Tim Ferriss: Tribe of mentors
episode 98
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 98. It is time for mentorship. And I'm your co-mentor? Mike Parsons and the mentor, the super coach himself. Mark Pearson Freeland. He's back. Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Mike, what an action pack show we've got ahead. I mean, what a fantastic series that we've had with Mr.
Tim Ferris? What a real man he delivers. I mean, I have to say he is about as moonshot as you can get, right. He really is. I think of all of our incredible innovators, authors entrepreneurs that we've dug into because of Tim Ferriss's exposure to a lot of the individuals actually that we've covered. He [00:01:00] has accumulated this vast amount of knowledge and exposure and experience, and it's kind of perfect for you and I T to dig into and learn out loud with our listeners.
Isn't it.
It really is all about, uh, learning out loud and, um, he presents his thinking so very well. I mean, that's something that we've noted about. Uh, several people Brene Brown. Very very articulate Simon Sinek, uh, and now come Gladwell as well. And I think what we've enjoyed so far on this series is through his series of books.
We've learned how to rethink and question how we spend our time. We've, uh, discovered. Learning how to learn. We've dug into the tools and techniques. And then lastly, today we get to dive into our world of mentorship and coaching and you know what that's exactly what this show is about [00:02:00] learning from others.
So this is really just perfect book for both of us to study and to share with all our listeners, right. That's totally true that this next, uh, episode that we're going to dig into is tribe of mentors, Tim Ferriss (buy on Amazon), his book, you know, he interviews or he's gathered 130 interviews that he's completed and reached out through over his career.
And these short and sharp. A regular, um, almost secrets to success, to happiness, to a meaning in business, as well as live and way even greater than that. You know, these little tips and tricks are. Things that you and I, I think delve into a lot yeah. With all of our authors and entrepreneurs and innovators, and it's fantastic to have an opportunity to kind of actually look at an entire, a big picture with Tim Ferris and really reach into these world-class individuals and think, all right, well, Mike, we always talk [00:03:00] about taxing.
Let's see what Tim Ferriss can reveal to us from the gathering that he's done. And it feels so aligned. It does. And it's all about just tuning in to the wisdom around you, right? Like you don't have to try and solve every problem yourself. Many others have faced the same problems we face every day. So it's a question.
If you can ask the right questions in June and what we've got ahead of us today is a bunch of great clips that will they give us techniques, but also, um, um, Some real behavioral change that we can take on so we can get most out of all the wisdom that surrounds us in friends and family teammates. So it is absolutely the perfect bookend to a four part series on Tim Ferris.
I'm super excited. And my big question for you, Mark is. Where shall we begin? Well, like you say, the four hours work week was all about time. We had the, for our chef, which was [00:04:00] all about learning and we had last week, the tools, which was all about these tools and techniques. So this week is all about mentors.
Who do we go and learn from? So what better way to open the show then from hearing from Tim himself as to what inspired him to ride tribe of mentors? Yeah. So tribal mentors came about, I just turned 40, not too long ago, and it's been a big 12 months. It's been a heavy 12 months too. I had a number of close friends, die unexpectedly, including one of my mentors in this book actually passed away just a few weeks ago.
Very unexpectedly Terry Laughlin, who taught me how to swim and 66. So you had a metastatic or metastasized prostate cancer, and then had complications from that in a stroke. And. Uh, it's been, uh, thank you. And a good opportunity for me to just take a step back and say, all right, let me hit pause for a period of time to try to reassess [00:05:00] priorities.
Look at. The direction that I'm heading, look at the things I'm doing or not doing, how has planning or over-planning or under planning helped or hurt me? How am I relating to my son self? Not just to the world. I mean, all these questions started to bubble to the surface and it seemed like a good opportunity to ask a lot of questions.
Some of which are really tactical, some of which are more strategic, some are, which are really high level life, mission type goals. And I asked myself the question, which I've been trying to do in the last couple of years, which is what would this look like? Or what might it look like if it were easy?
Right? So if this were simple, what would the structure look like? And I journaled on it. And the answer that came back was you should just ask other people the questions that you are having trouble answering for yourself. So I reached out to about 140 people across every possible disciplines arranging from.
Say David Lynch, the director or Terry crews all the way to Kelly Slater, the most decorated surfer of all time to ion [00:06:00] Hirsi Ali. Who's an incredible writer, thinker, activists, temple, Grandin. I mean, you name it basically every possible discipline and industry artists. I reached out to all of them, people at the top of their fields and ask them a set of 11 questions and then compiled it into this book, tribe of mentors because, uh, I've thought for a very long time, and this is borrowing from somebody else.
Advice I got when I was probably 14 or 15, which was, uh, it was a, it was a, uh, it was an older student in a martial arts class. He was an adult and. He left a voicemail on my answering machine. Remember those, and by the way, guys, not on your mobile device, this is a machine with physical tape, too physical tape to put the tape in.
Yeah. And, uh, yeah. And if you're going to have to tape no more messages, uh, but his message was advice to me, which was, you're the average of the five people you associate with most, which I still think physically, emotionally, financially. That's true. And I [00:07:00] get asked all the time. Well, what if I don't have five people around me that I can use to average up and.
Yeah, you find them, or you can do it remotely. You can do it virtually through audio, through video, through books. And so tribal mentors was intended to give people 130 of the world's best to learn from 130 of the world's best. But. I think here, if I think this through my work and I listen to Tim Ferris, what I'm really taking from that is go out and find the wisdom in the world because every problem we face has been faced before.
And I think this is such an invitation not to be constrained, even if you don't have five people you think, um, can offer you that sort of wisdom. Just go out and find it. I think this is the perfect call to action. Exactly because no longer do we have this limitation of access to people, you know, the internet is such a broad, um, [00:08:00] Information highway full of great tips.
You can go on YouTube. You can listen to podcasts, you can learn similar to how you and I do. You can learn out loud by listening to other people and delving into that tips and techniques. And you know what Tim Ferris doing with tribal mentors is pulling together 130. And he calls out here that actually, if you average yourself against the five people that you hang out with most what this book is actually giving the, the opportunity to do is to be around those individuals and those techniques and tips from those mentors.
And you can use that as a bit of a. A cheat sheet almost for when you get into those of maybe behavior that you don't like stressful moments when you can refer to the tips and techniques of those mentors or those individuals and the innovators that you and I have covered in the past and you can pay to them.
Okay. Well, what do they do in a stressful [00:09:00] situation? How might I emulate that? Yeah. And let me pitch you this Mark. I think it's like, why would you on your own, why would your eye go out in the world and try and solve every problem we face? Like it's the first time it's ever happened? Um, I mean, to me, that does sounds exhausting.
Why not go out and learn from the best. And take their mental models, their mindsets, their hats, their tools, techniques. How can we, you know, like tune into those people and, and like spend more time making progress then, you know, reinventing the wheel. I mean, I think that's what he's really proposing to us.
Isn't it? Right. You know, we, we saw this in the four hour work week. Tim Ferriss is all around using your time efficiently and maximizing. Strengths and learning. This is what we saw. And I think that this book is a combination of that. This is him saying, [00:10:00] don't waste your time by trying to tackle problems yourself every single time, if anything, it's going to be not only inefficient, but possibly even dangerous when you get to the moment when you don't really know how to do it, you know?
Seeking advice and the safety net of others who maybe have done it before. Maybe they're very trained in that particular space. You know, this idea of collaboration and inspiration coming from others is so obvious when you, when you dig into, uh, You know, lessons like this. Totally. And it's a real invitation to go to be curious.
And frankly, even as we talk about it, I think it's actually really energizing. It gives you a bit of a boost to think that, you know, what the answers are out there. I've just got to go find them. And I think, um, That is a really powerful thought to set up the rest of the show. I'll tell you another [00:11:00] powerful thought is to take that curious, and to you go into your favorite podcast app.
Now, what on earth do you think we could ask our listeners to do when they are feeling inspired and curious Mark, that there must be something they can do to learn out loud and to really help others be their best self. That really helps. Podcasts be spread around the world to different communities and appear in different charts and, and on different people's radars is leaving reviews, leaving ratings, and that's a challenge.
Dear listeners, that's in your very, very capable hands. When you leave a rating or review, what happens is it. Does all the algorithms in the background and it brings our show up a little bit in the charts and also puts it on the radar, into different countries around the world. And what that enables our listeners to do, or the new listeners particularly is find us.
They [00:12:00] have access to this particular way of learning out loud that Mike and I, and you are the listeners do every week. You know, when we dig into our innovators, what we do is we like to. Look at that tips and tricks and how we can adjust it to our own lives. And we believe that that's something that new listeners all around the world would benefit from hearing.
So our plea, our request to your listeners is if you do feel inspired and you feel as though you're walking down the street, listening to our podcast in your learning, something, as we talk out loud, then feel free to leave us a rating review and just help us intro way up those charts. Absolutely. Um, one, one writing, one review makes an algorithm happy and, um, it's thanks to all of your contributions.
All of them callousness that we can welcome new listeners from Mexico and Belgium over the last week. Wait for this mic. We even have new listeners joining us from Kazakhstan, [00:13:00] Ghana and Jordan. I mean, how good is that? All these people coming together to learn out loud. And I think as Tim Ferris would say to ask the right questions, that's right.
And as a perfect segue, the next clip we're going to hear now, we're going to learn to Mike A. Little bit about some of Tim Ferriss's, um, main. Lessons that he's learned from a lot of the mentors that he spoke to. So the next, as part of our show, we're going to hear some practical things, tips from Tim Ferris that are all around maximizing your productivity.
And the let's clip that we're going to hear about now is all around knowledge and similar to the lessons I learned from the forest chef and the tools of the tools of Titans. This next clip we're going to here is a practical bit of advice all around accessing knowledge and those around us. And how to ask better questions and to stop and listen questions critically important [00:14:00] because first and foremost, thinking what goes on here is largely asking yourself questions and answering them.
Secondly, if you want to get anything in life, chances are it's inside someone. Else's head the knowledge, the skills, the blueprint, and the pickax for getting that gold is in the form of questions. All right. So there are few things that you can do to improve. Number one is study questions. Watch inside the actor's studio.
Listen to Terry Gross, listened to podcasts, whether mine or Joe Rogan's, there are others so that you can borrow questions and test them on other people. And there are a few things to consider when you're formulating questions. Number one is can it be answered relatively quickly? So for instance, if you found someone you idolize you're in an elevator.
Oh my God. It's Jimmy Fallon. If you asked Jimmy a question, could he come up with a really concrete answer in five seconds or less? The answer is no find a different question for you or for other people. So what [00:15:00] is your favorite book? For instance? Not a good question because. People have read hundreds or thousands of books in many cases, but what book or books have you gifted the most to other people?
It's going to be a short list. The search query is really refined. It's fast to click. All right. Much like asking yourself what makes me happy is not really a great question. It's too broad and it takes too long to search, but let's just say what makes me feel most relieved after work? When I get home. Or what activities, which people, all right, now we're more refined.
You can answer it much more quickly and it's more actionable, a few things you should not do. If you meet someone who is say, just above your weight class, in terms of professional development, and you want to connect with them, don't ask them questions that you could answer on Google. Number one, right?
Number two, don't ask them really questions. They couldn't conceivably answer [00:16:00] quickly. Right? What should I do? What advice would you give me for succeeding? These are not good terms. If you can't do it, find success in say 10 words or less get rid of it, lose it from the question. All right. And I would encourage you to.
Strive to be interested in the form of good questions. If you seek to be perceived as interesting, stop talking, start thinking about questions and then stop and listen. Hmm. Stop and listen, you know, that's so funny, isn't it? That, um, when you take a moment and just think about the art of listening so that you can just better understand, I think that's something that is a.
I mean, you can never stop reminding yourself on that one because you know, most of the time there are, there are answers to our questions out there. We're just not hearing them. But I want to build on that ma I [00:17:00] really, um, I really think we all relate to this moment when we meet someone, we might respect, um, someone that we hold up on a pedestal and we get there and we're like, Ooh, what am I going to ask?
Um, so, so I think, um, I think it's really good actually to challenge ourselves, to ask good questions. And I, I wanted to share a learning. It is the simplest thing, but, um, it was the heart of a total success, uh, throughout the last century, which is the question of why. And I think the question of why, if you, um, ask why five times Toyota, it's a whole practice.
They had to get to the root of everything. Just ask why five times. And I think I've mentioned it on the show before. It's a really powerful frame, but I think, you know, When we think about the questions that we ask. I think a lot of the time we ask pretty [00:18:00] generic expected questions. Don't we in conversation?
How you doing? How is your day? What are you doing on the weekend? Right. Don't you think we all fall into the trap of asking kind of the same questions we all have. I totally agree. I think. The juice of the nature of collaborating and communicating with people out and about what you end up doing is falling into a very, very similar pattern.
And actually, I don't know how, you know, it necessarily efficient. It all is with regards to learning from those individuals, you know, particularly, um, As, as Tim Ferriss calls out in that clip, if you're hanging out with Jimmy Fallon in a, in an elevator and you want to ask him one question, don't make it a really obvious one because it's not going to be surprising.
You're not probably going to learn much from that. And instead, when we think about it, even collaborating with each other and collaborating with clients or other team members, when you stop [00:19:00] and actually take a moment or a beat and a pause and think, okay, well, what am I trying to achieve? And what will help me as well as them, as well as the person answering the question, get us to that desired outcome.
Let's now restructure that whole question, answer dynamic. It isn't just, Hey, what do you think instead? It's this is what I've found. What have you found? How do we get, you know, restructuring a question into something maybe more like a dialogue is. Maybe another step further, um, from Tim Tim's approach, which is, you know, If you can answer it in five seconds, that's an efficient question.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Micah, I want to build on what you just said and almost revealed the seat source of our show. Let's let's show how the sausage gets made. So spin relatively little time, discussing what [00:20:00] people have achieved. Spend a lot more time asking ourselves, how did they do it? And then we followed that up with the following question.
How might I do it too? And I think this is an enormously powerful construct for all of our listeners when they see someone else who's doing great stuff. Awesome. How did you do that? And what advice would you give me? If I was trying to do that in my field, my area, you know, my practice, I think. Asking somebody else, how they did it, then what advice would you give to me on how I could do it?
I think this is where we get the tools, the techniques, the approaches, the mindsets. I think it's all in. Tell me how, tell me how so I think Mark, what I'm pitching you right now is the secret sauce to the moonshots podcasts is we don't follow this nice journey on, tell us about all the things. [00:21:00] That they did.
Don't we don't focus on the, what we spend a lot more time on their how, and then we try and ask ourselves, how might we do it? So what do you think, my, do you think this might be a great starting point to asking better questions? Yeah, I think you're right. You know, and again, building, referring it back to Tim, Ferris's clip that.
We've just heard if it's, if you and I were to dig into. Any of the authors or innovators, entrepreneurs that we've covered in the past and asked, okay, well, what did they do? That's information. You could probably find out on Google and as Tim Ferriss calls out, don't ask the questions that you can. Just Google INSEAD and exactly.
To your point, Mike asked slightly more insightful questions around how, or maybe why, because that's when the richness for you and I to learn from an another individual where that's going to come from same background [00:22:00] or perhaps even the same opportunities as somebody like Elon Musk. But what I can learn is how he did it, how his behavior or mindset changed and therefore how I can interpret that and put it into my day to day life.
That is the secret moonshot sauce. Secret sauce in Dade end. You know, what's crazy is we're now going to take, uh, some twists and turns and put, turn this all on its head, because what we're actually going to do is we're actually going to hear from, from Tim, really showing us the power, not of asking questions.
But answering them and wait for this Mark. And it's not saying yes, but what we're going to learn from Tim Ferris is the power and learning how to say no. The second thing that you said that I think all busy people probably need to take a lesson from is how to say no gracefully. And you came at this from an [00:23:00] interesting perspective, even some people who said no to you to this project.
Right? So, uh, I reached out to a lot of different people, uh, Dalai Lama call me. And, uh, there was a lot of non responses. And then there were a fair number of polite declines, and some of the emails were so incredibly well crafted and so smart. And the word smithing that they used. That I then responded to the people who refuse to be in the book to say, can I put your refusal email in the book, which I did?
So a number of people said, no, like a Danny Meyer shake shack, and so on. Then you have Neil Stevenson, incredible science fiction writer. One of my favorites, snow crash, and many, many others, Wendy McNaughton, who is an illustrator. So you can copy and paste basically the language they use to make it easier for you to say no to all those invitations that makes you feel good when you get a response.
Exactly. I like them more. After being rejected, which is a real Jedi trick. Give us a couple of the articulations because we're all, I'll give you a couple of ideas and then we'll get [00:24:00] people to buy the book to hear all of them. Oh, no, for sure. There and there are dozens of different tools in the toolkit.
Favorite though, one of my favorites is using the word policy or vacation to make it a blanket refusal. So for instance, I was once refused for a lunch date with a very famous tech investor and he said, sorry, I'm just taking. A I'm on a no meeting diet for the next month. And as a policy, I'm saying no to all meetings.
And I said, that's interesting, no meeting diet. So I started using no conference called diet. No, this, that, and the other thing, the diet and people just rolled with it. It was incredible. There was no feedback, no pushback. Uh, that'd be one because it's not, you it's me. It's a way of breaking up with somebody.
Isn't inevitably what they say is, uh, I'm so busy right now and over calendared that any response I were to give you any time I were to give you. Uh, would find me distracted. So I'd love to do it later, but anything you can get right now. Oh, I mean, it's going to be medium though, because that's what, this is the thing you say.
I have to be careful
[00:25:00] I have to be really careful. So there are people who take that approach and then there are other people like Dustin Moskovitz. Who's also in tribal mentors who says the first no is the cleanest and the easiest. You have to do it very clearly and very, very early. So he has a. Slightly different, but similar approach to saying no.
And the best way to say no is not to respond at all. I find really, but I thought you just said, you want to get to know you like people saying well, as the recipient for people to send me a very polite, no, but if you have, as I do right now, 355,000 plus unread email, and then the act of just parsing that would take the rest of your life.
And. In that respect, cultivating selective ignorance and becoming comfortable with letting a lot of the trivial many slide, which is another theme that comes up a lot is really important. It's such a reminder back to our first episode on Tim Ferriss, the four hour work week. Yes. Again, the real [00:26:00] crux. I think of what Tim's saying here is no.
And value your time and therefore have a system in place that allows you to prioritize it. And instead of jumping into your 350,000 emails to pass and respond to, and therefore use up all of your time and not something more valuable, that's the mistake real error here. So actually what he's saying is not only learning from disappointment, Learning from those knows that you're getting more importantly, it's see where the nose or the disappointments, perhaps that the areas that you're going to waste your time are notice it and then go and do something more proactive.
What do you say from that mic? I, I, I really think you dream exactly the same thread that I was thinking about. Really? What, why fill your agenda with a ton of meetings [00:27:00] and your inbox with a full of emails because you're losing all control, right? You're losing. Absolutely. Can troll. And I think if you want to go out and do great, but if you want to do deep work, look, if we just want to have a productive day, if you are not in control of your time, be it through email or calendar.
If you are not totally in control of these, they are in control. Of you. And that's when you get into this cycle of days, weeks, and months, where everybody else is setting the priority and not you. And without a doubt, that's one of the single greatest learnings we can take from Tim Ferris taking control of your time.
That means meetings. And that means email the big lesson. I mean, for me, one of my favorite techniques and tips that I do to try and protect. My priorities of the day, particularly when it comes to work is [00:28:00] time blocking. We've spoken a lot about this yet. Very, very important. Right? So. Powerful and valuable.
And in fact, so I find it so useful that I recommended to basically everybody I speak to who are struggling with busy agendas, just block it out in your Google calendar or your calendar of choice and know that the next two hours you are going to do deep work into subject X. Maybe it's finding clips for your podcast.
Maybe it's something else. And by putting that into your mind, I think you're then for me, at least I'm then able to. Focus the rest of my time on not being distracted by having it over my head. I don't have to worry about when I'm going to do it because I've already allocated that time. And one of the big tips that we found Mike, in an earlier episode with Tim Ferriss, again with the, um, with the four hour work week was blocking time.
To actually do your emails. Yes. So the [00:29:00] batch number and the batch too fast would set up vacation responders that would say I check email twice a day in these hours and these hours. So that's when I respond to you. And I think if you're not quite ready to jump into auto responding, I think just allowing yourself.
That time allocating that time, maybe two or three times eight to check emails and preserving the rest to do that deep work into your really valuable projects that earn you the money and that are really valuable to your day to day life. That for me was such a good tip. Yeah. And I think, I think what we all feel.
Is the result of our time and attention being so called upon. I mean, everybody is getting busy with data notifications, emails, calls, like this is why the art of saying no is so important. And I [00:30:00] think we have to nurture and protect our attention. How time and our effort, because if we all our energy goes towards and other people's priorities and we get to the end of the day, the week, the month and go, yeah, geez.
I don't feel particularly satisfied. I feel like there's something bothering me. And I think we all have this sometimes. And invariably, that comes back to you. We're busy on other people's stuff and you weren't applying your effort. You weren't applying your energy towards the things that matter for you.
And this technique that he's giving us here is at the heart of feeling when you, you get to the end of the day, or let's say you get to Friday and you can say, you know what. Boy, I got some good stuff done this week, and I think this is an essential thing that you can never stop reminding yourself of because so many things now are competing for our attention competing for our time and effort.
I [00:31:00] totally agree. And one of the great, um, next clips where we're gonna hear from, uh, with Tim Ferris is actually going to be think about when you're setting your priorities in the morning. And not getting yourself distracted by emails and agendas and so on, but actually thinking, okay, well, how can I find the way to most, uh, maximize my day?
How can I think about it helping others and those around me, whether it's work or. In social family life. And ultimately it comes down to you. This was an insight that we found in the, for our work week, as well as the tools of the Titans episode. When you think about your prioritize, then it's all about your mindset and concept.
So this next clip we're actually going to hear from Tim Ferris is all about finding your ease. I've spent a lot of my life really angry and using rage and anger. A [00:32:00] lot of it directed at myself yeah. As a fuel for becoming a competitor because the only thing, well, the only way that I felt validated or valuable to win period, that's it as an instrument for winning and competing.
And I only felt good in, in relationship. To other people by somehow being able to tolerate more pain, work harder to be number one. And it was more a relief of not feeling terrible about myself for a fraction of a day. Then it was the joy of winning, if that makes sense. And so for my whole life, I've been so completely brutal to myself and I've realized through a number of different means, you know, one of which anybody can pick up, which is actually a book called radical acceptance by Tara Brock, which [00:33:00] terrible, terrible title, love Tara Brock.
Uh, but very, very helpful. Introduction to thinking about the potential idea that if you want to really help people or you want to really love people, you can't do it. If you ha, if you hate yourself, you just cannot fully do it. You cannot, I don't think it's possible. So the last few years have been, especially the last one or two years.
A process of asking different questions. And one of the questions, there are many different questions, but one of the most important, which, which is right up front in this book, and the reason the book kind of in a way is what, what might this look like? If it were easy, things are hard enough or they can be, and there's so much uncertainty in the world that.
Uh, for type a personalities or people who've been wounded and have become [00:34:00] very highly competitive as a result are highly driven or highly driven. Right. And driven. We usually use it as a, as a very complimentary descriptor, but you know, a horse that's being whipped to run faster until it dies on the track is also being driven.
Yes. And that's not always a good thing and very often a bad thing. Uh, that question, what might this look like if it were easy? Is really deceptively leveraged question because you start to look for elegance and ears instead of the path of complexity that allows you to absorb and tolerate the most pain, which some people well, myself included for a long time you'd as an indicator of doing the right thing.
Hm, what a fascinating clip Mark like this, for me, there's two big things in that, and I'm going to need your help on the second one, the first thing, which I, I [00:35:00] totally relate to you. Can't like others, if you don't like yourself and wasn't it great. How Frankie was about his own. Challenge. I mean, this super accomplished guy has challenges accepting himself.
I think that it's so good to hear him being so Frank, isn't it? Yeah. When you think about how many shows he's done, how many individuals he's spoken to to actually hear that he has this concept of rage and the second esteem, self Mark. If he's like hating himself, like, you know, you, you listen to him doing these podcasts and reading his books and there's a lot of.
Compassion and, you know, calmness that he seems to have in himself in order to go and experiment and hack and, and do what he does best, but actually to hear him kind of reveal that he has this kind of self-loathing, I don't know, it's kind of. Intimate isn't it? It is. And I, and I just respect him so much for having [00:36:00] the courage, just to share that, because I think that's just makes him bigger, better in my eyes.
Now here's the second thing that I kind of struggled with and I need your help. So I totally got his point on, you know, got to love yourself to love others. And I think that's really important. Now, the second thing is he was, he was going back to this idea is like, what would the most easiest way look alike?
And I could relate to that, but he was talking about this ease thing and help me understand how he attached that to the idea of loving yourself, to love others. Um, what was your take on that? So for me, it's, again, similar to my experience with, um, you know, you open your inbox and suddenly you have to jump on it that.
For me is not a path or as Tim Ferriss would call out, that's not an easy path. You know, if anything, that's like climbing a ladder Rocky Hill, you're going to be distracted with different people, hurling things at you, and you're [00:37:00] probably going to scramble up. And ultimately what that does is it has a knock on effect to your anxiety, maybe to your rage and maybe to feelings of inactive adequacy.
So actually, When you think about time blocking as an example, or you think about setting your priorities in the morning and focusing on you, you respect your time and you make it easy for you. Easy as a, perhaps a misleading word, because easy makes it sound like there's no challenge in there, but maybe it's, maybe it's more simple or more clean.
If you can clear your path to enable you to go out and do the thing best, whether it's. Client work, whether it's a passion of yours, a hobby, or maybe it's just family life, whatever it is, if you can respect your time and clear your path and find your easy route to that destination by removing distractions of work or emails or whatever it is.
I think that's what he's really. [00:38:00] So it's like setting yourself up for success. Like take a path of simplicity, of ease of elegance, make it intuitive. You think that's where he's going. Find your path to efficiency by pausing and thinking. Okay, well, the way I respond to emails is not efficient. The way I text everyday is not efficient though.
Even the way I ask questions or the way I don't say no. None of that's efficient. And by, by finding that way of doing it properly, doing it more efficiently, that's going to be your path to success. I think. Yeah, well, I mean, isn't it amazing that we're able to get so much out of this university of Tim Ferris?
So in this episode, all about tuning into the people around you, and he does a little twist there and says, well, you got to tune into yourself. If you want to tune into others. And prior to this, throughout the entire series, it's been redefining time and learning and tools. But there's [00:39:00] plenty more to come, but before we go there, I feel like it is a destination that's full of mentors, full of decoding of some of the world's greatest innovators.
Mark. If our listeners are hungry and curious and want to make the very best version of themselves, where do they go? If they want to find some of the best mentors on the planet? Www.moonshots.io. You can find our latest episodes. Can you believe it? 98th episode is today. You can listen to all four of our Tim Ferriss episodes.
When this one comes out, you can go back through David. Goggins R series with Malcolm Gladwell. Well, Nicholas tar lab, all of our habits series. We've got Chalo bomber. We've got Michael Jordan we've got and grown. I mean, Simon Sinek. There's huge amounts of archives shows as well as our little mantras.
We've got show notes to [00:40:00] each of the episodes. Um, relevant clips to external destinations online, but just as a reminder, moonshots.io, where you can find it, all of our repository of information. And staging cause a bit later in the show, we'll tell you which episodes are coming up next for the moonshots of podcasts, as well as our special centenary show Mark 100 shows.
It's quite a few, isn't it? When I think about it. Yeah. I can't believe it. It just keeps on, keeps on going. They once some pride, it doesn't surprise me, but what fascinates me, I think is that. Every time we dig in to a new innovator, new entrepreneur, we are learning something new and by really delving into their habits, behaviors, attendees, I feel as though we are learning so much throughout all of these 98 [00:41:00] shows that.
It's just an incredible, it's such an interesting challenge and interesting way to go about our day. It really is. And I think that, um, we can see this next clip has really, uh, two. Creating new chapters and new starts. And we've got this conversation between Gary V who were featured on the show and Tim Ferris, and really they're presenting us with a way to think about how to start a new chapter, to start a new opportunity, perhaps to grab an opportunity.
And what we hear Gary V and Tim Ferriss talking about essentially comes down to one thing. And that's mindset. You can't think it's that easy to just be inspired and be successful at something I would spend more time tasting. I think you should try to do as many things as possible and to Tim's [00:42:00] credit and point, try to surround yourself.
I would really pour on the extrovert nature. I'm empathetic immigrant in a new country or a foreign exchange or whatever you want to call it. So yeah. Might not come as natural to roll up on anybody. You might just be introverted nature, but I would, I would take advantage. Yeah. Well rounded person in college.
I get it. I know that's a narrative to me. It's just take advantage of a captive people in the same place and try to meet as many people as possible. Entrepreneurship is hard. Being a successful entrepreneur is stunningly rare, way more than people think out them. So I think patients also, Oh, 20 years old, I mean, like to Tim's point.
The next 10 years you could taste fail. It's why I'm pushing people to get closer to big time mentors, because what you will siphon out of them is going to be so much more ROI, positive. Don't put pressure on yourself to thinking it's either school or entrepreneurship. There are so many twists. Yeah.
There's, there's, there's, there is a lot on the spectrum, which is, you know, Gary, you, and I, I think see this a lot in our respective audiences. Those people. [00:43:00] Where people make a false dichotomy out of full time employment or full time. Sure. That's it. And no, we have spectrum in between. So as a student, for instance, one thing that I did when I was in college, which you might consider is becoming a star, a part or beginning.
A student club or a student union of some type so that you have to sell membership. You have to actually take notes, keep track of records. Right? So if there's some, no matter what it is like, if you are say the graphics editor of the school newspaper, you're going to have to learn how to deal with deadlines.
You're gonna have to learn how to maybe interact with it. The ad sales, because so-and-so is buying. Two page spread and now you have to integrate, and reflow the entire design of the magazine. These are all experiences that mimic the real world, meaning non-school world. So I would encourage you to. Learn on someone else's dime, right?
It's school. You aren't necessarily paying a lot for your mistakes, which relates also to my recommendation, to maybe work with a, within a smaller company [00:44:00] where you have the opportunity to observe a really good deal-maker, where you can make mistakes and someone else's painting for that education. This is a great clip that actually shows Tim Ferris putting the lessons he's learned.
Into action. So where you're hearing is Tim Ferriss and Gary V talking to a new student, who's just gone to college. And he's wondering how to maximize his time and be an entrepreneur and balance it with work and college life. What's fascinating is we're seeing a clip here of them being mentors. Then putting two, they're putting their money where their mouth is actually providing points of view to that student.
And what I think is so great. And again, we're talking about time here, as well as you know, behavioral change is instead of allowing yourself to become overwhelmed and having to make a choice, is it a or B? Is it college? Is it work? Is it stress or is it no work? You know, trying [00:45:00] to get overwhelmed with so many different options instead just approach them with a slightly clearer head.
Try to maximize the opportunities that you have around you, whether it's with your work, your career, or whether it's those around you from a mentorship perspective. And actually just using that time in a more, I think efficient way is where I really liked that clip. Mike, what did you kind of think of that Gary Vee, Tim Ferriss exchange?
Well, I would summarize it as whenever new new opportunities come your way. I think. Um, what they were both saying was so great to hear to moonshot is going for it is seize the day, Carpe, diem. I think what you heard in them was use the momentum of a new thing to get right in it. 100% don't hold back. And I think that is.
You can just hear the energy when they were talking. These guys were like, go for it. [00:46:00] So when something new is happening for you ask yourself, how can I maximize my energy, my inputs, and my effort. And I think that is with all the wisdom of doing it smarter or efficient. Um, I think this really sets us up, uh, to go an incredibly.
Long way, but this is not the last and final thought. Uh, I don't think for mr. Ferris. No, it's not. And similar to. You know this idea of using your time. I mean, I'm actually that final clip that we just heard, Gary Vinton first, it reminds me of that go out and do it go out, you know, rather than be I have a choice, you know, just go and commit to it much like 10 does this final clip that we're going to hear is Tim again, putting his money where his mouth is, and he's actually going to tell us what's one of his key habits that he's learned from these mentors.
That's actually changed them [00:47:00] over the most. Uh, the, the past few years. So this final glib we're going to hear from Tim is what tips or habits or tending that he's learned from the tribe of mentors spoken to that has changed him the most. I want to hear your response to one of the questions that you sent.
All of us let's do it. So in the last five years, what new belief, behavior or habit has most improved your life? So for everybody watching, when you get this book, this is one of the questions that many of us quote, unquote mentors. Yeah. I would say for me, it is a.
Consistent morning practice before taking my phone off of airplane mode
and doing a meditative practice for say 20 minutes. And it's stuck initially by taking a transmittal meditation. Class of fresh three days. Okay. I was going through a very, very difficult time and [00:48:00] chase Jarvis. Who's awesome. And a hugely successful commercial photographer. He's worked at every big brand.
You can imagine, and is also a very good CEO, both he and Rick Rubin is like the most legendary music producer of all time. And just look at his, does Scott discography? It's insane. It's like Johnny Cash and then JC Metallica. Uh, Yeah, it, the list is absurd. It's like everybody you've ever heard of. And he also said to me at one point, cause I was going through a really rough time and I was very tightly wound.
He said, have you ever considered TM? And I'm like, ah, mantra, like you pay them to give you, it's a mantra, it's a Colt. Like, I don't want to be part of a cult and on and on and on and on and on. And they're like, no, Oh, it's actually really secular. And I know there's like a little bit of weird stuff, but it's like, you can just ignore that.
It's like the first hour of the talk, just ignore it. What do you have to lose? And I was going through such a difficult period. At one point, I was like, you know, that's a good point. So I did it and that kickstarted the meditation. And then I experimented with other things like Headspace, [00:49:00] which I have no vested interest in.
So you start with 10 minutes a day for 10 days as a proof of concept and the way I'd encourage people to think about meditation, because it can sound very woo. And I certainly was repelled by it for a long time. Is you are sitting down say on a couch to practice observing your thoughts and feelings and emotions for a very short period of time.
So that for the rest of the day, you are less emotionally reactive. What this means is you are rehearsing your training. It's like going to the gym. So let's say you're training for a sport. All right. So you're an athlete actually go to the gym to do squats, to do this, this, and this. Then when you get on the playing field, you can for better, it is exactly the same.
You're rehearsing and training for your day. And then when you run into something that normally would trigger you, whether that's a certain type of email, whether that's an employee who hasn't. Habit that drives you [00:50:00] insane. Or you being behind in your schedule. And then the line at Starbucks is longer than you would like whatever happens to be the things that would normally cause you to get really tightly wound or explode or break yourself or other people, you will then start to spot before you have the reaction.
And then you say, okay, Half a second to breathing. Let me choose my response. Instead of being a hot held hostage to these loops and triggers that we all have. So that has been enormously, enormously helpful for me. You have it. I mean, take control. I mean that maybe is the mantra of the man himself that you think is when you break it down.
He's really saying when he's learnt everything, when he deconstructs, when he decompose [00:51:00] everything he's learned, it comes down to trolling how he responds to the world through meditation. And I think this is just this enormous theme of taking control of whether it's your time, how you learn the tools, the techniques, your mentor.
It's like, he's just taking one big breath and composing himself. Okay. What do you think that's exactly he's, he's taking that breath. He's taking control and it starts by having awareness. As soon as you wake up instead of a, probably pretty common behavior where you wake up, your instant thing is to turn off your phone, the alarm on your phone, in your news, or open your social media before you've even got out of bed.
Maybe open your emails and. Just to state, take it, take a moment to actually have a breath instead. Think about how you're feeling. Think about the priorities of your day, [00:52:00] what you want to achieve and take some me time, whether it's five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes is Tim versus, you know, whatever it might be, terms of duration.
If you create that morning ritual that we were talking about in, um, In the tools of the Titans episode previously, when you, once you have a really good morning ritual and you can begin your day just as you want it, then you won't have that unnatural response to stress or anxiety or, or emails or whatever it might be during the day, because you kind of think, okay, well, I've got this good habit.
I've got. The right. Start to my day and I'm beginning it in, in, in a conscious way, how I know how I feel. So, yes, it's great. You know, a person who has interviewed and learned from so many individuals around the world for Tim Ferriss to call out this as [00:53:00] a, as you know, the most valuable thing that he's learned in five years, I feel like that's a pretty good, and I I'm thinking about what.
2020 has been for me for you. And I am sure for many of our listeners is challenging, right? Um, both directly and indirectly, whether it's being constrained or just this sense of uncertainty that surrounds the world. Um, I think in what we just heard from Tim is the greatest antidote to their uncertainty, which is take control of your thoughts, your habits and behaviors, and start the day.
Right? It's a perfect little cup of coffee, a bit of advice, coffee that I, I can't wait to. To give that a go. I mean, we've spoken about breathing and meditation and taking a pause in the past, Mike, and I think what's, [00:54:00] what's different here is, is Tim's really calling out. That's how you begin. That's how you begin your day.
Well, that's how he begins his day. And that feels like a great behavior to kind of be inspired by, to go and. You know, give a go ourselves. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I mean, this ma this brings us to the end of a series. Can you believe we have ripped through four Epic titles from the author, Tim Ferris.
How are you different now at the end of this four part series, a lot more aware of my time. A lot more inspired when it comes to learning, you know, thinking about the actual practicalities of what it takes to learn. Um, I feel like I got a lot out of the four hour chef. I think that's such a, such an interesting approach, um, that Tim Ferriss took to, to education.
Um, and [00:55:00] ultimately I'm, I'm pretty inspired, you know, if anything, similar to what you caught out at the very beginning of this show, Mike, you know, hearing Tim Ferriss have. He has, you know, personal issues themselves. It's actually quite a, uh, almost a relief, you know, he's not perfect. Oh, so it's okay. Then I'm not, ah, it will be very easy to delve into tools of Titans even, or, you know, particularly tribe of mentors today and think, Oh, but these, these individuals, they have the time to do it, or they have more available resource.
But actually I think. What I've found throughout the four part series of on Tim Ferriss? I think anybody can, can give it a go. I think, you know, Tim is the ultimate, um, fair mentor and dare I say life. Okay. I think, you know, he's, he's got all these great experiences that are, they've kind of inspired me.
Yeah. I mean, that's the great [00:56:00] thing. He can be insanely practical and inspiring all at the same time. Uh, so, uh, that, that is just one tip of the hat to mr. Tim Ferris. Well, uh, Mark, I mean, uh, whilst we may have finished with Tim Ferris, the inspiration and the learning will continue. Who do you think we should do next?
The one show show 99 before our centenary show. Who do you think we should delve into and learn from next? Well, we regularly talk about leadership. We regularly talk about, um, entrepreneurs, managing teams, building skills, and this big word of ownership. Comes up a huge amount. So what a perfect way to kind of seal off our double digits
into Jocko, Willink and his extreme ownership. Book, hugely [00:57:00] popular book that I can't wait to dig into. You might even ask what sort of ownership are we taking of this podcast? If it takes us 99 shows to get to this book, but I can tell you, it is, there's a lot in this. And personally I got a lot, yeah. Out of extreme ownership.
So can't wait to get into that, but Mark, I just want to. Thank you for joining me on this journey, this four part journey into the world of Tim Ferris. It's been quite a ride, right? It's been great. We've learned a lot of practical tips, mindsets, but also behavioral changes that we can go out and live in our lives.
And it's been fantastic. One of my favorite series, I think. Yeah, I, I, I have to agree. Um, lots of, and lots of learnings. It's almost too much to learn in one author, but there you have it. That is the world of Tim Ferris. [00:58:00] So Mark, thank you to you, Mark. Thank you to all the effort. Uh, and, uh, the patient says you and I learn out loud together, and a big thank you to all of our listeners, um, who are joining us for this journey of learning out loud.
And this is a community that, uh, spans all four corners of the planet. Now it's really. Amazing to think that tens of thousands of people are joining us every month to come and to learn out loud. And hopefully today we've helped you, um, uh, really, really tune into this idea of finding mentors because in mentors we shall find wisdom and the answers to many questions that we have.
But in order to do that, we've got to ask the right questions and to do that. What Tim has told us is if you want to help yourself, you've really got to go and start with liking yourself. Because when you like yourself, you can [00:59:00] like others. When you love yourself. You can love others and bring real value real care to the world around you.
And that starts by embracing these new chapters, Carpe diem seize the day. And as you seize the day, it is you who controls your response to the world. You have the chance to take a breath and decide how you want the world to be. So there you have it. That is what we can take from mr. Tim Ferris and from lending out loud together here on the moonshots podcast.
So whether you're in Ghana or Kazakhstan, Belgium or Mexico. We welcome you to this family of learning out loud. That's a wrap of the moonshots podcast.