#167: Jamie Foxx Part 2 - Bringing the Thunder

Jamie Foxx (@iamjamiefoxx https://twitter.com/iamjamiefoxx) returns to the show for a special role-reversal where he interviews me for his radio show http://www.siriusxm.com/thefoxxhole. For those of you who didn't hear Jamie's first appearance on the podcast, which was voted 2015 Podcast of the Year by Product Hunt https://www.producthunt.com/, you can check it out here. http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/ In this episode, you'll hear many stories and topics that haven't been discussed before -- including Jamie's exploration of past lives. It goes in many different directions, but I think you'll enjoy it. If you only have 5 minutes, listen to the first few minutes because Jamie is the consummate performer, which is what you'd expect from an Academy Award-winning actor, Grammy Award-winning musician, and famous standup and improv comedian. He has all the tools in the toolkit. Please enjoy this raucous romp! 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 MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim. Have you ever wanted to be as powerful as a mullet-wearing ninja from the 1980's, or as sleek as a black panther in the Amazon? Of course you have, and that's where MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim comes in. I've spent the last six months wearing underwear from these guys http://meundies.com/tim 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I've ever owned. Their materials are 2x softer than cotton, as evaluated using the Kawabata method. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim http://meundies.com/tim to see my current faves (some are awesomely ridiculous, like the camo) 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 -- exactly the 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. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Jamie Foxx?

  Now is an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by MeUndies. If I'm not going commando, I'm in MeUndies. I have been testing these underwear for three to four months now, pretty much every day, and in fact, threw out a bunch of my other underwear this morning. And on the road, in the house, they are extremely comfortable. They look good, feel good. They are made of micro modal, two times softer than cotton, as scientifically tested using the Kawabata method. Sounds very fancy, of course. And I get a lot of compliments from the ladies for these. You don't get diaper butt, you don't get the tired elastic band. They look great, and they have underwear for both men and women. Check out meundies.com/tim and you can see everything I've been wearing. They're ridiculous, the sublime, everything

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  in between, including my favorite, which is called out. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention their lounge pants. This is a new thing. And I've been wearing their lounge pants when I record podcasts. I've been wearing them out and about when I'm walking the dog, meeting people for coffee. And they are extremely comfortable. They're made from the same material as the underwear, but some of them, like the blue ones I have, have pockets so you can walk about without seeming like you're off of your meds and completely crazy. So that is awesome. And if you're not happy with the first pair you try on, I assume that refers to the underwear, they'll refund you completely and you can keep the pair you tried on for free. But if you're that kind of person, you should be ashamed, because that's disgusting. MeUndies.com/tim, check it out.

• 1:55Tim 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. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim.

• 2:40Tim 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, etc.,

• 3:22Tim 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

• 4:03Tim Ferriss?

  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.

• 4:36Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, my fine feathered friends. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job each episode to deconstruct world-class performers and tease out the routines, habits, daily rituals, breakfasts, favorite books, whatever it might be that you can emulate, test in your own life. This episode is a role reversal and a very hilarious one at that. Jamie Foxx is back on the show. This is a round two where he interviewed me for his radio show, and we simultaneously recorded for the podcast. It was great fun. We recorded in his studio at his home in Los Angeles. For those of you who didn't hear the first appearance of Jamie on the podcast, it was

• 5:19Tim Ferriss?

  voted 2015 Podcast of the Year last year with Product Hunt and others. The title was Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories. You can check that out at fourhourworkweek.com/jamie. And for those interested, the second place runner-up for Podcast of the Year was also from The Tim Ferriss Show, and that was Naval Ravikant. If you haven't heard of him, you gotta learn all about him. And that is fourhourworkweek.com/naval, N-A-V-A-L. A few things about this episode. So it's cut up into segments because we were taking commercial breaks for the radio show. There were a number of songs that Jamie comments on or refers to indirectly that I couldn't play in this podcast due to copyright reasons.

• 6:03Tim Ferriss?

  They are from Seu, "Male Molencia," and one of the hottest voices and faces ever, that is Brazilian Portuguese, "Baby Metal," "Karate," "Federico Albele," "Esta Noche," and then Seven Dust, "Splinter."

• 6:17Tim Ferriss?

  All of these will be linked to in the show notes. So just go to fourhourworkweek.com/podcast for all the show notes on this episode and every other episode. And there are going to be a couple of stories in here for very long-term listeners that you've probably heard some variation of before because people ask me about some of my backstory, et cetera. There are definitely things you have not heard before, including Jamie's exploration of past lives, and it goes in many different directions. But I think you'll enjoy it. And at the very least, listen to the first few minutes because Jamie is the consummate performer, which is of course what you would expect from someone who is an Academy Award winning actor, Grammy Award winning musician, and a famous stand-up and improv comedian.

• 7:02Tim Ferriss?

  He has all the tools in the toolkit. You can say hi to Jamie on Twitter @IAMJAMIFOX, two X's. And without further ado, please enjoy this raucous romp through the mind of Jamie Foxx and yours truly.

• 7:20Jamie Foxx?

  If I told you that Oprah Winfrey is now a white man.

• 7:27Jamie Foxx?

  If I told you that Oprah Winfrey has now become Caucasian, what would you say? I got a chance to meet this man. This man literally changed my life. My young friend Ricardo, who speaks seven languages, he's a heartthrob. He explained to me about who this guy was, says, "You need to do this guy's podcast." And I was like, "Really?" Because I was such, I'm ancient when it came to the internet, when it came to these things of social media, I was so far behind. And Ricardo would always say, "You gotta shake off the dust." You know, it was like my parents when they were trying to figure out a microwave. And he brought this guy to my house and we did this incredible interview.

• 8:12Jamie Foxx?

  And literally, it was like I had a record out when I left. It was like I had a movie out when I left. I was getting stopped by people of all walks of life. They said, "Jamie, I don't necessarily like your shit, but what you did on this man's show moved me." Joe Rogan, who I'm known from the comedy world, Ricardo sends me a clip of Joe Rogan talking about this man.

• 8:39Jamie Foxx?

  I'm talking about now 70 million downloads. Am I right? 70 million. Some of you guys don't even have 65 likes. And you're constantly, constantly, constantly posting. You need to get it together. Maybe you need his four hour plan. I'm talking about none other. The Oprah Winfrey of the internet. Ladies and gentlemen, turn the music up. Tim Ferriss is in the building.

• 9:14Jamie Foxx?

  Tim, how you doing, baby?

• 9:15Tim Ferriss?

  I'm doing fantastic. So, thanks. Thanks again for having me.

• 9:18Jamie Foxx?

  Amen.

• 9:18Tim Ferriss?

  I love this studio.

• 9:20Jamie Foxx?

  Hey, listen, man.

• 9:21Tim Ferriss?

  Good vibes in this studio.

• 9:21Jamie Foxx?

  It's great vibes, man. Listen, all I can say is that I cannot say enough of, of who you are. I was in New York. Lawyers, doctors, all walks of people came up to me and said, yo, Jamie, the Tim Ferriss interview like took me over the moon. And I was like, I, I, I was, you know, obviously Ricardo told me who you were and all the research can still cannot put into words what, how you impact the world. Where do you come from? What, what, what are you doing since 1977? What, you were born in 87?

• 10:01Tim Ferriss?

  I was born in 77. I had time to pick up.

• 10:05Jamie Foxx?

  I was trying to.

• 10:05Tim Ferriss?

  Breaking, Breaking Two, Electric Boogaloo. Little car brought up Long Island.

• 10:10Jamie Foxx?

  Now, the song, the song we just played is one of Tim's top five songs. What was the name of that song?

• 10:15Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, that is Malé Malentia by a singer named Seu from Brazil.

• 10:19Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, and you know what? You made, you made the foxhole work too because I asked him for his five songs and then he didn't give me no iTunes shit. He said, get in them crates, get in those crates. And luckily we have a Cuban who's, who's putting things together. And before Trump gets in office, you know, we got a few. Anyway, we got a few minutes.

• 10:39Jamie Foxx?

  We'll talk about all that later on. We're here with Tim Ferriss. Tim, where do you come from, man? And how, what gives you the mindset? Now, I've met you, you've interviewed me, but like now people want to know who you are. Like, where do you come from?

• 10:53Tim Ferriss?

  I was born and raised on Long Island.

• 10:55Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 10:56Tim Ferriss?

  Rat tail and all.

• 10:56Jamie Foxx?

  Long Geil.

• 10:57Tim Ferriss?

  Strong Island.

• 10:59Jamie Foxx?

  Strong Island.

• 10:59Tim Ferriss?

  Out at the end. And mom was a physical therapist, dad a real estate broker, local real estate broker. And my parents were very good at encouraging me and my younger brother, that's the family, to explore. And they always had, they didn't have much budget for anything other than books. So if we latched onto something,

• 11:19Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 11:20Tim Ferriss?

  they would take us to, say, the remainder table at the bookstore and find these discounted books.

• 11:24Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 11:25Tim Ferriss?

  And Yeah. And that is where I think a lot of the experimentation started, mostly because I was very hyperactive as a kid, but I was a runt. I was born premature. And so my mom got some good word from the other, the other ladies, the other moms, that kid wrestling was a good place to exhaust your kid.

• 11:43Jamie Foxx?

  We, oh.

• 11:44Tim Ferriss?

  So she threw me into wrestling. And I had no endurance, except for some lung issues and other issues. So I started getting very good in high school at cutting weight. And that's where I started really studying the human body and this obsession with self-experimentation took off.

• 12:00Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, self-experimentation. What makes you think that, though? I mean, because here's what I say all the time. It's like, people have gifts. Everybody's given a gift.

• 12:10Jamie Foxx?

  But what would make you think self-experimentation? And how would that manifest to what it is right now? Or did you foresee that?

• 12:19Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think that one of the catalysts was a weakness that turned into a strength. So for cutting weight, I always sweat very easily, which meant that I could get dehydrated very easily. Now, that was a liability and a problem in so many other sports, but in wrestling,

• 12:32Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 12:33Tim Ferriss?

  if I'm trying to cut down to a lower weight class, it was a huge advantage. I could lose water weight very quickly.

• 12:38Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 12:39Tim Ferriss?

  And so I started thinking, well, if that's the case, that this weakness can be turned into a strength, where else can I find Achilles heels that I can turn into advantages? And it just led me to be a bit more analytical than I suppose some of the other kids who were normal and they could compete in the normal way. I just couldn't do that.

• 12:58Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 12:59Tim Ferriss?

  And I also had a very influential coach, wrestling coach, Mr. Buxton, who was, I think, a rarity in today's climate at least. He was a hard ass who like cared enough to really beat your ass.

• 13:13Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, that's the old school, Tim. We don't have it no more. You can't touch the kids no more. My father was a teacher for 20 years, can't touch the kids. He said, I wouldn't be able to, I wouldn't be able to govern. So he whooped your ass, huh?

• 13:25Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, we would, I just remember one practice, we had these drills, I think they're called blood circles or some horrible, some horrible name.

• 13:34Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, man.

• 13:34Tim Ferriss?

  And I said, Mr. Buxton, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can do it. And he's not only a successful coach, I mean, he was a tri varsity athlete in college and exceptional athlete and coach, but he was also very good at teaching. He was a teacher, English teacher, I believe, and an incredible fundraiser for the school. So he was multi-talented. Now he's the dean of Culver Academy, Military Academy in Indiana. But I remember at one point I was like, Mr. Buxton, I can't do it anymore. I'm gonna puke. And he's like, and he's like, that's what the bucket over there is for.

• 14:03Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 14:04Tim Ferriss?

  So go over there and puke and then come back and continue the drilling.

• 14:07Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 14:08Tim Ferriss?

  And what was great about that environment, although I didn't realize it at the time, is that he pushed all of us past the point that we felt was our limit. And if you look at the kids who are in that wrestling team, like my wrestling partner, guy named Charles Best, who was a year ahead of me, always beat me by one point, rest loss for the varsity spot.

• 14:30Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, but where's Charles now?

• 14:31Tim Ferriss?

  So Charles is the CEO and founder of a nonprofit called Donors Choose, which is a huge educational nonprofit that has people like Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert and all these supporters. Huge, massive success that's changing the world. And he also credits a lot of his success back to Mr. Buxton.

• 14:48Jamie Foxx?

  To the coach. Steel, Sharp and Steel. It's Jamie Foxx, Foxhole Radio. You know how we get down? Series 96, we are with the Oprah Winfrey of the internet? We're with the, oh boy, his podcast is number one. He's breaking it down on how he learned what self experimentation was. He tells us that his coach, which I still credit my coach, Coach Isaac, my seventh grade coach, who gave me licks if my grades was wrong, gave me licks if I got caught outside, you know, he, he, he made sure he was doing. He's given us building blocks, but talk about this. When you say there was a problem, can you speak on what it was? You had a, a lung situation?

• 15:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I had, so my lung collapsed when I was born and I think I had five total blood transfusions. So I was in the ICU as a young kid and so I was, I still have scars on the left side of my chest and then on my wrist here, it looks kind of like a cigarette burn, it's not a cigarette burn.

• 15:43Jamie Foxx?

  I was about to say.

• 15:44Tim Ferriss?

  That's, that's from, uh, it's being intubated. And, uh, so even to this day, I'm very, very sensitive to heat and, uh, have a lot of issues, uh, with even heat stroke in a few occasions where I've had to be hospitalized. And I just, my brain just doesn't function, it turns off. It has a set point where these things called heat shock proteins and whatnot get triggered at a relatively low temperature compared to other folks.

• 16:06Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 16:07Tim Ferriss?

  So.

• 16:07Jamie Foxx?

  So you gotta stay cool.

• 16:08Tim Ferriss?

  I have to stay cool.

• 16:09Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Tim Ferriss?

  Gotta stay cool.

• 16:10Jamie Foxx?

  Gotta stay cool, brother.

• 16:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, it almost sounds like a superhero.

• 16:15Tim Ferriss?

  It's like a.

• 16:15Jamie Foxx?

  It's like, do you remember Unbreakable?

• 16:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:18Jamie Foxx?

  It's, it's almost like, wow, you take these things, it's like he's a superhero, he's able to be, he's able to, to, to give you a four hour plan, but don't let him, well, don't let him be in the sun.

• 16:30Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely weaken the sun. I mean, you can see I'm not, I look like the underbelly of, I don't know, a manatee or something.

• 16:35Jamie Foxx?

  It's all right, man, I got some spray tan in there, you know, a couple of white girls came through.

• 16:43Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think what I've, if, you know, so I was a comic book nerd growing up. So I, I collected comics.

• 16:46Jamie Foxx?

  Who was your favorite comic?

• 16:47Tim Ferriss?

  Wolverine.

• 16:48Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 16:49Tim Ferriss?

  Because Wolverine was hu, I mean, he was human.

• 16:52Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, speak on it, speak on it, brother.

• 16:55Tim Ferriss?

  Wolverine and the Punisher. So I was, in other words, I was, I was fans of the human comic book heroes who had found strengths or augmented strengths. So like Superman, it's like, hey, you were born that way.

• 17:07Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:08Tim Ferriss?

  But Batman, like, you had to build

• 17:10Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:11Tim Ferriss?

  all the tools around him. So that appealed to me as kind of the tinkerer. And, you know, even to this day, the, I trace it all back to these physical problems that I had as a kid. And, for instance, this is about, I want to say five, five or 10 years ago, I did an experiment at Stanford University. They were, I found out that they were doing research on heat tolerance for soldiers. And I was like, oh, this is a chance for me to gather data on myself and figure out why my brain turns off. And so the experiment was terrible. What they had us do is I'd have to put an esophageal probe down my nose. So this is a piece of plastic that's about two feet long. You put it through your nostril, down your throat to your heart

• 17:50Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 17:51Tim Ferriss?

  level to measure your core body temperature. And then you, then you tape it so it doesn't get lost. And then you take another one and you stick it up the other end.

• 17:59Jamie Foxx?

  What is, what is, what does that mean?

• 18:00Tim Ferriss?

  You stick it up your ass.

• 18:01Jamie Foxx?

  Okay.

• 18:02Tim Ferriss?

  Up to your heart, that direction.

• 18:04Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 18:04Tim Ferriss?

  So because the military wants that data.

• 18:06Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 18:07Tim Ferriss?

  And then you put on a full military outfit, like, full military gear, weighted backpack, helmet, everything. You go into 100, and I think it was four degree sauna, and march on an incline treadmill to exhaustion, until you've basically have heat stroke.

• 18:21Jamie Foxx?

  So you, so you have something up your ass and up your no, and down your nose.

• 18:25Tim Ferriss?

  Down your throat.

• 18:26Jamie Foxx?

  This is going all out. No wonder you, you, you know your shit to be able, literally.

• 18:30Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:31Jamie Foxx?

  And you did this.

• 18:33Tim Ferriss?

  I did. And what they were testing was a glove that you stuck your hand into this glove and it would create a vacuum around your wrist and then circulate cold water around a metal cylinder that you grabbed. And the theory was you could use that to rapidly cool your body temperature. So they wanted to develop it for soldiers.

• 18:50Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 18:50Tim Ferriss?

  And it was being tested at the time by some very, very good boxers, some very, very good athletes. So that was, that was all it took for me to volunteer to do it. I only did about four sessions. I was like, after the four sessions, I was like

• 19:03Jamie Foxx?

  After the four times of it going up

• 19:04Tim Ferriss?

  I'm like, alright, yeah, I got, I think I've had, I think I've had enough of this.

• 19:07Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah. Did you smoke a cigarette after? Ladies and gentlemen, it's Jamie Foxx. Foxhole Radio is Sirius XM 96. We're gonna take a break and we're coming right back and find out how he went from that. To be in the top person on the internet. This is another song that he loves. Another one bites the dust. Tim Ferriss, we back in a moment. Sirius XM ninety-six. Self experimentation, leading up to being one of the most sought after. The number one podcast in the world. I'm here with none other than the incredible, the remarkable superhero, superhero Tim Ferriss in the building.

• 19:53Jamie Foxx?

  How you doing, man?

• 19:55Tim Ferriss?

  Better and better.

• 19:55Jamie Foxx?

  Better and better. So, so, so take me through it. Take me through going through the, through the experiments, finding out what you want to do up until four hour work week.

• 20:08Tim Ferriss?

  Sure. So, the, uh, the trajectory was.

• 20:11Jamie Foxx?

  But get me to that, but just don't go straight to that.

• 20:13Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no, I'll get you there. I'll get you there.

• 20:15Jamie Foxx?

  You know, was, where'd you, where'd you, where'd you find this niche?

• 20:20Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think there, there were a couple of things. So, I had an opportunity my sophomore year in high school to go abroad for the first time. There was an exchange program that was available to me and, uh, I'd never spent really any time outside of the United States. You know, Niagara Falls, maybe crossed over to Canada, but went to Japan for a year and lived with Japanese families. Went to a Japanese school. I was the only, at one point, the only, you know, the only white kid, only American kid at school. Five thousand Japanese kids.

• 20:51Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 20:52Tim Ferriss?

  School uniforms and everything. So, I was completely immersed in that culture for a year and it, what it showed me was how arbitrary a lot of our rules are.

• 21:00Jamie Foxx?

  Really?

• 21:00Tim Ferriss?

  Meaning, like, we drive on one side of the street, they drive on the other. We, uh, we take showers a certain way. They share baths, but you have to take a shower before you get in the bath and the whole family uses the same bath water.

• 21:13Jamie Foxx?

  Is that some kind of spiritual thing or what is?

• 21:15Tim Ferriss?

  It's, it's a, just a Japanese cultural tradition, ofuro. They have these deep soaking baths and they go in order of seniority. So, it's like grandma gets to go in first.

• 21:23Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 21:24Tim Ferriss?

  Then dad, then mom, then the siblings from oldest to youngest. So, it's like if you're the youngest kid, you get, you get the drag.

• 21:30Jamie Foxx?

  You get all that, you get all, you get grandma's uh.

• 21:33Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah, you got grandma's cubes like floating around. It's, it's, it's a trip, so.

• 21:37Jamie Foxx?

  Come on granny.

• 21:38Tim Ferriss?

  And that's not an exaggeration. I was like, oh god, what is this?

• 21:41Jamie Foxx?

  So, so you get in after the whole family?

• 21:42Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I would get in actually before the youngest brother, cause I was older than he was. But, but the point being that it, it showed me that our rules were very arbitrary. A lot of our rules are just kind of socially reinforced. And that there's room to improvise. You can negotiate those things. You can experiment. You can be different. You can march to your own drummer. And when I came back, uh, I finished high school and ended up going to a college in New Jersey. I went to Princeton undergraduate. And first studied neuroscience, uh, and then transferred to East Asian studies where I focused on Japanese, Chinese and Korean. I was mostly focused on the languages and language.

• 22:18Jamie Foxx?

  And why that? Why, why do you feel it, it was that? What, is it the certain disciplines that they have? Or, or when you went over there, you felt something that, that, that made you change? Like, so, sort of like when I went to Africa, like there was this thing that I felt, like it was from, I said, wow, I feel this amazing thing in Mozambique. And I stood, you know, in the ocean and, and, and I was like, oh, I feel this thing. Is that the same?

• 22:39Tim Ferriss?

  You know, you're, you're the first person who's kind of dug into this. Uh, yes, I did feel something. And when I was there, and you know, I don't want to go as far to say like, oh my god, maybe in a past life, this, that or the other thing, but when I was there.

• 22:50Jamie Foxx?

  For, for us on our show?

• 22:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 22:52Jamie Foxx?

  Please do that, because we don't, we don't, we don't wanna, you know, we, we don't skim.

• 22:58Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no, no, no.

• 22:58Jamie Foxx?

  If you really felt that?

• 22:59Tim Ferriss?

  I'll jump right into it. You know, I did, I did. And to the extent that, you know, some of my closest friends, when I got into judo and I was training in, uh, different martial arts there and so on, they would say.

• 23:12Tim Ferriss?

  They, they would insist, they're like, you're Japanese. You're not American, you're Japanese. And I don't get it, cause that's weird. And so they would always, I mean, there's an expression, which is just like strange foreigner.

• 23:24Tim Ferriss?

  Then they would just go on and on.

• 23:26Jamie Foxx?

  Help me say that. What'd you say?

• 23:28Tim Ferriss?

  So, strange, okay.

• 23:29Jamie Foxx?

  Now, how do I say it?

• 23:30Tim Ferriss?

  So, if you want to say strange foreigner?

• 23:32Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 23:32Tim Ferriss?

  It's henna?

• 23:33Jamie Foxx?

  Henna?

• 23:34Tim Ferriss?

  Gaijin.

• 23:34Jamie Foxx?

  Gaijin.

• 23:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, henna gaijin.

• 23:36Jamie Foxx?

  Henna gaijin.

• 23:37Tim Ferriss?

  So if you, yeah, so if you wanted to like, if you're hanging out with some Japanese people?

• 23:39Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Tim Ferriss?

  And then like, and some non-Japanese did something funny, you could just wait until they walked off and look at them and just go. Henna gaijin.

• 23:45Jamie Foxx?

  Henna gaijin. Or if I'm just hanging out with some rappers and I don't like their song, I just.

• 23:50Tim Ferriss?

  Henna gaijin.

• 23:52Jamie Foxx?

  But here's the thing, like, but speak on that spiritual thing, because I think that is really real.

• 23:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Jamie Foxx?

  And we've talked, you know, we were at a party, you expressed something about, you know, coyotes and things like that. But speak on that, that you felt something.

• 24:08Tim Ferriss?

  So in Japan, I felt like, in a lot of ways, I was returning home to a place I had never been, which is an odd feeling to have. But the simplicity, the striving for elegance, and the way they use negative space, for instance, just the way that you'll have certain rooms in the house that are extremely uncluttered, that are used for, they have altars, they have tatami rooms. And it just struck a chord with me, and I felt like I was returning to something. But of course, I'd never been there previously. And the, quite frankly, a lot of the strict rules

• 24:51Tim Ferriss?

  that they socially enforce, so you have, for instance, in the judo club, you have, and this can go wrong, right? I'm not saying all of it's good, but you have senpai, which are like the upperclassmen, and then you have kohai, which are like the lowerclassmen. And it's very hierarchical. You do what the senpai tell you to do. But it was what I really enjoyed about it, and what I had not really had, because I was the oldest sibling in my family, was like, they'll beat your ass, but no one else is allowed to beat your ass. You know what I mean? So it was a very kind of older brother type of relationship, but I was always the oldest, so I hadn't ever experienced that. And I found just like tremendous comfort in that,

• 25:34Tim Ferriss?

  in a large, to a large extent. And it was an easy to understand culture also. I think in the US right now, people are prone not to say what they mean, and I'll come back to that in a second. And there's so much political correctness, and...

• 25:50Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, I want to get into that. I want to get into that. As a comedian, I want to get into that as a comedian.

• 25:55Tim Ferriss?

  And everybody's concerned with upsetting everyone else's feelings, whereas in Japan... Once you get past what they call tate mai. So tate mai is like what you put forward to other people.

• 26:05Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 26:05Tim Ferriss?

  And then honne is what you really feel.

• 26:07Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 26:07Tim Ferriss?

  And only if you speak Japanese, people are like, oh, my God, Japanese people, they never say what they mean. I'm like, that's bullshit. You just don't speak Japanese. Like, if you speak the language, they'll let you in.

• 26:15Jamie Foxx?

  They're constantly saying.

• 26:16Tim Ferriss?

  And then.

• 26:17Jamie Foxx?

  The shoes you got on.

• 26:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah. And it's, I just found it a very refreshing culture.

• 26:23Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 26:23Tim Ferriss?

  In the sense that there were rules that had worked for them for thousands of years. And not all positive things came from them. But it, it did feel oddly familiar to me.

• 26:33Jamie Foxx?

  Wow. Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. Because you say that quite frankly, or maybe it could have been a past life. We did, we did a great radio interview with Quentin Tarantino on here. And we talked about how he used the N word, how he used the word. And I, I, I wanted to get him on because, you know, a lot of black folks, you know, especially dealing with all the things with the Oscars, all these different things about, you know, that word and why Quentin Tarantino. And he said, before we got on the radio, and he also said on the radio, I felt that in my past life, I was actually a black man. And when he said that, it was no hokiness. It was actually, you know, you believe it because he spoke with conviction.

• 27:16Jamie Foxx?

  So, so talk about, do you think that there, that we do live past lives? Or, or is it selective?

• 27:23Tim Ferriss?

  I, you know, I, I don't rule it out. I mean, it's, I don't have any evidence for it.

• 27:27Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 27:27Tim Ferriss?

  But my experience in Japan was quirky enough and just felt deep and real enough that there seems to be more to the story.

• 27:37Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 27:38Tim Ferriss?

  And, and even, even to the extent, and of course, there are alternate ways to explain this. But I had trouble learning Spanish. Then I went to Japan and I picked up Japanese like a snap of the fingers.

• 27:49Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 27:49Tim Ferriss?

  And, and there were challenges, but even the characters and so on came to me very naturally. And I think that was part of visual memory. But it was a transformative experience. So that, that year abroad sort of informed and changed the trajectory of my life.

• 28:05Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 28:05Tim Ferriss?

  Completely.

• 28:06Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 28:06Tim Ferriss?

  And the way that I related to American culture and to thinking of myself and to thinking of what was, you know, quote unquote, real or realistic. I was like, well, here's a culture that works just fine.

• 28:17Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Tim Ferriss?

  And it's totally different. Like, the rules of engagement, the rules of interrelating are totally different.

• 28:22Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 28:22Tim Ferriss?

  So what's to prevent me from taking those and bringing them back to the US? Or? Just trying to find option C, right?

• 28:30Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 28:30Tim Ferriss?

  And so I think that is also something that opened my eyes to just asking what-if questions. Like, well, what if I did this that no one else is doing?

• 28:39Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 28:39Tim Ferriss?

  What's the worst thing that could happen? What's the downside? Let me try it and then test, test, test, test, test.

• 28:43Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right. It's Jamie Foxx, Foxhole Radio. We getting deep right now. It's Foxhole Radio, series 96. If you don't know, you better know. Tim Ferriss right now, go to his podcast right now. He is the number one podcast in the world. Seventy billion downloads. Seventy billion. We're closing.

• 29:03Tim Ferriss?

  I'm working on billion.

• 29:04Jamie Foxx?

  Bill, seventy million, but you know what I'm saying. We on our way there. Uh, he is considered the Oprah Winfrey of audio podcasts. We're gonna get to that. We're gonna get to that. Let me keep on with this. You said something about the political incorrectness. You said something about, what are we going through right now in, in, in the world? Because there, I, I do feel that there's a fine line. Me, as a comedian, I've always, you know, I've, I've been put on this earth for that. I've been put on this earth to look at what is funny no matter what. Whether it's Christian, whether it's Muslim, whether it's fat, skinny, tall, short, that is my license. But right now in America, we're going through something that is incredibly weird.

• 29:48Jamie Foxx?

  Especially when I talk to Jay Leno. I talked to Rock, Chris Rock, who had a very, very tough time, um, landing, uh, at the Oscars, which was tough. I thought it was the toughest job in the world for him to have to do because we want to respect Jada Pinkett Smith in that, in that sense. But at the same time, we have to do our jokes because of it. But, and it put him in this weird thing. What, what's, what do you think we should do? Since you the Oprah Winfrey coming, we coming to you right now. Tim, put us in the right, in the right light. Like, what do we need to be?

• 30:21Tim Ferriss?

  I think we should worry about helping people and not placating people.

• 30:26Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, wow.

• 30:28Tim Ferriss?

  I think, I think we should concern ourselves with speaking truth and not glad handing. And that's easier said than done, of course, but I really feel, and I've, I've said this to friends of mine in close conversation where I live in Silicon Valley before, that I feel like comedians are the only people right now who can speak truth.

• 30:46Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right.

• 30:47Tim Ferriss?

  And it's just like the court jester back in the day. It was like the court jester could speak truth to the king, anyone else to have their head lopped off.

• 30:53Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Tim Ferriss?

  And that person had license. And my feeling is, hopefully, we can expand that, and we need to expand that, because I've noticed among some of my most intelligent, most incisive, most influential friends, they've just opted out of the conversation because they're afraid of getting chased by the lynch mob, so to speak, for saying anything that is truth. And that's a dangerous trend. That's a very dangerous trend. And I, I'll just mention one more thing, which is, there's a book that a lot of people read in high school called Fahrenheit 451. And these firemen run around and they burn books. And if you ask anyone who's read the book but hasn't read it in like 20 years, what do you remember of, of how that came to be in the book? They'd say, oh, there's this

• 31:35Tim Ferriss?

  totalitarian government. The truth is, it was the people. It was the people who decided that any dissenting opinions that would offend specific groups in society ought to be burned. So it was self-inflicted.

• 31:47Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 31:48Tim Ferriss?

  And I think that's what we're doing right now, is we are slowly torching the First Amendment and free speech by basically just going on these witch hunts.

• 31:59Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 31:59Tim Ferriss?

  And I think, I think it's the most dangerous thing in the US right now.

• 32:04Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, and, and here's the thing, here's the thing. And I think what's also dangerous too is, is sometimes the wrong people, sometimes the wrong people bring the message, without mentioning any names. But sometimes it, it makes it hard when other people go so far and it ain't funny. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, like I always say like this, yeah, we could say whatever we want to say. As long as you have it wrapped up in some sort of funny or something that gives us a little caveat of I care about you. Yeah, I'mma talk about you. Uh, I did a joke about Bruce Jenner early on. But the reason that my joke, the reason that the joke was there is because in comedy,

• 32:48Jamie Foxx?

  if we are all equal, then that means everybody gets equal jokes. Like, I can't do the black joke and then not do the white joke. There was a situation when I had to do, I had to host this, uh, I had to host this award show. And they went through and they looked at all of our jokes. And all the jokes that were for African Americans, they'd be like, oh, man. That is hilarious. But then the ones that weren't for African Americans, which was, you know, uh, some of the white people who were talking, they had a hard time with it. And I was like, listen, I was like, listen. I said, we have to do it all across the board. Straight, gay, black, white. We have to give everybody an opportunity to get in. And they were so nervous about me doing these jokes.

• 33:32Jamie Foxx?

  But when we went out and did them, even the people that we were talking about came up and said, oh, man, we loved it because it felt like they were part of the party. And it was sort of like, I said, you gotta trust the comedian that, yeah, it's gonna hurt a little bit. And I ask this, I'll ask you this question, I ask you. When is the joke, when do you laugh at a joke your hardest? When?

• 33:58Tim Ferriss?

  When it's the most uncomfortable?

• 34:00Jamie Foxx?

  When it's not about you.

• 34:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, okay, there we go.

• 34:02Jamie Foxx?

  When you laugh, oh, man, them Japanese do be doing it. Yeah, man, the Mexicans do be doing it. Then they say, black people, hey, man, why you going at us like that? It's just sort of, I want to take, I want to take a break. I want to come back to that, just to tie that up because I really want to get your take on it, not my take on it, on how we can navigate now through a world where we've gone too politically correct. Have we? And then how do we not go too far on the other side without putting something

• 34:31Jamie Foxx?

  there that's in, you know, that makes sense, if it makes sense. We're here with Tim Ferriss. It's Fox So Serious Radio. You better tune in right now and get your life right because he's gonna come in after this and tell you how to get your life together in four hours. Serious, 96. Jay Fox, Fox So, we'll be right back. Tim. What is this? What is this song?

• 34:53Tim Ferriss?

  This is, uh, baby metal karate.

• 34:57Jamie Foxx?

  Uh. Baby metal karate, baby. That's what's gonna be in the playlist. That's Tim Ferriss. That's Tim Ferriss. It's Fox Radio Series 96. We are getting nourished right now. We're not just having a radio show. We're getting nourished with, with, with, with our minds. We were just talking, before we went to break, we were talking about political correctness. Has it become too much? And you were saying, you were talking about Daniel Tosh.

• 35:20Tim Ferriss?

  I was. I was, because I, I think that he is...

• 35:26Tim Ferriss?

  If you, if you look at his headshot, like, this is, this is a guy who you wouldn't expect to step out and bring some of the comedy that he does. And I recall at one point before, he was, I think it was before Tosh, uh, 0.0, but when he was doing stand-up, and what I appreciated was how uncomfortable he made everyone.

• 35:42Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:44Tim Ferriss?

  And I just remember this one bit, and there will be a point to this, but, you know, he, he opened it up with, "I wonder if people taste like their ethnic cuisine." And I'm gonna massacre the bit, and he's like...

• 35:55Jamie Foxx?

  No, that's hilarious.

• 35:55Tim Ferriss?

  But he's like, "And like, like, black people, black people, like, do they taste like fried chicken?"

• 35:59Jamie Foxx?

  That's hilarious.

• 36:00Tim Ferriss?

  And then everyone's like, "Oh, I don't know if I should laugh. I don't know if I should laugh." And he's like, "No, no, no. I'll get you. Don't worry." And he's like, "Chinese people, it's kung pao chicken." Ha, ha, ha. And then everybody starts loosening up, and they're laughing, laughing, laughing. The audience is probably 50% white, and then he's like, "And white people?" He's like, "No, we don't eat white people." And, and so they didn't get the out. They didn't get the out. And everyone's like, "Oh, my God. Was it okay to laugh? Was it not okay to laugh?"

• 36:17Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:18Tim Ferriss?

  And I think that, I think it was Mae West who said, you know, "Those who are offended easily should be offended more often."

• 36:24Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, oh, love that.

• 36:26Tim Ferriss?

  And I think that in the US, right now, we were just talking on break about how the internet, I think, is, it's a great tool, but it's like a knife. It cuts both ways. And it can be used for harm or it can be harmed, used for good. And when every genius but every idiot has a voice, they're, they're...

• 36:42Jamie Foxx?

  Are you a genius or an idiot?

• 36:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Jamie Foxx?

  It's the new t-shirt.

• 36:48Tim Ferriss?

  Everyone has a voice, but I think in that environment, what we've seen is that you could take, you can sacrifice, unfortunately, some people who could really contribute to society if they slip up and say one stupid thing, which we all say, but they'll get lynched, not by their peers necessarily, but people who aren't in a position and shouldn't be in a position to judge them. And so what I would say is that we have a term, "social justice warrior", that's used for people who are just on the internet constantly saying, "You can't say that", you know, like you were talking about going to like college campuses and talking about whales, like, "You're whale shaming",

• 37:19Jamie Foxx?

  Oh yeah, man, I'm doing a college thing and I said something about whales, "You're whale shaming", we couldn't do a joke on one of the things about sharks, because some singer said she's doing this shark campaign to save the sharks and they shut us down, we couldn't tell shark jokes.

• 37:38Tim Ferriss?

  That's unbelievable.

• 37:39Jamie Foxx?

  To me, it...

• 37:41Tim Ferriss?

  So, and what...

• 37:42Jamie Foxx?

  What do we do? Because I'm gonna let you talk.

• 37:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, what I think that one of the ways we could stem this tide is, because I feel like there are a lot of people who could contribute to society, and we're all flawed human beings, we're all gonna make mistakes, we're all gonna say stupid things, that shouldn't remove your ability to contribute to society, right?

• 37:58Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right, right.

• 37:59Tim Ferriss?

  Even if, let's just say, you're not, let's say, somebody does say something racist, or sexist, or fill in the blank, if they're doing incredibly valuable work like that, they shouldn't have to resign from their job necessarily for that. Now, I mean, of course, it's a question of degree, but what I would say is, one of the ways I think we need to stem the tide is by using language, because that's the weapon that's being used to sort of mute freedom of speech. In other words, if someone says, "Fill in the blank ist", they can shut you down, they can end your comedy show. Well, right now, we don't have a term to apply to those people who cry wolf too often and do unmitigated damage. So what if, instead of "social justice warrior", which sounds actually net positive, there was a term, the one that I thought of, was "bigoteer"?

• 38:43Tim Ferriss?

  So bigot is someone who tries to be a profiteer by calling other people bigots, and all of a sudden, those people will have a consequence for crying wolf and falsely accusing people loosely. So I think that language... Which is one of the key pieces in this arsenal, because the problem itself is a problem of language. So I'm curious to where it'll go. And also, I would just implore people, comedians and other people, who are in a position where perhaps they're, say, self-employed, so they don't have, or they don't perceive as many risks as someone who's in like a tight corporate structure. Speak your mind.

• 39:20Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right.

• 39:21Tim Ferriss?

  And really recognize that the downside, in most cases, is being judged by people you shouldn't care about in pressing in the first place.

• 39:31Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right, right, right. Because there are people out there who just, like, there are people out there who just want to do that. Like, you know, I mean, sometimes people will tell me about what Fox, what they say about it. I said, "No, I don't really get into it, but, you know, he's racist. Nobody dates white girls. There's a trailer, but he's gay." And I said, "Man, you can't keep up with all of these things that people..." And then if you say one thing, I've always been this, even, even in the toughest situations, where there's been situations where either something's been said by black folks, or something's been said by people that I care about, I've always been leery of someone saying something and you taking everything away from them.

• 40:13Jamie Foxx?

  I remember it was, uh, I don't know if it was Don Imus. I remember who it was, but I believe myself and Howard Stern were on the same page. We were on the same, I'm, first of all, huge Howard Stern fan, like, huge fan of his. Howard Stern has made his living his whole life. I mean, you know, Don Rickles 2.0, if you would.

• 40:37Jamie Foxx?

  And we've said some of the wildest shit on our show and on his show, but I never thought that someone should be shut completely down. If we say something, we had to own up to Miley Cyrus. We did something that was, that she was 16, I didn't know who she was at the time. We did jokes that was... You know, we did our type of jokes. We, you know, we were considered a black Howard Stern. And, and once my daughter came to, "Jay, why would you do that, Daddy, to Hannah Montana?" And I was like, "Who is Hannah Montana?" And we didn't know, but we did make a mistake. But what we did was, we put ourselves on punishment. We went down for however many weeks. And then we came back.

• 41:19Jamie Foxx?

  We made our apologies because, you know, it, it, it, you know, it was, we offended people at that time. But what we asked was, "Don't let us clothes shop. Don't let us, uh, uh, put away our, our, our comedy swords because that's what we're here to do." And, and the, the interesting thing about jokes is if half the room goes, "Ooh," and half the room laughs, that's usually a, a, a successful, a successful outing with jokes.

• 41:44Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. And I, and I think that for those people interested, you know, one of the biggest assets and resources for me over the last decade or so has been Stoic philosophy. And so Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, it's very old, but it's actually surprisingly easy to read. And the objective of Stoic philosophy is to give you basically an operating system for making better decisions in life without being reactive. And I think that we, we suffer from an illusion in the US, which is that

• 42:15Tim Ferriss?

  comfort will bring happiness. And so we want to close our sphere of comfort, if that makes sense. Whereas we should want to expand our sphere of comfort by exposing ourselves to things that are uncomfortable, by exposing ourselves to opinions we dislike, exposing ourselves to, I mentioned I was fasting for the last few days.

• 42:34Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Tim Ferriss?

  Exposing myself to hunger so that I don't fear being hungry. So that if I'm in an airport and I'm like, "Oh, I haven't eaten in six hours. I should really have a Big Mac." No, you don't need to eat. You can, you can go as long as you need to without eating. And developing a resilience and a strength in that. And I think that if- It's very important, and you see this in, for instance, where I live, Silicon Valley, a lot, because I've been involved with tech for a long time, but you have to make mistakes, and you have to make frequent mistakes, in order to learn and innovate.

• 43:02Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 43:02Tim Ferriss?

  And language is the underlying foundation of all of that. So, like you said, if someone makes a mistake and you close up shop, that is the fastest way to end learning, innovation, pushing the envelope, and healing a lot of wounds. I mean, because you take these issues and you just shove them under the surface, you don't get rid of them.

• 43:23Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 43:23Tim Ferriss?

  By muting someone.

• 43:24Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right, exactly right. Because I would always say, like, you're taking someone out of the equation who really can help you. Like, there are really racist people, there are really bigoted people out there. But the comedian, and folks who are just, you know, like, there was a situation, like, and I'll talk about this, because it's already out there, and she's a good friend of mine. But it was Amy Pascal, and Amy Pascal, and there was this internet email thing, and people just went berserk, "Oh, my God, she's burning crosses, she got a white sheet in the back of her Mercedes."

• 44:06Jamie Foxx?

  And I'm like, "Bro, look at the amount of movies that she's done that are African-American." And Elijah's here, he could tell you, she was the only one doing African-American film. You know, now you take something that was out of context, if they caught me in my house talking about other races, oh, man, I wouldn't be able to go to Laos, I wouldn't be able to, I'd be talking about everybody, you know what I'm saying? But she was a great person when it came to doing African-American movies. Now, she's not there.

• 44:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Jamie Foxx?

  So now, who you got? You know, so I was like, be careful on slinging that type of rhetoric around too much, because a lot of people that are out there are gonna, like I said, you're gonna make a mistake every once in a while, but like I said, you shouldn't like, you know, throw them overboard. It's Fox Radio, Sirius 96, we're here with Tim Ferriss. He's giving us the tools when I tell you that Oprah Winfrey is now a white man, and he's on the internet. His name is Tim Ferriss, 70 trillion.

• 45:10Jamie Foxx?

  Downloads on his podcast. And I'm gonna read what it says, so people don't be like, oh, Jamie Foxx was saying Oprah Winfrey's dating a white man. No, what I'm saying is how Tim Ferriss became the Oprah of audio. How did you get into this? How did you? Let's get into it now. Tech world, you said a tech world, how does one get into that?

• 45:29Tim Ferriss?

  So I moved, I moved to the, the Bay area. So moved to the, the San Francisco area after college. And just in time for everything to implode. So I moved there in 99. I was the second to lowest paid, aside from the secretary at this startup company. They made a mistake. They sent out an Excel spreadsheet and one of the tabs was everybody's compensation. That was a big mistake. It made everybody upset. But in any case, that company imploded and I found myself on the West Coast. And I was surrounded by tech. So I was in the middle of the switchboard. And so I, I decided to become involved, because I'd built some companies prior to that, in advising and investing in startups. And the way I looked at it, and I think this is a helpful way to look at a lot of things, is

• 46:13Tim Ferriss?

  originally, as context, I had fantasized about going to Stanford Business School. There's a whole host of reasons. But I, I'd always felt like I was kind of intended to go to Stanford, because it was a beautiful campus, the palm trees. Didn't go. And I was like, I, I need to go there for business school. And I applied twice. I went through the process and I didn't go because it was too theoretical. And what I ended up deciding was, okay, I'm gonna take the money that I would have had to pay for business school. And I'm gonna put it into investing in startups. And that's gonna be my MBA. So I'm gonna, over two years, the same space of time, I'm gonna invest small checks in these startups. And my assumption is, I'm gonna lose all the money. So I shouldn't use money that I can't afford to lose. So, over that period of time, I was looking at it as education.

• 46:57Tim Ferriss?

  So it's like, what can I invest in where I will learn a lot? Like, what kind of, what kind of startup can I invest in where I'll have the opportunity to interact with people who will average me up? Right? One piece of advice I was given when I was in my teens, that I found probably the most useful of any, was you're the average of the five people you associate with most. So I was like, alright, how can I use these small bets to associate with higher and higher caliber of person? And I did that over the span of two years. And I didn't lose all the money. A couple of them worked. And so I've ended up investing in Twitter, Facebook, Uber, and many others. So that was the beginning of my relationship in tech and helping some of these startup founders in very particular ways. The audio came about in the podcast because I was burned out on books.

• 47:41Jamie Foxx?

  Really?

• 47:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I was totally burned out on books. I have this terrible habit of writing long books. So they're 400 to 700 pages long. And I was so-

• 47:49Jamie Foxx?

  This is your first book?

• 47:49Tim Ferriss?

  My first book was 420 pages. That was a four hour work week. That came out in 2007. Nobody expected it to do anything. It had an initial print run of 12,000 copies. And it hit the New York Times list largely thanks to early adoption by tech folks. And it stayed there for four, more than four years unbroken. And nobody expected that to happen. So I remember my editor, my editor called me at the time, Heather. And I remember I got the call and she goes, I was exhausted because I was doing some like radio junket, some like, you know, satellite radio, so you know these things. You're like, sit there with like a pitcher of coffee and you do 30 radio interviews. And I just finished and I was so exhausted.

• 48:32Tim Ferriss?

  And she called and she goes, hey there, Mr. New York Times bestselling author. And I was like, what? And she goes, you hit the list. And I was like, Heather, don't fuck with me. Not right now, please. I can't do it. She's like, no, you hit the list. And it was just so unexpected and so surreal.

• 48:47Jamie Foxx?

  How'd you feel, man?

• 48:48Tim Ferriss?

  I leaned back against the wall. I was in a room by myself because everybody had left. It was like 6:00 PM on the East Coast and just kind of slid down the wall and just like sat there. And I didn't know what to think.

• 48:57Jamie Foxx?

  The young kid with the collapsed lung.

• 48:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, I was-

• 49:00Jamie Foxx?

  The young kid who, who, whose body temperature gets heated up and who-

• 49:05Tim Ferriss?

  His brain shuts down.

• 49:06Jamie Foxx?

  Brain shuts down. And all of a sudden you got a best seller.

• 49:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it was, I was literally blank. Like I just, I couldn't even conceive of it being real. It's kind of like waking up from a dream and you're like, oh, no, no, it was just a dream. So it took me a long time to even begin to- Conceive of how that, yeah, process how that would affect my life. But it opened the door to writing more. So I'd never planned on being a writer. In fact, I decided after college I didn't want to write because I found it so painful. And so I think like, like many people, maybe that you know, certainly people I know, they create things because they're scratching their own itch. Like they have to create it.

• 49:42Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:42Tim Ferriss?

  Or it'll drive them crazy.

• 49:43Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Tim Ferriss?

  And so writing was like that for me. And, uh, but the audio came about because I did three books and I just found myself burned out.

• 49:50Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 49:51Tim Ferriss?

  I felt like I'd been using the same part of my brain.

• 49:53Jamie Foxx?

  Talk about the three books.

• 49:54Tim Ferriss?

  So we have Four Hour Work Week, which was really a collection of experiments.

• 49:57Jamie Foxx?

  For our listeners right now that's listening, Fox Radio, Sirius 96, get into what Four Hour Work Week is.

• 50:02Tim Ferriss?

  So The Four Hour Work Week is a book that focuses on my studies of different entrepreneurs and case studies of my own, different experiments, looking at how you can 10x your hourly output. And once you control that currency known as time, you can do all sorts of interesting things like travel. So it talks about low-cost travel. It talks about geo-arbitrage, where you might say outsource things to a different country. And very interesting ways to design ideal lifestyles. So that was the first book. And that's, uh, it's been out for almost 10 years now and it's still usually top 200 on Amazon. Uh, the next book, Four Hour Body, came back to my roots, like the wrestling roots, basically. And it looked at physical performance.

• 50:41Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 50:42Tim Ferriss?

  So I did experiments in every possible way, whether it was maximal strength, sprinting, NFL combine training, holding my breath with David Blaine, sleep, sex, you name it.

• 50:52Jamie Foxx?

  Sleep, sex, go back to that part.

• 50:55Tim Ferriss?

  So sleep, I studied people, friends of mine, who'd been able to get by for years on two to two and a half hours of sleep a day.

• 51:01Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 51:01Tim Ferriss?

  By splitting their sleep up into something called polyphasic sleep, including Matt Mullenweg, Ricardo knows of Matt Mullenweg, who runs a billion-dollar company. And, uh, that was, sex, we looked at a bunch of different aspects. So for the men, we looked-

• 51:15Jamie Foxx?

  Let's take a few minutes on that too. Let's talk about the sex. It's not that I'm really concerned about it, I just want to get your take on things right now.

• 51:21Tim Ferriss?

  So we talked about- We talked about things related to sort of male sexual health and performance such as improving testosterone.

• 51:29Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 51:30Tim Ferriss?

  Improving sperm count.

• 51:31Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 51:32Tim Ferriss?

  And so on. And then there were at least two chapters, but two chapters that probably got, well, they did get a lot of attention, which were on, they were on female.

• 51:40Jamie Foxx?

  We all, all the guys peaked up like, how I need to do it now? What's going on?

• 51:44Tim Ferriss?

  Two chapters on everything related to female orgasm.

• 51:47Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 51:47Tim Ferriss?

  And what was funny about that chapter is that the, I didn't realize it was right in the middle of the book, there are all these vagina diagrams.

• 51:54Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 51:54Tim Ferriss?

  And so the book got, the book got yanked out of Costco because there are all these moms who are like, oh, look at this.

• 51:59Jamie Foxx?

  Just opening up.

• 52:00Tim Ferriss?

  Opening up and it would just flip right open to all these vaginas and their kids would just be like, what are these mommy? And they're like, oh.

• 52:04Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, they're butterflies.

• 52:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it was, it was just chaos. So the book got yanked out of Costco.

• 52:10Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, man. That is it. Now, what now, now our listeners are all over, you know, all over playing, but what, what about a female orgasm? What, what, what was, what's in this?

• 52:20Tim Ferriss?

  What's the key?

• 52:20Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, what's the key?

• 52:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well, the key is, the key is.

• 52:24Jamie Foxx?

  G peaks, G bursts up.

• 52:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the key is to start with, so about 50% of women in the US, last I checked, are inorgasmic. They've not experienced an orgasm. And that can have a lot of reasons. Can be, have a lot of explanations, whether it's religious upbringing, being the oldest sister is very common as a pattern. And there are others, certainly. But what's very helpful, and people can look into this, is looking at something called orgasmic meditation, which is basically manual stimulation of the clitoris without any sex, meaning no penetration. So you separate the sexual act from the orgasm and you effectively are practicing mindfulness

• 53:09Tim Ferriss?

  and an attention to the sensation of being pleasured and stimulated for the woman. So there's no performance anxiety, in other words. And you just say, we're going to do this for 15 minutes and you don't have to do anything. You just like focus on your breath and feeling.

• 53:24Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Tim Ferriss?

  And there's no sex. You don't have to do anything for me. You don't have to perform. And by removing all of those pressures and all those expectations. With practice, and sometimes it's the first session, these women who have never experienced orgasms, experience orgasms. And then there's the technical piece, right? So if you look, if we want to get into it, so if you're looking instead of directly at the clitoris, about one o'clock on that clitoris, top upper right quadrant is where most women will be most sensitive.

• 53:48Jamie Foxx?

  Boy, Tim is, boy.

• 53:50Tim Ferriss?

  And

• 53:50Jamie Foxx?

  Tim is a pimp, right?

• 53:51Tim Ferriss?

  And light contact, though, which means like four kind of pages of paper deep, that's it. I think a lot of guys go after like they're starting a lawnmower. That's not, not super effective.

• 54:02Jamie Foxx?

  Rubber knuckle.

• 54:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, rubber knuckle.

• 54:05Jamie Foxx?

  What are you trying to do, my guy?

• 54:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. So like-

• 54:09Jamie Foxx?

  Cause I was a black girl.

• 54:13Tim Ferriss?

  So those are, those are some of the things that are in that chapter.

• 54:15Jamie Foxx?

  That is amazing. That is amazing. And you know what? To, to, to be honest, that can help a lot of relationships.

• 54:21Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it has.

• 54:22Jamie Foxx?

  It helps a lot. I know that helps a lot of-

• 54:24Tim Ferriss?

  It's directly saved marriages.

• 54:25Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 54:26Tim Ferriss?

  And I got a letter from, from someone, Hollywood director, pretty well-known guy who was able to finally get pregnant with, well, he didn't get pregnant, but his wife got pregnant. With a few of the things from The Four Hour Body. Very simple stuff.

• 54:37Jamie Foxx?

  Man, it's Fox Radio. Let Tim Ferriss get you pregnant. It's Sirius 96. We're gonna take a break. We're coming right back. One o'clock, ladies. We out.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  Yes. AM radio, it's Jamie Foxx, we're back with Tim Ferriss.

• 54:54Jamie Foxx?

  That's Seven Dust.

• 54:56Tim Ferriss?

  Seven Dust.

• 54:57Jamie Foxx?

  Now, now, all of you guys out there listening right now, trying to figure this out, I'm with Tim Ferriss. He is the, considered now, the Oprah of audio podcasts. You can get your life right. And what's amazing, listening to that song right now, which is one of his top five songs, tell them who that is.

• 55:16Tim Ferriss?

  Well, that is Splinter by Seven Dust, and I actually used that for a book trailer that I did for The Four Hour Body. And people hear that, and they might not realize the characteristics of the lead singer. He is a black dude with long dreads from Atlanta.

• 55:32Jamie Foxx?

  See? Don't just homogenize. I mean, generalize.

• 55:35Tim Ferriss?

  And their acoustic double-wide album is incredible.

• 55:39Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, amazing. We're gonna get that, we're gonna get that. Listen, we talked about the books, we talked about Four Hour Workday, Four Hour Body. Talk about this, though. And I've always said this with Ricardo. You know, I'm late to the, to the party when it comes to podcasts, when it comes to internet, when it comes to social media. I struggle with the whole idea of social media because it goes against sort of, against a little bit of what I do. You know, being an artist, I didn't know. It, it's weird to see the world change. It's weird to see the world change where, you know, I worked so much on, well, there's mystique. And then my daughter, the oldest daughter be like,

• 56:22Jamie Foxx?

  Dad, you can, you can stay, you can stay hidden if you want to. They'll forget about you. I was, what you mean? You know, you dropped the album, then you wait a couple of years, and you say, Dad, you better drop an album every six months or they forget about you. So Ricardo, you know, young, finger on the pulse of everything, huge fan of yours, comes to me and says, man, you have to meet this guy. He'll change your life. You did change my life. But let me ask you this. How did you master this? What is the ingredient? Or what is, or is it just a blessing? What is this? How do you become 70 million downloads? That means, that is interaction.

• 57:03Jamie Foxx?

  That's not somebody saying, these people are following me. This is going down.

• 57:08Tim Ferriss?

  That's, yeah, that's usually two and a half hour interviews too. It's not like a 30 second video clip. It's a commitment. I think, I think there are a few ingredients and I'm sure there was a lot of luck and good timing involved, certainly. But there, there are a few things that I very deliberately keep in mind that I think have been helpful. The first is, and you kind of alluded to this earlier, where you know you got a really strong joke when half the room laughs and half doesn't. Okay. So I never write, let's just say, so my blog has, let's just call it two and a half, three million readers, right? Which at one point was around the same subscriber base as the Wall Street Journal, I think. But regardless, and I write long pieces. They're not short. And when I write a piece, and this is true of the audio too, I never write a piece that I hope all

• 57:53Tim Ferriss?

  Two and a half or three million people will like.

• 57:55Jamie Foxx?

  Why?

• 57:56Tim Ferriss?

  I try to write a post that 10% will love. And then I assume every few months I will hit everybody, right?

• 58:03Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 58:03Tim Ferriss?

  So it's like by the time I rotate through six or 10 articles, each person will get one that they're absolutely diehard.

• 58:10Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 58:10Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, in love with and they will share that. And on, on another level, when I write, I try to produce evergreen content. Or when I'm recording audios. So when we were doing our, our recording, which was three feet from where we're sitting.

• 58:25Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:25Tim Ferriss?

  On the couch, I was trying to ask questions that would provoke stories and answers and lessons learned that people could use 10 years from now.

• 58:33Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right.

• 58:34Tim Ferriss?

  Right? So it's, it's not just a three minute TV interview, nothing wrong with that, but asking you about the latest celebrity news, which is going to be irrelevant in six months.

• 58:41Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right.

• 58:41Tim Ferriss?

  It was trying to search for the timeless and also trying to focus on really getting 10% to love something, even if the other 90% hate it, that's okay.

• 58:50Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right.

• 58:50Tim Ferriss?

  And I remember at some point, I don't recall who said it, but uh, there was a quote I read that had a huge impact on me, which was, "There's no sure path to success, but the sure path to failure is trying to please everyone."

• 59:02Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, Elijah Ashley, did you just hear that? And I'm talking to Elijah and Ashley, who are incredible writers themselves as far as the movie, and they just sold some, some things. So we're, they're getting this nourishment as well.

• 59:17Tim Ferriss?

  And, and there are also a few books that have had uh, a very, very helpful impact on my thinking about this. One was a very short read, it's called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

• 59:27Jamie Foxx?

  Hmm.

• 59:27Tim Ferriss?

  And what I like about it, get the old version, not the for the internet version.

• 59:30Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 59:31Tim Ferriss?

  Like the old version where they're looking at like imported beer and airlines, that's, that's the one that I like. And it, it just talks about, you know, in other, uh, or just say in, in simple terms, how to create new categories as opposed to trying to dominate an existing category.

• 59:47Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 59:47Tim Ferriss?

  Right?

• 59:48Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 59:48Tim Ferriss?

  So it's easier and more effective to try to create a new category, which I often do through language.

• 59:53Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 59:54Tim Ferriss?

  So for instance, with the four hour work week. I wrote the book that I couldn't find. It was basically the book that I wanted to find. And the options at the time, I went to the bookstore, I was searching for meaning, I had all these challenges with business, with entrepreneurship, and so on. And I could either choose a book that was how to give up money and why it's not important, how to reuse your toothpaste 17 times, or how to build a Fortune 500 company with Jack Welch. And I wanted something in between. So I built that, or I wrote that, and ended up using this term that may have existed before, but I hadn't heard it, called lifestyle design. So lifestyle design, I did not trademark, I did not make any attempt to protect because I wanted to become part of the common vocabulary. I wanted to become part of the vernacular, which it has.

• 1:00:38Tim Ferriss?

  Now that's used by hundreds and thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people.

• 1:00:42Jamie Foxx?

  Lifestyle design.

• 1:00:43Tim Ferriss?

  And it's a category. Now, since I was first, that first mover advantage, like I am kind of forever, in a sense, the founding father of that category.

• 1:00:51Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:00:52Tim Ferriss?

  And the, when I looked at podcasting, I asked myself two things. I asked myself, first and foremost, how can I do something that is different from what is currently out there? And let's make a list of all the attributes. Like, let's call the 10, 20 people who are, say, organizers of events related to these things, what are their rules? And they lay it out. So like, okay, it needs to be this, you need to have musical segues, you need to have, it needs to be 20 minutes or less, or whatever they might be, whatever their rules are. And I would look at the most common rules, and then I would try the opposite. And

• 1:01:29Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:01:30Tim Ferriss?

  And what I realized was that if you focus also on highly tactical, actionable bits of information, not abstract, then it's a rarity right now. For whatever reason, things tend to get very, very abstract. So if I lay out, let's say, my common rapid-fire questions are designed very specifically to be actionable and therefore shareable, and I'll tell you what I mean by that. So if I ask a person, what is the book you've gifted the most to other people? What does the first 90 minutes of your morning look like? What is the purchase for $100 or less that has most impacted your life in the last six months? And I ask these questions. There are two aspects of it that make it very, very viral and very valuable.

• 1:02:13Tim Ferriss?

  Well, number one is that people can emulate and test all of those things the next day. Secondly, they won't just share the information. They will try those things and then share the results that they get from that on social media or elsewhere. And as a consequence of that, if I stopped writing completely, or if I stopped doing the podcast completely, my back catalog gets listened to so much

• 1:02:37Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:02:38Tim Ferriss?

  that there would basically be no drop off. So I could take the three years off.

• 1:02:43Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:02:43Tim Ferriss?

  And I wouldn't actually fear being forgotten.

• 1:02:45Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:02:46Tim Ferriss?

  And there are counter examples. So this is the other thing I always look for. I look for counter examples of people who aren't doing what everyone else is doing. Like, this is the first one that comes to mind, but like Daniel Day-Lewis.

• 1:02:56Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:57Tim Ferriss?

  As far as I know, that guy's just, he's gone. He's a phantom unless he comes out and then you're like, oh shit, he won another Oscar.

• 1:03:03Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it, it, it, it, there's, it's sort of in between sometimes because I do look at, I do look at some people that use it a lot and then sometimes it may exhaust them a little. But I also look at the people who do stay refreshed. And I don't know this either, but I know Adele came out and just smashed.

• 1:03:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:03:31Jamie Foxx?

  You know, and sold however many billions of records. While Beyonce, it is a, you know, it's an onslaught, you know, which is great as well. But it's, you know, I mean.

• 1:03:46Tim Ferriss?

  But you also end up in a kind of chicken or the egg conundrum, I think, with a lot of these celebrities because one can wonder, did they sell so many records because they had a big social following? Or did they get so many people as a social following because they weren't on social media and focused on their art first?

• 1:04:06Jamie Foxx?

  Ooh.

• 1:04:06Tim Ferriss?

  Right? So, so I am of the opinion, and this is speaking as a tech investor, Pete, like I have, you know, I have a dog in this fight. Like I have a lot to gain by people using social media. I think more artists are distracted from their most important work than are helped from, for their important work by social media.

• 1:04:24Jamie Foxx?

  Say that again, Tim. Let him know, Tim. Speak to the artist, Tim, right now. It's Fox Radio, it's Sirius 96. I, I want people to really understand what you're saying because I overheard an artist who didn't have to say this, that it was more about.

• 1:04:44Jamie Foxx?

  It was more about the, the, the, the machine than, uh, than maybe the art. And my thing was, I think you're great at both, but if you forget about the art, that machine will fall on top of you.

• 1:05:00Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, the machine will churn you out. Absolutely.

• 1:05:03Jamie Foxx?

  Talk to them, Tim, please. They need this right now.

• 1:05:05Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think if, if I look at the writers that I most aspire to be like or emulate, if I look at the artists I most respect, they're very good at shutting out distractions for a period of time and doing deep work.

• 1:05:18Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:05:18Tim Ferriss?

  And you need a certain degree of isolation, I think.

• 1:05:22Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, in, in many hour blocks of time to connect those uncommon dots or to create new dots altogether. And those who are distracted by social media are increasingly unable to create the conditions for their best work. And it's not hard to understand why because, for instance, there's a book that I haven't seen, but a friend told me about, another writer, and it, I think it's called Working on My Novel. It's the name of the book, but it's a collect, but it's a collection of tweets and Facebook posts from people who should have been working on their novel.

• 1:05:57Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:05:58Tim Ferriss?

  All these writers who said they're on writing deadline, but writers will do anything to avoid writing. So you give them something easy to do, like post on Twitter, take pictures of their food and put it on Instagram.

• 1:06:07Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, Lord.

• 1:06:08Tim Ferriss?

  They're not gonna write.

• 1:06:10Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, Lord. You know what, this is giving, I'm not, first of all, let me say this. I know a lot of entertainers, and I know we're actually simulcasting on your podcast as well, and I want to let people know on your podcast that I'm doing a little bit of this craziness because we are doing my radio show. So, so I don't want them to listen to me. What, why is he screaming and acting so crazy? But, but when it comes to social media, I've watched a lot of artists die.

• 1:06:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Jamie Foxx?

  Because they're so connected to this that they'll read their comments and then they'll just, they'll, they won't be able to sort of dig out. And they begin to try to please everyone, which goes back to what you said, that you can't please them.

• 1:06:53Tim Ferriss?

  Well, exactly. And furthermore, I would say.

• 1:06:58Tim Ferriss?

  Artistic death is creativity by consensus. And if you're looking at your comments to determine how to steer your creative ship, you're dead before you even get out of the game. And that's my opinion. I think that if you look at anything that's truly groundbreaking, it went against the tide. It never would have been voted for.

• 1:07:18Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:07:19Tim Ferriss?

  If you follow my, like, and I mean, I don't know why this first thing comes to mind, but like Macklemore and like, you know, thrift store like that.

• 1:07:26Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Tim Ferriss?

  If you had put that into the machine, that wouldn't have gotten,

• 1:07:28Jamie Foxx?

  Spit it out.

• 1:07:29Tim Ferriss?

  Would never have gotten past square one.

• 1:07:31Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:07:32Tim Ferriss?

  And some of the writing that you see that's really innovative. I've just read this book called How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, which is written by a really smart guy in Pakistan, actually.

• 1:07:41Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:07:42Tim Ferriss?

  And it's written in effectively first person. So it says, "You wake up with the side of your head on the mud in your mother's thatched hut." And it's all you, you, you. It's just so inventive. And if he had tried that as his first book going through a traditional process, never would have worked, I don't think. He never would have seen the light of day. So my thinking at least, and if I look at my best work, and we've all had, well, I shouldn't say we, I'll speak for myself. I've had better work and I've certainly had weaker work.

• 1:08:12Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right.

• 1:08:12Tim Ferriss?

  And if I look at when those things come to pass, the best work is coming from periods of deep work where I purposefully block out exterior distractions and inputs.

• 1:08:27Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:08:27Tim Ferriss?

  And opinions.

• 1:08:29Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right. Let me ask you this. When I'm on the street and people come up to me, they talk about you in a, in a almost,

• 1:08:40Jamie Foxx?

  not in a, in a sense of an Oprah Winfrey way, but almost, there's a, almost a,

• 1:08:47Jamie Foxx?

  not to get in trouble, but you're leading, like you're, you're, people wake up and I need this, Tim Ferriss, I need that. When meeting, when I met Oprah Winfrey, there was an, she was an incredible light, just like when I see you, it's an incredible light coming from. But also too,

• 1:09:09Jamie Foxx?

  She felt there was an incredible responsibility because there would be times where she would be exhausted from literally carrying the 70 million downloads, you know, innocent, metaphorical for her. Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like, whoa, I didn't know that this was gonna happen? So I need two parts of this. I need, one, how you became that, what's the ingredient? And then two, now that you're here, do you feel a certain different responsibility?

• 1:09:41Tim Ferriss?

  So part one, how it happened would be, I think, first, thinking of content in the way that I described. So trying to hit 10% of the people I can reach and have them love something as opposed to, as opposed to trying to please everyone all the time. And then I would say the evergreen focus. The piece that I didn't discuss yet that I think is important is everyone goes after the traffic leaders. What I mean by that is that it could apply to magazines, it could apply to TV. They'd say, who has the greatest number of viewers, followers, et cetera? How do I get to those influencers? And that's the most crowded channel, and it's gonna be the most difficult because those are people

• 1:10:23Tim Ferriss?

  who are in the limelight at the peak. They're the hardest to contact. What I did in the very beginning, which I think led to the tipping point for the Four Hour Work Week in part, is that I decided to go after the thought leaders that the traffic leaders paid attention to.

• 1:10:38Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:10:39Tim Ferriss?

  So if you look at the people who, for instance, and this is true on, this could be true on YouTube, it could be true on, at the time, you know, this was 19, I'm sorry, 2007, so blogs, I was looking at blog roles and so on. I identified the thought leaders, people who were very, very smart, but weren't, they weren't compulsive self-promoters. They didn't care about a large audience, but their audience was comprised of these people who had millions and tens of millions of readers. So I would do things with them.

• 1:11:08Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:11:09Tim Ferriss?

  And, and those, and the domino effect led to, over time, a very, very large broadcast capability and very large following. The In terms of the responsibility, I absolutely feel that with great audience comes great leverage and great influence to a great degree and great responsibility.

• 1:11:34Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:11:34Tim Ferriss?

  And for that reason, for instance, in The Four Hour Body, there was a chapter on breath holding,

• 1:11:38Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:11:38Tim Ferriss?

  which was done with David Blaine I mentioned, and I took it out of the book. Because even though I had all these warnings, the audience was large enough that there were people who weren't paying attention to the warnings. And if you try to do breath holding in water, you can kill yourself with a shallow water black gum. And so I wasn't prepared at that time to accept

• 1:11:57Jamie Foxx?

  Accept that.

• 1:11:57Tim Ferriss?

  breaking a few eggs to make the omelet. I wasn't prepared to have metaphorical blood on my hands.

• 1:12:03Jamie Foxx?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:12:03Tim Ferriss?

  And I decided that the benefits of having it in the world were not greater than

• 1:12:08Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:12:08Tim Ferriss?

  the risks and liabilities. So I took it out. And I do have to be careful in a sense, because if I say something in a really offhand way, people could take it very literally.

• 1:12:19Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you now. Now that, I mean, man, look, my life changed in the fact of, like, people come up to me, it would blow your mind, he'll tell you, it would blow your mind of people that come up and say, "You've been blessed by him. How was he? Were you moved? Did you touch the hem of his garment?"

• 1:12:46Jamie Foxx?

  I mean, it's really on some, like, incredible admiration. So with this incredible minefield of every single thing that you say, and then the way the nature of the beast of America of humans, we wanna build him up. We say one thing and we wanna rip the cords out of his podcast. How does that? How's that work now? Or do you have the ability to go somewhere, do whatever you feel like and no one bothers you?

• 1:13:25Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think there are a few things that I try to consider to keep myself sane and also keep my head from getting too big. The first is I always assume I'm 14 minutes into my 15 minutes of fame. I just always try to assume that.

• 1:13:37Jamie Foxx?

  Could you tell that to some of these other people? I could just name a few right now. Walking around with bodyguards.

• 1:13:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I just assume it's never gonna last forever. Of course it's not. So there's an expiration date on it. And that's helpful, I think, number one. Well, it's very helpful for savoring the experience and not constantly looking forward to bigger and bigger plans. Although that's a component, I think, of good strategy.

• 1:14:02Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:14:03Tim Ferriss?

  The second is I will very deliberately force myself, and I will schedule this in advance, to take time off the grid.

• 1:14:12Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:14:13Tim Ferriss?

  So for instance, I'm gonna take, this July, I'm basically orchestrating, putting systems in place right now, recording things in advance that I can go off the grid for four weeks.

• 1:14:21Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:14:22Tim Ferriss?

  I'm gone. And I did that before in Indonesia. No calendar, no phone, no internet, no email for four weeks. And it's like taking a six to 12 month vacation when you come back.

• 1:14:33Jamie Foxx?

  That feels good.

• 1:14:34Tim Ferriss?

  You know, you're just like, oh my God, I didn't realize. Like every notification, every email, every ping, every noise. It's just like having Chinese water torture all day. And then you turn it off and you're like, I didn't even realize I was going through Chinese water torture. It's an incredible relief and it helps you with that deep work I was talking about. Helps me at least. So, yes, I do very deliberately engineer my life in such a way that I can take time outside of the machine. Because I'm not good at... I'm not good at juggling all the pieces when I'm surrounded with that noise. I need time out.

• 1:15:10Jamie Foxx?

  It's Tim Ferriss. This is simultaneously on his podcast and Foxhole Radio, Series 96. We're gonna take a break. And as you've noticed, we are getting nourished, we're getting fed. We're gonna come back and wrap up with Tim, whatever he wants to give us to let us know how to move forward, how to get your own... How to get your life together, man. And yes, I have touched the hem of his garment. We back in a moment.

• 1:15:36Jamie Foxx?

  That was an Argentinian track. What was the name of that?

• 1:15:38Tim Ferriss?

  That was Federico Albele track Esta Noche.

• 1:15:42Jamie Foxx?

  Esta Noche. That's amazing.

• 1:15:44Tim Ferriss?

  He is from Buenos Aires.

• 1:15:46Jamie Foxx?

  Buenos Aires. Now, you've been to these places?

• 1:15:48Tim Ferriss?

  I have. I got, when I did my walkabout to try to figure out my life in 2004, I got to Panama and a friend of mine said, "You should go to Argentina because you can live like a king for pennies on the dollar."

• 1:16:01Jamie Foxx?

  Really?

• 1:16:02Tim Ferriss?

  And the most beautiful women, most delicious steak and wine on the planet. And I was like, "All right, I'll check it out."

• 1:16:07Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, I must go. Let's book the trip.

• 1:16:09Tim Ferriss?

  It was supposed to be a four-week trip and I was there for nine months.

• 1:16:11Jamie Foxx?

  Really?

• 1:16:12Tim Ferriss?

  I was.

• 1:16:12Jamie Foxx?

  Now, wait a minute. Wait, hold on. Wait a minute. Come on, Tim, now. You went there for a week and you ended up nine months? What was it? Was it love? What was going on?

• 1:16:20Tim Ferriss?

  I was, I got bitten by the bugs that was Tango. And I had deliberately beforehand said I was not going to practice Tango because the only version of Tango I'd seen was like Al Pacino, "Instead of a Woman," Ronald Schwarzenegger, "True Lies." I was like, "I don't want to do that. That's not for me." And ended up just becoming obsessed with it. And I went to the world championships six months later.

• 1:16:40Jamie Foxx?

  Are you serious?

• 1:16:41Tim Ferriss?

  I was a semifinalist, yeah.

• 1:16:42Jamie Foxx?

  What is going on, Tim? Break that down to us now. We were talking about podcasts, but all of a sudden you're the Tango champion in Argentina? The white man goes to Argentina and shuts it down? So you go from Japan, you get a chance to take a bath with grandma first, you move up the bath food chain, then you step into Argentine, little wine, a little steak, and all of a sudden?

• 1:17:06Tim Ferriss?

  All of a sudden, I'm dancing six to eight hours a day, yeah. It was, it was an amazing experience. And I had a fantastic dance partner, but the, it's all related to what we've been talking about. So the same way that I've looked at the testing of assumptions, the asking of questions, so the things that I learned in Japan, just like some of the things your grandmother armed you with, that all added up later. This ability to test assumptions. I remember in Argentina, I became infatuated with Tango. And I started asking myself, what are the rules that everyone says I should do? What if I did the opposite? So they say you should learn how to lead. I said, what if I learn the female part first? That's a weird step. So I learned the follow first from a world-class female teacher. Then I looked at competition footage and what people were teaching.

• 1:17:50Tim Ferriss?

  And I said, all right, what's actually winning the championships? And what are they teaching? And where are the gaps? What are the things that are winning championships? Like long steps, certain types of pivots that aren't being taught? If I learn those, I'll have an unfair advantage. So let me find the teachers who specialize in those.

• 1:18:05Jamie Foxx?

  So Ted, this is what I gotta ask. Where does that come from? Where does that type of thinking? I think for listeners who are listening on both your podcasts and on my radio show, where does that? Is that a blessed thing? Did you learn how to do that? I need two parts of this. One, is that a blessing? And two, what is a pocket?

• 1:18:28Tim Ferriss?

  I think it's both something I'm... It is a blessing in the sense that I've always liked asking questions.

• 1:18:35Jamie Foxx?

  Are you a spiritual person? Or is there any?

• 1:18:37Tim Ferriss?

  I would consider myself, I mean, I grapple with that word a little bit. I'm not religious. I wouldn't consider myself religious. But I've had a lot of experiences in the last few years that would lead me to believe there are some...

• 1:18:47Jamie Foxx?

  That there's something out?

• 1:18:48Tim Ferriss?

  There's something out there.

• 1:18:49Jamie Foxx?

  Ah, what do you think it is?

• 1:18:50Tim Ferriss?

  That we have it all, boy.

• 1:18:52Jamie Foxx?

  Do you think we get to heaven and it's just like a gang of bathtubs that we could bathe in? And it's Argentine women? Because I used to think that heaven was gonna be like just my best-looking girl just in everything I see. Like, everything I saw was the epitome of what I thought beauty was. And then my favorite food was a Sonic Burger. So I get to heaven, it's just Sonic Burger.

• 1:19:19Tim Ferriss?

  Hot women and Sonic Burger.

• 1:19:20Jamie Foxx?

  Just the woman I dig. And you'd be surprised, you know, it's just like, I'm just up there eating Sonic Burger. I've got my wings, got ketchup on it, and all kinds of crazy things. But what do you... For a person who says, I'm not necessarily spiritual. I get that. But there's a lot of things that one would say in looking at you is spiritual. When you see the following and what you do to a person's psyche, what you do to a person's heart and mind is a spiritual thing. So what do you think is out there? Without getting too deep. We don't have to get too deep.

• 1:19:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we could get into crazy town pretty quickly. But I have, I've had some very profound experiences. I'll just, you know what, I'll just go out there. So I've had some very unusual experiences primarily related to use of psychedelics.

• 1:20:06Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:20:07Tim Ferriss?

  That in group environments with proper supervision that, and this is part of the reason that I'm actually helping to finance studies at Johns Hopkins.

• 1:20:14Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:20:15Tim Ferriss?

  And most likely UCSF and a couple of research institutions looking at medical applications of these things. That have led me to believe that putting, putting death aside and what happens after death, if anything. Like maybe it's lights out and we're worm food or maybe there's more. But I think right now there are potentially, well, there are a few things. We could be living in a virtual reality. I think there's a, there's a, there's a non-trivial chance, possibility that that's the case. And second is that, maybe that's not a bad thing. Third, I think there are sort of parallel existences. And you might call them universes.

• 1:20:52Jamie Foxx?

  The bizarro of it all.

• 1:20:54Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly, exactly. So, so I do think that it's possible and this will probably be explained by the scientific method or through experiments at some point. But right now I can't explain a lot of what, what I've seen and experienced firsthand with some of these, these plant medicines. So that, that has called into question.

• 1:21:11Jamie Foxx?

  I love how he calls it plant medicine.

• 1:21:13Tim Ferriss?

  Plant medicine. It's called.

• 1:21:14Jamie Foxx?

  Elijah had just, has just experienced some plant medicine as he's walked in. You can tell the way he's, you tell the way he's chewing that gum. There was some plant medicines going on on the 101.

• 1:21:24Jamie Foxx?

  And then pretty soon he'll disappear in a few minutes and experience some more plant medicines and come back with a big smile on his face. And the answers to it all.

• 1:21:32Tim Ferriss?

  And so, so the, the, so I've always asked questions, but the writing and the meeting of mentors like Buxton has taught me how to ask better questions. And so I am constantly in search of better questions because. People think they need the answers. They don't need the answers. You need the right questions. And the podcast for me, so the Tim Ferriss Show was an opportunity to take a break from writing and to get better at asking questions. Because if you think about what thinking is, it's a little meta, but thinking, if you reflect on your internal dialogue, is asking and answering questions in your own head. So if you get better at asking other people questions, you get better at asking yourself questions. And that improves everything. So the Tim Ferriss Show is really an opportunity for me

• 1:22:17Tim Ferriss?

  to try to deconstruct world-class performers like yourself, like General Stanley McChrystal, like chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, Laird Hamilton, you know, undisputed king of big wave surfing. Because I want to try to find the commonalities. What do these people have in common? So at least 80% of them have a daily meditation practice, for instance. Just as one example. And what are the differences? So if I find somebody who's a morning person, wakes up at 5 to 8, and then I meet someone who writes from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m., I want to talk about that and why that's different.

• 1:22:53Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:22:54Tim Ferriss?

  And it's been an opportunity for me to, hopefully, I have these conversations that are so fun, I mean, with people like yourself and others. And I just thought for years, I'm like, God, it'd be so much fun and useful to share this with my fans.

• 1:23:08Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:23:09Tim Ferriss?

  But there was never a recorder around.

• 1:23:10Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:23:11Tim Ferriss?

  So I started the podcast. And the side gig turned into more than a side gig.

• 1:23:16Jamie Foxx?

  Man, when I tell you, it's amazing. So here's a question that everybody's asking now. What does Tim Ferriss do? What does Tim Ferriss do in the morning? What does Tim Ferriss do? What does the guru? See, this is the thing, like the gurus and the people that have this, I call it the blessing. I call it the, you know, because I'm a spiritual person, you know, like my daughter, she knows the books of the Bible and everything like that, but... When you see someone who has that shine, that un- that unexplainable way to be, you're saying something that anyone could else could say, but the way you're saying it, the way you're delivering it, and it, and it works. So what do you do?

• 1:23:58Jamie Foxx?

  How, or, or do you listen to all of these things and sort of enhance your own, uh, routine? What do you do when you wake up in the morning? You wake up and say, "Man, I'm Tim Ferriss, bad motherfucker."

• 1:24:08Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, sometimes I wake up, I just wanna pull the sheets over my head and stay in bed. I think we all have those mornings.

• 1:24:13Jamie Foxx?

  Cool.

• 1:24:14Tim Ferriss?

  But, uh, generally, yes, I do borrow from everybody.

• 1:24:18Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18Tim Ferriss?

  And my routine right now is I wake up, I tend to wake up on the late side because I go to bed late.

• 1:24:22Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Tim Ferriss?

  So I'll wake up, let's just say nine o'clock, be on the later side for me. But, um, if I'm on deadline, I'll write until five in the morning.

• 1:24:29Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:24:29Tim Ferriss?

  I'll wake up in the afternoon. Right now, I'll wake up, I will go upstairs, I will have supplements that are better absorbed on an empty stomach. I will then feed my dog, sit down, meditate for 20 minutes.

• 1:24:42Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:24:42Tim Ferriss?

  So that's, that's trans- that's transcendental meditation, but I also could use Vipassana or anything else. There are many different ways to go about it. Then I will, at the, at this moment, have a specific type of tea. I usually have Pu Er tea, which is a Chinese tea, with turmeric and ginger, plus something called MCT oil, which helps your brain quite a bit, because it gives you something to convert into ketones. Then I do acro yoga practice, so I have-

• 1:25:08Jamie Foxx?

  What is that?

• 1:25:08Tim Ferriss?

  So acro yoga is kinda like a Cirque du Soleil strength performance, typically with a man and a woman. It's actually very similar to Tango.

• 1:25:15Jamie Foxx?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:15Tim Ferriss?

  But it's gymnastic, so I'd be supporting a woman on my feet or one foot and my hands, and they'd be doing cartwheels and forward spins and headstands and shoulder stands and handstands on my hands. It's extremely fun and very good physical training.

• 1:25:29Jamie Foxx?

  This is every day?

• 1:25:30Tim Ferriss?

  I do three time, I do three times a week, so I-

• 1:25:32Jamie Foxx?

  So you spin a girl on your feet?

• 1:25:33Tim Ferriss?

  Three times a week, for an hour and a half at a time.

• 1:25:35Jamie Foxx?

  That's what I need to do, I need to find me a little lightweight babe to just, uh- Flip her up around.

• 1:25:40Tim Ferriss?

  You want to start with what they would call a tiny, that's a little one.

• 1:25:42Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, this is amazing.

• 1:25:44Tim Ferriss?

  And a flyer.

• 1:25:44Jamie Foxx?

  Right now, for my radio people, Ricardo is showing me what this is. This is amazing. What is it called now?

• 1:25:50Tim Ferriss?

  Acro yoga.

• 1:25:51Jamie Foxx?

  So you guys out there listening, go to acroyoga.com?

• 1:25:56Tim Ferriss?

  Acro yoga. If you just search Acro yoga, there's a guy named Jason Nemer, who's the co-founder, N-E-M-E-R.

• 1:26:02Jamie Foxx?

  Now, what does this, now what does this do? But does that give you some sort of interaction with, with female energy, or is it?

• 1:26:08Tim Ferriss?

  It does, it does quite a few things for me. So what, what I realized for myself is that in, in a culture such as our own in the US, where we have very puritanical inclinations and baggage, there's not a lot of physical touch. It's very forbidden. And you have to be very, very careful about physical touch. But we are higher primates. We need physical contact. It is, it is part of our hardwiring DNA. And Acro yoga is a fantastic way to have sensual contact that is not necessarily sexual. If that makes sense.

• 1:26:43Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:26:44Tim Ferriss?

  And that gives you, I think, a charge and a therapy that is extremely valuable and hard to produce any other way. It's also very playful. And I think it's easy, for me at least, to take life too seriously, or take myself too seriously. And when you do an Acro yoga, half the time, you're making mistakes and falling on each other, flipping over. It's just playful. It's like going back to the playground. And I think as adults, it's very easy to think that serious is, meaning, being serious, not the radio, is the, the tone you have to carry to do big things. Whereas I think that if you're always serious, you'll be too, you will end up being too exhausted to complete the truly important work.

• 1:27:25Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:27:25Tim Ferriss?

  So you have to use play as a way to rest and reset.

• 1:27:29Jamie Foxx?

  Now, do, do I use, do I use the girl I'm dating?

• 1:27:32Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:27:33Jamie Foxx?

  For this? Or do I just go?

• 1:27:34Tim Ferriss?

  You can do both.

• 1:27:35Jamie Foxx?

  Could I tell my girl, hey, I gotta? I'm gonna be in the room flipping this girl upside down, I'll be out in about an hour.

• 1:27:41Tim Ferriss?

  You could try that, depends on the girlfriend.

• 1:27:43Jamie Foxx?

  I'll go get a snack.

• 1:27:44Tim Ferriss?

  But you are in the epicenter right here. The best acro yoga, or most of the best acro yoga instructors on the planet are near Venice and Santa Monica.

• 1:27:52Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:27:53Tim Ferriss?

  So you're right in the hotbed for this.

• 1:27:55Jamie Foxx?

  Well, I'm gonna get into that, and then what else? And what else? How do you just like, you love to tango, you love to travel, but what makes you eager? Like, I can't wait for that, that day. What's that that makes you, because we got our jobs, we do what I think, you're leading the people, but what makes you go like, I look forward?

• 1:28:18Tim Ferriss?

  I look forward to cheat day. So cheat day, it's the cheat day, and yeah. She's seen cheat day.

• 1:28:28Jamie Foxx?

  What's the cheat day?

• 1:28:29Tim Ferriss?

  So cheat day, so I follow a diet that was in the Four Hour Body, it's called the Slow Carb Diet, and it's very manageable. You can go out to eat with people, they won't even notice you're on a restrictive diet, and it really helps with losing fat loss very quickly and building muscle. So there have been many, many cases, I mean dozens now, people have lost 100, 150, 200 pounds. But it's also very effective for just staying lean. And the component that I think is most important perhaps, or one of the more crucial, is the concept of cheat day, and that means you have six days of compliance, and then you have one day when you can do whatever you want. And I generally recommend that's a Saturday, and a lot of fans have nicknamed that Fatter Day.

• 1:29:09Jamie Foxx?

  Fatter Day!

• 1:29:10Tim Ferriss?

  And they'll send me photos of all the crap they're eating.

• 1:29:13Jamie Foxx?

  I'm gonna do this.

• 1:29:14Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, ice cream, pizza, I mean, like yesterday effectively was my cheat day. I was fasting for two days, and I was like, you know what, this doesn't feel right. And I was about, so the clock struck midnight, and I was like, okay, it's cheat day. And I just demolished the entire hotel tray of goodies, and it was glorious.

• 1:29:33Jamie Foxx?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:34Tim Ferriss?

  Macadamia nuts covered in chocolate, gummy bears, candied ginger. And I didn't feel any guilt, because that's the purpose of cheat day, it's like the psychological release valve, so that you make yourself so sick. You're like, I cannot wait to get back to my lentils and beans and chicken because I feel terrible. And then you can stick with it and that's how people lose 100, 200 pounds.

• 1:29:57Jamie Foxx?

  That's fantastic. Last but not least, for our listeners, we've talked about so many different things.

• 1:30:05Jamie Foxx?

  Long Island, lung collapse, heat stroke vulnerable, college, doing it your own way. Just give us a wrap up of, and I know it's sort of old school, but just it's sort of telling them, taking that person from where they are right now, because a lot of people when they listen in, they got all kinds. People say, Fox, man, I was having a bad day. Just give them a little something, man. Just a little something from, you know, to get them going.

• 1:30:40Tim Ferriss?

  I would say that you do big things by starting with the small things. And the way that I view my life, people ask me like, what's your five year plan, 10 year plan? I don't have one.

• 1:30:53Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:30:53Tim Ferriss?

  Because a reliable five, 10 year plan is going to be shooting below your capability. I mean, I think that if you have a really, if you build a really tremendous life for yourself, in retrospect, it's going to look very accidental in many respects. And to that end, I try to view my life as two week experiments.

• 1:31:11Jamie Foxx?

  Right.

• 1:31:12Tim Ferriss?

  And by doing that, I'm going to try X for two weeks. It's not a permanent decision. You can do anything for two weeks. I'm going to try the slow carb diet for two weeks. I'm going to try fill in the blank, you know, meditating for two weeks. I'm going to try whatever it might be. And you start to develop a confidence in your ability to act and change your reality for you and your family, or those you care about. And people will often ask me like, how do I, how do I get confidence? How do I get confidence? Because then I want to go out and do things. I'm like, no, no, you got it reversed. You have to do things, small, little bit bigger, medium sized and large to build that confidence. So like the only cure for lack of confidence is acting. And the way that I find easiest.

• 1:31:58Tim Ferriss?

  Is to treat your life as a series of two week experiments. And it's whatever your weakness is, whatever your excuse might be. And we've all, we've all had excuses. I've had excuses. And it's like, whether it's I'm too old, I'm too young. I'm not this, I'm not that, I'm too this, I'm too that, whatever it is. There is someone who has felt that exact same way, said the same thing to themselves and overcome it.

• 1:32:22Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:32:22Tim Ferriss?

  And you can find those people. So go out and search for them.

• 1:32:25Jamie Foxx?

  Wow.

• 1:32:26Tim Ferriss?

  And one of the questions I ask experts all the time is like, if I'm looking at someone who's, say, an ultra endurance runner, and I'll ask them like, who is good at this, who shouldn't be? Right? Like, I know that you have the people who are built like spiders, who are sort of blessed with a certain physique that makes it easier for them to do this. But I want to know, like, where's the 250 pound guy? Who runs 50, 100 mile races? Like, is there such a person? And they'll be like, oh, yeah, there is this one guy. I'll be like, okay, I want to study him.

• 1:32:49Jamie Foxx?

  Wow, man. It's very superhero, it's very comic book superhero, the way you think.

• 1:32:55Tim Ferriss?

  It is.

• 1:32:55Jamie Foxx?

  That one, that soul.

• 1:32:57Tim Ferriss?

  It is. And but it's a toolkit. And I do write about this toolkit a lot in The Four Hour Chef, the last book, which is kind of a book on accelerated learning disguised as a cookbook. But it is a toolkit that anyone can use. If you have Google and you speak English, like, you are in the 1%. Like, I have to tell you, like, you have at your fingertips everything. And you just have to ask the right questions.

• 1:33:20Jamie Foxx?

  Wow. That's it. Fox on Radio Series 96. Hey, listen, everybody out there listening, you got two weeks. I'll see you in two weeks, and you better have it done. We are with the one, the only, I joke, I kid when I first came on and said Oprah Winfrey was a white man. But let me tell you something, Tim, you your own man. And for what you did, what you're doing for everybody, for those 70 million downloads and for those people that are in the street that you don't even get a chance to see, like I see. They counting on you, brother, man. Keep doing your thing and keep giving it to us. It's Jamie Foxx with Tim Ferriss, Fox on Radio Series 96. Let me tell you something, when I die, heaven better be off the chain, because I'm having a ball right now.

• 1:34:02Jamie Foxx?

  Sirius XM 96, we going out of here. Tim Ferriss, I've touched the hem of the garment.

• 1:34:12Tim 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

• 1:34:52Tim Ferriss?

  friends, for instance. And it's very short. 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

• 1:35:37Tim Ferriss?

  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. 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 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

• 1:36:21Tim Ferriss?

  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, 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

• 1:37:06Tim Ferriss?

  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 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.

• 1:37:48Tim Ferriss?

  It's fast, it's free, there's no downside that I can think of. This episode is brought to you by MeUndies. If I'm not going commando, I'm in MeUndies. I have been testing these underwear for three to four months now, pretty much every day, and in fact, threw out a bunch of my other underwear this morning. And on the road, in the house, they are extremely comfortable, they look good, feel good, they are made of micro modal, two times softer than cotton, as scientifically tested using the Kawabata method. Sounds very fancy, of course, and I get a lot of compliments from ladies for these. You don't get diaper butt, you don't get the tired elastic band, they look great, and they have underwear for both men and women. Check out meundies.com/tim. And you can see everything I've been wearing.

• 1:38:33Tim Ferriss?

  They're ridiculous, the sublime, everything in between, including my favorite, which is called out. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention their lounge pants. This is a new thing and I've been wearing their lounge pants when I record podcasts. I've been wearing them out and about when I'm walking the dog, meeting people for coffee. And they are extremely comfortable, though they're made from the same material as the underwear. But some of them, like the blue ones I have, have pockets so you can walk about without seeming like you're off of your meds and completely crazy. So that is awesome. And if you're not happy with the first pair you try on, I assume that refers to the underwear, they'll refund you completely and you can keep the pair you tried on for free. But if you're that kind of person, you should be ashamed because that's disgusting. Uh, meundies.com/tim, check it out.