Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 65

Coach George Raveling — A Legend on Sports, Business, and The Great Game of Life (#332)

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“I’ve always had this theory that, if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll always get what you want.” — George Raveling

Coach George Raveling (@GeorgeRaveling) is an 80-year-old living legend and Nike’s former Director of International Basketball. Coach Raveling was the first African American head basketball coach in the PAC-8 (now PAC-12), and he is often referred to as the “Human Google.”

Coach Raveling has held head coaching jobs at Washington State, The University of Iowa, and USC. Following a prolific basketball coaching career, he joined Nike at the request of Phil Knight, where he played an integral role in signing a reluctant Michael Jordan. He’s also been inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as well as the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

In this episode we cover a lot of things including how he came to possess the original copy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, how his practice team ended up beating the 1984 US Olympic Dream Team in basketball, and much, much more!

I hope you’ll emerge from this conversation walking on air as I did!

Enjoy!

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#332: Coach George Raveling — A Legend on Sports, Business, and The Great Game of Life
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/fcda22c8-9ba8-466b-ae80-25d38e284612.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear a podcast featuring mutual friend Ryan Holiday? — In this episode, we discuss the “big three” Stoics, how Stoicism applies to the modern world, and how to improve your decision-making when stakes are high (stream below or right-click here to download):

Episode 4: Ryan Holidayhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/6e955a89-cac4-4887-8e3c-ec658faa498d.mp3Download

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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Tao of Seneca by Seneca
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is visit Audible.com/Tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endless options they offer. That could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or even a class. It’s that easy. Go to Audible.com/Tim or text TIM to 500500 to get started today.

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with George Raveling:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn

The “I Have A Dream” Speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
How I Got Over by Mahalia Jackson
Pioneering Coach George Raveling’s Surprising Connection to MLK by Seth Davis, Sports Illustrated
University of Iowa
Villanova University
Crozer Theological Seminary
13 Things You Probably Never Knew about Martin Luther King’s College Years by Holly Epstein Ojalvo, USA Today College
Garfield Memorial Hospital by The House History Man
St. Michael’s School
St. Joseph’s College
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Two Minute History: Aunt Jemima by Black&Sexy.TV
Barnes & Noble
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
Einstein: The Man, the Genius, and the Theory of Relativity by Walter Isaacson
Kissinger: A Biography by Walter Isaacson
“The Negro Question.” Albert Einstein’s 1946 Statement on Racism and Civil Rights by Dr. Albert Einstein, Global Research
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
Life is So Good by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman
George Dawson; Author Learned to Read at 98 by Myrna Oliver, The Los Angeles Times
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer, Dockworker-Author Who Looked Into Life, Dies At 80, The New York Times
Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon
Writing Blue Highways: William Least Heat-Moon, The Kansas City Public Library
University of Pennsylvania Official Bookstore
Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe
Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality by Hector Macdonald
The Mind: Its Projections and Multiple Facets by Yogi Bhajan
George Raveling Delivers 2016 Villanova Commencement Address
Washington State University
University of Southern California
Remembering Michael Jordan and the 1984 Olympic Trials by Sean Deveney, Sporting News
The Dream Team’s Very Bad Day by Richard Sandomir, The New York Times
University of Maryland
Atlantic Coast Conference
A Rebounder’s Workshop: A Drill Manual on Rebounding by George Raveling
War On The Boards: A Rebounding Manual by George Raveling
Michael Jordan Says George Raveling Was Key Guy Pushing Him to Nike by Kurt Helin, NBC Sports

SHOW NOTES

It’s hard to know where to begin interviewing someone who’s lived as many lifetimes in one as Coach Raveling, so let’s find out how he came to possess Martin Luther King Jr.’s original “I Have a Dream” speech. [06:57]
Three men George considers his indirect mentors. [23:33]
A surprising fact about MLK that George didn’t discover until just recently. [25:13]
How has Dr. King inspired George and helped him make tough decisions and sacrifices throughout his life? [26:21]
To young George, his grandmother was as infallible as the Pope. How did he come to be in her care at age 12 and wind up going to Catholic school in Pennsylvania? [30:36]
What Grandma taught George and his brother about social graces — particularly how to treat women. [35:00]
How a remarkable nun encouraged George to be special and face life with a positive attitude. [37:48]
Why did George participate in every sport available in high school, and what made him gravitate toward basketball? [39:38]
An approach by a Hall of Fame coach and learning the meaning of the word “scholarship.” [42:24]
How did Grandma take the news about George’s scholarship offer? [44:56]
George talks about his rare collection of racist books, figurines, and postcards from the 19th and 20th centuries and why he keeps them on display in his home. [47:15]
What else does George collect? [51:12]
George looks upon relationships as a privilege and he always tries to be of service to his friends. [52:17]
Most of George’s best friendships started by mistake. Here’s an example that led him to seek out more associations with young people — and an examination of what this teaches George. [54:15]
Relationships as a “we” mentality, not a “me” mentality. [56:28]
George talks about the sometimes quirky scope of his voracious reading habit and its origins. [57:07]
What’s George’s search and discovery routine for deciding whether or not to buy a book when he’s at the store? [1:01:13]
Learning new lessons and discovering favorite authors at age 80. [1:03:37]
George proves you’re never too old to become a mastermind (even if it sends you to bed with headaches). [1:06:10]
What are the books George rereads and gives most often as gifts (and why does he call Tools of Titans his “China” book? [1:07:55]
We go over the books George brought as gifts for me and why he chose them. [1:11:11]
As note-taking fanatics, George and I compare notes about…notes. [1:18:35]
How George segments the information he takes in to avoid being overwhelmed and ensuring it sticks. [1:20:50]
What George does when he gets bored with reading on a long trip. [1:22:16]
No blank page ever goes to waste. Here are a few more secrets future archaeologists might use to decode our notes. [1:23:25]
What gets discovered on the second read of a favorite book. [1:26:07]
George’s notes get transferred to journals — which he has dating back to 1972. [1:27:01]
What George likes to ask himself at the end of every day. [1:28:35]
Why George feels it’s important to practice random acts of kindness. [1:30:15]
A motivational Bob Knight quote and winning gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. [1:32:19]
On leading the college practice team that beat the Dream Team during a scrimmage before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. [1:35:23]
Three coaches that have had the most impact on George. [1:39:30]
How Bob Knight pushed George to write the first book on rebounds. [1:42:20]
George owes everyone who saw something in him along the way that he didn’t see in himself a debt of gratitude. [1:44:18]
While most people look forward to retiring by age 60, George’s most productive years so far didn’t begin until then. [1:45:25]
George talks us through his history with Nike and the job offer that seemed like a prank phone call. [1:46:52]
A story about visiting China in the late ’70s — when Beijing was still called Peking and westerners might as well have been from the moon. [1:50:05]
How much influence did George have on initially reluctant and self-professed “adidas guy” Michael Jordan signing to Nike? [1:52:59]
What does George mean when he says the most important conversation is the one you have with yourself? [1:57:55]
The only two choices George has when he gets out of bed in the morning, the number of things he limits himself to accomplishing in a day, and how he keeps office teamwork tight. [2:00:54]
A personal audit once per week. [2:03:18]
What George believes to be the biggest farce that’s ever been predicated on us. [2:03:55]
What is George most excited about working on these days? [2:04:31]
What would George’s billboard say? [2:05:32]
George’s challenge to the audience. [2:07:05]
Parting thoughts. [2:08:06]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Ryan Holiday
Phil Knight
Michael Jordan
Martin Luther King Jr.
John Lewis
James Baldwin
Mahalia Jackson
John F. Kennedy
Malcolm X
Harry S. Truman
Jack Ramsay
Al Severance
Bob Knight
John Thompson
Sonny Vaccaro
Kevin Eastman
Alex Cervasio
Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs
Benjamin Franklin
Albert Einstein
Henry Kissinger
Abraham Lincoln
Jordan Peterson
George Dawson
Eric Hoffer
William Least Heat-Moon
Yogi Bhajan
Gurucharan S. Khalsa
Joi Ito
Chuck Daly
Christian Laettner
Magic Johnson
Larry Bird
Charles Barkley
C.M. Newton
Bobby Hurley
Chris Webber
Roy Williams
Dennis Johnson
John Thompson
Lefty Driesell
Jerry Tarkanian
Jimmy Valvano

Bill Foster
Eddie Sutton
Vern Fleming
Patrick Ewing
David Falk
Spike Lee
Charlie Denson

Ann Miura-Ko — The Path from Shyness to World-Class Debater and Investor (#331)

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“The main difference was that I was willing to outwork and outdo every competitor who walked in through that door.” — Ann Miura-Ko

Ann Miura-Ko (@annimaniac) has been called “the most powerful woman in startups” by Forbes and is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Stanford. The child of a rocket scientist at NASA, Ann is a Palo Alto native and has been steeped in technology startups from when she was a teenager. Prior to co-founding Floodgate, she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth.

Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists. Ann is known for her debate skills (she placed first in the National Tournament of Champions and second in the State of California in high school) and was part of a five-person team at Yale that competed in the Robocup Competition in Paris, France. She has a BSEE from Yale and a PhD from Stanford in math modeling of computer security. She lives with her husband, three kids, and one spoiled dog. Her interests are piano, robots, and gastronomy.

Enjoy!

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#331: “Is That a World-Class Effort?”: The Story of Investor Ann Miura-Ko
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/1befb595-f5fc-45e7-8892-e3a2f0263029.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear my interview with Ann’s business partner? — Check out my interview with Mike Maples, Jr. from venture capital firm Floodgate, the man who taught me how to invest. Stream below or right-click here to download.

#286: The Man Who Taught Me How to Investhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/a37b219c-ddc8-412e-a344-3aae64dee746.mp3Download

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Ann Miura-Ko:

Floodgate | Twitter | Instagram

Foothill College
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury
Palo Alto High School
Stanford University
Official Cobra Kai Trailer — The Karate Kid Saga Continues
The Crash-Course Guide to Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Debate Central
The Socratic Method, University of Chicago Law School
A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
UK Parliament Debates Trump State Visit, CNN
Harvard Negotiation Project
Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations by William Ury
What is BATNA? How to Find Your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement by Guhan Subramanian, Harvard Law School Daily Blog
Japan in the 1950s by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic
Yale University
Hewlett-Packard
.NET
Things To Do In Kanazawa, Inside Kyoto
Pilot Juice Up 04 Retractable Gel Ink Pen
Nuuna Notebooks
Dungeons & Dragons
Lyft Is Finally Ditching the Furry Pink Mustache by Kyle Vanhemert, Wired
Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Investing in Thunder Lizards by Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate, Stanford eCorner
MS&E 275: Intelligent Growth in Startups with R. Ann Miura-Ko
Qualtrics
Zimride
Founders Fund
Andreessen Horowitz
Floodgate: On the Hunt for Thunder Lizards — Case by Rory McDonald, Alix Burke, Emma Franking, and Nicole Tempest
Qualtrics: Rapid International Expansion — Case by Esther Tippmann and Sinead Monaghan
Y Combinator
Justin.tv
Socialcam
Xamarin
MongoDB — Case by Julie Makinen and Mike Speiser
Hewlett-Packard Imaging Systems Division: Sonos 100 C/F Introduction — Case by Frank V. Cespedes and Marie Bell
The Sunk Cost Fallacy by David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart
McKinsey and Company
Charles River Ventures
9/11: The Day of the Attacks by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic
Making Oprah
The Value of Aggression — Ode to Dan Gable
Google Cloud
VMWare
Deal Flow, Investopedia
Kleiner Perkins
Excel Venture Management
Sequoia
Ayasdi
TaskRabbit
Refinery29
Oracle
The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete by Chris Anderson, Wired
The Trolley Problem, BBC Radio 4
What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America by Ted Dintersmith
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Quik Shade MAX Shade Chair

SHOW NOTES

Ann was so shy as a child that her brother would have to introduce her at piano recitals. [05:35]
What Japanese phrase would Ann mutter at English speakers as a hostile kid growing up in Michigan? [08:21]
How did Ann manage to get a handle on her introversion and start opening up to people? [10:16]
When did Ann first speak on stage without an introduction from her brother? [13:20]
Why did Ann persist with speech and debate even after a rocky couple of years? [14:39]
Ann has always loved competition. [16:06]
To what dark lengths has Ann been willing to go for a slice of pizza? [16:41]
What catalyst turned Ann from a lousy debater into someone who won tournaments? [19:46]
What is the format of debate competition? [24:12]
What resources does Ann recommend for people who want to get better at debating and structuring arguments? [28:24]
Observations on what passes for modern debate — in politics and my family. [31:47]
Life is not a debate, and it’s not always about being right. So what does Ann feel is the most important lesson she learned during her debating years? [34:06]
A look at the differences between debate and negotiation in spite of their similar toolkits. [37:19]
Ann shares her rocket scientist father’s story of coming to America from Japan and one of his favorite phrases: “Is that a world-class effort?” [39:30]
How Ann made a world-class effort at a job making copies and filing, and what keeping her father’s words in mind taught her about ownership of circumstances no matter how seemingly insignificant. [43:54]
How giving a stranger a tour at Yale resulted in the opportunity for Ann to shadow a major company’s CEO. [46:36]
Ann’s first job that primed her for world-class photocopying and labeling. [53:15]
As an office supply connoisseur with many years of experience, what are Ann’s favorite notebooks and pens? [54:58]
What personal artifacts does Ann hold dear? [56:18]
Ann talks about teaching Mayfield Fellows at Stanford and what she loves about the program. [58:12]
What is the reading list for the intelligent growth in startups class Ann is teaching at Stanford now, and what’s in store for her students this quarter? [1:00:11]
How a potential investor might spot artificial inflation of value among startups. [1:06:03]
Why did Ann deviate from her initial plan to become a doctor? [1:07:20]
What thoughts surrounded Ann’s abandonment of the doctor track in spite of the preparation it had taken to get there, and what did she know about herself that her parents and test scores didn’t? [1:10:59]
How did venture capital and investing in startups enter the picture for Ann? [1:15:40]
“What is Steve Jobs doing in this house?” [1:16:20]
A job offer accepted over shared interests and an examination of the unique interview that led to it. [1:17:36]
Ann’s second day at CRV was 9/11. What did she observe and learn about shepherding companies and investors through a stagnant economy during her time there? [1:22:05]
The most expensive words in investing. [1:25:27]
First principles thinking and the toughest leadership decisions that Ann sees come up most commonly. [1:25:49]
Knowing the difference between a winning strategy versus a strategy not to lose. [1:28:45]
In what ways might hedging manifest as a defensive strategy? [1:30:05]
The importance of focusing on your own race, as demonstrated by Oprah and Dan Gable. [1:31:55]
Ann’s take on why you need a little bit of aggressiveness in order to have the win. [1:34:08]
How did Ann meet Mikes Maples, Jr.? [1:35:09]
Why Ann pursued a PhD in computer security, what kind of company she was planning to start, and how Mike persuaded her to work with him instead. [1:38:36]
What was Ann’s initial reaction to this proposition, and why was it such an unusual proposition at this time in Silicon Valley? [1:41:20]
Why Ann’s first year at Floodgate was so hectic — and what she considers “the most creative and probably productive” period of her life. [1:46:07]
What’s Ann’s real first name? [1:48:18]
What constitutes a struggle for Ann, and how has she coped with difficult times? [1:49:17]
What are Ann’s superpowers? [1:55:10]
What are thunder lizards, and why is Ann hunting them? [1:59:23]
Is the scientific method dead? How does Ann see the world changing as a result of artificial intelligence and machine learning? [2:01:10]
Philosophy thought exercises and real world applications. [2:04:03]
Societal problems that need to be solved and figuring out who’s best able to solve them. Do collective interests and self-interests have to be misaligned? [2:07:07]
What books has Ann gifted or reread most? [2:08:44]
What recent purchase of less than $100 had the most positive impact on Ann’s life? [2:11:00]
What would Ann’s billboard say? [2:12:27]
What do the Japanese characters for Ann’s first name mean? [2:13:25]
Where Ann can be found online, how Floodgate got its name, and parting thoughts. [2:14:30]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Mike Maples, Jr.
Frederic Chopin
Abraham Lincoln
Stephen Douglas
Socrates
Aristotle
John Rawls
Donald Trump
Allan Bromley
George H.W. Bush
Lou Platt
Bill Gates
Ann Livermore
Tina Seelig
Tom Byers
Ryan Smith
Ed Zschau
Michael Seibel
Stephanie Schatz
Richard Feynman
Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Steve Jobs
Ted Dintersmith
E.L. Doctorow
Izhar Armony
Sir John Templeton
Oprah Winfrey
Phil Donahue
Dan Gable
Diane Greene
Ramesh Johari
Jack Welch
Godzilla
Sam Harris

The Return of Drunk Dialing Q&A: How to Ask Better Questions, Take Better Risks, and More! (#330)

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This episode is a rare exception to the rule — unlike my usual long-form interviews, this is a drunk-dialing Q&A with you guys, which I’ve done a few times in the last few years, including for the celebration of the 100th episode of this podcast. In preparation for this episode, I solicited phone numbers from listeners who wanted to receive a call from me, and then I started drinking and dialing, answering questions and getting a little frisky along the way.

This time, I came in hot, starting after a few preliminary drinks with friends on a weekend — so it’s double trouble.

I ended up covering topics including:

How to reassess existing projects, specifically ones which you’ve put a lot of capital and time into, using 80/20 analysis and other tools.
How to learn to care less about what people think, social perception, and how to minimize herd mentality.
A framework for thinking about entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and how to cut your teeth as a business builder or creator.
How to learn to ask better questions, whether in dating or sales.
How to let the silence do the work.
And so much more!

Please enjoy this tequila-fueled Q&A!

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#330: The Return of Drunk Dialing Q&A: How to Ask Better Questions, Take Better Risks, and More!
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/89218eff-aa5b-4a42-8373-d945d53bec9e.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear another episode when I’m drunk and called fans? — Listen to this one, in which I discuss my thoughts on sex as a “doorway to a higher perception,” past experiences with stimulants and psychedelics, how Jocko Willink has influenced my approach to discipline, and much, much more.(Stream below or right-click here to download):

#306: Discipline, Sex, Psychedelics, and More — The Return of Drunk Dialinghttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/d93a35f0-e171-4a92-887b-35cee645f835.mp3Download

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Casa Dragones
Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month, Tim Ferriss, tim.blog
Balkans War: A Brief Guide, BBC News
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz
The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Global Entrepreneurship Organization
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss
You Are the Average of the Five People You Most Associate With by Melia Robinson, Business Insider
Shopify
The Quiet Master of Cryptocurrency — Nick Szabo, The Tim Ferriss Show
Teespring
Dom D’Agostino on Fasting, Ketosis, and the End of Cancer, The Tim Ferriss Show
My Life Extension Pilgrimage to Easter Island, The Tim Ferriss Show
Barbell Shrugged
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
When to Quit — Lessons from World-Class Entrepreneurs, Investors, Authors, and More, The Tim Ferriss Show
Understanding the Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule), Better Explained
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker
Cal Fussman’s work at Esquire
23 Signs You’re Secretly An Introvert by Carolyn Gregoire, HuffPost
The Tim Ferriss Podcast is Live! Here Are Episodes 1 and 2, The Tim Ferriss Show

SHOW NOTES

As an immigrant living in Salt Lake City, Danny asks how he can learn to care less about the expectations of others — especially parents whose plans for his life differ greatly from his own. [05:05]
How does one go about building a world-class support system? [15:51]
Why the best time to test the waters of entrepreneurship is when you already have a steady paycheck. [19:33]
Here’s a little dietary advice from someone on tequila, chocolate chip cookie, bullsh*t caloric surplus mode after a rough couple of weeks. [27:50]
Joseph asks how I pick projects — specifically, how do I know what to pull the trigger on and what to let go? [32:01]
Who are my “five people?” [42:45]
Regina asks how I strike the balance between asking questions to better get to know a guest and asking questions that will be useful and interesting to my listeners. How might someone apply this to their own everyday conversations? [45:06]
Simple is usually better than clever. Remember to let silence do the work. [48:14]
Are the questions you’re asking too personal, or just too early? [49:35]
A brief introvert’s guide to leading conversation and how to get someone to open up without putting them on the spot. [52:13]
Conversation is a skill, and the only way to get better is to practice. Just make sure to practice before the big game. [57:03]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Richa Chadda
Gary Vaynerchuk
John D. Rockefeller
Steve Jobs
Richard Branson
Valter Longo
Kevin Kelly
Julia Cameron
Robert Rodriguez
Tony Robbins
Peter Drucker
Naval Ravikant
Kevin Rose
Matt Mullenweg
Aubrey Marcus
Ray Dalio
Cal Fussman
George Clooney
Mikhail Gorbachev
George H.W. Bush
Molly

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Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms (#329)

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“I’m pretty oblivious to a lot of things intentionally. I don’t want to be influenced that much.” — Jason Fried

Jason Fried (@jasonfried) is the co-founder and CEO at Basecamp, and the co-author of Rework, Remote: Office Not Required, and Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application. The upcoming It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work will be out later this year.

Jason writes a regular column for Inc. magazine and is a frequent contributor to Basecamp’s popular blog Signal v. Noise, which offers “strong opinions and shared thoughts on design, business, and tech.”

Enjoy!

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#329: Jason Fried — How to Live Life on Your Own Terms
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/bfc8f48a-adf4-4de5-9bac-357564127877.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear an episode with Jason’s co-author and Basecamp co-founder? — Listen to this interview with David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) in which he shares his thoughts on the power of being outspoken, running a profitable business without venture capital, Stoic philosophy, and much more (stream below or right-click here to download):

#195: David Heinemeier Hansson: The Power of Being Outspokenhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/b4d4ea29-a5a0-4d96-bbcc-39f06fe506f3.mp3Download

This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.

New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world’s best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.

Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that’s onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.

This podcast is also brought to you by WordPress, my go-to platform for 24/7-supported, zero downtime blogging, writing online, creating websites—everything! I love it to bits, and the lead developer, Matt Mullenweg, has appeared on this podcast many times.

Whether for personal use or business, you’re in good company with WordPress, which is used by The New Yorker, Jay Z, Beyoncé, FiveThirtyEight, TechCrunch, TED, CNN, and Time, just to name a few. A source at Google told me that WordPress offers “the best out-of-the-box SEO imaginable,” which is probably why it runs nearly 30% of the Internet. Go to WordPress.com/Tim to get 15% off your website today!

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Jason Fried:

Basecamp | Twitter

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Get Real by Jason Fried, Inc.
Signal v. Noise
Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Investopedia
I Wish Drucker Never Said It (“If It Gets Measured, It Gets Managed”) by Bill Hennessy
Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin
The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2018
7 Key Takeaways From Warren Buffett’s Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders by Matthew Frankel, The Motley Fool
What 20 Years of Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters Can Teach You About Becoming a Top Performer by Julian Hayes II
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
The Stoic Art of Negative Visualization, The Daily Stoic
Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month
Asian World Of Martial Arts
Sportsman’s Guide
Twenty Dollars in an Envelope: Jason Fried’s Teenaged Software Company by Justin Jackson
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
McKinsey & Company Business Analyst Interview Question: “How Many Golf Balls Fit in an Airplane?”, Glassdoor
Automattic
Revising Prose by Richard A. Lanham
The Writing Class I’d Like to Teach by Jason Fried, Signal v. Noise
Simple and Direct by Jacques Barzun
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
Tom Petty’s 50 Greatest Songs, Rolling Stone
Ernest Hemingway’s Six-Word Sequels by Zack Wortman, The New Yorker
Meet The Dealer Who Made Jean Prouve Famous by Hannah Martin, Architectural Digest
This Unwanted Rolex Milgauss 6541 Now An Iconic Timepiece Collectors Drool Over by Paul Altieri, A Blog to Watch
Official Patek Philippe Site — Swiss Watchmaking Since 1839
Just Because: Hands-On With A 1968 Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris by Benjamin Clymer, Hodinkee
The Prairie Enthusiasts
Planning an Oak Savanna Restoration, OakSavannas.org
Probiotics and Prebiotics: What You Should Know by Katherine Zeratsky, Mayo Clinic
The Philip Johnson Glass House
Jason and DHH’s Getting Real YouTube Channel
I’ve Never Had a Goal by Jason Fried, Signal v. Noise
Living without Expectations by Jason Fried, Signal v. Noise

SHOW NOTES

Is Jason really, as Jeff Bezos once said of him, “immune to dogma?” If so, how much of this is an innate versus acquired skill? [07:14]
How does Jason find the sweet spot of deliberate, selective ignorance he intentionally cultivates to avoid unintentional influence by others over his ideas? [10:36]
If Jason doesn’t live his life by setting goals, what does his decision-making process look like — personally and professionally? [13:08]
How might we try to be more like Jason regarding goals, KPIs, and putting off moments of possible joy — or should we try? [19:16]
The incentives of measuring metrics and the reasons for my approach to tracking. [24:00]
The genesis of Jason’s attitude toward goals and metrics tracking. [26:05]
JOMO and Jason’s case for reading newspapers over online journalism. [28:24]
What’s the real wisdom Jason takes from Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett? [32:02]
Why Jason doesn’t read fiction, and what he feels is the most important point of Stoicism. [34:36]
How negative visualization can be used to make plans and alleviate what might otherwise be constant anxiety. [36:56]
Jason and I share early memories of getting in trouble as wannabe entrepreneurs and ninjas. [44:06]
The way Jason thinks about business today is just a continuation of when he was 13 and selling knives and other contraband to his friends. [50:30]
How 15-year-old Jason finally learned about the consequences of his bad behavior. [51:42]
Why Jason didn’t really enjoy college. [56:49]
Jason’s first foray into selling software, what he learned from the experience, and how it differed from his earlier enterprises. [57:51]
How Jason has used rejection and negative feedback as fuel to excel rather than succumbing to feelings of anger and resentment. [1:02:40]
How does Jason minimize time wasting? [1:08:51]
What’s Jason’s general template for politely declining potentially regretful future obligations? [1:12:08]
Putting the importance of protecting personal time and attention in perspective — no matter who you are — and how to deal with people who don’t understand your boundaries. [1:15:41]
Why is a candidate’s ability to communicate well in the written form so important when Jason is making hiring decisions — even if it’s for a designer position? [1:18:16]
Jason digs a little deeper into his unique process for hiring designers that ignores portfolios of past accomplishments. [1:22:37]
What questions does Jason ask potential hirees about their creative process that lets him know whether or not they’re someone with whom he can work? [1:28:52]
What having everyone in a company work customer service on a rotating basis accomplishes. [1:32:07]
What Jason recommends for becoming better at written communication, and how the college class he’d teach about writing would focus strongly on revision and iteration — usually ignored by traditional education. [1:34:45]
Books I recommend for becoming a stronger writer and how a writing course with John McPhee made me better in all of my classes. [1:40:16]
What Jason takes away from the storytelling efficiency of Tom Petty lyrics. [1:43:05]
Jason explains his fascination with the design behind watches and chairs. [1:44:49]
If Jason could only save three watches from his collection, which three would he pick? [1:48:52]
The therapy of prairie restoration. [1:52:01]
What can we learn by closely observing the way nature sets conditions for good things to happen rather than trying to force good things? [1:59:56]
Jason ties prairie restoration to business building and gut health — “not only creating the conditions for things to thrive, but also not creating conditions for certain things to thrive.” [2:01:52]
What would Jason’s billboard say? [2:05:12]
Jason elaborates on what this John Rawls quote means to him: “The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.” [2:06:41]
What Jason learned about paying attention to what’s under his feet from a wise gardener on a visit to the Philip Johnson Glass House. [2:08:11]
Parting thoughts. [2:12:30]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Jeff Bezos
David Heinemeier Hansson
Mark Twain
Abraham Lincoln
Albert Einstein
Jim Coudal
Andy Grove
Charles Darwin
Charlie Munger
Peter Bevelin
Derek Sivers
Warren Buffett
William B. Irvine
Tim Kennedy
Tara Mann
Matt Mullenweg
Richard A. Lanham
John McPhee
Tom Petty
Elmore Leonard
Ernest Hemingway
Jean Prouve
Peter Attia
Bette Reese
Eric Hoffer
John Rawls
William Bruce Cameron
Albert Schweitzer
John Maeda
Philip Johnson

How to Say “No” Gracefully and Uncommit (#328)

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“People are effective because they say no.” — Peter Drucker

This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show showcases two chapters from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown (@GregoryMcKeown), one of my favorite books of the past few years.

The first chapter explains how to say “no” gracefully (and why most of us have trouble doing this in the first place), and the second one gives us ways to cut our losses and uncommit in the aftermath of a premature “yes.”

This should help you shorten your to-do list and lengthen your not-to-do list.

Enjoy!

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#328: How to Say “No” Gracefully and Uncommit
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/1f1a99a8-c998-4983-9b19-7de1148d6335.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear another podcast with lessons for overcoming fear in order to do the right thing? — Lend an ear to these nuggets of wisdom from Sir Richard Branson, Maria Sharapova, Vince Vaughn, and Caroline Paul. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#291: Overcoming, Managing, and Using Fearhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/79ea7ade-64c2-4e24-be74-cf825cdd5847.mp3Download

This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. While I often praise this company’s lion’s mane mushroom coffee for a minimal caffeine wakeup call that lasts, I asked the founders if they could help me—someone who’s struggled with insomnia for decades—sleep. Their answer: Reishi Mushroom Elixir. They made a special batch for me and my listeners that comes without sweetener; you can try it at bedtime with a little honey or nut milk, or you can just add hot water to your single-serving packet and embrace its bitterness like I do.

Try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/ferriss and using the code Ferriss to get 20 percent off this rare, limited run of Reishi Mushroom Elixir. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Greg McKeown:

Website | Twitter

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Parks Felt ‘Determination Cover My Body like a Quilt’ by Wayne Greenhaw, CNN
Chinatown San Francisco — The Largest Chinatown Outside of Asia
An Evening with Dad by Cynthia Covey Haller, LDS
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
Social Conformity Definition: Normative vs. Informational, Study.com
The Secret of Productivity Is a Very Big Waste Paper Basket by Kyle Kowalski, Sloww
Paul Rand and the Story of the Most Expensive Logo Ever, grafiktrafik
Supersonic Airplanes and the Age of Irrational Technology: Was the Concorde a Triumph of Modern Engineering, a Metaphor for Misplaced 20th-Century Values, or Both? by Dara Bramson, The Atlantic
Sunk-Cost Bias: Is It Time To Call It Quits? by Margie Warrell, Forbes
Henry Gribbohm Loses Life Savings at Carnival Game, Wins Stuffed Banana with Dreadlocks by Hilary Hanson, HuffPost
Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias by Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler, Journal of Economic Perspective
Why We Love to Hoard…and How You Can Overcome It by Tom Stafford, BBC News
The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, Harvard Business Review
The Sunk Cost and Concorde Effects: Are Humans Less Rational Than Lower Animals? by Hal R. Arkes and Peter Aykon, Psychological Bulletin
That Sunk-Cost Feeling by James Surowiecki, The New Yorker
Tootsie
How Powerful Is Status Quo Bias? by Rob Henderson, Psychology Today
Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB), Investopedia
Great Managers Prune as Well as Plant by Daniel Shapero, LinkedIn

SHOW NOTES

The right “no” spoken at the right time can change the course of history. [07:30]
Have you ever felt a tension between what you felt was right and what someone was pressuring you to do? [09:01]
Courage to say “no” is key to the process of elimination and Essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less. [09:40]
As hard as it can be to say “no,” failing to do so can cause us to miss out on something far more important. Here’s a lesson from a noted Essentialist for illustration. [10:23]
Stephen R. Covey didn’t just teach Essentialism — he lived it. [13:29]
How do we discern the essential from the non-essential? [14:07]
Why does saying “no” often feel socially awkward and how does it have the power to cause us physical discomfort? [14:53]
The only way out of this trap. [16:00]
What a notable “no” from Peter Drucker taught Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about productivity. [16:24]
The difference between essentialists and non-essentialists when choosing between saying “yes” and “no.” [17:39]
Separate the decision from the relationship. [18:55]
Saying “no” gracefully doesn’t have to mean using the word no. [19:32]
Focus on the trade-off. [20:11]
Remind yourself that everyone is selling something. [20:41]
Make your peace with the fact that saying “no” often requires trading popularity for respect. A story about the designer who stood up to Steve Jobs and what happened NeXT. [21:04]
Remember that a clear “no” can be more graceful than a vague or noncommital “yes.” [23:20]
The “no” repertoire: eight responses to help you say “no” with grace. [23:53]
1. The awkward pause. [24:16]
2. The soft “no” (or the “no, but”). [24:40]
3. “Let me check my calendar and get back to you.” [25:17]
4. Use e-mail bouncebacks. [26:05]
5. “Yes. what should I deprioritize?” [26:58]
6. Say it with humor. [28:12]
7. Use the words “You are welcome to X. I am willing to Y.” [28:32]
8. “I can’t do it, but X might be interested.” [29:14]
What the lessons of the Concorde jet and a massive carnival game loss teach us about sunk-cost bias. [31:16]
The difference between essentialists and non-essentialists when choosing between staying a losing course or cutting losses. [34:58]
Ways to avoid commitment traps. [36:09]
Beware of the endowment effect. [36:28]
Pretend you don’t own it yet. [38:30]
Get over the fear of waste. [39:08]
Instead, admit failure to begin success. [40:52]
Stop trying to force a fit. (Don’t be Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.) [41:32]
Get a neutral second opinion. [42:38]
Be aware of the status quo bias. [43:44]
Apply zero-based budgeting. [44:33]
Stop making casual commitments. [45:52]
From now on, pause before you speak. [46:20]
Get over the fear of missing out (FOMO). [46:56]
To fight this fear, run a reverse pilot. [47:14]
Why learning how to uncommit is crucial to becoming an Essentialist. [49:07]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Ernest Hemingway
Rosa Parks
Cynthia Covey Haller
Stephen R. Covey
Peter Drucker
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Paul Rand
Steve Jobs
Kay Krill
Tom Friel
Josh Billings
Henry Gribbohm
Daniel Kahneman
Tom Stafford
Hal Arkes
Dustin Hoffman
Daniel Shapero

Aisha Tyler — How to Use Pain, Comedy, and Practice for Creativity (#327)

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“You can’t own results. You can only own initiative.” – Aisha Tyler

Aisha Tyler (@aishatyler on Twitter, Instagram, and Vimeo) is an award-winning director, actor, comedian, bestselling author, podcaster, and activist. She’s amazing. If you enjoyed my episodes with Brandon Stanton, Debbie Millman, or Adam Robinson, among others, you will love this one.

Whether you do any type of creative work, want to be too complex to categorize, or want to overcome rejection and beat the odds, this one has something for you.

Aisha voices superspy Lana Kane on F/X’s Emmy award-winning animated comedy series Archer, which won four back-to-back Television Critics’ Choice Awards. She is a regular on the hit CBS show Criminal Minds, now in its 13th season, for which she has also directed. Aisha continues to host the CW’s hit improv show, Whose Line Is It Anyway, and she is launching a line of bottled cocktails she created, Courage + Stone, in Summer of 2018.

Aisha was a co-host for seven seasons of CBS’s Emmy-winning daytime show The Talk, which she departed in September 2017 to focus more on acting and directing. She is also well-remembered for her character arc on Friends, and she was the first African-American to have a long-standing role on the show. Her feature film debut, the thriller AXIS, premiered 2017, and the won the Outstanding Achievement in Feature Filmmaking award at the 2017 Newport Beach Film Festival, then had a theatrical run at Arclight Hollywood, Landmark NYC and Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, Texas. A San Francisco native, Aisha graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Government and Environmental Policy. An avid gamer and passionate advocate (and occasional adversary) of the gaming community, Aisha’s voice can be heard in the video games Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, and Watch Dogs. Aisha is a bourbon and hard rock fan, a snowboarder, and a sci-fi obsessive.

Enjoy!

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#327: Aisha Tyler — How to Use Pain, Comedy, and Practice for Creativity
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/1d8dd853-973a-4874-b452-3f6b68cead2d.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear another podcast with an artist who tells stories in a unique way? — Listen to my conversation with Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

Brandon Stanton – The Story of Humans of New York and 25M+ Fanshttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/3fd5315a-966f-4a6c-82a8-0303a51e1b26.mp3Download

This episode is brought to you by Teeter. Inversion therapy, which uses gravity and your own body weight to decompress the spine or relieve pressure on the discs and surrounding nerves, seems to help with a whole slew of conditions. And just as a general maintenance program, it’s one of my favorite things to do.

Since 1981, more than three million people have put their trust in Teeter inversion tables for relief, and it’s the only inversion table brand that’s been both safety-certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and registered with the FDA as a class one medical device. For a limited time, my listeners can get the Teeter inversion table with bonus accessories and a free pair of gravity boots — a savings of over $148 — by going to Teeter.com/Tim!

This episode is also brought to you by LegalZoom. I’ve used this service for many of my businesses, as have quite a few of the icons on this podcast such as Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame.

LegalZoom is a reliable resource that more than a million people have already trusted for everything from setting up wills, proper trademark searches, forming LLCs, setting up non-profits, or finding simple cease-and-desist letter templates.

LegalZoom is not a law firm, but it does have a network of independent attorneys available in most states who can give you advice on the best way to get started, provide contract reviews, and otherwise help you run your business with complete transparency and up-front pricing. Check out LegalZoom.com and enter promo code TIM at checkout today for special savings and see how the fine folks there can make life easier for you and your business.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Aisha Tyler:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Vimeo

AXIS
Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation by Aisha Tyler
Archer
Criminal Minds
Whose Line Is It Anyway
Courage + Stone
The Talk
Friends
Alamo Drafthouse
Halo: Reach
Gears of War 3
Watch Dogs
Girl on Guy Podcast with Tim Ferriss
Hanna
Sumo Suits
J. Eugene McAteer School of the Arts
Dartmouth College
Glee
Ha!
Richard Pryor: Live on Sunset Strip
Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts
Aisha Tyler Doing Standup at Tempe Improv
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Fubar’s
Rooster T. Feathers
BrainWash
Bill Burr — The Comedian’s Comedian (TFS #265)
Weezer
Nickelback
Bill Burr — The Philadelphia Incident
That Time Comedian Kenny Moore Hit A Heckler With His Guitar
Punch Line Comedy Club
Rudy
Out of Sight
The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling
The Stepford Wives
According to my friends in Colombia, I have a disease called nalgofilia. Could be worse.
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
Def Comedy Jam
Die Hard
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
The Terminator
Talk Soup
The Wire
No Ass At All by Aisha Tyler
Silversun Pickups
Clutch
Star Wars
Penny Dreadful
Vikings
Galway Tourism
True (The origin of Whassup)
The Black List
Avenging Angel by Eric Smillie, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
Aisha’s Kickstarter Campaign for AXIS
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss
What About Bob?
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Turning Slackers Into Workaholics, Wired
Concept2
TRX Body Weight System
The Pistol, CrossFit
Lypo-Spheric Glutathione
Better Booch
LIFEAID
The Walking Dead
Fear the Walking Dead
The Magicians
The X-Files
The Handmaid’s Tale
Deutschland 83
Jaws
Alibaba
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Dune by Frank Herbert
Aliens

SHOW NOTES

How is Aisha partly to blame for the existence of The Tim Ferriss Show? [07:42]
The trademark question Aisha would ask of all her podcast guests. [09:15]
Aisha tells us about her somewhat unorthodox childhood and family relationships. [10:52]
How did Aisha answer the questions “Whose day is it?” and “What are you going to do?” every morning? [12:04]
From where does Aisha get her general sense of optimism? [16:05]
Has Aisha been good at following her father’s earlier advice? How does she feel about regret? [18:15]
Contrasting Mr. Tyler’s free-range parenting style with the modern model that tends toward overprotection. [20:29]
Having a bad day? You’re not special! [26:22]
What did the young and scholarly Aisha want to be when she grew up? [27:38]
Why was Aisha miserable at what she thought was her dream job? [30:06]
Why did Aisha pick standup comedy to break into show business? [31:00]
What it was like to keep a day job and do standup comedy as a hobby. [33:09]
If San Francisco was known as a comedy town, why would Aisha commute hours away to do standup when she was getting started? [35:11]
What made the comedy club bubble of the ’80s burst? [37:40]
How did Aisha practice to get better at standup? [41:32]
A memorable set Aisha bombed and the gift it gave her. [43:29]
Dealing with hecklers Bill Burr and Kenny Moore style. [47:06]
Aisha shares some of her own heckler stories. [54:18]
Aisha’s academic approach to the math of comedy. [59:03]
What’s the Rule of Threes? [1:01:37]
Aisha may not have the discipline of Garry Shandling, but she has her own ways of gauging her evolution as a comic. [1:02:47]
How comedians are like musicians, writers, and other artists. [1:04:53]
The changing metrics of success and a common trap modern-day creatives can fall into if they’re not careful (or scrupulous). [1:05:30]
What happens when you operate from a place of fear and want to please the nebulous majority more than you want to please yourself. [1:09:06]
If one likes big butts, one cannot lie — even if it might tick someone off. Especially if it might tick someone off. [1:12:00]
Sometimes constructive feedback does make me change my mind. [1:14:52]
No matter how you present your art to the world, there are always going to be people who don’t get what you do. Aisha strives to do meaningful work that’s authentic to her experience. [1:15:18]
Why being funny isn’t actually the most important part of comedy. [1:17:32]
When you’re beginning in the creative game, expect that most things are not going to work out. [1:18:28]
Why it doesn’t pay to emulate a master of a craft in their own field. [1:19:02]
After wearing so many different career hats, how did Aisha decide to get started in filmmaking? [1:21:17]
Aisha believes in personal aggression. [1:24:38]
How Aisha piggybacked on resources being used for her Comedy Central special to make her first music video. [1:25:34]
Aisha made music videos for her friends’ bands and other short-format films to learn more about the craft. [1:26:39]
What lessons did Aisha learn from these projects? [1:28:22]
Aisha talks about visiting the sets of Penny Dreadful and Vikings in Ireland and how it led to making AXIS. [1:29:42]
How did Aisha get the time off and the financial resources to sustain herself on this trip? [1:31:42]
What did the email Aisha sent to get permission to visit the set of Vikings look like? [1:33:33]
Why you don’t have to be Aisha Tyler or even have a verified social media account for your kind words expressing appreciation for a show to be seen by the people who make that show. [1:34:27]
How the Budweiser “Whassup” campaign came about — and a director’s career was launched — because of a catchy short film that was seen by the right people. [1:35:53]
Why Aisha made AXIS. [1:37:45]
Resources for people who are interested in screenplays or early stage tech investing but don’t have a foot in the door of the establishment. [1:39:00]
What is AXIS, and did anyone try to talk Aisha out of making it? [1:40:14]
How would Aisha describe her experience of being involved with AXIS? Why did she crowdfund its financial resources and shoot it in seven days? Would she make a movie this way again? [1:42:31]
The magic, intensity, and clarity of operating on an aggressive deadline. [1:47:03]
If everything we want is on the other side of fear, what is Aisha afraid of now or hoping to get on the other side of in the next year or so? [1:48:30]
What is one of Aisha’s current struggles? [1:50:27]
“If art imitates life, in order to create art, you have to have a life.” [1:51:40]
As a workaholic, how does Aisha manage to live a life that influences her art? [1:53:03]
How would Aisha’s life be different if she didn’t have exercise as an element? [1:56:03]
What equipment does Aisha use to work out? [1:58:07]
What does a prototypical workout look like for Aisha? [1:59:00]
How does Aisha take her glutathione, and what does it help with? [2:00:00]
Does Aisha exercise before or after breakfast? What time does she wake up, and what do her first 60 to 90 minutes look like? [2:02:28]
Aisha works out at home to save transit time. What does she watch when she rows? [2:04:32]
Does Aisha make New Year’s resolutions? [2:05:56]
Aisha likens her first (unwatchable and destroyed) short film to the standup set she bombed. [2:08:27]
When has Aisha been extremely proud of herself? [2:12:17]
How the confidence developed in exploring areas outside of the box can transfer to future projects. [2:15:28]
To grow from failure, you have to be aggressive. [2:17:45]
Parting thoughts. [2:18:28]

PEOPLE MENTIONED



Brandon Stanton
Debbie Millman
Adam Robinson
Lana Kane
James Tyler
Robin Gregory
Feri Tyler
Redd Foxx
Lenny Bruce
Bill Hicks
Richard Pryor
Marc Maron
Janeane Garofalo
Brian Posehn
Malcolm Gladwell
Sam Kinison
Andrew Dice Clay
Bill Burr
Kenny Moore
Usain Bolt
Garry Shandling
Kevin Kelly
Christopher Nolan
Wes Anderson
John McPhee
Leo Tolstoy
John Logan
Franklin Leonard
Naval Ravikant
Ryan Gosling
Richard Dreyfuss
Jack Canfield
Amanda Palmer
Neil Gaiman
Jean-Paul Sartre
Kevin Rose

Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Brian Chesky of Airbnb, and How to Scale to 100M+ Users (#326)

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“In order to scale, you have to do things that don’t scale.” — Reid Hoffman

This episode is a showcase from Masters of Scale, one of the few podcasts I recommend repeatedly to entrepreneurs. It’s a conversation between LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) and Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky (@bchesky), and it focuses on how you can scale your company by, paradoxically, doing things that don’t scale.

This is, in some ways, part two of my conversation with Airbnb’s co-founder Joe Gebbia (which you can check out here). I also highly recommend subscribing to Masters of Scale, which just began its third season and features interviews with founders of Spotify, Instagram, TaskRabbit, Shake Shack, and Glossier, among many others.

And if you’re looking for a companion piece to read with this episode, I can recommend none better than 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly).

Please enjoy this short conversation between Reid Hoffman and Brian Chesky, with a few cameo appearances in the mix.

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#326: Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Brian Chesky of Airbnb, and How to Scale to 100M+ Users
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/f6217276-dda9-484a-9f90-ccd79579d937.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear another podcast with an entrepreneur who understands the meaning of “traction?” — Listen to my conversation with Bryan Johnson, the rags-to-riches philosopher who founded Braintree, which was bought by eBay in 2013 for $800 million in cash. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#81: The Rags to Riches Philosopher: Bryan Johnson's Path to $800 Millionhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/985659ec-7f7e-4373-b2bb-3d64dc1a7c74.mp3Download

This podcast is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audiobooks. I have a few to recommend:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Tao of Seneca by Seneca
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg

From now until July 31st, 2018, Amazon Prime members can get Audible for just $4.95 a month for the first three months ($14.95 per month after). To claim this offer, go to Audible.com/Tim or text TIM to 500500 to get started.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Reid Hoffman:

Masters of Scale | LinkedIn | Greylock Partners | Twitter

Connect with Brian Chesky:

Medium | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Masters of Scale
Reid’s previous appearances on this podcast: The 10 Commandments of Startup Success with Reid Hoffman and The Oracle of Silicon Valley, Reid Hoffman (Plus: Michael McCullough)
My interview with Joe Gebbia — Co-Founder of Airbnb (#301)
Airbnb
LinkedIn
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
Brian Chesky: I Lived on Cap’n McCain’s and Obama O’s Got Airbnb out of Debt by Michael Carney, Pando
Y Combinator
What is LinkedIn Open Networking? Should You Be a LION Open Networker? by Larry Brauner, LinkedIn
The Beatles Arrive In New York (1964) via British Pathe
Elon Musk, Speaking at SXSW, Projects Mars Spaceship Will Be Ready for Short Trips by First Half of 2019 by Michelle Castillo, CNBC
Stripe
Kayak
Dress for Success
Pixar Animation Studios
Airbnb Wants to Handle Your Entire Holiday with Trips by James Temperton, Wired UK
The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work by Joseph Campbell

SHOW NOTES

The 2008 PR campaign that turned things around when Brian and Joe of Airbnb were in dire need of a lifeline. [06:43]
Brian gets his hands dirty (and burnt) for the team. [08:35]
“In order to scale, you have to do things that don’t scale.” Reid introduces the program. [09:18]
Y Combinator’s Paul Graham reminds Brian of an important lesson he’d forgotten between design school and Silicon Valley: to design with empathy. [11:14]
How the Airbnb founders immediately put this lesson into practice. [12:59]
How these early personal visits with hosts gave Airbnb its roadmap. [14:29]
Passionate feedback from early users is one sign you’re doing something right. But you need to separate the wheat from the chaff to turn that feedback into growth. [15:12]
A thought exercise for increasing the distance word of mouth travels when people talk about your business: how many stars would this experience be worth? [17:18]
What are the two stages of a start-up’s product, and which one should be scaled first? [20:15]
How Brian decided on what to scale first. [21:16]
Input from Airbnb’s Ellie Thiele about how they began to automate for scale and build features that users really wanted. [21:39]
How Stripe’s Patrick Collison and Kayak’s Paul English personally weighed customer feedback in the early days. [23:19]
Thoughtful founders may look back on these early days with mixed feelings, but they’ll often consider them their career’s most creative phase. [24:41]
Nancy Lublin founded Dress for Success out of her New York City Apartment as a clothing drive to help women interview confidently for jobs. [25:11]
Two opposing mindsets required for the transition from the handcrafted phase to the massive scale phase — think of the difference between writing and editing. [26:01]
The non-glamorous work that goes into making the adjustment from one phase to the next. [27:42]
The importance of maintaining the handcrafted mindset no matter how big your company gets. [28:50]
Looking to reinvent an industry? Get orthogonal. Airbnb peered outside of hospitality and found inspiration from cinema. [30:00]
What are the essential ingredients for a perfect trip? Here’s a master class in finding the answer by handcrafting. [30:51]
Using this handcrafted experience to create a blueprint for operating on a global scale. [32:49]
Brian’s surprising message for early-stage entrepreneurs worried about traction. [34:36]
Reid’s closing good news for early-stage entrepreneurs. [35:21]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Reid Hoffman
Brian Chesky
Peter Thiel
Joe Gebbia
Barack Obama
John McCain
Mark Zuckerberg
Paul Graham
Steve Jobs
The Beatles
Elon Musk
Ellie Thiele
Patrick Collison
Paul English
Nancy Lublin
Ricardo from London
Sheryl Sandberg
Eric Schmidt
June Cohen
Deron Triff
Dan Kedmey
Jennie Cataldo
Ben Manilla
Jessica Johnston
Saida Sapieva
Elisa Schreiber
Chris Yeh

Lessons from Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Ray Dalio, and Other Icons (#325)

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“If you only master yourself and you don’t help anyone else, we’d call you happy, but nobody would define you as successful.”  – Derek Sivers

This particular episode of The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour explores success, which can be a slippery and dangerous term. The particular guests selected for this episode represent not only achievement, but also appreciation and a well-rounded version of what I consider to be a successful human being.

This episode features:

CDBaby founder Derek Sivers on the importance of challenging your own definitions of success.
Performance coach Tony Robbins on best lessons learned from working with legendary investors.
Venture capitalist Chris Sacca on missed opportunities and the commonalities of successful people.
Legendary investor Ray Dalio on the three things that make up a successful life.
Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson on the best thing his parents taught him.

I hope you enjoy this episode of The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour!

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Lessons from Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Ray Dalio, and Other Icons
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/f50ee608-d307-4f4d-a3ac-6d8f5b5e0315.mp3Download

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear another podcast of The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour? — In this episode, we explore meditation and mindfulness with Chase Jarvis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Harris, and Rainn Wilson.  (Stream below or right-click here to download):

The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour: Meditation, Mindset, and Masteryhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/c5eafee8-47a6-4e8f-a36e-48c20f5dd928.mp3Download

This podcast is brought to you by 99designs, the world’s largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99designs.

I used them to rapid prototype the cover for The Tao of Seneca, and I’ve also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you’re happy with or your money back. Click this link and get a free $99 upgrade.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Derek Sivers:

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Connect with Tony Robbins:

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Connect with Chris Sacca:

LOWERCASE capital | Twitter | Instagram

Connect with Ray Dalio:

Bridgewater Associates | Principles.com | Twitter | Facebook

Connect with Richard Branson:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (check out Derek’s own notes on this highly recommended book here.)
Utopia by Thomas More
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (read Derek’s notes on this one here.)
Anthony Robbins’ Personal Power II: The Driving Force! by Anthony Robbins
Money — Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins
Contrarian Investing: Buy When There’s Blood in the Streets by Daniel Myers, Investopedia
Invest Like a MultiBillionaire: Asymmetric Risk Reward by Tony Robbins
A Few Possible Reasons Why Paul Tudor Jones Despises His Infamous Documentary, ‘Trader’ by Linette Lopez, Business Insider
Why Kyle Bass Acquired $1 Million Worth of Nickels by Simon Lack, In Pursuit of Value via Business Insider
Y Combinator
Chris Sacca’s 5 Biggest Misses by Olga V. Mack, Startup Grind
Fight Club
Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
Finding My Virginity by Richard Branson
Screw It, Let’s Do It: Lessons In Life by Richard Branson
Reliving 16 Great PR Stunts From Richard Branson, Pressat
Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson
The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The Elders

SHOW NOTES

A cautious reminder that even our superheroes at the pinnacle of success are human, flaws and all. [04:21]
Introducing Derek Sivers. [06:48]
Who is the third person who comes to mind when Derek hears the word “successful” — and why? [07:45]
What Derek believes is the true goal of communication. [09:27]
Derek’s secret superpower. [10:15]
Does business need to be complicated? First, we need to define words like “complicated” versus “simple,” and “easy” versus “hard.” [11:29]
How can someone determine what their own utopia might look like? [14:12]
How does Derek define success? [16:01]
According to Derek, if you can do these four things, you can do anything. [18:09]
Introducing Tony Robbins. [19:05]
What Tony has learned about successful trading from working with legendary investors like Paul Tudor Jones and John Templeton. [20:05]
What a 50% investment loss actually means. [21:17]
What’s a nickel really worth? A lesson in riskless trade from Kyle Bass. [23:51]
Tony reiterates what Derek Sivers said about the “helping others” part of the success equation. [27:33]
Who said “losers react and winners anticipate?” [28:13]
The reason a diversified portfolio is important for any investor no matter how smart they think they are. [28:43]
Introducing Chris Sacca. [32:43]
Commonalities between successful founders Chris knows. [33:15]
The rigged game of investing and the whales that got away. [35:17]
Introducing Ray Dalio. [41:00]
Why does Ray remember early failures more vividly than early successes — and what does this tell him about both? [41:32]
The three ingredients of a successful life. [45:12]
What makes intelligent people unhappy? [46:21]
Introducing Richard Branson. [47:45]
What would Richard recommend to someone looking to sharpen their tools of negotiation? [48:11]
In business as in life, your reputation is everything. [49:33]
Are there any business ideas Richard is glad he was talked out of or prevented from doing? [50:37]
What are Richard’s best practices for launching a new company? [52:00]
What prompted Richard to write Finding My Virginity? [54:21]
Books Richard recommends or gives to others most. [56:12]
In the last five years or so, what new behaviors, beliefs, or habits have improved Richard’s life? [57:12]
Key lessons learned from Nelson Mandela. [58:39]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Derek Sivers
Tony Robbins
Chris Sacca
Ray Dalio
Richard Branson
Usain Bolt
Warren Buffett
Charlie Munger
Mona Lisa
Albert Einstein
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Daniel Kahneman
Richard Branson
Daniel Gilbert
Robin Williams
Philip Seymour Hoffman
William J. Clinton
Mikhail Gorbachev
Serena Williams
Leonardo DiCaprio
Oprah Winfrey
Paul Tudor Jones
Ray Dalio
Carl Icahn
David Swensen
Kyle Bass
John Templeton
John Bogle
Stanley Druckenmiller
George Soros
Charlie Rangel
Peter Thiel
Mark Twain
Evan Williams
Travis Kalanick
Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mazzeo
Drew Houston
Brian Chesky
Joe Gebbia
Nathan Blecharczyk
Edward Norton
Nick Woodman
Eric Schmidt
Evan Spiegel
Bobby Murphy
Reggie Brown
Steve Jobs
J.P. Morgan
Steve Fossett
Desmond Tutu
Nelson Mandela
Bill Gates

How to Undertake the Artist’s Journey

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Note from the editor: The following is a guest post by Steven Pressfield (@spressfield), the best-selling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, The Afghan Campaign, and The Lion’s Gate, as well as the cult classics on creativity, The War of Art, Turning Pro, and Do the Work. His Wednesday column on stevenpressfield.com is one of the most popular series about writing on the web. You can also read his profile from Tribe of Mentors by clicking here.

The following is a sampler of chapters from Steve’s new book, The Artist’s Journey (coming out July 11th), and they comprise a mini-version of the full book.

Enjoy!

Enter Steven…

We are all artists—whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not—and we are all on an “artist’s journey.”

What is the meaning of your life? You can assess it the same way you’d evaluate a writer’s life, or a musician’s or a filmmaker’s—by considering your “body of work.” What “material” have you generated in the past? And, more importantly, what will you bring forth in the future?

The artist’s life is defined by the works he or she produces. The artist has no choice in this. A calling from birth impels him. You have that same calling. Your life is unfolding according to the template of a “hero’s journey” that is unique to you. You can’t escape it. You can’t run away from it.

Whether you’re toiling in a cubicle or wheeling and dealing in high finance, you have an artist’s journey just like the filmmaker or the dancer or the novelist. Will you embrace this adventure consciously and morally, or will you deny it and reject it? Either way, that journey remains alive inside you. It will not sleep and it will not go away. It insists on being lived out.

THE ORDINARY WORLD AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD

The artist has a subject, a voice, a point of view, a medium of expression, and a style.

But where do these come from?

How do we find our own?

In my experience the process is neither rational nor logical. It can’t be commanded. It can’t be rushed. It is not subject to the will or the ego.

We are born, I believe, with everything we are seeking—a subject, a voice, a point of view, a medium of expression, and a style.

But these reside in an area of the psyche outside the range of conventional consciousness.

The artist’s journey is like the hero’s journey in that you and I, the artist-in-embryo, must leave our zone of comfort (the conscious mind) and cross to alien shores (the unconscious) to find and acquire our golden fleece (the knowledge of, and access to, our gift.)

The process, like the hero’s journey, involves time.

It involves suffering.

It involves folly.

Its crisis takes the form of an All Is Lost moment.

Once you have given up the ghost [wrote Henry Miller], everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.

The ghost that we give up is the ego. The illusion of control.

The “everything” that follows is our artist’s power—our subject, our voice, our point of view, our medium of expression, and our style.

THE SHAPE OF THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY

Consider the course and contour of this artist’s journey:

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

Born to Run

Darkness on the Edge of Town

The River

Nebraska

Born in the U.S.A.

Tunnel of Love

Human Touch

Lucky Town

The Ghost of Tom Joad

Working on a Dream

Wrecking Ball

High Hopes

Or this artist’s:

Goodbye, Columbus

Portnoy’s Complaint

The Great American Novel

My Life as a Man

The Professor of Desire

Zuckerman Unbound

The Anatomy Lesson

The Counterlife

Sabbath’s Theater

American Pastoral

The Human Stain

The Plot Against America

Indignation

Nemesis

Clearly there is a unity (of theme, of voice, of intention) to each of these writers’ bodies of work.

There’s a progression too, isn’t there? The works, considered in sequence, feel like a journey that is moving in a specific direction.

Bob Dylan

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

The Times They Are a-Changin’

Highway 61 Revisited

Blonde on Blonde

Bringing It All Back Home

Blood on the Tracks

Desire

John Wesley Harding

Street-legal

Nashville Skyline

Slow Train Coming

Hard Rain

Time Out of Mind

Tempest

Shadows in the Night  

You too possess an artist’s journey.

Even if you have never yet written a song or completed a short story, that body of work lies dormant inside you.

It is percolating. It is exerting pressure—whether you feel it or not, whether you believe it or not.

Like the hero’s journey, the artist’s journey demands to be lived out. It demands to be expressed.

WHAT IS THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY?

The thesis of this book is that the artist’s journey, which follows the hero’s journey chronologically, comprises the true work, the actual production, of the artist’s life.

From that moment, the hero is no longer a free-range individual.

She has become an artist.

As Rosanne Cash declared in her memoir, Composed:

I had awakened from the morphine sleep of success into the life of an artist.

Everything in her life that is not-artist now falls away.

On the surface her new life may look ordinary, even boring. No more catastrophic romances. No more self-destructive binges. No more squandering or disrespecting her gift, her voice, her talent.

She is on a mission now.

Her life has acquired a purpose.

What is the artist’s life about now?

It’s about following the Muse.

It’s about finding her true voice.

It’s about becoming who she really is.

On her artist’s journey, she will produce the works she was born to bring into being.

She will be on that journey for the rest of her life.

What, then, are the characteristics of the Artist’s Journey?

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS INTERNAL

I used to write at a desk that faced a wall. My friends would ask, “Why don’t you turn the desk around so you have a view outside?”

I don’t care about the view outside.

My focus is interior.

The book or movie I’m writing is playing inside my head.

Dalton Trumbo wrote in the bathtub.

Marcel Proust never got out of bed.

Why should they?

The journey they were on was inside themselves.

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS PERSONAL

The novels of Philip Roth are completely different from those of Jonathan Franzen.

Neither author, gifted as he may be, can do what the other does.

In fact, neither can write anything except what his own gift authorizes, that which is unique to him alone.

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS UNIVERSAL

And yet millions of people can read Philip Roth and Jonathan Franzen and be touched and moved and illuminated.

What is personal to the artist is universal to the rest of us.

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS SOLITARY

Yes, artists collaborate. And yeah, there is such a thing as “the writers’ room.”

But the work of the artist takes place not on the page or in conversation or debate, but inside her head.

You, the artist, are alone in that space.

There is no one in there but you.

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS ABOUT SELF-DISCOVERY

I’ve read many times that art is self-expression. I don’t believe it.

I don’t believe the artist knows what he or she wishes to express.

The artist is being driven from a far deeper and more primal source than the conscious intellect. It is not an overstatement, in my view, to declare that the artist has no idea what he’s doing.

As Socrates famously declared in Plato’s Phaedrus:

… if a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.

The artist is not expressing himself, he is discovering himself.

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS DANGEROUS

The artist, like the mystic and the renunciant, does her work within an altered sphere of consciousness.

Seeking herself, her voice, her source, she enters the dark forest. She is alone. No friend or lover knows where her path has taken her.

Rules are different within this wilderness. Hatters are mad and principles inverted.

The artist has entered this sphere of her own free will. She has deliberately unmoored herself from conventional consciousness. This is her calling. This is what she was born to do.

Will she come out safely? 

A BODY OF WORK 

This is my nineteenth book.

Looking back, here’s the Big Takeaway:

I never had any idea, before I wrote a book, that I was going to write it. Or, perhaps more accurately, that I was going to write that specific book. The book always came out of nowhere and always took me by surprise.

Let me express this a different way.

No matter what a writer or artist may tell you, they have no clue what they’re doing before they do it—and, for the most part, while they’re doing it.

Or another way:

Everything we produce as artists comes from a source beyond our conscious awareness.

Jackson Browne once said that he writes to find out what he thinks. (Wait, it was Joan Didion who said that … no, Stephen King said it too.)

I do the same, and you do too, whether you realize it or not.

The key pronoun here is you.

Who is this “you?”

The second and third theses of this book are:

“You,” meaning the writer of your books, is not you. Not the “you” you think of as yourself.

This “second you” is smarter than you are. A lot smarter. This second “you” is the real you.

WHERE DO BOOKS/SONGS/MOVIES COME FROM?

My long-held belief is that an artist’s identity is revealed by the work she or he produces.

Writers write to discover themselves. (Again, whether they realize it or not.)

But who is this self they seek to discover?

It is none other than that “second you”—that wiser “you,” that true, pure, waterproof, self-propelled, self-contained “you.”

Every work we produce as artists comes from this second “you.”

This “you” is the real you.

THE WORLD THE ARTIST LIVES IN

Here’s my model of the universe in a nutshell:

The universe exists on at least two levels. (It may exist on an infinite number, but certainly it manifests itself on two.)

The first is the material world, the visible physical sphere in which you and I dwell.

Then there’s the second level. The higher level.

The second level exists “above” the first but permeates the first at all times and in all instances. This second level is the invisible world, the plane of the as-yet-unmanifested, the sphere of pure potentiality.

Upon this level dwells that which will be, but is not yet.

Call this level the Unconscious, the Soul, the Self, the Superconscious.

THE ARTIST’S SKILL

What exactly does an artist do?

The writer, the dancer, the filmmaker … what, precisely, does their work consist of?

They shuttle from Level #1 to Level #2 and back again.

That’s it.

That’s their skill.

Twyla Tharp in her dance studio, Quentin Tarantino at his keyboard, Bob Dylan when he picks up a guitar or sits down at a piano. They perform this simple but miraculous act a thousand, ten thousand times a day.

They enter the Second World and come back to the First with something that had never existed in the First World before.

A machine can’t do that. A supercomputer packed with the most powerful A.I. system can’t do that. A dolphin or a whale, even an elephant or a great ape, no matter how advanced their cerebral capacities may be, can’t do that.

In all of Creation, only two creatures can do that.

Gods.

And you and I.

THE MATTER OF FACT PLANE OF THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY

In the sphere we call the artist’s journey, we “get down to business.” Crazy-time is over. We have wasted enough years avoiding our calling.

Our aim now is to discover our gift, our voice, our subject. We know now that we have one—and we are driven passionately to identify it and to bring it forth in the real world with optimum wallop.

THE BLANK PAGE

We hear (and we know, ourselves) of the terror that writers experience when confronting the blank page.

Rather than face this, they will delay, dilate, demur, procrastinate, rationalize, cop out, self-justify, self-exonerate, not to mention become drunks and drug addicts, cheat on their spouses, lose themselves on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and in general destroy not only their bodies and minds but their souls as well.

Why?

What’s so scary about an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of uncoated bond?

ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNCONSCIOUS

What’s scary is that, in order to write (or paint or compose or shoot film), we have two choices:

We can work from our ego-minds, in which case we will burst blood vessels and suffer cerebral hernias, straining only to produce tedious, mediocre, derivative crap.
We can shift our platform of effort from our conscious mind to our unconscious.

Can you guess which one we’re most terrified of?

THE MISNOMER OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The Unconscious (to use the term as Freud originally defined it) is unconscious only to us.

We are unconscious of its contents.

But the Unconscious mind is not unconscious to itself or of itself.

The Unconscious is wide awake.

It knows exactly what it’s doing.

(And it’s pretty pissed off at being called “the Unconscious.”

THE AMAZON MIND

In Last of the Amazons, I tried to imagine on the page the ancient race of female warriors.

Here’s a description of the Amazon mode of thinking, offered by one of the characters in the book, a young Athenian who has traveled to the Amazon homeland near the Black Sea and lived for a time among this legendary all-female culture.

The Amazons have no word for “I.” The notion of the autonomous individual has no place in their conception of the universe. Their thinking, if one could call it that, is entirely instinctual and collective. They think like a herd of horses or a flock of swallows, which seem to apprehend and respond with one mind, acting intuitively and instantaneously in the moment.

When an Amazon speaks, she will pause frequently, often for long moments. She is seeking the right word. But she does not consciously search for this, as you or I might, rummaging within the catalog of our mind. Rather she is waiting, as a hunter might at the burrow of her quarry, until the correct word arises of itself as from some primal spring of consciousness. The process, it seems, is more akin to dreaming than to waking awareness.

To our Greek eyes, this habit of pausing and waiting makes the speaker appear dull-witted, even dense, and many among our compatriots have lost patience in the event or, concluding that these horsewomen of the plains are a race of savages, have given up entirely on attempting to communicate with them.

To the Amazons, of course, it is we Hellenes who are the witless ones, whose “civilized” consciousness has lost access to the well of wisdom and sense upon which the plainswoman readily draws, and who as a result are cut off from the immediate apprehension of the moment, immured within our own narrow, fearful, greedy, self-infatuated minds.

The Amazon mind as imagined in this passage is not far off from the artist’s mind when she is at work.

THE ARTIST BELIEVES IN A DIFFERENT REALITY

Did you ever see the Meg Ryan-Nicholas Cage movie, City of Angels?

In City of Angels (screenplay by Dana Stevens), human characters go about their lives, oblivious of the cohort of angels—all handsome, male and female, dressed in stylish, duster-length coats—who attend upon them and are present about them at all times, often standing invisibly directly at their shoulders.

That’s my world.

That’s what I see.

Everything I do is based upon that reality.

THE SURPRISE OF FINDING OUR VOICE

I have a recurring dream.

A good dream.

In the dream I’m in my house (or some place that I recognize as my house even though technically it doesn’t look exactly like my actual house) when I realize that I’m occupying a room that I had never realized was part of the edifice. An additional room. An expanded room.

Sometimes it’s an entire floor. I’ll be standing there, looking at crystal chandeliers and rows of pool tables extending for half a block, with music playing and people partying, and I’ll think to myself, “Wow, I had no idea this part of the house even existed. How could I have missed it all this time?”

That house is my psyche. The new rooms are parts of me I have never, till I dreamt them, been aware of.

We find our voice that same way. Project by project. Subject by subject. Observing in happy amazement as a new “us” pops out each time.

THE HERO’S JOURNEY OF THE HUMAN RACE

If the individual has a hero’s journey, does the race collectively possess one as well?

If it does, what is our “call?”

What “threshold” do we seek to cross?

What “home” will we return to?

What “gift” shall we bring?

Here’s what I think:

I think the race’s journey began in the Garden of Eden (which is of course a myth, but a myth common in one form or another to all humanity.)

Our inciting incident was a crime, the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

Act One ended with the Almighty casting us out of the garden.

We entered the Inverted World then, humankind’s collective Act Two, and we’ve been there ever since, suffering trials, undergoing initiations, encountering creatures of wonder, while our hearts, as Homer wrote of Odysseus through all the seafaring, ached with an agony to redeem [ourselves] and bring [our] company safe home.

Safe home to the Garden, that’s the return we seek. That alone will complete the circle and make mankind whole.

The artist is the herald and the medium of this passage.

THE SOUL’S CODE

Have you read The Soul’s Code by James Hillman? I highly recom­mend it.

In The Soul’s Code, Mr. Hillman introduces the concept of the daimon. Daimon is a Greek word. The equivalent term in Latin is genius.

Both words refer to an inhering spirit. We are born, each of us, (says James Hillman) with our own individual daimon. The daimon is our guardian. It knows our destiny. It kens our calling.

James Hillman makes an analogy to an acorn. The totality of the full-grown oak is contained—every leaf and every branch—already within the acorn.

THE DAIMON IN ACTION

My friend Hermes Melissanidis won the gold medal at the ‘96 Atlanta Olympics in the floor exercise of men’s gymnastics. Here’s a story of his daimon.

When Hermes was eight, he saw gymnastics for the first time on TV. He knew instantly that this was what he wanted to do. He went to his parents and asked them to arrange for a trainer so he could study gymnastics and compete for Greece on the Olympic team.

Hermes’ family is a family of doctors. His mom is a doctor. His dad is a doctor. They’re all doctors in Hermes’ family. They were horrified when they heard their son’s passionate conviction that he wanted to be a gymnast. “Absolutely not!” The family would never condone Hermes wasting his youth on this prepos­terous endeavor.

Hermes went on a hunger strike.

For four days he ate nothing.

Finally his distraught parents agreed to discuss the issue. The family and eight-year-old Hermes came to a compromise. Hermes would be allowed to study gymnastics full time. His parents would arrange it and pay for it. But Hermes must promise that he would also become a doctor. He agreed. And in fact he did graduate from medi­cal school along with becoming an Olympic gold medalist. Today he’s an actor, by the way.

Do you see Hermes’ daimon in this story? The daimon knew Hermes’ gymnastic destiny. It seized him. It compelled him to act. Why else would an eight-year-old boy go on a hunger strike? The daimon knew.

We could easily cite a thousand other such stories—Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackson Pollock, Colette, Hemingway, on and on—of in­dividuals whose sense of their own destiny was so strong in them that nothing including their own fear and self-doubt and even their com­mon sense could stop them from living it out.

DO YOU HAVE A DAIMON?

It took me nineteen years to earn my first dollar as a pure creative writer and twenty-eight years to get my first novel published.

I had jobs in advertising. I had work in other fields. I always quit to write. Bosses, with the best of intentions, would call me into their offices and urge me to listen to reason: stay here, you’ve got a future with us, don’t throw your life away on a dream that’s never going to come true.

Every time I would agonize. Am I crazy? How can I go off again to write another novel that nobody will want to read and that no pub­lishing house will want to publish?

But I always left the job. I always went off to write.

That’s the daimon.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE DAIMON

What follows is founded upon no science. I can cite no studies; I have no evidence. These suppositions are purely idiosyncratic, based only on my own experience:

The daimon is immortal.

I can’t prove it. I just feel it. When you and I shuffle off this mor­tal coil, our daimons will step down to the shoulder of the highway as lightly as a hitchhiker being left off at the end of a ride. Our daimon will trot off into the underbrush, like the Bengal tiger in Life of Pi, without a backward glance. It will pick up the next iteration of “you” and “me” and move on.

The daimon is divine.

The daimon arises from and dwells upon a level beyond the ma­terial. It is governed not by the laws of the physical plane, but by the precepts of heaven.

The daimon is inhuman.

Mother Teresa had a daimon. Martin Luther King had one. But so did Hitler. So did Stalin. And so do you.

There’s a reason why daimon looks a lot like demon. The con­cepts of right and wrong are foreign to the daimon. The daimon op­erates by higher laws. The daimon is nature. An oak will grow through solid concrete. A butterfly will cross hundreds of miles of open ocean.

The daimon is monstrous.

The human race lost something, I believe, when it passed from the ancient world to the modern. The ancients understood the mon­strous. They were not appalled by it, as we are. The legends of the ancient world are packed with monsters—Medusa, Cerberus, the Mi­notaur. Even the human characters—Medea, Agamemnon, Ajax, Clytemnestra—often embody the monstrous.

The ancients recognized that nature herself contains the mon­strous. The world as the Almighty designed it is populated by mon­sters.

The daimon is creative.

The daimon’s role is to carry the new. It is the Big Bang. It bears the future.

Your daimon is closer to you than anything or anyone in your life.

Your daimon shields you, protects you, counsels you. It kicks your ass. It will drive you crazy if you ignore it, and yet it is insepara­ble from you. Nothing in your life is as loyal. It will never leave you, never betray you, never abandon you.

No creature of humankind—not your spouse, your mother, your sainted aunt—understands you like your daimon.

You will never understand yourself to the depth that your daimon understands you.

You are not your daimon.

And yet you are not your daimon, and your daimon is not you. You are the vessel for your daimon. You are the latest edition in a long line. You are the raw material with which the daimon works.

Ignore the daimon and it will kill you.

Are we nobler than our daimons? Are we “kinder”? “Better”? Perhaps. But our daimon is far more powerful.

The meaning of your life is contained in your daimon

PUT YOUR ASS WHERE YOUR HEART WANTS TO BE

The great secret that every artist and mystic knows is that the pro­found can be reached best by concentrating upon the mundane.

Do you want to write? Sit down at the keyboard.

Wanna paint? Stand before an easel.

Wanna dance? Get your butt into the studio.

Want the goddess to show up for you? Show up for her.

WHO YOU ARE IS WHAT YOU WRITE

The artist discovers herself by the work she produces.

Who are you?

Dance and find out.

Sing and find out.

Write and find out.

Writing, like life itself, [Henry Miller again] is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become that path himself …

From the very beginning almost I was deeply aware that there is no goal. I never hope to embrace the whole, but merely to give in each separate fragment, each work, the feeling of the whole as I go on, because I am digging deeper and deeper into life, digging deeper and deeper into past and future. With the endless burrowing a certi­tude develops which is greater than faith or belief. I be­come more and more indifferent to my fate, as writer, and more and more certain of my destiny as a man.

There is a dimension of reality above (or below) the material dimen­sion we live in.

If you’re an artist, the search for that dimension is your life.

THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY IS THE HERO’S JOURNEY OF THE HUMAN RACE

You may wonder as you sit in your cubicle designing a gundown scene for Call of Duty Black Ops IV if you’re really advancing the cause of humanity.

You are.

Your artist’s journey is unique to you. You alone are on your path. Your job is only to follow it and be true to it.

Who knows what heights it may eventually bear you to?

You’re an artist. Your journey—however humble, however fraught, however beset with thorns and thistles—is part of a noble, cosmic cause. It is not meaningless. It is not in vain.

It is a portion of a grand adventure.

The artist’s journey is the hero’s journey of the human race.

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

What is “the benign, protecting power of destiny,” if indeed there is such a thing?

I think it’s the evolutionary pull of all humankind, which seeks, like the hero, to return to the start of its journey—in other words, the great-circle trajectory of the race arcing home to Eden.

If mankind is indeed on a collective hero’s journey, then Creation itself is on our side.

The Ego is the enemy.

Resistance is the force that it uses against us.

These foes are mighty indeed. But opposed to them always, and equal if not greater, is this great-circle “destiny,” to use Joseph Campbell’s word. That is the wind at our backs.

Therefore be of good cheer, brothers and sisters.

A powerful destiny lies coiled inside you. This force is neither a dumb, robotic tape or some dusty hieroglyph left from millions of years ago, but an active, dynamic, intelligent presence—-endlessly creative, ever-mutating, responsive-in-the-moment—supporting and guiding you as you evolve and advance.

Nor does this force operate only inside your mind. It is not solely cerebral or abstract, nor is it bound by the limits of your consciousness or your physical body.

It operates in real time and in the real world. It is connected to forces unconstrained by time and space, by reason or by nature’s laws. It is capable of summoning allies and assistance and of concentrating them on your behalf and in your cause. These forces are not only of the imagination—ideas, insights, wisdom, breakthroughs in your life and work—but also practical and material apparitions like friends and allies, connections, places to stay, money.

Flesh-and-blood individuals will enter your life at precisely the time and place you need them. These persons will play the role of archetypes—mentors and lovers, boon companions, even animal spirits, tricksters—as will corresponding foes and antagonists, tempters and temptresses, enemies, shape-shifters.

The hero’s journey and the artist’s journey are real. They come with the promise of change, of passion, of fulfillment and of self-actualization, and they come with the curse of Eden—”henceforth shalt thou eat thy bread in the sweat of thy face”—which mandates unrelenting toil and labor. The struggle never ends. It never gets easier.

This is what you were born for.

Nature has built you for this.

The artist is a role ordained by Creation. Even if you know nothing of this mandate, or refuse to believe it, or have forgotten it entirely, even if you flat-out reject it, this living force remains vital and irresistible inside you. You cannot run from it. You cannot stand against it. It is more alive inside you than your own blood and more impossible to resist than the urge to survive or to procreate or to find love.

A great adventure awaits you.

Ready or not, you are called.