Podcast appearances and mentions of jim buchanan

Did you know that running a booster club board meeting is a lot like managing a business? Clear rules, defined roles, and structured discussions lead to real results. One key to success is Robert's Rules of Order, a time-tested framework that helps meetings stay on track, make informed decisions, and avoid unnecessary chaos.  In this episode of The Boosted Volunteer, host Robin Eissler sits down with Jim Buchanan—adjunct professor at UMHB, founder of Brighter Honor Consulting, and former AT&T director—to share expert strategies for running efficient, organized, and results-driven board meetings. Jim emphasizes the importance of preparation for effective meetings, where decisions are made rather than learning new information. He advocates for forming committees to streamline discussions and prevent endless debates. Jim also stresses the need to train new board members on Robert's Rules of Order using bylaws, policy manuals, and online resources. A well-prepared board chair leads confidently, improving decision-making and operations. Jim and Robyn also reflect on their volunteer experiences, highlighting teamwork and patience. Jim's background in theater and leadership with children's activities contributed to his booster club's success.  Key Takeaways: 2:46 Importance of Robert's Rules of Order:  Jim explains Robert's Rules of Order 4:24 Structure and Organization in Nonprofit Meetings: Jim emphasizes the importance of having a structured meeting to prevent chaos and ensure productivity 7:29 Managing Unexpected Topics During a Meeting:  Jim suggests using a "parking lot" to address out-of-agenda items later in the meeting, helping to maintain focus on the primary agenda. 8:34 Ideal Meeting Structure: Jim outlines the key components of a board meeting, including preparation, organizing logistics, staying on time, and maintaining accurate meeting minutes. 10:06 What Should and Should Not Be on the Agenda: Jim explains what items belong on a typical agenda, stressing the importance of staying focused on the key topics relevant to the meeting. 12:00 Common Mistakes in Parliamentary Procedure: Jim highlights a common mistake in meetings 21:31 Robert's Rules of Order: Training new board members with bylaws and Robert's Rules of Order is essential    Resources: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-buchanan-cam-c-p-m-58a65123/  

Info on the next LIVE SCREAM event. https://weirddarkness.com/LiveScreamDarkness Syndicate members get the ad-free version. https://weirddarkness.com/syndicateIN THIS EPISODE: We'll talk about the year we had two Thanksgivings in the United States. (The Year With Two Thanksgivings) *** A Weirdo family member shares a freaky true Thanksgiving story with an explosive ending! (Thanksgiving Explosion) *** Two brothers solve an almost 200-year-old murder mystery thanks to a Thanksgiving ghost story that was told to them by their grandfather. (Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story) *** I'll share a horrific Thanksgiving tale from the latter part of the nineteenth century. (Feast of Terror)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Disclaimer and Show Open00:01:54.584 = The Year With Two Thanksgivings00:09:36.038 = Thanksgiving Explosion00:16:00.997 = Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story00:21:43.206 = Feast of Terror00:32:01.951 = A Special Thanks00:33:39.464 = Show CloseSOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…“The Year With Two Thanksgivings” by Dave Tabler at AppalachianHistory.net: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4c6wry5z, and Jim Buchanan for The Sylva Herald: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p92jet4“Thanksgiving Explosion” by Weirdo family member, Rachel Gates“Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story” by Chris Bradford for The Sun: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8atemu“Feast of Terror” posted at Freaky Folktales: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yn58xfbWeird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2024, Weird Darkness.= = = = =Originally aired: November, 2022CUSTOM LANDING PAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/4ThanksgivingStories

Factory Full Tilt is a dope team. The team got their first number one factory title back in 2018 as Full Tilt Bike Co. Since then the Minnesota based team has been under the guidance of Jim Buchanan.  He's taken that team to five straight titles including one in 2023. When I spoke with Buchanan he was at his shop. He told me there were times last season that he didn't think the team was going to be able to keep the streak alive. By the time Grands rolled around he says they won the R.O.C. and Grands. Damn! Buchanan says it's really a testament to the parents and kids who travel all over the country to make it happen. In this interview Buchanan and I talk about organizing a team, how he picks riders for certain races, picking riders for the team, and the misconception people have about the pressures of riding for the best team in the nation.Here's an interesting little fact about Buchanan, he restores old cars for a living. 

We're doing things a little differently. The podcast is taking time off until January 9th, but that doesn't mean no episodes until then. Eric is bringing back some of his favorite episodes to your feeds while the podcast is away. Today's episode is a reairing of Episode 240, originally released May 12th, 2022. In this episode, Eric assembled a panel of barbecue lovers to pick the ultimate barbecue plate. Plus, Dozier's Barbeque pitmaster Jim Buchanan looks over the selections to decide who assembled the ultimate BBQ plate. What goes number 1? Whose draft strategy will prove best? Who reached with their selection? Which items got snubbed? Find out all of that and more on this special edition of the podcast! Follow Eric on Instagram @ericsandler and on Twitter @esandler, you can also reach Eric by emailing him at eric@culturemap.com. Check out some of his latest articles at Culturemap.com: Houston's Best New Restaurants For 2023: 12 Favorites That Keep Us Coming Back For More Favorite Rice Village Chocolate Shop Relocates and Rebrands with Coffee, Treats, Wine, and More New Upscale Japanese Restaurant Claims Former One Fifth Space in Montrose Local Foods Shutters in Tanglewood to Reopen as New, Larger Post Oak Patio Spot Dim Sum, Sushi, and Roast Duck: Chinese Chef Has Big Plans for Medical Center Hotel Theodore Rex's Beard Award Semifinalist Chef Departs After 'Beautiful,' 8-Year Run

PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK in your social media so others who loves strange and macabre stories can listen too:https://weirddarkness.com/four-strange-but-true-thanksgiving-stories/IN THIS EPISODE: We'll talk about the year we had two Thanksgivings in the United States. (The Year With Two Thanksgivings) *** A Weirdo family member shares a freaky true Thanksgiving story with an explosive ending! (Thanksgiving Explosion) *** Two brothers solve an almost 200-year-old murder mystery thanks to a Thanksgiving ghost story that was told to them by their grandfather. (Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story) *** I'll share a horrific Thanksgiving tale from the latter part of the nineteenth century. (Feast of Terror)SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…“The Year With Two Thanksgivings” by Dave Tabler at AppalachianHistory.net: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4c6wry5z, and Jim Buchanan for The Sylva Herald: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p92jet4“Thanksgiving Explosion” by Weirdo family member, Rachel Gates “Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story” by Chris Bradford for The Sun: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8atemu“Feast of Terror” posted at Freaky Folktales: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yn58xfbVisit our Sponsors & Friends: https://weirddarkness.com/sponsorsJoin the Weird Darkness Syndicate: https://weirddarkness.com/syndicateAdvertise in the Weird Darkness podcast or syndicated radio show: https://weirddarkness.com/advertise= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ) Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =OTHER PODCASTS I HOST…Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymagMicro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrorsRetro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradioChurch of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2023, Weird Darkness.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =TRANSCRIPT: https://weirddarkness.com/four-strange-but-true-thanksgiving-stories/This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3655291/advertisement

Find Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts: https://weirddarkness.com/listen. #paranormal, #thanksgivinghorror #thanksgivingstory #truestory, #paranormalstory, #ghoststory #horrorstory, #truecrimeIN THIS EPISODE: We'll talk about the year we had two Thanksgivings in the United States. (The Year With Two Thanksgivings) *** A Weirdo family member shares a freaky true Thanksgiving story with an explosive ending! (Thanksgiving Explosion) *** Two brothers solve an almost 200-year-old murder mystery thanks to a Thanksgiving ghost story that was told to them by their grandfather. (Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story) *** I'll share a horrific Thanksgiving tale from the latter part of the nineteenth century. (Feast of Terror)SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…“The Year With Two Thanksgivings” by Dave Tabler at AppalachianHistory.net: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4c6wry5z, and Jim Buchanan for The Sylva Herald: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p92jet4 “Thanksgiving Explosion” by Weirdo family member, Rachel Gates “Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story” by Chris Bradford for The Sun: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8atemu “Feast of Terror” posted at Freaky Folktales: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yn58xfb = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ), Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46Weird Darkness®, Weird Darkness© 2022

Jim Buchanan talks about diversity, today's labor market, and more, on this edition of PeopleTech,

Jim Buchanan talks about diversity, today's labor market, and more, on this edition of PeopleTech,

Jim Buchanan talks about diversity, today's labor market, and more, on this edition of PeopleTech,

Instead of doing the normal format Eric is switching things up today with a special edition of the podcast, it's the Ultimate Houston Barbecue Draft. Eric has assembled a panel of barbecue lovers to pick the ultimate barbecue plate. Then Dozier's Barbeque pitmaster Jim Buchanan looks over the selections to decide who assembled the ultimate BBQ plate. What goes number 1? Whose draft strategy will prove best? Who reached with their selection? Which items got snubbed? Find out all of that and more on this special edition of the podcast! Follow Eric on Instagram and Twitter, plus check out some of his latest articles at Culturemap.com, such as: Rising Star Houston Pitmaster Brings the Heat on Food Network BBQ Competition Show Aaron Franklin and Tyson Cole Reveal Second Houston Location of Their Asian Smokehouse Smash Ice Cream Doughnut Shop from Miami Bringing Cool Spot to Houston Area Mexico City Inspired Taqueria Unrolls Third Houston Location in Garden Oaks Area Houston's Whiskey-Obsessed Restaurant to Open a Spirited New Locale in The Woodlands Bobby Heugel's 'Best' New Bar Rises Above Anvil with 200 Spirits and a Dream Team Staff

0 mins In this episode Jaime and I interview a special guest, Jim Buchanan, Pitmaster at Dozier's BBQ a Smokehouse and Meat Market in Fulshear, Texas since 1957.  Jim gives a background of his days as a backyard warrior cooking central Texas style brisket and pork ribs. 5:00 minWe then talk about how Jim got into the competition barbecue world and quickly made a name for himself in his very first cookoff.  Jim tells us about some of his more memorable cookoffs and he gives us some advice about opening a barbecue restaurant.  We also ask for some Joe Tips on competition cooking going into Smokin on the Rio this coming weekend.  13:00 minJim's journey the takes him into the barbecue restaurant world.  He starts by helping a friend with a barbecue food truck that then turns into some barbecue pop ups and eventually a restaurant.  He then decides to open his own place, Buck's Barbecue but on the day he was to open, tragedy strikes.  Jim then has to take show on the road as he goes back to doing pop up events.                                                                                                                                                                                                  20:00 minNow Jim is the Pitmaster of Dozier's BBQ.  We learn about how he started with the restaurant.  We talk about the menu, some of the pits they cook on and how they manage to cook nearly 4,000 lbs of meat a week.  They have some rotating unique menu offerings and a large assortment of products through the meat market and smokehouse.   28:00 minWe end the conversation talking a little football and the Texas Longhorns.  32:40 minBehind the Red Carpet...Hiram jumps on the call as he shares some behind the scenes of the LA post Super Bowl party and parade.  He also tells us about his fancy Galantines Super Bowl party and Champagne pong?43:00 minI share some practice advice going into Smokin on the Rio and we talk about potential walk up songs if we are fortunate enough to get some calls.  A bunch of joes that cook like pros!!!Law Office of Hector Hernandezhttp://hhernandezlaw.com/?fbclid=IwAR3kaG_wQzrsUJ-cVxJLUyjvipMPM1R59xo9YMKFFsiGHaaUgdZ8hd8cB7YDozier's BBQ Dozier's BBQ, Deer Processing, Meat Market (doziersbbq.com)

This week we have storytelling about Cadient Talent with Jim Buchanan. During this episode, Jim and I talk about how practitioners make the business case or the use case for purchasing Cadient Talent.Jim is an expert in all things talent acquisition and hourly hiring. His passion to provide managers with a constant pipeline of quality candidates really comes through during the podcast.

Like the podcast on Facebook – https://facebook.com/weirddarkness, follow on Twitter – https://twitter.com/weirddarkness, join the Weirdos Facebook Group – https://facebook.com/groups/marlarhouse, and sign up for the FREE email newsletter - https://weirddarkness.com/newsletter! Please SHARE Weird Darkness with someone who loves paranormal stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do! Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show!IN THIS EPISODE: We'll talk about the year we had two Thanksgivings in the United States. (The Year With Two Thanksgivings) *** A Weirdo family member shares a freaky true Thanksgiving story with an explosive ending! (Thanksgiving Explosion) *** Two brothers solve an almost 200-year-old murder mystery thanks to a Thanksgiving ghost story that was told to them by their grandfather. (Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story) *** I'll share a horrific Thanksgiving tale from the latter part of the nineteenth century. (Feast of Terror)SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…“The Year With Two Thanksgivings” by Dave Tabler at AppalachianHistory.net: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4c6wry5z, and Jim Buchanan for The Sylva Herald: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p92jet4 “Thanksgiving Explosion” by Weirdo family member, Rachel Gates (no link available)“Grandpa's Thanksgiving Ghost Story” by Chris Bradford for The Sun: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8atemu “Feast of Terror” posted at Freaky Folktales: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yn58xfb Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music, EpidemicSound and/or AudioBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ), Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and/or Nicolas Gasparini/Myuu (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission. 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =WANT TO ADVERTISE ON WEIRD DARKNESS?Weird Darkness has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on the show. Email sales@advertisecast.com or start the process now at https://weirddarkness.com/advertise = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46Find out how to escape eternal darkness at https://weirddarkness.com/eternaldarkness WeirdDarkness™ - is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright, 2021.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =00:21:07.134,

Trying something new with the podcast, if you have a question that you'd like to ask Eric or a topic for him and his cohosts to discuss send them to Eric at eric@culturemap.com and he'll answer/discuss it on a future episode. Follow Eric on Instagram and Twitter, plus check out some of his latest articles at Culturemap.com, such as: Bun B and Houston Food Trucks Team Up for Astroworld Victims Fundraiser Masterchef Winner Christine Ha Picks Spring Branch for Vietnamese Gastropub New York Based, Australian Style Coffee Shop Brews Up First Houston Location Fantastical, Anime-Inspired Nightclub Dances into Downtown This Month 2 Houston Nightlife Veterans Step in to Open Planned Galleria Food Hall Austin Based Bar Serves Up Tropical Vibes to Prime Montrose Rooftop Pint-Sized Coffee Shop Percolates in Buzzy Garden Oaks Destination Favorite Uptown Sushi Rolls into North Houston with Stylish New Concept To hear Patrick's full story, listen to episode 47 of Tales from the Pits: Texas BBQ Podcast here.

Today's guest of Gateway to the Smokies Podcast is Jim Buchanan, Award-winning Journalist and Author, now living in Clyde, North Carolina. He has worked for the Asheville Citizen-Times and currently is a journalist for the Sylva Herald in Sylva, N.C. Jim also had a wonderful book published by the History Press earlier this year. We will talk about his book.Tune in for this fun conversation at TalkRadio.nyc or watch the Facebook Livestream by Clicking Here.Segment 1Today's show starts off with a great introduction of tonight's special guest: Jim Buchanan. Jim introduces himself, explaining his family roots in the Carolinas and the Great Smoky Mountains. Jim and host Joseph Franklyn McElroy, share fun facts and tidbits about history relating to their families and their shared commonalities. We get to learn more about Jim when he was young in college and what he was involved in that got him to where he is now, including when he worked for an afternoon newspaper that worked hard to expose the truth and tell people's stories.Segment 2 Coming back from the break, Jim shares how he transitioned from a corporate industry to a smaller more local newspaper. The conversation turns to journalism as a whole. Although journalism is a diminishing industry, Jim believes that newspapers and journalism is an important part of keeping citizens informed and therefore, keeping the government running and the nation together. The two then start talking about Jim's book. They discuss the reaction that came from Jim's book from close friends and a wider audience. Jim then explains his origins and inspiration for his book.Segment 3Jim tells stories that he drew inspiration from for his book. He was once lost with someone while going bear hunting years ago and this story ended up having a funny ending. The story gave insight on what the hunting culture was like back in the day and how Jim would often get lost. Joseph asked Jim about any future plans for a sequel of the book and what people can expect. Jim leaves an ambiguous answer that leaves the audience wondering if he will continue to tell all the stories that are left to tell. The two share their opinions on Silver City and how it is a growing city now that people are starting to move there. They share what they found is changing for the better and how it is a spiritual place to be. Segment 4For the last segment of tonight's show, Joseph asks Jim how he ended up in Clyde, North Carolina. They trade local seafood hotspots and other great places to check out there. Jim shares his recommendations in and near his hometown, including places to eat, entertainment, and other sights to see.

Local TV/Radio icon Jim Buchanan sits in/#Sixers/Tom Wolf is a dope/Jim the Crooner/Gettysburg Big Band/#RefundthePolice/#SubwayTuna/What We're Watching #LaTorreLive

In this episode I chat with Jim Buchanan from Dozier's BBQ in Fulshear TX. See all things Doziers BBQ here: https://www.doziersbbq.com See Doziers on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/doziersbbq Check them out on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/doziersbbq See Jim Buchanan on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/jbuch013/ Address: 8222 Farm to Market 359, Fulshear, TX 77441 Phone: 281-346-1411 Hours: Tuesday - Sunday Open 11am to 7PM Sunday Brunch Developing a dinner menu Alison Cook's piece on the brunch preview: https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/dining/alison-cook-barbecue-brunch-at-dozier-s-this-16103834 The Texas Monthly article we talked about: https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/doziers-barbeque-2020/

The restaurant industry is never a smooth ride, and no one knows that better than Jim Buchanan. Jim’s tireless determination and no quit attitude has helped sustained him through a number of trials and tribulations in the hospitality industry.  After Jim’s brick and mortar location in Galveston didn’t work out as he’d hoped, he received a call from the owners of Dozier’s BBQ, a 64 year old establishment in the growing city of Fulshear, Texas. Jim was given the opportunity to join Dozier’s and modernize some of their processes to help bring the historic place into the new age of barbecue while still retaining the key elements of what made Dozier’s such a beloved place to the locals.  With the mantra of “evolution not revolution,” Jim and the Dozier’s team have refined some of their cooking methods while still producing the classic meat market style barbecue for which this restaurant and wild game processor has long been known. Dozier’s carries a number Texas made products in their market that you won’t find at the big box grocery stores and has expanded the business to include a large outdoor patio and stage for live music. Dozier’s BBQ is a throwback classic with modern touches and they’re doing a great job of bridging the gap between old school and new school.  

As we embrace the holiday season, hourly hiring is beginning to increase to meet the seasonal demands. But with 65% of hourly employees only giving their temporary employers one week’s notice or less – how do you find qualified candidates that want to stay for the full holiday season or beyond?In this HRchat episode, we consider this seasonal dilemma. Our guest to help us do just that, and spread a bit of seasonal cheer, is Jim Buchanan, CEO of Cadient Talent, the North Carolina based end-to-end hiring solution for distributed workforces. Decreasing employee turnover can improve a team’s morale by nearly 40%. "One way this can be accomplished, explains Jim, "is by creating a user-friendly and intuitive recruiting system to find qualified candidates, seasonally or not. For instance, using analytics and assessments to help find employee applications that match qualities and characteristics from the company’s best performing employees."This episode is sponsored by Cadient Talent.

Check out Eric's latest articles at Culturemap.com (http://houston.culturemap.com/) , such as: Tilman Fertitta and King Ranch Saddle Up New Texas Comfort Food Restaurant (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-14-20-king-ranch-texas-kitchen-new-restaurant-steaks-barbecue-galleria-area-landrys-tilman-fertitta-carlos-rodriguez/#slide=0) Totally Rad New '80's Restaurant Rocks Onto Washington Corridor (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-14-20-hungry-like-the-wolf-new-restaurant-diner-80s-themed-washington-avenue/#slide=0) Houston's Favorite Delicatessen Permanently Shutters West U Location (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-16-20-kenny-and-ziggys-deli-restaurant-west-university-place-location-closed-shuttered/) Chris Shepherd Reveals Tasty Details on Can't Miss Fundraiser and Movie Night (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-19-20-urban-harvest-sunday-supper-fundraiser-moonstruck-drive-in-chris-shepherd-underbelly-hospitality/) New Over-The-Top Doughnut Shop Serves Up Wild Flavors to Houston (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-19-20-hurts-donut-new-doughnut-shop-memorial-park-rice-military-opening-date-october-22/) 9 Things to Know in Houston Food Right Now: Openings, Closings, and Patio Time (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-20-20-food-news-roundup-guava-lamp-gunso-japanese-kitchen-toasted-yolk-rosie-cannonball/#slide=0) New High-Energy Restaurant Electrifies Washington Avenue with Craft Cocktails and Massive Patio (https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-20-20-the-sporting-club-new-restaurant-bar-washington-avenue-soclutch-group/#slide=0)

On episode #160 we are chatting with Jim Buchanan about his very popular YouTube channel called Pinned TV. We chat about how Jim got into mountain biking, working with Dirt Magazine and MBUK, how he fell out of love with mountain biking for a number of years before returning to the scene and realising that things had changed, with better bikes, better trails and a new thing called enduro. Jim covers a tonne on the channel including weekly vlogs, product reviews, bike checks and how-to's, along with interviews, race coverage and all sorts of interesting content. Join us as we chat bikes, races, Pinned TV and much more. Enjoy the show! For more information and show notes visit: www.mtb-tribe.com

Toda la música de estas Mundofonías nos llega desde los Estados Unidos. Eso sí, desde una gran variedad de estilos y épocas: bluegrass, blues y ecos griegos, armenios, anatolios y klezmer desde los años 30 hasta nuestros días. Al the music we play on this Mundofonías edition comes from the USA, but bringing us a wide diversity of styles and times: bluegrass, blues and Greek, Armenian, Anatolian and klezmer echos from the 30s to this day. · Jake Blount – Roustabout – Spider tales · Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton – Goin’ back to Jericho Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton · Chad Darou – Paddy on the turnpike – Raising the bar · Volume Five – Long journey home – Children of the mountain · David Grisman, Vince Gill, Herb Pedersen, Jim Buchanan, Emory Gordy – Foggy mountain chimes – Here today · Della Mae – No-see-um-stomp – The Butcher Shoppe EP · Gary Brewer – Sally Ann – Live in Europe · Corey Harris – Sweet black angel – Greens from the garden · Reverend Gary Davis – I am the true vine – The Rough Guide to spiritual blues (V.A.) · Bessie Smith – Moan, you moaners – The Rough Guide to spiritual blues (V.A.) · Costas Gadinis – Anatolitiko syrto – I’m gonna give you everything: 1940s-50s independent label 78rpm dances & ballads of Anatolian, Greek & Levantine (V.A.) · Nor Ikes – Cefti telli – I’m gonna give you everything: 1940s-50s independent label 78rpm dances & ballads of · Anatolian, Greek & Levantine (V.A.) · Yenovk Der Hagopian – Bulbuleh (Nightingale) – I’m gonna give you everything: 1940s-50s independent label 78rpm dances & ballads of Anatolian, Greek & Levantine (V.A.) · Ben Holmes – Swamplands chusidl – Naked lore (· Ben Holmes – $43, a smile and bullshit – Naked lore) Imagen / Image: Jake Blount

On the most recent Section 10 Roundtable (every Wednesday at 9pm ET on Twitter/Periscope presented by Goslings Rum) we were joined by our good friend Brock Holt. This is the entire Brock interview including talk on how he is disguised as Jim Buchanan, what the transition to the Brewers has been like, how he was ready to just show up to Fort Myers and play for the Sox, how difficult his upcoming pursuit of Barry Bonds' single-season home run record will be and we wrap with Griff showing off his knowledge of dinosaurs. This was a great one, enjoy!

On this episode of Acoustic Music Talk: You've probaby heard him before even if you don't realize it. Herb Pedersen has been in many great bands, sang and played on hundreds of other artists' records, performed on stages and concert halls across the country, and been a solo artist himself. He was a founding member of the California country band, The Desert Rose Band, and still performs regularly as a duet with partner, Chris Hillman. He's recorded with other artists such as Dan Fogelberg, Gordon Lightfoot, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Rivers, and many more. You might have heard his television soundtrack work on such shows as The Dukes of Hazzard or The Rockford Files. Often in the background in a supporting role, we bring Herb into the limelight he so well deserves and talk about his multi-faceted career! A must hear podcast! Keep up with Herb at his official website: www.herbpedersen.com Also remember to check out our website for blog posts, and more! www.acousticmusictalk.com If you'd like to contribute to us at Acoustic Music Talk, go to www.paypal.me/acousticmusictalk We appreciate it!Support the show (http://www.paypal.me/acousticmusictalk)

Jim Buchanan, Founder/CEO @ Cadient and Ryan O'Donnell, CEO at EmployUs discuss HR Tech, Hourly Hiring and more

The Mtb trail Hub Podcast chats with Jim from the popular Youtube Channel Pinned TV!Jim has been part of the Mtb scene for years writing magazine articles and racing all over the U.K. Mountain biking for Jim has now morphed it's way to become a 2 Vlogs a week on Youtube which has enabled Jim to become a "part time" Youtuber!  Find out about the Youtube channel, Local trails, Writing articles for Mtb Magazines, Dyfi Bike Park and loads more! Check out Jims Channel here -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-xVJ5j44pojtW6dxMEMLhw Mtb Trail Hub Helps You Discover New Trails and Plan Your Next Trip!Check out the links below for more Trail Hub content! Website - http://www.mtbtrailhub.com Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/mtb_trail_hub/Facebook - http://bit.ly/MtbTrailHub-FacebookYoutube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbH91DjSTYbClG5Icc3EnHA/Thanks for Listening everyone!  #Letthegoodtimesroll #MtbtrailhubSupport the show (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbH91DjSTYbClG5Icc3EnHA?view_as=subscriber)

Galveston island may not be known as a craft barbecue hotbed. But the opening of Buck’s Barbeque Co. – a Central Texas-style barbecue joint from a pitmaster who has built a considerable fan base in Houston -- may change that view. Housed in the former Farley Girls Café on the east end of the Island, Buck’s is the culmination of Jim Buchanan’s quest to land his own brick-and-mortar restaurant after years of pop-ups and running food services out of someone else’s kitchen. Support the show.

Jim Buchanan of Buck's Barbeque Co. talks about how he got started in BBQ without a traditional culinary background.

On Christmas Eve, 1956, a woman jumped off the Shelby Street Bridge into the Cumberland River with a baby in her arms. Host Allen Forkum (editor of The Nashville Retrospect newspaper) revisits this tragic and heroic story through interviews with people who were there, including Harold Hogue, Anne Knox, and Judy Hunt Charest. Also learn about the aftermath of the event during the decades since. (Segment begins at 04:45) (Special thanks to Mike Hudgins and Sheri Hogue for their assistance with this story.) Original caption from the Dec. 24, 1956, Nashville Banner: “Muddy waters of the Cumberland River swirl around Mrs. Milton Hunt (arrow No. 1), who clings to a steel retaining beam, and her three-and-a-half months old daughter, Judy (arrow No. 2).” In the podcast, Anne Knox mentions the two objects floating in the water. (Image: Tennessee State Library and Archives, photo by Vic Cooley) Original caption: “Jack Knox [III], 25-year-old drafting department employe of Nashville Bridge Co. holds Mrs. Hunt above the water after he had rescued the baby and then swam to where the mother was hanging on near exhaustion.” (Image: Anne Knox, Mike Hudgins, photo by Vic Cooley) Original caption: “Mrs. Hunt is pulled ashore from the Bridge Company boat. A first aid team worked on her until she could be taken to General Hospital, where she was listed in critical condition.” The man in the foreground wearing a watch is Harold Hogue, who is interviewed in the podcast. Virgil Johnson is piloting the boat. (Image: Anne Knox, Mike Hudgins) Original caption: “Gilbert M. Dorland, vice-president of Nashville Bridge Co., hold three-and-a-half months old Judy Hunt after the tot was pulled form the icy waters of Cumberland River below the firm’s building.” (Image: Anne Knox, Mike Hudgins) Original caption: “Dressed in the only available dry clothes, a bridge company baseball uniform, Knox warms up after his plunge into the icy waters shorty after 10 a.m. today. He is a former West End High School and Citadel athlete.” (Image: Nashville Public Library, Nashville Room) The Hunt family (Marguerite, Milton and Judy) is pictured in 1957. (Image: Judy Hunt Charest) Judy and her mother, Marguerite. (Image: Judy Hunt Charest) Jack Knox (right) receives the Arland D. Williams Society award at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., on Nov. 12, 2005. He died ten days later. (Image: Anne Knox, Mike Hudgins) Judy Hunt Charest and Harold Hogue at the reunion at the site of the rescue on Sept. 16, 2015. The John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge (formerly the Shelby Street Bridge), the Nashville Bridge Building (formerly the Nashville Bridge Company), and the pier mentioned in the story, can all be seen in the background. (Image: Allen Forkum) Harold Hogue shows the watch given to him by Judy Hunt Charest, which she had engraved with: “Everyone needs a HERO. Thanks for being mine. 12/24/56 Love, Baby.” (Image: Allen Forkum) Also hear folk singers Dee and Delta Hicks of Fentress County, Tenn., discuss the lost tradition of Old Christmas in a 1981 interview by Bob Fulcher (assisted by Sharon Celsor-Hughes). Old Christmas was traditionally observed in some rural and mountainous areas of the south on Jan. 6 and included tales of farm animals kneeling to pray at midnight on Christmas Day. The interview was part of Cumberland Trail Park Manger Bob Fulcher's  Tennessee State Parks Folklife Project. (Segment begins at 48:40) (Special thanks to Bob Fulcher of Cumberland Trail, and to Lori Lockhart and Zach Keith at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.) Dee and Delta Hicks of Fentress County, Tenn. (Image: Bob Fulcher) And finally, Allen Forkum reviews some of the contents of the December 2018 issue, including children’s letters to Santa Claus in 1907 and Johnny Cash’s 1976 Christmas TV special. Also hear calls from readers about bygone Christmases in Nashville. (Segment begins at 01:30)   SHOW NOTES A list of articles relating to this episode that you can find in back issues of The Nashville Retrospect (back issue can be ordered by clicking here): • “Dives In River With Baby; Rescued,” Nashville Banner, Dec. 24, 1956 (The Nashville Retrospect, December 2011) • “Love Gives Itself; Jack Knox III and His Heroic Christmas Eve Rescue” by Mike Hudgins, The Nashville Retrospect, December 2011 • “Dives In River With Baby” letter to the editor by Judy Hunt Charest, The Nashville Retrospect, January 2012 • “Dives In River With Baby” letter to the editor by Harold Hogue, The Nashville Retrospect, December 2015   Other related articles: • “Knox Grins, Shivers After River Rescue,” Nashville Banner, Dec. 24, 1956 • “Woman ‘Critical’ Following Plunge,” Nashville Tennessean, Dec. 25, 1956 • “Photographer Witness To Near-Fatal Jump,” Nashville Tennessean, Dec. 25, 1956 • “Mother And Baby, Saved From River,” Oakland Tribune, Dec. 25, 1956 • “Plunges With Her Baby In River; Saved,” New York Daily News, Dec. 25, 1956 • “Old Christmas,” Nashville American, Jan. 7, 1907   Links relating to this episode: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1–800–273–8255 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline website “Bipolar Disorder, Manic Depression” at WebMD "Ordinary Angels" (song about the river rescue) written by Chris Floyd, Scott Barrier, and Judy Hunt Charest  “Tennessee State Parks Folklife Project” at Tennessee Virtual Archive Bob Fulcher: Folklife Heritage Award, 2017 Governor’s Arts Awards Cumberland Trail “Dee Hicks” and “Dee & Delta Hicks” by Bob Fulcher at Sandrock Recordings “Old Christmas Day” at The Free Dictionary “The history of Old Christmas” by Jim Buchanan in The Guide   Audio excerpts: Dee and Delta Hicks, interview by Bob Fulcher, Dec. 8, 1981, 81-PK–2, Tennessee State Library and Archives Music: “Near You” by Francis Craig and His Orchestra (Bullet, 1947); “Quiet Outro” by ROZKOL (2018); “The Apotheosis of All Deserts” by ROZKOL (2017); “Covered Wagon Days” by Ted Weems and His Orchestra; and “The Buffalo Rag” by Vess L. Ossman  

Jim Buchanan is in the BUILDING. Yes, we got the one and only Mr. Brawl Joe Kelly on the podcast this week. We lead into Kelly's lengthy interview with a segment with Hubbs to preview the Red Sox-Yankees series. Then it's time for our Joe Kelly sit-down where we discuss the odd scenario that he found out he was dealt to the Red Sox, how great it feels to be able to throw over 100 MPH, the BS that he feeds the media when he doesn't want to answer a question, the creation of our favorite character Jim Buchanan, a full breakdown of the brawl with the Yankees and how he becomes a maniac in those situations, recap of how he spent his suspension including the Bruins playoff game and watching a Sox game in the bleachers with the fans, talk his charity that benefited greatly from the brawl, expectations for potential retaliation in this Red Sox-Yankees series, how different the clubhouse vibe is with Alex Cora over John Farrell, and close with if he would fight Tyler Austin in Rough N' Rowdy. We then end the show with a trip down memory lane on Don and Jerry and a unique Down in the DM request.

Fenway Friday's made a surprising return this past week so we break down our bizarre weekend in Boston. This leads us to "Hate to See That" being dead, morons that actually don't want Dustin Pedroia to return, a surprise guest appearance from NBC Sports Boston's Evan Drellich, a quick recap of Monday's win over the Royals, Fuckin with Hubbs, debate over Yawkey Way being changed back to Jersey Street, Jared explaining the whole WEEI situation, and Jim Buchanan making a surprise appearance in the bleachers/taking over the world. We then close with your phenomenal Down in the DM questions.

It's taken a million days, but the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is finally back on. We dive right into Wednesday's madness including David Price's odd short start, JD Martinez breaking through with a big grand slam, Tyler Austin's dirty slide into Brock Holt, and the entire fiasco of Jim Buchanan plunking Tyler Austin and then beating his ass when he charged the mound. We then dive into our earlier recorded portion of the episode which features "You Hate to See That" taking over the universe, what it means that Alex Cora took blame for a mess-up over the weekend, Hanley continuing to be just straight up awesome, and a rare Patriots Day debate. We close with your phenomenal Down in the DM questions along with a brand spanking new segment.

We're only 5 games into the season and it's very clear that this Red Sox team is going to finish the year 161-1. We open talking how unreliable Jim Buchanan has been so far, with a hint at why he blew the Opening Day game. This leads to a full breakdown of the bullpen, the Sox implementing the Fortnite celebrations, a Xander Bogaerts debate, Fuckin with Hubbs featuring a full critique of Giancarlo Stanton's moronic home run call, and Andrew Benintendi needing to dump his girlfriend immediately. We close with your phenomenal Down in the DM questions and a brand new segment!

As Spring approaches, and Boston got almost two feet of snow, Red Sox Beat talks what could be this season for Sam Travis. Is he ready? Does he have a future in Boston at all? Other Red Sox topics discussed are Joe Kelly returns as Jim Buchanan and an update on #Lydiastrong and Craig Kimbrel. Around the league the Yankees and Phillies make signings. Jared, Jess and Lauren catch you up on what that means for these two clubs and the Red Sox.

Hurricane Harvey hit on the exact day Jim Buchanan was set to start serving his barbecue to customers at Lucky’s Pub in the Heights. Lucky’s wound up taking on 15 feet of water, and Jim had to recalibrate. Chris and Greg chat with him about Harvey, his Central Texas-style barbecue and how he got into smoking meats, from backyard warrior to competition cooker to pop-up pitmaster to, hopefully one day, opening his own joint. Support the show.

From family barbecues to nearly opening a brick and mortar before the building was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, Jim Buchanan has persistently pursued his barbecue dream. Jim developed his taste for Texas barbecue living in Katy Texas beginning with backyard cookouts. The competition circuit was his next endeavor where he did well and met up with Wes Jurena, leading to his work at Pappa Charlies.Jim stepped out on his own and was set to open his own place before the hurricane sidelined him, but he recovered and is currently popping up at several locations. Listen to Jim's story and the time he almost gave his girlfriend a heart attack when he was experimenting with his espresso ribs! Twitter: @bucksbbqcowww.bucksbbqco.com Catch Buck's Barbeque Co. at:Wed, Thu, Fri 11am-3pm with specials often on Friday evenings Lucky's Lodge 2024 Rusk St Houston, TX 77003 Saturdays from 11am to sell out or 6pm 8th Wonder Brewery 2202 Dallas Street Houston Texas 77003 Sundays from 4pm-9pm Frio Hill Country Grill 16410 Mueschke Rd Cypress, TX 77433

In this episode, I discuss the process of writing and being successful with Mike Munger. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation. Petersen: My guest today is Mike Munger of Duke University. Mike, welcome to Economics Detective Radio! Munger: It's a pleasure to be on your show! Petersen: So first I stole EconTalk's format and now I have stolen Mike Munger as well, so if Russ Roberts sends me a cease and desist letter, I'll completely understand why. Munger: Russ and I have an open relationship. We both date other people. Petersen: Oh good, good. I have many jokes I could make about that, but I won't! Munger: Thank you for not. Petersen: So, our topic today is going to be writing and thinking. Let's say that because, as we'll go through, the two are intimately related. So Mike wrote a piece titled "Ten Tips on How to Write Less Badly." Now you may be thinking to yourself, "Hey I thought this was an economics podcast! What does writing have to do with economics?" Well, writing is what economists do and if you write either for your career, or your hobbies, I'm sure you'll find something in this discussion that will be helpful to you. So Mike, you start your piece by saying that you've seen many talented people fail because they couldn't or didn't write. I think the impression a lot of people get while growing up is that writing is the easy subject and that math and science are hard, so how is it that these talented people get tripped up by writing of all things? Munger: Well, writing at all is not that difficult, I suppose like running at all is not that difficult. Most of us can at least run 10 meters. The point is that, if you want to be a professional economist, you are one of those people who actually found math pretty easy and you may not have practiced writing very much. So, I said, I've seen a lot of talented people fail because I was Department Chair here at Duke for 10 years and it's hard to get tenure at Duke, it's not a reward for past behavior, it's a hire. We are trying to guess if you're going to continue to produce interesting and important research after all material incentive to do that has been removed. Because once you have tenure you basically can't be fired. It's not quite true, but it's pretty close to true. So you get six years, I've watched 8 people doing this while I was Chair. You get six years to develop your research agenda and to show that you are going to continue to publish after you no longer have any incentive to do that. Now, what a lot of people do is, for four years they'll work on a few things but not very assiduously and the last two years they will work furiously and they'll have two or three things forthcoming and say, well, like it's a video game, I've done enough to get tenure. What they're saying is, if you ever give me tenure I will never publish anything ever again, which not surprisingly doesn't work out well. So six of the eight people who came up were fired. And when I, as Chair, had to tell them this, they cried, they were surprised, which probably means that I am a bad Chair, but I had tried to communicate over and over again that they needed to develop a research agenda and the way to do that is to write about it, and to write about it every day. That doesn't mean that everything that you'll write will eventually be used, but again, I would go back to the running analogy. Or let's say a soccer game. Suppose you knew those six months from now, you'll have a very important soccer game. You wouldn't wait until the night before the soccer game and practice all night. You would practice for an hour or two every day, recover, think about it, try to get better, but that's not how we do writing. All of us, who are at the level of thinking about graduate school and economics, are clever monkeys. We have always been good enough, that we can wait until the night before and write some bunch of crap and have it be good enough, because we're smarter than the other people. Well, now you're in with a group of people all of whom have always been able to do that and some of them are going to figure out that if you actually starts six months in advance, and work on the thing every day, and throw away most of it, time after time, and start over, your paper is going to be a lot better. And if you look at the books and articles that you think are important, the very things that got you excited about being in economics in the first place, none of those, not one, did the author stay up the night before it was due and write it. Adam Smith worked for years on 'The Wealth of Nations.' He showed it to people, he talked to people, he went for walks and muttered to himself. At one point he was so obsessed with what he was thinking about, he walked right into a noisome sump, that is the chemicals leftover after you have tanned leather. He didn't even notice where he was going! It smelled terrible, he didn't even notice by sight or smell because he was so busy thinking about this stuff, that he had been working on for years and would continue to work on for years. So part of this is my own cri de coeur, my own cry from the heart saying, it's so hard to watch talented people fail when they could have succeeded, because they didn't get this simple message---you have to teach other people. Sometimes you do it in the classroom, most of the time you do it through your writing. If you don't get good at that, you're going to fail. So don't start. If you don't think you want to write, don't become an academic in the first place. Petersen: Yeah, I guess another analogy is, you can be very naturally adept at swimming and that can make you an above average swimmer, but not one of those people swimming at the Olympics isn't both an above average swimmer naturally, and someone who has trained day after day, after day to be there. Munger: Not just at the Olympics. This is if you want to enter a swimming contest at the local YMCA, those other people are on the top one half of one percent. They're not near the Olympics, but they're going to kick your butt unless you've been practicing and practicing and practicing. Petersen: Yeah, and I guess undergraduate education is less like the YMCA; it's sort of the kiddie pool. You really can get by without practice, but you won't necessarily get much out of it. Munger: You won't learn much about writing, and what you write won't be very good, it will just be good enough, that because you're clever and good at this you can produce something that the professor is going to read and say "Ok, I sort of see what the argument is, that's better than the others: A." So that's not a 'good enough' it's just a 'better that the other losers' who aren't going to get to graduate school in the first place. And by losers I mean, people who are going to have successful lives. Petersen: Yeah, we have a funny definition of winning in academia. Munger: It's not clear you're really want to win. Although, to be fair getting tenure someplace and having the ability to write every day about the stuff you are interested in, there really is no better life. The problem is with the six or eight and in my case ten years, because I had a hard time finding a job, that went before that. Petersen: Yeah, so that's covered your first tip in that essay, which was, "writing is an exercise." The second tip was to set goals based on an output, not input. Can you explain that? Munger: One of the things that junior people do and that graduate students also do is to define how hard they're working by how long they spend outside of their apartment and in their office and they might even be at their desk, they might be in a coffee shop. What they're not doing, is facing the terrors of that blinking cursor. So the difficulty with any metric based on inputs is that you're not thinking, "am I actually doing something?" A metric that's based on output focuses more on writing. Now, that can be misleading because you can write badly but the same thing would be true of running or swimming. Sometimes when you have a workout it doesn't go that well but at least you're doing it so you wouldn't define how hard you work out by how much time you spent in the gym. You would say what exercises you actually did. It makes no more sense than that to define how hard you work by how much time you spent in the office, going to other offices, drinking coffee, talking to people, checking Facebook. None of that actually counts. So you have to set very high goal, five hundred, seven hundred fifty words per day, every day, five days a week and you will be a famous and successful academic. That again is the sort of dirty secret since no one does this. A lot of economics articles are only ten or twelve thousand words. So if you write five hundred words a day and you end up throwing away three hundred of those words you're still every ten days going to have two thousand usable words. So twice or three times a year you're going to have enough to have a journal article even if you're throwing away 60% of what you write. And here's the other thing: you learn by writing. What I find frustrating is a lot of people will count reading as work and it's not. Reading is an important input to work just like sleep and having a good breakfast. But in order to be an academic you have to write and the nice thing about writing is, you're writing along and you think, "oh right I understand this." You're trying to summarize the argument of some thinker and you realize "I don't understand it!" Now you go back and you read it, but you read it in a way that allows you to engage in a conversation with that writer. The nice thing about writing is that it allows you to communicate over time and space. I can look at something that was written 300 years ago and try to divine what was in the mind of that writer, what is he or she trying to communicate. And good writing creates in my mind an image or a logic similar to what was in that person's mind even though they're distant in time and space. So when I'm writing I read things differently. I've seen people count as reading, they go through a book, they go through an article they have three different colors of highlighting and they always think they're going to come back. None of that actually went through their brain. But if you're writing then you go to read something, you're looking for a specific question. You read better. So I actually ask my graduate students when they're working on their dissertation, on their third or fourth year, to put up a three by five card in their workspace that says: "Don't read, write! If you're writing you'll become a better reader." Petersen: Yeah, there's an irony in someone who has gone through years of economics education, who could explain to you exactly why the labor theory of value is not correct, applying it to their own work implicitly. Munger: Absolutely, it's "My day was valuable, I spent 11 hours at the office. Holy cow!" Petersen: Yeah, my own version of that was at the end of my first year of my PhD, I spent a lot of time in the office and I realized that I spent so little time at home that I actually only went through I think one full roll of toilet paper. So it's sort of the metric being what I didn't do which was spend time at home and therefore in my own bathroom. Munger: We get it. We get it Garrett. But it is interesting, that's necessary but not sufficient for success. Jim Buchanan always said, "The key to success is apply the behind." He didn't say "behind," he used a different word, but apply your behind to the chair. So you're actually in the chair at your desk and you are writing. Now for him that meant moving a pen across a piece of paper, for us it means typing on a keyboard. Either way, if you apply your behind to the chair---the actual chair at your desk, not the one in front of the desk of one of your friends so you can drink coffee and talk---you'll get a lot done. You'll learn a lot and you'll notice after just a couple of years that there's a divergence, not only in your ability to write but in your understanding of a lot of key issues because you've thought of these things pretty deeply. And the thing that's interesting about that is other people who haven't been writing may at one point have been ahead of you. Maybe they were better at classes but you have to learn to make the transition between being good at taking classes---which is why many of us want to go to graduate school---to being good at expressing our thoughts on paper in a way that other people find interesting. So the emphasis on classes is misleading, your first year in class, second year in class---you get A's but you haven't really developed your own research agenda. That's not as good as the person that actually practices, works on writing and after a year or two has developed a talent. Adam Smith has an interesting story about this with the Street Porter and the Philosopher. So the Street Porter and the Philosopher are not as different as the Philosopher wants to think. The difference was the Street Porter spent a lot of time carrying bags and the Philosopher spent a lot of time reading and writing. Well after just a few years they seem like different people but it's because, hour by hour, the philosopher spent time writing. You can be the Philosopher. If you don't write, you're going to stay the Street Porter. Petersen: Another tip you give is to find a voice. Don't just get published. But isn't getting published the point? What's wrong with making that your end goal? Munger: Let's think about entrepreneurs. Suppose you have two people who fancy themselves to be entrepreneurs. One of them says, "I want to make profits, I don't care how." The other one says "I have a vision of this great product that's going to transform this industry." Who's more likely to make profit? The second, paradoxically the second. Well if I say "I don't care about what I write I just want to get published," my work is going to suck. It's going to lack any kind of imagination or motivation or the reader is going to look at it and say "I don't even understand why this guy is writing." But the person that's found something that he or she is passionate about is actually more likely to get stuff published. So paradoxically the way to be published is to be passionate about what you're writing. If all you're trying to do is get published, that's going to come through. It will just seem instrumental and not very interesting. Petersen: Yes. So Scott Alexander writing at Slate Star Codex had an article recently where he made the distinction between what he called pushing and pulling goals, where a pull goal is when you want to achieve something so you come up with a plan and a structure. Whereas a push goal is where you have a plan and a structure so you'd scramble to try to find something to achieve. This strikes me as another version of the same thing where to just "get published," you know you want thirty pages double spaced with some graphs in there and you don't really care what your message is. That's just not a good way to write is what I'm hearing. Munger: Right. It's not a good way to write good things and again Jim Buchanan, who is one of my heroes, when he would interview perspective job candidates, particularly people who were young, he would pose them a question. I'm not quoting him exactly but it was something close to this: Supposed you have three choices. A) You could be for or five years the most famous economist writing for The New York Times and be on talk shows. B) You can win a Nobel Prize. C) You can write something that people are still going to read one hundred years from now. Which one would you pick? And Jim was---he actually achieved B obviously, he won the Nobel Prize---but he was interested in people who at least had some aspiration to write something that someone's going to want to read a hundred years from now. Now you may fail in that, but if there's not something that you're working on that at least has that aspiration, then it's going to come across that your work is just shallow, superficial, not very important and honestly not really worth doing. Petersen: That has got to be the hardest interview question I've ever heard. Munger: Well he was pretty scary, I actually interviewed at George Mason and talked to him and I was desperate for this job. I really wanted the position at George Mason and it turns out Jim Buchanan found me wanting, so I went through this and ended up on the wrong side of that line and it has stuck with me. So, now I do try to have some answers to that question at least to myself. So I try to work on things that are of some importance, but it was terrifying to be interviewed by him anyway. And when he asked that question, you're really just trying to get a job, you haven't published anything, you're trying to finish your thesis, that sort of seems far away. But he was absolutely right to want people who have that kind of mindset. Petersen: One of your tips is that everyone's unwritten work is brilliant. How is it brilliant? Munger: Well in my mind I have an argument and the premises make sense. The logic by which those premises are developed and integrated makes good sense and the conclusion is important. Now the problem is when I write it down. It turns out there's some holes in it, and when I examine those holes and sort of work at them---it's like you're thinking about moving into an apartment and you touch the wall, the wall gives way and a bunch of cockroaches come out. Ahhh it's pretty scary! Most of us, these are the arguments that we have in mind, particularly if you haven't really been writing, and by writing I would count a model. So I have an intuition about how something's going to work. I work out the steps in the model and it turns out step four is "a miracle occurs here." Well you can't actually use a miracle as a step in an argument and that means the argument is not very good but you don't know that until you write it out. But that's why many people don't write it out. And one of the things that I talk about in the article is "don't be that guy," and the guy that I have in mind, I actually knew a person like this. Most graduate students when I talk to them say, "oh yeah, I know that guy." The guy is a third or fourth or eighth year graduate student and you meet him in a bar or somebody's house and he's got a cigarette and in the other hand he has a drink. He takes a long hole in the cigarette and then for two or three minutes he tells you what his dissertation is about. And you say, "Holy smokes that's amazing! What you're going to do is so important!" And you tell somebody else that the next day at the office and they just laugh and say, "Yeah he's been working on that two-hundred-word speech for five years. He's never written anything." So you know, the young people are all terrified of this guy. The older people realize he's a loser because the older people all realize they have trouble summarizing their argument because they're in the middle of writing it and there are several places, where it says "a miracle occurs here." He hasn't thought about it enough to know where the impossible miracles will be required in his argument, he's just smoothed this over and he's practiced this pat little pathetic speech. So if you're working as hard as you need to be you're going to be confused and miserable and not sure that it's right because only unwritten work is brilliant. If you're actually working on it you know better than anyone else where all the holes are and where all the places where if you touch the wall the cockroaches come pouring out. So don't be that guy. It's easy to be the hero. And notice that this 8th year grade student only hangs out with the first and second year grad student because these are the only people that still believe his crap. Petersen: Yeah one of the most frustrating things about being human is how little connection there is between the way our brains seem to work, from when we're sort of observing ourselves from the inside, and the way they actually work. So when psychology really came into its own as a field, the psychologists quickly discovered that introspection really wouldn't get them very far because it's so misleading trying to study a brain from the inside and part of this is your brain can come up with some really half-baked ideas that seem so brilliant. Munger: There's a lot of plausible things. It just turns out that a lot of those possible things seem to be false. And if what you do is practice making them sound more plausible, you can fool people but that's why we have con artists. So you're exactly right. Human beings are basically set up to accept confidence for authority but they're not the same thing. Authority is someone who's really thought about it has developed an argument. Confidence is someone who has refused to develop the argument and just believes out of faith that they're correct and they practice their little thought. So another way to put it, and you're right to bring up psychology because we can be fooled by confidence into thinking that it's authority. Petersen: Yeah. If you've ever had a dream where you had a great idea in the dream and then you wake up and think, "Oh my God, that idea is so brilliant I've got to write it down!" And it's always just total nonsense because your sleepy monkey brain just made you think it was great. Munger: That actually happened to me. I went to college in the 70's and there were substances involved and so under the influence of some substance I would have an idea which I was convinced was brilliant and would write it down and of course the next morning I thought, "Wow, that's really stupid." Petersen: Oh no. At least you wrote it down. You didn't spend years pursuing it. Munger: Even then I wrote it, yes. Petersen: So one of the tips you have is to pick a puzzle. What do you mean by that? Munger: Well it's often hard to get started. So there are two reasons to pick a puzzle, one is that it's actually interesting, and the other is that it's rhetorically useful to be able to engage the attention of the reader. So I give examples of different puzzles in economics. One of the most common is "Theory says this, empirical results say this, they are contradictory. What's missing from the theory or how has the empirical test been conducted badly?" Another would be "Person A and Person B have the same set of assumptions but they come to a different conclusion. What is it about their models that causes this divergence?" So if you have a puzzle like that, and the most important one. The third one, the most important one is "Suppose that there's this phenomenon and we don't really understand it and then there's this other apparently unrelated phenomenon, we don't really understand that. What turns out when you think of it correctly, both of them are the result of this economic principle and no one has recognized the fact that we can tie all this together." So as theories become stronger, they generally become simpler and more general. So an increase in simplicity and generality means that you can bring more apparently different phenomenon under a single explanatory umbrella and that's interesting to say, you think this is different but it's the same. So it's both a good research technique if you can do it, and it's engaging to the reader. So if you're not sure how to start thinking in those terms then the easiest one here is "Theory says this thing, empirical results say this. Do we need a better theory or better testing?" Anybody can do that because the journals are just full of those kinds of contradictions. I'm not saying that's perfect but it's a good way to get started. Petersen: Yeah, and economics has a lot of theories and a lot of empirical work and a lot of them point in different directions. So you don't have to look far to find those kind of contradictions. So another tip you give is to write and then to squeeze other things in. This is a scheduling thing. What would be the wrong way to schedule your writing? Munger: Well there's the sort of macro or general approach and the micro part of it. The macro approach is to think, "I need big blocks of time to write. And since I have to teach a class and go to a class, I have to teach a section of a class, or I have a meeting that I have to go to, or there's a talk this afternoon, I can't write because I don't have time." Actually you can only write for about 20 minutes at a time. The problem is it takes you ten minutes of thinking to get to the point where you're thinking clearly enough to write so it takes you 30 minutes to write for 20 minutes and if you get interrupted you can't start again. It usually takes another 10 minutes to get started. So it is true that you do need some blocks of time. But if you can just find an hour somewhere, that's enough for two of those 30 minute blocks, you can get quite a bit done. After you've been writing for 20 minutes you have probably have to stop get up and get a cup of tea, walk around because you can't concentrate for that long. So all you need is an hour or so to be able to write. So the macro consideration is---don't think, "Well since I have two meetings this day I can't write anything." The micro consideration is when to find the particular hour or two that you're going to write. And what many people do is they schedule their meetings or classes they have to teach at times when they're the sharpest mentally and that's a mistake. What you need to do is find the time that you're sharpest mentally, for me it's first thing in the morning, for many people it might be late at night. I'm a little skeptical of the late night because they waste all the time between 9 PM and 1 AM and then they write for one hour and say, "Man I really worked 'till 2 o'clock. That was great!" Yeah but what about the four hours between 9 PM and 1 AM? So I'm not so sure about the late night people, but OK fair enough. Let's suppose they actually are using their time wisely. Pick the time that you're the most mentally sharp and schedule your time to the extent that you can control it to make sure that is reserved for writing and schedule everything else around it and what I found is that I can take the time when I am least mentally sharp which is between about 3 and 7 PM and I try to schedule my teaching then. Now that seems cynical, but I like teaching so much. And there's the energy that you get back from students that are interested and interesting, it's like super caffeine. So you can actually get up for teaching or leading discussion sections or maybe even go in for a talk---at times that you otherwise would have wasted or would be down time because those are social. Those are things where you're getting feedback. Writing there is no feedback. There's no one saying, "yes that's interesting." It's just you thinking, "Lord, I can't finish this paragraph. I'm an idiot." So you need to be at your mental best to be able to get through that. Petersen: I think for me it probably would be the morning. I've got to jot down all these tips. Of course, I'm a graduate student so this is especially relevant to me. When should I be writing, how should I be writing. Munger: You're still forming habits and learning about yourself, but thinking in these terms means that you'll get a head start. Petersen: You mentioned that taking 10 minutes to get into writing and then doing 20 minutes of good writing. I think that lines up with the research people have done on flow. The idea that people self-hypnotize into a very productive, very focused state. And then if you break your flow then it actually takes a while to get back into it. You're self-aware for a while you're not as focused, as productive. Munger: So a two-minute interruption doesn't cost you two minutes it costs you 12. Petersen: Yeah, you need to find a place and a time where those two minute interruptions don't happen. Munger: Yes and it doesn't take long. If you can get an hour and a half or two hours 4-5 days a week, you will be a famous and successful academic. Petersen: Yay! That's what we want to hear. Munger: The good news is anybody can do this. I find it so frustrating that they don't. By that I mean anyone smart enough to get into graduate school has plenty of good ideas, they just don't write them. Petersen: That is sad, because there's such a high payoff to getting the writing done. But I guess it's sort of a delayed reward where you need a lot of self-control to be able to seize that payoff. Munger: Garrett, you're going to graduate school! Clearly you are interested in delayed reward because you could have a job at a Donut Shop and have your own apartment and have money be able to go to bars not worry at weekends. Graduate school by its nature is one of the most, the strongest ways of putting off any sort of satisfaction into the distant future. So yes, it's a later payoff. But why would you go to graduate school and then not do the thing that actually will result in the payoff that you've apparently planned for. Here's the thing, a journal article---when you're in graduate, when you're starting your career---a refereed journal article will inflect upward your career trajectory and earnings by at least ten thousand dollars, one article. If it's in a pretty top journal, it's twenty-five thousand dollars. So, if you write an article and publish it, that's twenty-five thousand dollars. There's nothing else you're doing that has a higher payoff. Yes, it's delayed but it's not delayed that much and you're already in graduate school; you're already living a miserable existence. Petersen: I'm lucky because my wife actually works in the real world. So I'm covered but (chuckles). Munger: All right. Yes, you can remind her that you married better than she did. Petersen: Yeah, I mean I'm sure she doesn't need much reminding. Munger: As long as she doesn't remind you of that. Petersen: Oh yeah. Try to avoid that. Munger: Well I see graduate students who will teach during the summer and get paid $4000. You can write an article in the summer. That's at least $10,000. It makes no sense, your discount rate would be have to be awful high. If your discount rate is that high, why are you spending six years in graduate school in the first place? Petersen: Yeah, that is the question. But yeah, I suppose you could be credit constrained, but that's a whole other issue. Munger: You'd have to be really constrained for that to make sense because you can probably eat just beans and oatmeal for a couple of months. And the payoffs to writing an article really are huge because the way that it works out is, the first job that you get is a 2-2 teaching load at a research school and smart colleagues and the ability to go to conferences because they'll pay for it, or a 4-4 teaching load with colleagues that hate you and their own existence and give no support, no outside talk. So even if the same person, a clone of the same person, starts in those two jobs, the difference in their career trajectory is going to be enormous! Plus you already have a journal article published, so you'll start with a higher salary. So that first job makes a big difference to where you'll be in ten years. So you have to be pretty credit constrained not to take that into consideration Petersen: The way it works with the ten thousand, it's not that you get a ten thousand dollars payment it's that you get a bigger raise or a bigger starting salary. Munger: With better colleagues, more articles, you have the ten thousand as the present value. Well, but again, an economist should understand present value and they're in graduate school so they must have a low discount rate. So those are the ones I would expect to say I'm not going to teach. I'm going to borrow against my own future earnings. I'm going to loan myself this money and live really cheaply and write an article instead of teaching. Petersen: Oh man, I'm just jotting all this down. OK, "don't teach in the summer." Of course some teaching is important, you do need to become a good teacher. Munger: Yes, the kind of teaching that we tend to do, in the summer is pretty different, but you should. There's no question, you should be able to point to one class that you have yourself designed the syllabus for and have primary responsibility for teaching and grading when you go on the market. So I'll give you one---over five years, yes you should have taught one class yourself. Petersen: But TA'ing is not good. It pays but it doesn't pay as well as writing. Munger: Right, and when you go on the market and they say what teaching experience do you have and you say well I TA'd four times, they're going to stare at you like you're an idiot because you are. Petersen: OK so one tip you give in the article is to edit your work over and over. So what is the editing process like for you? Munger: Well it's terrible. I've written a number of books, I just was yesterday working on an analytical book review that's about 15 pages long and I looked at it this morning and said, "half of this is unusable." So I crossed it out and started over, I was thinking it was almost done and then I thought, oh no this is stupid. So even just one day later, I looked at it with much more critical eyes. So I would say it takes me at least ten complete rewrites to get to the point where I think my article is worth showing to someone else and then they usually have comments that require me to rewrite it at least two more times. So the difficulty is everybody's first drafts are bad. Now I do have a talent. I write extremely fast but badly. If you had to pick that would be a pretty good way to be an academic because I also edit fast so I can go through, I can do a rewrite pretty quickly and every time I rewrite it becomes dramatically better. So there are people who write very slowly but well, they are going to have more trouble because a lot of times you don't know enough about your subject. It's well written but the subject is not very good because you need to learn more about it. So I have to admit I learned this in some ways from a master. Douglas North was one of my dissertation advisors and Douglas North won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993. And Doug was famous for going and giving a talk, and it would be twelve pages long and have four citations, two to Douglas North, one to Adam Smith and one to more a recent economics paper. And the people in the audience would say, "Doug, this is terrible. If you were going to do this, here's what you have to do. You need to go read these five papers, all of them have written on your subject and they're better than yours." And he would write it down. He would write down their names he would make sure he got the citations. And next time he presented the paper, now it would have nine citations, before he started out with a five that had been suggested to him and he had added all of the suggestions and the paper actually wasn't terrible now but still people would see it and say, "Oh no, no, no, here's what you need to do." So he would go around---and it was almost as if he was outsourcing the references because he didn't read anything unless somebody said it was relevant---and he was outsourcing a lot of the ideas. And he would thank everyone, I'm not saying he was plagiarizing. He would gratefully acknowledge the suggestions of so and so in a footnote he might say this was suggested by so and so. But you write it, you go present it, you get comments, you think about it, you write it again, that is the way to be successful. And when it comes to editing, one of the things that you can avail yourself of---and this actually has become kind of a meme---people argue about whether they're "Munger compliant." Munger compliant means that you have three articles in journals, and if you don't have three articles in journals all the time, you're not Munger compliant. Well the reason that that's important is, think in comparison to computer programming. So if I'm going to write a program or a job and send it to a computer, I don't stare at the code and try to make sure that the logic and syntax are correct. I submit the job and then it will come back with error message: here at this step you've left out a semi colon. So it won't run. You can't compile the code that you've written and it won't run. Nobody stares at the code to figure it out. They submit it to the computer and get back the error message. That's how journals work; you get this off your desk. You don't stare at the paper over and over again to make sure the code works, you send it to a journal. Now yes it takes a few months, that's why you have to have three papers out at all times, you have to diversify your portfolio of risk because there's a random element to this. Some good papers get turned down but some not very good papers get accepted because you get a lucky draw on the referee. So you send it out, it comes back, the referee says, "no no here's what you should do, add these five references." It's sort of like what Doug North did. And you do it, it becomes a much better paper. I've had some of my better papers turned down at five journals before they were finally published. And when they were published, they were pretty good, but that was because I had outsourced a lot of the research to smart referees. So you should think of that as machine-intensive debugging. Machine-intensive debugging means I don't debug my own program. I submit it to the computer and it comes back with an error message. Well I submit my articles to journals, they come back with three really smart people working unpaid as my research assistants. Now yes, they do say that "you're an idiot and your mother should never have been born," they make comments you want to ignore but by and large their suggestions improve your paper dramatically. So you should always try to be Munger compliant. I told some of my graduate students, there will come a day when you will be upset when one of your papers is accepted because you will no longer be compliant. And a good friend of mine who is now a tenured full professor in England just wrote me and said, "Darn it, that finally happened. I got a paper accepted and I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, 'I only have two papers at journals! I have to go write something!'" That's a sign you're a success. Petersen: Yeah, when you think about, I like what you said about the research assistants. If you wanted to hire twenty tenured faculty as research assistants you'd have to pay them thousands upon thousands of dollars. But you walk into a seminar room and give a bad talk and suddenly they're all throwing out suggestions and comments and they're being your research assistants for free. Munger: And very helpful and they're grateful if you take their comment seriously. So that's actually---there's nothing wrong with doing that. The research enterprise is more collaborative than most people are willing to admit even to themselves, and the reason is because those useful comments come wrapped in, "you're an idiot." But if you can unwrap that and just take the kernel, the content of the message---because a lot of times when you give a seminar one of the problems with giving a seminar is you learn all the problems with the paper. And economists are pretty harsh and aggressive about making their criticism. Think of them as research assistants and it makes you much more receptive. I was surprised, Doug North---this was after he won the Nobel Prize---people would just viciously say, "This is completely worthless. I would be embarrassed to write this and I don't have a Nobel Prize. I don't see how you can do this." And Doug would just nod and then they would say, "Here's what you should do." He'd write it down and thank them it didn't make him mad at all, he didn't care. Petersen: OK, so developing a thick skin seems to be an asset here. Munger: No what you said is right. Think of them as research assistants. What do you care what your research assistant thinks of you as long as they help. Petersen: Yeah, they do a good job they give you your suggestions, you sift through them and make your work better. Munger: Often when I get back referee reports and they're harsh, it'll take me a day to get over them. Oh man, I thought this was a good paper and they didn't like it. But then I will literally take a printout and take a black magic marker and redact the parts that are just ad hominem attacks. I don't care about those. And then if you look at what's left, it's usually a pretty good structure for revising your paper. Petersen: OK, yeah I'll have to do that. Munger: It sounds simple and hokey, but you don't care about the things that are just saying this is terrible. I had one referee report that said I would rather hack my way through the jungle with a penknife than have to read this paper again and I thought "Ow!" And then I took a black magic marker and marked it out and the rest of the report was pretty useful. The question is why you would put someone else in charge of how you feel? So don't do that, you're going to be in charge of how you feel and you're going to use, to your own benefit, the fact that smart people made good comments on your paper. Petersen: We have this sort of mythology of the solitary genius. Are you saying that that is not a way to live your life? Munger: Oh no that's exactly how you should live your life, if you're a genius. Petersen: But most of us aren't. Munger: For the rest of us who are not, no, that's not the way to live your life. So absolutely, I know I have friends, in fact one of my colleagues, Melvin Hinich, with whom I had three books, was unbelievably smart. He was able to do things with very little effort and he would often just throw out ideas and let someone else write them up because he was bored with writing them. So if you're smart enough, yes you can totally do that. My message is, all you have to be is basically average intelligence for a graduate student and if you spend a lot of time learning how to write you will also be a success. Maybe more successful than that solitary genius. It's not fair but it's true. Petersen: A part of it is humility. To realize when you are not a solitary genius and when you need help. But couldn't the genius also do better if he used other people as his research assistants and did all the things that a non-genius would do? Munger: Sure. Yes, but they're not willing to spend the effort for the most part because they've never had to. There are people that are just so good at sprinting or so good at swimming, that as long as they practice pretty hard, they don't need to worry about learning other techniques. So, one of the reasons that I am a coach about writing is that I was such a terrible writer. Most people who are really, really good at something are terrible coaches because they have a knack for it. It's the people who had to scrap at the margin, and who weren't really all that good but managed to be at least somewhat of a success because they thought about technique and they focused on getting better. Those are the best coaches. In almost every sport that I know of, the best coaches were the marginal players and I was a marginal player. So the reason that I talk about writing is that I was terrible at it Petersen: But you are now a success and we can all learn from your example. Munger: I am now a Philosopher and not a Street Porter. Petersen: Yes. So do you have any closing thoughts about writing? What's the core message you want people to take away from this. Munger: Well, William Riker, who was one of the founders of the rational choice school of public choice in political science, said that most of the people who get into academics do it because they're interested in teaching. And a lot of times they're confused and they think that teaching involves work in a classroom with students. And that's important, but the real teaching is the one that takes place through writing because once you've learned something, if you actually understand it, you can explain it to someone else and the advantage of writing it is that you can communicate this teaching to someone distant in time or someone distant in space. So the most important teaching is writing and if you think of yourself as a teacher, it's really important that you work on your writing because that's how you're going to be able to communicate this understanding that you have. Understanding is ephemeral. A lot of times when you work on something for a long time, you think "Oh now I see it! That's actually simple." Well if you don't write that down it's going to be hard for someone else to replicate that moment of understanding. But if you do write it down and you explain it clearly, you've added something to the human capital of the world: what we're able to hand down, the things that we no longer have to think about because we understand them. The more you understand, the simpler things become. Petersen: My guest today has been Mike Munger. Mike, thanks for being on Economics Detective Radio. Munger: It was a pleasure Garrett, thank you.