By the way,
this episode was the camera. This is this episode is not for you. This happens for me. I've enlisted this guy for a long time. I read his books. I used to gift. Your book was one of the most gifted books I had for a long time. Maybe the first 10 years. My thank you here thinking I'd say you're about to I'm giving you the for our fever that's called for work with that. You're going to read this and then for four hours, you're going to question everything in your life. I called out the fire fever. It's normal. Don't worry called.
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And check it out and see how you can use it to grow your business. This is the the short synopsis of how I choose projects is I look for projects that can be successes. Even for me long-term, even if they fail short-term what that means is
projects where by any external measurement or perception they can be a failure. However in the process of pursuing those things, I develop or deepen relationships or develop or deep and skills that are durable right and those then even if no boss something like that those Snowball, right? Right cause if I do like 54 projects, they all fail but I am developing relationships with the type of people. I want to develop relationships with I'm doing
Upping new skills and then I start to bridge all those things and I'm paying attention. I'm taking good notes. My experience is eventually you win. Right? Whatever that happens to me. It's kind of it. Honestly outside of that. I would say these days some getting getting old as fuck and all that is energy in energy out. Like does this do I have more energy doing this or do I have substantially less? Right and that's a product also.
So not just what you're doing where you are who you're interacting with. I pay attention to that stuff because I could do something that people might see as frivolous archery or something. I could pick out a whole ton of them that seemed like a waste of time but that's like plugging my iPhone into the wall. It's like, oh now I have 100% charge instead of 20% charge. There's a lot more that I can do with this phone, right and just because I plugged it into the charger and the circus fun house doesn't mean I have to use
For the circus not house right you get to transfer to other things. So that's that's also something as a fundamental currency that I pay a lot of attention to
I'll tell you two related things on that last night. I was at dinner with I think a mutual friend Joe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah founder of Aryan be and he was saying, oh do you Tom for I think I've been a couple podcast and we were talking about he's like, okay. So what's like what's like a win? You know, like why do you do that? You fly into town you leave your kids you make an effort. What are you looking for out of these? I said, well, I just want to leave with more energy that I
Came and really I want the guests to feel that way too like at the other day. Like what is the only way I can guarantee a success out of this is if you walk out of here feeling energized rather than the drain from this conversation if that's a it's I've been using that heuristic and it's so powerful to use the kind of like, where's my energy after activity? And how am I leaving the people around me yet? Also is you want it to be mutually beneficial in that way the second thing he said was I thought you'd find interesting. I was like we're going through this exercise. I do called the
Tuesday, so I was like life is not really about these Peak experiences like yes those like going and seeing like there's the total eclipses happen and go and see this total eclipse. Apparently, it's like a totally emotional experience. If you're there. I think it's happening in Dallas this weekend or whatever. There are those moments but they're few and far between most of your life is just like Tuesday's just normal Tuesday's over and over again and so put a lot of effort into thinking like what's a dream average day for me and then try to live that dream and so we were talking about it. I asked myself like how close are you to your perfect Tuesday? He's got all the resources in the
the world right sold airbnb's they went public. It's a super success and one of the things he said he goes, that's a great question. I go to the gym for my physical my to get like to physically feel myself and then I work which is great and I feel productive and useful to the world my family, which is love is it but I don't really make time for creativity anymore. He's a he's a designer by trade and he's like, I need like a creative Jim. He's like, I feel like if I if I sat down and I started sketching it almost feel like I'm wasting.
Wasting time like it's like yeah, what am I doing here? I found that really interesting and I feel like you do a good job of kind of making time for the things even if they're not.
Societal norms for what people do and try. Yeah, I try to do it for sure. Do you have your version of a creative gym?
Yeah. I mean I was plake playing the drums earlier today. So from like Financial perspective that can be wasted I'm out but the financial stuff and we can talk about it. It's very useful for certain things. You money only has a certain utility. It's kind of like yeah, you can eat until you're full and then you can eat until you're stuffed and then you can eat until you're sick. But like at what point do you stop?
Stop eating like there is a point Beyond which food ceases to serve any positive function, right and then like things in excess kind of become their opposites. You have to be very careful with money and other things, you know, alcohol power Fame they can distort a lot of things. How do you keep that in check? It's hard to keep some of those things in check. I mean, I just know too many rich people now to thank for that.
Money fixes the inner game or the most problematic kind of psychological challenges that people have it doesn't at all it can fix a lot like money can fix money problems, but that's just one category right of issue. And yeah, and it's incredibly useful as a vehicle for other things, but I find a lot of folks very uncreated of about how they use money. So
I do I would say make time for the creative gym more. So in the last handful of years but time with concept artists doing concept pushes building fictional worlds playing the drums earlier today had an art teacher Stan prokopenko who runs proko.com amazing teacher came out and we worked on a whole bunch of different aspects of drawing and live charcoal sketching and
Shading and so on one could make the argument that isn't entirely off base. That must be nice. Great. You have all this time got to do what you want to do, but I will say also that when I have been at levels of Peak Performance professionally a usually have a creative Outlet of some type. It may not take the form of charcoal drawing that's a bit on the nose as far as creativity goes but like Jiu-Jitsu is creative.
Well, it's like going to the gym and learning how to operate in that free-flowing environment. That's very creative. Right? So if you're working on anything that requires a level of extreme present State awareness and improvisation and experimentation like you're in the creativity game, right? So I want there a lot of ways to do that. I've got a book recommendation from you. Oh, yeah. Haven't seen this book is all few decades. Yeah, I never heard this books an old book. This book is called toughness training.
In for sports and as my gym, lure, do you remember anything from this book that you probably had this a long time ago? I mean I read that when I was probably 15 or 16 and I do remember that there is an inventory. There's an assessment in there. It's two or three pages long and your intended to give that to your coaches Peter around teachers people around you effectively for like a three what I would call now a 360 review.
Different factors that affect mental toughness. Yeah, and I did that when I was 15 or 16 this one right? There you go. Yeah, there we go. So the competitive adjectives profile. Yeah. So there's there's I found this book incredibly helpful and later had Jim Lehrer on the podcast did some training with them and a tennis pro with tennis and having that 360 review from a mental.
All toughness perspective was incredibly helpful to me. It provided me with a level of
Awareness that I couldn't have developed on my own right and
one of the things it talks about is basically if you haven't read the book, it's like there's Talent you're born with other skills, which everybody else understands you practice and then there's performance. Yep, and there's a gap between talent and skill that Gap is called practice. There's a gap between skills and performance and that's basically your toughness training. It's and he calls it I think the ideal performance state.
Like if you ever played Sports, you know this which is like some games you're off. I just wasn't fully locked in. I was I just wasn't I didn't play up to my potential. So like what causes that versus those days when you get inflow state or you're just totally dialed in and you kick butt out there and it's like well, that's because you were in your ideal performance State. This is not just for sports obviously like this can be for you know, how you show up as a dad at home. It could be show it for work. It could be for this podcast. How do I show up in my ideal performance? They do you do things to be in your kind of Ideal performance.
Tate
I do I do I would say that also just to highlight a few other things in here. I haven't looked at this in a very long time 20 plus years but it discusses at length stress and recovery and deloading phases and periodization and awareness and they're all of these different checklists and assessments different assessments that you might use after a given training session and stress.
Evaluations and so on all of which helped me to become more aware of cause and effect in what I was doing. So I had a I had a fantastic. I mean my best season by far after reading this book and there are other factors that played into it in terms of Ideal performance States. I've become less focused on optimization overall. I would say there's just so much of it just does not fucking matter at all and the amount of
Breaking news Tim Ferriss optimization. Yeah, I mean there's place for who needs it. There's a place for it. There's a place for it, but it's like are you taking a taxi from the start to the finish line of a marathon because it's efficient. I mean I speedrunning The Poetry is right. Like there's there's a there's a specific Cult of optimization that is appealing on a lot of levels, but it ends up being a hammer looking for nails and it gets applied to everything and I think that that misses the
For the trees sometimes and I've been guilty of that for sure so it but in terms of optimization, I would say that let's take today as an example. So I had a great day today today was pretty uncrowded. I had a few team calls in an employee calls earlier today. Typically those are on Tuesday, but it got shifted forward because I was traveling yesterday beautiful day outside here in Austin which helps of course went for a walk.
Got a cold brew coffee had a phone call with friend came back did a bit of work knocked a few emails or a couple of pending Angel Investments and Deals of that type and I had to get back to some lawyers and so on that took 15 20 minutes printed out some documents prepare for podcast that I recorded earlier today and then did a seven-minute like this is about a seven minute cold Plunge at 40 degrees, which is pretty chilly not always runs continuously.
Yeah, that's really not a lot that'll wake you up and I use that in part because I knew that we would be recording this late and I didn't want to consume too much caffeine early in the day and then consume way too much caffeine throughout the day and end up not being able to sleep since we're recording this and night and also then had a little bit of titration with like a light green tea before recording my own podcast after walking a bit had some synthetic ketones. So beta-hydroxybutyrate.
Rate, which does help cognitive performance quite a bit so it can act as a stand in for me for more caffeine. So as a blended let's just say like tail end of the Cold Brew green tea about 30 minutes prior. And then also the synthetic ketones about 30 minutes prior and light meals so very light meals if I have a lot of mental lifting to do then I generally eat pretty lightly mostly protein little bit of fat small amount of carbohydrate and
And here we are that's the day. Yeah. I got a great night sleep last night which isn't always the case, but was the case last night and for me that is an optimized day. There's not a lot crammed into it. I'm not
Executing this sophisticated time management Tetris to be as efficient as possible. But I'm keeping the main thing the main thing like the main things were team one-on-one calls.
Being physiologically and just literally I guess prepared in terms of documentation research for podcast that I recorded and then being in a good state for having this conversation.
That's it. Right
so you don't have to do a lot every day. I think
that's effect for sufficiency, right Effectiveness over efficiency efficiency would be more like maximum output per unit of time regardless on what the output is directed towards that right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's if you think of Effectiveness is what you do affect efficiency is how you do any given thing but doing something really well doesn't make it important. So
yeah, I'm a Tony Robbins guy. He calls it a majoring in minor
things. Yeah majoring in mind of things not a great way to go. Yeah, and I also Fritter away time and lose days to bullshit or I don't sleep well and then I'm grumpy and I have too much caffeine and have a shitty night of sleep. I suffer from all that stuff. Yeah human I make
but if you're thinking about
Projects is experiments using the criteria that I laid up for and you're doing your best you're going to falter going to make mistakes. But to keep the main thing the main thing and you've a good rationale for why that main thing is the main thing over time you tend to you tend to perform pretty well and just ship a lot more than most people even if you go a month without doing anything right if you get fuck all done for a month, sometimes that happens to me.
but I try I would almost rather do that and I guess my version of doing fuck all might not look like fuck all but I would rather do that than rush into committing to something that doesn't meet my criteria because I'm uncomfortable not being busy right because that's how you end up over committing to things that longitudinally eat up years since you're comfortable not being
Busy, yeah,
that's a big one.
Yeah, just I mean the like the best way to get what the outcome of busyness should be which is right, like big effects of some time or it could just be more joy, whatever is is not by engaging in Non-Stop action. All right. It's by in a sense. It's similar to my start of investing. It's like having a very tight print very tight.
Parameters a lot of constraints and not breaking your rules, right? It's like the equivalent of like blowing your bankroll in poker or blackjack or in startup investing would be of no you have no real thinking around portfolio construction. You don't have enough positive constraints. So you get over enthused about a ton of things you put out all these bats too quickly and then you lose all your money.
Or you just can't play the game very long because you were never playing the long game to begin with and in life like that bankrolls your time. Hmm, and that's non-renewable. You can always make more money.
I've heard you say something like people who are on 24/7 are there just like hustle hustle hustle grind grind grind you you're like that's actually a dangerous form of laziness. Yeah. I'm just indiscriminate action indiscriminate action as a form of laziness. Yeah, when people are like
To do X in the like first I'm going to do research or make a long list. It's like that's fancy Progressive Nation like yeah shouldn't you just you don't need at least 100 prospects? Just call one. Let's start with that. Yeah, and we all have our
favorite pet forms of procrastination like reading is one of mine right have to be very cautious about reading of reading and no one's going to say you should stop reading. Yeah the big so diligent and
silent but
sophisticated he is so sophisticated I want
to
If you bring in a second, but before I do that teach you said teaching teach me about the art of podcasting. You've been doing this for 10 years now. Yeah, you've done many a high-stakes interview, whether it's pick your favorite famous person or been a person you admire. What can you teach me about the first five minutes of a
podcast first five minutes,
maybe five seconds. I don't know. Yeah beginning of a
podcast. Yeah. I mean the most important five minutes or the conversation I have before I start recording with someone.
Okay, so that would be
Putting them at ease to the extent possible Right. My job is to make you look as good as possible every guest as Final Cut. So let it all hang out and we can cut whatever you want to cut right we get a transcript nothing's going to get published before you give it the okay put the walls down a little bit Yeah, but the walls down General housekeeping so they don't get distracted. Like if you need to take water break bathroom break pause stop. You want to start a story over again?
It's all totally fun. I'll keep an eye out for things that I think we might want to cut like if you accidentally mention your kids names or something like that. So like oh, this guy's a done a lot B is actually looking out for me. See I has actually sat in my seat interviewee see a lot and I always ask and like nobody almost nobody asks this it's it's such an easy layup in terms of differentiate yourself ask interviewees. What a success would be like, what would you look at?
Back at this. I asked my interview interviewee this this morning about this I said six months from now you look back and you say I'm so glad I did that. Hmm. Why like what does success look like and even if they don't have an answer there, so unaccustomed being asked anything like that. They're like, huh
and being a good boyfriend. It's like he cares. It doesn't matter if he probably the water I'd it doesn't even I could have got the water myself, but the fact that he did he's thinking about me here's yeah, so there I would say that
That pre-record conversation is something I don't see very often. Hmm my like when I get I didn't do it today. Well, yeah, I mean and and sometimes that's fine around like I'm comfortable in this environment, right and we've had contact before but it's not always going to be the case. It could also be the case that someone who's very experienced but they're rushed right they got in like an argument with their husband or wife the night before.
Publicist is frazzled and off their meds or whatever and they're just running from thing to thing to thing and then boom they get plopped in front of a mic or they get plopped in front of a computer and they're like, okay go. Yeah, you're talking this guy named Tim. Okay, you need to give them an on-ramp if you can to decompress a little bit from that experience doesn't always work, but it's it's worth the investment in my experience. So that's even if I have to give up 5-10 minutes of the interview.
Right. Let's just say they have a hard stop at 90 minutes or 60 minutes. I will still give up that time. So that's that's one and the first five minutes. I would say. It depends a lot on the the profile of the person and I don't mean Fame. I mean have they been interviewed a thousand times?
In a case where someone's been interviewed a thousand times. I want to ask them a question that shows I've done an inordinate amount of research, right? So I'll ask them something that
For instance. I'm very frequently dig
up like a deep cut. I've noticed you do this.
Yes, third grade teacher or a mentor that help them when they were at one school when they were transitioning from one place to another they got mentioned in passing in a profile and The New Yorker eight years ago, like who was so and so right tell me about so-and-so and they're like, huh? Okay, and that can get them off of autopilot.
Whether someone's been interviewed a lot or very little I will often ask them beforehand looks there's a lot of prep that goes into it. If there are any Greatest Hits stories about like what our stories people respond really well to that stick with them. The people have brought up with you a year later two years later and they could be an academic ring economics talk to people right? Just not necessarily Tony Robbins or Edward Norton, but they're in front of people.
So they'll they should have probably some examples or anecdotes or studies things that really stick with people. Okay, great.
And I will then figure out a question or a cue or I might even ask them to suggest one to prompt talking about that and I will lead with that for two reasons. First is that I'm starting with something that my audience is likely to resonate with number two. I'm giving them a win right fastball. I'm giving them a win up front and that is helpful often times when someone doesn't know where the conversation is going to go to that point. I always try to tell people where I am likely to start.
And that's part of the pre conversation. I'll say I'm thinking about starting with this right because I don't want to cause anyone to stumble out of the gate or for us to get caught on our heels. This is probably where I'm going to start to think that's a decent place to start and if they're like, well, I don't know. It's like some random thing. I read on the internet that isn't true. I want to know that before we start and if they're like, oh, yeah, that'll work. Great. Now I've planted that seed their brains working on that while we're doing the housekeeping while we're talking about everything else and then we start and it's usually
Smooth at least you know, I'm running out of the blocks. So this would be a few things that come to mind for the first five minutes.
That's a great answer a very helpful to me because we usually do the show, it's me and Sam. Yeah, and it's so that's the core of the show as me and Sam hanging out and our Dynamic is very simple. It's due to be seen this is like a random shuffle. You do the random. Shall we do our it's that's very much like the core of our show and we usually if we have guests on it's because we want them to do that with us. Yeah, but then occasionally there's guess
uh, actually it's uh scratching our own itch. I want I really want to meet this person. I want to get to with the really like and I want to ask them the questions that I don't feel like I've heard from them in the same way that like some people say you should write the book you you wish you could just read you wish you could read if somebody else have rented you wouldn't write the book. That's the way I feel about when I do an interview like this. It's like what is the question that I haven't heard in addition to the greatest hits because you want to you know, explore those little bit together as
well. And it also depends on what you mean by good podcast, right? There's good for you.
Me personally and then there is good for the audience. Whatever the audience's right depending on the show and I've gone back and forth on that right? So sometimes I'll do a show for the audience every once in a while, right? I'll have a couple of Scooby snacks for myself, but I'll do something that is is really for the audience. That is a risky approach
seems safer, but it's actually probably riskier you
can get shaped by your audience and then become a bit of
of a domesticated oxen getting driven by what you perceive to be the preferences of your audience, but I have the Henry Ford Maxim in mind which is and I'm paraphrasing here, but effectively people don't really know what they want or need which includes you and me by the way, but for that reason rather than playing the speculation game follow your own interest and the risk there is that you end up playing inside baseball and really doing something that is
not necessarily transferable to your audience.
As far as I'm concerned and maybe I just have the luxury of being in a relatively early mover and podcasting. But if your goal is to do this for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of episodes or that's not the goal at all. But if your if your goal is to continue to continuing to have this amazing ridiculous job, which is just absurd leather. This is a job. Then you got to play the long game and part of the long game is right.
Right, it's like training and recovery. So if you need to take a couple episodes as recovery that are purely self-interested just for you. That's what you do and I don't have any compunction about that and the personal is the most universal also, so if depends on your audience size, of course, but with with the size of my audience, if something is bothering me if something is really peaking my curiosity if something's in my head at night and
Won't go away chances are they're at least I don't know few thousand few tens of thousands of people who have the same thing going
on right heard this great quote from my buddy. How much is the world benefited that Tim Ferriss decided not to just keep selling supplements and to do likes do other things like what would the world have been like had that not happened? I think that's a very it's a great compliment a
very huge compliment very kind you go
from selling supplements, which makes a lot of money. It's like a very clear direct pay off and you could do good.
At it to being an author. That's I'm not usually a good it's not usually an upward career move. Let's say oh so why'd you do it?
But there are few things I would say. So the first is that I didn't end up selling the supplement company until 2009. So whenever possible I have things running in parallel, I do not view myself as a risk-taker. Like if anything I would be as producer risk producer like risk mitigator for sure. Like I'm very good at keeping downside risk.
Ask and in this particular case, I already knew that from
From a from an intellectual perspective that sounds too pompous. I'm struggling to find a better modifier. We put it a different way my learning curve with the Sports Nutrition supplement world had flattened largely. I understood the basic mechanics, I understood distribution. It wasn't that interesting to me and it was also an industry that was and still is marred by a lot of bad behavior, right and unbelievable tactics. That's
In some cases just outright deception. I mean legal and illegal that I'd I really struggled being associated with and if we really flash back and look at what I thought I might end up doing as an adult. I always wanted to be a teacher in part because I had these amazing teachers that had a huge impact on my life kind of save my life in a bunch of ways. I think I could have gone in a really bad set of directions and they help prevent.
That so I thought when I get enough experience in the life, which is not now at that age 29, but eventually it'd be really nice to be a teacher and have that kind of impact. So I thought 9th or 10th grade teacher still haven't done that. I mean I've done some volunteer teaching but I had been going back. I want to say since 2003 to Princeton to teach this guest lecture, right? I was invited to come back and speak.
I've tried to find these off I see many times by the way, they're not online ways you an uploaded? Oh, yeah, they're not alone. I don't
think I recorded.
Them might have recorded one or two. I'm not sure but if I could find them I'd be curious to see them sure. I would well, I'm sure
they'll kind of grew out of that. Right like you basically got then do your lifestyle. Yeah the notes from that because
every time I spoke it was twice a year and show the professor high tech entrepreneurship invited me back because I had the harebrained idea of doing everything bootstrapped and all the other guest speakers had these venture-backed companies and some of them were huge. I was small fries by comparison, but
I was doing it my way. I was taking a different approach. So I came back and twice a year a lot happened in my life at that point. I mean it was trench warfare dog years, right? It's like if you ask anyone who's had the manic-depressive experience of being involved with crypto. It's like yeah, what is the last year felt like they're like 17 years ago and it's similar. I think when you're running a company in the early stages, it's like the we are two months ago is like a lifetime. I think Obama when he left office from black to Gray.
Yeah, yeah exactly. Look at me. I have no hair. So I would say that that desire to teach and the the positive feedback really positive feedback. I got from workshopping the lessons and principles and so on in this class led me to conclude a few things. Number one. I really enjoy teaching number to teaching in that format in front of 20 30 40 students didn't scale and I think scale can be a dirty word and
Chris and overly selective for a lot of folks but it wasn't going to enable me to reach a lot of people and then I was done from an identity perspective with the supplements. So looking for something new and I had an author friend of mine. This is a shortened story that could be really long but effectively say you should write a book and start introducing me to agents and editors even though I didn't want that. Right right. I was just looking for
feedback and suddenly had all these intros and so I was like, okay. Well, let me start having these conversations. I'd also at that point returned from a year and a half or about a year and a half of this Global Walkabout, which I Chronicle some of in the book right Argentina and this that the other thing I came back and was like, okay what next Ryan I'm not motivated to really go into hyper growth mode with this company. This isn't going to be my thing for 10 years 20 years. So what next and
That coincided with these intros, you know, the book was eventually accepted and there was an offer made but a lot went into it right twenty-some-odd 2629 rejections from Publishers and so on but I knew the material worked and I had the confidence because I'd Workshop that I wear the live crowd which is over and over and over and over again. I knew it worked, right and I frankly love experiments. That's the way I can model my whole life. So I viewed the book.
As an experiment was like at the very least. It's like an MBA. It's like, all right. It's like a
Break from whatever I was doing that looks acceptable. Like I resume /this particular kind of like career trajectories. I alright. Let me try it
and the great mask for unemployed right now. It's all right. Now I'm writing a book great and get an MBA. Yeah, great mask for
unemployed. And and then everything went bananas.
Will you do the podcast that way to write experiment? You were like, I'm going to record. I forgot a six-episode said like you built yourself a golden bridge if you wanted to retreat
Do you like hey, I'm going to try this. I'll do six. It's either going to be a wonderful six-episode series or it's going to be the next thing but like I'm going to just portion off this experiment versus that give yourself a huge
commitment. Yeah, give yourself a graceful exit man-made framing it for yourself. But also to other people whatever you do is an experiment gives you a graceful exit right? It's so simple, but it's such a psychological. It's such a strong form of psychological leverage that I think very few people u.s. Right there. Like my next thing is this I'm like
Oh,
totally. I felt that before. I felt the pressure to
have an answer. Yeah, I want to ask you about a different a couple
of your like principal core principles that I've found very useful.
I don't want you to unpack them one is the law of
category. Can you explain what is the law of category and maybe how you used it?
Sure. The law of category is is taken directly from a book called The 22 immutable laws of marketing. The law of category in brief is
A description of the power of creating new categories. So rather than trying to beat the best in a crowded category trying to be the only in a new category. That's where Amstel Light comes in and the first light imported beer. Okay. There you go or in the u.s. Let's just say low-cost Airline Southwest right and there are million examples that you could find the the law of category is all
Also, I would say an encapsulation of something that might be called the Blue Ocean strategy versus the red Ocean strategy. So there's a book called The Blue Ocean strategy. I would also recommend that people read in combination with this chapter from the 22 immutable laws of marketing the law of category. I think I put it in either tools of Titans or tribe mentors. I liked it that much. I want to know I went through all the brain damage of getting permissions to include it.
And they those two pair well with an article you can find for free. You can read it in 15 minutes called 1,000 true fans by Kevin Kelly on cake a.org. You can find that and they're all driving at the same thing which is positioning and differentiation and trying to figure out how you can be the first something now some sometimes that turns into a bunch of hand wavy smoke and mirrors nonsense like we did like we discussed earlier.
But at least as an exercise, it's worth considering because for instance one of the questions I was going to ask you which you can you can answer or we can just use it as a sample question was when a die-hard fan of your show is talking to someone who does not know the show. How would you ideally like them to describe the show? Right? And that is a question of positioning because branding it gets turned into this huge.
Process flow charts and tons of agencies and companies in this and that and sure I'm sure there are people who are very sophisticated with their approach. But at the end of the day for me brand is what people consistently associate x with X could be you actually be the show and how do they describe it? Right? That's it. That's your brand. Let me just like a brand like where does the term brand come from like brand on cattle, right? So from that perspective, I think
Very useful when you're considering doing a new project, it's not how can I be the best competing in the same way against people doing the same thing is that is not the frame and even if you end up emulating other people or borrowing best practices, I think it makes sense to start with examining the law of category and thinking about blue ocean approaches, which is why for instance with my podcast. We're now at the 10th anniversary.
Hurry, and I don't I don't really see a viable path forward for me that is heavily video focused even though I think they're going to be some significant taxes to pay for that podcast have a huge discoverability problem. Yes and a huge long-term surface ability problem.
And YouTube offers a solution and the form of what is it? The second largest English language search engine in the world and
I understand why it makes sense for a lot of people to harness that as one engine for growth makes a lot of sense, but
It's crowded. It's really crowded by anyone's definition. It would be a red ocean and it's definitely going to get redder. And for that reason maybe I make the decision in six months. You know, what fuck it. I'm going to go Whole Hog. Let's see what happens. Right? Right, but I don't have I don't have a really high degree of enthusiasm for that right now and enthusiasm is important right? I'm so which means I'm not gonna have the endurance compared to someone like Chris, right?
Williamson people are like who is this? Chris and furthermore? I feel life the threads of Life pulling me in other directions. So doing it half-assed would be the worst thing I could do like doing it six out of ten would consume resources and not be particularly effective. So I'm trying to decide if I want to take a barbell approach with podcasting on some level which I've experimented with things like that. What's the barbell approaching? That's a barbell approach?
Be applied. I mean, this is a term. I'm borrowing. I don't know if he originated it from tub. Yeah Nassim taleb when he talks about investing right like super risky stuff and then really boring. Let's just say fixed income or S&P 500 something right like super boring stuff and really risky stuff where you have a cap downside but potentially huge upside in his set of games and probably some type of like Black Swan option right position and then nothing in between. That's it, right?
And you could apply that to exercise you can apply that to many different things as I'm applying it. I would say within the format of podcasting you would have no video whatsoever. That would be on one end of the spectrum and I've done that I've experimented with walk and talk. So I have a headset on and I'm recording with someone and we were talking and getting exercise and it's great. I feel better because I'm not sitting down for three or four hours or whatever the amount of time might be.
And I love it. I love doing it. So I think that there's a possibility doing that with a lot of enthusiasm and joy and curiosity.
I might be able to make up for the lack of video with those elements and I would probably do higher frequency also, right because of that and then on the opposite end of the spectrum, I might actually for instance tomorrow. Like we'll have a nice video set up tomorrow and I have effectively a studio. It's no wraparound immersive have to our LED screen but it is a nice
studio. So it's what used to be considered really nice. It's what you sell. Yeah, I saw.
Craziness.
Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't call it cinematic, but it's high-quality video, right and probably shy away from stuff in between and we'll see I want to see this barbell principle applies to so much right investing you talking about it with project how I could approach a project. We mean benefit talking a lot about how we do this with our Network. I was like man but meeting so many people but like death by death by 1000 Zoom calls. Like I just I'm not going to do it. Yeah. So what am I going to not talk to these people?
You know and so we decided there's a barbell approach like a bunch of random text or there's no obligation for either side to reply. It's like hey think about you or hey, check this out. That's it. Quick text spend a half-day or full-day together. I'll fly to you. Let's have a good time and we started doing this and oh my God, it's like yeah. I feel like I've cracked the cheat code of the relationship building that that would otherwise felt very draining and overwhelming.
Yeah, the the Barbara approach can be applied to a lot. I apply it all over the place and I know
Another example would be say speaking engagements where I very rarely do speaking engagements, but it's either free where I would maybe even pay to be in front of the audience right does the event and the audience is so interesting could also be a pro bono thing or Ultra Premium Ultra Premium high high water mark, like what whatever company or organization paid me the most I've ever been paid, right? That's my new minimum right? Like whoever is going to meet or exceed that right. That's it, and I will do probably
blee
226 engagements a year, that's it.
You did this early on I remember you had like your blog or your I think this is blog days and you did your like everything's free. I'm gonna give everything away for free. I'm not going to be a kind of online course Slinger like most people who want to get a little bit of following. It's like hey, would you like half a million bucks? Would you like a million dollars? You could just sell this course and then you you're like, I'm either gonna be all free or I'm going to be Ultra Premium member you did. This like was called the opening the kimono kimono. They open the kimono of it's like 10,000.
Dollar thing but like a lot of us were happy you be happy to pay that because it's like, oh man, I've gotten so much free value and I have the means and you're like cool. I only need a small number of people which might make it a more enjoyable event for me. It was that the kind of calculus there.
Yeah, it's free. It's free or ultra-premium. Generally. I mean, that's how I try to approach things also because ultra-premium gives you
A lot more margin for error so you can afford to experiment right? So it's a virtuous set of conditions that you can set in the beginning and
It also poses a creative problem that I enjoy like setting the price. I set the price before I figured out the content right? I was like, all right, let me figure out the price and then I want to figure out and it was it wasn't just 10,000. It was like 10,000 if you apply in are accepted in the first like six hours or something and then it got more expensive then it went to like 1250 then right to 15,000 and then my creative challenge was okay.
How do I make this event? So two or three day event and has done more than a decade ago was a long time ago only done that one event. As far as paid events goes right and I think how do I make this event worth that amount of money? Like how do I exceed the cost of this event in the first two hours of the event? And then the rest is just gravy
and have a question. That's a great
question. Yeah, and that was that was the challenge and part of the
Answer was I'm going to give people my actual book proposals for the first two books that layout everything like the marketing plans all the nitty-gritty the sales pitch and all sorts of details because people were therefore I guess we would call now content marketing. Right? Right. They wanted to know how to launch Books. They wanted to know how I had launched these books like okay. Let me just skip the kibbutz. Skip the conceptual overlay. I'm just going to show you exactly what I did open the kimono.
Mono, and and then I did it. I did an exercise. This was also to answer that question.
Very simple where we had something like 120 people. I mean we had tons of people apply and we were trying to vet for assholes to Omit them Ryan. So we had questions that were bear traps for as like what well we wanted to make sure I have an audience. I have a very enthusiastic audience and the last thing I would want is someone to take out a second mortgage or max out their credit cards to come to some of it right. So first off it was like wire
transfers only we're not accepting credit cards, right and I had to sound weird but like a
Warning / lecture in text or just like I do not want you to go into debt for this right? This has to represent a camera what the percentage was but like no more than x percent of your current savings, right excluding your retirement
accounts and give him a Stern talking-to. Yeah, it's why I had I
had a couple questions about finances right? Because I really didn't want to have the guilt on my conscience of knowing that somebody.
After the fact you knowing after the fact that somebody went into the red or put themselves into really compromised position to come to this event. And I do have fans who would do that. I remember one guy in response to one of the finance questions. He said well, I appreciate you being my financial Nanny if you
want to and if you want to come onto
the tarmac to look at my jet when I come you're welcome to and I was like
and you're out. Yeah. Thanks for
that. You have done
exactly Financial qualifier. Yeah failed the second
test.
Like you you fell into the exact bear trap that I was setting for you. Thank you for disqualifying yourself and do not need you in a small event
and it's on an he's good though. I like that. Everything is good service. We can have other people look
so clever your financial nanny.com. So we had something like hunt. Let's call it 100 people 100 people in the room and there was an attendee book.
With very short bios, maybe not even bios and there are buyers for everybody and we had every single person stand up in the room and I was like, this is going to take a little time but like bear with me folks. I think this could be interesting and I'd never done this before so I didn't know how I was turning going to turn out. I said, everybody's going to stand up they're going to say their name. They're going to have a brag.
Which is some permission. Yeah, like I don't give me some fluffy bullshit humble thing. Right? Right. This is not the time or the place. Don't be like yo, I write books sometimes and it's like a 10 times New York Times best. Like like don't pull that stuff get up Bragg. I'm giving you permission. I'm actually giving you a requirement. Then you have an Ask make an Ask of the audience and then you have a give it's like something that you're really good at or it could be anything. So get out there and it's like a brag and
ask a give and I was like everyone else is active this whole time you are listening and you're writing this stuff down. If somebody has an ask that you can help with write their name down and if there's a give that you want to discuss with someone write their name down and just doing those few things the proposals and then everybody standing up and like by the end of that day Bueller like okay, this is already 10 x right what I spent this is
Raising and then it was just gravy from there.
Yeah, I think the easy thing to gloss over and that's like cool. It's like cool story obviously, but the takeaway for me and for anybody listening is that that question of the technique of first, I'm gonna set the price then I will ask myself how I can over deliver on that value or deliver in the first two hours where that was a no-brainer transaction for them to do that question LED you to a such a different result than
If you had just said what event should I do? Yeah, average question common question and I feel like you have a lot of these powerful questions and you've said something that questions are like a pickaxe for the brain. It's how you dig the gold out of the brain and I love that metaphor. I've I'm a collector of questions. I got a swipe file of like a hundred questions. Mostly not enter people think the interview questions, isn't it? These are questions that I need to ask myself to get my brain to ask a better question get a better answer one of my other favorites of yours is what
Look, like if it was easy mmm, used it today for this interview. I was like, oh great. I got to do an interview today. I oh man. This is it can be difficult to so much content. Well this look like if it was easy and so what was your answer? What would it look like? This is easy is me being genuinely enthusiastic and excited to meet you you feeling that for me and you walking out of here being like Oh actually had an interesting conversation. He didn't just ask me ten questions, but maybe Sean said two or three interesting things. I've got me got me like because I know what is Tim
out of a an experience of people learn something is probably a good experience. Yeah, or if he heard one or two provocative things that he might think about later that's like a useful use of an hour for you. And so I thought well, I'm good at that. So let me just like not withhold those which would be common in a podcast where I'm only going to ask you questions myself to make sure that you're at the time but in this case given that you have a platform you've been so vocal in the past. I thought maybe I'll let myself do that because I think if I give Tim one or two nuggets that are interesting mmm, he'll walk out of here.
Unlike as a great experience. Yeah, totally. So what other what other
questions do you have on that list that you use a lot that maybe I
haven't heard. Okay. I'll give you a couple of them. Am I leaning in to my absolute strength and unfair Advantage as much as I could be and what this really is is I call it the theoretical Max. I had a friend who had a nap one time and his developer is product manager saying like, oh the response rate on our push notifications is like 10% He's like guys if we just got that to 15%
ENT then like the rest of our funnel looks great and they're like, yeah, we tried a bunch of A/B test didn't work. He goes go in there right now it just right your Uber is arriving and this app was not over and they sent it out and like 50% people. Okay. He goes That's now the theoretical Max don't ever do that again, but like don't get me the BS that like because before that they were like people don't have on people just got people are two numbers too many apps to me notification that all kinds of stories. Yeah. He's like actually let me just torch that be as for you real quick.
And so the theoretical Max question is basically we am I leaning into my superpower or my unfair advantage to its theoretical Max and so like I asked you that like what is your unfair advantage?
I asked that question of myself a lot. I try to Edge into it a few different ways. I'll ask friends of mine. When have you seen me at my best that's one or what do you see me do that is easier for me than for other people right? I think my unfair Advantage is
at this point I have a lot just in terms of audience and platform and so on but
if we're talking about
just what I can take with me, right what I can walk out of here with I would say it is.
an ability to ask
unusual questions also ask the dumb questions when I'm trying to learn something from someone from a book from a video doesn't matter always asking these questions these various questions and then I can take whatever I learn.
and I suppose I could try to deconstruct this but
I consider myself a fast learner at this point and if I can get two point x + 6 months.
Which is going to be usually pretty pretty good sometimes super impressive sometimes not depends on the thing, but overall on average. I'm going to learn things very quickly, right? Because I have a method at this point. I can if they take me six months to get to point x I can get almost anyone to that same point and three months or less mmm because I realize I also had so many false starts and I tried so many things didn't quite work. I tried a lot of things that were common that turns out should be removed from the
Earning process entirely. I'd say those.
Those are what come to mind. Yeah, my first reaction myself if I was Tim Ferriss what I say, I think my first reaction would be
I can get first it was I can get any guest on my podcast really that I want every guest is Within Reach Leah said, well that isn't really be about the podcast necessarily. Yeah. Anybody I want to talk to is Within Reach. Yeah, that's interesting. That's not true. For most people and even if you are booking tons of gas or your meeting cool people like you probably aren't at the theoretical Max you're not at the your Uber is arriving level of like leaning into that super power. The reason your mom is dead.
Takes us exactly and so but then even further is not only can you get in touch with him? Okay, that's easy. But like you can go in and you can get people to open up the kimono because your reputation is I'm Tim Ferriss. I learned things. I've interviewed people. I deconstruct the things that they're great at. I ask them questions people will come to you in an interview ready to open up the kimono total. That's interesting. Another interesting thing is like you said you went to go visit the game designer in Europe for three days. That's cool. That's kind of like throwing your weight around in.
To your unfair advantages like you could probably pick up the phone and if somebody is the best game designer in the world, you could they would be honored to say that. Oh Tim Ferriss wants to come and learn my stuff for me. Fantastic, please. I'll block a block out three days. That's cool. And how many more times could do that? So I would start to have a little bit of a brainstorm around that there's another question. I find really that really valuable
and that is what is what is the silly
story? I'm telling myself and it immediately puts you on the defensive because you like why would I tell my
Silly story but we all are constantly telling yourself silly stories why we can't do this why that's going to be hard. Why why that's not going to work for me why that will take forever why this person is not responding to my thing. It's because I'm ABCD. No, actually it's probably not right and so identifying the silly stories. It's like I'm a Harry Potter got on if you read Harry Potter, but like there's the character the boggart right that the thing that will present itself as the thing you fear. And the way to get rid of it is the spell is ridiculous. You make it you basically if you're scared of spiders you put the spider.
Iran skates in and it can't walk in then it's actually becomes funny instead of scary the same thing can be done with what are the silly stories my life and soon as you start to point them out. It's typically things that you've made real. But when you when you sit down and you interrogate that that story turns out it was just as fictional as like easily replaceable story. That might be might be better for you. And so yeah, that's one that I asked quite often because it's the one that I hate. It's a question that I hate that like, it's a good that's the one I
need.
Yeah. Yeah, I suppose this.
If I could choose one question, the only question I could ask it probably be some version of that. What'd you have in mind what it would be or no? No, I mean we're just we're constantly, I mean the my favorite answer to the question that I asked most guests at some point. What would you put on a billboard favorite answer I've ever had was from a hospice care physician named BJ Miller who's helped thousands of people to die and help them to die help themselves agent. Yeah, I didn't.
Euthanize them but he's midwifing them through transition to death if they have terminal cancer or something like that and his answer. He actually confessed to me. He got from a bumper sticker somewhere, but the he is answer was don't believe everything you think that's it. Don't believe everything that you think and having some method for cross-examining those
Beliefs right these thoughts we take to be true is is really really critical. So that's a good one. Yeah, I like them. I
want to leave with one thing which is Neva your friends with of all he's a fascinating guy to me never met him in person only chatted online what not really respect the guy really admire a lot of things about him. Do you have any stories about Nepal anything that you noticed early on or moment you observed kind of like the wisdom or the the sort of the insightfulness that he has
levels are my favorite people. He's very very smart and hilarious and does not suffer fools gladly at all, which I like you don't have to guess what involves thinking which I deeply appreciate and had the first thing that came to mind is probably not the kind of example that you would expect because actually the first time I met of also the first time I met saval.
to a coffee shop in the mission in San Francisco and I order a coffee and I'm waiting at the counter and there's this very attractive girl standing next to me and she's very friendly and smiles and I start talking to her and I'm kind of chatting her up, you know hitting on her open her ask her for her number and take her out and who knows we have maybe dinner maybe drink who knows and seemed to fall walk up with this huge grin on his face, and he's
Like I see you met my girlfriend was like he's like Nepal and he's just had this huge grin on his face was just saw my what a good way to dress like totally calm and then we then we started talking and like and we hit it off and that was probably God knows when I was I don't know 2008 or something like a man-crush actually move out of the way baseball. Yeah, and and and that
was it II just I admire and evolved for his ability to
speak truth and ask uncomfortable questions and doesn't go out of his way to be rude, but he's
I think less inclined he is less inclined to the type of people pleasing that I'd say many people are predisposed to myself included. Like they're definitely times when them may be too polite or tell White Lies to make people feel good or what I'd like normal human rights social lubrication, right? Nothing major, but it's like if
you know if my girlfriend's put on a few pounds, she's like do I look fat? I'm like, no, you know, I'm not gonna say yeah, you look really fat not to say that involve words.
Say that
but he's he's Direct in a way that cuts through the noise and is very refreshing to me.
Have you been able to pick up or learn anything from them and in terms of whether it's you know tactical stuff on the investing side or tons of
stuff on the investing. So I mean, I think this site was way back in the day Venture hacks that he and nivi co-authored and I mean that was basically the kind of Wikipedia Bible.
Of Angel Investing and Advising for a friend inside gamma in venture capital. I mean of all is Jedi level when it comes to early stage investing very technical. He just ends up in every deal you would ever want to be in at this that's like, you know, the sort of you know, Pinky and the Brain meets like Forrest Gump me it's you know, sit hard are just like,
how is he in every cap table?
All right. He's incredibly skilled as an angel investor. Yeah, we don't even have enough time and be hours and hours and hours of conversation to even begin to describe what I've learned from him there and he's very curious. He's very interested and it's not at all limited to business. So if it's you know, David Deutsch or other thinkers, he introduces me to a lot of eclectic thinkers from different.
You want hmm and his
his exploration is certainly not limited as it is with a lot of people to say the sport of business or Finance or investing. A lot of people are one-trick ponies. That way he's not a one-trick pony. So I admire that as
well have a funding of all story, which is I have a buddy who was doing some like when Facebook launched its platform my buddy made it a nap and was like on this one of the silly app that don't remember back then it was like people thrown cheap at each other and stuff.
He's doing one of the like silly apps, but it was clear that over Facebook platform that's like an opportunity and so smart Silicon Valley people were interested my friends sitting in Georgia and the Vols in San Francisco and he gets an email from from Nepal basically using a found the contact us page or whatever and was like, hey, I'd love to meet with you sometime, you know talk about your app. I'm a venture capitalist here in Cisco friend doesn't know who Duvall is doesn't know what venture capital is but it's like okay sounds interesting. He's like, oh, yeah. Sure. I mean, I'm open to that next email.
Is a plane ticket like here's a plane ticket goes out tomorrow so friends like okay go gets on a plane flies out here meets of all meet him in his office Neva last time. He's like you ask me questions for like 30 minutes and he's like I had no idea what the pot with the right answer should have been but I'm saying whatever is this my honest answers. I've always liked hold on goes into the other room comes back has printed out like a term sheet and says like here, you know, I'll give you whatever half a million bucks or something whatever it is like some amount of money for you know some percent of your company and my friend who's like 20
23 or something like that. It's just like I don't know who this Indian guy is I don't know what I don't know any of the words on this page. My app is stupid. I don't know why he wants to invest in it. I don't really understand this. So he's like, I just don't feel comfortable right now and he's like and of all at the time was like, you know, he's very he's like, I think Facebook is going to be huge I think is gonna be a platform where you do lots of things. You're not just going to talk to friends on there. You're gonna be able to do XYZ. That's my thesis. That's why I want to invest in this because my friend was like honestly, this is kind of a stupid idea why you bought by there's not a business and so he gave
That pitch my friend was like wow, that sounds awesome. I didn't realize all that. I had stumbled into this gold mine potentially. So he's like listen man. I just don't understand what this thing is. I just need to think about and well as if no problem and so he's like I go and then by the way that same week you meet ski through boy Max left a bunch of other people who are also giving him the same pitch but in different flavors like Keith boy was like you should come work for us. He's like, I don't want a job. He's like see all those people out there. They're all these programmers are going to put you out of business like, you know tomorrow and he was like, this is a stupid app is not a business to do.
Ooh it waste your time doing those. Let me out of business that isn't it. I live in my mom's bedroom. Like what are you talking about? And so then I he said he goes, you know, the great thing about nivaldo is that he's like like 15 years later and now my friends very very successful Tech entrepreneur is like I actually dug up that old term sheet. He's like it was so fair. He's like he could have taken advantage of me and I didn't know anything and he's like it was incredibly found a friendly and fair and he's like that told me a lot about Nepal that at that time when a lot of people are in the Heat of the Moment about this kind of gold rush in that.
Look at days and I was clearly a novice he operate with very high integrity. I thought that said a lot about him.
Yeah that matches in my experience. I've always seen that in the Bible. Yeah for sure right on. Well
Tim. Thanks for doing this man. I really really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure man. Thanks for taking the time. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to travel never looking back.
