#204: Tools of Titans: Josh Waitzkin Distilled

Josh Waitzkin is an endlessly fascinating person who gets mentioned a lot on this show for good reason (and he's been a guest not just once http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/04/22/tim-ferriss-podcast/, but twice http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/03/23/josh-waitzkin-the-prodigy-returns/). He was the basis for the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6305910340/offsitoftimfe-20. Considered a chess prodigy, Josh has perfected learning strategies that can be applied to anything, including his other loves of Brazilian jiu-jitsu (he's a black belt under phenom Marcelo Garcia) and Tai Chi push hands (he's a world champion). These days, he spends his time coaching the world's top athletes and investors, working to revolutionize education http://theartoflearningproject.org/, and tackling his new passion for paddle surfing (and nearly killing me in the process). I initially met Josh through his incredible book, The Art of Learning http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Learning-Journey-Performance/dp/0743277465/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, which I loved so much that I helped produce the audiobook (download here http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/The-Art-of-Learning-Audiobook/B00JAOOBHU/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 on Audible). This episode is a highlight reel of sorts -- lessons I've learned from Josh and shared in my new book Tools of Titans http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1328683788/offsitoftimfe-20. Please enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga http://foursigmatic.com/tim. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now, this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. 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. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. 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 the exact portfolio they'd put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: 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

  No, we're just in an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by 4Sigmatic. I reached out to these innovative Finnish entrepreneurs of all things because a very skilled acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which is a mushroom coffee made out of chaga mushroom, powerful antioxidant, considered a superfood. I was introduced to chaga by Laird Hamilton, of all people, and another mushroom called lion's mane, which is considered a nootropic or a smart drug. And I had half a packet. Let me put this in perspective. Tasted just like coffee, just add to hot water, only 20 milligrams in half a packet of caffeine. That's as little as one tenth what you would find

• 1:03Tim Ferriss?

  in a strong cup of coffee. And I was on fire for the entire day. I probably got more done in that day than I got done in the three or four days prior to that. So I would highly recommend checking it out. It is very impressive. You will not see visuals, so you can use it for work. And you can check it out at 4sigmatic.com/tim. That's 4-sigmatic.com/tim and use the code TIM to get 20% off your first order. I highly encourage you to try it out.

• 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. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront

• 3:53Tim Ferriss?

  that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. 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.

• 4:22Tim Ferriss?

  Hello my little Malagwa, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is typically my responsibility to distill expertise, or I should say rather, habits, tactics, tools, etc. from world-class performers. Those things that you can test in your own life, apply to your own life, whether they are from the worlds of, say, entertainment, sports, military, or in this case, chess, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Tai Chi Push Hands. But, this episode is going to be an experimental episode. I want to try a few things that are adapted from, share a few things that are adapted from my new book, Tools of Titans.

• 5:02Tim Ferriss?

  You can find it on Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon.com, everybody, they should be available. And, it's also a highlight reel, in effect, that you guys, many of you, thousands of you have asked me for. And, we're going to invite back one of my favorite people on the planet, Josh Waitzkin. Endlessly fascinating guy. Josh Waitzkin, you can find him at joshwaitzkin.com, was the basis for the book and the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. He was considered a chess prodigy, but he has perfected learning strategies that can be applied to anything by anyone. And I really mean that, including his loves of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He's a black belt under, I think he was the first black belt, under Fina Marcelo Garcia,

• 5:44Tim Ferriss?

  we'll talk more about him, and Tai Chi Push Hands, in which he was a world champion. These days, he spends his time very quietly, coaching the world's top athletes and investors, working to revolutionize education, we've partnered on a number of things there, and tackling his new passion of paddle surfing. And, in the latter, very often, nearly killing me in the process. I first met Josh after reading his book, The Art of Learning, and as I think I've mentioned, we've become very dear friends.

• 6:15Tim Ferriss?

  Empty Space. Josh has no social media, does no interviews, except for my podcast, for which he very often says to me or texts me, "You fuck!" After all, he is from New York City, and avoids nearly all meetings and phone calls. He is perhaps the best I've met. Actually, there's one other, Rick Rubin, who's been on the podcast as well, legendary music producer. He minimizes input to maximize output. And as Josh would say, quote, "I cultivate empty space as a way of life for the creative process," end quote. So you might ask yourself, how are you creating empty space? How are you creating the slack necessary to connect dots that perhaps you haven't connected before, come up with original ideas?

• 6:59Tim Ferriss?

  Josh is an expert here.

• 7:01Josh Waitzkin?

  I cultivate empty space as a way of life for the creative process.

• 7:08Tim Ferriss?

  Learning the macro from the micro. Josh really focuses on depth over breadth in everything. He often uses a principle nicknamed "learning the macro from the micro." This means focusing on something very small in a field, whether that's in chess, martial arts, or elsewhere, to internalize extremely powerful macro principles that apply everywhere. And I will give you a few examples. This is also sometimes combined with "beginning with the end game." And I will illustrate that. For instance, when Josh gave me a beginner's tutorial on chess, he didn't start with opening moves. Memorizing openings is natural, of course, and nearly everyone does it. But Josh likens it to stealing the test answers from a teacher.

• 7:51Tim Ferriss?

  You're not learning principles or strategies. You're merely learning a few tricks that will help you beat your novice friends. Instead, Josh took me in the complete reverse, just as his first teacher, Bruce Pendelpheny, did with him. So he took off all of the pieces, empty board, and he added three back in an end game scenario, where he would usually finish the game, king and pawn against king.

• 8:17Tim Ferriss?

  So in this case, through the micro positions of vastly reduced complexity, he was able to force me to focus on the macro. Principles like the power of empty space, opposition, or setting an opponent up for zugzwang, which is a situation where any move he makes will destroy his position. So by limiting me to a few simple pieces, he hoped that I would learn something limitless, high-level concepts that I could apply anytime against anyone. I've seen Josh do this himself to many things, including, for instance, jiu-jitsu, where he can cover nearly all of the principles of jiu-jitsu, the main tenets that will help you compete at a high level by focusing on a single submission. Again, the endgame, called in this case, the guillotine, or specifically, the Marcelo

• 9:02Tim Ferriss?

  teen from Marcelo Garcia. And after he gave me this tutorial in chess, which was actually, part of it was recorded, and there's an extended scene that's available in the TV show I did called The Tim Ferriss Experiment, I went to Washington Square Park and lasted about 10 times longer than I ever have before, competing against these street hustlers. And that was literally from practicing, no openers, no nothing aside from these high-level principles with three pieces on the board. Pretty cool stuff.

• 9:33Tim Ferriss?

  If you're studying my game, you're entering my game. Josh and I spent a lot of time discussing, and in some cases, hanging out with or training with Marcelo Garcia, five-time world champion in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, with whom Josh owns the Marcelo Garcia Academy in New York City, which I highly recommend if you have a chance. They have a very strict no asshole, no bully policy, and it's probably also the cleanest and certainly one of the most competitive jiu-jitsu gyms in the world. So Marcelo, who's Marcelo? Marcelo is arguably the best grappler of the last 100 years. He's considered the combined Mike Tyson, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan of his sport. And whereas most competitors are very secretive about their training for competition, their

• 10:17Tim Ferriss?

  competition prep, Marcelo does the opposite. He routinely records and uploads his exact sparring sessions. In other words, his exact training for major events, which all of his competitors can watch. Josh explains the rationale.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  When he was competing in Abu Dhabi submission grappling world championship, and Monjars, which is the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, we were Streaming his sparring sessions every night. So he was basically showing his competitors what he was about to use against them in two weeks and three weeks and four weeks. And his attitude about this, which is completely unique, is if you're studying my game, you're entering my game and I'll be better at it than you.

• 10:55Tim Ferriss?

  I often share exact under the hood details of how, for instance, I've built the podcast or put together Kickstarter campaigns and so on. I do this really for two reasons and they are reflective of two core beliefs. So let's talk about those. Belief number one, it's rarely a zero sum game. In other words, if someone wins, someone else must lose. That's just not the case. It's rarely a zero sum game in something like podcasting. And the more that I help people with details, the more detailed help I receive in turn. Belief number two, if it is competitive, I'm simply offering people the details of my game, right? My attention to detail will scare off half of the people right off the bat who would have tried.

• 11:40Tim Ferriss?

  So now we're down to 50% of the people who have heard it or read it or observed it. 40% will try it and be worse than me because it's my game, right? I'm capitalizing on my strengths with my particular strategies and so on. But 10% will try it and be better than me. Now, is this a problem or is it not? And I would just say, see belief number one. That 10% will often reach out to me to teach me exactly what they learned and did to get better results because they are grateful for what I offered in the first place, which was transparency. So call it karma, call it anything that you might like. I call it very, very useful and plus it's just a, a more offensive and not defensive

• 12:25Tim Ferriss?

  way to live and to perform in a professional arena for me.

• 12:32Speaker 05

  Remember the last three turns?

• 12:34Speaker 02

  I remember when I went skiing with Billy Kidd, who, as you might recall, was one of the great downhill racers from back in, I think, the 60s Olympic ski team. Awesome dude. Now he's out in Colorado wearing a cowboy hat. Just a timeless guy. Brilliant dude. And, you know, he was saying to me years ago, when I first skied with him, "Josh, what do you think are the three most important turns of the ski run?" And, you know, I've asked that question to a lot of people since. And most people will say, "The middle, because it's the hardest. The beginning, because they're getting momentum." Billy describes the three most important turns of the ski run are the last three before you get in the lift. And it's a very, very subtle point. And for those of you who are skiers, you know that that's when the slope is leveled off, there's less challenge. Most people are very sloppy then, they're taking the muscles off of, they're taking the weight off the muscles they've been using, they have bad form.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Problem with that is that on the lift ride up, unconsciously, you're internalizing bad body mechanics. As Billy points out, if your last three turns are precise, then what you're internalizing on the lift ride up is precision. So, I carry this on to, you know, the guys who I train in the finance world, for example, ending the workday with very high quality. Which opens up, for one thing, you're internalizing quality overnight.

• 13:43Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks to Josh, I now always end training sessions on a good rep, per se. Whether that's acro yoga, you can definitely learn more about that by listening to my episode with Jason Neemer, gymnastics, check out Coach Sommer, archery, or other. For instance, even if I have 60 minutes budgeted for a workout, if I hit a fantastic PR, in other words, a personal record at, say, 45 minutes, or do something new particularly well in gymnastics, I pack it in, that's the end of the workout. In the case of archery, which is a new passion of mine, I also use what's called blank bail practice. And a bail, like a hay bale, they would use, that you would put a target on and aim for. A blank bail is where I start and end all sessions with five to six arrows shot by feel

• 14:27Tim Ferriss?

  alone, eyes closed, into a target that is a mere 10 feet away. So I'm not aiming at anything. And this is similar, in many senses, to dry firing with firearms, or handguns, for instance, to try to Minimize any type of flinching that you might have in anticipation of the shot. And you're able to then kinesthetically incorporate the, the fine motor control that will ultimately aid you in other circumstances. One of Josh's favorite writers, Hemingway, had a practice of ending his writing sessions mid-flow and mid-sentence. This way, he knew exactly where to start the next day and he could reliably both end and start his sessions with confidence.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  To turn it on, learn to turn it off, and vice versa.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Marcelo Garcia, who we were talking about, one of my most beautiful memories of him in, you know, world championship, right before going into the semifinals, raucous bleacher, everyone screaming, yelling, he's sleeping, sleeping in the bleacher. You'd wake him up, he'd sort of stumble into the ring, you've never seen a guy more relaxed before going into a world championship fight. And then he can turn it off so deeply, and man, when he goes in the ring, you can't turn it on with any more intensity than he can. And his ability to turn it off is directly aligned with how intensely he can turn it on. So, training people to do this, have stress and recovery, undulation throughout their day.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  The little things are the big things.

• 15:52Josh Waitzkin?

  We're talking about Marcelo talking about, or embodying the principle of quality in all these little ways. These little ways, you could say, don't matter, but they add up to, to matter hugely.

• 16:01Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I think the little things are the big things.

• 16:04Josh Waitzkin?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Tim Ferriss?

  Because they're a reflection, I mean, this might sound cliched, but it's like how you do anything is how you do everything, right? And...

• 16:10Josh Waitzkin?

  It's such a, it's such a beautiful and critical principle. And, and we don't, most people think they can wait around for the big moments to turn it on. But if you don't cultivate turning it on as a way of life in the little moments, there's, and there's hundreds of times more little moments than big, then there's no chance in the big moments.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  Just go around for life.

• 16:32Josh Waitzkin?

  I mean, lateral thinking, or thematic thinking, the ability to take a lesson from one thing and transfer it over to another, I think is one of the most important disciplines that any of us can cultivate, or, or ways of being. And it's something that Jack and I have from a, a really young age. We began to cultivate this from when he was really small, around this principle of go around.

• 16:50Josh Waitzkin?

  We, we would, we would, initially, it was like, the first thing at the time it happened is that he was trying, he was really tiny, he was trying to get in, we were in a little cottage. Singing in a cottage on Martha's Vineyard, tiny little cottage in a big field. And he was trying to get in one door and he couldn't, but he could get in the other door. And I said, "Jack, go around." And he looked at me and then he went around. And then "go around" became a language for us physically. If you can't go one way, you go around to another way. But then it became a language for us in terms of solving puzzles and in terms of any way, time you were running an obstacle, "go around." And then working with the metaphor of "go around" opened up this way that we would just have dialogue around connecting things, right? Taking away of a principle from one thing and applying it to something else. And we've had a lot of fun with that.

• 17:37Josh Waitzkin?

  Embrace your funk. That's a term my buddy Graham, who's a dear friend of ours, who comes on our Surf Adventures with us. He's a brilliant thought partner. Embrace the funk. Could you explain that? Yeah, we have to embrace our funk. We have to figure out what, you know, you think about the entanglement of genius and madness, right? Or brilliance and eccentricity. Understanding that entanglement is always a precursor to working with anybody who's trying to be world-class at something, because that entanglement is fundamental to their being. And they have to ultimately embrace their funk, embrace their eccentricity, embrace what makes them different, and then build on it.

• 18:18Josh Waitzkin?

  Who do you pick when your ego seems threatened? It's very interesting to observe who the top competitors pick out when they're five rounds into the sparring sessions and they're completely gassed. The ones who are in the steepest growth curve look for the hardest guy there, the one who will beat them up, who might beat them up, while others will look for someone they can take a break on.

• 18:39Josh Waitzkin?

  The importance of language on a rainy day. One of the biggest mistakes that I observed in the first year of Jack's life, or year or two of Jack's life that I've observed with parents, is that they do have this language around weather, weather being good or bad. And whenever the weather, whenever it was raining, they'd be like, "It's bad weather." You'd hear moms, babysitters, dads talk about, "It's bad weather, we can't go out." Or, "It's good weather, we can go out." And so that means that somehow we're externally reliant on conditions being perfect in order to be able to go out and have a good time. So Jack and I never missed a single storm. Every rainstorm, I don't think we've missed one storm, other than maybe one when he was sick. But I don't think we've missed a single storm, rain or snow. Going outside and romping in it. And we've developed this language around how beautiful it was. And so now, whenever there's a rainy day, Jack says, "Look, that day had such a beautiful rainy day." And we go out and we play in it.

• 19:24Josh Waitzkin?

  And, you know, I wanted him to have this internal locus of control, right? To not be reliant on external conditions being just so.

• 19:35Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday? That provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 20:17Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. 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?

• 21:02Tim Ferriss?

  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. 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've 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.

• 21:45Tim Ferriss?

  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, 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. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on the show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different.

• 22:29Tim Ferriss?

  I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. 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.

• 23:14Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these innovative Finnish entrepreneurs, of all things, because a very skilled acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which is a mushroom coffee made out of chaga mushroom, powerful antioxidant, considered a superfood. I was introduced to chaga by Laird Hamilton, of all people. And another mushroom called lion's mane, which is considered a nootropic or a smart drug. And I had half a packet. Let me put this in perspective. It tasted just like coffee, just add to hot water. Only 20 milligrams in half a packet of caffeine. And that's as little as one tenth what you would find in a strong cup of coffee. And I was on fire for the entire day.

• 23:59Tim Ferriss?

  I probably got more done in that day than I got done in the three or four days prior to that. So I would highly recommend checking it out. It is very impressive. You will not see visuals, so you can use it for work. And you can check it out at foursigmatic.com/tim. That's foursigmatic, S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C dot com forward slash tim. And use the code tim to get 20% off your first order. I highly encourage you to try it out.