0:00:05 Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, my esteemed and lovely listeners.
0:00:11 Short version, I’m getting rid of ads and sponsors for a six-month test,
0:00:16 and the podcast will continue to be free, 100% free, nothing behind a paywall.
0:00:22 And you can learn more about that and why at tim.blog forward slash support.
0:00:25 That’s tim.blog forward slash support.
0:00:29 I’d really appreciate if you listen to this message in full.
0:00:30 It’s not going to be super long.
0:00:32 So here is a little bit more.
0:00:36 Thousands of you, fans, readers, listeners, have asked me over the years,
0:00:37 how can I thank you?
0:00:40 I want to thank you on Twitter and all sorts of other places.
0:00:42 What can I do to thank you besides buy your books?
0:00:44 And I’ve never had a product.
0:00:47 I’ve never wanted to just come up with a product or a course or fill in the blank.
0:00:53 Nonetheless, nearly 400 episodes with the podcast later, 400 million or so downloads,
0:00:55 1,000-plus blog posts, and so on.
0:01:03 I’ve thought about this, and I’ve thought about it a lot recently because the sponsorship model,
0:01:10 when I actually look at the calendar, it’s great on a lot of levels, but it cuts into time and resources.
0:01:15 I’m not learning very much, and it’s an elegant model in some respects.
0:01:21 I don’t think advertising or sponsorship is evil, and I turn away 90-plus percent of my sponsor inquiries anyway,
0:01:26 test everything, reject another 90%, and only share the stuff I end up using personally.
0:01:27 So I don’t feel badly about that at all.
0:01:28 I feel really good about it.
0:01:32 But it chews up a ton of time and energy for me and my team,
0:01:36 which I would rather spend on doing more experiments,
0:01:41 doing more crazy pushing-the-envelope stuff that I can then report on and share with you.
0:01:47 That is in my power zone, and it’s why many of you ended up reading my books
0:01:49 or listening to this podcast in the first place.
0:01:54 So I’d rather do more of that, sort of less hustle, more art, and experiment.
0:01:59 So this seems to be, that is, a fan-supported model, the most direct way to fix this,
0:02:03 and it’s just the cleanest, most attractive way to go about it.
0:02:08 I want to simplify, simplify, simplify, do more experiments, do really, really cool stuff,
0:02:14 like, for instance, you’ve seen me support studies for treatment-resistant depression
0:02:16 at Johns Hopkins and other places.
0:02:18 I want to do more of that kind of thing.
0:02:22 I want to do all sorts of wacky things that I can then report back on.
0:02:27 And, look, if we try the fan-supported model for six months and it doesn’t work,
0:02:28 then we go back to sponsors.
0:02:35 Because the podcast has really become the machine, the engine that feeds everything else.
0:02:40 And I want to have a positive dent in the world,
0:02:43 and the fuel for a lot of that comes from the podcast.
0:02:45 And what do you get for that?
0:02:47 You don’t get a beer cozy.
0:02:49 I’m not going to mail you a bunch of garbage that you don’t want.
0:02:55 It’s really if you just feel awesome about supporting what I want to do in the world
0:03:00 and the experiments I want to conduct and the learnings I want to share and so on.
0:03:00 That’s it.
0:03:07 So if my book, if the podcast, if anything, has had a significant impact on you or people you love in any way,
0:03:10 just consider giving a few bucks a month to it.
0:03:13 And you can find it at tim.blog forward slash support.
0:03:17 You can finish the entire process in less than two minutes.
0:03:19 Tim.blog forward slash support.
0:03:21 If it doesn’t feel great to do, don’t do it.
0:03:23 You don’t have to pay for it.
0:03:24 It’s always going to be free.
0:03:26 It’s never going to be behind a paywall.
0:03:28 So don’t sweat it.
0:03:29 It should feel awesome.
0:03:32 You should feel really good about doing it if you do it at all.
0:03:34 And if you don’t, don’t do it.
0:03:39 Really, you’re just going to have an upgraded listener experience for the next six months without sponsors.
0:03:47 And if this experiment fails, meaning the fan support stuff, then we’ll go back to the sponsorship model.
0:03:48 Okay.
0:03:50 Check it out.
0:03:52 tim.blog forward slash support.
0:03:54 And it would really mean a lot.
0:03:59 And it’ll also give me an opportunity to see how many diehards are there,
0:04:04 how many people out there would actually want to support in this way.
0:04:05 So I’m really curious.
0:04:07 Tim.blog forward slash support.
0:04:08 Thanks for checking it out.
0:04:09 Love ya.