Dr. Jane Goodall and Cal Fussman — The Tim Ferriss Show

This episode is a curated 'super combo' Tim Ferriss assembled to mark the show's 10th anniversary and passing one billion downloads, pairing a household name with a lesser-known star. First, Jane Goodall recounts how Louis Leakey recruited her to study chimpanzees in Gombe, what it felt like to first connect with a chimpanzee eye to eye, and her observations of tool use, personalities, and aggression among chimps. She closes on cultivating hope and overcoming apathy through everyday ethical choices. Then Cal Fussman traces his evolution as an interviewer from journalism school through a 10-year world Odyssey traveling by train, a brutal real boxing match with champion Julio Cesar Chavez, and Esquire interviews with figures like Mikhail Gorbachev, sharing his core lesson to aim for the heart before the head.

• Goodall reveals her acceptance by the chimps was gradual, driven largely by one male, David Greybeard, whose calm presence reassured the others that she wasn't dangerous.
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• She explains that observing David Greybeard make and use tools to fish for termites, behavior thought uniquely human, is what brought National Geographic in to fund the study just as her six months of money ran out.
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• Goodall tells the story of Old Man, an abused lab chimp who saved his caretaker Marc Cusano's life by pulling three attacking females off him, illustrating compassion in chimpanzees.
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• Fussman describes how his interviewing transformed during his 10-year travels: buying random train tickets and choosing a seatmate who would have to invite him home because he had no money for hotels.
  01:06:38
• He recounts the goulash story, how a single question to a toothless Hungarian grandmother about her goulash got him six weeks of lodging and meals and got him 'passed around the world.'
  01:11:50
• Fussman tells how a single first question to Mikhail Gorbachev, 'What's the best lesson your father ever taught you?', led to a story about a cup of ice cream that turned a threatened 10-minute interview into a deep, extended conversation.
  01:47:45
• He delivers his central lesson: aim for the heart, not the head; once you get the heart you can go to the head, and then you'll have a pathway to the soul.
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• Fussman recounts deliberately training for four months to fight undefeated champion Julio Cesar Chavez in Mexico to avenge a humiliating first-round Golden Gloves knockout he suffered at 16.
  01:56:09
• He shares how, at 45, George Foreman won the heavyweight title back by changing his angry character, wearing the same red trunks Ali knocked him down in, and landing one perfect right hand on Michael Moorer.
  02:39:42

• Leakey reasoned that since behavior doesn't fossilize, studying chimpanzees, whose common ancestor with humans is roughly six million years old, could reveal how early humans behaved.
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• Leakey valued Goodall partly because she lacked a college education and was a woman, wanting a mind 'uncluttered by the reductionist thinking' of the animal behavior science of the time.
  00:09:17
• Goodall observed chimps were not purely vegetarian, documenting them consuming other primates.
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• Mr. H, a stuffed chimp Goodall has carried for 28 years, was given to her by Gary Haun, a man who went blind at 21 and became a magician, skydiver, and self-taught painter.
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• Fussman wrote a letter to Lyndon Johnson after JFK's November 1963 assassination and received a reply from Johnson's personal secretary, Juanita D. Roberts.
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• Fussman worked at Inside Sports magazine at age 22, doing shots of liquor at the bar with Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
  00:44:10
• X-rays reportedly showed Julio Cesar Chavez's skull was about twice as thick as normal, helping him absorb punishment while landing his own shots.
  02:16:10
• During the Rumble in the Jungle, Foreman's German Shepherd backfired because Zaireans associated the breed with Belgian colonial control, turning the crowd's chant to 'Ali, bomaye' (Ali, kill him).
  02:36:35
• Fussman became the sommelier for one night at Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center, which once sold more wine than any restaurant on the planet, shortly before 9/11.
  03:00:34
• Writer Harry Crews gave Fussman the line 'the good sticks,' which years later unlocked his decade-long writer's block on the wine story 'Drinking at 1,300 Feet.'
  03:14:42

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