Big Questions with Cal Fussman

There is no better time to think about how to change, and there was no one who loved change more than former General Electric CEO Jack Welch. Cal remembers a day he spent with him shortly after Welsh retired and shows how Welsh's words influenced him when it came time to pivot after The Great Recession, and again now in the time of Covid 19. Find out how this podcast might change YOU.

No city may be more vulnerable to the coronavirus than Las Vegas. Every year it was inviting 42 million people in for dinner. The city's economy is dependent on those visitors, and Cal looks at the history of Las Vegas for a clue as to how the city might reinvent itself after the virus subsides. Entrepreneur Tom Breitling, author of the book Double or Nothing, and some of his friends explain why t...

Cal talks with one of the greatest tennis players of all time about the attitude and strategies that can guide us all through the different stages of reinvention. There are few people on the planet more equipped to talk about this evolution than Maria, who left Russia at the age of six with her dad to come to America and play tennis. Her dad had roughly $700 when they arrived. Maria went on to the...

After almost a half a year of being cooped up and inhaling news of the coronavirus, the killing of George Floyd by police and the subsequent anger, stress and uncertainty all over the world, Cal got an opportunity to get healthy in an unexpected way. The founders of Madefor reached out to him with a 10-month challenge to improve all aspects of his health and it all starts with… drinking more water...

After watching the comic/sage talk about our national reality on his recently-released special called 8:46, Cal feels nudged to offer up his own thoughts on how we might move forward. Cal is certainly no comedian, but he does have a few stories to tell and some questions to meet the moment.

Cal gets on the phone with the Brooklyn Borough President in the midst of the recent protests, rioting and looting to talk about the complexity of our national problem. Eric was given a racial beat down by police, who repeatedly kicked him in the groin when he was 15, and was later urged to make a change to the system by becoming a police officer himself. He served in the NYPD for 22 years, retiri...

Cal questions one of the world's great pivoters. Jacqueline has turned an interview she bungled right off the bat when she graduated from college into a career that has influenced hundreds of millions of lives. That includes bringing food to those without funds in Los Angeles during the coronavirus and bringing solar energy to a hundred million people in Africa. As CEO of the entrepreneurial inves...

Cal gets a tutorial on how to pivot his business to the Internet from the president of The Montag Group, an agency famous for representing America's finest broadcasters. Steve is an expert at analyzing communication skills, as he proves in his forthcoming book called Don't Take Yes For An Answer. The idea behind the book is to go beyond the positive canned responses we tend to get and look deeply...

Cal looks back at the stories he wrote for Esquire in the words of the actor who played George Costanza's father in Seinfeld. The way Stiller got the role is perfect example of pivoting that applies to us all during the time of the coronavirus. Rather than go with the role in the way it was intended, Stiller completely reinvented it and it's one of the many reasons we're still watching replays mor...

There's never been a better time to talk about reinvention that during the craziness of the coronavirus. When things return to normal, there's going to be a new normal. Reinvention has always been one of Cal's specialties, and this week he chats with a woman who spent a decade researching a book about the topic. That woman is marketing guru Kathi Sharpe-Ross, and her book is called Re-Invent: Your...

Cal jumps on the phone with the man who helped bring The Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and The Beast, Shrek and The Little Mermaid into the world. The conversation is about the new form of storytelling that Katzenberg is introducing called Quibi. That's short for quick bites. The idea is for these stories to be filmed in bursts of eight minutes or less in order to be seen on a mobile phone when you'v...

Cal sits down with the award-winning broadcaster to talk about  the loss of sporting events in our culture during the time of the  coronavirus pandemic. Cal has known Bob for roughly 40 years  since they both moved to St. Louis to start their careers,  and this conversation looks deeply at what has happened to  the truth in America over that time . . . along with the gifts that  sports bring to us...

Cal sits with Brian Kelly to talk about what the future will hold for aviation and travel once the coronavirus pandemic is past and we can all take to the skies again. Brian is the CEO of The Points Guy, a company at the epicenter of the travel industry with the best deals on airline miles, credit cards and travel as a whole. This episode will make anybody who yearns to travel again see the blue s...

Patrick tells Cal how the phrase came about after he noticed so many young people trying to fit as much into their lives as possible after 9/11 and the tech bubble meltdown in the stock market in the early years of the century. The conversation moves on to consider how society will react after the coronavirus pandemic subsides. You can't hear a conversation like this anywhere else.  

The world is going to be a different place after the coronavirus epidemic. Cal talks with the geopolitical futurist about changes that we will likely see. Jamie has been appointed to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on developing global standards for the oversight of human genome editing. He's served in the U.S. National Security Council, the State Department, the Senate For...

Cal sits with the National Poetry Slam champion and multi-platinum award winning song writer to talk about the process of creative writing. With much of the world on lockdown, it's a good time to reboot, and writing a poem could be a great way to start. The creative process is revealed in a way that will get you to think about your own – whether it's to write a note to a loved one or to refigure a...

Cal sits down for a bowl of pasta while on lockdown in Los Angeles with Chris Schembra who's on lockdown in New York. Chris is an award-winning Broadway producer who is most proud of starting a series of pasta dinners to bring people together and show them the power of gratitude. Chris has the secret sauce to connection because he's brought more than 400,000 people together over the last five year...

Cal talks with the founder and co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise, which has sold half a billion books over the years -- Mark Victor Hansen. Mark and his wife, Crystal Dwyer Hansen, have a book coming out in April called ASK, which is a significant topic in the midst of the coronavirus. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to have their business lives interrupted, and Cal a...

As news of the coronavirus spreads, Cal looks for a way to put it all in perspective with Michael O'Brien, an executive coach who teaches us how to neutralize bad moments and keep them from spiraling into bad days. That coaching career came about after Michael was riding a bicycle one morning 19 years ago, and was hit straight on by an SUV moving at 40 miles an hour. Many, many operations followed...

Cal reaches out to Harvard grad, science writer and great-grandmother of 12 to get advice on how to respond to the coronavirus. Aunt Mitzi has interviewed hundreds of experts in healthcare over her career and has connections throughout Asia. She's completely up to date on the crisis, and she counsels listeners of Big Questions as if they're her own great-grandkids. Great advice on washing hands, s...

Cal and his old pal talk about unique ways to think about self-improvement that call us to step aside and try something new to add to our existing skill levels. The conversation questions whether you can get more out of yourself by spending 10,000 hours doing different things as opposed to mastering one thing over the same time period. The back and forth will make everyone wonder about how they ca...

As this week's heavyweight championship fight between undefeated Deontay Wilder and undefeated Tyson Fury approaches, Cal sits down with his old pal to try to figure out the outcome. As they get into the intricacies of the bout, they find out they disagree, which precipitates a friendly wager. This episode gives you a good look at the unique backstories of the fighters, and also examines why so ma...

Gary Smith has been called the best magazine writer to ever live – in part because he's won more National Magazine Awards than anyone else. Gary also gave an award-winning toast at Cal's wedding. Little did Cal know back then that after Gary retired from Sports Illustrated, he'd take his magnificent interviewing and writing skills to an entirely new place. Matrimony. Gary crafts the most unique an...

A decade ago, Scott Budnick was a producer on the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever, The Hangover. Now, he's an executive producer of Just Mercy, which is about as serious as a movie can get. It's the true story of an African-American Harvard Law School graduate, Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend inmates on death row and takes the case of a man who's been wrongfully convicted. It's...

Cal looks back on what he learned from the NBA legend over several conversations before Kobe's unfortunate passing. Then replays the talk he had with Kobe that got this podcast off the ground back in 2017. It's an unusual look at how curiosity and storytelling shaped the NBA legend. Also, an example of how the foundation of excellence translates across all fields. Kobe was devoting his life after...