelson episode, was very nice. And then my most recent episode is about uh Sam Franjam, the SF Day school, the big SF Day school concert that my my school does. After hearing it, I just thought it was like my best episode yet. And I I just thought it sounded really good. So I I I actually really enjoyed making that one.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Great. That's great, good.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

By the way, listeners, if you haven't heard these two episodes yet, you should go back and check them out.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Good, good. How's your your friends, your family, your classmates, how have they responded to NBN? What are they what do they say?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

They're all like pretty supportive of it. Um my friends have listened to it. I I think most of my fan base has come from a stuff day. Um and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. I was uh we were I was just meeting with Abni, who you met. Um, and she said a really wonderful thing, which was, you know, often when you're out doing something in the world, it can be kind of scary. Like, think about this. You are you're in fifth grade, you're you're embarking on this journey where it's like a lot of work, you do a lot of editing, you're doing it all yourself, you to commit the time, you need the rigor behind it all, and it can feel scary. And so often when you are in doubt yourself, you look externally. Like, will they tell you this is a good idea or a bad idea? And it can be really, really wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

When you say, What do you think? And all you need is one or two people to go, that's a great idea. You're gonna be successful. And so a prompt I always I I'm now as I as a result of this conversation as I'm giving others is like, you know, when your friend or family or someone you care about goes out on a limb and they want to do something that's scary to them, why not say, Yeah, do it. You're gonna be great. I believe in you. It costs you nothing, but gosh, it can really help. You know?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

So um, here's something interesting. Education resources report that podcasting can support a bunch of really interesting things for kids literacy, comprehension, speaking and listening skills, which I have to say, I'm gonna pause a second, you're really good at this. Like it's really amazing.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, I mean it. Um and uh and this idea of a digital citizenship, uh, especially when kids produce and reflect on content. So if another kid wanted to start a podcast, how would you walk them through it? What like how do you start doing a podcast?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

You need to start by uh getting an idea for a podcast, a name, a logo, whatever. Yes. Um and then you need to know how you're gonna do it. Like you you needed you need to figure out you could like I I had some mentors uh Oh great when I was uh first starting. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

So seek out mentors.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Start the idea behind it, which I think is really smart. Yes. And then also it sounds like just start doing it too. Yes. As a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yes. Just start just put out a podcast and then see where it takes you.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Were you nervous when you first started?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

I was. I think yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

And how did you overcome those nerves?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Probably by just putting a podcast out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, what if I don't I don't have any research on this, but I think so many people are so scared to start something.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

They never take the step.

unknown 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

And that's it. Like the first thing is just take the step. There's this book I love called Atomic Habits, which have you heard of this book? I'd be surprised if you had, but if so, I cannot imagine. Um and what it talks about is basically the compounding nature of success. And so there's this thing that they teach, I I forget which branch of the army, maybe it's just the army, where is it every morning make a bed? And the question is, well, what like why? Why does it matter if you make your bed in the morning? So, well, because no matter what, no matter how you feel, when you wake up, you have success. You put your mind to something and you successfully completed a task. And that was the first thing you did that day. And so now you're gonna get more and more momentum around putting your mind to things and succeeding over time. And if you look at the compounding nature of this, if you, for example, every day just said, you know what, I'm not gonna try to be 100% better today. I'm not gonna try to be 50% better, not even 10% better. Today, I'm just gonna be 1% better than yesterday. If you fast forward all the way to Thank you, Mayan, Jackie, I don't know the exact math, you're like 3,000% better than you were when you started. And it all starts, Sam, with what you did, which is you just take that first step.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So as you think about um all the podcasting you're doing now, what skills do you think have improved the most for you? Is it listening? Is it editing? Is it confidence? Like what are the things you've just noticed in yourself as you started doing this?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I've really noticed that I've gotten better at editing. Like I did my first episode and then like a while later I did my second episode. And um during I well, I was editing my second episode, like I couldn't remember how to save my project. Um, so I have gotten a lot better at that, at like writing questions.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah. Questions are important. I've I found yeah, when I do these things, one of my favorite things to do is we try to find questions to guests where they're almost surprised you even know to ask that question. So it leads to really good conversation, you know? Yeah. And it's also, yeah, I think there's something about so there's this thing in um is very common, I would argue, in like Western business culture, yeah, where it's kind of this cowboy thing. You go into something, you're like, I'm gonna figure it out. Like, I'm not gonna prepare. It's like the person who stands up, you know, you're mentioning your your um, was it brother? Uh brother at a party recently.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, and you had a speech, but you prepared it. Yeah. You thought about it. Well, like, why would you, why would you not prepare for that? You may as well write down what you're gonna say and think about it. Yeah. And there's one of the things I wish most people knew when they were going for something is part of it, once you've started doing the thing, is just like spend the time preparing for it. You feel so much more confident, you feel ready. I noticed you have this awesome printout right here. What is this printout, by the way? What's on it?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Uh, this is uh the debriefing you gave me and the, oh, here it is. The prep document. Um and some questions I wrote down for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Oh, okay, cool. Awesome. Last question for you is um do you have any SAM hacks? Like as you're doing, like, you know, you prepare for, you edit it. What are some things you've learned that you think would be helpful for someone else who wanted to do podcasting to learn?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I mean, I know I've given this answer like three times, but um uh just start doing it. You'll learn how to do it. Uh I recommend getting guests.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Um great recommendation. And don't forget to save your project.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Wonderful. Awesome. Yeah, let's see your questions. You want to do them?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

So is this your first podcast?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

This is absolutely my first podcast. Do you want to do you want to hear the origin story of this podcast? Yes. So it's a passion project for me. It kind of doesn't have anything specifically to do with the company that I run, which is a an AI travel company.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

And when I first got out of college, I uh I did consulting in New York, which is like what all of my friends did coming out of college. And I'll never forget it. My my first project manager pulled me aside my second week on the job. And this person goes, um, Haley. And I was like, Yeah. And this person goes, um, I've been hearing you laugh a lot at work. And I was like, Yeah, you know, I like to enjoy what I do, and I really like this job, and I'm really grateful to be here. And they go, right. Well, if you want to have fun, maybe consulting isn't for you. And I was like, what? It's like my second, it's my first job out of college. And there's been a couple of things throughout my life where there's these moments where I've seen people kind of do some stuff that really disappointed me, you know? Like I was really bummed with how they handled it. And I felt sad that someone could be successful who acted that way. And so I started seeking out stories about people doing the right thing. And I ran into this book called Give and Take by Adam Grant, who's this amazing professor at Penn in Philadelphia, who talks about how the most successful people in the world aren't people who try to take from other people. They're in fact people who just give. And they say, you know what? I don't expect a return. I want to do this, I want to help, I believe in this, and I believe in you. And it turns out those people are at the top of the success pyramid because everyone wants them to win, because they know if they win, they're gonna win too. And so as I read all this, I started getting excited about it. I said, okay, I want to create something like a podcast that where people in my career were early enough, you know, earlier kind of wanting to hear some good stuff. They gave them the confidence to make the right decision, to do the right thing. And so that's why I started. This is my third podcast, my first podcast. We've been doing it for about six months. Um it's going okay. I got amazing guests like Sam. Um, we have a couple clips that have hit like over a million views, which is pretty cool. Uh I think this is gonna top those. So anyway, yeah, that's that's a full story. That's uh this is my first podcast.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

And then I listened to your podcast. I listened to one of your podcasts, and in one of the episodes, and in that episode, you uh you said you almost called the show Hey, be nice.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

But I think there's a difference between being nice and being kind. I think being nice is a little more short term, you don't want to rock the boat. Being kind is doing the right thing, you're not afraid to make waves. Uh so what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

I think that is so wise what you just said, Sam. I completely agree. You know, we're we're programmed as beings to get people to like us because that's how we survived. You know, if you think you go back to like, you know, primordial existence of humans and you wanted people in your local group to help you, to support you, to trade resources. And so the way you did that is you'd you'd be liked. And I think it's our nature, you know. Yeah. Like you want to smile, you want to shake hands. The the trap, which you very, very aptly pointed out is it's also um it can be a bit shallow and a bit too easy to be nice because it's nice to say, like, how are you? Great job. But in fact, sometimes the truth, which can be harder, and maybe hard news, is the kind thing to do because you're saying the hard thing, but the person needed to hear it. And so, gosh, what a great question. Yeah. And so, so yeah, so so I mean, part of why we didn't say, Hey, be nice to your point was uh because I think as we thought about being nice versus kind, there was that difference. Another part is Adam Grant, the organizational psychologist who wrote Give and Take, um, I emailed him and said, Hey, I'm starting this podcast. Uh, here's your premise behind it, here's the title I'm thinking of, and also would you ever come on? And he was like, That's a bad title. You should call it don't be a jerk. Negative always works. And I was like, Okay. And he goes, and also maybe I'll come on. Talk to me later. I'm hoping one day we get him on. Uh but yeah, so he he actually named the podcast. It was his idea.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah, it's kind of a fun fact.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yeah. I found, all right, actually, my dad found that post uh that on like an Instagram post.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Oh, really? Okay, cool, cool, cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Um you've made like more than 20 podcasts. What was your favorite podcast to make?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Oh, besides this one, that's a tough question. Um so we've had a really actually I I appreciate this question. So one of the things we tried to do on the types of guests we invite is we want a really broad range of folks who come on. So we've had FBI negotiators, we've had neuropsychologists, we've had venture capitalists, we've had CEOs, we've had influencers, we've had quantum physicists, all sorts of people in. And the interesting thing I found is all these through lines through all of them, um, like FBI negotiation negotiators, you don't think of an FBI negotiator as like a nice person, but they had these rules. They were like, look, you never want to get someone into fear mode. You always want to make them feel like they're in control, make give them context. And I was like, oh, that's like you kind of like being nice in the negotiation. And they're like, Yeah. It's been so interesting. So I think one of the things I've loved is how consistently, regardless of the vocation or whatever job they have, the thing that they're doing is they're using these very similar patterns to get success. So that's that's been really fun for me. Um there's one I had, so there's a guy named Bing Chen, who's a friend of mine. He runs this company, it's a production company called Gold House.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

And they are really big in LA and they're behind that's something wild, like a hundred Emmys and so many Oscars. I don't know. They've done so much good work. And it was in that episode I realized, by the way, even though he was a good friend of mine, I I learned so much about him in that episode that I hadn't realized. Because, you know, I, you know, you don't typically interview people when you're friends with them.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

You know, you talk to them.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

You're not like, you know, so dad, what was it like when you met mom? You know? Although maybe you should interview your dad. That'd be kind of cool. Um and I loved it because I got to know so much about him and what he was doing, and about the the um impetus behind him creating this production house and trying to help the Asian diaspora, you know, AAPI like be in the forefront of Hollywood in production and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

And it also uh it it clued me into this exercise that changed my life, which will probably, I don't know if it'll it'll resonate with you as much, but I I wrote this letter to myself as if I were 80 years old because I saw someone do it online and I thought it was a really cool idea. And for me, I'm I'm 41 now. Um it's a little um I can't even remember fifth grade. Uh it helped to put things into perspective for me. I think, you know, I've got two kids. They're five and three. And I would find often, Sam, that I'd be so focused on work, I wouldn't hug them the way that I wanted to hug them. And I wouldn't talk to them the way that I wanted to talk to them. And I'd walk in to the house. And instead of stopping and looking at my amazing wife, who I'm obsessed with and kissing her and saying, I love you so much. I would just blow by and say, I've got a meeting, I'm busy, I got to do stuff. And I wrote this letter and I was like, gosh, why am I behaving that way? It's not aligned with who I want to be. It's not, it's not recognizing what I actually believe to be true and hold dear in the priorities of my life. I was just kind of caught up in what I thought was important in the moment. So that was probably one of my favorite episodes because it um it actually changed my life, Sam. It actually was so introspective for me. I've now completely reoriented how I spend time during the day, how I think about things. Um I think twice as I talk to anyone I know or love in general about like, hey, how are they gonna feel with this? I try to be conscious of it. So uh yeah, that was definitely one of my favorite episodes for sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Wow. Do you like listening to this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 23:09

And that's what you have.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

And do you have any other favorite podcasts that you like to listen to?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Oh, that's great. What a good question. Um sometimes I love it because there's these moments I have with guests and I want to relive them over and over again because it was so moving to me. Uh sometimes I'm too embarrassed to watch it. That's the truth. So there's this one I did recently where I was like reading this thing, and Sam, I just started crying on camera. So and Jonah was in the room in person and I couldn't stop crying. And he was like, You got it, man. Like, you'll finish this. And I was like, and um, and so afterwards, he was like, Hey, this is gonna be a great episode. And I literally was like, There's no way it's gonna be good. I was bald, I'm a grown man crying for like 30 minutes. And and he was like, Hey, do you want to review it before it goes out? And I was like, I can't do it. I'm too embarrassed. He was like, You should look at it. I was like, I can't do it. And he said, The thing I told, I believe in you, it's gonna be great. And so he and Jake posted it, and it got over 1.1 million views so far.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

I know, I know, which is so cool. So it's a long way of saying, uh, you know, I think it's an interesting and important thing to, you know, as I'm sure you feel, you listen to yourself on on NBN, your podcast, and you hear, like, oh, what was the cadence of how I asked that question? And how did I pronunciate? And, you know, how was I thinking about, you know, whatever kind of happened, it lets you see yourself as another. And while sometimes it can be painful to see that, it actually is, I think, really helpful. Um, a lot of media, I've I've done some media trading in some of my the big company jobs I had. And one of the most painful things they did, actually, I'm curious if you've done this. They video you doing a mock interview and they make you watch it over and over again. Have you ever done that?

SPEAKER_01 24:57

I d I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

And it's hard, but it's really helpful because you're like, oh, I do say filler words like um or like, and you know, you kind of like see how it is, and it's hard to watch, but I think very helpful. So a long way of saying, um, A, thanks for the question. B, yeah, sometimes I like it, and sometimes it's a little hard to watch myself cry.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Last question.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Okay, this is great. Thanks for preparing these.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Okay. So I was listening to another one of your episodes.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

And um you talked about uh like spiritual balancing and goal setting.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Oh. These are great questions.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

As I'm 11, you uh something that might have slipped over other people's heads. You said you fly private planes.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

How did you come to fly private planes?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Um well, uh, so I've I've always been excited about aviation. Um and my my wife, Rachel, is a PhD professor and she's an anthropologist. And so one of the things that you do in anthropology is you go do field work for a year. And so she was embarking on a year where I wasn't gonna see her for most of the year. And she was down in South America living on these ranches, doing this really interesting work on uh ecological imperialism, which I can barely say. I cannot spell that. Don't ask me. And she was like, Healy, I think you're gonna be bored while I'm gone. And I was like, definitely. Like I'm like, you're my best friend. I'm gonna be so bored. She goes, Well, um, I got you a test flight at the local airfield in Watsonville. I was down in Santa Cruz. I think you should go up. I think you're gonna like it. And I was like, okay. And so I went up and I loved it with this amazing uh flight instructor named Harry, who who is still wonderful. And and I just started doing it. And I, you know, it was a big commitment. You have to put a lot of hours in, it's a lot of money, it's a lot of time. I eventually got my license, and now it's one of my favorite things to do because one, I can take my friends up flying over the Golden Gate Bridge, which is really fun. But the second thing is um I can fly to grandma's house. And so the whole family will get in the plane and we'll fly down, and we land in this tiny little airfield in avocado country north of San Diego, and it's nine minutes from grandma's house. That's really, it's really fun. But to get to the question behind the question, Sam, which is such a good one, is you know, it's like it's like you. Yeah. I said, Hey, like how did you start doing a podcast? It's scary to do a podcast. And and you kind of said, Well, you, you know, there's a bunch of things you have to do. You have to think about what you want to talk about, and you gotta get guests, but like really, you just gotta do it.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

He's gonna step. And so many people I think are are scared to take this step. And and often they don't think about like, what do I have to lose by trying this?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Often the answer is like nothing. You know, like, just try it. And so, you know, flying is an example where you know, I really wanted to do it and I put my mind towards it. This podcast is an example of that. You know, like I I love this when I have hard days at work. I had a really hard day at work this morning. I'm so energized by having the honor to talk to people like you, like in an interrupted space and and being to hear these amazing questions and how you started things and how you see the world, it's so energizing. And so um, when I think about like life and goal setting, I think two things are true. One is most humans know they can achieve their goals. They just have a lot of trouble figuring out what it is they want. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

And that's okay. I think it's actually part of the human condition. And so one of the things I try to spend a lot of time on is listening and observing and seeing what is it that I I want in life. And then when you figure out the things you want, you pull those things in and you try to focus on them and say, this, okay, this is what a happy, fulfilled life is for me. And that evolves over the course of your life as you know, things happen. I was lucky enough to sell a company. Like, what does it mean now? And when you um, you know, when you get married or when you have, if you want to do that, or when you have kids if you want to do that, all that sort of stuff, you know, you you kind of every step you take, you gather more information about what you want to do. And there's this really cool book I would recommend reading at some point called Essentialism. And it's all about how there's two different ways to approach life. One is you can be a non-essentialist, and one is you can be an essentialist. A non-essentialist is like, I'm not working unless I'm busy, and every minute I have to be doing things, you know, and like I say, yes, yes, yes to everything. And you kind of get this inundation of doing everything all the time because you want to do it all, but you haven't really decided what it is you want to do. But ironically, because they do so much, they actually consider less things because they're so busy doing things, they haven't taken the time to step back and think about all the stuff that's possible. Where an essentialist, maybe counterintuitively, takes a lot of stock in like, what are the things that are out there that I want? Which is, I mean, I gotta say, like, what an amazing place you are in your life. You know, you're like, I'm sure it doesn't feel that way for you, but you're in the beginning of your life in so many ways. As you get information over the course of your life, you can decide you want to do that. And Sam, you can just do it.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

So cool. And so I think that's that's one of the things I've I've loved learning over life. And I've often surprised myself with how lofty an aspiration can be and how I can actually achieve it.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Okay. So that's all my questions.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah. Obviously, you're still in the academic environment.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

And you get a lot of exposure to uh to friends, to friends' families, but to teachers. And I'm I'm curious, your experience. This is kind of on the theme of no bad news and positivity. What have you found are the most like, how do the best teachers balance what you asked about? They're nice, but they're also kind and pushing you in the right way. And and how how do you think about that in general? Like when you think about you're sitting in your seat, you're in fifth grade, you're learning so much about the world. There's, I'm sure, so much stuff coming at you, the world's changing. Like, what kind of what kind of teaching styles really resonate with you? And how does it relate to kind of like, you know, ideas of good and bad and nice and kind? Do they lift you up? Are they like mean? Like, like here's a question Which is which motivates you more? A mean teacher or like a kind teacher?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Well, somewhere in between. Okay. Because I don't want my teacher to always tell me that I'm doing the best when I'm not. But I don't want my teacher to always tell me not that I'm doing terrible.

unknown 31:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

When I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

I think that's very reasonable. It's a great answer. It's a great answer. Okay, cool. So Sam, people I'm sure have loved hearing loved hearing you. Let's say they want to find no bad news. How do they find the podcast?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Um, uh search up NBN no bad news on Spotify, Apple, uh basically anything except YouTube and um uh YouTube and Amazon music.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Okay, wonderful. Sam, thank you so much. This has been so fun. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Thank you. That was one long interview. I hope you enjoyed it. To listen to the full interview, look up Don't Be a Jerk wherever you get your podcasts. That's the end of the episode. You don't have to have good news, but you can't have bad news. See ya.