#718: In Case You Missed It: December 2023 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

This episode is brought to you by 5-Bullet Friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/?utm_source=timblog&utm_medium=timblog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsorship, my very own email newsletter. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=monthly-recap, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life. This is a special inbetweenisode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from last month. It features a short clip from each conversation in one place so you can easily jump around to get a feel for the episode and guest. Based on your feedback, this format has been tweaked and improved since the first recap episode. For instance, @hypersundays on Twitter https://twitter.com/hypersundays/status/1496997636846780416 suggested that the bios for each guest can slow the momentum, so we moved all the bios to the end. See it as a teaser. Something to whet your appetite. If you like what you hear, you can of course find the full episodes at tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=monthly-recap. Please enjoy! * This episode is brought to you by 5-Bullet Friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/?utm_source=timblog&utm_medium=timblog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsorship, my very own email newsletter that every Friday features five bullet points highlighting cool things I’ve found that week, including apps, books, documentaries, gadgets, albums, articles, TV shows, new hacks or tricks, and—of course—all sorts of weird stuff I’ve dug up from around the world. It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and you can subscribe now at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/?utm_source=timblog&utm_medium=timblog&utm_campaign=podcast-sponsorship. * Timestamps: Start: 00:00 Kevin Rose: 00:03:12 Matt Mullenweg: 00:09:56 Andrew Rosener: 00:15:25 Full episode titles: The Random Show — 2024 New Year’s Resolutions, Tim’s 30-Day No-Caffeine Experiment, Mental Health Breakthroughs, AI Upheaval, Dealmaking and Advising for Startups, The Next-Gen of Note-Taking, Digital Security Tips, and Much More (#712) https://tim.blog/2023/12/27/the-random-show-2024-new-years-resolutions/ Matt Mullenweg — The Art of Crafting a Sabbatical, Tips for Defending Against Hackers, Leveraging Open Source, Thriving in an AI World, and Tips for Life’s Darkest Hours (#713) https://tim.blog/2023/12/29/matt-mullenweg-2/ Andrew Rosener — Becoming The Hokkaido Scallop King, Leasing Blue Chip URLs, Life Tenets from Charlie Tuna, Selling 8-Figure Domains, and More (#711) https://tim.blog/2023/12/20/andrew-rosener/ * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors http://tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss http://linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast include Jerry Seinfeld https://tim.blog/2020/12/08/jerry-seinfeld/, Hugh Jackman https://tim.blog/2020/06/26/hugh-jackman/, Dr. Jane Goodall https://tim.blog/2020/04/16/jane-goodall/, LeBron James https://tim.blog/2018/11/27/lebron-james-mike-mancias/, Kevin Hart https://tim.blog/2020/05/20/kevin-hart/, Doris Kearns Goodwin https://tim.blog/2018/09/07/doris-kearns-goodwin-leadership/, Jamie Foxx https://tim.blog/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/, Matthew McConaughey https://tim.blog/2020/10/19/matthew-mcconaughey/, Esther Perel https://tim.blog/2017/05/21/esther-perel/, Elizabeth Gilbert https://tim.blog/2020/05/08/elizabeth-gilbert/, Terry Crews https://tim.blog/2017/12/20/terry-crews-how-to-have-do-and-be-all-you-want/, Sia https://tim.blog/2020/08/12/sia/, Yuval Noah Harari https://tim.blog/2020/10/27/yuval-noah-harari/, Malcolm Gladwell https://tim.blog/2016/06/21/malcolm-gladwell/, Madeleine Albright https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/, Cheryl Strayed https://tim.blog/2017/03/30/cheryl-strayed/, Jim Collins https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/, Mary Karr, https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/ Maria Popova https://tim.blog/2014/10/21/brain-pickings/, Sam Harris https://tim.blog/2020/05/15/sam-harris-2/, Michael Phelps https://tim.blog/2021/01/21/michael-phelps-grant-hackett/, Bob Iger https://tim.blog/2020/01/16/bob-iger/, Edward Norton https://tim.blog/2019/10/31/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn/, Arnold Schwarzenegger https://tim.blog/2015/02/02/arnold-schwarzenegger/, Neil Strauss https://tim.blog/2014/06/24/neil-strauss/, Ken Burns https://tim.blog/2019/09/12/ken-burns/, Maria Sharapova https://tim.blog/2017/08/26/maria-sharapova/, Marc Andreessen https://tim.blog/2016/05/29/marc-andreessen/, Neil Gaiman https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/, Neil de Grasse Tyson https://tim.blog/2019/10/03/neil-degrasse-tyson/, Jocko Willink https://tim.blog/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/, Daniel Ek https://tim.blog/2020/12/03/daniel-ek/, Kelly Slater https://tim.blog/2020/09/08/kelly-slater/, Dr. Peter Attia https://tim.blog/2019/11/27/peter-attia-fasting-metformin-longevity/, Seth Godin https://tim.blog/2016/02/10/seth-godin/, Howard Marks https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-marks/, Dr. Brené Brown https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/, Eric Schmidt https://tim.blog/2019/04/09/eric-schmidt/, Michael Lewis https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/, Joe Gebbia https://tim.blog/2018/03/08/joe-gebbia-co-founder-of-airbnb/, Michael Pollan https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind/, Dr. Jordan Peterson https://tim.blog/2021/03/01/jordan-peterson/, Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Brian Koppelman https://tim.blog/2020/04/23/brian-koppelman/, Ramit Sethi https://tim.blog/2019/05/07/ramit-sethi/, Dax Shepard https://tim.blog/2020/11/18/dax-shepard/, Tony Robbins https://tim.blog/2014/10/15/money-master-the-game/, Jim Dethmer https://tim.blog/2020/05/18/jim-dethmer/, Dan Harris https://tim.blog/2020/11/19/dan-harris/, Ray Dalio https://tim.blog/2017/09/13/ray-dalio/, Naval Ravikant https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/, Vitalik Buterin https://tim.blog/2021/03/08/vitalik-buterin-naval-ravikant/, Elizabeth Lesser https://tim.blog/2021/03/16/elizabeth-lesser/, Amanda Palmer https://tim.blog/2019/04/18/amanda-palmer-2/, Katie Haun https://tim.blog/2021/02/18/katie-haun/, Sir Richard Branson https://tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/, Chuck Palahniuk https://tim.blog/2020/09/02/chuck-palahniuk/, Arianna Huffington https://tim.blog/2017/10/18/arianna-huffington/, Reid Hoffman https://tim.blog/2015/08/31/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley-reid-hoffman-plus-michael-mccullough/, Bill Burr https://tim.blog/2017/09/17/bill-burr/, Whitney Cummings https://tim.blog/2015/06/26/whitney-cummings/, Rick Rubin https://tim.blog/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://tim.blog/2020/03/26/vivek-murthy/, Darren Aronofsky https://tim.blog/2017/09/09/darren-aronofsky/, Margaret Atwood https://tim.blog/2022/02/22/margaret-atwood/, Mark Zuckerberg https://tim.blog/2022/03/24/mark-zuckerberg/, Peter Thiel https://tim.blog/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/, Dr. Gabor Maté https://tim.blog/2018/02/20/gabor-mate/, Anne Lamott https://tim.blog/2021/07/09/anne-lamott/, Sarah Silverman https://tim.blog/2022/01/12/sarah-silverman/, Dr. Andrew Huberman https://tim.blog/2021/07/06/andrew-huberman/, and many more. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers, and it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time, because after all, the podcasts, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free,

• 0:44Tim Ferriss?

  it's always gonna be free, and you can learn more at tim.blog/friday. That's tim.blog/friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with, and little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So, check it out, tim.blog/friday.

• 1:27Tim Ferriss?

  If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot, and you can, of course, easily subscribe anytime. So, easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog/friday, and thanks for checking it out, if the spirit moves you.

• 1:42Speaker 01

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

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Can I answer your personal question?

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Now would be the appropriate time.

• 1:53Speaker 02

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

• 2:07Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types, to tease out the routines, habits, and so on that you can apply to your own life. This is a special in-between-isode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from the last month. Features a short clip from each conversation in one place, so you can jump around, get a feel for both the episode and the guest, and then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite. It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together. And for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description, probably right below wherever you press "Play" in your podcast app. Or, as usual, you can head to tim.blog/podcast and find

• 2:51Tim Ferriss?

  all the details there. Please enjoy.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  First up, another ridiculously entertaining addition of The Random Show with serial entrepreneur and world-class investor Kevin Rose.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  My wrapping up comments would be this. I recently went out to dinner with five close friends of mine, who of which, you know, most of them, you know, just like the crew.

• 3:21Tim Ferriss?

  The Wu-Tang Clan.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, just good friends. And one of the things I did is I went around the circle, and I said a few words of gratitude. And I think, to my earlier point, one of the things that's really important to me, after coming out of this therapy, is just this vulnerability that allows us to speak from the heart, because we don't know what tomorrow brings. And I just want to say that, Tim, you have been a friend of mine for so long now. And I have appreciated the fact that my career has been a series of ups and downs

• 4:01Speaker 04

  and all over the place, and you have been a steadfast friend, someone that sends me some of the funniest videos I've ever seen in my life, always keeps it lighthearted and fun. But I know that you care deeply about me, and I just want to let you know that I love you, and I care deeply about you. And I will always be here to have your back and I'm wishing you a fantastic new year. I hope that you hit all these milestones and more that you want to hit. Because I know that you are someone that I've always looked up to and someone that is just so inspirational to us all that listen to your show and your podcast because you inspire us to do more and to be better humans.

• 4:44Speaker 04

  And I just want to let you know that that that means a lot to me and I love you.

• 4:47Tim Ferriss?

  Well, thanks, Kevin. That's amazing. That makes my night.

• 4:51Speaker 04

  Happy to say it. It's the truth.

• 4:53Tim Ferriss?

  I love you too, man. It's our friendship has been such a constant for me. Such a lifeline in a way with all the ups and downs and holy shit. I mean, both of us have had some pretty wily ups and downs.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  You've had a lot of hot chicks you do. I will say.

• 5:13Tim Ferriss?

  I didn't see that coming.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, when you talked about ups and downs, I was like, you've got a lot of ups, my friend.

• 5:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've looked, that's one category. That's a one category.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Had to lighten up the mood a little bit.

• 5:24Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm grateful for that and life is like a box of chocolates, right? You just never know what's around the corner.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  It's true. That's why it's important to say these things.

• 5:33Tim Ferriss?

  It is. It is. And you know, I have, I'll tell you something you don't know. I have your Christmas slash New Year's card from like two years ago. So obviously added dates, like you and Daria and the kids and it's up in my kitchen.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 5:48Tim Ferriss?

  And I kept it there because I just, I love seeing you guys every day and I think about you guys all the time. And just have such love for your family and I'm so grateful for our friendship. So I love you too, man. As you said, it's important to say, things are so uncertain and I've never experienced, I've had friends pass from cancer before.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:15Tim Ferriss?

  But I've never been there every step of the way from diagnosis to last conversation. A few days before they passed. That was new for me.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:25Tim Ferriss?

  And.

• 6:27Tim Ferriss?

  It affected, really deeply affected me on a bunch of levels and I want to be deeply affected by that. I don't want to push that aside, in part because Roland was so joyful and curious and optimistic until the end, in a very genuine way. It wasn't an act, it wasn't theater. That raised a bunch of aspirations in me because he was first and foremost, a very dedicated seasoned meditator. Psychedelic were a piece of the puzzle, but first and foremost, he was a dedicated meditator for decades.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 7:03Tim Ferriss?

  And attributed a lot of his equanimity and preparation for death, which I got to see firsthand. A lot of people talk about it, right? But let's be honest, or I'll be honest, I've read all the Stoics or a lot of the Stoics and I've read all sorts of Buddhism and rehearsed death and memento mori and this, that and the other thing. But when I'm actually on, as Roland said, the final glide path, I don't know how I'm going to respond. I don't know. I have no idea. So to see someone who really walked the walk in such a life-affirming way that lit everyone up around him was tremendous. And he said what

• 7:43Tim Ferriss?

  he was able to and he was willing to say what he meant to those people around him who meant things to him. And you don't have to wait until you have terminal cancer diagnosis. You shouldn't wait.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  Just because it may not be that, right? It may be a car crash. It may be something where you don't get the chance to say these things. And so I just, yeah, it's important to do it now.

• 8:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you gotta do it. Great to see you, man.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, good to see you. Happy New Year. Excited for, this is gonna be, oh, don't top me off a little bit, cheers. To the new year and to all the listeners out there, you know, wishing you a happy and healthy new year. And yeah, I'm excited to, I mean, it's always a new year of change, a new year of change and exploration. I think the one thing that you and I, let's take a sip. The one thing that you and I have in common is just this lifelong pursuit of evolution of like figuring out because the secret that no one will tell you is no matter how much money you make, no matter how much success you have, we're all still figuring it out. And in Ram Dass's words, we're all just walking each other home.

• 8:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Well said, man. I'm gonna leave it there.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 8:59Tim Ferriss?

  Cheers, buddy.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Happy New Year.

• 9:00Tim Ferriss?

  Happy early New Year and happy New Year to everybody listening. And as always, be just a little kinder than is necessary until the next episode. That applies to other people, but also applies to yourself. Take it easy. Take it easy. You know, life is short, but life is long. And we're all just figuring it out. And by the way, as far as I can tell, you never really figure it out.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  No, you don't.

• 9:27Tim Ferriss?

  So true.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  So true.

• 9:30Tim Ferriss?

  CTFo. Chill the fuck out a little bit. Be a little easier on yourself.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Next up, Matt Mullenweg, founder and CEO of Automattic and co-founder of WordPress, the open source publishing platform that now powers more than 40% of all sites on the web.

• 9:56Tim Ferriss?

  For someone who's like having a hard couple of weeks, and you mentioned Tony Robbins earlier, I will mention something that I learned from him. I don't know if he's the original source of this, but I used to put this at the top of my journals. I would write it out at the top of my journals so that I would see it every morning. And it was basically a, let's call it a flow chart. That's an overstatement. And it said, state in all caps with an arrow that went to story, and then that went to strategy. So state, story, strategy. And what that meant to say is what happens to many people who are depressed or anxious or whatever, is they sit down and they try to figure out how to fix the

• 10:39Tim Ferriss?

  thing. They go straight to strategy. What should I do? The challenge there is that if you're looking at the world through gray glasses, the story that you're going to come up with is going to be most likely a disabling story. And then you're going to come up with strategies that are

• 10:59Tim Ferriss?

  By and large, pretty ineffective. If, on the other hand, you start with state. So if you're in a low energy state, you hop in a cold shower for five minutes, or you do 50 jumping jacks, or you do 20 pushups, anything to change your state from a low energy state to a higher energy state, and that's governed by all sorts of things. Well, let's keep it simple. So low to higher energy state. Then you sit down and you're able to, because of changes in neurotransmitters or any number of things, you have a more enabling story. So you've turned the gray, maybe a tint or two brighter. Then the strategies you come up with are going to be more effective. So just reminding myself constantly,

• 11:43Tim Ferriss?

  before you jump to the strategy, like the what to do, the how to fix, have you addressed the state? Because this thing in between, the story, really matters. Because if your narrative is, oh, I'm always pessimistic. I've never been able to fix this. You're starting at a deficit. You have a severe handicap in coming up with approaches that are going to help you. So that might be helpful to people as well. Like state, story, strategy, that is the order.

• 12:09Matt Mullenweg?

  I give credit to my mom, too. She gave me a list of three things that I found really helpful. She was like, did you sleep? Are you drinking water? So sleep, water, and then you've been in nature.

• 12:20Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm, it's a good checklist.

• 12:21Matt Mullenweg?

  I like that because it's three. And so sometimes I just do like a check. I'm being like, ah, man, this morning's so tough. I felt like I wasn't great in that meeting. And I'll just say I can run that.

• 12:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Matt Mullenweg?

  Sometimes the body scan, I also ask myself, like, am I hangry?

• 12:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the basics.

• 12:36Matt Mullenweg?

  Because our body kind of emotions come from our system. And sometimes it's saying, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. And it's coming through as like something else, our brain interprets it.

• 12:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, totally. And to invoke our mutual friend Kevin Kelly, in his book of excellent advice, which came out not too long ago. Great book, very pithy. And one of them is if you don't know what you need, chances are it's sleep. And if you don't know what to do, chances are you need more sleep. And if you're in a depressed state, and this is something I have to remind myself of, I would be inclined, even subconsciously, to consume stimulants. Because that does change your state. But if you consume stimulants, and then that disrupts your sleep architecture, and then maybe you drink a little booze to take the edge off because you're trying to get to sleep. This is a vicious cycle.

• 13:26Tim Ferriss?

  And I had Richard Branson on the podcast years ago, and his advice was stop drinking. Like, as far as depression goes, he was just like, in nine out of 10 cases, alcohol is somehow in that picture, in his lived experience and his social circles. So those are a few things that come to mind. There are other things, certainly, and I could go on and on. I think the work by Byron Katie and doing turnarounds. Interrogating your beliefs is very valuable. So if you have a belief that I'm making this up, but my sister is selfish and always does what she wants. There are many work pages and exercises that are available for free on Byron Katie's website.

• 14:07Tim Ferriss?

  So if you just search Byron Katie, B-Y-R-O-N-K-D-K-T-I-E, the work, you'll find the website, all sorts of PDFs you can take down. But let's just say, my sister's selfish, she only does what she wants. You would then create alternative sentences and find supporting evidence for each one. So my sister isn't selfish, she never does what she wants. And you have to come up with some examples. You might also replace it with, I'm selfish, I always do what I want. And then you come up with some examples. And I and others have found these exercises to be incredibly powerful. There are a million and one different varieties of this. For me, the turnarounds are you have to come up with confirming evidence for statements

• 14:52Tim Ferriss?

  that were not your starting statement. I find defangs your beliefs, which are thoughts we take to be true.

• 15:00Matt Mullenweg?

  I like that a lot. Take it back to Charlie Munger. He says you should be able to argue the opposite.

• 15:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 15:04Matt Mullenweg?

  Just as well as you can argue your case.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Last but not least, recorded in Lisbon, Portugal, Andrew Rosener, founder and CEO of Media Options, an industry-leading domain broker.

• 15:25Tim Ferriss?

  Pursuit of happiness, small one. So how do you think about the pursuit of happiness? Because I will say, having spent time with you, you strike me as overall pretty happy guy. You got a little methy edge to you, a little twitchy, a little bouncy, but you smile a lot of the time.

• 15:40Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 15:40Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know if you're crying on the inside, but you seem like generally a pretty happy-go-lucky guy.

• 15:44Speaker 06

  I'm a pretty content person.

• 15:45Tim Ferriss?

  Content.

• 15:46Speaker 06

  Content. I have moments of happiness, but I'm pretty content.

• 15:49Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so tell me more about this and what you.

• 15:51Speaker 06

  So I guess the way that I think about it is that I generally want to be content. I don't necessarily pursue happiness, I pursue contentment.

• 16:02Tim Ferriss?

  And is that wanting what you have or being grateful? What does that mean?

• 16:06Speaker 06

  Yes, I think that's another way of saying it, but it's for me personally, it's a bit more that Terrence McKenna had this theory of novelty, that ultimately that's what evolution is all about. It's just about the pursuit of novelty. And that resonated with me. And I basically surmise that I think the purpose for each of our individual lives is truly, if you zoom out and you look at it from a species focus as opposed to an individual focus, the purpose for each individual life is actually just novelty. It's about unique characteristics that make you you and how you engage with the world around you and what that leads to. And this novelty is actually the objective, or should be the objective, again, in my opinion.

• 16:51Tim Ferriss?

  Meaning there's like a variety of different characteristics, survival of the fittest. Is that how the novelty?

• 16:58Speaker 06

  Not necessarily. I think survival of the fittest is a mechanic in the game, but it's not necessarily the end-all be-all of the game. I think it's really just about the pursuit of novelty, that you need to do things that nobody's done before. You need to react to things in a way that is not typical. If you do things like everybody else has done things, or like everybody else does things, then you can't expect a different outcome than what everybody else has had. And I certainly am not looking for the outcome that everybody else has. You got one shot at this thing. I want to do something else. I want to stand out. I want to pursue greatness, whatever that means. But I certainly, above all else, I don't want to be like other people. I don't want to be like anybody else, like any other individual, or like any other group of individuals. I don't like labels. I just want to pursue novelty.

• 17:43Speaker 06

  And what I found that to mean, once you go another layer, is that really what?

• 17:51Speaker 06

  Most of life is, is actually friction and pain and suffering. And we have developed our society to run away from that. You have a right to happiness. You are, should be in the pursuit of happiness. And I think that makes us soft. I think that makes us avoid risk. I think that makes us avoid pain. It makes us avoid hard work. And everything that I've seen, everything that I enjoy, comes at the expense of pain, suffering, hard work. Whether that's my marriage, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of pain and compromise.

• 18:34Speaker 06

  But through that, you achieve love. And you achieve this amazing relationship that's irreplaceable. Through those days of suffering and doing whatever it takes to make $250 a day, I was able to build a business that makes, you know, a lot of money and fits my lifestyle. I've optimized it for exactly the way I want to live. I don't want to scale it. I want to have 60 employees. I want to have four, five. And I want to just keep doing what I'm doing. Just hone my skill and hone my skill and just, I love what I do. But all of that takes suffering and pain. You know, I think the best way to highlight it is like art. Show me one meaningful piece of art, cultural art,

• 19:16Speaker 06

  that came as a result of like rainbows and butterflies and happiness. Great art comes from pain, suffering, heartache, mental illness, just terrible circumstances. It's really, great art comes from the darkness, not from the light. But you need both. And if you ignore the darkness, you will never get the light. Or you'll always be chasing the light. The light will always be in the distance. But you have to lean into the pain. You have to, off camera, we were talking about something else and you were saying, you know, I had to sit with it. And that's precisely it. You have to sit with the pain. Don't block it out. Don't ignore it. Don't push it away. Run into it. Run into the pain. Run into the hard stuff.

• 19:59Speaker 06

  Run into the stuff that nobody else wants to do. Because that's how you achieve novelty. And through novelty, you achieve everything. Anybody, it doesn't matter what your definition of success is. I can assure you that that person is successful by whatever definition you're, you're holding them up to be. Through novelty, they did something that other people were afraid to do, that other people were, didn't think of, whatever it is, it was achieved through novelty. And as far as I can tell, all greatness is achieved through novelty. It's doing things that other people don't want to do, doing things that other people are afraid to do, doing things that other people wouldn't even think about doing.

• 20:39Tim Ferriss?

  And now here are the bios for all the guests.

• 20:42Matt Mullenweg?

  Matt Mullinwick, domain ma.t t, which is pretty fun. I go by ma.t t sometimes. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, a few hours from here in Austin. And at the age of 19, I co-founded open source software called WordPress, which is a blogging content management system. Fast forward 20 years, it's been 20 years now, and runs over a third of all websites in the world. A few years after that, I founded a company called Automatic, which is kind of like the for-profit side of commercializing things around WordPress.

• 21:12Tim Ferriss?

  Automatik, M A T T.

• 21:16Matt Mullenweg?

  Yes, it's like any egotistical founder, I snuck my name into the company. And we started with just sort of a kismet anti-spam and wordpress.com, kind of easy ways to get going with WordPress, but since have expanded to e-commerce with WooCommerce, one I'll talk about with messaging, like we've done a number over like 25 acquisitions. So we're trying to be like a digital Berkshire Hathaway, like a buyer of first resort for amazing things on the internet. Pretty much everything we do is open source or open web. So we bought Tumblr, so we're running Tumblr for the last few years. Basically trying to, yeah, I would like future generations to grow up with a web that is more open, more free, gives more liberty. And so open source is really my life's work, even above WordPress and anything else. And yeah, I hope to work on it the rest of my life.

• 22:05Tim Ferriss?

  Andrew Rosener. Andrew is the founder and CEO of Media Options, which has been the number one domain broker in the world for the last six consecutive years. We talk about a lot more than domains and his life trajectory, his adventures are amazing. His mentors are charac- To put it mildly, but let's focus on the bio. Since 2008, Andrew has been involved in more than $600 million in domain sales and has played a pivotal role in numerous high-profile domain name transactions, including x.com to Elon Musk, zoom.com to Zoom, and prime.com and podcast.com to Amazon, as well as thousands of others.

• 22:47Tim Ferriss?

  So we get into how this business works, what the ecosystem looks like, what best practices look like, what differentiation looks like. And we also talk about all of those things and how he cut his teeth in the seafood arbitrage business and in other areas. Andrew is an inductee of the Domain Name Hall of Fame. He was named Domain Investor of the Year by Traffic, and he is the creator of the Rosener Equation, which he did not name himself. It was named after him, a formula for objectively valuing domain names widely adopted by the industry. Andrew is also the owner of domainsherpa.com, the industry's leading educational podcast on all things domains.

• 23:29Tim Ferriss?

  You can find him on Twitter, @AndrewRosener, R-O-S-E-N-E-R. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between 1.5 and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half-page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos,

• 24:11Tim Ferriss?

  all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog/Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.