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Episode: Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Author: Armchair Umbrella
Duration: 02:03:01
Episode Shownotes
Toto Wolff (Inside Mercedes F1: Life in the Fast Lane) is principal of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. Toto joins the Armchair Expert to discuss the tragedy of being a string bean, his parents emigrating to Austria after the war, and crashing at 189 mph attempting a new lap
record at the Nordschleife. Toto and Dax talk about the luxury of being a vulnerable man, being no-nonsense Capricorns, and Dax invites Toto to live in his guesthouse. Toto talks about whether mental health and being a champion are mutually exclusive, the biggest drama in all of F1, and finding his niche between business finance and the love for the stopwatch.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Summary
In this episode of Armchair Expert, Toto Wolff, the principal of the Mercedes F1 Team, discusses his life, addressing the challenges as the child of immigrant parents and his experiences in Formula 1. He highlights the importance of mental health, vulnerability, and personal growth. Toto reflects on family traumas, particularly his father's battle with brain cancer, and how those experiences shaped his motivations and understanding of success. The discussion also touches on his unique approach to racing, the importance of team dynamics, and the balance between personal fulfillment and professional achievement, underlining the complexities of being a public figure in a competitive environment.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker_08
Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:13 Speaker_08
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. Guys, buckle up, grab an extra pair of pants.
00:00:23 Speaker_04
And a helmet.
00:00:24 Speaker_08
And a helmet. My number one crush is here today, Toto Wolf.
00:00:28 Speaker_04
He's a worthy crush. Oh my God, what? He was fantastic. He had such a fun personality. I was very surprised.
00:00:36 Speaker_08
Right? I'm fascinated by someone that can be as serious as he is to make that team function, and then as goddamn playful and fun as he was outside of that. So fun. So if you're not into F1, doesn't matter, you'll still love this. That's right.
00:00:48 Speaker_08
Because we're mostly talking about kind of mental health and the struggles of being a manager and all these things.
00:00:53 Speaker_03
His life.
00:00:55 Speaker_08
But for context, he is the team principal and CEO of AMG Mercedes, which. won eight constructors championships in a row, which has never happened. No one's ever come close to that.
00:01:08 Speaker_04
For F1.
00:01:08 Speaker_08
For Formula One. His accomplishment there will likely never be.
00:01:12 Speaker_03
So cool.
00:01:13 Speaker_08
Taken away from it. It's just an unparalleled success as a team principal and a CEO. He's as good as you could be at this job. He is a part of a really interesting new book called Inside Mercedes F1, Life in the Fast Lane. by Matt Wyman.
00:01:28 Speaker_08
Great read if you're interested in the workings of that team, which are really fascinating. That's a great starter. Please enjoy Total Woof.
00:01:56 Speaker_06
He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert. He's an armchair expert.
00:02:13 Speaker_08
Feel free to use that pillow as well if you need it. This sucks. We're getting a new couch just now.
00:02:16 Speaker_07
No, I think it doesn't.
00:02:17 Speaker_08
Okay, you're fine. Can I put the feet down? Yes, you do whatever. God, you're fucking gorgeous in person, Monica.
00:02:21 Speaker_03
How overwhelming is it? You are very handsome, I know. Yeah. And you're very tall.
00:02:25 Speaker_08
A bit taller than me. A tiny bit, but you're better trained. Listen, there's a lot of nerdy things I did today. I was going to wear bigger shoes. Oh, you were? Because I hoped to be as tall as him in the photo.
00:02:35 Speaker_08
And I even considered putting on my work boots and I'm like, you can't cheat. What are you wearing?
00:02:39 Speaker_07
No, I'm wearing flats.
00:02:40 Speaker_08
Okay, good. You're on the floor too. But yeah, that crossed my mind as you just saw, I opened one of my garage doors, hoping you would be interested in my cars.
00:02:49 Speaker_04
And how did that go? You guys were outside for a few minutes. Did you like them?
00:02:52 Speaker_07
Yeah, I like it a lot because it's a good mix between you. There is a Mercedes, obviously. Yes, obviously. And then I like the bikes. I'm riding bikes as well.
00:02:59 Speaker_08
Oh, you are?
00:03:00 Speaker_07
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. What do you ride? Like a tour adventure bike? What is it called? It's a vintage bike. MV Agusta? And MV Agusta have as well. So the story with the MV Agusta is more interesting than the Austrian bike I just mentioned.
00:03:11 Speaker_07
So one day it rings at the door and we are having scheduled dinner with Louis in Monaco. So he knows Susi for a long time, they race cars, so he comes for dinner. He rings at the door and says, come down please.
00:03:22 Speaker_07
And I'm saying, no come up, we're up here. No, no, there's really something I'd like to show you. And take Susie. So we're going down and he's there with his bike and it's an MV Agusta Lewis Hamilton edition.
00:03:32 Speaker_06
Okay.
00:03:33 Speaker_07
So I said, well, it's a great bike. Is that what you wanted to show me? And he says, it's yours. And I said, how come? He says, you know, you've done so many great things and you and I together and I've never given you a gift.
00:03:45 Speaker_07
So I want to give you the number one of a 44 edition.
00:03:51 Speaker_06
Oh, that's sweet.
00:03:51 Speaker_07
That's a very sweet present. So the other one is a Triumph Thruxton, which was converted by a German tuner to a proper cafe racer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the bike I ride every day.
00:04:00 Speaker_08
Oh, OK. I don't know if you saw in the garage. Sorry, Monica, I'm going to wrap up the technical stuff here. No, it's OK.
00:04:05 Speaker_03
I have a sense this is going to be fairly— You had appropriate expectations. Yeah, I did. I did. I did. I have a Mercedes, too, that we should tell Toto.
00:04:11 Speaker_08
I'm about to defame Lewis.
00:04:14 Speaker_03
Uh-oh, boy, OK.
00:04:15 Speaker_08
Because Toto, he didn't give him, Lewis earned them, but he got seven championships under Toto's direction.
00:04:22 Speaker_04
That's right.
00:04:23 Speaker_08
You and I were working together for three years, and I bought you a C43 AMG.
00:04:26 Speaker_04
Yeah, I got a present three years in.
00:04:29 Speaker_08
That's much better than an MV Agusta.
00:04:32 Speaker_07
I got another present, which is worse. So, you know, drivers are very particular with helmets and Luis has all of the helmets that he's collected. So giving helmets away for him is a real struggle. Yes.
00:04:45 Speaker_07
So I got a lovely helmet from Valtteri or from Nico in the past, but I knew they are less emotional about it. Yes.
00:04:51 Speaker_08
And can I ask quickly, he has a new helmet every race, right?
00:04:53 Speaker_07
No, I wouldn't say every race, but for sure, like every second or third race. Because they're known as new paint jobs. Yeah, they change. And I think he's given me his most special one. Oh, he did? Yeah.
00:05:03 Speaker_07
When Niki Lauda died, who we were very close, both of us, he made a Niki Lauda design helmet for the Monaco race in 2019. And he won it holding on to, I think, Daniel was behind him. It was a huge struggle.
00:05:16 Speaker_07
So he gave me the Niki Lauda memorial helmet for the Monaco race win. And you wrote something nice on it, and I think this is a piece of memory that's priceless. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:26 Speaker_08
Okay, new goal in life, we're gonna ride together at some point. We can, yeah. We can be fart up, when we're retired or something. Okay, let's start in Austria. First of all, we're both Capricorns.
00:05:35 Speaker_08
Even though I don't believe in astrology, I can feel your Capricorn-ness.
00:05:38 Speaker_07
What is that?
00:05:38 Speaker_08
Very determined. My feelings are kind of secret. I can't show vulnerability. I'm on schedule. I have to win. I'm going to beat myself up until I do. I'm managing everything.
00:05:50 Speaker_03
Control freak. No nonsense. A bit of no nonsense. No bullshit telling the truth. Yeah.
00:05:53 Speaker_07
Does this sound familiar? That sounds familiar, but I don't really believe in astrology either. You neither? You neither. So there is something that maybe Capricorns have in common is that they are born into cold January. Boom. Boom.
00:06:06 Speaker_08
Yes. The world is a hostile place when you arrive. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Especially in Austria. Absolutely. Thinking whether Detroit or Austria is more hostile. It depends if we're including homicides, because I think Detroit has, yeah.
00:06:19 Speaker_07
Yeah, it has. And maybe also the freshness of the air. Yes, yes, yes. But that's why you're a car person also, no?
00:06:25 Speaker_08
Now, I was shocked to learn this this morning, that you're not Germanic. You're not Austrian. Your dad is Romanian and your mother is Polish. Yeah. And were they immigrants or had they grown up in Austria?
00:06:38 Speaker_07
My father was born in Bucharest and they emigrated after the war, interestingly. And I think there was a big wave of anti-Semitism back in the day. So my grandparents were called Rosa and Herschel.
00:06:52 Speaker_07
And when they moved to Austria, they called themselves Olaf and Maria.
00:06:56 Speaker_08
So it's like the opposite. We are not Jewish. Wearing lederhosen and blowing horns, really saying I'm Austrian.
00:07:03 Speaker_07
Exactly. And my mother came to Vienna when she was 18, speaking no word of German and studied medicine, became a doctor. So that's where they met.
00:07:12 Speaker_08
Now, mom was a physician. What type? Like a family doctor? Anesthesiologist. Anesthesiologist? Yes. Oh, wonderful. She had all the drugs. Yeah, fantastic.
00:07:20 Speaker_07
She took some herself, but that's a different story. What did your dad do for a living? He had a transport company. Oh, he did. And I know what you're referring to in Austria. Back in the day, you had to prepay the VAT for your customers.
00:07:33 Speaker_07
So that was taking a lot of risks. So that went belly up.
00:07:37 Speaker_08
So he was struggling and mom was succeeding in a pretty dramatic way?
00:07:42 Speaker_07
No, I think my father was very successful at a young age. I was born into money, but then he lost all and had brain cancer. You're eight years old. Yeah. And at the beginning it was benign.
00:07:53 Speaker_07
And then over the next few years it got really ugly to a degree that it was uncurable. He struggled for so long because he got operated and operated and operated and he changed his personality. And when a son is in his teenage years, you need your dad.
00:08:06 Speaker_07
You need your dad to look up to, to love. You need your dad to hate and to fight. He wasn't present anymore.
00:08:11 Speaker_08
Yeah, because you were eight when he got diagnosed, and then you were 15 when he died. Yeah. Your parents also got divorced when you were eight. That had no relation to the brain cancer diagnosis, did it? No, the divorce was that.
00:08:23 Speaker_07
Sorry, that must be actually all my wife. Let's see which one.
00:08:26 Speaker_04
Feel free to answer. We also edit.
00:08:28 Speaker_07
I'd love to say hi to Susie if she's there. Susie, I'm right in the podcast.
00:08:32 Speaker_08
Hello, Susie, I love you.
00:08:33 Speaker_07
No, no, I'll pass you over. I'll pass you over. I'll pass you over.
00:08:37 Speaker_03
Oh, this is so exciting.
00:08:39 Speaker_08
Susie? No, listen to me. This is such a delight. If my wife dies and Toto dies, I'm sprinting to you, okay? I just want to say, what a dynamo. A beautiful race car driver who also runs an academy. What more does someone need?
00:08:57 Speaker_08
All right, I'm going to turn you back to him, but I'm delighted to hear your voice. Here's Toto. Hello. How fun. OK, sleep well.
00:09:04 Speaker_07
OK. Or she's going to bed. Yeah, she's in Scotland. And so I have this override in ringtones. It's my wife and my two children. You need to show me how to do that.
00:09:13 Speaker_06
Oh, that's smart.
00:09:14 Speaker_07
Yeah, like an emergency bypass. So it always rings, even though I don't have a ringtone. I have the phone never on, just when they call. Okay. Yeah, I need to figure out how to do that. So apologies. Mine's just never on.
00:09:23 Speaker_08
Well, if we become friends, text me. I do. Yeah, we don't need to talk on the phone.
00:09:27 Speaker_07
Yeah, but I can give you an emergency override, like a bypass. So if there's something that really bothers you, you just call me. If I'm in a really bad situation.
00:09:34 Speaker_04
I'd be careful. I'd be careful with giving him that. Also, you can't ignore calls then. If Kristen calls. You can't say, oh, I didn't get it.
00:09:42 Speaker_08
No, what I got to figure out is how to put it on her phone. Cause she doesn't ever, ever answer. But what I think happened is I was asking you about your parents' divorce and Susie was always there.
00:09:51 Speaker_08
And then she hit a button to call to interrupt that question. Cause she's like, Oh, Toto is not going to want to talk about that. No, I talk openly about it. I know. You're wonderful. Because this is who I am. Yes.
00:10:00 Speaker_08
This is later in the conversation, but I'll say you and I have a blessing. We're big enough and we fit the role enough that it affords us a willingness to be vulnerable in a way men have a hard time doing. And I think it's a luxury. Yeah.
00:10:14 Speaker_08
If I had a different life, it would be much harder for me. So I recognize it is easier for me than someone else.
00:10:19 Speaker_07
And we need to speak up about it because people look up to us and they think we're not vulnerable. I had these moments where I felt inadequate and I've had somebody telling me back in the day, I have what you have.
00:10:30 Speaker_07
and I suffer but I'm still successful that would have given me a lot of hope and I didn't have hope at times. Yeah in your teens and this happens but mom and dad separated so that was separate from the diagnosis.
00:10:40 Speaker_07
That was related to the failure of the company I think my dad made my mother sign some collateral and she got a house like an apartment building from her dad for the marriage and that was gone plus a credit.
00:10:53 Speaker_07
So that was already my father was very ill, didn't know anymore what was right and wrong. And then she said, trust is very difficult to build and it's gone. So that's where they separated. But I have no bad memory about the separation, to be honest.
00:11:06 Speaker_07
They never had a bad word with each other. They kept that away from us. It was more seeing my mother struggle to make a living for us and my father not having had any money anymore.
00:11:16 Speaker_07
And that went so bad that I saw people coming to him asking basically to empty your pockets. That was tough for a young man.
00:11:22 Speaker_03
Do you have brothers and sisters?
00:11:23 Speaker_07
I have a younger sister, but she's not so young anymore. She's two years my junior.
00:11:27 Speaker_08
The thing I thought of, and this is a tricky question, but my dad got diagnosed with small cell carcinoma in August and he was dead on January 1st. So it was like a three month thing.
00:11:40 Speaker_08
And then my stepdad got prostate cancer and that was like a two and a half, three year thing. And I'll say the stress of having a loved one have a condition that you're not sure when and is. I found the experience with my dad much easier to process.
00:11:55 Speaker_08
It's like, okay, this is happening. Let's spend the next few months together. I'll clear my schedule. I'll take you to your appointments.
00:12:00 Speaker_08
I find it very hard and the notion that your dad had this condition for seven years and you're just kind of like, where are we at? What's going to happen? That feels very stressful. And then a guilt when you feel relieved it's over.
00:12:11 Speaker_07
Exactly. First of all, sorry to hear about your dad and your stepdad. A terrible guilt because it was at the point that his life was miserable and I saw it and then You lose the connection, you lose respect.
00:12:24 Speaker_07
And it came to a point that when he died, I think today in hindsight it was better for him, but I thought it's better for all of us. And the guilty feeling that you have was so bad and it's something that I only processed in the last few years.
00:12:36 Speaker_07
Well, you're a kid. Yeah. So you can't, in a way, analyze the feelings that maybe you could because you were an adult. But for me, that guilty feeling of thinking it's better for my dad to be gone. Well, you kind of wish it be over for them.
00:12:48 Speaker_07
And myself and my sister. So I think also we were So close, I remember being on his deathbed and obviously you're not seeing your father anymore, like the strong personality that people talk about.
00:13:00 Speaker_07
And these memories for a 15 year old and a 13 year old sister, I'm not sure I would do the same, me as a parent. Yeah.
00:13:08 Speaker_04
Well, you're mourning twice. First, you mourn them with the diagnosis, but they're dead essentially before they're dead because they changed completely.
00:13:16 Speaker_08
Yes.
00:13:17 Speaker_04
It's hard to deal with. They've been gone for a while.
00:13:19 Speaker_08
But to me, that was a huge gift because I had so much resentment. They got divorced when I was three. He had a great life. We lived kind of poorly. I had a lot of judgment of him. And there was the moment where I looked at him and you're right.
00:13:31 Speaker_08
He was not the big demonstrative alpha male. He was a little boy on a bed. And I thought, Oh, yeah. He's like a little boy. And he's always been a little boy. And I'm still a little boy. And you never stop being a little boy.
00:13:43 Speaker_08
And it actually dissolves so much resentment to see. He's just a human that's scared. That was weirdly a gift.
00:13:49 Speaker_07
Yeah, I think as an adult, it's a gift, but not at 15. No, not at 15. There were certainly memories that are hugely difficult to digest as a kid. And as I said, you know, I'm 52 today.
00:14:00 Speaker_07
I would say that I probably processed that in the last five years only, that I look at it and feel more calm and reassured in my own existence.
00:14:07 Speaker_07
Only now I have found peace with him dying over so many years and also with my mother because my mother wasn't present. at all because she needed to earn the money and she needed to look after herself and protect herself.
00:14:19 Speaker_07
So my sister and I were at home, we had a Polish housekeeper that was good for the language actually but she wasn't there and now she's 79, she's not well and she says to me I wasn't a good mother and I say I forgive you because I know how difficult it was to be at home and see the suffering but at the end you're also responsible of how I am today.
00:14:39 Speaker_07
I'd rather as a kid not having trauma, but I'm 52 years and if you ask me whether I'd rather be who I am today or white elephant, I'd rather be who I am today.
00:14:48 Speaker_08
I think that's the weird piece you have to come to with your past, which is if you're lucky enough to end up somewhere you're happy with, as you have and I have, and I have kids I love so much and have a great wife.
00:14:57 Speaker_08
I go, well, fuck, I wouldn't tinker with anything because I still want to end up right here. So I got to understand and process that it was hurtful and these things happen and also have a weird gratitude for it and like it too.
00:15:08 Speaker_08
Exactly my thoughts and my feelings. Did something prompt five years ago? Why five years ago did you start confronting that?
00:15:14 Speaker_07
I think that I was so busy in my life to get things done. And I always had that anxiety about failure. I said it jokingly that I'm a half empty glass person. I always stare into the abyss. Everything could be finished tomorrow.
00:15:32 Speaker_07
The racing could be ending, the winning ends, the money could be all gone. My wife leaves me for the hairdresser. I don't believe that anymore, by the way. It'll be her trainer, not her hairdresser. There is always dangers.
00:15:45 Speaker_07
And only in the last few years, I thought if everything was to end today, I could go with a good feeling. You're there.
00:15:53 Speaker_08
Absolutely. If I were you and I set out on this journey first as a race car driver, then pivoting and becoming an investor in teams, then becoming a team principal and a CEO and having all this success.
00:16:04 Speaker_08
Five years ago, you would have been on your six constructors championship in a row. And if I were you, I would go, wow, we did absolutely everything we wanted to do. Where's the elation? Why aren't I whole? Why don't I feel content?
00:16:20 Speaker_08
Why am I still scared?
00:16:22 Speaker_07
You're absolutely right. But I lost that anxiety. I'm thinking I have a wonderful relationship with my children. Like you said about your relationships, I have the best wife that I can imagine. I have done what I wanted to do.
00:16:37 Speaker_07
And that's why I would have peace if I would be dying today. And that would have been in a way been destiny. But then there is a certain risk that's coming with that too. Contentment. And that's not good. It's scary, right? No, I don't want that.
00:16:49 Speaker_07
Because you have no fuel. I wouldn't say no fuel, but there is this moment where my anger is gone. So I need to proactively condition myself and say, what are my objectives?
00:17:00 Speaker_07
And in 2020, when the music stopped for someone that likes the music and doesn't like time,
00:17:06 Speaker_07
I had a year that I was really bad mentally and I had to reflect, do I want to go back as an investor and look at multiple companies and be on the board, see businesses and technology that interest me and the variety of it?
00:17:18 Speaker_07
Or do I want to consider as a racing person as a basically a one trick pony? And I came to the conclusion that I found my niche between business finance and the love for the stopwatch and the honesty for the stopwatch.
00:17:33 Speaker_07
And at that moment, I really proactively intellectually decided there is more to do and more to win and more to conquer. But it is more with an emotion that is less anxious about success. But the drive isn't gone. It's channeled in a different way.
00:17:48 Speaker_08
OK, great. So this is my huge fear, is that my motivation for the last 49 years has been, you're lazy, you're a piece of shit, you're a failure, you're an embarrassment. And now get up and do things to disprove that theory.
00:18:04 Speaker_08
And so the great fear of mine is, can I write from a place of happiness and love? Can I act from a place of happiness and love and not fear? Could I win from a place that's not fear based? And that's a leap of faith. I'm like midway there.
00:18:18 Speaker_08
I'm not where you're at. I don't fully trust that without some bit of cancerous rumination, I'll actually be motivated. But you have two years to, you know, get over this.
00:18:30 Speaker_07
And those two years were important for me. But it's that I think imposter syndrome and all of the characteristics you mentioned, they have softened. They haven't completely gone away, but they're conditioned in a healthier way.
00:18:43 Speaker_07
There's many people that don't want to go to a psychiatrist because they fear that they're losing their ability. Artists, writers, people that have a lot of creativity that don't want to go to sort out their mental problems.
00:18:55 Speaker_07
They don't want to go on medication. Because they believe this is a huge fuel of their creativity. Because how often do we actually spend time in thinking about our objectives?
00:19:05 Speaker_07
And the analogy we are having in the team is being between the dance floor and the balcony. We are on the dance floor. Most of the time that is in action. When are we going actually on the balcony?
00:19:16 Speaker_07
And looking down what's happening on the dance floor and thinking about what's my long term strategy here? What is it that I believe I should recalibrate?
00:19:26 Speaker_08
A lot of these different tech gurus have this built in moment in their schedule for some people. It's like four days a month or it's a week a month or it's a month a year. Bill Gates is reading. Yeah.
00:19:37 Speaker_08
takes that stack of books and he sits in his little cabin and he allows himself to stop staring at the thing in front of him and get that kind of wider perspective. You can't really do that. Or how would you do that? Because you have 23 races and then
00:19:52 Speaker_08
But in the offseason, it's maybe even more work because you have the next iteration of the car coming out next year. So how on earth do you build in that time? So I do it actively.
00:20:02 Speaker_07
For me, for example, flying in an airplane and I do 600 hours a year for whatever reason. I don't enjoy watching movies. I don't enjoy listening to music. I like reading and reading gives me a stimulation. of thinking about those things.
00:20:19 Speaker_07
So I stay at the ceiling. I do it in the mornings. I take my time in the mornings for myself and lying in bed for another 20 minutes allows me to do these things. So it's actually activities that run in a way on autopilot.
00:20:31 Speaker_07
And I don't know if you know that there is a scientific explanation to that. Why do you have your best ideas in the shower, in the toilets, while shaving in the car? Because your brain is actually active, but it's on autopilot.
00:20:44 Speaker_07
You're doing all of that. So that is why we have those creative moments. And for me, it's also lying in bed or it's flying in an airplane. I think a lot about those things and I write them down.
00:20:53 Speaker_08
That makes sense. And I relate to that. I need a certain level of distraction where you're right. The subconscious is driving the car. I'm not actually driving the car. It's just happening. And that's the perfect amount of.
00:21:04 Speaker_08
activity that allows me to wander in my head because I'm doing something. So I'm kind of liberated to do that.
00:21:10 Speaker_07
But we're all different, interestingly, because when I'm having an activity that is where I need to put some force in, for example, you know, going to the gym, you're doing a lot of that. Thank you for noticing.
00:21:19 Speaker_07
or going for a walk to do my 10,000 steps. For me, this is like a meditation in the activity itself. I'm not capable of thinking about anything else.
00:21:29 Speaker_07
But Susie, when she goes on her 20,000 steps a day or in the gym, she comes back with lots of stuff that she writes down. So we're all different. True.
00:21:37 Speaker_03
Do you think the fear of failure being so intense is because you saw your dad lose everything?
00:21:43 Speaker_08
My dad lost everything too, by the way. My dad, like, was rich, then poor. Filed bankruptcy three times before he died.
00:21:48 Speaker_04
There wasn't a consistency there. You saw everything go away. So I can imagine that makes you feel like anything can go away at any moment.
00:21:56 Speaker_07
For sure. That is a scar. There was like a perfect storm because they tried to have me in a private school in a French school in Vienna. So I saw the rich kids. And you're not a poor kid in a poor environment where everything is pretty normal.
00:22:08 Speaker_07
But you're seeing the rich kids and you're seeing them going on their fancy holidays. I remember exactly that moment, Christmas holidays, last day of school.
00:22:16 Speaker_07
And there is these friends of mine that got into the car with one of the dads and they went off skiing, the three of them together. And I don't. The suffering of that very moment is still so much in me.
00:22:27 Speaker_03
Yeah.
00:22:28 Speaker_08
Do you know what that fucking garage is all about? Is that I wanted the cool BMX bike. Kids had the cool BMX bike, the GT, the Haro, the Hutch, and I didn't. Compensation mechanism. Yeah, and I wanted that fucking bicycle, and this is the bicycle.
00:22:43 Speaker_08
I'm still healing the wound of the bicycle.
00:22:44 Speaker_04
I know, but the problem is you get the bicycle, and then it doesn't work. No, exactly. It doesn't work. It's the fantasy. Or you go skiing, and it doesn't work. Then you're like, well, now what?
00:22:52 Speaker_07
It does. Did it work for you? It 100% does for me. Wow.
00:22:55 Speaker_03
Wow, I'm jealous of that.
00:22:58 Speaker_07
100% does for me.
00:22:59 Speaker_03
You're like, I'm fixed now.
00:23:01 Speaker_07
No, not completely fixed, but I know there was these things I wanted to tick.
00:23:04 Speaker_07
There is this nice skiing place in Austria where everybody went and it was very expensive and it's actually a small village and there is nothing particular, but having a place there was a life target and I have now.
00:23:16 Speaker_07
Actually, there's probably better places. Then also going through this car and bike motion. I remember my dad only had a very, very old BMW, 10 years old, and it was damaged, but he didn't have the money to actually repair it.
00:23:27 Speaker_07
And a friend's dad had, I don't know if you remember, a Mercedes AMG 560 SEC. Oh baby. That's exactly down your line when I look at your garage.
00:23:38 Speaker_08
The problem with those cars is impossible to work on, but continue. I love them. That's Miami Vice. That's Miami Vice.
00:23:43 Speaker_07
Ground effects. Exactly. And when I showed these cars to Susie or to my children, I said, that was my dream. They said, seriously? Yeah, it looks awful. Porsche Turbo, you know, the three liters, the early ones. How about a Rough 911, R-U-F-F? Roof.
00:24:02 Speaker_07
It's a German company. It wasn't a big thing back in the day. These tuners didn't exist in that form, but Black 911 Turbo, three liter, four gearbox, the Widowmaker.
00:24:14 Speaker_08
930, that was exactly it. Yeah, slant nose. Oh, baby. I do think when you don't have a dad around for some of these pivotal rites of passage, you have to go get a lot of these exterior things to comfort yourself that you are becoming a man.
00:24:29 Speaker_08
Do you relate to any of that stuff? The masculinity portion?
00:24:32 Speaker_07
No, the masculinity portion doesn't relate to me. When my father got ill, I had that feeling. I took so much responsibility on for my sister that I wanted to be an adult. I wanted to be in control of my life.
00:24:45 Speaker_07
I didn't want to be embarrassed for my parents anymore. And that attitude of being the man in the house happened when I was very young. So I never struggled with that.
00:24:55 Speaker_07
It was more about the things that I saw from parents of my friends that were successful This is what I wanted to achieve, like a Ferrari car collection, for example.
00:25:06 Speaker_07
Or one of my closest friends today, and I love him to bits, his dad was the president of the local football club. There was this famous sports show on Monday evening, which was called Sport am Montag, which was Sport on Monday.
00:25:20 Speaker_07
And it was prime time and only the best people were there. And I remember him being there and I thought, one day I would like to be in this sports show because that means success. Wow.
00:25:29 Speaker_07
And then these things happen and you realize they are so nice because you kind of say to yourself, I can't believe it. I'm there now.
00:25:38 Speaker_03
Yeah. Full circle.
00:25:40 Speaker_07
Full circle. And for you, it works. For me, that works.
00:25:43 Speaker_08
Yeah. That's great.
00:25:44 Speaker_03
That is great.
00:25:45 Speaker_08
I think that's kind of rare. Is it? I think so. And I don't know what part is American and what part is your culture and being European, but I don't know America, you know, it's like do this, make this, be this, be special, be unique, be individual.
00:25:58 Speaker_08
And then you do those things. And what you kind of feel like is, Oh yeah. And all I've accomplished is I've kind of alienated myself from everyone.
00:26:04 Speaker_08
It doesn't feel as fun as I thought it was going to feel like you start questioning the whole promise of it, but I'm delighted that's not happening for you.
00:26:11 Speaker_07
Maybe because, and you will think that's counterintuitive by being in Formula One, I have never felt, well, that's actually not true.
00:26:19 Speaker_07
I wanted to say I've never felt surpassing people, but what I felt was anger against all the people that let my dad down. So at the beginning it was like, I'm going to show you, and they were obviously a generation above me, but that was important.
00:26:32 Speaker_08
Really quick, who are you going to show? Was there a list of actual people or is this an idea of people?
00:26:37 Speaker_07
No, there was a list of actual people that didn't respect my father, but that was the early years of my professional life. When I started to think about it, I'm actually trying to meet my own expectations.
00:26:49 Speaker_07
And you know, that sports show on Monday was my own expectations. I didn't want to be on telly because I wanted to show that I'm there. It was only for me.
00:26:57 Speaker_07
And it is still today when I'm not having the success and not achieving the objectives that I set myself. That is where I feel humiliated towards myself. Interestingly, not anybody else. Right.
00:27:10 Speaker_07
I'm in an absolute competition against myself, not relative competition to others.
00:27:15 Speaker_08
I completely relate to that. Yeah, as I say, you shouldn't ever compare yourself to someone else. You should only compare yourself to previous versions of yourself.
00:27:24 Speaker_08
The things I didn't fantasize about that I've gotten, because I've gotten a lot of stuff I wasn't even bold enough to fantasize about.
00:27:30 Speaker_08
And those things are really fun because I didn't have a fantasy and an expectation of how I was going to feel and how much I was going to like myself or what kind of self-esteem I would have. I didn't have anything built on top of this fantasy.
00:27:43 Speaker_08
So the things that have happened that were unexpected, now those I really can enjoy. I don't want to downplay how much joy I do get out of this crazy privileged existence I've had.
00:27:52 Speaker_07
And it's good because you're,
00:27:54 Speaker_07
50 years old and you're actively enjoying things, experiences, material things and there is many people who don't and for them it's just the next thing and the next thing and they come to the conclusion that it's actually not what they expected and then you're in a vicious circle of if you can afford to buy more and more and more and seek other relationships you know suddenly your marriage is not good anymore because you've seen the next was about to say blonde but obviously
00:28:21 Speaker_07
That's not what I meant. It's a cliché.
00:28:24 Speaker_08
Five foot tall Indian princess. Of course.
00:28:28 Speaker_03
No, I know what you mean. Next bombshell.
00:28:30 Speaker_07
Seriously, you're very attractive.
00:28:32 Speaker_03
Oh, thank you. That's so nice.
00:28:37 Speaker_07
But always the next thing, you know, the grass is always green on the other side. And that's not what I have.
00:28:42 Speaker_03
Yeah.
00:28:45 Speaker_05
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
00:28:51 Speaker_01
Hello, ladies and gerbs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tiz the Grinch Holiday Podcast.
00:28:58 Speaker_01
After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire.
00:29:08 Speaker_01
You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all.
00:29:20 Speaker_01
Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out.
00:29:34 Speaker_01
Follow Tiz the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
00:29:51 Speaker_00
They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.
00:30:07 Speaker_00
When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, There were many questions surrounding his death.
00:30:15 Speaker_00
The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.
00:30:27 Speaker_00
But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.
00:30:38 Speaker_00
Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
00:30:57 Speaker_08
Now, I do have some questions about how you got to where you ended up. There's a couple gaps in what I can learn about you that are curious to me. Like one is you go at 18 and you see Formula One or you go to some racing. No, not Formula One. Okay.
00:31:09 Speaker_08
But you go to some racing. Yeah. And you go, I want to do this. Now, 18 is too late for you to do that. Much. We know this. You had to be karting at six. So how on earth did you end up racing Formula Ford without the karting background?
00:31:23 Speaker_07
So I didn't have an interest for motorsport. I had an interest in road cars. Because of my past, it was quite disappointing to find out that my first car my mother bought, that obviously didn't have any money, was a Volkswagen Beetle.
00:31:35 Speaker_07
It ended against a tree six months later and I wouldn't say I was disappointed.
00:31:42 Speaker_04
You manifested that?
00:31:44 Speaker_07
I manifested that, yeah. Just enough horsepower to crash into a tree. Barely enough. So there is
00:31:50 Speaker_07
a famous road through the Viennese forest around the city which is called the Höhenstraße and they had in the 50s, 60s, 70s a very famous race there because it's cobblestone and when it's wet that starts to be tricky. So that was my road.
00:32:04 Speaker_07
It's about I would say 10 kilometers, very twisty, very fast and I raced with my friends there with the beetle and one day in the rain I woke up on a Saturday morning thought it's raining it's great I'm gonna take the beetle onto that Höhenstraße, that road
00:32:17 Speaker_07
And bang, off I went against the tree, the steering wheel even broke.
00:32:21 Speaker_04
Oh my god.
00:32:22 Speaker_07
Wow. That was crazy stuff, which we did back in the day. I rented a Porsche and there was a straight with, I don't know, a kilometer with a huge bump in the middle.
00:32:30 Speaker_07
And each of us was trying with the others in the passenger seat of the maximum speed we could achieve before braking for the next corner.
00:32:37 Speaker_06
Oh my God.
00:32:38 Speaker_07
Like 240 kilometers an hour. That's crazy. But back to your question. I just want you to know I've been in a lot of those passenger seats and I hate it. Yeah. But as a kid, you almost don't realize the risk. You're in another zone.
00:32:51 Speaker_07
It's like you talking about your daughter. You want her to ride a motocross bike rather than sitting on the back and crashing with somebody who wants to show off. A 16 year old trying to impress her. Yeah. To be masculine. Masculine, yes.
00:33:03 Speaker_07
And his masculinity journey. Yeah. Exactly. For me it was, I didn't have the sport on my radar and then I visited a track in Germany, the Nürburgring. I've driven it, so fun.
00:33:12 Speaker_08
You have a record there? I have a record there, yeah. In a 911 RS? Yeah, it was the big fat 911.
00:33:19 Speaker_07
Yes, GT2 RS, whatever the racing version was, but the one with the most powerful engine, naturally aspirated engine. Do you remember your time? It was a 703.
00:33:29 Speaker_07
But the track was different because it wasn't the new asphalt, so it was much bumpier and riskier. And that record was, I think, 7.05, but crazy dangerous. There's nothing like it. No, there's nothing like it.
00:33:40 Speaker_07
And I was already befriended with Niki Lauda, who had his crash in Formula One there. That's why he burned. And he said, why did he do this? He's so stupid, so dangerous. Nobody cares what you're doing. I was in a bit of a midlife crisis.
00:33:53 Speaker_07
And so that was on a preparation lap. The car was already feeling old. The tires were falling apart. And then I said to myself, and that is the amateur approach. I'm going to give it one try whilst already knowing that the car had an issue.
00:34:06 Speaker_07
And that one try, I was up 15 seconds. So it would have been a 6.40 or 6.35. Whoa. Anything sub seven is, It's very fast. Today a good time is around 6.20 or so, but that was 15 years ago and the track is a completely different one as I said before.
00:34:21 Speaker_07
Parts that are flat today were never flat back in the day. So the car felt odd and I thought I'm just going to finish the lap and then had a puncture. Oh.
00:34:29 Speaker_07
In the most dangerous part, you know, the foxhole where it's going down and there's a big compression. 289 kilometers an hour, which is how much? It's like 175. Really? Only?
00:34:42 Speaker_08
300 km is 180 miles an hour. I got that pretty fucking close.
00:34:46 Speaker_07
Yeah, but you played it down. It's not 175.
00:34:51 Speaker_08
It was 170. I was off by four. Is it 179? Divide four by 175. I don't know what percentage I was off. That's less than one percent.
00:34:58 Speaker_07
Yeah, but is it 179 straight or is it?
00:35:02 Speaker_03
Wow.
00:35:05 Speaker_07
100 is important. You're right. So 180 miles an hour.
00:35:10 Speaker_08
It's too fast with the puncture.
00:35:12 Speaker_07
Yes. Right rear puncture, went off into the guardrail, went onto the roof, didn't go into the forest, into the trees, which was lucky. And I slid 250 meters and stopped.
00:35:22 Speaker_07
camera is still on I'm stopping the car it was on fumes and I'm de-plugging my radio and I'm getting out of the car and you think everything is normal and then they found me behind the guardrail with the helmet and the hands on lying on my back like I was sleeping.
00:35:40 Speaker_07
and I have no recollection of that. So in the shock with the adrenaline I got myself out of the car. No concussion? A massive concussion. So they found me there unconscious.
00:35:50 Speaker_07
They put me in the ambulance and they were taking me to the local hospital there. Oxygen on and the worrying bit was that I had an ache in my spine and I started to feel tingling in my legs. And I thought, I can't believe that. I mean, Nikki was right.
00:36:07 Speaker_07
Yeah. And I'm going into the hospital. They put me in an X-ray, an MRI, pull me out and there's a nurse and I'm saying, can you just please tell me whether my spine is damaged? And she says, I'm not authorized to give you that information.
00:36:19 Speaker_08
That's not what you want to hear.
00:36:20 Speaker_07
Nope. Nope. That means I'm going to go get someone to tell you your spine is injured. Bad news. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm still having the tingling, but obviously you then make it up also. Right now you're really feeling some tingles.
00:36:31 Speaker_08
I can't feel anything anymore. Oh my God, I can't move it.
00:36:36 Speaker_07
So the doctor comes and he said, you're fine with the spinal cord, but you have some fractures in your vertebrae, compression fractures. Whoa. I'm sorry to say, Mr. Wolf, but one of your eyes is tilting into the inside. So I had a view deviation.
00:36:52 Speaker_07
So because of the concussion, you know, when the eye does this, how do you call it in English? Cross-eyed. Cross-eyed. It was a concussion. So they got me into the Frankfurt neurology with a helicopter.
00:37:03 Speaker_07
They checked me again there and said, that is worrying and we got to keep you here. And I said, no, no, no, I don't want to go to Vienna. A friend of mine is a neurologist. So they said, well, you can't go to Vienna.
00:37:13 Speaker_07
The road is too fast and the airplane you can fly because of the pressure. So the doctor that I had in Vienna jumped into a private jet. Oh, wow. Picked me up and we flew a 10,000 feet. Oh, so you didn't have to pressurize? So I didn't have to pressure.
00:37:26 Speaker_07
Came to Vienna and then that was the diagnosis and I couldn't sleep on my back for two months because of the vertigo I got, spinning like you're fully drunk. I lost long pre-COVID smelling and tasting. The nerves were damaged.
00:37:41 Speaker_07
It came back, but everything tastes like cardboard.
00:37:44 Speaker_08
You were not with Suzy yet. 2011 you got married?
00:37:49 Speaker_07
Yes. So this is two years before Suzy. That's how I met her, the accident actually. Because she was on a fitness camp with all the other Mercedes drivers. She was an official Mercedes driver in touring cars.
00:37:58 Speaker_08
She was also a development driver for Williams for F1.
00:38:01 Speaker_07
That was later. Yeah. Okay. But she was at Mercedes fitness camp and I was a shareholder in the touring car team back in the day, but we didn't know each other. And there was a rumor between the drivers that Toto had a really bad accident.
00:38:11 Speaker_07
And they decided who would call me in a hospital and they decided Susie would call me.
00:38:16 Speaker_08
But you didn't know each other or you just in passing? In passing. And that's how we started. What did she say?
00:38:22 Speaker_07
Well, she said whether I was okay and she heard about the accident and we started talking and it was a half an hour phone call. So the accident was good.
00:38:29 Speaker_08
Can I paint a picture of how perfectly programmed Susie was to meet Toto? So Susie's dad owned a motorcycle shop in Scotland.
00:38:37 Speaker_04
Okay. She's from Scotland.
00:38:39 Speaker_08
She's Scottish. Her mom came in to buy a motorcycle. Presumably in the 60s or 50s or something early for a woman to walk in and buy a motorcycle.
00:38:48 Speaker_06
Yeah, she's cool.
00:38:49 Speaker_08
So then the owner fell in love with her.
00:38:50 Speaker_07
More the 70s. She would be pretty upset if it was the 50s or 60s. Okay, so sorry.
00:38:56 Speaker_08
Sorry Sally, you didn't mean it.
00:38:57 Speaker_07
He didn't mean it.
00:38:58 Speaker_08
I was selfishly putting her at our age. She's just not. But if your mom and dad are motorcyclists and the dad races and then you race all growing up, you're like, yeah, I recognize this. This is my dipshit dad. I think I love him.
00:39:14 Speaker_07
Exactly. And you know, he raced in the Isle of Man. No. Motorbikes. No. Yeah, absolutely. He did on like a two stroke back in the day. I don't know, but it was the Isle of Man. Fuck that.
00:39:25 Speaker_07
And that's why they got the kids into karting, because they felt that two wheels were too dangerous.
00:39:28 Speaker_03
Oh, wow.
00:39:29 Speaker_08
But you know, Susie Carding Champ, woman racer of the year multiple times, one of the only women to ever drive an F1 car, development driver at Williams. So cool. Driven in practices at F1. She's a bad MF-er.
00:39:43 Speaker_04
So your kids, there's no question, but they have to try this.
00:39:47 Speaker_07
Well, we were just talking about that. None of that for the elder ones. Benedict is 23. He studies in USC in Los Angeles. Oh, amazing. Oh, wait, your kid goes to school here? Yeah, my daughter also.
00:39:58 Speaker_08
Oh, we really should be friends then. We should be. We've got a great guest house. Okay. You saw the cars you can borrow. I know you're only legally allowed to drive that E63 wagon, but that's fine. No, I drive all your vintage cars.
00:40:09 Speaker_07
The truck would be exactly my car.
00:40:10 Speaker_08
Okay, great.
00:40:12 Speaker_07
That's exactly it. So the elder ones weren't interested at all. I remember when Benedikt was five or six, I took him to the local car track in Vienna and he said, I don't really want to do it. Can I go in the play park?
00:40:24 Speaker_07
And I thought, it's just a matter of getting him into the car and then he will love it. So I said, do a few laps. He said, three laps. Okay, three laps. So I was thinking, I'm sure it's going to go well. That's two extra laps. He only needs one. Exactly.
00:40:39 Speaker_07
He came in after three laps and he said, that's it. Can I go to the play park? And it was clear he had no appetite. But the small one is. I have a seven year old and he's really into it.
00:40:50 Speaker_08
Yeah. So I had the same experience. I tell my daughter, she already rides a dirt bike. I say to her, look, I'm not pressuring you, but if you want to race carts, I'll race old man class. We have a tour bus. Let's do this. You and I will go to races."
00:41:02 Speaker_08
And she's like, all right, let me try it. I take her to K1 and she goes out in a group. It's under 12 and there's like five boys older than her. And they're way faster than her.
00:41:11 Speaker_08
And she gets a little intimidated and she comes off and she goes, I don't want to do this. And I go. Okay. Cause I'm trying to give her the childhood I was dreaming of. And you just have to let it go. Maybe it comes back. Well, now we're 11.
00:41:26 Speaker_08
We get into the situation you were in. So we'll resume the story. You're 18. You go to this thing.
00:41:30 Speaker_07
But one second for the 11 year old. Susie and I are of the opinion that that can flip again. So Carlos Sainz, the old man, told me that Carlos had an accident when he was six or seven, they stopped racing because they all felt it was too dangerous.
00:41:45 Speaker_07
And a few years later, the son said, I want a go-kart. So I don't think that 11% is too late if a kid is really into it. True. They're more conscious. They are more able to learn. You're still building your synopsis. So I think that still goes.
00:42:00 Speaker_08
But you can at least relate. You go there, you got high hopes. This is going to be this wonderful thing we share. And they go, this isn't for me. This is your dream. And you go, okay.
00:42:08 Speaker_04
Now she's moved on to her mother's dream.
00:42:10 Speaker_08
She's doing musical theater. I would cry at either. When I watch her sing, I cry.
00:42:15 Speaker_07
And if she was winning races, I would cry. You're cheering now for musical theater and whatever they do, we start to cheer for it.
00:42:22 Speaker_08
You just want them to love something. I want them to love something. I don't care what it is. Just love something and chase it. That's all I want for you. I want you to be on the chase.
00:42:33 Speaker_07
Maybe they're too young for loving something. You know, we're putting all this pressure on the young generation. You know, you've got to have a passion and you've got to have a real interest and you've got to perform in school or at sports.
00:42:45 Speaker_07
I let my kids be. And they're looking at Instagram and everybody's perfect. Everybody's a millionaire, has a sensational body. They're on a boat all the time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so they're thinking, I'm inadequate. I'm letting them be.
00:42:58 Speaker_07
And my son, you know, he's in his senior year. He's thinking about what to do next. And I'm taking all pressure off. I say, you don't need to have a passion at 23 because I didn't. The motor racing was gone by 23.
00:43:10 Speaker_07
And I seriously didn't know what I was interested in apart from making money. Had you gone to college at all? Yeah, I was a dropout.
00:43:17 Speaker_07
When the racing ended, I also dropped out of college, said, I'm going to start working now and I want to be the youngest guy working. And I didn't care what it was. There wasn't anything like passion.
00:43:25 Speaker_07
One door opened, the other one closed and another one opened and another one opened. And I'm taking the pressure off by saying, don't look at me. This is my 52nd chapter. You're in the 23rd.
00:43:35 Speaker_08
I was more lost than you can imagine at your age. Relax, breathe. Well, then that's my next mystery. So you pivot again, you race for a while and you're good. You're not good enough to be an F1 and you're likely too big.
00:43:47 Speaker_08
As I tell everyone, the only reason I'm not racing for AMG is because I'm too tall. We would be the ones with the earrings and championships under our belts. It's a shame, no? It's rare you hear a tall guy complain about being tall. Too tall, yeah.
00:44:02 Speaker_08
Poor us. We all try to be small. My shoulders are just too wide.
00:44:06 Speaker_03
Oh, no.
00:44:08 Speaker_08
So see, biceps, you know, the biceps would be a real problem. But you pivot and you get into business. And as I understand it, as the lore suggests, you start raising money for startups or tech, internet, that's kind of new-ish.
00:44:22 Speaker_08
There's a lot of opportunities. And what you start doing is going to companies and saying, I will help raise money for you, but I want some equity. Exactly. Why the fuck did they trust you to do that?
00:44:31 Speaker_08
You didn't have any equity of your own to bring to the table, I can't imagine.
00:44:35 Speaker_07
So my friend and business partner since 30 years, Rene, was saying exactly that to me back in the day. Why the fuck should they give you equity? You don't deserve it. And what do you know about IPOs?
00:44:49 Speaker_06
Right.
00:44:50 Speaker_07
So I still went there and for whatever reason convinced them and said, there is no downside for you. If I'm not raising the money for you or we're not IPO-ing your company, then you're not giving any shares to me.
00:45:01 Speaker_08
You're like an agent, kind of.
00:45:02 Speaker_07
If it works out, give me 10%. Exactly. That was my selling story. And it worked.
00:45:07 Speaker_08
Okay. Have you started to acknowledge the gift you and I were given? This has hit me over the last five years. As things have been explained to me and I've changed my opinions on things, I was brought home to a single white trailer.
00:45:19 Speaker_08
A ton of violent stepdads, addiction all through the family. It was a rough go. So when I heard white privilege, I was like, what privilege did I have? Sure, some white kids have a lot of privilege, but I didn't have any. I was stuck on that.
00:45:32 Speaker_08
And then I had this moment of clarity where I was like, well, I was a fully functioning addict for 10 years. I drove around the city all the time with Coke in my car. I was drunk half the time. I interacted with police.
00:45:44 Speaker_08
And I went, oh, that's the privilege. If I were black, I would be in prison for the rest of my life. End of story. I would be shot. I didn't talk to police with the right amount of respect. There's no way.
00:45:54 Speaker_08
And I was like, OK, yeah, I do have a ton of privilege. I've just now come to own the fact that being 6'2 is a lot of it.
00:46:01 Speaker_08
I've directed movies, I've gone into studios and said, give me $30 million, you can trust me, I'll lead this group of 100 people into this end zone you believe I can do. And a lot of it is I'm just tall.
00:46:12 Speaker_04
It looks like confidence.
00:46:13 Speaker_08
Yes.
00:46:13 Speaker_07
So first of all, now we know each other for 45 minutes. You have aura, charisma, you're convincing, you're intelligent. That are the USPs. Or this is your character.
00:46:25 Speaker_07
Maybe it gives you credibility of being tall, but I have seen pretty successful men that were tiny. Christian Horner. Yeah. He's more square. But I think he's laughing about that. I like where I interviewed him. I had a good time.
00:46:41 Speaker_07
Well, let's not go too far, but I think he can laugh about it. So there is tiny men that I have met who were very powerful and successful. Look at Bernie Ecclestone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:46:50 Speaker_07
Well, F1's littered with tiny men who are powerful and successful. The drivers. Yeah, many that are failed drivers and saw the humiliation of not being good enough. There's not many successful drivers that made a success out of a management career. Yeah.
00:47:01 Speaker_07
I think you're reducing yourself to your height or to your physique. I think it's in the mix. I think it's one of the gifts I was given.
00:47:08 Speaker_03
Well, I think it's made you feel confident. It's had that impact. And so then you exude confidence and that's compelling to people.
00:47:15 Speaker_04
Yeah.
00:47:15 Speaker_08
Chicken or egg, I guess.
00:47:16 Speaker_04
Yeah, exactly. I will say with the privilege thing, though, I think privilege is not the right word. I mean, it's the easy thing that's been spread around, but it's more benefit of the doubt.
00:47:26 Speaker_03
It's like white benefit of the doubt. really is what it is.
00:47:28 Speaker_07
I'm going to assume this kid's not high on drugs. I think if you go back to a white trailer and you have abuse and alcohol, you had a rough upbringing and that is part of your trauma and your humiliation that shaped you.
00:47:41 Speaker_07
Addiction certainly is a self-destruction phenomenon, in my opinion, or because it's just fun.
00:47:48 Speaker_08
Have you had any pull towards that?
00:47:49 Speaker_07
What's your relationship with alcohol? Obviously everybody was into alcohol at a certain stage. That worked really well for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it works, it's fun. Exactly. So I was never into drugs in my school. Everybody would smoke joints.
00:48:02 Speaker_07
I didn't smoke any cigarettes. Everybody smoked cigarettes as well. I felt that it never worked. Obviously you got munchkins and you were giggling a lot. But I felt it doesn't work for me. But there was an incident.
00:48:14 Speaker_07
We were in an apartment of a friend of mine, 16 years old. So the whole purpose of the Saturday nights was smoking a water pipe or whatever. So we did all of that, didn't give me a lot.
00:48:23 Speaker_07
And then I left the apartment and walked about 10 minutes to the subway station. Down in the subway station and you know, there's these yellow lines where you wait for the metro to come. And I stood there, realized I didn't have any shoes on.
00:48:37 Speaker_07
So I'm walking back into the apartment, ringing at the door, this stoned friend of mine opens the door and I'm saying, I forgot my shoes. And that made their night, they were laughing it off. So it had an effect. But I was too scared of the rest.
00:48:53 Speaker_07
I was already mentally fragile and I was scared that it would leave me in a dark place. That's why I never dived into it. But we tried a lot.
00:49:02 Speaker_08
Oh, you know, another reason we might not be seeing eye to eye on the height thing is yours came really late, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a big distinction. I've been this size since I was 12. Okay.
00:49:12 Speaker_07
No, with me, it was catastrophic. You know, I was 180, which is six foot and my weight was on the pounds. So that was pretty bad. That was me in high school. We weren't very attractive for the girls.
00:49:26 Speaker_08
No, I had a huge nose, a terrible haircut. I was so skinny and tall. It was rough. Same for me. So more humiliation. Do you identify with being handsome? Like when people tell you you're handsome, do you accept that that's reality?
00:49:37 Speaker_08
Or do you still think, nah, I think you're confused? I think you're confused. You too? Isn't that wild?
00:49:42 Speaker_03
Yeah, me too.
00:49:43 Speaker_08
I'm like, no, no, I'm an ugly duckling from high school.
00:49:45 Speaker_07
No one liked me. But that's maybe why you're working out. You're trying to compensate that because you're really not believing in that. Yeah, exactly. And then I don't want to look at myself too much because that is vain. Yeah. And narcissistic.
00:49:56 Speaker_07
But we still do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:49:59 Speaker_06
We're humans.
00:50:00 Speaker_08
I look at you enough. I follow Susie's Instagram and she's really generous. There'll be pictures of you wakeboarding, pictures of you holding the kid over your head on the beach. She's helping us out.
00:50:10 Speaker_07
But she would never post like a swim trunk photo for her. That's ridiculous. And I'm a grown up man and I shouldn't do the Instagram thing of erasing drivers showing off.
00:50:20 Speaker_03
She's keeping you humble.
00:50:22 Speaker_07
She does and you know we have fun at home when you're in front of the mirror and you're doing some stupid posing. And she says, that's really turning me off. Don't do that.
00:50:31 Speaker_03
I'm glad you have her. That's good.
00:50:34 Speaker_07
We learned pretty early that our family life is only good if our marriage is good. So when you look at the way she talks about herself, number one is wife, number two is being a mother. And that's very unusual. And the career comes third.
00:50:50 Speaker_07
So she would say, I want to have my own career, but if I had to compromise on number one and number two, I wouldn't compromise. Nor I. Nor me. I wouldn't do it either. She's such a good manager or entrepreneur.
00:51:03 Speaker_07
I think she could do much more and she could base herself in London or Salk. And she says, I don't want that.
00:51:09 Speaker_07
And I'm saying to her, you know, if you were to have a career in motorsport and you were conflicted with me, I would step out of an executive role. It's anyway a lot at the moment and become a dormant shareholder.
00:51:21 Speaker_07
But she says, let's look at the big picture here. I think we got a rely on you.
00:51:25 Speaker_08
You have to be realistic about who can do what. There's been moments in our marriage where we should prioritize her career. It's generating much more money. And then there's been times where mine's generating more money. So we got to prioritize mine.
00:51:35 Speaker_08
Absolutely.
00:51:36 Speaker_07
And I was also put off, you know, when you following this cliche of being with a model or... I'm embarrassed for those guys.
00:51:43 Speaker_08
Yeah, me too. I see them and I go, where's the personality? Where's the challenge? This is embarrassing for you. But I think you need to go through that.
00:51:50 Speaker_07
First of all, they're never used alone because they seek recognition as well. If a girl stares at her own pictures on the computer, that's a warning sign for me. Staring too much. Yes, yes. There's a healthy version.
00:52:05 Speaker_04
You say that all the time about not wanting models, but you did try it. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:52:10 Speaker_08
I attempted to raise my own self-esteem through other women. And I didn't like myself anymore when I looked in their mirror and I was over. I was like, oh, this doesn't work. I can't absorb their high status. I'm trying to, but I can't.
00:52:24 Speaker_08
I'm not following that cliche.
00:52:26 Speaker_07
And when I see men like you say, I said, what are you thinking? A friend of mine, he got together with this beautiful lady and he was very famous and she left him now. And Susie was very pragmatic to him. He said, what did you expect?
00:52:41 Speaker_08
What did you think was at the end of this? Exactly. For people who don't know a lot about F1, and obviously this podcast is largely women and not F1 fans, although we've turned a lot of people into F1. Danny Ricardo.
00:52:51 Speaker_03
Yeah, we love him.
00:52:52 Speaker_08
Daniel and I are really good friends and he's been on a bunch of times. I wear his merchandise. Enchanté. He brings me that stuff.
00:52:58 Speaker_03
It's great. Yeah, I love it.
00:53:00 Speaker_08
Super cool. He has a very great eye. He's a wonderful dude.
00:53:04 Speaker_03
Talk about charm. Oh, yeah.
00:53:06 Speaker_07
And he's always so positive.
00:53:08 Speaker_03
Yes.
00:53:08 Speaker_07
How this ended is a real shame. How they didn't give him the platform because he's done so, so well. But I don't think it's the end of his career, the style that he has with his fashion collection.
00:53:19 Speaker_03
Oh, he's going to be fine.
00:53:20 Speaker_07
He's going to be fine for sure.
00:53:22 Speaker_08
So for people don't know, Formula One is 23 races and it's all over the world. And not only is it all over the world, it is not planned with any seeming logic.
00:53:31 Speaker_08
So it's like you'll be in the Middle East one race and then the very next race you're in, you're Then you're in the US, then you're in Asia. You live seven, eight, nine months of the year, weekly adjusting your sleep schedule by 12 hours sometimes.
00:53:44 Speaker_08
I don't know how that's manageable. How many miles a year do you fly? I don't know miles, but it's about 600 hours. How are you managing your sleep? What is your routine? I want to hear about how you exercise. You've got a gorgeous physique.
00:53:56 Speaker_08
Oh, it's gorgeous. No, it's gorgeous. Especially considering your schedule. I've talked about it with my friend, Charlie, who owns a CrossFit gym. He is an Adonis.
00:54:06 Speaker_08
And we both go, the other route to go would be Toto, which is like, this guy's clearly an athlete. He's not bulky, but he's lean. It's a look. That's what Monica, that's what everyone likes.
00:54:17 Speaker_03
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:18 Speaker_08
That's preferred. This is for other guys.
00:54:20 Speaker_03
Yeah. That's a man to man thing.
00:54:22 Speaker_08
Yes, yes. Still insecurities from junior high.
00:54:25 Speaker_03
Yeah, exactly.
00:54:26 Speaker_07
I think he has a more intellectual anger if you're not too bulky.
00:54:30 Speaker_08
But you're not bulky either. What do you do for your physical fitness, for your diet? Anytime I learned something, we did the same thing. I loved it. One was, I eat the exact same meal every single day.
00:54:39 Speaker_08
But I want to hear about what you eat, how you deal with your sleep, and what's your exercise routine, and what is your kind of mental health approach? to the highest pressure job someone could have.
00:54:49 Speaker_07
So let's start with the last one because that's most important. I am more at risk of a bore out than a burnout. That sounds like stresses where I'm most comfortable, but it is. But unfortunately it's only a coping mechanism.
00:55:03 Speaker_07
I would love to sit on a stool in a coffee shop in Greece or Sicily and not do anything and read a newspaper, but I can't. My mind is too busy. The more pressure I have, the better I feel. That's my real comfort zone.
00:55:18 Speaker_07
I had to take decisions at the age of eight. Yeah, right. I never think about it. I go in a restaurant, I look at the menu, it takes 10 seconds. So I only wear the same clothes. Louis thinks about me, I'm the most boring fashion guy.
00:55:31 Speaker_04
Well, he's very fashionable.
00:55:33 Speaker_07
You guys are fun opposites.
00:55:35 Speaker_08
Yeah, we are very fun opposites. It's a great odd couple.
00:55:40 Speaker_07
Yeah, we are. He hates everything I wear. He hates the most my shoes that are coming from a tailor in Vienna. He doesn't take any more clients and I'm showing them and he says, this is the ugliest pair of shoes that I have ever seen.
00:55:52 Speaker_07
But that's part of simplification. I wear the same trousers, the same shoes in every color, blue, beige, gray suits. It's all the same. So I'm not thinking too much when I'm packing. But in terms of the mental health,
00:56:03 Speaker_07
I think as long as I have to solve problems, I'm really in a good space. When it's calm and comfortable, I can take it for 10 days. A holiday or so, I start to not feel well at all.
00:56:14 Speaker_07
It's not like I want to be busy, but it's like I'm going into a darker place because it needs the balance. I realized we took a holiday in Sardinia, which is a beautiful place, for three days in July. season.
00:56:25 Speaker_07
And I remember floating on my back in the sea in the azure water. And I thought, I feel so great. We went to the same place for three weeks holiday. Three weeks.
00:56:35 Speaker_08
I never felt good. It got worse and worse. I tell my wife, I'm like, I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything. But every other day I got to get in the car on the island and go explore. I got to do something novel. I got to I got to meet some people.
00:56:49 Speaker_07
I don't want to necessarily speak to people, but I want to be in the middle and look at them. Yes, a piazza in Italy. Yeah. I can do that for seven hours. Exactly. For dinner. A few cappuccini.
00:57:01 Speaker_07
And look at them and think about who are they, what's their life. Is it as romantic as it looks? Yeah, exactly. But I don't want to talk with them.
00:57:10 Speaker_08
Okay, I'll do the talking.
00:57:12 Speaker_03
When you guys go on your buddy travels.
00:57:15 Speaker_07
Yeah, most of the trip. I'm listening.
00:57:17 Speaker_08
I think we're a good combo. So the mental health, when you're on the road and you are in the middle of the season, do you have a checklist?
00:57:24 Speaker_07
I tried all sorts of meditations, transcendental meditation, Ayurvedic meditation, then with a mantra, mindfulness, breathing, Jacobson, I did all of that. Doesn't work for me because it's too calm. Trying to Calm my mind doesn't work.
00:57:40 Speaker_07
I need the opposite. I need activities that stress me. That's why racing a car is so fine because there's nothing else you can think about. I like going to the gym and go ballistic so I can't breathe anymore. I'm into free diving. Oh, you are?
00:57:55 Speaker_07
Yeah, I do lots of that. Because you saw the Deep Blue, the Luc Besson movie as a kid? Yeah, Le Grand Bleu, the long version. Did you see the long version? Yes, of course. Jean Renaud. Fantastic. So I do this. I got George and Louis into free diving also.
00:58:09 Speaker_07
So what's the farthest you've gone? 35 meters? Meters. 115 feet. So I'm not using weight. It's just swimming down myself. And Netflix made quite a thing. There's an episode of George in Drive to Survive next. So we went free diving. They had a
00:58:25 Speaker_07
full camera crew, two boats, divers in the water, scuba divers to look at us and do all of the filming, mainly for George. So I'm the semi-pro and we're doing this first dive with the world champion that is coaching us.
00:58:39 Speaker_07
And the first dive is an accommodation dive. So you go five, 10 meters, your body gets used to it. So the mind says, okay, we are here in apnoea mode. We need to hold the breath and manage our energy level. So I'm doing my accommodation dive, 25 meters.
00:58:54 Speaker_07
75 feet and I'm going down at 10 meters and I feel so great, so I'm thinking I'm going to go all the way down. It's easy, I feel a little bit of a pressure in my right ear, bang, I do my eardrum. First shitty dive, the whole Netflix thing is gone.
00:59:09 Speaker_07
You look like a chump. George does his three meters, seven meters, and by the end he was at 25 as well. So yeah, that wasn't my greatest moment. But freediving is great because you can't think about anything else.
00:59:23 Speaker_08
Yeah, the exact same story, but a little different. They wanted to do a story on me for some TV show and they thought, oh, this is great. Benedict, my son.
00:59:32 Speaker_06
Oh, wonderful.
00:59:32 Speaker_08
Let's see what he's up to.
00:59:35 Speaker_07
Tell him you're in Los Feliz. Hi, I'm in a podcast, really fun one. You want to speak to the guy? Ask him if he's heard of it. Armchair expert. Armchair expert. He knows that he looked at it because I said to him, can you check out?
00:59:45 Speaker_07
Wow, Dax, you're getting everyone.
00:59:49 Speaker_08
Benedict? Oh, I'm good. This is Dax. You're going to USC? Yeah. And what are you majoring in? In business. In business. You didn't get pulled towards film and television? I don't know if I like this. I don't know if that was the right move. Oh boy.
01:00:09 Speaker_08
She's doing comps. What's your name? Hi, Rosie. We've got a whole plan laid out. Your dad's going to start spending a ton of time here in LA at my guest house. So obviously you guys will be in the mix quite a bit. You're living downtown.
01:00:22 Speaker_08
Benedict, you're doing everything wrong.
01:00:23 Speaker_03
No, no, let him be. You need to be a little
01:00:26 Speaker_08
You need to major in film directing and you need to live in Los Feliz and we gotta get you straightened out. And I know we're running out of time. This is your senior year. All right, I'm going to turn you over to your dad now.
01:00:36 Speaker_08
Your dad's getting frustrated because this is his time and not your time. Hey, nein, ich bin Konda in der Nähe von Dax. Wie viel kostet dein Pulli? Bye bye.
01:00:45 Speaker_04
That's the one phrase Dax knows.
01:00:47 Speaker_07
How much does your shirt cost? Wie viel kostet dein Pulli? Wie viel kostet dein Pulli? I'm sending them the address.
01:00:53 Speaker_08
Okay, great, great, great. Okay. You need to be stimulated. What about sleep? How on earth do you deal with that?
01:01:00 Speaker_07
Yeah. So we had a NASA doctor that gave us sleep plans and say, this is how you accommodate for jet lag. Because obviously astronauts in 24 hours, I don't know how many times they have a sunset and a sunrise.
01:01:12 Speaker_08
Every hour and a half. They're going 17,500 miles an hour around a 24,000 mile object.
01:01:17 Speaker_07
Yeah. So they need to sleep somehow. And the truth is our eyes react to daylight.
01:01:23 Speaker_07
So we were wearing shades when we took off, even if it was day in the airplane, we were eating breakfast at four o'clock in the afternoon because it was breakfast time in Japan.
01:01:32 Speaker_07
But now after many years in the sport, I changed my thinking and what I do. And that is I just don't care. You don't stress about it. I don't stress about it. I sleep wherever I can in the plane. I sleep or I'm awake.
01:01:44 Speaker_07
I'm not looking at the time zone of arrival. I arrive and it's daylight or night and I try to sleep. And if not, I'm taking a little bit of a melatonin or we have also a sleeping pill.
01:01:54 Speaker_07
If you work the next day, not the heavy stuff and it's only fall asleep pill. It's not the one that puts you into coma. Right, right.
01:02:01 Speaker_08
Or makes you get up and make a grilled cheese in the middle of the night. And not, no. Or walk to the subway with your shoes off. Yeah, and when you're like, and you can't pronounce it. I might take a second one of these. Yeah.
01:02:15 Speaker_05
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
01:02:28 Speaker_07
I was in Japan with Susie and we were in this hotel in Tokyo and I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep so I took half of a sleeping pill and she gets up and I said, why are you getting up in the middle of the night?
01:02:39 Speaker_07
And she says, it's nine o'clock in the morning. And I was like, fuck, I just took a sleeping pill. She did all the sightseeing, I slept for the whole day.
01:02:48 Speaker_07
I sleep when I sleep, I'm awake when I'm awake, but I follow my nutrition discipline in a very, very strict way.
01:02:56 Speaker_08
I know breakfast is two pieces of pumpernickel toast, extra crispy, tomato cheese? No, tomato ham. Ham, ham, ham, ham. And an espresso and a sparkly water. I don't do it anymore. What don't you do? I don't do breakfast anymore.
01:03:13 Speaker_07
That's done. Yeah, that's done. I do a cappuccino. No breakfast? No breakfast because I feel like that is useless calories. I'm not hungry anyway. The cappuccino is a little treat. It does make me feel a little bit sick afterwards. So I'm not hungry.
01:03:29 Speaker_07
The right amount of nausea.
01:03:30 Speaker_06
Exactly.
01:03:32 Speaker_07
And then I'm having lunch and dinner. And for lunch, wherever I am on the racetrack, I only eat the same. And that is chicken breast, some vegetable, tomato. And I treat myself to half a glass of full sugar Coca-Cola. That's good for digestion. Okay.
01:03:45 Speaker_08
Half a glass of regular Coca-Cola. Yeah, not your half-pregnant Diet Coke. Right, right. You're disgusted by that. You're smarter than Bill Gates and I, but continue.
01:03:57 Speaker_07
Dinner, try to do lean protein, but then I can indulge as well. If I see something really nice on the menu or if the local food is marvelous, then I will have. Big plate of pasta when you're at Monza. Yeah, the pasta.
01:04:11 Speaker_03
Do you drink wine?
01:04:12 Speaker_07
I don't drink wine. I don't drink beer because of the gluten. It doesn't do me any well. If I'm drinking alcohol, then it's full blast vodka. That's the Romanian in you.
01:04:23 Speaker_06
Polish.
01:04:24 Speaker_07
You don't drink huge amounts and you're after like 20 minutes, you're already having fun. The liquid is not huge and you're not mixing. So I don't feel sick. I don't feel bad next day.
01:04:35 Speaker_08
Okay. I have just a couple of remaining questions. These are just curiosities. March 15, March 16. These are the names of your two companies. Are those people's birthdays?
01:04:45 Speaker_07
No, that was the day I set the company up. So I wasn't very creative. So I said, why don't we do the date today?
01:04:50 Speaker_08
Okay. Coincidence in 2004, it happened to be March 16. No, I took the next date. Okay, so it had a reason at the beginning and then it didn't have a reason at the end. Breakfast we talked about.
01:05:01 Speaker_07
Yeah, working out because you're a gym person. I'm not a cardio person. Are you a cardio person?
01:05:05 Speaker_08
I hike. That's the extent of my cardio. I can't get on a treadmill. I can't jog. Cycling? Cycling. We're too tall for bicycles. We're looking like huge gorillas on this tiny little thing. Even me on the race motorcycle, I look ridiculous.
01:05:19 Speaker_08
People comment when I post pictures, I think I look so cool. And they're like, is that a normal size bike? Exactly.
01:05:25 Speaker_07
Exactly. And we're not good with aerodynamics as well. So we have a deficit against everybody else. Yes.
01:05:30 Speaker_08
But under braking, it's good. If I sit up, I pull a lot of drag. Like Valentino Rossi, put your leg out also to balance. Were you there the day that Valentino and Luis swapped?
01:05:40 Speaker_07
No, but I had to give permission. So I gave it and I think they both enjoyed it a lot. Luis is the annoying kid in school that does everything right and fast. He was quite good on the bike. Yeah, so I tell you a story about biking.
01:05:52 Speaker_07
Secretly, they didn't tell me, they went testing in Jerez with my head of strategy, who is also a keen motorbike guy and one of the engineers. And I couldn't get hold of him for two days.
01:06:02 Speaker_07
And then I'm calling Louis, my engineer picks up and he says, it's all good. All is fine. We just finished biking and just whatever you hear, he's all fine. Oh, I said, what happened? Whatever, he fell. But he was four seconds off the MotoGP pros only.
01:06:18 Speaker_07
No. It's unbelievable. The body feeling that he has is what makes him a champion.
01:06:23 Speaker_08
But in that dock, Valentino's my god. I mean, that is number one. People have Jordan, I have Valentino Rossi, the doctor, 46. He's everything. The spirit of him. He's so elegant. Everything's so great. He was not terribly far off Lewis in the car.
01:06:38 Speaker_08
I thought what he did in the car was...
01:06:40 Speaker_07
Kind of mind-blowing. I think for motorbike guys, it's easier to drive fast than for car people, because it's just so much more complicated with balance on the bike.
01:06:51 Speaker_08
I think the braking on a motorcycle takes some real work. But my favorite part of that doc is Valentino Rossi. There's this great documentary with these two come together. They're both Monster Energy athletes. So I think it was sponsored by Monster.
01:07:04 Speaker_08
And Valentino gets to drive his F1 car.
01:07:06 Speaker_03
Slash Toto's F1 car. Oh, I see, I see, I see.
01:07:09 Speaker_08
And then Lewis rode Valentino's MotoGP bike, which is a fucking handful.
01:07:13 Speaker_03
This is like a $320 horsepower one.
01:07:15 Speaker_07
Goes much faster than a car, but doesn't brake because obviously you have no contact.
01:07:20 Speaker_03
Oh my God.
01:07:21 Speaker_08
And the corner speed's lower. But yeah, they're going 225 miles an hour at every track. It's nuts. But anyways, Valentino Rosso, he's got the cutest personality imaginable. And he is a Formula One nerd.
01:07:32 Speaker_08
He's been watching and he loves Lewis and he loves Bono. Lewis's race engineer, who's always in his ear. So he's been watching for years and he's hearing Bono say to Lewis, push, push, push. So Valentino gets in the car and he goes, hello, Bono?
01:07:45 Speaker_08
And he goes, yes, Valentino. And he goes, will you tell it to me? A push, push, push. And Bono says push, push, push. And he's like, ah!
01:07:55 Speaker_03
He's been waiting his whole life for that.
01:07:57 Speaker_08
It was the purest moment.
01:07:58 Speaker_03
God, isn't it funny though?
01:07:59 Speaker_04
You can be the absolute best at what they do, the top of their field, they're phenoms, and yet they want to be the best at something else. Like we are not satisfied as people.
01:08:10 Speaker_07
It is crazy. But they are from a special breed also, never satisfied.
01:08:16 Speaker_03
Yes. I mean, I guess that's how you get to be those people.
01:08:20 Speaker_07
I hope I'm not saying anything that would be important for him, intimate. He asked me once, you'd rather be successful or happy?
01:08:26 Speaker_03
We have talked about this too.
01:08:28 Speaker_07
And I said, what is it with you? And he said, successful.
01:08:31 Speaker_08
You want to hear verbatim one of my questions to you? Yeah. Are there certain endeavors that are inherently antithetical to mental health?
01:08:38 Speaker_08
The goal of a healthy human should be to feel worthy of love and affection regardless of their status or accomplishments. But that simply cannot be the goal of a person pursuing victory or perfection. How do we make peace with that?
01:08:50 Speaker_08
Your human goals are antithetical to almost your career goals. As a human, what we would strive for is that I'm worthy of love and affection just because I exist. But in racing and business, it's not that. That's not the rules of the game.
01:09:07 Speaker_08
So you're balancing what you want as a human and then also what you want is someone engaged in an endeavor.
01:09:13 Speaker_07
But there are people that are really happy with their lives and they don't thrive for being in some kind of record books.
01:09:19 Speaker_07
Whatever our KPIs are, our various KPIs, yours of the two of you will be very different in what you want to achieve to mine specifically.
01:09:26 Speaker_04
Was your answer happiness or was it success?
01:09:29 Speaker_07
Since a few years, they are converging. Before it was success only.
01:09:33 Speaker_08
You're also 16 years older than Louis?
01:09:36 Speaker_07
He's my age. Well, he's two years older than you. He's 14 January. Ooh, Capricorn. I'm not into birthdays. You know, I forgot my wife's birthday.
01:09:50 Speaker_07
Oh, that's not a good... So we were in a hotel in Stuttgart, we're coming down in the lobby, there's my team waiting for us and they're all, happy birthday, Suzy. And I was like, oh, fuck.
01:10:04 Speaker_07
So everybody looked at me because they know I'm not good with these dates. Every day needs to be a birthday. Why need to celebrate that you're already older than you are? I couldn't agree more. I think it's embarrassing to have birthday parties.
01:10:15 Speaker_07
All of it's embarrassing. But I get that you're celebrating that you're still alive. Maybe that's the reason. She's looking at me and she laughs and said, I had it all prepared for the afternoon.
01:10:27 Speaker_08
Wait till you see what's coming in noon. You're texting someone on your team.
01:10:33 Speaker_07
No, I got the card, but she knows me. So we have a weird age gap of these 12 years, but the gap is more like not a dad and son, it's more like brothers.
01:10:43 Speaker_08
It's not father, son?
01:10:44 Speaker_07
No, no, no. We are much more peers, friends than father, son. We can vice versa play different roles if the other one needs the support or, you know, difficult periods.
01:10:56 Speaker_08
I don't want to ask you this question because I don't think you're going to like it, but it crossed my mind. Was there any part of you that was relieved that Lewis decided to leave and that you never had to make that decision? Absolutely.
01:11:07 Speaker_07
You couldn't make that decision? I couldn't make the decision from a personal standpoint. We owe him so much. And I didn't want to do the decision as Mercedes, letting the greatest champion ever go. It's so disrespectful.
01:11:20 Speaker_07
And maybe he felt that also, that's part of it. And he knew that Antonelli is in the pipeline. It was something that I almost had in the back of my mind that that would happen.
01:11:30 Speaker_08
Yeah, I think it's heartbreaking, but I also think it's the best version of what could have happened.
01:11:35 Speaker_07
Yeah, it was a curveball thrown at us and it still feels weird that he's going to wear a Ferrari overall next year and drive the red car. It's just a bit surreal. But we had this 17-year-old in the pipeline.
01:11:45 Speaker_07
I didn't want to miss out on him like I did with Max back in the day. I didn't have a car. So that is all falling into place. Yeah. And I can kind of get where he's coming from because we weren't successful. Our car was not quick enough.
01:11:57 Speaker_07
Certainly had a mega offer on the table. Every Formula One driver wants to drive a Ferrari. I think that's it for me.
01:12:02 Speaker_08
Like as someone who loved someone, even if I wanted them in my life still, I would understand like, yeah, that's what Schumacher did. That's what you do.
01:12:10 Speaker_07
I want the best for him, even though I'm going to aim to beat him next year. But I want the best for him also from a personal side.
01:12:16 Speaker_08
I had a little fantasy when he left that you were somehow going to get Adrian Newey and Max. Yeah.
01:12:24 Speaker_04
You're like, me too.
01:12:25 Speaker_08
I also have that fantasy.
01:12:28 Speaker_07
So what can I say? You can't say shit. Yeah, I think on the engineering side, I'm really happy where we are. We are not having the success on track that we would want to. We had three race victories this year, two unmarried.
01:12:39 Speaker_07
But I feel in a really happy space with James Ellison being our technical director. We are reorganizing the team. We've hired, we've let some people go. And on drivers, yours, Max and I, we always had a correct relationship.
01:12:50 Speaker_07
It suffered a bit in 2021 because it got dirty from both sides.
01:12:54 Speaker_08
Also, it sucks you were on the inside of it, so it's not as pleasurable on the outside. What a year. What a year. What a fucking year.
01:13:01 Speaker_07
And it's part of a great success we're having today. It was really dramatic. And I remember the topic that nobody wanted to touch on many Christmas tables was Trump, Brexit and Abu Dhabi 2021.
01:13:13 Speaker_08
Right. I've been in many fights on my own. I have a single question about that event.
01:13:18 Speaker_04
Can we give some context for people who don't know?
01:13:20 Speaker_08
The most improbable thing happened, which is in 2021, Max and Lewis entered the final race tied at 235.5 points. Something like this. I don't remember the five. Impossible. Same points. And a half point somehow.
01:13:35 Speaker_08
Add up the improbability that he has 2,500 employees making a car. Red Bull has 2,000 employees. You have all those variables, different designs, two different human beings.
01:13:45 Speaker_03
Yeah.
01:13:45 Speaker_08
They're finishing every single qualifying within a hundredth of a second. There's too many variables. It's impossible.
01:13:54 Speaker_08
Now you add in through all this dramatic season, there were points taken away, there were laps given back, there was judgment calls, they land at 235.5. It's not possible. The race goes on. Max is not going to win.
01:14:07 Speaker_08
He is behind three cars that have been lapped. There's an accident. The race goes under a safety car, so everyone's bunched up. Now here's my question. As I understand it, and I could be totally wrong, they unlap cars that have been passed.
01:14:22 Speaker_08
So the person between Max and Lewis, they're number one and two, but there's three cars in there, but they're in spots 18, 19, 20. So the rules as I understand them is that under a safety car, the cars in between are allowed to unlap themselves.
01:14:36 Speaker_08
So they're allowed to go out in front of the lead car and join the back of the
01:14:39 Speaker_03
Oh, I see. Okay.
01:14:40 Speaker_08
But what's really weird is that they don't unlap them right away. That to me is like, this is the problem. It's not like who did what? It's like they should have been unlapped right away. They weren't.
01:14:48 Speaker_08
So four laps goes by and then they make a decision with one lap left to let them unlap. Max is on brand new tires. Lewis is on 13 lap old tires. The safety car pulls up and Max passes him within two turns and he wins the championship.
01:15:03 Speaker_08
It would have been Lewis's eighth championship, which would have made him surpass Schumacher. The stakes could not have paused. I mean, the drama of it will never get better.
01:15:11 Speaker_08
Now, my question, and when I've been in arguments with people, I'm like, are you saying that they don't unlap cars? Are you saying in that situation they shouldn't have unlapped cars?
01:15:19 Speaker_07
The strict interpretation of the rules is you need to unlap the cars and make them join at the back. So take one box. We win the championship. It's clear because there's not enough laps left and the race finishes under safety car.
01:15:31 Speaker_07
The second version is once you make the cars on lap, you need one more lap before green flag. We win the championship. The third one was more of an outlier against the rules, but we could understand is give it the last lap.
01:15:44 Speaker_07
So you have a green flag lap and not behind a safety car. Then lose would have won because there was a few cars in between. Well, that's questionable. Three or four cars in between. I mean, Max potentially could have got by them. I don't know.
01:15:55 Speaker_07
But I, you know, was anyway not part of the rule. We couldn't have pitted for fresh tyres because we were in the lead, we would have given up position and then the race would have ended up on the yellow or safety car so we would have lost the race.
01:16:06 Speaker_07
So five laps to the end, we are world champions. There is no scenario with one. One I can see in the garage already and then someone besides the rate the World Championship should end with a lap.
01:16:21 Speaker_07
And what you say, unlapping those cars in the middle is unheard of. Both drivers were deserving champions because of the up and down during the season. And probably both of them should have been world champions.
01:16:32 Speaker_07
I'll argue too, you had a better car than Red Bull that year. At the end, not the first half of the year. I think Luis was the stronger driver in the second half. Max was in the first half and the same with the cars. They should have both had the trophy.
01:16:44 Speaker_07
But on that day, in that race, the race was decided and it fell the other way. This is the most controversial thing in all of it. Yeah, probably in most sports.
01:16:54 Speaker_03
Wow.
01:16:54 Speaker_07
That was so clear that the referee decided to do something which was not in the rule book, not even a judgment call, but just not in the rule book. But having said that, it was more like the madness of it. Yeah, the chaos and the confusion. Exactly.
01:17:09 Speaker_07
And I felt that the other side And that's not Max. But, you know, there was not one sentence in saying that was a difficult day for Mercedes. That could have gone either way. We got lucky. Yeah. They are both deserving champions today.
01:17:22 Speaker_07
It went against Mercedes. It went against us before. There was not one word from Christian or the other team in acknowledging that. It was like entitlement.
01:17:32 Speaker_08
I'm guessing, though, because it was so disputable that to even say that sentence would have felt like it could have tipped it. I don't know. We would have said it.
01:17:41 Speaker_03
Yeah, it would have been the right thing to do. There's humans at the end of all of this.
01:17:45 Speaker_08
Exactly. Yeah. And I entered the sport through Drive to Survive. Did you? Yes. Really? Okay. I was like, this is boring. They don't pass each other. What is this racing? Who cares?
01:17:55 Speaker_08
And then when I learned what's happening technically, I was like, oh, this is way more in depth and interesting than it seems on the surface.
01:18:02 Speaker_07
And I think the drama helped the sport also. Drive to Survive happened when everybody was at home. And believe it or not, our strongest growing demographic is young females, 15 to 24 year old.
01:18:13 Speaker_04
Yeah, because there's all these hot boys driving around.
01:18:16 Speaker_07
Is that the reason? We don't know really why.
01:18:17 Speaker_04
It's part of it. It doesn't hurt. It's definitely part of it.
01:18:20 Speaker_08
Charles is a supermodel. Danny was the cutest guy in the world.
01:18:23 Speaker_04
Louis is gorgeous. They're all gorgeous.
01:18:25 Speaker_08
There's only a couple duds in the whole group out of 20 guys. That's, yeah.
01:18:29 Speaker_04
The women do. They're like, that's my guy. That's my guy.
01:18:32 Speaker_08
There's something for everyone.
01:18:33 Speaker_04
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Also, that show is just so well done.
01:18:36 Speaker_03
Yeah. They really get you invested.
01:18:38 Speaker_08
Now, that was one of my questions. I'm keeping you too long. Don't worry. We were on the phone for quite a while. So you're a very smart person. You're also very incentivized because you own a third of the team.
01:18:48 Speaker_08
You're experiencing this from a lot of different viewpoints. You're a team principal. You got to win, but you're also an owner.
01:18:55 Speaker_08
And so I think you naturally saw that when Liberty Media came in and bought this and they expressed this goal of making the entertainment more present and the sport, but bringing the entertainment up.
01:19:07 Speaker_08
I've heard you talk about it and you're like, initially we were like, eh, that's a little scary, but I think you're a business owner and this worked. I mean, fuck.
01:19:14 Speaker_08
The first time I went to Kota, the race weekend was 120,000 and it was 440,000 last weekend.
01:19:20 Speaker_07
Single biggest event in the United States last year. Who would have ever thought that a Formula One race.
01:19:25 Speaker_08
It four axed. Yeah. So you, at some point, in the first year, Mercedes and Ferrari didn't participate in Drive to Survive.
01:19:32 Speaker_03
Oh, I remember that.
01:19:33 Speaker_07
It was a blessing in disguise for the sport because so many other personalities were featured.
01:19:38 Speaker_08
True. We wouldn't have had Danny, we wouldn't have had Gunter, we wouldn't have had… It was huge for Danny. Yeah, it was a blessing. We got to learn a lot about a lot of other drivers.
01:19:46 Speaker_08
But at some point, you're smart enough and incentivized enough that you go, OK, great. So I get it. This entertainment thing is kind of working. And now you too have to assume a character in this soap opera.
01:19:55 Speaker_08
And I'm wondering, A, how easy that was for you to take on. I've been to races and been in the paddock and watch you walk around. You're a full blown movie star at that race. You know, you're on your scooter and people are excited.
01:20:07 Speaker_08
Having to be a character in the soap opera, how has that been?
01:20:11 Speaker_07
So I think one of the features of myself and what I'm looking up to in other people is authenticity.
01:20:16 Speaker_07
We kind of feel when somebody is not authentic, you know, and even if you're intellectually not capable or you're not thinking about it, when you watch someone on telly or in a movie or you meet someone instinctively, you say, I don't like that person or I like the person.
01:20:28 Speaker_07
And for me, there's a lot of correlation with being authentic and I don't want to walk away from that. So whatever I do, whether the cameras or the microphone points to me, I'm trying to always be authentic. and not act for the cameras.
01:20:41 Speaker_07
Super important. Yeah, that's hard though. It's super hard. It's tempting. It's right there. Yeah, that's why we didn't play at the first season with Ferrari. I didn't want all of my people to be distracted by a camera and then suddenly perform.
01:20:55 Speaker_07
Distracting. Yeah, of course, the camera points on you. So I never do that. But you understand that the show is so successful that there is a lot more visibility of yourself in Formula One that has happened.
01:21:07 Speaker_07
For me, the kind of status in terms of media visibility happened very late in my life. I was 45, 46. So I see it with a certain skepticism, surprise. Why would people wanting to take a selfie with me? And I look at the benefits.
01:21:22 Speaker_08
I could show you right now exchanges between me and Brad Pitt talking about you. Seriously. I'm going to take full credit for this in front of you. He and I love MotoGP. I watch Drive to Survive. I text him, watch this documentary.
01:21:39 Speaker_08
Text me when you've finished. I know it'll be within 24 hours. He texts me within 16 hours. This is incredible. I'm so in. Next is, he befriends Lewis. I'm learning that he's going and hanging out with Lewis.
01:21:51 Speaker_08
And then I said, yeah, but let's talk about Toto. And he said, listen, I have this text. This is going to kill you. Toto's also a great dancer. Where did he get that from?
01:22:04 Speaker_08
He was somewhere and he saw you dancing and he's like, you're not going to believe this. Total's also a great dancer. I'm like, oh, fuck, this guy's got it all. Wow. Brad Pitt is completely enamored by you. That's a very weird turn of events at 45.
01:22:18 Speaker_07
Yeah, absolutely. So I generally am not starstruck and I admire people that are really good in what they do independently, whether they are famous or not. But there was this moment when they started the documentary. They were interested in my role.
01:22:31 Speaker_07
And I think Javier Bardem plays a little bit of a toto. He's a team owner and team principal, by the way, a super guy, curious, interested. We're talking about this and we are agreeing on dinner at our house in Oxford.
01:22:45 Speaker_07
He rings at the doorbell, Brad Pitt walks. Into the house. Yeah.
01:22:50 Speaker_04
Oh my God.
01:22:50 Speaker_07
It fucks you up, right? Yeah.
01:22:51 Speaker_04
He's not human. He's like, it's a different thing.
01:22:54 Speaker_07
No, he's a deity. Yeah, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, George Clooney. I mean, there's not many of them, no? Yeah, exactly. I know. But even in that group, it's Brad Pitt. Yeah, it's Brad Pitt. And that was a moment where I thought, we've come a long way.
01:23:05 Speaker_02
Yeah.
01:23:06 Speaker_07
That Brad Pitt is coming to the house. How does Susie handle Brad Pitt at dinner? Well, she obviously says to me that she likes me much more.
01:23:12 Speaker_06
She has to say that. Don't worry. Don't you worry. She has to say that.
01:23:18 Speaker_07
That was such a moment. But I'm looking at it, like I said, with a little bit of curiosity, why all of this is happening. And I haven't found many advantages of being on TV. I mean, you get a better table in a restaurant.
01:23:27 Speaker_04
But yeah, other than that, that's sort of where it ends.
01:23:30 Speaker_07
Yeah, because you need to have your own vanity under control. And I'm realizing that I like that. And then I try to dial myself back and say, that is just linked to the role. A politician is recognized by everyone.
01:23:43 Speaker_07
The moment the politician is stopping the activity, nobody cares. And the same is in many other jobs. You're a CEO of a company. Doesn't matter anymore. You stop as an actor or I stop in my role. That's gone.
01:23:54 Speaker_07
And I think you need to be prepared that if one day you step out of the hamster wheel, that this is going to stop. And that's why it shouldn't play a big importance to us.
01:24:01 Speaker_08
Well, this has been an insane pleasure. My very last thing is Monica has only liked a single car. I try to get her interested in cars and she does not care. She likes a single car. The Mercedes 300 SL.
01:24:12 Speaker_03
It's a beautiful car.
01:24:14 Speaker_08
Toto has one.
01:24:15 Speaker_03
You do? What color?
01:24:17 Speaker_07
So I sold all the other cars. You did? Yeah, I had to pick the boxes in terms of what I wanted to have and achieve, and then I sold them all. Yeah, they're stressful.
01:24:27 Speaker_07
Yeah, also I didn't feel like it was authentic anymore, me driving around in an old Ferrari. Right. So I only kept the Mercedeses. And I have two of these, one Roadster convertible and one Gullwing.
01:24:39 Speaker_03
That's the one.
01:24:40 Speaker_08
Although you'd be happy in that convertible. He and Susie look so elegant. I feel like I'm watching like a 60s Italian film.
01:24:47 Speaker_03
That's a beautiful car.
01:24:48 Speaker_07
The gullwing, you know, is great, but it's getting very hot in there. There's no air condition. The engine in the gearbox is right underneath of you. So in L.A. it would be troublesome.
01:24:56 Speaker_03
I love the heat. I can take it.
01:24:58 Speaker_07
I can really take it. So when you're next in Europe, tell us. We'll take you out in the gallery. I'll do it.
01:25:05 Speaker_03
I will do it.
01:25:06 Speaker_08
You bitch. That was my invite. That'd be like if Matt Damon invited you to dinner and you didn't bring me.
01:25:12 Speaker_04
Yeah, I wonder. Okay. I deserve this. Great. That's right. That's right.
01:25:18 Speaker_07
Thank you too. We look a little bit like Frankenstein's in the car. So I'm taking the seating pillow out. So I'm not looking too stupid. Okay. And then I fit under the steering wheel.
01:25:28 Speaker_08
So this was my very last one. So your wife is an incredible driver. I have to imagine she probably could turn better lap times than you at most places. Yes.
01:25:37 Speaker_07
And I'm proud of that. Yeah, as you should be. She was a professional driver. She says, what do you expect when we are getting this question asked? So we were carting in the past and she's always two seconds faster.
01:25:48 Speaker_07
And then I thought I'm going to trick her. Obviously I'm heavier. So I put 25 kilograms of ballast in the car. Oh, great. So that's the wife of my children. They're maybe here. They're maybe here. Okay, great. We're landing the plane.
01:25:58 Speaker_07
So I put the weight in her cart, two seconds. She says the card is actually pretty good. I got myself special qualifying tires. Red. Your finger sticks on them. Two seconds.
01:26:16 Speaker_02
Oh, I love this. Good for her.
01:26:18 Speaker_08
Yeah, she's really quick. Well, Toto, this has been as fucking fun as I could have ever imagined. Yes. For you, Monica, too.
01:26:24 Speaker_04
So fun.
01:26:25 Speaker_08
It's just cab stuff.
01:26:26 Speaker_04
No, you're a star.
01:26:27 Speaker_08
We kept it pretty not technical.
01:26:29 Speaker_04
That was great. It's great.
01:26:31 Speaker_08
I saw Monica rolling her eyes a little bit.
01:26:32 Speaker_04
That's a him.
01:26:33 Speaker_08
Oh, no, we're talking. I also want to throw this out here. I always roll. Before we sign off, you allowed a journalist to write a book about what you're going through right now, which is a lot. And it's called Inside Mercedes F1 Life in the Fast Lane.
01:26:45 Speaker_08
And you guys all participate. It's a very good book to learn exactly what's happening on that team.
01:26:50 Speaker_07
I was generally not a book fan because I get asked quite regularly about biography, autobiography. And my answer is let's do that when I'm 80, because now people say I've been successful and let's write about it. But what is if I continue to fail now?
01:27:04 Speaker_07
So I don't want to have it stop at 50 and then take a nosedive. Exactly. So let's write it when I'm 80. Let's make sure we get to the finish line.
01:27:12 Speaker_04
You already did, though.
01:27:14 Speaker_07
Yeah, or when I'm gone. Then you can have a real summary. Right, that's so true.
01:27:18 Speaker_04
Super nuts. You have the whole story.
01:27:19 Speaker_07
Exactly. I mean, we're certainly over halftime, both of us, and I hope so. We're over halftime. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that book is different and special because it gives an insight into how the team operates. It's not an ego story.
01:27:31 Speaker_07
It is just the operation of the team. So I was a bit skeptical, but the journalist embedded himself really well. It is a little bit of a nerdy book for the operations of a Formula One team, but seemed very interesting.
01:27:41 Speaker_08
That's cool. It's very interesting. It's very well written. And I recommend people who are interested at all in this to check that out inside Mercedes F1. It's been a blast. I hope we get to talk to you again.
01:27:50 Speaker_08
And we will soon be on a twisty road in something.
01:27:53 Speaker_02
Yes, please. Oh, you guys will be first on the 300. Can't wait.
01:27:56 Speaker_08
All right. Be well. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. Good morning.
01:28:09 Speaker_04
Good morning.
01:28:11 Speaker_08
We were both feeling sweatery today.
01:28:13 Speaker_04
Yeah, it's officially festive time.
01:28:15 Speaker_08
How awake are you?
01:28:17 Speaker_04
Um, I'm 22%.
01:28:22 Speaker_08
22, that's pretty low. Yeah.
01:28:24 Speaker_04
Lowest you've ever been. I took a shower.
01:28:25 Speaker_08
Oh, good.
01:28:27 Speaker_04
Normally that wakes me up, but yeah, it's early for the listener.
01:28:30 Speaker_08
Yeah.
01:28:31 Speaker_04
It's nine. That doesn't feel that, that doesn't sound that early.
01:28:34 Speaker_08
But on a holiday.
01:28:36 Speaker_04
On a holiday.
01:28:36 Speaker_08
It feels absurd.
01:28:37 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:28:38 Speaker_08
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Yeah. In our universe right now.
01:28:42 Speaker_04
We were out and up late.
01:28:44 Speaker_08
Yeah, what time did you go to slumber?
01:28:46 Speaker_04
What time did I leave, like 10? I think I left around 10, and then I had a little work to do, and then I had to work on today's gift guide.
01:28:56 Speaker_08
Oh, you had to do that at night.
01:28:58 Speaker_04
I had to do a lot at night.
01:28:59 Speaker_08
What time did you fall asleep?
01:29:01 Speaker_04
I probably fell asleep at like 12.30. Oh, okay.
01:29:04 Speaker_08
Yeah. So not horrendous.
01:29:07 Speaker_04
No, I made a huge mistake yesterday. So when we were on the group chat, the girls group chat, figuring out timing for Thanksgiving, Kristen wrote, come over around 12 and we'll eat around four. And I read, I don't know what happened. I read that as,
01:29:27 Speaker_04
come at four, like I missed the 12 part. Oh wow. So I thought it was arrival time was four, which I did kind of think was late. Yeah. I didn't love that choice.
01:29:39 Speaker_08
No, the day's over.
01:29:40 Speaker_04
Yeah, but I thought, oh, she just wants it to be fast. So, okay. And then I- But really, hold on.
01:29:48 Speaker_08
So I too am in the intentions judging business. But when I come up with an intention, I do also evaluate. So when you were like, yeah, she wants it over fast. You're like, that sounds right.
01:29:59 Speaker_04
It's not that I was like, Oh, it's bad. She wants it over fast. It was just like, Oh, maybe, I don't know. There's a million reasons that it could be. So I just, I just didn't want to question it. So then I planned my whole day around a four o'clock.
01:30:14 Speaker_08
Oh boy.
01:30:16 Speaker_04
Yeah. So what did that mean? I had to make two dishes.
01:30:19 Speaker_08
Right. Two beautiful dishes. Potatoes.
01:30:22 Speaker_04
Two sets of potatoes, one sweet, one mashed. And I was editing an episode and I had a whole plan. I was going to like, wake up leisurely and edit this episode.
01:30:33 Speaker_08
Yeah, yeah.
01:30:34 Speaker_04
Make my things, have plenty of time, coffee, drink, tea. Laura texted and said, based on Cece, her baby's nap time, she said she'll probably be around one. And I was like, one? She's going to come three hours early?
01:30:50 Speaker_04
What's she thinking because of the baby? So then I scrolled up and I saw and at this point it was.
01:30:57 Speaker_08
1130. Oh boy.
01:30:59 Speaker_04
Yeah. Okay. So you went into a panic.
01:31:02 Speaker_08
Yeah. And you were on a course of action at that. I got there at two 30, which was very late from my perspective, but I didn't know about the erroneous 4. P.m. Start.
01:31:14 Speaker_08
So I was in a position of like, everyone's coming at noon and then at noon, nobody comes.
01:31:21 Speaker_04
Oh, I hate when that happens.
01:31:23 Speaker_08
Mm-hmm at one nobody comes and then I go to my insecure place of like, oh, wow. No one's coming to our Thanksgiving I fast-forward to whatever poor sucker does show up semi on time. They're gonna be like, where is everybody?
01:31:39 Speaker_08
No one wanted to come to this party idea.
01:31:41 Speaker_04
That's funny because I I mean, I guess it's the same thing you're thinking about me reading Kristen's text, but that feels outrageous to me because the only people there were our friends.
01:31:49 Speaker_04
So no one would ever, no one thinks like that when it's just the pot. If it was a random party.
01:31:55 Speaker_08
It was starting to get a little embarrassing though that the kickoff time was noon and we didn't have anyone at one, I don't know, 30?
01:32:02 Speaker_04
This is the problem with the girls only being on the text.
01:32:07 Speaker_08
Yeah. It's not great.
01:32:09 Speaker_04
Yeah. And do you think most friend groups it's like that?
01:32:12 Speaker_08
It's just the women chitter, chattering, chatter, chatter, chatter. I do. I do.
01:32:16 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:32:17 Speaker_08
I don't think guys at home, similar guy chains are very specific. I'm only on a few of them. I'm on like one with Wabi Wab for formula one.
01:32:26 Speaker_04
Oh, nice.
01:32:26 Speaker_08
And that's just, you know, so-and-so's getting fired. Yeah. They're fucking, they're going to rule that, you know, it's not like with Matt and Charlie too. Yeah, Matt, Charlie, Jethro, Wobb, myself. Who else is on it, Wobb? That's it. That's it.
01:32:39 Speaker_08
That's sweet. From all the boys that had to be in communication for F1.
01:32:42 Speaker_04
Yeah, I love that. You're keeping it up.
01:32:44 Speaker_08
If you see something outrageous in the F1 community, that's where you sound off. But there's very little. Logistics. What? Very little logistics happening in there. Correct.
01:32:55 Speaker_08
And this is maybe, again, I don't know if this is specific to me or this is common gender-wise, but there's a lot of things, and you're not a fan of a lot of these methodologies I have. And I agree, they're flawed, but for me, they're most efficient.
01:33:08 Speaker_08
Like, I don't ever ask, when there's 20 people over, I don't say, who's in the mood for a sushi? It's like, I know this group, I know what people like, a bunch of food will arrive and no one will care, as long as there's food there.
01:33:21 Speaker_04
You make the decision for the group.
01:33:23 Speaker_08
Yeah, I don't do the hour and 20 minutes to order thing.
01:33:27 Speaker_04
That's fine. There's two ways of being.
01:33:28 Speaker_08
Yeah. And I, yeah, exactly. And I'm not angry at the other approach other than when I'm hungry. I'm like, Oh my God, how long is it going to take everyone to decide on this? And then everyone's got anyways.
01:33:37 Speaker_08
So similarly, it's like, here's a time to do a thing if you want to or not, there's never a bunch of haggling over it or fine tuning. Also a window that I would have never all blessings to my wife. That's confusing to me. Starts at noon dinners at four.
01:33:52 Speaker_04
Well, that makes sense.
01:33:53 Speaker_08
It's too gray. Like, if I'm at home, like, what does that mean? When are people coming? Do people come two hours before dinner?
01:33:59 Speaker_04
No, for Thanksgiving.
01:34:01 Speaker_08
Like, I wouldn't even tell them when dinner starts. I would just say, be here at two, a split in the middle.
01:34:05 Speaker_04
No, she has to tell us because we're all cooking stuff.
01:34:08 Speaker_08
We have to know, like, what- I cooked the most in my house yesterday.
01:34:11 Speaker_04
What'd you cook? Shitty biscuits.
01:34:12 Speaker_08
I made five trays of shitty biscuits. You did. Four pounds, biggest yield ever.
01:34:16 Speaker_04
That was, they were fantastic.
01:34:18 Speaker_08
How many G?
01:34:18 Speaker_04
Like four probably.
01:34:19 Speaker_08
That's a good amount.
01:34:20 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:34:21 Speaker_08
Yeah.
01:34:21 Speaker_04
You cook the most in your house.
01:34:23 Speaker_08
Yeah.
01:34:24 Speaker_04
But everyone was making a lot of things and you have to plan it time-wise because of oven times. Do you need to arrive with it hot? You have to know what time dinner's starting.
01:34:33 Speaker_08
Yeah. Okay. Great. I don't know, four hours, take your pick, throw a dart at the board. Seems a little, and we got what we sowed, which is like, you wandered in at 2.30, someone was there at 1.45, someone came at 3.
01:34:46 Speaker_04
It's fine. It's all fine. Yeah, it's the way it's supposed to be, really.
01:34:50 Speaker_08
Yeah. I want to open the door like I'm in Sweden. Have you heard this joke about Swedish people? Like if you throw a party and you announce it to your co-workers that I'm having a party at 5 p.m., they say in Sweden, the doorbell will ring.
01:35:04 Speaker_08
And when you open the door, all 52 guests will be there at two minutes before. Yeah, they're all there. It's not like one person's early. The whole group will be there at the exact same time.
01:35:16 Speaker_04
Well, that's funny, because on a previous Fightless Bird, we did talk about, like, arrival times and being late and parties.
01:35:23 Speaker_08
Uh-huh.
01:35:24 Speaker_04
Because David was acknowledging, oh, it looks like in America people arrive late.
01:35:30 Speaker_08
whenever they're in the mood to get there. They give them a nice four hour berth and just land somewhere.
01:35:35 Speaker_04
Think about any party, like a Halloween party. You don't go at the time.
01:35:39 Speaker_08
That's my point entirely. Think about a Halloween evening party. If there's so much anxiety, they said it starts at eight. No one's probably getting there at eight. You don't want to be the one person there.
01:35:49 Speaker_08
And then you're like, I guess that really means 10, 15, everyone, right? And you have all this anxiety and you can't plan it right. If it was just like, forget the eight, Forget the early arrival. Let's go with when people are really gonna come.
01:36:01 Speaker_08
Let's say this party starts at 930.
01:36:02 Speaker_04
But then people will come at 11.
01:36:04 Speaker_08
Well, I think everyone's just responding to this willy-nilly broad strokes. There's a four-hour window of arrival time.
01:36:12 Speaker_04
Yeah, well, technically I was actually an hour and a half early.
01:36:16 Speaker_08
To dinner. Two and a half hours late to the hang time.
01:36:22 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:36:23 Speaker_08
Yeah. You're right though. It was the pod so I didn't get too insecure. But if that was like my birthday party.
01:36:26 Speaker_04
That's how we normally do. We just roll in and roll out.
01:36:29 Speaker_08
By 1.30 I would have canceled the birthday party. Like if it started at noon and at 1.30 it was still just my family sitting there. And then my anxiety of who's gonna be the first one there to see that I'm a nerd, that no one came. I just canceled it.
01:36:41 Speaker_04
Were you sitting on the couch like.
01:36:43 Speaker_08
I try to make myself a little busy. I'm like, I'm going to go. I don't want to be sitting at the door when people walk in like, hi, and I'm on the couch in my Thanksgiving best. Anyways, spectacular Thanksgiving.
01:36:57 Speaker_04
Beautiful Thanksgiving.
01:36:58 Speaker_08
Really another, another perfect Thanksgiving.
01:37:01 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:37:02 Speaker_08
What were your highlights? I'm sure you can guess mine.
01:37:05 Speaker_04
I can guess yours. You played volleyball. Okay.
01:37:09 Speaker_08
That was your... Christmas volleyball.
01:37:10 Speaker_04
Thanksgiving.
01:37:11 Speaker_08
When I grew up, we went to a family reunion in Sturgis, Michigan at the LeBow's and it was at the motel. And there's a conference room and he had a big, huge, I don't know how many there were of us, 35, there's six kids and carrying kids.
01:37:24 Speaker_08
And then you played football. in the field, and it was cold as hell, all the uncles and stuff, kind of fun. I can't, the kids couldn't really play football.
01:37:36 Speaker_08
The adults are running around tearing hamstrings and stuff, and the kids are like, I'm open, you know.
01:37:40 Speaker_04
Yeah, that's so cute.
01:37:41 Speaker_08
You're just out there running around, I guess.
01:37:43 Speaker_04
Yeah, and acting like you're a part of it.
01:37:45 Speaker_08
Yeah, and then you're a big boy like your uncles throwing a football. So we didn't have a sport contingency out here. And I really like now that volleyball might be an option.
01:37:54 Speaker_04
Yeah. My favorite was Secret Turkey. That's always so lovely.
01:37:58 Speaker_08
Secret Turkey. And again, everyone already knows how it works. Lilia signs it. But I will say this year, I think people try to top themselves from the previous years. It's on a kind of an untenable course.
01:38:10 Speaker_04
It is. It's getting out of control.
01:38:12 Speaker_08
Yeah. It was like that present.
01:38:13 Speaker_04
Ryan made a knife.
01:38:14 Speaker_08
He forged a knife and he made the handle out of wood.
01:38:18 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:38:20 Speaker_08
I'm guilty of the thing I've yelled at you about.
01:38:22 Speaker_04
Thank you. My do not disturb was not. And guess who's changed all her ways.
01:38:26 Speaker_08
Her do not disturb ways.
01:38:27 Speaker_04
Because you say one mean thing, one critical thing.
01:38:31 Speaker_08
Highlights of Secret Turkey. What do you think were?
01:38:34 Speaker_04
Oh God.
01:38:35 Speaker_08
I'm biased a little bit. I'm so impressed with Delta's hot air balloon baseball. What a present. She made such a cute one. 25 man hours at least.
01:38:45 Speaker_04
Yeah, these presents took forever. Yeah.
01:38:47 Speaker_08
I wanna talk about, you gave a advent calendar.
01:38:51 Speaker_04
I did, I made it. To Molly. No, to Amy.
01:38:54 Speaker_08
To Amy, correct.
01:38:55 Speaker_04
Yes, I made one.
01:38:56 Speaker_08
You said Molly, it was Amy. You gave it to Amy.
01:38:59 Speaker_04
So I bought these little boxes.
01:39:02 Speaker_08
You purchased those?
01:39:03 Speaker_04
I purchased the cardboard boxes.
01:39:05 Speaker_08
At a box store? Cardboard box store?
01:39:07 Speaker_04
Amazon.
01:39:08 Speaker_08
Oh, okay.
01:39:08 Speaker_04
Amazon Prime.
01:39:09 Speaker_08
Oh, you can order them?
01:39:10 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:39:11 Speaker_08
They come in a sheet and you assemble them?
01:39:12 Speaker_04
Uh-huh.
01:39:12 Speaker_08
Oh, great.
01:39:13 Speaker_04
So I assembled all of them and then I made them into a Christmas tree shape.
01:39:18 Speaker_08
Is that standard Advent calendar?
01:39:20 Speaker_04
A lot of them are made into Christmas tree shapes. Not all, some of them are rectangles, but I wanted to make it festive. And so I drew on each one. I drew like the number and I drew all over each box.
01:39:34 Speaker_04
And after the third box, I thought, I am not gonna make it. I can't do it.
01:39:39 Speaker_08
Well, great. I'm glad you brought this up. I wouldn't have said anything, but I looked at it and it was enormously impressive. It was huge. I wanna say it was like 28 inches tall.
01:39:49 Speaker_03
Yeah, it was huge. It didn't fit in a trash bag.
01:39:52 Speaker_08
18 inches wide, maybe 24 inches wide, 24, let's say. The top boxes were like pictures and drawings. And then I noticed on the bottom, I just noticed it says like 21, 22, 23, 20, like, it seemed like- 22, 23, 24, that wasn't a cheat.
01:40:05 Speaker_04
That was, I knew you would think that, oh my God.
01:40:08 Speaker_08
Well, I don't know about advent calendars.
01:40:09 Speaker_04
I actually anticipated Eric was gonna say this out loud.
01:40:13 Speaker_08
Well, I didn't say anything, of course. I didn't wanna humiliate anyone. But you just told me you started phoning it in, and I thought, oh, that makes sense.
01:40:19 Speaker_04
I did not, you didn't even let me finish. Okay, the reason the bottom, it's just the bottom row, 22, 23, 24, was out of brown marker, and it just said it, but that's because that's the stump.
01:40:32 Speaker_08
Oh.
01:40:33 Speaker_04
That's the stump, the rest is the tree, the top had a star on it.
01:40:37 Speaker_08
Oh, beautiful. It was hugely impressive, I don't know why you're upset.
01:40:41 Speaker_04
Because you're, oh my god, you're so gaslighty. You're like, I see you phoned it in, I don't know why you're upset about that.
01:40:49 Speaker_08
No, just at the end it looked like at the end you were like, that's enough.
01:40:52 Speaker_04
That was the stomp.
01:40:53 Speaker_08
Okay, so it was supposed to look like wood.
01:40:54 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:40:55 Speaker_08
Okay.
01:40:55 Speaker_04
And the, after the third one I thought, I can't do this anymore, this is,
01:41:00 Speaker_08
This would be a five-day project.
01:41:02 Speaker_04
And then I thought, this is for Amy. She's an angel. She's a true angel on earth. She deserves this. So it was a five-day project.
01:41:13 Speaker_08
Okay, I didn't listen to the end.
01:41:15 Speaker_04
Yeah, you didn't. I did not.
01:41:17 Speaker_08
So the bottom was a choice. You can see from the lay person at the end, it just said, oh wow, it was written in black.
01:41:22 Speaker_04
It wasn't black, it was brown and gold.
01:41:25 Speaker_08
Oh, it was gold too.
01:41:27 Speaker_04
Anyway, I glued all the boxes together.
01:41:30 Speaker_08
Did you use a hot glue gun? Or Elmer's glue?
01:41:33 Speaker_04
I tried Elmer's, it didn't work. I had to use Gorilla and Super.
01:41:37 Speaker_08
Okay.
01:41:38 Speaker_04
Okay.
01:41:38 Speaker_08
Did you get a bunch on your fingers?
01:41:39 Speaker_04
Yes. And then I glued all of that to a piece of cardboard, and then I had to exacto knife around it.
01:41:48 Speaker_08
Oh, wow, for structural integrity.
01:41:50 Speaker_04
I bought an exacto knife.
01:41:52 Speaker_08
Oh my God. Yeah. All ordered off of the internet?
01:41:56 Speaker_04
No, some of them are Postmates.
01:41:57 Speaker_08
Did you go? Oh, Postmates. Okay. But you never went to an arts and crafts store? Did I go to Blick?
01:42:04 Speaker_04
No, but I use materials I have purchased from Blick.
01:42:08 Speaker_08
Okay, all right.
01:42:09 Speaker_04
Anyway, it was really fun. And then I had to fill each box up.
01:42:12 Speaker_08
All this was leading up, we got derailed by my observation and my apologies, but I'm dying to know what's inside.
01:42:19 Speaker_02
Yeah, everyone is.
01:42:20 Speaker_08
I've never owned an advent calendar. I've only seen them in Christmas vacation.
01:42:23 Speaker_02
Yeah.
01:42:24 Speaker_08
And there's chocolates inside usually? Normally. But these are real treats. Are there any, you can say that by the time this airs, she'll have opened those three days?
01:42:32 Speaker_04
Okay, Amy, if you're listening, no, because this is hers. It goes all the way through December, her calendar. So Amy is listening because she's, as I said, an angel, she listens to everything. So please cover your ears, turn this off.
01:42:45 Speaker_08
Okay, right.
01:42:46 Speaker_04
Fast forward.
01:42:47 Speaker_08
Ryan too, because he's not a good secret keeper. Remember he tells Amy.
01:42:50 Speaker_04
Okay, right.
01:42:51 Speaker_08
I don't want you to know about Cosby. What about Cosby? No, I don't want you to know. That's a real life thing, by the way.
01:42:59 Speaker_04
It is. Okay, so both of you fast forward a couple minutes. So yeah, there's like, well, she opened one, we let her open one. It was a sheep ornament.
01:43:08 Speaker_08
All right, beautiful ornament.
01:43:10 Speaker_04
I got her like a little lip, cute little like lipstick, some measuring spoons, all fun. Ooh, all fun.
01:43:21 Speaker_08
There's like 25 presents in there.
01:43:22 Speaker_04
Well, every other one is a real present. There's like a really cute wine stopper.
01:43:26 Speaker_08
The off days is a can of chocolate?
01:43:28 Speaker_04
Two teas, fancy teas.
01:43:31 Speaker_08
Drinking tea.
01:43:32 Speaker_04
Yeah, she has a tea drawer, so I figured she could make her tea drawer cute.
01:43:36 Speaker_08
That's great. How long do you think it took you to make this present?
01:43:39 Speaker_04
It took a really long time, plus then the purchases, plus the, yeah, it was an adventure.
01:43:45 Speaker_08
My family had commandeered the entire dining room table, put plastic over it, and this was going on for three days. Yeah.
01:43:52 Speaker_08
And there were two full days where the three of them all sat at this table doing art projects, competing over the oils and the paint.
01:44:00 Speaker_04
They all did paintings.
01:44:01 Speaker_08
There were a lot of meltdowns and blowups, so God bless. I stayed out of there. Yeah. I went up to the attic with my new light board to make my present for Matt.
01:44:09 Speaker_04
Yes.
01:44:10 Speaker_08
Which was a collage, I guess you'd call it.
01:44:12 Speaker_04
It was a collage, it was very, very, very good.
01:44:15 Speaker_08
Oh, thank you.
01:44:15 Speaker_04
You drew a lot of things that were Matt's favorite things.
01:44:19 Speaker_08
Maple Leaf's logo. He's very into Muay Thai kickboxing right now.
01:44:24 Speaker_04
Yes.
01:44:24 Speaker_08
So two Muay Thai fighters. Picture of him holding his baby.
01:44:28 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:44:28 Speaker_08
Like off of Instagram. And then above his head, a sim racing set up, which he loves. And then scissors, because he's a hairstylist.
01:44:36 Speaker_04
I know, it was very cute, and you framed it.
01:44:39 Speaker_08
I think the sky's the limit with this light board. It's an enormous cheat, but as we talked about, you and I, there's a lot of fun in assembling and then interpreting what your collage is gonna be. Yeah.
01:44:50 Speaker_08
And now I have whole new fantasies about being able to use the light board to draw like a downtown cityscape and then put my weird characters in them. So hybrid. I love that. Do a little photo realism and then my weird characters.
01:45:04 Speaker_04
I like that.
01:45:04 Speaker_08
I've got a whole fantasy about my life with this light board.
01:45:08 Speaker_04
Wow. Wow. That's great. What a good hobby. Yeah.
01:45:10 Speaker_08
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's pretty fun. Speaking of the light board, on a previous fact check, I said I couldn't do a crow. Couldn't do it. But I got this light board and now I got a crow.
01:45:20 Speaker_02
Yes.
01:45:21 Speaker_08
And so now the holiday sweatshirt is complete.
01:45:26 Speaker_02
Yes.
01:45:26 Speaker_08
So they're going to go on sale Friday, December 6th. That is in two days at 9 a.m. Pacific. So if you're in New York, that's noon, Dingle's lunch break. If you're in the mountain areas, I don't know, maybe 11.
01:45:43 Speaker_04
Maybe if you're- Just check your time zones.
01:45:45 Speaker_08
Central, that's 10, I don't know.
01:45:47 Speaker_04
I'm having stress for everyone's time zones.
01:45:49 Speaker_08
I can't keep Mountain and Central straight, which one's earlier than the other, but Pacific Time, 9 a.m., and you go to armchairexpertpod.com.
01:45:57 Speaker_04
It's a very cute sweatshirt.
01:45:59 Speaker_08
I really like it. Yeah. I think it turned out really, really cute. It did. Yeah. It did, it's really nice. Your mouse is the best part.
01:46:06 Speaker_04
And everyone's seen the mouse at this, well, not everyone, but a lot of people have seen the mouse at this point because it has appeared on my gift guides.
01:46:13 Speaker_08
I read day one of the gift guide.
01:46:15 Speaker_04
Oh, you did, okay.
01:46:16 Speaker_08
And what are you gonna guess my favorite joke is in it? There's one home run.
01:46:21 Speaker_04
Did you read Substack or did you read just Instagram? Substack. Oh, you read the whole thing? Yeah. The joke about Kristen on the phone?
01:46:27 Speaker_08
No.
01:46:27 Speaker_04
I don't remember. Day one was a while ago. Blowing out all of her candle. Oh yeah.
01:46:31 Speaker_08
I think some people might miss that. Maybe not, maybe that's really obvious. It was all pointless, obvious. But she only turned one.
01:46:36 Speaker_03
Yeah.
01:46:37 Speaker_08
Yeah, you blew out all of her candle.
01:46:39 Speaker_03
I did.
01:46:42 Speaker_08
That was really funny. Thanks. Okay, so Secret Turkey was an incredible success. Other call out, again, Delta made a hot air balloon with like a structure in a floating balloon. It was incredible. Made the balloon a baseball, Ace loves baseball.
01:46:58 Speaker_08
Ballast on the side of the basket, like sandbags. So cute, it was so cute. Light fixture inside that I guess replicated the fire going up. I don't know if that was just decorative.
01:47:09 Speaker_04
I think it was just festive.
01:47:10 Speaker_08
Festive.
01:47:10 Speaker_04
How'd she buy a light thing? She bought it off Amazon?
01:47:13 Speaker_08
I think she went and watched a tutorial on how to make a hot air balloon.
01:47:18 Speaker_04
That's so cool.
01:47:19 Speaker_08
Laura gave me a beautiful photorealistic, I like saying that word. Yeah. Charcoal drawing of Little Mr. Texas.
01:47:31 Speaker_04
That's right. It should probably go in here.
01:47:33 Speaker_08
It should, runner up.
01:47:35 Speaker_04
Yes.
01:47:35 Speaker_08
Runner up, Little Mr. Texas.
01:47:36 Speaker_04
If you missed that episode with Matthew McConaughey, that was the first time he was on.
01:47:40 Speaker_08
So I have this very, very arms distance relationship with him. We've done a few things together and I'm considering, I think I want to take a picture of that and say I received this as a gift. How do you think that lands on him?
01:47:53 Speaker_04
I think that's a good idea, yeah.
01:47:55 Speaker_08
Okay. You never know if stuff's flattering or is bordering on weird and obsessed.
01:48:00 Speaker_04
Well, yeah, because I mean, I guess he'll be like for Thanksgiving. I mean, you might have to explain the whole thing.
01:48:05 Speaker_08
There's a lot to unpack. If I, let's just reverse this. He sends me a picture that a family member or friend drew of me and gave to him. You'd love it. I'd love it, right? As long as it was a flattering picture.
01:48:19 Speaker_04
You would love it. And I think he would love it.
01:48:21 Speaker_08
Yeah, we're both kind of similar in that way. What do we call that, attention whores?
01:48:28 Speaker_06
I don't know.
01:48:29 Speaker_05
What is it? Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
01:48:45 Speaker_04
Rob put a box by my head.
01:48:47 Speaker_08
Wait, what's going on?
01:48:48 Speaker_04
I don't know, I don't.
01:48:49 Speaker_08
You, oh my God, you have, there's gifts already?
01:48:54 Speaker_04
Wait, what? Oh my God! Sweet, stop.
01:48:59 Speaker_08
Oh, is that an Emily burger? Pretzel bun? What in the world?
01:49:04 Speaker_04
She made this?
01:49:07 Speaker_08
Oh, my photo realistic.
01:49:09 Speaker_04
Celebs on sandwiches. This is so flattering.
01:49:14 Speaker_08
Can I get a better look at it?
01:49:16 Speaker_04
And it's an Emily burger?
01:49:17 Speaker_08
Oh my God.
01:49:18 Speaker_04
Oh my God.
01:49:21 Speaker_08
How did they find the picture of Emily Berger?
01:49:23 Speaker_04
You told him that, right? Yeah, that was perfect.
01:49:28 Speaker_08
You know what's interesting? What do you think I'm gonna say about this rendition of you?
01:49:32 Speaker_04
That my mouth looks big?
01:49:34 Speaker_08
I don't really ever think you look like your mom, but in this rendition, you look a bit like your mom.
01:49:40 Speaker_04
I could see that. Yes. I actually think it's pretty good.
01:49:44 Speaker_08
It's outrageously good, but somehow a bit of Nermy is in it more than normal.
01:49:50 Speaker_04
I mean, I look like her. This is so flattering. Celebs on Sandwiches.
01:49:56 Speaker_08
This is a big moment.
01:49:57 Speaker_04
I mean, I've got gifted this a few times to people. It was on my, I think, original gift guide, Celebs on Sandwiches. My original.
01:50:07 Speaker_08
Oh, gee, original guide.
01:50:09 Speaker_04
Wow, how sweet. Okay, well.
01:50:13 Speaker_08
Oh, wow.
01:50:14 Speaker_04
That's really flattering. Thank you, Salads on Sandwiches.
01:50:17 Speaker_08
You know what's gonna be weird? Okay, so Kristen had you.
01:50:21 Speaker_04
Yeah, she did.
01:50:22 Speaker_08
And she did this beautiful painting.
01:50:25 Speaker_04
She did.
01:50:25 Speaker_08
By hand of you.
01:50:26 Speaker_04
It's incredible, it's gorgeous.
01:50:29 Speaker_08
And all kinds of positive affirmations written along it.
01:50:32 Speaker_04
Yeah, it was beautiful.
01:50:34 Speaker_08
But I am starting to think, like, you have an inordinate amount of photos and paintings of yourself now for your house.
01:50:42 Speaker_04
I think this should live here.
01:50:43 Speaker_08
Okay.
01:50:44 Speaker_04
With yours.
01:50:46 Speaker_08
Yeah, mine's right behind your head, so maybe yours should be behind my head. I don't know how that'll work. All to say, you have quite an interesting bank of art now you've accumulated.
01:50:56 Speaker_08
And I just wonder, like, on a first date, when a guy goes into your house, and there's like a ton of paintings of yourself.
01:51:03 Speaker_04
I think it's fine.
01:51:04 Speaker_08
It's fine, right? It'll be seen as playful.
01:51:07 Speaker_04
I have a lot of art.
01:51:09 Speaker_08
Yeah.
01:51:10 Speaker_04
So it's not- It'll get lost in the show. It's not that the only art I have is- We have a whole wall that's just you. Like you did.
01:51:19 Speaker_08
When I was, yeah, 20 years ago?
01:51:21 Speaker_04
Yeah, when you lived alone.
01:51:22 Speaker_08
Oh boy, I didn't know what to do. Yeah, you had pictures. I just printed up photos from movie stills that they send you. Yeah. That was rough.
01:51:29 Speaker_04
It's okay.
01:51:29 Speaker_08
It's not about us, it was really about us.
01:51:31 Speaker_04
It happened.
01:51:31 Speaker_08
I know, I didn't know what to do.
01:51:33 Speaker_04
I know. But I didn't have a family or anything. I feel like you're projecting a little bit of your own.
01:51:38 Speaker_08
Probably my own embarrassment from the past.
01:51:40 Speaker_04
Yeah, so this is gonna live here.
01:51:44 Speaker_08
Yeah, I guess we could have unlimited pictures of ourselves here.
01:51:46 Speaker_04
How sweet.
01:51:48 Speaker_08
Yeah, that's really special. And on an Emily burger. Pretty jealous about the food item. I mean, I can't complain because I've got a coney dog from Detroit, which is great. But boy, that's... It's really nice.
01:52:01 Speaker_04
Okay, well, yeah, Thanksgiving was a big hit. I'm really thankful to our armchair. I mean, Thanksgiving is in the past now, but I'm still thankful to our listeners, our beautiful armchairs. Me too, me too. We're so lucky. And this is for Toto.
01:52:17 Speaker_08
I want to say there's something we earmarked.
01:52:21 Speaker_04
You wanted to talk about Max.
01:52:23 Speaker_08
Oh yeah. Thank you. And I told you to wait till this week because Toto, well, I just simply want to say he's this, he won his fourth title in a row. It's been a really dicey year for him.
01:52:35 Speaker_08
Red Bull's finishing third or fourth in the Constructors' Championship, so their car is not by any stretch the best, yet he still managed to win.
01:52:44 Speaker_04
That's crazy.
01:52:45 Speaker_08
A lot of it because of this impossible rain race he had two races ago in Brazil, which when they make the documentary like Senna about him in 20 years, This race is gonna be a good 15 minutes of it.
01:53:00 Speaker_08
Started in 17th in the rain, finished first by 20 seconds, passed 11 people in the first 11 laps, drive of his life. Incredible year.
01:53:10 Speaker_04
Oh, so cool. Congratulations to Max. Congratulations to Toto for being- Well, Toto won.
01:53:17 Speaker_08
Toto, which Mercedes has been struggling so bad. Vegas, they came in first and second.
01:53:21 Speaker_04
Nice.
01:53:22 Speaker_08
So this is good timing.
01:53:23 Speaker_04
Also, I love Toto. Absolutely loved him. He was such a, he was so much more playful than I anticipated.
01:53:31 Speaker_08
He's a rascal. That was a reveal.
01:53:33 Speaker_04
And I enjoyed him so much. So now I'm for team, cause now that Danny isn't racing, I don't have anyone to root for. So now I root for Mercedes because of Toto.
01:53:46 Speaker_08
Okay, great. That's great.
01:53:48 Speaker_04
So I'm gonna buy a hat. It also makes sense.
01:53:50 Speaker_08
It's definitely the team you would have wanted to support anyways. It's the classiest team on the grid. You wouldn't want to support an energy drink.
01:53:58 Speaker_04
No, I don't. Okay, now some facts. He brought up Nikki Lauda.
01:54:05 Speaker_08
Yes.
01:54:06 Speaker_04
It's a hard word to say, a hard name to pronounce. Lauda.
01:54:09 Speaker_08
L-A-U-D-E?
01:54:10 Speaker_04
D-A. It's spelled correctly. It's just like, it seems like you're being pretentious, but you're not.
01:54:18 Speaker_08
Nikki Lauda.
01:54:20 Speaker_04
Right.
01:54:20 Speaker_08
Nikki Lauda. I think that's what you're supposed to say, Nikki Lauda.
01:54:23 Speaker_04
Okay, he is Austrian.
01:54:25 Speaker_08
Yeah, Lauda, that's why it's Lauda. Nicky Lauda. I love Nicky. He's a mentor, Lauda.
01:54:33 Speaker_04
Okay.
01:54:34 Speaker_08
Oh, how about this? I'm going to ask your name.
01:54:37 Speaker_04
Okay.
01:54:38 Speaker_08
Oh boy, how do I do this? Okay. I'm going to ask your name and you're going to say Nicky Lauda.
01:54:43 Speaker_04
Okay.
01:54:44 Speaker_08
What's your name?
01:54:45 Speaker_04
Nicky Lauda.
01:54:46 Speaker_08
What is your name? Nicky. Because louder sounds like louder. It's pretty good. One more time.
01:55:00 Speaker_04
No, we already did it.
01:55:02 Speaker_08
But maybe it'll be fun a second time. What's your name?
01:55:05 Speaker_04
Nikki Lauda.
01:55:07 Speaker_08
What is your name?
01:55:10 Speaker_04
It wasn't better the second time. It was great the first time.
01:55:14 Speaker_08
Yeah, my timing got worse.
01:55:16 Speaker_04
Oh my God. Okay. Now, um, he competed in Formula One from 1971 to 1979. And from 1982 to 1985, he won three Formula One Drivers' Championship titles. And at the time of his retirement held the record for most podium finishes, 54.
01:55:33 Speaker_04
He remains the only driver to have won a World Drivers' Championship with both Ferrari and McLaren and won 25 Grand Prixs across 13 seasons.
01:55:42 Speaker_08
Mm, and was horribly burnt. Yeah. In a mid-career crash and kept at it.
01:55:50 Speaker_04
Amazing.
01:55:50 Speaker_08
Didn't care.
01:55:51 Speaker_04
Yeah. He's passed. He passed in 2019. He died in his sleep at 70, where he had been undergoing kidney dialysis. He had experienced a period of ill health exacerbated by his lung injuries from the 1976 accident.
01:56:06 Speaker_04
He had a double lung transplant the previous year and kidney transplants in 97 in 2015. His body really went through it.
01:56:14 Speaker_08
Yeah, double lung and double kidney. Now we're like we're 20% through all the organs being replaced.
01:56:23 Speaker_04
Did you just kiss your hand?
01:56:25 Speaker_08
Did I what?
01:56:26 Speaker_04
Did you just kiss your hand?
01:56:26 Speaker_08
Kiss my hand. No, I just went like that.
01:56:29 Speaker_04
Oh, I thought.
01:56:30 Speaker_08
I always, I neurotically make sure the corners of my mouth, that's a rough one for me.
01:56:35 Speaker_04
Will you see people with that?
01:56:36 Speaker_08
Yeah, a bunch of paste in there. I can't, you don't have it and you don't ever have it. Okay.
01:56:42 Speaker_04
Yeah, but- I know, I know what you mean and it is gross.
01:56:45 Speaker_08
When someone's talking with a really sticky mouth, that to me, I'd rather smell something bad. And I already said smells are my worst.
01:56:50 Speaker_04
You'd rather smell something?
01:56:52 Speaker_08
I can't deal, if I'm watching like a TED Talk and someone's mouth gets really, really dry and starts doing that, I'm like, fuck, I can't listen to it. Because even if I look away, I can hear it. I don't have misophonia, but I do just in that.
01:57:05 Speaker_04
Interesting. Do you understand that? I do, I do. It's not, well, it's funny to me that you'd rather smell it because I think what's gross is I do think it has a smell.
01:57:18 Speaker_08
Yeah, it's just so sticky.
01:57:21 Speaker_04
Yeah, all right. So he was 70, but he lived a life doing what he loved. Oh, when I thought you were kissing, I thought you were giving him like- Oh, a send-off. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
01:57:35 Speaker_08
Yeah. Have you been jealous in movies when you watch the cat, what is it, gentle flecked? Is that what it's called? When they do this? I touch your forehead and your sternum and then your both sides do the cross. Yeah. I like that pageantry.
01:57:51 Speaker_04
I do too. Yeah. I feel really, can you knock on wood? Cause I feel like we shouldn't have just done that a few times.
01:57:57 Speaker_08
And that brings me to one thing that we left out that we need to address. Definitely the best, um, secret Turkey of the night was Eric took 30 pounds of candy and somehow made a painting of Lauren Matt's baby in candy.
01:58:16 Speaker_04
Yeah. He made a portrait of Cece out of candy.
01:58:19 Speaker_08
And it was at both times very good.
01:58:22 Speaker_04
It was.
01:58:23 Speaker_08
And it was absolutely terrifying. It was one of the most horrific photo. It looked like the most evil baby in the world. It looked like Michael Myers. It looked like the baby was wearing a hockey mask, a goalie's mask.
01:58:35 Speaker_04
Because he used white saltwater taffy for the face.
01:58:38 Speaker_08
Yes, and it was insane looking, and there was hair.
01:58:41 Speaker_04
But there was also a resemblance to her. I know. It was pretty good.
01:58:46 Speaker_08
Back to knock on wood, I was like, that feels like- You thought it was a bad omen. I thought it was a curse.
01:58:51 Speaker_04
No, it wasn't.
01:58:52 Speaker_08
Like akin to a voodoo doll.
01:58:55 Speaker_04
I know, but it wasn't. It was a sweet- I think that needs to be- No! It was a sweet portrait made of candy by Eric, and he put a lot of time into it.
01:59:05 Speaker_08
And the eyes are just black.
01:59:06 Speaker_04
They're so dead. The person has to curse it. Eric didn't curse it. That's how spirits work.
01:59:11 Speaker_08
He doesn't know his powers as well as he should, though. He might have accidentally cursed it. Okay.
01:59:15 Speaker_04
Okay. Speaking of, Detroit versus Austria homicides. The city, city of Detroit finished 2023 with 252 homicides, which is the fewest recorded since 1966. We like that. We like that trajectory.
01:59:30 Speaker_08
Great trajectory.
01:59:31 Speaker_04
Now, there isn't any information about Austria in 2023, but there is 2017. There probably hasn't been a murder since 17. Exactly. There were 54 intentional homicides in Austria.
01:59:44 Speaker_08
In the whole country.
01:59:46 Speaker_04
In the whole country in 2017. Although, now I'm looking at the word intentional.
01:59:50 Speaker_08
Well, we wouldn't count vehicular homicide.
01:59:54 Speaker_04
What about if you're shooting and hunting, if you're hunting in Detroit and you, not a lot of, I know, but that would count if you accidentally killed someone.
02:00:06 Speaker_08
Well, no, cause that wouldn't be intentional.
02:00:08 Speaker_04
It would be accidental. No, I know. But I'm saying in the Detroit one doesn't say intentional. So maybe they're including accidentals.
02:00:16 Speaker_08
Hmm. Maybe.
02:00:17 Speaker_04
Isle of Man.
02:00:20 Speaker_08
Really quick, what's the population of Australia? You mean Austria? I mean Austria. 9.13 million. That's small. So about 10 times the size of Detroit. Detroit's under a million people.
02:00:32 Speaker_04
Really?
02:00:33 Speaker_08
Yes. 10x the people and one fifth the murders. Yeah, 630,000 in Detroit. Oh, wow. So we could say that's actually a 50x.
02:00:44 Speaker_04
All right. Okay. Isle of Man is a self-governing British crown dependency in the Irish sea between England and Ireland. And then, yes, it has this big race that is a big deal, annual cross-country motorcycle race.
02:00:58 Speaker_08
They race around the island. It's the most terrifying thing. It is, in all of motorsports, the absolute pinnacle of craziness. It's the Mount Everest of motorsports.
02:01:09 Speaker_04
Well, that's it for Toto. He was lovely, and I really, really enjoyed him.
02:01:13 Speaker_08
Okay, and really quick, this should have been said at the beginning, but now we're here at the end. We are here early on this day because this is one among your most special days of the year.
02:01:23 Speaker_04
Yes.
02:01:24 Speaker_08
You and Callie are going Black Friday sale shopping, but at places without Black Friday sales, which is really incredible.
02:01:31 Speaker_04
Sometimes they have like 20% offs in certain, stores. We go to Brownwood Country Mart and it's very, very, very fun. And I'm so excited to go do that with her.
02:01:42 Speaker_08
And how many hours will you spend there?
02:01:44 Speaker_04
Just a few. And then we'll come back and then we're going to go to a Rolling Greens, the plant store and get some Christmassy items too.
02:01:51 Speaker_08
Fun. What time will you start drinking at the mart? Right away when you get there?
02:01:55 Speaker_04
No, no, we don't always drink.
02:01:57 Speaker_08
Oh, you don't?
02:01:58 Speaker_04
No, we'll probably get coffee and then we get lunch. So when we get lunch, sometimes there's wine at lunch, but it's not like, we're not like carrying around flasks.
02:02:07 Speaker_08
Oh, you're not, no flasks? No. No wine silks?
02:02:10 Speaker_04
No, but I'm excited for that. And then tomorrow is pig day. I get my Christmas tree.
02:02:15 Speaker_08
Yeah, it's a very busy three days.
02:02:16 Speaker_04
It's my favorite stretch of the year.
02:02:19 Speaker_08
Yeah.
02:02:20 Speaker_04
I'm excited. And it's sort of a ding, ding, ding, because it's like F1. Oh. F1 race is kind of like the stretch of the year. Final lap.
02:02:35 Speaker_08
Oh, okay, okay.
02:02:37 Speaker_04
Also on my gift guide that I put out today, I included an F1 coffee table book.
02:02:44 Speaker_08
I saw, and it was titled,
02:02:46 Speaker_04
F1, The Impossible, something?
02:02:48 Speaker_08
No, no, the actual- The Little Prince. The Little Prince. I thought this was very playful and fun.
02:02:54 Speaker_04
All of them, each gift guide this year, there are five of them.
02:02:58 Speaker_08
Are book-themed.
02:02:59 Speaker_04
Correct.
02:03:00 Speaker_08
Yeah, the first one was about her.
02:03:03 Speaker_04
No, the first one was the time traveler's wife.
02:03:07 Speaker_08
Yeah, wife.
02:03:08 Speaker_04
Oh, sure.
02:03:08 Speaker_08
Yeah, yeah.
02:03:09 Speaker_04
Then it was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, my favorite book. Those are more mundane items. Uh-huh. Then it was- What's Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow about?
02:03:18 Speaker_04
Well, it's about these gamers, but the title to me represents like, it's just day after day after day. Okay. So it's mundane items. Then it was For Little Fires Everywhere. That was a candle theme.
02:03:31 Speaker_08
Yes.
02:03:32 Speaker_04
And today was Little Prince.
02:03:33 Speaker_08
That's another good book too.
02:03:34 Speaker_04
Tomorrow, do you want to hear? Lord of the Rings.
02:03:37 Speaker_08
Oh, wow. Oh, this is, this might be your peak creative endeavor thus far. Can I throw a book out as a challenge? And then you got to come up with gifts that.
02:03:49 Speaker_04
Next year. Oh, okay. I was only five days. Well, sure. Go ahead. Let's see.
02:03:54 Speaker_08
Of mice and men.
02:03:56 Speaker_04
It would be armchair themed.
02:03:58 Speaker_08
Oh, and it would have our holidays.
02:04:00 Speaker_04
Mice and men. So it'd have a holiday sweater on it. It would have celebs on sandwiches.
02:04:06 Speaker_08
Okay, this is great. Ember mugs.
02:04:09 Speaker_04
It would have ember mugs.
02:04:11 Speaker_08
The Budenoki mugs.
02:04:13 Speaker_04
Oh, so I almost put a salty sea dog mugs, but they're sold out and it fell on,
02:04:21 Speaker_08
Well, it's like a waste. No one can get it.
02:04:23 Speaker_04
I did put a candle on that's always sold out too, but I had to. Best boy statues.
02:04:30 Speaker_08
What if you're just putting stuff in here for sale on your gift guide and you didn't tell us?
02:04:36 Speaker_04
And one of the gifts for that will also be Back's cashmere sweater in, that's a long game. It's like they sign up and they get it in 50 years. So I did it.
02:04:51 Speaker_08
And you get updates. Like once a year you get a photo of how big your, Okay. Sample.
02:04:59 Speaker_04
It is getting smaller. You need to add some.
02:05:02 Speaker_08
Yeah, well, we got a crop due.
02:05:04 Speaker_04
Okay, great.
02:05:06 Speaker_08
Okay, well, holidays are upon us. I'm so happy. Thanksgiving was a blast, and now onward and upward onto Christmas.
02:05:13 Speaker_04
Yay.
02:05:14 Speaker_08
Let's go. Pedal to the metal. I love you.
02:05:16 Speaker_04
Love you.
02:05:31 Speaker_08
Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
02:05:45 Speaker_08
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