“I could do that!” Stories of improbable confidence

What’s a sentence that invites the universe to call your bluff?

“I could do that!”

Meet three people who said it, and then had to live it.

Christopher Lamar runs Lunar Embassy, a company that sells deeds to plots on the Moon and other celestial bodies. Logan Goodspeed learns what happens when you casually claim you could run a marathon “with 24 hours’ notice,” and your spouse takes that seriously. And Mandle Cheung, a tech CEO and devoted music lover, writes a huge check to fund a Mahler concert, so he can conduct the Toronto Symphony Orchestra himself.

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GUESTS:

• Christopher Lamar: CEO of Lunar Embassy, a company that sells deeds to plots on the Moon and other celestial bodies. The business was founded by his father, Dennis Hope, in 1980

• Logan Goodspeed: A 32-year-old software engineer from California who ran the Rock ’n’ Roll San Diego Marathon with about 24 hours’ notice and no formal training

• Mandle Cheung: A 78-year-old technology CEO and amateur conductor who founded Mandle Philharmonic in 2018. In June 2025, he personally funded a one-night performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) and conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Jessica Severin de Martinez, Meg Fitzgerald, and Robyn Doyon-Aitken contributed to this show, with help from Coco Cooley.

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