Tim ferriss: Tools of titans

episode 97

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It is an enormous episode, 97. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the Titan and himself. Mr. Mark Marcus in Freeland. Good morning, ma good morning, Mike. I think I think I'd rather take Titan than a head chef. So I think, uh, we're gradually getting more and more impressive as the instructions go on.

How are you doing today? I'm I'm really, um, I'm really fired up to be in the third part of the Tim Ferriss series. And I loved, um, you know, four hour workweek. I love four hour chef because it really presented us these two. Big paradigms around rethinking time and, uh, [00:01:00] learning how to learn. Um, but can Tim Ferris possibly have more install for a summer?

Yes. I think the third book that we're covering in our Tim Ferriss series is his amazing gathering. I suppose you could call it. Tools of Titans, the tactics, routines, and habits of billionaires icons and world class performers (buy on Amazon). I mean, once again, Tim Ferriss is pulling out the big punches with his book titles right.

Of Tyson's and, um, it's, it's like his first two books that we did on the show have practice now, uh, because were allocating our time, our energy to learn in the right way. And he's like, okay, Here are the tools, the tactics, the routines of the world's best. And I am so damn excited to get into some of this stuff.

Because for me, the fact that, that he's gone out and done all of this work to work out some of [00:02:00] these, um, behaviors and habits of successful people, I'm like, I feel like I've got the cheat sheet, the fast track proving myself. And, um, what I'm really excited about, uh, Mark is that in this show, not only will we hear from, uh, Tim Ferriss himself, But what we're also going to do is do a bit of a deep dive on one or two of the Titans that he covers in the book and really get into them.

And what's really cool is obviously some of those, we might even do a whole show on, um, later in the year, but. Mike. I am so primed and ready to get into how the best of the best do it, how the Titans do it. So I'm dying to know their tools. Yeah, me too. And like you say, the tools of Titans book is like a cheat sheet.

It's like a, a walkthrough guide in your life. How's that to maximize and learn from. These individuals that you and I look at it [00:03:00] and are inspired by what tools and tactics can we learn from. So, Mike, I reckon let's get straight into it, right? Let's let's do this. Where do you want to kick things off?

What's the first tool of a Titan. You wake up and as you and I have probably said to our listings before the morning routine sets you up as a successful productive day ahead. So. There's no better place to start than hearing from Tim Ferriss himself, telling us, and introducing us to one of the most common lessons he's learned from the Titans.

One of the commonalities. One of the patterns that you spot really quickly, if you interview hundreds of world class performers, and I just interviewed 130 or so for my new book, tribal mentors is the fact that they have consistent morning routines. They have some type of recipe of boot up sequence that they use to win the day in some fashion.

And it ranges from. For instance, mindfulness. And that could be mindfulness [00:04:00] meditation, where you find, say Evan Williams, who is well known for blogger, Twitter, also medium, uh, who spends time every morning as I do with some type of meditative practice could be insight, a could be transcendental meditation.

You could use an app like Headspace, which I think is a great place to start. And it trains you. It allows you to practice becoming more aware and less reactive. You're not thrown off by the unexpected challenges and problems of the day, and that helps you to be much more productive and much more centered.

You can achieve that in other ways, gratitude is a common element. So Tim O'Reilly, who's just an incredible entrepreneur thinker writer and a thought leader in Silicon Valley. It goes for a run and take a photograph of a single flower on his run every morning. Right. Teaches you to pause, to pause and to how you're say responding to things.

So that is a really beautiful practice that can be [00:05:00] done with gratitude lists. I use something called the five minute journal about Whitney Cummings, incredible standup comedian writer, and much more also has gratitude lists. Uh, and this is say naming three things that you're grateful for each morning, Tony Robbins does this.

Brian Grazer incredibly well known. Iconic TV and film producer also does this. I think he's had 180, I mean, nominations or something like that. And that she is very much the same thing of present state awareness and looking for the positive as opposed to fixating on the negative. And last but not least you have a, but Willink retired Navy seal commander who will lay out his clothing, his workout clothing the night before, so that there's no conscious decision required hard were willpower or lack thereof could intercede.

His clothing is ready. He's already set his to do list for the next day. He wakes up. He wakes up at four 30. That's not quite when I wake up [00:06:00] and grabs the clothes. Well directly to the gym and he has a home gym where he does his workout. So this is also very common where people recognize these very busy, very driven people that if it's inconvenient to work out, they probably won't do it.

So Jocko has a home gym where barbell plates, squat rack three sets of rings at different Heights. A kettlebell and you're good to go. That's all you need. So this is a few of the things that I've seen repeatedly in different forums with hundreds of top performers that they use to win the morning so they can win the day when the morning, when the day my gosh do I try my best man.

So when my mornings, I cannot tell you the. The encouragement that gives me the inspiration, but also the confirmation that it gives to me around how much time, how much attention I put to the morning. And there were two things in that clip that I wanted to [00:07:00] share with you that I felt really resonated with me.

I can really identify with, and that is. This idea of having a ritual where you clear your head and start the day with your intentions. So I cannot, uh, encourage you. It's physically. I cannot tell you how this, how much this really matters. It is all about setting a clear intention in the morning, waking up early, avoid your email, focus on getting your head in the game.

So this could be a cold shower, which as a tip of the hat to Wim Hoff, this could be I'm all about writing a journal. Uh, reviewing your agenda for the day and still not looking at your email, because for me, the way to win the morning is by having clarity on [00:08:00] my intention for the day setting my priority for the day before all of those emails open up and I have to run through and tackle things.

Um, And so forth. So number one, I think there's winning the morning to win the day starts with do not wake up. Do not do this. Don't wake up and check your email in bed. That to me is like a losing strategy because you're already dealing with other people's priorities and not your own. So for me, this is really a takeout that I wanted to reinforce.

The second, uh, thing, when you, when you think about what he's saying is he tapped into Jaco Willink, who we are definitely doing, uh, in, in the upcoming show series. And he talked about how he gets his gear, uh, gym gear out. And we've talked before on the show about some people who even sleep in their running gear.

All they have to do is that you put [00:09:00] on their shoes when they wake up to me. You know, this is the other thing, remove the friction. So I have. A roller, a gym mat. My running shoes are literally here in the studio, in the study. I've got my running shoes. I've got all my gym gear there. It drives, uh, my family crazy that I have HAFA.

Uh, all my Nike gear is like all over the study because it's there ready to go. I really also think it is critical that if you're going to get the intention right, by setting your priorities, getting up early and having those routines. I think the second thing we got from Tim there is make it easy because if it's a bit of a hassle to exercise, um, then you are likely not to do it.

So give yourself no excuse not to do it. And I can tell you when I don't do these things. I feel like a basket. [00:10:00] Thanks. I really, really do so winning the mornings to win your day. Oh my gosh. Tim has led strong. Has any iMac? Yeah, it he's coming straight out of. Well, he's coming straight out of bed to tell us the way to start your day.

In the best way possible. It's kind of like, I guess, starting a car, you've got to warm it up. If it's a little bit of an old car at you and I, Mike, then it needs a little bit of warming up. Right. But I think this is true for everyone. I personally sometimes struggle with this. I often wake up with a feeling of, Oh, I think I need to check that message.

I wonder what happened overnight and that does that throws you off? Doesn't it, it throws you off, meaning your own priorities straight. And I love how you've kind of framed that versus others priorities for the day. Once you have your own house in order and build that framework. Everything else can be built on top of that foundation.

It makes perfect [00:11:00] sense when you break it down like that. Yeah. I'm, I'm very much a person who also follows the setting out intention for the day every night. I'll um, I, I quite enjoy home workouts, so yeah, I've actually, um, you know, enjoyed the last few months, so to speak in the sense that I can download and try out a few different exercise apps, find one.

I like. And then get into a habit and a ritual of doing that each morning. And I lay out my exercise gear and I'll decide on what exercise I'm going to do in the morning, because when I wake up and maybe this is true for you, Mike as well, I'm so indecisive. I don't know whether I want a coffee. I don't know what I want to wear or what exercises I want to do.

And I've had it too many times when I've therefore decided to do nothing. Inactive sort of taken me away because I haven't set that intention. And I think the same is going to be true with setting [00:12:00] your priorities. If you don't wake up and set your own priorities, what ends up happening is you gravitate towards others.

And I think that's really, really prevalent in what Tim has learned from all these Titans. Yeah. I think, uh, winning your mornings, um, helped you end the day. Where you can reflect and say, wow, I really got the things I wanted to do done. And that means fulfillment satisfaction. Yeah. What I think we all experience are those moments where you get to the end of the day and go, geez, I've been busy, but geez, I don't know if I actually got anything done.

Yeah. I did hand to hand combat with requests, questions, et cetera, et cetera. But did I like pushing too? Like a really big priority and make T did I take a big chunk out of that? And you're like, not really, but I did a lot of emails, a lot of calls solved a [00:13:00] lot of little quick things, and I think what I would offer to you and all of our listeners, if you take a little moment in the morning before you open your inbox, To make a promise to yourself about what you're going to get done and how you going to do it.

I think that this anchors you, and it makes you question whether things truly are that urgent or important throughout the day. So you can take a chunk out of things that are really meaningful. So you, and I mean, this is just Mark. This is just like one of a hundred different ideas and tools of Titans from the book.

Isn't it? I mean, we could, we could actually, the impression Mike that you and I could talk about this one lesson. Uh, for the entire show. So let's to our listeners, let's do honest, uh, uh, uh, good stuff and, and hear what else are current consistent themes throughout Tim's book. So the next clip we have, and it's a nice short [00:14:00] one.

And then we'll break into some of the Titan profiles that you were saying at the beginning. They're just here actually from  who does a great book summary on YouTube. Let's hear it. Eight key habits of the ultra successful that he has found in common. That's communicated through Tim's book tools of Titans.

These are eight themes that the ultra successful have in common, based on Tim's research in the book, they are. 80% of them had some form of daily mindfulness practice. The surprising number of males didn't eat breakfast. They use the chilly pad device for cooling bedtime. They loved these books, sapiens poor Charlie's Almanack.

Influence and man's search for meaning five. They listened to a song on loop or a song anchor like we've talked about on this channel. Very good six. They invest their own money and own time or spec work on projects before making a dime seven. They believe that failure is not durable eat. [00:15:00] Almost everyone was able to take an obvious weakness and flip it into a strength.

There. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's quite intense, um, that, um, he's, he's attempted to take some of the biggest, most powerful and like random little things like playing a song on loop. I think, uh, I think I will start my, by what an interesting assortment, a collection of tools and habits, um, that these Titans get up to.

I mean, I thought that was. That was just like so exciting. It was like mind altering, mind, stretching to think about that, that variety. Don't you? What I like about that clip actually is it reminds me how all of our Titans and we'll dig into a few of them shortly. All of our Tysons are human and these might be the.

Eight most consistent habits and tips or behaviors that the ultra successful [00:16:00] do. But actually as I hear them, the chilly pad, I, I, it's a, it's a tool that you put underneath your bed in order to keep cool at night and the books that obviously you and I have, I've heard about sapiens. And so a lot of these are quite relatable and it just reminds me that some of the behaviors and tips are.

Fundamentally just a little bit, um, Human, I suppose they are. And, and what I want to do is because there's such a crazy a portfolio that I actually want to play. The we've never done this before. I actually want to play these, this clip again. And, you know, I really encourage everyone to get out there, uh, that notepad or, uh, to type in, uh, the one that, that really speaks to them.

So let's have a listen to again, and then Mark you and I will talk about which one really speaks to us.

[00:17:00] Okay, so, so, so Mark we've really listened to it, which one really kind of grabbed you. So for me, the ones that really really stand out is number one, the daily mindfulness practice, this idea, again, going back to Tim's first clip that we heard on the show today. Start by winning your morning by setting your priorities for me, [00:18:00] that's a good one.

Um, Brekkie. I'm going to be honest. I have to eat every day. I know, I know Mike, you're going to pick that one. So I want to hear about that. Song's on loop. I do gravitate towards, I do have a playlist on my Spotify of songs to maybe gravitate towards if I need that bit of inspiration or maybe even a bit of energy.

And recently I've stopped listening to podcasts in the morning and actually occasionally. Dip into music more just to get my, um, myself going, I guess. So maybe this is a similar insight here, songs on loop, replays, energy or inspiration and people. Um, but also this failure, failure, failure not being durable is a, is an interesting one because for me, I feel like failure is that positive, negative, so to speak.

It's the thing that you can learn from. And I suppose where. The insight for failure is not durable is coming from [00:19:00] here is it's okay to fail. As long as you learn from it. What do you think? Like those are my big three daily mindfulness songs on loop failure, not being durable. Alright, so, so Matt, what I'm going to do is I'm going to, uh, pick two ideas that were in the book that, um, Well, maybe just surprised me more than anything.

And that was the one of doing spec work, because that's not something that has come up in the show so far. So how exciting is that, that a new idea has come up this idea about just investing upfront, just to see what a project or an initiative might be? That that was, yeah, you're right. Normally the lessons that we've learned or the tips, I suppose, have been quite.

Uh, proactive and, uh, maybe defensive, I suppose, but this idea of putting your own time and money into something first, it's kind of like putting your money where your mouth is. It's showing. [00:20:00] Totally. And I really like it. It's a very good way. If you're thinking of starting a company, don't make it some massive.

Are we in or out to say, Hey, let's just do a side project in on the weekends for a couple of weeks and see if we. How it feels like no commitment just let's explore it. And I mean, that's a great way to start up something. The other one I thought was quite neat, which is, and again, this has come up, however, just, I don't know, for some reason caught me, which was, uh, every single, uh, Titan was able to make a weakness into a strength.

And that reminds me of Branson making his dyslexia dyslexic. A strength, you know, and I thought, well, that was really cool. Um, and a really important mindset, um, moment where it's all about turning weakness into strength. And that is for sure, like moonshot thinking right there. Isn't it. Hi, it's David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell probably was all about overcoming personal challenges and learning from [00:21:00] them and therefore being stronger.

Weakness into strength, heart. That is right there. It is. It is. And so coming up on the show, we have got a ton of great. So what's an inspiration. We're going to delve into a couple of the Titans themselves. So a team's book studies, all these different Titans. And so we're going to go direct to them. And some of the points that the team really pulls out about Derek Sivers, uh, Kevin Kelly, Rick, Rubin's our real color section of different folks there.

So that'll be really cool. And we're really going to kind of bucket it in sort of two areas actions we can take. And ways in which we can think, but before we talk about mindset and taking action, I thought it was really great, uh, that, uh, one of our listeners, um, this week was just so fired up [00:22:00] about learning out loud and learning from innovators that she was sharing her thoughts about the book because on LinkedIn and then sort of it kind of.

Took off didn't it? It did. Yeah. We had a special shout out to Bettina Rotterman. Thank you so much for, um, putting up, putting up a post that tagged the podcast and called out a few of your favorite innovators, such as Brenae Brown. Elon Musk Simon, Sineck Richard Branson, as well as bill Gates, Jack ma, and Jeff Bezos.

I mean, for us to, to read that and, and appear and see it appear on the timeline and seeing so many people interact and react, that was really exciting for us. And it just showed again, the value. I think that we personally feel with learning out loud, Mike, you know, it's clearly other people are getting into and enjoying doing with us.

Yeah, and it was so great to see that she caught out some of our classics [00:23:00] like Ilan and Bezos, but, um, some of them, our real, really popular shows. Brenae Brown, Simon scenic, and I love the fact. She mentioned one of our really old shows, Jack ma, who was like just a dynamo and we learn a lot from him. So thank you to her and the, uh, the huge number of people, people that started this whole conversation about learning out loud from some of those great innovators.

It was so wonderful. So we want to thank you Bettina, and we want to encourage all of you to get in there. Share what you like about the show, whether it's on LinkedIn, whether you go in podcast app, it's a fantastic way for us. Welcome new listeners to the show. And they are literally coming from all four corners of the world.

It's so exciting that we can share this journey with folks we're welcoming. Ah, This week, uh, amongst all of the thousands of listeners, we actually welcoming new listeners from Slovakia Costa Rica. [00:24:00] Uh, I mean, come on. It does not get better. I think this would kind of mean math that we need to go into live show from Costa Rica.

I think, um, Know, maybe the Maldives. They want to start this thing too. I mean, that's okay with me. I don't mind going on to it. What do you think? Yeah. Why happy to take that hit and make, make it, give the listeners what they want, if that's what people would like to see us in the Maldives, uh, then please, um, Keep on, keep on listening listeners.

All right. So, uh, thank you, Bettina and thank you to all of our new listeners and we welcome you from all four corners of this lovely planet. So thank you to you, but now Mark, it's time to take action. And we're going to do that through the lens of author, Derek Sivers. Who we are going to do on the show.

He is fantastic. I won't go into too much about Derek now because we're going to hear about him in a moment, but I want you to know we are going to be doing a show Derek, so let's go kickoff, [00:25:00] our taking action, a series of clips. Let's take more lessons from Tim Ferriss in his book, tools of Titans, and let's get into the world.

Of false choices, Derek Sivers this man and sold CD baby, the online music store or distribution company or whatever you label it over $22 million, but one of the best things he said, the quotable that really. Just, I laughed my ass off when I heard it is if information were the answer, we'd all be billionaires walking around with six pack.

Abs, love that. Basically saying like, look, it's not enough to just read. It's not enough to know. We have to do, he also gives a story that I absolutely love. Don't be a donkey. The hell does that mean? Well, donkey is standing in between a bucket of hay and a bucket of water. He keeps looking left and right.

Hey water. Hey water, not knowing which one to go for. He ends up [00:26:00] dying of thirst and starvation right there in the middle. Cause the donkey didn't realize that if he went to the water and drink, you'd have enough time, plenty of time lifetimes to go back to the Haight and eat. So he got overwhelmed and just stood there because he couldn't make up his mind.

He didn't see that he could do one and then the other, we can't be that donkey. You know, oftentimes we give ourselves false choices. We say, should I go to college or not? And we don't realize that we have time to do both. It's time to go to college and then pursue entrepreneurship or traveling or whatever.

I did the exact same thing, or we say, should I quit my job or become an entrepreneur? Let's use, let's keep going with this. We don't realize that you can do both. You don't be the donkey in the middle of choosing between a and B. You can start a job part time and do entrepreneurship part time. And sometimes that's the most successful way.

Cause you have steady income coming in and you're also pursuing your passion and your than driven because you go to work every day [00:27:00] thinking I don't want to do this forever. And so that's a great way and you don't go crazy cause you have all this time and nothing's catching on catching on catching on this false choice between, should I do a or B try and see the middle path, try and say, why not both?

And stop giving yourself false choices. Information alone is not the answer. Just go and do it. I mean, if there's any innovator that we've seen, Mike, who. Absorbs lessons around them and goes to experiment. It's Tim Ferris. You know, he is one of these fantastic experiment is who, who learns from these individuals and goes to put them in practice.

And obviously that's what, he's what he's kind of calling out here in tools of Titans. For me, the, the key. Less than that I'm taking away from Derek Sivers is a work there that's been profiled. Is this paralysis over choice? You know, what, what fire do I go and work on now? What priority? Going back to your [00:28:00] great comparison at the beginning of the show, when you wake up and you set your intention, am I sorting out my priorities or somebody else's you get stuck in the middle and you ended up not doing anything.

Yeah. Yeah. That really said to me, like, don't be like stuck making no choice. And I think when I first read Tim's first book and he talked about challenging my perception of where I'm putting my time, I was like, yeah, this is so true. And again, what I see in the way in which Tim Ferriss has picked this idea from, from and learned from Derek Sivers is there are all sorts of, um, New and different ways to combine choice.

It's not a cathartic either a or B, and you get paralyzed in the middle. You can have C and D and E and it's again, through this experimentation, he's challenging us, um, uh, to make choices [00:29:00] in a different way. And I think what's really empowering about this thought is once you see that there's not just a or B.

I tend to say D F and so on. And so, right, right. The way through to Z, if you have a bias towards action, go and experiment and explore. And I think that's one of the most exhilarating things that makes Tim's work so attractive is he is willing to try and to experiment, and he creates this bias towards action.

This movement, the progress. And I think in part, this is not only empowering. But it's also very inspiring because it shakes us up and says, come on. Anything is possible. Doesn't it? Exactly. Anything is possible. And sometimes you can do one after the other, you know, you don't have to choose, do I become an entrepreneur or do I maximize the opportunity to learn right now?

The truth is you can do one then the other, or you do both at the same time, uh, in just varying degrees. [00:30:00] As we already heard in four hour work week. It's all about time management in the chef. It's all about learning. Combine those two together, and you can start. Driving, I think towards some of these key lessons maximizing your, your, your yourself.

So let's, let's keep this adventure going and take some twists and turns. So we just did Derek Sivers, which featured in the tools of Titans from Tim Ferris. We're now going to take another. Titan, uh, from Tim's book this time, we're going to go to Kevin Kelly, founder of wired magazine. And, uh, we're going to go into this world of fans.

And, uh, there's one number that Kevin thinks really matters. And this number is 1000. So let's find out what this really means. 1000 true fans. This is Kevin Kelly's concept that says success is overcomplicated. A lot of times. When you simplify it down, all it really matters is that you [00:31:00] make a thousand people extremely, extremely happy.

It's so sexy to go. After a hundred thousand people sell your product to a million people for a dollar, and you'll be a millionaire, right. Or get a million people on your Twitter page or Instagram page, Facebook, YouTube, X, Y, and Z, and try and sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, and go. After the masses. What this concept is saying is that's the wrong approach.

You'll spend more time, energy effort doing it that way a lot of times. And you won't make people as happy when you skim the surface. This concept is saying go after a thousand people, you get these thousand people spend a hundred dollars on your products every single year. That's all you do to make a thousand people happy.

You got a six figure income. What do you think? It's easier to make a thousand people extremely, extremely happy, you know, three a day, focus on three a day. And over a year, make six figures. Then if you tried to do, if you try to do a hundred thousand people for a dollar, so what is a true fan? Kevin Kelly says a true [00:32:00] fantasy who will buy anything you produce.

They'll drive 200 miles disease thing. They'll buy the hardback, paperback and audio books. They'll buy the best of DVD. Someone who follows you on every social network. Now, the best thing of this is you say, Oh God, I have to get a thousand people. It might be certainly a 20 or a hundred or 10 that's. Okay.

Because if you focus on making those 10 people extremely happy, they end up doing the marketing for you. It's such a true insight. This, this idea of. Tribes, uh, influence, you know, we've done a lot of research. Mike, we know the value of word of mouth is really the way to start wildfires that spreads the brands, you know, proposition or product.

And what I like about what Kevin Kelly's calling out here, um, as highlighted within tools of Titans is whether it's a thousand or, or maybe less. You know, [00:33:00] that's okay too. But if you start again with this idea of foundation, get those real advocates and then you can start bringing in the masses that feels much more achievable.

Doesn't it? It does. And a classic thing that we see a lot on the show is people breaking big things down into small. Bits of work. Uh, and that's, that's what I think is really powerful here. It's being applied to advocacy and the sort of customer experience here. But I think, you know, just focusing on those thousand people, delight them and engage them, create your tribe, and they will do a lot of the work in, uh, you know, Broadening the offering and extending the engagement with new customers.

What's what's interesting here is you start to see, um, the practical nature of the work from Tim Ferriss. He's always looking to break it down [00:34:00] into something he can do because he has this bias towards action and this bias towards experimentation. So. In terms of taking action. We've got this really powerful two thoughts.

One from Derek Sivers is like, be aware of false choices, make choices. Don't be the donkey. And you'll be amazed at how there are more options than just a and B Kevin on the other hand is like, okay. Easy up there on the plans for world domination and an audience of a, of a million, a customer base of 5 million, just go out and focus on creating true fans.

What's interesting about this is that maybe the first thing you do, doesn't. Really delight them, but ask them for feedback. The next thing you do might be a bit better and then sooner or later you will uncover what their real needs is. You'll get enough confirmation from engagement. And then if you create that first thousand, the rest comes much, [00:35:00] much easier.

So two great bits of advice, making better choices and building your tribe as this is great, Matt, because we're really. Handpicking a few really. Uh, novel. Um, sometimes they sound so simple. You're like, why don't I do these? But the beauty here is that we can jump around in all different parts of habit, routine, the way you run your personal life, your professional life and everything in between to me, this is truly the power of Tim Ferris's approach.

Isn't it? It is. It is exactly. It's very proactive again. As we've, as we've said, and even learned from, for our work week in, for our chef, Tim puts his money where his mouth is. He will learn these tips and he'll go and experiment. And if he can do it, Mike, I think that's a good enough. Reason for me to go and try it too.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I, I really want to on this theme of action, I [00:36:00] actually want to encourage all of our audience, uh, to, uh, summons, uh, their actions and to just like Bettina did in sharing, uh, the, the innovators that she really liked on the podcast. We really encourage you to jump into your podcasting app, leave us a rating or review, or maybe share the show, um, via LinkedIn or where ever you feel comfortable.

We would, I really ask that that if you are enjoying the show or if you want us to focus on a particular innovator, Let us know, let your friends know because our mission is to learn out loud. And we believe that the code that we're finding here in the moonshots podcast is something that will really help us build better products, be better people, and to realize the very, very best version of ourselves.

So please share this. With your friends, share this with your colleagues, your coworkers, [00:37:00] share this with anyone you think that could help, uh, do, uh, some help and learning out loud. So Mark. This feels like we're at a moment where we can go into mental models, mindset. How we right. Yeah, that's right. We've heard a couple of really good proactive tips and parts of action about making choices, as well as focusing our work and learning from our fans.

So now let's hear a little bit more, um, from Tim Ferriss's book tools of Titans with regards to the mindset, because how better for you and I to go and. Learn from these individuals, uh, than studying somebody and Tim's book is a perfect example of those key lessons. The next fit we're going to here is telling us a little bit about how success can actually leave clues behind.

And if we could follow those blueprints, we can actually lost selves on those masters. That's a big idea. Number one, model the [00:38:00] masters look, it's one of our favorite quotes on this entire channel. Success leaves clues Jim Rome. Well, what happened if we were able to tap into that same blueprint, that seemed roadmap.

If you find the blueprints for someone who built a five story mansion. It's all the same. You just got to assemble the materials and put the effort into how can we get them blueprints of success and apply that in our lives, the work in and achieve the same result. You model people, success leaves clues.

You can figure out those clues and piece them together yourself. You can achieve similar results in your life. There's entire books about that. Taking the most successful people in the world and trying to distill down how they got there. You know the thing that's it strikes me about this. The first thing I related to, we obviously know that when we're children, we model our parents in terms of behavior.

And what's quite interesting is. Tim first is just taking this idea and like, well, if all these [00:39:00] people are being successful and you want to be successful, let's just model the masters, that's model their behaviors, their mindset. And I think this in itself is a mindset that you want to go out there and hand pick best practices and then learn to adopt them themselves.

Now, I just want to get a little meta here, Mark. That is exactly. What this entire show does. We're just learning from innovators. We're learning out loud. We're trying to break down. What did they do? How did they do it? Okay. Then here's the killer question. How I do it too. And to me, this is exciting because not only does this help us realize our dreams, hopes, and ambitions, but what it does is it helps us get there way quicker.

Um, and. I think this is somehow at the heart of moonshot thinking, which is, you know, surveying the universe hand, picking the models from the right masses and then [00:40:00] the application of them. And it's not easy. But if you can find these models, you can adopt trial experiment, learn, validate what works for you.

To me, this is not just, we can be great in the office. It's how we can be great at home and in our personal lives too. For me, Mark, this is everything modeling the masters modeling. The masters is exactly what we try and do. It's the learning out loud piece. It's digging into the Elon Musks and Brenae Brown's and all the work that we've covered in the last 96 shows and seeing what we can learn, Mike you're you're totally right.

What Tim Ferriss is calling out in his book is learn from those around us because they've gone through the work, made themselves successful. So. What do we follow? What blueprints can we, can we go after? And, and I love your, your insight there. This in itself, as a matter of mindset is so true. You've [00:41:00] got to enable yourself to be willing, to adapt and around yourself and learn, and then put into action.

You know, going back to, um, one of the early clips, the Derek Sivers clip, in fact, information alone is not the answer you and I. Learning from these individuals, innovators. That's not just enough. We need to go and actually put it into action. And what I like about learning out loud. Yeah. What have we put into action?

How have we matter? Seen our morning routines changed, for example, it's fascinating. It's exactly what that clips all about. And, and experimenting and sharing and talking and ask yourself, what did I learn? How would I do it a bit differently? Next time, this is key. And what, what for me is, is the underlying thing.

Here is this notion of curiosity and the desire for continuous improvement of oneself, right? To me in [00:42:00] the end, this is what. Uh, creates a spark. This is where the, the, the, the energy source I think really is for our day. If we've, if we're always waking up with this idea of how can I do it a bit better?

How could I do it a little differently? Wonder what if or how mys I like these questions are. Just, I think they are the opening to positive living too growing and enjoying the journey, you know, not getting too defeated when things don't work out because you're like, I'm always learning. So I know I'll do it better.

Next time to me, this mindset opens up. So much more than just a success in the office or at work. I think this is just how you, you can get the most out of life. And, you know, when you meet people who are always learning and growing and challenging themselves, they're alive. And one thing for sure is when you meet people, That are just in the status [00:43:00] quo.

They're just grinding it out. They don't quite have that energy, do they? No, you're right. Actually you do. It's sort of a lack of activity, uh, from a growth perspective actually does lead to a lot of inactivity from, uh, a kind of happiness and a proactive perspective. I think, you know? Yeah. It's it's real.

It's really exciting because for me, this all kind of starts to come together because you have a desire to be the best version of yourself. Well, if you're curious, you're always changing experiment, different ways to get there. You're like handpicking all these models and just enjoying not only the desire to be at the destination, but the growth and the learning to get there.

And I think that's, that's why. We are here together. All of us, you, me, and all our listeners around the world. We're all learning out loud and trying to be the best version of [00:44:00] ourselves. And if you thought that we couldn't take another hard turn and pivot in this journey with Tim Ferriss's book tools of Titans.

We can, because he studied the famous music producer, Rick Rubin, who, by the way, sports, one of the most impressive beards in the entire music and entertainment industry. So Google that one fellows, this is another way we can see this idea of modeling masters coming to life. So. Let's have a listen to what we can learn from someone who is without doubt, one of the best music producers in history.

Rick Rubin let's have a listen to him and see what we can learn from this title let's profile. Rick Rubin recruiting has been called the most influential music producer in the last 20 years is Jay Z, lady Gaga, Slayer black Sabbath. Huge huge, huge resume. When it comes to successful artists, [00:45:00] how do you that have writer's block?

Right? You're working with lady Gaga, Jay Z black Sabbath. It's not always, boom, boom hit, hit, hit. I mean there's times where it's extremely hard. He would talk about these artists and how they struggled. And you know, your self esteem is tied up in your work and you feel like you can't, it's all gone. It's all, you know, creative energy sucked out of you.

How do you get it back? Rick Rubin said he had a foolproof fail-proof way of getting these artists out of writer's block. He said, look, what you're going to do when you go home is you're going to write one word, just one. That's all I want you to do. Sit down, write one lyric. If you do that, write one line.

I want you to notice. The natural human telling this, but what they noticed is assume that they wrote one word, the line followed and the paragraph hauled, then the structure followed. And pretty soon they had a next hit single the same thing with artists who were playing guitar. He said, look, I don't want you to do anything.

All I want you to do is go home and play one note. So one note that's nothing. Are you kidding me? That was like corn [00:46:00] alone. So just one note and then they played one chord and then they wrote a verse, maybe a bridge course. And pretty soon they have the instrumentals or their song love that because if we're getting overwhelmed, you and I take your task, ignore the big idea of it and simplify it down to the small bite sized chunk, the smallest dominant back.

Do that one thing. And then the rest is so much easier to follow. This is so true. If you've got a big challenge and it feels insurmountable, break it down. I mean, this, this is very similar to a Tim Ferriss D SSS, a methodology that we were calling out last week in the four hour chef with the D standing for deconstruction, where you take something big and make it easier to process, you know, this is fundamentally.

A really, really valuable method that, and we can talk about some practicalities of those in a second, but as it, from a mindset perspective, when you're seeing something and you [00:47:00] just, you have that fear, you know, those cold sweats, Oh, I don't know how I'm going to do this. How are we gonna, well, the natural way to do it is to break it right down into little bite size chunks.

Like Tim Ferris says, I'm sorry. As Rick Rubin says and. And slowly work on removing that fare by focusing on each of those individual ones. And it might just to build on what you were saying. Yeah, it is so easy to get overwhelmed when you look at the big goal and the problem is when you feel overwhelmed, you're like, ah, I give up right too much.

It's too hard. Right. And so once you say, I mean, and that great metaphor you and I use this a lot is when you talk about, uh, people trying to reduce their weight, they often say, Oh, I want to lose 50 pounds. Right? Well, [00:48:00] that may be your goal, but why don't you just start with walking for 20 minutes once a week, and then start walking twice a week and three times a week, then maybe remove something from your diet, like.

It's so much easier to get those wins and then you get the momentum and then you're off to the races. But if you say, geez, I just want to lose 50 pounds. And then at the end of the month, you've lost two. You're like. Oh, my gosh, this means another 25 months of this. No way. Right? It's too demotivating. When you, you don't see those immediate returns, you know, we're used to nowadays, especially seeing something happen overnight, but actually the truth is the best things in life.

Don't happen over night and you get far more out of it when it does take that little bit of time and, and your learning and so on. And what I. What I really enjoy about this Rick Rubin quote, particularly when referring it to some of these BMS in music that you and I, you know, are aware of. And it's great as a human [00:49:00] concept to hear that sometimes people, other people, you know, these Titans occasionally struggle too, with their creativity.

What's what's fascinating is. A very practical tip of breaking it down is quite similar to what we've tried to do in the past MC whether it's a huge team call and trying to focus only on the really, really important priority snow, you know, only focused on the things that we need to sort out right now.

Or as we've discussed before writing a table of content a week in advance. Yeah. Yeah. So good. So good. You know, there's some real practical approaches I think that we can do in order to try and make the insurmountable surmountable. It is it's, it's so good. And you know, what's fun is like we're learning from, you know, entrepreneurs, uh, you know, the founder of wired magazine music producers, we can take, uh, Habits tools, [00:50:00] techniques from all of these Titans and learn from them.

And I think, uh, the world is full of time, um, from which we can learn, we can then ask ourselves, how might I do that too? And I think this is such an exciting process to be part of. And it's, I love sharing this review and the audience I love. The feedback that we get, because, Hey, we're all working it out together.

And, uh, actually it can be a ton of fun. It doesn't have to be, to be all heavy and all ominous, you know, the big dark storm clouds of model. Oh my gosh. I'm not the person I want to be. No, Le let's go at this. Let's break it down. Let's let's do some stuff. Let's change it up. And then, you know, there is this other big thought, um, that if you just.

You know, challenge yourself, a model, a master every single day. Use the tools of other Titans. You'll be amazed at if you do one little thing better every day, when you zoom out over the [00:51:00] month, over the year, over the years in plural. You'll be amazed at how progress can compound. Uh, we should definitely do a show on that day.

Anything, man? Oh yeah. I'm sure percent I can already imagine sort of, um, lessons we can uncover and the, the tips that I think we can start to put into practice. I think that that sounds particularly motivating. It does. It does. Well, Matt, we've heard from, uh, the Titans, um, that a team has explored and studied, but I feel like we want to wrap the show up with some last thoughts, uh, from Tim Ferris.

So you ready for. For the last clip, Mark. You ready for one last challenge from Tim Ferriss himself? Yeah, I am. I'm ready for Tim Ferriss to bring it on home. And this is a wonderful clip. This is Tim again, telling us a little bit about, um, some common success principles that he's learned from some Titans, but this one's really valuable.

It's all [00:52:00] about asking uncommon questions of yourself. The people who get uncommon results, generally ask really uncommon questions. You might grab Peter teal in the news quite a bit. These days, serial billionaire who asks questions, like why can't you accomplish your 10 year plan in the next six months?

Okay. That seems. Like an impossible task or Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X prize, uh, known for trying to solve some of humanity's biggest problems. He'll ask entrepreneurs who want him to invest in their companies. If you had to 10 X, the economics of your company in the next say three months, how would you do it?

And if they say that's impossible, he says, I don't accept that answer. Try again. Let's say you own a business and you feel like you're burning the candle at both ends. If I had to take an eight week off the grid vacation, what would I have to do? What systems and policies would I need to put in place for that to be possible?

These types of questions. Force you to abandon your previous case strengths and assumptions and all of [00:53:00] that, that you've used to make these incremental, they just don't work. So those get broken and you journal on these. It's not enough to think about them for 10 seconds. So I would use say the morning pages or some other type of journaling, which I do almost every morning today, and just stream of consciousness, explore these things.

And that's led to some of the, the biggest breakthroughs personally, for me as well. Another principle is. Defining the worst case scenario. So Jamie Foxx, he instills confidence in his kids by asking them when they're ever nervous or afraid of something what's on the other side of fear and his answer is nothing.

Alright. You're afraid of it. What's the worst that could happen. All right. And then, and then what, and then what, and then what, once you really get specific with your fears and take the time to put them under a microscope, they lose their power over you generally because they ended up being temporary or reversible or tiny risks or all three.

The the, the, the, just the really cool thing there is, is what Tim versus doing. Again, it's just getting us [00:54:00] to abandon our sort of constrained mindsets, and don't ask yourself, how do I. Get there 10% faster. He's like, how do you get there 10 times faster? And it's just the courage to ask these unusual, challenging questions.

And sometimes we just kind of grinded away and like, Oh yeah, something's up 5%. Something's up 3%. That's good. It's growing a bit. He's like, dude, go for 10 times. None of this 10% stuff. And uh, I really, I really like that. Um, By asking a question, you can unlock so much, and it really does show you how we do have control of what we think.

If we choose to ask these questions, we can affect our mindset. We can introduce positivity and growth into our world by how we think. Or, and, and again, we've talked about this, this idea of fair, [00:55:00] um, before anxiety, you know, and when you start to. As, as Jamie Fox was, was being called out there. Once you start to get specific and you focus on really putting it under a microscope and analyzing, why are you afraid?

What are they solutions to, to getting your brain into that mode of not being so anxious about it and making it quite, um, surmountable, I suppose it, it just alleviates were those sort of constraints. Like you say, Mike, that the people currently have so big. Fantastic. I think this is the most appropriate way to wrap up the tools of Titans, a show by asking ourselves these, uh, challenging these uncommon questions and, um, what, what a fantastic, uh, book, what a smorgasbord of practical tools and inspiration Mark having done the show together.

What have you taken out of today's show with Tim Ferriss and tools [00:56:00] of Titans? It's all about breaking down the challenges when things seem so big, it's about going out and doing it yourself, learn from those around you. And remember that information in itself is not the answer but activities, but also I'm going back to the beginning, make a promise to the start of your day.

What's urgent. What do I need to accomplish? And then let's bring on everything else. Yeah, super well said. Well said. So I hope that so you Mark are on your way to winning the morning and starting with the right principles so you can win the day. I think it's, uh, there's so much to take out here and I love your thought that it.

It's really breaking things down. That that seems to be one of the big patterns in Tim Ferriss's work. So thank you. Thank you to you, Mark, for being part of this journey and learning out loud and thank you to you to [00:57:00] all Oh, Val listeners and a big thank you to patina as well for sharing the mission that we're on here, which is all about learning out loud.

So we hope that you've got some new habits to continue. See that so you can make better choices so you can model the masters because it's all there to learn. And we know that that starts breaking it all down into simple habits, routines, tools, and practices. And we really ask that you challenge yourself with the questions that are a bit uncomfortable, that are a bit unclear, and we are sure that you can go out into the world and win your day.

So thank you for joining us on this episode of the moonshots podcast.