Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 85

Jamie Foxx Part 2 – Bringing the Thunder

“If I told you that Oprah Winfrey is now a white man…what would you say?” – Jamie Foxx

Jamie Foxx (@iamjamiefoxx) returns to the show for a special role-reversal where he interviews me for his radio show.

For those of you who didn’t hear Jamie’s first appearance on the podcast, which was voted 2015 Podcast of the Year by Product Hunt, you can check it out here.

In this episode, you’ll hear many stories and topics that haven’t been discussed before — including Jamie’s exploration of past lives. It goes in many different directions, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

If you only have 5 minutes, listen to the first few minutes because Jamie is the consummate performer, which is what you’d expect from an Academy Award-winning actor, Grammy Award-winning musician, and famous standup and improv comedian. He has all the tools in the toolkit.

Please enjoy this raucous romp!

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 Jamie Foxx? — In this episode, we discuss Jamie’s workout routine, what he learned during In Living Color, and he shares some of his best impressions (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by MeUndies. Have you ever wanted to be as powerful as a mullet-wearing ninja from the 1980’s, or as sleek as a black panther in the Amazon? Of course you have, and that’s where MeUndies comes in. I’ve spent the last six months wearing underwear from these guys 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I’ve ever owned. Their materials are 2x softer than cotton, as evaluated using the Kawabata method. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim to see my current faves (some are awesomely ridiculous, like the camo).

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. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. 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. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim.

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 Jamie Foxx:

Periscope | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

2015 Podcast of the Year – Jamie Foxx on Workout Routines, Success Habits, and Untold Hollywood Stories
FoxxHole Radio
Songs I love but couldn’t play:

CéU – Malemolência (one of the hottest voices and faces ever)
Babymetal – Karate
Federico Aubele – Esta Noche
Sevendust – Splinter (from The 4-Hour Body trailer)


Culver Academies
DonorsChoose.org
Heat shock proteins
Wolverine
The Punisher
Batman
Stanford Cooling Tool May Improve Performance of Athletes, Soldiers
Princeton University
Japan: The Official Guide
Jada Pinkett Smith Responds to Chris Rock’s Oscars 2016 Dis: ‘We Gotta Keep It Moving’
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Tosh.0
The Howard Stern Show
Hannah Montana
The Tao of Seneca: Letters from a Stoic Master
Who Is Amy Pascal? Meet the Exec Tangled Up in Sony’s Leaked Emails by Sarah Begley, Time Magazine
Stanford Graduate School of Business
The New York Times Best Sellers
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman
The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life
Polyphasic sleep
Keen On… Tim Ferriss: The (Female) 15-Minute Orgasm via TechCrunch
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk by Al Ries and Jack Trout (original edition)
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
Working On My Novel by Cory Arcangel
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid
How to Live Like a Rock Star (or Tango Star) in Buenos Aires…
‘4-Hour Workweek’ Author Tim Ferriss Campaigns In Support Of Psychedelic Research by Aaron Kase, Reset.me
Pu-erh tea
MCT oil
AcroYoga

Show Notes

The “Oprah Winfrey of audio.” [07:20]
Who am I and where do I come from? [10:47]
How wrestling taught me that weakness could be strength (and put me on the path of self-experimentation). [12:10]
Why I’m so sensitive to heat. [15:23]
The comic book heroes of my youth. [16:43]
Being a test subject collecting data on heat tolerance for soldiers at Stanford University. [17:23]
What my first experience abroad taught me about the arbitrary nature of rules. [20:20]
Exploring my “past life.” [24:09]
Was Quentin Tarantino a black man in a past life? [26:36]
On the difficulty of learning Spanish, but picking up Japanese with ease. [27:28]
The dangers of political correctness in modern America. [29:18]
Using comedy to speak the truth equally. [32:13]
Daniel Tosh and his special gift. [35:26]
The Internet gives every genius and every idiot a voice. [36:26]
We’re all flawed; saying stupid things shouldn’t remove your ability to contribute to society. [37:44]
What’s a “bigoteer?” [38:30]
How Stoic philosophy has helped me make better decisions in life without being reactive. [41:45]
How I got involved in the world of tech and podcasting. [45:22]
My reaction when my editor told me I’d hit The New York Times best seller list. [48:18]
Let’s talk about sex. [51:10]
The key to the female orgasm and an explanation of orgasmic meditation. [52:15]
The ingredients for getting the podcast to 70 million downloads. [56:50]
Why I wrote the book that I couldn’t find and became the founding father of the “lifestyle design” category. [59:49]
Why I find value in asking common rapid-fire questions in interviews. [1:01:30]
People who aren’t doing what everyone else is doing. [1:02:48]
Artistic death is creativity by consensus. [1:06:33]
With great power comes great responsibility. [1:08:31]
Taking time off the grid. [1:14:03]
How I went to Buenos Aires for four weeks and Tango made me stay for nine months. [1:15:48]
How Jamie imagines heaven. [1:18:32]
People are always in search of the right answers, but they should really be looking for the right questions. [1:21:35]
What’s my morning routine? [1:24:03]
The benefits of AcroYoga. [1:25:06]
The real value of cheat day. [1:28:00]
How to achieve big accomplishments. [1:30:40]

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Naval Ravikant
Oprah Winfrey
Joe Rogan
Céu
Donald Trump
John Buxton
Charles Best
Stephen Colbert
Quentin Tarantino
Jay Leno
Chris Rock
Jada Pinkett Smith
Daniel Tosh
Mae West
Don Imus
Howard Stern
Don Rickles
Miley Cyrus
Marcus Aurelius
Seneca the Younger
Amy Pascal
Matt Mullenweg
Daniel Day-Lewis
Adele
Beyoncé
Macklemore
Federico Aubele
Jason Nemer

How Creatives Should Negotiate

 

“There are more valuable things than money in the short term.” – Ramit Sethi

This episode is actually a workshop on negotiating. Out of all the resources out there on how to negotiate, 99 percent of them are piss-poor — but I guarantee you this isn’t one of them.

Your teacher in this episode is Ramit Sethi. These lessons are all taken from a multi-day course Ramit taught on CreativeLive.com, which is one of the fastest growing startups. [Full disclosure: I am an advisor.]

If you are an entrepreneur, perhaps just getting into entrepreneurship, thinking of taking the dive into entrepreneurship, or you just want to get out of a trap of your own making, I think you’ll find a lot here. Pay a lot of attention to the exact scripting that Ramit uses. And if a particular section isn’t clicking with you, just skip ahead 20 minutes or so and you’ll find yourself in a new lesson.

In this episode, you will learn about:

Positioning
Smart negotiation vs. dumb negotiation
Overcoming mental barriers related to entrepreneurship
What you should charge or how you should think about charging for your services
Mock interviews
And much, much more

If you only have 5 minutes, listen to this short segment on how to overcome the mindset that limits your ability to sell.

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 podcast with Ramit Sethi? — In this episode, 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 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.

Visit trunkclub.com/tim, answer a few questions, and then you’ll be sent a trunk full of awesome clothes. They base this on your sizes, preferences, etc. The trunk is then delivered free of charge both ways, so you only pay for clothes that you keep. If you keep none, it costs you nothing. 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 audio books. 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 between more than 180,000 audio programs. 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 Ramit Sethi: Website | Twitter
Ramit Sethi on Persuasion and Turning a Blog Into a Multi-Million-Dollar Business (our first conversation)
CreativeLive.com
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk by Al Ries and Jack Trout (original edition)
Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations by William Ury
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton
Secrets of Power Negotiating, 15th Anniversary Edition: Inside Secrets from a Master Negotiator by Roger Dawson
Breaking the Time Barrier by Mike McDerment and Donald Cowper
How to Negotiate Lower Car Insurance by Ramit Sethi
3 Ready-to-Use Scripts to Save Money and Build Your Career by Ramit Sethi
Ramit’s 2007 Guide to Kicking Ass
Clarity Media Group
Bonuses for blog post readers:

5 Resumes That Win
List of Freelancing Ideas
Freelance Income Roadmap
Freelance Email Proposals
5 Negotiation Case Studies
VIP Email Teardown
3 Negotiation Scripts



Show Notes

Optimizing your spending with credit card companies, cable and telephone providers, the gym — you name it. [07:46]
Ramit’s word-for-word negotiation script (tested with tens of thousands of people and multiple companies). [11:43]
Why you shouldn’t feel guilty about negotiating. [13:01]
Mock negotiation (waiving a credit card late fee). [14:50]
The importance of rapport. [17:28]
Is rent negotiable? [18:50]
Negotiating even when you’ve already got the best price in town. [21:21]
How can you negotiate if you don’t have a perfect track record or the advantage of being a long-time customer? [22:28]
What to do when clients use your negotiation tactics on you? [23:18]
Are there gender differences in negotiation? [25:32]
How to answer the “What are your salary requirements?” question. [28:19]
The difference between theory and practice in negotiation. [31:21]
Your credit card was just sold to a new company. How long should you wait to negotiate with the new company? [31:55]
Can you negotiate insurance? [33:34]
Can you negotiate with monopolies? [34:32]
What Ramit learned by videotaping his negotiation style that changed everything. [35:43]
Why being “too busy” is a good problem for creatives to have. [43:08]
How to overcome the mindset of “I hate selling myself.” [43:53]
Understanding the needs of your client base, upping your rate, and justifying it (to yourself) without guilt. [50:25]
When you’re comfortable with your rates, you can be okay when clients say “No thanks.” [53:54]
Finding ways to overdeliver. [56:40]
How do introverts talk business? [57:47]
How much should you charge? [59:12]
Should you ever work for free? [1:00:40]
How to go from one client to many. [1:05:55]
How do you research what your competitors are charging when many of them don’t discuss it until they’re trying to close a sale? [1:08:10]
How do you handle price shoppers? [1:10:41]
For hourly consulting, is it better to price in packages? [1:13:22]
Do you have to tell a story to convey emotion every time you’re pitching a client? [1:14:52]
How powerful is a smile? [1:17:35]
How to answer, “What is your greatest weakness?” [1:20:56]
Reiterating the importance of storytelling. [1:26:44]
How to answer the “Among all candidates, why should I choose you?” question. [1:28:13]
How can you practice? [1:36:14]

People Mentioned

Bruce Lee
BJ Fogg

The Canvas Strategy — What Ben Franklin and Bill Belichick Have in Common

Photo credit: ©Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media.

“The person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction, just as the canvas shapes the painting.” – Ryan Holiday

My job is usually to deconstruct world-class performers from the best in the military, entertainment, politics, chess, and athletics, and tease out the routines and habits that you can use.

In this particular episode, I’m going to share an overarching strategy that has been used by many of the greats. That includes Ben Franklin, legendary NFL coach Bill Belichick, and many, many more. It is also how I built my network, how my first book hit the tipping point, how I became successful at angel investing, and the list goes on.

Of course, if you’re interested in the networking part of it, you can also read the blog post and listen to the episode, How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time. But that is additional credit.

The secret is “canvas strategy.” And in this episode, Ryan Holiday, author of the new book, Ego Is the Enemy, will teach you how to apply canvas strategy to your life. (The book is also the newest addition to my book club, which can be found at audible.com/timsbooks.)

Please enjoy this excerpt with Ryan Holiday from Ego Is the Enemy.

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

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. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. 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. Well worth a few minutes to explore: 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. 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 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 Ryan Holiday: Website | Twitter
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday (also on Audible)
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
The Life Of Belisarius by Lord Mahon
Epigrams by Martial
Silence Dogood, the Busy-Body, and Early Writings by Benjamin Franklin

Show Notes

“Great men have almost always shown themselves as ready to obey as they afterwards proved able to command.” [06:53]
The definition (and pronunciation) of anteambulo. [07:04]
The problem with the patron-client system. [08:00]
The timeless indignity of the intern. [09:34]
Find canvases for other people to paint on (why being a path-clearing anteambulo for someone else also clears a path for you). [11:00]
Obeisance is the way forward. [11:52]
How Benjamin Franklin used the canvas strategy to learn how to be a better writer by anonymously penning the Dogood Letters. [12:32]
Franklin saw the benefit in making other people look good — even by letting them take credit for his work. [13:08]
Bill Belichick excels as a coach by embracing parts of the job other coaches usually hated. [13:25]
Bill Belichick’s father taught him how to use the canvas strategy to become a rising star without threatening or alienating anyone. [14:27]
Succumbing to the trappings of ego make using the canvas strategy impossible. [14:50]
Greatness comes from grunt work. [15:22]
The cumulative value of the canvas strategy. [15:41]
The cumulative effects of shunning obeisance. [16:37]
The person who clears the path — the lowly anteambulo — ultimately controls its direction, just as the canvas shapes the painting. [18:34]

People Mentioned

Benjamin Franklin
Bill Belichick
Ryan Holiday
Lord Mahon
Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial)
Mela
Seneca the Younger
Petillius
Michelangelo
Leonardo da Vinci
Silence Dogood
James Franklin
Steve Belichick

EXCLUSIVE: Unpublished Material from NYT Magazine Story on Cancer Metabolism

This post is very exciting for me.

It covers a subject I care deeply about (cancer), and it’s exclusive, unpublished material from a New York Times Magazine feature entitled “An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death.” Written by Sam Apple, this piece got a lot of attention.

Now, here on this blog, you can read what didn’t make it in.

First, some context and definitions are in order, as I can’t reproduce the NYT piece in full. Let’s set the tone with a few paragraphs from a previous cancer-related post with Peter Attia, MD. These words are mine:

“With 19 billion capillaries in our bodies, on average, virtually 100% of us have microscopic cancers by the time we’re 70 years old, more than 40% of us by age 40. There’s a good chance you have pinhead-size cancers in your body right now. These “cancers without disease” aren’t typically a problem, as they can’t grow larger than 0.5 mm without a blood supply.

But if cancer cells get constant blood and glucose? Well, that’s when you can end up dead.”

Also…

“It’s also important to realize that killing cancer cells isn’t hard. Doctors have known how to do this for 100 years. The real questions is: how do you exploit a weakness in cancer that is NOT a weakness in normal cells? Killing cancer is easy. Killing cancerous cells while not killing non-cancerous cells has proven incredibly difficult.”

Moving on to definitions, the most important is the “Warburg Effect.”

Below is a summary from the same Dr. Attia piece, and the words are his this time. Citations can be found in the original:

“In 1924 a scientist named Otto Warburg happened upon a counterintuitive finding.

Cancer cells, even in the presence of sufficient oxygen, underwent a type of metabolism cells reserved for rapid energy demand – anaerobic metabolism. In fact, even when cancer cells were given additional oxygen, they still defaulted into using only glucose to make ATP via the anaerobic pathway. This is counterintuitive because this way of making ATP is typically a last resort for cells, not a default, due to the relatively poor yield of ATP.

This observation begs a logical question: Do cancer cells do this because it’s all they can do? Or do they deliberately ‘choose’ to do this?

The first place to look is at the mitochondria of the cancer cells. Though not uniformly the case, many cancers do indeed appear to have defects in their mitochondria that prevent them from carrying out oxidative phosphorylation.”

How can we capitalize on these apparent defects?

Researchers will continue to debate the causes of cancer and best treatments, but–in the meantime–there appear to be promising dietary interventions we can use with little to no downside.  I’m no doctor, nor do I play one on the Internet, but that’s my current conclusion.

I’ll let Sam pick up the thread from here. Any comments in brackets are mine. Enjoy!

Enter Sam Apple

Hello, Tim Ferriss readers. I’m writing here today because I recently wrote a feature for The New York Times Magazine on Otto Warburg and the revival of cancer metabolism research.

I’m happy about how the piece turned out and very flattered by the kind responses I’ve received. But, as is almost always the case when I publish magazine articles, a significant portion of what I wrote never made it into print. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Tim has been nice enough to offer to publish some of the snippets that the Times didn’t have enough space for. As his loyal fans will know, Tim has been at the forefront of this story for a long time, so I’m really delighted to be able to contribute to this blog.

Another bit of good news: I’ve recently heard from some editors at publishing houses who are interested in a book on this topic. If you’d like to be notified if and when the book becomes available, please email me at samapple.update [at] gmail.com with “book” as the subject.

Okay, enough chitchat. Let’s get to the science…

The Ketogenic Diet

I’ve received a number of emails asking why I didn’t mention the ketogenic diet in my article. After all, if the aim of metabolic therapies is to disrupt cancer’s use of nutrients, it follows that a diet that lowers glucose and insulin levels may be beneficial. In fact, I had discussed the ketogenic diet and the fascinating research being carried out by Thomas Seyfried and Dominic D’Agostino, among others, in my original draft. Here’s a passage that got lost along the way:

On the surface, the strategy of using drugs to cut off a tumor’s supply of nutrients is not unlike the strategy advocated by Thomas Seyfried, at Boston College, who is the author of Cancer as a Metabolic Disease. Seyfried is among the few researchers who believe Warburg got the whole story right and that cancer originates with the cell’s inability to produce sufficient energy with oxygen. Other researchers aren’t seeing the damage to respiration, Seyfried argues, because they’re looking at cancer cells outside of the body and failing to appreciate that cells in culture behave differently. Warburg “had this thing pegged,” Seyfried says.

Unlike most cancer metabolism researchers, Seyfried is primarily focused on non-toxic therapies, particularly the ketogenic diet, which has been used as a therapy for epilepsy for decades. The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, very low-carbohydrate diet, though Seyfried believes the diet also has to restrict calories to be effective against cancer.  Without access to carbohydrates, which breakdown to glucose, the liver turns to fat and produces ketone bodies, an alternative fuel source that very few cancers are able to use.

[TIM: On such a diet, 95% of the ketones produced are derived from beta-oxidation of fatty bodies. A small % comes from ketogenic amino acids (AAs) such as leucine and lysine. That said, a high-protein diet doesn’t work well for inducing ketosis, as the liver will convert AAs into glucose via the process of gluconeogenesis.]

Seyfried, together with Dominic D’Agostino of the University of South Florida College of Medicine [TIM: Dom’s advice has led me to conduct monthly fasting experiments], is now investigating the combination of ketogenic diets and non-toxic therapies. When Seyfried, D’Agostino, and colleagues combined a ketogenic diet with hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) in a mouse model of aggressive metastatic brain cancer, they were able to dramatically shrink tumors and increase the average survival time from 31.2 days for mice on a standard diet to 55.5 days, a significant increase for an advanced cancer.

[TIM: For HBOT protocol, Dominic used 2.5 Atmospheres (2.5A) for 60 minutes on Mon, Wed, and Fri. Including pressurization and depressurization, each session was ~90 minutes.]

When they did the experiment again and added synthetically made ketone supplements to the non-toxic therapies, the results were even better [TIM: Here’s the study. Dominic adds, “Therapeutic ketosis with hyperbaric oxygen targeted tumor metabolism while simultaneously inducing oxidative damage in cancer cells by triggering an overproduction of oxygen free radicals”]. “Everybody’s always saying, ‘We want something that targets the cancer cell but spares the normal cell,’” Seyfried says. “The ketogenic diet does that.”

More on Diet, Glucose, and Insulin

Insulin, among its other roles in the body, tells a cell to take up glucose, a fact that makes it a natural suspect for a connection to the Warburg effect. When insulin resistance develops, cells are no longer as responsive to insulin, and the pancreas responds by producing more and more, at least until it wears out and diabetes begins to develop.

Too much insulin signaling and glucose uptake aren’t necessarily a problem for all cells, at least when it comes to cancer. Muscle and fat cancers may be extremely rare because the cells of those tissues have a way to store excess glucose and don’t need to metabolize it right away. Craig Thompson, the president and chief executive of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, thinks the same would be true of liver cancer, if not for inflammation from hepatitis infections. Breast, endometrial, and colon cells, by contrast, are rarely exposed to insulin signaling under normal conditions. “It’s a little scary to think that those pathways are getting turned on by 50 times higher insulin in your serum, 24-hours a day,” says Lewis Cantley,  the director of the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College.

It was Cantley who brought the worlds of insulin signaling and cancer metabolism research together with his discovery of the of the enzyme phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) in the mid-1980s. PI3K is part of a pathway of proteins that regulates the effects of insulin and IGF-1 (a closely related hormone) inside of a cell. When Cantley made his initial discovery, it wasn’t immediately obvious that it had implications for cancer, though by the end of the decade Cantley had become convinced he was onto something significant. The rest of the cancer community began to pay attention in the late 1990s, when other researchers discovered that PTEN, the tumor suppressor gene that has the job of slowing the PI3K pathway down — Cantley calls it “the braking system for PI3K” — is one of the most commonly deleted genes in many cancers. Mutations in the PI3K pathway have since been found in up to 80 percent of all cancers. These are the same cancers that use the Warburg effect and show up on PET scans.

According to Cantley, the PI3K pathway can be activated by mutations even when there is no extra insulin around or by extra insulin even when mutations haven’t yet appeared. But there’s reason to think that long-term elevated insulin, driven by diet, is often the first step in the process. Once the cells begin to take up more and more glucose, Cantley explains, they also produce more and more reactive oxygen species, or free radicals, which can lead to mutations — including mutations in the PI3K pathway. These mutations can further accelerate glucose uptake until the cell no longer even needs the insulin to obtain its steady influx of glucose.

Thompson found his interest turning to PI3K pathway upon his discovery of the role of AKT in regulating glucose uptake. AKT is part of the same pathway as PI3K, which is now also referred to as the PI3K/AKT pathway. That insulin signaling could be driving many cancers fit perfectly with Thompson’s research. Thompson had discovered that cells are supposed to be able to carefully control when other cells eat. The bombardment of insulin and IGF-1 signaling makes a mockery of that delicate regulation.

It’s also possible that, in some cases, insulin resistance contributes to cancer only indirectly, by causing the pancreas to peter out and stop producing enough insulin. When that happens, glucose levels rise in the blood and diabetes begins to set in. Whether it’s the elevated insulin or the elevated glucose that follows that’s driving the growth of tumors can be difficult to tease out. Matthew Vander Heiden, a leading cancer metabolism researcher at MIT, says that whether insulin or glucose is playing a more important role may depend on the given cancer. “Both probably contribute,” he says.

[TIM:  This is one reason I tend to avoid not only high glycemic-load foods (the usual carb-rich suspects), but also insulinemic (insulin-spiking) foods that fly under the radar due to low glycemic load/index, including many types of dairy and non-caloric sweeteners. Explanations for the latter range from bitterness to microbiome impact.]

Other Top Cancer Metabolism Researchers and a Note of Caution

Writing an article of this nature is always a bit of a balancing act. On the one hand, I’m genuinely enthusiastic about the Warburg revival and think it holds enormous promise for cancer treatment, and, in particular, the role of diet in cancer prevention. But with respect to treating most cancers, there remains a long way to go before we’ll know if metabolic therapies live up to their promise. Many of the researchers I spoke with see a future of metabolic therapies used in conjunction with other therapies. And while almost everyone I talked to was optimistic about the future of metabolism drugs, a number of the researchers stressed the challenges ahead.

Matthew Vander Heiden of MIT (mentioned above), studies the biochemical pathways that cells use to fuel their growth. He believes that targeting metabolism might leave tumors with fewer opportunities to evade treatments than targeting mutations, but also stresses that metabolism is extremely complicated. “I really push the idea that there’s not one cancer metabolism,” says Vander Heiden, noting that a liver cell that becomes a tumor might require different metabolic changes than a lung cell that becomes a tumor.

David Sabatini of MIT’s Whitehead Institute, also struck a note of caution during our conversation. Sabatini discovered the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) while still a graduate student at Johns Hopkins. The mTOR pathway is a critical regulator of growth in many species, but despite — or perhaps because of — his significant contribution to the field, Sabatini has come to appreciate the many challenges cancer metabolism researchers still face: “Pathways,” according to Sabatini, “can go in many, many different directions and change very, very quickly.”  Sabatini says that he currently sees the most hope for therapies that are able to target cancer cells where they differ from other proliferating cells, which can also turn to the Warburg effect when growing.

Peter Attia, a prominent doctor who spent two years as a surgical oncology fellow at the National Cancer Institute [in Steve Rosenberg’s immunotherapy lab] and served as the president of the Nutrition Science Initiative, has been publicly drawing attention to the promise of metabolic therapies for a number of years on his blog, The Eating Academy. But Attia also told me that it’s naïve to assume that metabolic therapies are going to be “the Holy Grail.” “We have to give cancer a hell of a lot more respect than that,” Attia says. Attia sees a future where chemotherapy, and perhaps also radiation for local control, remain in the arsenal but are accompanied by immune-based therapies, possibly hyperbaric oxygen, and “huge amounts of metabolic therapy” — including dietary changes. “I think that at that point you can turn cancer into a chronic disease,” says Attia [TIM: I spoke with Peter and he added “Basically, think of HIV. You die with it, perhaps, but not necessarily from it.”]. “You’ve got to be able to exploit every weakness.”

I was also sorry that I didn’t have more room to discuss the work of Peter Pedersen, a biochemist at Johns Hopkins, who was among the relatively few cancer researchers who continued to pursue Warburg’s ideas about tumors and energy long after they fell out of fashion. Pedersen still remembers the day, around the time he came to Johns Hopkins in 1964, that he spotted parts of a device known as a Warburg apparatus left out in the hallway with the trash. The Warburg apparatus, which measures respiration, had already been replaced by more modern technology, but the symbolism was hard to miss. According to Pedersen, there was already “little or no interest” in Warburg at the time. (Pedersen also wanted me to flag that the critical research on 3-bromopyruvate was carried out by Dr. Young Ko.)

More on Otto Warburg and the Nazis

While working on the history portion of my article, I received extremely valuable assistance from Petra Gentz-Werner, who has written several books about Warburg in German. Here’s a bit more detail on Warburg, including the story of how Hitler’s inner circle protected him:

Warburg was a short, handsome man with penetrating blue eyes. He had a deep knowledge of literature and history and became a lifelong Anglophile after a visit to Cambridge as a young man — he collected antique English furniture and would travel to England to buy his suits. In his written reflections on meeting Warburg at his institute in Berlin, the German biochemist Theodor Bücher recalled Warburg’s elegant woolen waistcoat, gray tweed trousers and carefully polished Scottish shoes.

Why Warburg took an interest in cancer as a young man is not entirely clear. In his slim biography of Warburg, the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Hans Krebs, who worked in Warburg’s lab as a young man, writes that Warburg first became interested in cancer while still a medical student after becoming aware of the “ravages” of the disease and the lack of successful treatments. But cancer was likely on Warburg’s mind for the same reason it was likely on Boveri’s mind at the time. In the early 20th Century, the prevalence of cancer in Germany was greater than in almost any other nation and rising rapidly

That Warburg believed he would be the one to cure cancer was an early sign of what would later become an almost legendary arrogance. Dr. Richard Veech, a metabolism researcher at the National Institutes of Health, who did his doctorate at Oxford in the lab of Hans Krebs, remembers the day the then 65-year-old Krebs, a world-renown scientist, showed up in the lab in his pinstriped suit. Warburg had just sent Krebs a telegram telling him to come to Berlin. “I do not want your opinion,” Warburg wrote. “I want an audience.” Krebs spent two days listening to Warburg’s theory then flew back to England.

Of course, Warburg was the rare megalomaniac whose belief in his own greatness was fairly well founded. Warburg enlisted in the Germany military upon the outbreak of World War I, serving as a physician and an assistant to a senior officer in a cavalry regiment that fought on the front lines. In 1918, Einstein, prompted by Warburg’s mother, sent Warburg a letter in which he urged him to come home. In making his case, Einstein suggested to Warburg that his survival was important to the future of German physiology, and Einstein, as usual, turned out to be right. Warburg would return to Berlin and go on to become perhaps the greatest biochemist of the 20th century, making enormous contributions not only to the study of cancer, but also to the study of photosynthesis and metabolic enzymes.

[Skipping ahead here so as not to republish material from The Times] Still, the most remarkable fact was not that the Nazis prevented Warburg’s award but that Warburg was alive and well in Nazi Germany in 1994. The Nazis began purging universities and academic institutes of Jewish scholars as early as 1933, but Warburg, despite his Jewish ancestry, was left almost entirely unbothered. Worse yet for Warburg’s prospects in Nazi Germany, he lived with another man, Jakob Heiss. After serving in World War I, Heiss, according to Krebs, moved in with Warburg to “keep house” and then never left. Krebs writes that the two were “virtually inseparable.”

It certainly helped that Warburg was already a famous scientist and that the Rockefeller Foundation had funded the institute he ran in Berlin. And Warburg was well connected in German society. But fame and connections had not been enough to make other German scientist of the era untouchable. The most common explanation is that that Warburg was kept alive because a number of leading Nazis, including Hitler, were thought to be terrified of cancer. Hitler’s mother died from breast cancer in 1907 and Hitler believed his stomach cramps could be an early sign of the disease. So it’s easy to picture the bind Warburg must have created for the Nazis. In a country where cancer was genuinely dreaded, and where Jews were regularly referred to as tumors in the German body, Nazi leaders likely had come to see their best hope for a cure not only in a man of Jewish descent, but in a Jew who happened to have one of the most famous Jewish last names in the world and who lived with another man.

In 1941 Warburg’s scientific rivals did manage to have him dismissed from his position as director of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Cell Physiology on the grounds that he had non-Aryan blood. At this point Warburg appeared to be in great danger and was likely saved by several influential connections who persuaded Philipp Bouhler, the head of Hitler’s private chancellery, to reconsider Warburg’s case. Bouhler, who oversaw the euthanizing of more than 70,000 disabled adults and children, wasn’t likely to be sympathetic. He reached out to a number of German scientists to assess Warburg’s importance before coming to the conclusion that Warburg should be returned to his position. After the war, Warburg said that Bouhler’s chief of staff, Viktor Brack who had directly intervened on his behalf, told him, “I did this not for you or for Germany, but for the world.” As part of the process of reinstating Warburg at his institute, his ancestry was reexamined. Despite his father’s two Jewish parents, Warburg was reclassified as only one-quarter Jewish.

Why the Nazis left Warburg alone is only half of the mystery. The other half is why Warburg stayed when he might have fled in the early 30’s like so many other Jewish scientists. Petra Gentz-Werner, a German scholar who has written books and articles about Warburg is convinced he had no sympathies for the Nazis. Gentz-Werner cites the book written by Warburg’s sister, Lotte, which highlights Warburg’s disgust for the Nazis.

The rest of the narrative picks back up in my published article for The New York Times Magazine.

The Last Word

Finally, because he has done so much to draw attention to the research of Otto Warburg and the metabolic roots of cancer, I was hoping there would be enough space to give Thomas Seyfried the last word on Warburg. Here is the ending I’d used in the longer version of the story, which, even if there had been space, probably would have been inappropriate for The Times:

With respect to his hypothesis that cancer begins with a problem of oxygen consumption, the mainstream scientific community has concluded that Otto Warburg was wrong. But in his recognition that cancer is deeply rooted in how our cells obtain and use energy, Warburg has been redeemed. Or, as Thomas Seyfried of Boston College puts it, “We found out that the son of a bitch is right!”

Afterword by Tim Ferriss

It’s a pleasure to publish Sam’s unpublished writing on this blog, and I suspect it will be widely spread.

If you write — or have written — for major outlets (NYT, WSJ, The Atlantic, etc.) and have feature-length pieces that are unpublished or that have been “killed,” I’d love to hear more about them.  My blog, newsletter, podcast, etc. easily reach 10 million people per month.  In addition to Sam’s piece, I frequently publish on the sciences (e.g. unpublished chapters from Gary Taubes), travel, business, and more.

If you fit the above profile and find this interesting, please see this page for reaching out.  Thanks for not using this form for any other types of inquiries.

Suggested resources and further reading:

Books — 

Tripping Over the Truth

Interviews —

Dominic D’Agostino on Fasting, Ketosis, and the End of Cancer

Dr. Peter Attia on Life-Extension, Drinking Jet Fuel, Ultra-Endurance, Human Foie Gras, and More

Optimizing Investing, Blood, Hormones, and Life (see #65)

Articles —

Potential Tactics for Defeating Cancer — A Toolkit in 1,000 Words

Kevin Kelly – AI, Virtual Reality, and The Inevitable

“If somebody else can do it, I am not going to do it.” – Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) is back again and, as I’ve said before, he might be the real-life “Most Interesting Man In The World.”

Kevin is Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine, which he co-founded in 1993. He also co-founded the All Species Foundation, a non-profit aimed at cataloging and identifying every living species on earth. In his spare time, he writes bestselling books, co-founded The Rosetta Project, which is building an archive of all documented human languages, and serves on the board of The Long Now Foundation. As part of the last, he’s investigating how to revive and restore endangered or extinct species, including the Wooly Mammoth.

Kevin’s most recent project is The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. The praise for the book is incredible, with Marc Andreessen saying it’s, “an automatic must-read.”

In this conversation, we touch on all sorts of things, including:

Stories about Jeff Bezos and his email management approach
Tech literacy
Why there are no “VR experts”
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Network effects
GMOs
And much, much more

If you only have 5 minutes, check out the technology Kevin thinks you should be worried about.

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 earlier conversations with Kevin Kelly, in which we discuss population implosions, The Long Now Foundation, organizational methods for learning, and much more? — Listen to them here (stream below or right-click to download part 1 | part 2 | part 3):

This episode is brought to you by Headspace, the world’s most popular meditation app (more than 4,000,000 users).  It’s used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it.  Try Headspace’s free Take10 program —  10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It’s like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive, and it’s had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free for a few days and see what I mean.

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. 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 OF THE DAY: What questions or thoughts do you have about the future of virtual reality (VR) or artificial intelligence (AI)? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

Connect with Kevin Kelly:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Google+

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly’s first appearance on The Tim Ferriss Show
Kevin Kelly’s second appearance on The Tim Ferriss Show
Wired Magazine
Learn more about the All Species Foundation
The Rosetta Project
The Long Now Foundation
CES
Fitbit
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly
Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 by AnnaLee Saxenian
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff by Peter Walsh
Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities by Kevin Kelly
The Qur’an
The Essential Rumi
The Sound of One Hand Clapping: 281 Zen Koans with Answers by Yoel Hoffman
Neil Gaiman: Keynote Address 2012 (“Make good art.”)
Voices of VR Podcast
Google Cardboard (free and affordable VR)
Google Cloud Vision
Skynet
Hamilton
Magic Leap (mixed reality)
What’s Next in Computing? by Chris Dixon
The Void
Haptic technology
Teledildonics
Why Volumetric VR Is The Real Future Of Virtual Reality by Daniel Terdiman
Linden Lab (Second Life) Project Sansar
CRISPR creates a way out of regulation for GMO food by Sarah Buhr
Zero Days trailer
Machine learning
Amazon Echo
The History of Japan

Show Notes

Why does Kevin spend so much time in China? [09:31]
How does Kevin see China changing over the next couple of decades? [13:11]
Will Singapore be the next Silicon Valley? [17:18]
Why did Silicon Valley happen on the West Coast of the US instead of the East Coast (and what was its real innovation)? [21:30]
Why does Kevin travel so much (and feel it should be subsidized on a federal level)? [27:07]
How does Jeff Bezos deal with email? [29:22]
How is Kevin’s research librarian currently helping him try to predict the future? [32:38]
How does Kevin decide on his next project to tackle? [37:45]
Tips on decluttering, and why collections should be prominent. [41:09]
How Kevin feels about simplifying life in an increasingly complex world. [43:29]
Kevin draws inspiration from the wisdom of the ages. [47:47]
To what industries should we be paying attention — and what skills should we be picking up — over the next three to five years? [50:13]
Technological downsides that are underappreciated. [52:54]
Three important components to keeping a job (via Neil Gaiman). [56:27]
There are no VR or AI experts (but here’s how you might become one). [59:35]
What is Kevin most excited about right now? [1:04:20]
AI will be as disruptive to our future as the Industrial Revolution was to our past. [1:05:49]
How does Kevin feel about the doomsday prophecies of AI (a la Skynet)? [1:09:15]
Productivity is for robots. [1:10:33]
Science is inefficient. [1:11:19]
Kevin’s most profound VR experience. [1:12:02]
Mixed reality vs. virtual reality [1:14:29]
We’re moving from an Internet of information to an Internet of experiences. [1:18:40]
How far are we from VR sex? [1:20:09]
What technology are people worried about that Kevin thinks they shouldn’t be worried about? [1:24:31]
What technology should we be worried about? [1:25:24]
The three ingredients for AI. [1:31:34]
Kevin’s predictions for AI’s first big wins (and why they probably won’t be thought of as “AI”). [1:33:39]
Does Kevin keep a journal? [1:36:56]
How is Kevin improving himself? [1:38:12]
Why Kevin prefers conversations on Google+ over Facebook. [1:41:56]

People Mentioned

David Pogue
Ernest Cline
Marc Andreessen
Jeff Bezos
Pony Ma
Jack Ma
Alvin Toffler
Michael Jordan
Neil Gaiman
Kent Bye
Mickey Mouse

Marc Andreessen — Lessons, Predictions, and Recommendations from an Icon

“Raise prices.” – Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) is a legendary figure in Silicon Valley — and worldwide. Even in the epicenter of tech, it’s hard to find a more fascinating icon.

Marc co-created the highly influential Mosaic Internet browser, the first widely used graphical web browser. He also co-founded Netscape, which later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. Then he co-founded Loudcloud, which sold as Opsware to Hewlett Packard for $1.6 billion.

He’s considered one of the founding fathers of the modern Internet, right alongside pioneers like Tim Berners-Lee, who launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and early HTML standards.

This all makes him one of the few humans ever to create software categories used by more than a billion people. He’s also one of the few who’s established multiple billion-dollar companies.

Marc is now co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where he’s quickly become one of the most influential and dominant tech investors in the world.

In this interview, we dig into some fun things Marc has not discussed in many places, including:

His epic debate vs. Peter Thiel
Rules for investing
The future of bitcoin
Artificial intelligence
Favorite books, documentaries, and movies
And much, much more

If you only have 5 minutes, here’s what Marc misses most about the mid-90s Internet (and what he’d like to bring back).

We had an extremely detailed and rich conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. Please do say hi to Marc — he’s very active on Twitter at @pmarca.

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 podcast featuring a brilliant investor?  — Listen to my conversation with Naval Ravikant. In this episode, we discuss the habits and behaviors of highly successful and happy people (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years and I love audio books. 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 between more than 180,000 audio programs. 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

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. 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 OF THE DAY: What part of Marc’s interview did you find most fascinating? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

Learn more and connect with Marc Andreessen:

Twitter | Andreessen Horowitz | a16z Podcast

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
Bridgewater Associates
Netscape
The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank
High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
Airbnb
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis
The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World by Randall E. Stross
The Luddite Fallacy
The myth of Prometheus
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The Golem myth
Ballad of John Henry’s Hammer performed by Johnny Cash
Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America by Andrew Yang
Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin
Airware
Skydio
In a Huge Breakthrough, Google’s AI Beats a Top Player at the Game of Go
Bitcoin
Coinbase
21
Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels by Robert Crais
Mr. Robot
Halt and Catch Fire
Compaq
HBO’s Silicon Valley
Trump Tower
The Icarus myth
In Tech We Trust? A Debate with Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen

Show Notes

What does Marc mean by the expression, “strong opinions loosely held?” [06:10]
The difference between politicians and hedge fund managers. [07:50]
How Marc advises a company that’s struggling with the decision to stay the course or pivot. [10:13]
What factors influence a decision for a substantial investment? [13:19]
The keys to fighting well with a business partner. [17:10]
Technology changes; people don’t. [22:28]
What Marc misses about mid-’90s Internet. [25:18]
Is there any validity to concerns about artificial intelligence taking over the world? [31:24]
Marc’s thoughts on why the economy gets less dynamic every year.  [36:23]
How Marc deals with FOMO (fear of missing out). [38:47]
Why Marc’s company bets for change when other successful investors would bet against it. [42:23]
What would Marc teach a class of 50 college freshmen? [44:50]
Why Marc feels it’s important for people struggling to dream up new ideas to learn how things were made in the past. [46:52]
The future of drones and AI. [48:01]
What advice would Marc give his 21-year-old self? [56:44]
When Marc thinks of the word successful and who comes to mind. [58:07]
Morning rituals that might surprise you. [1:00:09]
Favorite shows and movies. [1:00:57]
What would be on Marc’s billboard, and where would it be? [1:03:50]
What has Marc changed his mind about in the last few years? [1:05:26]
The debate with Peter Thiel at the Milken Institute. [1:08:48]
Smart enough to listen to this podcast? Marc wants to hire you (maybe)! [1:11:08]

People Mentioned

Ray Dalio
Ben Horowitz
Steve Blank
Andrew S. Grove
Peter Thiel
Thomas Edison
Henry Ford
John D. Rockefeller
J. P. Morgan
Walt Disney
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Mellon
William Randolph Hearst
Cyrus the Great
Xenophon
Walter Isaacson
Ben Franklin
Brian Chesky
Neal Gabler
Charles M. Schulz
George Hotz
Warren Buffett
Benjamin Graham
Steve Martin
Elon Musk
Steve Jobs
Balaji S. Srinivasan
Robert Crais
Jocko Willink
John Arrillaga
Sam Esmail
Larry Page

How to Be Tim Ferriss – Featuring Freakonomics

Photo credit: Instagram

This episode is a role-reversal.

I flew to New York City and sat down with Stephen J. Dubner (@freakonomics) of Freakonomics fame. He proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions that I’d never heard before, and we recorded the entire thing.  It was a blast.

His team did an incredible job with post-production, and I wanted to share the conversation with all of you. You can learn more about Stephen J. Dubner and his team at Freakonomics.com, on Twitter, or you can subscribe to their show on iTunes.

Without further preamble, please enjoy this wide-ranging and sometimes-weird conversation with Stephen J. Dubner!

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 featuring Stephen J. Dubner? — Listen to this early episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. In this episode, we discuss the craft of brainstorming, narrative storytelling, and how to avoid wasting mental energy on meaningless nonsense (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you Gymnastic Bodies. This is the training system that I am most obsessed with at the moment. Coach Sommer appeared on a previous episode of the podcast, which turned into a sleeper hit. He is the former USA national team coach for men’s gymnastics and creator of this bodyweight-based training system. I’m not easily impressed, and I have been completely blown away by the sophistication and the elegance of his programming.

I have been using Gymnastic Bodies for just a few months now, and I already feel more flexible and stronger than I have in years. Check it out GymnasticBodies.com/tim, where you’ll find the Fundamentals course for diagnosing your weakest areas, those you can tweak for fast improvements. It is incredible. Take a look at GymnasticBodies.com/tim for more details and a large discount.

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. 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 do you think is the best possible future invention or discovery for humankind? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

Why I’m Taking a Long ‘Startup Vacation’
Learn more about Huperzine A
Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide
Check out the Urban Evasion and Escape episode of The Tim Ferriss Experiment
What My Morning Journal Looks Like
Check out things to do anywhere at Vayable

Show Notes

If you had to pick a noun to describe what you think of yourself as, what is that noun? [6:23]
Why start a podcast and thoughts on the 4-Hour books [6:57]
Growing up as a Long Island townie [9:47]
Age, partnership status, Molly, sardines and ketones [10:30]
Steven Dubner tells the story of my adventures in enterprise and absence [11:53]
On The 4-Hour Workweek [12:49]
Learning to say “no,” lucky startup bets, and leaving the startup world [15:41]
Experiments in lucid dreaming [20:33]
The story behind my thoughts of attempting suicide [21:52]
Adventures in TV and The Tim Ferriss Experiment [29:12]
FREAK-quently asked questions [31:28]
Morning rituals [31:42]
Something you own that you should throw out, but probably never will [33:21]
My strategy for giving money to panhandlers [34:45]
What is something you believed for a long time to be true until you found out you were wrong? [35:46]
If we were to leave the studio to get something to eat, where would we go and what would we eat? [36:53]
What is the best possible future invention or discovery for humankind? [37:50]
With a time machine, where would you travel to, why would you travel there, and what would you do there? [40:25]

Lessons from War, Tribal Societies, and a Non-Fiction Life (Sebastian Junger)

“The point of journalism is to tell the truth. It is not to improve society. There are facts and truths that feel regressive, but that doesn’t matter. The point of journalism isn’t to make everything better; it’s to give people accurate information about how things are.” – Sebastian Junger

“Who would you die for? What ideas would you die for?” – Sebastian Junger

If you want a better understanding of warriors, tribal societies, human nature, and what we can learn from it all, this is for you.

My podcast guest is Sebastian Junger (@sebastianjunger), the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Perfect Storm, Fire, A Death in Belmont, War, and Tribe.  As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award. Junger is also a documentary filmmaker whose debut film “Restrepo,” a feature-length documentary (co-directed with Tim Hetherington), was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

“Restrepo,” which chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, is widely considered to have broken new ground in war reporting.  Junger has since produced and directed three additional documentaries about war and its aftermath.

In this episode, we cover rites of passage (and their importance), warfare, the art of great non-fiction writing, PTSD, evolutionary biology, and much more.

Some of the topics will no doubt offend many of you, and this is a good thing. I urge you to bite your lip, if need be, and listen to the entire episode. There are gems within, including hilarious stories, surprising statistics, and tear-jerking epiphanies.

If you only have 5 minutes and are rushed for time, check out this short segment about the surprising psychological effects of war.

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 providing insights from lessons learned at war? — Listen to my conversation with Jocko Willink. He might be the scariest Navy SEAL alive. Learn what he taught me (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks is a 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, go to FreshBooks.com/Tim and enter “Tim” in the “how did you hear about us section.”

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. 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 documentaries have you enjoyed the most? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

Learn more and connect with Sebastian Junger:

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Selected interviews with Sebastian Junger:

New York Times – By the Book

Outside – Sebastian Junger is Done Talking About War | Outside – The Path of Most Resistance

Watch Sebastian Junger’s TED talks:

Why Veterans Miss War?

Our Lonely Society Makes it Hard to Come Home from War

Check out this biography of Thomas Paine by Craig Nelson
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca (on Audible)
Sebastian Junger’s first published piece, Towing the Line
Learn more about the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency
Read the Paris Review’s interview with John McPhee, The Art of Nonfiction No. 3
Writing something? Try out Scrivener
Learn more about Pontiac’s Rebellion
At Play in the Fields of the Lord and The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Show Notes

On Thomas Paine and stoic philosophy [6:11]
The “chainsaw story” and how it supported his writing career [8:09]
On athleticism and long distance running [12:31]
How to develop a writing style [13:31]
Why Sebastian Junger was drawn to journalism [15:09]
Sebastian Junger’s writing style and the importance of structure [19:08]
Commencement speech advice to those leaving high school [32:07]
What inspired Sebastian Junger to go into a war-torn country [36:07]
What are “skin walkers” [39:15]
On striving for political correctness in gender [43:59]
The Iroquois’s process for peace and how it relates to modern politics [50:29]
Thoughts on the psychiatric effects of war [59:04]
Thoughts on bringing primitive, war-time  cohesion into our modern society [1:04:09]
PTSD, the C-Train, and returning to New York City after being at war [1:08:14]
On the lonely nature of society [1:12:01]
On the prevalence of PTSD in elite special forces units vs. support units [1:19:25]
How to “support the troops”  [1:26:19]
The story of Spain and the viking helmet [1:31:13]
Thoughts on developing male closeness while decreasing violence [1:39:19]
Thoughts on veterans becoming victims in society after they return from war [1:43:49]
Photography/videography habits and the moment Sebastian became a war reporter [1:48:55]
The story of Tim Hetherington and why Sebastian Junger stopped war reporting [1:54:07]
The future of writing for Sebastian Junger [1:57:47]
One thing anyone can do for a military veteran [1:59:01]
When you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind and why? [2:04:02]
How do you define courage? [2:04:12]
Most gifted books [2:04:20]
What do your close friends say you’re exceptionally good at? [2:05:22]
If you could combine 3 different writers into one writer to create your ultimate writer, who would they be and why? [2:06:04]
Advice to your younger self [2:06:33]
What recent purchase has most positively impacted your life? [2:08:11]
Something you believe, even though you can’t prove it [2:10:44]
Habits and common practices of journalists you dislike [2:10:56]
What do you think your 70-year-old-self would advise your current self? [2:12:27]
How to know when you should write a book [2:14:58]
If you could put one billboard anywhere, where would you put it and what would it say? [2:16:22]
Final requests for the audience [2:18:27]

People Mentioned

Josh Waitzkin
John McPhee
Joan Didion
Peter Matthiessen
Ernest Hemingway
William Faulkner
Émile Durkheim
David M. Maddox
Tim Hetherington
Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Assessing Risk and Living Without a Rope – Lessons from Alex Honnold

Photo by Jimmy Chin

“You take a dump into free space, and it just completely disappears.” – Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold (@alexhonnold, Facebook: /alexhonnold) is a professional adventure rock climber whose audacious free-solo (no ropes, no partner) ascents of America’s biggest cliffs have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world. Honnold is distinguished for his uncanny ability to control his fear while scaling cliffs of dizzying heights without a rope to protect him if he falls.

His most celebrated achievements include the first and only free-solo of the Moonlight Buttress (5.12d, 1,200 feet) in Zion National Park, Utah, and the Northwest Face (5.12a) of Half Dome (2,200 feet), in Yosemite, California.

In 2012, he achieved Yosemite’s first “Triple Solo”: climbing, in succession, the National Park’s three largest faces—Mt. Watkins, Half Dome and El Capitan—alone, and in under 24 hours.

He is also the founder of the Honnold Foundation, an environmental non-profit, and to this day, he maintains his simple “dirtbag-climber” existence, living out of his van and traveling the world in search of the next great vertical adventure.

If you want to laugh your ass off, listen to this hilarious 2-minute story from Alex.

Enjoy!

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

Interested in another conversation discussing death-defying climbing accomplishments? — Listen to my conversation with Jimmy Chin. In this episode, we learn from the athlete (and artist) who cheats death (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. 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 episode is also brought to you by Headspace, the world’s most popular meditation app (more than 4,000,000 users).  It’s used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it.  Try Headspace’s free Take10 program —  10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It’s like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive, and it’s had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free for a few days and see what I mean.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: How do you assess risk? Does your process differ in business, athletics and other areas of life? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

Connect with Alex Honnold:

Facebook | Website | Twitter  | Instagram |   Foundation

Learn more about Castle Rock State Park outside of Santa Cruz, CA
In Sacramento, CA? Check out Mark Bell’s Super Training Gym
Learn more about the Ram Promaster
Learn more about Romantic Warrior
Suggested climbing snacks: ZBar | Shot Bloks
Learn more about Marc-Andre Leclerc – Facebook | Blog
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
Watch Meru
Video (and more video) of Alex climbing

Show Notes

The origin story of Alex Honnold [5:21]
Describing different types of rock climbing [8:44]
Why Alex Honnold was studying civil engineering [11:06]
If you had to pick a fixed location to live for 5 years, where would it be? [13:25]
On the ability to climb full-time or be a ‘dirt-bag climber’ [14:35]
Thoughts on the climbing industry and its popularity [17:43]
Self-talk for preparing for a challenging climb [20:41]
Philosophy and the benefits of living simply [22:41]
A funny “soloing” story [24:26]
Eating habits [27:29]
The most epic poop story – What happens when you have to take a shit on a big wall? [29:01]
The surprising self-care that is available when free soloing [31:56]
Alpinism and what it was like to be a beginner climber again [33:54]
How does Alex Honnold’s climbing differ from Jimmy Chin’s? [35:51]
Biggest climbing mentors [36:56]
Important elements to becoming a good climber [37:36]
The main ways to conserve energy when climbing [39:59]
What do you worry about? [41:44]
At what point do you stop working to make more money? [42:41]
Do you get depressed? [47:16]
Do you foresee a point in which you’ve accomplished all that you can in climbing? Is there always a “what’s next?” [48:47]
Approaches to improving elbow health [51:16]
Impressive climbers [52:40]
Do you ever have concerns about your influence on young climbers? [55:05]
On hitting the point where you decide to turn around and climb down [57:31]
The real story about the Yosemite freak out moment [59:25]
Best and worst jobs and deciding to stop attending Berkeley [1:02:44]
Favorite books [1:07:02]
On evaluating risk and managing fear [1:09:06]
Music for traveling and climbing [1:14:11]
When you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind and why? [1:19:16]
What people do you find inspirational? [1:19:35]
Food preparation and go-to dinners [1:22:26]
Morning rituals [1:23:38]
The lifestyle benefits of living in a van [1:24:23]
What recent purchase had the most positive impact on your life? [1:28:52]
Lessons learned from climbing [1:29:56]
At what climbing grades have you plateaued the most? [1:33:05]
If you could no longer climb, what would be your preferred physical activity? [1:35:42]
What, outside of free-soloing, are you world-class at? [1:36:50]
Advice to your younger self [1:38:03]
How Alex Honnold keeps his training journal [1:39:34]
What would you like your life to look like in 10 years? [1:41:23]
Pee bottles and how to live without a bathroom [1:41:49]
If you could have one billboard and place it anywhere, what would it say and where would it be? [1:43:28]
What have you changed your mind about in recent history? [1:44:36]

People Mentioned

Chris Sharma
Steph Davis
Peter Croft
Tommy Caldwell
John Bacher
Dean Potter
Bradford Washburn
Sébastien Foucan

 

How to Optimize Creative Output — Jarvis versus Ferriss

“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.” – W. H. Auden

This episode is a conversation/debate/trading of ideas between Chase Jarvis (@ChaseJarvis) and yours truly. We discuss a little bit of everything, including:

Optimizing creative output
Systems thinking
Quota setting
Celebrating the small wins
Success for type-A personalities
Meditation techniques
Absurdity
The details of the struggles of creating a high level
And much, much more…

If you enjoy this conversation, then I recommend you check out creativelive.com/30daysofgenuis. Here you can find incredible videos from people like Richard Branson, Seth Godin, Brené Brown, and many more. It’s free. Sign up now.

If you sign up by Friday, May 13th at 11:59 p.m. PT, you are entered to win a mentorship from me, Chase, and 3 other high-level performers for a year.  We will pick 1 winner on May 15, and I hope it’s you.

If you want a quick taste of what’s in this episode, here’s a story (I’ve never shared before) about the closest I’ve come to drop-kicking someone.

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 podcast delving into tactics for enhancing creativity? — Listen to my conversation with Whitney Cummings. In this episode, we discuss how she uses pain as fuel for her creativity (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks is a 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, go to FreshBooks.com/Tim and enter “Tim” in the “how did you hear about us section.”

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. 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 is your biggest frustration with the creative process? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

Connect with Chase Jarvis: Website | YouTube | Twitter | Facebook
Mindfulness apps:

Headspace | Calm

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Habit List to enhance your habits
Play It Away by Charlie Hoehn
Learn more about the tools I use for faster and better sleep
Check out f.lux for evening work
Two of my top podcasts:

Hardcore History | Here’s the Thing (shorter episode length)

Check out the Black Mirror TV series
Read my posts on dealing with “Productivity Hacks” and Thoughts on Suicide
Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal
Waking Up by Sam Harris
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
Check out notable episodes of the Tim Ferriss Show:

Jamie Foxx | BJ Miller | Patrick Arnold

Arnold Schwarzenegger | Derek Sivers | Kevin Kelly

Check out The 4-Hour Life course on CreativeLive
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
Watch Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech

Show Notes

On the success of The Tim Ferriss Show [5:56]
Systems inspired by Scott Adams [6:34]
How to use the question, “What would this look like if it were easy?” [9:08]
How can I set my ‘quota’ lower so that I can feel like I’m winning? [13:33]
How to celebrate the small wins [18:13]
Lionel Ritchie anecdotes [19:40]
Meditation techniques and practical tactics for dealing with the real world [23:38]
Absurdity as a synonym for creativity [29:17]
Why the masks people wear often tell us more about the person than the truth [33:03]
Details of our morning routines [40:58]
Evening routines and tools for better sleep [45:23]
How to deal with the negative or self-defeating voices in your head [50:53]
How to not “retreat into story” [55:24]
How to manage the complexities of life [59:28]
Why good content and good work is the best SEO in the world [1:05:18]
Why “It’s too late” is usually awful advice [1:06:20]
Embracing (and creating) the freedom to play and experiment [1:07:38]
A story that Tim has never told [1:11:03]
Why having certain constraints is necessary to actualize your highest potential [1:21:00]
How to use creative constraints to get rid of crutches and improve your craft [1:23:36]
If Tim could put up a billboard up anywhere, where would you put it and what would it say? [1:28:58]
Tim’s most-gifted book to friends, acquaintances, and family [1:29:27]
Something about Tim that most people would be surprised to learn [1:31:01]

People Mentioned

Scott Adams
Lionel Ritchie
Thích Nhất Hạnh
Kurt Vonnegut
Brené Brown
John McPhee
Stefan Sagmeister