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

Welcome to the show! 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. Diary of the CEO, you treated me so great and you were so kind but so intelligent. Your questions were phenomenal. I was blown away of how much work you put in to that show, down to every little detail. When I walked in everyone was so friendly. We do this interview, we talk for, do the whole interview and we went everywhere. 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 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're leaving and you go, here Jimmy and you gave me this and I go, oh thanks and it's the Diary of the CEO and it's, it was photos of us doing the interview and like and in timestamps, this is me in real time. I was wearing that sweater, yeah 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 and when I left I'm like, started crying. I was like, it's the greatest thing ever. I loved it, thank you for that. Thank you so much. You plan all that stuff? Yeah, like we, 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 concert. The Beatles? The Beatles, yes. Yeah. You're a big fan of Sting. I know the first concert you went to with your parents was AI Weird Yankovic? Yes. I don't even know who that is but so. Weird Yankovic, oh get ready, get ready for Christmas. You're gonna get a nice package. You're gonna get a nice package from me, yeah. Weird Al's my favorite, first concert, of course. I've 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? Yes. 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 on both. The CO2 level? Yeah, there's some like crazy stats that I read a couple 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 a thousand 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. But 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 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 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. So I'm so glad you mentioned it. 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 tell me like a little bit of your story. I mean, you started 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 team had told me there's this thing called a podcast. So I went on my way home from work, went to the Apple store, bought this microphone, actually recorded under the stairs near my kitchen. And I remember taking my sock off at 2am in the morning and I put it on the microphone because I was getting lots of 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. And then I posted it. And you know, like 26, 27 people listened to it. Oh, 26 people. Yeah. I thought you were going to say 27 million. No, no, no, no. Like 26 people, like 26 downloads. And like one of them was my friend. And my friend was like, that was good. And 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, oh. 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 so I carried on doing that. And yeah, it's been crazy. Well, the show recently surpassed one billion streams. So congratulations. One billion. One billion from under your kitchen. You've done about 500 episodes now. Have you ever had an interview not go as planned? Or I feel like you're so rehearsed. I mean, not rehearsed, but you do your homework. Oh, tell me, please. Yes. Whatever you're about to say, say it. There was this one day where I had two interviews in the same day. And my research team, bless them, they sent me the research. So they sent me the books, the research. I click on the file. I start reading. I spend five hours reading the research. I'm ready to go. I've watched all the videos and 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 guests 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, ready to go. And I don't know what this person's name is, let alone what they do. So I said to the guy, I said, tell me how you spell your name. Which is what you do, right? That's such a good move. Tell me how you spell your name. He's like, John. Yeah, this is the problem. 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. He's called Dr. K. My first question to him, producer goes, ready to go. My first question to him is, 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? God bless him. He's like a genius. And he said, 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 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 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 a beautiful conversation. So yeah, so now I don't do any research. Yeah, right. No, it's not true. Well, I, I can't tell you how much of a fan I am of you. And also your team and everyone took care of me. I've never gotten more, better feedback on any interview I've ever done ever than your interview. So thank you so much. And I wanted to say as a gift to you, while we were doing this interview, I did a drawing. There's you and there's me. There you go. That's for you. Thank you. Nice to see you. 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.