Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 30
March 22, 2022
In Case You Missed It: February 2022 Recap of The Tim Ferriss Show (#580)
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.
See it as a teaser. Something to whet your appetite. If you like what you hear, you can of course find the full episodes at tim.blog/podcast.
Please enjoy!
P.S. If you have any feedback, please let me know on Twitter (@tferriss) and mention me and @TeamTimFerriss, plus #experiment, so that we can easily find it.
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Timestamps:
Cal Newport: 01:31
Margaret Atwood: 07:12
Boyd Varty: 11:48
Ayana Johnson: 19:40
Bill Rasmussen: 23:47
***
Full episode titles:
Boyd Varty — The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life
ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#580: In Case You Missed It: February 2022 Recap of The Tim Ferriss Show
March 18, 2022
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stewart Copeland — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss (#581)
“Two things that cause bad decisions are anger and sex.”
— Stewart Copeland
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.
You’ll get plenty of that in this special episode, which features my interview with Stewart Copeland from my 2017 TV Show Fear{less}. The “less” is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless.
Fear{less} features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they’ve overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big.
It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. You can find the video of this episode on YouTube.com/TimFerriss, and eventually you’ll be able to see all episodes for free at YouTube.com/TimFerriss.
Spearheaded by actor/producer and past podcast guest Vince Vaughn, Wild West Productions has produced a string of hit movies including The Internship, Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, and The Break-Up.
In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy O. Yang and Cedric The Entertainer. In addition to Fear{less}, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN’s 30 for 30 episode about the ’85 Bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#581: Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stewart Copeland — Fear{less} with Tim FerrissThis 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.
It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and you can subscribe now at tim.blog/friday.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
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Want to hear another episode with an incredibly inspiring musician? Have a listen to my conversation with Nicholas McCarthy in which we discuss how to overcome limitations and prove doubters wrong, how to manage ego, dealing with rejection and negativity, the benefits of aromatherapy, and much more.
#174: The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthySELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Stewart Copeland:Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies by Stewart Copeland | AmazonThe PoliceStewart Copeland’s Drum Solo | Late Show with David LettermanLions vs. Rhythmatist | Stewart Copeland – YouTubeRock ‘n’ Roll Drums Trailer | The Tim Ferriss ExperimentHot Blooded by Foreigner | Amazon MusicKim Philby, Spies, and the Dangers of Paranoia | The New Yorker1964 Embassy Beach Club, Beirut, Lebanon: The Black Knights Rocked the House! | Stewart Copeland, Facebook1960s Beirut: What Became of the Jet-Set Playgrounds? | CNN TravelThe Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks | Amazon MusicHouse of the Rising Sun by The Animals | Amazon MusicThe 50th Anniversary Collection by James Brown | Amazon MusicBaladi Rhythm | Druminic3 Reggae Drum Beats Every Drummer Should Know | Stephen Taylor Drum LessonPolice and Thieves by The Clash | Amazon MusicCurved AirA Game of Thrones Series by George R.R. Martin | AmazonScunthorpe Problem | TV TropesLord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien | AmazonSting Before the Police: How Gordon Sumner Got His Start | Oregon LiveI Hate People by The Anti-Nowhere League | YouTubeBorn in the ’50s by The Police | Amazon MusicThe Marquee ClubThe Who | Amazon MusicWhisky a Go GoThe Story of the Sex Pistols’ First (And Last) US Tour | UCRWhy The Beatles’ Shea Stadium Show Was Even Greater Than You Knew | Rolling StoneRock: Police Perform for 70,000 at Shea Stadium | The New York TimesAnger Management: 10 Tips to Tame Your Temper | Mayo ClinicScary ‘Mary Poppins’ Recut Trailer | Chris RulePudendal Nerve | Cleveland ClinicStavanger Symphony OrchestraKing Oscar Sardines | AmazonRumble Fish | Prime Video1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly | The TechniumThe 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout | AmazonShirley & Spinoza RadioThe Taylor Swift-Kanye West 2009 VMAs Scandal Is an American Morality Tale | VoxThe Black Eyed Peas | Amazon MusicSHOW NOTESOn Letterman and lions: Stewart details the only two drum solos he’s done in his life (and, for the sake of participation, I share mine). [05:28]The great thing about taking risks with music? It’s not paragliding. How does Stewart introduce a new musician to having fun with music without worrying about the consequences of making mistakes? [10:30]With a father who was both a jazz musician and a CIA agent, what was Stewart’s childhood like? [14:09]What initially drew Stewart to music, and how did his first gig go? How did these early forays into music abroad affect his evolution as a musician? [16:25]How Stewart became the drummer for a band he was managing and married the singer in what looks, on paper, like a series of Machiavellian, Game of Thrones-style power moves. [20:55]How did The Police come together as a band? [23:04]During the early days of The Police, what did Stewart and his bandmates imagine success might look like? What milestones inched them closer to realizing this success? [27:08]How does Stewart prepare for a gig? [29:52]Why being in The Police was often like wearing “a Prada suit made out of barbed wire.” [32:27]Circumstances that might trigger the righteous anger by which Stewart finds himself invigorated. [36:41]Examples of good things that have happened to Stewart simply by saying “Yes.” [39:37]How did Stewart wind up scoring Rumble Fish for Francis Ford Coppola? [41:13]How does Stewart define success? [43:27]Stewart’s advice for anyone from a rock and roll musical background who wants to pursue film scoring. [44:33]Stewart’s advice for a budding musician trying to get their foot in the door of today’s entertainment industry, and how the process differs from when Stewart was just getting started. [46:22]What music does Stewart find particularly interesting from today’s roster of artists? [48:42]On favorite failures as a concept. [51:47]What Stewart’s billboard would say, and parting thoughts for the audience. [52:42]MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“Some of the best things happen when you don’t know what you’re doing.”
— Stewart Copeland
“You may laugh salaciously, but it’s true that — particularly for teenagers and young adults — music is the key to sex. It is the key to body language that would be unacceptable without music playing.”
— Stewart Copeland
“So much good stuff derives from just saying ‘Yes.'”
— Stewart Copeland
“Having the best idea first—that’s a leader.”
— Stewart Copeland
“That’s the great thing about music. If you played it, it’s correct. The worst musical train wreck hurts absolutely no one. It’s all part of the show. In fact it’s how we get to the great stuff. There is no penalty for skating on the edge or throwing ourselves off the cliff. So we do.”
— Stewart Copeland
“At least my spy daddy wasn’t a double agent.”
— Stewart Copeland
“Why wait for attention when you can grab it?”
— Stewart Copeland
“Two things that cause bad decisions are anger and sex.”
— Stewart Copeland
“Don’t be fearful if your music doesn’t sound like everything else on the radio, and don’t be complacent if it does.”
— Stewart Copeland
March 16, 2022
Jane McGonigal — How She Predicted COVID in 2010, Becoming the Expert of Your Own Future, Trust Warfare, the 10-Year Winter, and How to Cultivate Optimism (#579)
Illustration via 99designs“Just write a journal entry from this future. It will literally change your brain forever. That future is now forever imaginable to you, and it only took five minutes.“
— Jane McGonigal
Jane McGonigal (@avantgame) is a future-forecaster and a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games that improve real lives and solve real problems. She’s the Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future and the lead instructor for their series on the Coursera platform. She also teaches the course How to Think Like a Futurist at Stanford University.
Jane is the New York Times bestselling author of Reality Is Broken and SuperBetter, and the forthcoming Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things That Seem Impossible Today. Her TED talks on how games can make a better world and the game that can give you 10 extra years of life have more than 15 million views. Her innovative games and ideas have been recognized by the World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, O magazine, and The New York Times, among many others.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
Brought to you by Dry Farm Wines natural wines designed for fewer hangovers, Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses. More on all three below.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#579: Jane McGonigal — How She Predicted COVID in 2010, Becoming the Expert of Your Own Future, Trust Warfare, the 10-Year Winter, and How to Cultivate OptimismThis episode is brought to you by Dry Farm Wines. I’m a wine drinker, and I love a few glasses over meals with friends. That said, I hate hangovers. For the last few months, all of the wine in my house has been from Dry Farm Wines. Why? At least in my experience, their wine means more fun with fewer headaches. Dry Farm Wines only ships wines that meet very stringent criteria: practically sugar free (less than 0.15g per glass), lower alcohol (less than 12.5% alcohol), additive free (there are more than 70 FDA-approved wine-making additives), lower sulfites, organic, and produced by small family farms.
All Dry Farm Wines are laboratory tested for purity standards by a certified, independent enologist, and all of their wines are also backed by a 100% Happiness Promise—they will either replace or refund any wine you do not love. Last but not least, I find delicious wines I never would have found otherwise. It’s a lot of fun. Dry Farm Wines has a special offer just for listeners of the podcast—an extra bottle in your first box for just one extra penny. Check out all the details at DryFarmWines.com/Tim.
This episode is brought to you by Vuori clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.
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This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the #1 overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. 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 up to 200 dollars 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.
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Want to revisit Jane’s previous appearance on the show? Listen to our conversation here, which finds us discussing real-world problems solved with games or by gamers, how Jane’s career path was guided by recovery from a concussion, the health benefits of Tetris and Call of Duty, post-traumatic growth and post-ecstatic growth, favorite documentaries, efficacious morning rituals, and much more.
#93: Jane McGonigal on Getting More Done with Less Stress and The Health Benefits of GamingSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Jane McGonigal: Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things That Seem Impossible Today by Jane McGonigal | Amazon An Institute for the Future Community | Urgent OptimistsFutures Thinking | CourseraSuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully by Jane McGonigal | AmazonReality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal | AmazonJane McGonigal on Getting More Done with Less Stress and The Health Benefits of Gaming | The Tim Ferriss Show #93Jane McGonigal: The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life | TED Global 2012Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World | TED 2010Pokémon GOCandy Crush Saga OnlineTetrisTetris in the Lab: The Surprising Link Between PTSD and the Classic Computer Game | The Oxford ScientistWordleQuordleThe Forgotten Medieval Habit of ‘Two Sleeps’ | BBC FutureEVOKE: An Online Alternate Reality Game Supporting Social Innovation among Young People around the World | World BankDuring a Pandemic, We Urgently Need to Stretch Our Imagination by Jane McGonigal | Institute for the FutureSuperstruct | Institute for the FutureGlobal Risks Report | World Economic ForumSuperthreat: Power Struggle | Superstruct WikiThe Epidemic You’ve Never Heard Of | Alpha-Gal InformationPremeditatio Malorum | Daily StoicCOVID-19 Pandemic from a “Normalcy Bias” Approach | Journal of Community & Public Health NursingLyme Disease | CDCDoxycycline | RxList650003: Alpha-Gal IgE Panel | LabcorpSelf-Preservation Six | Enneagram CentralPlatforming Youth Voices in Planetary Health Leadership and Advocacy: An Untapped Reservoir for Changemaking | The Lancet Planetary HealthFrom the Great Resignation to Lying Flat, Workers Are Opting Out | BloombergModern Monetary Theory (MMT) | InvestopediaThe pros and cons of universal basic income – College of Arts & SciencesGuaranteed Income Is Evolving from Charity to Public Policy | VoxA Three-Day Work Week? One Startup Experiments to Draw Talent | BloombergFood As Medicine: It’s Not Just A Fringe Idea Anymore | The SaltAxie Infinity: Infinity Revenue, Infinity Possibilities | Not BoringUber State Interference: How TNCs Buy, Bully, and Bamboozle Their Way To Deregulation | National Employment Law ProjectPresident Biden to Sign Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets | The White House$9.5 Billion Spent Using Chinese Central Bank’s Digital Currency | ReutersMake Anything You Can Imagine | RobloxGlobal Fantasy Football | SorareChina’s ‘AI Newsreader’: Which of These Isn’t Real? | BBC NewsIn Me I Trust | ScienceThis Audio Editing Tool “Deep Faked” My Voice (Actually Useful or Scary?) | Pat FlynnEric Schmidt — The Promises and Perils of AI, the Future of Warfare, Profound Revolutions on the Horizon, and Exploring the Meaning of Life | The Tim Ferriss Show #54115 Best Instagram Story Filters for Selfies | Elite DailyWhy Are Young People Having So Little Sex? | The AtlanticReady Player One | Prime VideoBreakthrough Technology for the Brain | NeuralinkRanked: The 50 Most Visited Websites in the World | Visual CapitalistChildren of Men | Prime VideoEverything is About Sex Except Sex. Sex is About Power | Quote Investigator12 Monkeys | Prime VideoSnow Crash by Neal Stephenson | AmazonMargaret Atwood — A Living Legend on Creative Process, The Handmaid’s Tale, Being a Mercenary Child, Resisting Labels, the Poet Rug Exchange, Liminal Beings, Burning Questions, Practical Utopias, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #573How Urgent Optimism Can Drive Player Action in Gamification | GamificationWhy People Are So Bad at Thinking about the Future by Jane McGonigal | SlateNo-Kill, Lab-Grown Meat to Go on Sale for First Time | The GuardianReality Drone Selfie | Jane McGonigal, Twitter21 Ideas for Interesting & Useful Ways to Use Your Drone | DroneblogThe Tens Of Millions Of Faces Training Facial Recognition; You’ll Soon Be Able To Search For Yourself | HackadayAdversarial Makeup: Your Contouring Skills Could Defeat Facial Recognition | Hackaday6 Apps to Chat and Text with No Internet Connection via Mesh Network | Gecko & FlyCould the US Government Shut Down the Internet? | QuoraIntroducing the People’s Network | HeliumWhy Texas’ Power Grid Still Hasn’t Been Fixed | The New YorkerThe Great Climate Migration Has Begun | The New York TimesHobbes’ Moral and Political Philosophy | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Video | WitnessWhy Germans Can Say Things No One Else Can | The School of LifeWorld of WarcraftLeague of LegendsWhat Is Sangha? | Lion’s RoarFuture Shock by Alvin Toffler | AmazonSolar Radiation Management | Wilson CenterWhat the UN Ban on Geoengineering Really Means | New ScientistWant to Save More or Beat a Disease? Try Entering a Lottery | Wired UKJohn List — A Master Economist on Strategic Quitting, How to Practice Theory of Mind, Learnings from Uber, Optimizations to Boost Donations, the Primitives of Decision-Making, and How Field Experiments Reveal Hidden Realities | The Tim Ferriss Show #566Clawback | InvestopediaThe Basics Of Game Theory | InvestopediaApproaches to Modelling Emotions in Game Theory | UCLACognitive Hierarchies and Emotions in Behavioral Game Theory | California Institute of TechnologyThe Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson | AmazonTermination Shock: A Novel by Neal Stephenson | AmazonEmergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown | AmazonChimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes by Frans de Waal | AmazonSHOW NOTESGood video games to play for quieting your mind before bedtime, and an update on research we discussed during Jane’s last visit that linked Tetris positively to preventing episodes of PTSD. [07:16]Find yourself waking up for a few hours in the middle of the night? It’s perfectly natural. Here’s how to deal with it. [11:13]From a research standpoint, why is Tetris uniquely effective at treating PTSD? [13:34]McGonigal to McNostradamus: what spooky thing happened when, in 2010, Jane led 20,000 gamers in a social simulation trying to imagine the world of 2020? 10 years later, what does Jane consider to be the most important outcome of this exercise? [15:31]Further predictions from this 2010 simulation and another one that ran simultaneously — including a tick-borne pandemic that could make people allergic to meat (and how the world might adjust to such a scenario). [22:25]What predicted threat does Jane see as having a silver lining, and what economic concepts and policies have recently “radicalized” her? [40:59]Predictions for the future of cryptocurrency as politics get involved, and how current play-to-earn gaming platforms may have to adapt. [50:25]Cult recruitment and podcasting in the age of trust warfare. [54:21]Pornography always finds a way. [1:00:11]What is urgent optimism? [1:10:38]Future Fridays and habits to cultivate for feeling good when contemplating an uncertain future. [1:13:58]Future power examples: small preparations Jane has found helpful toward easing her more comfortably into what tomorrow has in store for us. [1:18:54]Do you have an action plan for total electrical blackout or climate migration? Here are some preventative and reactive steps Jane’s been thinking about, and how I address such problems to people who may be politically disinclined to consider them at all. [1:24:44]Three questions you can ask to measure your urgent optimism and give you a sense of which of those three habits or skills you might want to practice more, and an example of how Jane’s recently applied these questions. [1:31:46]Jane details an Urgent Optimist group activity you can join to better spot the future’s hopeful signals — especially if you’re hardwired to only see what’s in a shadow of perpetual pessimism. [1:39:41]Journaling from the future as a form of specificity training. [1:43:14]Who Alvin Toffler was, and how Jane feels about his maxim that “it’s more important to be imaginative and insightful than to be 100 percent right” about the future. [1:47:29]Why Jane thinks the technological solutions to climate change will rely more on socio optimism than techno-optimism, and what these solutions may look like. [1:52:05]Jane’s recommendations for people who would like to study incentives and how they might be applied to solving the world’s biggest problems. [1:57:10]Further resources, audience asks, and final thoughts. [2:00:58]MORE JANE MCGONIGAL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“Building urgent optimism is like following a string out of a labyrinth. You’re taking all these twists and turns. You’ve got your radar up, so you’re going to hear about weird new risks. You’re going to hear about cool new uses. And I like to think it’s essentially a process of opening your mind.”
— Jane McGonigal
“What if the future that you think is most likely to happen is not a good future? Do you want to be right, or do you want to actually prove yourself wrong and help us all wake up in a better reality?”
— Jane McGonigal
“Right now we’re just playing with ideas, and we’re thinking about how our actions today could lead to a better, or a weirder, or a riskier world.”
— Jane McGonigal
“I don’t think universal basic income is a radical idea, but I’m on that train. I want people to work less and care more. Care for their kids, care for themselves, care for their communities.”
— Jane McGonigal
“I’ve seen the numbers on the four-day workweek, which I think isn’t going far enough. I’m already imagining a three-day workweek as a global norm, because there’s no reason — with automation, with AI — we need to work this much. Every time we’ve invented new technologies of productivity, economists have predicted that we’re going to use that to create more free time for leisure … it only happens when companies experiment with shorter workweeks.”
— Jane McGonigal
“There’s an incredible new positive emotion that we don’t even have a word for yet that artists can use, storytellers can use, therapists can use, by using drones to give us a viewpoint we’ve never seen.”
— Jane McGonigal
“It works for me, Jane McGonigal, the game designer, to have become a futurist because what are the most fun games to play? It’s really not the game you play by yourself. It’s the game that you’re playing in big groups.”
— Jane McGonigal
“Just write a journal entry from this future. It will literally change your brain forever. That future is now forever imaginable to you, and it only took five minutes.”
— Jane McGonigal
“If we can create more abundance in the future, we fight less. There’s less sense of other people being competition. If we all have what we need, that’s a world where I think we can be a little bit happier and nicer to each other and I would like to live in that world.”
— Jane McGonigal
“We take action to make the future we want more plausible, or take action to make futures we don’t want less likely. And that’s the power, not accuracy. It’s the ability to imagine and take action that we’re really trying to get better at.”
— Jane McGonigal
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
PEOPLE MENTIONEDNostradamusSenecaEric SchmidtRihannaOscar WildeMargaret E. AtwoodMichael JordanThomas HobbesAlvin TofflerJohn ListNewt GingrichDr. Jane GoodallMarch 9, 2022
Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions, and Tim’s Best Penguin Impressions (#578)
Illustration via 99designs“I think doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing.”
— Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) is a co-founder of the open-source publishing platform WordPress, which now powers more than one-third of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, WPVIP, Day One, and Pocket Casts. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company. He has been recognized for his leadership by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc., TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, Vanity Fair, and the University Philosophical Society.
Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. He currently splits his time between Houston and Jackson Hole.
For my first interview with Matt, way back in 2015, go to tim.blog/matt.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, Wealthfront automated investing, and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.
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#578: Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions, and Tim’s Best Penguin ImpressionsThis episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro 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 Pro 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.
And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM at checkout.
This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost.
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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
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Want to hear another episode recorded during my time on Earth’s southernmost continent? Lend your ear to my conversation with filmmaker and photographer Sue Flood, in which we discuss her work with nature documentary icon David Attenborough, swimming with orcas, the perfection of the emperor penguin, the story of her divorce whale, common mistakes made by rookie wildlife photographers, and much more.
#567: A Rare Podcast at 30 Below Zero — Sue Flood on Antarctica, Making Your Own Luck, Chasing David Attenborough, and Reinventing YourselfSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Matt Mullenweg:Twitter | Instagram | Blog | Facebook | Spotify
Distributed with Matt MullenwegWordPress.comWordPress.orgAutomatticWooCommerceTumblrWordPress VIPDay OnePocket CastsAudrey CapitalBooks I’ve Loved — Matt Mullenweg | The Tim Ferriss Show #420The Random Show Threesome — Tim Ferriss, Kevin Rose, and Matt Mullenweg | The Tim Ferriss Show #209Matt Mullenweg: Characteristics and Practices of Successful Entrepreneurs | The Tim Ferriss Show #190Matt Mullenweg on Polyphasic Sleep, Tequila, and Building Billion-Dollar Companies | The Tim Ferriss Show #61GlenmorangieHow to Pronounce Glenmorangie by Brian Cox | EsquireUsage Statistics and Market Share of WordPress, March 2022 | W3TechsThe New Working | P2The Collaborative Interface Design Tool | FigmaDylan Field, Figma Co-founder, Talks Design, Digital Economy, and Remote Culture with Host Connie Yang | DistributedHolstee Reflection Cards | AmazonTequila Casa Dragones JovenA Rare Podcast at 30 Below Zero — Sue Flood on Antarctica, Making Your Own Luck, Chasing David Attenborough, and Reinventing Yourself | The Tim Ferriss Show #567A Total Solar Eclipse Bathed Antarctica in Darkness | Popular ScienceHow a Total Solar Eclipse Created France, Italy, and Germany | KSATA Very Short Guide to Union Glacier Camp | VimeoThe Tail End | Wait But WhyTools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss | AmazonOn Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler | AmazonFeeling Down? Explore the Clinical Stages of Grief Here | HealthlineHistory of Memento Mori | Daily StoicFind Happiness by Contemplating Your Mortality | WeCroakMomentum | Chrome Web StoreThe #1 App for Meditation and Sleep | CalmBuilt for Better | FitbodHu Kitchen Chocolate Covered Almonds | AmazonThe 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonMemory Special: Can You Trust Your Memories? | New ScientistStories from People of All Backgrounds and Beliefs | StoryCorpsZoom H6 6-Track Portable Recorder | AmazonXLR 3-Pin Microphone Cable (6 Feet) | AmazonPanasonic BQ-CC55 “Advanced” eneloop Individual Battery 3-Hour Quick Charger | AmazonShure MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone for iPhone | AmazonShure SM58-LC Cardioid Vocal Microphone | AmazonShure KSM8/B Dualdyne Vocal Microphone | AmazonBanya Hats | EtsyRick Rubin on Cultivating World-Class Artists (Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, etc.), Losing 100+ Pounds, and Breaking Down The Complex | The Tim Ferriss Show #76Gould Bay Camp | Antarctic Logistics & ExpeditionsIs Drinking Urine Good for You? | HealthlineInternal Family Systems (IFS)Jim Collins on The Value of Small Gestures, Unseen Sources of Power, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #483What Is an Example of Negative Selection Bias? | QuoraLyme Disease | CDCEnzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) | Stanford Health CareHobbes’ Moral and Political Philosophy | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyThe Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker | AmazonThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonFour Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman | AmazonBill of Lading | InvestopediaThis Timeline Shows the Entire History of the Universe, and Where It’s Headed | Science AlertConscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind by Annaka Harris | AmazonSum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman | AmazonBurning ManReady Player One | Prime VideoPhysician-Assisted Suicide | American Medical AssociationNonduality: Defining the Undefinable | Deconstructing YourselfCategory: Open Source | Matt MullenwegShould I Have Kids: 6 Tips to Help You Decide If You Want to Start a Family | VoxTexas Leaf Cutting Ant | Insects in the CityAll About Auroras: Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and Aurora Australis for Kids | FreeSchoolWorld’s Best Wall Dives | Sport DiverBuoyancy Control Devices (BCD) | PADIDr. Adam Gazzaley, UCSF — Brain Optimization and the Future of Psychedelic Medicine | The Tim Ferriss Show #507It’s the Dawn of a New Space Age — At Least for Billionaires | VoxJames Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive | National GeographicProtecting the Amazon in Partnership with Indigenous and Other Local Communities | Amazon Conservation TeamPlants of the Gods — Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ayahuasca, Shamanic Knowledge, the Curse and Blessing of Coca, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #508What Is Scientism, and Why Is It a Mistake? | Big ThinkAnother Way of Knowing: The Poetry of Psychological Inquiry by Miller Mair | AmazonOf Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez | AmazonThe Bering Land Bridge Theory | Bering Land Bridge National PreserveWhat Is Meant by Native Americans and Some Wolf Biologists Referring to a ‘Conversation of Death’ between Wolves and Wild Prey Animals? | QuoraWatch a Coyote and Badger Hunt Their Prey Together | SmithsonianTien Nguyen: How a Few Scientists Transformed the Way We Think about Disease | TED-EdFantastic Fungi | Prime VideoThese AIs Think They Can Translate Your Dog’s Barks | The Next WebAmerica’s Pet Cloning Experts | ViaGen PetsReflections on Cloning | Libreria Editrice VaticanaFrom Tree to Shining Tree | RadiolabWhy Infant Surgery Without Anesthesia Went Unchallenged | The New York TimesTucker Sno-CatThe Surprising and Unexpected Benefits of Not Cursing | Service ExcellenceMens Rea | Legal Information InstituteThe Vaccine Miracle: How Scientists Waged the Battle against COVID-19 | The GuardianSHOW NOTESNote from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.
In Antarctica, even your neatest scotch is served on the rocks — and you have to take it with you when you’re finished.How we’re dealing with perpetual daylight and zero access to the internet.For anyone who hasn’t caught his past appearances and mentions on this show, who is Matt Mullenweg, and what keeps him busy when he’s not camping on Antarctican sea ice?What our morning immersed in the “patient” landscape of Antarctica has been like so far.Why a total solar eclipse needs to be experienced firsthand to understand why it’s such a big deal.Antarctican skin care and rollicking penguin imitations.What’s happened in Matt’s world since the last time we talked on this podcast? How does he keep each day interesting?What Matt has found most helpful for enduring the grieving process since his father passed away.You probably have a smartphone. Here’s why you should use it to record some of the time you spend with loved ones when you have the chance, and what you might talk to them about.Podcast tech spec updates since our last conversation that make recording possible at any temperature on Earth.As Matt says, “You can’t spell ‘Tim’ without ‘TMI.'” That’s why I’m going to talk about the time I sampled my own urine.We each answer the question posed by a card from the Holstee Reflection Deck: “What is one fear you would like to conquer?”Strange comfort I derived from a recent existential revelation, and where I found it.Next card: “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about your life, the world, or anything else, what would you want to know?”Another card: “If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, what would you change about the way you’re living now? Why?”At the time of this conversation, what would I put on my billboard?New card: “What are two things still on your bucket list?”We need more billionaires exploring the oceans and the non-Western worlds of ritual and myth with the same exuberance as the ones currently exploring space.Would I clone my dog Molly? Matt shares his own experience with getting to know a cloned animal after its genetically identical predecessor passed away.More bucket list items.Why Matt doesn’t curse, and what he does when he gets really angry.The next card: “Do intentions matter more or less than actions?”The last card: “What are you grateful for right now?”MORE MATT MULLENWEG QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“How are we ever going to understand aliens if we can’t understand dogs?”
— Matt Mullenweg
“I think doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing.”
— Matt Mullenweg
“Where I’m not Zen at all is I get upset on behalf of others.”
— Matt Mullenweg
“I think it’d be kind of cool if our brains are antennas to some deeper consciousness and we reconnected with it, sort of went back to that non-dual nature of enlightenment.”
— Matt Mullenweg
“We’re hoping to do for e-commerce what we did for websites.”
— Matt Mullenweg
Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg Get Personal in Antarctica (#578)
Illustration via 99designs“I think doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing.”
— Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) is a co-founder of the open-source publishing platform WordPress, which now powers more than one-third of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, WPVIP, Day One, and Pocket Casts. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company. He has been recognized for his leadership by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc., TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, Vanity Fair, and the University Philosophical Society.
Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. He currently splits his time between Houston and Jackson Hole.
For my first interview with Matt, way back in 2015, go to tim.blog/matt.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, Wealthfront automated investing, and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#578: Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg Get Personal in AntarcticaThis episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro 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 Pro 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.
And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM at checkout.
This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost.
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This episode is brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world’s most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the most advanced strength studio on the market today. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and AI learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using AI, and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.
Try Tonal , the world’s smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don’t love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM100 at checkout.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
Want to hear another episode recorded during my time on Earth’s southernmost continent? Lend your ear to my conversation with filmmaker and photographer Sue Flood, in which we discuss her work with nature documentary icon David Attenborough, swimming with orcas, the perfection of the emperor penguin, the story of her divorce whale, common mistakes made by rookie wildlife photographers, and much more.
#567: A Rare Podcast at 30 Below Zero — Sue Flood on Antarctica, Making Your Own Luck, Chasing David Attenborough, and Reinventing YourselfSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Matt Mullenweg:Twitter | Instagram | Blog | Facebook | Spotify
Distributed with Matt MullenwegWordPress.comWordPress.orgAutomatticWooCommerceTumblrWordPress VIPDay OnePocket CastsAudrey CapitalBooks I’ve Loved — Matt Mullenweg | The Tim Ferriss Show #420The Random Show Threesome — Tim Ferriss, Kevin Rose, and Matt Mullenweg | The Tim Ferriss Show #209Matt Mullenweg: Characteristics and Practices of Successful Entrepreneurs | The Tim Ferriss Show #190Matt Mullenweg on Polyphasic Sleep, Tequila, and Building Billion-Dollar Companies | The Tim Ferriss Show #61GlenmorangieHow to Pronounce Glenmorangie by Brian Cox | EsquireUsage Statistics and Market Share of WordPress, March 2022 | W3TechsThe New Working | P2The Collaborative Interface Design Tool | FigmaDylan Field, Figma Co-founder, Talks Design, Digital Economy, and Remote Culture with Host Connie Yang | DistributedHolstee Reflection Cards | AmazonTequila Casa Dragones JovenA Rare Podcast at 30 Below Zero — Sue Flood on Antarctica, Making Your Own Luck, Chasing David Attenborough, and Reinventing Yourself | The Tim Ferriss Show #567A Total Solar Eclipse Bathed Antarctica in Darkness | Popular ScienceHow a Total Solar Eclipse Created France, Italy, and Germany | KSATA Very Short Guide to Union Glacier Camp | VimeoThe Tail End | Wait But WhyTools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss | AmazonOn Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler | AmazonFeeling Down? Explore the Clinical Stages of Grief Here | HealthlineHistory of Memento Mori | Daily StoicFind Happiness by Contemplating Your Mortality | WeCroakMomentum | Chrome Web StoreThe #1 App for Meditation and Sleep | CalmBuilt for Better | FitbodHu Kitchen Chocolate Covered Almonds | AmazonThe 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonMemory Special: Can You Trust Your Memories? | New ScientistStories from People of All Backgrounds and Beliefs | StoryCorpsZoom H6 6-Track Portable Recorder | AmazonXLR 3-Pin Microphone Cable (6 Feet) | AmazonPanasonic BQ-CC55 “Advanced” eneloop Individual Battery 3-Hour Quick Charger | AmazonShure MV88 iOS Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone for iPhone | AmazonShure SM58-LC Cardioid Vocal Microphone | AmazonShure KSM8/B Dualdyne Vocal Microphone | AmazonBanya Hats | EtsyRick Rubin on Cultivating World-Class Artists (Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, etc.), Losing 100+ Pounds, and Breaking Down The Complex | The Tim Ferriss Show #76Gould Bay Camp | Antarctic Logistics & ExpeditionsIs Drinking Urine Good for You? | HealthlineInternal Family Systems (IFS)Jim Collins on The Value of Small Gestures, Unseen Sources of Power, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #483What Is an Example of Negative Selection Bias? | QuoraLyme Disease | CDCEnzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) | Stanford Health CareHobbes’ Moral and Political Philosophy | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyThe Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker | AmazonThe 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | AmazonFour Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman | AmazonBill of Lading | InvestopediaThis Timeline Shows the Entire History of the Universe, and Where It’s Headed | Science AlertConscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind by Annaka Harris | AmazonSum: Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman | AmazonBurning ManReady Player One | Prime VideoPhysician-Assisted Suicide | American Medical AssociationNonduality: Defining the Undefinable | Deconstructing YourselfCategory: Open Source | Matt MullenwegShould I Have Kids: 6 Tips to Help You Decide If You Want to Start a Family | VoxTexas Leaf Cutting Ant | Insects in the CityAll About Auroras: Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and Aurora Australis for Kids | FreeSchoolWorld’s Best Wall Dives | Sport DiverBuoyancy Control Devices (BCD) | PADIDr. Adam Gazzaley, UCSF — Brain Optimization and the Future of Psychedelic Medicine | The Tim Ferriss Show #507It’s the Dawn of a New Space Age — At Least for Billionaires | VoxJames Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive | National GeographicProtecting the Amazon in Partnership with Indigenous and Other Local Communities | Amazon Conservation TeamPlants of the Gods — Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ayahuasca, Shamanic Knowledge, the Curse and Blessing of Coca, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #508What Is Scientism, and Why Is It a Mistake? | Big ThinkAnother Way of Knowing: The Poetry of Psychological Inquiry by Miller Mair | AmazonOf Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez | AmazonThe Bering Land Bridge Theory | Bering Land Bridge National PreserveWhat Is Meant by Native Americans and Some Wolf Biologists Referring to a ‘Conversation of Death’ between Wolves and Wild Prey Animals? | QuoraWatch a Coyote and Badger Hunt Their Prey Together | SmithsonianTien Nguyen: How a Few Scientists Transformed the Way We Think about Disease | TED-EdFantastic Fungi | Prime VideoThese AIs Think They Can Translate Your Dog’s Barks | The Next WebAmerica’s Pet Cloning Experts | ViaGen PetsReflections on Cloning | Libreria Editrice VaticanaFrom Tree to Shining Tree | RadiolabWhy Infant Surgery Without Anesthesia Went Unchallenged | The New York TimesTucker Sno-CatThe Surprising and Unexpected Benefits of Not Cursing | Service ExcellenceMens Rea | Legal Information InstituteThe Vaccine Miracle: How Scientists Waged the Battle against COVID-19 | The GuardianSHOW NOTESNote from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.
In Antarctica, even your neatest scotch is served on the rocks — and you have to take it with you when you’re finished.How we’re dealing with perpetual daylight and zero access to the internet.For anyone who hasn’t caught his past appearances and mentions on this show, who is Matt Mullenweg, and what keeps him busy when he’s not camping on Antarctican sea ice?What our morning immersed in the “patient” landscape of Antarctica has been like so far.Why a total solar eclipse needs to be experienced firsthand to understand why it’s such a big deal.Antarctican skin care and rollicking penguin imitations.What’s happened in Matt’s world since the last time we talked on this podcast? How does he keep each day interesting?What Matt has found most helpful for enduring the grieving process since his father passed away.You probably have a smartphone. Here’s why you should use it to record some of the time you spend with loved ones when you have the chance, and what you might talk to them about.Podcast tech spec updates since our last conversation that make recording possible at any temperature on Earth.As Matt says, “You can’t spell ‘Tim’ without ‘TMI.'” That’s why I’m going to talk about the time I sampled my own urine.We each answer the question posed by a card from the Holstee Reflection Deck: “What is one fear you would like to conquer?”Strange comfort I derived from a recent existential revelation, and where I found it.Next card: “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about your life, the world, or anything else, what would you want to know?”Another card: “If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, what would you change about the way you’re living now? Why?”At the time of this conversation, what would I put on my billboard?New card: “What are two things still on your bucket list?”We need more billionaires exploring the oceans and the non-Western worlds of ritual and myth with the same exuberance as the ones currently exploring space.Would I clone my dog Molly? Matt shares his own experience with getting to know a cloned animal after its genetically identical predecessor passed away.More bucket list items.Why Matt doesn’t curse, and what he does when he gets really angry.The next card: “Do intentions matter more or less than actions?”The last card: “What are you grateful for right now?”MORE MATT MULLENWEG QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“How are we ever going to understand aliens if we can’t understand dogs?”
— Matt Mullenweg
“I think doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing.”
— Matt Mullenweg
“Where I’m not Zen at all is I get upset on behalf of others.”
— Matt Mullenweg
“I think it’d be kind of cool if our brains are antennas to some deeper consciousness and we reconnected with it, sort of went back to that non-dual nature of enlightenment.”
— Matt Mullenweg
“We’re hoping to do for e-commerce what we did for websites.”
— Matt Mullenweg
March 1, 2022
Morgan Housel — The Psychology of Money, Picking the Right Game, and the $6 Million Janitor (#576)
Illustration via 99designs“You have to have a level of savings in your asset allocation that doesn’t make sense. You have to have a level of conservatism that seems like it’s a little bit too much. That’s the only time that you know that you are prepared for risks that you cannot envision.”
— Morgan Housel
Morgan Housel (@morganhousel) is a partner at the Collaborative Fund and a former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal. He serves on the board of directors at Markel Corporation. He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.
His book The Psychology of Money has sold more than one million copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
Brought to you by Allform premium, modular furniture; Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement; and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#576: Morgan Housel — The Psychology of Money, Picking the Right Game, and the $6 Million JanitorThis episode is brought to you by Allform! If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about Helix Sleep mattresses, which I’ve been using since 2017. They also launched a company called Allform that makes premium, customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door—at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. You can pick your fabric (and they’re all spill, stain, and scratch resistant), the sofa color, the color of the legs, and the sofa size and shape to make sure it’s perfect for you and your home.
Allform arrives in just 3–7 days, and you can assemble it yourself in a few minutes—no tools needed. To find your perfect sofa and receive 20% off all orders, check out Allform.com/Tim.
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, 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 AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.
Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free 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 all-in-one daily greens product.
This episode is brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world’s most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the most advanced strength studio on the market today. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and AI learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using AI, and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.
Try Tonal , the world’s smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don’t love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM100 at checkout.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
Want to hear an episode with another writer discussing their creative process? Listen to my conversation with Malcolm Gladwell in which we discuss routines, habits, and tools, how to make your stories relatable, and why he eats as little as possible in the morning.
#168: Dissecting the Success of Malcolm GladwellSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Morgan Housel: The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel | Amazon For Entrepreneurs Pushing the World Forward | Collaborative FundInsurance, Ventures, and Investments | Markel CorporationThe Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman | AmazonA Quantitative Investment Management Company | Renaissance InstitutionalMemento | Prime VideoCompound Interest Definition, Formula, and Calculation | InvestopediaShareholder Letters | Berkshire HathawayCope’s Rule | WikipediaCollateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) | InvestopediaCitigroup Reaches $590 Mln Settlement over CDOs | ReutersThe 1970s Origins of Too Big to Fail | Federal Reserve Bank of ClevelandFinancial Advice for My New Son | The Motley FoolFinancial Advice for My New Daughter | Collaborative FundWhy Is Goldman Sachs Advocating for Sustainability? | Fast CompanyThe Marshmallow Experiment and the Power of Delayed Gratification | James ClearDo You Know the Difference Between Being Rich and Being Wealthy? by Jason Zweig | WSJThe Farm CommunityMorgan Housel on Reading, Writing, and Lifelong Learning | The Knowledge Project“Welcome to Denny’s…” | Morgan Housel, TwitterRemember the “Man in the Car Paradox” When You’re About to Make an Expensive Mistake | Money: The Simple WayTao Te Ching by Lao Tzu | AmazonMorgan Housel Articles | The Motley FoolStories by Derek Thompson | The AtlanticStories by Jason Zweig | The Wall Street JournalThe Four Biggest Myths of the US Economy. Plus, Omicron in 100 Seconds. | Plain English with Derek ThompsonWhy US Officials Say Inflation Is No Longer ‘Transitory’ | FortuneWhat Causes Inflation and Who Profits From It? | InvestopediaThe Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson | AmazonThe Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham | AmazonThe Vanguard GroupMore Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby | AmazonThe Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder | AmazonBuffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein | AmazonAdjustable-Rate Mortgage (ARM) | InvestopediaThe Chicken Little Fable | HOMERWhy Warren Buffett’s $5 Billion Airline Debacle Wasn’t Actually a Mistake | The Motley FoolThe Great Depression | Federal Reserve HistoryAn Insurance Company For Your Car And More | GEICORussell 3000 Index | InvestopediaApple’s 8 Biggest Failures | Culture TripAmazon Products and Services That Failed or Were Discontinued | Business InsiderDisney’s Snow White: The Risk That Changed Filmmaking Forever | Den of GeekSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs | Prime VideoThe Midas List 2021 | ForbesBringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich | Amazon21 | Prime VideoMike Moritz | Charlie RoseLeverage | InvestopediaBuy, Borrow, Die: How Rich Americans Live Off Their Paper Wealth | WSJMortgage Your Retirement | ForbesThe Tortoise and the Hare Fable | HOMERFortune’s Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt by Arthur T. Vanderbilt | AmazonBiltmore | Asheville, North CarolinaChelsea Piers NYCThe Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth | AmazonThe Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900–1950 by Frederick Lewis Allen | AmazonSince Yesterday: The 1930s in America, September 3, 1929–September 3, 1939 by Frederick Lewis Allen | AmazonOnly Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen | AmazonDuck And Cover (1951) | Nuclear VaultWhen Does a Crisis Become a Calamity? | ReutersNear Failure of Long-Term Capital Management | Federal Reserve HistoryHarriman HouseInternal vs. External Benchmarks | Collaborative FundExotic Rental Cars | EnterpriseFees vs. Fines | Collaborative FundAct Smarter. Live Richer. | Of Dollars and DataThe Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money by Carl Richards | AmazonAtomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear | AmazonThe Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain by Daniel Gardner | AmazonThinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | AmazonHow This All Happened | Collaborative FundSteven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey | The Tim Ferriss ShowThe Optimal Amount of Hassle | Collaborative FundDraft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee | AmazonThe Three Sides of Risk | Collaborative FundUniversity of Southern CaliforniaThe Infinite Monkey Theorem Comes to Life | 13.7: Cosmos And Culture, NPRI Have A Few Questions | Collaborative FundPeak Oil Is Finally Here | The Motley FoolAn Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus | AmazonThe Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant | AmazonValue Investing | InvestopediaThe Myth of Voter Fraud | Brennan Center for JusticeYour Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by Jason Zweig | AmazonSaudi Arabia Pleads for Missile-Defense Resupply as Its Arsenal Runs Low | WSJEric Schmidt — The Promises and Perils of AI, the Future of Warfare, Profound Revolutions on the Horizon, and Exploring the Meaning of Life | The Tim Ferriss ShowTour ‘The People’s House’ in 360 with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama | MetaQuestReady Player One | Prime VideoAbnormal ReturnsThe Rabbit HoleSHOW NOTESWarren Buffett vs. Jim Simons. [06:43]What do people get wrong about the partnership between Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger? [13:45]The size is the strategy. [16:59]Six years after writing his “Financial Advice for My New Son” article for The Motley Fool, are there any points Morgan would add or amend? [20:27]While there’s no way of knowing what kind of adults our kids will grow up to be, how might we instill in them the value of money and the ability to control how it affects their lives? [23:43]What unorthodox career decision did Morgan’s father make in his 30s, and how did the family’s life change as a result? How did earlier lessons of frugality give Morgan’s parents more options later on than their more steadily affluent peers? [28:28]How Morgan’s career path meandered from Denny’s greeter to investment banker to reluctant writer. [34:18]After finally hitting his stride as a writer at The Motley Fool, what compelled Morgan to join the Collaborative Fund team? [42:15]What’s a Markel and how did Morgan get involved with it? What was it hoped he could bring to the table there? [49:07]How does Morgan approach risk? [56:32]What “fin tweet” game is Morgan playing, and what are the rules? Who are the top players in this space, and what makes them worth your attention no matter the medium? [58:59]Investors Morgan respects — even if he wouldn’t try to emulate them. [1:03:33]Don’t beat yourself up too badly if you’ve ever been gamed by the market. Even Warren Buffett still makes mistakes. But would his younger version have made the same decisions he makes today? What made the early days of the pandemic such an uncertain time for even the most seasoned investors — Buffett and Housel alike? [1:09:37]Sometimes it’s the counterintuitive bets that elevate an investor into deity or demigodhood in the pantheon of the money-minded — whether it’s Benjamin Graham, Walt Disney, or Michael Moritz. [1:19:11]Notes on leverage and the “buy, borrow, die” approach to investing, and making sense of conflicting, diametrically opposed advice from seemingly intelligent, rational parties with differing opinions. [1:28:37]Sometimes peace of mind matters more than profit. [1:33:44]Is it better to be an antediluvian penny pincher who dies rich, or a high-roller who casts fistfuls of dollars into the sea only to pass away penniless? Maybe the middle ground is healthier than either extreme. [1:36:01]How does Morgan recommend someone of means ensure their children don’t grow up to be horrible, entitled, and generally useless to society? [1:40:13]Biographies and memoirs Morgan recommends (and what they can teach us about current events). [1:48:19]How can you increase the likelihood that you will not respond in moments of panic by doing what cripples you financially? Morgan weighs in. [1:52:26]In Morgan’s experience, how does someone who comes into money effectively allow themselves to enjoy it without succumbing to the all-too-common temptation to sink it all under a mountan of status symbols nobody really cares about? For his own part, what does his financial comfort allow him to enjoy, and how does he scratch the itch when he’s pestered by such temptations? [1:57:27]Preparing for financially bumpy long hauls, and “understanding the difference between a fee and a fine.” [2:07:15]A handful of journalists and writers Morgan would choose as trusted informants in a world without Twitter or in-depth news sources. [2:10:37]Morgan’s hall of fame for books about investing and finance, and how Dan Gardner’s book The Science of Fear has made him think about fear. [2:17:02]Morgan’s advice for helping someone (like me) regain a regular cadence of writing if COVID or other life interruptions have derailed such efforts, and a glimpse into what his own writing process looks like. [2:19:18]Tolerance for petty annoyance as a valuable life skill. [2:25:48]How did training as a competitive ski racer prepare Morgan for USC and, eventually, a world-class writer for The Motley Fool? [2:30:53]What does Morgan think is true, but is actually just good marketing? [2:39:17]What looks unsustainable, but is actually a new trend we haven’t accepted yet? [2:40:57]What has been true for decades that will stop working, but will drag along stubborn adherence because it has such a long track record of success? [2:43:50]Which of our current views would change if our incentives were different? [2:45:46]What are we ignoring today that will seem shockingly obvious in a year? [2:48:11]Money is not spreadsheets. It’s dopamine and cortisol. [2:49:06]Thoughts on near-future innovations both frightening and fascinating. [2:50:10]Websites Morgan thinks are worth your while. [2:55:23]Stories or points in The Psychology of Money Morgan wishes people paid more attention to. [2:57:39]Parting thoughts. [2:59:02]MORE MORGAN HOUSEL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“If your tolerance for bullshit is zero, you’re not going to make it at all in life.”
— Morgan Housel
“All compounding is never intuitive.”
— Morgan Housel
“There’s a reason why quoting Warren Buffett is easier than being the next Warren Buffett.”
— Morgan Housel
“You have to have a level of savings in your asset allocation that doesn’t make sense. You have to have a level of conservatism that seems like it’s a little bit too much. That’s the only time that you know that you are prepared for risks that you cannot envision.”
— Morgan Housel
“I have a feeling that there will never be a clean, uncontested election in your and my lives. Once you set the precedent of chaos, it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle.”
— Morgan Housel
“A fine means you did something wrong like, ‘Shame on you, here’s your speeding ticket. Don’t do it ever again. You’re in trouble.’ And a fee is just a price of admission that you paid to get something better on the other side. Like you go to Disneyland, you pay the fee, and then you get to enjoy the theme park. You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that’s the fee.”
— Morgan Housel
“There’s a cost to everything. And just identifying what the cost is, then realizing that the cost is not on a price tag, you’re going to pay for it with stress and anxiety, and dopamine, and cortisol, that’s how you pay for these things, I think that’s the only way to deal with those big ups and downs.”
— Morgan Housel
“To me, [it] has always been kind of a sad thing that we are so accustomed and attuned to just wanting to use our money … to go out and buy more stuff when we could be using it for freedom and autonomy.”
— Morgan Housel
“To the extent that we can use money to gain independence and autonomy, that is, I think, as close as it comes to a universal want and thing that we can use money for.”
— Morgan Housel
“You stand apart in the private investing world by having values and a view of the world that is differentiated in some way. And those values do not matter at all unless people know about them. You need to be going out there, showing the world how you think, what you think, who you are, waving your arms. That’s the purpose of hiring someone like me to be a writer.”
— Morgan Housel
“Risk is just the odds that something will prevent you from achieving your goals. But the nuance is that everyone has very different goals and aspirations and time horizons.”
— Morgan Housel
“You and I, and everyone else, and the smartest people that we know have no clue what’s going to happen over the next 10 years. That’s always been true and I think it always will be true.”
— Morgan Housel
February 22, 2022
Margaret Atwood — A Living Legend on Creative Process, The Handmaid’s Tale, Being a Mercenary Child, Resisting Labels, the Poet Rug Exchange, Liminal Beings, Burning Questions, Practical Utopias, and More (#573)
Illustration via 99designs“The reason I resist closed boxes is that nature does not deal in closed boxes.”
— Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood (@margaretatwood) is the author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. Dearly, her first collection of poetry in over a decade, was published November 2020. Her latest novel, The Testaments, is a co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. It is the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series. Her other works of fiction include Cat’s Eye, finalist for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; the MaddAddam Trilogy; and Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest Retold.
Margaret’s work has been published in more than 45 countries, and she is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Innovator’s Award.
Burning Questions, a collection of essays from 2004–2021 will be published in March of this year. Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible, an eight-week, live, online learning experience, will run later this year.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
Brought to you by 80,000 Hours free career advice for high impact and doing good in the world, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 770M+ users. More on all three below.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#573: Margaret Atwood — A Living Legend on Creative Process, The Handmaid’s Tale, Being a Mercenary Child, Resisting Labels, the Poet Rug Exchange, Liminal Beings, Burning Questions, Practical Utopias, and MoreThis episode is brought to you by 80,000 Hours! You have roughly 80,000 hours in your career. That’s 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 40 years. They add up and are one of your biggest opportunities, if not the biggest opportunity, to make a positive impact on the world. Some of the best strategies, best research, and best tactical advice I’ve seen and heard come from 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit co-founded by Will MacAskill, an Oxford philosopher and a popular past guest on this podcast.
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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
Want to hear an episode about with author who, according to Margaret Atwood, is more prolific than old? Listen to my conversation with Joyce Carol Oates, in which we discuss the most important “writerly” quality, overcoming obstacles to creativity, how to know when a final draft is ready to release into the world, and much more.
#497: Joyce Carol Oates — A Writing Icon on Creative Process and Creative LivingSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Margaret Atwood:Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021 by Margaret Atwood | AmazonMargaret Atwood: Practical Utopias | DISCODearly: New Poems by Margaret Atwood | AmazonThe Testaments: A Novel by Margaret Atwood | AmazonThe Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood | AmazonCat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood | AmazonAlias Grace: A Novel by Margaret Atwood | AmazonThe Blind Assassin: A Novel by Margaret Atwood | AmazonThe MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood | AmazonHag-Seed: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest Retold: A Novel by Margaret Atwood | AmazonSecond Words: Selected Critical Prose by Margaret Atwood | AmazonMoving Targets: Writing with Intent 1982-2004 by Margaret Atwood | AmazonHow I Write: Margaret Atwood | The Daily BeastCursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment. Now It’s Coming Back. | The New York TimesThe Iliad Paperback by Homer | AmazonThe Odyssey by Homer | AmazonAlias Grace | NetflixAn Idea That Stuck: How George de Mestral Invented the Velcro Fastener | VelcroWhat Is the Meaning behind Certain Hand Signs in Old Paintings? | r/ArtHistoryThe Waste Land by T.S. Eliot | Poetry FoundationMadame Sosostris’ Tarot Reading in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land | Crossroads TarotWho Knows? Bosch Knows. The Garden of Earthly Delights Zoomed in | ArthiveHieronymus Bosch: An Investigation of His Underdrawings by Jetske A. Sybesma | Google BooksA Comprehensive Guide to Rising Signs and What They Actually Mean | AllureTrickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art by Lewis Hyde | AmazonThe Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde | AmazonEarthsea Cycle Set by Ursula K. Le Guin | AmazonA Game of Thrones Series by George R.R. Martin | AmazonThe Great Dragon Facts Guide To Western And Eastern Dragons | Only Dinosaurs1984 (1950 Edition) by George Orwell | Bookfellows Fine BooksMargaret Atwood on Ray Bradbury: The Tale-Teller Who Tapped into the Gothic Core of America | The GuardianCelebrating Ray Bradbury at San Diego Comic-Con With Shadow Show | Bookreporter.comJohn DeMont: Has Rural Nova Scotia’s Time Finally Come? | SaltwirePrincess Line: Fashion A-Z | BoF EducationMargaret Atwood: Under the Thumb | Utne ReaderMargaret Atwood: The Pleasure of Reading | AntiseriousIdiot’s Guides | Penguin Random HouseBehind the Bohemian Embassy Publicity Packet | Moose Creek ProductionsEdward Lloyd and his Coffee House | Lloyd’s RegisterSir George Williams Campus | Concordia UniversityMoby Dick by Herman Melville | AmazonMiddlemarch by George Eliot | AmazonThe Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson | AmazonOrder Hymenoptera | BugGuide.NetThe Homer of the Ants by Margaret Atwood | The New York Review of Books“On Being a Woman Writer”: Atwood’s Canadian and Feminist Contexts by Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson | Salem PressPlatypus | The Australian MuseumDracula: Unabridged and Fully Illustrated by Bram Stoker | AmazonFrankenstein by Mary Shelley | AmazonThe War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells | AmazonUtopia by Thomas More | AmazonVertical Farming for the Future | USDAOne Day, Your Home Could Be Made with Mushrooms | The VergeThis ‘Living Coffin’ Is Made of Mushroom Fiber | ReutersGaia 3D Printed Earth House with Crane WASP | WASP TeamChecking the Claim: A House That Produces More Energy Than It Consumes | Smithsonian MagazineOf the Three Main Revolutions, American, French or Russian, Which Was the Most Significant? | QuoraThe World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Jisheng Yang | AmazonTinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré | AmazonTinker Tailor Soldier Spy: 40 Years On, the Labyrinthine Thriller Is Still TV Caviar | The GuardianThe Lives Of Others | Prime VideoEnemies Everywhere: Photos Show Absurdity of Life under the Stasi | The GuardianMargaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing | MasterClassEcological Death Care | RecomposeThe 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon | AmazonUrsula K. Le Guin by Margaret Atwood: ‘One of the Literary Greats of the 20th Century’ | The GuardianMargaret Atwood: We Lost Ursula Le Guin When We Needed Her Most | The Washington PostCuban Missile Crisis | JFK LibraryTextile Produced from Algae | Sustainable FashionThe Future of Ocean Farming | Modern FarmerGreenWaveIn the Dark | NetflixWait Until Dark | Prime VideoThe Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells | AmazonTime Enough at Last | The Twilight Zone, Pluto TVNFTs: Blockchain-Powered Art, Trading Cards, Music, and More with Aftab Hossain | Modern FinanceA Blockchain Designed to Evolve | TezosHic Et Nunc (HEN)Margaret Atwood Unveils the LongPen | The Today ShowCompliant Virtual Signing & Wet Ink Signatures | SyngrafiiThe ‘Hallelujah Moment’ behind the Invention of the Post-it Note | CNN BusinessRichard III by William Shakespeare | AmazonThe 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonPhilip Guedalla on the Work of Henry James | WikiwandWinter Outdoor Activities: What is ‘Skinning’? | Hike it BabyArctic Dreams by Barry Lopez | AmazonOf Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez | AmazonSHOW NOTESWhen jumping into a new writing project, does Margaret know if it’s going to be expressed as poetry or prose? From her perspective, is there a difference in where they originate? How do these two sometimes act in synergy? [07:59]How does Margaret maintain her vital life energy at 82 years young? [16:55]In what way does astrology — particularly Gemini rising — explain Margaret’s tendency to “stick [her] nose into things?” [18:45]The Gift vs. Trickster Makes This World. [24:24]What drives Margaret’s ability to craft engaging speculative fiction? [26:51]What are the downsides of raising a family in the woods, blissfully isolated from the world? Margaret shares a glimpse into her own childhood. [33:07]How crossing a football field in a pink princess line dress nudged Margaret toward writing poetry for the first time. [38:03]How the limited number of career options from which a young woman was expected to choose guided Margaret toward her current profession — and how long it took to start paying off. [44:17]What benefit did Margaret get from writing during the time before being paid to do so? [49:44]As someone who’s often found herself in the teaching profession, what type of teaching has Margaret enjoyed most? [52:59]Why Margaret considers The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson to be required reading for young adults. [55:28]Why Margaret resists the act of labeling that humans tend toward. [58:24]What explains Margaret’s ongoing interest in dystopian — as well as utopian — literature, and what can people expect from “Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible,” her eight-week online learning experience? [1:02:58]Comparing and contrasting major revolutions and political upheavals of recent centuries, and what Margaret learned by visiting Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War. [1:08:31]How is the DISCO online learning platform that will host “Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible” different from other such platforms, and what kind of problems will participants be solving? [1:12:01]What readers can expect from Burning Questions. [1:14:42]How has Margaret’s writing process changed over the course of her life? What does it look like these days? [1:19:24]A tangent about shows we binge when our writing quotas for the day are fulfilled, an H.G. Wells story about perspective, and a Twilight Zone episode that (surprise!) doesn’t end well for its protagonist. [1:22:04]Tezos NFTs, illustrated utopias, and inventions fitting unexpected functions. [1:24:22]A spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t yet read The Testaments and doesn’t want to know what happens to a character from The Handmaid’s Tale: skip ahead to the next timestamp! [1:31:48]Does Margaret do research for her characters? [1:33:27]Margaret turns the tables and asks me what prompted my podcasting endeavors. [1:35:36]Dictation apps, the three Henry Jameses, and confessional stenographers. [1:37:48]Undertaking winter adventures at high elevations and other parting thoughts. [1:41:25]MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“You bring to any book who you already are and the age that you are and the experience that you’ve had, and it’s the same for everyone.”
— Margaret Atwood
“The reason I resist closed boxes is that nature does not deal in closed boxes.”
— Margaret Atwood
“There I was in my pink princess line dress crossing the football field, and a poem occurred to me. It wasn’t a very good poem, but it was a poem. I was very excited about it. And this is how these things start. You write some pretty terrible poetry that you’re very excited about, and luckily there’s nobody there to tell you, ‘This is really terrible poetry,’ and then you go on from there.”
— Margaret Atwood
“I was going to be a botanist because I was actually quite good at it. But then along came this writing, much to my parents’ dismay. But being the bite-your-tongue kind of parents, I think they just hoped it would be a phase that I would grow out of.”
— Margaret Atwood
“Writers make stuff up. You ask them questions that essentially have no answers, but they make stuff up anyway. I’ll tell you what I made up, but it is kind of true.”
— Margaret Atwood
February 21, 2022
30 Quotes I’m Pondering and Revisiting
The below 30 quotes have shaped my thinking and changed my behavior over the last year. I revisit them often.
They were all featured in 5-Bullet Friday, my free weekly newsletter, which is a short email of five bullet points sent out each Friday to ~1.5–2M subscribers. Each edition describes the five coolest things I’ve found or explored that week, often including books, gadgets, tricks from experts, articles, and weird stuff from all over the world.
I hope you enjoy the following gems as much as I have…
“Language can become a screen which stands between the thinker and reality. This is the reason why true creativity often starts where language ends.”
— Arthur Koestler
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
“People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.”
— Chuck Palahniuk
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
— Robert M. Pirsig
“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.”
— Yousuf Karsh
“A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.”
― Winston Churchill
“I will have to remember ‘I am here today to cross the swamp, not to fight all the alligators.’”
— From The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander
“Our bodies are apt to be our autobiographies.”
— Frank Gelett Burgess
“Anytime you’re practicing renunciation, you’re deluded. How about that! You’re deluded. What are you renouncing? Anytime you renounce something, you are tied forever to the thing you renounce. There’s a guru in India who says, ‘Every time a prostitute comes to me, she’s talking about nothing but God. She says I’m sick of this life that I’m living. I want God. But every time a priest comes to me, he’s talking about nothing but sex.’ Very well, when you renounce something, you’re stuck to it forever. When you fight something, you’re tied to it forever. As long as you’re fighting it, you are giving it power. You give it as much power as you are using to fight it.”
— Anthony de Mello, Awareness
“If we can forgive what’s been done to us… If we can forgive what we’ve done to others… If we can leave our stories behind. Our being victims and villains. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.”
— Chuck Palahniuk
“All of our miseries are nothing but attachment.”
— Osho
“Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
— Maya Angelou
“Those who do not weep, do not see.”
— Victor Hugo
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
“To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have cost without profits. It never occurs to such people that these products might cost several million dollars more to produce if they were produced by enterprises operating without the incentives to be efficient created by the prospect of profits.”
— Thomas Sowell
“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein
“You remain awake at night and perform your devotions. Also awake at night are dogs, better than you. They bark and in no way can they be stopped. They go and sleep on the dung heap, better than you. They do not leave their master’s door, even if they get beaten with slippers, better than you. Bulleh Shah, buy yourself something for the journey, or else the game will be won by the dogs, better than you.”
― Bulleh Shah
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
— Herbert Simon
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
— Max Planck
“Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.”
— Anatole France
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
— Anne Lamott
“I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.”
—
William Cowper
“The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
— Amos Tversky
“No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”
— Seneca the Younger
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
— Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) (alternatively attributed to Sir Mark Young and/or Bernard Baruch)
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
―
Epicurus
“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
— Chuck Palahniuk
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
— Richard Feynman
“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover.”
― Henri Poincaré
“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.”
— Henri Poincaré
You can subscribe to 5-Bullet Friday here. Each week, I share one carefully selected quote in addition to four short bullets about other interesting things I’ve discovered.
February 17, 2022
In Case You Missed It: January 2022 Recap of The Tim Ferriss Show (#572)
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 the first 15 or so minutes from each conversation in one place, so you can easily jump around to get a taste for the episode and guest.
See it as a teaser. Something to whet your appetite. If you like what you hear, you can of course find the full episodes at tim.blog/podcast.
Please enjoy!
P.S. If you have any feedback, please let me know on Twitter (@tferriss) and mention me and @TeamTimFerriss, plus #experiment, so that we can easily find it.
***
Timestamps:
Rich Roll: 00:02:06
Michio Kaku: 00:19:06
Sarah Silverman: 00:34:21
Michael Gervais: 00:47:01
Michael Schur: 01:00:32
John List: 01:15:32
Sue Flood: 01:30:45
***
Full episode titles:
#561: Rich Roll — Reinventing Your Life at 30, 40, and Beyond
#564: Performance Psychologist Michael Gervais — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#572: In Case You Missed It: January 2022 Recap of The Tim Ferriss Show
February 15, 2022
Boyd Varty — The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life (#571)
Illustration via 99designs“If it had been a horror movie, people in the audience would’ve started saying, ‘Don’t go near the shadowy place!’ And of course, as I walked past the shadowy place, I actually sat down just on the edge of those shadows. And my perception was that the water was too shallow for crocodiles. But of course the crocodile was in the hole and the first thing that you notice when a crocodile grabs you is just the ferocity and the pressure of the bite.”
— Boyd Varty
Boyd Varty (@boydvarty) is the author of two books, The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life and his memoir, Cathedral of the Wild. He has been featured in The New York Times, on NBC, and in other media and has taught his philosophy of “tracking your life” to individuals and companies around the world.
Boyd is a wildlife and literacy activist who has spent the last ten years refining the art of using wilderness as a place for deep introspection and personal transformation. He grew up in South Africa on Londolozi Game Reserve, a former hunting ground that was transformed into a nature preserve by Boyd’s father and uncle — both visionaries of the restoration movement. Under his family’s stewardship, the Reserve became renowned not only as a sanctuary for animals but as a place where once-ravaged land was able to flourish again and where the human spirit could be restored. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years of imprisonment, he went to Londolozi to recover.
Boyd has a degree in psychology from the University of South Africa. He is a TED speaker and the host of the Track Your Life podcast.
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Want to hear an episode about wolf restoration efforts? Listen to my conversation with Turner Endangered Species Fund Executive Director Mike Phillips in which we discuss the pros and cons of predator reintroduction, radioactive wolves, the extinction crisis, what conservationists most often get wrong, and much more.
#383: Mike Phillips — How to Save a SpeciesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Boyd Varty:The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by Boyd Varty | AmazonCathedral of the Wild: An African Journey Home by Boyd Varty | AmazonTrack Your Life with Boyd Varty | Apple PodcastsBoyd Varty: What I Learned from Nelson Mandela | TED TalkLondolozi Game ReserveTracker AcademyThe Gift by Hafiz, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky | AmazonHow to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan | AmazonAwareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | AmazonA History of Apartheid in South Africa | South African History OnlineKruger National Park | SAN ParksJet, Turboprop, and Piston Models | Cessna AircraftMarabou Stork | Siyabona AfricaPulp Fiction | Prime VideoThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre | Prime VideoA Brief History of the Shangaan People | Londolozi BlogThe Original Leopard Trackers | Londolozi BlogThe Original Mother Leopard: End of a Lineage? | Londolozi BlogLondolozi’s Staff Take a Walk on The Wild Side | Londolozi BlogWhy are Impala so Successful? | Londolozi BlogThe Tree of Life | Londolozi BlogPopular Quotations without Citations to Prove Dr. Jung Uttered Them | Carl Jung Depth PsychologyWhat Makes Crocodiles Such Stealthy Hunters? | Londolozi BlogI Am, Because of You: Ubuntu | Londolozi Blog40 Days 40 Nights | Boyd VartyMeet the Greater Honeyguide, the Bird That Understands Humans | AudubonGuided to Honey | Londolozi BlogOn Bees | Londolozi BlogA Day in the Life of an African Worker Bee | Londolozi BlogEbola Fears Hurting African Tourism | TelegraphPodcast: What Being Stung by a Swarm of Bees Taught Me About Humanity | Boyd VartyIndependence Day | Prime VideoLondolozi’s Lions: Current Status | Londolozi BlogOf Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez | AmazonArctic Dreams by Barry Lopez | AmazonWhat Is Meant by Native Americans and Some Wolf Biologists Referring to a ‘Conversation of Death’ between Wolves and Wild Prey Animals? | QuoraWatch a Coyote and Badger Hunt Their Prey Together | SmithsonianThe Kalahari | Londolozi BlogMopani Region | South AfricaThe Shark Magnetic Sense | Hawaii Institute of Marine BiologySpeak the Gospel | Christianity TodayInternal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition by Richard C. Schwartz and Martha Sweezy | AmazonThe Work of Byron KatieHealing Benefits of Sweat Lodge Ceremonies | Learn ReligionsFiery-Necked Nightjar: “Good Lord, Deliver Us!” | Lower Breede River Conservancy TrustRaging Fire, Contained. | Londolozi BlogRunaway Wild Bushfire at Londolozi | YouTubeEducation vs. Extinction | Mission: WolfDogs: A Short History from Wolf to Woof by Angus Phillips and Evan Ratliff | AmazonSHOW NOTESSetting the scene. [05:44]How the Londolozi Game Reserve came to be, and what happened during Boyd’s childhood that instilled him with a “get on with it” attitude. [08:02]Why did Boyd’s father and uncle insist on keeping the property that would become the Londolozi Game Reserve when, at the time, it was considered useless, overgrazed wasteland? [10:18]Boyd shares what it was like growing up as a regular passenger/survivor of The White Knuckle Charter Company. [12:25]How a man named Ken Tinley and the native Shangaan trackers helped a trio of teenagers transform their expanse of scrub-encroached land into a thriving safari business. [21:03]On the ancient lineage of the Shangaan trackers, and how the local wildlife came to trust the human caretakers of Londolozi. [27:05]Renias Mhlongo is supreme among world-class trackers — and sometimes the importance of the work outweighs the will of his clients. [32:21]Which animals are hardest to track at Londolozi — even if you happen to be Richard Siwela? [37:53]Because nature can be unpredictable, how do people protect themselves in Londolozi? [41:03]“I don’t know where we’re going, but I know exactly how to get there.” —Renias Mhlongo [42:56]How the tracking process has changed for Boyd over the years — from confident child to young adult traumatized by a home invasion and crocodile attack to competent grown-up thanks to people like Dr. Martha Beck and Solly Mhlongo. [45:00]What is Ubuntu? [1:02:50]Boyd talks about that time he lived 40 days and 40 nights up a tree — the questions he was trying to answer for himself by doing so, the primal fear he experienced while waiting out a storm, the pros and cons of extreme solitude, and if he’d do it again. [1:05:15]Stories about bees, the birds who help humans rob them, and the power of the hive algorithm. [1:17:45]The dos and don’ts of interacting with lions in the wild. [1:29:42]On the eerie conversation of death, modern confirmation of ancient myths, and the inexplicable movements of beasts and men. [1:34:16]How did Boyd’s own path toward healing after trauma differ from the way his mother and sister recovered from a trauma they experienced? [1:39:57]What is ceremony work, and how can it help someone deal with trauma? [1:43:32]What Boyd means when he says “an authentic life infused with meaning is a kind of activism.” [1:46:40]How Boyd and I have both been affected by the Work of Byron Katie. [1:52:03]Boyd’s first medicine encounter in an Arizona sweat lodge, and what he took away from the experience. [1:56:31]Feelings. Nothing more than feelings. [2:02:49]Kudus and nightjars and leopards in the fire (oh, my)! What a close encounter with a beautiful predator taught Boyd about Ubuntu. [2:04:14]Examining the therapeutic value of spending time with animals. [2:13:05]Laurens van der Post poetically described the sound of a lion’s roar. And, in a packed presentation hall at a major Silicon Valley company, Boyd did not. [2:17:57]An invitation to visit Londolozi and other parting thoughts. [2:22:10]MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW“Biologists feel the more time you spend in nature, the more you’ll realize how little we know. There is subtlety and nuance and there are things happening out there that go way beyond our understanding.”
— Boyd Varty
“In these times, an authentic life infused with meaning is a kind of activism.”
— Boyd Varty
“You can’t half-roar at a group of executives. You’ve either got to not do it or go all in.”
— Boyd Varty
“It was a little Cessna that had a quirk. And let me tell you, when it comes to aviation, you don’t want planes with quirks.”
— Boyd Varty
“If it had been a horror movie, people in the audience would’ve started saying, ‘Don’t go near the shadowy place!’ And of course, as I walked past the shadowy place, I actually sat down just on the edge of those shadows. And my perception was that the water was too shallow for crocodiles. But of course the crocodile was in the hole and the first thing that you notice when a crocodile grabs you is just the ferocity and the pressure of the bite.”
— Boyd Varty
“If you spend time in nature in the same spot, over a period of time, it starts to become incredibly personal. So it’s not just a bird or that antelope, it’s that bird that roosts in that bush and flies down the river bed in the morning and back up the southern bank. And then it feeds for grubs in this tree. And as you start to become more personally attuned to each animal, you start to see that there’s a pattern to their movement. And in fact, then you start to find yourself orientated inside of a series of interlocking intelligences — that is really what the natural world is.”
— Boyd Varty
