Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 54

Sam Zell — Strategies for High-Stakes Investing, Dealmaking, and Grave Dancing (#407)

“If I can’t run it, then I don’t want to own it.” — Sam Zell

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply and test in your own life. This time, we have a slightly different episode. I will not be the one doing the deconstructing. Instead, we have a takeover by my very good friend, Peter Attia.

As longtime listeners of the podcast know, Dr. Peter Attia (@PeterAttiaMD) is a former ultra-endurance athlete, a compulsive self-experimenter, and one of the most fascinating human beings I know. He is also one of my go-to doctors for anything related to performance or longevity.  Peter also hosts The Drive, a weekly, ultra-deep-dive podcast focusing on maximizing health, longevity, critical thinking, and a few other things. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this episode, we have Peter interviewing Sam Zell, a legendary dealmaker and investor.  Sam is the Chairman of Equity Group Investments, and he was recognized by Forbes as one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” in 2017. He holds a place on New York Stock Exchange’s “Wall of Innovators” for his role in building the $1 trillion REIT industry. Sam is also the author of Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel. 

This is one not to miss. Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast

#407: Sam Zell — Strategies for High-Stakes Investing, Dealmaking, and Grave Dancing
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This episode is also brought to you by FreshBooks. I’ve been talking about FreshBooks — an all-in-one invoicing+payments+accounting solution — for years now. Many entrepreneurs, as well as the contractors and freelancers that I work with, use it all the time.

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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 the last time Peter was on the podcast? — Listen to our conversation here. In that interview, we discuss Centenarian Olympics, goblet squats, metformin for longevity, xenon gas for performance enhancement, archery, tearing phone books in half, and much more. (Stream below or right-click here to download.)

#398: Peter Attia, M.D. — Fasting, Metformin, Athletic Performance, and Morehttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/a2c25d5a-5130-47a0-a746-f2bdcae67dc1.mp3Download

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Equity Group Investments
Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell
100 Quotes On Business From The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds, Forbes
5 Types of REITs and How to Invest in Them, Investopedia
Kristallnacht, The Holocaust Encyclopedia
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (August 1939), Jewish Virtual Library
The Invasion of Poland (1939), Simple History
36 Hours in Vilnius, Lithuania, The New York Times
Curaçao: The Caribbean Getaway That Sets You Free, Curaçao Tourist Board
Transit Visa Signed by Chiune Sugihara, Facing History and Ourselves
Trans-Siberian Express, The Holocaust Encyclopedia
Discover Vladivostok, Pacific Russia Tourism Alliance
The Bolshoi Theatre
Marshall Field & Company, Chicago, The Department Store Museum
How the Nazi Concentration Camps Worked, The New Yorker
The Effects of the Holocaust on the Children of Survivors, ThoughtCo.
West Toledo Apartment Complex in Midst of $1.8 Million Facelift, The Blade
Law of Supply and Demand, Investopedia
7 Reasons It’s Finally Time to Live in Research Triangle Park, Forbes
Life After Death, Forbes
The Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center, The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania
The Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity, University of Michigan
The Giving Pledge
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Eisenhower Paved the Way for REIT Investors to Enjoy Durable Dividends, Forbes
Sam Zell Talks About the Evolution of REITs, Nareit
Fish in Poker: How Not to Be a Fish at the Tables, Casinos for Money
Savings and Loan Crisis, Investopedia
The 2007-08 Financial Crisis in Review, Investopedia
Housing Bubble, Investopedia
From Cassandra with Love by Samuel Zell, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance
Cassandra — Cursed Prophetess of Greek Mythology, Greek Boston
The Performance of Real Estate as an Asset Class by William Goetzmann and Roger G. Ibbotson, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance
Investors Lose With ‘Hope Notes’, The Wall Street Journal
Canary in a Coal Mine, Bird Note
What is a Leveraged Buyout? Introduction to LBOs, Sell Side Handbook
Real Estate Tycoon Sam Zell Slams WeWork: ‘Every Single Company in This Space Has Gone Broke’, CNBC
Regus
Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling, Investopedia
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Star Wars
Dotcom Bubble, Investopedia
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon
Genghis Khan to Gucci: Retail Potential in Mongolia, RETalk Asia
Syria Crisis, CNN
Life in Aleppo, Syria (Post War Reconstruction), Drew Binsky
Grasberg Mine, Tembagapura, Indonesia, Atlas Obscura
FAANG Stocks, Investopedia
5 Ways The Fed’s Interest Rate Decisions Impact You, Bankrate
What Happened When China Joined the WTO?, The Council on Foreign Relations
Sam and Helen Zell, Philanthropy Today
Speech on Campus, American Civil Liberties Union
Maybe Not a Role Model for a B-School?, Inside Higher Ed

SHOW NOTES

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Timestamps will be added shortly.   

Sam details the long journey his parents took to escape Poland just hours before the German invasion in 1939 and arrive in Chicago via Russia and Japan by 1941, and how lucky he really was to have been born in the United States.
Taking the risk to leave everything behind by making a choice that history proved to be the right one, did Sam’s father ever articulate to him, in explicit or implicit terms, his decision-making process?
Has Sam always been one to do what he thought was right, no matter how unpopular it might be? Did his family’s close call with extermination factor into his own outlook?
Why did Sam pursue an education, and then a career, in law — and then swiftly abandon it? How did he turn what could have been a huge waste of time into a unique opportunity, and how did this lead to him setting up his own business?
How Sam diverged from his father’s real estate investment strategy to land successful deals in untapped and overlooked markets.
Sam recalls the first real estate deals he made with his father and the level of thought that went into them.
What was the only real takeaway Sam brought out of Econ 101 class in college, and what was his philosophy around purchasing assets that were already capable of deploying yield versus developing assets?
When did Sam start to appreciate the operational side of risk, and how did he manage it?
The variables that can delay a project and teach an unwary developer a very expensive lesson about inflation.
How did Sam meet Jay Pritzker, the man he considers “the smartest risk guy” he ever met — and what did he teach Sam about risk?
Is there an asset class for which these lessons about risk don’t translate?
Where did Sam meet Bob Lurie, and how did they discover the “complementary skill sets but shared values” that made them ideal business partners?
Sam talks about dealing with the shock of Bob’s death from cancer in 1990, and how he and Bob’s wife committed to the philanthropy that would be his posthumous legacy.
What’s a real estate investment trust (REIT), and what is Sam’s role in the creation of what has become a more than one trillion-dollar asset class?
What disaster did Sam foresee as early as 1988 that turned him into a “Cassandra” among real estate investors, and what factors made it seem inevitable?
What made the recession in 2008 different from other financial crises tied to real estate?
Does Sam believe the state of commercial real estate occupancy or glut in supply and demand is a “canary in the coal mine” for the US economy?
What is a leveraged buyout (LBO)?
Why does Sam think of office-sharing firm WeWork as “the Enron of real estate,” and what tipped him off years before anyone else seemed to see it?
Why Sam would never buy a business he couldn’t run, and why it’s important for everybody involved in a business to have some skin in the game.
What’s the secret to Sam’s collection of loyal business collaborators — many of whom have worked with him for 20 to 30 years?
How did Sam facilitate the needs of an employee who decided that she wanted to go to divinity school, and what is she doing today?
Why and when did Sam get in the habit of giving year-end gifts that get remembered, and what’s changed about the process over the years?
A big part of how Sam mitigates risk is to know as much as possible about his world. As a lifelong learner, how does he stay abreast of what’s going on in that world?
According to Sam, a typical CEO of a Fortune 500 company travels 250 hours a year. He travels 1,000, but insists that he doesn’t take what most people would consider vacations. Where does he go, and what motivates him to go there?
What does Sam mean when he says “We suffer from knowing the numbers,” and how does he find a balance between knowing too much and not knowing enough when it comes to business? How would he teach someone to find their own balance?
Now in his 70s, what are Sam’s plans for retirement?
Is Sam optimistic about where the US economy appears to be headed? Does it seem overly interwoven with the fate of China’s economy, or can it prosper with or without China?
How does a first-generation kid like Sam inspire and encourage his kids to excel with the same intensity that his own parents directed at him?
Outside of the day-to-day concerns of the business world, what problem is Sam most interested in solving?

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Bernard and Rochelle Zell
Chiune Sugihara
Perry Mason
Jay Pritzker
Robert Lurie
Ann Lurie
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Paul Fegan
Abraham Lincoln
Bee Gees
Paul Simon
John Grisham
David Baldacci
Helen Zell

Finding the One Decision That Removes 100 Decisions (or, Why I’m Reading No New Books in 2020)

Donald Knuth, a renowned mathematician and recipient of the Turing Award (considered the Nobel Prize of computer science), retired from using email in 1990. 

He issued a public statement on his Stanford faculty page, which I saved to Evernote 1–2 years ago. I think of it often, and my favorite portion is below:

“I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime. Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration.”

I want to make 2020 a year of smarter decisions. 

To make that a reality, I’ve been pondering how much I want to specialize in speed versus finding targets that don’t require speed. That is why I bolded and underlined the above lines in Donald’s post.

Looking back over the last decade, I have made many good fast decisions, but I have nearly never made good rushed decisions. The former can be made from a place of calm, whereas the latter come from a place of turbulence and blurred judgment.

How can we create an environment that fosters better, often non-obvious, decisions?

There are many approaches, no doubt. But I realized a few weeks ago that one of the keys appeared twice in conversations from 2019. It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve that I noticed the pattern.

To paraphrase both Greg McKeown and Jim Collins, here it is: look for single decisions that remove hundreds or thousands of other decisions.

This was one of the most important lessons Jim learned from legendary management theorist Peter Drucker. As Jim recounted on the podcast, “Don’t make a hundred decisions when one will do. . . . Peter believed that you tend to think that you’re making a lot of different decisions. But then, actually, if you kind of strip it away, you can begin to realize that a whole lot of decisions that look like different decisions are really part of the same category of a decision.”

Much like my startup vacation/retirement in 2015, I’m now asking myself across the board: what can I categorically and completely remove, even temporarily, to create space for seeing the bigger picture and finding gems?

To that end, I’m committing to *not* reading any new books in 2020. This means I will not read any books published in 2020.

Here are a few reasons why:

New books, often from recommendations or external pressure, elicit a fear of missing out (FOMO) in me that is both unpleasant and unproductive and that leaves little room for original thought, discovery, or creation.
We don’t have that much time left to read books. Tim Urban’s The Tail End makes this clear. Based on his calculus, he might only read another 300 books before he dies. He and I are roughly the same age, and Tim is a very fast reader. Considering that, taking a year to only read books that have stood the test of time seems worthwhile.   
Each week, dozens of unsolicited books are mailed to me. Here’s an example from one day(!) in 2008, which is perhaps 20% of the current deluge. These books have recently come from publishers like Avery Books and Knopf, among others. I immediately donate all such books to libraries, but it still consumes energy and is a waste of trees. Thanks for permanently removing me from your lists, guys.
I’m not good at moderation. I’m much better with fasting than caloric restriction, for instance. “No dessert” is a lot easier for me than “some dessert.” I thrive with loving constraints: strict, binary rules that remove all deliberation and protect me from my lesser self. 
For years, I’ve had a public policy of not blurbing books. This is to avoid picking and choosing among friends, which is awful. I’ve put this policy on the blog and in my email auto-response, but it’s not visible enough; I am still asked on a weekly basis. Things can and do get uncomfortable. So, I’m publishing this blog post and fixing the problem further upstream: I’m not even reading any new books in 2020.  No “What I’m reading” bullets in the “5-Bullet Friday” newsletter will feature books published in 2020.
I am prone to procrastinating via reading. It’s a socially acceptable form of avoiding things, but let’s make no mistake: reading is often used to avoid things. If I want to write more, for example, it behooves me to dramatically limit the types of books I’m allowed to read.

To quote Bishop Desmond Tutu, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

Making too many decisions is often symptomatic of poor systems or process. I’m as guilty of this as the next person. In 2019, I made waaaay too many decisions, and it exhausted me.

But guilt can serve as a useful diagnostic tool. As one of my favorite people, Maria Popova, said in our last conversation: “Guilt is the flip side of prestige, and they’re both horrible reasons to do something.”

Here are some questions that have helped me think through all of this:

In my life, where am I making decisions or saying “yes” out of guilt? Can I create a blanket policy that makes it easier for me to say “no”?
In what areas am I making a lot of decisions, or sending a lot of communication? Are they concentrated anywhere? Can I create a blanket policy that makes it easier for other people to make those decisions?
In what areas am I making a lot of decisions, or sending a lot of communication? Are they concentrated anywhere? Can I create a blanket policy that entirely removes the need to make those decisions?

How can you make higher-level decisions? Look further upstream.

Do you want to try to stay on top of things, or do you want to try to get to the bottom of things?

Personally, I’ve vowed to focus on the latter in 2020. No new books is part of that, and there will be more divesting. Much more.

Where have you made single decisions that removed many decisions? Or where could you make single decisions that remove many decisions? Please let me know in the comments, as I’d love to share ideas as a community.

Here’s to making the right de-cisions (as in “cutting away”) . . .

Onward and upward,

Tim

P.S. If you’re interested, this is the last “new” book I’m allowing myself to read. There are two reasons for this particular book: 1) it was sent to me in 2019, and 2) it’s the updated version of an older book that helped me out of a dark place when I needed it most.

Bob Iger — CEO and Chairman of Disney (#406)

As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, Robert A. Iger (@RobertIger) is the steward of one of the world’s largest media companies and some of the most respected and beloved brands around the globe. Since becoming CEO in 2005, Iger has built on Disney’s rich history of storytelling and innovation with the acquisitions of Pixar (2006), Marvel (2009), Lucasfilm (2012) and 21st Century Fox (2019), and the landmark opening of Disney’s first theme park and resort in Mainland China, Shanghai Disney Resort in 2016.

Always one to embrace new technology, Iger has created an ambitious direct-to-consumer strategy that leverages Disney’s unparalleled creative content across new platforms, including the new Disney+ streaming service, ESPN+, Hulu, and Hotstar.

He serves on the boards of the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum and Bloomberg Philanthropies. He is a graduate of Ithaca College.

His new autobiography is titled The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, which offers stories and lessons about dealmaking, leadership, and much more.

Please enjoy! 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Listen onApple Podcasts
Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast

#406: Bob Iger — CEO and Chairman of Disney
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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 an episode with someone who also draws inspiration from the words of Teddy Roosevelt? Check out my conversation with LeBron James in which we discuss self-care, self-talk, sleep, wine, workouts, and much more. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#349: LeBron James and His Top-Secret Trainer, Mike Manciashttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/b97b91ba-c496-46a0-8e2b-08544e9c0f15.mp3Download

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Bob Iger:

The Walt Disney Company | Twitter

The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger
Pixar
How Pixar saved Steve Jobs and Apple, CNN Business
Disney to Buy Pixar for $7.4 Billion, The New York Times
Bob Iger and Marc Andreessen Bridge Hollywood and Silicon Valley, Vanity Fair
Iron Man 2
ABC’s Wide World of Sports
North Korea’s Behavior At The 1979 Ping Pong Championships Really Said It All, Business Insider
A Herculean Effort: What Led to the 12 Labors of Hercules and How Did He Succeed? Ancient Origins
The Odyssey by Homer
Lucasfilm
Marvel
How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area, Codus Operandi
VersaClimber
Foreign Experts Building, Beijing
Home Slice Pizza, Austin
Paulie Gee’s, F&F Pizzeria, and New York City’s Slice Renaissance, The New Yorker
Norm’s Pizza, Brooklyn
Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop, Brooklyn
Eater Austin
DeSano Pizza, Austin
Little Deli & Pizzeria, Austin
Pinthouse Pizza, Austin
Tony C’s Coal-Fired Pizza, Austin
Picnik, Austin
Disney CEO Robert Iger Visits Penn for Authors@Wharton Speaker Series, The Daily Pennsylvanian
Bipolar Disorder Symptoms and Causes, The Mayo Clinic
The Slow-Burning Success of Disney’s Bob Iger, The New York Times
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life by Richard Carlson
What Happened at Gallipoli? The Guardian
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming
Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

SHOW NOTES

Bob talks about the whiteboard meeting he had with Steve Jobs laying out the pros and seemingly insurmountable cons of Disney’s potential purchase of Pixar, and his impression of what was really going on in Steve’s mind at the time. [08:02]
Steve used to call Bob regularly on weekends. In addition to scathing movie critiques, what did these two titans of industry tend to talk about? [16:24]
Who was Roone Arledge, and what did he teach Bob about long shots? [19:39]
How — and from whom — did Bob learn to navigate the impossible and make deals that, at first glance, seem like herculean tasks — like securing the rights for ABC to cover the 1979 World Table Tennis Championships in North Korea at a time when no Western press had been permitted to visit since before the Korean War? [23:52]
With over four decades of education in the business, what separates a good negotiator from a great negotiator in Bob’s estimation? [26:54]
How does Bob communicate with others in his organization when a deal they may be emotionally invested in doesn’t get made? [29:46]
As someone with a reputation for taking risks, what was Bob’s early exposure to risk-taking like? [31:24]
How being deemed “unpromotable” by a terrible boss led to the opportunities and contacts that really set Bob’s career in motion. [32:59]
On maximizing luck surface area (a term coined by Jason Roberts) and the three reasons exercise has played such an important role in Bob’s life. [37:59]
What does Bob’s exercise regimen look like? [41:46]
Bob and I share a few of our experiences in China during the ’90s. [44:28]
As Bob likes to exercise solo most of the time as a form of meditation, what role does his personal trainer play on the days he visits, and how often does this happen? [46:42]
While Bob usually abstains from bread or pasta, he allows himself to indulge in pizza once or twice a month. Does he have any preferences or favorite places to get it? How does he save recommendations so he can remember to try new places later? What he indulges, what’s his limit? One slice or one dozen? [47:47]
From an interview they did together recently, Adam Grant says Bob prepares more than most CEOs for meeting new people. What is Bob’s prep process for first meetings? [52:27]
As someone who believes that leaders should exhibit optimism because “nobody wants to follow Eeyore,” how does Bob do his best to cultivate this quality in his own kids? [55:22]
A challenging time in Bob’s career and how he navigated his way through it. [58:25]
Bob shares the adversity he faced as a child with a father who was suffering from severe manic depression. [1:02:15]
Growing up around his father’s frequently tempestuous — and unpredictable — outbursts, what is Bob’s relationship with anger like now? [1:04:58]
Bob recalls a time when little things would set off his temper, but he’s since gained more control over this kind of anger. What changed to make this possible? [1:07:01]
“There’s a cruelty to growing old in a way because the end is near, but there’s also a lot of value in growing old.” [1:10:11]
Aside from optimism, what are some of the more important lessons and character traits Bob hopes to instill in his kids, and how are they taught? [1:11:33]
Lessons or stories that Bob wishes people would pay more attention to. [1:15:08]
On knowing how to identify opportunity and take it when it comes. [1:17:26]
Leaders, philosophies, and books that Bob has leaned on to help him stay the course and walk through these doors of opportunity. [1:19:42]
A memorable Teddy Roosevelt quote by which to live. [1:23:58]
Parting thoughts. [1:26:09]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Steve Jobs
Kara Swisher
Marc Andreessen
Reed Jobs
Roone Arledge
Hercules
Michael Eisner
Jim Spence
George Lucas
Ike Perlmutter
Frank Sinatra
Jason Roberts
Adam Grant
Tim Geithner
Eeyore
Ken Burns
Willow Bay
Marcus Aurelius
Winston Churchill
Babe Ruth
Ian Fleming
James Bond
Teddy Roosevelt
LeBron James

Penn Jillette on Magic, Losing 100+ Pounds, and Weaponizing Kindness (#405)

“One of the biggest challenges we face is staying kind with profound disagreement—and staying kind when a mechanism has been set up to make money and power out of hate.” — Penn Jillette

Penn Jillette (@pennjillette) is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous, Emmy Award-winning magic duo and Las Vegas headliners Penn & Teller.

Together since 1975, Penn & Teller’s live show spent years on Broadway and is now the longest-running headliner show in Las Vegas where it plays nightly at The Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. The pair has been awarded Las Vegas Magicians of the Year an amazing eights times.

As part of Penn & Teller he has appeared on hundreds of shows, from The Simpsons and Friends to Billions. He recently co-wrote an episode of the Emmy-winning Netflix series Black Mirror.

He co-hosted the controversial Showtime series Penn & Teller: Bullshit! which was nominated for thirteen Emmy Awards, won him a Writers Guild award, and was the longest-running show in the history of the network. He currently co-hosts the CW Network hit competition series Penn & Teller: Fool Us! which was nominated for a 2017 Critics’ Choice award.

Penn’s latest book, The New York Times Best Seller Presto! takes an insightful and very humorous look at his recent weight loss journey. His previous book, God No! Signs You Might Be An Atheist and Other Magic Tales, spent six weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

His weekly podcast, Penn’s Sunday School, was the number one downloaded podcast on Apple Podcasts during its debut week, and was named a Best New Comedy Podcast by Apple Podcasts.

On the big screen, Penn produced the critically lauded 2005 documentary The Aristocrats, which features over 100 of the biggest names in comedy telling their versions of the dirtiest joke in history. He produced Tim’s Vermeer, which follows the journey of an eccentric inventor determined to solve one of the art world’s oldest mysteries. The Sony Pictures Classics release was nominated for a BAFTA and was shortlisted for the 2014 Oscars. He has recently completed the documentary Gambler’s Ballad profiling magic legend Johnny Thompson.

Penn & Teller have their very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and triumphantly returned to Broadway recently with Penn & Teller On Broadway, which was the highest-grossing non-musical for the entirety of its run.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Listen onApple Podcasts
Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast

#405: Penn Jillette on Magic, Losing 100+ Pounds, and Weaponizing Kindness
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Why Brave? Because Brave gives you unmatched speed, security, and privacy. Whereas other browsers suck up your data — profiling and tracking you across the Web and using that information to manipulate your decisions — Brave operates up to six times faster by blocking ads and website trackers, preserving your anonymity and protecting you from this surveillance economy. Brave also includes options such as Private Window with Tor for those seeking advanced privacy and safety. Intuitive and easy to use, Brave allows you to import bookmarks from other browsers with one click, and all your favorite Chrome extensions are available with Brave. Listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can easily upgrade their browser for free right now by going to Brave.com/Tim.

This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Hiring can be hard, and it and be super expensive and painful if you get it wrong. Today, with more qualified candidates than ever — but also more noise than ever — employers need a hiring solution that helps them find the right people for their businesses. LinkedIn Jobs provides just that by screening candidates with the hard and soft skills you’re looking for so you can quickly find and hire the right person.

LinkedIn can make sure your job post gets in front of people you want to hire — people with the skills, qualifications, and other insights that help LinkedIn paint a better picture of potential candidates. It’s no wonder great candidates are hired every eight seconds on LinkedIn. Find the right person meant for your business today with LinkedIn Jobs. You can pay what you want, and the first $50 is on LinkedIn. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim to get $50 off your first job post! Terms and conditions apply.

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 a friend Penn and I share? — Listen to my conversation with Brian Koppelman, co-writer/producer of Rounders, Billions, The Illusionist, and Ocean’s Thirteen. In the episode, we explore how he got started, how he handles rejection, his big breaks, creative process, and much more (stream below or right-click here to download):

#10: Brian Koppelman, Co-writer/Producer of Rounders, The Illusionist, Ocean's Thirteenhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/a7042c78-d249-4a70-8be3-cf68760113ba.mp3Download

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Penn Jillette:

Penn & Teller | Penn’s Sunday School | Twitter

Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales by Penn Jillette
God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales by Penn Jillette
An Honest Liar
Extrasensory Perception (ESP), Wikipedia
The Art of Thought Reading by Joseph Dunninger
Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions by James Randi
The Trouble with Scientists: How One Psychologist Is Tackling Human Biases in Science, Nautilus
Fantastically Wrong: The Imaginary Radiation That Shocked Science and Ruined Its ‘Discoverer’, Wired
Scientific Method, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Confirmation Bias, Catalogue of Bias
Spidey Sense, Wiktionary
Second Law of Thermodynamics, NASA
Is It Possible to Construct a Perpetual Motion Machine? MIT
Xenu’s Paradox: The Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard and the Making of Scientology, Longreads
The “Pee Tape” Claim, Explained, Vox
The Artist’s Way Morning Pages Journal: A Companion Volume to the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
I Am The Walrus by The Beatles
Waking Up with Sam Harris Meditation App
Only a Hobo by Bob Dylan
Massachusetts Is Going to Eliminate Most Rotaries, Boston Magazine
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, Wikipedia
Delorean Time Machine: Headhouse Square, OCF Realty
Atheism and Agnosticism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Libertarianism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Penn Jillette’s Finale on Celebrity Apprentice
The 4 Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss
Marlon Brando Horror Speech, Apocalypse Now
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
How Contrast Bath Therapy Works, Verywell Health
Dualism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Aboard NASA’s ‘Vomit Comet’, Rochester Institute of Technology
The Beginner’s Guide to Intermittent Fasting by James Clear
What Nine Days of Fasting Does to Your Body and Brain, Esquire
Farro: An Ancient And Complicated Grain Worth Figuring Out, NPR
Eat for Life: The Breakthrough Nutrient-Rich Program for Longevity, Disease Reversal, and Sustained Weight Loss by Joel Fuhrman M.D.
First Bite: How We Learn to Eat by Bee Wilson
The Human Microbiome: Why Our Microbes Could Be Key to Our Health, The Guardian
NUMB3RS, IMDb
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
Las Palmas Theatre, Hollywood
The Carnival Ten In One, Doc’s Midway Cookhouse
Absolutely Sweet Marie by Bob Dylan
Tim’s Vermeer
Texas de Brazil
The Creator of Godwin’s Law Explains Why Some Nazi Comparisons Don’t Break His Famous Internet Rule, The Washington Post
Pundits Share How to Avoid Political Food Fights This Thanksgiving, The Hill

SHOW NOTES

How does Penn know our mutual friend Brian Koppelman, and what do they share in common? [08:10]
Who is James Randi, and how did he come to be such an influence on Penn? [10:57]
What can we do to guard against deceit by becoming more skeptical without becoming more cynical? [18:09]
Joking that journaling is “one way to teach yourself that you don’t remember things properly,” what got Penn to start keeping a journal at age 30, and how does he use journaling today? After 34 years, how does he benefit from the time he puts into the almost-daily practice? [24:37]
Confessing he has a visual memory so weak that it’s been “studied by people,” how does Penn compensate for this in his professional life? Does it give him a unique edge? [37:36]
What does the content of Penn’s dreams look or feel like? [43:14]
What led to Penn’s period of homeless wandering in his youth, how long did it last, and how did it differ from what we might think of as “homeless” in the modern context? [48:14]
What constituted Penn’s street performance that earned him “several grand a week” during this homeless period, how did he manage to consistently get a crowd of 300-500 people to watch him perform, and why is his distinctive voice a direct result of these performances? [52:30]
How did this period shape the way Penn sees the world today? What did it teach him about trusting other people and deescalating hostility? [58:43]
How young hippie hobo Penn defused a potentially violent confrontation with a pair of macho truckers in a Corn Belt diner using only his quick wits and a cold, sticky milkshake. [1:03:15]
Penn has never partaken of drugs or alcohol, which is a claim not many can make. To what does he credit this abstinence? [1:09:31]
How did Penn lose 0.9 pounds a day for four months under the direction of former NASA scientist Ray Cronise? [1:14:14]
What weight loss (and an illegal trip on NASA’s “Vomit Comet”) did to change Penn’s atheistic perspective on mind-body duality. [1:22:36]
What Penn’s — some would say extreme — version of intermittent fasting looks like. [1:27:31]
What did Ray Cronise mean when he said “You can’t outrun your mouth” while forbidding Penn to exercise during the four-month weight-loss regimen — and do I agree with this? (As an aside, it was determined that performing nightly 90-minute Penn & Teller shows burns a lot of calories, effectively nullifying Ray’s no-exercise rule.) [1:33:30]
Penn shares what he took away from lucky interactions with legendary theoretical physicist Richard Feynman and his fellow Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann. [1:38:24]
Why Richard Feynman (and possibly Bob Dylan) would pass Tim Jenison’s data points test. (Would you?) [1:48:14]
With so many projects from which to choose at any given time, how did Penn decide to put time into making the (in my opinion, excellent and very worth your while) documentary Tim’s Vermeer? What’s it about, and what were the obstacles faced along the way in trying to get it made? [1:50:58]
What be on Penn’s billboard? [1:59:25]
Parting thoughts, a seemingly impossible thought experiment, and Penn’s hope that we can stay kind to one another with profound disagreement in these divisive times. [2:00:55]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Brian Koppelman
Bob Dylan
Salman Rushdie
Christopher Hitchens
God
James Randi
Kreskin
Johnny Carson
Joseph Dunninger
Raymond Teller
Harry Houdini
L. Ron Hubbard
Donald Trump
Julia Cameron
Reid Hoffman
Josh Waitzkin
Bobby Fischer
Lawrence O’Donnell
Cyan
Valda R. Jillette
Samuel H. Jillette
Renee French
Sam Harris
Glenn Alai
Mike Moschen
Lou Ferrigno
Winston Churchill
Joe Rogan
Lenny Bruce
Jimi Hendrix
Ray Cronise
Marlon Brando
Jack Kerouac
Joel Fuhrman
Michael Jordan
Michael Klaper
Richard Feynman
Samuel Beckett
George Romero
Debbie Harry
Lou Reed
Crispin Glover
Murray Gell-Mann
David Letterman
Pablo Picasso

Johannes Vermeer
Jesse Dylan
Mike Godwin
Adolf Hitler
Frank Luntz
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nelson Mandela
Mahatma Gandhi
Barack Obama
Miles Davis
Kenny G

The Best Books and Articles I Read in 2019

2019 was a huge year for me. 

I rediscovered nature, recommitted to writing, experimented widely, scuttled many things that have weighed on me for years, and greatly improved my overall investing. Most important, I deepened my relationships with my family, my girlfriend, her family, and my closest friends more than in any previous year. 2019 was a year of surprising business growth. But more surprising still, it was a year of developing a greater sense of inner peace, and the two have rarely come together in my life.

Much of this wouldn’t have happened without reading the right things.

In the information game, the race doesn’t go to the swift, it goes to the selective.

This post will share the most impactful articles and books that I’ve read in the last 12 months.

First, a few notes about how I read, keep track of things, and review highlights:

I save all articles to Evernote using the web clipper (often as a “Simplified Article,” which strips out images, ads, etc.), then I read the articles and add *** and bolding to any sentences, quotes, or passages I find most insightful. Later, this allows me to use Command-F to quickly find *** in any document and review my highlights in minutes.



I read nearly all books in Kindle format when possible. This permits me to highlight a book, after which I can go to my Amazon Notebook on a laptop (here’s a sample screenshot of mine) and once again pull all of my highlights into Evernote in a relevant notebook (Investing, Home and Design, etc.). Next, and this should sound familiar, I add *** to my favorites in a second pass. Note that some publishers have strict export limits (publishers, this makes it hard for me to promote your books, by the way), so you should highlight 1–2 chapters as a test first, then see if your highlights are truncated in your Amazon Notebook.



Another great option for revisiting your highlights is Readwise, which I’ve been using more and more. This tool was introduced to me by my close friend, Mike, who described it thusly: “Basically, you integrate with Amazon [Kindle], and it sends you a digest every day of 5 to 15 of your past highlights from a random selection of books. […] It also integrates with Instapaper and Highly so you can grab text from the web. Nice and simple.” As the homepage asks: “Highlighting is great, but what’s the point if you’re never going to see any of those highlights again?”



For books that I have to read in paperback or hardcover, I create a handwritten index in the front of the book using this approach. I first detailed this process in 2007, and things have changed very little. The only additions: I will now save photos of the index to Evernote, and I’ll sometimes have an assistant scan the entire book to preserve my highlights. Oh, I also had more hair in 2007, and one would hope that I’ve matured a bit over the last 13 years.

Next up, we have two juicy lists:

“What I’m reading” descriptions from most weeks in 2019 A list of nearly all books I bought on Amazon in 2019 .

All of the “What I’m reading” descriptions are taken from the free newsletter that I send out every Friday, “5-Bullet Friday.” It’s a short email of bullet points that describe the five coolest things I’ve found or explored each week. “5-Bullet Friday” often includes books, gadgets, experimental supplements, tricks from experts, and weird stuff from all over the world. Once again, I’ll be sending these out on Fridays in 2020. To subscribe and join 1.5+ million other folks, please click here. It’s easy to unsubscribe anytime.

After the “What I’m reading” entries, I’ve copied and pasted nearly all of the books that I purchased on Amazon in 2019. Many of them didn’t appear in “5-Bullet Friday,” even though they had a big impact. [Pro tip: To look at your own books from 2019, you just need to search “books” under your Orders in your Amazon account.] As I do in Evernote, I’ve added *** next to those books that were particularly helpful or interesting to me.

I hope you find this review useful. Enjoy! 

FAVORITE ARTICLES AND BOOKS FROM “5-BULLET FRIDAY” IN 2019

What I’m reading (January 18, 2019) —
Surge Cities: The 50 Most Startup-Friendly Places in America (@Inc). Using seven key indicators, such as the rate of entrepreneurship and overall job creation, this list provides a comprehensive overview of fastest-growing startup-friendly cities in the U.S. The top three are Austin (#1), Salt Lake City (#2), and Raleigh (#3). There are many more you might not expect, and quite a few should be fantastic places to invest in the next few years. 

Book I just finished and will reread soon (February 1, 2019) —
Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality. This short book has completely captured me. It was first recommended by Peter Mallouk, who said it gave him peace for weeks at a time. I grabbed the Kindle version with low expectations, devoured it in three days, and I’ve since bought 20 copies of the paperback to give out to friends [Update: 60+ copies]. It found me at the right time and won’t resonate with everyone, but it has equally impressed several of my best buddies. 

What I’m reading (February 8, 2019)  —
Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain. Scientists Want to Know What They’re Saying (via @nytimes). Though microbiome science is still in the early stages, it’s fascinating to imagine the implications for Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and other conditions. Hat tip to reader Sam McRoberts (@Sams_Antics) for the recommendation. It’s worth the read. 

What I’m reading (February 15, 2019) —
Excerpts from Where Mountains Roar: A Personal Report from the Sinai and Negev Deserts by Lesley Hazleton (@accidentaltheo). You can find the specific section that I’m (re)reading here: page 1 and page 2. I was given the excerpts by a tour guide while trekking through the Negev not long ago. 

What I’m reading (March 1, 2019) —
How to Be Successful by Sam Altman (@sama), the president of Y Combinator and co-chairman of OpenAI. Here is one of the many paragraphs I highlighted in Evernote: “Most highly successful people have been really right about the future at least once at a time when people thought they were wrong. If not, they would have faced much more competition.”

What I’m reading (March 8, 2019) —
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company by Sahil Lavingia (@shl). This is the story of a wonderful philosophical reboot. Nearly everyone should consider reading it. Thanks to reader @lucasgabd from Rio de Janeiro for sharing with me via Twitter. For more great lessons from “failures,” check out “What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars.” 

What I’m reading (March 15, 2019) —
Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure by Stephen Wolfram. (Hat tip to the incredible Kevin Kelly for the recommendation.) 

What I’m reading (March 22, 2019) —
Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code by Clive Thompson, an outstanding author and long-form journalist. I particularly enjoyed his section on automation. Here’s a teaser: “‘Don’t learn to code, learn to automate,’ writes the coder Erik Dietrich. This is bang on. Nearly every white-collar job on the planet involves tons of work that can be done more efficiently if you know a bit of coding.”

What I’m reading (short) (April 5, 2019) —
From Bubble to Bubble by Sahil Lavingia. This is a wonderful article about moving from tech and hyper-liberal San Francisco to conservative-heavy Provo, Utah, and the lessons learned along the way. Sahil’s very humanizing perspective reflects a lot of reasons I moved from SF to Texas.

What I’m reading and listening to (April 12, 2019) —
The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown. Here’s the description: “Celebrating the 20th anniversary of storytelling phenomenon The Moth, 45 unforgettable true stories about risk, courage, and facing the unknown, drawn from the best ever told on their stages.” I’ve only read 50 or so pages, but one of my favorites thus far is Unusual Normality (YouTube option here if any loading issues) by Ishmael Beah (@ishmaelbeah). Reading one short (2–5-page) story over tea or coffee in the morning is a nice jumpstart to the day. 

What I’m reading (May 17, 2019) —
The Art of Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. Spirited Away—as mentioned in my chat with Adam Savage—is my favorite movie of all time. This book is awe-inspiring and shows the depth of world-creation that makes Miyazaki a legend. 

What I’m reading (May 24, 2019) —
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr. I’ve long been fascinated by Mary Karr (@marykarrlit), and I finally picked up her book on the craft of memoir writing after a recommendation by Michael Pollan. It applies to much of life, and I’d consider it a philosophical guide in many respects, replete with the dead serious (e.g., how to communicate past abuse) and spit-up-your-coffee funny (e.g., catshit sandwich metaphors). Highly recommended if you work with the written word in any capacity. 

What I’m reading (very short) (June 14, 2019) —
Why I Am a Bad Correspondent by Neal Stephenson (@nealstephenson), one of my favorite sci-fi writers. This short, anti-comms blog post contains gems like this: “The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can’t do both; the first one obliterates the second.” 

What I’m reading and rereading (June 28, 2019) —
Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogens, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth by Françoise Bourzat. This book is brand-new, but I’m already on my second read. I’ve been waiting a year for it to be published! Françoise is one of the world’s foremost experts in navigating “expanded states of consciousness,” and she has ~30 years of experience combining indigenous training with modern tools. As Michael Pollan recently posted on Twitter, “Françoise Bourzat has written an authoritative book on guided psychedelic therapy with important lessons for anyone thinking of either guiding or being guided.” Ralph Metzner wrote the foreword, and endorsements on the back cover include pioneers like Gabor Maté, Ann Shulgin, James Fadiman, and Charles S. Grob, professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Here is a partial description from Amazon: “Françoise Bourzat—a counselor and experienced guide with sanctioned training in the Mazatec and other indigenous traditions—and healer Kristina Hunter introduce a holistic model focusing on the threefold process of preparation, journey, and integration. Drawing from more than thirty years of experience, Bourzat’s skillful and heartfelt approach presents the therapeutic application of expanded states, without divorcing them from their traditional contexts. Consciousness Medicine delivers a coherent map for navigating non-ordinary states of consciousness, offering an invaluable contribution to the field of healing and transformation.” Highly recommended for anyone interested in this work. 

What I’m reading (July 5, 2019) —
Inside Apple’s plan to protect a 27,000-acre forest in Colombia (Fast Company). 

What I’m reading (July 12, 2019) —
Select quotes from the works and words of Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz). 

What I’m reading (July 19, 2019) —
Game of Tongues: How Duolingo Built A $700 Million Business With Its Addictive Language-Learning App (Forbes)

What I’m reading (July 26, 2019) —
The French Burglar Who Pulled Off His Generation’s Biggest Art Heist (New Yorker). After my previous mention of the Sour Grapes doc in 5BF, my brother, who’d also read Billionaire’s Vinegar, said, “Oh, if you like that, I have something you’ll really like.” He sent me this New Yorker piece. 

What I’m reading (August 2, 2019) —
Deathwatch for the Amazon: Brazil has the power to save Earth’s greatest forest—or destroy it (Economist). This just came out yesterday, August 1st, and it is excellent. I’ll share another piece I’m reading on the same topic in the NYT, as the NYT doesn’t automatically require an account signup to read the full article. 

Under Brazil’s Far-Right Leader, Amazon Protections Slashed and Forests Fall (New York Times). This is very important. How it is resolved, or not, will almost certainly affect the entire planet. Below are three excerpts to give you a flavor:

During a recent visit, Germany’s minister of economic cooperation and development, Gerd Müller, called protecting the Amazon a global imperative, especially given the rain forest’s vital role in absorbing and storing carbon dioxide, essential to the effort to slow global warming. And when trees are cut, burned or bulldozed, carbon dioxide goes directly back into the atmosphere.

[…]

“We’re facing the risk of runaway deforestation in the Amazon,” eight former environment ministers in Brazil wrote in a joint letter in May, arguing that Brazil needed to strengthen its environmental protection measures, not weaken them.

[…]

“Without tropical rain forests, there’s no solving the climate” issue, Mr. Müller said during an event in São Paulo.

What actions or countermeasures do you think might help mitigate this deforestation, whether by individuals (Brazilian, American, or otherwise) or the US administration? Please let me know on Twitter, using #planetarythreat, which will allow me to find your answers. 

What I’m reading (August 30, 2019) —
The Glorious, Almost-Disconnected Boredom of My Walk in Japan by Craig Mod (@craigmod), from WIRED. I printed this out weeks ago and placed it on my kitchen table to read. Each time I walked past it, I had the distinct feeling of “this seems important for me to read,” and it was. This article is a beautiful and highly tactical description of long walks, using technology on your terms, and finding stillness. Here are two paragraphs out of many that I loved:

I have configured servers, written code, built web pages, helped design products used by millions of people. I am firmly in the camp that believes technology is generally bending the world in a positive direction. Yet, for me, Twitter foments neurosis, Facebook sadness, Google News a sense of foreboding. Instagram turns me covetous. All of them make me want to do it—whatever “it” may be—for the likes, the comments. I can’t help but feel that I am the worst version of myself, being performative on a very short, very depressing timeline. A timeline of seconds.

[…]

In the context of a walk like this, “boredom” is a goal, the antipode of mindless connectivity, constant stimulation, anger and dissatisfaction. I put “boredom” in quotes because the boredom I’m talking about fosters a heightened sense of presence. To be “bored” is to be free of distraction.

What I’m most excited about (and reading in the New York Times) (September 6, 2019) —
Johns Hopkins Medicine launches the world’s largest, and U.S.’s first, center for psychedelic research. This is something I’ve been working on for ~1.5 years and something diligent scientists have been working toward for 20+ years. I couldn’t be happier, and it wouldn’t have happened without generous support from Steven and Alexandra Cohen (@cohengive), Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt), Blake Mycoskie (@blakemycoskie), and Craig Nerenberg. Many thanks also to Benedict Carey of the NYT (@bencareynyt) for investigating and reporting on this from multiple perspectives, as he’s done for many years.

I shifted most of my focus from startups to this field in 2015, and it’s incredibly important to me that this watershed announcement helps to catalyze more studies, more ambitious centers, more scientists entering the field, and more philanthropists and sources of funding taking an interest in psychedelic science. There is much more reputational upside than reputational risk in supporting this work in 2019 and beyond.

Book I’m enjoying (September 6, 2019) —
Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations by Dan Ariely (@danariely). So far, I’ve found this book to be very compelling and actionable. The real-world stories are heart wrenching and keep the pages turning. It’s a short read and might take 2–4 hours to finish.

What I’m reading (September 27, 2019) —
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang. I’ve previously recommended Ted’s incredible collection of short stories titled Stories of Your Life and Others. Despite the fact that Ted started off as a part-time science-fiction writer with a full-time technical writing job, he is the equivalent of Martin Scorsese or Wayne Gretzky in the sci-fi world—he has won four Hugo, four Nebula, and four Locus Awards, among others. The hit film Arrival (94% on Rotten Tomatoes), one of my favorite movies of the last 3–5 years, is based on one of Ted’s short stories. Gizmodo has written that “the arrival of a new piece of short fiction by Ted Chiang is always cause for celebration and parades and wild dancing.” Exhalation, his newest collection, may be even better than his last. It’s just so damn good.

What I’m reading (October 4, 2019) —
To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight.

What I’m reading and practicing (October 11, 2019) —
50 ways to be ridiculously generous — and feel ridiculously good by Alexandra Franzen. This is a great list, which I found recommended on the website of fellow Austinite Professor Raj Raghunathan, author of If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?. If overwhelmed by options, try this: give an extra $10 or $20 to the barista next time you buy coffee. Give $5 of that to the barista and pay for the next person or next few people behind you. Simply walk out after the drive-by karma bomb. The afterglow is incredible and can last hours. Paradoxically, the fastest path to feeling better is often this type of indirect route, and it makes me think of this quote sometimes attributed to Henry David Thoreau: “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.”

What I’m reading (October 18, 2019) —
Metformin and exercise — déjà vu all over again? by Dr. Peter Attia (@peterattiamd). This landed in my inbox on Sunday, courtesy of Peter’s weekly email newsletter. It explains why some of my friends who used to take metformin for longevity have stopped taking it. This short piece is also a great primer on thinking about extending healthspan versus lifespan. 

What I’m reading (October 25, 2019) —
Model hallucinations by Philip Gerrans and Chris Letheby (@chrisletheby) (Aeon). Thanks to Jason Silva (@JasonSilva) for bringing this to my attention. This entire piece is worth reading, but here are a few paragraphs that really jumped out at me:

How does this story explain the therapeutic effects of psychedelics? As we’ve seen, the self-model is an integrated bundle of predictions – and lots of these predictions, built up over a lifetime of experience, can make us deeply stressed and unhappy. A person with social anxiety expects and experiences the world to be hostile and uncontrollable because she feels vulnerable and unable to cope. The self-model that produces these feelings magnifies the adversity of her social world. Similarly, people with depression anticipate and recollect failure and unhappiness, and attribute it to their own inadequacy. Their self-model makes it hard to access positive experiences, and often feeds on itself in a negative downward spiral. Because our brains are endlessly trying to predict what’s next and reduce the likelihood of error, it’s no wonder that our expectations of ourselves tend to be self-fulfilling.

Theoretically we should be able to re-engineer the mechanisms of our self-model, and so change the way we organise and interpret our experience. The problem is that the self-model functions in a way that’s quite similar to the lenses of our eyes. We see with them and through them, but it’s almost impossible to see the lenses themselves, to really appreciate how they affect the signals that reach us, let alone take them off if they are unhelpful. In general, the mind presents us with the finished product in the form of images, not the modelling processes themselves. So too with the self: for better or worse, we feel like unified entities, not complicated and precarious hierarchical models that track and predict our organismic responses to what’s happening.

[…]

The second effect is more subtle. It concerns the way that psychedelics can enlighten us about the processes behind our own subjectivity. When the self falls apart and is subsequently rebuilt, the role of the self-model seems to become visible to its possessor. Yes, this offers a psychological reprieve – but more importantly, it draws attention to the difference between a world seen with and without the self. For an anxious or depressed person, psychedelics make it possible to appreciate the intermediate, representational role of the self-model. Ego dissolution offers vivid experiential proof, not only that things can be different, but that the self that conditions experience is just a heuristic, not an unchangeable, persisting thing.

What I’m reading (November 8, 2019) —
I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays by Tim Kreider (timkreider.com). Many of you know that Tim’s We Learn Nothing, his dazzling collection of humor and insight, is one of the few books in the Tim Ferriss Book Club. To get a taste, you can listen to one of my favorite chapters, “Lazy: A Manifesto,” in this short 20-minute episode of the podcast. I’ve been eager to revisit Tim’s work, and I’m now digging into his latest collection of essays. Tim’s fans include people like filmmaker Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow), who gave him the blurb of all blurbs: “Tim Kreider’s writing is heartbreaking, brutal and hilarious—usually at the same time. He can do in a few pages what I need several hours of screen time and tens of millions to accomplish. And he does it better. Come to think of it, I’d rather not do a blurb. I am beginning to feel bad about myself.” 

What I’m reading (November 15, 2019) —
The Keto Diet’s Most Controversial Champion in the Atlantic, by Sam Apple (@samuelapple). This is a nearly unbelievable, made-for-film story. The Atlantic’s Paul Bisceglio summarizes the basics well: “13 years ago, the chemist Patrick Arnold went to prison in baseball’s infamous BALCO steroids scandal. Today, he’s all in on keto—and his experiment collaborations could actually have big implications for medicine. Sam Apple (@samuelapple) delivers a wild ride.” This piece involves two past podcast guests, Dominic D’Agostino, PhD, and “rogue chemist” Patrick Arnold. It’s an unlikely but perfect pair. Huge credit to Dom for reaching outside of academia for ideas and solutions, and huge credit to Patrick, who has helped launch a massive wave of research and commercial interest. Their work and innovations could help change how we treat dozens of serious illnesses (cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, etc.).

What I’m reading (November 22, 2019) —
A Pickpocket’s Tale: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins by Adam Green (@Adam___Green) (New Yorker). This was sent to me by Jeffrey Zurofsky (“JZ” from The 4-Hour Chef.) Here’s one paragraph to give you a taste:

When Robbins hits his stride, it starts to seem as if the only possible explanation is an ability to start and stop time. At the Rio, a man’s cell phone disappeared from his jacket and was replaced by a piece of fried chicken; the cigarettes from a pack in one man’s breast pocket materialized loose in the side pocket of another; a woman’s engagement ring vanished and reappeared attached to a key ring in her husband’s pants; a man’s driver’s license disappeared from his wallet and turned up inside a sealed bag of M&M’s in his wife’s purse.

What I’m reading (December 6, 2019) —
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Bob Iger (@RobertIger). The negotiation stories with Steve Jobs alone make this book worth the read. Podcast with Bob coming soon. 

What I’m reading (December 13, 2019) —
20 Podcast Predictions for 2020 from Top Industry Leaders by Steve Pratt (@steveprattca) of Pacific Content. This is a thought-provoking list of predictions for 2020, conveniently grouped into categories (advertising, new revenue models, consolidation, international opportunities, etc.). Contributors include many big platform, content, and media players. Hat tip to Courtney W. Holt (@mootron) for sharing this on Twitter. 2020 is going to be a very exciting year for podcasts… 

What I’m reading (December 27, 2019) —
Every Amazon Shareholder Letter in a Single Downloadable PDF. Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos) never ceases to amaze, and these letters really highlight how prescient and strategic he and Amazon have been since the 1990s. If you prefer a shortened version via audio, this is worth a shot and includes some fun trivia (e.g., What was the original name idea for Amazon.com? Click on this: Relentless.com…). Big hat tip to Ricardo of Most Recommended Books, whose site is also worth checking out. 

What I’m reading (January 3, 2020) — 
How Kepler Invented Science Fiction and Defended His Mother in a Witchcraft Trial While Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Universe. Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is simply amazing. Her prose is worth reading for its beauty alone (keep in mind that English is not Maria’s native language!), and the stories in this essay highlight just how brilliant, stupid, ignorant, and insightful humans can be… sometimes all at the same time.

[And that gets us caught up to today! Want to learn what I’m reading each week in 2020? Take 10 seconds and sign up for “5-Bullet Friday” here. Each Friday, you’ll get a super-short email, sending you into the weekend with fun and useful things to ponder and try. 

Now, to all the Amazon books I purchased in 2019…]

BOOKS PURCHASED ON AMAZON IN 2019

I’ve added *** next to titles that made a strong impression; I’ve noted books purchased but unread; and I’ve added comments here and there. Any book already mentioned in “5-Bullet Friday” has been omitted.

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson***

Are You My Type, Am I Yours?: Relationships Made Easy Through The Enneagram by Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele [Unread, but my curiosity was piqued about Enneagram after conversations with Tobi Lütke of Shopify and Drew Houston of Dropbox.]

The Gift by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky*** 

Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, with Eric Swanson [Still unread but recommended by podcast guest Safi Bahcall.]

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller*** [Recommended by several podcast guests, including Dr. Gabor Maté.]

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker J. Palmer [Still unread but highly recommended by Jerry Colonna.]

Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Rain Forest by Mark J. Plotkin, PhD

Maria Sabina: Selections (Poets for the Millennium) by Maria Sabina, edited by Jerome Rothenberg

The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Robert A. Heinlein [Here are pics of a few pages that I posted on Instagram.]

A Sand County Almanac—and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold, illustrated by Charles W. Schwartz

Fiend Folio: Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign: (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) edited by Don Turnbull, illustrated by Chris Baker [As a kid, I was a bullied nerd who found refuge in D&D. This was a sentimental purchase to kindle memories of adventures as a chaotic-good gray elf.]

The Overstory by Richard Powers 

The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga [Only half read so far, but I purchased it based on Marc Andreessen’s blurb on the Amazon page.] 

The Way to Love: Meditations for Life by Anthony de Mello*** 

Wizard of the Upper Amazon: The Story of Manuel Córdova-Rios by F. Bruce Lamb***

Death by Black Hole—and Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson*** 

Jazz Essentials: “Nuts & Bolts” Instruction for the Jazz & Pop Musician by Kelly Dean

.It’s Okay to Manage Your Boss: The Step-by-Step Program for Making the Best of Your Most Important Relationship at Work by Bruce Tulgan [Unread]

The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, PhD, and Spencer Thompson, MD

Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation by Bruce Tift***

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien***

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker***

High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove [Need to reread this one, as its lessons have faded.]

Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney

Lonely Planet, A Year of Adventures by Andrew Bain

Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2020 by Lonely Planet 

Lonely Planet, New Zealand by Lonely Planet 

Backstage Cirque du Soleil by Veronique Vial (photographer)

From Third World to First: The Singapore Story by Lee Kuan Yew [Unread, but I saw this recommended by Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe. It’s on my to-read list for 2020. If interested, my interview with Patrick on many topics can be found here.]

**

P.S. Want to see more? Sign up for “5-Bullet Friday,” and you’ll always be in the know. Each Friday, you’ll get a short email of five bullet points, sending you off to your weekend with fun and useful things to ponder and try. If you dislike it, it’s easy to unsubscribe. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

P.P.S. If you’re an avid reader, you might also enjoy the recent “Books I’ve Loved” series on the podcast. It has recommendations from heavyweights like Esther Perel, Seth Godin, and Steve Jurvetson. I also described some of my personal favorites in the series’ inaugural episode. Make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Where Are You Still Using Single-Ply?

I recently had an epiphany.

It wasn’t in the shower. It wasn’t while meditating under a tree. It was while sitting in the bathroom.

As I held the toilet paper in my hand, I realized that it was single-ply. Clearly, I had long ago decided to save money by cutting this corner. “We are not in a position to indulge in such excesses!” I imagine I might have thought, shifting my shopping gaze from comfy double-ply Charmin to a war-ration house brand of single-ply.

Of course, here’s the problem: single-ply is a fool’s bargain. It’s a translucent sham. If you don’t want to shove your fingers directly into the pit of despair, you need to fold it over itself again and again, defeating any cost savings. And even if you did save $5 per month, isn’t the extra $5 worth trading 30 days of butt-sanding for 30 days of butt-caressing?

To make any headway with this, I first had to look backward…

My family didn’t have much disposable income. We ate a lot of TV dinners, we collected our soda cans for the five-cent redemptions at the beverage store, and we bought books on the discount “remainder” table at the local bookstore. To be clear—I never felt poor, but clear parameters around spending, and clear taboos around money, kept things from falling apart.

And our extreme frugality served a critical purpose at the time: it was important to the well-being of our family.

But now flash forward 35+ years. Optimizing for frugality is old software that’s been running in my head—unquestioned and unexamined—for decades. It became a default mode during formative years, and it got grandfathered into my current life, where it simply doesn’t apply in the same way. No conscious, comprehensive updates have been made in a very long time.

So, sitting with my pants around my ankles, I began asking about the rest of my life: where am I still using single-ply?

Where am I still choosing the lowest-cost or low-cost option without thinking about the downsides?

To dissect this, I’ve been 1) looking at how I spend money and where it’s provided outsized returns and 2) asking myself—as a recovering frugality addict—a bunch of uncomfortable questions.

1) Looking at how I spend money and where it’s provided outsized returns. Especially as I approach the new year, this pairs well with a Past-Year Review (PYR). In practice, it’s really simple. Look at records of your past spending and note down anything that you feel was money really well spent. Here are a few approaches I like: reviewing Amazon purchases for the year, looking at all of my photos from the past year, and looking at credit card statements. I’ve found the photos to be particularly useful. Equally helpful is looking for where the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze; in other words, where was the cost not worth it? These are things you can trim to make space for higher-value investments.

2) Asking myself—as a recovering frugality addict—a bunch of uncomfortable questions.

Here are a few I’ve found helpful so far: 

What purchases of $100 or less have most positively impacted my life in the last 12 months? Are they grouped in particular areas? In my case, as an example, nearly all answers were related to sleep, health, travel/experiences, or gifts for family and friends.

What might it look like to invest more than $100 into those high-leverage areas? What might it look like if I had to spend $1,000, $10,000, or $100,000 per year? I realize this might seem insane, but it might also be the most important question. The goal is not to unleash the Kraken of irresponsibility and spend like a drunken sailor. If you’ve been programmed to buy gallons of Costco ketchup to save two cents per serving, these questions are intended to stretch you in the opposite direction. I’m a fan of absurd questions, as highlighted in Tools of Titans in the context of Peter Thiel’s seemingly crazy question: “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”

Here’s my commentary on this and similar “impossible” questions: 

“Now, let’s pause. Do I expect you to take 10 seconds to ponder this and then magically accomplish 10 years’ worth of dreams in the next few months? No, I don’t. But I do expect that the question will productively break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities. The ‘normal’ systems you have in place, the social rules you’ve forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks—they don’t work when answering a question like this. You are forced to shed artificial constraints, like shedding a skin, to realize that you had the ability to renegotiate your reality all along. It just takes practice.”

Podcast guest and personal finance expert Ramit Sethi helped me think about high-leverage spending by introducing the concept of pulling “financial levers.” He recommended asking hypothetical questions akin to “If physical fitness and health are so important to you and affect everything else, what might spending 10x more per year on that look like? 100x? If you can afford it, how could you test it for a short time to gauge the results?”

One personal result: I combined my answers to this and the first question to gift my parents packages of sessions with a personal trainer (i.e., health + gifts to family and friends + 10x spending). After a short trial period, the physical and emotional rewards have been so great that I’m going to continue the program for at least the next year.

What indulgences were worth it? Which indulgences would I repeat? What do they have in common?

What indulgences were not worth it? What do they have in common?

Where can I spend more money to create frequent moments of joy, and where can I spend money to save time? What might a two-week test look like, just to dip my toe in the water?

Make an inventory of things you do on a daily or weekly basis. For an extra $100 per month, for instance, you can have the best toothbrush, toothpaste, laptop stand, socks, eye mask for sleeping, and more. For $10–50, you can also take many of your enjoyable vices from mediocre to world-class.

For saving time: What about wash-and-fold laundry? What about dog walkers? What about paying someone to clean the interior of your car? Commit to making a list of at least 20 ideas, and include the ridiculous. Brain dump now, edit later.

The above are all real examples from my life. The little things can make a big difference. In fact, in day to day life, the little things often end up being the big things.

THINKING ABOUT FRUGALITY, NOT THOUGHTLESS FRUGALITY

What might it look like to be frugal by choice instead of by default?

Once again, there is a time and a place for frugality. There are situations where survival-level spending habits are the smartest habits.

There are also times for asking, “If I spend this dollar, where is the highest-leverage place to spend it?” instead of, simply, “How can I avoid spending this dollar?”

As a personal example, I’ve decided that I’m happy to spend a lot of money on ethical and excellent food, but I’m rarely willing to spend more than $50 on a bottle of wine. I can easily tell (and feel) the difference between mid-tier and high-quality food, but fancy wine is like pearls before swine for this Long Island boy.

What might it look like to move from scarcity-based decision-making to outcome-based decision-making? Not to spend more, necessarily, but to better answer the questions of “Where should I invest more and where should I invest less?” and “Where does it make a meaningful difference?” Note that the wording of these questions really matters. Ask first “Where should I invest more?” and then only “Where should I invest less?”

What does your last year—not your childhood beliefs—tell you about where you might invest more for a higher quality of life?

Please do let me know your thoughts in the comments. For me, this is a work in progress, and I’m eager to learn from others.

Where are you still using single-ply?

Where has spending more, or reallocating funds, helped you the most? Or where do you think it would help you the most?

What other questions have you found helpful for thinking about these topics?

Recommended resources:
Forget New Year’s Resolutions and Conduct a ‘Past Year Review’ Instead
How to ‘Waste Money’ To Improve the Quality of Your Life
Testing The “Impossible”: 17 Questions That Changed My Life
Ramit Sethi — Automating Finances, Negotiating Prenups, Disagreeing with Tim, and More
Mr. Money Mustache — Living Beautifully on $25-27K Per Year
Interview with Peter Thiel, Billionaire Investor and Company Creator

Books I’ve Loved — Steve Jurvetson (#404)

“If disruption is what you seek, cognitive island-hopping is a good place to start, mining the interstices between academic disciplines.”  — Steve Jurvetson

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types — from startup founders and investors to chess champions to Olympic athletes. This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a shorter series I’m doing called “Books I’ve Loved.” I’ve invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books — the books that have influenced them, changed them, and transformed them for the better. I hope you pick up one or two new mentors — in the form of books — from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.

Steve Jurvetson (@FutureJurvetson) is an early-stage venture capitalist with a focus on founder-led, mission-driven companies at the cutting edge of disruptive technology and new industry formation. Steve was the early VC investor in SpaceX, Tesla, Planet, Memphis Meats, Hotmail, and the deep learning companies Mythic and Nervana. He has led founding investments in five companies that went public in successful IPOs and several others that were acquired for a total of over a $100 billion in value creation.

Before founding Future Ventures and DFJ before that, Steve was an R&D engineer at Hewlett Packard and worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT, and management consulting with Bain & Company. He currently serves on the boards of Tesla, SpaceX, and D-Wave.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Listen onApple Podcasts
Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast

#404: Books I've Loved — Steve Jurvetson
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/92ed2dc3-66d9-457f-94c9-e09ad53f115c.mp3Download

This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring Lion’s Mane. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet.

You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed.

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 of Books I’ve Loved? — Check out Seth Godin and Esther Perel’s contributions to the series here. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#402: Books I’ve Loved — Seth Godin and Esther Perelhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/5a004c1f-c9ba-4124-95a1-61bd9fbfabd3.mp3Download

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Steve Jurvetson:

Future Ventures | Facebook | Flickr | Twitter

Steve’s previous appearance on the podcast: 317

The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind by Alison Gopnik , Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl
The Long Now Foundation
Santa Fe Institute
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World by Kevin Kelly
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil
Moore’s Law over 120 Years by Steve Jurvetson, Flickr
Imitation Game
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Science Direct
Boeing 777
Reed’s Law, P2P Foundation
Starlink

SHOW NOTES

Who is Steve Jurvetson? [03:24]
The book Steve gifts most to others (especially new parents): The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind by Alison Gopnik , Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. Kuhl [04:16]
The book Steve credits as being the most influential on him: Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World by Kevin Kelly [09:05]
What Steve considers the most important book of all: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil [12:21]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Alison Gopnik
Isaac Newton
Richard Feynman
Geoffrey West
Michael Merzenich
Kevin Kelly
Gordon Moore
Ray Kurzweil
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thomas Edison
Nikola Tesla
Guglielmo Marconi
Hernan Cortes
Richard Dawkins

The Top 25 Episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show from 2019

Happy holidays!

Thanks to all of you, The Tim Ferriss Show crossed more than 400 million downloads this year, and it’s fast approaching 500 million.

In case you have some extra time over the holiday season, perhaps after a pumpkin pie or cookie coma, below are my most popular episodes of 2019. It’s a fun list.

We used an imperfect methodology—number of downloads one week after publication—but it’s good enough to surface the episodes y’all felt were the most exciting.

Please enjoy, and happy holidays to you and yours! 

With heartfelt thanks, 

Tim

P.S. Here is the list, starting with the most downloaded:

#1: David Allen — The Art of Getting Things Done (GTD) (Episode #384)
#2: Ramit Sethi — Automating Finances, Negotiating Prenups, Disagreeing with Tim, and More (Episode #371)
#3: Jim Collins — A Rare Interview with a Reclusive Polymath (Episode #361)
#4: Greg McKeown — How to Master Essentialism (Episode #355)
#5: Peter Attia, M.D. — Fasting, Metformin, Athletic Performance, and More (Episode #398)
#6: Neil Gaiman — The Interview I’ve Waited 20 Years to Do (Episode #366)
#7: How Seth Godin Manages His Life — Rules, Principles, and Obsessions (Repost) (Episode #376)
#8: Susan Cain — How to Overcome Fear and Embrace Creativity (Episode #357)
#9: Nick Norris — Navy SEAL and Athlete on Training, Post-Traumatic Growth, and Healing (Episode #378)
#10: Adam Grant — The Man Who Does Everything (Episode #399)
#11: Eric Schmidt — Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar Coach (Episode #367)
#12: Safi Bahcall — On Hypnosis, Conquering Insomnia, Incentives, and More (Episode #382)
#13: Peter Mallouk — Exploring the Worlds of Investing, Assets, and Quality of Life (Episode #356)
#14: Derek Sivers on Developing Confidence, Finding Happiness, and Saying ‘No’ to Millions (Repost) (Episode #370.5)
#15: Neil deGrasse Tyson — How to Dream Big, Think Scientifically, and Get More Done (Episode #389)
#16: Q&A with Tim — On Happiness, Dating, Depressive Episodes, and Much More (Episode #390)
#17: Tristan Harris — Fighting Skynet and Firewalling Attention (Episode #387)
#18: Jerry Colonna — The Coach with the Spider Tattoo (Episode #373)
#19: Tea Time with Tim — How to Find Mentors, Decrease Anxiety Through Training, and Much More (Episode #363)
#20: Gary Keller — How to Focus on the One Important Thing (Episode #401)
#21: Safi Bahcall — On Thinking Big, Curing Cancer, and Transforming Industries (Episode #364)
#22: Ed Zschau — The Polymath Professor Who Changed My Life (Episode #380)
#23: Julie Rice — Co-Founding SoulCycle, Taming Anxiety, and Mastering Difficult Conversations (Episode #372)
#24: Tobi Lütke — From Snowboard Shop to Billion-Dollar Company (Episode #359)
#25: The Random Show — On Fasting, Forest Bathing, How to Say NO, Rebooting the Self, and Much More (Episode #391)

P.P.S. In case you missed it, transcripts for all episodes are now available for free at this link.

Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity (#403)

“Get bored. Just put away all of your things. Maybe go clean up the garage or whatever it is. Right? Through that, you’re going to start to think differently. You’re going to act slightly differently and your mind might open up to other sources of inspiration, other problems…” — Tony Fadell

Tony Fadell (@tfadell), sometimes called “the father of the iPod,” is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives. As the Principal at Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology, he is continuing to help bring technology out of the lab and into our lives. Currently, Future Shape is coaching 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies.

Tony founded Nest Labs, Inc. in 2010 and served as its Chief Executive Officer until his resignation in 2016. He joined Apple Computer Inc. in 2001 and, as the SVP of Apple’s iPod division, led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Tony founded the Mobile Computing Group at Philips Electronics and served as its Chief Technology Officer and Director of Engineering 1995 to 1998, responsible for all aspects of business and product development, including the award-winning Philips Velo and Nino PDAs. From 1998 to 1999, he served as Vice President for Philips Strategy & Venture focused on building out its digital media strategy and investment portfolio. From 1992 to 1995, he served as a Hardware and Software Architect at General Magic, which created the precursor to the iPhone 15 years earlier.

Tony has filed more than 300 patents for his work. In May 2016, Time named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod, and the iPhone three of the “50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time.” Tony graduated with a BS degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1991.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch this interview on YouTube. 

Listen onApple Podcasts
Listen onSpotify
Listen onOvercast

#403: Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/7e10bdea-a200-4fb7-93ef-9b7da9317816.mp3Download

This episode is brought to you by SuperFat Nut Butters.These little beauties are great. I’ve been using them as quick mini-breakfasts and on-the-go fuel for a few months now. They’re 200–300 calories each, depending on which ingredient cocktail you eat (MCT, protein, macadamia, caffeine, etc.); 3–5g of net carbs per pouch; keto- and Paleo-friendly; and easy to throw in a backpack or pocket. The first time I tried SuperFat, I finished the entire box in a few days, so watch your portion control.

I suggest ordering the Variety Box and you can try all 5 SuperFat flavors in one box, and it has 2 pouches of each flavor. Get 15% off your order by going to SuperFat.com/tim.

This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet.

You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed.

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 with someone who’s thinking big to save the planet? — Make sure to check out my conversation with Mike Phillips in which we discuss the countless benefits (and dispel countless myths) of reintroducing predator species to ecosystems where they’ve been eradicated. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#383: Mike Phillips — How to Save a Specieshttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/b47b8a89-1ce5-41ad-9e39-abeea1e599d6.mp3Download

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Tony Fadell:

Future Shape | Twitter

Alcohol in Saudi Arabia: A Complete Guide, ExpatWoman.com
Caffeine: How Much Is Too Much? The Mayo Clinic
The Truth About Aspartame Side Effects, Healthline
Levi Strauss
General Magic (Documentary)
The History of Apple Computers, ThoughtCo
MacWEEK Magazine, Wikipedia
WDC 65C816, Wikipedia
NeXT, Wikipedia
Phillips
The Road Less Traveled A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck
Soviet Denim Smuggling — The History of Jeans Behind the Iron Curtain, Heddels
Supreme
Memento
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury
Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life by Spencer Johnson
The Short but Interesting History of the iPod, ThoughtCo.
Today in Apple History: Michael Dell Says He’d Shut Down Apple, Cult of Mac
The First Secret of Design Is … Noticing by Tony Fadell, TED 2015
Nest
Today in Apple History: Apple Offers Ice Water to Windows Users in Hell, Cult of Mac
Apple Presents iPod: Ultra-Portable MP3 Music Player Puts 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket, Apple Newsroom
Tony Fadell: The Man Who Wants to Take Control of Your Home, The Guardian
Louvre Museum
How to Learn Any Language in Record Time and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner, tim.blog
10 Facts about Plastic Waste in Southeast Asia, The Borgen Project
Southeast Asian Countries Need Tougher Plastic Policies to Curb Pollution: UN, Reuters
Recyclers Cringe as Southeast Asia Says It’s Sick of the West’s Trash, The New York Times
Nest Founder Says Plastic Apologists Are ‘Lying’, Fortune
Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling, Yale Environment 360
5 Recycling Myths Busted, National Geographic
Microplastics Are Raining Down from the Sky, National Geographic
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), Wikipedia
54 of the Best Ways to Live That No-Single-Use-Plastic Life So You Can #SaveTheTurtles, Parade
Impossible Foods
Modern Meadow
Analysis Paralysis, Investopedia
Ashtanga vs. Bikram vs. Hatha: Differences That You Should Know, Ashtanga Yoga Benefits
OOLER Sleep System
ChiliPad Cube 2.0
Oura Ring
In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
Lacquerware of East Asia, The Met
The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

SHOW NOTES

Why does Tony abstain from caffeine and alcohol these days? [07:18]
What was the catalyst that made Tony give up caffeine cold turkey, and what was the detox period like? [10:07]
Tony is good at presenting ideas in very persuasive ways. Where does this come from? [12:11]
What was General Magic, why was it “the most important company to come out of Silicon Valley that no one has ever heard of,” and how did Tony wind up there? [14:52]
With so much competition vying to get a job at General Magic, what elements of Tony’s approach got him in the door and eventually hired? [19:27]
With so much talent on board, why did General Magic eventually fail? [21:33]
What was Tony’s first contact with Steve Jobs like? [23:24]
What were the elements of Tony’s post-General Magic reboot and its consequences? [26:28]
When moving from the startup world of General Magic to head his own team at Philips, how did Tony — who had never been in such a position before — learn to lead? [32:41]
What were Tony’s most valuable takeaways from talking through his leadership questions with a psychologist? [36:48]
Growing up, why did Tony go through 12 schools in 15 years? [38:22]
What key advice about sales and relationships did Tony learn from his father? [39:39]
What advice does Tony give people who been promoted into a management role but never prepared for it? [41:43]
Books related to management and communication that Tony recommends. [44:24]
A counterintuitive bet Steve Jobs made during Tony’s time at Apple that went on to change the company — and the world. [46:20]
Why does Tony think Steve had the confidence and drive to make the iPod Apple’s priority at such a volatile time in the company’s history? [49:15]
The timing of the iPod from when it was first being prototyped within Apple to when it launched as a consumer product, and my own encounter with someone who was working on the project at the time and needed a second opinion on some interface ideas. [51:46]
Does it still have an impact on Tony when he sees iPods and iPhones being used in the wild all these years later, or has the technology become so ubiquitous that it’s become invisible to him? [54:50]
What are some of the most valuable lessons Tony learned from Steve Jobs? [57:15]
The power of analogy. [58:40]
After leaving Apple, it’s reported that Tony’s goal was to “get bored” — and this is advice he’s passed along to countless others who find themselves going through a career change. What does he mean by this? [1:01:55]
How has Tony endeavored to “get bored” in his own life, and how did this lead to the idea that would become Nest? [1:05:55]
After moving all around the world, where does Tony live and spend most of his time these days? [1:08:36]
Why is Tony so interested in plastics? [1:13:08]
How does Tony — who relishes solving big problems — even begin to understand a way to design ourselves out of the mess we’ve designed ourselves into with plastics? Doesn’t recycling already address this? [1:15:58]
After a year and a half of research and asking difficult questions, how does Tony currently think the plastics problem can be tackled in a meaningful way? [1:18:21]
Why you shouldn’t count on recycling labels to tell the whole truth when it comes to plastics, and what options you might consider instead of plastics. [1:23:48]
What is Future Shape, and how does it aim to make the world a better place with a novel mentor/investment model? [1:25:40]
On the value of seeing problems and building skills with a curious beginner’s eyes. [1:29:26]
What does Tony find difficult? [1:31:26]
How does Tony balance impatience as a driving force with its tendency to tick off other people involved with a project who might not share the same sense of urgency? [1:33:39]
Including diet, exercise, and sleep, what are Tony’s self-care regimens? [1:36:42]
Why sleep and drinking don’t make the most ideal of bedfellows. [1:40:21]
We share our impressions of a little-known (and very short) book called In Praise of Shadows — and Tony explains why he gifts it so often. [1:41:41]
Another book Tony gifts and reflects upon often. [1:46:29]
A particularly good snap decision Tony made. [1:48:33]
Parting thoughts. [1:53:40]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Scott Belsky
Steve Jobs
Dee Young
Joe Gleason
Elliot Soloway
Andy Hertzfeld
Bill Atkinson
Susan Kare
Jim Collins
Sondra Card
William Ury
Jeff Robbin
Michael Dell
Walt Mossberg
Pablo Picasso
Michael Quillinan
Junichiro Tanizaki
Daniel Kahneman
Danielle Lambert

Make Before You Manage

“Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don’t drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor’s yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Not long ago, a creature died in the walls of my home. To be precise, it gave up the ghost in the heating system, so that death fumes were conveniently deposited directly into my bedroom.

My girlfriend and I discovered this around 11 p.m. as we tucked into bed. We could turn off the heat and freeze, or we could bathe in the stench of what I assumed was a raccoon carcass. The whole thing made my eyes itch. I imagined it downing a last meal—pig entrails? moldy socks? nattō?—before defiantly jamming its bloating body into my HVAC.

But the kamikaze raccoon was just the first surprise guest. The opening act.

In short order, my dog got horribly sick, overdue paperwork popped out of nowhere, and onboarding new contractors ran into trouble. Then I pulled out of a parking spot and scraped the entire side of the car next to me. Later that afternoon, Christmas presents I’d ordered online ran out of stock and were auto-cancelled, sending me scrambling. More and more clowns kept piling into the clown car for a shit show that lasted 3–4 weeks.

There are rare times when I feel like I’m in the zone. Those are great.

Then there are times when I ask myself, “How in holy hell have I become the janitor of a mountain of bullshit?”

Put another way, sometimes you’re the boxer and sometimes you’re the punching bag. We all get our turn as the punching bag. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t matter how “successful” you become, you have always grabbed a number at the deli counter of getting your ass kicked by the universe.

During these periods of fire fighting, I get fidgety and frustrated. I feel like I’m treading water, and patience wears thin, especially with myself.

My instinct is to try to fix things as quickly as possible. That’s all well and good, but I’ve realized that from a place of “WTF?!,” I often rush and create more problems. This is particularly catastrophic when I try to sprint immediately upon waking up.

The mantra that saved me during this most recent 3–4-week period was simple:

“Make before you manage.”

Each morning, before plugging holes, fixing things, calling vets, answering text messages, delegating things, or yanking out dead raccoons, this mantra was a reminder to make something. 

Even the most time-sensitive items can usually wait 60 minutes, and by make something, I mean anything.

You just need to feel like you’ve pushed a millimeter ahead in some creative direction.

For me, even a 90-second video of calligraphy could set a better emotional tone for the day, helping me to more calmly handle problems. Or maybe I attempt to jumpstart my writing with an Instagram caption. It’s practically nothing, but it’s enough. Even token efforts allow me to reassure myself with “Don’t worry. You did produce something today.”

The psychological difference between zero acts of creation and one act of creation, no matter how small, is impossible to overstate. If you’re lucky, sometimes that one idea, one sentence, or one shitty first draft can turn into something bigger. But the point is to be able to say to yourself, even for five minutes, “Hark! I am a creator, not just a janitor of bullshit! Here is proof that I can—and will!—do more than just manage minutiae… ”

We all spend time on the struggle bus. At the very least, this mantra has helped me to find a window seat when it’s my turn.

When in doubt, try it out: make before you manage.

###

Related:
Neil Gaiman’s “Make Good Art” commencement speech
Paul Graham’s “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” essay