The Tim Ferriss Show - #718: In Case You Missed It: December 2023 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers, and it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self-experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers,

Starting point is 00:00:30 have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time. Because after all, the podcast, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free. It's always going to be free. And you can learn more at Tim.blog forward slash Friday. That's Tim.blog forward slash Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast. Some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with. And little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 00:01:03 So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. 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.

Starting point is 00:01:35 So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. Optimal minimum. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a question? and thanks for checking it out. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types to tease out the routines, habits, and so on that you can apply to your own life.

Starting point is 00:02:18 This is a special in-between-isode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from the last month. It features a short clip from each conversation in one place, so you can jump around, get a feel for both the episode and the guest, and then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite. It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together. And for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description probably right below wherever you press play in your podcast app. Or as usual, you can head to Tim.blog slash podcast and find all the details there. Please enjoy. First up, another ridiculously entertaining edition of The Random Show with serial entrepreneur and world-class

Starting point is 00:03:06 investor, Kevin Rose. My wrapping up comments would be this. I recently went out to dinner with five close friends of mine, of which you know most of them. Yeah. Just like the crew. The Wu-Tang Clan. Yeah. Just good friends. And one of the things I did is I went around the circle and I said a few words of gratitude. And I think to my earlier point, one of the things that's really important to me after coming out of this therapy is just this vulnerability that allows us to speak

Starting point is 00:03:44 from the heart because we don't know what tomorrow brings. And I just want to say that, Tim, you have been a friend of mine for so long now. And I have appreciated the fact that my career has been a series of ups and downs and all over the place, and you have been a steadfast friend, someone that sends me some of the funniest videos I've ever seen in my life, always keeps it lighthearted and fun. But I know that you care deeply about me

Starting point is 00:04:15 and I just want to let you know that I love you and I care deeply about you. And I will always be here to have your back and I'm wishing you a fantastic new year. I hope that you hit all these milestones and more that you want to hit. Because I know that you are someone that I've always looked up to and someone that is just so inspirational to us all that listen to your show and your podcast. Because you inspire us to do more and to be better humans. And I just want to let you know that that means a lot to me,

Starting point is 00:04:47 and I love you. Well, thanks, Kevin. That's amazing. That makes my night. Happy to say it. Yeah. It's the truth. I love you too, man.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Our friendship has been such a constant for me, such a lifeline in a way with all the ups and downs, and holy shit, I mean, both of us have had some with all the ups and downs and holy shit. I mean, both of us have had some pretty wily ups and downs. You've had a lot of hot chicks. I will say, I didn't see that coming.

Starting point is 00:05:14 Yeah. Well, you talked about the ups and downs. I was like, you've got a lot of ups, my friend. Yeah. I mean,

Starting point is 00:05:19 yeah, I've look, that's one category. That's a one category. And I'm grateful for that. And life is like a box of chocolates, right? You just never know what's around the corner. It's true.

Starting point is 00:05:31 It's true. That's why it's important to say these things. It is. It is. And I'll tell you something you don't know. I have your Christmas slash New Year's card from like two years ago. So obviously out of date. It's like you and Daria and the kids.

Starting point is 00:05:46 And it's up in my kitchen. Amazing. And I kept it there because I love seeing you guys every day. And I think about you guys all the time. And just have such love for your family. And I'm so grateful for our friendship. So I love you too, man. As you said, it's important to say things are so uncertain.

Starting point is 00:06:09 And I've never experienced, I've had friends pass from cancer before. But I've never been there every step of the way from diagnosis to last conversation a few days before they passed. That was new for me yeah and it affected really deeply affected me on a bunch of levels and i want to be deeply affected by that i don't want to push that aside in part because roland was so joyful and curious and optimistic until the end in a very genuine way. It wasn't an act. It wasn't theater.

Starting point is 00:06:53 That raised a bunch of aspirations in me because he was first and foremost, a very dedicated seasoned meditator. Psychedelics were a piece of the puzzle, but first and foremost, he was a dedicated meditator for decades. That's amazing. And attributed a lot of his equanimity and preparation for death, which I got to see firsthand.

Starting point is 00:07:10 A lot of people talk about it, right? But let's be honest, or I'll be honest. I've read all the Stoics or a lot of the Stoics and I've read all sorts of Buddhism and rehearsed death and memento mori and this, that, and the other thing. But when I'm actually on, as Roland said, the final glide path, I don't know how I'm going to respond. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:07:30 I have no idea. So to see someone who really walked the walk in such a life-affirming way that lit everyone up around him was tremendous. And he said what he was able to, and he was willing to say what he meant to those people around him who meant things to him. And you don't have to wait until you have terminal cancer diagnosis. You shouldn't wait. Just because it may not be that, right?

Starting point is 00:07:59 It may be a car crash. It may be something where you don't get the chance to say these things. And so I just, yeah, it's important to do it now yeah you gotta do it great to see you man yeah good to see you all right happy new year excited for uh this is gonna be uh oh don't just a little bit of cheers to the new year and to all the listeners out there uh you know wishing you a happy and healthy new year and yeah i'm excited to i mean it's always a new year of change a new year change and exploration i think the one thing that you and

Starting point is 00:08:32 i let's take a sip the one thing that you and i have in common is just this lifelong pursuit of evolution of like figuring out because the secret that no one will tell you is no matter how much money you make, no matter how much success you have, we're all still figuring out. And in Ram Das's words, we're all just walking each other home. Yeah. Well said, man. I'm going to leave it there. There we go. Cheers, buddy. Happy New Year. Happy early New Year. And happy New Year to everybody listening. And as always, be just a little kinder than is necessary until the next episode. That applies to other people, but also applies to yourself. Take it easy.

Starting point is 00:09:17 Take it easy. You know, life is short, but life is long. And we're all just figuring it out. And by the way, as far as I can tell, you never really figure it out. No, you don't. So true. So true. CTFO.

Starting point is 00:09:32 Chill the fuck out a little bit. Be a little easier on yourself. Next up, Matt Mullenweg, founder and CEO of Automatic and co-founder of WordPress, the open source publishing platform that now powers more than 40% of all sites on the web. For someone who's having a hard couple of weeks, and you mentioned Tony Robbins earlier, I will mention something that I learned from him. I don't know if he's the original source of this, but I used to put this at the top of my journals. I would write it

Starting point is 00:10:09 out at the top of my journal so that I would see it every morning. And it was basically, let's call it a flow chart. That's an overstatement. And it said, STATE, in all caps, with an arrow that went to STORY then that went to strategy so state story strategy and what that meant to say is what happens to many people who are depressed or anxious or whatever is they sit down and they try to figure out how to fix the thing they go straight to strategy what should i do the challenge there is that if you're looking at the world through gray glasses, the story that you're going to come up with is going to be most likely a disabling story. And then you're going to come up with strategies that are, by and large, pretty ineffective. If, on the other hand, you start with state.

Starting point is 00:11:03 So if you're in a low-energy state, you hop in a cold shower for five minutes, or you do 50 jumping jacks, or you do 20 pushups, anything to change your state from a low energy state to a higher energy state. And that's governed by all sorts of things. Well, let's keep it simple. So low to higher energy state. Then you sit down and you're able to, because of changes in neurotransmitters or any number of things, you have a more enabling story. So you've turned the gray, maybe a tint or two brighter. Then the strategies you come up with are going to be more effective. So just reminding myself constantly, before you jump to the strategy, like the what to do, the how to fix, have you addressed the state? Because this thing in between,

Starting point is 00:11:50 the story really matters. Because if your narrative is, oh, I'm always pessimistic, I've never been able to fix this, you're starting at a deficit. You have a severe handicap in coming up with approaches that are going to help you. So that might be helpful to people as well. Like state, story, strategy. That is the order. I gotta give credit to my mom too. She gave me a list of three things that I found really helpful. She was like, did you sleep?

Starting point is 00:12:16 Are you drinking water? So sleep, water, and then you've been in nature. It's a good checklist. I like that because it's three. And so sometimes I just do like a check. I'm being like, ah man, this morning's so so tough i felt like i wasn't great in that meeting and i'll just i can run that yeah sometimes the body scan i also ask myself like am i hangry yeah you know the basics because our body kind of emotions come from our system and sometimes

Starting point is 00:12:40 it's saying i'm hungry i'm hungry and it's coming through as something else. Our brain interprets it. Yeah, totally. And to invoke our mutual friend Kevin Kelly in his book of excellent advice, which came out not too long ago. Great book, very pithy. And one of them is, if you don't know what you need, chances are it's sleep. Or if you don't know what to do, chances are you need more sleep. And if you're in a depressed state, and this is something I have to remind myself of,

Starting point is 00:13:08 I would be inclined even subconsciously to consume stimulants because that does change your state. But if you consume stimulants and then that disrupts your sleep architecture, and then maybe you drink a little booze to take the edge off because you're trying to get to sleep, this is a vicious cycle. And I had Richard Branson on the podcast years ago, and his advice was stop drinking. As far as depression goes, he was just like, in nine out of 10 cases, alcohol is somehow in that picture, in his lived experience, in his social circles. So those are a few things that come to mind.

Starting point is 00:13:45 There are other things, certainly, I mean, I could go on and on. I think the work by Byron Cady and doing turnarounds, interrogating your beliefs is very valuable. So if you have a belief that I'm making this up, but my sister is selfish and always does what she wants. There are many work pages and exercises that are available for free on Byron Katie's website. So if you just search Byron Katie, B-Y-R-O-N-K-A-T-E-I-E, the work, you'll find the website. All sorts of PDFs you can take down. But let's just say, my sister's selfish, she only does what she wants. You would then create alternative sentences and find supporting evidence for each one. So my sister isn't selfish. She

Starting point is 00:14:26 never does what she wants. And you have to come up with some examples. You might also replace it with, I'm selfish. I always do what I want. And then you come up with some examples. And I and others have found these exercises to be incredibly powerful. There are a million and one different varieties of this. For me, the turnarounds where you have to come up with confirming evidence for statements that were not your starting statement, I find defangs your beliefs, which are

Starting point is 00:14:57 thoughts we take to be true. I like that a lot. Take a bite of Charlie Munger. He says you should be able to argue the opposite just as well as you can argue your case. Last but not least, recorded in Lisbon, Portugal, Andrew Rosner, founder and CEO of Media Options, an industry-leading domain broker. Pursuit of happiness. Small one. How do you think about the pursuit of happiness?

Starting point is 00:15:30 Because I will say, having spent time with you, you strike me as overall a pretty happy guy. You got a little meth-y edge to you, a little twitchy, a little bouncy, but you smile a lot of the time. Yep. I don't know if you're crying on the inside, but you seem like generally a pretty happy-go-lucky guy. I'm a pretty content person. Content. Okay. I have moments of happiness,

Starting point is 00:15:48 but I'm pretty content. Okay. So tell me more about this and what you... So I guess the way that I think about it is that I generally want to be content. I don't necessarily pursue happiness. I pursue contentment. Is that wanting what you have or being grateful? What does that mean? Yes. I think that's another way of saying it. But for me personally, it's a bit more that Terrence McKenna had this theory of novelty that ultimately that's what evolution is all about.

Starting point is 00:16:18 It's just about the pursuit of novelty. And that resonated with me. And I basically surmised that I think the purpose for each of our individual lives is truly, if you zoom out and you look at it from a species focus as opposed to an individual focus, the purpose for each individual life is actually just novelty.

Starting point is 00:16:36 It's about unique characteristics that make you, you and how you engage with the world around you and what that leads to. And this novelty is actually the objective or should be the objective, again, in my opinion. Meaning there's like a variety of different characteristics, survival of the fittest. Is that how the novelty- Sure. Not necessarily. I think survival of the fittest is a mechanic in the game,

Starting point is 00:17:02 but it's not necessarily the end-all be- all of the game. I think it's really just about the pursuit of novelty that you need to do things that nobody's done before. You need to react to things in a way that is not typical. If you do things like everybody else has done things or like everybody else does things, then you can't expect a different outcome than what everybody else has had. And I certainly am not looking for the outcome

Starting point is 00:17:24 that everybody else has. You got one shot at this thing. I want to do something else. I want to stand out. I want to pursue greatness or whatever that means. But I certainly, above all else, I don't want to be like other people. I don't want to be like anybody else, like any other individual or like any other group of individuals. I don't like labels. I just want to pursue novelty. And what I found that to mean, once you go another layer, is that really what most of life is, is actually friction and pain and suffering. And we have developed our society to run away from that. You have a right to happiness. You should be in the pursuit of happiness. And I think that makes us soft. I think that makes us avoid risk. I think that makes us avoid pain. It makes us avoid hard work. And everything that I've seen, everything

Starting point is 00:18:22 that I enjoy comes at the expense of pain, suffering, hard work, whether that's my marriage, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of pain and compromise. But through that, you achieve love and you achieve this amazing relationship that's irreplaceable. Through those days of suffering and doing whatever it takes to make $250 a day, I was able to build a business that makes a lot of money and fits my lifestyle. I've optimized it for exactly the way I want to live. I don't want to scale it. I want to have 60 employees. I want to have four, five. I want to just keep doing what I'm doing. Just hone my skill and hone my skill

Starting point is 00:19:03 and just, I love what I do. But all of that takes suffering and pain. I think the best way to highlight it is like art. Show me one meaningful piece of art, cultural art, that came as a result of like rainbows and butterflies and happiness. Great art comes from pain, suffering, heartache, mental illness, just terrible circumstances.

Starting point is 00:19:28 It's really great art comes from the darkness, not from the light, but you need both. And if you ignore the darkness, you will never get the light or you'll always be chasing the light. The light will always be in the distance, but you have to lean into the pain. You have to, off camera, we were talking about something else and you were saying, you know, I just sit with it. And that's precisely it. You have to sit with the pain. Don't block it out. Don't ignore it. Don't push it away. Run into it. Run into the pain. Run into the hard stuff. Run into the stuff that nobody else wants

Starting point is 00:20:01 to do because that's how you achieve novelty. And through novelty, you achieve everything. It doesn't matter what your definition of success is. I can assure you that that person is successful by whatever definition you're holding them up to be through novelty. They did something that other people were afraid to do, that other people didn't think of. Whatever it is, it was achieved through novelty. And as far as I can tell, all greatness is achieved through novelty. It's doing things that other people don't want to do, doing things that other people are afraid to do, doing things that other people wouldn't even think about doing. And now here are the bios for all the guests. Matt Mullenweg, domain ma.tt,

Starting point is 00:20:45 which is pretty fun. So I go by ma.tt sometimes. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, a few hours from here in Austin. And at the age of 19, I co-founded an open source software called WordPress, which is a blogging content management system. Fast forward 20 years, it's been 20 years now,

Starting point is 00:21:03 and runs over a third of all websites in the world a few years after that i founded a company called automatic which is kind of like the for-profit side of commercializing things around wordpress automatic m-a-t-t yes it's it's like any egotistical founder i snuck my name into the company and we started with just sort of a kismet anti-spam, and WordPress.com. Kind of easy ways to get going with WordPress. But since I've expanded to e-commerce with WooCommerce, one I'll talk about

Starting point is 00:21:31 with messaging. We've done a number over 25 acquisitions. So we're trying to be like a digital Berkshire Hathaway. Like a buyer of first resort for amazing things on the internet. Pretty much everything we do is open source or open web. So we bought Tumblr. So we're running Tumblr for the last few years.

Starting point is 00:21:48 Basically trying to, yeah, I would like future generations to grow up with a web that is more open, more free, gives more liberty. And so open source is really my life's work, even above WordPress and anything else. And yeah, I hope to work on it the rest of my life. Andrew Rosner. Andrew is the founder and CEO of Media Options, which has been the number one domain broker in the world for the last six consecutive years. We talk about a lot more than domains and his life trajectory, his adventures are amazing.

Starting point is 00:22:22 His mentors are characters, to put it mildly. But let's focus on the bio. Since 2008, Andrew has been involved in more than $600 million in domain sales and has played a pivotal role in numerous high-profile domain name transactions, including x.com to Elon Musk, zoom.com to Zoom, and prime.com and podcast.com to Amazon, as well as thousands of others. So we get into how this business works, what the ecosystem looks like, what best practices look like, what differentiation looks like. And we also talk about all of those things and how he cut his teeth in the seafood arbitrage business and in other areas.

Starting point is 00:23:04 Andrew is an inductee of the domain name Hall of Fame. He was named Domain Investor of the Year by Traffic, and he is the creator of the Rosner Equation, which he did not name himself. It was named after him, a formula for objectively valuing domain names widely adopted by the industry. Andrew is also the owner of DomainSherpa.com, the industry's leading educational podcast on all things domains. You can find him on Twitter at Andrew Rosner, R-O-S-E-N-E-R. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter, called Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 00:23:52 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your

Starting point is 00:24:36 browser, tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #718: In Case You Missed It: December 2023 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #718: In Case You Missed It: December 2023 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

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