The one-year anniversary episode with Olivia Attiaļ¼ Reflecting on the past year and looking forward to exciting times ahead
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
200.01993
Summary
In this episode of The Peter Atiyah Drive, we celebrate the one year anniversary of the podcast with a look back at the past 12 months and a look forward to what's to come in the next 12 months.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. The drive
00:00:10.880
is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along
00:00:15.940
with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working
00:00:19.660
with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast
00:00:23.620
is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality,
00:00:28.360
more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode
00:00:41.320
Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of the drive. I guess today is sort of me. As you may
00:00:47.460
recall, we launched this podcast with three episodes on July 2nd, 2018. And a few weeks prior to that,
00:00:54.360
we launched a special little sneak peek episode where I was interviewed by my daughter, Olivia.
00:00:59.600
So we figured there would be no better way to celebrate the one year birthday of the drive
00:01:06.020
than with another interview by Olivia, as we talk about the past year and some exciting things to
00:01:11.400
come over the next 12 months. So I hope you enjoy this little look back and look forward.
00:01:16.440
I'm going to start by asking the first question I asked a year ago. Does the world really need
00:01:24.100
another podcast? Um, I mean, probably not. Someone told me that there are, and I could be wrong,
00:01:31.220
but like 500 new podcasts appear in the podcast store every week. That's a lot. Yeah. So I'm not
00:01:39.380
going to put you on the spot and make you calculate how many podcasts that is in the last year. And by the
00:01:45.000
it's probably more than 500, but anyway, no, the world does not need another podcast. But I think
00:01:50.720
that what we started out doing last year was a three month experiment. And at the end of that 12
00:01:55.580
weeks or whatever it was, I was surprised by how much fun I had doing this. I was surprised by the
00:02:01.760
feedback we got from folks that said that they kind of dug it. And so even if the world doesn't need
00:02:06.960
another podcast, we're just going to keep doing this. I remember you telling me from when I interviewed
00:02:11.380
you for the preview that if it worked out well, you would start making more, right? Yep. That's what we've
00:02:16.780
done. So is there something you've learned in the past year making these podcasts? Well, like, do you
00:02:22.040
mean specific new pieces of knowledge or just more generally? More generally. Uh, yeah. I mean, I've
00:02:28.780
learned that it's way harder to do a good interview than I could have imagined at the outset. I think,
00:02:36.440
for example, now when I listen to other podcasts, I find I'm not listening to them from a pure
00:02:43.960
enjoyment standpoint. I'm listening to them and trying to learn from them. So for example,
00:02:49.300
like I think Tim Ferriss, who, you know, of course, very well, I think he just does an awesome job. I
00:02:54.320
think Sam Harris does an awesome job. I mean, I think, you know, Steven Dubner, I think there's a lot
00:02:58.760
of people out there that do really good jobs interviewing people. And so now I listen to these people and I
00:03:06.000
take notes on what could I do better? How can I be a better interviewer? And I think right now I'm a
00:03:13.260
two out of 10. I was a one out of 10 a year ago. So I've got a long way to go. And that's, I didn't,
00:03:19.020
I wouldn't have expected that a year ago that it would be this difficult.
00:03:21.500
So every podcast you're kind of writing something down and then the next one you try and make it even
00:03:25.760
better. I mean, it's not always that linear because as, well, I don't know if you know,
00:03:29.520
have you listened to any of them? Yes. Which ones have you listened to? I've listened to
00:03:32.840
Jocko, Tim Ferriss. I listened to the one where I interviewed you and a couple other
00:03:37.480
ones too. Okay. So, but you probably haven't listened to some of the really nerdy technical
00:03:41.180
ones. I don't think so. So I think the podcast fit into different categories. Sometimes the
00:03:46.500
technical ones, my criticisms of myself are different. They're, Hey, in listening to this,
00:03:53.160
I can see how someone who's not well-versed in this topic could get lost. You could have done
00:03:57.880
a better job structuring the discussion or pausing to set context. And then in other ones where it's
00:04:05.200
less technical, like the Jocko one, you know, I think, Oh gosh, like you, you didn't ask that
00:04:11.260
question that in retrospect, when you listen back, you realize like that was such an obvious question
00:04:16.720
to ask. And that could have gone down a totally new rabbit hole that everybody would have, you know,
00:04:21.200
potentially benefited from. So yeah, it's a work in progress.
00:04:23.980
Yeah, I can tell. So how many more podcasts are you going to plan on making?
00:04:28.920
I hope it's a very big number. We're putting out at least one a week, sometimes more. And the good
00:04:35.260
news is we are recording them faster than we can release them. So we're just accumulating. We
00:04:41.460
probably have a reserve of three months and we're the, I have a spreadsheet of all the people I want to
00:04:47.140
interview. And it's, it's freaking huge. It's, I think I have three years worth of people on it.
00:04:52.920
Like there's 150 people on that list. So, and it's just, it just keeps growing because I get a
00:04:57.520
lot of feedback from listeners who say, Hey, I know you talked about such and such, but you really
00:05:01.420
need to interview this person to which, and a lot of times I've never even heard of who that person
00:05:04.900
is. So I have to look them up and go, Oh yeah, that would be cool.
00:05:06.680
So speaking of comments, how do you deal with negative comments from people that disagree with
00:05:12.800
Oh, well that, so people, negative comments where people disagree, doesn't phase me. That's, that's to me,
00:05:17.780
that's like a healthy part of existing. And frankly, a lot of times people disagree with me and I read
00:05:22.780
what they say. And I'm like, you know, they have a really good point. So I, I, I mean, just as me
00:05:28.000
being dad for a moment, don't view people disagreeing with you as negative. The negative is when people
00:05:32.980
just say really nasty things about you or to you or whatever. And I mean, I think there's a very
00:05:38.440
simple heuristic that you can operate by when you see that kind of stuff, which is, and I'm
00:05:43.720
plagiarizing this from somebody. There's a, there's a, there's a woman who wrote a book that I'm blanking on
00:05:48.060
her name and the name of the book, but I think it's sort of her heuristic. And it's basically you
00:05:52.660
ask yourself the following question. Is this true? Is what this person is stating true? And if the
00:05:59.180
answer is no, it's not true, then you, you are much easier to sort of dismiss what they're saying.
00:06:06.020
So if somebody says, Peter, you're a freaking idiot. I mean, okay, sometimes I am, but for the
00:06:12.740
most part, I'm not an idiot. So sometimes you are. So it's not about me. So I can, I'm better at
00:06:18.920
dismissing those. But another trick is don't spend too much time reading social media. Yeah. So if I
00:06:24.600
or somebody else wanted to start our own podcast, what kind of advice would you give us to make it
00:06:29.700
successful? Well, I think you, you know, you have to have sort of a topic that you think is so
00:06:34.960
interesting to you that you can do the type of work that's necessary to prepare for it and,
00:06:41.620
you know, do the heavy lifting that is involved in sort of figuring out people you want to interview,
00:06:46.180
assuming that's the type of podcast you want to do. There are lots of podcasts out there where
00:06:49.040
people are just talking about things that are really interesting. Like, you know, Jocko,
00:06:52.720
most of his podcasts, he's actually talking about something that's really interesting,
00:06:55.760
which I actually think is even harder than what I do, which is interviewing.
00:06:59.840
And in the end, I think if you really want to be a purist, you want to put out a podcast that is
00:07:05.500
something you would want to listen to and then hopefully find an audience that agrees with that.
00:07:11.420
As opposed to saying, you know, like if you wanted to make a podcast and you want it to be about
00:07:16.580
drumming because you're an amazing drummer and you love the drums and you've played them your whole
00:07:21.440
life, then you should, you could start a podcast about kids who'd rock. And you might say, well,
00:07:27.060
oh, I don't know if that would be popular and I don't know if people would like it, but in the end,
00:07:31.140
because you're so passionate about drumming, that passion will come through. And even if you don't
00:07:36.000
have the biggest audience, you'll have a very passionate audience that's supportive.
00:07:39.800
Yeah. So dad, you are kind of a knucklehead, like no offense, but sometimes you can't even
00:07:46.260
turn on the TV. So how did you manage making a podcast?
00:07:50.580
Okay. First of all, I've never not been able to turn on the TV.
00:07:55.200
Sometimes I struggle with Apple TV, but that's a totally separate system. And sometimes Apple TV
00:07:59.420
just sucks. So I'm not going to, okay, but you're right. I'm not, I'm a bit of a technical
00:08:03.060
phobe. So I just have a kick-ass team. So all I do is the interview. So on the front end,
00:08:10.440
Bob Kaplan and Nick Stenson do a ton of research. So once I like, you know, meet somebody and connect
00:08:19.140
with somebody and say, Hey, I'd love to interview you, blah, blah, blah. Then Bob and Nick help me
00:08:24.640
by doing a ton of research so that I have a thought, like a list of things I want to think about.
00:08:31.720
So then after the interview, which I use this equipment that you can see sitting on the table,
00:08:36.820
you can, you know, it's pretty easy to take the files and get them back to the team who then do
00:08:43.560
two things with them. One, they give them to a guy named Matthew Passy, P-A-S-S-Y, who's our
00:08:49.040
production guy. And Matthew, he does all the sound editing. So for example, like half the time during a
00:08:55.100
podcast, somebody has to get up and go to the bathroom or I forget something I want to say,
00:08:59.960
or the guest says something and they want to do it over again. You know, all those things have to be
00:09:03.200
edited, although we lightly edit. And then on the other side, we have a guy named Travis Denson,
00:09:07.760
who's awesome. And he is solely in charge of making the show notes. So he then has to listen
00:09:14.780
to every podcast and create these huge show notes. And there's a whole bunch of other things that are
00:09:18.800
involved, but the long and short of it is basically there are like five other people that make the
00:09:23.060
podcast work. And I have the easy job, which is just recording it. And that's like the job that
00:09:27.920
doesn't require that you know how to work Apple TV. Okay. So is there anybody that you've wanted
00:09:33.100
to interview, but you haven't done that yet? Yes. A ton of people that I've wanted to interview
00:09:38.200
and have not yet. And in some of those cases, it's just because we have not been able to,
00:09:45.320
like we haven't made it work in the schedule, but you know, I've spoken with the person,
00:09:49.140
their game to be interviewed. And it's just a question of making the interview happen. So there's
00:09:54.300
lots of people that are coming up on the podcast that, you know, once we get our schedules aligned,
00:10:00.160
we'll sit down and do that. But there is a subset of people who I've reached out to
00:10:05.280
and either they just haven't responded or they've responded and said no.
00:10:10.180
And that's kind of a bummer. But my hope is that if the podcast gets bigger and better,
00:10:15.980
they'll see more value in potentially making the time to do it. And I get that I've declined
00:10:20.200
being on many podcasts myself because there's only so many hours in the day. So my feelings
00:10:24.700
aren't hurt when people say no, but I'll probably still keep bugging a few of them.
00:10:28.920
Okay. So is there anything new you're going to plan on doing this year for upcoming podcasts?
00:10:34.240
Yes. I had an idea a couple of weeks ago. And I don't know if you, you might've heard me
00:10:39.620
talking about it with Nick the other day, but I want to launch something called Qualies.
00:10:45.640
So you know what the name of the podcast is, by the way?
00:10:58.280
Comment if you agree that that's like a better name than The Drive. Come on, people.
00:11:05.500
I don't think those people would have declined to you.
00:11:11.800
Hey, I really wonder if you could be on my podcast, The Ice Cream. Oh, of course.
00:11:18.180
So, the drive, of course, is like there's a little undertone of racing in the theme, right?
00:11:28.980
So, remember how we watch races on Sunday mornings?
00:11:32.280
Every other Sunday, we watch Formula One races.
00:11:34.760
Well, what's happening on Saturday is the quali.
00:11:37.800
The quali is how you determine your position on the grid.
00:11:43.680
The drivers go way faster in the qualis than they do.
00:11:47.040
Even the, you remember at the end of the race, every race, you see who had the fastest lap and they get extra points.
00:11:51.700
That fastest lap time is way slower than probably the slowest quali lap the day before.
00:11:59.420
This season, it's pretty safe to say Lewis Hamilton should win every race or pretty close to it.
00:12:05.280
So, anyway, what I was thinking about is, you know, we have so much old content that's already like a year old, but it's really rich.
00:12:12.920
And for people who are new to the podcast, there's no way for them to sort of catch up on all of our old content.
00:12:19.220
So, what I want to do, and luckily the team thinks this is a good idea or else we wouldn't be doing it, is every day, Tuesday through Friday, we're going to put out a short sprint of a podcast, which is going to be taking highlights from previous podcasts and putting them out.
00:12:34.000
So, Monday will still be the big podcast, you know, it's two, three hours long, but then Tuesday through Friday will be these little quali sprints.
00:12:42.200
So, for example, you know, you listened to the Tim Ferriss podcast a year ago, but there were highlights of that podcast that we want to replay, you know, really pointed stuff.
00:12:51.300
So, then Tuesday, you'll get like an RSS feed that'll zip to your podcast player.
00:12:56.100
This is for the subscribers only, by the way, which we'll come back to in a second because I want to also thank the subscribers.
00:13:00.900
And so, I guess everybody will probably get one and then maybe we'll make the rest of them available just to the subscribers.
00:13:06.940
But it'll be like a real punchy, short, kind of easy to digest thing that allows people to kind of get caught up on previous content.
00:13:14.340
Because I also realize our podcasts are pretty dense.
00:13:17.640
We put out a lot of stuff and I think there's a high demand for people to be able to digest this in an easier manner.
00:13:24.260
And I think there's no better way to digest complicated stuff than to sort of revisit it in a more concise way.
00:13:29.100
So, I think that's the quality is hopefully going to be out.
00:13:33.300
I think we're going to try to do it this summer.
00:13:37.660
So, I don't know if you know this, but we don't take ads.
00:13:42.640
Well, you explained that you want your subscribers to know that you're telling the truth to them and not just saying that because you're paid to say that.
00:13:52.880
I, which isn't, by the way, to say that people who take ads are not telling the truth, but yes, I just feel strongly about being able to talk about stuff that I love without being paid to say that.
00:14:03.180
So, we created a subscriber system this year and it's going well and we're totally honored by these people who have supported us.
00:14:11.760
And our goal is just to continue to come up with ways to create more and more value for those subscribers.
00:14:18.380
The qualities will be a big part of that, but we have two or three other ideas in the hopper.
00:14:23.260
And as time goes on, our goal is to make that an even better and better offering for everyone.
00:14:28.260
You have any other questions for me or am I allowed to ask you any questions now?
00:14:34.620
Are you going to play a Zeppelin song for your next talent show?
00:14:39.340
Well, that depends if the song is actually good.
00:14:43.460
Have you ever heard a Zeppelin song that is not good?
00:14:49.060
Stairway to Heaven, maybe not a good solo, drum solo song for the talent show, but I think,
00:14:55.660
do you remember who the drummer was for Led Zeppelin?
00:15:04.980
The people, there's people listening to this right now that are just rolling or something.
00:15:20.400
You can find all of this information and more at peteratiamd.com forward slash podcast.
00:15:25.660
There you'll find the show notes, readings, and links related to this episode.
00:15:33.420
Maybe the simplest thing to do is to sign up for my subjectively non-lame once a week email
00:15:37.700
where I'll update you on what I've been up to, the most interesting papers I've read,
00:15:41.380
and all things related to longevity, science, performance, sleep, et cetera.
00:15:46.160
On social, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all with the ID peteratiamd.
00:15:51.580
But usually Twitter is the best way to reach me to share your questions and comments.
00:15:56.860
This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the
00:16:00.660
practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of
00:16:07.140
And note, no doctor-patient relationship is formed.
00:16:10.060
The use of this information and the materials linked to the podcast is at the user's own risk.
00:16:15.120
The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice,
00:16:21.360
Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they
00:16:25.640
have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
00:16:31.120
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest very seriously.
00:16:35.220
For all of my disclosures, the companies I invest in and or advise, please visit peteratiamd.com