Q&A with Tim — The Upcoming AI Tsunami and Building Offline Advantage

0:00 I think courage is learned.

0:02 You have to practice it.

0:04 And if you're not afraid, it's not courage.

0:09 Right?

0:10 If someone's fearless, they're by definition not using courage.

0:14 You have to be afraid of something.

0:15 I think you have to prove to yourself that you have it and the only

0:19 way your subconscious will believe it is if

0:22 you are actually doing things that are uncomfortable.

0:26 That's it.

0:28 Which means it is learnable.

0:32 Hello everybody.

0:32 Thanks for making it.

0:34 We got lots of questions that were pre-submitted.

0:38 There's a lot to cover and I will begin with saying there are many,

0:43 many questions about AI.

0:45 It is certainly the topic of the hour.

0:48 And I would like to provide a few caveats.

0:53 And I'll do that by leading in with a question.

0:57 How many of you invested in or even know of Diamond Rio?

1:03 Diamond Rio, anyone?

1:05 MP Man F10?

1:07 Come on now.

1:08 You guys must remember MP Man F10.

1:11 These are MP3 players that predated the iPod.

1:14 And Jobs famously changed it from speeds

1:20 and feeds into 1,000 songs in your pocket.

1:23 Also had the industrial design engineering supply

1:26 chain wizardry along with his marketing genius,

1:29 of course, all to bring to bear on this thing called the iPod,

1:33 which then produced you guessed it, some of you wizened gray-haired folks,

1:39 but youngsters do not realizing iPod

1:45 That was the genesis of this podcasting term.

1:47 And the reason I bring this up is that I am not I do not consider

1:53 myself a bleeding edge investor or even

1:58 in a lot of instances a bleeding edge user.

2:01 I like to be on the dull edge.

2:04 I would say that the iPod is a great example

2:08 of that because if you looked at some of the technological trend lines,

2:11 you looked at a few different pieces of hardware

2:13 that had had somewhat de-risked solid state MP3 players.

2:19 The timing was right for something to be

2:23 taken from very very niche and unwieldy to mainstream.

2:28 And certainly we've seen that unfold.

2:31 And I view AI very similarly.

2:34 And in some respects it is very amenable

2:39 to that approach because things are changing so incredibly quickly.

2:43 If you hated a model 3 weeks ago, it might do exactly what you need today.

2:49 And with all of that, I just want to say I do not view myself as an AI expert.

2:56 I think if you're looking for someone who seems to be the Nostradamus of AI,

3:02 you should read up on Leopold Aschenbrenner.

3:06 You can look up Situational Awareness the Decade Ahead.

3:09 It was penned and published online June 2024 and the number of actual hits,

3:17 predictive hits, that Leopold had is staggering.

3:22 It is just really about as close to clairvoyant as you could possibly be.

3:31 So, Leopold Aschenbrenner and you should check him out.

3:36 If you're looking for what's coming.

3:38 If you're looking for what I have observed personally as a muggle,

3:43 someone who is non-technical, I'm not writing white papers,

3:47 but I get to watch a very large audience and I have

3:50 a lot of friends I can lean on, many of whom are technical.

3:54 I can fill you in.

3:55 All right, that's a whole lot of preamble, so let's hop into it.

3:59 All right.

4:00 First question is from Hugo.

4:02 In a world full of tool systems and AI,

4:04 what human abilities or habits are becoming more valuable, not less?

4:08 So, I'll I'll try to keep this pretty short.

4:10 I would say the relational, the tactile, anything IRL, in real life,

4:17 that can be extended also to, for instance,

4:21 in my case, informational advantage, offline informational advantage.

4:26 A lot of the LLMs are slicing and dicing the internet.

4:29 One might argue all of them are doing that.

4:32 And whether you are looking at longevity in professional terms,

4:38 if you're looking at longevity in creative terms,

4:42 I think putting on the lens of looking at what you can do in IRL that currently,

4:49 now that certainly robotics are on the edge of some type of Cambrian explosion,

4:57 so who knows, maybe it's iRobot 3 years from now.

4:59 But for now, the kind of offline differentiator is a big deal.

5:06 And I would say the relational side,

5:10 certainly the harnessing of awe, wonder, et cetera, nature immersion,

5:14 which sounds like I'm suggesting everybody disappear off

5:17 into a commune in the woods or become homesteaders or something.

5:20 That's not what I'm saying.

5:21 But for instance, the fact that I have people

5:25 I can text for very narrow types of expertise,

5:31 even though they have the access of a generalist,

5:35 allows me to have an informational advantage because none of that is online.

5:40 Conversely, if you're using ChatGPT or Claude to try to assess a given

5:46 public company as a good or a bad investment or somewhere in between,

5:50 rest assured that many, many people, perhaps even millions of people,

5:54 have already done this, and therefore,

5:56 you're going to be reading more or less the same thing as many others.

6:02 So, that's my stab at that first question.

6:06 A lot of this is going to boomerang back in future notes.

6:10 Let me take a sip of my sipping ketones.

6:13 Excuse me.

6:16 This was sent to me by scientists, and it was like,

6:18 "Mix 10 ml into 250 ml of water.

6:21 Do not chug." In all caps,

6:23 written with a marker on this experimental container of ketones.

6:28 So, we'll see if I start seizing.

6:31 It'll make for a great short on social media.

6:34 All right.

6:35 Next question I'm going to take a stab at is

6:40 from Jeff with a pre-throat clearing not financial advice, in quotation marks.

6:45 Disclaimer, already granted to you by virtue of this question,

6:48 where should a small investor be looking to invest in public markets

6:50 as AI continues to eat our white-collar jobs in the coming months and years?

6:54 All right.

6:55 I know I indirectly already gave the caveat.

6:59 I am not giving any investment advice, because that is a terrible thing to do if

7:05 you're not a registered financial advisor and all that stuff.

7:08 I'm none of those things.

7:09 So, this is for informational purposes only.

7:13 Number one, you shouldn't gamble.

7:16 And I do kind of view it as gambling,

7:17 or invest anything you cannot afford to lose completely,

7:21 because AI is moving so incredibly quickly,

7:24 and there's a lot of whipsaw reactivity in the markets.

7:30 ChatGPT comes out with something that connects to some

7:34 type of industry in a in an oblique way,

7:37 and suddenly six public stocks lose billions

7:41 and tens of billions of dollars of market cap.

7:43 You know, there's there's a lot of craziness.

7:45 So, as certainly has been said before me,

7:49 the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

7:54 So, don't play with anything you're not willing to lose.

7:58 There are people talking about what's been termed halo trades,

8:02 trying to look for things that are less likely to get disrupted or destroyed.

8:08 Kind of the Warren Buffett approach to non-tech investing.

8:13 By and large, right?

8:14 See's Candy, railways, etc.

8:17 But, I would say that initially sparked by conversations with Kevin Rose,

8:25 and I hesitate to even mention this, but I

8:27 do think Google is in a very interesting position.

8:31 Alphabet, the artist formerly known as Google.

8:34 Alphabet is in an interesting position to in some

8:38 respects kind of own the full stack.

8:40 Engineers aren't going to like that I'm using that term,

8:42 but they have distribution, they have hardware, right?

8:47 In terms of TPUs.

8:49 They have incredible, unparalleled access to information.

8:55 They've got Demis Hassabis and DeepMind internally.

8:59 They've got the ability to spin things out like Waymo.

9:03 There's just so much going on within Alphabet that I find

9:07 it very fun and terrifying to take a close look at.

9:13 And I say that also because it is

9:17 incredibly it is completely unclear, I would say,

9:21 how exactly Google compensates for or plans for shifting to some

9:29 type of ad revenue from AI-generated responses or an AI-based,

9:37 LLM-based platform versus what we use today in the browser, right?

9:42 And that's inevitably going to happen.

9:44 So, the bull case is very exciting for Google

9:48 and the bear case is also pretty compelling, I would say.

9:53 But, as I'm looking at stuff out there,

9:57 I tend not to screw around in the public markets.

10:00 I just don't feel like I have any

10:03 advantage whatsoever compared to everybody else who's fine-slicing things.

10:08 But, in conversations with friends and looking at it pretty closely,

10:12 I do think Alphabet's pretty interesting.

10:16 So, there you have it.

10:18 I'm not saying invest in it.

10:19 You could really lose money and it might be

10:22 that they lose for a while until they win.

10:25 It could be they lose completely.

10:27 So, there is that.

10:29 Best questions from David.

10:30 What are the top three things you should never use AI for?

10:32 I would say any skill you want to preserve in your head,

10:37 you should probably not use AI for.

10:40 So, I use AI for editing right now.

10:44 You very quickly end up on a slippery slope.

10:47 So, if I create a rough draft, as I did with the self-help trap, for instance,

10:53 I would then take that, feed it into these models,

10:56 and give them a personality, right?

10:59 You are an editor from The New Yorker.

11:01 This is your name, right?

11:02 Maybe it's a famous editor or the person you worked with, Robert Caro,

11:06 whatever it might be.

11:07 I mean, that's again, not to compare myself to those people,

11:10 but I want a good editor.

11:12 Give me feedback on this rough draft.

11:15 What the model will do, because they want to keep you using the model,

11:18 of course, is it will give you all the feedback and then it will say,

11:21 "Would you like me to incorporate all of these changes and draft

11:25 a version that uses all these things?"

11:28 And that's where I have deliberately hesitated.

11:32 I've also played around with it and frankly, it's very good.

11:36 But therein lies the danger because if

11:38 you want to preserve your ability to synthesize,

11:41 and this will tie into questions shortly about creativity,

11:47 I do think that it makes some sense to exercise caution.

11:56 And there there are already scientists and researchers looking

11:59 at the negative cognitive impacts of depending on AI,

12:04 much like your ability to navigate

12:06 is probably deteriorated since using Google Maps.

12:09 And I would say net net,

12:11 each individual is more enhanced, augmented using these tools,

12:17 but if if you do want to keep certain muscles strong and able,

12:23 that's where I would hesitate.

12:25 And look, you can always change your mind later, but if you lose it,

12:28 it's a hell of a lot harder to reclaim it.

12:30 So, that's where I am at the moment.

12:33 Oh, CJ.

12:34 CJ's question, do you, Tim,

12:36 think AI is capable of creativity in the sense that humans are?

12:40 What I would argue here, and I've read all these books on creativity,

12:44 I've looked at some research which tends to be pretty soft,

12:48 I would say, if I were being less generous, hand-wavy about creativity or flow.

12:54 I mean, I feel like a lot of these are poorly defined.

12:58 So, we could even go so far as to say

13:01 I don't think we understand what creativity is in humans, right?

13:09 Could machines have the equivalent of the muse visit them?

13:14 Is there a way to engineer that?

13:16 When we create these metaphors for ourselves,

13:18 are we really just using poetry or abstraction to try

13:23 to verbalize something that's actually pretty discreet and replicable

13:27 if you just operate from a sort of bottoms-up approach

13:30 with reinforcement learning and this that the other thing, maybe.

13:33 I just don't know, right?

13:36 The second question the CGI had though was the one that I think is worth not

13:40 actually spending more time on, but I would

13:41 underline this because I underlined it for myself.

13:44 As a writer and with the explosion of AI-generated content out there now,

13:48 how do you rise above the noise?

13:50 All right.

13:51 It's pretty simple and I will I will answer that by way of a story.

13:58 I was spending time, a little bit of time,

14:00 drinking a Paloma with a very well-known photographer.

14:05 He is one of the most commercially successful photographers in the world.

14:10 And he was laughing and telling a story

14:15 of how he gets approached by photographers,

14:18 they could be amateur, but very often they're professionals,

14:21 who want to know how they can become better photographers.

14:24 And they're asking all these gear-related questions.

14:27 And his answer is just put more interesting stuff in front of the camera.

14:32 Make what's in front of the camera more interesting.

14:35 And the equivalent of that, at least for me as a nonfiction writer,

14:39 is doing interesting things.

14:41 Go out in the world, do interesting things,

14:45 or observe interesting things in real life and write about those things.

14:49 Do experiments, etc.

14:50 I mean, there are many ways to skin this cat.

14:53 It could be let's just say Travels with Charlie.

14:57 Amazing book by John Steinbeck.

14:59 Road trip in a makeshift RV with his dog Charlie.

15:03 All right.

15:04 Incredible book.

15:05 And as it stands right now, I think it's a ways off that a humanoid robot

15:11 is going to get into a car with a canine companion,

15:15 robotic or flesh and bone, and do something like this, right?

15:20 Anything that is analysis-based is relegated to the machines at this point.

15:25 They are so good.

15:27 The AI, broadly speaking,

15:29 LLMs being one manifestation of that, are just too good.

15:33 They're so good.

15:35 And we'll talk about how I use some of those tools a little bit later.

15:37 So, do interesting things.

15:40 And write about them.

15:41 That's the short answer.

15:43 All right.

15:44 There are certain questions where I don't feel

15:46 like I have good answers or informed answers.

15:49 I could make up some[ __] and spin

15:52 a yarn and make something that seems to hold water,

15:55 but I'm not going to do that.

15:56 So, I'm going to I apologize if I'm skipping some of your questions,

15:58 but I don't want to give you any type of false confidence in my answers.

16:02 All right.

16:03 So, this is a question from Manil.

16:06 How are you keeping up with all the new AI tools?

16:09 Where do you keep your focus?

16:10 Have you set up open claw, and if so, what's your workflow?

16:13 Okay.

16:14 So, I am not keeping up with AI developments.

16:19 People who do this full-time as the C-suite executive teams

16:24 of the best-known companies in the world have trouble keeping up.

16:29 So, I am definitely not keeping up or trying to keep up.

16:33 I feel like as soon as I'm doing that, I've already lost.

16:35 So, it's not how do I win the game,

16:38 it's choosing the right game, which might sound clichéd.

16:43 But, does that mean I'm ignoring everything?

16:45 No.

16:47 With something like open claw, due to security concerns,

16:49 I let friends of mine be the first elect

16:54 to be the some of the first monkeys shot into space.

16:56 So, I'm going to read from a friend of mine who I texted, right?

17:00 This is about this question right before we started recording.

17:06 All right.

17:06 So, about open claw.

17:09 He played around with open claw.

17:10 His name is Chris Hutchins.

17:11 He's been on the podcast.

17:13 He has a podcast called All the Hacks,

17:16 which he has used to explore some really fascinating stuff.

17:22 If you're a points nerd or like travel, it's a good one.

17:25 He goes a lot further than that, but one of his episodes

17:28 is I built an AI assistant that works while I sleep.

17:31 And he explains what he did with OpenClaw.

17:34 However, here's what he texted to me.

17:36 In the last week, Claude's desktop app has shipped a bunch of features

17:39 that do a lot of what OpenClaw can do in a more user-friendly way.

17:43 Schedule tasks, remote access, etc.

17:46 So that could be a good beginner way to start.

17:48 But with all AI projects, I suggest going in with a use case.

17:52 This is, again, Chris texting.

17:55 And then he documented his whole journey with building

17:58 a basic app through OpenClaw, etc., etc., etc.

18:01 and leveling up his knowledge each time.

18:03 We'll link to that episode in the show notes.

18:06 Can find it pretty easily.

18:07 Here's what he added to that.

18:08 For OpenClaw, I'd say you absolutely don't need a fancy computer.

18:11 I ran it on a 2012 Mac Mini for the first few weeks.

18:16 But if you have an old computer and you want

18:17 to set it up and test it out at home, great.

18:19 But until you feel confident, one,

18:21 don't give it access to things like email, credit cards, etc.

18:24 And there are some hilariously tragic stories of this gone

18:28 awry that you can find on your own.

18:30 Two, that Okay, that was my director's commentary.

18:33 Two, don't install random skills you find on the internet.

18:36 Three, go to Claude, ChatGPT, etc.

18:38 and get advice about how to set it up securely.

18:40 Four, every time I've gotten stuck,

18:42 I've been able to use Claude code in the OpenClaw directory to fix things.

18:46 So there you have that is,

18:48 by virtue of texting Chris Hutchins, an answer on OpenClaw.

18:53 And what I also do is give some examples of internally how we're using stuff.

18:59 So I have an employee who is very interested in these tools,

19:05 and I have wanted to encourage that as long as we're

19:09 not completely demolishing our own security from the inside out.

19:14 So, he's played a lot with Claude code and other things.

19:17 And I asked him for some use cases that I could share with you.

19:21 So, I will pull those up right now.

19:24 All right.

19:25 And this alludes to a term, defines a term that Chris used.

19:28 All right, so this is my employee.

19:30 One thing I did earlier today was build a skill, quote unquote skill,

19:33 fancy name for a text file in this case inside Claude

19:36 that will generate the PDF and Word versions of an IO,

19:40 that's an insertion order for a podcast sponsor.

19:43 If I only give it the missing items from the IO, for instance, company name,

19:47 official company name, da da da da,

19:49 it fills it out automatically and creates a PDF.

19:51 It's a small saving time, but this is something he repeats a lot.

19:55 And there may be a better way to do it,

19:56 like a template in HelloSign or something.

19:59 I also have been working on a project doing a 20-year roughly

20:03 20-year retrospective deep dive and analysis of all my angel investing, right?

20:10 Are the stories I tell myself about my report card accurate?

20:14 Are they completely false?

20:15 Are they somewhere in between, etc., etc.

20:18 And for that project, coming back to his text here,

20:23 it's been really crazy to just tell it, quote, here's an API key,

20:27 and it will figure out how to connect to a given service like Gmail.

20:30 And if you have an API key for a product,

20:32 you can easily start using it in Claude as it will simply write itself a script.

20:38 And one of the wildest things, and this is I'm paraphrasing here,

20:41 but it can ingest an absurd amount of data and convert it into something useful.

20:46 And it can also enrich data in some very interesting ways, right?

20:49 So, if I'm trying to figure out Okay, right?

20:53 Via email introductions, who introduced the winners, who introduced the losers,

20:58 who introduced the zombies that just can't seem to die

21:00 after years of struggling or take off for that matter.

21:05 And then is there a signal say looking at the education levels,

21:13 the schools, the alma maters of founders, right?

21:16 What about single founders versus two

21:18 founders versus three founders, things like this.

21:21 Location, geography, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah right?

21:24 Is there any signal to any of this?

21:28 Another example which might apply to more of you,

21:31 the Google Calendar integration has also been helpful.

21:34 In other words, updating a calendar from Claude

21:37 or creating multiple at a time, right?

21:39 So using Claude to calendar entries.

21:43 Now, in my case, I have a bunch of different

21:46 calendars and different people on my team add to different calendars.

21:50 One thing that helps us a lot and maybe someday I'll share

21:54 this and for right now I am probably not going to, but I have a document,

21:58 a Google Doc that is the 10 Commandments of my calendar basically.

22:04 And it's rules around formatting, what to include, etc.

22:08 right?

22:08 Secondary points of contact, cell phones, time zone always, right?

22:14 Indicated in the headline, etc.

22:16 etc.

22:16 etc.

22:17 There are lots of different rules,

22:19 but he can use that or other people on my team can use

22:22 that to then automatically check calendar entries through

22:26 Claude code and fix them as needed, right?

22:30 So some people have joked that, you know,

22:31 the 4-Hour Work Week should be rewritten as the the 4-Minute Work Week.

22:35 I think there's something to it, right?

22:36 And there's a temptation to do an entire section on the use

22:40 of AI in place of virtual assistants and so on.

22:43 The problem with that is that as soon

22:46 as the ink had metaphorically dried on that paper,

22:50 it would already be out of date.

22:51 So I'm not going to do that, I don't think.

22:53 So there you have it, right?

22:55 And the API key is is a really important component to all of this.

23:00 Also, and I'm sure some of you have have figured this out,

23:03 but with Claude code, and Chris Hutchins alluded to this as well,

23:07 for debugging, for instance, we did a website redesign,

23:10 and there was an issue with a form, no idea why, right?

23:13 And we wanted to fix it very quickly,

23:16 and we weren't sure how long it would take for support to get back to us.

23:19 So, he was able to dump all the code at the time

23:22 into the model and just figured out how to fix it.

23:24 And there many, many, many other examples of that.

23:28 Yeah, it's And many of these things are not quantum leaps,

23:33 but they are, much like anything else, just automating little paper cuts,

23:38 so they don't add up ultimately to a huge gash in your calendar.

23:43 Okay.

23:44 Back to work, Tim Ferriss.

23:49 All right, let's look at other things.

23:51 This is a question from Becky.

23:53 What would you say to someone who wants a career jump?

23:56 Sometimes I feel I get caught in a loop of same pay range,

23:59 same experiences, same mid-level opportunities.

24:02 How can I start increasing my income opportunities and skills this year?

24:06 Okay, so I reached out, as I often do,

24:09 texted a couple of people about this, because

24:13 they're actually this is going to be a huge,

24:15 huge, mega, mega meta problem for people moving forward,

24:21 and it's going to be increasingly, I think, be pervasive.

24:24 People are going to wonder what they should do next, right?

24:28 Which then informs kind of upskilling.

24:32 And and there's a later question,

24:35 so I might as well explore it here, related to encodings.

24:38 In the Jim Collins episode, a question around encodings,

24:40 and I might come back to that.

24:42 But suffice to say, some of these personality

24:45 tests and things like enneagrams are actually very helpful,

24:49 and things like And there are two

24:52 startups I'm involved with, because I recognize,

24:56 just through questions like this, right, from Becky,

24:59 which are kind of the canary in the coal mine.

25:02 It's not really canary in a coal mine.

25:04 It's like there was one whisper, now there are 10,

25:07 then there were 100, now there are 1,000, right?

25:09 This question's coming up more and more.

25:11 And a lot of folks are going to, in one way or another,

25:15 need to zig and zag even though they might not expect it right now.

25:19 And a lot of that's going to be due to AI job displacement.

25:23 So, the two startups that And again,

25:28 I mentioned that I'm an investor in these, so I'm biased,

25:31 but the reason that I invested in these is to answer this question.

25:35 Or more specifically, to help people answer this question.

25:37 So, the first one is called Apt, A P T, and you can check that out at tryapt.ai.

25:45 So, tryapt, t r y a p t .ai.

25:48 I had the co-founder and CEO create a code,

25:54 so if any of you guys want to try it, ultimately,

25:58 it does cost money to get all the results and to get

26:00 this sort of AI-guided mentor around your strengths and so

26:06 on, which you discover or uncover through the process of going

26:10 through this, but you can get 50% off with Tim 50.

26:14 That's the code to use, t i m 5 0.

26:17 All right, so if you want to take a look at that, you can check it out.

26:20 The other is Oboe, so o b o e .com.

26:25 And that is entirely focused on accelerating skill acquisition and learning.

26:30 So, I think these two actually go together really well, right?

26:34 You could use Apt first and then Oboe, and I've played around with both.

26:39 There's a lot that's going to be coming

26:41 into both of these, but might be worth checking out.

26:44 Honestly, if I were to tell you to go

26:47 buy What Color Is My Parachute or something,

26:49 you might glean something from that, but I feel like in very

26:54 dynamic times with so much shifting sand with respect to technology,

26:59 you probably need something a bit more or benefit

27:02 from something that is more dynamic and personalized

27:07 from the get-go as opposed to you having to do

27:09 lots and lots of heavy lifting with a fixed format.

27:12 So, that's what I would say Becky and definitely let me know what you

27:17 think because if something's broken or if

27:19 you love something or you hate something, all that stuff can get fixed.

27:23 All right, next one.

27:24 This is from Jeff.

27:27 And we will do some live questions.

27:30 These ketones are actually doing something which is good cuz it's 4:00 p.m.

27:34 and I don't want to have any caffeine.

27:37 Yeah, fortunately it doesn't taste too much like jet fuel.

27:41 All right, let me do one more Jeff.

27:43 Okay, this is the question.

27:44 You've worked across books, podcasts,

27:46 and experiments that each attracted their own communities.

27:49 What have you learned about proactively communities culture,

27:52 not just growing an audience and how has direct interaction

27:57 with people changed the way you enter creative flow today?

28:00 The last piece is probably the hardest to answer but I can tell you

28:03 that I think that proactively shaping a communities

28:10 culture actually helps you to build an audience.

28:17 But to what end, right?

28:18 Not build an audience like, oh,

28:19 I'm aiming for 2 million, 3 million, 10 million YouTube subscribers.

28:23 I don't like renting audience in a way that's dependent on algorithms, right?

28:27 And you can look at a lot of the biggest YouTube channels.

28:29 It's like their average views per video have

28:32 cratered even though they have huge numbers of subscribers.

28:35 You see that with engagement on X and other places.

28:38 However, one thing that never goes out

28:40 of style is 1,000 true fans by Kevin Kelly.

28:44 You can read it for free at kk.org.

28:48 And therefore, I will focus on the proactively shaping a community's culture.

28:54 In my case, I think it's pretty simple.

28:57 I treat a closed community like I would a dinner party at my house.

29:03 So, somebody walks into my house and this is a shoes-free house, right?

29:10 Because who wants like dog[ __] and bubble gum on your kitchen floor?

29:13 I don't.

29:14 So, the shoes come off at the door, right?

29:16 So, let's say somebody comes in and they're like, "No,

29:17 I'm keeping my boots on." They come in tracking mud all over the place.

29:21 They sit down at the dinner table.

29:22 They kick their feet up on the table.

29:25 They start calling people[ __] or something.

29:27 Like that person's going to get dragged by their hair

29:29 out and then they're never coming back in, right?

29:32 So, that's a bit of an maybe melodramatic example,

29:36 but zero tolerance policy for broken windows, right?

29:42 You know, Malcolm Gladwell and others have written about

29:43 this, but it's like when these minor infractions are permitted,

29:48 I'm going to pull out a fancy term that tech people like,

29:50 the Overton window, right?

29:53 This the broadness of what is now allowable behavior shifts, okay?

30:01 Or I shouldn't say shift cuz if it's a[ __] window,

30:03 it's not supposed to get wider or shorter,

30:05 but it moves in a more aggressive behavioral direction, right?

30:09 So, if you allow minor infractions, you're going to get moderate infractions.

30:13 You allow those, you're going to get major infractions.

30:15 So, from the very first days of say the blog,

30:20 the the comment section has guidelines and it's like, "Remember the Fonz?

30:23 We're going to be cool." Like that.

30:25 Like if you're an[ __] we're going to boot you and blacklist you.

30:28 And you can criticize me, but don't be a dick to other people.

30:32 And if you are, you're gone.

30:33 Like that's zero tolerance and you have to enforce that, right?

30:36 If you don't, people are crafty.

30:39 They'll learn how to manipulate you because you are asking

30:43 to be at least abused by not enforcing your own rules.

30:47 So, that's the first one.

30:48 It's just like you have to excise the cancers and remove the poison.

30:53 You just have to.

30:54 Because the default state of pretty much the entire internet now,

30:58 because it's been allowed and encouraged

31:02 through various gamifications on social platforms,

31:04 is just being loud, obnoxious, awful.

31:07 So, you have to set rules to to countervail that.

31:11 Also, and Jeff, I think you've experienced this, if if you

31:16 have a private community of 100 people or 200 people or 50,

31:20 it doesn't really matter, and you charge $5 a quarter,

31:25 $5 a year, it doesn't really matter, but if you have some very nominal cost,

31:30 people opt in who generally want to contribute

31:34 and be in an environment of positivity.

31:38 That's my experience, generally.

31:41 So, having some very, very nominal fee at the door,

31:46 I think is incredibly helpful.

31:48 Right?

31:49 And you find that also with events.

31:52 I've done plenty of live events.

31:54 Don't really do them anymore for a lot of reasons, but very,

31:58 very rarely in the past I would throw these live events for like a you know,

32:01 book launch parties, 100 people, 200.

32:04 If people can RSVP to an event,

32:07 your abandonment rate or no show rate is going to be sky high.

32:11 If you force them to pay $1 to hold their spot,

32:17 suddenly the no show rate goes down to low single digits, right?

32:22 So, I don't think there's any rocket science here,

32:25 but the tough part is being willing to enforce, right?

32:30 And maybe you give someone a two strikes you're out policy, but frankly,

32:34 I find that that can metastasize and for instance, I a lovely dog.

32:41 Was a stray 2 months ago.

32:43 Adopted her and she's really smart.

32:46 She's part Anatolian Shepherd, it would seem.

32:51 And if she realizes, for instance,

32:54 that she can kind of pit me against my partner and that she

33:00 doesn't actually have to listen to sit until the third time,

33:03 she's not going to listen to the first two.

33:04 She'll just stare at you defiantly and then sit the third time.

33:07 Humans are the same way.

33:09 They'll do that, too.

33:10 If they know they have two strikes,

33:11 you're going to get more bad behavior because

33:13 they know they can get away with it once.

33:16 All right.

33:17 So, there you go.

33:18 And let's go to We've got plenty more questions,

33:23 but let's go live to some live questions.

33:29 And I apologize that there's so much in the chat,

33:32 so I'm going to have to I'm going to have to Oh, yeah, the crown means top fans.

33:36 All right, well, thank you.

33:37 Thank you, top fan.

33:38 All right, let's throw out some live questions and I'll give it a shot.

33:42 If you already posted one, please post again cuz I can't I can't scroll

33:45 up and go through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.

33:48 Favorite color?

33:49 Green.

33:50 Right there.

33:51 Uh green green green.

33:54 Uh specifically, it's like the color of late morning light, like 11:00 a.m.

34:01 sunlight around August coming through maple leaves.

34:07 That is the color.

34:08 It's sort of like translucent green.

34:11 All right.

34:13 Future of Varlafa, okay.

34:14 For those who don't know.

34:16 Also, Coyote.

34:18 Coyote continues to do really well.

34:20 I feel like I have done mostly what I can do

34:24 with Coyote at this point and it's sort of been steady state.

34:27 I mean, the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere are great.

34:32 It continues to sell well through the distribution channels.

34:36 I wish in retrospect earlier on I had really focused

34:40 on fam even though there are plenty of adults who enjoy it,

34:43 focusing on families that have at least one or two

34:46 kids in that sort of 8 to 15 range.

34:50 And that would have helped with escape velocity sooner.

34:54 But hindsight 20/20.

34:56 I'm really really happy with with how it's turned out.

34:59 And then Varlotta uh honestly, now that the AI tools are getting good enough,

35:05 about 6 months ago I was planning

35:07 on creating a movie trailer for effectively a script.

35:11 I've got the whole thing in my head focused on Tyrolean.

35:15 If anyone This is the legend of[ __] Punch.

35:17 Now I think I will for obvious reasons lean towards Legends of Varlotta,

35:23 but focusing on the relationship between Ty

35:26 and his father and all sorts of craziness that ensues.

35:30 So I've got like a whole movie script in my head and concept

35:33 art that I haven't really done anything with from some of the top Magic:

35:39 The Gathering and D&D artists you can imagine.

35:42 So we'll see.

35:44 We'll see.

35:45 I could see screwing around with that this summer.

35:49 All right.

35:50 Yes, shout out to Jeff for keeping the CP

35:55 community having happy to spend some time there as well.

35:59 All right.

36:00 If I could only pick from the books on the shelves behind you,

36:02 what book would you want everyone in this group

36:04 to deep dive into or dive deep into?

36:07 I mean, man.

36:09 I mean, I have those books up there for a reason, right?

36:12 I have thousands of books.

36:13 I've donated most of them.

36:14 These are the ones I keep up for me to look at.

36:17 Give me a second.

36:18 I'll tell you.

36:24 Okay.

36:25 Wait.

36:26 Uh so I'm going to give answers that may not be satisfying to some folks.

36:31 That's okay.

36:32 I would read I'll give you one that I suppose you might expect from me.

36:36 So, one is going to be the effective executive from Peter Drucker.

36:40 Classic, old, short, incredible bang for the buck.

36:44 However, the other books I would say again talking about what

36:50 you do in a world of AI do more interesting things.

36:54 There's a book back there called Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez,

36:58 who won I believe it was the Booker or Pulitzer

37:00 Prize for another of his books called Arctic Dreams.

37:04 Of Wolves and Men is one of the best nonfiction

37:06 books I've ever read and it really shattered the mold.

37:10 It redefined what let's just call it nonfiction nature writing could be.

37:17 It's just an incredible incredible book.

37:21 So, there's one.

37:23 But, again, this is choose your own adventure.

37:25 Pick and choose.

37:27 Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.

37:29 I mentioned it earlier.

37:31 is hilarious, also an incredibly accurate and enjoyable

37:40 warts and all ride through the US.

37:44 Right?

37:44 What a quirky, weird ass country.

37:47 So, that's another one.

37:49 Pretty fast read.

37:50 And then there entire shelves back there related to animal

37:54 tracking and so on because I've done a bunch of that.

37:56 I don't think most of you should probably spend a lot of time on that.

38:00 If you haven't read I'll simplify the title here Alice in Wonderland.

38:05 You should go read Alice in Wonderland.

38:07 Read the whole thing.

38:08 Just quotes from it.

38:09 I have a collector's edition back there.

38:11 And then there are a few actually that I was going to mention

38:16 for one of the questions you guys submitted or as an answer.

38:19 The 80/20 Principle, Richard Koch.

38:21 That just gets old.

38:24 Just does not get old.

38:25 And there's another book of his up there called Living the 80/20 Principle.

38:30 It might be Living the 80/20 Way, but he really walks the talk.

38:33 If you haven't heard my podcast with Richard Koch, K O C H,

38:37 he's also one of the best investors I've ever met.

38:43 I mean, he's had I don't know if he's disclosed the actual amount,

38:47 but like he is I know a lot of the world's best investors,

38:51 and he is quietly way up there in the pantheon.

38:54 So, also practitioner.

38:58 He's on the field.

38:59 So, worth paying attention to him.

39:01 All right.

39:01 All the places I've traveled to, which have been the most breathtaking?

39:04 There's so many.

39:05 I mean, Queenstown, New Zealand at the right time of year,

39:08 I think is incredible.

39:10 But, you name it.

39:11 You name it.

39:12 I think Upstate New York, honestly, the Gunks and that entire region where a lot

39:19 of The Last of the Mohicans, the book certainly.

39:23 I don't know what about the filming of the movie,

39:25 but that takes place in that region.

39:28 You can kind of put me anywhere.

39:30 I mean, I just I think so many places are beautiful.

39:33 Take a couple of drawing classes.

39:35 That makes things much more beautiful overall.

39:38 Like gesture drawing classes.

39:40 Get some live nudes.

39:41 Keep it interesting.

39:42 I mean, you you may get an obese dude with his schwantz all over the place,

39:45 so just just so you know,

39:46 it's not automatically going to be a Victoria's Secret model, but that's okay.

39:50 Uh can't win them all.

39:53 All right.

39:53 This is from Hilka.

39:57 All right.

39:59 I'll I'll abbreviate a bit cuz this was a a long question.

40:01 I'm only going to hit the first part here,

40:04 but I'm a bootstrap founder in Replit's raised revenue flying into San

40:07 Francisco next week to pitch and network for a few days.

40:10 If you were in my shoes and wanted to squeeze

40:12 the maximum long-term leverage out of that short trip,

40:14 what specific things would you do before,

40:16 during, and after the event to one, have the right conversations,

40:20 and two, turn them into real opportunities rather than just great chats.

40:23 Okay.

40:24 Bonus, how has your bootstrapped versus VC changed lately for tech software?

40:29 I mean, I think it's just getting cheaper and cheaper to make software.

40:32 So, I think we're going to see a lot of self-funded startups.

40:37 I mean, good news, barrier to entry technically,

40:41 also economically is much lower.

40:43 Bad news, the barrier to attention and actually getting

40:45 people to use your stuff has never been higher.

40:49 So, there is that, but I do think

40:51 that we're going to see huge self-funded bootstrap companies.

40:56 Assuming that there aren't just a few gods,

40:58 aka superintelligence AI beasts that eat everything.

41:05 All right.

41:06 But, coming back to your question about network,

41:09 this is also never been more true.

41:12 I think in real life wins.

41:15 Everything else is too crowded.

41:16 So, there is a talk I gave.

41:18 I don't think there's any video.

41:20 Do you don't need video, frankly,

41:21 but there was a talk I gave at South by Southwest.

41:24 We'll link to this in the show notes, but if you search my name and how to build

41:30 a world-class network in record time, this will pop up.

41:34 This is a a talk I gave who knows, 7 years ago,

41:38 10 years ago at South by Southwest describing exactly what I

41:42 did at South by Southwest 2007 when I launched the 4-Hour Workweek.

41:49 And my entire budget for that book for launch and marketing and so

41:54 on was spent on a few trips to I think it was Web Summit,

42:01 maybe something Expo, Blog Expo, and then South by Southwest.

42:05 And there's an approach described in that that I think is very, very effective,

42:11 and it's still surprising to me no matter

42:13 how many times I talk about certain things, people just don't follow it.

42:20 You know, if I'm like, "Hey,

42:21 if I want to shill some shitcoin and be like, it's going to the moon,

42:25 right?" People would buy it immediately, but when I'm like, "Hey,

42:27 here's this thing that actually takes some hard

42:28 thinking and you need to plan for it,

42:30 but it's so much more effective long-term than

42:32 all of this hustle culture[ __] like, you know,

42:38 three-card monte that you want to do, you know,

42:40 every day for 10 hours." It's like, the the upfront stuff really matters a lot.

42:44 In this case, I really recommend this talk,

42:47 how to build a world-class network in record time.

42:49 And that sounds like YouTube clickbait, but it's actually true.

42:56 A lot of friends who are still friends of mine almost 20 years later

43:01 came from South by Southwest 2007 and a couple of those events I flew to.

43:07 These were not just transactional interactions.

43:11 And there is there is a way to approach this, right?

43:15 You definitely need to study any sessions and attendees beforehand.

43:20 The good news is, good news,

43:22 bad news is that have the right conversations, you don't need to worry about.

43:26 You've no idea how to have the right conversations.

43:30 Your goal is to meet people who are hopefully world-class at what they do,

43:36 simpatico with you, meaning you guys will actually get along.

43:39 Could be extracurricular interests, side hobbies,

43:43 it could just be the way the two of you are programmed.

43:46 And there are other kind of general strategies like

43:52 talking to moderators of panels instead of the panelists.

43:55 Everybody floods the panelists, the moderator gets orphaned and in many

43:59 cases the moderator is just as impressive.

44:02 And certainly the moderator knows everybody on the panel

44:06 and lots of people on other panels and everywhere else.

44:09 So, there are a couple of of tips in that that I would suggest checking out.

44:14 All right, next question is from Alex.

44:15 My company's growing quickly.

44:17 There are a lot of things that I need to be doing

44:19 to hit escape velocity and be able to hire to manage at the top.

44:25 I think that's manage.

44:26 It says mange, but I assume you don't want mange.

44:29 How do I choose what not to do?

44:31 All right, well the good news is we already talked about a couple.

44:33 So, 80/20 principle, which you cash, I would read that.

44:36 The Effective Executive, absolutely read that.

44:38 And it's really going to give you a frameworks

44:41 for better discerning yourself what to do and not do.

44:47 The other, depending on the scope,

44:51 current scope and scale of the company and then the ambitions,

44:58 especially if it's venture-backed,

45:01 is to read a book called The High-Growth Handbook by Elad Gil, E L A D G I L.

45:08 Arguably the best, one of the best,

45:11 certainly, angel investors of the last few decades.

45:14 I mean, his his hit rate is absolutely insane.

45:17 He's he's invested in at least 40 unicorns.

45:22 Also a tremendous founder and operator in his own right.

45:25 You can check him out.

45:26 Has a pretty wicked biology background on top of everything else.

45:30 So, those are a few that that come to mind.

45:34 And then, maybe last but not least, it's been a long time since I read it,

45:38 but the Blue Ocean Strategy, probably worth checking out.

45:41 Because if if you choose to compete in a crowded category,

45:45 you just have a harder road ahead of you.

45:48 So, creating a category of one, in a sense,

45:51 much like Cirque du Soleil did back in the day.

45:54 Right?

45:56 I'm expecting you're not dealing with Eastern European acrobats,

46:00 but you get the idea.

46:02 All right.

46:02 This is from JC.

46:05 When exploring somatic or psychedelic healing spaces,

46:08 what specific questions or observations do you use to quickly

46:11 distinguish between a highly competent

46:12 grounded practitioner and a narcissistic guru?

46:16 Tough.

46:18 A lot of good actors out there.

46:21 You know, the first thing that comes to mind

46:24 and obviously with all the usually the usual caveats, right?

46:27 These things are powerful.

46:28 You can definitely destabilize yourself.

46:31 They're illegal in most places, etc.

46:34 So don't break any laws, talk to your doctor, blah blah blah,

46:36 but ask you could ask practitioners or you could ask someone who's

46:43 had two trips and they're suddenly

46:46 acting like a Messiah proselytizing everybody.

46:49 You could ask them the same question,

46:50 but specific to clinicians or practitioners,

46:55 ask them what types of adverse events they've seen.

47:00 Right?

47:00 What are the most concerning adverse events they've seen?

47:04 A simpler way to put that is how do you handle freakouts?

47:08 Right?

47:09 What do you do when somebody really loses their[ __] And if

47:12 their answer is people don't lose their[ __] there aren't any adverse events,

47:20 they're either lying, delusional, or very inexperienced.

47:28 Right?

47:29 Maybe all three.

47:29 Those are not mutually exclusive.

47:31 So I find that to be a pretty quick

47:35 necessary but not sufficient way to use a particular

47:40 line of questioning to separate seasoned practitioners who are

47:45 honest from those who are neither of those things.

47:50 Of course, do your own homework.

47:52 I don't think anyone who is new to this and by new

47:56 I mean they have not been doing it more than a decade,

47:59 ideally multiple decades, is makes the the fly list for me.

48:08 It's just become too god damn trendy, so I would just say probably unfairly,

48:17 but I would be biased towards people who have

48:19 been doing this since before Michael Pollan's exceptional book,

48:24 How to Change Your Mind, right?

48:25 That might be the cut off for before and after.

48:28 Let's go back to live questions.

48:30 Yeah, Kumare, great documentary, Fred recommended.

48:33 Everybody should watch Kumare, k u m a r e.

48:36 I won't ruin the surprise.

48:39 Check that out.

48:39 It's a great great film.

48:42 I liked it so much that way back in the day,

48:44 there was a startup called quarterly.co,

48:47 which sent out boxes of goodies to people who subscribed, right?

48:51 And I would hand curate all these things that I really liked.

48:53 It was kind of like Five of Friday, but on a quarterly basis,

48:57 where you get all my favorite things shipped to you in a box.

49:00 Very difficult business to make work, but at one point,

49:04 this also dates me, tells you how long ago it was.

49:07 I reached out to the filmmaker who made Kumare,

49:10 and we figured out a way to make it work,

49:13 that I would ship something like 3,000 USB drives,

49:18 each of which contained this movie, to my subscribers.

49:21 That was one of my items that I sent.

49:24 All right.

49:24 Lots of questions about conferences.

49:26 I don't have a particular take on conferences these days.

49:28 I apologize.

49:29 I just I'm not tracking it actively.

49:31 They're always interesting meeting places in person.

49:34 So, I don't believe that's outdated.

49:36 South by Southwest has gotten very large and quite corporate.

49:39 Doesn't mean you can't have interesting interactions,

49:42 but you know, I would look for the events,

49:44 ideally, that are fewer than 1,000 people,

49:48 fewer than 500, even better, if you can.

49:51 It's is Chris, if I weren't an author and podcaster,

49:54 what other careers or industries would you have pursued?

49:57 I wanted to be a comic book penciler for ages and still do.

50:02 Some actually of my art pads right back over

50:07 there where I love to do live gesture drawings.

50:11 Honestly, helps me get out of my head.

50:13 Somebody will be up there, they'll hold a pose for like 60 seconds at a time

50:17 and then change or 2 minutes or 5 minutes at a time.

50:20 You really can't get in your head, there's just not enough time for it.

50:23 So, I really really enjoy that.

50:24 But, I wanted to be a comic book penciler and was an illustrator

50:29 through a good part of college helping to pay for expenses, things like that.

50:33 Illustrating books and so on.

50:35 So, I uh the the prospects then were not very attractive financially

50:41 to do that, especially after my extended family paid a fortune on my education.

50:46 So, I shifted gears, but certainly felt a draw towards that.

50:51 What kind of dog is Molly?

50:52 Molly is a rescue mutt.

50:54 She is Labrador, bloodhound, and pitbull mix.

51:02 Then, I'm sure there's Heinz 57 of other breeds in there.

51:07 In terms of training, honestly, I put up some basic training videos on YouTube.

51:12 If you just search my name and dog training,

51:14 but the books that I have found most

51:17 helpful are Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor.

51:19 I think everybody should read that.

51:21 I think the back copy says something like whether you

51:24 want to stop your cat from jumping on the table,

51:27 train your dog to do X, or convince your like mother-in-law to stop nagging you,

51:33 like the instructions are all the same.

51:34 Something like that.

51:35 It's pretty funny.

51:36 But, Karen Pryor brought clicker training,

51:39 sort of audible cueing of that type from marine mammal training,

51:46 dolphins, orcas, etc., to dog training,

51:49 or at least she's one of the people responsible for that really fantastic book

51:53 on behavioral change and shaping behavior overall.

51:58 And then, listen to my podcast with Susan Garrett.

52:02 Susan Garrett, g a r r e t t,

52:04 is impressive because she has won, I want to say five, I don't know,

52:08 five to 10 national dog agility championships,

52:13 even though she herself is much older than most of the human

52:16 competitors who have to kind of run alongside their dogs.

52:20 And she really, really knows her stuff.

52:21 So, those would be, I would say,

52:23 two places that you can start, two or three places.

52:26 Very kind comment here,

52:27 all of your works hold so many lessons on protection and nourishment,

52:29 the root of being a father.

52:31 I feel that way.

52:32 Thank you.

52:33 My friends have been my closest friends are like, yeah, you know what?

52:36 You're going to be a great dad.

52:37 So, that's part of the reason why I'm headed that way.

52:40 Even though, you know, word on the internet is that I've

52:43 self-help optimized myself into being single and miserable.

52:46 That's not true.

52:49 All those trolls can suck a dick.

52:51 Um I makes makes me feel like I'm drinking tequila.

52:56 Beware of those ketones, guys.

52:58 More on my thoughts is from Cindy on enneagram, dating, and business peeps.

53:01 I think enneagram, look, it might be tech-friendly astrology,

53:06 but I've seen it used at Shopify, I've seen it used at Dropbox,

53:11 I've seen it used by more than one

53:14 person to meet very good matches in intimate relationships.

53:20 And I think there's something to it.

53:22 I mean, it is a tool.

53:24 I would say that I'm I try to be as tool agnostic as possible,

53:27 but I found the enneagram, there are other options, of course,

53:30 as one good option for identifying your own blind spots, for say your partner,

53:37 and this could be someone you,

53:39 you know, work with, superior, subordinate, colleague.

53:43 what your likely blind spots are, where you're likely to be oversensitive,

53:47 and therefore how you might want to handle things internally like meetings,

53:52 decision-making, conflict resolution.

53:56 And that's pretty interesting, and it has been tested on a pretty

54:00 large scale within places like Shopify, Dropbox, right?

54:06 Unlike many other things.

54:07 So, I find it interesting and the app that I mentioned earlier,

54:14 tryapp.ai, code Tim 50 for 50% off.

54:18 I don't get any affiliate kickback or anything.

54:19 That's just to save you guys some money.

54:22 They incorporate the Enneagram.

54:23 So, pretty interesting.

54:25 I was telling them I was like, "Hey,

54:26 once you figure out this kind of business career mentoring side,

54:30 you could very easily have a matchmaking capability built into it." All right.

54:36 Quantum computing I find fascinating, amazing, and terrifying in equal measure.

54:42 I have not done much in the quantum computing world.

54:45 I have looked at maybe how certain cryptocurrencies are

54:52 more prepared to be quantum resistant than others, right?

54:57 I've looked at stuff like that.

54:59 I mean, not to mention all of our other

55:02 fancy passwords that we currently use and security,

55:06 but I have not really gone super deep.

55:09 I feel like that's an area, much like fusion,

55:13 where you really want to be as technical as possible.

55:19 Wading into those waters, I did a podcast with Steve Jurvetson ages ago,

55:24 who was one of the first investors in D-Wave.

55:27 But yeah, I mean, people are talking about AI,

55:31 but man, when when quantum actually hits,

55:34 and the joke has been with fusion for instance,

55:36 that fusion is always 30 years away.

55:39 I don't think that's true anymore.

55:41 Now, I could be proven wrong,

55:42 but I also think that's true with quantum where people are like,

55:45 "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that shit's never going to work." I'm like,

55:49 "Uh, we'll see." Look at Google's Excuse me.

55:53 Look at Alphabet's investments into quantum computing.

55:59 It does raise some questions.

56:01 Very interesting and also pretty scary to imagine what post-quantum looks like.

56:07 This is a good question.

56:08 How do you maintain so many friends despite your countercultural ideologies?

56:14 We My friends and I,

56:18 I think have maybe implicitly and this is maybe survivorship bias,

56:25 but agreed that like as long as you're civil,

56:29 like you can disagree on all sorts of stuff.

56:32 And I surround myself with friends who are going to push back.

56:38 And this includes my oldest friends.

56:40 This isn't just like fancy friends

56:41 that I've accumulated since the podcast or anything.

56:44 This also applies to my oldest friends from high school and college.

56:48 So, I would also say that most of my friends

56:53 are pretty adaptable in light of new information.

56:58 I don't spend a lot of time around blowhards who are like, "I'm an X.

57:01 I'm a Y." Right?

57:03 "I'm a liberal and that person's a neocon." Or "I'm

57:07 a conservative and that person's a libtard." Or whatever.

57:10 Like I don't hang out with those folks because while I

57:13 recognize that level of simplicity is appealing in a very chaotic,

57:17 messy world, it's not particularly an accurate reflection

57:22 of reality and the gradations in between extremes.

57:27 And it's certainly not very helpful.

57:30 Unless you are playing the political game and that's just

57:35 an arrow in the quiver that you have to use,

57:37 but otherwise I just stay away from that stuff.

57:41 I certainly don't steer away from controversy,

57:44 but I ask myself is this and this applies to watching

57:49 news or social media I know I've said this before,

57:52 but I haven't had any social media apps

57:53 on my phone for probably three or four years.

57:56 And the way I feel about the news in the 4-hour workweek is probably

58:01 10x more intense now in terms

58:03 of my selective ignorance around mainlining {quote} news, right?

58:10 Because if if it's not relevant to your life and if you are not going to make

58:16 a decision differently or take action because

58:20 of it or maybe avoid action because of it.

58:23 If there isn't some kind of follow-up, you don't need it.

58:27 is my general feeling.

58:29 And that's going to become not just a maybe perceived luxury.

58:36 I've been doing this for decades now, right?

58:38 And I wouldn't consider myself ineffective in the world.

58:43 But it's going to become a survival imperative.

58:47 If you want to remain sane, you can't doomscroll 24/7.

58:51 There's no way.

58:52 You can't doomscroll even a few hours a day.

58:56 So I've seen some crazy crazy physiological data from people on and off

59:02 of social media like blood tests and like mental health assessments and so on.

59:10 HAM-D caps five, you know, all this kind of stuff.

59:12 It's not good, guys.

59:13 So I'm I'm uh getting up on my soapbox now,

59:18 but we were talking about that no[ __] rule.

59:21 Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they're an[ __]

59:23 but if someone is really throwing sharp elbows for no reason.

59:27 It's like they're out.

59:29 Like I'm I'm I very freely have an inflow and outflow of friends.

59:36 There are certain friends who have remained in the inner sanctum and I for them,

59:42 too, cuz they reserve the same right for years and decades and decades now.

59:47 But it's like and people are allowed to have off days,

59:50 but it's like if someone has suddenly adopted being an[ __] as part

59:54 of their personality or identity in service

59:58 of {quote} {unquote} keeping it real or something, I don't have time for that.

1:00:02 All right.

1:00:03 Somebody asked about podcast interviewing a female screenwriter.

1:00:06 Yeah, sure.

1:00:07 Depends on the screenwriter,

1:00:08 but it's actually reaching out to two female screenwriters not too long ago.

1:00:15 I don't think I heard back.

1:00:17 So, what are you going to do?

1:00:18 This is a comment by Tim.

1:00:20 This sounds super simple,

1:00:21 but my longest latest relationship share a common sense of humor.

1:00:25 Married for 30 to 33 years and that's foundational.

1:00:27 Same goes for all distant and longest lasting friendships.

1:00:30 Yeah, 100%.

1:00:31 Humor is just reflective of so many other qualities, right?

1:00:35 And there's difference between humor and just like a kind of cynicism, right?

1:00:42 Quippy cynicism.

1:00:43 I'm not so much into that.

1:00:45 But like if if there's a fast banter

1:00:47 and people also are good at making fun of themselves,

1:00:49 not all the time, but in the right dose, it generally bodes well.

1:00:55 What inspired my most recent blog post?

1:00:57 Fugacity Labs.

1:01:00 This is on the self-help trap,

1:01:02 what I learned from 20 plus years of optimizing myself,

1:01:04 optimizing on {quote} {unquote} might have been improving.

1:01:07 We split tested a bunch of different headlines.

1:01:09 But what prompted that is just seeing how you know, at worst miserable,

1:01:18 at best constantly anxious or self-doubting,

1:01:21 so many people are in the self-help, self-development world, right?

1:01:28 And I feel like we are all sitting on a slightly

1:01:33 too warm stove top of baseline anxiety due to the technological

1:01:41 tectonic plates that we're dealing with and certainly the kind of algo-driven

1:01:46 personalized feeds that will just pour gasoline on your limbic system.

1:01:53 And coming back to what we can control, right?

1:01:56 It's like, "Okay, sure.

1:01:57 I can I can suggest people delete

1:02:00 social media apps off of their phones." Realistically,

1:02:03 most people are not going to do that.

1:02:05 And there are some upsides.

1:02:06 If you have the ability to moderate with these tools,

1:02:09 you can stay connected with friends, etc., etc.

1:02:12 Although, I've become more and more dubious of those defenses.

1:02:15 If if people were able to instead of just looking at screen time by app,

1:02:19 to see what actual usage is,

1:02:22 the use cases that they're spending time on with a given app,

1:02:26 I think that would be very illuminating.

1:02:28 In any case, in lieu of that, what else can you do?

1:02:32 What other levers can you pull?

1:02:34 And I think that the in real life relational component is

1:02:40 the lever that makes all other levers easier, in a way.

1:02:46 So, that's what prompted writing that blog post.

1:02:49 Very nice question.

1:02:51 How can we help you, whether here in the Discord book forum?

1:02:55 Just Just try to be go first with people, to quote Gabby Reece.

1:03:05 I interviewed Gabby with Laird Hamilton, one of the kings of big wave surfing,

1:03:10 and I think her billboard answer was go first.

1:03:15 Just like smile and say hi first.

1:03:17 Just do that.

1:03:18 I'd say helping the world to be just like 1% brighter in some tiny way.

1:03:25 All right, like tip the breeze,

1:03:27 like leave a 20 as a tip like once a month somewhere.

1:03:30 I know that's not necessarily trivial money for folks,

1:03:33 but it's like give somebody an absurd tip, right?

1:03:35 Like if they're really good, really kind.

1:03:37 Just like or it doesn't even like have a nice tea tip them a 10, right?

1:03:42 Something like that.

1:03:43 It doesn't need to be money.

1:03:45 You get the idea.

1:03:46 Do I have any news to share about the notebook?

1:03:48 Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to put on my diving goggles

1:03:52 and get back into it in the next probably month or two, pretty soon.

1:03:57 Have a couple of other things and I'll have I foresee at least one big

1:04:02 announcement related to other projects coming up

1:04:05 in the next few months, but going back in.

1:04:09 Wish me luck.

1:04:11 There's a question from John.

1:04:12 Still love the 17 questions.

1:04:15 People can find the 17 I think they're in Tools of Titans,

1:04:18 maybe Tribe of Mentors, but also on tim.blog.

1:04:21 There's a PDF with the 17 questions I most often ask myself.

1:04:26 I've got one.

1:04:29 Question that I would probably add is some version

1:04:34 of what is the most generous interpretation of this?

1:04:38 All right?

1:04:40 I have been trained since a wee little

1:04:43 lad to be pretty anger forward, let's just say.

1:04:50 If I were a wine, very anger forward.

1:04:52 And the way that shows up, there are, to get fancy, myriad ways this shows up.

1:05:00 One is that some days I can just feel

1:05:06 like the entire world is conspiring to make me annoyed.

1:05:09 And obviously that's not true, right?

1:05:11 But if it seems like someone is ripping you off, right?

1:05:17 Which does happen.

1:05:21 Most of the time, it's probably just a misunderstanding.

1:05:24 Right?

1:05:25 So, what's the most generous interpretation?

1:05:27 If you feel like your significant other did something to annoy you did

1:05:34 something to annoy you or they always do X, they never do Y.

1:05:39 Like, okay.

1:05:40 Well, what's the most generous interpretation of this?

1:05:44 And I'm borrowing this from other people,

1:05:46 but I feel like that is a very helpful question.

1:05:52 And you could pair that with a bunch of other ones.

1:05:56 I think Krista Tippett great podcaster, by the way.

1:06:00 But Krista Tippett, one of the OGs.

1:06:03 On Being, I believe is her podcast.

1:06:05 And I believe it's Krista.

1:06:08 I might be misattributing,

1:06:09 but at least I'm not saying Oscar Wilde or Abe Lincoln.

1:06:12 That she said anger is pain shown in public, something like that.

1:06:20 Right?

1:06:20 So, you can apply that to yourself, too, if you're a little anger forward.

1:06:26 And that doesn't mean navel gaze and you have

1:06:29 to do 12 years of therapy to figure it out.

1:06:31 Like, what is the most generous interpretation of this, whatever this might be.

1:06:35 I would add that to my questions.

1:06:37 Okay, if you go to a city and you have 2 days, what are your go-to activities?

1:06:41 Bicycle tour.

1:06:42 Bike tour, for sure.

1:06:46 One of the best ways to meet locals figure out what's fun that isn't just

1:06:52 a glossy photo posted on Instagram

1:06:57 or an ex- super expensive three Michelin star restaurant.

1:07:02 Bicycle tour.

1:07:03 Hang out, you know.

1:07:05 Also, hang out with You don't have to actually stay at a hostel,

1:07:08 but like go talk to the manager of a hostel or somebody

1:07:10 who works the front desk and has been there for a couple years.

1:07:12 They'll have lots of great recommendations.

1:07:15 Okay, where does accumulating wealth fall on my scale of overall success?

1:07:19 Zero.

1:07:21 It's like look, I mean, a lot of wealthy people make a lot of excuses

1:07:27 as to why they need to keep making money.

1:07:29 Like, well, you know, I could give money now, but if I compound at such and such

1:07:35 compound at annual growth rate and da-da-da and then,

1:07:38 you know, I'll give it away when I'm dead, basically, or yada yada yada.

1:07:43 I just don't buy it.

1:07:45 You know, working dogs who have been tracing a rabbit around a track

1:07:48 their whole lives in sixth gear get

1:07:50 very good at chasing something in sixth gear.

1:07:52 So, they want to continue doing that.

1:07:54 I'm not holding myself up as some enlightened being.

1:07:58 I've just had the benefit of seeing so many people crash and burn or just

1:08:06 end up with this existential malaise because

1:08:08 when they actually pause for a second,

1:08:10 if they do pause, and sometimes life's life forces

1:08:13 you to pause with a divorce or medical emergency,

1:08:17 they have this maybe sense of hollowness

1:08:22 or certainly not a sense of fulfillment.

1:08:24 So, I've just seen that so many times.

1:08:26 It's like, accumulating wealth, who cares?

1:08:29 It's just like how many people can give

1:08:33 you the full name of Alexander the Great?

1:08:35 All right, it's like nobody's going to remember you.

1:08:36 Nobody's going to remember me.

1:08:38 Nobody's going to remember us.

1:08:38 It's okay.

1:08:39 It's totally fine.

1:08:40 It's actually very freeing.

1:08:43 It's like every everybody should read I think it's Percy Shelley, Ozymandias.

1:08:51 Yeah, Percy Shelley, Ozymandias.

1:08:55 Everybody should find this.

1:08:57 Ozymandias.

1:09:00 So good.

1:09:02 Everybody should read up Ozymandias.

1:09:05 What do I prioritize instead of wealth?

1:09:08 Relationships.

1:09:08 And this sounds so trite,

1:09:11 but it's like there are people who say that, and then you go visit them,

1:09:14 and you're like, "Holy[ __] like their kids hate them,

1:09:16 and like they never see their best friends." Or their quote-unquote best

1:09:21 friends are constantly a different roster because as Arthur Brooks would put it,

1:09:27 they're deal friends, not real friends, right?

1:09:33 But I mean, the past year review really helps

1:09:37 to make this point for me over and over again.

1:09:40 And if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about,

1:09:42 just search my name and past year review.

1:09:45 But thinking about it, it's like, "Okay,

1:09:46 who are the 10 most important people in your life?

1:09:48 Did you spend as much time as you would like

1:09:50 to spend with them last year?" If the answer's no,

1:09:53 invest in those 10 before you invest in anyone else, right?

1:09:57 And track the results.

1:09:59 Then you look back, and look at the number of peak positive experiences, right?

1:10:06 Energetically, emotionally, whatever it is, over that quarter, that year.

1:10:10 It's not something you have to do all the time.

1:10:12 And you're like, "Oh, yeah,

1:10:14 doubling down on those 10 really made my year so much better.

1:10:17 Blocking out time with those people in advance made it so much better.

1:10:20 Okay, let's do more of that." So, yeah, that's about it.

1:10:28 Yeah, it might have been Tara Brach who

1:10:30 talked about the anger is fear on the outside.

1:10:34 Who knows?

1:10:34 Some smart person who's a lot chillier than I am said that.

1:10:38 David, here we go.

1:10:41 As a soon-to-be father, I'm thinking a lot about parenthood.

1:10:44 If you start a family, what would be the top three values

1:10:46 or lessons you'd hope to instill in your children?

1:10:50 I have thought about this a lot,

1:10:51 and I've had I've been able to watch what has worked and what has not worked.

1:10:54 I think optimism, resourcefulness, and like lots of physical activity.

1:11:02 Lots of physical activity.

1:11:03 You got to run that dog.

1:11:04 Tired dog is a happy dog.

1:11:06 So, yeah, optimism.

1:11:08 I think Mike Maples Jr.

1:11:10 was the first person who really underscored this.

1:11:12 He has a bunch of kids who've turned out well.

1:11:14 Optimism's kind of number one.

1:11:16 It's like the mother quality that enables all else.

1:11:19 Resourcefulness, I would say I think Maya Angelou actually said courage is sort

1:11:24 of the mother quality cuz everything else at its breaking point depends on it.

1:11:28 So, I had something which is like no failure, only feedback.

1:11:32 Just encouraging them to try stuff.

1:11:35 Positive reinforcement.

1:11:36 Try stuff.

1:11:37 Try stuff.

1:11:38 I mean, this applies to dog training, too,

1:11:39 but some of my friends who have never had dogs get all pissed

1:11:43 off and get their knickers in a twist when I compare kids to dogs.

1:11:49 I know they're not the same, but you know what?

1:11:52 Shaping behavior is pretty similar across mammals.

1:11:54 Anyway, optimism, courage {slash} try a bunch of[ __] It's fine.

1:11:59 It's just feedback.

1:12:01 And then resourcefulness.

1:12:02 And I think if you have optimism and you're willing to try a bunch of stuff,

1:12:07 aka use courage in certain ways,

1:12:09 then I think resourcefulness is a byproduct of that.

1:12:12 So, those would be the things I'd focus on and lots

1:12:16 and lots and lots and lots of physical activity.

1:12:19 Together as a family, right?

1:12:23 Okay.

1:12:24 Rachel thought I'd throw in an odd question this time.

1:12:26 Have you ever Have you ever been on a treasure hunt or geocache?

1:12:29 What's the weirdest, coolest,

1:12:30 most unexpected thing you found out in the wilderness?

1:12:32 This could be something natural or unnatural.

1:12:36 Well, black bear stole a leg from my elk last year.

1:12:43 That was pretty annoying.

1:12:44 And we found it chewed to all sorts of into all sorts of mangled contortions.

1:12:50 That was a bummer.

1:12:51 I don't want to have sloppy seconds after a bear has gotten into your elk leg.

1:12:54 Just pro tip.

1:12:56 I've been on treasure hunts and geocaches.

1:12:58 I would say the thing that comes to mind,

1:13:01 which is somewhat unrelated to your question, is that if people are like,

1:13:05 "What's the most interesting way you've lost money?" Because

1:13:09 I do get my face ripped off then and again,

1:13:11 part of the early stage investing game.

1:13:14 I invested in treasure hunters, very famous treasure hunters,

1:13:18 who were searching for sunken Spanish galleons

1:13:21 full of gold and all sorts of stuff.

1:13:25 And ultimately, one of the people involved

1:13:28 just absconded with all of the investor money

1:13:30 and it turned into this like where in the world is Carmen Sandiego[ __] debacle,

1:13:36 but you know, makes for a story.

1:13:38 So, once again, don't bet money you cannot afford to lose,

1:13:44 especially when it involves Spanish galleons.

1:13:48 Uh good lordy, lordy, lordy.

1:13:50 This is coming back to encodings.

1:13:52 Cindy, you and Jim Collins talked about encoding.

1:13:55 This is a term that Jim uses, which is somewhat comparable to strengths.

1:14:00 Like, what are your innate strengths, right?

1:14:03 So, we spoke about that.

1:14:05 I'd love if you go deeper on the topic,

1:14:06 share more about how it resonated with you personally,

1:14:08 and give additional practical advice on how

1:14:10 people currently locked into work or career situations can progress with a plan

1:14:14 towards living fully within their encoded selves.

1:14:18 I find that asking your best friends, could be family members,

1:14:25 could also be employees, 360 reviews can be very brutal.

1:14:30 You can listen to my conversation with Joe Gebbia,

1:14:33 co-founder of Airbnb, about how brutal that can be.

1:14:35 Doesn't have to be be brutal, though.

1:14:38 I would say that a couple of questions come up that I have asked close friends,

1:14:44 some of my best friends, people who know me really well.

1:14:48 When have you seen me at my best?

1:14:50 Or when do you see me at my best?

1:14:53 But it's good to have practical examples or concrete examples from the past,

1:14:57 not just like when you tend to this, you tend to do that.

1:15:00 It's like now, give me an example.

1:15:01 Like when have you seen me at my best?

1:15:03 When have you seen me at my worst?

1:15:04 Like what stories or memories come to mind?

1:15:06 Then what is easier for me than for other people?

1:15:11 Right, what do you see in me that I'm I find easier than most people?

1:15:16 Jim didn't like that question, right?

1:15:18 Cuz he wanted to it all to be internally,

1:15:20 individually referenced, but this is how I do it.

1:15:24 I actually do find that aspect helpful

1:15:26 cuz then you're not only finding strengths,

1:15:29 you're finding strengths that allow you to potentially compete.

1:15:32 And I I just like having both if I can.

1:15:36 And then you could ask you to what this is very closely related to the last one,

1:15:39 but what what strength or ability do I discount in myself?

1:15:45 Right?

1:15:46 There's certain things.

1:15:47 A friend of mine was making

1:15:48 a point about something related to startups recently.

1:15:51 And I was like, yeah,

1:15:52 I mean it doesn't strike me as particularly special because A, B, and C.

1:15:54 And he's like, that's the problem.

1:15:55 He's like, you can't see it because like you're the fish swimming in the water.

1:15:59 And I was like, huh, okay.

1:16:01 And then I bounced it off a few other people and they're like,

1:16:03 yeah, that's like a[ __] weird superpower of yours and I don't understand it.

1:16:07 And I was like, oh.

1:16:08 Never really realized.

1:16:09 So, what strengths or ability do I discount in myself?

1:16:13 Right, this is you using that question for somebody else.

1:16:17 Or not harness, right?

1:16:18 It could be discounting,

1:16:19 it could just be like what strength or ability am I not using that I have?

1:16:25 And one question that can infer a lot of the answers

1:16:29 to these others also is if I weren't doing X,

1:16:33 whatever your current gig is, like what could you see me doing?

1:16:36 Right?

1:16:37 And I feel like if you ask enough people who

1:16:42 know you enough and who aren't going to[ __] you,

1:16:45 who will also be willing to answer questions about your weaknesses, right?

1:16:49 In other words, example given, when have you seen me at my worst?

1:16:52 If they can't answer that, they're not going to give you fully candid advice.

1:16:57 So, I would say those are a few of the approaches

1:16:59 that I've used and I've found them very helpful.

1:17:05 Geocaching.

1:17:05 A lot of people here into geocaching.

1:17:08 Yeah, I mean, sure, be fun.

1:17:09 I've also dreamed about doing orienteering courses,

1:17:12 which I think could be super, super fascinating.

1:17:15 This is the last question.

1:17:16 I think it's a good one to end on.

1:17:17 Is courage external or internal?

1:17:19 How do you teach it to kids?

1:17:20 I think courage is learned.

1:17:22 You have to practice it.

1:17:25 And if you're not afraid, it's not courage.

1:17:30 Right?

1:17:31 If someone's fearless, they're by definition not using courage.

1:17:34 You have to be afraid of something.

1:17:36 So, you can edge yourself and you can edge kids into that, right?

1:17:41 It's not like, "Hey, you've never been in the water before.

1:17:44 Let's take you up to do cliff diving." No, no.

1:17:46 Yeah, I mean, that's unhelpful fear with severe consequences.

1:17:50 It's like you can stair-step into it,

1:17:52 but I think I don't think courage is a decision.

1:17:55 I don't think courage is something you get from reading a book.

1:17:59 I don't think courage is something that you can develop abstractly.

1:18:05 I think you have to prove to yourself that you have it and the only

1:18:09 way your subconscious will believe it is if

1:18:12 you are actually doing things that are uncomfortable.

1:18:16 That's it.

1:18:18 Which means it is learnable.

1:18:22 And there may be some set point that contributes to it, right?

1:18:27 In one way or another, right?

1:18:28 If you're Alex Honnold and your amygdala's like basically asleep,

1:18:31 it's like, okay, well, right, that explains a few things.

1:18:35 But it's also something that you can

1:18:38 very sequentially sort of expose yourself to, just

1:18:45 like you would to build a tan or to get stronger in the gym.

1:18:47 I think it's through action.

1:18:49 Right?

1:18:50 It's like progressive resistance that you develop courage,

1:18:54 and it's very I've seen my friends do this with their kids,

1:18:57 and this is also why the physical activity is very,

1:19:00 very helpful to prove kids to prove to kids or help

1:19:03 them prove to themselves that they can do hard things.

1:19:06 Right?

1:19:07 Like, okay, sure, you could wait until they can

1:19:09 sit down with calculus and try to figure that out,

1:19:11 or you could be like, "Yeah, that thing that you're nervous about doing,

1:19:14 like hitting a baseball, climbing a whatever,

1:19:18 you know, 5.9 in an indoor climbing gym, like,

1:19:20 yeah, okay, let's let's get after it." All right,

1:19:24 I will I will stop there, guys.

1:19:26 I appreciate somebody asked, "When is Alex Honnold coming on the podcast?" I had

1:19:30 him on about 6 months before he free soloed El Cap.

1:19:34 So, if you want to If you want

1:19:35 to listen to Alex Honnold before he got media polished,

1:19:38 my podcast is a good way to start.

1:19:41 Great guy, but that was before he got polished for primetime.

1:19:45 And that's about it.

1:19:47 All right, ladies and gentlemen, appreciate you taking the time,

1:19:51 and thanks for all the great questions.

1:19:54 And be safe out there.

1:19:55 Be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, yes, but to yourself, also.

1:20:00 Go first, smile, say hi.

1:20:03 Thanks, everybody.