What It Takes®

After World War II, when few survivors of the Holocaust were willing or able to describe what they’d been through, Elie Wiesel decided silence was not an option. Even if words could never adequately express the horrors, the world had to know what had happened. He wrote “Night,” and became the best-known witness to the Nazi atrocities, as well as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. In this episode Eli...

While listening to this episode, we dare you to NOT sing out loud. Carole King and Hal David were each one half of a legendary songwriting duo, and each responsible for many of the greatest songs of the 1960’s and 70’s (too many to start mentioning here, but we packed as many as we could into the podcast). If you like a medley, you’re in the right place. Carole King worked with (and was married to...

There is only one surviving superstar from the Golden Age of Hollywood: Olivia de Havilland. The actress who portrayed Melanie Hamilton in "Gone With The Wind" (and admit it: you liked Melanie better than Scarlett, right?) turns 100 years old on July 1, 2016. This episode features an extensive conversation with Ms. de Havilland about the early days of the American film industry. She explains how t...

Steven Spielberg hired Janusz Kaminski as the cinematographer for "Schindler's List” twenty-five years ago, and they have worked together, hand-in-glove, ever since. Their collaboration has produced "Saving Private Ryan," "Bridge of Spies," "Lincoln," and many others. In this episode, both filmmakers tell how they fell in love with the movies, and learned to make them. Spielberg talks about his fi...

Quincy Jones’s fingerprints are all over America’s popular music. If you like Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, or hundreds of other artists, you have heard his work, whether as an instrumentalist, a composer, a conductor, an arranger or a producer. He’s also scored dozens of movies and television shows, and been a philanthropist and activist...

How do you become a multi-billionaire, and the most successful hedge fund manager ever? Ray Dalio attributes his success to transcendental meditation and what he calls "radical honesty.” In this episode, he lays out the principles that have guided his life and his investment firm, Bridgewater Associates. He also talks about caddying for Richard Nixon as a child, his first investment at age 12, and...

The Innocence Project has freed 1000’s of people serving time in prison for crimes they did not commit. Thousands. People who were misidentified by eyewitnesses, or were manipulated into false confessions, or were the victims of unreliable forensic science. Barry Scheck is the co-founder of The Innocence Project, and in this episode he talks about the developments in science that led him and his c...

Whether you grew up watching The Carol Burnett Show, or your parents did, this comedian, actress, singer and writer is someone you want to get to know better. Burnett broke new ground when she launched her own television variety show in 1967 (hosting was still a man's game in those days). And she kept Americans laughing for the next 11 years. She had a huge influence on the comedians that followed...

During March Madness, can you think of anything more satisfying to do between games than listen to an interview with legendary coach John Wooden?! Wooden led UCLA to more NCAA championships than any other team in history, and he did it with a quiet, old-fashioned approach that challenged notions of what it takes to win. Wooden talks about his fatherly love for the players, his famous pyramid of su...

In this episode, an intimate history of two pocket-sized devices that changed the world, and the two men who created them: Steve Jobs and Tony Fadell. Jobs famously co-founded Apple. In the late 90’s, when the company was failing, he hired a young engineer and designer named Fadell, who created a little device that became known as the iPod. It not only turned Apple’s fortunes around, it transforme...

Sidney Poitier changed America’s view of black men. And he changed Hollywood (though the change is far from over, given the issues of diversity at this year’s Oscars.). The star of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “The Defiant Ones,” and “In The Heat of the Night” was the first African-American to win an Academy Award - for “Lillies of the Field” in 1964. He was a leading man and box office sensati...

Lauryn Hill has had an outsized impact on the world of hip-hop, soul and R&B. She entered the music world in the mid-1990’s as one third of the band The Fugees, and soon after released a solo album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”. It was a phenomenon, and swept the Grammys. But then Ms. Hill pretty much vanished from music and public life, in an internal battle between fame, family and faith. O...

Andrew Young has worn many hats: pastor, congressman, ambassador & mayor, but his first role in public service was as Martin Luther King Jr’s strategist and negotiator. He was at King’s side for many of the biggest battles of the civil rights movement, and he helped draft and secure the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In this episode, Young shares his unique, personal s...

As Mrs. King says, she wasn’t just married to Martin Luther King Jr., she was married to the cause. Their partnership in life, in faith, and in the struggle for justice and human rights, changed the world. In this episode, Mrs. King describes her early aspirations in music, her courtship with Martin, her courage in the face of violence, and her discovery that a purposeful life is a happy life. Aft...

Lee Berger has made two extraordinary scientific breakthroughs that are transforming our understanding of human evolution. Berger is a trailblazing paleoanthropologist. His most recent discovery involved a dramatic expedition through a 7-inch tunnel, deep inside the chamber of a South African cave. On the floor were thousands of bones, belonging to an unknown species of human relative that Berger...

Desmond Tutu was the moral force that helped bring down Apartheid in South Africa. As a young priest, he was not very political, despite the fact that he’d grown up under the most brutal form of segregation. But his theology evolved, he says, and he realized it was a divine calling to fight for justice. In this episode you’ll hear Archbishop Tutu describe his personal, spiritual and political jour...

George Lucas’s only dream as a teenager was to race cars, but he went on to create the most popular films in motion picture history. Along the way, while writing and directing Star Wars, Indiana Jones and American Graffiti, he learned life-changing lessons about humility, generosity, and the inestimable value of friendship…. as well as the secret to happiness. A not-too-subtle hint here: it has no...

"There are some things in life you control. I don't know that you control the sweeping hands of destiny." Admiral William "Bill" McRaven's destiny was to plan and oversee the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. True, he may not have controlled the historical moment, but his intensive training and vast experience as a Navy Seal and a commander enabled him to carry out the precision operation and chan...

James Michener was born to tell stories. He was one of the most popular and best-selling American novelists of all time… able to merge equal parts fiction, history, geography and culture into a perfect, page-turning blend. But when you hear Michener’s voice in this episode, you’ll realize his enormous talent for storytelling was not limited to the page. He is sure to win you over in this 1991 inte...

Coach K, as Mike Krzyzewski is best known, has more wins than any other men's basketball coach in the NCAA. He’s placed his team - the Duke University Blue Devils - in five consecutive Final Fours, won five national championships, and is the first coach in the history of NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball to win 1,000 games. He also has three Gold Medals under his belt, as coach of the USA Men’s Nat...

BB King began life as a humble Mississippi cotton farmer, and ended up one of the most influential guitarists and singers of the past century. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones and many others are among his disciples. During his lifetime he was celebrated by presidents, kings & queens - and declared a national treasure. The interview you’ll hear in this e...

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007, just after she returned from exile in the hopes of becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan for the third time. She had held the position for the first time in the 1980’s, and then again in the 90’s. When she was still in exile, unsure whether she would ever return to Pakistan to run again, Bhutto sat down with the Academy of Achievement for a long and candid in...

Before Jonas Salk created the Polio vaccine, thousands of children died every year or were left paralyzed by the virus (adults too). In 1952 alone, there were 58,000 cases in the United States. When news of the discovery was made public on April 12, 1955, Jonas Salk was hailed as a miracle worker. He further endeared himself to the public by refusing to patent the vaccine. He had no desire to prof...

Oprah Winfrey’s career in broadcasting started when she won Nashville’s Miss Fire Prevention Contest. She was 17. Part Two of our Oprah conversation focuses on Oprah’s life in media. It was too hard to fit everything fascinating the Queen of Talk had to say into one episode! Here, she describes the reasons she was terrible at news reporting and terrific at talk show hosting. She also talks about h...

“Fourth grade is when I first began to believe in myself… I felt I could control the world.” On this episode of “What It Takes,” Oprah Winfrey talks frankly about the inner voice that allowed her to survive a trauma-filled childhood with unwavering focus and unrelenting determination, to become the top-ranking television talk show host of all time. She describes learning oration, at an age when mo...