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 friends, this is Kevin Rose. I'm here with mr. Tim Ferriss. Welcome to episode number 947 of the random show.
You're losing your flare man. What happened? I'm just bust is that good? I'm just busting your balls. It was good, but you looked off to the side like rain man, which I liked on the video. Oh did I? Yeah, but I like
that shit. I have my 10-year Meetup anniversary with Daria last night is artificial 10 years together.
From our first date I should say and yeah had some wine. I hate wine.
Yeah, you know, this is It's a LoveHate Thing. So tell me about it. Tell me about it. First of all. Congratulations because 10 years is no joke. That's
huge. Yeah. It is huge. It has been a crazy ride with lots of Lessons Learned, you know kids all kinds of insanity.
Now, it's appropriate that you would have not sure if you're willing to go into this. I don't see why not but it's appropriate.
You guys would have wine last night because maybe you could talk about one of your first dates and how wind played into that.
Yeah. I mean, I basically walked into this bar. I had well I should back up so real here's the here's the the quick. I don't want to die spend an hour on this but here's the quick little overview. I met Daria through Twitter of all places. Yeah, and we met on Twitter because I was very fortunate enough to talk every Williams the then CEO to admit to the suggested user list. This is when Twitter had like 15 people on the suggested use a list. So I
One of the default recommended people to a lot of different folks. So this is before they used algorithms for all that stuff. So anyway, Darian isn't following me. She retweets me on something that I'd mentioned. Dr. Andrew Weil. She Retreats that I see her little 20 by 20 icon. I'm like who's this little sexy little
icon you have the green the green cut off shirt probably back in the day
lovely that sounds about right and so I click through on it. And you know, she said she's in the wine and the food, you know, she's a neuroscientist. I'm
Like check check check. That sounds amazing. We should go hang out and so ended up dming her we met up at a bar. I walked in saw her was blown away and immediately realized I needed a substance to kind of like a dumb my nerves a little bit.
Oh, they're going to dump her down. So she would succumb to your charms,
but pretty much I think a little bit of both actually. So I end up just walking up and bought a whole bottle of wine and brought it to the table. And apparently she thought that was
Pretty ballsy thing. She's like who just buys a bottle of wine, but I don't know. I just felt like we were just gonna sit there for a while and I knew we had a lot of overlap in and even if we were just friends like we'd have a lot to talk about. Yeah for sure. You know, that was the first date
and I say dumb her down because for people who don't know Daria is razor sharp and extremely intellectual very well-read and a scientist. So she's she's extremely extremely strong in the hardware brain Department.
Yeah. She's really good at call me on my bullshit, which is great.
It's important super important. It is think that's what good friends do too
sometimes. Yeah, no doubt dude. Yeah. Yeah. So what are we going to do it on this episode you had mentioned you want to reflect back on the last 10 years
rightmost thinking we could talk about resolutions. We could talk. Yeah for 2020 or anything that we've thought about for 2020 and also look back over the last 10 years, which is crazy for me to even contemplate. I was looking at some of the landmarks along the way and it's
Actually seems not long ago at all and a hundred years ago.
Well, dude, I would love to continue this little theme that we started on because I know your fans always like to hear this stuff is like talk to me about your last 10 years of relationships. I know that stuff but like less it Lessons Learned like for a let me just start off with a 30-second version. My lessons learned are find someone that you're always on the same team with so knowing that you're together in this versus fighting someone or having to like, you know,
Have your own side is a big one and the second thing for me was therapy like therapy and what got me here today in a very happy positive relationship is Dari and I at multiple times went to a therapist and sat down and had a third-party kind of analyze and help us work through some of these issues so that we could figure out how to be on the same team, but I'd love to hear like, I mean, I've known you personally for a long time. So I've seen you through all types of lady.
Oh, yeah we have with mutually assured destruction on
When if that's weird, we got if either of us no go nuclear, but we have seen we've watched each other with many different relationships and trials and tribulations and learning learning moments teachable moments. I would say that looking back. There are few things that are very present for me. Now that may have come through some really bad decisions in the past. And also just just kind of mileage right? I mean you
Start to realize better. What you need over time. Also. Yeah polarity. Number one. I would say is extremely important.
And what do you mean by polarity?
We spend a lot of time discussing various ways to consider polarity. But what I mean by that is let's just say you have a sliding scale and this is really going to get me in all sorts of trouble. So for people listening, I don't care if your Martian us Japanese male female Trans in between there.
There are different types of polarity and I'm going to use probably heteronormative language. So if you want to crucify me go for it, but let's just say you have a slider that goes out this way and right in the middle you have not as related to Anatomy, but rather characteristics what let's arbitrarily call like pure androgyny in the center. Okay, and then you have the feminine characteristics and let's just assume for the sake of
argument that each person is going to decide for them what that means but feminine characteristics this direction masculine characteristics this direction so you have sort of and then what I have observed for myself and also a lot of my friends is that it's sometimes very helpful to find someone who is equally far away from that middle point in the opposite direction, right? So if you have someone who is maybe hyper excessively
Developed in terms of masculine traits. However, you want to look at that very often. They're going to pair. Well from what I've seen with someone who is as far in the opposite direction and likewise like this, right and there are there books that just got that discuss this. I read the way of the superior man a hundred years ago by David data which talks a lot about this and I don't agree with everything in that book, but I do think polarity maintaining polarity enhancing polarity, which can be done through any number of
Different practices or reframes I think is very important for maintaining a relationship where there is intense attraction and healthy a healthy sex life. For instance. Right? I think that's very important. So that's 1/2 would be in this relates to what you said having structure for cultivating the relationship that could come in the form of therapy.
Could come in the form of having it say a date night once a week having a couple's day once a quarter which I do with my girlfriend where we spend a day talking great candidly about the things we like the things were afraid of sort of fears desires boundaries negotiating new things testing new things etcetera and we spent an entire day doing that. It's blocked out and it's known in advance. That's gonna be once a quarter. We have different types of
say systems if you want to call it that for
Cultivating the garden before it's in trouble is that Matt doesn't make sense. I think that that for a long time all was well until there was a code red and things would devolve people wouldn't say things. They needed to say was that meant might build and then something would explode and yes, then everyone is firefighting trying to figure it out and by that point emotions have run so high elbows are coming out and it and it doesn't mean both sides, but very often elbows would come out.
From someone and it would just Duvall very quickly. So
how do you handle when you when you have these because everyone has disagreements and they have these little things that may rub them the wrong way when you're in a relationship and there's this balance between you know, taking everything personally and just you know constantly responding back to your partner being like I didn't like this. I didn't like that it didn't like this and then it becomes this like little nitpicky. Yeah type of relationship versus
Has you know some of it you may want to just bundle up and discuss at a later point in time. Like how do you know when something reaches a certain threshold to where you bring it up with your significant
other? Yeah, I have an and I don't mention my girlfriend's name because the internet's fucking crazy. So I like to try to protect her you guys are both public figures. So it's
Part of the game in a sense for you guys, but in any sense or in any case I should say that's why I'm referring to my girlfriend is my girlfriend, but she and I generally will batch and I think that's in large part because I'm very sensitive. I'm sensitive guy in a lot of ways and I don't use sensitive. I used to view that word in a very negative light very negative connotation because you think oh he's so sensitive meaning
He or she takes everything personally, but I had one of my closest friends who you've met actually before asked me maybe two years ago. I said, when did you know that you were really sensitive and the question really confused me? And I'm going to get back to the relationship and timing question. What I realized is my instrumentation in certain ways is just very very sensitive. It's almost like a scale. It just has more decimal points for certain things and I find a lot of stimulation overwhelming.
And for that reason so at a young age I learned how to turn that off or numb that sensitivity, but I don't want to do that in a relationship out. So I'm over time the last 10 years also learned that turning off or compartmentalizing emotionally is short term effective long-term very destructive coming back to the timing question. So I'm still very sensitive to having.
Things I might perceive as criticism or suggestions that require me to make decisions coming at me at like 3:00 p.m. On a weekday. If I'm in the middle of some type of phone call or project writing whatever might be and there are there are some timing solutions to that. They're also structural Solutions, right? So my girlfriend tends to work at home and I work downtown. I have a separate place that I use for work that in and of itself solves a lot of problems and right and it's in it's in you don't have to
Figure it all out being within 20 feet of each other at all times like that is a perfectly valid answer right? So that's one number two is that we will block out time so will block out two hours or three hours in a given night. I'm making this up but let's just say once every two weeks. We will do batching and the format of that is not what we tested in the beginning which was like, let's voice all of our complaints, but when we started with that in other words this like,
Litany of charges against each other in the beginning it Poison the Well and turn into a very unpleasant experience for both of us that we didn't look forward to right we kind of dreaded doing it and my girlfriend suggested in much better format because I'm like them good news takes care of itself. Let's just like tell me the bad news. That's turns out. Yeah, that's also pretty
active in a lot of cases. So we start with what we think the other person is doing really well since the last batching session.
And what they're paying attention to and what we'd like then we will.
Talk about what we think we are doing well personally as a partner and then what we would like more of and the phrasings really important right? It's not what you're fucking up. It's what I would love more of some sort of positive reinforcement if we're thinking about it like dog training right trying to shape a behavior instead of whacking the dog with a newspaper. You're giving a little Scooby Snack to push them in the right direction when they get something approximately right? And that's the format. So we do that and what's
Important to us at least maybe important to me important to both of us as we take notes. So if there are commitments that are made or important points that are brought up we have something that we can then refer to before the next back jam session and we can see your homework wasn't done. Yeah, and
if some that sounds really powerful just to have that. I mean that I like the way that you structure that because I could see very quickly how that could just be a negative kind of bitch Fest if you don't have that structure around it. Yeah.
Yeah, and I'm extremely lucky that my
My girlfriend's a very clean fighter. That's something I've also learned is extremely important because the good times are the good times. But yes, I've heard someone I don't remember who said this but the quote is not that adversity builds character, but adversity reveals character and you really want to know that your partner can navigate rough emotional Waters when things are difficult.
Not immediately pull out a gun and shoot you in the face, you know.
Yeah. I mean, I'm very fortunate there to that's something that Daria has taught me a lot. Is that it just were you coming from in this discussion? Like we're if it's if it's a from a place of I want us to be stronger and better together and we are on the same team trying to solve the same problem. Yeah, then it's a it's very constructive versus it being about tearing down
someone. Yeah. There's a there's a framework that the
the conscious leadership group uses Jim Detmer Diana Chapman and so on that I like quite a lot. I was introduced to their book which I think is a 15 commitments of conscious leadership by Dustin moskovitz long time ago a couple years ago and they have this concept of being above the line or below the line and I'll let people look it up if they're interested, but it's a very easy way to check in with yourself or with someone else to see
How they are engaging in a conversation or how you're engaging in a conversation and if it's likely to go sideways or if it's more likely to be constructive. And so the phrasing they use is from above the line or below the line and I
I found all of these helpful and I think in part what I'm trying to say is that what's important is not that you use exactly someone else's system or someone else's habits, but that you think about developing and using systems or structure of some type Mmm
Yeah. I mean so many people out there and I was one of these people as well just believe that if you find the right person everything will be fine. You know, I was always like looking for that. Perfect.
Person and it just it just doesn't exist, you know, like we're unique creatures and so, you know the second you can realize that and then you realize well, I do need a framework for this. You're just going to be in such a better
place. What's what resources or practices have you found?
Helpful in your relationship aside from the therapy and when you were doing the therapy when you found it most impactful. How often were you doing at? How long were the sessions? Was there a particular type of therapy? What did that
look like? Yeah, basically on the therapy side, it was about an hour long session and we would go once a week and we did that for a couple months and really that was her position is like I'm not a mediator here. I'm here to give you and teach you tools so that you can go off and do this.
On your own, you know, this isn't about you know, the chiropractor method where you just have to keep them back for one more session your back will be fixed, you know, so she was she was actually Daria isn't that right now? I'm Tom like keep telling her to stop going to the chiropractor.
Yeah, it got to make sure they're not, you know, just in one week and then putting it back out was the next week and then just writing repeating
exactly but you know, once we had those skills that I and I think a lot of it came down to the
which we use with each other and then also just stopping before the conversation even begins and realizing in both acknowledging that the conversation we're going to have is so that we can figure out the best path forward because we both deeply love each other and we want to find a solution to this and so that kind of just like just starting up from that if you can both get in that mindset, it just really diffuses things right off the right off the bat and that's that's like 90% of it.
language
I am embarrassed how long it is taking me as someone who is supposedly writer to pay close attention to the language. I use with my partner and I've always been semi aware of language that I'm using but I've very often become impatient and wanted to cut to the Chase and conversations where that is kind of like lighting your hair on fire and then looking for the fire extinguisher. It's backfires.
More than it helps and nonviolent communication has been a door that opened a lot to me in the sense that there's a framework for nonviolent communication. People can look this up. The audio book of the same name was recommend to be by Neil Strauss initially and what it made clear to me. Is that if you phrase things
Such that you are taking full responsibility for your experience and your emotions. It really disarms people and helps to avoid a lot of head-butting and defensiveness. For example, one of the phrases that my girlfriend uses a lot there to things she does that I think are very remarkable. At least that's that's that's how I felt and how I still feel number one is she will very often preface any type of criticism.
with the story or something is bothering her so she'll say the story that I'm creating in my own head is that you dot dot dot right you did X because you wanted me to feel Y and therefore it hurt my feelings, but it's fundamentally different from saying you did X to make me feel white, right my response to to the first is very soft, and I'm engaged and I listened versus the
The second thing she does which I think is very mature and that I've copied is there are times when I'll ask her a question. Maybe we've had an argument or what or maybe simply it's been a difficult day. I might ask her what's wrong. What's on your mind and she'll say hmm. I have a lot of my mind, but I'm going to spend some time processing it. I'm feeling a little tired or a little upset and I feel like if we talk right now I'm just going to make a mess of things.
So let's talk later. So she will veto my attempt to engage if she feels like she is emotionally in a place where the content or tone of the conversation might take a sideways and then next morning should be a great. Can we switch? Can we can we put some time on the calendar to talk? Maybe we can go out to dinner and get in the counter then she's in a better place after a good night's sleep some exercise then we talked and I have
as someone who has often been in a rush to rip off the Band-Aid with everything.
I found that very wise and really really effective. So I've applied that not just in my interactions with her, but with other people also, right they call me for a big conversation about something insensitive and I'm exhausted. Maybe I drank too much coffee and a little Twitchy. Then I will use effectively the exact same phrasing to
reschedule. Yeah, that's brilliant. I've never thought of that and it's like it's makes complete sense. I mean just hitting pause.
For a moment to recalibrate I think sleep plays a big role in a lot of this stuff. Like I will feel completely different about a subject the next morning when if I woke up and had a good night's sleep, you
know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's on my son my list of things that yeah certainly at, you know, I have all these lists and friendly, but how have you been thinking about either 2020 or the last decade because I've been spending a lot of time thinking about
This I'm not done thinking about it. But what is anything that comes to mind in terms of looking forward to 2020 or looking back from 2010 to 2020 for you?
Yeah, I mean, I think when I look back I try to think about a couple things what were some of the big aha moments that I had that when I look at them like gosh wish I would have done that sooner but you know, there's not much you can do because they happen when they happen and that's fine.
And then you know what's worked well, and what do I want to continue forward with and the continue to bring forward into you know this new decade and then also what are some of the things that I totally missed the boat on that I need to go and especially now give my age now that I'm you know, well into my well not well into my 40s, but I'll be 43 this year. What do I want to address to set me up for the long term? And so that's that's how I've kind of been putting these things into
buckets. What what do you have in any of those?
Categories I'm particularly interested in the last one, but I'm interested in all of them. Any any any examples you can
give. Yeah. I mean, I think that I wrote down a handful of things when I was when I was kind of doing my prep for the new year looking back on the last decade. The one thing that I didn't do soon enough it was admit to really to myself and to others that you know, I didn't know certain things and I think the the quicker you are too
come forward with the fact that there is a hole in your knowledge the quicker that whole be filled and I think that you know often times I tried to cover that up because you know, you get in certain situations, you know, when I was working at let's say as a partner over at Google Ventures or you know, you're working with people that that seemed to be a little bit more well-rounded than you and certain areas and there's this kind of like fear of oh, maybe they'll find out that I really don't know as much as they think I do or you know you have
Have these little holes and it can be in all different aspects of life. And I've just I've kind of like given up on that in the last couple years and just been like screw it like if I don't know something I'm going to come out and just say so and just try and pick it up from from mentors. This was turning people rather than treating them as like someone that's going to judge me is to someone that I can learn from and that has been just something that in, you know, probably the last few years. I've gotten a lot better at but earlier in the decade. I just really avoided and hid from people so
That was you always been really good at that though. You're the master of learning new things and admitting when you don't know something all
thanks for saying that I that is I mean, I've got plenty of plenty of weaknesses, but I do think that
I am for whatever reason very good at very quickly saying I have no idea what that is or who that is. Yeah, and I think the podcast has helped quite frankly because people bring stuff up and I'm like if I pretend not along like I know what's going on. This could really could get really ugly. So they're like, do you see this movie? I'm not gonna be like, oh, yeah great movie and then I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get called on this. So I've become faster. It's saying I have no idea who that person
is, or do you think your holes are
Right now like if in your kind of like I mean because I know you have dabbled in so many different things and that we share that common interest like, where do you think like gosh, I really wish I was a little deeper in this given area.
Well, it's an area that I've spent a lot of time.
Studying and focusing on in the last six to nine months which is saying no and creating rules and policies that allow you to say no.
Easily or more and or more quickly, right? So I think I've
over you been practicing that for a while though because you can say no to investing for a very long time. Yeah. I haven't been able to get you invested in a deal in like 10
years. Yeah. It's and that is in the result of that or I should say. The reason that is something I've been able to do is that I set a policy and made a public announcement and I want to say 2015 that I was stopping startup investing and so you can analyze.
Very easily actually why it's easy for me to do that versus say no to some other things and it commitment that I've wanted to make for 2020 and Beyond this was informed by a Seth Godin blog post. Actually that I put my newsletter and 500 Friday about not trying harder but creating better systems and rules instead. There are number of anecdotes in that that really drive the point home. It's very short piece.
People can find it's one of the most popular on his entire block of his 10 million posts that he has so I've been looking for and I know you're a fan of the book essentialism and Greg McEwen. Yeah, it was on the podcast not that long ago. The filter that he uses that I'm trying to also use more is where can I make one decision that removes a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand decisions. So the startup retirement is a great example, it's public.
It's something I can point to its countable or I can be held accountable. It's not personal right? It's been depersonalized and that has removed so much stress in my life. It is it is hard to overstate.
How what do you think but where did that come from? Because when I think about the things that I've seen you say yes to in the past they have been these epic things like Adventures travel like new different types of you know things from doing sauna and I
Are you name it? Like you've done so many crazy body hacks. It's like that was all because you said yes to everything like so where are you saying? No to now. Yeah, it's
well, I should say that the what's important to note. There is I thought you were going to mention startups but it applies in the same way is that the the there's a survivorship bias in the sense that what I say yes to is visible or my friends at least might be aware of it, but behind the scenes I'm
Saying no to almost everything and I'll give you an example of something that I've been thinking about. So first, I have an announcement already on the blog and so on which says I do not do black bird book blurbs book blurb a little book blurbs and that was a decision I made because I didn't want to have to pick and choose among friends which could create all sorts of Bad Blood and drama that I didn't want my life.
Therefore I decided on a blanket nobler policy. Nonetheless. I still get sent dozens of books every week by Publishers who have put me on their spam mail lists. I have dozens of unsolicited books that get sent to me and I have
many food I get the same thing and I don't know how to turn it off. Yeah. It's like spam
it is so I'm going to maybe do some some public shaming with these Publishers. So Publishers you're listening. Please take me off your mailing list. I have not asked.
Ever to be on a single one, but I won't hurt the author. So don't worry about that. I'm not going to shame the authors because I
don't think mr. It's sitting you random books. Like I'm Felicity now to the fucker such a
fuck but the what I realized is I'm the the nobler policy isn't enough. It's not Upstream enough to try to address the problem because I'll still get tons of books. And if you do the math, right you read The Tail End by Tim Urban you realize I might only be able to read
I don't know a few hundred books before I bite the dust. Let's just call it if we're looking at good books to take a long time to digest some of the classics. Let's say you do not have the luxury of reading books that you are not in full Stoke about and part of finding books that are more likely to invoke full Stoke is looking at books that have stood the test of sometime doesn't need to be a hundred years, but it could
Maybe five years ten years something like that. So one of the commitments that I'm making and this is this is the first time I'm talking about it for 2020 as I'm not going to read any new books and new books means no books published in 2020 not going to read any books published in 2020 and that will immediately I'm going to write a post about that. It will be public and I'll spend hey that's the policy. So for whatever reason once making that announcement, I will be ridiculed and called a hypocrite and given unending shit.
From my loving audience because that's what they should do. If I betray that right, so I have to be very very thoughtful about making that type of decision but that removes so much of like the fomo the Neo Mania the keeping up with mentality that I think that could really really really returned a lot of dividends. So that's one
what like is things that what I want to call out and I'm curious too, you know, we can thing aires I like talking about this.
Like we know each other pretty well and I like to like poke in a little bit further away. The one thing I realized with you is you and correct me if I'm wrong or what what how you feel about this a curious to see how God is love God is a lot of a lot of fun. It's not bad. But when I think about you you have when I first met you you were relatively
Known in that you didn't have a big following. That's right. You had your book coming out and you know people were excited about that. But you know, nothing compared to what you have today.
No, my mom and my mom's a few friends read my blog that was about it,
right? So I'm curious like when I hear you say things about like, you know, Publishers are sending me too many books like and I want to make sure not to do blurbs and things like that. It feels to me like you've been bombarded with like to
Watch to where you feel overwhelmed. It's like everybody wants something from Tim. Like the number of times that people that have like pinged me and be like dude, you know, Tim. Can you send him this damn ball of the law? It was just be anxiety-provoking into some sense and that you're being pulled in so many different directions. It's like in a way. I mean, you're not like celebrity like, you know, you walk down the street and I'm sure people do recognize you but not to the sense that not like a massive movie star Brad Pitt or something like that, right? But does that is that true?
Does that starting to like does that bother you that get under your skin a little bit? It feels like it's a lot for you to handle it. It's a lot
I
As someone who is also taking the armor off of a lot of these sensitivities because I want to cultivate them instead of pushing them underwater. It's a challenge to do that while simultaneously being bombarded with so much stuff for sure. I mean, I was I was pulling at my phone just to look at unread email 618,000 952. Holy crap, right then I have
275 to do you think that you
87 on read text messages, right? So I'm 99 notifications on a sauna it goes on and on but the point being I don't expect much sympathy because these are taxes that I pay for also a wide range of
different types of access and so on that I do have from
the side private jets.
No private jet was no private. Just I'd like to use yours when it's idle. I'll take your project. I'm happy to cover the beverage cost the but it is it is challenging from an energetic management perspective. Right? So I find as I get older and looking back at the last decade and looking forward to 2020.
At time management is important but time management doesn't matter unless you have attention management, right because you can stare at a screen and have blocked out two hours. And if your mind is wandering all over the place, you're going to hit with push notifications. You can't focus it is rendered useless. Let's say see if time management attention management and then if you even have I'm sorry, you have time attention and then even if you have a tension and these are related, but if you are lethargic even slept well or you have been depleted.
Ed from making too many decisions you're going to make poor decisions or the likelihood of making bad decisions is really high and
I've well, there's also prioritization of things at that point right? I need to know how to prioritize certain things. Otherwise you could spend time on the wrong things and attention on the wrong things,
right? So, I mean, it could be a zen zen. Well what could be Zen but it could be a Venn diagram with say five or six interlocking circles and you're ready for that sweet spot and
Big part of that is energy management, the only or one of the best tools I have found for that is looking at your inbound and your projects in terms of categories looking at as I did just recently my last year looking at energetic Peaks and energetic troughs like what rob me of energy the types of things not single things single things can be helpful with the types of things where they speaking engagements. Were they long conversations with lawyers.
Where were they you name it spending too much time in
cities taxes taxes, right? Okay, one hit 100K
ones love the love those K
ones herding cattle of this K1.
Yeah, and all of that. What are the categories of things that have depleted your energy and what are the categories of things that have given you energy?
And so what were those for you? I'm curious especially on the giving energy side
giving energy side extended time in nature for sure
is
You like the forest bathing stuff. And
yeah, I just spent two weeks in Utah and spent almost the entire time with at least an hour to in the mountains everyday and it was incredible. I mean incredibly recharging I was getting a lot of activity every day because that is certainly interrelated with Sleep Quality sleep onset and so on lots of activity exposure to Sun and so on mayday,
Huge difference and I came back to I love Austin but it's funny how these the shifts can be so relative if I go to New York City and then I come back to Austin I get off the plane let out a huge sigh of relief. Oh my God. Thank God my blood pressure drops 20 points and it's extremely relaxing but going from these secluded mountains of Utah to downtown Austin around rush hour. I found completely overwhelming so I've been very very tired for the last few days.
It's like
you're gonna be in a cave. I'm looking Utah might be a case. That might
be in a cave. Yeah, so that's one that I find very energizing number two would be creative work before problem solving or managing anything or anyone so having time blocked out in the morning to do some type of creative work doesn't have to be writing along blog post or a chapter. It doesn't have to be a painting it could just be
taking a photograph on a hike to share on Instagram, right but something that is
Productive in the most literal sense like it's producing something that in some fashion uses a creative muscle. I find that sets an emotional tone for hours afterwards or the entire day afterwards. It's really more important that I would have expected to have that there are lots of other things but what about yourself?
Yeah, I mean for me well and you may just mean in terms.
things that energize me yeah, we're thinking
about
20/20 things you want to do more of versus or things you want to do less of
yeah. I've picked some very specific things. One of them is no BPA or plastic this year. So I'm not I will not drink a beverage out of any type of 10 can they're all lined with BPA on the inside so and no plastic containers. So I'm using all glass for anything that I drink out of and so that's been a big thing for me. I just kind of want to get away from Plastics in general.
Aside from that core strength. I throw my back out is old and lame as it sounds a couple times over the last six months probably carrying kids too much but I so I've been getting more into I've been doing PT some physical therapy around that also getting back into plot. He's and then Peter Tia who had on the show multiple times. He recommends a system called Dynamic neuromuscular stabilization DNS and ask and so have you heard about this at
all. I you know, I have read of it. That's it.
It's a tough acronym to choose for the internet. But
yes, yeah, that's right. So that's something that Peter has been into over the last, you know, probably year plus and I'm starting to get into as well. So really excited about kind of building that Foundation, you know, Peter has this thing where he talks about the centenarian Olympics like what do you want to be able to do when you're a hundred like you want to be able to get out of a pool without like climbing steps and like so I really I think now is the time in our life where we could set ourselves up for that that future so
Really want to start taking that seriously. The next thing is a big one for me. And that is really tracking both. Well mostly my drinking over time. So I want to be very mindful about how much alcohol I'm consuming. And so one of the things I did is I worked with the folks over it zero the intermittent fasting app that that I started a couple years ago. There's a whole team around that now and they built an app called less LDS s and so that just
Just on January 1st and it helps you. It's completely free. There's no ads or anything like that. But it just allows you to track all of your alcohol consumption and you can set maximum amounts of drinks per week. You could see your week over week month-over-month progress and it's just a great kind of like beautiful little calendar to track and eventually compared with friends so we could build a have, you know, like a friend group and see who's drinking what but it's there's something there's some accountability there that could be pretty interesting so
Turn it off by me and a buddy my buddy. Mike maze are just tracking all this stuff in a spreadsheet and we just had it in a Google sheet, but it was a pain in the ass to kind of put in new new figures Everyday by opening up a spreadsheet. So now we have it in a little app form. So that's a big piece of it. Also. I've been getting into home automation a lot for my house. So I really have finally think that home automation is is here and not in the way. I thought it was going to be but I've been starting to mess around with a lot of that stuff just to set up routines for my house to consume less energy and
and really just coordinate different things around the house get get bring more music into my life. And so part of that is just making it super simple to kind of like play and automate throughout the house.
Yeah. I was thinking about this call and this conversation and took all sorts of notes and when I look over and I mean a lot of this all comes back to
two
Energy awareness and energy management and looking for at least in my case some of the energy drains that you're simply or I'm simply unaware of or have been unaware of for a long time. Right and I had Jerry Colonna. You may know the name the coach with the spider tattoo. I believe was the name of the podcast but he's does exact coach work with all sorts of CEOs and so on and
Here a series of questions that really struck me that I've Revisited a lot since my conversation with him and I did over New Year's and I'm still looking very closely and I'll paraphrase these aren't going to be perfect wordings. But roughly the questions are how am I complicit in creating the conditions? I say I don't want.
Right. So how yeah, how am I actually
very perhaps subconsciously but nonetheless very actively creating the conditions that I bitch and moan about right that's one the other is or there are three others, you know, what needs to be said that isn't being said another way to phrase that would be what am I not saying that needs to be said that's actually a huge one for me and I'll come back to that what's being said that I'm not hearing I think that's very helpful for me at least in the context of a relationship and what am I saying?
It's not being heard. I don't I don't feel too focused on that one. But what needs to be said that isn't being said, I think that from a very young age for whatever reason or number of reasons. I have protected a lot of people who have inflicted harm on me and that the goal is not to make 2020 the year of Vengeance, but rather to recognize at least
For myself, I've had I've had a number and by a number, I mean probably six to eight very uncomfortable conversations in the last.
To
we are these relatives or friends or what would he talk
about support across the board? So these could be people I've worked with for a long time could be family could be close friends and by uncomfortable. I don't mean confrontational necessarily. So some of these are talking to people about episodes or issues or
Old Wounds that were never fully cleared does that make sense and trying to do so in a way based on all the wonderful schooling I've had from my girlfriend and I mean that very sincerely in communication doing it in a way where everyone comes away from the conversation ideally feeling better, but doing it first and foremost to say what you feel you need to say and recognizing that you cannot
Control the response to the other person so not going in with any hope or expectation of how someone will respond but simply to clear the air.
Do you think that's because you're feeling the burden of that hundred percent like a hundred grab these things that are unsettled basically and you're like, I need to like just like have this release it. Basically I'm you release that by having a conversation with that.
Some of these things are months old. Some are years old some are decades old and it could also be on the flipside things that are very positive but for instance reaching out to mentors, so I never properly thanked, you know people who really helped me in this kind of saved me in a way.
During high school years reaching out and if I get voicemail leaving a really heartfelt, thank you for all the help that they gave me that at the time. I was just too.
Young I don't want to blame it on youth though. Self-absorbed may be caught up in my own shit to realize just how valuable they were and how much thought they put in to helping me that type of thing and it's been so freeing I have to say so those questions are questions that I want to pay in addition to other questions a lot more attention to in 2020 because there's been such a process for me of unburdening.
And I don't know if you've had this experience but let's just say you have a backpack and it's full of shit that you've been carrying around for months, right? There's just stuff that sits in there could be like, oh, yeah the ball I think I'm going to roll my feet out on and the extra battery and the this and the book and the notepad and this and that and then one day you're like II, okay. Well, I'll take a new backpack and just stick in like what you need like a laptop you walk around here like, oh my God now my back doesn't hurt and you just didn't realize because the
New Normal was carrying around all that bullshit that suddenly became your new basis, right it became your became your new reference points. So for me having these conversations started off as an experiment and I say that's the big takeaway or one of the big takeaways from the last ten years for me is the value of viewing things like this as short-term experiments, but
I didn't expect these conversations to have the huge exhale in relief of tension and the Persistence of that feeling that ended up being the case. It's been it's been really remarkable. I've been very impressed and relieved with that.
So that's awesome man. Did you ever do any of this? Well, I'll give an example A friend of mine sent me a really nice note a couple.
To go that was a handwritten note that he spent the time to thank me for something and I just read it. I was like, wow that was like a really thoughtful thing to do, you know, and also I know there's also power and even writing notes to people that are no longer here, you know, someone's passed away and you have something you want to say doing that as well. Have you done any of that or is this been mostly just like in person coffees and phone calls and things like that mostly voice
and in part because I've had
I think fear and hesitation or around using voice. So I've wanted to face that
tuhoe interested to
hopefully prove to myself
that why was Their Fear around using voice? I would think there would be fewer around writing something down that I would post on the internet if you sent it to me. Well,
there's that too which is which is why I sent you fewer love letters than I used to but the writing I find
Is a viable option it allows a certain degree of predictability. You can hone your message and it can be asynchronous. Right? You don't have to respond in real-time. Right? And I think that with saying what needs to be said in many of these cases, I wanted to see and feel the responses from these people whether I was thanking them and expressing gratitude or
Perhaps making clear that something that was done or something that wasn't done for me was not okay and that it's had repercussions in that it's something I've suffered through and that I'm not looking for any resolution. I'm not looking for a response, but it's weighed very heavily on me that I have kept this to myself and felt like it was a secret that I alone needed to carry so it's really and
I make that really explicitly clear to and a lot of these conversations that I'm saying it just because I want to feel free after having said it there's no expectation of a solution a resolution behavioral change none of that and that I'm just looking for an opportunity to voice something. So I've done almost all of it via voice.
That's great. It sounds like a such a freeing thing. Like if you didn't how many of those did you have to do? You still have more to go through or is
it up?
There are it's sounds like Arya Starks list exactly. It's not a long list. It's really
In certain moments, whether it's like taking a bath or going for a long hike I will have these moments of clarity where I'm like, oh, yeah that thing there was never any resolution, right? It doesn't have to be a big ass doesn't have to be a big deal. It's also not like, you know, I'm hunting down the guy five years ago cut me in line at Starbucks to confession. I'm not doing that. I'm looking for the
The the anchors that I at some point never never was able to reel in if that makes sense, right? It's like there was something that was never completed. There was a sense of no resolution and by resolution just to make it super clear. I don't mean solution. I mean closing a loop right and hurt like from an emotional standpoint.
So yeah, I think we can all think of one or two of those that we all have like I have one top of my mind where I'm like hi. I should go back and close that Loop, you
know, it's like, you know did did you do something to also apologies? I've also issued a shoot apologies and given apologies to folks so it could be apologizing for something you did that at the time you felt you were in the right and doing and looking back you're like that was stupid even even perhaps you were in the right but the tone and the delivery you used was really
aggressive or unnecessarily heavy hand. It's like okay, then that's that's a closed loop or a loop that you that you could benefit from closing. Right and it's been a it's been an exercise for me and very valuable exercise not saying it applies to everyone but for me, Jerry's questions have been really important because they for me they tie together and let me
Plant, so let's take what am I not saying that needs to be said or that should be said and then you have number one on my list. You know, how am I complicit in creating the conditions? I say I don't want well. Yeah, if by not speaking truth in some fashion, I have developed resentment towards someone right whose fault is that one could argue that it's my fault because I
I kept that inside in which case I'm complicit in creating this sort of emotional terrain that breeds resentment. Like I am complicit in creating this condition. So
in often times sometimes those are in your own head like you've made up this story of why the total sum is this way and then you have the conversation like, oh, I'm actually the asshole I just understood where they were coming from. Yeah,
absolutely and I will say also that in almost every instance, whatever.
Expected in these conversations to happen, whatever I thought the most likely response was was not the response and that has been fascinating right? I'm like, well that person is this type of person when I say x they are likely to respond with a b or c and
When you use very thoughtful.
Delicate language like the story I've created in my own head is suddenly people you think, you know really well can surprise you and that has opened up a whole new level of depth in many relationships in my life having these conversations. That's been the Icebreaker that's been months or years overdue. It's been it's been really really quite profound.
I'm gonna name a couple of other things real quick that realizations. I had when looking back over the next 10 years and the next 10 years. Well time traveling back to the future at the last 10 years because I have four books right for our body for our Chef tools the Titans tribe mentors, then got the TV and get all these different projects a couple of things. We're getting out of the maybe hyper-emotional stuff happy to go back but for our Chef since that was an experiment in distribution where Amazon publishing was boycotted by everyone Barnes & Noble Indies.
Big box retailers and this was reiterated for me with some of my television experiences is you need to really understand or ideally control distribution. And the only way that you're going to do that very often is by financing and owning. Whatever you produce. Yeah fold is going to say that. That's it. Like if you are not paying for it you are not going to
Have if you are a person tickety perfectionist like me the degree of control that you will want particularly when it comes to choosing distribution because I've had these these projects that have ended up being things. I'm extremely proud of but they're locked in a vault somewhere from from a distribution standpoint that's been very very painful. So I've had to learn that lesson over the last 10 years multiple times and also this seems so childish Arts.
Embarrassing to admit but you're going to laugh get everything in writing if if someone's tells you via email or this or that yes, we're planning on this type of ABCD and E. It needs to be in the contract. And yeah, and one thing that I really liked as a frame for agreements, which only came up recently with Gary Keller who's a huge real estate magnate innovated a lot in that space based here in Austin.
He said you should you should view every agreement as a disagreement because it's most important function is to tell you what happened. What happens and what the options are if there is a disagreement. Right? Right. So that's been something I've learned repeatedly and then the other question that I still pay a lot of attention to that led me from 4-Hour Chef two years later because I took a long break for me at least from books to tools of Titans was what might this look like.
if it were easy that's become a really important go to question for me because I think that I pride myself on being able to handle complexity and sometimes that results in me coming up with some what ridiculously unnecessarily complex solutions to things where the easiest solution like rather than spending the next year figuring out the perfect wordsmithing so that I can manually reply to everybody who asks me about
Out books and doing this and promoting on the newsletter and doing the podcast Tada. Maybe I'll just do a blog post. It's two hundred words long that says I'm not reading any new books published in 2020 and 2024 like that is how I got to that was by asking this question. So those are a few things that have come up for me.
I'm curious what one question I had about your kind of this new decade going forward. You know, what and looking at your career Arc like over time and knowing you
The for our body and seeing the focus and emphasis on biohacking and wellness and health nutrition and cooking and the moving a little bit more into you know mentors and and interviewing other folks and then your experience with psychedelics and it seems like the last like, you know, three to five years has been really focused on emotional well-being and Improvement. They're going where do you when do you eventually or are you still involved in the kind of biohacking stuff? And do you see that like what?
What's what's the next decade look like for Tim, you know before you know, you read your books and it's about like optimizing testosterone and like, you know certain things in there that like, you know masturbating with your off hand or whatever was there that you get like the you don't talk about these little hacks to get like testosterone boost. Yeah. That was
actually your e-book on masturbating on the offense. That was a great
experiment little side hustle you guys stuff like that in there, but I mean, I got the wording wrong, but you don't have talking about I know.
I'm just curious like what what you know, what are the next 10 years look like for you on that front. Is that something where you kind of said screw it? I take like vitamin C now or like what are you? What are you doing
there? Yeah on the body hacking front. I've I've
dramatically simplified for the host of reasons number one is the 4-Hour Body at its time I think was
It was just given the reception and the success of the book. It was a it was a bit of a category killer, right? It was a very different book but there are many people who picked up that torch and ran with it who do all sorts of crazy experiments things that I would not necessarily do. So, I feel like there is a there's a wealth of
self experiment self experimentation and and many different folks who are continuing to biohack I have
Continued to do experiments.
What is your regimen look like today? I'm just curious. Like what do you wake up and take his on the stuff on the supplements. I
took very very few supplements. I take right now. The basics are magnesium
getting old man. All Eep.
Yeah, like well Mac teen specifically so magnesium L 3 and 8, which is recommended by our friend earlier Peter Tia and
Otherwise, I've really tried to minimize supplements and that's not because I think they are bad. I think it's like saying drugs. There are is a very wide spectrum of drugs and generally speaking the greater the effect the greater the side effects and if you don't know what the side effects are and it has very high amplitude effect. Then you're just the sucker at the poker table. It doesn't realize he's the sucker because there are very rarely free lunches in.
Chemical enhancement usually dude.
Yeah, I'm a I'm Blown Away by that because there's someone that's been in your house and Senior medicine closet or cabinet back in the day. Yeah, you had I had a farm hundreds of by diffusion Farms Farms like you could you could have sold out of there. I would put something like you. Have you had everything from he's Bodega. That's
right. Yeah. So I and I and there's still a time and a place for that. Right? So if I were optimizing for particular type of competition and really
Really focusing on say endurance development at altitude or something like that. Then I would have a particular regiment. I do supplement with protein at this point. I mean their sponsors the podcast but I bet everything I touch I've turned down millions of dollars worth of sponsorships from supplement companies, but Ascent protein made the cut. So I use a cent protein. I used athletic greens just for covering my bases, especially if I'm traveling to help mitigate sickness.
When for instance, I did a Grand Canyon trip actually more recently. I did a 250 or two hundred eighty mile bike track mountain bike track on the hey Duke trail from because we started and I want to say Grand Junction might be getting that roughly off ending in Moab. I took two days off to ride in the service truck because I was so destroyed but the point being where we were staying at the front end and the back end.
This is basic airport hotel food. Right and I will use supplementation more as its intended to supplement when my whole food options are suboptimal. Right but I do think supplements can become a crutch for people who are not paying sufficient attention to their whole food to their sleep two other parameters, right? It becomes a Band-Aid to cover other bad decisions. So
But from a from biohacking standpoint of still extremely interested what I'm but I've shifted my focus a bit. So if you look at say for our body, right we're talking about
hormones right to stas Turon and so on growth hormone and there are chapters on doing all sorts of wacky things with different hormones and vertical leap maximal speed relative relative strength improvement with deadlift all his craziness right then you have for our shaft which was very much cognitively focused and got into different smart drugs and using vasopressin to enhance short-term memory and all this all this crazy shit.
Then if you look at the last let's just call it five to six years for me. The fact of the matter is I'm still very interested in biohacking but it starts to get into some very very fascinating alien. Terrain that Western medicine and really no no single medical system or scientific system explains very well.
Well, and that is use of compounds as one example classical psychedelics, like mescaline psilocybin and so on but not limited to those you could also include in that group MDMA for PTSD compounds that seem to exert an effect with with rapid onset and extremely long duration of
Fax meaning in the cessation of smoking studies that have been done. So nicotine addiction Studies have been done at Hopkins. You have people who 6-ounce a six or 12 months later eighty percent of the subjects are still non-smokers after two or three sessions with psilocybin combined with psychotherapy. But nonetheless, you're looking at three sessions Each of which lasts. Let's call it four to eight hours and the half-life of these drugs is very
Known nonetheless these these Paradigm and I do rarely use this word, but sort of paradigm-shifting mental reorganization and the sort of reformatting of the belief systems and stories these people use to govern their realities have changed so fundamentally that their behaviors remain changed even in the face of extremely addictive compounds like nicotine 6 or 12 months later.
So one could argue that I'm still very much in the bio hacking game. I'm just going from the nones, right if we look at testosterone like testosterone whether that's naturally produced or the injectables. It's dust recipient a door and any type of means of administration or HCG or whatever these things are all very well understood right aspirin. Yeah, very well understood some of the smart drugs like hydrogen very well understood.
And at least very well studied. So I'm moving from these knowns into this area of unknowns with psychedelics where we could unlike the use of testosterone at least at this point with the technology. We have access to fmri and otherwise much tighter study design now than say in the 50s. We are in a position to
two to discover fundamentally new ways of looking at the mind and Consciousness and therefore reality as we experience it and that me is the money shot right
everything else. That's America's light refocus the right because that's more of a focus on brain and mental health and rewiring that's done there versus say longevity.
Well, I mean yes and no, right. So there's there's longevity. I do think that psychedelics actually could offer plausible mechanisms of action for extending cognitive function. That's a whole separate conversation. But I have Alzheimer's and Parkinson's on both sides of my family. So my initial interest is an undergrad in Neuroscience was purely self-defense. I want to learn as much as possible.
To help my parents my family and yours truly to at the very least delay the onset
of are you three four? Yeah. Well you are. Okay. See you have the genetic marker that gets you whether you're like four or five times more likely to get Alzheimer's in the average person.
Yes, if we're looking at it from a software perspective, right? I'm coded to have a much higher predisposition to sir.
types of neurodegenerative disease and
that it's that is the hand I've been dealt. So the question is how will I play that hand and looking at say Hopkins where all of this is lead, especially as a nascent what I would consider still a very nascent field the ability to put in relatively small amounts of money, although I mean I've committed a lot for me about 3 million or 4 million dollars now to scientific research related to
Psychedelics and I should say that psychedelics are tools in the toolkit. But really what I'm looking at is novel treatments potential novel treatments of what are considered intractable psychiatric conditions, right? Anorexia highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder miserable track record, in terms of effective treatments treatment resistant depression end-of-life anxiety. Say due to terminal cancer diagnosis, Nick.
18 addiction
to opioids opioid there's opioids.
Yeah, so at Hopkins there are a number of studies that will be getting underway at the first center for dedicated Center for psychedelic and Consciousness research in the US which is going to be based. They're looking at Alzheimer's looking at opioid use disorder which means opiate addiction effectively and so my my shift has been a shift, but I would argue that
And this is going to be a fortune cookie / cliche that I'll use but it's not about how many years I can put into my life but also about how much life I can put into my years. So I think it's important and it for anyone who's seen my Ted Talk on fear setting or read my post on titled some practical thoughts on suicide. I almost off myself in college and there are many people who live a long time but our
Wrapped in these endless Loops of self-recrimination thoughts. There are trapped in the past and depression. They're trapped in the future and anxiety and I would argue that that is not living at least not as I would like to experience it that is surviving. Right that is being a physical form that is not dead. But that is not the same as thriving. So if we look at the Staggering growth of say opioid use in the u.s.
You'll early synthetic opiates if we look at the veteran suicide rates many of which are comorbid with opioid use disorder. But if you look at say the number that I've heard it may or may not be statistically defensible but something along the lines of 23 veterans per day committing suicide. If you look at the rates of depression and substance abuse among teenagers say there's there to my mind are clearly societal factors.
Flay that are the perfect soil for producing these types of coping mechanisms. And so for me, yes, the biohacking has shifted but the same tool kit that I applied to trying to optimize sex drive or testosterone or whatever. It might be. Yeah the same literature review and research that I had to do there has been much improved and refined.
Over the last five years in particular to look at psycho-emotional health and I am really really really optimistic and that's coming from someone who thought he had problems that were sort of personalized in permanent unfixable. Let's put a bullet in the head instead bad, which is something many people feel and I am now this point extremely optimistic about some of these new numbers.
Whole treatment procedures ketamine is very interesting has its own challenges both psilocybin and MDMA have been granted breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA to expedite the review process. So I'm cautiously optimistic but have seen such a difference in my own life and you've known me for a long time. And I mean, you've known me since 2007. I feel like fundamentally a different person today than I did six or seven years ago.
Yeah,
and I can definitely see it in you I can tell a difference for sure just the way that you carry yourself even when you came over to our house like a couple months ago Dario is like Tim just like he's just carries himself differently. You're just like a lot more relaxed at you know at ease at ease
and that's why I actually had trouble preparing for this conversation because looking at 2020 as like man, well, I guess people are going to expect me to have like a million resolutions, but I don't and I
handful of things but
what I've realized is that for me at least like peace is not found through understanding right peace is not found through more striving piece is not found through more achieving peace is found through greater acceptance. That's what I found for myself. And what does that mean? It doesn't mean accepting shitty things and allowing bad behavior and awful atrocities or Trends to continue. It just means
Taking time to recognize that in most circumstances you are. Okay, things are okay and allowing yourself to kind of bask in that doesn't make sense.
Yeah, it's telling me since dude I get it, you know and
I feel like you if also specially in the last I want to say two years and I don't know two or three years how much of that is kids how much of it is going through programs?
Like you did is it Michael Singer? Yeah, the young kid what the untethered soul, but
the he has one on surrender that's
phenomenal render, but I've noticed that you still get a lot done right? You're still very engaged with creative projects, but you seemed to me I was very impressed with this and I mentioned it to my girlfriend last time. We're at your place. I said, it's really nice to wake up go upstairs and see Kevin just
Sitting with his kids drinking a cup of tea or a cup of coffee completely unrushed. Yeah,
it's funny that that's on my list of things that I had to talk about today. I wrote down not everything has to be done today patience. Yeah, and I think that when you think of things having to be done today and everything has to be done today, then you're anticipating the feeling of completion and when you're anticipating that it's not you're not enjoying what's happening right now. Yeah, because you're thinking like I'll feel so much.
So much better when my to-do list is done. I'll feel so much better. I complete this project, you know, and the thing that I've realized over the last couple of years more than anything has been that I have over the last, you know, 10 years or even you know in founding dig in 2004 and staying with that for seven years. I never enjoyed it. Yeah, I never was able to because it was just like oh I gotta run. I gotta do this. I have to make this up to launch this I have to grow faster. I have to do all this today. I look back and I'm like, wow, there was no joy, I mean there was
Little winds and of course certain things brought me joy, but it was so rushed that I was never here. I what my head my brain was always focused on tomorrow. Yeah, and so, you know just having that patients and just being able to Exhale and realize that dude we're going to miss all of life. If we don't enjoy the day-to-day dance of it all you know, and that that's that's what I strive to do. I don't always do that, but that's that's been my hopefully that is something that I will focus on over the next, you know five to ten.
Years is just really taking it all in and smiling, you know, and spending and I think kids helps with them. That's why I've been pushing you to have
kids. I know you and I have been trying to try and it doesn't doesn't seem to be
working. It's not working. Damn it
the the
the focus on not rushing is one I think is very important at least for me and that for me luxury in a way more than anything else is the feeling of being unrushed right and I think that that
Is a goal of sorts as a litmus test is has many many Ripple effects that are beneficial which come out of that and there's a book I'm reading right now. I'm not done with it yet, but called Already Free which I suspect is probably quite similar to some of Michael singers
work that just came out this year,
right? I don't know the date it was recommended
to I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding silver nuts did not come out
this year. It was
recommended. What's it called?
And I'm gonna look it up
already free and okay combines Western Psychotherapy with Buddhist practice and Concepts from Buddhism, which if you told me 10 years ago what I just said, I would have vomited a little bit into my mouth and said, yeah, I've been to those bookstores to with all the crystals in the dreamcatchers and there are thousands of those books and I just don't have time to sort through what is bullshit and what might have validity but this book was recommended to me by a top tier.
her therapist who has
She would never say this, but she's saved the lives of hundreds or maybe thousands of people. She's she's incredibly Adept and she recommended this book to me.
And because she has found it compelling and I'm going to butcher it. But do you have the name of the author up in front
by? Yeah. It's a Bruce Tift. Ma lumped. Wow, you're talking about
could be if you just search for Bruce Tiff, but already free is is the title of the book and I found this book to be very actionable under a compelling and one of the apologize to the author if I'm misremembering this but one of the the
the practices are steps that he will often take with clients is
is the fall something along the lines of the following if they complain that say they're their boss never recognizes them. Therefore they have struggles with self-worth and this this this this and this and that is a complaint that they have something they'd like to fix the comes up continually in therapy.
Is he will try to get to them to the point where they are willing to accept that they could have that feeling for the rest of their lives unresolved and will guide them through thought exercises and hypothetical scenarios. So they get to the point where they are willing to accept that as a possibility. They will never get rid of that and
what often seems to happen and I've noticed this for myself is that they're then able to let out this big exhale because it's no longer mandatory that they push this boulder up a hill and fix the problem and all of a sudden their experience changes. Hmm and that at that point they become too thin they become able to think more clearly and
Respond less reactively because they've accepted that if that were to happen. They're going to survive there will still be moments of Joy. They can still build other valuable relationships and it just reframes the whole thing. So I have found
that to also and it is a close cousin to a lot of the fear setting but I think that that type of reframe can be very very powerful and for me a lot of it comes back to good questions, right which is why I collect questions why I enjoy asking questions why I enjoy borrowing questions from from other people and
I would say also looking back in the last 10 years for my entire life. I viewed self-love. I think as self-indulgent in the sense that I felt it would be narcissistic and selfish and unproductive to feel or Embrace or cultivate self love in any way and then fact the way to drive myself was to constantly pick a
Part everything I was or did in a very brutal fashion in terms of internal monologue and
I think that.
That is part of what drove me so close to the edge in college. Is that incessant abusive inner voice and I got a lot done, you know, I did a lot of things and at the end of the day who the fuck cares really right like in 200 years. We're all dust No One's Gonna remember us? It doesn't matter right? So great. I got a better grade on my junior term paper who the fuck cares right at the end of the day that voice almost drove me to extinguish.
Self. So what I've also found is that
looking back at the last 10 years like how you treat yourself affects it in some way influences how you treat other people. So if you are violent and angry towards yourself, there will be an element of violence and anger towards other people whether it comes out really obviously or it comes out in the form of like resentment and complaining and passive aggressiveness. It's going to manifest so
Spending time with Jack kornfield has had a huge impact on me. And this was a few years ago. When I first met Jack, he's a very famous meditation teacher wonderful human being walks the walk. There are a lot of posers in the mindfulness meditation World. A lot of people who really are of the do what I say, not what I do school if you look under the hood Jack,
Is so adapt and as such an incredible tool kit also as clinical psychologist for helping veterans that adolescents who are self harming and cutting he's very skilled and we had a we had a conversation at one point and he said something that stuck with me and I'm going to paraphrase it because the exact words are important but the gist is and that is if your compassion doesn't extend to yourself. It's incomplete.
And that seems so obvious right? But I do think that a lot of people who Pride themselves on being Achievers spend the vast majority of their time.
whipping themselves
and what do you think? I mean, I think everyone has that internal dialogue and some days it can be more intense than others in terms of being critical or for me. It's not so much critical of myself as it is just ruminating on certain thoughts and like over and over again. I've had a lot of that. How did you break out of that? Like what was it? Is it something that you still struggle with today? Like if someone's listening this they're like, oh my God, that describes me to the T like
I have all these I'm constantly so harsh on myself. What are the steps that someone would
take?
Well, some are easier to recommend than others. I've done a lot of really wild stuff and some very very aggressive stuff and it's not to say that all tools will work for all people, but I do think that
There are certain books that have had a large impact on me that have helped other people. And in fact now that I think about it, I believe that one of them radical acceptance by tar Brock was recommended to me by Daria which swingy prized the hell out of me because Daria is very sharp scientifically minded very skeptical and at least back in the day my experience with Daria was that anything remotely Wu or hand-wavy she was just like
Talk to the hand not interested. Right? So which you recommended this book very generic title and the subtitle. I can't remember at the moment but radical acceptance Batar Brock and I thought oh my God, like it has Daria had a frontal lobotomy. Like what happened? I don't know how this book. He hasn't would make it through her filter and it was incredibly helpful. So radical acceptance self-acceptance making peace with
parts of us aspects of ourselves emotions. We have grown to believe r- war
Unwanted Rican siling real integrating yourself in a way is is a worthy goal. And I think I've largely succeeded. I still have my moments where I beat myself up but it is less than five percent of what it was five or six years ago.
I feel like this could be a good book for you. Honestly.
Oh, it's I've already been I have a scrivener file with hundreds.
Thousands of words already put together. Oh, really? I'm it's not in book form. But I this this this is the book that I want to work on and this is the book. I talked about my episode with Greg McEwan as the thing that I feel I need to do and
For 2020 and I started this already at the end of 2019, but I'm getting back to writing regularly on the blog for that reason. It's sharpening the saw so that when I really sit down to put together prose I want it to be as good as possible. And this is definitely this is definitely
A calling I feel called to do this in part because I've seen the effects not just through using books, but certainly practices. I think that Byron Katie's the work can be very helpful. It can be also a little confusing. But Byron Katie's the work as a means of testing assumptions and stories that you tell yourself kind of stress testing them and as an exercise being forced to come up with evidence or
Apple's that counter your statement like your belief is really can be very eye-opening especially when done in a group context, then you have certainly meditation with without a doubt especially in my case one can combined with either entirely cutting out caffeine or dramatically cutting out caffeine. Mmm. I that is that is non-trivial for me.
That's that's tough to do I did that.
About a month and a half ago. I wanted to go one month without caffeine and I was winning myself up a little too aggressively. Yeah, and I started getting those horrible caffeine headaches here, but but I was able to do it and then I actually just switched to decaf coffee which has a tiny Trace amount of caffeine, but that stuff is horrible. There's no good decaf coffee out there. If somebody out there listening and knows of some please let me know somehow just tweet at me. Really
appreciate it. Yeah. It's
I tend to use my time in nature or
Time fasting which I'll often do in nature, but my if I'm spending a lot of time in nature, let's just take this last Utah trip as an example unlike a day like today where I am mostly sitting inside if I'm mostly sitting inside. I have an oral fixation and I'll just drink iced tea and coffee all day because it's sitting in front of me and I'm looking for a fidget just like I fidget with my inner pain and flick my pain around its a fidget. Whereas if I'm in Utah and I
It get two fresh powder and I'm waking up early. I'll have a cup of coffee in the morning, but then I'm on the slopes or outside for at least a few hours when I am consuming nothing but water and what I realized after a few days of that is that I feel like I've been meditating twice a day for a month but in perhaps being outside skiing and so on is a form of meditation in and of itself but suffice to say often. I've thought to myself you can either meditate once or twice a day for two weeks.
or just cut your caffeine consumption down to one cup of coffee a day and the results are very often the same if you can if you combine them all the better, but
I've never heard of anyone imitating Enlightenment via less
caffeine, you know, you might be there's always the first there's always a first I'm happy to be the first non-caffeinated monkey shot into space on the quest to enlightening Enlightenment through abstinence, but and I don't like
Making a recommendation with the following but it would be the elephant in the room. If I left it out psychedelics responsible supervised facilitated sessions with psychedelics have provided a reset / reformatting that is very difficult to achieve via other means I don't think it's impossible, but it's very challenging and
I simply have no way I've theories but no way to explain quite how
Profound and Lasting the changes can be or how they're produced. It's still very poorly understood. What we do know is that in some cases say with psilocybin the toxicity is exceptionally low, I mean is it is far less than say acetaminophen Tylenol and many other things so I do not take this stuff every afternoon. It's not a I try not to be a hammer looking for a
Nail, I do not think these drugs are panaceas. I do think there are significant risks possible risks for those who say have a family history of schizophrenia and you can make very poor decisions. You can make dangerous decisions while Under the Influence which underscores the importance of facilitated supervised sessions, but these compounds have
in integral to
providing enough slack in the system and different perspectives from which I can look at myself as an observer, right? It's
it can be very difficult to see your own stories.
Right because like your entire reality like what we look at what we hear is is not the only reality right. It's like we're our brains our interpolating and filling in a lot of gaps as we use generic Concepts and stories to interpret and make sense of everything around us. So and I'm not the first person to come up with this metaphor, but it's like trying to look at the lens of your own eye as you're looking through the lens. You just can't do it.
but psychedelics in proper setting with supervision
Ken in some instances provide you the ability to sort of rotate out or above and really do a radical self-assessment that shows you where your blind spots are and it shows you where your stories and your software out of date, but I do not recommend people break the law for one talk about side effects. The legal side effects can be significant mean you can you can go to
Jail for a long time. If you possess or distribute these compounds they are currently schedule 1 and
this is why I'm dedicating. I've dedicated more capital and energy to psychedelic research than anything else.
In the last few years and it is I want to say at least it is close to or more than all of the capital. I've invested in startups over whatever it was a they almost ten year period
so if this one this becomes a legal form of therapy, are we going to see Tim Ferriss branded psychedelic pop up shops around the country
Tim Ferriss
Psychedelic treatment mall
kiosks. Yeah exactly right next to it buy it directly from five bullet Friday right
next to express spawn the airport. You're right. Why travel sober when you could
would you ever be involved in anything like that though? Like I mean I'll kidding aside or is it more just on the research
side? It's not just a question of interest. It's a question of
Maintaining a neutrality so I can be more effective and I don't I don't want people to question my motives, which is the same reason by the way. I did not invest in or create any supplement companies before for our body. I could have made tens of millions of dollars doing that easily. And I knew that because as you know, I mean I used to own Sports Nutrition companies. So yeah, I know how those businesses work. I could build one very easily. I have access to all the right.
When I didn't do it because I didn't want people to question my motives. I wanted to be as objective as possible and for people to view me as objective or as objective as possible and in the world of psychedelics, I don't want to place any bets in a for-profit capacity that would lead me to even subconsciously exert bias in who I help or what I help.
Yeah, and even if I could make for-profit bet that would not affect my objectivity. It would affect the how others perceive me in the field and that would inhibit my ability to move the needle in a number of different ways and last I will say and this is this is this is also
Vocabulary, these are phrases that Tim of 15 years ago would just be disgusted by but he didn't know didn't know he didn't know this is a very sacred.
Space this is this is very in some ways. Very sacred work. It's it's incredible when you witness what can transpire for someone in a four to six hour session and how completely their conception of themselves and relationships problems addictions can change you feel like you're witnessing something very special and you are witnessing something very special something very unusual.
Usual that many people hope their whole lives for and never get and to that extent.
You and I have been very fortunate and we've had all sorts of advantages. We've also had you know, certain disadvantages and we've made lucky bets and we're in a position where we don't have to make compromises. We don't have to make compromises to generate income. Right? Like we're not worried about how to pay the rent next month. And for that reason, I like having
This entire field to be for me. Eh.
A capital off-limits A money off-limits area in my life. That makes sense. I think it's just a it's just a complication that I don't want and don't need and
For that reason, I would be very surprised. I'd be very surprised if there was any Tim Ferriss Brandon airport psychedelic kiosk there. There may be outfits that I cysts in some way but I can't imagine that I would ever tie Financial incentives or financial return to anything that I do in this space. I would be disappointed in myself unless something very very significant changes and I just can't imagine quite what that would be.
Yeah, and let's say I did something who knows. Let's just say some gigantic Pharma company said will you advise us on blah blah blah blah blah, as long as I could be convinced and this this would be a long shot. But let's just say I was able I and my advisers were convinced that they weren't just doing this to sort of white wash their sins and provide a human riot shield for whatever they were going to do and they wanted advice of
I'm type and they were offering advisory compensation. All of the funds would have to go to funding other types of research or to some other recipient besides myself, right? Perhaps it goes into a foundation and then gets funneled directly into some related cause that I care deeply about yeah,
it'd be interesting to see how you could think through that a little bit further to kind of figure out if there is an opportunity there that you could just roll it into a
pleat nonprofits that you could participate in some of the upside because obviously there are going to be when this stuff does all finally come around and it is you know stamped with the whatever it maybe FDA or whoever has to stamp the all the way through to actually launching something as a as a therapeutic product for the consumer. They'll be multibillion-dollar business is built on the back of this in some capacity
right there could be so there definitely could be I think it's I think it's going to be a lot trickier than folks expect and I hope that
The current means of administration meaning let's just call it two or three sessions of two or three active sessions. There may be Placebo sessions, but let's just call it two or three active sessions with long-term persistent effects. I hope that that does not get corrupted and replaced with some type of
Analog that is or close cousin that is then turned into a maintenance tool. In other words. I hope that the business priorities of drug developers do not
Affect the beautiful Elegance of how these tools can be used in such a way that they get converted into something that needs to be used three times a week just to get by and right II absolutely expect there will be people who attempt to do that, but I would not want to I certainly don't want to encourage that but there could be a lot of money made and there there are possibilities.
Yeah. My only point was that I would rather see those
Funds flow into someone's nonprofit like your own I would then go right back into research. Then then have it go to someone else but you know because II didn't would entrust you with that those those funds to do the right
thing. Yeah. Yeah, I and there are things I want to do, you know what idea that I had for 2020 that I thought could be fun, which is not the same as a for-profit business that then provides up said they could be funneled into a non-profit which is entirely possible. I mean, that's what I'm doing with my Foundation right now, but
I've been I've been thinking about doing it high-end art auction. And I know people have done this in the past. I believe that I want to say Leonardo DiCaprio has done a very good job of this don't know Leo personally, but the concept would be getting pieces donated and I don't know if a it's unlikely to me that ass off the bees or Christie's or someone would
We do this they might but to have incredible pieces of artwork donated by extremely famous artists and to take the proceeds and donate them to psychedelic research or
scientific. Let's do this. You can have this happened in two seconds. I know a ton of the auction folks for my time at ho dinky. Okay great. So if you want to talk to any of the Christie's or Sotheby's or Phillips folks like this is this happens already like for example,
A an auction each year that's called only watch and every one of the high-end watch manufacturers will create a special one-off limited edition watch are not limited edition, but just one off and they raised, you know tens of millions of dollars for I can't remember its muscular dystrophy or what they actual cause is but it's wonderful cause and it happens every year. This could be that for
psychedelic so that excite that xi's thing right because you have to because it could be no because it could be paintings, but it could also be
watches it could be anything and what's so nice about that is people are bidding. There are certainly tax advantages for people who are buying these items I would imagine maybe maybe not but nonetheless, I mean they're going to a good cause they are paying for one of a kind or at the very least highly sought-after scarce items that have values sustained value, right? So you're not just kind of begging for money with
Your hat out and what's so incredible about the Psychedelic research space right now, is that for 10 or 20 million dollars? I mean, you can potentially Bend The Arc of History. It's so nascent and so much can be done with so little that. What would be considered a drop in the bucket for cancer research or any number of other conditions could actually
lead to fundamental breakthroughs in an entirely New Field and not just breakthroughs as it relates to a specific compound but breakthroughs in how we begin to understand how the mind and the Brain work right? Where is where is the seat of Consciousness does such a thing anatomically exist? I mean, there are some these are real questions that people are investigating and I don't think we fully appreciate the implications of
Figuring some of that out. I mean it's yeah, it's
incredible. It's so
cool. And there's so many artists as you know, who suffer from
absolutely oppression from anxiety. No brainer. It's like a perfect match like you have people that suffer with something like that. And I mean, where's you must know Banksy at this point
right? I don't I would love to if you have a connection I want to I would love to connect with Banksy for a million reasons, but I do not yet know Banksy. I did go to his hotel.
Yeah in the Middle East which was amazing and pretty incredible but I've studied him. I know of him. I'm very familiar with his work, but don't know
I feel like if we can get him to commit a piece. Yeah, that's a good place to start. That
would be a great place to start I mean and and there that would be a great place to start there. Are there a number of artists I find absolutely incredible who you know, were they willing to participate would
They would act as the lead Domino that tips over everything else, right? Yeah, you don't need you really just need that first tenant, right the first person who says I believe in this and you know, I haven't reached out to anyone at this point. But it one of my favorite artists in the world is David hockney is so so incredible. You should check them out and there's a wonderful documentary about him called I want to say learning how to see or the art of seeing that you should check out.
And such a just seems like such a beautiful human being very well-spoken very humble. And you know you it should be doable, right? This does not strike me as
insane. Let's talk offline because I have some people you should talk to I think we can make this happen. That sounds really
cool. Right amazing. Amazing That's so exciting. The other thing that this is this is jumping around topic wise, but the other thing I want to start doing this year is something that I spoke with Nick Thompson.
Epson ages ago about and that is hiring top-tier writers at say I think that I think the I think the rate he suggested was maybe two dollars or word or something like that, but really paying top dollar for good long-form journalists to write pieces on my block like to invest to 1/8 to investigate topics. That would otherwise not get investigated, right?
I'll give you an example having a long conversation with one of my closest friends about a week ago about how the preceding two days felt like two or three weeks a lot of things that happen. We've moved locations a lot. We're spending a lot of time and Backcountry doing really strong physical exertion and we both noticed that the last the preceding two days seemed it's like, oh my God that happened two days ago. It seems like
three weeks ago and yet they're also weeks that go by where you're like, what the fuck did I do this week? Like I know I'm sitting around doing stuff. But like it just went by like that. Yeah, so investigating let's just say as one example, like investigating the expansion of time, right? How can what are the what what does the science say? What do
what if you want someone to pitch in on that? I will throw some cash towards that article to okay cool. Yeah. I've always been fascinated by this I would love
Love to go and deep on that
and it's like so let's get someone who puts out just Stellar Stellar long-form pieces that they can take some time on right because I don't need this tomorrow. I'd love to have it tomorrow. But if it takes two months for takes three months like so be it. I care more about the quality but to have like let's just say they have five of those any given time in motion.
I it just seems like an excellent use of money and yeah were there certain people I would love to have profiles right? Like people who are doing incredible weird things that are never I don't I don't think would ever make it onto the radar of some of the larger Publications I respect but they're just they already have I would imagine an abundance of wonderful ideas and
I I have some say a leads and be suggestions that could really help people gain access to folks who otherwise wouldn't be accessible or otherwise would never get covered. Right? I mean, it's that kind of thing. It's like alright, let's do a human interest story.
And do you have people in mind right on the writer side that you would use because I know we could probably reach out to Eva medium. I'm sure he's got a bunch of great independent.
Letters that you could yeah higher. Yeah. I
spoke with Nick about this. I there are few writers. I've worked with in the past who I have found to be really really sharp and also very ethical those two don't always go together as we know which is a huge bummer. That's another thing I've learned in the last ten years is like higher for reliability and trustworthiness and attitude first.
First lots of skilled smart people out there who may not have the best ethical Compass so you have to really guard against that but there are a number of writers. I've worked with who have done fantastic work and they're on the shortlist. They're kind of the the the first list that I have but there are so many there are so many great writers out there either.
Should be it should be possible to get someone since I would be the editor so to speak right and I have no delusions of thinking. I'm David remnick of the New York or anything. I do not think that I am the best editor on the world, but nonetheless it's my blog. So I have to look at the stuff and I'm pretty good. Like I think I'm a very fair at I've edited a lot of my friends books because I can't not edit if they give me something to review but
But I would bring these people in because they are ostensibly I mean almost certainly better writers than I am. So that's really exciting to me just to just to kick the tires and try it, you know. Yeah, that's awesome. And it's also one of those examples of like one decision that removes a lot of decisions. Like let's just times a non-renewable resource. I'm very confident. I can make money back if I need to let me just Place some bets and let people run. Yeah.
Then it's like oh lo and behold like three months later an email comes in got a first draft or got a third draft, whatever might be that would be very exciting to me.
Yeah, what else is what else have you put on your list of things to remember for 2020 pay attention to or just notes from the last?
Last decade I've got one but I'm gonna I'm gonna hold on to it because you can talk about it in a little in a little bit. Not that we have to go for five hours. But anything else that comes to mind that you'd like to mention.
Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the things that I look back on that I'm I feel that I did quite well over the last ten years was my track record of investing in the public markets and I think that you're very
Why very good,
I appreciate that. I've I think I know I have kind of like put my formula down on paper. So I have a sense of what I how I am able to take big risks without them feeling like big risks and I think that's key for me not to freak out and sell things off. So essentially what I've figured out as my mixture of Investments and for me, you know, you've always
Always heard that well, I mean there's that saying that I guess most people think is bullshit which is probably true which is to hold your age in bonds. Right? Like the old saying is if you're 40 years old, you should have 40 percent of your net worth in in bonds and I have always liked having some security like that. I think that that is not a wise strategy for young investors because I think they are too heavily weighted and safer Investments when they should be taking the most
Front but now that I am in my 40s, I don't think of it as just bonds I think of it as what are some safer Investments that I can have that 40% in so that could be you know higher yield bonds. It could be dividend paying stocks that are blue chip, you know dividend stocks that I hold in a basket or an index, but the thing that that exotic animal farms exactly but you know my investment types, but there's nothing that's all you can route pick that up.
All this kind of stuff up in any investment book what I have done that is different is that I've said that 20 percent of my net worth whatever that maybe is going to go into altar risky Investments, but only ones that kind of Soup To Nuts I understand it a very very deep level. So that means these really risky Tech Investments for me and that has lead to you know, early investments in Bitcoin.
Investments in in apple, you know, I remember when Apple came out with os10 the first version and I was just blown away and I knew this was such a brilliant New Direction for the company that was in 2001 the stock back then was trading at a dollar sixty or so a share which is just Insanity
my God,
but you know more more recently in the last few years that would be you know, the shopify's and the Tesla's and things like that. But, you know also avoiding stuff. I didn't understand. I think it's like this.
Saying no, like for example, everyone was jumping on Netflix, you know five years ago, maybe even longer. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how this wouldn't become just like the music business and how it would be the margins would be ultra thin. I had no idea about creating original content what those costs with the cost structure for that would be it was something that a lot of my friends were making fantastic Returns on but something that I ended up not buying and I missed out on that one, but that's
Fine because I was able to concentrate my bets on things that products not only that I use and enjoy but under understood completely and that for me taking that that 20% of my investments and focusing them on things that I believe that could truly have, you know, 25 to fixed yet 50 x returns over the next couple decades. I think has been key in kind of growing my my net worth over time.
So we're talking about or you're talking about by decision.
It's right. How do you decide what's your framework for deciding when to sell things if you have one and it could be any category or all categories, but you're somewhat famous for telling me what you're going what you're going to buy and then not telling me six months later when you sell it all.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the the thing is has the underlying. No, that's true. I think two months later. I'm like, oh man
Tom's like a hoarder Hunter like I sold that a year and a half ago.
Well, I
Just like have the underlying fundamentals of the business changed, you know, and I think that if the answer is yes, then I consider selling if the answer is no but you're seeing a decline due to other Market turbulence, then that's actually when I buy more. So if I see a big massive dip and it's has nothing to do with the company, but it was just something that came out of Trump's mouth. Like I'm going to double down and pick up some more stock on sale, right so
So, you know and then also working with your tax accountant. So, you know when you could take some gains off the table and tax-wise it makes sense for you, but I would say that you know, I'm even more skeptical and scared of stocks like Netflix today because I look at all the other entrance in the market over the that, you know are both coming and have recently launched whether it be Apple TV streaming services or you know, the do Disney Plus or you know peacock which is coming out. There's going to be so much competition for that five to
Dollar-a-month kind of cable plus plus that it's a little frightening but you know, so it's that's how I you know, I look at shop while also the I think there's there's a couple things one What's the total addressable Market of this business? So you know, how big is the is the The Tam there and do they have room to grow so Shopify today, you know, I can sure where they're at 50 some billion dollar company. They were around five early on and
and it actually dude Shopify was the one that you're probably killing yourself
over. Yeah. I am. I mean, it's terrible terrible terrible decision. Well, you know that I am I've history now, I've I have improved
but I'm an advisor to them before they went public
when they had eight employees. So I was with them. I heard a not take one but very early and I panic sold a panic salt and that was maybe right after lockup expired. So this would be like
Whatever that is six months after IPO and I just made a terrible terrible decision and sold a bunch of it
here is what was the underlying reason though the talking about when to sell ya like the the business was was having great numbers quarter-over-quarter, like if you looked at all the fundamentals there look, I mean granted they're not profitable. But revenue is increasing, you know cost of acquiring customers was going down. What was it that that you freaked out about?
I don't I mean, I don't think that freak-outs are generally
A rational decision. I'm not like well if a and it's B and therefore c and 1 2 3 4 5 freaked out, you know, it's not like that is yeah the end of a long deliberation. I think that the gain since my cost basis was effectively zero, right? My gain was such that the absolute number of dollars was enough to at the time move the needle for me and provide a level of security.
T that I didn't want to risk it does that doesn't mean that there were a bunch of risks. I just didn't know and I you never know what you don't know.
Listen dude is not you not you not even though I was like, you know, oh dude, there's that first wave of I want to take care of myself pay off my bills pay off my house. This is like something that's going to secure my future that you would just be fuel of foolish not to take and I get that sounds like that's what you were doing. Yeah.
That's what I was.
And the the challenge has been and we'd have to spend a lot of time on this because I think we're getting into rarefied air here, but updating that script right because I it's not the only example of me panic selling and I panic sold other things. I mean Panic sold is very dramatic, but I emotionally sold other things Ali Baba, you know, I was divested early and Ali Baba. There are pre IPO and
All sorts of companies that I sold once they at once they went public and it has taken.
A lot of reflection and training and planning. That's that's number one for me. Please have a plan right don't go into a fight with no plan then get hit and try to figure out your game plan have a plan going in. So I've done that in the last few years and I've not I've not panic sold or emotionally sold anything in the last few years. That's a lot easier to say, of course now that I have more security, but the point is even after the point that I had more security. I was still
I had not updated my OS right my operating system was still like Windows 95 like panic panic crash Panic crash and I had to become aware of that before I could change anything. That makes sense. Yeah, so you are a hundred times better than I am in the public markets and you've been very comfortable in the public markets for a very long time from from my perspective. At least what I've seen I mean
You're very rare breed of investor because you are successful across many different classes and many different assets. So you can go super early stage. I mean white paper early or back of the napkin early all the way up to mature public and I've seen you hit home runs and almost every every
every band of of investment terms of size and also in terms of Technology. It's been that it's been very impressive to watch and I have to first admit to myself lest I get my face ripped off that I'm not you right. I just have a different different way of approaching this stuff. So
yeah, I mean dude, you'll laugh at some of the grammar. I write you an email. So we all have our strengths and weaknesses of the things that I produce on.
Their fronts are laughable. So, you know, I think it's just kind of knowing what those pieces are and and playing to your strengths, you know?
Yeah. Yeah played it you can you can you can fuck up a lot as long as you play to your core strengths and make a few good decisions.
I mean once a year once every few years and the startup investing game right like you can if you hopefully they're not all predicated on luck. But if you have a decent process, right like you said you missed out on Netflix doesn't matter right? Like if you hit a home run you can strike out if you hit a few home runs that our real home runs, right, which you have you can strike out a whole lot and that
is when you expect to you know, it's like
Or better yet, the myth of the game. You can miss out. That's a better way to put it like you can pick you can wait for the fat pitches. And if you have rules and certain systems, which I've seen you use which has been the impressive part, right? If someone's just consistently lucky I can't model that right and I know those people to you and I both know those people where it's like, yeah. All right that article paints them is genius but we all know they like flipped a coin after drinking a bottle of tequila and then here we are so I can't
a model that type of dumb luck and there are some people who just seem to like be hardwired for incredible lock. I don't know what that's about. We both know a few of those two or it's just like pot of gold falling out of the sky into their lap every two years. I just don't know what that's about and then there's people who have rules and they have systems and they have criteria and think you've done really well with that. So that's that's something I've always watched with with admiration and that is something that I have tried to model but not
By duplicating all of your rules, but Simply Having rules certainly how yeah helps a lot.
Yeah. I mean, I think that the one thing I want to emphasize on that last little piece that we talked about on the investing side. The reason why 80% of my stuff is in, you know, standard boring index funds bond funds things like that is because I know how risky the rest of it is and you know, I expect to lose a lot of it. So I would never advocate. Well, first of all, I'm not
I'm not in the even in the position to give investment advice. I'm not legally allowed to but I wouldn't I would Advocate, you know, investing more than you can lose because you never know because there's so many other factors. You have the best company on Earth and you could have a downturn in the market that's going to last a decade and you're still going to be underwater. And so it's you know, you always have to factor that in as well. Yeah,
I'm still I would consider myself super conservative and I also want to emphasize or maybe clarifies the right word.
that you talked about Ultra risky, right 20% Ultra risky and it's true that each of those bets you place independently could be considered Ultra risky, but you maybe you can speak to this but I mean you also
Have a portfolio approach and certain advantages right informational advantage and so on. I'm not talking about any public stuff. But with with these super early stage companies with different types of of currencies and so on. I mean cryptocurrencies and blockchains and whatnot that you have you think about portfolio construction and you think about allocation you think
Bet sizing right? So then
these individually Ultra risky bets
when viewed
in total
underscore the possibility that each of them could say return the fund so to speak right? Right. So even though it's an ultra risky. It's a collection of ultra risky assets the way that you approach it while still risky certainly stands a very high likelihood of success, right? That's right.
Yeah. I mean that's a little classic Venture rule of that. You know, it depends on what whose math you're looking at but you know, 80 80 80 plus percent of the deals that you do will go to 0
You know, but the ones that do make it you're hoping are the massive, you know thousand X kind of fun makers that that you that you can find, especially if the really early stage. But yeah, that's that's part of part of getting comfortable with all that is is saying goodbye and not taking it, you know, when things don't work out and not taking it personally just realized it's the riskiest thing that you can do and some of the biggest mistake. I see Angel Investors make without a doubt is they go out and do 2D else they go out and do
The three Deals, you know, they'll say I would much rather in. This is how I started out in the early days. I went out and placed five to ten thousand dollar bets which unform an angels point of view is really minimal dollars because you know, most Silicon Valley angels are doing 25 to a hundred K, you know chunks when they invest in a startup I didn't have that kind of money, but I knew the math and the math is that most of we're going to go to zero and so if that's the case rather than have to
Praise a 25k a piece and say I'm done I'd rather you know go out and have a whole dozen of them at a much lower, you know, five to $10,000 kind of range and have a greater chance that I will find one of those crazy unicorns. It's going to return all the the rest of them. So they're so our cover for the rest of them so that whenever I meet someone that's looking to get into that side of investing on the angel side. It's always do more at with less dollars in and then if you have the opportunity to buy up in the
Her with with Pro rata and you do see something that looks like it's going to win you could because you're already on the cap table. You can you know, go in and purchase more shares and future rounds of financing.
Yeah, we're getting we're getting into the nitty-gritty here. Well, yes, that could be a whole separate conversation on reserving a portion of your annual budget for follow on with the pro rata and all that. But we want we we can save that for for our next random show.
Yeah one thing that I'll ask
Thing I will say that I think this is more broadly applicable is you mentioned like how do you decide when to sell and this could be applied to Public Market investing which most people are comfortable with, you know, when your allocation in that in that risky Ultra risky category outpaces and outgrows. We're all of a sudden that was 20% but now it's actually 40 percent of your portfolio. Then you need to rebalance and that's that's when you can do
that. Yeah, the most fun is when your Ultra risky.
Has you locked up so all of a sudden you're like 90% you can't sell a goddamn thing that's always really stress-free experience. Very important. That is an important point and
What should we close with any last thoughts? I mean one one takeaway that I've had from last 10 years and I have actually become much better at this.
Much better at following my own advice. I'm Sam Harris wants I think he said to me or maybe wrote it somewhere but that wisdom is largely taking your own advice. Yeah, there's a quote and I can't remember the attribution somebody on the internet can certainly tell us and I'll put it in the show notes, but that living well is the best revenge that quote has really been important to me in the last few years and it comes back to what we were discussing her.
Say much it really about treating myself with anger and trying to really replace that with more acceptance and understanding and compassion which I was focused outward. I never really focused it Inward and a byproduct of that meaning being less angry with myself was trying to cultivate directing less anger at other people also and that was never a yell and scream throw plates against the wall kind of guy, but I would feel intense anger.
When I was wronged or felt wronged right and I mean if you've been in the business World long enough or if you've had enough relationships like you've been fucked at some point and not and not in the good way and I would get very I'll get very upset and I would fantasize I wouldn't always actualize but I fantasize about the kind of eye for an eye type retaliation. And the reality was that that I very very rarely indulged in that.
You rarely took eyes I very rarely took in every
really took eyes as Colonel hackworth. This is first time I'm blanking. What's that? Sometimes? It is entirely appropriate that smash a mosquito with a sledgehammer or something like that or smash a fly with a sledgehammer. I think there is a time and place for that. Don't get me wrong. But you know one doesn't want to set precedent in some unfavorable way. But the point being that I've been I've become much better and I'm not going to mention this person by name but very well.
Unknown person has as a reminder on his screen saver on his laptop Let It Go and this is a very accomplished person. I actually consider him to be very Zen and emotionally resilient and calm nonetheless. He has that reminder Let It Go on his desktop and I have realized tying in this energetic management that
Living well is the best revenge if someone's really fucked you in there that person chances are they're not very happy, right? That's not always the case. There are some super aggressive. Dr. Evil narcissist assholes who are quite happy. I hate to tell people out there but they do exist. Nonetheless. A lot of the people who do awful things or break their word, whatever are pretty miserable and like letting them wallow in their own misery and not engaging because it will contaminate.
Your experience has been really key for me letting it go to the extent possible. Right and and just like living well is the best revenge has really stuck with me. Right? Like the best thing I can do is yeah live your
life. I think what you just said was is really it's interesting that the way I've always looked at it as if someone is being very verbally aggressive with you or angry or trying to push their energy on to you if you take that and carry it on.
And then release it to other people you're just furthering their agenda of spreading that that energy and it's it's letting it go is just the ability to actually set them free in a way you're releasing that negative energy and you're just like letting it dissipate and it's such a freeing thing. You know, it's a beautiful thing. If you think of it like
that, you've taught me a lot with this in certain instances. I remember I got attacked by some some troll as trolls will do
Many years ago. There's a long time ago. Yeah, I really I think well, let's see you might have a different example, but what and you said something like
Tim do you do you really want to engage in a fight with someone with infinite time? And I was like no I don't when you phrase it that way like absolutely not and you've given me because of course coming out of coming out of dig and sort of early days you had far more mileage with yeah on
like why member yeah, I don't know if you remember this, but I think I told you also that I was like when was the last time you've left a negative comment on somebody's blog.
Like fuck you and somebody's blog and like anonymously and it's like I don't think I've ever done that for. Yeah, because you're not that kind of person. Yeah, right think of like the type of person that is engaging with you here and you don't need to it's just that the one thing people don't realize about the internet and that I learned through the School of Hard Knocks is that just like in society if you were to go and put 500 people in a room. There are going to be some assholes in that room for some like completely dicks that are mean-spirited people that want to see other people.
Apple in Misery, the internet is no different like you get a group of people of thousands hundreds of thousands and there are groups of very evil people. Yeah, you can if you know that then you can just be like, oh that's just one of those evil people, you
know, yeah. Yeah exactly. It's you know, when you walk by them on the sidewalk, you may not notice but they're there and that's you know, another quote that is kind of stuck with me and I'm blanking on the attribution is a very famous quote, but the paraphrase is don't wrestle with pigs because
It makes you feel thin and makes the pig happy as just so interesting and it's like yeah, like there's there's there's there's nothing to be there's very little benefit to be gained from engaging with that.
So, yeah, so my final quote for the day on my side since you gave yours is from that Michael Singer course that I took on surrender, which I think is a phenomenal video course, but he says something in there that stuck with me where he says serve the moment, which I thought was really interesting.
Ting just this idea of being so present that you are just serving that moment in time. It's just a beautiful thing if you can pull it
off, how do you how do you use that? I like I like the
I like the connotation of that, but did you use that with yourself?
Yeah, I just think like where is my head right now, you know am I really giving my focus and attention and brain space to what's going on right now my serving.
Does people around me to the fullest at this point in time and that can beam simple things from paying attention to my daughter when she's playing and engaging with that versus being on my phone? Yeah, you know to worrying about something or thinking about something in the future that may or may not happen to you know wanting to gouge somebody's eye out. Like we mentioned like those aren't that's not serving the moment. That's serving Imaginary Land, you
know, yeah fighting with sock puppets. Yeah, he and I
I really meant it earlier when I said I was I was really struck because you've seen me through many chapters. I've seen you through many chapters over many years and there have been times when I've seen you and this is the contrast right I've there were there was a time when if you were sitting down with sort of nothing no Project work on I would see you on your phone. And when I was home with you I came up and you're just sitting there sipping tea looking at your daughter playing with blocks.
Whatever she was doing unrushed and fully paying attention and that might sound quaint it might sound simple. But if we look at the technological forces and the financial incentives and the funding and market cap, so these companies and the armies of phds who are attempting to do just about anything to make that impossible. It becomes all the more
Noteworthy, I think in all the more valuable to have practices and reminders that help you to have those kind of moments. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm happy for you man. It's it's been really nice to see
you name dude. I mean, I didn't notice I didn't say this on the show earlier, but I'm really stoked who with your girlfriend now that shall go unnamed she's amazing. I got a chance to hang out with her and meet her, you know when you're out here and
It's it's really cool to see you happy and and it's been it's I'm excited for you to have babies soon. That's all say.
Well, you know, it may not be that far off. We shall see we shall see but nice to you. I see your face and hear your voice brother. As always. Please give up. Give my love to the fam and you want to share any any
particular resources or Point people anywhere if they'd like to learn what you're up to or see
what your head say most of the stuff. I publish I do on Instagram. So I'm just Instagram at Kevin Rose. And then yeah definitely check out the the IOS app less Ellie SS less drinking. I think it'll help you those of you out there that want to be a little bit more mindful about the beverages you consume. It's just a fun little little project were working on at 1:02 for intermittent fasting.
Get dude, we hit. I don't even think I told you that we have 1.3 million monthly fasters now not fast that people fasting
people zero, that's
incredible. That's yeah, we added three hundred thousand people this last 30 days. Wow, so it's
nuts. I need your help with my email list. That's incredible. Congratulations, and I'm excited for 2020. I'm really excited about and
yeah, I don't have much everybody can find me at Tim dot blog and check out the writing. I'm going to be doing more writing certainly love the podcast. I'm going to continue to do that but in service of eventually getting to the point where I'm working on this book on healing and
Psycho emotional Dynamics in a very concrete way. I mean it's not going to be highfalutin conceptual. They'll be like in the trenches with some crazy crazy crazy crazy fucking stories. I mean, if you imagine a kind of for our body, but for mind and the mind and emotion, it's it would be like that but much crazier
much are using for our and it anyway,
yeah, I think I think I think I'm retiring the for archery retired retiring the for our Jersey. Yeah
II
It's like I still get joy out of it whenever I see for our somewhere. Like I remember when I saw the for our cleaners at San Francisco. I sent you a photo of it. I remember that fun little harder. Whatever Wendy known for that forever.
Yeah. Well, you know, we think we think we know what we're doing and then we're like, oh my God the blessing and the curse that will chase me forever. Here it is exactly but you know, they're certainly far far worse far worse trees X's, so I'll take it for now, but
Love do the random show man. Let's do more of these and yeah, let's let's meet up in person before too long.
Let's do it. Sounds good.
Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number
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This episode of The Temper show is brought to you by calm. I once asked to LeBron James you probably heard of him. What is the single most important element of his training regimen may have edged into it slightly differently. But in fact, that's what I was asking and you know what? He said. He did not say wind Sprints cryotherapy lady egg white omelets with a side of butternut squash. No, no and although it sounds delicious know.
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