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Tim FerrissTim Ferriss

Josh Waitzkin on Beginner’s Mind, Self Actualization and More | The Tim Ferriss Show

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Tim FerrisshostJosh Waitzkinguest
Mar 4, 20201h 23mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 2:54

    Cold open banter and scene-setting quotes

    1. TF

      Optimal minimal At this altitude, I can run flat-out for a half-mile before my hands start to shake.

    2. JW

      Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time.

    3. TF

      What if I did the opposite?

    4. JW

      I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

    5. TF

      The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Last year, I focused on dramatically improving a few things, surprise, surprise, most notably the quality of my sleep, which seems to affect just about everything. This led me to revisit, you name it, my daily routine, morning routine, exercise, diet, all the way to what I slept on. And I ended up getting all new beds here in Austin, Texas, including mattresses from Helix Sleep. Helix has built a sleep quiz that takes two minutes to complete, and they use the answers to match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress. Whether you're a side sleeper, hot sleeper, cold sleeper, or you like plush, you like firm, with Helix, there's no more guessing or confusion. Just go to helixsleep.com/tim, take their two-minute sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. That is their promise. For couples, Helix can even split the mattress down the middle, providing individual support needs and feel preferences for each side. They have a 10-year warranty, and you can test drive your mattress for 100 nights risk-free. Right now, Helix is offering up to $125 off of all mattress orders. So check it out. Get up to 125 off at helixsleep.com/tim. That's helixsleep.com/tim for $125 off your mattress order. Take a look, helixsleep.com/tim. This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, "If I could only take one supplement, what would it be?" The answer is inevitably Athletic Greens. I view it as, and a lot of you now view it as, all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it way back in 2010 in The 4-Hour Body, and I did not get paid to do so. I've been using it since before that, and I use it in a lot of different ways. I travel with it to avoid getting sick or to help mitigate the likelihood of getting sick. I take it in the morning to ensure optimal performance, and overall, it covers my bases if I can't get what I need from whole food meals throughout the rest of the day. And if you want to give Athletic Greens a try, they're offering a free 20 count travel pack for first time users. I nearly always travel with at least three or four of these one-dose bags. In other words, if you buy Athletic Greens as a first time buyer, you now get, for a limited time, an extra $79 in free product. So check out the details at athleticgreens.com/tim. Again,

  2. 2:54 – 5:19

    Tim introduces Josh Waitzkin and the learning-focused scope of the conversation

    1. TF

      that's athleticgreens.com/tim for your free travel pack with any purchase. Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out the thought processes, the best practices, the influences, and so on, that you can hopefully copy and paste into your own life in some fashion to test out the toolkits of people who are the best at what they do. My guest this episode is a return guest, Josh Waitzkin. He was, in fact, the second ever guest in episode two of this podcast. We've known each other a long time. Josh Waitzkin is author of The Art of Learning. He is an eight-time US national chess champion, a two-time world champion in Tai Chi Push Hands, and the first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under nine-time world champion Marcelo Garcia, widely believed to be the greatest grappler who has ever lived, at least in the world of BJJ. For the past 12 years, maybe 13, maybe 14 now, Josh has been channeling his passion for the outer limits of the learning process towards training elite mental performers in business and finance, or finance if you prefer, and to revolutionizing the education system through his nonprofit foundation, The Art of Learning Project. Josh is currently in the process of taking on his fourth and fifth disciplines, paddle surfing and foiling, which we will discuss at some length in this episode. Josh is always a fantastic thought partner. He is constantly pushing back at anything that I say which reflects sloppy thinking or imprecise thinking or consensus thinking, and he's a lovely guy. So without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with none other than Josh Waitzkin. Joshua, good day, sir.

    2. JW

      Timbo. [laughs]

    3. TF

      Good to see you yet again. And we've had a chance to spend a bunch of time together, and all sorts of questions have come to mind that I've wanted to ask you, and all sorts of discussions have come up over meals and wine and cold plunges that I've wanted to explore with you. Let's talk about, if you're open s- with, uh, open to, rather, starting here, uh, some, some recent explorations of learning, and specifically some insights related

  3. 5:19 – 8:15

    Reconnecting with Maurice Ashley: questioning old chess beliefs and the “emptiness” of mental models

    1. TF

      to someone you introduced me to quite a few years ago, uh, Maurice Ashley.

    2. JW

      Yeah, man. Uh, Maurice i- was a, um, I mean, is a dear friend, and we became very close when I was 11 years old playing chess. And between the ages of around 11 and 23, 24, we studied chess five, six hours a week together, sparred together, traveled around the world competing together against one another and as a team, as training partners, and it, it was actually really cool. He came to visit us, uh, a couple weeks ago, and it was a really unusual life opportunity because Maurice and I haven't talked about chess in about 20 years. So imagine going all in, just deep dive with someone for 13 or 14 years in an art Not talking about that art for 20 years, growing in different directions, and then coming together. And a lot of what we were exploring, um, were questions around, for example, what were our assumptions or our shared constructs 20 years ago, things that we agreed to be true that we now don't believe to be true.

    3. TF

      And for context, I mean, Maurice was a high-level chess player.

    4. JW

      Oh, yeah.

    5. TF

      How, how would you, how would you, for people who don't know the chess world, how would you describe his level?

    6. JW

      He's a strong grandmaster.

    7. TF

      Yeah.

    8. JW

      Um, and we, I mean, we grew up, you know, kind of we came up the ranks together.

    9. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    10. JW

      He was-- He's older than me. He's about, I think, 10, 11 years older than me, and, um, he's a beautiful soul, and we, we were, I mean, back in the day, we were just brothers. Very similar to my relationship with Dan Caulfield that I have today in, in martial arts and now foiling, Maurice was my sparring partner in, in the chess world. And, um, I think that, like, I think what you're referring to in terms of what we were exploring was, was fascinating because, I mean, a lot of what I think about today is the emptiness of mental models or the, the relativity, the non-absolute nature of any kind of ideas or, or constructs or networks of ideas that we have, things that we believe today we'll likely see as somewhat flawed five years from now. And so I work on seeing them as flawed today and seeing their, the holes in them. And so wh- what was really interesting to explore with Maurice were what were the things that we believed, as pretty strong chess players back in the day, that we just no longer believe to be true, uh, individually and collectively.

    11. TF

      And what came up?

    12. JW

      A lot came up. [sighs] Um-

    13. TF

      What came up for you?

    14. JW

      Well, but, well, one of the, th- the direction of thought that I found most interesting, it's not just what were our false constructs 20 years ago, but what are the common root structures to my current constructs and my false constructs 20 years ago?

    15. TF

      I see. So in other words, what did, what do you now disagree with in terms of beliefs you held 20 years ago that nonetheless sprouted from sort of roots or seeds that current beliefs share?

    16. JW

      That I may or may not be present to.

    17. TF

      Yeah, that you may not.

    18. JW

      And then, and then part of the challenge is to b- be present to them and then examine their emptiness today.

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm.

  4. 8:15 – 11:38

    From “local” technique to conceptual mastery: the Najdorf training disagreement as a learning lesson

    1. JW

      One of the interesting differences between Maurice and me 20 years ago is that when Maurice studied chess, he was extremely idealistic, um, fanciful, i- somewhat, somewhat to a fault competitively. So there were moments where, for example, Maurice would be playing a beautiful chess game, and he would make a mistake, a- as we all do, and he would s- kind of lose interest in the game because, like, the poetic perfection or something of what he'd been creating had been marred. And, and his idealism was obviously so beautiful to me but also was sometimes a little bit, a little bit frustrating when we were training together, and that frustration, you know, we both learned from, and it was really interesting to explore. So, uh, it was an example that came to mind for me, where there was a moment I recall viscerally when I was probably 22 years old. We were studying a, a variation of the Najdorf Sicilian, and w- we saw a, there was this position that would come after three incorrect decisions. So in other words, in this complex opening that we were studying, there would be three mistakes that we made, and it led to this fascinating position. And Maurice was like, "We should study that position." And I thought that was completely impractical. Um, I was like, "Dude, wh- wh- what are we gonna study this for? It's imprecise," right? "We should spend our time studying a position we might actually see." And it was an example of, of me feeling that Maurice was being kind of overly fanciful or idealistic in the training, in the moment of training, and Maurice just being fascinated by something and seeing it would be cool and interesting to learn from potentially. So in that moment, I had a lot of confidence that he was, uh, barking up the wrong tree. And when I think about that now, 20 years later, I was absolutely wrong. I think that studying that position, so much of what learning is at a high level to me today is conceptual learning, thematic learning. It's not about anything local. And so that position had so much dynamism to it, so, like the convergence of different kinds of dimensions, and it would, we would've learned so much from studying. We actually did end up studying it. We did end, learn, learning so much from it. But when I think about it today, like that was a massive blind spot for me. So there was, so then how do I deconstruct that into a common root structure today? Well, I think that I have a, if you look at the way my buddy Dan and I, um, studied martial arts together for a lot of years, we took on Tai Chi Push Hands together starting in 2000 in training camps for the 2002 and 2004 World Championships, and then we transitioned to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, reached high levels in that art, and then took on, now we're taking on surfing and foiling together, really all in on foiling. And one of the differences between the way Dan and I approach learning is that I would argue that he's a much more gifted athlete than me, and I'm much more of a deconstructive learner than Dan is. So I, I tend to decon-- Early in the learning process around something, I'll tend to deconstruct it down to the component parts, which might be technical or often will be thematic, um, and then I'll internalize those component parts, and then I'm ready just to go all in on chaos. Dan likes to just throw himself off a cliff, and then he, he reaches his technical clarity by just jumping right into the, like the chaos. And so we have different paths to a similar place, and we've learned to navigate that together. So the interesting thing is that there's a little bit of a, of an identity or a stiffness in my approach there. So there's something about the early stages of learning a new part, for example, of foiling. For example, we've recently started dialing in tow foiling, um, whipping on a jet ski, whipping somebody on, like, the lightest possible high-performance foil board and, um, riding big waves.

  5. 11:38 – 16:08

    Foiling explained: frictionlessness, flight dynamics, and why falling is part of the curriculum

    1. TF

      Can you describe for people who may not have heard our last conversation together what a foil board is?

    2. JW

      So foiling is you're on a surfboard, and then beneath the surfboard is a two and a half to three-foot mast, which is sort of like a big guillotine.

    3. TF

      Yeah.

    4. JW

      And then beneath that is a wing, which can be big or small.

    5. TF

      Yeah, it's like a giant razor blade basically.

    6. JW

      Yes, exactly. It's a really safe art. And, um, the wing i- once you're in a wave, the wing is what you're riding, so the wing is, is interacting with underwater wave energy.

    7. TF

      So you get lifted off, the board is lifted off of the surface of the water for people who are visualizing this.

    8. JW

      Right. The wing is in the water, and you're standing on a surface which is a few feet above the water, and it's crazy 'cause it's frictionless. It's incredibly fast. It's so dynamic. It's awesome. I mean, I've never been more in love with an art in my life.

    9. TF

      And the purpose, if, if I am getting this right, of using a foil, aside from the different kinesthetic experience and aesthetic experience, is to be able to move faster. on bigger waves or to... Is, is that how foiling came about as a, as a technology?

    10. JW

      Well, there's lots of... Yes, I guess maybe that's, that's a part of why it came out. I mean, you're above the surface chop, so when it can be choppy weather and if you're on a foil, you're just above it all, so you're frictionless. So sur- conditions that are unsurfable are foilable, um, 'cause a surf board would be chattering on all this surface texture and the foil is above it. Um, I think that, you know, so much of how I personally relate to it is, it's frictionlessness. I, I think of, of learning as unobstructed self-expression, so friction is a form of obstruction. And what's fascinating is foiling, you're, you're, you're just, it's such a powerful physical embodiment of that principle.

    11. TF

      And I know we're gonna hop around 'cause we've both had a lot of coffee, but, uh, so we, we were talking about these sort of labels and inflexibility, so we may come back to that. But one thing that has really impressed me that you and Dan share in common is, uh, I, I suppose you probably focus on this perhaps more, you correct me, but the use of technology and training to really accumulate focused repetitions, right? So for instance, you have a foil board, and then you have an eFoil, right? So, so how would you use an eFoil?

    12. JW

      So we, we took on fo- so the way I took on foiling was I got an eFoil, um, and I spent a- about two months flying around 2,000 miles on flat water. So I learned foil dynamics just first of all working on, on flight on, with a motor. So an eFoil is a foil with a prop on it with a lithium battery. And, um, and I was flying in flat water at between 15 and 25 miles an hour just getting used to flight dynamics. 'Cause it's, being on a foil board, it's really, it's micro, micro recalibration. If you back weight, you fly up. If you front weight, you go down. If you overweight, you crash into the floor, into the water or fly, or the, if the wing comes out of the water, you're, you're catapulting. So I worked on flight dynamics, then I worked on break falls, which is a hugely important part of it, which I don't see a lot of foilers do, which is really training in the art of falling, which something that Dan and I did, of course, for many, many years in the martial arts. Um, and it's not just learning how to fall when you want to fall. It's actually turning a fall that's out of control into a break fall. So it's, it's really learning how to prepare for the moments you haven't prepared for. And, um, and being good at break falls opens... Like, when I took on one-wheeling, right, which is an electronic skateboard with a big whe- one wheel in the middle around New York City, you know, I had a lot of falls at 25 miles an hour into New York City pavement. And if you don't know how to break fall, you're gonna get hurt. But if you do, you can just roll out of it and be fine. So I think that being comfortable falling, it's a really important principle, I would say, and we could talk about designing the learning process around principles as opposed to around techniques. So, so, like, the technical arsenal of break falls, like, the, it would fall under the principle of just being comfortable falling, and then you can take a lot more risk than you can take otherwise because the fall will be something that's part of your domain.

    13. TF

      Well, let's, let's take an example of practice that I've never heard anyone else discuss. Maybe this is common practice. I suspect it is not. But y- you've achieved world-class levels in multiple arts. That in and of itself is very uncommon. With foiling specifically, and we won't spend an hour talking about only foiling, but it, I think it's, uh, I wanna highlight for people that this is a discussion of learning and principles using the example of foiling.

  6. 16:08 – 18:49

    Training edge cases: practicing “boils,” embracing looking absurd, and designing reps others avoid

    1. TF

      Using an eFoil to go through boils over and over and over again, is that principle-based? Is that technique? And, uh, perhaps you could, you could just paint a picture of, of what a boil is and why that, why you chose to practice in that way.

    2. JW

      Right. Okay, so zooming out for a moment, the way I think about taking on these arts, it's understanding what are the component parts and doing lots of reps in them so that you're comfortable with them, then putting them all together. So my learning process won't look great in the first couple days or couple weeks, um, and I'm not concerned about that. And I think that one of the interesting parts of it is, like, people-- I think that a lot of what's happening in surf culture or foil culture is people have these Instagram accounts, and they're always posting videos of what they're doing, and they have to look cool. And so there's this groupthink that I observe around what looks cool and what the micro culture will approve of, and so you can't really do things outside of that. And so for example, going through boils, when you're on big wave faces on a reef, sometimes there's an upwelling of water that, that... Or, like, you know, if the water interacts with a sh- a shallow spot or a ledge or a, a big rock, you'll have a boil that'll, it's just like a big shooting up of water pressure from the bottom.

    3. TF

      It looks like boiling water.

    4. JW

      It looks like boiling water, and when the wing hits that or when a cor- a piece of a wing hits that, a foil wing, you just can get thrown. So you have to learn to absorb it. So you have to learn how to wa- either weave around it, weave through the boils, or absorb them. And so one of the things the eFoil opened up was the ability to, to really seek out boils and learn how to... You know, lowering level a little bit so you're not at the top of your wing when, uh, of your mast when you enter it, and then just learning what the boil does if you hit it, if you hit the wing straight on, on the corners, lots of falling. But for example, putting on a palmet, putting on an impact vest, those things don't look cool on Instagram. And so you can't do those things if you're gonna be posting on Instagram every day, right? But if you're living kind of a bizarre hermit life like I guess I do and, and not doing that kind of thing-

    5. TF

      You guess. I can confirm.

    6. JW

      [chuckles] You can look... I mean, ab- embracing looking absurd in certain moments is, is a very interesting hack to what others might not be taking advantage of in the learning process. And so I, I spent... I mean, I, I went over hundreds and hundreds of boils on the eFoil and learned how to absorb them, and I had incredible crashes, but then I learned how to dial in those crashes, and then I learned how to hit the boils at different speeds and absorb. Sometimes I als- I mean, I got thrown off at- Mid-30s miles an hour. After Dan whipped me in on a, on a, off the jet ski on a four-pound foil board the other day, and this boil just erupted me and I went flying. I mean, it's an ongoing process, um, at different speeds. But, but, yeah.

  7. 18:49 – 27:44

    Non-local practice: building calm in chaos via cold plunges and other transferable stress training

    1. TF

      Oh, I was just gonna say, I remember the first time we spoke about this because it coincided with a week later, and we talked about this, me going to volunteer at something called Zendo at a c- a festival called Lightning in a Bottle, which I, I'd wanted to attend specifically not because I'm a concert or festival goer, but because it's effectively like a mini Burning Man that skews to younger ages. And for people who don't know, Zendo is a peer-supported harm reduction volunteer outfit that helps people who are going through difficult drug experiences generally, or oftentimes psychedelic experiences that do not require medical intervention. So there's medical triage for people who have, who have done something that could be physiologically dangerous. But otherwise, for me, it was the equivalent of you going through boils. Because if, for instance, and I'm not a facilitator, I do not, uh, I do not, uh, support [chuckles] or have, have not chosen as a career supporting people going through psychedelic experiences, but I wanted to develop a level of confidence that if I were in an environment where I was called upon to handle a worst-case scenario, that I would at least have a certain degree of comfort and exposure to that. But it's really uncommon that you would get a lot of repetitions with that. That would in fact mean that you would in some way be manufacturing these terrible conditions. [chuckles] So, so one of the few ways to do it was to volunteer at Zendo, where you get these just kind of red line cases and you get put in the crisis tent over and over and over and over and over again. And, uh, we had a really, uh, rich conversation about that, about this type of deliberate practice with the edge cases that are nonetheless really important to develop a degree of comfort around.

    2. JW

      And I think that you can do it thematically, i- or, or non-locally. You don't have to do it specifically in the thing. So for example, one of the beautiful things that the eFoil opened up to me and Dan was the ability to just... There was this one wave that we fell in love with that, this offshore reef, and we just, it would just mound up into this super steep ramp that just kept on going, and it was actually two converging ramps, and we called it Ramps. And this wave was, it was sort of like the drop that you'd make surfing that would last a second. It would, that drop would last 45 to 60 seconds. And a, a buddy who, who surfed it said, said it would, we should call it aneurysms because it felt like you're having an aneurysm that lasts for 60 seconds.

    3. TF

      [laughs]

    4. JW

      But we did so many thousands of those waves, then it, it's like you get used to the aneurysm, and then the aneurysm becomes mellow and then, and it's just a mellow place to be. And then that, then you translate that over to foiling in, on like the lightest, most high performance board possible. The drop you might down, you make down a steep face before a bottom turn, we've just done so many of those that lasted for so long that these sections that would have felt super critical to us before, um, just don't anymore. For similar, you can do cold plunges. So if you do, if you're cold plunging in 33-degree water, your body's gonna go into that same freak out fight or flight place, and then learning to breathe through that and come out the other side, I mean, cold plunges are in a non-local way a great way to train at making steep drops surfing or foiling.

    5. TF

      Yeah, it's controlling it, or not control... It, it may not even be controlling a panic response, but becoming familiar with the physiological response to panic-

    6. JW

      Right

    7. TF

      ... on some level. And, and, uh, y- those people listening obviously can't see what's going on here, but, uh, you have a, you have a richness, [laughs] a smorgasbord of cold plunge options here. And 33 degrees is n- is, is not a, uh, a grand exaggeration [laughs] because I unplugged one of the cold plunges a few days ago because it was turning into an entire ice block. Uh, so [laughs] for the last few days we've been getting inside and being surrounded by ice. Uh, and y- the, the, I, I think, uh, the idea of kind of non-local practice, um, applies also to what, what I was mentioning, right? Because I've done, I've accompanied doctors on ER rounds for similar reasons, right? To become more comfortable with an environment that seems out of control or unpredictable. And, uh, another option within the realm of, say, psychedelic harm reduction would be, uh, engaging or facilitating in large breathwork groups where you will have people, uh, whether it's holotropic or something else, respond in really exaggerated, uh, outwardly expressive ways in these groups, and you have to keep them from, say, flailing and hurting themselves or hurting someone else. Uh, how do you, uh... What types of practice have become more important to you? If you're looking back at your, uh, say, competitive career in chess or your practice of jujitsu, what types of practice or thematic practice have become more important? Have you learned to value more or less? Does anything come to mind?

    8. JW

      Conceptual practice, thematic practice. I think that, that... F- for example, building on what you just said, I would say that the tension one feels as a chess player, the buildup of tension w- both psychologically and technically on what's happening between the chess pieces, is very similar to... It might be difficult for people visualizing people sitting at a chess board and compared to like dropping down big waves, but it's very similar to the feeling one has dropping down big waves. You feel, it's the, it, you feel the desperate urge to release the tension. And similar in cold water, right? And so the, the, the path that I've worked with-- So initially, it's pain, it's red alert, get me out of here. Then it's becoming at peace in that pain, and then it's learning how to enjoy it. And so, like, the great chess players, like someone like Magnus Carlsen, one thing that's unique, fairly unique about him is he seems to really enjoy tension, right? And I've, I've trained in my li-- I never got there as a chess player, um, but I, I have gotten there in other things, is learning to just completely love chaos. Um, so the tension isn't, isn't grinding on you. You're not a tectonic plate moving toward eruption. You're, um, you're getting stronger as the tension builds. And, and that's something that I think is beautiful to train at. Something like cold water is just something you can replicate every day to do it. The eFoil opened that up in drops foiling, right? Um, so I think to answer your question, conceptual learning has been wh- when you learn a technique, you're learning one thing. When you're learning a principle that embodies a technique, you, you might be learning a thousand things. And so designing a learning process around the meta, um, this is part of the reason why I think my approach in, to surfing and foiling has looked so strange to somebodies who are lifetime surfers because I'm not approaching it technically. The, the tech-- I'm approaching, I'm working on internalizing certain core concepts, principles. The techniques fall within the, like, the tree beneath the principle. But so meta training, I think, would be the most important answer to that question.

    9. TF

      You're also coming into foiling with a huge disadvantage/advantage, which is you have not spent decades surfing.

    10. JW

      Right.

    11. TF

      Right. So you, you're looking at things very differently. And, uh, just to, to give one example and as background, before we began recording this, you let me... You encouraged me to read through a Slack channel that you have with your team where you're bouncing different ideas, uh, off of one another, and they're stress-testing your ideas also, asking you to clarify things, define things. And you mentioned at one point frontside turns. Not to get too deep in the weeds, but frontside turn, different from backside turn, and then realizing that you could practice that on an eFoil by just effectively, if-- correct me if I'm wrong, but what I read was kind of going in circles.

    12. JW

      Yeah.

    13. TF

      Right?

    14. JW

      Spinning in super tight circles, yeah.

    15. TF

      And you're doing just hundreds and thousands of repetitions that would be impossible to replicate [chuckles] except over an extremely long, I mean, weeks, months?

    16. JW

      Oh, years.

    17. TF

      Years on a surfboard. And so you, you are able to see that where I think, uh, per- perhaps others might not. Um, certainly some would, but, um, that struck me as a huge advantage that you have, that you're seeing things with beginner's eyes, and you're already technologically enabled, so you have just a, a greater buffet of options.

  8. 27:44 – 32:44

    Beginner’s mind advantages: learning surfing through foiling and closing the Maurice “root structure” loop

    1. JW

      I think it's really important for me to be clear. I- I'm just a beginner-

    2. TF

      Yeah

    3. JW

      ... in the surf and foil world, right?

    4. TF

      Yeah.

    5. JW

      I mean, most of the people who are foiling have been surfing for twenty or thirty years, their, their whole lives, 'cause foiling is, is super hard. It's surfing much faster with an extra vertical dimension. Um, the interesting thing about it is, is I'm learning how to surf and paddle surf through foiling. The lines that I can draw foiling are much better than the lines I can draw paddle surfing. What's fascinating is I went out surfing-- I'm, I'm right now foiling, you know, six days a week maybe, and surfing, paddle surfing one day a week. I went out paddle surfing yesterday, um, 'cause the foil, the, the swell dissipated a little bit and it wasn't great foil conditions where we go. And I, um, I was amazed at the breakthroughs I've made surfing just from the foiling breakthroughs I've made over the past couple weeks. It's, it's really interesting. So I- I'm coming at this in every ways, in every way backwards. I approached-- I l- I'm taking on the art of surfing and paddle surfing, I started in my late thirties, not as a six-year-old kid. And so that also speaks to some of the things that Dan and I, who, who this is, this relates to Dan as well, things we need to do. Like, we haven't gone sideways forward, like been in the surf stance moving forward at high speed sideways. It's a very simple idea, right? If you're skateboarding or you're surfing or snowboarding, you're, like, in a sideways posture and you're going forward very fast. We haven't done that a lot in our lives. So things like the one wheel, which Dan and I both did, and then the eFoil, like, that just gave us a huge amount of reps. And then the amount of waves we've been able to take eFoiling, we've been learning about surfing waves through those reps. Um, and so, a-and you're right, I think the, uh... So it's a disadvantage in a lot of ways that w- that we're coming at it so late, but it's also a wonderful advantage because we're not socialized by any of the assumptions that a lifetime surfer would make. Similarly, in, like, the Chinese martial arts, taking on the Chinese martial arts, there's lots of things that Chinese martial artists who are lifetime aficionados will not consider, that coming at it as an outsider from the chess world, I could take advantage of. Similar in the Brazilian jujitsu world. Um, we could have conversations about those. I think we actually have spoken about those over the years.

    6. TF

      [laughs]

    7. JW

      But, but all of these arts have their blind spots. Let me just go back, just, just finish the circle one time, 'cause we began speaking about this exploration I was doing with Maurice relevant to the chess and the common root structure-

    8. TF

      Right

    9. JW

      ... between false constructs. So just to close that loop, I think that-- So what I'm exploring now is that, like, so what was the, the essence of that, that thing I was too tight about with Maurice? I was being a bit, little bit too local and too tight in the early stages of the learning process of something, which in that moment was a chess opening, a, a branch of the Najdorf Sicilian. I'm explor- I was about-

    10. TF

      What is that word, just to spell it for people? Najdorf?

    11. JW

      Na- Najdorf. Um, Miguel Najdorf was a, was a brilliant chess player.

    12. TF

      How do you sp-

    13. JW

      N-A-J-D-O-R-F. And there's a ver-- A Sicilian defense is a chess opening, so it was a Najdorf variation of the Sicilian defense. It was just-

    14. TF

      Sounds like something from The Princess Bride. Continue.

    15. JW

      [laughs] Okay.

    16. TF

      [laughs]

    17. JW

      [laughs] Yes, chess openings have, have funny names sometimes, but yeah. So I was-- So the interesting question is, is that tightness, is, is there a shared root structure i- relative to that tightness in the learning process today? And it-

    18. TF

      For you.

    19. JW

      For me.

    20. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    21. JW

      Right? And I mean, there was a moment where Dan and I were whipping into a big, um, a, a big wave, uh, um, called w- called mo- we call mobs here, where, um, it's, it's a left on foil. He was on a jet ski, I was behind it, and he came, uh, you know, he was whipping into it, and there's a big bar- rock that, that bar- that just in-- that gets sucked out, and there's basically a big dry rock on the whip-in. And it was interesting 'cause this was the, in the first few days of us taking on, um, tow s- tow foiling. And in that moment, like I-- there was a tightness in me, right? Now, we come close to r- that rock all the time eFoiling. Um, we-- I think we'll be very comfortable playing right there soon, um, tow foiling. But in that moment, I was in the early stages of a learning process, and it was very similar because in that moment, there was an improvisational nature to that moment. It was playful. It was actually not such a big risk relative to what we do all the time. Um, but there was, there was a, a s- a tightness in me because I w- we were learning something new technically. In that moment, I wanted to work on the deconstructive component parts of tow foiling and then work on, like, that kind of thing. So I, I do think that it's interesting for me to explore, is there some identity in the idea that I need to deconstruct first? Um, similarly, questions like parallel learning, lateralization. I would say one of my biggest strengths as a learner has been the ability to translate from previous arts into current arts. It's interesting to invert that. Are there ways that might be holding me back?

    22. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    23. JW

      Is the idea of lateralizing or parallel learning, um, impeding my learning process in any way? So these are, these are assumptions that I might have that I might hold tightly. I don't know. It, it's very interesting to take our assumptions and examine them, flip them upside down, rip them apart.

  9. 32:44 – 47:16

    “Myself 20 years from now is my teacher”: perspective-taking, firewalking, and powerful triggers

    1. TF

      May I ask you about one potentially backwards approach that I wanna know more about?

    2. JW

      Yeah. Do it.

    3. TF

      Sp- specific to your notes in the Slack channel, and that is a quote that also one of your team members asked you about. So, "The internal spirit is the teacher or myself 20 years from now." I'm most interested in the last part of that. We could talk about the whole thing, but what does that mean, or myself 20 years from now?

    4. JW

      Yeah, that came out of me a few months ago when I was trying to explain to a buddy of mine in the surf world this bizarre way that, that I'm approaching this stuff, um, 'cause it looks really strange to people sometimes. And, and, and what I was saying was sort, sort of in a, i- in a thematic way, it's as if myself 20 years from now is my teacher. And, and what I mean i- f- first, there's two ways of looking at it. One is that I know myself decades into arts, like I know myself decades into chess and into the martial arts. And so I have a feeling for what I am like when I'm in the realm of virtuosity within an art. Um, and so in a sense, that person is like, that's a beacon that I'm moving towards, right? And I'm nowhere near that realm as a surfer and a foiler. Um, but, but I've been there. And so, so, so qualitatively, in terms of some like abstract Platonic realm of quality, there's that beacon for me. And there's the other part of it, which is that no one will know me better than myself 20 years from now. And if my goal is unobstructed self-expression or self-actualization within an art, then the person who is teaching me should be the person who knows me most deeply, and that's my person 20 years from now. The person 20 years from now is also a, a helpful visualization in, in being the person who would understand what my false constructs are today and yesterday and a year from now. And it's very easy to get stuck in the mindset we-- I didn't know before, but I, I know today. It reminds me, there was this funny moment years ago when I was first studying Tai Chi. Um, and I was in William C.C. Chen's Tai Chi studio. This was back in, I think, I think it was 1988, 1998, 1999. And there was this guy who'd been studying for decades, and he was telling a story. And he was sort of holding court within his knowledge of wisdom within this domain. And he said, "You know, when I studied Tai Chi for a year, I thought I knew what I was doing, and I thought I was really s- un- starting to understand it. But after two years, I realized everything I thought after a year was wrong. It was just wrong. But now I understood. And then after four years, I realized everything I thought after two years was wrong." And he went on with this story and this pattern, "But now I understood." Then went, "After eight years, the same thing. Everything I thought after four years was wrong. And now I've been training for 16 years, and everything I thought after ei- eight years was wrong. But now I, I, I finally understand." [laughs]

    5. TF

      [laughs]

    6. JW

      And I remember thinking at the time, "Man, you got it, but you didn't get it." Like, the point is you don't know now either, right?

    7. TF

      [laughs]

    8. JW

      Like after 16 years, you've been going through this repetition. What about after 32 years? So I, so part of that visualization is designed to help me know that I don't know.

    9. TF

      Yeah.

    10. JW

      Right? And, and, um, which is so important. It's so easy to think that we were in the dark y- yesterday, but we're in the light today.

    11. TF

      [laughs]

    12. JW

      But we're fucking in the, in the, in the dark today too.

    13. TF

      So I've, I've a question about the self 20 years from now because, a follow-up question. Part of what I enjoy about these, these conversations with the mics is that w- you know, we get to hopefully edge into some stuff that we haven't talked about 'cause we talk all the time. And I don't think I've ever told you about the piece of writing I lost that pained me the most, and the piece of writing that I lost was the following. I was, uh, for some reason, maybe feeling under the weather or had an injury, something like that, I was unable to join some friends skiing, and I was very upset about this. Uh, I, I love skiing. And I was sitting in a lodge. Love ski lodges, so that's the upside. And this beautiful fire, so on. Got some hot chocolate, because that's what I do when I'm feeling moody and want to stuff my emotions in a ski lodge. And I, I had paper and I wrote this, this long story about a guy, AKA young, young Tim, wandering into a ski lodge, sitting down, and having this older gentleman, about 20 years older, kind of sit across the, the table near the fire by him and striking up a conversation. And I only realized later this, that this is very close to a story by, uh, I think it's, uh, Jorge Luis Borges. But ended up being this surreal interaction between my younger self and my older self and asking my older self for advice on all these various topics over the course of a few hours of sitting there in the ski lodge. And I looked at the advice after I had been writing all this for five to 10 pages, and the advice made sense. Like, a lot of the advice seemed like very probably it could be the advice that a 20 year, uh, older self would give me with some detachment from the emotions of the current situation. And somehow, some way, I ended up losing it, and that re- it bothers me to this day because I thought it was, uh, there was so much there that I felt was really insightful and actionable, and it's wild that it came from the same head that had created so much confusion around those same situations.

    14. JW

      So beautiful.

    15. TF

      So-

    16. JW

      Why don't you rewrite it, man?

    17. TF

      Uh, I so I have actually not rewritten it in exactly that same way, but I've asked myself, for instance, there are a bunch of decisions that I'm trying to make right now. What would my, I'm 42 right now, 47 year old or 50 year old self tell me to do right now as it relates to these decisions? There's a lot less turbulence, right, around, uh, a lot less kind of cloud cover when looking at it with a bit of detachment in that way. I'm curious if you ever kind of take it that literally or have tried to look at your current decisions or situations through the lens of an older self in that fashion.

    18. JW

      You know, just a quick aside before I go there. I, I think it's a really interesting question to ask people. What, what, like how would your 20 year older self guide you today? Because it gives you a window into somebody's ability to perspective take and to think conceptually. In other words, like, think about the, the old David Foster Wallace, This Is Water, um, story of, you know, two fish are swimming in the water, and two young fish and an older fish come by, comes by and says, "How's the water, boys?" And they look at one another as they swim by and think, "What the hell is he talking about water," right? Most people can't see the water because they're just used to the water. Um, but it, it's very different to actually be able to see our mental models, our frames. So people are usually looking at the world through their frames. They're, you know, we can also cultivate the ability to look through the frame, but also see the frame. And, and I spend a lot of my life working on examining the frame itself, right? I, I think that, you know, years ago, w- we did one of these, these chats together and I described the drowning experience I had-

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm

    20. JW

      ... where I made some errors in, um, [laughs] in breath hold work.

    21. TF

      That's one way to put it.

    22. JW

      Right. [laughs]

    23. TF

      We've already gone there. We don't have to do this all over again.

    24. JW

      [laughs]

    25. TF

      But just, just give the, give the, the 30 second version.

    26. JW

      Ugh. Okay.

    27. TF

      You can do it. You can do it, Josh.

    28. JW

      The 30 second version is that I was doing, um, some Wim Hof inspired breath hold work. I made the mistake of doing it during, um, multiple, um, lo- lots of reps of underwater swims, 50 meter swims at a pool in New York City, and on my like eighth or tenth rep, I blacked out in a bliss state and I spent four minutes in the bottom of the pool after blacking out from oxygen deprivation. Um, this old guy pulled me out and, um, and which I'm eternally grateful for, and I basically drowned. All the doctors said after 45 to 60 seconds I should have been brain dead or dead, but it was four minutes, um, on the bottom of the pool, and that my training saved me. Uh, like, like also you could say he put me there.

    29. TF

      [laughs]

    30. JW

      But that's a whole other conversation. There was a... So that, we, we've discussed that whole experience at length.

  10. 47:16 – 1:05:47

    Feedback loops and coaching: when to seek more feedback, how to avoid ego coaching, and stress-testing ideas

    1. JW

      Well, feedback loops are, are everything. I mean, it-- you, you can... It's funny, I was talking [chuckles] one of the, one of the funny things about my conversations with Maurice, 'cause I really left the chess world behind, and it was fascinating just talking to him about how it's evolved so much. And one of the questions that I was asking him is, how present are world-class chess players today to the networks of cognitive biases? And he said that, that what's interesting is that many of the great chess players today actually don't even know what cognitive biases are. And one of the reasons that they're able to do that is because chess today, you just have such unlimited accurate feedback loops because you've got computers that are much stronger than humans analyzing the position by your side. So any decisions you make, you can look over and see if it's right or wrong. And the computers are so strong that they're gonna be right. And so y- you can basically have a feedback loop whenever you want. And so you just, if you have unlimited feedback loops, and you're training six to eight hours a day, you just learn to feel when your thinking is good and when it's bad.

    2. TF

      So just to clarify, in other words, cognitive biases, right? This is, uh... We, we, we won't go too broad, but an example of that would be something like sunk cost fallacy, right? So players back in the day would have some conceptual understanding of how to define sunk cost fallacy and what that means. But today, it's more a intuition built upon thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of near immediate feedback loops.

    3. JW

      Right. So the way sunk cost fallacy could operate consciously for a chess player is that you're studying a chess position, you've invested twenty minutes into it, and you're starting to sense it might-- you might be barking up the wrong tree, but you put so much time into it, you want to keep on going.

    4. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JW

      Right? Or that could just manifest without any consciousness of the bias in just that your thinking doesn't feel good. Or your, in the moment your thinking starts to feel a little bit less present or less on it, then you just go the other way, right? Or, like, you can have a confirmation bias where you're, you, you can think, "Okay, right now am I or am I not searching for proof of something that I've, for a decision I've already reached?" Right? Um, or you can just not be subject to confirmation bias because you've had it burned out of you by so many reps of feedback loops just beating the shit out of you whenever you get it wrong, right? So in arts where you have massive amounts of natural accurate feedback loops, you don't have to be as conscious about these things. On the other end of the spectrum, something like investing, it's very, very hard to have accurate feedback loops because the decisions you make today, if you're a long-term investor, the decisions you make today, you might not actually see the result of that decision for many years, and you could have had good process and still have bad outcome, or you could have bad process and still have good outcome. So you have to, so it might not be an accurate feedback loop even if you do have the feedback loop. And so in realms like that, you have to be really creative. And I would argue that a lot of what defines the learning curve of, of someone in a field like investing where accurate feedback loops are few and far between is how creative you are in creat- in, in manifesting them. For example, you can have somatic feedback loops. You can use biofeedback to understand when your performance state is at a high level of quality or a lower level of quality.

    6. TF

      What does it correlate to physiologically?

    7. JW

      Exactly. So when you're thinking, "Well, what does that mean? What is the biofeedback saying?"

    8. TF

      Yeah, what's, what's-

    9. JW

      And then you learn to feel the biofeedback-

    10. TF

      ... what's the physical signature? What's the signature-

    11. JW

      Exactly

    12. TF

      ... of those good decisions?

    13. JW

      Right. Which we use biofeedback for initially, but then we learn to, we learn from the biofeedback how to sense, how to feel it, right?

    14. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    15. JW

      Um, so a lot of what I, you know, when I'm training people in, like, elite mental performers, a lot of what we're doing is being extremely creative in designing accurate feedback loops in places where it's not so, so unreal. So you asked me about myself. Oh. It's, it's, I mean, you told me not to speak about foiling because-

    16. TF

      [laughs]

    17. JW

      ... but, but it's difficult because, like, that's what I'm all in on now.

    18. TF

      Yeah, yeah.

    19. JW

      So, like, I'm, I'm training in paddle surfing and foiling.

    20. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    21. JW

      And so, I, I mean, I'm, I'm gonna kind of swat that deflection aside.

    22. TF

      [laughs]

    23. JW

      I mean, 'cause that's what I'm all in on now, right?

    24. TF

      Go for it. Yeah, yeah.

    25. JW

      And so w- what I... So, I mean, I have, I've learned that feedback works for me sometimes, and other times I don't want it. So for example, I have a buddy who, who, um, does drone footage of us once or twice a week on a cadence relative to the swell, but also relative to where we are in the learning process. Usually I'll study video very closely, and then I'll spend four or five days training without video feedback at the thing that I'm working on, and then I'll, then I'll have drone footage again. So I will have video feedback at a pace that feels appropriate to my learning process. Because there's sometimes you wa- I, I find that you, you want to internalize, you wanna work on what you're feeling internally without an external eye.

    26. TF

      Yeah, totally.

    27. JW

      And then sometimes you want the external eye. And I honor that. I really trust that. Similar to in, in, for example, the, in, let's just say you're training Brazilian jujitsu and you've got a tournament coming up. Your repertoire tightens, right? Your, your, it condenses down to what you're best at. But then you have a period of time where after the tournament, where say you're not gonna compete for two months, you might have an experimental, um, repertoire you're playing with. Things that by definition you're not very, you're not as good at, but that you, you're, you're, you're expanding, you're, you're investing in loss a little bit. You're getting beaten up by some people who you couldn't beat up with your best repertoire, but you're, you're working on things. So in that moment, if you're studying video in that period, you might reject what you're doing because it's not as good as you can be.

    28. TF

      Yeah.

    29. JW

      So that's an interesting period to just work on somatically dialing in something and feeling your way into something.

    30. TF

      I think I just wanna underscore that because I think it's really important, and that is it's not always true that more feedback is better, right?

  11. 1:05:47 – 1:15:29

    Reps hidden in plain sight: spinning circles for turns, boogie boarding for glide, and teaching via readiness

    1. TF

      Now, those, as, as I've, I've read you put it in your private journal, those were reps hidden in plain sight, right? The, or there are reps hidden in plain sight, like the front side turns just by going in circles as opposed to being on a wave at all, right?

    2. JW

      Just think about that actually, just like that front side turn thing. It's such a funny idea. Like a front side turn, like let's just say you're riding a wave. You drop down the face of a wave, and then you do a bottom turn. So, I mean, you know, it means you're like turning on the bottom of a wave, uh, like you go into the flats in front of a wave, and you're bottom turning back up to back up into the wave. Right? That would be like a front side turn. You're turning on the side that you're facing on the board, right?

    3. TF

      Meaning like your belly button is facing away from the wave when you turn just for, right?

    4. JW

      No, your belly button is facing toward the wave when you turn.

    5. TF

      Oh, it is. That's a front side turn.

    6. JW

      That's a front side turn. Yeah.

    7. TF

      Oh, wow. That's confusing. [laughs]

    8. JW

      So, so like I realized that my, my cutbacks, my backside turns on, on a, going on a, on a right, on a front side wave, I know it's a little confu- Anyway.

    9. TF

      [laughs]

    10. JW

      My, my front side turns were, were lacking. So what was a- I was able to do on the eFoil, it's so ridiculous. I put on a, a big front wing and a very, very small tail wing, which allows you to, a small tail wing allows you to have maximized turn, turnability, and I just started to spin in circles under power. And I was using a folding prop, so if a wave came, I could enter the wave, the prop would fold and enter the wave. So in between sets, I was spinning in circles. So I would be spinning in these tight circles for two minutes at a time, just countless. I mean, uh, if you were to add up the amount of turn time that I got in that one session to how many front side turns you'd have to make, I, I mean, the, I don't know, thousands and thousands and thousands of waves of front side turns, right? And then whenever a wave would come, I would just drop into it and work on that same bottom mechanic, and then I'd go back to spinning in circles. I looked like a total madman. If anyone would've been watching me, they would-- It was like the ultimate like, like, what the hell is this ridiculous human doing?

    11. TF

      Looney, Looney, Looney Tunes.

    12. JW

      But I made such huge growth in that moment.

    13. TF

      Can you think of other places in other arts, whether it's- Chess, BJJ, Push Hands, investing, anywhere, where you might find reps hidden in plain sight or a way to do that type of deliberate practice that is uncommon?

    14. JW

      Well, I think s- I think, yes, everywhere. So we could get into a technical discussion of reps hidden in plain sight, like the frontside turn, which is technical, right? Which is, I think, a fairly obvious one. I think that where the really potent low-hanging fruit, um, you know, hanging in plain sight, um, like, l- lie are, are in the, the thematic.

    15. TF

      Right.

    16. JW

      Are in, like, breaking down the learning process into the core principles or themes we wanna work on and doing reps of those. Those are just invisible to people in plain sight.

    17. TF

      Right. So you mean, uh, just as an example, maybe I'm pulling out the wrong example, but the learning the macro from the micro, say, with the practicing of the endgame in chess with just a handful of pieces on the board. Would that be an example, or is that not a good example?

    18. JW

      Yeah, so that, that would be an example of-- I mean, that's a great example of reps hidden in plain sight, where you're, you're basically setting king and pawn against king to get a feel for the essence of the king and the essence of the pawn. Then you're setting rook and pawn against and learning about the essence of the rook. So you're getting tons of reps of the rook, of the pawn. Then you study chess tactics with rook and pawn tactics, and you're getting tons of reps of those things. So that's an example of, of ways that you can get reps of individual pieces, right? Um, so that's, those are-- that's a great example, the way I would say of, of, of reps hidden in plain sight. When I'm thinking about conceptual or thematic reps hidden in plain sight, it's more around... I mean, to, to-- for example, o- o- one-- th- when we took on surfing and foiling, one of the things that, that we did that was strange was th-- you know, I was much more comfortable in big waves than small waves initially because I was comfortable with breath holds and I was comfortable with intensity. And small waves in some ways are much more technical, and I, I just simply, like, I hadn't, um... And, and so I made the decision early on to, to, [chuckles] to surf and foil big wave, bigger waves before I really took on f- smaller waves. It might be a strange idea, but, but the kind of rep that I had to get, get was glide. Getting used to moving fast forward sideways, right? So for example, the one wheel, the eFoil, these were getting tons of reps in just the, uh, in, in the idea of glide. Learning to feel what glide was like, right?

    19. TF

      And just as an example that might be parallel, and I, uh, please tell me if I'm, I'm not getting this right, but in terms of deconstructing and taking one theme like that, uh, m- so I, I am visiting you with my girlfriend, and she's new to water in the, in the capacity of surfing, paddling, et cetera. And rather than take a bunch of surf lessons, which was the kinda n- knee-jerk, uh, [lips smack] idea that both of us had, it's like, "Oh, yeah, that's what you do. Take some surf lessons." And, and your recommendation was to consider taking out a boogie board and just getting used to the sort of force and dynamics of the wave movement.

    20. JW

      Yeah, when I watch how people approach surf teaching, I think for the most part it's crazy. Like, people for the most-- surf teachers mostly teach people to surf by just going out and surfing. Like, "Let's go out and surf."

    21. TF

      Yeah, right.

    22. JW

      And they get their ass kicked 'cause you have to learn to read the water, how to pop up on the board, how to, where to enter the, where to enter a wave, then how to turn, um, where to stand on the board, how to shift your weight, and all this stuff. I mean, in my opinion, like, uh, yeah, what we did w- w- with, with, um, your girlfriend is we went out and pushed her into a bunch of waves boogie boarding. Just learned to feel what glide was like on, on the water. Also, not traumatize her. And then learned to feel what different parts of the wave, the energy in different parts of the wave. And the last wave she got on her first day was actually in the pocket of a wave. I pushed her in right where it was breaking, right where she'd surf it, and she was so stoked. And she had a great positive first experience, and she felt glide, and it was awesome, as opposed to, like, just getting super frustrated in the beginning. And I, I think that deconstructing it is, is really important. Uh, you know, an interesting example of thematic deconstruction relative to reps hidden in plain sight would be, for example, this idea around being at peace in chaos or being-- learning to be okay internally or even to thrive internally when your body is in alarm, right? 'Cause if you don't train at that, then when your body goes into alarm, you're just alarmed. But if you do train at that, for example, you can train at it, like we discussed, through cold plunging or different things that p- uh, controlled ways of putting your body into that state and then breathing through it, then you've trained at that meta theme, right? Of being at peace in physiological alarm and then working through it. And then when you're in a, in, in a, for example, a surf moment where you're in a total shit show, then you've trained at that most important part of it.

    23. TF

      Yeah.

    24. JW

      How to breathe through it, right? You've learned the, how to literally, technically breathe through the alarm, right? As opposed to trying to do that when you're also trying to read the water and figure out if you're about to hit a rock, and you're in the middle of a hold down, and you, you, you, you've got one breath you can take between the next set, and everything's freaked out. You don't know what the hell's going on, right? So I think that, that that's an example of how to deconstruct things down to component parts and work on them. And I think it's actually, it simplifies the learning process in a lot of ways 'cause then when you put it all together, you've learned the critical component parts, the thematic component parts.

    25. TF

      Yeah.

    26. JW

      Like reading the water. I mean, that's something that I think should be done independently of just going out to learn how to surf.

    27. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    28. JW

      Um, but very few t- some do, but very few surf teachers actually work people, with people on reading the water when they're not surfing.

    29. TF

      Yeah. Yeah. And the, the, the best teachers I've run into on water, for instance, uh, a good friend of mine, Kelly Starrett, incredible, uh, f- performance coach, physical therapist, all around hilarious guy, also former world-class kayaker, and we spent time on the Grand Canyon together with his family

    30. JW

      And that's exactly what he did. Before attempting anything technical, before learning any new skills, he's like, "I just want you to move with me, and I want you to watch the water." And he would explain it once, then we'd get to the next set of rapids and he'd go, "Okay, what do you see? Where, where's the tongue? Where would you go?" Right? It's hypothetical before just throwing me in with 20 new skills to try to juggle simultaneously.

  12. 1:15:29 – 1:18:43

    Robert Kegan and adult development: limits of the socialized mind and the shift toward self-authorship

    1. TF

      Well, we're, uh, we're coming up on a very exciting afternoon here, so I know we, we don't have, uh, too much, too much time left. But I'd, I'd love to ask you maybe in closing about Robert Kegan. Am I getting the pronunciation of that name correct?

    2. JW

      Yeah.

    3. TF

      Who is Robert Kegan? Why is he interesting to you?

    4. JW

      So our, our friend Graham Duncan first turned me on to, um, to Kegan many years ago, and I, I've read his work, but I've been in the last couple years just becoming increasingly impressed with certain core points that he's zoned in on. He's just a brill- a brilliant adult developmental psychologist, and a lot of his work is around the, the transitions in the human mind from an opportunistic to a socialized to a self-authoring, um, to a self-transformative kind of mindset. And, and if we just zone in mostly around the transition between the socialized mind and the self-authored mind, which is-

    5. TF

      Yeah. Hold that thought. May I ask, does Graham find this-- Is he focused on this mostly in the context of talent acquisition or finding good talent? Is this, is this sort of part of his filter in doing that?

    6. JW

      Yes.

    7. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    8. JW

      I think that, that that was how he initially was drawn into it, and I think now it's just, you know, part of his worldview.

    9. TF

      Just, just a lens. Yeah.

    10. JW

      Yeah, just a lens. And it's one of many very interesting lenses. I, I don't tend to have-- like, think that one lens has got it all, but I-

    11. TF

      Yeah

    12. JW

      ... one-- the thing that I'm intrigued with with Kegan's work, which I have a huge amount of respect for, is the exploration of the limitations of the socialized mind. Sometimes we can just will somebody to be able to perspective take, to release their perspective and take on someone else's perspective, or the ability to hold ment- multiple mental models that are competing with one another and be at peace with that tension between them, right? We can just want people to do that, but there are certain developmental hurdles to that. And I think that that's an area that Kegan has really explored brilliantly, and I, I do encourage people to read Kegan's work. Um-

    13. TF

      How do you spell his last name?

    14. JW

      K-E-G-A-N. I, I, I think it's important to be empathically present to the developmental obstacles that we all might have around what we can and cannot do conceptually.

    15. TF

      I mean, it strikes me that we're all blind. It's just a matter of, A, accepting that we're blind and trying to figure out how we might be blind or what we might be blind to, perhaps is a better way to put it. Kegan.

    16. JW

      Yeah. And I agree.

    17. TF

      And, and for, and for those interested, Graham, Graham and I had a, a really fun conversation on the podcast as well.

    18. JW

      Yep.

    19. TF

      So I will create a short link to that.

    20. JW

      Graham's a brilliant dude.

    21. TF

      Yeah.

    22. JW

      And a dear friend, and I love him. Uh, and, and one of-- I mean, he's the best mind I've ever run into in the world around, um, the hunt for talent and the deconstruction of, like, potential world-class talent out there in the early stages.

    23. TF

      Best hair in the business also. [laughs]

    24. JW

      Absolutely. [laughs]

    25. TF

      Severe foul envy of Graham. So for those people interested, you can f-- uh, I'll create a short link to that interview, that conversation at tim.blog/graham, G-R-A-H-A-M. Joshua, anything else you would like to, to mention, discuss, disabuse me of before we wrap up?

  13. 1:18:43 – 1:23:09

    Wrap-up: where to find more, plus Tim’s newsletter pitch

    1. JW

      Nope. [laughs] A woodpecker is right now trying to put a hole in my office.

    2. TF

      [laughs] I think that's a great place to close.

    3. JW

      Uh, all right. [laughs]

    4. TF

      So Josh, where can people find you? I feel like your answer is the same as Laird Hamilton, in the Pacific Ocean.

    5. JW

      Yes. [laughs]

    6. TF

      Well, until next time, uh, thanks for hanging, man.

    7. JW

      Thanks, brother.

    8. TF

      And, uh, recording something for posterity. To be continued.

    9. JW

      Hey, man, this was fun. [laughs]

    10. TF

      [laughs] And everybody listening, for show notes, for links to everything, Robert Kegan, et cetera, that we've discussed, uh, there's also an incredible video that I'll try to track down of Maurice Ashley, uh, with me playing chess hustlers, which is just fantastic entertainment in New York City. So I will link to that in the show notes. Just go to tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, thanks for listening. [upbeat music] 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 for 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 in 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. This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, if I could only take one supplement, what would it be? The answer is inevitably Athletic Greens. I view it as, and a lot of you now view it as all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it way back in 2010 in The 4-Hour Body, and I did not get paid to do so. I've been using it since before that, and I use it in a lot of different ways. I travel with it to avoid getting sick or to help mitigate the likelihood of getting sick. I take it in the morning to ensure optimal performance, and overall, it covers my bases if I can't get what I need from whole food meals throughout the rest of the day. And if you want to give Athletic Greens a try, they're offering a free 20-count travel pack for first-time users. I nearly always travel with at least three or four of these one-dose bags. In other words, if you buy Athletic Greens as a first-time buyer, you now get, for a limited time, an extra $79 in free product. So check out the details at athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim. Again, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim for your free travel pack with any purchase. This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Last year, I focused on dramatically improving a few things. Surprise, surprise. Most notably, the quality of my sleep, which seems to affect just about everything. This led me to revisit, you name it, my daily routine, morning routine, exercise, diet, all the way to what I slept on. And I ended up getting all new beds here in Austin, Texas, including mattresses from Helix Sleep. Helix has built a sleep quiz that takes two minutes to complete, and they use the answers to match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress. Whether you're a side sleeper, hot sleeper, cold sleeper, or you like plush, you like firm, with Helix, there's no more guessing or confusion. Just go to helixsleep.com forward slash Tim, take their two-minute sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. That is their promise. For couples, Helix can even split the mattress down the middle, providing individual support needs and feel preferences for each side. They have a 10-year warranty, and you can test drive your mattress for 100 nights risk-free. Right now, Helix is offering up to $125 off of all mattress orders. Check it out. Get up to $125 off at helixsleep.com forward slash Tim. That's helixsleep.com forward slash Tim for $125 off your mattress order. Take a look. helixsleep.com forward slash Tim.

Episode duration: 1:23:20

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