Chess and Seven Marathons Were Brutal

Daredevil Michelle Khare lives life to the extreme in Challenge Accepted, amassing more than 6 million followers and more than 1 billion views. Across the show, you'll see Michelle attempt everything from Tom Cruise’s Deadliest stunt to Harry Houdini’s water torture cell to trying to earn a black belt in taekwondo in only 90 days.

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TIMESTAMPS:

• [00:00:00] Start.
• [00:00:24] Challenge Accepted: The logline and why breakdowns stay in the edit.
• [00:03:05] Growing up in Shreveport, LA: Friday night movies, the AFI Top 100, and interning on Snitch.
• [00:06:15] Podcasting: While “easier” than writing books, it’s a heck of a lot more work than meets the ear.
• [00:21:24] Quality over quantity: 8–10 episodes a year, scarcity as strategy, and building a defensible moat.
• [00:31:47] “Hard choices, easy life.” — Jerzy Gregorek, calling the FAA 300 times, and why no one copies you when the barrier is insanity.
• [00:35:32] Dartmouth to Google.org: the Fermi estimation faceplant and not getting the job.
• [00:37:10] BuzzFeed as graduate school of the internet.
• [00:40:37] Work for someone else first: My case against starting a company right out of school.
• [00:47:28] The stolen book: Michelle pulls out a battered 2016 copy of The 4-Hour Workweek and reads her fear-setting chart aloud.
• [00:51:10] “I’ve never designed my own rubric of success” — the nightmare, the repair plan, and what Michelle was putting off out of fear.
• [00:56:59] Practicing poverty: studio apartment, stripped-down life, moonlighting for a year, then the three-month-savings leap.
• [01:06:58] Kebab-shop destiny: meeting stunt coordinator Steve Brown in L.A. — now he does Avatar and straps Michelle to planes.
• [01:09:04] Surface area for luck: Bill Gurley, Kevin Kelly’s sleeping bag, and Seneca on voluntary discomfort.
• [01:12:44] Coach, mentor, cheerleader: the three-person Formula One team you actually need.
• [01:17:20] The art of the cold email — and cold-calling the FBI tip line to meet “The Hollywood Guy.”
• [01:21:55] Michelle’s three-paragraph, six-sentence formula for emails that open any door.
• [01:26:15] My cold email playbook: the “via” trick, include your damn cell number, and why “Yo, Ferriss” is an auto-archive.
• [01:36:24] The fake Tim Ferriss Podcast phishing scam: Zoom calls, screen access, and hijacked Facebook pages.
• [01:40:58] Emailing Hank Green, Brandon Sanderson’s unpublished novels, and why your first cold emails are just practice reps.
• [01:46:37] Michelle’s storytelling syllabus: Survivor, Snyder’s Save the Cat, and peer review of whatever went viral last week.
• [01:48:44] The magic of Jeff Probst, and dissecting the bones of storytelling.
• [01:53:12] John McPhee’s red-ink writing class at Princeton.
• [01:58:38] Six Thinking Hats broke Michelle’s pessimism; Radical Candor taught her how to give feedback.
• [02:07:20] The slinky org chart: Seven full-timers that balloon to 50 for a shoot, then compress right back.
• [02:21:21] Scope creep, saying no to big checks, and why Michelle has never hit creator burnout.
• [02:30:34] My No Book teaser: 850 pages on renegotiating commitments and getting back on the wagon.
• [02:33:31] The Mindy Kaling manifesto: @MindyKalingFan, The Office, and shattering expectations for Indian women in entertainment.
• [02:40:38] Wishlist shout-out: Norland College, where Mary Poppins meets Secret Service.
• [02:42:48] Episodes Michelle would pay to relive.
• [02:47:40] Episodes Michelle would pay to skip.
• [02:52:15] Seven marathons, seven continents, one week.
• [02:57:10] Free Solo, Alex Honnold in the creepy van, and things both of us would never do.
• [03:00:38] Books gifted most: Radical Candor, The Great CEO Within, and Adam Grant’s Originals.
• [03:01:21] Michelle’s billboard.
• [03:02:45] A primetime Emmy run and parting thoughts.

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