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David Whyte, Poet — Spacious Ease, Irish Koans, Writing in Delirium, and Revelations from a Yak Manger (#781)

Illustration via 99designs

David Whyte (davidwhyte.com) is the author of twelve books of poetry and five books of prose, including his latest, Consolations II, which further explores what David calls “the conversational nature of reality.”

David holds a degree in marine zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural-history expeditions in the Andes, Amazon, and Himalayas. He is the recipient of two honorary degrees: from Neumann University in Pennsylvania and Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia.

David grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire and now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
He has also hosted a live online series, Three Sundays, every other month since 2020.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving, Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

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

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#781: David Whyte, Poet — Spacious Ease, Irish Koans, Writing in Delirium, and Revelations from a Yak Manger

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I’ve suffered for decades, tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling them back on, and repeating ad nauseam. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 4 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. Plus, it automatically tracks your sleep time, snoring, sleep stages, and HRV, all with high precision. For example, their heart rate tracking is at an incredible 99% accuracy.

Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable Base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame to add custom positions for the best sleeping experience. Plus, it automatically reduces your snoring when detected. Add it easily to any bed.

And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

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

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

This episode is brought to you by GiveWell.org! For over ten years, GiveWell.org has helped donors find the charities and projects that save and improve lives most per dollar. GiveWell spends over 30,000 hours each year researching charitable organizations and only recommends a few of the highest-impact, evidence-backed charities they’ve found. In total, more than 100,000 people have used GiveWell to donate as effectively as possible.

This year, support the charities that save and improve lives most, with GiveWell. Any of my listeners who become new GiveWell donors will have their first donation matched up to $100 when you go to GiveWell.org and select “PODCAST” and “Tim Ferriss” at checkout.

Want to hear another episode with a poet? Listen to my conversation with award-winning writer Mary Karr, in which we discuss curiosity and presence as a solution to fear, the role spirituality plays in maintaining her sobriety as a former atheist, coping with and expressing the aftermath of trauma, what she wished she’d known about therapy when she was younger, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with David Whyte:

Consolations II by David Whyte | Amazon Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte | Amazon Other Books by David Whyte | Amazon Three Sundays | David Whyte Zen Master Henry Shukman — 20 Minutes of Calm, Plus the Strange and Powerful World of Koans | The Tim Ferriss Show #560 Henry Shukman — Zen, Tools for Awakening, Ayahuasca vs. Meditation, Intro to Koans, and Using Wounds as the Doorway | The Tim Ferriss Show #531 Show Me the Ink: A Reflection on Zen’s Inka Shomei | James Ford Sanbo Kyodan | Wikipedia About the Wordsworth Trust | Wordsworth Grasmere Old Bookbinders | Crafty Belle Group TLS | Times Literary Supplement Waking Up with Sam Harris App Unordinary Santa Fe 2024 | David Whyte David Whyte: The Vulnerable Choice of Breaking Our Hearts Open | Point of Relation Podcast Trekking Annapurna: Everything You Need to Know | Much Better Adventures The Eight Buddhist Hells | Linfamy The Sound of Music | Prime Video All You Need to Know About Marsyangdi River | Nature Lovers Treks & Tours Coleridge’s Distinction between Primary Imagination, Secondary Imagination, and Fancy | Romantic Era David Whyte: Everything Is an Invitation | Sounds True On Horizons, Barriers, and Meditation | David Whyte Poet David Whyte’s Questions That Have No Right to Go Away | Oprah’s Lifeclass What Is Dharma Combat? | Jason Quinn Zen What Is a Zen Koan? History and Interpretation of Koans | Being Zen Meditation Training Program | The Way Ideas for Modern Living: Regret | The Guardian An Excerpt from “Time” by David Whyte | Instagram Email Newsletter by Tim Ferriss | 5-Bullet Friday Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte | The On Being Project Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake | Project Gutenberg Towards the Heart’s Frontier: An Interview with David Whyte | Napkin Poetry Review All the Beautiful Questions That David Whyte Asked Me | Life Curator About the Galápagos Islands | Galápagos Travel Center King Lear by William Shakespeare | Amazon Tan-y-Garth Bach (Cottage) | Geograph Britain and Ireland The Carneddau | An Illustrated Guide to Snowdonia National Park The William Blake Archive Seeing Angels | Seven Miles of Steel Thistles We Become the Places We Love, with David Whyte | Meditative Story Excerpt from Tan-y-Garth (Elegy for Michael) by David Whyte | Facebook What Is Iambic Pentameter? An Explanation & Examples | No Sweat Shakespeare The Ancient Greek Chorus in Historical Context | National Theatre Zen | David Whyte Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on the Courage and the Necessity of Crises | The Marginalian Timothy Ferriss | The DO Lectures How to Pronounce Llwybr Cyhoeddus | HowToPronounce.com The History of the Welsh Language | Visit Wales Vipassana Meditation Zazen: Just Sitting, Going Nowhere | Lion’s Roar The Blue Cliff Record | Amazon Poetry from the Gathering (Opening Night) — David Whyte | The On Being Project The Bell and the Blackbird by David Whyte | All Poetry The Hills of Tuscany | David Whyte Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Translated by Robert Bly) | AmazonSHOW NOTES[00:06:25] Connecting with Henry Shukman.[00:10:32] Low times in the High Himalayas and a yak manger awakening.[00:15:17] The place from where David writes good poetry.[00:17:22] Invitational speech.[00:21:55] Catching up with the curve of one’s transformation.[00:27:58] A revolutionary moment reflecting on parameters and regret.[00:37:41] “Everything Is Waiting for You.”[00:40:54] The secret code to life and the agreed insanity of so-called adults.[00:46:47] Being found by the world in greater and greater ways.[00:48:52] Asking beautiful questions.[00:58:13] “Tan-y-Garth.”[01:02:09] Memorizing poetry.[01:08:28] “Zen.”[01:22:55] Courage.[01:24:15] How living in a trailer on the side of a Welsh mountain helped David develop as a writer.[01:31:14] Irish koans, French doors, and Tibetan bells.[01:38:30] Poetry as consolation.[01:42:03] The best place to hold a poem.[01:43:07] “Time.”[02:00:01] Writing and reading good poetry.[02:04:52] Parting thoughts.MORE DAVID WHYTE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Poetry is not some abstracted art. It’s how human beings speak when they’re trying to create language against which there are no defenses. This has to be heard and it has to be heard in the spirit in which it is being conveyed, and the language has to be invitational to that particular person.”
— David Whyte

“Poetry is the secret code to staying alive, to staying present, to staying visionary.”
— David Whyte

“All of us spend so much time trying to find a path where we won’t have our heart broken. And really, the only way you can find a path where your heart won’t break is by not caring.”
— David Whyte

“You are really only courageous about what you’re heartfelt about.”
— David Whyte

“Time is not slipping through our fingers. It is we who are slipping through the fingers of time.”
— David Whyte

“Every conversation, as its foundation, has an invitation in it. When the invitation stops, the conversation really stops.”
— David Whyte

“Poetry’s been such a good friend to me. I’ve gone through seven years of grieving in seven months because poetry has allowed me to take each step along the way, in such a powerful, invitational way.”
— David Whyte

“The beautiful thing about a horizon is that it’s got something over it, that’s the definition, and that what’s over it is the unknown that’s inviting you. “
— David Whyte

“Sometimes your life breaks down and you hit present reality with such velocity that you break apart on impact. And this is a time honored way of transformation, but it’s very hard on us to go through it that way. There’s another way of doing it, which is to stay up with the edge of your own seasonal maturation, and that occurs below this invisible line inside you.”
— David Whyte

PEOPLE MENTIONEDHenry Shukman Ryoun Yamada Roshi William Wordsworth Sam Harris Marco Polo Samuel Taylor Coleridge John Keats Buddha Oscar Wilde Walter de La Mare Ted Hughes Thom Gunn William Blake William Shakespeare Antonio Machado Rainer Maria Rilke William Butler Yeats Seamus Heaney David Attenborough Humphrey Bogart Mary Oliver Hafez Robert Bly Emily Dickinson

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Published on December 05, 2024 06:54

Cyan Banister — From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More) (#780)

Cyan Banister (@cyantist) is a general partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on early and new investments. Cyan was an early investor in Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, Flexport, and Affirm and has invested in more than 100 companies. Prior to that, she was at Founders Fund, a top-tier fund in San Francisco. Subscribe to Cyan’s Substack at uglyduckling.substack.com.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; Wealthfront high-yield cash account; and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the episode on YouTube here.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#780: Cyan Banister — From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More)

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I’ve suffered for decades, tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling them back on, and repeating ad nauseam. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 4 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. Plus, it automatically tracks your sleep time, snoring, sleep stages, and HRV, all with high precision. For example, their heart rate tracking is at an incredible 99% accuracy.

Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable Base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame to add custom positions for the best sleeping experience. Plus, it automatically reduces your snoring when detected. Add it easily to any bed.

And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

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

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

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is a financial services platform that offers services to help you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 4.25% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Brokerage Cash Account through its network of partner banks. That’s nearly nine times more interest than a savings account at a bank, according to FDIC.gov as of Septebmer 27, 2024. It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 4.25% APY interest on your short-term cash until you’re ready to invest. And when new clients open an account today, they can get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.

Tim Ferriss receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage, LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage. See full disclosures here.

Want to hear another podcast episode with a world-class investor? Have a listen to my most recent conversation with Oaktree Capital Management’s co-founder Howard Marks, in which we discussed navigating unprecedented uncertainties, crowded versus uncrowded opportunities, the state of the American economy, finding higher-signal sources of information, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Cyan Banister:

Twitter

The Ugly Duckling by Cyan Banister | Substack Early Stage Investing for the Long-Term | Long Journey Ventures What Happened to the Future? | Founders Fund Cyan: The Enlightenment of an Iconoclast | Cloud Valley Navajo Nation | Visit Arizona Flagstaff | Visit Arizona Science and Technology on a Mission | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory I Swear to Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth. So Help Me God. | The Ugly Duckling Happy Tastes Good | Dairy Queen What is a Ward of the State in Arizona? | JacksonWhite Law Joyriding with the Gutter Punks | The Ugly Duckling Best Food for When You’re Homeless and Can’t Cook? | r/Mealprep Searching for Family and Home with Cuddles | The Ugly Duckling Commune Life | The Ugly Duckling Hitchhiking with Jesus | The Ugly Duckling The War of Intentions and Beliefs | Spencer Chang Cash for Fashion | Buffalo Exchange The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac | Amazon Crass | Rough Trade Publishing Eastside Records: An Oral History of Tempe’s Legendary Record Store | Phoenix New Times Internet Relay Chat (IRC) | Wikipedia The UNIX System | UNIX.org Cases | Harvard Business Publishing Education The Story of Uber | Investopedia Take a Look at Uber’s First Pitch Deck from 2008 | Vox New York’s Yellow Taxi Medallion Crisis, Explained | Documented The Career of Uber’s First Employee and CEO Was Launched by One Tweet | Business Insider About | The Lobby Conference Red Swoosh | Wikipedia Open Angel Forum | Wikipedia A Short History of Napster | Lifewire Behind the 12-Year-Old Wii Sports Hoax That Briefly Fooled the Internet | Ars Technica Pokémon GO | Niantic, Inc.A Worldwide Territory Control AR Game | Ingress PokéStop | Pokémon GO Wiki Build, Lead, Invest | AngelList Water with True Fruit Flavor | Hint Water Ai-First Service. Catered To Humans. | Zendesk Safety for Every Situation | Flock Safety GameCrush | Wikipedia Interactive Livestreaming | Twitch MySpace — What Went Wrong: ‘The Site Was a Massive Spaghetti-Ball Mess’ | The Guardian Activist Investor: Definition, Role, Biggest Players | Investopedia Icahn: The Restless Billionaire | Prime Video This Game Show App Was an Overnight Sensation, and Crashed Just as Fast | CNN Business Game of Thrones | HBO Game of Thrones: Do Lannisters Always Pay Their Debts? | Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange Promoting Solutions for Future Generations | Greenpeace International Be Not Afraid | Hereticon Transforming Defense Capabilities with Advanced Technology | Anduril “Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable from Magic.” | CCCB LAB Chatham House Rule | Chatham House International Affairs Think Tank Why Did OnlyFans Work When Zivity Did Not? A Thread. | Cyan Banister, Twitter General Magic | Wikipedia General Magic (Documentary) | Prime Video Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity | The Tim Ferriss Show #403 Collectable Vintage Playboys | Elizabeth’s Bookshop SuicideGirls | Wikipedia Cyan Banister: Adults Only Startups Deserve Respect Too | Forbes I Did It, with a Boy. | The Ugly Duckling The Taj Mahal Story | Taj Mahal The Magic Glasses by Frank Harris | Amazon My Life & Loves by Frank Harris | Amazon Different Types of Plaid: A Guide to Plaid Pattern Names | Hello Sewing When Polka Dots Signal Both Optimism and Disquiet | The New York Times A Dice Experiment | Cyan Banister, Twitter Decision Fatigue | The Decision Lab Open to the Public 365 Days a Year! | Pioneertown The World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game | Dungeons & Dragons Penn Jillette on Magic, Losing 100+ Pounds, and Weaponizing Kindness | The Tim Ferriss Show #405 Random by Penn Jillette | Amazon The Illusion of Free Will | Sam Harris 7-in-1 Spinner DND Dice Set | Amazon The Cult of Crowley | Tidal Magazine What is Magic? Aleister Crowley Explains | Faena Magick in Theory and Practice by Aleister Crowley | Amazon Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman | Amazon Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D. Ouspensky | Amazon Groundhog Day | Prime Video Caddyshack | Prime Video What About Bob? | Prime Video The Man Who Knew Too Little | Prime Video Broken Flowers | Prime Video The Razor’s Edge | Prime Video The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham | Amazon Ghostbusters II | Prime Video The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man | Prime Video The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned From a Mythical Man | Gravitas Ventures It Just Doesn’t Matter (Clip) | The Bill Murray Stories What Exactly Is a Kundalini Awakening? | Yoga Journal American Beauty | Prime Video What Is Dural Venous Sinus Thrombosis (DVST)? | Healthline Richard Schwartz — IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs, and Finding Inner Peace for Our Many Parts | The Tim Ferriss Show #492 Tibetan Monks Throat-Singing | Wilderness Films India Telluride Bluegrass Festival | Planet Bluegrass Meditation, Mindset, and Mastery | The Tim Ferriss Show #201 Parable of the Horse, Carriage, and Driver | The Church of Conscious Harmony Eternal Recurrence: What Did Nietzsche Really Mean? | Philosophy Break The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera | Amazon Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by G.I. Gurdjieff | Amazon Frosted Toasted Oat Cereal & Marshmallows | Lucky Charms Boston Celtics | NBA Golden State Warriors | NBA In The Air Tonight (Official Music Video) | Phil Collins Boston’s Best Sightseeing Tour | Boston Duck Tours The Most Ribbetting Architecture in Boston | Universal HubSHOW NOTES[00:06:16] Early life and education as a white minority on a Navajo reservation.[00:11:18] Strained family dynamics and a cycle of neglect.[00:18:20] The intervention of Officer Pratt and becoming a ward of the state at 15.[00:22:46] Crusty punk survival strategies and life on the streets.[00:32:02] The positive influence of Cyan’s “second” mother.[00:34:17] Crass, Chris Collins, and computers.[00:38:03] An unorthodox path to angel investment beginning with Uber.[00:48:13] Niantic/Pokemon GO.[00:56:27] How stalking Garrett Langley led to a Flock Security investment.[01:00:07] GameCrush, activist investors, and lessons learned.[01:07:00] Sales lessons from the street.[01:10:08] A mindful approach to questioning narratives.[01:15:35] The pre-OnlyFans story of Zivity.[01:24:44] Views on sex and relationships.[01:28:47] Magic glasses, esoteric rabbit holes, and rolling the dice.[01:44:02] How Aleister Crowley and Bill Murray paved a path to ex-atheism.[02:02:21] Cyan’s billboard.[02:04:41] Enduring a stroke and its aftermath.[02:08:31] Meditation, throat-singing, and philosophy.[02:17:50] The Boston spiritual experience and duck boat baptism.[02:40:53] A book in the works, the Ugly Duckling Substack, and parting thoughts.MORE CYAN BANISTER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I’ve always felt like an outsider no matter where I am, and I think that’s been wonderful and incredible for my career. You can certainly look at that and have kind of a victim mindset about it, but I took the opposite path, which was, this is what makes me special, is that I don’t fit in wherever I am.”

— Cyan Banister

“Once you’re homeless, you can never be un-homeless. It’s really strange. Every time I walk around at a conference or anything, I see all the waste. I see, if I were a homeless person, I could come and I could have this, no matter where I’m at.”

— Cyan Banister

“You have to face something very ugly, which is yourself. You have to look inside and see who and what you really are, and then you have to love yourself even when you don’t like what you see.”

— Cyan Banister

“When people used to say practice self-love, I thought it meant go eat bonbons and go see a good movie and smoke a joint. That was self-love. But it wasn’t getting me anywhere, and I was like, ‘This whole self-love thing is jive. It’s just not working out.’ But I didn’t realize that self-love is learning how to give yourself unconditional love. And the best way I’ve learned how to give yourself unconditional love is imagine yourself as a ball of light, and then take that ball of light and visualize it outside of your body and cradle it like it’s a baby. Now, when you look at that baby, would you hurt that baby?”

— Cyan Banister

“We apply a lot of our own perception to everything that everyone says around us. We make up stories that are fiction, and a lot of what people suffer with today are these stories, these narratives that we tell ourselves and one another.”

— Cyan Banister

“My purpose is very simple, which is to spread joy, to lift other people up around me, and to do my best in my own way to end poverty. Now, I’m not responsible for ending poverty. I think we’re all responsible.”

— Cyan Banister

“When you start realizing, ‘Oh, I’m in a school, and all of these hard knocks in life are just lessons,’ you think about them very differently.”

— Cyan Banister

“We’re just a hair away from being crazy, every one of us.”

— Cyan Banister

“We apply a lot of our own perception to everything that everyone says around us. We make up stories that are fiction, and a lot of what people suffer with today are these stories, these narratives that we tell ourselves and one another, and I’ve just always felt like that something that someone said right now, it’s not a hard no. You know when you hear a hard no. I know the difference between an objection and I just have a rebuttal for it versus a hard no, and until it’s a hard no, there’s wiggle room to get something done. And so I’ve just always felt this, and it’s interesting that you ho[m]ed in on it, but it’s definitely been a guiding principle in my life, which is don’t give up. Just try different approaches. Maybe you didn’t ask the right way, or maybe you didn’t give the right incentives, or maybe it was Monday and they’re in a bad mood.”

— Cyan Banister

“My life has only been improved by taking myself out of the decision making process, because I am the hindrance.”

— Cyan Banister

“We’re all in Earth school, and we inhabit human bodies, but we’re nothing but an energy force inside of them. And that life force does not dissipate, and it doesn’t go nowhere. It goes somewhere.”

— Cyan Banister

“You’re just sleepwalking through life. And the moment you take the reins and you become the narrator of your own story, and sometimes the captain, then that’s when it’s a transformational change.”

— Cyan Banister

PEOPLE MENTIONEDTim Draper Mike Pratt Jack Kerouac Chris Collins Ryan Graves Travis Kalanick Jason Calacanis Scott Banister John Hanke Lucas Nealan Keith Rabois Garrett Langley John Luttig Carl Icahn Brian Singerman Palmer Luckey Mike Solana Tony Fadell Hugh Hefner Aleister Crowley Frank Harris Steve Jobs Mark Zuckerberg George Gurdjieff Penn Jillette Richard M. Nixon Timothy Leary Sam Harris Jesus Walt Whitman Harry Potter P.D. Ouspensky Bill Murray W. Somerset Maugham SpongeBob SquarePants Kevin Spacey Friedrich Nietzsche Milan Kundera Beelzebub Phil Collins Gabby Giffords Linus Torvalds Albert Einstein

The post Cyan Banister — From Homeless and Broke to Top Angel Investor (Uber, SpaceX, and 100+ More) (#780) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

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Published on November 28, 2024 11:40

My 2024 Holiday Gift Guide!

This blog post is a very special holiday edition of 5-Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter!

This edition highlights 12 things I love, all of which make great holiday gifts.

I dislike shopping, but I do love finding the perfect gift. Finding that gift, though, gets harder with time. Those damn adults seem to have everything. So… If you’re having trouble thinking up great options, here are some goodies that deliver.

I also reached out to some of my favorite companies to get special deals for subscribers. I use all of these products on a daily or weekly basis, depending on the season and activity. Literally everything I mention lives in my home. Each sponsored bullet is indicated with a star at the end of it, just like this sentence.*

Stay warm and enjoy!

Comfy slip-ons I wear all winter long
Glerups. In the colder months, I wear Glerups indoors practically 100% of the time. I love them. You can see me sporting them in this photo.

Electric kettle I’m using for tea, coffee, and all good, warm things
Corvo EKG Electric Kettle from Fellow. I’ve tried a lot of electric kettles for tea and coffee over the decades, and this is my favorite. From the description: “The electric kettle that does it all, precision engineered to meet all your hot water needs. Exact temperature control, 1200 watts for a quick heat time, and a world of features for ultimate control.”

One pan I use for nearly everything
Titanium Always Pan Pro. Many nonstick pans can release harmful “forever chemicals”—PFAS—into your food, your home, and, ultimately, your body. Teflon is a prime example; it is the forever chemical that most companies are still using. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to major health issues like gut microbiome disruption, testosterone dysregulation, and more, which have been correlated to chronic disease in the long term. This is why I use the Titanium Always Pan Pro from Our Place. It’s the first nonstick pan with zero coating. This means zero “forever chemicals” and durability that will last a lifetime. There is no degradation over time like traditional nonstick pans. Now through December 3rd, Our Place is having their biggest sale of the year, with up to 40% off sitewide. Plus, they are offering 5-Bullet Friday subscribers an additional 10% off their Titanium Always Pan Pro. Go to FromOurPlace.com/Tim and use code SAVE10TIM to claim this special offer.*

Headlamp for dark winter hikes
PEAX Backcountry Duo. Weighing in at just 4.8 ounces with battery and described by one customer as “hands down the best on the market,” PEAX touts this as “the brightest, most durable … headlamp ever designed.” Breakthrough lumen output, armored in a machined aluminum housing; 3600 mAh rechargeable battery with run times up to 69 hours; and 180-degree adjustability so you never have to worry about putting your headlamp on upside down. It also comes with a red-light mode. If it’s sold out, you can get notified when it’s back in stock here.

Supplement bundle I co-created for mind and body
Momentous Performance Stack. During the holiday season, I’m prone to colds, and I also exercise a lot to keep the gray-day sadness away. For these reasons and more, I’m doubling down on the essentials that support my mental and physical fitness: whey protein isolate, creatine, and magnesium threonate. I take all three daily, and sourcing matters. Momentous sources only top-quality ingredients, like Creapure®, and every product is NSF and Informed Sport Certified, meeting the highest standard in third-party-tested supplements. I teamed up with Momentous to conveniently bundle my three essentials into what I call my performance stack. Each product was specifically chosen to support mental performance, physical performance, and quality sleep. For a limited time, subscribers to 5-Bullet Friday get early access to their Black Friday sale, including 25% off sitewide, plus a free gift of 5 nights of their best-selling Sleep packs with orders of $75+. Click here through November 24th to take advantage of this exclusive holiday offer, or simply use code TIM at checkout.*

Tool that is still saving my lower back
PSO-RITE. If you have low-back pain, there’s a good chance your psoas muscle is involved. This was recommended by multiple people in this Twitter thread on self-release, and I use it right before bed. If the mid-back is your issue, try out the Nayoya acupressure mat or, if not in stock, one of its imitators. The Nayoya mat was introduced to me by Cirque du Soleil phenom Andrii Bondarenko. For a bonus tool, consider the Body Back Buddy, which I always have in my suitcase.

What I’ll be doing with family this holiday season
Wentworth Puzzles. Here is what Hugh Jackman said in our conversation on the podcast (and my team has been raving about the quality of their puzzles ever since): “I love the company Wentworth. There are a few other puzzle companies, but Wentworth—there’s some technology—when you put the piece in, it’s like squeezing a pimple. It’s the best.”

Sleep technology I’m using
Eight Sleep Pod 4 Ultra. Several years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 4 Ultra. Conquer this winter season with the best in sleep tech, and sleep at your perfect temperature. The Pod 4 Ultra also automatically tracks your sleep time, sleep stages, HRV, and heart rate. And with the all-new adjustable base that fits between your mattress and frame, you can adjust your mattress for the ultimate sleeping position. If it detects snoring, it will automatically elevate your head to a better position. Many of my listeners in colder climates enjoy warming up their bed after a freezing day. Go to EightSleep.com/Tim and save between $400 and $600 on the Pod 4 Ultra by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. This special offer is valid until December 14th.*

Fiction book that’s perfect for the holidays
The Bear by Andrew Krivak. Thank you to CK and TS for recommending this parable. I ended up devouring it over 3–4 evenings. The prose is gorgeous—the author has been a National Book Award in Fiction finalist—and it’ll take around 20 pages for your brain to get accustomed to its unusual weaving. I’ve pared down the description on purpose, but here’s a taste: “In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. … The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape…” The less you know about the book in advance, the better the reading experience. Go in as blind as possible, and you’ll likely finish this book in less than a week.

What I’m using when hiking with Molly
Springer Dog Water Bottle. On hikes, my dear Molly pup gets parched. I bring water on hikes, but it’s always been at least 50% for naught. I pour it in my cupped hands and lose nearly all of it. Or if I use a collapsible bowl, she’ll drink a few sips and waste the rest. The Springer travel water bottle solves all of these problems. There are many other companies that make similar products, and I’m sure some are great, but this model was gifted to me and delivers. I have the Growler (44 oz) in Sky Blue.

Tea I’m enjoying daily
Pique. Pique’s fermented pu’er teas have become an essential part of my morning routine. You know how matcha is the entire ground-up leaf? They do the same with other varieties of tea and focus on purity and ease-of-use. I drink both their black and green pu’er almost every morning, and I take packets with me when I travel. Their extraction technology maximally preserves antioxidants, so you reap the health benefits with zero prep, brewing, or waiting required. Pique’s teas are highly concentrated in polyphenol antioxidants compared to most teas, and their products are triple toxin screened and sourced from some of the world’s most biodiverse areas. Pique is offering their biggest deal ever—a 20% off sitewide discount on my favorite subscriptions (which saves you more per serving) with code TIM20—only available until November 29th, 11:59 p.m. PST.*

New microphones I am testing for in-person recordings
RØDE’s Wireless GO II. It’s not a proper holiday gift guide without some gadgetry. “The Wireless GO II is an ultra-compact and extremely versatile dual channel wireless microphone system ideal for filmmaking, interviewing, reporting, and social content creation.” This is a new test for avoiding the cabling and hassle of normal lavalier mics.

And there you go! 12 of my favorite things that make great holiday gifts. I love them all and hope you do too.

Have a wonderful weekend and wonderful holiday season, everyone!

Much love to you and yours,

Tim

The post My 2024 Holiday Gift Guide! appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

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Published on November 22, 2024 13:31

Q&A with Tim — What’s Next for Me, Asking Better Questions, Career Reinvention in The Age of AI, Practices for Joy, Getting Unstuck, and More (#778)

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually 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 format, and I’m the guest!

As some of you know, I tested a “fan-supported model” in 2019, but I ended up returning to ads by request. That’s a long story, and you can read more about it at tim.blog/podcastexperiment. I recently sat down on Zoom with some of the supporters, which is the episode you are about to hear.

I answer questions on how I’ve changed my mind around parenthood, what’s next for me and how I am thinking about next steps, how I find joy, how to live with urgency, my advice for career reinvention in the age of AI, avoiding complacency and ruts, and much, much more.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Ramp easy-to-use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and more; Helix Sleep premium mattresses; and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the episode on YouTube here.

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

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#778: Q&A with Tim — What’s Next for Me, Asking Better Questions, Career Reinvention in The Age of AI, Practices for Joy, Getting Unstuck, and More (#778)

This episode is brought to you by Ramp! Ramp is corporate card- and spend-management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp has already saved more than 25,000 customers—including other podcast sponsors like Shopify and Eight Sleep—more than 10 million hours and more than $1 billion through better financial management of their corporate spending.

With Ramp, you’re able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting, allowing you to close your books 8x faster on average. Your employees will no longer need to spend hours submitting expense reports. In less than 15 minutes, you can get started issuing virtual and physical cards and making payments, whether you have 5 employees or 5,000. Businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% on total card spending and related expenses in the first year. And now, you can get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com/Tim.

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

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

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2024 by Forbes, Fortune, and Wired magazines and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

Want to hear my last Q&A? Have a listen here, where I discuss reinvention, optimization, intriguing investments, modern dating, personal heresies, taking a barbell distribution approach to life, cheap but choice art, making room for the irrational, workout routines for older parents, music I like, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEShould I Have Kids: Six Tips to Help You Decide If You Want to Start a Family | Vox Keep Your Identity Small | Paul Graham Why You Should Care About Many Things | Mark Manson The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Amazon The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon A Fictional World Built for These Chaotic Times | The Legend of CØCKPUNCH The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil | Amazon New York Comic Con | NYCC Masterpieces of Fantasy Art by Dian Hanson | Amazon Funding Cutting-Edge Scientific Research | Saisei Foundation Are NFTs Dead? Exploring the Rise and Fall | Trakx The World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game | Dungeons & Dragons The World’s Premier Trading Card Game | Magic: The Gathering Ranger Tim Takes Aim | Kevin Rose, Instagram Definition of Backcountry Skiing, Slackcountry, Sidecountry, and Off Piste | The Backcountry Ski Touring Blog Steven Rinella on Hunting (And Why You Should Care), Reconnecting with Nature, Favorite Trips, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #470 The Art of Prompts — Asking the Right Questions to ChatGPT | Devon Geography Inside the Actors Studio | Bravo TV Fresh Air | NPR Tame Your Work, Organize Your Life | Evernote Your Connected Workspace for Wiki, Docs, and Projects | Notion The Five-Minute Journal | Amazon Sabbatical: Definition and How It Works | Investopedia The Random Show — Lessons from Tim’s Sabbatical, Alzheimer’s Breakthroughs, Kevin Tries a Medium, Fitness Tools and Protocols, Book Recommendations, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #766 Daniel Day-Lewis Ends Seven-Year Retirement to Act in His Son’s Film | NPR What Are Hungry Ghosts? | Lion’s Roar Kurt Vonnegut on the Secret of Happiness: An Homage to Joseph Heller’s Wisdom | The Marginalian My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse (Includes Extensive Resource List) | The Tim Ferriss Show #464 Delicious Brews for Discerning Cocks | CØCKPUNCH Coffee How Five Different Religions Deal with Grief | Refinery29 On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler | Amazon Dr. Peter Attia — The Science and Art of Longevity, Optimizing Protein, Alcohol Rules, Lessons from Glucose Monitoring with CGMs, Boosting Your VO2 Max, Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease, Early Cancer Detection, How to Use DEXA Scans, Nature’s Longevity Drug, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #661 From Life Span to Health Span | Harvard Medical School Act Now, Live Longer | Biograph 10 Health and Performance Benefits of Creatine | Healthline Peter Attia Dives Deep on Statins (Side Effects and the Best Alternatives) | FoundMyFitness The Effects of Microplastics on Your Health and How to Reduce Them | Huberman Lab Optimize Your Water Quality and Intake for Health | Huberman Lab Magic Pill — Johann Hari and the New “Miracle” Weight-Loss Drugs | Tim Ferriss No Biological Free Lunches | Tim Ferriss Handmade Art You Can Use Every Day | Joel Cherrico Pottery Dewey Stuart (1898-1910) | Find a Grave Memorial The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin | Amazon Rick Rubin, Legendary Producer — Timeless Methods for Unlocking Creativity, Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight, The Future with AI, Helpful Distractions, Working with Strong Personalities, Breaking Out of “The Sameness,” and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #649 Quote by E.L. Doctorow: “Writing Is Like Driving at Night…” | Goodreads Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien | Amazon Explore Tolkien’s Oxford with Guide Rob Walters | Paseos Guiados The Stages of the Hero’s Journey | Stuart Voytilla Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | Prime Video Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card | Amazon The Legend of CØCKPUNCH Podcast Arcane: League of Legends | Netflix Arcane: Bridging the Rift | League of Legends Katana | Wikipedia Stratocaster: The World’s Greatest Electric Guitar | Fender Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) | Cleveland Clinic Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | Amazon Zen Master Henry Shukman — 20 Minutes of Calm, Plus the Strange and Powerful World of Koans | The Tim Ferriss Show #560 Henry Shukman — Zen, Tools for Awakening, Ayahuasca vs. Meditation, Intro to Koans, and Using Wounds as the Doorway | The Tim Ferriss Show #531 Meditation Training Program | The Way Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month | Tim Ferriss Future-Proof Your Career: AI-Resilient Job Strategies | Horton InternationalSHOW NOTES[00:05:09] Q&A format and ground rules.[00:05:35] My shift in perspective on parenting and fatherhood.[00:08:14] New creative directions: games, comics, animation.[00:10:30] Identity diversification.[00:18:01] Simple pleasures: outdoor activities, meditation, archery.[00:23:21] Using AI to keep questioning fresh and relevant.[00:27:12] Breaking through periods of feeling unsuccessful.[00:35:25] Exploring the fringes and growing personally over the past decade.[00:44:52] Longevity protocols and handling grief.[00:53:41] Coping with the loss of a pet.[00:55:00] Ecstatic creativity à la Rick Rubin and CØCKPUNCH.[01:03:37] Physiological awareness and self-regulation.[01:08:48] Finding career relevance in an AI-transformed landscape.[01:16:48] Parting thoughts.PEOPLE MENTIONEDDennis O’Neil Stan Lee Frank Frazetta Molly Ferriss James Lipton Terry Gross Charlie Rose Lex Fridman Byron Katie Daniel Day-Lewis Scrooge McDuck Alexander the Great Seth Godin Donald Trump Peter Attia Andrew Huberman Layne Norton Rick Rubin Frodo Baggins J.R.R. Tolkien C.S. Lewis R2-D2 Jesus Tyrolean Frank Miller Anthony de Mello Kevin Rose Henry Shukman

The post Q&A with Tim — What’s Next for Me, Asking Better Questions, Career Reinvention in The Age of AI, Practices for Joy, Getting Unstuck, and More (#778) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on November 20, 2024 06:51

Q&A with Tim — How to Live with Urgency, Find Joy, and Fight Complacency (#778)

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually 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 format, and I’m the guest!

As some of you know, I tested a “fan-supported model” in 2019, but I ended up returning to ads by request. That’s a long story, and you can read more about it at tim.blog/podcastexperiment. I recently sat down on Zoom with some of the supporters, which is the episode you are about to hear.

I answer questions on how I’ve changed my mind around parenthood, what’s next for me and how I am thinking about next steps, how I find joy, how to live with urgency, my advice for career reinvention in the age of AI, avoiding complacency and ruts, and much, much more.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Ramp easy-to-use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and more; Helix Sleep premium mattresses; and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

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

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#778: Q&A with Tim — How to Live with Urgency, Find Joy, and Fight Complacency (#778)

This episode is brought to you by Ramp! Ramp is corporate card- and spend-management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp has already saved more than 25,000 customers—including other podcast sponsors like Shopify and Eight Sleep—more than 10 million hours and more than $1 billion through better financial management of their corporate spending.

With Ramp, you’re able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting, allowing you to close your books 8x faster on average. Your employees will no longer need to spend hours submitting expense reports. In less than 15 minutes, you can get started issuing virtual and physical cards and making payments, whether you have 5 employees or 5,000. Businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% on total card spending and related expenses in the first year. And now, you can get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com/Tim.

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

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

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2024 by Forbes, Fortune, and Wired magazines and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

Want to hear my last Q&A? Have a listen here, where I discuss reinvention, optimization, intriguing investments, modern dating, personal heresies, taking a barbell distribution approach to life, cheap but choice art, making room for the irrational, workout routines for older parents, music I like, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEShould I Have Kids: Six Tips to Help You Decide If You Want to Start a Family | Vox Keep Your Identity Small | Paul Graham Why You Should Care About Many Things | Mark Manson The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Amazon The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon A Fictional World Built for These Chaotic Times | The Legend of CØCKPUNCH The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil | Amazon New York Comic Con | NYCC Masterpieces of Fantasy Art by Dian Hanson | Amazon Funding Cutting-Edge Scientific Research | Saisei Foundation Are NFTs Dead? Exploring the Rise and Fall | Trakx The World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game | Dungeons & Dragons The World’s Premier Trading Card Game | Magic: The Gathering Ranger Tim Takes Aim | Kevin Rose, Instagram Definition of Backcountry Skiing, Slackcountry, Sidecountry, and Off Piste | The Backcountry Ski Touring Blog Steven Rinella on Hunting (And Why You Should Care), Reconnecting with Nature, Favorite Trips, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #470 The Art of Prompts — Asking the Right Questions to ChatGPT | Devon Geography Inside the Actors Studio | Bravo TV Fresh Air | NPR Tame Your Work, Organize Your Life | Evernote Your Connected Workspace for Wiki, Docs, and Projects | Notion The Five-Minute Journal | Amazon Sabbatical: Definition and How It Works | Investopedia The Random Show — Lessons from Tim’s Sabbatical, Alzheimer’s Breakthroughs, Kevin Tries a Medium, Fitness Tools and Protocols, Book Recommendations, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #766 Daniel Day-Lewis Ends Seven-Year Retirement to Act in His Son’s Film | NPR What Are Hungry Ghosts? | Lion’s Roar Kurt Vonnegut on the Secret of Happiness: An Homage to Joseph Heller’s Wisdom | The Marginalian My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse (Includes Extensive Resource List) | The Tim Ferriss Show #464 Delicious Brews for Discerning Cocks | CØCKPUNCH Coffee How Five Different Religions Deal with Grief | Refinery29 On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler | Amazon Dr. Peter Attia — The Science and Art of Longevity, Optimizing Protein, Alcohol Rules, Lessons from Glucose Monitoring with CGMs, Boosting Your VO2 Max, Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease, Early Cancer Detection, How to Use DEXA Scans, Nature’s Longevity Drug, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #661 From Life Span to Health Span | Harvard Medical School Act Now, Live Longer | Biograph 10 Health and Performance Benefits of Creatine | Healthline Peter Attia Dives Deep on Statins (Side Effects and the Best Alternatives) | FoundMyFitness The Effects of Microplastics on Your Health and How to Reduce Them | Huberman Lab Optimize Your Water Quality and Intake for Health | Huberman Lab Magic Pill — Johann Hari and the New “Miracle” Weight-Loss Drugs | Tim Ferriss No Biological Free Lunches | Tim Ferriss Handmade Art You Can Use Every Day | Joel Cherrico Pottery Dewey Stuart (1898-1910) | Find a Grave Memorial The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin | Amazon Rick Rubin, Legendary Producer — Timeless Methods for Unlocking Creativity, Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight, The Future with AI, Helpful Distractions, Working with Strong Personalities, Breaking Out of “The Sameness,” and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #649 Quote by E.L. Doctorow: “Writing Is Like Driving at Night…” | Goodreads Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien | Amazon Explore Tolkien’s Oxford with Guide Rob Walters | Paseos Guiados The Stages of the Hero’s Journey | Stuart Voytilla Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | Prime Video Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card | Amazon The Legend of CØCKPUNCH Podcast Arcane: League of Legends | Netflix Arcane: Bridging the Rift | League of Legends Katana | Wikipedia Stratocaster: The World’s Greatest Electric Guitar | Fender Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) | Cleveland Clinic Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | Amazon Zen Master Henry Shukman — 20 Minutes of Calm, Plus the Strange and Powerful World of Koans | The Tim Ferriss Show #560 Henry Shukman — Zen, Tools for Awakening, Ayahuasca vs. Meditation, Intro to Koans, and Using Wounds as the Doorway | The Tim Ferriss Show #531 Meditation Training Program | The Way Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month | Tim Ferriss Future-Proof Your Career: AI-Resilient Job Strategies | Horton InternationalSHOW NOTES[00:05:09] Q&A format and ground rules.[00:05:35] My shift in perspective on parenting and fatherhood.[00:08:14] New creative directions: games, comics, animation.[00:10:30] Identity diversification.[00:18:01] Simple pleasures: outdoor activities, meditation, archery.[00:23:21] Using AI to keep questioning fresh and relevant.[00:27:12] Breaking through periods of feeling unsuccessful.[00:35:25] Exploring the fringes and growing personally over the past decade.[00:44:52] Longevity protocols and handling grief.[00:53:41] Coping with the loss of a pet.[00:55:00] Ecstatic creativity à la Rick Rubin and CØCKPUNCH.[01:03:37] Physiological awareness and self-regulation.[01:08:48] Finding career relevance in an AI-transformed landscape.[01:16:48] Parting thoughts.PEOPLE MENTIONEDDennis O’Neil Stan Lee Frank Frazetta Molly Ferriss James Lipton Terry Gross Charlie Rose Lex Fridman Byron Katie Daniel Day-Lewis Scrooge McDuck Alexander the Great Seth Godin Donald Trump Peter Attia Andrew Huberman Layne Norton Rick Rubin Frodo Baggins J.R.R. Tolkien C.S. Lewis R2-D2 Jesus Tyrolean Frank Miller Anthony de Mello Kevin Rose Henry Shukman

The post Q&A with Tim — How to Live with Urgency, Find Joy, and Fight Complacency (#778) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on November 20, 2024 06:51

Derek Sivers, Philosopher-Entrepreneur — The Greatest Year of His Life (#777)

“Whatever you feel yourself leaning away from, try leaning into. If you hate opera, then go learn more about opera. And if you hate sports, well, then go learn more about sports. It’s usually just learning about something gives you an appreciation for this thing that you used to just dismiss.”
— Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers is an author of philosophy and entrepreneurship, known for his surprising, quotable insights and pithy, succinct writing style. Derek’s books (How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Your Music and People, Anything You Want) and newest projects are at his website: sive.rs. His new book is Useful Not True.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic broad spectrum 24-strain probiotic + prebiotic, Momentous high-quality supplements, and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

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

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

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#777: Derek Sivers, Philosopher-Entrepreneur — The Greatest Year of His Life

This episode is brought to you by Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic! Seed’s DS-01 was recommended to me months ago by a PhD microbiologist, so I started using it well before their team ever reached out to me. Since then, it’s become a daily staple and one of the few supplements I travel with. I’ve always been highly skeptical of most probiotics due to the lack of science and the fact that many do not survive digestion. But after incorporating two capsules of Seed’s DS-01 into my morning routine, I have noticed improved digestion, skin tone, and overall health. Why is it so effective? For one, it’s a 2-in-1 probiotic and prebiotic formulated with 24 clinically and scientifically studied strains that have systemic benefits in and beyond the gut. And now, you can get 25% off your first month of DS-01 with code 25TIM.

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

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

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

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

Want to hear the last time Derek was on the show? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discuss the benefits of an unoptimized life, finding and asking mentors for help, the wisdom of quitting when you’re ahead, how to teach an 11-year-old to act like a 16-year-old, the problem with moral relativism and other -isms, securing tech independence, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Derek Sivers:

Website | Podcast | Twitter | YouTube

Useful Not True: Whatever Works for You by Derek Sivers How to Live: 27 Conflicting Answers and One Weird Conclusion by Derek Sivers Hell Yeah or No: What’s Worth Doing by Derek Sivers Your Music and People: Creative and Considerate Fame by Derek Sivers Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers Derek Sivers — The Joys of an Un-Optimized Life, Finding Paths Less Traveled, Creating Tech Independence (and Risks of the Cloud), Taking Giant Leaps, and Picking the Right “Game of Life” | The Tim Ferriss Show #668 Derek Sivers: Weird, or Just Different? | TED Talk Gahwa: A Quintessential Symbol of Emirati Hospitality | National Geographic Gourmet Arabian Hospitality | Café Bateel Ruby vs. Python: What’s the Difference and How to Choose? | Learn Enough Work Quickly and Integrate Systems More Effectively | Python Is a Rat the Right Pet for You? | The Humane Society of the United States Woman Brings Home a Rat and Discovers He’s Just like a Puppy | GeoBeats Animals 26 Years of Growth: Shanghai Then and Now | The Atlantic For Global Business | Alipay Connecting a Billion People | WeChat Things to Do in Taipei | The Complete Guide How Did Taipei Change in the Last Decade? | Quora China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict by David Daokui Li | Derek Sivers Blade Runner | Prime Video Japan Was the Future but It’s Stuck in the Past | BBC Shenzhen, China: All You Must Know Before You Go | Tripadvisor Chengdu, China: All You Must Know Before You Go | Tripadvisor Visit Dubai | Official Tourism Board in Dubai City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism by Jim Krane | Derek Sivers Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger | Derek Sivers The Bedouin — Desert Nomads | Bedouin Experience How Lee Kuan Yew Engineered Singapore’s Economic Miracle | BBC News Muscat, Oman: All You Must Know Before You Go | Tripadvisor Keeping Our Culture Alive Through Footwear | Tamashee Tamashee Steps Up Khaleeji | Gulf News Independent Adventuring Supply Shops | 826 Valencia The Birth of Islam | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Cormac McCarthy Writes to the Editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican | McSweeney’s Internet Tendency The Road by Cormac McCarthy | Amazon Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy | Amazon Seven Types of Hammered Dulcimers Around the World | Songbird Dulcimers The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss | Derek Sivers The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss | Derek Sivers How Groupthink Impacts Our Behavior | Verywell Mind What Is Asset Allocation and Why Is It Important? | Investopedia Varadaraja V. Raman — The Heart’s Reason: Hinduism and Science | The On Being Project System 1 and System 2 Thinking | The Decision Lab Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | Derek Sivers The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker | Amazon The Work | Byron Katie Oblique Strategies: Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas by Brian Eno | Amazon A Quiet Place to Think About Music | MusicThoughts Brian Eno: Interview with the Producer of U2’s No Line on the Horizon | The Telegraph Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV | Prime Video John Cage Performs “Water Walk” | I’ve Got a Secret Seesaws Built On US Border Wall Win Prestigious Design Prize | NPR The Story Of ‘4’33″‘ | NPR A 639-Year-Long John Cage Organ Performance Strikes a New Chord in Germany | NPR How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built by Stewart Brand | Derek Sivers Stewart Brand – The Polymath of Polymaths | The Tim Ferriss Show #281 The Latest in Technology, Science, Culture, and Business | Wired Interview of Kevin Kelly, Co-Founder of WIRED, Polymath, Most Interesting Man In The World? | The Tim Ferriss Show #25, #26, & #27 How to Do a Turkish Get-Up | Furthermore from Equinox Robust, Practical, and Fast | Clojure Simplicity Matters by Rich Hickey | Rails Conf 2012 Keynote Etymology of Complex | Online Etymology Dictionary Six Reasons the Puerto Rico Tax Incentives Aren’t All They’re Cracked Up to Be | US Tax Services Money — Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins | Derek Sivers Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss | Amazon Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss | Amazon George Does the Opposite | Seinfeld No Yes. Either HELL YEAH! or No. | Derek Sivers The Billionaire’s Guide to Doing Taxes | Vox Release Your Music Everywhere | CD Baby Who Was Bitcoin’s Satoshi? I Need to Know and So Do You. by Tyler Cowen | Bloomberg Betteridge’s Law of Headlines | Wikipedia E-Gold | Stanford University Tyler Cowen on Rationality, COVID-19, Talismans, and Life on the Margins | The Tim Ferriss Show ##413 All Food Is Ethnic Food. | Tyler Cowen’s Ethnic Dining Guide After National Acclaim over the past Decade, Where Is Pittsburgh’s Food Scene Headed? | Trib Live Translation Tools to Help People Translate Books | Inchword Japanese vs. Korean: Which is Easier to Learn? | Busuu Your Fast Track to Speaking a New Language | Fluent in 3 Months A Beginners Guide to Esperanto | The Guardian Universala Esperanto-Asocio Language Crash Course: Klingon | PGO 2020 Pimsleur Spanish Level 1 Lessons 1-5 | Amazon Learn to Read Korean in 15 Minutes | Ryan Estrada How to Do Basic Pen Tricks | Tim Ferriss Traditional Welcoming | Bedouin Experience Burj Khalifa: Unpacking the World’s Tallest Building | Architectural Digest UAE’s Diversity and Multiculturalism, Discussed By Those Who Live it Every Day | Vogue Arabia Mos Eisley Cantina Scene | Star Wars: Episode IV A New HopeSHOW NOTES[00:07:18] Derek Sivers: A Man who brings his own introduction.[00:09:25] First mind change: Emirati coffee.[00:12:34] Second mind change: Ruby to Python.[00:13:54] Third mind change: Rats.[00:17:23] Fourth mind change: China.[00:23:24] Fifth mind change: Dubai.[00:26:48] Tamashee: Come for the sandals, stay for the culture.[00:30:52] Cormac McCarthy Writes to the Editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican.[00:31:47] Shifting perspectives and the value of questioning preconceptions.[00:51:23] Brian Eno and MusicThoughts.[00:53:57] John Cage.[00:56:34] Three glasses.[00:57:08] Derek’s experimental housing project.[01:03:51] Rich Hickey and practical applications of simplicity.[01:29:20] Tyler Cowen.[01:35:57] Inchword and language learning.[01:46:35] Traveling to inhabit philosophies.[01:54:14] Parting thoughts.MORE DEREK SIVERS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Whatever you feel yourself leaning away from, try leaning into. If you hate opera, then go learn more about opera. And if you hate sports, well, then go learn more about sports. It’s usually just learning about something gives you an appreciation for this thing that you used to just dismiss.”
— Derek Sivers

“I travel to inhabit philosophies.”
— Derek Sivers

“Don’t jump through hoops to save taxes, jump through a hoop to go make more money. That’s the growth choice anyway. That’s the thought process that leads you to make growing decisions, not shrinking decisions.”
— Derek Sivers

“I’m willing to throw myself in and feel the pain to see if I’ve done it wrong.”
— Derek Sivers

“When I’m around people who I know agree with me, my inherent curiosity level drops a bit. And when I’m around people who I know don’t think like me, my curiosity piques.”
— Derek Sivers

“I deliberately fucked up my life and made a bunch of crazy fucking decisions, and some of them worked out great, and some of them didn’t. And I’m so happy that I did that.”
— Derek Sivers

“So often, the difference between success and failure is the mindset that leads you to take different actions. But if you just look at a situation, and you say, “That’s it. That’s what the situation is,” I’m not talking about physical things. I mean declaring something to be a dead end, declaring something to suck, these are all things of the mind, and nothing of the mind is necessarily true. Everything that’s just in the mind is just one perspective.”
— Derek Sivers

“It can be much harder to do something that is objectively simple, that stands alone, that isn’t dependent on other things. It can be harder to make that, but it’s ultimately usually a better choice because it’s more maintainable, it’s easier to change, it’s easier to stop and start. It’s simpler even if it’s harder to make.”
— Derek Sivers

“Esperanto is hippie Klingon.”
— Derek Sivers

PEOPLE MENTIONEDSeth Godin Wilfred Thesiger T. E. Lawrence Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Lee Kuan Yew Mohammad Kazim Cormac McCarthy Richard Branson Elon Musk Gavin de Becker Byron Katie Brian Eno John Cage Nam June Paik Stewart Brand Kevin Kelly Frank Lloyd Wright Rich Hickey Tony Robbins Neil Strauss George Costanza Tyler Cowen Satoshi Nakamoto John F. Kennedy Jeff Koons Benny Lewis Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof

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Published on November 14, 2024 06:29

Derren Brown — A Master Mentalist on Magic, Mind Reading, Ambition, Stoicism, Religion, and More (#776)

“Gather yourself afresh.”
— Derren Brown

Derren Brown (@derrenbrown) is a psychological illusionist who can predict, suggest, and even control human behavior. Starting his TV career with shows such as Mind Control and Trick or Treat for Channel 4 (the UK’s equivalent of PBS), Derren has combined spectacular illusions with insights into how we see the world and those around us, or expect to see them. Rather than guard the mystery behind his illusions and manipulations, he lays bare his techniques and demonstrates how the human mind works.

A prolific creator and performer, Derren has appeared in blockbuster stage and television shows alike, including the sold-out Broadway run of his one-man show Secret, his Olivier Award-winning tour of Svengali, and his Netflix specials The Push, Miracle, and the harrowing Sacrifice, in which he tries to manipulate an ordinary person into taking a bullet for a stranger.

Derren is the author of multiple books, including Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine and A Book of Secrets: Finding Comfort in a Complex World. Derren’s new tour, Only Human, materializes on stages across the UK beginning April of 2025.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, LinkedIn Ads, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness and generate leads, and ExpressVPN high-speed, secure, and anonymous VPN service.

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

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#776: Derren Brown — A Master Mentalist on Magic, Mind Reading, Ambition, Stoicism, Religion, and MoreDerren Brown

This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I’ve been using ExpressVPN to make sure that my data is secure and encrypted, without slowing my Internet speed. If you ever use public Wi-Fi at, say, a hotel or a coffee shop, where I often work and as many of my listeners do, you’re often sending data over an open network, meaning no encryption at all.

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This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I’ve suffered for decades, tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling them back on, and repeating ad nauseam. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 4 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. Plus, it automatically tracks your sleep time, snoring, sleep stages, and HRV, all with high precision. For example, their heart rate tracking is at an incredible 99% accuracy.

Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable Base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame to add custom positions for the best sleeping experience. Plus, it automatically reduces your snoring when detected. Add it easily to any bed.

And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or build long-term relationships that result in real business impact.

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Want to hear another episode with someone who delights audiences with feats of magic? Listen to my conversation with Simon Coronel, in which we discuss radical earliness, neurodivergence, categories of stage magic, late (but timely) blooming, mentalism misgivings, jigsaw puzzles, spending time at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Derren Brown:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Derren Brown: Sacrifice | Netflix Netflix’s Derren Brown: Sacrifice Is an Utterly Bizarre, Ethically Questionable, Totally Gripping Must-See | Paste Magazine Derren Brown: The Push | Netflix Duncan Greive: Netflix Drives Man to Brink of Murder with New Show | NZ Herald The Truman Show | Prime Video The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy: Was Sirhan Sirhan Hypnotized to Be the Fall Guy? | The Washington Post Derren Brown: Apocalypse | YouTube The Game | Prime Video The Assassin with Stephen Fry | Derren Brown: The Experiments The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams | Amazon Master Magician David Blaine — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss | The Tim Ferriss Show #546 Mind Control with Derren Brown | Prime Video Tricks Of Mind by Derren Brown | Amazon Hypnosis | Wikipedia Derren Brown: Showman | Apollo Theatre Dr. David Spiegel, Stanford U. — Practical Hypnosis, Meditation vs. Hypnosis, Pain Management Without Drugs, The Neurobiology of Trance, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #731 What Is Mentalism? Tips for Becoming a Mentalist | MasterClass Cold Reader Tips: How Cold Reading Works | MasterClass Debunking Psychics: An Intro to Hot Reading | Rachel Oates The Man Who Contacts the Dead | Derren Brown Investigates The Illuminati, QAnon, Lizard People, and Other Bizarre Conspiracy Theories | Spyscape Richard Wiseman on Lessons from Dale Carnegie, How to Keep a Luck Diary, Mentalism, The Psychology of the Paranormal, Mass Participation Experiments, NLP, Remote Viewing, and Attempting the Impossible | The Tim Ferriss Show #593 Derren Brown on Why the Supernatural Isn’t Real (Clip) | Diary of a CEO Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks by Ben Goldacre | Amazon Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational by Michael Shermer | Amazon The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading: The Definitive Guide to How Cold Reading Is Used in the Psychic Industry by Ian Rowland | Amazon Oracle of Delphi: Why Was It So Important to Ancient Greeks? | The Collector Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life | The Tim Ferriss Show #775 The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins | Amazon Derren Brown: The Miracle Maker Reveals His Christian Past | Premier Christianity Believing in God & Overcoming Your Fears: Fear And Faith | Derren Brown The Jungian Shadow | Society of Analytical Psychology The Coming Out Experience | Pew Research Center What Is Conversion Therapy and When Will It Be Banned? | BBC News Dead Poets Society | Prime Video Derren Brown: ‘I Was a Terrible Attention Seeker’ | The Guardian Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Fine by Derren Brown | Amazon What Is Stoicism? A Definition and Nine Stoic Exercises to Get You Started | Daily Stoic Stoicism Resources and Recommendations | Tim Ferriss Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) | Wikipedia A Book of Secrets: Finding Comfort in a Complex World by Derren Brown | Amazon Derren Brown’s Boot Camp for Emotion Derren Brown’s Boot Camp for Emotion by Derren Brown | Amazon Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World by Hartmut Rosa | Amazon Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi | Amazon Derren Brown Demonstrates How Faith Healers Work | Derren Brown Derren Brown: Miracle | Netflix Rhonda Byrne on Why Manifestation Sometimes Fails | Ask Rhonda The Secret by Rhonda Byrne | Amazon Art Store | Derren Brown Telic vs Atelic: Balancing Work and Play in Your Life | HackerNoon Only Human | Derren Brown Notes From a Fellow Traveller by Derren Brown | Derren Brown Books Sherlock | Prime Video Fargo Season 1 | Prime Video Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality | The Tim Ferriss Show #644 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt | Amazon Books by James Hollis | Amazon Books by Irvin D. Yalom | Amazon Books by Oliver Sacks | Amazon Books by Fyodor Dostoevsky | Amazon Hannibal Lecter Series by Thomas Harris | Amazon Books by Stephen King | Amazon Little, Big by John Crowley | Amazon Picnic Comma Lightning: The Experience of Reality in the Twenty-First Century by Laurence Scott | Amazon Derren Brown: Mentalism, Mind Reading, and the Art of Getting Inside Your Head | TED Talk Tim Ferriss | TED Talks Go to the Limits of Your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke | The On Being ProjectSHOW NOTES[00:06:45] Sacrifice, The Push, and Apocalypse.[00:12:21] Derren’s transition from student to magician.[00:14:43] How Martin Taylor inspired Derren to pursue hypnosis.[00:16:42] Strange audience reactions to hypnosis.[00:20:00] Hypnosis, mentalism, and cold reading.[00:24:34] How a TV medium uses hot reading techniques.[00:26:22] How can someone learn to be a healthy skeptic?[00:34:24] How learning magic influenced Derren’s skepticism and faith.[00:40:57] Why did Derren wait until his 30s to come out?[00:43:18] Finding meaning.[00:47:06] High status struggles.[00:48:20] Making sense of the human experience.[00:56:59] Ambition and productivity.[01:02:25] The counterintuitive assembly of Derren’s creative projects.[01:09:17] Ensuring ethics and safety in TV social experiments.[01:15:50] Suggestion as self-defense.[01:20:27] Why Derren takes care not to abuse his superpowers in real life.[01:24:01] Recommended reading.[01:28:02] TED Talks in treacherous terrain.[01:29:53] A new belief or habit that has improved Derren’s life.[01:33:27] Derren’s billboard and parting thoughts.MORE DERREN BROWN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Life’s difficult. Life has this centripetal quality. It brings us to this difficult central point. The thing that makes us feel most isolated is the one thing that actually connects us the most.”
— Derren Brown

“If you want to keep the seat next to you free on a train, don’t put your bag there, because that’s what everybody does. Instead, pat the seat and nod and smile at people. No one’s going to sit next to you.”
— Derren Brown

“The experience of something bigger than yourself is how we find meaning.”
— Derren Brown

“I think just how you make peace with life that’s not always going to go your way, that’s the project, that’s a successful life.”
— Derren Brown

“If you’ve got all the energy and self-promotion, but no talent to back it up, it’s not going to be very helpful. And if you’ve got all the talent in the world, but no energy of getting it out there for people to see, that’s also not great.”
— Derren Brown

“Sometimes a bit of conflict is important because it isn’t really about conflict, is it? It’s about being able to have some faith in what you actually are and want to say and stand for.”
— Derren Brown

“Gather yourself afresh.”
— Derren Brown

PEOPLE MENTIONEDDonald Trump Michael Douglas Sirhan Sirhan Robert F. Kennedy Stephen Fry David Blaine Martin Taylor David Spiegel David Copperfield Q Richard Wiseman Ben Goldacre Michael Shermer Ian Rowland Tommy Wonder Carl Jung Christine Brown Seneca the Younger William J. Clinton Hillary Clinton Marcus Aurelius Epictetus Hartmut Rosa Arthur Schopenhauer Sigmund Freud Mihály Csíkszentmihályi Rhonda Byrne Michael Vine Kevin Kelly Phil Hope Martin Freeman Benedict Cumberbatch Jonathan Haidt James Hollis Irvin D. Yalom Oliver Sacks Fyodor Dostoevsky Thomas Harris Hannibal Lecter Stephen King John Crowley Laurence Scott Gabor Maté Rainer Maria Rilke

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Published on November 07, 2024 07:45

No Booze, No Masturbating (NOBNOM) November Challenge

A female festival-goer in a bikini top side-eyes someone offscreen while sticking her tongue out.

(Photo: Shawn Perez)

I did this publicly once before in 2014, and someone recently messaged to say that it changed their life, so we’re doing it again!

Your 30 days can start whenever you see this post, so don’t worry about missing the 1st.

You know who you are, you filthy animals.

Secret bookmarks to Pornhub (“Discount airfare” – Ha!), secret folders labeled “Tax Returns 2019” for when wifi fails, ExpressVPN for when you’re in countries that block your cherished videos…

Oh, wait. Am I projecting again?

Yes, I’ve admitted it before, and I’ll admit it again: dudes watch porn on the Internet. Shocker, I know. All those guys on the magazine covers? They do it, too.

Less obvious, perhaps, is how dramatically your life can change if you quit porn and masturbation for a short period.

I did this for 30 days recently, and—oddly enough—I found it much easier and more impactful to quit booze for the same 30 days.

I highly recommend watching this short clip from The Drive by Peter Attia, MD, in which he interviews Anna Lembke, MD on a cannabis-using patient. Dr. Lembke discusses how to reset the brain’s reward system and joy set point to improve mental health. Often, four weeks of abstinence from compulsive behaviors is enough to dramatically reduce anxiety and depression without medication.

Just a few of the specific benefits I experienced included…

A dramatic surge in free testosterone and sex drive. Dozens of my seemingly healthy male friends, techies in particular, have approached me over the years about chronically low testosterone. There are many potential causes, including late-night blue light and laptop heat on the lap, but removing booze and porn appears to open the flood gates. Research (example, example) shows that alcohol reduces testosterone levels. So… should you be dating more? Trying a little harder instead of wanking, watching Netflix, and calling it a night? This will help motivate you.
Increased ability to focus and cognitive endurance. This goes along with the increased “T” mentioned above.
Getting a LOT more done. When you aren’t nursing hangovers, destroying your sleep with booze, or procrastinating with porn (you know who you are)—miracle of miracles—you get more done! A LOT more done. In my mind, this alone easily justifies a 30-day booze and porn fast. You’ll clear off that goddamn to-do list faster than the Flash. And remember: sex is still allowed.

Join Me For Another 30 Days

Given how transformative this was for me, I’m inviting you to join me for the month of November (30 days). I need it, too. After that, you can go back to your hedonistic ways. I enjoy porn, but I’ve concluded I can level up by taking breaks.

I’ll refer to our 30-day challenge as NOBNOM (NO Booze, NO Masturbating), as the acronym itself sounds pornographic. We gotta make this sumnabitch memorable.

If you don’t masturbate, or if you otherwise don’t watch enough porn to care about abstaining, here’s another option: NOBNOC — No Booze, No Complaining. For this version, please first read “Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment.”

Suggested resourcesReddit communities

Quitting porn:

r/NoFap — Porn Addiction and Compulsive Sexual Behavior Peer Support Forumr/pornfree — Overcoming porn addiction one day at a timer/NoNutNovember — Support and meme community for those attempting No Nut November, an internet challenge to abstain from sexual activity during the month of November

Quitting alcohol:

r/Sober — Getting sober and sober living r//stopdrinking — A support group in your pocket! This subreddit is a place to motivate each other to control or stop drinking. The Tim Ferriss Show — relevant episodes:

Jason Portnoy — Porn Addiction, The Corrosiveness of Secrets, Healing Wounds, Escaping Shame Cycles, and Books to Change Your Life.

If you’ve been feeling less than super-productive, slightly lethargic, or mildly depressed, do this 30-day challenge.

At the very least, it’ll make you conscious of automatic behaviors—things you’ve done for so long that you know nothing else.

If you’re like me, once the fat starts melting off and you’re feeling like a different person, you’ll say to yourself:

“Holy shit, my baseline for the last 10 years [or 5 or 15 or whatever] has been fucked! I totally forgot what it feels like to live clean.”

Perhaps living clean ended for you after high school, or even before, as it did for me. Why not get reacquainted for 30 days? Chances are that it’s been a while.

The post No Booze, No Masturbating (NOBNOM) November Challenge appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

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Published on November 01, 2024 11:50

Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life (#775)

Jon Batiste (@jonbatiste) is a five-time Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and composer. His eighth studio album, Beethoven Blues, is set for a November 15th release. This project marks the first installment in his solo piano series, showcasing Batiste’s interpretations of Beethoven’s iconic works, reimagined. Beethoven Blues follows Batiste’s studio album World Music Radio, which received five Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year.

Batiste is featured in Matthew Heineman’s Netflix documentary, American Symphony. The film follows Batiste’s journey, starting in early 2022, as he receives 11 Grammy nominations for his studio album We Are. Amid this success, he faces the challenge of composing a symphony for Carnegie Hall while supporting his wife, bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning journalist Suleika Jaouad, who learns her cancer has returned. As a composer, Batiste scored Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, now in theaters. The film depicts the chaotic 90 minutes before Saturday Night Live’s first broadcast in 1975, underscored by Batiste’s blending of jazz, classical, and contemporary elements. He composed and produced the music live on set, capturing the intensity of the show’s debut. Batiste appears in the film as Billy Preston, the show’s first musical guest. Additionally, Batiste composed and performed music for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Ramp easy-to-use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and more; AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement; and Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating.

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

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#775: Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life

This episode is brought to you by Ramp! Ramp is corporate card- and spend-management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp has already saved more than 25,000 customers—including other podcast sponsors like Shopify and Eight Sleep—more than 10 million hours and more than $1 billion through better financial management of their corporate spending.

With Ramp, you’re able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting, allowing you to close your books 8x faster on average. Your employees will no longer need to spend hours submitting expense reports. In less than 15 minutes, you can get started issuing virtual and physical cards and making payments, whether you have 5 employees or 5,000. Businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% on total card spending and related expenses in the first year. And now, you can get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I’ve suffered for decades, tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling them back on, and repeating ad nauseam. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 4 Ultra. I’m excited to test it out. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 4 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool, even in a heatwave. Plus, it automatically tracks your sleep time, snoring, sleep stages, and HRV, all with high precision. For example, their heart rate tracking is at an incredible 99% accuracy.

Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable Base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame to add custom positions for the best sleeping experience. Plus, it automatically reduces your snoring when detected. Just add it easily onto any bed.

And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

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

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Want to hear another episode that includes improvised musical performance? Have a listen to my first conversation with Jamie Foxx here in which we discussed workout routines, origin stories, impersonations, parenting style, networking and staying connected before social media, lessons from Ray Charles, bombing on stage, and much more.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Jon Batiste:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Threads

Beethoven Blues by Jon Batiste | Amazon Saturday Night (Trailer) | Sony Pictures Entertainment Soul | Prime Video Meet the World-Famous Hot-Spring Loving Snow Monkeys | Travel Japan Ogimi Village – A Village of Longevity Set in a Beautiful Natural Environment | Okinawa Island Guide Kurt Vonnegut Once Told a Story About Buying One Envelope at a Time | Snopes Jon Batiste on His Awards Glory: ‘Overnight a Lot of Stuff Changed’ | The Guardian Andrew Zimmern on Simple Cooking Tricks, Developing TV, and Addiction | The Tim Ferriss Show #40 Jonathan Batiste & The Stay Human Band — It’s Alright with Me | Facebook Casio SK-1: This Legendary Lo-Fi Sampler from 1986 Is Still Worth It | David Hilowitz Music The Surprising Origins of the Running Man Dance! | Wehustle Clips How to Moonwalk | Mihran Kirakosian Jon Batiste Performs Freedom Live from the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, 2022 | Universal Music Group Austin’s #1 Music Venue | Moody Center Jon Batiste and Stay Human Take Their Social Music to the Streets of New York City | Marc Millman Suleika Jaouad on Invaluable Road Trips, the Importance of a To-Feel List, and Finding Artistic Homes (#516) – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad | Amazon How to Survive a Black Hole: Instructions and Other Brilliance from Astrophysicist Janna Levin – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss City of Kenner, LA | Instagram The Batiste Kids (Travis, Jamal, and Jon Batiste), 1994 | WWL TV Jon Batiste’s Family Shares Stories About His Childhood, Rise to Fame | WWL Cultivating Artistry | The Juilliard School Walking Pneumonia: What Does It Mean? | Mayo Clinic The True Measures of Greatness | InsightLA Meditation Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello | Amazon Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories | The Tim Ferriss Show #124 Blues | The Library of Congress A Beginner’s Guide to the Blues Scale | Happy Bluesman Ratatouille | Prime VideoSHOW NOTES[00:06:46] Is the secret to long life embracing the mundane?[00:09:28] The gift of mistakes.[00:10:21] Why did Jon wait until he was 10 to speak?[00:12:51] How music and performance entered the picture.[00:13:36] An early exercise in winning over the room.[00:15:08] Choosing the personal facets that art expresses.[00:16:57] From a disappointing grade school performance to the Grammys.[00:21:44] Cultivating suspense and shifting modes of creative expression.[00:27:24] When perspective drives motivation more than stakes.[00:32:14] Spiritual practice and grounding mantras.[00:40:29] Surrender, acceptance, and growth through health challenges.[00:43:37] The fuzzy line between blessing and curse.[00:46:40] Growing up bullied as the “least talented” in a musical family.[00:52:50] Jon’s visionary mother guided him toward piano.[00:55:23] Parental support for Jon’s relocation to New York City.[00:56:15] Serious setbacks that almost made Jon quit Juilliard and music altogether.[01:00:37] Jon’s advice to a younger musician enduring a similar path of hardships.[01:03:11] How Jon owns what comes his way rather than allowing it to overwhelm him.[01:07:30] Cultivating generosity without being drained.[01:09:32] Jon’s billboard is invisible — but with deep posts.[01:11:47] My rough draft of five deep handfuls.[01:18:21] Jon’s answer in musical improv.[01:25:42] Jon’s upcoming album: Beethoven Blues (with bonus blues tutorial).[01:39:09] Taking the hypotenuse to catharsis and other Parting thoughts.MORE JON BATISTE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Take your time to find the prize. There’s no rush. Pace yourself.”
— Jon Batiste

“Mistakes are amazing. Mistakes are brilliant. It’s a gift to go about your day and for something, either a mistake or something that you didn’t plan, an interruption, some seeming calamity happening that allows for you to not only respond but to create.”
— Jon Batiste

“When I was in college, my band and I would go in the subway and we would play for people. We wouldn’t ask for money. We wouldn’t busk. We would just play concerts for people who weren’t expecting a concert to just get to the point where we were fearless about presenting art.”
— Jon Batiste

“You have to understand what is it that’s yearning to be expressed within you. Even if you’re dreadfully afraid of it, you can have something within that seems so far away from the reality of your current state that it couldn’t possibly be for you in your mind. And every fiber of your being is telling you, ‘This isn’t what I should be pursuing. This isn’t who I am.’ That’s the one right there.”
— Jon Batiste

“I love to create these pockets of suspense, these pockets of pressurized creativity or pressurized experience that lead me to discovery, that [push] me forward. And I think about things that are not music, like cinema or — there are so many things that are not connected to the actual craft that I draw from much, much, much more than actually thinking about the inspiration of music and the fruit of the craft itself.”
— Jon Batiste

“There’s something about life. There’s a truth. There’s something about going through the fire that is so required and something about suffering that is so essential. This idea that we are meant to run from pain or run from difficult things and find the most leisurely and completely frictionless existence possible is such a lie.”
— Jon Batiste

“[Musical improvisation] feels like you are traveling. You’re moving, and your hand is telling you, ‘This is what I want to play.’ And as you play it, you’re seeing all the colors, and you’re hearing the sound. It starts to tell you, ‘Now I want to go here.’ And then sometimes it’s telling you things that you don’t know.”
— Jon Batiste

“Blues is an allegory for the human condition in sound. It’s a musical allegory that exists within the context of a cultural movement.”
— Jon Batiste

“If you don’t live it and it’s not a part of you, it’s not going to come out of the instrument. What we play is life. What we create is life.”
— Jon Batiste

“I don’t actually believe that failure exists. It’s not that it’s necessarily for your own good, but failure doesn’t exist. There’s opportunity for you to take something from the experience.”
— Jon Batiste

“On stage you have to present yourself in a way that is amplifying aspects of what’s inside. And ultimately, you have a decision to make as a performer to decide how far between who you actually are and who you’ve created to project on the stage.”
— Jon Batiste

“There’s a constellation of inspiration that crosses so many spectrums of society, and I can’t access it if I play by these rules.”
— Jon Batiste

“When I don’t have inspiration or I have a block, I do nothing. I live. And it’s absolutely because of the deeper inspiration that I’m blessed to feel. I feel it’s been cultivated. I’m connected to it, and I know it’s real, and it doesn’t have to greet me every day. I know it’s there.”
— Jon Batiste

PEOPLE MENTIOEND

Anton Ego
Jimi Hendrix
Jason Reitman
Billy Preston
Trent Reznor
Atticus Ross
Kurt Vonnegut
Andrew Zimmern
Molly Ferriss
Michael Jackson
MC Hammer
Jemel McWilliams
Tony Robbins
Suleika Jaouad
Alfred Hitchcock
Janna Levin
Travis Batiste
Jamal Batiste
Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews
Jon’s Family
Anthony de Mello
Jamie Foxx
Ludwig van Beethoven

The post Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life (#775) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

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Published on October 30, 2024 08:24

Learnings from 1,000+ Near-Death Experiences — Dr. Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia (#774)

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“I was taught in college and medical school that the mind is what the brain does, and all our thoughts and feelings and perceptions are all created by the brain. And I cannot believe that anymore. I’ve seen people whose brains were either offline or severely impaired telling me they had the most elaborate experience they’ve ever had. So I’m inclined to think that the mind is something else and the brain filters it.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

Bruce Greyson, M.D. (brucegreyson.com), is the Chester F. Carlson Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences and Director Emeritus of the Division of Perceptual Studies at The University of Virginia. He is also a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and one of the founders of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.

Dr. Greyson’s research for the past half century has focused on the aftereffects and implications of near-death experiences and has resulted in more than 100 presentations to national and international scientific conferences, more than 150 publications in academic medical and psychological journals, 50 book chapters, and numerous research grants.

He is a co-author of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century; co-editor of The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives and of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation; and author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.

Please enjoy!

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Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of consciousness? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman here, in which we discuss the science of consciousness, how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, and much more wild stuff.

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

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Dr. Bruce Greyson:

Website

“If you study things that we pretty much understand already, you can make little inroads here and there about fine points. If you really want to make some impact, you need to study things we don’t understand at all.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“I started out as a materialist skeptic. After 50 years, I’m still skeptical, but I’m no longer a materialist. I think that’s a dead end when it comes to explaining near-death experiences and other phenomena like this.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“I’m not a philosopher. I’m an empiricist. And when people say to me, as many do, ‘If you have this non-physical mind, how does it interact with a physical brain?’ And I have no idea. On the other hand, if you take a materialistic perspective and say, ‘How does the brain, the chemical and electrical changes in the brain, create an abstract thought?’ We have no idea about that either.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Whether you’re an empiricist, a materialist, or not, we can’t explain how thoughts arise and how they get processed to us. What we do know is that all our experiences are filtered to us through the brain.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“I was taught in college and medical school that the mind is what the brain does, and all our thoughts and feelings and perceptions are all created by the brain. And I cannot believe that anymore. I’ve seen people whose brains were either offline or severely impaired telling me they had the most elaborate experience they’ve ever had. So I’m inclined to think that the mind is something else and the brain filters it.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“About five percent of the general population — or one to every 20 people — has had a near-death experience. Secondly, they are not associated in any way with mental illness. People who are perfectly normal have these NDEs in abnormal situations that can happen to anybody.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“The more I learned about [NDEs], the harder they seem to understand. So I’ve gotten more comfortable with not knowing all the answers.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Right now, people are listening to us and there’s electrical activity in parts of their brain that process hearing. It always happens when they’re hearing us, this part of the brain always lights up. That doesn’t mean that electrical activity is causing our voices, it’s just a reflection of it. So when you find these physiological concomitants of a near-death experience, you’re finding perhaps the mechanism for it, but not the cause of it.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Most people who study near-death experiences, whether they’re spiritualists or materialists or neuropsychologist or philosophers, they agree on the phenomena — they don’t agree on the interpretation of it, of what’s causing it and what its ultimate meaning is.”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

“Many near-death experiences have tried drugs afterwards to try to replicate the experience, and they universally tell me it is not the same thing. One person told me, ‘When I was on psilocybin, I saw Heaven. When I was in my near-death experience, I was in Heaven.'”
— Dr. Bruce Greyson

The post Learnings from 1,000+ Near-Death Experiences — Dr. Bruce Greyson, University of Virginia (#774) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

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Published on October 23, 2024 08:31