#859: Q&A with Tim — The Upcoming AI Tsunami and Building Offline Advantage, Book Recommendations, Spotting Psychedelic Red Flags, Courage as a Learnable Skill, and More

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Barris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Verris show. This is an in-between episode, an experimental format that I have revisited a few times, and it's the good old fashioned QA. That is I answer questions submitted. And live questions by a small but elite group of test readers who of my upcoming no book. That's the working title. Kind of a code name. See Tim dot blog slash the no book for more information and I think ten or twenty Free pages of uh the book, which should be forthcoming. This episode explores a wide range of topic, including the age of AI.

0:41 Close to half of these submitted questions were related to artificial intelligence and I include a bunch of caveats. related to my limitations, but there are some thoughts that folks might find Interesting, including the closest thing to an AI Nostradamus that I have found. Career pivots and figuring out what to do next. This is related to the AI questions, certainly. Very, very interwoven. Networking at conferences, building offline advantage. This includes a callback to my strategy for South by Southwest two thousand seven. When I launched the four hour work week, everything still applies, in my opinion, even more so now. How to vet psychedelic practitioners and spot red flags, building great communities with zero tolerance policies.

1:24 Have some experience with that. Book recommendations from my personal shelf, literally the shelves right behind me when I recorded this. Thoughts on parenting. I'm sure many of you did not know that like Pavel Durov of Telegram, I have 120 children scattered throughout. this wonderful world. And much, much more. And without further ado, please enjoy a very wide ranging, I would say conversation, more of a monologue with yours truly. Thanks for listening. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So now I'll do those questions.

1:56 No se cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoscellary Hello, everybody. Thanks for making it. We got lots of questions. That were pre submitted. There's a lot to cover.

2:20 And I will begin. With saying there are many, many questions about AI. It is certainly The topic of the hour. And

2:30 I would like to provide A few caveats, and I'll do that by leading in With a question. How many of you Invested in or even know of.

2:42 Diamond Rio. Diamond Rio? Anyone? MP Man F ten. Come on now. You guys must remember MP Man F ten. These are MP3 players that predated the iPod. And

2:55 Jobs famously. Changed it from Speeds and feeds into one thousand songs in your pocket also had the industrial design, engineering, supply chain, wizardry. Along with his marketing genius, of course.

3:09 All to bring to bear on this thing called the iPod, which then produced You guessed it. Some of you wizened grey haired folks, but youngsters do not realizing iPod leads to podcasting.

3:23 Yes. That was the genesis of this podcasting term. And the reason I bring this up is that I do not consider myself a bleeding edge. Investor.

3:34 Or even in a lot of instances a bleeding edge. user. I like to be on the dull edge. And I would say that The iPod is a great example of that because If you looked at some of the technological trend lines, you looked at a few different pieces of hardware that had somewhat de risked solid state MP three players.

3:56 The timing was right. for something to be taken from very, very niche and unwieldy to Mainstream. And certainly we've seen that. unfold. And

4:08 I view AI very similarly. And in some respects. It is very amenable to that approach because things are changing so incredibly quickly. If you hated a model Three weeks ago, it might do exactly what you need. Today. And

4:27 With all of that, I just want to say I do not view myself as an AI expert. I think if you're looking for someone who seems to be The Nostradamus of AI you should read up on Leopold Ashenbrenner. You can look up situational awareness the decade ahead. It was Hand

4:46 and published online June twenty twenty four. And the number of Actual hits. Predictive hits. Yeah. had is staggering.

4:58 It is just really about as close. Two. clairvoyant as You could possibly be. So Leopold Ashenbrenner.

5:08 You should check him out. If you're looking for what's coming. If you're looking for what I have observed. Personally as a muggle, someone who's non technical, I'm not writing white papers. But I get to watch a very large audience and I have a lot of friends I can lean on, many of whom are technical. I can fill you in. All right. That's a whole

5:30 lot of preamble. So let's hop into it. First question is from Hugo. In a world full of tools, systems and AI, what human abilities or habits are becoming more valuable, not less. So I'll I'll try to keep this pretty short. I would say the relational, the tactile Anything.

5:46 I R L in real life. That can be extended. Also to For instance. In my case informational advantage, offline informational.

5:56 advantage. A lot of the LMs are slicing and dicing the internet. One might argue all of them are doing that. And whether you are looking at longevity. In professional terms, if you're looking at longevity in creative terms. I think putting on the lens of looking at

6:17 what you can do in IRL that currently Now that uh certainly robotics are. On the edge. Uh some type of Cambrian explosion. So who knows? Maybe it's iRobot three years from now. But for now

6:31 the kind of offline. Differentiator is a big deal. And I would say The relational side

6:38 Certainly the harnessing of awe, wonder, et cetera, nature immersion. Which sounds like I'm suggesting everybody disappear off into a commune in the woods or become homesteaders or something. That's not what I'm saying. But for instance the fact that I have people I can text for very Narrow

6:57 Types of expertise. even though they have the access of a generalist. allows me to have an informational advantage because none of that is online. Conversely, if you're using chat GPT or Claude to try to assess a given public company.

7:15 as a good or a bad investment or somewhere in between. Can rest assured that many, many people, perhaps even millions of people, have already done this and therefore you're gonna be reading More or less the same thing. As many others. So that's my uh stab at that first question, a lot of this is going to boomerang back.

7:35 In fusion notes. Let me take a sip of my sip and ketones. Excuse me. This is sent to me by a scientist, and he was like, mix 10 milliliters into 250 milliliters of water. Do not chug in all caps written with a marker on this experimental. Container of ketones. So we'll see. If I start seizure. It'll make for a great short on social media. Alright.

7:55 Next question. I'm gonna take a A stab at. Is uh this is from Jeff. With a pre throat clearing not financial advice and quotation marks disclaimer.

8:06 Already granted to you by virtue of this question, where should a small investor be looking to invest in public markets as AI continues to eat our white collar jobs in the coming months and years? All right. I know I indirectly already gave the caveat. I'm not giving any investment advice because that is a terrible thing to do if you're not registered financial advisor and all that stuff. I'm none of those things. So this is for informational purposes only. Number one, you shouldn't gamble.

8:34 And I do kinda view it as gambling or invest anything you cannot afford to lose completely because AI is moving. so incredibly quickly and there's a lot of whip saw Reactivity. Chat GPT comes out with something that Connects to some type of

8:53 industry in an oblique way and suddenly Six public stock. lose billions and tens of billions of dollars of market cap. You know, there's there's a lot of craziness. So As

9:03 Certainly. has been said before me, the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. So Don't play with anything you're not willing to lose. There are people talking about what's been uh termed halo trades, trying to look for things that are less likely to get disrupted. Or destroyed.

9:25 Kind of the Warren Buffett approach to non tech investing. By and large, right? C's candy, railways, et cetera. But I would say that Initially. sparked by conversations with Kevin Rose. And I hesitate to even mention this, but I do think Google is in a very interesting position. Alphabet, the artist formerly known as Google.

9:46 Alphabet is in an interesting position to In some respects kind of. Own the full stack. Engineers aren't gonna like that I'm using that term, but They have distribution.

9:56 They have hardware. in terms of TPUs. They have incredible unparalleled access to information. They've got demishas and deep mind internally

10:11 They've got the ability to spin things out like Waymo. There's just so much going on within Alphabet that I find it Very fun and terrifying to take a close look at. And I say that also because

10:27 It is completely unclear, I would say. How exactly Google compensates. Four. Or plans for shifting to some type of

10:40 Add revenue from AI generated responses. or an AI based, LLM based platform. versus what we use today in the browser. Right. And that's inevitably going to happen. So The bull case is very exciting for Google and the bear case is also Pretty compelling.

10:59 But as I'm looking at stuff out there. I tend not to screw around in the public markets. I just don't feel like I have Any advantage whatsoever compared to everybody else who's Fine slicing things. But in conversations with friends and looking at it pretty closely, I do think

11:16 Alphabet's. Pretty interesting. So There you have it. I'm not saying invest in it. You could really lose money and it might be that they lose for A while until they win. It could be they lose completely. So There is that.

11:30 Next question's from David. What are the top three things you should never use AI for? I would say Any skill you want to preserve. In your head. Yeah. Should probably not use AI for. So I use AI for editing.

11:43 Right now. you very quickly end up on a slippery slope. So if I create a rough draft, as I did with the self-help trap, for instance, I would then take that feed it into these models. And Give them a personality. You are an editor from the New Yorker. This is your name. Maybe it's a famous editor or the person who worked with Robert Carroll, whatever it might be. I mean, that's again, not to compare myself to those people, but I want a good editor. Give me feedback.

12:12 On this. Rough draft. What the model will do, because they want to keep you using the model, of course, is it will give you all the feedback and then it will say, would you like me to incorporate all these changes and draft. a version that uses all these things. And that's where I have

12:28 Deliberately. hesitated. I've also played around with it and frankly, it's very good. But therein lies the danger because if you want to preserve your ability to synthesize, and this will tie into questions shortly about creativity. I do think

12:44 That It Mak some sense. To exercise caution. There are already scientists and researchers looking at the

12:55 negative cognitive impacts. Of Depending on AI. Much like your ability to navigate has probably deteriorated since using Google Maps. And I would say net net, each individual is more. Enhanced.

13:09 augmented using these tools, but if you do want to Keep certain muscles strong and able. That's where I would hesitate. And look. You always change your mind later. But if you lose it, it's a hell of a lot harder to reclaim it. So that's where I am at the moment.

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16:02 Oh, CJ. CJ's question. Do you, Tim, think AI is capable of creativity in the sense that humans are? Well, I would argue here, and I've read all these books on creativity, I've looked at Some research which tends to be pretty soft, I would say.

16:21 If I were being less generous, hand wavy about creativity or flow. I feel like a lot of these are poorly defined. So We could even go so far as to say I don't think we Understand. what creativity is.

16:34 In humans, right? Could machines have the equivalent of the Muse visit them. Is there a way to engine that? when we create these metaphors for ourselves, are we really just using poetry or abstraction? Two

16:50 try to verbalize something that's actually pretty discrete, replicable. if you just operate from a sort of bottoms up approach. with reinforcement learning and this that the other thing? Maybe. I just don't know. The second question the CGI had though is the one that I think is worth not actually spending more time on, but I would underline this because I underline it for myself.

17:09 As a writer and with the explosion of AI generated content out there now, how do you rise above the noise? All right. It's pretty simple. And I'll answer that by way of a story. I was spending time, a little bit of time, drinking a paloma with A very well known.

17:28 Photographer. He is one of the most commercially successful photographers in the world. And He was laughing and telling a story of how he gets approached by

17:40 Photographers, they could be amateur, but very often they're professionals who want to know how they can become better photographers. And they're asking all these gear related questions. And His answer is just put more interesting stuff in front of the camera. Make what's in front of the camera more interesting. And the equivalent of that. At least for me as a nonfiction writer.

18:01 is doing interesting things. go out in the world, do interesting things. Or observe interesting things in real life and write about those things, do experiments, etc. I mean, there are many ways to skin this cat. It could be Let's just say travels with Charlie.

18:19 Amazing book by John Steinbeck Road Trip. in a makeshift R and B with his dog Charlie. All right. Incredible book. And as it stands right now, I think it's

18:30 A ways off that a humanoid robot is going to get into a car with a canine companion. Robotic or flesh and bone. And do something like this. Anything that is analysis based.

18:42 It's relegated to the machines at this point. They're so good. AI broadly speaking LMs being one. manifestation of that are just too good. They're so good. And we'll talk about how I use some of those tools a little bit later. So Do interesting things.

18:58 And write about them. That's the short answer. All right. There are certain questions where I don't feel like I have good answers or informed answers. I could make up some bullsh and spin a yarn and make something that seems to hold water, but I'm not gonna do that. I apologize if I'm skipping some of your questions, but I don't wanna give you any type of false confidence in my answers. All right. So this is a

19:21 Question from Manil. How are you keeping up with all the new AI tools? Where do you keep your focus? Have you set up Open Claw? And if so, what's your workflow? Okay. So I am not keeping up with AI development. People who do this full time as the C suite. Executive teams of

19:40 The best known companies in the world. have trouble keeping up. So I am definitely not keeping up or trying to keep up. I feel like as soon as I'm doing that, I've already lost. So It's not how do I win the game, it's choosing the right game, which might sound Cliched.

19:57 But Does that mean I'm ignoring everything? No. With something like Open Claw due to security concerns, I let friends of mine elect to be the some of the first monkeys shot into space. So I'm gonna read From a friend of mine.

20:09 Foo I texted, right? This is about this question right before we started recording. All right. So About open claw.

20:18 He played around with Open Claw. His name is Chris Hutchins. He's been on the podcast. He has a podcast called All the hacks. Which he has Use to

20:30 Fascinating stuff. If you're a points nerd or like travel, it's a good one. He goes a lot further than that, but one of his episodes is. I built an AI assistant that works while I sleep. And he explains what he did with Open Claw. However, here's what he texted to me. In the last week, Claude's desktop app has shipped a bunch of features that do a lot of what OpenClaw can do in a more user friendly way. Schedule tasks, remote access, et cetera. So that could be a good beginner way to start. But with all AI projects, I suggest going in with a use case. This is, again, Chris. Texting.

21:04 And then he documented his whole journey. with building a basic app through OpenClaw, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and leveling up his knowledge each time. We'll link to that episode in the show notes. can find it pretty easily. Here's what he added to that. For OpenClaw, I'd say you absolutely don't need a fancy computer. I ran it on a 2012 Mac Mini for the first few weeks. But if you have an old computer and you want to set it up and test it out at home, great. But until you feel confident, one.

21:29 Don't give it access to things like email credit cards, et cetera. And there are some hilariously tragic stories of this gone awry that you can find on your own. Two. That okay, that was my Director's commentary. Two, don't install random skills you find on the internet. Three, go to Claude, ChatGPT, et cetera, and get advice about how to set it up securely for every time I've gotten stuck, I've been able to use Claude code in the open claw directory to fix things. So there you have.

21:54 Yeah. That is By virtue of Texting Chris Hutchins and answer on Open claw.

22:02 And what I could also do is give some examples of internally how we're using stuff. So I have An employee who is very interested in these tools. And I have wanted to encourage that. As long as we're not

22:19 Completely demolishing our own security from the inside out. So he's played a lot with thought code and other things. And I asked him for some use cases that I could share with you. So I will pull those up right now.

22:34 And this alludes to a term, defines a term that Chris used. All right. So one thing I did, this is my employee. One thing I did earlier today was build a skill, quote unquote skill, fancy name for a text file in this case, inside Claude that will generate the PDF and Word versions of an IO. That's an insertion order for a podcast sponsor. If I only give it the missing items from the IO, for instance, company name, official company name, da da da. It fills it out automatically and creates PDF. It's a small save in time, but this is something he repeats a lot. And there may be a better way to do it, like a template and hello sign or something. I also have been working on a project doing a 20 year Roughly twenty year. retrospective deep dive and analysis. of all my angel investing, right? Are the stories I tell myself about my report card accurate? Are they completely false? Are they somewhere in between? Et cetera, et cetera. And for that project

23:28 Coming back to his uh text here. It's been really crazy to just tell it. Quote here's an API key. And it will figure out how to connect to a given service like Gmail. And if you have an API key for a product, you can easily start using it in Claude as it will simply write itself a script. And one of the wildest things this is

23:46 I'm paraphrasing, but it can ingest an absurd amount of data and convert it into something useful. And it can also enrich data in some very interesting ways, right? So if I'm trying to figure out Okay. Via email introductions who introduced The winners, who introduced the losers, who introduced the zombies that just can't seem to die after years of struggling.

24:07 Or takeoff for that matter. And then Is there a signal, say looking at the education levels, the schools, the alma maters of founders, right? What about single founders versus two founders versus three founders? Things like this, location, geography, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Is there any signal to any of this? Another example, which might apply to more of you, the Google Calendar integration.

24:36 has also been helpful. In other words, updating a calendar entry from Claude or creating multiple at a time, right? So using Claude to uh add a calendar. entries. Now In my case, I have a bunch of different calendars and different people on my team add

24:51 to different calendars. One thing that helps us a lot, and maybe someday I'll share this. For right now, I'm probably not going to, but I have a document, a Google Doc that is the 10 commandments. of my calendar, basically, and it's rules around formatting, what to include, et cetera, right? Secondary points of contact, cell phones. Time zone always, right, indicated in the headline, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There are lots of different rules, but

25:20 He can use that, or other people on my team can use that to then automatically check calendar entries through Claud Code. And fix them. As needed. So some people have joked that you know the four hour work week should be rewritten as the the four minute work week. I think there's something to it. And there's a temptation to do an entire section on the use of AI in place of virtual assistants and so on. The problem with that is that as soon as the ink

25:46 had metaphorically dried on that paper, it would already be out of date. So I'm not gonna do that, I don't think. So there you have it. And the API key is is a really important component to all of this. Also, and I'm sure some of you have figured this out, but with Claude Code and Chris Hutchins alluded to this as well. for debugging, for instance, we did a website redesign and there was an issue with a form. No idea why. And

26:10 we wanted to fix it very quickly and we weren't sure how long it would take for support to get back to us. So he was able to dump all the code at the time into the model and just figured out how to fix it. And there are many, many, many other examples of that. And many of these things are not quantum leaps. But they are

26:28 Much like anything else, just automating little paper cuts so they don't add up. ultimately to a huge gash in your calendar. Okay. Fact. to work, Tim Ferris.

26:42 All right, let's look at other things. This is a question from Becky. What would you say to someone who wants a career job? Sometimes I feel I get caught in a loop of same pay range, same experiences, same mid level opportunities. How can I start increasing my income opportunities and skills this year? Okay, so I reached out as I often do, texted a couple of people about this because

27:04 They're actually this is gonna be a huge, huge, mega, mega. Meta. Problem. for people moving forward. And it's going to increasingly, I think, be pervasive. People are going to wonder, What they should do next.

27:19 Right, which then informs Kind of upskilling. And there's a later question, so I might as well explore it here, related to encodings in the Jim Collins episode question around encodings. I might come back to that. But suffice to say, some of these

27:34 Personality tests and things like Enneagram are actually very helpful. And things like strengths finder and so on. And there are two startups I'm involved with because I recognize just through questions like this. from Becky, which are kind of the Canary in the coal mine. It's not really a canary in a coal mine. It's like there was one whisper

27:54 Now there are 10, then there were 100, and now there are a thousand, right? This question is coming up more and more. And A lot of folks. are going to in one way or another need to zig and zag, even though they might not expect it right now. And a lot of that's gonna be due to AI.

28:12 Job displacement. So the two startups that And again, I mentioned that I'm an investor in these, so I'm biased, but the reason that I invest in these is to answer this question. Or more specifically to help people answer this question. So the first one is called apt. A P T And uh you can check that out at tryappt.ai.

28:32 So Triapt T-R-Y A P T dot AI. I had the co-founder and CEO create a code. So if any of you guys want to try it. Ultimately you It does cost money to get all the results and to get this sort of

28:48 AI guided mentor around your strengths and so on, which you discover or uncover through the process of going through this, but you can get 50% off with Tim 50. That's the code to use T I M. Five zero. All right. So if you want to take a look at that, you can check it out. The other is Obo. So O B-O-E.com. And that is entirely focused on accelerating skill acquisition and learning. So I think these two actually go together really well. You could use apt first.

29:20 And then Obo. And I've played around with both. There's a lot that's going to be coming into both of these. But Might be worth checking out.

29:29 Honestly. If I were to tell you to go buy what color is my parachute or something, you might glean something from that, but I feel like in very dynamic Times. with so much shifting sand with respect to technology, you you probably need something a bit more or benefit from something.

29:46 That is more dynamic. and personalized. From the get-go. as opposed to you having to do lots and lots of heavy lifting with a fixed format. So that's what I would say, Becky. And definitely let me know what you think because

30:00 If something's broken, or if you love something or you hate something, all that stuff can get fixed. All right. Next one. This is from Jeff. And we will do some live questions. These ketones are actually doing something, which is good. 'Cause it's four PM and I don't want to have any caffeine.

30:17 Yeah, fortunately it doesn't taste. Too much like jet fuel. Let me do one more, Jeff. Okay, this is the question. You've worked across books, podcasts, and experiments that each attracted their own communities. What have you learned about proactively shaping a Community's culture.

30:31 Not just growing an audience and How has direct interaction with people changed the way you enter creative flow today? The last piece is probably the hardest answer, but I can tell you that I think

30:43 That Proactively shaping it. A community's culture. Actually helps you. Two.

30:52 Build an audience. But to what end? Right. Not build an audience like, oh, I'm aiming for two million, three million, ten million YouTube subscribers. I don't like renting audience in a way that's dependent on algorithms, right? And you can look at a lot of the Biggest YouTube channels, it's like. Their average views.

31:08 per video have creatored, even though they have huge numbers of subscribers. You see that with engagement on X and other places. However. One thing that never goes out of style is one thousand true fans. By Kevin Kelly. You can read it for free. At KK.org.

31:22 And Therefore, I will focus on the proactively shaping a community's culture. In my case, I think it's pretty simple. I treat A closed community. Like I would.

31:35 A dinner party at my house. So Somebody walks into my house. This is a shoes free house, right?'Cause who wants like dog shit and bubble gum on your kitchen floor. I don't. So

31:47 The shoes come off at the door, right? So let's say somebody comes in, they're like, No, I'm keeping my boots on. They come in, tracking butt all over the place. They sit down at the dinner table, they kick their feet up on the table. Start calling people assholes or something. Like that person's gonna get dragged by their hair out. And then they're never coming back in. So that's a bit of an maybe uh melodramatic example. But Zero. tolerance policy for

32:12 Broken windows, right? You know, Malcolm Gladwell and others have written about this, but it's like when these minor infractions are permitted. I'm gonna pull out a fancy term that tech people like the Overton window. The broadness of what is now allowable behavior. Shift.

32:29 Okay. Russian save. shift it's a fucking window. It's not supposed to get wider or shorter, but it moves. In a more aggressive. behavioral.

32:37 Direction, right? So if you allow minor infractions, you're going to get moderate infractions. You allow those, you're going to get major infractions. So From the very first days of, say, the blog. The comments section has guidelines and it's like Remember the Fonzie? We're gonna be cool like that. Like if you're an asshole, we're gonna boot you and blacklist you. And you can criticize me, but

32:58 Don't be a dick to other people. And if you are. You're gone. I guess uh zero tolerance and you have to enforce that. If you don't People are crafty. They'll they'll learn how to manipulate you. Because you're asking to be.

33:10 at least abused by not enforcing your own rules. So that's the first one. It's just like You have to excise the cancers and remove the poison. You just have to because the default state of pretty much the entire internet now because it's been allowed and encouraged. through various gamifications on social platforms is just being loud, obnoxious, awful. So

33:33 You have to set rules to to countervail that. Also, and Jeff, I think you've experienced this. If you have a private community of 100 people or 200 people or 50, it doesn't really matter. And you charge five dollars. A quarter. Five dollars a year. Doesn't really matter.

33:49 But if you have some very nominal cost. People opt in. who generally want to contribute and be it in an environment of positivity.

34:01 That's my experience. generally. So having some very, very Phenomenal. fee at the door, I think is incredibly helpful.

34:10 And you find that also with events. I've done plenty of live events. Don't really do them anymore for a lot of reasons, but Very, very rarely in the past I would throw these live events for like you know book launch parties, 100 people, 200. If people can RSVP to an event.

34:27 your abandonment rate or no show rate is going to be sky high. If you force them. to pay one dollar. to hold their spot.

34:38 suddenly the no show rate goes down to low single digits. So I don't think there's any rocket science here. But the tough part is being willing to enforce. And maybe you give someone a two strikes or out policy, but frankly, I find that that can metastasize, for instance.

34:56 I have a lovely dog. Was astray two months ago. Adopted her. And she's really smart. She's Parts.

35:05 Uh Anatolian Shepherd, it would seem. And if she realizes, for instance That she can kind of pit me. Against my

35:15 Partner. And that she doesn't actually have to listen to sit until the third time. She's not gonna listen to the first two. She'll just stare at you defiantly and then sit the third time. Humans are the same way. They'll do that too. If they know they have two strikes. you're gonna get more bad behavior because they know they can get away with it once. All right.

35:33 So there you go. And Let's go to We've got plenty more questions, but let's go live.

35:41 Two Some live questions. And I apologize that there's so much in the chat, so I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to. Oh yeah, the crown means top fans. All right. Well thank you. Thank you, top fan. Uh look at that. Let's throw out some live questions and I'll give it a shot.

35:57 If you already post one, please post again, because I can't scroll up and go through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Favorite color? Green. Right there. Specifically, it's like the color of Late morning light, like 11 a.m. Sunlight.

36:12 Around August. Coming through maple leaves. That is the color. Like translucent. Green.

36:21 All right. Future of varlotta. Okay. For those who don't know. Also coyote. Coyote is is continues to do really well. I feel like I have done mostly what I can do. with Coyote at this point, and it's sort of in steady state. I mean The reviews on Amazon and elsewhere are great. It continues to sell well through the distribution channels. I wish in retrospect earlier on I had really focused on, even though there are plenty of adults who enjoy it.

36:52 Focusing on families that have at least one or two kids in that sort of eight to fifteen range. And That would have helped with escape velocity sooner, but

37:02 Hindsight 2020. I'm really, really happy with with how it's turned out. And then Varlata, honestly, now that the AI tools are getting good enough. About six months ago, I was planning on creating a movie trailer for effectively a script. I've got the whole thing in my head. focused on Tyrone. If anyone this is the legend of Cock Punch. Now I think I will for obvious reasons lean towards legends of Varlata. But focusing on the relationship between Ty and his father and

37:34 all sorts of craziness that ensues. So I've got like a whole movie script in my head. And concept art that I haven't really done anything. With from Some of the top

37:44 Magic the gathering and D D artists you can imagine. So We'll see. We'll see. I could see Screwing around that.

37:53 This summer. Yes. Shout out to Jeff. For keeping The um The CP community humming. Happy to spend some time there as well.

38:03 If I could only pick from the books on the shelves behind you, what book would you want everyone in this group to deep? dive into or dive deep into. I mean, I have those books up there for a reason. I have thousands of books. I've donated most of them. These are the ones I keep up for me to look at. Give me a second, I'll tell you. I'm gonna give answers that may not be satisfying to some folks.

38:24 That's okay. I'll give you one that I suppose you might expect from me. So one is gonna be the effective executive from Peter Drucker. Classic old short.

38:36 Incredible bang for the buck. However, the other books I would say again talking about what you do in a world of AI, do more interesting things. There's a book back there.

38:48 Called of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez. Who won, I believe it was the Booker or Pulitzer Prize for another of his books called Arctic Dreams. Of Wolves and Men is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. And it really shattered the mold. It redefined what Let's just call it

39:07 nonfiction nature writing could be. It's Just an incredible Incredible book. So there's one, but

39:15 Again, this is choose your own adventure, pick and choose. Travels with Charlie. By John Steinbeck, I mentioned it earlier. is hilarious. Also an incredibly accurate and Enjoyable warts and all ride.

39:30 through the US. What a quirky, weird ass country. So that's another one. Pretty fast read. Then there are entire shelves back there related to animal tracking and so on, except on a bunch of that. I don't think Most of you should probably spend a lot of time on that.

39:46 If you have it Red. I'll simplify the title here. Alice in Wonderland. Should go read Alice in Wonderland. Read the whole thing.

39:54 Not just quotes from it. I have a collector's edition back there. And Then there are a few actually that I was gonna mention

40:04 For one of the questions you guys submitted or as an answer. The eighty twenty principle. Richard Cosh. That just never gets old. Just does not get old. And there's another Book of his up there called Living the Eighty Twenty Principle. They might be living the eighty twenty way.

40:20 But he really walks the talk. If you haven't heard my podcast with Richard Kosh K O C H He's also one of the best investors I've ever met. mean he's had I don't know if he's disclosed the actual amount. I know a lot of

40:37 the world's best investors and he is quietly way up there in the Pantheon. So Also practitioner. He's on the field. So Worth paying attention to. All the places I've traveled to, which have been the most breathtaking, there's so many. I mean Queenstown, New Zealand at the right time of year, I think is incredible.

40:56 But You name it, I think upstate New York. Honestly, the gunks. And that entire region. Where a lot of

41:05 The last of the Mohicans. The book, certainly. I don't know what about the filming of the movie, but that takes place in that region. You can kinda put me anywhere. I mean, I just I think so many places are beautiful. Take a couple of drawing classes. That makes things much more beautiful overall.

41:21 Like gesture drawing classes. Get some live nudes, keep it interesting. I mean you you may get an obese dude with his schwans all over the place. So just so you know, it's not automatically gonna be a Victoria's Secret model. But that's okay. Can't win them all. I'm gonna go back to the pre-submitted questions here and then I'll come back to live. So think about what questions you want to ask.

41:40 And uh Come back to that. All right. This is from Hilka. I'll abbreviate a bit'cause this was a a long question. I'm only gonna hit the the first.

41:50 part here, but I'm a bootstrap founder and Replets raised revenue flying into San Francisco next week to pitch and network for a few days. If you were in my shoes and wanted to squeeze the maximum long term leverage out of that short trip, what specific things would you do before, during, and after the event. to one, have the right conversations and two, turn them into real opportunities rather than just great chats. Okay. Bonus, how has your bootstrapped versus VC changed lately for tech software? I mean, I think it's just getting cheaper and cheaper to make software. So

42:19 I think we're gonna see a lot of self funded startups. I mean Good news. barrier to entry technically. Also, economically is much lower. Bad news, the barrier to attention and actually getting people to use your stuff has never been higher. So there is that, but I I do think that

42:37 We're gonna see you. Huge. Self funded. Bootstrap companies. Assuming that there aren't just a few gods.

42:44 AKA Super intelligence. A I beasts that eat everything. But coming back to your question about network. This has also never been more true.

42:55 I think In real life wins. Everything else is too crowded so there is a talk I gave. I don't think there's any video. Do you don't need video, frankly, but there was a talk I gave at South by Southwest. We'll link to this in the show notes, but if you search My name.

43:12 And how to build a world class network in record time. This will pop up. This is a talk I gave Who knows? Seven years ago, ten years ago, at South by Southwest, describing exactly what I did at South by Southwest 2007. When I launched

43:30 The four hour work week. And my entire budget for that book. for launch marketing and so on was spent on a few trips. I think it was Web Summit. Maybe something expo, blog expo, and then south by southwest.

43:48 And There's an approach described in that that I think is very, very effective. And it's still surprising to me, no matter how. Many times I talk about certain things. People just don't follow it.

44:02 You know, if I'm like, hey, if I wanted to shill some shit coin and be like Going to the moon, right? People would buy it immediately, but I'm like, hey, here's this thing. It actually takes some hard thinking and you need to plan for it, but it's so much more effective long term than all of this. hustle culture bullshit.

44:19 Like three card Monty that you want to do, you know, every day for 10 hours. It's like the upfront stuff really matters a lot. In this case, I really recommend This talk, How to Build a World Class Network in Record Time. And uh that sounds like YouTube clickbait. But it's actually true. A lot of friends.

44:37 Who are still friends of mine almost twenty years later. came from South by Southwest two thousand seven and a couple of those events I flew to. These were not Just transactional interactions. And There is a way to approach this, right? You definitely need to study.

44:55 Any sessions and attendees beforehand. The good news is good news, bad news is that have the right conversations You don't need to worry about. You've no idea. Had have the right conversations. Your goal is to meet people who are

45:10 Hopefully world class what they do. Sympathico with you, meaning you guys will actually get along. Could be extracurricular interests, side hobbies, it could just be the way the two of you are programmed. And

45:25 There are other Kind of. general strategies like talking to moderators of panels instead of the panelists. Everybody floods the panelists, the moderator gets orphaned and in many cases the moderator is just as impressive. And certainly the moderator knows everybody on the panel and lots of people on other panels and everywhere else. So

45:47 There are a couple of tips in that that I would uh suggest checking out. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Back in the day, this was 2004 maybe, I had someone approach me in a coffee shop and say, Good day, mate. And introduce himself. Who was that? It turned out to be the founder of AG1. Believe it or not, way back in the day. And people often ask me, what has survived after 20 plus years of testing every supplement under the sun? Just about what actually has stayed in the rotation, in the toolbox. This episode sponsor, AG1, is at the top of that very

46:25 Very short list. I started using it close to 15 years ago when it was still called Athletic Greens. I put it in the four hour body, didn't get paid to put it in there, and it's outlasted almost everything else that I've tried. One scoop covers your nutritional basis, right, fill the gaps. You want to eat good food, of course, but 75 plus ingredients, including probiotics, B vitamins, and whole food nutrients. Act as In my opinion, pretty cheap nutritional insurance. I take it first thing every morning with cold water. And at this point, it's automatic like brushing my teeth. If you're looking for one simple deli habit that supports gut health and fills common nutrient gaps, This is where I'd start. Right now, new subscribers to AG1 get a free welcome kit worth$87, including AG1 and AGZ travel packs. That's for sleep. It's actually great. And vitamin D3 plus K2. So that's a whole bunch of free stuff worth$87. So check it out. Take a look, visit Drink.

47:19 A G one dot com slash Tim And that's the number one. So drink AG number one dot com slash Tim to check it out. One more time. That's drink AG One. dot com slash Yeah. I

47:34 All right, next question's from Alex. My company's growing quickly. There are a lot of things that I need to be doing to hit escape velocity. And be able to hire to manage At the top. I think that's manage. It says mange, but I assume you don't want mange. How do I choose what not to do? All right. Well, the good news is we already talked about a couple. So eighty twenty principle.

47:54 Richard Cosh, I would read that. The effective executive, absolutely read that. And it's really gonna give you a framework. For better discerning yourself. what to do and not do. The other, depending on the Current scope.

48:10 And scale of The company and then The ambitions. Especially if it's venture backed. is to read a book called The High Growth Handbook by Alad Gill.

48:23 E L A D G I L Arguably. One of the best, certainly. Angel investors of lost. few decades. I mean his hit rate is absolutely insane. He's

48:34 Invested in at least forty unicorns? also a tremendous founder and operator in his own right. You can check him out. Has a pretty wicked biology background on top of everything else. So those are a few They come to mind.

48:47 And then maybe last but not least. been a long time since I read it, but the Blue Ocean strategy. probably worth checking out because if you choose to compete in a crowded category. You just have a harder road ahead of you. So creating a category of one in a sense.

49:05 Much like circusolated. Back in the day. I'm expecting you're not. Dealing with Eastern European acrobats, but you get the idea. All right. Let's take

49:14 A look, this is from J C. When exploring somatic Or psychedelic healing spaces. What specific questions or observations do you use to quickly distinguish between a highly competent grounded practitioner and a narcissistic guru? Tough. Lot of good actors out there.

49:29 The first thing that comes to mind and obviously with all the usual caveats, these things are powerful, you can definitely destabilio, they're illegal in most places, et cetera. So don't break any laws, talk to your doctor, blah blah blah. But You could ask practitioners. Or you could ask someone who's had two trips and they're suddenly

49:49 acting like a messiah proselytizing everybody. You could ask them the same question. But Specific to clinicians or practitioners, ask them What types of adverse events they've seen? What are the most concerning adverse events they've seen? A Simpler way to put that is How do you handle freak outs?

50:06 Right. What do you do when somebody really loses their shit? And if their answer is People don't lose their shit. There aren't. Any adverse events. They're either lying.

50:20 Delusional. Or very inexperienced. Maybe all three. Those are not mutually exclusive. So I find that to be a pretty quick Necessary but not sufficient way.

50:31 to use a particular line of questioning to separate Seasoned. practitioners who are honest from those who are neither of those things. Of course, do your own homework. I don't think anyone who's new to this and by new I mean they have not been doing it.

50:47 More than a decade, ideally multiple decades. Makes the fly list. For me. It's just become too goddamn trendy. So I would just say Probably.

50:59 But I would be biased towards people who Have been doing this since before. Michael Ponds. Exceptional book. How to change your mind.

51:07 That might be. The cutoff for before and after. All right. I'm gonna hit a couple more here and then we'll go back to live questions. Actually, you know what? Let's go back to live questions. Yeah, Kumare. Great documentary. Fred recommended. Everybody should watch Kumare. K U M A R E. I won't ruin the surprise.

51:23 Check that out. It's a great, great film. I liked it so much that way back in the day there was a startup called quarterly.co. Which sent out boxes of goodies. To people who subscribed, right? And I would hand curate all these things that I really liked. It was kind of like Five Blood Friday. But on a quarterly basis where you get all my favorite things shipped to you in a box.

51:44 Very difficult business to make work. But At one point, this also dates me, it tells you how long ago it was. I reached out to the filmmaker who made Kumare. And

51:56 We figured out a way to make it work that I would ship something like three thousand USB drives, each of which contain this movie. to my subscribers. That was one of my items that I sent. All right. Lots of questions about conferences. I don't have a particular take on conferences these days. I apologize. I just I'm not tracking it actively. There are always interesting meeting places in person. So I don't believe that's outdated. South by South West has gotten very large and quite corporate. doesn't mean you can't have interesting interactions, but

52:27 You know, I would look for the events ideally that are Fewer than a thousand people, fewer than five hundred, even better. If you can. All right. This is from Chris. If I weren't an author and podcast or what other careers or industries

52:39 Would you have pursued? I wanted to be a comic book penciler for ages. And Still do some actually of My.

52:47 Art pads. Right back over there. Where I love to do Live gesture drives. Honestly, helps me get out of my head. Somebody will be up there, they'll hold a pose for like sixty seconds at a time and then change or

52:59 two minutes or five minutes at a time, you really can't get in your head. There's just not enough time for it. So I really, really enjoy that. But I want to be a comic book pencil. And was an illustrator. Through. A good part of college, helping to pay for expenses, things like that.

53:13 Illustrating books. And so on. The prospects then. were not very attractive financially to do that, especially after my extended family paid a fortune on my education. So I shifted gears, but uh certainly felt a draw. Towards that.

53:29 What kind of dog is Molly? Molly is a rescue mutt. She is Labrador. Bloodhound. And uh pitbull next. Then I'm sure there's high fifty seven of other breeds in there. In terms of training.

53:45 Honestly, I put up some basic training videos on YouTube if you just search My name and dog training, but The books that I have found most helpful are Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. I think everybody should read that. I think the back copy says something like Whether you want to stop your cat from jumping on the table, train your dog to do X or

54:05 Convince your Like mother in law to stop nagging you. Like The instructions are all the same. It's something like that. It's pretty funny. But Karen Pryor brought clicker training, sort of audible. Queing. of that type from

54:20 Marine mammal training, dolphins, orcas, etc. to dog training, or at least she's one of the people responsible for that. Really Fantastic book on behavioral change and shaping behavior. Overall?

54:33 And then Listen to my podcast with Susan Garrett. Susan Garrett, G-A-R-R-E-T, is impressive because she has won, I want to say f I don't know, five to ten national. dog agility championships. Even though she herself is much older than most of the human competitors who have to kinda run alongside their dogs. And she really, really knows her stuff. So those would be

54:57 I would say two places that you can start, two or three places. Very kind comment here. All of your works hold so many lessons on protection and nourishment, the root of being a father. I feel that way. Thank you. My closest friends are like, Yeah, you know what, you're gonna be a great dad. So that's part of the reason why. I'm at it that way.

55:13 Even though you know, word on the internet is that I've self helped optimized myself into being single and miserable. That's not true. So All those trolls can suck a dick. Makes me feel like I'm drinking tequila. Beware those ketones, guys.

55:28 More on my thoughts is from Cindy on Enneagram, dating and business peeps. I think Enneagram, look, it might be tech friendly astrology. But I've seen it used at Shopify. I've seen it used at Dropbox. I've seen it used by More than one person. to meet very good matches.

55:48 in intimate relationships. And I think there's something to it. I mean It is a tool. I would say that I try to be as tool agnostic as possible, but I found the Enneagram there are other options, of course, as one good option. For identify your own blind spots for say your partner. And this

56:08 Could be someone you you know, work with superior subordinate. Colleague. what your likely blind spots are, where you're likely to be oversensitive. and therefore how you might want to handle

56:20 things internally like meetings, decision making, conflict resolution. And That's pretty interesting. And it has been tested on a pretty large scale. within places like Shop find Dropbox.

56:33 Unlike many other things. So I find it interesting and the apt that I mentioned earlier. Tri app dot AI.

56:41 Code Tim Fifty. For fifty percent off. I don't get any affiliate kickback or anything. That's just to save you guys some money. They incorporate the NGRF. So Pretty interesting.

56:51 I was telling them, I was like, Hey, once you figure out this kind of business career mentoring side, you could very easily have a matchmaking capability. Built into it. All right. Quantum computing, I find fascinating, amazing, and terrifying in equal measure. I have not done much in the quantum computing world.

57:11 I have looked at Maybe how certain Cryptocurrencies are more prepared to be quantum resistant than others. I've looked at stuff like that. I mean not to mention

57:24 All of our other fancy passwords that we currently use and security. But I have not really gone super deep. I feel like that's an area Much like Fusion.

57:34 where you really want to be. As technical as possible. Wading into those waters. I did a podcast with Steve Jurbitson ages ago, who was one of the first investors in D Wave, but yeah. People are talking about AI, but man, when quantum actually hits And the joke has been with Fusion, for instance, that fusion is always thirty years away.

57:56 I don't think that's true anymore. I could be proven wrong, but I also think that's true with quantum where people are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that shit's never gonna work. Like Uh

58:06 We'll see. Look at Alphabet's investments into Quantum computing. Does raise some questions. Very interesting and also

58:14 Yeah. Pretty scary to imagine what post quantum looks like. It's a good question. How do you maintain so many friends despite your countercultural ideologies. My friends

58:26 And I I think have maybe Implicitly And this is maybe survivorship bias, but Agreed that like as long as you're civil

58:37 Like you can disagree on all sorts of stuff. And I surround myself with friends who are going to push back. And this includes my oldest friends. This isn't just like fancy friends that I've accumulated since the podcast or anything. This this also applies to my oldest friends from high school and college. So

58:53 I would also say that most of my friends Are Pretty adaptable in light of new information. I don't spend a lot of time around blowhards where like I'm an X, I'm a Y.

59:06 Right. I'm a liberal and that person's a neocon or I'm a conservative and that person's a lib tart or whatever like I don't hang out with those folks because while I recognize that level of simplicity is appealing in a very chaotic, messy world. It's not particularly

59:25 And accurate. reflection of reality. And the radiations in between extremes. And it's not certainly not very helpful. Unless

59:35 You are playing the political game and that's just An arrow on the quiver that you have to use, but otherwise. I just stay away from that stuff, right? Which doesn't mean we I certainly don't steer away from controversy, but I ask myself, right, is this And this applies to watching news or social media. And I'm I know I've said this before, but I haven't had any social media apps on my phone for probably three or four years.

59:58 And The way I feel about the news in the four hour work week. is probably ten x more intense now in terms of my selective ignorance around mainlining quote unquote news. Because if it's not relevant to your life

1:00:13 And If you are not going to make a decision differently or take action. because of it, or maybe avoid action because of it. If there isn't some kind of follow up. You don't need it. Is my general feeling.

1:00:28 And that's gonna become not just a maybe perceived luxury. I've been doing this for decades now, and I wouldn't consider myself Ineffective in the world. But

1:00:40 It's gonna become a survival imperative. If you wanna remain sane. You can't do them scroll twenty four seven. There's no way. You can't Doom scroll even a few hours a day.

1:00:49 So I've seen some crazy, crazy physiological data. from people on and off of social media. Like Blood tests and mental health assessments and so on. Ham D, Caps Five, you know, all this kind of stuff. It's not good, guys.

1:01:06 So Mm-hmm. Getting up on my soapbox now. But Yeah, and we were talking about that no asshole rule. Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they're an asshole. But if someone is really throwing sharp elbows for no reason, It's like

1:01:20 They're out. I very Freely. have an inflow and outflow of friends. There are certain friends who have remained

1:01:30 In the inner sanctum and I for them too, because they reserve the same right for years and decades and decades now. And people are allowed to have off days, but it's like if someone has sudden adopted being an asshole as part of their personality or identity in service of quote unquote keeping it real or something. I don't have time for that. Somebody asked about podcast interviewing a female screenwriter. Yeah, sure. Depends on the screenwriter.

1:01:55 It's actually reaching out to two. female screenwriters. Not too long ago. Don't think I heard back. So what are you gonna do? Yes. This is a comment by Tim.

1:02:05 This sounds super simple, my longest Latest relationships share a common sense of humor. Married for thirty-three years, and that's foundational. Same goes for oldest and longest lasting friendships. Yeah. Hundred percent. Humor is just reflective of so many other qualities. And there's a difference between humor and just Like a Kind of.

1:02:23 Cynicism, right? Quippy cynicism. I'm not so much into that. But like if If there's a fast banter and people also are good at making fun of themselves, not all the time, but in the right dose, it generally. Both well. What inspired my most recent blog post? Fugacity Labs. This is on the self-help trap, what I learned from 20 plus years of optimizing myself, optimizing on quotation marks. Might have been improving. We split test a bunch of different headlines. But

1:02:51 What prompted that is Just seeing how You know, at worst miserable, at best constantly anxious or self-doubting. So many people are in the Self help, self development. Right.

1:03:07 And I feel like We are all sitting on a slightly too warm. Stove top? of baseline anxiety due to

1:03:19 The technological tectonic plates that we're dealing with and certainly the kind of algo driven personalized feeds. That will just Poor. gasoline on your limbic system.

1:03:33 And coming back to what we can control. Right. It's like, okay, sure, I can suggest people delete social media apps off of their phones. Realistically, most people are not going to do that. And there are some upsides. If you have the ability to moderate with these tools.

1:03:49 you can't stay connected with friends, et cetera, et cetera. Although I've become more and more dubious of those defenses. If people were able to instead of just looking at screen time by app to see what actual usage is. The use cases. that they're spending time on with a given app. I think that would be very illuminating. In any case In lieu of that, what else can you do? What other levers can you pull?

1:04:13 And I think the in real life relational component. is the lever that makes all other levers

1:04:23 Easier. In a way. So that's what prompted writing that blog post. Very nice question. How can we help you, whether here in the Discord book forum. Ah just

1:04:33 Just try to be Go first with people to quote Gabby Reese. I interviewed Gabby with Laird Hamilton, one of the kings of Big wave surfing and

1:04:46 I think her billboard answer was go first. Just like smile and say hi first. Just do that. say helping the world to be just like one percent. Brighter.

1:04:56 In some tiny way. Yeah, like Leave a twenty as a tip, like once a month somewhere. I know that's not necessarily trivial money for folks, but it's like Give somebody an absurd tip. Right? Like if they're really good, really kind.

1:05:09 Or it doesn't need I can have a nice T tip of a ten, right? Something like that. Doesn't need to be money. You get the idea. Do I have any news to share about the No Book? Yeah. I'm gonna

1:05:20 Put on my diving goggles and get back into it. in the next uh probably month or two pretty soon. Have a couple of other things and uh I'll have I foresee at least one big announcement. related to other projects coming up in the next few months, but Going back in.

1:05:35 Wish me luck. Let me think about this is a question from John. Still love the seventeen questions. People can find those seventeen questions. I think they're in Tools of Titans, maybe Tribe Mentors, but also on uh Tim.blog. There's a PDF with the seventeen questions I most often ask myself. I've got one.

1:05:52 A question that I would probably add Is some version of what is the most generous interpretation of this. I Have been trained since a wee little lad. To be pretty

1:06:07 Anger forward, let's just say, if I were a wine, very anger forward. And The way that shows up There are To get fancy. Myriad ways this shows up. One

1:06:18 Is that Some days I can just feel like the entire world is conspiring to make me annoyed. And Obviously that's not true.

1:06:28 But If it seems like someone is ripping you off Which does happen. Most of the time. It's probably just a misunderstanding.

1:06:37 So what's the most generous interpretation? If you feel like your significant other Did something to annoy you. Or they always do X. They never do why. Like, okay, well

1:06:51 What's the most generous interpretation of this? And I'm borrowing this from other people, but I've I feel like that is a very Helpful. Question. And

1:07:03 You could pair that with a bunch of other ones. I think Krista Tippet. Great podcaster, by the way. But Krista Tibbet, one of the OGs. On being, I believe, is her podcast. And I believe it's Krista, I might be misattributing, but at least I'm not saying Oscar Wilde or Abe Lincoln.

1:07:19 That Uh she said. Anger is pain shown in public, something like that. Right. So

1:07:27 Can apply that to yourself too if you're a little Langer forward. And uh that doesn't mean naval gaze and you have to do twelve years of therapy to figure it out. But like what is the most generous interpretation of this, whatever this might be? I would add that to my questions. Okay. If you go to a city and you have two days, what are your go to activities? Bicycle tour.

1:07:47 Bike tour. For sure. One of the best ways to meet locals. Figure out what's fun that isn't just A glossy photo.

1:07:58 Post it on Instagram. Or an ex Super expensive. Three Michelin Star restaurant.

1:08:05 Bicycle tour. Hang out. You know, also hang out with you don't have to actually stay at a hostel, but like go talk to the manager of a hostel or somebody who works the front desk and has been there for a couple of years. They'll have lots of great recommendations. Okay, where does accumulating wealth fall on my scale of overall success? Zero.

1:08:24 It's like look. A lot of wealthy people make a lot of excuses as to why they need to keep making money. Like, well, you know, I could give money now, but if I compound at such and such. compound an annual growth rate and da da da and then uh you know I'll give it away when I'm dead, basically. Or Yada, yada, yada. I just don't buy it. Working dogs who've been tracing a rabbit around a track their whole lives in six gear get very good at chasing something at six gear. So they want to continue doing that. I'm not holding myself up as some

1:08:56 enlightened being I've just Had the benefit of seeing so many people. crash and burn or just end up with this existential malaise because when they actually pause for a second, if they do pause and sometimes life forces you to pause with a divorce or medical emergency. They have

1:09:16 This Maybe sense of Hollowness or certainly not a sense of fulfillment. So I've just seen that so many times. It's like accumulating wealth, who cares? It's just like How many people can

1:09:29 Give you the full name of Alexander the Great. Nobody's gonna remember you. Nobody's gonna remember me. Nobody's gonna remember us. It's okay. It's totally fine. It's actually very freeing. It's uh everybody should read. I think it's Percy Shelley, Ozzy Mandias.

1:09:45 Yeah. Percy. Shelly Ozymandius. Everybody should find this. O Z Y M A N D I A S So good. Everybody should read uh Ozzy Mandy S.

1:09:58 What do I prioritize instead of wealth? relationships and this sounds so trite. But It's like there are people who say that and then you go visit them and you're like, holy shit, like their kids hate them and like they never see their best friends. Or are there

1:10:13 quote unquote best friends. are constantly a different roster because As Arthur Brooks would put it, they're deal friends, not real friends. Right.

1:10:22 But I mean the past year review really helps. to make this point for me over and over again. And if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, just search my name and past year review. But thinking about it's like okay. Who are the ten most important people in your life?

1:10:35 Did you spend as much time as you would like to spend with them last year? If the answer's no, invest in those ten before you invest in anyone else. And Track the results. Then you look back.

1:10:46 Look at. the number of positive Experiences, right? Energetically, emotionally, whatever it is, over that quarter, that year. It's not something you have to do all the time. And you're like, Oh yeah. Doubling down on those 10 really made my year so much better. Blocking out time with those people in advance made it so much better. Okay, let's do more of that. That's about it.

1:11:06 Yeah, it might've been Tara Brock. Who talked about the uh Anger is fear on the outside. Who knows? Some smart person who's a lot chiller than I am said that. All right, guys. Let me see if there's anything left here. I think there is.

1:11:20 There's some questions that were submitted. Let me do this. David. Here we go. As a soon to be father, I'm thinking a lot about parenthood. If you started a family, what would be the top three values or lessons you'd hope to instill in your children?

1:11:33 Um I have thought about this a lot. And I've had I've been able to watch what has worked and what has not worked. I think Optimism. Resourcefulness.

1:11:43 And like lots of physical activity. Lots of physical activity. You gotta run that dog. Tired dog is a happy dog. So yeah, optimism. I think Mike Maples Jr. was the first person who really underscored this. He has a bunch of kids who have turned out well. Optimism's kind of number one. It's like the mother quality that enables all else.

1:12:02 Resourcefulness, I would say, I think Maya Angelo actually said courage is sort of the mother quality, because everything else at its breaking point depends on it. I had something which is like no failure only feedback. Just encouraging them to try stuff. Positive reinforcement. Try stuff, try stuff. I mean, this applies to dog training too, but some of my friends who have never had dogs get all pissed off and get their knickers in a twist when I compare. Kids dogs.

1:12:29 I know they're not the same. But you know what? Shaping behavior is pretty similar across mammals. Anyway, optimism. Courage slash Try a bunch of shit. It's fine. It's just feedback. And then uh resourcefulness. And I think if you have optimism and you're willing to try a bunch of stuff.

1:12:47 AKA use courage in certain ways. Then I think resourcefulness is a byproduct of that. So Those would be the things I would focus on and lots and lots and lots and lots. of physical activity together.

1:13:00 As a family, right? Okay. Let's see. Rachel. Thought I'd throw out an odd question this time. Have you have you ever been on a treasure hunt or geocache?

1:13:09 What's the weirdest, coolest, most unexpected thing you found out in the wilderness could be something natural or unnatural. Well Black bear stole. A leg. From my elk.

1:13:20 Last year. That was pretty annoying. And we found it. Should All sorts of mangled contortions. I was a bummer. I don't want to have sloppy seconds after a bear's gotten into your elk leg.

1:13:31 Just pro tip. I've been on treasure hunts and geocaches. I would say The thing that comes to mind which is Somewhat unrelated to your question is that if people are like, What's the most interesting way you've lost money? Because I do get my face ripped off then and again, part of the early stage investing game. I invested in treasure hunters, very famous treasure hunters.

1:13:52 Who were searching for sunken Spanish galleons full of gold bars and all sorts of stuff. And ultimately one of the people involved just absconded with all of the investor money and it turned into this like where in the world is Carmen San Diego fucking debacle. But You know, makes for a story. So Once again. Don't bet.

1:14:15 Money you cannot afford to lose, especially when it involves Spanish galleons. Oh good Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Let's see. All right. This is maybe the last one that I'll hit. This is coming back to encodings. Cindy. You and Jim Collins talked about encoding. This is a term that Jim uses, which is somewhat

1:14:35 Comparable to strengths. Like what are your innate strengths? So we spoke about that. I'd love if you'd go deeper on the topic, share more about how it resonated with you personally, and give additional practical advice on how people currently locked into work or career situations can progress with a plan towards living fully within their encoded selves. I find that asking your best friends Uh could be family members. Could also be employees. Three sixty.

1:14:59 reviews can be very brutal. You can listen to my conversation with Joe Gebia. co founder of Airbnb about how brutal that can be. Doesn't have to be br be uh brutal, though. I would say that a couple of questions come up that I've asked. Close friends?

1:15:14 Some of my best friends. People who know me really well. When have you seen me at my best? Or when do you see me at my best? But it's good to have practical examples or concrete examples from the past, not just like when you tend to do this, you tend to do that. It's like no, I'll give me an example. Like when if you see me at my best, when if you see me at my worst, like what stories or memories come to mind. Then

1:15:36 What is easier for me than for other people? Right. What do you see in me that I'm I find easier than most people. Jim didn't like that question, right?'Cause he wanted all to be internally individually referenced, but This is how I do it. I actually do find that aspect helpful because then you're not only finding

1:15:56 strengths, you're finding strengths to allow you to potentially compete. And I I just like having both, if I can. And then you could ask you know what this is very closely related to the last one, but What strength or ability do I discount in myself? There's certain things a friend of mine is making a point about something related to startups recently. And I was like, Yeah, I mean it doesn't strike me as particularly special because A, B, and C, and he's like, that's the problem. He's like, you can't see it because like you're the fish swimming in the water.

1:16:23 I was like, huh. Okay. And then I bounced it off a few other people and they're like, Yeah. That's like a fucking weird superpower of yours, and I don't understand it. And I was like, Oh. Never really realized. So what strengths or ability do I discount on myself, right? This is you using that question. or somebody else or not harness, right? It could be discounting, it could just be like what strength.

1:16:43 Or ability am I not using that I have? And One question that can infer a lot of the answers to these others also is if I weren't doing X, whatever your current gig is, like what could you see me doing? And

1:16:58 I feel like If you ask enough people who know you well enough and who aren't gonna bullshit you. who will also be willing to answer questions about your weaknesses. Right. In other words, example given when if you see me at my worst. If they can't answer that, they're not gonna give you

1:17:13 fully candidate advice. So I would say those are a few of the approaches that I've used. And I've Found them very helpful. Okay, last question. Geocaching. A lot of people here into geocaching.

1:17:26 Yeah, I mean sure it'd be fun. I've also dreamed about doing orienteering courses, which I think could be super, super fascinating. This is the last question. I think it's a good one to end on. Is courage external or internal? How do you teach it to kids? I think courage is learned. You have to practice it. And

1:17:44 If you're not afraid, it's not courage. Right. If someone's fearless, they're by definition not using courage. You have to be afraid of something. So you can edge yourself and you can edge kids into that. Right. It's not like hey, you've never uh been in the water before, let's take you up to do cliff diving. No, no. Yeah. I mean that's unhelpful fear with severe consequences. You can stare step into it. I don't think courage is a decision. I don't think courage is something you get from reading a book. I don't think courage

1:18:16 Is something that you can develop abstractly. I think you have to prove to yourself that you have it. And the only way Your subconscious will believe it as if you are actually doing things that are uncomfortable. That's it. Which means

1:18:33 It is learnable. And there may be some Set point. That contributes to it. Right, in one way or another. Right. If you're Alex Honnell, then your amygdala is like basically asleep. It's like okay, well

1:18:45 Right, that explains a few things. But It's also something that you can Very Sequentially sort of expose yourself to

1:18:55 Just like you would to build a tan or to get stronger in the gym. I think it's through action. Right. Like progressive Resistance. that you develop courage. I've seen my friends do this with their kids, and this is also why the physical activity is very, very helpful.

1:19:10 prove to kids or help them prove to themselves that they can do hard things. Like, okay, sure, you could wait until they can sit down with calculus and try to figure that out. Or you could be like, Yeah, that thing that you're Nervous about doing? Like Hitting a baseball. Climbing uh whatever, you know, five nine in a indoor climbing gym. Like, yeah, okay, let's get after it.

1:19:28 All right, I will stop there, guys. I Appreciate somebody asked when is Alex Hunnald coming on the podcast? I had him on about six months before he free solo to L Cap. If you want to listen to Alex Hunald before he got media polished, my podcast is a good way to start. Great guy, but It was before he got uh polished for prime time. And um that's about it. All right. Ladies and gentlemen.

1:19:51 Appreciate you taking the time. And thanks for all the great questions. And be safe out there. Be just a bit kinder than is necessary. To others, yes, but to yourself also. Go first. Smile. Say hi. Thanks, everybody.

1:20:05 Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. Kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps gadgets gizmas all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one.

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