#129: Recommendations and Resolutions for 2016 - Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss

This episode is ~99% serious recommendations and resolutions for 2016. But I am joined by tech entrepreneur and investor, Kevin Rose https://twitter.com/kevinrose, so it's at least 1% shenanigans. The conversation is also a new experiment for The Random Show http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/. O-tanoshimi dane! For all previous episodes of The Random Show http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/, including the infamous China Scam episode http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/10/08/random-episode-6-how-kevin-rose-and-glenn-mcelhose-got-scammed-in-china-ha/, click here http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/. ### This episode is brought to you by Headspace https://www.headspace.com/tim, the world's most popular meditation app (More than 4,000,000 users). It's used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it. Try Headspace's free Take10 program https://www.headspace.com/tim -- 10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It's like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn't need to be complicated or expensive, and it's had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free https://www.headspace.com/tim for a few days and see what I mean. This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront https://wealthfront.com/tim. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last 2 years and now has more than $2.5B under management. In fact, some of my good investor friends in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it's all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams. Check out wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they'll show you—for free–exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Headspace. More than 80% of the people I have interviewed, world-class performers across the military, entertainment, sports, and beyond, all have some type of meditative practice. I tried for years and years and failed miserably. The key is making it simple, and you can dramatically improve your life in just 10 minutes a day, and technology can help you. This change comes through guided meditation, and Headspace is by far the most popular app for this purpose. More than 4 million users, it's meditation made simple. So what I recommend is that you take this practice, meditation, which is rooted in thousands of years of tradition, supported by thousands of scientific studies, and try

• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

  it for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. That's all you need to do. You could also check out the founder, Andy Puddicombe's TED Talk, which has more than 5.5 million views. His last name is P U D D I C O M B E, if you want to look that up. But otherwise, download the free Headspace app, I have it on my phone, and begin their Take 10 program. For 10 days of guided meditation, completely free, 10 minutes a day, that's all it takes, you should give it a shot. Headspace.com/Tim. Just go to Headspace.com/Tim.

• 1:41Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, et cetera. And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim.

• 2:26Tim Ferriss?

  Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis, but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint. And little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et cetera,

• 3:08Tim Ferriss?

  can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first $15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free, there's no downside that I can think of. Take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim.

• 3:55Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a special episode with Kevin Rose, revisited. Kevin is a very close friend of mine. He now lives in New York. He is a well-known entrepreneur, venture capitalist. He's an advisor to Google Ventures, also now CEO of Hodinkee. He was formerly involved with Watchville and is now in the luxury goods market that is being... Distermediated and disrupted with technology. Very interesting fellow. And we often do a video show together called The Random Show, or we used to when we lived in San Francisco together. But he's now in NYC. I am usually in SF. And we have not done many of these shows. So we decided to give audio a shot.

• 4:38Tim Ferriss?

  And please let us know if you enjoy this. And here we go. The Random Show with Timbo and Kev Kev. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Tim Ferriss.

• 4:48Kevin Rose?

  And this is Kevin Rose. Welcome to a brand new edition of The Random Show. Happy 2016.

• 4:53Tim Ferriss?

  Happy 2016. Happy New Year, man. It's gonna be, it's gonna be an exciting year. I could feel it in my, my, my bones, my old man bones. What did I do in 2016 so far?

• 5:05Kevin Rose?

  Oh, just like, what did you do for New Year's? Like, what was the, I want to know where you were, what you did.

• 5:10Tim Ferriss?

  I decided to bring my parents and brother to the Bahamas because they had last been 36 years ago when I was two years old and had always reminisced and spoke of the Bahamas fondly and pined after returning. And I just decided, or observed that none of us are getting any younger and decided to bring everybody here for Christmas and New Year's, which I'm in a very fortunate position to be able to do, of course. But what, what I realized, because this is the second time I've taken my family on a trip for Christmas and New Year's, is that when you set plans, say, early in the year, or even halfway through the year,

• 5:53Tim Ferriss?

  you get at least six months of anticipation and talking about it and dreaming about it and brainstorming things you're gonna do with your family. And it's, at least half the benefit is just being able to put it in the calendar and have the benefit of that anticipation. It's kind of like as a kid looking forward to Christmas, but you just have to schedule your own Christmas. Since generally as an adult, you're not, you know, running down the stairs in your PJs to tear things open. But that's what I did. What about yourself?

• 6:25Kevin Rose?

  I was just here in New York and it was pretty, pretty relaxing. But for Christmas, I actually went out to Las Vegas, of all places. My family's based out there. So I had my wife's family and my family get together at, at a resort, the Red Rock Casino out there. And we actually watched Star Wars and just kind of chilled and had some good food. And yeah, it was awesome.

• 6:47Tim Ferriss?

  What's, do you have any particular routine or ritual just before New Year's or on New Year's or after New Year's?

• 6:56Kevin Rose?

  Definitely, I mean, every year we talk about New Year's resolutions. I don't really stick to them, but I've definitely, you know, have that, that ritual of, of the very next morning, like just starting things anew and trying to track, you know, what it is I'm, I'm trying to achieve this coming year. So I did that this year as well. I've got another list of.

• 7:17Tim Ferriss?

  Things you're not gonna follow?

• 7:18Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, exactly. Although, you know, I have done, you know me, I've done a few things in the past, like, for example, I haven't had a soda. This marks my 16th year without having soda, which is kind of nuts.

• 7:30Tim Ferriss?

  No kidding? I didn't know that, actually. 16?

• 7:32Kevin Rose?

  Didn't know that.

• 7:32Tim Ferriss?

  Wow. That's great.

• 7:34Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, it was just one of those things where it was New Year's 2000. Everyone was, was telling and sitting around and talking about the resolutions and I was like, you know, I've, I've kind of wanted to give up soda. It's one of those things where it's just, for me, it was, um, it was something I would consume a couple of times a day, you know? Back then I would crack open a Dr. Pepper or Coke or whatever, and I didn't do any of that, that diet crap. I just went full, full sugar. Um, or I guess it would be full corn syrup.

• 8:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 8:00Kevin Rose?

  Even worse. Um, but you know, I was doing that and then I just, I had to get off of it. I was like, gosh, I gotta start really watching my health and this was kind of the first step in that direction. Um, and so, you know, I gave it up and I weaned myself off initially. The first few months were extremely difficult and I was able to do it by actually using a substitute. So for me, that was juice.

• 8:24Tim Ferriss?

  I was waiting for heroin or?

• 8:26Kevin Rose?

  Exactly. Yeah. It was crank and I just, uh, got really addicted. Uh, no, but seriously, I, um, I, I started doing juice and juice would give me that, that kind of sugar high that I was used to getting from soda. Um, still not, uh, ideal and, but then from there I was able to slowly kind of dilute my juice down, uh, consume less sugar. I, it's, listen, it's sugar addiction and soda addiction is a real thing.

• 8:52Tim Ferriss?

  No, I was just imagining you with a t-shirt on that says dilute my juice.

• 8:58Kevin Rose?

  You need to start a t-shirt company.

• 8:59Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I do. My buddies and I were talking, we were just kind of pulling these weird combinations of words that came up in conversation after a few glasses of wine. There was another one called Journeyman Palooka. And the Palooka, apparently, I should look this up, but a Palooka, I think, is effectively, it's like the Jimmy Jones of professional wrestling, those guys with real human names who whose sole purpose is to get thrown around and destroyed by the guys who have the cool names like The Rock.

• 9:31Kevin Rose?

  Right.

• 9:32Tim Ferriss?

  And so someone who's sort of continually, here we go, a mediocre or inferior boxer, that's it. A Palooka is a person, P-A-L-O-O-K-A, although there's UKA also, is the guy they bring into the training camp to make the champ feel good when he's training. So he just gets to, like, body shot them and knock them down.

• 9:51Kevin Rose?

  Right, totally.

• 9:52Tim Ferriss?

  That's a Palooka. So someone who is basically forever a career Palooka is a Journeyman Palooka. But not sure how we got onto that. There's a-

• 10:01Kevin Rose?

  We could create a t-shirt out of that.

• 10:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about doing t-shirts for a while, and I've chatted with the guys at Teespring, for instance, who are fantastic. And I don't know why I haven't pulled the trigger. It's one of those things that I need to review. And what I was gonna say is, for the last four or five years, the habit that I've gotten into before setting any type of resolutions is to do a complete review of the previous year. So I go through a couple of different things. I look over quotes that I've collected, for instance. I look over, I go through my entire ICal or calendar, week by week, and I note down, basically do an 80/20 analysis of my emotions, the emotional extremes. So the things I loved

• 10:46Tim Ferriss?

  and the things I hated. And I make a list of the things that I loved and the things that I hated and don't want to spend more time, energy, resources on. And then I review two other journals, the five minute journal, which people have heard me talk about, and then the morning pages. And I go through and I figure things out or try to identify things like, why haven't I followed certain resolutions and followed others? Right? So I realized if I looked back at, say, my resolutions for 2013 or 2014, I had no more startups, right? And I also had no more interviews. Now, the startups, I-

• 11:26Kevin Rose?

  You were serious about this. When you say startups, you mean starting a startup? Or you were actually talking about investing in startups? Is that right?

• 11:31Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. That's right. I was talking about no more investing in new startups. And I was able to pull the trigger on that this last year, 2015, and wrote a long post on all of my reasons for taking a startup vacation, but why, in broader terms, it's important to say no and how to go about doing it. And but then you look at like, no interviews, right? No media interviews. I haven't been able to stick with that. And so I'll sit down and I'll try to figure out, I know this isn't generally pleasurable for me. I know it can backfire when you get misquoted. Why do I continue to do media interviews?

• 12:07Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, but it's important for your relevance, though. You know that.

• 12:09Tim Ferriss?

  But I don't, I'm not convinced it is at this point, because I've spent so much energy putting out 600-plus blog posts and writing and putting out the podcasts and so on. I feel like for me to justify spending an hour on the phone with someone when they're going to pull out one or two quotes, probably misquote me and slide it into-

• 12:32Kevin Rose?

  No doubt. You gotta pick your poison, right?

• 12:34Tim Ferriss?

  It's like, I have to ask myself if that time would not be better spent doing something either I enjoy, which doesn't have to be productive, right? Like binge watching Archer, which I've been doing while on the island. It's so fantastic. Oh, my God. And then, or doing something like working on my own content, right? Because I feel like I get a better ROI. So that's the type of review that I've been doing. And the only other habit aside, as I'm reviewing, I'll also make a list based on the things that I loved in the last year, or other ideas of the fun stuff to schedule. Because what I've realized about myself, and I think this is true for a lot of people, is that if they don't pre-schedule the fun stuff-

• 13:22Tim Ferriss?

  Like week-long trips to ABC, what pack trips, whatever it might be, and I have a list of stuff for 2016 that I'd like to do. The work or other, or some type of frivolous bullshit, like just sitting on social media, will swell to fill the void, right? It'll expand to fill that space. So that's, that's sort of where I'm going. What are, do you have anything in particular that you want to do? Not just resolutions, we're going to talk about that, like behaviors, but any new types of trips or experiences?

• 13:53Kevin Rose?

  You know, a lot of that was, a lot of that was this last year. You know, we, at some point, Daria and I are gonna, my wife and I, Daria, are gonna have kids. And you know, we've talked about this, Tim, and like, I think that you kind of want to prepare for that and get a lot of these experiences and things that you want to do while you're still young and kidless, kind of out of the way. So I've spent a lot of time trying to knock out that list, travel-wise. So you know, anytime I can do something for work, travel-wise, I tend to tack on a couple extra days so that Daria can go along with and so that we can have, you know, fun together as a couple. So for example, in a couple of weeks, I'm heading off to Geneva, Switzerland for a conference

• 14:36Kevin Rose?

  that I need to attend. I'll be there for three days and then, you know, we're going three days early so we get a weekend time and then just kind of like, make that a thing, make that a mini-vacation, you know? And then honestly, one of the things that I did for the first time this last year that I will do again this year, is take a few days. And typically, I do this with a holiday weekend where you have already baked in three days off and add on a couple of days on top of that, you can get a full week and do a staycation, where you just stay at home and really focus on the stuff that you really, really want to do but never actually have time to do. I'm not talking about chores, but more just like personal improvement stuff or things that you just, you know, every single week, it just, it gets pushed to the next week, you know?

• 15:21Tim Ferriss?

  What are those things for you?

• 15:23Kevin Rose?

  Oh gosh, for me, it's around organization and you know, little dumb things like cleaning off my desktop on my computer. That feels so good, you know, like getting to inbox zero on one of my personal accounts, you know, just little things that getting into the sauna or starting something new. Like, you know, I'll talk about the Wim Hof method, which I know you've interviewed him on your podcast. I'm now going into week four on that and that was that was something I started during my staycation. So, uh, yeah.

• 15:52Tim Ferriss?

  Very cool. Yeah, I've, uh, I want to ask for some help from folks. So a couple of things on my list, seven to 10 day water only fast, already did that, uh, which I'll hopefully have some reports on for folks.

• 16:03Kevin Rose?

  Talk about that anywhere on any of your other podcasts?

• 16:07Tim Ferriss?

  No, I haven't really gone into detail. So I did a 10 day water only fast.

• 16:11Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, we've both done fasting in the past. The most I've ever done is 24 hour fast. I did a juice fast of three days, just juice only. But I'm really curious, like, uh, can you give us the, the quick little rundown of why and what it felt like?

• 16:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the rundown of why is, is easy. There's quite a bit of data to suggest both clinical, you know, in the scientific literature and just empirical from, from friends of mine who do a lot of work with, with fasting, some, you know, a lot of which is unpublished at this point. But talking to people like Dominic D'Agostino, Dom D'Agostino, for anyone interested in fasting or preventing cancer, ketogenic diet, that's the podcast to listen to. We cover everything. Uh, it appears to be a very effective way to purge precancerous cells. So if you're old, if you're over the age of say 35 or 40, I think the number I've

• 17:07Tim Ferriss?

  heard is something like 70% of people have cancerous cells that could become potentially problematic later, right? And it's not so much a problem that you have mutations that have caused cancerous cells. It's when they grow out of control or become malignant or metastasize that you get yourself into trouble. So fasting. At this point, my personal protocol is I'm trying to do one full day a week, intermittent fasting. I've been doing intermittent fasting for the last 14 days or so because there's a lot of, the Bahamas are not known for being slow carb or keto friendly. So I'm having rice for my evening meal, but I'm fasting until about 12 or 12pm or 1pm.

• 17:53Tim Ferriss?

  And then eating in say a six hour, six to eight hour window. But the, the protocol, if we're looking at strict fasting, not the, just say 12 to 18 hour fast, I'm looking at 24 hours a week, one three day fast a month, and then one seven to 10 day fast per quarter. Now, I've, I've actually only stuck to the longer fasts once every six months or so because you do pay a productivity penalty. You, you, the, the trick, if you're doing a longer fast like that, and you should never do it without medical supervision. I've realized there, there, there are some kind of ketoacidosis as a diabetic is not the only thing that you would have to worry about.

• 18:35Tim Ferriss?

  There are other things that can go sideways. So you really want to ensure that you have medical supervision if you're doing a longer fast of any type. But the, I'm going to have some, some data to share on this, but I really want to look through it all. Based on DEXA scans and bio impedance and all sorts of stuff that I tracked, I didn't lose any muscle mass over, it was effectively a nine and a half day fast. And there are a bunch of tricks that you can use for that, but one of the most important aspects of threading that needle is getting into ketosis where your body's using body fat as fuel as opposed to glucose, blood sugar. It is getting into ketosis as quickly as possible because what, what a lot of folks will do is say juice fast

• 19:20Tim Ferriss?

  or they'll just go full starvation and won't expedite the process of getting into ketosis. So they have three or four days where they're effectively eating muscle tissue. And that's being broken down into amino acids that the liver then converts to glucose through something called gluconeogenesis. So I'm doing a lot of experimentation with this. Dom D'Agostino is the guy that I rely on. So people should definitely listen to that, that podcast. As far as how I felt, there, I was able to.

• 19:51Tim Ferriss?

  Work as much or as little as I wanted. I did light exercise and there were really only, I would say, two days out of the nine where I was just a whiny little bitch who wasn't getting anything done. And it was a good thing that I, I, I set parameters for myself so that I wouldn't send off a bunch of really bitchy emails to people and create a mess for myself. So, uh, so yeah, yeah. So anyway, that was uh,

• 20:19Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, I've, I've done a handful of these fasts in the past and I will tell you that, you know, I, I tried like any rookie does when he first gets started with this stuff. I tried to juice fast as my first one. And that was a horrible experience.

• 20:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's the worst.

• 20:32Kevin Rose?

  You're, you're right. You don't get into ketosis. I had to like run to the bathroom. Uh, you probably know why, uh, just because your gut just explodes into the toilet.

• 20:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. If you're consuming that much fruit juice, you just get disaster pants all day. It's terrible.

• 20:45Kevin Rose?

  It was really bad. But then I would say, you know, you were talking about a little bit too. And I remember Hugh Jackman, um, had an interview on 2020 where they asked him how it gets so ripped to be to play the, the role of Wolverine. And he said, well, The Rock actually gave me his secret. And this sounds really silly, but it was intermittent fasting. He said, I intermittent fast. He goes, I go 16 hours fast every single day when I'm shooting the movie and then I eat for, for eight hours. And, uh, he was, he, that's what he did. So I started trying that. I probably did intermittent fasting, I would say, um, I don't know, maybe two months out of last year. And it, it gets you shredded quick. Uh, so that was a lot of

• 21:26Kevin Rose?

  fun. Um, and it, and it is a nice little kick in the pants to get you into keto faster. Um, so you know, I'm, I'm excited to try. The, one of the other things that I saw that I don't know if you've seen the, the study that came, came out here a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was about a month ago, was this thing called mimic fasting. Have you heard of that?

• 21:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. The, the, uh, fast mimicking diet. I think that's,

• 21:46Kevin Rose?

  That's right.

• 21:46Tim Ferriss?

  I want to say that's, uh, Longos, based on Longos research. Why don't you explain for people what that is? I have some reservations about it, but there are definitely people who are following this protocol.

• 21:59Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, so it's, it's, there was a paper that came out about it that essentially, you know, they talk about some of the really big benefits, and I'm not just talking like a flat stomach, but more of the stuff that Tim was talking about along the lines of, of anti-cancer and some other things kicking in as you get into the kind of longer duration fasts, you know, so once you're day two, three, and, and on. And so, um, it's really difficult, though, as anyone will tell you, when you do these really long fasts. So, this, the idea was that they could mimic fasting by serving you things like, um, really lightweight broths and soups. So you are still consuming some calories, but they're, they're, it's not a ton. Um, and you have a couple of these little tiny, kind of, um, broth-based meals

• 22:42Kevin Rose?

  per day. Your body, your body still goes into the fasting state, but it's not as brutal as the traditional full-on, just water fast.

• 22:49Tim Ferriss?

  It's something like four to, I want to say it's less than 400 calories a day, or something like that.

• 22:55Kevin Rose?

  Something like that, that's right.

• 22:56Tim Ferriss?

  The, now, I, I will say there is, or there are some data, if you want to get technical about it, that it would seem to indicate that pure fasting still exceeds the benefits of low or severe caloric restriction in terms of lowering IGF-1 and so on. Now, one could then debate whether lowering IGF-1, in fact, extends longevity in the same way that you could argue about whether lowering homocysteine decreases inflammation. And there's, there's a lot of debate about both of those. But, but that's, yeah, so that, that's the first thing on the list. I already knocked it off. I was going to do that in

• 23:36Tim Ferriss?

  2016, but I did it in 2000, towards the end of 2015, and I'll do it again. Um, one thing I'd love recommendations from, for people listening, is I'd, I'd like to create some short films. And what I realized is...

• 23:51Tim Ferriss?

  I need to do more things just for the fuck of it. And for instance, hiring people or paying creatives just to make cool shit without any profit motive whatsoever. So if I can find high endurance creatives to help make, for instance, short films, I eventually want to do some feature film stuff. And when I was chatting, I think it was with Robert Rodriguez, I got the idea of, or I didn't, maybe he gave me the idea of making a few short films. And I think Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen also said this, so that I could go from start to finish in a micro sense, from drafting up the screenplay, so to speak, doing the storyboarding, working with a full team, director, et cetera.

• 24:34Tim Ferriss?

  And so I think that's something I'm going to do, maybe make a couple of five to 10 minute short films. And if anyone has any particular recommendations for that, I am all ears. So please just hit us up on Twitter, hashtag random show. While we're at it, Kevin, what's your Twitter handle? At Kevin Rose. And I am at T Ferris, because I'm an idiot and didn't get Tim Ferriss, but at T F E R R I S S. Other things that I would love recommendations on, I've never been to Montreal and I've been dying to go to Montreal. So if people have recommendations for when to go, what to do, hashtag random show, let me know, Montreal.

• 25:17Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so I'm focusing on body weight exercises and gymnastics training. There's a very interesting guy, I think it's Chris Summers with gymnastics bodies, gymnastic bodies, which I follow on Instagram. And I've pinged a couple of my buddies, like Max Shank is another one who's very interesting to check out. And I want to focus on doing two moves and you can Google these because it's a bit of a hassle to visualize. A planche, you know what, fuck it, I'll take a stab at describing it. So a planche push up is where you're on, you're flat on your hands or on your fingertips and your legs are spread. You're in a push up position and your feet are off the ground.

• 26:00Tim Ferriss?

  What that means is you have to lean forward so that your shoulders are way ahead of your hands. So I want to be, I want to get to the point where I can do a comfortable planche or planche push up. And also something called a front lever, which is kind of almost the upside down version of a planche in a way. But you're hanging from a bar and your body is completely. Parallel to the ground like you're levitating, but of course you're connected through your arms to the bar. So people have recommendations for any particular exercises that have helped them with Quantum Leaps in progress with either of those. #RandomShow, let me know. Would love to hear about it.

• 26:39Kevin Rose?

  I'm looking at the planch push-up right now. There's no way in hell you're gonna pull this off.

• 26:42Tim Ferriss?

  I am optimistic.

• 26:45Kevin Rose?

  It's like little tiny dudes doing this.

• 26:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, they tend to be a little small, but there are beefier dudes who do it. And I'm optimistic. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a shot. I might have to like cut off my legs at the knees or, or lose a lot of quadzilla size in my legs, but I'm optimistic. So I'm working on that. It definitely does not help if you have a lot of extra weight in your legs to do either of those things.

• 27:14Kevin Rose?

  So is this one of your New Year's resolutions or just something you want to do in general?

• 27:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I would say it's a New Year's resolution. I want to get, those are two movements that I'd like to stick. I would also like to do, to get to the point where I can do a slow, I'm gonna fuck up the terminology here. Sorry for the cursing, guys. Got criticized because some people listen to these with their, with their kids, but alas, from Long Island, I apologize. The, I'd like to be able to do a slow handstand from standing with legs together, knees locked, where I just slowly go down to palms on the floor and then I guess I would be in a pike position, just go straight up to a handstand and I can like lower my feet down, tap the toes, come back up. I'd like to get to that point as well.

• 27:57Kevin Rose?

  That sounds doable.

• 27:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. It looks more doable than the planch, yes.

• 28:03Kevin Rose?

  So I told you what I've been doing for my core strength, right? Did I mention this to you? The Pilates thing?

• 28:10Tim Ferriss?

  I was gonna, no, you didn't mention it to me.

• 28:13Kevin Rose?

  So it's been three months of Pilates twice a week for me.

• 28:18Kevin Rose?

  No, listen, you can laugh all you want.

• 28:20Tim Ferriss?

  No, I like Pilates.

• 28:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I'm ready.

• 28:25Kevin Rose?

  So, I hate you.

• 28:28Tim Ferriss?

  It's good for your pelvic floor. Are you doing kegels?

• 28:33Kevin Rose?

  You go to the gym and I walk by the Pilates studio and yes, it doesn't typically tend to be very many guys in there. It's kind of like, you know, core strength and all the guys are out there hitting the iron and I get that. But, you know, I have always had a really crappy core. Like, I just can barely... And for me, as a guy, like, I feel a lot of other guys are like this. Like, it's like the one thing... I would say legs and kind of core are two things that typically get overlooked. You know, a lot of guys go to the gym, they hit upper body, they hit shoulders, they hit chest, you know? So, I always had a really weak core and I knew that. So, you know, I started to have some kind of like back issues this last year. And so, it's like, you know, now's the time to really get serious about my core.

• 29:15Kevin Rose?

  And I did what anyone else would do is you do those leg lifts at the gym and then I'm just like, well, I'm really not getting the results. This sucks. I don't feel motivated. It's the last thing I do. I always kind of like do half the reps that I want to do. And so, you know, I tried a Pilates class. And I didn't try the group class. I went to an instructor so I could get the full-on experience. And, you know, I found a kind of semi-reasonable instructor that, price-wise, and I go twice a week. And it's been amazing. I would say that I can do things with my abs I never thought possible. And granted, they're still not showing due to beer and pizza and things of that nature, but...

• 29:55Tim Ferriss?

  Underneath, underneath the...

• 29:56Kevin Rose?

  Underneath there.

• 29:57Tim Ferriss?

  You're shredded.

• 29:58Kevin Rose?

  It's like nine-pack.

• 30:01Kevin Rose?

  Seriously, though, it's a lot of fun because Pilates is one of those things that if you have an instructor, there's so many exercises that it doesn't feel like you're doing the same thing every time. And so, you know, it's like something like 30 different moves. And so, she's constantly changing it up, having me do different things. She started me right at the correct pace and that I wasn't killing myself. But at the end of every session, I'm definitely sweating and I just feel stronger. So, it's been a fun practice for me to add into my year, the tail end of last year.

• 30:33Tim Ferriss?

  I think Pilates is a strict, technical...

• 30:37Tim Ferriss?

  Classical Pilates is fantastic. I mean, it's very similar in a lot of ways to gymnastics training, actually, and with a tremendous amount of focus on pelvic tilt and becoming comfortable in different positions and understanding pelvic tilt, and then something called the transverse abdominis. So people can think of that as a corset muscle that sort of runs horizontally across, this is simplified, obviously, but across your abdomen. And if you cough or laugh really hard and you get sore in the midsection, that's a transverse abdominis. And when people have really lax or weak transverse abdominis, you notice a lot of things. And if they have tight hip flexors, because they, for a whole host of

• 31:20Tim Ferriss?

  reasons, like not sitting enough, not stretching hip flexors, not having strong muscles around the pelvis, you see people who are, have low body fat, but look fat when they're just standing there in clothing, because they're, they have the hips kind of pouring forward, and that makes their guts stick out. And then they have a protruding belly because they have weak transverse abdominis. So the Pilates is great for that. And I get asked a lot by women, for instance, you know, what should I do for exercise? I want to look like this person, look like that person. And they point out very athletic, say dancers

• 31:59Tim Ferriss?

  or celebrities, etc. And inevitably, if they want to keep it simple, and this could apply for guys, too, but this, I do get this question specifically from women a lot, it's Pilates and two-handed kettlebell swings. And if you do Pilates, very classical, technical, unforgiving Pilates and kettlebell swings, and let's just say you did that twice a week, right? Like Monday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday and Friday, you did the kettlebell swings, Wednesday, you do the Pilates, or vice versa. And you could alternate weeks even. So it'd be like Pilates Monday, kettlebell Wednesday, Pilates Friday, kettlebells Monday

• 32:40Tim Ferriss?

  that way. You can get in fantastic, incredible shape. And all you would need to do is moderate carbohydrate consumption with something like slow carb.

• 32:51Tim Ferriss?

  Or paleo, or whatever, which I still think is for a lot of people more sustainable than intermittent fasting. I did light up the internet accidentally, did a little bit of internet arson inadvertently, because I put up a post on Facebook and Twitter saying, "Most people who do intermittent fasting are just getting smaller, not leaner," meaning they're losing muscle mass. And that was based on data from a friend of mine who runs a DEXA scan facility, which gives you a very good idea of exactly what's happening with your body composition, body fat and muscle. And she said, "Most of the, a lot of the guys, the vast majority, and they are guys, they tend to be, who come in and do an experiment

• 33:33Tim Ferriss?

  with intermittent fasting, lose a lot of muscle mass." So they lose weight, they're looking at the scale, they think they're doing a good job, and in fact, they're backsliding because their body fat percentage is going up. And the internet freaked out about that. But I think ultimately, when you're looking at resolutions or making changes in the new year, the good plan that you'll follow is better than the perfect plan you're gonna quit in two weeks. So, there you have it. Another thing that I would like feedback on from people is, I'm considering doing live podcasts and traveling around the country. I'll probably do some tests in LA, maybe first, then San Francisco and New York, and

• 34:17Tim Ferriss?

  then I'm thinking about hitting a bunch of lesser-known or lesser-traveled places, like hitting up like Montana and going on a road trip and actually going around the country. What are your thoughts on that? You've done, you've done more live, live shows than I have.

• 34:33Kevin Rose?

  I've certainly done a lot of live shows back in the day with Dignation. You know, I think that it really comes down to, when you say "live," do you mean audience or no audience?

• 34:43Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, audience. Yeah.

• 34:44Kevin Rose?

  Oh, you mean, audience?

• 34:45Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, actually, meeting people. Yeah, and just traveling around the country. Now, I would obviously test this first in a few places where I'm comfortable, and know I can fill seats, like LA, SF, New York, but then I'd be doing live audience. Yeah, for sure.

• 34:59Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, I mean, it's chaotic. It's just you have to, obviously, I think that if you would hire a person or two to help out, to help manage some of the chaos, and then certainly very directional microphones, so that you don't pick up the entire crowd. But, you know, it's a lot of fun and it's good to kind of vibe off of the the audience and, you know, feel the energy when they laugh at certain things that you're talking about or, you know, and you can always take live questions or things like that. So it's, why not? Why not experiment? Do it.

• 35:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think I'll do, I think we're gonna do it in LA first in January or February. So that's coming up soon. So keep an eye out, folks. If you have any thoughts, let me know. If you have any thoughts on venues for like 500 to 2,000 people, and Kevin, is there a sweet spot? Is there a sweet spot of like, audience size for you?

• 35:50Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, I mean, I've always enjoyed the slightly more intimate shows. When you get going into the kind of bigger venues, you typically, one, they ask you for more money and they charge, whereas you can go and find, you know, nice bars with a small stage and say, hey, if you're gonna fill this up with people, I'll just give you the space for free. So, you know, that's like Beach Chalet out in San Francisco was one of my favorite spots and we used to do shows out there.

• 36:16Tim Ferriss?

  Beach Chalet?

• 36:18Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, it's right up by the beach, by Ocean Beach.

• 36:20Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, cool.

• 36:21Kevin Rose?

  And they have, you know, they can hold probably 500 people. And I've just picked a slow night, you know, do it on a Monday or Tuesday night or something. And they'll just give you the space. They set up speakers for us and it was just, you know, completely free because they knew they would sell more beer. So.

• 36:35Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Cool. So you mentioned an app to me that you were finding useful. I don't know if you want to hold that back for later, but.

• 36:44Kevin Rose?

  No.

• 36:45Tim Ferriss?

  I'd like to hear more about it.

• 36:46Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so along with New Year's resolutions comes the need to track all this stuff, right? So you and I are both very kind of quantified people and, you know, I, last year, I tracked my alcohol consumption in a Google spreadsheet, which was great. Every single day I would color code it. I wrote a little script so that based on what I would type in, it would change to either green, orange, or red.

• 37:11Tim Ferriss?

  And just to be clear for folks, he was trying to beat 30 drinks a week. That was, that was green.

• 37:16Kevin Rose?

  Yes, I was trying to go for at least 50 to 60 drinks per week. No, it was, uh, it was really eye-opening because, um, I think that, you know, you tend to just think like, "Oh, I got this event tonight, no big deal, let me go have three drinks." "Oh, there's an event two nights from now, yeah." "Oh, my wife wants to crack a bottle open." And you don't realize, uh, not only how many drinks you're having, but just the sheer amount of calories you're putting into your body in consuming all this alcohol. So, uh, it was eye-opening for me and certainly, um, but it wasn't something that was easy to do, uh, on the go. And especially when you start layering in other things, like, um, so I'll, I'll give you, why don't we do this? I'll, I'll give you my quick little, you know, 30-second rundown of all the stuff that I'm trying to track. The name of the app that I'm using that I found is called Way of Life. And I think

• 37:59Kevin Rose?

  by far it is the best kind of habit-tracking app out there. It's really simple to set up. It creates beautiful charts and graphs, um, out of the data. You say yes, no, or I skipped it. Um, you can set up things that are also negative. So, for example, uh, one of the things I have is, um, "Did I drink over three drinks?" Um, so if I say yes to that, it'll actually turn it, uh, red instead of green. So, I'll, I'll give you my quick little list. Um, number one, well, these aren't in any specific order, but, um, watch a TED Talk every day. That's gonna be easy. I, I subscribe to the TED, um, video podcast and iTunes, and I'm gonna watch one every single day for the entire year. Um,

• 38:40Kevin Rose?

  sauna, three times a week. I wanna get serious about, um, about heat. And, uh, so, you know, I've already done three times this week. I'm gonna skip today, but I'm gonna go tomorrow. Um, I alternate, uh, cold bath and sauna. I found a great place in New York, the Turkish and Russian baths. Um, and the, the cold is, is, is extremely cold. And I go in there and I can talk about the Wim Hof method later, what I'm doing to stay in there for long periods of time. Uh, the third one is two or less drinks. So, I'm trying every single day to consume two or less drinks. Um, then I'm tracking my Pilates. I'm also tracking meditation. I'm tracking weightlifting, trying to do that three times per week. I'm tracking no alcohol. So, those are days I take entirely off drinking. I wanna know how many days I'm doing that per month. And you can see month-over-month progress with this app. It's

• 39:24Kevin Rose?

  wonderful. Um, tracking no sugar, uh, tracking tea consumption. So, out of the last seven days, I've had tea four days. Uh, no coffee. I am trying to just do tea only for a few days. Coffee has been a crutch me, uh, for me for a very long time. So I'm trying to just slowly wean myself. I don't inherently think that coffee is bad for you. They, there's a little bit of data on if you drink more than two cups, it can increase your homocysteine levels, but, um, which I have elevated, but that could be because I had that M motherfucker gene. You know what I'm talking about? The MTHR.

• 39:56Tim Ferriss?

  MTHFR gene. Yep.

• 39:58Kevin Rose?

  Yeah. So that could be why. Um, and then also slow carb. Um, I'm, I'm living the Tim Ferriss lifestyle.

• 40:06Tim Ferriss?

  Living the Vita Ferris.

• 40:07Kevin Rose?

  When I, when I say slow carb though, I, I, I tend to mean a little bit more on the keto side. Uh, that's all, obviously that's also slow carbish. I do a, a kind of modified keto, keto that is a lot more veggie, uh, forward. So, uh,

• 40:22Tim Ferriss?

  Veggie forward? Sounds like a wine. Mmm, broccoli on the tongue.

• 40:26Kevin Rose?

  Exactly. Um, so that's, that's all, everything I'm tracking. And this app is, is phenomenal.

• 40:31Tim Ferriss?

  That is a lot to track, man. Are you not worried that you're going to flame out because of too many variables? It seems like you'd spend a lot of your time with inputting data.

• 40:40Kevin Rose?

  So I, the beautiful thing about this app is it's not about typing a ton of notes. Yes, there's a section for that, but it's simply yes or no questions. Like, did you have alcohol today? And you tap yes or no. And then it goes on to the next one. And it's all done in a straight, like a vertical list of things. So you don't have to like view any additional screens. I mean, seriously, um, it sends me a text every night at 10:00 PM because I set that up in the app. And then I go in there and it takes me all of, I'd say 30 seconds to put in, input all the data. Um, and I'm going to do it all. And then it allows you, and this is the fun thing. Um, every, uh, first of the month, so come February 1st, I'm going to tweet out my results from last month.

• 41:20Tim Ferriss?

  That's smart.

• 41:20Kevin Rose?

  It creates a little tiny spreadsheet for you that you can tweet out, like a little tiny graphic. So it's, yeah, it's gonna be fun.

• 41:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. If you force yourself to do that, although now people know. So if, if you get to the second of the month, anybody listening, and you remember, and you see that Kevin hasn't put out his numbers.

• 41:37Kevin Rose?

  Please remind me.

• 41:38Tim Ferriss?

  Remind him on Twitter. So I wanted to underscore. Something here about resolutions, goals in general, behavior change. And that is if it's not in the calendar and if you don't have some type of consequence or stakes, you're not going to do it. So there's, if you're saying, for instance, I've seen a number of New Year's resolutions lists online from fans and they often say, "I want to meditate more. I want to drink less alcohol." And that's not, not only is that not specific enough, you want to make it measurable, you want to have some type of quantified goal, but there's no reason, there's no punishment

• 42:21Tim Ferriss?

  or real reward for not following that behavior, if that makes sense. So two things, get it in the calendar, right? So if you say meditate more, unless you decide that means I'm going to meditate three times a week for one minute in the morning, or five minutes in the morning, or before bed, put it in the calendar or it'll get crowded out. And second is have either an accountability partner or put together a betting pool with a bunch of friends. And I talk about this a lot in the Four Hour Chef, because it's about accelerated learning. So I will, if I'm going to put up an excerpt from that chapter for free for people to check out, which is just, I'll put it at fourhourworkweek.com/stakes, like tent stake, S-T-A-K-E-S.

• 43:05Tim Ferriss?

  So fourhourworkweek.com/stakes and I'll put that up. But you need to have some type of reward or punishment, and punishment generally beats out reward. I know that sounds funny, but the prospect of losing, say, $100 in the betting pool will motivate you more than the possibility of winning $100. This has been very well researched. Or some type of public embarrassment works very well also, or being humiliated because you didn't live up to your side of the bargain. Like if Kevin doesn't put out his numbers and then people give him a bunch of shit on February 2nd or March 2nd. That will be a motivator for Kevin.

• 43:45Kevin Rose?

  Oh, it's a huge motivator. Like, I'm gonna expose all of my drink data and everything else directly online. So I'm excited for that. It keeps me motivated. The other thing, too, I'll add on top of that is I was reading a post. I believe it was a study that was done that talks about when you're trying to form a new habit, try combining it with something you enjoy doing. Have you heard this at all? So for example, if you're going to the gym and getting on the treadmill for the first time, bring your favorite new series, Archer, whatever it may be, and put it on your iPad and watch that while you're working out, right? And so you're doing something that you're enjoying. And so for me, I get through serious treadmill sessions at insane inclines. Granted, I'm kind of walking, but I can play.

• 44:26Tim Ferriss?

  Like two degrees, two to three degrees?

• 44:28Kevin Rose?

  Oh, yeah, right. I'm talking like eight plus degrees, but really slow and I'm just drenched in sweat. But I'm playing a tower defense game that I love, you know, and so that's my time to game, but also get my exercise. So, you know, if you're gonna meditate, do a shot of whiskey before you... Just kidding. Don't combine like that. But, oh, actually, one thing I do to you, if I can make it on a streak for three days in a row with no alcohol at all, I go to the Kava bar. And I have a full bowl of Kava.

• 44:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 44:58Kevin Rose?

  Amazing.

• 44:59Tim Ferriss?

  No, I know. You've told me. You've texted me. I don't know enough about Kava to know whether it's better or worse for you than going without alcohol for three days straight.

• 45:09Kevin Rose?

  So let me give everyone a 30 second rundown on this. Basically, there is a herb called Kava. They, I mean, you can go to Whole Foods or any grocery store almost and buy it in kind of tea form. And actually, there's one, Yogi Tea makes one on Amazon that has five star reviews. I guess almost a solid five stars with like 5,000 reviews. So use a couple of those tea bags, soak it for 15 minutes, and then you just drink it like tea, and it puts you in a very relaxed state. So it's almost like you've had like a couple glasses of champagne, but without drinking. So they actually have bars that are popping up over New York that don't serve alcohol.

• 45:50Kevin Rose?

  They just serve Kava. And you go in, they give you a bowl full of Kava. It tastes like dirt. And you just like kind of down it. And then within 15, 20 minutes, you just feel like sinking into your chair and just kind of, you're totally mellowed out. So get it while it's legal.

• 46:07Tim Ferriss?

  Side note for folks, smoking like a hookah pipe is not risk free. It's actually, you can down the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes very easily sitting at a hookah bar. So that is, that is not without its risks. The, speaking of chilling out, I want to recommend that people consider picking up the practice of meditation. Because it is a very cumulatively powerful habit to begin. It doesn't have to be super woo woo or new agey. I was looking at Twitter yesterday, actually, and we both have a friend, Bobby Goodlatte. Is it Goodlatte? Is that how you say his last name?

• 46:51Kevin Rose?

  It's just Good Lot.

• 46:52Tim Ferriss?

  Jesus Christ. Goodlatte? I've never really known because I always hear his first name. But resolutions for 2016, number one, stick to Tim Ferriss's excellent slow carb diet for as long as I can bear. He's used it before, so it's not that hard. Number two, use Headspace or meditate regularly. So you can, there are a couple of different approaches you could take for getting started with meditation. One of them was recommended to me by Kamal Ravikant, very, very smart and good friend of mine. And it was very simple. Choose a song you like. So this actually comes back to your, you know, gaming while you're on the treadmill, right? So people don't want to meditate, but pick a song that puts you in a good mood. For me, it was, I'm gonna party like it's 1999 by Prince. Because it's hard to take yourself too seriously or be in a bad mood with that song.

• 47:37Tim Ferriss?

  And you're simply going to sit on a cushion or on a couch with your back against the back of the couch or the wall. And you're just gonna, you're just gonna focus on your breathing to the extent possible for one song. That's all you're gonna do. And you just get into the habit of doing that. And you do it just in the morning, once in the morning, and it's whatever it is, three minutes long. If you want to go a little bit further, and even people who meditate regularly without any tools, use, for instance, Headspace, right? And you used Headspace, didn't you?

• 48:09Kevin Rose?

  Yes, for a long time. And I, I'm actually doing Wim Hof's meditation stuff now. But yeah, I love Headspace. I was just on the phone with my sister last night. She was looking to get into meditation and the first thing I do is always recommend Headspace. They had this 10 days for 10 minutes a day. It's called the Take 10 Challenge. If you, if you get through those 10 days, you'll be sold. It's, it's amazing.

• 48:30Tim Ferriss?

  And to that point, just broadly speaking, one of the things that I do when I review my, say, calendar for the year and I make my list of the things that have had the greatest positive and negative emotional impacts over the year and I kind of look at them as categories. Usually what you end up with is a set of challenges or things you'd like to change in the following year. And one of the questions that I've tried to start asking is, what if it were easy? What would that look like? Right? So with like meditation, people feel on some level or working out, right? So even the term working out is, I think, a disservice to a lot of people because they go to the gym and they want to push themselves as hard as possible after doing, say, no exercise for six months. And so they try to go to the gym for an hour

• 49:15Tim Ferriss?

  a day for five days. They miss one of those days and they feel like a failure and then they quit, right? It's like, well, you're, you're setting the bar too high. What would it look like if it were easy? Right? One set of kettlebell swings twice a week. Start there. Or getting on the treadmill for five minutes, right? Meditating for three minutes. That, because ultimately, it doesn't matter how effective something is, doesn't matter how efficient something is, if you don't adhere to it, it doesn't work. So for-

• 49:42Kevin Rose?

  Another great one is just 10,000 steps a day with a Fitbit, you know?

• 49:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 49:46Kevin Rose?

  If you're really, if you're really out of shape and you're just looking to, you know, you can actually lose weight that way. I know a bunch of people that have set these 10,000 step a day goals and, and just use a Fitbit to track it.

• 49:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's, it's important to realize, and I remember Oprah Winfrey said this at some point. She said, "I always felt like if I weren't stressed out, I wasn't trying hard enough." And she doesn't feel that way anymore. And I've realized, especially after conversations with guys like Derek Sivers, you know, he has this story about biking, going for this bike circuit, and I think it was Santa Monica, and he would like huff and puff and try to break his time record every day. And it was 43 minutes. He could never break 43 minutes. It was this, this long, like 10 mile track or whatever, making up the distance, but something like that. And then one day he's like, you know what? I'm bummed out. You know, he wanted, he started wanting to skip the ride because it was just too intense and wasn't enjoyable. And he's like, I'm just going to kind of cruise

• 50:40Tim Ferriss?

  and enjoy myself this time. And he took the same route and he came back and it was 45 minutes instead of 43.

• 50:46Kevin Rose?

  Amazing.

• 50:46Tim Ferriss?

  What? He's like, all that discomfort, all of that, like grunting and groaning and just feeling miserable. And the, the only gain was like two minutes, you know, out of 45. That was the only improvement. I feel like- For a lot of the things that we do, whether that's managing investment or exercise, or you know, I have a list here, right? I actually did this exercise a couple of days ago where it's like, okay, podcast excerpts, audiobooks, book publication, body weight training, investing, getting entertainment guests on the podcast, crowdfunding, dog training, waking up early, like, what if it were easy? What would that look like? And actually writing it out. And it's incredible how many problems you can solve just by not

• 51:29Tim Ferriss?

  creating problems for yourself in complexity. But what type of health goals do you have for 2016? Any particular health goals or changes?

• 51:40Kevin Rose?

  Well, I think that, you know, in listening to and getting into Rhonda Patrick, Dr. Rhonda Patrick's podcast, the role of micronutrients in our overall health is just fascinating to me. And, you know, I had always been one of these guys that, you know, goes grabs a couple slices of pizza. And yes, Tim, I did have some yesterday, but that was my last day.

• 52:00Tim Ferriss?

  You say that every time.

• 52:02Kevin Rose?

  No, I'm serious. It was like, it was my cheat day, too.

• 52:05Tim Ferriss?

  I never do this. Oh, my God. I never do this.

• 52:09Kevin Rose?

  What I'm saying is I would always, in my head, I would rationalize it saying, well, I'm taking my multivitamin. And that just doesn't get the full spectrum. It doesn't really get what you need. And so in watching her podcast and understanding a little bit more about what we need to consume to be healthy, I've really upped my vegetable intake. So I'm doing a whole wide spectrum, wide range of colors in my vegetables and just having one, one massive salad per day. I've been doing that for a couple of months now. And I certainly feel a lot better. And my skin actually even looks better, too. It's healthier.

• 52:43Tim Ferriss?

  You look pregnant. You have that glow.

• 52:46Kevin Rose?

  I have that glow about me.

• 52:47Tim Ferriss?

  So do I. It's kind of an oily sheen. I've been eating sardines every morning, having a can of sardines, the Wild Planet sardines that I've talked about before. And I will just tell people. So the way that I use it, and I think I've mentioned this once before, though, is I'm traveling, my dog doesn't like to eat dry kibble. Yours doesn't either. And but if I bring the Origin is the type of kibble that I brought, I don't use the fowl for reasons I can explain another time. But I think it's the red.

• 53:24Tim Ferriss?

  The red label, it sounds like Johnny Walker, origin is that I will open the can of sardines and then pour the oil on top of the kibble and then eat the sardines myself. So Molly, my dog, is getting the olive oil and the sardine juice and she was having some dry skin issues, like brittle hair issues, and I couldn't pinpoint the issue. Within three days of starting to add the sardine oil, just one meal a day, and I'm feeding her twice a day, perfect coat, skin, everything, completely fixed after three days. And you have to assume on some level, being mammals as we are, that there's some type of corresponding effect in humans. Absolutely.

• 54:06Tim Ferriss?

  I wanted to mention a book that I recently read that people might want to check out, and I picked it up, I believe it was mentioned and recommended to me by one of the podcast guests I've had on, because it was on this running list of books to pick up, and it's called Happy Money, The Science of Happier Spending. And the authors are Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton. So let me just read the description here. "Two professors combine their fascinating, cutting-edge research in behavioral science to explain how money can buy happiness if you follow five core principles of smart spending." Now, there are a couple of caveats here. The first is that this is not a perfect book. There are very few perfect books out there.

• 54:51Tim Ferriss?

  I think that one of the things that you should always keep in mind when you're reading any type of pop science book is asking yourself, whenever they have an assertion, asking yourself, is this causation or could it just be correlation? And for those of you who have The Four Hour Body, there's an appendix on good science, bad science, and spotting the difference, and that's a worthwhile chapter to read. But the example I'll give, and you see this in the media all the time, where people will say something like,

• 55:22Tim Ferriss?

  People who practice yoga have lower blood pressure, a new study finds. And then they continue to say, therefore, you should start doing yoga. And it only takes 10 minutes a session, three times a week. Right? But if you were to actually dig into the data and you ask yourself, well, wait a second. Is it causation? Is the yoga actually causing the blood pressure? Or could it just be correlation? Meaning they're just happening at the same time. So for instance, maybe they're comparing the blood pressure of people in like, I don't know, a hospital in the Bronx. I'm just making this up, like a sedentary population. And then they're checking the blood pressure of people in the West Village who are going to yoga class. And it's like, well, okay.

• 56:04Kevin Rose?

  Right. And they're also eating wild salmon several times a week.

• 56:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 56:08Kevin Rose?

  Eating salads.

• 56:08Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like there's one, there's one group eating at like Mickey D's and fast food. And the other people are eating at Whole Foods. It's like, okay, well, that could be an issue that's confounding everything. And in this book, there are quite a few places where I think that they, they make arguments of causation where it's probably correlation. However, that having been said, there are principles and also stories that illustrate the principles, like paying for things in advance. Like I mentioned, committing to this holiday Christmas trip with my family, you know, six months plus in advance. Right? So you can benefit from the anticipation. So prepaying for certain types of experiences as opposed to possessions.

• 56:51Tim Ferriss?

  And they walk through what types of experiences tend to give the greatest emotional and psychological ROI. And they talk about different types of behavioral psychological studies that someone like, say, Daniel Gilbert might talk about stumbling upon happiness and how you can use them to your advantage. So I, and it's not only for people with a ton of disposable income. One could argue that the less income you make, the more important this becomes because you have fewer absolute number of dollars to spend at liberty, as it were. And the sort of the pain of misspending is even greater.

• 57:29Tim Ferriss?

  So I found this book very useful for this particular point in time, meaning New Year's, New Year's resolutions, because you can then say, take these different questions that they arm you with and go through your credit card statement and actually.

• 57:48Tim Ferriss?

  Make categories of things that you want to start to eliminate, minimize, or add in. And I found that to be just a very useful exercise because there's tons of information out there about how to invest your money. But every time you make a purchase, you are investing in some respect, right? You're trading money, this wampum, for an experience or possession that you think is going to give you something. And it's very fast read.

• 58:16Kevin Rose?

  It's also available on audio. I got it on Audible, by the way. I just downloaded it.

• 58:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and it says 226 pages, but most, I'd say the last 70 pages are notes and references and whatnot, so it's really only about 150 pages long. You could read it in a day or two. It's a very, very fast read. So I thought I would recommend that one as well. Any favorite books from 2015 that you would recommend people check out?

• 58:46Kevin Rose?

  Oh, gosh. I'd have to go back and look at my list. I've got it all on Audible. But, oh, one thing why, before I forget, and this is the random show, so we're allowed to jump around a little bit. You were mentioning canned fish just a few minutes ago. So you, next time you're in town, I want to take you to a place in New York. It's called Maiden Lane. And it is unbelievable. Basically, what they've done is they've created a wine bar that serves nothing but extremely high-end canned fish, and they have them stacked on the wall. And so you can walk over there and pick out what canned fish you want, and they pair a wine with it and give you cheese with it, and it is phenomenal. I go over there and I get cod livers, which sound disgusting, but are obviously really nutritious for you.

• 59:28Kevin Rose?

  And I have cod liver with some cheese and a really dry white wine, and it's just like a fun place to hang out.

• 59:34Tim Ferriss?

  Is that after your Pilates or before your Pilates?

• 59:40Kevin Rose?

  I know you would love it. What's funny is that you act all tough here, but if I

• 59:45Kevin Rose?

  you'd be like, mm, god, liver. I love this.

• 59:47Tim Ferriss?

  Are you kidding me? I know, totally. I'd wear my like, I'm trying to decide what type of turtleneck and skinny jeans I'd

• 59:55Tim Ferriss?

  I'd be down, man. I'm totally down for the canned, the canned fish. It's easy to travel with also. So if you go to a location and a lot of tropical places are like this, I shouldn't say tropical, I should say island cultures have very mediocre food because aside from the fish, they have to bring everything in and it's very expensive. They're often very onerous in excise and import taxes. So the food quality tends to be pretty low.

• 1:00:21Tim Ferriss?

  And sort of in a best case scenario, highway robbery. So traveling with Kansas sardines, I thought it would be difficult and maybe I'm just an outlier, but made it through with no problem whatsoever. Have you read, have you read Radical Acceptance?

• 1:00:36Kevin Rose?

  Yes.

• 1:00:37Tim Ferriss?

  What'd you think? Cause Daria also, I think Daria was actually one of the first people to recommend it to me by Tara Brock.

• 1:00:43Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, I'm looking here right now. I'm looking at Audible. I got about, oh, you know what? I didn't read it. I ended up watching her TED Talk.

• 1:00:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's the danger of TED Talks is you're like, let me just, let me just. So I, I think the book is very worth reading. Tara was on the, on the, on the podcast. She's a Buddhist teacher and I'm very skeptical always of people who are self-described teachers of different faiths or aspects of spirituality, because there's a lot of nonsense out there. Tara is, is absolutely the real deal. Her Dharma talks are incredible, but this book Radical Acceptance was recommended to me not only by Daria, who is about as non woo woo as you can get. I mean, PhD in neuroscience. But at least one or two other scientists recommended it to me, which I thought was very unusual for a book in this genre.

• 1:01:35Tim Ferriss?

  And it's, it's in effect about how to stop. Beating the shit out of yourself or carrying around anger and resentment. It's very, very good. And the, I'm just going to read a couple of highlights. So I have, I'm looking at my Kindle highlights on laptop and I have 68 highlighted passages. But here are just a few. So one of the lines, and I tend to highlight things that either I want to remember or review, or lines that have nice turns of phrase and wording. But here we go. So here it is. "I knew I would never treat a friend the way I treated myself without mercy or kindness." Right? So one of my resolutions that I'm going to then put into sort of a measurable form

• 1:02:18Tim Ferriss?

  that I can assess somehow is to treat myself the way I would treat a very close friend. Because I do think that I have a habit to really kind of smash my head against a wall and to be very unforgiving to myself. The, let me find another one. You know, as a friend of mine put it, and I know Kevin, you can, you can attest to the fact that there are a lot of successful and unsuccessful, but very successful people in Silicon Valley who could identify with this. So as a friend of mine put it, quote, "Feeling that something is wrong with me is the invisible and toxic gas I'm always breathing," end quote. And I just think that this, this book is, is extremely helpful for walking people through

• 1:03:00Tim Ferriss?

  the thought processes and making subconscious judgments conscious that they can, so that they can deal with them, so that they can somehow fix them. So let me find one more. Okay, so this is, I'll give one more example here. Sorry, guys, I'm scrolling through. So this is, this is also, this is a story about a tiger that was in captivity and in a zoo named Mojini that was rescued from a sort of an animal.

• 1:03:32Tim Ferriss?

  Sanctuary and Mohini had been confined to, I think it was a 10 by 10 foot cage, just a concrete with a concrete floor for like five or 10 years. So they finally released her into this big pasture with excitement and anticipation. They released Mohini into her new and expansive environment, but it was too late. The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound where she lived for the remainder of her life. She paced and paced in that corner until an area 12 by 12 feet was worn bare of grass. Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns. Right? So this is where the review of 2015. Okay, we're back after a Bahamian internet connectivity interruption.

• 1:04:16Tim Ferriss?

  Power's been going out intermittently for the last three days across the entire island. So the story wasn't that interesting, so I will leave it where it got cut off and we'll continue. Mr. Rose, over to you.

• 1:04:30Kevin Rose?

  Yes, so I just have one last thing to say. You asked me about book recommendations earlier and I couldn't recall it right off the top of my head, but I pulled up my audible account.

• 1:04:41Tim Ferriss?

  Shit, I lost you, buddy. Can you hear me?

• 1:04:47Kevin Rose?

  I can hear you, yes.

• 1:04:48Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, you're back.

• 1:04:49Kevin Rose?

  Okay.

• 1:04:50Tim Ferriss?

  Forge ahead.

• 1:04:51Kevin Rose?

  Maybe we should just call it a show.

• 1:04:53Tim Ferriss?

  I'd say we're getting close to that.

• 1:04:59Kevin Rose?

  We're getting close. Okay, so the last thing I wanted to say was just my book recommendation that I have for the episode. It's called The Good Gut. Have you heard of it?

• 1:05:06Tim Ferriss?

  No, is it like Wheat Belly?

• 1:05:08Kevin Rose?

  No, no, this is all about gut bacteria and how they influence your overall health. So this is a pair of scientists that wrote this book that actually Rhonda had on her podcast as well. Really fascinating stuff about how gut bacteria influences health, how animals bring in healthy bacteria. So actually having a dog could potentially be a good thing for you. So, you know, letting them lick you on the mouth is not that horrible.

• 1:05:36Tim Ferriss?

  It's a good thing I make out with my dog so much.

• 1:05:38Kevin Rose?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:40Kevin Rose?

  But there's a really interesting data around C-sections and how not passing through the vaginal canal could potentially harm the baby and that they're not getting a lot of their mother's bacteria and they're actually getting a lot of the bacteria from the nurse's hands, which is really not a great way to set the stage for your bacteria when you're born. So it's all, it's really data dense, packed with good information and it cites a bunch of studies. I just found it fascinating because I've always had a weak stomach and recently started supplementing with probiotics, the VSL3 that Rhonda recommends.

• 1:06:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, VSL3 is good stuff.

• 1:06:23Kevin Rose?

  And it's been, and it's been a world of difference. So I highly recommend the book. It gets a little technical. If you don't know if you'll like it, watch Rhonda Patrick's podcast first. But yeah, it was eye-opening for me.

• 1:06:34Tim Ferriss?

  Cool. I will, my last share will be just a couple of quotes that I've been revisiting because I think they all have applications to my life in 2016. And I will share some of them. So the first is from Henry Ford. Here's the quote, "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." So really breaking things down into, to use GTD parlance, the next physical action. All right. The next is from George S. Patton Jr., U.S. Army General. "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week." That's another one that I think will apply to my life a lot in January specifically,

• 1:07:14Tim Ferriss?

  trying to sort of ready-fire aim, in effect. Next is Charles Bukowski, controversial but popular writer. "Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it." And I think this applies to me as far-

• 1:07:28Kevin Rose?

  That's a great one. I love that.

• 1:07:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. That applies to me as far as writing. People have asked me, "If you hear something crunching in the background, that's my dog eating a bull pizzle." Otherwise, no-

• 1:07:38Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, Toaster's also running around because Dari just got home. So he's like, you hear his leash and collar.

• 1:07:43Tim Ferriss?

  But that's okay. Bull pizzle aside, which is just bull penis for those people wondering.

• 1:07:48Kevin Rose?

  And you actually consume that as well, which is odd, but-

• 1:07:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know- I do, if I don't have jerky on hand, bullpuzzle.

• 1:07:57Kevin Rose?

  Bull penis.

• 1:07:58Tim Ferriss?

  Will do. This applies to me because I get asked a lot, are you working on a new book? And for me, I don't choose to write a book and then write a book. I write a book because I have to get it out of my head. Like, it gets to a point where there's such an incessant obsession with something that if I don't get it out of my head, it's unhealthy. And that's when I write a book, when I can no longer keep it inside of me. So, there it goes. That's the Bukowski. Next is, and I'm sure somebody who's listening can give the original here, but this is actually a quote from Jennifer Aniston, but she's quoting someone else. She says, "Somebody once said, quote, 'Everything you want in the world is just right outside of your comfort zone,' end quote." And I thought that was also very appropriate to a bunch of decisions

• 1:08:43Tim Ferriss?

  that I'm nervous about making in the next few months that I shouldn't be nervous.

• 1:08:48Kevin Rose?

  Now, these are great to start the new year. I love stuff like this. Very inspirational.

• 1:08:52Tim Ferriss?

  James Cameron is next, who has not only been an incredible filmmaker, but has really been a groundbreaking technologist in the filmmaking world and outside of film. So Avatar, Terminator, et cetera.

• 1:09:08Tim Ferriss?

  And some of his mistakes, actually, like Abyss. So, the Abyss was a failure commercially, but they developed the technology that was then used in Terminator 2. So, quote, "If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success." I thought that was a good one.

• 1:09:28Tim Ferriss?

  Can you hear me, Kevin?

• 1:09:30Tim Ferriss?

  God damn it. I'm gonna finish without Kevin. Fuck it. And then I'm gonna call him back. So, we're back again. Thought this was gonna be easy, relaxed, but now I'm gonna have to...

• 1:09:40Kevin Rose?

  Next time, three quotes instead of 10.

• 1:09:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, now I'm gonna have to edit this goddamn thing. So, just a few more, because I'm gonna push it. So, Bruce Willis, I think we... No, no, because I wanna see if I can...

• 1:09:51Kevin Rose?

  If I drop, just finish without me.

• 1:09:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, well, I almost did.

• 1:09:54Kevin Rose?

  Happy New Year, everyone.

• 1:09:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, the next is Ray Bradbury, 256. I keep these paginated.

• 1:10:02Tim Ferriss?

  And here it is. Don't worry about things. Don't push. Just do your work and you'll survive. The most important thing is to have a ball, to be joyful, to be loving, and to be explosive. Out of that comes everything and you grow. So, "end to be explosive" was the reason I included that. I think that massive action, not action, is often a difference of degree that makes all the difference. Two more, and then we're done. 283. Kurt Vonnegut Jr., one of my favorite writers of all time. "I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge, you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." So that's similar to what I've talked about before, sort of the extremes informing the mean, but not vice

• 1:10:45Tim Ferriss?

  versa. And the last one is a philosopher named Daniel Dennett. "The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them, especially not from yourself." That's it. So, become a documentarian of your own life, keep track of those mistakes, and share them so you can at least help someone else. But by showcasing your mistakes and analyzing them, I think that's how you very often avoid repeating them. So that's it, man. That's all I got.

• 1:11:11Kevin Rose?

  Love it. Good stuff. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to everyone out there. And we'll see you again soon on Random Show.

• 1:11:16Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set-it-and-forget-it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra-wealthy, but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, etc. And I'll come back to that in a second.

• 1:11:58Tim Ferriss?

  I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do this. Or as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis, but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint. And little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et cetera,

• 1:12:43Tim Ferriss?

  can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free. There's no downside that I can think of. Take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim.

• 1:13:30Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Headspace. More than 80% of the people I have interviewed, world-class performers across the military, entertainment, sports, and beyond, all have some type of meditative practice. I tried for years and years and failed miserably. The key is making it simple. And you can dramatically improve your life in just 10 minutes a day, and technology can help you. This change comes through guided meditation, and Headspace is by far the most popular app for this purpose. More than 4 million users. It's meditation made simple. So what I recommend is that you take this practice, meditation, which is rooted in thousands of years of tradition, supported by thousands of scientific studies,

• 1:14:13Tim Ferriss?

  and try it for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. That's all you need to do. You could also check out the founder, Andy Pudiccom's TED Talk, which has more than 5.5 million views. His last name is P U D D I C O M B E, if you want to look that up. But otherwise, download the free Headspace app, I have it on my phone, and begin their Take 10 program. For 10 days of guided meditation, completely free, 10 minutes a day, that's all it takes. You should give it a shot. Headspace.com/Tim. Just go to Headspace.com/Tim.

• 1:14:52Speaker 05

  If you want more of the Tim Ferriss Show, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or go to fourhourblog.com.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  F O U R H O U R B L O G dot com.

• 1:15:01Speaker 05

  Where you'll find an award-winning blog, tons of audio and video interview stories with people like Warren Buffett and Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park, the books, plus much, much more. Follow Tim on Twitter, it's twitter.com/TFerriss.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  That's T F E R R I S S.

• 1:15:16Speaker 05

  Or on Facebook at facebook.com/TimFerriss. Until next time, thanks for listening.