Dan Carlin (TW/FB: @HARDCOREHISTORY, DANCARLIN.COM) is the host of my absolute favorite podcast, Hardcore History, as well as Common Sense. Jocko Willink (here) is also a huge fan of Hardcore History. Tip: Start with “Wrath of the Khans.”
“If I’ve learned anything from podcasting, it’s don’t be afraid to do something you’re not qualified to do.”
TF: This is a common thread throughout this book. Kamal Ravikant, Naval Ravikant’s (here) brother, told me how Naval once said to him (paraphrased): “If I had always done what I was ‘qualified’ to do, I’d be pushing a broom somewhere.” As I’ve also heard said, “Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.” Dan preemptively disarms potential criticism of his credentials by saying in nearly every episode, “Keep in mind that I’m no historian, but …”
“I used to tell my stories that I’ve told my whole life, and I was telling them around the dinner table. My mother-in-law said to me, because I was already doing one podcast on current events [Common Sense], ‘Why don’t you do a podcast on the stuff you’re talking about here at dinner?’ I said I couldn’t do that. I said, ‘It’s history, and I’m not qualified to talk about history. I don’t have a doctorate, I’m not a historian.’ And she said, ‘I didn’t realize you had to have a doctorate to tell stories.’ I thought about that for a bit…. Most of the great historians from the non-modern era didn’t have doctorates, either. They’re just storytellers, too. As long as I’m not purporting to be a historian, and as long as I’m using their work … I will tell you the [historical] controversy, and then I will say, ‘Here is what historian A says about it, and here’s what historian B says about it.’ I’ve been surprised how much the listeners like to hear about what’s called ‘historiography,’ which is the process of how history gets written and made and interpreted. They love hearing that! So you’ll actually talk about the different theories. I’m not making this stuff up. I’m using the experts to tell you a story.”
TF: Dan builds shows around his answer(s) to “What’s weird about this story?” when reading various and often conflicting historical accounts.
“I always was heavily ‘in the red,’ as they say, when I was on the radio…. I yelled so loud, and I still do, that the meter just jumps up into the red. They would say, ‘You need to speak in this one zone of loudness, or you’ll screw up the radio station’s compression.’ After a while, I just started writing liners [intros others would read for him] for the big-voice guy: ‘Here’s Dan Carlin, he talks so loud …’ or whatever.
“That’s my style. ‘I meant to do that. As a matter of fact, if you do it, you’re imitating me.’ So it’s partly taking what you already do and saying, ‘No, no, this isn’t a negative. This is the thing I bring to the table, buddy. I copyrighted that. I talk real loud, and then I talk really quietly, and if you have a problem with that, you don’t understand what good style is.’ Just copyright your faults, man.”
• Advice to your 25- or 30-year-old self?
“I remember coming out of the television station where I was a TV reporter. I was working the night shift. I had just worked on some stories all day, and I was just thoroughly unsatisfied with them by the time they hit the air. I remember walking out of the station around midnight. It was up on the top of this mountain, a beautiful place. I remember looking out and just saying, ‘Oh, my God, when am I going to like this? When am I going to really be happy with the work that I’m churning out?’ I look back on that all the time … if I could go back and just tell myself, ‘Don’t stress about it, it’s all going to work out in the end.’ Wouldn’t any of us like to know that? Just tell me it’s all going to be okay, and I can get by in my 20s. The 20s were really hard for me…. If you could have just said, ‘Stop worrying, it’s all going to be okay,’ … I would have saved a ton of emotional stress and worry. I’m a natural-born worrier. Although, if you had told me that, I might have relaxed so much that [my current] reality might never have occurred. So that’s why you can’t go back in the time machine and step on the butterfly—you’ll screw up everything. So I won’t go back and tell myself that, Tim, because I’ll screw up my future.”