0:00
Optimal, minimal.
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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
0:05
Can I ask you a personal question?
0:07
No, I just saved my brother's life.
0:10
What if I did the opposite?
0:12
I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
0:24
This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic.
0:26
You might remember Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee, which was created by those clever Finnish founders.
0:31
And when I first mentioned that coffee on this podcast, the product sold out in less than a week.
0:37
It lights you up like a Christmas tree, which can be really useful.
0:40
However, recently I've been testing the opposite side of the spectrum, a new product, and that is their reishi mushroom elixir to help me end my day, to get to sleep.
0:51
As you guys may know, long-time listeners at least, I struggled with insomnia for decades.
0:54
I've largely fixed that, but still shutting off my monkey brain has never been easy, still isn't easy very often.
1:01
And I've found reishi, which I've been fascinated by for a few years now, has been very, very effective and calming.
1:08
Their old formula, however, Four Sigmatic's old formula included stevia, and I like to avoid sweeteners, all sweeteners, for a host of reasons.
1:18
And I then just pinged them and asked, "Hey guys, I would love to experiment with this and maybe actually suggest it, but I'd like a version without sweeteners if you'd be open to it.
1:28
If it's too much of a ick, don't worry."
1:31
And they are always game for experimentation.
1:34
So, they created a special custom version without the stevia, without sweeteners.
1:37
Now it is part of my nightly routine.
1:39
Their reishi elixir comes in single-serving packets, which are perfect for traveling.
1:44
In fact, I'm about to leave the country right now, and I have a packet in front of me.
1:48
This is just going to sit in the end of my carry-on bag.
1:49
You only need hot water, and it mixes very, very easily.
1:56
Here's some recommended copy that they put in the read.
2:00
So, I'm going to read it and then I'll give you my take.
2:03
Quote, "A warning for those in the experimental mindset, reishi is strong and bitter (in parentheses, like any great medicine).
2:09
So, if the bitterness is too much, I recommend trying it with honey and or nut milk such as almond milk." End quote.
2:14
So, I'm going to say, "No, you should suck it up and you should drink the tea because it's not that bitter.
2:21
And maybe you should take the advice of old Chinese people when they're criticizing young ins when they say, "Bu neng chi ku."
2:27
Which means you're not able to eat bitterness.
2:31
Bitter is in many cases an indication of things that help liver detoxification and so on.
2:37
Not saying that's the case here, but I've tested this reishi elixir on family members, on friends. Everybody has liked it.
2:45
It's a little bit earthy. It's not that hard.
2:47
So, I would just say suck it up and no, don't put in honey or nut milk or any of that [ __ ] Just drink the goddamn tea. It's delicious, I think. Right?
2:56
If you like puer, that kind of stuff, that type of tea, you're going to dig it. So, just try it.
3:01
Okay, back to then my read.
3:01
If you'd like to naturally improve your sleep, both onset and quality, I think, naturally, you might just enjoy this reishi elixir without any sweeteners.
3:11
It has organic reishi extract, organic field mint extract, organic rose hips extract, organic tulsi extract. And that's it.
3:18
No fancy stuff, no artificial whatchamacallit anything. So, check it out. Go to fourSigmatic.
3:26
com/ferriss and get 20% off this special batch.
3:29
I don't know if they're going to be making much more of this uh since it was made specifically for you guys.
3:34
So, do me a favor and try it out so that they continue to be open to experimenting with me to create products for you guys specifically. Check it out. Four Sigmatic.
3:43
That's f o u r s i g m a t i c dot com/ferriss f e r r i s s and get 20% off the special batch.
3:54
And you must use the code Ferriss to receive your discount. f e r r i s s.
4:00
So, again, go to foursigmatic.
4:01
com/ferriss and then use code Ferriss for 20% off of this rare exclusive limited run of reishi mushroom elixir for nighttime routines without any sweeteners. Enjoy.
4:20
This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter.
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It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers and it's super super simple.
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Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self-experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world.
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You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time because after all, the podcast, the books, they can be quite long.
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And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday.
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It's become one of my favorite things I do every week.
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It's free, it's always going to be free, and you can learn more at tim. blog/friday. That's tim. blog/friday.
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I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with, and little do in fact I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday.
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So, you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun.
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Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email.
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Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So, check it out. tim. blog/friday.
5:48
If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe anytime. So, easy peasy. Again, that's tim. blog/friday.
6:00
And thanks for checking it out if the spirit moves you. Hello boys and girls.
6:06
This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show. Long time no see. Long time no hear.
6:11
How do you or should I say how do you something along those lines?
6:19
Little rusty, but I digress.
6:20
The Tim Ferriss Show is typically where I share the habits and routines of world-class performers as well as try to spot and discuss the patterns amongst them.
6:29
This episode is going to be a role reversal and since I am a professional dilettante, professional amateur of sorts, a little self-conscious about this.
6:41
However, recently Cal Fussman at Cal Fussman, F U S S M A N, the man who has transformed oral history into an art form.
6:50
That's not my quote and it's not his.
6:52
That's what people say about him because he's interviewed everyone from Clooney to Gorbachev to Reagan to you name it.
6:58
He's a big deal and he is also one of the principal writers or was one of the senior writers behind the what I learned column for Esquire magazine forever, which is how he got to kick the tires and meet many of these folks.
7:12
Interviewed me for his podcast.
7:12
He interviewed me in two separate interviews and in true Cal fashion, he took the conversation to places I never could have expected.
7:23
He really is a master of the craft of asking questions and I love speaking with him as a friend, but I also love studying him as an interviewer.
7:36
Cal said this interview was one of his favorites he's ever heard from me because the way he put it was, quote, "We get to learn what made Tim Tim." End quote.
7:44
We dug into some of the childhood stories that I typically hold back.
7:47
I don't like to talk about some of the early days and childhood stuff.
7:53
Uh but Cal conned pry it out of me.
8:00
Cal said he wanted to build a story to understand what happened to me on my journey, how it explains where I am now, what makes me tick, and where I still hope to improve and grow.
8:09
And I think he was able to unearth all of that.
8:11
So, if you're looking for a true world-class performer, someone who's the best at what they do, then you should probably look for one of my other episodes. tim. blog/podcast.
8:22
There are 300 other people. You can find Jamie Fox.
8:23
You can find Arnold Schwarzenegger.
8:25
You can find chess prodigies like Josh Waitzkin.
8:26
But if you want to hear about my somewhat odd, maybe quirky path that took me from my days as a wee lad to where I am now, then this may be an episode of interest.
8:42
Cal is really, really a fascinating specimen, and I've interviewed him twice.
8:47
So, if you want to hear Cal's side of the story, his entire insane, meandering adventure of life, which includes taking shots with Hunter S.
8:56
Thompson and working alongside Hunter uh for a period of time, you can hear that at tim. blog/cal.
9:04
And you should absolutely listen to more of Cal's interviews, so check out his new podcast, for which I was interviewed.
9:11
Big Questions with Cal Fussman.
9:13
So, just Google Big Questions with Cal Fussman, f u s s m a n, where he interviews all sorts of folks like Kobe Bryant and Damon John and Seth Godin and on and on and on.
9:25
And then there's me, odd man out.
9:28
So, without further ado and preamble, I'm kind of stalling with this intro. I apologize, guys.
9:34
Here is my interview, aka being interviewed by Cal Fussman.
9:44
Just went off the springboard, brother.
9:46
We just went off the springboard.
9:48
So, I've been thinking about this conversation for a long time.
9:53
And I basically had two ways to prepare, I thought. Like one, I know you.
10:01
Uh we've been in the sauna together. We have. Met your mom. That's right. Met your dad. We've gone out to eat.
10:11
You won't let me pick up the check. Listen to your podcast. Read your books.
10:18
So, I do in some ways know you.
10:24
And I thought, well, I could do even more research.
10:28
Or I could try to just wipe my memory clean.
10:33
And approach this in a way that well, I really don't know Tim.
10:41
And I'm going to try and forget a little about what I know.
10:43
And just act like I bumped into Tim Ferriss on the train.
10:51
HOLY [ __ ] IT'S TIM FERRISS. How you doing?
10:55
You're pretty good at trains.
10:56
I'm learning from my memory. Yeah, there you go. I'm good at trains.
11:00
So, and it's funny when I went out to see you, I went on a train.
11:02
And so, I thought that would be an interesting way to go.
11:08
And the more I think about it, the thing that really hits me about you goes to a story about Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. Okay?
11:22
So, one's a producer and the other is a filmmaker. They're partners.
11:28
And I'm interviewing them in the Claridge Hotel in London.
11:34
And we're talking, we're having a great conversation, and in the middle of this interview, a fire alarm goes off, and water sprouts from the ceiling.
11:47
In an instant, Ron Howard rushes to There was like sort of a kitchen in this room, and he grabs a bucket, and he puts it under the water.
12:01
At the same time, Ron Howard ran to the bathroom and got the towels, and had them down.
12:10
And I was just amazed at how they both, in a second, went in their own directions to solve the problem, and together they came up with the solution, while I just sat there watching this.
12:26
And the more I thought about it, I thought the genius of Tim Ferriss is he does both at the same time.
12:34
You're like two people who would You wouldn't ordinarily need a partner to do the things that you do, and yet you have these skills on different sides of the spectrum that reside inside you, and I'm thinking, "How did that happen?"
12:57
So, let's start at the beginning.
12:57
I was talking yesterday to this uh guy, Wim Hof. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. I know I know Wim. Okay.
13:07
Now, he goes underwater, and he stays under the cold for minutes at at a time.
13:18
And when I was asking him how this came about, he explained when he was born, he was born a twin, the second twin, and he came out like basically deprived of oxygen.
13:32
And he didn't know it until years later, but his whole life became a movement toward the moment he was born with.
13:44
And I'm wondering at your birth, did something happen that helped make you who you are? It's quite possible.
13:52
Uh I don't remember all too much, but as I've been told, I was born premature and ended up in critical care. I still have scars.
14:06
Uh you can actually see one right on my wrist there.
14:07
It looks like a cigarette burn. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:09
I have another one underneath my uh left nipple, basically. It's in the rib area.
14:19
And that is from a respirator.
14:19
I had I as I understand it, five full-body blood transfusions to oxygenate the blood properly.
14:30
And I was in really bad shape.
14:30
I'm very, very, very tiny and under incubator lights and so on.
14:36
So, I had a lot of, I suppose, trauma, but difficulty coming into the world.
14:44
And seem to have recovered. But I was very brother?
14:51
But I was very, very, very small up until about uh the end of fifth grade. Very small kid. Very much a runt.
14:57
So, has I mean, your life has been a good part of it spent in search of getting the most out of your body. And Definitely.
15:08
It's a pretty good relation.
15:08
Well, there is in in some direct ways uh in the sense that the experimentation and the recording of experiments started with primarily wrestling, which was the only sport I really gravitated to towards or actually did well in.
15:27
I was very hyperactive as a kid and there were some other mothers who recommended to my mom to drain my batteries to put me into something called kid wrestling.
15:38
I couldn't do or I really didn't want to do other sports that were team sports because I was so small.
15:43
I would get I was bullied and beat up and couldn't compete.
15:47
I couldn't hold my own with other kids, but weight weight classes exist in wrestling.
15:50
So, the puny little runt could battle the other puny little runt and then one of them could feel uh like a winner for a short period of time before they went back to school and got the the crap kicked out of them once again.
16:04
So, I was put into kid wrestling and there was really there's not much technical mastery when you're a little kid in kid wrestling.
16:14
It's mostly just flopping around, but at some point in high school uh certainly and just before high school began taking it very seriously and I still to this day have some very serious uh thermoregulatory issues.
16:28
So, I I I don't respond to heat in a normal way.
16:31
How do you respond to heat?
16:34
Uh I appear to have and I've actually done uh a number of experiments and been involved in experiments to try to better understand it.
16:43
Uh I'm very sensitive to say heatstroke, but it doesn't appear because I at one point much, much later after college volunteered to be a test subject.
16:53
I'm going to bounce around a little bit here at Stanford University where they were developing a glove for cooling the body.
17:00
And it was being developed or at least funded by the military.
17:07
So, the general experiment included wearing full military fatigues, helmet, loaded backpack and you had an esophageal probe, as you would imagine, down your nose.
17:19
So, it's about I would say 2-ft long and it's a it's a plastic tube that you feed down your nose, down your esophagus, so your throat can't close or your epiglottis can't close.
17:33
Down to get your core body temperature from your heart.
17:36
So, you get as close to the heart as possible.
17:38
Now, unfortunately for me, the military standard temperature gauge is a esophageal probe, but up the other end. So, I also had Oh, no.
17:49
a 2-ft esophageal probe up the other end.
17:54
And then you go Oh, it gets better.
17:56
I knew we were going to get deep here, but Uh uh I'm just jumping right into it.
17:59
There's not much foreplay in this podcast.
18:01
And I then had to go into a sauna.
18:03
I don't recall the exact temperature and march on an incline treadmill in the sauna to heat exhaustion.
18:11
And this was done multiple times.
18:11
And they would track everything.
18:16
And what was I Well, I should say in retrospect should have been expected.
18:21
It was miserable, of course.
18:22
And then I was completely non-functional for the rest of the day because my brain had effectively shut off when you march to heat exhaustion.
18:31
But, I hit that heat exhaustion shut down point at lower temperatures than other people.
18:36
So, I think it's something in the brain.
18:38
Maybe there's some gauge in the hypothalamus or something that is off.
18:43
Uh but, suffice to say, uh throughout even high school, I and we can come back to this, but when I was in Japan, which was a real formative moment, uh was hospitalized for effectively heatstroke uh during a judo competition or uh training in the summer because I was overheating.
19:01
So, uh all of that is backstory to say that really early on I realized that heat was not my friend and endurance was not my strong suit. I just couldn't last.
19:12
I would overheat in these wrestling matches.
19:15
So I had to develop techniques and approaches Wow.
19:22
and other tricks like getting very good at cutting weight so that I could level the playing field to actually compete and win in these sports.
19:32
So if you could figure out how to really be 15 pounds heavier than you were It would give me a fair shot. Right.
19:42
Yeah and it it certainly is an advantage but I had other disadvantages.
19:47
Uh So it it would but it was it was an area where I realized most people were not spending a lot of time analyzing anything.
19:59
Or that's a very fancy way to put it.
20:02
Uh it was it was just a low hanging fruit for me because I was like all right well I'm never going to be the most technical wrestler.
20:09
be the most technical wrestler. I'm never going to be the most uh persistent wrestler in terms of endurance because I I lack the physiology for it but how many wrestlers are really going to sit down and try to figure out sodium and potassium
20:24
and read about potassium sparing diuretics and figure out the dandelion root is something that you know a 15 year old can actually get a hold of over the counter which act which has the properties of certain prescription medications which should achieve the same thing etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. that come from?
20:41
Uh I I I've always at least from high school uh been fascinated by nutrition and that does not come from my family.
20:50
Uh I it's it's funny because one of the things when I think of your dad I always think of the advertising slogan he came up with Fill your belly at Big Dave's Deli. That's right. That's right.
21:08
And I won't want to get into the particulars of of my family too much just for privacy purposes, but yeah, I mean my uh uh I would not say that my parents are uh uh nutritional advisors to Olympians.
21:22
Well, I wonder one other fact about your family.
21:25
They're taking better care of themselves, but it didn't come from there.
21:28
I honestly don't know exactly where it came from.
21:30
It could have been I'll just speculate here.
21:31
I've never actually thought about it.
21:33
Just a good sign in an interview.
21:36
That uh I was a puny little runt.
21:38
And uh I was I was born uh in sev- in the late '70s and then grew up in the '80s.
21:45
Well, who were the stars in the '80s?
21:47
You have Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Woah, man.
21:55
are all these ripped That was the golden era of action films, if you think about it. You know what?
22:00
I was out of the country then. I missed it all.
22:04
So, this this this makes sense.
22:04
Well, the the plots are pretty easy to follow, so if you wanted to go back I said I'd killed you last. I lied.
22:11
It's very easy to digest material.
22:14
Now, I understand the opening of your podcast. Exactly. Yeah, makes more sense. Oh, man.
22:23
So, there's one other fact that I just like to bring out because to me it is very interesting.
22:31
There's There was like a salesmanship in inside your dad. Yeah.
22:36
And your mom you come into the house and hey, sit down, let's peel some shrimp and uh have some dinner. Yeah.
22:41
There is a very welcoming quality to her. For sure.
22:48
Uh and both of these you have you have.
22:52
The Yeah, they're very different.
22:53
They're very different people.
22:53
Uh and as long as Yeah, as long as long as we're talking about characteristics, I'm fine with it.
22:58
The uh I'll give another anecdote which shows the difference.
23:03
So, my my dad loves crossword puzzles.
23:10
My mom is just incredibly good at also crossword puzzles but Wheel of Fortune.
23:18
So, their minds work very differently.
23:20
I mean, she can see one letter and she'll get it in 10 milliseconds.
23:24
And I don't my father also has and you've experienced this the closest thing to the closest thing to perfect factual recall that I've ever encountered up close for extended periods of time.
23:41
I mean, he remembers the where every classmate of his sat in every class he had in elementary school.
23:51
He remembers every word of fill-in-the-blank language that he learned in fifth grade. And I do not have that.
23:58
I also don't have uh, the say within 10 milliseconds answer Wheel of Fortune answer ability of my mom, but it stands to reason that if I'm getting genetics from both sides, I'm somewhere in the middle.
24:13
But, but what you do have is the ability to make people feel comfortable around you, uh, which if you're interviewing people, you got to have that. to help.
24:25
And and also, you understand how to sell what you do.
24:31
So, like pieces are starting to come together here.
24:35
Can May I add another piece? Sure. Oh, please do.
24:38
So, I don't know I don't think I've ever told you this. So, All right.
24:43
So, how did I become interested in persuasion and selling and so on?
24:52
I've always been a night owl.
24:52
My mom's theory is So, I've always, I mean, since I was a very, very, very little kid, gone to bed typically 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 a. m.
25:03
My mom's theory is because that's that that is due to being under incubator lights at night in the in the intensive care unit or the critical care unit in the hospital as a newborn.
25:18
Constantly under under lights at night.
25:22
And what kind of television is on at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning? Infomercials. Infomercials.
25:34
So, I'd be up late at night and it's all paid programming.
25:37
I couldn't go to sleep and there would be these Ron Popeil, it's fill in the blank, it's Tony Robbins.
25:44
And I just became fascinated by and asked myself why someone would buy one of these things.
25:53
And at the time, of course, I'm not interested in making money, not interested in building a business, I'm a little kid.
25:58
But nonetheless Oh, this is a big piece of leather.
26:04
got the pocket fisherman, you've got the Topic hair powder that you pour on your head.
26:10
And you're remembering this like your dad would have.
26:12
Yeah, I mean, I do have I have a very visual memory.
26:15
So, my my my dad has not just visual, but also very textual if that makes sense.
26:22
And I know that's coming through the optic system.
26:26
Um but I tend to remember anything that engages color and motion very well.
26:31
Uh which can creep people out because they'll be like, "Oh, yeah."
26:33
They'll be like, "Hey, we've met before."
26:34
Yeah, I remember meeting cuz we were sitting here and there and you're third chair from the left and you're wearing this and that.
26:40
If it's a woman especially the the spider sense for psycho goes off in their head, which is is uh not well founded in this case.
26:48
It's just the memory that I particular type of memory that I have, but that yeah, lots of late nights listening to Now this Ron Popeil guy, I I I I don't remember his work.
27:01
What could Uh so Ron Popeil, I became later interested in going back and figuring out who these people were. Right?
27:10
So you had for instance the thigh master.
27:12
You probably remember the thigh master. the thigh master.
27:15
And the whole story behind that.
27:15
And then Ron Popeil who who cut his teeth at state fairs.
27:20
A lot of these old old-timers, these kind of groundbreakers in infomercials cut their teeth at these various state fairs uh selling to live disinterested audiences who are walking by.
27:34
So they'd have to get attention and first get a crowd and then sell the product, right?
27:40
So there was a multi-stage process and they had then translated that to television, which is why almost all of these products initially were live demo products. Right?
27:51
Which Tony Robbins differed from.
27:54
Uh and uh so that interested me.
27:54
I'm like, all right, well everyone else is doing the slice and dice.
27:58
I can cut through a can and then I can cut through a tomato because it didn't dull the knife.
28:03
And as a kid, of course, I don't I've no desire to buy a knife, but I'm looking at the demo and then you have say a Tony Robbins or maybe a handful of others, but really not many who weren't selling a physical product.
28:18
And that was interesting to me or like the no money down real estate stuff, which made even less sense to me than anything else.
28:25
I'm like, well all right, I don't even know where to begin understanding that conceptually, but they're using this guy who's selling whatever no money down real estate is is using a thousand testimonials.
28:38
Okay, so he's only using testimonials. That's interesting. Why is he doing that?
28:43
Oh man, see this this is what fascinates me because for what you just said about first get the crowd, then sell the product is very different from the way a writer or an artist thinks where they're saying, "I want to do I got to do this.
29:09
Somebody's got to help me do it.
29:11
Somebody give me some money and and allow me to fulfill my dream."
29:13
And they don't stop to think "Well, let me get a crowd first and then I can do what I want to do."
29:26
So, let me add another layer to this, which is so that's my life from midnight to 3:00 in the morning.
29:35
The rest of the time, I from a very, very young age wanted to be a comic book penciler.
29:39
So, I wanted to be an artist.
29:41
I literally wanted to be an artist.
29:41
I wanted to be an illustrator.
29:43
Oh, and my you are two people.
29:45
And I spent all of my time drawing.
29:45
And that was my goal was to become a comic book penciler.
29:52
And I was idolized certain artists at the time.
29:59
Specifically pencilers like Jim Lee who I've been actually at at some point about a year ago we were trading email to hopefully have me interview him, which would be a lot of fun.
30:13
And McFarland and Erik Larsen and I could go down the list Simon Bisley, all of these artists were those were the people I idolized from a career standpoint.
30:25
I didn't even think about it as a career, but as as to what I wanted to do since I enjoyed drawing and seemed to have a predisposition towards it, that was what I spent the rest of my time thinking about.
30:39
So, you had school, wrestling comic book penciling, and then I can't sleep, what should I do? Infomercials. Infomercials.
30:47
Now, I'm beginning to get pieces are coming together here, brother.
30:52
Because like I look at myself, and like I am missing I am missing pieces here.
30:59
I wasn't up at 3:00 in the morning watching the infomercials.
31:04
Now, there are downsides to that. I mean, there are. It's not all upside.
31:08
but think about think about what that gave you.
31:09
Just the the notion of get the crowd first, then sell the product. Yeah.
31:16
That puts you in control. Yeah, totally.
31:21
Which most artists are they're they're out of control.
31:26
They're always looking for the manager or the publishing house or the record company to support their dream.
31:30
Yeah, and from the beginning I wanted to be uh control was really important to me.
31:38
The I mean, very beginning.
31:38
And not talking about career aspirations, but just trying to control as many variables as possible.
31:46
People think of me as uh some type of risk taker with the early stage startups and everything else.
31:51
I don't view myself that way at all.
31:52
I think about mitigating and decreasing risk all the time.
31:58
So, for me, I like to have control directly or indirectly over as many variables as possible.
32:04
That's not always a strength.
32:06
Uh but at least for me uh up to up to this point, it's there have been a lot of benefits, certainly.
32:13
How does money fit into the equation when you were in high school? How did you see money?
32:22
Once you start working, so I think my first job was 13 or 14, and I was the floor and machine cleaner at an ice cream shop called Snowflake, which no longer exists, uh out on Long Island where I grew up.
32:39
And for people who don't know, I grew up as as a townie in the Hamptons, which is a weird place to grow up.
32:44
So, to grow up as sort of the rat tail wearing townie in a resort town anywhere in the world is pretty odd.
32:52
And that at that time I was getting paid, who knows, whatever it was.
32:57
Like $7 an hour, $8 an hour.
33:02
And actually no, I don't I don't know if it was per hour.
33:04
I think it was per shift because that's what got me in trouble.
33:07
Is I got fired from this first job because they I think it was per shift that I was getting paid because otherwise I wouldn't have been incentivized to do what I'm about to tell you.
33:18
If they're paying me per hour, I wouldn't have wanted I I wouldn't have had any interest in doing things faster. Uh-oh, here we go. Yeah.
33:28
So, I I was being told to do things in a stupid way. It was stupid.
33:34
Like I'm not going to mince words.
33:35
It was just I was being told to do things in a very inefficient way so that I would be kept busy for the entire period of time.
33:41
This was not of great interest to me and seemed stupid.
33:47
So, I for myself at least devised what I thought was a much better way, a much faster way of cleaning cleaning the machines and the floors and so on.
33:59
And then I would always bring to work, God, I haven't thought about this in a while, a copy of Black Belt Magazine, which was the only martial arts the the the most widely read martial arts magazine at the time.
34:08
This is before any mixed martial arts or anything had entered the scene.
34:14
And then I would take my mop, uh like the mop handle, and just like practice made up martial arts stuff.
34:21
I didn't know what I was doing.
34:24
Like in the back parking lot where no one would see me.
34:26
So, I do my work, and I say, "All right, my work is done."
34:30
And then I Time to be Bruce Lee.
34:31
Yeah, and then it's like all right, well now given that, you know, the the next whatever it is Van Damme movie is coming out next week or I just seen the latest Stallone movie and I still weigh, you know, 100 100 lbs, I need to work on becoming Bruce Lee.
34:47
Uh needless to say the boss was not super fond of this.
34:51
And so he would tell me to do things like, all right, well I want you to clean it again. Oh man.
34:57
The whole the 4-hour work week thing. It's already clean.
34:59
You know, the floor is already clean. Keep in mind.
35:03
And uh we that was that was a partnership destined to fail, I'm afraid.
35:09
So I was I was relieved of duty Wow.
35:13
a few few weeks or months in.
35:13
The notion of efficiency is planted at that point.
35:19
the efficiency and that was not uh client-facing.
35:25
What I mean by that is I didn't have any interaction with the customers there, right?
35:28
After that, my next job and and I worked many many jobs as uh a bus boy and occasionally was given a the gift of say waiting for a table.
35:41
Uh but I worked in restaurants and I worked it for people who have seen The Affair, which I think is a Showtime show.
35:48
There is a restaurant in that show called The Lobster Roll.
35:51
Well, I was a bus boy at The Lobster Roll, which is one of the highest volume highest table turnover, which is a good thing in this in that world restaurants on Long Island.
36:03
Uh certainly out on the on the East End.
36:06
Uh not I mean no offense, Lobster Roll.
36:09
Some people from the city call it Lunch cuz it has a big sign outside.
36:12
Just FYI, anybody from Manhattan.
36:14
Nobody calls it Lunch out there. It's The Lobster Roll.
36:16
And it uh that was brutal.
36:20
That was that was brutal.
36:22
brutal. I also worked, just to paint the spectrum super low and not low end but fast fast food right fast high volume and then I worked at restaurants like the Maidstone Arms which now has a new name and many many others in between so I had a chance in those circumstances to say at the Maidstone Arms I remember I had to wear a a pink was it a pink button up shirt with a black bow tie needless to say I didn't have either of those
36:54
so I had to work to afford to get dressed to get dressed to go to work and but that gave me the ability to interact with diners right so now I can contribute to getting more tips for the table which ultimately gets
37:14
divvied up among the people who are front of house and maybe even back of house so the cleaning wasn't a great fit for me I don't think on on on many on several different levels but it actually taught you about about efficiency the way you
37:30
feel about efficiency or taught me how much I hate inefficiency or maybe reinforced how much I hated inefficiency and because I'd already been thinking about efficiency within the context of wrestling I just hadn't realized that that also all applied in other places wow right yeah the pieces are coming together because if you're if I'm inefficient on the wrestling mat what happens now I'm into the second period third period then
37:56
my body shuts down then I lose so I had to think about efficiency I never would have used that I never would have used that word but that's certainly back to your birth ah yeah yeah I mean I suppose I suppose I suppose it does
38:11
efficient to get the most out out of yourself you couldn't afford to just go along like everybody else ah no I would lose and I don't know the dislike of losing came from, but I I certainly have a strong dislike of love losing. So,
38:26
So, uh, that just doing it following standard operating procedure just wasn't a very attractive option to me.
38:36
Okay, so here's one thing I do know.
38:40
You went to study with John McPhee.
38:44
I I had the gift, and I'm not going to say that, uh, I in any way deserved it more than other kids at at Princeton, but I ended up going to Princeton for undergrad, and Well, take take a second to describe who John McPhee is to those who may not know.
39:03
McPhee This may sound like a huge overstatement, but you can correct me if I'm wrong.
39:11
In the minds of many nonfiction writers, I mean, John McPhee is a god.
39:14
He is He is No debate here.
39:19
the the consummate master of his craft.
39:22
And he's a staff writer, uh, long-time staff writer at The New Yorker.
39:30
Has at least one Pulitzer Prize.
39:33
I never know if it's Pulitzer or Pulitzer, but I like saying Pulitzer, so I'll say that, like it has two umlauts over the U, which it does not.
39:39
Uh, for coming into the country specifically, which was about his time primarily in Alaska.
39:47
John McPhee is so good at nonfiction writing.
39:50
And the class that I ended up taking, which was a small seminar, so you applied and provided writing samples, was called The Literature of Fact.
39:58
What a great name, right? Yeah.
40:02
As you would M C P H E E He's so good at exploring and dissecting different subjects that when he writes a book about basketball, A Sense of Where You Are, or like to build a raft, it becomes the right in non-fiction basketball.
40:21
When he writes a book about tennis, levels of the game, it becomes the classic right book on tennis. And it goes on.
40:34
He wrote an entire book about oranges.
40:35
He wrote an entire book about Iraq.
40:38
He's he's he's written entire books about uh classically carved canoes.
40:46
And you would say to yourself, and you may be saying to yourself, I would never read a book about oranges. Oh yeah yeah you would. Yes you would. Oh yes you would. Yeah.
40:55
And and just just to just to dive into one of the examples I just gave, levels of the game.
41:02
It's about one tennis match.
41:02
The entire book is about one tennis match.
41:06
Conceptually, it's hard for me to imagine anything sounding more boring.
41:12
And yet it is absolutely gripping as a page turner.
41:18
And there's a lot more to it as as you would certainly expect, but uh Well what what's it like to be in a class with a man with a a god like this?
41:29
Uh you know from the very from the first day I felt it was just a huge gift.
41:32
I mean I and I had a I had a a good degree of insecurity going into it.
41:36
I mean we're talking about someone who had David Remnick as student, right?
41:40
I mean we're talking about we're talking about teacher who has not only produced masterpieces himself, but produced students, and I'm not saying I am not one of them, but being the editor of the New York Times.
41:54
Who's produced many students who've gone on to just create incredible incredible works of art.
42:00
And I I I do not think I'm that person at all, uh but I could draft behind a lot of those people in the class.
42:12
So, not only was it a gift to learn from uh Professor McPhee, I I can't call him John, it's too weird.
42:20
There are a bunch of people in my life I just can't call by their first name.
42:25
Uh it was also a gift to hear the comments and feedback and reading aloud of other students.
42:31
I do remember very clearly So, all right.
42:39
Princeton students, generally speaking, pretty confident bunch.
42:43
Sometimes excessively so.
42:45
Uh and I remember we had this the class structure, as I remember it, was uh I want to say one 3-hour two- or three-hour group seminar where Professor McPhee would talk about a given subject, some aspect of structure, which he's very well known for, and very visual.
43:05
Uh very visual in his structure, which helped me because I like to draw, right?
43:12
Uh but I recall we we also had weekly writing assignments.
43:17
These were short, few pages, whatever it was, three to 10 pages.
43:22
I'd already done uh quite a bit of writing in school, so I was comfortable with that.
43:28
And we'd all we'd all handed in our weekly writing assignments, and we were getting them back.
43:32
And before he handed them back, I remember he said uh he would then later review our writing assignments with us, which was incredible.
43:44
He said, "Uh before I hand these out," this is paraphrasing, "I want you to know you're all good writers, so I don't want you to be thrown off by my edits.
43:50
You're all good, you got into the class."
43:55
And he handed back our printed pages that we'd given him, and in almost every case, certainly in my case, there was more red ink than there were no words.
44:08
You just saw everybody go, "Holy shit." Oh, man.
44:12
And uh But you leave that class a writer.
44:15
Well, you leave that class a better thinker.
44:19
Because what McPhee does so well, and he has a book that recently came out called The Fourth Draft about his writing process, which is fantastic.
44:29
If you're interested in non-fiction writing, if you're really interested, then this book is great.
44:34
If you're kind of sort of interested in non-fiction writing, more interested in reading non-fiction, then just get Levels of the Game or one of his other books.
44:43
But he is first and foremost good at clarifying thoughts.
44:49
So, if you have extraneous words, if you have sentences that are nebulous in meaning, if you have a sequence of paragraphs that logically do not make any sense as a progression, he'll point those out.
45:02
So, it really wasn't it wasn't providing you with a fancier set of polished words to use.
45:07
It wasn't a matter of uh anything that could be differentiated from clarifying your thinking and putting clearer thinking on paper. I smell efficiency. Yeah.
45:22
Yeah, in a way it certainly would be.
45:24
I mean, in a in a way it certainly would be.
45:26
And taking out it's And efficiency is one thing.
45:29
I think also, if you look at my interest in certain martial arts, if you look at my interest in certain wrestlers, if you look at my interest in writing, I think that the the corollary, or maybe just the it's not even a cousin, it's like the twin brother or sister of efficiency is elegance.
45:54
So, that's something I think about a lot.
45:57
Because in elegance you also have the art.
45:59
It's not just the science. Right?
46:02
It's not just the mechanics, it's also the beauty of it and for me uh the ability to make something more beautiful by removing the things that are adding to drag is just such a cool concept.
46:19
pieces are coming together here.
46:21
such a cool concept and I mean now that I'm thinking about it and you know, post hoc it's easy for me to try to put all these things together like uh you know, Kobayashi and the cop.
46:29
Oh my god, you know, the usual suspects or whatever.
46:32
But the the red doorknob in the sixth sense.
46:35
I was there all along, but uh my interest in Japan also, this the elegance and minimalism of Japan, which I've been obsessed with obsessed is a strong word, but I think it applies here for so long.
46:46
I think it's just the the elegance and of course you know, in Japan you have the elegance of certain artwork and the minimalism.
46:55
You also have the efficiency.
46:58
I mean, we're talking about a country that I think it was during the Meiji restoration brought in work workplace efficiency and manufacturing efficiency experts who had been largely ignored in the US and elsewhere and the Japanese would bring them to Japan and then create say the entire corporate and manufacturing design culture of Toyota, which ultimately then displaced US automotive companies then later on, right?
47:31
They they they took what was ignored, incorporated made it better, made it their own and then at least at that time won, right?
47:39
So, all of that was so interesting to me and uh the literature effect just as a as a side note and it's not really a side note cuz it kind of in my mind proves the point.
47:54
When I took that class without any perceptible additional effort, my grades in every other class went up.
48:02
And I think it's because the thinking the the sharper thinking translated to every other class. Yeah.
48:10
And and so at what point is your ability to like control your own journey coming in to play where you can start to live the way you want to live as an artist uh because you you had that from the drawing and the elegance and also the the ability to navigate the business side so you weren't dependent on others.
48:45
Yeah, I I can give you I can tell you I can tell you the moment in my life I felt the richest I've ever felt.
48:55
And this will relate to everything you just said.
49:00
So, little little backstory.
49:00
So, what were my jobs in college to help pay for expenses and everything else?
49:07
Well, I had I had a bunch of jobs.
49:10
One, I was I was an illustrator.
49:14
So, I did work I did illustration freelance illustration work including for Princeton University.
49:19
So, for say there was a what is a student orientation manual that that needed illustrations so I did almost all the illustrations for that.
49:31
Uh there was I think there were one or two books that I also did illustrations for.
49:34
Not my preferred type of illustration.
49:36
There's mostly backgrounds and architecture on campus and so on which is not terribly exciting to me.
49:42
I I preferred doing live action figures and so on.
49:47
Humans, animals, but nonetheless, there was that.
49:49
Then for fun, this is not part of the job, but relevant, I was the graphics editor uh at the Princeton Tiger.
49:57
And the primary reason I took that job, which was fun and allowed me to just goof off and be a bit of a prankster, it's a satire magazine much like the Lampoon, was that I went to visit the offices of the Princeton Tiger and they showed me the the desk of the graphic editor.
50:15
Like, okay, I didn't realize there's a designated desk for the graphics editor, whatever the title was at the time.
50:23
And I opened one of the drawers and I found a number of drunken sketches from Jim Lee, one of my comic book heroes. Oh, man.
50:32
Unbeknownst to me at the time, had gone to Princeton, had had that job.
50:36
And after some revelry, had come back to the office and sketched out some drawings.
50:42
And I said, yeah, I'll take this job.
50:44
And so that was a job but unpaid.
50:48
Then I had a job in Guest Library, which was So I've gone from You know, the pieces are coming together because you'll do a blog and you won't get paid for it. Yep.
50:58
But you know there's something good's going to come out of this.
51:04
Yeah, or good for Yeah, good for other people.
51:06
Uh or fun for me or both.
51:09
Um Oh, and I had a job at Guest Library, which was the library the attic, as I remember it at least, the attic library of the East Asian Studies Department. And it was terrible.
51:24
It was like living in a sauna. It was so hot up there.
51:29
And I was getting paid whatever it was, seven, eight dollars an hour.
51:33
Then I was asked So by this point, I was no longer 100 pounds.
51:38
I had really gotten into physical training and was whatever I was at the time, actually bigger than I am now.
51:44
So I was probably 180, 190 pounds.
51:47
And one of my friends said, you know, if you if uh if you want to make some more money, you should safeguard.
51:51
Now, safeguarding is bouncing, but at Princeton they call it safeguarding.
51:56
And Princeton has this very odd tradition of eating clubs, which are like co-ed social clubs or for Think of them as fraternities and sororities combined.
52:08
So, they're these co-ed eating clubs where you, as you would expect, eat your meals where they serve lunch and dinner and so on.
52:18
And they're all lined up down one street called Nassau Street.
52:20
And so, at least when I was there, students would go out and party and get raucous on Thursday nights and Saturday nights.
52:28
For whatever reason, those were the nights.
52:31
Saturday makes sense, not sure why Thursday.
52:32
I guess it's a day of recovery.
52:33
So, Thursday and Saturday, and things would happen.
52:38
People would get in fights.
52:41
People would get overly You know, men would get overly aggressive with women, whatever it would be.
52:44
So, they hired security guards to help keep the peace.
52:49
And uh there were two I remember two different safeguarding agencies, as it were.
52:56
And uh I chose I ended up working with one that paid, I think, $20 an hour, which to me at the time I'm like, "Wow, Big time. hitting the big time."
53:07
So, $20 an hour, and uh long story short, did not enjoy that job.
53:16
Uh I was good at it, but I didn't enjoy it because you're nobody's friend.
53:21
Like, nobody likes the security when they're drunk.
53:23
Doesn't matter, even if you're actually helping them.
53:27
Uh and uh one of my very good friends at the time, who was I want to say former former middleweight amateur boxing champion in the Soviet Union, which is a very big deal, very, very big deal.
53:39
I mean, that's a That's That's a uh you know, effectively a professional level boxer.
53:48
And he was a physics graduate student at Princeton. I imagine that, right?
53:50
Makes sense on some level.
53:54
A comic book character of sorts.
53:56
Fantastic guy uh named Elias.
53:58
If you're out there, Ilya, uh thank you for being such a good friend when we were in school.
54:03
And uh he was uh I was off duty.
54:06
I was not working on a given night when he was.
54:09
We worked together a lot because I trusted him, he trusted me, and we were we were good at the job.
54:15
We could hand And good at the job does not mean fighting people, by the way.
54:19
Like you the good at job means you don't you don't fight people.
54:21
You you diffuse situations that would have fights, and you handle simple logistics like uh there was this one uh uh eating club called Tiger Inn, which was known as being one of the more aggressive eating clubs.
54:35
Lot of football players, lot of big athletes, lot of very heavy drinking culture.
54:43
And uh so as a safeguard, you tend to get paid the most when you worked at say TI, as it was known, or some of these other more aggressive spots.
54:55
Because if you're just going if you're just go like saving the computer science nerds from each other, that's a that's a much lower risk Got it. situation, right?
55:04
And uh there were at least two doors, but primarily front door, which everybody tried to come through, and we would check IDs.
55:12
And then there were there was a side door.
55:13
And so you typically have one guard at each, which were which were not separated by a ton of space.
55:21
And Ilya was working with someone that night who, for whatever reason, left his post, left the side door wide open, and uh there were a number of uh there were number of throwers, meaning track athletes who were shot putters and discus throws and hammer throws and so on uh who were visiting for a track meet that weekend.
55:42
And a whole gang of them, huge guys, had shown up at the front door and Ilya had turned them away because they didn't have IDs. That's part of the job.
55:51
And they got really upset and they were like, "We're coming back." Okay. What happens?
55:56
They come around the side door and like one guy grabs him by the neck from behind, another guy sort of punches him in the liver, and uh I mean, this is it doesn't matter if you're Mike Tyson.
56:09
These like five or six 230-plus-pound guys wailing and kicking you. Oh, man.
56:17
And uh he ended up in really bad shape.
56:19
And uh that that's when I stopped safeguarding.
56:24
Cuz I said, "Hey, it's kind of like motorcycle riding.
56:27
Doesn't matter how good you are on the motorcycle because there are other people who are bad at driving.
56:32
Similarly, it doesn't matter if you're Bruce Lee, Mike Tyson combined, if you're working a two-person configuration and one person leaves the side door, No control, man. You got no control. Zero. You're done. Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
56:45
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59:23
So, I stopped safeguarding and I started the where you're really gripping control over your over your life.
59:30
Uh no, no, I'm going to get there.
59:33
So I I realized that I didn't want to go back to $8 an hour in the sauna library. Uh I needed money. So what could I do?
59:45
Now I should also say simultaneously with all of this, like my interest in entrepreneurship has increased.
59:56
Cuz there were some entrepreneurship classes at Princeton which I one of which I joined at the same time as McAfee's class which was later called high-tech entrepreneurship which had a huge impact on my life with someone named Ed Shaw who was a real mentor, but even before that what I'd started doing as I was making a little bit of money bussing tables and so on is I would call the numbers.
1:00:19
This is something I didn't do as a kid.
1:00:22
Still wait going to sleep at 3:00 a. m.
1:00:25
So I'd see these infomercials and I would call the numbers.
1:00:29
And I I I'd figured out how to take a tiny little uh microcassette recorder and go to RadioShack and I could I know this is probably illegal, but so don't try this at home kids, but I I could connect it to record conversations because I wanted to know what the scripts were.
1:00:49
It's like, "Okay, well, I knew what happened on the TV.
1:00:52
What happens when you call?" Oh.
1:00:56
I say no, if they try to convince me and then I say, "Oh, it's $29. 99.
1:00:59
Yeah, I can't afford that." What happens? What do they say? What do they do?
1:01:03
And then if they send something to me, if if I if I buy something which I didn't do until college.
1:01:10
So I In college then I was like, "All right, well, let me try to buy let me order something."
1:01:15
And if I What's the return process?
1:01:15
If I send it back, what happens? Oh man.
1:01:21
Uh if I cancel, what happens?
1:01:21
How quickly does it get to me?
1:01:23
Do they use first class mail or do they use priority mail? Do they use UPS?
1:01:28
I wanted to just I just was so I wanted to know the details.
1:01:33
And ultimately I I had I have I have something really I don't know how common it is. I don't have dyslexia. I can read fine.
1:01:43
But I have some dysgraphia.
1:01:45
So D's, B's and a getting mixed up or P's and B's get mixed up.
1:01:52
Let I will write letters backwards or upside down.
1:01:55
I still do to this day in English at least.
1:01:59
And uh Uh so I had also realized at Princeton.
1:02:04
So I have I have some some issues with producing text.
1:02:06
Uh reading text a little less so, but the reading volume, this is going somewhere, was so high at Princeton.
1:02:14
If you were actually going to do the classroom reading, which I'm convinced 80% of people do not. Which is fine.
1:02:21
But I at the time felt like that was a requirement for doing well in school.
1:02:28
Uh Now, certainly learning and becoming a better human in a liberal arts education should probably be the priority, but ultimately students want to do well.
1:02:34
And anyone who's gotten into Princeton is probably very competitive.
1:02:38
So I was I was struggling to do all of this reading. There was so much.
1:02:45
Uh and towards the end of high school and then leading into Princeton where, you know, on my on my floor in Forbes, which is one of the residential colleges, I remember kids Oh man, kind of explains a lot that goes on in in our world when these people then go on to Goldman Sachs and stuff, but Uh they were like, "Oh, you got 1800 on your SAT? Yeah, me too.
1:03:07
What did you do for this?"
1:03:09
And so all these kids in my on my hallway got perfect scores on their SATs, which I did not.
1:03:14
I actually was my SATs were much lower than the average for uh Princeton uh cuz I didn't finish them.
1:03:22
I was too much of a perfectionist.
1:03:23
I actually never finished the test and I took it multiple times.
1:03:28
Uh so we could we could psychoanalyze that, but this is all going somewhere.
1:03:31
So I compensated in a way once I got to Princeton by continuing to look at accelerated learning and speed reading techniques.
1:03:39
So could you accelerate your reading speed without sacrificing comprehension?
1:03:42
And there's a lot of voodoo and witchcraft and nonsense out there, but there are a handful of methods for increasing reading speed that make perfect sense.
1:03:50
If you're just looking at the at the at how the eyes function and how they feed into the optic nerve and how one through fixation points and so on saccadic movements, I think is how you pronounce also the jumps that reading entail reading entails made scientific sense to me.
1:04:09
Like the mechanisms were all plausible.
1:04:11
There wasn't any hand waving.
1:04:13
It's like, okay, no, that just like structurally makes sense to me.
1:04:18
Uh so yes, efficiency I again.
1:04:18
So it's like, all right, well, if your if your eye travels across a line and let's say you close one eye and you try to read a line of text, you'll notice these herky-jerky movements.
1:04:29
All right, those are these saccadic movements, jumps from fixation point to fixation point.
1:04:34
Your eye doesn't travel in a smooth line across uh say a sentence on a page. Just does not.
1:04:40
And if you can then reduce the number of fixations you have per line, well, if you go from three to two, You're smoothing the line.
1:04:52
You're smoothing the line and you're just going to move a lot faster.
1:04:57
Uh so I began doing that for myself and after my friend got his head kicked in, I said, well, what if I took all this stuff that I've been taking notes on?
1:05:06
Cuz I've always been a compulsive note taker.
1:05:07
So all of the all of the um infomercial stuff.
1:05:10
Another thing that I ended up doing at that time was and I didn't come up with this.
1:05:15
I had I had heard it or read it somewhere.
1:05:20
I I started to create a three-ring binder where if I if I were reading a magazine or an article and I found an advertisement that made me want to buy something, I would take it out and I would put it into a three-ring binder to try to figure out why it made me want to buy it.
1:05:36
So, I had all of these all of these expedition findings, kind of like the butterfly and the butterfly species and so on that Darwin or someone would collect to analyze later, but in my case they were advertisements that made me want to buy something and then I would later try to deconstruct why they made me want to buy something.
1:05:55
looking into the whole process of the business side.
1:05:59
Yeah, but I hadn't pulled the trigger.
1:05:59
I hadn't really tried anything.
1:06:02
Uh, that's not entirely true.
1:06:02
I tried something bef- a few years before that.
1:06:07
I think it was the very beginning of print which did not work, which was an audiobook on how to get into good colleges.
1:06:15
And uh, I I made a bunch of mistakes.
1:06:18
Uh, the first of which was coming up with a product I was convinced would sell a million copies and not testing not testing it before manufacturing.
1:06:29
So, I took all the money I'd made from all this busboying and so on and invested it in manufacturing 400 audio cassette tapes or something like that.
1:06:37
I think one or two of which I sold. One to my mom.
1:06:41
I think it was a she bought it and and then later told me, but and then one to God knows who.
1:06:46
So, it was it was a huge loss.
1:06:48
I didn't throw out those tapes until like 10 years later, by the way. I was like, "Someday No.
1:06:51
Someday people will see people will realize people will realize the gold in this."
1:06:57
Uh, total failure and then I uh I realized that I could, looking at these various advertisements and so on, do what's called a dry test.
1:07:12
And that means you are selling something before you manufacture anything.
1:07:16
Secondly, based on buying little things here and there and listening to and the the phone the phone scripts, right?
1:07:30
Because these operators use decision trees and these scripts.
1:07:32
Like, if some if the person says no to this, do this.
1:07:36
If they say yes to this, do this.
1:07:36
If they say yes, then try to upsell them to this.
1:07:39
If they say no, then try to downsell them to this.
1:07:41
And if they agree to blah blah blah, then at the very end offer them this.
1:07:43
If the very if at this point they say, "No, I can't do it."
1:07:46
then you offer them payment terms. If whatever it might be.
1:07:48
So, there are all these different contingency plans.
1:07:52
And I put together I think it was called This was right before the uh This was right before the dot-com bust.
1:08:03
So, this is like '90 '98, '99.
1:08:07
And I think I called it speed reading 2.
1:08:09
0 or something like that.
1:08:09
Or enhanced speed reading.
1:08:12
I can't remember the exact name.
1:08:15
And uh I I put out this flyers.
1:08:17
So, I printed out these colorful flyers and I promised a a 300% increase I think it was a 300% increase in reading speed, which you can measure, words per minute reading speed, in a 3-hour seminar or you got to Wait, this is the 4-hour work week. Yeah, yeah, yes.
1:08:38
This is the foundation of it.
1:08:40
Yeah, or you get you get you get 110% of your money back.
1:08:43
So, if it doesn't work if it doesn't work, you make money. Right?
1:08:47
So, you're going to come out of it weren't deterred by those original cassettes.
1:08:55
Because I had no out-of-pocket out-of-pocket expenses, right?
1:08:57
So, this is a this is a service, which ultimately is why I stopped doing it, but is a service.
1:09:04
So, I I then proceeded, just so that I wouldn't be caught with my pants down if it actually worked, which I didn't expect it would necessarily, but my downside was so was so limited that it didn't matter.
1:09:15
It was an asymmetrical risk-reward benefit, right?
1:09:20
Which is always what I look for, even to this day.
1:09:22
It's like, all right, well, how can I cap my downside?
1:09:23
Cuz if I if I always cap my downside, if I have the if I can really minimize the downside, eventually the upside will take care of itself, right?
1:09:31
If I have enough at bats.
1:09:33
So, so the So, I had these flyers all over the place, and then I had my I guess my dorm room phone number.
1:09:37
I don't think I had a cell phone at that point. And my email address.
1:09:44
But I had to find a location.
1:09:44
I couldn't afford a location.
1:09:47
Cuz I wasn't safeguarding any longer.
1:09:49
And I had $8 an hour, so I was like, all right.
1:09:52
There were I don't think there was any date on the flyer, because I wanted the flexibility of like figuring out how to finagle some type of space.
1:09:57
And I found a church in town that had a I want to say it was a daycare area for for kids. Where is this going?
1:10:15
would not be used on Saturday afternoon.
1:10:17
So, there was some period of time in which that was available. And so, I went in.
1:10:25
God, I haven't thought about this in a long time.
1:10:27
And I tithed I tithed a little bit.
1:10:28
It wasn't very much, but like I tithed some money to the church.
1:10:34
And I said uh I've noticed you have this space.
1:10:40
And I was just trying to put two and two together, and I was like, is there any time when this is not used?
1:10:43
And is there any possibility I could use it on a first time or not a first time I said I'm a aspiring entrepreneur trying this class.
1:10:52
I explained the whole thing.
1:10:52
I said I I don't know if it's going to work. It might not.
1:10:56
Could be two people, could be more. I've no idea.
1:10:58
But would it be possible to potentially use this space for a few hours and I'll leave it in better shape than I found it when I leave.
1:11:09
And thankfully they took I guess mercy on me or whatever you had some empathy and they let me use the space or they said I could use the space.
1:11:19
And and then at that point emails and calls started coming in.
1:11:24
So now I'm now I have to sell on the phone.
1:11:26
Oh, all this stuff that you learned from the infomercials. Oh no, man.
1:11:32
I've already I've already listened to a hundred operators sell on the phone who are backed by companies that are spending tens and hundreds of millions of dollars on ensuring that the scripts work. Oh, man. And This is beautiful.
1:11:49
So I end up my first seminar with I want to say it was just for the sake of simplicity, 30 people.
1:11:56
So I have a full room of people.
1:11:58
30 people and they they come with cash, you know, they've got tens and twenties and fives, they come with checks. And not a single refund.
1:12:09
So I'm I survived my first three hours.
1:12:14
I deliver the measurables, right?
1:12:14
So the key performance indicator for you startup folks out there, the words per minute rate with equal or better attention at least, you know, tripled or or in many cases quintupled.
1:12:26
And I just remember walking out of that seminar with pockets full of checks and twenties and tens.
1:12:34
I mean I made $1,500 in three hours.
1:12:37
So keep in mind like Wow.
1:12:41
I had made the most I'd made up to that point was $20 an hour doing something that was risking life and limb, right?
1:12:48
And then I go into this church daycare room and I walk out with $1,500. There it is.
1:12:55
And I just remember and I couldn't even fit fit them in my pockets.
1:12:57
I remember I had to like fold up checks.
1:13:01
Your both your pockets are bulging as you walk out of there.
1:13:04
to fold I had to fold them while I was on a bike and I remember going straight to PNC Bank.
1:13:07
It's my first bank account. Just immediately.
1:13:10
I was like, I have to deposit these right away.
1:13:12
And so going straight to the bank and having money and checks pressed to the grips on the handlebars because they couldn't fit in my pockets.
1:13:22
So I had these death grips on my bike as I went to PNC Bank and deposited that and I mean it it really was that day where I was like, holy [ __ ] this could actually work.
1:13:34
You actually can do this.
1:13:34
And I did a a handful more of those seminars, but ultimately realized you have to be in one place to do this. Right? It's a service. Right.
1:13:45
So it's still on some level is physical presence, hours and money out.
1:13:50
And uh so I stopped doing that uh when I graduated.
1:13:55
And so the that moment and what might happen with money.
1:14:04
That sounds like a springboard in it in itself.
1:14:07
Cuz up until that point, had you ever invested in anything? No. No, no, no.
1:14:12
Actually, you know, I had with the help of my dad invested in one company.
1:14:19
And the you know, man, if I think about it, like my investment approach hasn't changed that much.
1:14:26
Uh Pixar was my first ever investment. Woah.
1:14:28
Uh because What's Oh, that makes sense, man. You're the artist. a comic book artist. I loved it. I I loved animation.
1:14:35
So I knew I felt like I understood the world of comic books and animation really well.
1:14:44
Pixar was coming out with Toy Story.
1:14:46
And That's your first investment.
1:14:49
And that was that was the first investment I ever made.
1:14:50
The only investment that I recall making until much much much later.
1:14:54
I mean, well after college.
1:14:57
I I I don't like things I can't control.
1:15:02
Like public stocks, right?
1:15:02
I didn't feel like Later I over complicated investment for myself.
1:15:08
I read a lot of books on investment and it scared me off.
1:15:09
Whereas in fact, my best investments to date of all whether it's like yeah Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Alibaba, all these because I really really like I play in those sandboxes.
1:15:23
Like I understood them so well and I used I've used all of them, right?
1:15:28
Uh so yeah, Pixar was was my only investment, small amount of money.
1:15:35
Uh no, nothing up to that up to that point in terms of external investments.
1:15:39
I invested a lot in myself, but Uh Well, I came into this thinking that you were a one-man partnership.
1:15:48
But I see now that there are like five different people in there doing all these different things, having all these different talents.
1:15:57
But And and neuroses and difficulties and weaknesses, which might explain all the voices in my head. Yeah.
1:16:05
And and so at what point is it that the four-hour work week is going to be born?
1:16:13
Is there a a moment in your mind where we can see where everything is leading in that direction, but is there a moment where you know there it is?
1:16:30
The lifestyle or the book?
1:16:32
Well, I it sounds like the lifestyle led to the book.
1:16:35
Well, so the lifestyle was was experienced and enjoyed and then somewhat forgotten.
1:16:44
So, I had that experience with the seminar.
1:16:46
Then I became intoxicated by the possibility of tech millions and billions because this is keep in mind the '98, '99. in your hand.
1:16:54
And uh this is also when a I'm not going to say classmate, but schoolmate a few years ahead of me had sold bluemountain.
1:17:04
com for something like three or 400 million dollars.
1:17:10
And there were a number of other examples like that.
1:17:11
I mean, this is certainly at the top of froth.
1:17:14
And right preceding the first tech boom.
1:17:17
And those numbers were mind-boggling to me, right?
1:17:19
I mean, it's it's one thing to make $1,500.
1:17:23
It's 400 million dollars.
1:17:24
another thing to make 400 million dollars.
1:17:26
But something should be pointed out here the same way you were talking about like growing up in the era of Schwarzenegger and Van Damme, you're growing up in the era of Yeah.
1:17:36
a kid in college starting something that can make 400 million dollars. yeah.
1:17:42
I mean, those were the those were the new heroes, right?
1:17:46
And I took this class I had mentioned earlier, high-tech entrepreneurship with Ed Shaw, which I which I had to uh negotiate uh with him to get into because I had been This is highly relevant.
1:18:03
So, it'll it'll it'll tie in, but I had uh I had gone to China.
1:18:10
And uh as an East Asian studies major, I was first neuroscience, and there's a long story behind the trans- the transition, but uh I I do actually think some uh animal testing is very, very important.
1:18:22
Uh but I couldn't do it myself. It wasn't torture.
1:18:25
It was just uh what they would call perfusing rats after injecting them with retroviruses and so on.
1:18:30
I I couldn't sacrifice the animals necessary to to do that uh to work in the lab I want to work in.
1:18:39
So, I became an East Asian Studies major, uh nonetheless taking all of these other classes like McPhee's class, and at the same time uh Ed Shaw enters the picture, and his class, along with McPhee's, were in uh I want to say this book was the something like the student class review guide.
1:19:00
That's not the right name, but it was something like that.
1:19:03
So, it was similar to a registrar's list of classes you could take, but it was an analog version of say Yelp.
1:19:09
So, students could actually rate these classes and give feedback, and Ed Shaw's class was, uh along with McPhee's, way, way up at the very top of the heap.
1:19:19
And he was teaching people how to build businesses, how to build companies that could get sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.
1:19:29
But, I had, as an East Asian Studies major, taken time to go to China to study at two universities, and I came back, and I missed the deadline.
1:19:36
I'd missed the deadline for applying.
1:19:37
So, I uh I wrote a letter to Professor Shaw.
1:19:44
I said, "I'll do any Ultimately, I mean, I I made my case, and ultimately said, uh I don't need to I don't need a seat.
1:19:52
If the room's full, I can sit on the floor.
1:19:53
If you need me to help, I can I can clean the erasers after class.
1:19:56
Like, I will do whatever is necessary. How could he say no? let me take this class. And eventually he did.
1:20:05
So, he let me take this class.
1:20:09
And uh that class led me to want to jump in to the tech world.
1:20:18
Uh and there was one class, I'm sorry, one company that he had invested in called TrueSan Networks, which is a storage area networking company.
1:20:26
So, a at the time what would have been considered mass data storage.
1:20:32
So, petabytes and petabytes of data, oh my god, you know, who could imagine?
1:20:35
Now, you can go to uh Now, you can go to Fry's Electronics and buy, you know, a terabyte for $70, but back in the day, we're talking about hundreds of systems worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars that you'd be selling to, say, American Airlines or to the FBI or whoever it might be, National Geographic Survey.
1:20:55
And uh in that class we had to do a final project.
1:20:58
There were different options for what types of final projects you could do.
1:21:01
One was profiling a company.
1:21:03
So, I decided to profile TruSentry as a way to hopefully get my foot in the door and get a job.
1:21:08
And long story short, did the whole did the whole final project and tried to get the job and was turned down.
1:21:23
And uh graduated with no job.
1:21:27
Parents were very After all this.
1:21:27
After all this, parents Parents Parents were very supportive.
1:21:31
They're like, "Okay, take your time. You can come home."
1:21:36
But, for myself, even after a month or two of no job after graduation, I'm starting to get antsy. antsy and panicky.
1:21:43
So, every every maybe 2 weeks I would be emailing this poor CEO, Thomas, at TruSentry, to try to get my foot back in the door, to get a job.
1:21:55
And uh I had heard all of these stories of negotiation and so on from Ed also in this in this class because he taught at Harvard Business School so and he and he used the case study method.
1:22:06
So, we were looking at real stories of real companies, tough decisions they had to make.
1:22:11
And then the class, each student and the class as a whole would debate what they would do given this decision the company or person's facing.
1:22:17
And then you get to read about what actually happened.
1:22:22
So, rejection, no, no thanks, sorry, we have an in-house uh human resources person.
1:22:27
They are completely backed up.
1:22:28
We have more applicants than we can handle. Thanks, but no thanks.
1:22:32
He was very polite about it considering how But no, no, no, no, no. no, no, no.
1:22:35
And then I was I was I was going to give up.
1:22:42
And I was like, you know, let me just try one more Hail Mary.
1:22:44
And I sent him an email which was along these lines. You know, uh hi Thomas.
1:22:50
Uh I I I realized I left out a few pages on competitive analysis in my final project, which was true.
1:22:58
Uh that could relate to you how you compete with Network Appliance and EMC.
1:23:02
Those were the two primary competitors.
1:23:06
Uh as it turns out, this was the part that wasn't true.
1:23:09
As it turns out, I'm going to be in the Bay Area anyway.
1:23:11
They were based in San Jose. All right.
1:23:13
I have a couple of job interviews and meetings.
1:23:17
Would it be possible to swing by and give you these pages and just thank you for the time that you spent with me when I was doing the final project?
1:23:24
Which of course he could read right through. imagine so.
1:23:28
And uh So you were he replied back once again politely, sorry.
1:23:32
Like thanks, but no thanks.
1:23:34
Appreciate the persistence, but we don't have space.
1:23:38
Then he had a change of heart.
1:23:38
He said, okay, I can meet you from I can meet you on Tuesday.
1:23:40
I I think this is the exact time from 1:00 to 1:15. I was like, uh okay. I got to fly out. Great. I'll see you there.
1:23:48
So I couldn't I didn't have the money cuz I I I had uh I mean I burned through any of the savings from the speed reading stuff.
1:23:58
Didn't have a whole lot of money.
1:23:59
So I bought a standby ticket to Cali- to California.
1:24:05
Uh on a standby ticket, you don't at least at that time you didn't check luggage.
1:24:09
So I had carry-on only, which meant I wore my only my ill-fitting suit, like the only suit I had.
1:24:15
Yeah, I couldn't afford hotel, so I stayed at a kickboxing gym, which for those of you in San Francisco, this might make sense.
1:24:21
There was a gym called Fairtex, which was located on Clementina Street.
1:24:25
This is in '99, probably, '99 2000.
1:24:28
Between Fifth and Sixth, between Folsom and Howard.
1:24:32
That's not a good place to be.
1:24:34
It was bad, like a really bad place.
1:24:38
But, it was cheaper than staying at a hotel to pay for a flying kickboxing camp, and you got to live on the on the upper floor sleeping on a bunk bed with some of the Thai instructors.
1:24:48
Which meant I also had to to clean my clothing in the sink there, which I did. And it was fine.
1:24:54
I didn't have any other meetings.
1:24:54
So, I I I very much uh hastened to set up other meetings so that I wouldn't feel like I had all my eggs in one basket.
1:25:03
But, now I had something real to hold on to.
1:25:05
Hey, I have a I have an interview in San Jose, which I was with True San Networks.
1:25:11
While I'm there, I'd love to chat with blah blah blah.
1:25:12
So, I was able to actually set up a couple of meetings.
1:25:16
And uh got there at 1:00, and Tom was delayed.
1:25:20
I was like, All right, 1:00 comes and goes, 1:15 comes and goes, 1:30 comes and goes.
1:25:29
And uh the receptionist, I think her name was Carly.
1:25:31
God, she was a sweetheart. She was awesome, too.
1:25:32
She was really Not a receptionist, she was really the I mean, what we would call probably chief of staff now.
1:25:38
That term didn't exist then in startups. She was amazing.
1:25:41
And uh she said, "All right, well, Tom's delayed, but he'd love for you to meet with Mark."
1:25:47
So, I met with Mark, who was the COO, if I remember correctly. Great guy.
1:25:52
And we chatted for 30, 40 minutes, however long it was. Foot's in the door.
1:25:58
Yeah, and eventually met with Tom, and it was a very short meeting.
1:26:03
Nice to meet you or nice to see you again, cuz he'd met me at he'd spoken at the class.
1:26:06
And he said uh "So, let me get this just so I'm clear.
1:26:12
You're not going to stop bothering me until I give you a job?"
1:26:16
And I said, "Yeah, I suppose that's about right." He goes, "Okay, great. You're in sales." Wow.
1:26:21
So, I was the I found out later the second to lowest paid employee at the company. Who was the lowest?
1:26:29
They did not one of their like part-time receptionists. Okay.
1:26:31
Uh because later one of my friends asked for his paid time off, and so someone sent him a a spreadsheet with the other names deleted.
1:26:40
This is not what you do, by the way, if you're sending someone their paid time off.
1:26:45
Uh but it was an Excel spreadsheet, and they'd forgotten to delete another tab which had everyone else's compensation and stock options.
1:26:49
So, my friend's like, "Dude, you need to see this."
1:26:53
He's like, "You're the lowest on the totem pole."
1:26:56
But, I was uh I I I got the job, and uh that came later.
1:27:00
But, I they they didn't have space for me, so I was you're in sales.
1:27:05
crammed into a desk in a fire exit, literally like in that tiny doorway in a fire exit, and then I had my I think we called them systems engineers who were support for technical sales, which I would be.
1:27:21
Brian, who's a really good guy. And uh yeah, got to it.
1:27:24
Now, that job ultimately uh disappeared because the company, like so many at the time, imploded.
1:27:31
Rapid growth, 9/11 happens, Oh, man.
1:27:37
financing starts to dry up, and But, yeah, we've got another piece to the puzzle here. saw the death knell.
1:27:43
So, around that time I saw the writing on the wall, and I said, "Okay, this is going away." What else do I know?
1:27:49
Like, I knew the speed ring at the time.
1:27:50
And what I did is this is I tried to keep it short, but I looked at my One of the things I did is I looked at my credit card statements to determine how how I spent money.
1:28:01
Where did I spend the most money?
1:28:03
Where was I price insensitive?
1:28:05
Like, for for the small amount of money I was making in the Bay Area, which was at that time ex- still extremely expensive.
1:28:13
I mean, it it was because there was so much demand, right?
1:28:16
There was less supply than demand.
1:28:19
So, I had roommates and the whole nine. Uh what do I understand?
1:28:24
What could I make that I I use myself, where I'm price insensitive?
1:28:28
So, I could go high-end, right? As opposed to low-end.
1:28:32
And it was uh sports nutrition. So, athletic nutrition.
1:28:36
And then during lunch hours began using the conference lines in empty rooms at Trusant to try to lay the groundwork for this new company that I would make.
1:28:47
And uh I mean, I didn't have the money or the connections for anything.
1:28:52
Uh but I did realize through all the cold calling that I did to CEOs and CTOs, who were the people I needed to sell to for my job, that 9:00 to 5:00 is the worst time to make phone calls.
1:29:04
You either want to call well, and or 7:00 in the morning?
1:29:08
Yeah, 7:00 in the morning or like 6:30 at night because very often the people who started the companies, the presidents, the CEOs, whoever, were there earlier or they were late.
1:29:16
And the gate the gatekeepers were not.
1:29:17
So, I started connecting with people in this black box of sports nutrition, who really like to keep it a black box for many, many reasons because there are contract manufacturers who make different products for competing brands and so on.
1:29:33
Uh started to figure it out, and I had adjust enough kind of uh neuroscience background and also certain experiences as a consumer to know what I wanted.
1:29:43
And then asked all of my coworkers, who also were I mean, smart enough to see the writing on the wall. Like, wow. All right.
1:29:50
If a bunch of inside sales people have been sold or been fired rather, who cuz in some ways they were sold to other companies, but who had been fired inside, meaning they book meetings for people like me.
1:30:04
Their job is outbound phone calls, but they don't leave the office.
1:30:07
If a bunch of inside sales people have been fired, it's just a matter of time before all the outside people are fired, right?
1:30:13
So, this is just the the first round of layoffs.
1:30:18
And I asked them, I said, "Hey guys, I think we all know where this is going.
1:30:23
I'm trying to start a new company.
1:30:23
Like, if I have to, I'll guilt you, but can you please just commit to buying one bottle each?" Right?
1:30:29
So, what did this give me?
1:30:29
Then I have 20 of my friends who commit to buying one bottle of something that doesn't exist yet, which gives me just enough money Get the crowd to before you sell the product. Yeah.
1:30:44
Yeah, you need to get the crowd because then you've tested the market, right?
1:30:46
So, are these people willing to actually spend their money to buy this thing I'm thinking about making?
1:30:50
Ultimately, through guilt, hopefully product features and benefits, they agreed to do it, and that gave me just enough money, which was like 20% of what I actually needed to do a manufacturing run, to give me the confidence that I could then go negotiate and pitch the manufacturer to have them drop their minimum to what I could afford.
1:31:14
Um because I I laid out the vision for what this could be, and that I'd stick with them as a manufacturer, and it's a bet, but it's a low-risk bet for them.
1:31:22
It would make a huge difference.
1:31:22
I'm sure someone helped you when you were just getting started.
1:31:25
There's probably one person you can remember.
1:31:26
Please just give me that one chance.
1:31:28
And uh they were very kind.
1:31:31
They agreed, and I kept true to my word.
1:31:34
The company exploded, and I I stuck with them, and then they made a lot a lot a lot of money because of it.
1:31:41
Um ultimately, so just to flash forward.
1:31:43
So, that company, what I thought was going to be a dream, ended up becoming a nightmare.
1:31:46
The company ended up running me instead of the other way around.
1:31:49
I didn't know how to manage.
1:31:49
I did not know how to scale without myself remaining a bottleneck.
1:31:55
Very different from having a seminar, which is very simple, fewer moving pieces.
1:32:01
And I burned out, and I lost a very important relationship.
1:32:03
This girlfriend walked out I had expected to probably propose to.
1:32:09
And Everything's going up in flames.
1:32:12
Everything's going up in flames.
1:32:12
Now, in the meantime, because I'm bootstrapping this, Ed Schow had invited me to give this lecture twice a year on how I was growing my company.
1:32:20
You're up in flames and now you're coming in to speak about growing your company.
1:32:25
now but keep in mind the company itself was successful.
1:32:30
But I felt personally unsuccessful. Right. I got it.
1:32:33
And I was certainly unhappy.
1:32:36
Uh so the mechanics of how to build I could teach, but the the inner workings and the contentment and so on were a separate conversation.
1:32:46
But I'm doing this twice a year and the talk is changing as I'm changing, right?
1:32:50
And in 2004, which is when all of these things start melting down, I took a what I thought was going to be a four-week trip, one one-way ticket to London to either rethink all the systems in the business so that I could remove myself as a bottleneck or shut it down. And it ended up working.
1:33:07
And I took notes on all this because I'm constantly keeping notes, right?
1:33:13
And started then imparting some of this in these twice-a-year classes, lectures that I'm giving to students in high-tech entrepreneurship, this class I'd taken.
1:33:24
And ultimately that four-week trip turned into 18 months of traveling around the world.
1:33:28
And I mean you know the siren song of travel. Once you start Yeah. it's addictive.
1:33:33
So I ended up with no itinerary.
1:33:35
I'd run my whole life in 15-minute or 10-minute Outlook increments for so many years and now I had no plans.
1:33:43
So if three people said, "What are you doing here?
1:33:45
You should go to Galway in Ireland because they have an art festival."
1:33:47
Like, "Okay, I'll go to Galway."
1:33:49
And so the Four-Hour Work Week is born. That's right.
1:33:53
So I'm taking notes on I'm taking notes on all of I'm journaling.
1:33:57
and I remember where I was, exactly where I was.
1:33:59
I was in a I was in an apartment in a place called Barrio Norte in Argentina in Buenos Aires.
1:34:09
And I had a roommate from Sweden at the time.
1:34:12
It's a really funny dude uh with dreadlocks, a black guy.
1:34:14
And he had given me a couple hours to to to do the class via Skype.
1:34:25
And I And I completely reformulated the class.
1:34:30
And I focused instead of on how to scale a business, I talked about what I termed lifestyle design.
1:34:35
So, how do you start with the end in mind for how you want to spend your hours day to day in this finite resource.
1:34:42
And how do you then reverse engineer that with a company or a career?
1:34:47
And No writer would ever think like this, man.
1:34:50
So, I taught this class and one thing I did for every class, and this won't surprise you, because if you'll recall, I did all of these experiments with returning products and everything.
1:34:59
So, I would I would one I would send a feedback form to all the students.
1:35:04
And what And I would ask them for different types of feedback and then one of them was other comments.
1:35:09
Do you have any other comments or suggestions or questions?
1:35:13
And one of the students in typical Princeton-like dickish fashion, I don't think it was actually a a real recommendation.
1:35:23
I think it was just a snarky response.
1:35:25
Said, "I don't understand why you're teaching a class of 30 students.
1:35:26
Why don't you just write a book and be done with it?" Oh, no. Well, oh no, but oh yes.
1:35:31
So, that then, keep in mind oh no, but oh oh yes.
1:35:37
But what's what's what's my situation at the time? I have insomnia.
1:35:41
As I did before, I can't go to bed until 3:00 in the morning.
1:35:42
What don't you have in Argentina? I didn't have TV.
1:35:47
So, my mind would race and come up with potential book I didn't want to write a book.
1:35:52
I had a very uh horrifying experience with my senior thesis in college, so I had never wanted to write.
1:35:58
I had vowed I would not write.
1:36:01
And uh but to get to sleep, I had to write down these chapter ideas and uh what I thought were just frivolous ideas for chapter beginnings, endings, points I could make, stories I could tell about all these people I'd met during my travels who had and epitomized what I was talking about.
1:36:18
Uh just to get to sleep, I took it out of my head and put it on paper, which is something I still do today.
1:36:23
And finally end up back in the US and I have this huge stack of paper. Thank God for insomnia. Thank God for insomnia.
1:36:29
And uh I'll give I'll give thanks to uh Jack Canfield here.
1:36:35
So So several years before when I first moved to Silicon Valley, I had volunteered, which is the best way I think to to build a network quickly in a place you don't know.
1:36:44
I had volunteered for an organization called the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, and they did events.
1:36:50
So I started just whatever, taking out the trash.
1:36:54
Uh the great thing about volunteering is that most people, because they're not getting paid, do the bare minimum or a little less than the bare minimum.
1:37:01
But I went in and I was like, all right, I know I'm taking out the out the trash, but the iced tea isn't refilled over there.
1:37:06
Let me go refill the iced tea.
1:37:07
Literally, that's all I needed to do for the people managing the event to be like, that kid's a go-getter. Let's have him do more.
1:37:12
Like I refilled the damn iced tea.
1:37:16
And within a month or two, they were inviting me to planning meetings, and then I said they asked if anyone would like to volunteer to spearhead the next event, which meant inviting speakers, and I raised my hand and they let me do it.
1:37:25
So I got to invite people I wanted to meet, including someone named Jack Canfield, who co-created Chicken Soup for the Soul, which has sold hundreds of millions of copies. Oh, man. get back from the US.
1:37:33
I haven't bothered Jack in any way.
1:37:35
I haven't asked him for anything.
1:37:37
He's still a friend to this day, by the way.
1:37:40
And I took some of the notes, and I was back in the Bay Area, had no idea what to do with my life. I was fine. I wasn't upset.
1:37:48
I was a very happy guy at that point, very content.
1:37:52
Had cash flow from the business, and I sent him a couple of notes, and I said, "Jack, you know, this student said this.
1:37:56
Here are some of my ideas.
1:37:59
What do you think I should do with this?
1:38:01
I don't really want to write a book, but what are your thoughts?"
1:38:02
And uh before I knew it, Jack was like, "All right, I want you to meet this guy Steve.
1:38:05
I want you to meet this person Jillian.
1:38:07
I want you to meet this other woman, blah blah blah."
1:38:09
And he started making introductions.
1:38:11
He said, "I think it's great. You should do it.
1:38:12
I could see it working on Fox and Friends."
1:38:15
And he started before I could say no, making introductions to potential agents and so on.
1:38:21
And uh ultimately, because I had the time, put together a proposal, which is a business plan, right?
1:38:29
And Uh which you're good at. Yeah, which I'm good at. I'd learned how to do.
1:38:33
And Because you're seeing this from the bottom of the business process first.
1:38:41
Yeah, I could think about finding the market, who's the market, right?
1:38:42
Was it easier for you to write the proposal or the book?
1:38:46
The proposal by a by a by a thousandfold.
1:38:49
Yeah, because the proposal is selling. Right. The book is teaching. Yeah.
1:38:53
Those are very different things. And Save my case. Yeah. The book is easy.
1:38:59
The proposal, like it just shoots fear through me. Oh, sure.
1:39:03
Yeah, a lot of writers a lot of writers don't like feel very uncomfortable selling themselves.
1:39:11
Uh but the thing the easiest way or the reason that was so easy for me to overcome is realizing that to sell effectively, you don't have to over-promise.
1:39:20
You don't have to blow a lot of smoke.
1:39:22
You just have to state the facts using the tools you already have, which are which is wordsmithing and logical progression and all this stuff that you would get from, say, Certainly from John McPhee.
1:39:33
Certainly from John McPhee. Logical thinking, right?
1:39:35
You're just taking out the things that are extraneous that might hurt you.
1:39:39
Uh you're not covering anything up, but you're just telling you're presenting the case like an attorney would.
1:39:44
In the most efficient way.
1:39:46
efficient and compelling way possible.
1:39:47
And So, Steve Hanselman ended up who was who had just moved from being a a superstar editor and publisher to being an agent ended up signing on for this wild ride and uh Do you have any idea where this is going at this point? No.
1:40:06
The book was rejected 20 I want to say 20 I I I lose track of the number sometimes.
1:40:10
It was either 27 somewhere between 26 and 29 times.
1:40:13
It was it was rejected by editors and and publishers.
1:40:18
What are you feeling when these rejections come in?
1:40:23
It was less sales, so rejections is normal. It's it's normal.
1:40:26
I also uh So, for a writer, that's devastating. Yeah.
1:40:32
So, what I had that they didn't have And this is the reason rather than feeling sad or rejected, I felt angry and righteous.
1:40:42
Uh which also, by the way, is a double-edged sword.
1:40:44
That doesn't always work so well.
1:40:45
But, the reason I felt I felt I knew I was right and I felt righteous and I was just pissed at these people is because I had data. I taught 20 classes. I had feedback forms. I had the experience. the goods. I knew I knew it sold. I knew it could sell.
1:41:04
And I knew it worked, more more importantly, right?
1:41:07
So, it's one thing to say sell medicine.
1:41:08
It's quite another to go through all the trials and so on to ensure that the medicine works.
1:41:13
I knew the medicine worked. And they were whatever. You know what?
1:41:19
Their their rejection letters, in some cases, were so rude. They were too stupid.
1:41:23
Uh not all of them, right?
1:41:23
Some people were very gracious.
1:41:27
And looking back at the proposal, which I've done, quite frankly, it does read a bit like the chest puffing of an overconfident, at the time, 29-year-old, which I was.
1:41:35
Like it it is it is a little much. Like, I'll be honest.
1:41:39
Like, I could see why someone who's very seasoned vet who's had 20 years in publishing would read it and just roll their eyes. Roll their eyes. I can understand that.
1:41:48
But, many of them were too lazy or stupid to ask any questions.
1:41:52
And if they had asked some questions, they would have realized this is a low-risk bet with a high-potential return that's been tested.
1:41:58
And if they were investors, which they are, by the way, that's what publishers are.
1:42:04
They're recruiting talent and investing in talent, like just like a baseball team.
1:42:08
That they should have taken that bet, and they didn't.
1:42:09
Now, ultimately, uh Crown, which is an imprint within Random House at the time, which I guess is Random Penguin or whatever it is now, uh was my I I I could not make this up.
1:42:20
I mean, it sounds like a cheesy scene from a movie that would from a screenplay that would not get sold.
1:42:28
But, last meeting in New York.
1:42:28
So, I've had a chance to refine the pitch through all these meetings, and I'm getting You're still getting no, no, no, no, no.
1:42:36
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, thank you. No, come back later. Very venture capital.
1:42:40
I mean, there's there's there are there are a lot of similarities between publishers and venture capitalists.
1:42:44
A lot of polite, kind of soft, nebulous nos, like, "Well, maybe if it's successful, we want this guy for a second book, so I'm not going to be too rude now." We did pass on this guy.
1:42:52
which is smarter than being rude.
1:42:52
Uh but, ultimately, Heather Jackson, who was the editor {slash} sort of talent scout, right?
1:43:02
Because they're acquiring editors, and they are talent scouts.
1:43:03
They have to find authors.
1:43:06
Had been contacted by Steve, and she set up a meeting, where at the time the the the the decider was Steve Ross. And had this meeting.
1:43:14
There were like 20 people in the room.
1:43:16
I mean, it's just a kind of a Death Star meeting.
1:43:20
Uh much like people may have experienced at say a CAA or WME, right?
1:43:22
You walk in, you're just like, "Wait a second.
1:43:24
I thought I was meeting with one person.
1:43:26
Why are there 20 people here?"
1:43:28
Uh at that point, I'm used to it, though.
1:43:29
It's like, "All right, this is just how publishing works.
1:43:32
And uh uh went through the whole pitch, the whole nine yards.
1:43:37
And seemed to be getting like head nods here and there.
1:43:42
But I I didn't I didn't feel like it was there.
1:43:46
Like this this day it was not going to be consummated.
1:43:50
Like it was it was close, but it wasn't quite there.
1:43:52
And so so I've heard this now from or Steve, my agent, has heard it from other people in publishing who were at Crown at the time that this is what made the difference.
1:44:03
So at the very end Steve said all right, or might have been Heather.
1:44:08
It was either Steve or Heather, but they said all right, well, this has been a great meeting.
1:44:12
Do you have anything else to say or to ask before I wrap up? And I said, yeah, I do.
1:44:20
And I said, if you look at my track record, if you look at the things that I've done, I have never half-assed anything.
1:44:27
I have an extremely high pain tolerance.
1:44:29
So if you take this small bet on this book I will stop at nothing.
1:44:34
I will kill myself to make this a best-seller.
1:44:37
I will do anything within my power.
1:44:39
I will find other people who can help me with things outside of my power to make this succeed.
1:44:47
And Did you see it on anybody's face a reaction? straight at Steve.
1:44:51
Cuz he was the one who was going to make the decision.
1:44:52
And there's a little pause.
1:44:55
I said, okay, thank you very much.
1:44:59
Uh and then they bought the book.
1:45:00
Uh the news came, I guess, few days later, a week later, maybe.
1:45:05
They bought it for a pittance, which good for them, they should, right?
1:45:06
I mean, they're in a much more leveraged negotiating position after 27 rejections.
1:45:12
So why would you pay a premium? And uh Amazing. Boom.
1:45:15
So that was and I remember when the book came out and there was a lot, of course, that I'm doing to to make sure that I am true to my word. I didn't expect it.
1:45:29
other thing is you know, get the crowd. Yeah. Then do the selling. Then you do the selling.
1:45:36
that you were out getting the crowd in the meantime.
1:45:38
Well, they're different crowds, too.
1:45:40
Uh and that is they're different sets of customers even for a single product.
1:45:44
So, in other words, I knew that to sell to readers, I had to first sell to publishers, right?
1:45:49
And to sell to readers, you then have to also sell through publishers to distributors.
1:45:53
So, I knew that I had to have a story and material for all of those groups for the book to succeed.
1:45:59
It wasn't enough to just sell books to the end reader.
1:46:01
I had to know who the customers were, who enabled the book to be shepherded to ideal position at a retailer.
1:46:09
And you just broke the the business cycle down. Yeah. Piece by piece. Oh, yeah.
1:46:13
And even when choosing covers, I took different covers.
1:46:18
I went to the Borders, which no longer exists, in Palo Alto on University Ave, and I found a book that was the same size in the new arrivals or the new non-fiction area, and I wrapped it with the different covers.
1:46:30
And I did this between say 5:00 and 8:00 p. m.
1:46:33
, so prime time, and I would sit there and I'd keep track of how many times each cover was picked up.
1:46:40
So, I'd give each one say 30 minutes, and I'd compare which cover got picked up the most. And Oh, man.
1:46:46
No writer thinks like this. Yeah.
1:46:49
Even the even the title Four-Hour Workweek was not the original title.
1:46:52
The original title is terrible.
1:46:54
Original title is Lifestyle Hustling.
1:46:58
I mean, none of this We might not even be talking right now if that had been the title.
1:47:01
So, How did the that title come into play?
1:47:04
Uh ended up Actually, you know what?
1:47:06
It was Lifestyle Hustling in the proposal, then it was Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit, which was the name which was the tongue-in-cheek the tongue-in-cheek name of my class.
1:47:14
That's what I called the seminar because of the sports supplements.
1:47:19
And I think it was Walmart or Costco, someone did not like the title. The drug, right? Right.
1:47:25
So, one of my customers before the book could get to my readers did not like the title.
1:47:30
So, in retrospect, thank god for that.
1:47:32
They didn't like the title and Crown had a bunch of ideas, but I don't like making, when possible, uh purely emotional decisions based on some type of consensus. Right?
1:47:44
I mean, as they say, or I've heard at least, you know, a camel is a horse drawn by consensus.
1:47:52
And I instead said, "All right, if we need a new title, give me some time. I'll test it."
1:47:57
And at the time, it was the golden years of Google AdWords, which could be tested very inexpensively.
1:48:05
And I grabbed about 10 different domain names, right? URLs.
1:48:10
And then I had combinations of different titles and subtitles.
1:48:14
And so, I put those I bid on different search terms like retirement, round the world travel, whatever it might be.
1:48:22
And then an ad would pop up for my book that didn't exist.
1:48:27
And it would have whatever, lifestyle hustling as the ad headline, and then the ad text would be the subtitle, and then the link, which would be the URL for that particular book title, which I'd already reserved.
1:48:42
And Google mix and matches those automatically, so you don't have to manually test all the permutations and combinations.
1:48:49
And for two or three hundred dollars, whatever it was, maybe less, 150 to 300 dollars, within a week, I knew that by far what got the highest click-through rate, so it's the same as people picking up a cover, and me tracking the pickup rate, the highest click-through rate was Four-Hour Workweek, you know, Escape the 9-to-5, so on and so forth.
1:49:11
Uh Live Anywhere, Enjoy the New Rich, which ended up being the title and subtitle, had by far the highest click-through rate differential and standard deviation and I took that data to the publisher and that's what we ran with. Oh, man.
1:49:29
Number one, I got to start watching infomercials.
1:49:33
Number two, I'm going to have to run off to interview Kobe Bryant.
1:49:37
Yeah, I'd say I'd say it's important.
1:49:40
So, what I'm I would like to if it's okay with you Yeah. stop here.
1:49:45
Let's make this Tim Ferriss the early years.
1:49:49
Yeah, chapter chapter one.
1:49:50
Chapter one and then come back and do chapter two starting with the phenomenal success of that book.
1:49:56
May I give people a preview of where we are now?
1:49:59
So, much like say a movie, we can be in in in media res and then we can flashback. Teach me, Tim. Teach me.
1:50:08
We can you know, we'll we'll do Star Wars episode four and then we can do the pre then we can do the prequels.
1:50:15
Uh well, the I I think what has helped me to do to achieve any modicum of success in these various areas and I've certainly had plenty mistakes like the audiobooks and so on is asking better questions.
1:50:29
So, first and foremost, I'd like to thank you for helping me to learn how to ask better questions.
1:50:35
So, that's piece number one.
1:50:38
Uh piece piece number two is that in many ways by reading writing by people such as yourself, I started interviewing people myself, which I was doing for the books.
1:50:50
And uh so, The 4-Hour Work Week was the first book.
1:50:56
The latest book uh is Tribe of Mentors, right?
1:50:59
So, if you look back at these people I had the the absolute spectacular luck to meet, whether it's John McPhee or Ed Schall.
1:51:06
Oh, I can't wait to read this book.
1:51:11
I am always asked, "What do you what can I do if I don't have access to those people.
1:51:15
So, what I did was went out and found 130 of people who are the best at what they do and asked them the 11 or so questions that I've refined over several hundred interviews to figure out what their secrets are.
1:51:29
And whether that relates to financial success, investing, physical wellness, training, or otherwise, it's a compilation of profiles of people ranging from, you know, the Maria Sharapovas and uh Kel- uh Kelly Slaters of the world, world-class athletes of all different types, to heroes of mine I wanted to reach out to like Dan Gable, who is a wrestling coach at Iowa, yeah. Exactly.
1:51:53
So, if the McFee equivalent in the world of wrestling I got it. is Gable. So, I interviewed Gable.
1:51:59
And so on, all the way to different types of writers, people like Steven Pinker, and so on. This sounds amazing.
1:52:06
Teasing out all of their playbooks.
1:52:08
Uh so, for people interested in that type of cheat sheet across every possible domain you can imagine, uh Tribe of Mentors is is the latest, which should be out by the time people hear this.
1:52:19
So, they can they can find that at tribeofmentors.
1:52:20
com and see sample chapters and the list of all the mentors and everything.
1:52:26
Hey guys, this is Tim again.
1:52:26
Just a few more things before you take off.
1:52:28
Number one, this is Five-Bullet Friday.
1:52:30
Do you want to get a short email from me?
1:52:33
Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend?
1:52:40
And Five-Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week.
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That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered.
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It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird [ __ ] that I've somehow dug up in the uh the world of the esoteric, as I do.
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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.
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It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend.
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So, if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to 4hourworkweek. com. That's 4hourworkweek.
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com all spelled out, and just drop in your email, and you will get the very next one.
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And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.
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This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter.
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It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers, and it's super super simple.
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It does not clog up your inbox.
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Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self-experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world.
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You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time.
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Because after all, the podcast, the books, they can be quite long.
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And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday.
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It's become one of my favorite things I do every week.
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It's free, it's always going to be free, and you can learn more at tim. blog/friday. That's tim. blog/friday.
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I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with, and little do you know, in fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday.
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So, you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun.
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Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email.
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I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else.
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Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So, check it out. tim. blog/friday.
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If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot, and you can, of course, easily subscribe anytime. So, easy peasy. Again, that's tim.
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blog/friday and thanks for checking it out if the spirit moves you.
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This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic.
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You might remember Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee, which was created by those clever Finnish founders.
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And when I first mentioned that coffee on this podcast, the product sold out in less than a week.
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It lights you up like a Christmas tree, which can be really useful.
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However, recently I've been testing the opposite side of the spectrum, a new product.
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And that is their reishi mushroom elixir to help me end my day, to get to sleep.
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As you guys may know, long-time listeners at least, I struggled with insomnia for decades.
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I've a largely fixed that, but still shutting off my monkey brain has never been easy, still isn't easy very often.
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And I found reishi, which I've been fascinated by for a few years now, has been very, very effective and calming.
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Their old formula, however, Four Sigmatic's old formula, included stevia and I like to avoid sweeteners, all sweeteners, for a host of reasons.
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And I then just pinged them and asked, "Hey guys, I would love to experiment with this and maybe actually suggest it, but I'd like a version without sweeteners if you'd be open to it.
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If too much of a headache, don't worry."
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And they are always game for experimentation.
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So, they created a special custom version without the stevia, without sweeteners.
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Now, it is part of my nightly routine.
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Their reishi elixir comes in single-serving packets, which are perfect for traveling.
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In fact, I'm about to leave the country right now and I have a packet in front of me that's just going to sit in the end of my carry-on bag.
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You only need hot water and it mixes very, very easily.
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Here's some recommended copy that they put in the read.
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So, I'm going to read it and I'll give you my take.
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Quote, "A warning for those in the experimental mindset.
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Reishi is strong and bitter (in parentheses, like any great medicine).
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So, if the bitterness is too much, I recommend trying it with honey and or nut milk, such as almond milk. End quote.
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So, I'm going to say, "No, you should suck it up and you should drink the tea because it's not that bitter."
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And maybe you should take the advice of old Chinese people when they're criticizing young ins when they say, "Bu neng chi ku."
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Which means you're not able to eat bitterness.
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Bitter is, in many cases, an indication of things that help liver detoxification and so on.
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Not saying that's the case here, but I've tested this reishi elixir on family members, on friends. Everybody has liked it.
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It's a little bit earthy. It's not that hard.
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So, I would just say, "Suck it up."
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And no, don't put in honey or nut milk or any of that [ __ ] Just drink the god damn tea. It's delicious, I think. Right?
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If you like puer, that kind of stuff, that type of tea, you're going to dig it. So, just try it.
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Okay, back to then my read.
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If you'd like to naturally improve your sleep, both onset and quality, I think, naturally, you might just enjoy this reishi elixir without any sweeteners.
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It has organic reishi extract, organic field mint extract, organic rose hips extract, organic tulsi extract. And that's it.
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No fancy stuff, no artificial whatchamacallit anything. So, check it out. Go to foursigmatic.
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com/ferris and get 20% off this special batch.
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I don't know if they're going to be making much more of this since it was made specifically for you guys.
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So, do me a favor and try it out so that they continue to be open to experimenting with me to create products for you guys specifically. Check it out.
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Foursigmatic, that's f o u r s i g m a t i c.
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com/ferris, f e r r i s s, and get 20% off this special batch.
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And you must use the code ferris to receive a discount, f e r r i s s.
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So, again, go to foursigmatic.
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com/ferris and then use code ferris for 20% off of this rare exclusive limited run of reishi mushroom elixir for nighttime routines without any sweeteners. Enjoy.