How to Build a World Class Network in Record Time | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

1. 0:00 – 1:24

   Why this talk exists: building a world-class network methodically (not transactionally)

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      Optimal minimal At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

   2. SPSpeaker0:08

      Now we're just seeing a perfect kind of-

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:10

      What if I give you alchemy? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

   4. SPSpeaker0:16

      The Tim Ferriss Show.

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:23

      Well, hello, hello. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a special edition. It is brought to you sponsor-free, and I would like to ask a favor in exchange. Uh, but we're gonna get to that in a second. The first thing is a description of this episode. This episode is actually a presentation by yours truly that I wanted to share because I get asked all the time, "How did you build your network?" And if you look at the, say, guest list from this podcast or people that I invest alongside, it seems like a very impressive list, and I'm impressed by a lot of these people. But it was built in a very strategic, a very methodical way. And that doesn't mean it has to be artificial. I'm not looking at these friends as transactions. These are relationships that I value. But there is a right and a wrong way to network. And in fact, I think the best way to build a world-class network is to spend very little time networking per se, collecting business cards and whatnot.

2. 1:24 – 5:26

   South by Southwest as a catalyst—and the request to support sponsor-free content

   1. TFTim Ferriss1:24

      So this presentation really encapsulates my approach and what I've done, uh, particularly since about 2007. And I gave this presentation at South by Southwest, which is a huge conference. It started off with music, then the interactive technology portion exploded. And don't worry about the slides, the visuals. In each case, if I bring up a slide, I explain it via voice. So you really don't need the visuals. I was able to experience a tipping point for The 4-Hour Workweek when I gave my first presentation at South by Southwest. And I won't go into all the story because I do it in the presentation, but it really triggered everything that came after it. So it was a game changer, a life changer for me. So what did I do exactly at South by Southwest that helped it become, quote, "The most surprising self-help hit of the decade," end quote, according to Men's Journal? How did that happen? And in the session, I talk about exactly what I did that led to a higher likelihood of that type of black swan event in the positive. So I talk about biohacks for surviving and optimizing the booze marathon or sleep deprivation, which is inherent to events like this, whether it's South by Southwest, TED, uh, any number of other events that are multi-day. This is an important point and a very important subject to master. The top mistakes that I think 90% of attendees make, how to pick your sessions, parties, et cetera, to make the most of all the madness, how to interact with A-listers or not, and this is a very, very important subject that I delve into, and how to set yourself apart, enjoy the ride, and come away from the whole thing smiling. Because it is, it is my opinion that if you choose one event properly and you build a network there in the right way, in a methodical way that really focuses on sort of long-term mutual relationships as opposed to transactions, and a lot of the advice I think is counterintuitive or non-obvious, but it's very specific, uh, that you never have to network again, ever. And once you set that ball in motion, it's like a snowball going down a hill, and before you know it, you have this unstoppable Goliath of inertia that can carry you forward for years and, in fact, decades. And that is what happened for me at South by Southwest in 2007, and I want to explain exactly how that happened, which is what this session will go into. And the favor that I would love to ask you guys is I, I would love to try to minimize sponsorships if possible, uh, because I only take sponsorships from companies whose products I use and have vetted and so on, uh, at the very least. So I don't want to take a lot of sponsors. I want to really limit it to that subset. Um, but the way that I can do that is by having you do something like subscribe to my newsletter. So for instance, 5-Bullet Fridays. If you haven't been receiving these, every Friday I send out a very short email of five bullets, uh, containing the coolest things that I have found or been playing with that week, which could include favorite articles that I've shared with friends. It could include gizmos and gadgets that I've dug up somehow through experts and purchased and played with. All sorts of randomness, but a lot of awesome stuff that you can use immediately. And it's a very, very short, hence 5-Bullet email. So to check that out, it's free, and you can sign up very easily. Try it out for a week, see what you think at 4hourworkweek.com/fridays, all spelled out, 4hourworkweek.com/fridays. So if you would like me to cut back on sponsors, then please go sign up. It would mean a lot to me, and I think you will love it. If you go on Twitter and just look at #5, the number five, 5-Bullet Fridays, you will see a lot of people are excited about this. That is it. So without further ado or volume peaking, [laughs] I hope you enjoy this presentation on exactly how I built my network, which is one of the most common questions that I get. So enjoy it. Please let me know your feedback. I am @TFerriss, T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, on Twitter. And thank

3. 5:26 – 6:36

   Opening the SXSW talk: the 2007 tipping point and the ‘network once’ premise

   1. TFTim Ferriss5:26

      you for listening. [upbeat music] Hey, guys. I'm flanked by dignitaries. I used to have a rat tail. How did I get invited to this party? Well, thank you all for coming. I feel a huge debt of gratitude to South by Southwest because in 2007, prior to that, The 4-Hour Workweek had been turned down by 26 publishers, violently in many cases, and then at South By that year was the tipping point for The 4-Hour Workweek. Went on to hit The New York Times, stayed there for almost four years unbroken, millions of copies, 30 plus languages later, here I am presenting. Kind of crazy.

   2. TFTim Ferriss6:06

      And I've been back basically every year since. So I feel like I have a playbook, a couple of tips, tactics that hopefully you can use over the next few days to get the most out of this event, because I really feel like if you do South By properly once, you never have to network ever again. You don't have to schmooze. You can just coast and ride it out. So I'll try to give you, uh, quite a bit of actionable information. The subject matter of the previous presenter and the one after me, far more important, but I guarantee

4. 6:36 – 10:10

   Surviving the ‘booze marathon’: hydration, food, and damage control tactics

   1. TFTim Ferriss6:36

      probably more profanity and crassness in this one. So this particular slide is me at Burning Man 2008 after being thrilled with what happened at South By. I have very little recollection of this particular instance, and I suspect that may be true for many of you over the next few days. So let's start with avocados. No, not avocados. We're gonna talk about booze, and specifically how you can mitigate the damage that you're going to inflict on yourselves over the next few days. And I'm not going to necessarily stop you from getting drunk. I think that's part of the fun of being here. I'm not gonna stop you from getting dragged out of a club yelling, "Do you know who I am?" You can do that too. But I want to help minimize the hangovers and the missing of sessions, the missing of days here, because that's a real travesty. So a couple of recommendations. If you've ever time traveled on alcohol, what I mean by that is you're at a club, then suddenly you're at Denny's eating Moons Over My Hammy, and you're like, "How did I get here?" You've experienced a lack of vasopressin. Vasopressin is a hormone that is associated with short-term memory, and ethanol, the booze, inhibits its release. All right, so you can compensate for that by, let's say, inhaling desmopressin, which is a synthetic version. Don't do that. I don't recommend that. Uh, but you can, uh, retain more water. Why is this key? Because it's also an anti-diuretic hormone. The reason you piss like a racehorse is also related to this vasopressin. And the reason you feel so hungover is because you've been dehydrated for a long period of time. So a very easy way to get around this, especially in Austin, is to have a bunch of guacamole before you go out. Have some avocados. Has more potassium than bananas. Also, a bunch of things that counter inflammation, okay? So super simple. Put a bunch of salt on it. If you wanna be indulgent, you can put some balsamic vinegar in the middle as well, which will lower your glycemic response to the pizza that you have five pieces of when you're drunk later. Uh, it actually has a tremendous effect. Have one glass of water for every alcoholic beverage you have. Another way that you can mitigate the damage is to have clean drinks. What would be an example of a clean drink? Well, if you wanna get as drunk as possible with the least amount of effort and the least hangover, you could have something called a NorCal Margarita. A NorCal Margarita, popularized by a guy named Rob Wolf in the paleo community, is quite simply, say, two shots of high-grade tequila, reposado is a good choice, mixed with a bunch of club soda and as much lime as you can tolerate. Lemon will also work. Just t- it doesn't taste quite as good. The club soda will allow you to absorb it very, very quickly, so you can be a cheap date. And the, the lime will also, just like the vinegar, inhibit your glycemic response to food later. So if you end up binging, you won't have a carb and insulin coma the next day. All right, the last tip related to booze, because I think this is such a key, uh, key subject to master while you're here, is activated charcoal or carbon. So if you want to, again, minimize some of the damage, you could go try to find that. Probably late for a lot of you to try to do that. Burnt toast, okay? Eat some burnt toast before you go out. Uh, if that doesn't sound appealing, you can scrape off the burnt bits into yogurt and eat that, uh, which has actually been done in studies looking at trying to, uh, alleviate overdose of acetaminophen. So it can work, surprisingly enough. Burnt toast, avocados, NorCal Margarita, there you go. All right, who is this person, and why is she very, very important? So

5. 10:10 – 11:41

   The Miriam story: why patience beats chasing VIPs

   1. TFTim Ferriss10:10

      this woman, lovely, lovely woman, is named Miriam. And I met Miriam when I went to CES for the first time, the Consumer Electronics Show. I'd never made it to the trade show, and this is highly relevant to South by Southwest. I instead went to a sponsored lounge. It was the Seagate Blog Haus, H-A-U-S. And it was where they gave bloggers... At the time, that was social media, basically. Gave bloggers free booze, power outlets, a place to rest and do work. And I just went there, and I hung out all day for several days. And I had a laptop, so I was able to do work. And I struck up casual conversations with people. "Hey, what's the most interesting session you've seen so far? Any cool products you've bumped into?" Didn't pitch anyone. I got to spend time with Miriam because she was checking people in. And we just very casually ha- got into long conversations about where we were from, et cetera. Now, the, the big dog at the time, and he's still very influential, is Robert Scoble. So he was in the Blog Haus. Everyone was crowded around him, dozens of people vying for his attention. And I knew I didn't stand a chance. I didn't have a honed pitch for him. I didn't even try, and that's generally what I recommend. Now, it turned out that Miriam is Robert's wife. [laughs] And Miriam said, "Oh, yeah, you should totally hang out with Robert. Like, here, just, like, shoot me, shoot me a text or send me an email, and we'll just meet up when you're back in the Bay Area." Fantastic. And so, uh, Robert ends up getting a copy of the book. He sends out a, a short mention in a blog post. It takes the book to top

6. 11:41 – 15:14

   Three core rules: don’t dismiss people, don’t be a dick, and don’t rush

   1. TFTim Ferriss11:41

      10 on Amazon for several days, compared to morning television at the time, which would only take it to, say, top 50 for several hours. That all came about because I followed these rules. Don't dismiss people, don't be a dick, and don't rush. Those are the three core tenets of success at an event like South by Southwest. Don't dismiss people. You should behave here like everyone you interact with has the potential... I can't wait to see the drawing for this. [laughs] Everyone has the potential to get you a cover story in The New York Times. Because many of them do, and it's just a good way to behave, all right? But you should behave like everyone here has the potential to get you a cover story at The New York Times. Uh, don't be a dick, pretty self-explanatory. Uh, but let me give a couple of examples of all three. So don't dismiss people. I already gave you one. I'll give you another one specific to South by Southwest. I was going to a few movie screenings. I went to one called Big Rig, pretty cool movie, and I was standing in line, and the guy in front of me, older gentleman, had huge forearms, and this is the kind of thing I notice. And I was like, "Dude, what is up with the forearms?" [laughs] And we started talking. Turns out he's a rock climber. We talked, we talked, we talked about nothing business related whatsoever. Turned out to be Morgan Spurlock's brother. Morgan Spurlock showed up maybe 10 minutes later. We sat in-- right next to each other at the movie, and then a few years later, I ended up collaborating with him, and he profiled me for A Day in the Life, okay? So again, treat everyone like they're important because they are. Uh, don't dismiss people. I'll give you the converse example. [laughs] Last year, I was here with my girlfriend at the time and had dozens of people basically face palm my girlfriend to push her out of the way to try to talk to me. Not good politics. Uh, [laughs] don't be a dick. Again, pretty explanatory-- self-explanatory. Not limited to men, by the way. Um, I've seen a couple of instances where, for instance, a, a friend was speaking to a female attendee, and she asked if she could see the apps on his home screen, and he did this. She grabbed the phone, turned around, and then sent a text to her number from his phone so she would have his phone number. [laughs] Don't do that. Uh, don't rush. This is the most important because it turns otherwise good, reasonable, wonderful people into those who do the, the aforementioned two. Don't rush. Play the long game, all right? And the mission that I would like to offer to all of you, the job should you accept it, is to realize that at South by Southwest, there are hundreds of people who could change your life completely, who could satisfy all of your wildest dreams financially, reputationally, phantasmagorically, I have no idea. They, they can really make magic happen for you, and your job should be to try to have a deep human connection with one of those people before you leave. That's it. It makes South by Southwest very, very manageable. Uh, an example of rushing, and this has happened to be perhaps half a dozen times here at South By, [laughs] is, uh, the urinal encounter. What is the urinal encounter? It's when I'm trying to have my moment of zen. I'm at a urinal, and I'm like, "Ah, deep breath. Deep breath." You know, I'm thinking of the penguin in the cave chilling out. I'm like, "Okay," getting ready to go back into the melee, and some startup founder will come running up to me and skid to a stop, who's, like, sweating because he's nervous, and starts, like, panting on the back of my neck, giving me a pitch. If you want to make any human male that I'm aware

7. 15:14 – 16:45

   Finding the right rooms and people: read bios, approach moderators, and use referrals lightly

   1. TFTim Ferriss15:14

      of really uncomfortable, wait until they're staring at a wall, holding their penis, and come up and breathe on the back of their neck. [audience laughing] Don't rush. It makes good people do bad things. [laughs] I promised crass. All right. Next, read bios, not sessions. So how do you choose among all of the sessions? You probably have some big fat book. Then you're like, "Oh, my God. How am I possibly gonna tackle any of this?" Number one, read the bios, not the sessions. The session titles may not tell you the whole story. Look for interesting people, not titles of sessions. And secondly, don't just look at the people on the panel. Look at the moderators. And so what I did my first time to South by Southwest is I would go to a panel. I would listen to these amazing people on the pa-- on a given panel, and then I would go up not to the A-listers on the panel afterwards. I would go up to the moderator, many of whom are equally impressive in their own right, and I would go up to the moderator, who's usually not nearly as mobbed, and I would give them a quick explanation. I'd say, "Hey, this is my first time at South By. I don't know anyone. I'm kind of lost. Just finished my first book. It's about A, B, and C. Uh, personally, I'm interested in," at the time, say, "Brazilian jujitsu, this, this, and this. Is there anyone here you think I might really hit it off with? Anyone you think I should talk to? I'm pretty good at this and this." And they'd be like, "Yeah, sure. Yeah. No, I think, uh, yeah, you should talk to this person and this person." And I just repeated that line of questioning over and over and over again, and that's how I met many of the people who led to The Tipping Point for the book. And

8. 16:45 – 22:18

   Pitching without pitching: leave a memento and ‘be the idiot’ in group conversations

   1. TFTim Ferriss16:45

      when I went up to those people who were referred, by the way, I don't say, "So-and-so said we should really meet." Don't, don't oversell it. Just say, "I went up to them. I asked them this. They said this. I figured, what the hell, maybe we'd hit it off. Can I buy you a drink?" It's a very methodical way to go about tackling this deluge of sessions. Next one, don't make an impression. Leave a memento. And I did a lot of research online, pinged my audience on Facebook, Twitter, asked for questions. One of them was, "How do I make a positive first impression?" Your job at South by Southwest is to not make a bad impression, all right? Because if all you're doing is trying to sell someone, there are many different ways to do it aside from coming to South by Southwest. What I would recommend, especially in a, in an instance where you're trying to reach, say, an A-lister, right? Somebody who's getting mobbed and pitched all day long, like an Anthony Bourdain or whoever it might be. Don't try to give the pitch in person. Give them a folded-up piece of paper with a page that you've painstakingly crafted that is the perfect pitch. Include your phone number. You'd be surprised how many VIP folks like to call folks via Skype to have a conversation as opposed to sending you their personal email, for instance. Don't make an impression. Leave a memento. Just say, "Hey, I realize you're super busy. You got this long line of people. You're under a lot of pressure. I've thought about this. I think this will be of great interest to you," and just give them a teaser, right? Like, if you have an impressive number, a stat, a client who's using it, something like that. "Here you go. I hope you have a great South By. Read it when you're on the toilet or have an extra five minutes on the plane. Thanks so much." And you leave it at that. And that also shows you that you know how to play the game. You know how busy they are, you know the stress that they're dealing with, and immediately that'll separate you from everyone else, as opposed to getting up and just micro-machining through a pitch. They won't remember, even if they have spectacular memory. Ignorance is bliss. Be the idiot. [laughs] I don't have to try very hard for this one. So the key here, and this is mostly a problem with men, in my experience, or boys or guys, a- anything in between, is we try to impress people. So we stroll up and we're like, "Well, that's a good point. You know what's an even better point?" Or someone says something and you're like, "You know what? That reminds me of this story that one-ups your story." Don't do that. Uh, and in fact, you should do the opposite. So one of the experiences that I had and challenges that many of you will have is how do you get into a group conversation? How do you interrupt people? So my rules for that are, number one, if it's two people who are deep in conversation, don't interrupt, okay? Remember, don't rush. Play the long game. If it's two people, just don't interrupt. Wait. If it's more people, three, four, et cetera, you can saunter up and do what I did in 2007, which was say, "Hey guys, do you mind if I join you, just eavesdrop? It's my first time here. I don't know anybody. I'll buy you guys a round of drinks." It's usually a place where you can get free drinks, so it works out really easily. And they're like, "Uh, yeah, okay, sure." Now, the reason you don't just walk up and say like, "Hey guys, I'm just gonna eavesdrop," is even though they're never gonna say no, at least you asked. Be polite, all right? So then they'd be like, "Oh, whatever, man." So I'd, I'd hang out, and typically there'd be a lot of engineers. I'm not a coder, not an engineer, and if someone said something that I was genuinely interested in clarifying, so they'd be like, "Well, we did da, da, da, da, da, and of course we ended up with Ruby on Rails," and I'd say, "You know, I'm really sorry to interrupt, but I'm deep in the ignorance pool here. Why was Ruby on Rails the obvious choice? I don't know what it is, but why was it such an obvious advantage?" And that will oftentimes spark a dema-- a debate among the people in that group. And so every once in a while, you throw out one of these questions, again, being the idiot, which is what good NPR hosts also do, by the way, and eventually someone will say, "Wait, who the hell are you again? Like, what, what's your story?" [laughs] And then you give them the shortest answer possible. Do not launch into a really rushed, long-ass pitch. So I would say, "Well, you know, it's, it's my first time here, and I just finished my first book, and the publisher's basically controlling everything except for digital, so I'm here to try to figure it out." Pause. Then you wait to see who asks, if they do, "What's it about?" Great. Then, then you say, "Well, it's about this, this, and this, but I think most people here probably find this interesting," and you see who digs deeper, all right? And you'll see the logic to this in a second. So let's just say you have a group of six people. There's one person who's expressed extreme interest by digging and digging. In the case of The 4-Hour Workweek, maybe they're interested in world travel, virtual assistants, that type of thing. Then at the very end, you know, we bounce around, talk about all sorts of subjects, and I'd say, "You know, uh, zero pressure, I would never expect you to write about it or do anything like that, but I have a bunch of, uh, promotional copies from the publisher. I could very easily just tab the 15 to 20 pages that I think you would find most interesting based on what we just talked about, and I can mail it to you, and, you know, you can use it as a doorstop if you want." And because I'd already honed down to the point where I knew who was interested, I would say probably 90% of those folks said yes, were enthusiastic about it, and then at least half of them ended up promoting it in some way because they loved it, not because I asked them to do it. Does that make sense? And if you say no strings attached, do not fucking follow up and bug the shit out of them. [laughs] It's a great way to get a huge amount of negative backlash. Don't do it. And we'll come back to that, but I tend to do very little follow-up except for something people have asked for because

9. 22:18 – 24:50

   Don’t be a ‘traffic bigot’: target thought leaders, up-and-comers, and smart paths to A-listers

   1. TFTim Ferriss22:18

      people get enough email as it is. Don't be a traffic bigot. What does this mean? This means that you may be, if you have something to promote, if you have a service, website, startup, book, album, whatever it might be, movie, you might be tempted to go straight for the person who has the biggest megaphone, the biggest site, the most Twitter followers. And the, the problem with that is that you're gonna be one of 1,000 people who pitch this person while they're here. It w-- 99.9% of the time it won't work. You can try. There's no harm in doing it tactfully. It usually won't work. What I did in 2007, and there were blog rolls at the time, do you remember those? Uh, is I tried to figure out, and you can ask people right up front, moderators are good people to ask as well, who do these people view as a thought leader? Okay, so you have this group of 10 traffic leaders. Who do they read? Who are the niche folks that they read who are very influential, who are the thought leaders? And then you approach the thought leaders, invite them out to a drink, and you do the, the same thing that I just described. And be very, very candid. Basically do like the Puss in Boots, you know, holding the hat with the big eyes and, uh, and it's amazing what miracles can come of that because if you get covered by one of those thought leaders in an interview, for instance, or anything like that, or you send them an exclusive excerpt, even though they have a small site, you send them an exclusive excerpt of the book, what happens? They put it up and you're like, "Eh, who cares? 20,000 readers." But guess who those 20,000 readers are, okay? It's like being in front of 20,000 TED attendees, okay? So don't be a traffic bigot. And I would also say that don't necessarily focus on the people who you perceive as the A-listers or VIPs now. Try to find the pre-VIPs. Does that make sense? You're trying to find the up-and-comers. So you ask, again, ask people who have been here a few times, who are the best, like, up-and-coming hot designers? You know, the, the folks that are not very well known who should be well known, or who are the, the, like, the hot up-and-coming filmmakers who haven't had any press? Who are they? Go meet those people. And by the way, if you did that just in, say, film, but you're act- actually based in tech, you did that in film, you met the best up-and-comers, the best up-and-comers know one another. The best VIPs and A-listers know one another. It's not industry specific, okay? So don't be a traffic bigot. You'll also have a much better time while you're here. Questions for A-listers. So if you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

10. 24:50 – 27:51

    Approaching high-profile people: timing, teams, and ‘prove the messenger’

    1. TFTim Ferriss24:50

       All right, Ferriss. You know, I'm still, I'm still gonna go for the gold. I'm gonna sprint up to, you know, Al Gore and give him a pitch." Well, how should you do it? What are the questions? What are the icebreakers for the A-listers? And the first rule, as far as I'm concerned, is ask if they have a second. Don't just run up and pitch because a great pitch, the perfect pitch at a bad time is a bad pitch. It won't work. And like I said at the beginning, it's not about making a good impression, it's about not making a bad impression. If you make a bad impression, they won't want to communicate with you later, even if you correct things, okay? So, "Mr. and Ms. X, may I bother you for 30 seconds? Mr. and Ms. X, is now an okay time for one question?" If you say that, don't ask three questions. One question. Uh, [laughs] now, number two and number three here actually work very well together. You know, "Mr. and Mrs. X, is now an okay time for one question. Who on your team could I email about..." whatever you're interested in. Okay? They're not gonna give you their personal email. They're not gonna give you their personal phone number, usually, and it's gonna make them very uncomfortable to say no. So realize that and ask about their team. That will immediately put you in the pro category as opposed to the amateur category. And another thing, if you're in a group, let's just say at a book signing or something like that, you have to realize even if they wanted to give you their personal email, phone, they can't say it out loud because 10 other people are gonna hear it. So who on your team could I email about blah? And if they have entourage around them, meaning let's just say you go to a book signing, uh, for fill-in-the-blank, right? Michael Pollan, and you see someone who's just kind of patiently waiting there 10 feet away, that is probably his publicist or his publisher or someone along those lines. Get to know them. They are probably the gateway to communication with Mr. Pollan. So you don't have to pitch directly. And this relates to everything I've just said. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on it, but you have to prove the messenger before the message. You are the messenger. So for instance, I had a startup come up to me while I was headed to this room today, and, uh, I'm not gonna mention their company name, but they came up, and the first thing they said was, "Hey, your assistant hasn't replied to my emails." [laughs] So [laughs] I'm like, "What do you expect me to respond with? How do you want me to respond to that?" Uh, "I get a lot of emails. I don't know. You know, my assistant's pretty good. You got a shitty email. I don't know." Um, [laughs] and then his buddy with him is like, "Yeah, Mr. 4-Hour," he's like, "Give me some 4-Hour equip." And I'm like... If-- And then he gave me his business card, and I'm like, "All right. If I go to your site, let's just say it's the most amazing site I've ever seen in my life. Am I gonna wanna be associated with that so that he can go up to somebody else and be like, 'Yeah, Mr. Pollan, Mr. Ferriss works with us'?" And then I was like, "No. Hell no. That would destroy my reputation." So you just screwed the pooch, all right? So be a good messenger before you

11. 27:51 – 32:56

    Conversation control: choosing relaxed people, better icebreakers, and polite exits

    1. TFTim Ferriss27:51

       deliver the message. Doesn't matter how good the pitch is if you fuck it up first. F-bombs are coming. [laughs] How to pick people out of a crowd. These are all related to questions that I get repeatedly. How do you pick someone out of a crowd? You're scanning the room. You want to work the room. Number one, don't work the room. Number two, if you had to pick people out of the crowd, I would say go for the most relaxed, unrushed-looking person. Not necessarily the A-lister surrounded by a huge phalanx of people, if that's the right word. Because unless you just want to listen-- If you want to listen, that's fine, but you're not gonna get a lot of airtime. Look for the most relaxed people in the room. They're-- They either have very, very little going on, or they've kind of already made it, and they don't feel rushed. So hit or miss, but if you have to pick people out of the crowd, I would say go for the most relaxed, unrushed-looking person. All right, icebreakers in general. And as a preface to this, and I know you're reading the slide while I talk, that's okay. Uh, the small talk is the big talk. All right, I'll repeat that. The small talk is the big talk. What that means is, and, and that is an expression that has been said to me in many different words, you know, small talk is everything, by friends of mine like, uh, Ido Leffler, who's a co-founder of Yes To Carrots. They're distributed in more than thirty thousand locations. And the point that he would make and the point that I would also make is that if you're just going to pitch people, you can probably do that in a more effective way by staying at home, not coming to Austin, and just sending out cold pitches, working on your email skill. Here, in person, you have an opportunity to dig deeper and talk about other things. That is how you become memorable. That is how you have that one deep human connection that I was talking about. So instead of asking, "What do you do?" And there are people who will ask that of you, and you could be like, "Well, I shoot a lot of heroin. What about you?" That's a good way to end it. [laughs] Or you can give them a really boring answer like, "Uh..." Sometimes I'll just be like, "Yeah, I'm a freelance writer, you know, still trying to make it work." And they're like, " [sighs] Oh, oh," and then it's like they're already scanning for their next prey. So instead of what do you do, what do you ask? And I understand why this is difficult because people are like, "Uh, I don't know." And then they come up with something like, "If you could be a breakfast cereal, what breakfast cereal would you be?" And people are like, [laughs] "What? That's kinda-- What the hell's happening?" So don't do that. You can make it pretty natural. So for instance, if you ask, "Oh, so and so. Hey, nice to meet you. Where are you from?" And they say, "Oh, I'm from New York City." "Are you from New York City originally?" Say, "No, I'm from Cincinnati." "Well, how'd you get from-- how'd you end up going from Cincinnati to New York City?" You're gonna get all the information you could possibly need for context, okay? Boom. You've got it, and you'll oftentimes have a very good personal story to go with it. All right. Now, if you don't wanna do that or later on if you wanna sort of expand a little bit, you could ask, you know, "What session are you most excited about? What's been your favorite session so far?" If it's a few days from now, for instance. You know, "What are you most excited about these days?" And it's not that you can't talk about work, but you can do that anywhere via any medium. In person is a unique opportunity, so optimize for meat space. Take advantage of the fact you probably have some booze involved, and you have a chance to talk about the personal stuff. How to escape/pause conversations. So, [laughs] you know, what do you do if you get cornered by someone selling timeshares? Or what do you do if, if someone is just on meth and will not stop talking about their startup, and they're just going and going and going? What do you do? Well, I would say a few things, and I, and I put escape/pause because I think pause is the better [laughs] way to think about it. You could try to pull the bathroom maneuver. People always [laughs] try this, uh, and it can work. You can be like, "You know, that's awesome, so fascinating. I really have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back." The dangers of doing that, number one, if you don't come back, you kinda look like a dick, so it violates the don't be a dick rule. Um, if you don't even go to the bathroom, if you're like, "Yes, I need to go to the bathroom," then you just walk 20 feet and then just start talking to someone, they're gonna be like, "Picture at so and so. What a dick." So don't do that. [laughs] Uh, the easiest way to do it, you don't have to make up, "Oh, my God, my house is on fire. My wife is gone. I have to go." You don't have to do that. You can just say, and this is what I do, and I do this with people I find very, very interesting also. If it's just like, okay, we've been talking for an hour, in your head you're thinking this, "I just wanna wander around a little bit," say that. So you ask them, "Hey," you know, "James," or whatever, you know, "Hey, James, are you gonna be here for the rest of the, uh, for the rest of South By? Are you gonna be here for a couple of days?" "Yeah, I'm gonna be here for the next two days." "Cool. Well, uh, do you have a card or something? I'd love to connect, but I just wanna wander around, maybe take a, a little breather, grab a cup of coffee." You're done. That's great. It's polite. It's honest. That's all you have to do. "Are you gonna be here for the rest of South By? Are you gonna be here for the next couple of days?" "Cool. Can I get your card? Great. I just wanna wander around, take a break, hit the bathroom, grab a cup of coffee, but I'm sure I'll see you around." Nobody's offended, and you accomplish

12. 32:56 – 36:34

    Follow-up strategy: wait two weeks and play the long game

    1. TFTim Ferriss32:56

       the purpose of pausing the conversation. Next, follow-up. All right, so during the event, after the event, how do you follow up? Uh, first of all, don't do anything to keep in touch. It, it will just make enemies, all right? You don't need to ping busy people and just be like, "Hey, how's it going? How you doing?" You know? Imagine that you are calling them at, like, three PM, right? So you call them. They're like, "It's an investment banker running around. Oh, my God." And you're a startup. You're like, "We need an underwriter." So you call this busy investment banker at three PM, and you're like, "Hey, John, it's, uh, it's Tim from South By." He's like, "Uh, Tim who?" "Tim Ferriss. How you doing? How's it going today?" Don't do that. [laughs] He's just be like, "What the fuck? I'm really busy." Don't do that. So follow-up is a dish best served cold. What I mean by this is most people are gonna walk out of South By pockets full of business cards, big ideas, people to follow up with, people to ping, brains to pick. Don't ever ask anybody if you can pick their brain over coffee, by the way, but that's a separate story. So follow-up, wait two weeks, okay? Wait two weeks. Why two weeks? Because if you do it now, it's gonna get lost in the avalanche of similar stuff. If you do it right after South By, it'll be even worse. You're gonna get lost in another hundred follow-up email. So it takes people time to catch up from neglecting other things during South By. Wait two weeks, and then in terms of time, I would do it on a Wednesday afternoon their time or a Friday afternoon their time. Sunday night also works pretty well. So for responses, for max response rate and read rate, those tend to be the times that I find most effective. Play the long game. Play the long game. All this means is you don't have to rush. Why? Because you just have to have one deep human connection with one person. That's it. If you can accomplish that and develop a long-term relationship, you can potentially never have to network again. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but if you look back at the people I spent the most time with in 2007, realistically, you, you'd probably be able to have a couple of these human interactions. Try to get out of tech, by the way. Don't do all tech. If you look at the people I spent the most time with in 2007, about 90% of them, this is 2007. What is that? Seven years ago? Oh, my God. They're still some of my closest friends to this day. That is what you want because if you don't do that, you play the short game. You have to then do this very time-consuming, very energy-consuming, very likely to offend transactional stuff every year for the rest of your life. Do you really wanna do that? No. No, you don't. So play the long game, guys. That is it for my formal presentation, so I am going to open it up to the rest of Twitter Q&A. But I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful experience at South by Southwest. If you do it right, it will change your life. So again, just in summary, don't dismiss people, don't be a dick, and don't rush. Play the long game. Thank you. [audience applauding]

    2. SPSpeaker36:12

       Cool. Thanks so much, Tim.

    3. TFTim Ferriss36:14

       Yeah, boy.

    4. SPSpeaker36:14

       So if you guys have specific questions that you want to ask, if you want to hashtag your tweet with Ask Tim, we will pull them up, and he will answer all of your lovely questions, concerns, ponderings. All right, and here is our first question I really should have worn my glasses for this.

    5. TFTim Ferriss36:33

       I can read it.

    6. SPSpeaker36:33

       [laughs]

13. 36:34 – 41:07

    Live Q&A: mini-retirements, launching with $1,000, meditation, and choosing events/parties

    1. TFTim Ferriss36:34

       I'll do it. All right, so this is from Wendy Perry. Uh, can you guys read this as well? Maybe I don't have to read all of these, but I will just for those who are getting this on audio. After I read The 4-Hour Workweek years ago, I took my family on a mini break once a month. Can you have too many? This is, this is in reference to mini-retirements and taking these sabbaticals, so distributing retirement throughout life as opposed to waiting until, say, fifty, sixty, seventy to, uh, to load it up at that point. Uh, I think that this is a deeply personal question. So in terms of mini-retirements, I try to take one to three months, usually two to three months of these mini sabbaticals per year. I think that if you use these mini-retirements as a way of postponing other important decisions, then of course it could be too many. So the-- if, if you look at your to-do list, and usually the most uncomfortable item is the most important, if you're using these trips to avoid that, then I'd say it's too many. All right, next is from Zachary Barker. If you were launching a new company with only a thousand dollars to get started, what would you start? [laughs] So we get a lo-- I get a lot of questions like this. It's like, um, if you had no connections and no money, how would you make a hundred thousand dollars in the next quarter, and what business would you start? Uh, this is a question of, uh, what I would say, I'd spend the first ten dollars getting the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and I would figure out which market you're going after first and then design your product. And specifically, I would also read 1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly and identify who your-- what the demographic and psychographic is of the thousand people you want to have as diehard fans, first and foremost, non-celebrities. In my case with The 4-Hour Workweek, I knew that my first market, not my entire market, but my first market would be twenty-five to forty-year-old tech-savvy males in New York City and San Francisco. How do I reach those people? How can I seem, say, ubiquitous by being on five websites when in fact I'm not ubiquitous, I'm just everywhere that they happen to look, okay? That's where I would start, but I can't say, you know, put all your money in, in Bitcoin or something [laughs] like that, which I think, uh, would be dangerous, especially if you only have a thousand bucks. So test often, test small. I think Facebook is a great place to thin slice, but, uh, that would be my advice. Do you meditate or do yoga? Uh, I do meditate. I meditate, uh, almost every morning for ideally twenty minutes. It's only something that I've done consistently for the last year or so. Oh, all right. Uh, and, uh, I personally use TM, Transcendental Meditation. I find some of the guru stuff a little woo-woo. I'm not for that, but just the repetition of a sound I find very, very effective as opposed to, say, concentrative meditation, uh, or, uh, other types. Vipassana, also very, very helpful. Um, I am not-- Uh, I don't do a lot of yoga. I've become fascinated with acro yoga, which is more like a Cirque du Soleil strength performance than anything else, but those are the two. I meditate a lot more than I do yoga. Uh, Anthony Blattner, how do you find the good events and parties instead of the overpacked events? Uh, good events and parties. All right, so I plan my sessions, although there's room to improvise. I let the parties pick me. What that means is I choose the sessions, I interact with people in the way that I described, and then you just ask, okay? Try to have some spontaneity [laughs] and just wander around and get lost. In terms of events, if we're talking about conferences in general, um, this is gonna sound haphazard, but my policy has generally been go to at least one event per year, which is the most expensive event you can afford to go to. You're gonna end up with a smaller crowd, and I find that at least interesting to experiment with, uh, but obviously you don't want to bet the farm on it. Uh, next question from Littlest Gator. Uh, [laughs] I kinda like that name. If you ever heard little baby alligators, they go meh, meh when they're calling their mother. It's amazing. I really want this guy to make that noise. All right, now that you're a big deal, what are your goals at South by Southwest? Um, [laughs] I don't think I'm a big deal compared to a lot of folks, but my goals at South by Southwest, honestly, I-- the-- I was offered the opportunity to do How to Rock South by Southwest, and I feel a huge debt of gratitude to South By. I think it's one of the most incredible events out there, and if you do it right, it could be totally life-changing. So I don't have, I don't have a new book. I don't have a new thing to promote. Uh, for this time around, it's really just to have fun, eat some barbecue, and hopefully allow you guys to do the same. Next,

14. 41:07 – 55:24

    More Q&A: reading habits, focus, saying no, goals at SXSW, travel, sleep, and gratitude

    1. TFTim Ferriss41:07

       Mark Moschel or Moschel, uh, what thought leaders do you follow? [laughs] Uh, or are there specific writers, bloggers that I read? Uh, right now at this point in time, uh, there, there are some very interesting folks out there. I mean, uh, Nassim Taleb is one that comes to mind immediately. Uh, but in terms of reading, I'm trying to actually read really old ideas right now. So I'm trying to focus on books that have been around for a hundred plus years whenever possible, uh, because, uh, in a, in a, in an age of ephemera and sort of neomania and fo- and obsession with the new, the new, the new, I like ideas that have stood the test of time for a while. How do I stay focused? I'm not convinced I am focused, but meditation helps a lot. Uh, and really the purpose of that session in the morning, I might just be thinking of like some guy who cut me off in the salad line in college that I wanna like punch in the nose for nineteen minutes of that. But if I'm thinking of that and I'm like, "Not productive," and then I go back to what I'm supposed to be doing just once, that will translate to being able to do the same thing in your normal life. So I think that's very, very helpful. In terms of, uh, books on meditation, um, the first book by Thich Nhat Hanh is very, very good. All right, Melody Towel, how do you deal with criticism you get for not replying to email right away? You know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna head-- I'm gonna dodge this one just because I answered it at length in The 4-Hour Workweek. Um, so I apologize, guys, but that's a long, long answer. So that, that one we're gonna save for The 4-Hour Workweek. I'm sure it's on Torrent somewhere if somebody wants to read it for free. Uh, Herb Morial. "Question: What part of your 4-Hour Workweek do you personally find hardest to follow?" Uh, what I found hardest, and what I still find hardest, is saying no. You have to say no to a thousand things before you can say yes to the one big thing that's gonna change your life, and I still find that difficult. I think we all like people to like us, and some people take it very personally when you don't get back, get back to them quickly, like the startup founder who kind of accosted me outside. It's like... And I feel badly, uh, but at the same time I'm just like, "Try to walk a mile in my shoes if you could." Just think about it, because I used to take it personally too. I'd send an email to a really busy person, they would never respond. I'd be like, "Wow, what a dick." You have to try to imagine yourself in their shoes, and the reality is they're getting thousands of email, thousands of pitches. Uh, probably ninety percent of the interactions I have at South by Southwest will be people pitching me. So just imagine how that would feel and how tiring it would be before, uh, taking it personally. But I still find saying no quite challenging. Uh, Ryan Barnhart. How do I want people to remember me? Uh, I would say I don't need people to remember me. If they remember the ideas, that would be fantastic, um, m- most of which I've borrowed from other people or just collected. But I would say that my goal is to be a world-class teacher and to create people who are better than I am. So if I can create armies, thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people who are world-class learners and in turn can be world-class teachers, then-- and better than I am, which is necessary, then, uh, I think the world would be a better place. So hopefully that's something I can do. John Adlay. What tricks do you have for retaining info? If it's factual, declarative information, facts and figures, uh, there's a book written by a gentleman named Higbee. I think it's called Your Memory and How to Improve It, but the last name is Higbee. Mnemonic devices, as used by Cicero and for several thousand years, work really well. Ed Cooke, C-O-O-K-E, also a fascinating guy, uh, world-class memory competitor I interviewed on the podcast. What's the next project book that I'm working on? Well, uh, more details to come shortly, but, uh, well, okay, I'll give you guys some, some breaking news. No one knows this. Uh, I was able to negotiate back the rights for a TV show that I filmed some time ago, and I will be digitally distributing The Tim Ferriss Experiment to the-- Well, I would like to say the world. There are some constraints geographically. But I will be distributing it and making it available to as many people as humanly possible in the next few months, so that's, that's very exciting for me. [audience applauding] [laughs] Thanks. Hopefully I can come back to South By next year and do something in the film track and talk about these new avenues for distribution, which I think are really exciting. Uh, Homeless Coder, that's a good... [laughs] Oh, that's funny. I saw a guy, I saw a guy two days ago in San Francisco. He was, like, slow-motion karate chopping this tree. And in my mind I was like, "Either that guy is high as balls on LSD or he's coming up with the next billion-dollar idea and he's a coder. It's gotta be one of the two." Homeless Coder. You've advocated mini-retirements and travel. Where is the best place in the world besides Austin? Uh, you know, this is like what's the best pair of shoes in the world. You, you have to find the pair that fits, and it's not the same for everybody. Some people like those crazy, like, pointy Witch of the West shoes. I've seen a lot of guys in those. Not my thing, you know? I'm a, I'm more like a flip-flop guy. Uh, I love Japan. Um, [laughs] I have a huge affinity for Japan. I've, I've-- I, I lived there for a year in high school. That's, that's the f-- Argentina's a lot of fun too. It's amazing how they can get anything done. [laughs] They're just beautiful, hilarious people. Uh, great wine, great steak. Japan is amazing because it is a place where you can be completely confused a- and illiterate and lost and not be in danger. So if you wanna be really, really uncomfortable, but not really in any particular danger, Japan is a, a great place to do it. Uh, Melanie Curtin. What are you most excited about for this year's South By? I'm most excited about eating a lot of animals. Uh... [laughs] I don't, I don't have a, a real agenda while I'm here. Uh, there are, there are a number of friends of mine who have moved to Austin because it is the best place in the world. Uh, and I'd like to just reconnect with some of my friends, many of whom I met into the-- Actually, two of them I'm meeting in the next three days I met for the first time at South By in 2007, and they've continued to be two of my best friends. So that's about it. Uh, this is from Bcurst77. On your podcast with Matt Mullenweg, you guys spoke briefly about polysynchronous sleep. Have you tried it? Does it work? Uh, so polysynchronous, I've, I've never heard it phrased that way. Most people have heard, if they have heard it, um, polyphasic sleep, where you take instead of a single hour... or I'm sorry, a single block of eight hours, you can break it down into fractions where you can get down to two, two and a half hours of sleep if you do it. [laughs] Take a twenty-minute nap every few hours. I have tried it, um, and it can work, and I still am a, I'm a huge believer in naps. Huge, huge believer in naps, despite the fact that I have a lot of trouble with them. Uh, pro tip for naps that I've realized, it's not about falling into-- It's not about falling asleep. It's about laying down and closing your eyes and just blocking out some sensory input, so don't get stressed out if you can't fall asleep for twenty minutes. Just lay down. Chill out. Um, I've tried it. It works. It's massively antisocial. You can have no social calendar whatsoever. So I don't typically follow it. Luigi Linguito What's the most memorable thank you note that I've received? Ooh, that's a good question. I've been very fortunate. I've had a good, a good tear over the last couple years, and, uh, there's, there's a luck component, there's a timing component. Um, you know, hopefully there's some kind of [laughs] competency component. But, uh, you know, the first one that's coming to mind, I've, I've, I've received a lot of really lovely thank you letters, but the, the first one that come to mind has nothing to do with The 4-Hour Workweek. It's actually a collection of thank you notes from, I think they were third graders or fourth graders from, uh, doing work with donorschoose.org, which is an educational nonprofit, uh, I really love and spend a lot of time with. I'm on their advisory board. And I got this collection of thank you notes for supplying some basic materials like books or pens or pencils. So that's the first one that comes to mind, is just these, these hand, you know, crayon... I'm not a, I'm not a parent yet, so I don't have the, uh, you know, the, like, poorly drawn brontosaurus to stick on my refrigerator. And I got, you know, 30 hand-drawn letters from these kids, which was just awesome. Uh, JDML, are you recording a podcast while here at South by? If yes, with whom? I don't have any plans to record here at South by. I might. Uh, who knows? I might. Maybe I'll do a man on the street, walk around, see how many drunk people I can get to say incriminating things. I don't know. [laughs] But no, no plans right now. Uh, what animal best describes you? Edwin Lee, also a good question. This is a good one. Um, Alexis, uh, Ohanian of Y Combinator likes to ask people in job interviews, "What is your spirit animal?" Uh, which I think gets a pretty good answer, uh, or causes some awkwardness at the very least. A coyote, I'd say. I'd say, um, prankster, joker. It's, uh, we, we could go into that for a while, but I'll just leave it. I think coyote is a pretty good one. Uh, Jackie Bloom, I have a nine-to-five job. Can 4-Hour Workweek actually transform my life if I'm not in a position to leave my regular job? Uh, I, I would say yes, and the, the reason I say that is that The 4-Hour Workweek is, uh, really a col- a portfolio of tools for maximizing your per hour output. So there is somebody actually just on Twitter a couple of days ago, if you look at my favorites, if you look at my favorites on Twitter, @TFerriss, you can see tons and tons of real life case studies from The 4-Hour Workweek and 4-Hour Body. And one of them was, you know, it took me five months to negotiate it, but I now have a rem- a remote work agreement. So he's in his current job, same job, getting paid the same amount, but he has complete freedom of mobility. That's a big deal. And, uh, 'cause that, that helps to reward performance over presence, and it leads to great things. So it's, uh, it's not about getting to a 4-hour workweek for everyone. It's about maximizing your per hour output and then making better decisions with more options. Andrew Berg, uh, what are the three to four best bodyweight exercises for business travelers? Huh. Well, uh, I would say you can keep it really simple. Um, pushups, planks. If you want to make planks harder, you can put the soles of your feet against the wall, so your feet are off the ground, and you have to press back into the wall to make it work. That's quite challenging. Uh, and, uh, pull-ups, if you have access to pull-ups. I would say that if you do just that, pistols if you can handle it, but pistols are hard for a lot of people. Those are one-legged squats. Uh, otherwise, just two tips. If you train your abs and your grip, you can keep the ent-- your entire body in really good shape. Um, abs, we already talked about planks. Listen to my podcast with Pavel Tsatsouline for more details on that. Get some hand grippers. As a, as a dude, I'm not sure as l- all the ladies here want, like, thick, calloused meat hooks, but, um, grippers, grippers are, uh, are incredible to travel with. And you can also, if you're really aggressive and want to go for it, you can get a kayaking dry bag that people use to put their wallets and so on, iPhones inside to keep dry. Well, it turns out you can use a dry bag to contain water also. So you can roll up a dry bag, travel with it, fill it up with water, say, in the bathtub, and get it up to, like, 30, 40 pounds, and you can just use that as a kettlebell or as a dumbbell. So you can, you can, uh, get around the space constraints. Jesse Conover, what's the best way to respond to, "Do you have a business card?" when I don't have one? [laughs] What's this? Uh, no, I, I just say, "I'm sorry, I'm really unprofessional. I don't have business cards." [laughs] That's it. [laughs] I have no, uh... I think that does the, does the job. And then usually I say, "I'm sorry, I don't have any business cards, but, you know, I'll, I'll shoot you my info." If you mean it. If not, then don't say that. Uh, all right, next question. Eric Coleman, what do most entrepreneurs do wrong? What do most entrepreneurs do wrong? Uh, I think they try to do-- The, uh, what do ent- most, most entrepreneurs invest too much in their business before they test product market fit. So do what I mentioned before. Read The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. Read A Thousand True Fans by Kevin Kelly, which is free, and figure out exactly who your ideal customer is and who those thousand people are, where they're located, what they read, where they'd be on Facebook, which pages they've probably liked, and test your landing page. Use something like Unbounce or Leadpages or something to test the offer before you invest in a ton of inventory or a ton of software development. And, uh, I think that's, that's the right way to approach it. Along the same lines is Luigi Adel, what's the most memorable memento I've received? Uh, boy. Uh, again, it's just the first one that comes to mind. Uh, I was in Japan at one point filming a TV show where I was attempting to learn Japanese horseback archery f- in a week. Uh, really dangerous, turns out. I don't recommend it. Um, you can f- you can find it online if you learn-- if you just search Japanese horseback archery and my name. Of all of the things. Uh, and the teacher there gave me an, a An out-of-print tiny book on yabusame, which it's called in Japanese, that he was featured in with an inscription from the, the m- the foremost family who used to work with the shogunate teaching, uh, yabusame. And, uh, the, the, uh, sort of prodigy right now, who's an incredible rider, incredible archer, has a jacket. He didn't give me the jacket. I would've loved the jacket, but it said Ogasawara Yabusame since 1157 [laughs] or something like that. But it said 11, since 11-something, and I was like, "That is amazing. I want that jacket." I didn't get the jacket, I

15. 55:24 – 1:01:04

    Final Q&A: introverts at events, podcast lessons, prioritizing ideas, and reflection questions

    1. TFTim Ferriss55:24

       got the book, but that was enough. All right. Advice for introverts. Um, advice for introverts is, uh, take time, timeouts. So I, I can play the extrovert, but I get exhausted at events. I get exhausted in crowds. I get exhausted at book signings. I get really, really drained. I recharge my batteries by myself. So if you need to take a break, go outside, chill out for 10 minutes, lean against the wall. [laughs] I mean, like, lay down in the park. Uh, take time to recharge. If you try to play the extrovert for too long, you'll just get burned out, and then the next day you won't even participate. So drink a lot of water and recharge. Josh Jansen, "What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from starting my podcast?" Uh, the podcast started as a lark. It was really a commitment to do six episodes because I wanted to get better at conversation and asking questions. My favorite part of writing books is not actually the writing, it's the research, and it's interviewing world-class experts and trying to deconstruct what they do, and I viewed the podcast as a way of practicing that and getting much better at it. And I'd had some wonderful experiences being interviewed on, say, Joe Rogan's podcast or Marc Maron, and I wanted to see if I enjoyed being the host. Uh, so I would say, first and foremost, what I've learned is that, uh, it's not enough to have the right quest- uh, to have the right answers. You need to have the right questions. So you can get, you can get a great answer to the wrong question, and it ends up meaning very little. But if you have, if you have a portfolio of really good questions, man, you can do just about anything. And, uh, that's number one. Number two is ask simple follow-on questions. So someone says, "Well, I did this, I did this, I did this." Why did you choose to do that? What did you learn from that? You know? What did you learn from that that you haven't talked about before? Uh, these, these follow-up questions are often where the gems really come out. All right, next question. Gabby De Leon, "What are some tips for executing on all the great ideas gathered at IA?" Iowa? [laughs] Oh, interactive? What is IA? I'm not sure. [laughs] Uh, once we return home, I'm guessing that is from the conference. Uh, you don't wanna execute on all the great ideas. [laughs] It's way, way, way too much. So I would look at your ideas, the potential collaborations and all that, and ask yourself which one of these, if, if executed, will make all of the others irrelevant or easier, and then focus on that one. So find the lead domino and focus on that.

    2. SPSpeaker58:05

       Do you wanna-- I think we'll take one more question and then direct everyone to the signing.

    3. TFTim Ferriss58:10

       Sure.

    4. SPSpeaker58:10

       Great.

    5. TFTim Ferriss58:10

       All right, next one is Jindrich Faborsky. Let's do, let's do one more question after this because I don't think I have a good answer for this. "Is there any particular session at South By that you want to attend? At least one." Um, I wasn't able to get my badge yet, so I haven't had a chance to get the book with the sessions. Uh, let's do one more. Hmm, this is a good one. Alex Wyckoff, "What questions do you use for reflection and why?" So reflection, meditation, I view those as the same thing. Uh, I will journal in the mornings quite often, and, uh, whenever-- I- I'd say every four to eight weeks at longest, uh, I will wake up in the morning and I will do an 80/20 inventory of my emotional state. So what does that mean? That means that I'll sit down before checking email, doing any of that, checking my phone, and I will ask the question, you know, what are 20% of the activities and relationships that are producing 80% of my positive emotional states? And then what are the 20% of activities and people who are creating 80% of the negative emotional states, the overwhelm, the guilt, and so on? And, uh, put together a to-do list and a not-to-do list accordingly, specifically the not-to-do list, the things to cut out. So those are-- that is the, uh, the set of questions that I find most valuable.

    6. SPSpeaker59:28

       Good question and good answer. Well, cool. Thanks again, Tim, and thanks everyone here for joining us.

    7. TFTim Ferriss59:32

       Thanks, everybody. Have a great South By. [upbeat music] Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. 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've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.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. And until next time, thank you for listening. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:01:04