The Tim Ferriss Show - #227: Conquering Fear and Reducing Anxiety - Caroline Paul

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Starting point is 00:02:44 So check it out, tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and I'm recording this introduction inside a phone And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. entertainment business or otherwise. And this episode is going to be a little bit different. This is a follow-up episode by Popular Demand. And don't worry, it doesn't matter if you've listened to the first episode or not, although you should. So back by Popular Demand, Caroline Paul returns to the podcast for round two. She is answering your most popular questions as upvoted. And this is a standalone piece. You can enjoy it by itself. Caroline is the author of four

Starting point is 00:03:43 published books. Her latest is the New York Times bestseller, The Gutsy Girl, subtitle, Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure. I read this. I'm not a gutsy girl. Try to be a gutsy dude, but it is fantastic. It is not necessarily gender specific. And there's a lot to learn from Caroline. So she used to be afraid of a lot of things. Then she decided that fear got in the way of the life she wanted, one of excitement, confidence, and self-reliance. She has since flown planes, rafted huge rivers, climbed gigantic objects, mountains, Golden Gate, which I don't recommend, and fought fires as one of the very first female firefighters in San Francisco. She is amazing, and she's a very gifted writer and teacher. So in this episode,

Starting point is 00:04:24 Caroline answers many different questions and addresses many different topics, including the Cisco. She is amazing. And she's a very gifted writer and teacher. So in this episode, Caroline answers many different questions and addresses many different topics, including the best starting point for overcoming your fears. There are many times that I can use this myself, how to stay focused in the moment and not let your mind create anxiety and stress. Useful for me this week in particular, her biggest life changing experiences, coping strategies for dealing with life's most difficult events, and much, much more. So please enjoy this round two Q&A with Caroline Paul. Hi, this is Caroline Paul. And I'm really happy to be back with all of you and Tim on the Tim Ferris podcast for round two. And you sent me a bunch of questions and I'm going to answer some of them. Thanks so much. Let's just dive right in. So No Name asked,

Starting point is 00:05:13 if you're trying to change your relationship with fear, where do you start? It's hard to face it when it's breathing down on you. Any tips? Well, first of all, congratulations on changing your relationship to fear. I don't know if you're a woman, but if you are, this is an especially big step because as I've talked about, I feel really strongly that we as women have been so encouraged to be fearful that it's an underpinning of our life that we're often not even conscious of. So just taking this step is amazing. Here's my tip. It's really straightforward. Micro-bravery. Because here's a concept that a great organization calls girls' leadership, really articulated to me, which is that bravery is learned. And like anything

Starting point is 00:06:01 learned, it just needs to be practiced. And the way we practice things is to start small. So, micro-bravery, this is what they call it. I love that. Micro-bravery is basically breaking down your fears into either smaller steps or just starting small with any fear. And the reason we want to do that is because, well, first of all, you become aware of what it feels like to be fearful, because here's the truth. And I think I talked about this on the podcast before, but fear feels a lot like excitement has the same physiological characteristics of high heart rate, the sweat, nervous tension. And so often what we do, especially as women, because we're really not taught to discern the

Starting point is 00:06:53 nuances of fear because we aren't taught to value bravery like men are. So we aren't taught to really move through it, is that it feels so similar to excitement that we often mistake the fact that we're not actually completely subsumed with abject fear. We actually are feeling fear and other things, excitement, exhilaration, anticipation, curiosity, things that really will open up our life. And that actually is telling us, hey, this new experience is going to be kind of cool. But because, and again, often it's women, we haven't practiced bravery. So we don't really understand what we're feeling in times of stress or when we're pushing

Starting point is 00:07:39 outside our comfort zone. So when you practice bravery, and really what you're practicing is micro-bravery, you get really comfortable and you start to understand what fear feels like, and you start to discern all the nuances of that emotion. So the second thing you become knowledgeable about is what bravery is, because I think a lot of women don't really have a sense of what that feels like either. In fact, I like to turn around maybe even this question and say, well, it's not really changing your relationship to fear. It's changing your relationship to bravery. And so what we're doing, and I know I talked about this before, is that we are valuing a bravery paradigm instead of a fear paradigm. Because I do think we give permission to women to talk about fear a lot and to really emphasize it in ways that make it, that perpetuates it. The last thing you do is when you're practicing micro-bravery, you really start to develop a process of moving from fear to bravery. And that process,

Starting point is 00:08:59 when you use it in small instances, you can apply when you confront fear in bigger instances. And that can be an emotional fear and that can be fear in your workplace. And that can also be fear in the outdoors. Now, when you practice microbravery, I really want kids to practice it in the outdoors because it's really fun, the outdoors. And it's a really great way to understand that line between being scared and then excitement and then going to bravery, because it's just more obvious than if you're trying to practice in a more emotional situation. But as adults, I know, you already know whether you like the outdoors or not. This is not about like, oh, you have to be in the outdoors to be brave. Not true. You guys who are not so much outdoorsy can practice at home or in the workplace, small acts of micro-bravery. Again, really important.

Starting point is 00:09:59 This is something you start small so that you really get to know yourself and bravery better. An analogy might be deciding you're going to run at 5k. You don't just go run a 5k on the day of the race. You practice and you practice in small increments. You start by walking, you start by, then you proceed to running a little bit, you get the picture. So it's you breaking it down. And in that way, you're training and you're training to understand your body like a runner, and you're training to understand your own mind. So Haley Harris Bloom asks, Caroline is indeed, oh, thank you. Caroline is indeed incredible. Glad you're bringing her back. Thank you. What suggestions does Caroline have to those who work in the emergency medical community?

Starting point is 00:10:52 Well, first I'd say, realize that we are in a Shakespearean profession as emergency responders. What I mean by that is that all these calls you go on are high drama. What you're seeing is death, destruction, betrayal, birth, intrigue. And that's not only a tremendously powerful view into humanity, it's also an opportunity to really make yourself better. I mean, because trust me, if you're out on the streets, like I was, you're seeing the vast array of humanity and in its glory and in all its real sadness, actually. So in some ways that's really a privilege that frankly, I think we often forget about. So in order to really be inspired by our job and not burnt out by it, I would say that remember that the small gestures are so important. This is something that I wish that I had been more aware of at the time that, and it comes from an experience

Starting point is 00:12:01 I actually had, and I had been retired as a firefighter, but I was flying my experimental plane and I had a bad accident. It was humiliating. And it was also terrifying. And I was packaged up and put into the ambulance and I was being taken care of by a young paramedic. I remember his name, Nicholas. And he was so compassionate. He was so caring. He could have been my, I was old enough to be his mom. And, but he was so careful with everything he did. He would put his hand on my shoulder. He would lean over me when he talked because I couldn't move because I was, I was in C-spine and packaged really tightly because of my injuries. He would make sure that we saw each other's eyes and he talked to me. And his tone of voice was so comforting.

Starting point is 00:12:52 And I remember he used these endearments with me, sweetheart, dear. And usually I kind of find that annoying, but it was so calming for me. And I was so grateful for how present he was and how careful he was and caring he was. And it made me wonder, like right in that ambulance, was I this good as a firefighter? Did I treat the people that I came in contact with, with this sort of compassion? And I don't think I ever realized until I was in this accident myself, just how scared people are at this moment in their life and how much of a difference one person, one young, handsome, half my age paramedic, how much of a difference he's made. I still remember him all these years later, and I'm so grateful for him.

Starting point is 00:13:48 And so it's those gestures, it's those small gestures, it's that being present that matter. I know that that person with the heart palpitations is the umpteenth person with heart palpitations that you've probably had, maybe even that week. But for her, it's the most traumatic time of her life. And we can make such a difference in that moment. And that is so powerful. The other thing is, is that we have to make meaning of these calls because often they feel so chaotic and cruel. And I remember a fire that I went to, it was started by a guy who had been sleeping on the couch and he woke up and I think he dropped a cigarette, but anyway, the place was on fire. And instead of warning the people in, he just ran

Starting point is 00:14:40 out. And this was really disheartening because those six people were missing when the fire was out. And the chief came to us, the rescue squad, and said, hey, we got six people missing and we need you to do a search. And when you do a search in a house that's had a fire, what you're doing is you're on your hands and knees, combing through debris. It's like looking for a contact lens, but what you're looking for is people. You're pushing aside everything. And we found them. We found them in two areas.

Starting point is 00:15:19 It was one woman with two kids. And then in the other corner of the room, it was another woman with the other two kids. And it was really clear by the way they were lying that those women were trying to shield those kids. They had gathered those kids in their arms. They had maybe even went after those kids to try to just be with them when they died. I don't know the whole story, but the meaning I put to it is that those women were heroic. And in those last moments, those women also comforted the children and died together. And it showed me that amid the unfairness and the cowardliness, these women were heroes and that there was love at the end. And that even in the most stressful of circumstances, like when a fire is barreling down on you, you will gather

Starting point is 00:16:27 kids in your arms and they will be your last thought. And somehow that gives our whole job, you know, meaning, good meaning. And I think it keeps emergency workers like you and like me from total burnout. Hi, Rebecca Faber. You ask, what's the best gift to get? Firefighters. I have two firefighting brothers and I want to eventually buy them something that's not booze related. Okay. Well, I'm actually not very materialistic, so I might not be the best person to ask this, but I have to say that I do love old fire gear. You can find old nozzles and old fire boxes and old fire extinguishers online and also in flea markets. And so I actually have a small collection myself. I would also say that your brothers would like shirts and ball caps

Starting point is 00:17:25 from other fire departments. Stations sell them, at least here in San Francisco, separately. They each have their own distinct logos. And that could be really cool because especially if you walk into a firehouse and ask for this and then have an interaction with a firefighter and tell your brothers about it, that's even a bigger part of the gift. Finally, I'd say one gift that you might not think about, but would be great, and this isn't really for an occasion, but maybe read yourself about the job of firefighting. Because I think firefighters would really appreciate when their family members seem to understand a little more about what's going on in the job. And you'd be surprised how much you pick up from memoirs and books that talk about what firefighters do, even if your brothers aren't in those departments, even if they're

Starting point is 00:18:25 not in a big city department, there's so much similar that happens partly because the traditions run so deep. So I myself wrote a book about firefighting and I've read a lot of them. And we often tell very similar stories about what goes on in the fire, the antics in the firehouse, and also some of the horrors of our calls and some of the poignancy of our calls and the deepness of our bond. So reading books would be a gift that you can give your brothers, even though they might not even know it, but do that and give them those sweatshirts. Jeff Urban asks, how do you stay rooted in the present? You seem very focused. Hi, Jeff. Well, I've always been focused,

Starting point is 00:19:14 but I have to say I haven't always been rooted. I am very goal oriented. So if I want something done, I set deadlines and I'm really specific about it. So for my books, if I want to have a book bought, so then I plan my book proposal and I say, when is it going to be done? And I stick to that. And if necessary, I write it down so that I really know. So it's not just a mushy idea in my mind. It's there on the paper and I can see it. It's called sort of how many by when, when you're really specific about your goals. I think that's really important. I don't have a meditation practice or a breath practice. I wish I did. I do it sometimes, but what I do have is a really structured day. And so I get a lot done because I don't get distracted a lot. And by the way, there is a flip side to this, which means I can be inflexible. And I'm really, that's something I'm working on because I think that there is value in being looser, even though in my life I've gotten a lot done by being more what Wendy, my partner,

Starting point is 00:20:27 calls rigid and I call disciplined or as you call it, focused. The other thing I do, and this may lead a little more to rootedness, is that I don't schedule too much in a day. I always put in a padding between things because that means I'm not frazzled. And I think frazzled leads to unrootedness. You might still be focused when you're frazzled, but you're not going to be rooted. It's probably one of the reasons that I like adventure so much because I think that's where focus and rootedness intersect because I can be outside and that's where I often find my rootedness. And a lot of times the high adrenaline of the situation will really make me focused. So for instance, when I'm surfing and I'm not a good surfer, but I really love being outside in the water and I'm a really competent paddler and swimmer. So I find that's where I get most rooted and most

Starting point is 00:21:28 focused because I'm focused because I'm not that good. And I don't want to get hammered by a wave. I'm always looking and, you know, scrapping over a wave, scrabbling over a wave, trying not to fall off the lip, trying to get over when I'm going out, if there's no channel, which often there isn't. And then if I'm actually trying to catch a wave, it's paddling, looking back, paddling. And that's all I'm thinking about. I'm not thinking about anything else. I am super focused and I'm rooted because I'm really physically rooted in my body and also to nature. And I just feel quite complete. I don't, I'm really physically rooted in my body and also to nature. And I just feel quite complete. I don't, I'm not really thinking about anything else, but those, that simple movement of catching the wave, jumping up, trying to move the board and doing it all again.

Starting point is 00:22:21 And the, partly the simplicity of that movement is also very rooting. And one of the big reasons why I really like surfing, even though you can't really do it that well. And one other thing that a habit I have that I think really helps keep my day focused is that I, when I have to go somewhere, I don't think of the time I have to be there. I think about the time that I have to leave to be there. And one more thing on focus and the writing down and having a goal is that, you know, I don't know if you've ever ridden horses, but when I was young, we had horses and my mother used to say, when you're riding, make sure that you look where you want your horse to go because your horse can feel where you're looking and that's what they're responding

Starting point is 00:23:15 to. And I think it's the same with us as people. We need to always have our eye on where we want to go. When we take our eye off that, we are going to veer away from that path. So if I'm veering away, not getting something that I want, that I'm focused on, that I'm working hard towards, I really look like, is your eye really on that? Really? Because your horse is going the other way and it's really helpful. So thanks, Jeff. I appreciate that question. The next question is from Kynan Antos. I'd be

Starting point is 00:23:45 interested to know what your coping strategies are for being exposed to horrific human events. How do you persevere? Well, as a firefighter, one thing I came away with was a realization that tragedies are the result of a series of small forks in the road. They're not usually just one sudden catastrophic event. Preceding them has come a series of small forks in the road. They're not usually just one sudden catastrophic event. Preceding them has come a series of small decisions that have led up to this one big moment. And so from this realization that life is very much random and haphazard and chaotic and out of our control as puny humans, I did take some solace in the fact that maybe I could just make those small decisions a little better. And the way I do that is this theory of the checklist. It's something that doctors have come upon quite recently and that pilots have

Starting point is 00:24:41 been using forever, which is the idea that as experienced as you are, you need to stick to a checklist in certain decisions. Because if you don't, you will one day make a small error and that will lead to a very big mistake. So as pilots, we walk into our hangars and I've been flying since I was 18 and I still pick up my checklist and walk to my experimental and go through my experimental using that checklist to make sure it's flyable. And I do not deviate from that because I know that as a human, as experienced as I am, one of these days I'm going to make a mistake and forget something.

Starting point is 00:25:25 And that'll be the day that there'll be a mechanical error. Similarly, I employ this in my sort of day-to-day life in that I always wear my seatbelt. I know that sounds weird, but some people do say like, oh, you know, I'm only going half a block, but I've seen really bad accidents within half a block. But not only that, what I've seen is that there's this erosion where you drive half a block without your seatbelt and then you get into that habit. And then you start maybe driving across town without your seatbelt. And then you go on a long trip. So of course you put on your seatbelt, but the next time your trip's not so long and you don't blah, blah, blah.

Starting point is 00:26:06 It's, it gets so that one of these days you're going to make the wrong decision and you're going to have your seatbelt off when that car comes barreling at you. And so that's why I just simply decide that some of these very small decisions I'm going to have under my control and I'm going to try to make them consistently, not haphazardly. So that when the fates decide to intervene, that I have a pretty good chance of coming out okay. And I really think that was one of the biggest things that I came away with when seeing what you call these horrific human events, and they were, is that they feel whimsical and chaotic and random. But if I can just be really mindful of those smaller decisions, and I'm not overwhelmed by this idea that a piano might fall from a building onto my head, which sometimes seemed to be the way life was for a lot of people, then I could persevere through what you call these horrific events. Thanks so much for that question. Hi, Jason. You ask, how do you recommend avoiding gender bias with kids, i.e. clothes, toys, etc.?

Starting point is 00:27:21 You know, I just learned this astounding fact, and that is that many of the G movies that the little kids in our lives are seeing completely under-represent women and girls by a large proportion. So this sort of gender bias is starting really, really the statistics said that even in crowd scenes, women make up only 17%. And even the animals that are in kids' movies are portrayed as male. And to me, that's just, it's kind of mind-blowing how we begin to undervalue and underrepresent girls and women at such a young age and in every single corner of life, even a crowd scene. Anyway, so that's what we're up against here when we're talking gender bias. I don't really have any quick solutions for this, except to say that we should also be very aware that it starts at home. You and

Starting point is 00:28:27 I are both guilty of this. I think I might've talked about this in the previous episode, but studies show that we treat our girls differently than our boys. For instance, on the playground, we caution them much more, even though they're physically as equal as the boys, we already have an idea of, of their abilities or their inabilities. And we are telling them in all these different ways. So understanding ourselves. So for instance, one thing that drives me crazy, and I'm especially sensitive to this is when people use the word fireman. And I know it's only three letters, fireman. But when you say add the man to fireman instead of firefighter, what you're giving to kids is just this picture of a man all the time as a firefighter. And they never, it really doesn't sink in even now that women are firefighters. And same with police men and police officers. It's police officers, because when you

Starting point is 00:29:26 say police men, you are giving an idea that men can only, are the only thing, gender that can be police officers. So we have to start at home. After all this behemoth that we're fighting, that's the media is really hard, even for us to discern. I don't know if you realize how underrepresented women are in adult-themed films too. In PG and R-rated films, we are hardly ever stars. Our professions suck on film. We usually don't speak. And when we do, it's usually about our relationships or we're, even if you're the star, often, if you're in a scene with men, they will speak more, they will be given more lines. And all this is, none of this is malice. This is all unconscious stuff that we're perpetuating. And then our kids see, and then they grow up with. And I have to emphasize that we really need to teach our boys too about this.

Starting point is 00:30:30 And I wrote an essay on this for TED.com. But one thing is that we really want our boys to be reading books about girls, not just girls reading books about boys. And again, this is just to broaden their idea of what the genders can do. And I got a letter actually from a woman who bought Gutty Girl for her niece, because she said that her niece was, quote, scared of her own shadow. And she thought that this book would inspire her. And they read it. The niece came and visited and they read it together. And I'm sure they thought the writing was awesome and that the stories were good. But really the change that came over her over that week was less from actually just sort of

Starting point is 00:31:18 reading a good book than being inspired by role models for one. And for two, the fact that this concept was introduced of gutsiness, that suddenly this girl understood that there was this idea of how she could be. And she began even using that nomenclature. And her aunt sent me a photo of her in a tree that she had climbed looking super proud and said that she had also been petting animals and learning to hit a tennis ball and things like that, which really opened up this girl's life. And so having role models and giving kids more concept than the narrow ones we get from the media. Also super important. Hi, Katarina. You asked, you shared so many adventures in the first episode, but I feel like you have so many more. What adventures have been most life-changing for you and why?

Starting point is 00:32:17 I feel like I've spoken about the obvious life-changing ones, the ones where I rarely escaped death or injury. I wrote about most of those in The Gutsy Girl, and I talked about them. So on a subtler level, I will say, by the way, that most adventures offer me some one or more epiphanies, which is why I do adventures. But what I remember is when I went on a sea kayak trip down the coast of Baja, and I wasn't an expert sea kayaker and neither was my friend, but we read this book that this woman had written about her own sea kayak trip down Baja. And she listed the routes where you would pull into camp, what you would need to bring, how'd you get down there. And we followed that book to the T and we had our own just great adventure because it was Baja, which is just rampant wilderness. We saw nobody for the first

Starting point is 00:33:20 seven days of paddling. And we've had to bring all our water and it was pristine ocean and so much wildlife. And really it was just a huge adventure. And it wasn't like we were expert sea kayakers. We had taught ourselves how to navigate, but I remember on the second leg, so we did one seven day leg and then we pulled out, hitchhiked back to our car, drove down to another part of Baja and did another trip that she had outlined for us in her book. And we ran into these group of expert sea kayakers. They were from the Bay Area. They were a paddling association. And they asked us with quite a bit of disdain, do you know how to roll?

Starting point is 00:34:13 And both Trish and I looked and like, no, we don't know how to roll our fully loaded with water sea kayaks. And they said, if you don't know how to roll, you shouldn't be down here. And at first I was really taken aback and thought, wow, I wonder if they're right. And then I, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could understand their point. They were basically saying you can't be a Yahoo when you go on trips. We were already kind of Yahoo. We were doing this from a book, but we were also competent. We knew how to paddle. We knew how to swim. We were really good outdoors people. We had taught ourselves to use a compass on a kayak. We understood the weather. This was well before cell phones. But in fact, we had really taken care of

Starting point is 00:35:01 pretty much everything. And rolling was not, it would have been great, but it wasn't something that should have stopped us from this trip. And what I remember thinking is, wow, you know, I bet there's a lot of people who stop themselves from doing things because they just don't think they're expert enough. And while I think you need to be really sure that you can handle things, you don't have to be an expert on everything. There is a point where people are like planning and planning and preparing and preparing and they never actually do their adventure. Or they just never do their adventure because they don't think it's possible for them. When it is possible with a book and with the right mindset, the right adventure partner, and the

Starting point is 00:35:47 right basic set of skills. I guess Tim talks about this. Like what is the stuff that will, what is the percentage of thing you need to know, the least percentage in order to have the best time? And I think that rolling was not part of that. And years later, in fact, I went on a sea kayak trip with two friends. And again, we just looked at maps and went from island to island in Belize. And this time we were on sit-on tops. And sit-on tops have no deck. So, I mean, rolling is not even part of the equation when you see kayak like that. So I would say that in terms of life-changing, it made me realize that, you know, inertia is a powerful force to stop you from having adventures because you have, if you can get some time off work and get a little money together and have the right person,

Starting point is 00:36:52 all the other tools are at your fingertips. At least they were for me. And for that, I'm super grateful. Hi, Sumit Talwar. You have, ah, you have a ton of questions. That's nice. But you're going to ask one. It looks like one, One would be about your nighttime routine. How do you slow down at night and prepare for the next day? Well, my nighttime routine is to try to get to bed as early as possible because I'm the most productive in the morning and I'm not a night person. So in some ways, my night routine isn't of use because I just simply get tired. I don't sleep that well, but I do get tired. So a couple of things. I don't drink water after a certain time. So I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. Do not do that. I also don't look at screens about a half hour before I go to

Starting point is 00:37:37 sleep. You know, after the show, when I talked about how difficult it was for me to get a good night's sleep, I got some people getting in touch with me about sleeping well, which is my next step to look into. But for now, my major concern is always my morning because I really, really want to feel good in the morning. Thanks for your question. Hi, Kelsey. You ask about flying. You say, you mentioned in episode one about flying, but I was curious, why did you start flying? I think I started flying because I remember one very specific flying dream when I was a kid. I was flying like Superman, which is what we used to watch when we were kids. And it was over a city at night.

Starting point is 00:38:26 So it was all lights and it just looks so beautiful. And I think I always had that in my mind as well as the fact that flying seemed to be the utmost adventure. And I had heard of Amelia Earhart when I was a kid, she was a female adventurer. So I think that also meant that for me, flying was an option. I mean, I had this great role model of outdoor adventure. So I began flying Cessnas when I was 18. And even though I love that feeling of loosing from the earth and looking down and seeing that panorama below. Flying Cessnas never really made me that intrigued because as I say in the book, it wasn't really like flying like a bird. It was more like flying in a can of soup. So I changed to paragliders, which was a new sport at the time when I picked it up, very new. And it had been invented by climbers who wanted to get off a mountain without having to climb down. So they basically designed this sort of wing-like parachute that has a good glide ratio. So I flew paragliders for many years and I loved it because it was silent and you really did feel like you were flying like a bird.

Starting point is 00:39:48 I flew in Mexico and in Brazil and along the cliffs in California. And then at some point I decided, after I'd had many knee surgeries from being a firefighter, that I should probably switch to powered flight again, but not Cessnas because it didn't interest me. And I'd long been intrigued by what they called then ultralights. And so I became a pilot of these hang gliders with go-karts underneath them and lawnmower motors is basically what they look like. And that's what I fly now. And I love it. It's exhilarating to look down on the earth from that perspective. And the thing about weight shift trikes, which is what we call these hang glider type contraptions, is that you can fly very low and slow. So you see a lot of things. I see coyotes, I see leopard sharks,

Starting point is 00:40:47 I see incredible mansions over in the Napa Valley and see all different kinds of landscapes, the ocean, the sort of rolling hills of California and lots and lots of vineyards. So it's a beautiful way to get a perspective on things. And when I go flying, I often feel like all my problems are so small because I see from above just how big the world seems and how insignificant I do. And that's a perspective changer for me. The thing about flying though, is that it is kind of lonely because when you're up there, you are very alone. If something happens, nobody can help you. And it's sobering that way, but it's lonely in a,

Starting point is 00:41:34 in a sort of existential way, which I think I've always liked. And then there are moments when you, you do remember that you're actually not alone up there. I remember when I heard over the radio, a pilot calling in a Mayday, he had something wrong with his plan. I don't remember what it was, but he was going to come in a straight in landing to the airport. Could everybody please get out of his way? And you could hear the tension in his voice and the trepidation. And then another voice came on and it was another pilot. And he said really calmly, Hey buddy, you're going to be fine. Just remember to use your checklist. Remember to, you know, dah, dah, dah. And I remember thinking, Oh, okay. Even in the most

Starting point is 00:42:18 loneliest, scariest moments, you know, somebody can come in, calm you down and remind you to do the right steps. Cause this is the time when you're liable to make a mistake. I myself had engine issues once, and I remember watching the temperatures rise on my panel and thinking, I'm going to have to ditch. But ditching is not really the right word when you're talking about a hang glider with a motor. We do have a glide ratio. But I was still going to have to make an emergency landing if I didn't make it to the nearest airport. And I knew where the nearest airport was. So I thought, I really don't want to make an emergency landing. I've done those before and they can get really hairy. So let's try to make it to the airport before my engine seizes. So I'm looking at my

Starting point is 00:43:03 instrument panel and I'm heading right to the airport. And I seizes. So I'm looking at my instrument panel and I'm heading right to the airport. And I call in like that other guy did, keeping my voice as calm as possible, saying, I have an engine problem. I'm coming straight in. Please, please clear the way if anybody's in the traffic pattern. And it was a rinky dink airport and it was dusk. And I didn't get that soothing voice over the radio telling me that everything was going to be okay. I didn't get anybody. Nobody heard me. I land. My engine does not seize. It's completely overheating, though. I get out. I'm so relieved, and I look over, and I see a light in a hangar and I walk over and I say as

Starting point is 00:43:46 nonchalantly as possible, yeah, I had a little difficulty, had to make an emergency landing here. And he said, oh, come bring your plane in. You can keep it here overnight and I'll take you back to your airport. And of course, when you're a pilot and you're hanging with other pilots, that doesn't mean you get in a car. It means you get into his super trick, low wing aerobatic plane, and he flies you back to your airport. And you realize at once, first of all, how close that call was. And secondly, you know, what a great community pilots are. So flying has really offered me not only adventure, but and moments of poignancy and moments of relief, but also these moments of great camaraderie. Hi, William Yancey. You want to know, was there any moment when you became trapped or needed rescue yourself and how did this affect you and how did you move forward from there? When I was a firefighter, I never needed

Starting point is 00:44:40 anybody to rescue me. And in most of my adventures, when I did get myself into a hairy situation, I did get myself out. But there was one instance on the mountain of Denali where I did need rescue. And it taught me a very huge lesson, actually two in fact. I talk about this incident in my book, The Gutsy Girl. So I'll be quick about it. And if you want to read about it, please pick up the book. But Denali is a mountain in Alaska, and it's known to mountaineers for its very dangerous weather. But the year I went, I went actually twice.

Starting point is 00:45:16 But this one year, I went as a volunteer to help the park rangers at base camp at 8,000 because one of my very good friends, Eric, was one of the kick-ass emergency paramedic, rescue paramedics, very brave guy, super great mountaineer. So it was me, Trish, and Eric. And that year was really warm. So we decided that we would ski from base camp at 8,000 to 14,000 because this terrible weather Denali was known for suddenly wasn't happening. So we began our ascent using skins and rope together like mountaineers do. And the nightmare happened. Eric fell in a crevasse. And I was only competent in rope rescue because I had been a longtime member of Rescue 2,

Starting point is 00:46:07 and we were very well trained in rope rescue. But there's a big difference in performing rope rescue when you're an urban firefighter with 10 of your friends who've trained with you, and there's a big fire engine with a big bumper that you can attach your rope to as an anchor. In this situation, it was just snow. And so I had to set up an anchor to stabilize Eric and Trish, who were both on the rope, and pull Eric up, who was not responding. And so for all we knew, he was dead.

Starting point is 00:46:44 And making an anchor in that kind of snow was so brutal for me because the snow was so soft. What I learned was that because I wasn't experienced, I was relying on my narrow range of knowledge to set this anchor. And all the traditional methods weren't working well because how soft the snow was. And sometime in the middle of this terrible ordeal where we're setting up an anchor and beginning, and not an anchor that we were sure of in the end, and then trying to begin our leverage system to pull Eric up. Trish yells that there were climbers coming and that they could help us. And the first thing I said to her is, no way,

Starting point is 00:47:34 we're doing this ourselves. Now, my friend Eric is dangling at the end, unresponsive, in a deep crevasse. We know he's badly hurt if he's not dead even. And the first thing I think of when I see rescue is no way we have to do this ourselves, hurry up. That is a wrong attitude. And Trish was rightly really angry at me and said, we're in trouble and we need these people. And she was right. And even though as an outdoors person, I have a very strong belief that we have to get ourselves out of the situations we get ourselves into. Well, I was not doing it and we needed the help. And sure enough, these climbers come and they give us the look of disdain that we deserved for being unable to handle these conditions that were unexpected and difficult. And they pulled Eric out. And when he got to the surface and gained

Starting point is 00:48:35 consciousness, he was really badly, he had a very bad head wound. It was not altogether there, but the first thing he said to me is do not call a helicopter, please do not call a helicopter. I'll ski down. And I looked at him and I knew exactly where he was coming from. He didn't want to be rescued either. He didn't want to be humiliated in front of his peers. He knew that if you were an outdoors person and you got yourself into something, you had to get yourself out. So he wanted to ski down. And I just looked at him and I said, I know, honey, I know exactly what you're talking about, I know, honey, I know exactly what you're talking about, but we're calling that helicopter. So there's a lot of lessons on pride there. And look, I might've been, you know, iron rope person because I was a firefighter in a big

Starting point is 00:49:19 city, but what I lacked was a specific experience on the mountain. And so what I didn't have was a nimble mind. I kept trying to use the techniques that I had been taught in crevasse rescue because I had, I had done some practice crevasse training, of course, but I kept using those same techniques that I had been taught to try to set this anchor that took so long to set because of the terrible snow. When I should have immediately been way more nimble mentally and seen that what I was doing wasn't working and that I would have to get creative. And the way you get creative and what any really good mountaineer would have done,

Starting point is 00:50:02 she would have immediately taken off her ski and seen what her ski could do and buried it in the snow and use that as an anchor. Because when you bury a ski perpendicular to the snow, it acts like what we call a dead man, a completely secure anchor because of the way that it leverages against the snow, you bury it perpendicular. So any pulling on it, that ski will not dislodge no matter how soft that snow is. But of course, I wasn't that mountaineer. I was a person who learned by the book and was trying to execute by the book, even though nothing about the situation was by the book, as they never are in the wilderness. And what I learned now, if I ever get myself into that

Starting point is 00:50:52 situation again, I will be very quick to see whether I am simply trying to do the same lame thing over and over, or whether I should be trying to think outside the box and blow apart the box that I've been taught to find new creative ways to get myself out of that situation. And that's, that's when you ask, how did I, what did I take away from that? Those are the two things, pride and get creative because what you learn in perfect situation is not going to be what you can apply when things hit the fan. And on that note, I'll wrap it up. You guys sent more questions, but they pretty much covered all that territory. So thanks so much for listening. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Thank you. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off.

Starting point is 00:51:45 Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered.

Starting point is 00:52:08 It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend.

Starting point is 00:52:29 So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is the future of financial advice.

Starting point is 00:52:47 They've become incredibly popular among my friends in Silicon Valley and across the country because they provide the same high-end financial advice that the best private wealth managers deliver to the ultra wealthy, but for any account size and at a fraction of the cost. For instance, they monitor your portfolio every day across more than a dozen asset classes to look for opportunities to rebalance or harvest tax losses. Now, would you do the same? Are you doing the same? Probably not. And the power is in the software. Wealthfront now manages more than $4 billion in assets, which is up from around $2.5 billion when they started advertising on this podcast. They're growing incredibly quickly. Unlike old-fashioned private wealth managers,

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Starting point is 00:54:09 behavior and decisions that people typically don't make, but should. So go to wealthfront.com forward slash Tim to get your first 15K managed for free, or just to get more details. Check it out wealthfront.com forward slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind in the best way possible. It is mushroom coffee.

Starting point is 00:54:39 What on earth is this? Well, it includes chaga mushroom, very powerful antioxidant considered a superfood. I was introduced to chaga by Laird Hamilton, the king of big wave surfing of all things. And it includes another mushroom that is considered a no tropic, a smart drug. And this is lion's mane. In the entire packet, you just add it to hot water. It tastes like coffee. There is only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so less than half what you would find in a cup of coffee. So I do not get any jitters.

Starting point is 00:55:08 I do not get any acid reflux or any type of stomach burn. And it put me on fire for an entire day. And I only had half of the packet. So this stuff is really amazing. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement. Right now, this is the answer. So it is legal. It will not give you visuals. That's something else. And you can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com forward slash Tim. That is foursigmatic, S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C, foursigmatic.com forward slash Tim and use the code Tim to get

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #227: Conquering Fear and Reducing Anxiety - Caroline Paul

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #227: Conquering Fear and Reducing Anxiety - Caroline Paul

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