#586: The Random Show with Kevin Rose — Current Books, Men's Groups, Tuna Helper, the Latest in NFTs, Fierce Intimacy, and More

Brought to you by https://juneshine.com/timWealthfront http://wealthfront.com/tim automated investing, Ascent Protein https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim premium protein, and Shopify http://shopify.com/tim global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. Technologist, serial entrepreneur, world-class investor, self-experimenter, and all-around wild and crazy guy Kevin Rose (@KevinRose https://www.instagram.com/kevinrose/) rejoins me for another episode of The Random Show. In this one we discuss the books that we are currently reading, outdated behaviors, healing with men’s groups, masculinity, Kevin’s new Moonbirds https://moonbirds.xyz/ project (a collection of 10,000 utility-enabled PFPs), my first NFT http://tim.blog/nft, and much, much more. Please enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront http://wealthfront.com/Tim! Wealthfront http://wealthfront.com/Tim pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $27 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite http://wealthfront.com/Tim and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost. Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim http://wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life http://wealthfront.com/Tim. Wealthfront http://wealthfront.com/Tim will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim http://wealthfront.com/Tim. * This episode is also brought to you by Ascent Protein https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim! Ever since I wrote The 4-Hour Body, starting my day with ~30 grams of protein has been an essential part of my routine. I’ve been using Ascent https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim’s whey protein for the last several years, and I recently tried their new plant-based protein. I’ve experimented with many other plant-based proteins, and most compromise on taste or efficacy, but Ascent Plant Protein https://www.ascentprotein.com/pages/tim?utm_campaign=vanityurl&utm_medium=partners&utm_source=tim is delicious and provides 25 grams of protein with 4 grams of BCAAs to support muscle health. To ensure their product tastes great, Ascent verified it with third-party consumer research, and it won on taste and texture against the market leader. What’s more, it’s made from organic, real-food sources like organic pea, pumpkin, and sunflower and contains zero artificial ingredients, artificial sweeteners, or added sugars. Visit AscentProtein.com/Tim https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim and use the code 20TFASCENT and you’ll receive 20% off of your entire purchase. This code is valid on their website https://www.ascentprotein.com/tim and on Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Organic-Plant-Protein-Powder/dp/B092XBM5W8/?maas=maas_adg_6CDF8D77CF3F0DD781EC43AE99DFC52B_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&ref=sr_1_4&m=A3782EXB865CBV&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1649093860&s=merchant-items&sr=1-4. If you want a quick dose of protein to start your day or end a workout, this is a great option and my default. Enjoy! * This episode is also brought to you by Shopify http://shopify.com/tim! Shopify http://shopify.com/tim is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify http://shopify.com/tim is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required. More than a store, Shopify grows with you, and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/tim for a FREE 14-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. http://shopify.com/tim * What are Kevin and I stupidly frugal about? [06:15] Tobacco talk, Zoom group therapy, and books we’ve been reading. [10:20] Thoughts on men’s groups, healthy venting, the demonization of masculinity, and groupthink. [37:11] How my first NFT came to be, and the story behind PROOF Collective’s Grails project. [45:45] What’s a utility NFT, and will my NFT have utility attached to it? While a great idea in theory, what problems might arise over the lifetime of a utility NFT? How is the PROOF Collective trying to alleviate such problems? [52:30] Can FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) be a good thing in the NFT world? [59:29] The difficulties presented by trying to serve a massive audience on a reasonable budget, and how PROOF Collective’s new PFP project, Moonbirds, will try to do it right. [1:03:15] Could an NFT project get me canceled? Perhaps someday we’ll see. [1:06:15] Is Harlan Estate the Moonbirds of wine, or is Moonbirds the Harlan Estate of NFTs? Kevin explains why he’s particularly excited about the possibilities of Web3 — and why Adam Gazzaley owes him a bottle of Hibiki 30. [1:08:43] “Apeing” into position while mitigating downside when opportunity seems to be knocking. [1:12:52] Why Kevin believes now is the time to get a foundational understanding of how blockchains and NFTs work even if you don’t have big money to spend in the game. [1:16:57] Don’t want to mingle with people at a conference? Tell them this. [1:17:37] Parting thoughts. [1:20:05] * 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/, 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 Ascent Protein. I have been using Ascent Protein as my primary protein powder for the last five years or so now. I first tried them back in around 2017. Ever since I wrote The Four Hour Body, as many of you know, I've been starting my day with roughly 30 grams of protein. This has been part of my routine, the 30 grams within 30 minutes rule. Ascent Protein is arguably the easiest way to get this done. I love Ascent Protein. I recently had a chance to try Ascent's organic, plant-based protein, which is new. If you've tried other plant-based proteins, you know, as I do, they can taste absolutely terrible and contain added sugars and all sorts of other nonsense. This is not the case with Ascent.

• 0:43Tim Ferriss?

  There are a bunch of things that make their protein unique. So let me mention just a couple of them. Ascent's plant-based protein actually tastes delicious. There are no added sugars and you get 25 grams of protein per serving to help support muscle health. One small scoop contains more muscle repairing BCAAs, those are branched-chain amino acids, than an equivalent serving of chicken, beef, eggs, or salmon. Now, you might call BS on that, but there are a few particulars that are worth noting. So for those of you who can appreciate this, the leucine content of their plant-based protein is on par with their absolutely incredible whey protein. So the plant protein supports muscle health in that capacity just as well as their whey protein. Leucine is a key component of this.

• 1:27Tim Ferriss?

  That's unusual. The next thing that is unusual is they include sunflower and pumpkin protein. That's pretty rare in this category, which helps to combat some of the texture and astringency issues that are common with plant-based proteins. And as with all Ascent products, their plant-based protein is entirely free of artificial ingredients and informed, sport-certified to be free of banned substances. You also don't have to worry about gluten or soy, neither are in the product. Ascent does a ton of R&D and testing to get things right. I've had a lot of email exchanges with them, especially in the beginning. As one example, they tested 282 versions of their chocolate flavor before getting it just right and dialed. So what do I personally do?

• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

  I like to add one scoop of this protein to roughly five to six ounces of water, maybe a little bit more as part of my daily routine, usually in the morning or post workout. Morning is kind of the easiest way to do the 30 and 30 that I mentioned earlier. Mix it up in a shaker or in a water bottle. I just use a water bottle and keep it low tech. And you've got a full serving of Elite Protein in less than 60 seconds. So check it out. Visit ascentprotein.com/tim and use the code 20TFASSENT for 20% off of your entire order. This code is valid on their website and on amazon.com. Again, that's ascentprotein.com, A-S-C-E-N-T, protein.com/tim and use code 20TFASSENT for 20% off.

• 2:56Tim Ferriss?

  One last time, it's 20TFASSENT for 20% off and that applies on their website as well as on amazon.com. Some restrictions apply. Enjoy.

• 3:10Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is one of my favorite companies out there. One of my favorite platforms ever. And let's get into it. Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone to sell anything, anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. So what does that mean? That means in no time flat, you can have a great looking online store that brings your ideas, products and so on to life. And you can have the tools to manage your day to day business and drive sales. This is all possible without any coding or design experience whatsoever. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods. Shopify has thousands of integrations and third party apps from on-demand printing to accounting to advanced chatbots, anything you can imagine.

• 3:54Tim Ferriss?

  They probably have a way to plug and play and make it happen. Shopify is what I wish I had had when I was venturing into e-commerce way back in the early 2000s. What they've done is pretty remarkable. I first met the founder, Toby, in 2008 when I became an advisor and it's been spectacular. I've loved watching Shopify go from roughly 10 to 15 employees at the time to 7,000 plus today, serving customers in 175 countries.

• 4:20Tim Ferriss?

  With total sales on the platform exceeding $400 billion. But what does that really mean? That means every 28 seconds, more or less, a small business owner makes their first sale on Shopify. More people in more places of all ages every single day. They power millions of entrepreneurs from their first sale all the way to full scale. And you would recognize a lot of large companies that also use them who started small. So get started by building and customizing your online store, again, with no coding or design experience required. Access powerful tools to help you find customers, drive sales and manage your day to day. Gain knowledge and confidence with extensive resources to help you succeed.

• 5:01Tim Ferriss?

  And I've actually been involved with some of that way back in the day, which was awesome. The build a business competition and other things. Plus with 24/7 support, you're never alone. And let's face it, being an entrepreneur can be lonely, but you have support. You have resources. You don't need to feel alone in this case. More than a store, Shopify grows with you and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/Tim. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com/Tim. All lowercase for a free 14 day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Start selling on Shopify today.

• 5:43Tim Ferriss?

  Go to Shopify.com/Tim right now and check it out. They have a lot to offer. Shopify.com/Tim.

• 5:52Tim Ferriss?

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

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 6:03Speaker 01

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

• 6:15Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, and Kevin Rose. Welcome to a new episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, but this episode is a random show episode. Kevin, nice to see you.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Dude, good to see you, brother. Been too long.

• 6:27Tim Ferriss?

  It has been a little while, and as I'm sitting here, you know, I'm holding this $80 mic in a probably what is a stand that costs 15 cents to manufacture. And we were laughing a little bit before recording because you mentioned that you had a family plan with some piece of software instead of the business plan because it saves you like $3 a month.

• 6:52Tim Ferriss?

  And I was wondering, yeah, I was wondering, like, where are you unreasonably cheap or sensitive? Because I still have a bunch of stupid, completely outdated behaviors around saving, like, I mean, literally, a dollar here, a dollar there, $20 here, $20 there. And I was like, and the reason I'm holding this mic is because my cable is too short to have power and this mic in this confined space at the same time. So after 600 episodes, maybe it's time for me to invest in a better rig.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you have, you have budget for that, I would imagine.

• 7:36Tim Ferriss?

  I do have.

• 7:40Tim Ferriss?

  Of all the things that I should put a little, little coin into, that would be one. Is there anything that you're stupidly frugal about?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Oh, dude, there's a ton of things like this is the weird thing is I think it comes down from like being raised with not a lot of cash and then having a little bit more disposable income as you get older. And when you think about like, one of the things I did is I signed up for the Spotify Couples Plan because there's, there's like a five pack or something and the family plan. But there's a, there's a special Couples Plan where it's just two people. And so I did that because it saves me like $3 a month. But the other thing, though, that sucks is like, then you can't tie any other accounts to any of the other devices. So like, for example, I have my Sonos is my account and my wife's account is in her Tesla.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  And then in my Tesla is my account. And so like, I'll be driving around and like, it'll get switched off because somebody turns on the Sonos or something like that. And it's all because I don't want to spend an extra $4 so I can have those extra couple of accounts.

• 8:40Tim Ferriss?

  I just want to point out for people who missed it, two individual Teslas, but at least you're saving those $3 a month.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. Yeah, saving that three bucks.

• 8:52Tim Ferriss?

  Old habits die hard. Old habits die hard, man. I mean,

• 8:55Speaker 03

  We don't have the expensive Teslas.

• 8:57Tim Ferriss?

  We have the, the expensive ones. It's okay. You're allowed. I would also say, you know, I grew up where we would eat, we had a lot of TV dinners growing up.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, same.

• 9:09Tim Ferriss?

  We did not have a lot of money and I became very sensitive to wasting food. So I would say if I look back at the food poisoning or anything bordering on food poisoning that I've had in the last two years, I'd say at least 50% of it is self inflicted and it's from saving, not wanting to throw away food. And then like forgetting about some equivalent of like chicken tenders or something that I got to take out. And then I eat it like four days past the expiration date and then I'm floored for two or three days. So stupid.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's not fun. I used to love Dinty More Beef Stew. We did a lot of tuna helper at my house, which was odd because the hamburger helper was way better than that damn tuna helper.

• 9:52Tim Ferriss?

  That sounds terrible. Never even heard of tuna helper.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  There was tuna helper back in the day. I hope they discontinued it because it was absolutely horrible. But for some reason, my dad was like, oh, tuna is better for him than hamburger or something. So it was always when dad was cooking. When mom was, when mom was cooking, it was like a good meal. And dad, when dad had to like step into the kitchen, like out came the tuna helper or Dinty More Beef Stew or you know, whatever that was in the cans.

• 10:16Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, what a mess.

• 10:20Tim Ferriss?

  All right, so we'll segue from outdated behaviors. We could, we could do a whole episode on those. Where would you like to start? I could kick it off if you want with a bunch of books, because I've been doing a lot of reading. Awesome. Let's start with books. And there's, there's a little something for everybody here, because I have been reading a lot. And in some cases, it's more of a show and tell than reading. So I'll, I'll show you the cover of one that I think you'll particularly like. This is a book called Visions of Japan. And the subtitle is Kawase, that's K A W A S E, Hasui, H A S U I, Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces. So I'll just show the cover here. Awesome.

• 11:01Tim Ferriss?

  It's a beautiful collection of woodblock prints. And some people will recognize, for instance, at least one piece of art by Hokusai, who has the very famous piece of these almost fractal-like waves coming over from left to right, these omen in boats that are coming into these huge waves. And a lot of people would recognize this particular image. Kawase's style is very different, specializes mostly in landscape, trees, and uses snow to tremendous effect. So the assistance he had ultimately in his workshop,

• 11:44Tim Ferriss?

  we were helping with the development of the woodblocks, had to develop new techniques to accommodate the complexity of the snow. And I was introduced to this particular artist through Maria Popova, who created Brain Picker, Brain Pickings, which is now called The Marginalian, which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but so it goes. It's a newsletter and a site that has millions and millions of subscribers now. She's been on the podcast a few times, started as a casual email to, I want to say, six friends at a time, and has grown into this behemoth. She's an incredible writer, and prolific, prolific writer. And she had

• 12:26Tim Ferriss?

  a post on Kawase Hasui. So that's number one. And it's, it's almost all visual, as you can see here. It has

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Crazy.

• 12:35Tim Ferriss?

  Beautiful pieces from every era, every chapter of his life and every possible season and condition in Japan. So this brought back a lot of wonderful memories. So as a coffee table book, something that's easy to dip in and out of that you don't have to read start to finish. That's one. I also recently finished a book called A Moral Man, or A Moral Man, depending on how you read it. And I, I know that is deliberate. So it's one word, A M O R A L M A N, which was recommended to me by Mark Plotkin,

• 13:12Tim Ferriss?

  Dr. Mark Plotkin, who's an ethno botanist and expert primarily in Central and South American medicinal plants, but has a fantastic podcast where he goes into one plant or a set of plants per episode.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Hmm. These aren't like psychedelic. These are like full medicinal, like.

• 13:34Tim Ferriss?

  They're, they're both. So there's some psychedelics. He, he knows those very, very well. But he'll do an entire episode on tobacco, then an entire episode on cannabis, then an entire episode, which will include hemp and the history of hemp in the United States. He'll do an entire episode on coca, an entire episode on wine, for instance, and it goes back and covers the entire history from sort of day one of human history as we have it recorded. Fascinating show. Really fun. Really, really fun.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  I want to hear that tobacco one. I, I wish tobacco was better for you. And I say that because I don't, I've never smoked at all. But I have had a tobacco infused cocktail one time. Oh my God, dude, those are amazing.

• 14:21Tim Ferriss?

  Like strong.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  It's strong. I was at this restaurant in San Francisco and they had taken tobacco leaves and they infused it in this bourbon. And they're not supposed to do this. This is like totally illegal.

• 14:32Tim Ferriss?

  Totally not supposed to do that.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so I ordered, I'm like, that sounds interesting. Like tobacco infused. And they're like, no, no, no. Like it's real tobacco leaves. Are you cool with that? And I'm like, well, I'm not smoking it, I guess. But I've then I later read, you know, obviously any form of like getting tobacco and use bad for you. And so I drank it. And one cocktail and I stand up and I felt my feet were sinking into the ground. I almost fell over. I was buzzed like super high. I was like, oh my God. If you never do nicotine and then you hit that nicotine, it's real.

• 15:04Tim Ferriss?

  It can knock you on your ass. And just safety note, so there's an entire book. It's very academic and dense, so I don't recommend it necessarily, but there's an entire book and I'm going to come back to Immoral Man. But there's a book called something like Tobacco Use in South American Shamanism. And it's an older book. I want to say it was published in the seventies or eighties. The author has a name along the lines of like Johann or Johann Wilbert, I want to say. I've read this entire book and tobacco use is highly prevalent across most of the Amazon. It's consumed in different ways. This is true in North America as well. And if you look at-

• 15:46Speaker 03

  When you say different ways, what do you mean by consumed in different ways? Like what are the different, like there's oral-

• 15:50Tim Ferriss?

  The different means there's, there's smoking, but there are many different ways of smoking. There are snuffs. So you could, you have insufflation, so inhaling tobacco in one form or another, often combined with other things. You have blowing tobacco, either smoke or ground tobacco into the anus. That's one. You have-

• 16:12Speaker 03

  You're being serious.

• 16:14Tim Ferriss?

  I'm being totally serious. You have drinking of tobacco juice, which is, is the one I, I wanted to mention. As in addition to several others, very dangerous. A number of people have died in the last few years in South America as, let's just call it psychedelic tourists, who have ingested tobacco juice. I mean, you can end up with tachycardia and then heart attacks and all sorts of issues. It's very dangerous. You can die of nicotine poisoning. So you need to be extremely cautious about it.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Have you tried any of these?

• 16:48Tim Ferriss?

  I have stayed away. I have experienced sort of insufflation. A lot of people now, it's trendy. I think it's actually- Too trendy in the sense that it can do quite a bit of damage if you're overusing it, but people listening may recognize a word called rape or hoppy. Some people say it with the hoppy, like the Brazilian pronunciation, because they don't want it to sound like rapey. Rape, but it is a pulverized tobacco, often mixed with other things that people will blow into their own nostrils. So there's a V-shaped joined pair of tubing and you stick one end in your mouth and you've already compressed some version of tobacco into the

• 17:31Tim Ferriss?

  other side and then you blow it into your nostril and it shoots up into your sinuses. When you say mixed with other things, what is it typically mixed with? It really depends on, it's like a, it's like a cocktail. It depends on who you're purchasing it from, which tribe, but a lot of these are of dubious origin in the sense that many psychedelic or psychedelic related paraphernalia and compounds are spun a yarn of this incredible history of indigenous use, whereas for instance, toad, so sometimes referred to as bufo, the molecule in question is 5-MEO DMT, five methoxy DMT. There's this

• 18:12Tim Ferriss?

  entire story now, versions of a story spun about indigenous use and there seems to be no compelling evidence that there's actual indigenous use of the bufo alvarius toad, goes by a number of other Latin names, but the Sonoran Desert toad. There seems to be no compelling evidence that this specific toad was used as a source of 5-MEO by any indigenous group. And in fact, it was Ken Nelson, an amateur biochemist who was a genius in many respects, who ultimately through trial and error, developed, smoked venom

• 18:51Tim Ferriss?

  from bufo alvarius as one means of consuming 5-MEO DMT. Now 5-MEO DMT is found in other things. It's found in other plant species, many plant species in different types of tree nuts, for instance, something called yopple. There are many different sources, but I guess the point I want to make, which is a long answer to your question, is that a lot of these Tobacco cocktails that are being sold to blow up your own nostril or nostrils, I don't think have any basis in Indigenous news. But sometimes it's mixed with things that are not psychotropic. I advise generally against this. I mean, there are potential uses, blah, blah, blah.

• 19:31Tim Ferriss?

  But I know people who, just as you can with cigarettes, become addicted to Oda Pe. But because they're in Venice and, you know, doing like a yoga waska retreat and everyone's talking about how highly evolved they are by blowing it up their nostril instead of smoking it, suddenly it's socially reinforced. And then you have people who are going through like an entire canister of this stuff every week because they're addicted to nicotine.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Well, and it's still, they've still proven that this is like bad for the heart and like causes cancer, like this different delivery mechanism doesn't get around that in any way, right?

• 20:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, you can, you can definitely do plenty of damage. I don't know, there may in fact be medical applications. I'm not well enough versed in sort of contemporary medical applications of nicotine. I know that there, there are almost certainly potential medical applications, which would be administered in some way that is not smoking, right? Because like lung cancer.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Lung cancer will kill you, let's be clear. Yeah. I had read something around a study that was done on the nicotine patches and it was more around heart health and there being some potential negative effects around that. But I know a lot of the biohacker community, at least a few people that I bumped into, they like the nicotine patches. They'll slap one on and it's a nice little booster, you know? You take it with your coffee in the morning and it's like you do a rail or something like.

• 20:58Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it'll light you up and it will also put you on the ground. I mean, I've experienced Oda Pe a number of times. It's not my like go to Tuesday, wake me up or anything. And I remember doing it with someone who, at the time, with someone who, who was using it probably. I don't know, 10 to 15 times a week, somewhere, somewhere in that range, like twice a day. And he had a really high tolerance and he packed my tube with, and he's also like mid 200s probably in body weight. So he packed this tube and I blew it up my nostril and I immediately broke out into like a cold sweat. Room is spinning and I needed to lay on my back for like 45 minutes.

• 21:42Tim Ferriss?

  It was awful. It was absolutely terrible. So don't take it lightly. This is a detour we took off of Mark Plotkin. Check out his podcast, Planet of the Gods. He also wrote a book called either The or A Shaman's Apprentice, which is very, very good about his adventures in places like Suriname. Really knows his stuff. He was a protege of an incredible sort of father of ethnobotany in the United States called Richard Evan Schultes, who was at Harvard. I've had Mark on the, on the podcast before. Fascinating guy. Also runs a nonprofit called The Amazon Conservation Team, which does really interesting work in helping indigenous communities in particular,

• 22:23Tim Ferriss?

  not only to secure their land as protected, but also to monitor it using, you know, Raspberry Pi and technology and so on. Because if you can't enforce the boundaries and prevent poachers and illegal logging and so on, there's not really much value to a place being protected, if it makes any sense. But Mark recommended this book, A Moral Man, by a guy named Derek Delgaudio. So Derek Delgaudio, D E L G A U D I O. I recognized because there is a one man show that he did on Hulu, or it was available on Hulu. It was performed in New York City with storytelling sleight of hand, kind of stage mentalism, although a lot of it was just like

• 23:07Tim Ferriss?

  brute force, incredible memorization, called In and of Itself. So if anyone hasn't seen Derek Delgaudio's show, In and of Itself, Kevin, you would love this. It's awesome. It's so good. So Derek Delgaudio, In and of Itself, I recognized the one man show and A Moral Man goes into his entire Life story of growing up with a single mom and then learning about magic, ultimately becoming a card mechanic in illegal games, like high stakes card games. And the whole story is really good. I was very impressed with the writing. So that's one. And then the last one I'll mention is a novel. It's called Ka, just K A,

• 23:49Tim Ferriss?

  by John Crowley, and it is a long book. It's, I would guess I read it on Kindle, but probably four to 500 pages about a single crow who basically, I don't think I'll give away too much here by saying it's reincarnated over and over and over again, and develops the ability to communicate with humans. And it's a cool book. I will warn you in advance that it takes literally 100 pages, probably to get warmed up to the point where you're like, oh, this is actually now interesting. So there's a lot of setup involved. So be forewarned. But John Crowley is interesting to me because he wrote a book, another book that takes about 100 pages

• 24:32Tim Ferriss?

  to get warmed up with, called Little Big, Little, comma, Big. And that is one of the best novels I've ever read in my life. It, it leaves you in a altered state for, at least left me and I know several other people in an altered state for a few weeks after you read this book. Wow. Wait, which one was that called? I'm taking notes here where you said. It's so good. Little Big. Little Big? Little Big. And I think the, an alternate subtitle, or a sometimes included subtitle, is like the ferry's parliament or something like that. But the pro tip with Little Big, it's so good. It, it is, I just, I'm telling people in advance, it's like some heavy lifting in the beginning because you have to establish a bunch of context.

• 25:15Tim Ferriss?

  Once you get to the talking fish, you'll know that you're about to turn a corner into the really wild, fascinating stuff. But there is a family tree. In the beginning of the paperback edition, which was given to me as gift by my brother, and I put it down, I tried to read it and put it down like three times. And I'm just like, why did my brother give this to me? Like, it's not that interesting in the beginning. And then when it finally turns the corner, you're like, oh, my God, this is one of the best books I've ever read. And Wow. So you're back in. You gave up reading new books for a while. Well, I gave up, this is like a technical point that I think is worth underscoring.

• 25:57Tim Ferriss?

  I gave up, and I still am giving up, reading new books, meaning books that are published in this year. But I am reading books. So I'm reading books, but John Crowley's book, Little Big, as well as Ca, these were published many years ago. And the reason I made that decision and policy is because I get deluged with like dozens of books a week that I don't request that get sent to me. And then People want you to plug them. I get the same thing. You get them in the mail. Yeah. And sometimes they're friends, right? Very often they're friends. I mean, that's like, I've done 600 episodes. So it's like, of those 600 people, how many of them write continuously and have books coming out? A lot, right? So I can't accommodate all of

• 26:40Tim Ferriss?

  them, even if I can have one of them on the podcast. If all I did was read one out of every 10 books sent to me, I would never have time to do anything else. So there's this blog post I wrote quite a while back called, I think it's like the one finding the one decision that removes 1,000 decisions, something like that. If people search it, they can find it. If they go to tim.blog/newbooks, they'll see it because we, I send that now to people. So it doesn't feel like a personalized decline. That's a rule in 12 months, people. Don't send them books all in December and expect it to happen. Well, I actually put, I put something at the beginning of it, which was like, this has been extended indefinitely. So basically, if you're about to send me a book that is

• 27:23Tim Ferriss?

  like sent in any new year, like, forget about it, right? So it's gonna be a tough sell. But those are some of the books that I've been enjoying. And I will probably go into, I think John Crowley has a A collection, like a three-part series that is Egypt or A E. Egypt spelled with an A E. So I may dig into that next, but I think the book that kind of mesmerized the most people that I'm aware of is The Little Big. And I left something out. So in the beginning, there's a, there's a family tree. Do yourself a huge favor and take a photograph of that or shit's gonna get really confusing. So take a, take a photograph, even if it's on Kindle, like take

• 28:07Tim Ferriss?

  your phone out and take photograph of the family tree because you're gonna wanna refer back to it. Fantastic book. So that is some of my information diet at the moment.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  I've got one book to mention. So

• 28:19Tim Ferriss?

  Go for it.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Peter Tia, mutual friend, obviously been on your show a bunch, turned me on. He actually had an episode of his podcast, The Peter Tia Drive, where he interviewed Terry Reel, which is this fantastic therapist, mainly focused on actually male therapy and issues around that males run into. And I got invited to join a men's group with Terry, actually. I'd never done one of these. I don't know if you've done men's groups.

• 28:44Tim Ferriss?

  I've never done it.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  You've done men's groups with it?

• 28:45Tim Ferriss?

  I have not.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  It's really interesting. Yeah, so I hadn't either. And I was invited to join one of these men's groups. And essentially, it is picture eight people over Zoom. Terry's there as well. So you have your therapist in the room. And I'd never done any type of group therapy thing before. I'd done individual therapy and couples therapy, but never group. And he kicks it off by saying, okay, we're gonna go around the room and we're gonna spend, everyone gets 10 minutes to just tell me what's on your mind, what's going on. And there's none of this bullshit like, well, I took my kids out and all that. It's like, no, no, no. What is hitting you at a deep level that you are struggling with? And he calls you on your bullshit. Like, if it's such generic answers, because everybody has their shit, right? Like their thing that they're, they're

• 29:30Speaker 03

  struggling with, like, my spouse did this, or, you know, like, there could be any slew of different things that you're running into, you know? Like, right now, for me, it's my mom's dealing with cancer, right? So I, like, that was the thing that I went into. And you spend those first 10, 15 minutes. And it's really eye opening and they put you in a group of like peers that when you look around the room, you're kind of in a similar stage in life. And you have these really deep conversations and one person can be, you know, got caught cheating on their wife or whatever it may be. And you realize instantly like, oh my God, like so many people actually struggle with the same things that I struggle with every single day in my head, which is nice.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  It's refreshing. And then the people that are having the most pain for that particular session, he does a couple of times a month. It's a two hour long session. They'll go deep with those people. So say, okay, you're the two people today we're going to go deep with. And then you just watch as he dissects and just ninjas around and gets them oftentimes to tears by the end of it. And really, really goes in deep into some of these issues that these men are bringing up. And I had never really thought about doing that. And it was really, a really beautiful thing. And you're very supportive. They always say, does anyone want to comment on what this person just said? And it's never about judging them or saying, well, I think you're doing this wrong. It's more like, this is how this landed on me.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Is that a rule that was established in? It is a rule. It is a rule. There's, there's a handful of rules. No opinions. You can, yeah, what are the rules? You comment on how it landed on you and how you see it through your lens, but this is only applicable to you. You can say general supportive things like, I thought you were really courageous for saying that. Thank you for sharing it with me, things like that. You can always pass at any time. So if anything makes you uncomfortable, you can always pass. There is 100% what happens in this room stays in this room. We're talking about some very crazy topics here that maybe some people haven't disclosed it to their even closest friends or partners, right? There's all kinds of issues that I heard came up where I was just like, I can't believe we're talking about this, but it's nice. It's nice to know that other men are struggling with this stuff.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  And so that was fantastic. And I've been doing that for a few months now. And it's led me to just, I don't know, there was some great insights in there that I just came away with, but then it led me actually to Terry. Books as well because you know, these are quite expensive kind of groups as Terry is a pretty sought after type of individual therapist. And so he has this book that he turned us on to called Fierce Intimacy. That's one of his books? Yes, Fierce Intimacy and it's great. He reads his own audio books. It's on Audible and it's how to communicate with love and respect even when you argue. And this has been just a game changer for me when it comes to how I can relate, how I can prevent self sabotaging habits, just

• 32:30Speaker 03

  how to deal with your partner in a way that is constructive and moving forward and not judging and being able to know when to let information in and take it in and digest it and let it hit your stuff like internally and when to know that the other person is just venting and actually is coming more from them and it's okay to put a wall up sometimes and block that information because it's where they're coming from and it shouldn't land and hit you in the wrong way. It's such a beautiful, simple framework that I absolutely love. And the other thing I love about him is he was kind of a pioneer in this space. He's not a therapist that just sits there and listens to both sides and like, it sounds like what you're saying is this, he takes sides in therapy. He's like, he's like, no, that's fucking wrong. Like you're doing this like she's right

• 33:13Speaker 03

  here or you know, like the, and so you hear a lot of that happening in this conversation and I'm like, finally, you know, like, I like a therapist because sometimes I know I'm right sometimes, you know? So, so I just found this guy to be really refreshing and probably people that are, some people are laughing because they know this is a really popular person. I first I had heard of him was six months ago, but he's a very famous therapist. But anyway, highly recommend Fierce Intimacy. Darian and I both listened to it. My wife and I both listened to it and it's already improved the way that we communicate with each other, the way we have conversations, the way we let information flow in and actually land on us. So I put it in there in terms of books to recommend. How long is that book? I did it on Audible, so I think it was like seven hours or something like that.

• 33:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so it's probably like 250 pages, something like that.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, somewhere in there.

• 33:58Tim Ferriss?

  Pretty easy. Do you think you have found it helpful because you are also in the group? Or is it, do you think it's effective as a standalone, the book?

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Absolutely, because Dari listened to it not being in the group, obviously, and she found it effective as a standalone as well. And the reason I like it is it just doesn't dance around this like we always have to be head over heels in love. It's like every single day that you wake up, one person might be up, one person might be down. And it's always about finding your way back to that middle safe like comfort zone. And relationships are nothing but you have these moments of beautiful things and bliss happening. But largely it's about the other points, right? And like how you get back to those states. Yeah, and returning back to that state of health and understanding and how to both know that you're on the same team

• 34:51Speaker 03

  and have the same goals in mind and working with a framework that that supports that. So I don't know, I really loved it. I've really struggled. I've listened to a couple of other relationship books because, you know, I'm always trying to improve. I've been married nine years now and Dari and I are in a really good place now. But you know me, Tim, we've had these conversations like one on one. There's bumps with all these relationships, right? And it's like, you know, Dari and I did couples therapy for a bit, especially when you introduce kids into the equation. My God, that changes everything. And so it's like, this is the first time I read a book where I was like, this, this is speaking to me and working. So I wanted to throw it out there.

• 35:25Tim Ferriss?

  That's a big deal.

• 35:29Tim Ferriss?

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• 36:15Tim Ferriss?

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• 36:56Tim Ferriss?

  That's W E A L T H F R O N T dot com slash Tim to start building your wealth. One more time, go to wealthfront.com/tim to get started today.

• 37:12Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I have considered men's groups a number of times. I think I probably have, on one hand, like an unfair judgment, although I've seen this before. So it's not totally unfair. Like some men's groups like, all right, we're going to go in the woods and like wear furs and bang on drums and like yell and scream. And I'm like, ah, not sure that's the medicine I need right now. And then, you know, I've had some misgivings at different points, but the, the kind of meta commentary that I would make, and this has been a conversation, and it's a conversation I've had actually with quite a few women, because I've just observed that women, I

• 37:54Tim Ferriss?

  think are in general, again, I'm painting with a broad brush, but better at kind of social cohesion and gathering and that type of communal intimacy. And there are very few places, you know, outside of like a sports team or the bar or fill in the blank option C, where men have those communal experiences. But if you look back at our Just history, right? If we look back hundreds of years, thousands of years, that was an inbuilt feature of different communities.

• 38:36Tim Ferriss?

  And I think that society at large ends up in a very precarious, volatile situation when men, especially younger men, don't have that, right? It's like, okay, if you have somebody who is feeling alienated, who is pumped full of hormones, like, let's just say, like, kind of 16 to 22, right? With no sense of social belonging and a lot of physiologically driven, or at least informed aggression, like, that is a significant societal problem.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:15Tim Ferriss?

  And I have thought about that.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  The other thing, too, I'll add on top of that is, you know, traditionally, when you think about men getting together and shooting the shit, it is that bar setting, is at sports game, it whatever it may be. And it's very high level, right? Like, at that point, you're just like, ah, I have things, like, ah, you know, wife's doing this, blah, blah. You don't have the permission, really. Like, in my group, I was like, my mom had her cancer return. I'm going to miss her when she's gone because I'm her little boy. I will miss the feeling of my head on her shoulder. Stuff that I'm just, it's like, so deep and intimate to me because I love her so deeply.

• 39:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  You don't get that over a beer necessarily, to be able to go and to see other men around the table doing the same thing, because we all, at that point, have set the ground rules. It's a safe space. We can just really, really let it out. And lots of tears come. And one of the things Terry always says, that's really interesting during it, people will start to cry, men will start to cry, and tears will start to cry. And he goes, what are those tears saying? What are those tears saying right now? Give me more, give me a more. Open that door a little bit further than you're comfortable opening up. Like you, yeah, I triggered something. Here come the tears. But we'll unpack that further. And then it just goes from there and it's deeper and deeper layers. And it's release, man. I mean, you know how this psychedelics help with this a lot?

• 40:36Speaker 03

  When I did my high dose mushroom experience, I was sobbing after, you know, because my father had passed away. It gave me that permission to let that stuff go. And it's a very special thing when, when you can do it because it's, it's so healthy.

• 40:49Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to actually ask you, because you can probably correct or at least inform my initial impression. So I listened to that episode on Peter's podcast, or I listened to the first half. So maybe I didn't give it enough time. I listened to the first half and other people I know have listened to that episode and immediately bought a bunch of books. So I may be peculiar in this way, but I listened to the first half and he seemed, my impression was that Terry had a real axe to grind, maybe, on masculine strength, if this makes any sense. So he talked a lot about like toxic masculinity. Okay, fine. Talked about sort of the counterparts to that.

• 41:32Tim Ferriss?

  And it seems like he didn't grow up with, say, a kind of healthy interaction with exemplars of male strength, right? Didn't seem to have this, like the sports background. Like he mentions his dad wanted him to be this like jocular athletic kid and he wasn't that. But I came away feeling that he had maybe very partial view of masculine strength. And I think it's, I do feel like it is a mistake and it's also kind of conformist group think to automatically like excise male strength from like the topics that we can discuss as important. I do think there's a place for that.

• 42:13Tim Ferriss?

  So I'd be, I'd just be curious to hear your thoughts because my impression in listening to the first half, I was like, oh, wow. This guy's like rah rah kind of feminine energy. The future is feminine. That's fine. But if it's to the exclusion of trying to cultivate. Strength in men, even if that does look on some level traditional, even cross culturally. I mean, we see certain sort of typified behaviors, not saying they're all good. Like, all things in excess can become sort of the opposite of what we're aiming for. How would you speak to that? Because that was, that turned me off and it probably says more about me than about Terry.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  No, it's actually, it's funny you should mention that because when I listened to that episode, I immediately thought, I don't want to go any further here. It wasn't necessarily for me either, but I trust Peter, right? And I know that Peter, I know that Peter's a very masculine dude.

• 43:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  I mean, I watched videos of him shooting his bow out of his house, like into the backyard, from the center of his house. I'm like, who shoots bows in their house into the backyard? Like, he's crazy. Like, yeah. So Peter is as masculine as they come. And I listened to that episode and I think we unfairly got a very small slice of what Terry's all about. And when I listened to this book, I was like, oh, thank, thank God in some sense. Like, I'm glad it's much more, it seemed a little one-sided there.

• 43:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. Got it.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  All right.

• 43:40Tim Ferriss?

  That's helpful.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  I felt the same thing you did, dude. I absolutely felt the same thing you did. I was like, okay, is this like, I'm not gonna say what this is.

• 43:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I did. I was worried. Yeah. And, you know, I think also, you know, for those people who are interested, you can kind of look at Mark Andreessen's commentary on the current thing, right? He has a lot of thoughts on the current thing in quotation marks. And I don't want to speak for Mark, but I used to start every presentation I did with a quote from Mark Twain. And in this case, I do think it's actually verified. I know it's like Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and like Gandhi and Groucho Marx get like 90% of all quotes on the internet. But, or Mae West. But the, the quote was, and I think I'm getting this right. You know, whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

• 44:28Tim Ferriss?

  And just to identify how much of what I'm actually not just saying, but believing.

• 44:35Tim Ferriss?

  Are conclusions I've come to from like first principles are actually following some kind of logical process or from direct experience and how much of it is just conditioning? How much of it is a subconscious or conscious fear response because I see people getting, you know, having gasoline poured on them and being lit on fire on the internet, metaphorically speaking, whenever they voice the opposite? And I think it's very, very important to pay attention to that, not just with respect to, you know, where we segued from with, with Terry, but it's like whenever you're too in line with kind of what the majority are saying, like it might be true, but very

• 45:19Tim Ferriss?

  often we're absorbing beliefs or perspectives or positions that really aren't, we haven't earned, if that makes sense, we haven't earned those positions. Yeah, I mean, the same goes true for food. Like you're like, oh shit, I'm eating McDonald's, everyone else is eating McDonald's, maybe this is the best thing for my. It's certainly one way to. Yeah, that would be, that would be one example. So, speaking of herd behavior, this, I'll, I'll go the other direction. Should I talk about my first ever NFT? Oh dude, I'm so excited. You've, you've jumped in. Yeah, I jumped in and, you know, I hesitated partially because as, as you know, since

• 46:03Tim Ferriss?

  you're responsible for sort of pulling my attention, yeah, I've been tracking this stuff for a while, right? And, and thankfully you got me off my ass because you're like, hey, I'm going to be doing this thing, don't tell anybody, now we can talk about it. It's going to be called Grails and do you want to be part of it? And do you want to explain just very briefly what Grails was? Yeah. What it is? And then I can hop into it.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. And for those that are listening that have no interest in NFTs or read the headlines out there, rest assured that I can tell you that I too, being so deep in NFTs, believe that there's a lot of hype in the sector. Like, there's a lot of, anyone armed with Photoshop right now can publish an NFT to the blockchain. And that means that there's gonna be a lot to kind of like sort through and sift through to find the gems. But as an underlying fundamental technology, it is a sound one, in that there's proven scarcity, there's durability of the asset, meaning it doesn't degrade with time, you can transfer it. I mean, there's a bunch of great things about it that it will be around forever, I have no doubt. Now, that said, there was a lot of hype going on into

• 47:12Speaker 03

  the world of NFTs here, and there still is, six or so months ago. And I thought to myself, like, let's create an NFT project and call it Grails. And the reason it was called Grails, it was Indiana Jones and, you know, the Holy Grail, where he has to choose that cup, you know, that very, very famous episode, they're all choose wisely. And if you choose the wrong one, like you turned and shriveled up and died, right? So, the thinking there was that so much attention at that time was on flipping NFTs. Oh, I'm gonna grab this one, I'm gonna buy it for five grand, sell it for a hundred, you know?

• 47:42Tim Ferriss?

  Also, I'm just gonna interject for a second. Also, some people refer to what they might consider like the blue chip NFTs as grail NFTs. There's also that use of the word. Yeah, continue.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah, so the thinking there was, okay, let's put the emphasis back on the art, and allow people to look and consider each individual piece, and then they have to make a decision. So, 20 artists, 20 anonymous artists, all up on the site, as a member of my little group called The Proof Collective, you got to choose one. So you could go in there and just pick one that you wanted, and then we would do the grand reveal. And so afterwards, we would reveal who the artists were. 100% of the sale of the NFT and the royalties went directly to the artist, so I did not profit at all. And you were kind enough to say, I'm gonna be one of those artists that people have to guess if it's me or not.

• 48:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so there are 20, basically imagine you go to a website, there are 20 thumbnails of different types of artwork. Most, if not all, artists who are established did something that was non-identifiable. A lot of them did something completely different stylistically, so that you wouldn't know it was them. And then people were guessing, right? So there's a lot of speculation in various discords and so on about who might be the artist behind which piece. And when you initially offered it to me, and I'll skip to the punchline real quickly. If people want to see this, what the output was, I can go to tim.blog/nft and I'll just

• 49:19Tim Ferriss?

  forward to a page on OpenSea where you can see what this looks like. But I bounced around a whole bunch of ideas and then I realized, wait a second, about a year ago, a bit over a year ago, I wrote a short story. And I've never published fiction anywhere. So I've never had a fiction blog post that I can remember. I've never published any fiction in book form. I've never had a magazine article that was fiction. And I decided to take that, which was about, let's say 1,400 words, and the name of the piece is "How to Start a War." I'll come back to why it's called that, because this was written, keep in mind, more than a year ago, so it's nothing to do with the current conflict.

• 50:04Tim Ferriss?

  But "How to Start a War," it's 1,400 or so words, and decided to make that the background of this piece and then to layer images on top of it. So ended up thinking on my own and then along with this designer, Lisa Quine, about how to create something that would actually make a nice, say, poster in a frame on a wall or a print. I needed some parameters, I needed some constraints. I was like, okay, let me not like blue sky this totally. It has to look... Decent on a wall, if someone put this up on a wall.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 50:37Tim Ferriss?

  And it's called How to Start a War because it is based on a real experience I had, which I'll let people read the piece who want to read the piece. The only place you can find this first published fiction piece by me is as this NFT. That's the only place you can find it. And it's an easy read, but the way it starts is with someone handing me a business card and saying, if you want to start a war, call me. And then it's like the whole thing goes down a pretty deep rabbit hole. And most of it is a composite, but true to life, which made it pretty easy to write. And that's it. I mean, that's how it started. And it's

• 51:20Tim Ferriss?

  been really a fun experience for me. So thank you, Kevin, for getting me off my ass. All the proceeds from this NFT go to my foundation. So they'll end up funding scientific research and other initiatives related to primarily mental health, possibly longevity and life extension or health span extension, but predominantly mental health. And I feel really good about it. So it's been a fun little experiment and a chance to also kind of understand how some of the plumbing works. You know what I mean? It's like, if you want to, there's a point, you can only read so many books about like playing soccer and then you got to get out there and actually kick a ball around, right? Like you're not going to really have a feel for it until you start screwing around with the actual mechanics and plumbing and having to do things.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  And you've had some good success, man. One sold for 15 ETH, which is current prices is around 50K. You know, you've had a bunch of good secondary sales. People were pretty pumped.

• 52:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's, and it was fun to also have the reveal. So I think a lot of people minted. And, you know, ultimately, I hope that there will be some durable value because it's not only my first NFT, but it's my first published fiction piece. So you kind of get a two for one. So we'll see.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Let me ask you a question. This is meant to be cut out if you don't like it. But a lot of people are actually adding utility to their NFTs. Meaning that like, if you own this original Tim Ferriss piece, something you do in the future, like let's say you do another NFT drop, you get some extra special rights, or maybe they come to one of your live shows, they get to do a meet and greet. Like, have you had any thoughts around like maybe offering some perks to people that own and hold your NFT?

• 52:59Tim Ferriss?

  I have, I have thought about this. You're not gonna like my answer though.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  And I don't wanna do it.

• 53:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah. So, well, this leads me to a question for you, actually. So, I decided I wanna under promise and over deliver, or at least not under deliver. So, as it stands right now-

• 53:15Speaker 03

  Under promise and never deliver?

• 53:16Tim Ferriss?

  Under, or just never promise.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  Never promise and never deliver.

• 53:20Tim Ferriss?

  Never promise and therefore you don't have to deliver. I wanted it to have, to the extent that it can, again, this is not investment advice. All this stuff could go to zero, who the fuck knows? But, I wanted there to be intrinsic value as a first. And, there is, I think, to the extent that there can be. I did not want to make any additional promises. And, you know, I asked you a while back, and I'd love to talk about it on the show if you're open to it. I have a friend, I'm not gonna mention the name, but this friend has started different projects in Web3, NFTs, and has made these promises that are kind of ongoing promises.

• 54:03Tim Ferriss?

  And then the value of whatever he has created is tied to the ongoing delivery of more and more things. And it's ended up being a huge stressor for him because he feels like, A, I have to do this forever, B, I can't figure out how to extricate myself. B, if I don't do that, then when the music stops, like the last people left holding these NFTs will just lose all their money. So he has tremendous guilt also and stress around that. I'd love to just hear how you think about this, and maybe common mistakes that you see people make. Because it does seem like-

• 54:45Tim Ferriss?

  More and more promises are being made. And so when you launch a project now, and again, this comes back to the Mark Twain thing. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. But I've talked to yet different friends who are like, hey, man, if you launch a project now, like it's table stakes, you have to do this, this, this, this, this, this, private community, this, events, access, Q and As. And I'm like, well, hold on a second. Like, I'm not convinced everybody can or will deliver those things. And if the table stakes just keep getting larger and larger and larger, like that is not ultimately scalable indefinitely, right? Things are going to break. People are going to lose money.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:26Tim Ferriss?

  How do you think about this kind of stuff?

• 55:29Speaker 03

  What you're describing is what's becoming a pretty normal thing in the NFT world where it's called the utility NFT, where it's not just about the artwork. So many people have heard the name of Beeple or any other, you know, the bigger ex copy, the bigger NFT artists. And like, that's pretty straightforward. It's JPEG. It looks great. You collect it, you hang it on your wall, done deal. You're never getting anything else, but it is a piece of art, right?

• 55:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  So the utility NFT world is one where when you do buy the NFT, it comes with additional unlocks. And those can be both online, offline. They could be things like with the Bored Apes, when they had their token that they launched you. So you got some ape token that came along with it. They had some liquidity to it. It could be all a slew of different things. So it is a slippery slope, and it is something I would certainly, it's buyer beware for sure, unless they are taking it serious enough to build a real team around it. And considering it a business, like what we do at Proof with the Proof Collective membership is it's very much a business for us. It's a corporation. We have employees, we have payroll, we have all of that.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  And it is a new type of media company that we're building from the ground up. So I can imagine when it's put on the shoulders of an individual, like if it was just you doing it, a Tim NFT, where you have to manage a Discord and do meetups and all of that, like, that sounds horrible, right?

• 56:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  And the other thing too, is you do have to think about end of life for these particular utility NFTs. So I think the ones that- You're right in that you can imagine a world where if you have a utility NFT and it ends at three years, you know, what happens to the price at two years and six months? Do people start bailing on it and who's the buyer? And if there's any buyers at all, it just plummets in value and people lose all this money. So our solution, and when I came up with the with the proof collective, again, this is like with Tim's NFT, I'm not telling you to go buy this. First of all, they're outrageous right now. So it's 1,000 memberships. The current price is $300,000 for a membership.

• 57:24Tim Ferriss?

  Man, that's amazing.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  But we set a three year limit on this actual on the benefits. We're four months into a three year membership. So what happens at year two to this insanely like, you know, crazy asset? So we figured out that there's two things that happen. And for us, one, we're working with, well, we will be working with a very well known NFT artist to convert and swap out the artwork from a membership card into a real piece of art. So at 1,000, you can do that. You can make them scarce and rare, and you can make them actually individually collectible. And we're going to have to pay this artist because the one that I'm thinking of that we're talking to, it's going to be a very expensive, like million dollar plus kind of check to

• 58:08Speaker 03

  write to go and have this artist do something really unique. But then when it expires and that swap happens at the last day, you're like, okay, I have value here because this is a real art NFT. And then, of course, at the very end, you do things like there's a season two, maybe they get a half discount off into the next season or whatever it may be. So there's ways to mitigate some of that. There's no perfect solution, but I think that is the best that I've come up with to date is really making it something that can stand on its own even when membership goes away or the benefits go away.

• 58:40Tim Ferriss?

  I think super smart. When you described that to me, it was the first time I had heard of that type of kind of time bound conversion event. Super clever. It's very clever and I think it highlights also how, as you said, if you're going to participate in anything.

• 59:02Tim Ferriss?

  That has a value predicated on future deliverables and roadmaps. Make sure that you do the diligence to evaluate the team behind it.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, 100%.

• 59:13Tim Ferriss?

  Like, really make sure you do that because holy speculation, Batman. Like, there is a lot of action in the space and you need to.

• 59:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:23Tim Ferriss?

  If you don't have a good way to assess teams, or if you don't have an approach to that, then don't do it.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  A lot of people talk about something called FUD and they don't like it. It's this fear, uncertainty and doubt. And in the NFT world, they'll be like, don't spread FUD, don't spread FUD. But I'm actually of the opposite end of the spectrum in that I believe FUD is actually a good thing. Like, we need to have fear, uncertainty and doubt in each of these projects and properly evaluate them. Like, there's multiple fears when it comes to NFTs raising money. There's a fear around the use of proceeds. What are they gonna do? Are they gonna disappear after they receive the money? There's fears around execution risk. Are they gonna actually deliver on their promises? There's market fears. Crypto is very lumpy. This is dropping value by half. Like, you need to really evaluate these things and make sure there's a credible team behind them before you go into them.

• 1:00:08Tim Ferriss?

  And also, pointing out risks is not FUD. So FUD, just to use this in a, in a context where I have exposure to it. So fear, uncertainty and doubt, usually when I've run into it in tech. So my first job out of college was selling storage area networks, fiber channel, in competition against network appliance and EMC and so on. And the bigger companies would use fear, uncertainty and doubt, but it wasn't always based on fact. If we were close to winning an account, they would say, well, hey, they're a startup. Yes, they have funding, but how long do you think they're gonna be around? You just don't know. Like, they might be around in five years, but they might be out of business. What happens to your service contract?

• 1:00:51Tim Ferriss?

  Who manages the, the upkeep? If you have issues with the firmware? What's gonna happen when you need to swap it out if they run out of funding? Right, so that type of intimidation through uncertainty is kind of one type of FUD. But if we are. Off a certain coastline in South Africa and there are seals in the water and it's full of great white sharks and I'm like, maybe you don't want to go in there because there are a lot of great white sharks. If your response is, "Stop selling me FUD, man. Everything's gonna be okay," then you might just have your arms bitten off. Right. There's actually like a factual- Yeah, and you're gonna bleed out at this point, yeah. You're gonna, oh yeah, you're gonna bleed out. It's not a good, not a good situation.

• 1:01:32Tim Ferriss?

  Very hard to swim with no arms. So I will say that, not to get all, I'm surprised I'm so amped up. I haven't had that much caffeine today. I'm feeling, feeling pretty good, that you need to be very cautious to quote Warren Buffett because you can't really lose quoting Warren Buffett, so why not? Don't ask a barber if you need a haircut. If someone has a vested interest in something and they're telling you everything's gonna be alright because their wallet is gonna take a hit if it doesn't go up into the right, they are not an unbiased source of information. And you know, a lot of what's happening in the NFT world, just to mention it real briefly, like there's this story I heard a long time ago. It was actually an anecdote that this

• 1:02:12Tim Ferriss?

  guy told, this pretty shady cat, this guy who was involved in infomercials, and I happened to be like sitting around a table and he was telling the story to someone else. This was way back in like early 2000s. And he was telling it like this grand lesson that he was like bestowing upon his children and I was like, "Oh wow, this guy's really unethical." And he told this long story about this guy who caught this amazing tuna fish and he canned it and he sold it and then it sold for $10 and then it sold for $100 and then like sold for $1,000 and then $10,000 and then like $100,000 and then one day, somebody who owned this like $100,000 can of tuna fish opened it and it was totally rotten. And so he reached out to the person who sold it to him and was like, "Hey, you sold me

• 1:02:55Tim Ferriss?

  this tuna fish, it's totally rotten." And the guy said, "That tuna fish isn't for eating, that tuna fish is for selling." Yeah. And it's like, but I think there's a lot of that going on, right? Oh, absolutely. It's like the greater fool theory of investing. It's like, alright, well as long as I can find someone who does even less diligence than I did- It'll all work out and yeah, you gotta be careful.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  Well, especially the other thing too, and it's something I'm trying to figure out because I am building in the space is there are a lot of projects that are coming out and they're serving very large audiences. Like the reason why the proof collective stuff, we only did a thousand is because I don't think I could handle more than a thousand people with this type of stuff that we want to do on that side. Some of these other projects.

• 1:03:37Tim Ferriss?

  Not to interrupt, but I will again, because apparently that's my thing today. And you have a company building experience, but managing expectations and inbound and requests and complaints from 10,000 people. That is a lot to actually handle well. Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  Right. And so that's kind of like, we have another project that's coming up that is 10,000 people big, but the way that we're doing it is completely different than what's been done today because what basically what happens is, is when you promise 10,000 people the world and you have a budget of X and you divide up that budget and you send them, you make, do on your, you're good on your promise and you send them something in the mail. They get like an engraved pin in like a hat. There's not a whole lot of budget to go around to all these people. So the way that we, we treat things is we actually, in this next project, we kind of do it almost like the airline miles way that you get different status based on your engagement with the community, how long you hold the NFT for, so that we can put out different tiers

• 1:04:40Speaker 03

  based on how you actually have committed to the community. We call it, it's, it's a long story, but it's, the project's called Moonbirds and it's called nesting, but you actually lock up your asset and you unlock additional benefits as time goes on. So it's a way to divide and conquer versus trying to promise these massive benefits to the entire world, if that makes sense.

• 1:05:01Tim Ferriss?

  So do the people who hold Moonbirds?

• 1:05:05Tim Ferriss?

  Commit to, I don't want to say, I mean, it's not a vesting schedule, like nesting period in advance, is that something they commit to? Or is it just however long they hold it and each day they can decide if they want to buy or sell, or I guess sell in this case?

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, when they lock it up at the contract level, it prevents it from being sold.

• 1:05:23Tim Ferriss?

  I see. Okay, so they do decide upfront?

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they can back out in two seconds at any time they want. It just stops their continuous streak and their their status level, basically.

• 1:05:32Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, got it. That's interesting.

• 1:05:34Speaker 03

  Then it allows me to carve it out because like if you think about like, let's just say you did a NFT to 10,000 of your fans, you could say, okay, well, the people that have actually been with me for, let's just say you did this years ago, you could say the people that were with me for the last three years and have stuck with me and been members for that long, I will do that private dinner with you because it's going to be 25 or something. You know what I mean? It's like, it allows you to like, to segment things.

• 1:05:56Tim Ferriss?

  I have this private Facebook group for people who supported my subscription podcast kind of alternative business model years ago, and that's still around. And it's a much smaller group of people. So I could see possibly doing something along those lines. I don't want to mention the name, but I think you will agree that the potential name that I've been coming up with ideas for for like last two years for this NFT project is pretty phenomenal. I think you'll you'll agree.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  You have a top, top five PFP name in your in your repertoire there. Like, Tim has it as idea for a big NFT drop that is is powerful.

• 1:06:39Tim Ferriss?

  It would be very hard for people not to write about it. And I expect at least 70% of the internet would go, oh, my, oh, my, oh, oh, how could, how could he, how could he?

• 1:06:50Speaker 03

  I'd give you a 10% chance of being canceled with that one.

• 1:06:55Tim Ferriss?

  It's a Tim after two glasses of wine in a T project.

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  Probably four or five glasses of wine.

• 1:07:01Tim Ferriss?

  It's a Tim after four or five glasses of wine. And there is part of me that is like, do I want this to be the most dominant feature of my Wikipedia page? Maybe not, maybe not.

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:07:12Tim Ferriss?

  If that's my current activities, I don't know. I don't know. I do think it would be ultimately hilarious. It would be largely absurdity focused. So we'll see if that ever happens. I don't know if it'll ever happen. I want to see, I'm actually super.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  Why not though, man? It's like, you're.

• 1:07:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, why not?

• 1:07:32Speaker 03

  You have nothing to, well, you do have a lot to lose.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  Cancel it, you would.

• 1:07:37Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I mean, the, you know, the nice part is what would canceling look like for an NFT project that upsets some people? Like, what is that? What does that really look like, right? I guess you have like.

• 1:07:46Speaker 03

  For you, it's like lots of noise.

• 1:07:48Tim Ferriss?

  People stop listening to your podcast or something. I mean, really? Like, if, if you've been listening to the podcast long enough or listening to these random shows long enough.

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Tim Ferriss?

  If you're still listening, we've had ample opportunity to talk about any number of things that might cause somebody to get their knickers in a twist.

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you literally talked about anal tobacco earlier today, like that was on today's show.

• 1:08:09Tim Ferriss?

  We already talked about anal administration of tobacco. We've talked about, you know, I took that like 30 day, uh, no, what was it? It was like no booze, no masturbating experiment with the audience. And talked about like my, you know, hey, before you go on this porn fast, here's some recommendations. Like, like this isn't exactly family programming, so.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:29Tim Ferriss?

  I feel, well, it depends on your family, I guess. I don't know.

• 1:08:33Tim Ferriss?

  But, uh, oh my God, I'm definitely putting tuna helper in the name of this episode.

• 1:08:43Tim Ferriss?

  So now I know you, you have some pretty cool stuff coming up and very cool stuff coming up. And you've been working so hard. I mean, I think it's just hilarious that like the less you need to work, the harder you seem to work. Have you observed this?

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  I mean, honestly, you know, it's, it's funny.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Have you ever met Bill Harland or no? Do you know him at Harland Estate, the wines?

• 1:09:09Tim Ferriss?

  Are we talking about? I know Will. Yeah, that's why I was getting confused.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, you've never met his dad, Bill. Yeah.

• 1:09:14Tim Ferriss?

  I may have met Bill at, I can never pronounce this word. It's too fancy for me, coming from Long Island. Is it promontory?

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  Promontory, yeah.

• 1:09:22Tim Ferriss?

  Promontory, Jesus, I can never say that word.

• 1:09:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, the wine.

• 1:09:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I may have met Bill when we did a site visit ages ago. I may have, but let's just assume not for the purposes of this conversation.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  So for people that don't know, Harland Estate is one of the most premier culty wines in Napa Valley. It's insanely sought after, multi-year waitlist just to get access to an allocation. I've been very fortunate.

• 1:09:46Tim Ferriss?

  It's like the Moonbirds of wine, basically.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Right, the Moonbirds, like the NFT, you have a high-end wine, exactly. Very, very hard to get. So I've been very lucky to be on that board and it's given me exposure to just a world that I would normally never have any insight into. And they have properties too as well, like Meadowwood and the restaurant at Meadowwood, which is the three Michelin star restaurant. So they have a bunch of different things that I always learn about at these board meetings, learn from, and hopefully help on the tech side a little bit in helping them form their thinking around new ways to embrace current tech. So one of the things that he said to me at a dinner just like a week ago, we were at this dinner and Bill's in his 80s now, and we were talking about NFTs and how they're applicable potentially to the wine world and some really interesting ways there,

• 1:10:32Speaker 03

  which I believe will absolutely happen. And he goes, and I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, Kevin, I get it. He goes, when you see these markets and you see it before anyone else, he goes, you push in really hard and you get the outsized rewards. And for him, that was real estate in Napa Valley 30 years ago. And he goes, then you sit around and you wait until you see the next one. And it might be a decade or longer until you see this next big moment when it's time to push your chips in again. And for me, I have been sitting around waiting since Web 2, 2004. And granted, I was really active in Web 2 and there was mobile and there was a few other amazing things that happened. VR was stupid. But then.

• 1:11:16Tim Ferriss?

  You are really doubling down on the VR stupid thing, huh?

• 1:11:20Speaker 03

  It'll eventually get to the right size and price that people will like it. But, but I think, I think that I had a big fight with one of your other guests, Adam Ghazali. He told me that VR was going to take off like five years ago and we bet a bottle of Hibiki 30 when it was a lot less expensive and he still hasn't sent me the bottle of Hibiki 30.

• 1:11:39Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it's just gonna keep getting more expensive anyway.

• 1:11:41Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, it's getting more expensive. It's like 5X the price instead. So Adam, cough it up, man. So, anyway, long story short is, well, I'll give you a great example. I was working on, on the Moonbirds project till midnight last night and I woke up naturally, and this is weird for me, at 6:00 AM, got out of bed and started working again. Because there is this excitement, there's this blue ocean, there is so much that can be done in this space that it, it's like, Tim, it's like when you came to the NFT conference with me and we were sharing a, a, a room and you were sleeping on the couch, which was awesome. It's hilarious. You wanted it in the bed. I would not let you in the bed. This is a true story.

• 1:12:15Tim Ferriss?

  Fucking freezing. It got, just, just a side note. So it was so fucking cold. This is in Martha, Texas. It got down to like 40 degrees at night and I'm sleeping on the couch with a towel on top of me. It doesn't even cover like the lower half of my legs, shivering, dying. And I'm like, Kevin, are you sure there aren't any blankets? He's like, no, man, no extra blankets. And then the last day, I'm like, what's that huge drawer on the other side of the bed? Pull it out. Comforters galore, everywhere.

• 1:12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Sorry, sorry about that. But, um, so, but anyway, when we were there, you and I were both feeling it. We're getting up early, talking about NFTs. And it's not just about the hype cycle. It's about this, there's a new technology that is just taking shape. And yes, it'll be many years before it's fully realized, but this is when you want to start paying attention. It's when there's the most risk, of course, but early investors, you embrace risk because that's where the most upside is, right? So that's what's exciting about it.

• 1:13:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I would also say to.

• 1:13:16Tim Ferriss?

  Reinforce that. I mean, you know, Martha definitely had the feeling like, okay, we're on the beach in Northern California and this is kind of the first Burning Man. I get it had that feeling or South by Southwest, like 2007, where interactive was just like the redheaded stepchild. Sorry, trigger warning for redheaded stepchildren.

• 1:13:37Tim Ferriss?

  Stepchild of Cancelled. South by, nobody cared, you know, it's like, nobody cared about interactive. And now it is just, is not to make this like the Andreessen themed show, but like software eating the world, right? Now interactive is like the glue that holds everything together. And I'm not saying that's going to be the case with NFTs necessarily, but you definitely had that. And it's more for me of like a physiological feeling. You're like, okay, we're in a really small group. There are a lot of very smart people here who have decided this is what they want to dedicate all their time to. So if you agree with some investors who would take the position that like what the nerds do on the weekends now is what everybody will be doing in like five years or 10 years. Dixon said that, right?

• 1:14:20Tim Ferriss?

  Dixon, maybe. Yeah. And it's like, okay, I do think there's something to that. And there is just this, it's like electric feeling, which is, is hard to put words to, but it is, it's kind of a physiological response for me. And I talked about this a little bit in the podcast with Dixon and Naval, but that's definitely true for this. And I would also say it is risky to, what are the kid, the cool kid saying ape into whale into a position? Like Ape into, yeah. Yeah. If you just take half your net worth and you're not sure how you're gonna make your mortgage payment and you push all those chips into something that's hugely speculative.

• 1:15:06Tim Ferriss?

  That's risky, but I don't view that as intelligent risk taking. That's just foolish and has tremendous downside potential. But I do think you can begin to place little bets and think about mitigating downside, right? Because if right now we're in a phase where there are opportunities for like,

• 1:15:27Tim Ferriss?

  5X, 10X, 100X investments. I know a lot of people have become spoiled over COVID where they're like, started trading on Robinhood and this, that and the other thing. And they're like, oh, if it's less than 1,000% a year, like, I'm not interested. I'm gonna look for the next best thing. And it's, I think that's gonna burn a lot of people. But you can then start to think about actually studying some of these older investors and, and learning about portfolio construction and really taking a risk intelligent approach to playing only with chips you can afford to lose. And I think you get smarter that way.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:16:04Tim Ferriss?

  Because if you go into it and you're like, high risk, high reward, baby. And you use that as a smokescreen to cover up your complete lack of due diligence, to cover up the fact that you have no understanding of the technology, to cover up the fact that you didn't do any homework on the team behind X, Y, and Z that you saw trending on Twitter because you think that you're gonna make a fast buck, you're just gonna lose your money. Sooner or later, you will lose your money. But I'm also seeing people who are really taking this as an opportunity to basically like go to grad school, right? And they're like, okay, I'm gonna play with just enough. And to everybody, I mean, I don't know if you agree with this or not, but from my perspective, like, I waited, whatever it was, a year and a half after we started talking about NFTs to launch my first NFT.

• 1:16:49Tim Ferriss?

  Why? Because I don't think you need to rush. I do not think you need to rush. Like, it is so early. It is still so early.

• 1:16:57Speaker 03

  If anything, now is the time to dabble and just have the foundational knowledge so that when you're ready to have an informed decision and push in and do something, you aren't starting from zero. So, you know, I oftentimes tell people, they're like, how do I get started in NFTs? And I'm like, okay, it's easy. You have to learn how to use MetaMask. And you have to learn how to send an one ETH to that wallet, or $200 with an ETH to that wallet. You have to learn how to safeguard your secret phrase. Like, there's some foundational knowledge that's gonna be essential for this world. And now's the time to start, even if you don't wanna spend anything on NFTs, now's the time to get that base knowledge down. So when you're ready, you can pull the trigger.

• 1:17:38Tim Ferriss?

  I was just laughing because I went to this conference recently. You know, I'm thinking about you and just how cutting as you are with all these things and so neck deep in everything and able to look around corners. And I was at this conference because you have, you know, I haven't been to conferences in forever. With the exception of the Marfa thing, but that wasn't really a conference, right? That was just like hanging out and having barbecue and just bullshitting and talking about the, the potential amazing future that we have ahead of us with respect to these technologies. But I went to like a conference conference and I was kind of going to these sessions and going to these dinners and everybody was asking me, you'll appreciate this, this is going to sound weird to a lot of people listening, but everyone had like their new big project, like, yeah, my new big project. And then so they'd be like,

• 1:18:22Tim Ferriss?

  so they like, look at my name badge and they'd be like, oh, Tim Flarus podcast. Okay. You have podcasts. What's your podcast about? And I'd be like, ah, it's an interview podcast. And they'd be like looking over my shoulder for like another finance person to talk to them. Be like, all right, this guy, this guy's boring. And then they'd be like, and they'd be like, so what's your new big project? What's, what's your gigantic new project you're focused on? And the best thing I could come up with in part because I didn't really want to talk to these people, but it's kind of true. I was like, I'm mostly trying to figure out how to talk to animals right now. And they're like, what, what? And then they'd like, they'd be like, oh, that's, uh, that's, that's fascinating. And then they'd like walk off with their little hors d'oeuvre and like glass of champers to find somebody else to like, give a TED talk to. But yeah, I feel like I'm

• 1:19:04Tim Ferriss?

  kind of going the opposite direction. Like I've become super fascinated and I have been fascinated by like animal tracking specifically, leave putting aside like the animal communication piece. That's a whole separate can of worms, but like tracking, like one of the oldest human skills imaginable. I mean, it's also an animal skill, of course, but it's like, okay, who are the best trackers in the world? Like if you need to track a given animal.

• 1:19:28Speaker 03

  What a fun hobby.

• 1:19:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So I've become, I've been reading book after book after book and. As one would expect, there's a lot of horse shit and a boatload of charlatans who claim to be like, oh, I was trained by whatever, a such and such scout from such and such tribe. And you're like, okay, there's no way for me to possibly verify that. You know what I mean?

• 1:19:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:49Tim Ferriss?

  So I have, you know, it could just be ghost stories this person is telling me. But there are still folks who are exceptionally good. So that's something I'm leaning into. So if anybody has any thoughts on that, where you can actually verify these people know what they do, hit me up on Twitter at T Ferris, T F E R R I S S. Anything else you'd like to mention, Kevin, before we cut out? Cause I know we're coming up on time.

• 1:20:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, uh, I guess the only thing is I'm at Kevin Rose. If you want to follow my adventures on Twitter, mostly around all things crypto and NFTs. Moonbirds is our new launch that's coming out. You most likely are just gonna have to find it in the secondary market because it's been insanely oversubscribed, but it should be a really fun utility NFT that you should check out.

• 1:20:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  Always good to see you, brother.

• 1:20:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I'll be along for the moonbird ride. So, uh, I'm excited about that. I really appreciate that you're always willing to be like the first monkey shot into space, at least between the two of us with stuff like this. Then I get to, I get to have front row seats.

• 1:20:42Speaker 03

  Watch as my, my capsule comes back down and, and what's gonna happen?

• 1:20:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's awesome. So that, so thank you for that.

• 1:20:50Speaker 03

  Cool, you made it into space. Okay, let's, let's see what the capsule does.

• 1:20:53Tim Ferriss?

  Let's see how the return goes.

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:20:56Tim Ferriss?

  I'm, I'm so excited for you, man. I'll just say real quickly in passing, and I've said this to you before, but it's so fun for me to see like a playing field and a sport and a set of technologies that is so perfectly suited to like all of the circles that overlap to form the Venn diagram that is Kevin Rose. Like, like you said, it's like, it's been a long time since I've seen you this excited about something where this is all you're doing. I mean, yeah, of course you have family and you're a good dad, you good husband, you're doing all of that, you're not neglecting everything else, but you are on fire right now and it's so fun to watch. It just makes me, it makes me happy to see you so excited about something.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm telling you, this is the way it's always been for me, and I'm sure you can relate, is when you find something that you were like really personally love, like you really, getting up at six doesn't matter because it doesn't feel like you're working at all, you know?

• 1:21:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, you have, you have bigger batteries, it lasts longer.

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:21:51Tim Ferriss?

  Good for you, man. Well, it's good to see you, brother, and thanks for taking the time to jam.

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's hang in person soon.

• 1:21:57Tim Ferriss?

  Let's do it. And folks, we'll have links to various resources and so on in the show notes as usual, tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, thank you for tuning in.

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  Okay, bye. Take care.

• 1:22:13Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half-page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric

• 1:22:58Tim Ferriss?

  things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So, if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is one of my favorite companies out there, one of my favorite platforms ever. And let's get into it. Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone to sell anything, anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. So what does that mean? That means in no

• 1:23:40Tim Ferriss?

  time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas, products, and so on to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day business and drive sales. This is all possible without any coding or design experience whatsoever. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods. Shopify has thousands of integrations and third-party apps, from on-demand printing to accounting to advanced chatbots. Anything you can imagine. They probably have a way to plug and play and make it happen. Shopify is what I wish I had had when I was venturing into ecommerce way back in the early 2000s. What they've done is pretty remarkable. I first met the founder, Toby, in 2008 when I became an advisor,

• 1:24:21Tim Ferriss?

  and it's been spectacular. I've loved watching Shopify go from roughly 10 to 15 employees at the time to 7,000 plus today, serving customers in 175 countries with total sales on the platform exceeding $400 billion. What does that really mean? That means every 28 seconds, more or less, a small business owner makes their first sale on Shopify. More people in more places of all ages every single day. They power millions of entrepreneurs from their first sale all the way to full scale. And you would recognize a lot of large companies that also use them who started small. So get started by building and customizing your online store, again, with no coding or design experience required.

• 1:25:04Tim Ferriss?

  Access powerful tools to help you find customers, drive sales, and manage your day to day. Gain knowledge and confidence with extensive resources to help you succeed. And I've actually been involved with some of that way back in the day, which was awesome, the Build a Business competition and other things. Plus, with 24/7 support, you're never alone. And let's face it, being an entrepreneur can be lonely, but you have support, you have resources. You don't need to feel alone in this case. More than a store, Shopify grows with you, and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/Tim. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com/Tim.

• 1:25:46Tim Ferriss?

  All lowercase for a free 14-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Start selling on Shopify today. Go to Shopify.com/Tim right now and check it out. They have a lot to offer. Shopify.com/Tim.

• 1:26:04Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Ascent Protein. I have been using Ascent Protein as my primary protein powder for the last five years or so now. I first tried them back in around 2017. Ever since I wrote The Four Hour Body, as many of you know, I've been starting my day with roughly 30 grams of protein. This has been part of my routine, the 30 grams within 30 minutes rule. Ascent Protein is arguably the easiest way to get this done. I love Ascent Protein. I recently had a chance to try Ascent's organic plant-based protein, which is new. If you've tried other plant-based proteins, you know, as I do, they can taste absolutely terrible and contain added sugars and all sorts of other nonsense. This is not the case with Ascent.

• 1:26:47Tim Ferriss?

  There are a bunch of things that make their protein unique. So let me mention just a couple of them. Ascent's plant-based protein actually tastes delicious. There are no added sugars and you get 25 grams of protein per serving to help support muscle health. One small scoop contains more muscle repairing BCAAs, those are branched-chain amino acids, than an equivalent serving of chicken, beef, eggs, or salmon. Now, you might call BS on that, but there are a few particulars that are worth noting. So for those of you who can appreciate this, the leucine content of their plant-based protein is on par with their absolutely incredible whey protein. So the plant protein supports muscle health in that capacity just as well as their whey protein.

• 1:27:29Tim Ferriss?

  Leucine is a key component of this. That's unusual. The next thing that is unusual is they include sunflower and pumpkin protein. That's pretty rare in this category, which helps to combat some of the texture and astringency issues that are common with plant-based proteins. And as with all Ascent products, their plant-based protein is entirely free of artificial ingredients and informed, sport-certified to be free of banned substances. You also don't have to worry about gluten or soy, neither are in the product. Ascent does a ton of R&D and testing to get things right. I've had a lot of email exchanges with them, especially in the beginning. As one example, they tested 282 versions of their chocolate flavor before getting it just right and dialed.

• 1:28:13Tim Ferriss?

  Personally do, I like to add one scoop of this protein to roughly five to six ounces of water, maybe a little bit more, as part of my daily routine, usually in the morning or post-workout. Morning is kind of the easiest way to do the 30 and 30 that I mentioned earlier. Mix it up in a shaker or in a water bottle. I just use a water bottle and keep it low-tech, and you've got a full serving of Elite Protein in less than 60 seconds. So check it out. Visit ascentprotein.com/tim and use the code 20TFASSENT for 20% off of your entire order. This code is valid on their website and on amazon.com. Again, that's

• 1:28:50Tim Ferriss?

  ascentprotein.com, A-S-C-E-N-T, protein.com/tim, and use code 20TFASSENT for 20% off. One last time, it's 20TFASSENT for 20% off, and that applies on their website as well as on amazon.com. Some restrictions apply. Enjoy.