He retired from a two-decade music career at the height of it to be home with his boys — and thirteen years later, still gets handwritten notes from strangers saying one of his songs changed their life. Bebo Norman spent this episode of the podcast doing what he says matters most to him now: sitting still, in one conversation, fully present.

We connected with Bebo after Allen Levi mentioned him by name in Season 1 Episode 1 — Joe lost his mind on the spot, and Rush turned the reveal into a birthday surprise months later.

We cover retiring from music at the height of a two-decade career to become a physician assistant, the difference between transactional and transformational friendship, the sudden death of his older brother Chris and the drive to the funeral spent listening chronologically to every record he ever made, his mantra "be where your feet are," raising two very different sons — one who leads from the front and one who sneaks up on you — and why he believes life is meant to be lived small, not big.

LINKS
Bebo Norman's music — Spotify
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

REFERENCED
Compassion International
Jim Elliot (quoted: "wherever you are, be all there")
Songs referenced: "Disappear," "Where the Trees Stand Still," "At the End of Me," "The Healing Song"

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — the birthday gift bait-and-switch and Rush's reveal
6:00 — Retiring from music 13 years ago to become a PA
11:00 — The joy and heartbreak of the last decade, and why relationships got smaller
16:00 — Transactional vs. transformational friendship
23:00 — A handwritten note from a stranger — music still landing over a decade later
27:00 — Being an "accidental musician" and watching more talented friends never break through
33:00 — The drive to his brother Chris's funeral — listening to every record chronologically
40:00 — The song "At the End of Me" and songs that minister to their own writer years later
45:00 — What "living small" actually means — presence over platform
52:00 — His brother's death and a family drawn together by grief
57:00 — His sons Smith and Miller — very different, deeply loved
1:02:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

He bought a three-day-old calf for $100, bottle-fed him in his kitchen, and accidentally built an audience of millions by asking one absurd question: do cows like pancakes? Elias Herrera lives on an acre and a half in rural Idaho with four boys, a cow named Bruce who might be potty-trained, and a philosophy of content creation built entirely around making strangers smile.

We connected with Elias through a two-year-old DM that finally found its moment — proof that some conversations are just worth the wait.

We cover how a viral cooking-with-your-cow video happened almost by accident, the ice-bath-in-a-water-trough phase that came before it, getting his content stolen and fighting copyright strikes on his own material, a surprise signed skateboard from Tony Hawk, raising four wildly different boys and what each one is teaching him, moving from Stockton to rural Idaho at fourteen and hating it before loving it, and why he thinks joy isn't complete until someone else gets to share in it.

LINKS
Elias Filmz YouTube

REFERENCED
Tony Hawk (skateboarder, DM exchange and signed skateboard)

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — donuts, wonder, and a South Carolina "baby"
4:00 — Meeting Elias — Treasure Valley, Idaho, and the beanie from Amazon
8:00 — Bruce the cow — how much a calf actually costs, and Rush's questionable childhood prank stories
13:00 — Four boys, a dairy diet, and $20 a day in hay
17:00 — Why he moved to Idaho at 14 — hating it, then never wanting to leave
21:00 — Counting blessings and what fatherhood taught him about other people's struggles
26:00 — How social media started — skateboard videos, a failed kids' YouTube channel, and the algorithm hit that wiped his income
31:00 — The ice bath in Bruce's water trough — and the donut discovery that started it all
35:00 — The pancake video that hit 50 million views in a week
39:00 — Getting his own content stolen — and losing copyright fights against himself
44:00 — The TikTok ban, the appeal, and defending Bruce's diet against online hate
48:00 — Getting a signed skateboard from Tony Hawk
52:00 — Four boys, four completely different personalities
56:00 — Rush on becoming a grandfather — watching your kid parent a kid
1:00:00 — Why joy isn't complete until someone else shares it
1:03:00 — The walkaway — Rush's hypothetical calf on the front porch

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

Seven months ago he had 700 followers. Now he has three million, a nickname from an American Gladiator video from a military driving class, and daily death threats in his DMs — and somehow he's still one of the most relentlessly kind people you'll talk to. Malibu went from Army veteran to gym trainer to overnight viral fitness influencer, and he's trying to figure out how to stay himself through all of it.

We connected with Malibu after our sons recognized him instantly from their own feeds. Turns out he'd been on our radar longer than Joe realized.

We cover the origin of the "Malibu" nickname from an Army driving class two decades ago, what it's like watching your follower count explode by 3,000x in half a year, losing nearly every old friend once fame hit, why he calls personal training "almost like being a therapist," the childhood moment at age seven when he refused to sign a hate list against a neighborhood kid, growing up moving constantly between states and countries including high school and college in Japan, and his answer to real online threats — meeting evil not with evil, but with relentless, deliberate kindness.

LINKS
Malibu's training app — malibufit.org

REFERENCED
Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — Oxford Pennant, appreciation, and Josiah's excitement
4:00 — The origin of the Malibu name — an American Gladiator video and a driving class
8:00 — What actually matters to him day to day — gratitude and giving back
12:00 — Life exploding overnight — the good, the hate, and losing old friends
17:00 — What "protecting your heart" actually looks like in practice
22:00 — Being a trainer as being a therapist — sleep, meals, and real conversations
27:00 — Two mentors — Arnold Schwarzenegger and his mother
31:00 — The hate-list story from age seven and refusing to sign it
36:00 — Growing up moving constantly — New York to Japan and back
41:00 — Real threats, real fear, and choosing kindness anyway
47:00 — Trusting two strangers with no social proof
51:00 — Tattoos, the Army, and Tattoo Paradise
54:00 — What's next — acting, wrestling, and staying himself
56:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

He spent years chasing the exact rhythm of Jerry Seinfeld's joke-writing, built a self-sustaining stand-up career filling 90-person rooms in his own community — and then walked away from it entirely to become a spiritual teacher. Dedicated Daniel Steinberg's episode is a masterclass in identity, craft, and what happens when the thing you built your whole self around gets taken away.

We connected with Daniel through the neighborhood — he lives less than a mile from Rush, and the two crossed paths online before ever meeting in person.

We cover what he actually studies in Seinfeld's comedy (not the jokes — the angles), the "lion tamer" psychology of walking on stage in front of strangers, why his wife never quite respected the craft even as it made real money, the COVID-forced break that left him disoriented without his identity's usual expression, becoming an interim rabbi and discovering the pulpit felt startlingly similar to a comedy stage, and the five-step speaking framework he built by combining stand-up, marketing, and Andy Stanley.

LINKS
None referenced directly

REFERENCED
Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld (audiobook)
George Carlin
Gallagher
Andy Stanley

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — intermittent fasting, kale, and "jumping the shark"
5:00 — Meeting Daniel — the neighborhood connection and a four-month-old baby
9:00 — Twenty years between his oldest and newest child — fatherhood the second time around
13:00 — Married 21 years, and beating his parents' divorce three times over
16:00 — Seinfeld as invisible mentor — wordplay, angles, and the "drone" approach to a joke
22:00 — Finding his own comedic voice — family, marriage, and the Midwest
26:00 — Comedy as justice — the theory behind why we laugh
30:00 — What it actually feels like walking on stage — the "lion tamer" dynamic
36:00 — Building his own audience — self-producing shows and $1,000 nights
41:00 — COVID kills live comedy — and forces a reckoning
45:00 — Why his wife never respected the act — and why he stopped anyway
50:00 — Identity, disorientation, and the empty puzzle piece
55:00 — The yarmulke, humility, and wearing it in today's climate
1:00:00 — Becoming an interim rabbi — the pulpit as a new kind of stage
1:04:00 — The five-step framework — connection, investment, transformation, vision, action
1:09:00 — Closing thought — why human connection is the one thing AI can't replace
1:11:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

Music by hitslab, via Pixabay
Licensed under the Pixabay Content License.

He said yes to a random LinkedIn message about lifting weights and burning fat — and somehow ended up in a nearly hour-long conversation about game theory, thermodynamics, and why he came back to Christianity after years of calling himself an atheist. Philosophical Philip lives in Pretoria, South Africa, and thinks about morality the way most people think about their to-do list.

We connected with Philip after reaching out for fitness advice. Turns out he's a serial "yes man," and this podcast was one more yes.

We cover a career path that's gone from genetics to startup CTO to insurance actuary to financial analyst, twenty years of obsessing over the evolutionary origins of morality, a Richard Dawkins book report he faked in university, becoming a father and realizing atheism gave him "no tangible values," a family incident that pushed him back toward Christian principles, and a real-time theological debate with Rush over whether happiness comes from controlling your world or surrendering control to God.

REFERENCED
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
John Maynard Smith — evolutionary stable strategies
Jordan Peterson (quoted on fatherhood and maturity)
Mitchell Hooper — Canadian strongman (quoted on happiness vs. joy)

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — balloon arches, a grad party, and a mystery guest in South Africa
4:00 — How Philip and Rush connected over fat loss and lifting
7:00 — From genetics to CTO to insurance to CFA exams — four careers deep
12:00 — Twenty years obsessed with the evolutionary roots of morality
16:00 — Game theory, the Selfish Gene, and why people are incentivized to be good
20:00 — A surprise cameo from daughter Elizabeth
23:00 — Becoming a father and the fear of losing access to your kid
28:00 — Calling himself atheist for years — and quietly becoming "culturally Christian"
33:00 — Why even secular people borrow from a Christian worldview
38:00 — The worm in the shower and writing fan mail to Harvard researchers
42:00 — What actually makes Philip happy — struggle, not comfort
47:00 — The incident that moved him back toward faith
54:00 — Rush's pushback — happiness through control vs. happiness through surrender
1:02:00 — Philip's honest concession — "I like your version better"
1:06:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

Brian O'Hare was raised to be an investment banker, a senator, maybe president. Instead he became a Marine infantry officer, then an actor, then a National Book Award-adjacent author, then a Farsi-language film producer — and along the way decided that the richest thing a person can have isn't money, it's people. Hollywood O'Hare might be the most quietly wise conversation we've had all season.

We met Brian through Graham, a mutual friend and filmmaker who wouldn't stop telling us we had to talk to him.

We cover the Doritos commercial that nearly broke him, how he met his now-closest collaborators on the worst film set of his life, six years in the Marine Corps and the Persian Gulf War injury that still shapes his daily life, his short story collection Surrender and the National Book Award judge who chose it, producing a Farsi-language film that premiered at the London Film Festival, growing up under a Vietnam-vet father's shadow and getting "bad career advice" toward the Naval Academy, the early-90s Seattle music scene he lived inside of, raising two kids in LA on purpose, and a tattoo his 11-year-old son helped apply.

LINKS
Surrender by Brian O'Hare — Syracuse University Press
Rizu (referenced film, streaming via The New Yorker)

REFERENCED
All the Right Moves (1983 film)
Chaz Bojorquez — LA graffiti/lettering artist

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — technical difficulties, Silver Lake, and painful honesty
4:00 — Meeting through Graham, and what makes someone "the real deal"
9:00 — The worst commercial shoot of his life — and how Graham and Ryan saved it
14:00 — Being "the dad on set" — presence over performance
19:00 — Refusing to bifurcate work and life
25:00 — Surrender, the National Book Award connection, and six years as an actor
29:00 — Producing Rizu, a Farsi-language film that premiered in London
32:00 — The Persian Gulf War, oil fire clouds, and living with 70% disability
37:00 — What richness actually means — Wall Street money vs. people
42:00 — Bad career advice — his father, the Naval Academy, and Danang Harbor
48:00 — Early-90s Seattle — free beers, Capitol Hill, and a genre being born in real time
54:00 — His daughter's design degree, his son's music, and a tattoo shop in LA
1:00:00 — Peaking at the right time — mortality, his father's early death, and what's left
1:03:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

He was eight years old when he taught Tom Hanks how to talk. Michael Connor Humphreys played the young Forrest Gump — the voice, the walk, the mannerisms Hanks would go on to win an Oscar for were lifted straight from an eight-year-old kid from Mississippi. Decades later, he's driving a Coca-Cola delivery truck, and it might be the most honest conversation we've ever recorded.

We connected with Michael after years of being genuinely curious — Rush had shown Forrest Gump to his kids and found himself wondering, whatever happened to that kid?

We cover what it's actually like to shape a Best Picture-winning performance without knowing it at the time, the three years of global fame that hit before he'd even turned eleven, the identity crisis of being defined by a role he barely remembers, joining the Army partly to escape being "the Forrest Gump kid," the Battle of Ramadi and the reunion he's organizing for the soldiers who served alongside him, a script find in the making of Stupid is as Stupid Does, and what it means to still be chasing the difference between who you are and what you're known for.

LINKS
Stupid as the Superdust by Steve Starkey
The Gary Sinise Foundation

REFERENCED
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton (authors mentioned)
Ron Chernow's Mark Twain biography

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — meeting Michael and the "no-prep" philosophy of the show
3:00 — The stats: life now, Coca-Cola truck driving, small-town Mississippi
6:30 — Being an uncle to nephew Fox — and the Matrix family down the street
11:00 — Growing up worldly-minded — European trips, military history, grandmother's history lessons
15:00 — Landing Forrest Gump at eight — home movies, VHS, and one lucky audition
19:00 — Three years of global press tours before age eleven
22:00 — Confirming the legend — Tom Hanks learning to talk like him, not the other way around
26:00 — The saturation of attention and why he almost avoided the movie for 20 years
30:00 — Acting out in high school — "if I can't be cool, I'll be the kid who's nuts"
34:00 — Joining the Army to escape being asked about the movie
38:00 — Identity, expectation, and doing things "under his own steam"
43:00 — What contentment actually feels like — and what he's still working through
47:00 — The Battle of Ramadi reunion and the Gary Sinise Foundation
51:00 — The most interesting thing about you isn't the movie
53:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller.

You'd expect a girl raised on a tropical island in Madagascar to end up somewhere warm, somewhere familiar, somewhere close to home. Instead she's in Seoul, editing a Christian magazine, speaking English with a British accent she picked up by accident, and thinking more clearly about the sovereignty of God than most people twice her age. Madagascar Mia is one of the most unexpectedly deep conversations we've had.

We met Mia through a magazine interview she was conducting — about halfway through, we wanted to flip the tables and interview her instead.

We cover growing up as a pastor's kid in Madagascar, losing her faith at ten and finding it again at thirteen, the strange science of how she ended up with a British accent despite growing up speaking French and Malagasy, a full scholarship to a Christian university in South Korea she almost didn't apply to, what it's like to be an introvert building intentional community in one of the fastest-paced cities on earth, her vision for discipling the next generation of Malagasy youth, and a Ninja Turtles movie that nobody in Seoul showed up for.

LINKS
Handong Global University

REFERENCED
The Art of Divine Contentment by Thomas Watson
Ecclesiastes
2 Timothy 2

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 — Cold open — the haircut debate and the return of "high, low, buffalo"
4:16 — How Mia got booked — a magazine interview flipped into a podcast
7:01 — Life in Seoul right now, and the long road from Madagascar
9:39 — The full scholarship to Handong Global University she almost didn't apply for
10:42 — The mystery of the British accent
13:01 — Reformed roots — Mia's dad, Pastor Rakotobe, and a surprising Fali Rabenirina connection
14:50 — The high of her childhood — Jesus as a member of the family
16:19 — Losing faith at ten, finding it again at thirteen
21:07 — Editing a Christian magazine and interviewing believers around the world
22:11 — Community in Madagascar vs. community in Seoul — the cost of intentionality
27:01 — Made in the image of a communal, triune God
28:20 — What patience with people actually looks like, day to day
33:30 — Her vision: discipling Malagasy youth out of fear and into exploration
38:00 — Korean culture, K-pop, and the Ninja Turtles theater nobody showed up to
45:00 — Mia's question back to us — "What is God showing you about Himself?"
48:00 — Joe and Rush's own academic origin stories — probation, no SATs, a 1.9 GPA
51:00 — The walkaway

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The Most Interesting Person in the World — hosted by Rush Witt & Joe Keller