#628: Q&A with Tim — Revisiting 15+ Years of PR and Marketing Lessons, Time Dilation for Deep Relaxation, The Art of Setting Ultra-High Prices, The Low-Information Diet, Studying Animal Communication, My 3-Day Fasting Protocol, Tools for Handling Adversity, Selling to the Affluent, My Current Coffee and Alcohol Rules, Risk Mitigation, and Much More

Brought to you by House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tim delicious and nutritious nuts, Wealthfront http://wealthfront.com/tim high-yield savings account, and Vuori Clothing https://vuoriclothing.com/tim comfortable and durable performance apparel. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, where it is usually my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply and test in your own life. This time, we have a slightly different format, and I’m the guest. As some of you know, I tested a “fan-supported model” in 2019, but I ended up returning to ads by request. That’s a long story, and you can read more about it at tim.blog/podcastexperiment https://tim.blog/2019/07/11/why-im-stopping-the-fan-supported-podcast-experiment/. I recently sat down with the original supporter group for a fun and live Q&A on YouTube. In this episode, I answer questions on marketing and product launches, premium pricing, user feedback, fasting routines, podcast advertising, my recent gardening adventures, tools for releasing tension in the iliacus and psoas muscles, my current coffee and alcohol rules, advice for artisans, animal communication, tools for adverse life moments, and more. Please enjoy! * This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront http://wealthfront.com/tim! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 2.55% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account http://wealthfront.com/tim. That’s more than twenty times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 2.55% interest on your savings. And when you open an account today, you’ll get an extra fifty dollar bonus http://wealthfront.com/tim with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim http://wealthfront.com/tim to get started. * This episode is also brought to you by Vuori clothing http://vuoriclothing.com/Tim! Vuori http://vuoriclothing.com/Tim is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at VuoriClothing.com/Tim http://vuoriclothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase http://vuoriclothing.com/Tim, but you’ll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. * This episode is also brought to you by House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tim delicious and nutritious nuts! I love macadamia nuts and have been enjoying them often since keto expert Dr. Dominic D’Agostino recommended them on the podcast in 2015. They taste great, and with more healthy, monounsaturated fat than both olive oil and avocados, 27% fewer carbs than almonds, and more than 50% fewer carbs than cashews, they’re the perfect low-carb, keto-friendly, nutty snack. In fact, I just ate a handful of lightly white-chocolate-covered macadamias about an hour ago to keep me going through the afternoon until dinner. And I will say this: ​House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tim produces the best-tasting macadamia nuts I’ve ever eaten... by far. Listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can use code TIM20 to get 20% off all orders, plus free two-day shipping across the US, UK, and African continent with the purchase of two or more boxes! Visit HouseOfMacadamias.com/Tim https://click.fourhourmail.com/27uz3z7lzgcohvg377ru0/6qheh8hpmk35p9bo/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG91c2VvZm1hY2FkYW1pYXMuY29tL3RpbQ== to discover some of the most delicious and nutritious nuts on the planet. * [08:27] How I would build clientele/mitigate risk if I were opening a restaurant. [13:02] Raising awareness for a new productivity tool. [18:33] Notable contributions during my days as a tech company advisor. [21:21] Biggest project/challenge at the moment. [22:02] Biggest takeaway from my own work that often gets overlooked. [24:47] Thoughts on curated newsletters for information gathering. [26:47] Recent spiritual shifts? [30:07] Derek Sivers. [30:50] New invention: franchise or sell the proprietary system? [35:41] My experience with Bas Rutten’s O2 breathing device. [38:19] Encouragement for a caregiver amid a chronic medical situation. [40:18] Ketamine and bladder damage. [42:56] Is it always bad to be the bottleneck to your own business? [44:32] Blogs or newsletters I read every day. [46:03] First steps on the animal communication journey. [49:40] Preparing, enduring, and breaking a three-day fast. [54:43] How to launch a successful nonprofit. [58:28] Building a luxury brand. [1:12:52] Favorite recent travel destinations. [1:13:37] Shredders. [1:14:06] Outcompeting in a saturated market. [1:17:43] Coffee vs. tea. [1:18:35] Limiting alcohol intake. [1:22:04] Shaved Ice Island. [1:22:13] Resources for the archery curious. [1:25:36] Fiction writing. [1:26:33] Past guests who have inspired me through tough times. [1:29:14] The mental model that most effectively helps me prioritize. [1:32:59] Cosmic insignificance therapy (via Four Thousand Weeks). [1:33:36] Marketing The 4-Hour Workweek in 2007 vs. 2022. [1:39:14] Metaverse musings. [1:41:25] How does my garden grow? [1:43:29] Workout routine. [1:48:34] Optimizing ROI on ad dollars spent. [2:01:59] Required reading for someone in need of self-love. [2:02:16] If asked, would I appear on The Joe Rogan Experience again? [2:02:40] Have I ever tried backcountry skiing? [2:03:25] What is Project 555? * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors http://tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss http://linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast include Jerry Seinfeld https://tim.blog/2020/12/08/jerry-seinfeld/, Hugh Jackman https://tim.blog/2020/06/26/hugh-jackman/, Dr. Jane Goodall https://tim.blog/2020/04/16/jane-goodall/, LeBron James https://tim.blog/2018/11/27/lebron-james-mike-mancias/, Kevin Hart https://tim.blog/2020/05/20/kevin-hart/, Doris Kearns Goodwin https://tim.blog/2018/09/07/doris-kearns-goodwin-leadership/, Jamie Foxx https://tim.blog/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/, Matthew McConaughey https://tim.blog/2020/10/19/matthew-mcconaughey/, Esther Perel https://tim.blog/2017/05/21/esther-perel/, Elizabeth Gilbert https://tim.blog/2020/05/08/elizabeth-gilbert/, Terry Crews https://tim.blog/2017/12/20/terry-crews-how-to-have-do-and-be-all-you-want/, Sia https://tim.blog/2020/08/12/sia/, Yuval Noah Harari https://tim.blog/2020/10/27/yuval-noah-harari/, Malcolm Gladwell https://tim.blog/2016/06/21/malcolm-gladwell/, Madeleine Albright https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/, Cheryl Strayed https://tim.blog/2017/03/30/cheryl-strayed/, Jim Collins https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/, Mary Karr, https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/ Maria Popova https://tim.blog/2014/10/21/brain-pickings/, Sam Harris https://tim.blog/2020/05/15/sam-harris-2/, Michael Phelps https://tim.blog/2021/01/21/michael-phelps-grant-hackett/, Bob Iger https://tim.blog/2020/01/16/bob-iger/, Edward Norton https://tim.blog/2019/10/31/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn/, Arnold Schwarzenegger https://tim.blog/2015/02/02/arnold-schwarzenegger/, Neil Strauss https://tim.blog/2014/06/24/neil-strauss/, Ken Burns https://tim.blog/2019/09/12/ken-burns/, Maria Sharapova https://tim.blog/2017/08/26/maria-sharapova/, Marc Andreessen https://tim.blog/2016/05/29/marc-andreessen/, Neil Gaiman https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/, Neil de Grasse Tyson https://tim.blog/2019/10/03/neil-degrasse-tyson/, Jocko Willink https://tim.blog/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/, Daniel Ek https://tim.blog/2020/12/03/daniel-ek/, Kelly Slater https://tim.blog/2020/09/08/kelly-slater/, Dr. Peter Attia https://tim.blog/2019/11/27/peter-attia-fasting-metformin-longevity/, Seth Godin https://tim.blog/2016/02/10/seth-godin/, Howard Marks https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-marks/, Dr. Brené Brown https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/, Eric Schmidt https://tim.blog/2019/04/09/eric-schmidt/, Michael Lewis https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/, Joe Gebbia https://tim.blog/2018/03/08/joe-gebbia-co-founder-of-airbnb/, Michael Pollan https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind/, Dr. Jordan Peterson https://tim.blog/2021/03/01/jordan-peterson/, Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Brian Koppelman https://tim.blog/2020/04/23/brian-koppelman/, Ramit Sethi https://tim.blog/2019/05/07/ramit-sethi/, Dax Shepard https://tim.blog/2020/11/18/dax-shepard/, Tony Robbins https://tim.blog/2014/10/15/money-master-the-game/, Jim Dethmer https://tim.blog/2020/05/18/jim-dethmer/, Dan Harris https://tim.blog/2020/11/19/dan-harris/, Ray Dalio https://tim.blog/2017/09/13/ray-dalio/, Naval Ravikant https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/, Vitalik Buterin https://tim.blog/2021/03/08/vitalik-buterin-naval-ravikant/, Elizabeth Lesser https://tim.blog/2021/03/16/elizabeth-lesser/, Amanda Palmer https://tim.blog/2019/04/18/amanda-palmer-2/, Katie Haun https://tim.blog/2021/02/18/katie-haun/, Sir Richard Branson https://tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/, Chuck Palahniuk https://tim.blog/2020/09/02/chuck-palahniuk/, Arianna Huffington https://tim.blog/2017/10/18/arianna-huffington/, Reid Hoffman https://tim.blog/2015/08/31/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley-reid-hoffman-plus-michael-mccullough/, Bill Burr https://tim.blog/2017/09/17/bill-burr/, Whitney Cummings https://tim.blog/2015/06/26/whitney-cummings/, Rick Rubin https://tim.blog/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://tim.blog/2020/03/26/vivek-murthy/, Darren Aronofsky https://tim.blog/2017/09/09/darren-aronofsky/, Margaret Atwood https://tim.blog/2022/02/22/margaret-atwood/, Mark Zuckerberg https://tim.blog/2022/03/24/mark-zuckerberg/, Peter Thiel https://tim.blog/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/, Dr. Gabor Maté https://tim.blog/2018/02/20/gabor-mate/, Anne Lamott https://tim.blog/2021/07/09/anne-lamott/, Sarah Silverman https://tim.blog/2022/01/12/sarah-silverman/, Dr. Andrew Huberman https://tim.blog/2021/07/06/andrew-huberman/, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by House of Macadamias delicious and nutritious nuts. Holy hell, folks, I tell you, these things are delicious. I've been gobbling them all day. Anyway, I love macadamia nuts and have been enjoying them often since keto expert Dr. Dominic D'Agostino recommended them way back on the podcast in 2015. They taste great and they have more healthy mono unsaturated fat than both olive oil and avocados, 27% fewer grams of carbs than almonds, and more than 50% fewer grams of carbs than cashews. They're the perfect low carb keto-friendly nutty snack. In fact, I just ate a handful of lightly white chocolate dusted, dare I say, macadamias about an hour ago to keep me going through the afternoon until dinner. It is the perfect snack for me. And I will

• 0:45Tim Ferriss?

  say this, House of Macadamias produces the best tasting macadamia nuts I've ever eaten, that I've ever had by far. That's due in part to their location in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, which provides the ideal temperature, altitude, soil composition, rainwater, and pristine mountain water for growing, you guessed it, macadamias. House of Macadamias have partnered with the largest macadamia producer in the world comprising 94 independent farmers in South Africa, which gets them first pick of the highest quality macadamia nuts in the region to make their one of a kind snacks, like their vegan paleo and keto-friendly chocolate dipped macadamias. They really took their time to get all of this right and they've done more than two years of flavor testing

• 1:27Tim Ferriss?

  and you can taste that in each packet you consume. And I've had two of those today. Listeners of the Tim Ferriss Show can use code TIM20, that's T-I-M-2-0, to get 20% off of all orders plus free two-day shipping across the US, UK, and African continent with the purchase of two or more boxes. Visit houseofmacadamias.com/tim to discover some of the most delicious and nutritious nuts on the planet. Again, one more time, that's houseofmacadamias.com/tim code TIM20.

• 2:02Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Vuori Clothing, spelled V U O R I. Vuori. I've been wearing Vuori at least one item per day for the last few months, and you can use it for everything. It's performance apparel, but it can be used for working out. It can be used for going out to dinner, at least in my case, I feel very comfortable with it. Super comfortable, super stylish, and I just want to read something that one of my employees said. She is an athlete. She is quite technical, although she would never say that. I asked her if she had ever used or heard of Vuori, and this was her response. "I do love their stuff. Been using them for about a year. I think I found them at REI,

• 2:46Tim Ferriss?

  first for my partner, t-shirts that are super soft but somehow last as he's hard on stuff. And then I got into the super soft cotton yoga pants and jogger sweatpants. I live in them and they too have lasted. They're stylish enough. I can wear them out and about. The material is just super soft and durable. I just got their clementine running shorts for summer and loved them. The brand seems pretty popular, constantly sold out. In closing, and I'm abbreviating here, but in closing, with the exception of when I need technical outdoor gear, they're the only brand I've bought in the last year or so for yoga, running, loungewear that lasts and that I think look good also. I like the discreet logo." So that gives you some idea. That was not intended for the sponsor read. That was just her response via text.

• 3:28Tim Ferriss?

  Vuori, again spelled V U O R I, is designed for maximum comfort and versatility. You can wear it running. You can wear their stuff training, doing yoga, lounging, weekend errands, or in my case, again, going out to dinner. It really doesn't matter what you're doing. Their clothing is so comfortable and looks so good, and it's not offensive that you don't have a huge brand logo on your face. You'll just want to be in them all the time. And my girlfriend and I have been wearing them for the last few months. Their men's Core Short, K O R E, the most comfortable lined athletic short, is your one short for every sport. I've been using it for kettlebell swings, for runs, you name it, the banks short. This is their go-to land to C short is the ultimate in versatility.

• 4:13Tim Ferriss?

  It's made from recycled plastic bottles. And what I'm wearing right now, which if I had to pick one to recommend to folks out there, or at least to men out there, is the Ponto Performance Pant. And you'll find these at the link I'm going to give you guys. You can check out what I'm talking about, but I'm wearing them right now. They're thin, performance sweatpants, but that doesn't do them justice. So you gotta check it out. P O N T O, Ponto Performance Pant. For you ladies, the women's performance jogger is the softest jogger you'll ever own. Vuori isn't just an investment in your clothing. It's an investment in your happiness. And for you, my dear listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase. So get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet. It's super popular.

• 4:55Tim Ferriss?

  A lot of my friends have now noticed are wearing this and so am I. vuoriclothing.com/Tim. That's V U O R I clothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you'll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. So check it out. vuoriclothing.com/Tim. That's V U O R I clothing.com/Tim. And discover the versatility of Vuori Clothing.

• 5:28Speaker 01

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

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 5:35Tim Ferriss?

  No, it would seem inappropriate to ask.

• 5:39Speaker 02

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

• 5:51Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply and test in your own life. This time, we have a slightly different format, which is backed by popular request, and I am the guest. If you would like an interview, you can choose any other episode just about that I've put out and you will find an interview. Now, this time around, we're revisiting a few things. As some of you know, I tested- A fan-supported model in 2019 where people could pay and avoid advertisements on the podcast, but I ended up returning to ads to sponsors by request. That is a long story and you can read all about it at tim.blog/podcastexperiment.

• 6:36Tim Ferriss?

  I recently sat down, metaphorically speaking, with the original supporter group for fun and live Q and A on YouTube. And the recording you're going to hear is comprised of questions that were submitted in advance as well as questions I took from the live chat. In this episode, I answer questions on marketing and product launches, premium pricing, user feedback, fasting routines, podcast advertising, my recent gardening adventures, tools for releasing tension in the iliacus, of all things, very specific, my current coffee and alcohol rules, adventures with the psoas, it's related to one of the bullets that came earlier, advice for artisans or artists, animal communication experiments, or at least approaches, tools

• 7:18Tim Ferriss?

  for handling adverse moments in life, and much more. We cover a lot of ground. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and thanks for listening.

• 7:31Tim Ferriss?

  All right, guys. Thanks for joining today. This is going to be another private live Q and A, and I will do my best to answer questions in two different forms. We will alternate between questions that were submitted ahead of time and questions in the live feed. And I'm going to start with some of the questions that were submitted beforehand, and the people can add questions to the chat. The more specific, the better. The broader they are, the harder it will be for me to answer. If they're really long, I will probably also skip them, so try to keep things very concise. And let me just take a look at a few of the questions here that are marketing and PR/launch-focused.

• 8:19Tim Ferriss?

  It'll be fun for me to stretch these muscles since I haven't done anything specific to these type of topics in quite a long time. So here it goes. The first question that I have in front of me is from John. I'm gonna keep last names out of it, but J O N. If you're going to launch a new fast casual restaurant, how would you gather the crowd before building the restaurant? I.e. making sure people would come when it opens? Well, the theme that I think is going to recur in many of my answers is one of risk mitigation. Perhaps I'm known by some or thought of by some as a risk taker because I do things like invest in early-stage startups, which tend to go to zero.

• 8:59Tim Ferriss?

  I would say very high percentage, maybe 50 to 70% of my investments go to zero. But you have to keep in mind a number of other factors, and this relates to poker and other games of skill that are blended with a high degree of chance. And part of that is a bankroll, bet sizing, knowing your maximum downside compared to your maximum upside. So that's just a frame perspective that I would like to present as one I look through for evaluating almost any type of question like this, any type of opportunity, any type of risk.

• 9:40Tim Ferriss?

  So, coming back to fast casual restaurant, what would I do? How would I gather the crowd before building the restaurant? I would look at low-risk, capped downside ways of experimenting with this concept. So for instance, in Austin, Texas, where my home base is, you see many successful restaurants begin as food trucks. Why? Because the build-out, of course, is much less. The regulations surrounding food trucks, in some respects, far less onerous than those of restaurants. And...

• 10:19Tim Ferriss?

  You could potentially prototype taking that type of approach. A even lower cost approach could be having a pop up in another restaurant. And when I lived in San Francisco, there were a number of restaurants that were later successful that began as pop ups. So say Thursday nights or probably an off night. So maybe a Monday or Tuesday night in a given retail location where they are effectively renting the infrastructure of a pre-existing restaurant. Now, I'll leave it to you and your lawyers to determine the legality of that. But nonetheless, many successful restaurants I'm aware of in San Francisco began that way. And it was important they began that way because they never got it right immediately out of the gate.

• 11:02Tim Ferriss?

  So I think it would be a big mistake to just YOLO all of your chips in at once and try this concept, hoping that the crowds will get there or assuming the crowds will congregate if you haven't really kicked the tires. So another option would be a pop up in another restaurant. And there's a book, it's out of date, it is out of print probably called Gorilla Financing that may also give you some ideas for how to bootstrap in different capacities. I found that book very helpful when I was bootstrapping one of my first companies. But the, the point here is really to identify the risk factors. And this relates to an exercise that I do at least once a quarter. Many of you have heard of it called fear setting.

• 11:44Tim Ferriss?

  That was the topic of my last TED Talk, which has I think 10 million views or so. Now identifying the risk factors and going down the list risk by risk and trying to identify how you can either eliminate those or mitigate the likelihood of them occurring. So for instance, if you had a pop up and you wanted to try to draw some type of crowd and really your goal is iteration and improvement of your concept of your menu of the experience, you could partner potentially with say organizations or groups who would stand to benefit from a rev share. So I'm making this up. I don't know exactly what fast casual refers to here. Let's say it's fast, healthy.

• 12:26Tim Ferriss?

  You could approach local CrossFit gyms or gyms of some type and say, hey, for every person you send to this restaurant, I will give you. What do you care? 100% of the profit. You don't have to give them 10%. You don't actually need to make a profit as long as you break even. So beyond covering costs, you could just say, I will give you all of the revenue that comes from any of your members you sent to this restaurant. Because again, what you're trying to gather is feedback first and foremost, so that you can improve before you have more sunk cost in some type of, say, food truck or retail location. All right, let me take one more here and then I'll jump in to the questions in the chat and we'll see where it goes.

• 13:12Tim Ferriss?

  Here we go. Here's a question from Matt. What would be your approach if you wanted to raise awareness of a new productivity tool? It's genuinely different from any of the approaches taken so far and helps people apply the great advice they know but don't follow. Easy to pick up and use, just minutes a day. There's free versions, but I have no list or platform to gain initial traction. Share to bloggers, podcasts, etc. in the space. Any advice, welcome and thanks for the counsel and company over the years. So I have a few recommendations here. And the first is really observing people, ideally, not just asking people. And I'll just draw contrast here. If you think you have a great idea for a business, could be a product-based business or service-based business, and you ask your friends, would you buy this? Would you pay X amount for such and such a thing?

• 13:57Tim Ferriss?

  In most cases, we will have some friends, maybe most of our friends, will say, yes, I would absolutely do that. However, their behavior changes a bit when you then put out your hand and say, fantastic, I'm taking pre-orders. I'll give you a 20% discount. Could I take that payment now? The point is, asking for opinions and getting people to take action are two very, very different things. And likewise, observing people using a tool is very different from asking them how they might use a tool. So what I would suggest in this case is before you even think about launching, make sure you're solving a problem that people want solved. If something has never been done before, I find this very important to put under scrutiny and really pay attention to.

• 14:39Tim Ferriss?

  So one of my first steps might be paying 20 people to use it. That might sound funny. If there are free options available, why would I pay someone? You're paying someone for their time and feedback. So this will sound very similar to my first answer. And you could pay 20 people to use it and observe exactly the flow through the product, exactly their feedback, encourage them to speak out loud. There are services that provide for this. Usertesting.com would be one example. I haven't used it personally, but I know startups who have maybe beyond your price range. But you could also take lower tech options or off the shelf options. You could have people record themselves using something like Loom, which is a tool I use a lot for screen capture,

• 15:21Tim Ferriss?

  for training employees and contractors, feedback on various designs. So you could have them simply capture their experience on, say, laptop with something like Loom and then share those with you. And you could find these people to test your product on Craigslist or really just about anywhere. Or you could do this in person. And I know a number of well-known CEOs who began their companies that now have 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 employees by recording user testing sessions in person with video. So you could simply have them in front of you at their laptop, encourage them to speak out loud. And you have an iPhone or something and you're simply recording the screen as they walk through it

• 16:05Tim Ferriss?

  so that you can correlate things properly. But I would say begin with more intelligence gathering. That's where I would start. And then in terms of how to get the word out, sending free software to bloggers, podcasts that are in the space can't hurt, but you're going to need to have a good pitch. And I get sent, or I should say, people attend to send me thousands of different pitches per day, literally thousands. So the vast majority, I simply deflect because I don't have the bandwidth, nor does my team have the bandwidth to even digest or read these pitches. So I would think of other approaches. The way that I have tackled this with each book launch, as an example,

• 16:50Tim Ferriss?

  is looking for the neglected but powerful channel and then also the nascent, up and coming channel that is ramping in influence. And for the first book, Four Hour Work Week, that was bloggers, for instance. Most people were like, blogs? What the hell is a blog in 2005? But at the time, I knew that they were pulling more weight for book sales in some respects than the darlings of network television and syndicated radio at the time. So I paid a lot of attention to that. For Four Hour Chef, it was podcasts. This was in 2012, after which I launched my own podcast in 2014. So I would also look at the landscape of tools. And another question I would ask is which of these tools or platforms are you actually

• 17:34Tim Ferriss?

  going to engage in for the long term? You don't have to decide that upfront, but where do your natural skills and enthusiasm overlap such that you will have staying power? If you're not going to have staying power, chances are beyond a flash in a pan, it's not going to be helpful. You can still use one-time-only PR approaches, much like I really targeted dig.com, D-I-G-G.com, founded by my friend Kevin Rose way back in the day, to try to get on the homepage for launching the Four Hour Body, because I understood the power of dig at that time for acting as a front-page shopping list, a tastemaking service of sorts, much like

• 18:16Tim Ferriss?

  landing at the top of Hacker News or something like that today. So those are a few thoughts, and I will come back to some related themes in the next question, and then I'm going to go to some in the live Q and A, so don't worry, guys. So here's the third one. This is from Josh, and I'm just going down in order that I have them in front of me. This is a question related to advising tech companies. When you were advising tech companies, what were your most successful marketing campaigns slash contributions to the companies? Any notable misses you're willing to share? For those who have not seen the range of companies that I've worked with, you can go to angel.co/tim. You can see quite a handful there.

• 19:01Tim Ferriss?

  In terms of most successful marketing campaigns slash contributions, contributions I'm going to focus on, because often Times where I have aimed to help has been unrelated to anything immediately public facing. So for instance, for TaskRabbit way in the early days, I helped Leah raise her first round of financing. When the company was actually completely named differently, based, I believe, just in Cambridge or in the Boston area, and we met in the Bay Area. So I helped her to syndicate her financing. So I introduced her to to lead investors, ended up helping her raise money. And then much later, that company was sold to IKEA.

• 19:46Tim Ferriss?

  In other cases, it could be related to helping companies apply needed leverage or user pressure for, say, regulatory purposes. And I was very active in this capacity with Uber, particularly with some precedent sending examples where situations were very, very high stakes in places like Washington DC. So with my platform and via other types of back channel work, that's a separate category of help that I sometimes provide. In terms of marketing, I think the most notable example is probably, and there are many, many, many examples, but the most notable, well-known example

• 20:31Tim Ferriss?

  is probably the Build a Business competition that I helped to design with Toby and Harley of Shopify. And if you want to read more about that, there's a fair amount out there. There is a piece in Fortune Magazine called "The Invisible Selling Machine" about Shopify. And this is a huge piece in the magazine some time ago. And it goes into quite a bit of detail about my involvement in the Build a Business competition and then overall what that looked like. That was very, very, very high ROI, high leverage for Shopify. And if you don't have a Fortune subscription, you can go to the web archive.

• 21:13Tim Ferriss?

  I think it's just web dot archive dot org, otherwise known as the Wayback Machine, and you can grab a snapshot and take a look at that article. All right, let's hop into the live feed and see what we got here. All right, we got a lot of questions. I'm gonna do my best to get to some of them. I've got a lot of good questions. All right. I'll take a self-interested one first. This is from Joe Chen. What is your biggest project/challenge at the moment and how can we support you? I do have a very absurd and I think hilarious and fun art project coming out in the not-too-distant future. So keep an eye out for that. At the very least, just taking a break to laugh at the

• 21:55Tim Ferriss?

  whole thing when it comes out. That's how you could support. But I'll keep moving here. All right. This one is from Scott. What's a takeaway or lesson you wish more of us listeners paid attention to slash followed through with? I would say, in this day and age, probably the low-information diet, as described in The 4-Hour Work Week. And here's my phone here. I have not had any social apps on this phone in two years. And that's not because I broadcast that for sitting on my moral high horse. It's because I understand that it is playing a dangerous

• 22:34Tim Ferriss?

  game to assume that you can use willpower and self-control. At the very least, it is exhausting, and you can save your mental calories for something more important. To have this type of addictive technology embedded into your phone with notifications that you're subject to 24/7, through which algorithms are being wielded against you, that have billions of dollars and teams of data scientists and UI experts behind them. I think it's unnecessarily

• 23:15Tim Ferriss?

  challenging to subject yourself to that and to expect to be able to overtake that and single-task effectively. And some people say, "Well, you just need, I have better self-control. You can just use self-control." That may be true, but I could also have junk food littered all over my house. And I can make the same argument. I can say, well, if I have enough self-control, I won't eat the junk food. But it's a hell of a lot easier just to remove all the junk food from your house. So I do think the low information diet, this applies not just to social media, but certainly any type of push news, which could just be reactively picking up the newspaper every day when you go to grab a cup of coffee at a gas station or

• 23:59Tim Ferriss?

  something like that. It doesn't need to be digital. But the low information diet, I think, is very much underestimated in its power. And if you can single task for a few hours a day without any interruption, which is why I use do not disturb and so on on my laptop as well as frequently as I do, and my phone is almost always on airplane mode, you will have a huge competitive advantage over the majority of people who are, let's just call them knowledge workers, anyone who works on a computer. If you have the ability to single task for, let's just call it, three hours a day in a single block

• 24:41Tim Ferriss?

  of time, you have an unbelievable competitive advantage. So I would say the low information diet. All right. Let's see what else we have here. Okay, this is a question from Rendellin. What are your thoughts on Substack as more of a pull way to get information? Yeah, I think that opting in to highly curated sources of information that are either relevant to you in the near term or actionable to you in the near term is far superior to being lost in the waves and chop of online assault that is uncontrolled if we're talking

• 25:24Tim Ferriss?

  about information. So I think newsletters certainly are far superior. You can still use them to procrastinate in the same way that you can use reading books as a socially acceptable way to procrastinate. So just be aware of that. And as Kathy Sierra once phrased it to me, focus on just in time information, not just in case information. If you think you might need to act on, say, the contents of a book, Six to 12 months from now, it doesn't really do you a lot of good to read it now, is my general feeling. I would read it closer to the point at which you need to actually implement it. But I would say that something like Substack or newsletters in general, I

• 26:01Tim Ferriss?

  think are superior in so much as they force you to make decisions about high priority, low priority information ahead of time so that you're not making all those decisions on the fly. Because, look, we're all simple creatures and the algorithms will beat you, right? Whether it's just showing like a picture of Kim Kardashian's ass, or some celebrity, or like, who the hell knows? It's gonna pull you off task. I don't care who you are. So just keep the junk food out of your house, metaphorically speaking. Let's see. Comment on Cal Newport, and great books on deep, deep learning, deep work. I agree with that.

• 26:47Tim Ferriss?

  Isla, question, one of the most enjoyable parts of your show is listening to your personal journey and your interviewees' journeys of transcendence. Any recent spiritual shifts that you would not mind sharing? I don't mind sharing. I was actually recently in the mountains of New Mexico and experienced some of the most profound and extreme time dilation I have, I've ever felt, certainly in a sober state, with a friend of mine. And so we were hiking at altitude on and off for several days. And by, say, day three, thinking back to the morning of even day two or day one, felt like looking back to

• 27:26Tim Ferriss?

  three weeks or four weeks prior. So being in nature, I think partially contributing to that was the fact that we changed locations so many times and that the topography of the land changed so many times. So it could as well have been four or five different countries we visited, given how different the landscapes were and the wildlife and so on. But that time dilation, I think, highlights something, for me at least, which is...

• 27:54Tim Ferriss?

  There are different ways to extend, or better said, I think, expand life, to live in an expansive state more often. And many of the, let's just call them, post-economic, extremely wealthy, successful in financial terms, founders and CEOs and so on, I know, want to extend health span, which I think is a very worthwhile objective, looking at science and technology for extending healthy years. However, you can live a long time, but almost never be present. I'm not saying that's true for these people, but I know people who live a long time, but they're so preoccupied about the past, or the future, or the news,

• 28:38Tim Ferriss?

  or the politician on TV, or whatever, that they have a lot of time contraction. Time passes very quickly for them. So what if you could design a life and pre-schedule experiences such that you have the type of time dilation I'm talking about? Where, let's just say, even twice a year, you have two trips each week long, and each of those one-week trips actually feels like three months? Well, have you then, in that case, effectively added, let's just say each one feels like three months, have you added six months to each year by doing that? In terms of your experiential lifespan? If so, that's very interesting.

• 29:23Tim Ferriss?

  So now you're living, let's just call it, 50% longer in your remaining years. So does that have the net-net positive, or even a greater benefit, than simply extending your biological lifespan by that period of time? I don't know. I do think that's a... I don't think. I know that's a question that's been on my mind. And we can certainly pursue both. But one is available here and now, and the others are more... So a scientific roadmap with possibilities. But I think this type of time dilation through very deliberately designed experience and immersion is very seductive and rewarding.

• 30:07Tim Ferriss?

  All right. So I think it's Kale, it might be Kale. I apologize, I don't know how to pronounce it. Love your work, Tim. Caught up with Derek Sivers in New Zealand a couple of weekends ago. Told me he missed you. Well, I miss Derek too. He's a great, he's a great, great guy. And he's been on the podcast several times. So if people haven't heard Derek Sivers on the podcast, they should. And I do need to catch up with him. So let me come back to some of the questions that were pre-submitted. I'll answer a handful of those and then I'll come back to questions in the, in the chat. So feel free to drop them in and I will continue to answer them. So let me get back to some of these pre-submitted questions. Here we go. This is from Ben.

• 30:52Tim Ferriss?

  We have invented a way, patent pending, to add a second story to a house without the owners moving out. This product and process is revolutionary for so many people. However, we keep going back and forth about whether to create a franchise model or just to sell the proprietary system that allows you to do it. The catch is that it definitely requires training to use it properly. Love to get your feedback about how you would launch it. Very grateful for you and the value you have brought to my life. Well, thank you, Ben. Here are my first thoughts. So construction, adding stories, et cetera, does not sound, at least immediately to me, as a liability-free endeavor. So I assume there are some risks involved. As you mentioned, and I think kind of implied, it definitely requires training to use it properly.

• 31:36Tim Ferriss?

  And using it properly seems important. So looking at this again, through the lens of minimizing or capping your downside risk, I would say a lot of folks think about business risk in terms of profit and loss. How much does it cost me to make X? How much can I sell X for? What is my margin? Can I cover? By various costs, maybe employees, et cetera. But there are other factors that are often neglected. So in this particular case, there are questions around legal cost and legal liability. So I know that developing and rolling out a franchise properly can be very capital intensive if you're the franchisor.

• 32:21Tim Ferriss?

  And I wouldn't underestimate that. So step number one, I think, in evaluating a number of these would be running some models and putting together just basic mathematics based on conversations with competent legal counsel. And there are people who specialize, of course, in both of these. There is also a great book by Stephen Key called One Simple Idea: Turning Your Dreams Into a Licensing Gold Mine While Letting Others Do the Work. It's a great subtitle. I didn't realize that was a subtitle. But One Simple Idea by Stephen Key. He is an exceptionally successful inventor who generally does not venture, meaning he

• 33:02Tim Ferriss?

  doesn't generally manufacture and distribute and sell product himself. He's coming up with ideas, often with very inexpensive prototyping, and then licensing those ideas to other companies in most cases. So that book, I think, is worth a read, not because it is immediately comparable, since he's mostly operating in the world of toys, but I do think it will raise questions that are valuable for you. Another one to look at is Built to Sell. This is a book by John Warlow. So if you're ever considering the possibility of being able to sell this company, and that,

• 33:43Tim Ferriss?

  I think, is worth looking at, even if you've never considered that possibility, because it will help you to identify where you, as a proprietor, as a business owner, could end up being a bottleneck, whether it's for scaling the company or ultimately for not just scaling it, but selling the company. So take a look at that. And on the legal...

• 34:06Tim Ferriss?

  Cost and then liability side, I would just say one idea that immediately comes to mind, and this is not legal advice, please speak to your properly vetted attorney for this, but potentially there may be the option of partnering with a larger company who can run pilot studies or experiments in implementing this technology. And you could have a licensing fee, you could have some other type of arrangement, they could take a potential equity stake in the company, although that seems potentially premature at this point. And the reason I bring that up is if they were willing to test this technology, you

• 34:48Tim Ferriss?

  could, and speak to your lawyer, but you could potentially be added as an additional insured, so named as an additional insured on their insurance policies. It may be relevant to have you added to their errors and omissions policy, but these are ways of being covered by their insurance policies and therefore the premiums that they pay, which in the early stages, if you're bootstrapping, could be non-trivial. So those are just a couple of things that come to mind. In terms of how to launch it, you know, one of the benefits, again, of possibly partnering with larger companies, they assume the financial risk, a lot of the legal risk of implementing this, and you can see if it actually catches.

• 35:33Tim Ferriss?

  Do people want this? Can this company sell it? Can this company implement it without assuming all of those risks yourself? All right, let's hop back to the live feed and see what we got here. All right. Okay. Couple of people asking about the O2 breathing device that Boss Rutten and I had talked about. Yes, I have been using it and I've actually found it tremendously helpful, and I don't think that's purely placebo effect. I used the O2 Trainer to prepare for my extensive hiking at altitude in New Mexico, and I found it to be very, very helpful and easy to use. And Incredibly soreness inducing.

• 36:18Tim Ferriss?

  So when you hear Boss say with the back breathing as an example, don't start with 30 repetitions. Start with 15. Take him at his word. If you do more than that, you will feel like someone hit you with a pickaxe up and down all of your muscles around your rib cage and mid-back the next day or two or three. So it is then seemingly very effective for stressing and applying a workout to your inspiratory muscles. So I for one, plan on continuing to use that device. 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 Wealthfront.

• 37:03Tim Ferriss?

  There is a lot happening in the US and global economies right now. Of course, that is a severe understatement and there are many questions. Are we in a recession? Is it a bear market? How long will it last? What's going to happen with inflation? I certainly can't tell the future. No one can, but I can tell you about a great place to earn more on your savings and that's Wealthfront. Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 2.55% APY. That's the annual percentage yield with the Wealthfront cash account. That's more than 20 times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. Getting a cash account is easy. It takes just a few minutes to sign up and then you'll immediately start earning 2.55%

• 37:47Tim Ferriss?

  interest on your savings. And when you open an account today, you'll get an extra $50 bonus with a deposit of $500 or more. Visit wealthfront.com/tim to get started. There are already nearly half a million people using Wealthfront to save more, earn more, and build long-term wealth. So why wait? Earn 2.55% on your cash today. Visit wealthfront.com/tim to get started. That's wealthfront.com/tim. This was a paid endorsement by Wealthfront.

• 38:20Tim Ferriss?

  So this is a question from Mead. I hope I'm getting your name correct. Would you please share any current recommendations that provide hope or encouragement to a caregiver amid a chronic medical situation? Thank you so very much for sharing your experience. So first, I'm very sorry that you're in that situation, or somebody you know is in that situation. And the only advice I can really think of offhand is, I guess it's twofold. The first is an interview I did with Dr. BJ Miller quite a few years ago, who is a hospice care physician, also a triple amputee, who has helped thousands of people to transition.

• 38:58Tim Ferriss?

  So that conversation, which is, on some levels, deeply philosophical, I still act on and revisit a lot from that conversation. I personally find a lot of it incredibly actionable and impactful. So I would suggest potentially giving a listen to that. And secondly, I would recommend a book that has been recommended to me several times, including my friends who have lost parents unexpectedly. And that is On Grief and Grieving. And I'll find the author right now. Okay, On Grief and Grieving, by David Kessler and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

• 39:41Tim Ferriss?

  And all of the people who have recommended this book to me have said they wished they had read it prior to anyone passing away. And in fact, it also acts as fantastic preparation and consolation if you may be on the verge of losing someone. And we're all on the verge of losing someone in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of life. So that would be a second recommendation. And apologies if those aren't appropriate, but given the context I have, those are the best I can come up with. All right, let me see if I can pull up a few more here. So there's a question. This is a question from Carrie. "Can you speak at all about any current information you or any other of your previous

• 40:25Tim Ferriss?

  guests have on ketamine and bladder damage?" So for those who have not heard it, I would suggest listening to my recent episode with Dr. John Krystal, who's chairman of the psychiatry department at Yale, an incredible researcher, also in his own right, who, along with other colleagues, pioneered research that identified the antidepressant effects of ketamine in humans, speaking, in this case, of intravenous administration. But in that episode, we didn't specifically discuss bladder damage or urinary tract

• 41:01Tim Ferriss?

  symptoms, and there is quite a bit of literature to support the assertion that these are potential side effects, especially of recreational use of ketamine. And sometimes goes by the name "ketamine bladder syndrome." And I would suggest going to PubMed. If you just search PubMed, P-U-B-M-E-D, and you search "ketamine bladder" or "ketamine urinary tract," then quite a few papers will come up. So, in the abstract here, "This is ketamine bladder syndrome, an important differential diagnosis when assessing a patient with persistent lower urinary tract symptoms. Abstract: The recreational use of ketamine is increasing in popularity due to its dissociative

• 41:44Tim Ferriss?

  and paralytic effects, ease of availability, and low cost." This is from 2012, just to timestamp it. "However, serious and frequently irreversible damage to the urinary tract is a recently recognized side effect of recreational ketamine use." And this goes on to present a number of case studies. So, my understanding is, I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on the internet, but my understanding is that this is reasonably common in recreational use, but I'm not aware of how frequently that pops up as an adverse event in the clinical trials that have been done. And those would be documented in those studies, so you could certainly look for, say, John Krystal, K-R-Y-S-T.

• 42:29Tim Ferriss?

  On PubMed and look at the studies. And if you get the complete study, not just the abstract, you can look at the frequency of adverse events. And most certainly, something like that would be included, I imagine. But you can find more in-depth information on PubMed, which is surprisingly easy to use and I find generally quite user-friendly, even though you may need to look up some words now and again. Okay. Well, here's one from Sabrina. I might own bottleneck in my business. Is that bad? It's not automatically bad. Depends on what you want to do with your business. If you are a artisanal, high-end leather pant maker, and I actually read a case study

• 43:11Tim Ferriss?

  about such a person who makes super-high-end leather pants, or did, at least for people like Sheryl Crow and Mick Jagger, et cetera, then you are an artist. You are the business. You are the artisan who is producing your craft. And if you choose that and you're accepting the good with the bad, then I think it's 100% okay. Of course it is. It just depends on what you're trying to do. And there is no right answer to that. I know many business owners who have chosen not to scale very, very deliberately.

• 43:48Tim Ferriss?

  And I actually find those counterexamples to today's gestalt and drive to scale and build, say, public companies or companies that get acquired to be very refreshing because it doesn't get as much fanfare. But there is a book that I haven't read in a very long time, but I really enjoyed it when I did, called Small Giants. The subtitle is Companies That Choose to be Great Instead of Big. And it is a book by Bo Burlingham, B-U-R-L-I-N-G-H-A-M. So, Small Giants. But I very much enjoyed that book when I read it. And in fact, the example I just gave you could have come from that book. There's a decent chance that it did.

• 44:32Tim Ferriss?

  Question from Al, what blogs and newsletters are you excited about reading or receiving every day? There's nothing that I receive every day. There are at most newsletters that I get once a week, and there are very few. I mean, the microdose, which is from UC Berkeley and gives a synopsis of happenings and news events in the psychedelic space is of interest to me, but very few newsletters. And in fact, even with other writers I really, really enjoy, so for instance, Matt Levine, Bloomberg, for instance, I think Matt Levine is one of the best writers, and by best, I mean not just prolific, because that is not the measure, volume is not the measure, word

• 45:16Tim Ferriss?

  count is not the measure necessarily of a good writer, but his combination of volume and insight, like the density of insight to words per page, is staggering. Nonetheless, I know that I have three or four friends who read Matt's work religiously, and I depend on them to forward me specific snippets or specific newsletters that they know align with what I am focused on at the moment. But if I were to add, say, one other newsletter to my regular consumption rounds, it would probably be from Matt Levine. There are a handful of others I find interesting, but there's nothing that I get on a daily

• 46:01Tim Ferriss?

  basis, and that is by design. Question from Megan, what are the first steps you're planning to take on the animal communication journey? Well, there are a number of them, and for those who don't know, this is something that came up in my recent conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté. One of them is identifying, one of the steps is identifying where animal communication can actually be.

• 46:27Tim Ferriss?

  Tested, if this makes sense. So, and this comes up in all sorts of fields. If you're trying to find an expert, how can you identify? Let's just take a different field. There are many folks in the US and elsewhere who claim to be animal tracking experts. But how can you, as a non-expert in animal tracking, assess if someone is full of shit or the real McCoy? The short answer is generally you can't. But if you look for the exception, and the exception is any type of system or company or organization within which trackers are actually tracked themselves numerically, then you can start to get somewhere.

• 47:12Tim Ferriss?

  And in my case, I ended up looking at safari outfits in Africa that keep records on trackers because they could identify, for instance, that the average for, let's just call it, leopard tracking, successful leopard tracking during these hours is 23%, but so-and-so has an average of 71% as a success rate. And you get almost Major League Baseball statistics, animal by animal, time of day by time of day, for these different trackers. And then you can start to assess on an objective level, who is actually good? This is even more difficult with something like animal communication, depending on how

• 47:56Tim Ferriss?

  we interpret it, but I'm starting with, I would say, two things. The first is revisiting dog training and mammalian training, although a lot of such training is behavioral shaping and using non-verbal cues. I'm OK with that, though. By communication, I'm not limiting that to verbal cues. So it could be using a clicker. I'm going to be revisiting Susan Garrett, who is a master dog trainer I had on the podcast. How do you know a dog trainer is good? Well, for me, I looked for sports. She is a multiple-time, if I'm remembering correctly, national agility champion with her dogs. And these are objective measures, which I like. I like to start there.

• 48:39Tim Ferriss?

  And then, secondly, I'm very interested in looking at different methods of hunting and how hunters interact with animals. The most obvious example that comes to mind for me being elk, where not only are bull calls being used as a way of drawing in bull, but also cow calls of different types. And there are actually elk calling competitions where people get on stage and are asked by a panel of judges to produce different types of calls. And it's mind boggling. I mean, it's very, very, very impressive what some of these hunters can do. So I think those are two places where I'll start.

• 49:21Tim Ferriss?

  There are other examples that are of interest to me that I've looked into and will probably spend more time on. Equine therapy is quite interesting from a, I suppose, more of a physical kinesthetic interactive perspective. But those are some of the jumping off points that I expect I'll spend some more time on. Question from Dan, and then I'm going to come back to the PR and marketing stuff with some of the questions I have here. Dan, what is your protocol prior to taking a three day fast to get your body ready? So when I fast, again, not medical advice, talk to your doctor before doing any fasting. You can't even get approval to do extended fasting, probably couldn't get IRB approval to do three day fasts in humans, depending on the circumstance. It'd be very hard.

• 50:03Tim Ferriss?

  It's really hard to do scientific research on extended fasting these days. In any case, what I typically do for a three day fast is, let's just say my fast is going to begin after an early dinner on Thursday night. That is typically how I will line things up. Don't do your first three day fast in the middle of the week. It's going to fuck up your whole situation and you're going to send a lot of emails you're going to have to do damage control on. So don't do that. So, leading up to then, if my last meal is, let's just say, Thursday at 6:00 PM.

• 50:40Tim Ferriss?

  What I will do in the two days prior is I will get on a a sub maintenance calorie ketogenic diet. So I will be having smaller meals than usual that are going to be predominantly fat. So let's just say hamburger with some cheese and maybe a side salad. But I will be consuming fewer calories than thought necessary to maintain my lean body mass. And you can calculate resting metabolic rate and try to figure out what that is based on all sorts of factors. So lower calorie keto for maybe two days beforehand with a fair amount of exercise to deplete glycogen stores a bit.

• 51:22Tim Ferriss?

  And then last meal would be a smaller keto meal on Thursday. Sleep as long as possible. That's part of the reason the timing is the way that I set it up. And then beginning on Friday, what I try to do is prior to that setup Friday for phone calls so that I could be moving. So I try to get away from my laptop and move. This will actually be very, very helpful for a whole host of reasons. But on Friday, as soon as I get up, I get a huge bottle of water. I fill it full of electrolytes like Element, which is what I've been using for a couple of years. And maybe put in a little bit of lemon just for flavoring, non caloric. And then I will walk and talk.

• 52:05Tim Ferriss?

  So I'll briskly walk for three to five hours minimum and take my phone calls. This will help on a number of levels. You will still have some residual glycogen and you will break down some of that into glucose so that your brain can actually function on Friday. And you can have a bit of caffeine. Don't overdo the caffeine. One of the mistakes that novice fasters make is they feel a little sluggish. So they end up having way too much caffeine and then that inhibits sleep. If you do not supplement with electrolytes, there's a good chance that you're going to experience lower back pain. I won't get into the mechanisms responsible for that, but very often you'll have lower back pain, especially if you do more than a three day

• 52:47Tim Ferriss?

  fast and you'll have a cholinergic response where your heart rate is really fast. So, I always supplement with electrolytes these days and it's water only. Now, if you want to have, say, some black coffee with a little bit of pure heavy cream, 100% fat, or a little bit of coconut oil, I don't think that inhibits most of the beneficial effects that we're looking for. Okay, so then that's Friday, then Saturday again, same deal. You don't have to walk as much, but it will still be somewhat helpful. And in fact, a little bit of weight training can feel very good cognitively. And then Sunday, you're going to break fast, right? Not at breakfast time, but that night. So

• 53:32Tim Ferriss?

  then Sunday night around, let's just call it six, seven, whatever, you would have your first meal leading out of the fast. And there are all sorts of superstition around this, like, oh, you have to eat grated cabbage and you have to do this and you got to start with some unpasteurized fruit juice and this, that and the other thing. My uninformed take or semi-informed take is that that seems kind of nonsensical to me. If we were starving in any circumstance, would our body and evolutionary drives require us to start with shredded cabbage? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to me. So when I break fast, I'm generally breaking it with another keto meal because I like to extend some of the effects of the fast,

• 54:15Tim Ferriss?

  or at least the ketogenic diet for a day or two afterwards. You don't have to do that, but I will very often break the fast with something akin to the meals that I used for the preparation for the fast. Those are some of the thoughts that I have on at least how I personally prepare for three day fasts and implement three day fasts. Your mileage will vary and please get professional medical advice. Let me take a look at some of the Questions that were sent in advance. This is a question from Dave. Are you seeing any trends in successful nonprofit launches? I'm kicking off an effort to generate and share coastal resilience data. All right. So the subject area, coastal resilience data, certainly of interest to me.

• 54:58Tim Ferriss?

  And what I would say is, study trends in the for-profit world. Launching nonprofit ventures, launching for-profit ventures, the principles are exactly the same, in my experience. I think some nonprofits have done a very good job with promotional efforts. I think Donors Choose and Charity Water are two that come to mind immediately that are very good and have, for a very long time, been very good at this. So you might take a look at those, but I would really borrow from the private sector. The stakes are generally higher, the talent and competition more intense in the for-profit world, so a lot of the mediocre or B-minus approaches will just get massacred before they ever see the light of day.

• 55:41Tim Ferriss?

  They won't actually overcome any degree of competition. So I suggest that you look at the for-profit world. Now, for fundraising purposes, fundraising is slightly different than selling a product, although I think there's more in common than there are differences, to be perfectly honest. But I would look at any number of older examples. We don't need to reinvent the world here. So what I would say is, and I've mentioned this book before, but I will repeat it because it'll come up again in a second, just as a proof point. So I'll give you evidence that this actually does work. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. Get the older one, not the for the internet, which is horribly out of date.

• 56:24Tim Ferriss?

  Get the older one that has the beer examples, the airline examples, the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and take a close look at that. Also, read 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly. That's on KK.org, 1,000 True Fans. And last but not least, read The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch, K-O-C-H. And the first two of those, 1,000 True Fans will take you 10 minutes to read, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, some of which is not going to apply, but a lot of which will, will take you maybe an hour or two to read, and then The 80/20 Principle will probably take you a day or two to read. So you might sequence it in that way, but I would focus on those. And then, I'll give you maybe an unorthodox recommendation.

• 57:08Tim Ferriss?

  But in Five O' Friday, my newsletter, if you're not on it, check it out, tim.blog/friday, about 2 million people subscribe. Let me take a look at what I included recently that I found led to a series I was very interested in, and it is a YouTube series. Business Insider has a YouTube video series about business collapses. And one of them I found fascinating called "How the Beanie Babies Frenzy Collapsed." That's an 11-minute video. And when you watch "How the Beanie Babies Frenzy Collapsed," which I recommend, because it may relate to a lot of the implosions that we have seen and will continue to see

• 57:51Tim Ferriss?

  with some of the activities and NFTs and so on. But these historical examples can not only teach you a lot about what doesn't work, but about what works. So embedded in these "How Fill-in-the-Blank Collapsed" are certain principles that I think you can also borrow and apply. So that series by Business Insider, I think, is exceptional. I looked at a few of the videos and found them all very, very instructive. And each one had a number of takeaways for me personally. So I would encourage also taking a look at that. I'll do one more, and then I'm going to come back to the live chat. This is going to serve as both a proof point and a question. So this is from Joel. "Hoy, Tim."

• 58:35Tim Ferriss?

  This is going to be a little long, but I'm going to read it anyway. "I love your Q and As. I really appreciate the opportunity to hear curious questions from the gigantic diversity of people you've helped, so thank you for this. My question relates to "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Al Reese and Jack Trout. Also, thank you for introducing me to this book in 2016. It has since helped me build a business with 1.8 million lifetime sales from making porcelain coffee mugs." Okay, so this stuff works, guys. It does work, and I can't take credit, because I learned from the book as well and have applied it. So I am simply passing along something that no doubt was introduced to me by any number of people. All right, back to the description and the question. "The problem is that I handcraft each mug with my bare hands using porcelain clay and a pottery wheel. I'm living the dream, making a living as an artist." I'm obsessed with the art of the pottery mug,

• 59:20Tim Ferriss?

  but it's pretty damn hard and I'm still working on long-term sustainable profits. I've thought about outsourcing to China, the porcelain capital of the world, but that's fraught with problems. So instead of trying to grow by selling millions of cheap mugs, I've decided to grow my business by handcrafting mugs worthy of a higher price. I agree with this approach. I think you do not want to be engaged in a race to the bottom. However, back to the text, that means creating a sort of luxury brand. Since this doesn't exist today, we're focusing on law number one, the law of leadership that says it's better to be first than it is to be better. These mugs are art, but they're not better than the world's best sculptures and paintings, which often sell for millions of dollars each. Or fancy-ass diamond-encrusted purses that sell for tens of thousands of dollars each. But I believe it could be the first mug to inspire people globally as a piece of art that you can enjoy your morning coffee from every day.

• 1:00:05Tim Ferriss?

  Law number four, the law of perception, has been one factor that helped me sell mugs for $500 to $1,000 per mug. Nicely done. But the vast majority of customers want a cheaper mug. How would you evaluate whether or not a luxury mug business is worth pursuing? And if you determined it was worth pursuing, what would you do to grow? All right, let's hop into this. So there are a few books I would recommend checking out, Joel. As usual, I have many book recommendations. So the first, which I've not read in a very, very long time, but may be helpful, is a book called Selling to the Affluent. That's by Thomas Stanley. And you may be able to find a summary and to determine if it is in any way relevant to you.

• 1:00:47Tim Ferriss?

  One way that I assess books oftentimes is trying to find a Wikipedia page for the book, which will give you a synopsis of some type. So Selling to the Affluent by Thomas J. Stanley, I found certainly helpful at one point when I was considering many of the same questions for different businesses. The other book may sound a little funny at first because it would seem to be anti-advice, but...

• 1:01:13Tim Ferriss?

  It is called Deluxe, subtitle, How Luxury Lost Its Luster. There's a lot of alliteration here. It's hard for my tongue to get out right now. But this book is by Dana Thomas. I hope I'm getting the pronunciation right. Deluxe is the name of the book. How Luxury Lost Its Luster. And it talks about different high-end luxury brands and how some of them have compromised themselves by outsourcing supply chains and making other poor strategic decisions. But embedded through the whole story and the various case studies is the cocktail

• 1:01:54Tim Ferriss?

  of ingredients that have made some of the most durable luxury brands the world has ever seen, at least in the last several centuries. So I really greatly enjoyed this book. It's got 3.9 out of 5 on Goodreads. For your particular case, it's about 400 pages long. I think that is worth reading for a whole host of reasons. And then what I would say is to your last two questions, how would you evaluate whether or not a luxury mug business is worth pursuing? I think that, and I have this predisposition too, it's very tempting to try to figure it out, right? To sit down with pen and paper, look at a few databases and decide, is this worth doing? Is it not worth doing?

• 1:02:39Tim Ferriss?

  That can be very time-consuming. It can also be misleading. Maybe you have, or actually certainly you'll have, partial information. The question I would reflect back to you is, how could you test in the real world whether or not this is worth pursuing? So if you had, pick a budget that you're willing to lose, 5 grand, 10 grand. How could you use that to determine, to test the waters, to see if people are willing to buy whatever you have to sell? And so what does that mean, luxury mug business, right? If you're selling mugs for 500 to 1,000 per mug, I don't know what changes in order to make it a luxury mug business. Does that mean $5,000 per mug? Okay, fine, 10,000, whatever the number is. There are people out there who will buy such mugs.

• 1:03:24Tim Ferriss?

  Another question I would just add to this is what story do these luxury mug buyers get to tell their friends? If you look at the contemporary art world, you will see, I'm not saying this is the same, but I think there are overlaps, the story fucking matters a lot, right? You can't just tape a banana to a wall at Art Basel with duct tape and have no story. There needs to be a story. There are many documentaries that you could consider watching. The Price of Everything is a documentary about contemporary art, and I found it very, very engaging. There are many contrasting styles in here, so check it out.

• 1:04:09Tim Ferriss?

  Here's the description with unprecedented access to pivotal artists in the white-hot market surrounding them. The price of everything dives deep into the labyrinth of the contemporary art world. It examines the role of art and artistic passion in today's money-driven, consumer-based society where everything can be bought and sold. I really enjoyed this. I really, really enjoyed it. So this would be another recommendation because there's, again, no need to reinvent the wheel. I mean, these are not necessarily identically the people you're going to be selling to, but what does it take to sell the highest-priced X? Fill in the blank, whatever that is. And in fact, some of my answers are going to be overlapping with a question from a

• 1:04:54Tim Ferriss?

  listener in Brazil. Carlos, I'd like to know your thoughts about how to market a product designed to high-profile people. Consultancy for professional soccer players. Which channel would you recommend? Are there some case studies to which you'd refer? Thank you for everything. Big fan from Brazil. Okay. So all of the books, Carlos, this will apply to you too. All of the books and the documentaries I recommended would apply. Another thing that you can do is Study luxury brands, figure out who their PR firms are. Go to the PR firm websites and look at their campaign case studies. See what they do. You can learn a lot by doing this. You can create, in the old days, what was called a swipe file,

• 1:05:36Tim Ferriss?

  where you find, for many years, whenever an ad convinced me to spend money, I shouldn't spend. So, let's just say, you know, back when I was making like 35, 40 grand a year, if an ad came across that convinced me to buy something that was $500, that was a lot of money to me. And if it actually convinced me to even pick up the phone or get online to buy it, whether or not I completed the purchase, I would keep that. I would tear it out of the magazine, or I would take a photograph of it, or I would otherwise try to record it in some fashion. Let's say it was a radio advertisement. I'd try to remember the text and type it out. And I would create a three-ring binder of all the things that almost, or did convince me to spend,

• 1:06:21Tim Ferriss?

  an inordinate, let's just call it unreasonable percentage of my after-tax income. That is another thing that you can start to do now. You do not need to be a professional market analyst to do this. You just need to be aware of your own behavior and what drives you to purchase decisions or near-purchase decisions. So, just to reiterate something I just said, brands you admire that do a good job, campaigns that are doing a good job, or individuals who are doing a good job with selling into luxury markets. Study what they do. Figure out who their publicists are. Figure out who their PR firms are. And then, study those publicists and PR firms. Most of the time, both of those categories are going to be providing campaign examples and so on.

• 1:07:05Tim Ferriss?

  And you may even be able to get on the phone to have an exploratory conversation with these people. Those are a number of examples. And the other question that is worth reflecting back, and this applies to Joel as well as Carlos, that I... Reverse engineer a lot for myself is set the price first and then make it worth it. So for instance, when I had an event and I never do events, I never produce events. So there's such a pain in the ass, but I did produce one very high end event and I decided that I wanted to charge, I think it was minimum $10,000 a seat and then it went up from there. So the sooner somebody bought the, the less expensive it was and then it just went up in price. So the minimum was $10,000 and I started with that as a nice round number.

• 1:07:49Tim Ferriss?

  And it was, I think a two or three day event. And then I thought to myself, all right, I want to charge $10,000. How can I deliver that much value in the first two hours that people are there? So that I don't have to worry about it. Like, how can I over deliver in such a way in the first hour or two that everything else is gravy? Everyone is thrilled they came within the first two hours. And that's a creative exercise and I was able to pull it off. That is because I decided on a ultra high luxury price and then asked myself, how on earth can I make it worth it? What are the different ideas I have for making it worth it? And ultimately it came down to sharing the actual book proposals that I used for the four hour work week and the four hour body entirety with a few things

• 1:08:33Tim Ferriss?

  redacted just for sensitivity. And then also acting as a matchmaker for everyone in the room for the period of about an hour to 90 minutes. And after that, I mean, everybody was, was set in some respect. And for those people who might want to borrow this format, each person got up and the format was give a brag. You have to give a brag about yourself. So you have to brag in some way. Then you have an ask and then you have a give. So everybody in the audience, I think there were a hundred or 120 people got up and said, this is who I am. Here's one thing I want to brag about, or maybe I don't want to brag about, but since it's a directive, I will brag about. Here's one thing that is an ask.

• 1:09:17Tim Ferriss?

  This is what I'm looking for. And then here's one thing that I can give that I'm really good at or relationships that I have, expertise, whatever it might be. And I just encouraged everybody to take notes. If you can help somebody. Who hasn't asked, go help them. If you need something that they have on offer, because that's a give, go find them. And the rest of the event took care of itself. But I would not have come up with those answers had I not asked the right question. It comes down to the right question. So start with the price that makes it work. Right? Joel, luxury mug business. What does that mean? How many mugs at what price? Right? Let's just say your goal is $100,000 a year. Well, the answer could take many, many, many, many different forms. Is it 1,000? Well, let me, let me step, step back.

• 1:10:02Tim Ferriss?

  We'll make it, we'll make it a million dollars. Let's get ambitious. A million dollars a year. That could be 1,000 mugs at $1,000 apiece. It could be one mug at $1 million. Or it could be somewhere in the middle. Right? And how can you mitigate risk in these experiments? Well, I mean, look, if you look at different examples of collaborations, you have, for instance, CryptoPunks, now owned by Yuga Labs, partnering with Tiffany to create, you know, bedazzled, customized CryptoPunk jewelry. All right. How the fuck do these things happen? It's worth digging into, trying to find out how those things happen.

• 1:10:47Tim Ferriss?

  What are the mechanics? What are the agreements? What are the responsibilities of the various parties? And not to belabor that one example, there are many such examples. So for instance, how do you, or how could you potentially have one, or 10, or 100 of these go into gift bags at the Oscars, or at the Golden Globes, or fill in the blank? This doesn't automatically work, by the way. I mean, I have had my books put into such bags. Sometimes it has amazing effects, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it has amazing effects you don't even know of until 10 years later. Right? So be prepared to play the long game if you're going to do anything like that. And you have to be prepared for your investment to go to zero. So if your material cost and your labor cost is 10 grand, maybe it's worth rolling

• 1:11:32Tim Ferriss?

  the dice. If it's 100 grand, maybe not, depending on your financial picture. Okay. There we go. So that's, that's that. I'm going to come back to the live feed. Woo. Who knew I had so much to say about PR and marketing? It's been a while. Hopefully this is helpful for folks. All right, let's get into the live stuff and I'm just going to keep going, guys. I'm having fun. So if you guys are having fun, I will keep going. We're about an hour and 13 minutes in. I'm happy to keep going. I've got my, got my iced tea. So let me know if you're having a good time and I will, I will keep going. And this luxury mug example should not be dismissed if you are in a different business, even if you are in a SaaS business, software as a service, enterprise SaaS. You might think this has nothing to do with me.

• 1:12:16Tim Ferriss?

  It has everything to do with you, potentially, depending on your pricing tiers, depending on your funnel, depending on what stage your company is currently slogging through. If you've already reached escape velocity and you have all your pricing structures and you have your entire sales force, maybe not, but if you're trying to land the first SAP-like customer, maybe it has everything to do with you. So the principles apply very, very widely. All right, let's get in here. Go Timmy, go. Thank you, Ellie.

• 1:12:50Tim Ferriss?

  I'm going, I'm going. Ryan, any new favorite travel spots to recommend? Honestly, I've been spending a lot of time in the US. The US has so much to offer and as a young whippersnapper, you know, my early twenties, it's easy to fantasize about everything else in the world while neglecting all the treasures right in your backyard. So treasures could range from, you know, North Carolina and the Smokies to getting to, let's say, British Columbia or the Pacific Northwest and the, the rainforests in the Pacific Northwest, or going to the Southwest, going to places like Moab. There's so much diversity and beauty in the United States.

• 1:13:31Tim Ferriss?

  I've really been trying to pay more attention to what is in the US most recently. Nick, the hairband video is a great addition to that Five Bullet Friday email. I'm glad you enjoyed that. That was a music video from the Bullet Boys, which I listened to when I was probably 12 years old and I just thought I have to include this video. Money, money, money, money. I think that was related to the Beanie Babies Bullet as well. All right. Satriani, yeah, Russell Satriani is amazing. What a shredder. So is Steve Vai. Love to connect those guys sometime. All right, Josh, I'll keep this short, but if you wanted to displace, outcompete, and establish a tech company with a similar product,

• 1:14:12Tim Ferriss?

  how would you approach it from a marketing lens, assuming you had no influence on product? This is going to sound funny. It's straight from the 22 immutable laws of marketing, but I would study Avis, you know, We Try Harder versus Hertz way back in the day. And the strategy was more sophisticated than just that tagline. If you're truly similar and undifferentiated, I think you're going to have a hard time. And you're probably going to have to compete on price, which is a dangerous game because incumbents with much more money can say, you know what? We have 12 product lines. We don't like this competitor. We don't want competition. So we are just going to sell below our cost for a period of time to bleed them of chips

• 1:14:57Tim Ferriss?

  until they go out of business. And this is a very, very textbook, common competitive approach that incumbents use to spectacular success against startups. It is a risky gambit to compete on price, but that may be necessary, at least for a period of time. But beyond that, in terms of outcompeting or outmarketing, I would say you could do that on a whole lot of different levels. I would study the Avis versus Hertz example. And you could also study, for instance, now, this is going to be a price dominant example, but I read the biography, it may have been the autobiography of the founder of Ryanair

• 1:15:38Tim Ferriss?

  at one point, and looked at, even though I have no interest in participating in the airline businesses, looking at how low-cost competitors and carriers entered the scene and became, at least at points, as dominant as they did. EasyJet is another very, very interesting example, certainly Southwest, another fascinating example. And I would encourage you to look at all of those, even though they may not seem immediately applicable. So those are a few approaches that you might take, but the commonality here is looking for comparables, not just within your industry, but outside of your industry. So which startups can you

• 1:16:20Tim Ferriss?

  model that have taken on incumbents with similar products? Hopefully not entirely identical, but somewhat similar products. You can also use, I'm not saying you have to do this, but sort of humor and sass is generally going to get neutralized and killed in any bureaucracy within a bigger company, which is why, say, Dollar Shave Club and others had a tremendous window of opportunity that they took excellent advantage of with their advertising campaigns. And I think even though one could consider certainly Branson,

• 1:17:00Tim Ferriss?

  Richard Branson, an incumbent in some respects, and he's certainly not having to bootstrap things with limited savings, if you look at how he competed, and this is chronicled quite a bit in Losing My Virginity, which was one of the books that had a huge impact on me when I was in my early twenties. So Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson talks about competing in the music business, and it also talks about competing against British Airways with Virgin. So it's just happenstance, I suppose, that a lot of these examples are airlines, but in a sense, airlines are the perfect example of largely undifferentiated competition. So it might provide some variables and levers that you can pull and play with.

• 1:17:43Tim Ferriss?

  Tea over coffee these days from Ryan. My rule is one, I get one coffee in the morning these days. Coffee really keeps me up late at night, more so than it should, given the caffeine content. I can have an equivalent amount of caffeine through other sources, whether it's even energy drinks or iced tea, and it will not keep me up in the way that coffee does. So as it stands right now, I'm having one cold brew from Starbucks in the morning before 10 a.m. That's a rule. And then after that, it's iced tea. Am I cold? I'm being asked. Beanie and hoodie. Yeah, it's fucking freezing where I am. So yeah, I'm cold and I'm bald. So hence the beanie. All right, from Jeff.

• 1:18:27Tim Ferriss?

  Steve Vai would be an awesome interview. Vai's unbelievable and spiritual. I believe it. I've seen him interviewed. He's excellent. So maybe that'll happen at some point. All right. Justin asks, any comments or observations on limiting alcohol intake? I have been limiting alcohol intake quite a bit. I actually have had my first drinks in a month, beginning three or four days ago, in prep for the higher altitude and extensive hiking and so on. I did not want to compromise my sleep getting ready for that. And I thought it would be a good ascetic practice slash proof of non-dependence to take a 30-day break from alcohol. So I took a 30-day break from alcohol. Felt great.

• 1:19:11Tim Ferriss?

  And I know that alcohol, especially once it gets past two drinks, obliterates sleep. So I have experimented with other options. Number one is simply not having alcohol, just having peppermint tea or whatever I might want to have for flavor at a dinner, which is perfectly fine most of the time. I'm also looking at other options. There are some ketone beverages, which are non-ethanol-based alcoholic beverages, if that makes any sense, where you can actually get a buzz from, say, R-butane dial or R13 butane dial. Let me just see what, yeah.

• 1:19:51Tim Ferriss?

  So 13 butane dial, also known as R13 butane dial, is not great in my experience for performance at all, but it can give you...

• 1:20:05Tim Ferriss?

  A slight buzz and don't, please do not, this is not food consumption advice. 1-3 butane dial is used mainly as a solvent for food flavors.

• 1:20:16Tim Ferriss?

  FYI, right? So there are a number of brands that sell our butane 1-3 dial. I'm mixing up all of my chemistry here. So there are some brands that sell hard ketone drinks. And I have been experimenting with those as an alternative to ethanol based drinks, right? Like a gin tonic or something like that. It does seem like the hard ketone drinks, if consumed close to bedtime, will still negatively affect sleep. So if I consume alcohol, I try to do, whether it's the hard ketones or ethanol, I try to consume it on the early side. So if I'm having an early dinner, say 5:30 or 6,

• 1:20:58Tim Ferriss?

  I want to give my body and my liver time to metabolize as much as possible before I lay down to bed. And that means I'll go out to dinner and if I'm going to have a drink, as I did yesterday, for instance, actually I had two glasses of wine last night and I sat at the bar instead of at a table. So I wouldn't be rushed and I had two drinks while writing for about 30 minutes before getting my food. Because what I didn't want to do is have one drink with an appetizer, eat a huge entree and have two or three more drinks

• 1:21:38Tim Ferriss?

  just to feel the buzz. And ultimately, all of that lands on my system and needs to be dealt with. So those are a few of the thoughts I have, but I have dramatically cut back on my alcohol consumption. And that might change. I mean, depending on where I go, if I'm going to Italy and I'm going to be eating pasta and drinking wine everywhere, then I'm going to drink wine everywhere. You know, it's not, not a big deal to me. But as it stands right now, I have cut back very substantially. All right. Stephanie suggests visiting Shaved Ice Island in South Austin. Life-changing Thai tea shaved ice on the menu. I'm into it. I'll check it out. All right. Cherie, I think is the name here. I hope I'm getting that down properly. With your various endeavors into hobbies, have you ever tried archery?

• 1:22:20Tim Ferriss?

  And if so, any directions as to books, teachers, et cetera, to check out specifically looking at traditional longbow? Yes, I have looked quite closely at archery and I've been spending the last several months going deep down quite a few rabbit holes related to archery. I have one, two, three, four, five, five or six bows, no, more, seven, eight. Probably eight bows within 500 feet of where I'm sitting. So yes, I've been getting into it. That includes a traditional longbow made by someone named Byron Ferguson, who has a lot of incredible video online.

• 1:22:58Tim Ferriss?

  And I believe Byron has a book, Become the Arrow, second edition by Byron Ferguson. He has some of the most incredible longbow shots I've ever seen. He is the one, as far as I know, who was first to develop the trick shot progression of shooting a disc out of the air that is about the size of, say, a bread plate, and then shooting a golf ball out of the air, and then shooting a lifesaver out of the air, and then shooting an aspirin out of the air using field points.

• 1:23:38Tim Ferriss?

  So he's quite incredible. Longbow, I think, is very, very interesting, very, very challenging also. I am quite interested in both Olympic recurve and barebow competition. So I'm looking at both of those. And most of my experience from a precision standpoint is with compound bows. But looking at a spectrum of, say, aiming, let's just call it aiming on one end of the slider and then biomechanics on the far other end of the slider, I would say that compound bow...

• 1:24:17Tim Ferriss?

  For me at least, has the most in common with rifle or firearm marksmanship. So if I were going to train someone for compound, and I'm not a professional by any means, but just to help someone get accustomed to breath control and aligning front and rear sights, I would actually have them start with prone rifle shooting and move from there to compound. And there are a million different types of releases, we won't get into that. But if you have compound there, and then on the far other end of the spectrum with biomechanics, you have longbow, then I would put something like Olympic recurve close to the middle,

• 1:24:57Tim Ferriss?

  I would say, and then barebow would be somewhere between the Olympic recurve and the longbow. But the further you get to the biomechanics side, the better your shot sequence, people are going to disagree with me on this, but the more you get to the biomechanics side, the better your body awareness and kinesthetic control and sequencing of your shot sequence will need to be. And I think that's probably most easily illustrated by watching video of, say, Korean archers in Olympic recurve. They're just unbelievably good. So take a look at that. But yes, I'm very interested in archery, is the short answer.

• 1:25:36Tim Ferriss?

  Here's a question from Joel. You and Steven Pressfield talked about writing fiction on your podcast. Did that inspire your NFT, or have you tried other fiction writing? I have tried other fiction writing. So there are a number of pieces that are unpublished, short stories that I have not shared, which are fiction, mostly because they're not complete. These are longer short stories. And then the first fiction piece I ever published was put out as my first experimental NFT with Kevin Rose. If people want to check that out, you can read it online. There's no issue with doing that. If you just go to tim.blog/nft, you can go on and just zoom in and, and read that story. And if holders of that NFT are open to it, at some point, I may just put, you know,

• 1:26:20Tim Ferriss?

  three quarters of it or the entire piece on the blog so that people can actually read it. I think that would draw more attention to the piece as well. But I have tried other fiction writing to answer your question. So this is a question from Cindy. When unexpected life or people challenges try to knock you down, What go-to tools help you keep grounded? I think that's what you're asking. Are there two to three podcast guests who brought those tools? Yes, I would say the people who come to mind are first off the top of my head, and there are more. One would be Tara Brach, B-R-A-C-H, who wrote an incredible book called Radical Acceptance. So I'd say Tara Brach is definitely one.

• 1:27:04Tim Ferriss?

  Another would be Jerry Colonna, who has a number of questions that I think are fantastic and worth keeping in mind constantly, including, "How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?" That would be one example of many. So we have Tara Brach, Jerry Colonna, and then I'll throw in Jack Kornfield. All of his interviews, I think, are very, very powerful. And the reason I bring those three up is that when I feel I have been hit unexpectedly with something, or perhaps I have precipitated something happening that is undesirable, my defaults, and I think this is from a lot of family history as well,

• 1:27:48Tim Ferriss?

  are anger, mostly anger directed at myself, but anger, and self-flagellation, just incredible self-criticism, and beating myself up mercilessly. And for those reasons, I mention those guests. Because for me, it's not the events that are the problem, per se. It's my reflexive response to those events being self-abuse through inner monologue or dialogue. And being able to, number one, create a greater awareness of that. Number two,

• 1:28:30Tim Ferriss?

  Developing or borrowing in these cases, toolkits and questions that allow me to calm that reactivity and not to push it away necessarily, but certainly in the case of Tara Brock, to befriend in a way, to have a conversation with it or with those parts is very helpful. Another person I would add to that is Richard Schwartz, who is the founder of IFS. I had him on the podcast. So those are the first few names that come to mind. Andrew, proud holder. Cool. Let me know if you'd be, if you think it would be a good idea. I think it could be interesting for me to share the actual text from the fictional short story in the NFT. Let me know what you think. I'll, I'll keep an eye on the, on

• 1:29:13Tim Ferriss?

  the chat. All right. Christopher has a question. Which mental model or helpful tool do you often go back to regarding prioritizing projects and things you want to pursue? I'll keep it at that. So I do have one question and I, there's a very good chance that I adapted this from Gary Keller. So Gary is legendary in the world of real estate. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Keller Williams, the world's largest real estate franchise by agent count. 2019 KW, which also ranks number one in units and sales volume in the US, was named by Fast Company as the most innovative company in real estate. So Gary is a fascinating,

• 1:29:55Tim Ferriss?

  fascinating character. You can find him on Twitter at Gary Keller. And the name of this podcast episode is how to focus on the one important thing. Gary Keller, how to focus on the one important thing. I'd recommend folks listen to this. He also has a book called The One Thing, subtitled The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results. And I believe the question that I ask myself is adapted from this, but I can't say that with a hundred percent certainty. And that question is this. In this list of things, five or six or 10 things, whatever your list of priorities might be, or to-dos, which of these, if done, make other things, or all of these things, either irrelevant or easier to do?

• 1:30:40Tim Ferriss?

  Look at this list of 10 things, which of these, if done, make other items on this list, hopefully many or all of them, easier to do or irrelevant? And that is my sorting function. That's it. Now, on top of that, let's just say that doesn't yield the clarity I'm hoping for. I could look at that list again and ask myself, which of these, if done, or brought to the next milestone, would leave me feeling proudest at the end of the day? I know people who do this with workouts. I know CrossFit champions who do this with certain types of workouts. Just asking yourself, which of these, if done or pushed to the next milestone, would leave me feeling proudest at the end of the day? That's another one.

• 1:31:24Tim Ferriss?

  And a third would be if you're trying to choose between, say, major projects. So you've got this branching tree and you have three different professional options. Let's just say, different projects, different endeavors, joint ventures, whatever. Creative projects. I'll ask myself, which of these, even if it fails, can be the greatest success? And that's a success in terms of new skills, new relationships, or deepened relationships, and also just energy? Which of these will give me the most energy? Will I be most energized by? So I'll repeat that. Three options, having trouble choosing between them, let's just say they're creative projects. Which of these can be a success for me, even if it fails?

• 1:32:09Tim Ferriss?

  Let's say the launch doesn't work, people don't want to buy it, whatever it is, in terms of new skills, or resurrecting old skills? In the case of me choosing my new absurd art project, resurrecting old skills. Resurrecting old skills or new, developing new skills, developing new relationships, or deepening current relationships, and then providing life energy, energizing you. That is how I've decided to spend so much time over the last, say, six to 12 months on this hair branch thing that'll come out in the next few months, which absolutely could be a flop on every commercial slash financial level. So that's part of what makes it kind of exciting to me, honestly. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes.

• 1:32:53Tim Ferriss?

  John said, "The lead domino." Exactly. Choosing the right domino to tip over, that tips over many others. Bill has a question. "Did the book 4,000 Weeks change your approach to life and living in any way?" I thought 4,000 Weeks was an exceptional book, and I plan to go back and reread it. I have a lot of Kindle highlights and shared one chapter in particular from that book on the blog, on tim.blog, called Cosmic Insignificance Therapy. So if you want to read that chapter, I encourage everybody to read it. Cosmic Insignificance Therapy. You can find that on tim.blog. Going to do, since we're at an hour and 40 minutes, I'm going to do a handful of additional questions on the pre-submitted, and let's see where it goes. Okay, this is a question from Al. "If you had to build a launch strategy for the Four

• 1:33:38Tim Ferriss?

  Hour Work Week in 2022 versus 2007," otherwise known as 2007, "what strategies and channels would you employ? Which strategies would stay consistent from 2007 and why?" I think the crux decision, which was to engage with people in person at events at the time, those were predominantly bloggers. Now that might be different, but not necessarily. Blogs are still actually a thing, despite what people may think. But that core approach to taking the uncrowded channel of engaging with people in person at events in recreational

• 1:34:19Tim Ferriss?

  settings over drinks would remain consistent. And you could remove every other prong of the Four Hour Work Week launch strategy. And if I simply executed well again on that type of in-person engagement, I think the book would still be a success today. And to reiterate how I did that, or to give one example, I would... Go to the after-party after some conference event where people are on panels. And sometimes I would approach them afterwards. Very often, when I would approach a panel, I would not approach the panelists who are getting mobbed.

• 1:34:58Tim Ferriss?

  I would approach the moderator, who is undeservedly neglected a lot of times in cases like this, and chat with the moderator, usually asking a handful of follow-up questions, which are sincere questions about the topics on the panel. They would, at some point, generally ask me, "Well, what are you doing here? Why are you here?" And I would say, "It's my first time at this event. I've just finished writing my first book. It's this, this, and this, based on guest lectures I gave at Princeton University from 2000X to 2000Y. And I'm trying to figure out how to launch a book, since it's really on me. The publisher effectively prints and ships books. I have to figure out how to market this. You know, is there anyone you think I might want to meet? Is there anyone you think I might get along with?"

• 1:35:43Tim Ferriss?

  And then they would make a referral, and I would be on to the next referral. And I would repeat something like that each time.

• 1:35:51Tim Ferriss?

  Separately, if I came upon, say, a group of people, bloggers, let's just say, I knew at least one blogger was in this group at a bar. They'd be talking, and I would wander up. And I would say something like, "Hey, guys, do you mind if I join in and just listen in?" And they'd be like, "Nah, whatever, fine." And so I'd hang out, and if I finished my drink first, I'd be like, "Hey, does anyone else need a drink?" Like, "Don't be a fucking weirdo, just be a normal person." But anyway, like, "Hey, does anyone else need a drink? I'm gonna grab another one." "Okay, great, get a couple of drinks." And eventually, somebody in the group would be like, "So, what's your story? Who are you? Why are you here?" And I would give some answer along the lines of what I just mentioned. And then I would just stop. I would not start pitching.

• 1:36:34Tim Ferriss?

  I would not, I would not immediately start humping their legs to ask them if they wanted to read an advance copy or something like that. But I would say that, and then I would sort of leave the window open to more questions. And then I would see if anyone... Took the bait and if they did, that is an indicator of, at least I took it as an indicator of interest. Let's say one of the people's like, well, okay. So you said your book is, what's the book about? And then I would elaborate, then maybe they would ask some follow-up questions. And then at some point I would offer, I would simply say, look, it might not be of any interest to you. I totally understand if you're just too busy, but there are, I think, maybe one or two chapters that would be really interesting to you. If you'd like, I mean, I have a ton of advanced copies. I could just send you

• 1:37:19Tim Ferriss?

  a copy and put in some post-it notes for the 20 pages or so that I think would be most interesting. And I would say, I don't know, 60, 70% of the time that I went up to one of those groups, at least one person would be like, yeah, that sounds cool. Yeah, totally. Yeah, please send it. And that is a high labor approach that also can have a very, very high ROI. And I would replicate that. I still think in person is the least crowded. It just takes a set of skills that most people have neglected, I think, in a world where everything is thought to be digital and text first via email. The interpersonal

• 1:38:04Tim Ferriss?

  piece, I think, gets lost a bit and the, the ability to navigate social dynamics in a way that is interesting, but not overwhelming or irritating, takes practice. You got to practice this stuff. And fortunately, I got a lot of practice doing that on the phone and in person, in my first job out of college, which was being an outside sales rep for fiber channel, storage area networks. I had to learn how to navigate this stuff. So in person, it still works, or it can work. All right, let me check out some, some more questions in the live chat. See what we got here.

• 1:38:50Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so Andrew on the how to start a war. Why don't you just chat with the folks in proof who are holders? And see what they think. I don't see the downside. I mean, I really don't. I think all that will do is draw attention to it and increase interest in it. I don't, I don't see the downside and I certainly don't have to, I don't have to share all of it. It could be, I don't know, 70 or 80%. So, okay, here's a question. What's your gut response to the metaverse and its potential use cases? Very conflicted, very conflicted. I think as much as people talk about the utopia and ideology of decentralization.

• 1:39:29Tim Ferriss?

  Humans like centralized discovery or some centralized service where they do not need to make decisions. Humans are fucking lazy. So, and I'll throw myself in there too, honestly, right? Discovery is hard and humans want to identify tastemakers or curators to help them with making choices in areas of high complexity or in situations where there is a paradox of choice challenge, which is almost everywhere. And this will certainly be true in the metaverse and/or the metaverses, although I find that kind of oxymoronic, I guess, when we start looking at it that way.

• 1:40:11Tim Ferriss?

  So I do think that there will be a, likely a handful at most of virtual spaces like the metaverse in Snow Crash, let's say, where people interact through avatars, right? So let's just call it a, you know, second life on mega steroids with all sorts of technological innovations that have started to crest in the last handful of years. I find it hard to believe that there are going to be dozens and dozens and dozens of these things. I just, I find it hard to believe that that will be compelling to users.

• 1:40:52Tim Ferriss?

  If a few dominant players with massive amounts of capital and employee coordination are focused on creating the most addictive compelling versions of these spaces. I hope I'm wrong, but if I've noticed anything in the last year or two, it's that people claim to hate centralization, but man, do they love it. It saves them a lot of time and it saves them a lot of decisions. So we'll see where it goes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Enrique, how's your gardening going? Did you get this gardening season? If yes, what worked and what not? There's nothing like trying experimenting. So yes, the answer is the gardening has worked.

• 1:41:36Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm holding up a huge basket of veggies and this came right out of my garden. A few hundred feet away, we've got these beautiful beans that are purple in color, but you could eat them whole. They're absolutely delicious. And we have these amazing huge beets. So check that out. I'm going to be eating a bunch of those later today. Got the biggest, check out the size of these things, like the biggest Swiss charge you can imagine. Look at this. I mean, that's Swiss charge. It's the size of my entire upper torso. So it did work this year. And I'd say the two main differences are relocating the raised beds so they have more

• 1:42:20Tim Ferriss?

  consistent sun exposure. But above and beyond that, two things. Setting up a very, very simple electric fence that can be turned off and on. It's solar powered and it's very, very thin mesh. It's just to keep out to the extent possible, the deer, the groundhog, you know, all this kind of stuff. And then second is an irrigation system, a timed watering system. So simple.

• 1:42:48Tim Ferriss?

  Not that difficult to install and the combination of all those factors has led to just an incredible harvest this year for the first time ever in my life, tons and tons of stuff. For whatever reason, the kale gets annihilated by pests. Everything else is fine and intact. The kale gets completely killed. I'm not using any pesticides, but for some reason, the kale specifically is just the sacrificial lamb. It seems to get absolutely naced by everything that wants to snack on some domesticated veggies. So there you have it. But thanks for asking. I can feel my brain slowing down a little bit, guys. So I'm probably going to do another 10 to 15 minutes. All right. Ranjit, what is your

• 1:43:30Tim Ferriss?

  workout routine these days? My workout routine is super civil. I go to the gym and I lift weights, doing full body workouts. And this is called twice a week. That's weight training. I have a sled, a weighted sled that I push, I would say three to four times per week in the morning, usually after my first cold brew. And I am intermittent fasting at the moment where I will effectively not have anything to eat until noon. I say effectively because sometimes I will have a few macadamia nuts or something like that, but generally no calories to very, very low calories. So I am intermittent fasting in the morning.

• 1:44:09Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm doing kettlebell swings. Right now, I think I'm using a 72 pounder for sets of 50 and really just doing one set of like 50 to 100 reps twice a week. And I jump rope in the mornings, oftentimes before I do the sled pushing, just as a way to wake up my nervous system and my, my cognition. Honestly, just jumping rope for two minutes, hopping around, having my dog bark her face off at me, which is hilarious, is enough to change my mood, to elevate mood. Sauna, probably four to five times a week, generally before

• 1:44:52Tim Ferriss?

  dinner. So let's just say I'm eating at seven o'clock. I will finish up my day, my work day at five or 5:30, do the sauna for a half hour. And then take a cold shower, post. That's about it. That's about it. I mean, it's nothing crazy. If I go for a hike with my dog, which I do pretty regularly, if the weather permits, I will throw on a rucksack. I have a go rucksack for an hour hike. I'm not using crazy weight also because this rucksack does not have a waist strap. So I am supporting all the weight on my traps and shoulders, usually use 35 pound weight. But you'll notice none of this takes more than, I mean, the, the weight training at the gym is going to take the most time because of the transit.

• 1:45:36Tim Ferriss?

  There are weeks when I just skip that altogether and I'll do the other things I described.

• 1:45:41Tim Ferriss?

  But we're, we're talking about at most 30 minutes a day. Unless it's an activity that doesn't function for me exclusively as exercise, like an hour long hike with my dog. Then I'm just throwing on weights to get some additional stimulation. But that's what the workout looks like these days. I am using a, a new device that I've enjoyed. So for decreasing lower back pain or alleviating lower back pain and also helping tremendously with sleep. There are two devices that I've been using for some time now. This one is called the So Right. And you lay on top of this. And for those who can't see this, it is a piece of plastic that looks almost like a U.

• 1:46:23Tim Ferriss?

  And the tops of either side of the U are these rounded, plastic ridges that you lay on top of. And they apply pressure to your psoas. So this is called a So Right device, P S O hyphen R I T E dot com. And this is a device that I used last night, for instance, prior to sleep. And I've been comparing and contrasting that with another option, which is a lot easier to travel with. So I have traveled, for instance, when I was hiking in the mountains and at altitude, I traveled with this. So if you look at this thing here, this is the hip hook.

• 1:47:03Tim Ferriss?

  And it more effectively gets into, and you can see how aggressive this looks, you're laying on this. So this really gets into your psoas and can also get to the iliacus more effectively than the psoas. So the, I'm not an anatomist, but if you think of where your psoas is, let's just say, kind of a few inches up from your iliac crest, like those hip bones that stick out right under your obliques or love handles, depending on your condition, those hip bones, if you go directly up your sides and then in towards the center, say, I don't know, three or four inches, and then press directly towards your spine,

• 1:47:48Tim Ferriss?

  this is not a precise description, but you will be getting into your psoas, the iliac psoas. The iliacus is going to be lower down, kind of inside the cradle of the hip architecture, which is where the hip hook comes in. And this really works well. I've been using it for the last several weeks on the road. And these two I have found to be tremendously helpful for improving sleep. Often what disrupts my sleep is lower back tightness and I end up having to flip flop like a rotisserie chicken from side to side to side to side, which surprise, surprise, does not improve your sleep architecture or quality. So these two devices I have found

• 1:48:32Tim Ferriss?

  very helpful. Let me do another question here from Michael. So from Michael, what would be your suggested criteria for choosing podcasts to allocate advertising dollars towards? Product slash industry agnostic if possible. This is a difficult question to answer. I would say, because there are a number of articles that have been written about it, Athletic Greens.

• 1:48:58Tim Ferriss?

  Has the most methodical, quantitative and strategic approach to podcast advertising that I have ever seen in any company. So to the extent that you can study that, and there are articles that discuss their approach to podcast advertising, I think it is worth looking at. It is not possible, I think, to make any answer product slash industry agnostic because Athletic Greens has a high-end premium product with a very high LTV, customer lifetime value. And you can time bound that. Let's just say their value over two years or three years, something like that. But it is a product that has

• 1:49:40Tim Ferriss?

  a very low amount of churn. In other words, once someone subscribes to receive Athletic Greens, they tend to remain a Athletic Greens user. And this is the type of product that I think is particularly well-suited to certain types of podcasts, especially long-form interview podcasts where ad reads are host-read. Very specific, I know. But Athletic Greens is worth studying. And then an additional factor that is less discussed, because on the buy side, if you are a podcast advertiser, generally you don't want to allocate, you

• 1:50:23Tim Ferriss?

  don't want to discuss the implicit value of what I'm going to describe because it lessens your bargaining position. If you're on the buy side for the podcast equation, you want to say, okay, here is our URL with a code at the end, and people are going to go to this link. We're going to track how much traffic goes to that link. And then they need to enter this really onerous code. It's tim08#437. And based on how many people redeem that code, we will see what the ROI is on our podcasting advertisement. Now, anyone listening to the exaggerated example I just gave will realize there's going to be a tremendous amount of slippage. What does this mean? This means that the vast

• 1:51:08Tim Ferriss?

  majority of people aren't going to remember, nor even if they remember, Take the time to input such a code if the savings is, for instance, say 10%, which is why I almost always insist that if sponsors are going to give a discount, they make it compelling enough so that people will use an actual tracking code. Because if they are setting the measure of success based on a code, which most people will not put in unless the discount is significant, 30 to 50%, then I am being set up for failure. Because somebody who is, especially this is true with larger companies, if there is someone who's a middle manager, VP of, you know,

• 1:51:53Tim Ferriss?

  junior VP of marketing, or associate director of marketing, who is in charge of monitoring ROI, and they're basing everything on, say, the one out of 10 people I refer who actually fill in a code, then they are deliberately or unknowingly putting themselves in a position to say, "The podcast ad didn't work." This fortunately doesn't happen very often with me, but I'm painting a picture that is something that applies all over the industry. So there are a couple of things here to keep in mind, right? There's slippage, number one, you're not going to track anything perfectly unless it goes through something like a newsletter, in which case now I have access to the data as well. I can look at the click-through rates and I can identify,

• 1:52:36Tim Ferriss?

  for instance, is it a copy issue? Is it a read issue? Or, and this is very common, is it a website conversion issue? So my team spends quite a bit of time with podcast advertisers looking at their websites, saying, "Hey, look, we can send a bunch of fish towards your net, but your net sucks. It's full of holes right now. It doesn't make any sense. It's upside down. And we're not going to do it unless your conversion can be optimized." We're more polite about it than that, but it's critical that... I think, for me at least, because I care about having long-term sponsors for extended periods of time, it's a hassle and very energy-intensive for my team to deal with

• 1:53:20Tim Ferriss?

  any type of churn, that I want all pieces of the chain to function optimally before I put forth the effort to test all these products and services and then vet them down to the top 5% to make the cut and then to do a good read. I don't want to go through all that hassle if someone's not going to do the heavy lifting on their side to ensure optimal conversion. I know we're getting a little off-topic, but the reason that I bring all of this up is allocating advertising dollars. How should you allocate advertising dollars? There are different reasons you may advertise. So, I'll give an example. There was a billboard in the Bay Area, it was on 280, which takes people from the airport,

• 1:54:04Tim Ferriss?

  from SFO, to San Francisco, and there's this big billboard, and it was a huge tech company, I'm not going to mention the name because I don't know if they'd like it, but the advertisement didn't really make any sense to anyone, except for one tiny sliver of the population. Huge billboard, no doubt very expensive, and lots of people drove by and they're like, "That's the dumbest billboard ever. It doesn't even make any sense." And then someone in this group conversation said, "Actually, it makes perfect sense. You just have to realize who that billboard is for. It is for investment bankers who are visiting the Bay Area. That's it." So, if you're looking at that billboard for conversion

• 1:54:46Tim Ferriss?

  purposes and there's some unique URL, the value is probably going to amount to zero. If you are looking at it from a customer acquisition perspective, and this was a gaming company... The value is probably zero. If you're viewing it, however, through the lens of courting the top operators in the rarefied world of investment banking, okay, now perhaps you only need one person, or two people, or five people to pay attention to that, and suddenly that can be worth many millions upon millions of dollars for a given company. The reason I bring that up is you should ask yourself, who do I want to know this brand? Who do

• 1:55:31Tim Ferriss?

  I want to understand the marketing positioning of this brand? Is it, for instance, the broadest population possible, say, all readers of USA Today and all viewers of late night television, something like that? Or is it most valuable for me to get in front of, say, the audience of TED? Would I want just the 2,000 to 3,000 people at TED to all be aware of this? And that can dictate your choice of platform. So if you want to, say, get in front of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, policymakers, tastemakers, directors, producers, et cetera,

• 1:56:12Tim Ferriss?

  I know for a fact that you can very easily do that through the podcast, or my podcast, that is, or through Five O' Friday, through the newsletter. And that is highly, highly, highly targeted. The absolute numbers may not be large, even though the newsletter's got 2 million subscribers or so. In the grand scheme of things, in a country of whatever, 350 to 400 million people, that's not a gigantic percentage, but you don't need a gigantic percentage if, similar to our earlier conversations, you choose the right lead dominos. And this maps perfectly to how I launched the Four Hour Work Week also. In choosing outlets, how did I choose outlets? I was looking at the first domino.

• 1:56:54Tim Ferriss?

  As the very tightly defined demographic of say 20 to 35 year old tech savvy males living in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, that was it. And what that allowed me to do as someone with very little budget was to take whatever time and capital I had and to think about four or five outlets. Let's just say at the time, probably Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Lifehacker perhaps, and a few others. Robert Scoble is a very, very influential blogger at the time. If I could get noticed and some degree of coverage from these outlets, I would create

• 1:57:38Tim Ferriss?

  the perception of surround sound, insomuch as I would appear with the four hour work week to be ubiquitous to a very, very tightly defined demographic. Recognizing that the target, the initial target market is not the total market. And people get all caught up about this, where they're like, oh God, well, what if we know we need to be inclusive with everybody? If you try to make everyone your customer, no one is going to be your customer. You will fail 99 times out of 100. There is a time to broaden, but it is not in the early phases. In the beginning, you need the strongest foothold and handhold possible. So you need to choose your niche. And this is true with so many products that end up being mainstream successes.

• 1:58:23Tim Ferriss?

  They do not begin by trying to boil the ocean at once. They choose a very surgical, precise demographic. So I started with that and the expectation was if I were able to establish a, a critical mass of attention within that group, that it would then cascade. It would cascade from male to female. Now you have 20 to 35 year old tech savvy females in the same cities, looking at the same outlets. And that is exactly what happened. And then from there, the age would start to bleed out and creep both younger and older. That's exactly what happened. And then from there, from those cities with very high density and large populations.

• 1:59:06Tim Ferriss?

  Including a critical mass of people with broadcast capabilities, let's say bloggers, people using Twitter, et cetera, which launched publicly officially at the same South by Southwest that the Four Hour Work Week did in March of 2007, that if you choose the right initial dominos, you can allow cascades to take care of a lot of the heavy lifting later. But if you were imprecise in the beginning, you're fucked. It just will not work. Even if I had a million dollars to put into the Four Hour Work Week launch, and I think I capped my total expenses at 10 or 20 grand, almost all of which went to events, registration,

• 1:59:49Tim Ferriss?

  and travel and housing for those events, just FYI. But if instead of that 20 grand I'd had a million dollars, number one, I would have made much worse decisions, I would have been much less precise, I would have been much less creative, and if I had made poor decisions in the beginning, chosen the wrong dominos, and then tried to fix it, say, six months later by pouring money into it, it would have all been cash in a pile lit on fire on the sidewalk. It wouldn't have done anything. So, how the hell did we get on to all this? Wow, I got a preacher's fire in my belly. I don't know what happened there. Oh, yes, we're talking about suggested criteria for choosing podcasts to allocate advertising dollars towards. All right, so there you go.

• 2:00:34Tim Ferriss?

  You got a long, rambling sermon instead of a short answer, but hopefully that at least provides some questions that might be helpful and a recognition of some of the invisible risks and benefits of choosing through one criterion alone. If you run a direct-to-consume or a direct-response business, you need at least some, if not most, of your advertising to return a positive ROI or media efficiency ratio.

• 2:01:09Tim Ferriss?

  But you don't need all of it to do that. You don't need all of it to do that. There is some degree of brand advertising or creation of awareness, which unfortunately are kind of smokescreen excuses that get used to justify a lot of shitty decision making. But you can be very surgical about how you might approach such things. And in the very beginning, for instance, sponsoring the UFC for my sports nutrition company was exactly that. I did not need the UFC to return all of my sponsorship cost. It was a strategic decision on a whole bunch of different levels. And you can afford a couple of those experiments as long as you recognize or assume

• 2:01:51Tim Ferriss?

  that the trackable ROI will likely be $0, at least in the intermediate phase. Okay, so, long answer. This is from Bradley. My wife is wonderful, but she has a bad relationship with herself. What advice do you have for people to increase self-love? Thanks, Tim. Read Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. T-A-R-A-B-R-A-C-H. And I believe she has an online course that also focuses on radical acceptance, so you can take a look at that as well. From Joel. Would I ever appear on Joe Rogan's podcast again? Or would that level of exposure bring too much unwanted fame at this point in your life? I think it'd be fun to be on Joe's podcast again. It was a lot of fun when I did it the first two times, very long ago. This is before Joe Rogan was the undisputed king of all podcasts. So I know he has an overabundance of guest options,

• 2:02:36Tim Ferriss?

  but at some point, if it ever made sense for him, I think it would be fun to be on again. Have I ever tried backcountry skiing? This is from Ulrike. Could be something for you. I just got some good recommendations in Austria. Yes, I did my first backcountry trekking, so with conversion skis that allow you to lift your heel, but then lock in for downhill, last year in the Rockies. And, well, effectively the Rockies in the American West. And thought it was absolutely spectacular. I anticipated it would be more like cross-country skiing, which I find very awkward and slippery and feels unstable on the knees. But using the touring boots that allow you to connect and disconnect or elevate the heel, I absolutely had a blast.

• 2:03:20Tim Ferriss?

  So, yes, I may want those recommendations in Austria at some point. Had a great time.

• 2:03:26Tim Ferriss?

  All right, you know, here, I'll answer this one just as a teaser. So, all right, this is from Therin. I think that is a cool name. Hopefully, I'm pronouncing it correctly. Can you give us some alpha on your NFT project codename Project 555? Is Kev Kev helping you with it? When can we expect more about it? Can we, the supporters group, get first access? So all I'll say is I will, I will confirm that Project 555 is, in fact, me. So I will, I will give you that, and there will be a lot more coming soon. I do have a lot of excitement and I get giddy just thinking about it, surrounding this. It's gonna be fucking ridiculous and completely absurd. I'm just gonna warn everyone in advance.

• 2:04:09Tim Ferriss?

  It's gonna make a lot of people cover their eyes with their hands with a huge WTF, Tim Ferriss. Oh, my God. I'm sure that some percentage will think to themselves, I'm so disappointed. No doubt, they'll tell me that. The internet loves to tell people that. I'm so disappointed. I expected so much more. So key to happiness, low expectations. Don't expect anything other than possibly letting out an, oh, my fucking God, laugh when you see this whole thing. So for the time being, I will just confirm that Project 555 is, in fact, yours truly. All right, guys, thank you so much for all the time. Hopefully, this was helpful. I had a good time. There are some great questions, both in the live feed and in those submitted.

• 2:04:53Tim Ferriss?

  And I think we will come to a close right now at I am on EST. So almost 5:55 EST, which I will take as a good omen. All right, everybody, thank you very much and have a wonderful evening. Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include- include favorite new albums that I've discovered.

• 2:05:37Tim Ferriss?

  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. This episode is brought to you by Vuori Clothing, spelled V U O R I. Vuori.

• 2:06:18Tim Ferriss?

  I've been wearing Vuori at least one item per day for the last few months and you can use it for everything. It's performance apparel, but it can be used for working out. It can be used for going out to dinner, at least in my case. I feel very comfortable with it. Super comfortable, super stylish. And I just want to read something that one of my employees said. She is an athlete. She is quite technical, although she would never say that. I asked her if she had ever used or heard of Vuori and this was her response. "I do love their stuff. Been using them for about a year. I think I found them at REI, first for my partner, t-shirts that are super soft but somehow last as he's hard on stuff.

• 2:07:00Tim Ferriss?

  And then I got into the super soft cotton yoga pants and jogger sweatpants. I live in them and they too have lasted. They're stylish enough, I can wear them out and about. The material is just super soft and durable. I just got their clementine running shorts for summer and love them. The brand seems pretty popular, constantly sold out." In closing, and I'm abbreviating here, but in closing, "With the exception of when I need technical outdoor gear, they're the only brand I've bought in the last year or so for yoga, running, loungewear that lasts and that I think look good also. I like the discreet logo." So that gives you some idea. That was not intended for the sponsor read. That was just her response via text. Vuori, again spelled V U O R I, is designed for maximum comfort and versatility. You can wear it running.

• 2:07:45Tim Ferriss?

  You can wear their stuff training, doing yoga, lounging, weekend errands, or in my case, again, going out to dinner. It really doesn't matter what you're doing. Their clothing is so comfortable and looks so good and it's not offensive. You don't have a huge brand logo on your face. You'll just want to be in them all the time. And my girlfriend and I have been wearing them for the last few months. Their men's core short, K O R E, the most comfortable lined athletic short is your one short for every sport. I've been using it for kettlebell swings, for runs, you name it. The Banks short, this is their go to land to sea short is the ultimate in versatility. It's made from recycled plastic bottles. And what I'm wearing right now, which I had

• 2:08:27Tim Ferriss?

  to pick one to recommend to folks out there, or at least to men out there, is the Ponto Performance Pant. And you'll find these at the link I'm going to give you guys. You can check out what I'm talking about. But I'm wearing them right now. They're thin performance sweatpants, but that doesn't do them justice. So you got to check it out. P O N T O, Ponto Performance Pant. For you ladies, the women's performance jogger is the softest jogger you'll ever own. Vuori isn't just an investment in your clothing, it's an investment in your happiness. And for you, my dear listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase. So get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet. It's super popular. A lot of my friends have now noticed are

• 2:09:07Tim Ferriss?

  wearing this. And so am I. vuoriclothing.com/Tim. That's V U O R I Clothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you'll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. So check it out. vuoriclothing.com/Tim. That's B U O R I Clothing.com/Tim. And discover the versatility of Vuori Clothing.

• 2:09:38Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by House of Macadamias delicious and nutritious nuts. Holy hell, folks, I tell you, these things are delicious. I've been gobbling them all day. Anyway, I love macadamia nuts and have been enjoying them often since keto expert Dr. Dominic D'Agostino recommended them way back on the podcast in 2015. They taste great and they have more healthy monounsaturated fat than both olive oil and avocados, 27% fewer grams of carbs than almonds, and more than 50% fewer grams of carbs than cashews. They're the perfect low-carb keto-friendly nutty snack. In fact, I just ate a handful of lightly white chocolate dusted, dare I say, macadamias about an hour ago to keep me going through the afternoon until dinner. It is the perfect snack for me. And I will

• 2:10:22Tim Ferriss?

  say this, House of Macadamias produces the best tasting macadamia nuts I've ever eaten that I've ever had by far. That's due in part to their location in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, which provides the ideal temperature, altitude, soil composition, rainwater, and pristine mountain water for growing, you guessed it, macadamias. House of Macadamias have partnered with the largest macadamia producer in the world comprising 94 independent farmers in South Africa, which gets them first pick of the highest quality macadamia nuts in the region to make their one-of-a-kind snacks, like their vegan, paleo, and keto-friendly chocolate dipped macadamias. They really took their time to get all of this right, and they've done more than two years of flavor testing,

• 2:11:04Tim Ferriss?

  and you can taste that in each packet you consume. And I've had two of those today. Listeners of the Tim Ferriss Show can use code TIM20, that's T-I-M-2-0, to get 20% off of all orders, plus free two-day shipping across the US, UK, and African continent with the purchase of two or more boxes. Visit houseofmacadamias.com/tim to discover some of the most delicious and nutritious nuts on the planet. Again, one more time, that's houseofmacadamias.com/tim code TIM20.