#209: The Random Show Threesome -- Tim Ferriss, Kevin Rose, and Matt Mullenweg

My first live podcast in New York City was recorded at the 92nd Street Y to a sold-out crowd of about 900 people. This episode comes from The Random Show segment of the evening when I took the stage with Kevin Rose and Matt Mullenweg. Kevin Rose (@KevinRose https://twitter.com/kevinrose) has been my partner in crime for many things. He's one of the best stock pickers in the startup world, the co-founder of Digg http://digg.com/ and Milk http://mi.lk, a general partner at Google Ventures https://www.gv.com/, and CEO of Hodinkee https://www.hodinkee.com/. Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt https://twitter.com/photomatt) is most associated with a tool that powers more than 25% of the entire Web: WordPress http://www.wordpress.com/. He's also the CEO of Automattic https://automattic.com/, which is a multi-billion dollar, fully distributed startup. We talk about lots of things -- including setting goals and New Year's resolutions. I hope you enjoy! 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 and a special holiday bonus. Find 'em at rhone.com/tim https://rhone.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront https://wealthfront.com/tim. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. In fact, some of my good investor friends in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it's all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams. Check out wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.com/tim http://wealthfront.com/tim.

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

• 0:01Matt Mullenweg?

  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

  Now would be an inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Rhone, R-H-O-N-E. People always ask me what shirts I'm wearing in my YouTube videos, especially recently, or when I've appeared on TV for Tools of Titans, and even, for instance, this week in New York City when they bump into me on the street. And the answer is inevitably Rhone Apparel, R-H-O-N-E. When I go on the road, I would say half of what I pack is from Rhone. They have the most comfortable shirts I've ever worn for active wear. I also have their shorts, pants. Sometimes I sneak them into business casual meetings. They work for almost everything. And when you are on the run, I don't know about you, sometimes I do sweat a bit, anti-odor technology.

• 1:02Tim Ferriss?

  These are impervious to my body odor, and not to say I smell like a musk ox, but sometimes it's not the best. They've melted down silver in some of their custom fabrics, and I am wearing these, especially during, say, a book launch these past few weeks, all the time. On price point and returns policy, let's talk about it. This stuff is not the cheapest, but that's because the materials they use aren't cheap. You're going to pay a little bit more upfront, and ultimately, over time, it's going to last longer, you'll save in the long run. And of course, you have all the benefits of the custom fabrics and premium technology. So these I've converted many people to, and check it out, there's no risk in ordering and getting a feel for it yourself.

• 1:45Tim Ferriss?

  So Rhone provides free shipping and a 100-day return policy. And they have a special holiday promo right now, free, you can get a free power stretch winter beanie, I love beanies, you guys of course always see me in beanies, with purchases over $100. And you will also get free power stretch running gloves, in addition to the winter beanie with purchases over $150. So check out rhone.com/tim, that's R-H-O-N-E.com/tim, and you all, as an exclusive for my listeners of the podcast, get 15% off using the code TIM. So rhone.com/tim, and then just use the code TIM. Check it out.

• 2:29Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is, why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, etc. And I'll come back to that in a second.

• 3:11Tim Ferriss?

  I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, etc.,

• 3:56Tim Ferriss?

  can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first $15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different. I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials. So I couldn't be a user and have them

• 4:38Tim Ferriss?

  On the podcast, but I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account. But just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free. There's no downside that I can think of.

• 5:10Tim Ferriss?

  Why, hello, my dear little maitien. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it's my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all different walks of life, industries, spheres, whatever you might call it. This episode is a little bit different. A, I am in the offices of my publisher in New York City, hence the bounce off the walls. But the episode you're going to listen to is recorded live at the 92nd Street YMCA. And no, it wasn't on bleachers in front of a junior varsity basketball game. It was actually in a gigantic venue, which is gorgeous, to a sold-out crowd of about 900 people. This was my first live podcast in New York City,

• 5:51Tim Ferriss?

  and it was split into a few parts. This part is a live edition of The Random Show. And there are two guests. We have Kevin Rose, my partner in crime for many things, Kevin Rose, Twitter, Instagram, @kevinrose. You can also find him at thejournal.e-mail. It's a great newsletter. He's one of the best stock pickers in the startup world. He predicts even non-tech trends with incredible accuracy. Co-founder of DIG, Revision 3, which was sold to Discovery, and Milk, which was sold to Google. After that, he became a general partner at Google Ventures, where he was part of the investment team that funded companies such as Uber, Medium, and Blue Bottle Coffee. And he's now the CEO of Hodinky, the world's leading online wristwatch, marketplace, and news site. And he has a lot more, of course,

• 6:35Tim Ferriss?

  in his bio. The other, this is my first Random Show threesome, is Matt Mullenweg, one of the most popular guests that I've had on The Tim Ferriss Show. Incredible guy. Twitter, Instagram, @PhotoMatt, M-A-T-T. Website, ma.ttt. He's been named one of Business Week's 25 most influential people on the web. But I think that's an understatement. He is perhaps best known as the original lead developer of WordPress, which now powers more than 25% of the entire web. If you've visited sites like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, TED, NFL, or Reuters, or my website, then you've seen WordPress in action. He's also the CEO of Automatic. And maybe you didn't notice, it's M-A-T-T in the middle, Automatic,

• 7:19Tim Ferriss?

  which is valued at more than $1 billion and has a fully distributed team of 500 employees around the world. I'm also an advisor to that company. So we had a blast. We talk a lot about setting goals, New Year's resolutions, and so on, because quite frankly, I wanted to ask them. I'm always looking for help myself. So I do hope you enjoy this Tim Ferriss Show episode, and also Random Show episode with Kevin Rose and Matt Mullenweg.

• 7:48Tim Ferriss?

  All right, so we're gonna bring our next guests out, and we're gonna get to it. So please welcome to the stage Matt Mullenweg and Kevin Rose.

• 8:04Tim Ferriss?

  And thank you, guys, these mics.

• 8:09Matt Mullenweg?

  Howdy, howdy.

• 8:10Kevin Rose?

  Thank you, sir.

• 8:10Tim Ferriss?

  Hello. This is a

• 8:12Matt Mullenweg?

  Hey, everybody.

• 8:13Tim Ferriss?

  A live edition threesome of the Random Show. So welcome to that. And what do we have here, Kevin? What are we drinking?

• 8:24Kevin Rose?

  I have no idea. This guy's a corner store.

• 8:28Kevin Rose?

  It's a $7 pinot.

• 8:29Tim Ferriss?

  Fantastic. And we also have, I may have to hail the crazy Bulgarian. I think I will do that, actually. Crazy Bulgarian, that's a... You all should get one. They're on sale on Amazon. Thank you.

• 8:43Tim Ferriss?

  Pristovacilov, pričo. Thank you. So we also have $7 pinot, and then we have Matt's reacquaintance, Casa Dragones. This is a sipping tequila, and we have the finest Dixie cups that money can buy.

• 8:58Matt Mullenweg?

  Last time we had this, we had the Blanco, and this is the Hoven, so...

• 9:01Tim Ferriss?

  That is correct. Mixing it up.

• 9:03Matt Mullenweg?

  Or upgrading.

• 9:06Tim Ferriss?

  What is the pinot, the $7 pinot? They want to know.

• 9:09Kevin Rose?

  Oh, the tequila.

• 9:10Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, the tequila is Casa Dragones. It's a sipping tequila. Uh, which means you do not make shots out of it. It would be very, very expensive to do that. There we go.

• 9:20Kevin Rose?

  Nice.

• 9:21Tim Ferriss?

  That's the audio on that. We added that in. Uh, so I think I'm gonna wait for a second. Kevin, do you want to, uh, do the introduction? Or should I?

• 9:29Kevin Rose?

  Uh, you go ahead. I'm pouring.

• 9:31Tim Ferriss?

  All right, Kevin's pouring.

• 9:32Kevin Rose?

  Do you want wine or do you want tequila?

• 9:34Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, I'll start with wine. And then it'll end poorly as I add tequila. Uh, thank you, sir.

• 9:40Kevin Rose?

  This is not Hangover $7, by the way. It's a little bit better than that.

• 9:43Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 9:43Kevin Rose?

  Just so you know, you're not gonna...

• 9:44Tim Ferriss?

  I appreciate that.

• 9:45Kevin Rose?

  Yeah.

• 9:45Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, so first of all, was Matt left without?

• 9:49Kevin Rose?

  I thought you went, I thought you went straight tequila.

• 9:52Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 9:53Kevin Rose?

  Already screwing things up. Sorry, Matt.

• 9:54Matt Mullenweg?

  No worries, no worries.

• 9:55Kevin Rose?

  Cheers.

• 9:56Tim Ferriss?

  Cheers, guys. And cheers, audience. Thank you for coming. This is a great way, a really fun way for me to, to wind up the week with everybody. Uh, so, welcome to The Random Show, episode 679.

• 10:11Kevin Rose?

  We have no idea what number it is.

• 10:12Tim Ferriss?

  We always just make up the number. We have no idea where we are. I am Tim Ferriss.

• 10:17Kevin Rose?

  I'm Kevin Rose.

• 10:18Tim Ferriss?

  And?

• 10:19Matt Mullenweg?

  I'm Matt Mullenweg.

• 10:20Kevin Rose?

  Special guest.

• 10:21Tim Ferriss?

  Cameo appearance.

• 10:22Kevin Rose?

  Woohoo.

• 10:23Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, so, so Kevin, I'm gonna ask the same question. Because honestly, I ask questions that I'm trying to answer for myself. This is the, the big secret of the podcast and The Random Show. How do you think about the end of the year? Like, how are you thinking about what to change, what to keep the same? Do you have any approach to that?

• 10:40Kevin Rose?

  Uh, it's a good question. So typically, I do like my end of year, New Year's resolution list. This time, I decided to forego that and not do one at all, actually. Because every year, I tend to stick to about half of the things that I want to do. However, I have made a lot of tweaks recently that I want to carry on into the new year. One of them for me was just really dialing in all of my different blood levels. We have a mutual friend, Peter Tia, who's been on your show a bunch. He's helping me kind of dial everything in now that I'm getting a little bit older. So I've been doing a lot of kind of crazy hacks around that.

• 11:18Tim Ferriss?

  Like what?

• 11:19Kevin Rose?

  Well, I just completed my first five-day fast, which was really shitty, to be honest.

• 11:26Tim Ferriss?

  Was it water only?

• 11:28Kevin Rose?

  No, it was very, a lot of broths that go with it. So, obviously, super-low calorie, still shoots up your ketones. But, you know, I thought it was gonna be pretty easy, because everyone talks about fasting, "Oh, it's great, blah, blah, blah, you lose five pounds." And, obviously, it improves a bunch of different markers, IGF-1 levels, hopefully, my insulin resistance and things like that. But I decided to give it a shot, and on day three, I was just beat down, zapped, like in hell. Day four was worse, day five, I got a cold. I mean, it was, it was really bad. But, after about a week later, I just felt amazing, and I just had my, my blood draw

• 12:13Kevin Rose?

  done, and so we'll see if it improved a lot of those different markers that I'm looking at. So fasting is definitely something I'm interested in, something I'm gonna be doing.

• 12:21Tim Ferriss?

  You did this using the fast-mimicking diet.

• 12:24Kevin Rose?

  That's right.

• 12:25Tim Ferriss?

  This is from, I guess, Dr. Longo.

• 12:28Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, Walter Longo.

• 12:30Tim Ferriss?

  Prepackaged, low-calorie food.

• 12:34Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, so it's pretty-

• 12:35Tim Ferriss?

  Tended to allow you to mimic the benefits of pure fasting while consuming nutrient-dense-

• 12:41Kevin Rose?

  That's right.

• 12:42Tim Ferriss?

  -food of some type.

• 12:43Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, so he's, he's a scientist that basically said, "Okay, we all know that fasting with just water only really sucks. Is it possible to..."

• 12:50Tim Ferriss?

  That was actually, I think, the headline of-

• 12:52Kevin Rose?

  That was his paper, actually. No, but he said, "Okay, there's a lot of people that can benefit from this, cancer patients, and people with diabetes, and a few other folks that we know benefit from fasting." Were you not recording?

• 13:05Tim Ferriss?

  No, I was recording. I'm turning off the mic that isn't being used.

• 13:07Kevin Rose?

  Okay. So-

• 13:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, if you could just repeat all that.

• 13:10Kevin Rose?

  Exactly.

• 13:12Kevin Rose?

  So, so anyway, long story short, he was like, okay, I'm gonna do a study and do some research and see what the minimal amount of food that you can eat, but still get these positive benefits on the fasting side. And he found out that it's a right around 500 calories a day, which sounds like a lot, but actually it's just like a couple sipping broth and like, like two olives and like one almond is basically what I ate every day.

• 13:34Tim Ferriss?

  Do you think your fast would have been easier had you not gone through the torture of being like, okay, I'm going to eat, but I'm only allowed to have one and three quarter olives?

• 13:45Kevin Rose?

  I, I think it would have been easier. So the problem, and I'm, I'm curious if this is, so Longo's diet actually suggests things like a, a pretty high starchy diet. So you don't get into full ketosis. So you're in kind of this like really shitty zone where...

• 14:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you're in the limbo misery zone.

• 14:02Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, you're like 0.8 millimolars of ketones. Like it's kind of this really crappy, no energy, not enough carbs to have energy, not enough, uh, not few enough carbs to be in full ketosis. So it's a bad place to be. I would like to, and something I was working with Rhonda Patrick on recently, another scientist that's been on your show. She, her thoughts are, okay, let's take the same amount of calories. Let's flip it and say all high fat though. So you can fully get into ketosis. Um, so that's kind of the thinking on round two that I might try and see what, see what it does.

• 14:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I endorse the second for sure, which is basically what I do. When I, I mean, when I'm fasting for any period of time through, and by the way, you should do this with medical supervision, clearly he is, uh, but allowing some degree of fat or at least say exogenous ketones or MCTs to make the first two days a little bit easier in transition.

• 14:53Matt Mullenweg?

  Don't you also like sleep in a hyperbaric chamber or something like?

• 14:56Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, like Michael Jackson?

• 14:58Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, I was just gonna say that.

• 14:59Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, I, I don't sleep in a hyperbaric chamber. I've done a hyperbaric oxygen treatments before, during fasts.

• 15:11Tim Ferriss?

  Primarily just to see what would happen. Well, it turns out that Dominic D'Agostino, who's this incredible scientist who's been on the podcast, who has, I think, the second longest chapter in Tools of Titans, which goes deeply into ketosis and fasting and ketogenic diets and so on, has also done studies looking at how to use or applications of hyperbaric oxygen treatment or therapy to different types of disease states. And I was just very curious to see what would happen. So I'll give you an example. This is going to sound like I'm completely making this up, but I tracked it and you can choose to believe it or not.

• 15:53Tim Ferriss?

  I went into a hyperbaric chamber at about, I want to say, 2.5 atmospheres ultimately. And that's an indicator of the pressure. You have to be very careful with this. They do not allow you to take anything inside because if it's pumped full of pure oxygen and you have, say, a paperclip, you could just ignite yourself into a gigantic fireball or anything just about. So you can't bring anything in there. You have to wear their clothing and so on. And I did a, there were two things that I did simultaneously in the hyperbaric chamber. I was in there for a total of about 90 minutes. And again, don't try this at home. Do this with proper supervision, which I had. I was deep into ketosis because I did a 10-day fast, which you should never try without medical supervision.

• 16:36Tim Ferriss?

  And I was at about 6 mmol or 6.5 mmol, which is the concentration of ketones in your blood. And I use a device called the Precision XTRA, XTRA, to measure this. It's very, very simple to do. So I was in deep, deep, full-blown ketosis. And what Dom noticed, Dominic, and I noticed and other people, is that when you're in deep ketosis, and there are scientific reasons that this is the case, you can hold your breath about twice as long as normal, if not more.

• 17:03Kevin Rose?

  Didn't Navy SEALs try and do this? Or there was something he was doing, training for the government?

• 17:07Tim Ferriss?

  So Dom has been funded by divisions of and components of the military to develop supplemental ketones and other therapies that people can use to avoid hypoxic disorders. So if, for instance, you're a Navy SEAL and you need to be underwater for a long period of time with a rebreather, which is a certain type of breathing apparatus. You can develop, I suppose, in the extreme, brain damage from being underwater for a very long period of time. So if you can extract more energy from every molecule of oxygen, there's a huge competitive, well, competitive. It's called a competitive advantage.

• 17:49Tim Ferriss?

  So he's been developing these ketonesters and so on for military applications. So I was not only in deep ketosis, I was in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, so I'm breathing effectively 100% oxygen, and I did a bunch of Wim Hof breathing exercises while inside the capsule.

• 18:04Kevin Rose?

  Nice.

• 18:05Tim Ferriss?

  And I-

• 18:06Kevin Rose?

  Did you pass out? You must have passed out.

• 18:08Tim Ferriss?

  I thought my brain was gonna melt at one point, and I stopped, and then I held my breath, I did three rounds of breath-holding, and I held my breath for seven and a half minutes.

• 18:16Kevin Rose?

  And then you did high-dose mushrooms right after that?

• 18:18Tim Ferriss?

  It might have been two hours before, which would explain the feeling of weightlessness. No, but seven and a half minutes. And if I tried to hold my breath right now, it'd be about 45 seconds. That's my normal benchmark. How did you count? Because you can't have any devices or anything. Oh, no, there are windows, because they'll show you cheesy 80's movies, which they have on DVD while you're sitting there bored out of your skull. Wow. So if you want to watch Lethal Weapon 17, it's available. And they have- They'll sign me up. They wanted me there before. And they have clocks outside that you can see, so I could actually track the time. What about you, Matt? We're going, like, rewinding here a bit. In terms of end-of-year stuff, how do you think about that? Do you do a recap?

• 18:57Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah, I actually just got out, I was telling Kevin, we just did the, sort of, all the execs at Automattic, which is the company where I work at, we make WordPress.com and stuff, got together to plan out, actually, the next three years. And then on Saturday, I delivered the State of the Word address, which is like the annual WordPress, this is, it's like State of the Union, but for bloggers, I guess.

• 19:21Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:22Matt Mullenweg?

  So, a lot of planning, like, basically, my past month has been, like, super heads down, I've been in a cave, and just like today, coming out of it, which is kind of cool to share that with all of you all.

• 19:32Tim Ferriss?

  And all of y'all, that's a Massachusetts accent, if you're wondering. But that is, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's primarily a work focus, right? You're looking at the future of the organization, you're looking at the future of, say, WordPress as an open source project, potentially. Do you do the same personally? Do you have three-year goals outside of that personally? Of course, the business involves you, but are there things outside of that that you have long-term goals for?

• 20:01Matt Mullenweg?

  Typically, I make a simple note for each year, called like "Goals in the Year." I started the 2017 one. The only thing in it so far is to visit Russia.

• 20:10Tim Ferriss?

  So, wait a second. So, do you have like sticky note on your computer and you just write in "2017," enter? Visit Russia? Or do you put this in a... How do you capture this?

• 20:24Matt Mullenweg?

  So, Simple Notes, this app.

• 20:26Tim Ferriss?

  Simple Notes, yeah.

• 20:27Matt Mullenweg?

  And I like kind of dissed Russia accidentally, because I was looking at a map of all the work camps in the world. I was like, "Hey, Russia, what's up?" But just being like a geographically ignorant American, I didn't realize that 90% of Russia lives in the like western Timbresent. So, there was actually a work camp in Moscow that I had kind of like pretended there wasn't. And so, all the Russians got mad at me. I figured that was a very bad thing. So, I was like, "Okay, I'll go to Russia."

• 20:51Tim Ferriss?

  Make amends.

• 20:52Matt Mullenweg?

  I wrote it down.

• 20:53Tim Ferriss?

  So, it's a diplomatic mission?

• 20:54Matt Mullenweg?

  Yes.

• 20:56Tim Ferriss?

  What did you have in your list for 2016?

• 20:59Matt Mullenweg?

  So much. It's actually a long list. And this year, it kind of like took a few side turns, you know? So, I try to think, actually, it's something I often do around the end of the year, is I ask a lot of people who I know, kind of crowdsource resolutions. Have you ever tried this? No. You should do it!

• 21:21Tim Ferriss?

  Let's... All right, what should we do? Well, let's try it. So... Okay, so visit Russia.

• 21:26Matt Mullenweg?

  We've done this before, actually.

• 21:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we have done this before. We've been on a lot of Thelma and Louise-style travel trips before.

• 21:33Kevin Rose?

  I have one for Matt that I want you to do this year.

• 21:36Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you have an assignment for Matt?

• 21:37Kevin Rose?

  Just a... We wanted crowdsourcing. We're giving crowdsourcing.

• 21:40Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, alright.

• 21:41Kevin Rose?

  That is exactly the idea. I want you to do the Wim Hof method.

• 21:43Matt Mullenweg?

  Oh, so...

• 21:44Kevin Rose?

  The ice training, the freezing cold. That has been a game changer for me last year.

• 21:49Matt Mullenweg?

  So, I just met the dude at Summit at Sea. Mm-hmm. And went to his workshop. But I haven't really done it since. It's a little weird.

• 21:57Kevin Rose?

  Just something for your list if you want to add it.

• 21:58Matt Mullenweg?

  Do you ever, like, Wim Hof in public?

• 22:01Tim Ferriss?

  Do I ever Wim Hof in public?

• 22:02Matt Mullenweg?

  Well, because it's like very vigorous breathing, right?

• 22:07Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, oh.

• 22:08Matt Mullenweg?

  And like, so sometimes I feel like, oh, this would be... I could use a little more energy right now. But then I don't want people to like call 911.

• 22:15Tim Ferriss?

  You don't want people to call the police when you're doing it in a waiting room?

• 22:17Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Tim Ferriss?

  So, just a caveat on Wim Hof for everybody. Fascinating stuff. You have to be very careful. So Josh Waitzkin, we've talked to before. The shallow water blackout that he suffered from, which could have killed him, was after practicing Wim Hof breathing before swimming. You have to be very, very, very careful with this stuff.

• 22:38Matt Mullenweg?

  Can I just say, anything Tim recommends, you should be very careful?

• 22:41Tim Ferriss?

  Morning journaling, you can take your thumbs off. If it's high-velocity journaling, only professionals.

• 22:50Matt Mullenweg?

  So I'm down with this, though. Have you done, like, the hiking, the mountain, then your underwear thing? Or like, how cold do you get?

• 22:54Kevin Rose?

  More or less.

• 22:55Matt Mullenweg?

  Less than underwear?

• 22:57Tim Ferriss?

  Less the mountain and less the underwear.

• 22:59Kevin Rose?

  I mean, there's a photo on the internet of me and my underwear in the ice, so...

• 23:02Matt Mullenweg?

  Really?

• 23:03Kevin Rose?

  I did go that far. I will say to everyone out there, the Wim method, you've probably heard him on Tim's show, and he's been on a bunch of podcasts. It's 10 weeks of pretty hardcore training.

• 23:15Matt Mullenweg?

  10 weeks?

• 23:17Kevin Rose?

  That starts off really slow. So, you know, you start off with like a 15-second cold shower at the end of your shower, and then it gradually builds up to, for me, at the end, it was buying like 10 bags of ice, putting it in my bathtub, and then laying there up to my neck for about 15, 20 minutes. And not even shivering. So you actually gain a pretty high tolerance of this stuff. But the thing that was most interesting to me is that... I think that, you know, at least for me, all of us, me and most people I talk to, we have this like emotional roller coaster that we all ride. And for me, it's always kind of like between the 80 and 90%. And some days are great, you go up to 100, but it's always just depending on what's going on in your life and what challenges you have, you're always kind of riding that.

• 24:02Kevin Rose?

  And I've always considered myself a pretty happy person, but after about two or three weeks, actually week two, the end of week two, the breathing exercises are great, but it's really the cold that does it. It releases a bunch of different compounds in your brain and you feel just amazing. More energy and focus and just, I felt as though, almost like, you know, when you're a kid and you just don't have a world in the world and everything feels amazing and you lose kind of track of time? I got all of those emotions back again. And so for me, it's kind of a winter thing because the cold is coming anyway. So every year, and even now, I'm on like week two of it, I started back up again and I just feel so much better. It's crazy. It lifts the bar.

• 24:46Kevin Rose?

  I didn't know the bar could go that high. So you still have those little fluctuations, but the bar is a little bit higher for me. And Rhonda will give you all the science behind it. It's the release of norepinephrine in the brain, but it's amazing stuff.

• 24:59Matt Mullenweg?

  So we both got here at the same time. We were both wearing coats.

• 25:02Kevin Rose?

  That's right.

• 25:04Tim Ferriss?

  Kevin actually walked through the lobby. He wasn't under wearing, he had ice packs strapped to his body.

• 25:13Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, you don't know what I have underneath it. Do you want me to strip down? I mean, I can go low if you want.

• 25:18Tim Ferriss?

  You guys want Kevin to strip down?

• 25:21Matt Mullenweg?

  This is every time.

• 25:23Tim Ferriss?

  The people want it. Those two people want it. So the cold, I'm just going to make a note on that, which is, coming back to one of the audience questions about chillness, this is something that I've also... Invested in, in the sense that I'm regularly going to say Russian baths. You guys are very fortunate if you're in New York City to have some incredible Russian and Turkish baths here. As filthy as they may be, that have tremendous cold plunges.

• 25:52Kevin Rose?

  I took my wife one time, she's like, "I am never going back to that place, ever."

• 25:56Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, when I went there, I think three trips ago, there was a guy, this old Russian guy shaving his neck.

• 26:03Kevin Rose?

  I was with you.

• 26:04Tim Ferriss?

  And blowing hair into, just onto the floor, where everyone was walking.

• 26:09Kevin Rose?

  We were sitting there looking at this guy, blowing his hair, it was disgusting.

• 26:13Tim Ferriss?

  So yeah, wear your sandals.

• 26:14Kevin Rose?

  Something about that is awesome though.

• 26:16Tim Ferriss?

  But even as far back as say, you know, Van Gogh, and he cut his own ear off, which I also don't recommend, was prescribed cold baths as part of the recovery therapy.

• 26:28Kevin Rose?

  Who's that?

• 26:29Tim Ferriss?

  Van Gogh, the painter?

• 26:30Matt Mullenweg?

  I know he's the best example to follow.

• 26:33Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, like, look, there's, can't bat, no one bats a thousand.

• 26:36Matt Mullenweg?

  I do have a question about the cold thing, because I know you both do it. Have either of you done that thing where you like, get in the freezing thing?

• 26:43Kevin Rose?

  Oh yeah, a ton of times.

• 26:45Tim Ferriss?

  The cryotherapy?

• 26:45Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah, cryotherapy, like, okay, how does it compare?

• 26:48Kevin Rose?

  I don't think it's as good, actually.

• 26:49Tim Ferriss?

  I don't, I don't, I don't.

• 26:51Matt Mullenweg?

  As the ice?

• 26:51Tim Ferriss?

  I don't use it.

• 26:52Kevin Rose?

  Ice is better.

• 26:53Matt Mullenweg?

  Whoa, okay.

• 26:53Tim Ferriss?

  I prefer the ice. The cryotherapy, there are a few things. Number one, it really doesn't.

• 26:57Matt Mullenweg?

  I just want another device in my house.

• 26:59Tim Ferriss?

  Well, so it turns out, I was going to get a cryotherapy chamber in my house. Very, very, very dangerous, for a host of reasons.

• 27:06Matt Mullenweg?

  Oh, you want to attend it, right? Like?

• 27:08Tim Ferriss?

  You want to attend it, and also the, the gas that is used can be highly explosive. So, you have to be, I looked into this quite seriously and decided against it for a million reasons. But, the ice, super cheap, I mean, I have a standing freezer that is dedicated to ice. I have bags of ice, I've looked at all these sophisticated cooling systems, I just decided, no, use Instacart, if you have the option, to get a bunch of ice. This is like, I'm their, their nightmare customer.

• 27:37Matt Mullenweg?

  You're gonna put him out of business.

• 27:38Tim Ferriss?

  I'm like the 1% who's like, "Oh my god, I can get 100 pounds of ice delivered for $5?" Yeah, I'm in. Sure.

• 27:46Tim Ferriss?

  And then I put it in this standing freezer. It's dedicated to-

• 27:48Kevin Rose?

  This is why startups fail, people. People like you.

• 27:50Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss effect.

• 27:51Kevin Rose?

  It's like pets.com ordering the dog food for free shipping.

• 27:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. The edge cases, those are gonna bleed you. But the cryotherapy, I also didn't like the fact that the, on numerous occasions, I've tried it and my eyelids have frozen shut. Just not really a huge fan of that experience or sensation whatsoever. What'd you say, eyelids? Yeah, my eyes froze shut. So I wasn't a huge, huge fan of that entire sensory experience. It's not something that I would expect to pay for. You just gotta open your mind, Tim. Trust me, I think it's too open. The surgeries and MRIs to prove it. But what other, what other types of resolutions are you hoping to crowdsource? Well, I like this. Kevin gave me one. Can I get one from you?

• 28:39Tim Ferriss?

  And then we can trade them. There you go. Sure, yeah, let's do that. Okay, so, and in fact, the way I learned to swim was by doing this exercise with a friend named Chris Ashenden. We gave each other assignments. So his was a one kilometer minimum open water swim. At the time, I couldn't do one lap. So that was the incentive and the potential for never-ending shaming that drove me to learn to swim in my 30s. And for him, he was addicted to stimulants, meaning just tons of double espressos, coffees, everything you can imagine, all day, every day. And so it was a year without anything stronger than green tea, which he also did. Wow. And so it changed both of our lives that year. Give you a resolution.

• 29:22Tim Ferriss?

  I would say because of how much we have traveled together, I will say conversational fluency in a foreign language. Oof. That's been on the resolutions for like 10 years. I know. When we travel, the deal is, I'm like the Tarzan-sounding translator. I'll try to learn Turkish or whatever language corresponds to where we happen to be traveling. And Matt is the docu, he's like the National Geographic photo-documentarian. He takes all the photos. So that's been the arrangement. So I would say- Learn a language.

• 29:56Matt Mullenweg?

  Didn't you say something about accentuating strengths instead of improving weaknesses?

• 30:01Kevin Rose?

  I did, but I think you're trying to, I think you're trying to dodge this assignment that you've asked for.

• 30:06Tim Ferriss?

  So I would say conversational fluency, which just means being able to hold, say, a basic five-minute conversation in a foreign language.

• 30:14Matt Mullenweg?

  Alright, can I do one for you?

• 30:15Kevin Rose?

  Yes, I would love that.

• 30:16Matt Mullenweg?

  Uh, I think a little bit to what, have you ever done like a long hike, like a week or more?

• 30:21Kevin Rose?

  No.

• 30:21Matt Mullenweg?

  Recently? You're kind of a city comfort guy?

• 30:23Kevin Rose?

  No, I like outdoors.

• 30:25Matt Mullenweg?

  You like outdoors?

• 30:26Kevin Rose?

  I mean, I do little hikes, like little jaunts and whatnot.

• 30:28Matt Mullenweg?

  So that's the challenge.

• 30:30Tim Ferriss?

  Talking about the two blocks to get some blue bottle coffee.

• 30:33Kevin Rose?

  Take my dog for a walk and throw the ball.

• 30:35Matt Mullenweg?

  That'd be the thing, like a long hike.

• 30:38Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, explain the one that you were telling me backstage, because that one sounds amazing.

• 30:41Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, is this the Japan walk?

• 30:42Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah, so with Dan Rubin and Craig Mar, I did a Komonokoto, which is a Japanese pilgrimage show, kind of like the Kamino Santiago, I think it's called. So it was about 100 kilometers, we did it over eight days from kind of coast to Koyasan. And, uh, super amazing. It was, it was like glamping though, which is totally okay for this challenge, for this, uh, resolution, even though you're not doing resolutions.

• 31:07Tim Ferriss?

  Don't tell Kevin that, he'll have Sherpas carrying him on a throne.

• 31:09Kevin Rose?

  You are more like that than I am.

• 31:11Tim Ferriss?

  What are you talking about?

• 31:12Kevin Rose?

  I am an Eagle Scout, so I have that.

• 31:15Tim Ferriss?

  Kevin, I'm so tired of this Eagle Scout routine. Like, we can be talking about fucking anything.

• 31:21Kevin Rose?

  It's because you have to come back to that.

• 31:22Tim Ferriss?

  We're like, yeah, we should really go do this and this and this, and then go pick up our friends at Crosby, and you're like, hey, I was an Eagle Scout.

• 31:29Matt Mullenweg?

  It's like that joke, how do you know someone's an Eagle Scout? They tell you in the first 30 seconds?

• 31:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's like, it's like CrossFit and veganism, and Eagle Scouts.

• 31:36Kevin Rose?

  Why do you gotta hate on the Eagle Scouts?

• 31:38Tim Ferriss?

  No, I like them, I'm just like, thou doth protest too much.

• 31:41Matt Mullenweg?

  It's actually legit, I only made it to Star. Eagle Scout is high five.

• 31:44Kevin Rose?

  Dude, Star is pretty legit too. I mean, it's okay.

• 31:47Tim Ferriss?

  So, alright.

• 31:49Matt Mullenweg?

  That was kind.

• 31:49Tim Ferriss?

  So Japan.

• 31:50Matt Mullenweg?

  Okay, so maybe the outdoor thing, if you did Eagle Scout, like, did you ever do Philmont?

• 31:55Kevin Rose?

  Uh, I bailed on a Philmont trip.

• 31:57Tim Ferriss?

  Wait, what's Philmont?

• 31:58Matt Mullenweg?

  Philmont's like this famous Boy Scout hiking thing.

• 32:01Kevin Rose?

  It's like 50 miles though, it's, it's pretty...

• 32:03Tim Ferriss?

  If you're gonna do a week of hiking, you're probably gonna cover more than 50 miles.

• 32:07Kevin Rose?

  Well, his was pretty short though, what was it?

• 32:08Matt Mullenweg?

  100 kilometers, not too bad, but it's in the mountains, so you're up and down a lot.

• 32:12Tim Ferriss?

  That's a good one, that's like an extended trip, I've... So people have asked me about like my year plan, my two-year, five-year plan. The only thing that I will, or I shouldn't say the only, but one type of thing I will schedule far in advance is this type of extended trip. So I've, I think it's an 18-day kayaking trip through the Grand Canyon planned in 2017. It's the only extended block of time that I've set aside, aside from some Japan excitement that is, that is coming shortly. But the benefit of that also is that when you put it on the calendar, and I think both of you guys have experienced this, is that you get the benefit of anticipation, and that is 90% of the payoff, if that makes any sense.

• 32:54Matt Mullenweg?

  Unless it's a really good trip, then it's like 2%.

• 32:58Tim Ferriss?

  2%. All right, well, for me, maybe I have a very overactive imagination. It's like 90% of the benefit is the anticipation of it. I have one for you. Oh, boy, here we go. All right, yes, Kevin. This is easy, and I know you want to do it, but you bailed on it this year. Ooh, let's hear this. I want you to do... You're talking about Van Damme splits? That's on my New Year's resolution every year. I want you to do Van Damme splits in front of everyone right now. Now, I want you to go on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Okay, yeah, no, this is good, this is, so I accept, and I actually had it on my calendar to do this year, and then, I don't know what it conflicted with, it conflicted with something. Something happened, you bailed, I remember. Yeah, I know, I did, but I was on the calendar. 10 days is a lot. 10 days is long. No, challenge accepted, I'll do 10 days of meditation. Nice. Challenge accepted.

• 33:42Tim Ferriss?

  Eagle Scouts do that a lot, but...

• 33:44Matt Mullenweg?

  Except when they talk about being Eagle Scouts.

• 33:48Tim Ferriss?

  It's like the hunted, right? I mean, they're like chasing fugitives. That's what I hear about those Eagle Scouts.

• 33:54Matt Mullenweg?

  For the hikes, I'll say the Komano Koto, apparently that's awesome in Iceland, where you can stay in like little huts, and then the Camino Santiago one.

• 34:03Tim Ferriss?

  And for those people interested, I... Done. A walk in the woods is a great way to invigorate and... Well, forest bathing, you've heard about this, right?

• 34:14Tim Ferriss?

  I was talking about a book, forest bathing.

• 34:15Kevin Rose?

  Wait, you said Walk in the Woods, right?

• 34:17Tim Ferriss?

  A Walk in the Woods.

• 34:18Kevin Rose?

  Oh, okay. So, anyway, there was a study that came out recently. I will check it out.

• 34:24Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 34:25Kevin Rose?

  I had two glasses of wine before I came out here. So, forest bathing, a new Japanese study came out that showed that the Japanese that spend time in the forest have like, lower levels of cortisol and like, all these positive benefits from just spending, it's 15 minutes a week in the forest.

• 34:42Tim Ferriss?

  I completely believe it, and there's some extra wine for you.

• 34:46Kevin Rose?

  I'll have a little more.

• 34:46Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I'm good. The, it's amazing how these new discoveries are like the most common sense conclusions that people would have drawn 500 years ago. It's like, let's put you into a concrete prison where everyone's angry and honks a lot and screams at you because you knocked over the caches.

• 35:04Kevin Rose?

  Don't talk about Manhattan like that.

• 35:08Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you know, I was just thinking to myself today, I'm like, I bet if every person stopped honking, it would all move at the same speed. It's just like, so much anger. So, Go Up State, take a trip up state, I think that's a good call. What questions would you guys like to hear answered up here? Anything? Just fire away. Go for it.

• 35:31Kevin Rose?

  Oh my god. I think this is the highest stakes for Kevin. You gotta repeat this. Can I repeat that?

• 35:38Tim Ferriss?

  The question is, what is most frustrating, is that it, and inspiring about the women in our lives?

• 35:45Kevin Rose?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 35:46Tim Ferriss?

  This is just like, here's a grenade, I'm gonna pull the pin and enjoy.

• 35:52Kevin Rose?

  That's a great question. It's a really great question.

• 35:54Tim Ferriss?

  Let's start with the inspiration. I have been very fortunate. I've had some really great relationships.

• 36:03Kevin Rose?

  Here we go.

• 36:07Tim Ferriss?

  Did I tell you I was an Eagle Scout? Let me tell you.

• 36:16Tim Ferriss?

  I have. I've been very fortunate to have some really, really good relationships with significant others over the last six, seven years. Fucking Kevin, this guy, you can't take him anywhere. And I would say whether it's with my mom, with whom I have a very deep relationship, or significant others, I think that the... This is gonna sound funny, but I think a lot of men get... They're proud of how analytical they think they are and get very good at ignoring like the flashing signal that's right in front of them the whole time. And at least, speaking personally, that's been the case for me.

• 36:58Tim Ferriss?

  And so helping me to listen to, like Ramit said earlier, the intuition, as maligned as that might be, and to pay attention to feeling, this just like a kinesthetic embodiment or a perception of what is good or bad, has been hugely valuable to me. And also, I think that men in general are... can be overly aggressive and combative. The fight, I think, is sometimes overestimated as an asset.

• 37:35Tim Ferriss?

  And the counterbalancing that I've experienced with a number of women in my life, where like, "Maybe he's just hungry. Like, maybe he doesn't... He's not like out to get you." Or like, "He sent that email that you're so upset about." It's like, "Maybe he just needed a sandwich. Chill the fuck out." Like, you know, like, why are you assuming the absolute worst motivation behind it? And having that type of tempering voice has been hugely valuable to me. Frustrating? Okay. And I think this is a Tim problem, more than anything else, to be honest, but...

• 38:15Tim Ferriss?

  I am not always the best at expressing my emotions or contending with some of the emotions that I don't view as particularly valuable to me at a given point in time. And so I've developed a lot of body armor over a lifetime of believing this and getting the shit kicked out of me for a long time in school. I mean, literally, physically. Have developed a lot of coping mechanisms. And when I am confronted with someone who has, let's just call it, more emotional range than I do, more emotional volatility, maybe, than I do, I just, I am a deer in headlights. I have a lot of trouble contending with that. And when, for some women, it's just like a tempest that blows in and blows out, and then everything's cool.

• 38:59Tim Ferriss?

  It's like, complete meltdown, like crying hysterics for two minutes, and they're like, "Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine." And they're totally cool. And I'm like fucked up for hours by that. So I would say that's, that's probably pretty high on the list for me, which I think, again, is more of a Tim issue than an anyone else issue. You guys? Oh, go ahead, please.

• 39:25Tim Ferriss?

  This is, this is when the awkward Matt laugh comes out.

• 39:32Matt Mullenweg?

  I'm the inspiration. First, I think of, of course, my mother. And just my entire, my entire, my mother and my sister, really. Like, Muller League women are very strong, so I was lucky to grow up around really strong women. And to this, now, I have the good fortune to work with and be very close friends with, like, women. And in the technology field, you know, I think it is a tough one for women, especially engineers. And so there is examples of folks who work twice as hard to get half as far. And like, it is a...

• 40:13Matt Mullenweg?

  The resilience, I think, is something we can all learn from. I think the thing I've learned the most, actually as close to yours, which is empathy. Like, this for me has been a year where, like, a lot of emotions opened up I didn't even know I had. Like what? Fury? I've never seen you really, really angry. Yeah. Oh, it was grief this year. Grief. You know, my father passed away. We've talked a lot about this, yeah. And sadness, and like, and that, you know, was this weird thing where, because it kind of triggered in other places. You know, I'd see like a story on the news and just get so emotional about it. And I was like, wow, where did that come from?

• 40:55Matt Mullenweg?

  You know, that it was like, you know, something that would have never affected me before, I just would have like watered off a duck. I'm like, I was like practically in tears or in tears, like, for a situation with people I had never knew or heard of. And that was like, where did these emotions come from? How are they happening? How do I make it stop?

• 41:15Matt Mullenweg?

  And I've definitely been close to folks who are like that. I think the frustration for, and this is again probably a Matt thing, probably a Tim thing too, is just learning around expectations, something I'm learning to navigate more.

• 41:32Matt Mullenweg?

  That, you know, men and women sometimes have different, very different expectations of the same things. And so, learning to navigate that is something I'm really trying to figure out. What type of things, expectations of what types of things?

• 41:47Matt Mullenweg?

  I'm not gonna let that slide. So for me, I think part of it's around relationships. Is kind of where I had expectations in mind, where I said that. Is, you know, if you're in a relationship or not in a relationship, like, what are the expectations around? Got it. So the parameters, the rules of engagement. Yeah, especially this year where I'm trying to like withdraw a little bit. And like kind of rebuild, also work's been incredibly busy.

• 42:15Tim Ferriss?

  Rebuild, you mean just yourself?

• 42:17Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah.

• 42:19Matt Mullenweg?

  That whole expectations externally can both be flattering and frustrating and like heartbreaking and like everything, all in one.

• 42:27Tim Ferriss?

  What was the, if you're willing to share, there was a book that you found really helpful when contending with grief, I remember you'd mentioned it to me.

• 42:35Matt Mullenweg?

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:35Tim Ferriss?

  And you thought it applied to a lot more than that, I remember when we chatted about it.

• 42:38Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah, I'd recommend it, it was Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. And she was, one of her first books was the one that came up with the five stages of grief, like the anger, depression, denial, you know, all that. And then her last book, which is actually published posthumously, it's called On Grief and Grieving. I think one was called like On Death and Dying, On Life and Living, and then this final book, On Grief and Grieving. And it's really beautiful as well because she wrote it on her deathbed.

• 43:05Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 43:06Matt Mullenweg?

  And grief is something, it helped me understand that grief is something that happens actually before you have a loss, the anticipation of a loss, something during, something after. There's a lot of guilt involved at the various stages of that. And the other thing I didn't realize that's just useful for everyone to know, is the stages don't happen in order. I actually have some glasses that have the stages on them, so you can fill up your booze to like the different levels and then drink it down.

• 43:32Tim Ferriss?

  I took a photograph of that today.

• 43:34Matt Mullenweg?

  Oh, cool.

• 43:35Tim Ferriss?

  I thought it was the strangest thing I'd ever seen, yeah, there's these little line markers on the glass.

• 43:41Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah.

• 43:41Tim Ferriss?

  That correspond to the stages, yeah.

• 43:44Matt Mullenweg?

  And, and so part of that implies that they're linear, but you can have a couple going at once and out of order. And, and sometimes you jump into one of those stages just out of the blue. So, that was definitely one that was, yeah, really helpful this year. And I would recommend for anyone, actually anyone, because we all have parents, sometimes those parents pass, they get older, or just anything in our lives. Like you said the other day, people often go before you're ready or they're ready. And so, it felt like, reading it afterwards wasn't ideal, but I, it felt like I had a lot more, almost emotional vocabulary to talk about these things that I didn't even know what the words were or what the experiences were.

• 44:26Tim Ferriss?

  Good, Kevin. Eagle Scout.

• 44:30Kevin Rose?

  So, uh, let's see here, my two, um, I would say that this last Thanksgiving was probably pretty difficult when it comes to family and the women in my life. Uh, my dad passed away a few years ago, so it's pretty much all women from this point forward. Um, and my sister and mom definitely have different political and religious beliefs than I do. And so that is very challenging, um, especially when it's time to sit down and have the religion talk and how I should rejoin the fold in certain ways. And so, um, I would say that's been the biggest challenge for me, um, just because it's, it's just, uh, you know, it's Thanksgiving, it's hard to navigate those waters.

• 45:09Matt Mullenweg?

  Right.

• 45:10Kevin Rose?

  I think with any family, male or female, it really doesn't matter. It can be difficult. So that was my biggest challenge. I would say the thing I'm most grateful for, um, and impressed by would have to be my wife's willingness to work on problems together. So, you know, it's easy for me, I think that to get the like angry, I'm pissed off and kind of like, you know, stomp and say like, and put up a wall. And I'm very lucky in that it's kind of like her natural state to kind of try and work on things and say, well, this is part of being married. Let's continue to work on this and like come to a resolution

• 45:52Kevin Rose?

  there and, and kind of, um, really break that side of me down into something that's, that's where I can realize that, oh yeah, we are in this together for the long term. Let's work on this and it will forever be something that we have to work on because there is no such thing as a perfect state, you know? I mean, there can be for certain periods of time, but you know, there's always going to be something coming up every year. So, uh, just the ability to have a mate like that, someone that's willing to work on things rather than, it would be hell if you were both like that, right? Cause that's when like relationships fall apart. So I'm very fortunate to have someone that's that open to that kind of stuff.

• 46:28Matt Mullenweg?

  Thanks for sharing that, by the way.

• 46:29Kevin Rose?

  It's really vulnerable.

• 46:30Tim Ferriss?

  So, we're going to close with the question from Bean and then I think we're going to let you guys get to your Friday evening and, uh, we'll move on to, for those of you who do have the blue wristbands, we'll do that part.

• 46:42Matt Mullenweg?

  VIP.

• 46:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 46:47Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, VIP. God, I hate that acronym, but it's the only one I have as a placeholder.

• 46:52Kevin Rose?

  What's your VIP room like? Is there like rates in there?

• 46:55Tim Ferriss?

  If we're switching, can we go to the kettles?

• 46:57Kevin Rose?

  Kettle bells and...

• 46:58Tim Ferriss?

  Ponies everywhere. I'm just gonna pour some of this. It's very exciting. I hope that's what you guys read the fine print right on that signup. I think the 90s and white people are just like cursing themselves for letting me get on stage now. Oh my God, we're moving to tequila. No, the VIP thing is just gonna be a smaller group where we can hang. So the question I have for you guys, oh God, wow, look at the heavy hand of Matt Mullenweg.

• 47:20Tim Ferriss?

  Is, it's amazing how quiet the room got on the hookers and blow comment. Did you see that?

• 47:26Tim Ferriss?

  So the question is...

• 47:30Tim Ferriss?

  I'm waiting for some residual laughter. Okay, everybody got it who's gonna get it? Great. The question is, what would you like, we're at the tail end of a year, any closing recommendations, asks of the audience? Or suggestions that you would have, just for, just for a very good, in this case 2017, people will be listening to this podcast for probably a very long time. And I'll start. So the one that I would recommend is two things. So A, be your stupid weird self and don't be ashamed of it, which is deliberately why I say stupid things like the preceding four or five sentences. And B, goal setting isn't enough. Goal setting is what we all do. We all set resolutions and we

• 48:15Tim Ferriss?

  tend to find the same resolutions popping up the next year and then the next and the next. So I think fear setting as an exercise is very important. I'll describe it briefly. Certainly in Tools of Titans, I've written about it elsewhere. You can Google fear setting and find it, but take whatever it is that you're considering or putting off. Could be starting a company, quitting a job, starting a relationship, ending a relationship. And break the page into three columns. And so you have what you're considering or putting off at the top, you've thought about a long time. On the left-hand side, you're gonna write down all of the worst things that could happen in excruciating detail, bullet by bullet. The second column, for each of those bullets, what you could do to minimize the likelihood of it happening.

• 48:59Tim Ferriss?

  And then in the last column, what you could do, what you could do to get back to where you are now, could be two months, six months, a year, if you had to, if each of those happened. And when you go through that exercise... You very quickly realize that nine times out of 10, you're risking, say, on a scale of 0 to 10 impact, a 2 or 3 negative transient or temporary setback compared to a potential like 9 or 10 semi-permanent positive impact. And that makes the bet really easy, right? If I said to you, "All right, we're gonna roll a six-sided die. If I get a 1, you pay me a dollar.

• 49:43Tim Ferriss?

  Anything else, I pay you a dollar." You would take that all day long. And so you start to realize that and you're able to take the emergency break off, which is what prevents you from hitting the goals that you've set. So fear setting would be my recommendation. Hi there, you guys?

• 49:58Kevin Rose?

  So just recommendations for year end?

• 50:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, recommendations, thoughts, asks.

• 50:02Kevin Rose?

  Sure. Okay, so a few things real quick. One, go see the movie Kubo. Have you seen Kubo? Anyone seen Kubo at all? It was amazing. Stop-motion animation, like the Nightmare Before Christmas. Have you seen it?

• 50:16Tim Ferriss?

  I haven't yet.

• 50:17Kevin Rose?

  Oh my god, so good. All right, so see that one. The Birth of Saki is another one you gotta watch. Highly recommend. Anyone see that at all?

• 50:25Tim Ferriss?

  Sake, Sake, Eagle Scout, Sake.

• 50:30Kevin Rose?

  And then, I would say my last one is that, is on the meditation front. Obviously, everyone talks about meditation. It's like the hot topic these days. We've all played with Headspace and Calm and a few other apps. I will say that my biggest insight in the last six months has been that when you do the 10 or 15-minute little trial and get going, you kind of, you do it and you think like, "Oh, okay, I tried that." And you put it away for a while. If you stick with it and you just go a little bit deeper, things start to unlock. And I feel that the stress level and everything else just kind of plummets. There's, obviously, I'm just a couple of years into this whole world, but like I feel

• 51:12Kevin Rose?

  that, I didn't know that in the early days. I thought that I had tried it and I kinda gave up. And I would say that in the last few months, it's really started to have a kinda deeper impact on me when I dedicate more time to it. It's hard to find the time, but if you can set aside the 20-plus minutes a day, I think that's when you really start to see what it's all about, or at least get a glimpse of what it's all about, versus the really lightweight, you know, 10 minutes, I tried it and I'm done kinda thing.

• 51:40Matt Mullenweg?

  And do you track that different from your Wim Hof time?

• 51:42Kevin Rose?

  Yeah, completely different.

• 51:44Matt Mullenweg?

  Totally different.

• 51:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the 20 minutes, I mean, I find for, for me, is kinda the magic number, in the sense that, like you said, 10 definitely reduces stress. 10, after, for me at least, you know, 20 minutes, 15 minutes in, it's like, okay, now the mud is finally settled and the water's actually clear, for a few minutes. And it's those few minutes that are so impactful. Matt?

• 52:10Matt Mullenweg?

  I realized I didn't get to assign you a 2017 goal.

• 52:13Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, alright, here we go.

• 52:15Matt Mullenweg?

  So, I'm gonna mix those in. I think the 2016 one, which I'm gonna carry forward, but you can't really tell whether it's done or not, is, uh, everything in moderation.

• 52:24Tim Ferriss?

  I'm so bad at that.

• 52:26Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah, you're good at everything except moderation.

• 52:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, this is true.

• 52:31Matt Mullenweg?

  And so that's, that's my challenge.

• 52:33Tim Ferriss?

  Moderation.

• 52:33Matt Mullenweg?

  Uh, but the, the specific thing that I'll ask of you and, uh, the audience, um, you all already have Tim's book. I'm about like halfway, three fifths in, loving it. Uh, I'll recommend two other books that are coming up. Um, one is coming out in the beginning of January, it's called Rebirth, from a mutual friend of ours, Kamal Ravikant.

• 52:56Tim Ferriss?

  Kamal Ravikant.

• 52:57Matt Mullenweg?

  Which is actually about a story, uh, going on the Camino Santiago, uh, El Camino Santiago, I forget the name, I'm probably messing it up.

• 53:06Tim Ferriss?

  That's close enough.

• 53:07Matt Mullenweg?

  Yeah, uh, really beautiful book. And two, which was probably the best book, not written by Tim, I've read in the past five years, uh, is called Becoming Wise, by Krista Tippett. And it's got a longer subtitle. So that's the other challenge to you. I would love to see you interview and then later be interviewed by Krista Tippett. Cool. Yeah, I'd love to do that. It's actually very similar to Tools of Titans in that she has interviewed hundreds of amazing folks, but focused more on like the like- Theological and philosophical and existential. Yeah. And so it's actually really fascinating and like opened my mind a lot of ways. And much like your stuff, like I came out with a ton of notes and a ton of things to

• 53:52Matt Mullenweg?

  read, like go into the source materials and everything like that. So that would be, if you like Tim's stuff, I think you'd also like her stuff as like almost like a different side of the same coin. Yeah, great. No, I think I have a book. I think it's very complimentary. Yeah, absolutely. Have you read it though? I have. Oh, Don, you're ahead of it. I did, indeed. All right, guys, please give a hand. Kevin Rose, Matt Mullenweg.

• 54:15Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, guys.

• 54:22Tim 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.

• 55:04Tim 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 Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way- Set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and they now have more than $2.5 billion under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is why?

• 55:49Tim Ferriss?

  Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. And this is because they use smarter software instead of retail locations, bloated sales teams, etc. And I'll come back to that in a second. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show you for free exactly the portfolio they put you in. And if you just want to take their advice, run with it, do it yourself, you can do that. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. And here's why. The value of Wealthfront is in the automation of habits and strategies that investors should be using on a regular basis but normally aren't. Great investing is a marathon, not a sprint, and little things that you may or may not

• 56:33Tim Ferriss?

  be familiar with, like automatic tax loss harvesting, rebalancing your portfolio across more than 10 asset classes, and dividend reinvestment add up to very large amounts of money over longer periods of time. Wealthfront, as I mentioned, since it's using software instead of retail locations, etc., can offer all of this at low costs that were previously completely impossible. Right off the bat, you never pay commissions or account fees. For everything, they charge 0.25% per year on assets above the first 15,000, which is managed for free if you use my link, wealthfront.com/tim. That is less than $5 a month to invest a $30,000 account, for instance. Now, normally, when I have a sponsor on this show, it's because I use them and recommend them. In this case, it's a little different.

• 57:17Tim Ferriss?

  I don't use Wealthfront yet because I'm not allowed to. Here's the deal. They wanted to sponsor this podcast, but because of SEC regulations, companies that invest your money are not allowed to use client testimonials, so I couldn't be a user and have them on the podcast. But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, in the team and the company itself. I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now, back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get $15,000 managed for free if you decide to open an account, but just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast, it's free, there's no downside that I can think of.

• 58:01Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Rhone, R-H-O-N-E. People always ask me what shirts I'm wearing in my YouTube videos, especially recently, or when I appear on TV for Tools of Titans, and even, for instance, this week in New York City, when they bump into me on the street. And the answer is inevitably Rhone Apparel, R-H-O-N-E. When I go on the road, I would say half of what I pack is from Rhone. They have the most comfortable shirts I've ever worn for activewear. I also have their shorts, pants. Sometimes I sneak them into business casual meetings. They work for almost everything. And when you are on the run, I don't know about you, sometimes I do sweat a bit. Anti-odor technology, these are impervious to my body odor.

• 58:44Tim Ferriss?

  And not to say I smell like a musk ox, but sometimes it's not the best. They've melted down silver in some of their custom fabrics. And I am wearing these, especially during, say, a book launch these past few weeks, all the time. On price point and returns policy, let's talk about it. This stuff is not the cheapest, but that's because the materials they use aren't cheap. You're going to pay a little bit more upfront, and ultimately, over time, it's going to last longer, you'll save in the long run. And of course, you have all the benefits of the custom fabrics and premium technology. So, these I've converted many people to. And check it out, there's no risk in ordering and getting a feel for it yourself. So, Rhone provides free shipping and a 100-day return policy.

• 59:28Tim Ferriss?

  And they have a special holiday promo right now. Free, you can get a free power stretch winter beanie. I love beanies, you guys, of course, always see me in beanies, with purchases over $100. And you will also get free power stretch running gloves, in addition to the winter beanie with purchase over $150. Check out rhone.com/tim, that's R-H-O-N-E.com/tim. And you all, as an exclusive for my listeners of the podcast, get 15% off using the code TIM. So, rhone.com/tim, and then just use the code TIM. Check it out.