A lot of my guests are Nobel Prize winners, actors, well-known public figures of some sort.

If you're famous, you can be a little bit less interesting and still keep people's attention.

If you aren't a household name, then you need to have lived a truly fascinating life.

Like today's guest, Caroline Paul.

I'm well versed in adrenaline.

Of course, adrenaline had been part of getting up on a wing in midair, but there was

something else, and I was not well versed in the concept of awe.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Leavitt.

Caroline has been a firefighter and a lifelong adventure and rulebreaker.

She's also incredibly smart and reflective.

We talk about everything from facing fear to finding awe to embracing old age.

Caroline is basically fearless, but for me, the most interesting parts of the conversation are the moments where she reveals

for vulnerability. You've had so many amazing experiences, incredible adventures that will make people say,

wow, I wish I could do that too.

But I want to start with something few people would willingly do and that's searching for dead bodies in the San Francisco Bay.

Can you describe that experience and I do not want the sugar-coated version.

I don't think there is a sugar-coated version actually.

When I was a firefighter for San Francisco, which I did for 14 years,

from 1989 to 2003-ish.

One of the things I really wanted to be was on the Rescue Squad.

The Rescue Squad went in without a hose line just to rescue.

But we also did all just to rescue.

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