#268: Eric Ripert -- Lessons in Mastery and Mindfulness

Eric Ripert (@ericripert) https://twitter.com/ericripert is recognized as one of the best chefs in the world. In 1995, at just 29 years old, he earned a four-star rating from The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/. Twenty years later and for the fifth consecutive time, Le Bernardin https://www.le-bernardin.com/, where Eric is the chef and a co-owner, again earned the highest rating of four stars, becoming the only restaurant to maintain this superior status for such a marathon length of time. In 1998, the James Beard Foundation https://www.jamesbeard.org/ named him Top Chef in New York City and, in 2003, Outstanding Chef of the Year. In 2009, Avec Eric http://www.aveceric.com/, his first TV show, debuted and ran for two seasons, earning two Daytime Emmy Awards. It returned for a third season on the Cooking Channel in 2015. Eric has also hosted the show On the Table https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL202BA616C5A2507A on YouTube, which debuted in July 2012, and he has appeared in media worldwide. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir 32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812983068/offsitoftimfe-20, Avec Eric http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470889357/offsitoftimfe-20, and several other books. In this episode we discuss: Daily routines Conquering weakness and anger Mindfulness and meditation The art of hiring And much, much more This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. I get asked all the time, "If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?" My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. As a listener of The Tim Ferriss Show, you'll get 30 percent off your first order at AthleticGreens.com/Tim https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga http://foursigmatic.com/tim. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now — this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed.

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

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, we're seeing an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

  subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A G one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 1:23Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, ladies and germs, princesses and bridge trolls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to find out what makes them tick, what makes them good, and to unearth the specific tactics, habits, et cetera, that you can use. And this episode was so much fun for me. And I don't want you to take it at face value, because we get into so much in terms of daily routine, visualizing things like weakness and anger to get rid of them, multiple steps for mindfulness and meditation, training the mind, hiring. It covers so much ground. So I don't want you to be thrown off by the fact that it starts

• 2:08Tim Ferriss?

  in the cooking. ...world and the food world. It applies to so much more. The guest is, and I'm going to butcher a lot of French in this episode, so get used to it, Eric Ripert, R-I-P-E-R-T, who's recognized as one of the best chefs in the world, and you'll know why in a second. So in 1995, at 29 years old, he earned a four-star rating from the New York Times. 20 years later, and for the fifth consecutive time, Le Bernaden, which is in New York City, where Eric is the chef and co-owner, once again earned the New York Times highest rating of four stars, becoming the only restaurant to maintain this superior status for such a marathon length of time. In 1998, the James Beard Foundation named him top chef in New York City.

• 2:50Tim Ferriss?

  Think about that for a minute, out of thousands of restaurants and probably the same number of chefs. And in 2003, outstanding chef of the year. And it goes on and on. He's had successful TV shows, Avec Eric. He has hosted the show On The Table on YouTube, which debuted in July 2012, and has appeared in media worldwide. He's the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, 32 yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line, Avec Eric, and several others. Now, one thing I'll point out, so Eric, also, my first contact with him was through putting together my brand-new book, which is Tribe of Mentors. And if you liked Tools of Titans, you're going to love Tribe of Mentors.

• 3:34Tim Ferriss?

  And it's similar in format, but very different in the sense that 90-plus percent of the people in the book never appeared on the podcast. And you can learn more about Tribe of Mentors on all of your favorite booksellers' websites, BNN, Amazon, Apple iBooks, and so on. And if you want to go to, for instance, tim.blog/tribe, you can learn more about it. All right, so that is that. And really, listen to this episode. We talk about hiring and restaurants for the first maybe 30 minutes, which is still worth listening to, and then we go really, really deep on a lot of specifics that can apply to everything and just about everyone.

• 4:17Tim Ferriss?

  So, long intro, but trust me, it's worth it. And please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Eric Ripert.

• 4:28Tim Ferriss?

  Eric, welcome to the show.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me. Very happy.

• 4:32Tim Ferriss?

  I have been looking forward to connecting with you for some time. I remember first coming across your smile on, I believe it was No Reservations, but it might have been Parts Unknown, where you took Anthony Bourdain back on the line to see if he had any of his endurance and skills left.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was not much left, actually. It's why I was smiling and laughing so much. Because his idea was to torture me, to take me and put me on the line and see myself going down, right? He thought because I was the chef of Le Bernardin, I forgot about how to cook on the line. And when he asked me, I said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I'm coming. No problem. But you have to be on the line yourself." And he went down so quickly.

• 5:23Tim Ferriss?

  It was a great episode, and it caught me at a really good time because I was doing research for a book I wrote called The Four Hour Chef. And I remember at the time, just before seeing that, I went into, it was Riverside Restaurant, to actually attempt to do some prep work. My knife skills are not fantastic, but they were improving. And I remember watching people on the line, and the people who were really good seemed like they had eight arms. I mean, they seemed like they were an octopus or something along those lines. And I was curious, just as a starting point, I've read, for instance, that you really focus on mentality when you're hiring people, and that there are certain

• 6:07Tim Ferriss?

  things you can teach, but mentality is very important. What makes, for instance, a good line cook? Or what types of people do you look for? Because I noticed, when I was looking at, say, the forearms of some of these line cooks, I mean, it looked like they'd been crawling through barbed wire and charcoal. They're very, very tough, and they seem to really enjoy it, almost like professional athletes also, the action of the whole thing. But what is a key mentality when you're looking for someone who's going to be good at something like that?

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Become good at one point. And nobody is born with knife skills. Nobody knows at three years old how to make a sauce and so on. This is craft, these details of craftsmanship. And I'm not worried about the fact that we will be able to teach the person the details of craftsmanship. So I'm always thinking about the mentality of the person about if they are potentially a good team player. If they are not a good team player, if they cannot adapt and be part of a team, I don't like that and I will probably not hire them.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Because it doesn't matter if they can multitask and they are brilliant at what they do. At one point, they will struggle during the night or during the lunch. And they need to help also as well the other part of the team that struggle. So if they are very individualistic and they have a temper and they have an ego, the chances, the chances are they're not coming to Le Bernardin. They have to be humble, they have to be disciplined and clean. And this is the obvious.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Being humble is very important because it allows you to keep yourself curious and motivated. If your ego is in a way, it makes you blind and you're not inclined to learn because you already know or you don't want to show your weakness. So those kind of things, details are what I'm looking into someone who comes to Le Bernardin. And there's a lot, a lot of other things. I mean, obviously they have to be very clean. They have to be honest. I mean, those are of course like the A B C of hiring someone.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  But again, being so, being a team player, it's in my opinion, one of the most important things for, for someone to become a good line cook. I'm not saying a chef. I make a difference in between a line cook and a chef. A chef is a manager and it's someone who has the capability of driving a team to success and who creates hopefully his own recipes and has many other responsibilities in a kitchen. The line cook is basically the core of a chef.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  It's without being a great line cook, without mastering all the aspects or a lot of the aspects of what's happening in the kitchen, you cannot become a good manager, you cannot become a chef.

• 9:39Tim Ferriss?

  And when you're trying to identify someone who is a good team player, do you do that by asking certain questions? Do you do it by throwing them into a shift and test driving them and seeing how they respond to certain situations? How do you figure out who is going to be a good team player? Because I would imagine you don't want to test it when a lot is on the line, when you have an entirely full restaurant. That's not the time to experiment with it. So how do you determine if they're a team player or not?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  So first of all, we look at the resumes when they are sent to us or the cooks are sent by a culinary school or by another chef. They have a lot of good recommendations. And what we do, we invite them to come in our kitchen on a Saturday night because it's a busy night and it's also the end of the week and we like to have them, and we don't have too many at the same time, but two or three potential hires in our kitchen. And we said to them, look, we give you a menu and we're gonna put you in a kitchen in

• 10:49Speaker 03

  some different spots and you're gonna observe and then at the end of the night we will have a little talk with you because what we really want is for you to like what you see. And... Wanna be part of that team that's working tonight. And therefore, it's very light on them. They they don't have any pressure. They don't have um anything to do but to observe. At the same time, what they don't realize is that we are watching them as well. For instance, um if I see someone two hour into into the service, putting his hands in a pocket

• 11:32Speaker 03

  and starting to lean against the wall and starting to yawn, uh it's not a good sign. If I see someone starting to bother the cooks by asking hundreds of questions when it's the really, really difficult time of the night and and the cooks need to be concentrated. I know that person is not is not understanding uh what's happening. Uh it's so it's a lot of little details like that. And then at at the end of the service, we sit down with them and we ask them what they think. And we and then if they have a positive answer and they say, well, look, I I like your kitchen. I want to be with you.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Uh then we we go more into details, uh technical details of of what we expect from them. And we make them come back again and we put them in a station with someone. And they don't have any responsibilities, but they feel a little bit of the pressure. And it's a very slow process before we hire them.

• 12:32Tim Ferriss?

  Do you fire quickly? And we're not going to stay on hiring and firing the whole time. Don't worry. But do you do you hire really slowly and fire quickly? Or do you give people many different opportunities if they make mistakes?

• 12:44Speaker 03

  No, we don't. We don't fire easily. It's very rare that we fire someone. It's very rare that someone also leaves almost immediately after being hired. Um because of the process, because we are slow at hiring. They understand better who we are and they understand better if we are good for them. And therefore, we don't have to deal with those painful consequences that are having someone leaving or have to let someone go.

• 13:13Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit, well, actually completely, but the details, the little details, I love the allowing to observe but observing them simultaneously. So I'd love to talk about a very different type of detail. And this might be outdated, but I read about your office at one point. And this is, this is a piece from 2005, so it may not be accurate. But could you describe what your office looks like or what makes your office different, perhaps, than what people might think of as a normal office? And it's a leading question, so I can certainly read what I have, but I'd love for you to

• 13:56Tim Ferriss?

  describe your office, if you could.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  Well, my office looks like, like a monastery, like a Buddhist monastery with Buddha statues everywhere, tankas, pictures of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, pictures of Buddhas, mantras, candles, a lot of them, probably way too many. And it's one table that I share with my, with Kathy, who's my right hand, and we basically face each other. And then we have another lady in office, Chelsea, who's working with us for different aspects of the duties.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  But I always ask them permission, and if I can, bring another painting or another tanka or Buddha. And I ask them if they're comfortable with that. If not, I would remove them because I don't want to impose on them. And it's interesting because they laugh all the time, but when I remove one Buddha, they complain about it.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  And I remove, I remove Buddhas because I'm not, being a Buddhist, you're not supposed to be attached, and obviously it's a form of attachment, and therefore I try to give Buddhas to my friends who, who, who accept a Buddha, who are happy, happy to receive a Buddha from me. If not, I move them to, to my house, although I think we are maxed out at the house. And actually, my, my wife had a funny line the other day. She said, what do you think about me bringing, because she's Catholic, bringing some Christ on the cross and putting, putting them all over the walls? And I, I said, yeah, you're right. Maybe I should move some Buddhas out of the house as well.

• 15:55Tim Ferriss?

  And the, well, two, two questions. You mentioned, you mentioned a word, and I apologize, I couldn't make it out. Tanca? Is that the word that you used?

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Tankas are religious paintings that I, are rolled to travel, and then you put them, you, you put them against the wall. And it's basically usually a painting of a deity or a Buddha that has the, the role to help you in meditation or to inspire you. It, it's not just for decoration.

• 16:31Tim Ferriss?

  And do you still have handwritten mantras or mantras around the office or elsewhere in your life?

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Well, so I, at home, what I have done to, to avoid the discussion of putting too many Buddhas everywhere, I, I have a meditation room that is basically my world, and, and nobody's telling me what to put in it or not, or, or not put it inside a room. So I, I manage that pretty well. And then again, the office is, it's a work in progress.

• 17:09Tim Ferriss?

  What are some of the handwritten mantras that you, that you have around? Or any, any that are particularly important to you that you have, that you tend to revisit? I don't know, I don't know, I don't even know where to begin, but I'm, I'm extremely curious because I have quotes that I put around my house. For instance, one on the refrigerator, one on the coffee table, because I think they're important for me to revisit. I'm very fascinated by this handwritten mantra idea.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  Well, the mantras that I have are either way in Tibetan or Sanskrit. But my, and I'm not sure I understand fully the full extent of the power of the mantra. But probably the most powerful that I have on the wall is a mantra that explains the theory of emptiness in Buddhism, which is basically that nothing, nothing in life or in this world, which is called samsara, has an intrinsic reality, which means is

• 18:19Speaker 03

  independent from anything else. In Buddhism, we believe that everything is a matter of cause and consequences and everything is interrelated. So that mantra is basically reminding and making, and proving the point that nothing exists by itself and we are all one, if it makes sense.

• 18:43Tim Ferriss?

  It does, it makes more sense, probably requires a little bit of wine and a longer conversation, but.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 18:50Tim Ferriss?

  It does, no, no, no, it does make a lot of sense to me. Love to rewind the clock a little bit and we're definitely going to come back to meditation.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 19:00Tim Ferriss?

  Certainly at one point, but from, from my understanding, perhaps it was about two decades ago, you were a very demanding chef and I think you referred to yourself as a dictator or a borderline, a borderline violent dictator.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  Yes, and I agree, I was.

• 19:20Tim Ferriss?

  And you were losing employees. Could you tell us about that period of time? Because that's the last thing I would have imagined, given my exposure to you on video, to given you in writing. Yet I know that certainly not very long ago, that was extremely typical in kitchens. But can you tell us about that period of time and?

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 19:46Tim Ferriss?

  What changes you made or what realizations you had?

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Yes, of course. I was trained in Europe at a very young age in kitchens where.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  The way to educate a cook was through abuse and humiliation. And the belief was, we're gonna break, we're gonna break this person, we're gonna, and then we're gonna rebuild potentially a champion. And so it was allowed in a kitchen to be, beat the cooks, like kick them in a butt, or beat them in a, in the shoulders, or even have, you know, like punching the cooks and so on. In many kitchens, it was allowed, and it was common practice. It was certainly, um, more than a common practice, it was everywhere and totally accepted

• 20:43Speaker 03

  to have a chef being screaming, insulting the cooks, and having tantrum in the kitchen, and throwing pans in the garbage, and plates on the floor, and, and it, it was seen as a, as a sign of power. And I learned later on in life that it's actually, it's embarrassing, it's, it's a huge sign of weakness. But it was, it was the way many kitchens were training their cooks, uh, in Europe. And it was actually a reflection of the education in, in, in the society. It was totally accepted in the nineteen seventies, when I was five years old,

• 21:25Speaker 03

  to have the teacher in school spanking, or, or smacking, uh, or, or pulling the ears of a student. It was totally acceptable for parents to certainly do the same. And, and therefore, ultimately, uh, in a work environment, we will see those kind of abuse.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Then, when I came to the US, I was convinced that it was the right way to maintain a kitchen, maintain discipline, to create some strong people. Uh, a little bit almost like, uh, you will do with the militaries during the time of war, when you have to be, uh, training them, uh, to, to be ready to die, I guess. Um, or to fight until the, the, the last minute. Uh, so that was my mentality. And when I became the chef of Le Bernardin, or even sous chef, when I was sous chef in Washington DC at the Watergate Hotel, I had those terrible tantrums in the kitchen,

• 22:32Speaker 03

  because the quality wouldn't be there, because the cooks were not behaving the way I wanted. And I was a terror, and the waiters were scared of me, and the cooks were scared of me. And I was losing the staff. They were going to work somewhere else. And I remember not understanding why they were leaving. I thought I was doing a good job trying to educate them. But ultimately, I had to, one day, sit down at home and started to reflect on on my life as a professional and on my life in general. And I realized that I was miserable. I was not happy at all.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  And I realized that, actually, your brain cannot mix happiness and anger at the same time. And I can tell you, anyone can try to be happy and angry. The brain doesn't process that. Therefore, I decided, almost overnight, to change the way I was managing the kitchen, the way I was conducting my life. And since then, it has been a work in progress, and I'm getting better and better. And I make sure that our kitchen is an environment where people are happy to come

• 23:57Speaker 03

  and are motivated and excited to learn what they're supposed to learn. And the biggest job that I have, and that was at the time, is to convince my sous chefs that yesterday we were wrong and we have to change. The sous chefs were like, what's happening to you? You completely changed. And it has been... A long journey for me to convince the sous chef that the way to educate people and to motivate people, it's being inspirational, being kind,

• 24:43Speaker 03

  being strong and keeping a certain discipline in the kitchen without promoting abuse.

• 24:50Tim Ferriss?

  Was there a particular moment that triggered that change in you? Because I imagine, for instance, you've you not all the employees left at the same time. There are probably different events, different happenings. Was there a particular conversation or a particular book or a particular employee who left that was just the straw that broke the camel's back when you realized that something had to change?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  No, you know what happened? It was very interesting because I knew I was miserable. And I will close my eyes mostly at home after work. And I will try to envision something nice, something that will make me smile or something that will make me happy. So I will close my eyes and I will say, choose something simple. Envision a field of flowers or envision a flower, for instance. And I was not capable to imagine a simple flower.

• 25:51Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  It was all darkness. And that freaked me out.

• 25:55Tim Ferriss?

  Because because you were so angry, because you had

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Because I was in a darkness.

• 26:00Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  And that is what triggered the change in me. It was not necessarily an employee that was fired a certain way. It was it was that moment, sitting down or laying down, I don't remember, but saying, oh, my God, I am incapable of visualizing anything beautiful. And therefore, I must be in total darkness.

• 26:24Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, yeah, that sounds terrifying.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Not anymore.

• 26:28Tim Ferriss?

  Not anymore. Yeah, now you now you seem like you're able to. What what did you say or do to convince your, I suppose, sort of second, third in command, the sous chefs, that it was necessary and to get them to go along with it? What? How did you convince them? Because I can imagine that overnight regime change, you know, they're wondering if you somehow snuck off to Burning Man for a night or something and aren't sure what happened. How did you get them to buy in? What did you say to them?

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Yes, and I still and I still have to do that because some of them have a temper and some sous chefs are joining our team and they come from other teams that are different and come from a different environment that is much more abusive than at Le Bernard. And so it's a constant communication with them.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  I basically say, look, for practical reasons, forget, forget the spiritual reason, forget being nice for the act of being nice, but for practical reasons, if you scare the cook and you make him shake and he loses cool and he cannot focus, that cook will not be productive the way we need him to be productive. And ultimately, the product that will go to the dining room to the client will not be as nice. So on that aspect, it's easy to understand that we want the cooks not to be scared and they have to be precise and

• 28:03Speaker 03

  they have to be pushed, of course, because it's it's a timing issue, but they have to be pushed in a nice way so they feel part of the team. Now, the other day I had a discussion with a couple of sous chefs and I said, I was trying to find a secular message for them that will resonate to them and that they will.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Understand easily, so because I always try to not bring my Buddhist philosophy uh into the kitchen, except through secular ways. So I said to them, I said, why don't you treat people the way you want to be treated? And I think it's actually it's in the Bible somewhere, but I I I told them that I said, look, you like when I talk to you nicely, you like when I am taking the time and patient with you and and you like interacting with me, uh and knowing that I'm a gentle soul. And you don't like if I raise my voice, which is very rare. And you don't like if you see my face looking frustrated.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  So if you don't like that, why do you think someone else is going to like what you do? So please treat others the way you want to be pleased, the the way you want to be treated. And that really um had a good impact, they understood that really well. And it was a a good meeting uh that day and uh and I have to say, I mean, that I believe ninety percent of the time or ninety nine percent of the time, our kitchen is a very um good environment to blossom. But of course, we have our moments, of course. Uh sometimes the challenge uh is so strong that

• 30:00Speaker 03

  uh someone lose it, especially in in a in a position of command, uh including myself. And and in that case, I I have also an antidote for that. It's okay, if we lose it and it's happening and the kitchen stops and the cooks are terrorized or or frustrated. What we have to do is we have to wait a few minutes and or until the end of the service. And then we have to go on the front of the entire staff and genuinely apologize for.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Being angry and expressing it by potentially screaming or any way of showing anger. And I say, if we do that, the cooks will forgive us, I believe. And it will also for us be a good lesson. Because it's never pleasant to go on the front of a team and apologize for a mistake. And it's happenings. Now I see like some sous chefs, sometimes they lose their temper and minutes later, they go and say, look, I am sorry. I apologize for my behavior and let's finish the night in a better way.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  And even myself, this week, I remember I was frustrated with the sommelier. Who was spending too much time at the table, explaining the wine and the food getting cold. And I called him and I had a couple of like rough words with him and immediately I realized and I say, I'm, you know, look, I'm totally sorry. But please do not do that because our food is getting cold. I apologize for raising my voice. And he laughed and he said, take it easy, it's all good. I'm a big boy, but still, you know, I made the effort to do that.

• 31:54Tim Ferriss?

  And when you are trying to strike a balance between, say, kindness and the golden rule that you mentioned, treat others as you would have them treat you and extremely high quality. As you've given the examples, of course, it doesn't mean that you're just running around giving everybody hugs all night. You certainly give feedback. What are some of the approaches or learnings that you've had in striking that balance? Because when I'm, as I'm listening to you talk about your history with sort of being brought up in a very tough environment and I was also. Coached in sports very often in ways that were similar, extremely, extremely similar,

• 32:36Tim Ferriss?

  particularly during my time in Japan where they would actually, there's a kendo sword. And in some of the gyms I went to, they would cut off the top of the kendo sword so that it splayed out almost, and then they would hit athletes who were training, if they did something incorrectly, cut their ears and it would cause all sorts of, I mean, the Japanese are very intense that way, as well as some of their schools of Zen meditation are also involve a lot of physical abuse. But the point being that I had a lot of trouble about, maybe five years ago, a little bit earlier, with realizing how unproductive

• 33:17Tim Ferriss?

  the anger was that I had adopted as a way of interacting with people when I was in a bad place. And so I've, I've struggled with, to be honest, getting, getting better at managing people. And I think I've improved a lot in the last few years. But how have you, I know it's a lot of context, but are there certain things that you've found helpful for finding that line of really high quality, but still returning to a place of kindness?

• 33:49Speaker 03

  Yes, I think it's important to find tools to, to fight anger. Now, anger doesn't help to create quality. Quality has nothing to do, or standards of quality at Le Bernardre have nothing to do with anger. If someone does a mistake and he doesn't realize it, or even if he realizes he made a mistake, we basically bring the person to the, to the pass, which is the table where we, we check the food. And we pinpoint what's wrong about it. And we say, look, you made a mistake right here and right here. Go do it again.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  And we say that really like in a, in a kind way without saying, please go take your time and do it again. We said, we just said, go do it again, but in a nice way. And we do that all night long. So it's not something exceptional about it. Uh, and, and the cooks have the habit of saying yes, and taking the, the, the plate that has a mistake on and taking and bringing it back again, uh, the way we want it. So that's, that's what's happening. But it's important to tame anger uh with the right tools. So first of all, it, I think it's important to analyze what anger does to someone.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Like for myself, I, I realized that anger is something that, it's a very strong force that comes from the guts almost and comes up. It's the way I, I feel it in, in, in, in processing anger. And that's strong, very strong force, uh, has a tremendous power, of course, but that, that force is blind. It, it's, it's not a rational way. It doesn't make you rational. It, it makes you completely unaware of the consequences of what that force makes you do.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  So for instance, you may very well insult someone. Like you mentioned in Japan, they beat people or in, in some, uh, with some athletes or something like that.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  If it comes from anger, it's not, it's impossible to control. And, and you don't, the consequences are basically negative, obviously. Uh, and then when, when you come down and when the anger is gone, suddenly you like, wow, what, why, what did I do? My God, it was not necessary. So analyzing that or making that exercise of contemplation toward someone who has anger or toward yourself, it's important. And then. I use the tool of meditation for anger very often.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  And for instance, a very easy meditation for anyone at home is to visualize anger as a dark cloud coming out of yourself and imagining a laser coming out of your forehead and destroying the dark cloud. And if you do that every day, thinking that the anger is a dark cloud, I can guarantee you that one day, the anger is coming and you have the, almost like this Pavlov reflex of saying, "Oh my God, it's the dark cloud."

• 37:38Speaker 03

  And instead of letting anger go and blind you, you destroy that anger.

• 37:46Tim Ferriss?

  And would you suggest them doing this visualization, this meditation, say, in the morning, or is it a tool that they use whenever they start to sense the physical symptoms of anger? Or both?

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Well, it's both because I believe that when you do meditation, it's better to do it on the morning because your mind is clear usually, or clearer. You don't have all the distraction of the day, all the actions that you have done that will potentially distract you during your meditation. Morning meditations are, in my opinion, much more productive. And then, like I mentioned before, when you get angry, after many meditations on that

• 38:43Speaker 03

  dark cloud, again, you remember and it's when you apply it.

• 38:49Tim Ferriss?

  What does your current meditation practice look like? And we can definitely get into the details. On this podcast, it's just been fascinating in the last few years to see that of all of the people I interview who operate at a high level in any field, I would say more than 85% have some type of mindfulness practice or meditation practice. And it takes many, many different forms. But I'd love to hear specifically what your meditation practice looks like, what time you do it in the morning. If you could just walk us through, in the case of a morning meditation, what do the first sort of 60 minutes or an hour of your day look like?

• 39:30Tim Ferriss?

  Those are the same, I guess, 60 minutes or 90 minutes of the day look like for you?

• 39:36Speaker 03

  I like to have my day, it's very repetitive. It's like a pattern. I follow a pattern. So I wake up and I force myself, because I always forget, to be grateful to be alive. And then...

• 39:56Tim Ferriss?

  What time do you typically wake up?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  6 o'clock, 6:30, 7 o'clock. If I rarely, 8 o'clock. I mean, for me, it's pretty early. After that, I look at my phone. I quickly look at the news on the phone and messages and things like that, but it doesn't take too much. After that, I go make my coffee. Then I go to my meditation room and I do some rituals, Buddhist rituals. I make some offerings. I read a little bit. I say some mantras.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  And then I start my meditation. And when I start the meditation, I don't even sit in a lotus position because I find it a distraction for me because my knees hurt and my back hurt and I'm not that flexible. So therefore, I sit straight but comfortable. And I start to look at the room and I look at the details of the room. And then I close my eyes and...

• 41:14Speaker 03

  I do what we call shamatha. Shamatha meditation is basically being in the present and controlling your mind and not letting the mind think about the past or think about the future or start to be judgmental. We call that avoiding a monkey mind. Monkey mind is when you're not in control of your mind, but your mind is in control of yourself. That exercise can be done by focusing on the way you inspire and excel. Many people do that. For myself, it's a little bit different. When I inhale,

• 41:59Speaker 03

  I feel the energy coming from the first chakra, which is, the chakra is basically the middle of your boat. And the energy going up to the seven chakra, which is on top of the head, right? And then when I exhale, the energy goes down. It looks like it's almost like a tube in my back that carries the energy up and carries the energy down. So I do that for a few minutes. And I don't count the minutes because I don't want to be distracted by, "Oh my God, how many minutes? Am I going to do 10 minutes?

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Or am I going to do only 5 minutes today? Or what am I going to do?" So I don't put pressure on myself. What is important is not the quantity in terms of timing, it's the quality. Then when I feel that I am really in the present and in control of my mind... I decide which meditation I'm going to do. Very often, they are meditation that are linked to Buddhism. But sometimes, it can be a meditation that is universal and secular,

• 43:22Speaker 03

  like for instance, visualizing a weakness and finding a way to destroy that weakness. So it can be anger, it can be jealousy, it can be attachment, it can be anything. But I always end up by doing the 12 link meditation, which is typically Buddhist meditation from the Vajrayana school, which is Tibetan Buddhist.

• 43:52Tim Ferriss?

  12 link, L I N K.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 43:55Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And I know you're not counting the minutes, but typically, how long do you do that for?

• 44:03Speaker 03

  It probably takes about, in between shamatha and vipassana, which is guided meditation, and shamatha being single point meditation, is when you basically control your brain and then it's when you, with your brain, concentrate on different subjects. In between both meditations, it must be about 25 minutes, half hour maximum, not more than that. Then I read again. And then sometimes I meditate again if I have time. But that's basically the, about two hours of my time on a morning is in between doing the ritual that I just explained to you.

• 44:46Tim Ferriss?

  I have quite a few questions about this because I love the details and my listeners love the details. And I'm also about to do my first silent retreat for 10 days. So I'm thinking a lot about, I'm thinking a lot about this. I think it's part of the medicine I need. We all need something. I think this is part of what I need. And I'm going to get to the meditation in detail. But just for people who may not have ever experienced something like this or attempted anything like this, what are some of the benefits that you see from this? Or perhaps a different way to answer it would be, what were you like before this type of practice? And

• 45:32Tim Ferriss?

  How are you different now?

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Meditation ultimately helps you to train your mind how to concentrate in a better way. Helps you to control, like I mentioned before, your mind. If not, the mind is something that is very free and very, lack discipline. And so it's, it's the only, only way for you to be in control of yourself. And it's the best way for yourself to concentrate and to,

• 46:13Speaker 03

  if you are studying some philosophical subjects, to go to the roots of the subjects. That's what meditation does. It also, I believe, helps you to be calmer. Is calmer an English word?

• 46:31Tim Ferriss?

  I don't think so.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Calm, to be calm.

• 46:33Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, calmer, calmer, yes.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, sorry, calmer, okay.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  To be, yeah, to be much more serene, let's put it this way. And it doesn't happen overnight. And meditation, very often on the beginning, it's frustrating and it's,

• 46:51Speaker 03

  it's not pleasurable, it's a challenge. But then after a lot of practice, it becomes a necessity. It becomes kind of a refuse for yourself.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  And it's, it's a lot of pleasure coming out of it.

• 47:09Tim Ferriss?

  I, I'm gonna, I really appreciate that. And I'm gonna come back to, also for people who are listening and are just like, oh my God, woo woo, meditation, Buddhism, like, save me. Because I know a lot of type A personalities do that, which is what I did not too, too long ago. I remember I was listening to someone being interviewed on stage, who used to have a lot of anger issues and they seemed to have resolved a lot of them through meditation. And somebody asked them how long they meditate. And they said, well, usually it's about 30 minutes. And they said, oh, I could never sit still for 30 minutes. And they said, well, if you, if you can't meditate for 30 minutes, you need three hours.

• 47:46Tim Ferriss?

  Generally, the harder it is for you, the more you need it. And, but going back to the beginning of your day.

• 47:56Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to, and hopefully this isn't irritating for you, but just to go through each of these and ask a few questions. So the grateful to be alive, is that something you say to yourself? Is that a feeling? Is it just listening to the world around you? What exactly do you do when you wake up and remind yourself of that?

• 48:14Speaker 03

  So I wake up and when my mind wakes up, it's not like I am confused. I know where I am. I am in my bed.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  I am aware of that. I have this sense of awareness. But I try to have my first thoughts dedicated to the fact that I am alive and I'm lucky to be alive. Because it gives me many possibilities to be a better person, to have an impact on other people, to also have a good day on the front of me and so on. So it's something that I'm doing right away. And it's not like I'm thinking about it for 10 minutes. It's a very quick thought.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  It's a few seconds thinking about it and say, wow, I'm lucky. Thank you. I'm appreciating the fact that I'm waking up today and I am alive.

• 49:23Tim Ferriss?

  So the next thing you do, I was actually fascinated that you drink coffee before you meditate, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I've just actually never come across it with an experienced meditator yet. I'm sure that you're not the only one. What type, just because I have to ask since you have so much culinary expertise, what is your go-to coffee? How do you, what type of coffee, how do you make it?

• 49:49Speaker 03

  So first of all, it's decaf coffee.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  So it's no caffeine in the volge. And that helps me, I guess, a lot for my meditation. And I'm not in charge of buying the coffee. It's my wife who goes to the store and buys quality coffee from different countries. But she knows my tastes after so many years and I don't know where it's coming from. But it always tastes the same, so I cannot tell you the origin of the coffee.

• 50:28Tim Ferriss?

  Do you use a machine? Do you use a Chemex? Do you have any particular? I know this is getting nerdy, but I'm wondering if it's like super simple. I actually know some really, really good chefs who love instant coffee. And then I know some who will do a 10 minute pour over and hand grind the beans and do all of that. So where are you in that spectrum?

• 50:49Speaker 03

  The beans are hand grind, grind, like you mentioned. I'm using a Mr. Coffee machine.

• 50:58Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. Okay, cool.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Actually, you know, the coffee comes very hot. And I don't like hot coffee, but it gives me the time to sit down and let my coffee get slightly cooler. And it's a way for me also to like start my day in a very quiet, simple way. And I wait a few minutes for the coffee to be a bit warmer and then and then it takes me about at least 15 minutes to drink my cup of coffee. Actually, it's a mug, but it takes me about 15 minutes.

• 51:43Speaker 03

  And really, the coffee for me becomes very pleasurable in terms of temperature in the last five minutes of the process.

• 51:50Tim Ferriss?

  I like that. I like that you deliberately have coffee that's too hot because you can't rush. You'll hurt yourself.

• 52:02Tim Ferriss?

  And you then go into your meditation room. You make some offerings.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:11Tim Ferriss?

  Which maybe we can do in a part two podcast because I want to talk about the.

• 52:18Tim Ferriss?

  Reading, what do you read? Because you do the offering, you read, then you have mantras, then meditation, then you also read as a bookend at the end of the session. What are you reading or what do you like to read?

• 52:31Speaker 03

  I mostly read Buddhist texts or books from masters or ancient masters and from modern teachers and mostly teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. That's what I read.

• 52:53Tim Ferriss?

  Are there any particular chapters or books that you would recommend to someone if they wanted to start somewhere?

• 53:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, you have always like Buddhism for dummies, but I don't recommend it. It's, I think, studying the Four Noble Truths with someone like the Dalai Lama. It's a good idea because it's a very interesting and simple approach to Buddhism. It's the realization that, so the Four Noble Truths basically are, was the first teaching of Buddha after he got enlightened. And it's the realization that in life, at one point or another,

• 53:49Speaker 03

  life is made of suffering. And that suffering, so that's the first truth. The second truth is that suffering has an origin. So basically, let's suppose you have a big headache. And where is the headache coming from as suffering? Maybe last night you had a bit too much tequila.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Something like that. I mean, I'm taking this example, but it could be anything, right? I mean, I'm trying to be funny with that, but.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  So it's to identify the root of suffering, because suffering cannot exist by itself without a previous condition. Then it's to say, well, if I don't want to have that suffering again, I have to stop creating the conditions that lead to that suffering. So that's the third noble truth. And the fourth noble truth is

• 54:51Speaker 03

  the path of liberation from suffering, which is basically following the teaching of Buddha. And the path of liberation is very simple. You can draw a circle and it's called the eightfold path. I think it's eightfold in English path of liberation. So basically, it's eight recommendations from Buddha, which are very, very simple. Because again, was his first teaching and not necessarily to some people who were very knowledgeable in Buddhism. So the first thing to say to yourself is, I trust the teaching of Buddha

• 55:34Speaker 03

  and I will question every, everything about the teaching. But if it makes sense to me, I will trust the teaching and study. The second thing is to say to yourself, while studying is not good enough, I have to practice having good thoughts during my journey. Then having a good speech.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Therefore, having good actions. Then it's having a job that is not, it's not in contradiction with the teaching of Buddha. You cannot be in a mafia and kill people and be a Buddhist. It doesn't work. And then it's to say, well, I'm gonna.

• 56:23Speaker 03

  Do the right efforts every day to implement all of the above and become a better person. And then it's to say, well, I'm gonna practice concentration to be able to achieve that goal because it requires a lot of concentration. And then it's to achieve wisdom and use that wisdom for good reasons. So this is the Four Noble Truths.

• 56:58Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you very much for that. And I'd love to, maybe it's within the context of those truths and trying to follow those truths or not, I don't know, but in your process where you do offerings, reading, mantras, are the mantras in English or in another language or in French or otherwise?

• 57:18Speaker 03

  No, the mantras are in Sanskrit or in Tibetan sometimes. But for instance, the mantra of emptiness, I can tell you now, and I don't think you're gonna understand much, and I'm not sure I understand fully the mantra, but it's "Tadyata om gata gata paragata parasam gata bodisawa." So I say that mantra many, many times. I have a manila, which is basically like a bracelet with pearls, little pearls, and you have 108 pearls, each of them representing a teaching of Buddha.

• 57:58Speaker 03

  And you repeat that 108 times if you have the time to do it. If not, you do it three times and you try to understand the mantra. Like for instance, emptiness is a very, very important part of Buddhism that explain all phenomenons of life. And I can, I mean, we can go into details of it if you want, but it's gonna take an hour.

• 58:29Tim Ferriss?

  Well, given the time constraints we have today.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  But I can tell you, I mean, very quickly, let's, you know, like, for instance, you can...

• 58:39Speaker 03

  You can have a page of paper on the front of you and it is a page of paper. You do not deny the fact that it is a page of paper. Now, for you, it's a page of paper, but for someone else who doesn't, who has never seen a page of paper, it could be something to light the fire or it could be some other interpretation. So whatever you you think of is not necessarily the ultimate truth. It's just your interpretation. Also, that sheet of paper, that that page that you have on the front of you is made of wood that was once a seed in the ground

• 59:24Speaker 03

  that became a tree after years of rain and wind and and sun and nights. That piece of paper, if you go further, is made of particles, atoms and smaller particles. And ultimately, the piece of paper that you have on the front of you is, yes, a piece of paper, but it's much more than that.

• 59:53Tim Ferriss?

  You and I have a lot to talk about, my friend.

• 59:57Tim Ferriss?

  So, thank you.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  Believe me, I mean, I'm a student trying to explain to you what I understand. I am not, I'm definitely not considering myself a teacher.

• 1:00:09Tim Ferriss?

  Well, speaking of teachers, just just and then I'm going to keep zooming in and out. I'm going to come back to visualizing weakness because I'd love to get a a real world example from you of a weakness you were working on and what you did. But before we get there, just as perhaps a jumping off point for people who are curious about this. So there are a few books. I grew up with a very strong aversion to religion of all types or anything I considered organized religion. And we don't have time to psychoanalyze that right now. But suffice to say that that is something I have carried for a very long time. So I had a visceral knee jerk resistance to anything that had

• 1:00:52Tim Ferriss?

  almost anything that had an ism at the end of it, if that makes sense. And Then there were a few books that were introduced to me that had a tremendous impact, and maybe thinkers is another way to put it. So the first was from, and I don't know how I came across it, but it was a book written by Thich Nhat Hanh, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yes, exactly. And it was either, it was one of the two, because I ended up reading both, but The Miracle of Mindfulness or Pieces Every Step. And I remember there was, there was one example, not to make this about me, but it might be helpful to people out there.

• 1:01:37Tim Ferriss?

  One example, and I don't know which book it was in, it was in one of the two, that really stuck with me for decades now, is he talked about how, and this is an example of how mindfulness can actually help you, right? At least in my mind, I was like, oh wow, that actually makes perfect sense. And it was, if you're, if you're washing the dishes after a meal, and you're going to reward yourself with, I think it was a plum, and the whole time you're washing the dishes, you're thinking about the plum, you're thinking about the plum. When you eat the plum, you're not going to enjoy the plum, because you'll be thinking about whatever's coming after the plum. Yes. And I was like, oh my God, that's so simple, but it makes a lot of sense. Of course.

• 1:02:21Tim Ferriss?

  So Thich Nhat Hanh, and then also Tara Brock wrote a book called Radical Acceptance. It's, it's a very boring title, but it, it is one of the things that perhaps more than anything else, particularly after my first real television experience, which was very, very difficult on everyone, it was the suicide mission of sorts. I mean, the, the schedule, everything was extremely, extremely difficult. And I, I lost my temper a few times at, not generally people in the field, but usually with editing team, and I was very ashamed of that, very unprouled of that. And this book really helped me to, I think Radical Acceptance, reconcile.

• 1:03:02Tim Ferriss?

  A lot of what was just gnawing at me on the inside are causing that to come out at really bad times. And I bring up those books because when you and I have had some interaction electronically, and I'm very excited to have you in the new book that's coming out, not too far out, Tribe of Mentors. So, thank you for that. Sharon Salzberg and a bunch of really wonderful people are in there. You mentioned the Dalai Lama's 100 Elephants on a Blade of Grass.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:03:34Tim Ferriss?

  And you also said the French, which I'm not going to try to pronounce because it'll sound terrible when I try it. But was that your, was that the book that made the difference for you in terms of exploring these types of subjects? Or was there something that you found first? And how did you find the book?

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  No, it was this book, for sure. And I still have the book, of course, which is out of print because it's from 1989. That book was sent to me by my mother. I was living in Washington DC. And I had previously read a book in a plane coming to America to live permanently in America, a book about Tibet and about Buddhism. And I was interested, but I was a bit confused. But something was interesting about it.

• 1:04:28Tim Ferriss?

  How did you find that first book?

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  So, I was at the airport and

• 1:04:33Tim Ferriss?

  This was in France?

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  Yes, I was about to go into the plane. And I had 10 francs, which is the equivalent of $2 or a bit less. And francs do not exist anymore now, it's euros. But at the time, it was about that much. And

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  I was tempted to buy Playboy magazine.

• 1:04:59Tim Ferriss?

  It's natural, healthy young man.

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  And I actually went and grabbed the Playboy. And then I saw that book about Tibet that was that was um somewhere in the in in the airport and and I look at it and it was the same price. And I said, oh, my God, I'm interested because I always was curious about Tibet. It looks like it's it's we don't know much about that country and so on. So I said, oh, I'm gonna buy the Tibet Tibetan book. And then I got I had the book and then I went back to the Playboy and I dropped the book. And then I was paying for the Playboy. And I at the last second, I said to the lady, no, please, I'm sorry, I I'm I'm taking the book and I put back the Playboy in

• 1:05:45Speaker 03

  where where it belong. And that was my first um interest uh in Buddhism and and in Tibetan culture.

• 1:05:56Tim Ferriss?

  It's hard to it's hard to make proper use of a Playboy on an airplane, so.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  Well, the interviews are always very good.

• 1:06:04Tim Ferriss?

  So I interrupted those. So you read that book and then your mother sent you.

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  Yes, I said to her, I said, look, can you try to find me something interesting about Buddhism and Tibet? And maybe it's it's someone, a master, or I didn't know the Dalai Lama at the time. I had no idea. And she find that book and sent it to me. And in the intro, the the beginning of the book is the speech that he made when he got the Nobel, the Peace Nobel Prize. And that speech really moved me tremendously. Uh, it was a brilliant, brilliant, compassionate uh speech that he made. And after that, I read, of course, the rest of the book, which touch. Different aspects of Buddhism.

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  But ultimately, I understood that Buddhism can be three things at the same time. And it's why it's so, it's so appealing today to a lot of people. Because Buddhism can be a religion, if you wish. We, it can be also purely a philosophy. And it can be also, all the, all the theory of Buddhism can be proven by science, especially quantum physics or quantum mechanics. So you have three ways to embrace the philosophy of Buddhism. One being totally secular. And I think it's actually, probably the future of Buddhism is to be proven by science.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  Uh, and, and quantum mechanics is, is the best way to, to prove the, the theory. Or philosophically by, by debating and by, um, analyzing. You can prove the, the theory of, the, the many theories of Buddhism. And then, of course, you can always follow the religious path, path, uh, which it's not in, in, it's, it's not fighting the, the fact that it's, it's a science and it's a philosophy as well. It's just complementary.

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  And some people, um, are purely religious. Some people are purely scientific about it. And some people are, are doing, are using the, the three aspects of, of that philosophy.

• 1:08:33Tim Ferriss?

  One thing that also brought me back into the orbit of Buddhism, and I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, uh, in, in the same way that people are like, oh, are you a surfer? I'm like, no, no, no. I, I surf very, very poorly, but I would never call myself a surfer, right? I wouldn't self-identify that way. Like, I'm very interested in reading different books on, say, Buddhism. Mostly in the secular capacity.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:09:00Tim Ferriss?

  And in part-

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  It should be like that.

• 1:09:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and in part because a branch of philosophy called Stoicism, I can effectively say, save my life on at least one occasion, probably more. One of the quotes I have on my refrigerator is from Marcus Aurelius. So the Stoic thinkers, particularly Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, the most famous book by the last being Meditations, have a lot of overlap with secular Buddhism. They're very, they're almost entirely compatible. I can't think of one thing that comes to mind that is contradictory.

• 1:09:40Tim Ferriss?

  And so the, so the Greeks and the Romans brought me back to Buddhism to expand my thinking about how to become more self-aware and less emotionally reactive. And there's, there's very, well, I shouldn't say very little, but if we're looking at secular Stoicism, because you can get into cosmology and some really weird stuff, then there isn't, there isn't a ton to work with in terms of original texts. And Buddhism has a lot, has a lot more to work with in terms of original writings over many, many centuries in different cultures also, which is interesting to me, to look

• 1:10:25Tim Ferriss?

  at the different breeds, so to speak. But what I've noticed in Silicon Valley is that both Stoicism and Buddhism here, I'm sitting in San Francisco, have become more popular because I think in part you can take engineers who may be by default more secular and give them a toolkit to help with navigating life. And I was having a conversation with a gentleman named Jerry Colonna, who- In a former life, a very, very successful technology investor, among other things, and now works with executives at a lot of the technology companies that people would recognize.

• 1:11:07Tim Ferriss?

  And one of the questions that he likes to ask, which is perfectly, you don't have to be a Buddhist to ask this type of question, but it happens to relate, is, and I'm going to paraphrase here, but how are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want? Right? So how are you contributing to creating the conditions that you say you don't want, which seems to come right back to the noble truths and so on that you were talking about? But the weakness, visualizing weakness is very interesting to me, so I want to make sure I come back to that briefly, we can bounce around certainly. But when you're going through your meditation and you're visualizing weakness, can you

• 1:11:45Tim Ferriss?

  give us an example of a weakness, past or current, that you've visualized and what that process looks like in your mind?

• 1:11:55Speaker 03

  Hmm, yes. Before I go to that, I'd like to say one thing that is very interesting to me about Buddhism is that it's not a dogmatic religion or philosophy at all. And actually, even Buddha himself, Buddha means basically the enlightened one, right? But his name was Shakyamuni. Shakyamuni himself said, "Please, please, please, please. It's not because I am respected and I am supposedly enlightened that you should take every word I say for truthful.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  Please analyze everything I say and reject everything that doesn't make sense in my speech, in my actions, in my theories. Do not take the dogma as it is. Question everything." And today, when you study Buddhism, your teachers, they very, very articulate in making sure that you do that, and they test you. Making sure that you do not, do not, do not accept anything they say because they are supposedly your teacher or supposedly

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  pure or anything like that. So that's very interesting to me. That you have to reject whatever doesn't make sense to yourself. Now, going back to the weakness. Weakness are, are coming from ignorance. And ignorance is basically the root of all weaknesses. And it's, we basically consider in Buddhism, three poison of, of the mind. Which are coming from ignorance. One of the, the, the first one is, um, attachment and unhealth, unhealthy desire.

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  And then anger is a, eh, eh, anger is very powerful poison of the mind as well. And that comes from ignorance. So let's say attachment, let's take the, the, the subject of attachment. So I could be attached to many things and I am during the day, actually. I mean, look, uh, the man who's talking to you right now is Eric Repair, is a simple man who's trying to be a good guy. And who failed many times uh, in, in his vision. I'm not talking to, to you as a master here. Uh, I'm, I'm a student. I'm, I'm trying every day to, to, um, uh, fight, uh,

• 1:14:39Speaker 03

  anger, to fight attachment and, and ignorance. So therefore, uh, saying that, uh, if I take attachment, uh, as a subject. I'm trying to see where I am attached the most. Is it the power? Is it the glory? Is it the money? Is it? Something else. And then I decide that today I'm gonna focus on the fact that I'm attached to my reputation as a great chef. And I'm very, potentially that can bring to a very insecure

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  uh reaction toward that. And I can be very attached, so so much attached to my reputation of a four star chef and a three star chef Michelin or international chef, whatever it is. And that it's definitely uh something that is negative.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  So when I identify the subject that I want to fight, um I basically concentrate and say, why are you so attached to be someone of a potential like being a celebrity, for instance? Why, what does it do? What is it? What does it do for you? What is? How good is it for you? What? What happened if you lose that? What? What will be the consequence of of losing that? And and how important is it in your life compared to being healthy? And and being a compassionate person and and so on. And and when you analyze

• 1:16:27Speaker 03

  the subject, you realize that suddenly

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  if you are attached to uh your title, which actually when you actually die, stays here and and you die and your title is doesn't exist anymore. So it's not even meaningful on on the long term. Uh when I identify that that weakness, which is attachment in in this instance, uh I say, okay, well, I'm gonna visualize, because I have, I wanna make it simple for my mind to fight. Uh I'm gonna visualize that as

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  Something, and for me, I mean, for you could be something else, but it could be a rock, a stone, uh, it could be anything. For me, I always go to the dark cloud. Because for some reason it works in my mind. I see a dark cloud and I'm like, this dark cloud is my attachment to my title and to what I'm supposed to represent. And I am going to get rid of it. And I have decided that, probably because I read a lot of, uh, how you call the books from Star, I mean, watched Star Wars and, and, and,

• 1:17:47Speaker 03

  and, and read a lot of comic books and so on. So I, I, I, I am the, the guy who has the laser on the front of, in his forehead. And I have that power of destroying that cloud and saying, well, that cloud is full of attachment to, to something that is not meaningful at the end of the day. At the end of the day, it's, it's, it's not, it's, it's not important. And I'm destroying and I'm destroying and destroying and destroying. And doing that repetitively, uh, creates,

• 1:18:23Speaker 03

  basically, like I said before, like the Pavlov reflex. Soon as I'm gonna, uh, have doubts about losing what I have built in terms of reputation, I'm gonna think about, is it really important in my life? Can I, can I give it away?

• 1:18:44Speaker 03

  And, and I realize that it is not important in my, in my life. And I can give it away easily. And then suddenly, boom, the cloud is, I visualize the cloud and I destroy it and... I don't have that fear anymore of losing, of being attached. That's my way of doing it. I'm not sure it's the perfect way, and I'm not sure it works for everybody. But for me, it's the way I do it. And it's very simple, when you think about it.

• 1:19:16Tim Ferriss?

  So simplicity, and maybe simplicity isn't the right word, maybe elegance is the right word in terms of few moving pieces, but very, very high-quality pieces is actually what I think of when I hear your name. And I'm sure that, as with any high-end operation, speaking of your restaurants, that maybe it's like the duck on the surface where it's extremely calm and then you don't see the feet kicking like hell underneath, I don't know. But the question I wanted to ask you is related to attachment.

• 1:19:57Tim Ferriss?

  So many people in the culinary world are attached to, and this is true everywhere, but money and growth, and particularly with the profile that you have. You must get approached to do huge chains and dozens of this and hundreds of that. You must be sent opportunities like that all the time. I mean, I would imagine it has to happen every week. How have you thought about making decisions about sort of quality versus scale?

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  Yes. Well, I am not naive. I mean, I am not that naive.

• 1:20:46Speaker 03

  And I understand the benefits of being wealthy that comes usually from working hard and developing businesses and so on. Or sometimes it comes from some other directions. But wealth definitely contributes to happiness, but ultimately, we know it doesn't bring happiness and inner strength, inner happiness. So.

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  You have to, I mean, in my case, I decided that I had to find my level of contentment. And what was my level of contentment? So I, I created it and I said, look, my level of contentment is that I have a very successful restaurant in New York that makes me very happy, that creates jobs for hundred and sixty families. And um, we work as a team to make our clients happy, to create experiences for people who come here. And we live from that.

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  And now I live pretty well and I'm trying to give

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  a good lifestyle and good income to everyone who is in the company. Of course, in, in, relative to their position and, and to the responsibility that they have. I mean, it's not everybody has the same compensations, but I think like that. And then I look at my life and I'm like, you know, I'm very lucky in this life. First of all, so far, I think I am healthy. Um, I'm not starving. I'm not in a war. I have a happy family surrounding me, supporting me. I have a team that seems to like me.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Uh, and, and in terms of money, I, I eat well. Uh, I, I'm traveling when I need to travel. I have uh, the pair of sneakers that I like. Uh, I have a pair of jeans, I have a T-shirt, I have, what it's called, I have sweaters and so on. How many of that do I need? How many houses do I need? How much money do I need in a bank? And when I'm gonna leave this world, everything is gonna stay here. I'm not taking anything with me.

• 1:23:26Speaker 03

  So how much sacrifices I have to make to accumulate wealth? Uh, that are worth, worth it or not? And I realized that for myself. Le Bernardin. Et nous avons un autre restaurant à Cayman Island qui est le riz de carbone appelé Blue by Eric Ripert. Et je suis consultant là. Mais c'est très peu maintenance pour moi. C'est principalement le groupe, les deux groupes qui travaillent ensemble avec ma mentorat. Mais je me suis dit : "Regardez, si vous ouvrez un restaurant à Vegas, et un à Dubaï, et un à Hong Kong, à Singapore, peu importe,

• 1:24:08Speaker 03

  et acceptez toutes ces offres, soudainement, votre style de vie va changer. Vous n'avez pas le temps pour vous-même", ce que j'ai besoin. Comme vous pouvez le comprendre dans la discussion précédente que nous avons, vous réalisez que j'ai besoin de beaucoup de temps pour moi-même. Et je crois que le temps pour moi-même a des conséquences positives sur ma famille. Je suis un meilleur membre de famille. Et la famille me soutient, et soutient mon business, et le business soutient ma famille. Donc j'ai ce équilibre que je ne veux vraiment pas changer.

• 1:24:53Speaker 03

  Je suis satisfait. Et je ne veux pas perdre ça. Et ce n'est pas à dire être attaché à ça. Ce n'est pas une attachement inéligible. C'est juste que c'est très bénéfique pour moi d'abord, bien sûr, mais pour tout le monde autour de moi. Et c'est pourquoi je suis où je suis et je fais ce que je fais.

• 1:25:24Tim Ferriss?

  Vous semblez satisfaits. Et pas que j'ai un radar parfait pour ça.

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  Oui, certains matins, je suis un peu plus grimpé avant le café. Et j'ai des défis pendant le jour. Je veux dire, ce n'est pas comme si mes jours sont pleins de joie tous les jours de la semaine. J'ai des défis à résoudre. Et j'ai des moments de stress et ainsi de suite. Je veux dire, ce n'est pas comme Nirvana ici. Je veux dire, c'est New York.

• 1:25:56Tim Ferriss?

  That is a great quote.

• 1:26:01Tim Ferriss?

  I want to, if you'd be comfortable, because I think it would be very encouraging for a lot of people listening, if you're willing to look back at your childhood. It seems like certainly at points, it was very difficult for you. Could you tell us about some of those early days? Maybe just describe for us some of what your childhood was like and some of the most sort of important events in your childhood.

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  So I was born in a family that was pretty successful. My mother was in the fashion industry. She was, she's still a beautiful woman. My father was in banking, perfect young couple, a success story. They were living in the French Riviera. They were actually living, when I was four or five years old, in Saint-Tropez. So it was, you know, with the jet set and so on. And then they divorced and my life changed with the divorce. Until then, I was, and when they divorced, I was about six years old, or five, six years old. Until then, I had a great life. Everything was fine.

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  And then when they divorced, my mother remarried, my father remarried. His wife didn't necessarily like my presence. My stepfather was very, very mean to me, at least is the way I felt. And it was hell at home for me as a young kid. I was sent, when I was eight years old, to boarding school, where it became hellish

• 1:28:01Speaker 03

  when a priest tried to sexually abuse me. Many challenges like that in my life.

• 1:28:11Speaker 03

  Then I came back home, of course, and I had to deal with my stepfather for a long time. It was a very challenging relationship that we had. He was verbally abusive and physically would have no problem to beat me and so on. Of course, making sure that my mother wouldn't know. My mother was struggling to raise me and at fifteen, being a very bad student and having a lot of anger issues and a lot of other issues linked to that lifestyle.

• 1:28:50Speaker 03

  I was, at fifteen years old, in the principal office at the end of the year, nine grade, discussing my future. And my future was, he cannot go to a regular school. Eric has to find a job. And I was actually very happy about that because I didn't like the school system. And I asked if I could go to culinary school and learn the craftsmanship of becoming a chef. It was not easy. Culinary schools are very difficult and they require a lot of discipline and it's tough

• 1:29:31Speaker 03

  for young kids, like when they are fifteen years old, sixteen years old, seventeen. At seventeen, actually, I moved to Paris and I lived in a tiny, tiny, tiny apartment and worked in La Tour d'Argent, which was very famous at the time, and struggled with ridiculous salaries and the challenges of the kitchen and so on. And those years were not happy years for myself. Moving on, I mean, I worked for Joel Robuchon in his kitchen. They were tough kitchens, a lot of work, not too many rewards, that you will see at the end of the day. And when I was...

• 1:30:18Speaker 03

  I think, well, I did my military duties because they were mandatory and it's not really a pleasant experience, it's not meant to be a pleasant experience. Then I moved to the US in 1989 without speaking a word of English. So huge challenges, coming to America and discovering that nobody's waiting for you at the airport with a red carpet and say, "Oh my God, you're French, you know, to cook, you're genius." So all those-

• 1:30:51Tim Ferriss?

  Especially in New York City.

• 1:30:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, so all those aspects were very, very challenging and didn't make me a happy camper. And I was, I was missing something in my life. I was missing spirituality and what Buddhism came for me today, but, um, yes, I was, I was a little bit lost and angry, and angry means unhappy. That was really the, the, the beginning of my life. Of course, I had some good moments and, and some good friends and good relationships

• 1:31:32Speaker 03

  and, and so on, but when I look at the big picture, they were the dark, dark years.

• 1:31:39Tim Ferriss?

  When did you, during that entire period, was there a particular moment or day or dish or anything where you realized, huh, I think I could actually be really good at this, meaning cooking? Was there any assignment, teacher, anything that gave you the confidence?

• 1:32:00Speaker 03

  It's interesting because I started in 1991 at Le Bernardin as the chef. And in 94, I was the executive chef of Le Bernardin and, and the business partner of Maggie Le Coz, who created it with her brother, Le Bernardin, 1991. 1994, the brother passed away and I, I was in charge of the kitchen by myself, I mean, by myself with the team, of course, to manage the team. And in 95, Ruth Rachel at the New York Times gave, gave the team and to myself ultimately a four-star review.

• 1:32:41Speaker 03

  And from there, we had only accolades and rewards and so on. But I never thought I was a good cook, neither a good chef. And it took me until the year two thousand, when I did a book called A Return to Cooking, that I realized that I was insulting my luck because I was talented and not everybody's talented. And I had to acknowledge it without being pretentious, not to insult my luck. It was a discovery for me. So A Return to Cooking was an adventure. I wanted to study the four seasons,

• 1:33:25Speaker 03

  a little bit like Vivaldi with the music, but myself with the food. And I decided to bring a painter, two photographers and a writer, and to go to different regions of America during different seasons. And therefore, we rented houses in Vermont for the fall, in Hamptons for the summer, in the spring in California. And because the winter was too challenging in North America, we decided to go to Puerto Rico. And during that experience, that was starting every morning with, for the painter, a black canvas and for myself, going to the market and finding ingredients

• 1:34:10Speaker 03

  and cooking for the group and documenting the recipes and so on. It's when I realized that I was a good cook. Two thousand, in two thousand. Two thousand, it's amazing. It took me such a long time. And then, after that, I have been making sure that it doesn't go to my head and that I stay humble and that I share the knowledge and the cooking wisdom accumulated. And, yeah, it's what it is. But ultimately, since that process, I accept the gift that I received in my life, which is being able to be a good cook and to be a chef ultimately.

• 1:34:57Tim Ferriss?

  You have also your memoir, which is Thirty-Two Yokes,

• 1:35:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:35:02Tim Ferriss?

  subtitle From My Mother's Table to Working the Lion. And I wanted to ask you, because it seems like you have a very special relationship with your mother. If you're cooking dinner for your mother, are there any particular meals that you like to make for her, or that she likes you to make for her?

• 1:35:22Speaker 03

  I think she likes to cook for me.

• 1:35:25Tim Ferriss?

  Ah, that's, I should have seen that coming, yes. No, that makes sense.

• 1:35:30Speaker 03

  It's very interesting, because when I was a kid, and she knew I was unhappy and I was challenged, her way to make me happy and to show her love to her son was through the process of feeding me, through the process of cooking for me. It's where she put all of her energy as a mother. And I will feel it, I will know it was meant to be a proof of love for our child. And if today I am with my mother, I am sure that she will not let me take the knife

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  and start to slice vegetables or anything. She will take total control of the kitchen, claiming that I will mess up the kitchen and she will have to clean it after. So that will be her excuse, but I think the real reason will be to make her son feeling the love from his mom. I have many dishes that I love from her. She was doing, and she still does, Vietnamese spring roll called nêm, which I loved. And actually, I have never been able to make it as good as hers. And she would make also for me steak au poivre with green pepper corn sauce. That was for me like the ultimate.

• 1:37:00Speaker 03

  And then every day she would make an apple tart. That was like, what, 12 inches apple tart? That I would eat every afternoon when I was coming back from school. And that was, that was my favorite meal.

• 1:37:17Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, man, I'm so hungry. I've been fasting. I'm so hungry. I'm like salivating like my dog when I'm opening a can of food.

• 1:37:28Tim Ferriss?

  Is it true, this is just, I guess, in the, in the questions related to food category, is it true that you eat Swiss cheese before you taste dishes?

• 1:37:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:37:42Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, can you explain this, please?

• 1:37:44Speaker 03

  Yes, of course. Not only I eat Swiss cheese, I make the entire team of sous chefs, and there are eight sous chefs in Le Bernardin, I make them eat Swiss cheese that is not artisanal, is an industrial cheese, because it always has the same flavor. It's, it's very consistent. It's not the best Swiss cheese. It doesn't have the, the qualities of an artisanal cheese, but we know that it tastes a certain way. And then we, when we come to the kitchen, we calibre our palate by tasting it. So what I say calibre our

• 1:38:28Speaker 03

  palate, what I mean is that if I test the cheese today and it tastes too salty, I know my palate is very sensitive to salt. If the cheese tastes very bland, my palate is numb. If the cheese tastes very well balanced, I know my palate is very accurate. And we, we do that with all the sous chefs. We are going to go to all the mise en place, which is the preparation from different stations. And when we go test the sauce and, and any preparation.

• 1:39:08Speaker 03

  If we find everything salty, we know it's because our palate is off. Because of the cheese gave us the information that we are ultra sensitive to salt. Or if everything seems to be bland, I know my palate is numb. And that can come from many things. I mean, if you drink a bit too much at night, your palate will be numb. If you have a good diet and don't eat too many sweets at night, and depending on your lifestyle and what you eat,

• 1:39:53Speaker 03

  your palate will react the day after. And the cheese is the way for us to know that.

• 1:39:59Tim Ferriss?

  I love that.

• 1:40:01Tim Ferriss?

  All right, so if you, since that one mined some gold, I'm going to keep going with some food related questions. If you could ask home cooks, just assume most people are listening are of course home cooks. One ingredient they should use less and one ingredient you wish they would experiment with more.

• 1:40:22Speaker 03

  I am in favor of organic. And we're going to take two examples, right? We're going to take animals and we're going to take vegetables. So if you have the choice of feeding your family

• 1:40:40Speaker 03

  an animal, like a chicken for instance, or eggs, or even milk, that doesn't have growing hormones, doesn't have pesticides, doesn't have antibiotics, and so on. If you have that choice, would you give your child? A meat or eggs or or or milk with those chemicals in it? Or would you give your child? And if you can afford it, obviously, because very often it's a matter of budget. But would you give your child? A product that is purely natural and doesn't have those chemicals? For the vegetables is very much the same. I'm not anti GMO vegetables necessarily.

• 1:41:25Speaker 03

  But when GMO carry the um carry the the it's not the genes, but the DNA of Rhonda, for instance. And when the vegetables have a lot of pesticides and and so on. And when you have choice and you can give to your family vegetables or fruits who don't have that. What would you give to your family?

• 1:41:51Speaker 03

  Um, so I I think my answer is not exactly what you expect, because you would like to maybe one single ingredient. But I'm a bit broader in my vision. And I think it's still important to not necessarily answer what you wanted.

• 1:42:10Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, sure. I don't know. That's you have full creative liberty here.

• 1:42:17Speaker 03

  But um if we go to an ingredient. I would say if you have choice in between real butter and fake butter, right? That is uh made of chemicals and so on. Processed food, basically, is processed food. If you have the choice, use the regular butter, for instance. Which as we know, it has fat, it has uh benefits and it has uh. Ingredients in in in its body that are not necessarily positive for the human body.

• 1:43:02Speaker 03

  But do not use processed food. The body, our body doesn't digest processed food easily. Or doesn't digest it at all. So I'm saying use natural products.

• 1:43:17Tim Ferriss?

  Good recommendation. I uh.

• 1:43:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the budget, I really wish that there were more of a level playing field. I'm optimistic about Amazon having bought Whole Foods. I'm very, very interested to see how that may open the door to, since the first, one of the first announcements they made was going to be lowering prices, since in effect, Amazon's creating an internal customer for developing their own infrastructure, potentially to then supply food on a much broader scale, so they can afford to have lower prices. I'm very, very excited to see how that impacts

• 1:43:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:43:55Tim Ferriss?

  the options that people have. Do you have a favorite cocktail?

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  Dirty martini.

• 1:44:03Tim Ferriss?

  Dirty martini.

• 1:44:04Speaker 03

  With vodka, stir, top.

• 1:44:08Tim Ferriss?

  That was easy. Well, Eric, this, this is really fun. We could talk for hours and hours and hours. I want to be respectful of your time and hopefully we'll get to meet in person at some point. Certainly, I'm in New York often enough that I would really enjoy that.

• 1:44:30Speaker 03

  Please, come visit us, of course. It will be a pleasure.

• 1:44:33Tim Ferriss?

  Is there anything, before we, we wrap up, that you would like people listening to consider or try or ask themselves or do? Do you have any ask of the audience?

• 1:44:46Speaker 03

  Not really. I mean, I hope that our conversation today will make everyone think a little bit about his lifestyle and about his definition of happiness and about his impact in the world. And if we have done that, which is very ambitious, I'm very happy.

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  And if we haven't done it, it's quite fine. And but I hope that our conversation is, first of all, is irrational for ourselves and for others.

• 1:45:25Tim Ferriss?

  I think so. I think I think that if people listening enjoyed this half as much as I did, then I think I think we're I think we're gold. And people can certainly find you online to say hello or thank you or to ask a question on Instagram, Twitter, at Eric Repair. It's E R I C R I P E R T. And I apologize for my terrible, terrible French pronunciation, but I'm going to say it like a Yankee. And and then Facebook, Chef Eric Repair. And the website, this is where my pronunciation is going to kill me. Le Bernardin, which is the L E hyphen B E R N A R D I N dot com.

• 1:46:08Tim Ferriss?

  And Eric, it's been such a pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time.

• 1:46:14Speaker 03

  I had a lot of fun, great pleasure, and I'm honored to be talking to you and your audience. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity and hopefully I'll see you in New York very soon.

• 1:46:27Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yes, no, that's a deal. And to everybody listening, we mentioned a lot of books. We mentioned a lot of different resources, different types of meditation and so on. You'll be able to find links to everything we've talked about in the show notes, as always, at tim.blog/podcast for this episode and every other episode. And until next time, thank you for listening.

• 1:46:55Tim 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.

• 1:47:38Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite 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. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic, founded by the genius Finns who lit the internet on fire. And you may have heard of their mushroom coffee, which features chaga and lion's mane, which is taken Silicon Valley by storm. I use it pretty much every day, either that or the chaga, which is decaf, a separate version. And I use both of these primarily for focus and productivity.

• 1:48:21Tim Ferriss?

  They just get you going, light you up like a Christmas tree. So you should definitely check it out. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement and for right now, this is the answer. I try to force this on all of my house guests. It is a hell of a thing. If I have employees or people come over who are working on projects with me, I always try to feed it to them because I'm going to get the limitless effect and get a lot more out of them. The first time I mentioned this product and Four Sigmatic on the podcast, their product sold out in less than a week, so you may want to check them out soon if you're listening to this. And the coffee tastes like coffee.

• 1:49:00Tim Ferriss?

  It takes just seconds to prepare with hot water and oddly enough, only includes 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you'd get in a regular cup of coffee. I don't get any jitters, acid reflux, or any stomach burn, any of that. It's very unusual and very, very cool. So. If you don't like caffeine, they also offer very strong but caffeine-free mushroom elixirs, which I will sometimes have in the evening. I find Chaga specifically to be very, very grounding and earthy. So that is another option. And I have a cupboard full of their products at the moment, which is right around the corner of my kitchen. You can try something, you can try a sample pack, which is great also, right now by going

• 1:49:40Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:50:23Tim Ferriss?

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