#192: The Return of Drunk Dialing

Thanks to the gin I had tonight, this is a special episode. It is a drunk-dialing Q&A with you guys -- like we did around this time last year to celebrate the 100th episode http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/09/11/drunk-dialing/. In preparation, I solicited phone numbers from listeners who wanted to receive a call from me. In this episode, I cover topics such as: parenting advice from friends and guests how to get started in podcasting how to make a good sales pitch long-distance moves what I consider good advice and much, much more! Without further ado, please enjoy this alcohol-fueled Q&A! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Rhone Apparel https://rhone.com/tim. Dozens -- maybe even hundreds of you -- have asked me: "What shirts are you wearing in your recent YouTube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfbB53gEAHA?" They're a very specific set of shirts from Rhone https://rhone.com/tim. I'm packing for a trip for seven to ten days, and I would say half of what I'm going to pack is from Rhone. These are the most comfortable shirts (and Rhone stocks way more than shirts) that I have ever worn -- at least for active wear. But you can even sneak them into a business casual event or dinner if you're a Long Island kid like me. Rhone https://rhone.com/tim has minimal branding, so you don't feel like you're walking around with some sort of billboard on your chest. They come with pure, melted-down silver in the fabric -- anti-odor technology so you don't smell like a musk ox halfway through the day. I love Rhone's shirts, pants, and shorts https://rhone.com/tim, and I've been wearing them pretty much every day for the past few weeks. Luckily, there's no risk in trying them out: free shipping and a 100-day return policy should help you decide if they're worth it. Plus, listeners get an exclusive 15% off for using the code TIM at checkout. Find 'em at rhone.com/tim https://rhone.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by Audible http://audible.com/tim. I have used Audible http://audible.com/tim for years, and I love audiobooks. I have two to recommend: The Graveyard Book http://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/The-Graveyard-Book-Full-Cast-Production-Audiobook/B00LXHQO22/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 by Neil Gaiman Vagabonding http://www.audible.com/pd/Travel-Adventure/Vagabonding-Audiobook/B00GCHWZHG/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 by Rolf Potts All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is go to Audible.com/Tim http://audible.com/tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endless options they offer. That could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or even a class. It's that easy. Go to Audible.com/Tim http://audible.com/tim and get started today. Enjoy.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, I would have seen an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  Dozens, maybe even hundreds of you have asked me, "What shirts are you wearing on YouTube videos?" For a very specific set of shirts, and they are from Rhone Apparel, R-H-O-N-E. And I'm packing for a trip for seven to 10 days, and I would say half of what I'm going to pack is from Rhone. These are the most comfortable shirts, and they have much more than shirts, that I have ever worn, at least for active wear, for getting out and about. And you can even sneak them in to, say, a business casual or a dinner if you want, if you're a Long Island kid like me. They have minimal branding, you don't feel like you are walking around with some type of billboard on your chest.

• 1:03Tim Ferriss?

  Anti-odor technology, because I am a smelly bastard and I can somewhat end up smelling like a musk ox halfway through the day. They have pure melted down silver in their fabrics. And I love these shirts, I love their pants, I love their shorts. And I've been wearing them pretty much every day for the last few weeks, at least one item from them. So you should check it out. This stuff is not cheap, because it is made from premium materials. And if you want the best, you gotta pay for the best, and that's just the way it is. But, there's no risk in trying them out. They provide free shipping and a 100-day return policy. That is plenty of time to feel them out.

• 1:44Tim Ferriss?

  So check it out at rhone.com/tim, that's R-H-O-N-E.com/tim. You can get 15% off, which is exclusive for listeners of this podcast, you're welcome, using the code TIM, you gotta use the code, folks. And at that URL, rhone.com/tim, you will also see the shirt that I would suggest maybe starting with. It is the Scout Crew Neck Shirt. I like the red, I like the black, I'm wearing the red right now as I record this. And that is all for this sponsor announcement, so check it out, rhone.com/tim.

• 2:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I've used for years. I love audiobooks and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's amazing. You will thank me. The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life and formed the basis for a lot of what became The Four Hour Work Week. So, all you need to do to get your free 30-day trial is go to audible.com/tim, T-I-M, and you can choose one of those two books, or you can choose from more great options than you can possibly imagine. So, that could be a book,

• 3:07Tim Ferriss?

  that could be a magazine, that could be a newspaper, it could be a class. It's that easy. Go to audible.com/tim. That's audible.com/tim and grab a book. Enjoy.

• 3:21Tim Ferriss?

  This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out the habits, routines, breakfasts, favorite books, et cetera, that you can apply to your own life. But I've had far too much gin for that. This episode is a special edition. It is a drunk dialing Q and A with you guys, my listeners and fans. I solicited phone numbers from folks who wanted to receive a call from me. It is a Friday night, and if you want to know about the gin I had, well, you're gonna have to sign up for Five Bullet Friday.

• 4:05Tim Ferriss?

  That's where I talk about such things. Fourhourworkweek.com/friday, all spelled out. But I talk about, in this particular case, things ranging from parenting advice, based on advice from my friends and podcast guests, to how to get started in podcasting, to thinking about jumping from one industry to the next, to Considering moves from, say, the east coast to the west coast of the US, and many, many, many, many, many other questions that are alcohol infused for your entertainment delight. And I hope you enjoy it. I was very happy with how this turned out.

• 4:49Tim Ferriss?

  And without further ado, as I always say, please enjoy this Q and A, answering some of your most burning questions from somewhere around five to 15 people. And that is about it as far as preambles go. So please enjoy, and as always, thank you for listening.

• 5:16Tim Ferriss?

  Hello?

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Hello?

• 5:19Tim Ferriss?

  Hi, is this Josh?

• 5:22Speaker 04

  It is.

• 5:22Tim Ferriss?

  Josh, is this Tim Ferriss? How are you this evening?

• 5:26Speaker 04

  Doing well. How are you?

• 5:28Tim Ferriss?

  I'm splendid. I'm having a disgusting cocktail of some type of blueberry sparkling water with gin. I'm getting an even eye for that comment, but I am glad you dropped in your phone number and name. So I'm all yours for the next couple of minutes.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I appreciate it, man. I mean, if I can take a moment to say thanks for everything that you do. And, and man, my whole family just loves, you know, all the, the lessons and teachings that you throw out there for us. And it's, it's been, it's been awesome. So.

• 6:03Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, man. I appreciate that.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  I won't take too much time, but, uh, yeah, I mean, we, uh, we've, I have a family of four children and we've kind of been on this crazy trajectory since your first book and, and, uh, living in the Southern California and, and kind of living it up based upon the principles learned from that book. So it's been awesome.

• 6:22Tim Ferriss?

  Congratulations, man. Thank you.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then the second book came out and I dropped 40 pounds in 2010 and been able to keep it off. So whole, whole life's been impacted. So really appreciate that.

• 6:33Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, nice work, man.

• 6:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll cut to the question. My question is, kind of back to my kids. Um, I've got four kids. I'm thirty seven. My oldest is fifteen, next one is fourteen. So I've got two kids in high school right now.

• 6:46Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  And you often ask the question to your guests about how, what would they tell theirs, themselves at age twenty or in their early twenties as they're getting started?

• 6:58Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  And I want to look a little bit earlier and look at age fourteen, age fifteen. The reason why is because you've often said in your past that you were most impacted, maybe when you were a freshman or early high school age by coaches, teachers, trip to Japan, whatever. Um, and I feel like just observing my kids, it's such a pivotal time in their life. But what would your toolkit look like for teenagers and, um, maybe for yourself, but also as a parent? If you were a parent of teenagers, what would your toolkit look like for those kids as a parent?

• 7:31Tim Ferriss?

  Great question. I should say first of all, uh, that as you probably know, I don't have kids. So I, I think that I may be a bit of an armchair quarterback, uh, in answering this. But based on my conversations with friends of mine, close friends of mine, who I consider in this case to be very good dads. I, I think I can speak to it. That would include quite a few of the podcast guests. So whether that is say Josh Waitzkin, who I think has a lot to offer, or Jamie Foxx or others. There, there are a few things that come to mind and you're right that I was very impacted between, say, fourteen and sixteen by coaches and a handful of teachers. And I do think that, that freshman sophomore

• 8:16Tim Ferriss?

  window is a critical inflection point, whether they're going in the right direction or the wrong direction for a lot of kids. Certainly was true for me, uh, which is why I wanted to teach ninth grade, uh, for a long time. I thought that was my ultimate destination was teaching ninth grade. But to your question, I would say that there are a few things I would emphasize and there are different ways to emphasize. In other words, there are the principles and then there's how you convey those principles, right? So the, the first would be quite simply, you are the average of the five people you associate with most and how financially, academically.

• 8:54Tim Ferriss?

  Physically, you're going to be the average of the people you spend the most time with. So you should, you need to choose and should choose your friends very, very carefully. And if you think that you can be sort of the standout, A student, top performing athlete, et cetera, among a bunch of misfits who you happen to like, you are mistaken. That just is not the case. Right. It's true for adults, it's true for kids, right? Now, that could come off as somewhat preachy. There are other ways, I think, that you can condition your kids to ultimately be more likely to succeed in academics and in life. One is getting them accustomed to failure and being humbled very early on, or at least on a regular basis.

• 9:38Tim Ferriss?

  So if you were to ask someone like a Jaco Willink, for instance, the former Navy SEAL commander who's been on the podcast, jujitsu would be a great tool for men or women, boys or girls. I think that that is a great sort of training ground. And a lot of those individual sports have an accountability that sometimes you are lacking in team sports. I play team sports, but when you're on, say, the wrestling mat, psychologically, it's just a different kettle of fish. I mean, you deserve the credit or the blame for your successes or failures, respectively. And then I would say last, the next thing that comes to mind, at least, is a book called

• 10:19Tim Ferriss?

  Grit, G-R-I-T, which is about resilience and looks a lot at kids, specifically. Josh Waitzkin, who's the, who was the basis and the inspiration for Searching for Bobby Fischer, the movie and the book, turned me on to this, and I'm blanking on the author's name, but it's, it's really about teaching your kids to focus on hard work and not intrinsic capability. In other words, they're able to develop an internal locus of control where they're, they don't feel like they're dependent on external factors for success. Josh, Josh, Josh does that in a bunch of interesting ways. For instance, when he was raising, or is raising his son, Jack, from the very early

• 11:03Tim Ferriss?

  days, he noticed parents talking about good weather, bad weather, we can't go out, it's bad weather, we, we should go out, it's good weather. And he flipped it on its head, and of course, this wouldn't apply to your high school kids, but it does in other contexts. He would say, It's a beautiful rainy day, Jack. Why don't we go out? And he would always go outside and play with his kid in the rain, right? And I think there are ways to simulate that and, and create conditions for that. The other thing is not to make it too curriculum based, but I really feel like if you are able to get your kids in some fashion,

• 11:45Tim Ferriss?

  excited about improving their written or spoken communication in any capacity. I feel like that is a huge competitive advantage in life. And you can add the ability to say, public speak or write clearly on top of any other skill set and you're automatically in like the top 25% in almost any arena, if that makes sense.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's interesting and that, that might be the, the first time I've heard you maybe say that in that way. But in, in a, and I understand that being, you know, my age now, how do you think you get? How do you think you teach that again? Thinking about as a parent, you're a teacher, but half the time your kids don't listen to you because you are their parent.

• 12:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  Which is maybe the piece, piece of the puzzle that, that, that you're missing because you don't have the kids. But when you think about, because I think that is an excellent principle and it's something that I maybe wish I spent more time on at that age. How, how would you think getting through to your kids with those specific skills? Writing, speaking?

• 12:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I would look at who influences them, first of all. So who do they listen to? Right? I would actually take an indirect path. So if your kids are prone, and I think teenagers are particularly prone to being like, ah dad, you know, dad's preaching again, or whatever the hell it happens to be, right?

• 13:09Tim Ferriss?

  Figuring out who. Who they listen to. My mom did this in a very interesting way when I was actually 15. Side note, I don't know if I've ever talked about this publicly, 15, I was in Japan and I've always suffered from sensitivity to heat and I've actually been hospitalized a few times. It's a long story, but I have lung issues, respiratory issues. And so I was hospitalized in Japan at one point because I insisted on kind of training through the pain, wearing a judo outfit in like 90% humidity and 100 degree weather and which was stupid, right? And my mom knew I would, and my mom knew on some level that I might not listen to her or take it with a grain of salt, something like that. So she went to a previous martial

• 13:53Tim Ferriss?

  arts instructor who had a huge impact on me, who I took very, very seriously and had him record a VHS tape. I'm not kidding. This is back in the day and she shipped it to Japan, where he sort of gave me like a, like a man to man talking to, so to speak, about the risks and payoffs, potential benefits, downsides, et cetera, of all this stuff. And that was the intervention that worked, right? So I think that there are different ways to reach kids depending on who they listen to. I think that's the path of least resistance, right? Yeah. If you looked at, and they may be too young for this, but for instance, Warren Buffett

• 14:33Tim Ferriss?

  cites as his best ever investment, a Dale Carnegie course in public speaking, right? So if Interesting. If the richest man in the world, or one of the richest men in the world, certainly most successful equity investor of all time, potentially, might pull some weight, then that could be like an indirect way to do it, right? Is to somehow expose them to that in a non preachy way. The other way to do it, quite frankly, is to impress the hell out of them with someone who is an incredible public speaker or Yeah. writer. So you, it could be as simple as exposing them to a commencement speech from someone like Neil Gaiman. His make good, make good art commencement speech is just incredible and

• 15:20Tim Ferriss?

  That could be another path, right? Those are a few things that come to mind. In terms of writing, I would say if there's any type of writing that might get them hooked on reading, that is probably the Trojan horse into getting them to focus on better communication themselves. I think getting them hooked on, you know, if it's science fiction, maybe it's something from Neal Stephenson. If it's any type of writing, if it's nonfiction, maybe it's something from John McPhee, you know, something that makes them go, holy shit, like, I thought I knew a good writer.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:00Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my God, like, this guy is amazing, or this gal is amazing, would be a great way to go. And it doesn't have to be your recommendation to them to focus on the writing, right? It could be the subject matter. So for instance, if, I'm just trying to think of a good example, maybe the autobiography of Andre Agassi, which was ghostwritten. It wasn't written by Andre Agassi, but the ghostwriter is just a phenomenal storyteller, and there are a lot of life lessons and competitive lessons learned in that book. And it's a phenomenal read, right?

• 16:42Tim Ferriss?

  So you could suggest it just because of the autobiography, and they're going to finish the book, and they're going to go, holy crap, that was an amazing book. And that might be what trips the wire and gets them interested in writing.

• 16:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, but I think the soft approach is probably, and this is just, again, speaking as a complete poser who does not have kids, I would say, just knowing how I was as a teenager, I think the indirect, like Jedi mind trick approach is probably the better way to go.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:15Tim Ferriss?

  When possible.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  That is really good. That is really good advice. And the one thing, I actually think you come from a position of advantage because you don't have kids, which means you don't have the emotional connection of them pissing you off or making you happy or trying to protect them in any way.

• 17:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  So I actually think that is a position of advantage because it's just different having kids.

• 17:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I might borrow that, yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  No, good stuff. And I actually really appreciate that story about your mom and you've mentioned her a couple of times. She seemed like a phenomenal woman. So tell her thank you.

• 17:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I will. She's uh, she's, my parents are staying with me for the next three weeks. So I should have an opportunity shortly to let them know. But I tell you what, man, hopefully that's helpful. I highly recommend the book Grit. I think that will touch on a lot of what we talked about. And if you haven't heard the Josh Waitzkin episodes, I would definitely listen to those because he talks about his son a lot. And even though his son is much, much younger, I think the way he thinks about it and the architecture of his mind, the principles that he applies are still extremely applicable to a high school age kids, for sure.

• 18:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, for sure. No, and I have and actually had had the, my kids listen to different pieces of those. Right now I have the two youngest listening to the graveyard book. So

• 18:39Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  We're all kind of hooked. That, yeah, that one's phenomenal. And we're all hooked on that one. I appreciate, I won't take any more of your time. I know you got a busy night ahead of you. So I appreciate it and thank you again.

• 18:50Tim Ferriss?

  For sure, man. I appreciate you reading my stuff and more than that, putting it into practice. And I'm stoked your, your kids are listening to the graveyard book. That's a winner.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, man. Good luck.

• 19:03Tim Ferriss?

  All right, man. Have a good night. Good luck. Bye.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  Matt.

• 19:09Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, Matt. This is Tim Ferriss calling. How are you, sir?

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Hey, Tim. How are you? Good.

• 19:14Tim Ferriss?

  I'm good. Is that a Portland accent that I hear?

• 19:18Speaker 04

  Portland, it's a bit further west and south. It's Australian.

• 19:23Tim Ferriss?

  I was just looking at your number. Well, where are you in Australia?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Uh, well, I'm actually in New York. I'm, I live sort of outside of, outside of Melbourne, but um, was speaking at New York Comic Con, well, yesterday, I guess it was now, but.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  So yeah, here till tomorrow.

• 19:40Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, good man, Comic Con. I've still never been to any version of Comic Con, but I have been to Melbourne, which I guess I live in the Melbourne of the United States, meaning San Francisco.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  You do.

• 19:51Tim Ferriss?

  Very similar towns. Uh, so I'm, uh,

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was there on Tuesday.

• 19:57Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, you're a jet setter. I thought I traveled a lot.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Not usually. You just got me on a good week.

• 20:03Tim Ferriss?

  What were you speaking about at Comic Con?

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Uh, about how to teach people to be heroes in real life. Um, that's kind of my, my field. I do a lot of, um, trainings with kids and have started just sort of getting into adults as well, but sort of combining, uh, acknowledging psychology and getting into some habits to put in practice that you're going to be the person that stands up instead of being a bystander.

• 20:31Tim Ferriss?

  I like it.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  And then putting it into play with sort of physical stuff as well, like, um, I worked with Dan Edwards with, um, Parkour Generations in London and, um, doing some work with Joe DeSena next, uh, early next year. That kind of stuff, like getting prepped.

• 20:48Tim Ferriss?

  Be careful with that Joe DeSena. He might make you carry a kettlebell up and down a mountain for five hours or 12 or 76.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm very wary of that.

• 20:59Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, well, uh, that sounds like good work, man. What can I answer for you, if anything?

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I listened to the podcast and I keep hearing you, uh, get close to talking about heroes and heroism. Um, whether it's talking about the hero's journey, I remember you talking to Jon Favreau about sort of your interest in, general interest in writing fiction and, um, how the hero's journey plays into that. And, um, God, who was, who was the guy recently you had on, uh, uh, Shep Gordon talking about how heroes have, you know, our heroes have changed, um, you know, from now to 30 years ago, what that looks like. And so I'm just curious to hear from you, like, who, who are your heroes? What does that mean to you?

• 21:48Tim Ferriss?

  Ooh, that's a good one. Uh, well, I would say that the first people to come to mind are

• 21:58Tim Ferriss?

  A handful of folks who were merry pranksters of sorts, but very good in multiple fields. And maybe this is just to make myself feel better, but I view them as sort of professional dilettantes of sorts. They were willing to experiment as amateurs in multiple fields. So a few of the people who come to mind are Richard Feynman, who's a, well, was a physicist and an incredible teacher, but was also an accomplished safe cracker, bongo player, you name it. Right, right, right.

• 22:37Tim Ferriss?

  And his book, Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman, is one of my favorites. So he is right at the top of the list. Ben Franklin would be right at the top of the list. I think his biography by Walter Isaacson is fantastic. And he was a real character. I mean, he was a publisher in many ways, and a printer, rather, before he became any diplomat. And just a hilarious character. And so I think that those are two who come to mind. On top of that, you have a handful of folks from my own life who would include my wrestling

• 23:20Tim Ferriss?

  coach in high school, John Buxton, would include my guidance counselor of sorts, or my resident advisor in high school named Richard Greenleaf, who is a reverend. And I think what all these-

• 23:36Speaker 02

  What are the reasons behind them?

• 23:37Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think they're actually related to the first two. They all question the consensus reality, in a sense, to use a phrase from Eric Weinstein and Peter Thiel, in so much as I was told by my guidance counselor, for instance, in high school, that I should not apply to Princeton, where I ended up going as an undergrad. And at the time, I didn't really-

• 24:08Tim Ferriss?

  Have the toolkit to ask myself, what is this person's incentive? And their incentive is, of course, to be able to say, 80% of my advisees got into their first choice college. Well, that produces some perverse behavior in the sense that the easiest way to accomplish that goal is to have kids lower their sights. Right? So, uh, Richard Greenleaf was one who said to me, I think you can get in. I think you should apply. I think that's nonsense. And was able to convince me to believe in myself when other people told me not to, effectively.

• 24:50Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, John Buxton similarly was, uh, a hard ass in the best way possible, who just didn't tolerate people, or in this case, students, thinking that they weren't capable of what he knew them to be capable of, if that makes sense. And, uh, I, I, I think one of the downfalls, in my mind, of modern, at least US, uh, society, uh, or societal norms, and I, I suspect this applies elsewhere, in the Commonwealth, probably,

• 25:30Tim Ferriss?

  um, is that, uh, you have a political correctness that leads to everyone, or a lot of people, treating others with kid gloves. And I think that that is a disservice and that you are in fact, uh, woefully under preparing people for reality, if you don't give them tough love. And if you look at, say, John Buxton, and, and, uh, for instance, if, if you look at the wrestling team, and he was much more than a wrestling coach. I mean, he was an English teacher. He raised, I think, hundreds of millions of dollars for the endowment of the school I attended, which was St. Paul's, after public school. Very multifaceted guy.

• 26:13Tim Ferriss?

  He was the, he was the one to say, no, you're not going to quit because I know you're capable of more. Like, go do what you have to do. If you're feeling sick because you're training too hard, go puke in the bucket over there. And after you return from the corner, you're going to train for another two hours. And at the end of those two hours, you're like, oh shit, I'm actually capable of 50% more than I thought I was. And in that way, they were able to make people around them think they were capable of more than they had previously thought. And that's a tremendous, that's a tremendous superpower, in a way. Yeah, so that's why they would fall into a similar category.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah, I think, I think you've had some interaction with Jennifer Miller. She was maybe a case study in Four Hour Work Week. She traveled, traveled the world with her kids and she just wrote a post yesterday about her now 20-year-old, I think, daughter, who's struggling through math in, in college and just was talking about that, their whole education philosophy. And it was, we're going to push you, we're going to teach you Latin when you're five, and we're going to make you do math all the way through to 12th grade because you, it's going to help you. And you may hate it and you may scream at us, but you're going to do it. And you just, you know, that, that, that's not happening in the school systems anywhere.

• 27:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think that it's, it's very important, if anything, and I mean, I try, I try to do this with my audience en masse, which can be challenging, of course, when you're dealing with millions of people, but is to say, like, okay, you think you're capable of X, but I would vote for myself and for everyone listening, that that's actually bullshit and you're capable of X plus 20% at the very least. So let's push, let's push for that. And it's, you only know what you're capable of if you push yourself close to the breaking point. And certainly as a student, I was selling myself short. And as an athlete, I was selling myself short.

• 28:22Tim Ferriss?

  And what the John Buxtons of the world taught me was...

• 28:28Tim Ferriss?

  You can and should dream bigger like, don't be so impressed by all Americans in sport X. Don't be so impressed by someone who placed in the top 10 in XYZ national competition. Like that is actually within reach if you apply yourself and work hard, but you're going to have to endure incredible amounts of discomfort, period. That's it. And I think that the people I view as heroes in my life are those who have forced me to have uncomfortable conversations, do uncomfortable things because I think that whatever we view

• 29:09Tim Ferriss?

  as success is probably just an inch outside of our sphere of comfort, if that makes sense. And so the people who push you beyond that are the people you should thank. The people who say everything's great, everything's going to be fine. There's a place for that, but if that is their sort of unified line for all circumstances, they're not doing you any favors, if that makes sense.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. It's that, you know, if you do well enough, you don't have to worry, right? It's just, uh, just get to this standard and you'll be all good. There's no pushing beyond that.

• 29:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And I know that, you know, for, for instance, uh, the, if you look at New Zealand or you look at New Zealand, if you look at New Zealand or you look at Australia, uh, you hear a lot about tall poppy syndrome and that's not something that people in the US hear very much, but uh, in effect, it's actually very related to something in Japanese, which is, you know, the nail that sticks out will get hammered down, but you know, tall poppy syndrome being if someone really sticks out and strives to be excellent, they get cut down by their peers, right?

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:19Tim Ferriss?

  So I would say complementary skillset that the heroes I mentioned impart is they have at one point or another been the one against the many and they're able to help not just teach, but condition their students to be able to face criticism and to be able to dismiss criticism when necessary to do what needs to be done. And that's not a comfortable process.

• 30:49Tim Ferriss?

  It just is not.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's, I mean, being uncomfortable is critical for any potential hero. So you've got to be comfortable stepping out of the crowd, doing the thing that no one else is doing. It's just a, it's a thing you've got to practice. A lot of people have to practice.

• 31:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, just a prereq. It's a, it's a straight prereq. And I mean, I've, not to quote my own book, because I hate people who do that, but I'm drunk enough that I'll do that, which is, you know, there's a line, and the only reason I bring it up is that it's, it's one of the most highlighted on Kindle is, you know, your success in life, by and large, can be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have. And that is a skill you can practice. That is a skill you can develop. That is a coachable skill, right? And that's why for a long time, I had, actually, and it's still on my refrigerator in New York, is a magnet that says, you know, every day, do one thing that scares you.

• 31:49Tim Ferriss?

  In effect, I'm paraphrasing, and that's a quote from, I think it's Eleanor Roosevelt. And it is a reminder that developing these abilities is a habit. It is not a decision. It is a habit. You have to condition yourself, just like weight training or anything else.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  That's, that's it. There's a habit of heroism. That, that, like, that sums up my, my whole sort of work is, if you, if you practice this, you are going to be the one that, that steps out, steps up and, and helps when needed.

• 32:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. Cool, man. Well, I tell you what, I gotta, I gotta hop because I'm realizing I have quite a few phone calls to make, but.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  You have, yep.

• 32:33Tim Ferriss?

  Very good question. So thank you for that.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Thank you. Appreciate the time.

• 32:38Tim Ferriss?

  For sure, man.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Enjoy the rest of your night, which will, which will no doubt get more amusing.

• 32:43Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah, it'll get more amusing. I know you Aussies know how to drink, so I don't. So this will be even more ridiculous. Have a good weekend.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  All right, you too.

• 32:54Tim Ferriss?

  All right, bye bye.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 32:57Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, hello, this is Ryan.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  This is Ryan.

• 33:00Tim Ferriss?

  Ryan, this is Tim Ferriss. How the hell are you?

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Damn it, I'm doing good. How are you?

• 33:05Tim Ferriss?

  I'm great. Where are you?

• 33:08Speaker 00

  I'm at, I'm at home, uh, watching some playoff baseball.

• 33:12Tim Ferriss?

  Sweet. Ooh, I heard somebody in the background, too.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  That's my wife.

• 33:18Tim Ferriss?

  Hi, wife. I am, uh, I'm all yours for the next, uh, however many minutes. Depends on how long, when I am, but, uh, yeah, man, fire away, whatever you want to do.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Cool. Um, question I had prepared was, um, I know that you get, um, stopped on the street from time to time when you're out in public. And I was wondering if you could describe one maybe awkward or funny, um, fan interaction? And then one maybe especially memorable fan interaction that you've had.

• 33:51Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yes, I can. Uh, especially since I'm superpowered with the performance enhancer known as Gin at the moment. Uh, the first is awkward. Oh, my God, so many awkward interactions. So I remember at South by Southwest, probably two years ago, uh, was on an elevator, literally kissing my girlfriend going down, who was on the step above me. And a kind of nerdy Asperger's-y guy reached over her shoulder as we are kissing to tap my shoulder to start pitching me on a startup. I would say that's pretty high on the awkward scale.

• 34:36Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, and I've had between, well, at least 10, maybe more than 20 always guys, uh, well, obviously you'll realize in the context, who have followed me into a bathroom.

• 34:56Tim Ferriss?

  And I'd be standing at a urinal and they would pitch over my shoulder like breathing onto my neck their startup. These are all startup pitch related. And I have to tell everybody out there, uh, doesn't matter how good your pitch is, if you're breathing on my neck when I have my penis in my hand, it's not a good particular setup for, uh, like a high close rate, I would say. So that would be very high on the awkward list. Uh, I've had some people, and I think living in San Francisco, I have a high percentage, uh, not a high percentage, but a reasonable percentage of low EQ, high IQ folks. Um,

• 35:40Tim Ferriss?

  I've had people come over to me when I'm having dinner with someone and literally just pull a chair over and sit down at my dinner table to pitch me startup pitches, which is again, not ideal protocol, I think, for getting a high close rate. Uh, so those are a couple of the awkward ones. Uh, one memorable one, and this is, I think, the way you should do it, quite frankly, is, uh, I've had a handful of people come up to me at different events and it's after I've given a keynote or something like that. So there are many

• 36:18Tim Ferriss?

  people who are asking me questions, pitching me things, and they very simply say, I know you're super busy right now. You're going to be occupied for the next couple of hours. Here is a quick pitch that I wrote down. I think you'll find it interesting. And they hand me a letter. That is, I think, the most methodical and smart way to go about it. If you're going to pitch me something, and I'm fine with being pitched, uh, I don't want to be tricked. I don't want to be seduced with a bunch of like unsolicited favors and then, oh, by the way, I have my book coming out in three weeks. Like, could you give me a blurb? I don't like that. I'm fine with explicit pitches, but in an environment

• 37:02Tim Ferriss?

  where you are competing with potentially hundreds of people who want to ask me something or pitch me something, the best way you can stand out is to give me something and I stick in my pocket that I can review later on my own time. And very few people do that. At a given event of, say, even 5,000 attendees, I will get maybe two of those.

• 37:24Tim Ferriss?

  So I would say those are the first memorable interactions that come to mind because they're very effective. I think that's a smart way to approach pitching busy people when you meet them in person is not to actually verbally deliver the pitch, but is to give them something you've taken the time to make as perfect as possible on paper and give to them.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Cool. Well, that's the only question I had. I want to keep it brief so you could talk to all the other people who are on the list. If it's okay with you, I'd like to maybe end the call with just a quick challenge for everyone in the podcast listening audience. I know on your 36th birthday, you gave up your birthday to raise funds for Charity Water.

• 38:08Tim Ferriss?

  Uh huh.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  And I just wanted to challenge everyone in the audience to do the same. I think Charity Water is a great organization. I'm not affiliated with them. I don't work for them, but I think they're just amazing. I think Scott Harrison built something really cool and they're just doing amazing work all around the world. And for everyone who's interested, if you go to charitywater.org, you can set up a birthday campaign. It's super easy. It just takes a few minutes. And like Tim, Tim raised over a hundred thousand dollars for his birthday. And everyone, people all over the world have had campaigns that have raised thousands of dollars for a worthwhile cause. So just want to challenge everyone in the audience. I think it's a worthwhile cause. Check it out. And thank you so much for your time, Tim. I really appreciate it. And have a good rest of your night.

• 38:52Tim Ferriss?

  For sure, man. That's a good challenge. I second that. So, and if you just want to see also for those people listening who are like, man, I'm not sure I'm going to do that. But I would say if you want to see how a nonprofit can structure and promote itself in part using design in a very, very, very smart way, then Charity Water, just for that reason alone, if you want to get a mini MBA in how to use design to promote a nonprofit, which is in and of itself very difficult, then you should check out Charity Water. So I agree with you wholeheartedly. And thanks for the question. Have a great weekend.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  No problem. Thank you, Tim.

• 39:34Tim Ferriss?

  All right, man. Bye bye.

• 39:38Speaker 05

  Hey, this is Bobby. Leave me a message and I'll call you back if I like you.

• 39:45Tim Ferriss?

  Bobby damnation. This is Tim Ferriss. I've had way too much gin and I'm prepared to make an ass of myself and I'm afraid we have missed our opportunity to connect. Have a glorious evening and a spectacular weekend, good sir. Goodbye.

• 40:04Speaker 06

  Hello?

• 40:05Tim Ferriss?

  Hi, is this Justin?

• 40:07Speaker 06

  It is.

• 40:08Tim Ferriss?

  Justin, this is Tim Ferriss. How are you, sir?

• 40:12Speaker 06

  I'm good, thank you. And how are you?

• 40:14Tim Ferriss?

  I'm good. Where am I finding you at the moment?

• 40:17Speaker 06

  I am in Evanston, Illinois.

• 40:20Tim Ferriss?

  Evanston, Illinois. One of my favorite towns.

• 40:24Speaker 06

  Really?

• 40:24Tim Ferriss?

  I'm kidding. I've never been. But I'm all yours for the next handful of minutes and I'm getting drunker by the minute, so that should produce increasingly unusable answers, but I am available. So please shoot.

• 40:43Speaker 06

  Sure. I just have a question about teachers. So you've obviously learned so much and been coached by, you know, some really awesome people for all these like various skills. And I just want to know are there like specific qualities that you look for when you're trying to look for a teacher in particular?

• 41:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, or are there resources, tactics that you try to find when you kind of seek someone out outside of your own network?

• 41:10Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. I would say there are a handful of things that come to mind immediately. So the first is when assessing teachers, number one, have they been able to replicate their own results? That is to underscore the fact that just because people are good at performing or have a performance record that is very impressive, does not necessarily mean that they know how to then transmit that knowledge and know-how to other people. And many top performers are extremely good at what they do. Yes, because of some technical or strategic planning, but also because of incredible genetics and...

• 41:52Tim Ferriss?

  It is one of my first hurdles to look for their ability to replicate their results with students. So that's number one. Number two would be a question of sorts, and that is, are they good at questioning assumptions? Are they good at questioning best practices? Are they willing to experiment with things that might not or should not work based on the literature? For instance, that is a reflection of open mindedness and general objectivity that I seek in teachers also.

• 42:37Tim Ferriss?

  Third would be, and this is something I've mentioned before, but their willingness to be tough and uncompromising. So their ability and willingness to have tough love and to force people to do what they think they cannot do, which is extremely important because any novice, certainly even any intermediate coming into a field, will probably underestimate their own capabilities. And you need someone not just to tell you you can do more, but to prove to you that you can do more.

• 43:17Tim Ferriss?

  And the way they do that is by forcing you to confront discomfort in practice generally. And those are a handful of things that I would say I look for.

• 43:31Speaker 06

  Okay, thank you. And so you would just do your homework on this teacher? For example, before you try them out, or would you just go meet with them, talk to them and see how they do their style to find out whether they have these qualities?

• 43:42Tim Ferriss?

  I would do both. I would do both. So I would do my homework and then I would ask them questions related to the qualities that I just described. And those questions could be, have you, how many people have you replicated your own performance with? And if they haven't, that's not necessarily a disqualifier, but the answer will tell you a lot, right? If they say, well, I haven't replicated my own results with many people because I have the genetic advantage of being designed like a spider for ultra endurance running, for instance, and I'm like six foot five and weigh 110 pounds and I'm great at dissipating heat.

• 44:27Tim Ferriss?

  However, I've been able to train 10 people to do X, Y, and Z. That itself reflects a self-awareness and an awareness that I think contributes to being a very good teacher. Right? So if there are genetic anomaly, that doesn't disqualify them, but they need to be aware of that fact. And you could ask questions related to really any of the characteristics that I described that would help you to assess whether or not you want to invest the time, energy, and/or money into training with someone. So that would be, I think, my general approach.

• 45:07Tim Ferriss?

  And it's astonishing, really, to someone who hasn't attempted what I'm about to describe, how affordable it can be to get extremely good advice via Skype, for instance, from gold medalists or world-class performers in almost any field for very, very little. I mean, this is particularly true in athletics, where you can get generally between $100 or $300 per hour, one-to-one coaching from someone who is one of the best, meaning top 10 at some point in the world in their given field. I mean, that is just a bargain and

• 45:50Tim Ferriss?

  something worth saving for. So those would be my initial thoughts.

• 45:53Speaker 06

  Okay. Well, thank you very much. That was really helpful. And I'll, yeah, I'll definitely keep a lot of that in mind when trying to find someone. So, thanks.

• 46:02Tim Ferriss?

  All right. Well, I appreciate you dropping in your name and phone number. So thanks for the-

• 46:07Speaker 06

  Thanks very much. I love your content.

• 46:09Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks for the time and have a good weekend. And there are also-

• 46:12Speaker 06

  You too.

• 46:12Tim Ferriss?

  The deconstruction section in the Four Hour Chef contains a lot of the questions that I tend to ask these types of experts as well, if that's of any help.

• 46:23Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 46:24Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 46:25Speaker 06

  Thanks very much.

• 46:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, have a great weekend. Bye-bye.

• 46:27Speaker 06

  You too. Bye.

• 46:31Tim Ferriss?

  Austin, can you hear me?

• 46:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I can, I can hear you now.

• 46:35Tim Ferriss?

  This is Tim Ferriss calling to harass you. How are you?

• 46:39Speaker 05

  Hi, Tim, how are you?

• 46:41Tim Ferriss?

  I'm good. Where, where are you located at the moment?

• 46:45Speaker 05

  I'm in, uh, like, location in, in the world, I'm, I'm in Puyallup, Washington. Uh, it's kinda near Seattle, Tacoma, Pacific Northwest up there.

• 46:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, dig it. I like Pacific Northwest, lots of rain, love rain. I'm kidding.

• 47:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, there, there is a lot of rain.

• 47:03Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, so I am, uh, at your disposal for the next little while. Uh, how can I help or answer questions? I may not do a good job, but I will do my best.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm sure you'll do great. I actually, I do have a question. So, um, over time, I've, I've listened to many of your podcasts, and I know the different opinions of a lot of that you've interviewed, but, uh, what would you say your personal view on, uh, a college education is? And if you were a 19-year-old and you were choosing what you wanted to study in, whether it's in college or not, uh, what do you think you'd wanna, you'd wanna look towards? Or what field would you choose to study in? And why would you do that?

• 47:44Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, good question. Now, for context, are you, it would look like it from your email address, but are you in college at the moment?

• 47:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I'm at Eastern Washington University and, uh, I'm a, I'm a, here right now, and I'm actually looking into economics and then, uh, actually, just recently, in the past week, I've, I've been looking into a physics minor too, cause I'm, I, uh, actually, funny, I, I listened to your podcast with Peter Mandi, and I read his book, Abundance, and it just totally inspired me. And, uh, and I really wanna look into changing the world and doing stuff like that.

• 48:22Tim Ferriss?

  So, short answer is I think economics plus physics is a really smart move. Uh, there's a great article on, if you just search "career advice" and Scott Adams, he's the creator of Dilbert. Uh, it's a fantastic piece that's actually been, uh, echoed and referenced by Mark Andreessen, for instance, who's a...

• 48:49Tim Ferriss?

  Pioneer in every sense of the possible word. If you look at his technological innovations, mosaic, his investment practices and Andreessen Horowitz, which he's co-founded and helped build, the combination of those degrees gives you more than the sum of its parts, if that makes sense. So, first of all, I would say that a college education makes sense. And Malcolm Gladwell has talked about this in our conversation that we had on the podcast. It makes sense if you know how to utilize it properly. In other words, I think that

• 49:29Tim Ferriss?

  a college education, or an MBA, or anything like that, an advanced degree, makes sense in two cases. A, if you go to a top rated, and that's of course, a whole different hornet's nest to dig into, but a top rated university. Or B, if you develop a generalized skillset

• 49:57Tim Ferriss?

  that allows you to succeed in the world, and on top of that, have people who at one in the morning will stimulate and challenge you. That's it, right? So I am a personal proponent of a college education because of several things, one of which is a survivorship bias that I think is dangerous when you look at those who romanticize lack of a college education. So drop out of college, become a billionaire, like Mark and, not Mark, excuse me, but Zuckerberg, for instance.

• 50:42Tim Ferriss?

  And the danger there is similar to the danger if you look at, say, a Barron's magazine and read about the mutual funds who offer X, Y, and Z returns and have a fantastic track record. The mutual funds who have failed don't have the money to advertise, nor do they want to advertise, so they don't. Therefore, you're only seeing a very, a very small percentage of the total number of mutual funds who, through skill or, in many cases, luck, have been able to beat the market for X number of years, right? Yeah.

• 51:24Tim Ferriss?

  Similarly, if you're only looking at the magazine covers, you're only reading about the handful of people who have dropped out, usually of a place like Harvard, or Princeton, or Stanford, something like that, where they can always go back, uh, who have beaten the odds and built a multi-billion dollar company. That is not the norm. I think that having a college degree as a safety net is, in many cases, an extremely intelligent thing. And I certainly feel that way for myself, and I feel that way for many, many, many, many people. I mean, 90-plus percent of the people out there. If you think you're

• 52:05Tim Ferriss?

  Mark Zuckerberg, chances are you are not. You've, you've never met him. You just do not understand the delta between where you are and where that person is. Now, you could be, but chances are, you're not. So, I think having a college education and a degree is extremely important and valuable in today's economy, as it exists in the United States. In terms of majors and so on, we kind of hit this earlier, but I think that the combination of a major and a minor that is unusual is very interesting. So, having a hard science

• 52:48Tim Ferriss?

  element as one of those two increases your viability as a candidate, at least in high-tech startups, right? So, if that is one of your goals, if you have a, a micro and macroeconomic...

• 53:05Tim Ferriss?

  A basic set of knowledge from a major and then a minor in physics that shows A, a familiarity with and a comfort with numbers and B, a comfort with a very uncompromising hard science known as physics, which includes a lot of mathematics. So that is a, a huge advantage, I think, over people who come to the table with just one major. On top of that, I would say anything you can do, and this could be extracurricular or it could be in the university itself, to improve your ability to communicate, really puts whatever

• 53:46Tim Ferriss?

  you've done on steroids. And that's a very cliched expression, but I know a lot about steroids and they're can be really effective in legal and competent contexts. So, uh, probably, I think I've probably had too much gin and you shouldn't do steroids, by the way. That'd be terrible for your longevity in life and all these other good things. But I digress. So what I'm saying, and there's someone sitting about 15 feet away from me shaking her head right now. But I've had a lot of gin. That's all point of this fucking drunk dial thing. So, uh, I would say that if you can, uh, so let me take a step back. A lot of engineers,

• 54:31Tim Ferriss?

  a lot of people who are quantitatively comfortable, believe that logical arguments win the day. And if you can provide a highly logical, if A, then B, therefore C, you will win the contract. You will get the job. You will fill in the blank. And that is just not the case. You need to be able to communicate in both a rational and also emotionally compelling way. And if you can add the ability to communicate clearly, whether that's verbally and/or ideally,

• 55:06Tim Ferriss?

  Written, uh, that will give you a huge advantage over at least 50% of people who are competing for a similar slot. Uh, so those would be my initial thoughts, but as far as a liberal arts undergraduate degree is concerned, I really feel like you should just study what interests you most. Uh, I was

• 55:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:29Tim Ferriss?

  Initially a neuroscience or a psychology major with an emphasis in neuroscience and then an East Asian studies degree. That at first glance would seem to have nothing to do with what I did later, but, uh, you have your entire life to be a fucking adult. I would explore what interests you during college. It's, it's an incredible golden opportunity and a window that is very brief to develop yourself, not as an eligible candidate for the job market, but as a well-rounded

• 56:08Tim Ferriss?

  human being. And I know that probably sounds hokey. It might sound cliched and I had a fair amount of gin, but, uh, most people spend the remainder of their life after graduating from college, trying to reestablish the quality of life and carefree sentiment that they had while they were in college. So I would encourage you to study what most interests you, but if your predilection is already towards economics plus physics, that's a fucking killer combo. So I would stick with that.

• 56:43Speaker 05

  That's, that's great to hear. Yeah. I, uh, actually I, uh, I, I can't remember probably when I was in about ninth grade or 10th grade, then I, uh, actually four hour work week. Uh, my dad introduced me to it and I read it and it really changed the course of everything that I've looked towards and, and really just realized. That I can do what I want in life and that really freedom is a real possibility and financial stability can achieve that and not just that, but really doing what you like. And so I think that that's actually just recently, like I said, the physics component has come in and like I said, I listened to your podcast and I'm super inspired and I

• 57:26Speaker 05

  actually started listening to, like I said, Peter's podcast because of that. That really shaped the path that I'm on right now. So, so thank you very much for just being so inspiring and, and yeah.

• 57:41Tim Ferriss?

  Congratulations, man. Well, you sound like you are in a great place. I mean, Peter is fantastic, obviously. I mean, every time I meet Peter, I come away thinking, what the fuck am I doing with my life? He is a, he's a very big scale thinker, which is good because he stretches me and he makes me uncomfortable in all the ways that are the most productive. So I appreciate you listening to the podcast and it sounds like you're in a great place, man. I would just say, keep doing what you're doing. And if, if economics and physics are the path, then that's the path. If you feel compelled to study something that seems useless, like classics, guess what? Like, I know people

• 58:23Tim Ferriss?

  who've made hundreds of millions of dollars who have studied classics. It's not the end all be all. Learning early, however, to follow your passion and pay attention to that intuition, I think is incredibly valuable beyond any extent to which you can currently imagine. So I would cultivate that because if you neuter that, if you mute that, if you suffocate that, you are in for a world of hurt for a very, very long period of time. And you may feel like you're gaining in the short term, but you will really suffer in the long term. So I would just say, chase what excites you. And honestly, the rest will generally

• 59:08Tim Ferriss?

  take care of itself. Because if you chase what excites you, you're going to be good at what you pursue.

• 59:14Tim Ferriss?

  And if you don't-

• 59:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what I've heard.

• 59:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, if you don't-

• 59:16Speaker 05

  Over and over.

• 59:17Tim Ferriss?

  If you don't, you're gonna be mediocre because you just will not have the endurance and the horsepower to push through the inevitable obstacles that'll turn up. So that would be my-

• 59:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:28Tim Ferriss?

  That'd be my thought. And, uh, yeah, man, crush it. I got, uh, dozens of startups who'll probably hire you. So, uh, keep plugging along.

• 59:37Speaker 05

  Perfect. Thank you so much for your input and for your books and everything. And I can't wait for the next book to come out. I'm gonna preorder that on Amazon and get that shipped here and everything. But yeah, thank you so much.

• 59:50Tim Ferriss?

  Of course, man. I appreciate you reading and yeah, Tools of Titans will be fun. It's, uh,

• 59:58Tim Ferriss?

  I can say this because I didn't actually write most of it. It's related to the learnings of, uh, and lessons from other people. But yeah, it's a fun read. I think you'll, I think you'll dig it. So I will, uh, let you go, but have a, uh, have a great weekend. I appreciate you dropping in your name and phone number.

• 1:00:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you so much for the call and for everything.

• 1:00:18Tim Ferriss?

  All right, man. Take it easy. Bye bye.

• 1:00:20Speaker 05

  You too.

• 1:00:24Speaker 07

  Hello?

• 1:00:25Tim Ferriss?

  Eric, this is Tim.

• 1:00:27Speaker 07

  Hey, Tim.

• 1:00:28Tim Ferriss?

  How are thou?

• 1:00:30Speaker 07

  Good. How are you?

• 1:00:31Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I'm great. I'm fantastic. Sitting at my acacia wood table, if that means anything to anyone. I think, uh, actually giraffe eat acacia for what that's worth. But, uh,

• 1:00:45Tim Ferriss?

  let's see here. So where, actually you seem like you might be in New York, but I'm not sure based on the number. Where are you?

• 1:00:53Speaker 07

  I'm in New York City. Yep.

• 1:00:54Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, one of the best towns on earth. It's a good spot. So, uh-

• 1:00:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, lived here all my life.

• 1:01:01Tim Ferriss?

  Say again?

• 1:01:02Speaker 07

  I say I lived here all my life.

• 1:01:04Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no kidding. Born and raised. Yeah, it's a good town. Hey, man. I was, I was born out on Strong Island, although most New Yorkers don't count that as New York. It's kind of a, like, the redheaded stepchild of, of New York State, which is okay.

• 1:01:17Speaker 07

  Just a little bit. Yeah, it gets kind of a bad rap.

• 1:01:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know, Rat Dales and all that, but that's okay. So how-

• 1:01:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Tim Ferriss?

  I can I be of service? I am happy to answer any questions or attempt to and bumble as I think is more likely at this point in my blood alcohol content surge. Uh, but, uh, fire away.

• 1:01:38Speaker 07

  Okay, um, so I've actually been considering starting my own podcast where I interview people in my field. Um, and so seeing how you have your podcast and you've had, what now, two years almost of experience doing it?

• 1:01:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:01:54Speaker 07

  I would love some advice on that. Um, specifically, um, so my background is in software development and security. And what I really want to do, what gets me really jazzed is kind of interviewing people in my field who have done exceptional things, um, who would have great stories to tell and like research they've done or like really cool projects they've, they've started. Um, problem is, I don't really have a recognizable name yet in my field. So what I'm wondering is, how would you recommend I get experts' attention in my field and how might I convince them to come on to my show?

• 1:02:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, start small and roll your way up. So you should get whoever you can get and then level up one degree, recruit. And once you've done that, level up one degree, recruit, and rinse and repeat. I think that's the approach, well, it is the approach that I took and it is the approach that you generally should take. Uh, there was a presentation by Matt Kutz of Google, or at least at the time of Google, who talked about the Katamari Principle, or I meant Katamari Damashi, I think it's Japanese video game. In any case,

• 1:03:14Tim Ferriss?

  the, the basic idea is that whether it's with a blog or podcast, you start with a very niche focus. And, uh, in this video game, Katamari Damashi, I think it is, you have sort of a lint ball that you roll up and you accumulate larger things. And then eventually you get to the point where you're actually rolling up planets and galaxies and so on. In the beginning, though-

• 1:03:37Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. I played this game, actually. It sounds very familiar.

• 1:03:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

• 1:03:41Speaker 07

  Back on like Playstation 1.

• 1:03:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. So you start out very, very, very, very niche and that allows- You to go after higher caliber people in a narrow field. That would be step, or I should say principle one. On top of that, I would commit to doing a minimum of six episodes, or at least recording a minimum of six episodes. There are a few reasons for this. Number one, the iTunes algorithm

• 1:04:13Tim Ferriss?

  rewards multiple episodes and downloads being

• 1:04:20Tim Ferriss?

  received by listeners at the same time. So you're best served by uploading two or three at the minimum episodes for your debut. Number two is that whenever I'm considering taking on a new project, for instance, podcasting or otherwise, I look for the ways in which, and I assess for each of the options I might be considering, the ways in which I can win even if the project fails. So let's say, let's say your podcast does not take off, or you don't like it, you decide, for whatever reason, that you're going to quit after six episodes. How can you format the podcast? How can you prepare it? How can you work on it in such a way

• 1:05:05Tim Ferriss?

  that you develop skills or relationships that persist and accumulate after those six episodes? In other words, if you're like, after six, you decide to throw in the towel and quit, how can that still be a success? And I think this is a very important question. For me, it was eliminating verbal tics. It was, or minimizing them. I'm not done, obviously.

• 1:05:31Tim Ferriss?

  Improving my ability to ask questions, improving my ability to ask follow-up questions, improving my ability to let silence do the work, as Cal Fussman would say, who's been on the podcast, and not jump in when someone is struggling to answer something. All of those abilities for me translate and would have translated even if I had quit after six episodes, which was my personal commitment, to improving my ability to do research and interview for book projects, right? So in that capacity, I could win, develop those.

• 1:06:12Tim Ferriss?

  Skills, even if the podcast were a failure. So I would think very, very carefully on that and potentially journal on that question, you know, write, just like commit to writing three free form, longhand pages, first thing in the morning at some point, based on that to determine, how can this be a success, even if it's a failure to outside eyes? So those would be a few of the things that come to mind offhand when you ask that question, but I'm happy to dig deeper.

• 1:06:47Speaker 07

  Awesome. Yeah, no, I think those sound like great starting points for me. I really like the concept of like making it a game. You can't lose, right? Like you're gonna get something out of it and decide what those things are going to be in advance.

• 1:07:00Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this, this, and as an engineer, it sounds like you're an engineer. This is not an alien concept, right? It's just a plot. It's just applied to an audio podcasting arena. But you're going to be, given your experience as an engineer, I think, better at codifying certain things and determining best practices for certain things than a lay non-engineering audience, which I would put myself smack dab in the middle of, unfortunately. I wish I had more engineering and quantitative comfort, but

• 1:07:43Tim Ferriss?

  I just do not. So that's, that's an unfortunate handicap, but I've managed to make do. So the, the, what other questions do you have about the podcasting? I can answer those pretty directly, I think.

• 1:07:58Speaker 07

  Well, that was my big one. I think when I, when I kind of sit down and try to figure out what the first steps are, I mean, I can, I kind of have some. Loose concepts of what I want to be interviewing people on. I guess naturally, the next question would be, how do you choose your questions?

• 1:08:15Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let's, let's tackle that a different way. So give me an example of someone who you would want to interview. And let's start there. Who would you name?

• 1:08:27Speaker 07

  Okay. Um, let's see. David Hennermeyer Hansen.

• 1:08:32Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah. D H H. Ruby and Rails.

• 1:08:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And very interesting guy. So what, what, what would you ask him? If you had five minutes with him, what would the top three questions be?

• 1:08:45Speaker 07

  The first question that comes to mind is, what? What type of conditions was he in when he developed Ruby and Rails? Like, what really kind of pushed him and motivated him to develop this technology and then open source it?

• 1:09:05Speaker 07

  So I'd be really interested in what his main motivator was at that time. Like, what was going through his head that, that allowed him to commit to doing that? Cause it was, I mean, it's a big project. So I'd be really curious about that.

• 1:09:15Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm. What next?

• 1:09:19Speaker 07

  The second one would be, what sort of

• 1:09:24Speaker 07

  changes did he go through in his life to go from, I believe he was doing, he was working at, he's working on Basecamp at the time and he kind of, it sounds like he kind of changed paths a little bit in what he was doing. I mean, he still is involved with that, but what, what changes did he go through that were unexpected? Or like, what, what actually was going on? Like, I guess talking a little bit about his story, I'd want to know more about his story. So the first one would be for me, like a motivator, like what was his, what was his drive? Cause I think that's, that's can be really important to look at in individuals that, that excel and are motivated to do that, to go outside of their comfort zone. And the second one would be, what was kind of his story? Like, what was changing in his life?

• 1:10:08Speaker 07

  Sort of like his narrative about that, I think would be really interesting.

• 1:10:11Tim Ferriss?

  So. I would suggest a complimentary approach, which would be identify what he is most interested or excited to talk about and explore that first. Because that will put him at ease, allow him to tell a story that he likes to tell, and open the gates for the other things. I believe that in interviewing, being different, at least for the first 10 to 15 minutes, is more important than being better, if that makes sense.

• 1:10:52Tim Ferriss?

  So if he's been asked, if you ask, if you think to yourself, "I would like to ask the following three questions," the follow-up that you should ask yourself is, "Has he been asked this question more than 10 times?" If the answer is, if the answer is yes, I would not start with that. For instance, for instance, I know that, and I'm drunk enough that I'm gonna get the details wrong here, but you can Google it and figure it out, is he is very involved, or has been historically, involved with race car driving.

• 1:11:31Tim Ferriss?

  And I think it was, I think he placed second place in the Le Mans race several years ago, could have been five years ago, I don't know the exact timeline. That may be something that he is very seldom asked about, that he would be eager to or excited to talk about. Start with that.

• 1:11:50Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:11:51Tim Ferriss?

  And, given that opportunity to talk about something that he is interested in, that very few people ask him about, that would then open the gate to questions that are perhaps more normal or standard. Does that make sense?

• 1:12:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, that makes sense to me.

• 1:12:11Tim Ferriss?

  And if you listen to, for instance, my interview with Edward Norton, we talked about surfing first. That is a direct corollary to what I'm suggesting. Because we were sitting on Malibu Pier, having lunch, drinking coffee, looking out at the surfing lineup, and Edward is a very...

• 1:12:33Tim Ferriss?

  Dedicated surfer. So we talked about that first and that was effectively the one to three rounds of limbering up much like a boxing or Thai boxing match within which we were able to just relax into answers that he could then deliver very honestly and sincerely. But if you start with questions that he's been asked before, for instance, about Ruby on Rails, you're going to be one of a hundred other people who have done the same and he's, I'm not, I don't want to speak for DHH. David, it's been a couple of years, but obviously

• 1:13:16Tim Ferriss?

  I'm a big fan of what he has done and what he does. But he will probably, just as I would do, go on to autopilot, right? So you want to be different before you are simply incrementally better is my suggestion in this particular case.

• 1:13:36Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:13:37Tim Ferriss?

  And I'll add an unsolicited piece of feedback since I'm still sipping gin, gin and juice, gin and juice. Would you say that? Sorry, I'm looking at my cohort, I shall not name at this moment. It's not really gin and juice. Yeah, I'm not really Snoop Dogg, not quite Snoop Dogg. He's got a leg up on me. But the, sorry, bear with me here. I'm having a, I'm enjoying my own drunken revelry. Bear with me.

• 1:14:09Speaker 07

  So is it still the most coherent?

• 1:14:12Tim Ferriss?

  No, what I was going, what I was going to say is that you, for hardware, I would suggest a few things and also logistics. Number one is do it via Skype or via Zencastr or some.

• 1:14:33Tim Ferriss?

  Telephonic means versus in person. In person is more difficult to do for podcasts. And the likelihood of you screwing something up technically or from a preparatory standpoint is much higher. So I would use, in my case, Skype. As I am right now, I'm using Skype and eCam call recorder. And although it's not necessary right now, for many of my podcast guests, I will have Evernote open with notes and so on, questions, et cetera,

• 1:15:12Tim Ferriss?

  so that I am extremely prepared and able to respond to any twist in the conversation that might come up. I would encourage you to start with some type of phoner, per se, because your likelihood of success is much higher.

• 1:15:31Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:15:32Tim Ferriss?

  And if you're looking for, as I'm using right now, a great bang for the buck microphone, since I heard you ask, no, you didn't ask, I'm just joking. But this is an ATR 2100 Audio Technica mic. ATR 2100, that is probably 80 bucks. And it, for most folks, will do as good a job of the Hile PR40, I think it's called, which is like a $500 mic. And this one costs 80 bucks on Amazon. So, so this is what I use, plus Apple earbuds to remove echo.

• 1:16:17Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know why this works, but I do know that it works. And that is, to avoid any type of echoing effect or to minimize it, earbuds of some type are a very wise investment.

• 1:16:31Speaker 07

  Awesome. That's, that's, that's good to know. I haven't really dove into looking for hardware yet. So it's.

• 1:16:40Speaker 07

  Good to know what your pick is.

• 1:16:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, ATR 2100. I use this for like 50% of my interviews. It's cheap, relatively speaking, not too expensive. I would give it a go. So that is it, my friend. I'm gonna bounce, but hopefully that is valuable in some capacity.

• 1:17:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, definitely was. Thank you so much, Tim.

• 1:17:02Tim Ferriss?

  All right. Have a good weekend.

• 1:17:04Speaker 07

  You too.

• 1:17:05Tim Ferriss?

  Bye bye.

• 1:17:08Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, it's Tim Ferriss. Who's this?

• 1:17:14Speaker 08

  This is Vin Thomas.

• 1:17:16Tim Ferriss?

  Vin Thomas. How the hell are you? Are you, are you in the Pacific Northwest? It would seem that way.

• 1:17:22Speaker 08

  Yeah, I'm in Oregon.

• 1:17:23Tim Ferriss?

  Good man, good man. God damn, Oregonians are just owning this evening. Well,

• 1:17:31Tim Ferriss?

  I am at your disposal, sir. How can I help? Any questions? Any comments? How, how may I be of assistance?

• 1:17:43Speaker 08

  Oh man, you've already been a private assistant to me. I, I started my freelance business right after the four hour work week. So I was huge and now I own a small design company, started another company. You know, I really attribute a lot of my thinking back then to what I learned from four hour work weeks. I just appreciate that, man.

• 1:18:04Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. Well, good work. Congratulations.

• 1:18:08Speaker 08

  So let me see. Here's, here's what I want to do. I want to stop working as much and make more money. And you're kind of the king of that, right?

• 1:18:20Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I can, I can try. I've had, I've had a couple of gin tonics, so we will see how lucid my answers will be. But yes, I can, I can do my best. I'll need a more specific question. But yes, I can take a stab at it.

• 1:18:37Speaker 08

  Okay, so I have a design company. We work mostly with startups and early-stage companies. And we just kind of reinvent the wheel every single time we approach a project. And it just requires a lot of serious hands-on hours. And just been thinking through it, how can we streamline this process? How can we make it easier? I have two great developers who work for me who do an amazing job. But again, just, you know, they have to actually be hands-on the whole time. And we put a lot of hours in each project. And I know there's a better way to do it.

• 1:19:18Tim Ferriss?

  What are your off-the-cuff thoughts on how to improve the process? What have you brainstormed so far?

• 1:19:27Speaker 08

  Well, so, I mean, a couple of thoughts is, you know, hey, let's templatize a lot of this stuff. You know, instead of reinventing the wheel every time, let's templatize a lot of it. Maybe we can charge less per project, but it would take us significantly less time if we could do some of that. And basically have like these modules that we could piece together, these websites. Because we do a lot of marketing sites. And really, I mean, there's a lot of the same stuff, you know, staff page, about page, tour, features, et cetera. You know, and a lot of it is essentially the same, but we kind of build it from scratch every single time. So that's something I think could help us. But even beyond that, I think we could, you know, productize the service even more than that.

• 1:20:12Speaker 08

  Maybe that's with an entirely different company.

• 1:20:16Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so the first thought is to have clients respond in a templatized fashion, meaning they're filling out some type of questionnaire. Were a series of questions that will allow you to get 78% of the work done without a lot of conference calls and other types of bandwidth consuming activities. The other option is to say that we offer A, B, and C, and that is it, right?

• 1:20:57Tim Ferriss?

  In other words, to limit the scope of your operations so that you specialize in one, two, or three things that you position yourself as being the best at. And you are then able to very clearly sell yourself based on those strengths, but nothing else. I think those are a handful of approaches that come to mind offhand. Reading probably The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber would be a good idea.

• 1:21:33Speaker 08

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:21:37Tim Ferriss?

  What are the current aspects of your business? If you had to identify the 20% of activities that are creating 80% of your headache at the moment, what would those be?

• 1:21:49Speaker 08

  Well, so, you know, I'm a designer, so that's my role in the company. I am the owner and the designer, but, and I enjoy that piece of the project. What I don't enjoy as much is the writing the proposals, you know, putting in, you know, however many hours of discovery before we can even kick off a project. And I understand like that's, you know, part of, you know, what goes into being a good UI UX designer, but, and some of that just, you know, the administrative kind of stuff kills me. And I think your idea of, you know, templatizing, gathering that content could probably help. I mean, I guess I wonder for the current clientele, if they would go for that.

• 1:22:32Speaker 08

  I think we might even have to, you know, branch off into either a subsection of our current business, or even create a new business that would be, you know, more prone to that almost templatized approach.

• 1:22:47Tim Ferriss?

  I think it's an experiment worth running or a hypothesis worth disproving in the sense that it's something you could run for a handful of weeks to gather data and then make a more informed decision. So it doesn't have to be an all or nothing bet. It doesn't have to be a bet the farm type decision in this case where you can alternatively and simply, let's just say, I'm throwing this up, but split the traffic to your website 50/50. So 50 is going

• 1:23:27Tim Ferriss?

  to where it's always gone. 50 is going to some type of survey or templatized questionnaire whereby you gather the most critical data you need in 10 questions or fewer.

• 1:23:43Speaker 08

  Sure.

• 1:23:44Tim Ferriss?

  And then you review the data and you just accordingly. So that would be my first knee jerk response.

• 1:23:51Speaker 08

  The level of client that would come to us now would be so different than the level of client that would want a templatized service, right? And so I don't know if that that would work because people don't find us through like SEO. They find us because someone told us about them, you know, or told them about us. And so I almost feel like that might be a weird experience for someone if they came to us expecting, you know, like we almost built ourselves as like your outsourced in-house design team. Like we're there to like, you know, hand hold your process, you know, handle it throughout the whole process. And so, you know, do I, you know, thinking back before our work week, do I, you know, start running experiments with PPC and or, you know, AdWords, you know, see if like people even want to buy this? I mean,

• 1:24:36Speaker 08

  do I start a starting new, almost like a phony business, like just whip something up in a weekend to see if people are going to bite?

• 1:24:45Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I would say that at the top of the funnel, it is important to be aware of conflicting objectives. Right? So if you have an objective to be the bespoke, customized solution for people to expect handholding from A to Z, yet, on the other hand, you have the objective of minimizing the amount of time that you personally have to allocate to each client, you may have conflicting objectives. Yeah, I agree. Right? So in that case,

• 1:25:26Tim Ferriss?

  no amount of massaging or fine tuning in surgery is going to fix two primary objectives that conflict. And to that extent, I would say that it is probably worth testing for two to four weeks, how people respond to a templatized approach. Because right now, you have a set of assumptions, as we always do. Every one of us, myself included, have assumptions of how counterparts A, B, or C are going to respond to D, E, and F that I'm going to put out in the world.

• 1:26:09Tim Ferriss?

  And you just don't know at the end of the day. So I would consider testing using Unbounce or Leadpages or another service or an in-house programming team. 50% of your traffic allocated to a templatized approach. And in fact, what you may find is that people disqualify or qualify themselves in such a way that allows you and them to spare an incredible amount of man-hours because they've either disqualified or qualified themselves in a much more efficient process.

• 1:26:54Tim Ferriss?

  So I would say that's probably how I would approach it, is really as

• 1:27:02Tim Ferriss?

  From the get-go, we do not know, therefore, we must test. And we're going to take two to four weeks to gather data and then reassess what our results and objectives and process should be.

• 1:27:16Speaker 08

  Sure, that's a good idea. I mean, we have a new website that's about to launch, our personal website. And so that would be something that we could easily build in, using Optimizely or something like that.

• 1:27:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:27:27Speaker 08

  Exactly what people like, you know?

• 1:27:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:27:30Speaker 08

  Yeah, that's a great suggestion.

• 1:27:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Optimizely is a great suggestion. I've used them before as well. And I'll give you a current example for myself. I am looking at developing a new site for Tools of Titans, my book that launches on December 6. And it's available for

• 1:27:50Speaker 08

  I'm looking forward to it.

• 1:27:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it'll be, it'll be fun. It's available for pre-sale. Wow, I am slurring like a motherfucker right now. It's available for pre-sale on Amazon. But I am looking at the conversion effectiveness of 4hourbody.com, all spelled out, versus 4hourchef.com. And 4hourbody is much simpler, designed by the same firm. They're both by the same company, Digital Telepathy in this case. The 4hourchef is, I would say, more intricate, more complicated. And before I design the Tools of Titans website,

• 1:28:35Tim Ferriss?

  I am determining which has converted most effectively. And there may be another, a number of tests that I have to run before we have a statistically significant number or set of data to work with to determine what the next step is for the design of tools of Titans.com, but that is going to come, right? And it's not that dissimilar from what you're running through right now. I will probably end up split-testing, at the very least, sort of A/B testing, two versions of the website. It may be more than that. And I will look at, very concretely,

• 1:29:22Tim Ferriss?

  Which version of that website is resulting in the highest percentage per mill, right, of every thousand people who visit? What is the, what is producing the highest percentage of people who click on the button that I have determined is the most valuable click? That could be a button to barnes noble.com. It could be a button to amazon.com. It could be a button in your case to ask for a quote.

• 1:29:52Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Tim Ferriss?

  It could be any number of things, but determining what that most valuable click is, and then testing multiple versions for it, particularly, particularly over a time span of two to four weeks is a very reasonable and non-threatening time period within which you can assess what is working, what isn't. And ultimately, when you look at, let's just say, the people I've had on the podcast, people who've made hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, the one commonality or one of the few commonalities that they have is they are constantly testing their

• 1:30:33Tim Ferriss?

  own assumptions and asking themselves, how do I know what I think is best? And the answer is, you very seldom know. You have to look at the numbers. So that would be my very long-winded recommendation, I think, at this point. Question for you, is Vin your entire first name? Or is that short for something else? I've wondered this for a long time.

• 1:31:03Speaker 08

  So I go by Vin. I've gone by Vin since I was a teenager, but when I was younger, people would call me Kev, and I hated that. And so, hey, Kev, I'd say Vin, because my name was Kev Vin, right? And so then it just became, so.

• 1:31:19Tim Ferriss?

  I like it.

• 1:31:19Speaker 08

  I don't think that's common, no. Like, I don't think most people who go by Vin, not that there's a ton of them, I really named Kevin, but.

• 1:31:26Tim Ferriss?

  I like it. All right. Cool.

• 1:31:27Speaker 08

  There you have it.

• 1:31:28Tim Ferriss?

  That's good to know. All right, man. Well, hopefully, hopefully that's helpful. I'm gonna get a hop on things and have a great weekend. Good luck.

• 1:31:39Speaker 08

  I appreciate it. Hey, thanks, John.

• 1:31:41Tim Ferriss?

  All right, man. Take it easy.

• 1:31:43Speaker 08

  Okay.

• 1:31:43Tim Ferriss?

  Bye.

• 1:31:46Speaker 09

  Available right now, believe me, your name, number, and a detailed message, and I'll get back to you if you know what I can. Hope to talk to you soon. Bye now.

• 1:31:54Tim Ferriss?

  Ian, what happened? This is Tim Ferriss. I was hoping to wrap up with someone from South Dakota, but alas, that is not to be. So, on to the next number, I suppose. Have a glorious weekend.

• 1:32:14Tim Ferriss?

  Chris, this is Tim Ferriss calling. How are you?

• 1:32:17Speaker 09

  Good. Tim, how are you?

• 1:32:19Tim Ferriss?

  I'm great. I'm great. You are potentially the final conversation in my little drunk dialing escapade, so...

• 1:32:29Speaker 09

  The final conversation means you've gotten pretty drunk, Tim, huh?

• 1:32:33Tim Ferriss?

  I'd say I'm, uh, well above the threshold, yes. Uh, where are you at the moment? Where's 520?

• 1:32:40Speaker 09

  520, Tucson, Arizona.

• 1:32:42Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, nice. Arizona, the land of extreme heat and extreme air conditioning.

• 1:32:47Speaker 09

  Yeah, exactly. It's actually, uh, pretty good weather out here tonight.

• 1:32:51Tim Ferriss?

  Nice. So, I am, uh, all yours, disponible for any questions or comments that you may have. Uh, so fire away. I'm all yours.

• 1:33:03Speaker 09

  Currently, I am, uh, I'm wondering about financial freedom. Um, a couple of months ago, me and, uh, my girlfriend broke up because, um, I felt like the drag of trying to, like, the rat race, I guess?

• 1:33:20Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:21Speaker 09

  Just kinda not worth it. And she was very much, um, in, in that realm, and I kinda found a place where I didn't really agree with it.

• 1:33:29Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:30Speaker 09

  So, um, I think that's kind of a place you've been.

• 1:33:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, I've been there before.

• 1:33:35Speaker 09

  Yeah, I'm trying to... Wonder how to take the steps forward in um in being able to be free of the whole corporate financial realm of, you know, I I don't know exactly the way to put it, but to make more sense, but pressure, I guess, pressure of of the 401k, the retirement, the big, big house, fancy car kind of stuff.

• 1:33:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think the, the first thought that comes to mind is really looking at your target monthly income and dissecting what the goal is in more precise terms. So if you go to fourhourworkweek.com/tmi, that will give you some calculators and whatnot that you can use. But I think the important, or one of the important aspects is beginning with the in mind, and in this case, defining what your objective is first and foremost. Without that, it'll be very difficult for you to calibrate and direct yourself in the

• 1:34:37Tim Ferriss?

  right direction. So I would begin with, at least tentatively, it doesn't need to be a perfect, a perfect or permanent decision, but deciding what your ideal lifestyle looks like in terms of how you spend your time, how you spend your resources, before you begin making any further decisions. So that would be step one, really identifying what you want to have, what you want to do, what you want to be over the next one to three years will provide you with at least an objective, something in the crosshairs to aim at while

• 1:35:20Tim Ferriss?

  you make decisions. So that would be step one, is determining your target monthly income based on what you want to have, what you want to do, what you want to be in very concrete terms. Beyond that, I would really turn the question around and just ask you what you found most helpful to date, I suppose, would be my, my approach.

• 1:35:47Speaker 09

  It was a couple of years ago, I actually, I worked for a pharmaceutical company and so I actually have a lot of time at work to listen to podcasts and a couple of years ago I found you and Joe Rogan and I developed like a real passion for it, talk radio, podcast kind of stuff, more than I've really had a passion for anything. I would love to get in that type of realm, but it's kind of a hard area to crack without having some sort of like niche to fall into. So like the average guy can't really start a podcast that people would actually listen to. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:36:20Tim Ferriss?

  Well, yeah, I agree that in the beginning, no one's gonna listen, which is true for 99 out of 100 people who start a podcast.

• 1:36:31Speaker 09

  And podcasts have been pretty popular.

• 1:36:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, they do, but I would say that it's not too late to whether it is start a podcast, start a blog, start a newsletter, fill in the blank. I think the most important component of that or checkbox is identifying what you would be personally excited to do on a consistent basis because if you choose say podcast because it seems popular at the moment, but you're not in fact excited about doing it, you're going to quit after the first few episodes.

• 1:37:10Tim Ferriss?

  There's just no two ways about it. So I really think that following your excitement and dedication to a particular medium is more important than choosing what is the medium de jour at that point in time, if that makes any sense.

• 1:37:34Speaker 09

  Yeah, absolutely. And that was kind of my motivation. I was in a long-term relationship and it just really didn't make sense in terms of... My goals and that was kind of my, my thing is I needed to follow what motivated me and podcasting and radio is, is, is that. So I don't know what the first step is. You have a, you have a great book and, but it's, um, it's vague on first step, you know, like what, um, where do I, where do I jump off from here? You know?

• 1:38:08Tim Ferriss?

  Well, as, as it relates to podcasting specifically, that's a relatively new medium or industry compared to the, to the, let's say 2007 publication date of the four hour work week. So, uh, first steps there are record six episodes and during that period of time, determine much like Scott Adams in my podcast with him, how you can make it a systems objective as opposed to a goal oriented objective, meaning what can you learn through those six episodes

• 1:38:49Tim Ferriss?

  of experimentation, even if your podcast ends up being listened to no one?

• 1:38:54Speaker 09

  Mm hmm.

• 1:38:55Tim Ferriss?

  And when you think, and when you think in those terms, you will cumulatively-

• 1:39:00Speaker 09

  Learn from experience.

• 1:39:01Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly. Through the snowball effect of aiming for learning and network, i.e. what do I learn? Who do I meet? Who I get to know? Develop a combination of factors that lead to success eventually as opposed to a binary pass or fail. So that would be my suggestion is thinking very carefully about if I try X for six episodes, if I try Y for two months, how can I ensure this is a win

• 1:39:40Tim Ferriss?

  over time as opposed to a binary pass or fail? I think that's very important. So that's how I would approach all of this.

• 1:39:48Speaker 09

  Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I guess the first, the first step in jumping into anything is having the courage to jump into it, I guess.

• 1:39:56Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. You, it's really a matter of ready, fire, aim as opposed to ready, aim, fire.

• 1:40:06Tim Ferriss?

  You kind of have to jump off the diving board and then figure out how you're going to end up headfirst diving into the water on the way down. And that isn't to say you should be haphazard, but if you only operate from a place of perfect information and complete information, you're never going to act at all. This is where I think you can learn a lot from studying military operations, actually, is how to operate and make decisions from a place of incomplete information. So I would say that in the case of podcasting, at least, you need to get started before you can figure out 90% of the elements involved.

• 1:40:51Tim Ferriss?

  And commit to doing a minimum of, say, six episodes. And that could vary person to person, but in my case, it was six episodes, so that you can maximize your learning curve in such a way that even if the podcast doesn't take, if people don't listen to it, you still gain far more from the experience than you give up in terms of time and resources.

• 1:41:16Speaker 09

  Yeah, makes all sense.

• 1:41:18Tim Ferriss?

  All right, man. Well, I tell you what, I gotta get going. I think I'm starting to wane on the side of alcohol infused energy, but.

• 1:41:28Speaker 09

  Can I catch you for another 15 minutes to ask you some questions?

• 1:41:32Tim Ferriss?

  15 minutes, maybe not, but I can certainly give you a shout for a couple more minutes. Go for it.

• 1:41:41Speaker 09

  Okay, so you're a very successful young man. Are you still dating the same girl you've been dating?

• 1:41:48Tim Ferriss?

  I am not dating the same girl that I've been dating for five years or so. I am in a new relationship. So that is that. Next question.

• 1:42:02Speaker 09

  What do you find difficult about dating in your, in your way of life?

• 1:42:06Tim Ferriss?

  What do I find difficult about dating in my way of life?

• 1:42:10Speaker 09

  In way of life, I mean that you're, you're, you're not a selfish person, but you have very, you have very personal goals. And it's not in the sense of, you know. Having a family, oh, maybe it is, but you don't have like, um, relationship goals.

• 1:42:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I would say that it-

• 1:42:31Speaker 09

  I don't mean to put words in your mouth.

• 1:42:33Tim Ferriss?

  No, it's fine. I think that it comes down to finding someone who is complete in and of themselves. In other words, someone who is low maintenance in so much as they are comfortable in their own skin and they aren't desperate for finding someone else to make them a complete human being. I think that, uh, you, you need to, or at least I need to be with someone, spend time with someone, whether that is a friend or a girlfriend for that matter, uh, who I respect and admire in some capacity.

• 1:43:18Tim Ferriss?

  Because if you don't have that, it's really a short-term bet that is going to ultimately, I think, self-implode in the long-term.

• 1:43:26Speaker 09

  Do you think monogamy in the sense of, you know, human capability is, is rational?

• 1:43:32Tim Ferriss?

  Do I think monogamy is rational? Uh, I think that, as one of my very high-performing close friends put it, who is a male, "If you think about monogamy as a lifelong commitment, you will just end up slitting your wrists." So I think you should take it one, I think you should take it one day at a time. And, uh, I don't think that's a decision you necessarily have to make now or tomorrow or in the next three months. I think that it's something that you can revisit-

• 1:44:10Speaker 09

  In different scenarios.

• 1:44:12Tim Ferriss?

  When they, when needed, in different scenarios.

• 1:44:16Speaker 09

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:44:17Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, I, I happen to think that monogamy is very hard for most human beings, based on what I've seen. But, am I going to force myself to be non-monogamous when I'm perfectly content? No, I'm not, because it adds complexity to a life that is already sufficiently complex.

• 1:44:41Speaker 09

  Having a very apparent and firsthand values.

• 1:44:45Speaker 09

  With someone where they kind of agree with it, it's so hard to find, but so important. People kind of jump into stuff without really knowing anyone they jump into. Does that make sense?

• 1:44:58Tim Ferriss?

  It makes sense. I also think that being, I think that, uh, I think that satisfaction or frustration is very related to setting expectations upfront. So if you have spoken to someone upfront about the fact that you're in a place that in whatever capacity necessitates or leads you to feel that you're unsure of monogamy, A, B, C, D, or E, whatever it might be, as long as you communicate that, uh, you are being a fair player on the chessboard that relates to that relationship.

• 1:45:43Tim Ferriss?

  Where people get themselves into particular trouble is they want to save that confession for a point where it's a dollar late and a dime too short. And I think that is a precarious position to put yourself and your partner into. So if you set the expectations upfront, it doesn't mean you will avoid all discomfort, but it puts you in a position where you can at least more rationally discuss things. If you try to keep your darker side or less socially acceptable impulses in the shadows

• 1:46:26Tim Ferriss?

  until the 11th hour, when you need to talk about it, then you're far more likely to have, I think, incredible difficulties and pain. And that's not to say that I'm a relationship master. Look, I mean, I've fucked up my fair number of relationships, as we all have, but, uh, I do think that reading a book like Lying or On Lying, I'm not sure exactly what the title is, by Sam Harris, very short read, is very valuable for relationships of all types, including intimate ones, for minimizing undue pain and suffering.

• 1:47:05Speaker 09

  We're also, like a lot of your listeners, you know, actually, all of your listeners aren't Tim Ferriss either. I mean, You have your demons as much as we do, but you're still Tim fucking Ferris.

• 1:47:17Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think people overestimate what being Tim Ferriss means. Uh, I have as many demons that I am battling as anyone else, so if it's important to realize that you may only be seeing the highlight reel of Tim Ferriss. And it's like, okay, well, if you're watching the movie trailer of Tim Ferriss's life, you're gonna be like, fuck, that's amazing. That's fantastic. I really want to be Tim Ferriss. But then you might watch the movie and you'll be like, ah, I'll give that a fucking 67 on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not up for that entire ride. I think that half of it really doesn't apply to me.

• 1:47:56Tim Ferriss?

  So it's, it's important to realize that it's easy to put other people on a pedestal, but

• 1:48:03Speaker 09

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:48:04Tim Ferriss?

  Everyone is Swiss cheese. We all have our holes and I am, I am not exempt from that in any capacity.

• 1:48:13Speaker 09

  I, I, I think, and I think you do really well with your blog posts where you, I think your maybe initial one where you said, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not perfect. I masturbated last Tuesday to whatever and I'm like this person who has all the same mistakes that everyone else does. I'm not, I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to optimize my life. I'm trying to, to live the same. I'm trying to be the best person that everyone else is trying to do, but you're doing it in a very systematic way, which is, is why I think you have so many people looking up to you.

• 1:48:45Tim Ferriss?

  We're all, I think, fighting a lot of the same battles. That was the, I think it was the productivity hacks for the neurotic, crazy and manic depressive like me. I think that was the blog post. Uh, I think as important as one of my podcast guests, Sophia Amoroso said, don't be so impressed, you know, it's, uh, I mean, I've tried, look, I've put in, I think, a lot of thought and a lot of good work into trying to improve myself and help others, but don't be so impressed, you know, it's, uh, no one knew who the hell I was before 2007, and there's no reason you can't do 10 times more than I

• 1:49:29Tim Ferriss?

  can't, if you apply yourself and approach it in a systematic way. Uh, and look, at the end of the day, we're all dust, and 100 years from now, I'll be very surprised if anyone fucking remembers who I am, if we're not all incinerated from some type of climate change, but if you're, I think, at least for me, the objective is, you know, be a force for good. I don't procrastinate, don't bitch and moan on fucking Twitter 24/7, like, try to actually put a foot forth, stick your neck out, risk getting criticized, and improve things, because criticizing or vilifying one group, by the way, is not the same as

• 1:50:14Tim Ferriss?

  helping every other group who might or may not need help, uh, is a risky business. If you actually want to improve the world, you are an exception. If, I should take actually a step back and say, if you stick your neck out and try to improve the world, you are an exception. Most of the people in the world are happy to sit on the sidelines and criticize and be a peanut gallery, and bullshit and throw stones, but if you want to be in the arena, the one guarantee is, you're gonna get a lot of black eyes, and you're gonna get a lot, gonna get a lot of bloody knees, and very few people are gonna fucking thank

• 1:50:53Tim Ferriss?

  you for it. And that is a mantle you choose to accept or you don't, but if you do, number one, kudos to you, congratulations and thank you. Number two, don't expect everybody to pat you on the fucking back, you're gonna get a lot of shit. And, uh, that is just part and parcel of the whole arrangement, unfortunately, but that is as true now as it was 2,000 years ago, in the age of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and everybody else, human nature doesn't change a whole lot. So that would be, suppose, my sum up of the whole situation.

• 1:51:30Speaker 09

  Agreed. I I agree horribly, even going back to Socrates.

• 1:51:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, it doesn't change all too much.

• 1:51:37Speaker 09

  So I think serial podcast listeners feel that, you know, podcasts you listen to every single day, they look at you guys as friends. So I listen to you every day and you give me advice, same with like Joe Rogan or any other people that I listen to. You know, we don't have the conversations, but I listen to it and I see them as friends. And then when you run into these people in real life, they look at you as one of their good friends who has helped them through hard situations. Who look at you as, you know, a person in their groom party when they get married. Is that, is that like, what is that like when you run into those people? When they look at you so like on a, not necessarily a pedestal, but they look at you as like a family member.

• 1:52:21Speaker 09

  And you see them as, you know, a total stranger who could, I don't know, like you have no relationship to them.

• 1:52:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's.

• 1:52:28Speaker 09

  Strange? Is that, is that nice? Is that?

• 1:52:30Tim Ferriss?

  It's both. It's both. It's, it's, it's strange and nice and hugely flattering. And I'm not immune to being on the other side of the equation in the sense that, for instance, in Neil Gaiman, I idolize in a lot of ways, the writer, fiction writer primarily. And I've met him once, sure, but he doesn't know me. And when I met him, because I had heard his voice for dozens of hours, I'm sure it was fucking weird and creepy on some level. Because I had such a level of familiarity with him, yet he had none with me necessarily. And that imbalance is something I've become more comfortable with.

• 1:53:15Tim Ferriss?

  When I meet someone who's, say, listened to my podcast for dozens of hours or hundreds of hours, I am more ready to accept that and welcome it than I might have been a few years ago, because it is a little odd to have such a. Relationship where one person has 100% of the information and the other person has 1 or 2% of the information at best. It is a little, it is a little odd, but that doesn't make it bad. Odd doesn't equal bad. And for me, I've just taken that as an opportunity when I talk to people, whether it's you or

• 1:54:00Tim Ferriss?

  someone else, to try to explore more of what they've experienced so that I can correct that imbalance of information, if that makes any sense. But it's not a bad thing. I mean, of all the problems to have in the world, this is a good problem to have. So I certainly try not to complain.

• 1:54:21Speaker 09

  I think with any conversation, it's tough to get to the core of someone, but when you meet someone who's listened to you for so many years, you've already cut to the core of them. And so if you really want to talk to them, they're willing to kind of spill their guts to you or anyone, you know what I mean? So you've already, you've already cut through a lot of that core with a lot of people who listen to you for so many years.

• 1:54:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:47Speaker 09

  That's awesome, man. That's really cool.

• 1:54:50Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I appreciate that. And on top of that, when people sometimes approach me, let's say they meet me at a book signing or something like that, and they say, "Well, you know, I know we don't know each other, but..." And I want to say, if you've listened to dozens or 100-plus of my podcasts, you actually do know me pretty well.

• 1:55:10Speaker 09

  Yeah. You're very good at that.

• 1:55:14Tim Ferriss?

  It's not an illusion. I mean, you really have spent a lot of time with me. You actually know me extremely well. I mean, better than some people who consider themselves my close friends. So that's perhaps an unusual side effect, but a beneficial one, I think, is interesting one, at the very least, of this type of new media relationship, is you can know someone better than some of their close friends know them by virtue of the fact of being exposed to them for dozens or hundreds of hours. So it's something that I try to look at as an incredible opportunity as opposed to anything strange, and they're not mutually exclusive.

• 1:55:58Tim Ferriss?

  You can have incredibly interesting, incredible opportunities that are simultaneously somewhat odd and very strange. That's what I would say.

• 1:56:08Speaker 09

  Absolutely. And I think that was my, my, um, love of podcasts is that a lot of people just have real conversations. And then when I go out and talk to my friends and everyone's so hesitant, or talk to coworkers, everyone has a, has a face they want to put out. And it's, it's hard to, listening to, to, to podcasts and people actually have real conversations. When you have fake ones, it just doesn't matter as much. And it's, it's hard to break through strangers or, or friends when they, everyone has their guard up.

• 1:56:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, you know, I think that podcasters, you have to realize at a certain point are also professionals. So it's, it's not fair to hold strangers to the same standard where in Japanese, for instance, or in Japan, both, they talk about honne, which is like your own, how you behave, your core of who you are, versus tatemai. Tatemai is like what you put forward. And they even talk about like stranger formality, taningyogi, where you put that forward. So this is not unique to Japanese. It's also found in every English speaking culture and everywhere else. Um, so I, I think that podcasting is an opportunity

• 1:57:22Tim Ferriss?

  to not only listen and consume, but develop your own abilities of question asking and empathy that can aid you in your conversation with anyone, not just those who are related to the iTunes universe or otherwise. But, um, tell you what, man, I gotta run. I'm gonna grab some more exogenous ketones, maybe some more gin, but, uh, I, I think I gotta, I gotta pull this to a close. But, uh-

• 1:57:50Speaker 09

  I appreciate the phone call. It was a, it was a pleasure talking to you.

• 1:57:53Tim Ferriss?

  Likewise. Take it easy. Bye.

• 1:58:01Tim Ferriss?

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

• 1:58:44Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I've used for years. I love audiobooks and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's amazing. You will thank me. The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life

• 1:59:29Tim Ferriss?

  and formed the basis for a lot of what became The Four Hour Work Week. So, all you need to do to get your free 30-day trial is go to audible.com/tim, T-I-M, and you can choose one of those two books or you can choose from more great options than you can possibly imagine. So that could be a book, that could be a magazine, that could be a newspaper, it could be a class. It's that easy. Go to audible.com/tim. That's audible.com/tim and grab a book. Enjoy.

• 1:59:58Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:00:40Tim Ferriss?

  and I can somewhat end up smelling like a musk ox halfway through the day. They have pure melted down silver in their fabrics. And I love these shirts. I love their pants. I love their shorts. And I've been wearing them pretty much every day for the last few weeks. At least one item from them. So you should check it out. This stuff is not cheap, because it is made from premium materials. And if you want the best, you've got to pay for the best, and that's just the way it is. But there's no risk in trying them out. They provide free shipping and a 100-day return policy. That is plenty of time to feel them out. So check it out at rhone.com/tim.

• 2:01:22Tim Ferriss?

  That's R-H-O-N-E.com/tim. You can get 15% off, which is exclusive for listeners of this podcast. You're welcome. Using the code TIM. You've got to use the code, folks. And at that URL, rhone.com/tim, you will also see the shirt that I would suggest maybe starting with. It is the Scout Crew Neck Shirt. I like the red. I like the black. I'm wearing the red right now as I record this. And that is all for this sponsor announcement. So check it out. Rhone.com/tim.