Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 115

The 4-Hour Chef All-You-Can-Eat Campaign of Goodness

Last week, Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust sold roughly 66,000 books through BookScan. If you walk into Barnes & Noble, you will likely see walls of her books, which her publisher has paid for, just like Coca-Cola pays for the first 50 feet of Walmart placement.

I don’t have an issue with that. This is how publishing has worked for a long time.

But to compete with monolithic forces that are banning my book due to my publisher (Amazon Publishing) — 1,000+ bookstores, including all of Barnes & Noble — I can’t play their game. I have to do things differently. It’s the colonies versus the Red Coats, and I must take attack using different means.

The New York Times bestseller list is highly skewed towards print retail. This makes it a hard target for me, though I’m still gunning for it. No matter, I want to hit #1 BookScan to send a message to the incumbent world of publishing, to those who want everything to remain in the 1900′s. If The 4-Hour Chef “wins” in any capacity, authors will feel freedom to experiment. If this book “fails” because the old guard makes of an example of me, their message wins: don’t mess with the system that keeps us fat and happy, or we’ll punish you.

Enter The All-You-Can-Eat-Campaign of Goodness. This is a sniper shot directed at the heart of every member of the publishing oligarchy (not all publishers, mind you) who cares more about their parking spot at the country club than their end user: the reader. That pisses me off.

To attempt something different, I’ve recruited a small cadre of companies to make you offers that defy belief. I hope you enjoy them.

ALL OFFERS EXPIRE AT 5PM PST THIS SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH.

Here are the packages…

BUY 1 BOOK

Buy 1 print book ($21) and get the following:

- One sweet, tasty hardcover that you’ll enjoy again and again for years. Also suitable for self-defense and bicep curls. I will raise a wine glass to you and your family and send good karma your way.

BUY 3 BOOKS

Buy 3 print books ($63) and get the following ($130 value and 2-hour live Q&A) — Limited to first 2,000 people:

- Exclusive 2-hour Q&A with me after launch — ask whatever you want. I’ll be drinking wine and in a sharing mood, no doubt. Limited to people who buy 3 or more books.

- 428-page PDF — The Best of The 4-Hour Workweek Forum (value: $25): The 4HWW Forum was vibrant for years, a repository of great lessons from readers, until it became simply too buggy. It’s now read-only, but I’ve curated the best material and put it all into a 428-page PDF, complete with a Table of Contents.

- 850-page PDF of full interview transcripts from Mastery by Robert Greene (value: $50). See my post, “The Magic of Apprenticeship — A How-to Guide,” for more on Robert and Mastery and how to gain control over your life. This document contains full interview transcripts that dive into the thought processes of nine living masters, including Paul Graham, Freddie Roach, and Temple Grandin.

- 3 months of Evernote Premium (value: $15)

- 3 months free of CLEAR card, (value: $40) which allows you to skip airport security lines (Example: reduced my wait time in SF from 60 minutes to less than 5 minutes).

Interested in this package? Sweet! Just buy 3 *print* books on Amazon and fill out this form: https://4hb.wufoo.com/forms/z7x2s9/

If you already bought a copy, no problem. Just buy two more copies on Amazon and fill out the same form.

BUY 25 BOOKS

Buy 25 print books ($525) and get the following ($1,008 value) — Limited to first 200 people. Get all of your Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop!

- Kindle Fire HD (value: $199) Super awesome. ‘Nuff said.

- Breville Control Grip Immersion Blender (value: $149) I’ve used this to make 100s of dishes, many of them in The 4-Hour Chef.

- CLEAR card: 2 free years (value: $179 x 2 = $358)

- Evernote Premium: 1 free year (value: $45) I use Evernote to gather all of my online and offline research in one place. It’s my external brain.

- Athletic Greens: free jug (30-day supply) (value: $97) My all-in-one nutritional insurance.

- BioTrust low-carb protein: free jug (value: $49.95) — 4g of net carbs. I get asked all the time which protein powder I use. This is the answer. I have no affiliation or affiliate link.

- Amrap Refuel: one box of Refuel bars (8 count, value: $24) Delish without fat guilt. Win-win.

- TaskRabbit: $50 of credit. One of my favorite start-ups of all-time. Addictive like crack.

- Havalon Piranta-EDGE knife (value: $36) – The first surgically-sharp knife I’ve ever owned. Less than 3 oz, includes 12 replacement blades.

Interested in this package? DON’T buy it on Amazon. Since there are only 200 spots, buy your package on this page: http://fourhourchef.eventbrite.com/ First come, first served.

FOR THE NEXT FEW PACKAGES, PLEASE NOTE: I do not want books sitting in warehouses or garages. If you order the big packages, I want every book to get to one of your customers, partners, or employees. If you need suggestions for distribution, let my team know, but I don’t want any copies going unread. This is very important to me.

BUY 250 BOOKS

Buy 250 print books ($5,250) and get the following (value: Priceless!! hahaha…) — Limited to first 20 people:

- Full-day group retreat in SF at an award-winning restaurant and/or hotel (e.g. Central Kitchen) — lunch, 4-hour jam session, dinner, and drinks, maybe more  – Theme: “Caribou and Karaoke”

- 1 hotel night in SF included

- BodyMetrix ultrasound bodyfat tester (value: $495)

- Ultimate Driving Experience (value: $500). Ride a Lamborghini or an Audi with lessons from a professional driver around a racing track in one of 14 major cities. Videos/pictures included to cherish for a lifetime.

Interested in this package? Magnanimous! DON’T buy it on Amazon. Since there are only 20 spots, buy your package on this page: http://fourhourchef.eventbrite.com/ First come, first served.

BUY 1,000 BOOKS

Buy 1,000 print books ($21,000) and get the following (Priceless!!!! That’s FOUR exclamation points!) — Limited to first 6 people:

- Awesome all-expenses-paid trip somewhere in the world. You’ve seen me do this in India, Africa, and elsewhere. I don’t half-ass trips. I don’t even three-quarter-ass trips. I full-ass my trips! This will be a life-changing, amazing, all-inclusive trip somewhere in the world. High probability: high-end trip through Tuscany, dates TBD with people who sign up.

- CLEAR card: lifetime membership (value: $125,300 [$179/year x 70 years = $125,300]).

- WellnessFX Performance assessment: Early access (will not be public until late Q1 2013) to an exclusive version (value: over $700). This package builds off of of Baseline diagnostics to give people a deep look into their cardiovascular, metabolic, nutritional and hormonal health & performance. Here’s what’s included: all lab & phlebotomy fees, data in your own private WFX dashboard, and 50+ biomarkers (total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Triglycerides, etc).

Interested in this package? Great! But…DON’T buy it on Amazon. Since there are only 6 spots, fill out this page: https://4hb.wufoo.com/forms/z7x1k9/ First come, first served. This bad boy will be epic.

BUY 4,000 BOOKS

Buy 4,000 books ($84,000) and get the following ($200,000 value). Limit 1 person:

- I will give two 60-minute keynotes at venues of your choice in the US or Canada, timing and content to be mutually agreed upon.

- Everything in the 1,000 book package above

Interested in this package? Words fail me. I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Now… DON’T buy it on Amazon. First, it’s impossible. Second, there is only one slot up for grabs. Fill out this page: https://4hb.wufoo.com/forms/z7x1k9/ Danke sehr!

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In closing, let us remember one lesson that Winston Churchill delivered as perhaps the shortest commencement speech of all-time:

“Never, never, never give up.”

Deciding to fight is half the battle.

The Magic of Apprenticeship — A How-To Guide

In 1902, Einstein (far right) formed “The Olympia Academy” with two friends, who met to discuss books about science and philosophy. Three years later, Einstein’s Annus Mirabilis papers vaulted him to international fame.

I’m asked “How do I find a mentor?” all the time.

I’ve never had a good answer. The sad fact is this: people you want as mentors don’t want to view themselves as pro-bono life coaches. So what to do?

First, change the question. Perhaps it’s a cliche to say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, but it’s a prescription in disguise. Here, the better question is “How do I become an ideal apprentice?”

The best treatment of apprenticeship I’ve ever found is in Mastery, the latest book by Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. His writing on apprenticeship, mentor cultivation, and in-depth mastery of skills makes Mastery the perfect companion book to The 4-Hour Chef, in my opinion. It’s one of the few books I made time to read cover-to-cover in the last few months.

The below article explores examples of world-class apprentices and how you can emulate them. Once you do that, growth is a foregone conclusion.

Enter Robert Greene

The path to greatness is simple. It’s the path followed by everyone from Renaissance artists to the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. In writing my first four books, I immersed myself in the study these types of people–some of most powerful figures in history. Over the course of many hours of thinking, researching and writing on excellence–the last four years of which were dedicated to writing my newest book–I discerned an unmistakable formula for become the best…

Today I’d like to share the first in the journey to Mastery: how to begin an apprenticeship. Throughout history, it’s always been the way that Masters acquired their education. There are many different strategies for getting yours, but make no mistake: you cannot become great without mentors and masters to teach you the necessary skills of your chosen craft.

Part I: Value Learning Over Money

In 1718, Josiah Franklin decided to bring his twelve-year-old son Benjamin into his lucrative, family-run candle-making business in Boston as an apprentice. His idea was that after a seven-year apprenticeship and a little experience, Benjamin would take over the business. But Benjamin had other ideas. He threatened to run away to sea if his father did not give him the choice of where he could apprentice. The father had already lost another son who had run away, and so he relented. To the father’s surprise, his son chose to work in an older brother’s recently opened printing business. Such a business would mean harder work and the apprenticeship would last nine instead of seven years. Also, the printing business was notoriously fickle, and it was quite a risk to bank one’s future on it. But that was his choice, his father decided. Let him learn the hard way.

What young Benjamin had not told his father was that he was determined to become a writer. Most of the work in the shop would involve manual labor and operating machines, but every now and then he would be asked to proofread and copyedit a pamphlet or text. And there would always be new books around. Several years into the process, he discovered that some of his favorite writing came from the English newspapers the shop would reprint. He asked to be the one to oversee the printing of such articles, giving him the chance to study these texts in detail and teach himself how to imitate their style in his own work. Over the years he managed to turn this into a most efficient apprenticeship for writing, with the added benefit of having learned well the printing business.

—

After graduating from the Zurich Polytechnic in 1900, the twenty-one-year-old Albert Einstein found his job prospects extremely meager. He had graduated near the bottom of the class, almost certainly nullifying any chance to obtain a teaching position. Happy to be away from the university, he now planned to investigate, on his own, certain problems in physics that had haunted him for several years. It would be a self-apprenticeship in theorizing and thought experiments. But in the meantime, he would have to make a living. He had been offered a job in his father’s dynamo business in Milan as an engineer, but such work would not leave him any free time. A friend could land him a well-paid position in an insurance company, but that would stultify his brain and sap his energy for thinking.

Then, a year later, another friend mentioned a job opening up in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. The pay was not great, the position was at the bottom, the hours were long, and the work consisted of the rather mundane task of looking over patent applications, but Einstein leaped at the chance. It was everything he wanted. His task would be to analyze the validity of patent applications, many of which involved aspects of science that interested him. The applications would be like little puzzles or thought experiments; he could try to visualize how the ideas would actually translate into inventions. Working on them would sharpen his reasoning powers. After several months on the job, he became so good at this mental game that he could finish his work in two or three hours, leaving him the rest of the day to engage in his own thought experiments. In 1905 he published his first theory of relativity, much of the work having been done while he was at his desk in the Patent Office.

—

From the time he was born in 1960, Freddie Roach was groomed to be a boxing champion. His father had been a professional fighter himself, and his mother a boxing judge. When Freddie was six he was promptly taken to the local gym in south Boston to begin a rigorous apprenticeship in the sport. He trained with a coach several hours a day, six days a week.

By the age of fifteen he felt like he was burned out. He made more and more excuses to avoid going to the gym. One day his mother sensed this and said to him, “Why do you fight anyway? You just get hit all the time. You can’t fight.” He was used to the constant criticism from his father and brothers, but to hear such a frank assessment from his mother had a bracing effect. Clearly, she saw his older brother as the one destined for greatness. Now Freddie determined that he would somehow prove her wrong. He returned to his training regimen with a vengeance. He discovered within himself a passion for practice and discipline. He enjoyed the sensation of getting better, the trophies that began to pile up, and, more than anything, the fact that he could now actually beat his brother. His love for the sport was rekindled.

As Freddie now showed the most promise of the brothers, his father took him to Las Vegas to help further his career. There, at the age of eighteen, he met the legendary coach Eddie Futch and began to train under him. It all looked very promising— he was chosen for the United States boxing team and began to climb up the ranks. Before long, however, he hit another wall. He would learn the most effective maneuvers from Futch and practice them to perfection, but in an actual bout it was another story. As soon as he got hit in the ring, he would revert to fighting instinctually; his emotions would get the better of him. His fights would turn into brawls over many rounds, and he would often lose.

After a few years, Futch told Roach it was time to retire. But boxing had been his whole life; retire and do what? He continued to fight and to lose, until finally he could see the writing on the wall and retired. He took a job in telemarketing and began to drink heavily. Now he hated the sport—he had given it so much and had nothing to show for his efforts. Almost in spite of himself, one day he returned to Futch’s gym to watch his friend Virgil Hill spar with a boxer about to fight for a title. Both fighters trained under Futch, but there was nobody in Hill’s corner helping him, so Freddie brought him water and gave him advice. He showed up the following day to help Hill again, and soon became a regular at Futch’s gym. He was not being paid, so he kept his telemarketing job, but something in him smelled opportunity— and he was desperate. He showed up on time and stayed later than anyone else. Knowing Futch’s techniques so well, he could teach them to all of the fighters. His responsibilities began to grow.

Working the two jobs left just enough time to sleep. It was almost unbearable, but he could withstand it because he was learning the trade for which he knew was destined. One day Virgil Hill showed him a technique he had picked up from some Cuban fighters: Instead of working with a punching bag, they mostly trained with the coach, who wore large padded mitts. Standing in the ring, the fighters half-sparred with the coach and practiced their punches. Roach tried it with Hill and his eyes lit up. It brought him back into the ring, but there was something else. Boxing, he felt, had become stale, as had its training methods. In his mind, he saw a way to adapt the mitt work for more than just punching practice. It could be a way for a trainer to devise an entire strategy in the ring and demonstrate it to his fighter in real time. It could revolutionize and revitalize the sport itself. Roach began to develop this with the stable of fighters that he now trained. He instructed them in maneuvers that were much more fluid and strategic.

Within a few years he had impressed enough young boxers with his knowledge to set up his own business. Soon he left Futch to work on his own. He quickly established a reputation for preparing his boxers better than anyone else, and within a few years he rose to become the most successful trainer of his generation.

—

THE LESSON:

It is a simple law of human psychology that your thoughts will tend to revolve around what you value most. If it is money, you will choose a place for your apprenticeship that offers the biggest paycheck. Inevitably, in such a place you will feel greater pressures to prove yourself worthy of such pay, often before you are really ready. You will be focused on yourself, your insecurities, the need to please and impress the right people, and not on acquiring skills. It will be too costly for you to make mistakes and learn from them, so you will develop a cautious, conservative approach. As you progress in life, you will become addicted to the fat paycheck and it will determine where you go, how you think, and what you do. Eventually, the time that was not spent on learning skills will catch up with you, and the fall will be painful.

Instead, you must value learning above everything else. This will lead you to all of the right choices. You will opt for the situation that will give you the most opportunities to learn, particularly with hands-on work. You will choose a place that has people and mentors who can inspire and teach you. A job with mediocre pay has the added benefit of training you to get by with less— a valuable life skill. If your apprenticeship is to be mostly on your own time, you will choose a place that pays the bills—perhaps one that keeps your mind sharp, but that also leaves you the time and mental space to do valuable work on your own. You must never disdain an apprenticeship with no pay. In fact, it is often the height of wisdom to find the perfect mentor and offer your services as an assistant for free. Happy to exploit your cheap and eager spirit, such mentors will often divulge more than the usual trade secrets. In the end, by valuing learning above all else, you will set the stage for your creative expansion, and the money will soon come to you.

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Did you like this article?

It’s just the first of a 6-part series on apprenticeship, provided exclusively for this blog by Robert. Here are links to the rest, all of which teach different lessons and approaches using real-world examples:

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Robert’s Mastery examines the lives of historical greats like Darwin, Mozart, and Henry Ford and distills the traits that made the masters. It is an excellent complement to The 4-Hour Chef. Robert also authored the massive international bestsellers The 48 Laws of Power, Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, and The 50th Law.

The Value of Aggression — Ode to Dan Gable

Dan Gable is a demi-god in the world of wrestling. He’s been called “Sports Figure of the Century” by Sports Illustrated. Why?

As an athlete, he had a 182-1 prep and college record. His single loss, in his final NCAA match, infuriated him. To make up for it, he out-trained the world and won the gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics…without surrendering a single point. This is like winning Wimbledon on serves alone.

Most impressive to me, as coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes, he was able to replicate his success. He had a recipe. Here are a few stats from his 21-year career:

21-year record — 355-21-5 (94.4% wins)

Big Ten record — 131-2-1 (98.5% wins)

21 Big Ten Team Titles

45 National Champions

152 All-Americans

The above video clip is from Dan Gable – Competitor Supreme, which my mom bought for me when I was 15. It changed my life.

I watched it almost every day in high school, and it kept me fighting through all the various losses in life. Didn’t finish the SAT in time? Watch Dan Gable. Have a guidance counselor laugh while telling me I don’t stand a chance of getting into Princeton? More Dan Gable. Lost my first important judo match in 7 seconds? Watch the Iowa Hawkeyes…again and again and again. Then, return to the same tournament six months later and win.

In life, there are dog fights. You must learn to enjoy them. Few people look forward to banging heads (literally or metaphorically), and therein lies the golden opportunity.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But there are factors inside your control that greatly improve the odds. Being aggressive doesn’t guarantee success, but failing to be aggressive nearly always guarantees failure. In a modern world of political correctness, glad handing, and fear of offending everyone and anyone, the art of the fight is undervalued.

Remember: It’s not the size of the dog in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.

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Update:

The 4-Hour Chef is now banned by more than 1,100 bookstores nationwide. T-Minus 10 days to pub date. Let the games begin…

The 4-Hour Chef Cinematic Trailer – Plus $2,500 Video Competition

For The 4-Hour Chef, I want to do things differently. The above cinematic trailer is more playful than the intense 4-Hour Body trailer, and the storytelling takes a completely different approach. Today also marks the launch of the official 4-Hour Chef site, which has photos, book outlines, and more.

In total, we now have four trailer experiments:

- 1 min 13 seconds – above

- 30 seconds

- 15 seconds

- 8 seconds (created solely to see reader requests in feedback)

The trailers were directed, edited, and animated by the incredible Adam Patch. The music (except the 8-second version) was created and mixed by Luis Dubuc. Special thanks to the entire ChefSteps team for letting us use their Mr. Wizard-like food lab in Seattle.

What do you think of the full-length trailer? For a rare change, I ask that you don’t tell me here…

Please let me know in the video comments on YouTube! For a host of reasons, I only have 24 hours left to make the video “pop” on YouTube, and comments are extremely helpful for this, as are traffic and views.

Please take 30 seconds to share your thoughts here and help a brother out!

The $2,500 Video Competition — What Can You Do?

[First, from the lawyers: All the below is void where prohibited, you have to be at least 18 years of age, Drow elves get a -3 handicap, etc...]

Do you think you could create a trailer for The 4-Hour Chef?

Well, I’m putting $2,500 USD up for grabs, as well as a 60-minute conversation with me (if you like) and being showcased on this blog to 1.2 million monthly readers.

Here’s how it works:

- Create a video trailer for the book that’s between 15-90 seconds long. See The 4-Hour Chef website for content ideas.

- You must have the URL “www.fourhourchef.com” at the end for at least 2 seconds.

- You must include the Amazon link for The 4-Hour Chef (this one, but you can use your affiliate code) in the video description.

- You *cannot* use any of the footage from my trailer EXCEPT the last book shot and URL screen.

- You can use the music from my trailer or your own. For custom music, I’ve used the service AudioDraft successfully in the past. It can be had for a few hundred dollars, and I have no affiliation.

Then:

1) Upload the video to YouTube with the name “The 4-Hour Chef trailer – [your name] Submission”

2) Share via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and anywhere else you can. Rack up as many views as humanly possible.

3) Repeat Step 2 until 5pm EST on Saturday, November 24th. BUT NOTE: Advertising on Google, Facebook, YouTube disqualifies you and is not permitted.

Last:

- At 5pm EST on Saturday, November 24th, I will review all submissions with a team of judges.

- The best video with the most views wins the cash, phone call, and exposure for the creator. “Best” is determined by how well the video sells the book, with bonus points for creativity. That part is subjective, of course, but it’s fairer than pure view counts, which can sometimes be gamed. So, high view count is critical, but it’s not all that matters.

I will showcase the winning video in a dedicated post with links to the people (or company) who created it. This blog has more than a million monthly readers, many of whom are media and CEOs.

I’m super excited to see what you all create! Good luck!

The 4-Hour Chef Trailer – Book Overview

And the behind-the-scenes 4-Hour Chef video from my friends at Epipheo Studios…

The 4-Hour Chef – The First Chapter and a Publishing First

The introduction to The 4-Hour Chef. The book has 1,000+ photographs and 100+ illustrations.

If you missed the big news, The 4-Hour Chef is being boycotted by 700+ bookstores across the United States, led by Barnes & Noble.

Why? Because I’m the next big bet from Amazon Publishing. I now have armies of booksellers hoping me to fail, despite my only motivation: getting books to as many people as humanly possible.

Some retailers are rallying behind the book, but they are few and far between. I’m certainly grateful for their support and will help ensure they move copies.

In The New York Times today, David Streitfeld writes:

The book [The 4-Hour Chef] might need all of his considerable promotional talents. It has not yet generated instant heat even on Amazon; on Sunday it was ranked No. 597 in books and 4,318 in the Kindle Store. “The 4-Hour Workweek,” in an updated edition published in 2009, was by contrast No. 328 in books and 2,723 in Kindle.

To that, I would reply: Patience, dear friends and foes. The number is moving in the right direction.

I don’t rush, and I haven’t even gotten started. I still intend the launch of The 4-Hour Chef to be very different… starting with this post. And despite the hailstorm of blacklistings, I have not downsized my ambitions. I have upgraded them.

Fiction: My goal is to have The 4-Hour Chef hit national bestseller lists.

Fact: My goal is to have all three of my books on the lists at the same time.

The New World of Cross Promotion

I have worked hard with both of my publishers, Crown Archetype and Amazon Publishing, to provide a preview chapter of The 4-Hour Chef.

It’s smart business, and I sincerely thank both teams for being forward-thinking enough to make this a reality. There’s also a short sample of The 4-Hour Body in The 4-Hour Chef, which brings the franchise full circle.

The 4-Hour Body on Kindle — notice the new sample chapters in the Table of Contents.

THE STEPS:

- If you have a digital version of The 4-Hour Body or The 4-Hour Workweek (must be “Expanded and Updated” edition), you now have access to The 4-Hour Chef chapter entitled “HOW TO USE THIS BOOK: CONFESSIONS, PROMISES, AND GETTING TO 20 MILLION.” It’s a funny read, a good primer, and it outlines the entire book.

- If you don’t have digital copies of either of my two previous books, this is a good reason to grab one or both. Have you read The 4-Hour Workweek but not The 4-Hour Body? Now you have an excuse to grab 4HB. Read The 4-Hour Body but not 4HWW? Grab a Kindle copy for $12.99.

If you already have a Kindle version, directions are at the bottom of this post, but first, some industry-wide thoughts…

It’s amazing to me that the last page of every e-book isn’t a sales page for related “backlist” (an author’s previous works) or, at the least, an e-mail opt-in for free similar content (e.g. sample chapters from past or future books). Publishers should study how start-ups refine sign-up flow (scroll down here for good models). To create profitable content in a world of endless noise, you need a direct line. Otherwise, you’re like an advertiser at the Super Bowl, paying $5 million a year to reach the same audience.

Second, traditional publishing is siloed. Competition for authors, and constantly changing staff, means orphaned books left and right. This also means fragmented backlists and lost revenue. There are many authors with books at 2-4 publishers, and despite cordial relationships with them all (in my case and in many cases), the books aren’t cross-promoted. Even though publishers compete for top talent, much like universities, I think the future is in collaboration, again much like inter-university research projects. There is no need for antagonism, especially when the costs of digital experimentation are so low, and the potential downsides can be so easily capped. Once you cap the downside, the upside usually takes care of itself.

Perhaps this promotion is a prototype.

On Your Kindle — The Steps

If you don’t have one of my previous books, nothing special required. Just download one and you’re good to go.

If you *already* have digital copies of 4HWW or 4HB, here’s what to do on your Kindle:

You can receive the new versions by going to the “Manage Your Kindle” page. Find the book in your Kindle Library by typing “Ferriss” in the search field, and click on the “update available” link next to the book’s title.

Within 5 minutes, any of your devices that have the eBook currently downloaded and have an active

wireless connection will be updated automatically. The previous version will be replaced with the corrected version.

Before clicking “update,” please be sure the wireless and “Annotations Backup” settings are turned on for each of your devices. Go to “Settings” –> “Reading Options”. Doing so will retain any highlights, notes, and furthest page read. You can check and adjust your Annotations Backup settings by navigating to the settings menu on your device. For further help with modifying settings, go to http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport and check the help pages for the devices or applications you are using.

I hope you all enjoy this first chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And keep an eye on the blog. I promise much more excitement this week

The 4-Hour Body Million-Pound March (and $1,000,000 Pot)

Many readers have lost 150+ pounds using The Slow-Carb Diet®. How can you lose at least 4%?

What if you could make dieting failure-proof? What if I could guarantee that you’d lose that last handful of abdominal fat?

Today marks my best attempt to do just that. The target is to collectively lose 1,000,000 pounds of fat in the next 28 days. Along with it, I’d like to offer a $1,000,000 pot — one of several incentives.

Based on behavioral change research (by people like Stanford’s BJ Fogg), as well as my own experimentation with thousands of readers, there are three critical ingredients typically missing from dieting:

- Stakes — Some type of loss-aversion and real accountability

- Rewards — Reinforcement from support groups and finances

- Minimalism — Doing the least necessary, not the most possible. The latter fails quickly.

I’ve checked off all three personally many times. Exhibit A: Fat “Peanut Butter Sandwiches” Tim versus current Tim:

But now it’s time to check off all three on a massive scale. I’ve never seen it done before, and that’s exciting.

From 10/23 to 11/16 — Game Time

For the next four weeks, from Tuesday, October 23rd to Friday, November 16th, I’m partnering with Lift and DietBet to create The 4-Hour Body Challenge.

When you diet alone, nobody’s holding your feet to the fire. There’s nothing stopping you from saying, “I’ll do it next month.” But when you compete with others, especially with money on the line, it focuses you on a goal like nothing else. It’s strict accountability wrapped in a game.

Here are the steps and prizes…

Step 1: Lift

Download Lift if you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod (Android users, keep reading). Search for “4HB.” To search, click on the plus sign here:

Then, sign up for whichever 4HB habits you want. See the six below, The Slow-Carb Diet® being the most important. With no real promotion, the number of participants has exploded in our last 48 hours of testing:

If you’re on Android, you can use The 4-Hour Body App (though it has less community built-in), and all the below steps still apply. This challenge is designed for Lift but doesn’t require it.

Optional Step 2: DietBet

Optional but HIGHLY recommended: Sign up for The 4-Hour Body DietBet.

Even if you use a diet not in The 4-Hour Body, this is a powerful tool you can leverage for your own 4-week challenge. Vegans, paleo die-hards, and everyone in between — you’re all invited.

Studies have established that people work incredibly hard to avoid losing money. Much harder, in fact, than they will work to earn it. On this page, you can put your money where your mouth is.

To compete, players each add $50 to the pot, which is divided up among the “winners” at the end of the game. DietBetting is not winner-take-all like The Biggest Loser. Instead, everyone who loses at least 4% of their starting weight will get an equal share of the pot. DietBet supplies referees to verify weights using a photo-based weigh-in process.

If we can get 20,000 total people, which is totally achievable, that’s $1,000,000.

Here’s how the pot breaks down:

- 85% of the total is divided among the winners

- 5% goes to DietBet itself for credit card fees, etc.

- 10% would have gone to me but will instead be donated to The Gazzaley Lab, a cognitive neuroscience research lab at the University of California, San Francisco focused on studying the neural mechanisms of memory and attention, and how we might intervene therapeutically to alleviate memory and attention deficits.

DietBetting works. People, even wealthy people, keep their promises not to lose $50.

Since its launch in January, 33% of players have hit or exceeded their 4% weight-loss target, winning cash. On average, winners end up losing more than 8 pounds, roughly two pounds per week.

I think The 4-Hour Body team can beat all of those averages. If you’re up for some minimal stakes, which is massively to your benefit, sign up here.

Step 3: Educate Yourself

Use all the free tools and support at your disposal.

As a starting point, consider the forum 4HBTalk, which is extremely active with advice and community. Also be sure to read my previous posts on basics, like “How to Lose 100 Pounds on The Slow-Carb Diet” (features pics and case studies).

Of course, if you want to get uber-serious, I’d suggest reading The 4-Hour Body.

Optional Step 4: Automate Meals

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m piloting a Slow-Carb Diet® meal delivery service, licensed with permission to Evolution Meals.

There are only about 30 new slots per week available (it’s beta, after all), so first come, first served. You can sign up here. You can use code “SCD15” for $15 off your first order (no expiration date).

If you’re interested in licensing The Slow-Carb Diet® or its related trademarks, please fill out this form. Serious inquiries only, please.

Last but Not Least…

For the people who have the most amazing before-and-after transformations (take “before” pictures or you’ll regret it!), I’ll have many cool opportunities. There could be dozens of you involved.

The opps are top-secret for now, but they’ll be good.

For the one person who loses the most bodyfat percentage points (not necessarily total weight) by November 16th, I have another prize. I will fly you from anywhere in the world to San Francisco for a day with me, all expenses paid. We can hike Mt. Tam, check out my favorite restaurants, talk business, visit hot start-ups, grab drinks with my close friends… whatever you’d like. If it’s a weekend, I’ll also cover your hotel and meals for a second day of beautiful SF.

How to measure bodyfat?

I’d prefer that you use the most accurate tools, such as the below. Many of the above can be found at high-end gyms or nearby hospitals. No matter what, you must use the same tool (and ideally the same person) for your “before,” progress, and “after” measurements.

The most accurate tools:

BodPod (pay per session)

DEXA or DXA (pay per session)

Hydrostatic weighing (dunk tank) (pay per session)

Skin fold calipers – MUST use at least 7 points and ideally the Jackson-Pollock algorithm (pay per session)

BodyMetrix Personal (purchase) – This is the handheld ultrasound device that is used by the New York Yankees, AC Milan, and yours truly. It plugs into your laptop via USB. For 25% off of this device (so $100+ off), use code 4HOURBODY at checkout.

If you can’t find or afford any of these, just do your best to capture progress. For instance:

- Take good “before” pics (front, side, back) and weekly progress pictures.

- Take tape measure measurements before starting, then each week, per The 4-Hour Body instructions:

Get a simple tape measure and measure four locations: both upper arms (mid-bicep), waist (horizontal at navel), hips (at widest point below waist), and both legs (mid-thigh). Total these numbers to arrive at your Total Inches (TI). Changes in this total will be meaningful enough to track.

Regardless, eat smart (90% of fat loss), train well (10% of fat loss), and be safe, of course.

So what are you waiting for? Download Lift, sign up for the DietBet here if you can, and let’s get to losing 1,000,000 pounds!

That’s three entire blue whales, by the way. Or 35,714 honey badgers.

The 4-Hour Everything: How Tim Ferriss Tracks His Life’s Data (Interview with Wired’s Clive Thompson)

This is a short 20-minute interview from this week’s WIRED “Living By Numbers” Health Conference. It was a great event, and one of my favorite writers, Clive Thompson, interviewed me on how I track my life. Included are questions about the future of self-experimentation.

Enjoy!

What would you like to know more about? Please let me know in the comments.

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Odds and Ends: The 4-Hour Chef – Promote Your Product, Service, or Company?

Would you like to get your product or service in front of 1,000,000+ unique monthly readers… with an average annual income of $75K+? This blog has that audience.

For the launch of The 4-Hour Chef, I’ll be doing another big promotion like I did for The 4-Hour Body (here’s what that promotion looks like).

If you’d like to giveaway your product or service as a bonus, please fill out this form no later than 5pm PST this Saturday, 10/20/12. Thank you!

Stoicism for Modern Stresses: 5 Lessons from Cato

The philosophical school of Stoicism is, I believe, the perfect operating system for thriving in high-stress environments. For entrepreneurs, it’s a godsend.

Both Seneca and Marcus Aurelius have been extensively written about elsewhere. But what of Cato, about whom Dante said, “And what earthly man was more worthy to signify God than Cato?”

One of my favorite anecdotes of Cato is from Plutarch. I quote it often (see “Practical Pessimism“):

“Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.”

The following article was written by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni. At age 22, Rob Goodman became the speechwriter for Senator Chris Dodd, and then moved on to be the speechwriter for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. At age 26, Jimmy became the youngest-ever Managing Editor of the Huffington Post, reporting directly to Arianna Huffington to help oversee a global, 24/7 newsroom.

Both exemplify the power of Stoicism when applied to a world of modern noise.

Below are the five practical lessons they’ve distilled from Cato’s incredible career and legacy.

Enter Rob and Jimmy

Julius Caesar wanted to end him. George Washington wanted to be him. And for two thousand years, he was a singular subject of plays, poetry, and paintings, with admirers as diverse as Benjamin Franklin, the poet Dante, and the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Yet, for all that, you’ve probably never heard of him…

We’ve spent the last few years excavating the life, times, and legacy of Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, better known to the world simply as Cato. He was the senator who led the opposition to Julius Caesar in the last years of the Roman Republic, then killed himself rather than live under a dictator. He brought Stoicism into the mainstream. The Founding Fathers resurrected him as a symbol of resistance to tyranny. George Washington even put on a play about him in the bitter winter at Valley Forge.

Why does he matter today? Because at a time of crisis and calamity in Rome, Cato’s mission was to live life on his own terms, even (and sometimes especially) when those terms put him at odds with everyone around him.

Cato reminds us that there’s a thin line between visionaries and fools–a lesson especially important to entrepreneurs, authors, creative-types, or really anyone doing work that goes against the grain.

He remains both a shining example and a cautionary tale. Here are five lessons he can teach us about reputation, authority, fear, discipline, and legacies:

1) Master the power of gestures.

We talk about our times as the age of information overload, but public figures in all ages have had to compete to be heard. Ancient Rome was saturated with political talk: popular lawyers like Cicero consistently drew huge crowds, and the Roman people could regularly hear all-day parades of political speeches in the Forum. How could someone break through all that noise?

Cato understood that actions are far easier to “hear” than words. So he perfected a style of politics-by-gesture. He went barefoot. He wore his toga commando (then, as now, not the fashionable thing to do). He walked alone without the usual entourage of aides. He slept in the trenches with his troops rather than relax in a tent; he marched alongside them rather than ride a horse. He surrounded himself with philosophers, not political advisors. Just a second’s glance at him told an onlooker everything he needed to know about Cato. Those gestures, more than any vote cast or speech given, made his reputation.

[TIM: Not unlike Gandhi's 1930 Salt March.]

Even his death at the end of Rome’s civil war was a statement against his enemies. One night, he retired to his room after dinner, and loudly called for a book—Plato’s dialogue Phaedo—and his sword. The Phaedo tells the story of the death of Socrates, a philosopher too principled to live, forced to drink poison by the political authorities. Cato wanted everyone to see the parallels. Then he gritted his teeth and disemboweled himself.

To this day, his gesture against tyranny speaks as loud as any book or speech on the subject.

2) Don’t compromise—ever.

The Stoics taught Cato that there were no shades of gray. There was no more-or-less good, no more-or-less bad. Whether you were a foot underwater or a fathom, you were still drowning. All virtues were one and the same virtue, all vices the same vice.

It is the kind of austere scheme that seems unreasonable to live by and almost entirely impossible for the flux of war and politics. But Cato made it work. He refused political compromise in every form, to the point that bribe-takers turned his name into an aphorism: “What do you expect of us? We can’t all be Catos.”

He demanded the same of his friends, his family, and his soldiers. He was infuriating to his enemies, and he could seem crazy to his allies. And yes, sometimes he took his adherence to principle down absurd, blind alleys. But he also built an impossible, almost inhuman standard that brought him unshakable authority. By default, he became Rome’s arbiter of right and wrong. When Cato spoke, people sat up straighter. When he was carted off to jail by Julius Caesar, the entire Senate joined him in sympathy, forcing Caesar to let Cato go.

Many in Cato’s day spent their fortunes and slaughtered armies in pursuit of that kind of authority. But it can’t be bought or fought for—it’s the charisma of character. His countrymen couldn’t all be Catos, but they could join whichever uncompromising side of the argument Cato was on.

3) Fear nothing.

On election day during a consequential race, Cato and his brother-in-law rose before dawn and set off for the polls. Both were on the record against the front-runners, men bearing grudges (and armies) against Cato.

They were ambushed. The torchbearer at the head of Cato’s party collapsed with a groan—stabbed to death. The light clattered to the pavement, and they were surrounded by shadows swinging swords. The assailants wounded each member of the party until all had fled but Cato and his brother-in-law. They held their ground, Cato gripping a wound that poured blood from his arm.

Their attackers were under orders to maim and frighten them, not to kill. The message sent, they fled through the streets. Cato and his brother-in-law were alone in the dark.

For Cato, the ambush was a reminder that if the front-runners were willing to perpetrate such crimes on the way to power, then one could only imagine what they would do once they arrived. It was all the more important that he stand in front of the Roman people, show off his wounds, and announce that he would stand for liberty as long as he had life in him. But his brother-in-law didn’t have the stomach for it. He apologized, left, and barricaded himself inside his home.

Cato, meanwhile, walked unguarded and alone to the polls.

Fear can only enter the mind with our consent, Cato had been taught. Choose not to be afraid, and fear simply vanishes. To the untrained observer, Cato’s physical courage was reckless. But in fact, it was among the most practiced aspects of Cato’s self-presentation. And it was this long meditation on the absurdity of fear—on its near-total insignificance but for our own belief in it—that enabled him to press forward where others gave in.

4) Use pain as a teacher.

Cato’s early Stoic training was as hard and uncompromising as he hoped to become. He walked around Rome in unusual clothing with the goal of getting people to laugh at him. He learned to subsist on a poor man’s rations. He went barefoot and bareheaded in heat and rain. He learned how to endure sickness in perfect silence.

What was the point? Pain and difficulty could build endurance and self-control. Cato was drilling himself to become indifferent to all things outside the magic circle of the conscience. He could be ridiculed, starving, poor, cold, hot, sick—and none of it would matter. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught: “Where is the good? In the will. Where is the evil? In the will.”

All of Cato’s practice paid off. Seneca, the great imperial Stoic, relates a telling story. Visiting the public baths one day, Cato was shoved and struck. Once the fight was broken up, he simply refused to accept an apology from the offender: “I don’t even remember being hit.”

5) Don’t expect to control your legacy.

No one in Rome was more skilled at building a public image than Cato. And yet, for all of his best efforts, at the moment he died he became the property of other people. Cato spent two decades as a politician. He has spent two millennia as a political object.

Would Cato have approved of being publicly humiliated by Caesar after his death, paraded through Rome’s forum on a billboard depicting his grisly suicide? Would Cato have approved of being cast as the star of an Italian opera, complete with a romantic subplot? Would Cato have approved of being turned by the Founding Fathers into a symbol of American democracy?

Who knows? Our guess is that Cato, irascible as he was, wouldn’t have liked any of it—because, at each step, Cato has been made to serve values and cultures almost totally alien to him, ones he never could have imagined. But that’s what you get when you’re dead—if you’re lucky. That’s what all of this vaunted “immortal fame” looks like.

Cato’s Stoicism told him that everything we value—our wealth, our health, our success, our reputations, essentially everything not between our two ears—is ultimately beyond our control. Even if you live such an exemplary life that people are writing books about you 2,000 years after you’re in the ground, you probably wouldn’t be happy about it, and in any case, you’d still be dead. Which proves better than anything what the Stoics taught: the only reward for virtue is virtue.

Conclusion

Cato didn’t have Caesar’s military skill, or Cicero’s eloquence, or Pompey’s boyish good looks. But he had something even more formidable: a determination to hold himself, and those around him, to an insanely high standard. He asked to be measured by a standard higher than winning and losing in Roman politics, and that’s why he still matters long after ancient Rome went to ruins. We should remember Washington’s favorite line from the Cato play at Valley Forge:

“‘Tis not in mortals to command success; but we’ll do more…we’ll deserve it.”

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Rob and Jimmy’s new book, Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar, is effectively the first-ever modern biography of Cato. The writing is excellent, the stories unforgettable, and the lessons practical. IF you’ve enjoyed my previous writing on Stoicism or Seneca, you will enjoy this book.

How to Shuck an Oyster – The Nation’s #1 Shucker Shares His Technique

This is a tiny snack of a post.

Consider it a 4-Hour Chef amuse-bouche. Amuse-bouche literally means “mouth amuser” in French, and it’s a single-bite hors d’œuvre served at the beginning of a meal.

While in Seattle for mischief with the Delve Kitchen boys, I ended up at Taylor Shellfish Farms. There, I had the good fortune to meet David Leck, America’s #1 oyster shucker and all-around good guy. Below is a video guide to his technique…

For the uninitiated, oyster shucking consists of forcefully wiggling a knife in between a shell’s hinge, twisting the blade until the shell “pops,” opening the oyster by severing the muscle from the shell, and then separating the oyster meat from the bottom half of the shell.

The average person can shuck one oyster in 30-60 seconds, assuming they don’t mangle their thumb or the precious oyster meat. David’s record? 24 oysters in just under 2 minutes.

Here’s how he does it: