welcome to the program. two segments tonight about asking questions. we begin with phil mudd, his book is called "the head game." >> the transformation that i think isñi a real struggle is to understand intelligence is notw3 secrets it's knowledge. it's information thatñr helpsñi you solve a problem. so theñ losing someñi traction, i think, in the knowledge world because a lot of them still believe knowledge is secrets. >> rose: we conclude with brian grazer his book is "a curious mind: the secret to a bigger life." >> i knew thatñr i grewñiñwiñr up i such añi little provincial world and i wanted to make it bigger and create larger opportunities for myself and i thought by learning about other subjects my world would expand and you just never know when these dots or how these dots everñi get created and

connected and that opportunity would occur. >> rose: phil mudd and brian grazer when we continue.ñi >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: phil mudd is here. he has served as deputy director of the c.i.a. counterterrorist center. he was also the first deputy director of the f.b.i.'s national security branch.

left government service in 2010 after more than two decades. his new book is a guide for approaching tough decisions in the digital age of data overload, it is called "the head game: high efficiency analytic decision-making and the art of solving complex problems." i can't imagine who gave it that title. (laughter) i am pleased to have philip muddjdd how could you ever think this is -- oh, the head game is fine it's the subtitleñiçó that --ñrñiñrñrñi ÷ç the author writes the book. the first title was the big think and the folks at the publishing company said this is not going to work. so back and forth six months. we said we need something that's going to catch the idea of how to think intellectually about complex problems. i was sitting in a bar one night -- not uncommon for me -- (laughter) and i swear, in minneapolis sitting in a bar having a glassñr

of wine. i look over and i see some guyñi working some girl at the bar, andñiñrxd i looked at him and said she's playing head gamesñi with +&c instantly, i took out a card and said, the book will be called the head game. everybody understands that. how do we figure out how to make that an acronym, but it was at a bar watching a guy work a girl. >> rose: your life is about analysis. >> that's right. when i walked in the doors in the c.i.a. in 1985, i was so desperate for a job i said you're going to be an analyst and i remember going into the desk to get the badge to get in the front gate and they said your job is analyst. going into the c.i.a. they don't give you much information up front. i said, i don't know really know what that is and it turned out to be 25 year career. >> rose: do the guys in operations respect analysts and

do the anists want to be in operation? >> i have more operation friends, guys working in the field collecting intelligence than i do analyst friends. it's a friendly rivalry especially in the ranks, there's a lot of respect across the board. both services have been around for a while. the analysts are regarded as pointed-heads who have graduate degrees and the operators are knuckle draggers out in the field. the extrovert analyst is a guy that looks at the other guys' shoes in the elevator. (laughter) >> rose: john brennan wants to bring them together more, operations and -- >> that's right. >> rose: and is that a good idea? >> the idea is, in the history of the agents is typically you have people collecting information and the people analyzyn separate places. if i'm analyzes the iranian nuclear program, the peoplexd actually collecting it, sometimes in another building.

there's a simple thought, if you have knowledge on a problem, why don't you all sit together. how does it take 60 years to get there. there's a problem called matrix management. if you have somebody managing all of this stuff on iran and that person is managing the analysts studying the iranian nuclear program and theñi the people collecting the have somebody trying to manage that analyst career. parachuting in, telling that iran manager, you know, that guy you're having work on that project, he needs different experiences to grow as an officer over 20 years. and the line manager is going to say, excuse me i have a real world problem i've got to solve here, leave me alone. that matrix management is tough. in theory it works. experience on a problem sittinbiñci%9q in oneçó place more brains is better brains. the management part will be tough, i think. >> rose: so much information is known today. there's such a data overwhelming amount of

information. >> yeah. >> rose: our power to collect information has never been greater. >> that's right. reach out and give us more information. what's the value added of the c.i.a.? >> this is an advantage not being there because i think the c.i.a. is strugglingxd to revolve around a fundamental question. when i joined the service, i intelligence was secrets, interpreting communication. if you want to look at the north korean nuclear facility, get on google earth. human sources inside an organization. the iranian revolution in 1979, if you're fast forwarding to watch unrest in iran today, you will get people on twitter vine people with smartphone photos. i'm not sure you have people clandestinely collecting because youçó have 1,000 uh protesters

collecting for you. the transformation is to understand intelligence is notñr secrets it's knowledge. it's information that helps you solve a problem. so the c.i.a. in essence is losing traction i think in the knowledge world because a lot of them still believe that knowledge is secrets. it's byxd definition, if you're at the c.i.a. you acquire clandestinely. as i watch the world change, you take the evolution in iran or unrest you saw a few years agoñr in iran,ñr the sliver of information that's secret, if you're assessing unrest in a foreign country compared to when i started in 1985 is going like this. so they've got to realize that intelligence isçóñi knowledge and a lesser and lesser part of the intelligence world is secrets. unless you get out there and get into the big world i'm in now i think they'll slip further behind. >> rose: give me a sense of what knowledge tells us about iran. >> that's a good example of a situation where i think

intelligence can bring real value added. when you're dealing with a classic intelligence problem you're looking at two categories of stuff, capability and intent. what can a country do. what kind of material do they have. how are the facilities protected so if theyçó have bombs we can go after them. those are all questions the service world can't answer well. in 1985, you couldn't take google earth and watch iran build a facility. on the intense side do they want to build a facility, do they want to delay building? do they want to build a facility to only acquire nuclear material for nuclear power is this that's technical information that gets inside a senior leader's office to say you have the capability to do this, do you have the intent to do that. in my view -- >> rose: that's an intelligence question. >> that's an intelligence question. as the world of knowledge

explodes, the number of the classic intelligence questions is going to get fewer and fewer. >> rose: an intelligence question will tell you do they want it, how fast do they want it and what's their game plan. >> to get to the book, i don't think that's the right question i would ask if i were an analyst. >> rose: what would you ask? the first information, the officer, the intelligence officer has to acquire has to do with the capability of iran and the intent of the leadership to use that capability. when you're talking to a decision maker the real transition of being an expert to analyst is not to start with the data to start with the decision maker's question the question of how can we affect this problem. if you dump a bunch of information on my desk about iran's nuclear program i'm going to say that's interesting what do i do about it? >> rose: how about doing nothing. >> largely true. >> rose: i would ask the most important question is what's the problem. how do we define the problem

before we ask the question how can we affect the problem? >> i think the problem is do we have a sense that iran might use this capability? this is the intent part of the equation for nefarious purposes. the first is building a capability they could eventually deploy. the second is deployment the third is use of the capability. as a practitioner if a decision maker wants to know how do i affect this, to my mind, my responsibility, whether i'm in business or whether i'm in the c.i.a. to determine what does my boss want to do and so once i determine what he wants to do, i want to affect this president obama, president bush so i can slow this program down. >> this vision is narrow and you will you're doing is asking the questions about your boss' question. if all you're doing for him is helping him with the question he's formed, maybe you could serve a better purpose by broadening his question. >> you just graduated to sort of ph.d. level analysis. i always told analysts you have about four or five stages to go from mediocre to good to great

but first is being expert you know your turf. the second is being able to talk about it in a formal way. the third is being able to have a conversation about it in an informal way so i can talk to you without a bunch of notes in front of me. the final stage is being able to watch where you're going and anticipate but also supplement where you're going as you're suggesting so if i think you're going in a direction and not asking the right questions how do i insert the questions without you saying i'm not an idiot. so this defining how an analyst goes up the ladder from immediate yoke tore good and almost great. almost nobody got there 5% or less. >> rose: why? the characteristics of an analyst, expertise ability to work with other people ability to present orally, ability to write clearly and to havexd a passion about the business so you can beat your competition, to my mind the number of people who combine those interpersonal

skills, the interest and expertise in añi particular area and the ability to writeñi idñi present orally well everybody's going to raise their hand in a room and say they can do it. i have a bunch of harvard's ph.d.s and masters' degrees folks people can't write. >> rose: i agree. then you have people saying there's no value in liberal education. there is value in liberal education because it can teach you how toñiñi express yourself and give you context and referenceñr and vocabulary. >> with two exceptions that i should have figured out long ago. the first is people think that speaking is nice to have, especiallyñr the introverted anist i dealt with. i cameñiçó to realize as you moved up the ranks, i spent half years with= director, saw him as often as four times a day. probably did a thousand threat briefings. the number of e-mails i wrote him i could count on two hands. i bet fewer than ten. i told analysts, you don't have

to like speaking, most peoplei3 don't, but if you want to win, you better learn how to do it. get in front of a camera and learn how -- the second thing i thought was a problem. we go to college and assume that people are going to come out with critical thinking skills. about three years agoñi on ááo have the reasons i wrote this book is i realized why don't colleges have an initial requirement first two to four semesters of critical thinking dhowrks break down a problem look at scenarios red team or attack the problem. we assume people study english and history is to become not to become critical thinking. >> rose: the person who could communicate well might have more to contribute but because he or she would be overshadowed by the big talker they would not be the right scale. >> if you're a manager, there are ways to figure out how to deal with that. for example, i went through training as a manage. i still remember this one day

when i was a first-line manager. we didn't have very good training for managers but one experience defined the next few years for me one aspect in terms of managing people. we're going through a practical exercise eight people around the room. i don't remember the analytical issue. i asked the groupxd as someone in training, what do you think of this problem? afterwards, during the afteraction when i was being instructed about what i did there, there are people around the table who said he didn't ask me, he asked the group. a very simple method and this again appears in the group. i realize that the people you describe have a psychology that says i'm only asked what i'm looked at and someone says charlie what do you think. every meeting thereafter and it seemed appropriate is say, larry, mary nancy, what do you think about the problem, and if somebody started to stutter but had app good thought, i would

pull him aside and say, let's talk about that. >> rose: bill gates does that, to pull out the person in the back of the room, not just the guy who happened to be cabinet rank sitting in front of me. >> george tenet did that to me. i was a back againch gs14 which is a middle ranking officer. bangback benching at a c.i.a. meeting he looked at me on the back wall and said who are you? i said, my name is philip mudd i'm a church chump change mid-level officer. he said, what do youñió[ think about this. even at tha@i level, do you,;2ju what that meant for a c.i.a. officer?çó i said, here's my perspective. i don't know what he thought, but it was a changing moment for me. >> rose: gave you confidence that he wanted to know your opinion. >> that he cared.c >> rose: that my opinion

matters and i want to make sure my opinion is as informed as it possibly can be. >> exactly. i do not want to stumble so i better bring my game and plus there are a bunch of people around the table saying why is the director asking that idiot? >> rose: bottom line, the head game is you want people to look at the end game and say what is the question we wantçó here. >> that's right. people look at the data every morning and say especially in this data world -- for example, why don't you, ifñr you're moving to a city get 1,000 real estateñiçó ads and sort through them and say, let me get a sense of the city. don't do that. that's infusht. the first conversation is how do i have a quality of life experience in this city that brings me joy? spend time on that. that way you can weed out about 90%. same thing with al quaida. people came in with stacks of stuff and say here's what this stack of stuff says, and i would say, okay make a better decision that's

simply a good expert, concise analysis of all the junk on your desk. i don't care. but it did take me 15 years to get there. >> rose: update in terms of what you think is going on in yemen and the what's happening in yemen. >> you can't look at yemen without looking at the broader middle east side, iraq and syria, as an example. two things going on are of concern to me. in each of these cases you're looking at sunni groups, i.s.i.s., al quaida. in all these areas, there are i.s.i.s. in iraq, el nusra, i.s.i.s. and al quaida inçóñr the arabian peninsula, comingñi up against ajc group. this is a religious divide that goes back 14 centuries. what i'm concerned about is not whether we have isolated civil wars -- iran's been on a roll, they have been on a roll in syria and lebanon going back to the '80s, been on a roll in iraq after saddam hussein goes,

they have a sunni leader. and in yemen. in every one of thefá cases, it looks like thegñ titanic players coming face to face with the shia. there is evidence of that in yemen as well. that's the first thing i worry about whether this is more a seismic shift in the middle east as opposed to -- >> rose: a seismic shift? conflict between sunni and shia? >> a ideological conflict. a cold war becomes a hot war in every one of these places because sunni are fighting shia. >> rose: and the test is not pro anything, it is within their own definition. >> yeah, and who's at play in these circumstances. it's the heavy hitters. that's the saudis. you're talking about they're getting into yemen. they're into syria and ironies. it's notx$$(rá players on the margin. >> rose: between the sunni and shia, you're seeing it there,

the other competition is the question for arrearagele supremacy between saudi arabia. >> which is a sunni-shia divide. when we sat at the table we metçó with george tenetñyóñ#?n at 5:00, the small group. every night we talk aboutçó wmd threats, the fight we talk about whether we would be able to pick up somebody tomorrow, talk about what tenet was going to tellñr president bush in the morning, we talk about what threats we got that night and say is this important or not, a pretty intense time. but we were talking about fight ago group that did not control geographic space. the taliban controlled space in afghanistan. al quaida didn't control space. they simply were focused on attacksñiçó ahead, the americans washington and new york. then the circumstances i mentioned before, syria, iraq, yemen, were starting to see groups that had an al quaidaest idea of life. the enemy isn't just in syria and iraq, it's in france

charlie#n, hebdo, new york. they're starting to control other places. i'm worrying in the future they get areas that not only host groups that attack america or want to attack america but that who's a geographic space and start to evolve toward governance. that to me is a big change. >> rose: governance meaning government over space? >> yes. >> rose: wanted to do what i.s.i.s. said i wanted to do, create a caliphate but this time taking over real nation states. >> that's correct. i would not have thought of that 14 years ago. >> rose: back to yemen, there you have the iranians and iranian supported rebels are overtaking theñi government through the houthis. people that we thought were on our side. >> whatever our side is. >> rose: people we thought were our friends. >> yes. >> rose: on the other hand, you have iran which is the

mortal enemy of i.s.i.s. they've sent theirxdñr own top general into iran andda damascus and have hezbollah blah and syria trying to fight i.s.i.s. >> yes. >> rose: and i.s.i.s. is our enemy. >> yeah, but you would say the enemy of our enemy is our friend. in other words, we shouldxd be inxd with the iranians because we have a common enemy. i would say holdñi on a second here. i think iran is a democratic society, a great culture i'm not here to vilify iran. they have a different world view than we do. but part of that world view would be to say once a shia government takes control in a place like iraq, it is not one man one vote, not the american idea of a democracy. >> rose: and not sharia law necessarily. >> not necessarily sharia law. i would expect it would be. what i'm saying is they're not making a commitment saying if the sunnis win an election we'll let them win.

we'll say the shia are on a roll in iran and iraq and it's a shia world. >> rose: the saudis have a real interest in yemen because it's right there. >> yeah. >> rose: they always said we've had an interest there. >> yeah. >> rose: the sunni countries are coming together and creating joint strike forces and realize they can't sit on the side lines they can't wait for america the to do it, they have to do it themselves. do you see that as real and positive? >> i see that as real and sort of positive as long as you know what your end game is. there's a difference between democracy and unstable states. democracy in these3leñ states with ethic and religious divides whether you like it or not. i'm an american, i believe in democracy. when you put democracy in a state where people define themselves not by the state but by their religion. their tribe democracy is unstable. >> their nationality is not the first definition. the religion is the first definition. >> when they lose the election they're not going to buy into

the state and say let me wait for the next round they're going to say where's my gun. my point is, if you want democracy, these arab states coming together and imposing security is not going to give you democracy, it's not going to be the hope of the arab spring. if you want security with autocrats, i think we're okay. >> rose: this has been the american dilemma all along, a decision having to do with mubarak and others. >> i tell folks to bring it home. you know, democracy is nice, but if you live in washington or new york or memphis orñi where i grew up in corral gables, florida, and there are killings in your neighborhood every night, you're eventually going to say to the police force -- >> rose: stop the killings. -- figure itxdñi out. i look out and say people are going toñmó sayñrok the arab spring and all that, that's a nice theory. stop the killing. >> rose: is this a winnable battle against terrorism or simply a detaining thing in the same way that after world war ii it became a policy of

containment. >> finally somebody asks the right question. it's interesting i watch the president, for example and others say our mission is to defeat i.s.i.s. in this al quaidaest movement and i look at this and say, no, it's not. first of all, pakistan afghanistan, indonesia, yemen,xd somalia, nigeria, we have never defeated thisçó ideology. we've defeated people who are a threat to the united states. the sliver of shabab group in somalia who was coming after us, for example. but not only can we not defeat the ideology, we're not the we have no credibility in this fight. so i think we can contain it while others fight the ide lonchicle battle. we have to keep others off american shores drone attacks for example, helping insurgent friendly groups. but to give the people a myth that we can destroy ideology is a myth. >>xd rose: philip mudd, former

deputy director of both the cia counterterrorist center and the fbi's national security branch. a lot ofçó experience at the topñrñiñi levelsñiñi of national security. thank you. >> thank you. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: brian grazer is here, one of hollywood's most successful and prolific producers and ask anybody, one of the most interesting people there. his movies and television shows have been nominated for 43 cad any awards and 149 emmys. most of his work is inspired by what we calls curiosity conversations with some of the world's most interesting and accomplished people. his new book xplorers theñi ideas of curiosity and creativity. it is called "a curious mind: the secret to a bigger life." i'm pleased to have brian grazer back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. thanks for having me. >> rose: how did this come act, a curious mind, the secret to a bigger life? >> i'll revisit it, of course. first, what i've done is, for 30 years, every two weeks i go to

meet somebody that is expert or renowned in anything other than show business. so every two weeks it's science, medicine, politics, religion all art forms, the full from architecture to fine art to toñi coture to fashion. >> rose: why do you do this? to enlargen my world, to expand my universe. i grew up in a tiny world, the radius of three miles maximum. i lived in a cul-de-sac of three blocks, didn't leave till i was 18 went to college 22 miles away. i didn't see much. >> rose: so there is insecurityçó ab a little bit of i haven't seen as much, i haven't done as much. i want to play in the big leagues and i want to expose myself to as much as possible. >> yes. i never thought of it like that

but there is -- that's part of it's drive. i knew that i grew up in such a provincial little world and i wanted to make it bigger and i wanted to create larger opportunities for myself, and i thought by learning about other subjects my world would expand and you just never know when these dots or how these dots ever got created and connected and that opportunity would occur. >> rose: when did this start? well, originally it started right out of college in that i graduated college and within two weeks i thought what do i do? did i learn anything? i wasn't sure i learned anything. what i did is i reached out to the most well-known professor at u.s.c. that i was one of the students one of 300 kids and i requested to meet him and he denied the request and i then showed up at u.s.c. as he left his class and said i'd like to just spend 20 minutes with you.

>> rose: i'll just walk with you and talk. >> we'll just walk and talk. he eventually said yes and hung out with me for an hour and a half and in that hour and a half i learned more than i did in a year. i thought, i'm going to apply that methodology to other subjects. >> rose: right there the idea was born. >> exactly. >> rose: what you do is exactly what we do at this table every day. we invite interesting people here like you to talk about the who, what when, why of your life and how you see the world. i mean, that's exactly what you have been doing on your own for your own self education. i do it for a whole audience here. but the same idea curiosity, creativity and asking questions. >> i just felt we all have curiosity, but if you really focus, you can use it as superpower, as a tool to get inside the psyche of another individual that is expert at something that you're not and you can get in a pretty quick learning curve as to their

vocabulary whether architecture fashion whatever that thing, is and it would be a value to me that i would then have information or knowledge that other people wouldn't have and it would be of use. >> rose: you're famous now but when you began you're not as famous as you are now. >> right. >> rose: would anybody turn you down? >> everybody turned me down. i was turned down so many times. >> rose: what would you say when they turned you down. >> i mean, i was sort of known for if you throw me at the door you come at the window. if out the window, through the chimney. if that doesn't work, i'm in the plumbing. i would just try different techniques to get to that person. usually it was me working with assistance or two assistance and if that didn't work -- in the case of lou wasser man i really wanted to meet lou wasserman, about a year and a half i wanted to meet people in our business. took a year and a half. i met his assistant melody at the time getting into her car in

the parking lot. i said i'm the guy who has been calling and writing letters and i raheel mahrus ubaydahly want to talk with mr. wasserman and eventually i got that. >> rose: what did he say. usually i could turn five minutes into an hour. he looked at me like, hold on, kid you don't have much to add. he wouldn't let me in his office snoof what's in it for me. >> he could see there was nothing in it for him. he went back to his office and came back with a legal tab and a pencil. he said hold these put the pencil to the paper and they have greater value together than apart, now get out of here, put me in the elevator and said goodbye. at first, it was humiliating. but then i realized what he was saying. >> rose: you had to bring value to the conversation and -- >> yeah, and to bring value, it

was the creation of i.p., intellectual property. so it meant, like, start writing ideas. you know, mine ideas, write them down and they will be your currency. >> rose: he told you to take a pencil -- didn't he tell you to write a movie? >> he didn't tell me to write a movie. i had to figure that out. >> rose: ahhh! and i wrote splash. >> rose: right. so i wrote a couple of movies for television that got made. i saw i was getting kicked out of television even though i was just getting in. i wrote splash, which was successful, and after splash i never revisited the idea of a new movie person or television person. that's when it came i met a person who was outside of hollywood or entertainment. >> rose: tell me who you think the top five are you've met like this. >> michael jackson for sure. >> rose: he taught you about music. >> he did. i asked him if he would take his

gloves off. i was terrified to ask him that but i just didn't think he could be serious with the gloves on. when he took the gloves off he became mozart. he became a different person. >> rose: became an artist.ñr yeah. so i loved meeting barack obama as a senator when he was in the senate in office number 99, which was probably one of the worst offices. but that was really interesting to me. it was like going to the departmentñi of motor vehicles butñr instead it was a senator that becaóe the president of the united states. so i thought that was interesting. princess di was very interesting. >> rose: how did you get to her? >> that took a lot of effort. it took a lot of effort andñi eventually it was a year laterxd and it was fortuitous that we got to premier -- have a royalñitõk chose to be the person not with charles but alone and she askedq&c @&c

sit directly across from her. >> rose: that was axd long conversation. >> several hours. >> rose: so talk to me about -- because i believe, as youxd know,ñi very much, that questions have power. >> yes. >> rose: and if i write, it's about that idea that questions have power. they have power in themselves. often they're more important than the answers becauseñi they will put forward an idea and how the person reacts or not reacts to the idea says something aboutçó thatxd person. >> yes. >> roseróñi you've thought about this a lot. >> i've thought about this a lot. i've thought the same thing that you've thought and literally your reference in this book, you're an idol of mine and you actually interviewed me on your show about eight years ago that i want to interview you on one of your tv shows not 24 but just you in this process. that was an ignition point for me to realize maybe i should write a book to encapsulate some

of these stories. >> rose: the power beyond my work. it's me, the life i've lived. >> yes. >> rose: this is what makes me uj >> yes. and in analyzing what the dialogues are about, i've come to the conclusion that it's the grey area between the question and the answer. it's that grey area where i'm reading the nuance of you, the subject. when i'm reading your body language, when your question -- my question to your answer builds, it becomes, i feel, kind of biochemical. it changes your molecular structure. things are happening in that grey area of the two hours between the question and the answer. that's when things really have breakthroughs. that's when creative breakthroughs i believe, happen. >> and you're looking for that? i'm looking for that. and it happens, when you're really engaged like that, it becomes so elevating, it's emotionally and intellectually

eclipses just anything you've ever experienced. i mean, i thought to myself, because i'm trying to explain this to others, think about your very first and best date with a girl. that best date with a girl, you were in the moment. it's real time, you're asking questions and it's building and evolving and it becomes a thing called chemistry. you're hoping to have that happen every two weeks. >> rose: you find out who she is and tell her who you are. >> and something magical happens, exactly. and i'm hoping to doñi that every two weeks. >> rose: you're looking for magic. >> it createsñrçó inspiration. whether it's inspiration about that subject or it's just inspiration itself, it feels different. your mind and body feel different and it creates confidence, it creates value. you can carry that inspiration into a subject that matters to you and you can build off of it.

it's kindñi of beyond words. >> rose: you're very much in the moment. >> i try to be very much in the moment. i really want to live the highs and lows of life? >> rose: and you also take particular notice of the physical attributes of pe the hair the way they dress the beard. >> yes, definitely is that because -->> rose: because that's a common point. >> yes. >> rose: they are the way they are or they have an insecurity or pride about what they are. >> yes, and it gets revealed about how they dress, are they on time, not on time do they want to make you feel uncomfortable, do they want to intimidate you? how is that intimidation and what are the sociodynamics. >> rose: all the television shows you've made, you're the producer of one of the most talked about television shows on the air right now.

>> yes. >> rose: you've had a long history of producing things. you call yourself a storyteller. this side of the scale is all you have encapsulated in this book, this life you have lived. >> yes. >> rose: tell me about those. two oh my gosh, a great question. okay. i somehow put higher value onçó what's in that book than all the movies and television shows. >> rose: becauseth you. yeah, it's me. it defines my life and it's a power that i believe in that other people can have because i just know that i was just so close to being nobody, youç()qg angr we all are so close toñr being nobody in so many different ways. >> rose: is thereñi a common"6"enominator you have discovered about people? for example, if you take all the people that i'veñi everñr interviewed, i don't think qwpc'dy's ever sat down at the table andñr said iñrçó( am where i am because i was theñiçó smartest

person in the room. i am where i am because i was the most creative. what they're saying almost all the time is that i worked harder, i was more accessible, i13 i cared more, i had moreçó passion, it meant more to me therefore i poured more into it. that isñi theñiñixdçó common refrain. never i was the best at whatever. so therefore it wasxd automatic for me that somehowçó the music spoke to me and i just wrote it down or i just put it on a page. that's not the wayñ >> it's not. it really isn't. i mean we self-create, really and we do it through drive and internal competition, you know, the self-worth. i think a lot of it is if you have drive and° purpose, and there's an emotional injury that you're trying toñi overcome, thatñr concoction becomes something pu?áty powerful.

>> what's interesting about this is it's the experience itself that makes a difference to you. >> yes. >> rose: in other words, you're not trying to make a book. >> no. >> rose: you're not trying to createçó something. you're not looking for something that isñi usable.ñiñirí @&c @&c experience. you want to be there and just be open and accessible. >> 100 percent. exactly. because there were no metrics for judging it. >> rose: yeah. so i'm in the moment. it's a real ride that i get to create. it's demock democratickized. it costs no money. it's not judged in general metrics. it's just this experience we're having. for 20 years, i never told anybody. i did one on one things. you surprised me when you said i want to do this thing and i'd never told people. >> rose: here's the other

interesting thing, marlon brando used to call me all the time, he was a big fan of the show. he wouldñi callñi me up and say -- his question forever until the day he died for me was what are you going to do with all this? i would say to him, i'm going to enjoy it and i'm going to share it that's what i'm going to do with it. i'm not going to take it and make it into something. he wanted me to take it --ñrçó somehow he couldn't get his arms around the ideañi of absorbing all of it. you haveñi to be taking it and doing somethingok with it, changing the world, writingçó a great book or doing something rather than] moment and sharing the experiencexd of it because there(5] >> people don't quite understand it. >> rose: it has to have purpose. >> it has to have -- >> rose: rather than experience. >> yes exactly.ñijf i loved that i've done itñi for 30

years, i still do it. by the way, it still takes sometimes a year for someone to agree to meet with me. it was much harder 30 years ago or 25 yearsñi ago. >> rose: you have the new yorkñi profile.ñiñr >> yeah, so thoseñi thingsñiñiçóñiçó help but i just met withçó floyd mayweather. that took a year.t@q there was no -- i guaacj didn't see any alignmentñi of, you know -- >>çóñi rose: heñr didn't seeñrñiñi what there was inñi it for him. >> i guess. i didn't fault it because there might not be anything in it for him.1 >> rose: do you think they submit because you simply are persistent orx about you and thinkçó whym:á? >> i think it's 50/50. >> rose: yeah. i think sometimes they just submit because i'm perçó perñx!?oú

persistent. i think in ) ñ caseñi of floyd mayweather somebody probably just said, oh, you should doçó that, because afterñi a yeir silence, all of a was an incomingñrñiñiñixd call like, i wantxd to fly in toñiñi meetçó withñixdp, you. >> rose: it's a whim. you catch him atxd the right do it. >> exactly. >> rose: what did you ask him? i'm enormously curious about him and manny. i love the fight game.ñrñi >> i met withñi many.ñi he said yes almostñi immediately. >> rose: he's corporate. he has açswñr lot going on.çó) >> floyd mayweather, his lifestyle is so big and it's the money team and he has so much bravado. i've known other fighters but not anyone as showy as he. sugar ray leonard, he's a neighbor, i knowñi him. but this guy is so showy and

it's such -- he should be on "empire." there's a very pimpy quality. >> rose: yeah. he sat down. he had six iphones, and each iphone he was doing something on all six iphones but he was at the same time polite, but he was -- you know, he was facetimeing some n.b.a. athlete and there were all these other things going on on the iphone, andñ á connecting? are we connecting? he would put his arm around meñiñi4@ >>íh like howard stern a lot, he's very good at what he does. ixdñixdñrçó was onçóoyk the radio and entranced with a conversation he was having with floyd but mostly about sex. mostly about that butxd not all. and it was interesting but that's not where i was going. and you were interested in all these other big athletes. if i talk to him and i hope i

have the opportunity -- >> i'm sure you will. >> rose: -- i just want to know what it is that makes him who he is. what it is about him that's put him in this place that's he's in and what shaped him and inspired him and what makes him go, what makes a champion how fast are his hands, does he know fear does he not know fear, does he create fear. >> i think he feels he creates fear. i'm sure if you choose to interview him, it will work out. >> rose: i hope so. me and many other people will be watching you with him. >> rose: do you find -- what's the difference here between men and women? more women than men? more men than women? >> no, i meet with many more men than women. in fact, in writing the book, i had to focus on which women did i interview. but more often not men. a lot of them were no bell nobel

laureates. i had probably met 50 women to 500 men, some version of that. but i met very interesting women. condi rice, hillary clinton, of course. klia kaugh who was a forensic anthropologist. >> rose:çó holmes.xd no. cheryl thanburg. >> rose: that's obvious. what would you not want us to know about you? what is it that makes you a little bit crazy if we get close to? >> very neurotic. >> rose: we know that. and that's way too general. >> rose: yes. is it women? >> i can't figure out women.

but most men can't figure out women. who does. what man really has figured out a woman? >> rose: tell me what it is that makes you sort of i can't go there? >> i mean, i don't know. i mean -- >> rose: you think your life is an open book? >> i think my life is a pretty open book. i didn't write the book for a while because i felt like, you know, by writing a book it looks like you've solved everything about life, you know, you have all the answers. and i definitely don't have all the answers. friends of mine know that about me. >> rose: what foibles do youçó have? >> technology is driving the world soñiñr just sayxd inñi three years what wil want to do. i mean, right now like storytelling has existed form!&c @&c >> rose: that's what you are. that's what i am.

i'm a story teller. the stories that i do whether movies or television or empire or digital they find different platplatforms in. three years things will change a lot. cars that require drivers and all those kinds of things. so i really enjoy, i get a lot of pleasure out of life and i want toñi continue to get a lot of pleasure out of life and i do think the world will change a lot in three years. >> rose: bill murray said to me the most important thing he said you have to be alert and accessible all the time. >> right. i think that's so true. you have to ask yourself constantly what's the moment. make sure you are in the moment and you know what's going on here so that it's not just obvious. it's beyond the obvious to all that's going on. >> that's partly why i've done this sort of curiosity is for that reason. i want to curate my life in realtime asçó it's happening.xd

like theñi truman show. >> rose: you want to curate. i want to, i don't want somebody else to. >> rose: you want to aggressively decide -- >> yes, because i know the things that make me happy. makes me happy to learn something. makes me happy to be in a moment with somebody and it becomes a cloud of inspiration. i love going places i haven't been, i love demystifying cultures i haven't seen. i love going to burma. >> rose: i'm going to go to bhutan. >> yes. >> rose: this is dedicated to my grandmother schwartz as a boy, she treated every question i asked as valuable, she taught me to be curious, a gift that's served every day of my life.

>> sonia made all the difference in my life. when she said i value you and i value the questions you ask and it's going to mean something to you in your life, she was looking at report cards with straight fs on them. so she, all empirical evidence would not suggest that i was going to be an acclaimed movie producer or any of the things that you mentioned, but it was1 useñrjf of curiosity in a disciplined way that has brought all these things toñr me or me to them. i mean, fidel castro -- >> rose: what was thatñi like?ñr what year was that? >> fantastic. it was about eight years ago i wentñii]ñi withñi lesxd mundezç

we had to change our flights and planes and that was probably part of the adjustment. >> rose: was he late or on time? >> he was on time. it was a sort of godfather two things where we were supposed to go to a specific destination and then the cars as they were going to the destination become derailed and we go across a divide and go in the other direction and end up at the military palace. >> rose: who was in the groupñiñr]pa&c @&c brad grey, graden carter, which was fan fastic. he organized it. but i think les was the real# >> rose: he wantsçó his own show on cbs? >> i think he felt that cbsñi news was of use to him. >> rose: he probably had known of cbs news,ñi too, youñi know, because when he took over it was the jewel ofçó+

>> so i think that fidel felt like if he's going to try to reach the american public or he's going to use his influence that's a good place to begin. he spent six hours breaking down the molecular structure of this little island, what a kilowatt would produce. it was very convincing. after about three and a half or four hours, i felt like this is a great place, why don't i live here. >> rose: what do you think will happen to cubañr now? >> oh, it's going to completely change. you would know better than i because you're a news man. but you're going to have people who shouldn't be in the country and people who shouldn't leave that country being in our country, building it, creating laws and ordinances, it will be commercial enterprise. >> rose: here's the other thing didn't somebody asking about hair, your hair? >> a lot of people asked about it. >> rose: but fidel is not a

lot of people. >> no. basically he spoke three and a half hours felt like he didn't take a breath, straight on with a full force then he looked up looked at the room, and said, how do you do your hair? that's the one question. >> rose: that's the interesting thing. great profile writers can always capture some moment like that that makes the whole room human. it's what they do. it's the telling detail of observation. >> that's true. it's interesting. >> rose: so where are you in your life? you have this book which i take a small amount of credit for. >> you should take credit for it. >> rose: this is such a wonderful thing you're doing and it ought to be a good book. >> i think it is a good book. >> rose: it's about an essential truth. >> yeah. >> rose: the essential truth is curiosity will just serve your so well. i mean the idea of looking around at what you see and capturing the moment the awe,

the sense of the miracle of life and all of its manifestations is an extraordinary journey. >> definitely. >> rose: so how are you in the movie business now? you have empire and that's doing quite well. >> right. >> rose: what makes that so good? >> it's about family. >> rose: yeah. it'sçóñi glu-um9ñ it's juicy. it's a juicyxdçó nighttime soapño'ñiñi opera. >> rose: family, juicy and glamorousxdu >> sexy. it's based on a dynasty led by a music dynasty that the patriarchñi:xk is lucius lionq king lear in the world ofñiñi hip-hop. so we make sure that every week there are three -- at least three moments or sequences that people gasp upatçó because you just cannot believe that one

person is doing that to another person, whether someon=d is killi person you would nevorñ expect them to have sex with or in bed with -- it's a constant series. >> rose: gaining momentum, too. >> it really is. >> rose: listen to this, boys and girls, produced by brian grazer, a film, a beautiful mind, frost, nixon, da vinci code, rush, american gangster inside man, friday night lights, dr. seuss how the grinch stole christmas apollo 13, blue crush, liar liar, the nutty professor parenthood and splash. television. the 84th academy award friday night lights sports night, arrested development, 24 and parenthood. thank you. >> thank you, charlie! it was awesome being on your show. thank you. >> rose: brian grazer, the book is called "a curious mind: the secret to a bigger life." thank you for joining us.

see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: the coca cola company supporting this program since 2002. >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

this is "nightly business re sue herera. general electric plans to sell off most of its ge capital unit. what does it mean for the new ge and investors in one of the most widely held stocks anywhere? no stone unturned. how black stone, the private equity giant is becoming a real estate behemoth as well and a little la. our market monitor has some of the best names to own, the ones investors love to hate sometimes and she's got names for you. all that and more for friday, april 10th. good evening, everyone and welcome. sue herera has the evening off. well talk about ending the weeknd with a bang. general electric is continuing its makeover and in this case it's an