#212: 2016 - What I've Learned

This episode is a review of the past year. Since it's been a common request, I thought I'd run through what I do at the end of a year. For the last 6 years, I no longer write resolutions. Instead, I do a post-game analysis where I really look back at the year behind, including what I've learned and what tips and recommendations had the biggest impact on my life. Thank you for all of your support, and I sincerely hope you enjoy my biggest lessons and takeaways from 2016! 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 Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga http://foursigmatic.com/tim. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now -- this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. 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 2 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 2-5 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.

• 0:01Speaker 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?

• 0:08Tim Ferriss?

  No, we're just in an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by 4Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind in the best way possible. It is mushroom coffee. What on earth is this? Well, it includes chaga mushroom, very powerful antioxidant, considered a superfood. I was introduced to chaga by Laird Hamilton, the king of big wave surfing of all things, and it includes another mushroom that is considered a nootropic, a smart drug, and this is lion's mane. In the entire packet, you just add it to hot water, tastes like coffee. There is only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so less than half what you would find in a cup of coffee. So

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  I do not get any jitters, I do not get any acid reflux or any type of stomach burn, and it put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. So this stuff is really amazing. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now. This is the answer. So, it is legal, it will not give you visuals, that's something else, and you can try it right now by going to 4sigmatic.com/tim. That is four S I G M A T I C, 4sigmatic.com/tim, and use the code TIM to get 20% off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. 4sigmatic.com/tim.

• 1:55Tim 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. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim.

• 2:40Tim Ferriss?

  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.,

• 3:22Tim 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 on the podcast.

• 4:03Tim Ferriss?

  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.

• 4:35Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job, typically every episode, to deconstruct world-class performers of various types, to tease out the habits, routines, and so on, that you can apply to your own life. Sometimes they come from military, entertainment, sports, and beyond. It's a very broad spectrum. Every once in a while, I do an in-between-isode, a solo venture, where I monologue on some topic or answer your questions. And this episode is going to be a 2016 year in review. Last year, I did a recap of a number of things that I'd learned from podcast guests. I'm not going to do that this year, because

• 5:17Tim Ferriss?

  The Tools of Titans book handles that very, very nicely, and includes all of the highlights. So rather than do that, I thought I would run through, since it's been a common request, what I do at the end of a year. And this is going to hold true for at least the last six years. And I say six years, because around 2011, I recall being at a fancy conference, not going to mention it by name, fantastic conference, very small, I'd say about 150 people. And it spanned about three days, and it happened across over New Year's. And I recall sitting outside on a patio, having a glass of wine with a number of folks, and

• 6:00Tim Ferriss?

  getting a text from my mother. And the text informed me that the young daughter of one of my childhood mentors had died of cancer, and I think it was liver cancer. And this really...

• 6:14Tim Ferriss?

  Forced me in a way to step back and I walked away from the party. I called my mom and I spoke with her. And realized that for me, New Year's isn't, and it's really never been about the rager parties. I've done that, but what I did that night is I sat down, I was slightly buzzed, but I did a complete review and recap of the last year and I focused on that instead of resolutions. And therefore, when I think of a new year and the end of a year, including this year 2016, what I tried to do is a post-game analysis and really look back at the year. So I thought I would share a few things that I've learned and then a few of the practices that I use.

• 6:59Tim Ferriss?

  And as always, it takes the form of a big pile of notes, a jumbled mess of things with columns and circles and stars and so on, that I will later put into some semblance of sanity. But I've had about 12 pounds of leftover turkey and mashed potatoes, as well as probably 17 pounds of Danish butter cookies and chocolate. So please bear with me if my brain stumbles here and there like a drunk sailor. That is the state of affairs. Alright, number one. Let me share a few things that I've learned by studying and listening to and speaking with two people. First is Oprah. I have not met Oprah Winfrey in person, but listened to a fantastic mini-series.

• 7:44Tim Ferriss?

  It is done by, I think it was WBEZ, I may be getting the call sign incorrect, but a Chicago-based public radio outfit created a three-part mini-series called The Making of Oprah. And/or Making Oprah, and very easy to find. There are a few things I took from it, among many, many others. So the first is really a few core beliefs of Oprah's, and these ended up being mantras that a lot of her producers would repeat because they would be told this frequently by Oprah herself. So the first is there are only two emotions, love and fear. So even if you disagree with that statement, I wrote it down because I think that it can be used as a powerful question. If.

• 8:30Tim Ferriss?

  We assume there are only two emotions, love and fear. Which in this moment are you feeling? Or which is causing you to behave in a certain way? And as Tony Robbins has said to me, and has said on the podcast, stressed, I'm just a little bit stressed and so on. Stressed is the achiever word for fear. So there are only two emotions, love and fear. Next up, this is something she learned after a particular episode with skinheads. This was in 1988. And Oprah had, in the beginning, to, of course, in sweeps season and otherwise, try to raise ratings and viewership for particular episodes. And she had skinheads on at one point to talk about race.

• 9:11Tim Ferriss?

  And she realized at some point, I think in the middle of the episode, that she was not using them as part of her agenda. They were using her and that she had provided a vehicle for spreading darkness in the world, in a sense. And that it was not going to be constructive. It was actually going to be destructive. And so she made the decision not to represent darkness in the world. And this is a binary decision. So I think that it is, it is very useful, again, as a lens through which to view your decisions and projects and so on. Are you attempting to, at the very least, be a force for good in the world? Or even if you are not perpetuating darkness, committing dark acts, are you representing

• 9:56Tim Ferriss?

  darkness in the world? Meaning providing a stage for it? Or writing about it in a way, covering it in a way that is not intended to provoke an action to mitigate it, et cetera? All right. So that was the second thing I wrote down. And then the next was, you can only run your own race. And this is something that she would tell her producers if they were concerned about what the competition was doing. If you're in a race, say a horse race, and you look back to see what someone is doing behind you, you'll very frequently fall behind and then get second or third place. So you can only run your own race, keep your blinders on, and focus on your strengths, effectively. Okay, next up, we have Seth Godin. Seth Godin, I've had the pleasure of spending some

• 10:41Tim Ferriss?

  time with, and these are a few things that he mentioned to me, and this was probably, in fact, at the last Shopify Build a Business Competition winner gathering that I took these notes. He mentioned a number of books. One was called Cult Your Brand. The next was Debt, which he's talked about on my podcast as well with him, the very first episode, I believe. The Gift by Lewis Hyde, and Lewis Hyde has some fantastic other books, including one on Trickster Mythology, if you're into that type of thing, as I am. Then Understanding Comics. And a bunch of random bullets. Kramer Knives, he likes Kramer Knives, K-R-A-M-E-R.

• 11:24Tim Ferriss?

  One of his lines was, "Doing more is a four-letter word." And then there were two that really stuck with me. He also was a big fan, and is a big fan, of the Mystery Show, episode number three. This is a podcast produced by Gimlet Media. Then there are two more. All right, be happy with 20,000 customers. If you delight them, you'll never lose them, but you will lose them if you try to go for 20 million people. And I don't think they're always mutually exclusive, but I think this is very good to keep in mind in a world obsessed with scaling and more, and doubling, and hockey sticking, and so on. That's all fine and good, but I think that it's very easy to be romanticized by lingo used for venture-backed

• 12:08Tim Ferriss?

  startups, and to shoot yourself in the foot, or in some cases, shoot yourself in the face. So, in almost all instances, something like 1,000 True Fans, written by Kevin Kelly, which is an essay I recommend everybody read. There's an updated version in Tools of Titans, and I think he's also put it on his site at KK.org, so you can check that out. Leads to all good things. That is a necessary component, whether you want to be a 60-plus-billion-dollar valued startup, or you want to simply make an extra $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 a year. Next, this is perhaps the key, and I circled this several times on this piece of paper that I've kept now for quite some time. And here's the question that he posed.

• 12:53Tim Ferriss?

  If I had to charge two times more, that is, and couldn't do any paid advertising, what would I do instead? So if I were targeting that at you, if you had to charge two times what you're currently charging for your product or service and couldn't do any paid advertising, what would you do instead? And this is something I've thought about a lot, and it is a fantastic question. And most of my yearly reviews take the form of a series of questions. And some of them I'll bring up, but most of them occur in the 17 Questions That Changed My Life chapter in Tools of Titans, which is also I put on the blog. So you can find that, even if you don't have the book, just go to fourhourblog.com or

• 13:36Tim Ferriss?

  search my name, Tim Ferriss 17 Questions, it'll pop right up. The review often takes the form of many questions, and this can be one of them. If you had to charge two times as much, but couldn't do any paid advertising, what would you do instead? And I'll very often back into the features, so to speak, of a product or a high-priced event, in my case, where I decided that I wanted to charge twice as much as the closest competitor, closest competitor, so to speak, or I shouldn't say competitor, it's really comparable, was priced at $5,000 a head. I decided to price it $10,000 a head, and then work backwards to create an experience that would be worth $10,000 a head. Okay, so that is Seth. We've covered Seth, we've covered Oprah.

• 14:21Tim Ferriss?

  Let's talk about 80/20 analysis. When I look back at my year, and I do this in a very particular way, I will look at my iCal on my Mac, and I will start with Jan 1, in this case of 2016, and go through my entire calendar, day by day, and this does not need to take a very long time. It really only takes certainly less than an hour. And I will ask myself two questions as filters at the beginning. And then I have a piece of paper, as I do right now, and there's a plus sign at the top of one column and a negative sign at the top of the other. And what I'm looking for is the following: the 20% of activities

• 15:07Tim Ferriss?

  Experiences or people who produced 80% or more of my most positive emotions. These are the things that I want, positive emotions and positive outcomes, although they're not always perfectly correlated, right? So the 20% of activities, experiences or people who produced 80% or more of the most positive emotions I experienced that year. And then on the flip side, you have the 20% of activities, experiences and people who produced 80% or more of the negative emotions, the stress, the bullshit in your life, the angst, the anger, whatever it might be, that you would want to remove or excise from your

• 15:51Tim Ferriss?

  life, or at least minimize. And I created my various categories. It turned out I did a very good job in 2016, much more so than in 2014 or 2015 at following my own rules. So what does this mean? This means that I had a lot more in the positive category because I'd identified patterns in the past. So I take these, I look at these experiences and then I try to spot patterns. What are the commonalities? For instance, in my positive column for this past year, I have a trip to South America to do an acro yoga intensive training course. I have a family trip in June, which was to Paris, where I took my parents to Paris

• 16:33Tim Ferriss?

  for a month because my mom had never been, my dad hadn't been since 60s. A ski trip to Montana with friends and elk hunt, which was in Colorado with four, I think it was four, no, excuse me, three very close friends, didn't end up getting an elk, but that's kind of beside the point. And then the Easter Island trip with Peter Tia, David Sabatini and Nav Chantel. And if you look at the commonalities here, there are a few elements. So I have extended trips off the grid.

• 17:06Tim Ferriss?

  All right, meaning no social media, no email, etc. Physical component, some form of rigorous daily movement or exercise, and time with family and close friends. All right, so, and there are a few other things. If you looked at positives, looking at the negative space for the positives, no startup investing, so I followed my own decision to retire effectively from startup investing, which you can read about ad nauseam if you just search my name and startup vacation. And then lots of empty space. I blocked out lots of empty space in my calendar so that I would have

• 17:48Tim Ferriss?

  the maneuverability and space to change direction or say hell yes to the few things that I wanted to along the lines of Derek Sivers. All right, so those are a few of the things I did right. So this year, I am, now, let me add one more thing. Before taking an action step, and I'll explain what that step is, I also asked a number of people very close to me, what do you think I should do more of in 2017 and less of in 2017? What should I do more of, and what should I do less of? And there were some general responses that you could receive from multiple people, like do less of whatever you view to be a chore or an obligation. Okay, and we'll talk about how you might do less of those things.

• 18:33Tim Ferriss?

  Now, on the positive side, they said, teaching, perhaps you should spend more time interacting with high school students. I enjoy that, and I've done a number of things with high school students, and I do things with high school students every year in some capacity, whether it's through Donors Choose, or QuestBridge, or Build, these are all nonprofits that I work with related to education. But a few of my closest friends have seen me interact with high school students and have observed how much I love that. So they said, you should do more of that. Next was live podcasts and Q and A. This was feedback that I got from friends who attended the New York City event, that's 92Y, and saw me do a live event. So one thing I am considering doing, and I'd love your feedback, guys, is

• 19:20Tim Ferriss?

  Having a podcast tour, taking my dog Molly, putting her in an RV and driving around the US and doing live podcasts in some well-known cities, certainly, like, say, in LA or San Francisco or Seattle or New York, Miami, Chicago, Austin, whatever it might be, but also doing some more out-of-the-way spots, maybe a few smaller towns in Nebraska or in Montana, for instance. So let me know what you think of that. The way I might do that is if anybody wants to take the initiative now, this is probably what I'll end up doing, is have people create Facebook groups for Tools of Titans. So it would be Tools of Titans

• 20:02Tim Ferriss?

  Group Austin, Tools of Titans Group Omaha, whatever it might be, Tools of Titans Group Charleston, right? And then the people who are able, the organizers or groups who are able to amass the highest number of people or past a certain threshold, say 250 people or 500 people, I don't know what the number is yet, but let's just say it's 250, then they go into the contenders list for these live podcasts. This is a very likely thing to happen, I think. Okay, next up was more sunrises. I tend to be a very late riser,

• 20:41Tim Ferriss?

  late to bed, late to rise, and I always feel fantastic when I do get up for a sunrise. And that is not something I've done consistently. So that's another one. And then, consistent feedback, more time out of cities in the country. So that matches up with the Montana, South America, the Colorado trip, Easter Island, et cetera, right? So, once you have these patterns spotted after doing this positive 80/20 analysis and negative 80/20 analysis, then I start putting things into the calendar. If it is not in the calendar, it is not real. And I've already started scheduling the fun stuff, and there are a

• 21:26Tim Ferriss?

  few ways that I've done this. So number one is I almost always do something with my family for Christmas. So that's one extended trip. This year was an exception. We took a year off of that because we wanted to do it at home. Also, a trip around June or July. Now, why is this important? It's important because with these extended trips... And of course, I'm just pulling a number out of my ass, but I would say 90% of the gift is to yourself and others is the anticipation of the experience. This is why it's so important to schedule and block it out ahead of time. So extended trip mid-year, extended trip at the end of the year. That means you have something to look forward to every six months. All right.

• 22:07Tim Ferriss?

  Now, there are a few reasons that I started doing this. All right, so you're going to put these various trips, these various activities, et cetera, in the calendar. And one of the reasons I started focusing on these types of in advance purchases was because I read a book and I would give it really a seven out of 10. There are aspects of the book that I perhaps disagree with, but I'll get to that. And the title of the book is Happy Money. All right, Happy Money, subtitle, The Science of Happier Spending. And this is by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton. And really, it answers the question, can money buy happiness?

• 22:50Tim Ferriss?

  And the answer is that money is, well, these are my words, necessary, but not sufficient in a way for happiness per se, but can you use money to increase your well-being and effectively happiness in different degrees? And the answer is yes, absolutely. So they focus on, I think it's five core principles. There are some issues with the social science observational data, confusing correlation with causation, et cetera, all of that. But I did find it useful as thinking of a framework. Some of the questions they would ask are, and I know we're jumping around, this is the Danish butter cookies and caffeine in action, but the questions they might ask would include

• 23:35Tim Ferriss?

  When you're considering a purchase, how will this affect how I use my time? So for any purchase, how will this affect how I use my time? And that's a good one to write down. This is actually very versatile. Could be something you're considering doing in the future. Could purchasing this and anticipating, enjoying it six months from now affect how I use my time now? Et cetera. All right. Next is how will I use this thing on Tuesday nights? Right? Next Tuesday? How would I, how will I use this on Tuesday nights or next Tuesday? And in effect, what you're doing is you're turning decisions of dollars into decisions of time. How purchases will affect how you use your time? So another analysis that I do or review in addition to the ICal or calendar review and AD/20

• 24:20Tim Ferriss?

  analysis, positive, negative, is I'll go through my five-minute journal. So many of you have heard me talk about this before. And the five-minute journal has a series of prompts that you answer in the morning and at night. It takes about five minutes, certainly less than that, three minutes in the morning, maybe three minutes at night. And there are a few bullets such as, at the end, three amazing things that happened today. How could I have made today better? All right? And if you go, I am grateful for at the very top. And when you go through your logs and you read your entries, which are one page a piece in the five-minute journal, you will spot patterns. And this informs also how you then start to put things into your calendar and schedule.

• 25:05Tim Ferriss?

  All right. So when I read this book, Happy Money, this was some time ago, I started to do quite a few things. I would ask questions such as, and I'm going to ask these types of questions of myself now. And this relates also to something that a gent named Dan Sullivan, who owns a company called Strategic Coach. This is, this is a point he has made, which is if you have money to solve a problem, it isn't a problem. And I'm paraphrasing here. So there are certain questions you can ask yourself. All right. So I have these written down. I'm saying so a lot. It seems like that might be the 100% cacao chocolate kicking in. All right. $100 to most increase happiness? Question mark. If I could only use a hundred dollars right now to most increase my happiness,

• 25:50Tim Ferriss?

  what would it be? How would I apply it? And then I have five hundred dollars to most increase happiness? Question mark. A thousand dollars to most increase happiness? Question mark. And last year, some of the answers were gymnastics rack. That is a stall bar or a stall wall à la gymnastics strength training, as well as pads. These are sort of rollout gymnastics mats effectively for doing acro yoga and so on. And I did purchase these things and they did dramatically improve both my physical well being and just general psychological well being. So, direct translation, check, check. They both really worked. Okay. And then, this is of course dependent on your particular financial situation.

• 26:33Tim Ferriss?

  But if you were to take, say, ten to twenty percent of your liquid income that you can afford to lose, this is important, all right? Ten to twenty percent of your liquid cash, let's just call it, that you can afford to lose. How would you apply it to increase your quality of life? And this comes back to sort of spending money to affect how you utilize your time. Are there three things that you would most like to add to your life? Three things you would most like to remove from your life? I don't know why I like thinking in threes so much, but I find it very helpful. So, one of them, for me, was figuring out, this is last year, how to completely extricate myself from a lot of the tax and estate planning

• 27:16Tim Ferriss?

  management aspects in my life and my family's. All right. Another one, I did not end up doing this. This wasn't, yeah, I guess this was probably about a year ago. A little bit over a year ago, I put matchmaker? Question mark. Wing woman? Question mark. I'm not sure if you can pay for a wing woman. You probably can, but I was thinking matchmaker, because a friend of mine, very successful guy, actually met a wonderful woman and they ended up getting married through a matchmaker. I was like, you know what, maybe all this online stuff is a little too complicated and cute and time consuming. Did not end up going to that. Small things. Roomba, getting a Roomba. I identified that I, very often, when I had people clean my house and it was Was done pretty frequently. It was because Molly, my dog, was shedding all over the place.

• 28:01Tim Ferriss?

  The rest of the house was fine. I didn't need dusting. I didn't need any pans and pots and so on cleaned. I didn't need any of that. I just needed dog hair picked up and I was overpaying and it was kind of bothering me because I would, I would come back and I can afford to pay for a cleaner, but I have this very peculiar sensitivity to people moving my shit around. And so my books would be moved around, my cups would be moved around. I just, it's stupid. Yes, I know, but I was sensitive to it. So I got a Roomba at the end of the day. And there are a couple of different models. Still not 100% happy with them, but I have found them very, very valuable. Okay. And then you go down a list, like I, could I pay for every possible virtual reality demonstration?

• 28:43Tim Ferriss?

  VR demos, train dogs at shelters. This isn't really something I pay. This is more of a, something to add to life to increase my sense of wellbeing and contribution, which actually does apply to this Happy Money book that I mentioned. Prepaying for massages, et cetera. Okay. Prepaying is an important concept and I won't get into all the whys right now, but I did decide, for instance, for an eight week period to prepay for acro yoga training with two instructors. And we could, we could discuss another time why I think it's better in almost every case with an individual sport or craft to either, well, in both cases to not do one-on-one lessons.

• 29:25Tim Ferriss?

  So you want either another student with you, with another teacher, or you want two teachers and then yourself. That, that tends to be a much better use of your time in terms of adding steroids to the learning curve. All right. But I ended up developing a curriculum and prepaying for two to three times per week of acro yoga with one or two teachers, mostly two, and got that on the books. So I couldn't weasel out of it. Now, this was also a way because I set the start time as 10 a.m., which seems late. I know Jaco's already done 18 hours of calisthenics and deadlifts by then, but in my case, it forced me to get up at say 8:30 or nine o'clock, which for me was like a Herculean task. It sounds ridiculous, but I very often go to bed at three or four in the morning.

• 30:10Tim Ferriss?

  So to reverse that trend, I prepaid and pre-scheduled for 10 a.m. in the morning. And then there's a bunch of weird stuff that I wrote down here in terms of experiments. Now, the experiments were In answer to the question, what are the, what are the most absurd things I could do? What are the craziest things I could do? So for 2017, what are the craziest things I could do? I actually have not done this exercise yet. I'm going to do it within the next few days. I'm recording this on the 27th of December. And last year, I wrote down a bunch of wacky ones. Short film competition for like an action movie sequence? Question mark. Impersonation? Question mark. That might require a bunch of explanation. I won't get into it right now.

• 30:53Tim Ferriss?

  Next one, this requires even more explanation, but I think you guys will get a kick out of it. The polygamist king? Question mark. All right. I've not had enough alcohol to get into that right now. Uh, next one apparel diet. Go one year without any new clothing, without purchasing any new clothing. Still think that one's a good, good one. Then Sarah Silverman. That's not related to polygamist king or the apparel diet. Uh, these are potential, uh, this is not in the crazy land, but I tend to just let my hand flow. If thoughts are coming to mind, podcast guests, Sarah Silverman, Gerard Carmichael, Shay Carl. Shay Carl ended up on the podcast. Okay. So we have a number of things that I've talked about. And what is the craziest thing? What are the craziest things I could do?

• 31:36Tim Ferriss?

  And some of you might recall, I've written about this in Tools of Titans. The goal with answering that question is not to come up with good ideas. The goal is to come up with absurd, crazy ideas. And then you find the seeds of potential good ideas later, but you don't edit. First is the idea generation phase. And this is what has helped me. And I think I mentioned this on the James Altucher podcast when he interviewed me. That I came up with a list at the Wired conference I attended. I think it was the Wired conference, might've been a, yeah, it was Wired conference. Absolutely. And I remember sitting in on these incredible sessions. And at one point I was inspired to just try to think not bigger, but odder. Think stranger.

• 32:19Tim Ferriss?

  If you're having trouble thinking bigger, just think stranger. It's kind of a shortcut for me, at least it has been. And, uh, I started making a list of all the craziest things I could do. And it was like, give away all my money. Like literally just give it away. Not like not donate, just give it away. Uh, to shut down all my businesses, to sell the blog, to... I didn't even have the podcast. This is about two years ago when I came up with this. Then cut off both of my feet. What the fuck, right? I mean, that's just insane talk, but I wrote it down. I was like, all right, cut off both my feet. Don't think I'll do that. But yes, that would be, that would qualify as crazy. And I kept on going and eventually one was taken indefinite startup vacation. And that paved the way later to me taking this indefinite startup vacation,

• 33:04Tim Ferriss?

  which has been one of the best decisions of the last three years of my life, without question. All right. Now, along with the, what are the craziest things I could do? I will ask another question, which is, it's effectively 10x, question mark. And the 10x can apply to many different things. How would I, what would I have to do or what might I do? No matter how crazy to 10x the listenership of the podcast, right? To 10x the monthly unique visitors to the blog? To 10x the amount of revenue from A, B, C, D, or E?

• 33:49Tim Ferriss?

  And this, this goes hand in hand very nicely with the Seth Godin question of if I had to charge 2x and couldn't do any paid advertising, what would I do instead? These pair very, very nicely, but trying to really focus on 10x versus 10%. Because if you've set up certain assumptions and systems and processes that only allow incremental, or at least only foster incremental gains and thinking to unlock yourself, free yourself from those. Asking how to improve 20% instead of 10% is not going to provide you with a new framework or a new process or a new structure, a new business organization, or whatever it might be, a new org chart.

• 34:31Tim Ferriss?

  So the 10x I do find very, very, very, very helpful as a way to, again, come up with a lot of crazy ideas and then pick and choose from the rubble, so to speak, later so that you can find the seeds of something that could be a good idea later. And Those are really the basics. I would encourage you to think of batching. And before we get to batching, number one, schedule the fun stuff first because if there is a void, if you're a type A driven personality and you don't schedule and defend the fun stuff or the positive, the things that have produced, the 20% that have produced 80%

• 35:15Tim Ferriss?

  or more of your positive emotions in the previous year, if you don't expand those and block out time and then pre-book, pre-pay, pre-commit to other people so that there's a social accountability, work will fill the void that remains. And then you will end up realizing at the end of January, oh, my God, I've over calendared and I no longer have time for the fun stuff. And then you're fucked. So let's not do that. That's a terrible feeling and a terrible place to be. And those are really the basics of how I think about the year. I'm not going to bore everybody by going through the 17 questions that I go into at great length, both on the blog and in Tools of Titans. So again, if you want to search 17 questions,

• 35:59Tim Ferriss?

  Tim Ferriss, you can find it there. A few things that I'm thinking about, though, and I would love your feedback on. So the first is, again, this live podcast tour idea. And I might combine it with like Acro Yoga play parties, not to be confused with other play parties, jam sessions, maybe a better way to put it, throughout the US. I think it'd be really fun to combine those two. Not everybody who would attend would do the Acro. Those would be kind of like two separate activities, but that would, again, provide me with the physical component along with the intellectual stimulation and the fun of doing these live podcasts. And the way I'll probably select cities will be by identifying Facebook groups. So Tools of Titans group, fill in the blank, doesn't matter.

• 36:43Tim Ferriss?

  Trenton, Portland, Maine, you know, doesn't have to be one of the major cities. And if, and if it gets up to a reasonable size, let's just say 250 or more people, then that might end up being a stop on the tour. That's probably how I will go about it. The second thing that I'm thinking of doing- And I'd love to get your feedback on and when I say I'd love your feedback, just let me know on Twitter or on the blog post in the blog post comments for this podcast and you can find the show notes and everything for this at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast or you can hit me on Twitter at T Ferris T F E R R I S S is more month long experiments. Now, some of you may remember

• 37:26Tim Ferriss?

  Nob Nom, which was no booze, no masturbation for 30 days where we had, I believe, almost 10,000 people actually log in and participate in a sort of community accountability fashion on coach.me, which was amazing. And a lot of people got a tremendous amount out of that. The next experiment I was thinking about doing, and if people would like to do more of this, let me know, but potentially in January, doing a knock knock. I'm so dumb. I find these things so amusing. Knock knock, N O C, N O C. No carbs, no complaining. So it would be effectively slow carb diet.

• 38:09Tim Ferriss?

  And there are there are some allowances for carbs on cheat day and so on, but no carbs, no complaining is would be a month long version of the 21 day no complaint challenge that I've done before for myself. I've never done it with a large group and I think it would be even better. I think it would be easier. In fact, in some respects, when you're doing it with a group, knowing that thousands or tens of thousands of people are doing it right alongside you. So no carbs, no complaining, knock knock. I was gonna make it no caffeine, no complaining, or no coffee, no complaining. But that, I think, if you lose the coffee, people start bitching

• 38:50Tim Ferriss?

  pretty quickly. So maybe asking too much, but no carbs, no complaining. And then maybe we get rid of the coffee or the caffeine. Let me know what you think. And that is really about it, guys. I've had such a lovely 2016. I just have nothing but love for you guys. It's been incredible what this podcast has allowed me to do. It's been incredibly Entertaining, educating, and life-affirming to join you guys like this and to interview people I find fascinating and try to share them with you. It's really one of the most gratifying experiences that I get to have on a regular basis. So, thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. And I wish you and yours, nothing but the best for 2017.

• 39:35Tim Ferriss?

  May you find much joy, deep wisdom, and many pleasant surprises. And I think I'll leave it at that. If you've read Tools of Titans and you haven't left an Amazon review, I would really, really appreciate that. You know where to find it. And otherwise, I would say, think bigger. And if you're having trouble thinking bigger, think stranger. Maybe you'll find something in that list that will end up being surprisingly practical to crack you out of perhaps self-limiting beliefs, or stories, or narratives that you've held for this year, or perhaps even longer.

• 40:17Tim Ferriss?

  And I really look forward to seeing what all of you guys do in 2017. So, thank you for listening. And until next time, this is Tim Ferriss giving you a big virtual hug, and I'll talk to you soon. 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

• 41:01Tim Ferriss?

  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. 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.

• 41:45Tim Ferriss?

  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. I suggest you check out wealthfront.com/tim. Take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes two to five minutes, and they'll show

• 42:30Tim Ferriss?

  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 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.

• 43:14Tim Ferriss?

  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 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

• 43:59Tim Ferriss?

  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. This episode is brought to you by Forsigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind in the best way possible. It is mushroom coffee. What on earth is this? Well, it includes chaga mushroom, very powerful antioxidant, considered a superfood. I was introduced

• 44:41Tim Ferriss?

  to chaga by Laird Hamilton, the king of big wave surfing of all things. And it includes another mushroom that is considered a nootropic, a smart drug, and this is lion's mane. In the entire packet, you just add it to hot water, it tastes like coffee. There is only 40mg of caffeine, so less than half what you would find in a cup of coffee. So I do not get any jitters, I do not get any acid reflux or any type of stomach burn. And it put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. So this stuff is really amazing. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement. Right now, this is the answer. So it is legal. It will not give you visuals. That's something

• 45:25Tim Ferriss?

  else. And you can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim. That is F-O-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C. foursigmatic.com/tim and use the code TIM to get 20% off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. foursigmatic.com/tim.