Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 13
March 13, 2024
Hugh Howey, Author of Silo and Wool — A Masterclass on Writing, Unorthodox Self-Publishing, and Living in The AI Age (#726)
Illustration via 99designs“You have to have loftier goals than your expected outcome.”
— Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey (@hughhowey) is the New York Times bestselling author of Wool, Beacon 23, Sand, Machine Learning, Half Way Home, and more than a dozen other novels. His Silo trilogy was recently adapted by Apple TV, becoming their #1 drama of all time. A series based on his novel Beacon 23, starring Lena Headey, also released last year, with season two due in March. Hugh’s works have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. He lives in New York City with his wife Shay.
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, Momentous high-quality supplements, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.
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#726: Hugh Howey, Author of Silo and Wool — A Masterclass on Writing, Unorthodox Self-Publishing, and Living in The AI AgeThis 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 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.
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.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear another episode with someone who builds fictional worlds for a living? Listen to my most recent conversation with The School for Good & Evil author Soman Chainani, in which we discussed giving stories away, the art of Christopher Marley, potentially gay bulls, career lessons from Taylor Swift, cross-collar dating, dodgy allergies, the life-changing power of ketamine, hookups, and much more.
#720: Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman ChainaniSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Hugh Howey:Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
The Silo Series Boxed Set: Wool, Shift, Dust, and Silo Stories by Hugh Howey | AmazonSilo | Apple TV+Beacon 23: The Complete Novel by Hugh Howey | AmazonBeacon 23 | Prime VideoSand by Hugh Howey | AmazonMachine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey | AmazonHalf Way Home by Hugh Howey | AmazonSo You Want to be a Writer… | Hugh HoweyThe Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams | AmazonEnder’s Game by Orson Scott Card | AmazonHugh Howey: Winning at the Self-Publishing Game | The Knowledge Project Podcast #63The Bern Saga by Hugh Howey | AmazonCelebrating 100 Years | Simon & SchusterA Publishing Contract Should Not Be Forever | The Authors GuildTen Things Nobody Tells You About the Publishing Industry | Publishers WeeklyWhat Is Stockholm Syndrome? It All Started with a Bank Robbery 50 Years Ago | AP NewsImposter Syndrome: Why You May Feel Like a Fraud | Verywell MindThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonBest Sellers | The New York TimesThe Murky Path To Becoming a New York Times Best Seller | EsquireCreateSpace | Kindle Direct PublishingDedicated to Serving the Book Industry | Ingram Content GroupA Guide to Book Publishing Rights | Amita ParikhLiterary Agents Discuss Foreign Rights and the International Book Market | Jane FriedmanPower Laws: How Nonlinear Relationships Amplify Results | Farnam Street BlogHugh Howey (Author of Wool Omnibus) | GoodreadsMy Advice to Aspiring Authors | Hugh HoweyDon’t Like to Write, But Like Having Written | Quote InvestigatorWhat We Find When We Get Lost in Proust | The New YorkerThis Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar | AmazonCirce by Madeline Miller | AmazonTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin | AmazonThe Lincoln Highway: A Novel by Amor Towles | AmazonTable for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles | AmazonWhy Rappers Love Grey Poupon | VoxWriting About My Father | Hugh HoweyThe Power of Story | Hugh Howey1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly | The TechniumWho Are the Big Five Publishers? | Aspiring AuthorHighlander: The Movie | Prime VideoThe Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World | WiredThe Upside of Artificial Intelligence Development | WiredThe Creator of ‘Silo’ Says Same-Day AI Movies Are Coming Soon | WiredWhy I Write About AI | Hugh HoweyThe First Emotionally Intelligent AI | PiThe AI Companion Who Cares | ReplikaSheila Conversational AI | App StoreAI Won’t Replace Humans — But Humans with AI Will Replace Humans without AI | Harvard Business ReviewThe Beginning to the End of the Universe: The Big Crunch vs. The Big Freeze | AstronomyWhat is CRISPR? | New ScientistHow Cheap Drones Are Transforming Warfare in Ukraine | The EconomistThe Race to a Battery-Powered Future | The BrinkWith NVIDIA Up 80% This Year, Are There Any AI Crypto Tokens You Should Be Buying Now? | The Motley FoolSurgical Sperm Extraction | HFEABy 02060 the Total Population of Humans on Earth Will Be Less than It Is Today. | Long BetsWorld Population Growth Is Expected to Nearly Stop By 2100 | Pew Research CenterWhat to Expect at a Shabbat Dinner | Chabad.orgHow Long Until We’re All Amish? by Lyman Stone | MediumThe Power of Myth — The Hero’s Adventure with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers | The Tim Ferriss Show #456The Brains of Believers and Non-Believers Work Differently | Psychology TodayEverybody Worships: David Foster Wallace on Real Freedom and the Skeleton of Every Great Story | MockingbirdThis is Water by David Foster Wallace (Full Transcript and Audio) | Farnam StreetThis Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace | AmazonAtheists Can Be Dogmatic | Discover MagazineConsider Revising Celibacy Rule for Catholic Priests, Vatican Official Says | The GuardianMarried Catholic Priests? They Exist, and Here’s How | Baltimore SunC.S. Lewis and Eight Reasons for Believing in Objective Morality | Moral ApologeticsWhy Do We Clean? | Hugh HoweyJustice with Michael Sandel | Harvard UniversityThe Iliad by Homer | AmazonThe Golden Rule | Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyRoland Griffiths, PhD — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude | The Tim Ferriss Show #641SHOW NOTES[06:48] Breaking the formula with a literary sleight of hand.[11:00] A commitment to 10 years of obscurity.[15:02] Buying back rights and self-publishing.[22:04] Why authors should strive for a reader-first vs. publisher-first mindset.[24:22] Hitting the NYT Best Sellers List with a self-pub book.[27:44] Pricing logic.[31:00] The undersold value of worldwide rights.[33:57] How authors can find deal leverage early on.[37:07] Establishing a daily writing habit.[41:34] Fiction that inspires better writing.[45:27] Collaboration vs. writing solo.[46:59] Ways the publishing industry protects the status quo.[49:55] Why Hugh makes publishing deals at all.[50:45] Self-promotion as therapy.[53:05] Keys to fruitful collaboration.[55:47] Common mistakes creatives make.[1:01:03] AI’s present-and-future impact on publishing.[1:06:05] AI-generated occupational and existential crises.[01:10:11] Mid-term optimist, long-term pessimist[01:14:57] Procreation in uncertain times.[01:19:07] The future of religion.[01:26:21] Free will and objective moral truth.[01:31:02] Parting thoughts.MORE HUGH HOWEY QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“It might not be your best time as a professional or a human, but your best time as a writer is when you’re doing it for yourself and no one’s looking over your shoulder while you’re doing it.”
— Hugh Howey
“You have to write a book that you think one other human will find this the best book they’ve ever read.”
— Hugh Howey
“You don’t want a bad review, someone to pay $2.99 for something they read in an hour. No amount of money is worth the onslaught of one-star reviews from angry readers.”
— Hugh Howey
“Publishers used to think a book kind of burned out its welcome really quickly, and now they’re realizing books have really long tails — successful books — and if you can get an engaged readership on board, it’s worth so much money to have that engaged fandom.”
— Hugh Howey
“You have to have loftier goals than your expected outcome.”
— Hugh Howey
“A common mistake I see people make is thinking that readers won’t follow you across genres. So you see people spread out their name amongst different pen names. I’m going to write under this for sci-fi and under this for romance, and this is my nonfiction stuff. The brand is you. And if people enjoy your prose, they’ll follow you to other genres. So really consolidate your identity. Unless you have a reason to not write under your real name, embrace your writing under your real name and make sure that you are the brand. The more readers can feel a connection with the person behind the work, the better off your career will be.”
— Hugh Howey
“Trusting expertise can get you in trouble.”
— Hugh Howey
“Everything written more than a hundred years ago is all free to read and you can download them all. That has not stopped people from having amazing careers. So the idea that there’ll be too much to read and so no one will make a living, that’s always been true. I’m not sure what AI would change about that.”
— Hugh Howey
“I think there’s an existential crisis that we’re going to face when we realize what you and I do is computational. Our brains are large language models. We’re not that special. We can replicate the human soul in a lot of ways. I think people are going to have a hard time with that.”
— Hugh Howey
“If you try to decide on whether or not to have kids based on what kind of life you think they’re going to have, no one would have kids, because nothing’s a guarantee. Life is going to be weird.”
— Hugh Howey
The post Hugh Howey, Author of Silo and Wool — A Masterclass on Writing, Unorthodox Self-Publishing, and Living in The AI Age (#726) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
Hugh Howey, Bestselling Author of Wool and Mega-Creative — How to Sell Millions with Self-Publishing, How to Find Your Big Break, Making Hit TV Shows (Silo), How AI Will Upend Your Life, Nonconformist Creative Process, Advice for Writers, and More (#726)
Illustration via 99designs“You have to have loftier goals than your expected outcome.”
— Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey (@hughhowey) is the New York Times bestselling author of Wool, Beacon 23, Sand, Machine Learning, Half Way Home, and more than a dozen other novels. His Silo trilogy was recently adapted by Apple TV, becoming their #1 drama of all time. A series based on his novel Beacon 23, starring Lena Headey, also released last year with season two due in March. Hugh’s works have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. He lives in New York City with his wife Shay.
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, Momentous high-quality supplements, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#726: Hugh Howey, Bestselling Author of Wool and Mega-Creative — How to Sell Millions with Self-Publishing, How to Find Your Big Break, Making Hit TV Shows (Silo), How AI Will Upend Your Life, Nonconformist Creative Process, Advice for Writers, and MoreThis 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 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.
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.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear another episode with someone who builds fictional worlds for a living? Listen to my most recent conversation with The School for Good & Evil author Soman Chainani in which we discussed giving stories away, the art of Christopher Marley, potentially gay bulls, career lessons from Taylor Swift, cross-collar dating, dodgy allergies, the life-changing power of ketamine, hookups, and much more.
#720: Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman ChainaniSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Hugh Howey:Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
The Silo Series Boxed Set: Wool, Shift, Dust, and Silo Stories by Hugh Howey | AmazonSilo | Apple TV+Beacon 23: The Complete Novel by Hugh Howey | AmazonBeacon 23 | Prime VideoSand by Hugh Howey | AmazonMachine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey | AmazonHalf Way Home by Hugh Howey | AmazonSo You Want to be a Writer… | Hugh HoweyThe Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams | AmazonEnder’s Game by Orson Scott Card | AmazonHugh Howey: Winning at the Self-Publishing Game | The Knowledge Project Podcast #63The Bern Saga by Hugh Howey | AmazonCelebrating 100 Years | Simon & SchusterA Publishing Contract Should Not Be Forever | The Authors GuildTen Things Nobody Tells You About the Publishing Industry | Publishers WeeklyWhat Is Stockholm Syndrome? It All Started with a Bank Robbery 50 Years Ago | AP NewsImposter Syndrome: Why You May Feel Like a Fraud | Verywell MindThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonBest Sellers | The New York TimesThe Murky Path To Becoming a New York Times Best Seller | EsquireCreateSpace | Kindle Direct PublishingDedicated to Serving the Book Industry | Ingram Content GroupA Guide to Book Publishing Rights | Amita ParikhLiterary Agents Discuss Foreign Rights and the International Book Market | Jane FriedmanPower Laws: How Nonlinear Relationships Amplify Results | Farnam Street BlogHugh Howey (Author of Wool Omnibus) | GoodreadsMy Advice to Aspiring Authors | Hugh HoweyDon’t Like to Write, But Like Having Written | Quote InvestigatorWhat We Find When We Get Lost in Proust | The New YorkerThis Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar | AmazonCirce by Madeline Miller | AmazonTomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin | AmazonThe Lincoln Highway: A Novel by Amor Towles | AmazonTable for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles | AmazonWhy Rappers Love Grey Poupon | VoxWriting About My Father | Hugh HoweyThe Power of Story | Hugh Howey1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly | The TechniumWho Are the Big Five Publishers? | Aspiring AuthorHighlander: The Movie | Prime VideoThe Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World | WiredThe Upside of Artificial Intelligence Development | WiredThe Creator of ‘Silo’ Says Same-Day AI Movies Are Coming Soon | WiredWhy I Write About AI | Hugh HoweyThe First Emotionally Intelligent AI | PiThe AI Companion Who Cares | ReplikaSheila Conversational AI | App StoreAI Won’t Replace Humans — But Humans with AI Will Replace Humans without AI | Harvard Business ReviewThe Beginning to the End of the Universe: The Big Crunch vs. The Big Freeze | AstronomyWhat is CRISPR? | New ScientistHow Cheap Drones Are Transforming Warfare in Ukraine | The EconomistThe Race to a Battery-Powered Future | The BrinkWith NVIDIA Up 80% This Year, Are There Any AI Crypto Tokens You Should Be Buying Now? | The Motley FoolSurgical Sperm Extraction | HFEABy 02060 the Total Population of Humans on Earth Will Be Less than It Is Today. | Long BetsWorld Population Growth Is Expected to Nearly Stop By 2100 | Pew Research CenterWhat to Expect at a Shabbat Dinner | Chabad.orgHow Long Until We’re All Amish? by Lyman Stone | MediumThe Power of Myth — The Hero’s Adventure with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers | The Tim Ferriss Show #456The Brains of Believers and Non-Believers Work Differently | Psychology TodayEverybody Worships: David Foster Wallace on Real Freedom and the Skeleton of Every Great Story | MockingbirdThis is Water by David Foster Wallace (Full Transcript and Audio) | Farnam StreetThis Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace | AmazonAtheists Can Be Dogmatic | Discover MagazineConsider Revising Celibacy Rule for Catholic Priests, Vatican Official Says | The GuardianMarried Catholic Priests? They Exist, and Here’s How | Baltimore SunC.S. Lewis and Eight Reasons for Believing in Objective Morality | Moral ApologeticsWhy Do We Clean? | Hugh HoweyJustice with Michael Sandel | Harvard UniversityThe Iliad by Homer | AmazonThe Golden Rule | Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyRoland Griffiths, PhD — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude | The Tim Ferriss Show #641SHOW NOTES[06:48] Breaking the formula with a literary sleight of hand.[11:00] A commitment to 10 years of obscurity.[15:02] Buying back rights and self-publishing.[22:04] Why authors should strive for a reader-first vs. publisher-first mindset.[24:22] Hitting the NYT Best Sellers List with a self-pub book.[27:44] Pricing logic.[31:00] The undersold value of worldwide rights.[33:57] How authors can find deal leverage early on.[37:07] Establishing a daily writing habit.[41:34] Fiction that inspires better writing.[45:27] Collaboration vs. writing solo.[46:59] Ways the publishing industry protects the status quo.[49:55] Why Hugh makes publishing deals at all.[50:45] Self-promotion as therapy.[53:05] Keys to fruitful collaboration.[55:47] Common mistakes creatives make.[1:01:03] AI’s present-and-future impact on publishing.[1:06:05] AI-generated occupational and existential crises.[01:10:11] Mid-term optimist, long-term pessimist[01:14:57] Procreation in uncertain times.[01:19:07] The future of religion.[01:26:21] Free will and objective moral truth.[01:31:02] Parting thoughts.MORE HUGH HOWEY QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“It might not be your best time as a professional or a human, but your best time as a writer is when you’re doing it for yourself and no one’s looking over your shoulder while you’re doing it.”
— Hugh Howey
“You have to write a book that you think one other human will find this the best book they’ve ever read.”
— Hugh Howey
“You don’t want a bad review, someone to pay $2.99 for something they read in an hour. No amount of money is worth the onslaught of one-star reviews from angry readers.”
— Hugh Howey
“Publishers used to think a book kind of burned out its welcome really quickly, and now they’re realizing books have really long tails — successful books — and if you can get an engaged readership on board, it’s worth so much money to have that engaged fandom.”
— Hugh Howey
“You have to have loftier goals than your expected outcome.”
— Hugh Howey
“A common mistake I see people make is thinking that readers won’t follow you across genres. So you see people spread out their name amongst different pen names. I’m going to write under this for sci-fi and under this for romance, and this is my nonfiction stuff. The brand is you. And if people enjoy your prose, they’ll follow you to other genres. So really consolidate your identity. Unless you have a reason to not write under your real name, embrace your writing under your real name and make sure that you are the brand. The more readers can feel a connection with the person behind the work, the better off your career will be.”
— Hugh Howey
“Trusting expertise can get you in trouble.”
— Hugh Howey
“Everything written more than a hundred years ago is all free to read and you can download them all. That has not stopped people from having amazing careers. So the idea that there’ll be too much to read and so no one will make a living, that’s always been true. I’m not sure what AI would change about that.”
— Hugh Howey
“I think there’s an existential crisis that we’re going to face when we realize what you and I do is computational. Our brains are large language models. We’re not that special. We can replicate the human soul in a lot of ways. I think people are going to have a hard time with that.”
— Hugh Howey
“If you try to decide on whether or not to have kids based on what kind of life you think they’re going to have, no one would have kids, because nothing’s a guarantee. Life is going to be weird.”
— Hugh Howey
The post Hugh Howey, Bestselling Author of Wool and Mega-Creative — How to Sell Millions with Self-Publishing, How to Find Your Big Break, Making Hit TV Shows (Silo), How AI Will Upend Your Life, Nonconformist Creative Process, Advice for Writers, and More (#726) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
March 6, 2024
Behind the Scenes: Who Is The Real Audience of The Tim Ferriss Show?
A few years ago, a famous creator asked me if I’d ever learned anything from my audience, as he hadn’t. My response?
“Oh, God, yes! More than I can possibly begin to explain.”
That’s the whole reason I have comments on this blog, plus clear rules. If you cultivate the right community, the learnings are endless. Hard-to-find experts, rare books, cutting-edge science, hidden gems in foreign cities… you name it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
If it weren’t for you, I also wouldn’t have discovered some of my best investments and favorite people, including Shopify (CEO and co-founder Tobi Lütke; President Harley Finkelstein), Duolingo (CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn), and many more.
When I’ve asked you for the best board games, backpacks, pens, 3D artists, and more over the last 15+ years, you’ve always delivered.
Last but not least, you’ve showed up like champions for many important causes, raising tens of millions of dollars for mental health therapeutics, protection of indigenous land rights, clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, funding of public classrooms in the US, and more.
From the bottom of my heart — thank you, thank you, thank you.
In this post, I’ll share a recent audience survey, which was sent to subscribers of my newsletter, 5-Bullet Friday. Nearly 8,000 people replied. I promised I would share the results, and here they are.
Below are a few summaries, and some charts follow. You are an amazing group:
1. Education level.
2. Household income.
3. Have you ever bought a product or service after hearing about it on the podcast?
4. How long have you been listening to the podcast?
5. How often do you listen to the podcast?
6. Demographics from Spotify listeners (nearly 1M followers):
7. Demographics from my YouTube channel (~1.44M followers, data based on last 365 days of views and watch time):
8. Demographics from my Facebook page:
My sincerest thanks to everyone who answered the survey! I’ll have some exciting announcements soon.
You can subscribe to The Tim Ferriss Show podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your audio fun.
To join 1.5M+ people who enjoy my 5-Bullet Friday newsletter every Friday, click here. Each week, you’ll get a short and sweet email linking to the most fascinating five things that I’ve found. Since my 700+ podcast guests often send me things, it’s a great way to get a sneak preview of edgy things that will be mainstream in a few years.
All the best,
Tim
P.S. Need a bite of dessert before you leave? I shan’t deny you. Here you go: Leekspin.
The post Behind the Scenes: Who Is The Real Audience of The Tim Ferriss Show? appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
Barbara Corcoran — How She Turned $1,000 into a $5B+ Empire: PR Stunts, Sales Techniques, Critical Early Wins, Fighting Trump, and Becoming a Real Estate Mogul (#725)
Illustration via 99designs“I never saw myself as a woman. I never saw it as a disadvantage or a real advantage. I saw myself as a competitor, just a competitor. And boy, if they treated me badly or spoke down to me or didn’t give me any credence that I could possibly make it in their world—they thought I was a passerby—I would say to myself, ‘You just wait, I’m going to become your biggest rival.'”
— Barbara Corcoran
Barbara Corcoran (@BarbaraCorcoran) has been an investor/Shark for the past 15 seasons on ABC’s four-time Emmy-award-winning show, Shark Tank, investing in more than 100 businesses to date.
She is also the founder of an eponymous real-estate company, which she started with a $1,000 loan after leaving her job as a waitress in New York City. Over the next 25 years, she would parlay that $1,000 into a $5 billion real-estate business. Barbara is the author of the national bestseller Shark Tales: How I Turned $1000 into a Billion Dollar Business and host of the top business channel on Patreon, Barbara in Your Pocket, which provides exclusive content created for entrepreneurs at every level.
On Patreon, Barbara will dive deep into the topics most important in business today, give an inside look at how she runs her business and works with her Shark Tank companies, and join members live to answer their toughest questions.
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 Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement; and Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business.
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#725: Barbara Corcoran — How She Turned $1,000 into a $5B+ Empire: PR Stunts, Sales Techniques, Critical Early Wins, Fighting Trump, and Becoming a Real Estate MogulThis 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.
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 $200 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 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 .
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear an episode with someone else who’s spent some time in the Shark Tank? Listen here to the time Chris Sacca joined us to talk about DJ handles, keys to success for an amazing disco night, situations where startups should not take investor money, advice for getting down to business when the going gets tough, future utopia vs. dystopia, cultivating an empathetic perspective toward business, and much more.
#132: Chris Sacca on Shark Tank, Building Your Business, and Startup MistakesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Barbara Corcoran:Website | Patreon | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | LinkedIn | YouTube
Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business by Barbara Corcoran and Bruce Littlefield | AmazonBarbara in Your Pocket: No-Nonsense Business Advice | PatreonShark Tank | ABC‘Shark Tank’s’ Barbara Corcoran Stages Mock Funeral for 70th Birthday | TodayBarbara’s 70th Birthday Party! | YouTubeStorytelling and Cultural Traditions | National GeographicStorytelling in the Wild — A Guide for Culture-Shifting Storytelling in Natural Settings | UNHCR InnovationCheck Out New York’s Highest Greenhouse on East 57th | Curbed NYThe Benjamin Guggenheim Mansion | Daytonian in ManhattanNYers Dope Pets, Use Stunt Doubles to Get Dogs past Co-Op Boards | The New York PostFour ‘Shark Tank’ Stars on How to Shake Hands Like You Mean Business | EntrepreneurEdgewater Borough, NJHow to Play the French Escargot Game | Homeschool CompanionHow Being Dyslexic and ‘Lousy in School’ Made Shark Tank Star Barbara Corcoran a Better Entrepreneur | EntrepreneurFort Lee, NJ: ‘Like Being in the City Without Being in the City’ | The New York TimesVintage Photos of Diners in NJ | NJWhen the Barbizon Gave Women Rooms of Their Own | The New YorkerHow the Greatest Insult Barbara Corcoran Ever Received Inspired Her to Become Hugely Successful |Luxury International Real Estate | The Corcoran GroupBarbara Corcoran: Turning $1,000 to $1 Billion! | The Diary of a CEO #204Barbara Corcoran: My Landlord Thought I Was a Prostitute | EntrepreneurBarbara’s Bergdorf Goodman Coat | InstagramIf You Don’t Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails: And Other Lessons I Learned from My Mom by Barbara Corcoran and Bruce Littlefield | AmazonMultiple Listing Service (MLS): Definition, Benefits, and Fees | Investopedia‘How Did They Do It?’ With Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran! | The FileistJack Russell Terrier Rescue | Russell Rescue, Inc.Barbara Corcoran: How an Introverted Job Candidate Changed My Mind | CNBCTaxi Fare | NYC TLCWhat is a Reversal Close? | SimplicableA World for Every Beaujolais | Beaujolais WinesBarbara Corcoran’s Morning Routine: Habits for a Productive Day | CNBCBarbara: “I Hate to Work Out, But…” | FacebookBarb Wired | New York MagazineDonald Trump Has a History of Not Paying His Bills. That Offers Some Insights Into His Personality. | IntelligencerHow Barbara Corcoran Beat Trump | MSNBCFrom $1,000 to $2-Billion: How One Person Grew Into a Shark | CU TodayShark Tank Star Barbara Corcoran Shows off Her $1 Million Mobile Home | Daily MailBarbara: “Complainers Are Like Thieves…” | TwitterSHOW NOTES[05:56] Barbara’s fake funeral.[08:23] Where Barbara’s knack for PR originated.[10:02] Storytelling.[11:25] Early business wins.[14:29] What Barbara learned about competition as one of 10 kids.[17:27] Early jobs: Barbara’s real education.[20:04] Dyslexia and dodging the victim mindset.[22:50] Barbara’s first company.[26:47] Why Barbara didn’t begrudge her first business partner’s romantic betrayal.[28:41] The value of enthusiasm.[29:44] From almost-evicted to exclusive agent.[33:29] Early recruitment gimmicks.[35:36] Being the only woman in the room.[39:14] Rules and systems.[41:46] Experiments, innovations, and mistakes.[44:17] Homes on Tape and puppy sales.[49:06] Esther Kaplan’s persuasive purse.[51:23] Sales 101 with Barbara.[57:37] How Barbara stays active.[59:37] Butting heads with Donald Trump.[1:05:21] Picking battles.[1:08:00] How Barbara fell in love with trailer park life.[1:14:14] Why Barbara only hires happy people now.[1:15:36] Barbara In Your Pocket.[1:17:47] What gives Barbara the most energy these days?[1:18:51] Barbara’s billboard.[1:19:58] Parting thoughts and proposals.MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“People just don’t have enough fun. I’m sure I’m everybody’s most fun friend, and I like that, because I think it’s so worthy to introduce fun, and joy, and memories into people’s lives, whether you’re at work or whether you’re at home. I think about it afterwards and I get so much satisfaction out of it. Even some days I think to myself, ‘Well, if I die today, I’d be happy, because I really had a good time last night.'”
— Barbara Corcoran
“Moms are powerful creatures.”
— Barbara Corcoran
“I learned everything in my jobs. Nothing at school — not a damn thing at school — but I learned everything in my jobs and I found my confidence there, and I also found out what I wasn’t good at.”
— Barbara Corcoran
“I never saw myself as a woman. I never saw it as a disadvantage or a real advantage. I saw myself as a competitor, just a competitor. And boy, if they treated me badly, or spoke down to me, or didn’t give me any credence that I could possibly make it in their world — they thought I was a passerby — I would say to myself, ‘You just wait, I’m going to become your biggest rival.'”
— Barbara Corcoran
“Exercise and pulling weeds, in my mind, are the two best therapies in the world. I don’t think you really need much more than that. You straighten out all your problems that way.”
— Barbara Corcoran
“I don’t like to fight. I’ll walk a mile to avoid a fight. But when someone insults me, it brings out the fight in me.”
— Barbara Corcoran
The post Barbara Corcoran — How She Turned $1,000 into a $5B+ Empire: PR Stunts, Sales Techniques, Critical Early Wins, Fighting Trump, and Becoming a Real Estate Mogul (#725) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
February 27, 2024
Claire Hughes Johnson — How to Take Responsibility for Your Life, Create Rules That Work, Stop Being a Victim, Set Strong Boundaries, and More (#724)
Illustration via 99designs“There are two gaps that I think are really hard. One is people who can’t stop being victims, and the other gap is—I call it ‘self-awareness gap,’ where they think they are the best in the world.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
Claire Hughes Johnson (@chughesjohnson) currently serves as a corporate officer and advisor for Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the Internet. Claire previously served as Stripe’s chief operating officer from 2014 to 2021, helping grow the company from fewer than 200 employees to more than 6,000. At various times, she led business operations, sales, marketing, customer support, risk, real estate, and all of the people functions, including recruiting and HR.
Prior to Stripe, Claire spent 10 years at Google leading a number of business teams, including overseeing aspects of Gmail, Google Apps, and ultimately consumer operations, as well as serving as a vice president for AdWords Online Sales and Operations, Google Offers, and Google’s self-driving car project.
Claire holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and an MBA from Yale University. She currently serves on the boards of the renewable energy company Ameresco, the multi-platform publication The Atlantic, the self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation, and the customer management software company HubSpot.
Her book is Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building.
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 AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement; LinkedIn Ads marketing platform with 1B+ users; and Momentous high-quality supplements.
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#724: Claire Hughes Johnson — How to Take Responsibility for Your Life, Create Rules That Work, Stop Being a Victim, Set Strong Boundaries, and MoreThis 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 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.
This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or build long-term relationships that result in real business impact.
With a community of more than 900 million professionals, LinkedIn is gigantic, but it can be hyper-specific. You have access to a diverse group of people all searching for things they need to grow professionally. LinkedIn has the marketing tools to help you target your customers with precision, right down to job title, company name, industry, etc. To redeem your free $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com/TFS!
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear an episode with Claire’s colleague, the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, Patrick Collison? Listen to our conversation here in which we discussed the importance of giving ideas time to fail, succeeding in a seemingly saturated market, the siren song of high praise, organic traction, growing up as a “free-range” child, learning ancient Greek from a local monk, developing a unique worldview at any age, how to make speedier decisions, and much more.
#353: Patrick Collison — CEO of StripeSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Claire Hughes Johnson:Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson | AmazonIdeas for Progress | Stripe PressConscious Business: How to Build Value through Values by Fred Kofman | AmazonConscious Business | AxialentWhat Is a 360 Review in the Workplace? | The Balance CareersTiger Team Explained: How It Helps to Solve Critical Issues | TimeularFred Kofman: Be a Player, Not a Victim | LinkedIn Speaker SeriesFive Whys Technique: Root Cause Analysis (With Examples) | IndeedWhat Is the Meaning of the Phrase “Be That as It May?” | QuoraAwareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | AmazonTo the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf | AmazonA Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf | AmazonMrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf | AmazonThe Passion by Jeanette Winterson | AmazonOranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson | AmazonSexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson | AmazonWhat’s the Truth about Bloomsbury and the Jews? | The Jewish Chronicle‘I Am Going Mad Again’: The Tragic Tale of Virginia Woolf’s Suicide | ATIJohn Wick | Prime VideoLittle, Big by John Crowley | AmazonThe Neverending Story by Michael Ende | AmazonComplete Dune Series by Frank Herbert | AmazonStranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein | AmazonExhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang | AmazonWhat is Magical Realism? A Guide to the Literary Genre | Oprah DailyOne Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez | AmazonThe Three-Body Problem Boxed Set by Cixin Liu | AmazonContact: A Novel by Carl Sagan | AmazonWasting Years by Not Wasting Hours | Sam RadfordWorking with Claire: An Unauthorized Guide | Claire Hughes JohnsonThe Six Levels of Craic You Can Reach | Irish CentralHigh Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People by Elad Gil | AmazonAn Irish Goodbye | Floodlight PicturesWhat Is An Irish Goodbye, And What Makes It ‘Irish’? | Babbel MagazineFinancial Infrastructure for the Internet | StripeThe Most Founder-Focused Event on Earth | SlushLeadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz | AmazonChief Operating Officer (COO): Definition, Types, and Qualifications | InvestopediaSophie’s Choice | Prime VideoSix Steps for Successful Postmortem Meetings | AsanaB2C: How Business-to-Consumer Sales Works, 5 Types and Examples | InvestopediaGlengarry Glen Ross | Prime VideoTime, Talent, Treasure, and Testimony: The Four Ts of Philanthropy | Equip To ThriveWhat Is Self-Awareness and How Does It Develop? | Verywell MindI Was VP at Google for 10 Years. Here’s the No. 1 Skill I Looked For at Job Interviews — Few People Had It | CNBCMyers–Briggs Type Indicator | WikipediaWhat is the DiSC Assessment? | DiSC ProfileEnneagram of Personality | WikipediaInsights DiscoveryPersonality Tests That Predict Performance | Hogan AssessmentsBig Five Personality Test | Open-Source Psychometrics ProjectStrengthsFinder 2.0 | GallupSkepticism of Astrology Isn’t Particularly Smart | QuartzThe Skeptic’s Horoscope | Math with Bad DrawingsOnline Rorschach Inkblot TestPatrick Collison — CEO of Stripe | The Tim Ferriss Show #353Pulp Fiction | Prime VideoThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonThe AtlanticHow to Work with Pushers and Pullers Effectively (Clip) | Grit Podcast #128SHOW NOTES[07:51] Say the thing you think you cannot say.[13:24] Detoxifying your left-hand column.[19:59] Victim versus player.[29:49] Recommended reading.[36:53] The case for reading fiction.[44:18] Crafting a working-with-me document.[52:07] Make the implicit explicit.[57:29] An Irish Goodbye.[58:34] Email policies.[1:03:58] Renegotiating the terms of expectations.[01:06:05] Listening for the quiet no.[01:08:27] Money versus time.[01:10:14] Good rules can be liberating.[01:12:59] Leadership and disappointment.[01:17:59] Renegotiating past disappointment.[01:37:05] Asking a question versus stating an opinion.[01:40:58] Training wheels for a “no.”[01:42:26] Time, talent, treasure, and testimony.[01:46:37] Spotting bad apples while hiring.[01:48:37] If you’re not self-aware, how would you know?[01:51:08] Work style assessments for self-awareness building.[01:58:38] Paragons of no.[02:00:51] No more boards.[02:04:58] Pushers and pullers.[02:11:50] Parting thoughts.MORE CLAIRE HUGHES JOHNSON QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“There are two gaps that I think are really hard. One is people who can’t stop being victims, and the other gap is—I call it ‘self-awareness gap,’ where they think they are the best in the world.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“How do you get results? You get super clear and transparent about anything implicit—you make it explicit, and you’re clear. This is a process. We’re going to go through it to get to this outcome. And what is the outcome we want? Make it explicit.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“I am just honest about, ‘I can’t do this well, and I think you want someone at their best. It’s not going to be my best.'”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“My personal trap is I think I’m being an empath, giving them 30 minutes. ‘Let me hear your story.’ And in fact, the empathic thing to do is to say, ‘I’m going to do a probability assessment. The chance that I’m going to invest/make a donation are sub five percent. No. No for you, no for me. And you don’t have to think about it ever again. You don’t have have to email me tomorrow and ask me again.'”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“There’s a reason these people are leaders. Most of the time they’re 80 percent of the way there. They’re just not confident in their instinct. And so my job is not to tell them what to do or how to do it; it is to build their confidence in their instinct and then, yeah, we can brainstorm the last 20 percent.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“People do not learn by being told answers. … What you’re going to do if you’re a good leader, a good teacher, is you’re going to lead them through learning with you and they are going to get to the answer and you are going to celebrate them doing that.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
The post Claire Hughes Johnson — How to Take Responsibility for Your Life, Create Rules That Work, Stop Being a Victim, Set Strong Boundaries, and More (#724) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
Claire Hughes Johnson, Building Stripe from 160 to 6,000+ Employees — How to Take Radical Ownership of Your Life and Career (#724)
Illustration via 99designs“There are two gaps that I think are really hard. One is people who can’t stop being victims, and the other gap is—I call it ‘self-awareness gap,’ where they think they are the best in the world.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
Claire Hughes Johnson (@chughesjohnson) currently serves as a corporate officer and advisor for Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the Internet. Claire previously served as Stripe’s chief operating officer from 2014 to 2021, helping grow the company from fewer than 200 employees to more than 6,000. At various times, she led business operations, sales, marketing, customer support, risk, real estate, and all of the people functions, including recruiting and HR.
Prior to Stripe, Claire spent 10 years at Google leading a number of business teams, including overseeing aspects of Gmail, Google Apps, and ultimately consumer operations, as well as serving as a vice president for AdWords Online Sales and Operations, Google Offers, and Google’s self-driving car project.
Claire holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and an MBA from Yale University. She currently serves on the boards of the renewable energy company Ameresco, the multi-platform publication The Atlantic, the self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation, and the customer management software company HubSpot.
Her book is Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building.
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 AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, LinkedIn Ads marketing platform with 1B+ users:, and Momentous high-quality supplements.
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#724: Claire Hughes Johnson, Building Stripe from 160 to 6,000+ Employees — How to Take Radical Ownership of Your Life and CareerThis 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.
This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or build long-term relationships that result in real business impact.
With a community of more than 900 million professionals, LinkedIn is gigantic, but it can be hyper-specific. You have access to a diverse group of people all searching for things they need to grow professionally. LinkedIn has the marketing tools to help you target your customers with precision, right down to job title, company name, industry, etc. To redeem your free $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com/TFS!
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear an episode with Claire’s colleague, the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, Patrick Collison? Listen to our conversation here in which we discussed the importance of giving ideas time to fail, succeeding in a seemingly saturated market, the siren song of high praise, organic traction, growing up as a “free-range” child, learning ancient Greek from a local monk, developing a unique worldview at any age, how to make speedier decisions, and much more.
#353: Patrick Collison — CEO of StripeSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Claire Hughes Johnson:Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson | AmazonIdeas for Progress | Stripe PressConscious Business: How to Build Value through Values by Fred Kofman | AmazonConscious Business | AxialentWhat Is a 360 Review in the Workplace? | The Balance CareersTiger Team Explained: How It Helps to Solve Critical Issues | TimeularFred Kofman: Be a Player, Not a Victim | LinkedIn Speaker SeriesFive Whys Technique: Root Cause Analysis (With Examples) | IndeedWhat Is the Meaning of the Phrase “Be That as It May?” | QuoraAwareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | AmazonTo the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf | AmazonA Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf | AmazonMrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf | AmazonThe Passion by Jeanette Winterson | AmazonOranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson | AmazonSexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson | AmazonWhat’s the Truth about Bloomsbury and the Jews? | The Jewish Chronicle‘I Am Going Mad Again’: The Tragic Tale of Virginia Woolf’s Suicide | ATIJohn Wick | Prime VideoLittle, Big by John Crowley | AmazonThe Neverending Story by Michael Ende | AmazonComplete Dune Series by Frank Herbert | AmazonStranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein | AmazonExhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang | AmazonWhat is Magical Realism? A Guide to the Literary Genre | Oprah DailyOne Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez | AmazonThe Three-Body Problem Boxed Set by Cixin Liu | AmazonContact: A Novel by Carl Sagan | AmazonWasting Years by Not Wasting Hours | Sam RadfordWorking with Claire: An Unauthorized Guide | Claire Hughes JohnsonThe Six Levels of Craic You Can Reach | Irish CentralHigh Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People by Elad Gil | AmazonAn Irish Goodbye | Floodlight PicturesWhat Is An Irish Goodbye, And What Makes It ‘Irish’? | Babbel MagazineFinancial Infrastructure for the Internet | StripeThe Most Founder-Focused Event on Earth | SlushLeadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz | AmazonChief Operating Officer (COO): Definition, Types, and Qualifications | InvestopediaSophie’s Choice | Prime VideoSix Steps for Successful Postmortem Meetings | AsanaB2C: How Business-to-Consumer Sales Works, 5 Types and Examples | InvestopediaGlengarry Glen Ross | Prime VideoTime, Talent, Treasure, and Testimony: The Four Ts of Philanthropy | Equip To ThriveWhat Is Self-Awareness and How Does It Develop? | Verywell MindI Was VP at Google for 10 Years. Here’s the No. 1 Skill I Looked For at Job Interviews — Few People Had It | CNBCMyers–Briggs Type Indicator | WikipediaWhat is the DiSC Assessment? | DiSC ProfileEnneagram of Personality | WikipediaInsights DiscoveryPersonality Tests That Predict Performance | Hogan AssessmentsBig Five Personality Test | Open-Source Psychometrics ProjectStrengthsFinder 2.0 | GallupSkepticism of Astrology Isn’t Particularly Smart | QuartzThe Skeptic’s Horoscope | Math with Bad DrawingsOnline Rorschach Inkblot TestPatrick Collison — CEO of Stripe | The Tim Ferriss Show #353Pulp Fiction | Prime VideoThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonThe AtlanticHow to Work with Pushers and Pullers Effectively (Clip) | Grit Podcast #128SHOW NOTES[07:51] Say the thing you think you cannot say.[13:24] Detoxifying your left-hand column.[19:59] Victim versus player.[29:49] Recommended reading.[36:53] The case for reading fiction.[44:18] Crafting a working-with-me document.[52:07] Make the implicit explicit.[57:29] An Irish Goodbye.[58:34] Email policies.[1:03:58] Renegotiating the terms of expectations.[01:06:05] Listening for the quiet no.[01:08:27] Money versus time.[01:10:14] Good rules can be liberating.[01:12:59] Leadership and disappointment.[01:17:59] Renegotiating past disappointment.[01:37:05] Asking a question versus stating an opinion.[01:40:58] Training wheels for a “no.”[01:42:26] Time, talent, treasure, and testimony.[01:46:37] Spotting bad apples while hiring.[01:48:37] If you’re not self-aware, how would you know?[01:51:08] Work style assessments for self-awareness building.[01:58:38] Paragons of no.[02:00:51] No more boards.[02:04:58] Pushers and pullers.[02:11:50] Parting thoughts.MORE CLAIRE HUGHES JOHNSON QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“There are two gaps that I think are really hard. One is people who can’t stop being victims, and the other gap is—I call it ‘self-awareness gap,’ where they think they are the best in the world.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“How do you get results? You get super clear and transparent about anything implicit—you make it explicit, and you’re clear. This is a process. We’re going to go through it to get to this outcome. And what is the outcome we want? Make it explicit.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“I am just honest about, ‘I can’t do this well, and I think you want someone at their best. It’s not going to be my best.'”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“My personal trap is I think I’m being an empath, giving them 30 minutes. ‘Let me hear your story.’ And in fact, the empathic thing to do is to say, ‘I’m going to do a probability assessment. The chance that I’m going to invest/make a donation are sub five percent. No. No for you, no for me. And you don’t have to think about it ever again. You don’t have have to email me tomorrow and ask me again.'”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“There’s a reason these people are leaders. Most of the time they’re 80 percent of the way there. They’re just not confident in their instinct. And so my job is not to tell them what to do or how to do it; it is to build their confidence in their instinct and then, yeah, we can brainstorm the last 20 percent.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
“People do not learn by being told answers. … What you’re going to do if you’re a good leader, a good teacher, is you’re going to lead them through learning with you and they are going to get to the answer and you are going to celebrate them doing that.”
— Claire Hughes Johnson
The post Claire Hughes Johnson, Building Stripe from 160 to 6,000+ Employees — How to Take Radical Ownership of Your Life and Career (#724) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
February 23, 2024
In Case You Missed It: January 2024 Recap of “The Tim Ferriss Show” (#723)
Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life.
This is a special inbetweenisode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from last month. It features a short clip from each conversation in one place so you can easily jump around to get a feel for the episode and guest.
Based on your feedback, this format has been tweaked and improved since the first recap episode. For instance, it was suggested that the bios for each guest can slow the momentum, so we moved all the bios to the end.
See it as a teaser. Something to whet your appetite. If you like what you hear, you can of course find the full episodes below or at tim.blog/podcast.
Please enjoy!
Timestamps:
Greg McKeown: 03:13
Dr. Nolan Williams: 14:58
Noah Kagan: 21:11
Dr. Andy Galpin: 25:58
Chris Beresford-Hill: 30:38
Full episode titles:
Walk & Talk with Greg McKeown — How to Find Your Purpose and Master Essentialism in 2024 (#719)
Noah Kagan — How to Launch a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (#717)
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#723: In Case You Missed It: January 2024 Recap of The Tim Ferriss ShowThis episode is brought to you by 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter that every Friday features five bullet points highlighting cool things I’ve found that week, including apps, books, documentaries, gadgets, albums, articles, TV shows, new hacks or tricks, and—of course—all sorts of weird stuff I’ve dug up from around the world.
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February 21, 2024
Cal Newport — How to Embrace Slow Productivity, Build a Deep Life, Achieve Mastery, and Defend Your Time (#722)
Illustration via 99designs“You can’t be busy and frenetic and bouncing off the walls with 100 projects if you’re obsessed about doing something really well.”
— Cal Newport
Cal Newport is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University, where he is also a founding member of the Center for Digital Ethics. In addition to his academic work, Newport is a New York Times bestselling author who writes for a general audience about the intersection of technology, productivity, and culture. His books have sold millions of copies and been translated into over forty languages. He is also a contributor to The New Yorker and hosts the popular Deep Questions podcast.
His new book is Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout.
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.
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Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#722: Cal Newport — How to Embrace Slow Productivity, Build a Deep Life, Achieve Mastery, and Defend Your TimeThis 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.
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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear the last time Cal Newport was on this show? Listen here to our conversation in which we discussed lessons from Steve Martin, living the deep life, how Cal secured his first book deal as an unproven 20-year-old, honing the funny bone for humor writing, mastering slow productivity despite 21st-century distractions, crafting the lives we desire, considering the spiritual as an exercise of meticulous craft and creation, Cal’s 30-day digital minimalism declutter, and much more.
#568: Cal Newport — The Eternal Pursuit of Craftsmanship, the Deep Life, Slow Productivity, and a 30-Day Digital Minimalism ChallengeSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Cal Newport: Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport | Amazon The Deep Questions Podcast So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport | AmazonDeep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport | AmazonDigital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport | AmazonA World Without Email: Find Focus and Transform the Way You Work Forever by Cal Newport | AmazonCal Newport — The Eternal Pursuit of Craftsmanship, the Deep Life, Slow Productivity, and a 30-Day Digital Minimalism Challenge | The Tim Ferriss Show #568Scent of a Woman | Prime VideoAudio-Technica ATH-M50xSTS-USB StreamSet Streaming Headset | AmazonIt’s Time to Dismantle the Technopoly | The New YorkerStanding Up to Technology | Cal NewportSteve Jobs iPhone 2007 Presentation | YouTubeThe Social Media Conundrum and Teen Mental Health | WCAP CounselingQuit Social Media. Your Career May Depend on It. | The New York TimesDon’t Quit Social Media. Put It to Work for Your Career Instead. | The New York Times1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly | The TechniumAmish Studies: Technology | Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown CollegeAfter 60 Years, Scientists Uncover How Thalidomide Produced Birth Defects | Dana-Farber Cancer InstituteTermite Fishing | The Jane Goodall Institute USAPeter Gregory “Cicadas” (Clip) | Silicon ValleySmart TV | WikipediaBorn Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin | AmazonIt’s Time to Embrace Slow Productivity by Cal Newport | The New YorkerThe Dartmouth Jack-o-LanternSeth’s BlogNow Playing | OppenheimerThe 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonFrom Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks | Tim FerrissThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonEmail Newsletter by Tim Ferriss | 5-Bullet FridayThe Learning Annex | WikipediaJamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories | The Tim Ferriss Show #124Jamie Foxx Part 2 – Bringing the Thunder | The Tim Ferriss Show #167The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby | AmazonMore Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby | AmazonThe Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie | AmazonThe Principia: The Authoritative Translation and Guide: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by Sir Isaac Newton | AmazonIn The Heights (Stage) | Lin-Manuel MirandaAn American Musical | HamiltonFreestyle Love Supreme | Lin-Manuel MirandaGeorgia O’Keeffe: Lake George History | Lake GeorgeUraninite: A Radioactive Mineral and Ore of Uranium | GeologySistine Chapel | Vatican MuseumsThe Year in Quiet Quitting | The New YorkerOn Running an Office Like a Factory | Cal NewportHow to Implement a Kanban Card System | GembaDocsAlex Gendler: The Myth of Sisyphus | TED-EdTo Make Email Easier We Must Make it Harder | Cal NewportFilling the Void: Thoughts on Learning and Karma | Tim FerrissKnowledge Workers are Bad at Working (and Here’s What to Do About It…) | Cal NewportAn Exhausting Year in (and Out of) the Office | The New YorkerThe Steve Martin Method: A Master Comedian’s Advice for Becoming Famous | Cal NewportHow to Peel Hard-Boiled Eggs without Peeling | Tim FerrissSkin a Watermelon Party Trick | Mark RoberShed Your Money Taboos | Derek SiversThe Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton | AmazonThe Firm: A Novel by John Grisham | AmazonA Time to Kill: A Jake Brigance Novel by John Grisham | AmazonShould This Meeting Have Been an Email? | Cal NewportContinuous Partial Attention | Linda StoneYour Digital HQ | SlackFree Online Appointment Scheduling Software | CalendlySlack Is the Right Tool for the Wrong Way to Work | The New YorkerExpand Your Reach | ZoomHow to Have a More Productive Year | The New YorkerOuroboros | WikipediaFordism | WikipediaThe Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter Drucker | AmazonThe Curse of the Diaeresis | The New YorkerFeral Super Pigs Are Raising Hell on the Canadian Prairies | The EconomistThe New York Times Building | WikipediaThe Woman Who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave | The New YorkerHere’s the Real Reason Yakuza Members Chop off Their Pinky Fingers | VTThe Paris ReviewEzra Klein Leaves Vox for The New York Times | The New York TimesJiro Dreams of Sushi | Prime VideoManufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media | Noam ChomskyMoneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis | AmazonThe Weekly Dish by Andrew Sullivan | SubstackThe Incredible Shrinking Podcast Industry | SemaforThe Digital Workplace Is Designed to Bring You Down | The New York TimesIntro to Slow Productivity (RE: John McPhee) | Cal NewportAmazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Letters to Shareholders | Peter Fisk“Seven-Minute Abs!” (Clip) | There’s Something About MarySHOW NOTES[06:14] Unforced Errors: The Internet Story.[09:41] Techno-selectionism.[18:06] Why YouTube and podcasts aren’t ideal bedfellows.[23:03] Amish technology and Steve Martin.[28:07] What prompted Cal to write Slow Productivity?[31:35] Becoming a better writer through blogging.[36:54] The benefits of obsessing over quality.[40:54] How did Cal decide to identify himself as a writer?[52:02] People who exemplify slow productivity.[58:45] Trade-offs on the path to 21st-century slow productivity.[1:03:16] Push systems vs. pull systems.[1:04:34] Quota systems.[1:06:08] Why slow productivity isn’t a zero-sum game.[1:09:33] Language that clarifies.[1:13:17] Sender filters.[1:16:20] What people might miss about Slow Productivity‘s message.[1:21:24] How Cal defines productivity.[1:25:36] Derek Sivers and money as a neutral indicator of value.[1:28:34] Contemporary slow productivity champions.[1:33:18] Asynchronous vs. real-time conversations.[1:35:51] Making group scheduling less hellish.[1:40:13] Cal’s problem with Frederick Winslow Taylor.[1:42:01] How The New Yorker maintains its old-timey charm where other publications fail.[1:49:05] Cal’s dream publications.[1:51:07] Mental models for cultivating a slow productivity mindset.[1:56:27] The consequences of playing the algorithm game.[2:03:14] The renewed viability of newsletters.[2:08:03] Parting thoughts.MORE CAL NEWPORT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“You can’t be busy and frenetic and bouncing off the walls with 100 projects if you’re obsessed about doing something really well.”
— Cal Newport
“As you get better at something, the more say you get over the way your life unfolds.”
— Cal Newport
“You’ve got to just not want to get started until you can’t help but get started. And I think that’s frustrating for a lot of the internet generation because it takes a really long time.”
— Cal Newport
“There was no hustle culture. That’s the interesting thing. When you go back and study people producing things of real value, using their brain, they were smart and they were dedicated and they worked really hard, but they didn’t hustle and they didn’t work 10-hour days day after day. They didn’t work all-out, year-round. They didn’t push, push, push until this thing was done. It was a more natural variation. They had less on their plate at the same time, and they glued it all together by obsessing over quality.”
— Cal Newport
“There’s nothing more quixotic than the overburdened worker who is trying to not say no, but get the person who’s giving them the work to voluntarily agree to not give them the work. It never works. If someone’s trying to get you to do something, and you’re like, ‘Well, I guess I could, but I am pretty busy,’ they’re never going to say, ‘You sound busy. Don’t do this.’ They’re like, ‘Yeah? Good. Well, I’m glad you can do it. Here you go. Get this off my plate.'”
— Cal Newport
“Slow productivity produces good stuff. It doesn’t just make the workers happier. It doesn’t just make you happier. You produce better stuff. I mean, your company has more profit. Your clients are happier. You can charge more for the services you offer, so it’s not zero sum. It’s more win-win than anything else.”
— Cal Newport
“Busyness doesn’t produce high value.”
— Cal Newport
“Don’t try to convince people of new things. Explain to them what they already know in a way that lets them take better action.”
— Cal Newport
The post Cal Newport — How to Embrace Slow Productivity, Build a Deep Life, Achieve Mastery, and Defend Your Time (#722) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
February 13, 2024
Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More (#721)
Illustration via 99designs“The other side’s dignity may not mean much to you, but it means everything to them.”
— William Ury
William Ury (@WilliamUryGTY), cofounder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, is one of the world’s best-known and most influential experts on negotiation. He is coauthor of Getting to Yes, the all-time bestselling negotiation book in the world; the author of one of my favorite books on negotiation (Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations); and author of the new book: Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict.
He has served as a mediator in boardroom battles, labor conflicts, and civil wars around the world. An avid hiker, he lives in Colorado.
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 Helix Sleep premium mattresses; AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, 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#721: Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and MoreThis 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 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.
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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Want to hear my most recent interview with Jim Collins, the man who inspired William Ury to write Possible? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed the point allocation between dark force motivations and light force motivations, why you should never hesitate to reach out to mentors and people who have been instrumental in shaping your life, influential biographies, crafting good questions, creativity-tracking spreadsheets, the 20-minute rule, the value of clock building over time telling, and much more. You can find my first conversation with Jim Collins here.
#483: Jim Collins on The Value of Small Gestures, Unseen Sources of Power, and MoreSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with William Ury: Possible: How We Survive (And Thrive) in an Age of Conflict by William Ury | Amazon Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton | AmazonGetting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations by William Ury | AmazonWhat is a Devising Seminar? | Water DiplomacyThe Consensus Building Approach: What Is a Devising Seminar, and How Is It Being Used to Address the Risks Facing Arctic Fisheries? | The Consensus Building ApproachMarshall Plan (1948) | National ArchivesInternational Mediation, a Working Guide: Ideas for the Practitioner By Roger Fisher and William Ury | Google BooksThe United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: Multilateral Diplomacy at Work | United NationsCamp David Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process | Office of the HistorianEverything You Need to Know about Egypt’s Decades-Old Peace Treaty with Israel | AP NewsA History of Roger Fisher’s Single Negotiating Text and its Application by President Jimmy Carter to the Egyptian Israeli Conflict by Chloe Simmons | University of OregonHelp Your Counterpart Declare a Victory, Too | Castle NegotiationsMight Dennis Rodman at the Trump-Kim Summit Just Work? | BBC NewsWilliam Ury: “Go to the Balcony” | Dawson SchoolBoer War | National Army MuseumMandela: From Prison Cell to President | The History PressBuilding a Golden Bridge and Other Lessons from Dr. William Ury | MediateWhat Is Stoicism? A Definition and Nine Stoic Exercises to Get You Started | Daily StoicSpeak When You’re Angry and You’ll Make the Best Speech You’ll Ever Regret | Quote InvestigatorSecrets of Power Negotiating by Roger Dawson | AmazonBest of What I’ve Learned | EsquireDear Negotiation Coach: When Silence in Negotiation is Golden | Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law SchoolFace (Sociological Concept) | WikipediaThe Carter Center and the Peacebuilding Process in Venezuela | The Carter CenterBidding Against Yourself | MediateWilliam Ury: The Power of Listening | TEDxSanDiegoWhat is Your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)? | Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law SchoolTrust in Mediation | Beyond IntractabilityThe Freeing Power of Saying “No” | Psychology TodayHow Not to Say Yes | Harvard Business ReviewThe Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No by William Ury | AmazonThe Origin of Species by Charles Darwin | AmazonOmne Trium Perfectum | Modern AestheticsThe Art of War by Sun Tzu | Amazon11 Famous Thinkers from History Who Were Habitual Walkers | Flâneur LifeWhy Walking Helps Us Think | The New YorkerA Short Walk After Meals Is All It Takes to Lower Blood Sugar | HealthlineStory, Walking, and Hospitality | Abraham PathSHOW NOTES[06:53] Connecting with Roger Fisher.[10:08] Devising Seminars.[12:31] Negotiating the Camp David Accords.[18:23] Writing the other side’s victory speech.[21:17] Writing Kim Jong-un’s victory speech.[26:20] Pondering possibilities in the modern Middle East.[29:26] Lessons from iconic possibilist Nelson Mandela.[32:17] Going to the balcony.[36:11] Mitigating the risk of emotional spiraling with Hugo Chávez.[40:50] The power of silence.[44:09] Respect and saving face.[51:08] Best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA).[1:02:49] The trust menu.[1:06:29] The positive no.[1:12:14] Closing on a positive note.[1:14:56] What prompted William to write Possible?[1:19:38] Negotiating as a creative endeavor.[1:22:48] Sabbatical considerations.[1:23:56] Exercise and self-care routines.[1:29:27] Uncovering interests, not just positions.[1:35:18] Hopes for the impact of Possible.[1:37:25] Parting thoughts.MORE WILLIAM URY QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“No one likes to make a hard decision, but everybody loves to criticize.”
— William Ury
“Work backwards, think about what victory would look like, and then work forwards.”
— William Ury
“Maybe the greatest power you have in a negotiation is the power not to react. It’s the power to go to the balcony instead.”
— William Ury
“Silence is one of your very best tools in a negotiation. The art of pausing.”
— William Ury
“The other side’s dignity may not mean much to you, but it means everything to them.”
— William Ury
“A persuasive negotiator is someone who’s a persuasive listener. Because when you listen to someone, you are seeing them, you are hearing them, you’re attuning to them. You ask them questions. What is it that you really want here? You’re showing interest in them. That is the basic level of respect. And in addition to that, it gives you a lot of information about what they want so that you can more effectively influence them to arrive at something that satisfies their needs and satisfies yours at the same time.”
— William Ury
“My whole life has been, in some ways, a study of the words ‘yes’ and ‘no.'”
— William Ury
“The path to possible is to go to the balcony, build a golden bridge, and take the third side. Influence yourself, influence the other, influence the whole.”
— William Ury
“My dream is if I were a Martian anthropologist right now looking at humanity and I’d say, ‘Wow, we live in this time of paradox because we have so much abundance, so much potential, so much opportunity to make the world better. We’ve got the technology, we’ve got AI, we’ve got all this stuff. At the same time, what’s in our way? There’s no limit to what we could do. There’s no opportunity we can’t realize. There’s no problem we can’t solve if only we can learn to work together.'”
— William Ury
The post Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More (#721) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
February 9, 2024
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.
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.
“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.
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