Explorer & Educator Josh Bernstein¶
Published on Mon, 23 Nov 2020 11:00:00 +0000
Here's a guy who truly knows the value of a great tool watch.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Pulvirent sits down with Josh Bernstein, an explorer, anthropologist, educator, and former TV host known for shows like History Channel's "Digging for the Truth" and Discovery's "Into the Unknown." The conversation explores Josh's fascinating journey from running the Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS), where students learn primitive living skills without modern equipment, to becoming a television host who traveled the world exploring archaeological mysteries and ancient cultures.
Josh discusses the transition from wilderness education to television, explaining how his anthropology degree from Cornell naturally led to teaching survival skills before he was recruited to host documentary shows. He shares insights into the craft of being a TV host, emphasizing his philosophy of being a "conduit" for experiences—connecting viewers authentically with experts and locations through genuine curiosity rather than scripted questions. He also talks about memorable moments from his shows, including exploring Mayan cenotes and investigating sites like Stonehenge as ancient timekeeping devices.
The conversation delves into Josh's passion for watches, particularly tool watches from Rolex, and how they connect to themes of exploration and timekeeping throughout history. He discusses his collection evolution, from his first Rolex Sea-Dweller to the controversial decision to dive with a vintage double-red Sea-Dweller. Josh explains how watches serve as both practical tools and cultural artifacts that reflect his values of functionality over flashiness.
The episode concludes with discussion of Josh's current project, Explorer at Large, an educational initiative that brings adventure and science into classrooms through short, standards-aligned videos created in partnership with institutions like the Smithsonian, NASA, and NOAA. Josh emphasizes how the program aims to instill both curiosity and courage in students while modeling values like respect, permission-seeking, and compassionate engagement with the world.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Josh Bernstein | I think for me as a traditionalist, I like what the wristwatch stands for. Timekeeping is such a precise scientific art. And then how you express that art is manifest in what model watch you wear, which is kind of, you know, it's like what kind of feathers are on a bird. And it's not that one is better or worse. I just I know what feathers I like and I tend to gravitate towards the watches that catch my eye and suit my sort of character and my in many cases my practical needs as someone who travels as much as I do |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Pulverant and this is Hodinky Radio. This week's show is fully dedicated to a conversation I had with Josh Bernstein. He's an explorer, educator, storyteller, anthropologist, and a whole lot more. And if the name sounds familiar, it's because you might remember him from his episode of Talking Watches, which aired earlier this year, or from his time as the host of travel and exploration TV shows, including history channels digging for the truth and discoveries into the unknown. Now, since he's on Hodinki Radio and he's done talking watches, it probably comes as no surprise that Josh is a watch guy, and he's had relationships over the years with brands like Brightling, Paneraye, and Rolex, and he isn't afraid to put tool watches through their paces, but he also enjoys the craftsmanship and the design that goes into creating a fine watch. If you're the kind of person who daydreams about cave diving while you're working your 9-5 with a sea dweller on your wrist, Just is exactly who you want to be. We dig into all of that, but we also talk about his transition from being a wilderness survival instructor to a TV host, how he develops a relationship with his audience through the camera, and how he's using these skills for his latest project, Explorer at Large, which brings adventure and science into the classroom in a new way. Josh is a natural storyteller and the easiest kind of person to talk to. Gray had to keep telling me to wrap it up since I just wanted to keep asking Josh more questions, and the result is a super fun episode. So without further ado, let's do this. Hey Josh, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. It's good to see you. It's uh your talking watches episode ran what back in in February? Which was like an eternity ago in this day and age. But yeah. It does. I I looked it up and I had this feeling that it was like maybe like summer 2019-ish. And then I was like, oh, oh God, it was only eight months ago. Yeah, it's weird how time has been working lately. But yes, it was earlier this same year. And yeah, so you you sat down, you talked to John, um, and you went through your watch collection, you talked a little bit about who you are and your profession, and I think now we want to get a little bit deeper into that 'cause I'll speak I'll speak personally. When I watched the episode that you did with John, my my immediate instinct was like, I wish this had been like thirty minutes long, forty minutes long. Um I I wanted more, so hopefully we can Was it an hour? It was an hour, wasn't it? You were just hoping it'd |
| Josh Bernstein | be shorter and get it over with. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well let's start now. See how much more pain we can make a person endure |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, exactly. Um You know, we'll we'll talk about watches. I know you're you're a real a real watch guy and you actually use your tool watches, which I think is super cool. Um but the way most people I think know you is not as a watch collector, but as as a as a TV host and explorer uh from your show Digging for the Truth, which was was a huge phenomenon. I remember watching it when it when it first came out. But I doing a little bit a little bit of research before we before we had this conversation, I was a little bit surprised to realize that you you came to TV kinda late, right? Um well relative to what? I think that's it. |
| Josh Bernstein | Correct. Yeah. I did not I did not uh I was not in theater. I did not have any ambitions to be an actor. It was um you know my my interest in television was purely through the lens of being an educator. And I decided that having run an outdoor survival school for so many years out west, um, it seemed like an interesting opportunity to take my uh interest in reaching an audience from the let's say 15 to 30 clients at a given time to suddenly potentially millions of people all over the world. So it was a much more eff efficient equation. And then when you add in the fact that uh History Channel said, look, you know, your degree in anthrop my I have a degree in anthropology. And so they were saying, like, that's great, that'll get you in the door. But what we want to do is give you the greatest experiences traveling the world to see the temples and tombs that people can't normally go into. And then I was like, of course, you know, that's you could you know, like anyone hearing this would say, like you that's a dream job. You get you you would almost pay to give be given that privilege. And and so I'm grateful that that I did shift gears and move from sort of wilderness education into uh the mysteries of the world and a broader canvas. It's been great |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I think I think that that like pre-TV era is is really fascinating to me. Like you said, you have an anthropology degree from Cornell and you then started this wilderness survival school, which like I wonder how did you go from like studying anthropology in an academic setting to to kind of the the opposite end of that that spectrum? |
| Josh Bernstein | Well to be fair to the uh the previous owner of the school, Boss was Boss the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, the name of the school. Boss existed before I was born. It was it was formed during those like the period of the 60s when so many outdoor programs were finding uh were being born. I mean, the outward bound, Knolls, Boss all, we're born out of this desire to take people from cities into the wilderness and have them grow. What makes boss unique is that unlike some of our peers, we don't rely on modern gear. So so the our course design is let's turn the clock back five thousand years and try and live without the list you think was critical, right? No no sleeping bags, no tents, no backpacks, no stoves, no flashlights, um, no matches. And the one that really hits home is not even toilet paper, you know, like which is a fairly modern invention. And so it's it um it's fascinating for me as an anthropology major, right? Someone who's studying cultures through different periods of time to be able to relate through the lens of experimental archaeology and how did how were those blades made? How were those hides made? And and what is the process? And what's the mindset? So it wasn't such a stretch to go from uh a degree in anthropology to wilderness education or indigenous skills, right? Because those were actually happening at the same time. I was introduced to Boss when I was still in high school. I I was a young student at the school and then worked my way up over 25 years uh you know through the ranks to CEO ultimately. But the early stages was passionate, enthusiastic advocate for like just learning. How do how do you make uh a flint-napped blade? How do you make brain-tanned buckskin? How do you you know fill in the blank? And so it was this appreciation for native culture. And what what happened in the classroom was it was a bit more formalized, right? Because now we're studying this culture, Polynesia or South America, the Maya, the Aztec. So it was an academic approach to ultimately an I guess an experiential interest. And then um boss allowed me to have a career in it, which I was grateful for |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, that's really that's really wild. I mean that sounds like I'm making a pun. I'm really I promise I'm trying not to make a pun there. But uh I I mean as you worked your way up, like at what point uh was there any point in that experience where you're you're with a group of people, you're out in the wilderness, and y you have like transformative moments, I guess, with with students or whatever where you really anything stand out as a moment where you really saw someone or a group of people sort of like change under these conditions in a in a really like fundamental way. S |
| Josh Bernstein | ure. Well i to be candid, if we're not giving a student or a client that transformational experience, then we're not doing our job as wilderness instructors, you know, especially at Boss, where where the reputation of the school was built on this um meet your maker, go into the red zone, get out of your comfort zone experience. And we have many more courses than the signature trip, which is called our field course. But on our field course, which can be one, two, or four weeks in the wilderness with like little more than the clothes on your back, a poncho, a water bottle, and a knife. We hope that we will put our clients in that red zone. To this day, and by client I mean, you know, average age when I was at the school was maybe thirty-five to forty of our students. We call them students, but they're adults who have come to the school for this experience. Oldest that I recall I think was 82. We don't work with minors. I say we as the passive owner. I'm no longer involved in the school, but after so many years it's just part and parcel of who I am. And I think that what's nice about boss is we offer the very rare opportunity these days for that rite of passage moment. Every traditional culture had that rite of passage, male or female, going into the wilderness, your first menstruation, whatever the the whatever the milestone was. But today it's all been a bit sanitized and so people aren't really given the chance, especially for those push yourself till you break. On the outside, let's say the military, which still does that. But for non-military folks, which was our client base, uh to come out and have this experience where for let's say the first three, four days, you're not even carrying any food. It's only what you can find. Uh that's that's um a tough proposition, and our guides are there to help you, so you're not doing it on your own. Like the idea of just going off naked into the wilderness is far more than most people could successfully survive these days. So there's a there's a transition of ownership, we're giving you more and more agency as the course develops. So in the beginning, it's okay, meet your maker, have a rough few nights, but then you learn and it creates a foundation for really understanding the basics of, say, thermodynamics because you froze your butt off last night and you wanna understand how to stay warm tomorrow, uh or understanding how to make a knife to help you facilitate cutting up that fish you caught. So everything is experiential and motivated by the in-the-moment experience. And for me, to answer your original question about how did a New York City kid end up in that world, that was the tricky part, right? If there was any schizophrenia for me, it was this disconnect between New York City, sort of the Madison Avenue mindset of creature comforts, and then going into the wilderness in Utah where I had nothing. And and it wasn't an easy transition, but ultimately it was a necessary transition. And that served me as I was traveling the world then for history or discovery or national geographic. Because you could put me into these situations where I was fairly comfortable, even though it may have been 30 below zero, or we're climbing the, you know, into into into this situation that would make folks uncomfortable. I enjoy being outside my comfort zone, oddly uh as odd as that sounds, and I love being able to give uh at least of my during my boss days, give clients the opportunity to feel that stretch and that growth also. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. I w I wonder then, you know, you mentioned how it translated into your work on television and and one of the things I I've heard you say in a previous interview was was that you as a host and as a TV presenter want to be a conduit, right? A conduit for the experience for our the experience you're having on television to the audience who are watching it through their through a flat screen, you know? Um how do you sort of translate that sort of like visceral part of the experience? Because it sounds like what you were doing at Boss was really about internalizing things, experiencing them yourself, and then sort of like having to reckon with that. And I wonder how you sort of try to translate that that energy and that um yeah, that visceral nature of this uh through on on TV. |
| Josh Bernstein | Well, I appreciate you uh recognizing that. It's certainly, part of the host craft that that I like to bring to any show or episode or even the stuff I'm doing now in education. It's it's um as I said, I've been given uh the you know the privilege of being in this environment with an expert, usually a world-class uh PhD who now has their moment to shine. And I don't know, I just I my my hope is that I am the advocate for the viewer and that I can be as sort of transparent, sort of like you know when you go on a road trip with someone, you want to be with someone who makes the trip better, not worse. So it's not my job to complain or whine or be snarky. If there's any jokes made, it's at my expense because you know I'm the host, it's okay. I I can be you know so self-deprecating, but all of that allows me to create a connection with the viewer, and then through me, as you said, with this expert. The physicality of it, uh, I mean in an interview, it's typically more curiosity driven. I'm trying to figure out because I've usually read my interviewees PhD thesis or their books or we've had conversations off-camera leading up to the on-camera inter So I pretty much know their area and I know where my what my needs are, you know, what our needs are as a production team. Here's the in of the scene, here's the ideally the out-of-the scene. There's always an uh sort of up-for-grabs moment of someone might say something that's completely unexpected and takes me down a new road. But but the visceral piece that you're referencing, that sort of the physicality of it, that for us, because we were in the adventure archaeology space, because of Indiana Jones and the legacy of that persona, and because of my uh experience being comfortable in uncomfortable situations, the production team and the network, both history and discovery, said, Let's lean into that. So let's, you know, we can go into the temples and tombs the easy way. You can literally drive up to the base of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. It's fairly a metropolitan metropolitan on that s on one side of the of the pyramids. But on the other side, you have this grand expanse of desert, and you can ride a camel. And you know, it's it's not particularly comfortable to ride camels at distance, especially at speed, but it makes for a grand entrance and that invites the audience into this, you know, this sort of enhanced world of storytelling. And so the physicality, whether that's riding a camel or going in an ultralight plane to see the geoglyphs of Peru or going into the jungle with a machete, the hard way, make all of the physicality of it makes for a grander experience. And I I'm happy to play that role. It's debilitating at times and I've had, you know, every single pop possible pathogen, well with the exception of a few, thankfully. But but I, you know, the doctors and the the woo-woo people who help me maintain my energy and my enthusiasm have their work cut out for them because it does take its toll. But I'll I'll happily do it again because I know it makes an audience connect with like, yeah, it's not just a book, right? If if you just want the basics, read the book. But this is television or now internet. It's a visual medium. So we want to make it engaging and the physicality helps do |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, that that that makes a ton of sense to me. And uh I'm sure you get asked all the time about like the most dangerous moments and whether you were ever afraid or whatever, but I'm actually way more interested in in kind of the opposite. Have have there ever been moments when you're making any any show or any sort of content for people where you get caught up in in like a in a positive way, where like it's so engaging and so exciting and so enthralling that the cameras don't disappear in your mind because you're you're terrified, but they disappear because you're you're so excited and sort of engrossed in the experience. Yeah. Interesting. U |
| Josh Bernstein | h yes. And and hopefully more often than not, I think that that we all want to be lost in the magical moment, right? The present moment of that discovery and that exploration. And and I think not only is that gratifying for me to experience or anyone to experience, but it's also nice for the viewer uh to to connect and go, oh wow, check it like that's a sincere, enthusiastic person having a great time. And and we like, you know, we reflect that and we uh in some ways it's it's aspirational to see someone. If you if you were to tune in each week in back in my sort of documentary days and I was always whining and complaining, people wouldn't necessarily I mean I guess some folks would be drawn to that, but that's not my sustainable place. So I like the fact that I I have an opportunity to um to live in that present moment and absorb as much as I can. Yes, there is the sausage making of documentary, right? So so while I'm interviewing someone or rappelling down a cliff or taking off into an ultralight or whatever the moment might require, yes, I am paying attention to what the producer off camera needs or the cameraman, you know, the camera might say like, you know, Josh, don't get too close to that ledge, or can you look this way? Or I have to be aware of the light, I have to be aware of the sound. Again, that's the host craft that goes into hopefully being good enough that I can look like I'm not even paying attention to any of that. But there is that situational awareness. At the same time, I want to make sure that I'm not cutting out the opportunity for just having that wow moment. And and the ones that stick out the most, I'll give you two, uh, both actually in the same show. It was season one, I was of Digging for the Truth, and I was filming, let me think about this. It was the Maya show. So that would be second episode of my life, right? So I'm just still learning how to be a host and what this whole TV thing is. And so we're now three weeks into hosting. We've just wrapped on the Anasazi show in the Four Corners, and we went down to Mexico and Guatemala and and for that show we were doing a exploration of the underworld, right? Shibalba as the sacred underworld of the Maya. And so I was being given uh training to go into the Cenote's and then later the caves of the Yucatan. Now now I'm a cave diver, so so I understand the risks, but back then I knew nothing. I was just an open water cert scuba diver. But there was a moment when I was underwater in a cenote. And of course, underwater you shut out all the noise of the world. And and and there's this cathedral uh of just light and water and fish and it's so clear. I don't know if you had the chance to go, but people who've been in these cenotees can speak to it being a spiritual or religious experience. And I remember thinking, my God, this is the greatest job ever, because I'm going to keep having these moments. So I didn't want to shut that out. And again, a week later I was in Candelaria in Guatemala looking in a different site. And and I was kayaking these like class four rapids. And it was, you know, I'm not a kayaker, but I pulled it off because I had a lot of caffeine that day. And again, I was like, I was giddy because one, I was overcaffeinated, but two, I was just excited that the physicality allows me to get into this river and this quest and ultimately that connects to the story and hopefully the audience. So yeah, I it's my job to at times slap myself in the face and go how dare you be tired right now or cynical uh or jaded because this is a moment and someone's gonna watch this and ha and connect through this moment. So you have to bring it. Like you have to bring that enth |
| Stephen Pulvirent | usiasm. Yeah, no, uh a hundred percent. You do have to bring it. And it's like a tremendous responsibility, I think, in that way, right? Like you're the audience's vision of this place and and a different culture and and real sort of like heritage and and meaning is mediated through you. Like it's it's your job to sort of translate that in a way that's that's respectful and sort of like does justice to these these amazing places you're going and experiences you're having. |
| Josh Bernstein | Well that I mean that's almost I mean that's there there's a sort of primary you're there, I'm not, so you better not be having a bad day response, right? Because you're you are the one as the host who's privileged to do this. So that's the first stage of like, you know, don't whine, don't complain, stop, yeah, get over the jet lag. Uh yes, you're traveling for nine months straight and you've said goodbye to your family and friends, but you're the one there. So there but then yeah, the secondary and perhaps m more important piece is because of the the the focus that we have had on, and I still love having on mysteries and cultural touchstones and these archaeological sites, these are these are moments of shared humanity, and they're certainly critically important for each of these countries that we're going into, right? So if I'm going into uh Great Zimbabwe to look at the stone and how that structure was built, or if I'm going into Stonehenge, I don't want to be disrespectful of anyone who might be saying, hey, that's my heritage. Uh you better do it right, not just with what with the enthusiasm or the questioning, but also the research and how we tell a story. We want to make sure, you know, when you work, I came into this working for a history channel, right? So so there was a an obligation to be respectful and authentic with the with the integrity of our story regarding history. And I maintain that to this day because I want to make sure look have we made mistakes? Have we gotten notes once the shows were broadcast? Yeah. But we do our best up until uh the very last minute of delivery to the network. And always as the host, I'm I'm known for, if anything, um passionately educating myself on all the different variables So I can ask the best questions and do the most justice to either the experts area of study or ultimately the audience's area of interest |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, that's I mean I I think, you know, as as somebody who also is in a media space, like I that's something that I don't think I was aware of the first time I watched uh Digging for the Truth, but kind of rewatching ahead of of us having this chat, I really noticed how like dialed in you are all of the time and like the number of times that the people you're interviewing say like, oh that's a that's really interesting question or like oh people people don't ask about that, which like as a person who interviews other people for a living, like that's that's kind of like the best feedback you can hope for. Uh and I wonder how you how you developed that, like coming to this again, like you said, like you didn't come to this from a TV background right off the bat |
| Josh Bernstein | . Well, one, I appreciate you saying that and recognizing that because that is a conscious intention for me as a host. And I think I I I am just insatiably curious. And so I always have questions. And that's a question of refining those so that they're on point. And the way I work, and it we didn't start this way, because obviously when I show up as a host, this is anyone who's produced, or if you work with in any uh performance based genre, right? So I show up, I'm this new guy, right? The who's the guy with the hat who's gonna be asking questions for this show that may or may not get canceled in like, you know, one season. But I I would would do my best I mean the way it works in TV to pull back the curtain a little bit is we create a shooting script so that we know the act like a five act arc of an hour and we know the general structure. Now we don't shoot in order, right? We're shooting out of order because you shoot by location. So if we're if we're in one country and that sho that location might be in three different shows, we might shoot act one of one show and act three of another show and the ending of another of a third show. And so my job as as host and the producer obviously helps with this, it's their job too, is to like figure out this multi-level chess game. And me as the protagonist is trying to figure out what's the question I'm asking here. I've come to Saqqara to study Fourth Dynasty or early, let's say, even First Dynasty, First Pyramids. How are they made? And I need to know what I want to know, and I need to know what I don't know yet because I don't want to ask the wrong question again in this five-act arc. So there's that process. That's the sort of cut and dry. Here's the question, here's the here's what we hope to get out of it as an answer. But then there's the variables of like, you know, I want to keep it real. I want to keep it fun. And so I ask questions that are just off the top of my head. The producers full disclosure had to get comfortable with that because most of the time they like to tell, quote talent what to say, right? Here's he's the host, here Josh, here's the six questions, go ahead and ask them. And I did that in the beginning, but I ultimately learned I was more authentic if and the process was ultimately better, if I could be asked asking my questions first, and then the producer could say, you know, he or she could say, could you could you ask this differently, or could you ask this question instead, or in addition to. So that's our process, right? So I come into the question ready to like gunning for bear. I'm like, I've got six questions. Here's the general structure in my head. I want your answer in a conversational tone to generate my next question. Drives me crazy when I see someone asking a question that I know they're just waiting for the person to stop talking so that they can ask the question. Like, no, no, your last answer informs my next question. That's the thread of our conversation. And then that just continues until I've exhausted the line of questioning. That's maybe 15 minutes. And then I stop, we cut, I look at the producer off camera, and we're like, how was that? Is that good? Did I get you where you wanted us to go? And that lends itself to a much more authentic experience as a producer, right? And also I think as a viewer. So it's up to me then going back to our original point. It's like I just have to know I have to be sharp. I have to be with it and I have to do my homework. And then so the questions are earnestly, what I want to know from this person. Thankfully the topics we're exploring, lost temples or pyramids or Maya cities or ink whatever. I'm I'm sincerely I mean I mean I'll see the books behind me. Like that is sincerely what I like to study. So it's it's part of who I am as as a a soul, and it's great that I in many ways get to act on that. Yeah |
| Stephen Pulvirent | , totally. I it it just occurred to me listening to you talk about the process of making the show like and I I should have known that known this ahead of time. Like it's it's quite obvious once I say it, but like you're out in these these places and you have so much machinery around you and I I don't mean just like the actual like cameras and microphones and whatever, but like you have other people, you have all the technology, you have the apparatus of production, all of that. And to transition from what you were doing at Boss, which like you said, you're you're going out with nothing but the clothes on your back to this, where you're going out with a team of people and tons of cutting edge technology and all of this stuff. Was there a sort of like adjustment period for you in terms of from an educating standpoint of like having to rethink like how you interact with like maximalist infrastructure as opposed to minimalist infrastructure. Yes. Yeah. |
| Josh Bernstein | In sight because it was an adjustment for me most well, primarily the first adjustment going back to week one of digging right so season one episode one was on the Anasazi and we were in I don't know somewhere in the four corners on that episode we were all over the place, somewhere between Utah and New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. And I remember after the you know, you can imagine if someone says, hey, here's a network giving you uh a hosted role for a multi-million dollar investment in the first HD show, right? This was early days of H D. We weren't even true HD. We were shooting seven twenty on the Veracam. The fr we were like Panasonic was like, you're our first series to even use this precious HD camera. And so we're we're we're giving them feedback on like glitches and the software. It was so early and yet the weight of maybe the potential of the series was on us all. And I remember saying to Rich Confalone, the cameraman for those first few episodes and still my brother in arms to this day, because we've shot like fifty shows since then. I said to Rich, I'm like, can can you leave the camera in my room tonight? You know, because at night once we wrap the everything sort of splits up and and the camera gear usually goes with the DP or the camera or the AC in the in many cases. But in this case I said to Rich, Can you just leave the camera in my room? He's like, Why? I said 'cause I want to get comfortable staring at that giant piece of glass, because it's overwhelming to have a camera pointed at you, plus the boom mic, plus the people off camera. I mean, you're seeing, you know, just a small sliver of what I'm seeing in the real world, right? Because the camera's only capturing a very narrow s focus of it. Um I say to to Rich, I need get over my uh inhibition to talk to a piece of glass because I want the viewer to feel like I'm talking to him or her. But the only way I can do that is if I'm comfortable. And then so what happened for me was I ended up creating a relationship and I have to give Jason Williams, the executive producer of Digging for the Truth for JWN Productions, who again, dear friend, spoke with him just a few hours ago. I said, Jason said to me, Josh, I want you to look at the camera like it's your best mate. Jason's British. So so so look at it like it's your best mate. And I said, what like like make jokes and like smirks and like talk to it as if I have an insight or an aside. He's like, exactly. Just treat it like it's another person. And since Rich was the person behind the camera, Rich became the sort of relationship. Now like I said, Rich is my brother. Back then we just met, but we have become we do this dance, and with every DP, every camera operator since there's been a bunch. That's the same dance. I'm talking to him or her with a comfort and familiarity that ultimately lends itself to this intimacy that transscend to the viewer. So the viewer feels like I'm comfortable because I really am, right? I'm just like we're doing now. I'm looking at you, but it's through a lens, and yet I'm connecting, hopefully, because I want I want the audience to feel like they're talking to me, not to like I'm not talking to everyone. I'm talking to you. And that's the magic. And not many hosts do that. They some it it bothers me. I'll reveal one little secret, one little pro tip. When I talk, whether it's on Zoom meetings or Instagram posts, Insta stories, or on TV, it's you. I will say you. I won't say you all. I won't say hey all of you out there. No, it's you. And what happens when you hear that is it gives you the opportunity to engage one to one, right? Which is powerful. So I've always approached the camera as a single person and then tried to act accordingly. Like you're my best mate, as Jason said |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . That's great. I I I love that. I mean, I think for for you know, some of our listeners know that like I love talking when we're talking to folks in media, like I love getting really under the hood here. But this is it it's really interesting to hear this and hear about also the context, like the fact that you were producing this in in a time when television was changing dramatically. Uh this this was not like okay, we'll just do like another adventure show, and it'll be great and, there's a playbook, and like we know what to do. Like you you had the opportunity here, not just you know, technologically in terms of the the using the HD cameras, but to like really define the sort of language and the affect of a different type of television |
| Josh Bernstein | . Yeah, I get, you know, I hadn't considered it that way, but looking at it through like sort of the Malcolm Gladwell lens of timing, like what so we had this moment in 2004 to 2009, which is when I did the bulk of my work for history and discovery. And I've done some other series since then, which we may get to, but but during that period of 2004 to 2009, you had this moment when t when documentary was trying to transition from sort of BBC style uh nature shows into a hosted, a host driven narrative. Right. So that's when all of the hosts, like you know, you'll think about the heyday of of you had you had Steve Irwin on Animal Planet, you had Mike Rowe on Discovery and Bear Grills, and then me at history eventually just back over to Discovery. But we were all taking audiences on a one-to-one journey. And with with the production value of let's, you know, let's swing for the fences. That was really the reason why I went from, in case you're curious, from history after my three years at digging for the truth to discovery in 2007, 2008 for Into the unknown was because Discovery wanted to supersize that exact approach. Let's take the idea of you, Josh, going around the world, but like triple your budget, give you helicopters and drones, like all the stuff, the drones didn't exist yet. So helicopters and just a much bigger team to really because that was when planet Earth came out. You remember for discovery. That was such a seminal like HD was properly HD at that point. And this entire team of BBC trained storytellers were focused on this genre of host-led documentary. So it was a great way, uh great time for me to cut my teeth and develop the skill set that, you know, I think with the reality shows and then now sort of the YouTube generation people don't have that same opportunity to be establishing like it's a it's just the game has changed. And and so um there aren't as many host-led programs these days. There's just more influencer. And I'm not an influencer. I don't aspire to be an influencer. But I have a skill set as a on-camera persona that can go into places with a certain credibility and integrity and authenticity that was developed during that critical five-year window. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. No, it's it's interesting. I I I hadn't thought about the way in which sort of the the paradigm of host led was on the rise, and then with the explosion of social media and things, it kind of it kinda dipped again. And I wonder do you do you think that's something that's gonna come back or do you think the landscape has just kind of changed |
| Josh Bernstein | ? I don't know. It it started to change. I mean my programming, the expensive travel the world programming changed because of the recession in 2008, right? Because networks were like, geez, you know, we'd rather go into our backyards and tell stories that were more uh sort of provincial or locally driven, which is what gave birth to these sort of subculture niche stories for reality T V. And so the international explorer genre faded, thankfully not so much into obscurity. I just transitioned from television into education and working with organizations like the Smithsonian or NASA or NOAA to create content that still has that high bar of integrity. uh and now there's so many different social media outlets that can be monetized. I think it's a separate ecosystem. You know, I'm not I'm not seeing like even though there is legitimate money and you hear these stories of like this person is being paid to unbox toys and they're making, wait, how many millions of dollars? Like it's enviable in the sense that you know they don't have jet lag, there's no hotels, there's no flights, there's no the infrastructure is very simple. They take a camera, they point it at themselves, they say something, do something, and then they have an audience and it's monetized. That is enviable to me because it takes so much work to do what I do. But at the same time, there's an authenticity to what I do, and there's a aspirational quality to what I do that takes the world on a journey with me. I think that's coming back based on conversations I've had in the last few months. Obviously, right now, COVID is changing production worldwide from Hollywood to documentary to you know I think the YouTubers are probably okay because they were only in their garages anyway. But I think that the opportunity for the return to host led programming my style, uh, may come back with some more authenticity because I think the world is going to figure out after this, right? Once we have a vaccine, what what do we want to build as a culture, as a global village? How do we want to tell our stories? What parts of this experience do we want to memorialize? What parts do we want to you know enhance with how because we all went through we we are in this now. We are in the thick of it right now and we're tend to tend to be myopically looking at here in New York, like what are the New York numbers and the schools are closing today, and what does that mean for families? And then maybe regionally and then maybe nationally. But as we get into the international review in 2021, we may discover that we want to build something out of this collective experience and tell some stories that allow us to erase the borders that we've created for the sake of you know sanitation right now and security and immunity. So I I am hopeful that after this there might be a series where someone like me, if not me, right, someone like me could travel the world and say, here's what's important to know about what's happened in Brazil, or here's what's happened in Italy, or here's what's happened in China, and help us sort of connect that bond of humanity that we really should have more of, not less of |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. No, I I that that all sounds spot on to me. I I totally agree. I've I've also been thinking a lot about what what's gonna happen when everybody who's whose lifestyles were focused around traveling to create content that connects people and and bridges cultures, like all of that has had to shut down. And what's gonna happen when the floodgates open? Is everybody gonna go back to what they were doing before or do something different |
| Josh Bernstein | Yeah. I don't have the answer either and I'm equally optimistic and hopeful. I think that there you know there will be certainly the a reflective uh travel just for the sake of travel. Those of us especially those of us who professionally travel are are like this is the longest I've been in one place in forever, right? And so God help me, I need to get my passport stamped and go somewhere where there's a different language being spoken and the food is different and unique and new to me. Um that's important for my sort of physical and mental health. But but there'll be I'm sure many businesses that were dependent, especially business travel, will realize we can get by with virtual, right? The whole the the old uh it could have been a a Zoom meeting, right? It's it's could have been a conference call. It didn't have to be in the conference room. Uh Zoom uh or or these, you know, these visual uh conference formats, th they they they work. Yeah. There'll be a lot more of that and businesses won't have to spend gazillions of dollars on real estate. So it's gonna it's gonna take it's uh things will shift. But I I I'm less focused on that and more interested on the anthropological approach of like, you know, what do we create together as a humanity to be more compassionate to heal the wounds that this this period has shown are are very raw and the the and inequities that are uh so apparent. We can't ignore them. I hope we don't ignore them. Yeah. No, I I |
| Stephen Pulvirent | couldn't agree more. Um it it's kind of an abrupt uh transition here, but I for some people it's it's more of a passion and I know you're you're pretty passionate about it. So um I I I wanted to start by asking, you know, when I was I was rewatching some of the episodes of Digging for the Truth and one that stood out to me and that I wanted to ask you about was was the Stonehenge episode. The sort of, you know, not to spoil it for anyone, but I think at this point, like if you haven't seen it, I'm allowed to spoil it. You know, the the sort of kicker at the end is the revelation that Stonehenge is in some ways a timekeeping device. And I was sort of curious if there were other times when you were making Digging for the Truth or Into the Unknown where that sort of like element of time and timekeeping popped up and because it's something you're passionate about, you felt like you could kind of like lean on that or or pull more out of that |
| Josh Bernstein | ? Well, yes. Uh there have been a number of episodes, especially the episodes that are dealing with monumental architecture or um lithic timepieces, for lack of a better term. You know, Stonehenge uh like most i mean uh it's it's a big topic in the sense that before our modern industrial society everyone around the planet had a sense of the stars. And and the priests or the elite or the leaders, the, you know, the whoever, whatever the name for the people who would study the stars from year to year, whether they were astronomers or scientists or philosophers, they had systems. I mean, look at the Maya. The Maya have one of the most robust understandings of profound understandings of the stars and timekeeping. So it ultimately to n to look at the stars uh in today, one if you can see them, uh you know, we get lost in the sort of bigness of it and we feel small. But to uh an earlier mindset, it was about seasons and timekeeping and understanding the connection to how much daylight or how much nighttime there'll be, and when will we f when should we plant our crops and when should we harvest them? And when when can we look forward in Stonehenge's case to perhaps this being the darkest day of the winter? And every day after this, right, after the solstice, because it we know people celebrate Stonehenge in particular for the summer solstice, and that's what I was exploring to a degree on that episode, which had me traversing all over the Salisbury Plain with a number of experts. But but the archaeologist I was working with in that episode was Dr. Julian Richards, and so we were discussing the importance of Stonehenge as a timepiece, but not so much for the summer solstice, even though I was there for that, but the winter solstice, because that may have been more important. In the darkness of winter, when is it going to get light again? And knowing that from where the sun hits on the horizon through the, you know, the the stones on the uh stonehenge is important. But we see we see that in so many structures. In Bolivia, at Tiwanaku, you'll see the Sun Gate. And it's again in Egypt, or in Teotewakan, you're gonna see this alignment of stone structures with the stars, because that's the largest reference point to understand orientation. And if you're in a society that cares about religion, the religious figures were all coming from the stars. I mean the Greco-Roman, like z you can't get around it. This is we have a different opinion of deities today. But turn back the clock of 500 years or 5,000 years and it was all about understanding the stars and how that relates to time. So yeah, the first timekeepers uh who influenced the grand projects of a culture were sure to honor that in whatever they built. And so yeah, Stonehenge is a grand clock. Uh perhaps a little off time today, you know, because of its location and the way the world has shifted over five thousand years. But that that still stands. It is a great timepiece |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . And and do you you think I mean touched on it a little bit, but I I wanna kinda like probe a little bit more here. Like do you think that the the change in the way our society is organized and maybe in fact like technological developments, the developments of mechanical clocks as opposed to sort of more cosmic monumental clocks. Do you think that's fundamentally changed the way that that most people relate to time on a on a day to day basis and on a sort of longer scale basis. Not to get like too too philosophical here, but No, but |
| Josh Bernstein | I love it. I love the question. Uh your all your questions are phenomenal, by the way. I think that the the um time has been commoditized. So it's almost like uh who cares, right? Like uh time is just time and it's been reduced in in not just in the in the mental construct of the importance or significance of it, but to the physicality of now we can have it on our wrist, right? Which isn't necessarily it's certainly a convenient thing. You know, it started out with these chronic chronometers that a hundred years ago, uh the explorers, I I think I said on on the the on the my earlier talk about the importance of keeping time and why that matters to an explorer. Like the the compass tells you where which way you're going, but you you don't really know where you've been until you can track your time. Right. There's there going from A to B doesn't mean much unless you can track it, especially if you're a mariner and you're trying to understand your distance across an open expanse of sea, which is why so many early astronomers are trying to figure out things like longitude and how we relate to our position on the planet and our planet's position in the solar system. Again, big heady stuff for scientists to kind of get their heads around. Now we don't have chronometers or chronographs working in that same way. I mean they still work in the same way, but we don't approach them the same way. Now it's a question of like how many hours are in a day and what am I going to do in that day so that I can have an efficient use of business. It's industrial driven or commercially driven, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does separate us from the sort of majesty of understanding what time is and space-time and the continuum of it all. I think that what we see now is with time transitioning from a wrist piece. Oh a gentleman would have a hit his pocket watch and then it became a wristwatch and now it's become a phone. And I think for me as a traditionalist, uh, I appreciate the wristwatch. I still, even though I have a phone in my pocket and it certainly tells me time very accurately, I like what the wristwatch stands for. I like in this case today, since we want to transition at some point, I'm wearing my my submariner, you know, the Kermit from Rolex. And I appreciate the aesthetic of it, but I also love what it stands for. It stands for a connection to the ability to make something that tracks time beautifully, right, to the to the second. And that's an achievement. You know, it's it's something that people probably don't think much about because we take for granted that your phone is going to tell you what time it is and we don't understand where it's getting that information from. But I love the fact that timekeeping is such a precise scientific uh um art. And then how you express that art is manifest in what model watch you wear, which is kind of, you know, it's like what kind of feathers are on a bird. And it's not that one is better or worse. I just I know what feathers I like and I tend to gravitate towards the watches that catch my eye and suit my sort of character and in many cases my practical needs as someone who travels as much as I do |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, you're I I don't think it'll come as a surprise to most people, but like you're you're really like a no BS kind of tool watch kind of guy uh as as far as I can tell. Is that is that an accurate and fair way to describe uh describe your your personal taste that's consistent |
| Josh Bernstein | across the board. I I like nice things, so I'm not afraid of of quote luxury, but I wouldn't take uh form over function. Right. So so for me, uh as I said on my conversation with John, is the you know, my my I grew up a Casio timex kid. I wasn't like, you know, I wasn't blowing out APs and Rolexes as a kid. I didn't even know what they were. I knew my dad wore a Rolex. It was a big hunk of gold, and it wasn't really my aesthetic. When he died, I was curious where you know went to my older brother and and then sadly disappeared. But but when I was in a position to collect a watch. And that turn happened when I was in television. You know, when you host a show, real estate is marketable, especially what the host is wearing. So the clothing, the shoes, the bag, in my case, the hat and the watch are all marketable items. And so originally I think Brightling and I were you know, I had an emergency which was practical for my pursuits to the ends of the earth. Then Panterana Panorai and I uh had a conversation because I kind of liked the way the Radiomere GMT Alarm looked, so I wore that in a number of shows. And then Rolex came into the picture. Probably because Panorai and Brightling were already in it, and Alan Brill, who was then the president of Rolex Watch USA and ultimately became a dear friend before he passed away. Alan was like Josh come in. You know, I was in New York. He said come into the Rolex office here on Fifth Avenue. I went, he gave me a tour, and that's when I turned the corner for Rolex because I got to see people whose job was to make this piece, right? This tiny little dial. For 30 years, that's all they've done is they've contributed to the general mechanisms of Rolex by making that one cog the best. it can be And Rolex to their credit makes basically everything in their watches, right? They don't outsource. Yeah. So then I was like, wow, this is more than just a giant piece of metal on my dad's wrist. This is this is uh the integrity of a pursuit of perfection that I can I can relate to and I can support. And so so that's when I I took the plunge, so to speak, and bought my first Rolex, which was the sixteen six hundred, right? The C Dweller. And and because it didn't have the Cyclops lens, so it didn't feel like a Rolex, it wasn't as flashy, and it went down to depth as a scuba diver. It had the helium valve, which was well beyond my dive capabilities then, but I aspire to have the ability to use, you know, helium and mixed gas dives, which I do now. And so I was like, fine, I'm gonna get the sea dweller. And that that opened up the door to the rest of my sort of more practical collection |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I I love that you use the word aspire there, right? Like the the watch already encapsulated, you know, ki in in many ways like the life you were already living, but it also allowed you to kind of like envision that next step, right? Like going with the sea dweller instead of let's say like a submariner or something like that. And and I wonder is is that still a way you think about watches? Is there something sort of like aspirational and kind of like heady about them for you? I don't know how much I think about it that cons |
| Josh Bernstein | ciously. But um maybe I think that the um in that case, yes. Look, it came down to I remember it came down to the GMT and the C dweller. And I like the the fact that C Dweller does not have a Cyclops lens, so it didn't quite look like a Rolex, so I could get away with it because I may have had like, you know, concerns about being too flashy with a watch on camera. Uh but then after that, I think my next watch was um the Daytona, right? The stainless steel white face Daytona, which is a classic. And that one, uh, I just wanted something a little fancier because I did grow up here in New York City and I do go to events. I mean on camera I'm wearing, you know, Car Hearts and Cool Sh Cool with a K, Cool's a coup company, a clothing company, cool shirts and my cowboy hat or explorer hat. So I'm rugged on camera and off camera, you know, I have a tuxedo. I don't wear it haven't certainly worn haven't worn it in the last nine months, but I think that I would wear it to a function. There are galas that I go to to support causes. And I want a w I wanted a watch that was more elegant. And so that's where I was like, oh yeah, I think I've seen friends wearing it. I'm like, oh yeah, that's kinda cool. It's understated. It's a Daytona, you know. So that was my second Rolex. And and from there like so yes, there is a I guess there is a methodology to what I would purchase. I I I look at more watches certainly than I buy. I try to appreciate like what is it about it that would work for me or what would not work for me. And then and then maybe I'll buy it, or maybe I won't. Like I don't have an addiction. I I I'm fairly cost conscious. But I do like the expression of it. And and these days, Rolex really works for me |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. I I know at one point, I mean, so far we've talked all about modern watches and I know at one point you owned a vintage double red sea dweller uh that you had waterproofed and you dove with, which like I I can only imagine the number of like Kodinky audience members who like gasped when they they heard that on talking watches. Um but I know you've since moved on from that watch. I wonder did did you find that just like the vintage thing didn't didn't work for you as well? Is it something you've gone back to and revisited or Well f so for the person who's gasping |
| Josh Bernstein | now, uh I'll just clarify it was a a nineteen seventy three double red sea dweller, which is the reference I think sixteen sixty five and with a mark two uh with original papers. It was done you know I was not the original buyer but they came to me with original papers and and it was expensive. You know I bought it at auction at Sotheby's because I wanted it I wanted I mean it's it's a double red, you know, for those who collect, you understand. There's something about as ridiculous as it sounds, why would two little lines of red print matter at all? But to a collector it does. And so I bought it. And yes, Rolex, because at that point I was friends with Alan and his colleagues at Rolex, they were kind enough to service it and make sure that it was watertight, right? They pressure tested it. And and they said, this is fine. Like it passes our test. But there are no more crystals right in our inventory. We asked even in Geneva. If this thing breaks, there's no way to put another uh yeah not glass. It wasn't but but there's no other crystal for it. And and I was like, okay. And then yeah, as you said, I took it scuba diving because it was made for that. And I feel like the watch, if it has a personality, is like, please coach, put me in. And so I was diving in the keys I believe and I got down about 130 feet and I took a picture of it and I sent it to Rolex and I said look it's doing what it was born to do and and I felt like the watch was happy. Then they explained to me the you know the impact if should something happen to it. And I ultimately found like it was just too much watch in value for me to wear comfortably because I go into villages because like I was in Mali doing a story in Timbuktu or I'm in Zimbabwe where inflation is just rampant or I'm in the highlands of Peru and and I felt like how can I be compassionate and and have my integrity when I'm wearing a watch that could be worth you know thirty forty thousand dollars on my wrist. I just felt crazy. So I sold it to it to another collector who was very happy. And I went back to sort of quote normal watches. Uh not because I don't love vintage. You can imagine as an explorer, I love things that are used and used well. But it came down to sort of value uh on value and and what I wanted to sort of have on me as an advertisement of this there because there is an implicit endorsement uh given that I'm on camera. So aside from being able to tell this story, most people be like, dude, why is he wearing a double red? That's ridiculous. And I want that to be what not people associate with me |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Totally. I mean in in a similar way, I I know you've said, you know, that you've closed deals with someone or like decided to work with people because you've noticed they're wearing a Rolex, and it's it's like sort of a secret handshake in that way. And I wonder: in in your world, are there other things that function that way for you where like if you see somebody wearing a certain thing or using a certain piece of gear or aligning with something where you say like okay, like we're we're on the same page. I know that like we're we're gonna vibe here. |
| Josh Bernstein | Yeah. Or or the opposite. We are not gonna vibe here because of X, Y, or Z. And for me, certainly the cliche, but always important firm handshake and a look in the eye is important for first impressions. And in these days, when there are no handshakes and we're not we're not looking each other directly in the eye because we're zooming, but I think that the your sense of a person, the the non-physical, you know, like the the non-verbal cues are important. And so it's i a watch for m for at least in my case, uh I I will look at someone's wrist and be like, hmm, you know, what's what's he or she wearing and what values might I assume that person has? I don't know. But but if you're wearing a Rolex, especially if you're wearing a Rolex that I've had or have, which would be like an understated, like the C Dweller. I'm not you know, if you're wearing a bling watch and Rolex certainly makes some watches that are very blingy, I'm probably not gonna be like, yeah, we share the same values. But but at least yeah, I guess you're you you you like Rolex, but if you're wearing a Patek or an A P or or some you know it's I'm not as particular. I just I I would say yeah any in any case if someone has shared values there's more a a greater likelihood of opportunity for us to engage on uh working together. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. Well I I know a big value for you and and something we've talked a little bit about and and you mentioned it a little earlier that you're you're working in education primarily now. Uh and that education has, you know, from your days at boss up through what you're doing now been something really core to to who you are and what you you kind of want to like put into the world. Um and on that front, you're working on something called Explorer at Large. And I I wonder if you can just talk about that a little bit, give people a little bit of a heads up as to what that Sure, love to. Th |
| Josh Bernstein | ank you. Um so Explorer at Large was was conceived while I was working at Discovery Channel. And and the insight, again, keep in mind, I'm now traveling the world nonstop. Uh can't complain about it. Don't really mind it, but I'm still debilitated by it. And I was looking at some of my colleagues in television, and I'm happy to state that Mike Rowe, who many people know because he still does wonderful work today, was then doing dirty jobs. And I watched Mike. Uh we subsequent subsequently became friends because I then went to uh went to a number of events and we got to talking about some things. But but Mike's show was very much in the moment and there was there's like smaller vignettes. Like there was like in act one, he might go to an ostrich farm. In act two, he's working with gooey ducks. In act three, he's inseminating uh I don't know, goats. I don't know what my but Mike oh you know, there were there was no sort of thread between the acts. They were just standalone. And I thought, God, you know, for every show that I do, even though there is a five or six act arc, so you're starting a quest and then you're meeting experts and you're continuing the journey, there was always that one act that was like tune in for that, right? Where I'm repelling over the edge of the cliff, or I'm diving with sharks, or I'm whatever, fill in the blank, usually a physical thing where I'm putting my life in jeopardy. I think what if we took that concept of me traveling to get like some really cool knowledge, that one act, but we did it for education. Specifically. I mean, I I admit that over the years, especially in archaeology and anthropology classrooms, my shows have been repurposed uh to work. And I'm grateful that so many students and teachers felt that there was value there. But it wasn't created for that. It was created for broadcast. Uh so I was like, what if we created something specifically for students and teachers that's aligned to standards, that has a pedagogy, there's actually a process involved in like how we work with the material, what training happens with the teachers. So that's explorer at large. The idea is we take this lens of curiosity and courage, the explorer mindset, the explorer skill set, so much of what I have embodied over the years as a survival instructor and then as a television personality. And we take that into the realm of, let's say, Smithsonian, right? Which is my first funder. So I moved to DC. We opened up the project and production company, and Smithsonian said, go for it. The depth and breadth of the Smithsonian is yours, right? You've got 19 museums and the national zoo and nine research centers and like 150 million artifacts. Tell stories five minutes long, tied to standards, and we'll put them in classrooms. And so that's what we did. And so um, and thankfully the Bezos Family Foundation gave us funding to put the take the videos which we created into classrooms and test it. We did two pilot studies. The second pilot just ended. COVID was tricky because we had to transition from inside the classroom to outside the classroom, but that was a good data point for us to gain. And now we're scaling up. So now instead of just Smithsonian, we're looking at NASA, we're looking at NOAA, we're looking at Woods Hole, we're looking at these other organizations and institutions of knowledge, and figuring out how I can bring in my on-camera explorer persona, use that to create small five-minute videos, tie them to standards, and put them in the classrooms in the US and eventually around the world to get kids to fall in love with discovery-based learning, right? So it's all about questions, curiosity, and the pursuit of answers. Curiosity and courage are married together through that's why our tagline is um curiositas well right now it's virtu at curiositas, right? Courage and curiosity. And and so if we can light that spark, if we can get kids from kindergarten through twelfth grade to fall in love with asking questions and then pursuing answers, we will potentially, I hope, change the way education connects ultimately to career paths |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . That that last bit is is something I was going to ask you about as well, is is the kind of tagline, the the virtues at curiositas, right? Like it ev virtue and curiosity, right? You you said in another interview that I found courage, I'm sorry. My col my college Latin professor is is hopefully not listening to this. He'll uh he'll kill me there. But uh I wonder, you know, you you s I've I've heard you say elsewhere that while obviously this is all tied to standards and it's it's like genuinely an educational product, that your your hope is also that in addition to the actual like science of it, uh the people also pick up students pick up other things like compassion and self-esteem and empathy and these these sorts of things that are like less tangible and are often not on like standardized testing curricula, right? Um and and I wonder how you think about incorporating those things when you also have these kind of like boundaries that you're you're working within |
| Josh Bernstein | . Yeah. Well, like, first of all, to defend your Latin professor in college. So I had a Latin expert guide me on this vertus at Curiositas 'cause I went God forbid I should get that wrong. And the tricky thing about Virtus and Virtue uh and the w it it comes from our uh the word for man, right? So so the Latin expert was like, when you say virtue, it could be seen as a male nobility, not courage. And I said, okay, but the alt? She's like, yeah, the alt could still be courage. That's legitimate. And because of the integrity and nobility of the pursuit of science and questions, we kept vertus. We originally had curiosity ad infinitis, infinite curiosity. But what we discovered in the pilot, in our first pilot, was giving kids questions was not enough. Inspiring kids, we don't give them questions. I'm sayinging inspir them to ask questions, to be curious wasn't enough. We had to also instill courage because in our field trips, which is one of the parts of our ecosystem that we create in classrooms, again, pre-COVID and post-COVID, is we would take students into the field to connect their explorer mindset to actual expeditions. So we were in Darby Creek uh Metro Metro Metro uh Darby Creek Park, it's in Ohio where we were piloting. And these uh fifth five-year-olds and eight-year-olds, kindergartners and third graders, were hesitant to get in the water because they'd never gone into the water before. Like who in a city gets into a creek? That's like, you know, parents are like, don't get your feet wet. But I said, no. This is where the survival instructor in me came in. I was like, guys, watch. And I walked in the water. And all of a sudden the kids were given permission to get dirty and wet. And so the courage to pursue that experience was important. So we changed the tagline, Virtus et Curiositas. As far as your act your original question about these sort of uh softer skills, I was doing I was doing an episode a wiggle with Smithsonian at the National Zoo. I was working with Craig Sappho, who's the Great Cat's curator, and he was introducing me to the lion pride at the National Zoo. And specifically the question was how do you manage the health and nutrition of a pride of lions? And more practically, how do you do it without invading their space? And you know, if you want to understand what's going through a lion's sort of nutritional status or their hormonal status, the easiest way, I mean you could dart them and then do blood analysis or but the easiest way is to just gather their poop. Who knew, right? But every day the National Zoo folks and pl lots of other zoo uh experts go into the enclosures once the animals are taken out and they gather their poop. And you can then uh analyze the hormones in the poop to determine the gen. And plus you can look at the quality, the texture, the size, the consistency. There's lots of things you can learn from poop, which you can understand why kids love these episodes, because you know, poop. But at the same time, what we learned during the pilot was the teachers would pause the videos because I would ask Craig for permission to let's say cross a certain safety line in the video. Craig was like, Josh, don't stand too close to the cages because the lions are obviously you know lions and so stay behind the yellow line. And I would say, okay, I'm staying behind the yellow line. And I didn't think anything of it at the time because I'm just doing what I'm told. But the teacher said to the class, did you see what Explorer Josh just did there? Again, this is for a kindergarten classroom. But did you see what Explorer Josh just did? He's been following the rules and is now asking permission to cross the line because he wants to feed, in this case, Luke the lion. And so there was was that never even in my like thought process of what permission means as a lesson or teaching point. But over the course of doing all these episodes, it's become more apparent that my my serving as a role model, having uh good manners and listening and paying attention and being respectful. All the stuff that I do anyway, because I tend to have good manners and want to be respectful and certainly want to represent you know who I am as a person on camera lends itself to so many more modeling lessons for teachers. And as we now scale into fifth grade and seventh grade, which is what we're filming in a few weeks, uh, I can't say too much about it yet because it's still secret. But hopefully that will scale all the way up to 12th grade and then college so that people can say, yeah, this guy is acting the way perhaps more of us could act in terms of being compassionate and being considerate and being obviously curious and courageous. So yeah, it's it's not our primary goal, but it is an important part of of how we create sort of our storytelling |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . That's awesome. Are are there are there ways that people can support Explorer at large, like people listening who who this resonates with who maybe like myself are now not in school in school anymore and so aren't going to get to experience it firsthand, is is there ways that they can support the the effort |
| Josh Bernstein | ? Yeah. Well so go to I would say depends on what capacity. You know, we we uh certainly are open for donations. And if you go to explorerlarge.com, uh uh certainly by the time this airs, I will have made sure that there's a page there. Most of our funders are larger foundations, you know, like the Bezos Family Foundation, the Harold C. Schott Foundation. We're working with family foundations who believe passionately in education and this idea of curiosity and courage. We are now working with larger government institutions for grants. Again, can't say too much about that today, but but if to the degree that folks want to contribute, even $50 or $100 helps us offset real teacher costs in our classrooms. And yeah, if you have, you know, $10,000, $50,000, you can help underwrite entire classrooms or school districts through again stretching dollars and and scaling. But if you're just yeah, I would say anyone who just wants to understand what we're trying to do uh as an education sort of platform, go to explorerlarge.com and and and and reach out to me and I'll tell you more. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | All right. Well, we're starting to run short on time, but I've I've got two two more questions I want to ask you just before we before we wrap up. Uh one is I know I know that when you're traveling, uh food is a is a big thing for you. You really enjoy kind of, you know experiencing the local cuisine and sort of like getting that that bit of culture. Are there other things when you're traveling that are like you know must engage with things for you things that you you really look forward to kind of experiencing anew in each place you visit talking about professional visiting or personal visiting uh |
| Josh Bernstein | we can go with either either either is fine uh well i'll start with the well which kind of which one's easier. I don't start with the professional. So so when we're on location filming, because of the nature of production, uh we're fairly focused on cost control and making sure we're efficient with our time. So in my space, in the adventure archaeology, cultural mysteries, temples and tomb space, there is inevitably going to be a cultural site, usually a pride, you know, a point of pride, and uh and a museum. And then hopefully some really cool outdoor activity that connects the two. And so uh food doesn't always, in fact very rarely does food come into the equation on camera the way it would for an Andrew Zimmern or in the case of you know Anthony Bourdain, uh who I thought was just set such a high watermark for that that style of storytelling food culture. Uh I think there's in the fifty five sh episodes, fifty-five shows I've done of documentary, food has been seen maybe twice. You know, it's very and and the issue from a production point of view is because we're not filming the eating, unless, for example, when I was in Mongolia, I was visiting on the steppe a a f a family of nomads and keeping with cultural tradition, when I walked into their gur, right, what we call a yurt, but the well I walked into the gur, the the woman of the house presented me with a rack, this um fermented mare's milk, horse milk horse milk. And and I drank it because you know I'm not gonna say no, that's like a that's a major cultural offense. So so then in that case we would film me drinking something unusual. There's a cultural exchange of new food for Josh. Uh but that's rare. And so most of the time, and it if it if I if I'd gotten sick right from that, it'd be okay because we film me drinking it and then makes it interesting aside. But more often than not, if I get sick, production shuts down. So my job is to not get sick. So I can't be so risky with the foods in the various countries. Now that doesn't mean I don't go to restaurants. I do, but they tend to be towards the end of a shoot, end of a two or three week stay versus the first week or two because I still have my work to do. And so it's a lot of room service and a lot of sort of over sterilized, hopefully not too processed food. So so so yeah I would say yeah in country my exposure is mostly to cultural places and to activities and to people more than the food piece. Much as I would love to have eaten my way around the world. On personal trips, I'm much more exploratory because if I get sick, I get sick. No one's gonna, you know, it's gonna cost me a vacation day, but it might be an interesting experience. So uh whereas I I will still go to the museums and the archaeological sites, uh I add in more hey, hey locals, where can I have an authentic experience that isn't in the lobby of a hotel, right? Where can I eat off the beaten path and have that more Anthony Bourdain moment? Because I do love that. I just perhaps because I don't get to do it on TV, I want to do it more on my personal time. Ye |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ah that's that's great i love that um all right so the the last thing the last thing i'm gonna throw your way is uh you've traveled to a lot of places professionally that i think are are like bucket list places for people. They're these huge places that occupy a special status in our sort of like collective consciousness. And I wonder, is there one place that you think despite being very hyped is still underrated? Like a place that you think like no matter how excited you are to go when you get there, people are still just going to be absolutely blown away. |
| Josh Bernstein | Yeah, to come to mind. The most overhyped, but still not uh given enough credit for the just the majesty, the awesomeness literally of being in front of them. And those two would be the Treasury of Petra in Jordan, right? So you come down as you saw in Indiana Jones, you come down this this narrow sandstone canyon when then opens up into this glorious carved edifice that the Nabataeans put into the the facade of that rock. And and and there's many more than just the what they call the treasury. But but that that I remember standing in front of that being like, wow, like how can I ever complain about having too great a task in front of me when this was literally carved into the side of this cliff face. So that's that's one. And the second is Machu Picchu, which uh I love Peru. I've done eight shows in Peru. I've been there maybe 15, 20 times. I go there on my on my off time because I just love the culture and the and speaking about food. You could eat like a king or queen every day of the week for weeks on end in Lima. Spectacular uh mixture of different types of foods and cuisine. It's just so much fun for the culinary adventure in Lima. But then you get into the Sacred Valley and you go to Machu Picchu and I was like, wow, this this is uh it's it's almost ineffable, which which as a host is a problem because my job is to talk about the majesty of a and I remember I in my very early days hosting, I did actually say episode one, I was left alone in a ruin in the Four Corners area, this beautiful ancestral Pueblo and ruin. And the cameraman was like, here, just take the camera and say whatever you want. And I said, I have no words to describe how beautiful this place is. And then Jason later on is like, that's a fail. Like your job is to have words. So so but yet and yet Machu Picchu is there's something spiritual and physical and granted you at altitude and there's just the sacred valley energy, and there's the Inca. It's just, it's a glorious spot. And as much as you see it in people's profile pictures or on social media, it doesn't get old. Like it doesn't, it certainly, well, it might get old, but it certainly doesn't disappoint. It's it's the trip of a lifetime. If anyone's like, gee, I was kind of deciding between blank and Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu. It's it's uh there's the Inca Empire is is one of the I hold in one of the highest levels of admiration and for for uh the Inca Emperor to have made this site the sort of Camp David like retreat in the in the Andes it's it's just literally again, awesome. Full of awe and worth the trip. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Perfect. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Uh it's good to sit down and chat and dig a dig a little deeper than uh than your chat with John on some different topics and uh yeah we'll link all the explorer at large stuff up in the show notes so people can go check that out and hopefully we'll uh we'll talk again soon. Cool. I appreciate it. Thank you. It was great |