#807: In Case You Missed It: March 2025 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/e2facd0dfd03bd00

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Optimal minimal.
At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then also your personal question.
No, we're just seeing it, but I can be out.
A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal and the scale.
Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers of all different types, to tease out the routines, habits, and so on that you can apply to your own life.
This is a special in between episode which serves as a recap
of the episodes from the last month. Features a short clip from each conversation in one place, so you can jump around, get a feel for both the episode and
the guest, and then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite.
It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together and for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description probably right below where we
Press play in your podcast app, or as usual, you can head to Tim.blog slash podcast and find all the details there.
Please enjoy.
First up
Craig Maud
A writer, photographer, and walker.
Living in Tokyo and Kamakuta, Japan.
And the author of
Things become other things.
And Kisa by Kisa.
You can find Craig on Instagram and X
At Craig Mod
This excerpt comes from Tim's first interview with Craig.
Two thousand nine hike to Nepal. Is that enough of a cue?
Can you tell this story?
Yeah, that's an inflection point.
I just got like goosebumps actually.
So I I really struggled with alcohol in my twenties.
My teenage years I didn't touch anything. I was militantly
straight edge ish. And basically with looking back now, I realize
I had such a strong impulse to make sure I could
Get to whatever the next place was.
Anything I saw that could hold me back, which included falling in love or doing drugs, or anything like that, that was like a
A retarding agent.
As a teenager, I was like
immediately I was like, Okay, I I don't need this. And I got to Japan
And it was like, Oh, this is a place to reinvent myself. And I started drinking'cause as you do,'cause people drink so much here. Sure.
And it turns out that I can drink
A lot. I can have fifteen, twenty drinks, not throw up.
I lack out.
Sure, but like there's something in my genes.
That allows me to just drink and then after two or three drinks something activates where it's just
All we live for is more drink.
And I think
You know, from most of my twenties because I had
Such a low sense of self worth.
Because of where I came from, because of I felt this abundance of people around me that I didn't feel I had.
And I didn't know how to ratchet that up. And I had this desire
To produce culture or to produce art.

Literature.
at a level that I didn't know how to and I didn't know how to bridge that gap. And what I ended up doing was
Because I didn't have mentors, because I didn't have archetypes near me, I just drank.
Like a fish.
And I played a lot of music'cause that was one thing I did have mastery over.
And I played a lot of music and I played a lot of that blacked out. And I you know, it was just I'm really lucky I didn't die. I mean, it would be one of these things where many, many mornings of my life I've woken up and it's just been checking
Is my face okay? Did I break my skull open or you know, something like that. And
I was madly in love. I fell madly, madly in love. I was twenty six, twenty seven years old, and I just
I had the most incredible
love connection I'd ever felt. This like otherworldly
sense of being in love with this person.
And we
Connected
So intensely and immediately went on a forty day
Trip.
Ever like a week after meeting. A forty day trip through Tibet
We went to Tibet. I was possessed by a spirit.
I like I spoke in tongues. Like there's we hiked up to a glacier.
I mean we can't really skip over getting possessed by spirits.
I mean
It was Yeah.
We stayed at this one.
Little hotel in Laza that
had not always been a hotel, you know, it was this old structure.
And
Woke up.
The next morning and
My girlfriend was being very
Strange. She was being very weird. And I was like, What's going on? She's like
I'll tell you when we get outside. I was like what? You'll tell me when we get outside, like what's this about?
We go outside and she goes.
Okay.
Last night.
We have to get out of there because last night
I woke up in the middle of the night.
You were
On your side of the bed cradling something.
That was not there.
You were speaking in Tibetan.
I couldn't get you to wake up.
And
I
Just trying speak to you in English, trying to speak to you in Japanese, you wouldn't respond.
And I finally crawled over on your side of the bed
And I kind of took
the air that you were holding.
And
I turned you
on your side and you were able to like calm down and go to sleep.
And
I was like
Oh my God, I had this'cause I had this
vision slash dream of this woman in white standing in the doorway and fr at the foot of the bed
the night before and
I don't know what was what was happening. And like even now I'm like full body goosebumps right now.
God, this is like straight out of paranormal activity or something. I'm just like, Oh God. It was so bizarre. And you have to imagine like
I don't know if you've ever been in love to this degree where it just feels like everything in the world is fated, like everything is a sign that you need to be together, that this is magic. Like
Only these things can possibly happen because you're connected, you're together. We both bought I remember
We like pulled out our books on the first day of the trip. We had both brought
The Stranger by Camus.
You know, it was like it was like Oh my God.
We're faded. I went back to the hotel and I went to the manager and I was like Hey, uh I don't think we could stay here tonight. He's like, Oh, what's wrong? And I was like, Well, you know, I was kinda possessed, saw this. He's like, Did you see the woman? And I was like
Yeah.
He's like he's like oh
Oh yeah, yeah. No, I d we know what's going on with that. Here, we'll take you to the dream reader.
And so
I was like, what you'll take me to the dream So I ended up
I'll try to try to
Truncate this because it can it can kind of get a little bit long. But I mean, I'm not sure anybody listening wants you to truncate this particular story. So I mean, go wherever you want.
One of the workers there is like you know, the manager's like, Okay, take him to the Dream Reader. So
And I'm thinking, okay, this is a scam, I'm getting scammed. Something that's like weird's going on and um
He takes us and we go to like the outskirts of Laza. We go to this like really
kind of weird apartment block that was just made of concrete. It was maybe like two or three stories tall.
And he takes us
So there's
room on the third floor, and there's a line of people, line of Tibetans.
Waiting at this door.
And they were all
Waiting to have their dreams read.
So it was like okay, this is bizarre. So we wait, we stand in line, we go inside, we sit down inside. The most beautiful
I don't know how old she was. She was anywhere between
Fifteen and a thousand years old.
Like she was just this this creature of
just the most bizarre light walks out. It was like being in the Matrix, you know the the scene in the Matrix where they're like with the spoon and the bending and you're in this random apartment and the TV's on. You know, it was like that situation.
She comes over, brings some
Yak, buttermilk tea, some cookies.
'Cause someone's in the dream reader room and we're waiting for them to get out.
And then our term comes up. I go in there, you go into this room, it's all candles, Dalai Lama photos, like all this stuff. It's like you feel like in this really holy space.
And the
Guy from the hotel interprets for us, and I tell her the dream, I tell her what happened, and she gives me this blessing, puts a white
Wreath around my neck. Gives me this
Little satchel of seeds and tells me to put them under my pillow.
When I sleep and then writes me a prayer.
And she says, Okay.
Here's these three pieces of paper. You have to take them to these three temples, and they will burn them for you tonight. They'll know what to do. Just tell them the dream reader sent you.
And you'll be okay. You'll be fine. Everything will be good.
And I was like
No one's asking me for money.
You know.
And the guy the hotel guy's like, Oh, you can like leave a tip if you want or whatever and like, you know, it was like
Two dollars or something. I like put two dollars in a little thingy.
And then we go to the temples and like it ended up becoming this
Incredible adventure. This connects with a lot of my walking as well. You know, it's like having experiences like this, I think informed
The sense of like just give yourself up to what the day
Could potentially
Give to you.
And so I ended up going to all these temples I would have never gone to. I went to the Dream Reader's Apartment, which was like the most bizarre, beautiful place I went to in in all of Tibet in that entire trip.
We went to these temples, you know, met these monks, say, Hey, can you burn this for me? Oh yes, of course, absolutely. You know, give'em like a a dollar.
You know, fifty cents or whatever.
Yeah, the whole thing cost nothing. It was clearly not a scam.
It was clearly this thing that
a lot of locals were participating in and
It was magic. It was just pure magic. So anyway, things like that were happening with this woman.
And
I screwed it up because of my drinking. I ruined the relationship. She punched me in the face at one point, very rightfully so, you know, and
She was like, Hey, I can't be with someone like you. This happened on that trip.
Not on that trip. That happened a couple months later.
We end up staying together for about three months.
And basically, I mean it was just it was about ten years worth of
Lifetime. Twice.
Ha ha ha.
But losing her was
Probably the biggest
Psychic
damage I had ever encountered in my life for the you know as an adult.
And
I remember just lying in my tiny apartment in Tokyo, my six mat Tatami Room apartment in Tokyo, it was three in the morning.
I wanted to die.
It was rock, rock, rock, bottom.
This isn't like a rich role story. I didn't like get up and run 40 miles or anything like that. But I was like, I'm gonna start running. And I went out and I ran like five K.
At three in the morning, through the streets of Toko.
And
I was like, that felt good.
And I was like, okay, I need to stop drinking. And to stop drinking, I'm gonna run this marathon in November. I think it was like July when this happened.
And I just started preparing for that.
These were actually the first steps
For me

This lack of self worth that I've been carrying around for all of my adult life.
And that had, I think, driven me to drink the way I drank.
That to give into whatever those genetic impulses were.
And to start to go, okay.
We're gonna run, we're gonna be someone who runs. A lot of this is also like very atomic habits style stuff. It's like who are you gonna be and how are you gonna set yourself up to be successful?
I'm gonna be a person who runs, I'm gonna be a person who doesn't drink, I'm gonna be a person who
Charges a lot.
So
I was
At this time, you know, with the publishing company thing, we were producing these books that were winning awards and
making absolutely no money. And so I was consulting
doing like web design consulting and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna start charging
Absurd amounts of money for my time.
The worst that can happen is people reject. And they started
Accepting it.
And I was like, Oh, little by little.
All these stupid little steps.
From the time I was basically twenty seven
to thirty. These were the most important
Years of tiny little steps of my time is more valuable.
I'm gonna be a person who runs, I'm gonna be a person who can take care of himself.
I still drink.
Even though I tried to not drink, but I I started lowering it. It took me about four
full years to completely get off the sauce in a really dangerous way.
And it kinda
Part of it culminated in going to Nepal.
and climbing up to Annapurta Base Camp.
And that was after we had broken up and I felt like all the magic of my life was done. I felt like there was no way for me to experience magic again. I felt like she
And again, it's this totally irrational sense of scarcity.
The amount of scarcity I felt
As an adult in my twenties,
Is just shocking. It was this fathomless sense of scarcity. Like
The money is not going to be there. The love isn't going to be there. The support isn't going to be there.
And then when I lost her, I was like, I'm never gonna have anyone
Will ever love me like this person loved me and like I'm never gonna be able to create like I created with this person.
And I had to start proving myself that that wasn't true.
And I climbed up, I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna go to Nepal and I'm gonna climb up Annapurna.
Go to Basecamp.
And now
Ev Williams
The co founder of the new social network
Mosey
And the co-founder of Blogger
Medium.
and Twitter.
You can learn more about Mosey.
at Mosey.app.
Metaphorically speaking, the billboard question, right? So if you're gonna put a message
On a billboard could say anything. Could be an image.
Anything at all that you would want a lot of people to see.
And understand.
What might you put on that?
I love this question. I might overthink it.
No.

Um
And understand. So so we can assume though. And thinking about the what comes to mind first of all is
The category is
Something that will help people
heal in a
Just be
their whole and true selves because I think that's where all our problems come from is the lack of that.
Um
As much as I care about climate, I think the
The key to solving climate is to heal ourselves, to heal culture.
To heal the planet.
And so I start with the the self.
And then my mind goes to what's a big
fundamental truth that we want everyone let's pretend if they read it they'll actually get it and and know it.
Then I think there's a little bit of tension between like the most fundamental truths and how
actionable they are. So if we said
We are all one.
I believe.
Like
Okay, we're all one. The universe is one big thing, we're all connected.
What do I do with that? And maybe if you really ponder that and meditate on that a long time, it'll actually it will do you some good. But then if you move toward the spectrum of
Usefulness.
And what's a fundamental truth that's more useful?
You might some you know have like some Buddhist or saying like all of our suffering comes from, you know, our thoughts or inability to accept reality, which
A little bit more useful.
But maybe for the masses not still not very actionable. And then you could move to like
Feel feelings which I think would do tremendous
Amount of good.
If people adopt oh feel your feelings. A little bit easier to imagine that.
Like so much of our suffering. I say this as someone who
Told their first therapist, I don't understand the point of feelings. I was
It's like they they are just a nuisance and get in the way. So it took me a long time to appreciate that.
And the avoidance that so many of us go through.
And then
Um
One step further might be
Stop drinking alcohol for six months and see how you feel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not tonight though, it's fine. We're in a flight. Not tonight. Starting tomorrow. Starting tomorrow.
So following up just on the feeling your feelings. So for a long time and you said this to your first therapist, right? Just a nuisance. I'd like to know how to rid myself of
These irritations.
What changed?
How did you end up?
Going onto team feelings.
So I mean it was a long, long process. I mean the the therapy helped
The psychedelics helped, um, meditation, growth, learning, reading books.
Having friends.
Stopping drinking.
Actually. Just for six months.
And I've gone through a lot I've done a lot of work particularly in the last couple of years. That's been just super, super important.
Yeah, just a note on alcohol. Look, I'm gonna have some drinks tonight. I do enjoy drinking, but
Yeah.
But just a PSA for people because
Ketamine is in the air. Ketamine's probably in a few people's pockets here.
They're both dissociative anesthetics, so if you want to feel your feelings, it's a good idea.
Not to engage with those things.
Excessively. And if you have a history of alcohol
Overuse, I would also stay away from any at home ketamine.
But
In terms of books or types of therapy, did you find if there are people in the audience who are like, Yeah, you know what, actually that makes sense to me, but I've never been able to
Find a a handhold to get started. Is there
Any advice you might give?
Probably the
Best thing I've ever done in that realm is
Hoffman.
Hoffman, I haven't done Hoffman, but quite a few of my friends have.
So there's a thing called the Hoffman process.
It's
Twenty years of therapy in a week.
In terms of the effect. I mean, I've got much more out of it than I ever got in therapy. It's a week long retreat.
There's a few different places. The main ones in Petaluma, California.
You hand over your phone.
You go
And do some exercises with
Thirty six strangers.
And yourself for a week and you come out a new person.
Second.
I've
spoken well not directly, I've more listened, but had a conversation on this podcast where the Hoffman process came up.
And a lot of listeners have gone to the office process and I get letters literally every week.
From people.
Que
Thank you.
Me.
For not really
Yeah.
proper credit because there's someone else who brought it up.
For the Hoffman process.
I'm very curious. You mentioned the strangers.
Part of the reason I haven't gone is I'm like, I don't want to air all of my dirty laundry in front of
Twenty strangers. I don't know these people. And I know you're also
I think it's fair to say pretty introverted. I would say I am, even though I'm on stage, like safely doing speaking into the darkness.
Was that an issue at all for you? Or how did you
It wasn't it wasn't easy, but it's just in the context of it.
It just feels very safe.
One of the fascinating things is it's strangers, you're you are not allowed to say your last name or what you do in the real world.
When you get there.
And I realized
After a few days
I relied so much on people knowing who I was or what I did that it w was this
Veil between me and uh other humans.
So you get to know people such a deep level.
Without really knowing any of the normal things that we would say you meet someone here, Oh, what do you do? Where you know, where do you live?
And
That just feels incredibly safe. But the process is
They've been doing it for fifty some years. It's very evolved. It's very well done.
You take any of it out of context, that sounds weird. Like I knew nothing going in.
And about five people brought it up to me in random conversations over a week and like okay, this is a message.
And go sign up for this thing.
Show up and no idea. And then you just dive in and and it's
Incredible.
Yeah, from what I can tell, it's it's somewhat like fight club. It's like first rule of fight club is don't talk about fight club. You're not gonna find much detail on the Hoffman process.
This also ties into a question I was planning on asking anyway, which is
Are there any habits?
Or beliefs.
That have really positively impacted your life.
In the last handful of years.
Could also be ten years ago, but it's not a little bit more.
Uh, you've talked about doing a lot of work in the last
Handful of years.
Any new habits.
Beliefs.
Tools, anything come to mind that have been really helpful?
Yes, uh but I feel like they're the ones that everybody knows.
So I mean sometimes the fundamentals are worth a review.
Exercise Exercise and Meditation. I dabbled in for
A long time.
And then I got much more serious a couple years ago about
Both.
And really, really dramatic life improvement. Why did you get more serious about them?
You just wake up one day and you're like today's a new day? Or was there a
Breaking point.
What the fuck am I doing? I'm gonna turn fifty and I need to work a hell of a lot harder to to be in shape than I was.
So I just started doing it, I was at home at the time. So I did that.
Although that g that's increased and you know,'cause you get the positive reward cycle and it feels great.
And
Meditation I've always found super valuable and I just last year
On January second
Twenty twenty four.
I had meditated the day before and was like
I could meditate every single day this year.
And it was just that that sort of psychological hook that you find motivating, even though it's arbitrary.
And was like, yes, I'm gonna meditate every single day in 2024. That's a goal. And I don't normally set goals like that, but I
I was like
Okay, let's see what happens. And
My teacher says it you can't boil water if you keep turning off the flame.
And so the consistency of meditation.
I underestimated what a dramatic difference that makes and how fast you can drop in if you d do it every single day.
What type of meditation?
Did you decide on the mindfulness.
Meditation, breath.
Awareness not GM just
Just like an open monitoring, feel what you feel, see what you see. Yeah.
Are you noting things or are you just observing noting?
Sometimes not in?
And I know you you like know about products. You know about this product, but the I was using the way. Yep. You've probably talked about that before. The way is a meditation app. I hadn't used a meditation app for years.
The way I started using the way it Kevin sent it to me actually.
When it was still in data.
And I started doing that around that time. Yeah. The way is fantastic.
Yeah, Henry Shuckman.
Just an incredible guy.

Hope to meet him in person someday.
Last but not least.
Richard Taylor.
The co-founder and creative lead at Academy Award winning design studio and manufacturing facility.
What a workshop.
And Greg Broadmore.
An artist and writer who has been part of the Weta Workshop team for more than twenty years.
And is the creator of the retro sci fi world of Dr. Grode Borts.
And the graphic novel series.
One path.
But first I do want to talk about because this certainly is so iconic and it's in the minds of probably most people listening, which is
Lord of the Rings. And I'd like to understand
What some of the most
First of all
Kind of how that came to be.
Richard and then
What some of the most crucial decisions were
With respect.
to taking on a project of that scope because
For a lot of companies, I could see that being the hug of death.
where you suddenly go from reasonably moderately contained and small
to sprawling.
Taking on so much responsibility.
And many companies would implode. I've seen it happen many, many times. So how did that come to be and what were some of the most important decisions?
made that allowed uh
you to grow the company and take that on.
Yeah.
That's uh really
Like
I'll try and answer it in a very condensed way.
We have time.
Uh huh.
I just pulled this out, right?
This is a sting from the movie. This is one of my favorite things that we've made in the company, and I keep it next to me and I pick it up and it
gives you strength and it gives you a sense of wonder and it connects you back to uh
Very happy time.
And it glows if there are
Challenging clients in the car.

For people who can't see that, that is a sword.
Yeah. Sorry, those that can't see it, here I'm showing all these visual aids because that's how I think visual aids. I'll dri I'll drive people to the video, but just I just held up. I just held up the one
Point four eight times larger than life size.
Sting that's carried by Elijah Wood.
At his scale.
I likened it to
teetering towards the edge of a precipice. There's probably a much better
visual metaphor than that, but
And
You do the sp
you know, frequently in one's life, the decision to start a family, the decision to buy your f first home, or the home that you'll spend the rest of your life in, like the home that my wife and I bought
way back on meet the feebles, right?
The decision to X, Y, and Z.
But
Peter Jackson offers this opportunity.
And
When he offered a
My wife and I, Tanya and I discussed with Peter.
And we ultimately settled on doing the design for and the manufacturing of
The armor, weapons, creatures, miniatures, special makeup effects, and prosthetics, like a five divisions, a very, very large body of work.
And you teeter to the edge of the precipice, and as a human, uh, just as the human animal that we are, you've got
A decision. You either
step back from the edge and let others take up the slack and do it for you and you follow.
Or you choose to leap.
And you either will then slam into the bottom of the cliff and make a mess with your guts and your brains everywhere.
Or you will actually arrest your four.
through a number of different mechanisms, self belief being the most important one.
I have four very simple tenants that I operate by and four tenants that I try and operate our company by.
And the first one is love of oneself.
That doesn't mean that you're egotistical or believe that you're better than you are.
But if you can't see in yourself your virtues, how the hell are you going to expect anyone else following you?
to see your virtues, right? So love of oneself is the first of those four tenants.
And
There is mixed with that.
As corny as it sounds.
Ignorance being your greatest ally.
I think all of us
operate.
To some degree
Where we are blinded by the
Love of what we do, like Bertram Russell, if I've got the right person, has a lovely quote Work is more fun than
Them fun.
And people that don't understand that.
Struggle.
Even if you're in a low level
position that you're not really enjoying.
You can still make the people that you work with really fun, right? I used to clean toilets on international airplanes.
But man, the people I worked with.
I put a a cricket ball through the window of the international terminal because we were playing cricket out on the tarmac under the planes. You can turn anything into fun. So I had once again a very corny and I I couldn't think of something better at the time.
But
We needed a hundred and fifty eight
crew working for seven and a half years on forty eight thousand separate things to deliver those five divisions to the trilogy of movies. Our work's in ninety
eight to ninety nine percent of it of the films,'cause there work's in almost every image shot other than
mountains with no one in it or et cetera.
And you've got
A inexperienced crew, you're you're highly inexperienced yourself, right? We'd done Hercules and Xena at the time and we'd had a career of about eight to ten years.
Doing Peter's films.
Peter, of course, is a
inspiration in his own right and highly knowledgeable. So he's helping as well.
I used to say no matter how fine and how pale
The thread that I give you, if you don't weave it with care into the tapestry, the tapestry will be in some way thread bare.
What I'm talking about that's that's sort of more of a silly poetic way to say
You're only as good as your weakest link.
And in our case, we literally were linking, right? Handmade chain mail, twelve and a half million links over three and a half years.
And chain mail is only as good as how well you glue the top link on your shoulder.
Um whether the the chainmail's gonna fall off you. So
Trying to get
As
collectively, myself and my wife and our team to believe that we could do it.
Didn't require
'Cause there is a
I'm sure it exists in other countries, but it is a fundamental part of New Zealand. I think it's'cause we're a young nation. We're at the back quarters of the world a long way from
marketplaces where you can buy
components to fix your tractor.
So there is this intense can do attitude.
That still exists today, thankfully. We hire people that come with that.
beautiful can do attitude.
And we were able to benefit and bottle that so significantly on those three films.
And the overjoyed nature of knowing that you're trying to prove something.
prove that New Zealand could do it, that we could stamp our mark on the world stage.
That was really important to us to do justice to Tolkien's writing was really important to us.
to meet Peter Jackson's vision was really important.
And
to make sure that we had really good fun. That didn't mean that it wasn't
brutally challenging it was, but at no point in the seven and
A half years did I ever
Think that I didn't want to be doing it.
That was really
Uh
Fish.
Part of that experience.
Work is more fun than fun.
What are the other tenants you mentioned four?
Love of oneself.
Love of what you do?
Love of who you do it with and love of who you do it for.
That is as a father of a family, well, as a husband or partner to a loved one.
A father or mother to a family, a president of a country, a CEO of a business.
If you can't find those four tenants, obviously the first one, love of yourself, love of what you do, you've got to love being a parent. You've got to love being
A lover, a a husband, a wife, a
Partner.
You have to
Love the people that you do it for.
It is so easy to become cynical about your audience or your fans or your family.
o
The person working
Above you, right?
But that's who you're trying to capture it up in your passion for what you do. And you know, the other one's
Very obvious. So that's how I think of things very simply. And that's after

plus years of working that started to congeal that that's
thinking about all these things that you might think about
That's the things that drive you forward. I think I've settled on those
forceable and try not to be a dickhead.
Is the it may be the fifth. Right. You read y there are um thousands of self help books. I've actually only read one of them.
I can't remember the title even.
But someone said to me once, you only need one page.
A one page book.
on self help
And it's simply
And there's only one line and it just says, Just don't be a dickhead.
Right. And if you put that against almost anything in life, it's actually correct. If
We understand collectively what being a dickhead means.

And no doubt.
I fall foul of that invariably M sometimes. You know, we all are. We can't it's very hard to not be, but you try really hard not to be a Greg. Yeah. Yeah. Trying. Always. Trying.
And have I answered your question well enough? I've sort of been a bit fringed around the outsides of a No you did. I'll have probably just one or two follow ups related to that, but before I get to that, you mentioned the can do attitude of a fairly remote country, right? And the resourcefulness that that

And I'm wondering if there are any other advantages.
That you can think of.
of doing this, whether it's the workshop or Lord of the Rings or the combination of the two.
In New Zealand.
Are there advantages that you can think of?
Tim, when I'm talking I'm talking about we had a workshop we were a small
component of the overarching
endeavour of making Lord of the Rings, right? We're very proud of the piece we played and we did a lot on it, but
The art department, the costuming department, the props department, the camera department, the grips department, the directing department, et cetera, et cetera. The miniatures
Yeah, there was phenomenal number of people.
Mm.
Focused on the same mission and
I've actually said in the past, Lord of the Rings wasn't made by a director, it wasn't made by a film studio, and wasn't made by a film crew. It was made by a nation of people
Coming together in that moment.
To try and make Lord of the Rings in New Zealand for the world. That speaks to
the phenomenal number of people that Peter and his producer drew into the collaboration of making Lord of the Rings.
I mean the government, the military, I mean the whole country was bonding. Our tourism department, I think everyone felt
You would have to have been pretty cynical at the time to have not felt a certain level of pride in what Peter was trying to do in our country.
And get behind it. And a lot of people benefited because of it.
The
driving desire to
that term punch above your weight. I don't specifically like that term, but that's a well used one that speaks to it. New Zealanders do have a
burning desire to try and
achieve great things regardless of where we uh where we may come from and the scale of our country.
That should not restrict you at all. And you only need to look at our sports teams.
To see that.
Whether it's our
National ballet, orchestra, contemporary dance, poets, writers.
Painters artists in general.
Never mind the film industry or the creative industries.
We have technology companies in New Zealand that are competing with the best in the world.
Rocket Lab comes to mind.
That
are doing astounding things on a fraction of the budget. You know, the robots that we're building in our workshop right now.
Probably at a
Five hundredth to a
thousandth of the investment cost of some of the robots that we're seeing online, but we're pulling it off. We're getting there slowly but getting there with
five people and, you know, the money that we can save from projects we're doing.
It's that attitude.
I think
That plays a big part of it.
Peter Jackson mustn't be missed in this equation too.
His self belief and his
Just shear
Drive
I've never ever seen
Hey Dow
Quiver.
in uncertainty to fluctuate in a sense of uncertainty that he isn't sure of what he's doing.
That is an amazing thing to work around.
Because if your leader's confident

You know.
And there's a lovely quote the
Emperor will not remember you for your medals or your diplomas. He will only remember you for your scars.
And I think there is
uh mentality of that very much in our country, you just gotta knuckle down and do it, right? Grit is a important component
And the

Not the accolades at the end. It's the task of getting there that
is seen as equal in accomplishment as winning ball balls.


And now here are the bios for all the guests.
My guest today is a dear friend. I've wanted to have him on the podcast for a very long time, Craig Maud.
Craig mod M O D
He is a writer, photographer, and walker.
We'll talk about that a lot. Living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan, he is the author of Things Become Other Things and Kissa by Kissa.
K I S A. Don't worry about it. We'll get to it. He also writes the newsletters Roden and Ridgeline and has contributed to the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, and more. He has walked thousands of miles across Japan in every conceivable place, and since 2016 he has been co running
Walk and talks with Kevin Kelly.

interesting man in the world. In various places around the world, the Cotswolds
Northern Thailand.
Bali.
Southern China, Japan.
Spain, which includes the Portuguese and French Caminos, and much more. Today's episode
is wide ranging.
And I had so much fun with this. We ended up discussing Craig's early life, his path to Japan, his struggles with self worth and alcoholism, and how he overcame both of them, creative development.
His writing experiments, his initial experiences with walking and writing, and so much more.
I really think you will get a lot out of this conversation as I did. I took copious notes.
And I also decided to keep some of the behind the scenes banter before the interview in the recording that you're gonna hear, which I thought might be fun.
Four.
Shits and giggles, just for the fun of it. Why not? You can find Craig Mod at Craigmod.com. That's the HQ for everything, Craig Mod, C R A I G M O D dot com. You can find him on Instagram at Craig Mod and on Blue Sky as well, Craig Mod.com.

Today, my guest is Ev Williams, and what a story he has. Ev is the co-founder and chairman of Mozie, a new social network that helps you connect in person with the people you care about most. Over the past 25 years, Ev has co-founded several companies that have helped shape the modern internet, including Blogger,
Medium and Twitter. Ev is also the co-founder of Obvious Ventures, an investment firm that focuses on world positive companies.
addressing major systemic problems. Ev grew up on a farm in Clarks, Nebraska, has two sons, and lives mostly in the Bay Area. This particular episode, this conversation was recorded live in Austin, Texas.
Uh.
The Dignation.
Relaunch. That's Dignation.show.
For the show itself.
And that is where Dig.com was relaunched. It was recently acquired by its original founder, my good friend Kevin Rose, and Reddit co-founder, Alexis O'Hanian.
formerly arch nemeses, but they have
joined forces and invited me along for all the fun and surprises as they celebrated
The relaunch. Go to dig.com and sign up to get early access when the invites go out. One more time. Dig.com. That's D I G G.
dot com. You can find Mosey.
That is Ev's.
Newest creation at Mosey.app that's available on iOS right now. You can find obviousventures at obvious.com, and you can find him on Twitter.
That is also known as X.
At Ev, at E V.

Today I am interviewing two people I would consider the cathletes of creativity. The first is Richard Taylor. He is co-founder and creative lead at Weta Workshop, which he runs with his wife and co-founder Tanya Roger. Weta Workshop is a concept design studio.
and manufacturing facility that services the world's creative and entertainment industries. And what you'll see is just how much they do, believe it or not, it's started by them assembling things and making things on top of their bed. We'll get to that.
They've been recognized with five Academy Awards, four BAFTA awards, three TA Awards, and more than thirty other national and international accolades.
Their practical and special effects have helped define the visual identities of some of the most recognizable franchises in film and television. You will know some of them, including The Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, Superman, Mad Max, Thor, Megan, and Love, Death and Robots. If you haven't seen Love, Death and Robots, check it out. There are some.
Amazing, amazing shorts. In addition to that, they do a few other things. Get ready for this. What a workshop offers tourism and retail experiences, consumer products, an interactive studio, public sculptures, and private commissions. They've also done augmented reality and
Video games and all sorts of things. Richard now focuses much of his time on their immersive experiences.
Which I've had the chance to experience firsthand. I recommend them very highly, such as the Thea Award-winning Gallipoli, The Scale of Our War.
Water Workshop Unleashed and the giant atrium installation, Aura Forest at Edge of the Sky. Next we have Greg Broadmore.
Greg is an artist and writer who has been part of the team at Witter Workshop for more than 20 years. His design and special effects credits include District Nine.
King Kong, Godzilla, The Adventures of Tintin and Avatar, and he is the creator of the satirical retro sci-fi world.
of Doctor Groardbort's
Featuring a myriad of collectibles, a world touring art exhibition, four books, and a game for Weda's pioneering spatiform. Most recently, Greg built Weta's video game division and directed multiple Doc G video games for Magic Leap.
He's currently working on the graphic novel series One Path, set in a brutal prehistoric world where dinosaurs and cave women are locked in a grim battle for supremacy. So these two guys
have their hands in a lot. They
Apply creativity to more things than I can count.
And they do it with incredible endurance. So how do they do it? That's what we're going to explore. And as you listen to this or as you watch it, you're going to hear a lot of moving around.
as they pull things from their offices, from their workshops, from around where they're sitting.
So we'll
Sound.
quite
hyperactive and I suppose that is
Totally appropriate.
Given

Nature of what we're discussing. So I'll leave it at that.
You can find Weta Workshop at
weta nz.com slash U S. That's WedaNZ.
Of course, and on Instagram at WetaWorkshop. You can find Greg at Greg Broadmore. That's B-R-O-A-D-M-O-R-E. Gregbroadmore.com and on Instagram at Greg underscore Broadmore.
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?

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. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, 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 it 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.
Thanks for listening.