909 Work It Out, Write It Out

“Exercise allows you to diversify your identity.”Tim Ferriss is a stand out entrepreneur, author, consultant, athlete, bio-hacker, and life-hacker. If you haven’t heard of him yet, who knows where you’ve been. But in this past episode of the show, I wanted to learn some things about Tim that I and most people don’t know. I asked him about what habits have made the biggest impact on him - and his answers were super insightful. I am featuring that clip of our conversation for this 5 Minute Friday episode - enjoy! If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/909 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:11Lewis Howes?

  Special guest, his name is Mr. Tim Ferriss and he's a three-time New York Times bestselling author, an incredible human being, extremely intelligent. And for those that don't know him yet, I don't know where you've been because we've had him on here a couple of times before. This is his third time on and he has done some incredible things in the business world, the entrepreneurial world. He's an investor, author, now TV show extraordinaire host.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Best investment I've made in myself would be anytime I schedule and record workouts consistently. That is just the scaffolding that allows me to do everything else more effectively. So anytime I get serious about training, all the other pieces fall into place. But despite that fact, it's very easy for I think everyone to drop that hat as soon as things get a little hectic.

• 1:09Lewis Howes?

  I don't have time to work out.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. Which is exactly, it's completely the most counterproductive decision to make, yet it is a sin that I commit repeatedly. So I have to, but I do catch myself and that would be, that would be an incredible investment anytime that I do that.

• 1:29Lewis Howes?

  And you say recording it though, you say that's like the second part of it is?

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Right. Tracking it. So writing it down, not necessarily recording the video.

• 1:35Lewis Howes?

  Tracking it.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  But having a system for determining progress or lack thereof, planning, et cetera. It just gives me positive feedback in a very concrete way that compels me to continue doing it. And I also think that exercise allows you to diversify your identity a bit. So what I mean by that is if you have all of your eggs in the one basket that is the book you're working on, or the startup you're working on, or Fill in the blank.

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  Or your family.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Or, or your family. If you have all your eggs in one basket, if anything takes a turn for the worse, and it could be for factors outside of your control, you can become depressed and your self-esteem can take a huge hit. You can feel like a failure. I find it helpful not to, not to scatter your focus, but to have a couple of buckets or baskets, maybe even two, but where if you have a good day or a good week in the gym and you know it's good because you've been tracking it and you put 15 pounds on your deadlift or whatever it might be, even if other things go sideways.

• 2:33Lewis Howes?

  You've got something good.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  You can feel like you succeeded for that week.

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I like that.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  In terms of the best investment in other people, I view my books as an investment in other people. And maybe that's a cop out, but I do one-on-one work with a lot of startup founders, for instance, and I do work with charities like Build, where I've taught entrepreneurship classes to at-risk youth in Oakland, and I've done that type of thing. But if I'm looking for the Archimedes lever that allows me to not just help other people, but provide them with a toolkit that allows them to hopefully be far better than I am at whatever I'm teaching, I think the, the books are that, that lever for me. So I'd say, I, I view the, the books I don't write for me, the books I write for, for that purpose explicitly. I want them to be a guidebook that

• 3:22Speaker 01

  help the readers to be, to far exceed whatever I've done with the tools that I'm sharing.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  Do you have an idea for a future book?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  I always have ideas for future books because it's an affliction and I write the books because, I only write books when I feel like it's easier to write the book than to keep it in my head as this nagging voice. If, if the book has to be written, then I'll write it. But I write, I find, I find writing very, very difficult. So there are a couple of ideas I'm kicking around, nothing that I'm prepared to share just yet, but they would, there would be no four hour at the beginning of the title.

• 3:55Lewis Howes?

  There you go. A different chapter.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Very different from my previous books.

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Very different.

• 4:00Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is the number one skill or asset that some, that everyone should have that will always further them in life? If they could, if you could say there's one asset and skill that you need to have in your life, for business, relationships, whatever it may be.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Being a good writer. Good communicator in the written word. Yep. And I don't think it's hard to improve that. I think that a regular practice of writing, it could be journaling in the morning for five to 10 minutes with something like morning pages. People can Google that. You can actually Google what my journal looks like. So what my journal looks like literally, and then my name and some examples will pop up. But having a regular writing practice, and it could be just an assignment that you give yourself once a week, and you're going to write three to five pages, and then you're going to pay someone to edit it or to review it. And that could be a teacher at a local college who does, say, creative writing classes, or it could be a friend who's a lawyer or a lawyer. Lawyers are very good at, not all of them,

• 5:00Speaker 01

  but they're very good at spotting sloppy language or sloppy thinking. Words that are unnecessary, words that are easily confused. And just that practice of tightening up your writing will tighten up your thinking. And so if you want to improve your thinking, the most concrete, tangible way to do that that is easy to manage is having a regular writing practice of some type. And the goal isn't to become a better writer. The goal is to become a clearer thinker. And no matter what you're doing in life, you are going to have to, especially in a digital world where email is going to remain king for the foreseeable future. And if not email, it's going to be text. There will be a text component

• 5:45Speaker 01

  because people can answer it asynchronously. Then you need to be a compelling communicator.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Hey, guys. If you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now. TheMillionaireMorning.com