#126: 25 Things I've Learned from Podcast Guests in 2015

In this short episode (approximately 30 minutes), I describe 25 tips, tricks, and quotes from podcast guests that I've incorporated into my own life in 2015. Show notes for all episodes can be found at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast Two of my episodes from 2015 have been nominated for "best podcast of the year," and I'd love your votes! You can vote for both, if you like: - Jamie Foxx https://www.producthunt.com/podcasts/the-tim-ferriss-show-jamie-foxx-2 (click here https://www.producthunt.com/podcasts/the-tim-ferriss-show-jamie-foxx-2) - Naval Ravikant https://www.producthunt.com/podcasts/the-tim-ferriss-show-the-person-i-call-most-for-startup-advice-2 (click here https://www.producthunt.com/podcasts/the-tim-ferriss-show-the-person-i-call-most-for-startup-advice-2) Thanks for listening, and enjoy! Happy holidays to you and yours, Tim

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

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I answer your personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, it is an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Mizzen and Maine. You've heard about them before. We have a couple of updates. These are my favorite dress shirts, and I hate dress shirts, but I love these because they are made of athletic, sweat-wicking material. You don't have to iron them, you don't have to do anything. You can throw them into your travel duffel for weeks at a time and just pull them out and put them on. So, they can look very fancy, but they can also be used casually, don't need to wash them very much, etc., etc. They're the favorite of professional athletes as well, including NFL phenom J.J. Watt, my personal phenom, the supple leopard, Kelly Starrett, and Tim Ferriss Show listeners all over the world, literally, have embraced Mizzen and Maine. It's the perfect shirt, and I'd like to think of it that way. And

• 1:05Tim Ferriss?

  their business has exploded. You can also look up the Tim Ferriss Effect Podcast Edition to see some of their actual numbers. And they've added chinos. So, I always thought of chinos as these horribly cheesy, preppy, khaki pants, but no, I was wrong. These gray pants, I am now in the Bahamas, and I wore them in New York, then in LA, then here, three different climates, perfect for all three, and wore them on the airplane, and I could wear them to a fancy dinner the very next night, and they looked like they'd been ironed. They are awesome. Probably the most comfortable now dress pants that I own. So, Mizzen and Maine, they're killing it. Easy to take care of, you can look great, feel great, and that's

• 1:47Tim Ferriss?

  about it. So, you should check these things out. They're great. They also make fantastic holiday gifts for your loved ones. Check it out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts.

• 2:04Tim 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.

• 2:49Tim 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.,

• 3:31Tim Ferriss?

  can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first $15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast.

• 4:14Tim Ferriss?

  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. Take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim. Hello, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to the Tim Ferriss Show Holiday Edition.

• 4:56Tim Ferriss?

  I am on a small island in an undisclosed location, chilling with my little pup Molly, who's been extremely aggressive in pursuing coconuts and cats. I'm traveling with a set of rings, mini paralets, and a jump rope. That's pretty much all you need to keep in shape. And pro tip, if you're going to travel with rings, travel with wooden rings instead of plastic. That way, you don't need to bring as much, if any, chalk. But this episode, unlike the longer-form interviews, which I do for one to three hours at a time with folks ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger to chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin and everyone in between, this is an in-between episode. It's a small, little morsel intended to give you a taste of whatever's on my mind.

• 5:38Tim Ferriss?

  In this case, we are going to talk about what I've learned in 2015 from podcast guests. And I went through the whole roster because I've been trying to do more reflection and less ingestion. All I mean by that is I use reading books, consuming information, as procrastination. And I've decided that I should spend more time, at least half of my time, reflecting upon and digesting what I've already read, what I've already listened to. And that's what I did with my podcast to date this year. I went through the entire list of all the guests and tried to Identify the nuggets that I've implemented in my own life that are of great value. So hopefully you will be able to use some of these. And if you haven't heard these episodes, I highly recommend that you go back and listen

• 6:20Tim Ferriss?

  to one or two because we get caught up in neomania very easily. That's an expression I picked up from N.N. Taleb, writer of The Black Swan. And that is an obsession with the new. If it's not a new podcast, if it came out a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, it no longer has value. And of course, that's bullshit. The longer these episodes are able to sustain themselves, the longer they survive in this slipstream of digital information that's assaulting us all, the more value they do have. And many of these episodes I'm going to mention still get more than 100,000 downloads per month without any trouble. And in some cases, per week. So these are doing very, very well, and they are remaining relevant.

• 7:04Tim Ferriss?

  But before we get to the lessons, a quick request. Two of my episodes from this year, podcast episodes, have been nominated by Product Hunt as Podcast Episode of the Year. And I would really love your help if you enjoyed these, to vote for them. This is a voting procedure. So if you could go to 4hourworkweek, all spelled out, 4hourworkweek.com/fox, F-O-X-X, or F-O-X, that will forward to Jamie Foxx's episode, which was just incredible and blew me away, as well as many other folks. So if you enjoyed that episode, please vote for it. And you can vote for both, by the way, also. It's among many others that are competing. So 4hourworkweek.com, all spelled out, forward slash Fox will take you there.

• 7:49Tim Ferriss?

  It takes five seconds to click the up carrot, the up arrow, and then you're done. The other episode is Naval Ravikant, and the name of that episode was "The Person I Call Most For Startup Advice," which was a very illuminating episode, and his name and Jamie's will pop up in my list of lessons. But to upload that, just go to 4hourworkweek.com/naval, N-A-V-A-L. And you can listen to both of these episodes on the Product Hunt page also. So 4hourworkweek. ...com forward slash Naval. Please, if you're enjoying these podcasts, they take a lot of time and energy to put together. So go to one or both of those and upload them if you enjoyed them. Fourhourworkweek.com forward slash Fox and fourhourworkweek.com forward slash Naval.

• 8:34Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, here we go. This is a list and some of these are just quotes, little tiny tidbits, tips. But you can certainly dig into all of these episodes for more. And every episode can be found at fourhourworkweek.com forward slash podcast. Enough URLs. Here we go. Matt Mullenweg, who is thought of as the developer or lead developer of WordPress, an incredible entrepreneur who runs a startup now worth more than a billion dollars, Automattic. He gave me some great advice that has greatly assisted my writing and that is listening to one music track, a single track on repeat. And that effectively serves as an external mantra along the lines of transcendental meditation that allows you to focus on other things, in this case, writing.

• 9:19Tim Ferriss?

  He uses it for coding. And in terms of tracks, I have used music ranging from Pendulum to Grammatic, G R A M A T I K. Usually I use electronica. Matt uses, in some cases, jazz, hip hop or electronica. Next, we have Dominic De Agostino, a scientist and researcher based in Florida who does a lot of work with ketones, among other things. I picked up from him breakfast of canned sardines and oysters. And that sounds disgusting and it's actually delicious. I look forward to this every morning. And specifically, I buy Wild Planet. I'm looking over my shoulder at two boxes of 12 cans of sardines each that I brought on vacation with me. And you can buy these on Amazon.

• 10:04Tim Ferriss?

  So it's Wild Planet, wild sardines packed in olive oil. And since I'm traveling with my pooch and she doesn't like dry kibble very much, what I'll do is I'll eat the sardines and then I'll pour out some of the sardine soaked olive oil on top of her kibble and then she eats it like a crackhead, which is great. So helps everybody. So breakfast of sardines. Then using synthetic ketones for aerobic performance, among other things, the Keto Cana, K E T O C A N A, which I believe was developed by Patrick Arnold, which will hopefully be an upcoming podcast. That is fantastic also for use in fasting. That's another thing I learned from Dominic.

• 10:45Tim Ferriss?

  To make the transition from carb dependent to ketone fueled, this can be very, very helpful. Just a couple of tablespoons of these synthetic ketones to make that jump without turning into a total whiny bitch is great and getting yourself in trouble by emailing people and creating messes, which I've done before while fasting. And last is the keto ice cream recommendation from Dom. And of course, I've learned a lot more from all these people than just these things. But the keto ice cream, this is a fat bomb. It's about 100 grams of fat. And for those who don't want to do the math, it's about 900 calories and it's delicious. Okay, so keto ice cream is one to two cups of sour cream or coconut cream.

• 11:26Tim Ferriss?

  I used Strauss Creamery, S T R A U S S Creamery sour cream, which is incredible. It's actually not sour. It kind of tastes like ice cream anyway. Then one tablespoon of dark chocolate baking cocoa, some salt, just like a two or three finger pinch of salt, a little bit of stevia. Dom buys it in bulk, cinnamon, and then one tablespoon of coconut oil drizzled in. So you just heat that up and then drizzle it over. And sometimes he'll put one third to one half cup wild blueberries. And then heavy cream on top of that is whipped cream effectively. So that is the recipe. A lot of you have asked me for it.

• 12:08Tim Ferriss?

  It appears in the original audio around 12 minutes and 22 seconds, but I'm sure it's later in the finished product. Okay, next up, Jaco Willink, the most decorated special operations commander across all the special ops divisions in the Iraq conflict. Jaco Willink, quote, "Discipline is freedom." This is a guy wakes up between four and 4:30 every morning and one of his tweets, I think it's just at Jaco Willink on Twitter, one of his more recent And tweets was, "Looking for your soul?" Question mark, it's at the bottom of the squat rack. And it's a picture of his squat rack with sweat all over the floor at about 4:45 in the morning. So, discipline is freedom. I interpret this to mean, among other things, that you can use positive constraints, like,

• 12:50Tim Ferriss?

  say, workouts with other people at the beginning and the end of your day as bookmarks, to allow you more effectively to use that as scaffolding for scheduling other things and organizing other things in your life. So, positive constraints. How could you use positive constraints to create discipline, which then gives you freedom where it counts most, say, in your creative activities? Next, Dr. Dan Engle. So, I interviewed Martin Polanco and Dan Engle, E-N-G-L-E, on ibogaine microdosing and uses of ayahuasca and other psychedelics in addictive populations and in many other places. So, what I picked up and experimented with after that conversation was twofold.

• 13:32Tim Ferriss?

  Number one, flotation tanks, and specifically doing two-hour sessions at least twice per week. And there does seem to be some type of phase shift or binary change when you get to two hours. I can't explain it, I don't know why, maybe it's psychosomatic, but two hours is worth more than two one-hour sessions. In other words, there's some type of change that you undergo cognitively, emotionally, psychologically, that I can't explain, that seems to be very significant. And after doing, say, two floats, Monday, Friday, for two weeks, I feel like I normally would after, say, a month of meditating daily.

• 14:11Tim Ferriss?

  So, seems to have a tremendous impact on just mental stability and zen-like calmness that is nonetheless effective. So, go figure. Second is something I won't elaborate on too much here because I can't get into it, but hypothetically, I might have, a friend may have experimented with microdosing with non-psychedelic quantities of ibogaine hydrochloride, specifically about 1/400 of a full psychedelic ride, which I'm not interested in. The heroic dose equivalent of ibogaine is too terrifying even for me and unnecessary, I think, at this point in time. Microdosing, once every four days or so, for anxiolytic, that's anxiety-reducing effects.

• 14:55Tim Ferriss?

  More to report there, hopefully, soon. Jury's still out. Next, Wim Hof, the Iceman, the crazy Dutchman himself. Breath work, so we're doing some of his strong inhale, sort of moderate exhale, breathing techniques for a few minutes every morning, say 30 breaths. You can listen to the podcast for some detail on this. Has effectively replaced the need for caffeine in the morning, so that's been spectacular. And then he has reinvigorated my interest in extended ice baths. So typically five to 15 minutes. For me, what I'll do is I'll get about 20 pounds of ice, put it into a bathtub, and I do these typically in the evening. And I will read a book for about five to 10 minutes.

• 15:38Tim Ferriss?

  Obviously, I'm not a doctor, don't play one on the internet. So if you start feeling extremely uncomfortable, get the fuck out of the tub. Don't go into hypothermia or something stupid like that. But I'll do five to 10 minutes with the ice and water up to just below the nipples, and I will read, and then I will slink down for the last three to five minutes. And important here, I will take, I'll leave my hands out of the water and head out of the water. So it's basically immersing my torso and folding my legs to fit. And I'll do that for the last three to five minutes. And sometimes they'll go back and forth, hot, cold, hot, cold, like contrast therapy, as the East Germans were very famous for using back in the day.

• 16:20Tim Ferriss?

  Cautionary note on Wim Hof, a very close friend of mine almost died last week. He had a shallow water blackout because he was practicing cycles of the Wim Hof breathing and then doing breath holds while swimming underwater. Do not ever practice this technique in water. He had a shallow water blackout, remained blacked out, unconscious underwater for an additional two to three minutes, was yanked out by a lifeguard, remained unconscious then for an additional 20 minutes, and had to undergo hospitalization for three days and a barrage of tests for a very, for a long time, meaning about a week, until he just got cleared. Could have died extremely easily. So do not practice this type of breath work in combination with water immersion. It is asking for trouble.

• 17:03Tim Ferriss?

  Next, Robert Rodriguez, famed director and filmmaker.

• 17:08Tim Ferriss?

  Really, his description of journaling got me to take my own journaling to the next level, where many of you know, I use the five-minute journal in the morning and then as a check-in at night, but also I'm doing more morning pages. And if you want to see what a journal entry of mine looks like, you can just search "what my morning journal looks like," or "Morning Journal and Ferris," with two R's and two S's, and it should pop right up on Google. And there's also a quote from Robert Rodriguez, and I believe he got this from Francis Ford Coppola, and that is, "Failure is not durable." And I think also from Francis Ford Coppola and the video series from Robert Rodriguez, where he interviews these famous directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Tarantino, etc., it's called "The

• 17:53Tim Ferriss?

  Director's Chair," it's spectacular. And one of the other quotes, I believe, from the Francis Ford Coppola episode was, "The things that will get you fired when you're starting out are the things they give you lifetime achievement awards for later." And I thought that was fantastic to keep in mind, as you experiment and get chastised in your life. Next, Tara Brach, famous meditation teacher, Buddhist, Dharma talk giver, her talks are fantastic. And the lesson that I've learned, among others from her, is invite Mara to tea. And this just means, it has to do with recognizing anger and other types of what we might call negative emotions, and rather than trying to suppress them, effectively

• 18:37Tim Ferriss?

  saying, "I see you." And if you're meditating, for instance, you might just repeat, if you were angry, "anger, anger." So you acknowledge that, and then that allows you to go back to whatever the focus of the meditation is. In my case, it's a mantra, like transcendental meditation, which we'll get to in a second. And if you're looking for a book to read to contend with emotions like anger, for instance, among others, check out Radical Acceptance. I don't like the title very much, but it makes a lot of sense once you get into it. I read this book for just five to 10 minutes each night in the tub, see how these tie together. And it had a huge impact on me. So Tara Brach, B-R-A-C-H, Radical Acceptance is the book. Next is...

• 19:18Tim Ferriss?

  Rick Rubin, legendary music producer, and Chase Jarvis, world famous photographer, both of them introduced me to transcendental meditation, or finally got me to bite the bullet. There are things I dislike about how TM is taught generally, such as the price, you have to pay $1,000 to $1,500 to be given a mantra and then have a week or so of once daily lessons, which are very pragmatic and tactical. And the teacher, in this case, holds you accountable, which was very important to me. And I remember I bitched and moaned about the price, I bitched and moaned about the sort of guru worship that is involved for like five minutes on one of the first days that I disliked.

• 20:01Tim Ferriss?

  But they both effectively said, "What do you have to lose? And you can afford it. You obviously need it." For reasons I could get into another time. And they convinced me to do that, and it had a huge impact. Now, this was actually probably preceding this year, but since the Rick Rubin episode came out in 2015, I wanted to reiterate and thank again both of these gentlemen for introducing me to transcendental meditation. TM.org, if you want to know about other types of meditation, Vipassana and otherwise, I encourage you to listen to my Sam Harris podcast, episode number one. He also gets into it in his second episode.

• 20:42Tim Ferriss?

  Next, Laird Hamilton, the best big wave surfer of all time, according to most folks out there, and then his wife Gabrielle Reese, who is a spectacular athlete and human being in her own right. So Laird introduced me to the Chaga mushroom, which is an incredible superfood of sorts, as well as the book Natural Born Heroes. And he was, of course, my, one of my surf teachers for the Tim Ferriss Experiment, which you can find on iTunes, iTunes.com/TimFerriss, if you want to see that entire season of television that I did with the folks behind Anthony Bourdain's shows, that was a lot of fun. And then from Gabby, it was the principle of going first. Don't wait for other people to smile at you.

• 21:27Tim Ferriss?

  Don't wait for other people to say hello. Practice going first, being proactive in improving other people's states, in those tiny daily interactions that, guess what, are the big things. The little things are the big things, cumulatively. So that... Concept of going first is something that I really appreciated from Gabby and have implemented in my own life. Next, from Stanley McChrystal, four-star, I believe, four-star general. And also from Wim Hof, skipping breakfast. I've been experimenting with skipping breakfast. And in some cases, skipping breakfast is not entirely skipping food 100% in the morning, but perhaps having what I might nickname titanium tea. You can Google that to find more on it.

• 22:11Tim Ferriss?

  But it's pu-erh tea plus ginger and turmeric plus some coconut oil. And the coconut oil gives you about 60 to 70% by weight medium chain triglycerides, which are converted to ketones very easily. And it just keeps you less grumpy in the morning until you get to, say, lunch. All right. Next, Brian Johnson, B-R-Y-A-N, founder of Braintree, an incredible entrepreneur. Sold it for $800 million cash, I believe, to eBay. And is just a philosopher, king of sorts. The question that he posed to me when he's thinking of resolutions, goals, is what could you do that would be remembered in 200 to 400 years? Meaning 200 to 400 years.

• 22:54Tim Ferriss?

  And when you're thinking of your own resolutions for the next year, or in general, I think this is a good question to pose. And even if you feel that it's impossible as a thought exercise, what could you do that would be remembered in 200 to 400 years? Next, Rhonda Patrick, R-H-O-N-D-A, scientist, PhD. She and I have spoken about many things, including using heat treatment to trigger heat shock proteins and increases in growth hormone, et cetera. So we've talked a lot about cold, but how might you use a sauna or a steam room to improve athletic performance, endurance, et cetera? There's a blog post that she wrote on my blog for that.

• 23:37Tim Ferriss?

  So if you search Rhonda Patrick, just go to fourhourblog.com, I'll spell that out, and search for Rhonda Patrick and sauna, and it'll pop right up. Next, Sammy Kamkar, the computer hacker who was banned from touching computers by The FBI for two years or so, good buddy of mine, SAMY, Camcar. We spoke about all sorts of hacking, how he takes toys from, say, Mattel and rejigs them to be able to open locked cars, all sorts of fun stuff, how he created software for his drone that would effectively pirate other drones so he could create swarms that he can control. But we also talked about hacking dating and Tinder. And at the very simplest

• 24:21Tim Ferriss?

  level, how to determine what your best profile photos are. You can use a feature on OkCupid called My Best Face that can figure that out in a span of hours or at the very most days. And we talked at length about that also in the Dating, I guess it was just the Dating Game episode of the Tim Ferriss Experiment. If you want to see me also do some work with Neil Strauss of The Game and embarrass myself horribly, horribly, doing cold approaches at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, where I look like a total ass, then I encourage you to check out the Dating Game episode of Tim Ferriss Experiment on iTunes. It will make you laugh and make me cry. Next, Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby, one of my

• 25:06Tim Ferriss?

  favorite humans. There are many things I've learned from Derek. Viewing your decisions or opportunities that come to you or that you find in terms of hell yeah or no, meaning anything that isn't a hell yeah is a no. If you're like, that could be kind of cool, oh yeah, that might be cool, that's a no. It has to be a hell yeah or a fuck yes, an enthusiastic yes to make it through your filters and get a commitment. Next is if you say you're busy, it means you're out of control. So if you find yourself responding to how are you with busy, man, yeah, I'm busy. That means your life is out of control. It means you don't have systems in place. It means you're making sloppy decisions. That

• 25:47Tim Ferriss?

  is a fantastic sanity check. All right. Next, we have, my dog keeps on flinching when I say next. Sorry, Molly. All right.

• 26:01Tim Ferriss?

  Alex Blumberg. Alex Blumberg has... Blumberg? Alex Blumberg has been killing it. Giblet Media has been killing it with The Mystery Show, with Startup Podcast, Reply All. They've been just slaying it and doing it extremely, extremely well with The Podcast Game on iTunes and elsewhere. And I did two episodes with Alex on how to create a blockbuster podcast. And I wanted to focus on a couple of questions that he is very good at asking. How do you elicit what he would call authentic moments of emotion? He's worked with Ira Glass on This American Life, Planet Money, et cetera.

• 26:44Tim Ferriss?

  Authentic moments of emotion, so feelings of humor, et cetera. How do you pull those out? How do you make them memorable? Well, you have to look for first a sequence of actions that culminate in something. Okay, so let's make that concrete. And the wording is super important here. And I'm going to be doing a bunch of podcasts, not necessarily podcasts, blog posts on my podcast methods, what I've learned, et cetera, about every facet of podcast creation, production, promotion. But the wording is critical in questions that you ask. So for instance, "Tell me about a time when..." dot, dot, dot. And you'll notice that these are intended to produce stories, not just short, abstract answers. So "Tell me about a time when..."

• 27:29Tim Ferriss?

  dot, dot, dot. "Tell me about the day or moment or time when." Okay? Next, this is perhaps my favorite. "Tell me the story of..." Tell me the story of how you met so-and-so. Tell me the story of how you ended up majoring in whatever, whatever. Next, "Describe the conversation when..." And you'll notice I did this, for instance, in a number of podcasts with people who are, say, discussing leaving a job to start a company, and they have to have that conversation with their spouse. Describe the conversation when you first mentioned to your wife or husband that you wanted to drop this lucrative career in X and start your own company. That will get you a good story. Next, "What were the steps that got you to..." ...blank, all right? What were the steps that got you to blank?

• 28:13Tim Ferriss?

  Those are a couple of good examples. And if you want to skip specifically to this type of tactical stuff, you can listen to the part two with Alex Blumberg that you can find at fourhourweek.com/podcast. All right. Next up is Mark Goodman. Mark Goodman used to be a futurist for the FBI. Simple recommendation, put some electrical tape or something like that on the inside of hotel room peep holes. It is remarkably easy for someone to attach a camera that will record what is happening inside your hotel room. This happened to a TV, a female TV broadcaster at one point. She was recorded changing her clothing, getting naked because a fan/stalker/ weirdo

• 28:58Tim Ferriss?

  who happened to be tech savvy slapped one of these cameras onto the front of her hotel room. So, easy way to fix that. Put some tape on it. I would recommend doing that on your laptop as well. After Sammy Kamkar indicated how easy it was for him to hijack my computer. And I'm sure many of you do embarrassing things in front of your computer, or potentially embarrassing things. So, get a cover for your camera on the laptop as well while you are at it. Next up, Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins has been an influence for a very long time, but I've only come to know him really in the last, personally, in the last year or two. And I'm paraphrasing here, but I did go to my first live event ever, which was Unleash

• 29:43Tim Ferriss?

  the Power Within. And the most valuable exercise for me was something called the Dickens Process. And I'll back into that in just a second. But the lesson is, you can't just look at the rewards of action when you're evaluating what to do. You have to look at the costs of inaction. And the Dickens Process, which you can Google and I'm sure find information on, refers to Scrooge and the Night Before Christmas. So, when he is visited by the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future. And you... In the Dickens process, I've taken through a procedure whereby you look at limiting behaviors, say, your top two or three, limiting or handicapping beliefs and behaviors.

• 30:26Tim Ferriss?

  Let's just focus on beliefs and what those have cost you in the past and what those have cost people you loved in the past, what those are costing you and people you care about in the present, and then what it will cost you and people you care about, say, a year from now, three years from now, five, 10 years from now, et cetera. And it is a very powerful approach for modifying behavior. So you can't just look at the rewards of action. You have to look at the costs of inaction or persisting with limiting beliefs and behaviors. Next, Neil Strauss, my buddy, seven-time, probably eight-time New York Times bestselling author now, also a fantastic interviewer. He's done interviews for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and so on.

• 31:07Tim Ferriss?

  And he advised, in my podcast with him, we talked about it a lot, and we covered interviewing, and he said, "You should open up and be vulnerable to the person you're going to be interviewing before you start the interview." So whenever possible, if I'm doing an in-person interview, or a phone interview for that matter, I'll take five to 10 minutes to kind of banter, get them warmed up, and also volunteer some type of sensitive or vulnerable information about myself so that they are inclined to do the same later. And it works incredibly well. So Neil, thank you for that. Next, Kelly Starrett, the Supple Leopard, one of the most famous PTs and athletic trainers in the country.

• 31:47Tim Ferriss?

  Kelly Starrett introduced me to, I believe it was Kelly, who introduced me to the ChiliPad. And Rick Rubin uses one of these as well. So ChiliPad, C-H-I-L-I-P-A-D, allows you, even if you are in a couple and in bed, and let's just describe a common problem. All right. So women are like floor heaters for some reason. Like if a man and a woman sleeping in a bed under the same set of sheets and the woman's gonna run at like 700 degrees. The guy's gonna get sweaty and hot and he's gonna kick one leg over on top of the sheets, then get cold, then put the leg underneath, and it's a huge pain in the ass for everybody. Or he's gonna like yank the covers off, make the woman upset. It's just, it's just too highly individualized.

• 32:30Tim Ferriss?

  And the Chili Pad allows you to put this extremely thin, almost imperceptibly thin sheet underneath your side of the bed, and it circulates water through with this bedside contraption at a very precise temperature. So it could be 51 degrees, maybe that's your magic sleeping temperature, 55 degrees. If you're cold, you can increase the temperature of that Chili Pad underneath you instead of throwing on a really thick blanket that's gonna make your partner sweat to death. So the Chili Pad, it's not inexpensive, but you can find it on their site or on Amazon. And one of my friends told me about three months ago, of all the advice that he's ever received from my books and podcasts, this had the biggest impact on his quality of life.

• 33:13Tim Ferriss?

  So Kelly, thank you, the Chili Pad. Next, Jon Favreau, incredible director, thinker, actor, writer. Here's the quote, "In terms of comedy, don't aim for funny, aim for truth." And I think that when you parody very serious subjects, if you aim for truth, the sort of kernel of honesty that everyone is thinking and hasn't said, or that everyone has seen but not described, don't aim for funny, aim for truth. Okay, next up, Naval Ravikant, mentioned this episode was nominated for Best Podcast of the Year by Product Hunt, so please upvote it, 4hourworkweek.com/naval.

• 33:56Tim Ferriss?

  He recommended a book called Sapiens, which has just been on fire in Silicon Valley. Many, many people recommending this. So Sapiens, S-A-P-I-E-N-S. I have read the first, I would say 15%, and as promised, more highlights in this book probably that I've put down than any other nonfiction book in recent memory. It is a spectacular, it is a spectacular synopsis of many complex and potentially complicated subjects, but it's made easy to read. And it is about how the Homo sapiens effectively took over the world. And there's a lot more to it than that, but check it out. All right. Next, we have Jamie Foxx.

• 34:41Tim Ferriss?

  Let's talk about Jamie Foxx, the most consummate entertainer I've ever met in my life. And I've got a quote and then a recommendation. So the first is, quote, "What is on the other side of fear? Nothing." So, looking at whatever you're afraid of and asking, "What is on the other side of this fear if I push through it?" And the answer is generally, nothing. There's no negative consequence. There is no persistence. And to come back to the Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Rodriguez point, failure is not durable. So what is on the other side of fear? Nothing. And that is something he's taught his kids and instilled in them. And then, next is pull-ups. So the pull-up bar, at the very least, being the basis for maintaining a ripped physique with a minimal effective dose, with very little effort.

• 35:26Tim Ferriss?

  And that is something that he does every morning. You can listen to his entire workout routine by listening to the full podcast. And hate to plug it again, but I'm gonna do it one more time, guys. This has nominated this episode, the Jamie Foxx episode, as best podcast of the year. And I really implore you to listen to it if you haven't. He is just a complete rock star. Knocks it out of the park. To upload that, take five seconds, fourhourworkweek.com/foxx, F-O-X-X, and upload it. And for pull-ups, if you want something to try that's a little tricky and that you could use, this is courtesy of a trainer named Max Shank, an incredible trainer. Ice cream makers. Look up a move called "The Ice Cream Maker" and try that on a pull-up bar.

• 36:09Tim Ferriss?

  It is a great move to help with progressions towards a front lever. Okay. And then, we have, as the grand finale, BJ Novak. And BJ Novak, I think in December, this is particularly, particularly relevant, as you're doing a retrospective, looking at the last 12 months, coming up on the holidays, Christmas, et cetera, and New Year's, of course. More important, I think, than setting resolutions for the year ahead, although that's very important, is doing a retrospective, a post-game analysis on the last year. What did you do right? What did you do wrong? What could have made it better? Et cetera. Really doing that type of assessment. And BJ mentioned, at one point, looking back at his career.

• 36:56Tim Ferriss?

  How he could have stalled in a number of places. And he ended up, of course, becoming very well-known for The Office and many other things. But if you find yourself saying to yourself, "But I'm making so much money," about a job or project or something that you're working on, that is a warning sign. That is a warning sign that you should pay attention to. "But I'm making so much money," or "But I'm making good money." If you find yourself saying that "but..." dot, dot, dot, "money justification," that is a warning sign that you're probably not in the right place, or at least that you shouldn't stay where you are if that is coming to mind. Because, of course, time itself is the most valuable non-renewable resource, and money can always be made back. Money can always be made later.

• 37:41Tim Ferriss?

  You can have a balloon payment to yourself with successes later, but so far, we haven't figured out how to do that with time. So, those are some of the lessons that I have learned from guests in 2015. There are many, many, many, many more. And in fact, I'm hiring someone to put together highly enhanced condensed synopses of all of my podcast episodes. So hopefully, those will be available at some point in the near future, but it could take a few months. And I just want to take this opportunity to express my sincerest gratitude and thanks to all of you for listening to the podcast. It is really, it's been a blast for me to do, and it's not just been a blast for me to do because I get to interview all these incredible people.

• 38:25Tim Ferriss?

  It's been a blast, first and foremost, because I get so much feedback. I get questions from you that make me better. You point things out that I didn't even notice in the process of interviewing these people. And I appreciate you helping me to get better. I appreciate you listening to the work that I'm working very hard to put out. It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, and I'm happy to do it because it has been a labor of love and... Honestly, it's the only project, the only creative project thus far where I've had 100% creative control. And I must, I must tell you, it is fucking worth it because I've had a good experience with my publishers, I've had a very tough experience with TV, but at the end of the

• 39:09Tim Ferriss?

  day, I can't do anything that I want with my books, for instance, because I do not own all of the rights. And with the podcast, I can do whatever the fuck I want. So if you have any crazy ass ideas for what I should do with the podcast, anything I could do to stir the pot, any crazy pranks or experiments that I should do, please let me know on Twitter, @Tferris, T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, or on Facebook, facebook.com/TimFerris, two R's, two S's. And as always, and I do mean this, guys, thank you so much for listening and happy holidays. 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

• 39:53Tim Ferriss?

  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. 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.

• 40:36Tim Ferriss?

  And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis, but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment. Add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, et cetera, can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees.

• 41:17Tim Ferriss?

  For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on the show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. 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.

• 42:01Tim Ferriss?

  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. Take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by Miz and Maine. You've heard about them before. We have a couple of updates. These are my favorite dress shirts, and I hate dress shirts, but I love these because they are made of athletic, sweat-wicking material. You don't have to iron them. You don't have to do anything.

• 42:44Tim Ferriss?

  You can throw them into your travel duffel for weeks at a time and just pull them out and put them on. So they can look very fancy, but they can also be used casually. Don't need to wash them very much, et cetera, et cetera. They're the favorite of professional athletes as well, including NFL phenom, J.J. Watt. My personal phenom, the supple leopard, Kelly Starrett. And Tim Ferriss Show listeners all over the world, literally, have embraced Miz and Maine. It's the perfect shirt, and I'd like to think of it that way. And their business has exploded. You can also look up the Tim Ferriss Effect Podcast Edition to see some of their actual numbers. And they've added chinos. So I always thought of chinos as these horribly cheesy, preppy, khaki pants. But no, I was wrong. These gray

• 43:28Tim Ferriss?

  pants, I am now in the Bahamas and I wore them in New York, then in LA, then here. Three different climates, perfect for all three. And wore them on the airplane and I could wear them to a fancy dinner the very next night and they looked like they'd been ironed. They are awesome. Probably the most comfortable now dress pants that I own. So Miss Nnaman, they're killing it. Easy to take care of. You can look great, feel great. And that's about it. So you should check these things out. They're great. They also make fantastic holiday gifts for your loved ones. Check it out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts.