“If effectiveness is doing the right things, efficiency is doing things right.”

This is a special episode because it doesn’t focus on the lessons of one particular person. Instead, I explore the tips, tricks, and framework I’ve used to learn just about any skill.

This is the meta-skill of meta-learning, or learning how to learn.

I’m going to share techniques that can help you — even if you’re sub-par or a rote beginner — take the smartest first steps and use 80/20 analysis to accelerate your progress.

This is adapted from The 4-Hour Chef, which is the cookbook that’s not a cookbook — it’s a book on accelerated learning.

Without further ado, please enjoy this episode on meta-learning.

• Listen onApple Podcasts
• Listen onStitcher

• Listen to it on iTunes.
• Stream by clicking here.
• Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

Want to hear another episode about accelerated learning? — Listen to my interview with Luis Von Ahn, the co-founder of Duolingo. In this episode, we discuss what 2-3 books and resources he’d recommend to entrepreneurs, language learning tips, early mentors and key lessons learned, and how to recruit and vet technical talent (stream below or right-click here to download):

This podcast is brought to you by Vimeo Business. Vimeo Business has all of the prior benefits of Vimeo Pro, including VIP support. Whether you make videos for a living, run your own company, or simply want to amp up your video marketing, Vimeo Business is here to help. It has more than 280 million creators and viewers worldwide and makes it easier to share your videos with a global audience and connect with professional video makers to bring your stories to life.

Vimeo Business allows you to upload up to five terabytes and store your videos in one secure place, add up to 10 team members to your account for easy collaboration, and gather feedback with seamless review tools. You can even add clickable calls to action and capture email addresses directly in the player, which can help you generate leads and drive conversion for whatever you’re trying to optimize, such as a newsletter or a sales page. Check out vimeo.com/tim10 to save 10 percent on Vimeo Business.

This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it’s all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams.

Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you for free the exact portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

• The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss
• Smart Design
• Burton Snowboards
• Starbucks
• OXO Good Grips kitchenware
• The Objectified documentary
• The Holy Grail in Speed Training by Barry Ross, Dragon Door
• Efficient-Market Hypothesis (EMH)
• The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville by Warren E. Buffett, Columbia Business School
• Michael Phelps Freestyle Multi Angle Camera
• The Most Graceful Freestyle Swimming by Shinji Takeuchi
• Nautilus
• Kokkari
• Nootropics: An Ethical Discussion by Lilly Pham, Princeton Journal of Bioethics
• Raiding the Medicine Cabinet to Become Superhuman by Peter Rubin, Wired (about my use of desmopressin and other nootropics)
• Chinese Primer: Character Text by Ta-tuan Ch’en, Perry Link, Yih-jian Tai, and Hai-tao Tang
• Seikei Gakuen
• The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
• The Jouyou Kanji
• The Asahi Shimbun
• Acquisition of Japanese Kanji: Conventional Practice and Mnemonic Supplementation (my sexy Princeton senior thesis)
• Berlitz language learning
• Better Basketball videos by Rick Torbett

Show Notes

• Meta-learning allows us to mimic the world’s fastest learners to become world class — in just about anything — in six months or less. [06:05]
• When Dan Formosa created Smart Design, the extremes informed the mean, but not vice versa. [06:28]
• Sometimes it pays to model the outliers, not flatten them into averages. [08:06]
• WWWBS? (What would Warren Buffett say) about outliers and averages? [09:31]
• Just about everything you need to know about meta-learning can be understood — or at least observed — by watching these two videos. (Michael Phelps vs. Shinji Takeuchi) [12:06]
• The top one percent often succeed in spite of how they train, not because of it. [13:21]
• Shifting from frequent nootropics use to understanding the blueprints behind high-performance. [15:33]
• On using judo textbooks for transferring the principles of Japanese. [21:10]
• The missing piece: is the method efficient? [22:30]
• The catalyst for finding the method (which involved me dropping out of college in the middle of my senior year). [23:11]
• Using the DiSSS (deconstruction, selection, sequencing, and stakes) process to drastically shorten the time it took to learn languages. [25:04]
• Deconstruction: What are the minimal learnable units with which you should start? [27:50]
• Sequencing: In what order should you learn the blocks? [28:14]
• Stakes: How do you set up stakes to create real consequences and guarantee you follow the program? [28:19]
• The secondary principles of CaFE (compression, frequency, encoding). [28:32]
• Compression: Can you encapsulate the most important 20 percent into an easily graspable one-pager? [28:51]
• Frequency: How frequently should you practice? What is the minimum effective dose (MED) for volume? [29:00]
• Encoding: How do you anchor the new material to what you already know for rapid recall?  [29:13]
• How I began interviewing people as a way to deconstruct and learn any skill. [29:36]
• My general interviewing process. [31:36]
• Learning from the process: applying the answers to your own experiences. [34:40]

People Mentioned

• Dan Formosa
• Bill Gates
• Chris Rock
• Barry Ross
• Mark Bell
• Allyson Felix
• Warren Buffett
• Benjamin Graham
• David Dodd
• Michael Phelps
• Shinji Takeuchi
• Arthur Jones
• Erik Cosselmon
• Daniel Burka
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Bernie Feria
• Babak Nivi
• Kevin Rose
• Darya Rose
• Rick Torbett
• Scott Jurek

The post The Art and Science of Learning Anything Faster (#191) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

One tiny favor! If you’re enjoying the podcast, could you please take 30 seconds now to leave a brief review on iTunes? Just click “View in iTunes” under my pic here. Once I pass 2,000 reviews, I’ll reciprocate by writing a massive, behind-the-scenes post on everything I’ve learned about podcasting. I promise tricks of the trade galore, just as in-depth as the “Hacking Kickstarter” post. Speaking of which…

Ed Cooke is a dear friend and a Grandmaster of Memory.  In 2010, he was interviewed by a journalist named Joshua Foer. Under Ed’s Yoda-like training, Joshua became the very next American Memory Champion in 2011.  It took less than a year for Ed to transform a novice from unknown to world-class.

But how?!?

Aha… This interview explores Ed Cooke’s brilliant techniques (many of which I use), strategies, and practical philosophies.  To boot, he’s also a wicked funny bastard!  If you enjoyed the epic interviews with Kevin Kelly, Josh Waitzkin, or Maria Popova, you’ll love Ed.  He’s one of a kind.

You can find the transcript of Episodes 52 and 53 here. Episode 53 begins on page 24. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

• Listen to it on iTunes.
• Stream it by clicking for Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
• Download both as MP3s by right-clicking and choosing “save as”: Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

This podcast is brought to you by 99Designs, the world’s largest marketplace of graphic designers. Did you know I used 99Designs to rapid prototype the cover for The 4-Hour Body? Here are some of the impressive results.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What’s one mental feat you’d love to accomplish in 2015? Any tips or tricks you can share? Please share in the comments by clicking here.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Enjoy!

And also… please subscribe to The Tim Ferriss Show on iTunes!  A kitten gets super powers every time you do this.

Non-iTunes RSS feed

Selected Links from the Episode

• Ed Cooke on Twitter (@tedcooke). Say hello!
• Learn more about Memrise
• Learn more about the World Memory Championships
• Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
• Theory of Colours by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Read Tim’s thoughts on delayed philanthropy (and the reasons against it) – The Karmic Capitalist
• Spectacle by David Rockwell & Bruce Mau
• Station to Station by Doug Aitken
• In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell
• Armando Iannucci and The Armando Iannucci Show
• Withnail and I
• Learn more about Sensory Substitution and Paul Bach-y-Rita
• Touching the Rock by John Hull
• The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See by Michael Finkel
• The Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts
• Is Trilled Smell Possible?

Show Notes

Part 1

• How Tim and Ed were introduced, and what it takes to be a “grandmaster of memory” [5:02]
• The dynamic that produces rapid developments in speed and capability [8:15]
• The outcome of the unusual 4-Hour Chef memory competition [13:02]
• The story of winning the US memory championships and subsequently training Joshua Foer [21:02]
• Exploring the extraordinary skill of imagination [24:22]
• Memory techniques which can be utilized in everyday life [32:02]
• Recommendations for designing house parties based on memory techniques [39:02]
• Clarifying and finding objectivity…and the value thereof [41:47]
• Rapid-fire questions [47:45]

Part 2

• Balancing intuition and analytical decision making [1:27]
• How to set up incentives to flog yourself into self-discipline and systems thinking [5:55]
• On merit and virtue [8:05]
• Contrasting homelessness with the strange selfishness of Silicon Valley [10:00]
• The conundrum of the Bill Gates model of philanthropy [18:25]
• What is financial security, and how does Ed Cooke define it? [24:20]
• Ed Cooke’s take on Burning Man [30:55]
• Quick fire theory about why Burning Man is the most brilliant institution in the world [32:20]
• How to extract the Burning Man experience for a group of 20? [41:40]
• Escaping existential doldrums [45:55]
• Balancing present-state mindfulness with building things [52:25]
• More rapid-fire questions [55:40]
• A specific defining moment from Ed Cooke’s childhood and the theory of exteroception [1:07:25]

People Mentioned

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Monty Python
• Armando Iannucci
• Alan Partridge
• Withnail and I
• Kevin O’Regan
• Paul Bach-y-Rita
• Seymour Papert
• Daniel Kish
• Alan Watts

The post Ed Cooke, Grandmaster of Memory, on Mental Performance, Imagination, and Productive Mischief (#52 & #53) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Vocabulary lists in a run-of-the-mill Spanish textbook usually look something like the below, taken from real-world sources I won’t shame by naming:

• La mano – the hand
• El arbol – the tree
• Las muñecas – the wrists
• ¡Nos vemos mañana! – See you tomorrow!
• Mande? – Sorry? Pardon? What did you say?
• Ahorita vengo! – I’ll be back in a minute!

Pretty typical, right?

Sadly, this format is also priming students for failure.  Two reasons:

Spanish is listed first, so we’re training recognition.  If you want to be able to speak (produce) Spanish, you should list English first, then Spanish: cue and target.  For at least the first month, you will be translating from English in your head before most speaking.  Have your materials mimic this process, or you’re working backwards.

Incredibly, almost no textbooks get this ordering right.  If you train for recall, you get recognition automatically; if you train for recognition, recall is terrible, or as slow as molasses.

Think I’m exaggerating?  How many times have you handled or seen pennies and quarters in your life?  Tens of thousands of times?  Millions?  Try and draw both sides of either from memory.  Recognition does not = recall.  You have to train specifically for the latter.

A fixed list equals inflexible recall.  By illustration, answer this: what number is the letter “L” in the alphabet?  5^th, 14^th, which?  What is the third line of your national anthem?  Slow, isn’t it?  The answers depend on order — on the pieces before them acting as cues.  If you learn words in a fixed list, the preceding words act as a recall crutch for your target word.  You’ll eventually get it, but it’s plodding and haphazard.  This is a major problem.  This is also why, 10 years later, I can still sing (poorly) a few entire songs in Italian, but I could never recall those words independently for conversation.

We want RAM—random-access memory—where we can pull any word from memory quickly.

Mixing up flash cards accomplishes this, as does a software program like Anki or Duolingo (I advise), which does it automatically.

If you have a textbook with a fixed list, just practice doing them backwards and also in evens, odds, every-third item, etc.

¡Mucha suerte, ché!

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If you like these shorter posts (as opposed to my longer, monster posts), please let me know in the comments and I’ll do more of them!

The post Why Can't You Draw The Face of a Penny? Understand the Reason and Learn Spanish Twice as Fast appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Jony Ive and his elite design team at Apple are coffee snobs. And rightfully so.

Coffee is the fuel that drives their brainstorming sessions, which are arguably the most important meetings in the design department. These sessions are where Apple has birthed some of the greatest products of all-time: the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.

In this guest post by Leander Kahney (author of Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products), you’ll learn the secret coffee ritual performed by Jony Ive’s design team.

Remember: Apple’s standards are notoriously high.  As is the case with their products, Apple’s coffee is not for those with meager budgets…or without Monk-ish tendencies.

HOWEVER, for almost every uber-expensive ideal, I’ve indicated the Poor Man’s alternative that I personally use.  It’s not hard to cheaply get it about 90% right.

Enjoy the obsessive detail…

Enter Leander

Jony Ive and his team work in a super-secure design studio on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California. Locked behind a heavy door and lined with frosted glass windows, few are allowed to enter the inner sanctum, including some of Apple’s own executives.

The studio is Apple’s innovation factory — Edison’s lab at the heart of the company. You can tell it’s the brains of the operation from the hundreds of patents they file. Some of the designers are among the top patent holders in the world. The studio is where Steve Jobs hung out most afternoons before he died, working on new products with Jony Ive.

A team of about 20 designers work in the studio. Twice a week, the entire team gathers together for brainstorming sessions. The brainstorms take place around a large table in the studio’s kitchen.

The brainstorms are the key to how the designers work. “We can work with a level of collaboration that seems particularly rare,” Ive has said. “In fact, the memory of how we work will endure beyond the products of our work.”

The brainstorms are usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays, running for three hours — from 9:00 AM to roughly 12:00 PM.

Such marathon thinking periods would be impossible without coffee.

Before each brainstorming session, the team performs their sacred coffee ritual — a critical part of their workflow since the early 1990’s. Like everything Apple’s designers do, their coffee ritual is very precise. They have honed their technique to a science, adjusting the beans, the grind, the grain, and the pour to perfection. The resulting beverage boosts the team’s creativity to the max.

How to Make Coffee like Jony Ive

Step 1: Get a High-End Espresso Machine

Apple’s design studio is equipped with a high-end commercial-style espresso machine. For a long time, the machine was an Italian Grimac. But the $3,000+ machine leaked all the time and had to be constantly serviced by a technician. Yet it made heavenly coffee. Thanks to the studio’s ultra secrecy, it’s unclear if the same machine is in service or has been replaced.

Italian Grimac – Apple’s old machine

Good espresso machines come in all shapes and sizes, but smaller machines good for home use cost between $800 and $1,300.

Machines from European companies like Rancillo, La Pavoni, Pasquina, Bezzera (the company that invented espresso in 1905) and Gaggia are recommended. The 1,300 Bezzera BZ07 ($1,200) is highly rated, but the Kees van der Westen Speedster ($7,200) has been called the best home espresso machine ever.

Kees van der Westen Speedster: The best espresso maker ever?

If $1,000 is too steep, you can get an espresso-like experience using the AeroPress ($25), a cylindrical device that’s part-bicycle pump, part-French Press. As Tim details in The 4-Hour Chef, it’s the machine of choice for top professional baristas.

[NOTE FROM TIM: Here’s my 4-minute tutorial on how to make the perfect cup of coffee with an AeroPress:]

Step 2: Get a Good Grinder

The coffee grounds have to be perfectly uniform — each has to be exactly the same size – to allow the water to envelope the grain and extract the coffee. If the grounds are too big, the water will pass through too fast and you won’t get full extraction. If the ground is too small, powdery grains clog up the filter and the water won’t get through. It can also force coffee grains into the cup. Yuck!

The size of the grain is the most important factor in making perfect espresso. Therefore, a good grinder is of utmost importance. 

A burr grinder uses two interlocking burrs to precisely crush beans into granules of exactly the same size. It’s like two stones milling flour, but on a micro level. The best grinders allow the gap between the burrs to be adjusted between 5 to 10 microns, which is about the size of a red blood cell.

A good stepless burr grinder is going to cost between $600 and $1,000. The Mazzer Mini Espresso Grinder ($640) is built like a tank and loved by espresso enthusiasts. However, you can get a hand-cranked burr grinder that works very well for $30 to $90. Tim uses Hario Mini Mill ($30), an easy-to-use conical grinder that’s adjustable (very important).

Every time you have a different type of coffee or different roast, the grind has to be adjusted. Sometimes the grinder has to be calibrated batch-to-batch of the same bean and roast.

Under no circumstances should you use a common household blade grinder, which chops the coffee beans with a whirling blade like a blender. What comes out is a powdery mess with all sizes of grain, both big and small. This is a coffee crime. The length of the pour can’t be controlled and it’s the easiest way to get a mouthful of coffee grains.

Step 3: Use Fresh Beans

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, one of the first things he did was jazz up Apple’s internal cafeteria, known as Caffè Macs. The chefs installed a coffee roaster that regularly delivers 5 lb. bags of coffee to the studio. The roaster is underneath Building 4 on Apple’s campus, and complaints of the overwhelming coffee smell forced the kitchen staff to roast beans on the weekend. A fresh batch is now roasted every Saturday.

Fresh beans are an essential ingredient for great coffee. Ideally, roasted beans shouldn’t be more than five days old. After five days, the beans start to deteriorate fast.

A good source of fresh beans is Tonx’s coffee subscription service, with plans starting at $12 monthly.

Tim uses mostly Blue Bottle and Intelligentsia beans.

Step 4: Grind the Beans and Load The Puck

The amount of coffee you put into the puck should be carefully measured using an accurate pocket scale, such as the American Weigh SC-2KG ($20).

Maintaining the right density is critical. If the coffee is too dense, the water won’t pass through. If it’s not dense enough, the water will pass through too quickly. Coffee purists argue about the right amount of pressure, but 30-ft/lbs has emerged as a popular standard.

The density of the coffee can be kept constant with the use of Espro’s calibrated tamper ($90), a steel pestle for packing coffee grounds into the espresso puck).

Step 5: The Pour

Here’s the tricky part. After grinding and weighing the grounds, packing it into the puck with 30-ft/lbs of pressure, you’ll need to calibrate the pour time.

The pour time must be constant, and it can’t be messed with. The optimum pour time is 28 seconds. It must not, under any circumstances, exceed 30 seconds.

Hit the start button, then time exactly how long the machine takes to make your first cup of coffee.

If the coffee is made in say, 18 seconds, the water is coming out too fast because the grains are too large.

If it takes longer than 30 seconds, the grains are too small. Go back and adjust the burr on the grinder.

Keep trying until you’ve made a cup that pours in 28 to 30 seconds — not a second shorter, and not a second longer. You can usually hone in on the right grain size in about three pours.

Step 6: Add Milk

Apple’s team was first introduced to high-end coffee by Daniele De Iuliis, a British designer of Italian descent. He taught the other designers about the importance of the grind, the crema, and how to properly froth the milk.

Espresso machines use pressured steam to foam a jug of milk. High-powered machines produce ample steam; the secret is good technique.

Most people don’t foam their milk correctly. Newbies foam it with air bubbles that are too big. Correctly foamed milk is actually “micro-foam” and is great for making patterns. If your barista makes a leaf on your latte, rest assured the milk was foamed correctly. If you see a barista banging the milk container on the counter, you know they screwed up and made the bubbles too big (banging the jug on the counter brings the bubbles up).

The most important factor is a chilled container ($10), preferably made of stainless steel. The pros keep their milk containers in the freezer. Milk foams before it boils, and a chilled container prolongs the foaming process by keeping the milk at the optimum temperature for longer.

Hold the steamer just below the surface of the milk. When the milk gets hot and the foaming stops, its time to take the steamer all the way to the bottom of the container. Keep steaming until the milk reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Use a small thermometer ($10) hooked over the lip of the jug to measure the temperature. [In a pinch, the milk is ready when the jug gets too hot to hold.]

Some recommend using full-fat milk, but the fat content of the milk doesn’t matter. In fact, low-fat milk foams just as well as creamier milk.

This video from Paul Meikle-Janney, Head Judge for the World Latte Art Championship, has some great tips and technique for getting foam right:

Step 7: Enjoy!

Making coffee like Apple’s design team is a complicated but fascinating experience.

Once you’ve mastered the process, an intoxicating aroma will envelop your entire kitchen (or office). Your morning beverage will become unbelievably rich and smooth, without a trace of bitterness. That is the right way to start off a productive day.

For Starbuck’s sake, they should hope Jony stays in the computer business.

#

BONUS: Do you have a great coffee tip? Tell us in the comments! Leander will be sending an AeroPress, the Hario Mini hand grinder, and a signed copy of his book – Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products – to the person who leaves the best comment.

Also, would you like to see more rituals of top performers? Let me know in the comments — anyone’s schedule in particular you’d like to see on this blog?

The post Jony Ive’s Secret Coffee Ritual appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

As a thank-you to all of you today, I am today releasing the audiobook of The 4-Hour Chef…for free.

This includes almost 10 hours of recording: all of the chapters on accelerated learning, all of the ridiculous experiments and related stories, and much more.

I’m partnering with BitTorrent again to bring you a bundle of goodies. The full unlocked bundle for this release is 5.4 GB of free content (!), whereas my first BitTorrent release for the print edition was 187 MB. HD instructional videos? Bonus PDFs? You got it.

The audiobook also features guest narration from one of my heroes–bestselling author Neil Gaiman!

I’ve written about Neil before (read my gushing here), and if you’re not a fan yet, you will be. Special thanks to Neil, his amazing assistant Cat, and also to Max Adams, who acted as Twitter matchmaker:

@CelluloidBlonde tell @tferriss that I’m in.

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 27, 2013

I hope you enjoy the audiobook as much as I enjoyed producing it.  Here’s the announcement and download links from BitTorrent…

The 4-Hour Chef: Accelerating Learning for Free

What’s the value of a free read?

Last November, we partnered with best-selling author Tim Ferriss to find out. We handed out sections and drafts from his new book, The 4-Hour Chef, to BitTorrent fans. In turn, 880 thousand of them checked out the hardcover on Amazon. And 2012’s boycotted book about meta-learning hit 2013’s bestseller lists, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal.

A free read, it turns out, is a powerful thing.

So, what’s a listen worth?

We’re letting the people decide. Today, Tim Ferriss is giving away the full audiobook of The 4-Hour Chef, complete with six hours of HD creativeLIVE tutorials that bring the 4-Hour lessons to life. Call it an experiment in anti-cannibalization. Our goal is to see how different formats can feed off of, and feed, one another.

Here’s the deal:

Check out Tim Ferriss’s page on BitTorrent. You can instantly download several chapters of The 4-Hour Chef audio, Part 1 of the full-color ebook (62 pages), and three workshop videos from creativeLIVE.

Subscribe to the book’s email list, and unlock the full audiobook narrated by Ferriss, Neil Gaiman, and Adam Verner, plus ten additional workshop videos. It’s everything you need to master everything, basically: from the kitchen to the basketball court. Except the hardcover. (You’ll need to go here for that.)

Download The 4-Hour Chef Bundle

Instant Download:

The 4-Hour Chef: eBook Part 1 [PDF]

The 4-Hour Chef: AudioBook Introduction [Audio]

The 4-Hour Chef: creativeLIVE Workshop, Day 1 [3 Videos]

Unlocked Bundle

The 4-Hour Chef: Full AudioBook [Audio]

The 4-Hour Chef: Creative Live Workshop, Day 2 [9 Videos]

Get the hardcover / ebook.

###

Also Tonight (9/10) from 6-7pm PT (9-10pm ET)…

I’ll be doing a live Q&A on Twitter for 60 minutes. Ask me anything. Really. To make my day, download the audiobook first and let me know what you think! Here’s how it works:

1) Follow @merrelloutside. I’m partnering with them for this, so you’ll need to follow them to see my responses to questions.

2) Ask questions in the following format:

“@tferriss @merrelloutside [insert question]? #asktim”

3) I’ll answer ’em as fast as I can! Hope to see you tonight.

The post The BitTorrent Strikes Back: The 4-Hour Chef Audiobook Goes Loose appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

The above video is a short presentation I gave at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam.

It covers a basic framework for mastering any skill quickly, including languages, music, dance, and more.

What skill have you put off learning for longest… and why? Let me know in the comments. Perhaps I (or other readers) can help. Second, if you could learn one skill in the next six months, what would it be?

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Important afterword:

NOTE — For my competition launched last week (not too late to join), roundtrip airfare is covered for all four winners.

Related content:

The 4-Hour Chef and Meta-Learning — 200+ pages on all I know about accelerated learning

Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too

Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes

How I Deconstruct Languages (scroll through the list)

The post A How-To Guide: Accelerated Learning for Accelerated Times appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

How do you create a viral video?

I am asked this quite a lot. I’ve been asked by authors, TV producers, and first-time Kickstarter entrepreneurs. In my experience, the answers are the same for all of them.

In this post, I’ll deconstruct one example: The 4-Hour Chef (4HC) book trailer, which is now the most-viewed non-fiction book trailer of all time. Roughly 1.5 million views and counting.

Before we dig in…

First, let’s make a distinction: creating a “viral” video is not the same a creating a “popular” video, but both can be valuable.

If you use ads to drive 1,000,000+ views, a video is not viral; it is popular. If your views come from organic sharing (or incentivized sharing like DropBox), it can be considered viral.

This post is also intended as a companion to my post, Behind the Scenes: How to Make a Movie Trailer for Your Product (or Book), which goes into equipment, planning, and (tons of) other details that I’ve omitted here.

For later — below are resources that will save you a TON of time and tail-chasing…

Feel free to skip the box for now if you like:

VIRALITY RESOURCES:

YouTube Channel stats – http://vidstatsx.com/

Viral video chart – http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/all

Trending videos – http://www.youtube.com/trendsdashboard

Good blog posts on the topic, probably in this order:

–http://gawker.com/5912376/

–http://www.socialh.com/a-little-bit-of-math-measuring-virality/

–http://tinyurl.com/bnowj55

Outlets that cover trends and tools in online video well:

–Reelseo.com

–Tubefilter.com

–http://newmediarockstars.com/

YouTube Creator Playbooks

– http://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/index.html

– http://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/guides.html

Now, without further ado, here’s how we got ~1.5 million views for my latest book trailer…

Step 1: Storyboarding

This is like creating a comic book for the trailer, scene by scene. It’s the same process used by Pixar, among many others (video example here).

Here was my first stab for 4HC:

Click here to enlarge the below.

Click here to enlarge the below.

Optional Step 2: If Budget Allows, Assemble a Team

For the 4HC trailer, I brought in several specialists to help with production and promotion.

Please note that a team is nice-to-have and not must-have insurance. To date, my most viral video had zero budget. Here’s what gets you 4-5 million views:

That said, I like to tilt the odds in my favor whenever possible. Here’s my A-Team for doing so when funds allow:

– Directing and post-production – Adam Patch

– PR strategy and implementation – Ryan Holiday and BrassCheck

– Marketing, YouTube influencers, and experimental campaigns – Mekanism (Thanks, Jason and team!)

But how do you choose someone like Adam, if it’s not Adam? You ask for proposals, of course.

Typically, before you hire a production lead like Adam (who also acts as a general contractor for the production team), they will put together a proposal or “treatment”, which includes an itemized budget.

For 4HC, since I’d worked with Adam before, things started with my storyboarding and an in-person lunch with Adam.

Below is the 4HC “treatment,” cobbled together from our subsequent emails and conversations. It gives you a good idea of what you might expect you see:

4-Hour Chef video trailer Treatment

Step 3: Shot List and Logistics

Once you agree on look and feel, you have to roll up your sleeves: it’s time to scout locations, find talent (if needed), and choose specific shots for a to-do list (the “shot list”) that you check off as you film.

Special thanks to Chris Young and the amazing ChefSteps team for letting us use their Mr. Wizard-like food lab in Seattle. We shot the entire trailer in Seattle as a result. Here’s the kind of fun we had (see first 15 secs):

Our full shot list is below. Note that “CU” stands for “close-up”, and “TT” stands for “tabletop”.

Step 4: Shooting Principal Footage

Not much to say here, other than shoot a TON of material when you have the chance. It’s easier to edit down than to add extra shooting days.

Below an example of original footage that will be magically changed in the next step. Here we used one of my favorite books as a stand in:

Step 5 – Editing

The first step is to cut down hours of footage into 120 or fewer seconds. This is tough but important work.

If you make the finished product look polished enough for broadcast, you might have opportunities (or make opportunities) to get it on major TV. Here’s the process I used to get bookings.

The 4-Hour Chef trailer was featured as my introduction on everything from Dr. Oz to The Hallmark Channel. It’s the perfect adrenaline rush and sales pitch wrapped into one. Especially for short-form TV interviews — typically 3-4 minutes total, with multiple hosts — you’ll be strained to get a word in edgewise. It’s fantastic to let your video hit the talking points, doing the sales job for you.

Now you have a “rough cut” of the trailer. This is first draft, without graphics or special effects.

Once the footage, cuts, and order of scenes is agreed upon, you arrive at “picture lock,” which means that the footage and length can’t be changed. Only at this point does it make sense for anyone to create time-consuming graphics, animation, or sync’d music. Something like this, for instance:

Here’s the complete progression from first “draft” to finished product. Can you tell what changes in each version?

Now that you’ve taken a shot, here’s the full commentary from Adam, taking you though it step-by-step:

And how exactly does Adam work his magic?

Let’s watch how Adam edits the opening atrium scene in The 4-Hour Body trailer, which also has roughly 1,000,000 views. But first, take a look at the finished trailer and notice the opening shot of me at my desk:

Now, we go behind the scenes:

Step 6 – Music

For The 4-Hour Body trailer, I chose music first (Splinter by Sevendust), which I then set visuals to. This turned out to be a licensing headache marathon, and I explain the whole how-to process here. And that was with the band offering it for free! For this new 4HC video, we had custom music produced after the video was complete. The talented Luis Dubuc provided a sync’d jam, and we were ready to roll. No fuss, no muss.

Custom music need not be expensive, and you can even use crowdsourcing with start-ups like Audiodraft. I’ve used them before as well (see here and here).

Step 7 – Launch and Promote

First, a super basic note on uploading. ENSURE YOUR VIDEO CAN BE VIEWED ON MOBILE DEVICES!

25% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices. I screwed this up for The 4-Hour Body trailer, and I’ve been unable to reverse the mistake and make it viewable on mobile; as a result, I’ve lost hundreds of thousands of views.

No option to change — shite!

So, avoid being a dumb-ass like me and get it right the first time. Back to launching once you’ve uploaded…

The 4-Hour Chef trailer premiered on HuffPo, then it was reposted to my blog here. When I announced the post my Facebook fan page, we promoted it through FB’s paid mechanism. Notice that this was all done on 11/7/12 and 11/8/12 — roughly two weeks before official book launch on 11/20/12.

One of the most effective promotions I did was a unique BitTorrent bundle of 680MB+ of free content. For the super-low labor involved, it drove fantastic numbers:

Watched the trailer on YouTube: 293K people

Visited the author’s website: 325K people

Visited the book’s Amazon page: 852K people

But that was just one piece of the YT traffic puzzle.

When it comes to YouTube, you need to realize what you’re up against in terms of noise: 72 hours of video are uploaded every minute. To capitalize on the opportunity (it’s the second largest search engine in the world), you need to plan. Spray and pray almost never works — your competition is too good.

So, what to do?

First off, do not split your ammo. If you’re considering ads to help drive traffic, do it when it counts: the first 24 hours, when you can combine it with all PR for a synergistic effect. Momentum begets momentum, and early success begets later success. I often pile nearly all book launch media/interviews into a 5-7 day period (Check out this madness).

Team Mekanism was responsible for 99% of all my YT-related PR and directly and indirectly 50%+ of traffic. BitTorrent and my PR that week make up the rest. Mekanism combined extensive PR outreach with early judicious use of TrueView ads and StumbleUpon traffic (Disclosure: I advise StumbleUpon).

Here’s Mekanism’s explanation of what they did, first as PDF with screenshots, then as text:

4 hour chef coverage from Mekanism

Bolded emphasis below is mine:

To help support Tim’s book launch, Mekanism took a three tiered approach: connecting him to relevant online influencers, hosting a contest on Pinterest (to expand his exposure among the female demographic), and promoted content within Slideshare.

[TIM: Slideshare is hugely underused for product launches. We used it for The 4-Hour Body as well.]

Online Influencers:

To drive widespread awareness of The 4-Hour Chef, Mekanism reached out to credible online influencers to help drive word-of-mouth. Mekanism reached out to bloggers and YouTubers across a variety of verticals relevant to each of the different chapters within the book. For example:

• Food Enthusiasts

• Male Lifestyle

• Science + Tech Bloggers

• Mom Bloggers

• Lifehackers

In researching outlets and people, Mekanism took an approach very similar to that outlined by Mike Del Ponte in his Hacking Kickstarter post. The key is establishing relationships, and ensuring your content/message is tailored to each individual blogger’s audience. To accomplish this, Mekanism not only crafted custom pitches, but also provided a wealth of assets that could be freely used: exclusive excerpts, interviews with Tim (live or recorded), his video book trailers, images, etc.

Without a doubt, the most engaged audiences were those of several YouTube stars/channels, specifically SourceFed & WheezyWaiter. These appearances led to thousands of comments and likes and contributed to YouTube being the second largest traffic drive to Tim’s target landing pages.

Slideshare:

We wanted to see if it was possible to get a deck outlining the benefits of the 4-Hour Chef on the homepage of Slideshare, vis a vis having it rank on Slideshare’s ‘Top Presentation’s of the Day’ section. Slideshare was chosen because it has a well-educated and affluent user base that matches the target consumer of The 4-Hour Chef (69% college grads, 37% have $100k+ HHI).

First, a Slideshare deck was created to outline the benefits/chapters of 4HC. Next, we did the math to determine how many views, and in what period of time, were needed to drive the into the ‘Top Presentation’s of the Day’ section. Based on our observations, it seemed as though 15,000 views within a 24-hour period was likely enough.

Having this understanding of required viewing density, we uploaded our deck and promoted it via paid StumbleUpon ads and drove the content to the homepage of Slideshare via “stumbles,” ensuring everyone visiting the site the day of launch saw the presentation.

Keep in mind that the sum is greater than the parts. Here are more of the parts, written in a report to Tim:

“Slideshare Presentation

– Made the ‘Hot on Facebook’ and ‘Hot on Twitter’ section (on homepage)

– Was ‘Featured’ (also on homepage)

– Peaked as 2nd most popular presentation last night

Sourcefed Video

-#3 most liked & top favorited ‘How To & Style’ video of the day

-#5 most viewed ‘How To & Style’ video of the day

-#65 top favorited & most liked video on YouTube today (of all videos across all categories)”

BLOG COVERAGE

http://sourcefednews.com/workout-systems-roundup/

http://www.tubefilter.com/2012/11/19/tim-ferriss-book-trailer-youtube-4-hour-chef/

http://www.dannyroddy.com/main/my-interview-with-bad-ass-mother-fucker-tim-ferriss

http://www.tubefilter.com/2012/11/19/tim-ferriss-book-trailer-youtube-4-hour-chef/

http://www.insidehook.com/nation/tim-ferriss/

http://gearpatrol.com/2012/11/21/tim-ferriss-the-4-hour-chef/

http://www.5minutesformom.com/67553/an-interview-with-tim-ferriss-author-of-the-4-hour-chef/

http://newmediarockstars.com/2012/11/tim-ferriss-interview/

YOUTUBE INFLUENCERS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ggiUlMujSE&list=UU_gE-kg7JvuwCNlbZ1-shlA&index=2&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olSnJC3juXw&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw7nZmqiH1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J8fiuG7z-I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAJBnwBxAWs

The goal of all of this, of course, is to build a rapid view count number that pushes the trailer above the noise. This then propagates into additional organic sharing, all of which sells books.

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So, those are the basics of stacking the deck in your favor for online video. Most posts on “virality” are vague generalities, so I wanted to dig into the weeds. Hopefully you like this.

Are there any other details you’d like to see, or questions you’d like answered? Please let me know in the comments.

The post How to Create a Viral Book Trailer (or Get 1,000,000 Views for Almost Anything) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Inspired by The 4-Hour Chef, the friendly folks over at the startup Maptia (launching soon) have created this fun typographic map of flavors from around the world. You can download a large version by clicking here.

Aside from the map, this post showcases 36 simple recipes and flavor combinations from the 36 regions covered in the map…

Maptia has ambitious plans to re-imagine mapping. They want to make it easy for everyone to create beautiful maps of their lives and the places around them.

Enter Maptia

Here in Morocco, in the kitchen of Maptia HQ, there lies a somewhat battered copy of The 4-Hour Chef – a little dog-eared and spice-stained from enthusiastic use.

Being naturally rather map-obsessed, we loved Tim’s flavor and place pairings on pages 148-149 of his book. They come from all over the world, and range from the perfumed and fragrant herbs of Provence (thyme, rosemary, and sage) to the sweet and spicy tastes of Indonesia (tamari, brown sugar, peanut, and chili). One of our favorite recipes Tim has since shared, based on another of these pairings, is scrambled eggs mixed with garlic, cumin, and dried mint for a tasty North East African twist.

The Recipes

For the more adventurous food lovers out there, we reached out to a few of our favourite chefs and food bloggers to put together a collection of recipes from all of the places Tim featured on the above flavor map.

Thank you to all of you who took the time to share recipes, ranging from mouthwatering main meals to tempting desserts. To give you a quick taste of the spectrum (pun intended) – we have everything Shaheen Peerbhai‘s grandma’s homemade Chicken Curry recipe from India, while from the more temperate European climate, we have a traditional Normandy Apple Tart by Imen McDonnell.

If you’re getting hungry by now, bookmark this page so you can come back to cook these recipes later… It’s possible travel around the world in your kitchen.

Here are the 36 flavor combinations in action!

1. Yucatán (map) | Traditional Sopa de Maiz shared by Sarah Kieffer who told us, “This soup is one of my absolute favorites – so many good flavors happening at the same time. The drizzle of lime juice is the best part.”

2. Mexico (map) | Homemade Tacodeli-style Salsa via Tribeza – thanks to Noah Kagan for the suggestion!

3. India (General) (map) | Homemade Chicken Curry from Shaheen Peerbhai

4. Northern India (map) | Garlic Chicken by Prerna Singh who says, “You don’t need to rush to the supermarket or an Indian grocery store to buy ingredients for this recipe. It’s pretty straightforward! You just need chicken and tons of garlic along with some basic ingredients like lemon and whatever you have in your spice shelf.”

5. Southern India (map) | Deliciously simple Nan Khatai baked by Tanvi Srivastava

6. Bengal (map) | Bengali style Aloo Dum from Archana Doshi

7. Middle East (map) | Quick but tasty Baba Ganoush from Cara Eisenpress

8. North Africa (map) | Harissa Turkey Meatballs by Lydia Walshin

9. Morocco (map) | Vegetable Tagine from David & Luise

10. East Africa? (map) | Pigeon Peas in a mild Coconut Curry by Sukaina

11. West Africa (map) | West African Ginger Drink via The Kitchn

12. North East Africa (map) | Ful Medames on Serious Eats

13. Greece (map) | Greek Nachos from Ashley Rodriguez

14. Italy (map) | Spaghetti with fresh Soppressata by Lindsay & Taylor

15. Northern Italy (map) | Tomato Flatbreads with Anchovy Oil from Nicole Gulotta

16. Southern Italy (map) | Arancini Di Riso by Michael Natkin

17. France (map) | Spectacular baked Mont d’Or cheese from David Lebovitz

18. Southern France (map) | Old-fashioned Merveilles by Mimi Thorisson

19. Normandy (map) | The traditional Apple Tart baked by Imen McDonnell

20. Provence (map) | Provencal Vegetable Tian by Martha Stewart

21. Spain (map) | Gazpacho from Matt Armendariz

22. Hungary (map) | Hungarian Pork Stew by Cheri

23. Eastern Europe (map) | Wild Mushroom and Onion Kasha via Bon Appétit

24. Northern Europe (map) | Swedish Kalops? from Kimberly Killebrew

25. Central Asia (map) | Risotto Balls with Mango Chili Sauce by Sneh Roy

26. Burma (map) | Burmese Tofu Salad from Katherine

27. Nepal (map) | Sekwa Chara (Nepalese Chicken Roast) via Awesome Cuisine

28. Thailand (map) | Thai Shrimp Cakes from Leela Punyaratabandhu

29. Vietnam (map) | Beef Pho Noodle Soup from Andrea Nguyen via Jodi Ettenberg

30. Laos (map) | Spicy Laotian Beef Salad by Katherine Foshko via Victoria Frolova

31. Japan (map) | Mouthwatering Takoyaki from Stephane Lemagnen, who says, “It’s my favourite street snack in Osaka.”

32. Indonesia (map) | Nasi Goreng from Jun

33. Korea (map) | Warm Tofu with Spicy Garlic Sauce by Alexandra Stafford, who says, “Both healthy and satisfying, this warm tofu costs next to nothing to prepare, comes together in 10 minutes, and is completely delicious.”

34. China (map) | Stir-fried Nai Bai via Noob Cook

35. Szechuan (map) | Peppercorn Roasted Chicken from Jaden Hair

36. Canton (map) | Char Siu (Barbecued Pork) by Diana Kuan who reckons that, “Along with Wonton Noodle Soup, Char Siu is the Cantonese people’s greatest contribution to mankind.”

And A Mini Culinary Challenge (Just for Fun)

Whoever shares the most interesting or unusual recipe (with accompanying photo or video) by 5pm PDT this Sunday (24 March) will receive a one-off wall print of our original hand-painted typographic map above.

Your submission could be a family recipe that has been passed down through the generations, or perhaps one of your own experiments in the kitchen. Bonus points for creativity!

Here’s how it works:

1) Post your recipe and accompanying photo or video (perhaps a 6-second Vine snapshot?) somewhere online.

2) Tweet the URL of your submission (and the place it is from) to @Maptia and @tferriss, and make sure to include the hashtag #RTWflavors.

3) Make sure to tweet us your submission before 5pm PDT this Sunday (24 March).

Rules of thumb:

– The recipe must come from (or be inspired by) one of the 36 places listed above in the photographic tributes to the flavors.

– It must be an original recipe, or your own twist on an existing recipe. Do not violate copyrights or other intellectual property.

– The photo or video must be your own and must be of the recipe you are submitting.

As soon as the deadline (5pm PDT, Sun 24 March) has passed we will choose the person who has submitted the most interesting or unusual recipe, and send them the one-off wall print of the typographic flavor map. We will also feature the winning recipe over on our Maptia blog.

We’re really excited to try out some of your recipes and to see where in the world your culinary imaginations have taken you… Good luck!

Bonus: The Flavor Combo Pics

With such diversity and color among the different flavors Tim wrote about, we decided what better way to get people inspired about using them in their cooking than to create a photographic tribute for each place and each set of flavors on the map. Here they are:

(Photos: Sources listed here)

The post A World Map of Flavors – 36 Regions, 36 Herb and Spice Combinations appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Greetings from Paris!

I am ecstatic to announce that The 4-Hour Chef has won Best First Cookbook at the 18th Annual “Best in the World” Gourmand World Cookbook Awards (!!!).

26,000+ food and wine books are produced every year, and 8,000+ books from more than 100 countries participate in the Gourmand Awards.

I was at a loss for words on the platform above. I was more surprised than this (see :08 forward).

Thank you to everyone who helped make this book a reality. It was all worth it.

Thank you to every one of you, my dear readers. You’re the reason I keep writing.

Woohoo!

Tim

The post The 4-Hour Chef Wins — Gourmand Awards "Best in the World" appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Ya’ll rock! (Picture: Broken down on the roadside, pre-Burning Man).

Without further ado, the results of the video trailer competition!

All entries were viewed by me and my esteemed panel of judges, elves, and magic robots. As explained in the original post, the winner provided the best combination of creativity, book explanation, and total view count.

The Winner

The winner of the $2,500 USD and 60-min call with me (should he choose) is Vince Wong. Congrats, Vince! Be on the look-out for an email from my team. Well done, sir.

Vince Wong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb6Oq7vD-cw

CREDITS:

Directed / Produced by: Vince Wong

Script by: Vince Wong / Jared Croslow

Cast: Vince Wong / Bruna Silva

Camera Operations: Hall & Max

Camera Assistants: Mink / Ploy

Sound Design: Hall & Max / Audio Jungle

Editing / Special FX: Vince Wong / Jared Croslow

Location: Red Sky Bar, Centara Grand Hotel, Bangkok Thailand (Thank you for last minute official location approval, and for the complimentary cocktails!)

Vince’s blog: http://www.vincewong.com

Vince’s 4-Hour Workweek success story — 37+ countries in 2 years, $200,000+ earned in first 9 months.

Honorable Mentions

There were so many great videos, it was hard to keep count. The below is just a small sample. I once again concluded that — yes — I have the best readers out there. What a blast…

Contenga International: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXzrD8mfMpo

The Draw Shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJwOtmAWKk

Brent Thacker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiRccPXVlDk

Benedict Westenra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhipixFZDOc

Tri Mahon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB92hYNuVTs

Thanks again, all!

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Odds and Ends: Elsewhere on the Internet

If you missed it, here are two videos from my appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He’s a super chill dude and a legitimate fan of the books. It was a wonderful experience.

The post The 4-Hour Chef Trailer Competition – Winner and Honorable Mentions appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.