The Tim Ferriss Show - #192: The Return of Drunk Dialing

Episode Date: October 11, 2016

Thanks to the gin I had tonight, this is a special episode. It is a drunk-dialing Q&A with you guys -- like we did around this time last year to celebrate the 100th episode. In preparation, I solicited phone numbers from listeners who wanted to receive a call from me. In this episode, I cover topics such as: parenting advice from friends and guests how to get started in podcasting how to make a good sales pitch long-distance moves what I consider good advice and much, much more! Without further ado, please enjoy this alcohol-fueled Q&A! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Rhone Apparel. Dozens -- maybe even hundreds of you -- have asked me: "What shirts are you wearing in your recent YouTube videos?" They're a very specific set of shirts from Rhone. 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 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, and I've been wearing them pretty much every day for the past few weeks. Luckily, there's no risk in trying them out: free shipping and a 100-day return policy should help you decide if they're worth it. Plus, listeners get an exclusive 15% off for using the code TIM at checkout. Find 'em at rhone.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audiobooks. I have two to recommend: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Vagabonding by Rolf Potts All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is go to Audible.com/Tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endless options they offer. That could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or even a class. It's that easy. Go to Audible.com/Tim and get started today. Enjoy.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

I talk about such things, 4hourworkweek.com forward slash Friday, all spelled out. But I talk about, in this particular case, things ranging from parenting advice based on advice from my friends and podcast guests, to how to get started in podcasting, to thinking about jumping from one industry to the next, to considering moves from, say, the East Coast to the West Coast of the US, and many, many, many, many, many other questions that are alcohol-infused for your entertainment delight. And I hope you enjoy it. I was very happy with how this turned out. And without further ado, as I always say, please enjoy this Q&A answering some of your most burning questions from somewhere around 5 to 15 people. And that is

about it as far as preambles go. So please enjoy. And as always, thank you for listening. Hello. Hello. Hi, is this Josh? It is. Josh, this is Tim Ferriss. How are you this evening? Doing well.

How are you? I'm splendid. I'm having a disgusting cocktail of some type of blueberry sparkling water with gin. I'm getting an even eye for that comment, but I am glad you dropped in your phone number and name. So I'm all yours for the next couple of minutes. Yeah, well, I appreciate it, man. I mean, if I can take a moment to say thanks for everything that you do. And man, my whole family just loves all the lessons and teachings that you throw out there for us. And it's been awesome.

Thanks, man. I appreciate that. It's been a long time, but yeah, I mean, I have a family of four children and we've kind of been on this crazy trajectory since your first book and Southern California and, and kind of living it up based upon the principles learned from that book. So it's been awesome. Congratulations, man. Thank you. Yeah. And then the second book came out and I dropped 40 pounds in 2010 and be able to keep it off. So whole, whole life's been impacted. So really appreciate that. Oh, nice work. Yeah. I'll cut to the question. My question is kind of back to my kids. I've got four kids. I'm 37. My oldest is 15. Next one is 14. So I've got two kids in high school right now. And you often ask the question to your guests about what would they tell themselves at age 20 or in the early 20s as they're getting started. And I want to look a little bit earlier and look at age 14, age 15. And the reason why is because you've often said in your past that you were most impacted maybe when you were a freshman or early high school age by coaches, teachers, trip to Japan, whatever. And I feel like just observing my kids, it's such a pivotal time in their life. But what would your toolkit look like for teenagers and maybe for yourself, but also as a parent, if you're a parent of teenagers, what would your toolkit look like for those kids as a parent?

Great question. I should say, first of all, that as you probably know, I don't have kids. So I think that I may be a bit of an armchair quarterback in answering this, but based on my conversations with friends of mine, close friends of mine who I consider in this case to be very good dads, I think I can speak to it. That would include quite a few of the podcast guests. So whether that is say Josh Waitzkin, who I think has a lot to offer or Jamie Foxx or others, there are a few things that come to mind and you're right that I was very impacted between say 14 and 16 by coaches and a handful of teachers. And I do think that that freshman

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

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

jujitsu would be a great tool for men or women, boys or girls. I think that that is a great sort of training ground. And a lot of those individual sports have an accountability that sometimes you are lacking in team sports. I play team sports, but when you're on, say, the wrestling mat, psychologically, it's just a different kettle of fish. I mean, you deserve the credit or the blame for your successes or failures, respectively. And then I would say last, the next thing that comes to mind, at least, is a book called Grit, G-R-I-T, which is about resilience and looks a lot at kids specifically. Josh Waitzkin, who is the basis and the inspiration for Searching for Bobby Fischer, the movie and the book, turned me on to this and I'm blanking on the author's name, but it's really about teaching your kids to focus on hard work and not intrinsic capability. In other words, they're able to develop an internal locus of control where they don't feel like they're dependent on external factors for success. Josh does that in a bunch of interesting ways. For instance, when he was raising or is raising his son, Jack, from the very early days, he noticed parents

talking about good weather, bad weather. We can't go out. It's bad weather. We should go out. It's good weather. And he flipped it on his head. And of course, this wouldn't apply to your high school kids, but it does in other contexts. He would say, it's a beautiful rainy day, Jack. Why don't we go out? And he would always go outside and play with his kid in the rain, right? And I think there are ways to simulate that and create conditions for that. The other thing is not to make it too curriculum-based, but I really feel like if you are able to get your kids in some fashion excited about improving their written or spoken communication in any capacity, I feel like that is a huge competitive advantage in life. And you can add the ability to say public speak or write clearly on top of any other skill set. And you're

automatically in like the top 25% in almost any arena, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's interesting. And that might be the first time I've heard you maybe say that in that way. And I understand that being my age now. How do you think you teach that? Again, thinking about as a parent, you're a teacher, but half the time your kids don't listen to you because you are their parent. Yeah, for sure. Which is maybe the piece of the puzzle that you're missing because you don't have the kids. But when you think about, because I think that is an excellent principle and it's something that I maybe wish I spent more time on at that age. How would you think an indirect path. So if your kids are prone, and I think teenagers are particularly prone to being like, oh, dad, you know,

dad's preaching again or whatever the hell it happens to be. Right. Figuring out who, who they listen to. My mom did this in a very interesting way when I was actually 15. Side note, I don't know if I've ever talked about this publicly 15. I was in Japan and I've always suffered from sensitivity to heat. And I've actually been hospitalized a few times. It's a long story, but I have lung issues, respiratory issues. And so I was hospitalized in Japan at one point because I insisted on kind of training through the pain, wearing a judo outfit in like 90% humidity in a hundred degree weather, which was stupid, right? And my mom knew on some level that I might not listen

to her or take it with a grain of salt, something like that. So she went to a previous martial arts instructor who had a huge impact on me, who I took very, very seriously and had him record a VHS tape. I'm not kidding. This is back in the day. And she shipped it to Japan where he sort of gave me like a man-to-man talking to, so to speak, about the risks and payoffs, potential benefits, downsides, et cetera, of all this stuff. And that was the intervention that worked, right? So I think that there are different ways to reach kids depending on who they listen to. I think that's the path of least resistance, right? So if you looked at, and they may be too young for this, but for instance, Warren Buffett cites as his best ever investment, a Dale Carnegie course in public speaking, right? So if the richest man in

the world or one of the richest men in the world, certainly most successful equity investor of all time potentially might pull some weight, then that could be like an indirect way to do it, right? It's to somehow expose them to that in a non-preachy way the other way to do it quite frankly is to impress the hell out of them with someone who is an incredible public speaker or yeah writer so you it could be as simple as exposing them to a commencement speech from someone like neil gaiman his make good make good art commencement speech is just incredible. And that could be another path, right? Those are a few things that come to mind. In terms of writing, I would say, if there's any type of writing that might get them hooked on reading, that is probably the

Trojan horse into getting them to focus on better communication themselves i think getting them hooked on you know if it's science fiction maybe it's something from neil stevenson if it's any type of writing if it's non-fiction maybe it's something from john mcphee you know something that makes them go, holy shit, I thought I knew what good writing was. Oh my God, this guy is amazing or this gal is amazing would be a great way to go. And it doesn't have to be your recommendation to them to focus on the writing, right? It could be the subject matter. So for instance, if I'm just trying to think of a good example, maybe the autobiography of Andre Agassi, which was ghostwritten. It wasn't written by Andre Agassi, but the ghostwriter is

just a phenomenal storyteller. And there are a lot of life lessons and competitive lessons learned in that book. And it's a phenomenal read, right? So you could suggest it just because of the autobiography, and they're going to finish the book, and they're going to go, holy crap, that was an amazing book. And that might be what trips the wire and gets them interested in writing. Yeah, but I think the soft approach is probably, and this is just, again, speaking as a complete poser who does not have kids, I would say just knowing how I was as a teenager, I think the indirect like Jedi mind trick approach is probably the better way to go When possible. That is really good. That is really good advice. And the one thing I actually think you come from a position of advantage because you don't have kids, which means you don't have the emotional connection of them pissing you off or making you happy or trying to protect them in any way. So I actually think that is a position of advantage because it's just different having kids, but I might borrow that. Yeah. No, good stuff. And, and I actually really appreciate

that story about your mom and you've mentioned her a couple of times. She seemed like a phenomenal woman. So tell her, thank you. Yeah, I will. She's a, she's, my parents are staying with me for the next three weeks, so I should have an opportunity, uh, shortly to let them know. Uh, but I tell you what, man, hopefully that's helpful. I highly recommend the book Grit. I think that will touch on a lot of what we talked about. And if you haven't heard the Josh Waitzkin episodes, I would definitely listen to those because he talks about his son a lot. And even though his son is much, much younger, I think the way he thinks about it and the architecture of his mind, the principles that he applies are still extremely applicable

to high school age kids, for sure. Yeah, no, for sure. I have and actually had my kids listen to different pieces of those. Right now, I have the two youngest listening to the Graveyard book. Oh, yeah, that's a great one. Yeah, right now I have the two youngest listening to the graveyard book. So we're all kind of hooked that, yeah, that one's phenomenal. Um, and, uh, we're all hooked on that one. I appreciate it. I won't take any more of your time. Um, I know you got a busy night ahead of you, so I appreciate it. And thank you again. For sure, man. I appreciate you, uh, reading my stuff

and, um, more than that, putting it into practice and I'm stoked. Your, your kids are listening to the graveyard book. That's a winner. Yeah, yeah. Okay, man. Good luck. All right, man. Have a good night. Good luck. Bye. Matt. Hey, Matt. This is Tim Ferris calling. How are you, sir? Hey, Tim. How are you? Good. I'm good. Is that a Portland accent that I hear? Portland is a bit further west than south. It's Australian. I was just looking at your number.

Well, where are you in Australia? Well, I'm actually in New York. I live sort of outside of Melbourne, but was speaking at New York Comic Con yesterday. I guess it was now. So, yeah, here till tomorrow. Oh, good man. Comic-Con. I've still never been to any version of Comic-Con, but I have been to Melbourne, which I guess

I live in the Melbourne of the United States, meaning San Francisco. You do. Very similar towns. Yeah, I was there on Tuesday. Wow, you're a jet setter. I thought I traveled a lot. Not usually. You just got me on a good week.

What were you speaking about at Comic-Con? About how to teach people to be heroes in real life. That's kind of my field. I do a lot of trainings with kids and have started just sort of getting into adults as well but sort of combining acknowledging psychology and and getting into some habits to put in practice that you're going to be the person that stands up instead of being a bystander and then putting it into play with sort of physical stuff as well like um i worked with dan at with Parkour Generations in London and doing some work with Joe DeSena early next year.

That kind of stuff, like getting prepped. Be careful with that Joe DeSena. He might make you carry a kettlebell up and down a mountain for five hours or 12 or 76. Yeah, no, I'm very wary of that. Well, that sounds like good work, man'm very wary of that. Well, that sounds like good work, man. What can I answer for you, if anything?

Well, I listen to the podcast, and I keep hearing you get close to talking about heroes and heroism, whether it's talking about the hero's journey, I remember you talking to Jon Favreau about your interest in, general interest in writing fiction, and how the hero's journey plays into that.

God, who was the guy recently you had on? Shep Gordon. Shep Gordon. Talking about how our heroes have changed from now to 30 years ago, what, what that looks like. And so I'm just curious to hear from you, like who, who are your heroes? What, what does that mean to you? Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah.

Well, I would say that the first people to come to mind are a handful of folks who were merry pranksters of sorts, but very good in multiple fields. And maybe this is just to make myself feel better, but I view them as sort of professional dilettantes of sorts. They were willing to experiment as amateurs in multiple fields. So a few of the people who come to mind are Richard Feynman, who's a, well, was a physicist and an incredible teacher, but was also an accomplished safecracker, bongo player, you name it. Right, right, right. And his book, Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman is one of my favorites. So he is right at the top of the list.

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

john buxton would include uh my guidance counselor of sorts or my resident advisor in high school named richard greenleaf who is a reverend uh and i think what all the reasons behind them? Well, I think they're actually related to the first two. They all question the consensus reality, in a sense, to use a phrase from Eric Weinstein and Peter Thiel, in so much as I was told by my guidance counselor, for instance, in high school, that I should not apply to Princeton, where I ended up going as an undergrad. And at the time, I didn't really have the toolkit to ask myself, what is this person's incentive? And their incentive is, of course, to be able to say, 80% of my advisees got into their first choice college. Well,

that produces some perverse behavior in the sense that the easiest way to accomplish that goal is to have kids lower their sights, right? So, Richard Greenleaf was one who said to me, I think you can get in. I think you should apply. I think that's nonsense. And was able to convince me to believe in myself when other people told me not to effectively. John Buxton, similarly, was a hard ass in the best way possible who just didn't tolerate people or in this case students thinking that they weren't capable of what he knew them to be capable of if that makes sense and uh i i think one of the downfalls in my mind of modern, at least US society or societal norms, and I suspect this applies elsewhere in the Commonwealth probably, is that you have a political correctness that

leads to everyone or a lot of people treating others with kid gloves. And I think that that is a disservice and that you are in fact woefully underpreparing people for reality if you don't give them tough love. And if you look at, say, John Buxton, and for instance, if you look at the wrestling team, and he was much more than a wrestling coach. I mean, he was an English teacher. He raised, I're not going to quit because I know you're capable of more. Go do what you have to do. If you're feeling sick because you're training too hard, go puke in the bucket over there. And after you return from the corner, you're going to train for another two hours. And at the end of those two hours, you're like, oh shit, I'm actually capable of 50% more than I thought I was. And in that way, they were able to make people around them think they were capable of more than they had previously thought. And that's a tremendous superpower in a way. Yeah, so that's why they would fall into a similar category. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I think you've had some interaction with Jennifer Miller. She was maybe a case study in four hour work week. She traveled,

traveled the world with her kids and she just wrote a post yesterday about her now 20 year old, I think daughter, um, who's sort of struggling through math in, in college and just was talking about that, their whole education philosophy. And it was, we're going to push you. We're going to teach you Latin when you're five and we're going to make you do math all the way through to 12th grade because it's going to help you. And you may hate it and you may scream at us, but you're going to do it. And that's not happening in the school systems anywhere.

Yeah, I think that it's very important, if anything, and I mean, I try to do this with my audience en masse, which can be challenging, of course, when you're dealing with millions of people, but is to say like, okay, you think you're capable of X, but I would vote for myself and for everyone listening that that's actually bullshit, and you're capable of X plus 20% at the very least. So let's push for that.

And you only know what you're capable of if you push yourself close to the breaking point. And certainly as a student, I was selling myself short. And as an athlete, I was selling myself short. And what the John Buxtons of the world taught me was you can and should dream bigger. Don't be so impressed by all Americans in Sport X. Don't be so impressed by someone who placed in the top 10 in XYZ national competition. That is actually within reach if you apply yourself and work hard, but you're going to have to endure incredible amounts of discomfort, period. That's it. And I think that the people I view as heroes in my life are those who have forced me to have uncomfortable conversations, do uncomfortable things, because I think that whatever we view as success is probably just an inch outside of our sphere of comfort, if that makes sense. And so the people who push you beyond that are the people you should thank. The people who say everything's great, everything's going to be fine, there's a

place for that. But if that is their unified line for all circumstances, they're not doing you any favors, if that makes sense. Yeah, definitely. If if you do well enough you don't have to worry right it's just uh just get to this standard and you'll be all good there's no there's no pushing beyond that yeah and i know that you know for for instance uh the if you look at new zealand or you look at new zealand if you look at new zealand or you look at australia uh you hear a lot about tall poppy syndrome. And that's not something that people in the US hear very much. But in effect, it's actually very related to something in Japanese, which is the nail that sticks out will get hammered down.

But tall poppy syndrome being if someone really sticks out and strives to be excellent, they get cut down by their peers. Right? Yeah. out and strives to be excellent, they get cut down by their peers, right? So I would say complementary skill set that the heroes I mentioned impart is they have at one point or another been the one against the many, and they're able to help not just teach, but condition their students to be able to face criticism and to be able to dismiss criticism when necessary to do what needs to be done. And that's not a comfortable process.

It just is not. Yeah. And that's, I mean, being uncomfortable is critical for any potential hero. So you've got to be comfortable stepping out of the crowd, doing the thing that no one else is doing. It's just a thing you've got to practice comfortable stepping out of the crowd, doing the thing that no one else is doing. It's just a, it's a thing you've got to practice. A lot of people have to practice.

Yeah. Just a prereq. It's like, it's a, it's a straight prereq. And I mean, I've not to quote my own book, cause I hate people who do that,

but I'm drunk enough that I'll do that, which is, you know, there's a line. And the only reason I bring it up is that it's, it's one of the most highlighted on Kindle is your success in life by and large can be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have and that is a skill you can practice that is a skill you can develop that is a coachable skill right uh and that's why for a long time I had actually, and it's still on my refrigerator,

uh, in New York is a magnet that says, you know, every day do one thing that scares you in effect. I'm paraphrasing, but that's a quote from, I think it's Eleanor Roosevelt. And it is a reminder that developing these abilities is a habit. It is not a decision. It is a habit. You have to condition yourself, just like weight training or anything else. That's it.

There's a habit of heroism. That sums up my whole work. If you practice this, you are going to be the one that steps up and helps when needed. Yeah, exactly. Cool, man. Well, I tell you what, I got to hop because I'm realizing I have quite a few phone calls to make.

You have, yeah. Very good question. So thank you for that. Thank you. I appreciate the time. For sure, man. Enjoy the rest of your night, which will no doubt

get more amusing. Oh, yeah. It'll get more amusing. I know you Aussies know how to drink, so I don't, so this will be even more ridiculous.

Have a good weekend. All right, you too. All right, bye-bye. Bye. Hello, this is Ryan. This is Ryan. Ryan, this is Ryan. This is Ryan. Ryan, this is Tim Ferriss. How the hell are you?

I'm doing good. How are you? I'm great. Where are you? I'm at home watching some playoff baseball. Sweet. Oh, I heard somebody in the background, too. That's my wife.

Hi, wife. I am all yours for the next uh however many minutes depends on how long wind i am but uh yeah man fire away whatever you want to do cool um the question i had prepared was um i know that you get um stopped on the street from time to time when you're out in public. And I was wondering if you could describe one maybe awkward or funny fan interaction and then one maybe especially memorable fan interaction that you've had. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.

Yes, I can. Especially since I'm super powered with the performance enhancer known as Jin at the moment. The first is awkward. Oh my God, so many awkward interactions. So I remember at South by Southwest, probably two years ago, was on an elevator, literally kissing my girlfriend going down, who was on the step above me. And a kind of nerdy Asperger's-y guy reached over her shoulder as we are kissing to tap my shoulder

to start pitching me on a startup. I would say that's pretty high on the awkward scale. And I've had between, well, at least 10, maybe more than 20 always guys, well, obviously, you'll realize in the context, who have followed me into a bathroom and I'd be standing at a urinal and they would pitch over my shoulder, like breathing onto my neck, their startup. These are all startup pitch related. And I have to tell everybody out there, it doesn't matter how good your pitch is, if you're breathing on my neck when I have my penis in my hand,

it's not a good particular setup for like a high close rate, I would say. So that would be very high on the awkward list. I've had some people, and I think living in San Francisco, I have a high percentage, not a high percentage, but a reasonable percentage of low EQ, high IQ folks. I've had people come over to me when I'm having dinner with someone and literally just pull a chair over and sit down at my dinner table to pitch me startup pitches, which is, again, not ideal protocol, I think, for getting a high close rate. So those are a couple of the awkward ones. One memorable one, and this is, I think, the way you should do it, quite frankly, is I've had a handful of people come up to me at different events. And it's after I've given a keynote or something like that.

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

that I stick in my pocket that I can review later on my own time. And very few people do that. At a given event of, say, even 5,000 attendees, I will get maybe two of those. So I would say those are the first memorable interactions that come to mind because they're very effective. I think that's a smart way to approach pitching busy people when you meet them in person is not to actually verbally deliver the pitch, but is to give them something you've taken the time to make as perfect as possible on paper and give to them. Cool. Well, that's the only question I had. I want to keep it brief so you could talk to all the other people who are on the list. Um, if, if, if you'd like to maybe end the call with

just a quick challenge for everyone in the podcast listening audience. I know on your 36th birthday, you gave up your birthday to raise funds for Charity Water. And I just wanted to challenge everyone in the audience to do the same. I think Charity Water is a great organization. I'm not affiliated with them. I don't work for them. But I think they're just amazing. I think Scott Harrison built something really cool and they're just doing amazing work

all around the world. And for everyone who's interested to go to charitywater.org, you can set up a birthday campaign. It's super easy to take a few minutes. And like Tim, Tim raised over a hundred thousand dollars for his birthday and everyone, people all over the world have had campaigns that have raised thousands of dollars for a worthwhile cause so just want to challenge everyone in the audience i think it's a worthwhile cause check it out and thank you so much for your time sam i really appreciate it and have a good rest of your night for sure man that's a good challenge i second that so and if you just want to see also for for those people listening who are like, man, I'm not sure

I'm going to do that. But I would say if you want to see how a nonprofit can structure and promote itself in part using design in a very, very, very smart way, then Charity Water, just for that reason alone, if you want to get a mini MBA and how to use design to promote a nonprofit, which is in and of itself very difficult, then you should check out Charity Water. So I agree with you wholeheartedly. And thanks for the question. Have a great weekend.

No problem. Thank you, Tim. All right, man. Bye-bye. Hey, this is Bobby. Leave me a message and I'll call you back if I like you. Bobby damnation. This is Tim Ferriss.

I've had way too much gin and I'm prepared to make an ass of myself. And I'm afraid we have missed our opportunity to connect. Have a glorious evening and a spectacular weekend. Good sir. Goodbye. Hello. to connect. Have a glorious evening and a spectacular weekend. Good, sir. Goodbye. Hello. Hi,

is this Justin? It is. Justin, this is Tim Ferris. How are you, sir? I'm good. Thank you.

And how are you? I'm good. Where am I finding you at the moment? I am in Evanston, Illinois. Evanston, Illinois. One of my favorite towns. Really? I'm kidding. I've never been.

But I'm all yours for the next handful of minutes. And I'm getting drunker by the minute. So that should produce increasingly unusable answers. But I am available so please shoot sure um i just have a question about teachers so um you've obviously learned so much and been coached by you know some really awesome people for all these like various skills and i just want to know are there like specific qualities that you look for when you're trying to look for a teacher in particular? Or are there resources, tactics that you try to find when you're trying to seek someone outside of your network?

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

Are they good at questioning best practices? Are they willing to experiment with things that might not or should not work based on the literature, for instance? That is a reflection of open-mindedness and general objectivity that I seek in teachers also. Third would be, and this is something I've mentioned before, but their willingness to be tough and uncompromising. So their ability and willingness to have tough love and to force people to do what they think they cannot do, which is extremely important because any novice, certainly even any intermediate coming into a field will probably underestimate their own capabilities. And you need someone not just to tell you you can do more, but to prove to you that you can do more. And the way they do that is by forcing you to

confront discomfort in practice generally. And those are a handful of things that I would say I look for. Okay. Thank you. And so you would just do your homework on this teacher, for example, before you try them out, or would you just go meet with them, talk to them, and see how they do their style to find out whether they have these qualities? I would do both. I would do both. So I would do my homework, and then I would ask them questions

related to the qualities that I just described. And those questions could be, how many people have you replicated your own performance with? And if they haven't, that's not necessarily a disqualifier, but the answer will tell you a lot. If they say, well, I haven't replicated my own results with many people because I have the genetic advantage of being designed like a spider for ultra endurance running, for instance, and I'm like six foot five and weigh 110 pounds and I'm great at dissipating heat. However, I've been able to train 10 people to do X, Y, and Z.

That itself reflects a self-awareness and an awareness that I think contributes to being a very good teacher. So if there are genetic anomaly, that doesn't disqualify them, but they need to be aware of that fact. And you could ask questions related to really any of the characteristics that I described that would help you to assess whether or not you want to invest the time, energy, and or money into training with someone. So that would be, I think, my general approach. And it's astonishing, really, to someone who hasn't attempted what I'm about to describe, how affordable it can be to get extremely good advice via Skype, for instance,

from gold medalists or world-class performers in almost any field for very, very little. I mean, this is particularly true in athletics, where you can get generally between $100 or $300 per hour, one-to-one coaching from someone who is one of the best, meaning top 10 at some point in the world in their given field. I mean, that is just a bargain and something worth saving for. So those would be my initial thoughts. Okay. Well, thank you very much. That was really helpful. And I'll definitely keep a lot of that in mind when trying to find someone. So, thanks. All right.

Well, I appreciate you dropping in your name and phone number. So, thanks for the... No, thanks so much. I love your content. Thanks for the time and have a good weekend. And there are also the deconstruction section in the 4-Hour Chef contains a lot of the questions that I tend to ask these types of experts as well. If that's of any help.

Okay. All right. Thanks so much. Yeah. Have a great weekend. Bye. Bye. Austin,

can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can hear you now. This is Tim Ferris calling to harass you. How are you? Hi, Tim. How are you? Hi, Tim.

How are you? I'm good. Where are you located at the moment? I'm in a location in the world. I'm in Puyallup, Washington. I'm kind of near Seattle, Tacoma, Pacific Northwest up there. Yeah, dig it. I like Pacific Northwest.

Lots of rain. Love rain. I'm kidding. Yeah, Pacific Northwest. Lots of rain. Love rain. I'm kidding. Yeah, there is a lot of rain. So I am at your disposal for the next little while. How can I help or answer questions? I may not do a. I actually, I do have a question. So, um, over time I've, I've listened to many of your podcasts and I know the different opinions of a lot of those that you've interviewed, but, uh, what would you say your personal view on a college education is? And if you were a 19 year old and you're choosing what you wanted to study and whether it's in

college or not, uh, what do you think you'd want to, you'd want to look towards or what field would you choose to study and why would you do that? Oh, good question. Now for context, are you, it would look like it from your email address,

but are you in college at the moment? Yeah. Yeah. I'm at Eastern Washington university and, uh, I'm, I'm here right now and I'm actually looking into economics. And then, actually, just recently in the past week, I've been looking into a physics minor, too, because I'm –

actually, funny, I listened to your podcast with Peter DeMandi, and I read his book Abundance, and it just totally inspired me. And I really want to look into changing the world and doing stuff like that. So short answer is I think economics plus physics is a really smart move. There's a great article on, if you just search career advice and Scott Adams, he's the creator of Dilbert.

It's a fantastic piece that's actually been echoed and referenced by Marc Andreessen, for instance, who's a pioneer in every sense of the possible word. If you look at his technological innovations, Mosaic, his investment practices, and Andreessen Horowitz, which he's co-founded and helped build uh the combination of those degrees gives you more than the sum of its parts if that makes sense

so yes so so first of all i would say that a college education makes sense and malcolm gladwell has talked about this in our conversation that we had on the podcast. It makes sense if you know. A, if you go to a top-rated, and that's, of course, a whole different hornet's nest to dig into, but a top-rated university, or B, if you develop a generalized skill set that allows you to succeed in the world. And on top of that, have people who at one in the morning will stimulate and challenge you. That's it, right? So I am a personal proponent of a college education because of several things.

One of which is a survivorship bias that I think is dangerous when you look at those who romanticize lack of a college education. So drop out of college, become a billionaire like Mark and, not Mark, excuse me, but Zuckerberg, for instance. And the danger there is similar to the danger if you look at, say, a Barron's magazine and read about the mutual funds who offer X, Y, and Z returns and have a fantastic track record. The mutual funds who have failed don't have the money to advertise, nor do they want to advertise, so they don't. Therefore, you're only seeing a very small percentage of the total number of mutual funds who, through skill or, in many cases luck have been able to beat the market for x number of years

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

chances are you are not. You've never met him. You just do not understand the delta between where you are and where that person is. Now, you could be, but chances are you're not. So, I think having college education and a degree is extremely important and valuable in today's economy as it exists in the United States. In terms of majors and so on, we kind of hit this earlier, but I think that the combination of a major and a minor that is unusual is very interesting. So having a hard science element as one of those two increases your viability as a candidate, at least in high-tech startups, right? So if that is one of your goals, if you have a micro and macroeconomic basic set of knowledge from a major and then a minor in physics, that shows A, a familiarity

and a comfort with numbers, and B, a comfort with a very uncompromising hard science known as physics, which includes a lot of mathematics. So that is a huge advantage, I think, over people who come to the table with just one major. On top of that, I would say anything you can do, and this could be extracurricular or it could be in the university itself, to improve your ability to communicate really puts whatever you've done on steroids. And that's a very cliched expression, but I know a lot about steroids and they can be really effective in legal and competent context. So, probably, i think i've probably had too much gin and you shouldn't do steroids by the way that'd be terrible for your longevity in life and all

these other good things but i digress so what i'm saying and there's someone sitting about 15 feet away from me shaking her head right now uh but uh i've had a lot of gin. That's the whole point of this fucking drunk dial thing. So I would say that if you can... So let me take a step back. A lot of engineers, a lot of people who are quantitatively comfortable

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

over at least 50% of people who are competing for a similar slot. So those would be my initial thoughts. But as far as a liberal arts undergraduate degree is concerned i really feel like you should just study what interests you most i was yeah initially a neuroscience or i should say psychology major with an emphasis in neuroscience and then an east asian studies degree that at first glance would seem to have nothing to do with what I did later. But you have your entire life to be a fucking adult.

I would explore what interests you during college. It's an incredible golden opportunity and a window that is very brief to develop yourself not as an eligible candidate for the job market, but as a well-rounded human being. And I know that probably sounds hokey. It might sound cliched. And I've had a fair amount of gin, but most people spend the remainder of their life after graduating from college trying to reestablish the quality of life and carefree sentiment that they had while they were in college. So I would encourage you to study what most interests you. But if your predilection is already towards economics plus physics, that's a fucking killer

combo. So I would stick with that. That's great to hear. Yeah. Actually, I can't remember probably when I was in about ninth grade or 10th grade, then I actually four-hour work week, my dad introduced me to it and I read it. And it really changed the course of everything that I've looked towards and really just realizing that, uh, that I can do what I want in life and that, and that, uh, really freedom is, is, uh, there's a real possibility and financial stability can achieve that. And, uh, and not just that, but really doing, doing what you like. And, and so I think that that's actually just recently, like I said, the physics

component has come in. And like I said, I listened to your podcast and I'm super inspired. And I actually started listening to, like I said, Peter's podcast because of that. And that really shaped the path that I'm on right now. So thank you very much for just being so inspiring. And yeah. Congratulations, man. Well, you sound like you are in a great place. I mean, Peter is fantastic, obviously. I mean, every time I meet Peter, I come away thinking,

what the fuck am I doing with my life? He's a very big scale thinker, which is good because he stretches me and he makes me uncomfortable in all the ways that are the most productive. So I appreciate you listening to the podcast. And it sounds like you're in a great place, man. I would just say, keep doing what you're doing. And if economics and physics are the path, then that's the path. If you feel compelled to study something that seems useless, like classics, guess what? I know people who've made hundreds of millions of dollars

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

don't, you're going to be mediocre because you just will not have the endurance and the horsepower to push through the inevitable obstacles so that it'll turn up. So that would be my thought. And yeah, man, crush it. I got dozens of startups who will probably hire you. So keep plugging along. Perfect.

Thank you so much for your input and for your books and everything. And I can't wait for the next book to come out. I'm going to pre-order that on Amazon and get that shipped here and everything. But yeah, thank you so much. Of course, man. I appreciate you reading. And yeah, Tools of Titans will be fun. I can say this because I didn't actually write most of it. It's related to the

learnings of, uh, and lessons from other people, but yeah, it's a fun read. I think you'll, I think you'll dig it. So I will let you go, but have a, uh, have a great weekend. I appreciate you dropping in your name and phone number. Yeah. Thank you so much for the call and for everything. All right, man. Take it easy. Bye-bye. You too. Bye. Hello?

Eric, this is Tim. Hey, Tim. How art thou? Good. How are you? Oh, I'm great. I'm fantastic. Sitting at my acacia wood table, if that means anything to anyone.

I think actually giraffe eat acacia, for what that's worth. But let's see here. So where, actually, you seem like you might be in New York, but I'm not sure, based on the number. Where are you? I'm in New York City, yep. Oh, one of the best towns on earth. It's a good spot.

Yeah, lived here all my life. Say again spot. Yeah, lived here all my life. Say again? I said I lived here all my life. Oh, no kidding. Born and raised. Yeah, that's a good time. Hey, man. I was born out on Strong Island, although most New Yorkers don't count that as New York.

It's kind of like the redheaded stepchild of New York State, which is okay. Just a little bit. Yeah, it gets kind of a bad rep. Yeah, you know, rat tails and all that, but that's okay. So how can I be of service? I am happy to answer any questions or attempt to and bumble, as I think is more likely at this point in my blood alcohol content search. But fire away.

Okay. So I've actually been considering starting my own podcast where I interview people in my field. And so seeing how you have your podcast and you've had what now two years almost of experience doing it. Yep. I would love some advice on that specifically. So my background is in software development and security.

And what I really want to do, what gets me really jazzed is kind of interviewing people in my field who have done exceptional things, who would have great stories to tell and like research they've done or like really cool projects they've started. Problem is, I don't really have a recognizable name yet in my field. So what I'm wondering is how would you recommend I get experts attention in my field and how might I convince them to come onto my show? Yeah. Start small and roll your way up. So you should get whoever you can get and then level up one degree, recruit.

Once you've done that, level up one degree, recruit, and rinse and repeat. I think that's the approach. Well, it is the approach that I took and it is the approach that you generally should take. There was a presentation by Matt Cutts of Google, or at least at the time of Google, who talked about the Katamari principle, or I may have been Katamari Damashi. I think it's with a blog or podcast, you start with a very niche focus. And in this video game, Katamari Damacy, I think it is, you have sort of a lint ball that you roll up and you accumulate larger things. And then eventually you get to the point where you're actually rolling up planets and galaxies and so on. In the beginning, though...

Oh, yeah. I've played this game, actually. It sounds really familiar. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Back on, like, PlayStation 1. Yeah, exactly. So you start out very, very, very, very niche, and that allows you to go after higher-caliber people in a narrow field. That would be step, or I should say principle one.

On top of that, I would commit to doing a minimum of six episodes or at least recording a minimum of six episodes. There are a few reasons for this. Number one, the iTunes algorithm rewards multiple episodes and downloads being received by listeners at the same time. So you're best served by uploading two or three at the minimum episodes for your debut. Number two is that whenever I'm considering taking on a new project, for instance, podcasting or otherwise, I look for the ways in

which, and I assess for each of the options I might be considering, the ways in which I can win even if the project fails. So let's say your podcast does not take off or you don't like it. You decide for whatever reason that you're going to quit after six episodes. How can you format the podcast? How can you prepare it? How can you work on it in such a way that you develop skills or relationships that persist and accumulate after those six episodes? In other words, if you're like after six, you decide to throw in the towel and quit, how can that still be a success? And I think this is a very important question. For me, it was eliminating verbal tics. It was, or minimizing them. I'm not done, obviously. Improving my ability to ask questions,

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

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

Yeah, no, I think those, those sound like great starting points for me. I really like the concept of, it's like making it a game you can't lose, right? Like you're going to get something out of it and have to decide what those

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

comfort, but I just do not. So that's an unfortunate handicap, but I've managed to make do. So what other questions do you have about the podcasting? I can answer those pretty directly, I think. Well, that was my big one. I think when I kind of sit down and try to figure out what the first steps are, I mean, I kind of have some loose concepts of what I want to be interviewing people on. I guess naturally the next question would be, how do you choose your questions?

Well, let's tackle that a different way. So give me an example of someone who you would want to interview and uh let's start there who would you name okay um let's see david hennemeyer hansen yeah dhh ruby on rails yeah uh yeah yeah yeah and very interesting guy so what would you ask him if you had five minutes with him? What would the top three questions be? The first question that comes to mind is what, what type of conditions was he in when he developed Ruby on Rails?

Like what really kind of pushed him and motivated him to develop this technology and then open source it. So I'd be really interested in what his main motivator was at that time, like what was going through his head that, that allowed him to commit to doing that. Cause it was, I mean, it's a big project. So I'd be really curious about that. What next? curious about that what next the second one would be what sort of changes did he go through in his life to go from i believe he was doing he was working at he's working on base camp at the time

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

Like, what was changing in his life? Sort of like his narrative about that, I think would be really interesting. So I would suggest a complementary approach, which would be identify what he is most interested or excited to talk about and explore that first. Because that will put him at ease, allow him to tell a story that he likes to tell,

and open the gates for the other things. I believe that in interviewing, being different, at least for the first 10 to 15 minutes, is more important than being better, if that makes sense. So if he's been asked, if you think to yourself, I would like to ask the following three questions. The follow-up that you should ask yourself

is, has he been asked this question more than 10 times? If the answer is yes, I would not start with that. For instance, I know that and

I'm drunk enough that I'm going to get the details wrong here, but you can Google it and figure it out. He is very involved or has been historically involved with race car driving. And I think he placed second place in the Le Mans race several years ago. It could have been five years ago. I don't know the exact timeline. That may be something that he is very seldom asked about that he would be eager to or excited to talk about.

Start with that. Okay. And given that opportunity to talk about something that he is interested in that very few people ask him about, that would then open the gate to questions that are perhaps more normal or standard. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense to me. And if you listen to, for instance, my interview with Edward Norton, we talked about surfing first. That is a direct corollary to what I'm suggesting. Because we were sitting on Malibu Pier, having lunch, drinking coffee, looking out at the surfing

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

and what he does. But he will probably, just as I would do, go on to autopilot, right? So you want to be different before you are simply incrementally better is my suggestion in this particular case. Okay. And I'll add an unsolicited piece of feedback since I'm still sipping gin. Gin and juice. Gin and juice. Would you say that?

Sorry. I'm looking at my cohort. I shall not name at this moment. It's not really gin and juice. Yeah. I'm not really Snoop Dogg. Not quite Snoop Dogg. He's got a leg up on me.

But the... Sorry, bear with me here. I'm enjoying my own drunken revelry. Bear with me. No worries. You're still the most coherent drunk call. What I was going to say is that you... For hardware, I would suggest a few things.

And also logistics. Number one is do it via Skype or via Zencaster or some telephonic means versus in person. In person is more difficult to do for podcast. And the likelihood of you screwing something up technically or from a preparatory standpoint is much higher. So I would use, in my case, Skype as I am right now. I'm using Skype and Ecamm Call Recorder. And although it's not necessary right now, for many of my podcast guests, I will have Evernote open with notes and so on, questions, etc. So that I am extremely prepared and able to respond to any twist in the conversation that might come up.

I would encourage you to start with some type of phoner per se, because your likelihood of success is much higher. Okay. And if you're looking for, as I'm using right now, a great bang-for-the-buck microphone, since I heard you ask. No, you didn't ask. I'm using right now a great bang for the buck microphone. Since I heard you ask, you didn't ask, I'm just joking. But this is an ATR2100 Audio-Technica mic. ATR2100, that is probably 80 bucks. And it, for most folks, will do as good a job of the Heil PR40, I think it's called, which is like a $500 mic.

And this one costs $80 on Amazon. So this is what I use plus Apple earbuds to remove echo. I don't know why this works, but I do know that it works. And that is to avoid any type of echoing effect or to minimize it, earbuds of some type are a very wise investment. Awesome. That's good to know.

I haven't really dove into looking for hardware yet. So it's good to know what your pick is. Yeah, ATR 2100. I use this for like 50% of my interviews. It's cheap, relatively speaking, not too expensive. I would give it a go. So that is it, my friend.

I'm going to bounce, but hopefully that is valuable in some capacity. Yeah, it definitely was. Thank you so much, Tim. Have a good weekend. You too. Bye-bye. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. It's Tim Ferriss. Who's this?

This is Vin Thomas. Vin Thomas. How the hell are you? Are you in the Pacific Northwest? It would seem that way. Yeah, I'm in Oregon. Vin Thomas. How the hell are you? Are you in the Pacific Northwest? It would seem that way. Yeah, I'm in Oregon. Good man. God damn. Oregonians are just owning this evening.

Well, I am at your disposal, sir. How can I help? Any questions? Any comments? How may I be of assistance? Oh man, you've already been a part of assistance to me. I started my freelance business right after

a week before our work week. I was huge and now I own a small design company and started another company. I really attribute a lot of my thinking back then to what I learned from four hour work week. So I just appreciate that, man. Thank you. Well, uh, good work. Congratulations. So let me see. Uh, here's, here's what I want to do. Uh, I want to stop working as much and make more money. And you're kind of the king of that, right?

Well, I can try. I've had a couple of gin tonics, so we will see how lucid my answers will be. But yes, I can do my best. I'll need a more specific question. But yes, I can take a stab at it. Okay. So I have a design company. we work mostly with startups and early stage uh companies and um we just kind of reinvent the wheel every single time we approach a project and it just requires a lot of serious hands-on uh hours and just been thinking through like how can we um streamline this process how can we make it easier i have two great developers who work for me who do an amazing job but again just uh you know they have to actually be hands-on the whole time and we put a lot of hours in each project and um i know i know there's a better way to do it. What are your off-the-cuff thoughts on how to improve the process?

What have you brainstormed so far? So, I mean, a couple of thoughts is, you know, hey, let's templatize a lot of this stuff. You know, instead of reinventing the wheel every time, let's templatize a lot of it. Maybe we can charge less per project, but it would take us significantly less time if we could do some of that and basically have like these modules that we can piece together these websites. We do a lot of marketing sites and really, I mean, there's a lot of the same stuff, you know, staff page, about page, tour, features, et cetera. You know, and a lot of it is essentially the same, but we kind of

build it from scratch every single time. So that's something I think could help us. But, um, even beyond that, I think we could, uh, um, you know, productize the service even more than that. Um, uh, maybe that's with an entirely different company. Okay. So the first thought is to have clients respond in a templatized fashion, meaning they're filling out some type of questionnaire or series of questions that will allow you to get 78% of the work done without a lot of conference calls and other types of bandwidth-consuming activities. The other option is to say that we offer A, B, and C, and that is it, right?

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

would be a good idea. Yeah, for sure. What are the current aspects of your business? If you had to identify the 20% of activities that are creating 80% of your headache at the moment, what would those be? Well, so, you know, I'm a designer, so that's my role in the company. I am the owner and the designer, and I enjoy that piece of the project. Um, what I don't, uh, enjoy as much as the writing, the proposals, you know, putting in, you know, however many hours of discovery before we can even kick off a project. And I understand like that's, you know, part of, you know, what goes into being a good

UI UX designer, but man, some of that just, you know, the administrative kind of stuff kills me. And I think your idea of, you know, templatizing, a subsection of our current business or even create a new business that would be, you know, more prone to that almost templatized approach. I think it's an experiment worth running or a hypothesis worth disproving in the sense that it's something you could run for a handful of weeks to gather data and then make a more informed decision so it doesn't have to be an all or nothing bet

it doesn't have to be a bet the farm type decision in this case where you can alternatively and simply, let's just say, I'm throwing this up, but split the traffic to your website 50-50. So 50 is going to where it's always gone. 50 is going to some type of survey or templatized questionnaire whereby you gather the most critical data you need in 10 questions or fewer sure and then you review the data and you just uh accordingly so that would be my first knee-jerk response the level of client that would come to us now would be so different than the

level of client that would want a templatized service, right? And so I don't know if that would work because, you know, people don't find us through, like, SEO. They find us because someone told us about them, you know, or told them about us. And so I almost feel like that might be a weird experience for someone if they came to us expecting, you know, like, we almost bill ourselves as, like, your outsourced in-house design team. Like, we're there to, like We're there to handle your process. You handled it throughout the whole process. Thinking back to 4-Hour Workweek, do I start running experiments with PPC or AdWords? See if people even want to buy this.

Do I start a new, almost like a phony business, just whip something up in a weekend to see if people are going to buy this? I mean, do I start a new, almost like a phony business, like just whip something up in a weekend to see if people are going to bite? Well, I would say that at the top of the funnel, it is important to be aware of conflicting objectives, right? So if you have an objective to be the bespoke, customized solution for people who expect hand-holding from A to Z, yet, on the other hand, you have the objective of minimizing the amount of time that you personally have to allocate to each client, you may have conflicting objectives. Yeah, I agree. Right? So in that case, no amount of massaging or fine-tuning in surgery is going to fix two

primary objectives that conflict. And to that extent, I would say that it is probably worth testing for two to four weeks how people respond to a templatized approach. Because right now you have a set of assumptions, as we always do, every one of us, myself included, have assumptions of how counterparts A, B, or C are going to respond to D, E, and F that I'm going to put out in the world. And you just don't know at the end of the day. Consider testing using Unbounce or Leadpages or another service or an in-house programming team. 50% of your traffic allocated to a templatized approach. And in fact, what you may find is that people disqualify or qualify themselves in such a way that allows you and them to spare an incredible amount of man hours because they've either disqualified or qualified themselves in a much more efficient process. So I would say that's probably how I would approach it is really as from the get-go,

we do not know, therefore we must test. And we're going to take two or four weeks to gather data and then reassess what our results and objectives and process should be. Sure. That's a good idea. I mean, we have a new website that's about to launch our personal website and so uh that would be something i mean we could easily build in i mean using optimizely or something like that yeah exactly exactly what what what people like you know yeah exactly yeah

that's a great suggestion yeah optimizely is a great suggestion i've used them before as well and uh i'll give you a current example for myself i i am looking at developing a new site for tools of titans my uh book that launches on december 6th and it's available for yeah it'll be it'll be fun it's available for piece uh for pre-sale. Wow. I am slurring like a motherfucker right now. It's available for pre-sale on Amazon, but I am looking at the conversion effectiveness of fourhourbody.com, all spelled out versus fourhourchef.com. And fourhourbody is much simpler designed by the same firm. They're both by the same company, Digital Telepathy in this case. The 4-Hour Chef is, I would say, more intricate, more complicated. And before I design the Tools of Titans website, I am determining which has converted most effectively. And there may be a number of tests that I have to run before we have a statistically significant number or set of data to work with to determine what the next step is for the design of toolsoftitans.com, but that is going to come, right?

And it's not that dissimilar from what you're running through right now. I will probably end up split testing at the very least, sort of A, B testing two versions of the website. It may be more than that. And I will look at very concretely which version of that website is resulting in the highest percentage per mil, right, of every thousand people who visit. What is producing the highest percentage of people who click on the button that I have determined is the most valuable click. That could be a button to barnesandnoble.com. It could be a button to amazon.com. It could be a button, in your case, to ask for a quote. It could be any number of things. But determining what that

most valuable click is and then testing multiple versions for it, particularly over a time span of two to four weeks, is a very reasonable and non-threatening time period within which you can assess what is working, what isn't. And ultimately, when you look at, let's just say the people I've had on the podcast, people who've made hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, the one commonality or one of the few commonalities that they have is they are constantly testing their own assumptions and asking themselves, how do I know what I think is best? And the answer is you very seldom know.

You have to look at the numbers. So that would be my very long-winded recommendation, I think, at this point. Question for you. Is Vin your entire first name, or is that short for something else? I've wondered this for a long time. right? And so then, it just became, so. I like it. I don't think that's common, no. Like, I don't think most people who go by Vin,

not that there's a ton of them, are really named Kevin, but. I like it. All right, cool. There you have it. That's good to know.

All right, man, well, hopefully, hopefully that's helpful. I'm going to get a hop on things, and, have a great weekend.

Good luck. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks, man. All right, man, take Good luck. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks, John. All right, man. Take it easy. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Available right now. Believe me, your name, number, and a detailed message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Hope to talk to you soon. Bye now. Ian, what happened? This is Tim Ferriss. I was hoping to wrap up

with someone from South Dakota, but alas, that is not to be. So on to the next number, I suppose. Have a glorious weekend. Chris, this is Tim Ferriss calling. How are you? Good.

Tim, how are you? I'm great. Iiss calling. How are you? Good. Tim, how are you? I'm great. I'm great. You are potentially the final conversation in my little drunk dialing escapade. The final conversation means you've gotten pretty drunk, Tim, huh? I'd say I'm well above the threshold, yes. Where are you at the moment? Where's 520? 520 is Tucson, Arizona. threshold, yes. Where are you at the moment? Where's 520?

520 is Tucson, Arizona. Oh, nice. Arizona, the land of extreme heat and extreme air conditioning. Yeah, exactly. It's actually pretty good weather out here tonight. Nice. So I am all yours, disponible for any questions or comments that you may have. So fire away. I'm all yours, disponible for any questions or comments that you may have. So fire away. I'm all yours.

Currently, I'm wondering about financial freedom. A couple months ago, me and my girlfriend broke up because I felt like the drag of trying to, like the rat race, I guess, just kind of not worth it. And she was very much in that realm. And I kind of found a place where I didn't really agree with it. So I think that's kind of a place you've been. Yeah, yeah, I've been there before. Yeah, I'm trying to wonder how to take the steps forward in being able to be free of the whole corporate financial realm of, you know, I don't know exactly the way to put it, but to make more sense, but pressure, I guess. Pressure of the 401k, the retirement, the big house, fancy car kind of stuff. Yeah, I think the first thought that comes to mind

is really looking at your target monthly income and dissecting what the goal is in more precise terms. So if you go to 4hourworkweek.com forward slash TMI, that will give you some calculators and whatnot that you can use. But I think the important or one of the important aspects is beginning with the end in mind. And in this case, defining what your objective is first and foremost. Without that, it'll be very difficult for you to calibrate and direct yourself in the right direction. So I would begin with, at least tentatively, it doesn't need to be a perfect or permanent decision, but deciding

what your ideal lifestyle looks like in terms of how you spend your time, how you spend your resources before you begin making any further decisions. So that would be step one, really identifying what you want to have, what you want to do, what you want to be over the next one to three years will provide you with at least an objective, something in the crosshairs to aim at while you make decisions. So that would be step one is determining your target monthly income based on what you want to have, what you want to do, what you want to be in very concrete terms. Beyond that, I would really turn the question around and just ask you what you found most helpful to date, I suppose, would be my, my approach. Um, it was a couple of years ago.

I actually, um, I worked for a pharmaceutical company and so I, uh, actually have a lot of time at work to listen to podcasts. And a couple of years ago I found, I found you and Joe Rogan, and I developed like a real passion for it. Talk radio, podcast kind of stuff, more than I've really had a passion for anything. I would love to get in that type of realm, but it's kind of a hard area to crack without having some sort of like niche to fall into. So like the average guy can't really start a podcast that people would actually listen to. Do you know what I mean? Well, yeah, I agree that in the beginning, no one's going to listen,

which is true for 99 out of 100 people who start a podcast. And podcasts are getting pretty popular. Yeah, they do. But I would say that it's not too late to, whether it is start a podcast, start a blog, start a newsletter, fill in the blank. I think the most important component of that or checkbox is identifying what you would be personally excited to do on a consistent basis. Because if you choose, say, podcast because it seems popular at the moment, but you're not, in fact, excited about doing it, you're going to quit after the first few episodes. There's just no two ways about it. So I really think that following your excitement and dedication to a particular medium is more important than choosing what is the medium du jour at that point in time, if that makes any sense.

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

that's a relatively new medium or industry compared to, let's say, the 2007 publication date of the 4-Hour Workweek. So, first steps there are record six episodes. And during that period of time, determine, much like Scott Adams in my podcast with him, how you can make it a systems objective as opposed to a goal-oriented objective, meaning what can you learn through those six episodes of experimentation, even if your podcast ends up being listened to no one. And when you think in those terms,

you will cumulatively... Learn from experience. Exactly. Through the snowball effect of aiming for learning and network, i.e., what do I learn? Who do I meet? Who do I get to know? Develop a combination of factors that lead to success eventually, as opposed to a binary pass or fail. So that would be my suggestion is thinking very carefully about if I try X for six episodes,

if I try Y for two months, how can I ensure this is a win over time as opposed to a binary pass or fail? I think that's very important. So that's how I would approach all of this. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I guess the first step in jumping into anything is having the courage to jump into it, I guess. Yeah, it's really a matter of ready, fire, aim, as opposed to ready, aim, fire. Yeah. You kind of have to jump off the diving board and then figure out how you're going to end up headfirst

diving into the water on the way down. And that isn't to say you should be haphazard, but if you only operate from a place of perfect information and complete information, you're never going to act at all. This is where I think you can learn a lot from studying military operations actually is how to operate and make decisions from a place of incomplete information. So I would say that in the case of podcasting, at least, you need to get started before you can figure out 90% of the elements involved and commit to doing a minimum of, say, six episodes. And that could vary person to person,

but in my case, it was six episodes so that you can maximize your learning curve in such a way that even if the podcast doesn't take, if people don't listen to it, you still gain far more from the experience than you give up in terms of time and resources. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. All right, man.

Well, I tell you what, I got to get going. I think I'm starting to wane on the side of alcohol-infused energy. Can I catch you for another 15 minutes to ask you some questions? 15 minutes, maybe not, but I can certainly give you a shout for a couple more minutes. Go for it. Okay. So you're a very successful young man. Are you still dating the same girl you've been dating? I am not dating the same girl that I've been dating for five years or so. I am in a new relationship. So that is that. Next question. What do you find difficult about dating in your way of life? What do I find difficult about dating in my way of life?

In way of life, I mean that you're not a selfish person, but you have very, you have very personal goals and it's not in the sense of, you know, um, having a family or maybe it is, but you don't have like, um, relationship goals. Yeah. I mean, I, I would say that it, I don't mean to put words in your mouth. No, that's fine. I think that it comes down to finding someone who is complete in and of themselves. In other words, someone who is low maintenance in so much as they are comfortable in their own skin and they aren't desperate for finding someone else to make them a complete human being. I think that you need to, or at least I need to, be with someone, spend time with someone, whether that is a friend or a girlfriend, for that matter,

who I respect and admire in some capacity. Because if you don't have that, it's really a short-term bet that is going to ultimately, I think, self-implode in the long term. Do you think monogamy in the sense of human capability is rational? Do I think monogamy is rational? I think that as one of my very high performing close friends put it, who is a male, if you think about monogamy as a lifelong commitment, you will just end up slitting your wrists. So I think you should take it one day at a time. And I don't think that's a decision you necessarily have to make now or tomorrow or in the next three months i think that it's something that you can revisit in different

scenarios when they when needed in different scenarios uh yeah okay i mean, I happen to think that monogamy is very hard for most human beings based on what I've seen. But, am I going to force myself to be non-monogamous when I'm perfectly content? No, I'm

not, because it adds complexity to a life that is already sufficiently complex having a very apparent and first-hand values with someone where they kind of agree with it it's so hard to find but so important people kind of jump into stuff without really knowing anyone they jump into that does that make sense it makes sense I also think that being, I think that, I think that satisfaction or frustration is very related to setting expectations upfront.

So if you have spoken to someone upfront about the fact that you're in a place that in whatever capacity necessitates or leads you to feel that you are unsure of monogamy, A, B, C, D, or E, whatever it might be, as long as you communicate that, you are being a fair player on the chessboard that relates to that relationship. Where people get themselves into particular trouble is they want to save that confession for a point where it's a dollar late and a dime too short. And I think that is a precarious position to put yourself and your partner into. So if you set the expectations up front, it doesn't mean you will avoid all discomfort, but it puts you in a position where you can at least more rationally discuss things. If you try to keep your darker side or less socially acceptable impulses

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

I mean, you have your demons just as much as we do, but you're still Tim fucking Ferriss. Well, I think people overestimate what being Tim Ferris means. I have as many demons that I'm battling as anyone else. So if it's important to realize that you may only be seeing the highlight reel of Tim Ferris and it's like, okay, well, if you're watching the movie trailer of Tim Ferriss' life, you're going to be like, fuck, that's amazing. That's fantastic. I really want to be Tim Ferriss. But then you might watch the movie and you'll be like, no, I'll give that a fucking 67 on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not up for that entire ride. I think that half of it really

doesn't apply to me. So it's important to realize that it's easy to put other people on a pedestal, but everyone is Swiss cheese. We all have our holes, and I am not exempt from that in any capacity. And I think you do really well with your blog posts. I think your maybe initial one where you said, you know, I'm not perfect i masturbated last tuesday to whatever and i'm like this person who has all the time the same mistakes that everyone else does i'm not i'm not perfect but i'm trying to optimize my life i'm trying to to live the same i'm trying to be the best person that everyone

else is trying to do but you're doing it in a very systematic way which is is why i think you have so many people looking up to you we're all i think fighting a lot of the same battles that was the i think it was the productivity hacks for the neurotic crazy and manic depressive like me i think that was the blog post uh yeah i think it's important as one of my podcast guests uh sofia amaroso said don't be so impressed you know it's uh i mean i've tried look i've put in i think a lot of thought and a lot of good work into trying to improve myself and help others, but don't be so impressed. You know, no one knew who the hell I was before 2007. And there's no reason you can't do 10 times more than I can't if you apply yourself and approach it in a systematic way. And look,

at the end of the day, we're all dust. And 100 years from now, I'll be very surprised if anyone fucking remembers who I am, if we're not all incinerated from some type of climate change. But I think, at least for me, 24-7. Try to actually put a foot forth, stick your neck out, risk getting criticized, and improve things. Because criticizing or vilifying one group by the way is not the same as helping every other group who might or may not need help is a risky business. If you actually want to improve the world, you are an exception. I should take actually a step back and say, if you stick your neck out and try to improve the world, you are an exception. Most of the people in the world are happy to sit on the sidelines and criticize and be a peanut gallery and bullshit and throw stones. But if you want to be in the arena, the one guarantee is you're going to get a lot of black eyes and you're going to get a lot of bloody knees and very few people are going to

fucking thank you for it. And that is a mantle you choose to accept or you don't. But if you do, number one, kudos to you. Congratulations and thank you. Number two, don't expect everybody to pat you on the fucking back. You're going to get a lot of shit. And that is just part and parcel it was 2,000 years ago in the age of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and everybody else. Human nature doesn't change a whole lot. So that would be, I suppose, my sum up of the whole situation. Agreed. I agree wholeheartedly, even going back to Socrates. Yeah, it doesn't change all too much. So I think serial podcast listeners feel that podcasts you listen to every single day, they look at you guys as friends. So I listen to you every day, and you give me advice, same with Joe Rogan or any other people that I listen to.

We don't have the conversations, but I listen to it, and I see them as friends. And then when you run into these people in real life, they look at you as one of their good friends who has helped them through hard situations, who look at you as, you know, a person in their groom party when they get married. Is that, like, what is that like when you run into those people? When they look at you so, like, on a,

not necessarily a pedestal, but they look at you as, like, like a family member and you see them as, you know, a total stranger who could, I don't know, like you have no relationship to them. Yeah. Is that strange? Is that nice? Is that? It's both.

It's both. It's strange and nice and hugely flattering. And I'm not immune to being on the other side of the equation in the sense that for instance in neil gaiman i idolize in a lot of ways the writer and fiction writer primarily and i've met him once sure but he doesn't know me and when i met him because I had heard his podcast for dozens of hours or hundreds of hours, I am more ready to accept that and welcome it than I might have been a few years ago because it is a little odd to have such a relationship where one person has 100% of the information and the other person has 1% or 2% of the information at best. It is a little odd, but that doesn't make it bad.

Odd doesn't equal bad. And for me, I've just taken that as an opportunity when I talk to people, whether it's you or someone else, to try to explore more of what they've experienced so that I can correct that imbalance of information, if that makes any sense. But it's not a bad thing. I mean, of all the problems to have in the world, this is a good problem to have. So I certainly try not to complain. I think with any conversation, it's, it's tough to get to the core of someone, but when you meet someone who's listened to you for so many years, um, you've already cut to the core of them. And so if you really want to talk to them, um, they're willing to kind of spill your guts to you or, or, to you or anyone, you know what I mean?

So you've already cut through a lot of that core with a lot of people who listen to you for so many years. Yeah. That's really cool. Well, I appreciate that. And on top of that, when people sometimes approach me, let's say they meet me at a book signing or something like that, and they say, well, you know, I know we don't know each other, but, and I want to say, if you've listened to dozens or a hundred plus of my podcast, you actually do know me pretty well.

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

that are simultaneously somewhat odd and very strange. That's what I would say. Absolutely. And I think that was my love of podcasts, is that a lot of people just have real conversations, and then when I go out and talk to my friends, and everyone's so hesitant, or talk to coworkersworkers everyone has a has a face they want to put out and it's hard to listening to to podcasts and people actually have real conversations when you have fake ones it just

doesn't matter as much and it's hard to break through strangers or friends when everyone has their guard up. Yeah, well, you know, I think that podcasters, you have to realize at a certain point, are also professionals. So it's not fair to hold strangers to the same standard where in Japanese, for instance, or in Japan, both they talk about honne, which is like your own, how you behave, your core of who you are, versus tatemai. Tatemai is like what you put forward. And they even talk about like stranger formality, tanin-gyogi, where you put that forward. So, this is not unique to Japanese. It's also found in every English-speaking culture and everywhere else. So I think that podcasting is an opportunity to not only listen and consume, but develop your own abilities of question-asking and empathy

that can aid you in your conversation with anyone, not just those who are related to the iTunes universe or otherwise. But tell you what, man, I got to run. I'm going to grab some more exogenous ketones, maybe some more gin. But I think I got to pull this to a close. But it was a pleasure talking to you. Likewise. Take it easy.

Bye. Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Take it easy. Bye. 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,

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