Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 78
March 8, 2017
How to Not Be Evil – Dr. Phil Zimbardo
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“The future is always modifiable by our actions.”
– Dr. Phil Zimbardo
Dr. Philip Zimbardo (@PhilZimbardo) is one of the most distinguished psychologists in the world and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is arguably best known for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, in which students were turned into mock prisoners and guards for a continuous 24-hour-a-day study. The experiment was planned for two weeks but terminated after just six days.
In this podcast, we explore how we — as humans — can do less evil, how you can be a “deviant for day,” mindful disobedience, and much more. It was a blast.
Apart from the above, Dr. Zimbardo has served as President of the American Psychological Association and designed and narrated the award-winning 26-part PBS series, Discovering Psychology. He has published more than 50 books, including Shyness, The Lucifer Effect, The Time Cure, The Time Paradox, and most recently, Man, Interrupted.
Dr. Zimbardo currently lectures worldwide and is actively working to promote his non-profit, The Heroic Imagination Project. His current research looks at the psychology of heroism. The question he poses is: “What pushes some people to become perpetrators of evil, while others act heroically on behalf of those in need?”
Please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Philip Zimbardo — our oldest guest to date!
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 with a fascinating scientist? — Listen to my interview with Dr. Peter Attia. In this episode, we discuss optimizing blood testing, training for ultra-endurance sports, consuming synthetic ketones, using metabolic chambers, extending longevity by avoiding certain types of exercise, and much more (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is the future of financial advice. It’s become especially popular among my friends in Silicon Valley and across the country because it provides the same high-end financial advice that the best private wealth managers deliver to the ultra wealthy — but for any account size, at a fraction of the cost.
Wealthfront monitors your portfolio every day across more than a dozen asset classes to find opportunities for rebalancing and harvesting tax losses, and now manages more than $5 billion in assets. Unlike old-fashioned private wealth managers, Wealthfront is powered by innovative technology, making it the most tax-efficient, low-cost, hassle-free way to invest. Go to wealthfront.com/tim to take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and it’ll show you — for free — exactly the portfolio it would recommend. If you want to just take the advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.com/tim. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you’ll get your first $15,000 managed for free if you decide to go with its services.
This podcast is also brought to you by iD Commerce + Logistics. I’m asked all the time about how to scale businesses quickly. Rule number one: remove unnecessary bottlenecks. Many businesses can do so by outsourcing inventory management and fulfillment to a company that makes this its primary focus.
iD Commerce + Logistics is just such a company. It helps online retailers and entrepreneurs outgrow their competition by handling all types of details — from inventory to packing and shipping. I depended on iD to handle these types of details when I launched The 4-Hour Chef so I could focus on promoting the book. As a listener of this podcast, you can get up to $10,000 off your start-up fees and costs waived by visiting tim.blog/scale or idcomlog.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 Dr. Phil Zimbardo:
Twitter | Website | Facebook | The Heroic Imagination Project
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Shyness: What It Is, What To Do About It by Philip G. Zimbardo
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo
The Time Cure: Overcoming PTSD with the New Psychology of Time Perspective Therapy by Philip G. Zimbardo, Richard Sword, and Rosemary Sword
The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd Ph.D
Man, Interrupted: Why Young Men are Struggling & What We Can Do About It by Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Coulombe
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
James Monroe High School in the Bronx
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures
Torture at Abu Ghraib by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker
The Lord’s Prayer (“Deliver us from evil.”)
Documentary Explores Kitty Genovese’s Notorious 1964 Murder: Did 38 People Really Watch and Do Nothing? by Jeff Truesdell, People Crime
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt
Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination by Sam Keen
A rundown of Darley and Batson’s Good Samaritan Study at Socially Psyched
Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT)
Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church: Why Is It Still a Story? by Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times
Dr. Zimbardo’s TED Talk: The Psychology of Evil
Getting Comfortable With The Uncomfortable: 7 Simple Challenges to Try Today, The Scientist & The Hustler
What Psychology Says about How You Should Respond to Racist Behaviour by Emma Thomas and Anne Pedersen, The Conversation
Lying by Sam Harris and Annaka Harris
An Overview of Time Perspective Types by John Boyd
Take the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI)
International Time Perspective Network
What My Morning Journal Looks Like
‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ Author Says a 3-Step Process He Learned from Tony Robbins Drastically Improved His Life by Richard Feloni, Business Insider (explaining how I use Tony Robbins’ Dickens Process)
Show Notes
Dr. Zimbardo gives us the background to his legacy (“for better or for worse”): The 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. [07:31]
Reflecting on the similarities between the Stanford Prison Experiment and abuses at Abu Ghraib. [13:46]
On everyday heroes and resisting the temptation of evil and the power of the group. [17:48]
Celebrating the banality of heroism (in contrast to Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”). [19:32]
Ordinary people as heroes in training, and The Heroic Imagination Project. [20:28]
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.” -Archilochus [21:32]
“All evil begins with fifteen volts.” — What the Milgram experiment tells us about mindlessly taking the first step. [24:22]
Dehumanization of others. [26:26]
De-individualization of self (anonymity). [30:14]
Diffusion of personal responsibility. [32:05]
Blind obedience to authority. “Be wary of authorities wearing false lab coats!” [36:57]
Practicing mindful disobedience. [38:45]
Uncritical conformity to group norms. [40:34]
Comfort challenges and being a deviant for a day. [42:05]
Passive tolerance of evil through inaction or indifference. “Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.” -Ayaan Hirsi Ali [45:20]
Perception of time and its impact on our decisions. [47:57]
Using time perspective therapy to treat PTSD. [53:54]
How an early copy of The Time Paradox had a monumental impact on my own routines and perspective. [57:03]
The Dickens Process. [58:15]
What is the difference between altruism and heroism? [1:00:44]
How the early end of the Stanford Prison Experiment ties in with heroism. [1:02:11]
People Mentioned
Donald Wildmon
Tony Robbins
Daniel Kahneman
Stanley Milgram
Craig Haney
W. Curtis Banks
David Jaffe
Kitty Genovese
Hannah Arendt
Adolf Eichmann
Agamemnon
Achilles
Mahatma Gandhi
Nelson Mandela
Martin Luther King Jr.
Mother Teresa
Archilochus
Joseph Goebbels
Sam Keen
John M. Darley
C. Daniel Batson
Cato
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Sam Harris
John Boyd
Christina Maslach
February 28, 2017
John Crowley — The Real-Life Captain America and Bruce Banner (Seriously)
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This is an incredibly powerful episode of the podcast.
John F. Crowley is the Chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, a publicly traded biotechnology company, which he helped found in 2005 and is now a 300+ person company in 22 countries. John’s involvement with biotechnology stems from the 1998 diagnosis of two of his children with Pompe disease — a severe and often fatal neuromuscular disorder. In his drive to find a cure for them, he left his job and became an entrepreneur as the Co-founder, President, and CEO of Novazyme Pharmaceuticals in 2000, a biotech start-up conducting research on a new experimental treatment for Pompe disease (which he credits as ultimately saving his children’s lives). In 2001, Novazyme was acquired by Genzyme Corporation for nearly $200 million.
John and his family are the subjects of a book by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Geeta Anand, The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million — and Bucked the Medical Establishment — in a Quest to Save His Children. The major motion picture Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford, is inspired by the Crowley family journey. John is the author of a personal memoir: Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope, and Joy.
John also served as a commissioned intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve from 2005-2016. He was assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and is a veteran of the global war on terrorism, with service in Afghanistan. He graduated with a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and earned a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School and an M.B.A. from Harvard.
He previously served (2014-2016) as the National Chairman of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America and is a founding board member of the Global Genes Project. John is a Henry Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute.
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 interview with a superhuman scientist? — Listen to my in-depth conversation with Dom D’Agostino. In this episode, we discuss fasting, heavy deadlifts, and the end of cancer (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by iD Commerce + Logistics. I’m asked all the time about how to scale businesses quickly. Rule number one: remove unnecessary bottlenecks. Many businesses can do so by outsourcing inventory management and fulfillment to a company that makes this its primary focus.
iD Commerce + Logistics is just such a company. It helps online retailers and entrepreneurs outgrow their competition by handling all types of details — from inventory to packing and shipping. I depended on iD to handle these types of details when I launched The 4-Hour Chef so I could focus on promoting the book. As a listener of this podcast, you can get up to $10,000 off your start-up fees and costs waived by visiting tim.blog/scale or idcomlog.com/tim.
This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. In fact, some of my good investor friends in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it’s all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams.
Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you — for free — exactly the portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.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 John F. Crowley:
Amicus Therapeutics
Pompe disease
One Dad’s 14-Year Quest for Cure by Geeta Anand, The Wall Street Journal
The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million — and Bucked the Medical Establishment — in a Quest to Save His Children by Geeta Anand
Extraordinary Measures
Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope, and Joy by John F. Crowley
How to Climb a Rope Like a Navy SEAL by The Art of Manliness
HBS case study: A Father’s Love: Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
How Genzyme Became a Source of Biotech Executives by Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe
Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick
Matt Swinton’s Declaration of Independence
How Focusing on Obscure Diseases Made BioMarin a $15 Billion Company by Matthew Herper, Forbes
Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution by Benson Bobrick
The field of biotechnology owes a lot to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Genentech
The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition by Jalal al-Din Rumi
A Life-Saving Biotech with a Personal Mission (John on CNBC with Jim Cramer)
Make-A-Wish Foundation
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
Plated and Blue Apron
Growing up Catholic, John knows well the Hail Mary and The Lord’s Prayer
Megan’s blog: High Heeled Wheels
Show Notes
John explains what it’s like to be afraid of heights and practice fast-roping drills with Navy SEALs. [08:00]
What John learned about sudden loss in childhood. [12:03]
Was John like Captain America even at age 10? [15:52]
In high school, what did John think he’d be when he grew up? [19:41]
Mentors who had an impact on John during his early years. [20:26]
What does a curriculum at The School of Foreign Service at Georgetown entail? [22:44]
John’s special connection to the University of Notre Dame. [23:49]
What a class at Harvard Business School is like for someone who’s not good at math. [28:22]
The events surrounding John’s children being diagnosed with Pompe disease. [32:04]
How looking for a cure became a full-time job. [37:00]
On the difficult protocols involved with getting John’s own children treated. [47:10]
The best Christmas present John could have wished for. [50:11]
Conventional rules of the biotech business John broke in pursuit of a cure. [52:16]
Early treatment: improvements and plateaus. [55:46]
How are Megan and Patrick doing today? [58:03]
On the principles of good parenting. [1:00:57]
Advice for parents of children with special needs. [1:04:23]
“Little people can teach us big people an awful lot if we just listen.” [1:05:53]
How does one create an economically viable company when developing drugs to treat rare diseases? [1:11:08]
What drives John today, and how did he choose the name “Amicus” for his company? [1:13:29]
What prompted John to get reinvolved with the miltary? [1:16:09]
Characteristics that make John capable in the elite military world, and what carries over from his business experience? [1:17:23]
As someone who’s so busy on multiple fronts, how does John keep from feeling overwhelmed? [1:20:07]
Most-gifted books. [1:21:34]
Inspiring, but underrated or lesser-known leaders. [1:23:22]
How would John advise someone to train for resilience? [1:28:01]
How does one balance living like there’s no tomorrow with the planning required for long-term goals? [1:33:02]
Altruism: where to begin? [1:41:43]
Hopes for the future of genetic medicine and the pursuit of longer lifespans. [1:44:02]
Likely breakthroughs ahead. [1:45:46]
John’s daily habits. [1:48:38]
What a Crowley evening workout looks like. [1:52:32]
Ways of coping with insomnia. [1:55:03]
What is grace? [1:56:40]
What would John’s billboard message be? [1:56:58]
Parting thoughts on healthcare and high heeled wheels. [1:57:30]
People Mentioned
Geeta Anand
Brendan Fraser
Harrison Ford
General Stanley McChrystal
Megan K. Crowley
Jason Statham
Aileen Crowley
Bill Clinton
Madeleine Albright
Jeane Kirkpatrick
William Colby
Steven C. Wheelwright
John Crowley, Jr.
Patrick Crowley
William Canfield
Henri Termeer
Matt Swinton
Robert Ginsberg
Ed Devinney
George Washington
Benedict Arnold
Eugene Kleiner
Tom Perkins
Bob Swanson
Herb Boyer
Jonas Salk
Anna Quindlen
Jalal al-Din Rumi
Chris Greicius
February 26, 2017
The Random Show – Drinking Urine, Exploring Japan, and Figuring Out Life
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Coming to you from a late night in rural Japan, this is a special edition of The Random Show.
Per usual for The Random Show, I am joined by Kevin Rose (@KevinRose), serial entrepreneur, world-class investor, and all around wild and crazy guy. We discuss Japan and how to do it cheaply, building apps, urine drinking, love and marriage, beauty and absurdity in 2017, why Kevin doesn’t have New Year’s resolutions, favorite books, and much more.
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 The Random Show? — Listen to this earlier conversation with Kevin Rose. In this episode, we discuss saunas and cold treatment, dating apps, and fitness apps (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by iD Commerce + Logistics. I’m asked all the time about how to scale businesses quickly. Rule number one: remove unnecessary bottlenecks. Many businesses can do so by outsourcing inventory management and fulfillment to a company that makes this its primary focus.
iD Commerce + Logistics is just such a company. It helps online retailers and entrepreneurs outgrow their competition by handling all types of details — from inventory to packing and shipping. I depended on iD to handle these types of details when I launched The 4-Hour Chef, so I could focus on promoting the book. As a listener of this podcast, you can get up to $10,000 off your start-up fees and costs waived by visiting tim.blog/scale or idcomlog.com/tim.
This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is the future of financial advice. It’s become especially popular among my friends in Silicon Valley and across the country because it provides the same high-end financial advice that the best private wealth managers deliver to the ultra wealthy — but for any account size, at a fraction of the cost.
Wealthfront monitors your portfolio every day across more than a dozen asset classes to find opportunities for rebalancing and harvesting tax losses, and now manages more than $5 billion in assets. Unlike old-fashioned private wealth managers, Wealthfront is powered by innovative technology, making it the most tax-efficient, low-cost, hassle-free way to invest. Go to wealthfront.com/tim to take the risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and it’ll show you — for free — exactly the portfolio it would recommend. If you want to just take the advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.com/tim. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you’ll get your first $15,000 managed for free if you decide to go with its services.
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 Kevin Rose:
Past episodes of The Random Show
Cherry blossom festivals in Tokyo
Suntory The Premium Malt’s — “brewed with pride”
Kanpai!
We’re staying at the Araya Totoan
In spite of the tattoos, Kevin assures us he’s not Yakuza.
7-Eleven and Circle K are different in Japan.
Ghibli Museum
Harajuku
Instagram photos tagged #takeshitadori
Over 280 Images of the Most Imaginative & Strange Cosplay at Comic-Con 2016 by Steve ‘Frosty’ Weintraub, Collider
13 Secrets for Speaking Fluent Japanese by Giles Murray
Japanese Verbs & Essentials of Grammar by Rita Lampkin
How to Perform Mantra Meditation
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
Slack
Headspace and Calm are two meditation apps Kevin uses.
Transcendental Meditation
Kevin has interviewed entrepreneurs at the Journal podcast and the Foundation series so people can better understand the steps (and missteps) that go into making a product.
vBulletin
Battle of the Clouds: Amazon Web Services vs. Microsoft Azure vs. Google Cloud Platform by Brandon Butler, Network World
Introducing “Zero,” a New App to Help You Fast by Kevin Rose, Medium
An iOS Developer’s Guide: From Objective-C to Learning Swift by Marco Mustapic, Toptal
Hodinkee
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
Tim Ferriss Shares Successful Life Tips from Tools of Titans on The Tonight Show
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
SS Jeremiah O’Brien
From Gunpowder to Teeth Whitener: The Science Behind Historic Uses of Urine by Mohi Kumar, Smithsonian.com
The Tim Ferriss Podcast is Live! Here Are Episodes 1 and 2
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom
The works of Mark Rothko, National Gallery of Art
List of Living National Treasures of Japan (crafts)
Kevin likes to wear Birkenstocks in the snow.
Minimalism: a Documentary About the Important Things
What is Hedonic Adaptation and How Can it Turn You Into a Sucka? by Mr. Money Mustache
Riding Giants
Laird XPT Extreme Pool Training
Moral Letters to Lucilius Letter XVIII: On Festivals and Fasting
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
5-Bullet Friday
Hacking Japan: Inside Tokyo for Less than New York
Show Notes
Why are we in Japan? [06:56]
At Araya Totoan, Kevin doesn’t have to hide his tattoos. [09:17]
What it’s like in Japan if you don’t speak the language. [11:23]
The difference between losing a personal item in Japan and the US. [12:26]
Tokyo has a reputation for being an expensive city, but you can still have fun on the cheap. [15:20]
Book recommendations for people who want to learn Japanese. [20:02]
Book research and development, and mantra meditation app creation. [21:22]
Weighing the benefits of Slack vs. a private Facebook group for community feedback. [29:20]
Why is Kevin creating an app for mantra meditation, and what would its success look like? [31:43]
What do developers and designers mean when they talk about “wireframes?” [36:08]
Why don’t I have a “4-Hour” app yet? How can developers minimize maintenance once an app goes live? [37:51]
What can an app developer expect in terms of cost and maintenance for the first year if their launch is successful? [44:02]
Some of the features I’d like in my own app. [47:50]
Aside from app development, what has Kevin been up to? [49:27]
Book promotion is busy work. [50:09]
My recent Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon experience. [52:40]
The merits of deep work and blocking time “for unknown purposes.” [55:32]
Epitaph ideas, writing, and podcasting as vehicles for teaching. [56:55]
The three keys to achieving goals. [58:28]
How can you apply data to love and marriage? [1:00:06]
On drinking urine. [1:03:23]
How this podcast evolved as a break from writing to what it is today. [1:07:29]
Absurdity and beauty as project criteria — case studies: court jesters and Mark Rothko. [1:09:38]
Why Kevin got into woodworking. [1:17:23]
How Kevin avoids costly impulse purchases. [1:23:36]
Hedonic adaptation (aka experience stretching). [1:26:49]
Parting thoughts: Kevin’s podcast, our tour of a sake brewery, and book and documentary recommendations. [1:32:00]
People Mentioned
David Chang
Reid Hoffman
Jimmy Fallon
B.J. Novak
Will Smith
Cal Newport
Wim Hof
BJ Miller
Mark Rothko
Darya Rose
Ryozo Kawagita
Laird Hamilton
Gabrielle Reece
Kelly Starrett
Elon Musk
Dan Carlin
February 21, 2017
Calming Philosophies for Chaotic Times — Krista Tippett
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“Anger is often what pain looks like when it shows itself in public.”
– Krista Tippett
Krista Tippett (@KristaTippett) is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times bestselling author. She created and hosts the public radio program and podcast On Being and curates The Civil Conversations Project, an emergent approach to the differences of our age.
She received a National Humanities Medal in 2013 from President Barack Obama at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom.”
Krista was a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin and holds a Masters of Divinity from Yale University. Her books are Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit, and Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters — and How to Talk About It.
In this conversation, we cover many things, including:
Krista’s morning routines
Zen versus striving — compatible, incompatible, or other?
Defining “spiritual” and “wise”
The role of prayer for her, and what she focuses on
Overcoming depression
The skills of good interviewing
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 with an influential podcaster? — Listen to my interview with Debbie Millman. In this episode, 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):
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 4-Hour Body, 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, which is non-spec. 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” 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 Krista Tippett:
Twitter | On Being | The Civil Conversations Project
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett
Einstein’s God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit by Krista Tippett
Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters — and How to Talk About It by Krista Tippett
Brown Researchers Pitch Landing Sites for NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission
The Stasi Files: Germany’s 600-Million-Piece Puzzle by Laura Goehler, CNN
Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” (Or, as I’ve heard it, incompetence.)
Stoicism Resources and Recommendations
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Michael Hecht
An On Being interview with Jennifer Michael Hecht: A History of Doubt
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
An On Being interview with poet Mary Oliver: Listening to the World
Mary Oliver reading Wild Geese
An On Being interview with poet Naomi Shihab Nye: Your Life Is a Poem
Naomi Shihab Nye reads Kindness
Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Rainer Maria Rilke
An On Being interview with Joanna Macy: A Wild Love for the World
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
An On Being interview with Eula Biss: Let’s Talk About Whiteness
The Random Show Threesome — Tim Ferriss, Kevin Rose, and Matt Mullenweg
Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank I. Luntz
American History X
The Little Monk and the Samurai: A Zen Parable
Compassion for Our Bodies — Matthew Sanford
An On Being interview with Sylvia Boorstein: Spirituality Is Enfolded into the Act of Living
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
Sam Harris on Daily Routines, The Trolley Scenario, and 5 Books Everyone Should Read
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam M. Grant
With Eyes to See and Ears to Listen
The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
Acumen Presents: Krista Tippett on the Art of Conversation via Udemy
The Night Manager
True Blood
Yorkshire Gold tea
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
An On Being interview with Brother David Steindl-Rast: Anatomy of Gratitude
Why Social Courage Should Be Taught in the Classroom by David Allyn, The Huffington Post
Show Notes
“Anger is often what pain looks like when it shows itself in public.” [05:19]
Were drama and debate in school good training for what Krista does now, or just a manifestation of what she was already good at? [10:19]
On moving to “Mars,” superpowers, and seeing one’s self through the lens of secret police. [11:37]
The principles of good learning. [15:12]
Working through a short temper and righteous indignation. [16:43]
Don’t negotiate on an empty stomach. [19:37]
Identifying and coping with depression. [21:05]
Therapy Krista finds most effective. [27:52]
Growing as an interviewer. [33:29]
Early interview mistakes. [35:37]
Lessons learned from the bad habits and practices of other interviewers. [38:31]
What did Krista read to her kids when they were younger? [42:15]
Poet and poetry recommendations for people who don’t think they like poetry. [44:15]
The most important word in any language. [51:55]
Once-meaningful words that have become conversation stoppers. [53:53]
How can you reconcile Zen and striving for success? [1:00:27]
How does Krista define spirituality, and what can someone do daily to grow in spiritual awareness? [1:07:16]
Does wisdom come with age? If so, how can we become wise beyond our years? [1:14:05]
How does Krista consistently see the best and most meaningful things in the world around her? [1:17:42]
“I can disagree with your opinion, it turns out, but I can’t disagree with your experience.” [1:22:32]
Drawing inspiration for civil discourse from Ecumenist Benedictine monks. [1:24:07]
Answering questions through the story of your life. [1:25:14]
Working through the instincts that don’t serve us well. [1:30:20]
A hopeful story about conversation across the political divide. [1:31:26]
Most gifted books. [1:33:04]
What college class would Krista teach, and what exercises would she assign? [1:34:57]
Krista talks about one of the best listeners she knows. [1:39:52]
Favorite moments of television storytelling. [1:41:25]
What would Krista’s billboard say? [1:43:47]
Morning rituals and prayer as “a mother tongue.” [1:44:26]
Krista shares her prayer. [1:48:07]
Closing requests and thoughts. [1:52:17]
People Mentioned
John Smith
Bill Clinton
Woody Allen
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Mary Oliver
Naomi Shihab Nye
Rainer Maria Rilke
Joanna Macy
Anita Barrows
M.D. Herter Norton
Ocean Vuong
Matt Mullenweg
Frank I. Luntz
Chris Matthews
Sylvia Boorstein
Thích Nhất Hạnh
Sam Harris
Adam Grant
Spock
Tara Brach
Tony Robbins
Thomas Merton
Pema Chödrön
Brother David Steindl-Rast
February 20, 2017
Tony Robbins: How to Suffer Less (and Invest Intelligently)
Whether you’d like to avoid unnecessary emotional suffering or unnecessary financial suffering, this post has something for you.
In my second podcast with Tony Robbins, he said that all fear comes from three triggers: loss, less, and never. He mentioned this in passing, and many of you asked for more details. This post will cover that and much more.
There are two parts:
1) Part 1 — Tony’s discussion of suffering and his framework of “loss, less, never.” This is a abridged excerpt from Tony’s newest book, Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook. It’s exactly what thousands of you requested.
2) Part 2 — Many of you ask about how I take notes, and what I record when I read 1-2 books (or more) per week. This is an example. Specifically, my highlights and notes on Tony’s book and investing. If you’re interested in investing, the mindsets of billionaires, asset allocation, or avoiding losses, you’ll enjoy this.
PART 1 — HOW TO SUFFER LESS (IN TONY’S WORDS, BOLDING HIS)
The human brain isn’t designed to make us happy and fulfilled. It’s designed to make us survive.
This two-million-year-old organ is always looking for what’s wrong, for whatever can hurt us, so that we can either fight it or take flight from it. If you and I leave this ancient survival software to run the show, what chance do we have of enjoying life? An undirected mind operates naturally in survival mode, constantly identifying and magnifying these potential threats to our well-being. The result: a life filled with stress and anxiety.
Most people live this way since it’s the path of least resistance. They make unconscious decisions, based on habit and conditioning, and are at the mercy of their own minds. They assume that it’s just an inevitable part of life to get frustrated, stressed, sad, and angry—in other words, to live in a suffering state. But I’m happy to tell you there’s another path: one that involves directing your thoughts so that your mind does your bidding, not the other way around.
…
Now, before we go any further, let’s just clarify the difference between these two emotional and mental states:
A Beautiful State
When you feel love, joy, gratitude, awe, playfulness, ease, creativity, drive, caring, growth, curiosity, or appreciation, you’re in a beautiful state. In this state, you know exactly what to do, and you do the right thing. In this state, your spirit and your heart are alive, and the best of you comes out. Nothing feels like a problem, and everything flows. You feel no fear or frustration. You’re in harmony with your true essence.
A Suffering State
When you’re feeling stressed out, worried, frustrated, angry, depressed, irritable, overwhelmed, resentful, or fearful, you’re in a suffering state. We’ve all experienced these and countless other “negative” emotions, even if we’re not always keen to admit it! Most achievers much prefer to think they’re stressed than fearful. But “stress” is just the achiever word for fear. If I follow the trail of your stress, it’ll take me to your deepest fear.
…
Everyone has his or her own flavor of suffering. So here’s my question for you: What’s your favorite flavor of suffering? Which energy-sapping emotion do you indulge in most? Is it sadness? Frustration? Anger? Despair? Self-pity? Jealousy? Worry? The specific details don’t really matter because they’re all states of suffering. And all this suffering is really just the result of an undirected mind that’s hell-bent on looking for problems.
Think for a moment about a recent situation that caused you pain or suffering—a time when you felt frustrated or angry or worried or overwhelmed. Whenever you feel emotions like these, your sense of suffering is caused by your undirected mind engaging in one or more of three particular patterns of perception.
Consciously or unconsciously, you’re focused on at least one of three triggers for suffering:
1. Suffering trigger is “Loss.”
When you focus on loss, you become convinced that a particular problem has caused or will cause you to lose something you value. For example, you have a conflict with your spouse, and it leaves you feeling that you’ve lost love or respect. But it doesn’t have to be something someone else did—or failed to do—that caused you to perceive the sense of loss. This sense of loss can also be triggered by something you did or failed to do. For example, you procrastinated, and now you’ve lost a business opportunity. Whenever we believe in the illusion of loss, we suffer.
2. Suffering Trigger is “Less.”
When you focus on the idea that you have less or will have less, you will suffer. For example, you might become convinced that because a situation has occurred or a person has acted a certain way, you will have less joy, less money, less success, or some other painful consequence. Once again, less can be triggered by what you, or others, do or fail to do.
3. Suffering trigger is “Never.”
When you focus on the idea or become consumed by a belief that you’ll never have something you value—such as love, joy, respect, wealth, opportunity—you’re doomed to suffer, you’ll never be happy, you’ll never become the person you want to be. This pattern of perception is a surefire route to pain. Remember: the mind is always trying to trick us into a survival mindset! So never say never! For example, because of an illness, an injury, or because of something your brother did or said, you might believe that you’ll never get over it.
These three patterns of focus account for most, if not all, of our suffering. And you know what’s crazy? It doesn’t even matter if the problem is real or not! Whatever we focus on, we feel—regardless of what actually happened. Have you ever had the experience of thinking that a friend did something horrible to you? You became tremendously angry and upset, only to discover that you were dead wrong and that the person didn’t deserve all that blame! In the midst of your suffering, when all those negative emotions were swirling inside your head, the reality didn’t matter. Your focus created your feelings, and your feelings created your experience. Notice too that most, if not all, of our suffering is caused by focusing or obsessing about ourselves and what we might lose, have less of, or never have.
But here’s the good news: once you’re aware of these patterns of focus, you can systematically change them, thereby freeing yourself from these habits of suffering. It all starts with the realization that this involves a conscious choice. Either you master your mind or it masters you. The secret of living an extraordinary life is to take control of the mind since this alone will determine whether you live in a suffering state or a beautiful state.
IN THE END, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE POWER OF DECISIONS
Our lives are shaped not by our conditions, but by our decisions. If you look back on the last 5 or 10 years I’d be willing to bet that you can recall a decision or two that has truly changed your life. Maybe it was a decision about where to go to school, what profession to pursue, or who you chose to love or marry. Looking back on it now, can you see how radically different your life would be today if you had made a different decision? These and so many other decisions determine the direction of your life and can change your destiny.
So what’s the biggest decision you can make in your life right now? In the past, I would have told you that what matters most is who you decide to spend your time with, who you decide to love. After all, the company you keep will powerfully shape who you become.
But over the last two years, my thinking has evolved. What I’ve come to realize is that the single most important decision in life is this: Are you committed to being happy, no matter what happens to you?
To put this another way, will you commit to enjoying life not only when everything goes your way but also when everything goes against you, when injustice happens, when someone screws you over, when you lose something or someone you love, or when nobody seems to understand or appreciate you? Unless we make this definitive decision to stop suffering and live in a beautiful state, our survival minds will create suffering whenever our desires, expectations, or preferences are not met. What a waste of so much of our lives!
This is a decision that can change everything in your life, starting today. But it’s not enough just to say that you’d like to make this change or that your preference is to be happy no matter what. You have to own this decision, do whatever it takes to make it happen, and cut off any possibility of turning back. If you want to take the island, you have to burn the boats. You have to decide that you’re 100% responsible for your state of mind and for your experience of this life.
What it really comes down to is drawing a line in the sand today and declaring, “I’m done with suffering. I’m going to live every day to the fullest and find juice in every moment, including the ones I don’t like, BECAUSE LIFE IS JUST TOO SHORT TO SUFFER.”
PART 2 — HOW TO INVEST MORE INTELLIGENTLY
[TIM: The below is a small sample of my notes from Tony’s newest book, Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook. I originally captured these notes in Evernote.]
Paul Tudor Jones questions:
“Is this truly the hard trade (something others can’t easily replicate)? Does it really have asymmetric risk/reward? Is it a five-to-one or a three-to-one? What’s the entry point? Where are your stops?”
Pg. 36, -38% year — TF: How long to recover to baseline if you entered that year?
The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient—WARREN BUFFETT
****TF: If corrections of 10% come once per year, couldn’t I hold cash and simply have that trigger purchases 1x per year? Or wait for 20% “bear market” drop, then invest?
“Buffett did just that in late 2008, investing in fallen giants such as Goldman Sachs and General Electric, which were selling at once-in-a-lifetime valuations. Better still, he structured these investments in ways that reduced his risk even further. For example, he invested $5 billion in a special class of “preferred” shares of Goldman Sachs, which guaranteed him a dividend of 10% a year while he waited for the stock price to recover.”
And/Or: Go with index fund
Showmethefees.com for 401(k) plan fees, etc. http://getasecondopinion.com/ for Tony’s Creative Planning
pg. 78
In the interests of cutting through the confusion, I’m going to make this as simple and straightforward as possible. In reality, all financial advisors fall into just one of three categories. What you really need to know is whether your advisor is:
a broker,
an independent advisor (RIA)***, or
a dually registered advisor.
Now let’s break this down in more detail so you know exactly what you’re dealing with.
Question to ask: Do you act as a “fiduciary” [what you want] or a “broker” or both?
Wealth manager needs to understand taxes, insurance, etc.
7 QUESTIONS FOR WEALTH ADVISORS
1. Are You a Registered Investment Advisor? If the answer is no, this advisor is a broker. Smile sweetly and say good-bye. If the answer is yes, he or she is required by law to be a fiduciary. But you still need to figure out if this fiduciary is wearing one hat or two.
2. Are You (or Your Firm) Affiliated with a Broker-Dealer? If the answer is yes, you’re dealing with someone who can act as a broker and usually has an incentive to steer you to specific investments. One easy way to figure this out is to glance at the bottom of the advisor’s website or business card and see if there’s a sentence like this: “Securities offered through [advisor’s company name], member FINRA and SIPC.” This refers to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, respectively. If you see these words, it means he or she can act as a broker. If so, run! Run for your life!
3. Does Your Firm Offer Proprietary Mutual Funds or Separately Managed Accounts? You want the answer to be an emphatic no. If the answer is yes, then watch your wallet like a hawk! It probably means they’re looking to generate additional revenues by steering you into these products that are highly profitable for them (but probably not for you).
4. Do You or Your Firm Receive Any Third-Party Compensation for Recommending Particular Investments? This is the ultimate question you want answered. Why? Because you need to know that your advisor has no incentive to recommend products that will shower him or her with commissions, kickbacks, consulting fees, trips, or other goodies.
5. What’s Your Philosophy When It Comes to Investing? This will help you to understand whether or not the advisor believes that he or she can beat the market by picking individual stocks or actively managed funds. Over time, that’s a losing game unless the person is a total superstar like Ray Dalio or Warren Buffett. Between you and me, they’re probably not.
6. What Financial Planning Services Do You Offer Beyond Investment Strategy and Portfolio Management? Investment help may be all you need, depending on your stage of life. But as you grow older and/or you become more wealthy with various holdings to manage, things often become more complex financially: for example, you may need to deal with saving for a child’s college education, retirement planning, handling your vested stock options, or estate planning. Most advisors have limited capabilities once they venture beyond investing. As mentioned, most aren’t legally allowed to offer tax advice due to their broker status. Ideally, you want an advisor who can bring tools for tax efficiency in all aspects of your planning—from your investment planning to your business planning to your estate planning.
7. Where Will My Money Be Held? A fiduciary advisor should always use a third-party custodian to hold your funds. For example, Fidelity, Schwab, and TD Ameritrade all have custodial arms that will keep your money in a secure environment. You then sign a limited power of attorney that gives the advisor the right to manage the money but never to make withdrawals. The good news about this arrangement is that if you ever want to fire your advisor, you don’t have to move your accounts. You can simply hire a new advisor who can take over managing your accounts without missing a beat. This custodial system also protects you from the danger of getting fleeced by a con man like Bernie Madoff.
PAUL TUDOR JONES
“The most important thing for me is that defense is 10 times more important than offense. . . . You have to be very focused on protecting the downside at all times.”
Paul Tudor Jones, who uses a “five-to-one rule” to guide his investment decisions. “I’m risking one dollar in the expectation that I’ll make five,”
RAY DALIO
“What I realized is nobody knows and nobody ever will,” he says. “So I have to design an asset allocation that, even if I’m wrong, I’ll still be okay.”
TONY TO ADVISORS
“Don’t even bring me an investment idea unless you first tell me how we can protect against or minimize the downside.”
TAXES
Cap gains of 20% versus 50% for income. “Believe me, all the billionaires I’ve ever met have one attribute in common: they and their advisors are really smart about taxes! They know that it’s not what they earn that counts. It’s what they keep. That’s real money, which they can spend, reinvest, or give away to improve the lives of others.”
Tony: “Of course, I don’t start with taxes. That would be a severe mistake. I always start with a focus on not losing money and on getting asymmetric risk/reward. Then, before making any investment, I make a point of asking, “How tax efficient is this going to be? And is there any way we could make it more tax efficient?”” Focus on after-tax returns and consider MLPs (p. 108).
DIVERSIFICATION
Diversify Across Different Asset Classes. Avoid putting all your money in real estate, stocks, bonds, or any single investment class.
Diversify Within Asset Classes. Don’t put all your money in a favorite stock such as Apple, or a single MLP, or one piece of waterfront real estate that could be washed away in a storm.
***Diversify Across Markets, Countries, and Currencies Around the World. We live in a global economy, so don’t make the mistake of investing solely in your own country.
Diversify Across Time. You’re never going to know the right time to buy anything. But if you keep adding to your investments systematically over months and years (in other words, dollar-cost averaging), you’ll reduce your risk and increase your returns over time.
David Swensen:
Of course, there are many different ways of diversifying. I discuss this in detail in Money: Master the Game, laying out the exact asset allocations recommended by Ray and other financial gurus, such as Jack Bogle and David Swensen. For example, David told me how individual investors can diversify by owning low-cost index funds that invest in six “really important” asset classes: US stocks, international stocks, emerging-market stocks, real estate investment trusts (REITs), long-term US Treasuries, and Treasury Inflation-Protected securities (TIPS). He even shared the precise percentages that he would recommend allocating to each.
Ray Dalio:
Aim for 15 uncorrelated bets. “The holy grail of investing is to have 15 or more good—they don’t have to be great—uncorrelated bets.” In other words, everything comes down to owning an array of attractive assets that don’t move in tandem. That’s how you ensure survival and success. In his case, this includes investments in stocks, bonds, gold, commodities, real estate, and other alternatives. Ray emphasized that, by owning 15 uncorrelated investments, you can reduce your overall risk “by about 80%,” and “you’ll increase the return-to-risk ratio by a factor of five. So, your return is five times greater by reducing that risk.”
SURVIVING/THRIVING IN BEAR MARKETS
Sir John Templeton’s famous remark: “The four most expensive words in investing are ‘This time it’s different.’
Tony co-author, Peter Mallouk: “Throughout the crash, we continued to invest heavily in the stock market on behalf of our clients. We took profits from strong asset classes such as bonds and invested the proceeds in weak asset classes such as US small-cap and large-cap stocks, international stocks, and emerging-market stocks. Instead of betting on individual companies, we bought index funds, which gave us instant diversification (at a low cost) across these massively undervalued markets”
On average, the market is down about one in every four years. You need to recognize this reality so you won’t be shocked when stocks tumble—and so you’ll avoid excessive risks. At the same time, it’s useful to recognize that the market has made money three out of every four years.
One reason why the best investors are so successful is that they override the natural tendency to be fearful during periods of market turmoil. Take Howard Marks. In the last 15 weeks of 2008, when financial markets were imploding, he told me that his team at Oaktree Capital Management invested about $500 million a week in distressed debt. That’s right! They invested half a billion dollars a week for 15 straight weeks during a time when many thought the end times had arrived! “It was obvious that everybody was suicidal,” Howard told me. “In general, that’s a good time to buy.”
ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS THAT CO-AUTHOR LIKES
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS). I’m sure you know people who’ve done well by investing directly in residential property. But most of us can’t afford to diversify by owning a slew of houses or apartments. That’s one reason why I like to invest in publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs).
Private Equity Funds
Master Limited Partnerships. I’m a big fan of MLPs, which are publicly traded partnerships that typically invest in energy infrastructure, including oil and gas pipelines. What’s the appeal? As Tony mentioned in the last chapter, we sometimes recommend MLPs because they pay out a lot of income in a tax-efficient way. They don’t make sense for many investors (especially if you’re young or have your money in an IRA), but they can be great for an investor who is over 50 and has a large, taxable account.
p. 132 — Doesn’t like gold or hedgefunds
REBALANCING
Burton Malkiel: Unsuccessful investors tend to “buy the thing that’s gone up and sell the thing that’s gone down.” One benefit of rebalancing, says Malkiel, is that it “makes you do the opposite,” forcing you to buy assets when they’re out of favor and undervalued. You’ll profit richly when they recover.
[Read more on investing from Tony here.]
February 18, 2017
Jerrod Carmichael – Uber-Productivity and Dangerous Comedy
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“Everyone’s looking for rules to follow, and the sooner you realize there aren’t any, the better art can be.”
– Jerrod Carmichael
Jerrod Carmichael (@NotoriousROD) is pushing the boundaries of comedy with his groundbreaking work in stand-up, television, and film. Now just 29 years old, what this driven North Carolina native has accomplished is mind-boggling, and 2017 is going to be his biggest year yet.
Jerrod stars in the hit NBC series The Carmichael Show, which he also writes and executive produces. The third season of the show premieres in 2017. In March of 2017, Jerrod will star in his second stand-up comedy special on HBO, directed by Bo Burnham. He made his debut on HBO in 2014 with his critically acclaimed one-hour special, Love at the Store, directed by Spike Lee.
Love at the Store is the funniest standup special I’ve seen in many years, and it’s the reason I reached out to Jerrod. It left me in hysterics on a transatlantic flight and terrified everyone. I couldn’t stop laughing out loud. It’s that good.
On the big screen this June, Jerrod joins the cast of Michael Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight, opposite Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, and Anthony Hopkins. He’ll also appear in James Franco’s The Masterpiece (originally titled The Disaster Artist), set to be released in 2017.
In the summer of 2016, Jerrod reprised his role as ‘Garf’ in the Universal comedy sequel Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising opposite Seth Rogen and Zac Efron. He also starred as ‘Freddy’ opposite Rose Byrne, Susan Sarandon, and J.K. Simmons in Lorene Scafaria’s The Meddler, which was released in April of 2016.
Jerrod recently announced his upcoming authorial debut with an as-yet-untitled memoir. The novel will be published by Random House.
Please enjoy my wide-ranging conversation with Jerrod Carmichael!
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 with a standup comedian? — Listen to Whitney Cummings on the podcast. In this episode, we discuss emotional intelligence, how to overcome workaholic tendencies, managing instant gratification and much, much more (stream below or right-click here to download):
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Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you — for free — exactly the portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.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 Jerrod Carmichael:
Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
The Carmichael Show on NBC
Love at the Store HBO special
Transformers: The Last Knight
The Masterpiece
Neighbors
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
The Meddler
The Sellout: A Novel by Paul Beatty
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X, Alex Haley, and Attallah Shabazz
Bogart by Ann Sperber
Discover the Power Within You: A Guide to the Unexplored Depths Within by Eric Butterworth
Shay Carl — From Manual Laborer to 2.3 Billion YouTube Views
Jerrod Carmichael on How He Fought NBC to Do a Show About Bill Cosby & Why He Thinks Diversity Should Not Be a Hot Topic — Emmys by Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood
When jotting down ideas, old-fashioned notebooks and pens do the trick for Jerrod.
Show Notes
My introduction to Jerrod and his work. [07:08]
We swap Evan Goldberg stories. [10:23]
First memory of being funny. [12:35]
On childhood freedom, family, and growing up in North Carolina. [16:12]
What drove Jerrod to move to Los Angeles and pursue comedy as a career? [18:36]
If comedy doesn’t work out, Jerrod can always go back to his last profession: selling shoes. [23:15]
Jerrod’s daily habits — and why he calls his mom first thing every morning. [24:21]
Jerrod’s first time on stage as a comedian. [30:41]
Advice Jerrod would give to a novice comic whose set just bombed. [31:38]
Why Jerrod was so persistent about taping his first special at The Comedy Store. [33:12]
Bryan Callen and Dov Davidoff bought Jerrod his first car in L.A. [34:38]
The benefits of being a creature of habit. [36:42]
Work music. [37:48]
Best decisions of Jerrod’s early career and having supportive friends who understand the importance of work. [38:25]
Where did Jerrod’s deep work ethic originate? [41:57]
Jerrod’s first time at “a proper dance party.” [43:19]
Common mistakes Jerrod sees novice comedians make. [44:30]
Three comedians Jerrod would combine into one super-comedian. [45:19]
What separates a good comedian from a great comedian? [47:30]
How does Jerrod’s onstage persona differ from his real-life persona? [49:26]
On achieving a state of “zero fear” before performing. [51:05]
Has Jerrod gone through any periods of self-doubt? [52:10]
Overcoming writer’s block. [53:06]
Books Jerrod likes. [55:36]
Advice to anyone who’s still trying to discover who they are. [57:42]
Who comes to mind when Jerrod hears the word “successful?” [1:00:24]
On the joy of sharing and the wisdom of cliches. [1:01:16]
If Jerrod were to give a TED Talk about something for which he’s not known, what would the topic be? [1:05:23]
Bad advice Jerrod hears frequently. [1:08:05]
Favorite failures? [1:09:42]
Establishing a unique style without getting pigeonholed. [1:11:49]
Did Jerrod have a plan B in case comedy didn’t work out? [1:14:41]
What might Jerrod do if he ever decided to take a break from comedy? [1:16:11]
What would Jerrod’s billboard message say? [1:17:14]
Unusual practices in the creative process. [1:20:44]
Recent purchase of $100 or less that had a positive impact. [1:22:47]
On thoughts and goals worth writing down. [1:23:38]
Parting thoughts and Jon & Vinny’s bolognese. [1:26:10]
People Mentioned
Bo Burnham
Spike Lee
Michael Bay
Mark Wahlberg
Josh Duhamel
Anthony Hopkins
James Franco
Seth Rogen
Zac Efron
Rose Byrne
Susan Sarandon
J.K. Simmons
Lorene Scafaria
Evan Goldberg
Jamar Neighbors
Argus Hamilton
Kwame Nyerere
Malcolm X
Steve Jobs
Bryan Callen
Dov Davidoff
Bret Ernst
Al Madrigal
Bill Burr
Richard Pryor
Ari Katcher
Lisa Goldberg
Tupac Shakur
Lewis Black
Ellen DeGeneres
Bill Cosby
Chris Rock
Dave Chappelle
Marvin Gaye
Humphrey Bogart
Jay Z
Jerry Seinfeld
Oprah Winfrey
Shay Carl
Groucho Marx
Oscar Wilde
Dr. Seuss
February 13, 2017
Mr. Money Mustache — Living Beautifully on $25-27K Per Year
Photo credit: Mrs. Money Mustache
“You’re not supposed to optimize for money; you’re supposed to optimize for happiness.”
– Mr. Money Mustache (aka Pete Adeney)
Mr. Money Mustache (@mrmoneymustache — Pete Adeney in real life) grew up in Canada in a family of mostly eccentric musicians. He graduated with a degree in computer engineering in the 1990s and worked in various tech companies before retiring at age 30. Pete, his wife, and their now eleven-year-old son live near Boulder, Colorado, and have not had real jobs since 2005.
This begs the question of “How?” In essence, they accomplished this early retirement by optimizing all aspects of their lifestyle for maximal fun at minimal expense, and by using basic index-fund investing. Their average annual expenses total a mere $25-27,000, and they do not feel in want of anything.
Since 2005, all three of them have explored a free-form life of interesting projects, side-businesses, and adventures.
In 2011, Pete started writing the Mr. Money Mustache blog about his philosophy, which has grown to reach about 23 million different people (and 300 million page views) since its founding. It has become a worldwide cult phenomenon, with a self-organizing community and incredible news coverage. This episode explores his story, philosophies, and routines.
Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with the one and only Mr. Money Mustache, Pete Adeney.
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 about earning and saving wealth? — In this episode with Ramit Sethi, we dig into the nitty-gritty tools, software, and experiments he’s used to turn a college side project into a multi-million-dollar business with 30+ employees. (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by Varidesk. You’ve probably heard of research concluding that sitting all day is terrible for you (“sitting is the new smoking” is a phrase I hear a lot). But standing all day isn’t an option for everyone, either.
My assistant and I have been enjoying the use of Varidesk, the middle ground that effortlessly converts your standard desk to a standing desk (and back again) in seconds. It comes fully assembled — just take it out of the box, put it on your desktop, and go. Models start at just $175; check out Varidesk.com to see which one might be the right fit for you. It even comes with a 30-day, hassle-free return policy if you decide it’s not your style. That’s Varidesk.com.
This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $5 billion under management. In fact, some of my good investor friends in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it’s all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams.
Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you — for free — exactly the portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.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 Mr. Money Mustache (aka Pete Adeney):
Early Retirement Extreme
The Rideau Canal Skateway and BeaverTails in Ottawa
FinCon Expo
The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement
What is a Vanguard index fund?
Great News — Early Retirement Doesn’t Mean You’ll Stop Working
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Top 10 Cars for Smart People
How to Carry Major Appliances on Your Bike
Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
Dune by Frank Herbert
Gratitude by Oliver Sacks
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakes
Less Is More: An Anthology of Ancient & Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity by Goldian VandenBroeck
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
The Scold: Mr. Money Mustache’s Retirement (Sort of) Plan. by Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker
The Life-Style Guru of Frugality (Pete’s point-by-point rebuttal to the above New Yorker profile)
Better, Faster, Stronger: Silicon Valley’s Self-Help Guru by Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker (my own equally imperfect profile in the same magazine)
Will MacAskill on Effective Altruism, Y Combinator, and Artificial Intelligence
Kevin Kelly: AI, Virtual Reality, and The Inevitable
A DIY Case Study: Building a Fancypants Detached Studio
Getting Started in Carpentry — Tools of the Trade
Books by John C. Bogle
The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life by J.L. Collins
Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, and Monique Tilford
The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read: The Proven Way to Beat the “Pros” and Take Control of Your Financial Future by Daniel R. Solin
The Little Book That Still Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt
The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success by Joel Greenblatt
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits by Joel Greenblatt
Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy F. Geithner
More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby
Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
Picking Warren Buffett’s Brain: Notes from a Novice (about my time at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting)
What is the S&P 500 Index?
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
When Energy Saving Becomes an Emergency
Mr. Money Mustache’s Big Mistake
7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat
Happiness is the Only Logical Pursuit
Moral Letters to Lucilius Letter 18: On Festivals and Fasting
Show Notes
Pete describes a typical trip to the grocery store. [06:28]
What are the average annual expenses for Pete’s family of three? [07:52]
When was the moment Pete realized he had such a devoted fan base? [08:39]
Is Pete a cult leader? [11:17]
If so, what are the tenets of Mustachianism? [12:30]
Pete talks about retiring at age 30. [13:49]
The math behind why you only need twenty-five times your annual spending to retire forever. [14:51]
Why most people who retire early still work — by choice. [17:28]
What misconceptions about Pete’s message are most common among critics and the media? [18:42]
What did Pete have for breakfast? [21:08]
Optimizing happiness on a personal level vs. succumbing to what society says will make you happy. [22:04]
Why spend more on a car than you would for investing in your future? [24:33]
Influential and recommended books. [28:19]
Is there a difference between Pete Adeney and Mr. Money Mustache? [35:05]
As a native Canadian, why does Pete choose to live in the United States? [36:54]
Pete responds to the New Yorker profile about him. [39:15]
Some thoughts on the math behind saving time and deciding which resources are worth consuming. [40:50]
When his expenses remain stable, what happens to the surplus money Pete saves? [44:53]
On removing negatives vs. adding positives: what are the questions Pete asks himself when making a purchasing decision? [46:33]
A recent happiness-boosting expenditure. [49:01]
We agree with Kevin Kelly about the rewards of manual labor. [50:54]
How does deciding to become a parent influence the math behind personal consumption? [55:03]
Pete and his wife pay their son for each mile he rides his bike (with interest on what he decides not to spend). [57:24]
Recommended resources for investing and personal finance. [59:49]
Who comes to mind when Pete hears the word “successful?” [1:11:38]
What are some of the luxuries Pete’s family enjoys — and which had the most positive impact on their lives? [1:15:16]
Favorite documentaries and movies. [1:17:36]
If Pete gave a TED Talk on something for which he’s not known, what would the topic be? [1:18:43]
What does Pete’s exercise regimen look like? [1:20:01]
Bad frugal/financial advice heard most often. [1:23:01]
Favorite failure? [1:25:31]
Without donating or investing it, how would Pete selfishly spend $100,000? [1:32:35]
What would Pete’s billboard say? [1:34:45]
Pete’s biggest challenge at the moment. [1:36:12]
In the last few years, is there anything Pete has significantly changed his mind about? [1:40:43]
Parting thoughts and a request to try voluntary hardship. [1:42:03]
People Mentioned
Jacob Lund Fisker
Daniel Gilbert
David J. Schwartz
Stephen Key
Will MacAskill
Kevin Kelly
Pablo Picasso
Ferris Bueller
John C. Bogle
Jim Collins
Warren Buffett
Joel Greenblatt
Tiger Woods
Charlie Munger
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Seneca
February 8, 2017
Soman Chainani — The School for Good and Evil
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“I don’t like depending on my art for income, because then I start to think in a mercenary way.”
– Soman Chainani
Soman Chainani (@SomanChainani) is a detailed planner, filmmaker, and New York Times best selling author.
Soman’s debut fiction series, The School for Good and Evil, has sold more than a million copies, has been translated into more than twenty languages across six continents, and will soon be a film from Universal Pictures.
A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University’s MFA Film Program, Soman began his career as a screenwriter and director, with his films playing at over 150 film festivals around the world. He was recently named to the Out100 and has received the $100,000 Shasha Grant and the Sun Valley Writer’s Fellowship, both for debut writers. Special thanks to mutual friend Brian Koppelman for making the introduction!
Grab a notebook, pay attention, and please enjoy my conversation with Soman Chainani!
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 podcast with an award-winning movie maker? — Listen to my conversation with Brian Koppelman, co-writer/producer of Rounders, The Illusionist, and Ocean’s Thirteen. In this episode, we explore how he got started, how he handles rejection, his big breaks, creative process, and much more (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by TrunkClub. I hate shopping with a passion. And honestly, I’m not good at it, which means I end up looking like I’m colorblind or homeless. Enter TrunkClub, which provides you with your own personal stylist and makes it easier than ever to shop for clothes that look great on your body. Just go to trunkclub.com/tim and answer a few questions, and then you’ll be sent a trunk full of awesome clothes. They base this on your sizes, preferences, etc. To get started, check it out at trunkclub.com/tim.
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 go to 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(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:
Twitter | Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
The School for Good and Evil Series Complete Box Set: Books 1, 2, and 3 by Soman Chainani
Universal Picks Up Rights to ‘School for Good and Evil’ by Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey
The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar
The Little Mermaid by Disney vs. The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen
Hansel and Gretel Standard Edition: A TOON Graphic by Neil Gaiman and Lorenzo Mattotti
The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco
Garden Cities of To-Morrow by Ebenezer Howard
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende and Ralph Manheim
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (which also happens to be my favorite audio book.)
Considering its source material, The Golden Compass really should have been a better movie.
Soman doesn’t cook, so he uses services like Portable Chef and Heart & Belly.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Trainer Dave at CrossFit NYC is “a non-bro, bro.”
The Eating Clubs of Princeton (I still donate to Terrace)
Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide by Tim Ferriss
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Cirque du Soleil: The Spark — Igniting the Creative Fire that Lives within Us All by John U. Bacon
Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within
Dior and I
Valentino: The Last Emperor
Lagerfeld Confidential
Ballet 422
The Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air
That Time South Park’s Trey Parker & Matt Stone Dropped Acid At The Oscars by Shannon Carlin, Refinery29
Theater of War
The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World by Alan Downs
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
Mother Dirt AO+ Mist Live Probiotic Skin Spray
My No-Soap, No-Shampoo, Bacteria-Rich Hygiene Experiment by Julia Scott, The New York Times Magazine
InnoGear Aromatherapy Essential Oil Diffuser
Majestic Pure Lavender Essential Oil, Therapeutic Grade
The One-Handed Concert Pianist, Nicholas McCarthy
Starbucks Mint Majesty Herbal Tea
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
The Man Who Studied 1,000 Deaths to Learn How to Live
Ed Cooke, Grandmaster of Memory, on Mental Performance, Imagination, and Productive Mischief
Show Notes
How did Brian Koppelman help Soman get back on his feet after a failed filmmaking project? [06:33]
Soman gives us the current state of “The School for Good and Evil” series. [08:47]
Why did Soman continue tutoring well after getting lucrative book and movie deals that took care of his financial needs? [10:02]
Soman talks about the small island town where he grew up and the factors that contributed to habits of high performance. [12:10]
On coming out as openly gay: why he’s envious of the way it’s done now compared to when he did it, and how his parents reacted. [14:45]
What appealed to Soman most about the idea of filmmaking? [20:35]
What advice does Soman have for the tennis novice? [22:05]
What makes a good coach? [26:32]
What are some of Soman’s weaknesses in tennis that manifest elsewhere? [28:29]
“The School for Good and Evil” is a way to revisit the darker origins of fairy tales in which heroes sometimes died as a consequence of their decisions. [31:51]
We talk about the city-building aspirations of Walt Disney, and how it relates to a future project Soman has in mind. [35:12]
On the flaws of heroes. [37:45]
Favorite failures? [39:03]
How marketing books for kids is different from marketing books for adults. [43:24]
The disaster that occurred during one of my first book signing events. [45:04]
Soman fills me in on the nuances of categorizing fiction for children and young adults. [47:40]
How does Soman protect the integrity of his work — especially when translating it from book to screen? [51:27]
How does Soman minimize the likelihood of stupid studio notes getting forced into his script? [54:56]
With irons in so many fires, Soman shares time management tips. [57:01]
Favorite ways to wind down at the end of the day. [1:03:04]
Bedtime rituals. [1:03:30]
What’s Soman reading now? [1:04:01]
A contrast of training styles. [1:08:29]
How Soman chose his personal trainer and agent. [1:12:20]
As a young student filmmaker, how did Soman get into so much debt? [1:15:04]
Would Soman recommend film school? [1:17:08]
What’s the problem with Stanford? [1:20:32]
We consider ourselves the odds and ends who don’t fit in anywhere. [1:22:02]
Books and documentaries that will inspire artists. [1:25:35]
What books has Soman gifted the most? [1:33:31]
The best investment of energy, money, or time Soman has ever made. [1:35:13]
Health tips for frequent travelers. [1:42:47]
If Soman were to give a TED Talk about something for which he’s not known, what would it cover? [1:45:10]
The problem with “follow your passion” as advice. [1:47:50]
Soman’s billboard, and musings on life and death. [1:49:51]
Parting thoughts. [1:52:09]
People Mentioned
Seth Godin
Noah Kagan
Brian Koppelman
Adam Robinson
Steven Spielberg
J.K. Rowling
Mike Belkin
Jimmy Connors
Derek Sivers
Walt Disney
Maria Tatar
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Hans Christian Andersen
Neil Gaiman
Glenn Beck
Joe Roth
David Magee
David Stogsdill
Justin Peck
Trey Parker
Matt Stone
Amelia Boone
Nicholas McCarthy
BJ Miller
Ed Cooke
February 5, 2017
Rust and Iron, Episode 2: Powerlifter Mark Bell
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In this episode of Rust and Iron®, we visit one of the most intense training environments in the world, Super Training Gym.
Founded by Mark Bell, Super Training Gym is oftentimes referred to as “the strongest gym in the west.” Prior to opening his own gym, he spent years studying and training under the legendary Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell.
In this video, Mark shares some of his favorite tools, odd exercises, and more.
Mark’s best “geared” lifts in competition include a 1,025-pound (465 kg) squat, an 832-pound (377 kg) bench press, and a 738-pound (335 kg) deadlift.
Mark is also the inventor of the patented Slingshot, a device utilized to assist a lifter in maintaining proper bench press form, while also allowing the lifter to use more weight or perform more reps.
I traveled to Sacramento for a full tour of Super Training Gym, which has been named one of the “Best Gyms in America” by Men’s Health magazine and also was awarded “Powerlifting Gym of the Year” in 2009.
Enjoy!
Selected Links from the Episode
Connect with Mark Bell
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Super Training Gym
Bars (numbers indicate exactly what is found at Super Training Gym)
4x Rogue Ohio Power Bars – general bars for any barbell exercise.
4x Rogue Westside Power Bars – general bars for any barbell exercise.
2x Rogue Ohio Deadlift Bars – For deadlift use only. This is a thinner bar with no knurling in the middle and it’s more flexible.
4x Texas Squat Bars – A thicker, longer squat bar designed to withstand 1,000lbs+.
Mastodon Squat Bar – Another thicker, longer squat bar, also designed to withstand 1,000lbs+.
Safety Squat Bar – This bar sits higher on your shoulders, which alleviates pressure off your shoulder and places more emphasis on your lower back.
Cambered Bar – A curved bar that alleviates pressure off your shoulders and changes the typical path of movement.
2x Buffalo Bars – A slightly curved bar that alleviates pressure from your shoulders while providing a similar feel to a straight bar.
2x Duffalo Bar – Chris Duffin’s version of a Buffalo Bar.
Axle Bar – A thicker bar that challenges your grip to add more difficulty on pressing exercises.
Hex Deadlift Bar – A hexagon shaped deadlift bar with neutral grip handles. This changes deadlift position and places less strain on your lower back.
Eleiko Power Bar – A general bar for any barbell exercises.
2x Texas Deadlift Bar – This is for deadlift use only. It’s a thinner bar with no knurling in the middle and it’s more flexible.
Okie Deadlift Bar – Also for Deadlift use only. Similar to the Texas bar, it’s thinner with no knurling in the middle and it’s more flexible.
Elite FTS Football Bar – This bar offers a variety of grip angles for pressing exercises or accessory work.
Curl Bar – Think arms–this is for biceps and triceps movements.
2x Neutral Grip Bars – Designed for pressing exercises, as well as biceps and triceps movements.
Texas Bench Bar – This is specifically used for competition for the bench press.
Racks
2x Rogue Monster Racks – A multi-function rack that works for a variety of uses and lifts.
Rogue Mono Squat Stand – A slim, mono-lift like stand designed for squatting.
3x Elite FTS Mono Lifts – This rack allows the squatter to use heavier weights without having to walk the weight back from the rack.
Elite FTS Power Rack – A multi-function rack that works for a variety of uses and lifts.
Benches
3x Competition Elite FTS Benches – This bench meets all powerlifting meet specifications and requirements.
Elite FTS Adjustable and Mobile Bench Platform – For bench press and other upper body accessory work.
Accessories
Rogue Dip Apparatus – Attaches to Rogue Monster Rack for dips.
Rogue GHR – To work your lower back and abs.
Elite FTS 45 Degree Back Ext.– Designed to target your lower back, spinal erectors, and glutes
2x Westside Reverse Hypers – Used to target your glutes and lower back after your main accessory work.
Sorinex Back Attack – This piece of equipment works similar to good mornings, but it places your body in a fixed position.
Precor Cable Tower – This cable machine allows for multiple exercise options by adjusting to different heights and angles and provides many different pulley attachments.
Pit Shark Belt Squat – This mimics a squat but with no upper body strain.
2x Rack Supported Mobility WOD Rollers – These foam rollers will help you fix problem areas on your body that are tight or causing pain.
2x Mobility WOD Super Novas – One of our favorite pieces of equipment for body work.
7x Rogue Barbell Stands – These hold up the barbells in the gym.
7x Rogue Weight Trees – Used to store all of the plates in Super Training Gym.
Rogue Rings – Used for muscle-ups, pullups, and rows.
Rogue Boards – Used for bench press board presses
Rogue Standing T-Bar Row – For targeted back work and pulling strength.
30x Rogue Bands – For accommodating resistance on any exercise.
30x 20lbs Chains – For accommodating resistance on any exercise.
Deadlift Platform – Where you can deadlift and use bands safely.
50x Sling Shots – Overloading and injury preventing bench press tool designed by Super Training founder Mark Bell.
4x Elite FTS Adjustable Boxes – For box squats.
4x Spud Inc. Ropes – Used for accessory and cable movements.
2x Spud Inc Belts – For belted squats.
Concept 2 Rower – For HIIT Training and cardio.
Weights
Rogue Training Bumpers – Allows you to drop the weight from an elevated position without causing damage to the floor.
Rogue Competition Bumpers – High-quality weights that are calibrated to the exact weight.
Custom Super Training Dumbells– From 5lbs to 150lbs
February 2, 2017
Lessons from Warren Buffett, Bobby Fischer, and Other Outliers
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“Geniuses have very limited toolsets — they have a hammer, and their genius is in looking for nails.”
– Adam Robinson
Adam Robinson (@IAmAdamRobinson) first appeared on this podcast in the “Becoming the Best Version of You” episode (#210) alongside Josh Waitzkin (chess, jiu-jitsu, investing) and Ramit Sethi (personal finance, entrepreneurship).
By popular demand, this is a dedicated episode of Adam’s stories and life lessons.
Adam Robinson has made a lifelong study of outflanking and outsmarting the competition. He is a rated chess master who was awarded a Life Title by the United States Chess Federation. As a teenager, he was personally mentored by Bobby Fischer in the 18 months leading up to his winning the world championship.
Then, in his first career, he developed a revolutionary approach to taking standardized tests as one of the two original co-founders of The Princeton Review. His paradigm-breaking — or “category killing,” as they say in publishing — test-prep book, The SAT: Cracking the System, is the only test-prep book ever to have become a New York Times bestseller. After selling his interest in The Princeton Review, Adam turned his attention in the early ’90s to the then-emerging field of artificial intelligence, developing a program that could analyze text and provide human-like commentary. He was later invited to join a well-known quant fund to develop statistical trading models, and since, he has established himself as an independent global macro advisor to the chief investment officers of a select group of the world’s most successful hedge funds and family offices.
In his spare time, he’s also become pen pals with Warren Buffett.
This is a wide-ranging conversation (aka conversational parkour) with lots of takeaways. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it!
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 Adam Robinson? — In this episode, we discuss a variety of topics on business, wealth, and happiness, and are joined by Ramit Sethi and Josh Waitzkin (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service, led by technologists from places like Apple and world-famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $4B under management. In fact, some of my good investor friends in Silicon Valley have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it’s all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams.
Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you — for free — exactly the portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Or, as I would, you can set it and forget it. Well worth a few minutes: wealthfront.com/tim.
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 4-Hour Body, 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, which is non-spec. 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 Adam:
Becoming the Best Version of You (Adam’s first appearance on this show)
What Smart Students Know: Maximum Grades. Optimum Learning. Minimum Time. by Adam Robinson
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits by Joel Greenblatt
Regulation Fair Disclosure
Blythedale Children’s Hospital
My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer
Abandoned NY: Inside Grossinger’s Crumbling Catskill Resort Hotel by Pablo Iglesias Maurer, Gothamist
Iocane powder is noted as being one of the deadliest poisons known to man.
The Karate Kid
Granny Smith apples
Laurence Olivier’s To Be Or Not To Be soliloquy from Hamlet
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
The 3Bs of Creativity: Bed, Bath, and Bus by Jim Briggs
Are Psychedelic Drugs the Next Medical Breakthrough?
The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide — Risks, Micro-Dosing, Ibogaine, and More
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby
What is a hedge fund?
Stoicism Resources and Recommendations
What is Hedonism?
The Tao of Seneca: Letters from a Stoic Master
What is Epicureanism?
The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition by Jalal al-Din Rumi
Beeman’s Gum
Laird Hamilton, The King of Big Wave Surfing (Plus: Gabrielle Reece and Brian MacKenzie)
Show Notes
An anecdote about Warren Buffett’s day planner and thoughts on what Warren Buffett actually does. [06:51]
Can you be a stock market gladiator? [08:36]
Planning on investing? What is your edge? [10:48]
Warren Buffett’s one-sentence secret to being a great investor. [12:52]
How Adam turned a chance encounter on the street with his hero — the reclusive chess champion Bobby Fischer — into a lasting friendship. [14:51]
On informed simplicity via Bobby Fischer, Picasso, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. [28:14]
The limited toolset of genius. [30:47]
The “read far and wide” genius of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. [32:24]
Looking for patterns and things that don’t make sense. [34:05]
Adam’s decision-making process for choosing opportunities. [38:15]
The last thing Adam’s father said to him before passing. [41:30]
Adam’s nutritional odyssey: Granny Smith apples for optimizing function (and avoiding English institutional food). [44:31]
The three rules for success. [53:03]
On coping with depression and learning to focus on needs of others over needs of the self. [56:14]
If you suffer from bouts of depression, become aware of the biochemical markers that forewarn of its onset. [1:01:12]
The three Bs of creativity. [1:02:57]
On hearing and paying attention to what the unconscious mind is trying to tell you. [1:06:00]
Does Adam view himself as a risk-taker? [1:15:20]
On hedge funds that don’t hedge. [1:17:22]
Stoicism vs. Hedonism [1:21:13]
Philosophers or thinkers Adam recommends. [1:27:03]
How is the next day different when deciding to break from the past? [1:30:39]
A gambler walks into a bar… [1:36:00]
An example of magic and being one-upped as the world’s best gift-giver. [1:42:10]
The fulcrum moment: “Now is the time to act.” [1:48:15]
Accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative. Create delight. [1:49:45]
People Mentioned
Josh Waitzkin
Ramit Sethi
Warren Buffett
Bobby Fischer
Molly
Joel Greenblatt
Charlie Munger
Eleanor Roosevelt
Forrest Gump
Ferris Bueller
Magnus Carlsen
Samuel Reshevsky
Kobe Bryant
Stephen Curry
Boris Spassky
Muhammad Ali
Dread Pirate Roberts
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Pablo Picasso
Rembrandt
Abraham Maslow
Sam Zell
Tony Robbins
Elizabeth Taylor
Martin Polanco
Dan Engle
James Fadiman
Woody Allen
Marcus Aurelius
Seneca
Charles Darwin
Lucilius Junior
Epicurus
Jalal al-Din Rumi
Plato
Gabrielle Reece
