Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 74

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 with a guest from Fearless? — Listen to this episode with Micahel Gervais. We discuss how to win the war against anxiety, some of the more effective (and less effective) ways to self-talk, behind-the-scenes stories of Michael’s clients, understanding mastery, and much more. (stream below or right-click here to download):

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Don’t forget to use the code “TIMFERRISS” at checkout for $50 off when you purchase three or more shirts.

QUESTION 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 Phil Hellmuth:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Poker Brat: Phil Hellmuth’s Autobiography by Phil Hellmuth
Final Hand of World Series of Poker 1989: Phil Hellmuth vs. Johnny Chan
Godwin’s law
Top 5 Phil Hellmuth Explosions
Play Poker Like the Pros by Phil Hellmuth
The Ugly Truth About Staking in Poker by Miikka Anttonen, Upswing Poker
My First: Phil Hellmuth Revisits His First World Series of Poker Cash by Chad Holloway, PokerNews
SpaceX
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: Practical Guide for Improving Communication by John Gray
A Promising Treatment for Athletes, in Blood by Alan Schwarz, The New York Times
Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California
Hellmuth on ‘HighRoller Rampage’ by Andrew Burnett, PokerTube

Show Notes

Can you tell when someone’s lying? Can you lie and not get caught? Phil Hellmuth has spent 30 years practicing both. [05:15]
Swearing is part of the lexicon shared by poker players and people from Long Island. [06:16]
How Phil constantly reminds himself of goals and blessings every morning — and how this practice has motivated others. [07:05]
Phil’s coping mechanisms and strategies during tough times. [09:55]
Dealing with criticism — especially of the anonymous, online variety. [13:10]
Young Phil sets his life goals after an epiphany in wintery Wisconsin. [17:41]
What happened when some of these life goals started to fall into place — and how his first book became a New York Times bestseller. [22:39]
Why Phil places more value on his money management acumen than poker skills, and what system has worked best for him. [25:01]
Phil talks about his late ’80s showdowns with Johnny Chan. [30:48]
The Antonio Effect as a tonic against unbridled hubris. [36:17]
What’s Phil’s secret to marriage longevity? [40:10]
How do Phil’s poker skills help him away from the table? [43:56]
Who are the first people who come to mind when Phil hears the word “successful?” [48:23]
On the concept of forgiveness and its unexpected rewards. [52:11]
From forgiveness to rampage. [59:52]

People Mentioned

Tiger Woods
Michael Jordan
Vince Vaughn
Stephen Fry
Kathy Sanborn Hellmuth
Ted Forrest
Johnny Chan
Antonio Gracias
Elon Musk

George W. Bush
John Bonetti
John Romaniello
Allan Mishra
Kobe Bryant
Chamath Palihapitiya
Bill Lee
Brigette Lau
Dan Smith
Fedor Holz
Cus D’Amato
Mike Tyson

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Published on August 24, 2017 11:26

August 16, 2017

Lessons from 50,000 Interviews: Larry King and Cal Fussman

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“Sometimes, the simplest question is the best.”

– Larry King

Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a New York Times bestselling author and a writer-at-large for Esquire magazine, where he is best known for being a primary writer of the “What I’ve Learned” feature. He has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with a long list of icons who’ve shaped the last 50 years of world history.

I’ve been trying to get Cal to do his own podcast. Rather than overthinking it, I simply asked Cal to interview a friend who I would also love to have on the podcast: Larry King. This episode is the result of that request.

Larry King (@kingsthings) has been dubbed “The most remarkable talk show host on TV, ever” by TV Guide and “Master of the mic” by Time Magazine. Larry’s been described as the Muhammad Ali of the broadcast interview, and he’s been inducted into five of the nation’s leading broadcasting halls of fame. He’s the recipient of the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, an Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, ten CableACE awards — the list goes on.

Enjoy!

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

Want to hear my first episode with Cal Fussman? — In this episode, we discuss Cal’s interviews with the most influential people in history, how he made himself a guinea pig (Cal boxed against world champion Julio Cesar Chavez), and his best life lessons (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by Shopify. With the help of Shopify, many readers of my blog — first-time business owners — have ended up making millions of dollars each with their side gigs. Back in 2009, I helped create Shopify’s Build a Business, which is now the world’s largest entrepreneurship competition.

The goal of this competition is to entice would-be entrepreneurs to get off the couch and make things happen, and all you have to do to qualify is open a store on Shopify and start selling. Top sellers in each category then have the exclusive opportunity to learn from mentors and experts like Tony Robbins, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Sir Richard Branson, and me a location like Oheka (aka Gatsby’s) Castle or Necker Island.

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Kettle & Fire is the first shelf-stable (i.e. never frozen) bone broth that uses bones from 100% grass-fed, organically raised animals. They use longer cook times (20+ hours), which means more collagen and other nutrients. Visit Kettleandfire.com/tim and you can receive 20% off your entire order.

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 Cal Fussman:

Website | Twitter | Kevin “The Manager”

Connect with Larry King:

Larry King Now | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

The Interview Master: Cal Fussman and the Power of Listening
Cal Fussman — The Master Storyteller Returns
My Remarkable Journey by Larry King
Larry King Live
Larry King Celebrates 60 Years of Broadcasting with Miami Visit by Howard Cohen, Miami Herald
How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication by Larry King and Bill Gilbert
Al Pacino was Nearly Fired from ‘The Godfather.’ The Rest Is History by Karen Heller, The Washington Post
Larry King on Getting Seduced — Blank on Blank
Belafonte: At Carnegie Hall
Joe’s Stone Crab
Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club
DJ Flula and Larry King Rap about His Dog Biscuit
Larry King’s Communication Mastery Course
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Lou Gehrig: A Quiet Hero by Frank Graham
Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell
Nevertheless: A Memoir by Alec Baldwin
Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken
Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
Larry King Is Preparing for the Final Cancellation by Mark Leibovich, The New York Times Magazine
Larry King receives Emmys Lifetime Achievement Award by Aly Semigran, Entertainment Weekly
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Larry King Presents Ball Talk Line-Up of Hall of Fame Announcers
Red Barber Remembers Jackie Robinson

Show Notes

Two legendary interviewers enter. [04:37]
From Brooklyn to Miami: How Larry got involved in broadcasting. [06:18]
Why Larry’s last name was changed from Zeiger to King. [12:36]
Thanks to stage fright, Larry’s first time behind the mic was almost his last. [14:21]
The secret of Larry’s business. [15:18]
The real reason for Larry’s career longevity. [18:45]
What scared Cal the most about going from writing to podcasting. [20:20]
An Al Pacino story about confidence; a Marlon Brando story about ad-libbing (and wine). [21:51]
Larry on being in the moment. [25:43]
Cal’s favorite Larry King story. [27:10]
When Larry took emergency broadcasting to a whole new level. [31:55]
Even with relaxed standards, Larry still won’t curse on the air. [36:05]
Is curiosity ingrained, or is it something that can be taught? Larry’s rules for making curiosity work for him. [37:40]
Contrary to popular opinion, there are dumb questions. Here’s how Larry avoids asking them. [41:18]
Can Larry’s methods be used by people in other fields? [43:08]
What does communication lose when eye contact is no longer part of the equation? [43:58]
How would Larry have interviewed Hitler with curiosity rather than judgment? [44:51]
The power of control in questions. [48:49]
Is the podcast the modern inheritor of the traditional long-form interview? [51:48]
What does Larry consider his “bible?” [52:58]
Larry’s lifelong broadcasting motto. [55:30]
Does Larry have advice for young people who want to learn to ask better questions? How can someone become a better listener? [56:25]
What’s Larry’s secret for getting a sincere response from people? [59:24]
How you ask a question is often more important than what you’re asking. [1:00:37]
What would Larry’s billboard say? [1:02:20]
Books that have had an impact on Larry, what he’s reading now, and the book he’s gifted most. [1:02:52]
“The ‘why?’ person fears death.” [1:05:05]
Larry prefers paper tickets he can hold in his hand — whether they’re for ballparks or airplanes. [1:07:27]
What advice would Larry give to a college senior about to enter the real world? [1:09:04]
What has Larry learned from his failures? [1:10:25]
Bad advice Larry hears often? [1:14:07]
The most worthwhile investment in time, money, or energy that Larry has made. [1:18:03]
If Larry finds he’s lost focus, what does he do to regain it? [1:19:32]
How do Larry and Cal’s bucket lists differ? [1:21:13]
Cal has a bucket list request for Larry. [1:24:40]

People Mentioned

Edward Zeiger
Jennie Gitlitz
Marty Zeiger
Uncle Jack
Marshall Simmonds
Sonny Hirsch
Tom Baer
Engelbert Humperdinck
Arthur Godfrey
Jackie Gleason
Edward Bennett Williams
Al Pacino
Robert Redford
Francis Ford Coppola
Marlon Brando
Barack Obama
Harry Belafonte
Don McNeill
Frank Sinatra
Adolf Hitler
Osama bin Laden
Swami Satchidananda
Jim Bishop
George Burns
John Wooden
Chance King
Holden Caulfield
Charles Dickens
Ebenezer Scrooge
Bob Cratchit
Tiny Tim
Lou Gehrig
Richard M. Nixon
John A. Farrell
Alec Baldwin
Al Franken
Hillary Clinton
Bertrand Russell
Shawn King
Vin Scully
Red Barber
Jackie Robinson

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Published on August 16, 2017 14:11

August 9, 2017

From Long-Shot to $50 Billion Empire – Bill Rasmussen

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“Remember ‘ABC NBC’ — Always Be Curious, Never Be Complacent.“

– Bill Rasmussen

Bill Rasmussen (@bill_espn) is the co-founder of ESPN. He turned a massive gamble into an opportunity to create the 24-hour programming cycle used universally by networks today.

We recorded three hours of material and only one hour was used for the TV show. This podcast episode is almost entirely new content that didn’t appear on TV.

Enjoy!

[image error] [image error]

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

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If you want cleaner, more pure, less processed protein — which I certainly do — go to ascentprotein.com/tim for 20 percent off your entire order!

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

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QUESTION 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 Bill Rasmussen:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network): The Worldwide Leader in Sports
Sports Junkies Rejoice: The Birth of ESPN by Bill Rasmussen
Comiskey Park
Chicago White Sox
Behind the Picture: ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ and the Politics of Memory by Ben Cosgrove, Time Magazine
DePauw University
Bill Rasmussen Went from Losing a Job to Creating ESPN by Bill Wells, MassLive
Gordon Gekko’s Cell Phone by Sara Breselor, Slate
Magic and Bird: A Rivalry Gives Way to Friendship, NPR
When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Earvin Johnson
When Harry Met Sally
Hurling — The Fastest Game on Grass
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
The Scariest Navy SEAL Imaginable…And What He Taught Me
How Renegade Filmmaker Casey Neistat Breaks Rules, Reinvents Himself, and Gets Thanked For It
Amelia Boone on Beating 99% of Men and Suffering for High Performance
Hartford Whalers

Show Notes

Bill Rasmussen credits his grandfather with turning him into a rabid sports fan.[07:34]
Bill remembers exactly where he was when Pearl Harbor was attacked and gives a fourth-grader’s perspective of WWII. [10:08]
Our youthful baseball experiences were similarly disastrous. [13:26]
Bill writes an essay that sends him to Washington for President Truman’s 1949 inauguration, where he meets one of his idols. [14:26]
Professors who had an impact on Bill at DePauw University. [16:49]
Bill’s brief stint as a weatherman — and how he found a way to incorporate sports into the presentation. [19:45]
Cassius Clay (aka Muhammad Ali) and his place in the EPSN formation story. [24:35]
Is “things happen for a reason” one of Bill’s core beliefs? [27:10]
How would Bill approach teaching students to be more confident? [27:23]
The Anheuser-Busch connection to ESPN’s inception. [28:20]
Most costly missteps early on. [31:19]
Bill presents an artifact from his past. [36:32]
If the Bill of 2017 could give advice to his earlier self the day before ESPN launched, what would he tell himself? [39:18]
Is Bill the Nostradamus of college sports? [41:09]
To this day, ESPN’s mission statement is still six words. [42:13]
How does Bill gauge his investments? [43:26]
How has Bill managed his time differently from the competition? [44:46]
On the layers of ESPN’s mothership. [50:12]
What sports does Bill wish were more popular in the US? [52:18]
On the random power of chaos. [53:14]
One of ESPN’s early marketing stories. [55:32]
Why did the US build submarines in Manitowoc, Wisconsin during WWII — and how should this inform modern society? [59:27]
What does Bill consider one of his most worthwhile investments (in money, time, or energy)? [1:01:16]
On reaching people circa 1979. [1:04:10]

People Mentioned

Harry S. Truman
Omar Bradley
Hiram L. Jome
A.W. Crandall
Muhammad Ali
Sonny Liston
Gene Petrillo
Bob Ley
Gordon Gekko
Michel de Nostredame
Larry Bird
Magic Johnson
Roger Goodell
Bob Arum
Don King
Scotty Connal
David Halberstam
Jocko Willink
Casey Neistat
Amelia Boone
George H.W. Bush

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Published on August 09, 2017 21:07

August 6, 2017

Physical Training, Dating Strategies, and Stories from the Early Days

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In this episode, I answer the most upvoted questions from subscribers to 5-Bullet Friday, the newsletter I send out every week. It explores five cool things I’ve found, including apps, books, gadgets, albums, articles, new hacks or tricks, and — of course — all sorts of weird stuff I dig up around the world. It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and if you want to check it out, you can go here: tim.blog/friday.

In this Q&A, we discuss physical training, interview prep, the art of networking, education reform, dream guests on the show, and much more.

If you’re a longtime listener to this podcast, you’ll find at least one or two actionable pieces of information. Enjoy!

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 Q&A episode? — Listen to this episode where I discuss the Myer’s-Briggs personality test, diet mistakes, immortality, and much, much more (stream below or right-click here to download):

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, 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

Subscribe to 5-Bullet Friday: tim.blog/friday
Myers-Briggs, Diet Mistakes, and Immortality
The Savant of Speed — Ryan Flaherty
The Lion of Olympic Weightlifting, 62-Year-Old Jerzy Gregorek (Also Featuring: Naval Ravikant)
Pavel Tsatsouline on the Science of Strength and the Art of Physical Performance
Charles Poliquin — His Favorite Mass-Building Program, His Nighttime Routine For Better Sleep, and Much More
Slant boards
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
The Secrets of Gymnastic Strength Training with Coach Christopher Sommer: Part 1 and Part 2
XPT Extreme Performance Training
How to Reverse Aging with Art De Vany
Inside the Actors Studio
Edward Norton on Mastery, Must-Read Books, and the Future of Crowdfunding
Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories
Ricardo Semler — The Seven-Day Weekend and How to Break the Rules
How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
My TED Talk from 2008: Smash Fear, Learn Anything, and the more recent one, Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month
DonorsChoose.org
Stephen Colbert Unveils Donors for #BestSchoolDay
QuestBridge
Accelerated Learning and Mentors — My Personal Story
The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss
When to Quit — Lessons from World-Class Entrepreneurs, Investors, Authors, and More
Cal Fussman — The Master Storyteller Returns
Why Tim Ferriss Sold His Muse by John Warrillow, Inc.
Top 10 Muay Thai Knockouts
Captains of Crush hand gripper
The Joe Rogan Experience
One Tech Investor on Why You Should Take a Break from Social Media, WBUR
The Relationship Episode: Sex, Love, Polyamory, Marriage, and More (with Esther Perel)
Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence by Esther Perel
Bumble
The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire by David Deida

Show Notes

As I approach 40, how do I see my training changing? [06:40]
What’s my process for interview preparation? How do I ensure the end result is rewarding for my listeners? [15:46]
Is networking my greatest superpower? How did I get connected with so many fascinating people? [23:17]
In my 2008 TED Talk, I mentioned working on educational reform. What discoveries and developments have been made since then? [26:10]
Effective lessons aren’t always easy lessons. [30:05]
Where’s the line between stubbornly pursuing an idea that isn’t working, and the patience and persistence needed to actually make it work? [33:32]
Five dream guests I’d love to have on the show. [34:30]
I channel my inner Cal Fussman and share an untold story from my BrainQUICKEN days about getting attention at a trade show without a big budget. [36:12]
Is Joe Rogan slated to be a future podcast guest? [44:28]
Do I still follow the practice of screen-free Saturdays? [45:43]
Current dating strategies? [47:22]

People Mentioned

Dom D’Agostino
Amelia Boone
Charles Poliquin
Pavel Tsatsouline
Jerzy Gregorek
Christopher Sommer
Bruce Lee
Laird Hamilton
Art De Vany
Don Wildman
Mark Bell
Ryan Flaherty
Eric Orton
Eric Cressey
Rick Rubin
James Lipton
Edward Norton
Charlie Rose
Larry King
Jamie Foxx
Ricardo Semler
Chris Sacca
Kevin Rose
Darya Rose
Stephen Colbert
Michelle Obama
Oprah Winfrey
Charles Best
Reid Hoffman
Elon Musk
Howard Stern
Cristiano Ronaldo
Lionel Messi
Dwayne Johnson
Cal Fussman
Muhammad Ali
Mikhail Gorbachev
Al Pacino
Brock Lesnar
Joe Rogan
Esther Perel

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Published on August 06, 2017 12:29

August 4, 2017

Finding “Unicorns:” Questions to Ask Before You Invest in a Startup

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Many people ask me about startup investing and how to get started.

This post — while for informational purposes only and not investment advice — is intended to show you how one successful investor approached the early-stage game.

Jason Calacanis (@jason) has made 125 early-stage startup investments and picked 6 “unicorns” (startups to exceed $1B in valuation) — one out of every 21. Based on his AngelList profile, Calacanis’ investments includes: Tumblr, Cozy, Thumbtack, Rapportive, Uber, Chartbeat, Groundcrew, Evernote, Pen.io, Nimble, Crossfader, Signpost, Calm, many many more. He’s accelerating his deployment of capital and plans to invest in an additional 150 startups over the next 30 months.

The following guest post is an exclusive excerpt from his new book, Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000. Using stories from his own angel investing career, Jason wrote this book as a playbook for aspiring angel investors.

In particular, this post focuses on questions to ask founders before you invest, but it also serves as a tutorial on how to ask better questions in life and in business.

Enter Jason

A THOUSAND FIRST DATES

The life of an angel is all about managing a deal funnel, which includes three distinct steps: sourcing deals, evaluating deals, and, finally, picking which founders you’re going to fund.

Meeting with founders for an hour is the most frequent technique for angels to decide who to invest in, but certainly not the only one. There are some angels whose primary technique for selecting investments is to follow other smart investors, drafting off of their meetings and deal flow.

Another technique is simply to review the core metrics and decide based on those. This can be done by reviewing a deck or by checking public information sources, like the App Store rankings, and traffic monitoring services, like Alexa and Quantcast.

Some investors have a huge Rolodex and simply invest in the founders they already know, a technique that worked extremely well for investors who knew Elon Musk (Zip2 and PayPal before Tesla and SpaceX), Evan Williams (Blogger before Twitter), and Mark Pincus (Freeloader and Tribe before Zynga).

Of course, the “invest in who you know” approach would mean you missed the biggest startups in history: Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Evan Spiegel, and Larry Page, who all hit the ball out of the park on their first try—at the ages of nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-five, respectively.

Meetings are important and free. You should take a lot of them. Ten one-hour meetings a week is a good target for a professional angel. Half that if you’re doing this part-time.

My best advice to you as you start dating is to be promiscuous with meetings—but a prude when it comes to writing checks. Don’t be a tramp like I was.

I’m going to take you through the four most important questions I ask all founders. The goal of asking these questions is not just for you to understand the business but also so you yourself can answer four critical investor questions:

Why has this founder chosen this business?
How committed is this founder?
What are this founder’s chances of succeeding in this business—and in life?
What does winning look like in terms of revenue and my return?

HOW TO ASK QUESTIONS

Your job in these meetings is to play Columbo, the unassuming and always underestimated detective from the classic TV show that started in the ’70s and ran for more than three decades. Your job is not to show off or demonstrate how smart you are by explaining to the founder what they’re doing wrong or by bragging about your heroics as an investor or, even worse, as a founder yourself.

You want to have big ears and a small mouth in these meetings. You want to ask concise questions that take no more than a couple of seconds and then listen deeply to the answers, considering them with every fiber of your consciousness as you write your notes on paper—just like Columbo.

Listening like this will serve two virtuous goals, the first being that the founder will feel heard and understood by you.

If people believe they are being deeply listened to, they will talk more.

This is why, when you talk to your therapist about your mom, they say “hmm…” while tilting their head and looking at you with sympathy. Then they add, “Tell me more about your mother,” or “Unpack that some more,” or simply “Your mother…”

There are six words, four words, and two words in those responses. The last one is the most powerful because it just hangs there, inviting you to build on the topic.

You want to be Dr. Melfi, Tony Soprano’s therapist, sitting patiently while the passion and pain pour out from the boss you’re meeting with. If you’re a great listener, you will be a great investor, as well as a great friend, a great parent, and a great human being.

Second, if you are hyper-present in the meeting, thinking deeply about the founder and why they are taking on the irrational pursuit of starting a company, which comes with a greater than 80 percent chance of failure and a 100 percent chance of suffering, then you will be able to make a better decision on whom to invest in.

Basically, if you shut your trap and listen like a detective or a therapist, you’ll be able to uncover the answers to those four questions better than other angel investors.

You’ll have more hits and fewer misses.

QUESTION ZERO

When you are starting a founder meeting, ask one icebreaker question to get your subject warmed up.

How do you know Jane?

If you were introduced to this founder by a mutual connection, you can quickly establish common ground by asking these five simple words. Listen to the answer you are given and construct a follow-up question based on their answer. So, if the founder said that they worked with Jane, your next move is to say, “You worked with Jane? What was that like?”

I have a game where I try to say things with as few words as possible because it reminds me that this meeting is not about me, it’s about them. It also makes me sound wise, like Obi-Wan or a Toshiro Mifune character.

These are the exact four questions I ask every founder. The answers to these questions will give you most of what you need to make your investment decision. We spend the first half of our hour-long meeting exclusively on them. Then we go deeper.

1. What are you working on?

The reason I phrase this question as “What are you working on?,” versus something more company-specific, like “What does Google do?” or “Why should I invest in Google?” or the supremely horrible “Why do you think Google is going to succeed after eleven search engines have already failed?,” is that it celebrates the founder (the “you”) and what founders do (the “work”). It shows that you have deep empathy and you recognize that this isn’t about what the thing does (Google helps you find stuff), but rather it’s about people (Larry and Sergey write software that helps people find information faster).

2. Why are you doing this?

Again, five simple words that are focused on the founder. When I ask these first two questions, I almost universally see founders melt into their chairs. They relax, let their guard down, and feel like I care about them, which I do. Just like Columbo cares deeply about the suspects he’s interviewing when he asks, “So, what do you do here?” when he walks into their office, as opposed to leading with “Where were you on the night of the murder?”

Just like Columbo, I’m looking for killers and I’m trying to eliminate suspects.

There are some really, really bad answers to the question “Why are you doing this?” The worst two answers, which you’ll hear often, are “To make money” and “Because INSERT-SUCCESSFUL-COMPANY-NAME-HERE doesn’t do it.” If folks are building a startup for money, they will eventually quit when they realize there are many better ways to make money faster and with more certainty. If you want to make a lot of money, you’re better off being a world-class programmer on a very esoteric and in-demand vertical and getting Google or Facebook to give you $1 million-plus a year in stock and cash for ten years in a row. You have no downside, you can work a couple of hours a day, and you get unlimited free food.

If you’re building something because another hugely successful company doesn’t already have that feature, well, you’re wildly naive or, more often than not, plain old stupid. For years people pitched me on startups that were supposedly going to be Google search for news, Google search for video, and Google search for books and magazines. We all know how that turned out.

More recently I’ve been pitched hard on “Uber for food,” “Uber for helicopters,” and “Uber for shopping.”

While there have been some successful startups built by running ahead of market leaders, in general, those kinds of startups get crushed or bought for small dollar amounts. Summize was a search engine for Twitter, back when Twitter was so technologically incompetent that they could barely keep the service online. They bought Summize to catch up, as well as TweetDeck, a more advanced client for reading multiple feeds at once, but the return to the investors in Summize and TweetDeck for these acquisitions were minor when compared to the returns of the company that bought them.

The big problem with “founders” who build a feature that a market leader will inevitably get to—and I use quotes here for a reason—is that they lack vision. The act of selecting a feature as their life’s work, as opposed to a full-blown product or a mission, disqualifies them from being a true founder.

Elon Musk didn’t build a battery pack: he built a car and eventually an energy solution that included solar, home batteries, and, perhaps when you read this, a ride-sharing service like Uber.

It’s okay to start small, but it’s not okay to be a small thinker.

The right answers to “Why are you building this?” tend to be personal. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp built Uber because they couldn’t get a cab in Paris at a technology conference. Elon Musk built SpaceX because he wanted a backup plan for humanity. Elon’s earlier idea, that no one knows about, was to put a series of greenhouses in space to back up the biosphere— just like the Bruce Dern movie Silent Running—which, as an interesting aside, came out five years before Star Wars and featured drones that were an inspiration for R2-D2.

Zuckerberg was awkward with the ladies, so he built a social network that would show him their relationship statuses.

Think about that for a second: Is there anything more important than procreation? Not according to Darwin or Freud, so Zuck’s lack of game led to the fastest-growing consumer product in the history of humanity, largely based on people needing to find a mate or to connect with previous lovers (as demonstrated by the number of divorces that mention Facebook in their filings).

3. Why now?

This question has been floating around the Valley for a while, and the first time I heard it was from my friend, Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha—the venture capitalist who convinced me to become a “Scout” for their firm, which led to my two greatest investments to date: Uber and Thumbtack.

If you unpack this question, you’re really asking, “Why will this idea succeed now?”

For Uber it was simple: mobile phones were becoming ubiquitous and they had GPS. In fact, another company had already tried to help you order a cab via SMS messages a year before Uber came on the scene. Their “why now” was simply “text messaging,” but that, frankly, wasn’t enough. Without advanced mobile CPUs (central processing units) to power big beautiful touch screens with military precision GPS (global positioning system), there would be no Uber.

For YouTube, which had Roelof Botha as its first investor, the “Why now?” was a confluence of factors and breakout successes that tend to be born during these perfect storms. First, bandwidth costs plummeted after the dot-com crash. Second, storage costs were dropping due to this new thing called cloud computing. Third, blogging was taking off. Millions of folks were writing tens of millions of posts every week and YouTube offered a clever way to embed their videos on other people’s sites—reaching a massive audience for free.

There were dozens of video companies before YouTube, but they all charged people for bandwidth and storage, which meant that if you wanted to post a video on the internet, your reward for going viral was a ten-thousand-dollar server bill. Instead, YouTube sends you a thousand-dollar check from the ads they run on your hit video.

Dropbox, which launched onstage at the first year of my LAUNCH Festival and was also funded by Sequoia Capital, had the same “Why now?” as YouTube: plummeting bandwidth and storage costs.

Founders tend to have these “Why now?” insights without recognizing how profound they are. When I started my blogging company, Weblogs, Inc., in 2004, I had a very simple thesis: I believed that great new writers publishing five short, unfiltered posts a day would get more readers than established journalists writing one story, edited by a half dozen people, once a week.

When I had this realization, it was perfectly clear to me, but even the New York Times journalists didn’t see it. I remember running into legendary tech journalist John Markoff at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas when our blog Engadget was covering it for the first time. He asked me how many people we had at the show and I said fifteen. His jaw dropped and he asked me how often they were filing, and I said four times.

He replied, “You’re going to do sixty stories at CES?”

I said, “Actually they’re posting four times a day. So sixty stories . . . per day. How often is your team filing?”

He said they had three journalists at the show and they would do two or three pieces each over the next month. So, they were doing six stories and we were doing sixty a day for five days— three hundred total.

In some ways, “Why now?” is the most important question about the business you can ask because there are so many folks constantly trying the same ideas over and over again in our business.

Google was the twelfth search engine. Facebook was the tenth social network. iPad was the twentieth tablet. It’s not who gets there first. It’s who gets there first when the market’s ready.

4. What’s your unfair advantage?

Founders with breakout startups often have an unfair advantage. Google had their Stanford connections, filled with talented algorithm-writing engineering geniuses. Facebook launched while Zuckerberg was still a student at Harvard, and they used their understanding of campus culture and directories to figure out the dynamics of building online social networks that scale. Mark Pincus launched Zynga with a multi-year cross-promotion deal with Facebook, which allowed Zynga to tag along with Facebook as it grew at an astounding rate. Mary Gates was on the board of United Way with the CEO of IBM, which led directly to IBM hiring her son Bill’s new company, Microsoft, to build the operating system for their first personal computer.

Said another way, this question is asking, in just four words, “What makes you uniquely qualified to pursue this business? What secrets do you know that will help you beat both the incumbents and your fast followers?”

Sometimes, founders will not have an answer for this question. And that’s okay. This is one you often end up answering while looking in the rearview mirror.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

After asking these four founder questions, which in total are sixteen words, you should have an excellent idea of what this person is building and why.

These four founder questions give you a great starting point for answering the four investor questions every angel needs to ask themselves before investing. Remember, we want to figure out:

After thirty minutes and four questions, you’re going to have a strong sense of why the founder picked this business, why it might work right now, and, of course, what they are building.

What you probably won’t know are the tactical details of how they plan on executing on their vision, including their go-to-market strategy, what kind of team they have, the competitive landscape, and the nuances of their business model.

You are going to find out the answers to those questions in the second half of your meeting. But this is the foundation.

###

To learn more about Jason’s approach to investing, and the stories behind his greatest wins, check out Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000.

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Published on August 04, 2017 04:19

August 2, 2017

How to Overcome Anxiety and Stress – with Adviser to Olympians, Michael Gervais

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“Rugged and hostile environments teach us. And they teach us by leveraging real fear.”

– Michael Gervais

Michael Gervais (@michaelgervais) is the performance psychologist elite athletes and coaches turn to when they want to level up or when they’re returning from hard times and want to not just get back to where they were, but exceed their previous highest levels of excellence. His clients include Olympic gold medalists, Super Bowl champion NFL coaches, you name it.

In this episode, we discuss how to win the war against anxiety, some of the more effective (and less effective) ways to self-talk, behind-the-scenes stories of Michael’s clients, understanding mastery, and much more.

This episode comes from my new television show Fear{less}, where I interview world-class performers on stage about how they’ve overcome doubt, conquered fear, and made their toughest decisions. You can watch the entire first episode with illusionist David Blaine for free at att.net/fearless. (To watch all episodes, please visit DIRECTV NOW.)

We recorded three hours of material and only one hour was used for the TV show. This podcast episode is almost entirely new content that didn’t appear on TV.

Enjoy!

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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 with a guest from Fearless? — Listen to this episode with David Blaine where we discuss illusion, taking risks, and the art of positive mindset (stream below or right-click here to download):

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.

If you want cleaner, more pure, less processed protein — which I certainly do — go to ascentprotein.com/tim for 20 percent off your entire order! Be sure to use the code “TFASCENT” to receive the discount.

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

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

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 and get started today. Enjoy.

QUESTION 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 Michael Gervais:

Website | Finding Mastery | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Seattle Seahawks
Tara Brach on Meditation and Overcoming FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
Sam Harris on Daily Routines, The Trolley Scenario, and 5 Books Everyone Should Read
Headspace
Transcendental Meditation
From Denmark to Bhutan: The Policies of Happiness by Colin Todhunter, Countercurrents.org
Memory Palace (Method of loci)
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
Ed Cooke, Grandmaster of Memory
Books by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Self-Esteem by Virginia M. Satir
Way of the Champion: Lessons from Sun Tzu’s the Art of War and Other Tao Wisdom for Sports & Life by Jerry Lynch and Chungliang Al Huang
Amelia Boone on Beating 99% of Men and Suffering for High Performance

Show Notes

Michael shares his upbringing as a farm boy with laissez-faire parents. [06:55]
What experiences would Michael mandate for late high school/early college students? [12:24]
The first professional failure that Michael can remember. [14:50]
A football story about an unexpected outcome and its consequences. [19:07]
Learning to meditate successfully. [22:56]
On resolving conflicts physically. [27:34]
Practices Michael has implemented with fighters. [31:23]
Dealing with smartphones and other distracting modern stimuli that keep us from being present. [34:40]
Michael’s own experiences as a recipient of therapy. [36:42]
Why neither of us really like the term “hacks.” [39:25]
Are there any types of clients Michael won’t work with? [40:37]
Clever ways to navigate honest personal references without putting anyone on the spot. [42:14]
What are Michael’s guidelines for tipping when dining out? [44:41]
Could you sum up your own personal philosophy in twenty words or less? [45:51]
In a society of easy distraction, mindfulness is a superpower. [47:08]
Building up a tolerance to discomfort works for the body and the mind. [48:22]
Best practices for imagery, why Michael prefers this term to visualization, and how the aims of imagery and mindfulness differ. [50:29]
The effectiveness of mnemonic devices. [52:47]
What Rickson Gracie told Michael about his use of imagery. [54:13]
What does Michael consider success, and who embodies this concept for him? [55:32]
Books Michael has gifted the most. [56:45]
Favorite movies and documentaries. [57:50]
A recent purchase of$100 or less that has had a positive impact on Michael’s life. [58:37]
If Michael had to give a TED Talk about something for which he’s not well known, what would the topic be? [59:40]
What is the hardest challenge currently facing Michael now? [1:01:25]
What is the worst advice Michael hears being given often in his field? [1:03:03]
Does Michael have any favorite failures? [1:04:40]
Most worthwhile investment of Michael’s money, time, or energy. [1:05:54]

People Mentioned

Tom Brady
Bill Belichick
Tara Brach
Sam Harris
Earl Thomas
Kam Chancellor
Bobby Wagner
Cato
Seneca
Cicero
Ed Cooke
Rickson Gracie
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Virginia Satir
Jerry Lynch
Amy Winehouse
Marc Andreessen
Pete Carroll
Lisa Gervais
Amelia Boone

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Malcolm Gladwell
Bryan Johnson
A.J. Jacobs
Shep Gordon

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Published on August 02, 2017 11:32

July 26, 2017

How to Turn Failure into Success

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“You will fall. And when you fall, the winner always gets up, and the loser stays down.”

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

In this episode, we discuss another frequently requested question from listeners. I’ve gathered some of the best advice about coping with frustrations and roadblocks, and — ultimately — learning how to turn failure into success.

These conversations are extremely valuable because they show you there is more than one way to achieve your goals. After more than 200 conversations with the world’s top performers, you start to spot certain patterns. These are the shared habits, hacks, philosophies, and tools that are the common threads of success, happiness, health, and wealth. Behind each success story is usually a lesson on how to overcome failure. Aside from my own take on the topic, this episode includes conversations with:

Enjoy!

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 featuring multiple guests and their best tips? In this episode, we explore the best morning routines with Jocko Willink, Seth Godin, Jamie Foxx, and Scott Adams (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by Soothe.com, the world’s largest on-demand massage service. Because I’ve been broken so many times, I have body work done at least twice a week — so I have a high bar for this stuff. I do not accept mediocrity, and I wouldn’t expect you to, either.

After much personal testing, I can affirm that Soothe delivers a hand-selected, licensed, and experienced massage therapist to you in the comfort of your own home, hotel, or office in as little as an hour. I was amazed at the quality of service and convenience. Think of it as Uber for massages, available in fifty cities worldwide. Download the app at Soothe.com and use code TIM to get $20 off each of your first two massages.

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If you don’t love your first pair of MeUndies, they’ll hook you up with a new pair or a refund. If you love the product, they have three different subscription plans — so you’ll never be bored with the ever-changing selection. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim to see my current faves (some are awesomely ridiculous, like the camo) and get 20 percent off your first pair. That’s MeUndies.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

Connect with Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Connect with Malcolm Gladwell:

Website | Revisionist History | Twitter | Facebook

Connect with Bryan Johnson:

Website | OS Fund | Twitter

Connect with A.J. Jacobs:

Website | Twice Removed | Twitter | Facebook

Connect with Shep Gordon:

Twitter | Instagram

Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month
The Tim Ferriss Experiment
SWOT analysis
Fear{less} is Here!
Dissecting the Success of Malcolm Gladwell
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Lapsang Souchong black tea
The Rags to Riches Philosopher: Bryan Johnson’s Path to $800 Million
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Dan Ariely’s TED talk,
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
A.J. Jacobs: Self-Experimenter Extraordinaire
The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A.J. Jacobs
My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself by Living as a Woman, Becoming George Washington, Telling No Lies, and Other Radical Tests by A.J. Jacobs
My Life as a TV Sitcom by A.J. Jacobs
A.J. Jacobs posing nude for Esquire
Shep Gordon — The King Maker on His Best PR Stunts, Hugest Failures, and Practical Philosophies
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (a film by Mike Meyers)
They Call Me Supermensch: A Backstage Pass to The Amazing Worlds Of Film, Food, and Rock ‘N’ Roll by Shep Gordon
Anne Murray performing Snowbird on television in 1973
Inside John Lennon, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper’s Legendary Hollywood Drinking Club by Barry Nicolson, NME (featuring the famous Anne Murray photo)
Tim Ferriss Interviews Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare (And Much More)
Arnold Schwarzenegger Part 2! Bodybuilding, Investing, and Online Battles

Show Notes

I share one of my own failures that I turned into a learning experience. [06:17]
Malcolm Gladwell on a failure that helped set him up for later success. [14:02]
Malcolm Gladwell’s morning routine and writing process. [17:08]
How Malcolm winds down from a day of work. [20:56]
Malcolm’s flaws that have turned into strengths. [22:36]
Malcolm on giving and receiving advice. [25:08]
How Bryan Johnson went from broke and unemployable to record sales in an oversaturated industry. [25:49]
Bryan’s worst decisions and fatal mistakes in real estate. [30:27]
Bryan on analyzing his own irrational behavior. [31:16]
How Bryan deals with feeling overwhelmed. [33:22]
One of A.J. Jacobs’ favorite failures. [35:56]
A.J.’s most embarrassing failure. [38:51]
Shep Gordon on a rookie management mistake he sees most often. [41:10]
Why did it take nearly a decade for Shep to agree to let Mike Meyers make a documentary about him? And why did a book follow? [47:06]
How did Shep prepare girl-next-door Anne Murray for stardom with the help of some Hollywood Vampires? [55:40]
Arnold Schwarzenegger on the biggest sacrifice he has made while climbing the ladder of success. [57:54]
Arnold on learning from failures. [1:00:24]
What does Arnold know today that could have helped him in his twenties? [1:03:07]

People Mentioned

Seneca
Dan Ariely
Daniel Kahneman
Ben Horowitz
Donald Sutherland
Paget Brewster
Mary-Louise Parker
Alice Cooper
Bette Davis
Raquel Welch
Groucho Marx
Jimi Hendrix
Sylvester Stallone
Luther Vandross
Lily Meola
The Dalai Lama
Mike Myers
Rick Rubin
Roy Choi
Anthony Bourdain
Anne Murray
John Lennon
Harry Nilsson
Micky Dolenz
Yoko Ono
Maria Shriver
Michael Jordan
Ted Williams
Reg Park

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Published on July 26, 2017 18:21

July 23, 2017

When to Quit – Lessons from World-Class Entrepreneurs, Investors, Authors, and More

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“Remember: it’s not a failure until you accept defeat.”

-Debbie Millman

I’m very excited to share this episode. It’s our first “roundtable” approach to discussing a single topic. This came about when I asked 5-Bullet Friday subscribers (sign up here if you’re interested) to send me questions, and one that stuck out was: Where’s the line between stubbornly pursuing an idea that isn’t working and the patience and persistence needed to actually make it work? In other words — when should you give up and quit and when should you push on?

Since this is something I myself have struggled with, I came to the conclusion that I should reach out to people who might have a better answer. So, I sent the question to the following entrepreneurs, authors, and innovators:

Scott Belsky
Seth Godin
James Altucher
Debbie Millman
Adam Robinson
Chase Jarvis
Rhonda Patrick

Their answers are a thorough overview of how to assess your own ideas and opportunities, and determine which ones are worth pursuing. Enjoy!

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

Want to hear my first episode with Debbie Millman? — Listen to this episode, where we discuss how to recover from rejection, how to overcome personal crises of faith, class exercises from her most impactful mentors, and much more. (stream below or right-click here to download):

Listeners to this show can go to shopify.com/tim to sign up for a free, 30-day trial and gain access to video courses that will help you get started — including “How to Quickly Start a Profitable Dropshipping Store” with Corey Ferreira and some goodies from me. Check it out at shopify.com/tim today!

This podcast is also 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…

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 Scott Belsky:

Website | Behance | Twitter

Connect with Seth Godin:

Connect with James Altucher:

Connect with Debbie Millman:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Design Matters Podcast

Connect with Adam Robinson:

Connect with Chase Jarvis

Connect with Rhonda Patrick:

Found My Fitness | Podcast | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Divestiture Aversion (aka the Endowment Effect)
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin
Question of the Day (QOD) Podcast
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Stockpickr! Your Source for Stock Ideas
Become An Idea Machine: Because Ideas Are The Currency Of The 21st Century by Claudia Azula Altucher and James Altucher
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Sunk Cost Fallacy by David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart
The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You: iPhone Photography by Chase Jarvis
Recording Analog Memories in Human Cells by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do by Chris Guillebeau
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly

Show Notes

Why Scott Belsky stuck with Behance even when it was going through rough patches. [08:41]
Seth Godin thoughts from his bestselling book about quitting. [13:24]
James Altucher tells us why you sometimes want to quit when you’re ahead. [19:53]
Debbie Millman on pursuing dreams over conforming to the comfortable. [38:58]
Adam Robinson ponders the options we all face: to persist, to pivot, or to quit. [47:11]
Chase Jarvis on intuition as the most powerful tool we have as humans and the science behind it. [57:12]
Rhonda Patrick gives us some insight on why making a counterintuitive choice ended up working in her favor. [1:11:19]

People Mentioned

Jerry Seinfeld
Howard Stern
Stephen Dubner
Brian Koppelman
Marina Franklin
AJ Jacobs
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Leo Tolstoy
W.C. Fields
Rudyard Kipling
Mikhail Baryshnikov
John Kennedy Toole
Thelma Toole
Walker Percy
Gary Vaynerchuk
Mark Cuban
Richard Branson
Chris Guillebeau
Bruce Ames
Kevin Kelly

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 23, 2017 11:29

July 19, 2017

Morning Routines and Strategies

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“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.”

– W. H. Auden

This is a special episode of the podcast. After more than 200 conversations with the world’s top performers, you start to spot certain patterns. These are the shared habits, hacks, philosophies, and tools that are the common threads of success, happiness, health, and wealth.

These commonalities were the premise of my most recent book, The New York Times #1 bestseller Tools of Titans — a compilation of my favorite lessons, routines, and tips of many of my guests.

In this episode, I’ve gathered some of the best advice about morning routines from:

Jocko Willink
Seth Godin
Jamie Foxx
Scott Adams

Enjoy!

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 featuring multiple guests and their best tips? 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):

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.

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

People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now — this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed.

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 Jocko Willink:

Echelon Front | Twitter | Facebook

Connect with Seth Godin:

Connect with Jamie Foxx:

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Connect with Scott Adams:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Meditation, Mindset, and Mastery
How to Control Stress, Upgrade Your Nutrition, and Build the Mindset of a Gladiator
5 Morning Rituals That Help Me Win The Day
Admiral McRaven’s Life Lesson #1: Make Your Bed
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World by William H. McRaven
What My Morning Journal Looks Like
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
Priming Exercise with Tony Robbins
Transcendental Meditation
Headspace
Tara Brach’s guided meditations
Morning teas: pu-erh and turmeric ginger
The Five-Minute Journal
Yes, “Coffee Naps” Work. Here’s What You Need to Know. by Emily Siegel, Van Winkle’s
Jocko Willink on Discipline, Leadership, and Overcoming Doubt
The Scariest Navy SEAL Imaginable…And What He Taught Me
Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink
Battle of Ramadi
Seth Godin on How to Think Small to Go Big
How Seth Godin Manages His Life — Rules, Principles, and Obsessions
Books by Seth Godin
The altMBA
Seth Godin’s classes at Skillshare
Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories
Giuseppe Zanotti shoes
Scott Adams: The Man Behind Dilbert
God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams
Scott’s blog posts on the body model, the six dimensions of humor, and affirmations.
The Far Side by Gary Larson
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Show Notes

Why your morning should have a predictable and scripted sequence. [06:45]
My morning non-negotiables. [07:57]
Jocko Willink’s morning routines and how he structures his ideal day. [10:01]
Who Jocko thinks of when he hears the word “successful.” [15:00]
What are Jocko’s struggles? [17:44]
The first two hours in Seth Godin’s day, and what his typical breakfast looks like. [22:05]
The value of having an office. [25:29]
Seth’s views on educating kids to succeed in the 21st century. [26:40]
“Busy” as a trap, and practices parents can follow to regularly spend quality time with their children. [30:06]
As an educator, here’s Seth’s strategy for retaining online students. [31:34]
Seth on self-discipline. [34:12]
Jamie Foxx’s morning routine doesn’t involve coffee. [36:10]
Advice Jamie would give to his younger self. [39:47]
Jamie’s daughter’s advice to his current self. [46:08]
The structure of Scott Adams’s morning. [47:47]
On clearing and “flooding” the brain and paying attention to what the body model is trying to tell us. [49:26]
Moving art into the domain of craft and understanding the six dimensions of humor. [51:18]
Stories about coincidences and affirmations. [55:07]

People Mentioned

W. H. Auden
William H. McRaven
Tony Robbins
Tara Brach
Sam Harris
Marc Alan Lee
Michael A. Monsoor
Ryan Job
Richard Branson
Helene Godin
Tyrin Turner
Corinne Foxx
George Lopez
Nicole Scherzinger
Tank
Naval Ravikant

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Published on July 19, 2017 16:06

July 12, 2017

Inside the World of SuperTraining – Mark Bell

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“Multiply your muscle and multiply your hustle.”

– Mark Bell

Mark Bell (@MarkSmellyBell) is the founder of Super Training Gym in Sacramento, which is often referred to as “the strongest gym in the West.” Prior to opening his own gym, he spent time studying training under the legendary Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell.

Mark is no stranger to the iron. His best “geared lifts” in competition include a 1,025-pound squat (465 kg), an 832-pound bench press (77 kg), and a 738-pound deadlift (335 kg). Mark is also the inventor of the patented Slingshot, a device used to assist in maintaining proper bench press form while also helping use more weight or perform more reps.

Mark now has an entire line of products and is spectacularly successful. In this episode, we cover a lot, including:

Mark’s most important lessons for building strength.
How to avoid injury and breakdown.
Lesser-known training techniques that nearly everyone overlooks.
How Mark became a millionaire by offering his gym memberships for free.
And much, much more.

We recorded this interview while touring his facility in Sacramento, looking at some crazy equipment that you can see by visiting tim.blog/supertraining.

Please enjoy!

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 about fitness and strength training? Listen to this interview with Jerzy Gregorek. In this episode, we discuss flexibility, strength, muscle gain, and fat loss at any age (stream below or right-click here to download):

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.

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 to save 15% 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 Mark Bell:

Rust and Iron, Episode 2: Powerlifter Mark Bell
SlingShot
Power Magazine
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Prescription Thugs
Westside Barbell
Maximal Effort Method — Circa 2009 by Doris Simmons, Westside Barbell
The Repetition Method by Doris Simmons, Westside Barbell
Future Method Bench Press Setup, Rogue Fitness
Stall bars
SlingShot Hip Circle
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Fuck Your Elbow, Mark Bell
MIKE O’TREN YOU ARE NO LONGER MY FRIEND!!!, Mark Bell
Trenbolone
COAN The Man, The Myth, The Method: The Life, Times & Training of The Greatest Powerlifter of All-Time by Marty Gallagher
Conventional or Sumo Deadlifts: What Is Best for Your Leverages? Omar Isuf
Ed Coan 887 Deadlift
The Journey of Ed Coan — The Greatest Powerlifter of All Time, Mark Bell
Konstantinovs Deadlift 426 kg (939 lb) Raw, no belt
Hook grip
Strength is Never a Weakness mural at Super Training Gym
Officially Licensed Groucho Marx Glasses
Ribera Steakhouse
HAVYKtriad
Duffalo bar
Geisha Roller (Thompson X-Wife)

Show Notes

Mark talks about his new gym location and his free membership business model. [05:49]
The benefits Mark has enjoyed since making his gym free. [08:53]
What Mark’s gym schedule looks like. [12:50]
Lessons learned from Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell. [14:55]
Advice for new lifters who want to take an “accelerated learning” approach. [21:53]
Five exercises for an athlete of another discipline who is new to powerlifting. [26:46]
Lesser known assistance exercises Mark finds valuable for deadlifts, squats, and bench press. [30:26]
The real value of Mark’s SlingShot (and a few bench press techniques). [33:30]
“Idiot-proofing the bench press.” [38:38]
Helpful bench press tips and warmups. [39:47]
How your warmup can be a diagnostic tool. [41:48]
Mark’s favorite bench press warmup. [45:27]
The background of the “fuck your elbow” shenanigans. [50:59]
The feud vs. Mike O’Hearn. [55:14]
On Ed Coan, “the greatest powerlifter of all time.” [58:45]
Techniques learned from other legendary powerlifters. [1:06:32]
“Strength is never a weakness.” [1:08:59]
Why it’s sometimes dangerous to emulate techniques of top performers. [1:10:35]
As he’s gotten older, has Mark added anything to minimize the likelihood of injury or spinal issues? [1:12:54]
Sometimes sleep is the most important technique. [1:17:11]
The first person who comes to mind when Mark thinks of success. [1:20:16]
The power of not taking oneself too seriously. [1:24:10]
Recent purchases that have had the most positive impact on Mark’s life. [1:25:57]
What would Mark’s billboard say? [1:29:19]
Parting thoughts. [1:32:27]

People Mentioned

Louie Simmons
Mike “Mad Dog” Bell
Chris Bell
Jerzy Gregorek
Muhammad Ali
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Jake Bell
Mike O’Hearn
Ed Coan
Bill Kazmaier
Dorian Yates
Dmitry Klokov
Konstantin Konstantinovs
Pavel Tsatsouline
Jon Bones Jones
Dan John
Ronnie Coleman
Jesse Burdick
Laird Hamilton
Tim O’Neil
Christopher Sommer
Sheldon Bell
Bo Jackson
Michael Jordan
Rosemary Bell
Groucho Marx
Chris Duffin
Donnie Thompson
Danny DeVito