Kyle Thiermann: Everyone Should Interview Their Parents

Join Eric Jorgenson on Author Hour as he sits down with Kyle Thiermann, author of One Last Question Before You Go. In this interview, Kyle shares the inspiring origin story of his book—how interviewing his parents and exploring family relationships became the heart of his memoir and guide for others. Discover: How Kyle turned a simple conversation with his father into a book idea that "wouldn't go away" Why interviewing your parents can act like an "empathy

Transcript

Kyle, at long last, we are on the other side of your book launch and we get to talk about your book existing instead of being on its way to existing. Indeed. Indeed. The baby has been born. Thanks for helping make it happen, man. I had a great experience with Scribe. And you're not paying me to say that. No, you paid us. I didn't pay you to say that. It's crazy. Oh, my God. I'm delighted to get to shine a spotlight on both you and your book for independent and equally important reasons. And I think your journey is going to be a cool one to share with a bunch of other authors and prospective authors that listen to this.

And I'm sure I'll learn more about you and your book. It's one that certainly hits close to home for me. Yeah. Happy to have the conversation. I generally treat these as kind of like the hero's journey of the book. Yeah. And just like... Yeah. Because every book has its own story, has its own journey. I'd love to hear from your perspective where this book began. The book began on a Tuesday afternoon in the year 2019 when a virus in China that very few people knew about was starting to make headlines.

And all of us thought, holy shit, are our parents going to die right now? Yeah. So panic was sweeping the streets. It was such an interesting moment in world history before people had actually made up their minds about COVID. It was not politicized at the very beginning. People didn't have conspiracy theories. It was just like, holy shit, what is this? And I had been doing a podcast for a long time. We're up to 400 plus episodes now. And I had never interviewed my dad. My dad is this charismatic old documentary filmmaker who has lived in Santa Cruz, California for the last 40 years.

His passion is going to the flea market every weekend and haggling with sellers to the bitter end. He's someone who very much chose, like many writers do, a career in media to see the world. So he was always the guy who'd say, don't go for the project because it's going to be a big budget. Go for it because it's going to be a great story. And because of that, I think he's maintained a really optimistic outlook on life. And that's something that can be very inspiring to young people to hear from someone who's 75, who still has creative energy.

The world has not beaten him. So I had him on and he talked story. He told about his life flying around the world, making docs. He had just finished his latest on the cultural significance of bells around. The world. He traveled to Transylvania to video the the bell in Dracula's castle, you know, the the small bells of India. And he's just he just does that shit. So he told these stories. And that podcast led to someone with, you know, you would have thought I interviewed someone very famous by the numbers that it got.

You know, it was like, wow, this is people are. Sharing this podcast way more than I would have thought. And not only that, but I think that when you looking for signal boost, which is something that all creators really should be doing at all times, just keeping that antenna up. What is a subject that you talk about? What's a line that you say that gets people to change their mood? Like whether it's a laugh, you know, we all have those funny stories that we tell again and again at parties because we know.

It's a consistent earner, right? Or it's a book idea and it causes people to lean in and. Ask questions and maybe even tell a story of their own. I think that, you know, you have a good book idea when you say the idea and then someone spits out a story of their own, because what they're basically saying is I relate to this in my own way. What you don't want is for them to be like. Cool. Right on. You know, the if they if people are saying that, you know, you you might need to redirect your idea.

But that was the first signal boost that I got. I a lot of listeners emailed me and said that was awesome. I want to interview my parents. How do you do this? So I had been, you know, podcasting for the last seven years. I grew up as a surfer slash journalist. You know, I watched a lot of Vice growing up and my dream was I want to travel around the world. I wanted to surf and tell stories about environmental injustices happening in coastal communities around the world. You know, surfing for me was always like it was a vehicle to see the world.

And right around that time, you know, YouTube was coming up and I started making these short documentaries about, you know, plastic pollution or working conditions in some far off country. And it was really fun. You know, I was able to spend a lot of my twenties traveling the world. I'll just add the context that you were a professional surfer for anybody who's not aware. This is not just like a casual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a world class. Yeah. So I was able to work with Patagonia to do to travel around the world and learn how to ask questions.

Right. Like asking questions, getting people to open up is a skill that over time you learn. And then when I when I start focusing on podcasting like men, you really learn a few techniques that can make conversations go better. So I first I wrote an article. I wrote a book. It's a book on how to do this. I wrote an article during COVID for my sponsor Patagonia. It went up on their blog called How to Interview Your Dad and Why You Should Do It Now. Simple how to got another big response signal boost.

Oh, interesting. People are people want to do this. And then I got a full time job as an advertiser, copywriter, creative director at a company called Mudwater and did not think about the book for or that idea for the next three years. thought it was just an article cool that was fun and then i it was an idea that just kept kind of nagging at me i think that a lot of times the ideas that you know you should invest in are the ones that want that won't go away you know it's really easy to get excited about an idea right at the beginning and tell everyone about it and they're so cool awesome and that's how a lot of projects don't get finished because you jump into them really quickly and then you lose enthusiasm after a while and and you know book books as you know are marathons so it was an idea that that just wouldn't go away and then when i left that job being full-time that i still do work with them through a creative agency that i co-founded i had more time basically just more mornings to myself and i thought you know what like i should do this book you and it was originally called how to interview your parents and why you should do it now so then this is this is when the idea sort of like converted from hey maybe there's a there there i'm just sort of observing this idea as something that resonates to people with people as being like oh this is a this is a book and it's a project that i'm actively working on right and you had not written a book before despite like all your different writing and creative efforts right yeah i had never written anything like that longer than three thousand words okay did you go into this like but i i have so many conversations with people that are like i i got this like i write emails all the time or like i write blog posts all the time like don't tell me i don't know how to write a book um yeah yeah what what was what was the learning curve from like i mean you you are a great writer but having only ever worked on like short form and copywriting and stuff like that how did that translate for you into like setting off on this book project great question i think that advertising and working as a copywriter really served me in some senses with this first book project and it hindered me in others and i think that working as a journalist which i did also it served me in many ways and can hinder people also and i'll tell you why so i want to share this with you because Research Basedano has experimented on because writing and advertising is writing for people who do not want to read.

They're not choosing to see your ad. Very likely they're skipping past it, right? We pay monthly subscriptions to not have to look at or read what copywriters have to say. So you need to be really damn good at getting people's attention quickly. And it's very much similar to the job of stand-up comedians, which is to take a really big idea, pare it down to an essential form and change someone's mood state really quickly. I've done that for a number of years. Yeah, pretty fast at it. I love it. A lot of laughing, very collaborative.

That's one of my favorite things about working in advertising is I'm working with a creative director. I'm working with the editor. It's a team sport to create a mood shift in culture. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What can hinder you about being a copywriter is that many ad people who try to write long-form books write in a very glib way. Same thing with comedians when they try and write books. A lot of times they're afraid that if you're not getting a laugh every second line, people are going to tune out. And it's true to some extent.

You want to make people laugh, but often what that does is it forgoes emotional, resonance, and deep honesty and vulnerability that I think is very much required when you are going into especially the memoir space. I think people need to really feel like you are writing posthominously. You're writing as if you are dead. That's, I think, what's required if you're going to get into memoir. Yeah. In the journalism sense, I was very lucky that I had some strong... Yeah. ... editors through my 20s who took an interest in me and eviscerated a lot of my work with red lines.

And I was also very lucky that I got into it to get good, not to look good. So from a really early age, through my 20s, I got that like, okay, if they send it back with a bunch of red lines through it, that's helping me get stronger. And I had very good habits about, for example, not just accepting track changes when a... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. A piece that I wrote came back. I would actually physically rewrite it back out so I wouldn't make that same bad habit again and again.

Mm-hmm. The thing that I see a lot of journalists maybe miss out on or a lesson that they could take from advertisers or copywriters is the importance of that immediate mood shift. Like people do not have fucking time for you to do the throat-clearing paragraphs, for you to explain what the book is about. Like you really do need to entertain and create a mood shift immediately. And I think one thing that hinders, you know, journalists also is that they tend to be very literate readers, like, you know, really way above average when compared to most readers and copywriters.

Like you're constantly trying to take long words and turn them into short words because you realize most people are, you know, not great readers. So I came into this project, you know, it's a long answer, but I came into it with that kind of training, you know, like I knew jujitsu and karate. And then I would say that writing the book was an MMA fight, right? Yeah. And you're in the ring now. Yeah, you gotta improvise a little bit. But you definitely got some got some good fundamentals. Yeah. Yeah.

So what was the you started this? I lost the timeline. But 2023? Maybe you started this? I started it in, I want to say 2023. Yeah, beginning of 2023, late 2022. I wrote a, a couple chapters, and they were just really loose, free writey, like, hey, this is how you interview your people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can see that really well like not a lot of Nirvana.

Like my young it can help you get a result. That's You know, the interview process, you know, on one hand, it seems like, oh, that's a really that's a fun thing to do. You get this like memento and audio heirloom. And on the surface of it, I think that's why a lot of people do it. But ultimately, the promise of the book and what interviewing your parents can do is be a kind of empathy drug, because somewhere along that way, you see your parent as a person and you see them as a child and you see what culture was like when they grew up.

You see all of the things they had to dealt with. And all of a sudden you realize, like, whoa, this is just a person and I'm just a person. And if I can move forward in this relationship with a little more grace and be a little less bothered by them and understand that our time here is. Limited. That is. That's as big as it gets, man. If you can do that, that is that is a human project that is worthy. And that was when the book, you know, really for the first time I got to feel like, wow, this could be a this could be big for a lot of people, you know, and it is, you know, it's proving to be.

But like I did, I didn't actually come to the project with that kind of holy shit. This is a. This is a really deep. And hard and intense thing to do for some people. I came at it more as like, oh, this is going to be a fun thing. And then the more I got into it, the more I realized, like, OK. Well, I'm going to have to go on my own journey here, too, you know, which is the next step in the book. Yeah, it's a really, you know, it's an easily forgotten fact that we all have parents like this is an archetypal thing that people go through, you know, either losing a parent or transforming their relationship with their parent.

Yeah. Every human either does or doesn't do. And either one is a defining piece of their their personality and their journey. Right. If you have no relationship with your parent, that is a relationship with your parent. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You were sort of getting there, but I think, you know, it's always interesting to ask what the goals and expectations were sort of going in and how they how they transformed. Yeah. It sounds like this got a lot richer, deeper as as you sort of understood. Like. Like the full breadth of people that might be affected and all the different outcomes that that might be expressed through what much wider array than, you know, just the relationship that you have with your parents.

Yeah. And and just to to also let anyone who's listening know a bit more about what the book is about, the spine of it is a story about having a mom losing her to conspiracy theories and then using the interview process to reestablish a better relationship. So, you know, I started this as a how to it was called, you know, how do you have your parents and why should do it now? And it was that first draft that I wrote was pretty glib. It was pretty like, do this. Don't do this. But I had, you know, all this unresolved shit with my own mom of, you know, she she's someone who I love dearly and see as a really intelligent and dynamic woman.

Who also then got sucked into. A myriad conspiracy theories, one called free energy, where it's this idea that we have infinite perpetual motion machines around the world and inventors have created this technology, but the Illuminati are suppressing it. And, you know, it's like, OK, you can believe that. But then she and her husband ended up investing a bunch of their savings and retirement into this shit. And like as a. Kid, I mean, you're just watching. It's just it's so complex to part who this person is that I care about really deeply.

And what is it that would make her be so credulous? And how can I maintain love and kind of sort it out for myself? So ultimately, you know, the place that the book really got writing was when I was sorting out my relationship with my mom, you know, because any writer will know that like you, we write to find out. Right. Right. Right. Right. We write to figure out what it is that you think about this. And then the interview process was sort of cobbled on to that story. So it became this memoir with how to interwoven into that book.

But that was when it started to become very scary for me. You know, when all of a sudden you you realize that, like, well, I got to I got to write some things that are very uncomfortable and could be very hurtful. And that was both the hardest part of of this process, but also, you know, the most rewarding, you know, I mean, she she and it's also the number one comment I've received since the book has come out, which is, wow, it's a lot deeper than I expected it to be. Like, I thought it was going to be a how to.

And yeah, you do learn how to interview your parents, but you you take us into an unexpected place, which is, you know, that's the part that I'm most proud of also. Yeah, I really like the sort of moniker, like write the book that only you can write. Like, there's a lot of people that could pick up a mic and interview their parents. And it's a good idea for a lot of people that interview their parents. And they could speculate about what that emotional journey might be like or just have a relatively.

Vanilla version of it. Right. But for you as an author to, like, go on a really difficult, like, emotional and logistical journey to, like, tackle that and then externalize it and be, you know, have the courage to. Share it and be raw and take some of those risks of, like, what it takes to put something so personal in a book. Nobody else can write that. And then it is absolutely unimpeachable authority for you as an expert in this journey that you went on to then inspire, not just like lead others through it, but inspire others who have thorny journeys to go on through this, that they can do it, too.

Yeah. Yeah. And I was I was also very. I would say my biggest. My two biggest. My biggest fears while writing this book was a I was going to really mess up my relationship with my family. And and the second fear was that the book would come across as saccharine. Like, I hate that writing that just like we we had the problem, but then the you know, it's the Disney ending. And then we I interviewed her and now it's all healed. And it's like it's just dishonest, you know, and you're it's like this.

You're like. Cosplaying vulnerability. But it's just not how life like really, really works, you know, and and so for me, you know, the the task was how how can I be honest about. What happened as a result of, you know, the over the year of the project was was me interviewing my mom, my dad and my stepdad a series of three times each and each interview goes into a different part of. Their life and in each one of those chapters, you're also learning a skill. But the biggest change with my relationship with my mom is that.

I. I just feel way more mature about it. Like I it's I can just be nicer to her. Like, I don't feel that petulant anger of like, oh, why did you do that? I'm just like, you know what? Our time here is limited. I'm going to choose to. Be as. As kind as possible. Same with my stepdad, too. And what they whatever they want to talk about. I'm I'm open to it. Like, hey, you know what? I got to write my book. I'm just going to try and meet you with love. We are absolutely not going to see eye to eye on what is happening in the world today like that.

And I'm not going to try and hope that that's going to change. And I don't think that it's that's the most important thing. Like, I don't think that world affairs should dictate. The family relationship, you know, and there's a chapter in my my with my stepdad where I just say we we talk about sports. I engage with him. We both love sports. And I try to veer the conversations in that direction. And to find that one thing that you can connect with your parent on. Man, that's just that's real. And that's going to make the holidays go better.

And that's a a much different reality than. Ending Thanksgiving dinner screaming at each other. Yeah, I don't know if it's the algorithms or the like, whatever it is that gets people tending to focus on the things that they disagree with. And their definition of fixing a relationship becomes getting this person to agree with me rather than just putting aside what you might disagree on. That might be resolvable or unresolvable. And either one of you may be right or wrong, or there may not be a correct answer.

And instead, focusing the energy on. Where you agree or where you have a shared. Interest or where you like at least a light disagreement, a casual, fun, social disagreement. Totally, totally. And and I'll tell you one thing. I mean, this is how to win friends and influence people. Right. If that book could be summed up into one into two words, ask questions. Yeah. I'd like if you want people to like you, if you want to have good interactions, like get good at the skill of asking questions. And most people had never learned how to do that.

You know, like we are. Awarded for having the right answer, not the right question. We're told that to be in a position of authority to be seen as smart. That's the person on the zoom call who speaks most to make statements, not ask. They don't ask silly questions, stupid questions. But but ultimately, it's a very valuable skill that both does increase your intelligence. Smart people will actually think that you're smart if you're asking good questions and it gets other people to like you. Mm hmm.

I want to go back. To the fear that you addressed. You're too big fears in writing this book because I think it's something that many authors released every every author tackling something personally sensitive to them or that has any sort of like memoir characteristic to it. Mm-hmm. How did you overcome that fear of like the personal implications of authenticity in your writing and what it meant to put that out into the world? Yeah. Yeah, I I'll answer the question. I'll also tell you a story that I'm reminded of.

I won't say this person's name. But. They had a. A near death. They're a very high level athlete and they had a near death experience. And they wrote in a journal, private journal about all that they were thinking of after this near death experience. It was thoughts of like depression. It was thoughts of like very dark, messy, personal thoughts. And they kept this journal for a year and then they flushed it down the toilet because they were afraid that someone was going to. Find this journal. And I was like, oh, wow, like, that's the good shit.

That's crazy. You know, people are afraid to even journal their true feelings. They're terrified that someone might find out this, you know, their curated version might crumple, you know, if someone finds the journal. And I think that one of the real gifts that that writing can give, you know, and what what scribe encourages authors to do. Is to just to be real. Like, you just need to say the hard thing, because ultimately that's on some level what readers are paying you to do because they can't do it themselves.

And you're articulating an experience for them that is relatable. So on one level, that's just kind of your job. Like, I think that that's that's part of the job description if you want to be a real writer. And the second thing I would say in the way that I was able to get through it, and it wasn't easy at first. But to go into those sessions knowing that I didn't need to share that work with anyone. Like, that's what you're writing in that first draft is not going out to anyone. So you can say horrible things.

And then in future drafts, you can figure out how to lighten it up, how to make a joke out of it, how to show more love. And, you know, it's one thing that's been really interesting and surprising. And so there's a lot of things that I think that I've learned from the book. And I think that's what's been really interesting for me since since the book came out is my mom loves it. Like, my mom loves it. My stepdad loves it. A lot of people in the conspiracy theory world have been buying it and liking it because it's totally done with humor and with enough lightness.

Like, I can say, Yeah, I fucking I think you guys are crazy. And like, I love you. And this is funny. And like, I'm wrong about shit. And I'm like, Oh, I can't believe you. I'm like, Oh, I can't believe you. I'm wrong about shit, too. And it allows us to all kind of in some weird way be in the same camp of like human folly. Right. And I think that are really powerful. And maybe one reason why it's working is like, I think that making fun of yourself is a superpower. Like learning to take the bullets out of the gun as a writer gives you permission to then go at and critique others while keeping a reader on your side.

And if you think that you're right all the time, you're positioning yourself at the top of the mountain. That's a very fragile place to get knocked off. So, I mean, I think that some of the more fun stuff to write about is your own mistakes. And that gives you permission to be more honest about other people. So that was my approach. And, and the tone is also found through drafts of the writing. Like a lot of times. The funniest chapters were the hardest. And then there's the funny ones. Right. And I think these pillars of justice that make.

The characters growают are really strong and fun. I do think for me, should be good. The story so many times of this is hilarious. And so I'll give them a moment of silence. Because if you don't want to miss some of the things. Let me think we're all going to get to this. And, and just like loo can go next question. I have definitely sent a video to someone who really like the stories of characters. So hopefully we can take turns mentioning in the next pile if I don't see any groups, cars, justーい gears.

Like if you can get both in and ideally if you could alternate them like that's a home run wedding speech. It's a but it's also a home run book or blog post or whatever else. And it does. Yeah, the peanut butter helps the pill go down. Right. And going back to what we were saying about copywriters and comedians often having a hard time with books is that it's because they're afraid to take it down into that hard emotional muck zone. Like they just want to keep it on the level of like joke, joke, joke, joke, joke.

And if you if you read a book that is trying too hard to be funny, it becomes unreadable. So a lot of my work through the drafts was actually like I can write fucking jokes all day long, like boom, boom, boom. But it's you're not getting the laugh out loud guttural laugh when. But if you can hold back a little and if you can be just honest and vulnerable, I'm giving you information. And then like, bam, I'm going to. Hit you in this very unexpected place. I think that's how you get a reader to laugh out loud.

It's funny that actually converges from the comedy side, too, because I think like the greatest comedians of all time, like, you know, Chappelle is most recent specials. He'll go five or ten minutes without a punch line. He'll just tell you this beautiful, like soul striking story and then drop like a completely unexpected, like super crass punch line at the end of it that you totally forgot he was setting up from minutes ago. And it's very interesting. How those sort of converge. Totally. Yeah, it's and it's scary.

You know, the scariest thing for someone who who considers himself funny is to hear silence. That's for a comedian. That's the signature of failure. But that tension that you're building up, you need to build up the tension. I think that's where it is, is when when some writers are just glib and it's like beep, beep, beep, beep. You're not building any tension for a big laugh to be able to occur at the right place. So, I mean, that was a lot of my work. And I freaking I grew so much as a writer through this process.

This is a good segue into another thing that I think is really unique about this book that I want to have you talk about, too, because it's a very unique book. Like a lot of a lot of people out there, even great books, follow formulas and usually follow them to a T and fit very neatly in a box of like, you know, it's it's romantic or it's sci fi. And it has these arcs and these hits these points. And most nonfiction books do the same. And most memoirs do the same. And you. Very. Interestingly, have been unabashedly combining like a how to interview your parents book and a very personal memoir that does strengthen both.

And it's also funny, but like that had to have been very hard kind of potion to mix to get all those components together and reasonably convey like, no, this book really is all of these things. And they support each other and they have to coexist. And I don't want to separate them. Like. Don't put me in a box. Let me do this original cool thing. I can do it. Yeah. A lot of how to books could be a one page PDF. And I refuse to do that. I could tell you how to interview your parents in a one page PDF is the post you wrote, you know, five years ago.

Yeah, it's the book. And it's like so to to just try and drag that out with like. Statistics and different store. Like, I don't know that people want to read that. I mean, it's a book that maybe people will get as an impulse purchase to. To virtue signal in some way. You know, a lot of people buy books just to virtue signal. They don't actually plan on reading it or want to be surprised. But I felt like, you know, the story is it's there's a narrative thrust here that's important for me to tell.

That that you can't get into a PDF. And ultimately, what that narrative thrust is, is what you will get out of this project. Like, if you're going to write a book about how to interview parents, you can't you can't write that without showing what it did for you. Yeah. Right. Like, that's talk about being a little bitch. Like, I'm going to tell you to go do this scary thing. And I'm not going to. Be honest about how scary it was for me and what and what I got out of it. And the the interviews that failed, like all that.

I mean, that's the good stuff. I think that that's what is allowing a reader to trust you. Right. Is for you to go through that process and show. On the other end, what what happened? And I also knew, you know, that like if you just want to write if I were to just write a memoir about. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. About this, but I think that if I were just write my first book as a memoir about growing up in this. Small surf town wanting to be a pro surfer, you know, having this really close relationship, my mom having her fall to conspiracy theories, me getting mad, you know, and then growing up and having it be a story of growing up and learning more about what she went through when she was a kid and how that maybe informed her beliefs.

Now, like you probably write that book, but I don't know that it would be as as relatable to. As many people. And and I enjoy, you know, on some level, the helpfulness of this this book. I enjoy the helpfulness of it. And I, you know, one thing that we did that was a last minute decision. And it was it was a last minute decision. And it was not even my idea. I mean, it was it was an idea from a friend of mine who's been a very successful author, Neil Strauss, who has written a number of bestsellers.

He said, you should write. The chapters as questions so that people can just use the questions as chapter headings. Like, how can you create unexpected value where normally a chapter is just like, you know, you can skip over the name of it. Right. Like, what if you make that into like a big part of it? And I took his advice wisely. And that is another area that that people are really enjoying, like that they're not actually interviewing their parents necessarily. They're just bringing the book. To open up and then ask questions around the dinner table.

So that was, you know, in terms of this thing being an odd duck, like figuring out ways to create unexpected value for a reader is something that you should be thinking about. And just because the industry does it one way, like that, maybe that's that's a signal that you shouldn't be doing it that way. You know, like in branding, for example, you know, the best advertisers I know will see. You know, they'll see, you know, wellness, for example, what is wellness? If you're going to start a wellness brand, close your eyes and tell me what would that look like? Well, it'd be like kind of soft, maybe feminine, like pretty sanctimonious, zen, like, OK, what's mud water? Right.

Like that. That dude does jujitsu and it's funny and it's irreverent. And like, so you're taking this healthy thing, but we're going to move it over into almost like comedy, masculine area. And that's what's going to get attention. You know, and I think that for authors, if you're going to write a book, like a self-help book, like go the opposite direction. Otherwise, how do you expect to get any attention? It's just going to get lost in a sea of sameness. So, yeah, I mean, there were a few things that I did that I'm I'm happy I did because they were able to create unexpected value for the reader.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's doing something unique is. It's almost impossible by definition. To do like a high value thing that is the average of what already exists. And like you're, you know, the example that came to mind with what you gave that framework is like David Goggins. You know, he's 80 percent memoir, 20 percent sort of actionable self-help with like exercises. And he shows you the transformation he went through and advises you on how you could do the same. And it spoke to, you know, I don't know that there's that many books.

Yeah, that many that many swear words that have spoken to like, yeah, men and in particular young men. Struggling to lose weight or come out of the service or, you know, aspiring athletes or people who came from really, really tough back like childhood backgrounds. So there's all kinds of things in that that like we're unconventional mix of genres and value propositions that exactly to your point created really unprecedented level of excitement and awareness. And, you know, thinking about how recommendable a book is like the viral coefficient of a book.

How many for every reader? How many people? Does it get recommended to like getting a book brought to a dinner table and like having it foster this beautiful evening of conversation is like, well, now 10 people know about this book or six people know about this book. And somebody is going to, you know, take it or buy a copy or send their friend a copy or hear that a friend's parent got sick and you want to send it to this hospice nurse friend of yours is probably like this is part of the hospice entry package is like, welcome to the program.

Here's a book that you should read. Yeah. One last question before you go. It's perfect for those. Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you about that title. You said it was very different title than when you first started. You're a copywriter. You know, the headline is, you know, 80, 90% of the work. I'm sure you put hours into that into that title. I did. Oh, yeah. We had a lot of titles. And yes, if you start a brand, 90% of your advertising is the package. And it's amazing how many founders usually first time founders will start a company.

And the package will almost be like a second thought. And they're like, no, but we got to talk about Instagram ads. Like, that's really where we that's where it's like, it's where it's what people see the moment they see your product and the emotional shift that it's going to give to them. And it's the little bit of copy that you put on that package that will be 90% of your advertising, at least for the few years before you get huge ad budget. And even then, like, man, it's, it's so important. I have a friend who's a who's a great copywriter named Thomas Kemeny.

He wrote a book called Junior writing your way ahead in advertising. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to get into copywriting. But I was talking to him recently about, you know, Justin's peanut butter. You ever seen just it's like Justin's peanut butter. If you look on the side of Justin's peanut butter, there's this short story about how he's affected. He's the founder. And the reason he named it Justin's is because he doesn't have any time to think of clever names, which is why he named his son Justin and his daughter Justin.

And it's like, it's a great joke that makes you laugh when you look at this package. And like, you can't put a value amount on like, how many, how many jars of peanut butter did that? Did those 40 words sell? I would be willing to bet it's in the millions of dollars now. Because what you're trying to do immediately when you. When you get a product is to create a mood shift in someone. And usually it's how do I make your mood just 2% better when you see this thing? A lot of times the name to like, what's the what's a name that's that's funny that makes people kind of giggle that can take a brand a really long way.

And similarly with books, you know, the subtle art of not giving a fuck. Wonderful title. You know that that sold Mark Manson's first million copies. And even in the end state, millions more people or orders of magnitude more people are going to hear the title of a book than ever buy it, let alone than ever read it. Like your title is by far the most impactful part of your book. The farthest reaching. Yes. And yes, I would say the title is the first most impactful. And then the the description on Amazon or the back of your book is the second most important 40 words that you're going to write.

So, yeah. So I thought quite a lot about it. And for. For a long time, the book was how to interview your parents and why you should do it now. OK, just put the value right up there. Don't try and be too clever about it. And there was a good argument to call it that. And the further I got down, I thought, man, that's not actually the book. The book is it's about this relationship with my mom. And like, you're going to learn how to interview your parents. But but also, how can I? Give a title that that that makes you feel some.

Some emotional shift, some emotional shift. And one last question before you go. I mean, it's still really early in in my books. I could have made the wrong decision. Like I say all this as confidently as I can. But I also I could have fucked up, you know, still like it's selling. People are loving it. But but I I'll tell you the reason that I did one last question for you. And that is that I would tell. Some people the title and they would be like, oh, yeah. Wow. Wow. Like it gets that immediacy across.

And it's obviously the double entendre. And not everyone would would say it when I would when I would say one last question before you go. But enough people would react that I got the signal boost. Like, OK, I it's not everyone, but it's enough people that it creates some mood shift in them. That will. It's the right people like they the resonance. It's just corresponding with how acute you're like or how fearful you are of, you know, the waning time you have in that relationship. Right. Exactly.

Yeah. Not a lot of 19 year olds were like, oh, one last question before you go, because they still think that their time with their parent is infinite. Usually people over it. So usually people over 35 would be like, oh, yeah. And then you get to 50 and then just like, oh, yeah, I really got to do this because time is running out. And and then the sub. Title of it is why you should interview your parents. So you still get that across. And yeah, that was the decision I made because, you know, for for that reason.

But I pitched titles to people every day for months. So what do you think about this? OK, what do you think about this? And I'm really trying to look like don't don't go for the title that you fell in love with because you think it's so clever. Go with the one that you're getting signal boost from and be willing to redirect day by day. So that it can be the best outcome. Yeah, that's a that is great. Great advice for context. We're recording this maybe a month after the book has come out. Actually, a month to the day after the release.

So I'm curious, like how the first month has been. I know you've been all over like doing events, having like a very exciting launch. I'm curious how it's been going and what the experience has been. Sure. Let's talk about it. I'll tailor these answers for. I think it'll be they'll be useful for any anyone who's either a writer or even an entrepreneur, because, you know, when you're usually getting interviewed, you're being interviewed about the content of the book. You're not being interviewed about your marketing strategy.

But the only reason people are learning about the content of the book is because of your marketing strategy. Yeah. So it's really important to be thinking about these things. And I would. I would love to open up anything that I've learned to to anyone who's listening. So a few things. I was quite diligent about the writing the book when it was time to write the book and marketing the book when it was time to market the book. I actually was driving. I was driving to a party last night. And this is going to get into the marketing strategy.

And I was in the car with my my fiance. And we were talking about. About the last year, 2025. So what are you most proud of having done over the last year? You know, she gave her answer. And then she asked me, what are you most proud of? And I said, I'm. The easy answer is, well, I wrote my first book. But the the real answer was that I I focused on writing the best book that I could at that time. And I really did not let marketing creep into my mind. During that process. And then when the. When it was locked, when that final draft was locked, my mind shifted almost like a robot into your you are no longer a writer.

You are a marketer selling a product. And this your job now is to have this product reach as many people as possible. And it's it's hard to do, man. I mean, you the marketing creeps in marketing is fun. It's fun to think about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun to think about getting on those podcasts and chumming it up and those one liners. You're going to say how famous you're going to be and how many people are going to love you. And oh, my God, you get calls from all your favorite writers. And it's just going to be, you know, riding the horse into the sunset.

But as you're doing that, you're you're no longer in the muck of like, okay, this is the I need to be as honest as possible. Like, this is a book where this is starting to make this story as good as possible. And just stay insane. Just stay insane. And I mean, I myself do I don't I work with dimensional oder to say that and to ask the question, like, Are you and other authors equally great? I know, like, why insvedigkeit and you know why is this? That's what I like. That's what I like to be, I really, really like to write job writing is like, where is this kind of bible of everyone does that have one in the middle? Like, can I just boss out of the book as much as possible? If that is my business, Yes.

And if I'm not picking up top or left handers, that's reflected in Once you do a work that can be done quickly and efficiently, You spend a bunch of prophes wanting. A percent, period of your entire life. It's just like, Oh wow. words. two hours of sending emails to podcast hosts and influencers, DMing influencers. I created a huge Google Sheets list of everyone who might be interested in my book from podcast hosts, influencers, book clubs, and would send the messages. And the message that I sent was, hey, I just wrote this book about how to interview your parents.

Here's a quote from Rich Roll, who was nice enough to read an early draft of the book. He's a well-known podcaster. And he's like, this is a great book. And then I said, I'd love to send you a copy. No expectations or ask. Because if you're a podcast host with any audience, you're getting hit up all day, every day with requests. Like, hey, can I send you a copy of this book? Can I use you as a free advertising vehicle? And I sent a few of those emails, didn't get one response. And if I can sum my marketing strategy up into one phrase, it's givers are getters.

Look at your marketing strategy with your book as an offering. Look at it as a willingness to be generous with the world. If you can afford it, send some copies out to people. Write personally. Personalize notes. You wrote this thing. The world should know about it. Be generous. Have your mindset be that marketing is an act of consideration and generosity. So what I did was I would DM influencers, I'd DM podcasts. Hey, I'd love to send you my book. Probably sent off 150 personalized signed books to different people.

Many of them didn't respond. Go for it. Just for a sense of volume. How many... Outreaches probably did you do? And then did I hear 50 copies? 150. 150. Okay. Yeah. I sent 100. I probably... I mailed 150 copies of my book. I probably reached out to 300. I think 300 was my goal. Emails and DMs. People who do respond, you're corresponding with them. It starts to take up your day, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And... But you do it and mail the book out. And then there were also people who I did know I had relationships with.

And that's then like a, hey, I'm calling in a favor right now. You have a big Instagram following. My book comes out on November 18th. Will you please do a post about it? I had a number of friends who were podcasters where I could say like, hey, I'm not going to... I'm not going to do this little dance with you where I send you a book and kind of hope you invite me on your podcast. Let me on your fucking podcast. This is my... So you have those relationships, like just now is the time to call in all the favors, which I did.

And I was able to get a number of friends who had small to mid-sized podcasts to do interviews with me and got them to all say that they would release it the week of November 18th. In addition to that, one area that I found a lot of value that I think most people overlook are local newspapers. We tend to think of like, oh, we want to go... I'm going to go get on Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. And we try and go too big and it becomes an unrealistic... It's like the chances that those guys are going to have you on is pretty small considering how many people are trying to get on their shows.

But local newspapers still reach really a lot of people. And if you email one of those journalists, they might respond. And a number of local emails responded to me just because I was a guy from Santa Cruz. And they're, hey, this guy's out writing a book. That's super cool. And then those people... There were a lot of people that read books and came to my events because they saw it in the newspapers. But I think what I was able to do fairly well from being someone who... I'm not super famous. I have a podcast that a few thousand people listen to every episode, Instagram followings.

I have 15,000 Instagram followers. It's not nothing, but it's also not legit fame where you can just say something and sell 100,000 copies. I had to work as well as I could to have it be coordinated and call on favors. But what ended up happening then was the week of the launch, there were probably a dozen podcasts and articles that all came out that week. And it made it feel like it was a bigger thing because you're like, oh, I saw... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw this here. I saw that there, which is ultimately what you're trying to get with a book launch.

You want it all to come out at the exact same time because what happens then is people might not buy your book then, but they'll know it exists. The goal of a launch is not actually to... I think it's not actually to get people to buy the book right then. It's for everyone who's ever heard of you and more to know that you did that thing. Yeah. So many people over-index on the... Yeah. Totally. In branding, generally marketing, companies talk about taking up physical space and mental space. Coca-Cola takes up physical space.

They're so big that they can just plaster their logo everywhere. You can't go a day without seeing a Coca-Cola logo. And they're taking up... It's everywhere. I can so easily get this. Liquid Death takes up mental space. They come up with an idea that's such a... It's a mood shifter for you immediately. You can't possibly look away. And now you're thinking about that thing for the next day. You're like, God, that's so funny. I can't believe they did an enema kit with Blink-182 and it was Liquid Death water.

That's fucking hilarious. Because their whole goal is like, oh, well, you just need to be at the top of the internet and have people talking about it. I didn't buy Liquid Death for a year or two since I had heard about that. But what they did worked where I just, okay, I see it again and again. I hear about it again and again. So yeah, I mean, again, my book is selling, but I think that what I did quite well is everyone who's ever heard of me knows that I wrote a book now. And now it's just, it's a ground game of continuing to consistently put things out so that the second and third time that they hear about it, then maybe they'll buy it, right? In marketing, as you say, buy it the first time they see it.

And I can tell you, man, now I'm in a really strange spot as an author because all I want to do is move on to the next book. I wanted to be like, cool, I did it. I'm done. It's out. But luckily, I have a marketing background. And it's like, wait, imagine if you were a founder and you took three years to come up with your first product. And then you released it into market and you did ads for one month. And then you stopped doing ads and just, okay, well, we're going to spend another three years working on our next skew.

That's actually how most writers are thinking about it. But I'm like, wait a second, that's crazy. I have a product now. Every time I talk about this, someone now can buy it. That's amazing. I should be talking about this for the next year. And so, oh my God, there's so many things. I love that. It is a perfect analogy. I think one, it's because there's this mutual delusion between the author and the publisher that the publisher is going to go do all the marketing, which they just don't do. The author is the one pulling the plow.

And the author is the one who has to do that marketing and keep that awareness. The other is that your book in particular is a perfect long tail. This book, it's evergreen. It'll be relevant for a hundred years. And there are people graduating into this need, into this use case, into this chapter of their lives every single day. And so you can run the exact same playbook, tell the exact same stories. Like market to the exact same archetype, but a new set of people for 50 years. And so the exact same product for 50 years.

And some of the great canonical books are like that. You talked about how to win friends and influence people earlier, same exact file, same exact value proposition. It's just been going forever, but it's because it has that mind space. People know that that's the book for this thing. And so the question is actually like, can you get enough copies, do enough hands over the first, like not week or month, but like year or three years or five years so that like this book becomes the book for that particular need or problem.

And it's just thinking at a different timescale than most authors even bother to, as you point out, they mostly over-index on their launch, get a stomach ache because they feel shame because the launch underperformed their expectations and then never talk about it again and move on to something else. Yeah. Marketing a book is a lot like investing where... Where you need to set up a system that is unemotional. Like the best, the people who find financial freedom just set up an automatic investment into a Vanguard.

And no matter what the market is doing month over month, they're investing that same amount of money month over month, right? Like they just go at it regardless of the response of the market generally, right? And I think that what a lot of writers do is they invest a huge amount right at launch and then nothing else in the end. So the way that I've done it is I have created a... I mean, here's a super simple low budget thing for writers that don't have a marketing budget after launch. You get a Canva account.

Canva is a super easy way to design statics for Instagram. You find good lines from your book, like a simple, like a quote or something like that. You put it into the Canva design, download it, upload it to Instagram. This is James Clear's whole strategy. This guy has millions of followers, huge news. He's basically just taking bits and pieces of atomic habits and throwing them out like breadcrumbs over years and years and years. And then he's also getting a few new ideas. With habits, but it's still on the habit track and just continuing to throw breadcrumbs out.

So it gives people this on-ramp into eventually buying his book. But I think any author can do that, right? Just find these little bits from your book and release them three days a week for the next year. That doesn't take any money, but you're continuing to then market your book and it increases your chances of it finding new people. Yeah. Just reminders and reminders and reminders that this thing exists and people will convert eventually. The beautiful thing about this book and this problem is that literally everybody has it.

At some point in their life, it's just a matter of timing. This is going to come to the forefront of your life. I had a friend who wrote an Amazon review that said, a book for everyone whose parents are mortal. Yes. Yeah. I wanted to say one thing about launch. Two, because we're human and the psychological component of feeling like you won is deeply important, both for the first book, but also if you're ever going to write a second book. I have a background as an athlete and there are quite a lot of parallels between really hard athletic achievements and writing a book.

And one of them is if you do a workout or you go on a long run, you need to make it feel like that was a success. And most people do, right? You do a workout, you leave, you think, I'm really happy I did that. I felt good. I'll consciously end a workout and spend five minutes meditating on what a good, that was a really good workout. I feel stronger as a result of that. Training my mind to think that was a really good thing to do. Same with writing. Right. Like, oh, wow, that was a really good thing.

I did that. Even if it's a shit writing session and you got 10 words down, I spent the time to do that on a larger level. I pushed really hard to have the first two weeks of my launch be filled with live events. People will say like, oh, live events. The amount of people that were like, dude, live events are a waste of time. It's expensive. You'll sell 40 copies with that. And I was like, no, no, no, this isn't about selling copies. This is about making me feel like I'm a fucking winner. Yeah. This is about me reading my book to a room of people and feeling awesome.

Like I need, this was so hard to do. I need to feel like that was a success. Even if I sell no books, even if it's a total loss leader in this campaign. And I did it and people laughed at the right parts in the right chapters. And I got to sign books. I got to feel like a real author. I got to take, photos of the fucking blast. Like, I'm like, this is, and I'm like, people are like, how's the book selling? I'm like, I don't know. I think it's selling pretty well, but like, that's such a distant second right now to like the fact that it really resonated with people.

Like people cried in the audience. People laughed. Like that's what I wanted to have happen. And I think that if I would have not done those live events, I would have been way more obsessed with how the book was selling. And I think that if I would have not done those live events, those first two weeks, which is inevitably, you know, if you're a first time author, it's probably not going to be that much over the first month. Even good outcomes tend not to feel like a lot for authors. Like the median is like in the hundreds, right? Like this is not, these are not huge numbers that, you know, blow people's brains off when they're thinking about, you know, big podcast numbers or big download numbers or views on Tik TOK or whatever, like, right.

So, and the second thing that I think is really important is that, you know, the second thing I'll say is that I would highly recommend that anyone who does a book do a launch because in addition to having it feel really good, what a launch really is, is a media event for other people to pull their phones out and take photos of your book. So if you do the launch, make sure there's some really easy places for people to take photos. Could be you signed in the book, could be you on like, but all you can't really, I mean, you'd have to pay a lot of money to get a number that many people to show up and all post Instagram on the same day.

And if you do that right around your launch, it's going to make the whole thing feel bigger. I love that. There's a very well-designed thing for a human too. Like it's a really good observation that if you record a podcast, this is weird disconnect. We have, if you record a podcast and 50 people listen to it, you're like, Oh, what a waste of time. Like, you know, that's a small podcast. And most people would be like, I'm not even going on that podcast. But if you get 50 people in a room as just like a human, that feels amazing.

You're, you know, to be in front of 50 people, people fly all over the world to be speak to 50 people in person, let alone like take photos and have it be part of the launch. And like our mutual friend set a photo of you on your launch day that looked amazing. And like a bunch of your reviews on Amazon have those photos now. And like I see them on Instagram, like it really, yeah. And it all goes back to like making it feel really big. And I think that's a really, really important thing to do. And feel really good to you as an author.

I think that's super, super insightful. Yeah, live events, live events are great. And how did you set those up out of curiosity? I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those bookstores or like, and no, so the first event was at Mudwater in LA. So I had a connection there. And the second or the next four were all Patagonia stores. Patagonia does do events for non athlete, you know, I had the in because I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete.

But you can reach out to stores, in addition to bookstores. And most of them are psyched. Like, you know, if I'm getting, you know, we had like 200 people in the Santa Cruz showing and like, those are all potential customers now for that's awesome. Right. So yeah, we were able to set up events at stores. And I would recommend, you know, if you're not having much luck at bookstores, think about like, what's, what's your book all about? Or what are their brands that are kind of connected to that world? And could you sit convince them, hey, I would love to come like, all I need is a microphone, a table, and we can set up events.

I will say this. If you make a request to anyone, but but a bookstore in particular, it's a really interesting kind of like mental strategy. If you make a request with a far out enough timeline, like, hey, in five months, can we do this event? There's like no reason for them to say no, because it seems so far away. And then like a month before you like, hey, cool. So we agreed to doing this, right. But if you asked them a month before the event, they're gonna be like, I'm too busy, can't make it happen.

So, you know, there were a few things that I was doing marketing, you know, while I was still actually writing the book. And one of them was, I probably set these events up like seven months ago. And it was very interesting. You know, and it's one of those things for making the requests to a few of those, like get the agreement. Because psychologically, people, it's like when your friend invites you on the like, the Grand Canyon trip, 13 months from now, you're like, sick, right on. And then like 12 months in, you're like, Oh, my God, like, why did I agree to that? But I guess I got to go now.

So make the requests really far in advance, and you'll get more yeses. That's very, very clever. When you were sitting there with, you know, late 2023, 2024. Version, you know, 567 of this manuscript. How did you navigate the like the road to publishing? Like, there's a lot of options, you know, especially given your, you know, your audience and your background, like, there's a lot of ways to like, go about getting a book out into the world. Like, what was that decision process for it? Like for you? Yeah, well, I, I was given the advice very early.

I think Adam Skolnick gave me this, this advice. Shout out, Adam. He's like, that dude, man, everyone go buy his book, American Tiger. It's his new novel. It's so fucking good. And that guy's he's, he's equally as sharp, a writer as he is cool, a dude, which you don't often get, like the mix of both. I once told him, I'm like, dude, you should, you should be so much less cool. You're so good. So much like, how are you just so humble and chill? And like, it's just an amazing human who's he's been so helpful to me.

But I believe he gave me the advice. If you're a first time author, write the book. Like, don't, don't even think about, like publishing until you write the story. Because if you go out to traditional publishers too early before you've written the book, a you can't sell it as well, because you don't actually know what the book's about. You just, you know, you've written the pitch and maybe a couple chapters, but the rest of it's just like, well, I'm guessing this is what the story is really going to be.

So if you're a first time author, write the book. And if you're a first time author, if you write the book, first, you have a better pitch. You're like, look, it's really, it's the story about my mom and me and this is all this that happens. And then in chapter 26, this is what happens. So you can pitch better in the room once you once you've written the book. And the second is if you just write a pitch, and then you go out to traditional publishers and get rejected, it's going to be really hard to follow through on the project.

So I knew that I knew that if I just wrote a pitch and got rejected, I probably would throw the book away and just be like, Oh, well, it's clear signal that I shouldn't keep going with this. So I wrote the whole book, I wrote a draft of the whole book before making any any decisions. And scribe was recommended to me really early in the publishing process, our mutual friend Scott, Adam had done can't hurt me with you guys. And like, you know, there's a certain level of, of needing, good recommendations from other people, because it's such an important and trusting process, like giving me I mean, and you see self quote, unquote, self published books that like, look like dog shit.

And you're like, dude, this is not I don't care what is written in this book, you know, not scribe books, but like people who just go straight through, Oh, I published it with Amazon. And like, like, dude, I'm not going to read this book. I don't care how good it is, like just doesn't look that good. People judge a book by its cover. They really do. Turns out, they really do. So I had known about scribe, I'd ha