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Early Retirement · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: They say that art imitates life, but sometimes in the
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  Speaker 1: strangest ways, life imitates art. What begins is fiction created
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  Speaker 1: to comment on the world, can end up shaping it.
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  Speaker 1: And in a twist no screenwriter could script, the line
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  Speaker 1: between performance and real life disappears. In twenty fifteen, a
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  Speaker 1: new show hit the airwaves in Eastern Europe and instantly
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  Speaker 1: became a hit call Servant of the People. The comedy
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  Speaker 1: followed a character named Vassal Holoborodko, an affable yet absent
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  Speaker 1: minded high school history teacher who lives with his parents
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  Speaker 1: in the big city. After a particularly frustrating day, Vassal
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  Speaker 1: makes a profanity laced rant against government corruption to a friend,
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  Speaker 1: which one of his students secretly gets on camera. The
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  Speaker 1: video goes viral, and suddenly this character, Vassal, find himself
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  Speaker 1: at the center of a grassroots campaign for the presidency,
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  Speaker 1: ordinary people rally around him, and he wins. Although Vassal
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  Speaker 1: at first feels like a fish shot of water dealing
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  Speaker 1: with the expectations of bureaucrats and the closed door deals
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  Speaker 1: of oligarchs, he quickly finds his voice. The comedy series
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  Speaker 1: follows him as he tries to weed out corruption in
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  Speaker 1: the government, often to comedic effect. The show was funny, sharp,
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  Speaker 1: and surprisingly heartfelt. While more than a little cynical, the
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  Speaker 1: show was a hopeful comedy about a normal person making
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  Speaker 1: real change, and the heart of it all was its star,
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  Speaker 1: a comedian. Although he had studied law in school, he
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  Speaker 1: had no political background, just a long career in entertainment
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  Speaker 1: and a reputation for smart, satirical humor. So when he
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  Speaker 1: announced in twenty eighteen that he was actually going to
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  Speaker 1: run for president of his country under a new political
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  Speaker 1: party also called Servant of the People, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people looked for the punchline, but he wasn't joking. He
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  Speaker 1: ran a serious campaign centered around the very values his
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  Speaker 1: character had stood for transparency, anti corruption, and giving power
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  Speaker 1: back to the people, and in twenty nineteen he won
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  Speaker 1: over seventy percent of voters in the country chose him
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  Speaker 1: for office, tired of traditional politicians and hoping that this
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  Speaker 1: real life Polla Barodco could bring change. At first, the
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  Speaker 1: world watched with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. They
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  Speaker 1: wondered whether this TV star could actually lead a country,
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  Speaker 1: especially one who was facing constant aggression from its neighbor
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  Speaker 1: to the north, Russia. See back in twenty fourteen, Russia
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  Speaker 1: had invaded and then annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which was
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  Speaker 1: part of Ukraine. Obviously, tensions were high, and people worried
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  Speaker 1: that their president, who was new to political diplomacy, might
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  Speaker 1: bend to Putin's pressure. But then came twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: and everything changed. When Russia launched its full scale invasion
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  Speaker 1: of Ukraine and February twenty fourth of twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: all eyes turned to their new TV president turned actual president.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of fleeing the capitol, he stayed. He filmed a
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  Speaker 1: now famous video on the streets of Kiev, flanked by
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  Speaker 1: his team, saying I'm here, We're all here, We're defending
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  Speaker 1: our independence, and his message was clear. He wasn't going
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  Speaker 1: anywhere from that moment. On Volodimir Zelenski transformed. He wasn't
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  Speaker 1: just a comedian turned president. He became a wartime leader.
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  Speaker 1: He gave emotional, straightforward speeches addressing the world. He negotiated
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  Speaker 1: with global leaders for supports, weapons and sanctions. Came the
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  Speaker 1: face of Ukrainian resistance, wearing practical, humble, olive, drab T
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  Speaker 1: shirts instead of fancy suits, and spoke directly to his
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  Speaker 1: people through nightly addresses. And through it all, he led
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  Speaker 1: with something that had first made Servant of the People
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  Speaker 1: so popular on TV. Authenticity. There was no spin, no
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  Speaker 1: dramatic reinvention, just a man who deeply believed in his
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  Speaker 1: country and its people rising to meet the moment. It's
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  Speaker 1: hard to imagine now that the world once only knew
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  Speaker 1: of Volodimir Zelensky as a comedian. His transformation from entertainer
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  Speaker 1: to head of state to global symbol of resistance is remarkable.
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  Speaker 1: What started as satire has turned into something profoundly real.
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  Speaker 1: Zelensky is no longer just playing a role. He has
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  Speaker 1: truly become the servant of the people. There are whole
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  Speaker 1: online communities devoted to the goal of retiring early. Many
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  Speaker 1: aimed to be done working by the age of forty.
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  Speaker 1: They look at what careers might get them there the fastest,
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  Speaker 1: and then they do everything they can to minimize their
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  Speaker 1: spending and their debt. But one man from the nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: century had them all beat. He reached the pinnacle of
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  Speaker 1: his career at the age of twenty six and spent
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  Speaker 1: the rest of his life doing whatever he pleased. Thomas
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  Speaker 1: wanted to give back after finding so much success at
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  Speaker 1: a young age. By eighteen ninety, he had all the
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  Speaker 1: money he could ever hope for. He noticed that his
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  Speaker 1: home Boston, was dealing with high unemployment, and so he
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  Speaker 1: set out to change that. He learned that shipbuilding was
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  Speaker 1: a reliable source of employment in other ports in New England,
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  Speaker 1: and so he completely changed careers, opening a naval yard
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  Speaker 1: and employing four thousand Bostonians to build ships. But after
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  Speaker 1: a while he felt like he had learned everything he
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  Speaker 1: could about that industry. He longed for yet another challenge,
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  Speaker 1: and so he installed a new president at the company
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  Speaker 1: and enrolled with his wife at MIT. His studies soon
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  Speaker 1: led him to the field of paleontology because he was
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  Speaker 1: fascinated by fossils, but once again, he eventually tired of
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  Speaker 1: that once more, feeling that he had learned all that
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  Speaker 1: he could, and so he reinvented himself a third time.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen ten, at the age of fifty six, Thomas
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  Speaker 1: became fascinated by Shakespeare. He moved to England and studied elocution,
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  Speaker 1: the art of clear and effective speaking. It was a
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  Speaker 1: pursuit that eventually led Thomas to perform on stage. Then
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  Speaker 1: he took those skills back with them to Boston, where
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  Speaker 1: he put on plays and gave lectures. He died in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four at the age of eighty, having pursued
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  Speaker 1: every passion he could think of throughout his life. Those
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  Speaker 1: he encountered may very well have wondered who this middle
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  Speaker 1: aged man was who seemed to be free to pivot
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  Speaker 1: careers and do as he pleased. Well, they needn't look
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  Speaker 1: no further than his last name, Watson. No, he wasn't
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  Speaker 1: Sherlock Combs's actual sidekick, but Thomas Watson was famous for
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  Speaker 1: being an assistant, and his fame predated the first Sherlock
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  Speaker 1: Holme story. In eighteen seventy six, when a young Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Watson was working as an assistant to the inventor Alexander
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  Speaker 1: Graham Bell, he became the first person in history to
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  Speaker 1: be on the receiving end of a telephone call. Bell's
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  Speaker 1: famous words from that first call were said to be,
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  Speaker 1: mister Watson, come here, I want you. And while it
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  Speaker 1: sounds like a mild request by one boss to his assistant,
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  Speaker 1: it was much more urgent. You see, Bell had just
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  Speaker 1: spilled a vial of acid on himself due to his
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  Speaker 1: excitement at his invention working. He really did need Thomas
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  Speaker 1: to come and help him. Luckily, they recovered from that snafu,
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  Speaker 1: and over the next few years, Bell and Thomas further
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  Speaker 1: developed the invention together. In fact, you could argue that
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  Speaker 1: Thomas was really the one who made it what it was.
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  Speaker 1: In the months and years following that first call, he
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  Speaker 1: designed the ringing and the receiver hook functions that became
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  Speaker 1: an essential part of telephones, well at least until cell
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  Speaker 1: phones were invented, but most of us are probably old
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  Speaker 1: enough to still appreciate the original. The telephone caught on
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  Speaker 1: at an incredibly rapid pace. There were soon millions of
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  Speaker 1: telephone lines all over the world, and Bell and Thomas
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  Speaker 1: profited from all of them. In nineteen fifteen, Thomas took
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  Speaker 1: a break from his adventures around the globe to reunite
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  Speaker 1: with Bell for one last history making milestone. Thomas traveled
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  Speaker 1: to San Francisco simply to pick up the phone, and
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  Speaker 1: once again Bell was on the other end of the line,
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  Speaker 1: calling all the way from New York. This time he
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  Speaker 1: said hello, mister Watson, can you hear me? And Thomas replied,
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  Speaker 1: I hear you perfectly. It was the first Atlantic to
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  Speaker 1: Pacific call. Never before had a country been so united
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  Speaker 1: by a new invention. Just a few decades prior, it
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  Speaker 1: would take a month to get a letter from one
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  Speaker 1: end of the nation to the other, and now people
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  Speaker 1: could contact each other within seconds. Thomas and Bell left
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  Speaker 1: a huge mark on the human race, but Thomas didn't
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  Speaker 1: let it go to his head. He kept seeking out
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  Speaker 1: new adventures, remaining curious about the world that he had
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  Speaker 1: connected through his genius. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.