Josh Waitzkin - The Cave Process, Advice from Future Selves, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show | Transcription

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Introduction

Intro (00:00)

Well hello boys and girls ladies and germs this is Tim Ferriss welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show Where does my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the thought processes the best practices the influences and so on That you can hopefully copy and paste into your own life in some fashion to test out the toolkits of people who are the best of what they do My guest this episode is a return guest Josh Wait skin he was in fact the second ever guest in episode two of this podcast. We've known each other a long time Josh Wait skin is author of the art of learning He is an eight-time US national chess champion a two-time world champion Tai Chi push hands and The first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under nine time world champion Marcello Garcia widely believed to be the greatest grappler Who has ever lived at least in the world of bjj for the past 12 years? Maybe 13 maybe 14 now Josh has been channeling his passion for the outer limits of the learning process towards training elite mental performers in business and finance or finance if you prefer and to revolutionizing the education system through his nonprofit foundation the art of learning project Josh is currently in the process of taking on his fourth and fifth disciplines paddle serving and foiling Josh is always a fantastic thought partner. He is constantly pushing back at anything that I say which reflects sloppy thinking or imprecise thinking or consensus thinking and He's a lovely guy. So please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with none other than Josh Wait skin This episode is brought to you by tonal to nal I'm super excited about this one and I was skeptical of it in the beginning tonal quote Tonal is the world's most intelligent home gym and personal trainer end quote That's the tagline from their website folks to give you the one sentence summary and this device It's really a system is perfect for anyone looking to take their home workouts to the next level or someone who just wants to get maximum bang for the buck in a Tiny tiny footprint of space Tonal is precision engineered to be the world's most advanced strength studio and personal trainer it uses breakthrough technology of all different types To help get you stronger faster.

Discussion On Entrepreneurship And Personalities

Tonal (01:35)

I was introduced to tonal by three different frames all of them are tech savvy One of them is a former competitive skier who's doubled his strength in a number of movements using tonal even though he has a long athletic background and I'll paint a picture for you by eliminating traditional metal weights dumbbells and barbells tonal can deliver 200 pounds of resistance Which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually it feels like a lot more at the high end in a device smaller than a flat screen TV and you can perform at least 150 different exercises and These different technologies are exclusive to tonal and you can dial weights up and down with the touch of a button in one pound increments Using magnets and electricity. So the movement is extremely smooth and even though I have a home gym already in my garage I'm still getting a tonal installed. I've used tonal for multiple workouts now to do things I just cannot do in my home gym such as the chop and lift Exercises from the four-hour body all sorts of cable exercises that would usually involve much much bigger piece of equipment eccentric training for instance you can do to give a simple example bicep curls where you are lifting Let's just say 20 pounds in each hand up and then tonal automatically Increase the weight because you can lower more than you can lift to say 25 or 30 pounds on the way down And I do kettlebell swings I do all sorts of deadlifts this that the other thing and after one workout on Tonal focusing on pulling I was blasted for a full week. It's really incredible what you can do with eccentric They also have all sorts of other really really cool advantage that you can apply to any of your favorite movements Tonal learns from your strength and provides suggested weight recommendations for every move with detailed progress reports to help you see your strengths grow Tonal also has a growing library of expert led workouts by motivating coaches from strength training to cardio So you can do really just about everything every program is personalized to your body using artificial intelligence and other aspects of the Engineering and smart features check your form in real time just like a personal trainer So try it out try tonal at least check it out watch the videos on YouTube and see if you can pick out a Familiar voice. It's not me. I'll say that but try tonal the world's smartest home gym for 30 days in your home And if you don't love it, you can return it for a full refund So visit www.tonal.com for $100 off of smart accessories when you use promo code Tim Tiam at checkout. That's www.tonal.com promo code Tim tonal be your strongest This episode is brought to you by Viori clothing spelled V-U-O-R-I Viori I've been wearing Viori at least one item per day for the last few months and You can use it for everything its performance apparel But it can be used for working out it can be used for going out to dinner at least in my case I feel very comfortable with it super comfortable super stylish and I just want to read something that one of my employees said She is an athlete.

Vuori Clothing (04:56)

She is quite technical although she would never say that I asked her if she had ever used or heard of Viori and this was her response I do love their stuff been using them for about a year I think I found them at REI first for my partner t-shirts that are super soft But somehow last as he's hard on stuff and then I got into the super soft cotton yoga pants and jogger sweatpants I live in them and they too have lasted their stylish enough I can wear them out and about the material is just super soft and durable I just got their Clementine running shorts for summer and loved them the brand seems pretty popular constantly sold out in closing And I'm abbreviating here But in closing with the exception of when I need technical outdoor gear They're the only brand I bought in the last year or so for yoga running lounge wear that lasts and that I think look good also I like the discrete logo. So that gives you some idea that was not intended for the sponsor read That was just her response via text Viori against called V-U-O-R-I is designed for maximum comfort and versatility You can wear running you can wear their stuff training doing yoga lounging weekend errands or in my case again going out to dinner It really doesn't matter what you're doing their clothing is so comfortable and Looks so good and it's it's non offensive that you don't have a huge brand logo in your face You'll just want to be in them all this time and my girlfriend and I have been wearing them for the last few months They're men's core short KORE The most comfortable lined athletic short is your one short for every sport I've been using it for kettlebell swings for runs you name it the banks short This is their go-to-land to see short is the ultimate versatility It's made from recycled plastic bottles and what I'm wearing right now Which I had to pick one to recommend to folks out there or at least to men out there is the ponto performance pant And you'll find these at the link. I'm gonna give you guys you can check out what I'm talking about But I'm wearing them right now their thin performance sweat pants, but that doesn't do them justice So you got to check it out PONTO ponto performance pant for you ladies the women's performance jogger Is the softest jogger you'll ever own Viori isn't just an investment in your clothing. It's an investment in your happiness and for you my dear listeners They're offering 20% off your first purchase so get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet It's super popular a lot of my friends have now noticed are wearing this and So am I Viori clothing calm forward slash Tim that's V U O R I clothing calm Slash Tim not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase But you'll also enjoy free shipping on any u.s. Orders over $75 and free returns so check it out Viori clothing calm slash Tim that's V U O R I clothing calm slash Tim and discover the versatility of Viori clothing This altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking And I also have a question I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue of a metal and discover We have beautiful oso Dutch shepherd of small stature next to us growing quickly with josh wadescen polymath of medium stature This is Tim Ferris show I'm Tim Ferris and Josh baby, it's good to see you again. That's an interesting label polymath of medium stature I've got excellent coffee strong To fuel our conversation feel good about this whole thing me too turn the tables on you a little bit Yeah, let's go do it.

How does Tim wield gating questions? (08:25)

So our plan here is for me to interview Tim a little bit open up some Questions and we've been having a beautiful few weeks of dialogue over meals in ice and ice plunges and saunas Last bunch of days have been really intense conversation one of the patterns that I find really Powerful in our dialogue is that when we talk about ideas and potential projects You consistently have the ability to ask gating questions that frame the discussion differently And I tend to think i'm pretty good at that But what I find surprising is how and one thing I love is that when when I bring ideas to you you you take it to another level And it's consistently jolting and after our conversations. I often look at something quite differently and I I love that and so How would you deconstruct your your relationship to gating questions? How do you approach them? Let's do deep dive first Could you define or describe for me what a gating question is? If we're talking about an idea or let's just say someone would approach you with a project that they're thinking about You tend to go at it with first principles and you have a way of approaching the subject With a different framing I observe your approach exposes like in the david foster wall, this is water right people officials into aware of its water You are very good at showing people what their water is And you have a way of of tackling the subject that they've been thinking about for days or weeks or months or years And very quickly showing them angles of it that that they haven't considered and I've watched you that with a lot of people I think it's one of your power zones and I just thought it would be really cool For you to talk about how you approach it Yeah, this is fun. I don't often talk about this Or I suppose you even think about it explicitly when I talk to Folks who are presenting an idea a plan Hope a goal. I think the first thing that I do and this is probably honed over many many many years of getting pitched hundreds of times with startups is There are a few stock questions. So I think I cheat in that respect. I have a handful of triage tools that I use On the intake. So if somebody comes in it's kind of like are you having trouble breathing Let me check your pulse. Let me check your vitals There are a few questions like that that I use repeatedly one would be asking someone what assumptions they are making To see if they're even consciously aware of the assumptions that are being made Which is also a really good test to see how rigorously they've Examined other aspects of whatever the plan or goal might be What makes this attractive? What are the aspects of this that you assume to be true that make this attractive if it's an idea or something like that The answer they give or don't give right it's kind of like the Sherlock Holmes the case of the dog not barking Like sometimes it's an answer they don't give that that really says a lot And removes the need for a lot of follow-ups Another one that I ask all the time and I think this is in part because I get asked A lot about writing books I'm thinking about writing a book or I'm about to start writing a book or I'm going to be selling a book and I've talked to dozens of friends about this and The way I pose it and this will sound familiar as I'll ask them, you know if it takes twice as long And you get Half the rewards or a quarter of the rewards and it's not a bestseller Is this still a no-brainer for you and the wording there is really important? The no-brainer part is important. It's not is it still a good idea because a good idea could be Pro and con list and you come to the conclusion 51% good 49% bad. Yes, it's a good idea That's different from a no-brainer, right if it's a whole body. Yes. So this question is is fishing for how intrinsic the motivation is It's fishing for how intrinsic the motivation is it's also Fishing for a few other things.

Assuming that a bestseller is out of the question (13:30)

So the first might be Warded different way in the case of books like is it easier to write the book than to not write the book? For me, I Rarely and there are different motivations for writing books. They're different Catalysts, but for me usually I can't find something I'm looking for and it bothers me so much That I I just have to write the goddamn thing because I'm not gonna have it otherwise And in that respect it's easier for me to write it than to not write it because it bothers me so much that it's not written in some way the other is Taking into account all of the things outside of our control Right, you could put the perfect plan into motion you could write an outstanding book just a genre defining, you know category killing book and then 9/11 happens the week of your book launch and nobody ever sees your book in effect Because it's crowded out. There's so many things outside of our control. I mean certainly the last year is highlighted that and So I want to know Are you going to in some sense find reward and gratification and edification through the process in case a curveball hits you square in the face because it's It's not a black swan event. I mean, it's very common that this happens if you just come out in the wrong week in the case of books. Uh, so those are those are two questions and Then for me, I think in the last handful of years in particular thinking of energy management over time management has led me to Think of Experiments that can be done. It might be alternatives to what people are considering that allow them an easier termination clause if that makes any sense.

Testing your assumptions (15:21)

I'm using that metaphorically but it's sometimes very easy to get into plans and then you have employees or you have a company or you have your identity potentially Wrapped up in something that has gone out and now you feel like you can't Remove yourself or shut it down because it will be viewed as a failure And so to mitigate against all those things I'm constantly looking for cheap fast ways to test. How can you test your assumptions? How can you test your assumptions about the upside? How can you test your assumptions about the downside? How can we find comparables? Have you spoken to any of the people who are at the helm of x y and z at those comparables? I really Don't view myself as a risk taker even though at points i've had that Label or reputation, but I view myself as first and foremost like a massive risk mitigator. I do a lot of testing So those are those are a few things. So if you were to invert that If you think back on to all those conversations you've had with people pitching you on something If you were to take their perspective, what do you think the patterns would be and what those people said about The insights they gained from the conversation not the tactics But the insights about themselves and how they relate to their project So I look at everything with an editorial eye Which is part of the reason why I almost never read friends manuscripts because I can't just give them A paragraph of feedback. I'll end up copy adding the whole goddamn thing so When I look at a deck like a pitch deck and then I go down a level deeper and I look at the bios of the people involved like I spot Weaknesses and red flags that would turn off Oftentimes other investors they want involved or the types of investors they would want involved So I get to see I'm answering this somewhat indirectly, but I I get to see also how Founders in the case of startups, but this could apply to almost anything.

Importance of how founders specifically respond to constructive criticism (17:03)

This could apply to books also book ideas could apply to any idea how people respond to constructive criticism And what's really interesting about Not just startups, but book ideas business ideas Career switching ideas that people have is very often people around them Feel like support means giving positive feedback So they they're baby even if it's ugly and every gets called ugly and then I come in and I'm like well first thing I noticed is You know on the first page of your deck you misspelled profile might seem like a minor thing, but I would fix that it's low hanging fruit. It's easy to fix, you know And that's not a massive Correction, but I get to see how people respond to that the other question or another question there are a lot of questions. I like to ask but This is a question I was asked in the last year.

The most revealing question to ask founders (18:41)

I want to say I can't recall the source, but it's not mine. I mean I borrow I borrow most of what I use and ask and the question is flash forward three years The company has failed What went wrong? All right, what is the most likely reason the company will have failed? also if it's due to an incorrect assumption which assumption do you think is most likely to be wrong and If someone can't answer that or is unwilling to answer that because they're getting a lot of adulation and They have more Say in the case of a startup. They have more demand in other words investor interest than supply That's definitely a red flag for me. So what people get to see then if they really take those questions seriously and assuming someone else hasn't asked those questions is They very often find blind spots That are real risks. They're risks that they have not accounted for Right like most authors think if I or potential authors If I get the right publisher if I have the right distribution and I write an amazing book It is inevitable That the book will do well if I follow a few guidelines for lunch if I'm on a big show and that's just not true. Yeah So building on this one of the themes that I Spend a good deal thinking about is the entanglement of genius and eccentricity I think that most of the the great performers that I've known or competed against or worked with in different fields have just had this beautiful connection between their areas of dysfunctionality and brilliance sometimes The very thing that helps them excel in their professional life or their artistic life or the competitive life Is something that in their personal life can be a little bit awkward Right or sometimes very awkward or sometimes very awkward and it can be extremely subtle and it can be Fascinating like you know the recent study of Usain bolts stride and the fact that it's uneven People would might want to normalize it, but then you can think about how the unevenness of his Leg length or spinal construction might Actually be part of why he is so fast Right and you can think about this.

Brilliance, eccentricity and the power of leaning into ones quirks (20:09)

I think about it a great deal with Marcelo Garcia And he and I have been having a fun conversation about this theme over the past few days Yeah, so for people who don't know I'm just a sentence or two on Marcelo What we've spoken about Marcelo so much. Yeah, so Marcelo is the nine time Submission grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion. He's probably I would argue pound for pound the greatest grappler martial arts grappler to ever live And he's a dear friend of mine. We own a school together in New York and I've trained with him for Decade plus really exquisite learner and a really interesting eccentric learner and Anyway, this theme of the entanglement of genius and eccentricity is one that I find to be liberating for people because There's a big pressure to normalize oneself. How does that show up for Marcelo? Or why do you bring him up after his same bowl? Well, I think Marcelo is at a similar league in a similar league in terms of dominance of his field and he's someone who's really built A game around his idiosyncrasies in a beautiful way. I mean he's uh, he's both physically He's physically small short short limbs has built an incredible technical repertoire that really revolutionized the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world based on his body type and The idiosyncrasies of his personality of the way his mind works his incredibly overdeveloped somatic intelligence versus his Many years ago lack of conceptual relationship to what he was doing For example, one of the remarkable things about Marcelo is the way He repeats mistakes less than anyone have ever known It's incredible whether it's a technical mistake a psychological mistake And i've observed this I felt this with me when he and I have You know, we've spent hundreds of hours grappling sparring fighting on the mats and like you catch Marcelo with something one time and you don't catch with it again And that's just not true about people See it's incredible. Usually is the opposite. Yeah, you can you've exploited weakness You like what I got guillotine 77 times in a row, right? We had a good time with that one so but like but the amazing thing about for example how that manifests in more cell is life is that You know as he's told me in really powerful moments of conversation he experiences pain really viscerally He experiences pain and he never his body never forgets it in his life and it's true on the mats and so there's an area of That could really make life painful, right? But that is incredibly powerful in his life And I think about this a lot relative to myself as well this this this entanglement But I was curious to open up with you when you you know people obviously You have a public life And you and I mostly interact outside of your public life in just the eccentric nature of our of our friendship meeting up in the jungle for weeks at a time and Having great conversations and I have my own perspective on this But i'm curious how you would talk about You're so admired in the world and people are people have think a lot about your brilliance and your ability to deconstruct and how How much insight you have how would you? Describe the underbelly of that. What's the what's the shadow of it? How does that brilliance?

Dysfunctionality and superpowers (23:45)

Manifest in your personal life. We're we're the areas of eccentricity or dysfunctionality that people might not see Yeah, I think I think the word i'm glad you use the word Dysfunctionality because sometimes like eccentricity can be used as a substitute A nice substitute for crazy when somebody is successful in a given field so it's true, but in different adjectives Sometimes apply to the same thing depending on how well someone is done by luck or design or both It shows up a lot shows up a lot in many many different ways and I've thought about this quite a bit because there have been times when I have wanted to And there's still are times I think warranted times when I want to fix certain dysfunctionality and there is a occasionally a fear that in attempting to snuff out those areas of dysfunction or those Exhibitions of eccentricity that I'll also snuff out Whatever the pixie dust is that allows me to do certain things. This is very true I know for a lot of comedians for instance they some comedians don't want to get therapy They don't want to fix the pain because they feel like the gift that that pain provides is a certain degree of Insight or cynicism and also wittiness that leads to what they're able to do which is a really tough position in a lot of respects to Find yourself in or to put yourself in So as I'd say on the more amusing side of things a good example would just be My as I mentioned the the editorial eye. Well, let's take that same editorial eye Well, that seems like a huge gift when you're reviewing a manuscript, but when you look at a countertop And uh, I'll give a friend of mine a nod here. I won't mention it's full name but uh Poppy. Let's call him poppy Poppy and uh, I remember I was he's a character. I was with uh, I was with poppy and Panamaw at one point. This is a very long time ago. It's like 2004 So for those who have read the four hour work week. This is before right before I went to Argentina and had the entire saga of tango unfold. I was in Panama and it was actually a a friend of his initials jm Micho Who said I had to go to Argentina, but backing up to the point I was gonna make I would sit there and I would write and I was working on various things at the time and I was running this this sports supplement business And I had all of my notebooks and all of my pens and everything laid out Almost like an unboxing photograph or like a pack trip photograph that you'd see on instagram like everything was either parallel or perpendicular I mean it was It was like it was set up by You know some type of Japanese artist on graph paper. I mean it was perfectly organized to my liking and Poppy would come over and he would just he would just like Very slowly he'd look at me kind of like a cat kind of like your cat Loki And he'd look at me and he just with his index finger like push the edge of one pen to knock it off Knock it off angle like 10 percent and then he would just go back to whatever he was doing And I knew he was trying to fuck with me. So I would leave it I'd be like i'm not gonna succumb i'm not gonna succumb and i'd leave it and i'd leave it and then I'd just be like I can't do it and I would fix it and after like a half hour of this he came over and he's like Tim You're behaving like American psycho And so this monk like Sensitivity especially visual sensitivity can be really problematic Right and that can certainly lead to domestic strife And that's that's on me. All right. That's on me. I should know by the way We're having this conversation in front of my desk and I have the exact opposite dynamic of Tim So and during my world is just pure chaos created consciously He's functioning quite beautifully with it without a single thing in a straight line I'm going to mention the stuff underneath the desk. It's terrible If we take it as true for the moment, which I think it is that Hyperfunction and dysfunction are often right next to each other I think another way to think about that is that your superpower is very often right next to your wound Like your biggest wound. Yes, and I think that That's an interesting way to Reflect on it or journal on it or think about it is How did this possibly develop if it developed through a wound or traumatic event or Challenge of some type in my life Right and many of these things are fed by innate qualities And I think that you know same bolt doesn't matter how many Coaches he has for sprinting if he's built like me. It's going to be story turns out differently Nonetheless, I think the superpower being right next to your wound is very very often the case and I mean they're they're often two sides of the same coin and I think it is possible to work on the areas of dysfunction whether they're minor or major Without subjugating and muting your superpowers. I do think that's possible You have to track it.

Losing your edge (29:53)

I'm not saying it's always possible. But in my experience so far. I think that it is very possible and I'll just say another thing which is you know a phrase that I used to use a lot and I hear a lot of my Type A friends use a lot when it comes to considering meditation therapy fill in the blank Is that they're afraid of losing their edge? I just don't lose my edge. I'm afraid I'm going to become complacent I don't want to lose my edge lose my edge. This is this phrase is used a lot and in my experience the edge that they have in mind almost inevitably cuts both ways I like that intensity in that edge that they view as a pure advantage which helps them most often Professionally usually has a lot of consequences Personally, so those are some of the ways that I relate to it But I definitely agree that they are side by side You know this framing of yours around the the wound is is really beautiful and really powerful and I relate to it I I've been the last stretch I've been writing about training and one thing that I'm very careful about is to For anyone who's trying to convey something to be to be able to see their context because any kind of teacher or coach or writer or anyone who's not aware of their own context can be trying to impose something on somebody else that doesn't fit them And so I'm trying to be explicit introspective about my context and my context relative training comes from a wound which was In a nutshell, I started playing chess when I was six years old when I was seven and eight I became I was that point I was the top rated player in the US for my age And so I was the target my whole childhood from age seven until you know Until my 20s.

Periphery for our research (30:50)

I was the the target and as a kid that means that not only were other kids Focused on beating me because I would be like the person to beat in the tournament But they're coaches who are adults who are masters international masters grandmasters so every Weakness that I showed Would be seen very clearly because the adult coaches were much stronger players than me And would be focused on and exploited and any strength that I had would also be I had to refine it or else it wouldn't work right and so As a child as a really young child, I had this experience It was almost Pavlovian of not taking on an error led to pain Taking on an error or refining a strength led to Flow pleasure love of the game winning all those things so Now as an adult What I'm aware of is that not taking on a weakness is almost outside of my conceptual scheme unless I really consciously try Josh, can you just make a mediocre turkey as one friend recommended josh Yes, try not to make the best turkey in the world. Just make a mediocre fucking turkey for once Our friend Jim that man who's a brilliant man who Tim interviewed recently has been saying to me for a long time.

Strength Imbalance (32:35)

Josh. Just try to cook like shit Just practice mediocrity and it's a beautiful wise piece of counsel Given my madness and something I grapple with and then it's really important for me to see and this is a quarry of strength of mine but of course it can lead to complexities and interpersonal relationships and in my own life and so I have to see it to see it Yeah, you know, it's as we're talking about this makes me think of a story in the book essentialism by Greg McEwen, which which I'm very fond of I think has a lot of gold in it And I'm gonna paraphrase here. I'm not gonna get it exactly right, but it tells a story of I believe it's a man in his threes or forties who who flames out completely professionally like he uh, he he just kills himself through overwork and At the end of the story his advice to others is something along the lines of okay, you're type a Hard-charging competitive winner in life. He's like, all right. You want to try something hard He's like something hard is not working seven days a week He's like try going home in the middle of the day and taking a nap He's like you want to prove how tough you are like try that because that's the harder thing for you to do So let's keep exploring this relative to you. So let me throw out two themes and see where you go with them one Is efficiency so you're a master of efficiency You're also an athlete and you've had you've had identity as an athlete in your whole life But you have a very specific physiological dynamic relative to your lungs That could lead somebody to really need to take on the art of being Crazy efficient.

Efficiency And Success Mindset

Efficiency and effectiveness (34:03)

So what do you think about that dynamic and how it might have informed where you've become incredibly overdeveloped? Maybe talk about yeah, so for people who are not but not aware I have Number of very obvious scars on me. You can still see that one on the wrist Which looks like a cigarette burn, but it's it's actually where I was intubated I have another one on the left side where my left lung collapsed when I was born or probably collapsed possibly before I was born or in the the birth process And I was preenie in the NICU Neonatal intensive care unit for a really long period of time. So I have issues with in particular thermoregulation is how that shows up So if if people and that may or may not be related to the lungs, but I do have some some pulmonary complications the If you've ever seen a dog pant that is to dissipate heat dogs don't really dissipate heat through Sweat very much. So in my case, I overheat very easily. I've been hospitalized for heat stroke a few times and What that meant from an athletic perspective when I was wrestling Which was given how small I was up until sixth grade It was really one of the only or the only sport where I could compete and possibly win Because you have the the puniest of the puny competing against the puniest of the puny I developed an approach to wrestling that compensated for my Tensea to overheat and therefore generally lack of endurance, right? So I think that led to thinking about efficiency Although at the time I don't think I would have labeled it that way and then much later with language learning in Japanese and so on when I was 15 and also led me to think about efficiency a lot So I think those were the two sort of seminal chapters the wrestling and then the language learning That led me to think about effectiveness and efficiency both I think that even though It gets talked about less I think about effectiveness that is choosing the right things choosing material sub speak 80 20 analysis style More than efficiency because doing something really well doesn't automatically make it important Right, but I do I do think about both and you know the to use your phrasing from earlier the shadow side of that is that in the case of wrestling I identified weight cutting and Greco room and upper body techniques as places where I could really shine and if you continue to Kind of chunk down chunk down chunk down so that you get to a place where instead of using I'm making up these numbers but 100 techniques you're using 10 techniques and They're very shoulder dependent And then on top of that you're cutting in my case. I was cutting from my senior year in high school 178 to 152 twice a week Which is insane. That's crazy. It's insane and it's very dangerous. I don't recommend it I ended up having and still have chronic shoulder issues Yes, I know take care of their shoulders Oh, I think I think it goes as letting out some wicked Dog fog mist also in any case I digress so I do think that striving for like the sort of minimalist 80/20 analysis in the physical realm can be Quite dangerous because you can end up with overuse syndrome and dislocating shoulders And in my case having reconstructive shoulder surgery and so on Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show This episode is brought to you by wealth front Did you know if you missed 10 of the best performing days after the 2008 crisis you would have missed out on 50 50% of your returns don't miss out on the best days in the market stay invested in a long-term automated investment portfolio Pye-neered the automated investing movement sometimes referred to as robo advising and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients Wealthfront can help you diversify your portfolio Minimize fees and lower your taxes takes about three minutes to sign up and then wealth front will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs Based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost Wealthfront software constantly monitors your portfolio day in and day out so you don't have to They look for opportunities to rebalance and tax loss harvests to lower the amount of taxes you pay on your investment gains Their newest service is called autopilot and it can monitor any checking account for excess cash to move into savings or an investment account They've really thought of a ton.

SPONSOR Wealthfront (38:04)

They've checked a lot of boxes Smart investing should not feel like a roller coaster ride let the professionals do the work for you Go to wealthfront.com/tim and open a wealthfront investment account today And you'll get your first $5,000 managed for free for life. That's wealthfront.com/tim Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term and you can get started today at wealthfront.com/tim I think more and more these days about How I can change things in my life so I don't need to think or I'm not inclined to think about efficiency Same with competition And more about that. I think we as humans gravitate to what we are good at in general, I think that We all like the validation intrinsic and extrinsic or perhaps otherwise that comes from Feeling good about doing something well and I'm really good at figuring out process improvements I'm very good Kind of what was his name?

Being less driven by efficiency, and changing the conditions of your life (39:34)

Deming manufacturing world Toyota and so on like I'm very good at identifying steps looking at a process Figuring out which steps can be removed which steps should be removed which should be inverted. I'm very good at that and I'm also We could talk at length about this but in certain ways a good competitor. I'm very driven by competition. I find it exciting I like Stakes I do well when there are consequences usually and I'm almost always able to perform better in competition than I am in training but I think competition Much like positional economics right in other words There's someone is inclined if they make $75,000 a year Let's just say to feel much better about that if all their friends make $50,000 a year Versus if all their friends make $100,000 a year even though their life and quality of life may not change at all objectively at that $75,000 it just depends on the peer group right so competition I feel like Has value in certain areas certainly and it's been incredibly valuable to me but if you default to efficiency and competition that you can make yourself miserable depending on who you feel you're competing with and You can focus on doing things really well Whether or not you should be doing them in the first place whether or not they are in fact the Piece of the puzzle that makes a real difference so those are those are a few of the things that I'm shifting and thinking about a lot right now in my life I mean the last you know six months has really been the last six months especially the last three months has been a Hitting of the pause button like the pause button is currently on for me and this is the awkward part not so much to think about these things figure these things out but to sort of uh watch the conditions of my life and see if I notice anything That pulls me in a different direction or that kind of compels me in a different direction or draws me in a different direction So, I mean you and I've spoken about this a bit like and I am probably mangling your intention of what you said but you know rather than Doing something right now trying to like slightly change the conditions To see what emerges from the that new set of conditions or to set the correct conditions But right now The question for me would be correct for what I don't know because the what is the next step and right now that's a void for me I just don't know and so I'm Now I come here to the jungle to spend time with you like all right. Let's like have a shift of a couple of variables create some space And see what emerges from that and is it it's a beautiful entry into this idea of when we talk about the entanglement of Strengths and weaknesses or genius in eccentricity or dysfunctionality. However, we want to frame it It opens up the discussion of how much we should be focusing on our strengths and how much we should be focusing on our weaknesses, right? and I tend to believe that In life we should really embrace our funk and we should we should an overdeveloped power zone is is incredibly powerful potent On the other hand, we do need to acknowledge our weaknesses and one thing I've really come to Admire about you is how you do that. For example, what you're saying right now You're a person who really loves to get shit done But you've hit pause and the pause buttons are reeling some things The theme of control is also quite interesting like when you speak about a power zone of yours Is risk mitigation right trying to think about how things can go wrong on projects You also have a very interesting relationship to control Yeah, and hyper vigilance and hyper vigilance That would be another example of something that in excess kind of becomes its opposite, right? Like an obsession with security breeds a feeling of insecurity That's that's actually i'm glad you brought that up because that would be a probably the most crippling in a sense like emotionally psychologically crippling of the wounds slash Dysfunctions right next to superpowers and in some ways that I would think as your friend and i'm just putting this out of the question that You're grappling with those dynamics as part of what's led you to this incredibly powerful work.

Control and achievement mindset (44:07)

You've been driving in the world around psychedelics Maybe speak to that relationship between you control and what Your medicine journey has opened up. Yeah, well you you I thought you put it really well a couple of days ago or weeks ago Time changes in the jungle I can't even remember when you said something along the lines of you know, I find it very interesting that As someone who is controlled so much and focused on control so much that one of you are primary focuses if not your primary focus right now is compounds that create experiences that Are not controlled and they can be safe But you know if you think you're going to take Megadose of psilocybin or an ndmt or lst or any of these things and then write the screenplay of your experience And live that outline by line. You're gonna be very disappointed You know I may be maybe more like you lissies strapped to the mast and I think there is a tremendous I experience a tremendous relief when I can completely Let go of control or attempt to let go of control and feel the beauty of Floating downstream instead of trying to swim up river Against the current Right because I think most of my life I have prided myself on being you know the the like the fastest salmon, right just fucking thrashing like man like making it up the rocks dodging the grizzly bear and being willing to Suffer more than other people that you could you could dress that up and say you know developing a pain tolerance or compete But ultimately I think if we're honest with ourselves And I'm not saying there isn't a place for this right, but I think certainly I have to be very careful about assigning too much dignity and profundity to out suffering people I think if we Lionize that and Now really put it on a pedestal. You can you can paint yourself into a really nasty corner so with the with the medicine experiences and the let me rephrase that just because that lingo might not make sense to people but within these Transcendental Sometimes certainly transcendental or transpersonal meaning That you experience ego dissolution right the concept of I and Tim and time and space dissolves which you know, it's kind of like sex or It's really just not going to make any sense unless you've had an experience of this type So I won't be labor the the description and it's kind of like If some guys never ejaculated and you're and you're like well, it's kind of like sneeze in your balls And they're like I think I get it but you know, you can't really wrap your head around it But I digress the point is having these experiences where I'm not trying to out suffer I'm trying to out surrender Not out surrender. I'm trying to surrender and also lots of people have said this but I think that Experiences of anxiety depression etc are very often Me focused there even in some respects very self-absorbed right they're very Mimi me focused And they're also in the case of well in the case of depression often past focused on the case of anxiety or future focused and Now if you take five grams of potent philosophy mushrooms Maintaining any type of Mimi me centric Focus In the past or the future is going to be next to impossible Right, so you're given a reprieve and once you experience that reprieve You know That it's possible and then you can begin to look for avenues for Extending the effects into normal everyday sober life and Looking for other modalities or tools to find those spaces and so for me it's it's just been a Your revelation in that respect Beautiful so a pattern that I that I hear you speaking to is that Your previous relationship for example to efficiency or control Is evolving increasingly into an exploration of setting the conditions for success or for for x being downriver Surrender yeah, so so this is just in the exploration of the entanglement of overdevelopment and underdevelopment And you talked about people your friends of yours who have said but I don't want to lose my edge So as you feel yourself making that movement Which is really a deep?

Setting the conditions for success, rather than rigid metrics (49:29)

exploration of these core themes Do you feel like it's taking away your edge or adding to it? I think it's multiplying my edge and this is going to be maybe a really seem like a really mundane or odd example, but He's been on the mind because he just stepped down to see oh jeff bezos And i'm not comparing myself to jeff bezos just to be very clear but one of the massive advantages that bezos has had For so long and still has is his time frame. He's somehow managed to convince and persuade wall street to give him Different time horizons than everyone else being judged quarter by quarter now amazon is still judged On quarterly results to some extent but for the longest time the growth of amazon i mean Was in if you read the shareholder letters and I encourage everybody to look at these collected pdfs of The amazon shareholder letters. He just had a longer time horizon and when you have a 10 15 year 20 year time horizon You can think about making decisions in a very different way you relate to feeling rushed or pressured in a very different way and I feel like now I have to be careful here to also recognize that my circumstances have changed a lot in the last 10 15 years, okay, so I might be inclined to say well I can just wait for fat pitches and I feel like I have more of an edge and that may be also by product of my changing circumstances so I don't want to Attribute that solely to this ability to wait, but my experience is now that The way that I've heard other people describe The shift that i'm trying to embrace is being patient But I don't think about it that way it might be that but patience to me I think can sometimes I have a bit of an allergic reaction to patience Just because I think it's Used so often as an excuse for complacency or laziness So the word is not my favorite to apply here but paying attention right like really paying attention to Things around me and the feelings around me and let's just say You know the dog that's laying right next to us You know like osa and zoos at mealtime like whether they need water or not like i'm constantly tracking all that stuff and but it's a very light tracking and When I cultivate that I feel like I have less Still comes up occasionally, but less fear of missing out Because I have a confidence that I am going to see things that most people are going to miss Simply because they are rushing.

You can move slower and still get there first. (52:50)

It's interesting how universal this theme is and if you if you think about it in a multi-disciplinary way There are of course always exceptions, but almost always when you watch for example an athlete Over the years and over the decades their progression is from doing more to doing less Being more just getting more done and with one of the fascinating and kind of mystical looking things about really superb virtuoso fighters martial artists Is that they can Move much slower and always get there first Yeah, yeah And it's it's gorgeous to see and it's beautiful to really work on embodying And it's not because they can't move quickly they can move like lightning, but they can move slower and get there first Yeah, I remember thinking that with I don't know if this name is going to mean anything because it's a really this is This is dating me what when I was in japan when I was 15 That's when I really I had always had an affinity for martial arts and had you know trained in various schools As a kid but had never really seen real hard-hitting Fighting in the sense of mma which didn't exist as it does now, but so go kaktogi in japan seeing pancreas and so on but also k1 With the big guys and there was a fighter way back in the day named peter aerts the dutch lumberjack huge guy and gigantic I mean just a mountain of a guy and he had such impeccable timing Which is certainly in part very fast perception Right and and also a cute perception That even though he wasn't the fastest fighter he almost always got there first and he was a huge guy, but he was just able to read The ring and the opponent and the space so perfectly It was amazing to watch. Yeah, it's a beautiful principle and I think it really manifests everywhere. Yeah and the the uh, you know one of the mantras that i've been repeating to myself a lot recently is from what I learned from a friend who's former military which is slow and smooth and smooth as fast and really trying to apply that to my writing i trying to apply that to different types of training Trying to apply that to decision making also Right, which is why I give almost always if if just as a rule if someone tries to rush my decision making It's just no the answer is no automatically, right? And as one example, that's part of what i'm revisiting as Within this pause period. So in this pause period Where you're you're really sitting and i've been watching you sit in an empty space without rush What's surfacing and and what are some of the core tension points where areas that you're aware of being torn Massive tension points. Uh, I mean my Every fiber of my programmed Being right like my socialized self that has been rewarded for so long By doing things it can be very hard to sit with empty space and It makes me think a lot and i've been thinking about this in the last few weeks a lot a quote from tara brock who's a mindfulness and meditation teacher i mean she's much more than that but wrote an amazing book called radical acceptance that I recommend to everyone and She has this I'll just call it an expression. It's probably a story in one of her books, but she says, you know a famous sage once said there's only One important question and that question is what are you unwilling to feel and I think for a lot of people Maybe the majority of people maybe all people.

Productivity And Future Planning

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach (56:45)

I don't know Many of our compulsive behaviors are to mask Or override things that we don't want to feel Right, so if there is something you feel you need to focus on something you feel you need to do if there It's a pack of cigarettes. You need to pick up. It's uh Ties into what gab or matte who recommend people check out. He's been on the podcast as well Will sometimes talk to with respect to addiction. He says, you know people ask why the addiction they shouldn't ask why the addiction They should ask why the pain because the addiction is a consequence of the pain and trying to mask the pain Although i'm i'm paraphrasing so bringing this back down to earth Sitting here for them to space a lot of uncomfortable feelings come up And it's been challenging to sit with them and not immediately try to fix them And our fears Feeling a lack of direction feeling a lack of security fears anger has come up a lot, although i think that's probably In part due to a therapy session a few days ago where i talked about the childhood trauma which it really is is dangerous Yeah, it's tricky terrain to navigate and can have a lot of after effects if i revisit it A lot of emotions And there have been great days you know yesterday was a great day There have been some really hard days where i'm just like what the fuck am i doing? What the fuck am i not doing and why am i not doing like am i actually going to figure out anything So i just feel like i'm sitting by the pool staring at trees you know like Is there am i expecting some lightning bolt from the heavens to come down and Give me this You know miraculous epiphany that will solve all my issues like what am i doing?

The tension of an empty space (57:57)

And so it's been uh, it's been really challenging And super challenging not every day and i'm very fortunate that We've been able to spend time together and i've been able to spend time with your family and with a number of our friends who are here In strict isolation lockdown So that's been gorgeous and i've had so much fun and When i'm by myself and it's quiet Lock comes up Because i'm i i normally have So many other activities many of which are great many of which are productive many of which are in some way contributing whatever the Adjective moon i want to use that allows me also encourages me to do those things when you take all those away Yeah, a lot of stuff can come up to the state you're in as a It's a version of what so many people are feeling right now. This is such a painful time in the world There's so many people are alone and in pain in different forms Sometimes they've some so many have lost loved ones So many are forced into isolation or a lack of socialization And it's there's a lot of heartbreak out there and and just so i you speaking about your own journey here is powerful i'm curious Just given where you're at i often go with people who i'm kind of exploring with do something we call a cave process Which is essentially i was going to ask you about that Yeah disappearing and the way i first thing written down in my head of the cave process. What the hell is the cave process essentially Sitting in a space that is empty enough to get away from the inertia or reactivity The inertia of where we're coming from or reactivity away from or coming from you're you're in a version of that state right now and You last time you and i jammed we talked about this this framing that i play with some times of How would your future self guide you because no one will know you more intimately than yourself 20 years from now and Odds are yourself 20 years from now will be less attached the things that you're extremely attached to now So just given your intuitive sense of the direction you're going in life. What do you think or feel that you're Say 20 year future self would say to you how would he guide you today? I will answer that first i want to Ask you with the cave process. How do you?

Stillness, empty space and productivity. (01:01:28)

Implement that with People you're working with or people you advise is it is it a physical relocation to a place of stillness? Is it blocking out the calendar so they have space? To remove themselves from the bombardment of stimuli. What does that? Cave process look like well, I think it can take many forms as you pointed out earlier There are some people who are in a state of privilege where they can really disappear from the world for three or four months and Reflect and there are other people who are just who can't do that They've got maybe they've got families. They've got job. They're putting food on the table. They can't just disappear And and so I think there's micro ways of manifesting it For example waking up first in the morning and journaling is like a mini version of this Just creating empty space where we can tap into our unconscious is really powerful. I've gone through three four or five month periods with people where they truly stepped away from everything and Reflected and tried to Blue sky where they wanted to go in life as opposed to getting caught up in the execution concerns Is it a structured reflection? Do you have prompts questions, etc that you provide or practices or is it really just empty space? Let's see what emerges. I think the stillness comes first and then the structure can be layered in but the structure as you know Like I would structure it differently for every person who I'd be interacting with because we're all different That that's how I honestly relate to that that question but I I think that the principle of Getting away from reactivity or inertia is powerful for relationships almost everyone moves from one relationship to the next right? They're rebound, but sitting in space post a relationship is is really powerful Post a love relationship or post a friendship that falls apart I just think that we have the impulse to fill space the moment it empties but sitting in emptiness can be really powerful Thank you That so i'm gonna take a stab at your question. I will say as a preface that and I don't know if I've ever mentioned this to you the piece of writing that I somehow lost that Made me saddest Was a piece of fiction and I never write fiction but it was A story I wrote I think I was on a train ride and I was and I asked myself this question sometime I was like, what would what an older version of me say to me now? This was a long time ago 10 years ago something like that. So I wrote this story of A fiction story me going skiing taking a break going to a seaglage sitting by the fire Having some wine and having this older Gentlemen sit down next to me And this is before I read any borhiss because this is like straight borhiss And struck up a conversation in about like 10 20 minutes into it realized that it was an older version of myself And so we had this conversation about What he'd learned what advice he would give me and it was a seagtino 10 12 page Document and it was it was just an incredible exercise and then I somehow lost it Go figure if you're writing that story today. Yeah, if I were writing that story today I think the the core piece that comes to mind If I'm not overthinking it, right if it's just whatever Kind of pops into my head which I'm trying to pay a lot more attention to that first flash Right, which is very different from the number crunched analytical flash.

If Tom was writing a recent piece of fiction what advice would his 75yo self give him? (01:04:26)

It doesn't really flash. It's more of like a squeezing out of the sponge, but that first flash is That he would say focus on Enjoyment and fun and pleasure like the things that give you those Feelings and The justification not that there's one needed. I mean, I think those those are all very good things By-large, then you assuming that you know, there's no collateral damage I just have so much more energy When I feel one of those things and my lifelong battle Since my teens has been with chronic fatigue And that led to abusing a federal and caffeine aspirin in high school Which was introduced to me by an upperclassman for wrestling and then uh-oh now I'm using it two three times a day That was a mess for you know decade plus and United lie I just have your Lyme disease a few years ago This happens all the time on Long Island. I mean to the extent that in the ER in the summers They just have a sign that's like do you have Lyme disease like hey fill out this survey and get a free Amazon gift card I mean, it's everywhere So it's severe Lyme and the blood test came back and the doctor said well You are positive You have an acute infection, but you're aware you've already been infected And I as more and more people now would recognize what the serologic testing mean, you know, I guess it's IgG Might be getting that wrong. I think it's IgG instead of IgM but the long-term antibodies for Lyme were present and I've just had this incredible fatigue since I was in my teens So in that that persists to this day on some level and so I think that deepening my relationships thinking about family I think moving from a deep feeling of obligation and responsibility which I think has driven a lot of my behavior There's the competitive drive Then there's also a feeling especially after almost committing suicide in college that i'm just operating on borrowed time and like I owe a lot right and then I have a moral obligation to do a bcde all the way to see and I Not not to say that's run its course entirely Me and maybe there is a place for that and I think I don't think i'm at risk of becoming totally irresponsible I just don't think that it's likely that the pendulum would swing back that far and I think if I have a family and I have an embraced fun and joy and taking time and Taking attention for like the small pleasures That will really if like my kid will receive or kids Will absorb That type of orientation to the world where it is Responsibility where it is obligation and it will have a very sterilizing effect and muting effect on them and So right now, you know, I found myself say years ago thinking well like when I have kids I'll change a when I have kids. I'll change b when I have kids. I'll change de and f And I've I've come to the conclusion that that I think is very naive You better start becoming the parent you want to be now before game time Right like you're not going to just step in the ring Be like, okay now that i'm here with mike tyson i'm going to learn how to box That's a terrible idea and then the beautiful thing is all that preparation You'll do then you have a kid and the kid just kicks your ass anyway Yeah, and teaches you how to parent that kid Right so so now now just to be clear. It's not so much learning how to be a parent It's becoming the person you want to be Trying to train yourself and instill the habits And the changes in perspective that you want to have when you are a parent so it's purely It's within your locus of control Yeah, yeah, and then you get a kid who kicks you in the nuts and like, okay now you gotta now you're gonna change your strategy But but it's not a it's not a parenting strategy. It's more a way of thinking about the person I want to be when I'm like holding a child in my arms for the first time versus who I am now and Working on that now that's beautiful. Yeah, I think you're gonna be a hell of a dad. I can't wait Yeah, thanks brother. You so fun to have our little ones little rugrats duking it out together I love it. Yeah, okay. Let's we have about 11 more minutes. Let's pick up the pace I want to hit you with let's be a little more tactical about these tactics.

What's coming in the next 5, 10, 15 years and how can you prepare? (01:09:26)

So this one is tactical This is this is not such a tactical question, but it's slightly it's relatively tactical So I personally have this feeling that I observe so many people yearning for return to normal Right. I don't personally think that normal is necessarily returning so quickly And I feel that we're entering an age in human history where a core theme will be erratically accelerating pace of change So destabilizing events of different forms will become the new normal Versus the return to normal that so many people are craving And so I'm not really suggesting we debate that idea, but just roll with me on that idea And If you just were to play with that framing how do you think that people would best prepare for the world That we might be entering over the next five 10 15 years if that theme has some validity. Yeah, well Turns out you're asking mr. Hyper vigilance. So I have I have thought about this bit. We've talked about it a little bit So I think the I think the assertions right and we certainly with with technology And sort of exponentially ramping technology global interconnectedness I mean all of that is going to continue to the curve of all that is going to continue to steepen for a million reasons that we We won't get into right now.

Recommended Resources and Last Thoughts (01:10:25)

So I'll say two things. Number one is I think you have to Have to is a strong phrasing, but I'm going to use it for simplicity because we're doing a lightning round You have to focus on meta learning and meta skills or you're just going to be toast you need to be able to Learn to do things That machines have great difficulty doing and then by machine I include software most software I know and To embrace your humanness, right? I think Kevin Kelly is actually a great person to read up on For identifying kind of opportunities moving forward. He's you know a lot of people try to predict Technological advances the big difference with Kevin is that he's very often right And yeah, so he's he's given a lot of thought to say AI and humans and the next 10 to 10 to 20 years So I think meta learning skills. I think your book the art of learning should be required reading I think there are aspects of meta learning that are explored in for our chef, which confusingly is not Just a cookbook. It is in fact a book about celery did learning that can make you not just resilient but Diffraggle in the sense that the vast majority of people you might ever compete with if you end up competing Will not have this toolkit so when there's a shock to the system Like covet when there is a shock to the system like some designer Epidemic or pandemic that is designed using crisper right and released Easily out of some basement when there is a disaster like film the blank, right? I mean, there's so many technologies 3d printing you know blockchain decentralized social networks or even assassination marketplaces. I mean miniature drones were like the cost of defenses a million times higher than the cost of offense. I mean these like I mean the the kind of dystopian possibilities for cheap destabilizing events with many players we've talked about this right like not like one or two or three or four players who are state actors but tens of thousands of people who could Implement certain attacks that could be really destabilizing He or she who is the most adaptable wins I think in many respects so meta learning and then really understanding I do think you know for all of his eccentricity I think talib and black swan fooled by randomness read those books if you are not On a very basic level and you do not I never took calculus I'm not a mathematician by any stretch but learn to understand probabilistic thinking it's so fucking important Just start to read fooled by randomness and black swan get a basic understanding of How probability affects your decision making in life? Beautiful Your point about meta learning is so powerful. I I mean one way to just Very simply think about this is that people tend to think about technique tactics technique, but if you If you focus your learning on the principles that house the techniques and you can throw all the techniques away and reinvent new techniques quite easily As you know, I've experimented a lot with a lot To the techniques are just the external husk the meta the principle is the thing to really focus on learning And it's it's really remarkable how they can be manifest in in new places quite quickly I think the meta learning and adaptability are are so intertwined Okay, so you sent me a doc of some questions from some of your listeners And I want to hit you with a few of those if you don't mind. Let's do it So andrew t asked what's the single most important attribute you look for when debating if you'll bring a new person into your circle of friends Okay, the first one So I used to debate a lot more in my head than I do now The first thing honestly is just gut feeling like Does the animal in me?

Personal Insights And Learning

Most important attribute Tim looks for in a new person (01:14:25)

Move forward towards that person does it stay where it is or does it pull back even a quarter inch even a millimeter? I love it. That's a beautiful answer. Yeah, that's that's that's that's number one And number two is just trustworthiness discretion Intelligence is dime a dozen. I really just like I care less and less about what we consider Intelligence every time I've overruled my intuition about someone it's bit me in the ass Yeah, every time. Yeah and pay attention to molly pay attention to my dog Because even if I'm I've had two drinks and my spider senses off if molly doesn't like someone Yeah pay very close attention to that. Yeah Yeah Russell w do you ever worry your mistaken noise for signal with learning from successful people Survival bias and all that jazz it's an interesting question. I think about it a lot I think this is this is a very smart question very obscure question you need to keep in mind So for me the first thing with with world-class performers is a Can they repeat whatever I admire about them?

Learning from successful people (01:15:23)

In other words, like once you're lucky twice you're good Right like three times your world class if it's something really outrageous First can they actually repeat what is their claim to fan? Let's just figure that out first because if not like keep looking number two is Can they teach it? Are there any examples of disciples Which which you can see certainly in the in the investing world, right? You see these rollouts And then also the question of are they succeeding? because Of x whatever x is that you're looking at or they succeeding in spite of x And those two things are very often confused Where people are like This works because I use tough love and I kick my employees in the face every time they fuck up And that's big I run a tight ship and that's why it works and it's like actually Jesus it would be 10 times better if you didn't do that So you're succeeding in spite of that in which case you can ask people around them or who have had exposure to them Yeah, beautiful answer. So ricky sent two questions I liked one of which of course is quite personal to me now because got a beautiful puppy What have you learned about yourself in the world now that you've had a dog for a while?

What has having a dog taught Tim? (01:16:37)

I've learned that we project a lot of our shit on everyone And everything including dogs and dogs are just I mean there may be exceptions, but dogs are just so tabula rasa I mean they come obviously pre-installed with All their gray wolf dna and canid quirks, but When I was raising molly and training molly in the beginning like looking back, I'm so embarrassed by how upset I got at points when she was Not being disobedient not understanding my training because I wasn't training. Well, I wasn't clear And it's so easy to answer pomorfies Our animals and assume that they have some internal agenda or that they're doing ab and c to annoy us and so on which ends up being such a mirror for what our Wounds are our fears are what our compulsions are so I think molly is incredible And dogs are an incredible mirror. They really show you I think your strengths and your weaknesses and I think molly Has really taught me how to love also as a result of that. I mean, but just to To just love an animal so deeply and unconditionally. I think I think that it's uh, it's really Opened up a lot in me and removed a lot of armor that would have been difficult to remove otherwise That's so beautiful and I see that in you. I see the way you interact with us and with zoos my brother lights Dogs, who's it just the way you bring love to these These big Hups who got a whole lot of energy. They just and they just love you. It's a And there's no no bullshitting in that. Yeah Yeah, sorry about making out with oh so that first night That was a that was my debobled. I came I came in just for people who are not in the joke And uh, I was like can I give uh, may I give us a little treat and he's like sure and this is the like I said first First night I'd arrived. There's the alarm that says I need to go get my covet test Which is kind of on team. Oh, no, leave it. Yeah, yeah, and uh That's the alarm saying I have need to go get my covet test Uh, which is appropriate because I just arrived Uh, and he's like sure you can give us a treat and I put a little piece of chicken in my teeth and I was like grabbed it And Josh was like you can give my you get my fucking dog covet. I'm just gonna give my whole fucking family covet It was pretty great. It was pretty great. We had a fiery start. Oh, it's a good start to the whole thing Hey, man. This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, great. Yeah, it's really great man. So good to see you and so good to jam and uh To be continued brother.

Friday (01:19:36)

Love you very much. Love you too, man Hey guys, this is tim again just a few more things before you take off Number one. This is five bullet friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every friday that Provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend and five bullet fridays a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week that could include Favorite new albums that I've discovered it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up In the the world of the esoteric as I do it could include Favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends for instance And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend So if you want to receive that check it out just go to four hour work week dot com That's four hour work week dot com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it This episode is brought to you by veori clothing spelled v-u-o-r-i veori I've been wearing veori at least one item per day for the last few months and You can use it for everything. It's performance apparel But it can be used for working out it can be used for going out to dinner at least in my case I feel very comfortable with it super comfortable super stylish and I just want to read that something that one of my employees said she is an athlete She is quite technical.

Voorhees (01:20:42)

Although she would never say that the astra if she had ever Used or heard of veori and this was her response. I do love their stuff been using them for about a year I think I found them at aria I first for my partner t-shirts that are super soft But somehow last as he's hard on stuff and then I got into the super soft cotton yoga pants and jogger Sweat pants I live in them and they too have lasted their stylish enough I can wear them out and about the material is just super soft and durable I just got their clementine running shorts for summer and loved them the brand seems pretty popular and constantly sold out in closing And i'm abbreviating here, but in closing with the exception of when I need technical outdoor here They're the only brand I bought in the last year or so for yoga running lounge wear that lasts and that I think look good also I like the discreet logo. So that gives you some idea that was not intended for the sponsor read That was just her response via text veori against ball b-u-r-i Is designed for maximum comfort and versatility? You can wear it running you can wear their stuff training doing yoga lounging weekend errands or in my case again going out To dinner really doesn't matter what you're doing their clothing is so comfortable And uh, it looks so good and it's it's non offensive. You don't have a huge brand logo on your face You'll just want to be in them all this time and my girlfriend and I have been wearing them for the last few months Their men's core short ko re the most comfortable line athletic short is your one short for every sport I've been using with kettlebell swings for runs you name it the bank's short This is their go-to-land to see short is the ultimate versatility It's made from recycled plastic bottles and what i'm wearing right now Which I had to pick one to recommend to Folks out there or at least men out there is the ponto performance pants and you'll find these at the link I'm going to give you guys and you can check out what i'm talking about But i'm wearing them right now their thin performance sweat pants, but that doesn't do the justice So you got to check it out pon to ponto performance pant for you ladies the women's performance jogger is the softest jog girl you'll ever own veori Isn't just an investment in your clothing. It's an investment in your happiness and for you my dear listeners They're offering 20 off your first purchase so get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet It's super popular a lot of my friends have now noticed our wearing this And so am I veori clothing dot com forward slash tim that's be you oh I clothing dot com slash tim not only will you receive 20 off your first purchase But you'll also enjoy free shipping on any u.s. orders over 75 dollars and free returns So check it out veori clothing dot com slash tim that's vu oh r i clothing dot com slash tim and discover the versatility of This episode is brought to you by tonal to nal I'm super excited about this one and i was skeptical of it in the beginning tonal Quote tonal is the world's most intelligent home gym and personal trainer and quote That's the tagline from their website folks to give you the one sentence summary And this device truly a system is perfect for anyone looking to take their home workouts to the next level or Someone who just wants to get?

Introducing Tonal (01:24:05)

maximum bang for the buck in A tiny tiny footprint of space Tonal is precision engineered to be the world's most advanced strength studio and personal trainer uses breakthrough technology of all different types To help get you stronger faster. I was introduced to tonal by three different friends all of them are tech savvy One of them is a former competitive skier who's doubled his strength in a number of movements using tonal even though he has a long athletic Background and i'll paint a picture by eliminating traditional metal weights dumbbells and barbells tonal can deliver 200 pounds of resistance Which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually it feels like a lot more at the high end in a device smaller than a flat screen TV and you can perform at least 150 different exercises And these different technologies are exclusive to tonal and even dial weights up and down with the touch of a button and one pound increments Using magnets and electricity so the movement is extremely smooth and even though i have a home gym already in my garage I'm still getting a tonal installed i've used tonal for multiple workouts now to do things i just cannot do In my home gym such as the chop and lift exercises from for our body all sorts of cable exercises that would usually Involve much much bigger piece of equipment eccentric training for instance you can do to give a simple example bicep curls where you are lifting Let's just say 20 pounds in each hand up and then tonal automatically Increase the weight because you can lower more than you can lift to say 25 or 30 pounds on the way down and i do kettlebell swings I do all sorts of deadlifts this that another thing and after one workout on tonal focusing on pulling I was blasted for a full week. It's really incredible what you can do with eccentric's They also have all sorts of other really really cool advantage that you can apply to any of your favorite movements Tonal learns from your strength and provides suggested weight recommendations for every move the detailed progress reports to help you see your strengths grow Total also has a growing library of expert led workouts by motivating coaches from strength training the cardio So you can do really just about everything every program is personalized to your body using artificial intelligence and other aspects of the Engineering and smart features to check your form in real time just like a personal trainer So try it out try tonal at least check it out watch the videos on youtube and see if you can pick out a familiar voice It's not me.

Eccentric Training With Tonal

How tonal blasts me with eccentric training. (01:26:20)

I'll say that try tonal for world smartest home gym for 30 days in your home And if you don't love it, you can return it for a full refund.

Promotion And Offers

Get $100 off smart accessories at www.tonal.com, promo code (01:26:53)

So visit www.tonal.com for $100 off of smart accessories when you use promo code Tim Tiam at checkout. That's www.t-o-n-a-l.com promo code Tim tonal be your strongest You You You