How an Interview DISASTER Became a HUGE Success for Diary of a CEO's Steven Bartlett (Extended)

Welcome to the show. Uh, you were I was lucky enough to be a guest on your show and now you're a guest on my show. So hopefully you have the same experience.

Uh, Diary of the CEO, you treated me so uh, uh, great and you were so kind but uh, so intelligent. Your questions were phenomenal. Uh, I was blown away of how much work you put in to to to that show.

Down to every little detail. Uh, I when I when I walked in, everyone was so friendly. We do this interview. We talk for uh, do the whole interview and we went everywhere and we talked about my upbringing, my mom, everything. I was like, oh my gosh.

I didn't know I was going to talk about any of that stuff. And and and but you did your homework and kept it moving. And on the way out, I go, thanks a lot, dude. That was great. And we were leaving and you go, uh, here, Jimmy.

And you gave me this and I go, oh, thanks. And it's the Diary of a CEO.

And it's it was photos of of us doing the interview.

And like

Yeah.

And and time stamps.

This is me in real time.

I was wearing that sweater.

Yeah.

Uh, but

That's not the joke.

But I mean, these are

These are quotes that I was saying.

As we're doing the interview.

You were

Someone was making this book.

As we were talking.

And then

You handed it to me.

And I got in my car.

When I left.

I'm like,

Started crying.

I was like,

This is the greatest thing ever.

I love this.

Thank you for that.

Thank you so much.

Oh, thank you.

You you plan all that stuff?

Yeah, like we on

I have to give the credit to our team.

Because we have the most incredible team.

But our culture is to really sweat the small stuff.

And that's been our philosophy since day one.

So it means everything.

It means thinking about the music to play when you when you walked in.

And researching

You know, I researched the first

Wait, what was the Beatles?

The Beatles, yes.

Um, you're a big fan of Sting.

I know that the first concert you went to with your parents was

Weird Al Yankovic.

Yes.

I don't even know who that is.

But

Weird Al Yankovic.

Oh, get ready.

Get ready for Christmas.

You're going to get a nice package from me.

Yeah.

Weird Al is my favorite first concert.

Of course.

I never heard of that.

But I but we played that.

We put it in our nice little playlist.

And then you walk in.

And you probably don't remember this.

But the first thing you remarked,

Because remember I had those glasses on that were recording everything.

The first thing you said was, oh my God, it smells so nice in here.

So we think about the smell.

The CO2 levels in the room.

Because that has a huge impact.

The CO2 level?

Yeah.

There's some like crazy stats that I read a couple of years ago that

if the CO2 levels get above about 400 parts per million,

it's like drinking alcohol.

It's like having a beer.

If it gets from 400 parts per million to 1,000 parts per million,

which is just me and you sat in an unventilated room for 30 minutes,

you lose about 20% of your cognitive capacity.

It's 21% of your cognitive capacity.

But in my interviews for the first couple of years in the Diary of a CEO,

we realized that the CO2 levels in the room were about 1,500.

So I was like drunk for the first 200 interviews.

Like genuinely.

It like has a huge impact.

So, you know, our game is we think sweating the small stuff.

Over time and if you have patience is a much easier strategy than trying to find some profound way to win.

And also with this, this was this is I think it's partly inspired by a study I read many years ago called the Peak End Rule.

Which is how Uber built their company.

They understand that the people remember the very peak of an experience and the end of an experience.

So we do everything we can to make sure the end of the experience is really, really great for you.

And this is, you know, so like if you miss the the flight on the way to a holiday,

it's much worse than if you miss it on the way back.

And people say that when they're asked.

So we try and make the ending really, really good.

I'm so glad you told me that.

It's this type of stuff on the podcast all the time.

It's like stuff you're like, oh, that's the greatest thing.

I will never forget that.

You just told me that.

But but tell me like a little bit of your story.

I mean, you you started in your in your kitchen doing this.

In 2017.

And you just, do you remember hitting record for the first time?

Going, I'm going to give this a shot.

Yeah.

My my team had told me this this thing called a podcast.

So I went on my way home from work.

Went to the Apple store.

Bought this microphone.

Actually recorded it under the stairs near my kitchen.

And I I remember taking my sock off at 2:00 a.m. in the morning.

And I put it on the microphone because I was getting lots of

with the P sound.

So I stick that on there.

I plug it into GarageBand on my laptop.

I record it.

And I'm talking about very graphic things.

Um, and then I posted it.

And, you know, like 20 26, 27 people listened to it.

Oh, 26 people.

Yeah.

I thought you were going to say 27 million.

No, no, no, no, no.

Like 26 people.

Like 26 downloads.

And like one of them was my my friend.

And my friend was like, that was good.

And he he's the type that tells you when you do bad things.

He roasts you.

So he was like, that was good.

So I was like, ooh.

Um, and I carried on doing it.

And then life happened.

I forgot I forgot about it for a couple of months.

And then that friend came to me again, my friend Ashley and said,

when's the next episode?

You need to carry on doing that.

And and so I I carried on doing that.

And uh, yeah, it's been crazy.

Well, the show recently surpassed 1 billion streams.

So congratulations.

Thank you so much.

1 billion.

Thank you.

1 billion.

From under your kitchen.

Uh, you've done about 500 episodes now.

Have have you ever had an interview not go as planned?

Or I feel like you're so rehearsed.

I mean, not rehearsed, but you you do your homework.

Oh, tell me.

Please.

Yes.

Whatever you're about to say, say it.

No, there was this one day where I had two interviews in the same day.

And my my research team, bless them.

They sent me the research.

So they send me the books, the research.

I click on the file.

I start reading.

I spend five hours reading the research.

I am ready to go.

I've watched all the videos.

I know everything about this person.

I know their kids, their favorite music, everything.

And then I walk into the studio to meet the guest.

And I look up and I have no idea who this person is.

I've accidentally done the research for the other guest that was coming on in the evening.

So I've spent five hours and I didn't even know this person's name.

So I walk up and I shake their hand.

And we sit down.

And my producer, who I think is actually here tonight, says to me like, ready to go.

And I don't know I don't know what this person's name is.

Let alone what they do.

So I I said to the guy.

I said, um,

tell me tell me how you spell your name.

Which is what you do, right?

And I'm hoping for like

Such a good news.

Of course.

Tell me how you spell it.

He's like, John.

This is the problem.

If you if you go for that strategy,

it has to be like an Anastasia, a Malika.

It has to be something.

The guy said his name was K.

The letter K.

His name was K.

It's called Dr. K.

They call him K.

So I was like, okay.

Okay.

K or K A Y?

Or he's like, no, K.

I go, yeah, I know.

My first question to him.

Producer goes, ready to go.

My first question to him is, um,

to anybody watching at home, K.

If they don't know who you are and what you do,

please can you let them know and tell them why they should listen to this conversation?

And God bless him.

He's like, he's like a genius.

Yeah.

And he he sent he amazing answer.

And do you know what we had?

One of the most downloaded conversations in the show's history.

For the next three hours.

Is that right?

Yeah.

It was one of our it was one of my favorite conversations ever.

And it was one of the most downloaded that we've ever had.

And it taught me

to never do research.

No, it taught me.

It taught me that as to be a good interviewer,

your job isn't to lead, it's to follow.

And if you listen, people will take you where they want to go with a conversation.

Because most people haven't had someone just listen to them.

Really for like more than 10 minutes ever in their life.

And it was it was a beautiful conversation.

So.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

So now I don't do any research.

Yeah, right.

No, it's not true.

Uh, well, I

I can't tell you how much of a fan I am of of you.

Thank you.

Uh, and also your team.

And uh, everyone took care of me.

I've never gotten more uh, better feedback on any interview I've ever done ever.

Uh, then your interview.

So thank you so much.

And I wanted to say as a gift to you,

while we were doing this interview.

Oh, no.

I did a drawing of uh,

There's you and there's is me.

There you go.

That's for you.

Thank you so much.

Take it to the CEO.

Stephen Bartlett, everybody.

Check out all new episodes of the Diary of a CEO.

Every Monday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcast.

More tonight, Joe, after the break.

Stick around, everybody.