The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

“Can you be in this world and can you love it with all its imperfections? And can you bring that spirit of care and love in the middle of what’s tragic and what’s beautiful? That’s a liberated heart.”
— Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield (@JackKornfield) trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to have introduced Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West.

Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, and Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. Current projects include The Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, which has trained 7,000 mindfulness teachers in 75 countries, and Wisdom Ventures, a fund investing in companies that promote compassion.

His books have been translated into 22 languages and sold 2 million copies. They include The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology; A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Buddha’s Little Instruction Book; The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace; and his most recent book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are.

Jack is also co-founder of Cloud Sangha, which offers a free, quick mindfulness test to gauge your mindfulness levels. Cloud Sangha is a conscious online community that brings people together to create meaningful human connections and integrate mindfulness into everyday life.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business; AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement; and LMNT electrolyte supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#684: Jack Kornfield — How to Reduce Anxiety and Polish the Lens of Consciousness

This episode is brought to you by LMNT! What is LMNT? It’s a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I’ve stocked up on boxes and boxes of this and usually use it 1–2 times per day. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or Paleo diet. If you are on a low-carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness.

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Want to hear Jack Kornfield’s previous interview on the podcast? Have a listen to our conversation in which we discuss apathy and polarization, truth beneath anger, contractor-ese, retuning the tone of rage, coping with trauma-induced hypervigilance, out-of-body experiences, guided meditation for recapturing the adventure and joy of childhood, and much more.

#601: Jack Kornfield — How to Overcome Apathy and Find Beautiful Purpose

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 19, 2023July 20, 2023

Bill Gurley Interviews Tim Ferriss — Reflecting on 20+ Years of Life and Business Experiments (#682)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own lives.

This is a special episode and a turning of the tables. This time, legendary investor Bill Gurley interviews me, and the recording is from earlier this year at SXSW in Austin, TX. The conversation explores some of my lessons learned and favorite findings over the last two decades in areas like entrepreneurship, tech, and podcasting. I throw in some favorite books and other spice to keep things interesting.

Bill Gurley (@bgurley) has spent more than 20 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 three years at Credit Suisse First Boston. Over his venture career, he has worked with such companies as GrubHub, Nextdoor, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, Uber, and Zillow.

For more takeaways from his incredible investing career, you can find my interview with Bill at tim.blog/billgurley.

As a side note, my 2007 SXSW speech that I mention in the interview is what started it all, in many senses. It’s what put my first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, on the radar of influential bloggers and bigger media outlets, ultimately landing it on The New York Times Best Sellers list, where it stayed, more or less, for the next seven years. It’s been a wild ride.

You can hear that 2007 presentation at tim.blog/sxsw.

One last thing: Hugh Forrest, if you’re listening, thank you again for giving me a shot way back in the day!

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the conversation on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, Secureframe automated security and privacy compliance platform, and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#682: Bill Gurley Interviews Tim Ferriss — Reflecting on 20+ Years of Life and Business Experiments

This episode is brought to you by Secureframe! Secureframe’s industry-leading compliance automation platform, paired with their in-house compliance experts and former auditors, helps you get audit-ready in weeks, not months, so you can close more deals faster.

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Want to hear the last time Bill Gurley was on this podcast and I was the one asking all the questions? Listen to our conversation in which we discussed the most efficient short-form MBA one can find, sell-side analysts vs. buy-side analysts, repurposing good ideas for alternative applications, undervalued competitive advantages, the Santa Fe Institute, how to cultivate anti-tribalism, problems open source can solve, and much more.

#651: Legendary Investor Bill Gurley on Investing Rules, Finding Outliers, Insights from Jeff Bezos and Howard Marks, Must-Read Books, Creating True Competitive Advantages, Open-Source Strategies, Adapting Mental Models to New Realities, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 12, 2023July 31, 2023

Doom Legend John Romero — The Path to Prolific Innovation and Making 130+ Games, How to Find the Soul of the Work, Audacious Ambition, and Building in Monk Mode (#681)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“So I played for a little while, and I noticed that there were only probably two students in the room. And I said, ‘Well, what are they doing on the computer, because it doesn’t look like they’re playing?’ He goes, ‘Oh, no, they’re programming.’ And I’m like, ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘Well, that’s actually what you do to make these games. You have to learn how to tell the computer how to put stuff on the screen and what to do, how to think.’ And I’m like, ‘I want to do that.'”
— John Romero

Computer and video game legend John Romero (@romero) has designed and published more than 130 games since his first sale at the age of 16. A teenage programming prodigy, his major achievements include co-inventing a series of revolutionary computer games—DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein 3-D, and Commander Keen—that launched the industry’s most popular genre, the first-person shooter.

The memoir DOOM GUY: Life in First Person is his first book.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#681: Doom Legend John Romero — The Path to Prolific Innovation and Making 130+ Games, How to Find the Soul of the Work, Audacious Ambition, and Building in Monk Mode

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 900 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.

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Want to hear another episode with someone who takes the business of creating fun seriously? Listen to my conversation with Exploding Kittens co-founder Elan Lee, in which we discuss core gameplay loops, internet archaeology, converting casual fans into superfans, building a game from scratch quickly, making Jar Jar Binks’ neck, clothing the vote, designing games with kids, dealing with investor expectations, defying the algorithms, and much more.

#653: Elan Lee, Co-Creator of Exploding Kittens — How to Raise Millions on Kickstarter, Deconstructing Mega-Successes, Secrets of Game Design, The Power of Positive Constraints, The Delights of Craftsmanship, and The Art of Turning Fans into Superfans

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 5, 2023July 7, 2023

Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) (#680)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“M. Scott Peck wrote a book which starts, ‘Life is difficult.’ This is one of the great 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 overcoming difficulties. But if you expect there are going to be no difficulties, obviously you are going to be disillusioned.”
— Richard Koch

Richard Koch (@RichardKoch8020) is an entrepreneur, investor, former strategy consultant, and 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 22 percent compounded annually over 37 years and have included Filofax, Plymouth Gin, Belgo, Betfair, FanDuel, and Auto1. He has worked for Boston Consulting Group and was a partner at Bain & Co. before joining Jim Lawrence and Iain Evans to start LEK, which expanded from three to 350 professionals during the six years Richard was there.

In 1997, Richard’s book The 80/20 Principle reinterpreted the Pareto Rule—which states that most results come from a small minority of causes—and extended it beyond its well-known application in business into personal life, happiness, and success. The book, rewritten in 2022, has sold more than a million copies, been translated into roughly 40 languages, and has become a business classic. It was named by GQ as one of the top 25 business books of all time. Richard’s latest book is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It.

He has two upcoming books: 80/20 Beliefs, which identifies the very few beliefs in our lives that strongly influence what we do, and, therefore, the results we get, and 80/20 Daily, a collection of 365 short daily readings using the 80/20 philosophy to achieve the good life.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Secureframe automated security and privacy compliance platform, Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Wealthfront high-yield savings account.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers)

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Want to hear the last time Richard Koch was on the show? Listen here to our conversation in which we discussed investing for the mathematically challenged, Oxford Bodleian Library secrets, writing The 80/20 Principle, optimizing happiness, different journaling styles, nine landmarks of successful people, Nelson Mandela’s unique intuition, and much more.

#466: Richard Koch on Mastering the 80/20 Principle, Achieving Unreasonable Success, and the Art of Gambling

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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June 28, 2023July 3, 2023

Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic — Quitting the Day Job, The Delights of the Magic Castle, Finding Glitches in Reality, Learning How to Use Your Own Brain, and Worshiping at the Altar of Wonder (#679)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“If there’s no right time, then sooner is better than later.“
— Simon Coronel

Simon Coronel (simoncoronel.com) is legally classified as an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” by the United States Government for his skills as a magician and illusionist. Simon discovered magic in 1999 as a first-year student at Melbourne University. He then spent five years working full time in management consulting while juggling his “secret” performance career.

He’s currently a jigsaw puzzle designer for The Magic Puzzle Company, which has the #1-backed puzzle on Kickstarter of all time, and is a regular performer at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Simon has appeared twice on the hit TV show Penn & Teller: Fool Us. He has won over a dozen international awards for magic, including being crowned the World Champion of Magic in 2022 at FISM, the Olympics of magic.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by AeroPress 3-in-1 coffee press for delicious brews, Allbirds incredibly comfortable shoes, and LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#679: Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic — Quitting the Day Job, The Delights of the Magic Castle, Finding Glitches in Reality, Learning How to Use Your Own Brain, and Worshiping at the Altar of Wonder

This episode is brought to you by AeroPress! If you haven’t tried coffee made with an AeroPress, you’re in for a treat. With more than 45,000 five-star reviews and customers in more than 60 countries, it might be the highest-rated coffee maker on the planet. This press uses a patented 3-in-1 technology that combines the best of several brew methods into one, easy-to-use, very portable device. Because it combines the best of 3 methods, you get a cup that is full bodied, like a French press; smooth and complex, like when using the pour-over method; and rich in flavor, like espresso.

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This episode is brought to you by Allbirds! Allbirds are incredibly comfortable shoes, sustainably made, with design rooted in simplicity. I’ve been wearing Allbirds for the last several months, and I’ve been alternating between two pairs. I started with the Tree Runners (in marine blue, if you’re curious), and now I’m wearing the Tree Dashers, and the Tree Dashers are my current “daily driver.” I stick with the blue hues, and the Dashers are in buoyant blue. The color pops, and I’ve received a ton of compliments.

The Tree Dasher is an everyday running and walking shoe that’s also great for light workouts. It’s super comfortable, and I’ve been testing it on long walks in Austin and New Zealand on both trails and pavement. Find your perfect pair at Allbirds.com today and use code TIM for free socks with a purchase of $48 or more. Just add a pair of socks to your shopping cart and apply code TIM to make the pair free.

Want to hear a podcast episode with someone Simon once fooled? Listen to my interview with Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller fame), in which we discussed practicing skepticism without cynicism, compensating for weak visual memory, youthful meanderings, making several grand per week as a technically homeless street performer, de-escalating hostility with wits and a milkshake, losing 0.9 pounds a day for four months, hanging out with the legendary Richard Feynman, and much more.

#405: Penn Jillette on Magic, Losing 100+ Pounds, and Weaponizing Kindness

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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June 21, 2023June 27, 2023

Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning (#678)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“We’re asking our team members to be snipers, rally car drivers, CrossFit athletes, butchers. The people we have on our teams just have these extraordinary skill sets. It’s the funnest thing to watch a guy in his first week.”
— Jake Muise

Jake Muise (@mauinuivenison) is CEO at Maui Nui Venison, a company he co-founded in 2017 that works to balance invasive axis deer populations on the island of Maui, channeling that management into incredible nutrient-dense food. Maui Nui was selected for Fast Company’s “Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Agriculture of 2023,” and its venison has been served in restaurants across the country, including Alinea, The French Laundry, and Saison. Prior to Maui Nui, Jake was executive director of the Axis Deer Institute for 12 years, part of a two-decades-long project focused on axis deer and their long-term management in Hawai’i.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business; Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#678: Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning

Want to hear an episode with someone else who hunts with a mindset of conservation? Listen to my interview with MeatEater‘s Steven Rinella, in which we discuss how he got me to overcome a lifetime of negative association with hunting and hunters, why a decline in hunting and fishing license sales in the United States is worrisome, the role of hunters in ensuring prey species remain plentiful, the problem with conservation efforts that become overly politicized, recommendations for reconnecting with nature, and much more.

#470: Steven Rinella on Hunting (and Why You Should Care), Reconnecting with Nature, Favorite Trips, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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June 14, 2023June 16, 2023

HERESIES — Exploring Animal Communication, Cloning Humans, The Dangers of The American Dream, and More (#677)

21 Comments

Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I’m very excited to publish this episode. This is an experimental format, and we are calling it HERESIES.

The objective of this format is to encourage and celebrate independent thinking.

Please enjoy!

Bios of the co-hosts and guests:

Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. You can find my most recent interview with him at tim.blog/kevinkelly.

He is the author of the new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. Other books by Kevin Kelly include Out of Control, the 1994 classic book on decentralized emergent systems; The Silver Cord, a graphic novel about robots and angels; What Technology Wants, a robust theory of technology; Vanishing Asia, his 50-year project to photograph the disappearing cultures of Asia, and The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, a New York Times bestseller.

Kevin is currently co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock in a mountain that will tick for 10,000 years. He also has a daily blog; a weekly podcast about cool tools; and a weekly newsletter, Recomendo, which is a free, one-page list of six very brief recommendations of cool stuff. He is also a Senior Maverick at Wired. He lives in Pacifica, California.

****

Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America. You can find my interview with him at tim.blog/noah.

Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.

Noah is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.

He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He is the author of 10 books, including Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—and What We Should Do About It; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building; Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition; Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices; and The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

His upcoming book is Bad Jew: A Perplexed Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People, which is currently available for pre-order.

***

Maggie Spivey-Faulkner is an anthropological archaeologist and practitioner of Indigenous archaeology, currently working as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. She also serves as an assistant chief of the Upper Georgia tribal town of the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek, a state-recognized Native American group in South Carolina. Her work focuses on using anthropological data to upend harmful misconceptions of Native American peoples embedded in public policy, science, and the public consciousness.

Maggie was raised in a tight-knit extended family in rural Hephzibah, Georgia. She is an international fellow of The Explorers Club, a former junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018 and her A.B. from Harvard College in 2008.

***

Joshua L. Steiner is a partner at SSW, a private investment firm, and a senior adviser at Bloomberg, L.P., where he was previously Head of Industry Verticals. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Steiner co-founded and was co-president of Quadrangle Group, LLC, a private equity and asset management firm. Before co-founding Quadrangle, he was a managing director at Lazard. From 1993 to 1995 he served as chief of staff for the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

He serves on the boards of Yale University, the International Rescue Committee, and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Steiner received a B.A. in history from Yale and an M.St. in modern history from Oxford University.

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#677: HERESIES — Exploring Animal Communication, Cloning Humans, The Dangers of The American Dream, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

June 7, 2023June 8, 2023

David Maisel of Marvel Studios Fame — Never-Before-Heard Tales of Hollywood Dealmaking, The Art of Aiming Big, Lessons from Power Broker Michael Ovitz, Combining Business Smarts with Street Smarts, The Making (and Importance) of Iron Man, Selling to Disney for $4 Billion, and Much More (#676)

3 Comments

Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“It’s having the vision and then going there and making it happen with whatever dials I need to turn—creatively or business or political or financing—to get it done.”
— David Maisel

David Maisel (@maiseldavid) is the founder of Mythos Studios and the founding chairman of Marvel Studios. In 2003, David pitched Marvel on his idea of Marvel financing and producing its own movies in a connected cinematic universe. He went on to executive produce Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Angry Birds Movie. In 2009, David arranged the sale of Marvel to Disney for $4 billion.

David is currently the Founder of Mythos Studios, an IP entertainment studio. The Ekos Genesis Art Collection, all 1/1 original hand-crafted digital art, is the first offering in the forthcoming Ekos Universe.

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users, LMNT electrolyte supplement, and Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#676: David Maisel of Marvel Studios Fame — Never-Before-Heard Tales of Hollywood Dealmaking, The Art of Aiming Big, Lessons from Power Broker Michael Ovitz, Combining Business Smarts with Street Smarts, The Making (and Importance) of Iron Man, Selling to Disney for $4 Billion, and Much More

This episode is brought to you by Vuori Clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.

Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at VuoriClothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you’ll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

June 1, 2023June 13, 2023

Eric Cressey, Cressey Sports Performance — Tactical Deep Dive on Back Pain, Movement Diagnosis, Training Principles, Developing Mobility, Building Power, Fascial Manipulation, and Rules for Athletes (#675)

18 Comments

Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“You screw up your taxes, there’s a way out of it. You screw up your body, you might have a lifetime of pain.”
— Eric Cressey

Eric Cressey (@EricCressey), MA, CSCS, is president and co-founder of Cressey Sports Performance, with facilities in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Hudson, Massachusetts. He has worked with clients from youth sports to the professional and Olympic ranks but is best known for his extensive work with baseball players; more than 100 professional players train at CSP each offseason. He also serves as Director of Player Health and Performance for the New York Yankees.

Eric double-majored in exercise science and sports and fitness management at the University of New England and then received his master’s degree in kinesiology with a concentration in exercise science at the University of Connecticut. He has published books and video resources that have been sold in more than 60 countries. He regularly lectures both nationally and internationally, and his research has been published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. He serves as a consultant to New Balance, Proteus Motion, and Athletic Greens.

Eric’s free blog and newsletter can be found at EricCressey.com. You can also find Eric’s podcast at EliteBaseballPodcast.com.

Please enjoy!

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#675: Eric Cressey, Cressey Sports Performance — Tactical Deep Dive on Back Pain, Movement Diagnosis, Training Principles, Developing Mobility, Building Power, Fascial Manipulation, and Rules for Athletes

Want to hear another episode with someone who understands the magic of movement and mobility? Listen to my most recent conversation with Dr. Kelly Starrett in which we discussed how our environment shapes us, optimizing vital signs and range of motion as we age, why we should be walking and fidgeting more, why balance training isn’t just for “old” people, how to extend the end range of motion, simple corrective exercises, cultivating timeless movement in a busy world, breath as a mobilization device, and much more.

#664: Dr. Kelly Starrett — The Magic of Movement and Mobility, Training for Range of Motion, Breathing for Back Pain, Improving Your Balance, and More

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May 30, 2023June 1, 2023

I Feel Love: MDMA for Autism and Social Anxiety

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Topics: Psychedelics

This is a guest post from Rachel Nuwer (@RachelNuwer), an award-winning science journalist who regularly contributes to the New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, and many other publications. Her reporting for the New York Times broke the news globally about the MDMA Phase III clinical trial and was highlighted by me, Michael Pollan, and Ezra Klein, among others. In 2022, Nuwer was among the inaugural recipients of the Ferriss–UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. She holds masters degrees in applied ecology and in science journalism. Her first book, Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking, took her to a dozen countries to investigate the multibillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade.

What follows is an excerpt from her new book, I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World.

Enter Rachel…

One group of people who are particularly at risk of missing out on social benefits—and who serve as a sort of canary in the coal mine for the insidious effects of increasing disconnection—are autistic individuals.

Autistic adults are more likely to experience high levels of loneliness than their neurotypical peers. While 7 percent of the general adult U.S. population meets the diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, one in four autistic adults do. Autistic people are also four times more likely to suffer from depression and eleven times more likely to have suicidal thoughts—problems that frequently both stem from and exacerbate social isolation—and they are 2.5 times as likely to die early.

Despite the serious setbacks that many people on the spectrum face due to living in a society that discriminates against those who are different, social anxiety, loneliness, and lack of connection are not inevitable parts of being autistic. According to a 2022 meta-analysis of thirty-four scientific papers, autistic adults are less likely to be lonely if—somewhat obviously— they have relationships, experience fewer difficulties with social skills, and have positive views and acceptance of themselves. While there are many different ways to achieve these things, some autistics have gravitated toward a certain particularly potent molecular tool.

Aaron Paul Orsini grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and as a teenager he remembers oscillating between being on the periphery of social gatherings and being “overly performative and needing to take over a situation.” At parties or at professional conferences as a young adult, he’d often feel overwhelmed by the bombardment of incoming sensory information.

When he was twenty-three, Aaron started seeing a psychologist for depression, anxiety, and what he described as “feeling that I would never ‘get it,’ and not really having any answers about how or why that might be.” During one session, the psychologist handed him a questionnaire to fill out without really explaining what it was for. After evaluating Aaron’s answers, the psychologist announced that Aaron was autistic.

In some ways, this news came as a relief. Knowing that he was autistic provided Aaron with a new way to conceive of his specific challenges and potential strengths. Yet even with this revelation—and to his distress—his lifelong habit of focusing on his deficits and limitations proved stubbornly resilient to change. “Even though I could tell myself, ‘Oh, I have superpowers,’ I was still feeling down and feeling a bit like, for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be able to do things,” he said.

When Aaron was twenty-seven, he experienced something of a quarter-life crisis and wound up on a train from Chicago to the West Coast with only a backpack in hand. He befriended a group of free-spirited fellow travelers who gave him a tab of LSD—a chance encounter that changed his life. Sitting on a tree stump in a forest, Aaron felt his mind go still; his awareness widened, and his sensory issues suddenly seemed manageable. The LSD also bestowed him with an ability to better read between the lines of social interactions and emotions in ways “I quite literally could never have imagined,” he writes in Autism on Acid, a book he published in 2019.

Aaron discovered MDMA shortly after LSD, when he was invited to a gathering of artists, musicians, and other creative types. By this time, he was an old hand at classic psychedelics, but MDMA was unique, he found, in that the experience never strayed beyond the realm of his own narrative, “with my ego fully intact,” he said. “It was like taking a crystallized form of intuition.”

MDMA’s use as a tool for reducing social anxiety was also made clear to Aaron that night, when he sat down next to a stranger and unhesitatingly struck up a conversation. He felt comfortable, he found, not only chatting but also just being silent with the other person and enjoying the shared moment. “In that instance, I struggled to feel like I had a problem, and I struggled to feel like, if a problem came up, it would be bad,” Aaron recalled. “Everything seemed endurable, just because of how much love I felt for being alive. And for the other people with me as well.”