The Tim Ferriss Show

I'm very excited to share this episode. It's our first "roundtable" approach to discussing a single topic. This came about when I asked 5-Bullet Friday subscribers (sign up here if you're interested) to send me questions, and one that stuck out was: Where's the line between stubbornly pursuing an idea that isn't working and the patience and persistence needed to actually make it work? In other words -- when should you give up and quit and when should you push on? Since this is something I myself have struggled with, I came to the conclusion that I should reach out to people who might have a better answer. So, I sent the question to the following entrepreneurs, authors, and innovators: Scott Belsky Seth Godin James Altucher Debbie Millman Adam Robinson Chase Jarvis Rhonda Patrick Their answers are a thorough overview of how to assess your own ideas and opportunities, and determine which ones worth pursuing. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at tim.blog/podcast. This podcast is brou

This is a special episode of the podcast. After more than 200 conversations with the world's top performers, you start to spot certain patterns. These are the shared habits, hacks, philosophies, and tools that are the common threads of success, happiness, health, and wealth. These commonalities were the premise of my most recent book, The New York Times #1 bestseller Tools of Titans -- a compilation of my favorite lessons, routines, and tips of many of my guests. In this episode, I've gathered some of the best advice from past guests about morning routines. This includes conversations with: Jocko Willink Seth Godin Jamie Foxx Scott Adams Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at tim.blog/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by 99Designs, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99Designs. I used them

Mark Bell (@MarkSmellyBell) is the founder of Super Training Gym in Sacramento, which is often referred to as "the strongest gym in the West." Prior to opening his own gym, he spent time studying training under the legendary Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell. Mark is no stranger to the iron at all. His best "geared lifts" in competition include a 1,025 lb. squat (465 kg), an 832 lb. bench press (77 kg), a 738 lb. deadlift (335 kg). Mark is also the inventor of the patented Slingshot, a device used to assist a lifter in maintaining proper bench press form while also allowing him or her to use more weight or perform more reps. Mark now has an entire line of products and has been spectacularly successful. In this episode, we cover a lot, including: Mark's most important lessons for building strength. How to avoid injury and breakdown. Lesser-known training techniques that nearly everyone overlooks. How Mark became a millionaire by offering his gym memberships for free. And much, much more. We reco

Kyle Maynard (@kylemaynard) is a motivational speaker, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and ESPY award-winning mixed martial arts athlete, known for becoming the first quadruple amputee to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Aconcagua without the aid of prosthetics. Oprah Winfrey called Kyle "one of the most inspiring young men you will ever hear about." Arnold Schwarzenegger described him as "the real deal," "a champion human," and "one of the most inspiring people" he's ever met. Even the great Wayne Gretzky has spoken of Kyle's "greatness." Despite being born with a rare condition that left him with arms that end at the elbows and legs that end near his knees, he learned early on with the support of his family to live life independently and without prosthetics. Kyle thrives on physical challenges and, following a few rough middle school football seasons, he went on to become a champion wrestler, CrossFit Certified Instructor and gym owner, competitive MMA/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter, world rec

In this episode, I'm answering your questions. I'm responding to the most upvoted questions from subscribers to 5-Bullet Friday, the newsletter I send out every week. It explores five cool things I've found, including apps, books, gadgets, albums, articles, new hacks/tricks, and — of course — all sorts of weird stuff I dig up around the world. It's free, it's always going to be free, and if you want to check it out, you can go here: tim.blog/friday. If you're a longtime listener to this podcast, you'll find at least one or two actionable pieces of information here. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audiobooks. I have two to recommend: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Vagabonding by Rolf Potts All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is visit Audible.com/Tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endle

This episode of the podcast features Blake Mycoskie (@blakemycoskie). Blake Mycoskie is the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS, and the person behind the One for One® business model, which helps a person in need with every product purchased. This simple idea has grown into a global movement: TOMS Shoes has provided more than 60 million pairs of shoes to children since 2006, TOMS Eyewear has restored sight to more than 400,000 people since 2011, and TOMS Roasting Company has helped provide over 335,000 weeks of safe water since launching in 2014. In 2015, TOMS Bag Collection was founded with the mission to help provide training for skilled birth attendants and distribute birth kits containing items that helps women safely deliver babies. As of 2016, TOMS has supported safe birth services for more than 25,000 mothers. In this episode we cover: Early entrepreneurial ventures The power of journaling How "the stool analogy" changed Blake's life Lessons from Ben Franklin And much, much more… This episode comes fr

On this special episode, we're going to share with you the "10 Commandments for Startup Success." They're drawn from the new podcast Masters of Scale, which is hosted by my friend and today's guest Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman). Reid has been on the show before, and you might remember him as the co-founder of LinkedIn, and the partner at Greylock who invested early in Facebook, Airbnb, Zynga, and a bunch of other startups that experience dramatic success. On this new podcast, Reid shares his theories on how companies scale from zero to a gazillion, and he tests them with famous founders like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reed Hastings of Netflix. He and his team pulled together a special remix for us to use on today's show -- distilling the very best, most actionable advice from the first season of Masters of Scale into these 10 commandments. They've included a lot material that hasn't aired yet. So even if you're already a subscriber, you'll hear some new things here. Stick around after we count down the 10

Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) might be the real-life Most Interesting Man In The World. I've always wanted to travel with him, and we recently headed to Uzbekistan together. This episode covers some of our favorite travel tools. Kevin is Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine, which he co-founded in 1993. He also co-founded the All Species Foundation, a non-profit aimed at cataloging and identifying every living species on earth. In his spare time, he writes bestselling books, co-founded The Rosetta Project, which is building an archive of all documented human language, and serves on the board of The Long Now Foundation. As part of The Long Now Foundation, he's investigating how to revive and restore endangered or extinct species, including the Wooly Mammoth. His newest critically acclaimed book is The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. As journalist David Pogue has said: "Anyone can claim to be a prophet, a fortune teller, or a futurist, and plenty of peo

Jason Khalipa (@jasonkhalipa IG, Twitter) is one of the fittest men in the world – a title that was officially his when he won the CrossFit Games in 2008. He is an 8-time CrossFit Games competitor, a 3-time Team USA CrossFit member, and -- among other athletic feats -- he has deadlifted 550 pounds, squatted 450 pounds, and performed 64 pullups at a bodyweight of 210 pounds. This podcast also has a bunch of video bonuses and tutorials from Jason, which you can find at youtube.com/timferriss. Beyond sports, Jason is also a successful entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of NC Fit, which has more than 20 locations in 8 different cities. And he is the co-founder of "Box to Business," a non-profit that helps gyms become profitable businesses. Jason uses the proceeds from “Box to Business” to help fight pediatric cancer. In this episode, we cover a lot of cool stuff, including His training and diet The hardest workouts he's ever performed The mentor who taught him how to sell anything How he and his family

David Blaine (@davidblaine) is an American magician, illusionist, and endurance artist. He is best known for his high-profile feats of endurance and has set and broken several world records. A while back, he taught a group of TEDMED attendees and me how to hold our breath for longer than Harry Houdini's lifelong record of three minutes and thirty seconds -- which still pales in comparison to David's own record of just over seventeen minutes. This episode comes from the premiere of my new television show Fearless. If you want to watch the entire first episode, you can see it for free at att.net/fearless. (To watch all episodes, please visit DIRECTV. Don't worry if you've seen it or plan on seeing it because we recorded three hours of material and only one was used for the show. This episode is almost all bonus content that you won't see on the show. Please enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This episode is brought to you by Exo Protein.

Nick Szabo (@NickSzabo4) is a polymath. The breadth and depth of his interests and knowledge are truly astounding. He's a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer best known for his pioneering research in digital contracts and cryptocurrency. The phrase and concept of "smart contracts" were developed by Nick with the goal of bringing what he calls the "highly evolved" practices of contract law and practice for the design of electronic commerce protocols between strangers on the Internet. Nick also designed Bit Gold, which many consider the precursor to Bitcoin. This wide-ranging conversation is co-hosted by Naval Ravikant, a mutual friend and one of the most successful investors in Silicon Valley, who also happens to be one of Nick's biggest admirers. We cover a lot, including: What is Bitcoin, what are cryptocurrencies, and what problem do they solve? What is "social scalability?" What is Ethereum and what makes it unique? Strengths and weaknesses? How will smart contracts actually get adopted or

Vince Vaughn (@WildWest) is one of the most prolific actors, writers, and producers in the world. He's acted in more than thirty major motion pictures that have gone on to gross more than 1.7 billion at the box office. He is largely credited for redefining the R-rated comedy with his performance in the 2005 hit Wedding Crashers, which set the record for highest grossing R-rated comedy at the time. He is -- and will continue to be, I expect -- one of the most sought-after leading men in Hollywood. As a listener to this podcast, Vince reached out with his production company Wild West to see if we might do a TV show together. The result is Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss -- "less" is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. More details about the show can be found at tim.blog/fearless. I got the chance to catch up with Vince at Vulture Festival in New York City. In this conversation, we get into stories of his early beginnings, how to negotiate, his cold-calling career,

Phil Keoghan (@PhilKeoghan) has worked in television for almost thirty years on more than a thousand program episodes in more than a hundred countries. His work has earned him numerous awards, including ten prime-time Emmys. He is perhaps best known as the co-executive producer and host of CBS series The Amazing Race, currently in its twenty-ninth season. But there is much, much more to Phil's story, including unbelievable bucket lists, near-death experiences, and more. As just one example... In 2013, he decided to retrace the 1928 Tour de France riding an original vintage bicycle, with no gears, to tell the forgotten underdog story of the first English-speaking team to take on the toughest sporting event on earth. This experience was captured and turned into the brand-new film Le Ride, a gorgeous documentary and the first to be shot on a Sony F55 camera in 4K, which is equivalent to Super 35mm film. There are many takeaways from this conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Show notes and link

I've wanted to speak with psychotherapist Esther Perel for years. In a cover story, The New York Times called her the most important game changer in sexuality and relational health since Dr. Ruth. Her TED talks on maintaining desire and rethinking infidelity have more than 17 million views, and she's tested and been exposed to everything imaginable in thirty-four years of running her private therapy practice in New York City. In this episode, Esther and I explore: How to find (and convince) mentors who can change your life. What she's learned from Holocaust survivors. Polyamory and close cousins. Is there such a thing as too much honesty in relationships? Can we want what we already have? Why do happy people cheat? And much more. Esther is the author of the international bestseller Mating in Captivity, which has been translated into 26 languages. Fluent in nine of them (I've heard her in person), this Belgian native now brings her multicultural pulse to her new book The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity

This episode is by request. You have asked me many times for an episode on education, accelerated learning, and my mentors. It will all be covered in the following conversation with Charles Best (@charlesbest), the founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit website that enables anyone to help a classroom in need. It is one of my favorite companies -- profit or non-profit -- in the world. (And I'm not just saying that because we used to be wrestling partners in high school.) Charles founded DonorsChoose.org back in 2000 at a public high school in the Bronx where he taught history. Flash forward to 2017, and DonorsChoose.org is one of Oprah Winfrey's "ultimate favorite things" and made the cover of Fast Company as one of the "50 Most Innovative Companies in the World," the first time a charity has received such recognition. To date, teachers at more than seventy percent of all the public schools in America have created classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org, and more than two million people have g

Dr. Arthur De Vany is nearly eighty years old and ripped. Better known as Art De Vany, he was signed as a professional baseball player in his youth and later earned his Ph.D. in Economics at UCLA. He is most famous for his "evolutionary fitness" approach to training and diet, and our conversation focuses on that. During his time at UCLA, Art did many things, including creating mathematical and statistical models to precisely describe the motion picture market. Art is Professor Emeritus of Economics of the University of California, Irvine, and is a member of its acclaimed Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences. A lifelong student of metabolism and fitness, Art has lived as a Paleo athlete for more than thirty years and is considered a "patriarch" of the Paleo movement. He believes there is no such thing as "healthy" aging and that we can intervene to protect against the aging process. In this episode, we talk about his daily schedule, workout routines, why he never gets sick, ice ages, economics, philo

Ryan Flaherty (@ryanflaherty1) is the Senior Director of Performance at Nike. Prior to holding that position, Ryan was the Founder and President of Prolific Athletes LLC, a sports performance facility in San Diego, California, where he trained some of the world's best athletes. His clients include Serena Williams, Russell Wilson, the Arizona Cardinals, Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, and hundreds of other professional athletes. While he is well known for dramatically improving his athletes' speed, more and more athletes (and coaches) seek Ryan out for his training and guidance on injury prevention. Many of Ryan's clients have made remarkable recoveries from injuries, and several NFL teams and European soccer clubs have sought his methodology to implement into their training programming. Ryan developed an algorithm called "Force Number" that is based on the hex (or trap) bar deadlift and body weight to predict speed such as the forty-yard dash. In this discussion, we talk about exercises for reducing injury po

Rhonda Patrick, PhD, (@foundmyfitness) is an American biochemist and scientist. She first appeared on this podcast back in episode twelve, and whether you want to extend life, inexpensively buy a stem cell "insurance policy," or guard against cancer, Rhonda has valuable insights and recommendations. In this episode, Rhonda tackles some of your most requested topics, including: Best practices for fasting (and who struggles most with time-restricted feedings) What blood tests are most important to analyze for overall health The "minimum effective dose" for the benefits of sauna Heat vs. cold exposure, and how they should be used effectively Most effective smart drugs The latest fat loss research And much, much more Rhonda is known for her studies of the mechanistic link between vitamin D and serotonin production, research that may have important implications for the understanding of autism and other disorders, and for her popular podcast, Found My Fitness. Dr. Patrick also conducts clinical trials, performed ag

Murray Carter (@CarterCutlery) is a Canadian craftsman like no other. At eighteen, he fell into an apprenticeship with a sixteenth generation Yoshimoto bladesmith that lasted six years -- and was asked to take the position of number seventeen in the Sakemoto family tradition (perhaps the only Caucasian ever to have had the honor and privilege of this position). Murray continued forging blades in Japan for twelve more years and in June 2001, he was awarded the rating of Mastersmith by the American Bladesmith Society, thus proving the highest degree of competency by Western standards. In 2005, he moved to the United States (as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability, no less) to start Carter Cutlery; he has continued forging blades in Oregon since. This is a fascinating episode on many levels, so please enjoy! This podcast is brought to you by Headspace, the world’s most popular meditation app (with more than four million users). It’s used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it. Try He

Dorian Yates (@dorian_yates) is a six-time Mr. Olympia who has taken the already extreme sport of bodybuilding to a new level. He's one of my adolescent heroes whose innovations in training (e.g., Occam's protocol) influenced what I later put into The 4-Hour Body. In this particular conversation, we dig into all sorts of topics that I've been dying to ask Dorian since I was a teenager. We discuss his relationship to pain, specific workouts, how he warms up, common mistakes and misconceptions, self-talk, his favorite books, and much more. I sincerely hope you enjoy this conversation with Dorian Yates as much as I did! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Soothe.com, the world's largest on-demand massage service. Because I've been broken so many times, I have body work done at least twice a week -- so I have a high bar for this stuff. I do not accept mediocrity, and I wouldn't expect you to, either. After much personal testing,