I don’t have a high degree of confidence
in in willpower or discipline whatever
I happen to be obsessing about
like it really doesn’t matter it’s lower
your standards lower your standards till
need motivation watch a top ten with
believe nation what’s up believe nation
it’s Evan this channel is designed to be
a part of your daily success routine and
help you believe in your Michael Jordan
level talent so let’s get your
motivation to attend and get you
believing in you grab a snack and show
in today’s lessons from men who went
from working in sales at a data storage
company to becoming an entrepreneur
influencer and writer of one of my
favorite books of all time the 4-hour
workweek
he’s Tim Ferriss and here’s my take on
his top ten rules a success volume for
all so if you want to know what Tim and
other successful entrepreneurs have to
say about building unstoppable
confidence check out my 250 for
confident series where every day for the
next 254 days I will send you a free
morning video to help you build your
confidence the link is in the
description below a lot of the anxiety
that we feel is actually due to using
words that are not defined very well if
you are trying to make high-level
decisions focus on time-consuming
okay let’s kick it off with rule number
one make your incentives compelling if
you have some degree of intelligence or
just slyness you can always find a
seemingly justifiable way to put off
doing what it is you should be doing and
as a writer I feel really qualified to
say this because most writers I know
will do anything to avoid writing I mean
it’s like all the plants die well I
can’t possibly sit down and work on my
new chapter if my environment contains a
dead plant I really need to fix that
debt in Flint it’s like oh my shoes are
dirty well I’m gonna need to get my
exercise later in the afternoon and they
need to be ready so that I’m not
distracted later so let me put off
writing and the writers will just do
anything to get out of writing and
that’s human nature it’s not because
writers are bad people it’s not because
say somebody listening is a bad person
that they’ve maybe been a seminar junkie
instead of going back to the notebook
they filled up and actually putting next
steps on their calendar it’s human
nature but for me right now it’s it’s
about the work and holding myself
accountable and maybe surprisingly to
some people I am not a huge I don’t have
a high degree of confidence in in
willpower or discipline I have a hiding
to hear that from someone like you I
have a high degree of confidence in
systems and accountability and loss
aversion that creates the illusion of
discipline and willpower right so you
could take somebody let’s just say who’s
always had trouble losing weight and I’m
like all right I’m gonna take
photographs too you really unflattering
first thing in the morning after you’ve
gone on a bender in your tighty whities
in your kitchen now I own those photos
all right and they also take 5% of your
income and if you don’t lose 20 pounds
in the next eight weeks and keep it off
for six months not only am i gonna
release those photographs onto the
Internet
post them on Facebook everywhere your
friends family colleagues will see them
I’m also going to donate five percent of
your income to an anti charity that you
would rather nuke then give money to and
you will be on the public record as
having given five thousand dollars to
whatever it might be you know the one
who knows George W Bush Presidential
Library or the American Nazi Party it
doesn’t really matter and not sure there
are charity but in regardless you get
the idea to an organization that you
would just be endlessly shamed to be
associated with unless you lose this
weight and I guarantee you with that
that why two people figure out the how
to yeah I mean that’s a pretty powerful
external motivators yeah and it doesn’t
have to be that intense but I see no
reason to I see every reason to make
your incentives compelling and most
people don’t need more willpower or
discipline they need better incentives
so that that’s either a reward or it’s
some type of punishment and the
punishment could be prepaying for say a
certain number of training sessions with
an athletic trainer they are non
recoupable mm-hmm right maybe that’s
enough for a lot of people it is even if
they make a lot of money for some folks
the idea of losing a few hundred bucks
right will drive them insane so they
will actually show up or having someone
like working out with a friend who’s
gonna bust your balls metaphorically
speaking gender-neutral whatever if you
don’t show up to be their workout
partner maybe that’s enough to shame you
or guilt into doing it great use it
rule number two break your thinking
patterns what if I did the opposite for
48 hours this is a question that I asked
myself and at my first job out of
college I was talking about suffering
and my desk was in fire exit
it was completely illegal you know slept
under the desk the whole nine yards and
don’t regret a minute of
but I was a Technical Sales guy outbound
sales guys we had inside sales outside
sales and my job was to close deals with
CTOs and CEOs for multi-million dollar
data storage systems at that point
storage area networks fibre channel and
what I realized at one point was that
all of the seasoned sales guys who were
doing far better than I was doing we’re
making phone calls between 9:00 and 5:00
those were the office hours and I said
well I’m clearly not doing an effective
job mimicking them what if I did the
opposite for 48 hours it’s a very
recoverable experiment but if it doesn’t
work then I can always go back to what I
was doing doing the opposite met making
my calls between let’s just say 6:30 and
8:30 and then 5:30 to 7:00 7:30 and it
was just a hypothesis maybe I can get a
hold of the people I need to get a hold
of more effectively when the gatekeepers
aren’t there and that’s exactly what
happened and I started booking more
meetings and closing more deals than
than the majority of the guys in the
company and it was just from asking that
question what I’ve had did the opposite
for 48 hours and you can apply that to
many many things right some of the
others would be well this is one I asked
in 2004 yep if I had a gun against my
head and could only work two hours per
week what would I do
I I know it’s impossible what would I do
and that type of ludicrous question was
necessary to break my thinking patterns
and test stress test my own assumptions
of what was possible and you find that
that is a learner Buhl’s Gil rule number
three get outside
what would Tim tell his younger self if
he could go back and change anything
about the past or tweak it to making me
better is there anything that you would
do I think that I would probably go back
not to necessarily my childhood but go
back to when I was really cramming and
just working 24/7
prior to writing the 4-hour workweek
after graduation and I would mandate
that I spend 30 minutes a day outside
barefoot on the grass just during the
air yes just Lao get outside barefoot be
grounded get out of rubber soles spend a
little bit of time outside every day I
think that would have I think that we
don’t think that would have sacrificed
anything and it would have improved my
mental well-being and I think just
general quality of life
well would you still be taking phone
calls on the grass it doesn’t matter
just a lease on the grass just get on
the grass I could have been technical
working or like I mean these days for
instance in San Francisco I’ll batch
people who’ve read the 4-hour workweek
and know that I like to batch similar
tasks together whenever possible and I
will batch phone calls in such a way
that I can go for a one to three hour
walk through San Francisco sure and
you’re making the phone calls and in if
you don’t need a visual reference in
front of you yeah you might as well be
it walking outside getting some exercise
exactly and I think walking is also very
very underrated we’ve made a lot of
evolutionary trade-offs to be able to
walk extraordinarily long distances yeah
even compared to other say grazing
mammals like we can go for a very long
time and that’s why evolutionary design
for lack of a better word so I feel like
we should exploit that and utilize it I
like it what is it what do you feel when
you get a barefoot on the grass what
does that give you I think it’s it what
it does for me among other things is
there are there people who talk about
grounding and the effective getting out
of rubber soles that that I think is up
for debate
gyah the scientific basis for that but
it helps me to feel grounded in a more
perhaps metaphorical sense and that is
feeling connected to the earth not
disconnected as some type of robot who’s
been programmed to reply to emails so
just like getting outside and being like
you know I’d sure if I love to curse
sure but it’s just like you know this
this whatever I happened to be
obsessing about like it really doesn’t
matter I mean like a year or two from
now like if that guy who didn’t reply to
my email and I feel slighted
right probably kunos his grandmother
probably died get over it get over
yourself like at the end of the day it’s
it’s so trivial and for whatever reason
being in nature and having that that
connection with the rest of the world
and feeling not separate from it and
cloistered in some type of office is is
medicine has a medicinal effect for me
rule number four learn to say no there
are many people who think and I’ve
certainly thought at different points in
my life if I just do X or achieve Y my
problems these problems will all go away
and what you realize is as you continue
on this journey that is often meandering
called life you don’t get rid of your
problems if you achieve certain types of
success you just trade up so maybe you
had like you know the the corolla of
problems then you trade up and you’ve
got like the use mercedes of problems
and you trade up and you have whatever
the porsche of problems the the
magnitude and complexity can can become
become themselves problems in the sense
that and many people listening might say
come on give me a break like this is
such a the wanna careers like like a one
percenter woe-is-me story but it’s not
and i’ll tell you why because thank you
very much in in the very very very
beginning of your career
I do think yes as a default can be very
helpful but when I say the very very
beginning I mean literally maybe one to
two years out of college if you go to
college you don’t have to go to college
but let’s just from my personal
experience once you have an even a vague
glimmer of a notion of what you’re
really good at versus what you’re bad at
and once you have a semi-decent
group of
friends and colleagues and coworkers the
birthday parties the going out for
drinks the conference’s that may or may
not piss away three four days of your
life these start to appear and they are
the siren song and my experience that
the the when I’ve encountered stagnation
in my life or felt overwhelmed for the
most part sometimes it’s due to you know
catastrophe and huge problems but very
often it’s because I’ve over committed
to the kind of sort of cool stuff and
then my calendar is so crowded you know
as Derek Siver’s who’s one of my
favorite entrepreneurs would say also
just an incredible sort of philosopher
king of programming and a just eccentric
guy and the best way possible you know
he would say that if it’s not a hell yes
it’s a no to achieve there are really
big good things you are going to have to
let a a lot of small recoverable bad
things happen rule number five lower
your standards what I spoke to say Paulo
Coelho who’s sold a hundred million plus
copies The Alchemist etc you talked to
Rick Rubin this let me give his example
first when he has a musician who’s stuck
great musician but they’ve developed
performance anxiety about songwriting
for whatever reason he will say do you
think you could get me one sentence or
maybe two words that you like by
tomorrow that’s it two words can you do
that for me and he gives them a micro
assignment best writing advice that I
probably ever received and I’ve received
a lot of good writing advice but I
didn’t get myself really wound up
because I expect perfection to flow from
my fingertips like magic and that never
happens so then I beat the hell out of
myself and that makes me less likely to
put pen to paper in the first place and
I’ll procrastinate which is why if you
write two crappy pages per day you’ve
won the day that’s
successful writing day and that does a
few things it helps you to maintain
enthusiasm because you’re constantly
winning and of course on many days
you’ll write more than two you’ll get to
two then you go to five or to ten but if
you’re on an off day great to copy pages
even if you never use it it’s a
successful day and that I think for
longer-term projects and extended
creativity is really important but the
story that this writer told me with that
tip he said okay this is where this
comes from did you know that IBM when it
was the 800-pound gorilla it was an
undefeatable sales force do you know
what one of the rules was it’s like no
he says what do you think their quotas
were and I was like well I’m sure the
quotas were really high because they
wanted to motivate their guys to get
after it you know their quotas were the
lowest in the industry Wow
and the rationale was we don’t want our
salespeople to be intimidated to pick up
the phone mm-hmm
we want them to feel like they’re gonna
pass their quota quickly which they did
and then they shot well past it and
clobbered the competition so the the the
the counterintuitive pairing of low
expectations leading to higher
performance is really hot I think it’s
also very context and role-specific
but if we’re talking about creativity in
particular right so not necessarily work
out but the approach there number of
prolific writers who have said Neil
Strauss said this there’s no such thing
as writer’s block which drives me crazy
so Mike come on like you might be a
mutant like x-men of writing but for the
normal humans come on like give me a
break and he goes no no no hear me out
number one he is a trained journalist
and journalists tend to have writing
block beaten out of them because their
boss is like oh you can’t find the right
prose for your 500 word article Oh get
it in by 5 o’clock asshole yeah and
they’re just like oh
wait this isn’t school and they’re like
yeah deadline that’s that’s your that’s
your incentive writer’s block my ass
he’s like okay but he said and what what
they learn is he said there’s no such
thing as writer’s block he said what
that is is performance anxiety that
you’ve imposed on yourself because your
expectations are too high
mmm and it’s like just lower your
standards lower your standards till you
get started
rule number six practice stoicism
stoicism I think is the one of the best
operating systems for thriving and high
stress environments in affect the more
you schedule and practice suffering the
less unplanned suffering will disrupt
your life and so stoicism if we go back
to say Seneca Marcus Aurelius is really
very similar to Zen and in many many
ways but it is a practical set of
beliefs frameworks and exercises that
allow you to inoculate yourself against
fear of the unknown fear of worst-case
scenarios to become less emotionally
reactive which is by why stoicism and
certainly you can look at George
Washington Thomas Jefferson at Seneca on
his bedside table I think Bill Clinton
reads meditations by Marcus Aurelius
every year but if you want to look at
some additional contemporary examples
it’s been become hugely popular Silicon
Valley it’s become hugely popular in the
NFL including the the past of the Super
Bowl winners best two Super Bowls
because it it teaches you how to view
obstacles as opportunities and how to
become less emotionally reactive so
you’re effectively putting the Serenity
Prayer into practice where you are
learning to separate the things you can
control for the things you cannot
control and to only focus on the former
end to develop the courage and the
ability to act rule number seven keep
things simple many things that involve
some discomfort or pain can be
productive right but not all things that
are painful our personal lead to
anything productive there and the
and you can just become a masochist
without realizing it that’s what
happened to me
and I also felt like I could grasp
complexity and juggle a lot more
effectively than other people so I was
drawn to complexity because I felt I
could win there I felt like it was a
there was a high barrier to entry
mmm that that gave me a competitive
advantage then at some point especially
in the last year I realized I’m just
fighting an empty jacket here like who’s
my competitor is this ridiculous like
what might this look like if it were
easy and it started as a journaling
exercise which is one of the most common
patterns in all the interviews I’ve done
and travel mentors and tools Titans and
the podcast journaling meditation and
journaling are kind of the two partners
in a sense they work together really
well they recur over and over again and
says journaling one morning on what
might this look like if it were easy
well I’ve done it for many many
different things for the perspective
this book yeah specific you know for
that well I did it for the podcast when
I started the podcast I had to ensure
that there was next to no editing I’ll
do it my friends in the beginning to
make it less intimidating
I would allow wine which didn’t always
turn out very well it actually really
ended poorly in the first episode in
particular but if that’s what you needed
to do that’s what I need to do just to
just like get the lawnmower started I
needed to to to grease the skids and
make it as easy as possible and you can
always complicate it later but if you
start with the complex the likelihood of
quitting or abandoning it very quickly
is high we’ll never have a strong why
what is the driver what’s that thing
that makes you be so willing to suffer
it’s the promise of that that crack hit
for me which is the aha moment in you or
in you and other people so it’s both and
the reason that I get such a high from
it is if I can crack the code in the
sense that I find something that’s
saves people hundreds of hours or myself
hundreds of hours in the learning curve
for a particular skill or a particular
type of recovery or fill-in-the-blank
just an elegant or non-obvious solution
to a long-standing problem I’m like okay
I can’t wait to see how people are going
to respond when I provide that to a
thousand people and I see for most of
them the vast would already just go oh
leave like if you take someone for
instance I didn’t learn to swim until I
was in my 30s I think we may have talked
about this I grew up on Long Island but
at this death I was deathly afraid of
drowning sensing near drowning incidents
and some lung issues and now at this
point I was taught by this gentleman
named Terry Laughlin something called
Total Immersion which I first learned
from a book which I was introduced to by
Chris Sacca was a billionaire investor
in this book oddly enough but you can
take someone which which I did with
Terry at one point for the Tim Ferriss
experiment the first TV show I did this
mother of two I think Sara who had never
been able to swim couldn’t even put her
head under water in the pool comfortably
and four days later open water swimming
500 meters in the ocean in like 40 foot
deep water freestyle and when you show
someone that an impossible like that is
not only possible but that they can
crack it really quickly
that’s my drug of choice I just I just
get such a high out of it rule number 9
put things in perspective
a lot of folks look at me and some
people assume that I am a risk-taker
always loves risk he loves taking no
risk no reward knowledge I am so focused
on risk mitigation at all times you know
any to and because if what I did in the
height of everything yeah yeah living it
I decided to build a client service
business I don’t really know I get it
but I think that’s in part because you
and I have had so much practice capping
the downside and like walking through
that rehearsal like all right can I can
I actually stomach and handle the
worst-case scenario if so all right I’ll
count my downside and then eventually
the upside will take care of itself
and
you know like you shared in in HR Metro
this is another one I think about a lot
which is when you feel overwhelmed or
unfocused you know what do you think
what do you do or what do you think
about and your answer was you know if
you’re going through something very
difficult you imagine your family dying
in a terrible accident and it puts it in
perspective it’s like there are problems
that we put in quotation marks and we
make a big deal out of on a day-to-day
basis and then there are tragedies and
crises and real dark really unless that
can happen and when you put it in
perspective you’re like oh yeah like
right whatever getting like my coffee 20
minutes late is called maybe not a big
deal like maybe that should not occupy
any of my mind big lost a huge account
yeah dollars yeah and you know one thing
that came up again and again when I was
talking to these various mentors in
different fields is the idea that
sometimes you sometimes you need life to
save you from what you want to give you
what you need
so sometimes losing that account I look
back five years later and you’re like
best thing I never had the best and rule
number ten the last one before a very
special bonus clip is try TM I want to
hear your response to one of the
questions that you sent all of us let’s
do it so in the last five years what new
belief behavior or habit has most
improved your life so for everybody
watching when you get this book this is
one of the questions that many of us
quote-unquote mentors have answered yeah
I would say for me it is a consistent
morning practice before taking my phone
off of airplane mode of sitting and
doing a meditative practice for say 20
minutes and it’s stuck initially by
taking a transmittal meditation class of
perhaps three days when let’s go through
a very very difficult time and Chase
Jarvis who’s awesome and I’ve hugely
successful commercial photographers work
to every big brand you can imagine and
is also very good CEO both he and Rick
Rubin is like the most legendary music
producer of all time and just look at
his discontent discography it’s insane
it’s like Johnny Cash Eminem jay-z
Metallica you know
the list is absurd it’s like everybody
you’ve ever heard of and he also said to
me at one point because I was going
through a really rough time and I was
very tightly wound he said have you ever
considered TM and I’m like mantra like
you pay them to give you a mantra it’s a
cult like I don’t wanna be part of a
cult and on and on and on and on they’re
like now it’s actually really secular
and I know there’s like a little bit of
weird stuff but you can just ignore that
it’s like the first hour of the talk
just ignore it what do you have to lose
and I was going through such a difficult
period at one point I said you know
that’s a good point
so I did it and that kick-started the
meditation and then I experimented with
other things like headspace which I have
no vested interest in so it’s you start
with 10 minutes a day for 10 days as a
proof of concept and the way I’d
encourage people to think about
meditation because it can sound very
woowoo and I certainly was repelled by
it for a long time is you are sitting
down say on a couch to practice
observing your thoughts and feelings and
emotions for a very short period of time
so that for the rest of the day you are
less emotionally reactive what this
means is you are rehearsing you are
training it’s like going to the gym so
let’s say you’re training for a sport
all right
you’re an athlete an X you go to the gym
to do squats to do this this and this so
that when you get on the playing field
you can perform better it’s exactly the
same you’re rehearsing and training for
your day and then when you run into
something that normally would trigger
you whether that’s a certain type of
email whether that’s an employee who has
a habit that drives you insane or you
being behind in your schedule and then
the line at Starbucks is longer than you
would like whatever happens to be the
things that would normally cause you to
get really tightly wound or explode or
berate yourself or other people you will
then start to spot before you have the
reaction and then you say okay a half a
second of breathing let me choose my
response instead of being a hot held
hostage to these loops and triggers that
we all have
so that has been enormous ly enormous ly
I’ve got a really special bonus clip
from Tim on how to not retreat into
story that I think you’re gonna really
enjoy but before that it’s time for the
three point landing questions time to
move from just watching another video to
actually taking some kind of action in
your life and your business so answer
these three questions number one what is
your strong Hwanhee
number two what do you need to start
saying no to and number three how can
so there’s a phrase let me use that then
I repeat to myself a lot and in the last
two three years in particular and the
the phrase is don’t retreat into story
so there are certain stories we all have
that we tell ourselves and some of the
stories very very old right I am X I can
never why I always blah whatever it is I
like this is all this is going to be
painful or I always up whatever there’s
these these stories as short as they
might be as poorly as they might sell as
a children’s book these short stories
that we all have and I’ve really tried
in the last year and a half or two and
meditation does help a lot with this too
whether use an app like headspace or
guided meditation from someday say
terrible or Sam Harris or whatever or
just TM or some type of seated
meditation to tell myself and I’ll put
this at the top of my journal in the
morning if I’m using something like the
five-minute journal in all caps of the
Tabas but don’t retreat in this story
don’t retreat a story I might even if
I’m feeling myself starting to tailspin
into some old pattern I will go into my
journal I’ve never talked about this and
since I know I’ll be using the journal
each morning I won’t I will I will put
one of two things at the very top of
each journal entry for the next say 15
days before I can forget or
procrastinator or not do it one is don’t
retreat in this story the other one
which is very closely related is
actually from Tony Robbins who have
gotten to know in the last couple years
who impresses me the more I get to know
him which is saying a lot because it’s
fricking Tony Robinson anyway and that
is state and then an arrow to the right
story then an arrow to the right
strategy this is really important so
state leads to story leads to strategy
is what what I’ve noticed for myself is
that if I wake up and I’m just in a funk
didn’t get enough sleep or I’m just
maybe feeling the in the the early
symptoms of maybe going into a funk for
whatever reason there are many things
that can trigger it what I’ll sometimes
make the mistake of doing sitting down
and immediately trying to problem-solve
in a depressed energetic or emotional
state and what Tony is explained to me
is if you do that the lens that you’re
going to wear is only going to allow you
to see the problems and the negative so
you’re gonna sit down you’re gonna try
to you’re gonna try to form a strategy
from the outset but you’re going to have
a negative state a disabling story that
you’re telling yourself and this
strategy’s gonna be terrible
yeah you’re trying to solve the problem
with the mindset that created the
problem right to begin with right and
instead the the state story strategy
leads me to that’s one of the things and
not many things can get me to do this
this is I am I’m very much an evening
exercise guy but that has encouraged me
to once again go in the calendar and
pre-book exercise with trainers I don’t
this is gonna sound bad but like I don’t
need trainers I don’t never really had
trainers for what I’d accountability see
count abilities so I will book myself
for things that I would normally never
do like one-on-one Pilates classes oh my
god puke right like which actually done
well technically is pretty goddamn hard
it’s like GST the gymnastic strength
training in a lot of respects but
nonetheless let me not defend my Pilates
have it right now but I will I will say
pre book Pilates or a critic or some
type of Olympic weightlifting in the
mornings at least say three days a week
and I’ll book it out four weeks in
advance
I’ll prepay schedule everybody and I
know they are showing up right for me
mornings like 10:00 a.m. I know is
laughable people but like to make sure
that I am up and ready which means I
will have to wake up probably at least 9
which is this is an accomplishment for
me
historically gonna bed like 3 4 5 a.m.
Wow it’s not help meant minute manage
manic depression by the way and but I’ll
get it on the calendar and that will set
my state then I will have an enabling
story and then also the strategies it’s
a very long-winded way of explaining why
I use two prompts at the top my journal
and I’ll pre fill them very honestly
number one don’t retreat into Story
number two estate arrow story era
strategy raise your standard Apple epic
or its core value is that that people
need passion and not one drop of myself
if you want to learn more about Tim and
his latest book the tribe of mentors
check out the video we did on it the
link is right next to me continue to
believe and I’ll see you there much like
asking yourself what makes me happy is
not really a great questions too broad and it takes too long to search
in in willpower or discipline whatever
I happen to be obsessing about
like it really doesn’t matter it’s lower
your standards lower your standards till
need motivation watch a top ten with
believe nation what’s up believe nation
it’s Evan this channel is designed to be
a part of your daily success routine and
help you believe in your Michael Jordan
level talent so let’s get your
motivation to attend and get you
believing in you grab a snack and show
in today’s lessons from men who went
from working in sales at a data storage
company to becoming an entrepreneur
influencer and writer of one of my
favorite books of all time the 4-hour
workweek
he’s Tim Ferriss and here’s my take on
his top ten rules a success volume for
all so if you want to know what Tim and
other successful entrepreneurs have to
say about building unstoppable
confidence check out my 250 for
confident series where every day for the
next 254 days I will send you a free
morning video to help you build your
confidence the link is in the
description below a lot of the anxiety
that we feel is actually due to using
words that are not defined very well if
you are trying to make high-level
decisions focus on time-consuming
okay let’s kick it off with rule number
one make your incentives compelling if
you have some degree of intelligence or
just slyness you can always find a
seemingly justifiable way to put off
doing what it is you should be doing and
as a writer I feel really qualified to
say this because most writers I know
will do anything to avoid writing I mean
it’s like all the plants die well I
can’t possibly sit down and work on my
new chapter if my environment contains a
dead plant I really need to fix that
debt in Flint it’s like oh my shoes are
dirty well I’m gonna need to get my
exercise later in the afternoon and they
need to be ready so that I’m not
distracted later so let me put off
writing and the writers will just do
anything to get out of writing and
that’s human nature it’s not because
writers are bad people it’s not because
say somebody listening is a bad person
that they’ve maybe been a seminar junkie
instead of going back to the notebook
they filled up and actually putting next
steps on their calendar it’s human
nature but for me right now it’s it’s
about the work and holding myself
accountable and maybe surprisingly to
some people I am not a huge I don’t have
a high degree of confidence in in
willpower or discipline I have a hiding
to hear that from someone like you I
have a high degree of confidence in
systems and accountability and loss
aversion that creates the illusion of
discipline and willpower right so you
could take somebody let’s just say who’s
always had trouble losing weight and I’m
like all right I’m gonna take
photographs too you really unflattering
first thing in the morning after you’ve
gone on a bender in your tighty whities
in your kitchen now I own those photos
all right and they also take 5% of your
income and if you don’t lose 20 pounds
in the next eight weeks and keep it off
for six months not only am i gonna
release those photographs onto the
Internet
post them on Facebook everywhere your
friends family colleagues will see them
I’m also going to donate five percent of
your income to an anti charity that you
would rather nuke then give money to and
you will be on the public record as
having given five thousand dollars to
whatever it might be you know the one
who knows George W Bush Presidential
Library or the American Nazi Party it
doesn’t really matter and not sure there
are charity but in regardless you get
the idea to an organization that you
would just be endlessly shamed to be
associated with unless you lose this
weight and I guarantee you with that
that why two people figure out the how
to yeah I mean that’s a pretty powerful
external motivators yeah and it doesn’t
have to be that intense but I see no
reason to I see every reason to make
your incentives compelling and most
people don’t need more willpower or
discipline they need better incentives
so that that’s either a reward or it’s
some type of punishment and the
punishment could be prepaying for say a
certain number of training sessions with
an athletic trainer they are non
recoupable mm-hmm right maybe that’s
enough for a lot of people it is even if
they make a lot of money for some folks
the idea of losing a few hundred bucks
right will drive them insane so they
will actually show up or having someone
like working out with a friend who’s
gonna bust your balls metaphorically
speaking gender-neutral whatever if you
don’t show up to be their workout
partner maybe that’s enough to shame you
or guilt into doing it great use it
rule number two break your thinking
patterns what if I did the opposite for
48 hours this is a question that I asked
myself and at my first job out of
college I was talking about suffering
and my desk was in fire exit
it was completely illegal you know slept
under the desk the whole nine yards and
don’t regret a minute of
but I was a Technical Sales guy outbound
sales guys we had inside sales outside
sales and my job was to close deals with
CTOs and CEOs for multi-million dollar
data storage systems at that point
storage area networks fibre channel and
what I realized at one point was that
all of the seasoned sales guys who were
doing far better than I was doing we’re
making phone calls between 9:00 and 5:00
those were the office hours and I said
well I’m clearly not doing an effective
job mimicking them what if I did the
opposite for 48 hours it’s a very
recoverable experiment but if it doesn’t
work then I can always go back to what I
was doing doing the opposite met making
my calls between let’s just say 6:30 and
8:30 and then 5:30 to 7:00 7:30 and it
was just a hypothesis maybe I can get a
hold of the people I need to get a hold
of more effectively when the gatekeepers
aren’t there and that’s exactly what
happened and I started booking more
meetings and closing more deals than
than the majority of the guys in the
company and it was just from asking that
question what I’ve had did the opposite
for 48 hours and you can apply that to
many many things right some of the
others would be well this is one I asked
in 2004 yep if I had a gun against my
head and could only work two hours per
week what would I do
I I know it’s impossible what would I do
and that type of ludicrous question was
necessary to break my thinking patterns
and test stress test my own assumptions
of what was possible and you find that
that is a learner Buhl’s Gil rule number
three get outside
what would Tim tell his younger self if
he could go back and change anything
about the past or tweak it to making me
better is there anything that you would
do I think that I would probably go back
not to necessarily my childhood but go
back to when I was really cramming and
just working 24/7
prior to writing the 4-hour workweek
after graduation and I would mandate
that I spend 30 minutes a day outside
barefoot on the grass just during the
air yes just Lao get outside barefoot be
grounded get out of rubber soles spend a
little bit of time outside every day I
think that would have I think that we
don’t think that would have sacrificed
anything and it would have improved my
mental well-being and I think just
general quality of life
well would you still be taking phone
calls on the grass it doesn’t matter
just a lease on the grass just get on
the grass I could have been technical
working or like I mean these days for
instance in San Francisco I’ll batch
people who’ve read the 4-hour workweek
and know that I like to batch similar
tasks together whenever possible and I
will batch phone calls in such a way
that I can go for a one to three hour
walk through San Francisco sure and
you’re making the phone calls and in if
you don’t need a visual reference in
front of you yeah you might as well be
it walking outside getting some exercise
exactly and I think walking is also very
very underrated we’ve made a lot of
evolutionary trade-offs to be able to
walk extraordinarily long distances yeah
even compared to other say grazing
mammals like we can go for a very long
time and that’s why evolutionary design
for lack of a better word so I feel like
we should exploit that and utilize it I
like it what is it what do you feel when
you get a barefoot on the grass what
does that give you I think it’s it what
it does for me among other things is
there are there people who talk about
grounding and the effective getting out
of rubber soles that that I think is up
for debate
gyah the scientific basis for that but
it helps me to feel grounded in a more
perhaps metaphorical sense and that is
feeling connected to the earth not
disconnected as some type of robot who’s
been programmed to reply to emails so
just like getting outside and being like
you know I’d sure if I love to curse
sure but it’s just like you know this
this whatever I happened to be
obsessing about like it really doesn’t
matter I mean like a year or two from
now like if that guy who didn’t reply to
my email and I feel slighted
right probably kunos his grandmother
probably died get over it get over
yourself like at the end of the day it’s
it’s so trivial and for whatever reason
being in nature and having that that
connection with the rest of the world
and feeling not separate from it and
cloistered in some type of office is is
medicine has a medicinal effect for me
rule number four learn to say no there
are many people who think and I’ve
certainly thought at different points in
my life if I just do X or achieve Y my
problems these problems will all go away
and what you realize is as you continue
on this journey that is often meandering
called life you don’t get rid of your
problems if you achieve certain types of
success you just trade up so maybe you
had like you know the the corolla of
problems then you trade up and you’ve
got like the use mercedes of problems
and you trade up and you have whatever
the porsche of problems the the
magnitude and complexity can can become
become themselves problems in the sense
that and many people listening might say
come on give me a break like this is
such a the wanna careers like like a one
percenter woe-is-me story but it’s not
and i’ll tell you why because thank you
very much in in the very very very
beginning of your career
I do think yes as a default can be very
helpful but when I say the very very
beginning I mean literally maybe one to
two years out of college if you go to
college you don’t have to go to college
but let’s just from my personal
experience once you have an even a vague
glimmer of a notion of what you’re
really good at versus what you’re bad at
and once you have a semi-decent
group of
friends and colleagues and coworkers the
birthday parties the going out for
drinks the conference’s that may or may
not piss away three four days of your
life these start to appear and they are
the siren song and my experience that
the the when I’ve encountered stagnation
in my life or felt overwhelmed for the
most part sometimes it’s due to you know
catastrophe and huge problems but very
often it’s because I’ve over committed
to the kind of sort of cool stuff and
then my calendar is so crowded you know
as Derek Siver’s who’s one of my
favorite entrepreneurs would say also
just an incredible sort of philosopher
king of programming and a just eccentric
guy and the best way possible you know
he would say that if it’s not a hell yes
it’s a no to achieve there are really
big good things you are going to have to
let a a lot of small recoverable bad
things happen rule number five lower
your standards what I spoke to say Paulo
Coelho who’s sold a hundred million plus
copies The Alchemist etc you talked to
Rick Rubin this let me give his example
first when he has a musician who’s stuck
great musician but they’ve developed
performance anxiety about songwriting
for whatever reason he will say do you
think you could get me one sentence or
maybe two words that you like by
tomorrow that’s it two words can you do
that for me and he gives them a micro
assignment best writing advice that I
probably ever received and I’ve received
a lot of good writing advice but I
didn’t get myself really wound up
because I expect perfection to flow from
my fingertips like magic and that never
happens so then I beat the hell out of
myself and that makes me less likely to
put pen to paper in the first place and
I’ll procrastinate which is why if you
write two crappy pages per day you’ve
won the day that’s
successful writing day and that does a
few things it helps you to maintain
enthusiasm because you’re constantly
winning and of course on many days
you’ll write more than two you’ll get to
two then you go to five or to ten but if
you’re on an off day great to copy pages
even if you never use it it’s a
successful day and that I think for
longer-term projects and extended
creativity is really important but the
story that this writer told me with that
tip he said okay this is where this
comes from did you know that IBM when it
was the 800-pound gorilla it was an
undefeatable sales force do you know
what one of the rules was it’s like no
he says what do you think their quotas
were and I was like well I’m sure the
quotas were really high because they
wanted to motivate their guys to get
after it you know their quotas were the
lowest in the industry Wow
and the rationale was we don’t want our
salespeople to be intimidated to pick up
the phone mm-hmm
we want them to feel like they’re gonna
pass their quota quickly which they did
and then they shot well past it and
clobbered the competition so the the the
the counterintuitive pairing of low
expectations leading to higher
performance is really hot I think it’s
also very context and role-specific
but if we’re talking about creativity in
particular right so not necessarily work
out but the approach there number of
prolific writers who have said Neil
Strauss said this there’s no such thing
as writer’s block which drives me crazy
so Mike come on like you might be a
mutant like x-men of writing but for the
normal humans come on like give me a
break and he goes no no no hear me out
number one he is a trained journalist
and journalists tend to have writing
block beaten out of them because their
boss is like oh you can’t find the right
prose for your 500 word article Oh get
it in by 5 o’clock asshole yeah and
they’re just like oh
wait this isn’t school and they’re like
yeah deadline that’s that’s your that’s
your incentive writer’s block my ass
he’s like okay but he said and what what
they learn is he said there’s no such
thing as writer’s block he said what
that is is performance anxiety that
you’ve imposed on yourself because your
expectations are too high
mmm and it’s like just lower your
standards lower your standards till you
get started
rule number six practice stoicism
stoicism I think is the one of the best
operating systems for thriving and high
stress environments in affect the more
you schedule and practice suffering the
less unplanned suffering will disrupt
your life and so stoicism if we go back
to say Seneca Marcus Aurelius is really
very similar to Zen and in many many
ways but it is a practical set of
beliefs frameworks and exercises that
allow you to inoculate yourself against
fear of the unknown fear of worst-case
scenarios to become less emotionally
reactive which is by why stoicism and
certainly you can look at George
Washington Thomas Jefferson at Seneca on
his bedside table I think Bill Clinton
reads meditations by Marcus Aurelius
every year but if you want to look at
some additional contemporary examples
it’s been become hugely popular Silicon
Valley it’s become hugely popular in the
NFL including the the past of the Super
Bowl winners best two Super Bowls
because it it teaches you how to view
obstacles as opportunities and how to
become less emotionally reactive so
you’re effectively putting the Serenity
Prayer into practice where you are
learning to separate the things you can
control for the things you cannot
control and to only focus on the former
end to develop the courage and the
ability to act rule number seven keep
things simple many things that involve
some discomfort or pain can be
productive right but not all things that
are painful our personal lead to
anything productive there and the
and you can just become a masochist
without realizing it that’s what
happened to me
and I also felt like I could grasp
complexity and juggle a lot more
effectively than other people so I was
drawn to complexity because I felt I
could win there I felt like it was a
there was a high barrier to entry
mmm that that gave me a competitive
advantage then at some point especially
in the last year I realized I’m just
fighting an empty jacket here like who’s
my competitor is this ridiculous like
what might this look like if it were
easy and it started as a journaling
exercise which is one of the most common
patterns in all the interviews I’ve done
and travel mentors and tools Titans and
the podcast journaling meditation and
journaling are kind of the two partners
in a sense they work together really
well they recur over and over again and
says journaling one morning on what
might this look like if it were easy
well I’ve done it for many many
different things for the perspective
this book yeah specific you know for
that well I did it for the podcast when
I started the podcast I had to ensure
that there was next to no editing I’ll
do it my friends in the beginning to
make it less intimidating
I would allow wine which didn’t always
turn out very well it actually really
ended poorly in the first episode in
particular but if that’s what you needed
to do that’s what I need to do just to
just like get the lawnmower started I
needed to to to grease the skids and
make it as easy as possible and you can
always complicate it later but if you
start with the complex the likelihood of
quitting or abandoning it very quickly
is high we’ll never have a strong why
what is the driver what’s that thing
that makes you be so willing to suffer
it’s the promise of that that crack hit
for me which is the aha moment in you or
in you and other people so it’s both and
the reason that I get such a high from
it is if I can crack the code in the
sense that I find something that’s
saves people hundreds of hours or myself
hundreds of hours in the learning curve
for a particular skill or a particular
type of recovery or fill-in-the-blank
just an elegant or non-obvious solution
to a long-standing problem I’m like okay
I can’t wait to see how people are going
to respond when I provide that to a
thousand people and I see for most of
them the vast would already just go oh
leave like if you take someone for
instance I didn’t learn to swim until I
was in my 30s I think we may have talked
about this I grew up on Long Island but
at this death I was deathly afraid of
drowning sensing near drowning incidents
and some lung issues and now at this
point I was taught by this gentleman
named Terry Laughlin something called
Total Immersion which I first learned
from a book which I was introduced to by
Chris Sacca was a billionaire investor
in this book oddly enough but you can
take someone which which I did with
Terry at one point for the Tim Ferriss
experiment the first TV show I did this
mother of two I think Sara who had never
been able to swim couldn’t even put her
head under water in the pool comfortably
and four days later open water swimming
500 meters in the ocean in like 40 foot
deep water freestyle and when you show
someone that an impossible like that is
not only possible but that they can
crack it really quickly
that’s my drug of choice I just I just
get such a high out of it rule number 9
put things in perspective
a lot of folks look at me and some
people assume that I am a risk-taker
always loves risk he loves taking no
risk no reward knowledge I am so focused
on risk mitigation at all times you know
any to and because if what I did in the
height of everything yeah yeah living it
I decided to build a client service
business I don’t really know I get it
but I think that’s in part because you
and I have had so much practice capping
the downside and like walking through
that rehearsal like all right can I can
I actually stomach and handle the
worst-case scenario if so all right I’ll
count my downside and then eventually
the upside will take care of itself
and
you know like you shared in in HR Metro
this is another one I think about a lot
which is when you feel overwhelmed or
unfocused you know what do you think
what do you do or what do you think
about and your answer was you know if
you’re going through something very
difficult you imagine your family dying
in a terrible accident and it puts it in
perspective it’s like there are problems
that we put in quotation marks and we
make a big deal out of on a day-to-day
basis and then there are tragedies and
crises and real dark really unless that
can happen and when you put it in
perspective you’re like oh yeah like
right whatever getting like my coffee 20
minutes late is called maybe not a big
deal like maybe that should not occupy
any of my mind big lost a huge account
yeah dollars yeah and you know one thing
that came up again and again when I was
talking to these various mentors in
different fields is the idea that
sometimes you sometimes you need life to
save you from what you want to give you
what you need
so sometimes losing that account I look
back five years later and you’re like
best thing I never had the best and rule
number ten the last one before a very
special bonus clip is try TM I want to
hear your response to one of the
questions that you sent all of us let’s
do it so in the last five years what new
belief behavior or habit has most
improved your life so for everybody
watching when you get this book this is
one of the questions that many of us
quote-unquote mentors have answered yeah
I would say for me it is a consistent
morning practice before taking my phone
off of airplane mode of sitting and
doing a meditative practice for say 20
minutes and it’s stuck initially by
taking a transmittal meditation class of
perhaps three days when let’s go through
a very very difficult time and Chase
Jarvis who’s awesome and I’ve hugely
successful commercial photographers work
to every big brand you can imagine and
is also very good CEO both he and Rick
Rubin is like the most legendary music
producer of all time and just look at
his discontent discography it’s insane
it’s like Johnny Cash Eminem jay-z
Metallica you know
the list is absurd it’s like everybody
you’ve ever heard of and he also said to
me at one point because I was going
through a really rough time and I was
very tightly wound he said have you ever
considered TM and I’m like mantra like
you pay them to give you a mantra it’s a
cult like I don’t wanna be part of a
cult and on and on and on and on they’re
like now it’s actually really secular
and I know there’s like a little bit of
weird stuff but you can just ignore that
it’s like the first hour of the talk
just ignore it what do you have to lose
and I was going through such a difficult
period at one point I said you know
that’s a good point
so I did it and that kick-started the
meditation and then I experimented with
other things like headspace which I have
no vested interest in so it’s you start
with 10 minutes a day for 10 days as a
proof of concept and the way I’d
encourage people to think about
meditation because it can sound very
woowoo and I certainly was repelled by
it for a long time is you are sitting
down say on a couch to practice
observing your thoughts and feelings and
emotions for a very short period of time
so that for the rest of the day you are
less emotionally reactive what this
means is you are rehearsing you are
training it’s like going to the gym so
let’s say you’re training for a sport
all right
you’re an athlete an X you go to the gym
to do squats to do this this and this so
that when you get on the playing field
you can perform better it’s exactly the
same you’re rehearsing and training for
your day and then when you run into
something that normally would trigger
you whether that’s a certain type of
email whether that’s an employee who has
a habit that drives you insane or you
being behind in your schedule and then
the line at Starbucks is longer than you
would like whatever happens to be the
things that would normally cause you to
get really tightly wound or explode or
berate yourself or other people you will
then start to spot before you have the
reaction and then you say okay a half a
second of breathing let me choose my
response instead of being a hot held
hostage to these loops and triggers that
we all have
so that has been enormous ly enormous ly
I’ve got a really special bonus clip
from Tim on how to not retreat into
story that I think you’re gonna really
enjoy but before that it’s time for the
three point landing questions time to
move from just watching another video to
actually taking some kind of action in
your life and your business so answer
these three questions number one what is
your strong Hwanhee
number two what do you need to start
saying no to and number three how can
so there’s a phrase let me use that then
I repeat to myself a lot and in the last
two three years in particular and the
the phrase is don’t retreat into story
so there are certain stories we all have
that we tell ourselves and some of the
stories very very old right I am X I can
never why I always blah whatever it is I
like this is all this is going to be
painful or I always up whatever there’s
these these stories as short as they
might be as poorly as they might sell as
a children’s book these short stories
that we all have and I’ve really tried
in the last year and a half or two and
meditation does help a lot with this too
whether use an app like headspace or
guided meditation from someday say
terrible or Sam Harris or whatever or
just TM or some type of seated
meditation to tell myself and I’ll put
this at the top of my journal in the
morning if I’m using something like the
five-minute journal in all caps of the
Tabas but don’t retreat in this story
don’t retreat a story I might even if
I’m feeling myself starting to tailspin
into some old pattern I will go into my
journal I’ve never talked about this and
since I know I’ll be using the journal
each morning I won’t I will I will put
one of two things at the very top of
each journal entry for the next say 15
days before I can forget or
procrastinator or not do it one is don’t
retreat in this story the other one
which is very closely related is
actually from Tony Robbins who have
gotten to know in the last couple years
who impresses me the more I get to know
him which is saying a lot because it’s
fricking Tony Robinson anyway and that
is state and then an arrow to the right
story then an arrow to the right
strategy this is really important so
state leads to story leads to strategy
is what what I’ve noticed for myself is
that if I wake up and I’m just in a funk
didn’t get enough sleep or I’m just
maybe feeling the in the the early
symptoms of maybe going into a funk for
whatever reason there are many things
that can trigger it what I’ll sometimes
make the mistake of doing sitting down
and immediately trying to problem-solve
in a depressed energetic or emotional
state and what Tony is explained to me
is if you do that the lens that you’re
going to wear is only going to allow you
to see the problems and the negative so
you’re gonna sit down you’re gonna try
to you’re gonna try to form a strategy
from the outset but you’re going to have
a negative state a disabling story that
you’re telling yourself and this
strategy’s gonna be terrible
yeah you’re trying to solve the problem
with the mindset that created the
problem right to begin with right and
instead the the state story strategy
leads me to that’s one of the things and
not many things can get me to do this
this is I am I’m very much an evening
exercise guy but that has encouraged me
to once again go in the calendar and
pre-book exercise with trainers I don’t
this is gonna sound bad but like I don’t
need trainers I don’t never really had
trainers for what I’d accountability see
count abilities so I will book myself
for things that I would normally never
do like one-on-one Pilates classes oh my
god puke right like which actually done
well technically is pretty goddamn hard
it’s like GST the gymnastic strength
training in a lot of respects but
nonetheless let me not defend my Pilates
have it right now but I will I will say
pre book Pilates or a critic or some
type of Olympic weightlifting in the
mornings at least say three days a week
and I’ll book it out four weeks in
advance
I’ll prepay schedule everybody and I
know they are showing up right for me
mornings like 10:00 a.m. I know is
laughable people but like to make sure
that I am up and ready which means I
will have to wake up probably at least 9
which is this is an accomplishment for
me
historically gonna bed like 3 4 5 a.m.
Wow it’s not help meant minute manage
manic depression by the way and but I’ll
get it on the calendar and that will set
my state then I will have an enabling
story and then also the strategies it’s
a very long-winded way of explaining why
I use two prompts at the top my journal
and I’ll pre fill them very honestly
number one don’t retreat into Story
number two estate arrow story era
strategy raise your standard Apple epic
or its core value is that that people
need passion and not one drop of myself
if you want to learn more about Tim and
his latest book the tribe of mentors
check out the video we did on it the
link is right next to me continue to
believe and I’ll see you there much like
asking yourself what makes me happy is
not really a great questions too broad and it takes too long to search
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