#451: Mike Novogratz on Investing, Bitcoin, Ayahuasca, and Running Through The Sahara Desert

Mike Novogratz on Investing, Bitcoin, Ayahuasca, and Running Through The Sahara Desert | Brought to you by Magic Spoon http://magicspoon.com/tim, Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim, and LMNT http://drinklmnt.com/tim. Michael Novogratz (@novogratz https://twitter.com/novogratz) is the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital http://galaxydigital.io/. He was formerly a partner and president of Fortress Investment Group, LLC. Prior to Fortress, Michael spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was elected partner in 1998. Michael served on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets from 2012–2015. Michael serves as the chairman of The Bail Project https://bailproject.org/ and has made criminal justice reform a focus of his family’s foundation. He also serves as the chairman of Hudson River Park Friends https://hudsonriverpark.org/about-us/hudson-river-park-friends/, and sits on the boards of NYU Langone Medical Center https://nyulangone.org/, Princeton Varsity Club https://princetonvarsityclub.org/, Jazz Foundation of America https://jazzfoundation.org/, and Artists for Peace and Justice https://www.apjnow.org/. Michael received an AB in Economics from Princeton University, and served as a helicopter pilot in the US Army. * This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon Cereal! Magic Spoon https://magicspoon.com/tim is a brand-new cereal that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal. Each serving has 12g of protein, 3g of net carbs, 0g of sugar, and only 110 calories. It’s also gluten free, grain free, keto friendly, soy free, and GMO free. And it’s delicious! It comes in your favorite, traditional cereal flavors like Cocoa, Frosted, and Blueberry. Magic Spoon https://magicspoon.com/tim cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time magazine included it in their list of Best Inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it “the future of cereal.” My listeners—that’s you—get free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee when you visit MagicSpoon.com/TIM https://magicspoon.com/tim and use code TIM. * This episode is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim and their delicious mushroom coffee featuring lion’s mane and 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’s organic and keto friendly, plus every single batch is third-party lab tested. You can try it right now by going to FourSigmatic.com/Tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code TIM. You will receive up to 39% off on the lion’s mane coffee bundle http://foursigmatic.com/tim. Simply visit FourSigmatic.com/Tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed. * This episode is also brought to you by LMNT http://drinklmnt.com/tim! What is LMNT? It’s a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink-mix http://drinklmnt.com/tim. I’ve stocked up on boxes and boxes of this and usually use it 1–2 times per day. LMNT http://drinklmnt.com/tim is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or Paleo diet. If you are on a low-carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness. LMNT http://drinklmnt.com/tim came up with a very special offer for you, my dear listeners. They’ve created Tim’s Club: Simply go to DrinkLMNT.com/TIM http://drinklmnt.com/tim, select “Subscribe and Save,” and use promo code TIMSCLUB to get the 30-count box of LMNT for only $36. This will be valid for the lifetime of the subscription, and you can pause it anytime. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? 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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

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Pornhub. Just kidding. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic, which is part of my morning routine, also part of my afternoon routine. Routine saves me. So there are a number of ways that I use Four Sigmatic. In the mornings, I regularly start with their mushroom coffee instead of regular coffee, and it doesn't taste like mushroom. Let me explain this. First of all, zero sugar, zero calories, half the caffeine of regular coffee. It's easy on my stomach, tastes amazing, and all you have to do is add hot water. I use travel packets. I've been to probably a dozen countries with various

• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

  products from Four Sigmatic, and their mushroom coffee is top of the list. That's number one. I travel with it. I recommend it. I give it to my employees. I give it to house guests. So if you're one of the 60% of Americans or more who drink coffee daily, consider switching it up. This stuff is amazing. That's part one. That is the cognitive enhancement side, easy on the system side, energizing side. The next is actually their Chaga tea, which tastes delicious. It is decaf, completely decaf, and some may recognize Chaga. It is nicknamed the king of the mushrooms. It is excellent for immune system support. So needless to say, I am focused on that right now

• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

  myself, and so I will often have that in the afternoons. They make all sorts of different mushroom blends if you are doing exercises, I am on a daily basis to keep myself sane. Cordyceps, excellent for endurance. They have a whole slew of options that you can check out. Every single batch is third-party lab-tested for heavy metals, allergens, all the Stuff to make sure that what gets into your hands is what you want to put in your mouth. And they always offer a 100% money back guarantee. So you can try it risk free. Why not? I've worked out an exclusive offer with four sigmatic on their best selling lion's mane coffee. I literally have a mug full of it in front of me right now. And this is just for you, my dear podcast listeners, receive up to 39% off. I don't know how we arrived at 39%, but

• 2:34Tim Ferriss?

  39% off. It's a lot. They're best selling lion's mane coffee bundles. To claim this deal, you must go to foursigmatic.com slash Tim. This offer is only for you and is not available on their regular website. Go to foursigmatic, that's F O U R S I G M A T I C dot com slash Tim to get yourself some awesome and delicious mushroom coffee. Full discount is applied at checkout.

• 3:03Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by element spelled L M N T. What on earth is element? It is a delicious sugar free electrolyte drink mix. I've stocked up on boxes and boxes of this. It was one of the first things that I bought when I saw COVID coming down the pike. And I usually use one to two per day. Element is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low carb, or paleo diet. Or if you drink a ton of water and you might not have the right balance, that's often when I drink it, or if you're doing any type of endurance exercise, mountain biking, etc., another application. If you've ever struggled to feel good on keto, low carb, or paleo, it's most likely because even if you're consciously consuming electrolytes, you're

• 3:45Tim Ferriss?

  just not getting enough. And it relates to a bunch of stuff like a hormone called aldosterone, blah, blah, blah, when insulin is low. But suffice to say, this is where element again, spelled L M N T can help. My favorite flavor by far is citrus salt, which is a side note, you can also use to make a kick ass, no sugar margarita. But for special occasions, obviously, you're probably already familiar with one of the names behind it. Rob Wolf, R O B B, Rob Wolf, who is a former research biochemist and two time New York Times bestselling author of The Paleo Solution and Wired to Eat. Rob. Created Element by scratching his own itch. That's how it got started. His Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coaches turned him on to electrolytes as a performance enhancer.

• 4:28Tim Ferriss?

  Things clicked and bam, company was born. So if you're on a low carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness and dizziness. Sugar, artificial ingredients, coloring, all that's garbage, unneeded. There's none of that in Element. And a lot of names you might recognize are already using Element. It was recommended to be by one of my favorite athlete friends. Three Navy SEAL teams as prescribed by their Master Chief, Marine units, FBI sniper teams, at least five NFL teams who have subscriptions. They are the exclusive hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting and on and on. You can try it risk free. If you don't like it, Element will give you your money back, no questions asked. They have extremely low return rates.

• 5:11Tim Ferriss?

  So again, Element, LMNT, came up with a very special offer for you guys. They've created Tim's Club. Just go to drinklmnt.com/tim, select subscribe and save and use promo code TIM'SCLUB to get the 30 count box of Element for only $36. This will be valid for the lifetime of the subscription and you can pause at any time. So again, check it out. It's drinklmnt.com/tim for this exclusive offer using promo code TIM'SCLUB. One more time, drinklmnt, Element. So drinklmnt.com/tim and promo code TIM'SCLUB. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health.

• 5:56Tim Ferriss?

  I do get asked a lot, what I would take if I could only take one supplement? And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com/tim.

• 6:37Tim Ferriss?

  That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 6:50Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to interview world-class performers from all different disciplines. And my guest today is Mike Novogratz. Michael Novogratz, @Novogratz, that's N-O-V-O-G-R-A-T-Z on Twitter, is the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, galaxydigital.io. He was formerly a partner and president of Fortress Investment Group, LLC. Prior to Fortress, Mr. Novogratz spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was elected partner in 1998. Mr. Novogratz served on the New York Federal Reserve's Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets from 2012 to 2015. Mike also serves as the chairman of The Bail Project and has made criminal justice reform a focus of his family's foundation.

• 7:34Tim Ferriss?

  He serves as the chairman of Hudson River Park Friends and sits on the boards of NYU Langone, if I'm getting that correct, Medical Center, and Princeton Varsity Club, Jazz Foundation of America, and Artists for Peace and Justice. Mr. Novogratz received an A.B. in Economics from Princeton University and served as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army. Mike, welcome to the show.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Thanks a lot, Tim.

• 7:57Tim Ferriss?

  And this has been a long time coming. I'm excited to have you on the show. You have so many stories. You have an unvarnished personality, and you have just such a medley of experience that I'm glad that we were finally able to get on the phone to record this for public consumption. So, thanks for making the time.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  No, I'm excited. I sometimes feel like we were separated at birth, me and you.

• 8:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we got, yeah, we have Long Island, we have Princeton, we have wrestling, as you put it, a little bit crazy, psychedelics, meditation, crypto, the list is long. And I thought we could start with a place that might seem like a total non-sectarian, but I have to ask, I was in preparation for this conversation, reading a really nicely-done profile in The New Yorker, written by Gary Steingart. And there is a, there's a phrase that came up multiple times that I have to ask you about, which was "speed racer pants." He kept on mentioning, "You're wearing speed racer pants." What are, what are these pants?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  I had a pair of white pants with a big red stripe on the side of them, and they look like the pants Speed Racer used to wear.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  I bought them in LA at Fred Segal one day when I was just bored and I started wearing them around and no one in New York was wearing striped pants and so it was quite the thing for about a year.

• 9:15Tim Ferriss?

  And you seem to have a fair amount of lore surrounding you, which certainly became even more clear as I was doing homework for this conversation. And one of them is piloting a helicopter down Prospect Avenue. Now, I'd like to know if that's true and either way, maybe you could explain what Prospect Avenue is, but did that actually happen?

• 9:39Speaker 03

  You know, unfortunately, it did happen. I've had a tendency to drink too much at big parties and Princeton has this reunion celebration every year where all the classes come by and after the P-Raid, this is a parade of hundreds and hundreds of people, starting with the oldest graduate who is often 100, 103 years old, all the way to the new grads. Everyone migrates to this Prospect Avenue and one year I had to leave early for an event and I was like, "Okay, just I'll show off to my friends a little bit." And so I got in a helicopter, was gonna take me back to New York City and I asked the pilot if I could drive and we just buzzed Prospect Street, much to the thrill of my friends and probably the dismay of everyone else.

• 10:23Tim Ferriss?

  What was your Princeton experience like? We're gonna zoom backwards in time to childhood in just a little bit, but what was your experience like at Princeton?

• 10:34Speaker 03

  You know, I was a middle-class kid, so I showed up a little intimidated and I thought I was smart in high school and I showed up at Princeton, "Oh, thank God, I'm not that smart." I thought I was a great wrestler in high school and I went to Princeton and I got my butt whooped and I was like, "I'm not that good of a wrestler." And so, you know, it started off intimidated in lots of ways and I look back, I took easier classes than certainly my kids take, thinking, "How do I get through this place and survive it?" And athletically, that flipped my junior year. Socially, it flipped early, and that was probably the biggest positive. Academically, it never really flipped. I never really felt, maybe until I did my thesis, like I was really a good enough student.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Didn't really feel smart enough until I actually joined the Army and on a test with 700 other guys got first place. And I was like, dude, I'm actually pretty smart. I learned something. But I was intimidated most at Princeton. It was interesting. The positive side was socially, I was adept and realized, you know, I had my first roommate, actually, was Gloria Vanderbilt's son, Carter Cooper, who unfortunately tragically committed suicide years later. But he was kind of aristocracy, right? He was not just a wealthy New Yorker, but the Vanderbilts were aristocracy. And I went to New York and realized he had his own insecurities as well, and he had nice friends. Other than them teasing me about having my hair parted in the mill, which I thought

• 12:04Speaker 03

  was a very cool look back then, but not in New York City. You know, I quickly realized that rich guys, middle-class guys, they all use the same toilet dish yet. And that part, I think, gave me a lot of confidence in life, that I could compete, in essence. At this point, we were competing mostly for girls, but I could compete with anybody. And that sounds like a small, little win, but it was actually, when I look back, where a lot of confidence started.

• 12:30Tim Ferriss?

  And you mentioned athletics. What flipped junior year, if I'm remembering correctly, for you in athletics?

• 12:37Speaker 03

  You know, I don't think I reached puberty till I was about 20. No, I was a decent wrestler, and I worked pretty hard at it. And I just got good enough to make the varsity. So my first two years, I was really on the junior varsity. There was one guy that was better than me, at the same weight, and... And he actually took a year off and so it opened the spot up for me and having that opportunity to wrestle, you know, I just started doing better and better and I made the, you know, the Eastern Tournament that I made the national tournament and back then making the nationals was a huge chip plus for you. You felt like, you know, you're a real guy in the wrestling community. And so I came back senior year ready to, you know, ready to be an All-American. And so it was a whole shift of, you know, my, my confidence

• 13:21Speaker 03

  level again, but also I got stronger. You know, nowadays kids red shirt, they take a year off. I really wish I, I was just getting strong and just getting good my senior year. I kinda always needed one more year. Probably why I've stayed involved with wrestling my whole life.

• 13:36Tim Ferriss?

  What did wrestling give you? That's a leading question. I, I should probably just ask what impact it had on you, but having wrestled myself, you wrestled longer than I did, but I'd love to hear in your words, what part wrestling has played in your life? If, aside from the involvement that you had later with Beat the Streets and, and the, the Olympics and so on?

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, listen, I think it's a sport that almost like no other sport, beats the hell out of you. I mean, it is so tough from cutting weight to going out on the map by yourself and just getting crushed. And so you learn to pick yourself up after you get crushed and you're like, okay, I got crushed that match. I don't need to get crushed next match and I gotta work a little harder. And so it's resilience. If anything, the, the trade it builds in people is grit, our resilience. Um, when I started Beat the Streets, we, we looked a lot at wrestling and, and it's interesting, 14 of the 44 presidents of the United States had wrestling in their background. There's no other sport, there's no other sport with that many. I mean, Abe Lincoln used to go from town to town to wrestle for money. Uh, Teddy Roosevelt was a wrestler. Uh, and-

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Often that toughness and grit ends up in leadership. And so you see a lot of wrestlers that move on in life into leadership positions.

• 14:57Tim Ferriss?

  So let's talk about the resilience, because when I polled a number of my friends and asked them what they would most like me to discuss with you, it came back to resilience in some form or another. And in the New Yorker piece, there's one line which we could also dissect if we wanted, but it says, "Princeton, like Wall Street, where Novogratz has made at least three fortunes and lost at least two is full of stories about him." So you have this incredibly powerful and public hero's journey that you've traveled more than once, and I want to read from a speech. This is the commencement speech in Iowa. I don't even know the story of how this came to be, but we can get to that.

• 15:41Tim Ferriss?

  So as it relates to grit, so you say, "As I've gotten older," this is in the middle of the commencement speech, "As I've gotten older, I've realized that we have two missions on this earth: to know thyself, or as my wife would say, to sort our shit out and to walk each other home. Most people I've met don't start this journey until they've really screwed up. They've lost a job, ruined a marriage, abused drugs or alcohol, destroyed friendships, or just can't get out of bed. I started my journey at 33, when I had done most of the above. I was a rising star at Goldman Sachs, I was a partner, a president, a respected man in the Wall Street community, and then I wasn't. Right after I resigned from Goldman, I literally thought my life was over, I had ruined it." Okay, so this is winding its way to a question. So that's a little bit of backstory for people who don't have familiarity.

• 16:23Tim Ferriss?

  And the question is, when that happened, when you have what you might consider a public experience like that, how do you work your way through it, psychologically and emotionally? What do you tell yourself? What helps? I'm very curious to know how you dust yourself off and what you did that helped or something.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  You know, that was my kind of first public humiliation failure.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  You know, personal failure, you know, failed the people I worked with. And it was painful. I, I, there's no two ways around it. You know, it was helpful that I had a supportive family that were just letting me be. Uh, I went into depression, uh, and it took a while to kind of work out. I was, I had this narrative that I had ruined my life and I would never get it back. And I remember, you know, there was lots of little pieces of advice first. I had one lawyer. I was so worried what everyone thought about me. And this lawyer said, dude, do me a favor. Write down on a piece of paper, the people that you think will be at your funeral when you die at 80. Worry about what those people think. All those other people, they don't really think about you that much.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  You know, and that was kind of liberating because you, as a partner at Goldman Sachs, every partner that had left Goldman Sachs, when you left, you got this beautiful little memo about all you had done. And, you know, it was a, it was a, Goldman's a bit of a cult and there was a very nice way they exited partners. And I just disappeared, you know, I was not spoken about. I was like, so I kept worrying that I was going to run into my ex-partners on the street and be, be so embarrassed. And so first he helped me get over that. Just think about it. But in the long run, I ended up going up to rehab, uh, in Arizona. And, you know, that was a, I kind of got snuckered in a little bit. I had this therapist. I'd never had a therapist before and he said, dude, you talk so much. You gotta go somewhere where you can tell your stories and have a safe space.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  And there's this beautiful holistic place in the middle of Phoenix or Tucson, uh, called Sierra Tucson. And, and it looked, I looked on the pamphlets. It looked so nice. And so I went out there and, you know, on day one, uh, and I hadn't had a drink or a drug or got any trouble for three, four, five months at the time. But, so I flew out there and you check yourself into a mental health facility. And you're like, what the F just went on here? Uh, and my first roommate was in the throes of trying to kick heroin and he was not having a good time of it. And I'm like, how in God's name did I end up at this place? But it was probably my first experience with really digging in and trying to sort out,

• 19:03Speaker 03

  like, what are the patterns of my life that led to this? And it was kind of traumatic in that, you know, the thesis that a lot of rehab centers use and addiction specialists use is that There are these deep emotional scars, either big T traumas or little T traumas, that people have a hard time dealing with and they start using some substance, it might be sex, or alcohol, or drugs, or control of your food, to medicate those feelings. And that medication, all of a sudden, and as you end up doing more stupid things and you need more of the medication, and it's this cycle of, and so that if you could get to those core issues, it would really help in your journey. And, you know, you're sitting around a circle with people and, you know, one guy's father

• 19:48Speaker 03

  had kicked him in the spleen, he'd lost his spleen when he was 12, and almost all the women that were bulimic or anorexic had suffered incest. And I'm thinking here, I had nice parents, like, what, you know, I had a pretty nice, and it was traumatizing not having the big trauma. And, you know, one of my insights was sometimes the little trauma, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years later, can have just as much psychological distress as big trauma, you know, and so one man's pain is no different 10 years later. It's just pain, or fear, or, and, and so, starting the search to find that out was unbelievably helpful. It also really started building an underdeveloped empathy muscle.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  You know, I remember I met one woman who had been the teacher of the year in Florida for like, nine straight years, and she had, she was probably 45 years old and had a, had a relationship, maybe she's 30, 40 years old, had a relationship with a senior. And, it wasn't even sexual, but it was close to sexual, got caught, and next thing you know, she was the pariah of the town, and got thrown out of teaching, and everyone wanted to shoot her. And, as you met her, she was one of the nicest women I had met, and she had a story, she had been abused by her both father and then stepfather, and had developed a relationship addiction, which unfortunately then had her having a relationship with a senior in her school.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  But instead of being angry, wanted a lynch her, you wanted to hug her. And so that, that process of trying to, to understand where, where people's mistakes came from, allowed me to start kind of forgiving myself a little bit. And then, since I didn't really get to that holistic place, I realized, and maybe this is the trick of how to get started again, I just needed to create a new narrative. And some of the narrative was, I fucked up, I went to try to understand how I fucked up, I haven't solved it all, but I'm, I'm starting over. And, you know, it wasn't until 9/11 happened, I, uh, I was trying to figure out what to do.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  And when 9/11 happened, uh, my brother called me and he was in one of the, uh, big buildings right next to the Twin Towers. And he's like, dude, a plane just hit, what, what am I supposed to do? And I was like, buy Euro dollars. And he was like, what the fuck are you talking about? I was like, buy short dated treasury contracts. And I was like, and I was like, oh no, get out of the building. Uh, and, and I, I was like, okay, the brain's kind of screwed up. And then I was with my young son, who was like two at the time, and I was, uh, looking on the TV and I was like, we gotta go help. So I go wanting to run down towards the, uh, Trade Center to see what was going on. And he started crying and I was like, okay, that's not helping. So we ran back and watched it on TV.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  But I, you know, my army side of me wanted to participate and they, there was no real room for volunteers. And I felt like I gotta go do something. And I realized I hadn't fulfilled kind of my, my Wall Street journey. And so I literally, it was a 9/11 insight and I, you know, went back to work at Fortress and, and luckily, you know, had a lot of good luck and good, great partners. You know, five or six years later, we, not even, yeah, six years later, we rang the bell at the stock market and, you know, we were all billionaires and it was just kind of heady experience because the journey from, you know, walking out of Goldman Sachs and having one of the senior partners say, well, you know, maybe you'll work again sometime.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  You know, I'm thinking to myself, geez, it wasn't that bad. Uh, but really feeling like you might never work again until six years later, you know, feeling like you're on top of the world. You know, it was kind of a heady ride.

• 23:34Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm. What did your self-care program, if it existed, look like between rehab and ringing the bell? Did anything change noticeably? Any type of habits or routines or anything that helped during that period?

• 23:48Speaker 03

  So I gave up drinking for 13 months. And, you know, I have been a- Man who loves parties, who loves drinking, who doesn't drink at home, but a very social drinker my whole life. And that was difficult, is trying to be able to be social, not with a glass of wine or a beer, or Jack Daniels in my hand was tough. And I gave up recreational drugs. And, you know, 14 months later, I did something which I think was important. I ran this thing called the Marathon of the Sands, which was six marathons in a row across the Sahara. It was one of the original adventure races.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  700 people from 100 countries, and you literally run across the damn desert. And it would get to 130 degrees during the day and freeze at night. And about halfway into it, I was like, ah, it's good to be alive. And it just felt like, what the f**k are you complaining about? You're alive, this beautiful settings, and you're meeting new people. And that was really the big trigger. And so, staying fit, you know, at that age, I ran a lot. But it was that push yourself into the uncomfort zone physically even, and realize you're still alive, dude, you're not dead. And so, that was right before, you know, the 9/11 happened. That was whatever, the June before September. But that was really the turning point now that you asked the question, where I felt like, okay, I can go back to work.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  And then, at Fortress, you know, there was a lot of stress at work, because I felt like, you know, even though I thought I had made some big breakthroughs, there were parts of my story I hadn't sorted out. One is why I carried all this pressure all the time, you know, that stopped it from being joyful. And so, I, you know, exercise, I still, I wasn't really into meditation until probably 2006, 2007. You know, so early on, it was just exercise. My core issues were pressure. When I made partner at Goldman Sachs, I felt relieved. I remember Lloyd Blankfein called me up, and he said, "Don't tell my wife it was one of the most joyful days of my life, even more than my wedding." And I'm thinking to myself, I think that I should have said that, Lloyd's gonna come get, yell at me.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  I didn't feel that. I felt relieved. Like, ah, thank God, check that box. And I was thinking back on it, and I was like, well, that's kind of shitty that you felt that much pressure to be a partner with Saks. Who the hell really care? You know, I lost most of the big wrestling matches in my life because I felt so much pressure to win that when I knew it was an important match, I wouldn't wrestle as well. And so I got a lot of second places. And I would remember walking out of the mat feeling exhausted beforehand. And it took me a while. Matter of fact, I remember the moment where I had my first insight. I had, uh, the year before, I had been at this investor conference called Lyford Key. And Byron Ween used to run it. He was a legend for Morgan Stanley.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  And this was the first legendary investor conference. You had to be a legend to be there, and you had to share ideas. And I got invited in 2006, probably, maybe 2005. And it was such an honor to be there. I was one of the young guys. And you had to give your three stories, stocks or ideas. And it came to me, and the guy before me had used one of mine. And I just panicked. I literally was like, uh, uh, uh, I'm sweating. And it was one of the most miserable five minutes of my life. So much so, the guy next to me was like, dude, that wasn't that bad, but I've got a plane leaving soon if you want to go. (laughing) And I remember feeling all this stress about, and I was telling my wife, I was

• 27:26Speaker 03

  like, I don't, this is so much stress, I'm not having fun. I should just do something else in my life. And she was like, uh, dude, you hired all these people. Uh, you just hired one of your best friends, and he left his firm to work for you. Like, like, sort it out. And, you know, has luck would happen. I, I have this life where I've stolen mentorship, or found it, or, you know, been gifted it, you know, in strange places. And I was, one of my investors suggested I have lunch with Ehud Barak, who had been the prime minister of Israel and one of their great generals. One of the, and he allegedly had the highest IQ in the Israeli army. And I was sitting with him, and he was a charming, charming guy. Later became a friend. And he looked at me, he said, "No regrets. I think I figured you out."

• 28:12Speaker 03

  You know, you're not very smart. I was like, thank you. He said, but you're lucky. You're lucky. And then he said, don't worry about it. You know, Lewis Bacon, who is one of the macro legends, you know, one of the best investors of all time, and Bruce Covner, they're, they remind me a little. They, they think they're smart, but they're mostly lucky. And I'm looking at him and then he gave me a quote in French. Of course, I don't speak French and I was like, translate, you know, I'm not so smart. And it was from Napoleon, I don't hire smart generals, I hire lucky generals. And it was, and it was about intuition and that his, Napoleon's thought was these generals know where to be on the battlefield at the right time. They can pattern recognize the thing.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  They have a certain intuition and we don't have a word for it. Therefore we call it luck. And the moment he said that, the way my brain functioned as an investor, the way I operated in life, it clicked. I was like, that's what I do. I have pattern, like I'm actually, and I realized I didn't need, once I knew what I needed to make investments, to make decisions, I didn't need to fulfill what you think I needed. Right? I remember being so worried when I was at Life for Key that someone was going to ask me who the finance minister of Russia was because I was telling him I owned all these Russian rubles and I forgot the guy's name. But I didn't really need to know the guy's name for my investment confidence. Other people might. And that was liberating.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  And from the moment that happened, I could tell the story of how I made investment decisions and had so much more confidence. I had, my hedge fund went from 300 million to 2 billion in six months. The returns went up, but most importantly, the joy showed up. Uh, it was more fun and the confidence came. I was like, I know I can always, if I need to, sit in front of the screen and sort out markets and make money from them. And so, you know, one of the great breakthroughs, Liddy, was, was from this guy who, you know, was a famous Jewish general, Israeli general. And, uh, I don't know how, I seemed to have gotten sidetracked from your question, but...

• 30:13Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no. This show is all about sidetracks. Those are usually where the, the interesting alleys have all sorts of tidbits. So let's dig into intuition because this seems to show up again and again in your life. And I'd be very curious to know, let's just say in that six month period where you go vertical, basically, in assets under management, how have you learned, if you have, to discern...

• 30:37Tim Ferriss?

  Intuition and pattern recognition from say overconfidence, right? Or irrational confidence in a position or a trade or something like that? How have you learned to wield and discern what is what?

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a great question. And listen, the world, the world's best speculators or macro traders have two things in common. They have this pattern recognition intuition. I put that in one bucket and then they have discipline. And I said the three things and then they have an unbelievable competitive spirit. And, you know, I look at guys like Stan Druckenmiller and Paul Jones and Lewis Bacon. And to be honest, they're just, they've done better than I have. And it wasn't because, because I spoke to them enough to understand of their understanding of markets or intuition.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Their discipline was just better. And it was, and I was like, why are they so much more disciplined than I? I think partly they're just more disciplined than I, but they're more competitive. They just cared more. It was interesting. I couldn't tell if that was in life, a strength or a weakness. But there, you watch that Michael Jordan documentary and the one thing that every single person who watches it comes out is he cared. So he was the most competitive man I think I've ever seen in anything, Michael Jordan. You know, the great speculators are very competitive like that. And, and shockingly, I'm just not as competitive. And listen, I've done, I've done very well by almost any standard, but not in the legend standard. You know, I know who the legends are because I've been around them.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  And so I think about that a lot and I'm trying to figure out, you know, that, that's not all terrible, like you'd like some more discipline. And I think it has allowed me to have a more diverse life than some of my peers. But I think about that. But that's how you, the only way you end up trusting your intuition to get to your question is to have some set of rules that you manage your risk by, your life by, your, because you're, you're still anxious, right? We're learning to trust ourselves. So I think I'm right, right? It's this business that I think, not that I know. You really think like this lines up. I'm almost positive Bitcoin is going to go up right now. But if it doesn't, you've got to have some circuit breaker that says, you know, I could have been wrong.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  You know, no one's right 100% of the time, right? No one's right 80% of the time in markets. And so you need a circuit breaker. And so that's a series of rules that you manage your portfolio by, manage your life by lots of ways. And that's where discipline really helps. And that's where I've often let myself down a little bit. And that's sometimes just trying to do too many things. Sometimes, you know, just not being tough enough on myself. But that's the challenge of anyone who goes into my business. It's those, it's really hard to learn that you're actually good at it. Because, you know, it's, it's not a skill that, you know, how do you say, I've got good intuition, right? It takes a long time for you to trust yourself.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  And then how do you hold steady to really having your portfolio constantly being a collection of your guesses? It sounds like it should be a tautology, right? I'm bullish, therefore I'm long. But I would tell you that 19 out of 20 people that try to be traders, that sentence isn't consistent with them 90% of the time.

• 34:00Tim Ferriss?

  Could you elaborate on that?

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, so someone is bullish, they say, I think the stock market's going up, but I'm not going to buy it yet. Right? I think the stock market's going up, but I'm going to buy a little bit, but I'm going to sell calls on it. And so then it goes up and they barely make any money. Stan Druckenmacher, when he's, you hear him on TV, if he says, I think the market's going up, you can better believe he's long.

• 34:21Tim Ferriss?

  And just for people who are not in the, in the investing world, so long, meaning he is, I suppose, in the simplest iteration, buying things with the expectation they will appreciate the value.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, apologies, I forget the audience. And so that's the battle of, of being a speculator, but that translates into the battle of being life. And, you know, listen, even, I guess if you're investing in movies, you have some algorithm in your head or a written algorithm of what you think makes for a good bet. And so you invest, you invest, you invest. At one point, right, your track record, your wins versus losses are going to tell you, are you good at this? But really taking the time to understand what that algorithm is. Like, how do you make decisions in? Investing in movies or investing in small businesses, right? If you're a venture capitalist or investing in markets.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  And so one of my insights was always like any one of those processes, you take in information, you process it through an algorithm and you have to then manage it, like manage the risk of it somehow. And so that I use that process in lots of things. But some, you know, and not every job, certainly not every investing job is based on intuition. Quite frankly, very few are because the more intuition based the investing is, the more anxiety there is, right? If you're an arbitrageur, you buy something for, you know, eight dollars on one market and sell it for 10 on another, there's not a whole lot of risk. And so then it's just being commercial. And so I always tell people that you got to try to understand yourself and figure out

• 36:02Speaker 03

  where your DNA, where your personality type fits it into the space.

• 36:07Tim Ferriss?

  Let's come back to one of the names you mentioned and that's Paul Jones or Paul Tudor Jones, who has hit the news quite widely in the last few weeks because of his extensive discussion of Bitcoin, specifically in one of his memos. I'm not sure if he refers to them as memos or letters or something else, but nonetheless, this has made the rounds that Paul Tudor Jones has de-risked Bitcoin for institutional investors. Here comes Wall Street, et cetera. You've referred to yourself as the Forrest Gump of Bitcoin. So I'll give you two questions and you can choose which one you want to tackle first. So one is, why are you the Forrest Gump of Bitcoin? And then the second is, how are you different from Paul Tudor Jones?

• 36:51Tim Ferriss?

  Like, how do you guys, I know you know each other quite well. How are you most different or most similar?

• 36:55Speaker 03

  So that's a great question. So the Forrest Gump of Bitcoin was kind of a shtick. I was the first institutional grade investor that started talking about it, you know, for better or worse, you know, back in when it was trading around 100, I was on. And it was, I had promised my partners, quite frankly, that we wouldn't talk about crypto because Fortress was a real asset company and we weren't going to talk about these digital assets.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  I was at some conference, I didn't know the press was there, I made some witty comments about Bitcoin, and the next day I was on the cover of the Financial Times. And then I got sucked into Bitcoin, because everyone would call me and ask me what I thought, and at that point I didn't even really understand how it worked that much. I understood that it was a thing that was gonna go higher. But partly by being forced to publicly speak about it, you know, I got asked to speak at the Oxford Union, and I really had to study, and, you know, try to understand how the damn thing worked. And so I became kind of an unofficial spokesperson, or one of the unofficial spokesperson for it. Paul and I are as close in terms of what we have done.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  We ran similar businesses, his was bigger and a little bit better. He's been a role model in philanthropy, in spirit, like, if I had an older brother, ten years from different, you know, and my parents didn't tell me about it, would be Paul. And so, it's fun to see him getting involved in Bitcoin, for me, personally. It's important because, you know, I said I was pretty damn good, but Paul is one of those legends, you know, they're literally, honestly, three or four guys of his stature in the whole macro space in the last thirty years. And so for him to get involved, it basically says this is, this is a real macro instrument. You know, there's no more debate on his Bitcoin, it might not always go up, it might go up

• 38:48Speaker 03

  and down, you might not put it in your portfolio, but there's no shame in, in being involved with the space anymore. And that's a big deal, because for stores of value, and Bitcoin is really becoming a store of value, they only become stores of value when people believe they are. And so it's a belief system. Bitcoin is, is not just the code, it's really the social construct. I say it's this, you say it's this, therefore it is this. And so, we already have Jack Dorsey, whose Twitter handle says Bitcoin, and Abby Johnson from Fidelity, and Pete Brigger from Fortress, that all bought it personally, or had their businesses involved with it, Wences Casares, and Mickey Melker, I mean, these are kind of legends in their space. Paul's the first...

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Had a legend in the hedge fund space that didn't just buy it personally, but he bought it in his fund. And so it opens up a whole new avenue of potential participants in that community, which I think is really, really significant.

• 39:46Tim Ferriss?

  If we had to put on the hat of forecaster or Nostradamus, what do you predict, if you're comfortable going for it, with Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, et cetera, in the next, let's just call it 12 months? It's currently May 18th when we record this, 2020.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Mark it down and write it down. We're trading roughly $9,600 per Bitcoin right now. I think we'll take out 10,000 soon and end the year closer to 20,000, the old highs. Once these store of values start building momentum, there's not a lot of supply. We've had this thing called the halving, where there's half the supply being mined than there was even a week ago. But mostly, the story is finally catching broader adoption. And it's not just hedge funds that are going to be able to buy it. You're going to see wealth managers start selling it to their clients through products. We have a Bitcoin fund

• 40:45Speaker 03

  that's targeted to the 50 to 80-year-olds in America that buy their, that make their investment decisions through TD Ameritrade, or Charles Schwab, or Goldman Sachs, are registered investment advisors, right? Bitcoin has been a young man's game. It's been Gen Z and the millennials. It's been bought on Coinbase app, or Square, or Robinhood. Those things aren't going away. Quite frankly, there are going to be more of them, right? Facebook's Calibra is going to allow you to buy Bitcoin, and that'll be 2,000, 3,000 people using that wallet. And so there are so many more avenues of access. I always tell people, if it was easy to buy, the price would be far higher already. Bitcoin's been hard to buy, and a year from now, it's going to be that much easier.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  So I'm really bullish and I, you know, listen, I don't have, uh, I'm always careful when I'm, when I say really because, you know, these things are recorded and you come back later and people are like, damn, that guy was stupid. It doesn't work. Uh, and so you're cautious to be that bullish publicly, but I haven't seen things line up as well, uh, in a long time.

• 41:51Tim Ferriss?

  Let's rewind the clock as promised. Uh, it feels like probably an hour or so ago, maybe, maybe a little bit less to family. And I know this is a little bit like memento as in how nonlinear this is, but you grew up in a big family. It seems like with, with no shortage of strong personalities. Could you describe for folks what your family was like, what your childhood was like growing up?

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Sure. So for people of my age, uh, that used to watch John Hughes movies like Pretty in Pink and 16 Candles, uh, that was pretty much the neighborhood I grew up in. Like we were straight up the middle suburban, middle-class, all-American family. My dad was an army officer. Uh, so he was a, a major. He went to Vietnam twice when I was very young, a major, then a lieutenant colonel for like my, my growing up years. Uh, I went to a public high school. We had, you know, seven of us, uh, seven of us in a house that had one and a half, well, two bathrooms, one for my parents and one for the rest of us. And, you know, we fought over the brush and the blow dryer because back then you blew dry your hair if you were

• 42:58Speaker 03

  a cool dude. Um, my mother, uh, didn't go to college. She got married when she was 18 to my dad. They just had their 60th anniversary or 19, she got married, uh, 60th anniversary. And she was beautiful. And I think she had this fascination with the Kennedys because she named my sister Jackie and, you know, my brother Bobby and we've got a John John. And, um, you know, my dad was a handsome football player, a football star at West Point. And My mother thought we should, you know, we should be them, you know, why not us? And so she was the one that kind of drove the pressure to succeed, not in a very harsh way, just in a, like, you know, we used to complain about kids and she says, "Well, if that girl

• 43:42Speaker 03

  would jump off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge?" The same old saying that most suburban parents use, but there was a pressure my mom put of excellence that we could rise. And in the background, my father had been the lineman of the year in college football. He never has once mentioned a thing. He was, he's the least braggadocio guy, very humble, but he didn't have to say much because he had my mom that would say it all for him. But we had this sense of excellence from my dad that he had been this star football player. We also had a sense of service. You know, my mom used to always say, "You're given so much, you know, you gotta give back." And I look back, I'm like, we had seven kids fighting over one brush.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  But, you know, we were, you know, it was a Catholic family. There was lots of love involved. We might, we come from a big extended family as well, and so we felt special. You know, it was special to be an overgrats. My mother made it special to be an overgrats. And so we ran for office at the student elections and, you know, didn't always win, actually. I lost most of the time, but, but like even the confidence to be the third grader running for class president came from, I think, parents that made you feel special. My dad was tough. Like it was not, he was a military guy and he grew up in a Austrian immigrant family. And so we got whacked around a lot, my brother and I. We always complained that by the time my little brothers and sisters who were, there was a seven-year gap between the top

• 45:02Speaker 03

  three and the bottom four came around, my parents were soft.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  But, you know, I look back at this big family all the time and I, the one thing that I'm sure that came out of that was you're willing to take more risk in life when you know if you screw up, there's people that are gonna catch you. There's brothers and sisters that 'll love you anyway. And they also, on the flip side, when you're doing really well, they don't buy that shtick either. You know, they're appreciative of it. They applaud, but you're not more special, just because you made a bunch of money or got this award or, and so it's humbling, it's, it's safety on the downside and it's humbling on the upside.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  And so that's, listen, we've all drafted off of each other. You know, I always laugh that, you know, it's a pain in the ass to have such a famous sister because wherever I go, everyone knows my sister because she's always trying to save the world.

• 45:59Tim Ferriss?

  You should say a few words about that because people may not recognize Jackie equals Jacqueline, Jacqueline Novogratz. Just a few words about your, can you say a few words about her?

• 46:09Speaker 03

  My sister is one of the unique souls that from like age five decided she wanted to change the world. And so she was like a Brownie, then a Girl Scout, and she started this organization, the Acumen Fund, which was really kind of the father of venture philanthropy or impact investing. And has spent her whole life trying to figure out how to change systems, how to invest in the poorest of, you know, the citizens on this planet to build permanent structures around housing and water and education. And really to change the conversation, to start with the conversation of dignity. And, you know, she's developed a huge following in that development world and in the conference

• 46:54Speaker 03

  world. She's got, you know, branches all over the world now of young acolytes that want to be like her. And so, you know, it's interesting, what I notice about her, and I know it's about some other leaders, but not many, is that she's never not known true north. Like she's, and most people, and myself included, I try to be a pretty good guy and I do a lot of good stuff, but my compass gets out of kilter plenty of times. Gets out of kilter for my own desires, feels pretty good. Gets out of kilter because I get excited about something, I lose my own focus. Yeah, I put my sister in a special bucket. You know, Bryan Stevenson is one of my heroes from the Equal Justice Initiative, who's

• 47:38Speaker 03

  really one of our great civil rights leaders. And you meet with him and you're like, after just a few hours with him, you're like, he's probably never not known true north. And so, you know, that's, listen, it's inspiring to be around those people. It's sometimes humbling and frustrating because you're like, oh.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  But it's, it's good to have them around because it grounds you a little bit.

• 48:05Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon, a brand new cereal that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. I just had a bowl of their cocoa flavor, that's my favorite, an hour ago. It tastes just like your favorite cereal that you remember from childhood, but it's actually good for you. Each serving has 11 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. And their flavors are delicious. It comes in your favorite traditional cereal flavors, you might remember, like cocoa, frosted, and blueberry. They also have limited edition flavors like honey nut and peanut butter. My favorites are cocoa and peanut butter. I'll usually have them with really creamy whole milk, or some type of unsweetened coconut milk, something like that. Another fun fact,

• 48:49Tim Ferriss?

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• 49:28Tim Ferriss?

  See, you spoke earlier of feeling immense pressure, say going out on the wrestling mat, or at the investment conference coming up to your five minutes, and so on. You have a large family, many high achievers in that family. Do you think any part of that comes from a pressure or expectation to succeed that was made explicit or implicitly clear from your parents? And I know that's a very binary question, but I'm just curious.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  I mean, it's a big yes. And I don't know if it was, I think it was more implicitly. You know, my mother was very good at making us all feel like we were the special one. And for whatever reason, from kindergarten on, my teachers treated me better than everybody else, my parents. And so I literally remember if I got, didn't get an A in like first grade, on the way home, taking the paper crumbling up and throwing it in the sewer. And I'm thinking to myself, now that I've had young kids, it's incomprehensible for me to think that a five or six or seven year old would throw a paper away if he didn't get an A. Like, who thinks like that? So somehow, at that very young age, I said in that article with Gary Steiger, when I was at rehab, I had to complain to my mother,

• 50:47Speaker 03

  because everyone's got to blame their parents. I said, "You put so much pressure on me." Because she used to tell everybody, because I talked all the time, that I was going to be a senator. And my mother, who's very quick- Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Very quick on her feet, said, "Yeah, he did alright. I should have said he should have been the president."

• 51:05Speaker 03

  You know, your little kid, you pick up cues that- my parents never meant to put pressure on their kids, I don't think, in that kind of way. But you pick up cues and they become your operating system. And I operated with that system, I probably still have a little bit of it in me, for so long a period of time, that I needed to be perfect. So I remember cheating, like, and then I was like, "Why am I cheating on a high school test when I was the smartest guy in the goddamn class? Because I didn't know the answer, and I'm not going to get an A." Like, that pressure was irrational. And of course, my friggin' dad never told a lie in his life, he's another choir boy. They're not going to condone cheating on a high school test. My mother wouldn't condone it, but like-

• 51:48Speaker 03

  And so, it's interesting, when I talked earlier about big T trauma and little T trauma, like, the little T trauma of picking up some story, for me was just as powerful as, you know, unfortunately, for other people, having gotten beaten up. And so, that, I think, you know, again, I have a loving mom and dad. And interesting about them is they've gotten nicer and nicer with each year. So my dad's 83, my mom's 79, and you literally, it's just fun to see parents grow and change. And so, I've got nothing but great things to say. But, I do think, and I said that in that speech I wrote, that, you know, everyone's journey is to kind of figure out their parental issues, and how their parents impacted them,

• 52:31Speaker 03

  and then to understand it, to let it go and love their parents. And, you know, it took me a long time to figure out where that pressure came from. And again, I don't blame anybody for it, but it certainly was there.

• 52:44Tim Ferriss?

  So let's, let's come back to that speech because this might be related what, what I'm about to ask. So you have, I would not call it a small tattoo on your forearm. Can you just, can you describe this tattoo for people, please?

• 53:00Speaker 03

  I have, I have a forearm length Jaguar slash puma. I, I call it a puma, but you might think of it as a Jaguar. A big black puma tattoo that goes from my, basically the whole length of my right forearm. That I got literally, my brother had given me a tattoo for Christmas a few years earlier. And after my first ayahuasca experience where I literally on day three transformed into a puma. I was gonna call it a black panther, but the movie had already come out. So I was like, I'm a puma, I'm not a panther. And growled and crawled around the floor two nights in a row. And was so moved by the whole beauty of that experience, I decided I would get a small tattoo. And I walked into

• 53:44Speaker 03

  this famous tattoo parlor called Smith Street Tattoos where my brother had, you know, got me the appointment and set it up. And I told the guy I would get this tattoo and I was gonna get a small one on my shoulder. And the guy looked at me and he's like, dude, with all respect, you're old as fuck. And if you're gonna get a tattoo, get a tattoo that people can see. And I was like, that was such a genius. I was like, I guess a genius. It's just, you know, when you hear the truth. So I put my forearm down there and I walked home with this giant eight inch tattoo of a, of a Jaguar, a puma on my, on my right arm. And I love it. I have to say, I love it. It gives me power. And I realize your forearms don't get flabby. It's like the one part of your body that stays fit.

• 54:27Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned ayahuasca and this experience minus the puma in this commencement address. Why did you, why did you decide to include that?

• 54:39Speaker 03

  You know, it was my first commencement address and I worked hard on it. And the thesis was know thyself. And there's so many ways one can learn about themselves. And, that journey that I went on in Costa Rica was unbelievably powerful. And I ended up getting different things from it than I thought I would.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  But afterwards, I was trying to convince my sister and brother-in-law that they should do this. And I really then started thinking, barring people that have bipolar or mental health issues, would an ayahuasca trip not benefit someone? As much as it might be tough and scary, like, should we put every politician in the world through that experience before they're allowed to serve? And I kept coming up with yes. And so I was like, if you're a young college student, and you're physically okay to do this, is there anything bad? And I couldn't come up with it. And so I thought, you know, I'll talk about it publicly. And part of this was in a chapter, or a part of the speech about destigmatizing mental

• 55:46Speaker 03

  health. Like, I think, you know, one of the things we need to do as a society is to allow that people have mental health issues, that depression is real, and that, you know, people have shit to work through, and that we should help them work through that. And, you know, both psilocybin and ayahuasca are, I just think, two things in that toolkit, powerful things in that toolkit of how one can process trauma, one can learn about themselves, one can dig into places that they haven't understood before. And, you know, it's funny, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah, that's true. And so, I have a sister, should tell her story, but I will, that went down, after

• 56:31Speaker 03

  I did the same place. And I was laughing about being a puma. And she's like, god damn it. Next thing you know, her hands were becoming kind of furry, like a cat. And she hates cats. She's like, I hate cats, I can't believe I'm gonna become a cat. And next thing you know, she climbed up this ladder, and she's looking at it, and it brought her back to this high school, not high school, I'm sorry, like, you know, little, little school theater, where she was the Cheshire Cat looking out on the audience. And I remember, she told me this story, I remembered, I was the older brother sitting there, she was probably five or six at the time. And she was the cutest kid in the play, of course, she was my sister.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  And after the play, I remember telling her, oh, she stole the show, she stole the show, she was so great. I mean, she probably had like, three lines, but she was the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. And for her...

• 57:25Speaker 03

  Coming off what she saw on this ayahuasca trip was all the other girls being mean to her because she was getting all the attention. And interestingly enough, her whole life, she'd never put her head up again. She always has been unbelievably supportive of everyone. She is literally our support system in our family. And she came out of that trip and she was like, I didn't put my head up because of those six-year-old girls that I didn't even remember? And so like, again, once you see it, you know, now she's got her own podcast and she's putting her head up. And so I find, I find that's a sweet story to tell because it's not so, you know, damningly personal. But there's so many opportunities like that

• 58:04Speaker 03

  that I figured, you know, it's time at least to broaden the conversation. Now, listen, University of Iowa to the Teachers College might not have been the exact right place, but it was where I was invited to speak, so.

• 58:19Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to highlight two lines from that speech, and one is in the middle of a paragraph. So I'll just highlight verbally one portion of it, really, but it was, it's discussing your time at that holistic health center in the desert of Arizona, 28-day rehab center. And it says, "The 28 days didn't fix me or change me. No, it just gave me a start at understanding who I was, what forces controlled me." And then here's the part that really jumped out at me. "What stories in my life were so strong, I didn't even realize they were stories." Right? So now I'm zooming out because many of the stories we have are narratives about ourselves and the world, may not be stories we're aware

• 58:59Tim Ferriss?

  are stories, they're just our reality. And they're often stories that were given to us inadvertently or purposefully, and we're not aware that we've absorbed them. So my question relates to the next line, and that is,

• 59:16Tim Ferriss?

  Coming back to the ayahuasca, the lesson I learned in my last ceremony was that this medicine, this process was meeting me where I was, and that was gentleness. You must start by being gentle to yourself. So, like you, I think you've competed at a much higher level in many, many arenas, but I've always been very, very, very, very competitive. And to the extent where being second place has often for me been worse than being 15th place, right? It's kind of like second place is first loser type mentality. So I've been very mean to myself in the same way that those six-year-old girls were to your sister, right? And so that, that has

• 59:55Tim Ferriss?

  been kind of internalized. And I'd be curious to know what has helped you to be gentle, or more gentle with yourself? Gentler, I guess would be one of the two. Yeah, I'd think as a writer, I would have this English figured out. But what has helped when a lot of people would view competitiveness as your superpower, right? And it's such a driver. How have you, how have you learned to be better at that?

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's a work in progress. I remember before going down there, I, like, I'm an easygoing guy, and I don't lose my temper a lot. So I think I'm a nice boss. And I, you know, I don't yell at people that often. And I told my lawyer, who's been with me for 10 years, I said, of course, I'm an easy boss. And she was like, dude, you're absolutely not a fucking easy boss. You're such a tough boss. She said, you're nice, but you're tough. And I was like, what do you mean? She said, you never give a compliment. You're like, ah, that's pretty good, but. We're having the best party. You're like, ah, but if we only. And they're like, you know, how disheartening that is. I was like, oh, made me feel terrible. And it was when I was on that ayahuasca thing, I realized you can't be nice to people until you're nice to yourself. And I, I never thought

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  I was tough on myself. Why? Because I let myself get away with, you know, the stuff that sent me to rehab, or drinking, or drugs, or, you know, breaking the rules. I've been a rule breaker my whole life. And so I thought that's, well, if you can do that, you're not really being tough on yourself. Those are two different subject matters. I did the rest of that stuff because I was so tough on myself. And that was the interesting part of it. I was like, oh, you should have, you, you only. And that internal angst. I think some of it was just getting older and I think with success, there's a little less pressure and some of it is now just trying to have awareness of it and say, "It's not that important." But, you know, I think I polled my employees, they'd say, "You changed little, but not a lot yet."

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  And so, you know, it's certainly a work in progress. I do notice it with my father. You know, my father was this great-looking guy, football star, spent his time in the army, always was nice to people, went to Vietnam twice, and in lots of ways, you know, became a colonel but didn't make general. And I remember when he didn't make general, it was painful in our family because of course you want your dad to succeed. And in the military, it's like not making partner at Goldman Sachs, there's a hierarchy and you either get it or you don't. And it was painful for my parents, for my mother, who had done all the thing. And there was some scandal behind it and there's always some backstory.

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  But I remember thinking 20 years later, like, looking at my father at 70, now he's 83, and thinking, "Do you think he gives a rat's ass that he didn't make general anymore?" Like, his priorities had shifted. He was so happy to be around his family, the work he was doing at the church and how we were all doing, that ego piece, he just let it go. And, you know, and I didn't act like he let it go, he let it go. And so I think there's something about aging gracefully where you let that shit go because it just doesn't really matter nearly as much as you think it does at the time. And I think seeing that has helped.

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  You know, "Act like dad, don't act like a jackass," is kind of my internal koan or mantra. But for me, listen, it's a work in progress. Like you, it's kind of built into the DNA of like wanting to do things right. When I throw a party, I want it to be a great party. And, you know, my poor assistants once bought a tent that was too big and I literally thought I was gonna like, "Ah." It was like I died a thousand deaths. I saw this tent, I knew we had 200 people coming to the party, we had a tent big enough for 300 and all the energy would be diffused. "Have fun in the big tent, jackass." But I'm trying to learn that, but it's... That's a process.

• 1:03:59Tim Ferriss?

  What advice do you think your older self, ten, twenty years older, would give to your current self?

• 1:04:06Speaker 03

  You know, to say you're okay. Like, you're doing fine. You're doing great. I have a shrink. My wife calls him the greatest enabler of all time.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  His whole mission is to say, "That's great." I'll, like, make some confession. He's like, "That's great." And I was like, "Well, I'm not gonna get in trouble." That is just to accept yourself. I have a funny story. There's a friend. He's become a... He's not really a friend of mine. I've only met him three times, but I had a great time with him every time I met him. But he's a dear friend of Paul Jones, a guy by the name of Pete Agoscu. And Pete has a famous business where he was like a posture expert. And that was movement. And he had come back from Vietnam War and healed himself. And then he's literally healed thousands and thousands of people, celebrities, athletes. The Agoscu Method, it's called. And when you meet him, you go through his process.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  He gives you a menu of exercises, how to get your back. And his philosophy is if your body's in alignment, you'll be in alignment. Your emotions will be in alignment. And so I went to meet him the first time. It was supposed to be an hour meeting, and we spent like three hours talking. And I'm waiting for my menu. "What's my menu? My menu?" And at the very end, he said, "No, no, no. You need to strip down naked, stand in front of your mirror every day for fifteen minutes, and just accept yourself." And I was like, "Well, that's my fucking menu." Getting back and calling Paul Jones. And he laughed hysterically. "You didn't even get a menu."

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  And so I think that's my twenty years from now, hopefully, telling you, "Just accept yourself." And that was a little bit the tattoo. I was like, "I am a fucking puma, and so put it on your arm and remember, like, that's part of who you are."

• 1:05:52Tim Ferriss?

  So I have to ask, did you try the fifteen minutes in front of the mirror?

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  I did it twice. I got embarrassed by my body type.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  I literally didn't have the patience. I did try it a few times, but I didn't follow through like he needed me to.

• 1:06:08Tim Ferriss?

  Well, a work in progress, as we all are, like you said. Let's chat about criminal justice reform. I know this is incredibly important to you. I don't know the genesis story. I don't know how this became important to you. So I'd love to hear you describe how that came to be.

• 1:06:24Speaker 03

  You know, it's funny. You know, I guess if I'm metaphysical about it, I go back and I think, well, my parents talk. I remember my mother bringing me to Head Start when I was four or five years old and this idea of philanthropy being part of our family. But the more practical side was I saw Bryan Stevenson speak once and was wildly impressed at Ted. He gave this kind of seminal speech. And so that was in the back of my head. And then my daughter, Anna, got a job at a thing called The Bronx Defenders, where she was a 20-year-old summer intern. And she was trouncing around the Bronx, collecting evidence for her lawyer's cases.

• 1:07:08Speaker 03

  And I'm like, you're actually the evidence collector? Like, how do you know? Like, she's getting, you know, video from bodegas. And I'm like, you're the defense team? And I was like, and so I was, A, impressed with the work she did. And I was like, wow, that's what public defense is. And, you know, I had made this movie with Nate Parker. And when I say made, I didn't do anything other than invest. Nate Parker was a good friend of mine. He was a wrestler. And he had this dream of making this movie called Birth of a Nation. And literally after 15 Jack Daniels, he convinced me to invest because I really didn't want to invest in an independent movie, just thinking I'd lose all my money. But Nate was very persuasive and he's a winner. And so I bet on him.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  And it won every award at Sundance. And it sold for more money than any independent film ever, to this day still. Right? We sold for $18 million, an independent movie. And, you know, it's a painful and beautiful movie. But there's a big lynching scene in it. And I saw Bryan Stevenson, who was building a lynching museum. And so I said, geez, I'm gonna take my profits or some of my profits and give them to Bryan. And, but I said, Brian, you gotta come and have breakfast at my house. And so he came. And of course, my daughter hijacked the breakfast. But we, we had breakfast and really heard his story personally and asked a bunch of questions of criminal justice system. And I just started getting angry. And then...

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  There was a thing called audacious. You know, the year cryptocurrency went much higher, I made a whole lot of money on this thing called Ethereum. And, you know, to some of you, it felt like Wompum. You bought Wompum, it went way up in price, and I sold it. And it was a, you know, kind of a breathtaking amount of money. And I wanted to do something fun for myself, and I wanted to, so I didn't feel so guilty and, because I kind of thought it would have been karmic justice, give an equal amount to something else, so I bought a G550. I never had a jet, which was extreme. But I decided to take this similar amount of money, and I heard this story about cash bail, unaffordable cash bail, that Robin Steinberg told. And it's a really simple story.

• 1:09:21Speaker 03

  There are half a million people that go to bed every night in jail cells solely because they can't afford to pay bail. And, you know, the average bail we pay is somewhere close to $1,800. Most people in America don't have $500. Most people who are getting arrested don't have access to $500, so they stay in jail. They're seven times more likely to plead guilty if they're in jail than if they're not in jail. When we bail them out, 50% of the time, the DA drops the charges. When you're in jail, 40% of all prison death and prison rape happens in the first, you know, 14 days you're there. And it has horrific long-term consequences for the person and the, and the city.

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  And it just felt so stupidly unjust, that I impulsively said, "I will donate a bunch of money and share this thing, the Bail Project." And then, I woke up, and I was like, "Well, the Bail Project's gonna be the biggest bail fund by a factor of 30 or more in the country. You better understand the criminal justice landscape." And so I hired, I got a Billy Waterson, who's been an A+, and a small team. And we started mapping out, having activists come in, formerly incarcerated people come in, visiting prisons and jails. And with every rock we looked under, you just get more and more pissed off. You get infuriated. It is a system of stupidity.

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  It is a system of spite, meanness. There is nothing rehabilitative at all. It's racially oppressive. It's literally like, "Let's figure out how we can strip people of their dignity. Oh, let's make them shit in public." That's a very nice, you know, it's like, it's, the whole system is just...

• 1:11:04Speaker 03

  Bizarre. And that doesn't have to be that way. We participated on a trip where we took thirty-five people to Norway and to Germany. And you look at the German prisons and you would give them a ninety-five out of a hundred. And you'd give Norway a ninety-nine out of a hundred. And we're not a sixty out of a hundred. We're like a fourteen. Like, we're that bad. And so it just got me angry. You know, fairness had always been a thing in my life. I think growing up middle class, you thought it was not fair that rich kids had a, you know, better start than I did. And, you know, you talk about not fair middle class to rich kids. The prison system is just absolutely unfair. And it, you know, it preys on communities that are already in duress. You know, I think about women

• 1:11:47Speaker 03

  in prison. How about this statistic? Ninety-five percent of women in prison have been raped. So we're taking people that have been traumatized and putting them into a trauma machine. Like, who in the fuck thinks that's a good idea? And so, anyway, I get angry thinking about it. But so we've, we've gotten involved. I think we're, you know, I'm on the board of this thing called the Reform Alliance, which has been fun, because we're doing great work around probation and parole. And, you know, that's Jay-Z and Meek Mill and Robert Kraft. And we have, you know, participated and funded or partially funded probably fifteen, twenty different organizations. And really, it's been a big part of my life. I still am a novice, to be fair. I'm less than three years in. And so I'm a good enough

• 1:12:32Speaker 03

  storyteller that I can tell the story, other people's stories and hear them. But we need a complete overhaul. And the only optimism I see is that, you know, when I started, even there was like only a hundred million dollars of philanthropy coming into the space. And four years later, there's six hundred million dollars or more. It feels like the ball's starting to roll downhill. This COVID thing has really shined the light on just how horribly we treat the most vulnerable people. I would tell you, it's interesting. I looked before I came on. There are 15 countries that have decarcerated by 18%. Italy, Iran of all places, France, right? They're like, okay, shouldn't keep people in prison when they're going to die

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  because of this damn virus. The US is about 2.5%. And so, while that's a lot of people, right, and they've all come out of jails, not prisons. So for those who don't know, jail is one year and under, and often pre-trial, and prison is one year and longer. And so, we just haven't gotten around to saying, you know, we need to fix this. And we're way off. Our sentences are three times longer than Germany's for this same crime. Just mean.

• 1:13:46Tim Ferriss?

  And for people who would like to learn more about this, are there any starting points you would recommend?

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:13:55Tim Ferriss?

  Be it a TED Talk, or a website, or anything else?

• 1:13:57Speaker 03

  You know, Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk is spectacular because it really gives a framework of where this all started, right? It started with slavery, and we've never really dealt with the trauma of slavery. Robin Steinberg gave a TED Talk that's fantastic about bail and the bail project. And Philip Goff, Philip Atiba Goff, did one about policing. And so, like, we're not anti-police, to be fair. We're like, okay, how do you help the police department actually, you know, have data so they can, you know, be fair in how they police? And so, you know, that's a controversial one because people are like, oh, screw the police, they're, you know, you can't, you gotta have people all engaged.

• 1:14:41Speaker 03

  All parties have to be engaged in trying to say, hey, we need to make a better system. And I do feel some optimism. I mean, even Trump, as much as I dislike Trump and would love him at a cage match, you know, criminal justice, because Jared Kushner's father spent time in jail, criminal justice is one of the few things that the Trump administration has been okay on. Not great, but certainly okay. The first step back was a great start, you know, and they've been helpful. And so... But again, to put it in perspective, we have 2.3 million people in jail or prison. And having done a whole lot of analysis on this, I think that should be 800,000. And that's a little big difference. We have 5 million people that go to prison every year. It's like a jail every year. It's like a revolving door.

• 1:15:26Speaker 03

  They stay in an average of 45 days. Two and a half million of them are going there just for violating parole, which is bizarre. We should have nobody on parole. And so we have, we have a long way to go. And I fear you pass one or two acts and you declare victory and the numbers never change. And so we're working on trying to get like a scoreboard so the whole country can say, all right, this is where we think we need to get, have people agree to it and then work to get there.

• 1:15:51Tim Ferriss?

  I want to shift gears just a little bit to a few questions I like to ask a lot of my guests. And if any of them are dead ends, we can, we can scrap. But I'm curious to know what, if any, are books that you've given often as gifts to other people?

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  There's one book that I've given 40 copies away probably, and it's called Reminiscence of a Stock Operator. And for anyone who wants to be a trader or an investor, this is the Bible. It was written in 1932 by a guy who was at that time, maybe the world's greatest speculator. Jesse Livermore is the fictional character. And what's crazy about it is you can read it today in 2020 and it literally is still the Bible. And so every great trader annotates it, tears pages out of it. It used to be a tell when people would come to interview to work and they say, I really, all I care about is trading. I was like, well, tell me two books you've read about trading. Oh, I haven't read any books.

• 1:16:55Speaker 03

  And I was like, okay, here's a book, go read it and come back when you've read it. But you're not getting a job. You know, because you lied, because you lied to me, because you really didn't care that much about trading if you've never read a book on it. But that's, that's the book. And, you know, there's, there's a, you know, anecdote afterward to it is that, you know, two years after he wrote the book, the guy committed suicide because he just couldn't take the, he'd lost his fortune yet again. But he, but every rule that you need to, the discipline side of it is all in that book. And so it's, and it's a quick read. You can read it in three hours.

• 1:17:27Tim Ferriss?

  I want to ask about, because you mentioned earlier that you run into certain people who seem to have a finely honed true north that they've had since age eight, right? Someone like your sister, or some of the names that you mentioned. When you feel unfocused, or overwhelmed, scattered, fill in your adjective, even temporarily, what do you do, you personally? If you're feeling like you've committed to too many things, or you're just not sure how focused your energies are, is there anything you do to refocus?

• 1:17:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think saying no, for me, saying no has been the hardest thing. You didn't want to disappoint people. It comes from my mother wanting me to be a senator. And so, learning how to say no, and draw a boundary, has been really important to me. And it's hard for me. I gotta call back three phone calls and finally say, "No." And so, by cutting a couple of things out, I think helps me. And actually, the other thing is writing it all on a whiteboard. So, it takes it out of my stress zone, onto the whiteboard. And I'm like, "Okay, I see it all." It might be a fuckload of stuff, but at least it's up there on the board, and I can put boxes around it, and I can start attacking it.

• 1:18:42Speaker 03

  And so, I think that's probably the most powerful, is literally getting it all out of my head, and putting it... And I'm a very visual person, so like, it's different for me, like a whiteboard or a big piece of paper is different than writing notes. Because I put little boxes, and I say, "Okay, here's my criminal justice stuff I want to work on, here's my..." And like, what are the stress points?

• 1:19:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Doug McMillan of Walmart uses a whiteboard very similarly. "I need to get a whiteboard." I think what this is saying to me, other than my like, envelopes and diary of a madman, scraps of paper, I think I need something bigger.

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, a lot of my whiteboards are metaphoric. They're the back of a piece of paper, but they function the same way.

• 1:19:25Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any quotes that you live your life by or think of often? I mean, are there any that come to mind for you?

• 1:19:32Speaker 03

  One of my favorite quotes is from St. Augustine, it's, "Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not just yet."

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  You know, I remember leaving rehab and that was my joke. We had a big circle and everyone's, you know, banging the floor and you had to give a story. And I was like, what? Like, part of that is that tension always between doing what you're supposed to do and you know you're supposed to do and what you want to do. And so I do think I laugh at that quote, but I do hold that tension in, you know, in my hands. Part of being alive is being impulsive and breaking rules. Like, you know, I take personality tests and I just, I'm thirty seven out of forty as a rule breaker. And so, sorry, I have a son that won't break a rule. He just keep off the grass. He keeps off the grass. He doesn't drink because he's not old enough to drink. You know, every high school kid drinks other

• 1:20:26Speaker 03

  than my one son, who's the sweetest kid around. And I was thinking to myself, it's just different brain chemistry. Because it's just, part of it's nature and nurture, but part of it's nurturing. But so much of it, I think, is also brain chemistry. Because, like, you know, my brothers and sisters, like, we have a whole family of social and, you know, we didn't pressure the guy to drink a little bit here and there, but he's like, no. And I'm so impressed at how confident he is with his ability to put up boundaries and to say no. And then we're like, Dad, you're going ninety miles an hour. Your speed limit's sixty. I'm like, oops, sorry. And so, for me, that quote's important because it holds those things in tension.

• 1:21:04Tim Ferriss?

  Just a few more questions. This is one on investing, but it's a little broader than financial instruments. It could be. But what is the best or most worthwhile personal investment you've made? Or just one of your better investments? That could be an investment of money, time, energy, or other resources. Does anything come to mind? It could be a trade.

• 1:21:25Speaker 03

  You know, listen, I, you know, cheeky, I bought a theory when it was one and it went to thirteen hundred. You know, like, I bought jet, like, and lots of other things. But I don't think that, really. Because that kind of felt a little bit lucky and I was already rich. I actually think investing in friendships. You know, I, partly I'm a hyper-social guy. And so it came natural to me. But when I think about my life and what gives it joy, it is... The circles of friendships I have. My highlight to my life is this party I throw every two to four years, depending on how I'm financially doing, where 300 odd people, 350 people from my universe get together and we play sports and listen to music and drink too much.

• 1:22:10Speaker 03

  And it's a three day event that takes a huge amount of effort to put on. But I feel like most complete in some ways, like this is my exclamation point on the world and how I want to live. And so for me, it's friendships. You know, their high school friendships, college friendships, work friendships, friendships, people I meet at conferences and they're not all, and they need to be invested in. Otherwise, if you don't have new shared experiences, they're just, they go, kind of go away.

• 1:22:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, it comes back to what you mentioned earlier in a way, which was the advice you received of looking at who's at your funeral, right? And worrying about those people and no one else. Well, Mike, this has been extremely fun. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Anything else you'd like to discuss or mention before we wrap up?

• 1:22:53Speaker 03

  I think you've covered a broad range in my life. I don't want to bore your listeners. I think that was great. I think that was great. I, you know, I remember meeting you fricking, probably 12, 13 years ago, when you were an up and comer. And it's been awesome. And just because you went to Princeton and you wrestled, I have, it took a special interest. But I've been amazed at, you know, the following you've built, the adventures you've been on. I still go back to the, I was telling you this, your first book, the testosterone chapter and the orgasm chapter are required reading, I think, for everybody.

• 1:23:32Speaker 03

  And so I, you know, just proud, you know, proud to be your friend and love that I got to get on your show. And congrats on all the success.

• 1:23:39Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks so much, Mike. You know, The Four Hour Body, the chapters with so many vagina illustrations that I got yanked from Costco. That's my claim to fame. And it's been nice to get to know you and.

• 1:23:51Speaker 03

  Adults should give all their teenage boys that chapter and they will have happier boys and happier girlfriends.

• 1:24:01Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Mike, thank you again for taking the time. And to everybody listening, you can find Mike on Twitter @Novograts. You can learn more about Galaxy Digital, galaxydigital.io. I'll put links to everything in the show notes, all the books, TED Talks, organizations that we've discussed. And until next time, thanks for listening. 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.

• 1:24:41Tim Ferriss?

  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 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.

• 1:25:27Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Element, spelled L-M-N-T. What on earth is Element? It is a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I've stocked up on boxes and boxes of this. It was one of the first things that I bought when I saw COVID coming down the pike. And I usually use one to two per day. Element is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low carb, or paleo diet. Or if you drink a ton of water and you might not have the right balance, that's often when I drink it. Or if you're doing any type of endurance exercise, mountain biking, et cetera, another application. If you've ever struggled to feel good on keto, low carb, or paleo, it's most likely because even if you're consciously consuming electrolytes, Just not getting enough.

• 1:26:11Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:26:55Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:27:40Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:28:25Tim Ferriss?

  Routine saves me. So there are a number of ways that I use Four Sigmatic. In the mornings, I regularly start with their mushroom coffee instead of regular coffee, and it doesn't taste like mushroom. Let me explain this. First of all, zero sugar, zero calories, half the caffeine of regular coffee. It's easy on my stomach, tastes amazing, and all you have to do is add hot water. I use travel packets. I've been to probably a dozen countries with various products from Four Sigmatic, and their mushroom coffee is top of the list. That's number one. I travel with it. I recommend it. I give it to my employees. I give it to house guests.

• 1:29:05Tim Ferriss?

  So if you're one of the 60% of Americans or more who drink coffee daily, consider switching it up. This stuff is amazing. That's part one. That is the cognitive enhancement side, easy on the system side, energizing side. The next is actually their Chaga Tea, which tastes delicious. It is decaf, completely decaf. And some may recognize Chaga. It is nicknamed the king of the mushrooms. It is excellent for immune system support. So needless to say, I am focused on that right now myself, and so I will often have that in the afternoons. They make all sorts of different mushroom blends if you are doing exercise, as I am

• 1:29:48Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:30:33Tim Ferriss?

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