#322: Adam Robinson — Outflanking and Outsmarting the Competition

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I share the habits, tools and patterns of world-class performers. This special short episode features insights from Adam Robinson (@IAmAdamRobinson https://twitter.com/iamadamrobinson?lang=en). His answers to my questions were highlighted in my most recent book, Tribe of Mentors https://tribeofmentors.com/. For those of you not familiar with Adam, he has made a lifelong study of outflanking and outsmarting the competition. He is a rated chess master who was awarded a Life Title by the United States Chess Federation. As a teenager, he was personally mentored by Bobby Fischer in the 18 months leading up to his winning the world championship. Then, in his first career, he developed a revolutionary approach to taking standardized tests as one of the two original co-founders of The Princeton Review. His paradigm-breaking — or “category killing,” as they say in publishing — test-prep book, The SAT: Cracking the System https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-System-SAT-Princeton-Review/dp/0394743423?tag=offsitoftimfe-20, is the only test-prep book ever to have become a New York Times bestseller. After selling his interest in The Princeton Review, Adam turned his attention in the early ’90s to the then-emerging field of artificial intelligence, developing a program that could analyze text and provide human-like commentary. He was later invited to join a well-known quant fund to develop statistical trading models, and since, he has established himself as an independent global macro advisor to the chief investment officers of a select group of the world’s most successful hedge funds and family offices. Adam has also been one of this show's most popular guests, and you can check out his first appearance here https://tim.blog/2016/12/20/becoming-the-best-version-of-you/, and his second here https://tim.blog/2017/02/02/lessons-from-warren-buffett-bobby-fischer-and-other-outliers/. Enjoy! This podcast is brought to you by 99designs http://99designs.com/tim, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. Whether your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99designs http://99designs.com/tim. I used them to rapid prototype the cover http://99designs.com/tim for The Tao of Seneca, and I've also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service http://99designs.com/tim. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you're happy with or your money back. Click this link http://www.99designs.com/tim and get a free $99 upgrade. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews! For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor http://tim.blog/sponsor. 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/ Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/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/, 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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

• 0:08Adam Robinson?

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

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

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot, what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first

• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

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

• 1:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, my darling little Marguerite. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to interview world-class performers from every discipline imaginable, to tease out the habits, the patterns, the belief systems, favorite books, whatever it might be that you can apply to your own life. And this episode is going to be a slightly different format. You will get what I just mentioned, and it will be with one of the biggest surprise hit guests that I've ever had on the podcast. And you wanted me to have him back on to pick up where we left off and to ask the rapid-fire questions that are your favorites, which we didn't get to. And that is the purpose

• 2:06Tim Ferriss?

  of this recording. And he does deliver. His name is Adam. So without further ado, let's get into it.

• 2:18Tim Ferriss?

  Our guest today is Adam Robinson. You can find him on Twitter @IAMADAMROBINSON or at robinsonglobalstrategies.com. Adam has made a lifelong study of outflanking and outsmarting the competition. He is a rated chess master and has been awarded a Life Master title by the United States Chess Federation. As a teenager, he was personally mentored by Bobby Fischer in the 18 months leading up to his winning the world championship. And Adam and I talked a lot about this in our first conversation on The Tim Ferriss Show, which you guys can check out. But, back to the bio. Then, in Adam's first career, he developed a revolutionary approach to taking standardized tests as one of the two original co-founders of The Princeton Review.

• 3:00Tim Ferriss?

  His paradigm-breaking, or category-killing, as they say in publishing, test prep book Cracking the System, the SAT, is the only test prep book to have ever become a New York Times bestseller. After selling his interest in The Princeton Review, Adam turned his attention in the early 90s to the then emerging field of artificial intelligence, developing a program that could analyze text and provide human-like commentary. He was later invited to join a well-known quant fund to develop statistical trading models, and since, he has established himself as an independent global macro advisor to the chief investment officers of a select group of the world's most successful hedge funds and ultra-high net worth family offices. If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why?

• 3:45Adam Robinson?

  Well, first, Tim, thanks for having me back. It's always a great joy and a privilege and a pleasure. I'll leave aside the danger of having a text-heavy billboard that would distract passing drivers. Instead, I'll focus on four core quotes I live my life by, two by others, and two by me. First, the two quotes by others. The first is Rudyard Kipling: "If you did not get what you want, it's a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or you tried to bargain over the price." And the second quote is Amelia Earhart's. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity." Kipling and Earhart almost capture the secret to achievement,

• 4:29Adam Robinson?

  but we need to qualify them because they can lead to obstinate persistence, either to goals or methods that aren't working. And because they ignore or dismiss the emotional component of achieving goals. So I'll add two quotes of my own. And the first, and I think this is my favorite personal quote. "If you're not getting the results you want, change what you're doing." You'd think that would be obvious. You'd think people, of course, would change. They would pivot, but they don't. They do more of the same. They double down on what they've already done. They try harder. Okay, so how do you change what you're doing? A good starting point is to take a step in the opposite direction. So if you've been spending a lot of money, spend less.

• 5:14Adam Robinson?

  If you've been making a lot of phone calls, make fewer phone calls or none at all. So these new steps might not work either, in which case, change and change again. Keep pivoting until you find something that works and then do more of that. My second quote is, "If you experience any negative emotion, doubt, fear, frustration, anger, it's almost always a sign to redirect your attention, either to the task at hand or to others." Michael Jordan once said that he's never thought about missing a shot. And the reason he's never thought about missing a shot is that his attention is totally focused on making the shot. So it would be wrong to say that Michael Jordan was self-confident about making the shot, because the attention there would be focused not on making the shot,

• 5:59Adam Robinson?

  but on himself. So self-confidence, in this sense, is almost as bad as self-doubt. Your attention is focused on the wrong thing. It's focused on yourself as opposed to the shot you're trying to make, or the task at hand, whatever it might be, or the other, the other person. So I have dozens, actually hundreds of other quotes that resonate with how I live my life, but for a billboard, I would confine myself to those four.

• 6:23Tim Ferriss?

  What are bad recommendations that you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

• 6:28Adam Robinson?

  My field is that of global finance, and virtually all investors have been told when they were younger, or implicitly believe, or have been tacitly encouraged to do so by the cookie cutter curriculums of business schools they all attend, that the more they understand the world, the better their investment results. It makes sense, doesn't it? The more information we acquire and evaluate, the air quotes "better informed" we become, and the better our decisions. Accumulating information, becoming better informed, is certainly an advantage in numerous, if not most, fields. But not in the counterintuitive world of investing, where accumulating information can actually hurt your investment results.

• 7:10Adam Robinson?

  So in 1974, Paul Slovic, a world-class psychologist, and a peer of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, decided to evaluate the effect of information on decision-making. This study should be taught at every business school in the country. Slovic gathered eight professional horse handicappers and announced to them, "I want to see how well you predict the winners of horse races." Now, these handicappers were all seasoned professionals who made their living solely on their gambling skills. Slovic told them the test would consist of predicting 40 horse races in four consecutive rounds. In the first round, each gambler would be given the five pieces of information he wanted on each horse, which would vary from handicapper

• 7:52Adam Robinson?

  to handicapper. One handicapper, for example, might want the years of experience the jockey has had as one of his top five variables, while another might not care at all about that, but want the fastest speed for any given horse it achieved in the past year, or the weight of the jockey, or whatever. Finally, in addition to asking the handicappers to predict the winner of each race, he asked each one to also state how confident he was in his prediction. Now, as it turns out, there were an average of 10 horses in each race, so we would expect by blind chance, random guessing, that each handicapper would be right 10% of the time, and that their confidence with a blind guess to be 10%. So in round one, let's see how they did.

• 8:36Adam Robinson?

  With just five pieces of information, the handicappers were 17% accurate, which is pretty good actually, 70% better than the 10% chance they started with, given zero pieces of information. And interestingly, their confidence was 19%, almost exactly as confident as they should have been. They were 17% accurate and 19% confident in their predictions. Excellent calibration. In round two, they were then given 10 pieces of information. In round three, 20. And in the fourth and final round, each handicapper was given 40 pieces of information. That's a whole lot more statistics than the five pieces of information they each started with.

• 9:18Adam Robinson?

  Surprisingly, their accuracy had flatlined at 17%. They were no more accurate with the additional 35 pieces of information they had. Unfortunately, their confidence in their predictions had nearly doubled to 31%. So the additional information made them no more accurate, but a whole lot more confident, which would have led them to increase the size of their bets and lose money as a result. Beyond a certain amount of information, a certain minimal amount, additional information only feeds confirmation bias, leaving aside the considerable cost and delay occasioned in acquiring that information. The additional information we gain

• 10:01Adam Robinson?

  that conflicts with our original assessment or conclusion, we conveniently ignore or dismiss, while the information that confirms our original decision makes us increasingly certain that our conclusion was correct. So to return to investing, the second problem with trying to understand the world is that it is simply far too complex to grasp. And the more dogged our attempts to understand the world, the more earnestly we want to explain, that's air quotes, explain events and trends in it. The more we become attached to our resulting beliefs, which are almost always more or less mistaken, blinding us to the financial trends that are actually unfolding right in front of our eyes. Worse, we think we understand the world, giving us a false sense of confidence,

• 10:45Adam Robinson?

  when in fact, we are almost always more or less mistaken. You hear all the time, from even the most seasoned investors and financial experts, that this trend or that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that the dollar keeps going lower, or it makes no sense that stocks keep going higher. But what's really going on when investors say that something makes no sense is that they have a dozen or whatever reasons why the trend should be moving in the opposite direction, yet it keeps moving in the current direction. So they believe the "trend," air quotes, makes no sense. But what makes no sense is their model of the world. That's what doesn't make sense. The world always makes sense. We just don't understand it. In fact, because financial trends involve

• 11:29Adam Robinson?

  human behavior and human beliefs on a global scale, the most powerful trends won't make sense until it becomes too late to profit from them. By the time investors formulate an understanding, again, a false understanding, that gives them the feeling of confidence to invest, the investment opportunity has likely already passed. So when I hear sophisticated investors or financial commentators say, for example, that it makes no sense how energy stocks keep going lower, I know that energy stocks have a lot lower to go because all those investors are on the wrong side of the trade, in denial, probably doubling down on their original decision to buy energy stocks. Eventually, they'll be forced to throw in the towel and have to sell those energy stocks, driving prices still lower.

• 12:13Tim Ferriss?

  What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made?

• 12:17Adam Robinson?

  I've made many investments in my life of money, of time, of energy, of passion and emotion. And one of the best payoffs for the amount invested was learning to meditate. I've always been driven, excited by the world, so my mind is continually racing at 1,000 miles per hour, pursuing this question or that, creating this system or that, nonstop, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 366 on leap years. Now, all that nonstop mental and psychic stimulation gets exhausting, of course. And if you want to perform optimally at anything, you need to find a way to recover from the stresses of that activity.

• 12:58Adam Robinson?

  So I knew that though I should find a way to turn off my mind and air quotes, "just relax", "just enjoy", "just be", for years, I had failed to find a way. I tried everything, yoga, exercise, I even tried hypnosis. I researched once the best hypnotist in New York City as a way to somehow turn off my hyperactive mind. But after four attempted and hugely expensive sessions with this guy, the hypnotist gave up, saying, "Your mind is too active to submit to the hypnosis." "Well, thanks a lot, doc", I told him, not concealing my annoyance. That's exactly why I had come to him. Then, about two years ago, my bestie Josh Waitzkin,

• 13:41Adam Robinson?

  recognizing that I couldn't unwind or disengage from my relentless analyzing the world, especially the financial world, recommended that I take up meditation. "Sorry", I said, "it doesn't work for me. I can't sit still long enough for any benefits of meditating to kick in." So he asked, "Have you ever tried heart rate variability training? HRV training?" And I said, "No, what's that?" He said that you just focused on your breathing using biofeedback to measure the smoothness and the amplitude, hence the word variability, of your heart rate. The heart, not surprisingly, registers all our real-time emotions and stresses. So the normal heartbeat is highly erratic,

• 14:27Adam Robinson?

  staying within a tight band around an average. The goal with the biofeedback training is to gain control over your own heart rate by focusing on your breathing, making your jagged heart rate smooth out like a sine curve and to widen its amplitude. That sounded interesting, but it wasn't until I reframed meditation that I submitted to trying it. The problem with meditation, I thought, was that it wasn't practical. And worse, the time I spent meditating was time I could have spent analyzing the world. But I eventually reframed meditation as a way to relinquish control of my conscious mind, so that my more powerful unconscious mind could take over, and my analysis of the world would improve.

• 15:08Adam Robinson?

  Motivated by that reframing, I enthusiastically adopted biofeedback HRV training, and in a few weeks learned to quiet my mind after just a single, deep, diaphragm belly breath, gaining the ability to achieve a zen-like calm on demand. Now, whenever I need to detach from the world, or from the stresses of daily life, and to allow my mind a rest, I simply get centered and inhale from my diaphragm, and I do so numerous times a day. A minute here, a minute there, and at least once a day, I waste, that's air quotes, I waste a larger fifteen to twenty minute block of time meditating in this way. But it's not wasted time, of course, since the increased creativity and productivity

• 15:51Adam Robinson?

  from these many restorative sessions is far more valuable than the time I spend being unproductive, again, air quotes, while meditating. Meditation is one of the most practical, powerful, productivity-enhancing tools ever created, and learning to meditate is one of the best investments I've ever made.

• 16:12Tim Ferriss?

  What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months or in recent memory?

• 16:19Adam Robinson?

  Well, this purchase is not less than $100, but at $159, it is too close to pass up. The HeartMath Interbalance Biofeedback Monitor. It detects your heart's minutest rhythms and sends a graph to your smartphone, facilitating HRV training. And while you're at it, get the book HeartMath Solution. In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?

• 16:50Adam Robinson?

  The understanding, which has become a habit that has most improved my life in the last five years, dramatically so, is recognizing the importance of others in not only changing the world, but in enjoying it. By nature, I'm an introvert, so much so that some friends revealed after high school that there were students, classmates of mine, who had never seen me speak, not once, in all of high school. By the time I graduated from Oxford, after doing my undergraduate work at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, I'd begun to emerge from my interior world to a great extent, but I was still ninety-five to five on the introvert-extrovert scale.

• 17:32Adam Robinson?

  I very much enjoyed the company of other people, but only for brief periods, fifteen, thirty minutes, beyond which I'd reach overload and I need to seclude myself to recharge. After college, in my career, my success in the world was the product of my insights and imagination and thinking. So I inhabited the world of ideas far more than I did the world of people. The more and better ideas I came up with, the more success I achieved. So it came as a surprise relatively late in life, in fact, only in the past year, that if you want to change the world, you have to enroll others in your plans and vision. Not only that, but I discovered the immense pleasures and satisfactions that can be derived

• 18:14Adam Robinson?

  from focusing on others and putting them first, and the surprising discovery that the more I gave to others, which I'd always done, the more the universe gave me back in return. Whereas in the past, when I went outside and encountered others, I would invariably be lost in thought. Now I am solely focused, not inwardly on my ideas, but outwardly on connecting with others. I mentioned this discovery publicly for the first time in a live group podcast I did with you, Tim, back in December 2016, and was inspired shortly thereafter to write a book, "An Invitation to the Great Game: A Parable of Love, Magic, and Everyday Miracles", in which I articulate my three guiding rules of life. First, whenever possible, connect with others.

• 18:59Adam Robinson?

  Second, with enthusiasm, strive always to create fun and delight for others. And third, lean into each moment and every encounter expecting magic or miracles.

• 19:12Adam Robinson?

  This discovery so profoundly altered my life path, revealing for the first time my true mission on this planet, that I now divide my life into two periods, pre-discovery of others and post-discovery. Now I so eagerly look forward to leaving my home each day, wondering what magic I'll create encountering others that I can scarcely contain myself. My days now have a natural rhythm between introversion and extroversion that is akin to breathing. When I'm alone, I inhale my ideas and then I exhale with others. The number of remarkable people and serendipities and successes that have come into my life since I've adopted this awareness of others, which quickly developed into a reflexive habit of directing my attention solely on them

• 19:57Adam Robinson?

  when I am not alone, has been nothing short of astonishing. So Tim, I have to thank you for inspiring that book with that question at the 92nd Street Y, what have you learned this past year? And the book, An Invitation to the Great Game, will be coming out soon, in January.

• 20:15Tim Ferriss?

  What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the real world?

• 20:20Adam Robinson?

  Yikes. I could write a book in response to this question. So instead, I'll just toss out a hodgepodge of observations, truths, maxims, caveats, and exhortations that I wish I'd known or at least fully appreciated when I had just entered the real world myself. Congratulations. You recently left, or you'll soon be leaving, an ecosystem you've known your whole life for an entirely new one. To switch analogies, you're leaving a game you've played since at least first grade with a rulebook you've consciously, if not unconsciously assimilated and more or less mastered for an entirely new game with no formal rulebook handed out. You'll have to write your own rulebook.

• 21:05Adam Robinson?

  You'd think the point of education would be to prepare you for the real world. But the real world is more unlike school than like it. Indeed, you'll find that many of the traits and habits and behaviors that served you well in school will either not work in the real world or will work against you. So you'll have to adopt an experimental attitude towards everything, continually testing what works for you and what doesn't. Graduating from college or leaving behind your formal schooling, whatever form it took, to enter the real world is a major step since it marks the first time in your life when you'll be making most of the decisions that affect that life, rather than being told what to do or being assigned what to do. You won't receive a clear course syllabus every few months

• 21:50Adam Robinson?

  detailing the assignments and exactly what is expected of you and the standards by which a single person, your professor, will evaluate your work and award you a single letter grade. So you'll have to find your own incentives. Another enormous difference is that for the first time you won't be needing to navigate simply a cohort of peers more or less exactly your age and from very similar backgrounds, if not aspirations, no longer. Now you'll be interacting with a broad spectrum of humanity in all its delightful but sometimes challenging diversity. So you'll need to acquire a whole new set of people skills and ways to relate to others and cultivate what's known as emotional intelligence. So the rhythms of your life, from the daily to the weekly

• 22:35Adam Robinson?

  to the monthly to the yearly, will be ones you establish on your own rather than the structures and timetables dictated by the academic calendar year. You'll find this lack of structure more or less disorienting and the more you develop routines, daily and weekly at least, the better.

• 22:55Adam Robinson?

  Another recommendation, instead of asking yourself, air quotes, "What do you want to do?", ask rather, "Who do you want to be?". Whatever you're doing for work, whatever, throw yourself into it wholeheartedly, even if you realize it's a transitional gig while you search for something better. Don't ever worry that, air quotes, "You'll be doing this for the rest of your life", you won't. But if that's your attitude, you're missing out on the next point. If there were a single quality, underappreciated by recent graduates, that will most ensure your career success. It's not the obvious ones like intelligence and good habits and discipline, and the capacity for hard work, but rather this: enthusiasm.

• 23:40Adam Robinson?

  In all matters, be enthusiastic. And others will want to be around you, including work with you, and you'll flourish. Unrelenting enthusiasm, I can't recommend that strongly enough, unrelenting. As long as you're following all the other rules here, have patience. Life moves at once much slower than you expect and much faster. You can be doing everything right, paying your dues, and for months or years, it seems like you're not making any progress. And then, all of a sudden, boom, your life explodes forward at light speed. Benjamin Disraeli said that the secret to success was being ready for your opportunity when it presents itself. Until then, pay your dues. Your success in the world rests largely on your ability

• 24:25Adam Robinson?

  to create compelling, positive visions of the future that others feel irresistibly drawn to be a part of. That goes not only for your professional life, but also for your personal and even romantic life. As early as you can, try to connect to your personal mission. Who are you here on this planet to be? Mark Twain said the two most important days in your life are the day you're born and the day you discover why. I promise you, the sooner you become aware of a mission larger than yourself that you are devoted to, the exponentially more rapidly your personal and professional goals will be achieved. Find out what you love to do and do best, and cultivate that talent or talents.

• 25:08Adam Robinson?

  Then be relentless in finding jobs or situations in which those strengths and passions are most in demand.

• 25:16Adam Robinson?

  Know what your hammer is, in a sense, and then look for nails to hit. The most important gifts and goals in life, including love, success, and happiness, are never achieved, I want to underscore that, never achieved by pursuing them directly.

• 25:33Adam Robinson?

  Those people focused on finding love, for example, have their attention and priorities diverted from being the kind of loving, lovable person that would actually attract the love they're looking for. And if your focus is on becoming successful, or wealthy, or whatever, your attention isn't focused on the activities, and tasks, and others, that will actually lead to that success and wealth. Love, success, and happiness catch you best by surprise, while your attention is focused on doing in the world and being your best self in that world.

• 26:06Tim Ferriss?

  When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?

• 26:11Adam Robinson?

  When I'm feeling unfocused, the first question I ask myself is, "Am I rehearsing my best self?" And if the answer is no, I ask myself how I can reset.

• 26:22Adam Robinson?

  Each day presents us with 86,400 seconds, which means each day presents us with virtually countless opportunities to reset, recover our balance, and continue rehearsing our best selves. If I realize my focus is off, and certainly when I'm experiencing any negative emotions, I ask myself, "Where should my attention be right now?" Almost always, the answer is "my mission," which is like a beacon that always beckons. But sometimes I take on too many commitments, because I sometimes have trouble saying no to others eager to work with me. I can become a bit overcommitted and overwhelmed. So when that happens, rather than attempting to do everything badly, I ask myself, "What

• 27:07Adam Robinson?

  activity or commitment can I cut out right now that will free up the most time?" Reminds me in a funny way of this news story I read ages ago about a small European town, I won't say what country lest I offend it unnecessarily, in which the postal workers had trouble keeping up with their deliveries. So on Monday, they'd do their best to deliver the mail, but they'd have some pieces left over, which they'd add to Tuesday's delivery pile. Tuesday, they'd fall further behind, of course, and Wednesday and Thursday, further still. By Friday, they'd have an enormous pile of undelivered mail, which they'd burn so they could start fresh on Monday. The process would repeat the next week, a small bonfire every Friday purging their delivery vans of that week's undelivered mail.

• 27:51Adam Robinson?

  Now, that was a highly dubious way of resetting each week, which I don't recommend. But the idea of having a fresh restart whenever overwhelmed is excellent. So let's say by noon on any given day, I'm falling behind. And it's clear I'm in danger of becoming overwhelmed in short order. Rather than attempting to keep all of my afternoon appointments, which I'd reach later and later as the day progressed, I scan my calendar and I ask myself, which is the earliest appointment, as it were, I can burn by postponing it to another day? I'd rather reschedule one appointment and make the other three on time than be late and frazzled for all four appointments that afternoon. Speaking of which, each week, I leave one day completely open

• 28:36Adam Robinson?

  and schedule a pretend trip out of the city, so that I'm not tempted to fill it in any way, not even meeting with friends or having other fun diversions. Then, if an emergency arises or I fall behind and become overwhelmed, I know I have a "free day," air quotes, a free day, to use any way I'd like. So when I get overwhelmed trying to juggle too many balls simultaneously, I ask myself, which one or two balls can I set down for the moment so that I can get caught up on all the others?

• 29:06Tim Ferriss?

  In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to?

• 29:11Adam Robinson?

  This is such an important lesson, being able to say no. It's especially hard for me because of my inherent optimism and my unflagging enthusiasm, and because I always lean into each moment and every encounter expecting magic or miracles. And because life has rewarded me increasingly with tantalizing offers. So I not infrequently say yes too often to my regret, because I wind up overloading my cognitive or physical or energy bandwidths, or simply run out of time. So I've found a powerfully useful editing principle, as it were, in deciding whether to say yes or no to any particular request or proposal or invitation or opportunity is answering the following question:

• 29:56Adam Robinson?

  Will saying yes to this option advance any important goals in my life, especially my calling or my mission? The key point there is to have a personal mission in the world, which will not only give you a stronger sense of direction and structure and energy and motivation personally as well as professionally, but it's also a filter with which you can decide whether to say yes to any particular short-term or long-term options or opportunities that arise for you on any given day. Keep in mind that the time spent on pursuits not related to your mission is time that could have been spent on it. Not that all your time, of course, should be devoted to your mission. You'll have other goals in your life, personal and professional,

• 30:40Adam Robinson?

  and sometimes you'll just want to goof off or otherwise enjoy yourself. But the sooner you connect to your mission, the sooner all aspects of your life will fall into place.

• 30:50Tim Ferriss?

  What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

• 30:55Adam Robinson?

  In the old television show Candid Camera, reprised by Ashton Kutcher, punked in more recent times, unsuspecting people were videotaped coping in real time with an insane pre-arranged situation, usually to great ensuing hilarity. I get endless delight covertly ambushing unsuspecting strangers with random acts of kindness. So for example, after ordering my iced latte, I'll give a Starbucks barista a $20 bill and tell him or her to comp the person right after the person behind me for whatever he or she wants, and to give that person the change as well. I don't do the person immediately behind me who might suspect that I was the mystery benefactor.

• 31:40Adam Robinson?

  Then I sip my latte from afar and watch the confusion give way to smiles when the random beneficiary realizes the unexpected bounty. Sometimes the person leaves all the changes at tip. Sometimes he or she will pay it forward and gift the next person behind a free coffee. But the beneficiary always leaves smiling broadly. And I know that I've unleashed a positive ripple effect in that person's community and to anyone he or she encounters that day. I love spreading the magic.

• 32:11Tim Ferriss?

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

• 32:53Tim Ferriss?

  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 99designs. Whether you need a logo, custom website, app, book cover, or anything else. 99designs was created to make great design accessible to everyone, that's you. And to make the process as easy as possible. I've used 99designs for years now. I've used them for book covers, some mockups for The Four Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller.

• 33:35Tim Ferriss?

  Illustrations of all different types for the multi-volume The Tao of Seneca, which you can check out. And other graphic design projects for a long time now. And I've been very impressed by the quality of their designers and illustrators. And you don't have to take my word for it. You should check out some of my projects. At 99designs.com/tim. I really encourage you to take a look because you will be impressed. 99designs.com/tim. 99designs has freelance experts in more than 90 design categories. And their platform lets you work directly with one designer that you choose if you like their stuff, which is what I did for the Tao of Seneca, or you can get concepts from multiple designers and then pick your favorite. So whether you're starting a business or just looking for extra design help, resources, etc., 99designs has a solution.

• 34:20Tim Ferriss?

  Right now, you guys, my listeners, can receive a free $99 upgrade on your first design. To check out your first free upgrade, please visit 99designs.com/tim and click the link on the landing page. You can also find their samples of projects from you guys, listeners, who have used 99designs for logos, apps, even product packaging. So check it out. 99designs.com/tim.