How to Cage the Monkey Mind | Tim Ferriss | Talks at Google

1. 0:03 – 3:29

   Stoic training: practicing embarrassment to build courage

   1. JTJordan Thibodeau0:03

      Welcome everyone. I'd like to introduce you to Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Body and Chef, host of the Tim Ferriss Show, the number one rated business podcast on iTunes, and a serial investor. I'm your host, Jordan Thibodeau. So without further ado, let's give Tim a nice, uh, welcome. [claps]

   2. TFTim Ferriss0:24

      [claps]

   3. JTJordan Thibodeau0:27

      So Tim, um, what has been one of the most Stoic- important Stoic teachings?

   4. TFTim Ferriss0:33

      So the Stoic philosophy is, uh, in essence, the operating system that I use for making better decisions, or try to use. It's very old, 2,000 plus years old in various iterations. And, uh, I would say that you can start many places, whether it's Marcus Aurelius' Meditations or the Moral Letters to Lucilius, the letters of Seneca. Uh, Cato is particularly interesting to me, and one of the lessons that I try to implement in my life comes from Cato. Cato was considered by many the perfect Stoic. I'm sure he was not perfect, as none of us are. But he would regularly, for instance, wear mismatched clothing, uh, in high-profile arenas where that was frowned upon, so that he could train himself to be ashamed only of the things worth being ashamed of. So he would practice doing things that would earn him the scorn, superficial scorn of others. And the form that that can take [laughs] is... can be very, very simple, and you can do it in very small ways. But I have, what I would call, for instance, and this is a ridiculous example, but that's the whole point. I, I have my party pants, which are these ridiculous pants-

   5. JTJordan Thibodeau1:45

      [laughs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss1:45

      ... that look straight out of Austin Powers. And I will occasionally wear those, not to the extent that I would offend some guest ho- like, dinner host in some sup- You know, I don't wanna make enemies. That's not the goal. But I'll wear it in a place where I know that I'm gonna get these sideways glances from everyone to try to inoculate myself against that type of superficial attachment to what others think. Uh, for a while recently, I was wearing what I could best describe as, like, a creepy porn stache. It was a-

   7. JTJordan Thibodeau2:16

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss2:16

      ... very ill-advised, half-grown mustache that looked terrible. It really did look r- it was like Chester the Molester. It was terrible.

   9. JTJordan Thibodeau2:26

      [laughs]

   10. TFTim Ferriss2:28

       And I wore that around for, like, a good week and a half, and every time I would put up a photograph on, on Instagram or wherever it was, it'd be like, "Please, for God's sake, take that thing off your face." And it was just an exercise. It was yet another exercise, and there are many different ways to do this. But I, I think that would be one that comes to mind, is regularly practicing things that you feel embarrassed by but shouldn't, that have no grander importance whatsoever, so that y- if... when you train yourself to not be embarrassed by the small things, then when it comes time to make big decisions, stand up for something larger, you will have the training that you need. And this is not necessarily Stoic, but I think it's Archilochus. I'm not brushed up on my ancient pronunciation, but the... This is military. This is a military context, but it was, "We, we do not rise to the level of our hopes. We fall to the level of our training." So, what I like about stoicism is that it offers practical ways of

2. 3:29 – 4:22

   Rehearsing worst-case scenarios: practicing poverty and fasting

   1. TFTim Ferriss3:29

      practicing this. The second would be practicing your worst case scenario. This is very similar. So it's kind of a s- a larger meta example. Seneca, I think it's On Fasting and Festivals, or On Festivals and Fasting. I think it's Letter 13, actually, in The Moral Letters to Lucilius, which I reread all the time. Clearly, you can tell. And to set aside a certain number of days, say, each month, which I do, during which you will be satisfied with the cheapest and scantest of fare, wear the roughest of cl- of clothing, et cetera, asking yourself all the while, is this the condition that I so feared? So practicing poverty, which would then empower you to make decisions because you know the worst-case scenario isn't that bad. And for that reason, among other reasons we can get into, I do one three-day fast every month.

   2. JTJordan Thibodeau4:14

      Mm.

   3. TFTim Ferriss4:14

      I do one seven- to 10-day fast every one to two quarters. And there are other things that I do on top of that, but those are a few that come to mind.

3. 4:22 – 5:25

   “Monkey mind” defined: internalized chaos and reactivity

   1. JTJordan Thibodeau4:22

      Excellent. Um, in your podcast, you've talked about the monkey brain. Can you explain what that is?

   2. TFTim Ferriss4:28

      Yeah, the monkey brain or monkey mind is, I think, inside all of us in some capacity. It's this incessant internal dialogue, uh, or maybe not even a dialogue. Maybe it's just some stern or irritating roommate that you have in your head. And we can all think back to, say, uh, elementary school. I remember there was this kid in my class. He's always misbehaving, and I remember at one point he got up, it was like third grade, and the teacher suddenly froze, and we turned around, and he had a fork over his head, and he said, "I am the master of the universe." And he stabbed an electrical outlet.

   3. JTJordan Thibodeau5:02

      [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss5:02

      And just got, like, blown backwards.

   5. JTJordan Thibodeau5:04

      [laughs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss5:04

      And, you know, then there was this kid who would walk over, and he would always... He would, like, build a, a building of, out of, uh, construction blocks, and then inevitably it would fall over when it got too tall, and then he'd just, like, lay down and cry. And I think that as we get older, we learn to not do those things 'cause you'd be put in a straitjacket.

   7. JTJordan Thibodeau5:23

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss5:23

      But as a result, they're internalized.

   9. JTJordan Thibodeau5:25

      Mm-hmm.

4. 5:25 – 6:47

   Journaling as a “two-dimensional prison” for mental noise

   1. TFTim Ferriss5:25

      So, like, all day we're walking around with, like, some version or combination of all of those things. And the, the context in which I probably brought it up, the monkey mind, was as it relates to my morning journaling. So I, I do regularly journal. Sometimes I do what would be considered morning pages. Other times I use something called the five-minute journal, which we could talk about. But the, the, it, the goal is not to write, per se. I'm not doing it for someone else. I'm simply capturing my monkey mind, its litany of complaints or insecurities on paper so that it's not caught on repeat for the rest of the day. I'm simply giving it a- A two-dimensional prison [laughs] or playpen so that I can then move on with my day.

   2. JTJordan Thibodeau6:12

      Right

   3. TFTim Ferriss6:12

      And, uh, hit mute at least for a brief period of time-

   4. JTJordan Thibodeau6:16

      Right

   5. TFTim Ferriss6:16

      ... on those things. But it's, uh, I think that if you want to be less reactive, to be the author of your own life or business, career, whatever it might be, you have to be able to do deep work and think long-term and rationally. And for all of those things, you need to get very good at identifying where you're being overly reactive.

   6. JTJordan Thibodeau6:38

      Right.

   7. TFTim Ferriss6:39

      Um, to thoughts, to external factors outside of your control, whatever it might be.

   8. JTJordan Thibodeau6:44

      Gotcha. That ties back to the five-minute, uh, journal.

5. 6:47 – 8:24

   The Five-Minute Journal: gratitude, priorities, and daily review

   1. TFTim Ferriss6:47

      It does. The five-minute journal is, uh, it's a, it's a journal that was created by a reader of The 4-Hour Workweek, actually. For those who have read the book, it, it was their muse, so their... one of their cashflow focused businesses in the context of lifestyle design. But you take two and a half minutes or so in the morning, and then again at night. And so one is effectively a focusing and planning exercise. There's also a gratitude component, which I think is very critical for those of us who are driven Type A achievers. It's very easy to constantly be focused on the future. And just to hit pause for a second, I've heard someone say that depression is an obsession with the past and anxiety is an, a, an obsession with the future. Well, if you look at achievers, they tend to be very future-focused, and as soon as they hit a goal, they're like, "Don't have time to celebrate this small win. This isn't good enough. Bigger, bigger, better," et cetera. And that is a pattern that can be very self-destructive, even if you rack up a lot of wins at the same time. So the gratitude component is extremely critical. That takes but two and a half minutes each day, and it also helps to identify your focal points or your priorities so that when inevitably that 10% that's left of the monkey mind pops up to, like, dance in front of you and distract you from your objectives you set out for the, the day, you can return to that. And then at the end of the day, it's, it's basically a performance review. [laughs]

   2. JTJordan Thibodeau8:13

      Mm-hmm.

   3. TFTim Ferriss8:13

      And, uh, I find it incredibly helpful and, uh, a, a lot of ROI for the time invested.

   4. JTJordan Thibodeau8:20

      Excellent. So seems like it gives you a degree of mental clarity. Um-

   5. TFTim Ferriss8:24

      Yeah, it does.

   6. JTJordan Thibodeau8:24

      Yeah.

6. 8:24 – 9:02

   Focus as the separator between “good” and “top 1%” performers

   1. TFTim Ferriss8:24

      And I, and I think that, you know, what separates, if I think about my podcast, I've interviewed 100 to 150 world-class performers across every possible domain imaginable, sports, entertainment, politics, art, chess, it just goes on and on, that the difference between somebody who's good, at like the, you know, uh, let's just call it the top quartile of the population in their chosen field, and the top 1%, it's the degree to which they can, they can focus to determine their goals and maintain that focus.

   2. JTJordan Thibodeau8:57

      Gotcha.

   3. TFTim Ferriss8:57

      It's, it's one of the largest distinguishing factors.

7. 9:02 – 13:56

   Humility by design: memento mori and being the weakest in the room

   1. JTJordan Thibodeau9:02

      Now, with people who've achieved such success in, in their careers or in athletics or whatever, um, what can people do to maintain their humbleness?

   2. TFTim Ferriss9:13

      Uh, humility, I think, is, um, not too tough-

   3. JTJordan Thibodeau9:18

      Mm

   4. TFTim Ferriss9:18

      ... uh, to maintain if you create the proper environments. And I'm, I'm not a huge fan of self-control-

   5. JTJordan Thibodeau9:26

      Mm-hmm

   6. TFTim Ferriss9:27

      ... or willpower. I think it's really overrated. It's like, oh, well, like, fat people are fat because they just lack the willpower. It's like, no, that's a stupid, lazy answer, or just a shite observation. Like, if you look at behavioral modification, it's like they just have lack of incentives. They have laf- lack of social accountability. Maybe they don't have the information that they need. Uh, and you can create environments in which you can train, and I come back to this over and over and over again, but, uh, there are a few things I think that are very helpful. Uh, one is memento mori. So remembering that you're going to die, and putting, putting that... It's also very stoic. They're somewhat obsessed on, about death, even to a degree that I find weird. But memento mori, so constantly revisiting death and realizing... It, it, it forces you to put your life in a broader context of civilization [laughs] and the world. And I think that in and of itself is, is very corrective. And how do you practice or develop that sense of memento mori? I have a quote on my refrigerator that's from Marcus Aurelius. And, uh, Meditations, by the way, is effectively a war journal, while Marcus Aurelius, who was the most powerful man on the planet at the time, emperor of Rome, was on military campaign. And he would write these entries to do exactly this, to remind himself that he was just a man, he was going to die, it would all be dust. And it sounds depressing until you realize the clarity and, uh, lack of waste that comes from constantly repeating those types of things. Then you have memento homo, probably getting the pronunciation off, but that is remembering that you are just a man or a person. So we, we don't have... We... Those in this room probably are not gonna commission, like Julius Caesar, someone to hold a laurel wreath over your head while you're doing a procession like the Roman triumph to say, "You're just a man. You're just a man. You're not a god." Uh, but the way that you can very easily humble yourself is to always try to be the weakest person in the room in something. Like, every day, you should be the weakest person in the room at some point, whether that is in a meeting, whether that is in a sport, whether that is in a gym, whether that is in a chess match. It doesn't matter, but I always try to be the weakest person in the room. And I remember when I was 15, I had my first time over, uh, overseas for any extended period of time. I was in Japan for a year, and I ended up- ... being a judo player. I was competing in judo. And the high school that I went to was not particularly strong in judo, but I was the big fish in the little pond, and I was-- I got very high and mighty. I, I thought I was, um, just the cat's meow. And I wasn't too overt about it, but I was very-

   7. JTJordan Thibodeau12:12

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss12:13

      ... sort of satisfied with how well I was doing. Went to my first tournament, and I got demolished in seven seconds by this guy who weighed 40 pounds less than I did.

   9. JTJordan Thibodeau12:20

      [laughs]

   10. TFTim Ferriss12:21

       Like, ippon kachi. You know, that was it. I was done. And I got up, I'm like, "I'm fine." They're like, "No, you're the loser. [laughs] You're done. You are done."

   11. JTJordan Thibodeau12:27

       [laughs]

   12. TFTim Ferriss12:27

       And, uh, I was so demoralized. And, uh, you know, I was the only white guy in the tournament, and it was kind of the... They, they would... So there, there were a lot of people just hoping that they would be able to kinda like wag a finger and laugh. And I mean, love Japan, but it's like, I get it. Uh, very homogenous place. So I ended up going after that to a, a cram school for judo, like a jyuku, and they have it for all sorts of things, at night. And I went to Tokai University's, uh, judo cram school. So Tokai University produces gold medalists in the Olympics. They're really, really tough. So I went in, and I was 15 at the time, and I got, I got just annihilated by 12-year-olds. I mean, talk about embarrassing.

   13. JTJordan Thibodeau13:08

       [laughs]

   14. TFTim Ferriss13:08

       I mean, if you can try to flash back to high school, and you're like, oh, you know, I'm a... And you're getting-- you're a, like a sophomore in high school getting killed by like sixth graders or seventh graders. So embarrassing. Including women, I was getting torn to pieces. And I got trashed for three or four months, and I was like, wow, I, I don't feel like I'm making a lot of progress. My endurance is getting a little bit better. And went to a tournament that had the same competitors as the previous tournament and just walked through everybody. Just steamrolled because I had a better cohort group. I was the weakest in the room.

   15. JTJordan Thibodeau13:40

       Right.

   16. TFTim Ferriss13:41

       Uh, as long as you're trending in the right direction, doesn't matter if you're losing. And so that would be, that would be one approach. Just like every day, schedule it, plan it. Be the weakest person in the room in some capacity.

8. 13:56 – 20:42

   Handling massive inbound: rules, policies, and batching to avoid reactivity

   1. JTJordan Thibodeau13:56

      You have multiple people trying to reach out to you and contact you. How do you manage all of those requests?

   2. TFTim Ferriss14:03

      I suppose the short answer is I don't manage all of those requests.

   3. JTJordan Thibodeau14:06

      Okay. [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss14:08

      Uh, the irony of The 4-Hour Workweek, among many others, is that my systems have to be 100 times better now than they were when the book came out. Because, uh, if you look at my assistants and the various inbound channels that we have, uh, or try to avoid, but nonetheless have, it's 1,500 to 2,000 direct messages of some type every day that hit me and my team. That's excluding all the tweets, Facebook mentions, Google Plus, et cetera. It's ignoring all of that. Uh, so the, the way that I try to think about handling that is having rules set in advance. So for instance, if we were to take a, a, a corporate or startup analogy, you don't want to decide how to respond to a crisis when a crisis hits. Like, if you think you're gonna have a disaster, you want to role play it out and say, all right, if A, then B, C, or D. If X, then Y, and Z. And to have a plan in place so that, and this all ties back together, if disaster strikes, you are not reactive. You don't make a compulsive-- or not compulsive, impulsive decision that could destroy, uh, a lot of what you've wor- worked to achieve, including your reputation. So with email, I have very particular rules, and I will block out periods of time. For instance, I'm gonna take July, and I did this, uh, about two years ago in Bali. There's actually a good piece in Inc. Magazine called the, the 4-Hour Reality Check, uh, that's, that's not a bad read about this. But I'm blocking out July to focus on writing and deep work in that capacity. So I have to set up systems and rules in advance so that I don't have to be on email or calendar or phone, which is what I did for a month in Indonesia. I'm gonna do it this time overseas. And the... So the important thing is deciding on your policies. And I've realized for myself that I do moderation very poorly, whether it's caffeine, booze. Like, if I'm on, I am on. [laughs]

   5. JTJordan Thibodeau16:11

      [laughs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss16:12

      And if I am off, I am off. Uh, so that is why I decided to take a startup vacation, effectively retirement, as, as of about nine months ago. I realized, for in-- This is just one example. I was drowning in email intros to founders and cold emails and pitches and this, that, and the other thing. Whether I do 100 deals a year, 10 deals a year, one deal a year, if I have to filter and look at all of the inbound to make decisions, it's almost the exact same amount of work. Does that make sense? So trying to pare back in moderation is-- it's a, it's a, it's a fool's errand. You just end up doing the same amount of work. So I will decide, like, am I doing speaking engagements or not? Period. Am I doing, say, interviews or not? Period. Am I writing for any other sites whatsoever? 'Cause I get hit by people who want me to write for this and this new startup, to write for such and such established media that's trying to branch into whatever. No. Like, the answer for that is absolutely not, because I'm focusing on my own writing. And the five-minute journal, all these things help to allow you to practice that focus. Uh, and then there are, then there are tools, right? So there's a very small subset, let's just call it one to two percent, that get me closer to sort of the mountain that I see in the distance, which, uh, which represents the goals I've already set for myself. And I'll have metrics, I'll have KPIs, right, key performance indicators for these things, like podcast growth. And, uh, great commencement speech by Neil Gaiman everybody should check out called Make Good Art. It's fantastic. But he talks a lot about this. And then the question is, what are the tools or policies, tactics that help with managing that subset that I am going to tackle? I use tools like ScheduleOnce For scheduling. Allows other people to find times, uh, and to avoid the, the back and forth. If you guys wanna, wanna see something that'll be, like, painfully humorous, you can check out, I think it's Let's Get Drinks in, uh, believe the New Yorker. Somebody can look that up. It's... You'll be like, "That is my life." I remember, uh, there was a tweet that I saw recently which was, "Adulthood..." Something, I'm paraphrasing. "Adulthood is saying sorry for the re- the late reply until one of you dies." It's like [laughs]

   7. JTJordan Thibodeau18:29

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss18:30

      That's is a sad state of affairs. So I'll use ScheduleOnce. I'll use a tool called Boomerang, which allows me to not just automate follow-up reminders if I don't hear back from someone, but to set parameters. And secondly, this is very underused as a feature, to send in the future. So the way you train someone, just like, you know, training a dog or a manatee or anything else, it's the same stuff. There's a great book called Don't Shoot the Dog that you should all read about for training humans also.

   9. JTJordan Thibodeau18:59

      [laughs]

   10. TFTim Ferriss19:01

       Um, is you can extend the time d- between which you respond to certain types of people, and it just teaches them that you are not on IM. Email is not messenger for you. Uh, so sending in the future, very helpful. Processing email, I use Gmail offline a lot. So I'll process email, batch process email offline so that I don't have the psychological trauma of feeling like I'm doing Whac-A-Mole, where I send off two emails and I get five back and I'm just like, "I can't. I'm drowning. I can't do this." And then you're like, "I should go watch Game of Thrones," or whatever you use to procrastinate. [laughs] To avoid that, batch processing offline, uh, hugely valuable. And, um, there are other things that I do. I'll give one more, which is if you send an email, try to think of if/then scenarios, right? So the engineers in the room will probably do this naturally, just thinking in terms of scripts or algorithms. But if you send an email, you're like, "Hey, can you meet up next week?" And that's the end of the email, that's a bad email. So, "Can, can you meet up next week? I suggest this time or this time. This is my far-- like, my first choice. If you can't do those times, please suggest two or three times, like, in this timeframe that work for you. Let's set it for 30 minutes." Right? Like, being really specific. It takes an extra 30 seconds on the front end, and it will save you 20 exchanges [laughs] on the back end. So just always thinking, like, is there an if/then line that I should put in this email before you hit send? Saves a lot of time. But I try to move as much as possible off of email to things like Slack, Dropbox, et cetera, whenever possible. It was, I mean, it was designed for emergency military communication, [laughs] not for what we use it for currently.

9. 20:42 – 25:38

   Why his podcast worked: scratch your own itch, keep it simple, and don’t quit

   1. JTJordan Thibodeau20:42

      Right. Right. Um, so most of us here in this audience have listened to your podcast, and it's been wildly successful. What do you think drives the success of the podcast?

   2. TFTim Ferriss20:51

      [sighs] I think the podcast is successful because I, I knew I had a guaranteed audience of one, and that means I was scratching my own itch. Uh, in the case of... Whenever I try to design something for a market, it fails. Whenever I just do something that I couldn't find for myself, then it does fine. Seems to be the trend. So I'm scratching my own itch, and what I was missing was, uh, the long form fly on the wall conversation, but also the tactics and the really detailed nitty-gritty how-to stuff. And all the books came about this way. I was looking for something, looking for something, looking for something, and I was just like, "Fuck. I'll just write it myself." Like, "This is too annoying." [laughs] 'Cause I would gather all these resources. I'd be like, "Okay, I will at least compile this." And in the case of the podcast, I wanted to try to spot the patterns in all these experts, and I was already doing this type of prep work for the books by ferreting these people out. And it, it, it happened, it just so happens that I would have these dinners or drinks with folks who are the best at what they do, and I would think afterwards, usually two or three glasses of wine in, be like, "Man, this is so good. Like, I wish I could just share this. Like, why don't I just record this?"

   3. JTJordan Thibodeau22:14

      [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss22:15

      And then if any of you heard the first episode, so sloppy with Kevin Rose, because I was so nervous. Even though he was a close friend, still is a close friend, and he was just, like, busting my balls the whole time, 'cause that's what close guy friends do to each other.

   5. JTJordan Thibodeau22:30

      [laughs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss22:30

      And so I just was drinking way too much. And I remember w- recording the first podcast. And I'd committed to doing six. This is important. I can mention why. But I was cl- skipping through the audio, just checking on the quality, and it's like two hours long, two and a half hours long. And about an hour in, I, I was, I was so anxious for whatever reason. And I was like, "Well, Kevin, you know, I want to be respectful of your time," da, da, da, da, da. And then I was like, "All right. Whatever." Click forward, like, an hour, and the same exact phrase came up.

   7. JTJordan Thibodeau23:00

      [laughs]

   8. TFTim Ferriss23:01

      And it was like, "Well, Kevin, I want to be respectful of your time."

   9. JTJordan Thibodeau23:03

      [laughs]

   10. TFTim Ferriss23:04

       And I was like, "Oh my God, this is terrible."

   11. JTJordan Thibodeau23:06

       [laughs]

   12. TFTim Ferriss23:07

       And I had this, like, lip, lip smacking tick and, like, all this stuff. I was like, "Oh, the shame. The shame." And, uh, I committed to six because if you only do one, you're going to quit, or most people will. So you commit to six. And the question I asked myself, and because the success-- You asked what makes it successful. There are actually a bunch of questions baked into that, right? There's what makes the product something that could be successful? There's what makes it something that spreads? But there's also why it survived, which is maybe the better question. If I had tried to do something fancier, like fill in the blank, something that is produced really well, like, uh, Freakonomics Radio. I don't have the experience or the resources. I would've become overwhelmed, and I would've quit. So rule number one is if you want something to s- be successful, you can't quit [laughs] after two episodes. [laughs] You actually have to get to a point where your learning curve hockey sticks. And I believe it, for my format, for podcasts in general, that's at least six episodes And, uh, so the, the questions that I think have allowed it to succeed for me and for me to feel successful doing it, because I enjoy it, is number one, how do I keep this fun? Number two, what would it look like if it were simple?

   13. JTJordan Thibodeau24:23

       Mm-hmm.

   14. TFTim Ferriss24:24

       Like, I ask myself that question more and more all the time now. What would this look like if it were dead simple, stupid simple? Okay, Ferriss, I know you like feature creep, I know you love writing 700-page books, but, like, let's hold back on that for a second. What would this look like if it were easy? And try that first. [laughs]

   15. JTJordan Thibodeau24:42

       [laughs]

   16. TFTim Ferriss24:43

       Uh, so I think those are a few things. But it's very, very, very, very tactic rich. Routines, habits, what is, what is the book that you've gifted the most to other people? What does the first 60 minutes of your day look like, specifically, exact times? How do you make your co- Yeah, you have coffee, how do you make your coffee? You know, what brand do you like? Why? And just I try to harness that OCD-

   17. JTJordan Thibodeau25:03

       Right

   18. TFTim Ferriss25:03

       ... in a way that is, um, helpful instead of making my relationships implode.

   19. JTJordan Thibodeau25:09

       Right.

   20. TFTim Ferriss25:09

       Something like that.

   21. JTJordan Thibodeau25:10

       Yeah.

   22. TFTim Ferriss25:11

       So I think, I think that's been it. But scratching your own itch, that's like if you have a guaranteed market of one, i.e. yourself, like, you're ahead of 99% of the entrepreneurs [laughs] out there.

   23. JTJordan Thibodeau25:20

       Right. Now, you've done almost, like, what, 100 plus podcasts now?

   24. TFTim Ferriss25:25

       Probably 150 episodes.

   25. JTJordan Thibodeau25:26

       Okay. So now you have a, a wide enough, like, sample to s- to see. Of these successful people, are you seeing commonalities as, that is leading to their, uh, success in their careers?

10. 25:38 – 35:32

    Patterns across 150 interviews: meditation, routines, and downside thinking

    1. TFTim Ferriss25:38

       I, I think there are a few things that come to mind right away. The first is... Now, this could be a selection bias. Maybe I'm choosing people who are more prone to have certain things in common than others, or I'm attracted to people in a way that, uh, that biases this. But at least 80% of the people I've interviewed across all domains have a daily meditation practice of some type. Uh, certainly if you want to cut down on monkey mind, the first step is just to become aware of it and kind of observe it like a really shitty comedy in, in your head. [laughs]

    2. JTJordan Thibodeau26:15

       [laughs]

    3. TFTim Ferriss26:15

       Just like, "What is my brain doing? This doesn't make any sense." Uh, and 20 minutes in the morning is a great way to do that. And I'm, I'm not particularly, um, I'm not particularly in favor of one versus another. I found TM, transcendental meditation, to be very helpful because it's presented in a very secular way. And I find the white noise of a mantra, the word mantra bugs me so much, but a word that you repeat over and over again, to be very helpful. Uh, but Vipassana, there's, uh, there's a good book called Waking Up by Sam Harris. Sam Harris, who's PhD in neuroscience, has been on the podcast and talked about this. Tara Brach, also fantastic. 80 plus percent have some type of meditation practice, even if they don't call it meditation. So I've, I've for instance interviewed, uh, Amelia Boone, incredible endurance athlete. The most successful female, uh, endurance, uh, athlete and obstacle course racing in the world. But also in, like, 2012 at The World's Toughest Mudder, I think it was about 1,200 competitors, nine- probably 90% male. She came in second place out of everybody. That's a 24-hour race. I mean, she is super tough. And, uh, you know, she said, "Well, I don't really have a meditation practice." And I was like, "What do you do when you're running?" And she's like, "I, I either listen to, like, one track over and over again, or I sing one track to myself over and over again." I was like, "Well, that sounds a whole hell of a lot like meditation to me."

    4. JTJordan Thibodeau27:34

       [laughs]

    5. TFTim Ferriss27:35

       [laughs] And, um, then, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger for instance, this was a really cool example. He did... He does everything. [laughs] 100% Arnold. Like, when he goes, he really goes. And, uh, he did, I think it was transcendental meditation for a year, and then he felt like he hit a certain plateau in the benefits and he stopped. But he said that the benefits persisted for decades. Very, very cool idea. Uh, you know, the pro- the pos- the, the prospect of that is very exciting. So meditation would be one. Uh, two, of the males, and, um, we could, we could theorize as to why this is the case, but of the males, a high percentage of the interviewees over the age of 50 skip breakfast. Very high percentage. Uh, Wim Hof, General, uh, Stanley McChrystal, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. There's a long list. Pavel Tsatsouline, uh, the Russian who, who, who e- effectively brought kettlebells to the US. I remember I asked him, my usual sound check question is, "What did you have for breakfast?" And he's like, "Breakfast, coffee." [laughs]

    6. JTJordan Thibodeau28:49

       [laughs]

    7. TFTim Ferriss28:49

       I was like, "We need more for soundcheck." He's like, "Tim, I like to keep it simple." I was like, "Ah."

    8. JTJordan Thibodeau28:53

       [laughs]

    9. TFTim Ferriss28:54

       All right, all right. Uh, Pavel's awesome. One of my favorite episodes. Uh, let's see. Uh, the... I find just as interesting as the patterns, I find the differences reassuring, right? Because of course, I think we're pat- we're pattern recognition machines, so I'm looking for, like, the secrets.

    10. JTJordan Thibodeau29:12

        Okay.

    11. TFTim Ferriss29:12

        It's like, okay, like, just, like, net, net. Like, give me the, give me the, what do 80% of these people have in common? So I can just, like, do that, that's my recipe, and then I'll, like, have everything that I want. Great. Do everything that I want, be happy. Oh, that'd be fantastic. But what I've realized over time is that, uh, what appears to be the case, because you have... At first, I was interviewing all these people, and they're like, "I wake up at 4:30 in the morning." Like, Jocko Willink, the most decorated special operations commander from the Iraq War. You know, he's like, "Wake up at 4:30." And, uh, I had a string of about 10 of these interviews where they're all like, "I wake up at 4:30. I wake up at 5:00." And I was like, "Oh, God, I don't want to wake up at 4:30." [laughs]

    12. JTJordan Thibodeau29:51

        [laughs]

    13. TFTim Ferriss29:52

        For me, like, I'm waking up at the ass crack of dawn is, like, 8:30. Like, that's a major effort for me because I go to bed so late.

    14. JTJordan Thibodeau29:58

        [laughs]

    15. TFTim Ferriss29:59

        And I've historically done all my best writing between, like, 11:00 PM and, like, 4:00 or 5:00 AM. And, uh, then I had a few folks who are very late night, and I was like, "Oh, thank-" Okay. [laughs] Whew, that was close. And what I realized is, and there's a quote, I'm gonna massacre it, but I th- I'm gonna paraphrase here, that I think it's W.H. Auden, A-U-D-E-N, I might be getting the last name wrong. But that, uh, routine in the intelligent man, person, right? Routine in an intelligent man is a sign of ambition. And I think that what is important is not having a specific routine, it's having a routine. That's it. Like, you have a routine that allows you to preserve your decision-making and, and your creativity hit points, sorry Dungeons and Dragons, for the things that actually matter so that you're not waking up and every morning deciding what to have for breakfast. You're not waking up every morning and maybe deciding what to wear, right? Steve Jobs, et cetera. There, I, I have quite a few friends who wear the same thing effectively every day. Uh, so in what ways can you preserve your decision-making budget, your creativity budget for the things that you are uniquely good at and that really matter? Uh, and the, the answer seems to be you have a lot of routines. And you can have your own routines, but what's important is that you have a routine or routines that you stick to for periods of time. Um, that, that seems to be... And there are many, many, many, many, many different routines. Uh, but, but those would be a few. Um, a lot of them, the majority of them are insomniacs, so take heart. So just because you're an insomniac doesn't make you successful, but [laughs] seems to be a symptom or a, a common side effect of, of a lot of their behavior. And then scratching their own itch. Almost all of them, uh, scratch their own itch. And this is actually super important. I think there's a lot of rah-rah, like motivational speaker business advice out there that is utter horseshit. And, and I think one of the, the biggest delusions, illusions, or just hoaxes is, like optimism, think big, the passion's gonna drive you, bah. Like, that's how the people who are really successful are successful. That might be the story you read about in the magazines, 'cause it makes for a fun hero's journey type of story. But the, the people that, that I've been most impressed by ask themselves all the time, "What is the worst-case scenario?" They're budgeting for the downside. So in oth- in other words, they're not using optimism to allow them to take action. They're not just like, "You know what? I'm gonna jump off the cliff and grow wings on the ray- on the way down," or whatever the, you know, the, the cliche is, uh, that you might find on like a calendar in office space. No, they're saying, "The way that I do things that other people think are high risk or other people think are risky, dangerous," whatever it might be, "is because I th- I, I write down the worst-case scenarios, ask myself, 'What could I do to mitigate these things from happening?' And then I ask myself, 'If they happen, what can I do to get back to where I am now?'" And I realize these, like, risky things are not risky at all.

    16. JTJordan Thibodeau33:16

        Right.

    17. TFTim Ferriss33:16

        They're totally reversible. They're just speed bumps if anything goes wrong, really, in the grand scheme of things. And so they, they get a lot of at bats.

    18. JTJordan Thibodeau33:24

        Mm-hmm.

    19. TFTim Ferriss33:25

        They're really good at capping the downside. Branson has said this. You know, as much as he has a lot of rah-rah stuff, like you, you drill down into it, it's like he's really good at deciding, like what is the most I can lose if I do X? What is the most time that I can lose if we do Y? And then making decisions based on that sort of, that, uh, loss limit, if that makes sense. Um, so that's very heartening, because I've never been... Uh, I mean, I would like to say I'm a follow my passion kind of guy. I get excited about things. I want to scratch my own itch. But I think that the real toolkit is getting really good at asking, you know, is this the condition that I so feared? What if? And, and once you sort of neuter the worst-case scenarios and, uh, depower them, you're like, "Oh yeah, this is fun. Like, this is totally fun." It's not any riskier than just, like investing and watching a new TV series on Netflix. Like, maybe you get three episodes in and you're like, "Damn it, I can't believe I watched three hours of this crap." And you choose another series. It's not the end of the world.

    20. JTJordan Thibodeau34:26

        Right. [laughs] Right. No, that's true.

    21. TFTim Ferriss34:28

        Narcos. Watch Narcos.

    22. JTJordan Thibodeau34:29

        Very good.

    23. TFTim Ferriss34:30

        So good.

    24. JTJordan Thibodeau34:30

        Can't wait for season two.

    25. TFTim Ferriss34:31

        So good.

    26. JTJordan Thibodeau34:32

        Yeah. Um-

    27. TFTim Ferriss34:33

        Oh, that was such a head fake at the end. Ah, but I'm kind of happy.

    28. JTJordan Thibodeau34:38

        Yeah.

    29. TFTim Ferriss34:38

        All right. Sorry, I digress.

    30. JTJordan Thibodeau34:39

        I know.
11. 35:32 – 39:07

    Book from the podcast? Distilling lessons to fix “embarrassment of riches”

    1. JTJordan Thibodeau35:32

       Now, are there plans to maybe write a book about these podcasts and the experience you've had?

    2. TFTim Ferriss35:37

       You know, I've been toying with it. I put, I put some feelers out on, uh, on social media to see if people would be interested, because usually when I end up doing something, it's when it's less painful to do it than to not do it. So the insomnia for me, I've actually become, I'm much better at getting asleep. Much better at falling asleep. But, um, usually when I end up pulling the trigger on something, it's when it keeps me up for like four or five nights straight.

    3. JTJordan Thibodeau36:02

       Mm-hmm.

    4. TFTim Ferriss36:02

       And just, like the ideas are coming. I'm like, "God, stop. Make it stop. I want to go to sleep." But it's that excitement good stuff. Uh, which is how the 4-Hour Workweek happened. It was like waking up and writing down stuff and being like, "Ah, let me go to sleep. Get out of my head, let me go to sleep." And, um, so for the last, you know, week or two, the, the idea of sort of distilling the patterns and learnings and the stuff that was, like, not in the podcasts also, like the experiments that I've done afterwards or in between or other interactions I've had with these guests, there are a lot of just [laughs] really actionable, awesome habits and tools that I've actually tested. So, well, let me take a poll. So how, how many people here have listened to the podcast? All right. Of those people, how many would be interested in, like, a distilled synopsis of the, the best lessons learned in the podcast? All right, so it's, like, a 60, 70%. Yeah, I, I think, uh, there's a decent chance.

    5. JTJordan Thibodeau37:02

       Excellent.

    6. TFTim Ferriss37:02

       I just think it would be... And, and I'll tell you why also. It's not the reason you might expect. What, what I suffer from most, what pains me the most about the podcast, is the, like, embarrassment of riches that comes out of a two-and-a-half-hour conversation. Because I do, I have one of these coming out a week. I don't have time to actually digest and reflect on all the stuff that I'm putting out.

    7. JTJordan Thibodeau37:29

       Right.

    8. TFTim Ferriss37:29

       I do as much as I can, but I just don't have the bandwidth. And now I've done 150, I'm like, in part of me, it's like, "I don't need to interview anybody else."

    9. JTJordan Thibodeau37:36

       [laughs]

    10. TFTim Ferriss37:37

        Like, this is enough.

    11. JTJordan Thibodeau37:38

        Yeah. [laughs]

    12. TFTim Ferriss37:38

        And, like, I wanna do it because I enjoy it, but I'm like, if you can't figure out how to improve any aspect of your life from these 150 people across, like, 100 different disciplines-

    13. JTJordan Thibodeau37:48

        Right

    14. TFTim Ferriss37:48

        ... you're an idiot, like-

    15. JTJordan Thibodeau37:49

        Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    16. SPSpeaker37:50

        [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss37:50

        Tim Ferriss talking to myself, so it's like, "Go back and review. Review, idiot."

    18. JTJordan Thibodeau37:55

        Right. [laughs]

    19. TFTim Ferriss37:55

        Like, you've done tests before.

    20. SPSpeaker37:57

        [laughs]

    21. TFTim Ferriss37:57

        Life is the test. Start studying. Or you're gonna, like, have a panic attack. So, uh, this would give, if I were to go back and try to distill all this stuff, it would give me the incentive and opportunity to do exactly that.

    22. JTJordan Thibodeau38:11

        Mm.

    23. TFTim Ferriss38:11

        To go back and actually pull out all these things and be like, "Oh my God."

    24. JTJordan Thibodeau38:15

        Yeah.

    25. TFTim Ferriss38:15

        "That's right." Like, the most successful people in the business and investing realm recommended Sapiens, spoke on evolutionary biology, effectively. It's like, that's weird. Oh yeah, forgot about that. Maybe I should read Sapiens.

    26. JTJordan Thibodeau38:27

        Yeah.

    27. TFTim Ferriss38:28

        Fill in the blank. There's so many examples like that.

    28. JTJordan Thibodeau38:30

        So it should be done by July, right?

    29. TFTim Ferriss38:32

        [laughs]

    30. SPSpeaker38:32

        [laughs]
12. 39:07 – 44:34

    Five-year direction: experiments over fixed plans, podcast scale, and simplifying

    1. JTJordan Thibodeau39:07

       Where do you see Tim going in the next five years?

    2. TFTim Ferriss39:11

       Tim in five years. Tim sees Tim. This is like Hulk speak.

    3. JTJordan Thibodeau39:15

       [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss39:16

       Uh, I see in the next five years... Well, let me pause before I answer that to say I've never had reliable five-year plans, 10-year plans, or otherwise. And I treat my entire life as a series of two-week experiments and six-month projects because, and maybe this is just a, the way I cope with life and decision-making, but I feel like if you make a five or 10-year plan that you can reliably hit, almost by definition, you have to set a plan that is below your current capabilities, right? Like, if you're an A student, you have to set a C+ plan for it to be 100% achievable. Uh, and I, I... That, I think, is just a great way to paint yourself into a very unattractive corner. So two-week experiments, six-month projects is kind of how I view my whole life. But if I had to guess, I would say five years, less hair.

    5. SPSpeaker40:15

       [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss40:16

       Uh, [laughs] better gymnastics.

    7. JTJordan Thibodeau40:20

       Yeah.

    8. TFTim Ferriss40:21

       Which is my new thing, one of my new things. Uh, but larger picture, I see myself doing the podcast or some iteration of it, just deconstructing experts and world-class performers on a much, much larger scale. Uh, I just, I think it'll be 10, I think, and want it to be 10 times bigger, without sacrificing the nitty-gritty, the nerdiness, or going into the details. It's like, if I want to talk about exogenous ketones, which by the way, internet, are not androgynous ketones. Exogenous ketones outside the body with, like, Dom D'Agostino and talk about Navy SEALs and rebreathers and all this geeky shit for an hour and a half, like, that's what I'm gonna do. [laughs] And, uh, if I'm having fun, hopefully other people will. And I, so I think that will continue to be a component because whether or not I'm publishing it, that's what I'm doing anyway. So I'd like to... But by doing it publicly, I force myself to get better. It's a strong incentive to refine the, the, the blade. Uh, I think that, yeah, there's a chance I'll have a family. We'll see about that stuff. We'll have a conversation about my thoughts on marriage and relationships. That's a whole separate thing that requires a lot more tequila.

    9. JTJordan Thibodeau41:29

       Or maybe a four-hour workweek-

    10. TFTim Ferriss41:30

        Yeah

    11. JTJordan Thibodeau41:30

        ... on raising a child.

    12. TFTim Ferriss41:31

        That's a whole separate thing, yeah.

    13. JTJordan Thibodeau41:33

        [laughs]

    14. TFTim Ferriss41:33

        Four-hour parent not coming anytime soon.

    15. JTJordan Thibodeau41:35

        [laughs]

    16. SPSpeaker41:36

        [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss41:37

        Somebody was like, "What about the four-hour relationship?" And I'm like, what is that, a guide to one-night stands? I mean-

    18. JTJordan Thibodeau41:41

        [laughs]

    19. SPSpeaker41:41

        [laughs]

    20. TFTim Ferriss41:42

        That's a best-case scenario.

    21. SPSpeaker41:44

        [laughs]

    22. TFTim Ferriss41:45

        Feel like other people have written that book.

    23. JTJordan Thibodeau41:47

        [laughs]

    24. TFTim Ferriss41:47

        Don't need to do it.

    25. JTJordan Thibodeau41:48

        [laughs]

    26. SPSpeaker41:48

        [laughs]

    27. TFTim Ferriss41:49

        Uh, so I, I think five years from now, I hope to be, uh, I hope to be better at simplifying. I think I'm good, but I know I can be better. I would like to... I, this is the first time in a long time that I've ever said this, like, I wanna still be doing what I'm doing with the podcast. I'm just really loving it. And, like, with books, if anybody, well, I know there are people in the audience who have written books, and I'm not gonna have anybody confess their sins now, but it's like you get through a book, and I remember- I was 90% done with The 4-Hour Body, and I was talking to this author. I'm like, "Ah, God, I'm so bored of this. Oh, my God, I can't stand rereading these chapters. I'm 90% done. I'm almost there." He goes, "Oh, congratulations. You only have 50% left." And I was like, "Oh, God. You're so right. Ah."

    28. JTJordan Thibodeau42:37

        [laughs]

    29. TFTim Ferriss42:38

        You know? And it's just so painful to give birth to these things. It's like crowning with like a, you know, Tony Robbins' head. That sounds terrible.

    30. JTJordan Thibodeau42:45

        [laughs]
13. 44:34 – 47:10

    Personal board of directors: pranksters, polymaths, and Stoic gravity

    1. JTJordan Thibodeau44:34

       Um, for the final question, uh, let's say you had a personal board of directors and you could put three people on there, living and dead. Who would those people be?

    2. TFTim Ferriss44:45

       Personal board of directors, three people. I would say f- first few that come to mind would be Benjamin Franklin, the merry prankster himself. Just so, such a colorful character and multi-faceted, really incredible amateur who was able to best a lot of the professionals because of that beginner mind and lack of fear, and I think that prankster-like nature was very helpful. Uh, the Walter Isaacson biography of Franklin is so good. So, so good. Uh, I, I... It slows down for me in the sort of last third, but the beginnings are so incredible. They're s- really fantastic. Highly recommend it. Second, Richard Feynman probably, the, uh, physicist I guess from Caltech, largely associated with Caltech. Uh, sh- another prankster, just like another polymath/prankster who used to, in addition to being, you know, a world-class physicist at Los Alamos and whatnot, he would... He became a, a safe breaker just to like annoy his superiors. I wouldn't suggest this in today's climate, but like he used to break into these safes at Los Alamos, take out like the top secret documents, and then put them on his boss's desk and then close the safe and just leave them there. [laughs] To like... You know, not for extended periods of time, but just to like cause his boss to have a complete panic attack.

    3. JTJordan Thibodeau46:10

       [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss46:11

       Uh, learned to play the bongos. Uh, had some debate with, uh, an artist friend, and they got really fired up, and he was like, "Well, I'm gonna teach you about science," and he's like, "All right, well, I'm gonna teach you how to paint." So he got really into painting, and he would, uh, go into strip clubs to paint strippers. [laughs] Like, I love this guy.

    5. JTJordan Thibodeau46:27

       [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss46:28

       Like, this is hilarious.

    7. JTJordan Thibodeau46:29

       [laughs]

    8. TFTim Ferriss46:30

       So, uh, I think Feynman, although I, I might not be able to get a word in edgewise with him and Franklin at the same table.

    9. JTJordan Thibodeau46:36

       Mm-hmm. [laughs]

    10. TFTim Ferriss46:38

        Uh, and then probably need some, like, serious, serious person with some scars. So, I, mm, I mean, not that they aren't serious, but, uh, maybe like a Marcus Aurelius type who's like somebody who's had like the weight of the world literally on their shoulders-

    11. JTJordan Thibodeau46:51

        Right

    12. TFTim Ferriss46:51

        ... and has had to make life and death decisions. Like, yeah, I think, uh, maybe a Marcus Aurelius. I'm not sure if I can get him to laugh much.

    13. JTJordan Thibodeau46:59

        Yeah.

    14. TFTim Ferriss47:00

        Maybe a Musashi, although he'd probably kill all of us. Musashi Miyamoto or Miyamoto Musashi. Anyway, uh, yeah, I'd say Marcus Aurelius. I'll go with him.

    15. JTJordan Thibodeau47:09

        Sounds good.

14. 47:10 – 1:17:47

    Audience Q&A: dog-training experiments, longevity basics, insomnia tools, and tribe-building

    1. SPSpeaker47:10

       Uh, so thank you so much for coming out. I, I listen to your podcast every week.

    2. TFTim Ferriss47:14

       Thank you.

    3. SPSpeaker47:14

       And, uh, to actually see a face that moves with them is a neat experience.

    4. TFTim Ferriss47:18

       [laughs]

    5. JTJordan Thibodeau47:18

       [laughs]

    6. TFTim Ferriss47:18

       His head is so much bigger than I thought.

    7. JTJordan Thibodeau47:20

       [laughs]

    8. TFTim Ferriss47:21

       I do look like a bridge troll. I apologize for that. Uh-

    9. SPSpeaker47:23

       I'm sorry, I look like a bridge troll?

    10. TFTim Ferriss47:24

        No.

    11. JTJordan Thibodeau47:24

        [laughs]

    12. TFTim Ferriss47:25

        I look like a bridge troll.

    13. SPSpeaker47:26

        [laughs]

    14. TFTim Ferriss47:27

        Oh, this is good. We're getting all, ah, limbering up.

    15. SPSpeaker47:29

        All right.

    16. TFTim Ferriss47:30

        Ah. No, no, I look like a bridge troll. Look at this thing. It's like a p- it's like a, I don't know, narwhal or something. All right.

    17. JTJordan Thibodeau47:35

        [laughs]

    18. TFTim Ferriss47:35

        Continue. Sorry.

    19. SPSpeaker47:36

        So I actually have a Molly question.

    20. TFTim Ferriss47:38

        Oh.

    21. SPSpeaker47:38

        Which, by the way, where is she?

    22. TFTim Ferriss47:39

        Molly-

    23. SPSpeaker47:39

        Totally thought you would've brought her with you.

    24. TFTim Ferriss47:41

        Yeah, so Molly is my, my pup. She's about 11 months old. She's hiking right now, so she's probably in the Marin Headlands with-

    25. SPSpeaker47:49

        Excellent

    26. TFTim Ferriss47:49

        ... with a walker.

    27. SPSpeaker47:50

        That was not the follow-up question.

    28. TFTim Ferriss47:52

        Yeah.

    29. SPSpeaker47:52

        Um, so I know she's 11 months old. I actually have a nine-month-old puppy, so follow a lot of what you talk about in your 5 Bullet Fridays about her and the, the toy that spits out food. Um, and I know that you do a lot of testing experimentation on yourself.

    30. TFTim Ferriss48:06

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:17:47