Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 13

You Don’t Need More How-To Advice — You Need a Beautiful and Painful Reckoning

Chad Fowler, before and after his Harajuku Moment. (Photos: James Duncan Davidson)

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

— Bene Gesserit “Litany Against Fear” from Frank Herbert’s Dune

For most of us, the how-to books on our shelves represent a growing to-do list, not advice we’ve followed. 

Several of the better-known tech CEOs in San Francisco have asked me at different times for an identical favor: an index card with bullet-point instructions for losing abdominal fat. Each of them made it clear: “Just tell me exactly what to do and I’ll do it.” 

I gave them all of the necessary tactical advice on one 3×5 card, knowing in advance what the outcome would be. The success rate was impressive… 0%. 

People suck at following advice. Even the most effective people in the world are often terrible. There are at least two reasons:

1. Most people have an insufficient reason for action. The pain isn’t painful enough. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have. There has been no “Harajuku Moment.”

2. There are no reminders. No consistent tracking = no awareness = no behavioral change. Consistent tracking, even if you have no knowledge of fat-loss or exercise, will often beat advice from world-class trainers.

But what is this all-important “Harajuku Moment”?

It’s an epiphany that turns a nice-to-have into a must-have. It applies to fat loss, to getting your finances in order, to getting your relationships in order, and to getting your life in order. No matter how many bullet points and recipes experts provide, most folks will need a Harajuku Moment to fuel the change itself. 

Chad Fowler knows this. 

Chad is a General Partner and CTO at BlueYard Capital. He was also co-organizer of the annual RubyConf and RailsConf conferences, where I first met him. Our second meeting was in Boulder, Colorado, where he used his natural language experience with Hindi to teach a knuckle-dragger (me) the primitive basics of Ruby. 

Chad is an incredible teacher, gifted with analogies, but I was distracted in our session by something he mentioned in passing. He’d recently lost 70+ pounds in less than 12 months. 

It wasn’t the amount of weight that I found fascinating. It was the timing. He’d been obese for more than a decade, and the change seemed to come out of nowhere. Upon landing back in San Francisco, I sent him one question via email:

What were the tipping points, the moments and insights that led you to lose the 70 lbs.?

I wanted to know what the defining moment was, the conversation or realization that made him pull the trigger after 10 years of business as usual.

His answer is contained in this post. 

Even if you have no interest in fat-loss, the key insights (partial completeness, data, and oversimplification among them) will help you get closer to nearly any physical goal—lift 500 pounds, run 50 kilometers, gain 50 pounds, etc. —and it applies to much more in life.

But let’s talk about one apparent contradiction upfront: calorie counting. I regularly thrash calorie counting, and I’m including Chad’s calorie-based approach to prove a point. The 4-Hour Body didn’t exist when Chad lost his weight, and there are far better things to track than calories. But would I recommend tracking calories as an alternative to tracking nothing? You bet. Tracking anything is better than tracking nothing. The Hawthorne effect can be applied to yourself.

If you are very overweight, very weak, very inflexible, or very anything negative, tracking even a mediocre variable will help you develop awareness that leads to better behavioral changes.

This underscores an encouraging lesson: you don’t have to get it all right. You just have to be crystal clear on a few concepts. Results follow.

Much of the bolding in Chad’s story is mine.

Enter Chad Fowler . . .

The Harajuku Moment

Why had I gone 10 years getting more and more out of shape (starting off pretty unhealthy in the first place) only to finally fix it now? 

I actually remember the exact moment I decided to do something. 

I was in Tokyo with a group of friends. We all went down to Harajuku to see if we could see some artistically dressed youngsters and also to shop for fabulous clothing, which the area is famous for. A couple of the people with us were pretty fashionable dressers and had some specific things in mind they wanted to buy. After walking into shops several times and leaving without seriously considering buying anything, one of my friends and I gave up and just waited outside while the others continued shopping. 

We both lamented how unfashionable we were. 

I then found myself saying the following to him: “For me, it doesn’t even matter what I wear; I’m not going to look good anyway.”

I think he agreed with me. I can’t remember, but that’s not the point. The point was that, as I said those words, they hung in the air like when you say something super-embarrassing in a loud room but happen to catch the one randomly occurring slice of silence that happens all night long. Everyone looks at you like you’re an idiot. But this time, it was me looking at myself critically. I heard myself say those words and I recognized them not for their content, but for their tone of helplessness. I am, in most of my endeavors, a solidly successful person. I decide I want things to be a certain way, and I make it happen. I’ve done it with my career, my learning of music, understanding of foreign languages, and basically everything I’ve tried to do. 

For a long time, I’ve known that the key to getting started down the path of being remarkable in anything is to simply act with the intention of being remarkable.

If I want a better-than-average career, I can’t simply “go with the flow” and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something, most people would find that they get some version of the outcome they’re looking for.  That’s been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing. 

Yet here I was, talking about arguably the most important part of my life—my health—as if it was something I had no control over. I had been going with the flow for years. Wishing for an outcome and waiting to see if it would come. I was the limp, powerless ego I detest in other people. 

But somehow, as the school nerd who always got picked last for everything, I had allowed “not being good at sports” or “not being fit” to enter what I considered to be inherent attributes of myself. The net result is that I was left with an understanding of myself as an incomplete person. And though I had (perhaps) overcompensated for that incompleteness by kicking ass in every other way I could, I was still carrying this powerlessness around with me and it was very slowly and subtly gnawing away at me from the inside. 

So, while it’s true that I wouldn’t have looked great in the fancy clothes, the seemingly superficial catalyst that drove me to finally do something wasn’t at all superficial. It actually pulled out a deep root that had been, I think, driving an important part of me for basically my entire life. 

And now I recognize that this is a pattern. In the culture I run in (computer programmers and tech people), this partial-completeness is not just common but maybe even the norm. My life lately has taken on a new focus: digging up those bad roots; the holes I don’t notice in myself. And now I’m filling them one at a time. 

Once I started the weight loss, the entire process was not only easy but enjoyable. 

I started out easy. Just paying attention to food and doing relaxed cardio three to four times a week. This is when I started thinking in terms of making every day just slightly better than the day before. On day 1 it was easy. Any exercise was better than what I’d been doing. 

If you ask the average obese person: “If you could work out for ONE year and be considered ‘in shape,’ would you do it?” I’d guess that just about every single one would emphatically say, “Hell, yes!” The problem is that for most normal people, there is no clear path from fat to okay in a year. For almost everyone, the path is there and obvious if you know what you’re doing, but it’s almost impossible to imagine an outcome like that so far in the distance. 

The number-one realization that led me to be able to keep doing it and make the right decisions was to use data. 

I learned about the basal metabolic rate (BMR), also called resting metabolic rate, and was amazed at how many calories I would have to eat in order to stay the same weight. It was huge. As I started looking at calorie content for food that wasn’t obviously bad, I felt like I’d have to just gluttonously eat all day long if I wanted to stay fat. The BMR showed me that (1) it wasn’t going to be hard to cut calories, and (2) I must have been making BIG mistakes before in order to consume those calories—not small ones. That’s good news. Big mistakes mean lots of low-hanging fruit.1

Next was learning that 4,000 calories equals about a pound of fat. I know that’s an oversimplification, but that’s okay. Oversimplifying is one of the next things I’ll mention as a tool. But if 4,000 is roughly a pound of fat, and my BMR makes it pretty easy to shave off some huge number of calories per day, it suddenly becomes very clear how to lose lots of weight without even doing any exercise. Add in some calculations on how many calories you burn doing, say, 30 minutes of exercise and you can pretty quickly come up with a formula that looks something like:

BMR = 2,900

Actual intake = 1,800

Deficit from diet = BMR– actual intake = 1,100

Burned from 30 minutes cardio = 500

Total deficit = deficit from diet – burned from 30 minutes cardio = 1,600

So that’s 1,600 calories saved in a day, or almost half a pound of bad weight I could lose in a single day. So for a big round number, I can lose 5 pounds in a week and a half without even working too hard. When you’re 50 pounds overweight, getting to 10% of your goal that fast is real.

An important thing I alluded to earlier is that all of these numbers are in some ways bullshit. That’s okay, and realizing that it was okay was one of the biggest shifts I had to make. When you’re 50–70 pounds overweight (or I’d say whenever you have a BIG change to make), worrying about counting calories consumed or burned slightly inaccurately is going to kill you. The fact of the matter is, there are no tools available to normal people that will tell us exactly how much energy we’re burning or consuming. But if you’re just kinda right and, more important, the numbers are directionally right, you can make a big difference with them. 

Here’s another helpful pseudo-science number: apparently, 10 pounds of weight loss is roughly a clothing size [XL → L → M]. That was a HUGE motivator. I loved donating clothes all year and doing guilt-free shopping. 

As a nerd, I find myself too easily discouraged by data collection projects where it’s difficult or impossible to collect accurate data. Training myself to forget that made all the difference. 

Added to this knowledge was a basic understanding of how metabolism works. Here are the main things I changed: breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and five to six meals a day of roughly 200 calories each. How did I measure the calories? I didn’t. I put together an exact meal plan for just ONE week, bought all the ingredients, stuck to it religiously. From that point on, I didn’t have to do the hard work anymore. I became aware after just one week of roughly how many calories were in a portion of different types of food and just guessed. Again, trying to literally count calories sucks and is demotivating. Setting up a rigid template for a week and then using it as a basic guide is sustainable and fun. 

Just a few more disconnected tips: 

I set up a workstation where I could pedal on a recumbent bike while working. I did real work, wrote parts of The Passionate Programmer, played video games, chatted with friends, and watched ridiculous television shows I’d normally be ashamed to be wasting my time on, all while staying in my aerobic zone. I know a lot of creative people who hate exercise because it’s boring. I was in that camp too (I’m not anymore. . . it changes once you get into it). The bike/desk was my savior. That mixed with a measurement system: 

I got a heart rate monitor (HRM) and started using it for EVERYTHING. I used it while pedaling to make sure that even when I was having fun playing a game I was doing myself some good. If you know your heart rate zones (easy to find on the Internet), the ambiguity non-fitness-experts feel with respect to exercise is removed. Thirty minutes in your aerobic zone is good exercise and burns fat. Calculate how many calories you burn (a good HRM will do it for you), and the experience is fun and motivating. I started wearing my HRM when I was doing things like annoying chores around the house. You can clean house fast and burn serious fat. That’s not some Montel Williams BS. It’s real. Because of the constant use of an HRM, I was able to combine fun and exercise or annoying chores and exercise, making all of it more rewarding and way less likely I’d get lazy and decide not to do it. 

Building muscle is, as you know, one of the best ways to burn fat. But geeks don’t know how to build muscle. And as I’ve mentioned, geeks don’t like to do things they don’t know are going to work. We like data. We value expertise. So I hired a trainer to teach me what to do. I think I could have let go of the trainer after a few sessions, since I had learned the ‘right’ exercises, but I’ve stayed with her for the past year. 

Finally, as a friend said of my difficulty in writing about my insights for weight loss, a key insight is my lack of specific insights. 

To some extent, the answer is just “diet and exercise.” There were no gimmicks. I used data we all have access to and just trusted biology to work its magic. I gave it a trial of 20 days or so and lost a significant amount of weight. Even better, I started waking up thinking about exercising because I felt good. 

“It was easy.” 

It was easy for Chad because of his Harajuku Moment. So let’s get to it:

What’s a small step you could take today? Right now?

You’ll almost never have complete information, and you don’t generally need it. It’s often an excuse for avoiding something uncomfortable. Who could you call or email today to get the bare minimum needed for your next step?

What is the cost of your inaction? This is important. What is your status quo costing you, and how can you make the pain painful enough to drive you forward? Do this exercise.

What’s a single decision you could make that, like Chad’s one-week meal plan, removes a thousand decisions?

You don’t need more how-to information.

You need 1) a painful and beautiful reckoning (e.g., what does life look like if you leave this as-is for 3-5 years?), and 2) simple actions that compound over time.

So what’s next?

This post was adapted and updated from The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss.

TOOLS AND TRICKS 

“Elusive Bodyfat: Where Are You Really?“ in The 4-Hour Body. To find your own numbers and create a simple system that works, this chapter will help.

My 2017 TED Talk: “Why you should define your fears instead of your goals“

Clive Thompson, “Are Your Friends Making You Fat?” New York Times, September 10, 2009. Reaching your physical goals is a product, in part, of sheer proximity to people who exhibit what you’re targeting. This article explains the importance, and implications, of choosing your peer group.

End of Chapter Notes

1 Tim: This type of low-hanging fruit is also commonly found by would-be weight gainers when they record protein intake for the first time. Many are only consuming 40–50 grams of protein per day.

The post You Don’t Need More How-To Advice — You Need a Beautiful and Painful Reckoning appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman Chainani (#720)

Illustration via 99designs

Soman Chainani (@somanc) is the bestselling author of The School for Good & Evil book series, which has sold more than 4 million copies, been translated into 35 languages across six continents, and been adapted into a major motion picture from Netflix that debuted at #1 in more than 80 countries.

Soman’s book of retold fairy tales, Beasts and Beauty, debuted on The New York Times Best Sellers List—his seventh book in a row to do so—and is slated to be a limited television series from Sony’s 3000 Pictures, with Soman writing and executive producing. Together, his books have been on the New York Times Best Sellers List for more than 50 weeks.

Soman has an A.B. in English and American Literature from Harvard University and an MFA in Film from Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Sun Valley Writers Fellowship, and he has been nominated for the Waterstone Prize for Children’s Literature and been named to the Out100.

Soman has visited more than 800 schools around the world, sharing his message that reading is the path to a better life.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform .

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating.

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This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

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This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 5% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than ten times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. 

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Hear my first conversation with Soman Chainani:

#220: Soman Chainani — The School for Good and EvilSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Soman Chainani:

Website | Instagram 

The School for Good and Evil Series Complete Box Set: Books 1, 2, and 3 by Soman Chainani Beasts and Beauty by Soman Chainani‘Quarterback’ Takes You Inside the Huddle Mike RegulaChristopher MarleyDr. John Krystal — All Things Ketamine, The Most Comprehensive Podcast Episode Ever (#625)

More links will be added shortly.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Start

04:54 Intro

07:31 Follow the flow

24:02 “Your bull might be gay”

36:37 The work of visual artist Christopher Marley

40:36 Coaching Generation Alpha

59:31 Experience with ketamine

01:08:13 “Shadow Self” vs “The Double”

01:13:53 “Quarterback”

01:17:35 Career lessons from Taylor Swift

01:29:55 Cross-collar dating

01:35:15 Language of couples

01:36:59 Hookups

01:41:37 St. Louis

01:43:00 Allergies

01:48:41 Parting thoughts

The post Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman Chainani (#720) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

No Biological Free Lunches

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
— John Muir

“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.”
— Blade Runner

There are few or no biological free lunches. 

This short post will cover the essentials of how this principle applies to performance-enhancing drugs.

But before we dive in, let’s watch some entertainment that drives the point home…

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Andrew Hiller (@hillerfit2.0)

Growth agents have a place in medicine1, and some sports effectively require them at higher levels. That said, there are risks when you turn the volume to 11 within complex hormonal cascades with equally complex feedback loops. I have some personal experience here. When I long ago had my shoulder completely reconstructed (video here; viewer discretion is advised), a portfolio of anabolic drugs was part of the recovery plan. This wasn’t advised by my surgeon. I found gray-area longevity doctors recommended by world-class athletes, and the cocktail was incredibly effective for regaining full range of motion.

Physical optimization is fundamentally about trade-offs.

And if you ask “Is this risky?,” the follow-up question is sometimes relative: “Risky as compared to what?” In this case, I decided that using these powerful drugs with supervision was an acceptable risk relative to the likelihood of otherwise never regaining full function of my left shoulder.

I did a ton of homework, I budgeted for possible problems, and I didn’t take it lightly.

It’s alarming how many folks now treat “T” or “TRT” (testosterone replacement therapy) as something akin to taking a multivitamin, when they never would have considered taking androgenic-anabolic steroids (AAS) a few years earlier. Like Patagonian toothfish has become Chilean sea bass on fashionable menus worldwide, it’s quite the rebrand story, but that doesn’t change the underlying biology.

It also doesn’t change the underlying “replacement” part of TRT, which applies to many drugs.

If you take something exogenously (originating from outside an organism; think “exo” of exoskeleton) that your body produces endogenously (originating from inside an organism), your body—in its infinite wisdom—will reduce or stop producing said something. Endocrinology abhors waste. This is why many men’s testicles will shrink down to Raisinets when they take supplemental testosterone, and for a decent percentage of those men, the deflated balloons will not return to baseline function without post-cycle therapy (PCT) drugs like Clomid/clomifene and/or hCG. Side note: just as with testosterone, you shouldn’t casually take hCG. Faustian bargains abound if you don’t have a basic grasp of the systems you’re tinkering with.

This also applies to supplements and food. The more technical FDA definition of “drug” highlights a legal distinction, not a pharmacological one. If something’s intended to produce a change in your body, consider it a drug and you’ll make fewer mistakes. This is helpful reframing, whether the input is a prescription drug, illicit drug, peptide, mineral, supplement, or banana.

Separately, many growth agents aren’t hyper-selective (e.g., human growth hormone [HGH], IGF-1), meaning that they don’t just affect one tissue type. If, like some enhanced Major League Baseball players, your head jumps a few helmet sizes, that enlarged cranium won’t shrink when your muscles atrophy after getting off the sauce. Ditto if you unknowingly supersize your liver and spleen. It’s hard to hit undo on Dolph Lundgren jawlines if you’re a woman, it can be tricky to unwind drug-induced breast tissue growth (gynecomastia) if you’re a male, and it’s hard to whisper your organs down a size if you’re a human.

Think very carefully about which doors are two-way doors—reversible—and which are one-way doors. Best to measure twice and cut once.

This is not to say there isn’t a place for TRT. There is. But the use case matters, and the dose makes the poison. If I were 50+ years old and had chronically low testosterone plus symptoms of low testosterone plus I’d been evaluated for possible reversible causes of low T, I might consider TRT to bring me within physiologically normal levels. This is fundamentally different from someone taking supraphysiological doses—amounts greater than normally found in the body—for getting swole like a kangaroo.

This all might seem complicated, but most of what I’m saying boils down to basic logic and a few guidelines. 

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on the Internet, but the below heuristics have helped me avoid a lot of problems with performance-enhancing “drugs,” as broadly defined earlier:

Assume there is no biological free lunch.

Assume that the larger the amplitude of positive effect of *anything*, the larger the amplitude of side effects, whether they are known or unknown. This could apply to modafinil or a high-octane macchiato.

Don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut. If someone is selling the thing you’re considering, or its use has become their identity, expect biased advice.

Replicate before you escalate. This comes back to “measure twice, cut once.” I’ve seen many friends take dramatic steps before replicating their tests. If you booze over the weekend, sleep like garbage, and then do a blood draw later AM on Monday, you might find that—gasp!—you have low testosterone. Before you pull out the big guns, perhaps you should repeat the test on two Wednesdays and do so earlier in the morning, when T will typically be higher. Some evidence also suggests predictable seasonal variations in T levels. Last but not least, labs make mistakes. I recall one well-respected lab for allergy testing returning 100% positive results for black bean allergy to all of their clients for a two-week period. It was a lab error. Before any intervention with possible side effects, replicate.

I routinely cycle off of drugs and supplements I can safely cycle off of for short periods of time. This might be one week every two months and one entire month a year. These are basically intermittent wash-out periods, intended to allow my body to reestablish some homeostasis and feedback loops without a bunch of confounding variables. Put another way, we don’t know what we don’t know, and some medically supervised form of pharma-fasting is an insurance policy. I think about cheap insurance in life a lot. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO CRITICAL MEDICATIONS, AND YOU SHOULD SPEAK WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES TO YOUR HEALTHCARE REGIMEN. Please don’t win any Darwin Awards.

Know how you could get off of any substance before you get on it. Our understanding of biology is incomplete, so as with any form of gambling, no matter how informed, know your exit plan before you sit down at the table.

Biceps are temporary, baseball helmet sizes are forever.

Choose wisely and play the long game, my friends.

– T

P.S. Sincere thanks to AS, PA, SG, KS, and MN for reading drafts and providing feedback. Of course, any screwups are mine. In timely news, the following came out in Forbes, just as I was about to hit publish: “Billionaire Peter Thiel Backs Doping-Friendly Olympics Rival — What To Know About The ‘Enhanced Games.’” I’ll certainly watch this competition, but truth be told, the doping Olympics already exists, and it’s called the Olympics. Athletes and coaches just have to be champions in two categories simultaneously: their sport and cat-and-mouse drug testing. I suggest the podcasts, documentaries, and books below for a taste of how sophisticated this has become.

Additional resources:

Use of Growth Hormone, IGF-I, and Insulin for Anabolic Purpose: Pharmacological Basis, Methods of Detection, and Adverse Effects

All things testosterone and testosterone replacement therapy by Dr. Peter Attia. (Exclusively for my audience, Peter kindly made this podcast episode—a 2-hour deep dive on testosterone and TRT—available for free. It is normally behind a paywall and part of Dr. Peter Attia’s membership, which offers extensive show notes for every podcast episode, member-only “Ask Me Anything” episodes, premium articles produced by Peter and his dedicated team of world-class research analysts, and much more. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.)

Bigger, Stronger, Faster (Documentary)  

Icarus (Documentary)

Anabolics, 11th Edition by William Llewellyn

Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

“The World’s Most Famous Performance-Enhancement Chemist” (Podcast episode on The Tim Ferriss Show with Patrick Arnold.)

Patrick Arnold, widely considered “the father of prohormones,” is an organic chemist known for introducing androstenedione (remember Mark McGwire?), 1-Androstenediol (marketed as “1-AD”), and methylhexanamine into the dietary supplement market.

He also created the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone, best known as THG and “the clear.” THG, along with two other anabolic steroids that Patrick manufactured (best known: norboletone), were not banned at the time of their creation. They were hard-to-detect drugs at the heart of the BALCO professional sports doping scandal, which thrust Barry Bonds and others into the spotlight. BALCO distributed these worldwide to world-class athletes in a wide variety of sports, ranging from track and field to professional baseball and football.

Some types of hypopituitarism, wasting syndromes/diseases, surgical care, etc. ︎

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Walk & Talk with Greg McKeown — How to Find Your Purpose and Master Essentialism in 2024 (#719)

Illustration via 99designs

“A flight is off track 90 percent of the time. An airplane literally only gets to where it’s supposed to get to at the time it’s supposed to get there because it readjusts constantly along the way. And I feel like that myself.”

— Greg McKeown

Greg McKeown (@GregoryMcKeown) is the author of two New York Times bestsellers Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, and Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. Together they have sold more than two million copies in 37 languages. He is also a speaker, host of The Greg McKeown Podcast, and founder of The Essentialism Academy, with students from 96 countries. More than 175,000 people have signed up for his 1-Minute Wednesday newsletter.

He is currently doing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge, and he is easily one of my favorite thinkers on all things related to effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of life. 

Greg is originally from London, England, and he and his wife Anna are parents to four children.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform .

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This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2022 by GQ magazine, Wired, and Apartment Therapy. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

This episode is also brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).

Their products are third-party tested (Informed-Sport and/or NSF certified), so you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else. If you want to try Momentous for yourself, you can use code Tim for 20% off your one-time purchase at LiveMomentous.com/Tim. And not to worry, my non-US friends, Momentous ships internationally and has you covered. 

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Want to hear the last time Greg McKeown was on this show? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed how Gandhi would sum up Essentialism, how life experiences can unwittingly write scripts that hurt us more than they serve us, questions we can ask ourselves to cope with pet peeves, actionable gratitude, the difference between effortless action and effortless results, and much more.

#510: Greg McKeown — The Art of Effortless Results, How to Take the Lighter Path, the Joys of Simplicity, and MoreSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Greg McKeown:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

SHOW NOTES[10:02] How 2023 informed 2024’s highest priorities.[16:09] Greg’s system for effortless execution of daily tasks.[27:42] Directional documents, shameless repentance, and shifting success.[36:53] Poetic mysticism and matchmaking introspection.[41:51] What compass guides you toward purpose?[45:10] The truth as a path to your best possible future.[50:34] Maslow’s forgotten pinnacle of self-transcendence.[54:28] Why self-actualization is an insufficient foundation for meaningful relationships.[1:03:09] Recommended reading for relationship cultivation.[1:07:43] A true, bittersweet tale of progressively deepening love.[1:13:28] The benefits of treating social media as an option rather than an obligation.[1:16:12] AI: good servant, poor master.[1:17:23] Blocking time for a top priority.[1:27:55] “It’s the tools, stupid.”[1:30:56] Embracing the constraints that stack the decks in your favor.[1:35:41] How to sign up for Greg’s free “Less, But Better” 30-day email program.[1:37:09] Employing the George Costanza opposite life hack.[1:40:53] Parting thoughts.MORE GREG MCKEOWN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I don’t want to trust my weaknesses. I want to build a system that means my weaknesses become irrelevant.”
— Greg McKeown

“A flight is off track 90 percent of the time. An airplane literally only gets to where it’s supposed to get to at the time it’s supposed to get there because it readjusts constantly along the way. And I feel like that myself.”
— Greg McKeown

“There’s only two kinds of people in the world: there are people who are lost and there are people who know they are lost. I know how easy it is for me to get lost.”
— Greg McKeown

“There’s a big difference between 20 years of experience and the same year lived 20 times [in which] you don’t learn the lessons because you’re just going in circles and you’re just rushing, rushing and actually not getting closer to what the purpose of your life really is.”
— Greg McKeown

“AI perhaps makes a good servant, but it certainly makes a poor master. And if I’m not conscious that it is either already my master, or is trying to be, then it’s already over.”
— Greg McKeown

PEOPLE MENTIONEDAnna McKeownStephen CoveyHafezStanley McChrystalMary OliverAbraham MaslowJohn BowlbyGordon GekkoAmir Levine,Rachel S.F. HellerSue JohnsonErik NewtonSeth GodinGeorge Costanza

The post Walk & Talk with Greg McKeown — How to Find Your Purpose and Master Essentialism in 2024 (#719) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Millions of Profitable Niches – 1,000 True Fans 2.0?

The following guest post is an excerpt from Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, the brand-new book from a16z partner Chris Dixon.

Additional resources and potential next steps have been added to the end of the blog post. 

Chris Dixon (@cdixon) is the author of Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, and a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (“a16z”). He joined the venture capital firm in 2013, where he made early investments in Oculus (acquired by Facebook), Coinbase (which went public in 2021), and many other successful companies. Chris now leads a16z crypto, which he founded in 2018, and which now has over $7 billion in committed capital dedicated to crypto and web3 technologies—with investments ranging across applications such as decentralized finance and decentralized media, to infrastructure, social media, gaming, and more. He was ranked #1 on the Forbes Midas List in 2022. 

Before joining a16z, Chris placed early bets on Kickstarter, Pinterest, Stack Overflow, and Stripe—all of which have products in wide use today. He had also previously co-founded and led two technology startups, SiteAdvisor (acquired by McAfee) and Hunch (acquired by eBay).

Drawing from his first-hand observations, mental models, and experiences with startups and the internet industry, Chris was an early and prolific blogger and has been a long-time advocate for community-owned software and networks. 

Chris has Bachelor of Arts and Master’s degrees in philosophy from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He started his career as a software developer. He lives in California and grew up in Ohio.

Enter Chris…

In his classic 2008 essay, “1,000 True Fans,” Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired, predicted the internet would transform the economics of creative activities. He saw the internet as the ultimate matchmaker, enabling twenty-first-century patronage. No matter how niche, creators could discover their true fans, who would, in turn, support them. 

The reality is creators do, generally, need millions of fans, or at least hundreds of thousands, to support themselves today. Corporate networks got in the way, inserting themselves between creators and audiences, siphoning away value and becoming the dominant way for people to connect.

Social networks are probably the most important networks on the internet today. The average internet user spends almost two and a half hours a day on social networks. Next to text messaging, social networking is the most popular online activity.

The design of the dominant social networks explains what went wrong. Powerful network effects locked users into Big Tech’s clutches, and that lock-in led to high take rates. It’s hard to know precisely what take rates many major corporate networks charge, because their terms can be opaque and noncommittal, but it’s reasonable to estimate they charge around 99 percent. With the combined revenue of the five biggest social networks—Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter—at about $150 billion per year, that means these networks pay out on the order of $20 billion to users, with the overwhelming majority of that share coming from YouTube alone.*  

Corporate networks won out because they made it easy for people to connect—more so than protocol networks like RSS did. But that doesn’t mean corporate networks are the only, or even the best, way for people to connect. The alternative to today’s world would be one where social networks are decentralized and community-owned, meaning built with either protocol or blockchain architectures. This could have meaningful economic effects for users, creators, and developers and could revive Kelly’s compelling vision for internet patronage.

To understand the effect of a different network design, let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math. Protocol networks have take rates that are effectively zero. Sometimes companies build apps on top of these networks, providing easy access and other features. 

Let’s pretend the top five social networks charged a similar amount. If they all had take rates of 10 percent, their share of the $150 billion in annual revenue would drop from $130 billion to $15 billion. That would put into the pockets of network participants such as creators an extra $115 billion per year. How many lives might that change? At the average U.S. salary of $59,000 per year, that extra $115 billion of redirected revenue could fund almost two million jobs. This is a rough estimate, but the numbers are clearly big. 

As new technologies like AI automate work, social networks can be a counter-weight that provides people with fulfilling career opportunities.

Decentralized social networks would also be good for users and software developers. The high take rates, capricious rules, and platform risks of corporate networks are deterrents for developers. In contrast, decentralized networks encourage investment and building. 

This might all sound great in theory. The practical question is whether today, given where we are in the evolution of social networking, it’s possible to build a decentralized social network that can actually succeed. Occasionally users awaken to the problems of today’s platforms, and after an incident happens—a deplatforming, a rule change, a new corporate owner, a data privacy or legal scandal—people flee to some upstart social network. These anti-communities usually don’t last. 

The value proposition needs to be full parity with corporate network user experiences, plus much better economics. Corporate social networks succeeded because they made it so easy for people to connect. It’s not too late to design decentralized social networks that make connecting just as easy. Protocol social networks like RSS were a good starting point, but they failed because they lacked the features and funding of corporate rivals. Blockchains can address both shortcomings. We can now, for the first time ever, build networks with the societal benefits of protocol networks and the competitive advantages to rival corporate networks. Indeed, the timing is right: blockchains have only recently become performant enough to support social networking.

Today, a cohort of blockchain projects is taking on the social networking establishment. Each project is designed in its own way, but the common thread is that each one overcomes the weaknesses that doomed RSS. The best designs fund software developers and subsidize username registrations and hosting fees through their token treasuries, analogous to corporate coffers. And in terms of features, blockchains have core infrastructure that provides a centralized global state to support basic services, making it easy to search and follow across the entire network, avoiding the user experience issues that the partitioning in protocol networks and federated networks creates. 

The key marketing challenge is to kick-start a network effect. One tactic is to start on the supply side, where the pain of high take rates is greatest. Users may not realize how much value they’re forgoing by participating in corporate networks, but creators and software developers care deeply about how much money they earn. Offering a predictable platform where they receive a greater share of the value they generate would be a compelling proposition. If the best content and software were available only on another platform, the demand side of the network—the users, many of whom are passive consumers—would likely seek it out. That users can participate in a blockchain network’s economic upside and governance, privileges from which they were previously excluded, adds further motivation for them to switch.

Starting in narrow and deep niches could help a new social network get over the initial hump. Targeting a group with common interests, like people interested in new technologies or new media genres, is one way to plant the seeds of a community. The most valuable users will likely be up-and-comers who don’t have big followings elsewhere. When YouTube started out, it didn’t succeed by getting creators from TV and other forms of media. New stars rose along with the platform. That’s the power of native over skeuomorphic thinking.

What we have today may feel like a golden age for creative people: creators can push a button and instantly publish to five billion people. They can find fans, critics, and collaborators just about anywhere on earth. But they’re mostly forced to route everything through corporate networks that devour tens of billions of dollars that might otherwise have funded an immeasurably greater diversity of content. Imagine how much creativity we’re missing out on because earlier attempts at decentralized social networks, while noble, like RSS, couldn’t hold their own.

We can do better. The internet should be an accelerant for human creativity and authenticity, not an inhibitor. A market structure with millions of profitable niches, enabled by blockchain networks, makes this possible. With fairer revenue sharing, more users will find their true callings, and more creators will reach their true fans.

*Four out of five of the largest social networks referenced—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter—have take rates of about 99% or above. Youtube has a take rate of 45%, meaning it pays out 55% to creators. Almost all of the payouts to creators come from YouTube alone. The calculations presented here estimate that YouTube paid out $16 billion to creators in 2022 (which is 55% of its annual $30 billion in revenue) and the other four social networks paid out about $1 billion each from their respective creator funds. In total, that yields $20 billion.

Excerpted from Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet , by Chris Dixon. Copyright 2024 by Chris Dixon. Published by Random House. Reprinted with permission. 

***

Additional resources:

Why decentralization matters (Chris Dixon)

You’re not imagining it: Social media is in chaos (New York Times)

The future of decentralized social media (ETHGlobal video)

Sufficient decentralization for social networks (Varun Srinivasan):

The rise of decentralized social networks (Bankless)

Next possible steps:

Learn the basics of crypto wallets and other tutorials (Coinbase). 

How to create an NFT (OpenSea)

Intro to web3 creator tools (Manifold)

More web3 creator tools (Alchemy)

A list of decentralized social networks (Ethereum Foundation)

The post Millions of Profitable Niches – 1,000 True Fans 2.0? appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Why You Should Seek More Awe in the New Year

Photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash

Every time I’ve done a past-year review (PYR), a pattern emerges: peak positive emotional experiences are correlated to awe at least 70% of the time.

For at least the past 3–5 years, this has been so consistent that I often determine what big blocks to schedule in the new year based on potential for awe. The payoffs include time dilation and, more broadly, traversing the miraculous canvas of full human experience.

Friends have asked me why I do silent retreats in nature, why I love ski touring, why I hunt once in a blue moon, or why I am deeply interested in psychedelic science and psychedelic-assisted therapies. If I had to sum it all up in one word, it would be:

Awe.

But what exactly is “awe,” and how can we embrace more of it?

I haven’t found a better article exploring these topics than Ashley Stimpson’s “Awestruck,” featured in Johns Hopkins Magazine, so I asked for permission to publish here, which was graciously granted.

I hope you find it as thought-provoking as I did.

ENTER ASHLEY…

I’m staring at a stunning, rainbow-sherbet sunset. In a nearby stand of evergreens, a choir of crickets chirps in unison. Fireflies flicker above the rocks I’m sitting on, a promontory in the middle of a gently flowing river. From my vantage point, I can’t see David Yaden, a Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, but I can hear him. He has a few questions about how this tranquil scene is making me feel.

Would I say that time has slowed? (A little.) Did my sense of self seem diminished? (Kind of.) Could I feel a connection with all living things? (Not really.) Had my jaw dropped? (It sure had!)

Yaden finishes his questions, and the sunset disappears. Now, instead of the dusky landscape, I see a teal green backdrop and the words “connect to Wi-Fi.”

I remove the virtual reality headset and I’m back in a room at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, on a couch where patients take part in studies that investigate the use of psilocybin—the compound found in so-called magic mushrooms—in the treatment of everything from Alzheimer’s disease to depression. Sitting across from me in a leather recliner, Yaden explains that for a few years now, he and Albert Garcia-Romeu, a fellow professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences who studies psilocybin as an aid in the treatment of addiction, have been asking patients at the tail end of their psychedelic experience to explore a handful of virtual reality settings and describe the feelings each one evokes. The survey Yaden gave me while I admired that technicolor sunset had been driving toward one central question: Was I experiencing awe?

That’s because awe—the hair-raising, goose-bumps-inducing sensation you get staring at the ocean or sitting center row at the orchestra, the one that knocks you momentarily loose from the ordinary and forces you to reconsider your understanding of the world and your place in it—is a big part of what makes a psychedelic experience so powerful. Previous research has suggested that, by provoking profound, mind-expanding awe, psychedelics can reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and addiction.

For now, Yaden and Garcia-Romeu are simply trying to suss out whether mixing psychedelics and VR is safe. But they also wonder if by doubling up on awe, or “by giving people a drug and then putting them in an awe-inducing environment,” says Garcia-Romeu, “we could potentially turn the gain up.”

The tricky thing about emotions is they’re difficult to measure; no one feels 87% happy or 15 kilograms of sadness. A decade ago, scientists measured awe by asking people, simply, if they felt it. The problem with that, according to Yaden, is that “different people have different definitions of the emotion.”

So, Yaden assembled a team of researchers to develop a robust way to measure awe.

First, the team scoured previous scientific studies to come up with six core characteristics of the emotion: self-diminishment, time alteration, physical sensations like chills, and a feeling of connectedness, as well as the perception of vastness and the struggle to comprehend it.

Then they recruited more than 1,100 people to write about a recent experience of “intense awe.” Some wrote about the outdoors, recalling the first time they saw the Rocky Mountains, or the sight of a lake in deep winter, glistening with ice. Others wrote about watching their children play a musical instrument, or public figures deliver inspirational speeches, like Elon Musk detailing plans to send humans to Mars.

Afterward, participants answered questions that the researchers had created based on the six facets of awe, indicating how much they agreed with statements like, “I felt my sense of time change” and “I felt I was in the presence of something grand.”

In the end, Yaden and his collaborators developed a 30-item questionnaire that doesn’t just statistically and reliably measure how much awe a person feels but also “captures the full depth and breadth of the awe experience,” they wrote in their 2018 paper, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology. As awe increasingly becomes a target for academic studies worldwide, the Awe Experience Scale could play a pivotal role. Researchers have already begun putting it to use, translating it into other languages and incorporating it into studies on awe in nature, meditation, museums, and, of course, VR. That research is revealing the physical and emotional benefits of awe, no psychedelics required.

Awe has gone by a number of names. Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant both wrote about the sublime, while Charles Darwin expounded on wonder. Abraham Maslow introduced the idea of “peak experiences,” which he described as “exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating,” which is to say: awesome.

Yet, in the early 1990s, when influential psychologist Paul Ekman identified the six basic human emotions (joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise), awe was not on the list. It was one of Ekman’s students, Dacher Keltner, who brought awe into the scientific conversation.

Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life (Penguin Press, January 2023), says he was immersed in awe from a young age, at art museums and on camping trips with his parents. “My dad is a visual artist. My mom taught Romanticism and poetry. I grew up at a really wild time, in Laurel Canyon in the 1960s. So I was always walking around just kind of awe-struck.”

During his postdoc years, which he spent at the University of California, San Francisco, studying under Ekman, Keltner had a realization: “Almost everything that humans care about—religion, art, music, big ideas, taking care of young children—awe is close to it. Awe is always close to really important stuff,” he says. “I thought, let’s study this emotion and figure it out.”

In a seminal 2003 paper, Keltner partnered with University of Virginia psychology Professor Jonathan Haidt to nail down a prototypical definition of awe. The pair studied depictions of awe as it was represented in literature and scholarly thought, from the Bible and Bhagavad-Gita to the writings of sociologists Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. In doing so, they identified the two key features of awe: a sense of vastness and a momentary inability to process it. Importantly, they noted that vastness could be physical, such as looking up at a cascading waterfall, or cognitive, like the vertigo you get when you think about something intricate or incomprehensibly large—photosynthesis, say, or the size of the solar system.

Keltner and Haidt also took a guess as to how awe evolved, theorizing that the reverence we feel in the presence of a powerful leader played a role in maintaining social hierarchy and cohesion in early human societies. Later, Yaden and Italian researcher Alice Chirico suggested that awe developed as a way for humans to identify safe refuges. High vantage points with large vistas, for example, would have allowed them to see predators approaching.

In the conclusion of their 2003 paper, Keltner and Haidt laid out a research agenda to guide future awe scientists. “There is a clear need to map the markers of awe,” they wrote. Fifteen years later, Keltner was on the research team that helped develop the Awe Experience Scale.

In the meantime, the science of awe has proliferated. Research has shown that people who feel awe more often report higher rates of satisfaction with life and greater feelings of well-being. Awe can help us be less stressed, less materialistic, and less isolated. There’s evidence that awe is good for our physical health, too; one study reported that people who experienced the emotion more often had lower levels of cytokines, the proteins that cause inflammation. Awe might also contribute to a more harmonious society. When researchers exposed one group of study participants to an awe-inspiring view of towering eucalyptus trees, and another group to a neutral scene of a building, those who admired the pretty view were more likely to help a stranger pick up something they had dropped afterward. Another study found that awe made people less aggressive.

While science has gotten good at identifying the external manifestations of awe, researchers are still working to untangle what’s happening inside the body.

“That’s the big holy grail, the big mystery,” Keltner says. “When people feel awe, it’s almost an oceanic sense of, ‘I’m a part of something really big.’ How does the brain represent that? We don’t know.”

We do have a few hints. There’s evidence that awe deactivates what’s called the default mode network—the part of the brain associated with self-perception—allowing us to step outside our insular thoughts and ruminations and be wholly present in the moment. Awe also activates the vagus nerves, a braid of nerves running from the brain to the large intestines that is associated with feelings of compassion and altruism. In short, the emotion turns our focus away from ourselves, “providing connectedness and perspective,” Yaden says. “Suddenly, our problems no longer feel as big and daunting.”

In order for scientists to develop a more nuanced understanding of the chemical and physiological changes that happen inside an awestruck person, Yaden hopes to see researchers step outside the laboratory. To date, many studies about awe have involved showing participants videos—nature documentaries or footage of tall trees swaying in a forest—a method Yaden fears may not be all that effective in inspiring pure, unadulterated awe.

“If we’re studying awe, I think we need to make sure that we are eliciting sufficiently intense experiences to have an effect,” Yaden says. In other words, watching a video montage of the Grand Canyon might provoke a sense of wonder, for example, but actually standing on the rim, looking down into the expanse, is more likely to trigger true chills-up-the-spine awe. However, when it comes to studying the interface of awe and psychedelics, as Yaden and Garcia-Romeu are interested in doing, getting patients out of a clinical setting can be a challenge. “The lawyers won’t let us take people outside when they’re under the influence,” Garcia-Romeu says, “so we kind of see VR as a backdoor to doing that.”

The scientists plan to spend another year or so slipping the VR headset on patients dosed with psilocybin to learn what settings might dial up the awe of a psychedelic experience. It’s just the first step toward using awe as a therapeutic intervention, but Yaden sees potential. “It’s an area really rich for research,” he says.

While they were working to produce the Awe Experience Scale, Yaden and the research team asked participants to identify the specific trigger of their awe experience. Natural beauty was far and away the top response; more than a third of participants said it was the source of their awe. Notably, the second most popular trigger was a write-in category, and a significant number of responses named childbirth as a source of profound awe.

Two months ago, Yaden watched his wife give birth, calling it the most awe-inspiring moment of his life. Lately, he’s enjoyed watching his newborn son experience amazement.

“Right now it’s the sky. We take him to the window and his eyes just pop.”

Yaden says he seeks out “little doses” of awe for himself every day—morning walks by the Inner Harbor, for example. “Part of what’s enjoyable about that is the vastness, just looking out across the water.”

In a study to determine what causes people to feel awe, Keltner and a research team gathered narratives about the emotion from 26 countries around the world. “Write about a time your mind was blown,” he and his collaborators instructed. Using these accounts, Keltner developed what he calls the eight wonders of life: moral beauty, nature, collective movement, music, art, spirituality, big ideas, and mortality. Incorporating these wonders into your life to experience awe is “strikingly easy,” Keltner says. In fact, you’re probably already doing it.

“Most people experience awe pretty regularly,” echoes Yaden. “Most vacations include awe excursions. People climb to the top of mountains, they go to museums, they visit monuments.”

Keltner says there’s a misconception that awe is rare, but research shows “it’s actually kind of common. Most people feel it two to three times a week.”

Another misconception about awe is that you can’t orchestrate it. “It’s like, dude, have you ever bought concert tickets?” Keltner says jokingly. “Did planning that event ruin your experience of awe? No. You can find it, and you can plan for it.”

Want more awe in your life? Listen to a piece of music that gives you the chills. Think of someone who inspires you. Drive, hike, or bike to the prettiest view in your neighborhood. Go sing with other people; go move in unison with other people. As you do, Keltner says, “Pause. Clear your mind. Be open.”

Encouragingly, research has also indicated that finding awe might not even require leaving your home. In a recent study, Yaden and Marianna Graziosi, a doctoral candidate at Hofstra University, asked participants to recall a time they were in awe of a loved one. One person wrote about his wife receiving a terminal diagnosis with startling grace; another recounted hearing their mother describe a painful childhood.

By using the Awe Experience Scale, Yaden and Graziosi were able to determine that the feelings evoked by those closest to us meet the widely accepted definition of awe.

They concluded: “Perhaps awe, while an ordinary response to the extraordinary, is also an extraordinary response to the ordinary.”

Ashley Stimpson is a freelance writer based in Maryland.

© 2024 Johns Hopkins Magazine. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

The post Why You Should Seek More Awe in the New Year appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Noah Kagan — How to Launch a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (#717)

Illustration via 99designs

Noah Kagan (@noahkagan) was #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, and has since created seven million-dollar businesses (Kickflip/Gambit, AppSumo, KingSumo, SendFox, Sumo, TidyCal, and Monthly1k).

He is the CEO of AppSumo.com, the #1 software-deals site for entrepreneurs, and has a popular YouTube channel, Noah Kagan. 

His new book is Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform . Watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 1B+ users; Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; and Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#717: Noah Kagan — How to Launch a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend

This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.

Go to  shopify.com/Tim  to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting  shopify.com/Tim .

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

Conquer this winter season with the best in sleep tech and sleep at your perfect temperature. Many of my listeners in colder areas enjoy warming up their bed after a freezing day. Go to eightsleep.com/Tim and save $250 on the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep this winter. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. 

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 900 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Noah Kagan:

Official Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook

Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours | Amazon
MillionDollarWeekend.com | Book’s official website
AppSumo.com | Browse software deals for your business.
How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas) | Tim Ferriss’s blog
How Facebook’s #30 Employee Quickly Built 4 Businesses and Gained 40 Pounds with Weight Training (#75) | The Tim Ferriss Show podcast
Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs | Tim Ferriss’s blog
How to Say No When It Matters Most (or “Why I’m Taking a Long ‘Startup Vacation’”) | Tim Ferriss’s blog
The 4-Hour Workweek | Amazon
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch | Amazon
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne | Amazon

Note from the content editor: Additional links and timestamps will be added shortly.

The post Noah Kagan — How to Launch a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (#717) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

The Magic of Suspended Coffee and Free Haircuts

The following guest post is an excerpt from Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading, the brand-new book from the curator of TED Chris Anderson.

You can find the book’s free companion AI assistant by clicking here. All author proceeds from the book are being donated to advance TED’s nonprofit mission of spreading ideas.

Chris Anderson (@TEDchris) has been the curator of TED since 2001. His TED mantra—“ideas worth spreading”—continues to blossom on an international scale, with some three billion TED Talks viewed annually. He lives in New York City and London.

Enter Chris . . .

The Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh taught that attention is the most precious gift we can give someone. Certainly, all generosity starts right there—a willingness to stop focusing on ourselves and pay attention to someone else and their needs. From that act of connection, anything can happen.

In 2015, Joshua Coombes was working as a hairdresser at a London salon. One day, while walking back from work, he noticed a familiar homeless person on the sidewalk. Most Londoners walk past the homeless every day, as though they were invisible. Not so Joshua. He approached the man and asked him how he was. Then he had an idea. He had his clippers and scissors with him, so he offered the careworn homeless man a free haircut right there on the street.

“In the hour that followed, he told me his story,” Joshua writes in his book Do Something for Nothing. “We connected and became close.” Touched by his experience, Joshua started heading into the streets of London whenever he could, offering haircuts to homeless people. Eventually he cut back to part-time work in order to spend more time on the streets.

Joshua found his new vocation incredibly rewarding. Having established an immediate sense of trust, he found that the people he was meeting began opening up about their lives. Hearing the remarkable and often harrowing stories of his homeless clients was in itself a reward. He was struck by their resilience and courage, and thankful for the time they spent together. Determined to broadcast their stories and shatter lazy assumptions about homeless people, Joshua took to Instagram. He posted “before-and-after-haircut” pictures of his homeless clients, told their stories (in their own words), and signed off with the hashtag #DoSomethingForNothing. He then started to couch-surf with friends and acquaintances all over the world, giving his time to homeless people across fourteen cities in the Americas, Europe, India, and Australia, and broadcasting their stories via social media. Before long, his Instagram fame resulted in collaborations with brands and NGOs.

Joshua has garnered over 150,000 Instagram followers, who have been moved by the stories he shares. When Joshua posted crowd-funding appeals to fix temporary accommodation for his friends, the cash flowed in. #DoSomethingForNothing became a social movement, with Joshua’s inbox full of messages from people pledging their help. Joshua writes that one of the most powerful choices we make each day is to be aware of how we interact with those around us. “Give the benefit of the doubt to other people until they prove us otherwise. . . . How difficult is it to say hello?”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joshua Coombes (@joshuacoombes)

The truth is it can be difficult. We spend much of our time lost in our own worlds. We’re often reluctant to focus on the issues that others are dealing with. They will only complicate our lives. So we put up shields. And that means that many of the people who could really use our attention never feel seen. The generosity of attention is therefore the generosity of being willing to be a little uncomfortable, to take down those shields, to give up a little time, to risk coming to care about someone else.

What about the critique that Joshua’s interventions aren’t tackling the underlying systemic problems that cause homelessness? Personally, I’m willing to grant hero status to those who are ready to do their bit to make things better for someone else, even if they’re operating in a flawed system.

No one is suggesting that individual acts of kindness should be a substitute for tackling systemic issues. On the contrary, they help prepare the way. If we don’t practice generosity with each other, system change has no chance. Every act of generous engagement, no matter how small, can start someone on a journey of immense consequence. Here’s another instance of that.

John Sweeney grew up in Ireland. He felt invisible. As a child he was bullied by other children. Even by his teachers. “I felt like the loneliest child in the world; like I had nothing and no one,” he told my research assistant Kate. Years later, as an adult, he had a pivotal experience that revealed the value of paying attention. He had seen a homeless young woman on the streets of Cork, so he bought her a hot meal and stopped for a chat. Through poverty and chronic disease, she had struggled to care for her three children. She felt completely invisible.

“I want you to know that I care about you, even though I don’t know you,” John told her. “You absolutely matter and I see you.” The experience brought both of them to tears. “The fact that you stopped means the world to me,” the woman told him.

John told the story to his children, who passed the word along. One of the kids’ friends—a young boy named Isaac—was soon Christmas shopping in the neighborhood and ran into the same woman. Isaac decided to give her fifty euros—his entire Christmas pocket money—to buy Christmas presents for her three children. The children and their mum had completely given up hope of celebrating Christmas. The story spread and ended up making national news.

Realizing that paying attention to a stranger, even for a moment, was a powerful way of spreading kindness, John found a way to make it easy for others to do just this. He had heard about the Italian tradition of caffè sospeso—“suspended coffee.” The idea is simple. Customers at a café buy an extra “suspended coffee” on top of their own—a pay-it-forward gift that may be claimed by anyone. This could be a poor or homeless person. Often, however, the claimants are people who are simply having a rough day. A kind gesture from a stranger can be all it takes to show them that they matter and make life bearable—and even beautiful. For the gift giver, all it takes is to remember that there are others out there who would love the luxury you’re about to indulge in. And that you can easily give them that gift.

John made it his mission to spread suspended coffee to the whole world. It was an idea whose time had come. Within two years, two thousand cafés in thirty-four countries were actively promoting suspended coffee, and the movement now has five hundred thousand followers on Facebook.

He receives daily messages of appreciation from both café owners and suspended coffee participants. One man wrote to him from Philadelphia: “John, you don’t know me, but the impact your message has had on my life has been profound.” The man had heard John speak and was inspired to make friends with a homeless drug addict, buying him a coffee every day for two months. During this time he came to care deeply about his new friend. So he paid for two months of accommodation for the man and a course of rehab—on condition that “you work hard and turn your life around.” The former drug addict did just that, and enrolled at Philadelphia University, the ripple effect of an act of kindness that started many years earlier and many miles away.

The Generous Coffee Shop in Denver, Colorado, takes this concept a step further. As customers enter the café, they are greeted with a large bulletin board arrayed with hundreds of handwritten credit notes:

• TO: A newly single mom. You got this. FROM: A single mom ($10)

• TO: Someone studying for the bar exam. FROM: Someone doing the same ($5)

• TO: Stranger with a broken heart. FROM: Soren and Ellie ($6) •

• TO: Someone struggling in the first year of starting their own business. FROM: Someone who has made it (it gets better!) ($6)

The free coffee and cake are made that much sweeter by being gifted from a stranger: a stranger who is not only generous, but one who empathizes with what you’re going through, cares about you, and wants to see you pull through.

You don’t have to set up a global organization to exercise this type of generosity. All you have to do is shift your attention to someone else and their story. Whether you stop and have a meaningful connection with a person in need or spend thirty minutes researching a cause you think might matter, you have already begun your generosity journey. You’ve become willing to give the gift of attention. And if you stay open to continuing the journey, it just may have consequences you could never imagine. 

Excerpted from Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson. Copyright 2024 by Chris Anderson. Published by Crown Publishing Group. Reprinted with permission. All author proceeds from the book are being donated to advance TED’s nonprofit mission of spreading ideas.

The post The Magic of Suspended Coffee and Free Haircuts appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Performance Coach Andy Galpin — Rebooting Tim’s Sleep, Nutrition, Supplements, and Training for 2024 (#716)

Illustration via 99designs

Andy Galpin (@DrAndyGalpin) is a tenured, full professor at California State University, Fullerton, where he is also co-director of the Center for Sport Performance and founder/director of the Biochemistry and Molecular Exercise Physiology Laboratory. He is a human performance scientist with a PhD in human bioenergetics and more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and presentations.

This year, Andy is teaming up with Huberman Lab to launch a podcast of his own, called Perform with Dr. Andy Galpin.

Dr. Galpin has worked with elite athletes (including All-Stars, All-Pros, and MVPs; Cy Young and Major winners; Olympic Gold medalists; and World titlists and contenders) across the UFC, MLB, NBA, PGA, NFL, Olympics, boxing, military/special forces, and more.

He is also a co-founder of BioMolecular Athlete, Vitality Blueprint, Absolute Rest, and RAPID Health & Performance.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform .

Brought to you by  Momentous  high-quality supplements,  Nordic Naturals  Ultimate Omega fish oil, and  AG1  all-in-one nutritional supplement.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#716: Performance Coach Andy Galpin — Rebooting Tim’s Sleep, Nutrition, Supplements, and Training for 2024

This episode is brought to you by Nordic Naturals, the #1-selling fish-oil brand in the US! More than 80% of Americans don’t get enough omega-3 fats from their diet. That is a problem because the body can’t produce omega-3s, an important nutrient for cell structure and function. Nordic Naturals solves that problem with their doctor-recommended Ultimate Omega fish-oil formula for heart health, brain function, immune support, and more. Ultimate Omega is made exclusively from 100% wild-caught sardines and anchovies. It’s incredibly pure and fresh with no fishy aftertaste. All Nordic Naturals’ fish-oil products are offered in the triglyceride molecular form—the form naturally found in fish, and the form your body most easily absorbs.

Go to Nordic.com and discover why Nordic Naturals is the #1-selling omega-3 brand in the U.S. Use promo code TIM for 20% off your order of Ultimate Omega.

This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.

This episode is also brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).

Their products are third-party tested (Informed-Sport and/or NSF certified), so you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else. If you want to try Momentous for yourself, you can use code Tim for 20% off your one-time purchase at LiveMomentous.com/Tim. And not to worry, my non-US friends, Momentous ships internationally and has you covered. 

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Dr. Andy Galpin:

Podcast | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: More extensive show notes are on their way!

Sample Program from Andy:Pick 4 exercisesLower Body Hinge or Pull (same thing): Romanian Deadlift, Good Morning Deadlift, Hamstrings CurlLower Body Squat or Press: Leg Press, Front Squat, Step-Up, or Split SquatUpper Pull: Bent Row, Pulldown, Pullup, PulloverUpper Press: Pushup, Incline Press, Overhead Press, Pec FlyDo low-volume, high-quality, heavy.e.g., 2–5 sets of 2–5 reps. Rotate these each day, but not from week to week.Keep that consistent for 6–10 weeks before changing. Pick another 1–3 exercises to add to this if you have a specific deficiency, weakness, or area you want to improve (size or strength). Do medium volume, focusing on having the right muscles contract in the right way and not using other muscles.E.g., 1–2 sets of 10–20 reps.Frequency: 2–3x a week. Optimal is 3x.Volume: LowIntensity: Moderate/HighLength: <40 min. Rest: Take the time needed to recover in between reps and sets, but don’t drag it out either. No need to be pushing a high heart rate, but don’t waste time either. Feel free to superset. 

Misc: ALWAYS invest 10 min into a very high-quality warm-up that includes specific movements that prepare you for the exercise of the day. Pick a combination of single-joint and multi-joint exercises. Pick exercises in multiple ‘planes’ (front, side, and don’t forget about rotation!)

Sample Program:Day 1:Big 4:Goblet Squat: 3 Sets of 5 RepsChest-Supported Dumbbell Row: 3 x 51-Leg RDL: 3 x 61 Leg on Box, 1-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Press: 3 x 5Bonus 2:Calf Raises: 2 x 15–20Pallof Press: 2 x 15–20Day 2:Big 4:Leg Press: 3 x 4Farmer’s Carry: 3 x 20 YardsKnees at 90 Degrees Dumbbell Press: 3 x 6DB Curtsy Step-Up to Curtsy Squat: 3 x 6Bonus 2:Bicep Curls: 2 x 12–15Banded Lateral Walks: 2 x Max StepsDay 3:Big 2:Kettlebell Lateral Lunges: 3 x 6Lat Pulldown: 3 x 6Bonus 3:Kettlebell Pullovers: 2 x 8–12Copenhagen (Lateral) Active Plank: 2 x MaxBarbell Hip Thrust: 2 x 10–15Supplements for Endurance Training:Amp Human PR Lotion (Sodium Bicarbonate) | MomentousRhodiola Rosea | Momentous Beta-Alanine | ThorneVitamin C | ThorneAcetyl-L-Carnitine | ThorneMicronutrient Tests:Vitality BlueprintNutrEval | Genova DiagnosticsSweat Tests:Nix BiosensorsGx Sweat Patch | Gatorade

The post Performance Coach Andy Galpin — Rebooting Tim’s Sleep, Nutrition, Supplements, and Training for 2024 (#716) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Chris Beresford-Hill — A Master Ad Man on Superbowl Confessions, How to Come Up With Great Ideas, Cold Emailing Mark Cuban, Doing Naughty Things, Poetic Mind Control, Creative Process and Insider Tips, How to Negotiate with Bosses and Clients, and The Powe

Illustration via 99designs

“The best ideas are when you’re like, ‘We can never do this. We’re going to get in big trouble. This is so wrong.’ When you feel that, you’ve got to stay there. You absolutely have to. That’s where all the interesting stuff happens.”

— Chris Beresford-Hill

Chris Beresford-Hill is one of the most sought-after creative leaders in advertising and has led brands with a combined market cap of over $1 trillion. He was recently named Chief Creative Officer of the Americas at BBDO Worldwide.

Previously, Chris served as North America President and Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy and Chief Creative Officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day. His work for clients like Guinness, Mtn Dew, Dove, Workday, Adidas, FedEx, McDonalds, HBO, and Foot Locker has driven sales while putting dent after dent into pop culture. 

Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over, including five campaigns in the permanent collection at MoMA. He has been named to Adweek’s list of best creatives—Adweek’s Creative 100—Business Insider’s Most Creative People in Advertising, and the Ad Age 40 Under 40, back when he was under 40.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, LMNT electrolyte supplement, and Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega fish oil.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#715: Chris Beresford-Hill — A Master Ad Man on Superbowl Confessions, How to Come Up with Great Ideas, Cold Emailing Mark Cuban, Doing Naughty Things, Poetic Mind Control, Creative Process and Insider Tips, How to Negotiate with Bosses and Clients, and The Power of a Stolen Snickers

This episode is brought to you by LMNT! What is LMNT? It’s a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I’ve stocked up on boxes and boxes of this and usually use it 1–2 times per day. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or Paleo diet. If you are on a low-carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness.

LMNT came up with a very special offer for you, my dear listeners. For a limited time, you can get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase. This special offer is available here: DrinkLMNT.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 5% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than ten times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. 

It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 5% interest on your savings. And when you open an account today, you’ll get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.

This episode is brought to you by Nordic Naturals, the #1-selling fish-oil brand in the US! More than 80% of Americans don’t get enough omega-3 fats from their diet. That is a problem because the body can’t produce omega-3s, an important nutrient for cell structure and function. Nordic Naturals solves that problem with their doctor-recommended Ultimate Omega fish-oil formula for heart health, brain function, immune support, and more. Ultimate Omega is made exclusively from 100% wild-caught sardines and anchovies. It’s incredibly pure and fresh with no fishy aftertaste. All Nordic Naturals’ fish-oil products are offered in the triglyceride molecular form—the form naturally found in fish, and the form your body most easily absorbs.

Go to Nordic.com and discover why Nordic Naturals is the #1-selling omega-3 brand in the U.S. Use promo code TIM for 20% off your order of Ultimate Omega.

Want to hear another episode with someone who sells for profit and fun? Listen to my conversation with domain broker Andrew Rosener, in which we discussed securing brand identity, negotiating equity, a potential digital real estate boom, avoiding attraction to unnecessary pain, domain investors vs. domain squatters, the impact of AI on the domain industry and SEO business, and much more.

#711: Andrew Rosener — Becoming The Hokkaido Scallop King, Leasing Blue Chip URLs, Life Tenets from Charlie Tuna, Selling 8-Figure Domains, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Chris Beresford-Hill:

LinkedIn

BBDO WorldwideModernista! | WikipediaTimeline: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the Hummer | Visual CapitalistThe Dallas MavericksTBWA\Chiat\DayA Safe Place For Brave Ideas | ArnoldHow to Increase Your Luck Surface Area | Codus OperandiThe Media Business: Advertising; Volkswagen Campaign Presents Driving as a Metaphor for Life | The New York TimesVolkswagen Da Da Da Commercial Spot | The Ad ClubTested Advertising Methods by John Caples | AmazonA Father Teaches His Son the Secret of Creativity | Muse by ClioUniversal Studios HollywoodPsycho | Prime VideoBack to the Future | Prime VideoThe Ultimate ‘Back to the Future’ Filming Locations Map | L.A. CurbedJaws | Prime VideoTimeshares, Vacation Clubs, and Related Scams | Consumer AdviceMy New York Knicks: Comparing the 1993 Knicks to the Knicks of Today | Bleacher ReportPurchase College | SUNYComics and Graphic Novels | Image ComicsYoungblood | Image Comics DatabaseNew York Comic ConDave Matthews BandIt’s the Simple Things: How to Aim in Golf | The Left RoughGoodby, Silverstein & PartnersGot Milk?Hummer Ads: A Trip Down Memory Lane at $4 a Gallon | Daily KOSThe Origin of Super Bowl Ads — And How They Conquered the Game | TimeThe Essential Robert Goulet | Amazon MusicFatboy Slim ft. Bootsy Collins: Weapon Of Choice [Official 4k Video] | YouTubeRocky | Prime VideoAn Oral History of Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like | Creative ReviewHenry Ford, Innovation, and That “Faster Horse” Quote | Harvard Business ReviewKevin Kelly — Excellent Advice for Living | The Tim Ferriss Show #669Emerald Nuts: Boogeyman | Ad AgeGild the Lily Idiom | Grammarist“I Drink Your Milkshake!” Clip | There Will Be BloodThere Will Be Blood | Prime VideoRussell Crowe Accused of Assault With Hotel Phone | The New York TimesCast Away | Prime VideoThe Shining | Prime Video‘The Shining’: Bryan Cranston Stars in Mountain Dew Commercial | Rolling StoneThe Harvard LampoonIconic Ads: iPod “1,000 Songs in Your Pocket” | Point of View“Where’s the Beef?” The Story of the Most Famous Slogan Ever | Better MarketingThe Shoe SurgeonAdidas: Billie Jean King Your Shoes | CliosA Short History of Napster | LifewireHey Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Advertising by Luke Sullivan | AmazonThe Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air | Prime VideoBoardomatics | Milowerx MediaMetallica: Some Kind of Monster | NetflixMetallica by Metallica | Amazon MusicConan O’Brien Can’t Stop | Prime VideoBird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott | AmazonAnne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer | The Tim Ferriss Show #522Progress Over Perfection | Tone HouseDog Tips and Training with Tim Ferriss | YouTubeAllen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking Without Willpower by Allen Carr | AmazonThe Easy Way to Quit Caffeine: Live a Healthier, Happier Life by Allen Carr | AmazonThe Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle | AmazonConan Learns Korean And Makes It Weird | TBSLevels of the Game by John McPhee | AmazonBalthazar Restaurant New York“Always Be Closing” Clip | Glengarry Glen RossGlengarry Glen Ross | Prime VideoMessage on a Bottle: The Story Behind Dr. Bronner’s Soaps | DielineDr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile Liquid Soap (Baby, Unscented) | AmazonDerren Brown: The Push | NetflixDerren Brown: Miracle | NetflixWords That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Dr. Frank Luntz | AmazonRepublicans Say ‘Death Tax’ While Democrats Say ‘Estate Tax’ | Business InsiderModell’s Sporting GoodsDimeMag | UPROXXFoot Locker Commercial with Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman, Brett Favre | TYT SportsGuinness Wheelchair Basketball Commercial Breaks the Beer Industry Stereotype | SlateSHOW NOTES

Editor’s Note: Timestamps will be added shortly.

How Chris landed his first job with the help of Mark Cuban.Lessons learned from first boss Lance Jensen.Writing cold emails that work.What Chris’s dad taught him about workarounds.A golf strategy that inspired Super Bowl aspirations.Good taste and the Modernista style.Portfolio building.How Chris landed his first Super Bowl ad.Editing and expectations.Critical acclaim.Working with BBDO’s David Lubars.Working fast and resisting the urge to “gild the lily.”Shining a light on the Super Bowl LIV Mountain Dew commercial.The value of the vaguely naughty mindset.Making less more with Tor Myhren.The Adidas/Billie Jean King gambit.A Napster campaign crashes.Creative industry-related reading and viewing.Overcoming creative roadblocks.What Chris does in lieu of meditation.Books and videos that save lives and inspire curiosity.Best investments of less than $100.Capturing and saving good ideas for later.What words are worth.If the idea is good enough, there’s always more money.Give Chris a Foot Locker and he’ll take a mile.An ego check.Chris’s billboard.Parting thoughts.MORE CHRIS BERESFORD-HILL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I’m not here to do what the plan is today. I’m here to see what’s possible.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“The best ideas are when you’re like, ‘We can never do this. We’re going to get in big trouble. This is so wrong.’ When you feel that, you’ve got to stay there. You absolutely have to. That’s where all the interesting stuff happens.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“Another lesson — certainly in advertising, but anywhere — is the more ground you can cover in a room, the better because you start further ahead than if you constantly come together and split off and come together and split off.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“The best gift you can ever get is a first boss that has great taste or high standards.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“It just felt like I was able to create the life of my dreams, even if the day-to-day reality didn’t totally match it. And that was fine by me.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“This is not the kind of idea that gets green-lit. I had a stolen Snickers in my pocket, and I wanted out of that store.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“I liked my climb. I liked working my way up slowly and learning my craft and not doing something that might’ve made me very sought after and might’ve gotten me a bigger, better job faster. So it was a heartache, but it put me right on the path that I needed to have, which was the long path.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“If the idea is good enough, there’s always more money.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

PEOPLE MENTIONEDMark CubanLance JensenJohn CaplesCinderellaJohn StarksAnthony MasonCharles OakleyPatrick EwingMarv AlbertMichael JordanTodd McFarlaneRob LiefeldDeadpoolJim LeeStan LeeJeff GoodbyRich SilversteinRick RubinSteve SimpsonMatt HermanDavid FincherPeter FarrellyBobby FarrellyKawsRobert GouletFatboy SlimSpike JonzeChristopher WalkenAndrew BurkeMickey GoldmillCraig AllenEric KallmanHenry FordKevin KellyThe Perlorian BrothersVera GouletIan McKenzieBob GarfieldGene SiskelRoger EbertDavid LubarsAmy FergusonJulia NeumannDaniel Day-LewisWill FerrellNicole JonesGreg LyonsRussell CroweBryan CranstonTracee Ellis RossTor MyhrenBillie Jean KingRicardo FrancoNancy ReyesBill BurrLuke SullivanTrey ParkerMatt StoneLars UlrichJames HetfieldConan O’BrienArthur AsheAlfred HitchcockAlonzo WilsonMolly FerrissAllen CarrDaniel CoyleJohn McPheeTed KaczynskiRob SchwartzDerren BrownFrank LuntzBill MurrayRob ReillyDan LuceyJed BergerMike TysonEvander HolyfieldDennis RodmanBrett FavreAaron RodgersKanye West

The post Chris Beresford-Hill — A Master Ad Man on Superbowl Confessions, How to Come Up With Great Ideas, Cold Emailing Mark Cuban, Doing Naughty Things, Poetic Mind Control, Creative Process and Insider Tips, How to Negotiate with Bosses and Clients, and The Power of a Stolen Snickers (#715) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.