Ep 67: Amanda Palmer on How to Fight, Meditate, and Make Good Art

Amanda Palmer http://amandapalmer.net/ first came to prominence as one half of the internationally acclaimed punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. She is widely known as “The Social Media Queen of Rock-N-Roll” for her intimate engagement with fans via her blog http://amandapalmer.net/home/, Tumblr http://amandapalmer.tumblr.com/, and Twitter https://twitter.com/amandapalmer (1,000,000+ followers), and she has been at the vanguard of using both “direct-to-fan” and “pay what you want” (patronage) business models to build and run her business. Amanda's new book, The Art of Asking http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Asking-Learned-Worrying/dp/1455581089/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, is a New York Times' best seller and a damn fine read. Show notes, links, and resources from this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast

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

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Alright, so I'm gonna click Record and then we're just gonna take a couple of seconds of silence and then we'll jump right into it.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:13Speaker 02

  Well, we'll see an appropriate time.

• 0:15Speaker 03

  What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:28Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you for supporting the sponsors of this show, 99designs, which is your one-stop-shop for all things graphic design-related. Go to 99designs.com/tim to see the projects that I've put up, including the mock-ups and drafts of the book cover for The Four Hour Body. As always, you can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and you can find all of the links and resources from this episode, as well as every other episode, by going to fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. Spell it all out. Or you can go to fourhourworkweek.com and just click on Podcast. Feedback? If you have feedback, I would love your thoughts, anything at all, who you'd like to see on this show.

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  Ping me on Twitter, @TFerriss, that's twitter.com/TFERRISS, or on Facebook, at facebook.com/timferriss, with two R's and two S's.

• 1:26Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I deconstruct world-class performers, whether they be billionaire hedge fund managers, early-stage investors like Peter Thiel, or celebrities, Arnold Schwarzenegger, musicians, chess prodigies, and so on. They have commonalities and they do have tools and tricks and routines that you can use. This episode, I am interviewing Amanda Palmer, who is a musician, but also a social media virtuoso and innovator as a musician from the standpoint of both music and business models. Some of you, I'm sure, have seen her hit TED presentation, "The Art of Asking," which has been viewed more than 6 million times, but her story goes much, much deeper and we will plumb the

• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

  We will talk about, of course, perhaps the Dresden Dolls, where she first rose to prominence as one half of that acclaimed punk cabaret duo. Then the journey from solo album to leaving her record label altogether and experimenting with things like Kickstarter. She made international news in 2012 when she raised nearly 1.2 million, pre-selling her new album Theater is Evil, which went on to debut in the Billboard Top 10. It's one hell of a story. And she's also known as the social media queen of rock and roll for her constant and disarmingly intimate, and I say disarmingly intimate, such as standing naked in front

• 2:53Tim Ferriss?

  of a room full of fans who sign your body with various markers, I'm not kidding, engagement with fans via her blog, Tumblr, Twitter, where she has more than a million followers. And she has really opened a lot of eyes to, say, direct-to-fan-or-pay-what-you-want business models for building and running her business. We get into all of this, and we, of course, dip our toe in the different tactics and stories from The Art of Asking, how she manages relationships, and much more. So, let me stop this preamble and allow you to enjoy a very fun conversation I enjoyed immensely with Amanda Palmer.

• 4:14Tim Ferriss?

  Amanda fucking Palmer. Welcome to the show.

• 4:18Amanda Palmer?

  Thank you, Tim fucking Ferris. How are fuck you?

• 4:22Tim Ferriss?

  I'm great. And the only reason I ask, or rather introduce things that way is because I've been dying to ask you, you have Amanda fucking Palmer listed as your alias, or also known as, everywhere I've been able to really try to do homework, including Wikipedia, how did you end up with fucking as an alternate middle name?

• 4:44Amanda Palmer?

  Well, as you know, Wikipedia is not authored by the, is not authored by the artist.

• 4:49Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 4:49Amanda Palmer?

  Amanda fucking Palmer is a joke nickname that Ben Folds gave me while I was working on my first solo album. And the funny thing about the name is, it was, it was actually aimed at me as an insult. It was sort of like, it was one of those take back the night moments, you know, like, well, like all the words that you're not allowed to say. And.

• 5:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you can, you can say anything on this podcast, too. I encourage you.

• 5:22Amanda Palmer?

  Right. But I mean, it was one of those things where Ben, Ben had someone who was a friend of a current enemy, who referred to me, every time she referred to me, she referred to me as Amanda fucking Palmer. And so Ben, as a joke, because we were working on a record in Nashville together for like a month, as a joke, started calling me AFP. And it just became, because you, and you also, like, you lose your mind in the studio and everything devolves into toilet humor instantly. That just became the running studio joke. And then, you know, that was Ben's pet name for me. And I thought it was funny enough that I started using it myself. And then it just sort of. Turned into a thing. I don't even know how it turned into a thing, but I think that's

• 6:06Amanda Palmer?

  a good nickname isn't really deliberately. It kind of like it lands on you and then it sticks like glue.

• 6:11Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I love it. So you you disarmed the insult by adopting it completely.

• 6:16Amanda Palmer?

  Which kind of is my life philosophy.

• 6:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I love that. I love that.

• 6:21Amanda Palmer?

  Just take, take on the pain and wear it as a shirt.

• 6:24Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I love this. And I'll just, I'll trade a really quick anecdote, which is, I was really bummed out at some point a few years ago when a new book came out and got panned by this guy in the New York Times that I don't particularly like. And I, but I, what I decided to do as retribution.

• 6:43Amanda Palmer?

  Did you steal, did you steal part of his?

• 6:45Tim Ferriss?

  That's exactly what I, I took part of it, which was intended to be this over the top insult, but out of context, it sounds amazing. It was like Tim Ferriss walks on air, air and land or something. Like, dot, dot, dot. And I put it on the, I put it on the inside flap of the Four Hour Chef as a reward.

• 7:04Amanda Palmer?

  I have a, I have a, I have an indie rock friend who got panned in like, you know, I don't know if it was the New York, it was the indie rock equivalent of the New York Times, which means it was, you know, it was Pitchfork or something. And they wrote this scathing, you know, no stars review of his new album saying, you know, so and so thinks he is like, the second coming of Christ and the most amazing musical genius to ever walk the face of the planet. And he just removed the beginning, the beginning of that and stole the rest of the quote and plastered it on his press kit. And I was like, you are awesome.

• 7:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the, the movie poster, dot, dot, dot, amazing what magic can be worked doing things that way. So I, I have a confession, and that is, your book. So The Art of Asking, I, I, I got halfway through it. And the reason I haven't read the second half is because I was so inspired by the book that I put it down to start asking people around me for all of the help that I'd been too ashamed or embarrassed to ask for. And as a result, I have fixed my.

• 8:16Amanda Palmer?

  You had no more time, you had no more time to read.

• 8:18Tim Ferriss?

  I have no more time to read. So busy asking and. I ended up fixing my health after a severe bout with Lyme disease last year. And have just had these multiple quantum leaps forward. So I wanted to thank you for putting the book out there, first of all.

• 8:36Amanda Palmer?

  Oh, that's wonderful. I'm so happy to hear that, actually. I'd rather hear that than hear that you finished my book and loved it, but it didn't change anything in your life. It makes me really happy.

• 8:48Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I was, I was, I was so just completely smitten with the book. And the subtitle, I think, is really important. So correct me if I get this wrong, but I believe it's how I learned to stop worrying and let people help. And I wanted to ask you, and of course, we're going to come back to some of your background and everything else, but why did you, a book is a hard thing. I mean, a lot of things in life are hard, but books are, are, are a challenge. Why did you decide to put this book together and put it out there?

• 9:19Amanda Palmer?

  I don't think I would have put this book together if I hadn't been offered a totally, we will make this easy for you book deal. Because I've been, I'm one of those people who's always got, you know, 19 projects on the back burner. And one of them was someday I should write a book. I'll write a book someday when I have time. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Like, you know, somebody who tours 250 days a year and has, you know, millions of unrecorded songs and, you know, all sorts of bizarre side projects. You know, a book always seemed like a great thing in theory and in practice. Just a huge pain in the

• 10:02Amanda Palmer?

  ass and not something that I ever really imagined fitting into my life as a, as a runner arounder. Because I know enough about book writing to know that it's not something I could like tap out on the fly on flights from one place to the other. I was really gonna have to. Put press pause on my life as I knew it. And after I um started working on my TED Talk. You know, I had had I'd had the the vague idea of writing a book. Sort of the the first time I really thought about it, other than the basic narcissistic, oh, write my memoir someday, which I think every every artist who lives a kind of an off kilter bizarre

• 10:47Amanda Palmer?

  life with interesting stories probably has the thought someday to just write the stories down. But the first time I really thought about writing a book was was actually a after my experience, street performing. Because street performing and my particular experience as street performing was was so unique. And I didn't know of anybody out there who had written about what it was like to be a living statue. And and then later in my life with crowdfunding and the internet and really seeing the connections. The the the strange but philosophical connections between

• 11:33Amanda Palmer?

  living statue work and stripping and starting a band and trusting fans and asking for money and I was like, all of these things are really related. They're all kind of part of one philosophy and one story. And that would make a great book. And it's a and it's and it's unlike anything else I know. I mean, it's not really a book about music. It's not really a book about being a street performer. It's kind of a book about an approach to life that is about abundance and trust instead of about scarcity and fear. You know, in the frame of art and performance art, but also like as I found as I

• 12:17Amanda Palmer?

  kept carving out the book, it's, you know, it was also about relationships and um a risk and, you know, kind of the big themes.

• 12:28Amanda Palmer?

  And once I did the TED Talk, you know, while I was working on the TED Talk, I worked together with my really good friend Jamie Ian Swiss, who's this fantastic magician and essayist. And, you know, he sort of fell into my lap as my TED coach because I called him one night and I knew that he had given talks at conferences. So he was one of the people in my life that I could tap as, you know, you understand TED, you understand conferences. I can ask most of my friends about this. You know, what makes a good talk? Can I read you what I've written? And I had what I thought was going to be a 20-minute phone call turned into a three-hour phone call with Jamie giving me all sorts of advice

• 13:11Amanda Palmer?

  and all sorts of opinions and all sorts of, you know, calling me on my bullshit. And by the end of that three hours, I was like, Jamie, you're gonna, you're gonna be my wingman on this TED Talk. If you help me do this, I will love you forever. And he was like, I'm here for you. I will help you with this TED Talk. So I would say he's sort of like the hidden hero, man behind a curtain of my TED Talk, because he was the guy on the phone with me every other day for an hour while I read him draft after draft after draft of my TED Talk. And there's a reason my TED Talk wound up so good. I didn't just knock it out and read it.

• 13:53Amanda Palmer?

  I worked slaved on that fucker for two months. Really, like, it was, it was like constructing a perfect little monologue with no fat and just the right cadence. And I, I really, really, really, I really worked hard on it. But one of the things that happened is I added little anecdotes and added stories and we cut them and we refined and honed and decided that this was a little too off-topic is we came up with the phrase, you know, it'll go in the book. You don't have to put it in the talk, Amanda. You only have 12 minutes. That'll go in your book someday. And so that was when the imaginary book. Took shape, which is, you know, for this 12-minute TED Talk, I was trying to condense

• 14:38Amanda Palmer?

  my entire life philosophy, you know, into into a teeny amount of time, but there were so many other stories that were relevant. And I comforted myself with the idea that if the TED Talk resonated, I would someday expand it all into a talk. And then I didn't have to worry about that at all, because the minute the TED Talk went online and went viral, my phone, you know, rang off the hook with with book deals. And I and I just decided I would take one. And I would do and I and then I would just like go down the rabbit hole and figure out how to write a book.

• 15:15Tim Ferriss?

  The TED Talk is fantastic. And for people listening, I'll put the TED Talk in the show notes. So you guys can check that out as well. It's a great introduction to the the then expanded narrative and collection of stories and lessons that is the book, of course. And I'm sure when you wrote the book, you're like, well, it doesn't all have to go in the book. This will be the online extras. But the the mention of Ted and the the Amanda Whisperer, your friend who is helping you with the presentation.

• 15:44Amanda Palmer?

  I call him the Ted Dula and then the book.

• 15:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. The Ted Dula. I'd be very interested to hear what some of the the best feedback or or changes were that he gave to you for the for the TED Talk itself.

• 16:02Amanda Palmer?

  Well, you know, a lot of it was not unlike writing a book. And since you've written, I'm sure you you know, this quandary, which is you get so interested in your topic that you keep wanting to expand and expound. And and and the true beauty of making a good TED Talk or a good book is that you edit down and you and you distill. And so the key with the TED Talk was, you know, I kept wanting to add like, oh, my God, and then there's this. And how could I not talk about this? And, you know, there was this amazing thing that happened and our.

• 16:45Amanda Palmer?

  You know, and our and our goal was to just literally using an economy of language. You know, I would write a sentence and write an anecdote and speak it. You know, I would be on Skype with Jamie and it would take me a minute and a half to tell this story about couch surfing. You know, with this this girl and her family down in Florida. And then the goal was, how do we take this story? It took a minute and a half to tell, and I thought I had got it as far down economically as possible. And then take that minute and a half story and condense it into 20 seconds. What, literally, what words, what single words could we use to convey that whole sentence?

• 17:30Amanda Palmer?

  And it and it was like songwriting or poetry where instead of saying and expounding and going off on tangents. You just pick that one perfect sentence that sums up everything you felt. And in that sense, there was there was a real artistry behind it. And I found watching other TED Talks and looking at other TED Talks, they had that in common. Which was an economy of emotion and and of expression. You know, they didn't need to explain this and that and the other thing they with a single anecdote or a single detail. They emotionally take you right there and they don't need to say anymore and they can get on to the next thing.

• 18:09Tim Ferriss?

  I um

• 18:11Tim Ferriss?

  it it brings to mind a couple of things. The first was an exercise that a writing professor of mine back in college named John McPhee used to have us do, which would be to take something like the Gettysburg Address and have to pull out five lines or six lines. And which was always so torturous, but separately was told very early on. I think it was related to to teaching as opposed to writing, although I think that the two are very similar when you're talking about nonfiction. And that was that most teaching fails from too much information, not too little. And I think that TED presentations are very similar.

• 18:51Amanda Palmer?

  I think you could say that about art.

• 18:53Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 18:53Amanda Palmer?

  You know, like the best art is is about.

• 18:58Amanda Palmer?

  Economy and and you know, even if you're, you know, even if your art is, you know, durational performance art, even within that, there can be an economy because the artist who's just trying to do everything, you know, winds up unable to express whatever it is that's of importance.

• 19:20Tim Ferriss?

  Durational performance art, what would be an example of durational performance art?

• 19:24Amanda Palmer?

  Uh, I mean Marina Abramovic sitting in, uh, sitting in MoMA for three months.

• 19:31Tim Ferriss?

  Got it, that's a long duration.

• 19:33Amanda Palmer?

  That's duration, that's durational performance art, but if you look at, uh, if you look at Marina Abramovic sitting in MoMA for three months, there, there was an economy about what she did, you know, she didn't wear a different costume every day and, you know, also try to do 90 other things at once. It was her and a chair and another person and there was a real economy in that. So, you know, I've, I've definitely had a battle all my life with economy. I've, you know, I'm, I'm a maximalist and I have driven collaborators and managers

• 20:12Amanda Palmer?

  and boyfriends and girlfriends and pretty much everybody in my life, crazy, because I always want to, I want to add more and I want to do more and oh my God, if we're going to do this, we could do this on top of it and we could do this too and like, let's add more dancing girls and let's add more, you know, more like more triangle, like all the, you know, more cowbell, all the things. And it's, you know, as an, as an artist and you, you see this in the wisdom of older artists as they, as they talk about their processes, they, like your life, you know, your life goes on and you pare down and you keep paring down to the point where, you

• 20:53Amanda Palmer?

  know, you realize that it wasn't the extra performance artists that made your show good, it was the ability to pare down to the detail, the impactful detail. And, you know, that's, that's just true in art as in life, for sure.

• 21:11Tim Ferriss?

  And how, how have you become, do you feel like you have become better at editing and distilling in your art? And if so, what has been the most helpful in getting you to that point?

• 21:27Amanda Palmer?

  Um, that's a really good question because it also really depends on the form. You know, songwriting is a good example.

• 21:34Tim Ferriss?

  Sure, songwriting.

• 21:35Amanda Palmer?

  And, um, you know, and even recording songs is a good example. I used to think, here's a really specific but a really good lesson. I used to think, and one would think, that if you were just recording a single song, you know, but let's say it's a really aggressive piano song and it's just piano and vocals. You would think that layering and overdubbing more piano would make for a stronger sound. So instead of just having, you know, one single piano playing a bassline and a right hand and your vocal on top of it, you know, you record the piano 10 times over. And so you've basically got the entire range of the piano on the recording.

• 22:21Amanda Palmer?

  And you crank everything up to 11. And the fascinating thing about that is, and incredibly poetic as related to the rest of art and life, is the strongest, loudest sound you can get from a piano is playing two notes. You know, a low C and a middle E and banging the shit out of those two notes is way more impactful and striking and strong and aggressive than overdubbing 27 notes on top of that. And, you know, ACDC is kind of the perfect example. You know, those guitar riffs and those single notes, they burn themselves into your brain.

• 23:06Amanda Palmer?

  And they don't need a whole lot of extra. It's the sheer, you know, epic simplicity of the minimal.

• 23:17Amanda Palmer?

  And, you know, I've found that this is true pretty much everywhere in life, especially when it comes to, I mean, you were mentioning it with teaching. It was, it's something that I have been learning in my relationships from day one and still struggle with to this day and found myself even doing in the last forty-eight hours of my relationship with Neil, which is learning how to say less. And especially for someone like me who's a motor mouth and, you know, wants to be constantly communicating and engaged, the ability to have a thought and not just blurt it out.

• 24:01Amanda Palmer?

  And to have something that you think is interesting that you want to share or to have an observation or a criticism and not say it and, and deliberate and consider, is this actually useful? Is this actually compassionate? Is this actually necessary to the conversation? Or does saying less actually leave more space for more love? And I have found the best, the best advice from my mentor,

• 24:37Amanda Palmer?

  who I also talk about in the book, does, and funny enough, it's pretty economical advice as well, is, is life advice to me. When I'm going into a conflict or a difficult situation with my parents or, you know, an argument with Neil, his advice is, say less. That's it. Just say less.

• 25:02Tim Ferriss?

  It's such good advice. Great advice for emails, too.

• 25:07Amanda Palmer?

  And on that, we should just skip the next sixty minutes of the podcast.

• 25:10Tim Ferriss?

  Gonna play some, right, play some, play two notes on a piano for the next forty-five minutes. Please stand by. I want to, I want to, I definitely want to come back to the relationship, your relationship briefly, a little further down the road, but I'd love to rewind the clock a little bit and talk about the eight-foot bride. Could you give people a little bit of context for those who don't know your story?

• 25:36Tim Ferriss?

  Just a little bit of context on the eight foot bride? And the question I'd like to then add on that is just what your main lessons learned were from that experience that have translated to all of the other endeavors and experiments that you've had?

• 25:55Amanda Palmer?

  Okay, well, the basic background is that I was a living statue. And most people know what that is because they've seen it if they've traveled to any metropolis. But if you don't know what a living statue is, it's a street performer, usually monochromatically colored, you know, all white, all silver, all blue, face painted gloves. And sometimes living statues wear sunglasses and wigs and, you know, my least favorite living statues wear masks. I think that's cheating. Because there's a real beauty in watching somebody's frozen face. That's a real, that's a, that's a real part of the talent. But I basically graduated college.

• 26:41Amanda Palmer?

  I knew I wanted to be a performer, a musician. I knew I was either going to go into music or theater, but my main passion was songwriting. And I, you know, was working my collection of shitty jobs. My, my main shitty job being, and it was a great shitty job, just in case my old boss is listening, because I love him. I worked in a, in a fantastic little ice cream shop in Harvard Square that was called Toscanini's. And we, we scooped ice cream and made coffee for the denizens of Harvard Square and Harvard. And I had seen street performers, you know, all my life. And I had, I had, I remember mentally noting, you know, every time I saw a living statue.

• 27:26Amanda Palmer?

  Who does that? And you know, who gives you permission to do that? And I could do that. You know, anyone could clearly do that. You just need to paint yourself and get on a box. Um, and so one day I just, I just did it. I, I painted myself white and put on a bridal gown and a veil and some gloves. And I stood on a box. I was terrified. Um, and I, and I put a, I put a hat at my feet. Um, and I gave out flowers. And you know, that first time I got up and did it was a real, it was sort of one of those life breakthrough moments where I, I felt so,

• 28:07Amanda Palmer?

  you know, I felt so fraudulent. I was like, this isn't, no one's giving me permission to do this. No one's taught me how to do this. I'm really faking this. I mean, I assume you just stand here. I don't know. Are there rules for being a statue? And I, and I just did it. And it was, it was delightful. And I really, I, I had this moment of incredible, feeling incredible freedom. Just, you know, taking that $17 I made that day and just going out and buying a sandwich and a packet of cigarettes and going, oh my God, this money is just mine. People just gave it to me. I had, you know, it was, it was such a, it, it was such a, um,

• 28:52Amanda Palmer?

  uh, you know, like a eureka moment after, you know, only having been, you know, been given money, you know, in the form of a paycheck from a boss to just have people giving you cold, hard cash for performing in the street was a real, really beautiful feeling. And I never went back after that, although being, you know, being a living statue in, in Boston is a clearly seasonal occupation. So, you know, I would sort of, um, I would go back to, to, you know, to cafe work in the winters or I would, I would travel and, you know, perform the eight foot bride in, in warmer hospitable climes. Like I went down to Key West and I went to LA.

• 29:37Amanda Palmer?

  I, I tried my hand at Vegas. I went to Australia one, one winter. But I would say I made about ninety-five percent of my living statue income right in the middle of Harvard Square over the course of, you know, four or five years. And it really, you know, it wasn't until I looked back

• 30:01Amanda Palmer?

  after, you know, after years of having transferred into the music and rocking and rolling touring performer career, that I realized how much street life and busking life had shaped my approach to everything. You know, my, my life philosophy was not an academic approach. It was not a music business approach. It was a busking approach, which is you have to, you have to be good at what you do. And, um, and then you rely on the goodwill of others. And that's the way busking works. You know, nobody buys a ticket. You, you do your thing and you have to captivate a crowd.

• 30:46Amanda Palmer?

  And, and then you pass your hat.

• 30:49Tim Ferriss?

  What separates a good living statue from a great living statue?

• 30:55Amanda Palmer?

  Oh, you know, I think, I think there's two answers to that question. I have seen some shitty fucking living statues in my, I have seen some, I have seen some people with the, who have put the absolute minimal amount of care and effort into their costumes and makeup. And it's always really depressing to me to see a bad living statue, you know, someone who's just like, you know, wearing a raincoat and a bad mask and isn't even really standing still. You know, and is barely interacting with, um, with the people who are giving the money. And, you know,

• 31:36Amanda Palmer?

  regardless, everyone is always curious about a living statue, even a bad living statue. You know, and children's curiosity is, is, you know, is unrelenting. So they, they can't really tell the difference between an immaculate living statue who spent $2,000 on a, you know, on a beautiful latex costume that looks completely realistic, you know, or, or someone who's just, you know, wearing a shitty raincoat and a mask. All they know is that there's something happening and it might be magic. And if they put their dollar in, something magical is gonna happen. But you know, I've seen, I have seen some really incredible living statues with just glorious costumes. And they, you know, they're, they're just killing it in the aesthetics department.

• 32:22Amanda Palmer?

  But they don't love you. And my favorite, my favorite living statues are the ones who, who have some pathos and, and who actually connect with you.

• 32:36Amanda Palmer?

  And that was the approach I took to, to the eight foot bride, which is, you know, I, as a, as a performer hungry for love and connection. I, I treated every single patron as a, as like a 10 second love affair. And I, I just, I enjoyed so deeply the act of looking into a stranger's eyes and thanking them for giving me a quarter. That, um, you know, that it was a real part of the job, but also means that, you know, I'm really disappointed if I go up to a living statue and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You gave me a dollar now, fuck off. It always just makes me sad.

• 33:14Tim Ferriss?

  It feels like a, like a cheap trick or something. Yeah.

• 33:17Amanda Palmer?

  Yeah. So.

• 33:18Tim Ferriss?

  What, uh, you mentioned eye contact and you have, you have very striking eye contact and certainly use that in your TED talk. And I, I've seen it in other photographs and videos. What advice would you give? I think that most people avoid excessive eye contact. But what advice would you give to average Joe or Jane out there about using eye contact to connect with people? What are your thoughts on that?

• 33:51Amanda Palmer?

  Oh, I have a lot of thoughts on that. I mean, I, I think, I think eye contact is very hard for a lot of us because it is, it's so threatening.

• 34:07Amanda Palmer?

  And the more disconnected we are and the more time we spend.

• 34:14Amanda Palmer?

  Looking into our devices and barely looking at each other,

• 34:19Amanda Palmer?

  the more threatening it is to to to keep and hold somebody's gaze. But God, is it powerful? I've been looking somebody in the eye unthreateningly, unaggressively. It is it is the I really feel like it is often the antidote for what is ailing us. Because we we feel so connected superficially in so many ways and and perhaps we are through our Twitter feeds, through our Facebook feeds, through our many events, through our doing this and that and running around, but if we're able to do all that and we're not able to look at and see each other,

• 35:03Amanda Palmer?

  it all it all can feel really superficial. And I had some I had some really life-changing experiences in yoga retreats particularly, and I write about one of them in the book.

• 35:21Amanda Palmer?

  One of the one of the first teacher training yoga retreats I went on, I was I was probably twenty six, twenty seven. And we did this exercise where, you know, there's maybe fifty of us in the group total. And and we did this exercise where we we got into groups of like ten. And we took turns just standing in a line facing each other.

• 35:48Amanda Palmer?

  And it was basically an exercise in in presence.

• 35:52Amanda Palmer?

  And the and the goal was just to stand there and and face another person, maybe about a foot apart, eye to eye,

• 36:04Amanda Palmer?

  just gazing into each other's eyes and not reacting, not smiling, not giggling, not rolling our eyes, not saying, oh, doesn't this feel kind of uncomfortable instantly? Just really just holding the gaze.

• 36:19Amanda Palmer?

  And what was so incredible to me about that, and this is after I had clocked my five years as a, you know, living statue. So I, of course, I'm just loving this. I'm soaking this in. This is like, you know, crack cocaine to me, basically. Like, yeah, I get to just look in someone's eyes for three minutes, and then I get to look in someone else's eyes. And I just, to me, the juicy intimacy of that was, you know, felt like a warm bath. But for six or seven people in that group of 50, they burst out sobbing. They could

• 37:00Amanda Palmer?

  not handle actually, and we did a lot of talking and kind of breaking down, you know, postmortem of this experience afterwards. And it wasn't even that they felt overwhelmed by having to look at someone else. They felt overwhelmed by actually feeling seen by another person.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 37:28Amanda Palmer?

  And the emotional overwhelming experience of feeling really just, you know, intimately seen by another, having spent possibly an entire lifetime not being seen by their parents, not being seen by their peers, not being seen by the people around them, and maybe avoiding it, you know, for reasons of just fear, fear of intimacy, fear of being found out, fear of whatever it was. And I remember looking at this, and these weren't fucked

• 38:09Amanda Palmer?

  up people. These were, you know, these were your average, you know, totally functional adults in their 30s with jobs and kids and the whole nine. And I remember thinking, like...

• 38:25Amanda Palmer?

  This isn't just them. I mean, this is really all of us. We, we do not connect with each other at nearly the level we could. And though we live in close proximity and though we sit on the subway with each other and though we, you know, though we have a wide variety of things connecting us and making us sort of pseudo intimate, a lot of us are really alone. And that was a real, that was a real eye opener. Uh, excuse the pun.

• 39:04Tim Ferriss?

  No, it's, I think this is a really profound point that you're making and the pseudo intimacy, I think is a great way to put it. I, I, I tend to unexpectedly at times brush, just enter a zone of profound loneliness. And it's the, the irony in some ways, I think, is that, of course, you have, you have an incredibly loyal fan base and I'm very fortunate to have a really fantastic group of readers and listeners. And I'm, I'm, I find it so easy to love them, to love my friends, to love my family. I find it very difficult sometimes to love myself. It seems almost self indulgent and that's some kind of weird, you could, I'm sure there's plenty

• 39:47Tim Ferriss?

  of analysis that could be done on that. But one of the most therapeutic, we were talking about, you mentioned yoga before we got started and also again here, one of the most therapeutic, unexpectedly therapeutic experiences I've had in the last six months is starting to play with something called acro yoga where you're doing acrobatic yoga and you, there's a trust element and a vulnerability element of balancing each other upside down and staring, you have to maintain at points, eye contact and it's, it's a very visceral, primal need that is being satisfied. Anyway, I don't want to, to ramble on, but it's, it's been a really profound realization for me

• 40:28Tim Ferriss?

  that I can't think myself out of, I can't think myself out of this loneliness.

• 40:34Amanda Palmer?

  No. Yeah. I mean, we, I think we think that we can think a lot of things.

• 40:41Amanda Palmer?

  You know, we can think our way out of a relationship problem. We can think our way out of a sexual problem. We can think our way out of a work problem. And to me, yoga and also like meditation and really trying to have, you know, a constant level of body awareness. It's so important because you really can get lost in your head. And if you, you know, if you, if you demand that your head and your body are disconnected, and you really can just like, as long as you sort of like, feed your body and drag it around as a, as a container for your mind, everything's fine. The, the whole system

• 41:23Amanda Palmer?

  starts to fall apart. And I see that more and more, especially as I get older. If I neglect my body and I neglect, like, you know, actual physical contact with other people for too long, because it's just a pain in the ass, because I just don't have time, because I'm too busy this week to get to yoga, because it really like, the, you know, the whole building starts to feel like it's, it's built on sand. Shit just falls down. And, you know, there's still something in us and in me, because, you know, we are taught to be so rational and so head oriented, that you kind of don't

• 42:07Amanda Palmer?

  want to believe that it's true and that you can get away with it. But you can't. It all, you know, eventually comes back to roost.

• 42:16Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned meditation. I'd love to dig into that for a second. And as I understand it, you've also written about meditation before. There's one piece that, when I was doing bit of research, melody versus meditation. What does your meditation practice look like?

• 42:37Tim Ferriss?

  What are the benefits that you've seen?

• 42:40Amanda Palmer?

  Well, I have this special room in my house that's covered with candles and lots of statues. And I burn six sticks of incense and I drink a special stick tea and then I float into the air and it's really rad.

• 42:55Tim Ferriss?

  When can I come to your house?

• 42:58Amanda Palmer?

  That's all bullshit.

• 43:02Amanda Palmer?

  What I usually do, if I'm being good, is first thing in the morning, I will just use my phone as a timer and I will sit on whatever I can grab. If I don't have a meditation cushion around, I'll grab a bed pillow or a towel and I will sit cross-legged somewhere. If I'm in a teeny hotel or a friend's house, sometimes it's in the bathroom or on the bed. And I try to meditate for 10 minutes if it's a crazy busy day and a half an hour if I can carve out the time. And I definitely notice a huge difference in my day if I actually make the time to do that.

• 43:46Amanda Palmer?

  And I was brought into the world of meditation in my late teens, early twenties, and just basic Vipassana meditation, nothing fancy, no crazy mantras, no gods or deities, just basically sitting on the earth as a human being and paying attention to your breath and your body and letting thoughts come and go, but really trying not to be attached to the drama that comes visiting. And I wish I could tell you I was great at it. I've been meditating for 20 years and I still feel like a shitty meditator, which I think

• 44:28Amanda Palmer?

  that's part of the journey is realizing that it's not like you meditate for a year and all of a sudden you're enlightened and you can sit and think about nothing for a half an hour. But what you do learn is that just the act of watching where your brain is obsessing for a half an hour. And if my timer goes off after a half an hour of meditating and I realize that all I have been doing Is, you know, constructing an argument in my head with a person in my life, or, you know, thinking about merch designs and I somehow lost the plot, you know, two minutes into my meditation and flew off.

• 45:12Amanda Palmer?

  That just tells me, that tells me where my head is at. It tells me that I'm stressed out. It tells me that that's, you know, that's what's preoccupying me. And on a good day, um, you know, I think about constructing an argument. I think about my list of things to do. I think about what I'm about to eat when I get up. And those thoughts come, but I'm able to let them go five or 10 seconds later and say like, hi, okay, I see you. Yep, you're here. Okay, now you're gone. Let's, you know, let's go back to paying attention to our breath. And then five seconds later, it's another thought and you say hello to it and you say goodbye to it. And that's, you know, to me, that's a much more, you know, quote unquote, productive meditation practice.

• 45:55Amanda Palmer?

  But the real productive meditation practice is just that you sit your ass down and you actually do it and you watch what happens. That is the practice. It's, you know, and it's never, it's never easy, but you do, you do get a perspective onto the inside of your head and your thought process that I think is essential if, if you're going to progress. Because you get to know yourself. You get, you know, you get to watch the little tricks that your brain is playing and the, you know, and the places where you are obsessive and getting stuck. And, you know, it has been in moments of meditation, and honestly, actually more moments in yoga,

• 46:40Amanda Palmer?

  um, often just like at the end of a yoga class, lying on a mat on the floor, watching, watching my thoughts enough that I'm not just caught in them. Where I have had the most insightful.

• 46:58Amanda Palmer?

  Um, you know, in, in, you know, I want to say the most insightful insights. But, you know, I've had the most insightful moments of my life. Looking at my thoughts and going, are you, are you serious, Amanda? Like you actually really just, you know, spent five minutes coming up with a plan that actually you know is really destructive and yet your brain was having a field day with it. And just, and just the act of being able to stand back and saying, wow, you, you're thinking this, you've actually been thinking this way all your life.

• 47:42Amanda Palmer?

  This is not, not necessarily good. Maybe we should, maybe we should, um, find another way out of this problem or whatever. And, you know, you, you don't get insights like that unless you give yourself some perspective. Because if you're just spending your life going and going and going and being trapped in the thoughts and not giving yourself, you know, a different point of view, you just, you stay in the crazy.

• 48:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think the, developing the skill as the observer is, I found just so critical to be able to step out of the rapids onto the shore and just observe it for a while as opposed to being sort of trapped like a, like a monkey in the, in this, in the slipstream of thought, getting washed over the rocks. And I, I mean, as, as you put it, I think a lot of people have this pass fail mentality with meditation where if they can't think of a candle flame for 20 minutes straight, they're a failure and they quit. And, you know, I tell people all the time, I say, look, almost without fail, every time I sit down to meditate, a portion of it will be spent fantasizing about some elaborate retribution against someone who like cut me in the salad line

• 48:57Tim Ferriss?

  in college or something so fucking ridiculous. Uh, but it's the, just the act of meditating somewhat like stretching, I, I suppose, it just gives you a certain responsiveness as opposed to reflexive.

• 49:14Amanda Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Tim Ferriss?

  Knee jerk response to stuff that I find very, very helpful.

• 49:20Amanda Palmer?

  Yeah, well, it is, it is not unrelated to the, um, to the say less conversation we were having.

• 49:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 49:26Amanda Palmer?

  It is the ability to realize when you are not saying less, uh, is, you know, is still, is directly related to the amount of perspective you can take in any given moment, argument, you know, conflict.

• 49:44Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. I would, um, love to ask you a couple of questions that are a bit of a lateral step, but I'm curious nonetheless. Uh, the first is what, what book or books do you give most often, or have you give most often as gifts to other people?

• 50:03Amanda Palmer?

  Uh, well, um, I go through-

• 50:05Tim Ferriss?

  Besides your own, I suppose.

• 50:08Amanda Palmer?

  That one, that one doesn't count.

• 50:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Amanda Palmer?

  Um, I, I go through phases, but I have some, I have some perennials. Um, and two of the, two that, that I can think of off the top of my head, um, what, one is, one is directly related to what we were just talking about, um, mindfulness and, and meditation and sort of the cutting through the bullshit. One of my absolute favorite books of all time, um, because it changed my life, is a, is a book called Dropping Ashes on the Buddha. It's by a Zen master Sung San, and I read it, who was a Korean Zen monk, and I read it when I was maybe 24. And it's a short book and

• 50:54Amanda Palmer?

  it's actually, um, it's just a, it's just a series of letters that this, um, really funny, uh, very direct, very no bullshit, Korean monk, wrote back and forth with his students in the seventies. And most of the students are Americans. They're, you know, they're sort of that first wave of, we are getting into meditation, we are lost, uh, please help guide us, you know, and-

• 51:29Amanda Palmer?

  The way, this guy's ability to economically get to the point of what's important and how to explain to somebody else how to cut through the bullshit and just get to mindfulness was a game changer for me at 24. And all of the yoga and meditation I had kind of dabbled with up until then sort of coalesced and that book really opened my mind. It was sort of one of those, oh, my God, I think I get it, books. And so I have given that book

• 52:12Amanda Palmer?

  to probably 30 people or 40 people, especially people who have told me that they are feeling kind of lost and/or depressed or directionless or at a, you know, younger people who are at crazy crossroads in their life and need something to hang on to. I've given many copies of that book.

• 52:30Tim Ferriss?

  I can't wait to read it.

• 52:32Amanda Palmer?

  It's fantastic. And there's actually, if you like it, there is a companion book that was his second collection of letters called Only Don't Know, which was one of his, because he spoke in this thick Korean accent and had all these hilarious ways of phrasing things, which is like one of the most amusing things about the book. And he keeps saying to his students all the time, only say, only don't know. It was just, you know, just great Korean accent. So my other one that I have given to a gazillion people, which is sort of on the flip side of the other metaphysical side of the fence, is

• 53:14Amanda Palmer?

  Bill Bryson, who is one of my favorite nonfiction writers, wrote a book called A Short History of Nearly Everything. Which is, I don't know if you've read Bill Bryson, but you know, he's one of, he's one of those guys like he could write about anything and I would read it.

• 53:31Tim Ferriss?

  What is it into the wilderness or he has one about hiking the or attempting to hike the Appalachian Trail?

• 53:36Amanda Palmer?

  That, that I, I, I love that. I've read all of his stuff and he, so he decides to, you know, as an everyman with a basic understanding of the history of the earth and, you know, basically, you know, the, the history of science and how things work decides to tackle this with his basic knowledge and, you know, spends a few years researching a book and just the first 20 or 30 pages of this book are of great comfort to me because he's, he spends pages expounding on exactly how

• 54:22Amanda Palmer?

  small the earth is in relation to the rest of the universe. And, you know, along with like reading about Zen meditation or anything, if anything is going to put you in a good mood or maybe send you into an existentially angstful crisis, knowing how totally insignificant your life as a human being on the planet earth is in the grand scheme of things. And we're talking space and time. Uh, this book is just like, it just, you know, is incredibly humorous, but also is just one of those great perspectives where

• 55:05Amanda Palmer?

  you read it and you, you, you feel totally emotionally connected to Bill Bryson and, uh, and his desire and his hunger to learn these things. And also, um, you know, it, it, you get to feel like, um, you know, your, your place in the, your insignificance in the cosmos. And it's, that's, that's another favorite. And that, and that's just in the nonfiction department. Fiction, I think is for another podcast.

• 55:34Tim Ferriss?

  We can do that in a round two for sure. The, uh, well, I know, I know what I'm getting on my Kindle then. There's particularly dropping ashes on the Buddha. I thought I'd, the, the collection of letters format is really one of my favorites, so I'm excited to, to grab that. So this, a lot of what we've talked about ties into directly or indirectly, how people define success. And I'd be curious to know, when you hear the word successful, who is the first person you think of and why?

• 56:05Amanda Palmer?

  Oh, God. Um, you know, it's funny, when you said it, the first person who popped into my head was Neil, but that's probably because I just spent all day with him and he is successful. Uh, you know, I, the only, I, it may feel like a dodge to answer it this way, but, um, success is something that has been so plastic and, and fungible in my life, especially because I live in a, you know, I live in a world in entertainment

• 56:44Amanda Palmer?

  and in performance and, you know, now in book writing. It's, it is a, it is a competitive field. It's not like, you know, my, my sister or, you know, someone else who just has a job in science and, you know, gets their job at the university. And maybe I'm, you know, maybe I'm full of shit and everybody out there with any job from shoemaking to plumbing feels highly competitive. But, you know, especially being a female singer, the, the world sort of views you as being in competition with the woman next to you. You know, right down to the fact that you are on the charts here and she is on the

• 57:28Amanda Palmer?

  charts there. And the world measures you and measures your success by a number of downloads, number of fans, number of Twitter followers or whatever. And, you know, I've, I have found that Part of the struggle of actually finding happiness as an artist is the is the daily fight to not define success by the way the rest of the world defines success. Which is hard because you you have to fight the same battles every day. Because you go out into the into the work environment and the entire industry.

• 58:12Amanda Palmer?

  And even, you know, to a certain extent, your own fans, because they're sort of all drinking the same Kool-Aid. Are are are kind of all telling you, well, success is defined by this, success is defined by this, success is defined by this. And you're there in your own little bubble going, well, I know that's not really true. I know that. You know, there is that superficial level of success, but then there's also my personal success, which no one else can define for me. And it really is only defined by how happy was I when I woke up this morning? And how happy am I when I'm bedding down at night? And that's not reflected in any of the Billboard charts or in any of the iTunes downloads.

• 58:55Amanda Palmer?

  So, you know, success has this bizarro, two-faced.

• 59:05Amanda Palmer?

  You know, uh, I'm losing my words today. What's the word for what a thing is?

• 59:13Tim Ferriss?

  The essence?

• 59:15Amanda Palmer?

  Essence. Perfect. So, yes, success has this very two-faced essence where, you know, you you especially as a artist, playing the game in the industry and putting out music and putting out books and so forth, you you kind of have to play that game a little bit and ride the balance of, you know, trying to get your book on the New York Times bestselling list and knowing what to do to do that. But also simultaneously not drinking the Kool-Aid, like swishing it around in your mouth and then spitting it out.

• 59:46Tim Ferriss?

  Going for a success tasting, but not.

• 59:48Amanda Palmer?

  Exactly. It's like being a wine sommelier who doesn't drink. And, you know, I think, I, I, speaking of, you know, of meditation at all, kind of.

• 1:00:01Amanda Palmer?

  This winds together and is actually a really good example of the sort of thing I would notice myself thinking and finally get to a point where I could really catch myself in the act of comparing myself to other artists and being jealous of people who had more chart success or being jealous of artists who seemed to me to be more successful. And so in my crazy brain, they must somehow be happier or must somehow have beat me or must somehow have something that I don't have.

• 1:00:44Amanda Palmer?

  And it's honestly, it's in the moments of yoga and meditation that I find myself, it's like you and your revenge plot against the person who cut you in the salad bar.

• 1:00:53Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:00:53Amanda Palmer?

  My moments like that are going, oh, my God, I really am doing that thing. I really am thinking about Fiona Apple, Regina Spector, or Lady Gaga as the person who sold more records and therefore must be happier. Why didn't I make that decision? Why am I not where they are? Why did I not do this? Why didn't I go into fashion? Why didn't... And watching and actually having the ability to watch my brain and stand back and go, you know, Amanda, you realize that that's not actually success. You realize that even if you had that, whatever thing X is,

• 1:01:37Amanda Palmer?

  it's not going to buy you happiness. Just sit with that for a second and notice what you're doing. And to that, I am grateful, really grateful for a mindfulness practice. Because I don't stop having those crazy thoughts. They come, but I at least, I can at least catch myself in the act and see that I'm doing it.

• 1:02:01Tim Ferriss?

  You're getting better at training them, the wild thoughts, in a way, perhaps. So this is, I think, underscores a really important point. I mean, the definition of success and the misconceptions or self-delusion that we can get caught up in. Looking externally, what are common misconceptions about you?

• 1:02:25Amanda Palmer?

  Ooh.

• 1:02:27Tim Ferriss?

  Those people who think, I know who Amanda Palmer is. What are the common misconceptions?

• 1:02:32Amanda Palmer?

  See, I know who Amanda Palmer is. She's that narcissistic, talentless, hairy cunt married to my favorite actor Neil Jaiman. Fuck her. Um, you know, I, I would like to think, in my darkest moments, I, I would like to think that the most common misconception about me is that I, is that I am not self-reflective and that I, and that I don't have self-knowledge and that if I am a, you know, narcissistic, evil, attention-getting, um, you know, fill in the blank, um, that I am, that I'm not the kind of person who knows myself and,

• 1:03:15Amanda Palmer?

  um, and, and dissects myself. And one of, you know, one of the weird things about, especially being a female performer, is you, you get a lot of the same grief. You know, you start to notice the patterns. And, you know, when I was, when I was in my mid twenties and it was sort of the, the dawn of the Dresden Dolls, and I sort of faced my first wave of internet criticism, and the main criticism was, you know, she's an attention whore. That was the big, that was sort of the big go-to for people. And the amount

• 1:03:57Amanda Palmer?

  of sort of like bravado, you know, and simultaneous shame that I felt when I would see people saying that about me is really interesting. Because on the one hand, you know, I was intellectually and emotionally smart enough to go, okay, well, people are calling me an attention whore, but you know, I'm a performing singer-songwriter. It, my job is to get attention. So I can see, I can see the double standard here. And I can also see that nobody is calling the male artist who I opened up for, or who opened up for me, no one's calling him

• 1:04:39Amanda Palmer?

  an attention whore. I think this is a thing that's more or less aimed at me because I'm a woman, but I could be wrong. I mean, you know, maybe... Maybe this, you know, maybe there's something in this and maybe my, you know, maybe my very insecure, secret self is right. Maybe I am in this for all the wrong reasons. Maybe I am just too narcissistic. Maybe I am too hungry for attention. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Um, but honestly, you know, having now been in the business for, you know, it's now, whatever it is, 13 years later since I, you know, since I started

• 1:05:17Amanda Palmer?

  the Dresden Dolls, I feel like I've seen enough waves of criticism and also detected enough patterns after enough time and done enough self-inquiry that I can, I can sort of piece the puzzle together and get, yep, I was kind, you know, I was kind of right and I was kind of wrong. Um, mostly, you know, looking back at how I reacted in, you know, anger and fear at 25, I was mostly right. Most of the people criticizing me, you know, as I was 25 and struggling to make it as a musician in Boston and, you know,

• 1:05:58Amanda Palmer?

  aggressively pounding at the piano and aggressively, you know, wearing few clothes and aggressively doing whatever the fuck I wanted and aggressively not caring about, you know, the, the etiquette and the fashions of the day. Yeah, mostly people were threatened or angry, but it didn't have a whole lot to do with me. It mostly had to do with them. And it still feels true. And it's, you know, I think, one of the, I think one of the things you come to terms with as a performer and especially as a female performer is, you know, you are so desperate, especially at the beginning of your career, you are, you are so desperate

• 1:06:40Amanda Palmer?

  for universal approval, like universal love, you know, and you figure that if you do your job right and you really work hard and you write fantastic songs and you are a consummate entertainer, that everyone must love you. And it's not a bad way to be. You aim high. Like, you, you know, you aim for the center of the target and the like, and the, and the brass ring that's furthest away.

• 1:07:09Amanda Palmer?

  But also, you know, you realize whoever you are, there is no universally beloved performer. There are people out there who hate John Lennon. There, you know, there's people out there who, you know, name an artist and there's people who hate them. And one of the things that you, that you discover as you journey down your, you know, your livelihood as a performer, and you, you sort of negotiate your own career, is, is sort of developing an acceptance that your audience is going to be your audience, and your audience isn't everybody. And there will be those out there, you know, who decide that you're not their cup of tea, and that your style rubs them the wrong way, and that they don't like your voice,

• 1:07:54Amanda Palmer?

  or they don't like your songs, or they don't like your appearance, or they just don't like you. And it's just part, part and parcel of the job. And I remember people telling me at, you know, at 25, and at 27, and at 29, you know, that if I was being criticized, you know, if I was being criticized, it was a, it was a real sign of success. And even though I intellectually knew that, that took me years to actually emotionally take on and feel the truth of that. That if people are angered by you, if people care enough to write about how they don't like your music, or write about, at this point, you know, write about how they don't like your book,

• 1:08:38Amanda Palmer?

  you're doing something right, because, you know, if you're being discussed at all, and your work is of enough merit to merit criticism, then you're just on the path. And, you know, you're not so naive, you know, as, as you were at 24, thinking that if you just pushed all the right buttons, everyone would eventually see the light and love you. It just doesn't work that way.

• 1:09:04Tim Ferriss?

  Doesn't work out that way, yeah. I think that you could mention any artist, any person of note, or who's had a decent amount of public exposure, they probably have a hate page dedicated to them. I mean, it really doesn't matter who it is.

• 1:09:21Tim Ferriss?

  But, you know, you mentioned...

• 1:09:25Tim Ferriss?

  Fans and wanting everyone to like what you do, but certainly I think that to business as in art, if everyone is your customer, then no one is your customer on some level. You have, you're, I think somewhat famous for having a very diehard fan base. And maybe this is a tired question, but I would love to still hear from you, why you think that's the case? And I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. We can certainly dig into it, but you have such a dedicated fan base. I mean, above and beyond, in a way that has sort of mesmerized a lot of people in the music industry and elsewhere, ranging from the huge success of your Kickstarter campaign

• 1:10:09Tim Ferriss?

  to I think challenging the status quo, which may be part of the reason that you get a lot of the flack that you do. Couch surfing with fans, bringing fans up on stage. There's so much we could dig into. Why do you think your fans, you have such a large contingent of diehard fans?

• 1:10:27Amanda Palmer?

  Um, well, I think, I think that has to do with, um, you know, how, how specifically intimate my writing is. Because it's certainly not for everybody. And, you know, I, when I look back at my career, you can hear me, right?

• 1:10:53Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I can hear you.

• 1:10:54Amanda Palmer?

  Okay. I just thought I lost myself for a second. So when I look back at the last 10, 15 years of my life, I definitely see a lot of moments where I could have turned to the left, or I could have turned to the right, and I could have made things like, for lack of a better word, more palatable, more radio friendly, more universal, um, more, this is the kind of thing that I know more people can digest. And when I look at those choices.

• 1:11:38Amanda Palmer?

  I pretty much have, on the whole, chosen not to take that turn. And, which isn't to say that I want to alienate people. In fact, the opposite is true. But I, I have kind of deliberately resisted commercial success.

• 1:12:06Amanda Palmer?

  Mostly because as I grew in my career, which did grow slowly, you know? It's not like I started writing songs one day and then the Dresden Dolls started and then six months later, we were famous. I was on a really, um, you know, really slow climb from the time I started as a songwriter as a teenager, um, to solo performing, to meeting Brian and starting the band, to touring locally for three years, to ultimately getting signed. So I had a lot of time to sort of look around and gauge, um, who I was and which bands I really admired.

• 1:12:48Amanda Palmer?

  And, and kind of what forms of success were available to me. Because, you know, when I was 18, there was only one thing. It was like, get on MTV, be famous. That was success. Um, but then as, you know, as I grew into my twenties, I realized there were a lot of, a lot of artistic choices and a lot of lifestyle choices open to me. And I was master of my own fate. I was allowed to choose whether I was going to be the kind of artist who spent two hours getting ready before shows, doing massive hairdos, putting on makeup, getting into fashion, trying to work with pop producers, you know, putting dancing in my videos,

• 1:13:34Amanda Palmer?

  you know, really trying to sell myself as someone who could, hopefully ultimately go platinum and sell four million records. And I, you know, part of the curse is, if you, if you want to look at it that way, um, which I don't, but it was like I learned too much too soon.

• 1:13:54Amanda Palmer?

  And I knew that going the Lady Gaga route or whatever and taking, taking the, you know, the bare structure of my songs and handing them over to a pop producer to turn them into dance hits wasn't necessarily going to make me a happier person. I just sensed it. Um, and I don't want this to come across sounding pretentious or anything because I think there's really different ways of being happy. And I think it's very possible that Lady Gaga is happy. And I don't know, because I don't know her. But I, I looked at, you know, my life as a long expanse of time, energy, choices, and who I was going to get to hang out with.

• 1:14:37Amanda Palmer?

  And I was like, you know, I think it may mean less chart success, radio success, less chances of getting on MTV, but I know if I make this choice and this choice and that choice, it's more probable that I'm going to enjoy my day. And so those are the choices I kept making.

• 1:15:01Tim Ferriss?

  And, oh, I'm sorry. Is that what you mean by lifestyle choices? Is it a quality of life thing or is it something else?

• 1:15:08Amanda Palmer?

  Well, I mean, one, it's both. You know, the choice to, and you know, there's just some certain things, especially if you're talking about pop life. You know, there's certain choices as a woman where like some shit just comes down to time and energy. I got into a conversation about this on Facebook. I have never spent any time doing my hair. And it may seem, it may seem stupid or, you know, like a kind of irrelevant thing, but I actually know, you know, for the pop stars out there who kind of want to do the fashionista thing and, um, you know, take that particular fork.

• 1:15:53Amanda Palmer?

  It's, it just takes time out of your day. If you want to, you know, if you want to go in that direction and do fashion and, you know, always look photo-ready and Vogue-ready onstage. I know what it takes. I've done it for video shoots. I've done it for photo shoots. You need to sit in a chair for two hours. And I sort of looked at that and was like, oh, I don't want to sit in a chair for two hours. I want to spend that two hours going out to dinner with my friends in Philadelphia and hearing about their art projects. And I want to spend that two hours, you know, meeting and greeting with fans before the show.

• 1:16:32Amanda Palmer?

  So I get that it's kind of a sacrifice and I get that I won't look like Katy Perry onstage, but it's okay. I'll give that up. I'll make this choice and not that choice.

• 1:16:44Tim Ferriss?

  So I've, I've been fascinated with your story on so many levels. And one of them, if, if you're able to discuss it, relates to crossroads that I find myself in, which is being tired of the, the charts, the New York Times Bestseller list. I'm just fatigued by it. I've been through that game several times. It's exhausting. It's not objective. It's really, uh, there is a, a very subjective kind of editor's choice element to it that I dislike because I, I don't feel it's, I feel, uh, that it's, it's not, it's not a real reflection of the true success of, of any given book.

• 1:17:25Tim Ferriss?

  And I was hoping maybe we could chat about the, uh, the rebellion and, uh, splitting with Roadrunner Records, if you're able to talk about that. Because I was, if you could give people a little bit of context on that.

• 1:17:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I'm thinking of going completely indie as a writer, potentially moving forward. And there's a certain appeal and simplicity of that. We'll see if I have the fortitude to do it. But are you able to give people a little bit of context on what happened with Roadrunner? And then what you learned from that?

• 1:18:02Amanda Palmer?

  Sure. Well, the rebellion specifically was this hilarious moment in my career. This would have been 2008.

• 1:18:15Amanda Palmer?

  I had put out my first solo record, Who Killed Amanda Palmer? I was really proud of it. I still am. I think it's a great record. And there was a song on it called Leeds United. That was like a big band, crazy, drunken, brash, you know.

• 1:18:33Amanda Palmer?

  You know, it was one of sort of one of the poppiest songs on the record. And I decided to make a video for it. I made the video in London. It was really fun.

• 1:18:43Amanda Palmer?

  And the record label at the time, I was still on Roadrunner Records. I had, things with them had just started falling apart because they barely lifted a finger to promote the Dresden Dolls' second album. And that left us feeling really disillusioned. But I sort of gave them a chance to, you know, to make good on my first solo record, which came out right after that. And they didn't, by the way, long story short. But somewhere in there, this video got shot and the rough cut was sent over to the label.

• 1:19:25Amanda Palmer?

  And I, in the time in between, had made my way back to New York. And the A&R guy called me into his office.

• 1:19:33Tim Ferriss?

  A&R is advertising and something else?

• 1:19:35Amanda Palmer?

  Technically, in old school terms, it meant artists and repertoire.

• 1:19:40Tim Ferriss?

  Ah, artists.

• 1:19:41Amanda Palmer?

  But in layman's terms, your A&R guy is basically your representative, your dude. Because it's usually a dude, but you know, your dude or gal at the label who is, you know, the artist liaison, basically.

• 1:19:56Tim Ferriss?

  Your point of contact. Got it.

• 1:19:57Amanda Palmer?

  Yeah, your person. So my person, Dave, call him, Dave Rath. Bless his heart, because he had to do, he had to speak for the trees.

• 1:20:12Amanda Palmer?

  And he called me into his office and tried as delicately as he could to tell me that the label had had a meeting and they thought that I looked too fat in the video and would I be willing to cut the shots that showed my bare midriff. And I was astounded at this because I am vain and I had seen the rough cut and I thought I looked fantastic. I was really thrilled that, you know, I had been a little, because you know, I'm not, I'm not trim, but I'm, you know, I have like, I have my little pot belly. But you know, some pot belly can be, can be attractive as long as it's not hanging out over your pants. And I was actually really thrilled when I saw the rough cut because I thought I looked fantastic. And so I sat there with my

• 1:20:57Amanda Palmer?

  jaw dropped to the floor going like, you're kidding me. No, like, what shots are you talking about? Because I think I look great. I'm a vain motherfucker. So like, you just clearly disagree.

• 1:21:07Amanda Palmer?

  And, and I, at that point, I had kind of had it with the label. And I had sort of decided at that point to just probably split off and go my own way. So I basically did, I, I did an act of war and I posted to my blog, I posted this story to my blog, knowing that my fans would all be aggrieved and everyone would, you know, everyone would, would be sad on my behalf.

• 1:21:39Amanda Palmer?

  And at the end of the day, the, the, the label backed down, they, you know, they put the video out. They of course did nothing to promote it, which was probably shooting myself in the foot, but who knows. And this was also at the point where this, you know, the video was basically internet only. So it was up to me to do any promoting that was gonna happen. And

• 1:22:01Amanda Palmer?

  this beautiful, organic internet moment happened where I shared this story and that was it. I gave no directive. And then on their own, the fans created this movement.

• 1:22:16Amanda Palmer?

  Where they started a page on the band forum uploading selfies of their own stomachs with messages written on them to Roadrunner Records. Saying things like, "This is what a normal belly looks like," and, you know, "Fuck the label," and "Long live..." And they gave the movement a title, which was "The Rebellie" and get it, because their belly was in the middle. Rebellie on, yeah. But this wasn't just a couple people or even a couple dozen people. This is like hundreds of fans did this. And it was hilarious, because it was a lot of, you know, huge man bellies and teeny little baby bellies and people, you know, wrote on their cats and

• 1:22:56Amanda Palmer?

  stuff. It was just, it was fucking hilarious. And someone even, uh, one of the fans even like collected all of these photos and published a little chat book. And, you know, with my permission, like, which they didn't even need, you know, printed up a thousand of these books and just offered to send them to people. And it's just, it was one of those moments where I stood back like a proud parent and looked at my fanbase. And I was like, "You guys are awesome. I just love that you fucking did this. You're creative and you're weird and you're, and you're all with me." And that was just, it was also one of those moments

• 1:23:40Amanda Palmer?

  where I looked at them. And this was, this was my demographic. Like, these were my fans. These were the people for whom the video was made. And they were all so, you know, they were all so proud of me and also so happy for me to be authentic. And I sort of looked over at the label, who were like, "Well, you know, Amanda, if you really want to be successful, you have to X, Y, Z." And I was like, "You know, I really don't think you guys get it. This is my audience. This is who I'm making the video for. This is who I'm making for, you know, the music for. They understand. You guys don't seem to. I

• 1:24:24Amanda Palmer?

  think this relationship has come to an end." Um, but it was also, it was, you know, as you look back at internet history, it was one of those moments where...

• 1:24:36Amanda Palmer?

  You know, in 1995, that wouldn't have happened. But these people all found each other grouped together and could create their own moment. And it was one of the blessings of the internet, which is, you know, the paradigm shifts. The people in power, um, you know, really, everything is called into question. And it's very possible that in 1995, I might have believed the label. I might not have understood that, you know, that my audience really did just want me, the authentic me, not the airbrushed one. And, you know, and this is why it's sort of been a, it's been a lifelong conversation, a dialogue with my fan base.

• 1:25:20Amanda Palmer?

  It's not just me, the artist with the megaphone.

• 1:25:24Tim Ferriss?

  If, if you had to choose one way online to communicate with your audience, what would you choose?

• 1:25:32Tim Ferriss?

  As it stands right now?

• 1:25:34Amanda Palmer?

  If I only got to use one social media platform? Or do I have to choose between Twitter and email?

• 1:25:40Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yeah, you have to choose. So it would be one online tool, whether social network or otherwise. What would you choose and why?

• 1:25:50Amanda Palmer?

  Uh, if I could only communicate one way on the internet,

• 1:25:58Amanda Palmer?

  you know, probably Twitter, because Twitter has direct messaging, so I could mini email people.

• 1:26:04Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. Yeah, that's true. You could, you could.

• 1:26:07Amanda Palmer?

  Email, um, email, uh, email can't, um, you know, for lack of a better word, e- email can't, uh, it's only person to person, so it can't collect. You know, you can't create a movement on email. I, or, you know, unless, if that were the case, I would probably find myself, you know, kind of on, on massive chain group emails with 900 people all BCC'd into conversations.

• 1:26:44Amanda Palmer?

  If you know what I mean.

• 1:26:45Tim Ferriss?

  I do. Uh, let me ask a, just a couple of fan questions. Couple of listeners who were very curious to know.

• 1:26:58Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, what is the dynamic like having two creatives in one household? So your husband is, of course, a very prolific writer. You have many different creative endeavors. What is the, do you, would you work together? Do you work separately? Do you ask each other advice? Is there collaboration? Do you, how do your creative tempos differ? That's a lot at once. So you can kind of answer it however you want, but I'm just so fascinated to know how that, how you guys make that work.

• 1:27:33Amanda Palmer?

  Oh, boy. Well, that's a huge question. I mean, that's a huge lot of questions. The, I think the biggest blanket answer is we help each other a lot. But we also have private areas and rooms where we really don't fuck with each other. And we've, we've learned the hard way, you know? I have learned, um, and if, you know, if anything, if any, if nothing else, Neil and I have, have found that we are insanely similar. And we, and we both constantly make the mistake of thinking that the other one

• 1:28:15Amanda Palmer?

  has a thicker skin than they do, when the truth is we are both at our core, really fragile artists. And, and I think most artists at their core are, you know, may seem thick skinned, but when it comes down to it, you know, we really want people to love and understand our work. And so I've learned, you know, I've been with Neil for six years and I still am constantly fine tuning how honest to be with him about something he shows me and vice versa. You know, Neil, Neil read me something he wrote a couple, you know, a couple of weeks ago.

• 1:29:01Amanda Palmer?

  I gave him my honest opinion and I immediately wanted to take it back. Cause I was like, you should have just not, you should, oh my God, Amanda, why did you say that? Now he's going to be depressed for three days and he was.

• 1:29:14Amanda Palmer?

  Cause you know, I didn't particularly love this or that and was totally blunt and. You know, and I would have, I would have wanted the same thing from him if I had, you know, if I had written a piece of music and played it for him. And no one had heard it yet and I was feeling my small fragile self crawling out of my little art cave waving my watercolor around.

• 1:29:39Amanda Palmer?

  That's the way I think of it. Even when you're 54, I totally think of, you know, that whether it's a novel or a song or a poem or an opera or whatever it is, to me, you're still five. Showing your mom a watercolor going, do you like it? Do you like it? And the only answer is yes, you're a genius. I am putting that on the fridge. It's your watercolor. I don't know what it is. It's totally abstract. I know it's supposed to be a tree. It doesn't really look like a tree. But every, every artist in that way is kind of five and. You, and you really do have to choose your words carefully.

• 1:30:17Amanda Palmer?

  And you know, on, on the other hand, the reason Neil and I love each other and, and respect each other so much is we don't really bullshit each other. You know, and we know, we speak the language. We know that there's a difference between holy fuck, I think that's the best thing you've ever written. And yeah, that's, that's really good.

• 1:30:42Amanda Palmer?

  You know, and, and those are basically two ends of the spectrum and you're, you really, you know, if you're trying to be kind and a good attentive art spouse, you're really not supposed to go into, yeah, just I think I get it. Not your best work. I didn't really dig it. Like you're just not allowed to say that.

• 1:31:00Tim Ferriss?

  It's more of like a Japanese tea ceremony exchange.

• 1:31:04Amanda Palmer?

  And you know, and that's with the work itself. We also help each other with, you know, more of the nerdy stuff. We edit each other on social media. There have been nights where one of us has, and this has happened in both directions, where one will text the other and be like, for fuck's sake, delete that tweet before you find yourself in the middle of an internet shitstorm tomorrow because you have press tomorrow and you're too busy to spend all day writing a blog defending your right to XYZ. And, and 90% of the time, the person will be like, you know, I knew you, I knew not to do it. I just want to know. Fuck it. You're right. I'll delete it.

• 1:31:50Tim Ferriss?

  So, so for fuck's sake, sounds distinctly non-American. So I'm guessing you get a fair number of those.

• 1:31:57Amanda Palmer?

  We, we both, we both do that for each other. And we, you know, we not only text each other and say, hey, delete that tweet. You're an idiot. But we'll also, we'll run, but we'll run things by each other. You know, Neil and I have both stepped in the middle of controversies unwittingly. You know, Neil more recently than me. He, he got himself in an internet shitstorm with the title of his most recent book. And we, you know, we sat in bed and had long conversations about, is this a really a good idea? And, you know, when people come yelling at you, how are you going to deal? And, you know, why don't you actually write something in the, in the introduction of the book to explain it so that you can kind of proactively blah, blah, blah. Like, we sit there like a couple of marketing managers, like, dealing with the kerfuffle before it actually blows in

• 1:32:42Amanda Palmer?

  the window. But we both, we've both been there. And we've both been there, holding the hand of the other while the other stands in the internet shitstorm, you know, having to deal with the op-eds and the angry tweets and the angry Tumblr people. And there's something really wonderful about having a spouse who really fundamentally understands you and has your back. We, we deeply understand each other and we, we, and we deeply share a philosophy about, you know, life, work, freedom of speech and compassion, that even, even if we express it differently, is one of the reasons we were so attracted to each

• 1:33:24Amanda Palmer?

  other to begin with. It was like, oh, you're, you're one of me. I see, I see what you're doing over there. Got it. And. Um, and there, there's something really, there's something really comforting about that, um, because it can be a really lonely job when you're out there trying to explain, you know, how your work was misunderstood, how your book title was misunderstood, how your intention was misunderstood. It's nice to, you know, deal with that kind of bullshit on the internet all day and then sit down to dinner with someone and have them deeply understand, you know, not just the intellectual bit of it, but how it emotionally feels to go through a day like that.

• 1:34:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, someone else who's been deployed to the internet before.

• 1:34:06Amanda Palmer?

  Exactly.

• 1:34:11Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, last questions. You walk into a bar. What do you order from the bartender?

• 1:34:16Amanda Palmer?

  What temperature is it outside?

• 1:34:18Tim Ferriss?

  It is Boston in the winter.

• 1:34:21Amanda Palmer?

  Oh, I ordered a red wine or a hot toddy.

• 1:34:24Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, hot toddy. Good choice. Uh, if you could give one piece of advice to your 20-year-old self, what would it be?

• 1:34:35Amanda Palmer?

  Uh, leave college.

• 1:34:39Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:34:40Amanda Palmer?

  Leave, transfer while you're still a sophomore and go to art school in New York. That's what I would tell myself. Leave the liberal arts bubble. For God's sake, run while you still have time. Although, you know, in the Back to the Future Time Space Continuum problem, would I be talking to you right now about my wonderful marriage to Neil Gaiman and my bestselling book? I don't know. So.

• 1:35:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's dicey time travel.

• 1:35:05Amanda Palmer?

  It's, it's dicey time travel. I, I think, you know, I've got no regrets, but I'm sure if I had, um, if I had, uh, if I had escaped my shitty situation at 20, I might've just jumped into another shitty situation. So you never know.

• 1:35:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well, this, this has been so much fun. I want to be respectful of your time. Uh, perhaps we can do a round two sometime, but.

• 1:35:27Amanda Palmer?

  I would love to. I could talk for hours.

• 1:35:29Tim Ferriss?

  This is really fun. Where can people? Find you on the internets and say hello and learn about what you're up to and so on.

• 1:35:37Amanda Palmer?

  Uh, people can find me in the obvious places. You know, you can Google up Amanda Palmer on pretty much any social media site, Amanda Palmer on Twitter and I'm on Facebook. And I actually, one cool thing that you might not find Googling is I just created a special page of my website for people who aren't familiar with my music, because I've had so many people coming to me as blog readers and readers of the book and as followers of me on Twitter who actually didn't come through the music, but came through some other avenue and really want to get to know the music, but are kind of overwhelmed by, you know,

• 1:36:19Amanda Palmer?

  the whole catalog. And so I created a page on my, on amandapalmer.net that's called A Walk Through Amanda-Landa. It just starts with the beginning of the Dresden Dolls and kind of walks you through the basic albums and what the singles on the albums were and what the best videos are. And it's, it's a really good primer if you want to just go in and sample, you know, the last 13 years of, of albums and music and stuff. And it's pretty funny. I wrote it. So.

• 1:36:49Tim Ferriss?

  Beautiful.

• 1:36:50Amanda Palmer?

  And I think if you, I think if you Google Amanda-Landa, you'll probably find it. Or just go to amandapalmer.net and kind of have a browse around.

• 1:36:57Tim Ferriss?

  And your name on Twitter is?

• 1:37:00Amanda Palmer?

  It's just at Amanda Palmer.

• 1:37:02Tim Ferriss?

  You got, you got the name. That's a good one to have. Awesome. Well, Amanda, thank you so much. Everyone who's listening, of course, I'll put links to everything that I can track down that we've talked about in the show notes, the books, Amanda-Landa, everything that was mentioned. And I will let you get on to another creative day, I'm sure. So thank you so much for the time.

• 1:37:24Amanda Palmer?

  Yeah, thank you, Tim. I think you are awesome. And if you decide to fly solo, Godspeed.

• 1:37:35Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you.

• 1:37:36Amanda Palmer?

  It's a, it's, it's, it's a lot of work, but boy, isn't satisfying.

• 1:37:40Tim Ferriss?

  Gotta jump, jump off and grow wings on the way down. Yeah.

• 1:37:43Amanda Palmer?

  Yeah. I mean, one, one final thought on that, cause I, I wanted to say something when you said that. I think, you know, I went, I went solo and did solo music everything. Once I dragged myself off the label, but then I decided to put my book out with like, you know, one of, one of the biggest publishers. And, you know, I think the freedom to pick and choose is more important than the freedom of being independent. I think.

• 1:38:11Tim Ferriss?

  That's a great point.

• 1:38:12Amanda Palmer?

  And it really is. It's like, you know, work with the man when you're digging the man and the man can actually help you make your art and then don't when you, when you don't want to. But, you know, there is no such thing as true freedom because you're always trading, you know, you're always trading something for something else. And having tried to run my own record label and all of that, you really do appreciate, you know, the people sitting in offices doing, shuffling the papers that they do shuffle. So, you know, it, when in doubt and if you go through round one, two, three and four, just remember that you, at the end of the day, you get to do whatever the fuck you want, whether it's work with a publisher or work with yourself and you get to change your mind 10 times if you want to.

• 1:38:58Tim Ferriss?

  Here, here, here.

• 1:38:59Amanda Palmer?

  Cause I have.

• 1:39:01Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I wish you and yours many more adventures and I hope we get a chance to have a hot toddy in person soon.

• 1:39:09Amanda Palmer?

  I would love that. And we can invite Neil and he can talk British at you.

• 1:39:13Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I would love that. I want him to narrate my entire life. But with all of his free time, just like, so soothing.

• 1:39:24Amanda Palmer?

  I want Neil Gaiman to narrate my entire life.

• 1:39:30Tim Ferriss?

  Doesn't pay well, granted, but, but we could, we could talk about that over alcohol.

• 1:39:34Amanda Palmer?

  No, but you know, you could create the app. All you'd have to do, all you'd have to do is get him to read the entire Oxford English Dictionary. And then you could make gazillions on the Neil Gaiman narrate your life app.

• 1:39:48Tim Ferriss?

  That's true. That's true.

• 1:39:51Tim Ferriss?

  All right, well Amanda, you're very sweet and very generous for taking the time. I really appreciate it. And you're an inspiration. Thank you.

• 1:40:00Amanda Palmer?

  You are too. Take it easy, Tim.

• 1:40:02Tim Ferriss?

  Bye.

• 1:40:03Amanda Palmer?

  Bye.

• 1:40:34Tim Ferriss?

  This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is the world's largest online marketplace of graphic designers. And I have used 99designs for years, including to get cover concepts for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become number one New York Times, number one Wall Street Journal. It was a huge hit. And here's how it works. And you can check everything out, including some of my competitions. You can see these book covers and so on at 99designs.com/tim. Whether you need a logo, a car wrap, a web design, an app, a thumbnail, a t-shirt, whatever, you go to 99designs.com, you describe your project, and then, within a week or

• 1:41:15Tim Ferriss?

  less, you have tons of designers around the world who compete for your business and submit different ideas and designs and drafts. You have an original design that you love, or you pay nothing. It is fantastic. I have used it. I have mentioned it before, including in The 4-Hour Workweek as a resource. Check it out, 99designs.com/tim. And if you use that link, you'll be able to see what I've done on the platform. You will also get $99 as an upgrade for free, which will get you more designs, more submissions. So check it out. And until next time, thank you for listening.

• 1:42:12Speaker 02

  I want just a wish throw me in the water 'cause the clouds ain't coming yes, the sun's not shining yet, but keeps flying and keeps on raining, but the and keeps

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  flying and and keeps flying and and keeps flying and and keeps flying