Deciding Between a Very Big Rock and a Really Hard Place | Josh Piven | Talks at Google

Hey everybody. Welcome to another authors of Google Talk. I'm really pleased to be sitting here with Josh Piven, author of his first book the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, which was a worldwide bestseller, described as the New York Times as the book to have when the killer bees attack and is apparently kept on the desks on the editors of Soldiers of Fortune magazine. So Josh is here to talk about his latest book, Bad vs. Worse. The ultimate guide to making lose lose decisions. And I know we've all faced some of those now and then, but before we get onto that, Josh, what do you do when you're in a large office and a three foot ball python has escaped?

So this actually happened here, is that right? So what happened? I mean was it hidden somewhere and people can really do they hire somebody to come in and find it. Exterminators, unfortunately. Oh really? They have like a python sniffing bloodhound or something. The experts say to not let it wrap itself around your leg and then it works its way up to your head and swallows you whole apparently. Don't drown. No, actually, I mean they actually say you should start from the start, from the head side rather than the tail side and start uncoiling it, I guess. But actually if you struggle it, you know, makes it grips tighter. So that's, you know, supposedly that's, that's what the experts tell you to do, but that is fairly random, I have to say. It's the first time I've ever come across a corporate office where there's been a python emergency. But anyway, let me just start out by saying thank you. And I know I see a few of you actually did not bring your laptops and I appreciate, I appreciate that. I know half of you are sort of 30% paying attention, but that's okay. But I appreciate you guys having me here and I'm a big fan of Google and just along those lines I have my slideshow and I did it in Picasa, which is I don't typically do slides in Picasa, but I figured I would give it a shot. So if it stops working we know who to blame. But so I guess the first thing is I wanted to see if any of you or a few of you are familiar with the Worst Case Scenario book series, which is mostly what I'm known for. Yeah, a few of you. Good. Oh you are. That's good.

Yeah, yeah, I read it. Somebody gave it to me. I don't know why, I think I was moving to a different country or something.

Yeah, the Worst Case books are really kind of how I got my start. I actually started out, believe it or not, in the high tech field. And the worst case thing was sort of a random, a random project. But I actually started out in computer publishing and I worked not far from here for Zip Davis. And actually they used to be big back in the 90s and I guess they're still sort of big, but they published PC Magazine and eWeek and so that's actually where I got my start was in publishing in high tech. But so then I went on to the Worst Case Scenario Survival handbook series and. And it was sort of as a joke, kind of as a whim. And it was just sort of one of these things that came out. It was a combination of timing, it was the whole Y2K hysteria. I don't know how many of you guys remember that. When people thought elevators were going to stop or start plummeting and people were going to need bottled water or whatever it was.

I think a lot of Googlers were kind of not quite in the workforce yet. But I certainly remember that I made.

Sure that I was, I was in grade school.

Yeah, I made sure I was unemployed for that. So tell us about, I mean, the Worst Case Scenario Hambur. You wrote it on a whim, but it took off. It was quite a phenomenon. Tell us a bit about what that was like.

It was weird. I mean, it was. I think a lot of success in publishing is timing, but it actually predated the Survivor TV show craze, but not by very much, like maybe like six months. And I think that really kind of fed into it. And then we had nine, 11. So it was like the hysteria over terrorism. And so I think something in these sort of books that teach you how to survive kind of ridiculous situations I think really appealed to people on some gut level. And then we just sort of went crazy with it and started doing like, you know, worst case scenario dating and travel and golf and weddings and parenting and sort of, you know, everything we could possibly think of where you had to deal with some of these worst case scenario situations. But we'll get into that stuff a little later. But yeah, so it was like totally this crazy, weird survival phenomenon, I guess. Yeah, I guess you could say.

And did that take you interesting places? Did you end up doing a world tour of survival?

I got on the Today show. That was kind of. That was kind of interesting. But yeah, I mean, you know, I went to Australia and New Zealand and you know, kind of let leeches crawl all over me and play with, play with snakes and jumped out of cars and, you know, did all the things that I never really done when I was writing these books because it was all. I mean, that was the thing. It was kind of like, you know, we had seen all this stuff and like Die Hard movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and James Bond movies, like all these sort of ridiculous TV stunts. So I sort of, you know, went out and sought out experts and they told me how to survive them, but I hadn't actually done them myself until the books sort of hit. And then it was sort of like I was on the hot seat and I actually had to pretend I knew how to do these things.

Australia is a good place to do that because it's packed full of toxic creatures, right?

Yeah, Right. That is true. They say have like Sydney or the surroundings of Sydney have like, you know, the world's largest, you know, proportion of deadly creatures. And there's. I think I have a slide here. There's a couple. So, yeah, so I started out with, you know, doing some of the basic survival things that we've seen in movies. So, you know, so here was. Here was the first one. So killer bees, we all heard about, you know, what do you do if you're, you know, being attacked by killer bees? And apparently the first thing is you have to wear really short shorts. But, you know, the experts were like, oh, you know, you have to run through really tall grass. And then the bees get really confused. And, you know, so, you know, that was the theory for actually how to survive a killer bee attack. And then I think I did. Yeah. I wasn't sure how to survive these killer bees. But so, yeah, so that was, you know, so I learned how to survive killer bees. And then I also did the, you know, of course, you know, the famous wrestling crocodile, which, you know, we saw from the crocodile hunter. Sadly, that didn't end too well for him. But so, you know, I actually talked to an alligator wrestler and who told me how to survive if an alligator actually has you in its jaws. So the theory here is that alligators and crocodiles have this sort of instinctive thing where if you tap on the snout, they will actually open up their jaws. So, like, if they have your leg in their jaws and you sort of tap on it, the idea is that they'll open up their jaws now, right? I don't know if they told the crocodile that. But anyway, so, yeah, so that was another one, a survival technique, I think. What was another early one? Oh, so this was a really popular one. So we see people choking in restaurants. So we actually did how to perform an emergency tracheotomy, which is actually called a cricothyroidotomy is a technical term, but it involves taking a ballpoint pen to the choking victim and smashing it through their throat just below their Adam's apple. And then it allows them to breathe. In theory, I have to say I haven't actually tried this.

And this is better than the.

I should try that one myself.

This is better than the Heimlich maneuver how exactly?

Well, actually this is for like if the Heimlich doesn't really work, like you've attempted it and the thing is still lodged in there. I mean, it's worst case scenario, right? This is not like, hey, I think I'll put my ballpoint pen through somebody's throat. So yeah, so that was another one that we did. And then we moved on to another subject, which is worst case scenario work. So this was a lot of. I pulled a lot of my experience from when I worked in a corporate environment. You know, how to survive. Sort of the day to day grind. Although it doesn't seem like it's that much of a grind here with the free food and all that and the game rooms and the.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Anyway, it used to be that the corporate environment was pretty staid. So we did. This was like how to deal with a cubicle that's sort of under decorated. So that was the under decorated. And then of course the bottom is the. You've gone a little bit too far. Although I think I did see a blender in one of the Google cubicles. So that was a topic that we touched on. Had to sneak out of a meeting and you know, that was. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective there. But yeah, so that's, you know, when you wait till people are looking one direction, then you obviously crawl out the other direction. So. And then, so we tackled travel, as I alluded to. So this was one that was actually kind of funny because we, you know, actually the original book was actually based on. I don't know if I show you this, but it was an article in Esquire magazine about how to land a plane if the pilot becomes incapacitated. So of course this is the scene from Airplane when they have the fish instead of the chicken and they're about to pass out or whatever. So you have to land the plane. So here we have very simple how to land a plane. That's all your instruments there. You just look at that little diagram and bring it right in. So Obviously this is a very simple single engine plane and everything is nicely marked there. So of course you also have to have the book with you while these emergencies are happening, otherwise you don't really know what to do. And then we also covered how to stop a runaway locomotive. And you can see there's some switches and levers there, so you need to make sure you can keep those separate. And then. Yeah, so it's all, you know, it's all very basic. Everything's nicely labeled in the book for you. And then we moved on to worst case scenario, dating and sex. So this was a pretty good one. We actually did things like how to fake an orgasm or actually how to tell if your partner is faking an orgasm, which actually might be a little bit more helpful. And then we did things like dating. So how to spot a fake if you're out and. And about. So I guess you can spot. And I think there's a couple more. You can probably spot those. So. Yeah, so we just had kind of had fun with the worst case scenarios in every.

So you got to dating and sex after the travel, right?

Exactly. Yeah. I practiced while I was on my travel and actually never met Pamela Anderson. Anyway, so that bring up. Oh yeah. This is what you do if you're on a date and you've forgotten your deodorant. So you're actually supposed to take. You're supposed to take actually chamomile tea bags and soak them in water and you actually put them under your armpits in the bathroom and supposedly it absorbs odors. That's the theory anyway.

Can someone check the micro kitchens? I think we have some chamomile tea, right?

Soap and water. Yeah, you can do that too. But it doesn't make for as appealing an image in the book, of course. So. Oh yeah. And this is how to. Right. How to deal. How to remove difficult clothing. So we give step by step instructions. You know, this is if she's not wearing the breakaway variety. So yeah. And then. So that was all right. So then we moved on. Then I moved on to bad versus worse. So how could it get any worse.

Before we get there? You have a series of books. There was a TV series as well, wasn't there?

Yes, there was a horrible television show.

What happened with that?

You think there's bad reality television on now? Trust me, this, this show was horrible. And we did it. We did it for a season. And this was, you know, again, you know, I don't know how much you know about what's going on with the writers strike. I'm not on strike, as you can see, I'm here. But, but the thing is with these shows is they're really cheap to produce because they're not paying anybody to write them. They're non scripted or non WGA shows. So that's what worst case scenario was. And my writing partner and I really wanted to write the show for them to script it because we thought just to sort of keep the whimsy of the books. But they did not want to pay us to do that. So they paid all this money and did a really, really expensive show which was a total, total bomb. They built like a two million dollar set in this huge warehouse. And they did, you know, they put all this money into it and it was horrible. But it's actually currently on Showtime, Saudi Arabia, believe it or not, in reruns. It's absolutely true. So you cannot see it in American television, but it is available overseas. So that was the TV show which.

Does bring us to bad over this.

Right, right. So Bad versus Worse was a book that I thought of, actually. I kept hearing this phrase. They were talking about Iraq and it was sort of this the lesser of two evils. Like which is the worst option? Do we cut and run or do we stay the course? I mean it's just either way you can't win. So I started thinking about these decisions that we deal with every day that are sort of. There's no right answer. It's.

You have an epigraph in the book from Woody Allen here. More than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Right. So basically this, the idea behind this book is that they're, you know, these are sort of decisions that we hope that we never have to make. But it's sort of fun thinking about them. So. But it's also sort of a take on the would you rather game, which obviously everybody's familiar with. But I think one of the things I try to do in my books is that I actually want people to feel like they learn something when they read these books. Even if that's something that you can only do in one sitting on the toilet, that's ok. I mean, I want to feel like it's sort of just fun and interesting and that's the idea behind these situations. So we can talk about some of the matchups if you want, but sure, let's do that.

You have a whole chapter on Arch villains.

Right, so arch villains. Let me see. Right, so here's arch villains. So what I picked was, who would you rather have catering your party, Neanderthals or ninjas? So the assumption is that the ninjas are real good preparing the sushi, and the Neanderthals are really good with the roasted meats, but the problem is the guests may end up getting slaughtered. But, you know, so I sort of take you through having to make the decision, but at the same time, you're sort of learning about what Neanderthals actually were and how they communicated and, you know, who ninjas were. So it's, you know, but it's all, you know, it's all kind of fun, you know, and then. So another one. Who would you rather have as a father, you know, Darth Vader or Don Corleone? Which, you know, something I've always thought about. And then, I think, you know, there's. So there's Darth there, and then we have Don Corleone as well. So, you know, of course, I had to work Dick Cheney into a book on bad versus worse. I could have done a whole chapter on him. But so I did that. And then. So we. And then I did a chapter on dangerous people. So another one was, who would you rather have as your high school football coach, Nixon or Napoleon? And, you know, I think part of the. Part of the challenge with this book is it's not really enough to sort of just have two dangerous people or dangerous situations together. You sort of have to construct this scenario where you could actually apply some of their skills or lack thereof, to these situations. So, of course, we have tricky Dick Nixon running the tricky plays and Napoleon on the opposite side of the field. And then I think we also have another couple. So there's another. That's another. There's bad. This is, again, dangerous people. And there's worse. And then. Oh, right. So we actually did. Who would you'd rather have perform at your son's bar mitzvah? So, you know, obviously, this is a very important day in the life of any Jewish person. So the choices are, who would you rather have at your son's bar mitzvah? There's Ozzie or Marilyn Manson up on stage. So that, you know, that was kind of a fun one. And again, I'm not sure there's a right answer there.

Do you talk in the book about how you make those decisions?

Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I mean, as I said, it's not really. I mean, there's not really a right answer, but I Mean, the idea is that you, you sort of learn that Ozzy Osbourne actually did bite the head off a bat when he was in concert. And he was actually, I think he had a press release where he said that he didn't get rabies, but they had to check the bat to see if he got some sort of Ozzy disease or something like that. But yeah, and then I compare their sort of recording careers and Marilyn Manson had this book about. I forget what his book was called. It was called I'm the Antichrist or something like that. So maybe not somebody you want at your son's bar mitzvah, but. And then I think I have. Oh, so who would you rather listen to NonStop on a 15 hour road trip? Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond? So, you know, the assumption here is like the satellite radio is broken and you can't turn it off and you can't change the channel. And I mean, what's funny about it is that these are guys who are very successful and we all know their songs. And that's kind of what makes the decision difficult, is you can sort of, you know, sing along. Sing along to all the songs, but you don't really have a choice. So there's bad, there's worse. You know, they all have a lot of chest hair, too, and jumpsuits. And then there's another. Oh, so Saddam Hussein. I have. Who would you rather marry your daughter off to? Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler? And, you know, it is hard trying to find good things to say about Hitler. However, he was an artist. He was a talented artist, believe it or not. Although he was kicked out of art school. And of course we know what Saddam's story was. And then I think I also. Oh, right. So sorry about that. How'd that get in there? So there's another bad versus worse. Pretty dangerous shot there. And then. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, and then. So another bad versus worse situation. So there's bad. This is the prelapsarian OJ and there's. There's worse. I didn't, I didn't put him into the, into the book. There's another one, Bad versus worse. Oh, so Killer Creatures. Right. So I also wanted to do some, some things from pop culture so, you know, which would be worse to have as a house pet, Godzilla or Jaws. And of course, Jaws, you know, is living in your swimming pool. And so, you know, I sort of did all the research on how you could actually care for Jaws or Godzilla if they're, if they are your personal pet. So that one was kind of fun. And then who would you rather discover in your backyard? A West Nile mosquito or a West African dictator? And that was, you know, that was an interesting one. So again, trying to find an interesting West African dictator to choose. I picked Charles Taylor, who was from Liberia. So there's the mosquito and there's. That's actually not Charles Taylor. That's IDI Amin, actually. Is that an East African dictator? What's that? That an East African dictator? That's IDI Amin. That's West Africa. That's not Edi. What's that? Oh no, you're right. It's Mobutu. You're right. That's still West Africa, isn't it? Anyway, he's not in the book. That was the only image I could find. And then. Oh. So which would be worse? Lunch at the Neverland Ranch or breakfast at a poultry processing plant? And this was a touchy one because my editor was really nervous about having anything about Michael Jackson in the book for obvious reasons. But I take you through what Neverland Ranch actually has become and you know, and then versus, you know, having to eat there and drink Michael's special wine. And then of course that's kind of, that's pretty bad. But that could be worse. So that's, that's the book and the gist. But I'm happy to take questions about the book or the worst case books or, you know, anything about publishing or where these ideas come from. Any questions or about the TV show.

Well, I have a quick question. What's a really bad decision you've had to make in your life? What's a bad versus worst that where you've really had to make the decision.

I don't know, like the Sophie's Choice. I don't know. I've had a lot of good luck in publishing. I haven't really had too many, you know, too many horrible decisions like, you know, like this book. But you know, I think I had a couple, I have a couple offers for speaking engagements. Actually. I had a, had an offer to do a New York Times op ed piece right after 9, 11. You know, they're like, you know, your books, you talk about how to survive these horrible situations. So we want you to write an op ed piece for the New York Times. And of course, you know, if you're an author, this is like a dream assignment, somebody coming to you and asking you to write something. But I actually had to turn it down because it was, you know, it was too. Yeah, well, it was too serious. I mean, the books are really Kind of. They're all in good fun and they're sort of humor books, not real serious books. So I had to turn that down. So that kind of sucked.

Yeah, I bet it must.

Questions?

We have a question.

So you said that you actually went to. I guess you said Australia. Australia, New Zealand. And you actually did some of these things. Could you. Why? And elaborate on what you had to do or what you did? Yeah, I mean, obviously I didn't do things where really I felt like I was taking my life in my hand. But, you know, for a little TV exposure, authors will do a lot. So I, you know, I, you know, as I said, I handled some, you know, semi poisonous creatures. I mean, you know, spiders. And I did some sort of silly stunts like jumping out of moving cars. And actually, I tell a story in one of my books about. They wanted me to jump out of a plane and sort of simulate not having a parachute. Because one of the things I have in my book is, what do you do if you jump out of a plane and your parachute fails. Fails to open? So how do you actually survive that situation? So I was doing this episode for 2020, and they actually wanted me to go up into a skydiving plane and jump out. Obviously not with a defective parachute, but they wanted me to sort of. The whole idea is that you link up with somebody that has a parachute on. If you're by yourself, obviously you're out of luck, but if you have somebody else, you sort of, you know, you link arms with them and then they, you know, they do their shoot. And then you sort of wander down, you know, up with two people under one parachute. And I had never done skydiving before, and I basically, you know, I sort of saw my life flash before my eyes. And I, you know, I'd just been married, and it was, you know, it was just something that I was just. I sort of felt this visceral reaction. Like, I don't really think this is a good idea. So I actually decided not to do it. I just, you know, sort of. They sat me in the plane and they had the plane going down the Runway, and right before it took off, they cut it and I got out and the professionals got in and they went up and did it. So that was one that I didn't actually do because I was sort of. I felt fearful. It was always sort of like. I felt like I wasn't a survival expert, but I sort of played one on TV or in publishing, I guess. But no, I mean, there wasn't really anything where I was sort of. It was life and death, I would say. It's a good question. Right? Yeah. The mythbusters. Yeah, that. I mean, it is amazing because there's so many of these shows, like, there's Myths Busters and there's Survivorman, and it seems like there's this whole sort of genre of survival shows that somehow have managed to make it where we sort of, you know, almost, you know, not to be immodest, but we really were very early in the survival book genre. But yet, you know, we somehow we weren't able to translate that, you know, into a successful television show for whatever reason. But maybe, you know, we may have just gone about it in the wrong way. I think we can probably get rid of that. Other questions about the books or about publishing them or about survival. Yep.

Would you mind coming up to the mic so that it's recorded?

Well, hey. Or you can use. Yeah, use the wireless one. I noticed that there's a couple of other people's names on a couple of your books. Who are your writing partners, and how did you get hooked up with them? Right. Well, the original, the Worst Case book, I have a co author that I work with throughout the series. His name's Dave Borgonecht, and he sort of handled the business side of doing these books because there's a lot that goes into them, aside from just the writing. I mean, obviously the simple stuff like the illustrations, but there's other sort of other ancillary things. And then for some of the books, we felt like we wanted to get a women's perspective. So, like, for the dating book, I think to have any real credibility on doing Worst case scenario dating, you sort of have to have both sides of the coin. So we brought in a friend of ours to do some of the women's perspective stuff, and then some of the other ones I think we brought in. When we did golf, we did worst case scenario golf, and we brought in a golfing expert to help with that, because neither one of us was a big golfer. But most of the books I've done since the Worst Case books have been on my own, sort of just narrative humor and narrative nonfiction. Other questions? Yes, sure. Could you talk about a little bit about your publishing history? Like, you know, who was your first publisher, and then did you stay with them? Did you change and do they feed you ideas, or do you come up with them? Yeah, that's a good question. Nobody's going to ask me if I'm related to Jeremy Piven. People always ask me that. Yes. I am. But anyway, yeah, I mean, well, Chronicle Books in San Francisco published and publishes, continues to publish the worst case scenario books. They're a small independent publisher, one of the few remaining small publishers. But I think as an author, sometimes you come up with book ideas and they're just not right for a particular publisher. I wanted to break into doing some narrative nonfiction stuff and that wasn't really right for chronicles. So Random House published a book that I wrote called as Luck Would have it, which is a book about true stories about luck. And you know, and then I did another book that wasn't right for them. So I brought it to another publisher that bought it. And Perigee, which does bad versus worse, does a lot of humor books. So it just kind of. It just kind of depends on, you know, finding the right home for, you know, for a particular book. But I can tell you it is not an easy process. Did you want to know more about. More about the history than that or that. Does that answer the question? Oh, where the ideas come from? Yeah, I mean, I have stuff that's like languishing in editors offices as we speak. It definitely can be difficult. I mean, as an author, you're really only as good as your last book. I mean, sad to say. I mean, once you've had some success, sort of typically they will look at your work just because they see that you have a publishing history. But I'm trying to break also to break into fiction, which is a totally different market. And so I've written a novel that I've gotten some very friendly rejections on. But I guess the most frustrating thing as an author is just that you don't know if editors have even read it. Like I can handle the rejections, but I think sometimes it's just out there and it languishes. Like I said, you don't really know if anybody's read it. And I think as an author you always want to feel like somebody's at least taken the time to. To read what you've written. So that I think is a little bit frustrating. But I'm undeterred as my agent says, what is it? Harry Potter went to 10 or 15 different publishers before that book found a home. So I think it also just depends on getting hooked up with the right editor. Sort of has the same sensibility.

And maybe there's a worst case scenario handbook for publishing.

Yeah, actually I'm working on a second novel that's about the publishing industry. It's sort of a satire of the publishing industry. So we'll See if that finds a home. Hopefully it will.

One of the books you have there is Escape Artists. Stories of people following a dream and finding what they want to do. Can you talk a bit about that?

So, yeah, I think I brought a copy. Yeah. So this is a book I wrote called the Escape Artist. And actually this is directly from the worst case of books because I had met sort of when I was doing all this research for the worst case books, I met all these sort of interesting people doing really, really odd things like hunting giant octopi or smashing up cars or being stuntmen or wilderness surgeons. I mean, just whatever. It totally ran the gamut. And it just sort of occurred to me that there are a lot of people out there, maybe some of you, who are really passionate about something and that's, that's what they want to do with their life. And a lot of times it's about risk taking and maybe going in a direction where you don't think it's going to be very lucrative, but you don't really care, at least initially, because you're passionate about something. And that's how it was with me and writing. I always wanted to write. So I decided to write a book about people doing things, trying to make a living doing things that they really cared about. So I did. I profiled a circus clown, I profiled a minor league baseball pitcher, I profiled a stand up comedian as a wilderness surgeon, a guy that does undercover drug work for the Drug Enforcement Administration. So, you know, just sort of people doing, you know, interesting things, sometimes dangerous things, sometimes things that really, you know, paid like garbage, but they did it anyway. And just why they decide to do that with their lives rather than maybe some of them left a really traditional career track and some of them just knew that they always wanted to do that and decided to do it. I think there are a lot of people out there, especially now, that are more willing to take that risk, is sort of doing something that they've always wanted to do. And I think the Internet is sort of the enabler of that in many ways because it allows people to sort of, you know, be, what is it, geographically independent or something like that. I mean, they can sort of work, they can work from anywhere, more or less. So I wrote that book and that came out in May, I guess. So an interesting book. For those of you that are really passionate about something, even if it's not this job, if it's something else that you think you might want to do with your lives.

Do you have a least favorite of the Dangerous creatures. I mean. No, I remember you. You mentioned leeches. That particular least favorite of mine.

I don't know. I always worried about sharks when I was a kid, probably from watching Jaws when I was like 6 years old. But I think, I mean, one of the fun things about the worst Case books is they really sort of feed on these fears that the media has sort of instilled in us. I don't know why. Something about sharks is that there's no real escape and truly that you can't really do anything. And then it's combined with the fear of drowning, I think, and it's coming up from below and you don't always see it. I think that was always my fear. But people always ask me if I feel more secure now that I know how to survive these things.

Do you retain all that information? Do you carry it around with you?

Right. I don't know. That's the thing. You have to remember what to do when you're being attacked. I don't know. There's a really good book for anybody that's interested in sort of the psychology behind who buys these things. There's an interesting book called the Positive Power of Negative Thinking, which is. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's sort of this whole school of thought where if you are somebody that catastrophizes, if you always think about what the worst thing is that could happen in any given situation, that you're actually better prepared when bad things actually do happen. Because you sort of have, even very loosely, you sort of thought about the different paths that you might take. And so the information sort of comes back to you at the last minute and then you can actually make a more informed decision now. I mean, it could also make you a sort of wild hypochondriac as well, but, you know, I don't know, but it's an interesting book. Other questions?

Any more questions?

Nope. Everybody get their books? I don't think we had quite enough books. If you bug Cameron, I'm sure he'd be happy to order some more of my publisher. No, he's saying don't bug him.

Thank you very much, Josh. Josh will be signing.

Yeah, I'll sign them if you have them. Inscribe them, sign them, whatever you want, if you want them.

That's great. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you.