The Tim Ferriss Show - Episode 5: Jason Silva

Episode Date: May 12, 2014

Jason Silva (@JasonSilva) is a filmmaker and has been called the "Timothy Leary of the viral video age" by The Atlantic. He is also host of Brain Games on National Geographic Channel. The show set a record as the highest-rated series launch in Nat Geo's history, with an average of 1.5 million viewers for the first two episodes.In this episode, we discuss his career, his skills, TV, what it means to be a "performance philosopher," and much, much more. 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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the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by HipDial, the easiest way to make conference calls. If you ever need more than two people on the phone, you give them a number, no pin. You don't have to sit and wait on an empty line with crappy music. You get a text message when anyone joins. It's very easy, relieves just a bit of the headache of life. And you can get a free month by going to hipdial.com, H-I-P-D-I-A-L.com forward slash Tim. Take a look, check it out. And our guest for this episode is Jason Silva, a friend of mine. I first reached out to him for advice related to television because he is very well known as the host of Brain Games, which I

believe is the highest rated show on National Geographic ever to be broadcast. But he's much more than that. He's very international, born in Venezuela, and you could call him a performance philosopher. What on earth does that mean? You'll find out. He is a filmmaker. He is one of the most spectacular speakers I've ever seen. And he has been called by The Atlantic, Timothy Leary of the viral video age. And we will learn exactly what that means, exactly who he is in this episode. I hope you enjoy it. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show.

All right, Jason Silva, welcome to the Tim Ferriss podcast, the nascent fetal Tim Ferriss podcast. And I'm really excited to have you here to chat. This is obviously going to be a meandering conversation like all of my conversations are, but I want to introduce those people who may not know you to your work because I find it so fascinating what type of work you've carved out for yourself. And I mean, The Atlantic has described you as Timothy Leary of the viral video age. not sure if that really does credit, full credit to what you do, but you are really, I mean, a modern day working philosopher for lack of perhaps a better description. I'd be curious to know how you explain what you do or answer the question, what do you do? Yeah, well, it's interesting. I was having a conversation recently with a writer that I really like, and she said that I was addicted to cognitive ecstasy.

So basically, yeah, because I often describe myself as an epiphany addict. And what I mean by that is that I feel that I am most alive. And I think most people can relate to this feeling. I feel like I am at my most alive when I have these profound moments of just kind of revelation and understanding. These moments when the gestalt is revealed, when I see something in a new way, when a pattern is revealed. There's that great Isaiah Berlin line that says, to understand is to perceive patterns. And so I guess you could say that I'm an autodidact and I'm a lifelong learner and I'm very curious by nature, but it's not just, it's mostly about where I arrive when the moments of curiosity finally deliver, right? So again,

that cognitive ecstasy. And so my work, my content, the media that I make is a direct reflection, I think, of these obsessions and sensibilities. But the best incarnation of which now is Shots of Awe, which is my web series, which again is a kind of stream of consciousness orgy, if you will. I kind of go and delve and rant and riff on a variety of topics that have to do with maybe futurism, existentialism, metaphysics, the technology, the co-evolution of humans and technology. I mean, I guess basically anything that I'm reading about or thinking about that is leading me to these head spaces of wow is what I try to capture with Shots of Awe. And I know that sounds like a mouthful, but that's really what it is.

It's my best attempt at sort of dealing with my obsessions and meanderings through media as the output. For me, there are a few things that really jump out and have jumped out about your work. The first is a lot of people would consider themselves lifelong learners and autodidacts, but you're really good at connecting dots that perhaps have not been connected publicly before and

drawing connections that leads other people to have these aha moments. And I remember we were chatting a few weeks ago, obviously have been very eager to learn from your experience hosting on television. You've done Current TV, Brain Games, obviously, which has been a huge hit for National Geographic. You're one of the best presenters, I think, on television. I really believe that. And not only that, but you're one of the best presenters I've ever seen on the stage. And I recall watching your presentation, We Are the Gods Now,

from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. And I just remember thinking to myself the whole time, I could not do that. Like, how does this guy speak so fluidly as you sort of slalom through these different subject areas. How did you, how did you hone the craft of presenting and teaching really is I think how I look at it, but you're so damn good at it. How, how take us back.

Yeah. Well, I mean, is this just a, and there are natural gifts. I mean, are you, is,

is that, did you have a natural gift for this type of thing? How did it come about? Wow, man. I, I thank you so much, first of thing? How did it come about? Wow, man. Thank you so much, first of all, for the incredibly kind words and observations. But it's interesting because hearing you just now, just the way you even formulated the question, you seemed like you were in a flow state.

You seemed like you started off somewhere and you went on these descriptions and then eventually brought it back and then you asked me the question which was great and i often tell people that that that what i just noticed in you is pretty much what i try to create or to deliver or really to induce in myself when i'm talking about ideas which is to have to go into a flow state you know you're probably familiar with steven kotler yeah so he he just wrote his new book the rise of superman is all about how athletes seem to have honed in. They seem to have hacked flow, essentially. And, of course, flow is connected to states of maximum, optimum human performance. So, of course, extreme sports athletes are really good at doing it. That's why they're able to push the envelope of what's possible in the sport. And, you know, these flow states have to do with, I guess, with the skill set, finding the space, the opportunity to fully express itself after you've achieved your 10,000 hours of practice or whatever, you get to this kind of no mind state, you know, where you're kind of hyper-focused,

but at the same time, you're not all there, you know, you get out of your own way, so to speak. And I think for me, my sport maybe is this kind of verbal, verbal wordplay, like improvisational wordplay is kind of my my sparring it's my freestyle scheme you know and and in this whole search for the elusive fugue state known as flow there's been a lot of science recently they've done fmri scans on freestyle rappers when they go into these flow states and And of course, freestyle rappers are literally doing stream of consciousness. They start rapping about a topic

and the whole thing is an unscripted flow. And they compare those fMRI scans with the brains of a rapper doing like reciting memorized lyrics. And what they found out is that a part of the brain responsible for self editing, I think it's the lateral prefrontal cortex, I might be wrong, but that a part of the brain responsible for self-editing, I think it's the lateral prefrontal cortex. I might be wrong, but a specific part of the brain responsible for self-editing seems to go dim. So whatever it is that's in there, in their subconscious, is being served up to their frontal lobe.

Like that scene in the movie Limitless when the guy takes the pill for the first time. And all of a sudden, everything he's ever read, every half-read magazine article, every book, every TED Talk he ever sat through, everything that he never even thought he had registered to full memory gets all of a sudden served up by his subconscious to his frontal lobe, which is creating a cocktail of the necessary useful information that he needs at any given moment. So I think that's a perfect description of a flow state in rappers, in athletes, in the guy from the movie Limitless. And I think that

for whatever reason, for me, it's always been words, words directly related to what I am thinking, words that connect to my musings and explorations at any given moment. And, you know, to go back to my childhood, my mom is a teacher, so that probably had a lot to do with it. She taught high school English literature and she was, you know, an incredibly celebrated teacher that transformed the lives of a lot of students.

So I grew up in that environment, right? And I was surrounded by her poetry books and her instruments and her sculptures. And so that was the fertile ecology of ideas that I grew up in, number one. And so that was the fertile ecology of ideas that I was, that I grew up in, number one. And then in middle school, I used to often, I was actually a timid kid. I mean, I still am. I'm more of a site-specific extrovert, but by nature, I'm sort of timid and reserved, except when it comes to ideas that engage me. And then I come alive. And then I used to win,

you know, the public speaking award or the the creative writing award it was always when I was engaged if I wasn't engaged I was actually shut down how how early was this this was uh since like you know seventh yeah sixth seventh eighth grade I was already like winning in like you know debate class or or the public speaking type of stuff was what I was recognized for but it was usually it had to be sentences that had fire ideas that had fire. Like it wasn't that I was lecturing about something that I had no interest in. So it wasn't really about drama class. It wasn't about remembering a monologue that didn't tickle my fancy.

It was more about me digesting something that was compelling and then it coming out in remixed form using my my sort of my workplace and you were where were you born and raised I grew up in Venezuela and I lived in Caracas the capital until I was 18 and I grew up bilingual like I basically in my house they spoke English and Spanish at the same time and and and i went to a spanish-speaking elementary school and then first seventh grade and on middle school and high school i went to an international american school in venezuela so and in college and then you got in the states the college in the states i was in florida university of miami yeah film and philosophy yeah well that that seems to be one of the rare instances where what you studied in school ported directly to what you're

doing now i was east asian studies i guess one could argue that it has some role in in the things that i've done up to this point but what um i i uh i wrote down something you said to me on the phone a few weeks ago. I had gone skiing with a few friends who are much better than myself and had explained how I learned what tomahawking is, which is really violently just getting thrown like a rag doll down a hill effectively. So I was taking the day off and I called you for some advice related to TV stuff. And I remember that one of the lines, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you said, you know, luxury is novelty or something along those lines. And so

I hope I'm not misquoting you, but I could just have you clarify that by asking, you know, what really makes you feel alive? What are the things that really excite you? And what are the things that you find torturous? Yeah, on the flip side? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I remember that conversation. Yeah, luxury is novelty is definitely connected to, I guess, what I've read about dopamine as a sort of mood regulating neurotransmitter. So we get rewarded with dopamine every time we sort of partake in a new activity. So it rewards us. Originally, in terms of evolution, we were rewarded for spreading widely, right? So exploring and overcoming obstacles and mating lots of mates. And today we get that same dopamine hit every time our phone vibrates, every time somebody tweets at

us, every time that, you know, we get new followers on Twitter or go on a date with a new hot girl or just meet somebody new for the first time, see something we've never seen before. And when dopamine floods our system, from what I understand, we come alive because it immediately arrests our attention and our senses are heightened. And all of a sudden that, which is of the everyday, which is stale and invisible is pushed aside and everything becomes as if seen for the first time. And there is a kind of rhapsody to that because,

you know, we, we all remember what it was like to be a kid and go into a toy store for the first time, seeing a roller coaster for the first time, like seeing an IMAX film for the first time. There's something kind of amazing when we can transcend what michael pollan calls the been there's and done that's of the adult mind right another jaded like to me

being jaded is almost like being dead like oh my god like nothing impresses you because you feel like you feel like you've seen it all before and you go through life with basically dark lenses on you know the curtains closed no light gets in no rhapsody gets in and to me that's as death and so yeah when you know back to the idea of being like an addict or liking being into cognitive ecstasy or as carl sagan used to say being a wonder junkie you know notice that he combines the words wonder with the word junkie right so it's like it's like he he's hitting his vein with a syringe of wonder because that's how much he wants to be in awe. And when you look at a presenter like Carl Sagan, I think the reason we enjoy his work is because the guy is like in a reverential, ecstatic state when he talks about the universe. I mean when he speaks of it, it's like he's coming. Intellectually, he's having a mindgasm. And so I think it's just, it's that, it's that buzz that

he's on when he speaks that I try to hack and deconstruct and sort of create for myself. And it's interesting because- Sorry to interject. How do you go about doing that? I mean if somebody wants to reclaim that sense of awe and discovery, I'm just trying to pinpoint. Do you have any routines, rituals, habitual things you say no to? I'd love to hear about it. Yeah. I mean that goes back to a lot of the techniques, the tools and techniques that the guys that steven kaller and all the and the guys talk about with flow and with the flow of genome projects it's like first of all i mean if you're a basketball player or if you're a

philosophy junkie the whole point is the guy that loves basketball and it's his flow you know he treats every game like with the same joy and excitement as the first time you ever played basketball you know what i mean like he has not lost that love or with golf or with if you're a pilot with flying like you want that child innocence and excitement about you know combined with your expertise that you have acquired over many years and your skill set so again it's that idea of flow but i think for me it goes even deeper than that because i think because of the the spaces in which i like because first of all my flow is when i'm like really in the moment and i'm really in that headspace when i get out of my own way but i also have this kind of intellectual appreciation of what's going on so on a meta level when i'm in

flow i'm kind of excited about the fact that i'm in flow right right in those conditions so i was reading this very interesting article um by timothy leary and ralph metzer written in the 60s about programming the psychedelic experience and they were talking specifically about the harvard studies when they were giving lsd to the students and how to uh basically create discursive environments create environments that would orient the tripper the psychedelic tripper during the trip like Like the same way that a pilot has longitude coordinates when he's in the sky to orient him as he is in flight. So too, the psychedelic tripper needs to have signals set and setting to control the orientation of his trip. And what I thought was fascinating is that, you know, you could take those tools and techniques

and apply them to non-tripping minds too. You know, normal consciousness is still affected by set and setting. You know, as Stephen Johnson says, our thoughts shape our spaces and our spaces return the favor. So I think a lot of it has to do with the environments that you put yourself in, the people you surround yourself with, you know, the routines, the songs you listen to, all of these artful aesthetic choices you make about your surroundings, I think work to induce the subjective spaces that we desire. And those that don't incorporate those elements, I think miss out on the power that they have to basically control their experience. No, I agree with you completely. I think the, the where of happiness is very underestimated. Uh, the, the where of psychology and, uh, I mean, that's why I'm in San Francisco for very specific reasons in the Bay area and, uh, just moved into a new place.

And I've been designing it with the help of a few folks from the ground up. I mean, just stripped down to the studs and really thinking about what type of intention, what type of emotional charge do I want in my surroundings. Perfect. It's a really fascinating petri dish to work with. And on the musical side, what type of music do you listen to? Well, I mean, to be honest, I… Or most recently, let's just say. I'm not much of a concert goer.

So usually I discover music watching films. I'm a film junkie and I think cinema is the last altar left. You know, like that's where I'm so completely surrendered and immersed and in almost a trance state that I'm very open to suggestion. So not only do I believe the sort of simulation of the film and it becomes reality for at least two hours, but whatever music is accompanying the film

is usually something that's going to resonate and going to get in there in a very deep way. So I happen to be a big junkie for instrumental film scores. Like my God, dude, especially film trailers. You can really find a lot of epic heart thumping music in film trailers. But I would say the most recent score that I listened to almost daily is the Inception soundtrack. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I probably listened to the main track. It's called Time. I listen to that every day, multiple times a day, which I adore. But usually, yeah, it's music that seems to find a way of always being able to elicit an emotion.

And then that emotion will sort of place everything else into context. It frames everything else that's going on in my life. It soundscapes my reality and that's uh i love that again it's about wanting to to be the author of the screenplay that is your life at any given moment right and wanting to take control of the pen instead of just being a passenger. These are things that I've been struggling, it might not be the right word, but reexamining a lot in the last few months. I've had quite a few life changes come about that have led to some introspection, which I would like to think is a good thing. And that's part of the reason this podcast has been so fun for me is I get to sort of dig in with people I consider friends for whom it would be weird to sit down and give them like 60 questions otherwise in a unidirectional way. But do you have any, what is, what does the first hour of your day look like? When do you wake up?

What is, what happens in the first hour to two hours of your day? Do you have a, is that, what does that look like? And you could just, you know, it could be an example from today or this week, or it could just be in general. Yeah. I mean, the mornings for me are usually the, uh, the non daydreaming, non flowflow kind of more mechanical part of my day it's just like you know breakfast coffee i do enjoy my triple espresso in the morning always over ice always with a little bit of milk and some stevia i do like my caffeine in the morning uh you know caffeine shower exercise um i'm not much into like running or that kind of stuff but i i used to do a lot of rock climbing particularly bouldering so uh low altitude high impact and so part of the training for bouldering has persisted even when i have moved to new york but so i do i have one of those

like pull-up bars in my house and i do you know a bunch of pull-ups every morning a bunch of push-ups you know kind of with my own body weight get that that out of the way. You know, I'm really into healthy eating if I can. So like there's the brown rice, there's the sort of lean organic protein, the legumes, the lentils, the beans, they get that out of the way. And then usually when that's done, then it's like, what am I going to do today to get flow you know i've taken i've taken care of biology now let's take care of my mind needs right and uh and so then if it's if it's you know if i have to do meetings or whatever i try to probably do them all at like one or two in the afternoon it's the time of day when i'm at my sort of ready to focused energy yep if i have to shoot brain games

you know then then i have to sort of work around that longer shoot schedule, which can be sometimes difficult and intense. If I'm doing shots of awe, then, you know, the morning is like that. And then the afternoon will be like, you know, we'll do like a three-hour shoot or we'll do like 10 or 12 episodes sometimes, find some gems in there. And if none of those things are happening, then it's the same morning followed by an afternoon film followed by, you know, usually dinner with friends. Got it. And what time are you waking up and going to bed? If I'm not shooting early morning stuff for Nat Geo, then I actually like to usually sleep at least until 8.30, 9, sometimes 9.30. I don't like to just wake up at 6 a.m. Because for whatever reason, I don't get sleepy usually until 11 or 12 or even 1.

And I need my seven hours at least of sleep. So it makes it so that if I have to get up really early, it's usually annoying because it means I have to fall asleep early so that I can get enough sleep. And that's going to be difficult. Because I usually like to watch films in bed at night before I go to sleep. That's kind of how it works. This is really fascinating to me because most of the writers I know are most productive when other people are asleep. That either means they stay up really late and write, which is usually my want and my curse, or they wake up really early, five or six. But I've also met a handful of people who get their most productive work done in the middle of the

afternoon when I consider myself pretty worthless. So it sounds like that's your sweet spot is sort is uh uh sort of the the early to mid-afternoon period yeah usually it's that and then occasionally one of those will be so good and in such flow that it will keep going until 6 p.m today was one of those days like today i've been pretty much on and like just kind of in this kind of flow and you're working on the computer since since 11 30 and i haven't really taken a break except for a little walk so it just depends sometimes you find this resilience and this energy um other times i'm like you know done have to put the stuff away go see a movie or something yeah let me uh just to shift topics a little bit i'm so curious about the sort of the making of, you know, how

the different factors that have contributed to you being you, what is the shittiest job that you've ever had? The crappiest job? The crappiest job. I had an internship, I guess it was after my first year of college, or maybe actually the summer after I graduated high school, maybe before I went to college, it might have been. Anyway, I was staying at the dorms at NYU and I was interning for a film production company because, of course, I was studying film and I wanted to do movies and make documentaries. And so my cousin got me an internship and i remember it was like yeah you know get us coffee and i kind of freaked freaked out and quit after a week yeah yeah i know in retrospect not too proud of of like being so so quick to exit but it was just uh i don't know i don't know i just kind of felt like i I wanted right away to be doing something vital that I felt was vital.

And other than that, my circumstances are a little bit different because growing up in Venezuela, it's not like in the U.S. where, you know, it's difficult for kids to get like summer jobs and stuff. That just doesn't really happen in Venezuela because, you know, we mostly live behind like armed compounds because it's so South America. It can be so dangerous you know right right so uh i went to an international school and it was it was really the focus thankfully my family was like you know just study what you love study what you love study what you love and i was lucky enough to that they helped me with college and they allowed me to kind of indulge my intellectual and aesthetic um sort of. And then from there, my first actual paid gig ever was Current, believe it or not. Oh, no kidding.

Wow. Yeah. Submitted that documentary that I did my senior year of college. And that was like they offered me a gig to come like make content and host the series. And that was like the first time I was ever on salary. Crazy. Wow. That's amazing time I was ever on salary. Crazy. Wow. That's amazing. I didn't know that. Yeah. Uh, what's, do you have any, I'm just going to throw a couple of kind of rapid fire questions at you. Um, do you have any, uh, I'm sure you do. Let me rephrase that. What odd things do you collect or odd hobbies or

obsessions do you have? I mean, for me it's like Japanese saddles or this weird thing that I'm into. Cool. And I have a couple of, I have a couple of those kinds of weird obsessions and I'm just curious if, if you have any, um,

that people might not know about. Um, let's see. Well, I used to be like a manic collector of, uh, DVDs. And, uh, now obviously i don't do that anymore but i'm like kind of neurotic about my list of movies and like if i

love a movie i probably watch it like 10 times in a row um and i want to kind of relive it and understand it and get under its skin um i also let me think. What's another obsession? Trying to think. Okay, I'm kind of weird about traveling because I'm such a control freak. So every time I have to get on a plane, I usually do a lot of research beforehand to make sure that I'm flying on like the newest possible jet that that airline has. So if it's like, you know, it has to be like an A380 or like some brand new addition to the fleet because I can't stand flying on old airplanes because I feel like they probably have stress fractures on it or something. I just – I'm really neurotic about that. I'm really sensitive to jet lag.

I'm almost like a little girl. Like if I have to go somewhere, I just – I need three days to recover before I can do anything even remotely productive because I don't get enough sleep. I'm just off. It's like such a pet peeve for me. Like even a little bit of being not enough sleep. I'm just off. It's like such a pet peeve for me. Like even a little bit of being not enough sleep. I'm like, forget it. I can't handle consciousness. I just like,

uh, you've picked a hell of a job. I know. I know. I know. I know. Uh, um,

so those are a couple. Okay, cool. Uh, what are the last movies that come to mind that you've watched 10 times, 10 plus times? What are some examples of those movies you're obsessed upon? Inception was definitely one of them. And pretty much everything that falls into the false reality genre.

So these are the kind of films that make you question your perceptions of reality. So of course it includes films like The Matrix. Of course, I would say that The Truman Show is there. I would say films like Existenz. I would say films like Vanilla Sky, which was an underappreciated film that I really, really loved. I would say Memento, absolutely. Most recently, I saw a film called Enemy, inspired by the Dostoevsky The Double that story about the sort of second self and the doppelganger and Jake Gyllenhaal's in it I believe amazing

like false reality what is real I kind of love films that have that unsettling quality to them because they make you feel a little schizo they're kind of like they make you question everything you thought you knew and that unsettling feeling makes this film even more immersive so it becomes more like a journey that you're taking with that character as he sort of takes that has that mystic psychotic collapse almost you know like and and and then passage through madness and then he kind of makes the return hopefully at the end so it's like films that take you on a very very much joseph campbell hero's journey those are big for me cool no that makes perfect sense uh do you consider yourself more of a a risk taker or a cautious planner i mean even though you brought up the airplane research yes uh i i still i i wonder how you consider yourself. Where, I mean, where would you put yourself

on that spectrum? I would put myself as a recovering planner. No, I definitely, I'm a bit envious, but in the best possible way of people that are really really really free spirits only because I aim to I'm attracted to the vitality and the freedom of the free spirit all the girls I've ever been in love with have been bohemian manic pixie dream girls you know they've been free spirits and I think the reason i'm attracted to that is because i have that battle between what's very much a sort of control freak and and somebody who's really serious and you know didn't really like going to parties until you know late in high school and didn't really like socializing and doing small talk and just having fun because i

was such a serious guy i wanted to be with my books and talking about serious things. And then I sort of felt like sometimes I would miss out on the joy that free spirits were privy to. They were just like, they just let go. They just have a good time everywhere, no matter what they do. And I was like, no, no, no, I want to control when I have a good time. It's been an interesting dichotomy. So I don't know, I plan a lot. I even plan the moments of letting go in a way. It's weird. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I haven't decided.

Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm the same way. I have this identical internal conflict. It's been fascinating. It obviously doesn't clearly split down gender lines, but I think it's particularly, and maybe this is just a bias because most of my close friends in SF are male, but it seems to be a common male challenge,

the relinquishing of control versus the exerting of control. Right. So on that, I mean, as you've gotten older, how old are you now? 32. Yeah, you're a young guy. How old are you? 36, man. I just ordered my walker. 36. You're a baby too, dude. I know. But you've seen a lot of worlds have been exposed to a lot of things particularly in the last few years i think you've been uh

and you've also had the experience of course coming from venezuela to the u.s yeah what has become more important to you in the last few years and what has become less important to you? I want to build my life around flow states. And I think what I've acquired over the last few years, I guess perhaps you could say the experience, maybe the confidence, maybe the evidence that I can trust my own intuition when it comes to being successful and the content that I want to make and the content that will get me where I want to get to. Um, because you know, the documentary that I was, that I made when I got the gig at current was very similar to what I do now with shots of all right. So that documentary got me to get current. So there we go. My intuition, my willingness to think outside the box and do something that was in my own voice, got me to get good current. Once I got to current, they tried to tame me a little bit they were like don't move

your hands so much let's make it to a more polished presenter and uh you know i was able to ride that thankfully because i had a co-host who was my college buddy and we were able to kind of keep each other company through the difficulties of being like tamed and trained. But nonetheless, after four years there, it was flatlining. The network was flatlining and I was flatlining. And it was only when I left and decided again to go back to the content that I wanted to make and follow my own gut was all of a sudden where the videos that I was doing on the internet came out of. And those are the ones that have led to traveling the world and keynotes and partnering with Discovery Digital for Shots of Awe and National Geographic for Brain Games and everything has come when I completely dove in fearlessly and made the content that I

needed to make as a kind of as an artist like you know I was just like i got out of my own way i stopped doubting myself i guess and it was really what i learned even and so if the world the universe winked at me when i did that so to speak and those winks were my way of you know realizing okay it's like that's my barometer that's my compass more of that less the other stuff. And so you'll probably see me working towards finessing how that plays out over the next several months, you know? Cool. Can't wait to see it. Well, speaking of, speaking of which, uh, well, I'll tell you what, let me do a couple of rapid fire questions. Um, and then, uh, I want to hear what you're currently working on and most excited about, but, um, sake of novelty, if you were to lose either your sight or your ability to hear, which do you think you would miss the most and why?

Wow, man. Now you are amputating my vitality. That's the name of this podcast actually i i spend a lot of my time thinking about how to augment my senses how to give myself additional modes to perceive reality to enhance my perception of reality so to actually consider cutting one off um i don't know if i can answer that i don't know if i could pick one to get rid of um to be honest it's a difficult question for me to answer yeah no problem uh do you now you've you've kept track of a lot of music a lot of movies if you had to pick for the time being a theme song for yourself what would it be

wow theme song for myself yeah what's your like ring entrance music damn damn damn damn damn yeah i'll go with time from inception it's really it's really like part of my uh part of my sort of yeah it's part of my day. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? To be able to, I guess, dilute or lessen the anxiety that I often have to deal with just with day-to-day things. I become unnecessarily anxious about stupid logistical type things. They just annoy me and make me anxious and just occupy my head. Yeah, here, here. I second that notion.

When you hear the word successful, who's the first person that comes to mind and why? Wow. Chris Anderson, curator of TED. Ah, okay. I'm kind of, I mean, I'm a convert. I've drank the Kool-Aid. I love TED. It's particularly like the main event, like that gathering gathering that spot for the mind and it's funny because i feel

like chris anderson is somebody who's infinitely curious he still has that childlike awe and curiosity and i think the whole ted enterprise is ultimately about his desire to bring in all these beautiful brilliant people together and curate and basically experience design five days of intellectual bliss, you know? And, uh, and so he, the fact that he gets to like do that and help build that is such a, to me, it's like such success. It's a hell of a job. Yeah. So aside, aside, putting aside from Chris, um, if you could study with any expert in the world, who would you study with and what would you be studying? Wow. I'd love to spend some time with Danny Boyle, the director. the guy has done such diverse films, but they all share a searing intensity,

a quality of engagement of the body mind that I think is just his signature, whether it's 127 hours or slumdog millionaire, or even that classic, the beach that was DiCaprio film that he did 10 years ago that people didn't seem to love, but I thought it was awesome. Danny Boyle, man, I just,

I want to sit and sit with him while he makes music for his movies i want to know how he edits and how he puts the songs to the moments and what he's trying to create cool that is a good answer uh i i you and i need to have some wine sometime to talk about uh yeah man talk about movies because i'm just getting back into film and it's one of the few things that can sort of take me away from the internal dialogue sure port me somewhere else so we'll come back to that another time sure uh let's do it if if you could offer your younger self let's just say your 20 year old self or 25 year old self, uh, you know, one piece of advice, uh, what would it be? My younger self. Yep. Um,

yeah, I guess I would, um, I would encourage my longer self, my younger self to, to just not be afraid, right. To, to realize that a lot of the things that were, I don't want to say crippling anxieties, but definitely ever-pervasive fears in my life growing up, a lot of them were unnecessary. A lot of time was wasted, a lot of energy was wasted being worried. And I wish I could just let go of that and encourage myself to just let go a little more. Yeah. Who was it? Twain, you said, I have suffered a great many hardships, most of which never happened. There you go. Something along those lines.

There you go. Awesome, man. Well, why don't you tell everyone where they can, number one, what you're up to and most excited about at the moment and where they can learn more about you and see your videos, which I encourage everyone to do. Great, man. Thank you. Yeah. So at the moment, we just finished another season of Brain Games and there'll be new episodes coming out in July and then probably shooting another season at that point as well, hopefully with a few creative upgrades as we evolve the show and continue to make it relevant to people. But particularly, in the meantime, please check out my Shots of Awe videos, youtube.com slash shotsofawwe, or you can Google them.

I'm uploading videos every week or every other week lately, and my most recent one is called To Be Human is to Be transhuman. And it's about our use of technology to literally overcome our obstacles. And I, that's my philosophical soapbox. And so I think if people want to have like a head trip and like a mind jam with me, like go check out those videos and, um, and then follow me on Twitter at Jason Silva, S I L VA. And that way they can keep up with all the new video releases, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I think I want to certainly be respectful of your time. You're over on the East Coast.

You're in New York City at the moment? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Now, how did, did you choose, why did you choose New York City? Or did New York City choose you? Tell me about New York there. Yeah, I haven't chosen it yet. I just, I was in L. there. I haven't chosen it yet.

I was in L.A. for five years. And I had my apartment in L.A. And I would come to New York a lot when I was at Current. And when I quit Current, I was dating a girl who had a place in New York. So I would come to New York a lot and crash at her place. And we were a little bit bi-coastal for a while. After that ended, I gave up my LA house and I was like I kind of want to like be like a nomad for a while and I put some of my stuff in storage and sent some stuff down to Miami with my where my brother is at and then I did a little bit

of traveling and then I started doing all this speaking and then I got brain games now brain games was in New York so I kind of planned to eventually get a place here. But in the meantime, I've been kind of leveraging my friendships around the city. And one of my friends has an extra bedroom that I've been crashing at when I'm here. But because I travel so much, it doesn't matter. And I've yet to actually commit to a place, believe it or not. So I'm temporarily without a perma home well you're you can uh let the wind take you where it may i guess that yes wherever

hello may require you to be dude i saw a documentary last night called maiden trip about a 14 year old dutch girl who sailed around the world by herself. Wow. It was like absolute, like I couldn't, I was like completely blown away. She's 14. She had to fight the Dutch government to let her go to, you know, and it was like, but it was, it's like insane. She took a camera with her and then this filmmaker like turned it into this doc and it was just, and I was just like, maybe I want to move to the sailboat one day, do something like that. Well, I have a buddy who does it right off of San Francisco Bay and lives in a boat. So we can make it happen.

Jason, I really appreciate the time, man. I find you inspiring. So I find you inspiring, dude. I read 4-Hour Workweek years ago in Point Doom in Malibu. I remember reading it and feeling like you have hacked it. You have figured it out. You rented an apartment in Argentina. You're making it happen.

That template stayed with me, dude. I remember I was very affected by your book. I was like, this guy's got it figured out. Thanks, brother. Well, we need to definitely have a proper long dinner with some vino, but we'll make that happen. I look forward to it, man. In the meantime, I'll let you get back to your evening. And thanks for being on the podcast.

I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me, man. It's an honor. interview stories with people like Warren Buffett and Mike Shinoda from Lincoln Park, the books, plus much, much more. Follow Tim on Twitter. It's twitter.com slash tferris. That's t-f-e-r-r-i-s-s. Or on Facebook at facebook.com slash timferris. Until next time, thanks for listening.