Kind: captions
Language: en
everybody Welcome to impact Theory
you're here because you believe that
human potential is nearly Limitless but
you know that having potential is not
the same as actually doing something
with it so our goal with this show and
Company is to introduce you to the
people and ideas that will help you
execute on your dreams all right today's
guest is the king of self-optimization a
man who is constantly learning and
testing new theories in the real world
so that he can improve his skill set and
do more his ridiculous list of
accomplishments is proof that if you
approach the world as a student there's
no such thing as the impossible here are
just a few of the seemingly unreal
albeit entirely true highlights from his
resume he is a former MTV break dancer
in Taiwan the onetime national Chinese
kickboxing champion the first American
to hold a Guinness World Record in Tango
a horseback Archer prinston University
guest lecturer and angel investor who
has racked up a serious string of
entrepreneurial Mega hits including Uber
Facebook Twitter and Alibaba he is an
unparalleled self-experiment
professional notetaker and would be
ninth grade teacher but you probably
know him better for his best-selling
books the 4-Hour Work Week the 4-Hour
Body and the 4-Hour Chef or perhaps
you're more familiar with his number one
iTunes TV show or his unbelievably
popular podcast which has been
downloaded more than 100 million times
but even if you don't know him from any
of that you're certainly going to know
him for his most recent book tools of
titans the tactics routines and habits
of billionaires icons and worldclass
performers he's been called the Oprah of
audio and the Indiana Jones for the
digital age please help me in welcoming
the New York Times best-selling author
multiple times over the man behind the
Tim Ferris show the human guinea pig
himself Tim Ferris
yeah hey man what up everybody how you
doing good to see you again good to see
you as well man it's all downhill after
that intro I'm not so sure about
that like the sheer weight of this bad
boy tells me that that it's not going to
be all downhill from here know it was
supposed to be one sentence a page maybe
a little checkout book in the aisle I
can't help myself yeah I saw that if you
had to boil it down to like one sentence
what was your purpose in writing it the
purpose in writing it was to create the
ultimate cliff notes for myself and then
I got about halfway through it and one
of my friends was taking a look at it he
goes this is exactly what your readers
would want why don't you just publish it
and that led ultimately to the book
which is about half new material I would
say 50 to 60% brand new it's a brand new
recommendations from past guests new
guests that people haven't met yet like
Jack dorsy uh who's a very impressive
cat
and Cheryl strade and many others but
the 6 to 10,000 pages of transcripts got
boiled down to about 350 pages in here
and the vetting process was choosing
what I had had a chance to apply myself
or something my close friends had
applied at the highest levels some of
the people that you've interviewed in
the book uh Peter teal being the first
one that comes to mind are just Mega
producers or Reed Hoffman I mean it's it
is absurd the number of people that um
that you've come in contact with that
are just absolute apex predators in the
world of whatever it is that they do I
mean it's really really incredible so
Amia Boon uh I don't know if you've ever
met her she's so tough uh my God she's
three time world's toughest mutter
Champion she is full-time attorney at
Apple who she in the 2012 toughest
mutter which is a 24-hour race you have
to you have to complete a course of
obstacles for as many repe I as you can
and she's done more than 90 mil in that
case but it's like climbing ropes and
car 90 mil of obstacles of obstacles and
in 8 weeks after need surgery more than
1 th000 competitors 90% plus of which
are men she came in second place oh my
God out of everybody what do you think
drives her like that's crazy so she's
super successful um but you don't do 90
mi in a 24-hour
period without some intense thing
pushing you forward if you had to
guess if I had to
guess uh I think it is pretty simple I
don't now with with endurance Ultra
endurance athletes one of the common
questions is are you running towards
something or you running from something
yeah for sure two things I really like
about Amelia number one what would you
put on a billboard if you could put
anything on a huge billboard love that
question no one owes you anything that's
her so great and then her other quote
which I had to put right at the top
chapter was I'm not the strongest I'm
not the fastest but I'm really good at
suffering
yeah so why does that resonate with you
cuz that like sits at the core of my
being that very no out endure you can
train yourself to out endure other
people it's it really so when I think
about like what gifts you've talked
about this before like everybody has a
superpower and and one of my superpowers
is the ability to suffer yeah and it's
one of those things that you say and you
know it's kind of tongue and- cheek and
a little bit funny but at the same time
it's my [ __ ] superpower like if
people look at me and say okay well how
have you been able to do this because
truly you spend enough time with me you
will know very very quickly I am not the
brightest person and I don't pride
myself on that so that's not like I
don't I'm not torn up about it yeah um
not the brightest person didn't have any
extreme advantages or anything growing
up certainly not physically more
impressive than the next person but my
willingness to suffer is absurd yeah and
when you direct that at something that
you care about my whole thing is the way
that I think about it is I'll Outlast
anyone right so on a long enough
timeline I can accomplish and when
people really start to look at that but
then it comes back to the next question
which I want to know from you is what is
the driver what's that thing that makes
you be so willing to
suffer it's the promise of
that that crack hit for me which is the
aha moment in you or in you and other
people so it's both and the reason that
I get such a high from it
is if I can
crack the code in the sense that I find
something that saves people hundreds of
hours or myself hundreds of hours in the
learning curve for a particular skill or
a particular type of
recovery or fill in the
blank Just An Elegant or non-obvious
solution to a long-standing problem I'm
like okay I can't wait to see how people
going to respond when I provide that to
a thousand people and I see for most of
them the vast majority just go holy [ __ ]
like if you take someone for instance I
didn't learn to swim until I was in my
30s I think we may have talked about
this I grew up on Long Island but I had
this death I was deathly afraid of
drowning because I had some near
drowning incidents and some lung
issues and now at this point I was
taught by this gentleman named Terry
laan something called total immersion
which I first learn from a book which I
was introduced to by Chris Saka who's a
billionaire investor in this book oddly
enough but you can take someone which
which I did with Terry at one point for
the Tim Ferris experiment the first TV
show I did this mother of two I think
Sarah who had never been able to swim
couldn't even put her head underwater in
the pool comfortably and 4 days later
Open Water Swimming 500 m in the ocean
in like 40t deep water freestyle
and uh when you show someone that an
impossible like that is not only
possible but that they can crack it
really
quickly that's my drug of choice I just
I just get such a high out of it the
other thing why am I willing to suffer
I'm willing to suffer because I guess
much like you I feel like I have my
deficiencies I have plenty of weaknesses
to go to the
extreme is is partially present because
I feel like the most interesting things
happen at the fringes first reading the
presskit for your book I had that
overwhelming sense of holy hell what
you've just spent the last however many
years collecting are all of those gems
that either other people just haven't
aggregated or they haven't distilled or
they haven't been willing to look at but
now exist in one place which is
incredibly exciting now one of the
promises in the um the press kit was
that you could test The Impossible in 17
questions yeah what are what are some of
the questions so the questions are uh
actual questions that coincided
with Milestones or inflection points or
just a fork in my own life so it's I
actually laid out these these questions
about 12 of them coincided with exact
points that I can remember and some of
them would be for instance what if I did
the opposite for 48
hours this is a question I asked myself
when I had my first job out of college I
was talking about suffering I mean my
desk was in fire exit it was completely
illegal you know slept under the desk
the whole nine yards and don't regret a
minute of it but I was a technical sales
guy uh outbound sales guys we had inside
sales outside sales and my job was to
close deals with CTO and CEOs for
multi-million dollar data storage
systems at that point storage area
networks the fiber channel and what I
realized at one point was that all of
the Season sales guys who were doing far
better than I was doing were making
phone calls between 900 and 5 those were
the office hours and I said well I'm
clearly not doing an effective job
mimicking them what if I did the
opposite for 48 hours it's a very
recoverable experiment right if it
doesn't work then I can always go back
to what I was doing doing the opposite
met making my calls
between let's just say 6:30
and 8:30 and then 5:30 to 7
7:30 and uh it was just a hypothesis uh
maybe I can get a hold of the people I
need to get a hold of more effectively
when The Gatekeepers aren't there right
and that's exactly what happened and I
started booking more meetings and
closing more deals than than the
majority of the guys in the company and
it was just from asking that question
what if it did the opposite for 48 hours
and you can apply that to many many
things right some of the others uh would
be well this is one I asked in 2004 you
if if I had a gun against my head and
could only work two hours per week what
would I do I know it's impossible what
would I do and that type of ludicrous
question was necessary to break my
thinking patterns and test stress test
my own assumptions of what was possible
and you find that
that is a learnable skill Peter
diamandis chairman of the X prise who's
really good at these types of questions
I mean he's attempting to solve some of
the biggest problems facing Humanity in
very innovative ways and he would ask
for instance startups who come to him
for Angel investment he'll say what
would you have to do in the next 6
months I'm paraphrasing here to 10x the
economics of your business and if they
say can't be done he's like I do not
accept your answer literally just says I
do not accept your answer try again and
what's very important here is to realize
the expectation is not that you will
magically in 10 minutes come up with a
plan to achieve your 10e goals in 6
months but that you may get halfway
there right and largely just to to shift
your Paradigm right to so I know Peter
very well um and his whole thing is you
know if you're we're naturally we think
linearly right and until you break out
out of that and start thinking
exponentially you're never going to get
the kind of breakthroughs that you want
and when so there's two things I think
that people don't understand about being
an entrepreneur number one is there's a
ton of mundane stuff that you're going
to have to do like this set yeah my wife
and I were hand painting it yeah which
is stupid by the way it should have been
done and sprayed but we found ourselves
in a situation where that [ __ ] had to be
hand painted and so as I'm like going
through literally at 3:00 a.m. painting
this set I thought this is the part of
being an entrepreneur that people don't
see coming the magazine covers right
yeah exactly so it's like and do you
right your willingness to suffer do you
gut check do you get through and then
the other thing is how do you break out
of your dogmatic linear thinking to get
through to the big aha moment though I
have a gun to my head I only have two
hours which then becomes a 4- hour work
week because of a Google test and they
thought it was ridiculous it it be two
hours no one's going to believe that I
love that story um which then obviously
has massive Paradigm shifting changes in
people and what I find so fascinating
about asking you know what is it that I
would need to do or what would stop me
from executing a 10-year plan in 6
months is it forces you to sort of
abandon all hope of clinging to what you
already know and that's the only time
that you're going to do something
differently is you have to approach the
problem from a radically different way
and so take Uber for a second Uber was
one of those few ideas that the second I
saw it I was like oh my God that's so
brilliant but I had never stopped to ask
the question what would it take like I I
felt riding in a cab yeah stressed like
my ability to suffer right like that's
how much I [ __ ] hated riding in cabs
it's just such a bad experience drivers
are horrible to you the cars are
disgusting if you call them and have to
wait I mean it's a joke right all of
it's just terrible terrible but I never
asked the question like what would it
take to revolutionize this so getting
down to asking these just wildly
Divergent questions and I love your
question about what if I did the
opposite because by definition it
shatters the Dogma yeah even if you
don't think it's going to work what if I
did the opposite for 48 hours even if I
am almost 100% or 100% sure it's not
going to work or be beneficial as long
as you cap the downside in some way
right do you red team blue team ideas uh
I do oh yeah yeah I so red teaming for
those people who don't know this this
comes from militaries uh could be in in
any division of the military where they
will take
so let's just say Five Guys blue team
Five Guys designate them red team and
the job of the red team is to either say
get into a building that the blue team
is supposed to protect defeat defenses
that the blue team has created or you
can do this in a in a corporate setting
and Mark andreon who's another
billionaire and just fascinating guy
incredible engineer also uh they'll red
team ideas so they will they will create
what he would call a counterveiling
force so if we're in a venture capital
General partner meeting and you come up
with the with what you think is a great
thesis or a great company and even if I
think it's a good idea I will I will and
I'll take several other people and we
will attack it and try to tear it to
death and tear it to pieces and he calls
it the torture test uh but that is also
a form of red teaming so I'll do that
with all sorts of things I also find
that red teaming like being on the red
team itself sharpens your own thinking
one it's just a good exercise to be able
to put yourself on the other side so you
don't have to have other people always
to Red Team you can actually flip over Y
and so back in high school I used to do
speech and debate and in in debate you
had to take both sides of the argument
you had to be able to go back and forth
it made you so much more compelling
because you knew the weaknesses of both
sides because you got used to playing
that and so like in the military where
you're in that moment you were investing
in everything into getting into that
space right like I'm going to break the
US defenses I'm going to get into this
room I'm going to show them that I'm
better right so if you can and we do
that here at impact theory is to put
yourself like just even if you don't end
up debunking it practice being able to
put yourself on the other side sure
because one of the things dude I fear
this more than I can tell you which is
getting trapped in my own Dogma yeah
because I need to codify the world I
need it it's which is why this book is
so [ __ ] interesting to me cuz it's
basically a bunch of codifications that
are instantly powerful they have that
punch you follow it up with their own
contextual stuff which I think is
brilliant by the way but you're you're
giving the codifications but in
codifying the world it tends to calcify
for me right and when you look at genius
being a young man's game it's like I
didn't get enough done in my like youth
youth to be okay with that like I I have
done nothing that is going to earn me a
Nobel Prize let's start with that me
neither for what it's worth but so but
to to continue to do profound things
it's like you have to reinvent yourself
we just had Michael Strahan on the show
and his business partner constant um
who's just a an unbelievably talented
woman and she has every 10 years forced
herself to do a totally new career cool
which is amazing and he was saying
that's basically what makes her so
effective because she's not drawing on
the moment she's drawing on all these
different angles of attack onto her core
skill set right so one of the questions
that you can also ask just like what if
I did the opposite for 48 hours I'll
give you another question that I think
you'll really like which is one of the
17 what can I learn from the people I
hate the most wow now this does two
things it forces you to separate your
morality from your your search for
Effectiveness right it also helps you to
develop some degree of
empathy and uh those two are very
powerful so what can I learn from the
people I hate most wow uh is a very very
useful practice so I'll journal on that
very often in terms of patterns we were
talking about some of the things I've
spotted meditation or
journaling are performed by close to
100% of the people that I interviewed
the question just to come back to that
that I thought you might enjoy is is and
this is an example of taking something
from someone I disagree with on almost
every level uh n gingr
one of the questions that n would ask
himself and others is are you hunting
Antelope or are you hunting field mice
and the story he would tell is that of a
lion in the serengetti he's like if
you're always chasing field mice as a
lion you'll get a snack you might even
survive but you might end up starving
because you're getting these little
Scooby Snacks that's not his words mine
uh that make you feel good and give you
the illusion of accomplishing something
real and for me that's translated into
are you being busy or are you being
productive yes right yes and that was a
question I want to say was about five
years ago or so this Antelope versus
field mice just the the the story the
parable and the metaphor was so strong
for me that I put that up where I would
see it every day all right let's take a
hard right there's some interesting
stuff in here about creativity what are
some of the most interesting and useful
lessons about creativity you've pulled
from the
book uh the first that comes to mind
is setting really low expectations and
then this and I'll not what I was
expecting to say not well not what a lot
of people expect and when I spoke to say
Paulo quo who's sold 100 million plus
copies The Alchemist Etc you talk to
Rick Rubin and so let me give his
example first when he has a music Ian
who's stuck great musician but they've
developed performance anxiety about
songwriting for whatever
reason uh he will say do you think you
could get me one sentence or maybe two
words that you like by tomorrow that's
it two words can you do that for me and
he gives them a micro assignment uh best
writing advice that I probably ever
received and I've received a lot of good
writing advice but I can get myself
really wound up because I expect
Perfection to flow from my fingertips
like magic and that never happens so
then I beat the hell out of
myself
and that makes me less likely to put pen
to paper in the first place I'll
procrastinate which is why if you write
two crappy pages per day you've won the
day that's a successful writing day and
that does a few things it helps you to
maintain enthusiasm because you're
constantly winning and of course on many
days you'll write more than two you'll
get to two then you go to five or to 10
but if you're on an off day you write
two crappy Pages even if you never use
it it's a successful day and that I
think for longer term projects and
extended creativity is really important
but the story that this writer told me
with that tip he said okay this is where
this comes from did you know that IBM
when it was the 800lb gorilla it was an
undefeatable
Salesforce do you know what one of their
rules was he like no uh he says well
what do you think their quotas were and
I was like well I'm sure their quotas
were really high because they wanted to
motivate their guys to get after it and
he goes no their quotas were the lowest
in the industry wow and the rationale
was we don't want our salespeople to be
intimidated to pick up the phone we want
them to feel like they're going to pass
their quot quickly which they did and
then they shot well past it and
clobbered the competition so the the the
the the counterintuitive pairing of low
expectations leading to higher
performance is really odd right well so
let's ask the obvious question then so
as somebody who's had a lot of employees
at the you know the height I had over a
thousand
employees that feels dangerous yeah and
it feels dangerous and I think I have my
own answer but it feels dangerous
because some people especially when an
organization gets that big they're
looking for a place to hide and you give
it to them yeah so I so the I think that
the the the winning combination
is
selectively selectively low quotas on a
daily basis with high expectations for
metrics on say a quarterly or annual
basis so you're tracking the numbers you
want them to hit home runs but it
doesn't have to be one at bat I think
it's also very context and role specific
but if we're talking about creativity in
particular right so not necessarily work
output the approach I the number of
prolific writers
who have said Neil stra said this
there's no such thing as writer block
which drives me crazy soz I'm like come
on like you might be a mutant like X-Men
of writing but for the normal humans
come on like give me a break and he goes
no no no hear me out number one he is a
trained journalist and journalists tend
to have writing block beaten out of them
cuz their boss is like oh you can't find
the right Pros for your 500w article oh
get it in by 5:00 [ __ ] you know and
they're just like oh oh wait this isn't
School and they're like yeah deadline
that's that's your that's your incentive
writers block my ass and he's like okay
but he said and what what they learn is
he he said there's no such thing as
writer block he said what that is is
performance anxiety that you've imposed
on yourself because your expectations
are too high and he's like just lower
your standards lower your standards till
you get started can I back you up here
for a second so oh God this is
embarrassing but I've at least admitted
it before I so when I first started
doing Instagram I was like I want to
really like up Instagram's game right so
I'm gonna make these posts really mean
something and I want to actually impact
somebody and if you read one of my posts
you're going to be impacted and then
there was one day nine hours later I had
lost my entire Sunday writing this
Instagram post and I thought this is not
scalable like you cannot write a 9h hour
Instagram post where most people cuz
like the comments would be like it's
long but it's worth the read so I
thought wait people actively don't want
to read this [ __ ] their friend has to
convince them to do it and I just spent
9 hours writing it like this is madness
yeah so I said okay I'm going to write
this stuff in 20 minutes like simple as
and they get what they get in 20 minutes
and it is what it is and I started
getting better reactions it was like oh
my God yeah hilarious oh it is hilar and
I give you another example which is Ed
Kel president of Pixar right Pixar D for
God's sake I mean Pixar and he said to
me the
the early versions of our movies and I'm
paraphrasing of course but are all crap
and he talked about a few of my favorite
movies said oh yeah they're all crap we
have to just toss him out and start over
and I said wait a second I backtracked
and I said so you just mean that the
movies when they start are really rough
drafts and then you have to refine them
he's like no no no that's the
misconception they think the early
version of the movie is just a rough
draft of the later one he's like no it's
completely different like we
literally scrapped it and started again
from scratch and and then those starting
from scratch stories became some of
their most popular successful movies wow
uh so do you find that a lot cuz when I
write I I will often hit that point
where I'm like this is so bad that
trying to just continue to make it
better is the wrong idea I need to start
over and then if you can put words to
this next emotion you will be my hero
where so you get into this dark place
right the writing is not going anywhere
you're not able to get it out like for
whatever reason that concept that you
can feel in your mind you can't
articulate and get it on paper and then
you get this moment for me A lot of
times I just get angry enough that that
that then becomes that like energy that
I need and you talk about you know
putting one song on repeat this I've
used this song A lot is the song faint
by Lincoln Park yeah which is hyper
aggressive yeah and I'll put that on
over and over and over to like keep that
like energy cuz if I get angry enough at
my [ __ ] writing I get this breakthrough
moment where I can start from scratch
and all of the sudden everything is I
can feel my brain speed up mhm and then
I can write but it took like that
however much time of getting fed up if
you can put words around that
moment uh I I well I'll I'll put a
phrase to that moment perfect uh what
makes you angry was one of the key
pieces of advice that I was given by a
writer named po Bronson when I asked him
what do you do when you have writer
block he said what makes you angry we
just write that and that was also the
advice that I was given by Whitney
Cummings uh and a few other standup
comedians how do you develop material
what makes you angry right about that so
I think anger as opposed to just
labeling it a bad thing can be very
useful fuel so what makes you angry and
let's just say you're writing about
something that doesn't require or seem
to require anger well if you if you
can't get started doesn't matter so
write about something else write about
what makes you angry and either you'll
be able to to sort of Parry that into
this other subject when once you get
going or you'll end up writing something
completely different and it'll end up
better in the first place and what does
it mean to copyright your faults ah yeah
this is a great one so copyright your
faults this is from Dan Carlin so Dan
Carlin is the host of my favorite
podcast it's just incredible Hardcore
History yes and anyone who hasn't heard
it should start with Wrath of the cons
if uh if you have to buy it buy it trust
me but copyrighting your faults Dan was
a radio guy before he was uh podcast guy
and he was constantly getting criticized
because he would he would he would go
into the red he would he would shout and
he was really loud and he'd go up and
he'd peek and drive all the audio people
crazy and then he'd get really low and
Whisper and they're just like dude come
on you're killing me here making my job
really hard and uh his super
supervisors at the time they're like
look kid like what people want is this
like deep dignified baritone voice for
the radio I don't have a voice for radio
so I can't do it uh but says the guy
with 100 million downloads by the way
yeah right right exactly voice is
Terrible Tim I've been meaning to I
thank you thank you it's time to do the
reveal now uh but the that's a whole
separate story The Accidental podcast
but later on he had such a distinctive
voice that people started complimenting
him and he's like okay so now this this
so-called weakness that he was unable to
fix so he didn't fix it uh not only that
but he he avoided fixing it by having
the intro guys the guys would be please
welcome or please enjoy blah Dan Carlin
and he'd say he shouts he whispers or
something like that he had the intro guy
do a caveat so that he didn't have to
change wow his personal style which
later then became this huge ass asset
and his term is copyright your faults
he's like now if someone imitates me
he's like that's my jam he's like that's
my shtick copyright your faults and of
course there are weaknesses you should
address but then there are
flaws that can be converted into
strengths uh so I think that's that's
another way to catalyze creativity or
just creating anything is to realize
that some of your biggest flaws May in
fact be assets and so that could be a
question you ask right how might some of
my biggest weaknesses be strengths or
assets I think that's a very useful
question to journal on and which I which
I tend to do just about every morning is
freehand journaling and what are called
morning pages but uh which okay we're
talking about creativity morning Pages
we should talk about Julia uh Cameron
describes them as spiritual windshield
wipers and the way I would translate
that is is when you do morning pages and
and you might just be complaining like
your lesser self your worse self coming
out on pages just bitching and moaning
is you get that out of your system for
the day so you don't have it ricocheting
around your head like a stray bullet for
the rest of your waking hours
interrupting everything else you just
trap it you freeze it on paper and that
practice has been tremendously
liberating not only from a a well-being
standpoint but from just freeing up my
CPU so that I can focus on things that
are more important
because if I have all that like God that
guy and the D and like I should have
said by like all that bouncing around
all day it's like you have antivirus
software just slowing down your why is
it so slow it's like yeah cuz you're
thinking about these stupid grudges that
you're holding against people for
trivial [ __ ] like who cares if the
guy at Starbucks bought the last thing
of cashews you idiot
like ferr deep trou yeah like Ferris
pull together so if I get it on paper
though I'm like okay I've like I've
dealt with that now in the book you
encourage people to bounce around what's
one thing that you hope nobody
skips so the book's broken into three
sections you have healthy wealthy and
wise which is a nod to Ben Franklin I
mean they're all interdependent right
because they're they're sort of the
three legs of the stool healthy wealthy
and wise so I think I do think you need
all three so Derek Civ is this like
programmer monk philosopher king startup
entrepreneur who started CD Baby which
was the largest Marketplace for
independent musicians at the time sold
it for I think $24 million but he and
Seth Goden I think are two examples of
people who are very good at genuinely in
real life following contrarian rules
that work exceptionally well uh so Derek
uh has has a couple of on liners that I
think are really fantastic um so I'll
give you a few one is if more
information were the answer we'd all be
billionaires with sixpack
apps that's a good one right and just
just just absorbing not even absorbing
just reading and watching and listening
to more
isn't enough like you have to apply it
you have to use incentives you have to
have rewards and punishments set for
yourself to actually get things done
timelines Etc so that's that's one
another one is uh don't be a donkey and
that so he he says that to himself all
the time like don't be a donkey don't be
a donkey and the reason is there's a I
want to say it might be a philosopher's
Paradox but I don't think it is I think
it's just a parable about Ban's ass so
Ban's ass about a donkey yeah uh my
favorite porn no that's not it it's uh
it's about a Don it's about a it's about
a donkey sorry too much caffeine so uh
it's about a donkey who H is thirsty and
hungry and there's water on one side few
feet away and hay on the other and he
can't decide whether to do the hay first
the hay first or the water the hay or
the water and he dies of thirst at the
end of it he couldn't do them
sequentially right so this is this is
Derek's recommendation to his younger
self and really to any 20 or 30
something but it applies to everybody
which
is in effect you can do almost
everything you want in life but you
can't do it at the same time and if you
can just dedicate yourself to one thing
for even a year and then the next thing
for a year you can do those 10 things
but if you try to do all 10 at once
you're going to be burden's ass you be
like should I do this should I do this
or should I focus on this should I focus
on this so don't be a donkey uh the
other one that for me was so helpful to
hear is I think he calls
it it's like 95 versus 100% And he tells
the story of moving to around Santa
Monica and his friends getting him into
biking on the bike path so up and down
the boardwalk right on the water mhm and
so being a type A personalities uh type
A personality he would get a stopwatch
he'd start it and he'd like hu and PFF
and race as hard as he could all the way
down to wherever and he would time
himself and every day no matter how hard
he did it 43 minutes 43 minutes just
wouldn't improve 43 minutes and this
thing that should have been enjoyable
became painful in his mind he started to
avoid it he'd be like ah I have other
things to do no instead of bike riding
I'll do this other thing and he realized
at one point this is really pathetic and
this is really bad that something that
should be enjoyable I'm avoiding because
I've made it so painful he said why
don't I just go for a bike ride and
enjoy it so he goes for a bike ride and
it's just a leisurely Cruise he's
chilling he's riding around and uh's
seeing dolphins in the water he's
standing up he's looking around noticing
things he had noticed before at one
point this is Derek he goes at one point
I looked up in the sky and there was a
pelican and I said wow Pelican and it
[ __ ] in my
mouth and I was like ah he's like it was
the best bike ride ever I was like okay
so he's having a great time uh Pelican
[ __ ] in the mouth notwithstanding and he
gets back and he looks at his watch and
it was I think it was 45 minutes and
he's like wait what he's like so all
that huffing and puffing all that like
sweating like leg cramps and pain was
for an extra 2 minutes off the
clock that's outrageous so he started
applying that to his entire life he's
like when it starts to get now look
there are exceptions to all of this
right but he said when I start to get
really stressed out I just stop because
I realize like 95% is enough for getting
almost all of the results that I want
and making it sustainable and and uh
this comes back to the creativity right
it's like if you always try to crank
100% you're like I need to get 2,000
awesome words out today that's like
trying to hit 43 minutes every time and
huffing and puffing and you're going to
start putting things off oh I need
another cup of coffee oh my God my shoes
are so dir dirty I need to fix my shoes
before I can go out let that stand
you'll do anything to put it off because
it becomes this intimidating task so
yeah sort of the the 95 versus 100% is
is another one oh I've got another one I
have to share so this this is this is
one of my favorites so Shawn White two
things that are very interesting about
Shawn White well there there are a lot
of things but he's he holds the all-time
record for medals at the X Games he has
I think two gold medals at the
Olympics and uh two things worth noting
for him and this comes back to the high
expectations thing okay
so I asked him what is your selft talk
when you come out of the gate for a gold
medal run at the
Olympics what do you say to yourself and
and he thought about it and uh the short
version is who cares short version is
who cares you know this I think this is
a really big deal snowboarding going
down snow on this contraption but at the
end of the day you know I'm going to go
home I'll see my family uh which he
borrowed from Agy when Agassi sort of
had his
comeback uh that was how he took the
pressure off in very very high pressure
situations was to say who cares which is
effective when you put in the training
if you put in the training you don't
need to stress in that last minute the
other thing I took away from Sean is
when he has a really serious goal like a
gold medal at Sochi or whatever it might
be he also has a completely absurd goal
to offset how stress inducing that can
be so at one point it was I want to wear
American flag pants on the cover of
Rolling Stone magazine like that was the
other goal uh he has some ludicrous goal
to offset the serious wow that's cool so
I've I've started to try to incorporate
that into my life
third goal do you have right now uh okay
so this is this is this is an exclusive
this is breaking news here we go uh and
um we'll see where it goes I'm I'm a
little hesit hesitant to even even share
this but I'll give it I'll give a teaser
I'll give a teaser which is
sufficient uh so goal you know I want
this book to be everywhere I
want I mean I want everyone to read this
it's uh like a friend of mine said you
know I've bought 4our work week for a
few people who really need it for uh
changing chapters in their lives or
starting a company I've given 4our body
to people who want to lose weight he's
like this one I would give to everybody
so like I have very big goals for this
so I have I have some other plans which
I can't go into huge detail with right
now but to create a fragrance for men
really and uh I mean [ __ ] look at me
I'm from Long Island this is like a
tuxedo for me I don't really wear a
cologne or
anything occasionally smell like I've
been chased by hyenas or something if
I'm sweating a lot but I was like how
funny would it be if I came out with
like a Tim Ferris fragrance oh my God
how be amazing hilarious would that be
so uh what would Tim Ferris smell like
oh so that that I can't disclose but I
do I do
Oki Okie like
tequila I think it'd be like like a
rough night be like te name yeah tequila
and pine needles it's like what happened
yeah that's Tim Ferris a rough night
that's right and it be like a rough
night by Tim Ferris you know like I want
to have like the cheesiest like
advertisements you know like the the the
unbuttoned dress shirt with like the
fancy
watch looking like blue steel I just
want to make it as ludicrous as possible
but it will actually be if like I I'm
talking to some of the best of the best
people in that world right now wow so
it's like it's like one part complete
spinal tap and then one part like
serious actually want to make something
cool but that to me is just a a
psychological release valve so that when
I'm getting really wound up about this
for whatever
reason I can think about that and just
makes me laugh my ass off then I have a
two glasses of wine I chill out so
always pairing like one serious with one
absurd goal I think is is brilliant it's
so smart and I've been I've been doing
that since he first told me about it and
it's it's really improve the quality of
my life and my results uh because I also
don't feel like I have all my eggs in
one basket right I'm diversifying my
identity in a way which I think is very
important uh so all right last question
what is the impact that you want to have
on the
world the impact that I want to have on
the world right now would
be creating a benevolent Army of super
Learners who test The Impossibles and
teach other people to do the same that's
it so whether it's 100,000 a million
people who have mastered meta learning
acquiring skills who are also willing to
test The Impossibles test the
assumptions and have the uncomfortable
conversations that I think this country
is largely
dodging oo that gets me all excited and
if they're able to then impart that to
more people my goal is to make
me obsolete as quickly as possible right
it's like I think the goal of any really
good personal trainer should be to make
themselves Obsolete and unnecessary as
quickly as possible so that's that's my
goal that's awesome man Tim thank you so
much for coming on the show thank you
thanks for having me
absolutely guys you are going to want to
get this book talking about the toolkit
to build that army of super Learners who
are out there actually making impact in
the world I have a feeling that this is
going to be the book I'm not kidding
when I say that I have not been this
excited to read a book in a very very
long time it's the kind of book where
you're going to go in and no matter what
it is that you're facing right now in
your life whether it's in the healthy
wealthy or wise categories there's going
to be something there from somebody
who's living it they're they've done the
kind of thing that you want to do and
they're giving you the real world advice
from right there that minute in their
life which is incredibly exciting and
there's two things about it that I like
one the elements that they give you are
very Punchy they're short they're
succinct it's easy to remember the good
[ __ ] sticks it's going to be a lot of
stuff that really sticks and will
resonate with you will echo through your
own mind but he also allows them to give
their own context so it's not words in
the abstract it's actually take Jamie
Fox for instance it's you know not just
Jim's quote about how there's nothing
Beyond fear it's actually explaining
what that means and being able to put it
in the context real world for him at
that moment and getting that allows
these phrases to have depth and I I
can't tell you how obsessively I collect
those codified nuggets of wisdom my um
my Evernote is bogged down I swear my
iPhone is actually heavier from the
number of those kind of nuggets that
I've collected and if you look at this
tone it comes with the promise of that
kind of stuff in it if you're like me
and you've read everything that this man
has written you've listened to all the
podcasts you know he is not for play and
what he delivers always is usable and
that usability is my obsession so join
me in getting that copy I'm going to be
buying an absurd number in the name of
impact Theory and we're going to be
doing some kind of big giveaway
um so yeah if you haven't already read
it go out and get it it's available now
dive in Tim I cannot thank you enough
for being on the show my
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man and of course Tim we have to ask
though yeah where can they find you
online uh they can find me just about
everywhere uh they can find me at T
Ferris two RS 2s at Twitter Tim Ferris
on Facebook Tim Ferris on Instagram
doing some fun stuff on Instagram these
days and and for sample chapters and all
sorts of other goodies tools of
titans.com would be the place to check
it out awesome well guys you got some of
the best goodies and giveaways and just
ongoing value ad stuff so be sure to
check it out tools of titans.com all
right guys until next time be legendary
take care
y hey everybody thanks so much for
joining us for another episode of impact
theory if this content is adding value
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time be legendary my friends
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