Bernie's Time Machine: Holding the Record for Holding Records

Ashrita Furman's life mission.

“This is a spiritual quest.”

In 2009, while working on HBO’s Real Sports, I met a very fascinating man: Ashrita Furman. Furman held the world record for… well, holding the most world records —Guinness World Records, to be exact.

At the time, the number was getting close to 100. He went on to set over 600 world records, and still currently holds over 200. Why has he dedicated so much of his time to this hobby? I think my piece explains it well.

By the way, you’ll notice that at one point Furman gets physical with me. I’ve been asked before if I knew that was going to happen ahead of time. I did not. And when I found out that my producer did know, I almost murdered him.