Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 70

Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances

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“You are not your past.”

– Catherine Hoke

Catherine Hoke (@catherine_hoke) is the founder of the non-profit Defy Ventures. Defy’s vision is to end mass incarceration by using entrepreneurship as a tool to transform legacies and human potential.

Cat was named a #MakeTechHuman Agent of Change by WIRED and Nokia for being one of 17 Global Influencers Expanding Human Possibility Through Technology. She has received the MDC Partners Humanitarian Award on behalf of Defy Ventures, and was included in Forbes’ 40 Women to Watch over 40. She was also named by Fast Company as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business and is an Ashoka Fellow.

Cat is the author of the new book, A Second Chance: For You, For Me, and For the Rest of Us, which the Seth Godin encouraged her to write after hearing her amazing story.  I highly encourage you to check it out.

Enjoy this incredible roller coaster of a conversation! It was very moving and emotional for me.[image error][image error]

Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/da5e12e0-b238-46fe-b407-7a75de5b1853.mp3

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

Want to hear another amazing conversation that will inspire you? Listen to this episode with Terry Crews, in which we discuss his workout and diet routine, overcoming failure, discovering happiness, and much much more. Listen to it here (stream below or right-click to download):

Terry Crews — How to Have, Do, and Be All You Wanthttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/5e0e91b1-34c3-4507-821b-6bb99dc06587.mp3

This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. You might remember Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee, which was created by their clever Finnish founders. Recently, I’ve been testing a new product — their reishi mushroom elixir — to help me get to sleep.

As you might know, I struggled with insomnia for years. So, I asked the guys at Four Sigmatic to make a special, custom version of their reishi product. They did, and now it’s become a part of my nightly routine. If you’d like to naturally improve sleep quality naturally, I think you’ll enjoy the reishi elixir.

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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 Catherine Hoke:

Defy Ventures | Twitter | Facebook | Email

A Second Chance: For You, for Me, and for the Rest of Us by Catherine Hoke
Cutco Cutlery
Step to the Line, Defy Ventures
ConBody
Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP)
Prison Entrepreneurship Program: PEP
Daily Affirmation: Stuart Smalley Under-Prepares, SNL
Tony Robbins Explains the Dickens Pattern
Union Square Ventures
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Treadmill Desks
Baby Lullaby Piano music on Spotify
Vitamin String Quartet
Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion by Wayne Cordeiro

Show Notes

How Catherine met our mutual friend Seth Godin. [02:27]
Catherine talks about her cold email strategy that gets the attention of hard-to-reach people. [04:07]
Catherine’s persuasion tactics were forged in a hamster sales empire at age seven, golf ball retrieval, and selling knives door-to-door. [06:48]
How Catherine applied her hustle to attend her school of choice. [10:46]
Where does Catherine’s aggressive drive originate? [12:23]
On being raised in a “super weird” (but super supportive) immigrant home in Canada. [14:22]
What brought Catherine’s family from Canada to the United States? [16:16]
How Catherine developed compassion from her mother. [17:09]
How did Catherine go from thinking poorly of the incarcerated to trying to help them? [20:58]
Understanding the power of language and how it serves to label us and others. [22:46]
Why did Catherine’s passion for helping society’s underdogs — and giving them the right to a second chance — stick? [23:57]
Catherine empathizes with the people she serves because she understands how different circumstances could have easily put her in their position. [27:29]
Who is Coss Marte and why should he inspire us? [28:58]
How does Catherine vet the incarcerated who should be given a second chance vs. those who should remain behind bars because they’re a threat to society? [34:02]
What if you were only known for the worst thing you’ve ever done? [45:08]
Catherine talks honestly about her own second chance. [46:55]
What recommendations does Catherine have for people who are unforgiving of themselves? [1:00:19]
How to get stubborn about forgiveness. [1:07:38]
The power of affirmations. [1:10:19]
“You can’t be angry and curious at the same time.” [1:12:09]
How are Entrepreneurs in Training (EIT) taught to meditate on ways to replace self-limiting beliefs? [1:14:36]
What form does this meditation take? [1:21:07]
What are the ingredients that make Defy effective? [1:22:21]
How does competition-based entrepreneur training work? [1:29:31]
Where can people learn more about Defy’s curriculum? [1:37:11]
What books does Catherine gift most often? [1:42:48]
As we forgive ourselves, remember to forgive others. [1:44:26]
What would Catherine’s billboard say? [1:46:35]
What does Catherine do to overcome feeling unfocused or overwhelmed? [1:48:22]
What’s are Catherine’s favorite foods? [1:52:16]
What does Catherine hope to do by her 53rd birthday? [1:57:57]
In Catherine’s estimation, what would be the defining factors of doing away with mass incarceration? [1:59:52]
What questions does Catherine ask herself to get centered? [2:03:55]
What would your own eulogies say? [2:07:27]
Parting thoughts. [2:09:00]

People Mentioned

Seth Godin
Duncan Niederauer
Catherine’s father
Helen Maroulis
Jerry Colonna
Brad Feld
Coss Marte
Bill and Andrea Townsend
Stuart Smalley
Al Franken
Scott Adams
Tony Robbins
Henry Cloud
Emily Post
Tim Draper
Sheryl Sandberg

Lessons and Warnings From Successful Risk Takers

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“Don’t let someone knock you off your course after you’ve put in all the work.” – Soman Chainani

This is a special episode of the podcast, which features three guests: author Soman Chainani (@SomanChainani), author Susan Cain (@susancain), and East Rock Capital co-founder and investor Graham Duncan.

All three are featured in my latest book, Tribe of Mentors, and all three share something in common: they’re experts at mitigating risk. All of them have been great at capping downsides and making various career decisions that have paid off in large ways.

I hope you enjoy this episode with these three brilliant guests!

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Lessons and Warnings From Successful Risk Takershttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/a5fe1e27-0fc8-4134-a007-6bd2a1c4c988.mp3

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

Want to hear a conversation with a mentor from Tribe of Mentors? Listen to this episode with Tim Urban, in which we discuss the future, how to deal with procrastination, AI, and much much more. Listen to it here (stream below or right-click to download):

Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness - Tim Urbanhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/f2d4392d-c8c5-4a41-9f18-392532e29098.mp3

This podcast is brought to you by Ascent Protein, the only US-based company that offers native proteins — both whey and micellar casein — directly to the consumer for improved muscle health and performance. Because the product is sourced from Ascent’s parent company, Leprino Foods — the largest producer of mozzarella cheese in the world — it’s entirely free of artificial ingredients and completely bypasses the bleaching process common to most other whey products on the market.

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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 Soman Chainani:

Website|Twitter|Instagram|Facebook|YouTube

Connect with Susan Cain:

Quiet Revolution | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Connect with Graham Duncan:

Website |East Rock Capital

The School for Good and Evil Series Complete Box Set: Books 1, 2, and 3 by Soman Chainani
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Mother Dirt AO+ Mist Live Probiotic Skin Spray
Headspace
ALF
The Best of Archie Comics: 75 Years, 75 Stories by Archie Superstars
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (includes Liking What You See: A Documentary)
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverted Kids by Susan Cain, Gregory Mone, and Erica Moroz
Susan Cain’s TED Talk: The Power of Introverts
Dance Me to the End of Love by Leonard Cohen
Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
Hinach Yafah (You Are Beautiful) by The Idan Raichel Project
Saudade: An Untranslatable, Undeniably Potent Word by Jasmine Garsd, alt.latino
O Canto Da Saudade (Pam) by Madredeus
Saudade by Cesária Évora
East Rock Capital
SubPac M2X Wearable Physical Audio System
Making Sense of People: The Science of Personality Differences by Samuel Barondes
The Big Five Personality Theory: The 5 Factor Model Explained by Courtney Ackerman, Positive Psychology Program
The Big Lebowski
In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life by Robert Kegan
Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World by Jennifer Garvey Berger
Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
The Tim Ferriss Show, Episode 22: Ed Catmull, President of Pixar, on Steve Jobs, Stories, and Lessons Learned
Parable by Louise glück
Work with Source
“One Last Time” — Hamilton at the White House
FINIS Freestyler Hand Paddles
Cressi Palau Short Snorkeling Swim Fins
Matiz Gallego Sardines
Vital Choice Redtresca Salmon Bellies
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
This is Water by David Foster Wallace
Integration is Better Than Rigidity or Chaos by Dr. Arnie Kozak
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
The Quiet Master of Cryptocurrency — Nick Szabo

Show Notes

Introducing Soman Chainani. [06:18]
Three books that help Soman work creatively, live genuinely, and explore humanity. [07:11]
What recent purchase of less than $100 had the most positive impact on Soman’s life? [11:18]
A failure that taught Soman a valuable, but humbling lesson. [13:42]
Soman’s billboard and musings on life, death, and meditation. [17:11]
One of the best investments of energy, money, or time Soman has ever made. [19:31]
An unusual habit or absurd thing that Soman loves, and why he feels the best stories are universal. [22:08]
In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved Soman’s life? [24:12]
What advice would Soman give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the real world — and what advice would he ignore? [26:19]
Bad advice Soman hears given often to artists. [28:27]
In the last five years, what has Soman become better at saying “no” to? [29:48]
What does Soman do to overcome feeling unfocused or overwhelmed? [31:12]
Introducing Susan Cain. [32:32]
How has a failure or apparent failure set Susan up for later success? [33:30]
One of Susan’s most worthwhile investments of time. [36:14]
An unusual habit or absurd thing Susan loves. [37:40]
Susan’s favorite word in any language. [39:01]
What advice would Susan give a smart, driven college student about to enter the real world? [40:02]
What does Susan do to overcome feeling unfocused or overwhelmed? [43:06]
Introducing Graham Duncan. [44:02]
An unusual habit or absurd thing Graham loves. [45:07]
What would Graham’s billboard say? [45:43]
Books that have greatly influenced Graham’s life and the mental models that guide how he thinks about people and teams. [47:17]
What recent purchase of less than $100 had the most positive impact on Graham’s life? [57:44]
How has a failure or apparent failure set Graham up for later success? [58:49]
Bad recommendations Graham often hears in his field. [1:01:20]
What does Graham do to overcome feeling unfocused or overwhelmed? [1:02:59]
In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved Graham’s life? [1:03:50]
What advice would Graham give a smart, driven college student about to enter the real world? [1:04:51]

People Mentioned

Soman Chainani
Susan Cain
Graham Duncan
Brian Koppelman
Celine Dion
Bill Gates
Leonard Cohen
Idan Raichel
Josh Waitzkin
Bobby Fischer
Kwame Anthony Appiah
George Saunders
Samuel Barondes
Leonardo da Vinci
Robocop
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama
The Dude
Woody Allen
Kanye West
Scott Barry Kaufman
Robert Kegan
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Laird Hamilton
Gabrielle Reece
Ed Catmull
Steve Ballmer
Satya Nadella
George Washington
Alexander Hamilton
Ray Dalio
Yuval Noah Harari
Byron Katie
David Foster Wallace
Dan Siegel
Robert M. Pirsig
Mike Burry
Eddie Lampert
Steve Jobs
Elon Musk
Ayn Rand
Steve Eisman
Michael Lewis
Tom Stoppard
Charlie Munger

How The Best Overcome Fear

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“Whatever you’re doing, don’t give a voice to things you’re not able to change.”

– Vince Vaughn

Welcome to another edition of The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour, where I share the habits and patterns of world-class performers revealed over nearly 300 interviews.

In this episode, we’ll explore fear. Specifically, how to manage, mitigate, and overcome fear, which is something I’ve battled for decades.

This has been such a focal point of my life that my last TED Talk focused on an exercise called fear setting, which is something I practice at least once a month and have found to be a life raft.

In addition to my own experiences, we’ll hear how Sir Richard Branson (@richardbranson), Maria Sharapova (@mariasharapova), Vince Vaughn, and Caroline Paul (@carowriter) have battled their own fears.

Enjoy!

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Overcoming, Managing, and Using Fearhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/79ea7ade-64c2-4e24-be74-cf825cdd5847.mp3

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

Want to hear another episode 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):

#201: The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour: Meditation, Mindset, and Masteryhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/c5eafee8-47a6-4e8f-a36e-48c20f5dd928.mp3

This podcast is 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 — 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!

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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

Sir Richard Branson — The Billionaire Maverick of the Virgin Empire
Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Wayn by Richard Branson
Finding My Virginity by Richard Branson
What Richard Branson Learned When Coke Put Virgin Cola out of Business by Catherine Clifford, CNBC
The Elders
Mental Performance, Work-Life Balance, and the Rise to the Top — Maria Sharapova
Unstoppable: My Life So Far by Maria Sharapova
Wimbledon 2004 Golden Moment — Sharapova vs. Williams
How to Fear Less: Vince Vaughn
Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss
Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too by Tim Ferriss
Star Wars: Mark Hamill Screen Test Audition
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
Conquering Fear and Reducing Anxiety — Caroline Paul
Fighting Fire by Caroline Paul
The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure by Caroline Paul, illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton
Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared? by Caroline Paul, The New York Times
Brave Is Built, Not Born: Why We All Need Microbravery Now by Rachel Simmons, Girls Leadership

Show Notes

How does Richard Branson cope with feeling overwhelmed? [09:03]
What’s Richard’s non-alcoholic choice when he doesn’t want to drink during a social event? [13:09]
What’s Richard’s favorite failure? [15:09]
How does Maria Sharapova feel about the word “rejection?” [20:00]
Maria details the importance of surrounding yourself with quality people who inspire rather than drain when in the limelight — and how to tell them apart. [25:39]
A recent experience that allowed Maria to step out of her comfort zone, make new connections, and grow. [31:15]
Vince Vaughn knows that fear is usually more crippling than the actual consequences. [34:16]
Vince’s advice for beginning actors coping with rejection. [38:23]
Microfailures as an inoculation against rejection. [42:09]
Vince shares a traumatic experience from his high school days and what it taught him. [43:02]
The role of sports — particularly wrestling — in Vince’s development. [45:39]
Caroline Paul relates a terrifying experience she had as a firefighter. [52:54]
Caroline’s pro-bravery strategy for coping with fear. [56:05]
If you’re trying to change your relationship with fear, where do you start? [1:00:46]

People Mentioned

Richard Branson
Maria Sharapova
Vince Vaughn
Caroline Paul
Tony Robbins
Matt Mullenweg
Nelson Mandela
Kofi Annan
Nick Bollettieri
Josh Waitzkin
Sven Groeneveld
Chris Sacca
Michael Jordan
Wayne Gretzky
Marcelo Garcia
George Washington

Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativity

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“I wish I could not wish.” – Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin (@gretchenrubin) is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. She has an enormous readership, both in print and online, and her books have sold three million copies worldwide, in more than thirty languages.

On her popular weekly podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she discusses good habits and happiness with her sister Elizabeth Craft; they’ve been called the “Click and Clack of podcasters.” Her podcast was named in iTunes’s lists of “Best Podcasts of 2015” and was named in the Academy of Podcasters “Best Podcasts of 2016.”

Fast Company named Gretchen Rubin to its list of Most Creative People in Business, and she’s a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100.

Enjoy!

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Gretchen Rubin — Experiments in Happiness and Creativityhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/0c836c2c-76aa-4a7c-9582-4305c6410e6b.mp3

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

Want to hear another podcast that will improve your mindset and life? — Listen to this episode with Jocko Willink. Jocko might be the scariest Navy SEAL alive, and in this episode, he shares his thoughts on how to stop laziness and procrastination, behaviors that lead to failure, and much, much more (stream below or right-click here to download):

Discipline Equals Freedom -- Jocko Willinkhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/95fe892c-1309-421a-be21-7297b0698dd1.mp3

This episode is brought to you by Shure. Shure is the brand behind my favorite headphones — the SE846. Shure has been trusted by musicians and sound experts for years, and I use Shure equipment to help record each episode of the podcast. The SE846 earphones feature a groundbreaking low-pass filter that delivers extended high-end clarity and unparalleled low-end performance of a true subwoofer without sacrificing clarity or detail of mids or highs.

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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 Gretchen Rubin:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin
Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits–to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life by Gretchen Rubin
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon Self-Control, and My Other Experiments in Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin
Happier with Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft
Meditate on Koans by Gretchen Rubin
Power Money Fame Sex: A User’s Guide by Gretchen Rubin
Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of a Long Life by Gretchen Rubin
Forty Ways to Look at JFK by Gretchen Rubin
Profane Waste by Dana Hoey and Gretchen Craft Rubin
Harold and Maude
Scrivener
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander
The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages by Frederick Bodmer and Lancelot Thomas Hogben
Treadmill Desks
Genuine Leather Weighted Bookmark
Inside Happiness Guru Gretchen Rubin’s Office, NBC News
Drowning in Clutter? Observe the One-Minute Rule. by Gretchen Rubin
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It by Gary Taubes
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Holes by Louis Sachar
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Gretchen Rubin on CreativeLive with Chase Jarvis
Four Tendencies Quiz
Fitbit Charge 2
DietBet
stickK
Happier Episode 149: Identify Your “18 for 2018,” the Problem of Clutter-Creating In-Laws, and an Instagram Project.
Happier in Hollywood
Happier Episode 71: Choose a Signature Color, and Ask “Am I an Alchemist or a Leopard?” Plus FOMO.
In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
Seeing with Your Tongue by Nicola Twilley, The New Yorker
“Try This at Home” List
Harry Potter Paperback Box Set by J.K. Rowling
Tales of Magic Boxed Set by Edward Eager and N. M. Bodecker
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel by Peter Cameron
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
A Collection of Essays by George Orwell
Samuel Johnson: The Major Works by Samuel Johnson
How (and Why) to Keep a Time Log by Laura Vanderkam
Manhattan Beach: A Novel by Jennifer Egan
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Show Notes

“I wish I could not wish.” Agree or disagree? [05:47]
How did Gretchen begin her career in law, and what made her move on to writing? [08:16]
What inspired Gretchen’s first book? [11:05]
Did Gretchen quit being a lawyer before or after selling her first book? [14:04]
In hindsight, what key lessons were learned by the process of writing and selling that first book? [16:29]
How did Gretchen decide on her next book, and what ties together her body of work? [21:47]
What is Gretchen’s note-taking system? What software does she use for composing a book? [25:25]
Why does Gretchen recommend Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language? [31:03]
What are the key ingredients to Gretchen’s home office? [34:42]
What small changes does Gretchen recommend for people hoping to increase personal well-being and happiness? [40:29]
End of day rituals and routines. [44:00]
Morning routines. [45:30]
Changes Gretchen has made in the past few years that have increased happiness and decreased anxiety and other negative emotions. [48:30]
How are Gretchen’s children’s literature groups organized? [52:46]
What qualifies a book for the young adult genre? [56:47]
How does Gretchen use accountability? [1:00:49]
Does Gretchen set new year’s resolutions? [1:10:38]
Gretchen’s theme for the year is delegation. How does she plan to act on this? [1:14:07]
Does Gretchen have a favorite failure? [1:16:21]
One of Gretchen’s most worthwhile investments of time, money, or energy. [1:21:40]
How did Gretchen start learning the basics of podcasting? [1:22:12]
How has Gretchen gone about turning her podcast listeners into a community? [1:24:34]
What would Gretchen’s billboard say? [1:28:29]
Quotes Gretchen finds inspiring. [1:29:33]
What “try this at home” episode of Gretchen’s podcast has had the strongest response to date? [1:40:30]
How does Gretchen regain focus? [1:43:43]
Short children’s and young adult titles everyone should try. [1:46:28]
Adult books Gretchen has reread the most. [1:48:16]
How many hours a week does Gretchen spend reading? [1:49:41]
Per Gretchen’s Four Tendencies, what is my tendency? [1:53:21]
“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” -Novalis [1:59:53]

People Mentioned

Elizabeth Craft
Jack Craft
James Rubin
Christy Fletcher
Stephen Hanselman
Winston Churchill
John F. Kennedy
Christopher Alexander
Philip Pullman
Louis Sachar
Louisa May Alcott
Chase Jarvis
Robert Louis Stevenson
Thomas Merton
Jalal al-Din Rumi
Samuel Johnson
Ed Cooke
Edward Eager
Elizabeth Enright
Susan Cooper
Roald Dahl
C.S. Lewis
Carl Jung
Jon Krakauer
George Orwell
Virginia Woolf
Flannery O’Connor
Robertson Davies
Jane Austen
Laura Vanderkam
Jennifer Egan
Novalis
Bozoma Saint John
Hafiz
Robert Frost
B.J. Fogg

How to Handle Information Overwhelm (And Social Media)

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“Living well is the best revenge.”

-George Herbert

After reading Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors, many of you have asked me how I process all of the information I receive.

This episode will help you manage information overwhelm, recommend techniques for dealing with social media, and answer a few questions that have been frequently asked about building a world-class network and writing books.

I hope this information strengthens the signal, discards the noise, and helps you make every piece of information that you choose to receive easier to process.

Enjoy!

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How to Handle Information Overwhelm (And Social Media)
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/7c3ed23e-2d1a-46bf-a74a-2fadc7e345c7.mp3

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

Want to hear another podcast that will improve your mindset? — Listen to this episode with Jocko Willink. Jocko might be the scariest Navy SEAL alive, and in this episode, he shares his thoughts on how to stop laziness and procrastination, behaviors that lead to failure, and much, much more (stream below or right-click here to download):

Discipline Equals Freedom -- Jocko Willinkhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/95fe892c-1309-421a-be21-7297b0698dd1.mp3

This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. As a listener of The Tim Ferriss Show, you’ll get 30 percent off your first order at AthleticGreens.com/Tim.

This podcast is also brought to you by ZipRecruiter. One of the hardest parts about growing any business is finding and hiring the right team. Nothing can drain your resources and cost you time and money like making mistakes in hiring.

ZipRecruiter developed its own system and platform for helping solve two of the biggest bottlenecks for employers: posting jobs easily and making it even easier to find the best candidates. More than 80 percent of jobs posted return qualified candidates based on your criteria in just 24 hours. As a listener to this show, you can give it a try for free at ziprecruiter.com/tim!

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

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss
Morning Routines and Strategies, The Tim Ferriss Show
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker
Evernote
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
SXSW Interactive Festival
Ruby on Rails
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

Show Notes

Social media is a full-contact sport. Here are some personal guidelines and policies that help maintain my sanity. [02:07]
Social networks as “neighborhoods.” Some are friendlier than others, but they’re all designed to take you off task. [06:43]
How do I contend with the sheer volume of information and advice I receive? [12:25]
Networking mistakes — and what you can do that will actually work. [20:19]
To those of you asking me if you should write a book, I’ll answer your question with this question. [26:35]
How I came to write my first book even though I had no aspirations of being an author. [28:24]

People Mentioned

George Herbert
Jerzy Gregorek
Cal Fussman
Derek Sivers
Ray Dalio
Ed Catmull
Kathy Sierra
Molly
Brian Grazer
Michael E. Gerber
Andre Agassi

How to Build a Million-Dollar, One-Person Business – Case Studies from The 4-Hour Workweek

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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been more than 10 years since The 4-Hour Workweek was published. And it amazes me that the book is still the most highlighted book across all of Amazon in 2017.

I wanted The 4-Hour Workweek to be a compass for a new and revolutionary world. While many people have misunderstood the title, the book was written as a blueprint for escaping the rat race, living more, working less, and putting yourself in control.

Few things are more enjoyable than reading the case studies I’ve come across over the years.

This guest post, by Elaine Pofeldt, is an adapted (and extended) excerpt from her new book, The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business. Elaine highlights six different people who built a million dollar business after reading The 4-Hour Workweek. Much like 10 years ago, I hope this post inspires more people to make a change for the better and accomplish more than they thought possible.

Enter Elaine

Laszlo Nadler, 36, lives a life many dream of: he is on track to bring in more than $2 million a year in a profitable business that is a one-man show. Nadler runs a five-year-old online store, Tools4Wisdom, from his home in New Jersey. The store sells inspirational weekly and monthly planners. Nadler outsources the printing, so most of his daily work consists of customer service, business development, and marketing. The business leaves plenty of time to get away for vacations with his wife and two young daughters.

When his income from the planners hit six figures a little under two years ago, he quit his job to work on the business full-time. Just four years into running his still-profitable business full-time, he broke $2 million in revenue—and has seen his life transformed.

Nadler is part of an exciting trend: the growth of ultra-lean, one-person businesses that are reaching and exceeding $1 million in revenue. According to recent statistics released by the US Census Bureau, in 2015 there were 35,584 “nonemployer” firms— that is, those that do not employ anyone other than the owners— that brought in $1 million to $2,499,999 in annual revenue. That’s up 5.8% from 2014, 18% from 2013, 21% from 20 12 and 33% from 2011.

While the Census Bureau’s name—nonemployer firms—defines these ultra-lean businesses by what they are not, many entrepreneurs clearly see them for what they are: an engine that offers the potential for high income and a balanced, interesting life—on their own terms. These businesses offer three things that elude most workers today: control over their time, enough money to enjoy it, and the independence to live life as they want.

Many entrepreneurs take one of two paths to economic freedom today: (1) quitting their job and launching a traditional small business, such as a shop or a restaurant, or (2) trying to scale a startup into the next company to go public or get acquired by a big corporation.

But the million-dollar, one-person business entrepreneurs have embraced a new, third path—one in which a single individual or business partners can extend their capabilities to achieve what it would normally take a larger team to do. What they’re pulling off takes effort, but the changing nature of work, the growth of automation, and technological developments that unlock market access are making it easier by the day. “There is a way of thinking that scales beyond them,” says Eric Scott, a partner at SciFi VC, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, founded by Max Levchin, cofounder of PayPal.

What’s driving the growth of the million-dollar, one-person business? One factor is the internet, which has enabled individual entrepreneurs to plunge into a vast global marketplace cheaply and quickly. It has become much easier to quickly set up a business’s legal structure, operations, and distribution, says Scott. Thanks to cloud-based storage, buying expensive servers—once a huge barrier to entry for startups—is no longer mandatory.

The uptick also reflects a shift in attitudes. Rather than adopt Henry Ford–era business models, in which scaling up depends on hiring legions of employees, these entrepreneurs choose to travel light. When they need to expand their individual capabilities, they often deliberately turn to contractors or firms that handle billing and other outsourceable functions—an approach some first considered after being introduced to the idea of outsourcing in The 4-Hour Workweek.

The Million-Dollar One-Person Business Revolution

So how do you get from where you currently are in your career to enjoying the freedom million-dollar entrepreneurs have? It starts with forming an idea of the type of business you want to run and the lifestyle you want it to support. While Nadler is passionate about planners, thinking about a daily planner might be a form of slow torture for you.

If what you obsess about is electronic gadgets, stock market investing, Paleo cooking, funky handbags, or collecting ceramic garden gnomes, your million-dollar business idea probably has something to do with that interest.

A good place to start is to ask yourself some key questions:

What are you really passionate about?

Where can you deliver value to people?

And would you actually enjoy turning your idea into a business?

You may find there are some passions you prefer to keep as personal interests instead.

The founders of million-dollar, one-person businesses and partnerships are everyday people who have grown very smart about the time they spend working. Solo businesses and partnerships that hit the million-dollar range typically fall into six categories:

E-commerce
Manufacturing
Informational content creation
Professional services and creative businesses, such 
as marketing firms, public speaking businesses, and 
consultancies
Personal services firms, offering expertise, such as fitness 
coaching
Real estate

In interviewing the entrepreneurs for The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, I found that no two were alike. But what many have in common is they are using outsourcing, automation, mobile technology or a combination of all three to build, operate and grow their businesses.

Some of these entrepreneurs have made a commitment to remaining solo operations, while others eventually decided to scale the traditional way, by hiring employees. That isn’t what is most important about their stories. The point of the million-dollar, one-person business is that it gives you choices—whether to keep it small while earning a great income or continue growing it. Neither path, you’ll notice, involves the pain of struggling in a marginal freelance business.

Often, these entrepreneurs mentioned to me that The 4-Hour Workweek gave them valuable ideas on how to extend what one person or a team of partners could do before they hired employees. Here are some of their stories, which illustrate how they applied the lessons of The 4-Hour Workweek—and the incredible results they achieved in their lives because of that.

Case Study #1: Split-Testing for Profit

Nadler never planned to be an entrepreneur. He studied business management and technology and then built a career as a project manager for one of the top trading units at a multinational bank. It was a good job that seemed to justify the college tuition his parents had paid and enabled him to support his young family. And yet, as Nadler was talking almost six years ago with his oldest daughter about the importance of doing what you love, his words sounded hollow. He realized he was not following his own advice.

What did excite him—and had led to his career in project management—was improving his own productivity and helping the people around him do the same. Nadler decided it was time to actually follow the advice he had given his daughter and soon started a side business, designing and producing his own planners and selling them online. His goal was to create a side income by creating a truly automated business that would give him the freedom to choose to work—or not—on any given day. An online store, he realized, was the quickest and easiest route to doing that.

“The 4-Hour Workweek got me started,” says Nadler. “Tim created the system to automate his income to make space for the things he loved and travel where he wanted to go. I was inspired to hack the system, to question the status quo and see if I [could] pull it off myself—and behold, it works.”

Unlike most daybooks, Nadler’s planners are not built around making to-do lists. Instead, they focus you on the essential outcomes each week that will move you toward your primary goals. Many people loved his idea and bought the planners.

One thing that helped Nadler was using automated approaches to doing things like conducting A/B testing to determine how consumers were responding to his web pages—a time-saving idea he got excited about after reading The 4-Hour Workweek.

In “A is for Automation,” there is a section looking at software to help readers in internet businesses determine which combination of headlines, texts and images on their home page results in the most sales, instead of trying to test all variables themselves.

Nadler acted on what he had learned by turning to the site Splitly. This saves him hours of manual work. Nadler has found the site’s small team offers smart insights to the questions he is trying to answer. “The size of your company doesn’t matter when you have the right brains,” he notes.

Case study #2: Mastering the Art of Delegation

Ben and Camille Arneberg, a married couple, who live in Austin, Texas, left behind traditional careers—his in the Air Force and hers in corporate social sustainability—to launch their upscale housewares business Willow & Everett in 2015. At the time, they were just 25, and neither had any experience in retail, but they decided they wanted to hit a very concrete goal: $1 million in revenue.

Reading The 4-Hour Workweek helped them find the courage to leave behind traditional careers and build a lifestyle they love. For Camille, reading the Comfort Challenges in Tim Ferriss’s book—where he offers ideas on how to break out of your fear of not conforming to social expectations by doing something weird or ridiculous like publicly relaxing by lying on the sidewalk — helped her question the beliefs that were keeping her tied to corporate life, the first step to leaving it behind. “The 4-Hour Workweek helps you challenge social norms and what people expect of you,” she says.

To make a smooth transition from their traditional careers, the Arnebergs eased into entrepreneurship gradually. Both love living an active lifestyle—Ben was on the Air Force parachute team, while Camille is a certified personal trainer—and they initially tried selling compression sleeves (a running accessory) on the internet on the side.

When that business did not take off, they began researching other products they could sell on the giant trade marketplace Alibaba.com and decided to build a store around their passion for home entertaining. They invested about $5,000 in inventory obtained through a sourcing agent in China they found through a freelance marketplace, raising some of the cash from friends and family, looking at it as just as much of an investment in their own education as a college course would be. Even if it all went down the tube, they reasoned, the experience would be valuable.

The couple opted to launch their site on a giant ecommerce marketplace, reckoning that this would give them the exposure they needed quickly. The site grew quickly, thanks to the couple’s eye for selecting stylish but affordable products, like decorative shot glasses.

To stay focused on the high-level decisions that grow their revenue, the Arnebergs don’t try to do everything themselves and, taking a cue from what they learned in The 4-Hour Workweek, outsource tasks like customer service and photography for the site. They also outsource order fulfillment, relying on their retail platform to handle this. Another example of how they outsource is by relying on a private label manufacture overseas, who customizes their products for them, instead of trying to become manufacturers themselves.

To avoid getting involved in distracting minutia, they actively empower their contractors to make judgement calls, such as issuing a refund, that will cost the company $50 or less—a general concept they learned in The 4-Hour Workweek. (Ferriss empowered his own assistants to resolve such problems if they would cost him $100 or less). “It’s about being smart and strategic and trusting others to make decisions,” says Ben.

By eliminating unimportant tasks, the Arnebergs are able to follow entrepreneur and venture capitalist Paul Graham’s manager’s vs maker’s schedule, an idea Ferriss also practices. Ben and Camille break up their day into the “manager’s” part, focused on strategy and business growth, and the more task-focused “maker” part, where they tackle high-impact tasks best done by them in uninterrupted blocks of time.

During the “manager” part, they focus on coming up with new ideas for growing Willow & Everett, as well as new business opportunities to pursue.

The results of those sessions have been powerful. Last year, they launched a second business on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. It sells the CubeFit Terra Mat, an ergonomic mat for people who use standup desks. The couple raised more than $108,000 to bring the project to fruition in a campaign that started in December 2016 and have since grown it to more than $1 million in revenue. More recently, they ran a successful Kickstarter funding campaign for a new product Cold Brew on Tap this past fall, raising more than $56,000 and shipping the product to backers in December 2017.

None of this would have happened if they had not made an active commitment to outsourcing and staying focused on what really matters. “It’s important to protect that space,” says Ben.

Case study #3: Fewer Distractions = More Growth

Dan Faggella, twenty-nine, is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Faggella earned enough money to support himself in graduate school by running a small martial arts gym he owned in his early twenties but had sold it by age 25, with the goal of creating a scalable, location-independent internet business.

In 2012, he launched Science of Skill, a subscription-based ecommerce site that initially sold online courses in martial arts. As a fighter, Faggella, who has a slight build, had achieved some renown among martial artists for a fight in which he beat a much larger competitor. Many people found his matches instructive. Online videos of his competitions – and, eventually, those of other instructors – drew visitors to Science of Skill’s site.

Reading the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish and listening to The 4-Hour Workweek audiobook during a seven-hour drive from Rhode Island to Philadelphia proved to be pivotal experiences that helped Faggella grow his business to the next level, the entrepreneur recalls.

The 4-Hour Workweek opened Faggella’s mind to two key ideas that helped him grow his revenue far beyond the average “nonemployer” business: Growing a business without hiring traditional employees and finding the right communication rhythms with his team.

One idea that really resonated with Faggella, after running a traditional brick-and-mortar business, was Ferriss’s idea of working with a remote team of contractors. He found it freeing to realize that he didn’t necessarily need a physical space where his team at Science of Skill would work together under one roof.

“That’s an idea that jumped out at me,” he says. “The ease with which that can be done became evident. I knew that was going to be the way to fuel the big game.”

To find remote contractors for tasks such as copywriting and web support, Faggella turned to the freelance platform oDesk, now part of Upwork. He built a team of four reliable contractors to handle tasks such as copywriting and web support.

Faggella also learned another key lesson from The 4-Hour Workweek: the right cadence of communication with his team. Faggella found it helpful to learn that Ferriss only checked his email twice a day and made conscious decisions about when he would communicate with his team and how often.

“It wasn’t an unbroken, consistent stream of messages back and forth but was an organized way of communicating that kept things moving and functioning,” notes Faggella. “You could kind of bucket when you actually handle your digital communication and talk to these folks who are thousands of miles away. It became self-evident to me that those things were manageable.”

By establishing similar communication rhythms to communicate with team members in other time zones, such as his developer and designer in India, Faggella protected the time he needed to focus on big-picture strategizing that helped him grow Science of Skill. The direct result was that he gradually expanded his offerings beyond the martial arts world to offer products related to self-protection and self-reliance. An ongoing curriculum for self-defense and martial arts techniques became one of his biggest products.

That expansion helped him make the leap from six-figure to seven-figure revenue prior to hiring employees. “The tools and concepts in The 4-Hour Workweek were critical for Science of Skill,” he says.

In 2017, Faggella sold Science of Skill for more than $1 million to a group of software entrepreneurs from Ohio. As he got ready to sell, Faggella hired one-full time and one-part time employee to run it. He understood that he needed to demonstrate to potential owners that someone else could run the business successfully without his involvement.

The month before Faggella sold Science of Skill, it was bringing in $210,000 a month in revenue. That sale helped him fund his current startup, Tech Emergence, a media and market research firm in San Francisco that is focused on artificial intelligence, a subject that fascinates him. “That’s the stuff I’m super-duper passionate about,” he says.

Case study #4: Success Through Liberation

Sol Orwell, thirty-two, who lives in downtown Toronto, has grown his business, Examine.com, to seven-figure revenue while traveling the world. Creating a business that allows him to live the way he wanted didn’t happen overnight. For years, Orwell experimented with a variety of businesses—online gaming, domain names, local search and daily deals—until he found the ideal approach to make it happen.

One thing that finally freed Orwell to achieve his goal was reading The 4-Hour Workweek. The “L is for Liberation” section really resonated with him. It showed him how to cut the leash to traditional office work and create the freedom to travel. Orwell was intrigued by the idea of a mini-retirement—where, instead of waiting until you’re done working to travel, you redistribute it throughout life. “That switch in mindset has begotten me so many positive consequences I cannot even begin to count them,” he says.

Looking for a way to achieve his own liberation, Orwell realized he need to put systems in place to free him from daily responsibilities that might otherwise prevent him from traveling. Thanks to income from his various ventures, being able to pay for travel was not an issue for him.

Although Orwell was experienced in delegating work to contractors from his previous ventures, reading The 4-Hour Workweek helped him realize he needed to step out of the day-to-day completely at Examine.com.

“After having spent years building up my business, instead of attempting to just continue growing it, I put my #2 in charge (I trusted him and killed my own job), and then I gallivanted around the globe,” he says. Mobile access to the internet was so extensive by that point, he says, that “everywhere I went I could work… if I wanted to.”

The key to pulling this off was working with the right contractor. Orwell, who had initially gotten interested in nutrition while losing weight, had gotten to be friendly with a fellow contributor to the fitness community on Reddit and was impressed by the way in which his buddy shared his expertise with others on the site.

“The most important part was how patient he was,” Orwell says. “He would write these long answers.” Orwell was equally impressed by the way his friend handled challenging feedback—without getting angry. “Reddit is not the friendliest place,” says Orwell. “He took it very evenly.” These were qualities that would serve him well in an internet business like Orwell’s, where customers often reached out with their own questions about nutrition.

Orwell had soon enlisted his friend, as a contractor, to run Examine.com day to day, offering a small amount of equity to ensure his buddy was invested in its success. Orwell found the arrangement worked beautifully when it came to indulging his love of travel. “Giving him the authority to do whatever he needed to do implicitly brought initiative,” Orwell says.

To make sure the site had credibility, Orwell also hired a group of expert contractors, such as Ph.Ds, to evaluate the research on various nutritional supplements and write reports on them. “Using contractors was not only about simplifying our lives and processes but making sure we have the best knowledge or information on that specific topic,” he says.

As the company grew and expanded into new products, such as its Research Digest, a newsletter aimed at professionals, Orwell brought in another equity partner. Though his #2 eventually moved on to other pursuits, the company continues to thrive and grow. With Examine.com generating millions of page views a month, Orwell now wants to scale up in a more traditional way and this year began the transition to adding traditional employees.

Given that he has structured the company in a way that he does not have to micromanage everyone, Orwell still has the freedom to travel and give back to charity as much as he wants. Recently, his Chocolate Chip Cookie Off NYC X benefit, held at The Strand bookstore in New York City, raised more than $30,000 for the nonprofit She’s the First, which supports girls in low-income countries who will be the first in their families to graduate from high school.

Orwell’s next goal: Figuring out how to raise $50,000 per event—to multiply the impact even more. That’s something he probably wouldn’t have had the time or mental space to tackle if he hadn’t decided to embrace his own liberation.

Case study #5: Rethinking Scale (and Profit)

Jayson Gaignard, founded and runs MasterMindTalks, a Toronto-based firm that brings together a carefully selected group of entrepreneurs in a by-application-only annual event.

The company, which Gaignard runs with some help from his wife, an assistant who is a contractor, and, very recently a content and community manager, could easily expand. About four thousand to five thousand people apply annually to participate in the event for 150 entrepreneurs.

Gaignard has made a conscious decision to keep the business to the size it is as a direct result of reading The 4-Hour Workweek.

He read the book in 2008, when he had been an entrepreneur for about three years, and recalls vividly how life-changing the story of the Fables of Fortune Hunters story was for him at the time. “I have very few moments like that,” he says.

The tale is about an American businessman with a Harvard MBA who takes a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. At the pier, he meets a Mexican fisherman with a small boat who leads a bucolic life with plenty of time to spend with his family and friends in the small community. The businessman encourages the fisherman to scale up his operations by buying more boats and fishing more, so he can eventually expand his operation into the U.S., do an IPO, and cash out a rich man.

When the fisherman asks, “Then what?” the businessman says, “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids…”

Reading the story, says Gaignard, “made me realize I was on a hamster wheel running a business I hated. It fundamentally shifted my view on scale. I had a desire to build a big business at that time but never questioned it.”

At the time Gaignard was running a business called TicketsCanada, a tickets retailer in Toronto. Gaignard assumed that when he hit $1.5 million in revenue that he would double his $350,000 in profits if he could hit $3 million. However, he didn’t anticipate that higher overhead would prevent the expected growth in profits. In fact, when he grew to $3 million, his profits only hit $400,000—and he had to bring almost 20 people on staff to get there. He ended up in a tough financial position where he was considering bankruptcy.

Reading The 4-Hour Workweek made him start questioning the conventional wisdom on scaling a business. “I had a desire to build a big business at the time, but I never questioned it,” Gaignard says. “It made me realize I was on a hamster wheel, running a business I hated.” He eventually decided to close TicketsCanada. “It was the biggest shift I’ve ever made in business,” recalls Gaignard.

In 2011, a friend invited Gaignard to see a talk by marketing guru Seth Godin in New York City. Godin’s theme of networking with like-minded individuals resonated with Gaignard. Gaignard started holding dinners where he would invite eight interesting people, embracing the idea of developing his network.

Gaignard was new to events, but, now that he was committed to building a new way of living for himself, decided he would figure things out as he went along. He was delighted when the event proved to be very successful. That event morphed into his current business, MasterMindTalks, the following year.

Despite constant encouragement to grow his business, Gaignard has decided to keep it small, paying himself $250,000 a year. “How much more money do I need?” he says.

Keeping the business small allows him plenty of time to spend with his wife and their young daughter—and he has no intention of letting go of the perspective he gained from The 4-Hour Workweek. “I became conscious of designing my lifestyle and designing my business to fit that lifestyle,” he says.

Case study #6: How to Overcome Your Doubts and Grow

Allen Walton, 29, runs Spy Guy, an online store in the Dallas area that broke $1 million in revenue its first year. Walton learned the business from the ground up in an early job as a retail clerk at store where he sold security cameras and other gadgets to consumers who came to a store where he worked and later at an online store he ran for another entrepreneur.

Working in those jobs, Walton essentially earned a master’s degree in picking the right inventory. Although he eventually got frustrated with the world of traditional jobs and a paycheck that didn’t reflect the work he put in, it took him a while to build the confidence to start his own store.

Walton says the fear-setting exercise in The 4-Hour Workweek helped him overcome his own doubts, and, armed with $1,000 he’d saved, go into business himself three years ago.

In the fear-setting exercise Ferriss created to break free of workaholism that was keeping him from traveling, he decided to spell out exactly what nightmare that living his dream would cause—the worst-case scenario that would result.

Walton still has his notes from that exercise in a legal pad. In his own version of the “define your nightmare” exercise, Walton envisioned his business failing and being forced to work for $10 an hour in In-N-Out Burger. To his surprise, he says, “I found a little bit of comfort in it,” says Walton. Not only would he be able to live on the food he was serving at the burger joint, he concluded, but, he says, “I could get a stable income—something a lot of entrepreneurs miss.”

Fortunately, it never came to that, thanks, in part, to a lesson he took from The 4-Hour Workweek and Ferriss’s podcast on how to optimize your situation. Following Ferriss’s example, he made a list of everything that needed to be done to launch the business, so he could compartmentalize it.

“You make what would seem to be a complex, insurmountable task—starting a business—a lot more digestible,” he says. “All of a sudden you are going through the checklist—and a year later the business has launched.”

Walton’s business took off quickly, thanks to his knowledge of the business. He knew what inventory would sell and avoided inferior products that would require a lot of time spent on returns and customer service.

Not long after the one-year mark, the company was growing so fast that Walton hired an employee to handle customer service, then hired two more. He brought in $1.9 million in annual revenue last year.

That might seem to be a good position to be in, but as Spy Guy continued to grow, Walton was surprised to find himself struggling with depression and struggling to stay interested in the business.

Growing the business past the point it had reached was going to be significantly harder than getting there, he realized, and he wondered if he had the motivation to get it there. He had thrived during the struggle of the early days, and now that the business was established, lost some of his motivation.

“I’d wake up at noon and look at sales for the day and say ‘Oh, we have enough sales today. I literally just made $1,000 in profit for myself after taxes and can afford not to do anything today,” Walton recalls. “I’d browse the internet, play a video game, eat dinner at a nice restaurant and go to sleep at 2 am.”

Thinking back to The 4-Hour Workweek, Walton recalled that Ferriss discussed this very problem in the section on “Filling the Void.”

As Ferriss puts it, “Once you’re making enough money to live the way you want, “There will come a time…be it three weeks or three years later—when you won’t be able to drink another piña colada or photograph another damn red-assed baboon,” Ferriss wrote. “Self-criticism and existential panic attacks start around this time.” Ferriss recommends strategies such as committing to continual learning and service revisiting and resetting “dreamlines” set earlier to define and fulfill what you really want out of life.

To get out of his funk, Walton looked for mentorship from other successful entrepreneurs, which he found at a high-end business retreat called two12 (Tim has been a mentor twice at the event). At two12, he spoke with Noah Kagan, founder of Sumo and an early Facebook employee, who helped him reset his own dreams. “He convinced me to double down on my business when everyone else was telling me to sell,” says Walton. “I felt like I’d really regret it if I didn’t give it my all.”

For the past few months, Walton has done just that. He invested in rebranding the company as Spy Guy, instead of SpyGuy Security, a relaunch of his website and hiring a professional video studio to replace the DIY videos he was relying on. These days, he wakes up every morning, works the entire day full of energy and, at the end, asks himself, “Where has the day gone?”

“I have this really interesting niche,” says Walton. “I still think there’s tremendous opportunity to grow.”

Now that he’s committed to doubling down on his business, Walton stays pumped by watching video interviews with Tim Ferriss and listening to his podcast interviews.

“I don’t know where I’d be without Tim Ferriss,” says Walton. “The way I think about things and operate has been tremendously influenced by what he has written about.”

The Badass Brand-Builder: Bozoma Saint John

[image error]

“We spend far too much time complaining about the way things are and forget that we have the power to change anything and everything.”

– Bozoma Saint John

Bozoma Saint John (@badassboz) is the Chief Brand Officer at Uber. Until June 2017, she was a marketing executive at Apple Music after joining the company in its acquisition of Beats Music.

In 2016, Billboard named her Female Executive of the Year, she appeared on Fortune’s 40 under 40, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People.

Bozoma was featured in Tribe of Mentors, but this conversation covers topics that go far beyond what was covered in the book. Enjoy!

[image error] [image error]

Lessons from Bozoma Saint John -- From Spike Lee to Uber, From Ghana to Silicon Valley
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/18f80039-69f9-428f-868c-f49a0b25c0eb.mp3

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

Want to hear a conversation with a mentor from Tribe of Mentors? Listen to this episode with Terry Crews, in which we discuss his workout and diet routine, overcoming failure, discovering happiness, and much much more. Listen to it here (stream below or right-click to download):

Terry Crews — How to Have, Do, and Be All You Wanthttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/5e0e91b1-34c3-4507-821b-6bb99dc06587.mp3

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 Helix Sleep. I recently moved into a new home and needed new beds, and I purchased mattresses from Helix Sleep.

It offers mattresses personalized to your preferences and sleeping style — without costing thousands of dollars. Visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and take the simple 2-3 minute sleep quiz to get started, and Helix Sleep will build a mattress you’ll love.

Its customer service makes all the difference. The mattress arrives within a week, and the shipping is completely free. You can try the mattress for 100 nights, and if you’re not happy, the company will pick it up and offer a full refund. To personalize your sleep experience, visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and you’ll receive $50 off your custom mattress. Enjoy!

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 Bozoma Saint John:

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Bozoma’s pinned Nietzsche tweet
Is This the Woman Who Will Save Uber? by Sheila Marikar, The New York Times
Harlem’s Floridita
Bamboozled
Ashley Stewart
Beats Music
The Defiant Ones
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
DDB Worldwide
Uber’s Bozoma Saint John Says She Should Have Ignored This Career Advice from a Female Executive by Courtney Connley, CNBC
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg by TLC

Show Notes

Introducing this year’s most-requested guest. [06:46]
Why is Bozoma’s currently pinned tweet a Nietzsche quote? [07:38]
Bozoma’s journey from the US to Africa and back to the US. [10:25]
Why did Bozoma’s family wind up in Colorado, and what were her takeaways from this time in her life? [12:00]
How did Bozoma develop the ability to pursue goals so boldly, and does it run in the family? [17:09]
What was Bozoma’s parents’ reaction when she lost her race for student council? [19:18]
How did Bozoma manage to bring Jay-Z to her university? [22:04]
How did Bozoma lobby her parents for a year-long sabbatical from medical school, and what were her plans for that time? [27:50]
Armed with smarts and hustle, here’s how Bozoma got by without money or parental financial support. [32:49]
What happened when Spike Lee asked Bozoma to read an early draft of Bamboozled while she was answering phones at his ad agency. [39:11]
Critical decisions that forged Bozoma’s career. [43:43]
Why did Bozoma fail at her first attempt at helping run a company in the fashion world? [48:46]
Bozoma talks about coping with her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis. [50:50]
How Bozoma got involved in Beats Music. [54:29]
Why has Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon had such an impact on Bozoma’s life? [57:19]
What helped Bozoma through the grieving process after losing her husband? [1:01:20]
What has helped Bozoma overcome feelings of anger and learn self-forgiveness? [1:05:26]
Elaborating on a policy of not making pro and con lists — and being sure to listen to what instinct is trying to tell us. [1:11:42]
Worst career advice encountered, and people who inspire Bozoma to live more boldly. [1:17:03]
In what way does Bozoma find Arianna Huffington particularly inspiring? [1:22:00]
How did Bozoma know Uber was the next stop on her journey — and what’s more important than saving its brand? [1:25:23]
How would Bozoma encourage people to be positive but constructively dissenting against what we see wrong in our society at the moment? [1:28:34]
Final words and asks of the audience. [1:35:32]

People Mentioned

Friedrich Nietzsche
Jay-Z
Tupac Shakur
Spike Lee
Naval Ravikant
Jimmy Iovine
Dr. Dre
Toni Morrison
Kris Jenner
Oprah
Arianna Huffington
Agapi Stassinopoulos
Maya Angelou
Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Lessons from Bozoma Saint John — From Spike Lee to Uber, From Ghana to Silicon Valley

[image error]

“We spend far too much time complaining about the way things are and forget that we have the power to change anything and everything.”

– Bozoma Saint John

Bozoma Saint John (@badassboz) is the Chief Brand Officer at Uber. Until June 2017, she was a marketing executive at Apple Music after joining the company in its acquisition of Beats Music.

In 2016, Billboard named her Female Executive of the Year, she appeared on Fortune’s 40 under 40, and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People.

Bozoma was featured in Tribe of Mentors, but this conversation covers topics that go far beyond what was covered in the book. Enjoy!

[image error] [image error]

Lessons from Bozoma Saint John -- From Spike Lee to Uber, From Ghana to Silicon Valley
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/18f80039-69f9-428f-868c-f49a0b25c0eb.mp3

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

Want to hear a conversation with a mentor from Tribe of Mentors? Listen to this episode with Terry Crews, in which we discuss his workout and diet routine, overcoming failure, discovering happiness, and much much more. Listen to it here (stream below or right-click to download):

Terry Crews — How to Have, Do, and Be All You Wanthttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/5e0e91b1-34c3-4507-821b-6bb99dc06587.mp3

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 Helix Sleep. I recently moved into a new home and needed new beds, and I purchased mattresses from Helix Sleep.

It offers mattresses personalized to your preferences and sleeping style — without costing thousands of dollars. Visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and take the simple 2-3 minute sleep quiz to get started, and Helix Sleep will build a mattress you’ll love.

Its customer service makes all the difference. The mattress arrives within a week, and the shipping is completely free. You can try the mattress for 100 nights, and if you’re not happy, the company will pick it up and offer a full refund. To personalize your sleep experience, visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and you’ll receive $50 off your custom mattress. Enjoy!

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 Bozoma Saint John:

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Bozoma’s pinned Nietzsche tweet
Is This the Woman Who Will Save Uber? by Sheila Marikar, The New York Times
Harlem’s Floridita
Bamboozled
Ashley Stewart
Beats Music
The Defiant Ones
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
DDB Worldwide
Uber’s Bozoma Saint John Says She Should Have Ignored This Career Advice from a Female Executive by Courtney Connley, CNBC
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg by TLC

Show Notes

Introducing this year’s most-requested guest. [06:46]
Why is Bozoma’s currently pinned tweet a Nietzsche quote? [07:38]
Bozoma’s journey from the US to Africa and back to the US. [10:25]
Why did Bozoma’s family wind up in Colorado, and what were her takeaways from this time in her life? [12:00]
How did Bozoma develop the ability to pursue goals so boldly, and does it run in the family? [17:09]
What was Bozoma’s parents’ reaction when she lost her race for student council? [19:18]
How did Bozoma manage to bring Jay-Z to her university? [22:04]
How did Bozoma lobby her parents for a year-long sabbatical from medical school, and what were her plans for that time? [27:50]
Armed with smarts and hustle, here’s how Bozoma got by without money or parental financial support. [32:49]
What happened when Spike Lee asked Bozoma to read an early draft of Bamboozled while she was answering phones at his ad agency. [39:11]
Critical decisions that forged Bozoma’s career. [43:43]
Why did Bozoma fail at her first attempt at helping run a company in the fashion world? [48:46]
Bozoma talks about coping with her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis. [50:50]
How Bozoma got involved in Beats Music. [54:29]
Why has Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon had such an impact on Bozoma’s life? [57:19]
What helped Bozoma through the grieving process after losing her husband? [1:01:20]
What has helped Bozoma overcome feelings of anger and learn self-forgiveness? [1:05:26]
Elaborating on a policy of not making pro and con lists — and being sure to listen to what instinct is trying to tell us. [1:11:42]
Worst career advice encountered, and people who inspire Bozoma to live more boldly. [1:17:03]
In what way does Bozoma find Arianna Huffington particularly inspiring? [1:22:00]
How did Bozoma know Uber was the next stop on her journey — and what’s more important than saving its brand? [1:25:23]
How would Bozoma encourage people to be positive but constructively dissenting against what we see wrong in our society at the moment? [1:28:34]
Final words and asks of the audience. [1:35:32]

People Mentioned

Friedrich Nietzsche
Jay-Z
Tupac Shakur
Spike Lee
Naval Ravikant
Jimmy Iovine
Dr. Dre
Toni Morrison
Kris Jenner
Oprah
Arianna Huffington
Agapi Stassinopoulos
Maya Angelou
Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Terry Crews — How to Have, Do, and Be All You Want

[image error]

“Vulnerability is not weakness.”

– Terry Crews

Terry Crews (@terrycrews) is an actor and former NFL player (Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers, Washington Redskins, and Philadelphia Eagles). His wide-ranging credits include the original viral Old Spice commercials, television series such as The Newsroom, Arrested Development, and Everybody Hates Chris, and films including White Chicks, The Expendables franchise, Bridesmaids, and The Longest Yard.

He now stars on the Golden Globe award-winning Fox sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In 2014, Terry released his autobiography, Manhood: How to Be a Better Man — or Just Live with One.

Enjoy!

[image error] [image error]

Terry Crews — How to Have, Do, and Be All You Want
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/5e0e91b1-34c3-4507-821b-6bb99dc06587.mp3

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

Want to hear a conversation with a mentor from Tribe of Mentors? Listen to this episode with Tim Urban, in which we discuss the future, how to deal with procrastination, AI, and much much more. Listen to it here (stream below or right-click to download):

Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness - Tim Urbanhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/f2d4392d-c8c5-4a41-9f18-392532e29098.mp3

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. Give it a test run…

This podcast is also brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks is the #1 cloud bookkeeping software, which is used by a ton of the start-ups I advise and many of the contractors I work with. It is the easiest way to send invoices, get paid, track your time, and track your clients.

FreshBooks tells you when your clients have viewed your invoices, helps you customize your invoices, track your hours, automatically organize your receipts, have late payment reminders sent automatically and much more.

Right now you can get a free month of complete and unrestricted use. You do not need a credit card for the trial. To claim your free month and see how the brand new Freshbooks can change your business, go to FreshBooks.com/Tim and enter “Tim Ferriss” in the “how did you hear about us” section.

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 Terry Crews:

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Aratani Theatre
Manhood: How to Be a Better Man — or Just Live with One by Terry Crews
Who Poisoned Flint, Michigan? by Stephen Rodrick, Rolling Stone
Interlochen Center for the Arts
Actor Terry Crews Introduces a Contemporary Furniture Collection. Yep, He’s Doing That Now by Bonnie McCarthy, Los Angeles Times
Terry Crews Presents The Hard Questions
The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel
Terry’s Lilypad Chair
BOB Screen Time Manager
T-Money vs. Rick Steiner (Battle Dome vs. WCW)
The 6th Day
White Chicks
Terry Crews Says ‘I Will Not Be Shamed’ as He Shares Details of Alleged Sexual Assault by Stephanie Petit, People
Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha: A Real World Guide to an Unreal Life: Build More Muscle. Burn More Fat. Have More Sex by John Romaniello and Adam Bornstein
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month by Tim Ferriss

Show Notes

Terry is as big as he looks on television. [06:13]
Terry talks about his art background and growing up in Flint, Michigan. [07:32]
Why Terry didn’t stop making art just because he started playing football. [16:26]
How a vow helped Terry get through his teenage years. [20:15]
Negotiating with life’s everyday terrorists — from childhood to Hollywood. [22:20]
Terry is a motivational doer. [27:38]
Through the tough times, how has Terry maintained his optimism? [29:35]
On dealing with his own bouts of toxic masculinity (with a lot of help from his brutally honest wife). [31:02]
A favorite failure. [36:32]
How “The Master Key System” by Charles F. Haanel helped guide the course of Terry’s life. [44:09]
The consequences of competition on creativity and overall success. [50:26]
Terry’s advice to a new or expecting parent. [59:26]
Two ways of confronting an abusive father. [1:03:40]
Terry reflects on his favorite Emerson quote. [1:12:28]
Coping with “imposter syndrome” on his first movie set — with Arnold Schwarzenegger. [1:16:16]
What advice would Terry’s time-traveling 95-year-old self give him today? [1:20:06]
Lifestyle changes I’ve made since my 40th birthday; changes Terry has made going into his 50th. [1:23:23]
Terry’s intermittent fasting schedule. [1:26:35]
An interview request and my thoughts on cryptocurrency. [1:29:41]
How do we choose who to mentor (and who to let go)? [1:33:18]
How does Terry let someone go (and why doesn’t he believe in the traditional Hollywood entourage)? [1:37:04]
Advice for introverts who want to be entrepreneurial but dread socializing. [1:42:39]
Recommendations for coping with self-induced anxiety. [1:46:21]
Terry’s parting words and ask of the audience. [1:50:29]

People Mentioned

Patrica Ann Crews
Dwight Eichelberg
Rebecca King-Crews
Debbie Millman
Matt Mullenweg
Peter Thiel
Steve Jobs
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Tia Carrere
Michael Novogratz
Dan Gable
Jacqueline Novogratz
Vitalik Buterin
Zooko Wilcox
Sylvester Stallone
Chris Sacca
Dale Carnegie

The Man Who Taught Me How to Invest

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“Holding a grudge is a symptom of not knowing how you want to spend the gift of the day.” 

– Mike Maples, Jr.

Mike Maples, Jr. (@m2jr) is the man who taught me how to invest. He’s one of my favorite people and a personal mentor.

He is a partner at Floodgate, a venture capital firm that specializes in micro-cap investments in startups. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and named one of Fortune magazine’s  “8 Rising VC Stars.” Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was inolved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back starup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM) and Motive (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent). Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv. ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaar-voice, Spiceworks, Okta, and Demandforce.

Enjoy!

[image error] [image error]

The Man Who Taught Me How to Invest
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/a37b219c-ddc8-412e-a344-3aae64dee746.mp3

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

Want to hear a conversation with a mentor from Tribe of Mentors? Listen to this episode with Tim Urban, in which we discuss the future, how to deal with procrastination, AI, and much much more. Listen to it here (stream below or right-click to download):

Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness - Tim Urbanhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/f2d4392d-c8c5-4a41-9f18-392532e29098.mp3

This podcast is brought to you by ConvertKit. After trying the competition, this is the only email tool that has made email marketing intuitive for my team without sacrificing any of the features and benefits I need to run a profitable business. It’s easy-to-use systems, split testing, resending technology, automation, targeted content, high rates of deliverability, integration with more than 70 services — like WordPress, Shopify, and Sumo — and excellent customer service are the reason I made it my go-to ESP.

Whether you have a thousand subscribers or a million, whether you run a simple blog or a whole company, ConvertKit has a plan that’s scaled to fit your budget and requirements. Go to ConvertKit.com/Tim to try it out and get your first month for free! Test the platform and make sure it works for you and your business.

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 — used by The New Yorker, Jay Z, 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 Mike Maples, Jr.:

Floodgate | Twitter | Medium

Castro Theatre
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
Mike Maples Talks Venture Capital And Thunder Lizards by Michael Arrington, Tech Crunch
Hobee’s Stanford
Kepler’s Books
You Can’t Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones
Digg
Dutch Goose
Sequoia
The Real History Of Twitter by Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider
SXSW Interactive Festival
The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
How We Built the First Real Self-Driving Car (Really) by Kyle Vogt, Medium
Moore’s Law
Metcalfe’s Law
SpaceX Launches and Lands its First Used Rocket for NASA
Mike Maples, Jr. and Ron Conway speak at Stanford University
Finding Billion Dollar Secrets by Mike Maples, Jr., Austin Startups
Dune by Frank Herbert
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing by Bronnie Ware
On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler
The Coming of Managerial Capitalism: The United States, Harvard Business School
The Quiet Master of Cryptocurrency — Nick Szabo, The Tim Ferriss Show
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler
The Way Things Work: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology by C. van Amerongen
Fishes of the World by Joseph S. Nelson, Terry C. Grande, and Mark V. H. Wilson
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant
Mental Toughness Training for Sports: Achieving Athletic Excellence by James E. Loehr
Metta Meditation, Metta Institute

Show Notes

Introduction. [05:30]
How we did market research back in the day. [10:15]
When he first hit the scene, Mike had trouble getting hired as a venture capitalist. [13:17]
How did Mike connect with our mutual friend Kevin Rose? [16:19]
Sometimes great introductions make up for lackluster investments. [18:03]
Mike’s not a man who holds many grudges. Here’s why. [23:09]
What happened when Mike invested in podcasting platform Odeo, and how its failure led to an opportunity to invest in Twitter. [25:30]
Rehearsing my SXSW talk in front of three chihuahuas. [34:51]
Overcoming technical difficulties when it came time to give the real talk. [35:49]
What Mike considers one of the most fun things about being an investor in contrast to being a founder. [36:34]
Without children of my own, some might wonder why I often ask guests for their parenting advice. Mike’s responses are one reason. [38:39]
What does Mike say to bolster the morale of entrepreneurs who are going through a rough patch? [41:48]
Why Mike thinks he might be “the worst person to talk to depressed people.” [46:35]
How Mike helped me act simple. [47:59]
One investment that seemed like a bad idea at the time but paid off very well, and how investment decisions happen at Floodgate. [52:28]
How does Mike know when to persist, quit, pivot, or double down with an idea? [56:53]
Mike explains how investment is like surfing. [1:00:19]
Early encouragement and advice about first principles thinking. [1:03:00]
What does Mike really think about the concept of social proof? [1:04:21]
Good first principles in action. [1:04:28]
The lessons Mike hopes to drive home for entrepreneurial students at Stanford. [1:07:25]
How does Mike recommend people find their unique gift, and what blocks that quest? [1:11:02]
I’ve recently moved to Austin. Where else might I have ended up? [1:14:16]
What books does Mike recommend and gift the most? [1:15:31]
Thoughts on death, grief, and grieving. [1:17:41]
What emerging technologies does Mike believe are most promising for anti-authoritarian disruption? [1:19:53]
Why Mike isn’t afraid that cryptocurrency adoption will disrupt venture capitalism. [1:26:16]
Mike’s view of the government’s role and how cryptocurrency helps separate politics from economics. [1:29:10]
Early traits that made Mike successful. [1:30:30]
Why did Mike’s dad tell him not to have heroes? [1:34:54]
What would Mike put on his billboard? [1:36:26]
Mike’s take on Jim Rohn’s famous, “you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” [1:38:35]
Powerful new truths I’ve come to realize. [1:40:25]
On applying loving-kindness meditation. [1:44:52]
What is Mike’s 60-second idea to change the world? [1:45:47]
Parting thoughts. [1:46:31]

People Mentioned

Bill Campbell
Kevin Rose
Jay Allison
Ron Conway
Peter C. Wendell
Garrett Camp
Evan Williams
Tim O’Reilly
Jeff Huber
Hugh Forrest
Tony Robbins
Logan Green
John Zimmer
Oprah
Liz Maples
John Boyd
Eric Ries
Steve Blank
Kyle Vogt
Ryan Walsh
Arjun Chopra
Ann Miura-Ko
Marc Andreessen
Reid Hoffman
Elon Musk
Thomas Keller
Elvis Presley
Albert Einstein
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Peter Thiel
Bronnie Ware
Terry Laughlin
Matt Mullenweg
Julie Allegro
Naval Ravikant
John D. Rockefeller
J.P. Morgan
Andrew Carnegie
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Vinny Lingham
Jamie Dimon
Mike Maples, Sr.
Bill Gates
Ronald Reagan
Jim Rohn
Drew Houston
Richard Feynman
Ben Franklin
Tara Brach
Kamal Ravikant
Jim Loehr