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#498: Josh Waitzkin and Tim Ferriss on The Cave Process, Advice from Future Selves, and Training for an Uncertain Future
#498: Josh Waitzkin and Tim Ferriss on The Cave Process, Advice from Future Selves, and Training for an Uncertain Future

#498: Josh Waitzkin and Tim Ferriss on The Cave Process, Advice from Future Selves, and Training for an Uncertain Future

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Josh Waitzkin, Tim Ferriss
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Feb 16, 2021
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Episode Transcript
0:00
Hello boys and girls. Ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Timber show or it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the thought processes the best practices the influences and so on that you can hopefully copy and paste into your own life in some fashion to test out the toolkits of people who are the best at what they do my guest. This episode is a return guest Josh waitzkin. He was in fact the second ever guest in episode 2 of this podcast.
0:30
Past we've known each other a long time. Josh waitzkin is author of the art of learning. He is an eight-time US national chess champion two-time world champion Tai Chi Push Hands and the first Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under nine time world champion, Marcelo Garcia widely believed to be the greatest Grappler who has ever lived at least in the world of BJJ for the past 12 years, maybe 13, maybe 14 now Josh has been channeling his passion for the outer limits of the learning process towards training alley.
1:00
Eat metal performers in business and finance or Finance. If you prefer and to revolutionising the education system through his nonprofit Foundation, the art of learning project Josh is currently in the process of taking on his fourth and fifth disciplines paddle surfing and foiling Josh is always a fantastic thought partner. He is constantly pushing back at anything that I say which reflects sloppy thinking or imprecise thinking or consensus thinking and he's a lovely
1:30
So, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with none other than Josh waitzkin.
1:38
This episode is brought to you by tonal Tio Nal. I'm super excited about this one and I was skeptical of it in the beginning tonal quote. Tonal is the world's most intelligent home gym and personal trainer and quote. That's the tagline from their website folks to give you the one sentence summary and this device. It's really a system is perfect for anyone looking to take their home workouts to the next level or someone who just wants to get maximum bang for the buck in a tiny tiny footprint of space.
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3:08
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3:38
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4:08
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5:00
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Got there Clementine running shorts for summer and love them. The brand seems pretty popular constantly sold out in closing and I'm abbreviating here. But in closing with the exception of when I need technical outdoor gear, they're the only brand I bought in the last year or so for yoga running loungewear that lasts and that I think look good. Also, I like the discrete logo. So that gives you some idea that was not intended for the sponsor read that was just her response via text view or E. Again spelled Vu Ori is designed for maximum.
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8:26
at this altitude. I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands.
8:30
Shake can I ask you a personal question now? It's a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
8:49
We have beautiful Osa.
8:52
Dutch Shepherd of small stature next to us growing quickly. We've Josh waitzkin polymath of medium stature Tim Ferriss show. I'm Tim Ferriss and - baby. It's good to see you
9:07
again. Interesting label polymath of medium stature limbo,
9:16
that's good. Okay, I've got excellent coffee.
9:22
all
9:23
to fuel our conversation forget about this whole thing
9:26
me to turn the tables on you little
9:28
bit. Yeah, let's get into it.
9:31
So our plan here is for me to interview Tim a little bit open up some questions and we've been having a beautiful few weeks of dialogue
9:42
over meals in ice and Ice plunges
9:45
and saunas less bunch of days have been really intense conversation.
9:51
one of the patterns that I find really powerful in our dialogue is that when we talk about ideas and potential projects you consistently have the ability to ask gating questions that frame the discussion differently and I tend to think I'm pretty good at that but what I find surprising is how and one thing I love is that when I bring ideas to you you take it to another level
10:13
and it's consistently jolting and
10:16
after our conversations, I often look at something quite
10:17
differently and I love that and so
10:21
How'd you deconstruct your relationship to gating questions? How do you approach them? Let's do Deep dive first.
10:27
Could you define or describe for me? What a gating question
10:31
is if we're talking about an idea or let's just say someone were to approach you with a project that they're thinking about you tend to go at it with first principles and you have a way of approaching the
10:41
subject with a different framing.
10:44
I observe your approached exposes like in the David Foster Wallace. This is water
10:47
right people efficient aware of its water you.
10:50
You are very good at showing people what their water
10:52
is and you have a way of of tackling the subject that they've been thinking about for days or weeks or months
10:59
or years and very
11:00
quickly showing them angles of it that that they haven't considered and I've watched you that with a lot of
11:04
people I think is one of your power zones and I just
11:07
thought it would be really cool for you to talk about. How you
11:10
approach it. Yeah. This is fun. I don't often talk about this.
11:16
Or I suppose even think about it explicitly when I talk to folks who are presenting an idea a plan. Hope of goal. Think the first thing that I do and this is probably honed over many many many years of getting pitched hundreds of times with startups.
11:39
is
11:41
there are a few stock questions. So I think I cheat in that respect. I have a handful of triage tools that I use on the intake. So if somebody comes in it's kind of like are having trouble breathing. Let me let me check your pulse. Let me check your vitals. There are few questions like that that I use repeatedly one would be asking someone what assumptions they are making to see if they're even consciously aware of the assumptions that are being made which is also a really good test.
12:11
See how rigorously they've examined other aspects of whatever the plan our goal might be. What makes us attractive Riley. What are the aspects of this that you assumed to be true that make this attractive if it's an idea or something like that the answer they give or don't give right. It's kind of like the Sherlock Holmes The Case of the dog not barking like sometimes it's answer. They don't give that they're really says a lot and removes the need for a lot of follow-ups another one that I asked all the time and I think this is in part because I get asked a lot about
12:41
about writing books on think about writing a book or I'm about to start writing a book or I'm going to be selling a book and I've talked to dozens of friends about this.
12:53
And the way I posted in this this will sound familiar is I'll ask them, you know, if it takes twice as long and you get half the Rewards or a quarter of the rewards and it's not a best seller. Is this still a no-brainer for you? And the wording there is really important. The no-brainer part is important. It's not is it still a good idea because a good idea could be pro and con list and you come to the conclusion 51% Good 49% bad.
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It's a good idea. That's different from a no-brainer. Right if it's a whole body. Yes.
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So this question is fishing for how intrinsic motivation is its fishing
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for how intrinsic the motivation is. It's also fishing for a few other things. So the first might be worded different way in the case of books. Like is it easier to write the book than to not write the book for me? I rarely their different motivations for writing books so different catalysts, but for me usually
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Ali I can't find something I'm looking for and it bothers me so much that I
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just have to write the
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goddamn thing because I'm not gonna have it otherwise and in that respect it's easier for me to write it than to not write it because it bothers me so much that it's not written in some way the other is taking into account all of the things outside of our
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control
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right you could put
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The perfect plan into motion you could write an outstanding book just as genre-defining, you know category killing book and then 9/11 happens the week your book launch and nobody ever sees your book in effect because it's crowded out. There's so many things outside of her control. I mean certainly the last year's highlighted that and so I want to know are you going to
14:49
In some sense find reward and gratification and edification through the process in case the curveball hit you square in the face because it's it's not a Black Swan event. I mean, it's very common that this happens if you just come out in the wrong week in the case of books. So those are those are two questions.
15:13
and then for me, I think in the last handful of years in particular thinking of energy management over time management has led me to
15:25
think of experiments that can be done. It might be alternatives to what people are considering that allow them an easier termination Clause if that makes any sense, I'm using that metaphorically but it's sometimes very easy to get into plans and then you have employees or you have a company or you have your identity potentially wrapped up in something that has gone out and now you feel like you can't
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Move yourself or shut it down because it will be viewed as a failure. And so to mitigate against all those things. I'm constantly looking for cheap fast ways to test. How can you test your assumptions? How can you test your assumptions about the upside? How can you test your assumptions about the downside? How can we find comparables? Have you spoken to any of the people who are at the helm of XY and Z at those comparables? I really
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I don't view myself as a risk-taker, even though it points. I've had that label or reputation but I view myself is first and foremost like a massive risk mitigator. I do a lot of testing. So those are those are a few
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things. So if you were to invert that if you think back onto all those conversations you've had with people pitching you on something if you were to take their perspective, what do you think? The patterns would be and what those people said about the insides they gained from the conversation not the tactics.
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But the insights
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about themselves and how they relate to their project. So I look at everything with an editorial eye.
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Which is part of the reason why I almost never read friends manuscripts because I can't just give them a paragraph of feedback. I'll end up copying the whole goddamn thing when I look at a deck like a pitch deck and then I go down a level deeper and I look at the bios of the people involved. I spot weaknesses and red flags that would turn off.
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Oftentimes other investors they want involved or the types of investors. They would want to evolve so I get to see I'm answering this somewhat indirectly, but I get to see also how Founders in the case of startups, but this could apply to almost anything. It could apply to books also book ideas could apply to any idea.
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How people respond to constructive criticism and what's really interesting about not just startups but book ideas business ideas career switching ideas that people have is very often people around them feel like support means giving positive feedback.
18:12
So they their baby even if it's ugly never gets called ugly and then I come in and I'm like, well first thing I noticed is, you know on the first page of your deck You misspelled profile might seem like a minor thing, but I would fix that. It's low-hanging fruit. It's easy to fix, you know, and that's not a massive correction, but I get to see how people respond to that the other question or another question are a lot of questions. I like to ask but
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This is a question. I was asked in the last year. I want to say I can't recall the source, but it's not mine. I mean, I borrow borrow most of what I use and ask the question is Flash Forward three years.
18:59
The company has failed.
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What went wrong? What is the most likely reason the company will have failed also if it's due to an incorrect assumption, which assumption do you think is most likely to be wrong and if someone can't answer that or is unwilling to answer that because they're getting a lot of adulation and they have more say in the case of a start-up they have more demand in other words investor interest than Supply. That's definitely a red flag.
19:32
for me, so what people get to see then if they really take those questions seriously and end assuming someone else hasn't asked those questions is the very often find blind spots that are real risks their risks that they have not accounted for right like most authors think if I or potential authors if I get the right publisher if I have the right distribution and I write an amazing book it is
20:02
Inevitable that the book will do. Well if I follow a few guidelines for lunch if I'm on a Big Show and that's just not true. Yeah.
20:11
So building on this one of the themes that I spend a good deal of thinking about is the entanglement of genius and eccentricity. I think that most of the great performers that I've known or competed against or worked with in different fields have just had this beautiful
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Connection between their areas of dysfunctionality and Brilliance, sometimes the very thing that helps them excel in their professional life for their artistic life with a competitive life is something that in their personal life can be a little bit awkward
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right were sometimes very awkward.
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Sometimes very awkward and it can be extremely subtle and it can be fascinating like, you know, the recent study of Usain Bolt stride and the fact that it's uneven people would might want to
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to normalize it but then you can think about how the unevenness of his leg length or spinal construction might actually be part of why he is so fast, right and you can think about this I think about it a great deal with Marcelo Garcia and he and I have been having a fun conversation about this theme over the past few days ago. So for people who don't know
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I'm just a sentence or two on Marcelo
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what we spoke about myrcella so much. Yeah. So Michelle is the nine-time submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion. He's probably I would argue pound for pound the
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greatest Grappler martial arts Grappler to ever live.
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He's a dear friend of mine. We own a school together in New York, and I've trained with him for
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Decade-plus really Exquisite learner and a really interesting eccentric learner. And anyway, this theme of the entanglement of genius and eccentricity is one that I find to be liberating for people because there's a big pressure to normalize oneself. How
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does that show up for Marcelo or why'd you bring him up after Usain Bolt?
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Well, I think Marcelo is that a similar league in the summer league in terms of dominance of his field and he's someone who's really built
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A game around his idiosyncrasies in a beautiful way. I mean, he's a he's both physically. He's physically small short short limbs has built an incredible technical repertoire that really revolutionized the Brazilian jiu-jitsu world based on his body type and the idiosyncrasies of his personality of the way, his mind works his incredibly overdeveloped somatic intelligence versus his
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many years ago lack of conceptual relationship to what he was doing. For example, one of the remarkable things about Marcelo is the way he repeats mistakes less than anyone I've ever known. It's incredible whether it's a technical mistake of psychological mistake, and I've observed this at felt this with my mean when he and I have you know, we've spent hundreds of hours grappling sparring fighting on the mats and like you catch Marcelo with something one time and you don't catch me that again and that's just not true about people.
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It's incredible usually is the opposite. Yeah, you can eat you exploit a weakness. You can like what I got
22:58
Guillotine 77 times in a row right at your
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school. We had a good time with that one. So but like but the amazing thing about for example how that manifests and Marcel is life is that you know, as he's told me and really powerful moments of conversation. He experiences pain really viscerally he experiences pain and it never is body never forgets it and his life and it's true on the mats. And so there's an area of that could
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We make life painful, right but that is incredibly powerful and his life. I think there's a lot relative myself as well. This this entanglement, but I was curious to open up with you when you you know, people obviously you have a public life and you and I mostly interact outside of your public life in just The
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Eccentric nature of our of our
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friendship meeting up in the jungle for weeks at a time and having great conversations, and I have my own perspective on this, but I'm curious how you would talk about
23:54
So admired in the world and people are people have think a lot about your Brilliance and your ability to deconstruct and how how much Insight you have. How would you describe the underbelly of that what's the what's the shadow of it? How does that Brilliance manifest in your personal life where the areas of eccentricity or dysfunctionality that people might not see
24:16
Mmm Yeah. I think I think the word I'm glad you used the word dysfunctionality because sometimes like eccentricity can be used as
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a substitute a nice substitute for crazy when somebody is successful and given feel so it's true but different adjectives. Sometimes applied to the same thing, depending on how well someone is done by luck or design or both. He shows up a lot shows up a lot in many many different ways and I've thought about this quite a bit because there have been times when I've
24:54
A2
24:56
and there still are times I think warranted times when I want to fix certain dysfunctionality and there is a occasionally a fear that in attempting to Snuff out those areas of dysfunction or those
25:13
exhibitions of eccentricity that I'll also snuff out.
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Whatever the pixie dust is that allows me to do certain things. This is very true. I know for a lot of comedians for instance. They some comedians don't want to get therapy. They don't want to fix the pain because they feel like
25:32
the gift that that pain provides is certain degree of insight or cynicism and also wittiness that leads to what they're able to do, which is a really tough position in a lot of respects to find yourself in or to put yourself in so it's a on the more amusing side of things a good example would just be my as I mentioned the the
26:01
Toriel, I well let's take that same editorial. I well that seems like a huge gift when you're reviewing a manuscript, but when you look at a counter top and I'll give a friend of mine an odd here. I won't mention his full name, but popey let's call and popey Bobby and I remember I was a character was with us with popey and Panama one point. This is a very long time ago since 2004.
26:32
So for those who have read the 4-Hour workweek, this is before right before I went to Argentina and had the entire Saga of Tango unfold I was in Panama and it was actually a friend of his initials. JM meet you who said I had to go to Argentina but backing up to the point. I was going to make I would sit there and I would write and I was working on various things time.
27:01
I was running this this sport supplement business and I had all of my notebooks and all of my pens and everything laid out almost like an unboxing photograph or like a pack trip photograph that you'd see on Instagram like everything was either parallel or perpendicular. I mean, it was like it was like it was set up by, you know, some type of Japanese artist on graph paper. I mean, it was perfectly organized to my life.
27:31
And hope he would come over and he would just you just like very slowly. He'd look at me kind of like a cat kind of like your cat Loki. Uh-huh, and he'd look at me and he just with his index finger, like push the edge of one pen to knock it off knock it off angle like 10% and then he would just go back to whatever he was doing and I knew he was trying to fuck with me. So I would leave it. I'll be like I'm not going to succumb. I'm not going to succumb and I'd leave it and I'd leave.
28:01
It and I just like
28:04
and I would fix it. And after I got a half
28:06
hour of this he came over and he's like Tim you're behaving like American Psycho. And so this monk like sensitivity, especially visual sensitivity can be really problematic right and that can certainly lead to domestic strife and that's that's on me. All right, that's on
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me. I should know by the way. We're having this conversation in front of mine.
28:31
Can I have the exact opposite adamic of Tim's entering my world? This is pure chaos. It's rated. It's gonna just lie it is he is he's functioning quite beautifully with without a single thing in a straight line while you're gonna
28:43
mention the stuff underneath the desk. It's terrible if we take it as true for the moment, which I think it is that hyper function and dysfunction or often right next to each other. I think another way to think about that is that your superpower is very often right next to your wound like your biggest wound.
29:01
Yes, and I think that that's an interesting way to reflect on it or journal on it or think about it is how did this possibly develop if it developed through a wound or traumatic event or
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Challenge of some type in my life, right and many of these things are fed by innate qualities and I think that a new same bolt does matter how many coaches he has for sprinting if he's built like me. It's going to be story turns out differently nonetheless. I think the superpower being right next to your wound is very very often the case and I mean they're they're often two sides of the same coin and I think it is possible.
29:47
To work on the areas of dysfunction whether they're minor or major without subjugating and muting your super powers. I do think that's possible. You have to track it. I'm not saying it's always possible but in my experience so far, I think that it is very possible and I'll just say another thing which is, you know, a phrase that I used to use a lot and I hear a lot of my type-a friends.
30:17
Use a lot when it comes to considering that a tation therapy fill in the blank is that they're afraid of losing their Edge. I just don't lose my Edge and I'm afraid I'm going to become complacent. I don't want to lose my Edge lose my Edge. This is this phrase is used a lot and in my experience the edge that they have in mind almost inevitably Cuts both ways. I like that intensity in that edge that they view as a pure Advantage which helps them most often professionally.
30:47
Usually has a lot of consequences personally. So those are some of the ways that I relate to it, but I definitely agree that they are side by side,
30:55
you know this framing of viewers around the wound is really beautiful really powerful and I relate to it. I've in the last stretch. I've been writing about training and one thing that I'm very careful about is to for anyone who is trying to convey something to be to be able to see their context.
31:16
Because any kind of
31:18
teacher or coach or right or anyone who's not aware of their own
31:21
context can be trying to impose something on
31:23
somebody else that doesn't fit them. And so
31:25
I'm trying to be explicit introspective about my context and my context relevant
31:29
training comes from a
31:30
wound which was in a nutshell. I started playing chess when I was six years old when I was seven and
31:37
eight. I became I was that point I was the top-rated player in the US for my age. So I was the target my whole childhood from age 7
31:44
until you know,
31:46
My 20s I was the the Target and who has a kid. That means that not only were other kids focused on beating me because I would be
31:54
the person to beat in the tournament but their coaches who are adults who were
31:57
Masters International masters Grand Masters. So every weakness that I showed would be seen very clearly because the adult coaches were much stronger players than me and would be focused on exploited and any strength that I had would also
32:11
be
32:12
I had to refine it or else it wouldn't work. Right and so as a
32:16
child is a really young child. I had this experience. It was almost pavlovian of not taking on an error led to pain.
32:24
Taking on an error or a
32:26
finding a strength led to flow pleasure Love of the Game winning all those things. So now as an adult, what I'm aware of is that not taking on a weakness is almost outside of my conceptual scheme unless I really consciously
32:42
try Josh. Can you just make a mediocre turkey as one friend recommended Josh? Yes. Try not to make the best work in the world to make a mediocre fucking
32:50
turkey our friend Jim that man who's brilliant Men Who?
32:54
Ooh, Tim interviewed recently has been saying to me for a long time Josh. Just try to cook like shit just practice mediocrity and it's a beautiful wise piece of council given my madness. It's something I grew up with and then it's really important for me to see and it's a quarter of
33:12
strength of money. But of course, it
33:14
can lead to complexities and interpersonal relationships and in my own life and so I have to seal the see it.
33:20
Yeah, you know, it's as we're talking about this makes me think of a
33:24
Story in the book essentialism by Greg McKeown which which I'm very fond of I think has a lot of gold in it and I'm going to paraphrase you're not going to get it exactly right but it tells the story of believe. It's a man in his 30s or 40s who Flames out completely professional. I like he just kills himself through overworked and at the end of the story his advice to others is something along the lines of
33:54
Okay, or type a hard-charging competitive winner in life. He's like are you want to try something hard? He's like something hard is not working seven days a week because I try going home in the middle of the day and take a nap. Just like you want to prove how tough you are like try that because that's the harder thing for you to do. So, let's keep
34:08
exploring this relative to you. So let me throw it to themes and see where you go them one is efficiency.
34:13
So you are a master efficiency. You're also an athlete and you've had if that identity as an athlete your whole life, but
34:18
you have a very specific
34:20
physiological Dynamic relative to your
34:21
lungs that could lead somebody to
34:24
Really need to take on the art of being
34:28
crazy efficient. So
34:29
what do you think about that Dynamic and how it might have informed where you become incredibly overdeveloped maybe talk about.
34:35
Yeah. So for people who are not not aware. I have number very obvious scars on me. You can still see that one on the wrist, which looks like a cigarette burn but it's actually we're I was intubated and another one on the left side where the my left lung collapsed when I was born or probably collapsed.
34:54
Possibly before I was born or in the the birth process and I was a preemie in the NICU neonatal intensive care unit for a really long period of time so I have issues with in particular thermoregulation is how that shows up so if people and and that may or may not be related to the lungs but I do have some some pulmonary complications the if you've ever seen a dog pant that is to dissipate heat dogs. Don't really dissipate heat through
35:24
Sweat very much. So my case I overheat very easily. I've been hospitalized for heat stroke a few times and what that meant from an athletic perspective when I was wrestling which was given how small I was up until sixth graders really one of the only or the only sport where I could compete and possibly win because you have the the puniest of the puny competing against the puniest of puny. I developed an approach to wrestling the compensated.
35:54
For my tendency to over heat and therefore generally lack of endurance, right? So I think that led to thinking about efficiency, although at the time. I don't think I would have labeled it that way and then much later with language learning in Japanese and so on when I was 15, and also led me to think about efficiency a lot. So I think those were the two sort of seminal chapters the wrestling and then the language learning the led me to think about Effectiveness and efficiency both. I think that
36:24
Even though it gets talked about less I think about Effectiveness that is choosing the right things choosing material. So to speak 80/20 analysis style more than efficiency because doing something really well doesn't automatically make it important. All right, but I do think about both and you know the to use your phrasing from earlier the shadow side of that is that in the case of
36:54
Wrestling I identified weight cutting and Greco-Roman upper body techniques as places where I could really shine and if you continue to kind of chunk down chunk down chunk down so that you get to a place where instead of using a making up these numbers but a hundred techniques you're using techniques and they're very shoulder dependent and then on top of that you're cutting in my case. I was cutting from my senior year in high school.
37:24
78 to 152 twice a week, which is insane. That's crazy. It's insane and it's very dangerous. I don't recommend it. I ended up having and still have chronic shoulder issues. Yes. I know take care of the shoulders. Aw. Thanks, I think goes is letting out some Wicked dog fog Mist also in any case I digress so I do think that striving for like the sort of minimalist.
37:54
East 80/20 analysis in the Physical Realm can be quite dangerous because you can end up with overuse syndrome and dislocating shoulders and in my case having reconstructor shoulder surgery and so on.
38:08
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39:38
I think more and more these days about how I can change things in my life. So I don't need to think where I'm not inclined to think about efficiency same with competition and I think more about that. I think we as humans gravitate to what we are good at in general. I think that we all like the validation intrinsic and extrinsic or perhaps otherwise
40:08
It comes
40:08
from feeling good about doing something well, and I'm really good at figuring out process improvements and some very good kind of what was his name Deming manufacturing World Toyota and so on like I'm very good at identifying steps looking at a process figuring out which steps can be removed which steps should be removed which should be inverted. I'm very good at that.
40:34
And I'm also we could talk at length about this but in certain ways a good competitor, like I'm very driven by competition. I find it exciting. I like steaks. I do. Well when there are consequences usually and I'm almost always able to perform better in competition than I am in training but I think competition much like positional economics right in other words. There's
41:04
Someone is inclined if they make $75,000 a year. Let's just say to feel much better about that. If all their friends make $50,000 a year versus if all their friends make $100,000 a year, even though their life and quality of life may not change at all objectively at that $75,000. It just depends on the peer group, right? So competition I feel like has value in certain areas certainly and it's been incredibly valuable to me, but if you default to
41:34
Efficiency and competition that you can make yourself miserable depending on who you feel you're competing with and you can focus on doing things really well whether or not you should be doing them in the first place whether or not they are in fact the piece of the puzzle that makes a real difference. So those are those are a few things and I'm shifting and thinking about a lot right now my life. I mean the last
42:04
Six months is really been the last six months, especially last three months has been a hitting of the pause button like the pause button is currently on for me in. This is the awkward part not so much think about these things figure these things out but to sort of watch the conditions of my life and see if I notice anything that pulls me in a different direction or that kind of compels me in a different direction or draws me in a different direction the sill, I mean you
42:34
You have spoken about this a bit like and I'm probably mangling your intention of what you said, but rather than doing something right now trying to like slightly change the conditions to see what emerges from the that new set of conditions were to set the correct conditions. But right now the question for me would be correct for what? I don't know because the what is the next step in right now that's avoid for me. I just don't know and so I'm not come here to the Jungle spend time with you like all right, let's like
43:04
Shift of couple of variables create some space and see what emerges from that and is it's a beautiful
43:13
entry into this idea of when we talk about the entanglement of
43:17
strengths and weaknesses or genius and eccentricity or dysfunctionality. However, you
43:21
want to frame it. It opens up the discussion of how much we should be focusing on our strengths and how much we should be focusing on
43:26
our weaknesses. Right?
43:28
And I tend to believe that
43:31
In life, we should really embrace our Funk and we should we should an overdeveloped power zone is incredibly powerful
43:38
potent
43:40
on the other hand. We do need to acknowledge our weaknesses. And one thing I've really come to admire about you is how you do that.
43:47
For example what you're saying right now, you're a
43:48
person who really loves to get shit done, but you've
43:51
hit pause in the pause button is revealing some things
43:54
the theme of control is also quite interesting like when you speak about powers under viewers,
43:59
Is risk mitigation right trying to think about how things can go
44:02
wrong on projects.
44:04
You also have a very interesting relationship to
44:07
control. Yeah and hyper-vigilance and has a vision that would be another example of something that INXS kind of becomes its opposite right like an obsession with security breathes a feeling of insecurity.
44:21
That's actually I'm glad you brought that up because that would be a probably the most crippling in a sense like emotionally psychologically crippling of the wounds / dysfunctions right next to
44:34
superpowers and in some ways I would think as your friend and I'm just putting this out of the question that you are grappling with those Dynamics as part of What's led you to this incredibly powerful work
44:45
you've been driving in the world around psychedelics.
44:49
Let me speak to that relationship between control and what your medicine Journey has opened up. Yeah, well you I thought you put it really well a couple days ago or weeks ago time changes in the jungle. Okay. Remember when you said something along the lines of you know, I find it very interesting that.
45:13
As someone who is controlled so much and focused on control so much that when I view our primary focus has if not, your primary focus right now is compounds that create experiences that are not controlled and they can be safe. But you know, if you think you're going to take a mega dose of psilocybin or and in DMT or LSD or any of these things and then write this
45:43
Screenplay of your experience and live that out line by line. You're gonna be very disappointed. Maybe maybe more like Ulysses strapped to the Mast and I think there is a tremendous experience a tremendous relief when I can completely let go of control or attempt to let go of control and feel
46:13
The beauty of floating Downstream instead of trying to swim upriver against the current right because I think most of my life.
46:22
I have prided myself on being another the like the fastest salmon right is fucking thrashing like mad like making it up the Rocks dodging the grizzly bear and being willing to
46:41
Suffer more than other people that you could you could dress that up and say, you know developing a pain tolerance or compete. But ultimately I think if we're honest with ourselves and I'm not saying there isn't a place for this right, but I think certainly I have to be very careful about assigning too much dignity and profundity to out suffering people.
47:06
I think if we lionize that and really put it on a pedestal you can you can pay yourself into a really nasty corner. So with the with the medicine experiences and the let me rephrase that just because that lingo might not make sense to be but in these.
47:25
transcendental sometimes certainly transcendental or transpersonal meaning
47:31
that you experience ego dissolution, right the concept of I and Tim and time and space dissolves which you know, it's kind of like sex or it's really just not going to make any sense unless you've had an experience of this type. So I won't belabor the description and it's kind of like if some guys never ejaculated and intern and you're like, well, it's kind of like sneeze in your balls
47:58
and they're like, I
47:58
think I get it but you know, you can't
48:01
Really wrap your head around it. But I digress the point is having these experiences where I'm not trying to out suffer. I'm trying to out surrender not out surrender of trying to surrender and also lots of people have said this but I think that experiences of anxiety depression Etc are very often.
48:24
Me focused there, you know in some respects very self-absorbed right there. Very me me me focused and they're also in the case of angle in the case of depression often passed focused on the case of anxiety or future focused. And if you take five grams of potent slawsa be mushrooms maintaining any type of Mimi Centric
48:48
focus
48:50
in the past or the future is going to be
48:54
Next to Impossible, right? So you're given a reprieve and once you experience that reprieve, you know that it's possible and then you can begin to look for avenues for
49:08
Extending the effects into normal everyday sober life and looking for other modalities or tools to find those spaces and so for me, it's just been a revelation in that
49:24
respect beautiful. So a pattern that I that I hear you speaking to is that your previous relationship for example to efficiency or control is evolving increasingly into an
49:38
Duration of setting the conditions for success or 4
49:41
for X being down river surrender.
49:45
Yeah. So this is just in the exploration of the entanglement of over development and underdevelopment and you talked about people friends of yours have said but I want to lose my Edge. So as you feel yourself making that movement, which is really a deep exploration of these core themes.
50:05
Do you feel like it's taking away your Edge or adding to
50:08
it? I think it's multiplying my Edge and this is going to be maybe a really seem like really mundane or odd example, but he's been on the mind because you just stepped down as CEO Jeff Bezos and I'm not comparing myself to Jeff Bezos just to be very clear but in one of the massive advantages that Bezos has had for so long and still has is his time frame he somehow
50:35
I managed to convince and persuade Wall Street to give him different time Horizons than everyone else being judged quarter by quarter. Now Amazon is still judged on quarterly results to some extent but for the longest time the growth of Amazon, I mean was in if you read the shareholder letters and I encourage everybody to look at these collected PDFs of the Amazon shareholder letters. He just had a longer time Horizon and when you have a 10 15 year
51:05
20-year time Horizon, you can think about making decisions in a very different way you relate to feeling rushed or pressured in a very different way and I feel like now I have to be careful here to also recognize that my circumstances have changed a lot in the last 10-15 years. Okay, so I might be inclined to say well I can just wait for fat pitches and I feel like I have more of an edge and that may be also
51:35
A product of my changing circumstances, so I don't want to attribute that solely to this ability to wait, but my experience is now that the way that I've heard other people describe the shift that I'm trying to embrace is being patient, but I don't think about it that way might be that but patience to me. I think can sometimes I have a bit of an allergic reaction to patients just because I think it's used so often.
52:05
As an excuse for complacency or laziness. So the word is not my favorite to apply here. But paying attention right like really paying attention to things around me and the feelings around me and let's just say the dog that's laying right next to us, you know, lycosa and Zeus at mealtime like whether they need water not like I'm constantly tracking all that stuff and it's a very
52:33
Light Tracking and
52:36
when I cultivate that I feel like I have less still comes up occasionally but less fear of missing out because I have a confidence that I am going to see things that most people are going to miss simply because they are
52:52
rushing it's interesting how Universal this theme is. And if you if you think about it in a multidisciplinary way,
52:57
there are of course always exceptions,
52:59
but almost always when you watch for example an athlete over the years and over the decades their progression.
53:06
Is from doing more to doing this being more just getting more done and with one of the fascinating and kind of mystical looking things about really
53:17
superb virtuoso Fighters martial
53:19
artists is that they can move much slower and always get there
53:24
first. Yeah, and it's gorgeous to see and
53:28
it's beautiful to really work on embodying and it's not because they can't move quickly. They can move like lightning but they can move slower and get there first.
53:35
Yeah.
53:36
I remember thinking that with I don't know this name is going to mean anything since a really this is a this is dating me what when I was in Japan when I was 15, that's when I really I had always had an affinity for martial arts and had trained in various schools as a kid, but had never really seen real.
54:00
hard-hitting
54:03
fighting in the sense of MMA which didn't exist as it does now, but so go cock togi in Japan seeing pancreas and so on but also Kate one with the big guys and there's a fighter way back in the day named Peter are it's the Dutch Lumberjack huge guy and gigantic. I mean just a mountain of a guy and he had such impeccable timing.
54:31
Which is certainly impart.
54:35
Very fast perception, right and and also acute perception that even though he wasn't the fastest fighter. He almost always got there first and he was a huge guy, but he was just able to read
54:50
the ring and the opponent and the space so perfectly.
54:56
It was amazing to watch. Yeah, it's a beautiful principle and I think it really manifests everywhere. Yeah, and the the, you know, one of the mantras that I've been repeating to myself a lot recently is from what I learned from a friend whose former military, which is slow is smooth and smooth is fast and really trying to apply that to my writing I trying to apply that to
55:26
Different types of training trying to apply that to decision-making also right which is why I give almost always if just as a rule if someone tries to rush my decision-making it's just no the answer's no automatically, right? And as one example, that's part of what I'm revisiting as within this pause period
55:49
so in this pause period where you're really sitting and I've been watching you sit in
55:55
empty space without Rush what
55:58
surfacing and and what are some of the
55:59
cord tension points
56:01
or areas that you're aware of being torn
56:06
massive tension
56:06
points. I mean my every fiber of my programmed being right like my socialized self that has been rewarded for so long by doing things. It can be very hard to sit with empty.
56:25
is and it makes me think a lot and I've been thinking about this in the last few weeks a lot a quote from Tara Brach who's a mindfulness and meditation teacher and she's much more than that, but wrote an amazing book called radical acceptance that I recommend to everyone and she has this I'll just call an expression that's probably a story in one of her books, but she says, you know a famous Sage once said there's only
56:54
one important question and that question is what are you unwilling to feel and I think for a lot of people maybe the majority of people maybe all people. I don't know.
57:08
Many of our compulsive behaviors are to mask or override things that we don't want to feel right. So if there is something you feel you need to focus on something you feel you need to do if there is a pack of cigarettes you need to pick up its ties into what God were mate who recommend people check out. He's been on the podcast as well will sometimes
57:37
Talk to with respect to addiction. He says, you know people ask why the addiction they shouldn't ask why the addiction they should ask why the pain because the addiction is a consequence of the pain and trying to mask the pain. Although I'm paraphrasing. So bring this back down to earth sitting here for them to space a lot of uncomfortable feelings come up and it's been challenging to sit with them and not immediately try to fix them and our fears feeling a lack of Direction feeling.
58:07
Lack of security fears anger has come up a lot. Although I think that's probably in part due to a therapy session a few days ago where I talked about the childhood trauma, which really is dangerous Yeah, It's Tricky terrain to navigate and can have a lot of After Effects I Revisited
58:30
A lot of emotions and there have been great days. Yesterday was great day. There was a really hard day. So I'm just like what the fuck am I doing? What the fuck am I not doing and why am I not doing like am I actually going to figure out anything? So I just feel like I'm sitting by the pool staring at trees, you know, like is there am I expecting some lightning bolt from the Heavens to come down and give me this one, you know miraculous.
59:00
Tiffany that will solve all my issues like what am I doing? And so it's been it's been really challenging and super challenging not every day and I'm very fortunate that we've been able to spend time together and I've been able to spend time with your family and with a number of our friends who are here in strict isolation lockdown, so that's been gorgeous and I've had so much fun and when I'm by myself, and it's
59:30
Wyatt lock comes up
59:33
Because I'm I normally have so many other activities many of which are great many of which are productive many of which are in some way contributing whatever the adjective we might want to use that
59:47
allows me also encourages me to
59:49
do those things when you take all those way. Yeah, a lot of stuff can come up
59:53
to this date you're in is a it's a version of what so many people are feeling
59:56
right. Now. This is such a painful time in the world. Yeah. So many people are alone and in pain in
1:00:02
Storms, sometimes they have some
1:00:04
so many have lost loved
1:00:05
ones. So many are forced into isolation or lack of
1:00:08
socialization and it's there's a lot of heartbreak out
1:00:11
there and and just so
1:00:13
I use speaking about your own Journey here is powerful. I'm curious just given where you're at. I often go with people who I'm
1:00:21
kind of exploring with
1:00:23
do something we call a cave process, which is
1:00:24
essentially I was going to ask you about that. Yeah disappearing and the way I first thing written down in my head, it's
1:00:30
like a process the hell is the cave
1:00:32
process.
1:00:33
essentially sitting in a space that is empty enough to get away from the inertia
1:00:41
or reactivity the inertia of where we're coming from or reactivity away from or coming from
1:00:46
your in a version of that state right
1:00:48
now and
1:00:50
you last time you and I jammed we talked about this this framing that I play with sometimes of
1:00:56
How would your future self guide you because no one will know you more intimately than yourself 20 years from now and odds are yourself 20 years from now will be less
1:01:05
attached the things that you're extremely attached to now.
1:01:08
So just given your intuitive sense of the direction you're
1:01:11
going in life. What do you think or feel that your
1:01:16
say? 20-year future self would say to you. How would he guide you today?
1:01:22
I won't answer that first. I want to ask you with the key process. How do you implement that with people you're working with or people you advise? Is it is it a physical relocation to a place of Stillness as it blocking out the calendar so they have space to remove themselves from the bombardment of stimuli. What does that K process look like?
1:01:48
I think it's in take many forms as you pointed out earlier there.
1:01:51
There are some people who are in a state of privilege where they can really disappear from the world for three or four months and reflect in their other people who are just you can't do that. They've got maybe they've got families. They've got job, they're putting food on the table. They can't just disappear. And and so I think there's microwaves of manifesting it for example waking up first in the morning and journaling is like a mini version of this just creating empty space where we can tap into our unconscious is really powerful. I've gone through
1:02:18
Three four five month period of people where they truly stepped away from everything and reflect it and tried to Blue Sky where they wanted to go in life as opposed to getting caught up in the execution
1:02:30
concerns. Is it a structured reflection? Do you have prompts questions Etc that you provide or practices or is it really just empty space? Let's see what emerges
1:02:41
I think the Stillness comes first, and then the structure can be layered in but the structure as you know, like I would
1:02:46
structured differently for every person.
1:02:48
I've been directing with because we're all different that that's how I honestly relate to that question.
1:02:53
But I think that the principle of getting away from reactivity or inertia is powerful relationships almost everyone moves from one relationship to the next right the rebound but sitting in space post a relationship is really
1:03:08
powerful post a love relationship or post friendship that falls apart. I
1:03:13
just think that we have the impulse to fill space the moment that empty is but sitting in emptiness
1:03:17
It can be really
1:03:18
powerful. Thank you for that. So I'm gonna take a stab at your question. I will say as a preface that I don't know. If I've ever mentioned this to you the piece of writing that I somehow lost that made me saddest was a piece of fiction and I never write fiction but it was a story I wrote I think I was on a train ride and I was and I asked myself this question. Sometimes I was like what wouldn't wouldn't older version of me.
1:03:47
To me now. This is a long time ago 10 years ago something like that. So I wrote this story of a fiction story me going skiing taking a break going to a ski lodge sitting by the fire having some wine and having this older gentleman sit down next to me and this is before I read any bore his because this is like straight Boris and struck up a conversation and about like 10 20 minutes into a realize that it was an older version of myself. And so we had this conversation about what he'd learned what
1:04:17
He would give me and I was just like, you know, 10 12 page document and it was it was just an incredible exercise and then I somehow lost it go figure if you were writing that story today. Yeah far right that store today. I think the core piece that comes to mind if I'm not overthinking it and if it's just whatever kind of pops into my head, which I'm trying to pay a lot more attention to that first flash, which is very different from the number crunch.
1:04:47
Analytical flash isn't really a flash. It's more of like a squeezing out of the sponge. But the first flash is that he would say focus on enjoyment and fun and pleasure like the things that give you those.
1:05:06
Feelings and the justification not that there's one needed. I mean, I think those those are all very good things by large then you assuming it doesn't know there's no Collateral
1:05:19
Damage. I just have so much
1:05:22
more energy when I feel one of those things and my lifelong battle since my teens has been with chronic fatigue and that led to abusing ephedrine caffeine.
1:05:36
Aspirin and high school which was introduced to me by an upperclassman for wrestling and then I'm using a two three times a day that was a mess for decade-plus and I'd lied severe Lyme disease a few years ago. This happens all the time on Long Island. I mean to the extent than the ER and the Summers they just have a sign that's like, do you have Lyme disease? Like hey fill out this survey and get a free Amazon gift card means it's everywhere. So I had severe lime and the blood test came back and the doctor said well,
1:06:04
You are positive you have an acute infection, but you're aware. You've already been infected and I as more and more people now would recognize what the serologic testing the mm. You don't like. It's IGG might be getting the wrong. I think it's IGG instead of IGM but the long-term antibodies for lime or present and I've just had this incredible fatigue since I was in my teens, so in that that persists to this day on some level and so I think that deepening my relationships thinking
1:06:34
Out family, I think moving from a deep feeling of obligation and responsibility, which I think is driven. A lot of my behavior. There's the competitive drive then there's also a feeling especially after almost committing suicide in college that I'm just operating on borrowed time and like I owe a lot right? And then I have a moral obligation to do a b c d e all the way to Z and I
1:07:05
not not to say that's run. Its course entirely. Maybe there is a place for that and I think I don't think I'm at risk of becoming totally irresponsible. I just don't think that it's likely that the pendulum will swing back that far and I think if I have a family and I haven't embraced fun and joy and taking time and taking a tension for like the small Pleasures that will
1:07:34
Live like my kid will receive or kids will absorb that type of orientation to the world where it is responsibility where it is obligation and it will have a very sterilizing effect and muting effect on them. And so right now I found myself say years ago thinking like when I have kids, I'll change a when I have kids. I'll change be when I have kids. I'll change.
1:08:04
D e and f and I've come to the conclusion that that I think is very naive. I you better start becoming the parent you want to be now before game time. Right? Like you're not going to just step in the ring be like, okay now that I'm here with Mike Tyson, I'm gonna learn how to box that's a terrible
1:08:21
idea. And the Beautiful Thing is all that preparation. You'll do then you have a kid and the kid just kicks your ass. Anyway. Yeah and teach you how to parent that kid
1:08:30
right soon soon soon now now just to be clear it's not so much learning.
1:08:34
How to be a parent it's becoming the person you want to be trying to train yourself and instill the habits and the changes in perspective that you want to have when you are a parent. So it's purely it's within your locus of control. Yeah, and then you get a kid to kick you in the nuts and like okay now you gotta now you gotta change your strategy, but but it's not a it's not a parenting strategy. It's more a way of thinking about
1:09:04
The person I want to be when I'm like holding a child in my arms for the first time versus who I am now and working on that now, that's beautiful man. Yeah, I
1:09:15
think are going to be a hell of a dad. I can't wait. Thanks,
1:09:18
brother be so fun to have our little ones little Rugrats duking it out together. I love it. Yeah.
1:09:23
Okay. Let's we have about 11 more minutes. So let's pick up the pace. Let's do it. I want to hit you with let's be a little more tactical about these facts. So this one is tactical practical. This is not such a
1:09:34
Actual question, but it's slightly. It's relatively tactical. So I personally have this feeling that I observe so many people yearning for return
1:09:42
to normal, right? I don't personally think that normal is necessarily returning so quickly
1:09:48
and I feel that we're entering an age in human history where a Core theme will be a radically accelerating pace
1:09:53
of change. So
1:09:54
destabilizing events of different forms will become The New Normal versus the the return to normal that so many people are craving and so I'm up really suggesting we debate that idea but
1:10:04
Just roll with me on that idea. And if you just were to play with that framing, how do you think that people would best prepare for the world that we might be entering over the
1:10:14
next 5 10 15 years if that theme has some validity. Yeah, well turns out you're asking mr. Hyper-vigilance. So I have I have thought about this bit we've talked about a little bit. So I think the I think the assertions right we certainly with with technology and sort of exponentially ramping technology global.
1:10:34
Tunas all of that is going to continue to the curve of all that is going to continue to steep in for a million reasons that we won't get into right now. So I'll say two things number one is I think you have to have to as a strong phrasing, but I'm going to use it for Simplicity because we're doing a lightning round. You have to focus on metal learning and meta skills, or you're just going to be toast you need to be able to learn to do things that machine's have great difficulty doing then by machine. I include
1:11:04
We're most software right now and to embrace your humanness, right? I think Kevin Kelly is actually a
1:11:11
great person to read up
1:11:12
on for identifying kind of opportunities moving forward. He's a lot of people try to predict technological advances. The big difference with Kevin is that he's very often right? And so he's given a lot of thought to say Ai and humans and the next 10 de 10 to 20 years. So I think meta learning skills. I think your book the art of learning.
1:11:34
It should be required reading. I think there are aspects of meta-learning that are explored in 4-Hour Chef which confusingly is not just a cookbook. It is in fact a book dot accelerated learning that can make you not just resilient but anti fragile in the sense that the vast majority of people you might
1:11:58
ever compete with if you end up
1:12:00
competing will not have this toolkit, so
1:12:04
When there's a shock to the system like covid when there is a shock to the system like some designer and epidemic or pandemic that is designed using crispr right and released easily out of some basement when there is a disaster fill in the blank, right and there's so many Technologies 3D printing, you know, blockchain decentralized social networks or even assassination Market places. I mean miniature drones were like the cost of Defense.
1:12:34
Is a million times higher than the cost of offense. I mean these like, I mean the side kind of dystopian possibilities for cheap destabilizing events with many players. We've talked about this right like not like one or two or three or four players who are State actors, but tens of thousands of people who could
1:12:58
Implement certain attacks, that could be really destabilizing he or she who is the most adaptable wins. I think in many respects o meta-learning and then really understanding I do think you know for all of his eccentricity, I think Talib and Black Swan Fooled by Randomness read those books. If you are not on a very basic level and you do not I never took calculus. I'm not a mathematician by any stretch.
1:13:28
But learn to understand probabilistic thinking it's so fucking important just start to read Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan get a basic understanding of how probability affects your decision-making in life. Beautiful. Your
1:13:44
point about meta learning is so powerful. I mean one way to just very simply think about this is that people tend to think about technique tactics technique. But if you if you focus your learning on the principles that house the
1:13:58
Techniques and you can throw all the techniques away and reinvent new techniques quite easily. As you know, I've experimented a lot with a lot to the techniques are just the external husk The Meta the principle is the thing to really focus on learning and its really remarkable how they can be manifest in new places quite quickly.
1:14:15
I think the meta learning and adaptability
1:14:17
are are so intertwined. Okay, so you sent me a doc of some questions from some of your listeners and I want to hit you with a few of those if you don't mind, let's do it. So Andrew T ask what's the single most?
1:14:28
Important attribute you look for when debating it filled bring a new person into your circle of friends. Okay, the first
1:14:33
one so I used to debate a lot more in my head than I do. Now. The first thing honestly is just gut feeling like does the animal in me move forward towards that person. Does it stay where it is, or does it pull back even a quarter inch even a millimeter? I love it. That's a beautiful answer. Yeah. That's that's that's not that's number one. And number two is just trustworthiness.
1:14:58
Discretion intelligence is dime a dozen. I really just I care less and less about what we consider intelligence every time. I've overruled my
1:15:06
intuition about someone it's bit me in the
1:15:08
ass. Yeah, every time yeah and pay attention to Molly pay attention to my dog. Yeah, because even if I'm I've had two drinks and my spider senses off if Molly doesn't like someone yeah pay very close attention to that. Yeah
1:15:23
Russell W. Do you ever worry you're mistaking noise for signal with learning from successful?
1:15:28
Will people survival bias and all that jazz? It's interesting
1:15:31
question. I think about it a lot. I think this is this is a very smart question. Very observant question need to keep in mind. So for me, the first thing with world-class
1:15:39
performers is a
1:15:41
can they repeat whatever I admire about them in other words, like once you're lucky twice, you're good right like three times your world-class if it's something really outrageous first. Can they actually repeat? What is their claim to fame? Look, let's just figure that out first cause if not like
1:15:58
Keep looking number two is can they teach it are there any examples of disciples which which you can see certainly in the in the investing world, right? You see these rollouts and then also the question of are they succeeding because of X whatever X is that you're looking at or are they succeeding in spite of X and those two things are very often confused where people are like this works because I used tough love and I
1:16:28
Employees in the face every time they fuck up and that's because I run a tight ship and that's why it works and it's like actually Jesus it would be 10 times better. If you didn't do that. So you're succeeding in spite of that in which case you can ask people around them or who have had exposure to them. Yeah beautiful
1:16:45
answer so Ricky sent two questions. I liked one of which of course is quite personal to me now because got a beautiful puppy. What have you learned about yourself and the world now that you've had a dog for a
1:16:57
while.
1:16:59
I've learned that we project a lot of our shit on everyone and everything including dogs and dogs are just and there may be exceptions. But dogs are just so tabula rasa. I mean they come obviously pre-installed with all their gray wolf DNA and canid quirks. But when I was Raising Molly and training Molly in the beginning like looking back, I'm so embarrassed by how upset I got it points when she was not being
1:17:28
Disobedient not understanding my training because I wasn't training. Well, I wasn't clear and it's so easy to anthropomorphize are animals and assume that they have some internal agenda or that they're doing a b and c to Annoy Us and so on which ends up being such a mirror for what our wounds are our fears are what our compulsions are. So I think Molly is an incredible.
1:17:58
Able and dogs are an incredible mirror. They really show you I think your strengths and your weaknesses and I think Molly has really taught me how to love also as a result of that. I mean just to to just love an animal so deeply and unconditionally, I think I think that it's it's really opened up a lot in me and removed a lot of armor, that would have been difficult to remove otherwise
1:18:26
so beautiful and I see that in you I see the way you interact.
1:18:28
To those in with Zeus my brother
1:18:31
lights dogs use it just the way you bring love to these these big pups who got a whole lot of energy they just and they just love
1:18:40
you. It's a there's no no bullshitting in that. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about making out with oh, so that
1:18:47
first night I came in just for
1:18:52
people who are not in the joke and I was like can't give man. Give us a little treat and he's like sure and this
1:18:58
It's like I said first first night I derived there's the alarm that says I need to go get my coat test, which is kind of Auntie Mo not leave it. Yeah, and that's the alarm saying I have need to go get my covid test, which is appropriate because I just arrived and he's like sure he can give us a treat and I put a little piece of chicken in my teeth and also grabbed it and Josh just like you can give him I
1:19:20
get my fucking dog: I'm gonna get my whole fucking family covid.
1:19:24
It was pretty great. I was pretty great way to fiery
1:19:27
start.
1:19:28
Good start to the whole thing. Hey, man, this has been a lot of fun.
1:19:31
Yeah, everything's great man. So good to see you and still get to jam and to be continued brother. Love you very much. Love. You too, man.
1:19:41
Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more
1:19:42
things before you take off. Number one. This is five. Bullet Friday.
1:19:47
Do you want to get a short email for me? And what do you enjoy getting a short email for me? Every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend and five bullet Fridays.
1:19:58
Very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week that could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends for instance and it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the
1:20:28
It so if you want to receive that check it out. Just go to four hour workweek.com. That's 4-Hour workweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email. You will get the very next one. And if you sign up I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Yuri clothing spelled v uo r IV or E. I've been wearing the Ori at least one item per day for the last few months and you can use it for everything. It's performance apparel.
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But it can be used for working out. It can be used for going out to dinner at least in my case. I feel very comfortable with it super comfortable super stylish and I just want to read something that one of my employees said she is an athlete she is quite technical. Although she would never say that I asked her if she had ever used or heard of the Ori and this was her response. I do love their stuff been using them for about a year. I think I found them at REI first for my partner t-shirts that are super soft.
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Somehow last it seems hard on stuff and then I got into the Supersoft cotton yoga pants and jogger sweatpants. I live in them and they too have lasted their stylish enough. I can wear them out and about the material is just super soft and durable. I just got there Clementine running shorts for summer and love them. The brand seems pretty popular constantly sold out in closing and I'm abbreviating here but in closing with the exception of when I need technical outdoor here, they're the only brand I bought in the last year or so for yoga running loungewear that lasts and that I think would look good on.
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Also, I like the discrete logo. So that gives you some idea that was not intended for the sponsor read that was just her response via text view or E. Again spelled Vu Ori is designed for maximum comfort and versatility. You can wear it running you can wear their stuff training doing yoga lounging weekend errands or in my case again, going out to dinner really doesn't matter what you're doing. Their clothing is so comfortable and looks so good and it's
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On expensive you don't have a huge brand logo on your face. You'll just want to be in the mall this time and my girlfriend and I have been wearing them for the last few months there men's core short KO re the most comfortable line. Athletic short is your one short for every sport. I've been using a kettlebell swings for ones you name it the bank's short. This is their go to land to see short is the ultimate in versatility. It's made from recycled plastic bottles and what I'm wearing right now, which I had to pick one to.
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End to folks out there or at least two men out. There is the Ponto performance pant and you'll find these at the link. I'm going to give you guys you can check out what I'm talking about, but I'm wearing them right now. They're thin performance sweatpants, but that doesn't do them justice. So you got to check it out po nto Ponto performance pant for you ladies. The women's performance jogger is the softest jaw girl, you'll ever own the Ori isn't just investment your clothing. It's an investment in your happiness and for you my dear listeners, they're offering 20% off your first
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Dot-com Tim that's bu Ori clothing.com Tim and discover the versatility of the or clothing. This episode is brought to you by tonal Tio Nal. I'm super excited about this one and I was skeptical of it in the beginning total quote total is the world's most intelligent home gym and personal trainer and quote. That's the tagline from their website folks to give you the one sentence summary and this device truly a system is perfect for anyone looking to take
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