EVERY SPOKEN WORD
45 min read · 8,587 words- 0:00 – 0:23
Cold open banter and show bumper
- TFTim Ferriss
Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
- JSJoel Stein
Can I ask you a personal question?
- TFTim Ferriss
Now would seem an appropriate time. What if I give the opposite?
- JSJoel Stein
I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
- SPSpeaker
The Tim Ferriss Show.
- 0:23 – 2:25
Sponsor messages: 99designs and Thrive Market
- TFTim Ferriss
This episode is brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is a great partner for creating and growing your business. It's a one-stop shop for all of your graphic design needs, whether that's a logo, website, business card, or anything else. I used 99designs to get book cover prototypes for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. And I also use them for banner ads, illustrations, and other things. With 99designs, designers around the world compete to create the best design for you. You give feedback and then pick your favorite. You end up happy or you get your money back. It's very simple. You can check out a few of my own designs and those of yours, meaning Tim Ferriss Show listeners, at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, my listeners, you guys, will get a free $99 upgrade on your first design. That's 99designs.com/tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. If you're anything like me, you care a lot about the food you put into your body. In fact, I think it's much more important than exercise. The problem is that good food can be extremely expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Thrive Market, which is one of the fastest growing startups in the health space right now, is like Costco for everything healthy. An online shopping club offering the best brands and groceries at 25 to 50% off of retail prices, shipped nationally for free. It's awesome. There are a ton of slow carb friendly items that I recommend in The 4-Hour Body. You can easily filter everything by your preferences, whether you're paleo, gluten-free, vegan, raw, non-GMO, vegetarian, veterinarian, whatever. So go to thrivemarket.com/tim and check it out. You can get a free two-month trial and 25% off your first order. When you sign up for a membership, if you sign up, it's $59.95 per year, which is only $5 a month. At the very least, go there and check out the avocado mayo they have, which is amazing. Not only that, for every paying member, Thrive gives a free membership to a low-income family, veteran, or teacher, which is awesome and helps level
- 2:25 – 4:26
Why this episode exists: saving great conversations from being cut down
- TFTim Ferriss
the playing field. So you can get ripped while you're doing some good also. Never pay full price for healthy food again. Check it out, thrivemarket.com/tim to start your free two-month trial and get 25% off your first order. What do you have to lose? Nothing. Go check it out. Avocado mayo. It's rad. thrivemarket.com/tim. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I am garbling words late at night, whispering in a hotel room in New York City. Outside of my window is a Christmas tree with white lights on it, and all of the children are snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. But I digress. This episode is a special one, and if you've enjoyed in-betweenisodes in the past, this is not a long-form interview. Actually, it is kind of a long-form interview. Then this might be your favorite episode ever. Might end up really being your top pick for most actionable information packed into one interview that I've ever done. And it came about in part because I have many conversations with journalists, and the pain always strikes me when I have a one to two hour conversation, and then it gets cut down to a single sentence as a quote in a piece, oftentimes a misquote. And then the one to two hours just never get used. And then furthermore, I can't use it. If they have a recording and they have a boss who has a boss who has a boss, it just turns into a huge headache and it makes me sad. So how do you fix that? Well, you record it yourself on your side, which doubles as a way to cover your ass with media and journalists. You say, "Well, hey, I'll record it on my side via Skype with Ecamm Call Recorder as backup. Cool?" And if they're recording and you're recording and you all agree, then you're not breaking any laws and it sounds good and fantastic. And I actually spoke to, uh, Joel Stein, who is one of the funniest writers I have ever read, and I'm not alone in this. There are many, many, many, many people who would agree with me, and
- 4:26 – 7:57
What to expect: a rapid-fire list of actionable topics
- TFTim Ferriss
you have to check him out. Uh, I asked him if I could use this audio. He very graciously said, "Yes, go for it. Do whatever you want with it." And his site is thejoelstein, S-T-E-I-N, .com. And on the Twitter, you can check him out. One of my favorite people to follow on Twitter, hilarious, right up there with Patton Oswalt, is, uh, The Joel Stein. So twitter.com/thejoelstein. Please say hi to him. What do we cover in this episode? We cover how I choose what to improve. How do I pick the one single thing to tweak out of infinite options? How you can subtract your way to success. The genius of Ben Franklin. Uh, why self-improvement doesn't have to mean self-centered and tactical tips for, for fulfilling that. Uh, how I say no to time-consuming lunches, coffees, and so on, which is a massive time suck. Uh, how I tackle, and others might tackle, the bane of so-called cold introductions. God, do I hate those. The last few things I've improved in my life, Lyme disease, some of the ways that I was able to surmount that by making hypotheses. Um, a couple of notes. Mostly taking a break from startups is something I say in this. That is now 100% true. I am off completely as of six months ago, out of the game completely. I did write a public piece called Why I'm Taking a Long Startup Vacation or How to Say No When It Matters Most. If you just search Tim Ferriss or Ferriss, two Rs, two Ss, and startup vacation, it'll pop right up if you are interested in reading the entire manifesto, which applies to almost every possible area of li- of life. My podcast process. We get into how I thought about automating and, uh, really streamlining my podcast process, and this was recorded in 2015. This is, like, about 100 episodes ago, so you get to see the early thinking, which hasn't changed that much, so that might be fun for some of you. Tools and tactics for reversing email overwhelm. A couple of notes on that. Number one, Slack. Uh, I mention that once. Pops up again. This is 2015, and, uh, Slack, folks, this one's on me. Hope it makes you a million bucks. Okay. Next time give me some money. Thanks. IBM man who eliminated email. I mention this. I'm not sure if it's IBM man or Intel woman. I'm not sure, but I believe it was someone at IBM. If you know the name, please let me know via Twitter, @TFerriss. Let me know. This was all initially recorded for five episodes that Joel hoped to use to improve himself, each time picking an important area, and he wanted to talk to me first about how to select those damn areas in the first place, among other things. We dig into everything. And he wanted me to promise something that I couldn't deliver, so I'm not gonna do that, but I came up with a substitute. I implore each and every one of you to watch or re-watch the movie Idiocracy. It might have some relevance for our current presidential election/process/theater debacle. Could help you out, so check it out. Idiocracy. Treat it as a documentary, but, uh, with some time travel involved. And, uh, last but not least, please check out Joel. You will be so happy that you did. TheJoelStein.com, and on Twitter, uh, @TheJoelStein. So Twitter.com/TheJoelStein. T-H-E J-O-E-L S-T-E-I-N. And as I always say, but seldom comply with, without further ado, please enjoy my conversations, about 30 minutes, with Joel Stein. [intro music]
- 7:57 – 9:44
Joel’s self-improvement podcast concept and Tim’s starting framework
- JSJoel Stein
Okay, so the idea for this podcast, I'm just doing five episodes, is that I'm going to improve myself in some way in each podcast. Like, I'm gonna become a better husband, and I'm gonna, uh, maybe find a new job and become more assertive, things like that. Um, but we haven't even picked all five yet, so I wanted to turn to you. A- and first of all, how do you get started in self-improvement?
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, I think self-improvement is a dicey term and area because there are a lot of charlatans, uh, a lot of motivational speakers who are light on daily practical tactics, things like that. I would just say that you should identify your pain points, and an easy way to do that is to sit down with, uh, whatever it might be. You could use an application like Evernote or Word or whatever's comfortable for you, or Notepad, and do an 80/20 analysis to identify the, the 20% of... Make a list of the, say, 20% of activities, relationships, people, whatever it might be, that cause 80% of your negative emotions, uh, and negative outcomes. Right? So really just go through a brain dump as an exercise, and then you can start to identify the changes that correlate to removing those sources of stress. And I think that one of the failures of most self-help, uh, recommendations is that, number one, they don't really have a solid grounding in, uh, behavioral change and the, the, the science and research behind that. And secondly, they focus on always adding additional things and not creating a not-to-do list. So I think the, the subtraction can be just as valuable as the addition. So the 80/20 analysis is a good place to start, I think.
- 9:44 – 12:25
Handling time-suck invitations and unwanted introductions without burning bridges
- JSJoel Stein
You know, uh, okay. One, this is a very small pain point, but it points to something larger, and I feel like you deal with this so much more than me, which is, like, people you know and kind of like who ask you to lunch and just become a time suck. Even though they're nice and interesting and everything, how, how do you say no to them when you-- I always say I'm busy that day, but then they just pick three more days.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Then it just gets punted to pain further down the line. I d- I have a couple of different approaches I use, and there are many different coping mechanisms for this. Uh, some work better than others. Uh, I will, I will say either categorically I'm avoiding, um, certain types of activities. So for instance, I'm taking largely a break from startup investing at the moment, uh, for a, for a host of reasons that we can get into if you want, but I won't bore you with it right now. And, uh, I'm very highly concentrated in that kind of asset class. So I, when I respond to, say, an introduction from, uh, uh, a venture capitalist to a CEO, which is the hardest to turn down because you're now going to offend two people, not just one, and, uh, requests for lunch related to kinda categorically that type of activity, I will just respond with, you know, heads down on deadlines or on other projects, taking a break, you know, taking a, quote, "startup vacation," end quote, for the next X period of time. And I've noticed that, um, there are many people who use this, busy people, uh, you know, in, in some cases worth hundreds or hundreds of millions or more, who will use this vacation in quotations for many different things. "I'm taking a meeting vacation for X period of time to focus on A and B." "I'm taking a fill-in-the-blank vacation for X period of time." And that way you're not pushing it off and basically giving-- you're not putting a Band-Aid solution on it that's just gonna r- rub off and come back to you in a month's time, and they'll say, "Hey, following up, just like you suggested," and then you're gonna really paint yourself into a corner. So that, that's one approach. Uh, making sort of public, uh, announcements about policies. Writing-- I mean, you're a writer, so this works perfectly for you. So I will probably be putting out something public soon about, for instance, cold email introductions where someone doesn't ask permission to email you. And they introduce you to fill-in-the-blank type of person who can then reply and CC all of their co-founders or whatever it might be. It's a huge problem, but you have the leverage of a platform and the ability to write, so that actually gives you a, uh, a very easy out in, in some sense because you can write about tackling these issues.
- JSJoel Stein
Yeah. That's a... I feel like it's a general rule, you have to ask someone's permission before you introduce them. That's like an Adam Grant rule.
- 12:25 – 13:46
Make improvement measurable: avoid nebulous goals and define metrics
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. It's a, it's a very good rule, but it's violated all the time. Uh, and it's, it's... I think it's particularly rampant in the early-stage startup investing world. Uh, but it's, it's, it's true in, in many, many, many other places as well. Uh, but the, the, the, the crux of, uh, self-improvement, I think, and there are differing opinions on this, could be echoed by, say, Peter Drucker, the management theorist. So what gets measured gets managed. I think that nebulous goals produce very, at best, mediocre returns, so you have to, uh, for instance, like learning Spanish is not a great goal because it's not measurable. Um, becoming a better husband, uh, in the abstract, a great goal, but in the implementation, uh, a, a terrible objective because you don't really have-- It's not granular enough and you don't have metrics, right? So you'd have to decide how you're going to measure your before, your baseline, and how you're gonna assess your progress or your after. And I, I, that's, that's something I feel very, um, strongly about, and I'm kind of militant about that aspect when I, when I try to tweak variables in my own life. Uh, which are either, you know, oftentimes associated with some type of performance goal, uh, but not always.
- 13:46 – 18:11
Example of measurement in practice: Lyme disease hypotheses, diet tests, and rating scales
- JSJoel Stein
So what are the last few things you improved in your life, so I can get an idea of what's measurable?
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure. Uh, I had about nine months of my life removed, uh, by Lyme disease. I had a very severe, uh, uh, it's very severe symptoms of Lyme disease, and it was confirmed. I, I, I, I contracted it on Long Island, which has one of the highest-
- JSJoel Stein
So did my, my dad got Lyme disease twice. He lived in-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- JSJoel Stein
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- JSJoel Stein
He lives right near you, actually. He lives in Quogue.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. It's, it's a-- It can be a very debilitating, uh, disease with a lot of sort of neurological symptoms, and s- joint pain, and so on. Uh, so I started experimenting with various diets based on hypotheses that I had, right? So you have to start with any scientific experiment, which is what I would view what you're doing as, you have a hypothesis. So, you know, doing X will make me a better husband. Or in my case, I thought potentially Lyme is, uh, similar to, say, like herpes simplex, that it, it l- it can lay dormant and then, uh, neurotoxins-
- JSJoel Stein
I don't know anything about herpes whatsoever.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Well, first-
- JSJoel Stein
Just make that really clear
- TFTim Ferriss
... yeah, no. All you need to, [laughs] all you need to know is that people talk about chronic Lyme as a recurring condition, right? So there, there are a couple of hypotheses. One is that, uh, there could be common triggers like artificial-- certain artificial sweeteners that I should remove, and then I could assess sort of the severity of symptoms as they correlate or don't correlate to that. The other thing is, uh, and I, I won't go too deep here, but is, uh, I have a theory, right? Hypothesis that Lyme may interfere with carbohydrate metabolism in some way. So I tested the ketogenic diet, which is like the Atkins diet-
- JSJoel Stein
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... and had a device called the Precision Xtra, which is intended for diabetics, but it allows me to measure my ketone levels in a millimolar concentration. And lo and behold, my cognitive symptoms and everything else, uh, effectively vanished when I got to a certain ketone level. Now, is that causal? Is it just correlative? Are there other variables? Sure. But it's a, it's a very promising start. So that, that would be one way that I might measure it. Uh, you could do this in a, in a less technical way where you have-- you either assess or someone else assesses you on a zero to 10-point scale. So for instance-
- JSJoel Stein
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
... I have a friend, he's in a, a older gent, he's in his 60s. He has a, he has a very good, uh, marriage, has a very good relationship with his wife, very good relationship with his kids. Every quarter, his wife grades him on a 10-point scale in four categories. Father, husband, provider, and lover. And what's, what's, what was so fascinating, and I thought smart about how they did this, is that he doesn't have to maintain a certain ranking in each category. He has to maintain a certain total. So let's just say for the sake of argument that it's a 30-point scale. Well, he might be traveling a lot for business and not spending a lot of time on the phone or otherwise communicating with his wife for a given quarter. So he might have a very high provider score, say eight, nine, 10. A very low husband score, and probably a low lover score, but he could make up for that by being a good father, right? Really focusing on the father category. And that would ultimately give him the total number of points necessary to check the, "I am being sort of a, a, uh, a good version of myself for my wife and my family." So th- that's, that's a simple, non-technical way to approach something like that, for instance.
- JSJoel Stein
Yeah. That's a-- That sounds like a good way to, to have an excuse to buy your wife's love.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Well, it's also, I think, s- underscores something else, which is you shouldn't take advice from anyone who has not been able to implement the same advice successfully for themselves. And in this case, uh, I was not talking to someone who had been married for a year. I was talking to someone who had been married for 20-plus years.
- JSJoel Stein
Right.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, and, uh-
- JSJoel Stein
It works.
- TFTim Ferriss
It works, yeah. At least, uh... And, and again, that, that isn't necessarily the only contributing factor, but he felt very strongly that it was. And all that means is you have a hypothesis worth dispr- disproving, right? It gives you something to test. That's it.
- 18:11 – 21:09
Is self-improvement selfish? Choosing targets that affect others and long-term tradeoffs
- JSJoel Stein
So one thing I've thought about as far-- 'cause I've done things, like I'm in really good shape now because I did a story for GQ where they had me get in really good shape. Uh, I've, I've done things where I've kinda changed myself. And I always wonder with self-improvement, as I improve myself and really focus on myself, is-- am I actually just doing more damage by making me a bad pers-person because I'm not focusing on other people, you know, my family?
- TFTim Ferriss
I think it depends exactly, uh, or entirely, I should say, on what you're focusing on. And, uh, I don't think improving oneself and improving, uh, either or both your interactions with other people or the world at large are mutually exclusive, right? So I think it's-- it might be a false dichotomy in so much as if you look at, say, Ben Franklin and his 13 virtues, you had humility, sincerity. These are things that affect other people, and ostensibly would improve, uh, his ability to interact with the world around him. And I think that it depends entirely on the objectives that you choose. Uh, whether you're focusing on self-improvement or not, I think that y-your focus determines how selfish, self-interested, uh, or otherwise you are. So I think, I think that it can cut both ways, and it just-- it, it depends a lot on what targets you choose.
- JSJoel Stein
But y- have you found that people who follow your advice sometimes become self-oriented in a bad way?
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, that's a good question. I, uh, I would imagine that is the case. I would imagine it has to be the case. You know, if I have whatever it might be, you know, two million people or so per month coming to the blog as unique visitors, I would imagine that you have all sorts of interesting patterns in the data, including people who end up focusing on themselves to the exclusion of others. Now, I would emphasize, or I would propose that it's possible, I'm not saying this is altogether the case, but it's possible just in the way that it's easier for people to focus on, say, improving the world and philanthropic work, like Bill Gates, for instance, after they have amassed a certain amount of capital and satisfied, uh, a ha- uh, the, the majority of rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I think it's possible that to be as selfless as possi- uh, uh, to be as selfless as you are capable of, you might focus very selfishly on yourself for a period of time, coming back to what you asked earlier about saying no to people, right? So saying no to 1,000 things so that you can focus on the one most important, highly leveraged, uh, project in your life may, in the long term, allow you to do the greatest good. So I think it's a calculus you have to run. Uh, but is it possible that someone could be a selfish bastard by focusing on, uh, you know, reading 1,000 self-help books and never lending a helping hand to other people? Sure. I'm sure those people exist.
- 21:09 – 22:53
What people most want to fix: weight and digital/email overwhelm
- JSJoel Stein
A- and what are the things people most want to improve upon? I mean, I have my guesses, but what does it turn out to be? The, the stuff they can actually measure.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, I think that, uh, you know, the modern-- the, the fears of modern men and women can kind of be boiled down to getting fat and getting too many email. [laughs] I think that those are, those are two that crop up continually. I mean, there are m- there are many fears, fears of death and so on. So you have the, the Peter Thiels and others here in Silicon Valley trying to crack the code to immortality. But if we really wanna focus on the daily, the daily grind and, uh, the basics, I think that fat, having too much fat, eating too much fat, whatever it might be, and, uh, email overwhelm or the general state of kind of digital overwhelm are two things that most people seem preoccupied with. And fortunately, they're both-- they both provide a lot of different metrics you could potentially use.
- JSJoel Stein
I thought you were gonna mention in addition to fat, money and sex.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, I'm sure people worry about those things, and they're, they're also both measurable. Um, you know, I mean, you could, you could say, uh, you could compare, you know, Tinder to other dating profiles. You could, you could use data to, say, take five or six profile photos and put them up on OkCupid using a service they offer called My Best Face, which allows people to vote on your photos, so you determine which get the highest click-through rates. I mean, th-th-these can all be broken down to measurables. And, uh, so I'm, I'm-
- JSJoel Stein
My measurable would be, I think cutting down on my s- time spent on emails and stuff, it would be great. But, so the measurable is what there?
- 22:53 – 36:31
Email systems and the engineering mindset: tools, automation, and eliminating repetition
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, the measurable could be, uh, the number of email answered, right? So, so aiming to answer fewer email total, which I think is a good, is a, is a, is a good metric. Uh, simply because if you, if you listen to people like, say, Robert Scoble, who's a technologist, uh, his kinda hypothesis, which it's not really a hypothesis, it's based on his experience, is that for every email he sends out, he gets, I think, 1.75 [laughs] on average in r- in return, right? So you can-- the goal should not be to just do more things, right? Because it's, it's possible to be very efficient, i.e., do things quickly, but focus on things that are unimportant. Um, so my, my goal is always to try to, in this case, for instance, focus on being effective, which is doing the right things, and in the case of email, is having, say, an autoresponse, uh, uh, a piece of public writing that allow you to safely ignore 70 or 80% of your email as opposed to simply responding to those emails in a faster fashion. Now, um, the-- there-- the, the metrics you should-- you can come up with a laundry list and then pick one or two that are kinda your key metrics. And this goes for behaviors as well, and what I mean by that is you want to try to pick The variables in your life that have a cascading positive effect. So for instance, if your goal is to drink less coffee, you should ask yourself, well, why do you drink so much coffee? Well, it's because, uh, I wake up and I feel tired. Well, why do you wake up and you feel tired? It's because I go to bed really late. Well, why do you go to bed really late? It's because I habitually go out three or four nights a week and have drinks with friends. Okay. Why do you go out to have drinks with friends three or four nights per week if it makes you feel so shitty? Because I have a tough time saying no to their invitations. Okay. We can kind of track back to an initial snowball that leads to these other things. So if you just try to cut back on your coffee, w- it won't work unless you address kind of the, the earlier cascading effects, and I think that's true with, with variables, right?
- JSJoel Stein
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's, it's possible to improve your speed ranking in answering email, but if that's just leading to you answering more trivial email as opposed to the critical few, it-- you're playing the wrong game. Uh, but I mean, for email, for instance, uh, a, a tool that I think is, is, uh, very easy to implement if you're using Gmail is, uh, Boomerang, which allows you to schedule emails to be sent in the future. It allows you to automate follow-up, so that if someone doesn't reply, it brings it to your top-- to the top of your inbox. It removes a lot of the cognitive load of email processing. Uh, and, uh, those would be a few examples. Um, I mean, there are many more.
- JSJoel Stein
The one, one of the few things I ever fixed about myself was being late, which I fixed in my late 20s, and basically, I had to do all the work you just described, which was figuring out, "Oh, I'm really self-conscious if I get somewhere early, and I don't know what to do physically with myself." It was before you could play with your cell phone. And I had to like train myself to go in public and stand there and not feel self-conscious, and then I was able not to be late anymore.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Yeah.
- JSJoel Stein
So I think what you're saying about email is the same thing. Like, I am afraid of confrontation and being thought of as a jerk, so I'm afraid not to respond.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- JSJoel Stein
So I have to fix that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Exactly. Uh-
- JSJoel Stein
By being afraid of confrontation.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, you know, I mean, you could-- and, and we don't have to necessarily go into a psychoanalysis session now, but I mean, you could even-- you could go back. That may not be the end of the story or the beginning of the story, right? I mean, you could go back even further and say like, "Why am I afraid of people, uh, thinking ill of me or thinking of me as rude?" And, uh, it would be very helpful, um, I know I'm, I'm digressing very briefly here. I will sit down in the morning after I meditate for 20 minutes, uh, which I think is a, a, a huge kind of force multiplier for a lot of these behaviors, uh, and sit down and journal for five minutes and basically try to take all of my anxieties, whatever those might be, and put them on paper. And, uh, that will oftentimes sort of, uh, empower you to make decisions when you see how groundless most of them are. Um, but how do you-- it, it can take the-- it can take many forms, right? I mean, you could, you-- it, it takes, uh, number one, there's like the fact-gathering mission, right? So is this assumption actually based in fact, right? So can you find examples where that's the case? And in my, in my particular instance with the startup, um, the startup world and VCs, you know, venture capitalists are introducing me to founders without asking me first, and then those founders say, "Hey, great to meet you, Tim," you know, looping in my five co-founders or whatever the hell. It would turn into a mess. And then I, I looked at my most successful deals, and you could look at the most important pivotal projects in your life, just say, uh, pieces of writing, whatever it might be, that led to positive inflection points in your life. Were any of those the direct response to saying yes to invitations you otherwise wanted to turn down, right? And in my case, I realized none of my best startups, if I look at, again, 80/20 analysis, what are the twenty percent of the deals I've invested in that have produced eighty percent or more of my returns? None of those deals came from cold email introductions from VCs, not a single one. Um, so I think, I think that decreasing anxiety, uh, and tackling some of these thornier psychological issues starts with testing assumptions and fact-finding.
- JSJoel Stein
Wow. Okay, this is all incredibly helpful. Uh, I'm gonna ask my producer, Shara. Hi, Shara.
- SPSpeaker
Hi.
- JSJoel Stein
Is there anything else we should ask him?
- SPSpeaker
Um, yeah. Well, this is a very specific question, but, um, I know that there was a BuzzFeed writer who recently got rid of his email altogether.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yep.
- SPSpeaker
And I mean, like, what do you think of that? Because we have so many different forms of communication now, why just, you know, maybe we should just be eliminating some of them, and that could reduce some of Joel's potential anxiety, and the true people who wanna get in touch with him get in touch with him.
- TFTim Ferriss
I agree with that. I, I agree that email is, is a tool that has been sort of misappropriated for a lot of tasks for which it was not, uh, initially designed. Uh, and there are many people who have gone off-- I shouldn't say many, but more than a handful of people. Uh, there's another gent from IBM who has banished email from his toolkit and has done so for several years. Uh, there are, there are many different tools in the toolkit, right? So I think that some of the options worth examining could be, number one, some type of project management software, uh, whether that's Asana, Basecamp, Trello, for instance, uh, for assigning tasks with deadlines, uh, so that email does not become a follow-up system, is very helpful. Uh, identifying, and not to sound like, uh, I'm, I'm beating a dead horse, but doing an 80/20 analysis of your inbox, right? So who are, say, the top five-- who are the five to 10 people who communicate with you most via email? And trying to, uh, identify, asking yourself what other tools could do this job Better than email. And I think you'd find that project management software very helpful. But, uh, on top of that, you could look at, say, uh, within any given organization using a tool like Slack. Uh, Slack has become extremely popular in fast-growing startups who might be hiring, you know, 10, 50, you know, 100 people over the, over the course of several months. Uh, it, it becomes more and more important, uh, a- as you scale, and I think that if, for instance, you're trying to-- l- I'm just using a hypothetical, but in, in my case, rather than, say, training multiple people to, uh, help me moderate comments on the blog, I could use a tool like ScreenFlow, which allows you to record your screen and your voice while you're moderating comments. I take that video and I put it into Dropbox, and I never have to teach that skill again. Now, I have a link that I can send to anyone I need to train to do that. I never have to explain it again. Uh, so for any repetitive task, if you're thinking about this like an engineer, engineers abhor repetitive tasks. That's why they write scripts and get good at programming and so on. Uh, if you start thinking about your life in that way and, uh, sort of, uh, for a repetitive task, if you only could do this once and never again, what system would you have to put in place? Uh, you can cultivate this kind of tool agnostic problem-solving mindset.
- JSJoel Stein
And wait, just-- 'cause I'm gonna go do this as soon as we hang up. The 80/20 analysis is I figure out what the 20-- w- what the things are that, uh, 20% of my things that are using up 80% of my time are causing me 80% of my pain?
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, that would be one implementation, and it doesn't have to be-- the, the 80/20 is a guideline, right? So it could be that 1% of the people who email you produce 99 or more, or 100% of your email. Um, but-
- JSJoel Stein
But in general, using it to find my pain points.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. U- us- using it to find both the good and the bad. So, for instance, if you're running a company, or let's just say from an income standpoint, 'cause you mentioned money. So it's like, what are t- what are the 20% of the projects that you work on that produce 80% or more of your income? This will allow you to separate the trivial many from the critical few, if you're trying to kinda replicate your successes while avoiding the noise as much as possible. I find it helpful for people because they-- people seek out self-help typically, not because everything is working great and they just wanna make it perfect. It's because they have pain points or sources of stress that are causing them some type of overwhelm or self-doubt. In that case, I find it helpful to start with, you know, what are the 20% of activities in my life that are causing 80% of the stress or negative emotions, insomnia, et cetera? What are the-- who are the 20% of the people I spend time with who are producing 80% of the headache, the anxiety, the anger, the insomnia, et cetera? And, uh, that gives you a not-to-do list around which you can build routines and habits that you can test to assess how those feelings, uh, go up or down, for instance. Um-
- JSJoel Stein
And besides, besides the ketones, what are you working on right now on yourself?
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, let's see. Besides my ketones, I'm working on podcast process, so production process, post-production process. And, uh, you know, the first thing that I'll do is I put together a Google Doc, and, uh, we have maybe, I don't know, what, uh, 10 to 12 steps, discrete steps that I'm currently using to take a podcast from kind of planning stage, to booking a guest, to recording, to post-production. First thing I'll do is try to eliminate as many steps as possible. So rather than just asking, "How do I do all these things faster?" Like, which of these steps are redundant, unnecessary, or just unimportant? I think they're really important, but they're not actually that important. Uh, such as putting up a blog post. Like, how important is it to put up a corresponding blog post? How-- and the way you assess important is how is that affecting my, my, my metric? And my metric is, uh, let's just say, uh, number of downloads or listens per episode, right? Uh, then-- so let's say I c- I take that 12 steps and I break it-- I cut it down to eight. I, I decide that-- and I w- I'm in the middle of doing this right now, so with someone else, trying to cut down 12 to, to eight or seven or whatever it is. At that point, then I ask, you know, what can I automate here? So I'm kinda defining things. Then I'm asking automating, what can I use technology to automate here? So for instance, like as soon as I put up a blog post, um, if I decide to do that, that could-- I could use a program like If This Then That, uh, which I think is just I-F-T-T-T or IFTT, to automatically put, uh, promotion up on Twitter and Facebook. So I don't have to think about it. I don't have to delegate it, okay? So it's kind of definition, elimination, removing as many steps as possible, automation, choosing tech to automate things so that people aren't involved. And then last is the sort of delegation piece. So if, uh, at that point, what is remaining, and what of those can I delegate? Um, so if I s- if I need artwork, for instance, for, uh, a thumbnail for each podcast, which I don't, but let's say I did, I could go to like a 99designs or a Fiverr or one of these sites and have someone else manage that process for me.
- JSJoel Stein
I feel like there are six or seven apps you haven't even mentioned yet.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Uh, there are-- you'd be sur- I don't actually have that many apps, uh, on my phone. I think that it's, uh, technology is a, is a-- technology is a wonderful tool and a terrible master, and a lot of people can fuse amassing tools or motion with progress, and I, uh, that's, uh-- it's a very seductive, easy path to take because we're constantly sold the, the hype of downloading this one new app, and it'll change your life. Download this other new app, and it will streamline A, B, or C. And I think that most people are drowning in a glut of tools And, uh, the reason for that is that they don't have any precise goals. They don't have precise goals and measurable goals.
- 36:31 – 41:24
Applying the framework to assertiveness: find root causes, test assumptions, and define success
- SPSpeaker
I have, I have one more question, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Um, so one thing, so one thing with this podcast that we've been thinking about is that we have these bigger ideas, and one of the topics that we wanna tackle too is assertiveness. So would we-- for using assertiveness as an example, we would do the 80/20 for assertiveness and see what the pain points truly are for, for Joel in what is making him more passive than assertive?
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, 80/20-- well, as- assertiveness is-- I, I-- to be honest, I would have to, to think on that. I don't wanna give you a knee-jerk response that isn't helpful. Uh, but the, the assertiveness, I would start with Joel sitting down and journaling and kind of going backwards and asking three or four whys about why he has trouble being assertive, right? So if it's I am st- he could do an 80/20 analysis on his sources of stress. This is a general, uh, broad 80/20 of, l- as, as I described, the sources of stress. I would start there, um, 'cause maybe being assertive, uh, or assertiveness is not the problem you need to fix, right? I'm, I'm, I, I will s- take your word at for it, but it's-- let's start with just 80/20 to identify the twenty percent of activities, people, et cetera, that are causing eighty percent of the negative emotions that he wants to avoid. From there, then he could sit down and journal, meaning just kind of freehand stream of consciousness, write, you know, why-- trying to answer the question like, "Why do I feel I'm not assertive enough?" And just write for five to ten minutes, and whenever he thinks he's reached a conclusion, ask why, right? So if it's I don't answer-- you know, I answer more email than I should. I feel, I feel compelled to answer more email than I should. Why? Answer that. Well, it's because I feel A, B, C, D, right? Well, why do you feel those things? Because this, this, this. And a- at the end of it, looking at that and asking, you know, which of these assumptions have not been tested? Um, that's, that's where I would start. And I don't wanna make it seem like, uh, assertiveness is a very big, broad word, and I get anxious, um, when people are trying to fix anything that is very broad. I think you gotta, you have to get very specific. But those-- so the 80/20 analysis, the journaling, and then I would ask, okay, what would the-- how could I test these assumptions, right? How could I test these assumptions? Um, and one of them might be, you know, I need to respond as quickly as possible or, or I'll lose the respect of my c- my coworkers. And that will end, you know, why do you care about that? Well, because it'll have this effect. You could just test that, and I'm not saying this is what you do, right? Because c- certain jobs are suited to this, and some are not. But you could test an autoresponder. And, uh, to give you an example, this is one of dozens of potential tools, but let's just say that's how you test the assumption. Uh, I had this radio station manager come up to me at South by Southwest at one point. Uh, he said, you know, "I'd love to try an autoresponder, but there's no way I could do it because my boss, my boss would probably fire me. I mean, I need to be re- responsive at all times, especially during the conference." And I said, "Well, that's, that may or may not be true, but it's an assumption you can test. So why don't you set up an autoresponder that you can turn off literally with the click of a button if your boss gets upset? And no, I think you're, you're underestimating your value, eh, during a busy conference. He's not gonna hire you and f- uh, or fire you and hire someone new in the middle of the busiest season. It's just, it's, it would be a stupid managerial decision." So he put up a res- he put up an autoresponder, and he sent me a follow-up, and he said, "I thought you'd love the response." And, [chuckles] uh, and his boss wrote to him and s- who was managing multiple stations and said, "Love this approach. I wish, I wish more of the managers would use this," and CC'd all the other managers because this boss was getting CC'd on every bit of minutia, and his problem was ten times worse than those other managers. And so i- i- his assumption was completely unfounded. In fact, the way his boss felt was exactly the opposite. So, um, that's a lot, but I'm just saying [clears throat] 80/20 analysis, as I described, journaling why this, why that, why, why, why. Going back, identifying assumptions that you haven't tested, determining how you can test them, and I can't, I can't spoon feed you the answers to that. You have to just sit down and do some hard thinking. And then determining the, uh, metrics, the numbers that you could assign or, uh, or use as a, a measurement for, uh, testing those assumptions. And then at that point, you can, you can form the hypothesis, if I do this, then desirable outcome X, right? And at that point, then you're moving into behavioral change. But before you can ch-- before you change something, you want to assess your current, kinda current state of matters.
- 41:24 – 47:01
Closing exchange: success odds, focus on few variables, and Tim’s outro
- JSJoel Stein
And so the final question is, after talking to me on the ph- right now, what do you think my likelihood of success is?
- TFTim Ferriss
Impossible to answer. If you follow the prescription that I have put out and focus on measurable, uh, measurable objectives, changing as few variables as possible, don't try to change ten behaviors at once, uh, and rigging the game in that way so that it is possible to win-
- JSJoel Stein
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
... um, and you have a timeline that is, has been rationally thought through, I think, I think the likelihood of success could be very high. Now, I will tell you, um, I understand this piece has to be entertaining, and I'm not sure if it would be entertaining if your path to success were very clear. So I'm [laughs] so to that extent, uh, uh, that, that's an unknown in my head. But, uh, you're, I mean, you're a smart guy. You've changed behaviors before. I think that Uh, there's, there's a very high chance of success if you kind of follow a framework that has worked for thousands, tens of thousands, probably millions of people because a lot of these principles go back hundreds or even thousands of years. These are not new principles.
- JSJoel Stein
Well, I, I can't thank you enough. I didn't mean to take this much of your time. We took 45 Tim Ferriss minutes, which would be-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- JSJoel Stein
That's, that's four human hours.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's like, yeah. [laughs] Thank you. Gotta, gotta measure it, measure it in dog years. But, uh, any, any friend of Neil's is a friend of mine, and, uh, I, I, I enjoy your work, so I'm happy to, happy to chat.
- JSJoel Stein
Oh, definitely put that in the podcast.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- JSJoel Stein
And, uh, I will call you when this whole thing's over just to ask some wrap-up questions.
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure thing.
- JSJoel Stein
All right.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, ping me anytime. Thank you.
- JSJoel Stein
Thank you so much, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
Of course, guys. Take it easy. Bye.
- JSJoel Stein
Bye. [upbeat music]
- TFTim Ferriss
Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is 5-Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And 5-Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up [laughs] in the, uh, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email, and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. [upbeat music] This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. If you're anything like me, you care a lot about the food you put into your body. In fact, I think it's much more important than exercise. The problem is that good food can be extremely expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Thrive Market, which is one of the fastest growing startups in the health space right now, is like Costco for everything healthy, an online shopping club offering the best brands and groceries at 25 to 50% off of retail prices, shipped nationally for free. It's awesome. There are a ton of slow carb-friendly items that I recommend in The 4-Hour Body. You can easily filter everything by your preferences, whether you're paleo, gluten-free, vegan, raw, non-GMO, vegetarian, veterinarian, whatever. So go to thrivemarket.com/tim and check it out. You can get a free two-month trial and 25% off your first order. When you sign up for a membership, if you sign up, it's $59.95 per year, which is only $5 a month. At the very least, go there and check out the avocado mayo they have, which is amazing. Not only that, for every paying member, Thrive gives a free membership to a low-income family, veteran, or teacher, which is awesome and helps level the playing field, so you can get ripped while you're doing some good also. Never pay full price for healthy food again. Check it out, thrivemarket.com/tim to start your free two-month trial and get 25% off your first order. What do you have to lose? Nothing. Go check it out. Avocado mayo, it's rad. Thrivemarket.com/tim. [upbeat music] This episode is brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is a great partner for creating and growing your business. It's a one-stop shop for all of your graphic design needs, whether that's a logo, website, business card, or anything else. I used 99designs to get book cover prototypes for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. And I also use them for banner ads, illustrations, and other things. With 99designs, designers around the world compete to create the best design for you. You give feedback and then pick your favorite. You end up happy or you get your money back. It's very simple. You can check out a few of my own designs and those of yours, meaning Tim Ferriss Show listeners, at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, my listeners, you guys, will get a free $99 upgrade on your first design. That's 99designs.com/tim. Check it out. And until next time, thank you for listening. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 47:02
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