What Just Happened‪?‬ David Chang

Something happened earlier this year in Formula 1 that David has literally never seen in sports. Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton announced he would be leaving his current team Mercedes Benz to drive for Ferrari. An athlete leaving a team is not new. But Hamilton said he wasn’t leaving until NEXT season (2025), and for THIS entire current year, he would keep driving for Mercedes before jumping ship. As it turned out, Mercedes Benz didn’t know about his announcement until the last minute. Imagine what would happen to a soldier from North Korea who told his government he was going to defect to the South, but not until a year from now? Perhaps that’s an extreme example, but imagine even if Patrick Mahomes said he was leave the Kansas City Chiefs and already signed a contract with the Denver Broncos, but his preference was to plaone more season with the Chiefs before leaving. How would Chiefs head coach Andy Reid react to such news?  
 
In this second half of our discussion about Formula 1 and Drive to Survive, David and Eugene talk about Lewis’s crazy contract announcement and why it somehow worked in his case. We also discuss why F1 cars are so incredibly complicated, how F1 driving is truly nothing like “normal” driving, and Eugene reacts to David’s theory of the “futility” of supercars. 
 
As always, thanks for listening! 
 
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“To drive an F1 car you have to be a little mad.” - Jenson Button 

I (David) have always found Formula One to be an intimidating sport. Vaguely European, with weirdly shaped cars racing at break neck speeds around bizarrely shaped tracks, without a guide, it’s hard to know what’s going on. Eugene meanwhile has been an auto racing aficionado since his early childhood and can talk F1 shop for days. In this episode, we walk through the sport of Formula 1 through the lens of beginners, discussing everything from the sport itself to its business model, driver personalities, why its paradoxically an ultra elite sport with such broad, global appeal, and how the Netflix series Drive to Survive has expanded its reach, especially here in America. I ask Eugene how it is that as someone with a generally mellow personality he is so into a sport centered around hyper ambitious, ultra competitive people, and I share how after spending a week learning about the sport I became a fan. As always, thanks for listening!
 
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“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” ― Ernest Hemingway

In this second half of our discussion about the movie Sleepless in Seattle, David and Eugene discuss Anne stalking Sam, poor Walter and Victoria’s fates, and debate over some of the choices made by these characters. We explore some of our own theories about love and romance, how we see this movie so differently now that we are both parents, and wonder what’s in store in the future for Sam and Annie. We love doing these nostalgic movie reviews and hope you enjoy the journey as well. As always, thanks for listening! 

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“It was like kismet but not, if you see what I mean.” - Annie

In 1993, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks starred in the hit romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle. With its quirky characters, clever writing, and stellar soundtrack, not only did the movie put the city of Seattle on the map, it was a huge box office success, and has since been recognized as one of the great romantic comedies. As it turns out, and to David’s surprise, Sleepless in Seattle was also one of teenage Eugene’s favorite movies. In this episode, David and Eugene stroll down memory lane, and discover a newfound appreciation for the craftsmanship of this film that neither of us recognized as kids. Eugene questions whether Walter was such a bad fit for Annie, while both David and Eugene discuss how little details like the peeling of an apple, dropping a bundle of mail, or sitting on piano keys are still memorable decades later. As always, thanks for watching!
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"I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like... magic.” - Sam Baldwin

As Eugene notes in this episode, it’s not a surprise that David has “authority issues.” In this second half of the discussion of Jocko Willink’s book, “Extreme Ownership,” we talk about the idea of being a true believer, whether Jocko is right when he says being a true believer is necessary to being a good leader, and David gets personal in his view of why his reluctance to “drink the Kool-Aid” would make him a lousy leader of any institution or organization. 
In November 1978, American cult leader and mass murderer Jim Jones ordered more than 900 members of his cult to drink a mix of Flavor Aid laced with cyanide and commit “revolutionary suicide.” Since then, the term “drink the Kool-Aid” has come to mean believing in foolish or dangerous ideas based on a misguided faith. As always, thanks for listening! 
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“In order to lead, you must believe.” - Jocko Willink

My daughter thinks the phrase “you can’t swing a dead cat in this town” is absolutely ridiculous, and to be fair, she’s not wrong! That said, you can’t swing a dead cat these days without hitting a couple self-help gurus and podcasters who love them. But the self help book, “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink caught my attention a while ago, and to me it genuinely reads different than what you typically see on the shelves. Willink is a former navy seal who emphasizes humility and detachment from ego as much as being "hard core." It’s also one of several books I’ve been meaning to talk about on this podcast. In this episode, David and Eugene discuss the concept of extreme ownership, what it means, its pros and cons, David fanboys about Jocko for a few minutes, and we discuss why the phrase “try harder” might mean something very different and ultimately more important than simply, for example, waking up two hours earlier or doing fifty extra pushups. As always, thanks for listening! 
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“There is no one else to blame.” - Jocko Willink