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Optimal minimal.
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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
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Can I ask you a personal question?
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No, I just saved my first game time.
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What if I did the opposite?
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I'm a cybernetic organism living this year with a metal endoskeleton.
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Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to the Tim Ferriss Show.
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What you're about to hear is part two of a multi-part conversation with Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding, world traveler extraordinary, one of my favorite people.
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If you didn't catch the first part, you might want to do that before venturing in.
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But if you don't mind your story is more of a jigsaw puzzle, then by all means keep on listening. We bounce around a lot.
0:47
It's a very eclectic conversation, so you could certainly listen to these things out of order.
0:52
This episode is brought to you by 99designs.
0:54
You can check out a bunch of my competitions that I've run at 99designs. com/tim and ExOfficio.
1:03
And if you want to see some of my favorite pieces of travel gear, as well as a video on rapid ultra-light packing, then you can visit ExOfficio ExOfficio ExOfficio. com/tim.
1:20
And I almost forgot, of course, there are a ton of resources and links and websites and books mentioned in this episode.
1:29
All of it can be found in one place in the show notes.
1:32
So, you just have to go to 4hourworkweek.
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com, all spelled out, /podcast. 4hourworkweek. com/podcast.
1:41
You can find the show notes and resources and links for this episode, as well as every other episode, like those for Peter Thiel, Tony Robbins, Mike Shinoda, you name it.
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So, you don't need to scribble furiously, unless you want to, but 4hourworkweek.
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com/podcast is where you want to go.
1:59
Without further ado and further Porky Pig invitations, please enjoy part two of the Tim Ferriss Show with Rolf Potts.
2:10
What are some of your favorite books or commentaries on writing?
2:15
Uh well, this is funny because I I I teach writing in various contexts.
2:19
I have a I teach at a summer writing program in Paris and then I've been doing a class at Yale the last couple years.
2:25
And so I I've been reading a lot of craft books recently and I realized that I had crossed my carrying capacity that I needed to stop freaking reading books about writing craft that that like I had learned all the metaphors there there were.
2:40
Um and so I mean there's some there's some journalistically minded books like Roy Peter Clark has the writer's toolkit, I think it's called.
2:52
Uh and Phillip Lopate has a book called a collection of of essays about the writer's craft called to show and to tell, I think.
3:00
Uh cuz you know, the old adage goes show don't tell, but he's a believer in the idea of strategic telling and and he's a brilliant essayist himself. spell his last name? Uh l o p a t e Got it.
3:14
Uh he's sort of the modern father of of the belletristic essay, the personal essay and he he actually came up from New York to talk to my Yale students in in in person earlier this year.
3:24
Um and he's his his kind of writing is very different from what what you and I do and he might sort of frown on it to a certain extent that he's he's really about that old going back to Montaigne high art of the essay, but he really has some good advice on writing.
3:36
And and jumping back to screenplays, the breakthrough for me and my writing when I took my first vagabonding trip and thought I was going to be the new Jack Kerouac and tried to write about it and realized that one chronological retelling of what I did was not going to work regardless of how beautiful the sentences were.
3:54
Uh was stumbling into screenwriting uh 20 years ago and learning the importance of structure.
3:58
And so those classic screenwriting tomes like, you know, the Syd Field screenplay book or Robert McKee's Story, which is actually ridiculed in the movie adaptation. Right, yes it is.
4:10
Right, Brian Cox actually plays uh Robert McKee in that movie.
4:14
Um I think that those are useful because they go back to the very core of how we communicate as humans, how we tell stories.
4:24
And you can get tired of a three-act a screenplay structure or the needs of the audience, but the the audience is damn important.
4:31
Um and I'm a big believer uh you know, I'm not a believer in cultural hierarchy.
4:36
I think that that that high literature is important and good, but um I mean, I just wrote a pulpy B movie.
4:44
Uh I I think that uh that it's good to know how Raymond Chandler structures his narratives in the same sense that it's good to know how uh Montaigne structures his narratives as well.
4:54
So, I would say if people are looking for writing craft books, don't be afraid of any kind of book that um just talks about how to tell a story.
5:06
And I think that movies are great metaphors for how to tell a story.
5:10
And there's crappy movies out there, and you know, Adaptation is sort of a a lampoon of how we invariably tell stories in movies.
5:18
But just because you learn a very basic and formulaic formulaic way of say uh telling a cinematic story doesn't mean that you have to use that every time.
5:25
It just means that you understand the rules, uh and then within the structure of those rules, then you can shine as a writer. I uh very much concur.
5:35
I uh I have a an embarrassing confession, which is I've been agonizing over a screenplay for several months now.
5:45
And uh I think partially because I've loaded I've loaded the expectations and the burden so large on my shoulders.
5:56
It's It's roughly an adaptation of the 4-Hour Workweek and a lot of the backstory and it's intended to be comedic, but and still or at least convey a lot of sort of philosophical takeaways that hopefully will will spur viewers to do interesting things in their lives and make big changes, blah blah blah.
6:14
But I've been agonizing over it.
6:14
The one thing that did help me to at least get started and I have quite a lot on paper was uh Save the Cat.
6:21
I thought that was I don't know if you've seen this book, but I found it so helpful because I also read I took McKee's story seminar actually, which was which was a quite an experience in and of itself.
6:33
I mean the the the portrayal and adaptation's not far off the mark. Interesting.
6:41
But I I found experience nonetheless.
6:46
I really found Save the Cat to hold your hand and walk you through at least getting things down on paper by saying, "All right, by this page and this minute, you should have this type of element."
6:59
And really allowing you at least to get I wouldn't consider what I have a first draft, but a skeleton structure down that I can use to fill in the blanks with all these random ideas that I have. Totally agree.
7:12
I think that uh and I've become recently interested in in Joseph Campbell.
7:17
Had a passing familiarity with Joseph Campbell, watched a few documentaries, but the the hero's journey and the the monomyth I find very interesting.
7:28
Just as a way of getting started.
7:31
If you can sort of lay out these markers for different stories that you're considering telling.
7:38
Uh But Uh, you know, another another thought that I had, which we don't have to go too deep into unless you have thoughts on it, but is that that beginner's mind that you mentioned, which is achievable through travel or vagabonding, uh, is also, I think, one of the primary benefits of, uh, what you might consider therapeutic use of of psychedelics.
7:57
Um, and that's, uh, I mean, part of the reason that people often describe, with the right set and setting, a psychedelic experience as one of the best experiences of their lives, is, I think, the same reason that many people would, uh, describe their first vagabonding experience as one of the best experiences of their lives.
8:18
And that's the present state awareness and the beginner's mind, uh, and the appreciation that both of those experiences tend to catalyze. Um, but yeah, yeah.
8:28
Uh, Well, I I touched on that a little bit in vagabonding.
8:32
I sort of gently dissuade, uh, readers of the necessity to, say, smoke marijuana when they travel, because reality is giving you this present state awareness.
8:44
You know, if you allow yourself to be bored, if you allow yourself to be lonely, or just if you allow yourself to have experiences by accident, then suddenly you're having you're discovering things in a vivid way that don't need, uh, artificial enhancement. Definitely.
9:01
I uh, the one of the pieces of advice that you gave, I think I'm pretty sure that, uh, you gave this advice.
9:08
you gave this advice. Uh, feel free to to, uh, to correct me, but was getting lost, the benefit of getting lost, and heading out of your your housing, whatever that might be, and just walking off in one direction, maybe with a map, maybe without a map, and just walking and taking random turns for a few hours,
9:26
and I have found that so invaluable, not only while traveling, quite frankly, but even in San Francisco and places where I've lived or live, uh, exploring by foot um, a terrain that you might otherwise for the sake of convenience use taxis for for instance and it's it's been
9:48
I think major priority for me when I travel not for business but for this type of experiential reflection and exploration to to try to catalyze discomfort whenever possible and that doesn't mean a pebble in the shoe but to for instance to purposefully go out of my way to encounter language
10:15
difficulties and one of my favorite ways to do this I'm typically a night owl like I mentioned but when I travel I try to switch it up so I like to try to wake up in some cases very early and I did this in Greece my first trip to Greece I was traveling with a close friend and I
10:29
started waking up really early I would just leave the blinds open and I would wake up as early as possible and my habit was to to go for a walk and just hand wave and try to ask the locals these are on some very small islands where I could find a cafe or a bakery and inevitably I would go to these
10:48
bakeries or coffee shops and there would be a small group of really old Greek guys sitting outside debating what whatever old Greek men debate I would imagine it's probably complaining about politicians and so on and so forth much like every other sort of gaggle of old men early in the morning everywhere else in the world
11:08
and then I would just proceed to kind of sit down and try to have a conversation with these guys and it was always hilarious and extremely fun and I ended up being basically the court jester for these guys for for a period of time in the morning and they always got a kick out of it so I think that um
11:30
Yeah, mean I've said it That that that seeking out of uh mild discomfort or uncomfortable situations, I think is is really one of the main um values um uh and benefits that I've taken away from from travel in the last certainly last 10 years or so. Yeah, this ties into a lot of ideas that
11:50
Yeah, this ties into a lot of ideas that are really uh close to my heart and that that I've sort of embraced even since I discovered vagabonding.
11:57
And and it's funny that you talk about the guys uh As a travel writer, one of my um biggest strengths and it could be an accidental strength as a person who wanders out with the purpose of getting lost is that whatever town I'm in, inevitably the town weirdo finds me.
12:15
Like the most eccentric guy.
12:19
And if you read my second book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There, like 1/3 of the stories are about me with a really strange dude in Lebanon or Burma or someplace.
12:29
And um it it it sort of connects to the idea of the old Greek guy sitting there is that they they see each other every morning.
12:35
But the chance for an American to stumble in and sort of have a semi-comical exchange with them is the most exciting thing that's happened to them all week, you know?
12:46
It's like their wives have stopped listening to them, their children have stopped listening to them.
12:49
And so they can take you under their wing and just the things that you learn from these guys is amazing.
12:55
Um and so that that's funny that that's that's very relatable because I I I feel like for whatever reason, I don't know if I if if it's my my Midwestern tendency to to to talk a little bit less and maybe listen a little bit more or something that I always meet these guys who just have the weirdest um view of the world.
13:14
But you were talking about walking out and getting lost in in vagabonding, I talk about how if in doubt, just walk until your day becomes interesting on the way. Yeah.
13:25
and this and this is sort of tied into a a concept that I've discovered since then and is a concept set that I teach in my Paris classes because we're in the city where it was invented and it's the idea of the flaneur.
13:34
Are you familiar with the flaneur?
13:37
The only reason I'm uh in passing I want you to expand on the only reason I know I recognize that word is because uh a friend of mine named Nassim Taleb who's very famous for having written The Black Swan and a number of other books describes himself that way. Yeah.
13:57
Uh and so maybe you could expand on that because I I would love to hear more.
14:01
I quite frankly I don't know much about the term.
14:05
Yeah it's it's a wonderful idea that I in a sense when I was walking until my day became interesting I was being a flaneur before I knew what it was.
14:13
But it goes back to to Baudelaire and in in in you know over 100 years ago in Paris uh and it's connected through French ideas through the the situationists of the 1960s and the idea is that and flaneuring is something that I use in travel but was was really invented as a concept in your own hometown.
14:34
And the idea is that you become so used to and immune to your hometown that you're not seeing it anymore.
14:42
That it's become a purely utilitarian space and between point A and point B you've ceased living.
14:49
That in your routine you're not really living your routine.
14:51
You're just sort of and this is a a paraphrase but you're sort of zombie walking through your day.
14:57
And so being a flaneur a flaneur is not someone who walks through his own city in in a utilitarian or pragmatic way.
15:02
A flaneur is someone who goes out in search of experience.
15:07
Uh and they're someone um it's also tied into the idea of psychogeography that instead of walking through a city uh with the idea that you're going to say see tourist attractions or that you're going to go to visit your friend on the other side of town, is that you're going to walk through the town psychogeographically and you're going to collect the color red and you're just going to see how many forms the color red can can take.
15:29
Or you're going to look for every parking meter in town.
15:30
Or you're going to look for license plates with the letter Q on them. Cool.
15:37
Or you're going to look for every immigrant restaurant and that that is going to organize your day. That's psychogeography.
15:41
The being a flâneur is even less structured in that you're just you're just wandering.
15:47
Um and it's a wonderful it was invented to be done in your hometown to break out of your own habits.
15:55
Um it's a great thing it's a great way to break out of your tourist habits where you go to a city and there's 100,000 things you can do at any given moment and you do the obvious thing which is go to the tourist attractions.
16:06
And I'm not I'm not going to knock that.
16:07
There's a reason why they're tourist attractions.
16:08
But people talk about how oh, there's the beaten path, everything's been discovered, everything has already been done and it's like actually that's not true.
16:15
You know, Paris is the most touristed city in the world, but you wander for 10 minutes and pretty soon you're going to be finding something that's unique to itself.
16:22
Even along the Champs-Élysées, even near the Champ de Mars where the Eiffel Tower is, if you just embrace the idea of the flâneur and walk until something catches your eye and stay open to experience instead of your plans, then you're going to um you're going to be living in a way where you previously had only been consuming those moments. Mm.
16:43
And flâneur is f l a n u r, is that right?
16:47
That's right, with a little hat over the a. Got it.
16:50
God, my I have Of all the languages I've uh attempted, although this one very half-heartedly, I just cannot seem to get a grasp on uh French because I panic when it starts to erase any of my Spanish or confuse anything else that I've studied, but Paris, what is it like to teach in Paris and are what type of students are you teaching?
17:13
Uh well, I teach at at the American Academy.
17:15
I'm actually the the course director and it's sort of become my baby.
17:18
I've been running this writing workshop for the last 10 years on Rue Saint-Jacques in Paris.
17:22
And my students are like age 18 to age 70, and it's just it's a large number of people.
17:28
I mean, some people are there because of they know Vagabonding or my writing or they know some of the other writers who teach there.
17:35
I have two one other nonfiction teacher and two fiction teachers.
17:37
So, they can It's not just travel writing.
17:40
They can study poetry or screenwriting or short stories.
17:44
Uh and so, a lot of people have just It's It's sort of a bucket list thing for them is that they want to come to Paris and be a writer for a month.
17:49
And it's And it's one of the exciting parts of the program is that it delivers.
17:55
You're there on the left bank.
17:55
You're in the university district of Paris.
17:59
And you're, you know, you're you're firing on all cylinders that you're you're writing all the time.
18:02
You're interacting with writers.
18:04
You're reading a lot, and you're being a flâneur.
18:06
And this is It's funny that I discovered the flâneur in the context of Paris, even though I'd already been doing it.
18:11
And I Even when I'm not teaching travel writing, the flâneur is such a great creative exercise for my students who might be writing a poem rather than a travel story.
18:21
Um and Evelyn Waugh talked about how a city like Paris is sort of like a house that's been wallpapered over so much that the only thing holding it up is the wallpaper.
18:30
Is that there's no Everybody's written about Paris.
18:33
And so, you have to find a way that is against expectations.
18:35
And the only way to find that is to get out and wander and find your own interests.
18:41
You know, and I've had students who have brought their skateboard and through skateboarding in Paris have discovered sides of it that nobody else is seeing.
18:48
And they've discovered you know, uh the French skateboarding culture.
18:51
Um And And so, yeah, my my students are just there for the romance of Paris.
18:56
And the great thing is that it's a great, you know, July in Paris is a romantic place to be, but it's a great place to deliver.
19:04
You know, you can walk outside of a classroom, and in 90 seconds, you're where Victor Hugo lived when he was 11 years old.
19:11
Um And And so, there's this huge I and and in in in 3 minutes you can go to a place where Hemingway got faced, you know?
19:17
Like like we're literally we're on the street, you know, that he describes, you know, in A Moveable Feast.
19:23
And so I think that energy I mean, it's like we could teach the same thing in North Dakota and it would still be very professional.
19:31
I'm very proud of what our teachers are doing, but there's it's almost like a catalyst.
19:37
Paris puts people in a mental state almost like an athletic performance thing.
19:42
Is it people are in Paris and they're not going to blow it, you know? Right.
19:45
That they don't live in Paris, they're going to come to Paris and they're going to do something special.
19:48
Um, and it creates this energy that that amazes me every year of people just uncorking some really um, some really good stuff and and just having some going back to time well, just an experience that is that is very specific and very very Parisian, but very unique to themselves.
20:06
So, uh, I've I've really loved my association with that city. Sounds amazing.
20:11
How many students are are in the course?
20:14
It varies from year to year.
20:14
Um, we've been averaging about 24. Uh, it's capped at 32.
20:21
Uh, and so probably anywhere from 18 to 32 students.
20:26
God, I feel like I should take the course. It sounds amazing.
20:27
I uh, I fantasized uh, fairly frequently about uh, going to graduate school or uh, attempting something like an MFA for creative writing because I really haven't ever explored fiction outside of elementary doing some exercises in elementary school.
20:44
Uh, what do you find of of the students who take this course, uh, what are the charac- what are the shared characteristics of the people who get the most out of it?
20:54
And I'm going to leave that open-ended on purpose.
20:56
But I I think it's it's an earnest desire, um, to do their best combined with sort of a a humility almost a beginner's mind type humility towards writing.
21:12
Um and and sometimes I can get a very young and brilliant college students um who will come in sort of a leg above maybe a sort of a mid-career professional, but because the college student is has not quite cultivated it's
21:27
it's it's a strange thing to think, but there's a sort of confidence and and and and self-assuredness that college students have that like a mid-career professional doesn't have and that can get in the way of the beginner's mind. And so that sort of know-it-all is a
21:39
And so that sort of know-it-all is a wrong word, but like the overconfidence of a of a brilliant college student might impede his or her advancement where like someone who's 35 or 45 and is just there to soak in and everything and and work as hard as they can.
21:56
Um I I I think it's the person going back to the beginner's mind, it's the person who's willing to embrace the beginner's mind and work hard and synthesize the aspect with the parts of Paris that you can't overlook.
22:08
You can't just come to Paris and sit in your room and write all the time any more than J JP Morgan should have been reading Teletext as the whole time he was in Egypt.
22:16
That that interactive going out and having fun and having a bottle of wine by the Seine and and flaneuring through the city and discovering things by accident is going to feed what's happening when you're alone in your room.
22:26
And so I think it's the students who can find that balance um and and the students I I I think to a big extent it's the students who have been almost like vagabonding who've been saving their money and this this means something, you know, that they're not just gathering from their limitless pool of resources to pay for their month in Paris, but they have earned this with their sweat.
22:46
It's like a chapter in Vagabonding, I talk about how the work you do makes your travels meaningful.
22:49
I think it's the people who come in and know the value of what they have in Paris that this this one month is a special time that can catalyze them into a new creative state.
22:59
Those are the people who are going to who are going to get things delivered for them.
23:04
And And you mentioned MFAs, I I got a mid-career MFA.
23:08
Um and I don't know, there's there's some advantages to that sort of thing, but I think there's an extent to which that creatively a 1-month program like this can cover a lot of those MFA bases without compromising 2 years of your life. Right. Right. Agreed. Agreed.
23:24
I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
23:26
I mean, my basic feeling is that uh the benefits uh would be and I mean, it's it's maybe sounds ridiculous that uh you know, I feel very isolated writing a lot of the time.
23:40
And uh it's it's it's sort of odd that I'm you know, I have access to more people than I've ever had access to in my life, yet I spend a lot of my time feeling quite isolated and lonely.
23:50
And uh there's And I don't know many writers in San Francisco.
23:57
I just I That's not in my social sphere.
24:01
Uh which maybe is a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing, but the idea of being in a group of people going through the same experience sh- having that sort of shared study experience.
24:16
I'm sure with some degree of commiseration every once in a while with a structure that actually facilitates experimenting with new types of writing is very appealing to me.
24:24
So, maybe the month Maybe that's Maybe that's a great solution as opposed to 2 years, like I said, which I don't I don't think I could I think that will remain a fantasy uh in my I I I I think they both they're both good for that social um that community of writers situation.
24:40
Um just like this the friend that I'm swapping um houses with who lives in Brooklyn is a grad school friend.
24:47
And I just you know, in my late 30s, I was able to make very, very dear friends through my 2 years of grad school.
24:55
But there's an extent to which I that that like MFA programs aren't really designed for 38-year-olds who are already successful as writers.
25:05
Um and then and then that that a month program, I mean I I obviously I have a vested interest in my own one-month program, but a one-month program can deliver both the community and a more concentrated spark of uh of inspiration uh without having to go through a two-year cycle that isn't necessarily um tailored to someone in your situation.
25:28
One thing a two-year program can give you is is structure, like monthly deadlines.
25:33
Um but, if you've already written a book, I think there's an extension to which like that exposure to poetry or fiction or screenwriting and just 30 other people who are gung-ho and are locked in on that similar creative openness, that that one-month catalyst can be more youthful useful in both senses than than a a more extended uh certificate program that lasts 2 years.
26:00
You know, it's I I I am happy that you misspoke for a second and said youthful because in a way, I think it's almost appropriate because like you said, the charge of a group in Paris recognizing uh for most of them that it's a very unique
26:18
opportunity that required a lot of sacrifices to make happen would charge it with a certain youthful energy, which I'm trying to reinfuse into a lot of what I do because uh and I don't think this is purely a function of age. Maybe it's exposure to
26:33
Maybe it's exposure to just the doom and gloom of just general internet Uh but, uh I'm trying to beat back my own cynicism with a club.
26:45
Uh and really try to prevent myself from becoming apathetic.
26:53
That's a very strong word, but there's just there's a lot of instability and and craziness in the world if you go looking for it or if you are spending a lot of time uh on social media for instance.
27:04
And I I want to combat that with uh a a positive and charged youthful energy.
27:12
Uh so it's very interesting.
27:16
Well, I think that that goes back to the idea of uh of success versus lack of success and that um a certain kind of success is more meaningful when you're 30 than when you're 40 because you have a different relationship to that success after you've been steeped in for a while.
27:32
So finding the screenplay that you can bang your head up against or or or embracing poetry or any or you know samba dancing or or anything else with that that vulnerability that beginner's mind uh that youthfulness, I think that that that is so useful to use the right word this time uh in in rejuvenating your relationship with yourself.
27:55
Just like when I started out as a travel writer, there were certain bylines that were really important to me that aren't now, you know.
28:04
And by bylines, you mean publications and credits and Yeah.
28:07
Yeah, I'm going to write for the San Francisco Chronicle.
28:09
I'm going to write for National Geographic Traveler.
28:12
Good publications, they do good work, but I realized that once you took away the the the um the thrill of that initial success of having a a major publication acknowledge the quality of your work then uh it shifted, you know, what what I was doing with the content I I guess transformed a little bit.
28:30
And so um so now I I'm writing a uh uh a screenplay with with zombies in it.
28:37
Not that I'm going to become a a B-movie screenwriter now, but it brings me joy, you know, sort of that childlike joy in the creative process that doesn't exist anymore with what I've already become professionally successful at. Right.
28:53
And so I think you get into that pattern and it sounds like you're experimenting with this already.
28:57
Um that you become successful in a certain manner of of creative expression and and a and a certain manner of expertise.
29:06
Um and then I think a way to keep yourself fresh is to try activities that you might fail at. And uh I think Right.
29:14
if you aren't failing at something uh fairly substantial once a year then you're not pushing yourself enough.
29:18
And of course travel is a great venue for inviting failure and um you know, mild humiliation.
29:25
Uh but but but sure I you know, I think I I I think it's great that you're that you're bashing your head against a screenplay that might not worked out.
29:32
Um 10 years ago or maybe eight years ago I sort of had my vagabonding screenplay where I was sort of expressing the philosophical ideas of of uh of vagabonding through a coming-of-age story and it didn't quite work, you know, maybe I'll go back to it but it was a good thing to have tried and not quite succeeded at.
29:52
And I'm not saying that that's where where your screenplay is going but that process I think is important for keeping yourself sharp and keeping a perspective amid certain jadedness to other kinds of success. Definitely.
30:08
Uh the the so the the adjective well, the adjective successful's come up a couple of times.
30:15
When you think of the word successful, who's the first person that comes to mind and why?
30:21
Oh man, I don't know if I don't know if a person comes to mind.
30:23
I you know, I think when I was 28 I may have uh I may have been able to name like a travel writer that I wanted to be like Pico Iyer or Tim Cahill. Mhm.
30:35
Um and I think the reason that a person when you ask that question a person didn't pop into my head because I have that different relationship to success, you know, that that the hunger to to be like uh Pico or Tim um played itself out in a very in a great way.
30:48
It became a part of the energy that made me a travel writer.
30:53
Uh and so now I don't think you know, it's funny.
30:56
I um I feel like our backgrounds are fairly sim- similar.
31:01
I'm from Wichita, Kansas.
31:03
You're from Springs, right, Lonnie? That's right.
31:06
B- bull's-eye middle-class families, it feels like. That's right.
31:09
Um And you had your Ivy League League experience right out of high school, and I didn't and like I did my I taught at Penn and then Yale for a couple of years really recently.
31:17
Um and that became a part of me felt like I needed to measure myself against that standard, and it was a great experience.
31:25
Um but now that has also been folded into my idea of success.
31:30
And so I think this might be a little bit tied into in talking about the creative process and and sometimes it can be difficult.
31:40
That my notions of success are slightly different.
31:44
It has a different energy.
31:45
So I'm not thinking about someone I want to be necessarily, but it's back into that I think it's more about appreciation.
31:51
Like my role models, and I'm I'm still blanking on who I might point out are not a achievement people, but appreciation people.
31:59
You know, people who have found the success and are synthesizing it in sort of a good life kind of way. Definitely.
32:07
I think um This is uh just somebody who can't who comes to mind.
32:11
Uh I've I've asked this question of a lot of folks, and uh more uh more than a few times Steve Jobs comes up, but he's he's actually not uh in many ways um exemplary uh based on what you just described, and I think Steve Wozniak, his co-founder, very much is.
32:31
Uh I've I've met Woz on a on a number of occasions, and I even gave him little tango class uh prior to his Dancing with the Stars experiment. And It's the same.
32:42
Uh he really savors and loves life and has built uh has built a life for himself where he is able to enjoy or uh experience the joy of discovery and uh is a genuinely happy human being.
33:00
Um and this is going to sound funny, but despite all of his material success, uh because I I think that uh the the material success, not to say that that's a bad thing.
33:11
I think that it enables more than it disables, but uh it can become a it can make people very defensive uh where they spend the vast majority of their time managing the protection and growth of their assets as opposed to the growth in other areas of their lives.
33:28
And I've I've certainly I mean, I don't have hundreds millions dollars or anything like that, but been very fortunate to have enough success with publishing and elsewhere that uh I don't have to worry about where the the next month's rent coming from.
33:40
Um but I've I've I've witnessed that in myself, and I think that there's a possibility, and maybe this isn't true, but I'd I'd be curious based on your observations if you if you've noticed this.
33:50
you've noticed this. You know, coming from uh a very middle-class background where there were many many times when money was tight in the family and we weren't able to take certain trips or uh get certain birthday presents or whatever it
34:03
might be, uh go out to certain restaurants, that uh my my inclination is to be very um to focus on the the the defense and protection of assets more more than perhaps those people I met, for instance, at Princeton who grew up as blue bloods, where Mhm. money is a known quantity. It's it's a
34:26
money is a known quantity.
34:26
It's it's a it's an element that for multiple generations the family is has become comfortable with.
34:35
Um so I'm not sure if that's worth exploring, but that that's something that I try to be very cautious or aware of because I think it's a it's a it's a terrible inclination that I have.
34:49
Well you touched on a couple of things a couple of new concepts I've come I sort of wrestled with very recently and it actually made me realize who my who my role models are going to be to your earlier question.
35:01
But yeah like teaching at Yale for example which is such a good institution, you know I came into into Yale in my early 40s and my excitement at being at this institution after all these years, you know after being a person when I was 17 at the at the
35:17
college fair in Wichita, Kansas, I remember looking at the Yale table and feeling sorry for the guy who had to come to Kansas and not even going there, you know, just because I came from a family that that that you don't spend money on an Ivy League education. There's there's more
35:30
There's there's more practical ways to get your education.
35:33
It wasn't an expectation.
35:33
But me sitting as a teacher in a class yeah this is very recently who's excited about being at this institution in a way that the 18-year-old student isn't.
35:43
You know the 18-year-old student is just relieved to be there because they've been expected to be there for years and it's a part of their socio-economic status and they they didn't have to go to their safety school sort of situation. Right.
35:59
And and so in a way that's sort of a gift of middle-classness is that you're not you don't have those expectations.
36:05
Nobody's going to be disappointed if you you don't end up at Yale.
36:07
And then you can actually have this this beginner's mind of experience of being a 42-year-old who's over the moon about being a Yale professor all of a sudden.
36:16
Um And actually the other thing you asked about when when I when you think of success who do you think about?
36:20
Actually I've been really fascinated just like in the last couple of months of the stories of Dave Chappelle and John Hughes.
36:26
Dave Chappelle being the comedian who had turned away 15 50 million dollars and society sort of said, "Oh, what's wrong with him?"
36:36
And then John Hughes who in the 1980s made all of the best teen movies ever and then just sort of disappeared to become a quiet person.
36:44
Did he Did he make Home Alone or am I making that up? He made Home Alone.
36:47
He made all of those Brat Pack teen movies. He made Home Alone. Doubtfire?
36:51
Did he also make that one?
36:53
He may have been involved as a screen I might be making that up but yeah.
36:58
He He He had involvement with movies through the '90s and then just sort of stopped doing that all together um in the 2000s and we and I'm still in the process of researching this personality type because I'm really interested in in the relationship that these guys have to success and they were both judged sort of harshly.
37:18
And I think that these are guys who are really trying to wrestle with the idea of who they were versus who their success dictated they were supposed to be, right?
37:29
And so Dave Chappelle, we live in a society where you have to be insane to turn down 50 million dollars.
37:34
People were questioning Dave Chappelle's mental health.
37:39
Yeah, literal That was a That was a very prominent feature of the whole discussion, yeah.
37:43
Whether or not he had gone literally insane.
37:46
When in fact it could have been and again I I'm still researching these guys.
37:50
That could have been a radically sane thing to do.
37:52
Um A friend of mine uh Rachel Kaadzi Ghansa who's a who's a great up-and-coming journalist wrote a piece a profile of him for The Believer where she went to his hometown in Yellow Springs and talked to his Yellow Springs, Ohio.
38:05
Uh talked to his mom who's a professor and actually ran into him in a coffee shop but sort of wanted to respect his you know, privacy sort of thing. Right.
38:14
And Dave Chappelle is a fit, happy guy living on a farm in Ohio hanging out with his friends and it feels again I I need to do some more research, but it feels like he's a guy who decided what would make him happy, and he realized that $50 million and getting locked into a show wouldn't.
38:31
And similarly, John Hughes is a beloved guy.
38:32
And then there These are two examples.
38:35
There's There's other examples that one could throw in.
38:38
But he was beloved for his teen movies, but I think there came a point at which, especially by people of my generation, there came a point at which that he didn't want to be beholden to The Breakfast Club and and Sixteen Candles anymore.
38:49
That he He's a family man and a and a guy who was passionate about his creativity.
38:54
And I think he chose um being happy in a city that he loved, Chicago, with family members that he loved, over making, you know, The Breakfast Club 3 and making another $10 million.
39:09
Uh and so, while I wouldn't say while these guys didn't pop into my head as examples of success, they're guys that have sort of captured my attention because I think the the sort of public perception of oh, here are these guys who have disappeared, with these two examples, these guys aren't disappeared.
39:28
They're They're not people who disappeared, but they They returned They realized that they had They had the the structure in place to live the lives they wanted to live, and they quietly have been doing that. I I love it.
39:42
Uh makes me want to immediately start researching both of them.
39:45
But if you're if you're on the if you're on the job, then uh and I given that I enjoy your writing so much, I'll probably just wait.
39:52
Well, actually, it's funny that I'm not researching it from a writing point of view.
39:55
So, you go ahead and take it.
39:57
It's just like from an intellectual point of view, you know, that we're at all points Heraclitus said, you never step into the river same river twice cuz it's a different river and you're a different man.
40:06
And that's probably not a direct quote.
40:07
But you're always trying to make sense of of how you're living and how other people are living.
40:12
And suddenly, this is just a random intellectual thing that I probably wouldn't have thought about in the context of success until you brought it up.
40:19
And here's two guys that I think, you know, were crazy like foxes, you know, that that said, "No, thanks, American idea of success.
40:26
We're going to take real success.
40:28
We're going to take time wealth and live in ways that make us happy instead of trying to to um live up to artificial ideas of success."
40:37
So, I would actually you can have it, Tim, and I want to read this.
40:39
I want to read this book or article on the uh on success management, you know?
40:46
Cuz Success management, I like it.
40:48
It It feels like an important topic. Yeah. Yeah. I I I agree.
40:54
Especially because it's such a it's such a nebulous term that I think there's a there's a lot of insidious potential uh for such a heralded pressured nebulous term in particular. Uh interesting. All right.
41:10
I'm I'm going to I'm sure that seed will will just sit in my head and not go away, so I might have to scratch that itch.
41:18
Well, I mean, if you I mean, there's so many ways of looking at at perspective in success, but in dental terms, we're all more successful than the kings of Europe 500 years ago, you know? Right.
41:29
So, so so there's that the keeping up with the Joneses idea of success, you know, that comparing yourself to other people idea of success, um is useful to an extent, but it's also toxic.
41:40
And so, it's part of this idea of success management, which is a phrase I I only just now said, but it feels like it's the other half.
41:49
There's a million books about how to become successful, but perhaps there's not perhaps the idea of how to manage one's success in a in an enriching and life-enhancing way is something that more thought needs to be uh you know, addressed. I think so. topic. Definitely.
42:06
Uh well, this this is uh this has been a fantastic conversation.
42:11
I have just a a few more questions I'd love to ask.
42:13
I want to be respectful of your time, but um I I I think I'm I'm I am very hopeful that people will enjoy this and they should definitely um let us know if they if they want a round two at some point if you're up for it uh because this has been a blast. Uh but the Absolutely.
42:32
the uh the questions I have, so there are a couple of rapid-fire questions.
42:34
Uh you walk into a bar, what do you order from the bartender?
42:38
What's what are your your drinks of choice or drink of choice?
42:43
I have turned into a into a whiskey guy and I'm I'm actually giving myself a little vacation from whiskey.
42:50
Um just because almost like with internet connectivity, it became too easy to like have a nightcap um that that compromised my morning productivity.
43:00
And you know, being the middle-class guy I am, you know, I love Woodford Reserve.
43:05
Um and I'm talking about the burbony types of whiskey, but Evan Williams Black Label makes me happy.
43:12
Um but I'm taking a little vacation from it because it became my you know, my booze version of the internet where it just became unnecessary for me to be having, you know, another Evan Williams.
43:24
And you know, I like I like the single malts and and stuff like that, too.
43:26
But as as far as something like I needed a freedom app for my bottle of Evan Williams at home.
43:34
Just duct tape over the mouth, right? Exactly. Exactly.
43:38
Like like an anti-booze pacifier.
43:38
I should sell one of those. Exactly.
43:41
And it's and it's not it's not alcoholism because I've been on my whiskey fast for about 2 weeks now and I never think about it.
43:47
I just need to get my monkey brain off of off of my my whiskey nightcap um because it was delightful and unnecessary and completely, you know, counter to my own creative life, you know?
44:00
It was it was a very lazy It was like checking my face Facebook feed for the third time in 20 minutes, you know.
44:08
Anyway, eventually I will return to whiskey with pleasure, but I'm on a on I'm on a little mini retirement as it were from whiskey. I I understand.
44:19
I just took a recently took a month off of booze entirely for similar reasons.
44:24
Uh do you have a favorite documentary or documentaries?
44:30
What popped into my head is is Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. Oh boy, yeah. Have you seen this?
44:36
I've I've now I've heard of this.
44:36
This is the one with the I think part of the reason I may have avoided it with with a horrific epilogue if I'm not mistaken.
44:46
Is this is this the same movie that is Um the epilogue it it's Well, let me let me rephrase that.
44:54
Are are people eaten by bears?
44:57
Yes, yeah, it's about it's about this guy named this eccentric fellow named Timothy Treadwell who spends 13 summers I believe it's 13 summers in Alaska with grizzly bears and the 13th summer he's actually eaten by grizzly bear.
45:08
And it's something it this is not a spoiler because you know that from the beginning of the movie.
45:13
And one reason I like it is that it's such an interesting experiment in in storytelling and I and I use this as an example with my students about how you infuse narratives with mystery with the idea that you're going to get certain information later on in the narrative.
45:28
And he and Herzog gives us the answer to the mystery almost immediately, which is the what, what happens?
45:34
Timothy Treadwell gets eaten by a bear.
45:36
But then it's like the how it gets answered, but then it's the who.
45:39
It turns into this who the hell is this guy who would hang out with grizzlies for 13 summers.
45:46
And and I'm not saying it's not my favorite or it's not one of my favorite documentaries from the standpoint of like sort of life-changing model for how I want to live or even how I want to make a documentary, but it's such a brilliant the um, use of narrative.
46:02
Werner Herzog is just so good.
46:02
Um, literally yesterday I was looking at like these spoofs of like Werner Herzog reading Curious George, which is just it just killed me. It just it was so funny.
46:14
If you've seen If you've seen Grizzly Man with his sort of dramatic voice-over, and then you hear this spoof of him reading Curious George, was a curious monkey. So, it's so uncanny.
46:26
Anyway, that that's sort of an an aside.
46:28
Is that he's he's another one of these role models of someone who is so brilliant who he's sort of un-replicatably brilliant in the way he uses narrative.
46:40
And it's such a subtle and simple and brilliant way of telling the story of Timothy Treadwell you mostly through Tim Treadwell's own video, um, that it's just it's just a fantastic, um, documentary.
46:52
And it it doesn't really tie into lifestyle design, but as far as using it as a model for using found footage and existing resources for telling a really, really, um, profound story about human nature and the people who sort of go against human nature and nature itself and the assumptions of nature, it's just fantastic.
47:12
And, um, yeah, I got to get eaten by a bear, but um, it's less macabre than you might think.
47:20
Uh, you this is a a random one, but, uh, we we mentioned adaptation earlier.
47:24
If, uh, if Nick Cage came to your house for dinner, what would you cook him? Oh, god.
47:30
Well, I'd probably I'd probably go to Aldi's and and find some cheese bratwursts, um, just because that's sort of how I roll, you know.
47:41
It it it would be the same if you showed up at my doorstep or or any number of friends or celebrities.
47:46
Um, that that's an interesting guy.
47:46
And this is another complete aside, but I'm a little bit obsessed with the movie Con Air.
47:54
Okay, that requires some elaboration. Okay.
47:57
Because I saw it on a bus in Syria.
48:00
And that movie, like if you took every if a computer took every action movie cliche and turned it into an algorithm and spit out a movie, it would be Con Air, you know.
48:11
With with with a cast full of indie actors.
48:14
I mean, Steve Buscemi is in that movie and John Malkovich is in that movie.
48:19
But I watched it on a bus full of Syrians and they didn't have any of the snarky, self-aware, judgmental, hipper than thou attitude towards it and they cheered at the end.
48:29
And then they cheered in the middle.
48:33
And as and and that became a part of my emotional experience of Syria, which and this has been 14 years ago, which is this amazing place and it's become this heartbreaking place because um I know that the people I met there and who were so wonderful are are living hard lives now.
48:51
Um and so I want to write an essay about this at some point about my emotional relationship to Con Air that is somehow tied into the experience of travel along with for like the helplessness of seeing what's going on in in Syria.
49:03
And sorry for this to take a serious turn, but it's one of those limitations of travel, you know, for all of the of the beauty of humanity that I experienced in Syria, which was such a wonderful place years and years ago, that I have this dumb Nick Cage movie tied in to my emotional experience of the Syrian people. So.
49:23
You should absolutely write that.
49:23
I think that'd be I think that'd be a fascinating piece. Uh Roger that.
49:29
Uh so so cheese broughtwurst. That's it.
49:34
Come on over to Come on up to Kansas. Sign me up.
49:38
Uh what what is the the most gifted or the few most gifted books in your life?
49:44
Meaning aside from the books that you've written and of course people who followed me for a while know that I've given away hundreds if not thousands of copies of Vagabonding, but uh And thank you for that. Of course. Yeah, of course.
49:56
I think it's I view it as as as a must-read.
49:59
Of course, you know that.
50:01
Uh Aside from your own books, what books have you gifted to other people the most?
50:08
Well, you could probably guess um Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Definitely.
50:14
And and and this is this is especially a a young adult to mid-30s gift.
50:16
And and this is going to sound funny, but I I probably gave it to every woman I dated for like 6 to 10 years.
50:26
Not because I was some sort of jaded pickup artist, but because I felt it was so true to my own you know, you know, joyous attitude towards how I wanted life to be and and just sort of the openness, like this 19th century gay dude, you know, capturing these raw straight guy emotions towards, you know, the joy of life.
50:49
And so I apologize if I sound jaded to my ex-girlfriends, but there's a point at which that I felt so connected to that book, you know, that I would give it to people I was falling in love with, you know. Mhm.
51:02
Um and so that continues to be a book that especially for for young people who are just sort of coming into wrestling with what's in store with them for life.
51:13
Leaves of Grass is this this great reminder that joy and and openness to experience and inclusivity is something that is going to is going to be that catalyst that makes every every experience more exciting. Great. I love it. Any any others?
51:30
What do you What have you been gifting to your your your girlfriends for the last while? Let me think.
51:38
You know, I've I have so many writer friends now that I I like we I have really good friends from my grad school program who are poets.
51:47
And like, you're you have a poetry best seller if you sell 150 books of poetry, right? Right.
51:56
and so, I've been buying a lot of poetry uh by my friends or even just by poets I respect simply because that one purchase and handoff is meaningful to them in a way that other people might not be. Right.
52:08
And this is something we haven't touched on, but poetry is useful for non-poets in the way that it uses language.
52:13
You know, there's nothing more pure and distilled in the way that every single word operates in poetry.
52:20
And so, my friend Eli Burrell just came out with a book.
52:23
I I've been buying that for friends.
52:25
My my friend Heather Heather Dobbins Combs had a book that came out with uh poetry.
52:29
And I think poetry is a good and hopefully my friends who are receiving these books are reading them is just a good reminder about how important language is and how much you can do um on a single page with language.
52:41
Um and so, that would be I guess Grass's poetry, too.
52:46
So, somehow I'm in this prose writer who's besotted with poetry for the last 20 years.
52:51
Um That that's a big thing, too. Um Definitely.
52:55
I need to I need to read more poetry.
52:56
I've never been much of a consumer of poetry partially I think because I uh I dealt with a lot of sort of holier-than-thou liberal arts majors uh at Princeton who seemed to imply that if I understood if I if I insisted on understanding the poetry that it was uh above me, that I was lacking the intellect, or somehow if if I couldn't appreciate what I considered to be nonsensical Right. Yeah.
53:29
prose that I just I just didn't get it.
53:32
Uh and uh that I think gave me a bit of an allergy to poetry that I should probably revisit.
53:38
Uh besides Walt Whitman, any any other poets that uh that you would recommend to the intrepid reader of poetry?
53:47
Well, actually a guy who speaks most every summer in Paris is a guy named Stuart Dischell.
53:52
How do you spell his last name? D I S S D I S C H E L L.
53:54
It's very dude-like poetry.
54:02
Um Is it like a country song about the pickup and the dog or what are we talking about?
54:07
I mean he he's from Jersey. He's from Atlantic City. Okay.
54:10
Um and it's not dude-like in bro-like poetry, but it's just like if if you're a you know, like a straight male who's encountered bigger questions in life, there's something very relatable about it. Got it. Penguin publishes him.
54:22
Also a guy who was born in Kansas and who is sort of out there and his poetry is really infused with a lot of pop culture is is Michael Robbins who wrote a poetry book called Alien vs.
54:31
Predator that's just sort of a trip to read.
54:34
In fact, yeah, um it's a fun book to just read uh buy and read out loud to your friends because there's so much He's like using this these strange um meters and rhymes with poems about Axl Rose, you know, you know, rhyming Axl Rose with something else.
54:51
Really interesting guy um who's also published by Penguin.
54:53
So those are a couple of dude poets that I think would be accessible or at least appealing to people who aren't usually vested in poetry. Right.
55:02
Um Billy Collins being another example. These are all men.
55:04
Actually, there's a woman named Amy Nezhukumatathil.
55:08
Um N E Z H U K U M A T I T A T H I L. Great woman.
55:15
I've spoken with her at a at a writing and environment con- conference and very accessible and beautiful poetry.
55:22
Um one recommendation I might have people for people who are interested in poetry, which I would imagine for your and my audience both is maybe not a huge priority of people who will read our books. Right.
55:33
Um just get an get an edition of Best American Poetry any any time in the last 20 years, and read through the poems and the ones that you don't like, forget about them.
55:42
And the ones that are appealing, find other poems by those authors.
55:46
Um and that's how I found some of some of my favorite poets.
55:49
That's that's great advice, and I I just wanted to raise also one other poet, and I've I've and this is this is one of the rare poets who broke through my uh probably unfounded bias against poetry, uh Naomi Shihab Nye, uh s h i h a b n y e, two words.
56:13
Um her father is a Palestinian refugee, and just uh really enjoyed have enjoyed her poetry and kept it quiet.
56:21
This is so stupid, but it just goes to show how early bruising can affect how you behave as a uh supposedly mature adult. Uh Right. Right.
56:31
I I enjoy her poetry because I understand it.
56:34
It's It's beautifully written, but I I get it.
56:39
There's sort of a uh a message being conveyed, or a point, or a description of something concrete.
56:44
And uh I suppose I was, based on the uh sort of condescending uh lectures that I would get from people at Princeton who were probably very similar to the guy in the bar in Goodwill Hunting who's reciting uh you know, plagiarized classics.
57:03
Uh just like imagine that and multiply it by a couple hundred people.
57:07
Uh I I I guess I've never really talked about it, but Naomi Shihab Nye uh is a poet that I've I've come to uh really appreciate.
57:15
Uh so, I need to I need to read more poetry.
57:16
I'm glad that you you're sort of lighting a lighting a fire for that.
57:21
And those poets are out there.
57:21
A Major Jackson is another guy that occurs to me, African-American guy from Philly, um who actually taught at the MFA program.
57:28
I didn't study poetry, but he was there, great guy.
57:30
Um and and you know, for every completely abstract poem that's playing with language in a way that is almost meant to be pretentious, you have poetry that's very soulful and accessible and great.
57:41
Um, and people might bag, well, people deeply voice vested in poetry might bag on the accessible stuff, but there's a lot of it out there.
57:51
And again, the best American series or other anthologies might be a good way to find it.
57:54
Or even just going to Poetry Daily and ignoring the poems that seem completely inaccessible and following up on poems that seem to really be um, delivering something relatable.
58:05
Donald Hall is another great one.
58:07
He's he's in he's pushing 90 now, but he's a wonderful, wonderful poet uh, based up in New England.
58:14
Well, Rolf, I want people to uh, to continue exploring um, your thoughts.
58:21
How can they What is the best way for them to to learn more about you, find you online, etc.?
58:28
Uh, my author website is rolfpotts. com.
58:31
Uh, that links to all aspects of my travel writing career and also my career as a journalist and an essayist.
58:35
If they want to know more about vagabonding, hey, they can buy the book.
58:38
They can also go to vagabonding.
58:40
net, um, which I can should probably uh, remind them has resources that go in tandem with the Vagabonding audiobook that you published Mhm.
58:51
uh, and are also more updated than the print book that came out uh, 11 years ago. So, vagabonding.
58:55
net/resources will allow you to to follow up on a lot of the stuff that we've talked about today, a lot of these websites like BootsnAll.
59:03
And then finally, anyone interested in my Paris uh, course, which takes place in the month of July every summer, is pariswritingworkshop. com.
59:11
Um, which is also linked from my author websites.
59:13
But pariswritingworkshop.
59:13
com will give you all the basics about that.
59:17
And Twitter is @rolfpotts.
59:20
So, uh, there's many ways to find me.
59:23
And that is Rolf with an F.
59:23
Uh, for those people who might be wondering what the spelling is.
59:30
With an O and an F or an R O and an F and an R and a couple of T's as well. Yes, so Rolf Potts.
59:34
And a few folks who uh are interested in the the book club.
59:41
So, I I do have a book club and Vagabonding was the very first book I used to launch that book club and uh you can hear a sample of the audiobook and uh and check it out at audible. com/timsbooks.
59:56
So, you can uh you can you can get a get a scope on some of the books that have had a huge impact on my life and I'll I'll thank you once again, Rolf, because Vagabonding certainly hit me at a very important time in my life where I could have gone many different directions and I feel like it steered me in a very positive direction.
1:00:11
And if I hadn't read Vagabonding, quite frankly, I don't know if The 4-Hour Workweek ever would have been written.
1:00:16
So, uh so, thank you once again for for having that impact on me and many many thousands of other people as well.
1:00:25
Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate you championing the book, too.
1:00:27
That I've really it's really gotten to people who may not have found me otherwise.
1:00:30
So, it's a great synergy happening there. For sure.
1:00:35
And I will continue to champion it.
1:00:36
So, Rolf, thank you so much for the time and uh I would love to continue this sometime uh when you're when you're available uh and uh and uh not taking a sabbatical from from electronics uh and uh until next time.
1:00:48
Thanks so much for taking the time.
1:00:52
All right, thanks for having me, Tim. Talk soon. Thanks, Rolf. Bye. Bye.
1:01:02
Thank you for supporting the sponsors of this show, 99designs, which is your one-stop shop for all things graphic design-related. Go to 99designs.
1:01:07
com/tim to see the projects that I've put up, including the mock-ups and drafts of the book cover for The 4-Hour Body.
1:01:18
ExOfficio, ExOfficio and I go way back. exofficio. com/tim.
1:01:23
You can see the clothing that I've used for traveling through 20 plus countries, including the underwear.
1:01:27
By the way, that's about half of my underwear drawer right now. exofficio. com/tim.
1:01:32
You can also see the viral video that I put out which shows you how to travel the world with 10 lb or less.
1:01:39
As always, you can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and you can find all of the links and resources from this episode as well as every other episode by going to 4hourworkweek. com/podcast. Spell it all out.
1:01:51
Or you can go to 4hourworkweek.
1:01:53
com and just click on podcast. Feedback.
1:01:55
If you have feedback, I would love your thoughts, anything at all, who you'd like to see on this show.
1:02:02
Ping me on Twitter @tferriss. That's twitter.
1:02:05
com/tferriss or on Facebook at facebook.
1:02:09
com/timferriss with two Rs and two Ss.
1:02:11
And until next time, thank you for listening.