Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 112

The Alchemy of Writing — Tips from a Non-Fiction and Fiction Pro

(Photo: EJP Photo)

Total read time: 20 minutes

Bolded read time (as a teaser): 4 minutes

—

I first met Josh Waitzkin at a coffee shop in Manhattan.

About 15 minutes into sipping coffee and getting acquainted, I was thrilled to realize that he dropped f-bombs as much as I did. He was no Rain Man, and I felt silly for half expecting him to be. If you’ve read the bestselling book Searching for Bobby Fischer (or seen the movie), then you know of Josh.

Wandering through Washington Square Park with his mom at age six, he became fascinated with the “blitz chess” that the street hustlers played at warp speed. He watched and absorbed. Then he begged his mom to let him give it a shot. Just once! Soon thereafter, dressed in OshKosh overalls, he was king of the hustlers.

Josh proceeded to dominate the world chess scene and become the only person to win the National Primary, Elementary, Junior High School, Senior High School, U.S. Cadet, and U.S. Junior Closed chess championships before the age of 16. He could easily play “simuls,” in which 20–50 chessboards were set up with opponents in a large banquet hall, requiring him to walk from table to table playing all of the games simultaneously in his head.

He was labeled a “prodigy.”

I disagree with this labeling because Josh has a process for mastery, and he’s applied it to many fields, not just chess. As it turns out, he’s not the only one in his family with this skill. His father, Fred Waitzkin, has processes and tricks he uses for writing both non-fiction (he wrote Searching for Bobby Fischer) and fiction…

As of late, I’ve become interested in the craft of fiction writing.

This interest was partially sparked by an early copy of Fred’s latest novel, The Dream Merchant, which is an incredible piece of art with praise from writers like Sebastian Junger. 

This post is a conversation with Fred about his creative process: tactical, psychological, and otherwise. The lessons learned apply to much more than writing. If you like this interview, please let me know in the comments.

NOTE: For those who’d like to skim this to start, I’ve bolded a few of my favorite lines and takeaways throughout.

Enter the Conversation:  Tim Ferriss (TF) and Fred Waitzkin (FW)

TF: You are best known for the book and film Searching for Bobby Fischer, but can you give us some of your background from before that media deluge?

FW: In my twenties, I spent years learning my chops writing short fiction. I felt a lot of frustration. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write and I struggled to publish my work. When I look back on it now, I was too hemmed in by feelings and dark moods—I didn’t give enough sway to the story part of my stories. I didn’t understand the importance of plot. In the early 80’s I began writing feature length non-fiction for The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine and a few others. All of a sudden my editors expected that I would be writing about something that really happened. This mandate was hard for me but also it was liberating—writing wasn’t all about what was inside my guts. Still, I thought of what I was doing as “creative non-fiction” which is to say I wanted my stories to have an arc, to build to some kind of revelation or impact ending.

I often wrote in the first person, which was unusual back then. You see, I didn’t believe in the New York Times credo, that a writer’s point of view about the subject shouldn’t be a part of the story. I believed that a writer always has a point of view and that masking it is a kind of fraud. So I didn’t write behind the mask. I put myself right into the story–Fred’s take–and somehow my editors put up with it. In my view, Norman Mailer was the greatest of all the contemporary non-fiction writers. He put himself right in–he let his imagination run wild in his non-fiction. Oddly, his imagination was a better friend to him as a non-fiction writer than as a novelist.

TF: Speaking of influences, or at least favorites, what are your top-5 favorite short stories?



FW: I’ll give you six, in no particular order, although I have never admired a story more than Kilimanjaro:

The Snows of Kilimanjaro–Ernest Hemingway

The Dead–James Joyce

To Build a Fire–Jack London

A Hunger Artist–Franz Kafka

The Swimmer–John Cheever

Let the Old Dead Make Room for the Young Dead–Milan Kundera [TF: couldn't locate link]

TF: When you were just starting out as a writer, did you seek formal training?

FW: No. I taught myself. I was a brash young guy, and I couldn’t accept criticism.

TF: Can you elaborate?

FW: I was turned on by Jack Kerouac’s vision of life and writing. I was rebellious. The idea of just digging life and putting it down like jazz improvisation seemed like the essence of great writing to me. Some professor telling me how to write sounded like cheating. Also, I suppose I was insecure, which is why I couldn’t accept criticism then.

TF: Did this solo approach hurt you?

FW: Well for one thing, I never met many writers or editors. I didn’t make connections. To work for magazines you have to know the editors. If you know them, and they become familiar with your work, you get assignments. If you send in stories or story ideas over the transom, it is far more likely that you will be ignored. A good writer can be ignored for years. It’s a shame.

TF: Looking at your writing career — was there a stand-out turning point? Or inflection point?



In 1984 I wrote a long piece for New York Magazine called “The Grungy World of Big Time Chess” that told the story of brilliant guys in New York who played the game with passion and devotion but couldn’t begin to make a living from it. This story appealed to me I suppose because my mom was an abstract painter, a great one, but she never made much money from her work. I loved the fifties idea of “art for art’s sake” and chess players embodied that. Anyhow, this legendary editor at Random House, Joe Fox, who loved chess, read the piece, and invited me to his office. He asked me why I was so passionate about the game when I wasn’t even a player. I told him that I had a six-year-old son who was remarkably good at chess, who beat up adults every afternoon playing in Washington Square Park. “That’s your book. That’s what you have to write about,” said Fox. I gulped. He wanted me to write a book about my six-year-old kid who had only been playing chess for a few months. But Fox was the foremost literary editor in the country. He was Truman Capote’s editor and Roth’s and Mathieson’s —how could I say no to such a luminary?

So I began writing Searching for Bobby Fischer in terror. It was such a risky proposition. What if Josh got bored with the game and quit before he was seven or before I finished writing? What if it turned out that he was just a flash in the pan talent? What would happen to my book? Also, I didn’t know how to write a book. What if the great Fox thought my work was terrible? How could I possibly measure up to Truman Capote and Philip Roth? Yes, I was terrified. Also, there were personal things in my life that had me depressed. I worried that my book would be about gloom because I was feeling that way—that gloom would filter through and darken the writing.

I began taking notes about my feelings about Josh’s chess life. We went to the park and Josh played heroic games against seasoned players—or they seemed that way to me. I wrote it all down on yellow pads. Each decision about his chess life seemed huge. Should he take formal lessons? Should he play in tournaments? Should he play speed chess? I wrote in my journal that his park games were more important to me than anything else in my own life. That was hard for me to look at, but it was true. Was I living my life through my six- year- old kid? Yes, for sure. And it was doubly true because of the book. The book gave an additional layer of urgency to everything that Josh and I did. In a minute, my career had become linked to his terribly youthful hobby–although to me it surely didn’t feel like a hobby. Was it fair to put so much pressure on a kid? Very big question. For sure it was interesting material to reflect on and write about.

TF:  Isn’t it difficult to write so candidly about yourself?  Did you find it embarrassing to take your clothes off in public, so to speak?

FW:  No, I got over that fairly quickly. It became my work to write truly about how I felt about myself and my kid as we moved through the chess world, just in the same way that a lawyer or a financial analyst does his research. I wrote it all down on yellow pads. I developed a working attitude about my confessional approach. I soon stopped thinking about whether or not I would embarrass myself. The book became a work of “introspective journalism.” I used that phrase when people asked me about it. I wrote about myself as if I were composing paragraphs about a fictional character. I adopted this strategy: If I wrote about “him” it wouldn’t hurt me. Of course once the book was about to hit the stores, I had my nerve-wracking moments.

There is a lot of alchemy in writing. You make a soup, put a lot of stuff in. But if it is a really good soup, what comes out is sometimes surprisingly different than what you put in. This is the coolest thing in writing. I have an idea to write a story about a guy I know. I write three or four notes on a legal pad. I’m raring to go. I begin churning out the words. I look at it again after a few days and I ask myself, “Where did that come from? Very interesting, but where did it come from?” If there is greatness in a book, it is usually the magic part–the revelations there were truly revelations to the author himself.

Energy needs to go into the soup. I’ll talk more about energy later, I’m sure, but just one thing here. Moods are energy. Think of a river flowing. If you are sad about some loss or terrible rejection, the river flows slowly in that direction. If you are ecstatic, the river rushes ahead with glee. But the main thing is movement. I mentioned before that I wrote Searching for Bobby Fischer when I was feeling depressed. Early on I discovered that I could divert that river and write passages that were hilarious. I marveled at it. My depression somehow gave me the impulsion to write humor. That was a great revelation to me and I’ve used it over the years. Movement begets movement. It is much better for a writer to feel badly than to not feel at all. If he feels badly he can turn it like a fire hose.

TF: How did you personally respond to the success of Searching?

The success of Searching was confusing and for a time it was even emotionally devastating. Perhaps when I think of that period in my life, I am conflating the book with the movie–all of this happened a long time ago. And people were constantly speaking of them as one and the same. But they weren’t. The book was very close to the experience of our lives, or as close as I could manage. The movie was a 125-minute version filtered through the sensibilities of many creative people, the script writer-director, the producer, a cast of greatly talented actors. The movie was a separate thing. Everyone in my family was upset by the movie when we first saw it. It wasn’t exactly what happened. It wasn’t our lives, not really, although the characters used our names.

Friends and strangers were always complimenting me about the movie as if it were my doing. Some people loved my book as well, but many more admired the Hollywood movie seen by millions. It was deeply confusing. Should I shake hands and say thank you, should I carefully explain that my book was quite different and really they should read it? But that seemed like a big bridge to cross with stranger after stranger who wanted to tell me how great the movie was. I shook hands and felt a bit like an imposter.

Also, for a writer who spends years by himself trying to actualize an inner vision, who covets silence and aloneness, hearing hundreds of compliments takes a toll. In my case there reached a point where I became insatiable. I wanted more and more great reviews. I wanted more people to tell me how terrific it was. This experience was like eating too much of the richest chocolate cake. I wanted more and at the same time my senses had become deadened from too much. I had to get away from the book and movie before I would be fit again to write anything decent. I recall having to wean myself from praise. I had to learn to sit by myself in a room again. That’s what I did.

TF: You’ve written nonfiction for a lifetime. Now you have spent the past ten years immersed in a novel. Can you describe some of the core similarities and differences in these processes? How would you compare the core challenge of writing fiction and nonfiction?

Actually, it feels like I have been writing fiction my entire life. But maybe that’s because I worked on The Dream Merchant for more than ten years– that’s a lifetime for one book. Also, my non-fiction life prepared me for fiction–I learned the importance of story. It was the perfect training ground.

I always wanted to write a novel. It’s just that I took a long time to get to it. And then The Dream Merchant took much much longer to finish than I’d ever imagined. I kept discovering new levels to the story, and every change meant fifty more changes. The novel is a deeper and more mysterious construction, I suppose, than a memoir but I’m not certain about this. For me, the best of non-fiction isn’t so different from fiction. As a journalist, the stories that appealed to me most were like short fictions—a small twist here and there and they might have been short stories. Many people have told me that my memoir, The Last Marlin, reads like a novel. While I was writing it I flirted with the idea of changing a few things and calling it a novel. Read This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff. Wolff might have called his great memoir of growing up a novel and no one who didn’t know his history would have blinked. Probably he was tempted.

But to dig into your question, a novel is constantly challenging the imagination. In a memoir, if you are playing more or less by the rules, you know what happened in fact, and the challenges have to do with how you are going to get there, the language you use, the moods you evoke, what you leave in and what you take out. With a novel there is more room to surprise yourself. Characters lead you to unexpected places, introduce you to new characters you hadn’t banked on meeting. Who are these strangers and what are they like? What are their passions? Who are their friends and lovers? All of this sounds obvious. But less obvious perhaps is how the novelist accesses the fictive side of himself.

Working on The Dream Merchant with numerous characters and dramatic scenes to bring to life I had to learn how to access my unconscious. This is an important part of my creative process. Let’s start simply. We all dream but some of us cannot recall our dreams in the morning. You can train yourself to remember your dreams. Put a pad on the shelf beside your bed and begin writing the second you open your eyes. Even before you open your eyes reach for the pad. Don’t turn on the light. Start scribbling in the dark. You will remember your dreams if you do this. The way I think of it, and I’m not a psychologist, you’ve created a bridge between your conscious and unconscious.

As a novelist I want to travel on this bridge, regularly–in fact, every day I want to cross over. Here is a deep trick that I learned from an interview with Ernest Hemingway: At the end of each writing day I leave unwritten a small portion of what I still had in my mind to compose that day.

[Tim note: Hemingway would routinely leave a sentence half finished, as discussed in A Moveable Feast.]

Then riding home on my bike from my office, at some level my mind is working on the unwritten paragraphs that I might have written but didn’t. I’m working on these paragraphs while I’m chatting with my wife or watching the ball game—but I am making connections that I never imagined. Sometimes my thinking is just a vague sense of impressions but other times an idea comes rushing to the surface. I always carry a small pad in my pocket to write it down. I’ve learned that if I don’t write it down, the insight is likely to disappear like many unwritten dreams. Then when I begin writing again the following day, I’ve discovered that the unwritten scene already contains hints and urges about where the narrative might next go–very often there are elements here that I hadn’t consciously thought about before.

When I was writing The Dream Merchant this dalliance with the unconscious felt very natural and I was able to give this hidden part of myself assignments. I would say to myself what does Jim worry about at night in bed? Or how does he tell his wife that he is going to leave her for another woman? Then I would be riding on my bike or watching the game, and the answer would rise to me–this would happen surprisingly often. Although each time it was a little thrilling, this bolt from the blue connection with a shadowy hard working world that we don’t know so much about.

One last point about my unusual dialogue with myself: It takes practice like running or swimming fast miles. When I haven’t written for a month or two I cannot access this part of being and I have to begin training in my fashion. But it gives me confidence to know that I have been there before and will probably be able to get back again.

TF: What do you do when your creative process is blocked? You talk a lot about muses. Tell us about that.



Inspiration is frequently misunderstood. When I was a young writer I looked for it in all the wrong places. In my twenties, I lived with my wife in a studio apartment just off Washington Square. Somehow I decided that the best writing time for me was late at night–I guessed that was when the muses would be running wild and delivering intoxicating poetic secrets. Perhaps I got this impression from Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round about Midnight” which I played over and over–it was so hauntingly beautiful and sad. In those days, after a late heavy dinner with a couple of beers topped off by more than a few drags of weed, I took my yellow legal pad into the chilly unsightly stairwell across from my front door and got ready to write the great American novel. Ugh, wrong move, Waitz. I recall sitting in the stairwell waiting for inspiration to strike until I was dozing off or feeling too cold. Some evenings when my wife was off taking classes at N.Y.U., for inspiration I maxed out the hifi with Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane blasting pure madness solos while I tried to compose my delicate pages. Wrong. Wrong. All wrong, Waitzkin.

Now, many years later, when I’m working on a book I write everyday except Sunday, when I watch football or go to the country with my wife. This routine has settled deeply inside. It gives me confidence. I’ve learned that pages will come if I go to my quiet office and stick with my routine. Back in the younger days, the unsightly stairwell seemed cool, but not now. I could never do my best work after a heavy meal or with the music blasting. It would be a distraction–an energy robber.

TF: But what about “inspiration”? Does it exist for you?



For me, inspiration is primarily energy. If I feel energy for a paragraph or a description I can almost always get to the essence of it. If I feel dead to myself, I don’t have a chance. I am always looking for energy. Where can I find it? What or who can give it to me? How can I amp up what I have?

A story can help us here. An older friend of mine was once depressed about his advancing years. He lacked zest or motivation for his regular gym workouts. He couldn’t concentrate on his career. One evening this man found himself in an elevator with a woman, a housekeeper who had worked for him in the past. But she was wearing outside clothes, a tight fitting sweater. She was young and beautiful. They talked a little. There was chemistry. She got off the elevator at his floor. They chatted in the hall. She said that she found him attractive. But he could feel this even before she said the words. She embraced him. And that was it. Nothing more happened between them. He was married and not looking for an affair. But he felt a big surge of life. He felt renewed, deeply so. There was a bounce to his step. He returned to the gym feeling ten years younger… There are many ways to experience the girl in the elevator…

###

This interview to be continued in Part II, coming shortly. In the meantime, read an excerpt of The Dream Merchant here.

A World Map of Flavors – 36 Regions, 36 Herb and Spice Combinations

Inspired by The 4-Hour Chef, the friendly folks over at the startup Maptia (launching soon) have created this fun typographic map of flavors from around the world. You can download a large version by clicking here.

Aside from the map, this post showcases 36 simple recipes and flavor combinations from the 36 regions covered in the map…



Maptia has ambitious plans to re-imagine mapping. They want to make it easy for everyone to create beautiful maps of their lives and the places around them.

Enter Maptia

Here in Morocco, in the kitchen of Maptia HQ, there lies a somewhat battered copy of The 4-Hour Chef – a little dog-eared and spice-stained from enthusiastic use.

Being naturally rather map-obsessed, we loved Tim’s flavor and place pairings on pages 148-149 of his book. They come from all over the world, and range from the perfumed and fragrant herbs of Provence (thyme, rosemary, and sage) to the sweet and spicy tastes of Indonesia (tamari, brown sugar, peanut, and chili). One of our favorite recipes Tim has since shared, based on another of these pairings, is scrambled eggs mixed with garlic, cumin, and dried mint for a tasty North East African twist.

The Recipes

For the more adventurous food lovers out there, we reached out to a few of our favourite chefs and food bloggers to put together a collection of recipes from all of the places Tim featured on the above flavor map.

Thank you to all of you who took the time to share recipes, ranging from mouthwatering main meals to tempting desserts. To give you a quick taste of the spectrum (pun intended) – we have everything Shaheen Peerbhai‘s grandma’s homemade Chicken Curry recipe from India, while from the more temperate European climate, we have a traditional Normandy Apple Tart by Imen McDonnell.

If you’re getting hungry by now, bookmark this page so you can come back to cook these recipes later… It’s possible travel around the world in your kitchen.

Here are the 36 flavor combinations in action!

1. Yucatán (map) | Traditional Sopa de Maiz shared by Sarah Kieffer who told us, “This soup is one of my absolute favorites – so many good flavors happening at the same time. The drizzle of lime juice is the best part.”

2. Mexico (map) | Homemade Tacodeli-style Salsa via Tribeza – thanks to Noah Kagan for the suggestion!

3. India (General) (map) | Homemade Chicken Curry from Shaheen Peerbhai

4. Northern India (map) | Garlic Chicken by Prerna Singh who says, “You don’t need to rush to the supermarket or an Indian grocery store to buy ingredients for this recipe. It’s pretty straightforward! You just need chicken and tons of garlic along with some basic ingredients like lemon and whatever you have in your spice shelf.”

5. Southern India (map) | Deliciously simple Nan Khatai baked by Tanvi Srivastava

6. Bengal (map) | Bengali style Aloo Dum from Archana Doshi

7. Middle East (map) | Quick but tasty Baba Ganoush from Cara Eisenpress

8. North Africa (map) | Harissa Turkey Meatballs by Lydia Walshin

9. Morocco (map) | Vegetable Tagine from David & Luise

10. East Africa? (map) | Pigeon Peas in a mild Coconut Curry by Sukaina

11. West Africa (map) | West African Ginger Drink via The Kitchn

12. North East Africa (map) | Ful Medames on Serious Eats

13. Greece (map) | Greek Nachos from Ashley Rodriguez

14. Italy (map) | Spaghetti with fresh Soppressata by Lindsay & Taylor

15. Northern Italy (map) | Tomato Flatbreads with Anchovy Oil from Nicole Gulotta

16. Southern Italy (map) | Arancini Di Riso by Michael Natkin

17. France (map) | Spectacular baked Mont d’Or cheese from David Lebovitz

18. Southern France (map) | Old-fashioned Merveilles by Mimi Thorisson

19. Normandy (map) | The traditional Apple Tart baked by Imen McDonnell

20. Provence (map) | Provencal Vegetable Tian by Martha Stewart

21. Spain (map) | Gazpacho from Matt Armendariz

22. Hungary (map) | Hungarian Pork Stew by Cheri

23. Eastern Europe (map) | Wild Mushroom and Onion Kasha via Bon Appétit

24. Northern Europe (map) | Swedish Kalops? from Kimberly Killebrew

25. Central Asia (map) | Risotto Balls with Mango Chili Sauce by Sneh Roy

26. Burma (map) | Burmese Tofu Salad from Katherine

27. Nepal (map) | Sekwa Chara (Nepalese Chicken Roast) via Awesome Cuisine

28. Thailand (map) | Thai Shrimp Cakes from Leela Punyaratabandhu

29. Vietnam (map) | Beef Pho Noodle Soup from Andrea Nguyen via Jodi Ettenberg

30. Laos (map) | Spicy Laotian Beef Salad by Katherine Foshko via Victoria Frolova

31. Japan (map) | Mouthwatering Takoyaki from Stephane Lemagnen, who says, “It’s my favourite street snack in Osaka.”

32. Indonesia (map) | Nasi Goreng from Jun

33. Korea (map) | Warm Tofu with Spicy Garlic Sauce by Alexandra Stafford, who says, “Both healthy and satisfying, this warm tofu costs next to nothing to prepare, comes together in 10 minutes, and is completely delicious.”

34. China (map) | Stir-fried Nai Bai via Noob Cook

35. Szechuan (map) | Peppercorn Roasted Chicken from Jaden Hair

36. Canton (map) | Char Siu (Barbecued Pork) by Diana Kuan who reckons that, “Along with Wonton Noodle Soup, Char Siu is the Cantonese people’s greatest contribution to mankind.”

And A Mini Culinary Challenge (Just for Fun)

Whoever shares the most interesting or unusual recipe (with accompanying photo or video) by 5pm PDT this Sunday (24 March) will receive a one-off wall print of our original hand-painted typographic map above.

Your submission could be a family recipe that has been passed down through the generations, or perhaps one of your own experiments in the kitchen. Bonus points for creativity!

Here’s how it works:

1) Post your recipe and accompanying photo or video (perhaps a 6-second Vine snapshot?) somewhere online.

2) Tweet the URL of your submission (and the place it is from) to @Maptia and @tferriss, and make sure to include the hashtag #RTWflavors.

3) Make sure to tweet us your submission before 5pm PDT this Sunday (24 March).

Rules of thumb:

- The recipe must come from (or be inspired by) one of the 36 places listed above in the photographic tributes to the flavors.

- It must be an original recipe, or your own twist on an existing recipe. Do not violate copyrights or other intellectual property.

- The photo or video must be your own and must be of the recipe you are submitting.

As soon as the deadline (5pm PDT, Sun 24 March) has passed we will choose the person who has submitted the most interesting or unusual recipe, and send them the one-off wall print of the typographic flavor map. We will also feature the winning recipe over on our Maptia blog.

We’re really excited to try out some of your recipes and to see where in the world your culinary imaginations have taken you… Good luck!

Bonus: The Flavor Combo Pics

With such diversity and color among the different flavors Tim wrote about, we decided what better way to get people inspired about using them in their cooking than to create a photographic tribute for each place and each set of flavors on the map. Here they are:

(Photos: Sources listed here)

My First Quarterly Shipment! (Plus: Live Event 3/28, Merrell Winners)

Screenshot of my first video “letter” to Quarterly subscribers.

Roughly 2-3 weeks ago, my first Quarterly package shipped out to subscribers, including many of you.

The theme of my Quarterly mailings is obsession–the ideas and objects I just can’t get out of my head. I get obsessed with all kinds of things. Sometimes I’m hooked on a great health product or travel gadget. Other times, I find a new productivity booster or incredible book through my experiments and research.

I never know what I’ll get obsessed with next, and that surprise factor is what makes obsessions great.

Here’s what the first box looked like (click to enlarge)!

[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]
[image error]

The descriptions are below… and just wait until you see what’s next!…

Quarterly is now accepting 500 more subscribers — first come, first served. Just click here to check out the details. International is no problem — just a $10 shipping fee for Canada and a $15 shipping fee for all other non-US countries.

Anything in particular you’d like to see in future boxes? Please let me know in the comments.

In the meantime, here are all of the products from the first box ($200+ value):

1. Gyokucho Japanese Saw

2. Bird by Bird

3. Letters from a Stoic

4. Buddha Board

5. Prismacolor Col-Erase Colored Pencil Light Blue

6. Bigger, Stronger, Faster (DVD)

7. Athletic Greens

OR

BioTrust Low-Carb Protein (This was only for some international subscribers, who could not receive Athletic Greens due to customs regulations)

###

Odds and Ends: Live Event and Merrell Winners

Live Event: “Building the Perfect Human: Tracking Biomarkers for Performance and Health Enhancement”

I use a start-up called WellnessFX for all of my comprehensive blood testing.

Be one of the first 200 people to purchase a WellnessFX package between now and March 28, and you’ll receive an exclusive invitation to see me speak live in downtown San Francisco on March 28th from 6pm-7:30pm. It will be an intimate group, and there will be plenty of time for audience Q&A.

Check out all the details here.

Merrell Winners

The 10 winners of the last comment competition are listed below. To the winners: keep an eye on your email! Also, since so many people have asked about my default shoes, here are my two current favorites:

- For all-around use: The Reach Glove

- For walking and (carefully) running: The Vapor Glove, their most minimal “barefoot-like” shoe

http://bit.ly/13VVpCk – Men’s

http://bit.ly/Z7TOoB – Women’s

THE 10 WINNERS:

It was hugely difficult to narrow these down, but here are 10 that my magic elves and I particularly liked. Thank you to everyone how commented!

1. Adam Brady

Connection for me occurs when purpose meets emotion. You can do things with purpose but without emotion and you can do things emotionally but without purpose, “connection” is when the two sentiments converge. Many individuals work with the purpose of making a living, and many play for the pure emotion of joy but, when one finds a calling or activity that speaks to them they become connected, and that work/activity is executed with both purpose and joy.

My favorite body weight exercises are pull-ups, push-ups, mountain climbers, deep squats and planks. 5 exercises, whole body, simple and effective.

2. Connor Grooms

It is inherently foolish to try to put words to connection. Connection is not possible to describe, just like the tao, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name”. Connection is what makes life worth living, what makes relationships deep, and what makes being alone in wild Nature feel so freeing. There are more literal meanings, but those are insufficient.

Best body weight exercise is Pullups, especially ones on door frames (grip strength)

3. Rachel

When we feel our hearts beating, blood pulsing in our veins, and our breath moving inside of us we are fully alive…we are in connection with ourselves and we are connected to all other living things. Connection is life.

Yoga is connection and is by far my favorite body-weight only exercise for mind, body and spirit!

4. Mike Gopsill

Connection is the noun for Kevin Bacon, who is always connected, by 4GEE and by six degrees.

My favourite bodyweight-only exercises are dips because they are isolated and intense, a one-handed pushup (Rocky-style) and I like a Turkish getup with no weight if that counts.

Great post Tim, looking forward to getting outside myself when the UK summer kicks in.

5. Edmundo Gurza

What does “connection” mean to you??A connection is the perfect mix of focus and calmness, which allows you to be in the moment with all your senses. Whether it is with a person, a task or nature, being in the moment and allowing the connection to happen opens your senses to bring clarity and be able to focus on what is surrounding you.

What are your favorite bodyweight-only exercises??- squats (such a natural movement that has been so lost in our culture)?- anything handstand-ish (pushups, holds, one handed, etc)?- and of course pullups

6. Rebecca

Connection is intangible, invisible and undeniable. Felt as an energy toward someone or something, our ears perk up, our eyes open wide and our hearts start to flutter.

It sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It grabs you by the heart and says “listen up!” It is the extra “something” that we often cannot put words to because there are some things in life that are too unique and special to name or label.

Best body weight exercise is full body squats in sets that make you wonder if you are going to be able to get off the toilet later! :0)

7. Drew

Connection, to me personally, is what I felt the first time I went to Brazil, speaking no Portuguese, and met a Japanese Brazilian girl who didn’t speak English. We had the strongest CONNECTION I had ever felt. We had a “chemical”, as she said, using her English dictionary.

8 years later: she is fluent in English, I am fluent in Portuguese, and we are married.

My favorite bodyweight exercises are the ones that use leverage and creativity to create extreme difficulty – one-armed pushup and one-armed pullup.

8. Ryan Ripley

Connection – a strange attractor that leads to unpredictable interractions and consequences.

Favorite body weight exercise: Face the wall squats (RKC)

9. Monica Ridgway

For me, “connection” means surrender, at least to some extent, allowing unity with whatever one is connecting with – be it nature, God, oneself, a dance partner, a spouse, a friend, or whatever. In order to connect, we have to let go of our own need for control, let go of preconceived ideas and agendas, and allow the external to enter and exert power over us. This surrender and connection changes us, the whole more than the sum of its parts.

As for favorite body-weight-only exercises, my top choice has always been dance. From the strict forms of ballet and modern dance, to ballroom and swing, to the nearly-formless bouncing and shimmying to be witnessed in nightclubs, to break dancing, dance involves all parts of the body – particularly the core – and it is also a great cardio workout. Dance is also an excellent way of connecting, be it with music – giving your body over to the music to drive your movement – or with a partner – surrendering the self to move together as one body.

10. Mark Greenman

1. For me, “connection” means a lot of things, but when I first read it, the connection I thought of was the feeling I get when I connect with a particularly well designed piece of gear, something that has been designed for exactly what I need it to do, and expresses itself instantly. But then I’m a gear nerd!

Announcing the “4 Fundamentals”, Merrell Partnership/Giveaway, and Live Q&A

I’ve worn Merrell shoes for ages, even back in 2007 for Japanese horseback archery training.

It’s a long story, but I still have those bad boys.

In 2012, Merrell themselves noticed that I wore Merrell. DMs were sent, and the seeds of a partnership were born. Today, I’m thrilled to formally announce that I’m collaborating with Merrell in 2013 to get more people outdoors. Of course, they want to move product, but I’m happy to help. Why? Because I already love their stuff, and the new minimal shoes are precisely what I wanted and wrote about in The 4-Hour Body. The soles of the M Connect line are designed by Vibram but less socially awkward than their Gecko-feet variety, which I’d stopped wearing.

I’ll be doing a lot with Merrell using their Twitter and Facebook accounts (keep reading), so you might want to follow them here:

Merrell Twitter

Merrell Facebook

I’d also like to give away some shoes! Just answer both of these questions in the comments below:

- What does “connection” mean to you?

- What are your favorite bodyweight-only exercises?

The best 10 responses will get 10 pairs (one pair each) of Merrell shoes: 8 domestic US winners and 2 international winners. All answers are due no later than 5pm PST on Tuesday, March 12.

Live Events and Q&A — Saturday and Monday

I will be doing a few live events today, Saturday:

- Live SXSW keynote in Austin, TX — 11AM-12PM Tomorrow, Saturday, March 12. It’s called “Acquiring the Skill of Meta-Learning” and is about how to become world-class in nearly any skill in 6 months or less.

- Book Signing at SXSW following above presentation, from 12:30pm to however long it takes

Then, next Monday (March 11), a free 2-hour Q&A on Twitter:

Here’s how it works:

- Go to @merrelloutside and follow them.

- Starting 9pm EST, ask any questions you like in the following format “@tferriss @merrelloutside [Insert question]?” Anything is fair game, and I’ll do my best to answer as many as possible.

Have a great weekend… and get outside!

The 4-Hour Chef Wins — Gourmand Awards “Best in the World”

Greetings from Paris!

I am ecstatic to announce that The 4-Hour Chef has won Best First Cookbook at the 18th Annual “Best in the World” Gourmand World Cookbook Awards (!!!).

26,000+ food and wine books are produced every year, and books from more than 100 countries participate in the Gourmand Awards.

I was at a loss for words on the platform above. I was more surprised than this (see :08 forward).

Thank you to everyone who helped make this book a reality. It was all worth it.

Thank you to my incredible family.

Thank you to my wonderfully supportive girlfriend.

Thank you to every one of you, my dear readers. You’re the reason I keep writing.

Woohoo!

Tim

The 4-Hour Chef Trailer Competition – Winner and Honorable Mentions

Ya’ll rock! (Picture: Broken down on the roadside, pre-Burning Man).

Without further ado, the results of the video trailer competition!

All entries were viewed by me and my esteemed panel of judges, elves, and magic robots. As explained in the original post, the winner provided the best combination of creativity, book explanation, and total view count.

The Winner

The winner of the $2,500 USD and 60-min call with me (should he choose) is Vince Wong. Congrats, Vince! Be on the look-out for an email from my team. Well done, sir.

Vince Wong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb6Oq7vD-cw

CREDITS:

Directed / Produced by: Vince Wong

Script by: Vince Wong / Jared Croslow

Cast: Vince Wong / Bruna Silva

Camera Operations: Hall & Max

Camera Assistants: Mink / Ploy

Sound Design: Hall & Max / Audio Jungle

Editing / Special FX: Vince Wong / Jared Croslow

Location: Red Sky Bar, Centara Grand Hotel, Bangkok Thailand (Thank you for last minute official location approval, and for the complimentary cocktails!)

Vince’s blog: http://www.vincewong.com

Vince’s 4-Hour Workweek success story — 37+ countries in 2 years, $200,000+ earned in first 9 months.

Honorable Mentions

There were so many great videos, it was hard to keep count. The below is just a small sample. I once again concluded that — yes — I have the best readers out there. What a blast…

Contenga International: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXzrD8mfMpo

The Draw Shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJwOtmAWKk

Brent Thacker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiRccPXVlDk

Benedict Westenra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhipixFZDOc

Tri Mahon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB92hYNuVTs

 

Thanks again, all!

###

Odds and Ends: Elsewhere on the Internet

If you missed it, here are two videos from my appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He’s a super chill dude and a legitimate fan of the books. It was a wonderful experience.

How to Memorize a Shuffled Deck of Cards in Less Than 60 Seconds (Plus: $10,000 Challenge)

(Photo credit: Jystyn)

To become a Grand Master of Memory–fewer than 100 in the world can claim that title–you need to satisfy each of the following in competitions approved by the World Memory Sport Council:

• Memorize the order of 10 decks of cards in 60 minutes.

• Memorize 1,000 random digits in 60 minutes.

• Memorize the order of one deck of cards in less than two minutes.

Ed Cooke first hit this trifecta when he was 23. He later came to international attention when he coached journalist Joshua Foer from ground zero to U.S. Memory Champion in one year, a feat chronicled by Foer in the best-seller Moonwalking with Einstein. To win that championship, Foer had to memorize 120 random digits in five minutes, successfully commit to memory the first and last names of 156 strangers within 15 minutes, and (last but not least) memorize a shuffled deck of cards in less than two minutes.

Ed has memorized a shuffled deck of cards in competition in 43 seconds. Of all memory feats, none is a more compressed act of mental athleticism.

I asked him if he’d open the kimono and explain his method, and he very graciously agreed.

It takes around four hours to get comfortable with Ed’s best-of-breed system. With a little practice, you’ll be a third of your way to becoming a Grand Master.

(Im)practically speaking, it’s just freaking amazingly cool. Few people in the world can pull it off, and that’s reason enough to take a weekend or slow evening to try. Instead of watching another bad movie, you can become one of the memory illuminati.

Last but not least, there’s a $10,000 competition at the end if you want to really give this a shot…

ENTER THE BICYCLESHOP

I’ve taken to calling Ed’s approach the Bicycleshop, a combination of the brand of playing cards and Photoshop.

We will learn the basics of Bicycleshop with a simple version; let’s call it Bicycleshop Lite. Then we’ll upgrade to Bicycleshop Pro. Learn to use them in that order.

BICYCLESHOP LITE

Bicycleshop Lite helps you do two things: memorize the cards and memorize the order of the cards.

Step One: Learning the Cards

First, you convert 52 cards into 52 celebrities.

The mind ignores the mundane and remembers the unusual, whether people (e.g., Lady Gaga) or a sudden motion in the under- brush. The more unusual, the more the brain forms a bookmark for recall.

To make recalling 52 celebrities easier, each suit corresponds to a personality type and each card ( jack, 10, ace, etc.) corresponds to a profession (or category). This means that when you look at a given card, you’ll have two cues to help you remember the celebrity.

The Suits (think: personalities):

Diamonds—rich people

Hearts—people you love

Clubs—tough or crazy people

Spades—amusing or absurd people

The Cards (think: professions):

All even numbers are female and all odd numbers are male, and they’re paired up. You can just remember that, for instance, 9s are powerful men, and the 10s are therefore powerful women. The 5s are controversial males, so 6s are controversial females, etc.

Mnemonic suggestions are included below each “profession” to facilitate the association, but you can create your own. Skim this list once, read Ed’s notes following the list, and then read them over again.

King—Male half of celeb couple

Queen—Female half of celeb couple

Celeb couples are the royalty of the present. Each suit will have its own celeb couple. Contrasting celeb couples—John and Yoko, David Bowie and Iman—can help the pairs stick.

Jack—Religious figures

Jacks are bachelors; religious figures were bachelors.

10 Famously powerful women

9 Famously powerful men

Highest numbers, highest-powered people

8 Famous female physiques

7 Famous male physiques

Hourglass or busty or hunky or ripped—the bodies of your dreams.

6 Controversial females

5 Controversial males

Think of “five” and “effing”; “six” sounds like “sex.”

4 Female movie stars

3 Male movie stars

Think of all those trilogies out there.

2 Sportswomen

Ace Sportsmen

Ace is a term associated with excellence in sports; think of “two” as “deuce” in tennis.

Ed explains how this is all put together:

“Having chosen 13 professions/categories and four personalities—just 17 things to learn—you can use your existent knowledge and opinions to fill out a 52-card matrix. The ace of diamonds, on my scheme, is a sports- man (ace) who got rich (diamonds)—OK, Michael Jordan. The jack of spades on my scheme would be a religious figure who’s amusing—the Dalai Lama has a good sense of humor. The six of spades, a humorously controversial woman—Lady Gaga, no question.

“Using this method, it should take less than an hour to fill the matrix out and come to be able to slowly recall the people who now correspond to the 52 cards. Once you have your cast of card-people, go through shuffled decks and practice translating the cards to their images until it’s automatic. This might take another hour to begin to master.”

The next step is to put them in order.

Step Two: Memorizing the Order of a Shuffled Deck

You will now peg 52 cards to locations along a familiar route. It could be a path through your house, the journey from your front door to a favorite pub—whatever you like. Some memory competitors use their childhood homes: Scott Hagwood, who won the U.S. Memory Championship from 2001–2004, uses rooms from luxury homes he finds in Architectural Digest, 10 locations per room. If you choose that approach, you can mentally position yourself at the entrance to each room and move as follows: at your feet, closest left corner, then clockwise to left wall, then far left corner, opposite wall, far right corner, right wall, closest right corner, then two spots on the ceiling.

Choosing 52 locations should take no more than 30 minutes, and then you can start placing your celebrities (cards) at each point. Keep it simple for now, using a longer path if multiple points per room cause overload. Ed starts at his bed:

“For me, a pack beginning with the jack of spades would mean the Dalai Lama standing at the first point on my route—my bed. At the second point, my wardrobe, I’d deposit the image corresponding to the second card, perhaps it will be Michael Jordan—the ace of diamonds.

“Continue all the way through the pack, taking your time and lots of care to imagine each person vividly in their position. Once you get to the end of the route, retrace it in your imagination and you will hopefully encounter all the people in the sequence that you imagined them. You will probably need to go through two or three times the first time you attempt it.”

And just like that, bingo: you’ve memorized your first deck of cards!

BICYCLESHOP PRO

Now we upgrade you.

Bicycleshop Lite, while perfectly effective, is a little slow. Fifty-two separate goddamn images! Well, what did you expect for trial software? But it’s the right place to start. Biting off all the features of Bicycleshop at once will just give you indigestion. Now that you’ve taken a ride with training wheels, it’s time for phase two.

Bicycleshop Pro, the next step for power users, has a much more efficient compression algorithm. It builds on top of what you already know, but instead of 52 images, we’ll reduce to 17 or 18 images. This makes it three times as fast. Here’s how it works, in Ed’s words:

“The next step is combining several cards into single images, which we achieve by assigning each card (celebrity) an action and an object. Jordan, the ace of diamonds, might have for an action a slam dunk, and his object a basketball. The Dalai Lama’s action might be praying, his object a Buddha. Lady Gaga’s action might be posing in a meat dress (memory, after all, loves to be disgusted), her object a load of paparazzi photographers (also disgusting).”

By adding this syntactic structure, combinations of three cards now form mini- sentences: the celeb from the first card, the action from the second, and the object from the third.

“For example, in my matrix, ace of diamonds–jack of spades–six of spades becomes Michael Jordan praying to the paparazzi; jack of spades–six of spades–ace of diamonds, on the other hand, translates into the Dalai Lama wearing a meat dress while holding a basketball. The two images, utterly distinct and deeply memorable, could never be confused.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Bicycleshop Pro. Elegant and, with practice, as fast as world champions.

Perhaps you need a little incentive? Try a $10,000 card-memorizing competition – the first of its kind. See the next section for more details.



For the type-A, obsessive sorts: once you get reasonably fluid and want to take racing the clock more seriously, I suggest getting a metronome. This will be your plateau breaker. If you stall and seem unable to memorize any faster, set the metronome for 10%–20% faster than you can currently handle. Force yourself to turn cards at this rate until you stop making errors. For instance, if you’re stuck at 10 cards per minute (1 per 6 seconds) after a few weeks, set the metronome to 20% less time, so 4.8 seconds per metronome click. If a particular card causes hiccups, make a note of it (or draw a pen marking on it) and analyze the reasons later.

Just remember: this is fun, so keep it fun. Enjoy the mind games.

The $10,000 Card Memorizing Challenge — For Beginners Only

Ed can learn 16 decks of shuffled cards in an hour. Let’s get you to your first memorized deck, shall we?

In The 4-Hour Chef, we promised a $10,000 prize to the first person who could from beginner to expert (being able to learn a deck in less than a minute). The rules were “coming soon.” Well, after a few delays, the challenge is ON.

Ed has put together a course on Memrise, complete with video tutorials from the clever and charismatic man himself. The exercises are truly elegant… and effective.

To win $10,000, one of the biggest prizes ever given for a memory challenge of any kind, you have to learn from scratch to memorize a deck of cards in under a minute. This is a 6-week competition — just enough time to do this. All of your training has to take place on Memrise, so we can watch the competition unfold and ensure no cheating or fraud.

So is this really possible? Sure. It takes just a few hours to master the images you’ll need. Then it takes a few more hours to get your head around the spatial memory techniques. From that point on, it’s just a matter of practice for speed.

HOW THE COMPETITION WILL RUN

The competition will take place at http://www.memrise.com/tim-ferriss

The competition begins now, Feb 6th 2013 and runs until 11.59 p.m. March 20th 2013.

The winner of the $10K will be the first person who legitimately goes from beginner to being able to learn a deck of cards in under a minute, so long as someone does this by March 20th. There will be various other prizes, including limited edition T-shirts and packs of cards for the top competitors who don’t finish first.

To be eligible for the prizes, all your practice at learning card sequences, as well as the achievement of doing it in a minute, should happen in the cards system found here. *The competition *is* the training, and we need to be able to watch everyone’s progress to ensure a fair winner. We’ll also be gathering collective data for the purposes of science and a later wrap-up.

So, let the games begin! Click here for all the juicy details and training tools.

Note: For additional help — two graphs, representing how to memorize all the cards quickly, can be found in the Appendices of The 4-Hour Chef.

Case Study: What Does a Real 4-Hour Workweek Look Like…With a Family?

Now that’s a happy kid. (Photos: Brandon Pearce)

One common challenge for readers of The 4-Hour Workweek is the creation a “muse”: a low-maintenance business that generates significant income. Such a muse is leveraged to finance your ideal lifestyle, which we calculate precisely based on Target Monthly Income (TMI).

Despite the dozens of case studies I’ve put on this blog, and the hundreds elsewhere, one knee-jerk objection always crops up: “That might work for a single 30-something guy, but what about families? I have a mortgage, kids, and…”

The following is a guest post by Brandon Pearce. Brandon has three kids and first appeared on this blog as a muse case study for his business, Music Teacher’s Helper, which generated more than $25,000 a month at the time.

Things are even better now.

He and his family have now been leisurely traveling the world for 1,128 days. They are currently living like royalty and surrounded by palm trees.

This post explains exactly how Brandon spends his time over one week…

Have you implemented The 4-Hour Workweek with your family? If so, please let me know in the comments!

Enter Brandon

Three years ago, I’d already moved abroad with my family, automated my businesses, and was living the 4-Hour Workweek lifestyle. At one point, I decided to track every minute of every day for one week to help me visualize how much time I was spending on what really mattered to me.

Many people seem to think that if you only have to work a few hours per week, you must be spending the rest of your time relaxing in a hammock drinking piña coladas. I mean, what else is there to do? Actually, everything!

As you’ll see, I do spend my fair share of time relaxing, being with family and friends, and even doing “nothing.” But I have plenty else to keep me busy, and I enjoy the freedom to adjust my activities according to my changing interests.

While it takes some effort to track each minute of every day, when I’ve done so, I’ve found it helps me be aware of what I’m doing in the moment, and I feel less pressure while doing tasks I don’t enjoy. I also realize that time will keep moving on, no matter what I do. As long as I’m enjoying life, growing, and helping others where I can, I feel like I’m living my life well.

With that introduction, here is one full week of my life, organized by task.

Disclosure: Even though these tasks are recorded to the minute, they’re not always accurate to the minute. Sometimes I forgot to switch my timer right when I switched tasks, so had to modify it later with a little guess work. Being off by a few minutes for several things has led to being off by a couple hours overall. But it will have to do. For this exercise, I used SlimTimer, a free on-line time tracking tool.

Work Time

I define “work” as activities done specifically to help produce income. This week I “worked” a little more than usual because I was getting some video tutorials written for one product, and launched a special offer with another. I also planned some important new features to work on next. For me, it’s normal for this category to be under 5 hours per week total.

- Business: Music Teacher’s Helper: 5 Hours, 18 minutes. This includes advertising/marketing (1:35), checking programmer’s work (1:30), customer support (0:48), and the rest in business planning, finances, and checking stats.

- Business: Studio Helper: 2 hours, 1 minute. This includes working on video tutorials (1:27), business planning (24 min), and the rest dealing with feature requests and checking stats.

- Other: 33 minutes. This includes times spent researching a new business idea.

Total Work Hours: 7 Hours, 52 Minutes

Update: I’ve since hired more programmers and support staff, a project manager, and a marketing director, so I’m doing different tasks, but still working about the same amount of time each week.

[Note from Tim: Before you literalists scream "But that's more than four hours per week!" read the book for context. Greatly simplified, the goal is to increase your current per-hour output 10x.]

Family Time

One of the things I like most about my lifestyle is that I have so much time to spend with my family. We’re together pretty much all day, even if we’re not doing the same thing. Meals, driving, and time with others outside the family are under “Personal Time.”

- Playing with kids: 11 hours, 32 minutes. I try to play with my kids a little every day. Much of this is computer or iPad games with one daughter while my wife is doing homeschool with the other one. But it also includes reading to them, playing hide and seek, “restaurant” and other imagination games.

-  Watching Movies: 6 hours, 51 minutes. We watched a few movies with the kids this week, in the evenings, including the 1969 Doctor Dolittle, and Tarzan in Spanish.

- Family Outings: 5 hours, 15 minutes. This includes a little hike up the mountains behind our house, and a trip to the park to ride ponies and bicycles. We also spent time together with our friends, which I’ve included in the Personal: Visiting with Friends section.

- Talking with Wife: 3 hours, 56 minutes. Jen and I enjoy just sitting and talking, as well as reading together.

Total Family Time: 27 hours, 34 minutes

Update: My kids are older now (9 and 7), and we have another baby who is almost two years old. Our two oldest daughters attend a homeschool group most weekdays. And we now enjoy the services of a full-time nanny, housekeeper, driver, and chef. Consequently, my wife and I get more time together, we each get more personal time, and we enjoy different types of activities with our kids.

Personal Time

Even though it looks like I have lots of time left over for myself, I don’t feel like I have much “free time.” I guess that’s because I try to fill my time up with things that I like to do and am passionate about. I still have a full to-do list, and do spend time on things I’d rather not, but I try to work on the most important items first each day. Overall, I’m doing what I love with the majority of my time.

- Sleep: 57 hours, 21 minutes. That’s just over 8 hours per night. This week, we’ve been sleeping in a different room where the sun hits us warmly every morning around 6:30 through the windows. It’s not conducive to sleeping in, but is a very relaxing way to get up.

- Visiting with friends: 11 hours, 22 minutes. We had some friends over for a late lunch one day this week, and we spent an afternoon out with another friend.

- Meals: 11 hours, 2 minutes. We ate out a lot this week (almost every day), and took time to enjoy our food. The meal with our friends is included under “Visiting with friends”.

- Reading: 9 hours, 8 minutes. I have some really interesting books I’m reading right now, although half of this time was spent reading articles and blogs on-line.

- Personal Email: 8 hours, 13 minutes. I had a LOT more time-consuming email than usual this week. I’ve been getting lots of emails from people starting businesses who want advice. I’ve enjoyed being able to help people in this regard. Maybe soon I will have to start charging for consulting and move this into the “Work” category.

- Writing: 4 hours, 31 minutes. This was time I spent working on my new book about how to create an online business. I suppose this could also be considered “Work” since I will eventually sell the book, but that’s not my main purpose in writing it.

- Daily Hygiene: 3 hours, 27 minutes. It’s amazing how much time this takes. But I do love a hot shower.

- Sex: 3 hours, 9 minutes. No, it wasn’t all at once.

- Meditating and spiritual time: 2 hours, 41 minutes. I have a great place to sit for my morning meditation overlooking the hills and the city view. Very relaxing.

- Finances: 2 hours, 3 minutes. This is higher than normal because I’ve been working a lot with my accountant trying to figure out taxes, and have been looking at other investment opportunities.

- Exercise: 1 hour, 47 minutes. This includes my daily stretching and tai chi, and a little weight lifting. This doesn’t include all the hiking and walking we did as a family this week.

- And I spent anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour, 30 minutes on each of the following: cleaning and organizing, house maintenance, driving, facebook, games (pool, and angry birds), journal, playing the piano, shopping, time tracking, vacation planning, writing on my blog, and selling stuff on Craigslist.

Total Personal Time: 128 hours, 52 minutes

Update: About a year ago, I started charging $150/hour for consulting and it reduced my email while increasing my income. I’ve also put my book on hold for the time being. And these days, I’d probably count “Finances” as “Work,” since it’s income related. Lately, I’ve been spending more time meditating, reading, and journaling, and am learning more about myself in the process. I’m also taking Qi Gong (Chi Kung) lessons, learning the guitar and ukelele, playing in a small band, studying dreams, and experimenting with connected breathing and emotional awareness techniques to help me be more present to enjoy each moment fully.

How to Improve In the Future

Now that I’ve gone through all the effort of tracking my time for a week, it would be a shame to simply write a blog post about it and not use the data to see where I can improve. In the weeks ahead, I would like to make the following changes:

- More time with my wife, especially reading and talking with her.

- More family time together with the kids at home. We spend a lot of time together outside the home, but when we’re inside, we tend to do our own thing. I also want to take a more active role in homeschool, helping the kids with their blogs, music, as well as math and reading, etc.

- More time working on my book. I’m excited to complete this project and hopefully it will help a lot of people looking to create a business.

- Less time reading online. I want most of my reading time to be focused and intentional, not jumping from item to item.

- Less time on email. I had built up a practice of checking email just twice a day and leaving it alone the rest of the time. But I didn’t follow that so well this week, and found my productivity waver because of it.

Update: I definitely spend more time with my wife now, but probably less with my kids. I’ve stopped working on my book, but have put more time into other interests. My reading is more focused now, and I spend less time on the computer. I still think I have too much email, but most days I can get it all done in one sitting.

Have you ever tracked your time? If you’ve ever charged per hour, chances are you’ve tracked your time working, but have you ever measured what you’re doing with the rest of your time? Yeah, maybe it is a bit fanatical. But I think there is value in it at least every once in a while. If a week seems like too much, even tracking your time for a single day can reveal insights and help you see areas you want to improve.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts below, and what changes you’d like to make in how you spend your time.

###

[Note from Tim: An older version of this time table originally appeared on Brandon's outstanding blog. If you liked The 4-Hour Workweek, you'll enjoy his personal stories of entrepreneurship, travel, and more.]

The Diet of UFC Champion Georges St-Pierre: How He Transformed Himself

Georges St. Pierre, better known to fight fans worldwide as “GSP,” is currently the UFC Welterweight Champion.

His publicly stated goal is to retire as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and, at a record of 23-2, ESPN currently ranks him as the #3 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. I think he’ll get there.

His intellect–and consistency–is what separates him from the brawlers. He has a scientific approach to winning.

This isn’t limited to training. He considers nutrition a critical part of his fight prep, just as important as being in the cage. In this respect, 2009 marked an inflection point. That year, after successfully defending his Welterweight title in his second fight against BJ Penn, GSP hired Dr. John Berardi of Precision Nutrition to help him gain lean muscle tissue and improve his recovery abilities. Berardi, in charge of the nutrient science, recommended that GSP hire Jennifer Nickel and Rosario “Ross” Gurreri, two chefs in the Montreal area who worked at Cavalli and Bice restaurants, for his meal preparation.

In the next 8 weeks, GSP gained approximately 12 pounds of lean muscle and bulked up to 195 pounds. His upgraded speed and power helped him to dominate every subsequent opponent, posting a 5-0 record since 2009.

This post will walk you through how GSP ate during his 2009 transformation…

While he no longer has a private chef for everyday meals, GSP still consults with Berardi and still flies Jen and Ross to his hotel the week before a big fight to cook for him and his entourage.

First, we’ll look at GSP’s meal plan.

Second, we’ll look at how your design your own version using Dr. Berardi’s guidelines.

What Does GSP Eat?

Below is the 2009 meal plan designed for GSP by Dr. Berardi.

It’s based it around “anytime” (AT) and “post-workout” (PW) meals. He gave the guidelines to Jen and Ross and they prepared a menu of roughly 30-40 items that adhered to the calorie and macro-nutrient (carbohydrate, protein, and fat) requirements and ratios. Berardi explains the basic approach:

“Georges’ baseline menu is about 3200-3500kcal per day, with around 250 grams of protein, 350 grams of carbs, and 100 grams of fat. PW meals are higher in protein and carbs, while being lower in fat, and eaten right after workouts. AT meals are higher in protein and fat, while being low in carbs.”

The brands and products mentioned are those Berardi recommended for GSP. Though Berardi formulated the original Surge Recovery product while wrapping up his PhD studies in Exercise and Nutritional Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario and Yale University, he has no financial interest in the products.

Editorial note: In the descriptions, I use both “GSP” and “you” interchangeably, assuming that you might want to duplicate this for yourself.

3 Meals Provided by Ross and Jennifer

- 1 lower carb anytime meal to be eaten whenever you like: 650 calories – 60g protein, 40g carbs, 30g fat

- 1 lower carb anytime meal to be eaten whenever you like: 650 calories – 60g protein, 40g carbs, 30g fat

- 1 high-carb post-exercise meal to be eaten immediately after training (a recipe that can be eaten cold):  700 calories – 60g protein, 100g carbs, 10g fat

You’ll find two sample recipes at the end of this post.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

2 Daily Super Shakes

GSP made sure to drink shakes every day, to get sufficient protein between meals. Here is his plan:

1 super shake at a time, between meals, mixed with almond milk or water. This was used to wash down 4 fish oil capsules

- 1 scoop milk-based protein powder

- 1 scoop greens supplement

- 1 cup frozen mixed berries (use “mixed” to avoid developing food intolerances from eating too much of a single variety) 282 calories – 18g protein, 25g carbs, 12g fat

Berardi’s suggested products: Muscle Milk protein powder from CytoSport, greens+ from Genuine Health, Flameout fish oil capsules from Biotest.

Workout Nutrition

GSP added protein bars in addition to his two daily shakes. Here is his daily feeding schedule.

Before training: ½ protein bar . Recommended Brand: Finibar from Biotest: 125 calories – 7g protein, 20g carbs, 4g fat

During training: 1 workout drink. Recommended brand: Surge Workout Fuel from Biotest: 85 calories – 8g protein, 21g carbs, 0 fat

Immediately after training: 1 workout drink.  Recommended Brand: Surge Recovery from Biotest: 330 calories – 25g protein, 44g carbs, 1g fat. Followed by a post-workout meal 1 hour later.

Optional: 1 Additional Meal

If you’re hungry, eat 1 additional meal per day. It can be whatever you like, as long as it’s lower in carbs and higher in protein and fat. Given GSP’s leanness, he was given more latitude, as Berardi explains:

“The rule was to eat everything on the menu and then, if he wanted anything else, he could have it.  Some days that meant Subway, other days McDonald’s.  It didn’t matter.  As long as he got his required food in each day, he could eat whatever discretionary calories he wanted. He ended up reporting that he had a few extra meals a week.  But he was pretty satisfied from his normal menu, so he didn’t need to use too many discretionary calories.”

Approximate Total Baseline Intake: 3104 calories – 256g protein (30%), 315 carbs (40%), 99g fat (30%)

Q&A With Dr. Berardi–How to Mimic GSP’s Results

What guidelines should someone use if trying to replicate the above?

“When determining a client’s macronutrient split, at Precision Nutrition we use body-type specific guidelines. In essence, we plan someone’s nutrition according to their somatotype, as follows:

Ectomorphs — around 25% p (protein), 55%c (carbs), 20%f (fat)

Mesomorphs — around 30%p, 40%c, 30%f

Endomorphs — around 35%p, 25%c, 40%f”

Definitions:

Ectomorph – Thin build, challenging to put on weight (muscle or fat); Example: long-distance runner.

Mesomorph – Muscular build, can lose or gain muscle easily (fat gain minimal); Example: sprinter or gymnast.

Endomorph – Large build, easy to put on weight (both good and bad); Example: shotputter or football lineman.

“Since GSP is a clear mesomorph, that’s why his split looked like it did. As far as calories, for most people wanting to gain weight, we’d multiply body weight in pounds x 20-22 to determine the total.  This would have put GSP at 3400 to 3700kcal to start with.  However, he was chronically underfed leading up to us working together, so jumping all the way up to 20 or 22 would have probably led to fat gain.  So we chose a multiplier of 18 to start with.  This ended up being perfect for him, based on the outcomes described above.”

How much did GSP weigh when consuming the above?

“We started this plan about 2 months before a training camp when he weighed around 183 lbs.  In the 2 months leading up to camp, the plan took him to about 195 lbs.  At that point his weight stabilized, which was perfect going into camp. We didn’t want him much heavier because it then might be too hard to cut to 170.

In the next 3 months, the diet stayed the same, but the high volume of camp helped him come down to about 188 the week before the fight.  That made the cut to 170 pretty easy.  We did the cut from 188 to 170 in 5 days (from M-F).  Then in 24 hours (from F-Sa), he rehydrated to about 188 lbs for the fight.”

How is the Food Prepared?

In 2009, when the GSP experiment began, Jen had the entire professional kitchen of Bice to herself in the morning and prepared 3 meals for Georges during that time: a post-workout meal (that could be eaten cold, so he could have it directly after his workout), a dinner meal, and a breakfast meal for the next morning. Meal prep took between 2-4 hours.

Jen shopped for 100% organic foods, cooked the meals, and had someone else deliver the meals to Georges’ gym once a day. Georges, having eaten breakfast and workout shakes, would eat the post-workout meal directly after training in the early afternoon. These below answers and suggestions are from Jennifer, who has been a chef for 12 years and now runs a private catering business in Toronto.

Equipment and Methods

First, Jen has the right gear for the job. In Jen’s tool kit are:

- Microplane zester/grater

- 7-9” chefs knives (MAC MTH-80 8″ Chef’s Knife, which “stays sharp longer than any knife I have ever used”)

- Peugeot peppermill

- Kuhn Rikon vegetable peelers

For cooking methods, Jen explains the basics: “It’s important to have access to a stove-top grill (she uses a Le Creuset cast-iron “griddle”) and a bamboo steamer. Having this equipment makes it easy to cook fast meals because they are stationary and easy to clean, so you don’t have to mess around with pots and pans.” These cooking vessels stay on the stovetop and are quickly cleaned on the stovetop so there’s no sink involved.

“For example, if I were making grilled tuna with Asian greens and sweet potato, I would station a steamer and a cast-iron grill on the back burners of my stove, steam the potato first and then use the same steamer to cook the greens. Using equipment like this guarantees that you won’t be slopping extra cooking fat in your frying pan or killing your green vegetables in boiling water. It’s fast and easy.”

Shopping Tips

“In terms of buying fruit, always buy what appears to be heavy for it’s size. And for vegetables, look for bright colors and perky leaves. Fish should have glossy flesh, bright eyes and have the slight aroma of sea water. Meat should be freshly butchered whenever possible and should be devoid of any sulfur-type smell or brownish, greenish tinges.”

Above all, according to Jen, try to incorporate more fresh herbs, spices and vinegars into your shopping list. “It’s amazing how much flavor (not to mention health benefits) you can get from these ingredients without having to add calories.”

Shortcuts

Prepare certain things in bulk so that you have them for the week, something like braised lima beans or lentils, which can be used later in many recipes. “If you store them in their own cooking liquid in an airtight container in the fridge, they have a surprisingly long shelf-life.

“This is an important step for having access to nutritious carbohydrates, especially if you don’t have time to cook them throughout the week. The same beans and legumes can be used for so many different recipes, so that’s a huge time saver.”

How Much does it Cost?

Having a private chef may seem like it would cost a fortune—and a single, full-time person definitely can. Rates (by hour and year) vary widely depending on location, but a good starting point is $50,000 per year. If that’s your preference, you can search here by state for chefs.

But there are other options–you can search on Craigslist or use meal delivery, which is what Phil Caravaggio, CEO of Precision Nutrition, does. He stopped cooking years ago to focus on business and other priorities.

Phil uses Essential Meal Delivery out of Toronto: “The meals cost $13-$17 each. Every week, I call them and tell them my goals (intermittent fasting, Paleo, etc.) and they make a menu based on my food likes and dislikes. Then they’re delivered to my apartment every morning, and I get a bill at the end of the week. I only have them delivered Monday – Friday. I save the weekends for going out and cooking with family and friends.”

Depending on where you live, there are a variety of options: check out Home Cooking for You and Dine In 2Nite, for instance.

For those who want to get a private chef for as little at $5 a meal, there is a real-world Craigslist template in The 4-Hour Workweek. I’ll expand on this in future posts.

Sample GSP Recipes

Grilled Tuna with “Recovery Salad and Soy-Ginger Vinaigrette” – Post-Workout (PW) Meal

Calories: 758 / protein: 60g / carbs: 100 g / fat: 10g

- 160 grams fresh sushi grade yellowfin tuna

- 100 grams cooked lentils

- 190 grams cooked quinoa

- 28 grams shelled edamame beans

- 28 grams shaved red cabbage

- 30 grams dried apricots or prunes, chopped

- 50 grams cherry tomatoes, cut in half

- 28 grams sliced red onion

- 1 teaspooon extra virgin olive oil

- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce

- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

- 1 teaspoon grated ginger

- 1 tablespoon chopped coriander/cilantro

- 1 tablespoon chopped green onion/scallion

- 1 handful baby spinach

Directions: Set your grill pan to medium heat. Grill the sliced red onion, dry, until it starts to char and wilt. Remove from the pan and chop. Turn your grill pan to high. Prepare the salad: In a large bowl mix together the lentils, quinoa, edamame, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and chopped red onion. Cover and set aside. Prepare the vinaigrette: in a small bowl mix together the olive oil, soy, vinegar, ginger, coriander, apricots, and green onion.

Grill the tuna evenly on all sides, seasoning with sea salt as you go, until rare or medium rare. Remove from heat immediately and slice into 4-6 thin slices. Mix half of the vinaigrette into the salad. Spoon the salad onto a plate of raw spinach. Plate the sliced tuna on top of the salad and garnish with the remaining vinaigrette.

Steak and Eggs Anytime Meal

Calories: 700 / protein: 60g / carbs: 40g / fat: 30g

- 150 grams mashed steamed sweet potato or squash

- 200 grams of veal tenderloin

The crust/rub for the veal:

- 3 chestnuts, dry roasted, peeled and chopped

- 1 teaspoon old fashioned or dijon mustard

- 1 tablespoon honey

- Salt and fresh cracked pepper

Sauteed topping:

- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

- 50 grams wild mushrooms like chanterelle or matsutake, brushed not rinsed

- 1 teaspoon cider or red wine vinegar

- Fresh herbs like basil, parsley and/or tarragon, roughly chopped

Sides:

- 1 egg or 3 quail eggs

- 5 spears steamed asparagus or broccoli

###

For full meal plans of competitive bodybuilders aiming for sub-6% bodyfat, see “The Last Mile” chapter of 4HB.

How to Get The 4-Hour Chef Audiobook Free — Only Until 10am PST (1pm EST)

Gilbert Gottfried reads 50 Shades of Grey. NSFW.

Many of you have been asking me for the audiobook version of The 4-Hour Chef. Now that I control the rights, I’d like to offer it to you… for free.

The offer is at the end of this post, but first…

Who should join me?

I’ll record a lot myself, but I’d like to involve other voice actors for small bits and pieces.

Who would you vote for? Here are some of my favorites. If you like any other them, please Tweet at them using the following format:

“Request! @[insert name] Please narrate a piece of The 4-Hour Chef audiobook! http://amzn.to/LQjLlm @tferriss is a fan.”

For instance:

“Request! @SamuelLJackson Please narrate a piece of The 4-Hour Chef audiobook! http://amzn.to/LQjLlm @tferriss is a fan.”

Here are a few I think would be incredible, even for just a few lines:

- Samuel L. Jackson – @SamuelLJackson

- Patton Oswalt (played “Remy” in Ratatouille) – @PattonOswalt

- Ben Stiller – @RedHourBen

- Morgan Freeman – I’m unsure which Twitter account is real, if any.

- Chuck Norris – Not on Twitter?

- Tony Robbins – @TonyRobbins

- Neil Gaiman – @NeilHimself

- Brad Garrett (played “Gusteau” in Ratatouille) – Not on Twitter?

Who am I missing? Any requests?

The Offer

Here’s the offer, good only until tomorrow (Saturday) at 10AM PST (1pm EST):

- Buy one (1) hardcover copy of The 4-Hour Body (BODY) and fill out this form. You’re all set.

- Or… if you buy three (3) hardcover copies of The 4-Hour Body (BODY), you’ll get both the audiobook for free and my $299 CreativeLIVE course described here for free. Just purchase the 3 books on Amazon and fill out this form.

- Give extra books to close friends and family who can use them. Challenge them to join the current DietBet.

NOTE: If you already bought three books this week through the last promo, you’re automatically getting the audiobook Otherwise, alas, only new orders count.

What will it be like?

I’ve never had a chance to make an audiobook myself and intend to make this one VERY fun and unusual. It will necessarily omit the recipes and be abridged, but there’s a lot of room for creativity.

Completing it could take a few months, but it will be well worth it. If you buy The 4-Hour Body with this promotion, you’ll get the audiobook (free) at least a month before anyone else.

If I think up more cool opportunities, you’ll be the first people to hear about it.