#99: How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time

Welcome to a special edition of The Tim Ferriss Show https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2. Back in 2007, I experienced a massive tipping point for The 4-Hour Workweek http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Workweek-Anywhere-Expanded/dp/0307465357/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 at the South by Southwest (SXSW) http://www.sxsw.com/conference held in Austin, Texas. Two or three days played a key role in the book becoming a worldwide bestseller in 40+ languages. So what exactly happened at the event? How did I optimize those 2-3 days? The below audio is a presentation I recently gave about a better, more effective way to network. My suggestions might surprise you or seem counterintuitive–the best way to build a world-class network quickly is to spend very little time networking, at least not in the "ugh, gross" sleazy sense of the word. In this episode, you'll learn: How SXSW played a role in the success of The 4-Hour Workweek How you can "stack the deck" for your own product launches Simple biohacks for handling booze overload and sleep deprivation Why it's so important to meet people in person to build your network The most common mistakes people make when attempting to "network" How to interact with A-listers (or opt not to) How to enjoy the ride and not end up exhausted with a pocket full of business cards that do nothing And much, much more… If you are able to apply a few lessons from this talk, you may find that you never have to network again. There is a better way. For all links, show notes, resources from this episode, please visit http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast https://rss.libsyn.com/shows/52710/destinations/fourhourworkweek.com/podcast This episode is brought to you advertisement free. Want this to happen more often? Every Friday I send out a very short email called 5-Bullet Friday http://www.fourhournewsletter.com/site/fourhourworkweeknewsletter/webform.html?wid=6&u=w&mg_param3=4. These are the coolest things https://rss.libsyn.com/fridays I've been playing with that week. It could include favorite articles, gizmos and gadgets, and a lot of other awesome stuff https://rss.libsyn.com/fridays you could use immediately. Sign up for a week, and give it a try. http://www.fourhournewsletter.com/site/fourhourworkweeknewsletter/webform.html?wid=6&u=w&mg_param3=4 It would mean a lot to me and I think you'll enjoy it. Enjoy!

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake. Can I answer your personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  No, I would assume I broke your time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  Well, hello, hello. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a special edition. It is brought to you sponsor free and I would like to ask a favor in exchange. But we're going to get to that in a second. The first thing is a description of this episode. This episode is actually a presentation by yours truly that I wanted to share because I get asked all the time, "How did you build your network?" And if you look at the, say, guest list from this podcast, or people that I invest alongside, it seems like a very impressive list and I'm impressed by a lot of these people. But it was built in a very strategic, a very methodical way.

• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

  And that doesn't mean it has to be artificial. I'm not looking at these friends as transactions. These are relationships that I value. But there is a right and a wrong way to network. And in fact, I think the best way to build a world-class network is to spend very little time networking per se, collecting business cards and whatnot. So this presentation really encapsulates my approach and what I've done, particularly since about 2007. And I gave this presentation at South by Southwest, which is a huge conference. It started off with music, then the interactive technology portion exploded. And don't worry about the slides, the visuals. In each case, if I bring up a slide, I explain it via voice. So you really don't need the visuals.

• 1:48Tim Ferriss?

  I was able to experience a tipping point for the four-hour work week when I gave my first presentation at South by Southwest. And I won't go into all the story because I do it in the presentation, but it really triggered everything that came after it. So it was a game changer, a life changer for me. So what did I do exactly at South by Southwest that helped it become? "The most surprising self-help hit of the decade," according to Men's Journal. How did that happen? And in the session, I talk about exactly what I did that led to a higher likelihood of that type of black swan event in the positive. So I talk about biohacks for surviving and optimizing the booze marathon or sleep deprivation, which is inherent to events like this,

• 2:32Tim Ferriss?

  whether it's South by Southwest, TED, any number of other events that are multi-day. This is an important point and a very important subject to master. The top mistakes that I think 90% of attendees make, how to pick your sessions, parties, etc. To make the most of all the madness, how to interact with A-listers or not. And this is a very, very important subject that I delve into. And how to set yourself apart, enjoy the ride, and come away from the whole thing smiling. Because it is my opinion that if you choose one event properly and you build a network there in the right way, in a methodical way, that really focuses on sort of long-term mutual relationships as opposed to transactions.

• 3:17Tim Ferriss?

  And a lot of the advice I think is counterintuitive or non-obvious, but it's very specific that you never have to network again, ever. And once you set that ball in motion, it's like a snowball going down a hill. And before you know it, you have this unstoppable Goliath of inertia that can carry you forward for years and in fact, decades. And that is what happened for me at South by Southwest and 207. And I want to explain exactly how that happened, which is what this session will go into. And the favor that I would love to ask you guys is, I would love to try to minimize sponsorships, if possible, because I only take sponsorships from companies whose products I use and have vetted and so on, at the very least. So I don't want to take a lot of sponsors.

• 4:01Tim Ferriss?

  I want to really limit it to that subset. But the way that I can do that is by having you do something like subscribe to my newsletter. So for instance, Five Bullet Fridays. If you haven't been receiving these, every Friday, I send out a very short email of five bullets containing the coolest things that I have found or been playing with. That week, which could include favorite articles that I've shared with friends. It could include gizmos and gadgets that I've dug up somehow through experts and purchased and played with. All sorts of randomness, but a lot of awesome stuff that you can use immediately. And it's a very, very short, hence five bullet email. So to check that out, it's free and you can sign up very easily.

• 4:41Tim Ferriss?

  Try it out for a week, see what you think at fourhourworkweek.com/fridays. All spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/fridays. So if you would like me to cut back on sponsors, then please go sign up. It would mean a lot to me and I think you will love it. If you go on Twitter and just look at hashtag five, the number five, five bullet Fridays, you will see a lot of people are excited about this. That is it. So without further ado, or volume peaking, I hope you enjoy this presentation on exactly how I built my network, which is one of the most common questions that I get. So enjoy it. Please let me know your feedback. I am at T Ferris, T F E R R I S S on Twitter.

• 5:26Tim Ferriss?

  And thank you for listening.

• 5:30Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys. I'm flanked by dignitaries. I used to have a rat tail. How did I get invited to this party? Well, thank you all for coming. I feel a huge debt of gratitude to South by Southwest because in 2007, prior to that, the Four Hour Workweek had been turned down by 26 publishers violently, in many cases. And then at South by that year was the tipping point for the Four Hour Workweek. Went on to hit the New York Times, stayed there for almost four years unbroken, millions of copies, 30 plus languages later, here I am presenting, kinda crazy. And I've been back basically every year since. So I feel like I have a playbook, a couple of tips, tactics that hopefully you can use

• 6:14Tim Ferriss?

  over the next few days to get the most out of this event. Because I really feel like if you do South by properly once, you never have to network ever again.

• 6:24Tim Ferriss?

  You don't have to schmooze. You can just coast and ride it out. So I'll try to give you quite a bit of actionable information. The subject matter of the previous presenter and the one after me, far more important, but I guarantee probably more profanity and crassness in this one. So this particular slide is me at Burning Man 2008 after being thrilled with what happened at South By. I have very little recollection of this particular instance, and I suspect that may be true for many of you over the next few days. So let's start with avocados. No, not avocados. We're going to talk about booze, and specifically, how you can mitigate the damage that you're going to inflict on yourselves over the next few days.

• 7:07Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm not going to necessarily stop you from getting drunk. I think that's part of the fun of being here. I'm not going to stop you from getting dragged out of a club yelling, "Do you know who I am?" You can do that, too. But I want to help minimize the hangovers and the missing of sessions, the missing of days here, because that's a real travesty. So a couple of recommendations. If you've ever time-traveled on alcohol, what I mean by that is, you're at a club, then suddenly you're at Denny's eating Moons Over Miami, and you're like, "How did I get here?" You've experienced a lack of vasopressin. Vasopressin is a hormone that is associated with short-term memory, and ethanol, the booze, inhibits its release.

• 7:50Tim Ferriss?

  All right, so you can compensate for that by, let's say, inhaling desmopressin, which is a synthetic version. Don't do that. I don't recommend that. But you can, I'll retain more water. Why is this key? Because it's also an antidiuretic hormone. The reason you piss like a racehorse is also related to this vasopressin. And the reason you feel so hungover is because you've been dehydrated for a long period of time. So a very easy way to get around this, especially in Austin, is to have a bunch of guacamole before you go out. Have some avocados. It has more potassium than bananas, also a bunch of things that counter inflammation. Okay, so super simple. Put a bunch of salt on it. If you want to be indulgent, you can put some balsamic vinegar in the middle as well, which will lower your glycemic response to the pizza that you have five pieces of when

• 8:33Tim Ferriss?

  you're drunk later. It actually has a tremendous effect. Have one glass of water for every alcoholic beverage you have. Another way that you can mitigate the damage is to have clean drinks. What would be an example of a clean drink? Well, if you want to get... As drunk as possible with the least amount of effort and the least hangover, you could have something called a Norcal Margarita. A Norcal Margarita, popularized by a guy named Rob Wolf in the paleo community, is quite simply, say, two shots of high-grade tequila, Reposado is a good choice, mixed with a bunch of club soda, and as much lime as you can tolerate. Lemon will also work, it just doesn't taste quite as good. The club soda will allow you to absorb it very, very quickly, so you can be a cheap date.

• 9:16Tim Ferriss?

  And the lime will also, just like the vinegar, inhibit your glycemic response to food later. So if you end up binging, you won't have a carb and insulin coma the next day. All right, the last tip related to booze, because I think this is such a key subject to master while you're here, is activated charcoal or carbon. So if you want to, again, minimize some of the damage, you could go try to find that, probably late for a lot of you to try to do that. Burnt toast, okay? Eat some burnt toast before you go out. If that doesn't sound appealing, you can scrape off the burnt bits into yogurt and eat that, which has actually been done in studies looking at trying to alleviate overdose of acetaminophen. So it can work, surprisingly enough.

• 10:01Tim Ferriss?

  Burnt toast, avocado, Norcal Margarita, there you go. All right, who is this person? And why is she very, very important? So this woman, lovely, lovely woman, is named Miriam. And I met Miriam when I went to CES for the first time, the Consumer Electronics Show. I'd never made it to the trade show, and this is highly relevant to South by Southwest. I instead went to a sponsored lounge, it was the Seagate Blog House, H-A-U-S. And it was where they gave bloggers, at the time, that was social media, basically, gave bloggers free booze, power outlets, a place to rest and do work. And I just went there and I hung out all day for several days. And I had a laptop, so I was able to do work. And I struck up casual conversations with people.

• 10:45Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, what's the most interesting session you've seen so far? Any cool products you've bumped into? Didn't pitch anyone. I got to spend time with Miriam because she was checking people in. And we just very casually got into long conversations about where we were from, etc. Now, the big dog at the time, and he's still very influential, is Robert Scoble. So he was in the blog house. Everyone was crowded around him, dozens of people vying for his attention. And I knew I didn't stand a chance. I didn't have a honed pitch for him. I didn't even try. And that's generally what I recommend. Now, it turned out that Miriam is Robert's wife. And Miriam said, "Oh yeah, you should totally hang out with Robert. Like, here, just like, shoot me a text or send me an email and we'll just meet up when

• 11:29Tim Ferriss?

  you're back in the Bay Area." Fantastic. And so, Robert ends up getting a copy of the book. He sends out a short mention in a blog post. It takes the book to top 10 on Amazon for several days compared to morning television at the time, which would only take it to the top 50 for several hours. That all came about because I follow these rules. Don't dismiss people, don't be a dick, and don't rush. Those are the three core tenets of success at an event like South by Southwest. Don't dismiss people. You should behave here like everyone you interact with has the potential... I can't wait to see the drawing for this.

• 12:10Tim Ferriss?

  Everyone has the potential to get you a cover story in the New York Times. Because many of them do. And it's just a good way to behave. All right? But you should behave like everyone here has the potential to get you a cover story at the New York Times. Don't be a dick, pretty self-explanatory. But let me give a couple of examples of all three. So don't dismiss people. I already gave you one. I'll give you another one specific to South by Southwest. I was going to a few movie screenings. I went to one called Big Rig, pretty cool movie. And I was standing in line and the guy in front of me, older gentleman, had huge forearms. And this is the kind of thing I noticed. And I was like, "Dude, what is up with the forearms?" And we started talking. Turns out he's a rock climber. We talked, we talked, we talked. About nothing business-related whatsoever.

• 12:55Tim Ferriss?

  Turned out to be Morgan Spurlock's brother. Morgan Spurlock showed up, maybe 10 minutes later. We sat right next to each other at the movie. And then a few years later, I ended up collaborating with him and he profiled me for A Day in the Life. Okay, so again, treat everyone like they're important, because they are. Don't dismiss people. I'll give you the converse example. Last year, I was here with my girlfriend at the time and had dozens of people, basically, Facepalm my girlfriend to push her out of the way to try to talk to me. Not good politics.

• 13:28Tim Ferriss?

  Don't be a dick. Again, pretty explanatory, self-explanatory, not limited to men, by the way. I've seen a couple of instances where, for instance, a friend was speaking to a female attendee and she asked if she could see the apps on his home screen. And he did this. She grabbed the phone, turned around, and then sent a text to her number from his phone so she would have his phone number. Don't do that. Don't rush. This is the most important because it turns otherwise good, reasonable, wonderful people into those who do the aforementioned two. Don't rush. Play the long game, alright? And the mission that I would like to offer to all of you, the job, should you accept it,

• 14:12Tim Ferriss?

  is to realize that at South by Southwest, there are hundreds of people who could change your life completely, who could satisfy all of your wildest dreams. Financially, reputationally, fantasmagorically, I have no idea. They can really make magic happen for you. And your job should be to try to have a deep human connection with one of those people before you leave. That's it. It makes South by Southwest very, very manageable. An example of rushing, and this has happened to be perhaps half a dozen times here at South by, is the urinal encounter. What is the urinal encounter? It's when I'm trying to have my moment of zen, I'm at a urinal, and I'm like, ah, deep breath, deep breath, you know, I'm thinking of the penguin in the cave, chilling out, I'm

• 14:57Tim Ferriss?

  like, okay, getting ready to go back into the melee, and some startup founder will come running up to me and skid to a stop, who's like sweating because he's nervous, and starts like panting on the back of my neck, giving me a pitch. If you want to make any human male that I'm aware of really uncomfortable, wait until they're staring at a wall, holding their penis, and come up and breathe on the back of their neck.

• 15:21Tim Ferriss?

  Don't rush. It makes good people do bad things.

• 15:27Tim Ferriss?

  I promised crass. Alright, next. Read bios, not sessions. So how do you choose among all of the sessions? You probably have some big fat book, then you're like, "Oh my god, how am I possibly gonna tackle any of this?" Number one, read the bios, not the sessions. The session titles may not tell you the whole story. Look for interesting people, not titles of sessions. And secondly, don't just look at the people on the panel. Look at the moderators. And so what I did my first time to South by Southwest is I would go to a panel, I would listen to these amazing people on a given panel, and then I would go up, not to the A-listers on the panel afterwards, I would go up to the moderator, many of whom are equally impressive in their own right. And I would go up to the moderator, who's usually not nearly as mobbed,

• 16:12Tim Ferriss?

  and I would give them a quick explanation. I'd say, "Hey, this is my first time at South by, I don't know anyone, kinda lost, just finished my first book, it's about A, B, and C. Personally, I'm interested in, at the time, say, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, this, this, and this. Is there anyone here you think I might really hit it off with? Anyone you think I should talk to? I'm pretty good at this and this." And they'd be like, "Yeah, sure, yeah, I think, yeah, you should talk to this person and this person." And I just repeated that line of questioning over and over and over again. And that's how I met many of the people who led to the tipping point for the book. And when I went up to those people who were referred, by the way, don't say, "So-and-so said we should really meet." Don't oversell it. Just say, "I went up to them, I asked them this, they said this, I figured what the hell, maybe we'd hit it off. Can I buy you a drink?"

• 16:57Tim Ferriss?

  It's a very methodical way to go about tackling this deluge of sessions. Next one, don't make an impression, leave a memento. And I did a lot of research online, pinged my audience on Facebook, Twitter, asked for questions. One of them was, "How do I make a positive first impression?" Your job at South by Southwest is to not make a bad impression. Alright? Because if all you're doing is trying to sell someone, there are many different ways to do it aside from coming to South by Southwest. What I would recommend, especially in an instance where you're trying to reach, say, an A-lister, right? Somebody who's getting mobbed and pitched all day long, like an Anthony Bourdain, or whoever it might be. Don't try to give the pitch in person.

• 17:37Tim Ferriss?

  Give them a folded up piece of paper with a page that you've painstakingly crafted that is the perfect pitch. Include your phone number. You'd be surprised how many VIP folks like to call folks via Skype to have a conversation as opposed to sending you their personal email, for instance. Don't make an impression, leave a memento. Just say, "Hey, I realize you're super busy, you've got this long line of people, you're under a lot of pressure, I've thought about this, I think this will be of great interest to you." And just give them a teaser, right? Like if you have an impressive number, a stat, a client who's using it, something like that. Here you go. I hope you have a great South by. Read it when you're on the toilet or have an extra five minutes on the plane. Thanks so much. And you leave it at that. And that also shows you that you know how to play the game.

• 18:21Tim Ferriss?

  You know how busy they are, you know the stress that they're dealing with, and immediately that'll separate you from everyone else. As opposed to getting up and just micro machining through a pitch. They won't remember, even if they have spectacular memory. Ignorance is bliss. Be the idiot. I don't have to try very hard for this one. So, the key here, and this is mostly a problem with men, in my experience, or boys, or guys, anything in between, is we try to impress people. So we stroll up and we're like, "Well, that's a good point. You know what's even better point?" Or someone says something, you're like, "You know what? That reminds me of this story that one ups your story." Don't do that. And in fact, you should do the opposite.

• 19:03Tim Ferriss?

  So one of the experiences that I had and challenges that many of you will have is, how do you get into a group conversation? How do you interrupt people? So my rules for that are, number one, if it's two people who are deep in conversation, don't interrupt. Okay? Remember, don't rush. Play the long game. If it's two people, just don't interrupt. Wait. If it's more people, three, four, etc., you can saunter up and do what I did in 2007, which was say... Hey guys, do you mind if I join you? Just eavesdrop. It's my first time here, I don't know anybody. I'll buy you guys a round of drinks. It's usually a place where you can get free drinks, so it works out really easily. And they're like, "Uh, yeah, okay, sure." Now, the reason you don't just walk up and say like, "Hey guys, I'm just gonna eavesdrop,"

• 19:46Tim Ferriss?

  is even though they're never gonna say no, at least you asked. Be polite, alright? So then they'd be like, "Oh, whatever, man." So I'd hang out. And typically, there'd be a lot of engineers. I'm not a coder, not an engineer. And if someone said something that I was genuinely interested in clarifying, so they'd be like, "Well, we did da-da-da-da-da." And of course, we ended up with Ruby on Rails. And I'd say, "You know, I'm really sorry I interrupted, but I'm deep in the ignorance pool here. Why was Ruby on Rails the obvious choice? I don't know what it is, but why was it such an obvious advantage?" And that will oftentimes spark a debate among the people in that group. And so every once in a while, you throw out one of these questions, again, being the idiot, which is what good NPR hosts also do, by the way. And eventually, someone will say, "Wait, who the hell are you again?

• 20:31Tim Ferriss?

  Like, what's your story?" And then, you give them the shortest answer possible. Do not launch into a really rushed, long-ass pitch. So I would say, "Well, you know, it's my first time here, and I just finished my first book, and the publisher's basically controlling everything except for digital, so I'm here to try to figure it out." Pause. Then you wait to see who asks. If they do, what's it about? Great. And then you say, "Well, it's about this, this, and this, but I think most people here probably find this interesting." And you see who digs deeper, alright? You'll see the logic to this in a second. So let's just say you have a group of six people. There's one person who's expressed extreme interest by digging and digging. In the case of the four-hour work week, maybe they're interested in world travel, virtual assistants, that type of thing.

• 21:15Tim Ferriss?

  Then at the very end, you know, we'd bounce around, talk about all sorts of subjects. And I'd say, "You know, uh..."

• 21:23Tim Ferriss?

  Zero pressure, I would never expect you to write about it or do anything like that. But I have a bunch of promotional copies from the publisher. I could very easily just tab the 15 to 20 pages that I think you would find most interesting, based on what we just talked about, and I can mail it to you, and you can use it as a doorstop if you want. And because I'd already honed down to the point where I knew who was interested, I would say probably 90% of those folks said yes, were enthusiastic about it, and then at least half of them ended up promoting it in some way because they loved it, not because I asked them to do it. Does that make sense? And if you say no strings attached, do not fucking follow up and bug the shit out of them.

• 22:07Tim Ferriss?

  It's a great way to get a huge amount of negative backlash. Don't do it. And we'll come back to that, but I tend to do very little follow-up, except for something people have asked for. Because people get enough email as it is. Don't be a traffic bigot. What does this mean? This means that you may be, if you have something to promote, if you have a service, website, startup, book, album, whatever it might be, movie, you might be tempted to go straight for the person who has the biggest megaphone, the biggest site, the most Twitter followers. And the problem with that is that you're going to be one of a thousand people who pitch this person while they're here. 99.9% of the time, it won't work.

• 22:49Tim Ferriss?

  You can try, there's no harm in doing it tactfully, it usually won't work. What I did in 2007, and there were blog rolls at the time, do you remember those? Is I tried to figure out, and you can ask people right up front, moderators are good people to ask as well, who do these people view as a thought leader? Okay, so you have this group of 10 traffic leaders, who do they read? Who are the niche folks that they read, who are very influential, who are the thought leaders? And then you approach the thought leaders. Invite them out to a drink. And you do the same thing that I just described. And be very, very candid, basically do like the Puss in Boots, you know, holding the hat with the big eyes.

• 23:28Tim Ferriss?

  And it's amazing what miracles can come of that, because if you get covered by one of those thought leaders in an interview, for instance, or anything like that, or you send them an exclusive excerpt, even though they have a small site, you send them an exclusive excerpt of the book, what happens? They put it up and you're like, "Ah, who cares? 20,000 readers." But guess who those 20,000 readers are? Okay? It's like being in front of 20,000 TED attendees. Okay? So don't be a traffic bigot. And I would also say that don't necessarily focus on the people who you perceive as the A-listers or VIPs now. Try to find the pre-VIPs. Does that make sense? You're trying to find the up-and-comers. So you ask, again, ask people who have been here a few times, "Who are the best, like,

• 24:13Tim Ferriss?

  up-and-coming, hot designers? You know, the folks that are not very well-known, who should be well-known? Or who are the hot up-and-coming filmmakers who haven't had any press? Who are they? Go meet those people. And by the way, if you did that just in, say, film, but you're actually based in tech, you did that in film, you met the best up-and-comers, the best up-and-comers know one another. The best VIPs and A-listers know one another. It's not industry-specific. Okay? So don't be a traffic bigot. You'll also have a much better time while you're here. Questions for A-listers. So if you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, Ferris, you know, I'm still, I'm still gonna go for the gold. I'm gonna sprint up to, you know, Al Gore and give him a pitch." Well, how should you do it?

• 24:58Tim Ferriss?

  What are the questions? What are the icebreakers for the A-listers? And the first rule, as far as I'm concerned, is ask if they have a second. Don't just run up and pitch, because a great pitch, the perfect pitch at a bad time, is a bad pitch. It won't work. And like I said at the beginning, it's not about making a good impression, it's about not making a bad impression. If you make a bad impression, they won't want to communicate with you later, even if you correct things. Okay? So, "Mr. and Ms. X, may I bother you for 30 seconds? Mr. and Ms. X, is now an okay time for one question." If you say that, don't ask three questions, one question. Now, number two and number three here actually work very well together.

• 25:42Tim Ferriss?

  You know, "Mr. and Mrs. X, is now an okay time for one question. Who on your team could I email about whatever you're interested in?" Okay, they're not gonna give you their personal email. They're not gonna give you their personal phone number, usually. And it's gonna make them very uncomfortable to say no. So realize that and ask about their team. That will immediately put you in the pro category as opposed to the amateur category. And another thing, if you're in a group, let's just say at a book signing or something like that, you have to realize, even if they wanted to give you their personal email, phone, they can't say it out loud because 10 other people are gonna hear it. So who on your team could email about blah? And if they have entourage around them, meaning, let's just say you go to a book signing for fill in the blank, right? Michael Pollan.

• 26:26Tim Ferriss?

  And you see someone who's just kinda patiently waiting there 10 feet away, that is probably his publicist, or his publisher, or someone along those lines. Get to know them. They are probably the gateway to communication with Mr. Pollan. So you don't have to pitch directly. And this relates to everything I've just said, I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on it, but you have to prove the messenger before the message. You are the messenger. So for instance, I had a startup come up to me while I was headed to this room today, and I'm not gonna mention their company name, but they came up and the first thing they

• 27:05Tim Ferriss?

  said was, "Hey, your assistant hasn't replied to my emails." So I'm like, "What do you expect me to respond with? How do you want me to respond to that?" Uh, I get a lot of emails, "I don't know, you know, my assistant's pretty good. He had a shitty email, I don't know." And then his buddy with him's like, "Yeah, Mr. Four Hours, like, give me some Four Hour Quip." And I'm like, and then he gave me his business card, and I'm like, "All right, if I go to your site, let's just say it's the most amazing site I've ever seen in my life, am I gonna wanna be associated with that?" So that he can go up to somebody else and be like, "Yeah, Mr. Pollan, Mr. Ferris works with us." And then it's like, "No, hell no, that would destroy my reputation." So you just screwed the pooch, all right?

• 27:49Tim Ferriss?

  So be a good messenger before you deliver the message. Doesn't matter how good the pitch is, if you fuck it up first. Phew, F-bombs are coming.

• 28:00Tim Ferriss?

  How to pick people out of a crowd? These are all related questions that I get repeatedly. How do you pick someone out of a crowd? You're scanning the room. You want to work the room. Number one, don't work the room. Number two, if you had to pick people out of the crowd, I would say go for the most relaxed, unrushed-looking person. Not necessarily the A-lister surrounded by a huge phalanx of people, if that's the right word. Because, unless you just want to listen. If you want to listen, that's fine, but you're not going to get a lot of airtime. Look for the most relaxed people in the room. They either have very, very little going on, or they've kind of already made it, and they don't feel rushed. So, hit or miss, but if you have to pick people out of the crowd, I would say go for the most relaxed, unrushed-looking person. All right. Icebreakers in general.

• 28:45Tim Ferriss?

  And as a preface to this, and I know you're reading the slide while I talk, that's okay. The small talk is the big talk. All right? I'll repeat that. The small talk is the big talk. What that means is, and that is an expression that has been said to me in many different words, you know, "small talk is everything," by friends of mine like Edo Lefler, who's a co-founder of Yes to Carrots. They're distributed in more than 30,000 locations. And the point that he would make, and the point that I would also make, is that if you're just going to pitch people, you can probably do that in a more effective way by staying at home, not coming to Austin, and just sending out cold pitches, working on your email skill.

• 29:27Tim Ferriss?

  Here, in person, you have an opportunity to dig deeper and talk about other things. That is how you become memorable. That is how you have that one deep human connection that I was talking about. So, instead of asking, "What do you do?" And there are people who will ask that of you, and you could be like, "Well, shoot a lot of heroin. What about you?" That's a good way to end it.

• 29:52Tim Ferriss?

  Or you can give them a really boring answer like, "Ah." Sometimes I'll just be like, "Yeah, I'm a freelance writer, you know, still trying to make it work." And they're like, "Oh, oh." And they're already scanning for their next prey. So instead of "What do you do?", what do you ask? And I understand why this is difficult, because people are like, "Ah, I don't know." And then they come up with something like, "If you could be a breakfast cereal, what breakfast cereal would you be?" And people are like, "What? That's kinda... What the hell's happening?" So don't do that. You can make it pretty natural. So for instance, if you ask, "Oh, so-and-so, hey, nice to meet you. Where are you from?" And they say, "Ah, I'm from New York City." "Are you from New York City originally?" Say, "No, I'm from Cincinnati." "Well, how'd you get from... How'd you end up going from Cincinnati to New York City?" You're gonna get all the information you could possibly need for context, okay?

• 30:37Tim Ferriss?

  Boom. You've got it. And you'll oftentimes have a very good personal story to go with it. All right. Now, if you don't wanna do that, or later on, if you wanna sort of expand a little bit, you could ask, "You know, what session are you most excited about? What's been your favorite session so far? If it's a few days from now, for instance. What are you most excited about these days?" And it's not that you can't talk about work, but you can do that anywhere, via any medium. In-person is a unique opportunity. So optimize for meatspace.

• 31:09Tim Ferriss?

  Take advantage of the fact you probably have some booze involved, and you have a chance to talk about the personal stuff.

• 31:16Tim Ferriss?

  How to escape/pause conversations? So, you know, what do you do if you get cornered by someone selling time shares? Or what do you do if someone is just on meth and will not stop talking about their startup, and they're just going and going and going? What do you do? Well, I would say a few things. And I put "escape/pause", because I think pause is the better way to think about it. You could try to pull the bathroom maneuver. People always try this. And it can work, and be like, "You know, that's awesome, so fascinating. I really have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back." The dangers of doing that. Number one, if you don't come back, you kinda look like a dick. So it violates the "don't be a dick" rule. If you don't even go to the bathroom, if you're like, "Yes, I need to go to the bathroom", and then you just walk 20 feet and then just start talking to someone,

• 32:00Tim Ferriss?

  they're gonna be like, "Picture, at so-and-so, what a dick." So don't do that.

• 32:05Tim Ferriss?

  The easiest way to do it, you don't have to make up, "Oh my god, my house is on fire. My wife is calling, I have to go." You don't have to do that. You can just say, and this is what I do, and I do this with people I find very, very interesting also, if it's just like, "Okay, we've been talking for an hour." In your head, you're thinking this, "I just want to wander around a little bit." Say that. So you ask them, "Hey, you know, James," or whatever, "Hey, James, are you going to be here for the rest of the, for the rest of South by? Are you going to be here for a couple of days? Yeah, I'm going to be here for the next two days." "Cool, well, do you have a card or something? I'd love to connect, but I just want to wander around, maybe take a little breather, grab a cup of coffee." You're done. That's great. It's polite, it's honest, that's all you have to do. "Are you going to be here for the rest of South by? Are you going to be here for the next couple of days?" "Cool, can I get your card?

• 32:48Tim Ferriss?

  Great, I just want to wander around, take a break, hit the bathroom, grab a cup of coffee, but I'm sure I'll see you around." Nobody's offended, and you accomplish the purpose of pausing the conversation. Next, follow-up. All right, so during the event, after the event, how do you follow-up? First of all, don't do anything to keep in touch. It will just make enemies, all right? You don't need to ping busy people, just be like, "Hey, how's it going? How you doing?" Imagine that you are calling them at like 3:00 PM, all right? So you call them, they're like, "There's an investment banker running around, oh my god." You're a startup, you're like, "We need an underwriter." So you call this busy investment banker at 3:00 PM, and you're like, "Hey, John, it's Tim from South by." He's like, "Uh, Tim who? Tim Ferriss.

• 33:33Tim Ferriss?

  How you doing? How's it going today?" Don't do that. Just be like, "What the fuck? I'm really busy." Don't do that. So, follow-up is a dish best served cold. What I mean by this is, most people are going to walk out of South by, pockets full of business cards, big ideas, people to follow up with, people to ping, brains to pick. Don't ever ask anybody if you can pick their brain over coffee, by the way, but that's a separate story. Follow-up, wait two weeks, okay? Wait two weeks. Why two weeks? Because if you do it now, it's gonna get lost in the avalanche of similar stuff. If you do it right after South by, it'll be even worse. You're gonna get lost in another hundred follow-up email.

• 34:15Tim Ferriss?

  So it takes people time to catch up from neglecting other things during South by. Wait two weeks, and then in terms of time, I would do it on a Wednesday afternoon, their time, or a Friday afternoon, their time. Sunday night also works pretty well. So for responses, for max response rate and read rate, those tend to be the times that I find most effective. Play the long game. Play the long game. All this means is you don't have to rush. Why? Because you just have to have one deep human connection with one person. That's it. If you can accomplish that and develop a long-term relationship, you can potentially never have to network again.

• 34:59Tim Ferriss?

  I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but if you look back at the people I spent the most time with in 2007, realistically, you'd probably be able to have a couple of these human interactions. Try to get out of tech, by the way. Don't do all tech. If you look at the people I spent the most time with in 2007, about 90% of them, this is 2007, what is that, seven years ago? Oh my god, they're still some of my closest friends to this day. That is what you want. Because if you don't do that, you play the short game, you have to then do this very time-consuming, very energy-consuming, very likely to offend, transactional stuff, every year for the rest of your life. Do you really want to do that? No, no you don't. So play the long game, guys.

• 35:43Tim Ferriss?

  That is it for my formal presentation, so I am going to open it up to the rest of Twitter Q&A. But I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful experience at South by Southwest. If you do it right, it will change your life. So, again, just in summary, don't dismiss people, don't be a dick, and don't rush. Play the long game. Thank you.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Cool. Thanks so much, Tim. So if you guys have specific questions that you want to ask, if you want to hashtag your tweet with #AskTim, we will pull them up and he will answer all of your lovely questions, concerns, ponderings. And here is our first question. I really should have worn my glasses for this.

• 36:33Tim Ferriss?

  I can read it. I'll do it. Alright, so this is from Wendy Perry. Can you guys read this as well? Maybe I don't have to read all of these, but I will, just for those who are getting this on audio. "After I read the Four Hour Work Week, years ago I took my family on a mini-break once a month. Can you have too many?" This is in reference to mini-retirements and taking these sabbaticals. So distributing retirement throughout life as opposed to waiting until, say, 50, 60, 70 to load it up at that point. I think that this is a deeply personal question. So in terms of mini-retirements, I try to take one to three months, usually two to three months of these mini-sabbaticals per year. I think that if you use these mini-retirements as a way of postponing other important decisions,

• 37:18Tim Ferriss?

  and of course it could be too many. So if you look at your to-do list, and usually the most uncomfortable item is the most important, if you're using these trips to avoid that, then I'd say it's too many. Alright, next is from Zachary Barker. "If you were launching a new company with only $1,000 to get started, what would you start?" So I get a lot of questions like this. It's like, if you had no connections and no money, how would you make $100,000 in the next quarter and what business would you start?

• 37:46Tim Ferriss?

  This is a question of what I would say, I'd spend the first $10 getting the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and I would figure out which market you're going after first and then design your product. And specifically, I would also read 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly and identify what the demographic and psychographic is of the 1,000 people you want to have as diehard fans. First and foremost, non-celebrities. In my case with the Four Hour Work Week, I knew that my first market, not my entire market, but my first market would be 25- to 40-year-old tech-savvy males in New York City and San Francisco. How do I reach those people? How can I seem, say, ubiquitous by being on five websites when in fact I'm not ubiquitous? I'm just everywhere that they happen to look.

• 38:31Tim Ferriss?

  Okay? That's where I would start, but I can't say... You know, put all your money in Bitcoin or something like that, which I think would be dangerous, especially if you only have a thousand bucks. So, test often, test small. I think Facebook is a great place to thin slice, but that would be my advice. Do you meditate or do yoga? I do meditate. I meditate almost every morning for ideally 20 minutes. It's only something that I've done consistently for the last year or so. Oh, alright. And I personally use TM, Transcendental Meditation. I find some of the guru stuff a little woo-woo, I'm not for that, but just the repetition

• 39:12Tim Ferriss?

  of a sound, I find very, very effective, as opposed to, say, concentrative meditation or other types. Vipassana also very, very helpful. I am not, I don't do a lot of yoga. I've become fascinated with acro yoga, which is more like a Cirque du Soleil, strength performance than anything else, but those are the two. I meditate a lot more than I do yoga. Anthony Blatner, how do you find the good events and parties instead of the overpacked events? Good events and parties. Alright, so I plan my sessions, although there's room to improvise. I let the parties pick me. What that means is, I choose the sessions, I interact with people in the way that I described, and then you just ask, okay?

• 39:54Tim Ferriss?

  Try to have some spontaneity, and just wander around and get lost. In terms of events, if we're talking about conferences in general, this is gonna sound haphazard, but my policy has generally been, go to at least one event per year, which is the most expensive event you can afford to go to. You're gonna end up with a smaller crowd, and I find that at least interesting to experiment with, but obviously you don't wanna bet the farm on it. Next question from Littlest Gator. I like that name. Have you ever heard little baby alligators, they go "meow, meow" when they're calling their mother? It's amazing. I really want this guy to make that noise. Alright, now that you're a big deal, what are your goals at South by Southwest?

• 40:40Tim Ferriss?

  I don't think I'm a big deal compared to a lot of folks, but my goal is to South by Southwest. Honestly, I was offered the opportunity to do How to Rock South by Southwest, and I feel a huge debt of gratitude to South by. I think it's one of the most incredible events out there, and if you do it right, it could be totally life-changing. So, I don't have a new book, I don't have a new thing to promote. For this time around, it's really just to have fun, eat some barbecue, and hopefully allow you guys to do the same. Next, Mark Marshall or Michelle? What thought leaders do you follow?

• 41:15Tim Ferriss?

  Or are there specific writers, bloggers that I read? Right now, at this point in time, there's some very interesting folks out there. I mean, Nassim Taleb is one that comes to mind immediately. But in terms of reading, I'm trying to actually read really old ideas right now. So I'm trying to focus on books that have been around for 100-plus years whenever possible. Because in an age of ephemera and neo-mania and obsession with the new, the new, the new, I like ideas that have stood the test of time for a while. How do I stay focused? I'm not convinced I am focused, but meditation helps a lot. And really, the purpose of that session in the morning,

• 41:59Tim Ferriss?

  I might just be thinking of like some guy who cut me off in the salad line in college that I wanted to like punch in the nose for 19 minutes of that. But if I'm thinking of that and I'm like, "Not productive", and then I go back to what I'm supposed to be doing just once, that will translate to being able to do the same thing in your normal life. So I think that's very, very helpful. In terms of books on meditation,

• 42:22Tim Ferriss?

  the first book by Thich Nhat Hanh is very, very good. All right, Melody Tao, how do you deal with criticism you get for not replying to email right away?

• 42:34Tim Ferriss?

  You know what, I'm gonna dodge this one just because I answered it at length in the Four Hour Work Week. So, I apologize guys, but that's a long, long answer. So, that one, we're gonna save for the Four Hour Work Week. I'm sure it's on torrent somewhere if somebody wants to read it for free. Herb Morial, question, "What part of your Four Hour Work Week do you personally find hardest to follow?" What I've found hardest, and what I still find hardest, is saying no. You have to say no to a thousand things before you can say yes to the one big thing that's gonna change your life. And I still find that difficult. I think we all like people to like us. And some people take it very personally when you don't get back to them quickly, like the startup founder kind of accosted me outside.

• 43:16Tim Ferriss?

  It's like, and I feel badly, but at the same time, I'm just like, "Try to walk a mile in my shoes if you could." Just think about it, because I used to take it personally too. I'd send an email to a really busy person, they would never respond, I'd be like, "Wow, what a dick." You have to try to imagine yourself in their shoes. And the reality is, they're getting thousands of emails, thousands of pitches. Probably 90% of the interactions I have at South by Southwest will be people pitching me. So, just imagine how that would feel and how tiring it would be before taking it personally. But I still find saying no quite challenging. Ryan Bonhardt, "How do I want people to remember me?" I would say, I don't need people to remember me. If they remember the ideas, that would be fantastic, most of which I've borrowed from

• 44:01Tim Ferriss?

  other people or just collected. But I would say that my goal is to be a world-class teacher and to create people who are better than I am. So, if I can create armies, thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people who are world-class learners and in turn can be world-class teachers, and better than I am, which is necessary, then I think the world would be a better place. So, hopefully that's something I can do. John Adley, "What tricks do you have for retaining info?"

• 44:32Tim Ferriss?

  If it's factual declarative information, facts and figures. There's a book written by a gentleman named Higby. I think it's called Your Memory and How to Improve It, but the last name is Higby. Pneumonic devices, as used by Cicero and for several thousand years, work really well. Ed Cook, C-O-O-K-E, also a fascinating guy, world-class memory competitor I interviewed on the podcast. What's the next project book that I'm working on? Well, more details to come shortly, but, well, okay, I'll give you guys some breaking news. No one knows this. I was able to negotiate back the rights for a TV show that I filmed some time ago.

• 45:15Tim Ferriss?

  And I will be digitally distributing The Tim Ferriss Experiment to, well, I would like to say the world. There are some constraints geographically, but I will be distributing it and making it available to as many people as humanly possible in the next few months. So that's, that's very exciting for me. (applause) Hopefully, I can come back to the South by next year and do something in the film track and talk about these new avenues for distribution, which I think are really exciting. Homeless coder, that's a guy. (laughing) That's funny. I saw a guy, I saw a guy two days ago in San Francisco. He was like, slow-motion karate chopping this tree. And in my mind, I was like, either that guy is high as balls on LSD, or he's coming up

• 46:00Tim Ferriss?

  with the next billion-dollar idea and he's a coder. It's gotta be one of the two. Homeless coder. You've advocated many retirements and travel. Where's the best place in the world besides Austin? You know, this is like, what's the best pair of shoes in the world? You have to find the pair that fits, and it's not the same for everybody. Some people like those crazy, like, pointy, which-of-the-west shoes. I've seen a lot of guys in those. Not my thing, you know? I'm not like a flip-flop guy. I love Japan. I have a huge affinity for Japan. I've, I've, I lived there for a year in high school. That's, that's the, Argentina's a lot of fun, too. It's amazing how they can get anything done. (laughing) There's beautiful, hilarious people. Great wine, great steak.

• 46:42Tim Ferriss?

  Japan is amazing because it is a place where you can be completely confused and illiterate and lost and not be in danger. So if you want to be really, really uncomfortable, but not really in any particular danger, Japan is a great place to do it.

• 47:01Tim Ferriss?

  Melanie Curtin, what are you most excited about for this year's South by? I'm most excited about eating a lot of animals. I don't have a real agenda while I'm here. There are a number of friends of mine who have moved to Austin because it is the best place in the world. And I'd like to just reconnect with some of my friends, many of whom I met into the, actually, two of them I'm meeting in the next three days, I met for the first time at South by 2007. And they've continued to be two of my best friends. So that's about it. This is from B. Cursed77. On your podcast with Matt Mullenweg, you guys spoke briefly about polysynchronous sleep. Have you tried it? Does it work?

• 47:45Tim Ferriss?

  So polysynchronous, I've never heard it phrased that way. Most people have heard, if they have heard it, polyphasic sleep, where you take, instead of a single hour, I'm sorry, a single block of eight hours, you can break it down into fractions, where you can get down to two, two and a half hours of sleep if you do it, take a 20-minute nap every few hours. I have tried it, and it can work. And I still am a, I'm a huge believer in naps, huge, huge believer in naps, despite the fact that I have a lot of trouble with them. Pro tip for naps, I've realized, it's not about falling, it's not about falling asleep. It's about laying down and closing your eyes and just blocking out some sensory input. So don't get stressed out if you can't fall asleep for 20 minutes. Just lay down, chill out.

• 48:25Tim Ferriss?

  I've tried it, it works, it's massively antisocial, you can have no social calendar whatsoever. So I don't typically follow it. Luigi Linguito, what's the most memorable thank you note that I've received? Ooh, that's a good question. I've been very fortunate, I've had a good, a good tear over the last couple of years. And there's, there's a luck component, there's a timing component. Hopefully, there's some kind of competency component. But...

• 48:57Tim Ferriss?

  You know, the first one that's coming to mind, I've received a lot of really lovely thank you letters, but the first one that comes to mind has nothing to do with Four Hour Work Week. It's actually a collection of thank you notes from, I think they were third graders or fourth graders, from doing work with DonorsChoose.org, which is an educational nonprofit I really love and spend a lot of time with. I'm on their advisory board. And I got this collection of thank you notes for supplying some basic materials like books or pens or pencils. So, that's the first one that comes to mind, is just these hand crayons. I'm not a parent yet, so I don't have the poorly drawn brontosaurus to stick on my refrigerator. And I got 30 hand drawn letters from these kids, which was just awesome.

• 49:42Tim Ferriss?

  JDML, "Are you recording a podcast while here at South Bay? If yes, with whom?" I don't have any plans to record here at South Bay. I might. Who knows? I might. Maybe I'll do a man on the street, walk around, see how many drunk people I can get to say incriminating things. I don't know. But, no plans right now. What animal best describes you? Edwin Lee, also a good question. This is a good one. Alexis Ohanian of Y Combinator likes to ask people in job interviews, "What is your spirit animal?" Which I think gets a pretty good answer, or causes some awkwardness at the very least. Coyote, I'd say. I'd say prankster, joker.

• 50:24Tim Ferriss?

  We could go into that for a while, but I'll just leave it. I think coyote is a pretty good one. Jackie Bloom, "I have a 9 to 5 job. Can Four Hour Work Week actually transform my life if I'm not in a position to leave my regular job?" I would say yes, and the reason I say that is that the Four Hour Work Week is really a portfolio of tools for maximizing your per hour output. So, there was somebody actually just on Twitter a couple of days ago, if you look at my favorites, if you look at my favorites on Twitter, @TFerris, you can see tons and tons of real life case studies from Four Hour Work Week and Four Hour Body. And one of them was, you know, it took me five months to negotiate it, but I now have a remote work agreement. So, he's in his current job, same job, getting paid the same amount, but he has complete

• 51:09Tim Ferriss?

  freedom of mobility. That's a big deal. And, because that helps to reward performance over presence, and it leads to great things. So, it's not about getting to a Four Hour Work Week for everyone. It's about maximizing your per hour output and then making... Better decisions with more options. Andrew Berg, what are the three to four best body weight exercises for business travelers?

• 51:35Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I would say you can keep it really simple.

• 51:40Tim Ferriss?

  Push-ups, planks, if you want to make planks harder, you can put the soles of your feet against the wall, so your feet are off the ground, and you have to press back into the wall to make it work. That's quite challenging. And pull-ups, if you have access to pull-ups. I would say that if you do just that, pistols, if you can handle it, but pistols are hard for a lot of people, there's one-legged squats. Otherwise, just two tips. If you train your abs and your grip, you can keep your entire body in really good shape. Abs, we already talked about planks. Listen to my podcast with Pavel Tsatsoulin for more details on that. Get some hand grippers. As a dude, I'm not sure if all the ladies here want like thick, calloused meat hooks,

• 52:21Tim Ferriss?

  but grippers, grippers are incredible to travel with. And you can also, if you're really aggressive and want to go for it, you can get a kayaking dry bag that people use to put their wallets and so on iPhones inside to keep dry. Well, it turns out, you can use a dry bag to contain water also. So you can roll up a dry bag, travel with it, fill it up with water, say in the bathtub, and get it up to like 30, 40 pounds, and you can just use that as a kettlebell or as a dumbbell. So you can get around the space constraints. Jesse Conover, what's the best way to respond to, "Do you have a business card when I don't have one?"

• 52:58Tim Ferriss?

  What's this? No, I just say, "I'm sorry, I'm really unprofessional, I don't have business cards." That's it. I have no, I think that does the job. And then usually I say, "I'm sorry, I don't have any business cards, but you know, I'll shoot you my info." If you mean it. If not, then don't say that. All right, next question. Eric Qualman, what do most entrepreneurs do wrong?

• 53:26Tim Ferriss?

  What do most entrepreneurs do wrong? I think they try to do, most entrepreneurs...

• 53:35Tim Ferriss?

  Invest too much in their business before they test product market fit. So do what I mentioned before, read the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, read A Thousand True Fans by Kevin Kelly, which is free, and figure out exactly who your ideal customer is, and who those thousand people are, where they're located, what they read, where they'd be on Facebook, which pages they've probably liked, and test your landing page. Use something like Unbounce or Leadpages or something to test the offer before you invest in a ton of inventory or a ton of software development. And I think that's the right way to approach it. Along the same lines is Luigi Adel. What's the most memorable memento I've received?

• 54:17Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, boy. Again, it's just the first one that comes to mind. I was in Japan at one point filming a TV show where I was attempting to learn Japanese horseback archery in a week. Really dangerous, turns out. I don't recommend it. You can find it online if you just search Japanese horseback archery and my name, of all the things. And the teacher there gave me an out-of-print, tiny book on Yabusame, which it's called in Japanese, that he was featured in with an inscription from the foremost family who used to work with the

• 55:00Tim Ferriss?

  shogunate, teaching Yabusame. And the prodigy right now, who's incredible rider, incredible archer, has a jacket. He didn't give me the jacket, I would have loved the jacket, but it said, "Ogasawara Yabusame, since 1157," or something like that. It said "since 11 something," and I was like, "That is amazing. I want that jacket." I didn't get the jacket, I got the book, but that was enough. All right. Advice for introverts. Advice for introverts is take timeouts. So I can play the extrovert, but I get exhausted at events. I get exhausted in crowds. I get exhausted at book signings. I get really, really drained. I recharge my batteries by myself. So if you need to

• 55:42Tim Ferriss?

  take a break, go outside, chill out for 10 minutes, lean against the wall. Like, laid out in the park. Take time to recharge. If you try to play the extrovert for too long, you'll just get burned out, and then the next day, you won't even participate. So, drink a lot of water, and recharge. Josh Jansen, what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from starting my podcast? The podcast started as a lark. It was really a commitment to do six episodes, because I wanted to get better at conversation and asking questions. My favorite part of writing books is not actually the writing, it's the research, and it's interviewing world-class experts, and trying to deconstruct what they do.

• 56:26Tim Ferriss?

  And I viewed the podcast as a way of practicing that and getting much better at it. And I'd had some wonderful experiences being interviewed on, say, Joe Rogan's podcast, or Marc Maron, and I wanted to see if I enjoyed being the host. So, I would say, first and foremost, what I've learned is that it's not enough to have the right answers. You need to have the right questions. So, you can get a great answer to the wrong question, and it ends up meaning very little. But, if you have a portfolio of really good questions, man, you can do just about anything. And, that's number one. Number two, is ask simple follow-on questions.

• 57:11Tim Ferriss?

  So, someone says, "Well, I did this, I did this, I did this." Why did you choose to do that? What did you learn from that? What did you learn from that you haven't talked about before? These follow-up questions are often where the jams really come out. All right, next question. Gabby De Leon, what are some tips for executing on all the great ideas gathered at IA? Iowa? Oh, interactive? What is IA? I'm not sure. Once we return home, I'm guessing that is from the conference. You don't want to execute on all the great ideas. It's way, way, way too much. So, I would look at your ideas, the potential collaborations and all of that, and ask yourself,

• 57:55Tim Ferriss?

  which one of these, if executed, will make all of the others irrelevant or easier? And then focus on that one. So, find the lead domino and focus on that.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  I think we'll take one more question, and then direct everyone to the signing?

• 58:10Tim Ferriss?

  Sure. All right. Next one is Gindrich Faborski.

• 58:15Tim Ferriss?

  Let's do one more question after this, because I don't think I have a good answer for this. Is there any particular session at South by that you want to attend? At least one. I wasn't able to get my badge yet, so I haven't had a chance to get the book with the sessions. Let's do one more.

• 58:31Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm, this is a good one. Alex Wykoff, what questions do you use for reflection and why? So reflection, meditation, I view those as the same thing. I will journal in the mornings quite often, and whenever, I'd say every four to eight weeks, at longest, I will wake up in the morning and I will do an 80/20 inventory of my emotional states. So what does that mean? That means that I'll sit down, before checking email, doing any of that, checking my phone, and I will ask the question, you know, what are 20% of the activities and relationships that are producing 80% of my positive emotional states? And then what are the 20% of activities and people who are creating 80% of the negative emotional states?

• 59:13Tim Ferriss?

  The overwhelm, the guilt, and so on, and put together a to-do list and a not-to-do list accordingly. Specifically, the not-to-do list, the things to cut out. So those are, that is the set of questions that I find most valuable.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Good question and good answer. Well, cool. Thanks again, Tim, and thanks, everyone here, for joining us.

• 59:32Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, everybody. Have a great South by.

• 59:39Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little, tiny bite.

• 1:00:24Tim Ferriss?

  of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. And until next time, thank you for listening.