Optimal
mental this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking and oils you a personal question. I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
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Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to Kevin always cheating with a little simpler to have a little sip of the the whiskey that we poured another random show. This is a random show / crossover Tim Ferriss. Oh, wow. I haven't even had any booze yet Tim Ferriss to show / where this gets cross-posted. This is a more like one of your episodes that you do when people are we drinking people call in? It's kind of a drunk dial. I'm just gonna tell ya if you don't want those
I have not done a drunk dial in quite a long time so we can consider this a drunk dial among friends. Yeah, and you're here in person like we're not in this remote which you know, I have to say that it's really good to see you man. Yeah, and it's my first time getting to check out your pad in Portland undisclosed location. I guess Portland. I wasn't sure how secret that wasn't not and it made me think as we were prepping to sit down and do random show how long
I've known you because you mentioned that toaster your dog just turned nine years getting old. Yeah or and I remember when he ate the cables during One recording of the random shot if you remember that. Yeah when he was a little pup, I'll do he was eating everything back. Then he actually the scariest thing that ever happened with a toaster this shows you how what a bad parent I am. He ate through an actual entire plugged in Outlet. No, sorry. It was not plugged in. It was a heating pad that had but he ate through the
I think I didn't even notice and I look down and can you imagine if that was plugged in like he did there would be no toaster. It would have turned into a toaster
right and burnt big time. So
we have we have a bunch of display
items. They're
out on this table in front of us. But before we get to that you want to describe where we're sitting. Yeah, we're sitting so I have gosh I would say that one of the things that I was that is awesome about living in
Portland Oregon versus living in the Bay Area is that I was actually able to afford a place that is bigger than the size of a little apartment in San Francisco. So I built a house out here in Portland. So to took us three years to build it finally got it done and I think when you're like, you know, why not 12 because I got because I would have wanted alcohol when you like 18 years old you always think like how cool would it be to have like a secret passageway that leads into like a bar or something right and Becky's yeah.
Speakeasy and you know, I always wanted something like that and we were going to put in a little entertainment room. That would be bar, / you know listening to vinyl like a place to go and just kind of hang out anyway, and so I talk to the architect. I was like, can you put it like a secret door to get in here? And so we built this like fake bookcase and it kind of swings open and then you have a bar. So we're in our little bar here. It's really minimalist.
Very Japanese and feel reminds me of some of the bars. We've been to
yeah, absolutely. I mean
it was the only entirely oh, yeah. And what was that one bar? We went to get in line or something or other something our there's bargain which is might be bargain. Yeah, and the bartender has something like six or eight seats inside and amazingly enough I had
I met him many years before and we sat down you might remember this a couple years ago Tokyo, and he's like,
I think I know you
and I was like, I think I know you and it turned out that for the food the food Marathon that I did for the 4-Hour Chef which was twenty six point two dishes in 24 hours. These are large portions. Generally. We went to a restaurant called brushstroke. I think it was called and at the time he was there Superstar Master bartender who would chip these softball-sized.
Ice spheres by hand with a little Iceberg. That's really the best parts of Japan is when they make their eyes by hand, but the pic very high labor. Yeah, and this has that feel and in fact, if you look at the wall try to paint a picture for those of you listening there is be this beautiful black wood behind the bar where the floating shelves are which have down lighting coming up onto these beautiful bottles of various types of alcohol.
And the liquor and so on. What is the texture of the technique behind what I'm looking at? It has not I'm not going to say scalloped. But if you could imagine if you had pure black slate in a in a shower on the wall and water rivulets were running down that wall it kind of has that. Look it's shiny. What is that? Well, it's this is a wood that I first learned about in.
Pan where they take this these planks of wood and they actually use it for the exterior of houses and they burn it and so they actually take a torch to it set it on fire. Let it burn for a certain amount of time. It gets all the oils out and kind of just really hardens the would they put it out and then it has this really beautiful age kind of burnt wood look to it. So we decided to use that rather than have like wallpaper or something in here we decided to use that as the backdrop. So it's all this like Japanese burnt wood.
So it does when you shine light on it looks like there's kind of like water coming down it or like a little scaly or but it's really beautiful stuff. It's gorgeous and we will put a link in the show notes to the actual technique and you can see how it's done because it's also used obviously as you can see here outside of Japan and it's a technique. I actually had this brought all these are
products, but they do it here.
All right. Well, so if you want to go super Home Alone
Kimono is like the real deal The Real McCoy and Japanese. They would say hormonal and if so, if you want to go real real super hormonal, then you can bring the wood from Japan. Well the nice thing about doing it bring it in from Japan. Honestly, is that the cost? Well, no, we weren't doing an entire house. Right? This is not our exteriors one little room, right? So it really wasn't that expensive to bring it in and what do we what are we drinking? I haven't had a sip yet. All right, I'm skipping ahead. No, no, no, let's do it. Let's do it. So what is
This to kick things off. This is a very special Japanese whiskey which I've never tried. Yeah, it's called the card series. And so essentially what you're looking at here is this is the Joker and it's done by Ichiro's malt. And so this is basically what happened is they had all these whiskies 52 different whiskeys that were put into barrels and then kind of forgotten about for a while and then The Distillery went under
They found the barrels and they decide to put it into 52 different bottles with different card faces. So this is the Joker right here and essentially every card has a different quantity. So this one here, this is the least rare with 3690 bottles of the Joker that were produced and the most rare. I think we're like 50 bottles or something like that. So if you want to collect them you can get the entire.
You know 52 cards and they're really kind of hard to find because it became very cold tea and sought after and now you can find them up at auction and things like this. So this was a little gift that to me that I tend to consume rarely when I have good friends in town because they are really expensive but you know, you always going to have a couple awesome ones in on the top shelf. I'll cheers man. Yeah cheers. It's it's so nice to see you and your family. Yeah and to see it's different, isn't it? The
SLI grievously irresponsible Kevin Rose as a doting father is quite a different white LEDs own experience. Well, it's nice actually, like honestly the other night when you guys got in, you know, we like had a dinner like, you know didn't go crazy on the Wind. So a little bit of wine jumped in the sauna got in the hot tub and like called it a night at like 10:00, you know? Yeah, and so like that's kind of what you have to do is wake up for kids at 7 a.m.
Um, so this is a spectacular isn't that amazing tacular? Yeah. It's really good stuff single malt whiskey, this is really nice and I'm not a whiskey guy hate to admit because that makes me sort of demote me 17 levels on the manliness scale for some people but there are few types of whiskey that I like. This is one and then you happen to do that. I have the six of hearts up there. That one was another gift where I was went to a tasting with they're doing the card series tasting.
And they had you can see how much is left in that bottle. I mean probably one finger worth, you know, in terms of height there was probably two fingers in total when I got it and the lady that was doing the tastings like you can just take the bottle with you like take it home and the bottles alone self or a like that one I think is about a fifteen thousand dollar bottle which is crazy and just take the bottle. You're like, I will think I'm like that's like 4 grand right there. Like absolutely like thank you so much. So it was it was amazing. So
Those the only two bottles I do not collect these I think it's and the Pappy up there is is also that's that's good stuff as well that it's just incredible stuff. Yeah. I also started collecting the the Japanese whiskeys like the hibiki age to be key. You can see up there as well. So what's interesting about hibiki and Tim you probably remember this but like when we were going to Japan back in the day Japanese whiskeys you could go in Tokyo and down in the train station. There's actually one of my
Places to buy Japanese whiskey and you go in there and I was buying a bottles of hibiki 30 year for right around you can come for like four hundred dollars for an entire bottle and it was I mean, that's a lot of money for a bottle like it's crazy. Right and you buy it and you let your friends try and it's crazy 30 years Japanese whiskey and then probably about seven or eight years later. They started running out a bit because became very popular and now they don't produce it at
All did it become popular with Japanese people are wasn't westerners owners. Yeah. So foreigners got like they started realizing the Japanese were doing Wizkid really high level and then they bought up all the 30 and so they ran out. And so now what's crazy is the bottle that you know is just a few hundred dollars that same goes for the 17 up there which they also discontinued which I heard they're bringing back for a short amount of time. But anyway, the bottles went like 10x and price and so now I think those are
Four grand a bottle or something like that. That's crazy. But if you were buying it back in the day, it was like nobody knew, you know, I was just like, oh, wow, this is just a really crazy expensive. I'll just get one bottle try and you know, it makes me wonder also if there's something to be said for developing a taste for whatever is unpopular at the time or unrecognized, right? Yeah, if if Japanese whiskey is really popular because you could look at Whiskey from a much lesser known location and get the best.
Of that or you could look at something that maybe has lost its sex appeal temporarily like sake we did it a tasting trip through part of Japan. You must remember that course and we had eaten by for my birthday. Yeah. Yeah. We had the sock capes and of right out of the I'm gonna say barrels but right out of the containers. Yeah, and I still have one that my label and it was stellar and very very very reasonable in terms of price. Yeah, you could really get something that was
Only found in Japan beautifully done something that you could share with friends on a special occasion. That would not break the bank right? I mean the thing about it, you know this Tim way better than I do but like the thing about I think I love most about Japan is that you can take any hobby or any profession and they do it at the highest level, right? So it can be aged coffee. Remember when we had that age coffee? Yes, I do. It's you know 30 year old age coffee by a little guy in a shop and and there's
Um, you know, six or seven other people sitting around the table good news delicious bad news. It's a 45-minute pour over right really long process like you have to sit there and wait but there's something amazing about being able to relax and sit there and wait for it and appreciate that person for what their craft and we don't do that in the state's man. We don't have that appreciation for people individual people doing something at a high level. And you know, what's awesome about that is that guy is recession-proof, right? Like there's nothing's going to automate his job away. It's the
Aditi stuff that's getting completely destroyed by technology, you know, they just it makes me think of something that as a general theme I bring up a lot when I'm talking to people who are starting businesses or thinking of starting businesses and they have a high level of skill in anything in almost every person has a superpower something that is at the very least easier for them to do then for other most other people.
They may recognize that they may not recognize it. But when I am talking to friends or acquaintances who are thinking of starting a business, it's part of the reason why I always like to start with the conversation of what if you charged more than everyone else. Like what would you have to create that sort of based on the superpower related to it? That would then be worth a price it is at the highest end in part because
Was it makes you recession-proof? Right? Like you have to look at things through such a different lens and the market doesn't have to be large to have a successful coffee shop like that market isn't large. Right but this guy is such a specialist and as ritualised something into sort of the Plug and Play called format for people like you. Yeah.
Like me and you like that shit you got ideas like Saddles and shit at your house. You do like I do. You know that. Yeah, I do I do. I'm an Unapologetic japanophile and I can see the good the Beautiful the Bad and the Ugly in Japan as I can say in the US but the attention to detail the beautiful and bordering on pathological Obsession to
Detail just scratches every itch for me. Yeah, and for that reason you mentioned the Saddles, I don't think I've ever talked about this but when I don't spend a whole lot of money on toys and I do spend money on a handful of things, but it's been very slow and development just to growing up with a family. That was very very money.
Scarcity minded in a way, but for the 4-Hour Body when I was writing the 4-Hour Body, I remember promising myself. If not, if at that point, it was when I finish writing this book if it is number one, New York Times not number two. If it's number one. I'll reward myself with buying a Japanese antique of some type which I'd never I'd never bought any antiques of anytime and love Japan.
Can have this have always had I mean for decades is obsessive fascination with martial arts and years before around the same time. Actually, I was exploring a television series that involve doing horseback archery in Japan which people can find online actually if they search trial by fire. I think it was trial by fire can find this weird video of me in Japan doing horseback archery. And so I decided to get a saddle. That was what I would reward myself with and
I ended up with one of these Saddles and in fact one was really cheap. Some of these auctions are so weird. I mean participated many of them, but you'll see the unpredictability of auction Dynamics where you'll see one item that for whatever reason has like to you know, big swinging dick muckety-mucks who are just watching each other in the face to win with the ego reward of having this item and so it goes for
five times what was anticipated and then there's another one because that happened like knocks out a bunch of folks and it's just empty like no one's doing anything. So I ended up getting two Saddles kind of for the price of one because who the hell wants Japanese Saddles turns out not a large
Market
wouldn't you wouldn't Japanese Saddles and I love them. They give me so much joy every day and you something I've been thinking about I want to give someone credit and I think I'm getting the
Right here, but a day or Rossi who's been involved in the startup scene for very long time. I think its founder Institute. Am I getting that right? Maybe not in any case but a day of was recently in Austin where I live and he was doing a panel with a number of folks who were all very very good and it was discussion of mental health and he said something that I wrote down because it makes sense to me and I think I've bumped into this occasional and I'm like, oh there is some truth.
Ruth to this and that is to the benefits of looking at things in the world and decisions things you create and so on not just through the lens of is this good or bad? Which can often be an ethical choice? Right? Like is this good for me in the world? Is this bad for me in the world? But also through the lens of is this beautiful or not? And I think that the Japanese pay a lot of attention to this right like you can get a cup of coffee perfectly great cup of coffee many places in
And like can this guy we're talking about for instance just create a beautiful unusual experience that you talk about ten years later, you know Case Case in point he can and that's there's a value to that. It's hard to really lose smack a label on it. But there's really there's something in the essence of that that that I've grown to appreciate more over time. I hope some of that starts to carry over more into the United States and are you know
creation of that as a culture because I feel like you know as a technologist like I can just see it 10 15 years from now like Automation in a serious way is coming to pretty much every industry and every job right and if it's something that can be taught in a very easy predictable way. It will be automated right? It's the stuff that is creative the stuff that is unique the stuff that is hard to do and produce at mass at scale that will stand out.
And you'll always be secure now you're not going to make you know, that guy that's doing the 30 40 year old age coffee. He's pouring, you know fifteen of those a day or whatever the guys not in the Mansion like living it up in Tokyo. Right? Right, but you know, he takes a lot of pride in that. I think that if you can be content and and and really believe in and enjoy what you're what you're producing and it fulfills you. Yeah, then that's all you really need. Yeah and Japan's up.
A great in a way it sort of like a an Art Exhibit or a zoo of pocket obsessions. Yeah, and I mean exactly you can walk through every Alleyway you can walk through exactly. You can walk through certain neighborhoods down Alleyways and each shop is I mean the size of a broom closet right specializes in there's one that specializes in like I'm making this up but like succulent
Display containers that you put on the wall in a small room like a bathroom and that's the entire shop, right? That's all they do. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, they go right really deep down one particular little Avenue that is their own that they can own, you know, totally what else what else appeals to you most about Japan because I think there are many things I could talk about that appealed to me about Japan. I've lived there. I have a total love affair long-standing love for it.
The language what appeals to you about Japan? Well, I think the cleanliness is a huge piece of it. You could eat off the ground pretty much everywhere in Tokyo, right and it's on the uniqueness of City. It is unbelievably clean which not not to interrupt but you know, which reflects not just a priority on the state or government level but a collective Behavior, right? That doesn't happen top down. It's a collective. Hey, I don't know how they they kind of cultivate that like, how does that
You know at a young age, how do you how do you kind of like make sure that carries On to the Next Generation? Right? Yeah, that's a great question II. I'm not I don't have a ready answer for that. But I would say that very often. I mentioned personal superpowers earlier. They're very often right next to our greatest defects like there's somehow also very close to our star greatest weaknesses. It's very frequent. I think in Japan there's this light
Darkseid lose James I am yeah exactly. I was going to bring up shame. So embarrassment losing face shame bringing shame upon your family very big deal, right and like being a member. I don't know like they're embarrassed for you, which is crazy like sometimes like when you do something that's like awkward. They'll like rush out to give you something so that you're not embarrassed because they're embarrassed for you. Oh, yeah, there are multiple levels of like recursive humiliation and Japan. It's like the
Just like the language and the culture has so many complex etiquette rules around hierarchy and there are there's honoring language. There is what you would call an English. I guess humbling language for yourself, which is self-deprecating your all these different layers of grammar and words that change based on how you relate to someone else and it's the same with embarrassment. I think that's
Something that they've teased out into a very complex set of rules and awkward interactions. Yeah. Yeah for sure. I think the thing that sealed it for me is one time. I was waiting for an Uber out there and in Tokyo and I was looking around and I saw this old man coming outside of his house and he had a rag in his hand and he was polishing his mailbox like like seriously like putting and I was there waiting like 20 minutes for the Uber and the guys like polishing it Non-Stop.
And I'm like wow. Yeah, I don't polish my mailbox, you know, it's just like that's that's like next-level kind of like commitment to cleanliness and just respect for your items. Like how often do we dislike throw shit out and just like don't recycle and I wish we had more of that in our culture, but you know, you're right. It's a double-edged sword. There's this shame component as well. Yeah, but it's worth exposing yourself to if you have the opportunity or the mean
To do so I get asked a lot. What is your favorite place to travel and it's an impossible question for me to answer because it really depends on
China or what China. I
love parts of China. I've had great trips to China I've spent time and so on but there are also some really rough and having lived in Beijing where I decided it was healthier not to run outside because my I would just blow stood out my nose afterwards. We had the worst trip. Well we had of is awesome, but we're
A tricky trip. Yeah where you got completely scammed with artwork. Yeah. Well, not only that but think about what we can and I went out to like the middle ear is a random show if you search probably random show China addition. Yeah, you'll see that you can flash back a couple of years a couple of years that was like long time ago eight years ago something anyway, there was maggots that we were having to shit into and it was really discos a rough trip was rough. It was a rough trip. Yeah, and there are many answers that I
Gift right mean I have really enjoyed some trips in China. I've really enjoyed it. But depends on what you want to get out of the trip. Right? Right. If you want to feel totally lost like an alien in on a new planet, but at the same time be in almost no danger whatsoever. It depends per hundred percent Tokyo. Yes, if you want to visit any alien landscape, yes and really feel like an alien you will get off the plane and everything will be a
Alien, and in all the right ways, like people the cool thing about Japan is no one's a dick to you. If you don't know Japanese, which is amazing, which is amazing. You think about it? Everybody's super-friendly and you know, obviously if you're going to be a good tourist as you should you should pick up like, you know, a half-dozen little phrases you can say to people but outside of that you really don't need to know the language and and they have the most from a linguistic perspective the most layup friendly.
Over-reactive encouragement, you can imagine writing so that let's contrast this. I love Paris one of my favorite cities in the world. Oh, yeah, but there are certain people actually. This is more common in in Montreal not to throw them under the bus, but if you don't speak really good french that you'll kind of get scoffed at and it's very hard dude. I've gotten it like Taxi.
The drivers and Paris are dicks straight up like you know that so right. So if you in other words, even if you speak if you're 80 percent of the way there if you're a B+ student, you're still going to have a tough time impressing anyone. Yeah. We're getting a pat on the back. Right? Whereas in Japan if you can and when we were there with a couple of friends including our mutual friend Tony Conrad Tony thought this was hilarious and like imagine for a second what you sound like to them.
If you can imagine somebody in the most broken English possible being like that. Can you where is
hunger bathroom, please that's basically what you sound like in Japanese to them. Right?
And but you say that and you sound like Sloth from The
Goonies and the like old rules are done. They're supposed to go
through and they do get this like hand clap for like performing like a seal. Right right SeaWorld and it's it feels really good.
Yeah, but but yeah, all you need to know is is good morning. And where's the bathroom Bryant? Yeah, and you're you're you're like what the Michael Jordan of Japanese to yes, folks what you're going to encounter. What else do we have here? We got we got ya some other random items laid out. The thing is with this people have listened to it before we've done these random shows we talk about books that were reading to talk about products that were liking like things like that. So, I mean, I just grabbed a couple things that are actually there I might as well continue down the Japanese.
Game, so I moving to Portland have been into Forest bathing which is started in Japan. And the idea is that there are so many people because of the what work culture out there that they actually prescribe doctors prescribe going into the forest and using it as a way to walk and relax and unwind and there's been a bunch of research has been done in these forests trying to figure out what is it that's dropping people's cortisol levels that's dropping like increasing.
There was the killer cell count like they did all these studies where they drew blood and they checked on people that were walking in the forest and all these different biomarkers improved. And so there were a few things that they were able to conclude one. There's a certain bacteria in the soil that supposed to be really good for you that's in Japan and the second is I'm sure just disconnecting and being the force is a big part of it. But also the sense and the aroma is that the trees were putting off and so
There is a few trees in particular that they pulled out and distilled down into essential oils. And then in the hospitals, they would diffuse them out. So the and they saw a dramatic decrease in people getting sick at the hospitals in terms of like people getting flus and colds and things like that. And so I basically read this entire book on Forest bathing and decided to buy a few of these essential oils and use them, you know, you can either
Use them in your room or you can pour them over, you know, hot coals and a sauna. Hinoki is obviously a very popular tree out there. So I got some Enoki oil and there's I think there's four or five different ones. Another one is a Heba would this is another one here that you can smell and they smell fantastic. I don't I'm not here to sell you a central have the I don't have any Brands to recommend, but they're let me smell that.
Smells like a Japanese spa. Which one is that? That's the Heba would what would that does fast? Smell? Fantastic? Yeah, it's really cool stuff. But anyway, so there's a couple different books out there on Forest bathing. You can just search Amazon for that. If you're really into just trying to figure out how to slow down a little bit and learn more about the kind of Japanese way of Disappearing into the forest and walk in the forest for longevity and health. You can learn a lot about it in this book.
Book and they outline all the different essential oils that you remember which one you read. I do if you were to I can you know what I
can pull it up and I
just searched Forest bathing on Google and the third result. Well, let's go in order for these are the suggested results Forest bathing for spending book Forest bathing. Portland is number way, really? That's because it knows you hear it like it seemed to have fuckers so creepy. We did some force between today, which is nice.
We did I've say Portland is one of the certainly from a mycological from a fungi mushroom perspective. One of the most incredible Force bathing opportunities out there. Yeah, this is the book that I read right here Forest bathing how trees can help you find health and happiness by dr. Quinn Lee. And so that was one of the researchers that was doing all this out in out in Tokyo. So Forest bathing in Japanese is shinden Yoko shit.
Finding your KU Shi en Rin Yoko Yoko is the bath portion of that. What what is that when your items are too? Yeah. I don't really want to talk about that. We're going to see we have so many
oils is another way other forget beard oil I use it's great.
So, you know, one of the one of the books that I am rereading and I don't really read a lot of books, but this is one that I've read probably five or six times the last 18 months is one of the
Came through a recommendation from someone. You also know Peterman Luke and he was a podcast guests mostly involved in finance and wealth management things along those lines investing but the book he recommended was awareness by a Jesuit priest also as I call a psychotherapist named Anthony De Mello. Have you ever read this? Well, I haven't he and he mentioned it somewhat briefly in our
conversation and he but the sales pitch wasn't intended to be a Pitch that got me was every time I read this book for for a few weeks afterwards. I feel an incredible sense of peace and I'm paraphrasing but he said something like that. I was like
That's an odd statement coming out coming from the rest of the conversation. Yeah, it was a sharp contrast to a lot of the subject matter and I thought interesting. Alright, well awareness. I looked it up and I think the subtitle they're two different subtitles. For some reason. The one of the subtitles is the promises and Perils of reality or something like that. I was like interesting subtitle and read this book pairs very well with Sam Harris is waking up a bit actually, but
Has a lot of sort of oh fuck caliber, aha moment in this book from from the perspective of self-awareness and distinguishing between say the labels and stories you use from your self and the self, huh. It's also very funny book. It's effectively a transcript of lessons or weekend courses that were given by Anthony De Mello and as I am always as a
Skeptical going into this book because I thought it might just be another collection of whoo hand-wavy bullshit because a lot of these books are yeah and it really had an impact on my life immediately and has become this sort of a reboot in the sense that occasionally I'm sure everyone has had the experience of the your phone. It's just kind of slow things aren't working. Maybe your bars are dropping shit's just going kind of wonky and you're like, you know what I need to restart my phone. Yeah you have
Real phone issues. Like I'm in the outside of that like I can't text you. It turns into like those green tank. Oh, yeah. My phone isn't update. This is very old phone. I tend to I'm very dull Edge when it comes to phones. I wait until I want as many bugs to be fixed found and fixed with new versions of iOS new it slow man thing to say give me the I have an iPhone 6s or whatever. This is its ancient. Yeah, eventually I'll get a new phone but
But the point that I'm making is when your phone isn't working when you're having trouble with your computer when you're in trouble with iCal the with one of the first things that someone is going to ask you if you go to a Genius bar or deal with the tech sort of tech savvy person is when's the last time you reboot? This one's last time you quit and restarted and for me this book awareness by Anthony De Mello has that effect.
That's awesome. Did you psychologically and emotionally
thousand hundred thousand copies of this place?
Saying this sounds awesome. And I'm happy to this. This is one of a handful of books that I now by by the Dozen in paperback. It's a short book. It's very fast read that I buy by the Dozen to have in my house so I can give them to friends and I literally have an entire shelf in my guest bedroom that I can tell you what the other books are. Well, I appreciate you. I just for some hearing that where's my
copy visible?
Friends visit Austin use I know you have an
entire brood. So depending soccer team the you need to cart around the world, but the awareness dude, it's not inaudible the you see if it's not inaudible. I probably tried to get the right some point in there that know that I must not have but awareness by Anthony De Mello. You can get on Kindle that much. I know I have the new Kindle right there. I was that's one of the things we haven't talked about. This book has a probably 90% here, right?
People are recommended to that's awesome. It's really good. The other books that I have are how to change your mind. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I have a whole rack of that book and then also the gift which is a collection of poems by hafez HAF isay, which which is just a wonderful and very funny collection of poems and I'm not the person historically who is read poetry Yeah by any stretch so crazy. Are you starting to get into poetry?
Tree in the last few years. I've been reading a few poets not many and also become very open to it seems it seems like maybe unrefined poetry in the sense that I I've been turned off of poetry many times in the past. Yeah, I think because there's a there's a breed of poet or a breed of poetry fan who?
Seems to be similar to the Heidi toidy fan of say abstract art or it's like if it if you need an explanation, then you don't get it, right. I don't think there's a lot of poetry or I've read in a my I don't fucking get it. Right and I'm not into that kind of poetry. Right but how Fez is makes perfect sense to me, you know, maybe spending a little bit of time psychedelic space helps with that and then poetry like Mary Oliver.
Mary Oliver is amazing. I've really become a huge fan of her work Hansel folks. I don't have a lot of exposure. But what have you been reading poetry? Well, I just got a book on how to read poetry. Actually that I thought was pretty interesting. I went down to Pals probably just a month or so ago and I was Pals is a for people that don't house is amazing. It's like one of the best Blythe I would say, it's the best book store in the United States for sure. It's actually a still.
Sword that independent bookstore that's thriving and doing really well here in Portland. Its massive. It's like the size of like a Costco or something. Well it is it is truly enormous. Yeah, and they have a they have a whole poetry section and you know for me I've always been a fan of I invested in a company called Jour that is does guided journaling on iOS and iPad. How do you spell it Jo you are like store for journaling. So they do these like encrypted guided journals that you can do and the reason I wanted to get into
That is I've just read about the benefits of actually kind of opening up your heart and pouring out a little bit of what's going on inside as a way to be very therapeutic and just kind of release certain things that may be holding onto and there's a lot of obviously that's a big part of poetry as well. And so I was like, well, I'd like to read what other people are how they're releasing their emotions and also maybe eventually get into this myself not in a way that I would ever share publicly, but you know, just something like I think that
And I are the same in that were both like one experiment with different things like all the time. We're trying new things. And so this is just one of those things where I was walking down the islands, like sure I'm going to pick up a book of poetry. Why not, you know grab grab the gift. It's really good cool. And it's funny. The guy is a really funny fucker like he's very funny and very irreverent actually got into a lot of a fair amount of trouble back in the day.
From present-day Iran and just you read you read 50 pages in your like if this guy were alive today, he would be my top 10 people I would want to have drinks with that's awesome. Yeah, he's very very funny and profound and it's it requires a very high level of sensitivity and Artistry and wordsmithing. Of course, these are translated by Daniel levinsky in this case to achieve that it's a very
Heart effect to produce in such a short format. Well, I think yeah. What else are you reading? Well, I will say that I have read a thing in the last three months that probably will it just consume me. This summer was a course by Michael singer who wrote the untethered Soul. So he has a course over that was on sounds true. You know that they're like a disher. Yeah.
So he has a course that's a video course and it's a five session like hour and a half two hours per per video and the sorry eight session eight or nine session hour and a half two hours per video on surrender and just really how to embrace surrender and incorporate it in your everyday life and how that is. One of the most powerful things that you can do and how it just really really simplified letting things unfold.
For me, how do you how do you could you give an example of how you might use this concept of surrender without being becoming Driftwood in the flow of life sure, because it's sort of in for some people myself included has a connotation which is from my own experiences suppose or just perception of passivity. Sure, right? Yeah.
You do that that like you've lost your free will and your just sort of and impassive creature taking whatever life throws at you. Yeah. Well, I think it's well, there's a couple things one of the things that I appreciate about the course and when I'm still continuing to learn because I'm going back and listen to it. You know, it's good when you go on back and let's do it like two or three times and one of the things that he talks about is just this idea that I think we can all agree on that. We have these little programs that are essentially in us that have been either.
Down To Us by teachers or parents or whatever it may be that our how we interpret the world as the hits us. So for example, if you were cheated on by a girl in the past and something kind of comes close to that by a new person that you're dating maybe there is stayed out too late and didn't call you or something like just like happens that that activates that little scar that you have you can then go
Go and really work yourself up, right and that applies to so many different things. I mean, it's like, you know, we're talking about coffee earlier. I can enjoy an amazing single origin coffee from a Japanese Artisan, but you had that same cup of coffee to someone that's Mormon that has been told that coffee is a sin and it's against your religion. You're going to have a completely different experience when when trying to consume that beverage, right? So there are all these little things these little programs that have been installed whether we know it or not, you know, and a lot of them we don't know.
So it can just be a reaction to something that is previously happened to us when our childhood or even you know through our parents yelling at us. Like I'm thankfully. I'm the opposite of my father. My father was a very verbally aggressive thing for human. And so when I hear certain types of aggression like that, I tend to kind of back away from it because it hits hitting that stuff inside of me. Yeah. So his whole thing is this this idea of surrender is really
being able to identify when that is happening and seeing when that's happening in understanding which programs aren't really serving you any longer and being on just a release and let them go and when you can release and let go of those little scars that we've been accumulating over, you know decades we can just become free and it's so amazing when you can finally just rest and let the world kind of unfold and not get pissed off about the person that cuts you off in traffic or any number of
All events that happen throughout the day and he has really some amazing really compelling examples do throughout this entire course, but it's it's helped me really examine my reactions and it goes hand-in-hand with meditation in that way. You know, you're going to love awareness. Awesome. Yeah. I doubt it like a is these sounds like
birds of a feather very complimentary. Yeah, very complementary ways of feeding your mind and emotions and you've been talking about this this surrender course for a while now in our conversations, so I'm definitely intended to check it out in the of the untethered Soul has book. Yeah has been recommended to me on a number of occasions. So I'm gonna I think you believe it tastes worse because it's is you get to sit back and it's video and I would just let it play when I had some downtime and there's just it's
What people think of your reaction was the exact same one that I had initially where surrender is this this this kind of passive thing and it's like gosh it seems like it feels like a week thing. Actually if you think about it like you're surrendering. Oh, that's what that's the weakest thing. But think about it this way it is the hardest thing to do someone cuts you off in traffic and you're like that mother they're right like what's harder to get angry at them or to surrender and just let that pass through you rather than
It's you know, it's hitting you in some way. Right and so it's not this course is not about like having people step all over you because obviously that would be a horrible thing and no one wants that but it's really about understanding and being able to choose and let go of probably 98% of it. Right? Like there's still things that I get amped up about a certain things aren't going well in our country are there certain things that you know, people are getting mistreated or you know, there's things that will really still charged me to do things. But I
I realize now after taking this course and kind of revisiting it that most things you realized really don't have a whole lot to do with you. If someone's really pissed off at you they're dealing with something. Why should it then come out in effect you and your being you know, you should have compassion for that person because they're going through a rough time. You know, there's a way to flip the stuff that gets really interesting. Yeah, and even if you don't have compassion just taking the second to pause and recognize the yeah that it's not serving you like there's this knock
Owing to translate into any action that is productive. Yeah, like what do you do chase the guy down to cut you off and like get out of your car at his office that he's running into X again to fight with his wife and punch him in the throat. I mean maybe when he's none of that people do but it's it's not like that that's actually bad energy allocation. And it's something that's predictable like that's gonna always happen to you. It's like that's like getting cut off is going to happen to you for the rest of your life, you know hundreds of times like why are you going
It's so charged up about it every single time. It's ridiculous, you know, yeah for sure. I'm excited to hear what you think of awareness. Yeah, it'll pair very well with that. Yeah, I love stuff like that. It's just like, you know any way that we can just kind of get a little better understanding and to your point earlier about Sam Harris is course. I think that Sam has the best meditation course for people that want to take it. Seriously, you know, I made a meditation app with it the thinking of just
Doing a free unguided timer and some very basic instructions. But like that's great. If you want something that's free. Like Sam's is a paid course and I think the he goes deeper and I'll I love it. It's not it's not just window dressing. It's like really taking meditations here. So I know you completed the 50 days as well. Yeah. Yeah. I just finished up the 50 days and I thought it was phenomenal. Yeah super strong. And do you know they're Different Different Different Strokes for different folks in terms of meditation Styles. Also sure.
And it's you know, his style is not for everybody. But for the right person it it's it's really helpful as a skill progression as a as a sort of logical progression of skill development. What am I? What am I holding up here? This is something as well. Yes - what? Are we going to talk about this? Yeah, let's talk about it. We'll talk about it. This is something that I've been Downing a lot of since I got to your house, but and
And on it on the can it says dram dram and then the particular says the brand and then cardamom and black tea blow it no sugar zero calories. What is this thing that I'm holding? Yeah. So this is interesting and this is a company that actually someone that I know here in Portland was like you got to try this sparkling because she's deaf. She knows that she's a chef and she knows that I drink Sparkling Water and she's like you gotta try this Parkland.
It's like it'll change your world and I was like well why there's so many of them out there like every Whole Foods aisle or whatever has you know, a hundred of these right and she goes no this is different. They're actually bitters makers so member like Bitters and Cocktails and they create these concentrates from real herbs and spices and like very bitters focused and then put them in sparkling water. So it's not like you're never going to see on the side of like one of these cans like natural flavorings.
Like that's not what they do, like their their hand pressing their Ginger. They're doing all they make these zero calorie beverages. I would say, I don't know if you agree with me, but it's like an order of magnitude better than anything you find in the store. They're really really good. They're really good and the black tank our mom's my favorite by the way, I think that yeah this one I tried a bunch. This is my this is the the current fave you have an entire refrigerator full of these and you and Tony who I mentioned earlier brought this to my attention. I'd never tried it before.
But we should say just in full disclosure. We're looking at it and I talked to the founders we're considering investing is another you are I've noticed in this kind of area we have it but whether whether I invest or not, it's really good stuff. Yeah, it's really cancer needs to be D1. Can I say that you try to either? Okay. Sure. Yeah, follow that shit. But what was that you just
like a delta T. I like you're fucking saying you did a little cvd of my house.
They make a CBD one that has 25 milligrams of see.
BD which is what Michaels are Michael singer
Michael. So your love see Beating Heart of them.
Oh wait. No I take that back. Don't sue us. Yeah exactly Matthew Walker from why we sleep the Berkeley scientist out of that has a sleep lab in Berkeley. He recommends 25 milligrams of CBD for sleep and they do some of the best there's one called Beauty bubbles. That is the best CBD you won't even know they're CBD in it. That's how you know, it's good.
No idea you have no idea. There's from a taste perspective. It doesn't taste like we'd know I'd be terrible. Yeah be terrible and it has a bunch of different adaptogens in there as well. But these things are awesome. You can buy them on their website. You can just search like dram dram sparkling re-emerge dram Apothecary.com. Yeah from Colorado. Anyway, it's my favorite sparkling beverage and they do direct-to-consumer. They're not in all the stores yet. Yeah. It's really good. I mean, I I've had
Sorry Kevin, / like nine of these in the last it's all good 24 hours. Fantastic. What else is on your mind man? Ah, gosh. Just trying to kind of like do less work stuff. Not in terms of like taking a less startups like not actually building stuff more just investing and so I've been doing that through true Ventures and then also just exploring rather than do, you know 20 things at once that I want.
Floor and get excited about taking two or three and then just really following through on them and doing them really deep. So, you know this summer for me was all about because I live in the Pacific Northwest. I was all about mushrooms. And so, you know, I went out and bought a couple thousand mushroom plugs cut down some oak trees not not big oak trees with branches and then inoculated those branches with lion's mane and a couple other specimens. That means just just a picture you're Drilling.
Holes into these logs that kind of simulate branches that would have fallen examine the forest exactly and then you're you're you're dreaming about it. Check Ting mushroom spores into this wood, right? So you can drill about an inch into the wood and then you get these little wooden dowels that are inoculated so they look like little, you know pieces of round Peg wood and they are all Frosty with like, you know fungi growing on them or my seat.
Am I guess and then you pound it into the log with like just a rubber mallet and then you put a thin layer of wax on the outside of that to prevent anything else from getting in there and then you cover mostly in the summer with like because it does get a little hot here. And so we cover most likely some shade cloth and I went out there and water them kind of once a day just to keep the logs a little moist and then in the fall, either this year or next year in the fall the lines of in will really start to just come out of them and I'll have these massive lines main that I'll turn into
To chop them up saute it with a little bit of garlic and butter and you'll have just an amazing mushroom. That is also really good for the brain. There's been a lot of studies done on lines made in the brain and brain health and helping you with memories and recall and it's yeah, it's good stuff. You are also doing a lot of fasting. Yes. You want to talk about that? Yeah. I mean I talk to you, you know when we checked in when I first got here and we were chatting about fasting and you again I've been fasting for 18 hours now.
Like I really like how often you doing that and then we had a whole discussion about it. Yeah, how long yeah, what are you using? Well, I you know, I thought 0 the fasting app about two years ago and that really has taken off. We've had gosh close to I think over 40 million fast now or something like that really wild. Yeah, and we've got a million people fasting on a month and it's growing like crazy zero. Yeah, and it's completely free Peter Tia just joined as the chief.
Medical officer to really help put some medical rigor around what you should be doing, especially with extended fasting, you know, there's like magnesium and some other supplements that things you want to be considering when you're doing longer especially water-only fast. So, you know for me I do a quarterly five-day fast and then I will try and do at least five days a week of 18 hours and that for me I can find you know, I got to tell you I still do love this these Portland beers out here are really good.
And I knows I am um, this is this the hell that I have to face right because I love like meditation and all these things but I also like to have a couple beers so so on the other side Kevin is fasting 18 hours a day all of his other calories. He consumes our from beer. I have a window of two hours where I just get a hammered now, I know seriously though in the summertime the mirrors our beers are so amazing that I would just become a little piggy. I'll just get super fat.
Because I'm just having these amazing beers and they go right to my gut. I find that at 18 hours. I can pretty much throw anything at me. Not that I want to because I want to try and eat healthy and pretty well-rounded but I can slim up quite well and not and not have issues with weight, which the dads my my dad's side of the family was all obese and had heart disease and all that stuff. So it's something I take pretty pretty seriously and try and maintain, you know, pretty lean physique. So
18 hours is kind of my sweet spot there. When you do your 5-day fast once a quarter are those water fasts. Are they fast mimicking diet? I guess I did only one five day water fast and it was so brutal. It was it was brutal not because of the hunger but because of the sleep, yeah. I had a really hard time sleeping at a rapid her it. Yeah exactly rapid heart rate all that good stuff and magnesium will help with a little bit of that stuff. But yeah you really
Want to if you ever do anything like that, you want to talk to a doctor be under the supervision you really want supervision. So I'm doing something called a fasting mimetic which is like you do limited calories about 500 calories a day is like the valter longo fmd Fest fast mimicking died. Exactly. So this is a valter Longo scientists out of USC and he basically developed this protocol for cancer patients really helps reduce the effects of chemotherapy.
Therapy, so you're not getting a lot of the nausea and things of that nature and makes makes it more effective to more to understand it. Yeah, and and we know friends. I mean I'm going to mention names but he's not the CEO zero great. All right. Now Mike mazur is come out and talked about this. He had stage four cancer are used this this fasting as part of his regimen with in conjunction with chemotherapy pretreatment. Yeah, you do the three day fast or something along those lines. Yeah. I think it was two days to their to chemo and then during chemo and then two days after so that was
Five days and he was in a lot better shape. I remember one time. He called me up and he's like I didn't fast from my last round of chemo and I'm just obliterated like he could really tell the difference and they have valter has done some amazing work and you can go and search his work on YouTube and you'll see the the videos of the rats and mice that he's inoculated with chemotherapy and he does the fasting ones with the non-passing ones. And the ones that have fasted are running around the cages same dose of chemotherapy.
RP and the ones that are that are haven't eaten food or just like on their sides just like I want to say that was also from her remembering correctly Mike's experience where he did the fasting and other folks you got to know who were undergoing treatment at the same time are like laid out on the couch. Yeah having a tough time moving and he was doing like 10 Mile runs. Yeah, he was running which is crazy. So it's you know, there's the one piece of actually the one study that I really loved was this one that they had these women.
That had had breast cancer, but were in remission and it was something like twenty five hundred women. It was a decent sized pool. They have them do Jew so the very simple circadian rhythm kind of fast, which is you know, you don't have any food after Sunset and then you fast for 13 hours. So it's mostly just kind of like, you know Sleeping Sun up you're allowed to eat. Yeah basic basically and all of those women that follow the protocol they had a 36 or 38 percent reduction in
recurrence of breast cancer just by fasting 13 hours, which is nothing that is the easiest fast you could do. So there's a lot of benefits to it in terms of inflammation markers of terms of your obviously better glucose levels. If you're not nighttime snacking you don't have elevated glucose when you go to bed we can fuse think we blew the nighttime snack and yesterday. Will you went Whole Hog on that tub of ice called I went holy fuck what
well
I would say was we split it. Yes engage in some behaviors that make make one eat
ice cream and things like ice
cream that ice cream is amazing. Yeah, I don't know what that is, but it has this layer of like good enough. Yeah that the chocolate Alec. It's got about a quarter inch of ganache on the top with these thoughts on top of the hill and then it's a caramel ice cream underneath. What is that stuff? You know the name jewel dude. It's a local. What are you called Ruby Jo?
Cool, it is unbelievable. If you don't want to eat an entire pint of ice cream do not buy it because it will not last. Yeah, that's the problem I have is because it's local here and they always come out with these summer flavors with like strawberries and stuff. And so you can see why do the 18 hour fast. I really am good most of the time but I do go off the rails. I'm like you dude you used to do those cheat days. And yeah, I remember going with you in the morning to the bakery and you get these massive bear claws. Oh, yeah, they're delicious and just put
This those were like huge as well. I miss 9 inch bear claw. I miss this. They're so
good.
Yeah man time for your time for dindin. Yeah, they've got to go to dinner soon anything else to plug or talk about. Well, I would say someone opposes on my podcast to you have any like could you talk about the fact that you're doing anything with the new book or anything or now, but to cut this out wasn't no I can talk about it. And actually I'm surprised I haven't told you this.
This so I was working on a new book. I'm not going to oh my God, you pulled the plug on it. I pulled the plug. Oh my God book about I'll give this isn't an exclusive. So I was working on a book entirely about saying no, right and I knew that Gathering. I know you knew that
probably
a book on saying no and Gathering tactics and systems and rules and language and so on from many many.
People who are good at this and one of the challenges of writing a book on know at least for me is that I kept on coming up with all these reasons why I shouldn't write the book. And so I said no to the book. I returned the advanced. I canceled the contract. Holy shit, but I have and I could I could go into that. Let me go into it. Let me know. I think this is maybe we're talking about for a minute. What I realized was. It was putting a real strain on my relationship with my girlfriend.
A friend who I love dearly and she's awesome. By the way, this is the first time I met her which is crazy. She's great and really really wonderful and I was putting strain on the relationship and particularly I had misjudged how long the book would take to do. I thought I could Sprint over the summer and do it in three to four months turned out it was going to be much more complex rule would require a lot more writing on my part and would have to be extended at least six months and that would require
Canceling the vast majority of things in my calendar and disappointing my girlfriend on the number of levels that were important to me and her that that I not bend on and I was like for what for what to write a book for the world broadly speaking to jeopardize this relationship. No, like that's that is it that's a decision that young Tim.
In like five that's going to say that young Tim younger Tim. I mean, I'm embarrassed to say probably not that much younger Tim, but younger Tim would have viewed.
Returning an advanced and canceling a book as a he is a huge gigantic sign of weakness and quitting and I've spent a lot of my life developing a very high pain tolerance and being able to just in doubt endure and I would have forced it, but I was able to zoom out and if they mean it sounds like this is right along the lines of the surrender, of course, right along the lines of the awareness. I was able to zoom out and say wait a second. I'm viewing this as a very
And everything maybe this isn't a binary thing. What I realized was at this point in my career. I'm very fortunate that I don't have to publish anything on any given time line and by returning the advance and canceling the book. I still have 200 pages of material. That's a lot of juice mask about that and I'll give a teaser for folks. I'm going to completely redesign and relaunch the the website the to blog website which hasn't been done in forever. No designer. It's all it's
basically done. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he's it's basically done. Yeah yourself
like I'm back into the HTML
looks great. Looks like Weaver
Geo cities and
great great great palette help from Matt mullenweg in the folks at automatic and I am actually going to get back to writing on a regular schedule. That's awesome. I'm gonna start putting stuff out. That's the plan at least in a way that mimics how this all
Started having before the book before the 4-Hour workweek. Even the blog was what helped launch things. I was just going to ask you if you were going to like why not use this content is going to be great. I'm going to I'm going to use a bunch of it and there's some fantastic stuff and I can say there's some fantastic stuff because it's not dependent on me. I really found some people who are just fucking incredible at this and give me a little hint on the book that I want to know like since we're doing a little exclusive school. Yeah.
Yeah, what is one thing that you learned? Okay, let me play Let Me phrase it pushes you this way. What was the aha moment for you where you realize? Like? Wow, I have something that is new and unique enough that I need to go write a book about this. Like, what did you what was that moment? Yeah. It's a I'll answer it maybe in a way that is a bit lateral, but I decided to write the book not because I said I know the magic sauce.
For giving the answer the people need is because I wanted to gather more tools and resources for myself to become better at it myself turns out that I think I'm pretty good at it. In other words. I would go to a lot of friends asking them for advice. They're like, dude, you're the best person I know doing this you should be writing that and in some cases that that was true. In other cases. They're folks like our friend Josh who's incredible at it, but he doesn't view himself that way right.
Cook. Yeah. Well, he's really good. He's really good. But yeah, but his his / his in his position in his work relative to maybe some other Michael Jordan's of saying no, he wouldn't confess he did. He didn't consider himself to be very good. Even though he is looking at any normal sort of group of people. He's excellent suit started out as almost all my
my books do is a very personal journey to learn how other people do this. Yeah that I could borrow their principles and techniques and so on the aha moment, I would say that I had and this also coincided with realizing oh shit. This is going to take at least another six to nine months. This is not a Sprint for three months and I can do a lot in three months. I mean I did 200 pages in three months but as like to get it right to make it a because I've no interest in writing good books.
And I'm not saying my books are the best thing since sliced bread. I'm not saying they're good literature compared to Tolstoy or anyone you might pull out of a hat. But my goal at least is not to write a good book because if you're going to put in that much effort that's like running 20 miles of the marathon. It's like no do the last six point two, which is really like the second half of the marathon, right which is the hardest because you want to put out a great book and I was like alright to do a good book. I could do a good book and my fans would
Buy it, and it would be helpful, but it wouldn't be enough and I'll tell you what that means you can get the best language in the world template emails Auto responses and so on to give people and that's part of what I thought I needed and it's necessary but not sufficient. If you don't do pretty major psychological overhaul and develop this awareness that we've been talking about in like the Observer status of your own.
In stories and co-dependents also where you feel like you're responsible for managing the emotional states and responses of other people, right?
The templates and so on are are going to seem really attractive and then a week later. You're going to be back in your email doing all the same shape just not going to work and crazy. You should write this book The sounds awesome. I wrote a lot of it. I wrote a lot of it and there were there were some really important pieces to touch upon and what I realized is that you have topics that are sort of independently treated well and like five different genres.
And to write a book on saying no that actually works like the the provides a systematic approach that really really really works. You kind of have to take those five genres and put them all into a book. Yeah, I'm curious was this did you plan on having this be something that you could apply to things outside of say a work scenario? Because I know a lot of people would say Tim like dude, that's nice that you have a hundred thousand people wanting things from you. I don't have those demands on me, but I think there's even even more.
Power and saying no to things like Netflix or saying no to something else and and just sitting it's not it's not that you have to fill the time with something. That's like I feel like that's what we're always trying to do. Like, how can I fill the time with something better? Right but it really is. All right. So you're you're also touching on something that made this book very difficult, which is when you start to really investigate know and the rear end a book on saying no is also has to be a book on
People have trouble saying no hmm, which is also a book on why people say yes to too many things, right? And before you know, it the book is about everything in the fucking Universe like a cyst it bloats sure and very quickly and I put in a quote and actually the first chapter from John Muir. I think it was which was an effect like whenever you try to separate out one thing in the world you real you find it hitched to the rest of the universe and constraining this book.
Is very very challenging I bet because as you pointed out there many different timely Rabbit Hole they would bury their many different types of Temptations to which you should say. No broadly speaking. They could be put into two categories internally generated distractions and then sort of externally imposed invitations distractions requests Etc and they both depend on certain types of
Of psychological reformatting and I decided to focus on some of the commonalities but the book and it's not going to be a book. But when I say it's not going to be book. Here's the thing. I could I could put a bunch of stuff on the blog fine-tune it make it better and then publish it as a book wide year from now. I want you to do a series of blog posts to the start. Well, that's the plan. Yeah, that would be great. And then if I decide to do a book, it's going to be a better book if I do it later, it'll be more refined and the the saying
They know is is really not limited or specific to work or personal some of the scripts are specific to work a personal but it's like the because say declining going to a work meeting where someone of a similar level in the hierarchy is yourself or below is requesting. Your attendance is very different from say declining the
Baby shower invitation from someone who thinks that your best friend or one of their best friends and you know different emotions and you don't feel the same right about them that's different. Right and the language you're going to use is probably very different the consequences could be very different the way you might have to do damage control on those consequences, which is also a chapter that I started working on is like if shit really go sideways and you feel like you need to fix it. What do you do? What's the cleanup procedure? How do you
Become like the the Harvey Keitel character in Pulp Fiction like the cleaner. What do you need to do? And a lot of those skill sets apply not only to work situations. I think that work is actually the easiest even though many people may not view it that way even in the beginning stages of your career or you when you feel like you don't have many options the fact of the matter is you always now, I'm like getting
But you always have options you always have options. They might just not be very attractive to you. You always have options always and so the book the book is also was intended to explore that like, why do we artificially constraining our options? And if you are seeing a binary choice of a versus B and both are unattractive, what do you miss it and can you zoom out? What are the tools for zooming out so you can see
the other paths you can take so there were aspects of it that were really fun to work on that. We're really really useful to me immediately. Right? I would I would end that was that was part of the litmus test for each chapter is like art. Is this something that I can literally use in the next 12 hours? Yeah. I want these templates dude. I need I really need no tablets. I've got a bunch of them. I've got tons like I'm
No symptoms tablet pack up sell when all that fails and you come back and you have all of your old Behavior still intact. Here's the psychological makeover. So yeah, that's that's something I'm really excited about and I'll just give a shout out also in a congratulations to the entire team at Johns Hopkins for the successful launch of the world's largest psychedelic Research Center that has and the first psychedelic research and consciousness.
Research Center in the United States ever which just launched at Johns Hopkins and the we should definitely mention you probably won't but you dude you've helped fund a lot of this which is yeah a big deal. Thank you doing that. It's yeah my pleasure. So many people that had reached out to me being like I can't believe Tim did this bla bla. They don't know you directly but they know that I know you yeah, that's like people freaking out about it dude. It's a big deal. It was it was its
It is a big deal symbolically and practically for the field a lot of conditions that are poorly treated or viewed as untreatable currently whether that's is say end-of-life anxiety after terminal cancer diagnosis treatment resistant depression Eating Disorders, like anorexia nervosa, which has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder allow the realize that nicotine addiction opioid dependence cetera PTSD from PTSD.
I like your sexual trauma these conditions seem to be treatable through paradigm-shifting.
Frameworks utilizing psychedelic compounds and the results thus far are pretty staggering. I mean, they're they're very unlike anything that's been seen in the world of Psychiatry up to this point. And the center at Hopkins for me was about a year and a half in the making so it was very very involved.
Process and there were a couple of folks who will long with with my contribution were able to get this funded the foundation Who provided the most money was the the Steven and Alexandra Komen Foundation. They've done a lot of incredible work with veterans and they put in a large slug about half maybe a little bit more than half of the total.
Acquired which is 17 million for this Center, which is a five-year commitment very important it because it allows Hopkins to not only attract but also retain some of the best people in the country for doing this type of research and then you have yours truly Matt mullenweg just a beautiful human being. Yeah CEO of automatic which I mentioned earlier Auto matt9. I see if you see what he did. There has been a thousand distribute employees.
They run wordpress.com among other things Blake mycoskie founder of Tom's awesome. Yeah, like was involved that's complex involved and then a Craig nurenberg who's an investor who's done some incredible things. He's very shy so I won't get into too much but it was important that everybody be willing to allow their names to be used for this. I do not want any Anonymous donors. Yeah because it just reinforces undeserved stigma for these compounds.
Have so much therapeutic potential end very very demonstrated low toxicity at this point and an addictive properties. So that was a year and a half and it's you've had this feeling I'm sure but it's kind of like after so much work and so much looking forward to this moment often the distant future after shipping it there's this kind of it's an odd feeling this is kind of like postpartum. What now? Yeah.
Oh shit. I think we kind of kind of shipped it and of course the scientists now get to do the fun stuff and the exciting stuff on their side, but my job is mostly done and let me ask you a question before we before we wrap up. This is I know they had been doing some research there. Was it just a very small scale. Like what did this funding enabled them to do Yep. This is the form of them what they were doing before. It's Hopkins has done a lot of research when
You consider how many sessions say they've administered of psilocybin which is in the hundreds. It's probably somewhere between I'm guessing here but between 500-700 sessions that is really reinvigorated the entire space. Some of the early studies at helped to Galvanize the Resurgence of scientific research what the center allows them to do is dedicate their full attention to this field up to this point. This is true at all.
Places like NYU UCLA UCSF and Yale people have wanted to do psychedelic research have generally need to spend anywhere from let's just call it 30 to 75 percent of their time writing grants. We have scientists in the room wife your wife Daria. It's so she's seen this firsthand. I'm sure that people need to write grants to ensure they have
Salaries, right and in the case of psychedelics because there is effectively zero Federal funding from agencies like the NIH or NIMH there's there's a relative lack of funding and therefore these people who truly in their heart of hearts would like to spend a hundred percent of their time unlocking the full potential of psychedelics and understanding the mechanisms need to write grants for other studies that don't involve psychedelics just to pay the bills, right?
And so you have the most productive teams in the world including Hopkins who are spending only a fraction of their time on psychedelic research. Yeah. It's right grants is a whole job by itself. It's a whole job by myself. So when you create a center that has say five years of salary support you just open the floodgates and I think the I think the quote was from perhaps the chair of the Psychiatry department, but one of the higher-ups at Hopkins who said this should allow a Quantum Leap Forward.
In the in the productivity of scientific researchers in the world in the realm of psychedelics what it also allows and this is this is why I hope that the center is is a catalyzes multiple centers around the country and more ambitious thinking around building big things in this space is that it also allows huge cost savings per study. So let's just say this opioid dependence study by itself done piecemeal because there's no sharing of resources.
If you have to recruit and staff each study independently, otherwise, let's say that might cost and I am kind of pulling these numbers out of my ass, but something like 3.2 and then within the structure of the center. It's like 1.7 1.8. The cost savings are enormous. So you just get a lot more done much more quickly. Right? And if you look at the opioid crisis you look at depression you look at the costs associated with some of these conditions. These are problems that are compounding right and I think it pays to be a
Vicious and aggressive with funding tools that could identify completely new Pathways and mechanisms of action by which we can treat these things that up until this point. I have been largely untreatable. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is a very noble cause and something that I've been tracking for the last few years and watching these kind of studies come out and as someone that has benefited from a high dose of psilocybin guided session. I can tell you that
That all of the are large chunk of the kind of trauma that I was dealing with with my father being so verbally aggressive over the years and the causing like that impression upon me. I was able just to release in six hours which was amazing Wild and the lightness you feel from that afterwards sticks with you. Yeah. And so I mean in I have it easy like think about the people that are addicted to opioids or you know, all these are the people that came back from fighting Wars nap.
DST and yeah, I mean there's so many applications for it. Yeah, it's really exciting. Yeah the and there are some organizations if you're if you're not interested in engaging directly with universities, although if you happen to have a close relationship with one and are sad alumni or trustee providing funding then you consider this as an Avenue of exploration. It's remarkable and how can people help out. Like is it done? I mean, obviously the funding is done for this next five years, but can people actually still
eight and get involved and extend that Runway so they can and they can do it at other universities what I'm going to do harkening back to what I said earlier about relaunching the blog one of my my top priorities when I relaunch the entire site is to put out a post which is effectively the top 10 options for supporting the Psychedelic scientific Renaissance. And there will I will point out the targets that I think are extremely high leverage at some different places and just keep that up to date.
It'll be a resource for people basically source and an easy place to learn more as maps dot-org and I would also recommend the people check out a documentary. If you want to see what these sessions actually look like actual session footage go to Tim top log forward slash trip and that will take you to documentary called trip of compassion. It's very intense, but but worth checking out and you can learn more sweet, dude. Well.
You for doing that? That's I know that you got a massive New York Times article out of that as well. Yeah, it was wild thanks to thanks to everybody who helped make that happen Benedict carry the writer who really took the time to to ask a lot of questions a lot of people and look at the nuances Alan Burdick the the editor and certainly all the people kind of behind the scenes Michael Pollan also for his great work and ongoing work, man.
Credibility that he added to the space while I had a book is so massive how to change your mind. Yeah. She's really really just added so much momentum to to scientific research and increased the interest level of potential funders and allies and so on who recognize that we have we have a lot of problems that are not being while addressed and in in oncology and neurology and Immunology. All these other fields are
in these massive breakthroughs over the last few decades and in Psychiatry, there have been relatively few discoveries. It would be considered breakthroughs very few. And if we look at the costs of mental illness the prevalence of mental illness the number of people that I'm sure people listening know who take antidepressants and nonetheless still depressed those affected by opioid dependence and addiction the scale of these problems is so
Antic that if there are tools that have demonstrated low toxicity and anti dicta properties, they're worth investigating. So I'm as gun ho as ever and they're not panaceas there are risks involved but I think the risk benefit ratio is is is incredibly compelling. So to be continued awesome. Well that is it for this episode of the random show its it is / Tim show / Kevin show. What depending on what feed your let's yeah exactly.
Lee where can people find you yeah, so people can find me at Kevin rose on Instagram Kevin rose.com also links to my podcast there that I do every few weeks and I think that's it. Yeah cool people can find me at MDOT Blog podcast Tim Ferriss show and the newsletter. I have a free newsletter that goes out every Friday to about one somewhere between one point six and two million people now and
Five Below fried is the 5 coolest things or most interesting things. I found that week a lot of them your recommended to me by you. Are you sure? Yeah. Well, duh. I mean, I like every once in a while so the make again. Yeah, so if I will fried eggs find it Tim top log forward slash Friday that's free. It'll always be free and that's one of the things I enjoy doing each week. Sweet. Awesome. All right, let's get some food off the food later guys see it.
Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you
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