AI transcript
0:00:04 Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, and welcome to a special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show.
0:00:10 I am Tim Ferriss. This episode is a solo Q&A session where I answer a bunch of questions
0:00:16 across a lot of topics submitted by members of the private notebook community. That’s the book
0:00:20 that I’m working on right now alongside Neil Strauss, 10-time New York Times bestselling
0:00:23 author. It’s all about how to say no. If you want to read some sample chapters of that,
0:00:30 tim.blog slash notebook, N-O-B-O-O-K. We cover a ton of ground in this Q&A, ranging from personal
0:00:36 health protocols to professional frameworks and creative projects and much more. Topics include
0:00:42 my current extensive supplement stack. I was not going to volunteer that, but someone asked,
0:00:46 so I answered it. And I’m not a doctor. Don’t play one on the internet. Talk to your professionals.
0:00:52 This is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Why I changed my mind about
0:00:58 intermittent fasting. My workflow for using AI tools. Some examples of how I currently apply
0:01:03 those in my life. My current thoughts on Austin versus San Francisco for builders and entrepreneurs
0:01:08 after spending a lot of time in both places. A detailed breakdown of how I would approach
0:01:13 training for a mental sport like competitive chess, although I wish I could rope in some of my friends
0:01:19 like Josh Waitzkin. My complete step-by-step protocol for attempting to accelerate recovery from
0:01:25 a recent elbow surgery. I’m about two weeks out. I have a nice big pending scar on my right elbow
0:01:32 after some sports injuries beginning 20 years ago. So what did I do exactly to recover as quickly as possible
0:01:40 using various technologies and devices like the Mark Pro and BFR training and more? Behind the scenes stories
0:02:00 related to Coyote. And if you could leave a review, if you’ve bought the game, super helpful to, of course,
0:02:06 getting the game in more places and everything else. Also very, very fun for me. So it’s currently 4.7, 4.8 stars,
0:02:10 something like that on Amazon and Walmart, Target and so on. If you’ve played the game, please leave a
0:02:15 review. I’ve read every one so far. I just finished reading them today and I will be reading them again
0:02:21 later this week. Would really mean a lot. So check it out. CoyoteGame.com. I had a blast answering all
0:02:26 the questions from the notebook community and I hope you find the tactics and strategies useful in your
0:02:31 own life. We’re going to get right to that. First, just a few quick words from the partners and about
0:02:34 the partners who help make this podcast possible.
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0:03:54 today’s sponsor, Eight Sleep has improved my sleep with its pod cover. Well, they just launched their
0:03:59 latest product, the pod five. I cannot wait to try it out. And here’s why. The pod five introduces Eight
0:04:04 Sleep’s latest product, the blanket, which uses the same technology as the pods cover to extend
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0:04:26 44% faster, 34% deeper sleep, and given them up to one added hour of sleep each night. Also,
0:04:31 the pod’s snoring detection, my friend Albert might be interested in this, and automatic elevating
0:04:36 platform have reduced user snoring by 45%. So it does a lot. You’ll also get a personalized report
0:04:41 each morning, allowing you to track your sleep stages, heart rate variability, respiratory rate,
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0:05:17 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
0:05:19 Can I ask you a personal question?
0:05:21 Now would have seen a perfect time.
0:05:22 What if I did the opposite?
0:05:26 I’m a cybernetic organism living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.
0:05:42 Greetings from the East Coast, everybody. And I figured we’d just hop right into it. And I thought
0:05:49 we would make this simple to start with by simply going through the questions that were submitted and
0:05:54 trying to answer as many of those as possible. And then we can go to some live questions if that works
0:05:59 for you guys. I’m going to take a sip of my incredibly strong decaf coffee.
0:06:04 All right. The first question is from Sasha. What’s an obstacle or challenge that you’re currently
0:06:10 facing? How are you approaching it? This actually, I could combine with the second one as well,
0:06:14 which is Rashida. How was your recovery from elbow surgery? What procedure did you have done?
0:06:18 Have you seen the wonderful story of Henry Sugar? I had to look that up. It looks amazing.
0:06:27 Wes Anderson short film adaptation of a Roald Dahl short story, which I’m very excited to see. So
0:06:35 thank you for putting that on my radar. That is on my to watch list for Netflix, particularly since I
0:06:41 just finished listening to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by the same author. So let’s hop into obstacle or
0:06:52 challenge. I’ll give you a couple. So the first is actually a retail distribution and placement
0:06:59 question. And that relates to Coyote, the game that’s now in 8,000 or so retail locations. And as you might
0:07:06 expect, there are some variables that can affect sell through. And Coyote itself is one of the smallest
0:07:11 games that Exploding Kittens has ever made. And it is their first game that is on a hang tag. So it’s
0:07:18 intended to be put on one of those metal prongs that sticks out of the wall. But when you actually,
0:07:23 and this was part one in terms of addressing it, trying to figure out why different stores or regions
0:07:30 have varying levels of sell through, the first thing you have to do is gather information. So rather than
0:07:37 just speculate at every turn, trying to gather as much information as possible. And this actually makes me think of
0:07:43 Dale Carnegie and how to stop worrying and start living often step number one is more information. Do you have
0:07:51 enough information or even partial information upon which to base this fear slash goal slash fill in the blank? So
0:08:01 right now went to a discord server that hosts a lot of fans of Exploding Kittens games and also with the help
0:08:09 of the EK team and separately have gone out to some of the families who play tested to ask them to go to
0:08:17 local Walmart stores and target stores to send back photographs close up and then zoomed out of actual
0:08:24 retail placement. And so that will then help to inform possible strategies for improving sell through
0:08:30 for all of those stores, which produces a long list at this point. And every item on that list is
0:08:36 premature. For instance, and this is also where the scientific method comes in really handy in so much
0:08:42 as not fooling yourself, because can you even know, for instance, if the game is affecting sell through
0:08:49 retail is that noble, right? Can you actually parse data in any compelling statistically significant way
0:08:55 to say yes or no? If not, you can just ignore it, right? But that’s an open question. Then you have
0:09:03 box size, you have box placement. Can you increase just say adherence to agreed upon placement? Or do we
0:09:08 want to potentially boost the size of a box? Of course, there are cost considerations with that,
0:09:14 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that’s one that I’m contending with. And then tying into what
0:09:20 came up as the second question, Rashida, how’s your recovery from elbow surgery? What procedure did I have
0:09:28 done? I had a repair for lateral epicondylitis. So I’m not sure if you can see that. I’ve got a nice
0:09:39 incision right there where the entire elbow was opened up and the lateral epicondyle, which is that
0:09:45 nice little bump on the outside of the elbow, which is associated with tennis elbow, as opposed to the
0:09:53 inside, the medial side, which is golfer’s elbow. And this is an injury from 20 years ago, probably 20 plus
0:09:59 years ago, actually in New York city where I had my elbow popped and bent the wrong direction in a
0:10:05 jujitsu practice by a black belt, which in retrospect was totally unnecessary. Black belt has no need to
0:10:11 exert that kind of force, but every few years it comes back and has bothered me. And then particularly
0:10:19 after doing a lot of rock climbing last winter and getting to, for me, tougher climbs like 5’11 plus
0:10:26 on big walls, much bigger walls than Texas can provide, the elbow effectively just became unusable.
0:10:31 And it was in constant pain and got to the point where even picking up a glass of water was kind of
0:10:38 excruciating. So that was all tacked back where it should be sewn back together. But you can see,
0:10:45 I mean, let’s see, this is about a week and a half out, right? And it’s like, I’ve got almost full
0:10:52 extension. This is like 80, 90% of the way there. And then on this side, I still have a lot of pain
0:10:56 in the anconius when I flex the arm towards my face for like brushing my teeth or something like
0:11:01 that. But that’s a week and a half, right? And so how did I approach that? Well,
0:11:09 a big part of how I think about solving problems or challenges is sequencing. That won’t surprise
0:11:13 anybody who’s read The 4-Hour Chef, which is confusingly a book about accelerated learning.
0:11:21 But sequencing is the magic sauce, I think, for a lot of things. So you’re going to sort of
0:11:26 deconstruct something, right? To break it down into its constituent pieces. So what does healing
0:11:31 look like? In fact, when you break it down into its constituent pieces, let’s just say those Lego
0:11:38 pieces, then how do you select kind of the 20% for this 80-20 analysis to get the highest yield out of
0:11:43 the few levers you decide to pull? Because you probably can’t address all of them with the time
0:11:49 that you have as a non-professional athlete or Major League Baseball pitcher, for instance.
0:11:55 Then how do you sequence those things? How do you solve in the right order? And I’ll actually be
0:11:59 interviewing someone very soon, Pablos Holman, who talks a lot about this. He is one of the world’s
0:12:06 most fascinating hackers. And a lot of problems can’t be solved until you solve for energy expenditure
0:12:13 in the context of a lot of what he discusses. And similarly, with healing, a large part of
0:12:21 clearing the highway for productive work is decongestion. So I was using a device called the
0:12:30 MARC Pro device, MARC, which provides effectively stimulation through electrodes to pump the tissue
0:12:38 for decongestion and lymphatic drainage. I was also doing a lymphatic drainage massage, which is
0:12:46 much lighter than you might expect and does not involve any type of incision. And then there were
0:12:53 a number of peptides like EMP-157, not medical advice for information purposes only that I was
0:13:00 consuming to kind of hedge my bets. And that was based on a number of recommendations. And I’ve used
0:13:09 that as far back as 15 years ago. So for surgical repair, somewhat interesting, lots of supplementation.
0:13:15 So along the lines of say Keith Barr, who I had on the podcast from UC Davis, consuming particular types
0:13:22 of collagen plus vitamin C plus a few other things prior to any type of, say, range of motion stretching
0:13:29 or working or isometric strengthening, not of the extensors, right, that I had repaired. I’m not doing
0:13:37 any isometrics on that just yet, but for bicep and tricep. And then once the acute phase of congestion
0:13:43 was somewhat addressed, right, it’s still inflamed, but that’s to be expected given how much
0:13:51 remodeling is going on in the elbow. Now I’m applying blood flow restriction, BFR training.
0:13:56 And this was recommended to me, and it’s been around quite a long time, but by Kelly Starrett,
0:14:04 who’s an amazing performance coach, PT, works with Delta Force and many others. And the BFR allows you
0:14:13 to effectively not only flush the tissue, but also maintain muscle mass on some level without the ability
0:14:21 to say concentrically or eccentrically handle much load. And I think that BFR is very, very interesting,
0:14:28 not just for rehab, but for training while minimizing the likelihood for injury. And by training, I mean
0:14:36 resistance training. So those are a few of the tools in the toolkit. Of course, sleep is mandatory. So doing
0:14:43 anything and everything necessary to get good amounts of restorative sleep, deep sleep is super critical.
0:14:55 And off we go. So I am planning on resuming actual flexor, like grip strength training around week five.
0:15:03 And for some people, the risk is that they don’t do the rehab. The risk for someone like me is that I do too much
0:15:12 too soon and blow the whole thing apart. So sitting still and just not fussing with it is my great challenge.
0:15:18 It’s kind of continually a challenge in every context. Okay. Let’s hop back to the questions.
0:15:25 And I’m happy to answer more questions about the surgery as we come along. And I might as well pick
0:15:32 up one. Following a protocol. I am following a protocol with a PT. I have multiple PTs. So I’m not
0:15:37 just DIYing this. I’m definitely relying on professionals for every step of this, even though
0:15:42 I would like to think I’m pretty well versed, but frankly, the accountability and the structure
0:15:50 and the third party expert observation and assessment is really critical. I just had my
0:15:56 first follow-up assessment by the surgeon today who has also had this identical surgery performed on his
0:16:03 own elbow as a former high-level tennis player. So I like to choose surgeons when possible who are
0:16:10 former athletes or current athletes call me biased, but I do try to look for those folks because they
0:16:17 tend to understand the bizarre programming that I have in my own mind. All right, let’s hop back to
0:16:23 a question from Jake. Do I still think California is the place to go for builders or is Austin viable
0:16:29 as a place for a mechanical engineer to find a job, build some momentum and make a go at a startup?
0:16:34 I know you’re not in the space anymore, but I’m curious what trends you see in Austin versus say
0:16:42 the Bay area. So this is a very good question and it’s top of mind for me because one of my best
0:16:51 friends just moved from Austin back to San Francisco and his reason for doing so was related. I would say
0:16:59 largely to the focus of his new startup that he hopes to launch for which he will probably need to find
0:17:06 a technical co-founder and it is in broadly speaking the AI space. And I will say that AI
0:17:14 as yet another example of, I suppose, I’m not sure it ever died entirely. I don’t think it did, but is
0:17:23 another kind of Lazarus resurrection for Silicon Valley. And if you want to build something that is
0:17:30 sophisticated in the AI space, which I know is a broad umbrella, then I do think the top talent,
0:17:36 the density of talent is highest in a place like San Francisco. So if you hope to build, not only build,
0:17:44 but learn and hire, particularly if you’re going to play the venture backed startup game,
0:17:52 then you got to fish where the fish are. And from a talent perspective, that’s going to have the highest
0:17:57 density. Can you do it in Austin? Depends a lot on what you’re building. There are some really
0:18:02 interesting fintech companies. There’s some very interesting hardware companies. There are headquarters
0:18:09 for a lot of large companies, or at least large outposts, Oracle, Google, Meta, et cetera,
0:18:15 that exist in Austin. So I think it really depends on specifically what you’re trying to build.
0:18:22 But what I would add to that is that perhaps you don’t have to choose one. Maybe they’re not mutually
0:18:32 exclusive. So perhaps you just treat a month or two or three in Silicon Valley as your MBA that you get
0:18:38 to pay for with respect to any type of domain expertise you’re trying to develop, or frankly,
0:18:44 networks and relationships. And then you take that and you port it back to Austin, potentially. These are
0:18:51 all possibilities. So you could straddle both horses in a sense. That I think is my answer on California.
0:18:58 I’m happy to answer more specifics on California and Austin, but there are reasons why people are willing
0:19:03 to pay astronomical taxes in California. This is true of a lot of places with high taxes. Generally,
0:19:09 they’re pretty good reasons they can get away with it. All right, let’s go back to the questions I have
0:19:16 here. Pete, how are you currently using AI for personal medical advice and what’s your typical workflow?
0:19:23 I will say in advance of answering this that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet. So I’m not
0:19:30 providing medical advice. I’m simply for educational and entertainment purposes only telling you what I do.
0:19:37 I use a few different tools and I always cross-reference and I talk to professionals. So this is
0:19:47 really important as a way to lead into this conversation because much like the person who is
0:19:52 his or her own lawyer has a fool for a client. I think that could apply to PT. I think it could apply
0:20:00 to medicine, certainly. And you really want to interrogate and cross-reference your own opinions
0:20:06 with someone who’s very experienced. But there are a couple of different tools I use. So one is the
0:20:13 off-the-rack chat GPT and so on. I also use something called Consensus.app. Consensus.app
0:20:23 is specifically tuned for reviewing published scientific literature to answer a given question. So for
0:20:30 instance, in my case, if I wanted to do a preliminary run at a few questions before speaking to a very
0:20:38 in-demand, very busy surgeon, i.e. the person who just fixed my elbow, I would look at the literature
0:20:46 around BFR. So I have two tabs open on my computer right now related to blood flow restriction and
0:20:53 accelerating or otherwise affecting positively or negatively surgical recovery in upper extremities.
0:21:00 in humans. But that will often give you nothing or something that is too narrow. So I will expand
0:21:08 that to include animal models, which are imperfect but helpful. And so then I get a read on say Consensus.app,
0:21:14 and it will give you a conviction rating effectively. So it’ll give you like a red, there’s no evidence to
0:21:22 support X, a yellow, results are mixed, or a green where there seems to be a compelling majority of
0:21:30 evidence that has been published in support of X. So I use Consensus.app quite a bit. And then I will
0:21:40 often ask the same question of say a chat GPT or a clod or perplexity, fill in the blank, and then cross
0:21:48 reference those. So those are how I will then do a first pass on a question or topic of interest. After I have
0:21:56 that, I will typically take the germane paragraph or two and copy and paste it, send it in this case,
0:22:03 for instance, to the surgeon and say, what is your opinion of BFR for A, B, or C? Here’s what I found.
0:22:09 So that he or she referring to the expert in question knows you’re not being a lazy son of a bitch and just
0:22:14 throwing something at them that you haven’t even thrown into Google or an LLM. So I’ll make sure that
0:22:21 I indicate I’ve done a bunch of lifting on my own first. Here’s my tentative conclusion. Do you have
0:22:26 anything at all you could add? Even a sentence or two would really be greatly appreciated. And by the
0:22:32 way, you don’t need to have fancy people on your SMS to do that. I mean, Reddit is a great place to do
0:22:38 this. Again, not medical advice, but there are some very smart people on subreddits and various other
0:22:44 places. So those would be a few of the ways that I currently use it. And I might use it to, for
0:22:49 instance, take something that has been mentioned to me. A genetic screening company reached out to me
0:22:56 after one of my recent podcasts. And one of my former podcast guests is a scientific advisor to them,
0:23:05 credible scientific advisor. And they indicated that the APO34, which I have, which predisposes me
0:23:12 somewhat, well, 2.5 times more than APO33, at least based on current understanding to Alzheimer’s
0:23:16 disease. They said, well, there are probably 30 to 40 other factors that you would want to weigh
0:23:23 pretty heavily. And so I would use something among the suite of AI tools to explore that for myself and
0:23:29 ask for some type of waiting, not only to get a better understanding of what they’re suggesting,
0:23:36 but to fact check it, right? Before I go too far down any road of exploring someone who is offering a
0:23:41 product for free, because generally things that are offered to you for free are the most expensive
0:23:50 things you will ever receive. Not always, but very, very often. All right. So that is that question.
0:23:56 Kevin, what supplements are you currently taking? Is PAGS or AG still in the mix? I’ll explain what
0:24:01 that is for people who don’t know the reference. And then I’ll combine that with a question from
0:24:08 Steve. Do you still take magnesium L3 and 8? And an additional question around supplements. So right
0:24:15 now I’m using a ton of stuff because of the surgery and surgical recovery, but I’ll answer the PAG
0:24:23 quickly. I am still taking the AG component of that, which would be alpha-lipoic acid, which can be helpful
0:24:31 for liver health. So as I’m consuming, for instance, ketone monoesters, there’s some evidence to suggest
0:24:37 that chronic use could have a negative effect on liver function. So I’m taking alpha-lipoic acid. I’m also
0:24:46 taking anacetylcysteine or NAC. And then the two Gs refer to green tea extract and garlic allicin
0:24:53 extract. I still find value in those. Polycosinol is the only thing, the PF PAG, that I would put on
0:25:00 the question mark chopping block if I were to update the four-hour body. That’s the only thing in the
0:25:06 entire book where I’m like, evidence was split. I made the decision to include it. I would want to go back
0:25:14 and revisit. Coming back to other supplements, let me give you my kind of roll call for, let’s just say
0:25:23 today. So today, I’m taking a number of prescription medications for, it’s really preemptively avoiding
0:25:30 issues that are common in my family. So I’m taking something called euloric fuboxostat for managing
0:25:36 uric acid levels to avoid future problems with gout, for instance. I’m taking something called
0:25:43 Nexlizet. Do not just copy-paste this type of stuff for your own use. Please, God, don’t do that. But
0:25:49 this is very personal, requires lots of good medical supervision. But Nexlizet, which is a combination of
0:26:02 euloric acid for various lipid profile variables or biomarkers that I care about, since most of the
0:26:11 males in my family on both sides tend to die of some type of vascular or cardio complication.
0:26:20 So I’m taking those. I’m also taking femotidine, otherwise known as pepcid, for possible anti-COVID
0:26:25 applications. You should look up the research on that. It’s actually pretty fascinating.
0:26:33 It may also be a mild vagal tone improver or vagus nerve stimulator, which appears to be through
0:26:38 indirect means. But it’s pretty interesting. Again, talk to your fucking doctors. Do not just copy me on
0:26:44 this, but it is pretty fascinating. Then I’m taking the BBC 157, which may or may not be orally
0:26:51 available. But since it was recommended to me by a top performance coach and I want the placebo effect
0:26:57 to work for me, I have not bothered to look that one up because I’m quite certain that downside risk is
0:27:03 nil. But the GI tract might render that completely inert. Who knows? Back in the day, like 15 years ago,
0:27:08 I was injecting that locally, which I really don’t recommend either, unless you have professional
0:27:13 supervision. So I’m taking that. I mentioned N-acetylcysteine, which I’m taking in the morning,
0:27:19 typically taking that between meals. And then throughout the day, I’m taking the supplementation,
0:27:27 which I mentioned, which is the collagen, often with whey protein and vitamin C prior to any type of
0:27:33 draining or training or stretching of the elbow, which is my top priority at the moment.
0:27:41 I am also taking maca root extract, which I found to be beneficial for a host of different things
0:27:50 and almost acts like a mild androgen, like a mild anabolic and seems to have some pretty interesting
0:27:56 results based on some reports on reproductive health. I still need my twins to work if I want kids,
0:28:02 which I do. So keeping those happy and healthy, hopefully. Then as we move through the day,
0:28:07 I’m not taking much in the middle of the day. And then at night right now, because keep in mind,
0:28:14 only at surgery a week and a half ago, I am a 100% off of any opioids. I really minimized my use of that,
0:28:20 but the elbow still hurts. It hurts at night. So I’m taking a combination of THC and CBN
0:28:28 to help with pain, which it does in my case quite dramatically. Then I’m taking a few other
0:28:32 prescription meds. I’m not going to get into because people love taking prescription meds for
0:28:37 sleep. I’m probably going to modify that. I’m looking very closely at, I believe it’s the DORA class,
0:28:43 D-O-R-A class of sleep medications, because there may be some, there appears to be some evidence to
0:28:50 support that it could help prevent or clear amyloid plaque buildup and tau associated with
0:28:58 Alzheimer’s. So if I can get a two for one, help me sleep, and also perhaps mitigate some risk with the
0:29:03 neurodegenerative disease, then I am interested in taking a closer look. So there’s that.
0:29:12 And I’m taking the Mag-3 and 8, and then I am also taking two other things. I take it back
0:29:16 for my first meal of the day, which is around 2 or 3 p.m. because I’m intermittent fasting right now.
0:29:25 I’m taking fish oil, good old fish oil, pure encapsulations. The 1-O-N-E has been tested by
0:29:31 Kevin Rose and Rhonda Patrick as being quite pure. So I’m taking that. And I am also taking AREDS2,
0:29:41 A-R-E-D-S-2, which is a supplement that is produced by Bausch and Lohm based on clinical research into
0:29:51 helping to improve some types of ocular degeneration, meaning visual problems. So
0:29:59 it shouldn’t technically work in my particular version of presbyopia, which is the sort of
0:30:05 stiffening of the lens, shouldn’t technically help. But I do know of a few patients who claim
0:30:10 that after six weeks, they saw some type of dramatic reversal, even when it shouldn’t have by the letter
0:30:18 of the book helped them out. So since the downside is very low, I would say for me, that’s a pretty easy
0:30:22 possible upside, limited downside. It contains quite a bit of zinc. So you just have to be careful not
0:30:26 to overdose on zinc if you’re also taking a multivitamin and so on. Okay. Talk to your doctor
0:30:27 since I am not one.
0:30:34 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we’ll be right back to the show.
0:30:39 This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions
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0:31:46 trial period at shopify.com slash Tim, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash Tim to start selling today
0:31:56 with Shopify. One more time, shopify.com slash Tim to answer a question that just popped up here real quick. In the past,
0:32:00 you’ve mentioned the desire to start a family. Would California, Texas be states you would consider raising
0:32:05 children in? Are there factors that might influence you to consider somewhere else? Yeah, I could consider many other
0:32:13 places entirely. And California, possibly Texas, I just don’t know from a political, legal, regulatory
0:32:19 perspective how family-friendly. It might sound funny to say. Some people are going to get that. Some people
0:32:26 won’t. But I’m not sure that I would want to raise a family in an environment also where access to
0:32:31 immersive nature is as challenging as it is in Texas, which is almost entirely privately owned
0:32:38 as a state. So California, possibly, there are many, many places that are more rural, perhaps,
0:32:44 but within striking distance of a decent airport all throughout the country. So I’m not wedded to
0:32:49 Texas, California, or either coast for that matter. So this is a question from Cindy.
0:32:54 What are some recent examples of saying no to good things that allowed you to have hell yes moments?
0:32:58 This bonus view of examples of when you should have said no, but didn’t, and the consequences.
0:33:03 Fortunately, I don’t have any examples that hop to mind of when I should have said
0:33:08 no and faced the consequences, although I could pull from my life with many of those.
0:33:14 And if and when the no book gets published, which is currently an 800-page draft, there will be many,
0:33:19 many such examples. But recent examples of saying no to good things that allowed you to have hell yes
0:33:29 The one that jumps to mind is I was invited to speak at a great event in Europe and they were going to pay me
0:33:33 a substantial sum of money. And I had always been tempted to go to this event. And I said no
0:33:37 so that I could go to
0:33:42 Montana and spend a week in the woods with a number of my closest friends learning
0:33:49 outdoor survival skills with a fantastic teacher who’s going to end up on the podcast in the next
0:33:55 couple of months. And I would take that trade, especially having experienced it now, a hundred
0:34:02 times out of a hundred and being gone off the grid. I mean, entirely off the grid, like phone left many,
0:34:10 many miles away in my bag has costs. There are always costs, but I would, for those who have not
0:34:16 seen it, it’s an oldie, but I think it’s as relevant, probably more relevant now with every
0:34:22 passing year than when I published it. The art of letting bad things happen. It’s a blog post that was
0:34:27 published a long time ago, but this is very much how I live my life. So the art of letting bad things
0:34:33 happen. And I’m sure that you can find it if you just Google that.
0:34:38 All right. This is from JC. My question, thinking back to before you started SciSafe Foundation,
0:34:43 that’s my foundation that funds a lot of different things, mostly related to mental health therapeutics
0:34:47 and science that would form the basis of those therapeutics. What’s the one piece of advice
0:34:51 you’d give your younger self on how to best prepare beyond just the money to be a truly
0:34:57 effective and focused philanthropist? I’ll give a few pieces of advice. The first would be
0:35:03 and I wrote about this quite a long time ago on a blog post called Karmic Capitalist,
0:35:07 something like that. But effectively, I would have told myself, don’t wait. You don’t have
0:35:12 to wait until you have a ton of money. And that’s because a lot of these problems are compounding.
0:35:19 So if you can intervene earlier, less money can be worth just as much, if not more than a lot
0:35:26 of money 10, 15 years later. So I would say don’t wait. Number one, I would say number two,
0:35:32 don’t do it out of some type of burdensome guilt. A lot of people, I think, give back
0:35:42 to try to cleanse their conscience of some type of guilt or other issue that’s generally been imposed
0:35:51 on them by some du jour social narrative. I don’t think that’s clean fuel. And it’s not very good fuel
0:35:55 for the long haul if you’re planning on trying to do a lot of good or any good. So I would say that.
0:36:02 And then last, I would say treat it like for-profit investing or at least be very clear
0:36:08 about distinguishing between and having separate budgets for feel-good philanthropy. It isn’t like
0:36:12 I’m doing this because it feels good. Disaster recovery is kind of a good example of that for
0:36:20 a lot of reasons. Or do good, which might be like mitigating future disaster scenarios and wildfires and
0:36:26 so on, right? As an example. And just being very clear on what is kind of objectively impact
0:36:32 driven, that doesn’t mean it needs to affect a million people. It could affect 10 people in a small
0:36:40 pilot trial. And a lot of the science I’ve funded is incredibly early stage where you can do more with
0:36:45 less money because it’s, at least in the world of, say, psychedelic therapies, it wasn’t de-risked.
0:36:50 It was still stigmatized when I was involved, which opened up a lot of interesting opportunities
0:36:55 in the same way that Uber was turned down by 300 plus investors when I was getting involved with it
0:37:02 in the very beginning. And that actually proved to be very advantageous because when things aren’t
0:37:09 popular, they’re not as highly valued and there’s a lot more room to maneuver. So I don’t know if that
0:37:15 is a satisfying answer, but I would say, don’t wait, treat it like for-profit investing.
0:37:20 So if you wouldn’t invest in it as a potential company, you have to make certain allowances for
0:37:26 this strained metaphor to work. But it’s actually very, very analogous to how I approach angel investing,
0:37:33 which includes the kind of real world MBA approach of focusing on learning and relationships.
0:37:39 So skills and relationships, even if the project fails. So I’m still applying that same heuristic
0:37:44 to my nonprofit work, not just the for-profit angel investing that I do.
0:37:51 Rose, here’s a question from you. Recent thing I’ve changed my mind about, honestly,
0:37:55 the value of intermittent fasting. I was very skeptical of intermittent fasting because based
0:38:01 on conversations with owners of DEXA facilities and so on, there seemed to be a pattern of a lot of
0:38:07 people trying intermittent fasting where you’re limiting your feeding to say an eight hour window
0:38:13 between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. That’s generally what I’m looking at. I try to squeeze it in and limit it to
0:38:22 like 2 or 3 p.m. to let’s call it 9 p.m. And I was very skeptical because there seemed to be a number
0:38:28 of inherent problems. Number one, people were losing, based on data from owners of DEXA facilities,
0:38:34 a lot of lean muscle tissue when they were going on these sort of experimental phases of intermittent
0:38:40 fasting. And there were a lot of open questions that I didn’t have great answers for. For instance,
0:38:48 and this is a question that is also one that was submitted from, and I’m going to butcher this and
0:38:53 I apologize, but Ludek, there’s a little upside down carrot on your E, so I don’t know how to
0:38:57 pronounce that. But how do you actually pull off getting all the protein you need within just an
0:39:06 eight hour window? This is a good question. And I have, in the process of seeing a number of my
0:39:14 relatives disintegrate, physically and mentally, in large measure, I think due to metabolic dysfunction,
0:39:20 insulin insensitivity, incredibly screwed up glucose metabolism, overtaxed pancreases,
0:39:27 etc. I began doing intermittent fasting after, let’s call it two to four weeks, I want to say it
0:39:34 was three to four weeks of strict ketogenic diet. And about two months after that had the best blood
0:39:41 work that I have seen for myself in more than a decade. That includes incredibly high testosterone and
0:39:49 other things. So it’s not just can you starve yourself into living a very long and miserable
0:39:55 life. There were other metrics, performance metrics, including workout journal and strength
0:40:02 improvement and muscle mass improvement. So I think there are a couple of key elements, and I’m not the
0:40:10 first person to say this. But there are a few key elements that form a productive cocktail for intermittent
0:40:18 fasting. One is you have to do resistance training, you must do resistance training. And my experience is you can
0:40:26 absorb a lot more protein than you would expect in single sittings. So there is this sort of myth that has been
0:40:32 propagated just by repetition, along the lines of you can’t absorb more than 30 grams of protein in a single
0:40:38 sitting. I don’t think that’s true. And I don’t think the literature supports that at all. And in fact, as you get
0:40:45 older, there is some published literature to suggest that as one gets older, this is humans, that you absorb more
0:40:54 protein, let’s just say, over the course of the day, more effectively in fewer sittings. So I’m having in my eight hour
0:41:04 window, basically two larger meals to my like two or 3pm like today, right? Those might be wondering, nothing super
0:41:12 fancy, right? I had a bunch of doctor’s appointments and surgeon checkups and so on today. And I just went to Chipotle, had a
0:41:20 huge burrito bowl. I mean, it was gigantic. So with barbacoa, so 1000 plus calories right there, then come
0:41:28 back. And you know, it’s 540pm right now, I’m going to eat after this and have another like proper meal. But I
0:41:33 will almost certainly have one or two protein shakes. And if I hadn’t been running around the city all day
0:41:38 today, I would have already had one of those protein shakes, which would have added, let’s just call it 30
0:41:46 grams of fast acting protein. If I could just wave a magic wand and have everything that I wanted. Yeah,
0:41:52 sure, I’d be eating cottage cheese or maybe micellar casein or something that’s more slowly digested. But
0:41:58 whey is just easy. I want to get the collagen and that other stuff anyway. And when you add all that up,
0:42:05 it’s a decent chunk of protein. And you don’t need to force feed yourself. But what I have
0:42:13 tracked meticulously is body weight, body composition, and a good proxy for a lot of that is just strength.
0:42:18 Are you gaining strength? Or are you maintaining strength? Or are you losing strength? So intermittent
0:42:25 fasting would certainly be if you were to ask me, if you could only add one chapter to the four hour body,
0:42:30 what would it be about? It would be about intermittent fasting. And then if I had to add a second chapter,
0:42:34 which isn’t really something I changed my mind on, but it would be on biggest nerve stimulation,
0:42:43 probably. And I encourage you to listen to my Dr. Kevin Tracy episode that came out not too long ago.
0:42:47 In how many ways could you finish the sentence? Actually, I still have all of my dot, dot, dot,
0:42:54 all of my Dungeons and Dragons hardcovers and modules and dice from when I was a kid. That would
0:43:01 certainly be one. And all my books on marine biology that I started accumulating when I was age six or
0:43:07 something like that. Do I have any bucket list, multi-day hikes or treks to complete? That’s David.
0:43:16 I wouldn’t say there are any specifics, but I try to do two or three of those a year. So I already have
0:43:22 another one, actually two more on the books, one in Mexico and one in Japan, but they don’t need to
0:43:30 be that far flung, right? We were in Montana, which is beyond gorgeous. So I would say no individual
0:43:39 hikes or routes come to mind, but definitely plenty. I think Glacier National Park would be high on my
0:43:45 list of dream locations. All right. It’s from Tim. If you had to pick one specific moment that felt like
0:43:51 disaster at the time, but later became the most catalytic gift, what was it? And what chain of events
0:43:56 turned it into that gift? Some of you will know this, but I’ll say it anyway, because it’s the most
0:44:01 standout example. That is when The 4-Hour Chef, this book on accelerated learning, really, really
0:44:06 underperformed when it was published. And I put my heart and soul, there’s so much blood, sweat,
0:44:13 and tears that went into that, literally. And super proud of that book, but because it was published
0:44:18 through Amazon Publishing, it was the first mega title that was used to announce the existence or the
0:44:22 launch of Amazon Publishing, where they went head-to-head against their publisher partners,
0:44:30 in effect, for scouting author talent and putting out their own titles. It was boycotted by everybody.
0:44:36 And I expected Barnes & Noble. I did not foresee Costco and all these other big box retailers
0:44:43 and indies, of course. And that smashed the book on the New York Times. It still hit number four,
0:44:51 but it should have been number one. And during the launch of The 4-Hour Chef, as with the launch of
0:44:55 anything I do, I’m always looking for a channel that I can learn a lot about that is undervalued
0:45:01 and quickly growing. And at the time, in 2012, that was podcasts. So I fell in love with podcasts.
0:45:08 And then when I was completely demolished and my ego was shattered to pieces by The 4-Hour Chef
0:45:15 performing so poorly relative to my other books, even though, still, I went to one of the top restaurants
0:45:21 in Austin and the maitre d’ came out after the meal and said, the exec chef just wanted to say a huge
0:45:25 thanks to you because the first cookbook he ever bought was The 4-Hour Chef. This is one of the top
0:45:30 restaurants in Austin, which is a major food town. So there are these examples that are really
0:45:36 incredibly rewarding. And there are a lot of them, actually. But if it had not been for that burnout,
0:45:44 I would not have decided to take a cold turkey break from books and launch my own podcast as a test,
0:45:48 as a test with a graceful exit. I think I committed to six to 10 episodes.
0:45:52 And here we are, more than a decade and 800 episodes later.
0:45:57 Cindy would love to hear how it feels to be in a season of life when you inspire people towards high
0:46:01 performance and learning over 15 years. Now with Coyote, you’re bringing absolute delight and laughter
0:46:07 to people’s lives. It feels great because, frankly, what the hell are we doing here on the spinning rock?
0:46:13 We’re on a one-way trip, as far as we can tell. Productivity is important and having a sense of purpose
0:46:18 and meaning. These are important, but they are, I would argue, and maybe this is just the voice of
0:46:23 someone who’s non-religious speaking, but somewhat arbitrary. You’re picking a story that works for
0:46:28 you, much like Seth Godin has said, money is a story past a certain point, so pick one that you
0:46:33 can live with. It’s like, yes. All of those things are true and important, but they’re pretty subjective.
0:46:42 And the more you study history, the more you realize the idea of leaving your legacy by putting an extra
0:46:48 10 hours a week in your Microsoft Teams or whatever is probably not going to matter in the grand scheme
0:46:54 of things. If you just listen to the Fall of Civilizations podcast and you’re like, oh, wow,
0:46:59 yeah, the Assyrians used to be a really big deal. Oh, yeah, Babylonians too. How many Sumerians do you
0:47:05 know? As Naval Ravka would ask, none, right? So the more you let go of this heavy rock of being
0:47:11 preoccupied with legacy, the more you realize. Also, when you do a past year review, as I always do,
0:47:17 when you do a past year review and you look back over the year at your peak emotional experiences,
0:47:22 your peak positive experiences, a lot of them are just hanging out with friends or family,
0:47:28 doing something engaging, sitting around a fire, going fishing, going on a hike, none of which tend
0:47:33 to cost that much money, or they could be replaced with something very similar that doesn’t cost a lot
0:47:42 of money. So I feel like that realization is very freeing and nourishing and is something you can
0:47:47 cultivate very quickly. But for, I mean, millions of people who have been type A for too long,
0:47:55 including yours truly, you’re used to sixth gear and you don’t know what any of the other gears feel
0:48:00 like unless you burn out and then you’re in park. So you know park when you blow up, your wheels go
0:48:07 flying off and you know sixth gear. But showing people that’s like, hey, you actually have five other
0:48:13 gears is something I had to learn. I hate to sound like an old bastard, but you know, the hard way
0:48:22 for just like lots of self-inflicted wounds. And it feels really great to have something that costs 10
0:48:31 bucks, you know, takes 10 minutes to play that you can reliably inject into like a family evening or
0:48:36 something like that. Or I don’t know if you guys have seen one of the more recent videos that I put up on
0:48:40 Instagram that a family put up with like four or five kids just going completely fucking bananas,
0:48:49 you know, having so much fun. They’re all interacting, no screens and feels great. Yeah. It feels really,
0:48:54 really, really fantastic, which is part of the reason why I keep talking about it because I’m just
0:49:00 like, guys, like if you take yourself and your work too seriously for too long, like the really serious
0:49:04 stuff isn’t going to get done, you need recovery. And fun is a great way to recover.
0:49:09 This is from Nicholas. What interesting ideas from people of the past do you think could be important
0:49:14 in the future? For instance, Charles Babbage’s work on computing machines would later be picked up as a
0:49:18 reference for the first computers in the US. Lots of machine learning research from around the 50s was
0:49:25 later useful once hardware caught up. I don’t have a great computer science example to respond with,
0:49:34 but I will say that I have done a lot of reading of very old research related to extended human fasting.
0:49:42 And for a lot of reasons in the US, with the IRB approval and like ethics board approvals and so on,
0:49:48 it’s incredibly hard to do extended fasting in humans. I don’t know when and why exactly that
0:49:54 happened, but there was a point where it just stopped. And I guess it was just deemed cruel and
0:50:03 unusual punishment or something. And that’s a shame because I do feel like fasting is the oldest cure,
0:50:09 right? If you look at pretty much any mammal, and this is probably applies to creatures well outside of
0:50:15 mammals. If they’re sick, if they’re injured, what do they do? They fast. That is the instinct. That is
0:50:26 the evolved instinct. And I really look forward to and may end up, if I have to, funding that type of
0:50:33 science. I literally have a printout in my hotel room that’s about 40 pages written up in English
0:50:40 describing the findings of a Soviet psychiatrist who was the executive director of this center that fasted
0:50:46 thousands of patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders for 30 plus days.
0:50:55 Some of the mechanisms they propose are wrong. We know that now. But in a culture, in a modern world where
0:51:01 most people, and that includes all of us probably on this Zoom, are incentivized to add things,
0:51:07 right? We’re also sold in a, and then look, I think capitalism is kind of the best of the worst
0:51:15 systems that we have. So I’m obviously an avid participant in capitalism. But when you are constantly
0:51:24 sold things, people want you to buy more stuff, not less stuff, right? And therefore, I think even in,
0:51:29 or perhaps especially in medicine, there are a lot of incentives and unfortunately, a lot of kind of
0:51:37 large incumbent regulatory capture players who perpetuate an ecosystem that relies on kind of
0:51:41 recurring revenue through taking medicine forever. But I think the subtractive approach
0:51:45 is more interesting. In part, it’s more interesting to me because it’s less discussed and more neglected.
0:51:51 And there are compliance issues. How do you actually get people to fast? Which is where
0:51:57 the fast-mimicking diet, say, some of the research of Walter Longo and something coming out tomorrow on
0:52:01 the podcast with Dominic D’Agostino, sardine fasting. You should check that out. It’s pretty wild.
0:52:11 And also, medications that might in some way provide you with the cellular repair and self-cleaning,
0:52:19 the autophagy and mitophagy and things like this that are associated with fasting. So could you do that
0:52:26 with some combination of medications like rapamycin and others? Could you do it exogenous ketones or the
0:52:34 ketogenic diet? What are alternatives that are nonetheless overlapping with fasting? So long
0:52:39 answer to a short question, but I would say fasting was, there was a lot of research being done and then
0:52:45 it just kind of disappeared. And then what you’re left with is private clinics that have some shit to
0:52:50 sell you who are doing their own self-funded quote-unquote studies that are ultimately being
0:52:56 used to drive more people to sign up for their programs or become vegan or whatever the agenda
0:53:02 happens to be. That’s a real example. All right, let’s see. Rose, most magical experiences in New
0:53:10 Mexico would have been a Zen meditation retreat at Henry Shookman’s Center in Santa Fe. Just incredibly
0:53:15 beautiful and I think magical is the right word for it. Small group, six to eight people. Mountain
0:53:20 Cloud Zen Center. It’s a Mountain Cloud Zen Center for anyone who wants to look it up. It is gorgeous.
0:53:26 Okay, there’s a question on two meta skills that would be disproportionately valuable in the AI era,
0:53:31 honestly. And this is going to sound like I’m trying to prop up the book I told you didn’t
0:53:35 perform the way I wanted it to, but For Our Chef has got it all. I think the only insurance you have
0:53:42 is being hyper-adaptable and a world-class learner. I don’t think there’s any other answer I can
0:53:49 confidently provide. Even the people at the top of the game who are at the absolute apex of the AI
0:53:54 world who are working on these products every day, all day, don’t know what it’s going to look like
0:53:58 in 18 months. They really don’t. If they’ve had a few glasses of wine and they’re being honest,
0:54:02 they’re like, yeah, impossible to predict. Look at the rate of change. Okay, there were a couple of
0:54:06 questions. I’m going to hop back to the written questions now based on the cockpunch
0:54:13 mentioned because there are a couple of questions about cockpunch stuff. That’s also Jack and a bunch
0:54:18 of others who asked about this. So the cockpunch side of things is fascinating, right? Because the NFT
0:54:27 world is on some level, I would say on life support, right? So it’s very hard to predict what’s going
0:54:38 to happen with NFTs. But with respect to the actual world building that I did and Varlata, particularly the
0:54:46 last few chapters that were published on the podcast with Tyrolean, I have a very, very clear vision for
0:54:54 what I think an incredible film would look like, whether that’s animated or live action, or some blend
0:55:01 or AI produced for that matter. And I have a very, very clear storyline. So what I’m trying to do right
0:55:06 now on the East Coast is corner a number of my friends who spend all their time on these tools.
0:55:13 That’s what they get paid to do all day long, so that I can put together a movie trailer. And that’s
0:55:17 just mostly for my fun. I really want to do it because I think it’d be incredibly exciting and
0:55:24 fun to do, at least the way I see it in my head, which is like a comic book penciler or director,
0:55:28 I guess. I very naturally, because of my obsession with comics for so long and wanting to be a comic
0:55:33 book penciler, think in terms of cuts and angles and framing and everything, which is part of the reason
0:55:41 why I put up that giant coffee table book, which is a collector’s edition of Sin City by Frank Miller,
0:55:46 because you get to see underneath the finished inking, a lot of the pencil marks and the rubber
0:55:51 cement, all the whiteout and so on. You get to see the process that’s hidden underneath.
0:55:59 So that for me is kind of the next step. It’s like hopefully creating a movie trailer. And if that
0:56:06 gives me the kind of quickening and that wellspring of energy that makes me feel like I’ve grabbed a
0:56:12 productive third rail of chi or something, then I’ll be like, okay, let’s see how other people
0:56:16 respond to it and show a couple of friends. And if they’re like, if I get that response, then I’ll
0:56:21 probably push a little harder. But as I mentioned earlier, I do have a couple of other things on the
0:56:27 plate, including that 800-page book. So you can only do so many things in parallel. But that’s one
0:56:32 that I think over a weekend or like two or three days, if the tools are good enough, and I have people
0:56:40 sitting right next to me who are good enough with the cutting edge of, say, animation slash video
0:56:47 production using AI tools, I feel like it should be at least to my muggle mind, pretty straightforward.
0:56:54 But I don’t know how good these models are at following literal, explicit directions, right?
0:56:58 Like this for a half second, this for a quarter second, this for, I don’t think they’re actually
0:57:02 going to cooperate. I think they’re going to be like petulant little two-year-olds and make a mess of
0:57:06 things and throw their construction blocks all over the floor. Then I’ll have to clean it all up.
0:57:12 So I think it’ll be harder than I would like, but we’ll get there. So that I think is next up.
0:57:17 So Guido, I don’t have any thoughts on the Johnny Depp and Ridley Scott’s Hyde comic collaboration.
0:57:23 Honestly, it’s the first time I’m hearing of it. So I will need to check that out to see what I can
0:57:31 pick up from creative process. All right. We talked about Mag3 in it. I answered that. All right.
0:57:34 Designing small experiments. What’s one experiment you’ve run in the past year that gave you outsized
0:57:39 returns personally and professionally and what made it work? I don’t want to beat a dead horse here,
0:57:44 but it would have been Coyote for sure. Just as a creative unlock and like an energy tap,
0:57:54 sort of fracking your psyche for increased energy. What made it work was finding someone I would pay
0:57:58 to spend time with anyway. And that’s Alon Lee. And certainly there are many other people on the team
0:58:05 for Exploding Kittens who made the entire Coyote project incredibly worthwhile. So many amazing folks
0:58:10 on that team. But fundamentally, it was my first contact and conversation with Alon where I was like,
0:58:18 okay, this guy is so hilarious, so smart, so technical, which a lot of people do not realize,
0:58:23 and just so gifted in so many things as a polymath. Like I would just pay to hang out with this guy.
0:58:26 I think that’s what made it work.
0:58:32 Let me answer another quick, just quick question on the like Verlata movie. Do I see the film as
0:58:36 something that can belong to the emergent long fiction model? Or would that shift the project
0:58:39 into a different creative framework? I think it would be a different creative framework.
0:58:44 And for me, I just have such a clear vision of what this entire story looks like. I think it would
0:58:47 be fucking nuts. Like if someone was like, Tim, you’re the benevolent dictator of Hollywood,
0:58:52 you can just tell everybody what to do. Like I would cast Tom Hardy. And I would cast someone who’s
0:58:59 like a younger version of Timothee Chalamet. And that would be the father and son pair. And I would
0:59:01 Sasha, did you raise your hand?
0:59:10 Yeah, you know, I mean, it’s actually not a bad fit. And then I see exactly how this thing would
0:59:18 unfold. It would be a fucking incredibly exciting, fun film. I have the utmost confidence, but alas,
0:59:23 I do not have the ability to force people with, you know, a hundred million dollars of budget just
0:59:29 to do what I want. So we’ll see. I don’t think I’m willing to bet the farm on it, which is why I want
0:59:33 to play with these AI tools first. Like let’s do a proof of concept at a very low cost and see if it
0:59:37 gets a couple of people to hold their breath or go, holy fucking shit. Like, can I make someone
0:59:44 speechless with it for like a couple seconds or just make them lose their composure in an interesting
0:59:51 way? That’s going to be my test. I’m going to butcher this name. I apologize. Hilka? All right.
0:59:56 I’m getting back into competitive chess after having been away from it for many years. If you treated it
1:00:01 like a mental sport, how would you train recovery, focus, and stamina? Expensive keto and esters are
1:00:07 sadly out of my budget. Yeah, they add up. All right. So I would treat chess as a mental sport.
1:00:12 It’s also a physical sport depending on how long the games last. And I wish I had my friend,
1:00:17 Josh Waitzkin here with me right now to take a stab at this, but I think you can treat it like a sport,
1:00:22 just like e-sports. You can’t play e-sports 24 hours a day. You’re going to run out of sufficient
1:00:27 levels of certain neurotransmitters and glycogen and all that, just like a Tour de France athlete. So
1:00:34 there are biological limiters, like rate limiting steps. Okay. So how would I think about it? First,
1:00:43 I would just make a huge list of options. And as a competitive chess player, I would basically go
1:00:48 through and document on a piece of paper. Maybe you do this first, but your failure modes, right?
1:00:52 When have you made mistakes? When have you lost games that you feel like you should have won?
1:00:57 What were the causes? Was it not enough sleep? Was it too long of a game? Was it emotional
1:01:02 dysregulation because someone was playing dirty or otherwise fucking around with you? And that
1:01:09 definitely happens in chess. What was it? So what are your top 10, top 20 kind of like failure modes or
1:01:18 failure stories? So you could dissect that. But in my case, I would say a few things. One is getting your
1:01:27 glucose metabolism and glucose energy management as stable as possible. And I think I really feel
1:01:35 like intermittent fasting on a 16-8 format. So eight hours of eating between, let’s just call it for
1:01:43 simplicity, like 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. is a great way. It takes about a week of being pissy and grumpy
1:01:52 to acclimate. But after about a week to 10 days, everything stabilizes and you end up having a lot
1:01:58 more energy consistently. You just do not have the ups and downs. Be careful too much coffee also, which spikes
1:02:03 insulin even if it doesn’t spike your glucose levels. Although it very often will also spike your glucose
1:02:11 levels with the release of glycogen. So just be aware of moderating your caffeine intake because part of the
1:02:19 reason I, at least, crash after too much caffeine, like 30 to 45 minutes later, it’s not that the
1:02:27 caffeine itself, by itself, is fast metabolized. And I am a caffeine fast metabolizer. It is the effect
1:02:33 on insulin and glucose. And I and many others have tracked this. Then there’s all sorts of stuff you can
1:02:39 play around with. So for instance, even if exogenous ketones are out of your budget, MCT oil may not be
1:02:45 definitely be close to a bathroom when you first start experimenting with MCT oil. But MCT oil, whether
1:02:52 it’s oil or powdered, make sure you check the expiration date. Do not consume out of date oil. Don’t play that
1:02:58 game. It’s not gonna be good for you. But MCT oil does have some very interesting case studies. And I think
1:03:04 also clinical trials that you can look at in terms of cognitive enhancement, typically done in older
1:03:09 subpopulations. But I do think that’s interesting, right? It’s certainly a lot cheaper than a ketone
1:03:15 monoester. There are other ketones that are less expensive than the ketone monoester, like Keto Start,
1:03:24 made by Dom D’Agostino, which is a electrolyte and ketone salt combination. But forget about exogenous
1:03:28 ketones for a second. You could also play with the ketogenic diet, right? That can be done
1:03:34 inexpensively. Like if you have macadamia nuts, sardines, some oil, you’re pretty much set. And some
1:03:38 salad greens. Like the ketogenic diet doesn’t need to be expensive. If that’s too much of a pain in the
1:03:44 ass, as I mentioned, I feel like stabilizing your glucose metabolism is like priority number one,
1:03:49 right? We were talking about sequencing and putting kind of problems in order. You will end up throwing a
1:03:54 lot of band-aids on the problem. If you don’t have that checked off first, you’ll be consuming all
1:03:59 sorts of smart drugs and caffeine and nicotine and blah, blah, blah, which is like pissing in the wind
1:04:04 if you haven’t fixed kind of the underlying system first. So I would probably suggest speak with your
1:04:11 medical professional, yada, yada, yada, right? But that that’s an easy kind of on-ramp to addressing
1:04:17 that. And then there’s all sorts of stuff that can help, but there’s no free lunch, right? So I’m sure
1:04:21 that modafinil is used by some competitive chess players. I don’t know what the doping
1:04:26 protocols are. I don’t know what is banned, if anything, for competitive chess. I don’t know
1:04:31 if they test, but I’m sure people are using things like modafinil, which is anti-narcolepsy drug that
1:04:36 was very popular among Olympic sprinters before it was banned. It was like, wow, what a coincidence.
1:04:44 Like all of the finalists for the gold medal run are diagnosed narcoleptics. Wow, what a crazy
1:04:50 coincidence, because then they could legally use modafinil as a stimulant. I am sure there are many,
1:04:56 many other things. I would look at archery. So I’m sure just as people use it for music auditions,
1:05:01 things like beta blockers. I’m not recommending you use any of these drugs. By the way, I’m just saying
1:05:06 these are things that are probably in the mix. I’m sure people are using nicotine. And you know,
1:05:09 Andrew Huberman’s talked a lot about this. Peter Atiyo also has talked a lot about nicotine.
1:05:16 A lot of my friends are now hooked on nicotine. And I would just say it is very addictive. It’s kind
1:05:20 of like, in my mind, sort of second in place to heroin. So just know what you’re signing up for.
1:05:30 And then there are the old school smart drugs like hydrogen or the racetams. A little known fact,
1:05:36 hydrogen, I believe, was created by Albert Hoffman, who also created LSD. Fascinating drug. Like I was
1:05:45 super genius. And so on and so forth. I imagine there are also people who are microdosing. I could
1:05:49 see there being advantages to that. If you overshoot, you’re going to be in a world of trouble and it’s
1:05:53 not going to be very pleasant. But I’m sure there are people who are microdosing using something like
1:06:00 50 to 100 milligrams of dried psilocybin mushrooms, plus caffeine at the right time, plus ketones at
1:06:07 the right time. That’s a pretty interesting stool of a cocktail. But fundamentally, I would say glucose
1:06:12 management and just like an endurance cyclist, depending on the duration of the event, how are
1:06:16 you going to fuel? How are you allowed to fuel? If you’re not allowed to fuel, I don’t know the rules,
1:06:23 but if you’re not allowed to fuel across multiple hours, then some version of ketosis is probably
1:06:29 going to be very helpful. And I’m going to stop there, but this could be applied to just about
1:06:34 anything, including podcasting, by the way. Kate, are you working on any unexpected projects that people
1:06:41 wouldn’t instantly associate with you? You know, behind the scenes, I have been working on all sorts
1:06:49 of stuff that I haven’t talked about that much related to trying to incentivize humans to unfuck the planet
1:06:57 a bit and hopefully head off some of the problems that are coming our way at high speed over the horizon
1:07:09 in with technology. So I’ve been very involved going back at least five years, but in fusion, looking at
1:07:17 different types of different nuclear options for clean energy. And I want to give credit where credit is
1:07:22 due, since I’m reading his book right now. But Pablo’s Holman talks about this and he said, basically,
1:07:28 people conflated nuclear weapons with nuclear reactors and the wrong one got banned. So fusion
1:07:35 is a place that I’m spending a bunch of time. I’m looking at ways of addressing emissions in various
1:07:42 ways, like algae feed additives to reduce methane production from cows. It sounds funny, maybe, but
1:07:48 actually a pretty big lever, meat alternatives for scalable protein, even though I’m an avid meat
1:07:54 consumer and one of the largest investors in Maui Nui Venison, which is the most nutritious red meat you
1:08:01 can purchase on the planet, arguably. And yet, depending on how things swing, I really do think that having
1:08:12 scalable, easy to harvest, space efficient protein is going to be increasingly important. So those are a few of the
1:08:18 things that kind of behind the scenes I’m involved with that I haven’t talked too much about.
1:08:24 I don’t want to sound like some self-congratulatory eco-warrior who’s just patting himself on the back
1:08:30 way too much time. You know, like there’s so many of those people, I just don’t want to be one of them. So I don’t talk too much about that stuff.
1:08:37 But I do think it’s really fucking important. David, what’s one country you wished you visited earlier or can’t believe you haven’t been to yet?
1:08:43 David, what’s one country?
1:08:49 As far as country status, but I would say Taiwan. Taiwan is just one of my favorite places on earth.
1:09:08 I went there for the first time around 99, I guess, 1999, and fell in love with it, was there for two or three summers, and then had no opportunity or didn’t make the time to go back until a few months ago.
1:09:19 And I just love Taiwan, in part because Taiwan really preserved a lot of the culture that was demolished during the Cultural Revolution in mainland China.
1:09:34 People are very friendly, very polite. The food is fantastic. Tons of natural beauty. It is a speck of an island. It is very small, which on the plus side means that you can explore a whole hell of a lot of it very, very easily.
1:09:45 There’s incredible nature and waterfalls and rivers and rainforests within less than an hour drive of Taipei. I just love that place.
1:09:49 So, if that’s on your wish list, I would suggest visiting sooner rather than later.
1:10:08 And I’m sure there are tons of other places that I haven’t spent time. I haven’t spent time in all sorts of countries that are interesting to me for a bunch of different reasons, like Estonia, these smaller countries, Lithuania, that all punch above their weight class in certain ways, like Lithuanian basketball.
1:10:12 Go look up Lithuanian basketball history. It’s completely bananas.
1:10:17 Look up Lithuanian basketball and the Grateful Dead, if you want an amazing story. True fact. Check it out.
1:10:26 And they’re just a bunch of little tiny countries sprinkled around that I have never had the opportunity to visit that I would like to check out.
1:10:46 So, who knows? I would say it’s tough because there’s so many other places I have visited, which are confirmed awesome for Tim. And they’re just guaranteed bets. It’s like how many speculative kind of missions do I want to go on versus just doubling down on the things I know are going to be absolutely fantastic.
1:11:03 You know, the Japans and the Italys and so on, right? Argentina, even though they can’t seem to like every three or four years, they just light their whole country on fire. But I do love Argentina. Too bad about that whole crypto thing with me. Like, come on. Oh, what a mess. They just can’t help themselves.
1:11:15 So, I would say those are a couple that come to mind. This is a comment slash question from Jihyo, who couldn’t make this because she’s on a plane, but I’ll just read the kind of relevant part here. The most relevant for the group.
1:11:29 Saying no is important, but I believe there are moments in life when not yet, in quotation marks, is wiser than no, especially in the early stages of growth before reaching any kind of summit. I think we need a phase of openness, a time to welcome an experiment rather than reject. What do you think about that?
1:11:42 Yeah, I agree with that. I think in part, and this is certainly in the four-hour work week as well, you need to figure out what you’re good at, what you’re good at. And part of that is like, what do you find easier to do than other people?
1:11:59 Or is there anything that other people really dislike doing that you happen to love doing, or at least tolerate doing, right? And then kind of what do other people seem interested in, right? What are other people going to value? But at the very top of that is what are you good at?
1:12:12 And to figure that out, you do have to throw a lot against the wall. And I think that engineering for more serendipity rather than less is a good idea, because your ability to predict that is going to be terrible, generally speaking.
1:12:33 But I would say that for every example of someone who has radical openness, there’s also somebody who figured it out. They tend to be people who figured it out reasonably early. Either something they absolutely wanted to do, and that was it. Like Frank Miller. I think Frank Miller, when he was like age five, he’s one of the top comic book artists and writers of all time.
1:12:57 And he decided when he was five years old, that’s what he was going to do, right? Or you take like a Michael Phelps or whatever. But that tends to correspond to someone finding something that they are good at, or that gives them effectively an unending supply of energy, right?
1:13:23 Which then provides you with the fuel to get really good, right? So those are kind of the two things that I would look for if you’re throwing a lot against the wall. But once you figure that out, even partially, I think that going through a period of having a closed door policy, which is just like, there’s my summit in the future, and anything that gets me closer is a yes, and anything that gets me off to the side or causes me to divert is a no, I think is a good practice.
1:13:33 And again, coming back to the discussion around Austin and San Francisco, they don’t need to be mutually exclusive. You can alternate. It doesn’t need to be one forever. It doesn’t need to be one for a year. It could be one for a month.
1:13:50 And certainly, if I’m going to focus on, say, you know, a movie script, or a book, or Coyote, right? Why did I shelve the notebook? Because I wanted the single task on Coyote and the game, and maximizing everything about it, right?
1:14:00 In the early stages, the development, and the playtesting, and the tweaking, and the iterating, and all of that. And then now, more the retail distribution, optimization, and things like that.
1:14:13 So until I feel like I have seen that to escape velocity, or at least taken it as far as I can within reason, I’m not going to say yes to things that cause me to sort of deviate off of that.
1:14:25 Congratulations on Coyote, or are you already thinking about another game to make the most of the skills and knowledge you’ve gained? Not yet. I’m tempted to, because that’s like the fun, brainstorming, Fantasyland side of things that is always the most fun for me.
1:14:42 But I recognize that that is going to pull Tim the Beast of Burden away from the yoke that he needs to push around in a wheel. So I haven’t thought about it, to be honest. I’m disallowing myself. I’m forbidding myself from thinking about it until I do as much as possible with Coyote.
1:14:45 Cindy, love the 4-Hour Chef and still use it regularly. Thank you.
1:14:51 All right, this is Hugo. Do you prefer doing a podcast with big headphones versus in-ear AirPods? Why?
1:15:01 I do, and that is because these AirPods, which I’m holding up, run out of battery, and also sometimes have connectivity issues and so on via Bluetooth.
1:15:12 So I prefer to have a hard connection, which is what I’m using right now, an Audio-Technica headset with this as backup audio at highest fidelity via QuickTime.
1:15:15 Two is one and one is none. So good to have backup.
1:15:24 Life Olson, what do you think the uncrowded channel is right now? Is it still in-person? I do think in-person is still reliably uncrowded.
1:15:31 I think a lot of legacy technologies are uncrowded as newer things get shiny and are made shiny and sold as very sexy.
1:15:54 Email, possibly older platforms. It’s something I’ve been looking at very closely. Could we, for instance, use Pinterest and Quora and other sites or platforms that are not currently like the youngest, hottest girl at the dance, like whatever latest short-form social media thing has happened to show up?
1:16:02 What are some tried and true proven platforms that just aren’t getting the airtime of the latest and greatest?
1:16:09 Not saying that is the answer. It’s just an open question for me that I’m looking at pretty closely.
1:16:16 Stephanie, Monopoly Deal, great game. And Coyote, Biased, I think it’s also a great game, are my go-to card games with family and friends. So much fun. Thank you for that.
1:16:29 Okay, Rashida, you’re recommending Dr. Mindy Pelt’s Resetter podcast. She wrote Eat Like a Girl and Fast Like a Girl, all about fasting. That’s interesting to me also because women tend to have a harder time with fasting.
1:16:52 And particularly, depending on your, if you have sort of family planning imminently, that’d be good to speak to proper medical professionals about. But that is interesting. I mean, because there are some, appear to be some pretty heavily gendered differences in how men and women respond to fasting or adapt to a ketogenic diet for that matter. So that’s a great recommendation. I’ll check it out.
1:17:18 Kevin Rose’s Zero Fasting app. Yes, for fasting. Great one. I do know Robert Rodriguez. Great studio and in Texas. So yes, at some point, Robert has been, to his credit, busting my balls about being a lazy ass MF-er about not biting the bullet with doing something in film. So I appreciate Robert for pointing out the obvious, which is like he can do 12 projects at once and I’ve yet to even do a short film.
1:17:24 So I appreciate that. And yes, he’s right in my backyard and a friend and just an awesome human being.
1:17:40 I have looked into fast neutron reactors. David, thank you for asking. Yeah, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in that area. Also, just frankly, building more legacy designs with, you know, water cooling and so on. I mean, just putting more reactors in play.
1:17:50 If you want a great wake-up call, you can just type into chat GPT. Like, what is the status of nuclear power in China versus the US?
1:17:58 And somebody asked about the Bugatti of ketones that I mentioned on the random show and if I would be willing to disclose.
1:18:14 I’m not willing to disclose yet because there is the possibility that chronic use of an alcohol-bonded monoester could negatively affect liver function and I want to do the homework on that.
1:18:20 There seem to be some ways to mitigate that. So number one, just don’t become a ketone addict and take them all day.
1:18:25 Secondly, maybe consuming with MCT oil has some beneficial effect.
1:18:37 Certainly, some of the supplements I mentioned, NAC, ALA, etc. I mean, there are a whole suite of other things you might take for liver support might also mitigate some of the risk.
1:18:47 But I want to do more homework because I realize what will happen if I recommend this particular thing is that a lot of people are going to buy it and that’ll be the last time they ever listen to me.
1:19:00 If they don’t hear my findings later, which are like, hey, guys, remember that thing? Like, cut back, only take this much per day or stop taking it, they may not hear that disclaimer after the fact.
1:19:04 So I’m trying to do more heavy lifting on my side in terms of due diligence.
1:19:08 I have not watched the Four Seasons. I’m assuming that’s not related to the hotel.
1:19:10 Okay.
1:19:16 Would have been some of the best locations for when you’ve taken your extended family places.
1:19:21 Yeah. Anything that is built for family outings, honestly, makes it so much easier.
1:19:30 So if there’s something with outdoor activities for the youngsters, some hiking, a pond, then I think there’s a lot to be done.
1:19:34 For instance, there’s a beautiful place in upstate New York called Mohonk Mountain House.
1:19:39 It’s absolutely stunning. It’s been around. It’s basically like dirty dancing in upstate New York.
1:19:41 It’s been around for like 100 years.
1:19:43 Somebody puts a baby in a corner.
1:19:48 You know, it’s a fantastic spot. And you have activities for anyone and everyone.
1:19:52 And they can accommodate people in wheelchairs and so on, right?
1:19:55 So for an extended family outing, that would be very high up.
1:20:01 Taking my family, and of course, location would vary on person, but taking my family on a,
1:20:09 basically a family tree trip and going to different countries where we can trace our bloodline, bloodlines, honestly.
1:20:14 I mean, what a mutt. I mean, I’m as European a mutt as you can possibly imagine.
1:20:23 But picking kind of the top percentages on, you know, ancestry.com or something like that and going on a trip like that was really fun.
1:20:30 I mean, the list could go on and on. But for an extended family, I would say choose a place that’s accustomed to dealing with extended families.
1:20:35 Any notebook meetups at some point? Yes, I would plan on some notebook meetups for sure.
1:20:45 Once this thing is done and people can actually get together and compare notes, I would say almost certainly we could do them ahead of time as well.
1:20:53 If you guys wanted to meet up. I mean, there’s nothing kind of preventing that. Just, I would say, let me know how I and my team can facilitate that.
1:20:58 Hopefully that was interesting. I appreciate all the questions and participation. Thanks, everybody.
1:21:05 And hope you had a wonderful Labor Day extended weekend for those of you who are in the right country for that.
1:21:07 Even if not, I hope you enjoyed your last weekend.
1:21:17 And I am going to leave it at that. But always appreciate you guys. Thanks for all the engagement and the questions and the thoughtful follow-ups and everything else.
1:21:19 So have a wonderful night. Take care, guys.
1:21:26 Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday.
1:21:31 Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend?
1:21:38 Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.
1:21:40 Easy to sign up. Easy to cancel.
1:21:49 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I’ve found or discovered or have started exploring over that week.
1:22:03 It’s kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.
1:22:10 And these strange, esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you.
1:22:18 So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.
1:22:28 If you’d like to try it out, just go to tim.blog.com slash Friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog.com slash Friday, drop in your email, and you’ll get the very next one.
1:22:29 Thanks for listening.
1:22:43 So sleep is the key to it all. It is the foundation. Many of you heard me talk about how today’s sponsor, Eight Sleep, has improved my sleep with its pod cover. Well, they just launched their latest product, the pod five. I cannot wait to try it out. And here’s why.
1:22:58 The pod five introduces Eight Sleep’s latest product, the blanket, which uses the same technology as the pod’s cover to extend temperature regulation across the entire body. So if you’re too hot, too cold, you can fix it. If you’re a couple and one of you is hot, one of you is cold, you can fix it as well.
1:23:11 It all fits right over your existing mattress like a fitted sheet. On average, members report the pod has helped them fall asleep 44% faster, 34% deeper sleep, and given them up to one added hour of sleep each night.
1:23:29 Also, the pod snoring detection, my friend Albert might be interested in this, and automatic elevating platform have reduced user snoring by 45%. So it does a lot. You’ll also get a personalized report each morning, allowing you to track your sleep stages, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, and more, all without having any devices strapped onto you.
1:23:56 So head over to eightsleep.com slash Tim and use code Tim to get $350 off of your very own pod five ultra. You can try it at home for 30 days and return if you don’t like it. So why not? Give it a shot. Sleep is everything. Again, that’s eightsleep.com slash Tim. Spell it out eightsleep.com slash Tim for $350 off. Shipping is available to many countries worldwide. One more time, eightsleep.com slash Tim.
1:24:27 Traditional budgeting apps, they can be interesting. Yeah, they can be helpful. I’ve tried out a bunch, but they don’t compare to the complete financial command center that you get with today’s sponsor, Monarch Money. And a number of my friends have recommended them publicly, have recommended it to me. And I had my entire team basically test this app out and they’re all still using it. Monarch is like your own personal CFO giving you full visibility and control so you can stop merely earning and start growing. For instance, one person on my podcast team has tried
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0:00:10 I am Tim Ferriss. This episode is a solo Q&A session where I answer a bunch of questions
0:00:16 across a lot of topics submitted by members of the private notebook community. That’s the book
0:00:20 that I’m working on right now alongside Neil Strauss, 10-time New York Times bestselling
0:00:23 author. It’s all about how to say no. If you want to read some sample chapters of that,
0:00:30 tim.blog slash notebook, N-O-B-O-O-K. We cover a ton of ground in this Q&A, ranging from personal
0:00:36 health protocols to professional frameworks and creative projects and much more. Topics include
0:00:42 my current extensive supplement stack. I was not going to volunteer that, but someone asked,
0:00:46 so I answered it. And I’m not a doctor. Don’t play one on the internet. Talk to your professionals.
0:00:52 This is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Why I changed my mind about
0:00:58 intermittent fasting. My workflow for using AI tools. Some examples of how I currently apply
0:01:03 those in my life. My current thoughts on Austin versus San Francisco for builders and entrepreneurs
0:01:08 after spending a lot of time in both places. A detailed breakdown of how I would approach
0:01:13 training for a mental sport like competitive chess, although I wish I could rope in some of my friends
0:01:19 like Josh Waitzkin. My complete step-by-step protocol for attempting to accelerate recovery from
0:01:25 a recent elbow surgery. I’m about two weeks out. I have a nice big pending scar on my right elbow
0:01:32 after some sports injuries beginning 20 years ago. So what did I do exactly to recover as quickly as possible
0:01:40 using various technologies and devices like the Mark Pro and BFR training and more? Behind the scenes stories
0:02:00 related to Coyote. And if you could leave a review, if you’ve bought the game, super helpful to, of course,
0:02:06 getting the game in more places and everything else. Also very, very fun for me. So it’s currently 4.7, 4.8 stars,
0:02:10 something like that on Amazon and Walmart, Target and so on. If you’ve played the game, please leave a
0:02:15 review. I’ve read every one so far. I just finished reading them today and I will be reading them again
0:02:21 later this week. Would really mean a lot. So check it out. CoyoteGame.com. I had a blast answering all
0:02:26 the questions from the notebook community and I hope you find the tactics and strategies useful in your
0:02:31 own life. We’re going to get right to that. First, just a few quick words from the partners and about
0:02:34 the partners who help make this podcast possible.
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0:03:49 with code TIM. Sleep is the key to it all. It is the foundation. Many of you heard me talk about how
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0:05:17 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
0:05:19 Can I ask you a personal question?
0:05:21 Now would have seen a perfect time.
0:05:22 What if I did the opposite?
0:05:26 I’m a cybernetic organism living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.
0:05:42 Greetings from the East Coast, everybody. And I figured we’d just hop right into it. And I thought
0:05:49 we would make this simple to start with by simply going through the questions that were submitted and
0:05:54 trying to answer as many of those as possible. And then we can go to some live questions if that works
0:05:59 for you guys. I’m going to take a sip of my incredibly strong decaf coffee.
0:06:04 All right. The first question is from Sasha. What’s an obstacle or challenge that you’re currently
0:06:10 facing? How are you approaching it? This actually, I could combine with the second one as well,
0:06:14 which is Rashida. How was your recovery from elbow surgery? What procedure did you have done?
0:06:18 Have you seen the wonderful story of Henry Sugar? I had to look that up. It looks amazing.
0:06:27 Wes Anderson short film adaptation of a Roald Dahl short story, which I’m very excited to see. So
0:06:35 thank you for putting that on my radar. That is on my to watch list for Netflix, particularly since I
0:06:41 just finished listening to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by the same author. So let’s hop into obstacle or
0:06:52 challenge. I’ll give you a couple. So the first is actually a retail distribution and placement
0:06:59 question. And that relates to Coyote, the game that’s now in 8,000 or so retail locations. And as you might
0:07:06 expect, there are some variables that can affect sell through. And Coyote itself is one of the smallest
0:07:11 games that Exploding Kittens has ever made. And it is their first game that is on a hang tag. So it’s
0:07:18 intended to be put on one of those metal prongs that sticks out of the wall. But when you actually,
0:07:23 and this was part one in terms of addressing it, trying to figure out why different stores or regions
0:07:30 have varying levels of sell through, the first thing you have to do is gather information. So rather than
0:07:37 just speculate at every turn, trying to gather as much information as possible. And this actually makes me think of
0:07:43 Dale Carnegie and how to stop worrying and start living often step number one is more information. Do you have
0:07:51 enough information or even partial information upon which to base this fear slash goal slash fill in the blank? So
0:08:01 right now went to a discord server that hosts a lot of fans of Exploding Kittens games and also with the help
0:08:09 of the EK team and separately have gone out to some of the families who play tested to ask them to go to
0:08:17 local Walmart stores and target stores to send back photographs close up and then zoomed out of actual
0:08:24 retail placement. And so that will then help to inform possible strategies for improving sell through
0:08:30 for all of those stores, which produces a long list at this point. And every item on that list is
0:08:36 premature. For instance, and this is also where the scientific method comes in really handy in so much
0:08:42 as not fooling yourself, because can you even know, for instance, if the game is affecting sell through
0:08:49 retail is that noble, right? Can you actually parse data in any compelling statistically significant way
0:08:55 to say yes or no? If not, you can just ignore it, right? But that’s an open question. Then you have
0:09:03 box size, you have box placement. Can you increase just say adherence to agreed upon placement? Or do we
0:09:08 want to potentially boost the size of a box? Of course, there are cost considerations with that,
0:09:14 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that’s one that I’m contending with. And then tying into what
0:09:20 came up as the second question, Rashida, how’s your recovery from elbow surgery? What procedure did I have
0:09:28 done? I had a repair for lateral epicondylitis. So I’m not sure if you can see that. I’ve got a nice
0:09:39 incision right there where the entire elbow was opened up and the lateral epicondyle, which is that
0:09:45 nice little bump on the outside of the elbow, which is associated with tennis elbow, as opposed to the
0:09:53 inside, the medial side, which is golfer’s elbow. And this is an injury from 20 years ago, probably 20 plus
0:09:59 years ago, actually in New York city where I had my elbow popped and bent the wrong direction in a
0:10:05 jujitsu practice by a black belt, which in retrospect was totally unnecessary. Black belt has no need to
0:10:11 exert that kind of force, but every few years it comes back and has bothered me. And then particularly
0:10:19 after doing a lot of rock climbing last winter and getting to, for me, tougher climbs like 5’11 plus
0:10:26 on big walls, much bigger walls than Texas can provide, the elbow effectively just became unusable.
0:10:31 And it was in constant pain and got to the point where even picking up a glass of water was kind of
0:10:38 excruciating. So that was all tacked back where it should be sewn back together. But you can see,
0:10:45 I mean, let’s see, this is about a week and a half out, right? And it’s like, I’ve got almost full
0:10:52 extension. This is like 80, 90% of the way there. And then on this side, I still have a lot of pain
0:10:56 in the anconius when I flex the arm towards my face for like brushing my teeth or something like
0:11:01 that. But that’s a week and a half, right? And so how did I approach that? Well,
0:11:09 a big part of how I think about solving problems or challenges is sequencing. That won’t surprise
0:11:13 anybody who’s read The 4-Hour Chef, which is confusingly a book about accelerated learning.
0:11:21 But sequencing is the magic sauce, I think, for a lot of things. So you’re going to sort of
0:11:26 deconstruct something, right? To break it down into its constituent pieces. So what does healing
0:11:31 look like? In fact, when you break it down into its constituent pieces, let’s just say those Lego
0:11:38 pieces, then how do you select kind of the 20% for this 80-20 analysis to get the highest yield out of
0:11:43 the few levers you decide to pull? Because you probably can’t address all of them with the time
0:11:49 that you have as a non-professional athlete or Major League Baseball pitcher, for instance.
0:11:55 Then how do you sequence those things? How do you solve in the right order? And I’ll actually be
0:11:59 interviewing someone very soon, Pablos Holman, who talks a lot about this. He is one of the world’s
0:12:06 most fascinating hackers. And a lot of problems can’t be solved until you solve for energy expenditure
0:12:13 in the context of a lot of what he discusses. And similarly, with healing, a large part of
0:12:21 clearing the highway for productive work is decongestion. So I was using a device called the
0:12:30 MARC Pro device, MARC, which provides effectively stimulation through electrodes to pump the tissue
0:12:38 for decongestion and lymphatic drainage. I was also doing a lymphatic drainage massage, which is
0:12:46 much lighter than you might expect and does not involve any type of incision. And then there were
0:12:53 a number of peptides like EMP-157, not medical advice for information purposes only that I was
0:13:00 consuming to kind of hedge my bets. And that was based on a number of recommendations. And I’ve used
0:13:09 that as far back as 15 years ago. So for surgical repair, somewhat interesting, lots of supplementation.
0:13:15 So along the lines of say Keith Barr, who I had on the podcast from UC Davis, consuming particular types
0:13:22 of collagen plus vitamin C plus a few other things prior to any type of, say, range of motion stretching
0:13:29 or working or isometric strengthening, not of the extensors, right, that I had repaired. I’m not doing
0:13:37 any isometrics on that just yet, but for bicep and tricep. And then once the acute phase of congestion
0:13:43 was somewhat addressed, right, it’s still inflamed, but that’s to be expected given how much
0:13:51 remodeling is going on in the elbow. Now I’m applying blood flow restriction, BFR training.
0:13:56 And this was recommended to me, and it’s been around quite a long time, but by Kelly Starrett,
0:14:04 who’s an amazing performance coach, PT, works with Delta Force and many others. And the BFR allows you
0:14:13 to effectively not only flush the tissue, but also maintain muscle mass on some level without the ability
0:14:21 to say concentrically or eccentrically handle much load. And I think that BFR is very, very interesting,
0:14:28 not just for rehab, but for training while minimizing the likelihood for injury. And by training, I mean
0:14:36 resistance training. So those are a few of the tools in the toolkit. Of course, sleep is mandatory. So doing
0:14:43 anything and everything necessary to get good amounts of restorative sleep, deep sleep is super critical.
0:14:55 And off we go. So I am planning on resuming actual flexor, like grip strength training around week five.
0:15:03 And for some people, the risk is that they don’t do the rehab. The risk for someone like me is that I do too much
0:15:12 too soon and blow the whole thing apart. So sitting still and just not fussing with it is my great challenge.
0:15:18 It’s kind of continually a challenge in every context. Okay. Let’s hop back to the questions.
0:15:25 And I’m happy to answer more questions about the surgery as we come along. And I might as well pick
0:15:32 up one. Following a protocol. I am following a protocol with a PT. I have multiple PTs. So I’m not
0:15:37 just DIYing this. I’m definitely relying on professionals for every step of this, even though
0:15:42 I would like to think I’m pretty well versed, but frankly, the accountability and the structure
0:15:50 and the third party expert observation and assessment is really critical. I just had my
0:15:56 first follow-up assessment by the surgeon today who has also had this identical surgery performed on his
0:16:03 own elbow as a former high-level tennis player. So I like to choose surgeons when possible who are
0:16:10 former athletes or current athletes call me biased, but I do try to look for those folks because they
0:16:17 tend to understand the bizarre programming that I have in my own mind. All right, let’s hop back to
0:16:23 a question from Jake. Do I still think California is the place to go for builders or is Austin viable
0:16:29 as a place for a mechanical engineer to find a job, build some momentum and make a go at a startup?
0:16:34 I know you’re not in the space anymore, but I’m curious what trends you see in Austin versus say
0:16:42 the Bay area. So this is a very good question and it’s top of mind for me because one of my best
0:16:51 friends just moved from Austin back to San Francisco and his reason for doing so was related. I would say
0:16:59 largely to the focus of his new startup that he hopes to launch for which he will probably need to find
0:17:06 a technical co-founder and it is in broadly speaking the AI space. And I will say that AI
0:17:14 as yet another example of, I suppose, I’m not sure it ever died entirely. I don’t think it did, but is
0:17:23 another kind of Lazarus resurrection for Silicon Valley. And if you want to build something that is
0:17:30 sophisticated in the AI space, which I know is a broad umbrella, then I do think the top talent,
0:17:36 the density of talent is highest in a place like San Francisco. So if you hope to build, not only build,
0:17:44 but learn and hire, particularly if you’re going to play the venture backed startup game,
0:17:52 then you got to fish where the fish are. And from a talent perspective, that’s going to have the highest
0:17:57 density. Can you do it in Austin? Depends a lot on what you’re building. There are some really
0:18:02 interesting fintech companies. There’s some very interesting hardware companies. There are headquarters
0:18:09 for a lot of large companies, or at least large outposts, Oracle, Google, Meta, et cetera,
0:18:15 that exist in Austin. So I think it really depends on specifically what you’re trying to build.
0:18:22 But what I would add to that is that perhaps you don’t have to choose one. Maybe they’re not mutually
0:18:32 exclusive. So perhaps you just treat a month or two or three in Silicon Valley as your MBA that you get
0:18:38 to pay for with respect to any type of domain expertise you’re trying to develop, or frankly,
0:18:44 networks and relationships. And then you take that and you port it back to Austin, potentially. These are
0:18:51 all possibilities. So you could straddle both horses in a sense. That I think is my answer on California.
0:18:58 I’m happy to answer more specifics on California and Austin, but there are reasons why people are willing
0:19:03 to pay astronomical taxes in California. This is true of a lot of places with high taxes. Generally,
0:19:09 they’re pretty good reasons they can get away with it. All right, let’s go back to the questions I have
0:19:16 here. Pete, how are you currently using AI for personal medical advice and what’s your typical workflow?
0:19:23 I will say in advance of answering this that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet. So I’m not
0:19:30 providing medical advice. I’m simply for educational and entertainment purposes only telling you what I do.
0:19:37 I use a few different tools and I always cross-reference and I talk to professionals. So this is
0:19:47 really important as a way to lead into this conversation because much like the person who is
0:19:52 his or her own lawyer has a fool for a client. I think that could apply to PT. I think it could apply
0:20:00 to medicine, certainly. And you really want to interrogate and cross-reference your own opinions
0:20:06 with someone who’s very experienced. But there are a couple of different tools I use. So one is the
0:20:13 off-the-rack chat GPT and so on. I also use something called Consensus.app. Consensus.app
0:20:23 is specifically tuned for reviewing published scientific literature to answer a given question. So for
0:20:30 instance, in my case, if I wanted to do a preliminary run at a few questions before speaking to a very
0:20:38 in-demand, very busy surgeon, i.e. the person who just fixed my elbow, I would look at the literature
0:20:46 around BFR. So I have two tabs open on my computer right now related to blood flow restriction and
0:20:53 accelerating or otherwise affecting positively or negatively surgical recovery in upper extremities.
0:21:00 in humans. But that will often give you nothing or something that is too narrow. So I will expand
0:21:08 that to include animal models, which are imperfect but helpful. And so then I get a read on say Consensus.app,
0:21:14 and it will give you a conviction rating effectively. So it’ll give you like a red, there’s no evidence to
0:21:22 support X, a yellow, results are mixed, or a green where there seems to be a compelling majority of
0:21:30 evidence that has been published in support of X. So I use Consensus.app quite a bit. And then I will
0:21:40 often ask the same question of say a chat GPT or a clod or perplexity, fill in the blank, and then cross
0:21:48 reference those. So those are how I will then do a first pass on a question or topic of interest. After I have
0:21:56 that, I will typically take the germane paragraph or two and copy and paste it, send it in this case,
0:22:03 for instance, to the surgeon and say, what is your opinion of BFR for A, B, or C? Here’s what I found.
0:22:09 So that he or she referring to the expert in question knows you’re not being a lazy son of a bitch and just
0:22:14 throwing something at them that you haven’t even thrown into Google or an LLM. So I’ll make sure that
0:22:21 I indicate I’ve done a bunch of lifting on my own first. Here’s my tentative conclusion. Do you have
0:22:26 anything at all you could add? Even a sentence or two would really be greatly appreciated. And by the
0:22:32 way, you don’t need to have fancy people on your SMS to do that. I mean, Reddit is a great place to do
0:22:38 this. Again, not medical advice, but there are some very smart people on subreddits and various other
0:22:44 places. So those would be a few of the ways that I currently use it. And I might use it to, for
0:22:49 instance, take something that has been mentioned to me. A genetic screening company reached out to me
0:22:56 after one of my recent podcasts. And one of my former podcast guests is a scientific advisor to them,
0:23:05 credible scientific advisor. And they indicated that the APO34, which I have, which predisposes me
0:23:12 somewhat, well, 2.5 times more than APO33, at least based on current understanding to Alzheimer’s
0:23:16 disease. They said, well, there are probably 30 to 40 other factors that you would want to weigh
0:23:23 pretty heavily. And so I would use something among the suite of AI tools to explore that for myself and
0:23:29 ask for some type of waiting, not only to get a better understanding of what they’re suggesting,
0:23:36 but to fact check it, right? Before I go too far down any road of exploring someone who is offering a
0:23:41 product for free, because generally things that are offered to you for free are the most expensive
0:23:50 things you will ever receive. Not always, but very, very often. All right. So that is that question.
0:23:56 Kevin, what supplements are you currently taking? Is PAGS or AG still in the mix? I’ll explain what
0:24:01 that is for people who don’t know the reference. And then I’ll combine that with a question from
0:24:08 Steve. Do you still take magnesium L3 and 8? And an additional question around supplements. So right
0:24:15 now I’m using a ton of stuff because of the surgery and surgical recovery, but I’ll answer the PAG
0:24:23 quickly. I am still taking the AG component of that, which would be alpha-lipoic acid, which can be helpful
0:24:31 for liver health. So as I’m consuming, for instance, ketone monoesters, there’s some evidence to suggest
0:24:37 that chronic use could have a negative effect on liver function. So I’m taking alpha-lipoic acid. I’m also
0:24:46 taking anacetylcysteine or NAC. And then the two Gs refer to green tea extract and garlic allicin
0:24:53 extract. I still find value in those. Polycosinol is the only thing, the PF PAG, that I would put on
0:25:00 the question mark chopping block if I were to update the four-hour body. That’s the only thing in the
0:25:06 entire book where I’m like, evidence was split. I made the decision to include it. I would want to go back
0:25:14 and revisit. Coming back to other supplements, let me give you my kind of roll call for, let’s just say
0:25:23 today. So today, I’m taking a number of prescription medications for, it’s really preemptively avoiding
0:25:30 issues that are common in my family. So I’m taking something called euloric fuboxostat for managing
0:25:36 uric acid levels to avoid future problems with gout, for instance. I’m taking something called
0:25:43 Nexlizet. Do not just copy-paste this type of stuff for your own use. Please, God, don’t do that. But
0:25:49 this is very personal, requires lots of good medical supervision. But Nexlizet, which is a combination of
0:26:02 euloric acid for various lipid profile variables or biomarkers that I care about, since most of the
0:26:11 males in my family on both sides tend to die of some type of vascular or cardio complication.
0:26:20 So I’m taking those. I’m also taking femotidine, otherwise known as pepcid, for possible anti-COVID
0:26:25 applications. You should look up the research on that. It’s actually pretty fascinating.
0:26:33 It may also be a mild vagal tone improver or vagus nerve stimulator, which appears to be through
0:26:38 indirect means. But it’s pretty interesting. Again, talk to your fucking doctors. Do not just copy me on
0:26:44 this, but it is pretty fascinating. Then I’m taking the BBC 157, which may or may not be orally
0:26:51 available. But since it was recommended to me by a top performance coach and I want the placebo effect
0:26:57 to work for me, I have not bothered to look that one up because I’m quite certain that downside risk is
0:27:03 nil. But the GI tract might render that completely inert. Who knows? Back in the day, like 15 years ago,
0:27:08 I was injecting that locally, which I really don’t recommend either, unless you have professional
0:27:13 supervision. So I’m taking that. I mentioned N-acetylcysteine, which I’m taking in the morning,
0:27:19 typically taking that between meals. And then throughout the day, I’m taking the supplementation,
0:27:27 which I mentioned, which is the collagen, often with whey protein and vitamin C prior to any type of
0:27:33 draining or training or stretching of the elbow, which is my top priority at the moment.
0:27:41 I am also taking maca root extract, which I found to be beneficial for a host of different things
0:27:50 and almost acts like a mild androgen, like a mild anabolic and seems to have some pretty interesting
0:27:56 results based on some reports on reproductive health. I still need my twins to work if I want kids,
0:28:02 which I do. So keeping those happy and healthy, hopefully. Then as we move through the day,
0:28:07 I’m not taking much in the middle of the day. And then at night right now, because keep in mind,
0:28:14 only at surgery a week and a half ago, I am a 100% off of any opioids. I really minimized my use of that,
0:28:20 but the elbow still hurts. It hurts at night. So I’m taking a combination of THC and CBN
0:28:28 to help with pain, which it does in my case quite dramatically. Then I’m taking a few other
0:28:32 prescription meds. I’m not going to get into because people love taking prescription meds for
0:28:37 sleep. I’m probably going to modify that. I’m looking very closely at, I believe it’s the DORA class,
0:28:43 D-O-R-A class of sleep medications, because there may be some, there appears to be some evidence to
0:28:50 support that it could help prevent or clear amyloid plaque buildup and tau associated with
0:28:58 Alzheimer’s. So if I can get a two for one, help me sleep, and also perhaps mitigate some risk with the
0:29:03 neurodegenerative disease, then I am interested in taking a closer look. So there’s that.
0:29:12 And I’m taking the Mag-3 and 8, and then I am also taking two other things. I take it back
0:29:16 for my first meal of the day, which is around 2 or 3 p.m. because I’m intermittent fasting right now.
0:29:25 I’m taking fish oil, good old fish oil, pure encapsulations. The 1-O-N-E has been tested by
0:29:31 Kevin Rose and Rhonda Patrick as being quite pure. So I’m taking that. And I am also taking AREDS2,
0:29:41 A-R-E-D-S-2, which is a supplement that is produced by Bausch and Lohm based on clinical research into
0:29:51 helping to improve some types of ocular degeneration, meaning visual problems. So
0:29:59 it shouldn’t technically work in my particular version of presbyopia, which is the sort of
0:30:05 stiffening of the lens, shouldn’t technically help. But I do know of a few patients who claim
0:30:10 that after six weeks, they saw some type of dramatic reversal, even when it shouldn’t have by the letter
0:30:18 of the book helped them out. So since the downside is very low, I would say for me, that’s a pretty easy
0:30:22 possible upside, limited downside. It contains quite a bit of zinc. So you just have to be careful not
0:30:26 to overdose on zinc if you’re also taking a multivitamin and so on. Okay. Talk to your doctor
0:30:27 since I am not one.
0:30:34 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we’ll be right back to the show.
0:30:39 This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions
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0:31:56 with Shopify. One more time, shopify.com slash Tim to answer a question that just popped up here real quick. In the past,
0:32:00 you’ve mentioned the desire to start a family. Would California, Texas be states you would consider raising
0:32:05 children in? Are there factors that might influence you to consider somewhere else? Yeah, I could consider many other
0:32:13 places entirely. And California, possibly Texas, I just don’t know from a political, legal, regulatory
0:32:19 perspective how family-friendly. It might sound funny to say. Some people are going to get that. Some people
0:32:26 won’t. But I’m not sure that I would want to raise a family in an environment also where access to
0:32:31 immersive nature is as challenging as it is in Texas, which is almost entirely privately owned
0:32:38 as a state. So California, possibly, there are many, many places that are more rural, perhaps,
0:32:44 but within striking distance of a decent airport all throughout the country. So I’m not wedded to
0:32:49 Texas, California, or either coast for that matter. So this is a question from Cindy.
0:32:54 What are some recent examples of saying no to good things that allowed you to have hell yes moments?
0:32:58 This bonus view of examples of when you should have said no, but didn’t, and the consequences.
0:33:03 Fortunately, I don’t have any examples that hop to mind of when I should have said
0:33:08 no and faced the consequences, although I could pull from my life with many of those.
0:33:14 And if and when the no book gets published, which is currently an 800-page draft, there will be many,
0:33:19 many such examples. But recent examples of saying no to good things that allowed you to have hell yes
0:33:29 The one that jumps to mind is I was invited to speak at a great event in Europe and they were going to pay me
0:33:33 a substantial sum of money. And I had always been tempted to go to this event. And I said no
0:33:37 so that I could go to
0:33:42 Montana and spend a week in the woods with a number of my closest friends learning
0:33:49 outdoor survival skills with a fantastic teacher who’s going to end up on the podcast in the next
0:33:55 couple of months. And I would take that trade, especially having experienced it now, a hundred
0:34:02 times out of a hundred and being gone off the grid. I mean, entirely off the grid, like phone left many,
0:34:10 many miles away in my bag has costs. There are always costs, but I would, for those who have not
0:34:16 seen it, it’s an oldie, but I think it’s as relevant, probably more relevant now with every
0:34:22 passing year than when I published it. The art of letting bad things happen. It’s a blog post that was
0:34:27 published a long time ago, but this is very much how I live my life. So the art of letting bad things
0:34:33 happen. And I’m sure that you can find it if you just Google that.
0:34:38 All right. This is from JC. My question, thinking back to before you started SciSafe Foundation,
0:34:43 that’s my foundation that funds a lot of different things, mostly related to mental health therapeutics
0:34:47 and science that would form the basis of those therapeutics. What’s the one piece of advice
0:34:51 you’d give your younger self on how to best prepare beyond just the money to be a truly
0:34:57 effective and focused philanthropist? I’ll give a few pieces of advice. The first would be
0:35:03 and I wrote about this quite a long time ago on a blog post called Karmic Capitalist,
0:35:07 something like that. But effectively, I would have told myself, don’t wait. You don’t have
0:35:12 to wait until you have a ton of money. And that’s because a lot of these problems are compounding.
0:35:19 So if you can intervene earlier, less money can be worth just as much, if not more than a lot
0:35:26 of money 10, 15 years later. So I would say don’t wait. Number one, I would say number two,
0:35:32 don’t do it out of some type of burdensome guilt. A lot of people, I think, give back
0:35:42 to try to cleanse their conscience of some type of guilt or other issue that’s generally been imposed
0:35:51 on them by some du jour social narrative. I don’t think that’s clean fuel. And it’s not very good fuel
0:35:55 for the long haul if you’re planning on trying to do a lot of good or any good. So I would say that.
0:36:02 And then last, I would say treat it like for-profit investing or at least be very clear
0:36:08 about distinguishing between and having separate budgets for feel-good philanthropy. It isn’t like
0:36:12 I’m doing this because it feels good. Disaster recovery is kind of a good example of that for
0:36:20 a lot of reasons. Or do good, which might be like mitigating future disaster scenarios and wildfires and
0:36:26 so on, right? As an example. And just being very clear on what is kind of objectively impact
0:36:32 driven, that doesn’t mean it needs to affect a million people. It could affect 10 people in a small
0:36:40 pilot trial. And a lot of the science I’ve funded is incredibly early stage where you can do more with
0:36:45 less money because it’s, at least in the world of, say, psychedelic therapies, it wasn’t de-risked.
0:36:50 It was still stigmatized when I was involved, which opened up a lot of interesting opportunities
0:36:55 in the same way that Uber was turned down by 300 plus investors when I was getting involved with it
0:37:02 in the very beginning. And that actually proved to be very advantageous because when things aren’t
0:37:09 popular, they’re not as highly valued and there’s a lot more room to maneuver. So I don’t know if that
0:37:15 is a satisfying answer, but I would say, don’t wait, treat it like for-profit investing.
0:37:20 So if you wouldn’t invest in it as a potential company, you have to make certain allowances for
0:37:26 this strained metaphor to work. But it’s actually very, very analogous to how I approach angel investing,
0:37:33 which includes the kind of real world MBA approach of focusing on learning and relationships.
0:37:39 So skills and relationships, even if the project fails. So I’m still applying that same heuristic
0:37:44 to my nonprofit work, not just the for-profit angel investing that I do.
0:37:51 Rose, here’s a question from you. Recent thing I’ve changed my mind about, honestly,
0:37:55 the value of intermittent fasting. I was very skeptical of intermittent fasting because based
0:38:01 on conversations with owners of DEXA facilities and so on, there seemed to be a pattern of a lot of
0:38:07 people trying intermittent fasting where you’re limiting your feeding to say an eight hour window
0:38:13 between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. That’s generally what I’m looking at. I try to squeeze it in and limit it to
0:38:22 like 2 or 3 p.m. to let’s call it 9 p.m. And I was very skeptical because there seemed to be a number
0:38:28 of inherent problems. Number one, people were losing, based on data from owners of DEXA facilities,
0:38:34 a lot of lean muscle tissue when they were going on these sort of experimental phases of intermittent
0:38:40 fasting. And there were a lot of open questions that I didn’t have great answers for. For instance,
0:38:48 and this is a question that is also one that was submitted from, and I’m going to butcher this and
0:38:53 I apologize, but Ludek, there’s a little upside down carrot on your E, so I don’t know how to
0:38:57 pronounce that. But how do you actually pull off getting all the protein you need within just an
0:39:06 eight hour window? This is a good question. And I have, in the process of seeing a number of my
0:39:14 relatives disintegrate, physically and mentally, in large measure, I think due to metabolic dysfunction,
0:39:20 insulin insensitivity, incredibly screwed up glucose metabolism, overtaxed pancreases,
0:39:27 etc. I began doing intermittent fasting after, let’s call it two to four weeks, I want to say it
0:39:34 was three to four weeks of strict ketogenic diet. And about two months after that had the best blood
0:39:41 work that I have seen for myself in more than a decade. That includes incredibly high testosterone and
0:39:49 other things. So it’s not just can you starve yourself into living a very long and miserable
0:39:55 life. There were other metrics, performance metrics, including workout journal and strength
0:40:02 improvement and muscle mass improvement. So I think there are a couple of key elements, and I’m not the
0:40:10 first person to say this. But there are a few key elements that form a productive cocktail for intermittent
0:40:18 fasting. One is you have to do resistance training, you must do resistance training. And my experience is you can
0:40:26 absorb a lot more protein than you would expect in single sittings. So there is this sort of myth that has been
0:40:32 propagated just by repetition, along the lines of you can’t absorb more than 30 grams of protein in a single
0:40:38 sitting. I don’t think that’s true. And I don’t think the literature supports that at all. And in fact, as you get
0:40:45 older, there is some published literature to suggest that as one gets older, this is humans, that you absorb more
0:40:54 protein, let’s just say, over the course of the day, more effectively in fewer sittings. So I’m having in my eight hour
0:41:04 window, basically two larger meals to my like two or 3pm like today, right? Those might be wondering, nothing super
0:41:12 fancy, right? I had a bunch of doctor’s appointments and surgeon checkups and so on today. And I just went to Chipotle, had a
0:41:20 huge burrito bowl. I mean, it was gigantic. So with barbacoa, so 1000 plus calories right there, then come
0:41:28 back. And you know, it’s 540pm right now, I’m going to eat after this and have another like proper meal. But I
0:41:33 will almost certainly have one or two protein shakes. And if I hadn’t been running around the city all day
0:41:38 today, I would have already had one of those protein shakes, which would have added, let’s just call it 30
0:41:46 grams of fast acting protein. If I could just wave a magic wand and have everything that I wanted. Yeah,
0:41:52 sure, I’d be eating cottage cheese or maybe micellar casein or something that’s more slowly digested. But
0:41:58 whey is just easy. I want to get the collagen and that other stuff anyway. And when you add all that up,
0:42:05 it’s a decent chunk of protein. And you don’t need to force feed yourself. But what I have
0:42:13 tracked meticulously is body weight, body composition, and a good proxy for a lot of that is just strength.
0:42:18 Are you gaining strength? Or are you maintaining strength? Or are you losing strength? So intermittent
0:42:25 fasting would certainly be if you were to ask me, if you could only add one chapter to the four hour body,
0:42:30 what would it be about? It would be about intermittent fasting. And then if I had to add a second chapter,
0:42:34 which isn’t really something I changed my mind on, but it would be on biggest nerve stimulation,
0:42:43 probably. And I encourage you to listen to my Dr. Kevin Tracy episode that came out not too long ago.
0:42:47 In how many ways could you finish the sentence? Actually, I still have all of my dot, dot, dot,
0:42:54 all of my Dungeons and Dragons hardcovers and modules and dice from when I was a kid. That would
0:43:01 certainly be one. And all my books on marine biology that I started accumulating when I was age six or
0:43:07 something like that. Do I have any bucket list, multi-day hikes or treks to complete? That’s David.
0:43:16 I wouldn’t say there are any specifics, but I try to do two or three of those a year. So I already have
0:43:22 another one, actually two more on the books, one in Mexico and one in Japan, but they don’t need to
0:43:30 be that far flung, right? We were in Montana, which is beyond gorgeous. So I would say no individual
0:43:39 hikes or routes come to mind, but definitely plenty. I think Glacier National Park would be high on my
0:43:45 list of dream locations. All right. It’s from Tim. If you had to pick one specific moment that felt like
0:43:51 disaster at the time, but later became the most catalytic gift, what was it? And what chain of events
0:43:56 turned it into that gift? Some of you will know this, but I’ll say it anyway, because it’s the most
0:44:01 standout example. That is when The 4-Hour Chef, this book on accelerated learning, really, really
0:44:06 underperformed when it was published. And I put my heart and soul, there’s so much blood, sweat,
0:44:13 and tears that went into that, literally. And super proud of that book, but because it was published
0:44:18 through Amazon Publishing, it was the first mega title that was used to announce the existence or the
0:44:22 launch of Amazon Publishing, where they went head-to-head against their publisher partners,
0:44:30 in effect, for scouting author talent and putting out their own titles. It was boycotted by everybody.
0:44:36 And I expected Barnes & Noble. I did not foresee Costco and all these other big box retailers
0:44:43 and indies, of course. And that smashed the book on the New York Times. It still hit number four,
0:44:51 but it should have been number one. And during the launch of The 4-Hour Chef, as with the launch of
0:44:55 anything I do, I’m always looking for a channel that I can learn a lot about that is undervalued
0:45:01 and quickly growing. And at the time, in 2012, that was podcasts. So I fell in love with podcasts.
0:45:08 And then when I was completely demolished and my ego was shattered to pieces by The 4-Hour Chef
0:45:15 performing so poorly relative to my other books, even though, still, I went to one of the top restaurants
0:45:21 in Austin and the maitre d’ came out after the meal and said, the exec chef just wanted to say a huge
0:45:25 thanks to you because the first cookbook he ever bought was The 4-Hour Chef. This is one of the top
0:45:30 restaurants in Austin, which is a major food town. So there are these examples that are really
0:45:36 incredibly rewarding. And there are a lot of them, actually. But if it had not been for that burnout,
0:45:44 I would not have decided to take a cold turkey break from books and launch my own podcast as a test,
0:45:48 as a test with a graceful exit. I think I committed to six to 10 episodes.
0:45:52 And here we are, more than a decade and 800 episodes later.
0:45:57 Cindy would love to hear how it feels to be in a season of life when you inspire people towards high
0:46:01 performance and learning over 15 years. Now with Coyote, you’re bringing absolute delight and laughter
0:46:07 to people’s lives. It feels great because, frankly, what the hell are we doing here on the spinning rock?
0:46:13 We’re on a one-way trip, as far as we can tell. Productivity is important and having a sense of purpose
0:46:18 and meaning. These are important, but they are, I would argue, and maybe this is just the voice of
0:46:23 someone who’s non-religious speaking, but somewhat arbitrary. You’re picking a story that works for
0:46:28 you, much like Seth Godin has said, money is a story past a certain point, so pick one that you
0:46:33 can live with. It’s like, yes. All of those things are true and important, but they’re pretty subjective.
0:46:42 And the more you study history, the more you realize the idea of leaving your legacy by putting an extra
0:46:48 10 hours a week in your Microsoft Teams or whatever is probably not going to matter in the grand scheme
0:46:54 of things. If you just listen to the Fall of Civilizations podcast and you’re like, oh, wow,
0:46:59 yeah, the Assyrians used to be a really big deal. Oh, yeah, Babylonians too. How many Sumerians do you
0:47:05 know? As Naval Ravka would ask, none, right? So the more you let go of this heavy rock of being
0:47:11 preoccupied with legacy, the more you realize. Also, when you do a past year review, as I always do,
0:47:17 when you do a past year review and you look back over the year at your peak emotional experiences,
0:47:22 your peak positive experiences, a lot of them are just hanging out with friends or family,
0:47:28 doing something engaging, sitting around a fire, going fishing, going on a hike, none of which tend
0:47:33 to cost that much money, or they could be replaced with something very similar that doesn’t cost a lot
0:47:42 of money. So I feel like that realization is very freeing and nourishing and is something you can
0:47:47 cultivate very quickly. But for, I mean, millions of people who have been type A for too long,
0:47:55 including yours truly, you’re used to sixth gear and you don’t know what any of the other gears feel
0:48:00 like unless you burn out and then you’re in park. So you know park when you blow up, your wheels go
0:48:07 flying off and you know sixth gear. But showing people that’s like, hey, you actually have five other
0:48:13 gears is something I had to learn. I hate to sound like an old bastard, but you know, the hard way
0:48:22 for just like lots of self-inflicted wounds. And it feels really great to have something that costs 10
0:48:31 bucks, you know, takes 10 minutes to play that you can reliably inject into like a family evening or
0:48:36 something like that. Or I don’t know if you guys have seen one of the more recent videos that I put up on
0:48:40 Instagram that a family put up with like four or five kids just going completely fucking bananas,
0:48:49 you know, having so much fun. They’re all interacting, no screens and feels great. Yeah. It feels really,
0:48:54 really, really fantastic, which is part of the reason why I keep talking about it because I’m just
0:49:00 like, guys, like if you take yourself and your work too seriously for too long, like the really serious
0:49:04 stuff isn’t going to get done, you need recovery. And fun is a great way to recover.
0:49:09 This is from Nicholas. What interesting ideas from people of the past do you think could be important
0:49:14 in the future? For instance, Charles Babbage’s work on computing machines would later be picked up as a
0:49:18 reference for the first computers in the US. Lots of machine learning research from around the 50s was
0:49:25 later useful once hardware caught up. I don’t have a great computer science example to respond with,
0:49:34 but I will say that I have done a lot of reading of very old research related to extended human fasting.
0:49:42 And for a lot of reasons in the US, with the IRB approval and like ethics board approvals and so on,
0:49:48 it’s incredibly hard to do extended fasting in humans. I don’t know when and why exactly that
0:49:54 happened, but there was a point where it just stopped. And I guess it was just deemed cruel and
0:50:03 unusual punishment or something. And that’s a shame because I do feel like fasting is the oldest cure,
0:50:09 right? If you look at pretty much any mammal, and this is probably applies to creatures well outside of
0:50:15 mammals. If they’re sick, if they’re injured, what do they do? They fast. That is the instinct. That is
0:50:26 the evolved instinct. And I really look forward to and may end up, if I have to, funding that type of
0:50:33 science. I literally have a printout in my hotel room that’s about 40 pages written up in English
0:50:40 describing the findings of a Soviet psychiatrist who was the executive director of this center that fasted
0:50:46 thousands of patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders for 30 plus days.
0:50:55 Some of the mechanisms they propose are wrong. We know that now. But in a culture, in a modern world where
0:51:01 most people, and that includes all of us probably on this Zoom, are incentivized to add things,
0:51:07 right? We’re also sold in a, and then look, I think capitalism is kind of the best of the worst
0:51:15 systems that we have. So I’m obviously an avid participant in capitalism. But when you are constantly
0:51:24 sold things, people want you to buy more stuff, not less stuff, right? And therefore, I think even in,
0:51:29 or perhaps especially in medicine, there are a lot of incentives and unfortunately, a lot of kind of
0:51:37 large incumbent regulatory capture players who perpetuate an ecosystem that relies on kind of
0:51:41 recurring revenue through taking medicine forever. But I think the subtractive approach
0:51:45 is more interesting. In part, it’s more interesting to me because it’s less discussed and more neglected.
0:51:51 And there are compliance issues. How do you actually get people to fast? Which is where
0:51:57 the fast-mimicking diet, say, some of the research of Walter Longo and something coming out tomorrow on
0:52:01 the podcast with Dominic D’Agostino, sardine fasting. You should check that out. It’s pretty wild.
0:52:11 And also, medications that might in some way provide you with the cellular repair and self-cleaning,
0:52:19 the autophagy and mitophagy and things like this that are associated with fasting. So could you do that
0:52:26 with some combination of medications like rapamycin and others? Could you do it exogenous ketones or the
0:52:34 ketogenic diet? What are alternatives that are nonetheless overlapping with fasting? So long
0:52:39 answer to a short question, but I would say fasting was, there was a lot of research being done and then
0:52:45 it just kind of disappeared. And then what you’re left with is private clinics that have some shit to
0:52:50 sell you who are doing their own self-funded quote-unquote studies that are ultimately being
0:52:56 used to drive more people to sign up for their programs or become vegan or whatever the agenda
0:53:02 happens to be. That’s a real example. All right, let’s see. Rose, most magical experiences in New
0:53:10 Mexico would have been a Zen meditation retreat at Henry Shookman’s Center in Santa Fe. Just incredibly
0:53:15 beautiful and I think magical is the right word for it. Small group, six to eight people. Mountain
0:53:20 Cloud Zen Center. It’s a Mountain Cloud Zen Center for anyone who wants to look it up. It is gorgeous.
0:53:26 Okay, there’s a question on two meta skills that would be disproportionately valuable in the AI era,
0:53:31 honestly. And this is going to sound like I’m trying to prop up the book I told you didn’t
0:53:35 perform the way I wanted it to, but For Our Chef has got it all. I think the only insurance you have
0:53:42 is being hyper-adaptable and a world-class learner. I don’t think there’s any other answer I can
0:53:49 confidently provide. Even the people at the top of the game who are at the absolute apex of the AI
0:53:54 world who are working on these products every day, all day, don’t know what it’s going to look like
0:53:58 in 18 months. They really don’t. If they’ve had a few glasses of wine and they’re being honest,
0:54:02 they’re like, yeah, impossible to predict. Look at the rate of change. Okay, there were a couple of
0:54:06 questions. I’m going to hop back to the written questions now based on the cockpunch
0:54:13 mentioned because there are a couple of questions about cockpunch stuff. That’s also Jack and a bunch
0:54:18 of others who asked about this. So the cockpunch side of things is fascinating, right? Because the NFT
0:54:27 world is on some level, I would say on life support, right? So it’s very hard to predict what’s going
0:54:38 to happen with NFTs. But with respect to the actual world building that I did and Varlata, particularly the
0:54:46 last few chapters that were published on the podcast with Tyrolean, I have a very, very clear vision for
0:54:54 what I think an incredible film would look like, whether that’s animated or live action, or some blend
0:55:01 or AI produced for that matter. And I have a very, very clear storyline. So what I’m trying to do right
0:55:06 now on the East Coast is corner a number of my friends who spend all their time on these tools.
0:55:13 That’s what they get paid to do all day long, so that I can put together a movie trailer. And that’s
0:55:17 just mostly for my fun. I really want to do it because I think it’d be incredibly exciting and
0:55:24 fun to do, at least the way I see it in my head, which is like a comic book penciler or director,
0:55:28 I guess. I very naturally, because of my obsession with comics for so long and wanting to be a comic
0:55:33 book penciler, think in terms of cuts and angles and framing and everything, which is part of the reason
0:55:41 why I put up that giant coffee table book, which is a collector’s edition of Sin City by Frank Miller,
0:55:46 because you get to see underneath the finished inking, a lot of the pencil marks and the rubber
0:55:51 cement, all the whiteout and so on. You get to see the process that’s hidden underneath.
0:55:59 So that for me is kind of the next step. It’s like hopefully creating a movie trailer. And if that
0:56:06 gives me the kind of quickening and that wellspring of energy that makes me feel like I’ve grabbed a
0:56:12 productive third rail of chi or something, then I’ll be like, okay, let’s see how other people
0:56:16 respond to it and show a couple of friends. And if they’re like, if I get that response, then I’ll
0:56:21 probably push a little harder. But as I mentioned earlier, I do have a couple of other things on the
0:56:27 plate, including that 800-page book. So you can only do so many things in parallel. But that’s one
0:56:32 that I think over a weekend or like two or three days, if the tools are good enough, and I have people
0:56:40 sitting right next to me who are good enough with the cutting edge of, say, animation slash video
0:56:47 production using AI tools, I feel like it should be at least to my muggle mind, pretty straightforward.
0:56:54 But I don’t know how good these models are at following literal, explicit directions, right?
0:56:58 Like this for a half second, this for a quarter second, this for, I don’t think they’re actually
0:57:02 going to cooperate. I think they’re going to be like petulant little two-year-olds and make a mess of
0:57:06 things and throw their construction blocks all over the floor. Then I’ll have to clean it all up.
0:57:12 So I think it’ll be harder than I would like, but we’ll get there. So that I think is next up.
0:57:17 So Guido, I don’t have any thoughts on the Johnny Depp and Ridley Scott’s Hyde comic collaboration.
0:57:23 Honestly, it’s the first time I’m hearing of it. So I will need to check that out to see what I can
0:57:31 pick up from creative process. All right. We talked about Mag3 in it. I answered that. All right.
0:57:34 Designing small experiments. What’s one experiment you’ve run in the past year that gave you outsized
0:57:39 returns personally and professionally and what made it work? I don’t want to beat a dead horse here,
0:57:44 but it would have been Coyote for sure. Just as a creative unlock and like an energy tap,
0:57:54 sort of fracking your psyche for increased energy. What made it work was finding someone I would pay
0:57:58 to spend time with anyway. And that’s Alon Lee. And certainly there are many other people on the team
0:58:05 for Exploding Kittens who made the entire Coyote project incredibly worthwhile. So many amazing folks
0:58:10 on that team. But fundamentally, it was my first contact and conversation with Alon where I was like,
0:58:18 okay, this guy is so hilarious, so smart, so technical, which a lot of people do not realize,
0:58:23 and just so gifted in so many things as a polymath. Like I would just pay to hang out with this guy.
0:58:26 I think that’s what made it work.
0:58:32 Let me answer another quick, just quick question on the like Verlata movie. Do I see the film as
0:58:36 something that can belong to the emergent long fiction model? Or would that shift the project
0:58:39 into a different creative framework? I think it would be a different creative framework.
0:58:44 And for me, I just have such a clear vision of what this entire story looks like. I think it would
0:58:47 be fucking nuts. Like if someone was like, Tim, you’re the benevolent dictator of Hollywood,
0:58:52 you can just tell everybody what to do. Like I would cast Tom Hardy. And I would cast someone who’s
0:58:59 like a younger version of Timothee Chalamet. And that would be the father and son pair. And I would
0:59:01 Sasha, did you raise your hand?
0:59:10 Yeah, you know, I mean, it’s actually not a bad fit. And then I see exactly how this thing would
0:59:18 unfold. It would be a fucking incredibly exciting, fun film. I have the utmost confidence, but alas,
0:59:23 I do not have the ability to force people with, you know, a hundred million dollars of budget just
0:59:29 to do what I want. So we’ll see. I don’t think I’m willing to bet the farm on it, which is why I want
0:59:33 to play with these AI tools first. Like let’s do a proof of concept at a very low cost and see if it
0:59:37 gets a couple of people to hold their breath or go, holy fucking shit. Like, can I make someone
0:59:44 speechless with it for like a couple seconds or just make them lose their composure in an interesting
0:59:51 way? That’s going to be my test. I’m going to butcher this name. I apologize. Hilka? All right.
0:59:56 I’m getting back into competitive chess after having been away from it for many years. If you treated it
1:00:01 like a mental sport, how would you train recovery, focus, and stamina? Expensive keto and esters are
1:00:07 sadly out of my budget. Yeah, they add up. All right. So I would treat chess as a mental sport.
1:00:12 It’s also a physical sport depending on how long the games last. And I wish I had my friend,
1:00:17 Josh Waitzkin here with me right now to take a stab at this, but I think you can treat it like a sport,
1:00:22 just like e-sports. You can’t play e-sports 24 hours a day. You’re going to run out of sufficient
1:00:27 levels of certain neurotransmitters and glycogen and all that, just like a Tour de France athlete. So
1:00:34 there are biological limiters, like rate limiting steps. Okay. So how would I think about it? First,
1:00:43 I would just make a huge list of options. And as a competitive chess player, I would basically go
1:00:48 through and document on a piece of paper. Maybe you do this first, but your failure modes, right?
1:00:52 When have you made mistakes? When have you lost games that you feel like you should have won?
1:00:57 What were the causes? Was it not enough sleep? Was it too long of a game? Was it emotional
1:01:02 dysregulation because someone was playing dirty or otherwise fucking around with you? And that
1:01:09 definitely happens in chess. What was it? So what are your top 10, top 20 kind of like failure modes or
1:01:18 failure stories? So you could dissect that. But in my case, I would say a few things. One is getting your
1:01:27 glucose metabolism and glucose energy management as stable as possible. And I think I really feel
1:01:35 like intermittent fasting on a 16-8 format. So eight hours of eating between, let’s just call it for
1:01:43 simplicity, like 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. is a great way. It takes about a week of being pissy and grumpy
1:01:52 to acclimate. But after about a week to 10 days, everything stabilizes and you end up having a lot
1:01:58 more energy consistently. You just do not have the ups and downs. Be careful too much coffee also, which spikes
1:02:03 insulin even if it doesn’t spike your glucose levels. Although it very often will also spike your glucose
1:02:11 levels with the release of glycogen. So just be aware of moderating your caffeine intake because part of the
1:02:19 reason I, at least, crash after too much caffeine, like 30 to 45 minutes later, it’s not that the
1:02:27 caffeine itself, by itself, is fast metabolized. And I am a caffeine fast metabolizer. It is the effect
1:02:33 on insulin and glucose. And I and many others have tracked this. Then there’s all sorts of stuff you can
1:02:39 play around with. So for instance, even if exogenous ketones are out of your budget, MCT oil may not be
1:02:45 definitely be close to a bathroom when you first start experimenting with MCT oil. But MCT oil, whether
1:02:52 it’s oil or powdered, make sure you check the expiration date. Do not consume out of date oil. Don’t play that
1:02:58 game. It’s not gonna be good for you. But MCT oil does have some very interesting case studies. And I think
1:03:04 also clinical trials that you can look at in terms of cognitive enhancement, typically done in older
1:03:09 subpopulations. But I do think that’s interesting, right? It’s certainly a lot cheaper than a ketone
1:03:15 monoester. There are other ketones that are less expensive than the ketone monoester, like Keto Start,
1:03:24 made by Dom D’Agostino, which is a electrolyte and ketone salt combination. But forget about exogenous
1:03:28 ketones for a second. You could also play with the ketogenic diet, right? That can be done
1:03:34 inexpensively. Like if you have macadamia nuts, sardines, some oil, you’re pretty much set. And some
1:03:38 salad greens. Like the ketogenic diet doesn’t need to be expensive. If that’s too much of a pain in the
1:03:44 ass, as I mentioned, I feel like stabilizing your glucose metabolism is like priority number one,
1:03:49 right? We were talking about sequencing and putting kind of problems in order. You will end up throwing a
1:03:54 lot of band-aids on the problem. If you don’t have that checked off first, you’ll be consuming all
1:03:59 sorts of smart drugs and caffeine and nicotine and blah, blah, blah, which is like pissing in the wind
1:04:04 if you haven’t fixed kind of the underlying system first. So I would probably suggest speak with your
1:04:11 medical professional, yada, yada, yada, right? But that that’s an easy kind of on-ramp to addressing
1:04:17 that. And then there’s all sorts of stuff that can help, but there’s no free lunch, right? So I’m sure
1:04:21 that modafinil is used by some competitive chess players. I don’t know what the doping
1:04:26 protocols are. I don’t know what is banned, if anything, for competitive chess. I don’t know
1:04:31 if they test, but I’m sure people are using things like modafinil, which is anti-narcolepsy drug that
1:04:36 was very popular among Olympic sprinters before it was banned. It was like, wow, what a coincidence.
1:04:44 Like all of the finalists for the gold medal run are diagnosed narcoleptics. Wow, what a crazy
1:04:50 coincidence, because then they could legally use modafinil as a stimulant. I am sure there are many,
1:04:56 many other things. I would look at archery. So I’m sure just as people use it for music auditions,
1:05:01 things like beta blockers. I’m not recommending you use any of these drugs. By the way, I’m just saying
1:05:06 these are things that are probably in the mix. I’m sure people are using nicotine. And you know,
1:05:09 Andrew Huberman’s talked a lot about this. Peter Atiyo also has talked a lot about nicotine.
1:05:16 A lot of my friends are now hooked on nicotine. And I would just say it is very addictive. It’s kind
1:05:20 of like, in my mind, sort of second in place to heroin. So just know what you’re signing up for.
1:05:30 And then there are the old school smart drugs like hydrogen or the racetams. A little known fact,
1:05:36 hydrogen, I believe, was created by Albert Hoffman, who also created LSD. Fascinating drug. Like I was
1:05:45 super genius. And so on and so forth. I imagine there are also people who are microdosing. I could
1:05:49 see there being advantages to that. If you overshoot, you’re going to be in a world of trouble and it’s
1:05:53 not going to be very pleasant. But I’m sure there are people who are microdosing using something like
1:06:00 50 to 100 milligrams of dried psilocybin mushrooms, plus caffeine at the right time, plus ketones at
1:06:07 the right time. That’s a pretty interesting stool of a cocktail. But fundamentally, I would say glucose
1:06:12 management and just like an endurance cyclist, depending on the duration of the event, how are
1:06:16 you going to fuel? How are you allowed to fuel? If you’re not allowed to fuel, I don’t know the rules,
1:06:23 but if you’re not allowed to fuel across multiple hours, then some version of ketosis is probably
1:06:29 going to be very helpful. And I’m going to stop there, but this could be applied to just about
1:06:34 anything, including podcasting, by the way. Kate, are you working on any unexpected projects that people
1:06:41 wouldn’t instantly associate with you? You know, behind the scenes, I have been working on all sorts
1:06:49 of stuff that I haven’t talked about that much related to trying to incentivize humans to unfuck the planet
1:06:57 a bit and hopefully head off some of the problems that are coming our way at high speed over the horizon
1:07:09 in with technology. So I’ve been very involved going back at least five years, but in fusion, looking at
1:07:17 different types of different nuclear options for clean energy. And I want to give credit where credit is
1:07:22 due, since I’m reading his book right now. But Pablo’s Holman talks about this and he said, basically,
1:07:28 people conflated nuclear weapons with nuclear reactors and the wrong one got banned. So fusion
1:07:35 is a place that I’m spending a bunch of time. I’m looking at ways of addressing emissions in various
1:07:42 ways, like algae feed additives to reduce methane production from cows. It sounds funny, maybe, but
1:07:48 actually a pretty big lever, meat alternatives for scalable protein, even though I’m an avid meat
1:07:54 consumer and one of the largest investors in Maui Nui Venison, which is the most nutritious red meat you
1:08:01 can purchase on the planet, arguably. And yet, depending on how things swing, I really do think that having
1:08:12 scalable, easy to harvest, space efficient protein is going to be increasingly important. So those are a few of the
1:08:18 things that kind of behind the scenes I’m involved with that I haven’t talked too much about.
1:08:24 I don’t want to sound like some self-congratulatory eco-warrior who’s just patting himself on the back
1:08:30 way too much time. You know, like there’s so many of those people, I just don’t want to be one of them. So I don’t talk too much about that stuff.
1:08:37 But I do think it’s really fucking important. David, what’s one country you wished you visited earlier or can’t believe you haven’t been to yet?
1:08:43 David, what’s one country?
1:08:49 As far as country status, but I would say Taiwan. Taiwan is just one of my favorite places on earth.
1:09:08 I went there for the first time around 99, I guess, 1999, and fell in love with it, was there for two or three summers, and then had no opportunity or didn’t make the time to go back until a few months ago.
1:09:19 And I just love Taiwan, in part because Taiwan really preserved a lot of the culture that was demolished during the Cultural Revolution in mainland China.
1:09:34 People are very friendly, very polite. The food is fantastic. Tons of natural beauty. It is a speck of an island. It is very small, which on the plus side means that you can explore a whole hell of a lot of it very, very easily.
1:09:45 There’s incredible nature and waterfalls and rivers and rainforests within less than an hour drive of Taipei. I just love that place.
1:09:49 So, if that’s on your wish list, I would suggest visiting sooner rather than later.
1:10:08 And I’m sure there are tons of other places that I haven’t spent time. I haven’t spent time in all sorts of countries that are interesting to me for a bunch of different reasons, like Estonia, these smaller countries, Lithuania, that all punch above their weight class in certain ways, like Lithuanian basketball.
1:10:12 Go look up Lithuanian basketball history. It’s completely bananas.
1:10:17 Look up Lithuanian basketball and the Grateful Dead, if you want an amazing story. True fact. Check it out.
1:10:26 And they’re just a bunch of little tiny countries sprinkled around that I have never had the opportunity to visit that I would like to check out.
1:10:46 So, who knows? I would say it’s tough because there’s so many other places I have visited, which are confirmed awesome for Tim. And they’re just guaranteed bets. It’s like how many speculative kind of missions do I want to go on versus just doubling down on the things I know are going to be absolutely fantastic.
1:11:03 You know, the Japans and the Italys and so on, right? Argentina, even though they can’t seem to like every three or four years, they just light their whole country on fire. But I do love Argentina. Too bad about that whole crypto thing with me. Like, come on. Oh, what a mess. They just can’t help themselves.
1:11:15 So, I would say those are a couple that come to mind. This is a comment slash question from Jihyo, who couldn’t make this because she’s on a plane, but I’ll just read the kind of relevant part here. The most relevant for the group.
1:11:29 Saying no is important, but I believe there are moments in life when not yet, in quotation marks, is wiser than no, especially in the early stages of growth before reaching any kind of summit. I think we need a phase of openness, a time to welcome an experiment rather than reject. What do you think about that?
1:11:42 Yeah, I agree with that. I think in part, and this is certainly in the four-hour work week as well, you need to figure out what you’re good at, what you’re good at. And part of that is like, what do you find easier to do than other people?
1:11:59 Or is there anything that other people really dislike doing that you happen to love doing, or at least tolerate doing, right? And then kind of what do other people seem interested in, right? What are other people going to value? But at the very top of that is what are you good at?
1:12:12 And to figure that out, you do have to throw a lot against the wall. And I think that engineering for more serendipity rather than less is a good idea, because your ability to predict that is going to be terrible, generally speaking.
1:12:33 But I would say that for every example of someone who has radical openness, there’s also somebody who figured it out. They tend to be people who figured it out reasonably early. Either something they absolutely wanted to do, and that was it. Like Frank Miller. I think Frank Miller, when he was like age five, he’s one of the top comic book artists and writers of all time.
1:12:57 And he decided when he was five years old, that’s what he was going to do, right? Or you take like a Michael Phelps or whatever. But that tends to correspond to someone finding something that they are good at, or that gives them effectively an unending supply of energy, right?
1:13:23 Which then provides you with the fuel to get really good, right? So those are kind of the two things that I would look for if you’re throwing a lot against the wall. But once you figure that out, even partially, I think that going through a period of having a closed door policy, which is just like, there’s my summit in the future, and anything that gets me closer is a yes, and anything that gets me off to the side or causes me to divert is a no, I think is a good practice.
1:13:33 And again, coming back to the discussion around Austin and San Francisco, they don’t need to be mutually exclusive. You can alternate. It doesn’t need to be one forever. It doesn’t need to be one for a year. It could be one for a month.
1:13:50 And certainly, if I’m going to focus on, say, you know, a movie script, or a book, or Coyote, right? Why did I shelve the notebook? Because I wanted the single task on Coyote and the game, and maximizing everything about it, right?
1:14:00 In the early stages, the development, and the playtesting, and the tweaking, and the iterating, and all of that. And then now, more the retail distribution, optimization, and things like that.
1:14:13 So until I feel like I have seen that to escape velocity, or at least taken it as far as I can within reason, I’m not going to say yes to things that cause me to sort of deviate off of that.
1:14:25 Congratulations on Coyote, or are you already thinking about another game to make the most of the skills and knowledge you’ve gained? Not yet. I’m tempted to, because that’s like the fun, brainstorming, Fantasyland side of things that is always the most fun for me.
1:14:42 But I recognize that that is going to pull Tim the Beast of Burden away from the yoke that he needs to push around in a wheel. So I haven’t thought about it, to be honest. I’m disallowing myself. I’m forbidding myself from thinking about it until I do as much as possible with Coyote.
1:14:45 Cindy, love the 4-Hour Chef and still use it regularly. Thank you.
1:14:51 All right, this is Hugo. Do you prefer doing a podcast with big headphones versus in-ear AirPods? Why?
1:15:01 I do, and that is because these AirPods, which I’m holding up, run out of battery, and also sometimes have connectivity issues and so on via Bluetooth.
1:15:12 So I prefer to have a hard connection, which is what I’m using right now, an Audio-Technica headset with this as backup audio at highest fidelity via QuickTime.
1:15:15 Two is one and one is none. So good to have backup.
1:15:24 Life Olson, what do you think the uncrowded channel is right now? Is it still in-person? I do think in-person is still reliably uncrowded.
1:15:31 I think a lot of legacy technologies are uncrowded as newer things get shiny and are made shiny and sold as very sexy.
1:15:54 Email, possibly older platforms. It’s something I’ve been looking at very closely. Could we, for instance, use Pinterest and Quora and other sites or platforms that are not currently like the youngest, hottest girl at the dance, like whatever latest short-form social media thing has happened to show up?
1:16:02 What are some tried and true proven platforms that just aren’t getting the airtime of the latest and greatest?
1:16:09 Not saying that is the answer. It’s just an open question for me that I’m looking at pretty closely.
1:16:16 Stephanie, Monopoly Deal, great game. And Coyote, Biased, I think it’s also a great game, are my go-to card games with family and friends. So much fun. Thank you for that.
1:16:29 Okay, Rashida, you’re recommending Dr. Mindy Pelt’s Resetter podcast. She wrote Eat Like a Girl and Fast Like a Girl, all about fasting. That’s interesting to me also because women tend to have a harder time with fasting.
1:16:52 And particularly, depending on your, if you have sort of family planning imminently, that’d be good to speak to proper medical professionals about. But that is interesting. I mean, because there are some, appear to be some pretty heavily gendered differences in how men and women respond to fasting or adapt to a ketogenic diet for that matter. So that’s a great recommendation. I’ll check it out.
1:17:18 Kevin Rose’s Zero Fasting app. Yes, for fasting. Great one. I do know Robert Rodriguez. Great studio and in Texas. So yes, at some point, Robert has been, to his credit, busting my balls about being a lazy ass MF-er about not biting the bullet with doing something in film. So I appreciate Robert for pointing out the obvious, which is like he can do 12 projects at once and I’ve yet to even do a short film.
1:17:24 So I appreciate that. And yes, he’s right in my backyard and a friend and just an awesome human being.
1:17:40 I have looked into fast neutron reactors. David, thank you for asking. Yeah, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in that area. Also, just frankly, building more legacy designs with, you know, water cooling and so on. I mean, just putting more reactors in play.
1:17:50 If you want a great wake-up call, you can just type into chat GPT. Like, what is the status of nuclear power in China versus the US?
1:17:58 And somebody asked about the Bugatti of ketones that I mentioned on the random show and if I would be willing to disclose.
1:18:14 I’m not willing to disclose yet because there is the possibility that chronic use of an alcohol-bonded monoester could negatively affect liver function and I want to do the homework on that.
1:18:20 There seem to be some ways to mitigate that. So number one, just don’t become a ketone addict and take them all day.
1:18:25 Secondly, maybe consuming with MCT oil has some beneficial effect.
1:18:37 Certainly, some of the supplements I mentioned, NAC, ALA, etc. I mean, there are a whole suite of other things you might take for liver support might also mitigate some of the risk.
1:18:47 But I want to do more homework because I realize what will happen if I recommend this particular thing is that a lot of people are going to buy it and that’ll be the last time they ever listen to me.
1:19:00 If they don’t hear my findings later, which are like, hey, guys, remember that thing? Like, cut back, only take this much per day or stop taking it, they may not hear that disclaimer after the fact.
1:19:04 So I’m trying to do more heavy lifting on my side in terms of due diligence.
1:19:08 I have not watched the Four Seasons. I’m assuming that’s not related to the hotel.
1:19:10 Okay.
1:19:16 Would have been some of the best locations for when you’ve taken your extended family places.
1:19:21 Yeah. Anything that is built for family outings, honestly, makes it so much easier.
1:19:30 So if there’s something with outdoor activities for the youngsters, some hiking, a pond, then I think there’s a lot to be done.
1:19:34 For instance, there’s a beautiful place in upstate New York called Mohonk Mountain House.
1:19:39 It’s absolutely stunning. It’s been around. It’s basically like dirty dancing in upstate New York.
1:19:41 It’s been around for like 100 years.
1:19:43 Somebody puts a baby in a corner.
1:19:48 You know, it’s a fantastic spot. And you have activities for anyone and everyone.
1:19:52 And they can accommodate people in wheelchairs and so on, right?
1:19:55 So for an extended family outing, that would be very high up.
1:20:01 Taking my family, and of course, location would vary on person, but taking my family on a,
1:20:09 basically a family tree trip and going to different countries where we can trace our bloodline, bloodlines, honestly.
1:20:14 I mean, what a mutt. I mean, I’m as European a mutt as you can possibly imagine.
1:20:23 But picking kind of the top percentages on, you know, ancestry.com or something like that and going on a trip like that was really fun.
1:20:30 I mean, the list could go on and on. But for an extended family, I would say choose a place that’s accustomed to dealing with extended families.
1:20:35 Any notebook meetups at some point? Yes, I would plan on some notebook meetups for sure.
1:20:45 Once this thing is done and people can actually get together and compare notes, I would say almost certainly we could do them ahead of time as well.
1:20:53 If you guys wanted to meet up. I mean, there’s nothing kind of preventing that. Just, I would say, let me know how I and my team can facilitate that.
1:20:58 Hopefully that was interesting. I appreciate all the questions and participation. Thanks, everybody.
1:21:05 And hope you had a wonderful Labor Day extended weekend for those of you who are in the right country for that.
1:21:07 Even if not, I hope you enjoyed your last weekend.
1:21:17 And I am going to leave it at that. But always appreciate you guys. Thanks for all the engagement and the questions and the thoughtful follow-ups and everything else.
1:21:19 So have a wonderful night. Take care, guys.
1:21:26 Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday.
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1:22:03 It’s kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.
1:22:10 And these strange, esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you.
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1:22:29 Thanks for listening.
1:22:43 So sleep is the key to it all. It is the foundation. Many of you heard me talk about how today’s sponsor, Eight Sleep, has improved my sleep with its pod cover. Well, they just launched their latest product, the pod five. I cannot wait to try it out. And here’s why.
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1:24:27 Traditional budgeting apps, they can be interesting. Yeah, they can be helpful. I’ve tried out a bunch, but they don’t compare to the complete financial command center that you get with today’s sponsor, Monarch Money. And a number of my friends have recommended them publicly, have recommended it to me. And I had my entire team basically test this app out and they’re all still using it. Monarch is like your own personal CFO giving you full visibility and control so you can stop merely earning and start growing. For instance, one person on my podcast team has tried
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This episode is a solo Q&A session where I answer a bunch of questions. We covered a ton of ground, from personal health protocols to professional frameworks and creative projects.
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Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Start
[00:06:00] Coyote retail distribution challenges and data gathering.
[00:09:12] Elbow surgery recovery: sequencing, decongestion, Marc Pro device, peptides, BFR training.
[00:16:14] California vs. Austin for builders, mechanical engineers, and tech startups.
[00:19:06] Using AI for medical advice workflow (and cross-referencing with professionals).
[00:23:51] Current supplement regimen and PAGG/AGG status.
[00:31:54] California vs. Texas considerations for aspiring parents.
[00:32:48] Saying “No” to good things for “Hell, yes” moments.
[00:34:34] Philanthropy lessons learned since starting Saisei Foundation.
[00:37:45] Something I’ve changed my mind about recently: intermittent fasting.
[00:42:44] Precious items from childhood I still keep: D&D relics and marine biology books.
[00:43:03] Bucket list hike: Glacier National Park.
[00:43:42] How the catalytic chaos of publishing The 4-Hour Chef led to launching this podcast.
[00:45:52] Bringing delight vs. sixth-gear, high-performance focus.
[00:49:05] Thoughts on extended human fasting research from the Soviet era.
[00:52:58] Most magical New Mexico experience: Mountain Cloud Zen Center meditation retreat.
[00:53:22] Meta skills for the AI era: Hyper-adaptability and world-class learning.
[00:54:01] The (real and ideal) future of CØCKPUNCH/Legends of Varlata.
[00:59:47] Competitive chess training enhancement: glucose management, intermittent fasting, MCT oil.
[01:06:31] Behind-the-scenes projects: Fusion, algae feed additives, meat alternatives.
[01:08:32] Countries I wish I had visited earlier, and places I’d still like to see.
[01:11:06] “Not yet” vs. “No” in early growth phases.
[01:14:14] Post Coyote, do I have any future games in the works?
[01:14:46] Over-ear vs. in-ear headphones for podcasting.
[01:15:16] What’s the uncrowded channel right now?
[01:16:17] Recommendations for Dr. Mindy Pelz.
[01:16:58] Robert Rodriguez and project juggling.
[01:17:24] Fast neutron reactors and the Bugatti of ketones.
[01:19:05] Extended family outings and Mahonk Mountain House.
[01:20:31] NO BOOK meetup plans?
[01:20:54] Parting thoughts.
*
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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.
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