Ep 34: Ramit Sethi (Part 2) on Persuasion, Negotiation, and Turning a Blog Into a Multi-Million-Dollar Business

This is Part 2 of a two-part interview. Ramit Sethi built his personal finance blog up to 500,000+ readers per month (http://www.ramitsethi.com), and has since turned it into a revenue generating monster. I don't use that phrasing lightly. In this episode, we dig into the nitty-gritty tools, software, and experiments he's used to turn a college side project into a multi-million-dollar business with 30+ employees. This episode is brought to you by The Tim Ferriss Book Club. See the 4-6 books (and free samples of all) at http://www.audible.com/timsbooks Also, would you like to join me and Richard Branson for a week of mentorship on his private island? Take a look at this: http://www.shopify.com/tim

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

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is Tim Ferriss. What you're about to hear is part two of a two-part conversation with Ramit Sethi. He is an entrepreneur. He's tried venture-backed. Now, he's going self-funded, bootstrapped. He is a behavioral change and persuasion expert and also a very good friend of mine. If you didn't catch the first part, you might want to do that before venturing in. If you don't mind, your stories is more of a jigsaw puzzle, then by all means, keep on listening. And we tend to bounce around quite a lot, so I think that you could almost listen to them in reverse order and still get a lot out of it. But for the background context and so on, part one has a lot of that. This episode is brought to you by the Tim Ferriss Book Club, a handful of books that have had a huge impact on my life.

• 0:43Tim Ferriss?

  And keep in mind that I read three to four books a week on average. So, these are four to six that have really made a huge difference. Check them out at audible.com/timsbooks, audible.com/timsbooks. And if you would like to join me, Richard Branson, Seth Godin, and some other amazing folks—I'm not calling myself amazing, but those people are amazing—on Necker Island, which is Richard Branson's private island, for a week of mentorship, it's gonna be amazing. Check out shopify.com/tim. That's Shopify, S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com forward slash Tim. And now, without further ado, please enjoy part two, the final part, of The Tim Ferriss Show with Ramit Sethi.

• 1:25Ramit Sethi?

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

• 1:33Tim Ferriss?

  Now, what is seen in a perfect time?

• 1:36Speaker 02

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

• 1:41Speaker 03

  The Tim Ferriss Show.

• 1:47Tim Ferriss?

  Now, so the revenue per email. I'm your quintessential case of reticence to monetize, right? And of course, I've been ridiculed for years by many friends because of this, which is fine. My general approach to date has been... It's either free, or it's really, really high-end and very expensive. And I think a good example of that was OTK, Opening the Kamono, that event that I said was going to be one time, and at least to date, it has only been one time. And it was, depending on when people signed up, it was between $7,500 and $10,000 a seat. And it sold out from one blog post. And I remember I was talking to someone about event management, somebody who does this for

• 2:31Tim Ferriss?

  a living, someone who's putting on events once a quarter, making a lot of money from the events, or so I thought. And I asked her at one point, what she would do to fill an event with between 120 and 200 people at this given price point. She said, "Well, you're going to have to hire a full-time person to do the following 12 things. You're probably going to have to pay for the following type of marketing and outbound and this and that and the other thing." And all it took was one blog post. And now, the way that I explain that is that I've given away so much free content and value, hundreds of books' worth of content on the blog, that I've established a level of trust with my audience, so that when I finally offer something for sale, they understand and assume

• 3:16Tim Ferriss?

  I've given it a lot of thought, which is true. Do you think that's a foolish approach?

• 3:20Ramit Sethi?

  No, I think it's great. I mean, I give away 98% of my material for free. And then, for many of my flagship courses, they're extremely expensive. In fact, 10 to 100 times what my competitors charge. So, I love the idea. In fact, I'll even take it one step further. You know, a lot of times, people, they would come to me and say, like, "That's ridiculous. Maybe if it were $30." And I just smiled, because I don't play in the $30 sandbox. I don't want to play there. I'd rather give it to you for free than play in the $30 sandbox. And I think it's very important, when you think about pricing and positioning... It's very important to think, what does this mean for you? It's the same reason where if you go to the farmer's market and you see a guy selling a t-shirt,

• 4:05Ramit Sethi?

  you know, he's selling it for 25 bucks and you go in there and say, "I'll give you, I'll give you $3." Look, the guy's probably still making a profit on $3, but why is he gonna laugh you out of his store and just turn his back on you? Why? Because he doesn't wanna play in the $3 sandbox and he would rather just say a blanket "no" than even make a small amount of revenue. So, I really love the idea of giveaway as much as you can for free, but don't be afraid to aggressively sell. We are unapologetic about how aggressive we are because we've done the testing and we know that it works. So, we sell at high price points and we sell, you know, when we sell. And, um, I mean, I could share stories of how we've done that and all that stuff, but I, I think you should be unapologetic about that.

• 4:50Tim Ferriss?

  And, um, so, so let's take, take a real case then. Something that I've been considering, but I've been very hesitant about. And I've been considering this for a long time. I know that you're probably kinda laughing to yourself because every time we meet up, I'm like, "You know, I've been thinking about this thing and ah, God." And it's just like, "Jesus Christ." I mean, stop thinking about it and either do it or do not. I mean, it's a very, uh, it's very sensitive ground for me. So, I've considered doing a course, but even that term, I get kinda antsy around. I've been considering trying to do an experiment whereby I try to take the adherence rate with say, the four-hour body and slow carb diet and so on, which is very high. We've tracked it against multiple other diets. We've done randomized testing and longitudinal studies looking at basically out of every hundred people,

• 5:35Tim Ferriss?

  how many fail and quit on different diets. And the slow carb diet has a very, very high adherence rate. And of course, the good program you follow is better than the perfect program that you quit. So, looking at the behavioral science side of things, a fantasy of mine is to take, let's just say, this is an arbitrary number, but 1,000 to 2,000 people and try to experiment on those people and charge them for it, but in a sort of a tight-knit, private community with a bunch of stuff, to try to get that number as high as possible. The sort of, the adherence and conversion rate as high as possible. For, I don't know, probably a four to eight week period. If I were to do something like that, and if you think there's a better idea, I'd love to hear it.

• 6:15Tim Ferriss?

  But if I were to do something like that, how would you suggest I approach it in a way that I don't get lumped in? Because we both know there are a lot of folks out there who are just like super scammy folks in the kind of internet marketing world. How can I avoid getting lumped into that? Because I feel like that would do more damage to me than any revenue to be derived from such a product. What are your thoughts there?

• 6:42Ramit Sethi?

  This is something I struggle with myself because I don't want to be lumped. I mean, the name on my site is I Will Teach You To Be Rich. And I mean, and then I have online video courses, you know, that range anywhere from a couple hundred bucks to $12,000 for some high end stuff. How do I prevent myself from being one of those guys with, you know, two thumbs up in front of a jet that's actually rented? Being towed away as we speak, you know?

• 7:07Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, Wolf of Wall Street style.

• 7:09Ramit Sethi?

  I've seen the dark side of this industry and it is simultaneously disgusting and hilarious. I mean, the stories I could tell you are unbelievable. So how do you do that? How do you maintain your integrity and still sell? And I think there's a few things that that I learned. Number one is you're in total control. So a lot of people said, I don't want to write long form copy. Or I don't want to have to write those sales letters that have the yellow highlighting in it. And my answer was, you don't have to do that. You can do whatever you want. There's a reason people do that. I think it's worth learning, but you don't have to do that. The next thing is you can choose who you allow to join your material. So I make it, when I first started, I was like the classic novice seller where I was like, hey, guys, here's 10 reasons that you should join. Please, please, please join.

• 7:54Ramit Sethi?

  It'll be so great. Come on, we'll be friends. And nobody wants to go to a party where someone's begging you to come.

• 8:00Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 8:00Ramit Sethi?

  In a recent, in a recent launch we did, over 1 million people saw our launch. And we had fewer than five complaints about price. Not 5%, but five. And this was a very high priced product. Why? Because I'm very selective about who I allow. I'll give you an example. I always wanted to run a business my way, not just appealing to anyone. So one of the things I do is I prohibit anyone with credit card debt from joining my flagship courses.

• 8:28Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, now, this is, this is an interesting point. I was gonna ask this earlier. How do you, sort of mechanistically or process-wise, how do you do that? Because this is a super important point.

• 8:37Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, so this, let me tell you about the decision, then I'll tell you what happens.

• 8:40Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 8:41Ramit Sethi?

  So, there's a well-known sushi restaurant in San Francisco, and it always has a line out the door. And if you're not there by 7:30, you're not getting in. And when I finally got in for the first time, you know, I'm like looking around like a weirdo. I always want to optimize stuff. And they've got like so much empty space in the restaurant. First thing I do, I don't sit down and look at the sushi. I'm like, if they added four tables, they could increase revenue 25%. Because I'm a nutcase. And what I realized was, they just don't care. They don't, revenue is not their primary goal. They want to run the business the way they want. And I love that.

• 9:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 9:13Ramit Sethi?

  I love that I can run a business and tell people who I don't want, "You're not right for this material." Right? And so I reframed it in my mind from begging people to, "Look, I would love to serve the right people, but I'm not looking for everyone, I'm just looking for the right people." So, the decision to not allow people with credit card debt to join my flagship program, that, that cost me over $2 million a year. But I think it's the right thing to do. Ethically, I don't think that they would be buying it if they knew what was best. And also, I've always told them, "Use my free material, pay off your debt, come back, I'll still be here. I've been here 10 years, I'll be here for the next 20." So, we use a combination of carrot and stick. Carrot, I explain to them why. Right? I don't need an extra $1,000. It's not going to make a difference to my lifestyle.

• 9:58Ramit Sethi?

  But it would be great for them to take that money and put it towards their debt. And I explain why in the context and why I'm doing this and all that stuff. The stick is if they join anyway and I find out, not only will I refund their money, but I will ban them for life. And to my knowledge, no one else does this. But it's important to me. And I, you know, I always wanted to run a business the way I wanted to. So, once we did that, we saw a very, very dramatic shift in the type of customers that were joining my programs. I mean, it trickles down to every part of the organization. We have higher open rates, higher adherence rates, better customer service emails. And, you know, when people hear it the first time, they're like, "What?"

• 10:42Ramit Sethi?

  It's a very un-American thing to be told you can't buy. But for my needs, and ultimately, I think for theirs, I think I'm doing it out of service to them. They shouldn't be buying my course. They should be paying off that debt and then coming back.

• 10:55Tim Ferriss?

  How do you find out? How many people are on that banned list, roughly?

• 10:59Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, a lot, a lot. It's called DNS Do Not Sell. I take great pleasure in adding people to that list. Because, like, I gave you a chance. You disobeyed my rules, and now I'm sorry. You don't get to join anymore.

• 11:11Tim Ferriss?

  How do you decipher that they have gone, they have actually gone into debt to purchase the product? Is it because they stopped paying on multiple payment plans?

• 11:20Ramit Sethi?

  There's a few ways. There's a couple that I won't mention publicly. But I will tell you that of the people who ask for a refund, because all of my courses, you know, I'm so confident about them. You can take the entire course and ask for a refund. But we believe that most people do the right thing. If they get value out of the course, they stick with it, and that's why we've been able to grow and continue getting people to join. Fully 40% of those people who refund do it because they have a debt problem.

• 11:49Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:50Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, so those people are banned forever.

• 11:52Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think of an approach, just to avoid that? Because that's one of my nightmare scenarios, is someone going beyond their means and digging an even deeper hole for themselves by going into debt for something that they really shouldn't be, given their financial position, spending money on. For OTK, I mean, I had, I had a...

• 12:14Tim Ferriss?

  I had an application process and we turned away a lot of people, but it really dug into the finances and it would ask questions like, "Do you have at least $50,000 in savings in the bank?" Because this was a product, keep in mind, that was an event that was $10,000 for some folks. And secondly, we did not take any credit cards. So you had to wire the money. And with the combination of those two approaches, a number of things came to light. Number one, you have to have the money to wire it. So there's that. Secondly, if people said, "No, I don't have X amount of savings," then we would politely tell them that we didn't want them to come to the event because it would put too much of a strain on their finances. And we asked questions like, "Would you feel a high degree of pressure?

• 12:58Tim Ferriss?

  Would you feel a lot of pressure to make the price of this event back in the subsequent six months?"

• 13:06Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Tim Ferriss?

  And if they answered yes, then nine times out of 10, they were out. The other thing that did, for an event at least, and maybe this doesn't apply to online, but I suspect that it does because people are even more of a pain in the ass when it's virtual. If people got really uppity in their responses, I remember one guy said, "Yes, I have plenty of money. If you and your financial nanny want to see my jet on the tarmac when I come, you're welcome to check it out." And I was like, "Thank God for that dick response because now you are not going to be able to behave that way at the event. Goodbye." And that was the end of that guy. But is there a way that you would improve upon that process? Or what do you think of taking that approach?

• 13:45Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I love it. And I still remember to this day, and I really admire you for doing that because so few people will. And ironically, when you stop chasing the raw dollars and you start chasing something a little bit more meaningful than that, like in your case, you wanted to get the right audience. In our case, we want the exact same thing. We want true behavioral change. Then ironically, you'll have more money than you ever know what to do with. I think that's a great approach. I do think that when we first instituted this, I had a lot of angry people telling me, "Who are you to tell me what I can spend my money on, blah, blah, blah." And one of the things I learned is if a lot of people are telling you something, like I'm happy to blame one person if They're really rude to me, but if twenty people are rude to me, it's probably my fault.

• 14:26Ramit Sethi?

  So I looked at the copy and I simply hadn't explained why they couldn't join. I just said like, "Credit card debt is bad, blah." And understandably, people got upset. So I learned how to refine the message. It took us about six months and those questions have vanished. They just went away. So I love the application, especially for something expensive. If it's like a hundred bucks, I probably wouldn't, wouldn't do something like that. I would just tell them the rules. But I think it's for anyone listening, whether you're starting a business, whether you have children, whatever it is you're doing, people want boundaries. We want boundaries and it takes a very high status person to be able to say, "This is what I'm looking for and this is what I'm going to put up with."

• 15:11Ramit Sethi?

  And if that's not right for you, that's okay. Maybe we're not right for each other. And I think you become so much more appealing once you do that.

• 15:19Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think you need, I think human beings, and certainly speaking for myself, need constraints to be productive or even happy for that matter. And I think the Checklist Manifesto is a great example of that. You, you do not want to have infinite options for every action. And by creating constraints, whether it's for writing, whether it's for art, I think you can dramatically improve your creative output and your, your general sense of satisfaction. When you, when you very artfully and strategically create constraints for yourself. And I think of things like the Pomodoro Technique, for instance, you know, twenty-three minutes on with, with a break afterwards, provides structures within which you can be more effective than if you're willy-nilly, uh, in a very vague sense, trying to, you know, quote, "be productive."

• 16:03Tim Ferriss?

  Just to shift gears somewhat completely, you, you mentioned something earlier that I've never really asked you about, or came, brought a question to mind. You mentioned that people have said, "Do you go back to India?" And needless to say, I, I, I've never received, even though I'm of Danish descent and I'm of European mud, I don't get, go back to Denmark very much. How does race factor into your life at all, if it does? I'm curious.

• 16:28Ramit Sethi?

  This is a good question. We haven't talked about this before.

• 16:31Tim Ferriss?

  No.

• 16:31Ramit Sethi?

  Very interesting. So I think it affects a lot of the ways I think about things. You know, I was raised with two immigrant parents and from India, pretty traditional household. Uh, my mom stayed home with four kids. My dad went to work. And, you know, we went to temple pretty frequently, things like that. I have a certain outlook on life, thanks to my parents and my family. Like, a few things. One is, like, being very honest about stuff. Like, Indian people, or pretty much anyone except for in America. If you're overweight and you get off the plane, the first thing they're gonna say is, "Wow, you got fat." It's like, point blank. And the truth is, you did get fat. So, that brutal honesty, you know, the first couple of times you hear it, you're a little sensitive.

• 17:15Ramit Sethi?

  But at this point, you know, you can't change a culture. Not overnight, and not one person. And so, I appreciate that honesty, and you'll find that a lot in my material. It's like, "Look, let's just call it for what, let's call it out, and let's call it what it is." And I'm not saying that I'm going around to people saying, "You're fat." I'm saying that if you can't afford something, let's just talk about that and be honest about it. Or, conversely, if you want a thousand-dollar jacket or a pair of shoes, and you can afford it, awesome! Who cares what people think? Let me show you how to get it. I think that played a role, you know, I learned how to negotiate from like, a young age. My mom was taking me to like Macy's and showing you how to negotiate there. I'm not kidding. It's awesome.

• 17:56Tim Ferriss?

  Macy's, that's great. Yeah, but most people would assume that that, that just would not work, if you go to a big box.

• 18:01Ramit Sethi?

  My mom still negotiates there, to this day. She would go, she would be like, "Uh, don't talk to that lady, she's too experienced, you can tell. Go look at that one, she looks new. Go try it with her." I'm like, "Alright." So I learned that. And then, you know, just in general, I think a lot of ideas about service, and, uh, you know, wanting to give back. And I think probably some of the most popular things I write on my site are about the crazy things my mom and dad do. You know, because they're Indian, like, you know, my, for example, my mom trying to set me up with everyone. My dad, who took my resume, which I was trying to get an internship in college. He took my resume and changed my major to computer science. He literally changed it. I'm like, "Dad, I'm not in computer science."

• 18:44Ramit Sethi?

  And then he just didn't respond. I'm like, "Legit."

• 18:50Tim Ferriss?

  That is, that is really funny. So I remember a post that was put up on the blog some time ago, it was a guest post, called "How to Negotiate Like an Indian." And we've kind of talked about some of this stuff, just culturally, there are definitely some differences and some patterns you can spot, right, in certain cultures. Just like you mentioned, being called out as fat. I mean, as it turns out, pretty much in any non-English speaking or non-natively English-speaking country that I've been to, that is the case, right? You go to China and they're like, "Xiao Pang zuo, ni pang la." And they're like, they'll just point blank, I mean, especially the Chinese.

• 19:32Tim Ferriss?

  Or you go to, you know, you're fat and you go to South America, man, if they think you're kind of on the same team, meaning you look slightly Latin, like, you're gonna be like, gordita, gordita, you know, you're gonna be called fat, it's just that's gonna be your nickname in a lot of cases. But when this post went up, I had a lot of people come out of the woodwork and they're like, "That's racist." And the fact of the matter is, it was a very complimentary post, right? And if you look at the stats, at least last time I checked it out, in the case of Indians, you know, founded more engineering and tech companies in the US from like 97 to 2007 than immigrants from like Britain, Taiwan, China, Japan combined. I've been really impressed with, say, TIE, for the organization in Silicon Valley, the Indus Entrepreneur, which is just amazing.

• 20:14Tim Ferriss?

  How do people respond to your commentary on, sort of, I mean, you're Indians, of course, you have sort of license to talk about growing up Indian and all these cultural idiosyncrasies, but do you get a lot of flack for it, or do you not? And I'm curious why or why not?

• 20:28Ramit Sethi?

  That's a great question, and no, not really. I get it only from journalists who are, in a way, trying to stir things up, asking like, "Oh, is this, is this an issue for you?" And the answer is no. People get it. So let me give you some examples of things that I talk about as an Indian person. I talk about negotiating like an Indian. I talk about how, when I would go to buy a car, when my dad would go to buy a car for our family, most people walk in and walk out, we spent three days there. We would eat, I'm not joking, we would eat breakfast at the dealership, we would negotiate all day, then my dad would say, "This is too much, we're going home." And we would leave, and then we'd go back the next day. It's not a joke. And in fact, speaking of like Indian terms, here's a really funny one.

• 21:13Ramit Sethi?

  If you Google "how to raise a financial wizard," The New York Times did a article and they have my parents' picture right there. Take a look at the URL. The URL was originally "How to Raise a Financial Guru", but they thought it would be too offensive. So the URL persists, "How to Change a Financial Guru", but they changed the title to "How to Raise a Financial Wizard". My take is, look, I'm not gonna comment on race relations or anything like that. I think that the Indian community is amazingly strong. I joke about being Asian sometimes. I have a site, a side site called yoursurrogateasianfather.com.

• 21:57Ramit Sethi?

  You haven't seen that before. I've never publicly mentioned it. But I tell people, like as a joke, "Look, I am your surrogate Asian father", and what I mean by that is, we all want someone who will tell it to us straight. Who will tell us when, "You know what? You did a good job, but I don't think you did your best", or "That was amazing and we should celebrate". Actually, no Asian father would ever say that last part. They would only say, "You didn't get an A+, what's wrong with you", which is the correct way, in my opinion. So, you know, it's partly joking, but I think we all kind of, like I have people who are Jewish, I have people who have, you know, Latin parents, and they all kind of get it. Whether it's Asian or not, we all kind of get having that one uncle who's like never quite satisfied, but you know that he supports you and he loves you.

• 22:42Ramit Sethi?

  And I think that's exactly what "I Will Teach You to Be Rich" is about.

• 22:47Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, man. Great. Great stuff. Okay. I'm just gonna bounce all over the place. I'm gonna throw some random questions at you. The first is, when you think of the word "punchable", who's the first face, whose face comes to mind?

• 23:00Ramit Sethi?

  I can't tell you that. I can't say that out loud.

• 23:02Tim Ferriss?

  Why not?

• 23:03Ramit Sethi?

  I'd be in big trouble.

• 23:06Tim Ferriss?

  Nobody's listening.

• 23:07Ramit Sethi?

  No, they're definitely listening. I can tell you that for 100% fact. They know who they are. I can't say it. They know who they are.

• 23:15Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, alright, we'll switch that then. When you hear the word "successful," who's the first person that you think of?

• 23:21Ramit Sethi?

  I think of, uh, there's a guy I recently met. His name is Mark Bustos, B-U-S-T-O-S. He has an awesome Instagram account. He's a very high-end hairdresser in New York. He works at like a top salon. And on the weekends, he goes and he cuts the hair of homeless people around New York. And he records it and he writes about their stories. And I think it's so amazing that he's at the top of his game, you know, as a hairdresser, working with celebrity clients and things like that. And then on the weekend, on his one day off, he goes around and is of service to people who ordinarily would never have the chance to get their hair cut, especially by somebody like him. So I think he's a great guy.

• 24:04Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing. How did you come across him?

• 24:08Ramit Sethi?

  You know, I heard about him at that salon. And then I saw him on Instagram. And then I just started seeing news article after news article about him. And it turns out, you know, he's a pretty big thing. His story got out and I'm so glad it did.

• 24:23Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing. I'll have to check it out. What book or books have you given out most as gifts besides your own?

• 24:33Ramit Sethi?

  There was a point where, there's a point where any author walks around with a backpack of their own books. And when, and no matter what, when they meet someone, within 10 seconds, this author will tell everyone in the world that they just came out with a book. The next question is, "Oh, do you have a copy?" "Oh, as a matter of fact, I just happened to have 10 copies on my back right now."

• 24:54Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it's kind of like "What About Bob." I don't know if you remember, there's a scene in "What About Bob," which I appreciate more every year as just a work of genius. But there's a part where, oh, why am I blanking on the actor's name? But the psychiatrist is in his office in New York and he's like, "There's a great new book that just came out." And he's like, "Ah, let me see." And it's a shelf, all of his one book with the spines facing out. And he's like, pretending to look, he's like, "Let me see, ah, yes, here it is."

• 25:20Tim Ferriss?

  But anyway, I digress.

• 25:22Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, so I'll give you two favorite books that I really love. Uh, one is called Mindless Eating.

• 25:27Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 25:28Ramit Sethi?

  It's amazing. It's, it's, it's a book about food, but it's actually about psychology. And we all eat and we all think we know why we eat what we do. But the answer is most of us have no idea. And if you can understand this, you can understand so many other parts of why you act the way you do. So that's number one. Uh, number two is an old throwback. This is a book, I believe, from the, the early 20th century. It's called a Robert Collier Letter Book. And it's an amazing book on copywriting. And really how to understand human behavior and human drive. And it has famous ads from many, many decades ago with an explanation of why they worked. I think it's really powerful and those lessons are timeless.

• 26:13Ramit Sethi?

  People will never change. These lessons will never change. It's amazing.

• 26:17Tim Ferriss?

  I'm astonished I've never heard of that one. I, at least for a period of time, kind of fashioned myself an astute student of copywriting. That's very cool. Glad to have a new one. If you, also on the book subject, if you were to take, let's just say, a handful of 30-year-olds who have had, you know, a bit of, a bit of success, you know, they've been out in the world for a while, decently intelligent, and you're going to receive 10% of their future earnings, but they're going to become entrepreneurs for the first time. What books would you give them if you had, if you could only give them three books? What books would you give them?

• 26:51Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, boy. Let me think about that. I can tell you the areas that they would be in. So one of them would be Age of Propaganda by Prat Kanis. And, um, this is a cousin, you could say, related to the book Influence by Cialdini.

• 27:06Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely.

• 27:07Ramit Sethi?

  Many people have heard of. The Age of Propaganda is less known. That and his other book, Social Animal, are outstanding books on human behavior. And it's interesting that so many of us focus on our technical skill, but ultimately being able to understand why we do the things we do and why other people do the things they do is so much more powerful. So those would be two of them. Those are, those are psychology books. And as for the third one, I'm gonna have to think about that.

• 27:35Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, we'll come back to it. Now, I don't want to let you off the punch question so easily. Uh, so I'm gonna change it. When was the last time you were punched in the face?

• 27:42Ramit Sethi?

  Indian people don't get punched in the face, dude.

• 27:44Tim Ferriss?

  You just too fast?

• 27:45Ramit Sethi?

  They don't, no, they don't get in fights. They, they, we're doing spelling bees. We're not getting in fights. Like you're like the Mr. Jock, alright, we don't, we don't do that. I know you, you know, we, we're sitting there studying three hours a day.

• 27:59Tim Ferriss?

  Alright, alright. There's, uh, there's actually an amazing, if, if, uh, for you, people out there who, uh, self-identify as, as Americans, Americans, uh, check out a documentary called Two Million Minutes. And it, it basically compares high school students, a handful in the US, a handful in China, and a handful in India, and it will just like strike terror into your heart. I mean, it's insane how intense the students are who are profiled from, from China and India. It's just like an Olympic training center of spelling bees and music and so on. It, it really, uh, made my jaw drop to see the discrepancies.

• 28:41Ramit Sethi?

  Awesome. Thanks for the rec.

• 28:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, really, really pretty wild. Speaking of documentaries, do you have any favorite documentaries that you can recommend to people?

• 28:48Ramit Sethi?

  Yes, the classic one that I refused to watch for so many, for like a year, and then finally I did was, uh, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

• 28:57Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, so good.

• 28:58Ramit Sethi?

  I mean, so good. And look, the lesson behind it was if everyone tells you something, it's probably true. I remember one day I was getting out of the shower and, you know, I had no music. I didn't feel like listening to it and I just put that thing on, it was on Netflix. And within 10 minutes I was transfixed. And so my thing is if someone, if everyone tells me, it's probably true. And it was amazing just to look at the level of almost obsessive focus on mastery of just one thing. Like 10 years to learn how to make rice. I don't want to do that, but I want to learn about it and maybe do it for my own life skill.

• 29:31Tim Ferriss?

  What was your favorite part of that movie? I have, I have one particular scene that jumps to my mind. What, what, uh, do you have a particular part in that movie?

• 29:39Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, there's two. The, the rice thing was, uh, revelatory for me because, I mean, I thought I knew what it takes to be good, but he showed me what it meant to be great. And 10 years before you get to touch the rice, that was astonishing to me. The second thing was chef Jiro, he finds out if you're right-handed or left-handed. And that way he can serve the dish. Appropriately for you. That's a level of detail that I think we don't see too frequently in our day to day lives. And yet, at the highest levels, it's just routine. And it just opened my eyes to what could possibly be.

• 30:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's so amazing. Of course, my first real overseas experience was a year as an exchange student in Japan and have a longstanding love affair with Japan and just endlessly fascinated by the culture and go back often. And every culture has its very weird and in some cases unappealing parts, but Japan is a very eclectic mishmash of sort of absorbed influences and very old traditional influences. I went to his younger son's sushi restaurant and we went extremely early and we got to spend about an hour and a half, just us, or four of us, with him. And I was the official translator. It was just a fantastic experience. And you mentioned the left and right handed.

• 30:57Tim Ferriss?

  And I don't know if you recall that the youngest son's sushi restaurant is an exact mirror image of his father's sushi restaurant. Because one of them is right handed and one of them is left handed.

• 31:09Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, wow.

• 31:11Tim Ferriss?

  And the scene in that movie, there are two that sort of stood out, but the one that really stands out is when a customer comes in and is asking what else they have. And he's asking, do you have appetizers? And he says, no, we don't serve appetizers. He's like, do you have this? And he's like, no, we serve just sushi. That is it. And very unapologetically. And if you want to talk about someone who just gives zero fucks about the scaling a business, I mean, he could have a hundred seater restaurant and it's like 10 to 12 seats in a subway station.

• 31:44Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah.

• 31:45Tim Ferriss?

  Just amazing. Any other documentaries?

• 31:47Ramit Sethi?

  None that come to mind. That's my favorite.

• 31:50Tim Ferriss?

  James Bond or Jason Bourne?

• 31:52Ramit Sethi?

  Jason Bourne.

• 31:54Tim Ferriss?

  Why?

• 31:55Ramit Sethi?

  You know what? I think by the time I was born and watching James Bond movies, it was, I had missed the decades of James Bond lure, allure. And Jason Bourne's just cool. I mean, he's the best. He's just a cool guy. I love it.

• 32:10Tim Ferriss?

  I think I identify, I aspire to have all the skills of Jason Bourne, but I most identify him, I'd say at least once a week, I feel like he did in the first movie when he has his outburst in the car and he's like, I don't know who I am. I can't remember what happened. I don't know why I'm here. I think that's primarily why I identify with him so much.

• 32:29Ramit Sethi?

  Love it.

• 32:31Tim Ferriss?

  Dogs or cats?

• 32:32Ramit Sethi?

  Neither.

• 32:33Tim Ferriss?

  Neither?

• 32:34Ramit Sethi?

  No way.

• 32:35Tim Ferriss?

  Explain.

• 32:36Ramit Sethi?

  Well, when I was a kid, my sisters wanted a dog, but we couldn't get one because my dad's allergic to dogs. And then, seven years later, we found out, he's not allergic at all. He just doesn't want dogs. And I was like, I applauded. I was like, this is the longest lie I have ever heard. It was beautifully executed, and I can't wait to do that to my own kids.

• 32:59Tim Ferriss?

  But why don't you like, why don't you like pets?

• 33:01Ramit Sethi?

  Why do I want them? I mean, I just never, I never grew up with them. They seem like a lot of responsibility and work. I mean, I don't need the love of a dog or cat. Cats don't even love. I don't need the love of an animal in my life. So I'm good. It's kind of like, I see these dogs, I like watching them on the street, I like watching them meet. I have an intellectual curiosity in them, but, you know, I'm good.

• 33:23Tim Ferriss?

  You know, you mentioned-

• 33:24Ramit Sethi?

  It's not weird?

• 33:24Tim Ferriss?

  Nah, it's not weird if you didn't grow up with pets. I mean, I don't think it's, it's an unusual response. I think a lot of Americans grew up with pets. I grew up with-

• 33:32Ramit Sethi?

  We love it.

• 33:33Tim Ferriss?

  -two dogs and four cats. I'm very partial to dogs. And you might recall, well, I've had a number of tweets and Facebook posts, particularly if I've had a bit of wine, and I'm fully aware that I'm somewhat intoxicated when I put these out, that's part of the fun, that kick up a big fuss. And, you know, as a friend of mine put it, "I grew up with four cats. Look. Like, cats are fine, I just prefer dogs." And a friend of mine said, you know, "A dog is a pet and a cat is an animal that happens to live in your house." And I put out a tweet that was, "If your cat were 70 pounds heavier, it would kill you in your sleep." And people did not respond very well to that.

• 34:10Ramit Sethi?

  You know what? I'm gonna echo what you said about Americans loving their animals, because I used to do this segment on ABC, and I had done it so many times, that at a certain point, you know, I had a good banter going on with the anchors and this and that, and I just started telling jokes. Like, how many jokes can I tell before they kick me off the screen? And I started making some seriously, I mean, they were, they were tasteful, but they were pushing the limit. The only time I received, ever, that I received hate mail from anything I said on that channel, was one day I made a joke about pets. I come home, and like you said, you know, you wake up and there's like 5,000, you got a PR crisis? I open up my email and I'm like, "Oh my god." And I forgot, Americans love pets.

• 34:56Ramit Sethi?

  I learned, uh, let me just keep my mouth shut in the media. Except when I'm speaking on your podcast to like four million people. Great, great job, Rameen.

• 35:05Tim Ferriss?

  So if you, uh, if you, let me rephrase this. So if you went to, let's just say China, I've had, I've eaten dog before. I had to try it. I was there. It wasn't delicious. I've had horse as well, so sweeter meat, uh, for a host of reasons. But if you had to eat a particular species of dog and you could choose on the menu, what would you choose?

• 35:26Ramit Sethi?

  I don't even know more than one species. I only know like golden retriever. But if the question is, would I eat dog? When in Rome, you know, I'll always try something once.

• 35:35Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 35:35Ramit Sethi?

  As for what species, I don't even, I don't even know. If you put a dog in front of me, I would be like, and you put like a German shepherd? I'd be like, oh, what a nice golden retriever.

• 35:45Tim Ferriss?

  You're such a bullshit artist. You just called it a German shepherd.

• 35:51Tim Ferriss?

  What has become more important to you as you've gotten older or less important? Let's just say in the last five years.

• 35:59Ramit Sethi?

  Wow. Um, more important is surrounding myself with beauty. That's something that I actually made it, uh, one of my resolutions this year. And I think I'm a, I'm a pretty kind of like unsymbolic or direct guy. You know, I was the kind of guy when I was, when I grew up, I didn't have any posters on my wall. And when I had a cubicle, I didn't decorate it or anything. And I started to see the people, like artists especially, that inspire me. And they're all about inspiration and beauty. And it could be beauty in the type of dishes they use, or it could be in their apartment or whatever it might be. And I, I got inspired by that. That's become much more important to me. To be able to surround myself with, with beauty, with organization.

• 36:44Ramit Sethi?

  It's changed my mind a lot.

• 36:46Tim Ferriss?

  How has that helped you? How's that improved your life?

• 36:49Ramit Sethi?

  It helps me look for subtle nuances that I didn't see before. So, I walked into my, like, an old apartment and it had no posters on the wall, no paintings, everything was just white, and everything was very utilitarian. And I thought of myself like that. Early on, I was one of those guys that said, like, "They should recognize me for me, not because of some clothes I wear." But, I came to discover that first impressions are important. You know, what are you wearing? How are you standing? What's your posture and your smile? And also, when I see something beautiful, whether it's interior design or a dish at a restaurant, now, I can appreciate the beauty and the work that went into that and the craftsmanship. So, looking at Jiro Dreams of Sushi, for example,

• 37:33Ramit Sethi?

  it just looks like a simple piece of sushi. But the amount of work that went into it is actually decades and decades of work. And so I would say with a little bit of time, I've just come to appreciate that beauty more.

• 37:44Tim Ferriss?

  What is the gaudiest thing that you have in your house? In retrospect, where you're like, "Wow, I was trying to figure out this beauty thing and goddamn, I got it wrong."

• 37:51Ramit Sethi?

  No, no, no, no, I'll tell you the gaudiest thing that I love.

• 37:54Tim Ferriss?

  Alright, yeah, let's go there.

• 37:56Ramit Sethi?

  Okay, alright, so, you know, the one thing that I wanted when I moved to New York was home-cooked meals. And, uh, I don't cook, and I used to have all these excuses. Then I started working from home and, you know, my mom's like, "You need to cook." And I said, "Look, I'm not gonna cook." Her response? "Then you need a wife." I was like, "Mom, don't say that out loud, that's pretty sexist, okay?" She goes, "Whatever." So, uh, so she doesn't care. So, I have a chef, which is, for me, that's like one of the fortunate things that I've been able to do.

• 38:30Tim Ferriss?

  Is that code for your wife?

• 38:32Ramit Sethi?

  No, I don't.

• 38:32Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just kidding.

• 38:34Ramit Sethi?

  Now we're getting into real trouble here. No, it's not, it's not a wife, it is a chef. So, that's probably the gaudiest thing, um, that I would say.

• 38:43Tim Ferriss?

  Dude, you make gaudy, do you make your chef? Dress like the Swedish chef or like where like Iron Chef like gold?

• 38:51Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, yeah, I told I told him I told his chef to uh to dress up in a skimpy.

• 38:56Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, boy.

• 38:57Ramit Sethi?

  And the only problem is that it's a man, so it didn't.

• 39:01Tim Ferriss?

  It's like a fifty year old Ukrainian guy.

• 39:03Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, yeah, yes. The chef doesn't come into my apartment, he just delivers it.

• 39:07Tim Ferriss?

  What is the best hundred dollars that you've spent in the last year?

• 39:12Ramit Sethi?

  Hmm.

• 39:13Tim Ferriss?

  Bang for the buck stuff where you're like, God, I cannot believe it took me that long to do that.

• 39:18Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, OK, OK, all right. So in the last year, a second power cord, that was ultimate no brainer. I can't believe how resistant I was to doing that because it was just wasteful in my mind. So that's been amazing. Back when I was first starting off, the best hundred dollars that I ever spent was always taking people out to coffee. Always emailing a lot of people. In fact, that's how you and I met. You emailed me and we went out to coffee and turned into a very long friendship. That was the thing, and I cannot encourage that enough to just take people out to coffee. It's the best investment you can make.

• 39:52Tim Ferriss?

  What was your pitch? Because you and I have both commiserated about the lack of focus in most requests that we get via email. And I was like, hey, like, I know you're you're really busy, but would you like to come out to a few hours of coffee where I can pick your brain? And then maybe you can become my free full time mentor for the rest of my life? That type of undirected email very seldom gets a response. So what what were the emails that you sent? Or in retrospect, what is a good way to have coffee with people and what type of folks should you actually aim for?

• 40:27Ramit Sethi?

  Great, great questions, and both of us had to go through the fire to learn this. You know, I think that if you're trying to meet President Obama, it's not going to happen. If you're trying to meet some NFL star, it's probably not going to happen. If you're trying to meet someone that was profiled a couple of months ago. In fast company, or an author, or a blogger that you admire, that's eminently achievable. What it takes is being direct and making it clear what you want. The classic mistakes people have are they start saying, "Hi, I'll make this short." And then like 18 pages later, they end it, you know? It's like, "Um, so yeah, okay, I guess I went on too long. Bye." And I'm like, "Delete." Or, you know, they're very transactional, like,

• 41:11Ramit Sethi?

  "Ramit, I'll buy you lunch, and I'd love to get your advice about A, B, C, D, E, F, G." And I'm like, "I could buy my own lunch, dude. And also, I've written about this for the last 10 years." So, one of the things I think the best people do is they introduce themselves, they find some kind of commonality, and then they make it clear what they're asking for. So it might go something like this. "Hi Tim, my name's Ramit Sethi. I'm a student, I just graduated from NYU. I've been following you for, you know, the last six years, and the best thing you ever wrote that made a huge difference in my life was the article on going from geek to freak. Here's my before and after photo, and I did that all because I followed your protocol. I'm gonna be in town for six days. I'm looking to decide between X and Y jobs.

• 41:56Ramit Sethi?

  I know you worked at X. I would love to get your feedback, and if you have the time, I will come to you wherever you are, even if it is for 10 minutes, or Skype, or phone, whatever you prefer. But I can promise you that I'm gonna take your advice, and I will follow up with you to let you know what I decided." Like, you have a chance with an email like that. And I even actually wrote an ebook about this, about my 50 best email scripts. 50provenemailscripts.com. And that was because I had seen so many bad emails, but also so many great ones. I think the ability to write a great email and connect with someone is a huge differentiator.

• 42:33Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. I would add two things to that. The first is... I genuinely feel that you will get a higher response rate from people if you do two things. The first is do not go after people who are currently in the limelight. If people are currently doing a lot of media, you're going to be one of many people trying to get their time and your chances go down. So find someone who was in the limelight maybe years ago, who's still very good at what they do. And maybe it's not a public figure at all. You know, don't aim for Michael Phelps if you're trying to improve your swimming. Maybe you should find someone who was like a bronze medalist two Olympics ago. Guess what? They're still very, very good and a hell of a lot better than you are. So don't

• 43:13Tim Ferriss?

  necessarily aim for the very top. Your response rate will improve. Secondly, is give people an easy out. I paradoxically just find that the responses are better because there's still people who are a hell of a lot harder to reach than I am, right? So I'm, I have a friend who knows Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'd like to interview Arnold Schwarzenegger on the podcast. I believe he's actually listened to a few of the episodes, but he's a hell of a lot more into man than I am. And if I were hypothetically, I haven't reached out to him directly yet, but if I were to email him, I wouldn't say, "Thank you for your favorable, I look forward to your favorable response, comma, Tim Ferriss." That shit drives

• 43:53Tim Ferriss?

  people nuts. Don't assume anything other than they are busier, more important, more successful than you are. So you have to kind of have your hat in hand a little bit. And a better way to end it would be, "I understand you have tremendous demands on your time. And if you don't have time to respond, no problem. But if you do, even a sentence would mean a lot to me." That is more likely to get a response because you're demonstrating a degree of empathy and you understand that their inbox is more of a war zone than your inbox.

• 44:24Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah. Let's, let's dig into this for just a second. So when I used to email Seth Godin, this years and years ago, sometimes I'd write this beautiful email and he would write me back one line. And I would kind of be like, "That's pretty rude." In retrospect, knowing what, you know, I get over 1,500 emails a day. Knowing that he even sent me a response, I'm actually humbled by how he did that. Cause I get lots of emails that I don't reply to. So Tim, what you were just talking about is know the power dynamic. When you're emailing someone busier than you, you better meet them where they are. You better work around their schedule. You know, if someone emails me and they're like, I can meet at this time or that time. I'm like, what? So you have to know your power dynamic. The other thing is, we call this the close the loop technique.

• 45:09Ramit Sethi?

  Once you meet with someone, so many people just disappear forever. If someone took the time to meet you, they actually want, they're invested in your success. So one thing I encourage my students to do is follow up with them two weeks later. Hey, you told me this, I dug in, I discovered you were right. And so I took your advice and I just wanted to thank you. I'll keep you updated a couple of months from now on how the new job is going. That's how you build a real relationship.

• 45:33Tim Ferriss?

  So let me add to that because you and I both love the wordsmithing and testing of things like this. So the first few years out of college, my entire job was to cold call and cold email CEOs and CTOs to try to sell multimillion dollar storage area networked systems. And I had to test a lot of different approaches. And I was nobody, I was as low as you come on the totem pole. I had a desk in the fire exit, couldn't even back out of my desk. I'd like to do this weird like half ass cheek roll to get out of my desk. It was, it was as low as you get. And I think that a very good response after you've met with someone or a common mistake is to be like,

• 46:17Tim Ferriss?

  hey, great to meet up, cool, like here are my seven follow up questions. Or like, I really enjoyed coffee, would love to take you out to dinner. So I can have my three friends join and they'd really benefit from blah, blah. Do not follow up with an immediate additional request. Follow up, like you said with, and don't, and ideally like give it a day or two. Respond and say, thank you so much for the time. Here's what I did, it had this result, it really means a lot. To me, hope all, you know, good luck with the project that you mentioned. All the best. And then don't hump their leg for a while, you know, give it a little bit of gestation.

• 46:58Tim Ferriss?

  And the other thing that I would say is don't keep in touch just to keep in touch. These people are too busy for that. And I feel free to disagree with me or me, but do not just become a pen pal because you think it's necessary for them not to forget you. That is going to, in my experience, repel people because you're crowding their inbox with zero substance email. If I have a good experience with you, I will remember you. And worst case scenario, if you ping me two years later, the first thing I'm going to do, guess what? Is take your name and your email and search my inbox to see what previous communication. If you were a dick who followed up 12 times after I told you I was sick and on deadline and couldn't respond, I'm not even going to respond to you, or I'm going to tell my assistant to decline.

• 47:42Tim Ferriss?

  On the other hand, if we had a good exchange, I'll be like, great. And then I've done my due diligence, I've checked it out and I'll respond to you. You do not need to follow up just to keep in touch. And a great example of that is Jack Canfield, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I invited him, I volunteered at a group called Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. It's a mouthful, S-Base, and organized an event, invited him as a speaker, developed a relationship with him that way, just by helping to organize and inviting media and so on. And over the years, this was starting in 99, 2000. Over the years, every once in a while, when I had a very legitimate, and I do mean once every few years, I would send him a philosophical question about a life decision.

• 48:26Tim Ferriss?

  I would say, you know, hi, Jack, just as a reminder, you know, this is me. I know you're super busy. If you can't respond, no problem, but I'm facing this one life decision. Here it is. I'm considering A or B. Here's my thinking on it. If you have any input at all, it would really make a huge difference to me. And, you know, I'm a young guy just trying to figure, figure out what my next step is.

• 48:47Tim Ferriss?

  And then he would respond. And again, very Seth Godin-like, usually in a short way. And I did not keep in touch, but I respected his opinion and knew that he was qualified. To answer these types of life questions every once in a blue moon. And then many years later, he was the one who made the introduction to the, a brand new agent who turned out to be my book agent and still is my book agent, who was the, one of the few people who had the confidence to sell the four hour work week after it was turned down, whatever it was, 27, 29 times, right? But that was not because I stayed in touch for the sake of staying in touch. Sorry, this is like a very sensitive subject to me because so many people feel like, A, keeping in touch is the right way.

• 49:30Tim Ferriss?

  So just crowding my inbox or anyone's inbox is the way to endear yourself to them. It isn't. And then secondly, they, they think that if someone says no, that you're going to ping, that you should ping them another 30 times. And I think that you need to recognize when someone is saying no, because your pitch isn't right, when someone is saying no, because the timing isn't right. And I think it's very important to, to learn to discern those things, right? So if you ping someone, like I've, you know, I have, I have Lyme disease right now and I'm on massive antibiotics. I'm hugely backlogged because I've been, you know, I took a week away from everything to focus on medical treatment. And there are people who just don't hear that. They're like, oh, I just need to be persistent.

• 50:11Tim Ferriss?

  Let me send the same eight emails and, you know, I'll give Tim 12 hours to respond, even though his autoresponder says that he's like on a deathbed. And I'm going to follow up with like, hey, just making sure you got my email 12 hours later. Don't do that stuff. It's just sort of a fundamental playbook. Anyway, I should check out your email scripts because I really feel like 10 to 12 points with best practices with this kind of stuff from people who receive thousands and thousands of emails would be really, really helpful. For those people interested, I'm not hiring anybody right now, but if you want to see how I hired someone who started off as one of my readers named Charlie Hohn, has done a lot of interesting things now. I wrote a post called, or he wrote a post actually called Lessons Learned, or 12 Lessons

• 50:54Tim Ferriss?

  Learned Marketing, The Four Hour Body, I think it is. If you search anything along those lines, it'll pop up. And I explain how he developed, how we developed a relationship and how he approached it. I think that's a pretty good model, actually, for getting the attention of busy people.

• 51:09Ramit Sethi?

  Absolutely.

• 51:10Tim Ferriss?

  Cool. Good sir. You've been very generous with your time. I don't want to chew up your entire evening. Let me ask one more question, actually two more questions, and then we'll

• 51:21Ramit Sethi?

  Got it.

• 51:22Tim Ferriss?

  Put it to bed. The first is, following up on the question of books. You're taking 10% of future earnings of a small group of decently smart folks, 30 years old, or 25, doesn't really matter, and you have to give them a handful of books. You mentioned The Age of Propaganda, Social Animal. What other books would you give them before you bid them farewell and good luck?

• 51:43Ramit Sethi?

  Oh, you're coming back to this one, aren't you?

• 51:45Tim Ferriss?

  I am.

• 51:46Ramit Sethi?

  Okay. Boy, that's a good question. All right. So we talked about psychology. We talked about copywriting. There's a book, boy, you're putting me on the spot, but I'm going to tell you the book that's coming to mind for me right now.

• 51:58Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 51:59Ramit Sethi?

  And it's a book I wish I had written, and it's called Never Eat Alone. It's by Keith Farazzi. It's all about networking the right way, meeting the right people. And notice that the books I recommended were not books on corporate strategy, or monetization, or traffic analytics, or whatever. They're books about stuff that never changes.

• 52:19Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 52:20Ramit Sethi?

  That is, how people think, principles, how to help people first, rather than ask them for something. And I think, I think all those three books would be amazing over the long term.

• 52:31Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have a favorite biography, or favorite biographies?

• 52:35Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, I do. The favorite one I read, I've been reading it for, I think it's probably 20 years now. I reread it every couple of years, is the biography of Lee Iacocca.

• 52:45Tim Ferriss?

  Really?

• 52:45Ramit Sethi?

  Yeah, it's outstanding. One of the things that I remember, and there's so many, is he said, when he would be listening to someone, he'd say, "You know, I don't want to get persuaded by the sweetness of their voice." So he would always say, "Write it down." And there are a lot of people, as you grow your business, or grow in your career, there's a lot of people who are really verbally persuasive. And the principle there, the point of that is, you don't want to be seduced by something in the moment. Whether it is buying a house because of how beautiful the weather is, or whatever. You want to see it as objectively as possible. So put it on paper, take a minute. Most things do not need to be rushed. There's one other biography, What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School.

• 53:27Ramit Sethi?

  That sounds like a really gimmicky book, but it taught me so many amazing things about business by Mark McCormick, and I can't recommend it enough.

• 53:37Tim Ferriss?

  Brilliant. Well, in closing, this is the last question. Where can people learn more about the incredible Ramit Sethi? And any parting advice for the listeners?

• 53:49Ramit Sethi?

  They can find out. I set up a special URL, actually, for people who are listening. So it's Iwillteachyoutoberich.com/tim. Again, it's Iwillteachyoutoberich.com/tim. T-I-M. And put together some cool stuff to give away for people. And, you know, parting words are just... Look, it's a thrill to talk to your audience. I've been... I've written a couple of things for your site. I think you have some of the most engaged, amazing readers and listeners on the planet. So it's my pleasure to help as much as I can.

• 54:21Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, buddy. Well, it's always fun to hang out. Hopefully, we'll be able to share some wine in the not-too-distant future. And the next time you come out to SF, give me a ring. I found a fantastic Russian bath, so we can continue our longstanding bromance.

• 54:38Ramit Sethi?

  (laughs)

• 54:39Tim Ferriss?

  And I appreciate you making the time, man. Thank you very much.

• 54:43Ramit Sethi?

  You got it.

• 54:44Tim Ferriss?

  All right, buddy. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

• 54:51Speaker 04

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• 54:56Speaker 05

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• 55:00Speaker 04

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• 55:13Speaker 05

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• 55:15Speaker 04

  Or on Facebook at facebook.com/TimFerriss. Until next time, thanks for listening.