>> David M. Rubenstein: So, to
give everybody some background
before we talk about the book 
and the 25th anniversary of the
book, you are originally
from...?
>> Mitch Albom:
Philadelphia.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
And you went to college.
>> Mitch Albom:
Hello Philadelphia.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
Philadelphia, okay.
And so you went to college
at...?
>> Mitch Albom: Brandeis
University, where Morrie was.
>> David M. Rubenstein: And why
did you pick Brandeis
out of all the colleges you
could have gone to?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, I went to
college out of 11th grade,
and I decided to go,
kind of late in the process.
And my father actually
said if
I skipped my senior year, he
would buy me a used car.
So I said, okay, I'll go.
And I [Laughing], I started
looking in the college
book, but I didn't have a lot
of time and I got to
Brandeis was in the B's and the
University of
Chicago was in the C's.
And I applied to those two
schools,
and I got into Brandeis and
I went up there, liked what I
saw.
It was small and decided to go
there and told
my father, I'm going to go to
Brandeis in my
senior year instead of high
school.
And he said, Great. And he
never bought me the car.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
Oh. [Laughing]
Wow. Okay.
>> Mitch Albom:
Yeah, that was a tricky thing.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
So what did you want to do?
What did you study at Brandeis?
>> Mitch Albom: I wanted to be
a musician,
so the fact that I went to
college
at all was a bit of a miracle.
I didn't want to go to college.
I just wanted to start my life
as a musician.
And, you know, I--I came from a
family that
said that that's fine. Music is
fine.
All good. You're going to
college, you don't have a
choice. And so when I got
there, I wanted to be
a musician, actually. I started
studying music, but I
took a sociology class and I
had
signed up for that sociology
class.
And what's funny is it was like
a 101
sociology of beginning class
with Morrie Schwartz.
No idea who he was or anything
like that.
And I walked into the class on
the very first day of
school and there were nine kids
in the
room. And being a typical
freshman,
I said, No, no, no, no.
There's--This is too small.
If I cut it, they'll know I'm
not here.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
No place to hide. Yeah.
>> Mitch Albom:
So I was actually leaving the
room
to drop the class to go to the
registrar and drop
the class. When Morrie, the
teacher, started
to call roll.
And one of the problems when
your last name begins with
"A" [Laughing], you can't get
out quickly enough
and so he said Mitchell Albom
and
I was literally--David, I was
literally
halfway out the door and if I
had kept
walking he wouldn't have known
because he didn't know it was
me. And I always think back to
that moment, I say, if I
had just kept walking and
dropped the class, I'm
sure I wouldn't be here with
you.
None of this would have
happened. Instead, I
slid back in out of guilt and I
raised my hand and
I said Here.
And he said, Is it Mitch or
Mitchell?
Which do you prefer?
And I know that doesn't mean
anything to you, but I had one
of those names that, like you
could be Mitch or Mitchell or
Mitchie or whatever.
And so I said, Well, Mitch, my
friends call me Mitch.
And he said, Mitch, it is.
And Mitch, and I said, Yeah,
And he said, I hope one day
you'll think of me as your
friend. So I knew cutting the
class
was out of the question at that
point. [Laughing]
>> David M. Rubenstein: Okay.
All right. So you stayed in the
class and I presume you enjoyed
it?
>> Mitch Albom: I did.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
And you graduated?
>> Mitch Albom:
[Laughs] I think.
>> David M. Rubenstein: Maybe.
So, you eventually graduated
and then you decided not to
go into music,
but to go into sports writing,
is that right?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, it wasn't
that--quite that linear.
I--first of all, I majored in
sociology,
not because I was all that
interested in sociology, but I
had all those I took every
class that Morrie offered.
I think there were eight or
nine classes.
I wrote my honors thesis with
him
so that I have a chance to
continue to hang out with him.
We would walk around campus
together, we would eat lunches
together. It was really more
like an uncle
nephew kind of relationship.
And then I graduated and I went
overseas
and I worked in music and I
actually
had a very cool job as a singer
and a piano
player on the island of Crete.
In this little fishing village
called Aguas Nikolaos.
And I should have just stayed
there the rest of my life
because they paid me like
$350 cash.
I have my own little bungalow
on the Aegean.
I--all I had to do was sing like
a half an hour with
the band American Songs.
And I actually--it was such a
little
remote place. Now it's become
quite--if anyone's gone there,
it's become quite touristy.
But back then no Americans were
ever there.
And so I was known as this like
American
singer. And I would sing these
Elvis Presley songs and
everything. I swear, half the
people thought they were
originals, you know, like they
and--and
I used to be able to, like,
walk along the mountains and
things like that. And, you
know,
people would stop their cars
and say, Oh, American, get in
the car, come on, we take you
up to the you know, so I didn't
have to drive anywhere.
I didn't have to pay for a
drink. I didn't have to do
anything. And like a fool, I
left this job,
willingly,
because I wanted to get back to
New York City, you know,
to start my career as a
musician.
And I got to New York City, and
all I did was
meet other musicians who said,
if one day I could ever get to
Greece and just, you know,
like.
>> David M. Rubenstein: Were
you the only Jewish person
on that island?
Probably?
>> Mitch Albom:
I'm pretty sure I was.
>> David M. Rubenstein:Couldn't
get a minyan there, I guess.
>> Mitch Albom:
No, yes. There were no--
>> David M. Rubenstein: So--so
you come back,
and you're a musician in the
United States, New York.
All right. And then what was
your what instrument did you
play or do--you were singing?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, I was a
piano player, was my main thing.
But I wrote songs and I went
through the whole starving
artist thing and I did
showcases and clubs and all the
rest of that stuff. And after a
couple of years, I
realized that, you know, the
lights weren't all going to turn
green for me.
And I remembered once I was
trying to
find a new bass player
and I had a bunch of guys and
put an ad in the Village
Voice and guys would show up
for interviews.
And I had guys coming in who
were like
45 years old and they were
coming
in to be in my band.
And I didn't have any gigs, you
know, I didn't have any money or
anything. And--and they would
just go from one place to
other. And I realized, like,
that can be me, you know, like
what's--what's going to be any
different between me and them.
They're twice my age and
they're still looking for jobs.
So it wasn't really working the
way I wanted it
to. And at the same time,
I went into a supermarket
for those who want to be
writers.
And I--I know that there are a l
of people at writer, you know,
at a book festivals who want to
be writers.
And I--I often meet people who
say, Well, I feel like it's too
late for me. You know, I'm--
I'm 16 and I haven't written
a novel yet.
[Laughing]
So let me be the--
not the first, but the, you
know,
one of many people to tell you
there's no such thing as as
starting too late or there's no
such one
path to get into it. Because I
was a
musician, I walked into a
supermarket
and I had a little basket and--a
They threw a local weekly
newspaper
into my basket and on my way
home
I read it and it said at the
bottom it
was just a little giveaway
weekly.
But it said at the bottom, We
need
help writing the newspaper.
If you have any spare time,
contact us
here. So because I worked at
night as a musician,
I had my days fairly free.
So I went over to this
newspaper, walked in and
I was like the youngest person
by about 77 years.
And [Laughing] and they said
they gave me an assignment the
first day I
walked in and they said, okay,
there's a you want to help us?
There's a parking meters
meeting.
[Laughing]
And go cover it.
So I'd never written a thing
before,
David, nothing. And--but I had
seen
All The President's Men, so
[Laughing]
I did what? I did what you
know, you do you get a
pad and a pen and you ask a
bunch of
questions such as you can ask
at a
parking meter meeting, you
know.
And then I had read a lot of
newspapers,
so I just kind of mimicked the
style.
Like the first paragraph kind
of says, what?
What you're writing about.
Second paragraph is a quote
Third paragraph kind of
expands on the first paragraph,
that kind of thing.
So I wrote it up, I turned it
in, and the next week
I went back to the supermarket
and
there was a newspaper.
I picked it up and my story was
on the bottom of
the front page, which proves,
A,
that there was nothing
happening in New York that
week, apparently.
But B, you know,
I saw my name and on
something that I had written
and I got this little tingle
inside, you know, like, hey, I
created that and
that's my name.
And I was hooked, you know, and
I became a
writer basically, you know
formally that day.
And I began to work for that
newspaper on a
volunteer basis.
And for young people, I say
this all the
time, you know, don't worry
about how much money you're
going to make at your first
job, worry about what you're
going to learn at your first
job.
And I didn't make a dime.
I worked for about six or seven
months for free, but I
learned everything because it
was a small paper.
I learned how to set the ads.
I learned how to do copy
editing.
I learned how to write every
kind of story because they used
me wherever they could send me.
And by the end of that year,
they had
started paying me $25 a week,
which I thought
was fantastic.
And I had enough clips that I
applied
to Columbia Journalism School
and
actually got in, and that
started
my career as a journalist.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
Did you go to Columbia?
>> Mitch Albom: I did. I went
to Columbia Journalism and
you might find interesting
Columbia Business School, which
is something I don't tell
anybody. But
I actually got an MBA from.
>> David M. Rubenstein: You
have an MBA as well.
>> Mitch Albom:
Yeah. Yeah.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So you
didn't want to do something
important like private equity?
[Laughing]
>> Mitch Albom: What is private
equity? [Laughing] No,
>> David M. Rubenstein: Highest
calling of mankind? [Laughing]
>> Mitch Albom: No,
[Laughing]
That's what they said in 
business school, too.
No, actually,
I went and they had a program
where
you could if you got into the
journalism school and you got
into the business school, you
could combine the
masters and do them in like six
months less time than
it would have taken you to do
them together.
And I thought, I just want the
business school
to understand economics,
because at the time,
inflation and gas prices, this
was the early eighties and all
that was very much front page
stuff.
And I thought, I don't really
understand this stuff.
I go--I'll go to business school
for a year and kind of learn how
it works. I'll probably make be
a better journalist.
So while I was there, of
course, as a
school, you know, it's very
much about
like the interviews you get at
the end.
And and these interviews would
come up with Proctor and Gamble
and McKinsey
and all these places. And I had
no interest in any of that.
And you were given a slot in
like a
lottery. And so I would get
lotteries
with these interviews and I
didn't want to go.
So I became like the most
popular kid in business
school because I gave them away
to people who wanted to
wanted that work. And I never
took a single interview
when I was there with any
company because I knew that that
wasn't what I wanted to do.
But I actually have an MBA from
Columbia, which
I just finished paying my
student loan for about.
[Laughing]
>> David M. Rubenstein: Oh,
>> Mitch Albom: About,
>> Mitch Albom: A little too
early, apparently.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
You should have waited a--
The federal government would
have paid off.
>> Mitch Albom: Should’ve
dragged it out
a couple more years.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So, ok,
so you got a job
in the sportswriting area,
is that right?
>> Mitch Albom: Yes.
Interesting story with that.
I was not interested in sports
in particular,
but while I was at Columbia,
there was a job on the job board
at Sport Magazine, and I
needed money to help pay my
tuition
and put myself through school.
I worked as a piano player at
night to help pay
my tuition for--for Columbia.
And so I got this job at Sport
magazine
and I started writing little
articles for them.
And then I got a couple of more
sports things or whatever.
So when I graduated, I wanted
to be a feature
writer. I wanted to write like
Tom Wolfe,
sort of like Sunday magazine
pieces.
And there was an advertisement
in Editor and
Publisher, which was the
magazine back then, if you want
to get a job in the journalism
business for--it said
feature writer wanted for
Sunday magazine in
Southeastern Daily.
They didn't tell you what the
paper was, so I got all
my clips together, which were
pretty much all sports clips,
and I sent them off and I
didn't hear from them and I
didn't hear from them. And I
went overseas to
the track and field world
championships
in Finland.
I was covering them for a
freelance for Track and
Field News and while I was over
there I was in a hotel
room and the phone rings.
I pick it up and it's all
scratchy, you know, like
overseas. And I hear this voice
says,
Is this Mitch Albom? I said,
Yeah. This is Fred Turner.
I'm the sports editor with the
Fort Lauderdale News
and Sun-Sentinel. I said, okay.
He said, You know that Sunday
magazine job you applied
for? I said, Yeah. You didn't
get it.
[Laughing]
I said, OK, you called me all
the way up in
Finland to tell me I didn't get
a job?
He said, well, the guy who was
looking at that job, he saw that
all your clips were sports
clips.
So he bought them over to me
and I've been reading them and
they're not bad. If you want a
job in sports, I got
one for you. So I flew home
from Finland.
I went down there. I got a job
as a--as a feature
writer in sports. And I've been
writing sports ever since.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
So you were doing that.
And--and then what happened is,
how did you get to Detroit?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, I worked
in Fort Lauderdale for two
years. And then Detroit, the
Detroit
Free Press had a columnist
named Mike Downey,
who some of you might know.
And he went he left there to go
to Los Angeles.
So they had an opening and they
wanted a younger writer.
And I had won some awards that
had gotten
me some attention.
And I was young and
they flew me up there.
And then interestingly, there's
a newspaper--was a
newspaper war going on in
Detroit between the Free Press
and the news. And so when the
free
press, which had this opening,
was going to hire
a new young columnist, the
news decided whether they were
going to hire a new young
columnist.
And they interviewed me.
They offered me to come
interview, too.
So I actually flew up there on
the
ticket from the Free Press and
stayed the first night
at the hotel on the bill of the
Free Press.
The next morning I checked out
and checked back
in without ever leaving.
And now I was on the bill of
the News and I flew home on the
News. And after taking those
two interviews, I was
offered the job at both places
for exactly the
same amount of money.
Which makes me wonder to this
day who was talking to who
back then. But I decided to go
with the Free Press.
It seemed like a more
aligned paper.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
And how many years were you?
>> Mitch Albom:
I'm still there. It's 30.
It's there. It's 1985.
>> David M. Rubenstein: Were
you the only reporter or feature
>> Mitch Albom: No, I was a
columnist. Was a columnist.
Hired as a columnist.
>> David M. Rubenstein: All
right. So you did that for
many years, And then you're
watching Ted Koppel
on Nightline.
And what did you see?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, 16 years
after I graduated Brandeis
and promised on my
graduation day to Morrie that I
would stay in
touch with him. I still
remember I gave him a
briefcase on my graduation.
I had never gotten a professor,
a present
ever. And I'm sure it was the
cheapest briefcase in the world
because I didn't have any
money. But he took it around and
he was like my ring.
Like it was made out of gold.
And he--he--he said, Mitch,
you're one of the good
ones. Promise me you'll stay in
touch.
I said, I will. Promise.
I said, okay, I promise.
Say it in a sentence.[Laughing]
I said, okay, Morrie, I promise
I'll stay in touch.
I promise I'll stay in touch.
And then I graduated and did
all these things that you.
>> David M. Rubenstein: You
didn’t stay in touch.
>> Mitch Albom: And didn't--not
even didn't stay in touch.
I didn't even call him for 16
years, not
even a phone call.
I was so busy being ambitious
and
following my career.
And then at age 37, when I had
achieved quite a
bit in the sportswriting world,
I was on
ESPN regularly.
I had a daily radio show, I
wrote five
columns a week, I wrote for
magazines.
I was going 90 miles an hour,
and I
happened to flip on the
Nightline program.
And there on the screen was a
thin,
white haired, sickly looking
version
of my old professor, Morrie
Schwartz,
talking to Ted Koppel about
what it was like to die from Lou
Gehrig's disease. And that's
how I discovered that he had it.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So when
you saw that,
did you immediately contact
him and say, now I want to come
stay in touch?
Or What did you do?
>> Mitch Albom:
No.
[...]
First I--first I swallowed
hard.
And then I tried to deal with
how
ashamed I was that I hadn't
contacted
him in all those years.
And then I tried to work up the
courage to make
a phone call to him, and all I
was going to
do was make a phone call.
That's how magnimonious I was in
those
days. And I still remember to
this
day exactly how that phone call
went
because I would practice the
line.
You know, I wrote out the words
and I called his
number and nurse answered.
And she handed him the phone.
Now, when I was back in
college, I used to call Morrie
“Coach.” Like a sports
affectation.
Hi, Coach. How you doing,
Coach? And I had totally
forgotten that. So when I heard
his voice on
the phone, he said, hello. I
said, Hello, Professor
Schwartz. My name is Mitch
Albom.
I was a student of yours in the
seventies.
I don't know if you remember
me.
And the first thing he said to
me after 16
years, how come you didn't call
me Coach?
So needless to
say, by the end of that
conversation, I was going to
visit him. Guilt.
Very powerful motivator.
So I arranged to go visit him.
That was supposed to be a one
time visit.
[...]
I was still so wrapped up in my
work
life that when I went to
actually
go to his neighborhood, I
rented a car at
the airport. I rented a cell
phone.
I was on the phone with ESPN
talking about
some piece we were doing, and I
drove down his block
and unbeknownst to me, it was a
warm day.
And his nurses, he had asked
his nurses to bring him
outside so that he could greet
me on the curb
and I'm coming down the street
and I see him in his
wheelchair and I hit the
brakes.
And of course, the right thing
to do would have been to take
the phone and throw it out the
window, go out and give this
man a hug, who I hadn't seen in
16 years.
And I would love to tell you
that that's what I did,
but that's not what I did.
What I did do was continue that
conversation
on the cell phone, but drop
down below the
seat. And I laid on the
floor pretending like I was
looking for my
keys or something so that I
could finish and he wouldn't see
me. Because at that point in my
life, work came
first and everything else could
wait.
Even a dying old man.
Which is a sad thing to admit
about yourself.
But it was true.
>> David M. Rubenstein: All
right, so,
you got out of the car
eventually?
>> Mitch Albom:
Yeah. About 2 hours later.
>> David M. Rubenstein: All
right. And you saw them
and greeted him.
And what did you say then?
[...]
>> Mitch Albom: He said, Let's
go inside and eat something.
I think that was the first
thing he said, which is kind
of funny, because when I used
to eat with Morrie, when he was
healthy, he used to talk
all the time while he was
eating.
And, you know, he always had
these big ideas like, you know,
follow your heart, follow your
dreams, don't worry about your
grades, don't worry about how
much money you’re making.
But he would forget to chew,
you know,
and if he used to eat egg salad
sandwiches, I
remember. And you'd be sitting
across from him and these
little yellow projectiles that
come flying out of
his mouth. So when he--he said
to me, you know,
let's go eat.
I thought, egg salad again.
But we went inside.
And that was really David, my
first.
Face to face exposure with the
ravages
of ALS, because I watched him
try to eat a
piece of tomato.
I remember. And his hand was
shaking so
much and it fell off.
And then he had to go at it
again and then it fell off and
he finally got it up to his
mouth.
And then the chewing took so
long and the swallowing took so
long. And, you know, it was
my first kind of. Dead on
realization
that this was a ravaging
disease.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
For those who aren't familiar
with that disease, it's a
progressive
neurological disease for which
there is no cure.
>> Mitch Albom:
That's right.
>> David M. Rubenstein: You can
maybe moderate the impact,
but there's no cure for it. It's
a death sentence.
Is that right?
>> Mitch Albom: Pretty much. I
mean, there are some people who
defy the odds and just sort of
plateau
at a certain level of
devastation.
But for the most part, it's
usually a
2 to 5 year pr--progression to
death.
And he you know, they usually
don't diagnose it until about
two years in. So, as they said,
tomorrow
you might have a couple of
years left when he was
diagnosed.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So
after you had your conversation
with him, did you say,
I've now met with you?
I came back and thanks very
much for
meeting with me, but I'm not
going to come back again.
Or did you say I'm going to
come back again?
>> Mitch Albom:
It was more like Morrie said
to me, Well, I was only going
to stay for an hour
and I ended up staying like 6
hours
and I took the last plane home
and he had said to me at the end
of it,
Mitch, dying is only one
thing to be sad about.
Living, unhappily, is something
else.
And when I flew home that
night,
I realized that I was 37 years
old,
perfectly healthy.
He was 78 years old and dying.
And he seemed ten times more
satisfied
with his life and more content
with his
existence than I was.
And I realized there was
something the matter with that
equation. And he had said to
me,[Coughing]
Remember when we were in
college, you used to
Tuesdays used to be our day
because I used to do
my honors thesis with him and
it was we would meet on
Tuesdays and I happened to go
see him on a
Tuesday. So he said, You want to
come back
next Tuesday, you know?
And I was like, Eh...
[Laughing]
Really? But I
did. And--and then I ended up
coming.
There was a little gap.
I went to Wimbledon and then I
came back and I
started going every--every
Tuesday.
And it turned out all the
Tuesdays that he had left.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
For how many years was that?
>> Mitch Albom:
It wasn't years. It was months.
But well, we recorded
14 Tuesdays in Tuesdays with
Morrie,
but there were a few more I
would say was it was probably
about 16 or so.
>> David M. Rubenstein: You
were recording these
because you intended to write
a book?
>> Mitch Albom: No.
No. I was recording them
because I remember I bought--I
always had a little
tape recorder with me because
that was a tool
of my trade know when you're a
sportswriter, you always have
these little micro cassette
recorders.
You hold up, you see them on
when athletes are being
interviewed. So I always had
one with me.
And about the second or third
visit
I started, I said, Is it all
right, if I tape this?
And he said to me, he
said,
Sure, sure, sure.
And I said, I just want to
listen to it one
day. And then I kind of trailed
off and he said, When I'm dead.
And I said, No, no.
And he said, Yeah, it's okay.
You can listen to it when I'm
dead.
Saying dead is not a bad word,
you know?
And that's really what I
wanted.
I could tell that he was giving
me a lot of things
that a lot of wisdom that I
would want one day.
So we were recording these
sessions.
Anyhow, the book only came
about by
accident when he said to me one
time I asked him
what he was afraid of and he
said, I'm afraid of dying a
second time. I said, What does
that mean?
He said, He said, First, I'm
going to die the
way that I'm going to die, and
then
wherever I am and I realize
that my family is going to have
to sell the house and get rid
of everything to
pay the bills that I'm leaving
behind.
Then I'm going to die again.
I'm going to die twice.
And that's when I found out how
in debt he was for
all the bills that he had
accumulated over the last couple
of years. Because ALS is, as
you point out, is a
progressive but slow disease.
And and he had massage
people and therapists and all
this stuff, a lot of stuff
that wasn't covered and they
weren't well-to-do.
And he didn't have a
particularly good settlement
with Brandeis in terms of
retirement and things.
So they didn't have the money
to pay it.
And so I got the idea that
maybe I could write a book to
help him pay his medical bills.
That's the only reason, folks,
that Tuesdays with
Morrie ever came into existence
or even as a concept.
>> David M. Rubenstein: The
the book turned out to be
an incredible bestseller. Did
the publishers
know that at the beginning?
Were people interested in this
book?
>> Mitch Albom:
No, it was quite the
opposite. I went around to
every
publisher who--who would even
deign to visit with
us. And almost every one of
them said, Not
interested. Boring.
You're a sportswriter.
What do you know about that?
One publisher said to me, I
won't say who, because
they might have relatives in
the room.
But that publisher said to
me, You don't even know what a
memoir
is. Come back in 20 years.
Maybe you'll understand what a
memoir is.
So I remember leaving that
guy's
office with my literary agent,
and I was like, in tears.
And I said, Well, why don't
they just say, no?
You know, why do they have to
rip you to shreds and then
say no?
So, I've always I've always
enjoyed the fact
that Tuesdays with Morrie is
now referred to as the best
selling memoir of all time,
because
I always wonder what happened
to that guy.
But I think he's in the food
services industry.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So you-
you've visited Morrie
how many times? 14 times?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, no, it
was a little more, but yeah,
we recorded the 14 times.
>> Mitch Albom: But we didn't--
There's an interesting thing wit
that.
We found one publisher a few
weeks before Morrie
died, Doubleday, who was
willing
to give us enough money.
I just wanted enough money to
pay his medical bills.
It was a labor of love.
Nobody thought it was going to
be a big book,
including Doubleday.
And...
I remember I went to Morrie and
I said, Hey, I got some good
news because I hadn't told them
I was trying to find a
publisher. He wanted me to
write a thesis,
[Laughing]
and I didn't have
the heart to tell him I wasn't
enrolled anywhere.
So I don't know how you write a
thesis when you're not
in an actual university.
But I went to him and I said,
Hey, I got some good
news. You know, these
conversations we've been
taping, I found a publisher
wants to put them into a book.
He said, Really?
Who? And I said, Doubleday
said, Oh, I heard of
them. I said, Yeah, but not
only that, they're
going to give us some money and
I want you to take all the money
and pay off your medical bills
and don't die twice.
And, you know, he started to
cry.
And I always say for me, that
was
kind of the culmination of
Tuesdays with Morrie, my
Tuesdays with Morrie, because I
had finally learned to
do one nice thing for
this older man who had done so
many nice things for me.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
So he died roughly,
How many months after you
began seeing--?
>> Mitch Albom:
Less than a month.
>> David M. Rubenstein: No,
after you began seeing him.
>> Mitch Albom:
Oh, seven months.
>> David M. Rubenstein: All
right. So when he died,
then you started writing
the book?
>> Mitch Albom: Yes. I didn't
write a single word
of the book until after Morrie
died.
So he's he never read a word.
>> David M. Rubenstein: How
long did it take you
to write the book?
[...]
>> Mitch Albom: It took me
about less than a year.
I only had one directive when I
wrote the book in mind, and
that was to keep it short and
simple.
I thought the worst thing that
I could do with a book
like that was to try to show
off
flowery writing about death.
You know, I wasn't going to
have sentences about the
dark apocalypse of death
descended on the
room. I just thought.
Just say what happened.
It was it was so sweet and so
moving
to me. Just write what
happened.
And interestingly, the
contract,
which I never really had a
contract like that, I had
written two sports books before
that and I always kind of knew
the parameters of sports books,
but I didn't really understand
this kind of a book.
The contract called for 320
page book.
So in those days I was still
using typewriters
and printouts and stuff like
that.
And, and so I did it and I had
like triple spaced
it and everything and, and I
had about
300 pages and I turned it in.
And after I turned it in, a
couple of weeks later,
I got a call from the publisher
and they said, Hey, we got a
problem. I said, What's the
problem?
They said, Well, we typeset
this and it's like
160 pages.
And I said, Well, that's all
there is.
You know, that's the whole
story.
I don't have anything else to
say. And to
their credit, they said, All
right, don't worry about it.
We'll just make it a smaller
book.
And so if you've ever seen
Tuesdays with Morrie, if you
have a copy of it in your
hands, it's a little book,
right? Well, the reason they
did that is because if they
made it a full size book,
it would have look like a
comic book.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
So.
>> Mitch Albom:
So they made it small.
And then after Tuesdays with
Morrie became successful.
All my books are now hobbit
sized.
[Laughing]
>> David M. Rubenstein:
So, now you signed
away the royalties to his
family.
>> Mitch Albom:
I gave them all--
>> David M. Rubenstein:
You have not received any
royalties?
>> Mitch Albom:
No, that's not true.
I gave them all the advance.
And if you understand the book
business, I imagine many of
you do. So you get an advance
for writing a
book. Most of the time you
don't clear that advance.
That advance goes against the
royalties, but if a
book becomes successful, really
successful, then you
can surpass it.
And Tuesdays with Morrie did.
So I went to Charlotte, his
wife,[Coughing] and I
said, There's going to be more
money from this
book and I don't want it.
I didn't write it for money.
You take all the money.
And she said, I don't want it,
I don't do them.
So we ended up splitting it.
And half of the money to this
day--
>> David M. Rubenstein: How
many copies have now been sold?
>> Mitch Albom: I believe it's
in the neighborhood of
18 to 20 million.
>> David M. Rubenstein: Okay.
So it's one of the best selling
books of all time, so.
[Applause]
>> David M. Rubenstein: Now,
today, you spend your time
writing other books, but
you do one other thing that
we talked about just earlier.
You have,
in effect, created an orphanage,
I guess.
It is in Haiti. Is that right?
>> Mitch Albom:
Operating an orphanage in Haiti.
>> David M. Rubenstein: And why
did you--nothing wrong with that
but how did you happen to come
to Haiti?
And why are you now going there
for
what, every couple of weeks or
so?
>> Mitch Albom: So, I went to
Haiti after the 2010
earthquake to help a pastor who
said he had an
orphanage there that he thought
had been destroyed.
And we were able to get in a
couple of weeks after the
earthquake, because I knew the
senator who was on the Armed
Forces Committee.
And so we went in before
anybody was able to fly in or
anything like that. And what I
saw was so devastating
[...]
that it never left my mind.
And the orphanage, fortunately,
had not been destroyed, but
it had been overrun with
people.
And it was just I mean, the
place was I hope they never
see anything like that again.
There were people dead in the
street.
There were people covered, and
everybody had white dust all
over them and was triage going
on wherever you looked
and mountains of rubble with
people climbing on it,
trying to pull rocks out
because they thought there might
be a loved one lost inside of
it.
And at the orphanage, I just
kind of fell in love with
the kids.
And...
I started bringing guys back
from Detroit.
And we came back the next month
and the next month, the next
month with builders,
contractors, plumbers, roofers
and and we built the first
toilets that the place
ever had and the first showers
that it ever had.
We built the kitchen, we built
the school.
But while we were doing all
that stuff,
the kids were still eating like
one cup of rice a day.
And so I said to the pastor, I
don't
understand. Like, we're coming
down all this time, what's going
on? And he said, Well, I don't
have any money to run this
place, to be honest. I'm 84
years old and I don't
I never had any money to run
it.
And so in one of those moments
like that moment with
Morrie, where I decided to go
in or out of the classroom,
I said to him, I blurted out,
Well, I could--I could probably
run this place if you want me to
I run some charities in
Detroit.
How hard could it be?
And he basically said, Thank
you,
Jesus, hallelujah. Here it is.
And and he--he's gone.
He went, he disappeared.
And I've been running it ever
since.
So and I made every mistake you
can possibly
make. But I've also had every
blessing
that a human being could ever
have.
>> David M. Rubenstein: How
many--how often have you?
>> Mitch Albom: I go every
month starting from then,
so it's almost 13 years. I'm
there every single month without
fail. And we've admitted over 65
new children that come in when
they're very, very
young. These are kids who have
been abandoned or left to die,
[...]
dropped off at medical clinics,
and nobody ever comes back
for them. Many of them, we have 
invent birth
certificates because we don't
even know when they were born or
what their names are.
But they're the most loving,
wonderful,
gracious, faithful kids
whose total possessions can fit
in a 12 inch by
12 inch cubby.
And they go to school 4 hours a
day in English,
4 hours a day in French, in a
school that we created.
And every one of them has a
college scholarship
lined up and waiting for them
should they make the
grade. And so far we've had
eight who have come
out and all of them have made
the grade.
My oldest one just graduated
4.0 summa
cum laude, and he's going to go
to medical school and one of
them is right over here.
[Applause]
And he is right over here.
[Appluase]
He's a sophomore.
[Applause]
>> Mitch Albom: So that's
a big part of my life.
And David, if I--if I can relate
that to Tuesdays with Morrie,
because I know that's why people
are here.
So...
You would say, well, why? Why
did you get involved with stuff
like that? So when I was
visiting Morrie,
I noticed something would
happen on a regular
basis. People would come to to
cheer Morrie
up. People who, you know, they
didn't know him that well, but
they saw him on TV and they
were you.
And they came and they had
always had a strategy.
They would have pictures or
photographs of their kids or
something to say, I'm going to
tell them funny stories, jokes.
And they would go into the
office where he was
frozen in his body with ALS,
couldn't
move, you know, and the door
would close
and they would come out an hour
later
in tears, but they would be
crying
about their love life, their
divorce, their
job they would have. And they
say, Well, I don't know what
happened. I went in to try to
cheer him up, but after about 5
minutes he started asking me
questions.
And so I started talking.
They started really asking me
question. And then he started he
really started crying.
You know, I wanted to try to
cheer him up.
And he ended up like giving me
therapy and cheering me up.
So I saw this happened so many
times.
So finally I said to him, I
don't get it.
Like you're the one who's dying.
You know, you can't move.
You need someone to turn your
head just so that you can look
at them. You've hit the
motherlode of
sympathy, you know, why don't
you say, let's not talk about
your problems. Let's talk about
my problems.
And he said to me,
Mitch,
why would I ever take from
people
like that? Taking just makes me
feel
like I'm dying.
Giving makes me feel like I'm
living
And it is a profound sentence.
[Applause]
And I have found that
I have really--I never forgot
that moment and
I never forgot that sentence.
And I have tried to live my
life as best I
can towards that direction and
have found that I do
feel way more alive when I
give.
And like I always say to my
wife, we have a very nice
house in Michigan and we have a
really good mattress.
It's like 100 inches or whatever
And in Haiti, we sleep on this
four inch
mattress and it’s you
know, you only
get power about 8 hours a day
if you're lucky.
And it's always stifling hot.
So but I always sleep so
well in Haiti, and I always say
it's
because I'm doing something
that matters, you
know, I know I'm actually
needed here.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So on
ALS, for those
who aren't familiar with it,
your
brain stays pretty much the
same and your ability
to talk and so forth, if you
can communicate, is still good.
Your brain's working. It's the
rest of the body that
deteriorates, right?
So when you were seeing Morrie,
he--
his brain was as sharp as it
had ever been.
It's just the rest of the body
was deteriorating.
>> Mitch Albom: That's the
cruelest part of that disease.
And for Morrie, he was lucky
because he could still talk
right up until the end.
>> David M. Rubenstein: And
we've made--
since Lou Gehrig famously got
this
and it was named by some Lou
Gehrig's disease.
We've made modest progress in
curing
this problem and no progress
in figuring out
where it really comes from.
That right?
>> Mitch Albom:
That's pretty accurate.
Yeah. There have been some
small developments
in staving it off a little bit,
but
nothing close to a cure.
>> David M. Rubenstein: Okay,
so we have 10 minutes left
and we have time--Mitch has
agreed to have--
answer some questions.
If anybody has any questions
from the audience, go up to the
mics and ask your question
and just make it a question,
not a statement.
If you could and anybody have
any
questions, anybody stand up.
If not, I have some more. Oh,
there's one. Okay.
>> Audience Member:
Good afternoon, and I
have a question and a
statement.
I just think your books are
absolutely beautiful.
>> Mitch Albom: Thank you.
>> Audience Member: But my
question is,
what is your writing style?
Your characters are
always so developed.
Like what goes into
creating your
characters and your and your
book ideas?
>> Mitch Albom: Well, thank you
for the nice words.
I try to have an idea
before I write a book about
[...]
the concept that I want to
write about.
A lot of people create like
plots or things like that and
then go from there.
I don't ever do that.
I say, Oh, I want to write a
book about
like The Five People You Meet
in Heaven.
I didn't want to write a book
about heaven.
I didn't have that idea. I
wanted to write a book about the
fact that people think they
don't matter
and everybody matters.
I had an uncle who just thought
he didn't matter and he was
a nobody, and that's how he
used to talk.
And I said, what can I come up
with
to get that concept?
And that's when I come up with
the idea, well, what if?
Okay, how about if a guy goes
to heaven and he meets five
people from his life who tell
him how he
mattered on earth? So for me,
it's the concept
first and the characters
second, you know, as
opposed to someone gets an
idea, I want to write about a
stockbroker, and then they try
to create a story.
So I always and David had asked
me, Do you know
the endings of your books when
you start?
And the answer is yes.
Like I always have to have sort
of a North
Star that I'm sailing to and
The Five People You Meet in
Heaven, for example, I knew who
the fifth character was going to
be. If you've read the book,
you know, that's a very
important part of that
story. But I have a lot of
writer
friends who say to me, Oh, I
don't know where a book is
going. When I started, I just
let the characters tell me.
And I said, What do you mean
you let your characters tell
you? You know, like I opened
the door on my
characters, and if I said to
them, Tell me where we're going
today. And they'd go, Hey,
we're on the clock here, you
know, like you created us.
You tell us where we're going.
So I have to have kind of the
point of it
in mind before I go on.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
So I should have asked you.
There was a TV documentary
about
not a TV movie--movie.
And Jack Lemmon played
Morrie. I forget who played--
>> Mitch Albom:
Hank Azaria.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
Who played you?
>> Mitch Albom:
Hank Azaria.
>> David M. Rubenstein: And did
you want
Robert Redford or somebody like
that to play you or?
[Laughing]
>> Mitch Albom: No, I didn't. I
didn't give it a lot of thought.
I went to the movie set one
time.
[...]
I walked out. I'd never been in
a movie set
before. And Oprah Winfrey made
the movie, and she
invited me to come to the set.
And I just drove myself there.
And I guess nobody ever drives
themselves there.
So I pulled up and they told me
where it was and I saw a
door. I wasn't sure if it was
right door, but I thought, well,
this must be the door because
there's a red light outside and
it's spinning. So I just went
to
the door and I opened it up and
I didn't understand that a red
light spinning means that
they're filming.
So I opened the door and I
heard, Cut, you know,
who is that? And then somebody
said, That's the guy who wrote
the book. Oh, okay.
Well, come on in. So I ruined
the--
I arrived and I ruined the
take.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
Question here.
>> Audience Member: Yes. 
I read--
I read a number of your books,
but
I actually have a question
about your sportswriting career.
>> Mitch Albom:
Okay.
>> Audience Member: So as a
person who writes for Detroit
Sports and with football
starting this season, what do
you think of the Lions’ chances?
[Laughing]
>> Mitch Albom:
We were having such a good time.
[Laughing]
>> Mitch Albom: Why would you
bring me down like that?
[Laughing]
>> Mitch Albom: 
The Lions are--
>> Audience Member:
Maybe you can bring hope.
>> Mitch Albom: Well, yeah,
that's a lot of hope.
[Laughing]
You know, I keep saying I'll
keep writing sports until
the Lions win a Super Bowl, and
I think I'm running out of time.
Let's put it that way.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
All right. Right here.
Question?
>> Audience Member:
Hi. Good morning.
I just wanted to say that I
always--I read your book
so many times, and I've always
felt so moved by them and
so. What was the hardest scene
for you to write
in Tuesdays with Morrie and how
did you go about that?
[...]
[Coughing]
[...]
>> Mitch Albom:
Probably the--the final one.
To try to get across
what it was like to know that
you
weren't going to see him again.
And it was pretty obvious to
me, and
[...]
you know, when I--it's worth
mentioning, since we're wrapping
up the last conversation that
Morrie and I had, really,
[...]
he said to me,
[...]
I want to ask you a favor.
He was in bed.
I remember that he had never
been in bed before.
It was always in his office.
Morrie always said, If you're
in bed, you're dead.
And so he never wanted to be in
bed, but he was in bed.
And that's how I knew we were
at the end.
And he was so small. His body
was withered up that under the
covers, he looked like a little
boy.
And he held my hand.
He was squeezing my hand. He
said, I want to ask you a favor.
I said, okay. He said, after
I'm dead, I want you to
come to my grave.
So what? I was going to do
that.
And he said, not the way
everybody else
comes. Don't leave the car
running.
Get out. Put down flowers.
Get back in. Come when you have
some time.
Bring a blanket.
Bring some sandwiches and
talk to me.
And I said, Wait a minute.
You want me to come to a
cemetery, have a
picnic at your tombstone and
talk
to the air? And he said,
Exactly, just
like we're talking now.
And I said, Well, Morrie, it's
not going to be like we're
talking now because you won't
be able to talk
back. And he looked at me as if
I were being
very naive. And he said, Well,
Mitch, I'll make you a deal.
After I'm dead,
You talk.
I'll listen.
[Laughing]
And I'm not
sure I understood at the time
that I was
writing the book the
significance of that
little interaction.
But I do now, and that is that
if you lead your life as Morrie
did if you make people a
priority and experiences with
other people or priority not
work not money but people then
when you
die, you're not 100% gone.
You live on inside the heads
and the hearts of everybody you
touched and they can talk to
you.
Not ghost seance talk, but they
talk to you
because they hear your voice.
You know how many times after
someone's passed away and you're
at Thanksgiving, you say, Oh,
if Uncle Jack was here, he'd
say, Those mashed potatoes are
no good, because you
remember the sentences that
they put inside your brain,
right? But if you spend all day
working like I had
done for so much of my life or
trying to
get famous or whatever it is,
then when you die, you're not.
You're really gone, you know,
because you didn't spend any
time giving away that voice
that's inside you.
And so when Morrie says, you
know, you talk, I'll listen to
reason. I can sit here with you
25 years later.
And remember, everything he
said is because
he spent all that time with me,
even when he was
dying, putting that inside me.
So it rings around in my heart
and in my head even after he's
gone. So that was the toughest
thing,
but the most significant one,
too.
>> David M. Rubenstein:
We have 2 minutes.
So is there one more question
or is that? No? Ok,
>> Mitch Albom: Well, you're
in there right here.
>> David M. Rubenstein: 
Where? Oh, there.
One more question. Okay.
>> Audience Member: Hey. Hello.
Thank you so much for coming out
I’ve read you for so long.
I think I first read you in
high school when you're writing
about the Fab Five.
>> Mitch Albom: Yeah.
>> Audience Member: And so
I was really engaged.
And then I fell in love with
Chick Bonito and won for one
more day.
>> Mitch Albom: Thank you.
>> Audience Member: As well as
the class
I was teaching a bunch of kids
that were sort of
pigeonholed and thought they
were one thing.
And I was wondering if you
could talk to students
today, what would you recommend
to somebody who was sort of
wanting to be more than one
thing society sort of put them
in one place?
>> Mitch Albom:
That's a great question.
And, you know, I asked that same
question
of a woman you probably never
heard of named
Maya Angelou. She came
to do a radio.
I'm kidding about that. Never
heard of it.
She she came to do a radio
interview at a place I
was doing a show. And after she
was done,
this was when I was trying to
get--I was
writing Tuesday With Morrie
there was some pushback
of people saying, you're a
sportswriter, you know, what are
you writing a book like this?
You're a sportswriter.
And I said to her, Do you ever
have
anybody tell you?
Because you've written plays
and movies and
songs and books and fiction
and nonfiction.
You have anybody tell you, just
stick to one
thing? And she said, Yes,
I have. And it's the cruelest
thing that you can say to
anybody. And I say, Why do you
say it's cruel?
And she said, Because it's like
telling a bird not to fly.
And I always remembered that.
I said, well, if Maya Angelou
is getting it, then I can
certainly put up with it
because,
you know, she proved them
wrong.
And that helped me.
You know, I ended up I've
written plays, I've written
musicals, I've written movies,
I've written
screenplays, non-fiction,
fiction,
sports not. And I've always
felt
I'm a storyteller.
That's all I really know how to
do.
I don't have no other talents,
but I can tell the
story and I can tell it in
different forms.
And nobody should tell any of
your kids, students or
anything to be one thing who
says,
you know, people who want other
people to be one thing or just
dissatisfied that they can't be
the
one or more than one
themselves.
So I would encourage them to do
everything.
Be birds, fly, you know, and
tell them Maya Angelou
said it, not Mitch Albom.
>> David M. Rubenstein: So I
want to thank you very much
for this--
[Applause]
>> Mitch Albom: Thank you all.
[Applause]
Yes.
>> David M. Rubenstein: Okay.
So,
if people want--and Mitch is
going
to be here to sign books and
you can find out where it is and
he'll be here to sign your
book. And thank you all very
much. And thank you, Mitch.
>> Mitch Albom:
Thank you all.