#688: In Case You Missed It: July 2023 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

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1:42 Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then I'll do a personal question. No seem like. My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscal. 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.

2:18 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 wet 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.

2:53 Please enjoy. First up? Richard Kosh Entrepreneur investor

3:02 And author of the books. The AD20 principle And Unreasonable success. and how to achieve it.

3:11 Now writing a book called 80 twenty Beliefs. And in order to do that I've interviewed fifty people that I know very well and h uh who I trust to tell me the truth and they trust to Tell me some of the Uh, intimate things about their life, uh particularly what went wrong.

3:29 And My awesome Two questions. Very simple questions. One is

3:36 Is there any belief? That has really made a big difference in your life. That at any stage you have changed. So you used to believe X and now you believe Y. And

3:49 Ninety percent of the people. Nine out of ten, as people know it's a very small sample, but it's a extraordinary coincidence if they're all saying this, and it's not quite True generally. Say that they have at some stage changed an important belief. And the belief Yeah.

4:04 I'm not talking about something which is an academic belief, you know, where you might believe that one politician is better than another or you might believe in green values or we might not. I'm talking about belief that has made a big difference in your own life. And why has it made a big difference in your own life? Well it's because you've acted in a certain way. And that's generated certain results. So

4:28 I asked people. What belief have you changed, and very often That in fact almost invariably Triggers.

4:37 I actually believed something which was not in my own interests, and I call that a toxic belief. For example, a friend of mine who's about sixty years old. She looks a lot younger. We'll call her Sally show it. Sally had quite a nice life.

4:54 She moved from England which is you know is cold and rainy and horrible. Uh to South Africa, which as you know is sunny and very nice. To Cape Town actually, which is the nicest place in South Africa unless you happen Und uh Track wild animals. It's good for almost everything else. It's got wonderful beaches, got mountains, got very nice food. And it's quite cheap as well. So, you know, it's a good idea to go to Cape Town if you

5:20 So but that's another matter. Anyway, she had a very Nice life. Until the last five years. And in the last five years. Catastrophe struck her husband.

5:34 was diagnosed in the very early stages of having Alzheimer's disease. And he decided wife Sally a chance, he would commit suicide. Obviously you know, an awful thing and trauma.

5:49 You know, for for her as well. And then Shortly after that happened, Covid happened and Covid you know, there are many hard luck stories about Covid, but but the one which uh Sally tells is uh She had two dogs and the dogs were very important to

6:06 Yeah, and particularly important after her husband was gone. And She in in the covet regime in South Africa, she wasn't allowed to take the dogs out At any stage. Uh for twenty four hours of the day.

6:22 Without Risking. imprisonment and having the dogs shot. In other words, you couldn't take them out Do their business or anything like that.

6:32 You couldn't take them out for any exercise and if the police stopped you they would quite likely shoot the dogs. And put you in prison. Yeah. So she decided that this was not a very nice society to live in any longer. She loved living in South Africa, but then she decided to to do something about it. The point is For the first fifty five of them.

6:53 years of her life. She'd followed the lead of her husband. and other people. She'd gone with the flow. The way that she explained it to me was uh saying I believe Kesarasara, whatever will be, it will be. The future's not ours to see. Kesarasera. So in other words she trusted to fate and fate was very good to her. When her husband had gone and when the Covid regime in South Africa was so unpleasant she decided that she could no longer go with the flow and she took A very brave decision that she would uh

7:25 Sticks. Sell a house in Cape Town and come and live as it happens in Portugal. And that has been Enormously Successful.

7:37 Absolutely to come back to my earlier theme, it's transformed her happiness. By pure chance. She's meant. Oh god, that she's Getting married to now.

7:48 They're very happy together. And she's very I mean, you can see that her eyes line up. She's really, really happy. Three or four years ago she was in the depths of depression and sort of w you know, she was wondering whether she should follow her husband in terms of committing suicide. So It is possible.

8:05 If you take charge. To actually do something. And that's why I hate this concept of the baseline happiness level. Because Mark said philosophers have tried to describe the world, the point is to change it.

8:19 And similarly your happiness levels. You know, you It's no use them telling you about the uh baseline happiness level. And saying well They don't say it, but they almost imply that it's inevitable and you can't transcend that. So if you're an eight, you're stuck between six and ten, depending on The weather and circumstances and

8:38 Whether good things have happened to you that day or whatever. But You know, you can't go down to a three, or if you're a three, you can't go up to a ten. But there are many cases that I know. Where people have actually transformed themselves. You know, I know someone who was incredibly miserable for a very long time. And why was he miserable?

8:58 This person was miserable because He grew up in a very well off Upper middle class family. He said he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. And he expected that life would carry on in being easy.

9:12 And of course when he left home and had to earn a living He discovered that actually things were Very difficult. Now, things were not quite as difficult as he imagined they were. I mean, for example, he started a very, very successful business. And he ran that business for six years and made a lot of money from selling it.

9:29 So when I was talking to this chap who I'll call Alexander Alexander, I said, You must have got A degree of self confidence and good feeling from your experience in starting and running and selling this business.

9:45 You must be joking. Those six years were years of high anxiety. I was constantly Firefighting. It seemed so difficult to me.

9:56 It seems so difficult. And I said to him, Well Yeah, it didn't seem difficult. observing it. And then you said well actually It was because I expected things to be easy.

10:05 And you remember. M. Scott Peck wrote. A book which starts Life is difficult. things about life, if you understand this, you can transcend it because you anticipate that things are going to be difficult and you can take pride in sort of you know overcoming difficulties. But if you expect there are going to be no difficulties, obviously you're going to be disillusioned. And so paradoxically there's

10:31 miserable sounding philosophy which says life is difficult is actually a wonderful philosophy because it means that you can take pride in getting over difficulties. But when you're confronted with difficulties, what you do is like Alexander and say, it's too difficult. It shouldn't be this difficult. Then obviously you're going to be miserable despite objectively Having a great success. Yeah, it makes me think of and I I wish I had the attribution, but happiness equals reality minus expectations in a sense. And this is also very reminiscent of Marcus Aurelius and Meditations, of course, but how did Alexander if he did Make the switch. Did he make the switch? He did make the switch, but it took him about twenty years.

11:15 He said from the time that he'cause he started business when he was in his early thirties. And from being age forty onwards Then he Got into a pretty dark place at one stage. He's and then he started going to twelve steps meetings. Where people Sit around and say

11:32 Yeah, I've had these difficulties. I've reconstructed my life. And I'm on the path to recovery. He also took some therapy and he also reflected. On why.

11:45 He was miserable. And he did realise it was miserable'cause he expected life to be easy and it wasn't. Very often. Having the insight into what a toxic belief is is the first step to actually being able to overcome it.

12:00 Very often we don't realise What Toxic beliefs we have. And therefore We

12:07 Suffer from them. Next up Jack Cornfield One of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West is

12:20 A co founder of the Insight Meditation Society. And author of more than twenty books. On meditation. and mindfulness.

12:32 The image that I like to start with. is an archetypal one of the Buddha seated under the Tree of enlightenment. The night of his enlightenment before He

12:44 Was enlightened. The Indian God named Mara. Who is the god of Greed, fear, hatred, aggression.

12:54 All of the Forces of suffering. Appeared. And said, What are you trying to do to the Buddha? And this is the way it appeared. He said, You have no idea what you're dealing with and

13:05 He said let me show you. This enlightenment stuff. And so he paraded before him all the most beautiful dancing daquinis and Gilded chariots, the Lamborghinis of the time.

13:16 And the Buddha said, You know, been there, done that, thank you. Okay. And then he Said well you you know You have no right to be there and he started throwing flaming arrows and swords and the Buddha lifted his hand and Touch them all with compassion and they turn to flower petals.

13:32 Well. Then Mara said. You don't even know who you are. You don't know what you're doing. And there's no reason for you to be sitting here Then Mar came basically in the form of doubt.

13:44 And that at that point the Buddha put his hand down and touched the earth. And said. Will you bear witness To my right as a human being here halfway between heaven and earth. to awaken to the way things are. You say that one more time. Heaven and earth or heaven and hell. Between heaven and earth. We didn't get to hell yet. Between halfway between heaven and earth in this human form.

14:07 Be my witness. That we human beings have the right to see clearly. Not with delusion, not with doubt. And then Mara appeared again, and the Buddha just looked at Mara and said I see you, Mara.

14:20 I see who you are. Clearly. Mara dissolved. Now what people don't know in the Buddhist text is that after his enlightenment

14:30 Mara came back to visit the Buddha quite a few times. You think there's enlightened retirement. But but Mars part of the game. And Tik Nathan's a really beautiful image about this. Where he sets the scene of the Buddhist in a cave, and again the Buddha really is a stand in for your awakened self. Sitting in a cave. Mouth of a cave meditating and his attendant is there and Mara appears.

14:54 And his attendant tries to chase Mara away. And the Buddha says. Ananda. Is that my old friend Mara? Set out some tea. Let us sit down.

15:04 And he says, Is that you, Mara? And usually All that it takes is for the Buddha say Is that you, Mara, or I see you, Mara? Mara looks and kind of sadly. Slinks away, if you will.

15:18 So the first thing about anxiety Is to acknowledge that it's entirely human. that there are cultural reasons for it and that there are physiological reasons that we have fear and we have fear of loss and all of those things. And to be able to name it and say, Oh This is anxiety. It feels this way in my body.

15:36 Your hands sweat your breath stops your heart and it's hard to feel, it's unpleasant in the body. And then it has its thoughts. We'll get to those in a minute. And what you can do In naming bar you can say, Oh Anxiety I see you, I feel you.

15:53 So that's the first thing. And already You start to step halfway back from it as the witness. So that already begins to liberate you a little bit.

16:03 And then the next thing is you can also say Thank you for trying to protect me. Because if you fight against the anxiety, what that is is more anxiety. Oh my God, I gotta rid'em, I hate him. But instead it's almost like you take a little bow, Okay, Mara, I see you.

16:19 Thank you for trying to protect me because that's what it's trying to do. And you remember that statement from Mark Twain. Where he said, My life has been filled. With terrible misfortunes. Most of which never happened, right?

16:32 So these are the stories you meant sort of the advanced stories. Say thank you, Mara. I see you. Thanks for Trying to protect me. Then the next thing. is to know that there's something called the wisdom of insecurity.

16:45 That it's actually okay to be insecure. My monastic teachers would say it's uncertain, isn't it? We could ask him all kinds of things. Tell me about enlightenment, my teacher would laugh. He said, It's uncertain, isn't it? He wanted us just to get comfortable with uncertainty. That's and then What happens Is when you realize that you can't know.

17:07 That you come back into the present moment. And then the next thing to do with anxiety is ground your senses. Feel your feet on the floor. Or maybe go out in nature, stand there with a tree. Feel the roots of the tree and imagine your own feet as roots into the earth. And notice the wind comes and the storms and all those things happen.

17:25 But the tree is rooted. And it can stay there and you can be the same. You can let the storms of thoughts and fears and so forth arise. So that's another practice you can do. Then You can Question your thoughts, and this is more

17:40 Nah. Beautifully spelled out by Byron Cady, for example, who has these Practices of Questioning your thought. Says, What if that thought isn't true?

17:50 Yeah. How can you know that thought is true? And if you look deeply, you can't know it. And you get to a place of Realizing that Your thoughts are tentative. They're a creation. You say thank you, thank you for trying to protect me. And again you become the witness of those thoughts.

18:07 Then a few more very simple things that you can do. You can find Where you feel the anxiety in your body. And once you feel it, you can feel into its elements. Is it hot or cold? Is it hard or soft? Is it vibrating? Earth air fire.

18:25 So you really get. Close into it. You can ask it what stories it tells,'cause it'll have a story. And then you say again, not only thank you, thank you for trying to protect me. But you wrap it with

18:38 kindness with loving awareness and say thank you I know you're worried. I can respect you and hold you with kindness and compassion. And You know that that's not who you are.

18:50 This is a part, it's something it's common for human beings. You say. I respect this and who I am is honoring you and so much bigger than who you are. And you feel yourself literally

19:02 Being both the witness, the grounded one. The I know you Ma I see you, Mara. And you become more The Buddha. Rather than one who's caught by all these things. Hm.

19:13 Asking. For instance in this case. The anxiety, what stories it tells. Maybe give an example, whether from your personal experience, someone else's, or just a hypothetical What that might look like.'Cause it's the first time I've heard that and

19:31 That piques my curiosity. So It's a beautiful question. Because one of the things that I've learned all over these years Is that you can have the Sufies call it a so bad. A conversation with the heart.

19:45 And if you let yourself get quiet, it might be after a little walk in the woods or just Sitting quietly. Taking um a cup of tea or something that you like to drink and letting yourself quiet down or meditating if you want to. And when you get quiet.

20:00 You can have an inner conversation. And there's information. That's waiting there for you to ask. So for example Since we're talking about anxiety.

20:12 And you want to have a conversation with it. You can say to the anxiety. Where do I feel you most strongly in my body? Okay, that's a pretty simple one. Then you can say

20:24 Ask the anxiety. What is the thing you're most afraid of? Usually it will be something like Loss, death, something huge. Okay, okay, thank you.

20:35 Get quiet and say. Tell me the story you have about it. And then your anxiety will answer and it will say, Well If You lose your job, which we're afraid you will, you'll be out on the street, you'll be homeless, people will beat up on you, then you'll be in the hospital or you'll become whatever, and there's a whole disaster scenario.

20:55 And you can say yes, thank you. I hear your story. Then there's another interesting question. So all these are things you can ask and if you're willing to ask and get quiet and listen. Usually your body and your heart will answer. Then there's

21:08 Another really important question. Or two that you can ask. What is the most important thing? I need to learn from you. And it will give you an answer.

21:20 I want you to pay attention or I want you to take care of your financial affairs so I don't have to worry so much. You know, or want you to make sure you have friends who know where you are, whatever it happens to be. Or some bigger story. And then you can step out of the anxiety.

21:35 And this is a really beautiful one and get quiet and ask. What is my best intention? of how I want to live this next month or this next year. I only had a year to live. What style? How do I want to live this?

21:49 'Cause anxiety also has time in it. And so you're sort of stepping out of time and say, All right, so my time's limited. How do I want to live? What is my deepest intention? And if you pause and ask. Your heart will answer.

22:04 Next up John Romero Video game legend and co creator of such groundbreaking games as Doom.

22:16 Quake. And Wolfenstein 3D. Thirteen games in one year. I know nothing about game development, but I imagine with a relatively small

22:30 Crew. That sounds like a lot of games. What do you think enabled you guys to do that? that maybe was not present for other people working on games who had much lower output. What were the ingredients or the approaches or the principles

22:47 Anything at all. Tolerance for sleep deprivation. I don't know. What were the ingredients that allowed you allowed you guys to do that? So the way that we could achieve this game development at such high speed. Back then.

22:59 Воздат when we got together. Is it software? We had already individually other than Adrian who just learned how to put pixels on a computer screen, but he was a fine artist. On paper already, for his whole life. Each one of us four

23:18 had ten years of game development experience. Like All the time. And so we'd already made dozens of games each. Tom Hall.

23:27 Who was our creative director. He was a programmer, an assembly language programmer. He made tons of adventure games He did. action arcade games. in assembly language. So he was already a very fluent programmer.

23:40 John Carmack, of course. coded since he was a kid. I coded since I was eleven. So we've been making games for ten years and The amount of games that we had made was dozens each. And

23:53 When you make that many games That quickly. You learn how to scope and scoping is basically defining exactly what that game should be and not Adding to it. Subtracting from it, most likely, if you're gonna try and get it done. So scoping is like

24:10 This is the amount of time that I have. This is probably the kind of game that we can make and how big we can make it. Let's do that. And as you get closer and closer to that deadline, you start cutting things away. That you don't need to hit that deadline. When we did it before meeting.

24:25 each other when we did it on our own time. We set ourselves our own goals for finishing our own games. And we got really good at scoping, so when we got together. And we saw what we could do together. We also scope together.

24:40 How big those games should be. And we had to deliver within two months. So we had to know How good every one of us is. How fast we can all work. And then scope a game to that. Limitation.

24:53 And because we had ten years of game dev experience, we could just slam games out super fast. Come up with ideas, bam. Start doing the graphics, doing the animation. Programming the engine. Making the levels, making the level editors.

25:06 Create levels, you name it, all the tools that are Or in the background that no one sees. To build the game data. put it together in packages that the game can access. There's so much technology that goes on

25:19 before you get to gameplay programming. But we were used to doing that already for ten years. So It was not just the experience that we had, but it was also the focus. That we had Just so happy to be able to make games all day long.

25:34 as a job, which is really Just like the luckiest position ever. So we could focus on doing that. We could scope our games down. really, really well. We knew what to cut when it was time to start cutting stuff if we get we're getting closer to our deadline. And

25:51 Because there was no internet. Back then. And no one had cell phones. There was complete and total focus because our phone never rang. There was a phone on the wall

26:01 And that thing never rang. So there's no interruptions. Nobody's coming. to the house and knocking on the door. Interrupting our thoughts. So we could just focus for twelve hours a day at least.

26:13 And just Code, design, you name it. Constantly. To build on the the emphasis you put on scoping, which I think is certainly

26:24 applicable to so many different projects, maybe all projects. I mean that that certainly applies to book projects and so on that I've been involved with. Podcasts, right? Thematically choosing where you'll go and w where you will not go. I was doing some research and if I'm taking us into a Dead end or a cool desac that doesn't make sense, you can tell me. But I read A discussion of

26:47 Different I suppose principles. At It's software and A comment came up which was no prototypes, which was attributed to you and talks about you guys being your own best testing team and so on. And I was wondering if can't believe everything you read on the internet, of course, but if this is true, if you could elaborate on what you mean by that.

27:09 So to get That many games done that fast. You can't be Playing around with making prototypes. Prototypes are like, Let's test this and see if it works. And Let's test that and see it.

27:20 There's no testing. It's like Here's the game that we're gonna make. Here are all the characters that go in the game. Here's how many levels we have. Here are all the

27:28 pieces of the levels that need to be drawn. Here's all the animations that need to be created. all the tools that need to be programmed, all that stuff. There's no way to do any prototyping if you're gonna get done in two months with four people. So we had no prototypes. We knew how to code already, so there was like Because we can just see it in our minds. We can just visualize it. And we communicated with each other just going

27:51 Okay, it's gonna look like this. On the screen, we're gonna see mountains in the background, on the foreground we're gonna have another plane, and we're gonna have trees there. And we're gonna have up in the trees, we're gonna be have these characters and their AI is gonna be limited to blah blah blah blah. And so we just kinda describe what the game is. And we can do that within Let's say an hour. Yeah, at the very beginning of the new game.

28:11 In one hour we can describe That game Extensively. For what we're going to create in the next two months. It wasn't like well then we have to figure out this. It was like there's no figuring it out.

28:22 We're just making it. Mm-hmm. So There weren't prototypes. It was just we're making the game. Later on with bigger games.

28:32 That we could spend more time on. We could do R and D, but we still knew what we were making. We just needed to figure out how to make that part of it. It wasn't like we build a piece of the game and then throw it away. We would build this functionality in

28:47 Um, because that was the original design. And if we found out that that functionality actually is a detriment to the the game itself, to the soul of the game. Then we would remove it. But it wasn't like we're prototyping it. We're making that piece of technology in the game. It was going to be part of the game. But

29:05 We find out that that is not where the game is, really. And then we pull it out. Last but not least An excerpt from legendary investor Bill Gurley's interview with Tim.

29:20 At this year's South by South West Conference. How do you do prep? You're doing this many podcasts, you you're not reading a thousand books a year. No. Step number one is write a blog post, which is Called

29:37 I think it's called the decision that removes the thousand decisions and then a parentheses why I'm not reading any new books this year. So make it a policy. If you if you want to say no to a category of thing, make it a public policy. So number one is making it a public policy. I'm not reading any books published this year. That way I can tell every guest. Not reading books. Without having to ruffle feathers. The next step is looking at before I even invite someone. looking at long form

30:02 video and audio to the extent possible. And maybe I have to find something that was recorded behind doors. That's something I'm usually pretty good at doing. Interviews. Wikipedia, what am I looking for though? What's the filter I'm looking for a handful of things. One would be any odd hobbies.

30:19 Yeah. Passover comments. That weren't fleshed out. that I think would make for a good first question or second question. in part because it will prove to the interviewee that I have actually looked at the details and done my homework, which is really important for a lot of interviewees.

30:36 Because if you don't prove that early, they're gonna go on autopilot. And they're gone. They're checked out. They're thinking about their next vacation. Right. She might as well be talking to Max Headroom or something. It's just not gonna be very interesting. And then I would say beyond that I will try to identify

30:52 What has been neglected. what has not been mentioned. And that can lead some interesting places, not always comfortable places, but that can lead, for instance, that they haven't talked about their childhood at all. I might ask them if they're okay with me asking about their childhood.

31:09 few other key I would say housekeeping, and this is also in the category of prep. It's just right before We record. I will talk to anyone, we did this, even though we know each other, for five to ten minutes beforehand. Number one, just for so everybody can get their hamstrings warmed up. We're not trying to sprint out of the gates after hitting record. Just talk. But there's a format. I will say you have final cut, just like every one of my guests. This is no gotcha show.

31:35 I've had that happen to me. It sucks. This is a friendly. My job is to make you sound as good as possible. You have final cut. We can send you the transcript. So don't worry about it. It's not live, so

31:45 Bathroom breaks, water breaks, if you want to restate something, we can do that. Then I ask them and People comment on this because almost no one asks this. What would make this a home run for you? looking back after it's published, say two months after it's published, what would make this one of your favorite interviews or something that you would point people to?

32:05 Great. And then I can help steer it and That puts people at ease. and helps them to be vulnerable. Another thing that I will think of, if I want to try to unbox something that hasn't been explored before, there's probably a good reason it hasn't been explored. So I will find something in that same category. Could be childhood, could be relationships, could be a business failure. I will volunteer that information from my side first.

32:30 Yeah. Just to provide some transparency because I know there's that it sometimes it seems like I'm sometimes it seems like I'm talking a lot. And I am, but there there are reasons for in this case doing that. I'll ask the question so they can think about it, then I buy them time. So that they don't feel too under pressure, then I volunteer an answer from my own life that Basically.

32:52 makes me vulnerable simultaneously and it makes people much more likely to reciprocate. So Those are a few of the things. that I do. If I have any Access. To

33:05 That person. or their lives through friends or acquaintances. Then I'll also back channel to a few folks. and ask them what topics or questions. I'll always preface I'll say, I'm obviously doing a ton of my own homework because people don't want to help you, including my friends if you're being lazy. So I'll say I'm doing a ton of my own homework, but are there any questions or topics that you think could be Fun or

33:29 uncommon to explore with so and so. I did this with sent a text to you like that for Danny Meyer when I interviewed him recently. Right. And you earn reciprocal trust through those uh many of those techniques. Absolutely. And then I I will also and this leads to a lot and it smooths out the entire process. I will very frequently ask guests, not always, but ask them if there's anyone they think would really have fun. having a conversation on the podcast.

33:54 So I'd say seventy percent of the guests come from other guests at this point. You asked me that about Mike Mobison and you just had him on. I did. One topic that I adore just as a fan of of media is what I call peer respect. So I remember Shaq went on this five minute rant about all the greats that had come before him. Which was just

34:15 Super endearing. Tell us a a couple of other podcasters that you respect and why. There are a lot. Yeah, yeah, I mentioned one. There are many and I respect them for whole lot of different reasons. I would say it it runs the gamut from say like a guy Raz. So how I built this. Yeah. Who is

34:36 using I don't want to say this American life format, but he's doing a lot of prep, a lot of recording and then Immaculate. editing with his team. And telling a story arc. So they might move things around. And that is a particular game. That's a very particular game and he's very he and his team are very, very good at it.

34:54 I would say This is gonna seem to be a little bit more. uh like an easy one, but Joe Rogan has Done an excellent job. of becoming a category of one.

35:03 He wasn't emulating someone else. And For those wondering where I get where you might be able to read up on how to do this. There's a chapter called The Law of Category and the Twenty Two Immutable Laws of Marketing. A lot of the other chapters are outdated. This one everyone should read. He did an excellent job of number one, experimenting with a brand new format early. He has been

35:27 in the podcasting world for a very long time and he's test it a lot. Yeah. And he found his footing reasonably quickly and the combination of entertainment and in depth interview.

35:42 And tripling down on long format. I think he deserves a lot of credit for popularizing. He also made incredibly, incredibly good strategic decisions. Before most. I'll give you an example. YouTube.

35:58 one of the world's largest search engines, who did One of the very first spectacular jobs of capturing podcasts. On YouTube. not just long form, but using clips on a separate channel. So he has played that game.

36:12 Like The Yeah. Consummate professional. And so he would be another example.

36:18 I think Lex Friedman does an excellent job, I'd say Our formats are probably closest. Patrick O'Shaughnessy, who we both know, who focuses on investing in investors, I think does a fantastic job. I could list another twenty. There are some really, really good interviewers out there, but it's not enough to be a good interviewer.

36:40 I really think you need to seek to be a category of one. It's a lot easier to be the only than it is to be the best when you have millions of podcasts to compete against. So it's spend a lot of time thinking about positioning. And now here are the bios for all the guests. My guest today is a fan favorite he's been on once before.

37:03 He always delivers a lot of actionable advice and learnings. His name is Richard Kosh, K O C H Richard is an entrepreneur, investor, former strategy consultant, and the author of several books on business and ideas, including four. on how to apply the 80-20 principle in all walks of life. His investments have grown at an average of twenty two percent compounded annually over thirty-seven years and have included Philofax, Plymouth Gin, Belgo, Betfair, FanDuel, and Auto One. For those who don't have any reference for that, that is absurdly, absurdly.

37:37 Good. He has worked for Boston Consulting Group and was a partner at Ban<unk> Co. before joining Jim Lawrence and Ian Evans to start L E K, which expanded from three to three hundred and fifty professionals during the six years Richard was there. In 1997, Richard's book, The 8020 Principle, reinterpreted the Pareto rule, which states that most results come from a small minority of causes and extended it beyond its well known applications in business into personal life, happiness, and the thing, and I think it's and success. The book, rewritten in twenty twenty two, has sold more than a million copies, been translated into roughly forty languages, and has become a business classic. It was named by GQ as one of the top twenty five business books of all time, and it is a book that has had a huge impact on my life and one that I have recommended for at least a decade at this point. Richard's latest book is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve. He has two upcoming books. 8020 beliefs, which identifies the very few beliefs in our lives that strongly influence what we do, and therefore the results we get, and we talk about some of these 80-20 beliefs in this conversation, as well as 8020 daily, a collection of 365 short daily readings using the 8020 philosophy to achieve the good life.

38:51 You can find him online at Richardcosh dot net. Again, that's Richard K O C H Net. And on Twitter. At Richard Cosh. eight.

39:00 twenty. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. This is a rare in person episode And my job always is to investigate, interrogate people I consider to be world class performers. I have one in front of me. He's a friend. He is a repeat guest, a very popular guest, Jack Cornfield. You can find him on Twitter at Jack Cornfield. Jack trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma. That's an understatement, but maybe we'll come back to that. He has taught meditation internationally since nineteen seventy four and is one of the key teachers to have introduced Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. Jack co founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barry, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzburg and Joseph Goldstein and Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California.

39:46 Current projects include cloudsangha.co, which we will talk about, which offers practice groups for all, the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, which is trained seven thousand. Seven thousand. That's a lot. Mindfulness teachers in seventy five countries and wisdom ventures, a fund investing in companies that promote compassion. His books. Many books have been translated into twenty two languages and have sold roughly two million copies. They include The Wise Heart. A guide to the universal teachings of Buddhist Psychology, a path with heart. After The Ecstasy in the Laundry, one of the best book titles of all time, Buddha's Little Instruction Book.

40:21 The Art of Forgiveness, Loving Kindness, and Peace. And his most recent book, No Time Like the Present, Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are You Can Find. All things Jack at JackCornfield.com. That's K-O-R-N-F-I-E-L D dot com. And we'll link to of course all of his social And Everything else in the show notes.

40:42 My guest today is John. Romero. Who is John Romero? Computer and video game legend John Romero has designed and published more than 130 games since his first sale at the age of 16. A teenage programmed, his major achievements include co-inventing a series of revolutionary computer games, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen that launched the industry's most popular genre, the first person shooter.

41:10 The memoir Doom Guy Life in First Person is his first book. You can find him on Twitter at Romero. And on Instagram at the Romero. This is a special episode and a turning of the tables. This time around, legendary investor Bill Gurley interviews me, and the recording is from earlier this year at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

41:36 The conversation explores some of my lessons learned and favorite findings over the last two decades or so in areas like entrepreneurship, tech, and podcasting, just to name three. I also throw in some favorite books and other spicy bits to keep things interesting. Let me mention a bit more about Bill before we get started. Bill Gurly, you can find him on Twitter at B Gurly, G U R L E Y, has spent more than twenty years as a general partner at Benchmark before entering the venture capital business, Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top ranked research analyst. Including suite's first Boston. Over his incredibly impressive venture career, he has worked with such companies as Grubhub,

42:16 Next door, open table, stitch fix, uber, and zillow, just to name a few. For more takeaways from his incredible investing career, you can find my interview with Bill. That's me interviewing Bill at Tim.blog slash BillGirley. And as a side note, my 2007 South by Southwest. Keynote, this was a speech, my first appearance at South By that I mention in this conversation with Bill was what started it all. In many senses. It's what put my first book, The Four Hour Work Week. on the radar of influential bloggers and bigger media outlets.

42:50 Ultimately landing the book on the New York Times bestseller list where it stayed more or less unbroken for the next seven years. It's been a wild ride. In this segment. This brief appearance. At South by. is what kicked it all off. And if you'd like to hear that two thousand seven presentation, you can find it at tim.blog slash

43:11 S X. Yes. W, which is the abbreviation for south by southwest. So one more time, that's Tim.blog slash S X. S W and my voice sounds hilariously different. My presentation skills. hilariously less refined.

43:28 than they are today. Not to say they're perfect, but things have changed. And we get better day by day, little by little. And one last thing, Hugh Forrest, if you are listening Thank you again for giving me a shot. Way back in the day. It made a difference, and that is why I come back to South Bye just about every year. 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?

43:58 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 kinda 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.

44:55

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