#656: Brené Brown — Striving versus Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages, and More (Repost)

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs http://linkedin.com/tim recruitment platform with 800M+ users, Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Shopify http://shopify.com/tim global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. Dr. Brené Brown (@BreneBrown https://twitter.com/BreneBrown) is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair. Brené is also a visiting professor in management at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers including The Gifts of Imperfection http://www.amazon.com/The-Gifts-Imperfection-Supposed-Embrace/dp/159285849X/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Daring Greatly http://www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592407331/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Rising Strong http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Strong-Bren-Brown/dp/0812995821/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, Braving the Wilderness https://www.amazon.com/Braving-Wilderness-Quest-Belonging-Courage/dp/0812985818/ref=as_li_ss_tl?keywords=Braving+the+Wilderness&qid=1580948171&s=books&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=offsitoftimfe-20&linkId=1c633ed31510b4e57008b48fff5bb165&language=en_US, Dare to Lead https://www.amazon.com/Dare-Lead-Brave-Conversations-Hearts/dp/0399592520/ref=as_li_ss_tl?keywords=Dare+to+Lead&qid=1580948292&s=books&sr=1-3&linkCode=ll1&tag=offsitoftimfe-20&linkId=014c2669ee9c896fe156d56ba5c752a9&language=en_US, and Atlas of the Heart https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Heart-Meaningful-Connection-Experience/dp/0399592555/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. Brené hosts the Unlocking Us podcast https://brenebrown.com/unlockingus/, and her TED talk—The Power of Vulnerability http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en—is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world with more than 60 million views. She is also the first researcher to have a filmed lecture on Netflix. The Call to Courage https://www.netflix.com/title/81010166 special debuted on the streaming service on April 19, 2019. Please enjoy! This episode was originally published in February, 2020. Show notes and resources from this episode: https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/ * This episode is brought to you by Shopify http://shopify.com/tim! Shopify http://shopify.com/tim is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify http://shopify.com/tim is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required. Go to shopify.com/Tim http://shopify.com/tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/Tim http://shopify.com/tim. * This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep http://eightsleep.com/Tim! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover http://eightsleep.com/Tim to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature. Go to EightSleep.com/Tim http://eightsleep.com/Tim and save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. * This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer. Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 800 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim https://linkedin.com/Tim. * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors http://tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss http://linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast include Jerry Seinfeld https://tim.blog/2020/12/08/jerry-seinfeld/, Hugh Jackman https://tim.blog/2020/06/26/hugh-jackman/, Dr. Jane Goodall https://tim.blog/2020/04/16/jane-goodall/, LeBron James https://tim.blog/2018/11/27/lebron-james-mike-mancias/, Kevin Hart https://tim.blog/2020/05/20/kevin-hart/, Doris Kearns Goodwin https://tim.blog/2018/09/07/doris-kearns-goodwin-leadership/, Jamie Foxx https://tim.blog/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/, Matthew McConaughey https://tim.blog/2020/10/19/matthew-mcconaughey/, Esther Perel https://tim.blog/2017/05/21/esther-perel/, Elizabeth Gilbert https://tim.blog/2020/05/08/elizabeth-gilbert/, Terry Crews https://tim.blog/2017/12/20/terry-crews-how-to-have-do-and-be-all-you-want/, Sia https://tim.blog/2020/08/12/sia/, Yuval Noah Harari https://tim.blog/2020/10/27/yuval-noah-harari/, Malcolm Gladwell https://tim.blog/2016/06/21/malcolm-gladwell/, Madeleine Albright https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/, Cheryl Strayed https://tim.blog/2017/03/30/cheryl-strayed/, Jim Collins https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/, Mary Karr, https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/ Maria Popova https://tim.blog/2014/10/21/brain-pickings/, Sam Harris https://tim.blog/2020/05/15/sam-harris-2/, Michael Phelps https://tim.blog/2021/01/21/michael-phelps-grant-hackett/, Bob Iger https://tim.blog/2020/01/16/bob-iger/, Edward Norton https://tim.blog/2019/10/31/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn/, Arnold Schwarzenegger https://tim.blog/2015/02/02/arnold-schwarzenegger/, Neil Strauss https://tim.blog/2014/06/24/neil-strauss/, Ken Burns https://tim.blog/2019/09/12/ken-burns/, Maria Sharapova https://tim.blog/2017/08/26/maria-sharapova/, Marc Andreessen https://tim.blog/2016/05/29/marc-andreessen/, Neil Gaiman https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/, Neil de Grasse Tyson https://tim.blog/2019/10/03/neil-degrasse-tyson/, Jocko Willink https://tim.blog/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/, Daniel Ek https://tim.blog/2020/12/03/daniel-ek/, Kelly Slater https://tim.blog/2020/09/08/kelly-slater/, Dr. Peter Attia https://tim.blog/2019/11/27/peter-attia-fasting-metformin-longevity/, Seth Godin https://tim.blog/2016/02/10/seth-godin/, Howard Marks https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-marks/, Dr. Brené Brown https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/, Eric Schmidt https://tim.blog/2019/04/09/eric-schmidt/, Michael Lewis https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/, Joe Gebbia https://tim.blog/2018/03/08/joe-gebbia-co-founder-of-airbnb/, Michael Pollan https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind/, Dr. Jordan Peterson https://tim.blog/2021/03/01/jordan-peterson/, Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Brian Koppelman https://tim.blog/2020/04/23/brian-koppelman/, Ramit Sethi https://tim.blog/2019/05/07/ramit-sethi/, Dax Shepard https://tim.blog/2020/11/18/dax-shepard/, Tony Robbins https://tim.blog/2014/10/15/money-master-the-game/, Jim Dethmer https://tim.blog/2020/05/18/jim-dethmer/, Dan Harris https://tim.blog/2020/11/19/dan-harris/, Ray Dalio https://tim.blog/2017/09/13/ray-dalio/, Naval Ravikant https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/, Vitalik Buterin https://tim.blog/2021/03/08/vitalik-buterin-naval-ravikant/, Elizabeth Lesser https://tim.blog/2021/03/16/elizabeth-lesser/, Amanda Palmer https://tim.blog/2019/04/18/amanda-palmer-2/, Katie Haun https://tim.blog/2021/02/18/katie-haun/, Sir Richard Branson https://tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/, Chuck Palahniuk https://tim.blog/2020/09/02/chuck-palahniuk/, Arianna Huffington https://tim.blog/2017/10/18/arianna-huffington/, Reid Hoffman https://tim.blog/2015/08/31/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley-reid-hoffman-plus-michael-mccullough/, Bill Burr https://tim.blog/2017/09/17/bill-burr/, Whitney Cummings https://tim.blog/2015/06/26/whitney-cummings/, Rick Rubin https://tim.blog/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://tim.blog/2020/03/26/vivek-murthy/, Darren Aronofsky https://tim.blog/2017/09/09/darren-aronofsky/, Margaret Atwood https://tim.blog/2022/02/22/margaret-atwood/, Mark Zuckerberg https://tim.blog/2022/03/24/mark-zuckerberg/, Peter Thiel https://tim.blog/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/, Dr. Gabor Maté https://tim.blog/2018/02/20/gabor-mate/, Anne Lamott https://tim.blog/2021/07/09/anne-lamott/, Sarah Silverman https://tim.blog/2022/01/12/sarah-silverman/, Dr. Andrew Huberman https://tim.blog/2021/07/06/andrew-huberman/, and many more. 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• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all of that ad nauseam. But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device that was recommended to me by friends called the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep. The Pod Cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment, providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep. With the Pod Cover's dual-zone temperature control, you and your partner can set your sides of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees.

• 0:41Tim Ferriss?

  I think generally in my experience, my partners prefer the high side and I like to sleep very, very cool. So stop fighting. This helps. Based on your biometrics, environment and sleep stages, the Pod Cover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wake-ups and increase your percentage of deep sleep. In addition to its best-in-class temperature regulation, the Pod Cover sensors also track your health and sleep metrics without the need to use a wearable. So go to eightsleep.com/tim, all spelled out, eightsleep.com/tim and save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover. That's eightsleep.com/tim. Eight Sleep currently ships within the US, Canada and the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia.

• 1:23Tim Ferriss?

  Again, that's eightsleep.com/tim to save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover.

• 1:31Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is one of my favorite companies out there, one of my favorite platforms ever. And let's get into it. Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone to sell anything, anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. So what does that mean? That means in no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas, products and so on to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day business and drive sales. This is all possible without any coding or design experience whatsoever. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods. Shopify has thousands of integrations. and third-party apps from on-demand printing to accounting to advanced chatbots,

• 2:15Tim Ferriss?

  anything you can imagine. They probably have a way to plug and play and make it happen. Shopify is what I wish I had had when I was venturing into e-commerce way back in the early 2000s. What they've done is pretty remarkable. I first met the founder, Toby, in 2008 when I became an advisor, and it's been spectacular. I've loved watching Shopify go from roughly 10 to 15 employees at the time to 7,000 plus today, serving customers in 175 countries with total sales on the platform exceeding $400 billion. They power millions of entrepreneurs from their first sale all the way to full scale. And you would recognize a lot of large companies that also use them who started small. So get started by building and customizing your online store, again, with no coding or design experience

• 3:00Tim Ferriss?

  required. Access powerful tools to help you find customers, drive sales, and manage your day-to-day. Gain knowledge and confidence with extensive resources to help you succeed. And I've actually been involved with some of that way back in the day, which was awesome, the Build a Business competition and other things. Plus, with 24/7 support, you're never alone. And let's face it, being an entrepreneur can be lonely, but you have support, you have resources, you don't need to feel alone in this case. More than a store, Shopify grows with you, and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a $1 per month trial period.

• 3:43Tim Ferriss?

  It is a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today and learn more by visiting Shopify.com/Tim. One more time, Shopify.com/Tim, all lowercase.

• 3:58Tim Ferriss?

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

• 4:05Speaker 01

  No, we're seeing appropriate timing.

• 4:09Speaker 02

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

• 4:21Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to interview world-class performers and world-class experts of different types from all different fields. My guest today is Dr. Brené Brown. Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, and is the author of five, count them, five, number one New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, and her latest book, Dare to Lead, which is the culmination of a seven-year study on courage and leadership. Her TED Talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top five most-viewed

• 5:05Tim Ferriss?

  TED Talks in the world with more than 35 million views. Let that sink in. 35 million views. My goodness. She is also the first researcher to have a film to talk on Netflix, The Call to Courage, special debut on the streaming service in April of 2019. She lives in Houston, Texas with her husband Steve. They have two children, Ellen and Charlie. She also has a brand-new podcast, just in, should be launching right about now, called Unlocking Us, coming out March 2020. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 5:42Tim Ferriss?

  Brené, welcome back to the show.

• 5:44Brené Brown?

  I'm excited to be here.

• 5:45Tim Ferriss?

  It's so good to see you.

• 5:46Brené Brown?

  I love your digs.

• 5:46Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you very much. Beautiful Austin Tejas.

• 5:50Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 5:51Tim Ferriss?

  Although you can't see much of it right now with the cloud cover. But I wanted to start with two things that happened today.

• 5:58Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 5:59Tim Ferriss?

  Number one, talking to my girlfriend this morning, and she says, "Oh, who are you interviewing today?" And I say Brené Brown. She goes, "Oh, I love how casually you say that." And then a woman downstairs, I won't mention my name, who works in the building, similar story, similar reaction. And I have met so many women who are otherwise very tightly composed, who start gushing at the mere mention of your name. And what I would love to hear you comment on is, what chord do you think you have struck, or what archetype are you providing that gets that response? Because it's not a common response.

• 6:38Tim Ferriss?

  I know a lot of very successful or very famous women who do not elicit that kind of response from people. How do you explain that?

• 6:48Brené Brown?

  No idea.

• 6:49Tim Ferriss?

  No idea.

• 6:50Brené Brown?

  No idea. Um, I don't know.

• 6:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 6:53Brené Brown?

  Do you know?

• 6:55Tim Ferriss?

  I have perhaps a theory. I mean, the only other person I've heard elicit similar responses is Esther Perel. So I

• 7:04Brené Brown?

  Love her.

• 7:05Tim Ferriss?

  Have to imagine she's great, that has something to do with vulnerability, but is it just that? I mean, what, what is the feedback that people give you?

• 7:14Brené Brown?

  Okay. So I do have a theory. And I don't know, I don't know if this, I don't know if this is the driver of that reaction because it's still shocking to me. Like normally, like if somebody, if I walk up and someone goes, I still like look behind me like, what's happening? Like, you know, or mostly I'm looking for danger because I'm wired, but um, here's what my new theory is. My new theory is that it's not that people, I mean, people I think appreciate the research. They appreciate the work, but I think what really connects to people, a kind of a cross gender, is what they really like is watching me struggle with my own work.

• 7:54Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 7:55Brené Brown?

  So rather than being someone that's like, here's what we should all be doing.

• 7:59Tim Ferriss?

  I've got it all figured out.

• 8:00Brené Brown?

  Figured out. I'm like, this shit sucks. Like, and if I didn't think we had to do it, I'd be like, no way in hell am I doing this.

• 8:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Brené Brown?

  And so I think it's a combination of giving people language for experiences that we all have. Um, and then being really forthright about how much, how hard it is for me and how much I hate it sometimes.

• 8:28Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 8:29Brené Brown?

  Do you know what I mean? I think

• 8:29Tim Ferriss?

  I do.

• 8:30Brené Brown?

  Watching the struggle.

• 8:31Tim Ferriss?

  In the description of your new podcast, which will be launching shortly and is already dominating the charts of the preview. Congratulations.

• 8:40Brené Brown?

  Thank you. I'm excited.

• 8:41Tim Ferriss?

  One of the phrases that stuck out to me, and I might butcher this slightly, but it was something like the magic and messiness of relationships or the human condition, but the magic and the messiness. So maybe what you're speaking to is not providing the highlight reel, which I think It's common, but also giving people the lowlights, which are part of everyone's experience.

• 9:05Brené Brown?

  Yes, I'm like not a fan. It's like the ESPN play of the day.

• 9:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Brené Brown?

  Like, there are like 5,694 pop flies missed, you know, it's like, and you know, and then that means there's like 300 outfielders that are in a shame shitstorm. And you know, and like, to me, that's much more interesting than the play of the day.

• 9:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I like the play of the day. I watch the play of the day. I'm a big sports person. But I don't often make the play of the day.

• 9:32Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Me neither.

• 9:34Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Tim Ferriss?

  Which is, which is precisely why when, every once in a while, I'll talk to someone involved with media and they're like, can we shadow you for a day? And I'm like, absolutely not.

• 9:43Brené Brown?

  No.

• 9:43Tim Ferriss?

  It's because it's 99% just like missing, missing the pop ball and having it hit me square in the face. That's 99% of the day. And I'm like, that's not going to make for compelling media coverage.

• 9:55Brené Brown?

  No, and I get asked that sometimes too. And I'm just like, well, first of all, no, because like, okay, I'm making a lunch for school, you know, for my kid going to school. I'm unloading the dishwasher. You know, like it's, and yeah, this goes into a whole different topic, but I also have like, there's a line, like this is my life.

• 10:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Brené Brown?

  Like the people I love can't follow me.

• 10:17Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 10:18Brené Brown?

  So strangers are definitely not following me. I don't like anybody enough.

• 10:21Tim Ferriss?

  How did you, and I know we, we spoke about using a certain format for this conversation. We'll get to this.

• 10:26Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 10:26Tim Ferriss?

  But I'm curious, as someone who, as best I can tell, was not trying to become famous. You gave your TED Talk that now has 35 plus million views. It's one of the top talks of all time. So it seems from the outside looking in that you're sort of thrust into becoming a public figure. How did you navigate determining where to draw lines and boundaries?

• 10:55Brené Brown?

  Well, I don't know. It's still a daily practice. I'm still drawing them every day and I'm readjusting them every day. But I, I'm so grateful that this didn't happen to me when I was younger. Because.

• 11:12Brené Brown?

  I don't know, there's like this working theory that a friend of mine, Jennifer, shared with me that she said, I don't know that anyone who is trying primarily to be famous, has anything interesting to say.

• 11:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 11:25Brené Brown?

  And I think part, and I think that's true, like I, I, I didn't want to be, I, I don't know that I'm famous, but I didn't want to be a public person.

• 11:38Brené Brown?

  Because I'm too self-conscious for that, really, to be honest with you, like, and I'm, I'm a tough person, but I, I get my feelings hurt. And so when people make fun of what I look like, or what I say, or if I use the wrong word, or mispronounce something, like it can, it can take me down, less than it used to be able to, less than it did, I guess, but, um, so I didn't really want the public part. So when that first started happening after the TED Talk, I already had a team together because I was, I wanted to get my, scale my work. I wanted to get to as many people as I could with my work. I just wanted to stand, like, down and push my work into the world. And not be, there's a lot of people whose work is in the world, but they don't, we don't know who they are.

• 12:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 12:23Brené Brown?

  But again, going back to your first question, I don't think it's my work. I think it's me as a vessel for the work that resonates with people because I think I am, it's like a terrible paradox.

• 12:38Brené Brown?

  It is a terrible paradox. It's just, I'm having a moment, like, that it's my ordinariness that makes me relatable, and it's also my ordinariness that makes me, where I take all the hits.

• 12:54Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 12:55Brené Brown?

  Do you know, do you know what I'm saying?

• 12:56Tim Ferriss?

  I do, and I also think, I mean, I'm not gonna, I would, over, over drinks, maybe debate the ordinariness, but I, I do understand what you're saying, and, and I think that in your displaying of your fully-

• 13:14Tim Ferriss?

  Imperfect self, which we all are, right? In that ordinariness, doing what you do and putting your work into the world as you have is extraordinary. And so I think that may be a piece of why people connect and find it so inspiring, right? As opposed to seeing like a LeBron James or whoever, just going, well, that's, that guy is a mutant.

• 13:34Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Tim Ferriss?

  There is that, that is a separate planet. There's no, there's no room for me to aspire to emulate that because it's so out of reach. Does that make, does that make sense?

• 13:46Brené Brown?

  It totally, it totally makes sense.

• 13:48Tim Ferriss?

  Whereas when you are very vulnerable and discuss the struggle, people go, oh shit, that's how I feel. I didn't know people who do things like put work into the world in a TED talk and this, that, and five bestselling books and so on, could also feel that way and do the work that they do.

• 14:09Brené Brown?

  Yeah. So yes, I definitely, I definitely feel that way. I mean, I think, and I think the people who follow my work for a long time were kind of just growing up together and learning together. I mean, when I started, I didn't understand that I could be brave and afraid at the same time. And now I kind of live in that. I'm like, I'm, I feel brave right now because I'm with you here doing this, but I'm also afraid. And I'm like, I'm literally thinking, how much longer can I hold in my stomach and talk to him? And at some point, I'm just gonna have to like breathe. These are the things I think about, you know? And I'm like, I shouldn't have worn the clingy like Rolling Stone shirt. I should have worn something like puffier so I could breathe.

• 14:51Brené Brown?

  Like, like, I'm just a normal person, but, but yeah, I'm just a normal, I am a really, I think we're all kind of ordinary people. I get to do extraordinary things, but I think we're all ordinary people. But I think sometimes this world is tough because we shame and diminish ordinary. Ordinary lives are small lives, you know? Ordinary moments are, you know, we chase extraordinary moments instead of like being grateful for ordinary moments until. Until hard shit happens.

• 15:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 15:25Brené Brown?

  And then in the face of really hard stuff, illness, death, loss, the only thing we're begging for is a normal moment. Like, oh, my God, can I please have that ordinary moment back? You know, can I please hear this him come through the screen porch door? Can I please get a call from my mom or crazy? Like, then we want the ordinary moments. But in them, with all the noise, it's about the extraordinary right now. And I'll tell you a true story. I'm debating right now whether I should tell it or not because it's so fresh. But I just had to do a photo shoot for the podcast, like the image for Apple and everyone to

• 16:00Brené Brown?

  use. And I was, the photographer was great, Randolph Ford, and it was, it was fine. It was at the Hotel St. Cecilia here in Austin, which was a really fun place to do it.

• 16:14Tim Ferriss?

  Great place.

• 16:15Brené Brown?

  So, and I'm like uncomfortably like, you know, doing that, like how much, how much is too toothy, you know, that whole thing. And they said, Well, come and look at the monitor. They're great. And then I stepped around to look at the monitor. And it was such shock to me because this was the thing playing in my mind. Like, I'm 54, I know who I am. I really like who I am. But then I'm looking in this monitor and I'm like, oh, my God, because my training for 54 years has been, why are you taking pictures and having all these fancy people here when you're not perfect looking? Like, this is, this is the realm of perfect people, like, models do this. And, you know, like, but

• 17:00Brené Brown?

  to see on these big screens with all these professional people against a white backdrop, like me, I'm like, oh, my God, this is, this is not what we normally see in a photo shoot behind the scenes, right? And it was just this moment that goes such a metaphor for life. It's like, I earned every single one of these effing wrinkles and stretch marks. Like, and this is the body, you know, that raised my kids and, you know, like, but that ordinariness can almost be, for those of us who haven't found a way to love it in ourselves, repulsive.

• 17:41Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 17:42Brené Brown?

  You know, like-

• 17:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the realness.

• 17:44Brené Brown?

  The realness, like, this is me. And so like, when they were, when they were doing the photos, like, get ready, you know, photoshopping the photos, I was like,

• 17:53Brené Brown?

  You know, make sure that you make that I look my age because I don't like the like shock and aha when I show up someplace and they're like, damn, was that an old photo? You know, like, um, it's true, but it's like, but really grappling with, and I'm just gonna say these things out loud.

• 18:14Brené Brown?

  Do you know what, like, because, and maybe that's why people are like, oh, thank God, someone's saying them out loud.

• 18:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right.

• 18:19Brené Brown?

  Because they're normally relegated to our secret shame lives.

• 18:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 18:26Brené Brown?

  You know, and we all have them.

• 18:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, oh, for sure.

• 18:29Brené Brown?

  Right?

• 18:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you are. It's odd to put it this way, but showcasing that, right? I mean, it's, I think it's, I think it's, it provides a sigh of relief to a lot of people who feel like they have to keep all those things relegated, or to do, or feel like they have to divorce those parts of themselves in, in some way.

• 18:49Brené Brown?

  Yes, yeah. And I think it's, I think it's, there is a divorcing, there's an orphaning even, I would say, that, you know, of these parts of ourselves. And it's not like, you know, it's weird too, because people always say, this is an interesting question, I should ask you this question.

• 19:08Tim Ferriss?

  Fire away.

• 19:09Brené Brown?

  People always say, where's the line between embracing imperfection and vulnerability and kind of our humanity and striving for excellence?

• 19:21Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm, yeah.

• 19:22Brené Brown?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 19:23Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely.

• 19:23Brené Brown?

  And I'm a striver, like, I'm a, like, you know, like, we're serious about

• 19:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 19:28Brené Brown?

  our brand and my work and attributions and I work out all the time and, you know, you asked me to, before we started, we were checking, like, what'd you have for breakfast? And I'm like, I'm intermittent fasting.

• 19:41Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm like, damn it, we just need 10 seconds of audio. What are you fantasizing about eating for lunch?

• 19:46Brené Brown?

  Keto bar.

• 19:47Tim Ferriss?

  Keto bar.

• 19:48Brené Brown?

  Um, so it's not like, you know, it's not like embracing your imperfection is giving up.

• 19:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 19:54Brené Brown?

  But what do, how do you answer that question? If I said, Tim, where's the line between being our best selves or striving for excellence and embracing who we are?

• 20:06Tim Ferriss?

  Funny you should ask because we're recording this in January 2020 and I thought a lot about this on New Year's Eve and in the few days after the passing of the new year when I was going through notes and photographs and everything from the past year and I'm actually still doing that review. I mean, we're well through the midpoint of January and I'm still doing my last year review. And one of the conversations with my girlfriend, with some of my best friends was this topic exactly. And I can tell you where I landed because I wanted to try to get the right phrasing from me of the question. So I talked about the line, right? Like, and there were a number of different versions

• 20:50Tim Ferriss?

  of the question. One was, how can you be self-accepting without becoming complacent? Oh, God, that's great. That's it. Like, that was one, right? That's great. That was one. And then That's good. You know, how can you conversely, like, how can you be high-achieving without being self-flagellating or self-abusing? And I thought about Another good one. I thought about the line, as you phrased it. I thought about the line and I realized that I had trouble answering that question, like, where the line is. So the question that I started to ask myself, which was informed by a book I've been reading for the last month or so called Already Free, which is written by a Boulder-based psychotherapist

• 21:30Tim Ferriss?

  who also is a Buddhist contemplative. And he would be the first to say, these two do not mesh. They actually contradict each other in some ways, but you can make room for and use both. So informed by this book, which I was reading during the passing of the new year, I thought to myself, maybe the question is, how can I make room for both striving and self-acceptance? And so this might seem really clinical and boring, but I just schedule blocks of time for both and practices for both. So for instance, there's a journal called

• 22:11Tim Ferriss?

  The Five Minute Journal, and part of that is what I'm grateful for, three bullets. What made today great, three bullets. And those are generally small things. Sometimes they're big things, but I try to include at least one small thing so that I don't become myopically fixated on the extraordinary. Right. Right? And because I think one of the risks of being

• 22:36Tim Ferriss?

  Heavily achievement focused is that you only give yourself a pat on the back when you've done something that is the equivalent of a home run talk, or a massive project launch, or setting a world record some type in your mind. And you can become really miserable that way. So in my personal life, driving and achievement, being in gear six is and has been forever the default. And I think that's a coping mechanism for a lot of things that happened when I was younger. But nonetheless, that is the default. So the self acceptance is putting things in the calendar as practices that will ensure I take time for that. Because

• 23:19Tim Ferriss?

  my experience is that if I don't put them in the calendar, they just get squeezed out by everything else. How do you, how do you think about it?

• 23:28Brené Brown?

  Well, I'm changing in real time because I love to make room for both. But I think the only place that I have come to around using my question about the line, where's the line between, I love that complacency and what'd you say complacency?

• 23:45Tim Ferriss?

  Self acceptance and complacency.

• 23:47Brené Brown?

  Self acceptance and complacency. And for me, I always think where's the line between? So I'll just take it to my, to our organization and my role as a leader in that organization. We believe in excellence and beauty in all things. And we are not jacking around like, like if a font's wrong, I will notice it. So where is the line between excellence and beauty in all things and perfectionism that is paralyzing? No work gets out. So there's always, you know, where's the line between my perfectionism and my being my best self? The only thing I've come to so far that has been the shift for me between, it's a midlife

• 24:28Brené Brown?

  shift. I think it's a midlife shift for everyone. And it's taken me a good five years in midlife. I will determine the line. You will not determine the line for me. So I know, I know that for me, it doesn't matter what I'm achieving or accomplishing, if I'm not eating in a way that makes sense for me, working out and sleeping, that

• 24:57Brené Brown?

  It doesn't matter. So like for whether you're saying, boy, you need to, you know, lose 30 pounds or you're on the side where you're like healthy at every, you know, whatever, it doesn't matter. I don't care what you think on either side. What I think is, I know I need to work out five days a week. I know that I need to eat this way. I know I need to write down what I'm eating. I need, cause otherwise I'm like, I can be a stress carb person. So for me, the day I, the day I reclaimed that line as internally set, not externally set, was a huge changer for me. But I do think I need to make room for both. I, I'm going to look into that. Like I, it is very Buddhist.

• 25:38Tim Ferriss?

  It is.

• 25:39Brené Brown?

  It's not the competition conflict thing.

• 25:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And what this author, I'm blanking on his name, but we'll, we'll put it in the show notes. What he uses as labels are on the, on the Western psychotherapy side, he talks about the developmental view. So you look back at the, the outdated strategies that have become patterns in your life that are no longer applicable or are being overused. And then you take steps to sort of improve or change your behaviors. And that, that would include your thought patterns. And then the, on the Buddhist side, I, I would just say if, if Buddhist as a word bothers you, it's on the awareness side, he would call it the foritional view, which is being effectively becoming and cultivating the ability

• 26:25Tim Ferriss?

  to be okay with whatever is. And so another aspect of this that I've been thinking about a lot is there is, there is, there are different types of self-acceptance. And I think this is really important. And it's only something I've thought very closely about in the last handful of years, because I spent most of my life hating myself, at best tolerating myself for moments. But there was a lot of self-loathing, driving performance. And I, for a long time, viewed any type of self-acceptance as complacency. It's just self-acceptance equals complacency, period.

• 26:59Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 26:59Tim Ferriss?

  And you need to be your own devil whipping yourself in the back to try harder. What I've realized, and this is informed by a lot of reading, of course, is that there's, there's, there is complacent self-acceptance where you say, everything I'm doing is just fine. I don't need to change anything and I shouldn't change anything.

• 27:16Brené Brown?

  I want to, you need to stop there for a second. You can edit it, but I'm a pauser. I need, I'm a, I have to think. There is such thing as what?

• 27:22Tim Ferriss?

  And I can modify, I can modify.

• 27:24Brené Brown?

  But I want you to say what you just said first.

• 27:25Tim Ferriss?

  What I said is, I do think there are multiple types of self-acceptance.

• 27:29Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 27:29Tim Ferriss?

  And that, that, that term self-acceptance could be used to excuse complacency in the sense that you could say, I am practicing self-acceptance, which means everything is great, everything is as it should be, la la la, I don't need to change anything. But then, I'll just add one more piece. There's, there is a self-acceptance which says, for instance, as an example, I'm making this up.

• 27:52Brené Brown?

  I'll write this down.

• 27:53Tim Ferriss?

  But like, right now, I am nervous and I'm frustrated and I'm angry because A, B, and C is happening in my life and we're doing this podcast and I'm bald now and like in 2007 and oh my God, is my head just a shiny cue ball on camera right now, blah, blah, blah. And I could accept all of those things as true because they are. Those are my experience. And then for some of them, I could resolve to take steps to improve upon those things, right? So there's a situation I need to fix, great, let me go fix it because that's making me or agitating me in some way. So I think that there are, there's a, there's a self-acceptance, which is a macro, I don't need to change anything. And then there's a self-acceptance,

• 28:33Tim Ferriss?

  which is really just truthfully accepting whatever you're experiencing at the moment as what is happening, as opposed to saying, I don't want to feel angry, I don't want to feel angry and like fighting and fighting and fighting and tugging yourself in multiple directions. So that might sound kind of esoteric, but for me, it's been very profound in that you can be forgiving of whatever you are experiencing in your body, in your psyche, in the moment, while still putting in place steps to improve whatever it is you're hoping to improve, right? I think it's possible to do both.

• 29:09Brené Brown?

  I think it's, I think it's possible to do both too, for sure. I do, because I think I live, I live both. And I do, I go back to like the Jungian belief that the paradox is the only real thing that is, has enough tension to, to capture human experience. So I think you can have self-love and self-acceptance and want to be better in other, in ways. I think, in fact, I don't think you can change without, okay, so here, here, here are the paradox, here are the things I want to unwind.

• 29:40Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:40Brené Brown?

  I don't think you can truly change for the better in a lasting, meaningful way, unless it is driven by self-acceptance.

• 29:49Tim Ferriss?

  I agree with that.

• 29:50Brené Brown?

  So I think beating the shit out of yourself for for performance, which, you know, I work with a lot of sports people now. Like it works. And if all you have to do is pay someone for one season or all you do is one game or one, whatever, you're okay. But lasting, meaningful change has to be driven by self acceptance.

• 30:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Brené Brown?

  The other thing that is just so shocking to me about complacency and self acceptance is as I think back, and I would really have to go into the data, but just sitting here, I don't think I have ever come across a single person who I, not a single person that I can think of, who was complacent, driven by self acceptance. Like, I don't think, I don't know, I don't know that that is not an oxymoron. I gotta tell you that like self aware complacency doesn't work for me as a construct.

• 30:45Tim Ferriss?

  Self aware, no. I don't.

• 30:48Brené Brown?

  Or self accepted complacency.

• 30:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Brené Brown?

  I don't know that I believe that.

• 30:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll push, I'll push a little bit. I would say.

• 30:55Brené Brown?

  I knew you were going to because of the look on your face.

• 30:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I would say.

• 30:58Brené Brown?

  I hope you caught that in the camera.

• 30:59Tim Ferriss?

  And I think that I'm, I'm struggling for the right terminology, but I think we all know people who are alcoholics, have various issues.

• 31:08Brené Brown?

  Totally.

• 31:09Tim Ferriss?

  And they are in denial of having problems.

• 31:12Brené Brown?

  Yes. Let me stop you there.

• 31:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Brené Brown?

  And say that is neither self awareness nor self acceptance.

• 31:19Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely not self awareness.

• 31:20Brené Brown?

  But not self acceptance either.

• 31:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I would, and maybe there's a better word, but I would just say that there are people who are delusional to the extent that they either believe they don't have a problem that they have, or they have a problem and refuse to accept it as a problem. I think that.

• 31:37Brené Brown?

  For sure.

• 31:38Tim Ferriss?

  Right, so. So, and we can go a lot of directions with this, but I would, I would say that I think we can agree there are complacent people, right? There are complacent people. And among those complacent people, I think there are those who hate themselves. There are those who sort of love themselves and are narcissistic, and I know a number of these. And then there's a lot in between. And I think that you, there are complacent, in some respects, complacent narcissists who, almost by definition, being a narcissist, love themselves. So is that self-acceptance? Maybe yes, maybe no. I would say that it is, but it's a disabling self-acceptance.

• 32:23Tim Ferriss?

  Whereas, to your point about lasting behavioral change, I think that, at least psychologically, if you are divorcing parts of yourself, if you hate parts of yourself, aspects of yourself that have been informed by your history, that, and I'm borrowing this phrase from somewhere else, but like, what you resist persists, right? And that in, that you are going to carry that unproductive and, in some ways, self-defeating tension within you, even if someone is forcing you to change your behavior, or incentivizing you to change your external behavior, right? And so even if technically you're changing a behavior, if you, if you

• 33:08Tim Ferriss?

  carry self-loathing, even partial self-loathing with you, hating an aspect of yourself, or a certain emotion within yourself, I view that as a loss.

• 33:16Brené Brown?

  I agree.

• 33:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So, this is, this is getting out there a bit, but this, this is, this is the type of stuff that, sometimes I worry that I lose, that I've lost my audience. Can I make a confession?

• 33:27Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Tim Ferriss?

  Because for a long time, I was thinking about writing a blog post about this, but for a very long time, if you look at all the books that I've written, it's like Book on Entrepreneurship, Book on Physical Performance, Book on Cognitive Performance and Learning, and The Foreign Chef, et cetera, et cetera. It's mostly developmental. It's about improving performance in one or more areas. And Now, what I've spent more and more time on, like we're spending time on it right now, is the inner game.

• 33:55Brené Brown?

  For sure.

• 33:55Tim Ferriss?

  And the importance of developing a keen level of self-awareness so that you can examine the contents of your, this is gonna get super woo-woo for a second, the contents of your consciousness, right? Wherever you go, you're carrying your mind with you. And to develop familiarity with that, I think, is the crux skill that underlies everything else. And you and I both know plenty of achievers who are miserable, who are

• 34:25Brené Brown?

  For sure.

• 34:26Tim Ferriss?

  High-performing, well-known people who are utterly miserable. And to me, the question of why is that? How can that be the case? Is the question that I'm extremely interested in these days. And, but I worry that having built an audience who is largely, not entirely, kind of go-go-go, rah-rah-rah, win-win-win, there's nothing wrong with that, but people who are trying to develop skills and competitive advantages and so on, that I may lose a large portion of those people in shifting into talking about more of these things. We'll see where it goes, but that's something that has occurred to me. And I think I'm willing to make that trade.

• 35:10Tim Ferriss?

  I think I'm willing to take that, if that's a cost of doing business. I don't know.

• 35:15Brené Brown?

  So, a couple of things. One, the go-go-go audience that you've built, this may scare them, but I mean, as someone who works with elite athletes and professional folks and CEOs and those things, what I can tell you is, this is the hardest challenge you've issued.

• 35:33Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:34Brené Brown?

  Like, and it's not about the conceptual complexity of what we're talking about. It's about unlocking performance is one thing. Unlocking people?

• 35:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 35:46Brené Brown?

  Way harder, way scarier. And unlocking ourselves and creating self-awareness, to me, you would be remiss not to go here.

• 35:57Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:58Brené Brown?

  Because...

• 36:00Brené Brown?

  You know, I don't know. I think like something you said when you were talking about, we all know a lot of narcissists and they love themselves, but that's actually not true. Do you know that narcissism is the most shame based of all the personality disorders? Narcissism is not about self-love at all. It's about grandiosity driven by high performance and self-hatred. It's, you know, I define it as the shame-based fear of being ordinary. And so you have, to me, you have this audience that, and I'm one of them. I mean, like, and I'm probably an outlier, I guess, and you're, it's like me being a Rush fan. Like, of course, there's always outliers.

• 36:40Tim Ferriss?

  The audience is like forty, forty to fifty percent female, but I appreciate, yeah, yeah, it is. It's, it's shifted a lot in the last handful of years.

• 36:49Brené Brown?

  Yeah. But I think, you know, when I get invited in by a Fortune 50 CEO and, you know, and here she says, look, we need help. We need help with the team. We need, they're not asking me to help with time productivity.

• 37:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 37:05Brené Brown?

  They're not helping me to set up a Scrum or Agile process for software development. They're saying, you know, we're at each other's throats. We hate each other. It's a shame-based finger pointing. Like, it's all about self-awareness and changing those behaviors. And to me, you know, to me, the hard thing about this, this area and your work is a lot of what I've learned from you that has changed my life has been not only effectiveness-based, but efficiency-based. And so where you can lose people with this conversation is this is not an efficient process.

• 37:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right.

• 37:41Brené Brown?

  Do you know what I mean? There's no, I don't think there's a four-hour self-awareness.

• 37:46Tim Ferriss?

  I have no plans to write that one.

• 37:48Brené Brown?

  Yeah, but I mean, but like, but people would love it if you could, if you could unlock that fast. But to me, This is the capstone conversation for you.

• 37:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Brené Brown?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 37:58Tim Ferriss?

  I do.

• 37:59Brené Brown?

  Because what's it all in for?

• 38:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Brené Brown?

  You know, like, I'm fit, I'm winning. I'm smart. I'm successful. And I'm on my third marriage and I don't speak to any of my children.

• 38:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Which you see a lot.

• 38:16Brené Brown?

  I see all the time.

• 38:18Tim Ferriss?

  All the time.

• 38:19Brené Brown?

  Right. Because I'm going to tell you, not to dismiss the importance of that work. That's easier.

• 38:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, it is easier.

• 38:28Brené Brown?

  It is easier. You know, because the thing about these conversations that you and I end up having every time we sit down, or this is the second time, but both times we've sat down is what differentiates us as a social species is the need to be seen and known and loved. And the need to see and know and love others. And no one rides for free. Like, we all come into this adulthood with hard stuff. And what I would say is true about complacency.

• 39:08Brené Brown?

  And 95% of what I see that people call pathology is it's armor.

• 39:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Brené Brown?

  It's not, it's armor. It's how, it's behaviors and ways of thinking that I've developed to protect myself from being hurt.

• 39:30Tim Ferriss?

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• 40:13Tim Ferriss?

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• 40:36Tim Ferriss?

  So my question related to armor is I'll get to through a segue, which is a quote that I want to say Tara Brock, the well-known meditation teacher, also writer Radical Acceptance is a fantastic book, shared with me, which I'm going to paraphrase, and it's along the lines of, you know, a great sage once said, there's only one real question that matters, and that is, what are you unwilling to feel? I've thought about that a lot, and not to say I have any concise answers to that, but I think it's, I think it's, I think it's an anecdote really worth meditating on. I've thought about it. What do you say to the people you meet who are on the third marriage?

• 41:19Tim Ferriss?

  Their kids don't talk to them, and there are certain things that they have convinced themselves, subconsciously or otherwise, maybe through an abusive upbringing or trauma, whatever it might be, that it is unsafe to feel certain things. And you come in, they've asked for help, but they do not want to open Pandora's box, right? They do not want someone to drag them into the deep waters of emotions that they've kept under lock and key for so long. How do you help someone like that? What do you suggest to them? Because it does get messy, right? It's going to get messy before it gets clean, right? At least in my experience, it's like, you, oh, you're going to do spring cleaning? Guess what? You got to take all the things that are up on the, up on the shelves, all the things

• 42:02Tim Ferriss?

  in the drawers, all the things that are hanging on coat hangers, and you're going to put them in the middle of the room, and it's going to be a mess. It's going to be a fucking mess.

• 42:09Brené Brown?

  Yeah, you're going to be pissed that you did it halfway through.

• 42:12Tim Ferriss?

  And that is, but you can't really get. Pass go without that type of step. So for someone who's listening to this and says, you know what? I buy it. Like, I get it. And yet, what do I do? Because I've been, I've had on this armor for so long.

• 42:27Brené Brown?

  So I would say a couple of things. I mean, the first thing I always feel like is really important to say is that I'm a researcher, and so I'm not a therapist. That would be differentiate me with Esther. Like, I don't see clients. If I go in and I'm working with CEOs and this question comes up all the time, what I would say to people is Pandora's box is closed right now. But are you under the impression that you're living outside of the box or in the box?

• 42:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 42:52Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I mean, like, you don't want to open Pandora's box, because that's strange to me, because you're living inside Pandora's box. And what I feel like you've asked me to come here to open it up. Like, we're not going to do this process without walking through some deep shit. There's going to be deep swift water. And if the water's super deep and swift, you need to go through that with a therapist and get that that that settled before we work in the organizational way. But what I would say to people, what I always say is, is the same for me, and I'm sure the same for you, that we all grew up and experienced at very varying degrees, trauma, disappointment, how, you know, hard stuff, we armored up. And at some point, that armor no longer serves us. And so what I think

• 43:37Brené Brown?

  I would say to that person is, how is not talking about this serving you? Like, I've been sober for 23 years. So someone in AA would be like, how's that shit working for you? You know, like, but I probably would put a softer spin on it than that. Over black coffee and a cigarette. But, you know, but I would say that it's not serving anymore. And now the weight of the armor is too heavy, and it's not protecting you, it's keeping you from being seen and known by others. And so this is, I mean, just to tell you quintessentially, this is the developmental milestone of midlife. From late 30s to, you

• 44:21Brené Brown?

  know, through probably your 60s, this is the question. You know, this is when the universe comes down. And puts her hands on your shoulders and pulls you close and whispers in your ear, "I'm not fucking around. You're halfway to dead." "The armor is keeping you from growing into the gifts I've given you." "That is not without penalty. Time is up." "So this is what you see happen to people in midlife." "And it's not a crisis. It's a slow, brutal unraveling." "And this is where everything that we thought protected us, "keeps us from being the partners, the parents, the professionals, the people that we want to be." "And there are only, I've only seen, this is a fork in the road."

• 45:04Brené Brown?

  "I've only seen two responses to this visit from the universe." "Well, there's, I guess there's, there was my response, which I was like, screw you. Bring it." "Like, you think you can, you think you can best me?" "And then it was just one nightmare situation after another until, you know, you're not going to win that fight."

• 45:21Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 45:22Brené Brown?

  "I think if you say, you know what, I'm not, I'm not gonna do it." "Then you've got to double down." "These are the people that walk through the world, doubled down on their own shit in denial." "You know, cheeks squeezed as they walk and cause so much pain in the world."

• 45:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. To themselves as well.

• 45:44Brené Brown?

  I mean, yes, because it is so much easier to offload pain than to feel pain.

• 45:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 45:51Brené Brown?

  "And so you really have a choice in midlife." "Whether you're going to be, you're gonna, you know, identify, the first step of it, the whole process is, what armor?" "And I'm not saying like, I'm not saying just pull off all the armor and streak through Austin." "Because I think you can't replace the armor with something." "I think it's curiosity is what you replace." "You just become very curious about yourself, about the world." "Why did I react that way?" "When Tim asked me that question, I wanted to like, hit him over the head with a topo chico model." "You know, what was going on there?" "Do you know what I mean? Like, what is my obsession about this?" "You just become very curious is curiosity."

• 46:35Brené Brown?

  Is really the superpower for the second half of our lives. Because it keeps us learning, it keeps us asking questions and it increases our self-awareness. But when you see, and I think it's really hard, because you know, I'll walk into a situation and there'll be the person who invited me is usually the CEO. And then you'll have like the cross-armed pissed off clenched cheek like F you looking person, usually in operations or technology, you know, and then they're like, what's the business case for you being here?

• 47:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right.

• 47:10Brené Brown?

  Like, because, you know, here's our stock price, here's what's going on, here's our valuation, like, why, what do you need? And then, you know, the CEO usually say, fucking hate each other. And this can only last for so long. Like, you know, it's the end of every great band, right? Like, this is going to come to an end and it's going to be terrible. And so, I don't know, I think you can't pull it all off at once. You have to, there's, for a lot of people, for all of us, there's trauma.

• 47:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Brené Brown?

  And people are like, no, there's not trauma for all of us, there's trauma for, you know, people who had ever been abused physically, sexually, emotionally, there's trauma for people of color and people who have been on the margins. There's trauma for all of us, it's just different levels of trauma.

• 47:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 47:54Brené Brown?

  You know, I mean, to escape childhood with nothing is, I haven't met that person yet.

• 48:00Tim Ferriss?

  No, I haven't either.

• 48:01Brené Brown?

  Right. So, the trauma stuff, literally, the trauma message in our body is, you take this armor off, we die. So you protect us at all costs and leave this on. A lot of that work has to be done with a therapist.

• 48:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, there's, there's some really good books, I mean, there are a lot of terrible books on this type of topic, but the, I think it's the body knows the score, the body keeps the score.

• 48:27Brené Brown?

  Bessel van der Kerkhove.

• 48:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, Bessel van der Kerkhove is, is very interesting in terms of tying the physiology and somatic experience into these past emotional experiences. And, you know, what you were saying about Pandora's box and the question, which I liked, do you think you're living outside of Pandora's box or are you just locked inside Pandora's box? Is, is, is a really insightful question and also reminds me of.

• 48:57Tim Ferriss?

  Conversation I had with a friend of mine who had a very, very tough time, multiple divorces, fortunately on good terms with his kids, but a lot of interpersonal strife. And he said, what no doubt you've heard a lot, which is like, yeah, I'm just not sure I want to go there. I'm not sure I'm ready to sort of open that. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with it. And what, what occurred to me as I was listening, because I experienced this for a long time is, oh, you're dealing with it.

• 49:27Brené Brown?

  I was gonna say, yeah, you're dealing with it.

• 49:29Tim Ferriss?

  Your choice is, do you want to deal with it head on in the sunlight? Or do you want to have, have it come oozing out of the corners in the darkness where you can't contend with it in a direct or systematic way? So you're dealing with it no matter what. The question is, how are you dealing with it? And

• 49:52Brené Brown?

  Great Jungian saying, keep your shadows in front of you. They can only take you down from behind.

• 49:56Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I like that. I like that.

• 50:00Brené Brown?

  Yeah, you're dealing with it. Like, like, here's the thing, emotion and cognition, undefined and unexplored, drive every decision you make. I mean, you either develop self-awareness or these things control you. I mean, it's, but it's really, I have to say that it can, as someone who chooses affect or affect words carefully, it can be terrifying for people.

• 50:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Brené Brown?

  But rarely does anyone around them who knows them, like you with your friend, say, oh, my God, I'm shocked to hear this when the reveal comes out.

• 50:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Brené Brown?

  You're like, your whole life has been defined by this.

• 50:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And I would, I would also like to say, and this is, this has just been my experience and my experience observing a pretty decent sized group of close friends who have had this realization in the last, say, 10 years, that the process of becoming curious about your subconscious programming and the old scripts and the armor can feel messy, and it probably will be messy and it'll feel terrifying. But not all changes need to take 20 or 30 years. Like, some changes can In my personal experience, at least, I had some terrible things happen to me as a kid.

• 51:22Tim Ferriss?

  And in the last, say, five years, with the right tools and the right prompts and the right books and the right accountability partners, like my girlfriend, who's a very well-developed empath and a very clean fighter, which is really important. Huge. Huge. And one thing that she does really well that has been instrumental for me, she's been the clearest mirror, maybe, I've ever had, in the sense that I have my stuff, she has her stuff, I have my scripts and my sensitivities, many of which are out of date. And we set time to do what we call batching.

• 52:01Tim Ferriss?

  So rather than having lots of interspersed criticisms or constructive pieces of feedback that may not be taken the best way by me, especially at 3:00 PM on a weekday, we'll set time aside to sit down and we will take turns. And this is a format, it may not be the best format, but it's something we came up with that works for us, where we'll tell the other person what they're doing well, like what they're really doing well, what we think we are doing well. And then we'll ask for what we would like more of. And in that format, you can start to spot patterns, right?

• 52:44Tim Ferriss?

  And so if you do that once a week or every two weeks, sort of things come up. I'm like, oh, well, the first time you said that, I thought it was just an exception. But now I realize that is a pattern that I have. When X, Y, and Z happens, I go, uh-uh, like, let's talk about it later. Don't want to deal with it now. And I sort of shove off certain types of topics or questions. And then you can begin to experiment with working on alternatives. And the reason I'm saying all this is just because I don't want people to feel like the curiosity, if you're willing to take that first step, about your patterns, your programming, these out-of-date strategies in armor,

• 53:26Tim Ferriss?

  does not necessarily lead to you trying to run an ultra marathon with a blindfold on. Like, there are actually tools and resources and books and methods that can be really, really, really helpful in short order. And...

• 53:41Brené Brown?

  You'll be surprised. I mean, it's really like, it's like putting off the mammogram or, you know, prostate check or whatever it is that you have to do, putting it off, putting it off, all the shit you make up about it, all the scary stories, you collect as many horrible things as you can. And then you go and you're like, wow, the fear leading up to this was so

• 53:59Tim Ferriss?

  much worse.

• 54:00Brené Brown?

  Much greater.

• 54:00Tim Ferriss?

  So much worse.

• 54:01Brené Brown?

  I mean, I'm not saying it's not gonna hurt, it's gonna hurt, but I do think, I mean, the two hacks that we have, Steve and I have been together for 32 years, dated off and on for seven years and married for whatever the delta is there, 25 or whatever, we're married now. Hardest thing I've ever done. Hands down, hardest thing I've ever done. Y'all hear me out there? Hardest thing. He and I both come from our parents', marriages on both sides, divorce, remarried several times, shit shows. We had no idea what it was supposed to look like, right? We just were willing to keep showing up. And the conversations like you and your girlfriend have, we do that too. It's uncanny how similar it is. Yeah.

• 54:46Tim Ferriss?

  It's amazing.

• 54:46Brené Brown?

  Yeah, especially what we want more of, what's really working. I really appreciated this this week. We try not to, unless it needs to be done in real time, we'll usually wait until we're in a good place to do it, you know, and, and, and I, I don't know, I don't think that he saw dirty fighting, but all I saw was dirty fighting. I'm like, you know, shame, humiliation, put downs, you know, stuff that leaves marks, stuff that you can't, and I, and I can default there when I'm in like a powerless corner, I can come out like mean. It's hard to believe, but no, it's really not, I know.

• 55:21Tim Ferriss?

  Throwing elbows and head butts.

• 55:22Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no, for sure. I can come out, and verbal ones that really are way more serious than a physical headbutt.

• 55:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 55:28Brené Brown?

  The other, the other two hacks that I think have saved our marriage, besides just showing up and kind of using some of these things, like what's working, what was hard, is the 80/20. So, everyone says marriage should be 50/50. It's the biggest crock of bullshit I've ever heard. It's never 50/50.

• 55:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 55:47Brené Brown?

  Ever. And so what we do is we quantify where we are. So if Steve comes home and he'll be like, I got 20.

• 55:54Tim Ferriss?

  Just in terms of energy.

• 55:55Brené Brown?

  Just energy, investment, kindness, patience. I'm at a 20 and I'll be like, I'll cover you. I got you, brother. Like, I'll pull the 80. Sometimes we come home, which we have done a lot. My mom has been sick and I'll say, I've got 10. And Steve, you know, Steve, like two days ago said, I'm riding a solid 25. So we know that we have to sit down at the table anytime we have less than 100 combined and figure out a plan of kindness toward each other.

• 56:25Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I love that.

• 56:26Brené Brown?

  Yeah, because the thing is, marriage is not something that's 50 50. A partnership works when you can carry their 20 or they can carry your 20. And that when you both just have 20, you have a plan where you don't hurt each other.

• 56:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, because you're a threadbare.

• 56:41Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And so, so what we'll say is, I'm like, I've got 10. And he'll be like, I got maybe 25. We're like, put all the groceries that are supposed to be great and healthy in the freezer. We're ordering out. Get the housekeeper here an extra day and we're canceling anything with people that we really actually don't like.

• 57:01Tim Ferriss?

  So how can we create some buffer in the system?

• 57:04Brené Brown?

  We do that. So like, and then, you know, then we'll like a day or two later, I'm like, he'll be like, I'm riding a 60. I'm like, oh my God, work is kicking my ass. I'm still at a 20. He's like, I got you, but we're a spare 20. So, you know, let's ask Charlie if he wants to skip water polo practice today and let's all turn in at eight o'clock. Like huge. The other thing I would say too, that now I'm thinking about that is we made a determination very early. There's kid focused families, parent focused families and family focused families. We're a family focused family. So that means that if you want to do water polo, Eagle Scouts, tennis and skeet shooting, and then that comes to the family and the family agrees what will keep the family healthy.

• 57:48Brené Brown?

  Like we can, we, you know, I've got a book launch. I've got this. Steve's got patients. He's taking on others, you know, he's a pediatrician. He's doing this. So what works for our family right now is you can do two extracurriculars and I'm going to have a two week tour, not a four week tour, but we put the family as the system that we serve. It's not the kids at the parents' cost or the parents at the kids' cost. It's the family and it is.

• 58:15Brené Brown?

  It is remarkable.

• 58:16Tim Ferriss?

  How do you weigh, if you do it all, the, the voting system, so to speak, right? So if you all come to the table, does everyone have equal vote in the decision making process?

• 58:31Brené Brown?

  No. No, this is dictatorship. Yeah, like, yeah. No, fix my mind. Oh, no, yeah, no, like, we don't even bullshit around that. It's like when my kids, like, if I say, like, oh, shit, my, my kids are like, ooh, you can't say that. I'm like, I can say anything I want. You can't say that. And when you're old enough, you can do whatever you want.

• 58:47Tim Ferriss?

  When you get your cursing license.

• 58:48Brené Brown?

  Yeah, but right now, I can totally do that.

• 58:52Brené Brown?

  Watch me.

• 58:54Brené Brown?

  But it's, so we have very, we talk to our kids about everything. We're super open. Steve and I both have veto power and we rarely use it. I bet, I, I bet I've pulled out my veto card once in the last five years.

• 59:07Tim Ferriss?

  Veto meaning kid says, I want to do X and you say, can't do it.

• 59:10Brené Brown?

  Or Steve.

• 59:11Tim Ferriss?

  Or Steve.

• 59:12Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I'm like, I, I have to veto that. I cannot do that. And then we really respect the veto because we don't overuse it. So our, our thing with our kids, this is my theory on parenting. My, my theory on parenting is the best we can do is a loving course from compliance to commitment. That your kids need to do what you're asking them to do out of compliance. So don't run into the street, don't do this, that's, that's, you know, you're not allowed to watch that kind of TV. You're not allowed to play that kind of video game. You need to comply, otherwise there's some natural consequences. At some point, I've got a 14 year old now. He, he's at other people's house doing video.

• 59:52Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 59:53Brené Brown?

  And so if all I teach him is compliance and don't give him the why about why you can't do that. If I don't say yes every time I can and explain the no's, then when he's there, and I can tell you that, like, we got a call from a parent maybe a month ago and said, the boys were having a sleepover. They wanted to watch, I know, some R rated violent thing. And Charlie said, can we watch something else? You know, my parents are not cool with this. And he couldn't, he didn't have to do that.

• 1:00:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Brené Brown?

  But he's moved to a commitment to our family values because we say yes every time we can. We don't do any of that stuff that my parents did because I said no. We explain. So in the voting process, we'll sit down and say, here's the fall semester. Charlie's like, I've got guitar, I've got, you know, this, I've got this, and I've got this, and I'd really love to do this. And she's got, here's what my fall looks like, you know, we still keep time in semesters. Here's what my time looks like. We're going to be able to do two curriculums. You can choose.

• 1:00:51Brené Brown?

  Why not? A lot of my friends are doing that. So I totally understand. Different families have different ways of operating. And it was like my daughter, when she went to high school, she's a junior now in college, but we sat down with her and said, the number of AP courses that you'll take will be limited by your time. You won't go to bed past 10. You will not miss a single dance. You will do something every weekend with friends. We will not participate in the race to nowhere. Like, you don't need to graduate with 40, and she's a super academic kid. And she's like, what? You know, I'm like, she's like, but I need to take this, and I need to take this. I'm like, it's not going to work that way. And then when she got to college, we were like, we're not paying for it if you already know what you want to be. You're 18.

• 1:01:38Tim Ferriss?

  So what is that? Say more. I'd like to hear more on that. So does that mean that you wanted her to, well, actually, I'm not even going to speculate. So could you elaborate on that?

• 1:01:51Brené Brown?

  Take every class that's interesting to you. Learn who you are. Because if I had a dollar for every interview I did with a late 20, early 30-year-old that got on the engineer, lawyer, doctor path, because that was the moving escalator for smart people, who was depressed, hated what they did, never even knew that you could be a shoe designer, or casting director, or a microphone builder. If I had a dollar for every one of those, like.

• 1:02:23Tim Ferriss?

  Set for life.

• 1:02:23Brené Brown?

  Set for life. Yeah. And I said, you need to explore. But, you know, and she's like, that's so cringey, mom, that's so, so cringey. Like, everyone that freshman orientation knows exactly what they're gonna be, where they're gonna go to grad school. I'm like, that's great. That's not the way we work.

• 1:02:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Brené Brown?

  So, you know, I'm like, what are you taking? She's like, taking a class on black power movements, Germany in the 20th century,

• 1:02:50Brené Brown?

  statistics and multivariate analysis. And like, great. I mean, granted, that spells graduate school, but.

• 1:02:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Brené Brown?

  She's like, as it turns out, I don't think I want to do this and I don't want to do that. And I'm like, super valuable. And she's like, no, are you sure it's as valuable as knowing what you do want to do? I'm like, oh, yeah.

• 1:03:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Brené Brown?

  Knowing what you don't want to do, you get to save all the part in your 30s and 40s where you hate work, you're drinking heavily, you know, like you get to save a lot of that. Like, figure it out. Nothing's wasted.

• 1:03:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I graduated from college when I was 29. I was like, go see the world, get a job, wait tables. Everyone I know is better at who's waited tables, a better human being.

• 1:03:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. I think everybody, everyone should have to work at least one, preferably two service jobs.

• 1:03:40Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:03:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, you really learn a lot.

• 1:03:43Brené Brown?

  Yes. Yes, I mean, like that and like, that's what I always tell Ellen, you get one job where you're serving the public.

• 1:03:52Brené Brown?

  And you not to ever, do not ever date a guy who's a dick to a waiter.

• 1:03:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm going to suggest we could talk for hours and hours and hours because I know we have a finite amount of time today that we, we switch to the, the format that was anticipated.

• 1:04:10Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:04:10Tim Ferriss?

  And did this previously with my friend, Dr. Peter Tia. And it was, it was fun, so I want to try it again. And it is talking about things you're excited about.

• 1:04:22Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Tim Ferriss?

  Or thinking about. Things you've changed your mind on and then silly, absurd, stupid, anything that you love doing and

• 1:04:35Brené Brown?

  I got my homework. I'm so glad we're gonna do this because I did, I prepped.

• 1:04:38Tim Ferriss?

  I know.

• 1:04:39Brené Brown?

  You know, I like my gold star. I'm a self-aware person, but like I still like my gold star.

• 1:04:43Tim Ferriss?

  Got my gold stars in my wallet. And so why don't we start and we'll, we'll go one from each

• 1:04:48Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 1:04:49Tim Ferriss?

  Bucket.

• 1:04:50Brené Brown?

  Really?

• 1:04:50Tim Ferriss?

  Is that okay? Or we could do the other way? How would you like to do it?

• 1:04:53Brené Brown?

  Oh no, I want to do it batched.

• 1:04:54Tim Ferriss?

  You want to batch it?

• 1:04:55Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, let's batch it.

• 1:04:56Brené Brown?

  Is that me like being like asserting myself into your process?

• 1:04:59Tim Ferriss?

  I'm all for it.

• 1:05:00Brené Brown?

  Okay, great. I'm good at asking for what I need.

• 1:05:02Tim Ferriss?

  Which category would you like to start with?

• 1:05:04Brené Brown?

  Oh, okay, Tim, let's take five things I've changed my mind about

• 1:05:10Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, great.

• 1:05:10Brené Brown?

  in the last few years.

• 1:05:11Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful. Let's do it.

• 1:05:12Brené Brown?

  Okay. And this is like a rapid fire?

• 1:05:14Tim Ferriss?

  You can, you can take as much or as little time on it as you'd like. I'll, I'll, we'll probably ask some follow-up questions, but fire away.

• 1:05:22Brené Brown?

  Five things I've changed my mind about in the last few years. Further, faster.

• 1:05:26Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:05:26Brené Brown?

  Was always my motto. How can we go further faster? How can we go further faster? And then investors started coming about five years ago and saying, can we invest in your business? I'm like, you know, when you're a thought leader, like, what does that look like? And I'm like, no, I don't want to do that. So we kind of self-funded learning platforms and ways to scale the business. Further, faster. I've learned through painstaking, weirdly, have you ever heard this? Painstaking success.

• 1:05:50Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm, I haven't.

• 1:05:51Brené Brown?

  Like, I'm the only person that like shut down businesses that were doing really well because I hated it.

• 1:05:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Brené Brown?

  Like, so what I've, the one thing I've changed my mind about is I'm a slower, closer kind of a person. I'm not a further, faster person. So we've changed our Jim Collins hedgehog to scaling our own work to creating world-class research and content and partnering with people who scale as opposed to scaling. Like, I just, like, we were hiring all these people and getting new desks. And I was like, what's happening?

• 1:06:19Tim Ferriss?

  What's happening here?

• 1:06:20Brené Brown?

  Yeah, it's like scale, the magic word.

• 1:06:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Brené Brown?

  I'm not a further, faster person. The further faster I go, the crazier I get and the slower closer I am to my real life and grocery shopping and unloading the dishwasher and loving on people, the better I am. So I'm a slower, closer person.

• 1:06:35Tim Ferriss?

  Dang it.

• 1:06:37Brené Brown?

  Number two.

• 1:06:39Brené Brown?

  Sobriety is a superpower.

• 1:06:41Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:43Brené Brown?

  Yes. I thought it was like a, I never thought it was a pain in the ass. To be honest with you, I have never missed drinking. I've, I would, no, I've missed drinking five or six times in the 23 years I've been sober.

• 1:06:53Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:53Brené Brown?

  And I can't explain it to you, except it's when, when my anxiety, which I can struggle with, is so high that I feel like the only thing that will put it out is something that I shouldn't be using.

• 1:07:10Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:11Brené Brown?

  So, and I've never wanted a drink when I'm in my food zone.

• 1:07:18Tim Ferriss?

  When you're in your food zone?

• 1:07:19Brené Brown?

  Yeah. So my food zone is pretty, like my normal, and I text you about this all the time, so I always want your advice, but um, my food zone is, my food zone, not because it's a thing, but because it's my food zone, is kinda keto-y.

• 1:07:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Brené Brown?

  Yeah. So like, I'm probably insulin resistant from a lot of yo-yo dieting my whole life. And so just that kind of macro of kind of high fat, moderate protein, low carb is my jam. And I just feel good. So.

• 1:07:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Brené Brown?

  I think of my keto prick, and it's binary, which I learned from you. It's like, when I text you, like, should I go slow carb? Or what are you thinking about this? And you're like, the thing about keto that you need to be careful about is the binary nature of it. You're on it or off it.

• 1:08:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. You're either in ketosis or you're not.

• 1:08:03Brené Brown?

  Right. And so for me, that helps me with my, with kind of the food addiction stuff.

• 1:08:10Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:11Brené Brown?

  Cause I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm an abstainer. I'm not a moderator.

• 1:08:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Brené Brown?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:08:14Tim Ferriss?

  I totally understand. I'm the same. I'm very binary.

• 1:08:17Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And so for me, it's great. I just don't eat that stuff. It's not like I negotiate the breadbasket. I just don't eat the breadbasket. And in the big book, they talk about when you work a program.

• 1:08:27Tim Ferriss?

  Can you describe for people what the big book is? Because I had never even heard this term until yesterday.

• 1:08:31Brené Brown?

  Really?

• 1:08:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Brené Brown?

  Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. And I'm not a big, I, I worked at A for the first year, and then for the last 22 years, I worked my own program. It's like got components of A, but it's also got some Buddhist stuff in it, and some kind of daily exam and Catholic stuff in my own thing. I work my own program with some like serious accountability partners, like, but. In the AA big book, they write, "One of the promises of sobriety, if you stay in fit spiritual condition and do your work, is the gift of neutrality, where you're neither running as fast as you can away from the booze or the food, nor are you running away, you're not running for it or away from it. It's neutral."

• 1:09:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Brené Brown?

  And so for me, like the breadbasket now is neutral, the wine, but my sobriety is really a superpower. I would attribute, including my marriage and the fact that I'm proud of how I've raised my kids and my career, to the fact that I'm sober.

• 1:09:25Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:26Brené Brown?

  That when shit gets hard, I stay in it.

• 1:09:30Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:31Brené Brown?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:09:32Tim Ferriss?

  As opposed to trying to

• 1:09:33Brené Brown?

  numb it out.

• 1:09:34Tim Ferriss?

  dull or numb.

• 1:09:35Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Work it out. Work out it out.

• 1:09:38Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:39Brené Brown?

  Drink it out, eat it out. So I've really changed my mind of looking at it from an albatross to, it's kind of a superpower.

• 1:09:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:48Tim Ferriss?

  I like that.

• 1:09:49Brené Brown?

  Bangs. I just got bangs.

• 1:09:50Tim Ferriss?

  Me too.

• 1:09:51Brené Brown?

  You're just so cute. You kind of got the curtain bang. I like it. You've got a really big curtain bang.

• 1:09:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Just bangs. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get implants. Just bangs.

• 1:10:02Brené Brown?

  I'm so, what are their names?

• 1:10:07Tim Ferriss?

  Just forehead curtains.

• 1:10:09Brené Brown?

  What is that? Like the Three Stooges?

• 1:10:11Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, exactly.

• 1:10:12Brené Brown?

  Yeah. I changed my mind about bangs. Usually I only got bangs in my twenties, after I broke up with some asshole. So it'd be like cigarettes, wine coolers and bangs. It was always the answers to that.

• 1:10:25Tim Ferriss?

  That could be, could be, could be the next memoir.

• 1:10:30Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Really. And every woman in the world would be like, "Oh, my God, cigarettes, bangs and a wine cooler."

• 1:10:36Tim Ferriss?

  I'm in.

• 1:10:37Brené Brown?

  "Some asshole just broke up with her."

• 1:10:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I'll buy 10 copies.

• 1:10:40Brené Brown?

  Yeah. If you, because my last one, I've got six, but I'm gonna just share four, five. Okay. I've, one thing I've changed my mind about, this is what goes back to our earlier conversation. If you can't do it 100%, don't bother.

• 1:10:52Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:53Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Like, I was like, I'm not going to like, cook every meal at night until I can do this class I really want to do at the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, you know? And now I'm like, you know what? My kind of pretty good fish tacos is still a family meal where we're sitting down saying grace together and, you know, like, it's good enough.

• 1:11:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, I see. So it used to be, the mantra used to be a hundred percent or not at all?

• 1:11:16Brené Brown?

  Yeah. I'm not going to work out until my schedule opens up for me to work out every day at five o'clock.

• 1:11:20Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right.

• 1:11:21Brené Brown?

  But my schedule will never do that.

• 1:11:22Tim Ferriss?

  Will never do that.

• 1:11:23Brené Brown?

  Yeah, so like, I'm doing like, my little bands and my stuff on my phone at my house or whatever, like, like, yeah, the hundred perfectionism is not only a defense mechanism, it's the worst procrastination tool in the whole world.

• 1:11:33Tim Ferriss?

  It's a great avoidance tool.

• 1:11:34Brené Brown?

  It's avoidance. Just real quickly, I will say, sleep, I've changed my mind about sleep. Like, why exercise? Eat well. Any of that stuff, if you're not sleeping.

• 1:11:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:45Brené Brown?

  Sleep is like, the best, isn't it?

• 1:11:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Brené Brown?

  But no one, no one in your thirties or twenties will believe you. And functional medicine, I've changed my mind about that. Okay, five absurd stupid things?

• 1:11:55Tim Ferriss?

  Let's do it.

• 1:11:56Brené Brown?

  Do you want to do that last?

• 1:11:57Tim Ferriss?

  I'd say, uh, no, let's, let's do the, let's do the absurd stupid stuff and then we'll go to exciting.

• 1:12:04Brené Brown?

  Okay. So this was so interesting for me, because I, as a qualitative researcher, really found a thematic analysis here. I've got some kind of unprocessed, um, problem with the British.

• 1:12:15Tim Ferriss?

  The British?

• 1:12:16Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:16Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:12:17Brené Brown?

  But, okay, so, five absurd stupid fun things I do. I wa, on movie night, I give myself a movie night, because I love movies.

• 1:12:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:12:25Brené Brown?

  I only watch movie trailers.

• 1:12:27Tim Ferriss?

  Huh.

• 1:12:28Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:28Tim Ferriss?

  Wild.

• 1:12:29Brené Brown?

  I watch like, twenty movie trailers. I'm, don't.

• 1:12:31Tim Ferriss?

  Do you do it on?

• 1:12:31Brené Brown?

  Y'all are judgy over there.

• 1:12:32Tim Ferriss?

  Do you do it on YouTube? Or how do you find the trailers?

• 1:12:34Brené Brown?

  Apple trailers.

• 1:12:35Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:12:36Brené Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, and it's like, the happiest place, like, ever. It's my, it's my, it's like, I probably, imminent light. Like, okay, so I watch movie trailers on movie night. It's so, it's, you get the whole emotional rush.

• 1:12:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:52Brené Brown?

  And narrative.

• 1:12:53Tim Ferriss?

  Without the ninety minutes.

• 1:12:54Brené Brown?

  Yeah. I, this is a stupid thing I do, I really am a bad trash talker and super competitive. So whether it's like ping pong, or we play a lot of family four square.

• 1:13:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05Brené Brown?

  Car, I play a lot of cards. I'm like, a shit talker.

• 1:13:08Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 1:13:09Brené Brown?

  Yeah, terrible shit talker.

• 1:13:10Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I can see it, I can see it.

• 1:13:11Brené Brown?

  Oh my god, yes, you can see it.

• 1:13:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I can see it.

• 1:13:13Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:15Brené Brown?

  This is a confession. Um, okay. So I'm obsessed with Rick Beato videos on YouTube.

• 1:13:21Tim Ferriss?

  Wait, who's this?

• 1:13:22Brené Brown?

  Rick Beato.

• 1:13:23Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know who that is.

• 1:13:23Brené Brown?

  He's a music producer. And so he does like the best countdowns. He does these great countdowns. So the 20 best acoustical intros to rock songs and he's my age. And so like, yeah, the 20 best vocal, like, I really took a problem with it. Like, I took, like, he's a Beatles fan. So there's a lot of shit ton of Beatles in there. But, um, so like, let's just do this. Three best vocal. I'm a big music person and a big rock and roll person and Texas music person.

• 1:13:50Tim Ferriss?

  I'm about to get very much.

• 1:13:52Brené Brown?

  You're gonna get.

• 1:13:52Tim Ferriss?

  Trumped. I mean, yeah, I'm gonna get schooled here. Okay.

• 1:13:55Brené Brown?

  So I thought there would be only one song that could be the number one vocal introduction to a song. What would your guess would be? You're thinking about harmony.

• 1:14:06Tim Ferriss?

  Harmony. I'm already out of my depth here.

• 1:14:09Brené Brown?

  Kansas.

• 1:14:09Tim Ferriss?

  Kansas. Okay.

• 1:14:10Brené Brown?

  Carry on.

• 1:14:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I was thinking Whitney Houston from the Bodyguard soundtrack, but.

• 1:14:16Brené Brown?

  Lord have mercy.

• 1:14:17Tim Ferriss?

  I know.

• 1:14:19Brené Brown?

  Okay, we're gonna, um.

• 1:14:20Tim Ferriss?

  I love you, Whitney.

• 1:14:22Brené Brown?

  I love you, Whitney, too. But this is Austin, Texas.

• 1:14:24Tim Ferriss?

  I know.

• 1:14:24Brené Brown?

  And I'm gonna take you out one night and we're gonna watch some Rick Beato videos.

• 1:14:27Tim Ferriss?

  I'm ready.

• 1:14:28Brené Brown?

  Okay. Yeah. So it was, he did Queen Bohemian Rhapsody, which I think good. Kansas was three. Paperback Rider from the Beatles was two. I just take exception. So I watch all those. Best acoustical guitar intro. All that's all of like the seventies.

• 1:14:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Brené Brown?

  Like Jim Croce and stuff. Best electric guitar. I still have some issues with some of his, but I walk, watch a lot of rock Beato, Rick Beato videos. Okay.

• 1:14:50Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, wow. Paper goes down.

• 1:14:51Brené Brown?

  I'm gonna change your life.

• 1:14:52Tim Ferriss?

  You're, I'm ready.

• 1:14:53Brené Brown?

  Okay. I watch a lot of British crime procedurals.

• 1:14:56Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm. All right.

• 1:14:57Brené Brown?

  Okay, like, yeah.

• 1:14:59Tim Ferriss?

  Crime procedural.

• 1:15:00Brené Brown?

  Like, you know, like a, you know, like Law and Order, but British.

• 1:15:02Tim Ferriss?

  Uh huh. Yes.

• 1:15:03Brené Brown?

  I watch like a ton.

• 1:15:06Tim Ferriss?

  A ton.

• 1:15:06Brené Brown?

  Yes. Gogglebox.

• 1:15:08Tim Ferriss?

  Goggle.

• 1:15:09Brené Brown?

  Have you watched this?

• 1:15:10Tim Ferriss?

  No, I've never heard of it.

• 1:15:11Brené Brown?

  Okay. It's, I think it's all over like, uh, different countries now, but I watched the UK Gogglebox. It's where you watch people watching television.

• 1:15:20Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it's like response videos. So you get to see how they respond.

• 1:15:24Brené Brown?

  And they, and you, you fall in love with these families. Someone's obsessed with British crime procedurals and Gogglebox.

• 1:15:29Tim Ferriss?

  Gogglebox.

• 1:15:30Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:15:30Tim Ferriss?

  Also sounds like a near future dystopian technological, like Terminator kind of thriller.

• 1:15:37Brené Brown?

  It does, but it's better.

• 1:15:38Tim Ferriss?

  Gogglebox.

• 1:15:38Brené Brown?

  There's no action at all.

• 1:15:41Brené Brown?

  It's just like these like kind of normally, normal, ordinary British families going, "Oi." I mean, and you're like, I just laugh really hard. And then TikTok. I've spent a lot of time watching TikTok.

• 1:15:53Tim Ferriss?

  Really? Oh, yeah. I do get sent. TikTok for me, I, it's kind of like, I feel like someone's peeking around a corner late at night going, "Hey, heroin, $10." And I'm just like, I can't, I'm afraid to go on TikTok because I, I can understand why I would get hooked.

• 1:16:13Brené Brown?

  You have to, on my Instagram, I just put my favorite TikTok.

• 1:16:16Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 1:16:16Brené Brown?

  All right, let me do it with you. Let me ask this question.

• 1:16:21Brené Brown?

  Would you rather eat?

• 1:16:22Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:16:23Brené Brown?

  A baby goat? Or a matter baby?

• 1:16:27Tim Ferriss?

  Or a?

• 1:16:27Brené Brown?

  Matter baby.

• 1:16:28Tim Ferriss?

  What's a matter baby?

• 1:16:30Brené Brown?

  Nothing's a matter. What's wrong with you?

• 1:16:32Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my God. Is that from TikTok?

• 1:16:38Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that is good. I get it. That is good. That is good.

• 1:16:42Brené Brown?

  My kids say that I'm...

• 1:16:46Tim Ferriss?

  You got me. Hook, line, and sinker. Yeah, that was easy.

• 1:16:47Brené Brown?

  Can you please promise me, like, pinky swear right now, with your pinky, that you will put a link to this specific matter baby from TikTok on my, on my episode?

• 1:16:56Tim Ferriss?

  Confirmed. Matter baby is in.

• 1:16:57Brené Brown?

  Because this is like this Irish guy and his dad. He's like, "Matter baby." Okay.

• 1:17:03Tim Ferriss?

  For fuck's sake, Teddy. For fuck's sake, matter baby.

• 1:17:07Brené Brown?

  They say that more than I do.

• 1:17:08Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I guess.

• 1:17:09Brené Brown?

  They're good. The Irish are good.

• 1:17:10Tim Ferriss?

  Undervalued phrase.

• 1:17:12Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 1:17:13Tim Ferriss?

  That was excellent. So excited about.

• 1:17:16Brené Brown?

  Okay. Excited about two big things for 2020. One is that I am taking a visiting professorship at Texas McCombs at UT.

• 1:17:28Tim Ferriss?

  Whoa.

• 1:17:28Brené Brown?

  University of Texas, Austin. Yeah, hook 'em.

• 1:17:30Tim Ferriss?

  High five. That's amazing.

• 1:17:31Brené Brown?

  So I'm gonna do, be there for a year, and I'm bringing Dare to Lead to UT Texas McCombs. And so we're gonna do our trainings out of the University of Texas, more research, develop some cloud-based tools for organizations to use. It's really exciting.

• 1:17:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Go ATX.

• 1:17:46Brené Brown?

  Go ATX and UT.

• 1:17:47Tim Ferriss?

  I know. Amazing.

• 1:17:50Brené Brown?

  Podcast, the new podcast is starting. I'm really excited.

• 1:17:54Brené Brown?

  Um.

• 1:17:55Tim Ferriss?

  What is the name of your podcast?

• 1:17:56Brené Brown?

  Unlocking Us.

• 1:17:57Tim Ferriss?

  Great title.

• 1:17:58Brené Brown?

  Very much. Thank you very much. What we were talking about, right? Um, super excited about less travel because I feel like the podcast may be a way for me to do that. Um, that will eat you up.

• 1:18:09Tim Ferriss?

  Travel.

• 1:18:09Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. I'm so excited to be parking here in Austin for a few months straight. I'm thrilled about it. And I look back at, say, my twenties, when all I wanted to do was travel.

• 1:18:20Brené Brown?

  Me too.

• 1:18:21Tim Ferriss?

  And after a while, you're like, oh, I feel like George Clooney in that movie Up in the Air.

• 1:18:28Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:18:28Tim Ferriss?

  I'm beginning to feel like I'm never quite unpacking and I don't like this feeling.

• 1:18:35Brené Brown?

  No.

• 1:18:35Tim Ferriss?

  And there, there's a lot to be said for seeing new places and so on. But man, do I love the sort of energetic conservation of just having a nice routine.

• 1:18:44Brené Brown?

  But don't you think routine will set you free?

• 1:18:46Tim Ferriss?

  I do. Absolutely.

• 1:18:47Brené Brown?

  I do too. Like, yeah. So I'm excited about a new work thing that we're doing where 30% is leading my team and my organization. 70% is white space creative time.

• 1:18:57Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm. Wow.

• 1:18:58Brené Brown?

  We'll see if we can make it happen, but we're.

• 1:18:59Tim Ferriss?

  That's great.

• 1:19:00Brené Brown?

  It's a big.

• 1:19:00Tim Ferriss?

  That's a big percentage.

• 1:19:01Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Tim Ferriss?

  What are you hoping to add, to do with that 70%? Or do you have any idea what types of?

• 1:19:06Brené Brown?

  I'm working on new research.

• 1:19:07Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:08Brené Brown?

  Big research. And so it's hard research on, um, human experience. And so I, I love that. Like my happy place is like alone with my data. Like that's.

• 1:19:20Tim Ferriss?

  Curled up watching, curled up with your data.

• 1:19:22Brené Brown?

  Yeah, like snuggling with my data.

• 1:19:23Tim Ferriss?

  Watching movie trailers.

• 1:19:24Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And TikTok on the side. Yeah.

• 1:19:28Brené Brown?

  Um, I'm going to do one more TikTok to you.

• 1:19:33Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I'm ready. I'm ready for it.

• 1:19:35Brené Brown?

  It's gonna be fun. Okay. Um, I'm going to work on a new book. I'm going to write more. I'm going to think about, I mean, the podcast is going to take a lot of creative white space for me because I want to be really thoughtful.

• 1:19:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:49Brené Brown?

  I feel like you're really thoughtful, like you think through what you want to talk to people about. And I want to do like, we have our discernment lens for the podcast for success for us is contribution. And so if at any point I feel like a book will not make a contribution, I pull it back. If at any point I feel like this is just contributing to all the bullshit and the noise, I'm going to pull it back. So I think in order to meet that discernment goal of contribution, I have to be really thoughtful. And I think that's going to take creative space.

• 1:20:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think I think you'll do great. I also think you have a you have an attunement to other people's emotional states that elicits a lot of very vulnerable truths. And I think if you have that, you're set. As far as contribution, I think that checks the box. There's some of that. Certainly, there are a million plus podcasts. There's some of that out there, but to get it consistently, I think, is still quite difficult.

• 1:20:46Brené Brown?

  I think it is hard.

• 1:20:46Tim Ferriss?

  As an audio listener, if you're looking for those raw moments of truth and messiness within which you can find and learn so much, I think you are very gifted at doing that. So if you do that consistently, I think you're in good shape.

• 1:21:00Brené Brown?

  Thanks. I'll come to you for mentoring. I will.

• 1:21:03Tim Ferriss?

  I will make no claims to have good answers, but I can I can certainly make up some answers and do my best. Well, I'm so happy that you're going to be spending more time here in Austin.

• 1:21:12Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:21:12Tim Ferriss?

  How exciting.

• 1:21:13Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Tim Ferriss?

  And where can people learn all about your latest interests, including TikTok, your latest projects? Where can people best find you?

• 1:21:24Brené Brown?

  Brené Brown dot com.

• 1:21:26Tim Ferriss?

  All of the things.

• 1:21:27Brené Brown?

  All the things.

• 1:21:28Tim Ferriss?

  Brené Brown dot com. So nice to see you again.

• 1:21:31Brené Brown?

  It's so nice to see you too. It was so fun.

• 1:21:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So to be continued.

• 1:21:34Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Oh, yes. To be continued.

• 1:21:37Tim Ferriss?

  And for everybody who's watching or listening, you can find show notes, links to everything we've talked about, including the promised TikTok videos in the show notes at timdublog forward slash podcast. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half-page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of

• 1:22:19Tim Ferriss?

  cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is one of my favorite companies out

• 1:23:03Tim Ferriss?

  there, one of my favorite platforms ever. And let's get into it. Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone to sell anything, anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. So what does that mean? That means in no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas, products, and so on to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day business and drive sales. This is all possible without any coding or design experience whatsoever. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods. Shopify has thousands of integrations and third-party apps, from on-demand printing to accounting to advanced chatbots, anything you can imagine. They probably have a way

• 1:23:45Tim Ferriss?

  to plug and play and make it happen. Shopify is what I wish I had had when I was venturing into e-commerce way back in the early 2000s. What they've done is pretty remarkable. I first met the founder, Toby, in 2008, when I became an advisor, and it's been I've loved watching Shopify go from roughly 10 to 15 employees at the time to 7,000 plus today. Serving customers in 175 countries with total sales on the platform exceeding $400 billion. They power millions of entrepreneurs from their first sale all the way to full scale. And you would recognize a lot of large companies that also use them who started small. So get started by building and customizing your online store again with no coding or design experience required.

• 1:24:28Tim Ferriss?

  Access powerful tools to help you find customers, drive sales and manage your day to day. Gain knowledge and confidence with extensive resources to help you succeed. And I've actually been involved with some of that way back in the day, which was awesome. The build a business competition and other things. Plus with 24/7 support, you're never alone. And let's face it, being an entrepreneur can be lonely, but you have support. You have resources. You don't need to feel alone in this case. More than a store, Shopify grows with you and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a $1 per month trial period. It is a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out.

• 1:25:13Tim Ferriss?

  Take your business to the next level today and learn more by visiting Shopify.com/Tim. One more time, Shopify.com/Tim, all lowercase. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all of that ad nauseam. But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device that was recommended to me by friends called the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep. The Pod Cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment, providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep.

• 1:25:57Tim Ferriss?

  With the Pod Cover's dual zone temperature control, you and your partner can set your sides of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees. I think generally in my experience, my partner Prefer the high side and I like to sleep. Very, very cool. So stop fighting. This helps. Based on your biometrics, environment and sleep stages, the pod cover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wake-ups and increase your percentage of deep sleep. In addition to its best-in-class temperature regulation, the pod cover sensors also track your health and sleep metrics without the need to use a wearable. So go to eightsleep.com/tim, all spelled out, eightsleep.com/tim and save $250 on the eightsleep pod cover. That's eightsleep.com/tim.

• 1:26:41Tim Ferriss?

  Eightsleep currently ships within the US, Canada and the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's eightsleep.com/tim to save $250 on the eightsleep pod cover.