Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 110

The Fantastic Mr. Feynman

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

- Richard P. Feynman

This is my favorite documentary of one of my favorite people, Richard Feynman.

His lectures and books — such as Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) — have greatly inspired many of my best decisions in life. He also inspired me to teach.

I hope you enjoy the film as much as I did. Whether you like bongo drums, safe cracking, go-go dancers, or physics, there’s something for everyone.

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Question of the day: If you had to pick your favorite documentary, which would it be and why? Let me know in the comments!

4HWW Readers’ Libraries in Nepal, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka Open Their Doors!

The Vang Lam preschool we built in Vietnam. So cute a lumberjack would cry! Now we have three more locations.



You all should be *very* proud.

I’m thrilled to share completion reports for the three libraries you supported and made possible. The funds were raised for my birthday campaign in 2011.

They’re finally done!

This post include photos of the dedication plaques for each library, as well as information about the impact that each library has had on the local community.

In a nutshell:

- The K-to-6 library in Cambodia will help 500 students per year become literate. 500 per year = 2,500 over the next 5 years.

- The Grades 1-5 library in Sri Lanka will help 2,000 students per year become literate. 2,000 per year = 10,000 over the next 5 years.

- The K-10 library in Nepal will help 550 students per year become literate. 550 per year = 2,750 over the next 5 years.

In the next 5 years, you all will have helped change the lives of more than 15,000 students. Not only that, but you will have helped add critical thinkers to the world who can perpetuate a virtuous cycle of solving problems. Cool, right?

Here are the dedication plaques for each school. Click to enlarge:

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Now, the completion reports (and pics) for those interested…

Sri Lanka – LK-CRR-12-0015 – Tim Ferriss – CR

Nepal – NP-CRR-12-0035 – Tim Ferriss – CR

Cambodia – KH-CRR-12-0008 – Tim Ferriss – CR

In the next 12 months, I hope to plan trips to visit all of these libraries. And… bigger and bolder plans to come in the next six months or so.

In the meantime, remember: you guys rock. You can leave a positive dent in this world. This post is visible proof.

Long live karmic capitalism.

Going from Obese to Bikini Body — Briana Case Study (Plus: New Tools, 4-Hour Body Group)

All tactics, no excuses.

This post will explain exactly how Briana, a mother of three and reader of this blog, lost 100 pounds. It’s a lot simpler than you might think.

For additional real-world examples and the fundamentals, I suggest reading “How to Lose 100 Pounds on The Slow-Carb Diet.” There are several men and women profiled.

Sidenote: Many of you have been asking for a free 4-Hour Body support group… so I created it here. It’s designed to improve success rates by 50% .  In a recent four-week test, 86% of people who finished lost an average of 8.6 pounds.  Many lost more than 20 pounds.  If you’re serious about progress, take a look.

Now, onto our post, which was written by Briana herself. I’ve avoided any major edits to preserve her voice.

Please add any questions or tips of your own to the comment. Both Briana and I will jump in to help…

Enter Briana

If you’re meeting me for the first time today, you’d never guess that a little over 1 year ago, I was 100 pounds heavier and the furthest thing from being proud in a bikini.

And if you’d met “the FAT me” a year ago, you probably never would have guessed that the over-weight mother of three was actually an accomplished personal trainer who’d lost 73 pounds years earlier… and gained it all back.

That is really where my introduction to the Slow-Carb Diet (SCD) began.



Five years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom.

I had a husband, two kids, a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, and a great dane. I was a young mom in my early 20’s, trying to balance everything and be everything to everyone BUT neglecting myself. I made my family the priority, which was great for them, but I lost myself somewhere along the way. Despite numerous failed attempts to lose weight and get in shape, the scale just kept creeping up.

Fat, depressed, and frustrated, I ended up surfing the internet one day for some new nutrition and training inspiration, when I stumbled across Tim’s blog and the post he wrote on How to Lose 20 lbs of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise. Four paragraphs in, I was HOOKED! I read it, I applied it day-in and day-out, and within 6 months I had not only lost the 73 POUNDS I had gained after having my first two kids, but I had completely transformed my body!

Needless to say, the experience was life-changing. After it, I felt compelled to pursue a career as a certified personal trainer and nutrition specialist. I wanted to empower, educate, and inspire other women to transform their bodies and regain a renewed sense of self — just as I had.

Shortly after I became certified, I went through a devastating divorce. As a newly single-mom, I set out to “4-Hour Workweek” my life, started my own multi-faceted health and wellness company, and spent the last 5 years helping to transform the bodies and lives of hundreds of women around the world in ways they never thought were possible.

Along the way, Tim wrote and released The 4-Hour Body, and my story was featured on national television and throughout numerous editorials, spreads, and fitness publications — the biggest of which was an appearance with Tim on the Dr. Oz show.

And then? I got pregnant with baby #3.

Long story short: despite being a personal trainer and all my previous hard work to be a “weight-loss success story,” I ended up being one of those Mego-Prego women who really went for it! By “went for it” I mean – if my weight gain had been an accurate barometer of my son’s birth weight, I should have given birth to a kindergartner!

From the moment I first found out that I was pregnant I decided to use the “eating for two” excuse. I indulged my cravings, and I packed on the pounds by way of ice-cream, Mexican food, lasagna, and a total break from the adapted SCD nutrition principles I worked so hard to establish in my own life and subsequently teach others.

Needless to say, I exploded over nine months, and by the time I actually gave birth to my 8 lb. 6 oz. bundle of joy, I found myself weighing the heaviest of my life–100 pounds heavier than normal.

So my baby is born… and I find myself asking, “Now what, fatty?”

TRANSFORMATION: ROUND 2

Faced with the depressing reality that the new weight wasn’t “baby weight” and was really ALL ME, I made it my mission to swiftly re-apply the SCD principles to shed the post-partum pounds in record time.

It began with a commitment to change, and a real look in the mirror.

So many of us are miserable over the current condition of our bodies, we get motivated and inspired by reading stories such as mine, but that’s not enough. We need something lasting. Something that will motivate us to walk away from the bread basket, or in my case — back away from the sour cream twice-baked potato!

For me, that motivation came in the form of photos.

Before I began, I committed to document the entire process via a weekly pictorial where I would stand raw, real, and exposed in front of a camera wearing nothing but the same tiny black bikini. When I felt discouraged, or was having a internal struggle over something I shouldn’t eat, I would look at the photos of where indulging got me — FAT.

I took it one day and one meal at a time.

Beginning the day after I gave birth, I followed every slow-carb principle that is outlined — except for the cheat day.

The reason? I was breast-feeding, and through trial and error, it turned out that keeping my diet consistent by eating the same thing (more or less) everyday was much better for my baby (and my sanity), than trying to sooth a horrific colicky newborn 12-24 hours after binge eating on a “cheat day.”

The biggest SCD keys behind my latest post-pregnancy transformation were:

- Structuring every meal around a lean protein

- Meal frequency (eating every three hours)

- Totally avoiding refined, processed, starchy carbohydrates, and wheat (I came up with some wicked slow-carb recipe option substitutes)

- Eliminating dairy

- Completely cutting out fruit, which was my biggest craving during my pregnancy

- Drinking a gallon of water a day

- Upping my daily fish oil to 1 gram per 1% body fat — liquid form. Obviously, that’d otherwise be quite a few pills.

Just with the slow-carb diet ALONE and ZERO exercise (due to some postpartum recovery issues between week 1 and week 8), I lost 36 POUNDS.

(Click here for larger image)

And 12 months after giving birth, I hit my goal and lost 100 pounds (23 pounds of which were pre-pregnancy), and completely transformed my body.

Consistency is key. A typical day on the SCD might look like this:

Breakfast @ 7am

Egg white frittatas (made with veggies like mushrooms, bell pepper, and onion)

Snack @ 10

Veggies with hummus

Lunch @ 11:30

Usually dinner leftovers from the night before (i.e. Bison marinara sauce over zucchini spaghetti; Tuna stuffed avocados; etc.)

Snack @ 2

Small mixed green salad with chicken, cucumbers, green peppers, and tomatoes with a homemade lemon/garlic vinaigrette

Dinner @ 6

Tilapia fillet served over broiled garlic carrots, and coconut “rice” (cauliflower)

Biggest tip: If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail

As a mom, life can be hectic, and it rarely goes according to plan.

I always prepare ahead of time for those moments with some quick-grab protein snacks. Turkey wrap “roll-ups” with a little hummus and a sliver of bell pepper or cucumber inside is my fave! Or little snack-sized baggies of almonds sprinkled with cinnamon. Hard-boiled “hummus deviled eggs” is another.

Prepare or fail, the choice is yours.

Conclusion

Putting on a bikini 7 days after you give birth is uncomfortable. Some might argue it’s insane.

Standing in front of the bright lights of a professional photographer week-after-week (often times without seeing much change), especially when you’re a personal trainer who is 100 pounds over weight, is humiliating, humbling, and painful.

But transforming my body, documenting the journey, inspiring other mothers, and ultimately founding BikiniBodyMommy.com has been the most empowering 12-month process I’ve ever undergone.

The journey isn’t always easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

My name is Briana. I am a 31-year old mother of three, I’ve lost more than 100 pounds on the Slow-Carb Diet, and I work every day to be a success story.

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Odds and Ends: New 4-Hour Body Support Group

I always wanted to guarantee that people could achieve rapid fat loss, and now I have the data to prove it.

Last Fall, 3,500 people joined a four-week 4-Hour Body challenge and measured their progress on Lift (a goal tracking and support community that I invested in). The results: 86% of people who finished lost an average of 8.6 pounds.  Some people lost more than 20 pounds.

Today I’m launching a second, even bigger challenge on Lift. Think of it as one part training group and one part research experiment.

First, join The 4-Hour Body group on Lift. Joining the group will sign you up for five habits from of The 4-Hour Body:

- Slow-Carb Diet meals

- 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up

- Moderate exercise
- Cold showers
- Measuring your weight, bodyfat %, and total inches

Next, just follow the habits and ‘check in’ each time you have completed one.

Talk to other group members! When you set goals alongside other people, it keeps you accountable and leads to better results.  The 4-Hour Body community on Lift is there for this reason — use it!

Finally, track your results.  Lift gives you numbers and graphs that show your progress.  Add pictures along the way (don’t forget to take the “before” picture) so that you can really see the changes.

And as a final note, the last time I ran this challenge, Lift only had an iPhone version. But they just launched a web app that you can use from your computer or mobile phone.

Have fun

Tim Ferriss Interviews Neil Strauss, 7x New York Times Bestselling Author, on the Creative Process

Did you enjoy this sample of creativeLIVE content?

If so, sign up for the new Secrets from Silicon Valley series, a week of free classes taught by luminaries like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Check out a partial list of teachers here — you’ll recognize a lot of them.

The Quarterly Goodies — Hacker Credit Cards, Alpha BRAIN, Refuel Bars, and More

Every three months, I ship out a box of amazing physical products, along with two personal letters explaining everything: a physical letter and a video “letter.”  

One of the latter is above.  I do *not* plan on including these the blog, but giving an example is fun.

The theme of these quarterly mailings is obsession–I include the ideas and objects I can’t get out of my head.

Obsessions enter my life from all over the place.  Currently, my gadgets and gear recommendations are coming from Cirque du Soleil performers, chess prodigies, Fortune 500 CEOs, and military snipers.  It’s the randomness that makes it fun.

More than 1,500 people subscribe to these boxes through Quarterly.co. They are opening up 1,000 more spots for my next shipment, if of interest.

Here are the goodies from the latest:

1. Spectacle by David Rockwell with Bruce Mau ($49.95 retail, $33.94 Amazon)

2. Edible Green Tea ($25 retail)

3. LSTN Earbuds ($50 retail) Get 20% off by using the code “Quarterly” at check out!

4. AMRAP Refuel Bars ($23.95 retail, $23.90 Amazon)

5. Creative Whack Pack ($16 retail, $11.30 Amazon)

6. $20 DonorsChoose.org Gift Card

7. Hacker Credit Card, Mini Work Tool ($7.95 retail, $8 Amazon)

8. Alpha BRAIN ($35 retail)

Want to get the next box? First come, first served here.

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Some of the feedback so far (more here):

Joshua Millage - @jmillage – on 26 May



WOW @tferriss #TIM02 spanked #TIM01 if you keep this up – Im guessing we will be getting Ferraris in our boxes soon. THANKS!

Scott Miller – @Scotchmo – on 28 May



@tferriss Tim02 box arrived LSTN headphones sound great, and I am a headphone snob! Thanks Tim! #tim02

Will Lenzen Jr - @wlenzenjr – on 30 May



Blown away by the quality & thought put into what @tferriss included in #TIM02 of @Quarterly. Thanks Tim! pic.twitter.com/fdLoidRF7u

Want to explore further?  Here are the Twitter handles for all the above, in alphabetical order:



Alpha BRAIN by Onnit Labs – @Onnit

AMRAP Nutrition – @AMRAPUSA

Donors Choose gift card – @DonorsChoose

Eat Green Tea – @eatgreentea

LSTN headphones – @LSTN

Mini work tool is created by BCB International – @bcbin

Spectacle, by David Rockwell and Bruce Mau - @labatrockwell, @brucemaudesign

Whack Pack, creator Roger von Oech – @RogervonOech

The Random Show, Episode 21: Smart Drugs, Bitcoin, Apps, Fish Taint, and More

This Random Show episode was an experiment via Google Hangout. The show starts around 11:00 if you want to skip the preamble and dumb-assery.

Here are just two of many, many links mentioned in the show:

Jacked – The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto

Cozy (start-up)

See the bottom of this post for show notes and more links, courtesy of reader Robin of MoveAutism. Thank you, Robin!

Two requests:

- Please let us know what you think of this experimental format!

- If you’d like to see what stuff I’m using or pining after, follow me here.

For all previous episodes of The Random Show, including the epic China Scam episode, click here.

Now, all the show notes and links…

Random Show Notes (6/5/13)

6:20 – What’s this show all about?

11:00 – Tim shows a wine (that he clearly likes) and the show begins.

Kevin Rose’s App of the Day

POP – build sketches of your app

http://popapp.in/

Tim Ferriss’ Daily Use Apps

Evernote

https://evernote.com/

Uber

https://www.uber.com/

Lift

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lift/id530911645?mt=8

Jot Not

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jotnot-scanner-pro-scan-multipage/id307868751?mt=8

Scanner Pro

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scanner-pro-by-readdle/id333710667?mt=8

Cat in the Hat Comes Back

http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Comes-Back-Classic-Seuss/dp/0449810844/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370504834&sr=1-1&keywords=Cat+in+the+Hat+Comes+Back

Sold

http://usesold.com/

Zombie Road Trip

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noodlecake.zombieroadtrip

Jacked – The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455130346/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1455130346&linkCode=as2&tag=offsitoftimfe-20

Foodist is awesome

http://www.amazon.com/Foodist-Science-Weight-Without-Dieting/dp/0062201255/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370505352&sr=8-1&keywords=foodist

As is the author

http://summertomato.com

Darya’s guest post on this blog

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/05/01/family-fat-loss-foodist/

L-Lysine

http://www.amazon.com/Source-Naturals-L-Lysine-1000mg-Tablets/dp/B001G7R554/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1370505098&sr=8-3&keywords=L-Lysine

Tim takes 2 grams per divided dose as immune support

Grape Seed Extract

http://www.amazon.com/Grapefruit-Seed-Extract-Liquid-Concentrate/dp/B000M8HQD4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1370505201&sr=8-5&keywords=grape+seed+extract

Fish Taint? At minute 29:00.

Google Book Pixel

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_pixel_wifi

Imitation Daft Punk Helmets

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MoguaiProps

BitCoin

http://bitcoin.org/en/

OpenCoin

http://opencoin.org/

M-Pesa – 3rd party payment via SMS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

The Biography of a Dollar

http://www.amazon.com/Biography-Dollar-Mighty-Conquered-World/dp/0307339874/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370506447&sr=8-1&keywords=the+biography+of+a+dollar

A Smart Drugs Birthday Present (“My cat has dementia”)

Alertec (A.K.A. Modafinil)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil

Female Viagra

http://www.emotionalbrain.nl/lybrido

Anacervx – Increasing Cognition

http://www.antiaging-systems.com/41-anacervix-vincamine-concentration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincamine

Tim discusses pros vs. cons of smart drug use:

52:00

Desmopressin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmopressin

Artichoke extract + Forskolin

http://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Relora-Veg-capsules-120-Count/dp/B0019LTGRW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370507599&sr=8-2&keywords=Forskolin+now

http://www.amazon.com/Solaray-Artichoke-Extract-300-capsules/dp/B00014FMKI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370507583&sr=8-1&keywords=Artichoke+extract+solaray

Cozy

https://cozy.co/

WWDC

https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/

Intermittent Fasting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting

Fasting Twins

http://www.youtube.com/user/fastingtwins

Athletic Greens

https://www.athleticgreens.com/v4/

MSG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

http://summertomato.com/?s=msg

Rubber Guard in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_guard

“How do you organize your life?”

Backblaze

http://www.backblaze.com/

Google+

http://www.google.com/+

Everything Scanned and Stored to Evernote

https://evernote.com/

Delectable App (Wine)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/delectable-wine/id512106648?mt=8

Trader Joe’s wine are generally fantastic

http://www.traderjoes.com/

Upcoming Events

Ignite Expo

http://ignitemag.ca/be_expo_2013

Founders Conference

http://f.ounders.com/

Dublin Web Summit

http://www.websummit.net/

4-Hour Parenting – plus – Sports Doping

First, An Email

This short post was inspired by an email.

John Heltzel, who’s on the non-profit board of Hand in Hand Parenting, sent me the following:

I was recently having dinner at Los Altos Grill with a CEO. He lamented that he travelled a lot and was having trouble re-connecting with his kids when he returned. I said: “When you get home, take out your iPhone, set the timer for 10 minutes, and say ‘you are now the boss for the next 10 minutes’ and see what happens.”

He wrote me back: “I did the ’10-minute boss’ exercise with my kids yesterday. They loved it. First started with ‘Get me some Skittles’ and then ‘Play school with us.’ Thanks for the tip!”

I’d love to hear from readers on other simple tricks for keeping connected to kids. As a some-day parent and driven person, it seems like the little things are the big things.

What do you think?

Second, Sports Doping

I was recently asked by The Next Web “[In the future]… will winning in sports be determined by technology?”

Here is my answer:

I would go so far as to say that nearly ALL future record-breaking athletics will depend on technology. This assumes we broadly define ‘technology’ as innovative tools for solving problems… like normal limitations of the human body. The 1980′s were the ‘golden age’ of steroids, which partially explains the records during that period. Moving forward, athletes’ coaches will use better tracking for Moneyball-like approaches to incremental gains; they’ll also use advances in medical and black-market biotech for massive gains.

The human body hasn’t evolved much over last 100 years for Olympic weightlifting or sprinting, right? This can be overcome a few ways: better scientific selection from massive populations (e.g. current day China, Cold War USSR), gene doping, cutting-edge medical treatment for faster recovery from injuries (Platelet-Rich Plasma injections, etc.), mechanical advantage (e.g. compression suits for swimming), and tweaking systems largely neglected in a sometimes anabolics-myopic arena (think acetylcholine optimization for 50-meter sprints). At the highest levels of power- or endurance-dependent sports, *everyone* is doping in some capacity, whether using EPO injection (banned) or high- altitude simulation tents (100% allowed but expensive, and the effects are nearly identical).

The options they choose are determined simply by how rich or poor they and their countries are. There is no such thing as a level playing field. Never has been and never will be.

Competitors with $1,000,000+ bonuses from big brands will always have more resources than the drug testers. It’s an easy game to beat…

[Read the full article here, including answers from others.]

Feel Good Friday: Readers, You Did This — 21,559 Students Helped So Far…

Imagine a huge stadium full of kids like this. It’s a lot, and you’ve helped them all.

This post is an experiment. I’m calling it “Feel Good Friday.”

There’s enough bad news in the world, so let’s spread a little optimism…

Since May 13th, you have directly helped 21,559 high-need public school students in the US. In fact, in the last few years, we (the community on this blog + me) have directly funded classroom projects for nearly 200,000 students (!!!).

Below are some of the teacher thank-you’s, which I think you’ll enjoy.

And one more thing:

THERE ARE STILL 3 DAYS LEFT IN OUR COMPETITION!

It’s anyone’s game to win. The prize is roundtrip airfare to a leisurely dinner with me and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. We can discuss anything you want, including business. If you’re interested in winning a seat (four (4) people will win), here are the rules.

If you’d simply like to donate $1 and feel great, click on my giving page here and choose a project you love.

Have a great weekend, all. Letters below…

Teacher Thank-You Letters

(From Engineering in the Classroom)

My class and I are so grateful for your generous donations. I teach in a middle school… My STEM class is learning about technology and engineering, and how these areas are not a distant and futuristic dream, but a reality… Girls normally shy away from engineering and technology, erroneously rationalizing that it is a boy’s field; the STEM class is opening their minds and piquing their curiosity in these areas.

The balloon helicopters will open their knowledge of Newton’s Law of Motion and aeronautics. The Solar Transformers will teach them about solar energy. The rocket launcher will introduce them to rocketry, measuring height and velocity. All this made possible by caring people like you.

With gratitude,

Mrs. Granado

(From Fit for Life)

I am so excited to share the good news that my DonorsChoose project, “Fit for Life” has been fully funded. I would like to express my appreciation to each donor for your generosity and support of my students. Your contributions to this project show your support not only of my students, but of the ideals of health and fitness and the importance of lifestyle in overall health.

I look forward to the new school year and the opportunity to see my students use this equipment to raise their awareness of their levels of health, and to encourage them to adopt a healthy, active lifestyle!

Thanks again!

With gratitude,

Mrs. Smith

(From Power Tools for Engineering)

Thank you so much for contributing to our engineering program at Da Vinci Science. These tools will allow our students to create more professional, high quality projects. Furthermore, it will allow more of our students to be involved in the actual construction process because we will have more tools available to them.

…Donorschoose and your donations have made it possible to build projects that we never dreamed of. Thanks again!

With gratitude,

Mr. McGregor

 

(From Keep Us Moving, Keep Us Learning)

I am overwhelmed with joy and appreciation that you helped to make my project a reality. Thank you for helping make a difference in the lives of my students. The physical education equipment you have funded will allow me to plan more engaging lessons for my students during structured recess and P.E. The resources will be used for years to come with my students.

I can’t wait to start having my students use their new equipment. Once again thank you for your kindness.

With gratitude,

Mrs. Peralta

Donor Comments

· “I’ve given to this project because when I was a kid, I got a microscope for christmas and it changed my life forever. When other kids played ball, I was making slides to see the cell structure differences between plants and animals. Learning is an excellent journey and everyone should have every opportunity and encouragement to pursue their dreams!”

– James from Idaho

· “I believe physical fitness is a cornerstone of a good life — it contributes to health, productivity, and happiness.”

– Sameer Jain

· “We have a shortage of students that understand and are stimulated by engineering concepts. Engineering is critical to the infrastructure of the United States and we need to encourage its growth. Thank you.”

– Kenji from California

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Want to grab dinner with Alexis Ohanian and me? Here’s how you can.

A How-To Guide: Accelerated Learning for Accelerated Times

The above video is a short presentation I gave at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam.

It covers a basic framework for mastering any skill quickly, including languages, music, dance, and more.

What skill have you put off learning for longest… and why? Let me know in the comments. Perhaps I (or other readers) can help. Second, if you could learn one skill in the next six months, what would it be?

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Important afterword:

NOTE — For my competition launched last week (not too late to join), roundtrip airfare is covered for all four winners.

Related content:

The 4-Hour Chef and Meta-Learning — 200+ pages on all I know about accelerated learning

Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too

Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes

How I Deconstruct Languages (scroll through the list)

The Magic of DonorsChoose — Join Me and Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian for Dinner

DonorsChoose.org is the first charity named to Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World.

I dislike most non-profits because — good intentions aside — they get little or no results.

DonorsChoose, on the other hand, is incredibly effective. In this month’s Vanity Fair, Melinda Gates describes them as “Kickstarter for classrooms.” Here’s her short article, which includes a photo spread by Annie Leibovitz. I make a guest appearance, which was a dream come true.

Here’s why I’m on their advisory board: To me, poor education is the root cause of most of our problems. DonorsChoose (DC) is helping to fix education.

This post launches a competition. If you’ve ever benefited from anything I’ve written, I’d kindly ask you to participate.

The four winners will get flown to dinner with me, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and DonorsChoose’s founder, Charles Best.

Ready? Here are the details…

· TIMING: Monday, May 13 through June 3. This is a three-week campaign of goodness.

· PRIZES: The top two “fundraisers,” as well as two randomly chosen “donors,” will win dinner in San Francisco with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, DonorsChoose.org founder Charles Best, and me.

· HOW TO WIN: There are two ways to win — roll the dice, or be master of your own fate.

Random shot:

Step 1: Donate to a classroom on my Giving Page here. For bonus points and good karma, share the link far and wide: www.donorschoose.org/tim

Step 2: Cross your fingers! Once the campaign ends, DC.org will select and announce two random winner(s) who donated to my page.

Master your own fate — make dinner happen:

Step 1: Create your own “Giving Page,” by choosing the “4-Hour Chef” category from this page.

Step 2: Add a picture, description, and classroom projects to your page. Choose whichever projects you like. This will automatically add your Giving Page to my Leaderboard.

Step 3: If you like, add the 4-Hour Chef widget (on the “Create a Giving Page”) to your website, etc.

Step 4: Fundraise! Do your best to get the most donors and/or the most money into classrooms. There will be two “master of fate” winners: 1) most money raised, and 2) most donors on your page.

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Please note: This competition is about being resourceful… and not about how many resources you personally have. So, don’t be intimidated.

I’ve run online fundraisers in the past, and the McGyvers win more often than the Donald Trumps. Be bold and get creative.

Hope to raise a glass of wine to you soon

Go get it!

Tim