The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic — Quitting the Day Job, The Delights of the Magic Castle, Finding Glitches in Reality, Learning How to Use Your Own Brain, and Worshiping at the Altar of Wonder (#679)

Tim Ferriss — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 22:12:20 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“If there’s no right time, then sooner is better than later.“
— Simon Coronel

Simon Coronel (simoncoronel.com) is legally classified as an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” by the United States Government for his skills as a magician and illusionist. Simon discovered magic in 1999 as a first-year student at Melbourne University. He then spent five years working full time in management consulting while juggling his “secret” performance career.

He’s currently a jigsaw puzzle designer for The Magic Puzzle Company, which has the #1-backed puzzle on Kickstarter of all time, and is a regular performer at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Simon has appeared twice on the hit TV show Penn & Teller: Fool Us. He has won over a dozen international awards for magic, including being crowned the World Champion of Magic in 2022 at FISM, the Olympics of magic.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by AeroPress 3-in-1 coffee press for delicious brews, Allbirds incredibly comfortable shoes, and LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts

Listen onSpotify

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#679: Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic — Quitting the Day Job, The Delights of the Magic Castle, Finding Glitches in Reality, Learning How to Use Your Own Brain, and Worshiping at the Altar of Wonder

This episode is brought to you by AeroPress! If you haven’t tried coffee made with an AeroPress, you’re in for a treat. With more than 45,000 five-star reviews and customers in more than 60 countries, it might be the highest-rated coffee maker on the planet. This press uses a patented 3-in-1 technology that combines the best of several brew methods into one, easy-to-use, very portable device. Because it combines the best of 3 methods, you get a cup that is full bodied, like a French press; smooth and complex, like when using the pour-over method; and rich in flavor, like espresso.

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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

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Want to hear a podcast episode with someone Simon once fooled? Listen to my interview with Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller fame), in which we discussed practicing skepticism without cynicism, compensating for weak visual memory, youthful meanderings, making several grand per week as a technically homeless street performer, de-escalating hostility with wits and a milkshake, losing 0.9 pounds a day for four months, hanging out with the legendary Richard Feynman, and much more.

#405: Penn Jillette on Magic, Losing 100+ Pounds, and Weaponizing Kindness

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

SHOW NOTES

[06:12] Radical earliness.
[08:23] The Magic Castle.
[17:27] Catching the magic bug at age 18.
[19:56] Acknowledging neurodivergence.
[28:16] Glitches in Reality.
[30:53] The road to winning the 2022 FISM World Championship of Magic.
[53:04] Workshopping out the kinks before the competition.
[57:59] The muse and the Shoot seal of approval.
[1:01:31] Gauging audience perception and finding balance pre-game.
[1:05:49] The big day.
[1:18:45] Categories of stage magic.
[1:20:15] Ugly crying through victory.
[1:30:10] The immediate aftermath.
[1:34:03] A homecoming drink at the Magic Castle.
[1:36:37] Why a later start in magic was lucky.
[1:39:13] How working at Accenture played into Simon’s weaknesses.
[1:45:30] Making the decision to do magic full-time.
[1:52:34] Hotbeds of magical innovation.
[1:55:57] Mentalism misgivings.
[2:01:13] Why learning magic can be so daunting for a beginner.
[2:07:29] How Simon teaches magic.
[2:10:45] Magic in the media.
[2:14:35] Is atheism a prerequisite for the modern magician?
[2:16:14] Jigsaw puzzles.
[2:23:26] Parting thoughts.

MORE SIMON CORONEL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Fear and enthusiasm battled. And fear kept winning.”
— Simon Coronel

“If there’s no right time, then sooner is better than later.”
— Simon Coronel

“Magic is so much broader and so much deeper than people ever realize. There are so many different rooms in the house of magic, you could spend 10 lifetimes on it and not even get close to everything there is to know and learn.”
— Simon Coronel

“If you know how it’s done, that illusion doesn’t happen. And so the tree falls in the woods and there is no sound because there is no magic without the mystery.”
— Simon Coronel

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic — Quitting the Day Job, The Delights of the Magic Castle, Finding Glitches in Reality, Learning How to Use Your Own Brain, and Worshiping at the Altar of Wonder (#679) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning (#678)

Tim Ferriss — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 21:57:52 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“We’re asking our team members to be snipers, rally car drivers, CrossFit athletes, butchers. The people we have on our teams just have these extraordinary skill sets. It’s the funnest thing to watch a guy in his first week.”
— Jake Muise

Jake Muise (@mauinuivenison) is CEO at Maui Nui Venison, a company he co-founded in 2017 that works to balance invasive axis deer populations on the island of Maui, channeling that management into incredible nutrient-dense food. Maui Nui was selected for Fast Company’s “Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Agriculture of 2023,” and its venison has been served in restaurants across the country, including Alinea, The French Laundry, and Saison. Prior to Maui Nui, Jake was executive director of the Axis Deer Institute for 12 years, part of a two-decades-long project focused on axis deer and their long-term management in Hawai’i.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business; Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts

Listen onSpotify

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#678: Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

Go to EightSleep.com/Tim and save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia.

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Want to hear an episode with someone else who hunts with a mindset of conservation? Listen to my interview with MeatEater‘s Steven Rinella, in which we discuss how he got me to overcome a lifetime of negative association with hunting and hunters, why a decline in hunting and fishing license sales in the United States is worrisome, the role of hunters in ensuring prey species remain plentiful, the problem with conservation efforts that become overly politicized, recommendations for reconnecting with nature, and much more.

#470: Steven Rinella on Hunting (and Why You Should Care), Reconnecting with Nature, Favorite Trips, and More

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

Connect with Jake Muise:

Maui Nui Venison | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

SHOW NOTES

[06:05] Lava cowboys.
[14:00] What does Maui Nui mean?
[15:07] A Hawai’i history primer.
[22:26] The problem with (and delicious solution to) axis deer in Hawai’i.
[30:18] The three-year hunt that became the Maui Nui springboard.
[43:54] The life-changing power of volleyball and free pizza.
[52:18] Seven on, seven off.
[57:01] Processes, metrics, and moon-fluence.
[1:00:41] Surpassing USDA regulations — in the wild.
[1:07:59] A typical night of harvesting.
[1:15:09] The humble, hungry, and smart way to build a world-class team.
[1:21:46] Feedback that separates the As and Bs from the Cs.
[1:30:21] Assigned and recommended reading.
[1:35:01] Nutrient density.
[1:46:10] Clawback allowances.
[1:49:20] Secret Pinterest boards.
[1:52:59] The old lady on the couch game.
[1:57:06] Tug of war.
[1:59:57] Can the business sustainably scale up without selling out?
[2:03:57] Jake’s billboard.
[2:06:00] Parting thoughts.

MORE JAKE MUISE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“We’re asking our team members to be snipers, rally car drivers, CrossFit athletes, butchers. The people we have on our teams just have these extraordinary skill sets. It’s the funnest thing to watch a guy in his first week.”
— Jake Muise

“We have to pick up every single one of these animals and carry them on our backs because you’re not allowed to drag them. You can either introduce contaminants and/or bruise the meat. And it’s actually one of my favorite parts of the night, as it is the complete opposite of the rest of the meat industry. After you’ve killed this animal for food, you’re carrying this animal on your back into its next stage of life with the food. And there’s an individual connection with each one of these animals. And it’s something that every guy on our team really takes pride in—being able to pick up these giant, 250-pound animals across razor sharp lava.”
— Jake Muise

“At Maui Nui … we find the balance that’s best for all of our communities—ecosystem communities, food system communities, our human communities, nearshore fisheries.”
— Jake Muise

“Kids are your greatest joy, and they will frustrate you more than anybody on the planet can.”
— Jake Muise

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning (#678) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

HERESIES — Exploring Animal Communication, Cloning Humans, The Dangers of The American Dream, and More (#677)

Tim Ferriss — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 13:16:44 +0000

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I’m very excited to publish this episode. This is an experimental format, and we are calling it HERESIES.

The objective of this format is to encourage and celebrate independent thinking.

Please enjoy!

Bios of the co-hosts and guests:

Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. You can find my most recent interview with him at tim.blog/kevinkelly.

He is the author of the new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. Other books by Kevin Kelly include Out of Control, the 1994 classic book on decentralized emergent systems; The Silver Cord, a graphic novel about robots and angels; What Technology Wants, a robust theory of technology; Vanishing Asia, his 50-year project to photograph the disappearing cultures of Asia, and The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, a New York Times bestseller.

Kevin is currently co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock in a mountain that will tick for 10,000 years. He also has a daily blog; a weekly podcast about cool tools; and a weekly newsletter, Recomendo, which is a free, one-page list of six very brief recommendations of cool stuff. He is also a Senior Maverick at Wired. He lives in Pacifica, California.

****

Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America. You can find my interview with him at tim.blog/noah.

Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.

Noah is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.

He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He is the author of 10 books, including Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—and What We Should Do About It; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building; Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition; Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices; and The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

His upcoming book is Bad Jew: A Perplexed Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People, which is currently available for pre-order.

***

Maggie Spivey-Faulkner is an anthropological archaeologist and practitioner of Indigenous archaeology, currently working as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. She also serves as an assistant chief of the Upper Georgia tribal town of the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek, a state-recognized Native American group in South Carolina. Her work focuses on using anthropological data to upend harmful misconceptions of Native American peoples embedded in public policy, science, and the public consciousness.

Maggie was raised in a tight-knit extended family in rural Hephzibah, Georgia. She is an international fellow of The Explorers Club, a former junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018 and her A.B. from Harvard College in 2008.

***

Joshua L. Steiner is a partner at SSW, a private investment firm, and a senior adviser at Bloomberg, L.P., where he was previously Head of Industry Verticals. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Steiner co-founded and was co-president of Quadrangle Group, LLC, a private equity and asset management firm. Before co-founding Quadrangle, he was a managing director at Lazard. From 1993 to 1995 he served as chief of staff for the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

He serves on the boards of Yale University, the International Rescue Committee, and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Steiner received a B.A. in history from Yale and an M.St. in modern history from Oxford University.

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#677: HERESIES — Exploring Animal Communication, Cloning Humans, The Dangers of The American Dream, and More

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

SHOW NOTES

[11:34] Defining “heresy.”
[14:22] Josh’s heresy: We need to teach listening over talking.
[32:48] Noah’s heresy: Constitutions are overrated.
[55:01] Maggie’s heresy: American middle-class culture is ruining everything.
[1:14:54] Tim’s heresy: We’re on the cusp of meaningfully communicating with animals.
[1:35:23] Kevin’s heresy: Human cloning is OK.

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post HERESIES — Exploring Animal Communication, Cloning Humans, The Dangers of The American Dream, and More (#677) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

David Maisel of Marvel Studios Fame — Never-Before-Heard Tales of Hollywood Dealmaking, The Art of Aiming Big, Lessons from Power Broker Michael Ovitz, Combining Business Smarts with Street Smarts, The Making (and Importance) of Iron Man, Selling to Disney for $4 Billion, and Much More (#676)

Tim Ferriss — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 22:08:28 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“It’s having the vision and then going there and making it happen with whatever dials I need to turn—creatively or business or political or financing—to get it done.”
— David Maisel

David Maisel (@maiseldavid) is the founder of Mythos Studios and the founding chairman of Marvel Studios. In 2003, David pitched Marvel on his idea of Marvel financing and producing its own movies in a connected cinematic universe. He went on to executive produce Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Angry Birds Movie. In 2009, David arranged the sale of Marvel to Disney for $4 billion.

David is currently the Founder of Mythos Studios, an IP entertainment studio. The Ekos Genesis Art Collection, all 1/1 original hand-crafted digital art, is the first offering in the forthcoming Ekos Universe.

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users, LMNT electrolyte supplement, and Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts

Listen onSpotify

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#676: David Maisel of Marvel Studios Fame — Never-Before-Heard Tales of Hollywood Dealmaking, The Art of Aiming Big, Lessons from Power Broker Michael Ovitz, Combining Business Smarts with Street Smarts, The Making (and Importance) of Iron Man, Selling to Disney for $4 Billion, and Much More

This episode is brought to you by LMNT! What is LMNT? It’s a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I’ve stocked up on boxes and boxes of this and usually use it 1–2 times per day. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or Paleo diet. If you are on a low-carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness.

LMNT came up with a very special offer for you, my dear listeners. For a limited time, you can get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase. This special offer is available here: DrinkLMNT.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Vuori Clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.

Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at VuoriClothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you’ll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with David Maisel:

Twitter | Instagram

Connect with Mythos Studios/Ekos:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

SHOW NOTES

[09:25] Michael Ovitz.
[17:00] How David became Michael’s right-hand man.
[25:12] Creative interests.
[26:14] When David fell in love with comic books.
[28:34] Early Hollywood lessons — learned and taught.
[35:43] Resources for people aspiring to work in the entertainment industry.
[39:20] How Marvel enters the picture.
[48:11] A detour to Broadway theater.
[54:51] Making the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
[1:28:26] Why start the MCU with Iron Man?
[1:31:56] Decisions between development and deployment.
[1:36:18] Biggest challenges.
[1:39:45] Animated feature films.
[1:41:14] Not just another pretty suit.
[1:47:20] Five stars for Favreau.
[1:48:48] Why hasn’t David done more PR until recently?
[1:53:24] The surprise success of Iron Man.
[1:59:45] Wheeling and dealing with Bob Iger.
[2:08:50] Ron Burkle.
[2:10:35] Finalizing the big sale to Disney.
[2:14:36] Recommended reading.
[2:15:17] Building new mythologies and legacies in a post-MCU landscape.
[2:21:12] Parting thoughts.

MORE DAVID MAISEL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Part of managing creativity is knowing when to exert yours and when to get the best out from others”
— David Maisel

“It’s having the vision and then going there and making it happen with whatever dials I need to turn—creatively or business or political or financing—to get it done.”
— David Maisel

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post David Maisel of Marvel Studios Fame — Never-Before-Heard Tales of Hollywood Dealmaking, The Art of Aiming Big, Lessons from Power Broker Michael Ovitz, Combining Business Smarts with Street Smarts, The Making (and Importance) of Iron Man, Selling to Disney for $4 Billion, and Much More (#676) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Eric Cressey, Cressey Sports Performance — Tactical Deep Dive on Back Pain, Movement Diagnosis, Training Principles, Developing Mobility, Building Power, Fascial Manipulation, and Rules for Athletes (#675)

Tim Ferriss — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 22:53:00 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“You screw up your taxes, there’s a way out of it. You screw up your body, you might have a lifetime of pain.”
— Eric Cressey

Eric Cressey (@EricCressey), MA, CSCS, is president and co-founder of Cressey Sports Performance, with facilities in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Hudson, Massachusetts. He has worked with clients from youth sports to the professional and Olympic ranks but is best known for his extensive work with baseball players; more than 100 professional players train at CSP each offseason. He also serves as Director of Player Health and Performance for the New York Yankees.

Eric double-majored in exercise science and sports and fitness management at the University of New England and then received his master’s degree in kinesiology with a concentration in exercise science at the University of Connecticut. He has published books and video resources that have been sold in more than 60 countries. He regularly lectures both nationally and internationally, and his research has been published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. He serves as a consultant to New Balance, Proteus Motion, and Athletic Greens.

Eric’s free blog and newsletter can be found at EricCressey.com. You can also find Eric’s podcast at EliteBaseballPodcast.com.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, AeroPress 3-in-1 coffee press for delicious brews, and Athletic Greens’s AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts

Listen onSpotify

Listen onOvercast

#675: Eric Cressey, Cressey Sports Performance — Tactical Deep Dive on Back Pain, Movement Diagnosis, Training Principles, Developing Mobility, Building Power, Fascial Manipulation, and Rules for Athletes

Want to hear another episode with someone who understands the magic of movement and mobility? Listen to my most recent conversation with Dr. Kelly Starrett in which we discussed how our environment shapes us, optimizing vital signs and range of motion as we age, why we should be walking and fidgeting more, why balance training isn’t just for “old” people, how to extend the end range of motion, simple corrective exercises, cultivating timeless movement in a busy world, breath as a mobilization device, and much more.

#664: Dr. Kelly Starrett — The Magic of Movement and Mobility, Training for Range of Motion, Breathing for Back Pain, Improving Your Balance, and More

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

Connect with Eric Cressey:

SHOW NOTES

[06:08] The email responsible for this conversation.
[09:19] Why pinpointing the cause of lower back pain can be so challenging.
[20:22] Initial diagnosis through movement.
[22:59] How seemingly unrelated meds can exacerbate pain.
[24:38] Posture considerations.
[26:55] Addressing and correcting suboptimal patterns of movement.
[28:55] Resources for understanding movement screens.
[30:00] Ingredients that make up a lower back pain cocktail.
[34:42] Even with the greatest care, wear and tear over time is normal.
[40:19] Improving thoracic mobility.
[43:56] Conquering Quasimodo.
[45:14] Defusing deskbound damage.
[48:25] Practical exercises.
[53:37] Shocking controversies surrounding fascial manipulation.
[1:02:18] Role of the glutes.
[1:04:02] Strengthening the posterior chain.
[1:06:06] Power and strength vs. aging.
[1:08:57] Recommended reading.
[1:12:21] Medical diagnosis vs. movement diagnosis.
[1:24:53] How to ask the right questions when seeking treatment.
[1:34:00] Overrated exercises?
[1:35:39] What a movement diagnosis will look like for me.
[1:36:23] Infrasternal angle.
[1:39:06] Age and injury predisposition.
[1:41:58] “Get long, get strong, train hard.”
[1:45:34] The downstream effects of orthopedic interventions.
[1:48:21] Creating bulletproof athletes.
[1:52:42] Worst advice given often.
[1:55:29] What has Eric recently changed his mind about?
[2:00:06] Important upstream variables.
[2:02:38] Good stiffness. (Oh, behave!)
[2:04:49] Vetting reliable sources of information.
[2:11:39] How Brijesh Patel changed Eric’s career perspective and other parting thoughts.

MORE ERIC CRESSEY QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“We are big bags of water. And probably what’s happening with fascial interventions is that we’re changing the way that fluids move so that folks do have better gliding of tissues that are adjacent to one another.”
— Eric Cressey

“I hate it when people say, ‘I failed rehab.’ It’s like, ‘No, sometimes rehab failed you. You were trying and you just didn’t get the right coaching cue or the right intervention that you needed.'”
— Eric Cressey

“The hardest part is sometimes you have to counsel athletes away from something that they might really enjoy.”
— Eric Cressey

“Don’t specialize young.”
— Eric Cressey

“Try to find a way to do a wide variety of movements well into adulthood.”
— Eric Cressey

“You screw up your taxes, there’s a way out of it. You screw up your body, you might have a lifetime of pain.”
— Eric Cressey

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post Eric Cressey, Cressey Sports Performance — Tactical Deep Dive on Back Pain, Movement Diagnosis, Training Principles, Developing Mobility, Building Power, Fascial Manipulation, and Rules for Athletes (#675) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

I Feel Love: MDMA for Autism and Social Anxiety

Tim Ferriss — Tue, 30 May 2023 23:15:29 +0000

This is a guest post from Rachel Nuwer (@RachelNuwer), an award-winning science journalist who regularly contributes to the New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, and many other publications. Her reporting for the New York Times broke the news globally about the MDMA Phase III clinical trial and was highlighted by me, Michael Pollan, and Ezra Klein, among others. In 2022, Nuwer was among the inaugural recipients of the Ferriss–UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. She holds masters degrees in applied ecology and in science journalism. Her first book, Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking, took her to a dozen countries to investigate the multibillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade.

What follows is an excerpt from her new book, I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World.

Enter Rachel…

One group of people who are particularly at risk of missing out on social benefits—and who serve as a sort of canary in the coal mine for the insidious effects of increasing disconnection—are autistic individuals.

Autistic adults are more likely to experience high levels of loneliness than their neurotypical peers. While 7 percent of the general adult U.S. population meets the diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, one in four autistic adults do. Autistic people are also four times more likely to suffer from depression and eleven times more likely to have suicidal thoughts—problems that frequently both stem from and exacerbate social isolation—and they are 2.5 times as likely to die early.

Despite the serious setbacks that many people on the spectrum face due to living in a society that discriminates against those who are different, social anxiety, loneliness, and lack of connection are not inevitable parts of being autistic. According to a 2022 meta-analysis of thirty-four scientific papers, autistic adults are less likely to be lonely if—somewhat obviously— they have relationships, experience fewer difficulties with social skills, and have positive views and acceptance of themselves. While there are many different ways to achieve these things, some autistics have gravitated toward a certain particularly potent molecular tool.

Aaron Paul Orsini grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and as a teenager he remembers oscillating between being on the periphery of social gatherings and being “overly performative and needing to take over a situation.” At parties or at professional conferences as a young adult, he’d often feel overwhelmed by the bombardment of incoming sensory information.

When he was twenty-three, Aaron started seeing a psychologist for depression, anxiety, and what he described as “feeling that I would never ‘get it,’ and not really having any answers about how or why that might be.” During one session, the psychologist handed him a questionnaire to fill out without really explaining what it was for. After evaluating Aaron’s answers, the psychologist announced that Aaron was autistic.

In some ways, this news came as a relief. Knowing that he was autistic provided Aaron with a new way to conceive of his specific challenges and potential strengths. Yet even with this revelation—and to his distress—his lifelong habit of focusing on his deficits and limitations proved stubbornly resilient to change. “Even though I could tell myself, ‘Oh, I have superpowers,’ I was still feeling down and feeling a bit like, for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be able to do things,” he said.

When Aaron was twenty-seven, he experienced something of a quarter-life crisis and wound up on a train from Chicago to the West Coast with only a backpack in hand. He befriended a group of free-spirited fellow travelers who gave him a tab of LSD—a chance encounter that changed his life. Sitting on a tree stump in a forest, Aaron felt his mind go still; his awareness widened, and his sensory issues suddenly seemed manageable. The LSD also bestowed him with an ability to better read between the lines of social interactions and emotions in ways “I quite literally could never have imagined,” he writes in Autism on Acid, a book he published in 2019.

Aaron discovered MDMA shortly after LSD, when he was invited to a gathering of artists, musicians, and other creative types. By this time, he was an old hand at classic psychedelics, but MDMA was unique, he found, in that the experience never strayed beyond the realm of his own narrative, “with my ego fully intact,” he said. “It was like taking a crystallized form of intuition.”

MDMA’s use as a tool for reducing social anxiety was also made clear to Aaron that night, when he sat down next to a stranger and unhesitatingly struck up a conversation. He felt comfortable, he found, not only chatting but also just being silent with the other person and enjoying the shared moment. “In that instance, I struggled to feel like I had a problem, and I struggled to feel like, if a problem came up, it would be bad,” Aaron recalled. “Everything seemed endurable, just because of how much love I felt for being alive. And for the other people with me as well.”

Aaron has taken MDMA around seven times since then, adhering to a general rule of giving himself at least three months in between sessions. “I’ve intentionally kept myself at a distance from something that can be so great,” he noted. But even the handful of times he’s tried it, he said, it “feels like a lot of learning,” especially with regard to social situations. As he explained, “I’ve been able to witness myself being social, rather than just contemplate why I am socially anxious.”

Aaron isn’t the only autistic person to have serendipitously discovered MDMA’s usefulness for overcoming social anxiety. “We’re a diverse bunch, but one of the traits that seems to be fairly universal for us is how curiosity-driven we are,” said Nick Walker, a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. “A lot of autistic people do end up experimenting with psychedelics,” she added. “I’ve certainly encountered people in the autistic community who have said they’d gone to a party, done MDMA, and felt much more comfortable than usual.”

In 2012 Walker was presented with an opportunity to dig more deeply into these intriguing anecdotal accounts when Alicia Danforth—then a clinician at the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and a colleague of [psychiatrist] Charles Grob—reached out to her about collaborating. Danforth was also in communication with MAPS [The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies], which had received some funds from a donor earmarked for research on MDMA and autism. Based on published data showing that MDMA could increase empathy in typically developing individuals, the MAPS team had originally thought about carrying out a study to test whether MDMA could also help autistic people feel more empathy. Both Danforth and Walker pointed out that for autistic people, however, this was misguided. As Walker said, “It’s starting from false premises that the autistic community has been pushing back against for a couple decades now.” Indeed, since autism became a diagnosis in 1943, mainstream psychology and academia have pathologized autism and cast autistic individuals as being emotionally deficient, including lacking in empathy. Those flawed assumptions spring in part from neurological and behavioral differences that can exist between autistic and nonautistic people, creating communication difficulties. Because neurotypical people are in the majority, though, misunderstandings have traditionally been blamed entirely on autistic people, Walker said, and autistics have also been expected to shoulder the full burden of trying to fit into a world not built by or for them. While a rising tide of autistic academics such as Walker are working to change this—as is the autistic community at large—for now the dominant discourse still treats autism as a disorder in need of curing.

Danforth is not autistic, but her PhD research includes an analysis of data she collected from autistic individuals who had used MDMA. The hundred accounts shared with her revealed a wide array of benefits people perceived from taking MDMA, such as increasing their courage, communication skills, and feelings of connection. Many people also reported lasting healing with regard to trauma and social anxiety. Given Danforth’s dissertation findings and Walker’s real-world experience, they proposed that MAPS pursue a study trying to address something that autistic people themselves tend to identify as a problem and that MDMA seemed to have a high likelihood of being able to help with: social anxiety. While social anxiety isn’t an intrinsic aspect of autism, Walker emphasized, it is “something a lot of autistic people have because they have a lifelong history of social rejection.”

The twelve autistic adults who wound up taking part in the MAPS-sponsored double-blind, placebo-controlled study all had very severe social anxiety, and most also had a history of trauma—a common occurrence for autistic people. Working in an autism-friendly space that Walker helped design, Danforth and Grob oversaw two eight-hour therapy sessions with participants who were given either a placebo or MDMA (75 to 125 milligrams, sourced from the original David Nichols batch). During the active sessions, Danforth and Grob guided participants through various methods for exploring and communicating their feelings, including art therapy and the use of a deck of around fifty cards that visually depicted emotions. After each active treatment session, participants received daily phone calls for a week and three in-person integration meetings.

As Danforth, Walker, Grob, and their colleagues reported in 2018 in Psychopharmacology, at the end of the trial, participants who had received therapy paired with MDMA had significantly greater reduction in their social anxiety symptoms compared to those who had received therapy and a placebo. In a six-month follow-up after the sessions, the social anxiety scores for people in the MDMA group had either remained at the same lowered level or improved slightly—results, Walker said, that “fit our most optimistic hypothesis.”

Berra Yazar-Klosinski, MAPS PBC’s chief scientific officer and a coauthor on the social anxiety study, said she was most heartened to hear personal stories from participants about how their lives had improved in the months and years after the trial. One individual who initially presented with obesity lost eighty pounds after treatment; another moved out from their parents’ house, got married, and had kids; and another joined a soccer club and finished their college degree. One participant even attended a scientific conference with Danforth and gave a presentation about their experience in the trial. “The fact that this person went from having severe social anxiety to talking onstage is amazing,” said Yazar-Klosinski, who has a brother on the autism spectrum. “It’s really those kinds of events that are the true measure of improvement.”

Aaron already credits MDMA and other psychedelics with dramatically changing and improving his life. After his book came out, and as he continued to post about his experiences online, he began receiving more and more emails from other autistic people looking to compare notes and share their own stories about psychedelics. In response, in 2020 Aaron cofounded the Autistic Psychedelic Community, an online group for people interested in the intersection of psychedelics and neurodivergence. The group sponsors weekly Sunday Zoom discussions that have attracted some eighteen hundred attendees, including people from as far away as Australia, Kenya, and Israel. Around four thousand people have participated on the group’s messaging forums, and Aaron also maintains an “Autistic Psychedelic Wiki” of peer-reviewed literature pertaining to psychedelics and autism. While education is important, Aaron’s main goal, he said, “is really bringing autistics together to accept one another and to demonstrate radical acceptance outwardly, because most of us are acclimated to radical rejection.”

Aaron is now collaborating as a coinvestigator with researchers at University College London to conduct a qualitative survey with autistic people about their use of psychedelics, and he is also working on an audio documentary on the same topic. Relatedly, in 2021 he published Autistic Psychedelic, a compilation of community essays and survey responses. Some of the stories people shared provided anecdotal support for the research findings about social anxiety and MDMA and mirrored Aaron’s own experiences. Shae, for example, described herself as a twenty-seven-year-old who thinks in colors, shapes, and sounds rather than words. When she tried MDMA, she said, she experienced “effortless and fluid verbal communication” for the first time in her life. Suzanne, a thirty-two-year-old who also has ADHD, wrote that MDMA made her feel “seen and understood by my neurotypical friends in a way that I hadn’t experienced previously and vice versa. I learned more about actively listening to other people and that at the end of the day, neurodivergent and neurotypical people both want to connect, to be understood, and to love and be loved.”

The valuable lessons MDMA can impart about communication, connection, and acceptance can apply just as well to people who are not on the spectrum, too. My neurotypical friend John Allison, for example, is the type of guy who isn’t afraid to go to a bar by himself on a Friday night, because he knows he can just start a conversation with whoever is sitting next to him. He wasn’t always like this, though. John described himself as being “not that well socially calibrated” growing up in Arkansas—a wallflower at parties and the quiet kid at school. “I wanted to be social and be able to make more friends, to have better connections and have a good time with other people,” he said. “But I didn’t really know how to get out of my shell.”

As he got older John pushed himself to be more outgoing, but he still frequently felt anxious and awkward, especially in groups. When he was thirty-four, however, he tried Molly [MDMA] for the first time at a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn and “just exploded,” he said. “I could talk to anyone and express myself in ways I hadn’t been able to before, and I could empathize more openly with strangers. I was surprised at how many different conversations I had, and how well they went. It was something I’d been trying to do, but I didn’t know how to do it until Molly just brought it out of me.” After the Molly-induced “jolt” to John’s system, he started making a point of trying to access that version of himself in his sober life. When he did, he found that he got the same positive reactions from friends and strangers alike. As these experiences built, so too did John’s confidence. Today, his practiced friendliness comes across as effortless and natural.

MDMA seems to be an especially effective tool for facilitating communication and overcoming social anxiety, [UCLA social neuroscientist Matthew] Lieberman said, because it “resets your expectations about other people and the reaction you’re going to get from them.” The drug also changes how people express and respond to emotions, a feature that researchers think could help them identify the fundamental components of meaningful connection. “We can use MDMA as a tool to bottle that sense of deep, instant connection and study it in the lab, and also as a tool to directly improve people’s lives,” said Sonja Lyubomirsky, a social psychologist at UC Riverside who specializes in happiness. In 2022 Lyubomirsky published a paper proposing a new field of study, psychedelic social psychology, that would incorporate psychoactive substances like MDMA into research investigating topics varying from how to foster a connection to nature to how to reduce prejudice and intergroup conflict. This “exciting new frontier” is only in its infancy, Lyubomirsky wrote to her colleagues, and she fully expects “an avalanche of ideas for relevant research questions and paradigms to emerge.”

Studies have already shown, for example, that individuals on MDMA are slower to pick up on angry facial expressions, but that they react with extra enthusiasm to happy expressions. The drug also lowers fear of being judged or rejected, freeing people up to experiment with different modes of interacting. There are hints that these lab-based findings might translate for some MDMA users into real-life gains. According to a 2023 analysis of data collected from 214,505 U.S. adults for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, people who have taken MDMA at least once in their lives, compared to those who have never taken the drug, have lower odds of difficulty interacting with strangers; of difficulty engaging in social activities, such as visiting with friends or going to parties; and of being prevented from being social due to a mental health issue. “A lot of social anxiety is about the idea of, if I put myself out there, I will be shamed, humiliated, and judged, and that’s terrifying to think about,” Lieberman said. “MDMA can move the needle on that by allowing you to have different experiences than you typically do.”

In best cases, he added, the drug can help “transform your understanding of yourself, the world, and your relationship to it, and give you new beliefs moving forward.”

***

Excerpted from I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World. Used with the permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Nuwer.

The post I Feel Love: MDMA for Autism and Social Anxiety appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More (#674)

Tim Ferriss — Sat, 27 May 2023 09:07:38 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“Question your truth.”
— David Eagleman

David Eagleman (@davideagleman) is a neuroscientist, New York Times bestselling author, TED speaker, and Guggenheim Fellow. He is the writer and presenter of the Emmy-nominated series The Brain on PBS, as well as the podcast Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman. In Palo Alto, California, he teaches at Stanford University, runs a startup neurotech company called Neosensory, and directs the Center for Science and Law. Dr. Eagleman also runs a film and television production company, Cognito Entertainment, to bring scientific themes (fiction and nonfiction) to the screen. He is the author of eight books, including the international bestsellers Sum, Incognito, and his newest book, Livewired.

Please enjoy!

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#674: Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More

Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of reality? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman here, in which we discuss the science of consciousness, how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, and much more wild stuff.

#585: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More

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

Connect with David Eagleman:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

SHOW NOTES

[07:10] Mnemonists and synesthetes.
[12:13] Creating new senses.
[17:39] Practical applications in practice.
[24:36] Five years from now.
[28:26] The curious resilience and vulnerability of memory.
[32:25] Testing the accuracy of memory.
[34:50] Meeting Francis Crick.
[36:25] The dangerous lumberjack.
[39:43] Dream projects.
[41:23] Exploring consciousness.
[44:38] Dreaming and brain plasticity.
[54:13] Influences.
[57:23] Why neuroscience?
[1:00:22] Sum: An extended failure that became a wild success.
[1:05:36] The Don Vaughn method.
[1:07:02] Recommended reading.
[1:08:50] Hypothesis testing.
[1:09:40] Lazy Susan advice.
[1:11:18] A week in the life of David.
[1:16:28] Livewired.
[1:20:48] Assumptions ripe for challenging.
[1:25:34] Possibilianism.
[1:27:35] David’s billboard.
[1:30:28] Empire of the Invisible.
[1:32:11] Learning from AI.
[1:34:42] Perception of time.
[1:39:47] Idiotheses.
[1:40:59] Parting thoughts.

MORE DAVID EAGLEMAN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“The brain is locked in silence and darkness inside the skull, and all it ever sees are these little electrical signals … yet when you open your eyes and look at the world, you see everything in full color and it looks so rich and you’re hearing music and you’re feeling things on your fingertips and you’re smelling cinnamon. All these things seem like very distinct senses to you, but they’re all made of exactly the same stuff, which is these electrochemical spikes. And so I got really interested in this idea of could we feed information into the brain via an unusual source, and would the brain just figure it out?”

— David Eagleman

“We experience lots of data. When you’re a kid, when you’re a baby, you don’t know how the heck to use your eyes or ears or whatever. You’re just getting all this data going into the darkness there and you figure stuff out. You figure out correlations.”

— David Eagleman

“Memory is a myth-making machine, and we’re constantly reinventing our past, especially as we tell the stories over and over again.”

— David Eagleman

“I think the notion of how plastic the brain actually is is something that’s totally underappreciated. There’s an idea that I think many people have, which is, “Oh, you’re just born with the brain. The brain unpacks and then you’re who you are,” but really, we are totally functions of our culture and our society. And one of the things that’s amazing to me is, imagine, Tim, that you and I were born 10,000 years ago, exactly the same DNA, but we wouldn’t be anything like what we are now. Even though with the same DNA we might look vaguely like we do now, but my God, the culture, everything we’re pulling in would be so different. And that’s what actually shapes a human being.”

— David Eagleman

“The beauty of science is that it’s always willing to knock down its own walls.”

— David Eagleman

“Question your truth.”

— David Eagleman

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post Neuroscientist David Eagleman — Exploring Consciousness, Sensory Augmentation, The Lazy Susan Method of Extraordinary Productivity, Dreaming, Improving Hearing with a Wristband, Synesthesia, Stretching Time with Novelty, Lessons from Titans of Science, and Much More (#674) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (#673)

Tim Ferriss — Thu, 25 May 2023 01:11:39 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“I do not take no for an answer. And this is a message that I say to young people: ‘You should dare to do things. And no one has the right to say you cannot bring a new perspective into things.’ And so I always say, ‘Be daring and persevere.'”
— Dr. Nora Volkow

Nora D. Volkow, MD, is Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health. NIDA is the world’s largest funder of scientific research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. Dr. Volkow’s work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a brain disorder. As a research psychiatrist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate how substance use affects brain functions. In particular, her studies have documented how changes in the dopamine system affect the functions of brain regions involved with reward and self-control in addiction. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and aging.

Please enjoy!

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

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Want to hear another episode with someone on the front lines of drug research? Listen to my conversation with Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, in which we discuss the durability of antidepressant effects from certain psychedelic therapies, improving the impact of scientific research, the obstacles to getting ketamine labeled as an antidepressant, the difficulty of applying placebo controls to psychedelic research, the training of clinical personnel in new science as it becomes available, avoiding another 50 years of psychedelic research darkness, and much more.

#619: Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy — LSD Microdosing, Classical Psychedelics vs. Ketamine, Science and Speed in New Zealand, Placebo Options, and The Infinite Possibilities of Studying Mind-Altering Compounds

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

Follow the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA):

Website | Nora’s Blog | Twitter | Facebook

SHOW NOTES

[06:09] Cadaver homework.
[09:07] The Trotsky connection.
[17:07] How Nora’s father viewed the role of science.
[20:59] Julian Villarreal.
[27:38] A perspective of perseverance.
[33:48] Instilling perseverance in younger scientists.
[35:08] Dancing with Demerol.
[40:05] The current state of addiction in the US.
[44:28] The War on Drugs.
[49:42] Increasing societal confidence in therapeutic psychedelics.
[55:38] Advice for researchers seeking more federal funding.
[1:02:12] Gauging the value of the hallucinogenic experience.
[1:06:04] Implications for multiple applications of one compound.
[1:13:36] Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and a promising alternative.
[1:19:49] New hope for Parkinson’s disease sufferers?
[1:23:51] Comorbidities, addiction considerations, and other parting thoughts.

MORE DR. NORA VOLKOW QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Science should be guided by data, but science has a religious nature to it also. And once a model is created, it becomes very difficult to change it. And it takes a long, long time for concepts that have been consolidated, as accepted as the truth, to be questioned.”
— Dr. Nora Volkow

“I do not take no for an answer. And this is a message that I say to young people: ‘You should dare to do things. And no one has the right to say you cannot bring a new perspective into things.’ And so, I always say, ‘Be daring and persevere.'”
— Dr. Nora Volkow

“In terms of the war on drugs, I think that basically what it did was it created a mechanism that could perpetuate structural racism. It is very tragic to see how its enforcement led to the incarceration of young black Americans.”
— Dr. Nora Volkow

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (#673) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Seth Godin — The Pursuit of Meaning, The Life-Changing Power of Choosing Your Attitude, Overcoming Rejection, Life Lessons from Zig Ziglar, and Committing to Making Positive Change (#672)

Tim Ferriss — Wed, 17 May 2023 14:56:19 +0000

Illustration via 99designs

“It is entirely possible that you work in a place where you have no options, you have no agency, you have no significance. If that is actually true, you should quit, because you don’t get tomorrow over again. My guess: it is not actually true. My guess is you have more agency than you are prepared to embrace.”
— Seth Godin

Seth Godin is the author of 21 international bestsellers that have changed the way people think about work. His books have been translated into 38 languages and include Tribes, Purple Cow, Linchpin, The Dip, and This Is Marketing. Seth writes one of the most popular marketing blogs in the world, and two of his TED talks are among the most popular of all time. He is the founder of the altMBA; the social media pioneer Squidoo; and Yoyodyne, one of the first internet companies.

His new book is The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams.

Please enjoy!

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#672: Seth Godin — The Pursuit of Meaning, The Life-Changing Power of Choosing Your Attitude, Overcoming Rejection, Life Lessons from Zig Ziglar, and Committing to Making Positive Change

Want to hear the last time Seth was on the show? Have a listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed the etymology of the word “hack,” the making of magic, why hiding behind words like “quality” or “perfection” as a means of postponing action to avoid risk is a cop-out, what Isaac Asimov and Gary Gilmore can teach us about writer’s block, skills with a disproportionate return on investment that entrepreneurs and creatives should consider cultivating, the importance of applying constraints and boundaries to the learning process, and much more.

#476: Seth Godin on The Game of Life, The Value of Hacks, and Overcoming Anxiety

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

Connect with Seth Godin:

Website | Seth’s Blog | Instagram | Facebook

SHOW NOTES

[05:42] The changes of aging.
[10:07] How Seth gets over momentary lapses of optimism.
[16:13] The Carbon Almanac.
[18:40] Addressing 21st-century nihilism.
[26:23] Finding significance and making a difference.
[35:34] The boss and the bees.
[44:47] Ethically reclaiming meaning from work in the Quaker surveillance state.
[51:50] Seth’s impression of my efforts over the years.
[56:21] Circumnavigating false proxies.
[1:02:17] Employee retention.
[1:05:54] Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play.
[1:08:07] Zig Ziglar.
[1:12:12] Seth’s early career life.
[1:13:45] Seth’s current career life.
[1:17:01] The 140-year-old piano.
[1:19:35] Meetings.
[1:24:04] Page 19 thinking.
[1:27:37] Soliciting useful writing feedback.
[1:31:36] Parting thoughts.

MORE SETH GODIN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“What a gift I have today to be in the shoes of somebody who, at 62, gets to do things well, but only because I’m walking away from things I can’t do anymore. And instead of focusing on what I used to have, I’m really working hard and getting satisfaction out of focusing on what I do have and what I can do.”
— Seth Godin

“We are living in a culture where there’s an overhang of all these people with loud voices talking about the end of the world because it’s the end of their world, but it’s not the end of the world.”
— Seth Godin

“Some people believe that the purpose of business is to enable culture, to enable humanity. And some people believe that the purpose of humanity and culture is to enable business. And I think those people have too much influence right now, and they’re wrong.”
— Seth Godin

“When we think about tomorrow or the tomorrow after that, given the damage we’ve all done, we still live in culture, we still have this miracle. You and I are talking while thousands of miles apart. We have access to every piece of information. We have magical computers that can understand us and talk back. We can reach out to someone in need. We can connect to people who need to hear from us. And if you want to just give up because the world is going to be different in 20 years, that’s your choice. But given that we’ve got this window, it feels to me like we need to up our focus on humanity and connection and possibility and improvement of the condition, and maybe not worry so much about public demonstrations of power, firing people online, being brutal in the service of profit. Because we don’t have a profit shortage, we have a meaning shortage.”
— Seth Godin

“If you can figure out how to get five or 10 people together, you can probably ban gas-powered leaf blowers in your village. And that will have 50 times the impact of you switching to an electric car. Plus the idea of banding together with five or 10 or 15 other people, creating the conditions for other people to find something to care about and succeed at it, will fill you with meaning, not with despair.”
— Seth Godin

“Milton Friedman just made up this nonsense about the only purpose of a corporation is to maximize its profit. It lets people off the hook and they become tools of a system that grinds stuff out.”
— Seth Godin

“It is entirely possible that you work in a place where you have no options, you have no agency, you have no significance. If that is actually true, you should quit, because you don’t get tomorrow over again. My guess: it is not actually true. My guess is you have more agency than you are prepared to embrace.”
— Seth Godin

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The post Seth Godin — The Pursuit of Meaning, The Life-Changing Power of Choosing Your Attitude, Overcoming Rejection, Life Lessons from Zig Ziglar, and Committing to Making Positive Change (#672) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

So You Love (or Hate) AI Art… Here’s the Same Recommendation

Tim Ferriss — Fri, 12 May 2023 21:08:09 +0000

Roughly five months ago, I held an AI art competition related to the fantasy world I’ve been building. I was trying to peek around corners, as I often do with new technologies.

Once it wrapped up, I felt a strange combination of things. It was something like one part falling in love; one part kid in a candy store; and two parts watching metaphorical birds flying overhead, harbingers of a massive forest fire on its way.

This post will share some learnings, art winners with highlights, and more.

There were a handful of rules for submissions, but the bolded portions below are the most important to me:

You can use any AI tools or combination of tools that you like, including DALL·E 2 (@OpenAI), Midjourney (@midjourney), Stable Diffusion (@StableDiffusion), Lexica (@LexicaArt,) NightCafe Studio (@NightcafeStudio), etc. You are also allowed to do manual touch-ups and fine-tuning. IMPORTANT: You *must* use Loom (@loom) or other tech to capture your full process.
…

Selections will be based on quality, creativity, presentation of process, and more. Process is important. People should at least be able to attempt to replicate what you did.

The entire point of the competition was to create this blog post, a simple collection of how-to tutorials that can get anyone up-skilled in a short period of time. Even if you hate everything about AI, here’s why I think it’s worth spending time on this…

The AI genie is out of the bottle. The more true experts I speak with, the clearer this is.

No matter how one feels about AI—and I have plenty of misgivings—the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. This is true for hundreds of sectors and millions of people, including artists. I’ve watched family members work their asses off as artists, I wanted to be a comic book penciler for 10+ years, and I’ve paid traditional artists hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. It’s a world that is near and dear to my heart.

But… there is no going back to the way things used to be. In fact, there is no compelling way to stall things for long. So the question for me isn’t “How can we stop AI art?,” as I don’t think it’s possible, but rather something like:

“What can artists do to get ahead of the curve?” or “How might proactive artists position themselves to benefit from this?” or “How can artists limit the damage of AI and carve out, or preserve, good niches for themselves?”

There are dozens of other similar questions we could ask, but I think the initial answer is the same for all of them: Learn to use AI tools.

To kickstart your art career, and even if you plan on using more traditional methods… learn to use AI tools.

To turbocharge your own art by streamlining mundane tasks… learn to use AI tools.

To learn the current weaknesses and blindspots of AI tools so you can plan around them… learn to use AI tools.

Most high-calibre artists have nothing to fear, many would-be artists have a lot to look forward to, and all artists have something to learn. If you would spend 10 hours at a weekend course that promised to improve the odds of a good living for the next decade, I think you should commit to spending 10 hours seriously using and scrutinizing the better AI tools. Even if you hate everything this represents, even if it’s an opponent you want to defeat, this is akin to watching tape of an opponent before a boxing match. Whether you want to surf the tsunami, dive through it, or get the hell out of the way, you need to understand the wave. To do that, you need to study it, and the sooner the better. The best defense is sometimes an early offense.

I hope you find this post helpful, and please leave comments with other recommendations. I’m sure I’ll get a few gems and a boatload of screeds, but such is the spice of the Internet.

This blog post is a rough draft and merely a starting point. And if you think the pace of AI development has been fast in the last six months, the next 12 months are going to make your head spin. I think the key is always returning your eyes to the road ahead of you instead of the rear-view mirror.

Just a few notes on structure before we dive in:

We included both “Winners” and “Honorable Mentions,” but all are included because they offered unique value or a unique approach.

I heavily weighed the incorporation of character traits. As I mention again below, it’s easy to make *something* pretty with AI, but to make a very *specific thing* with parameters and characteristics is much harder. For that reason, I tended to reward rougher art with better trait matching vs. polished art that used fewer traits.

Some tweets are no longer live, and we’ve indicated that with a comment.

Special Honorable Mention

I am putting the below Twitter thread by @JPEGHODL first, as the thread itself represents an excellent Midjourney 101 tutorial for people who haven’t used Discord much. This is placed here upfront, as many of the submissions use Midjourney:

Entry #2… pic.twitter.com/ZgauVCMbCG
— JPΞG HODL (@JPEGHODL) December 21, 2022

Winners

Tim’s comments on the below: This fella’s how-to blog post is fantastic. Highly recommend.
Original tweet by @ironclawai: https://twitter.com/ironclawai/status/1604528121360826373
Blog post with all process videos: https://ironclaw.me/2022/12/18/cockpunch-ai-characters-contest/

Tim’s comments on the below: Love this one. If you expand the Loom and watch and pause carefully, you can see the iterative process and also how disobedient AI is with some descriptors/prompts.
Original tweet by @Roof_boy_6ix: https://twitter.com/Roof_boy_6ix/status/1604672157744877568
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/3b395c838e8e4e098e7a2c633aa88f24

Tim’s comments on the below: Matches the below character well. Good touch-ups at the end, plus use of Photopea.com.
Original tweet by @FPOkenny: https://twitter.com/FPOkenny/status/1605265213808599040
Process video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA-Xsk-WkbM

Tim’s comments on the below: Great showcase of Midjourney + DALL·E for removing features vs. inpainting, plus shows some common limitations (e.g., hands), though those limitations have been improved recently. Good matching.
Original tweet by @nat_sharpe_: https://twitter.com/nat_sharpe_/status/1605267590670082048
Video process: https://www.loom.com/share/c91e8b09c0c54fb3bedcd1804996db26

Tim’s comments on the below: This process video is amazing. I love the AI + physical art chops, especially starting with absolutely no experience with AI.
Original tweet by @shizudelphia: https://twitter.com/shizudelphia/status/1605316934631051264
Process video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H3hurVusN4

Tim’s comments on the below: Excellent at incorporating the actual character elements! His faithful inclusion of traits is quite likely the best of the bunch. That was one of the biggest challenges for everyone who competed. Making something pretty with AI is easy, but getting it to make something with well-defined characteristics is much harder.
Original tweet by @PSHoudini: https://twitter.com/PSHoudini/status/1604796676182532096
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/8558d7597d3e414f8c69e0afb5810182

Tim’s comments on the below: Great explanation of Midjourney and fine tuning with Photoshop. I suspect that, more and more, both artists and writers will use AI to brainstorm rough drafts or starting points for heavy manual polishing.
Original tweet by @blockheim: https://twitter.com/blockheim/status/1605044205906165760
Video process: https://www.loom.com/share/1c6fe71de9b040dc97a8b46090d61941

Tim’s comments on the below: Fun use of traits and incorporated lore (e.g., Dakus), and the process video is also well done.
Original tweet by @WriterInVerse: https://twitter.com/WriterInVerse/status/1605387722033893378
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/3d5bfe11e4634c889c5ea5546dc7a18c?t=6

Tim’s comments on the below: Thematically strong, rapid iteration, great narration.
Original tweet by @FLitz: https://twitter.com/FLitz/status/1605380881039773696
Process video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQv5Xr2qJVA

Honorable Mentions

Tim’s notes on the below: This is a good demo of quick Midjourney use, as well as use of variations and upscaling options. Most honorable mentions are honorable mentions because fewer traits were incorporated. Nonetheless, this end product really ended up eye-catching.
Original tweet by @Shakkas_Art: https://twitter.com/Shakkas_Art/status/1605029397710667776?s=20&t=mZHz0kVbGrVT4NMVPR7ACw
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/2832c4abc7ad4ff0bc5de81959d2d031

Tim’s notes: Good process post, which I appreciate, as I sometimes digest things better via text. This is sometimes easier than freeze-framing the videos.
Original tweet by @BMAotC: https://twitter.com/BMAotC/status/1605157342550573057
Process blog post: https://medium.com/@BMAotC/the-ai-art-competition-beginneth-8d8d7cf70531

Original tweet by @gojeanyn: https://twitter.com/gojeanyn/status/1605397341875277824
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/1a87f89388104fc791a483cb07f2df10

Tim’s notes on the below: The manual addition of the nose/earring is great.
Original tweet by @moonordust007: https://twitter.com/moonordust007/status/1605375068624019456

Tim’s notes: Excellent process video and shows the refinement of prompts, batching variations, then the finishing in Photoshop. I’m a sucker for Japanophilia.
Original tweet by @FLitz: https://twitter.com/FLitz/status/1605394944075567104
Process video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgHbP9XfDBQ

Going Off-Menu

Tim’s comments on the below: This one simply made me and Kevin Rose laugh, so I’m including it for fun.
Original tweet by @PiratePorter_: https://twitter.com/PiratePorter_/status/1604349855878459393
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/998d7fc1d65940cc88d57eda258703c3

Tim notes on the below: This is clever. If you make it hard to see the attributes, you can dodge one challenge. I’ve seen some comic book artists do this with very dark styles that use a lot of black fills (e.g., shadows).
Original tweet by @Whisky_McTavish: https://twitter.com/Whisky_McTavish/status/1604187262253948929 [Note: This tweet is no longer available.]

Original tweet by @marluco: https://twitter.com/marluco/status/1605336280543375361?s=20&t=2XzfqZNP6tX-i1ut5Zt0Ng
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/fee0cced51744de48bb66986d19027eb

Original tweet by @Shakkas_Art: https://twitter.com/Shakkas_Art/status/1605036430019133440?s=20&t=GY4IKGAVA5NqcoYIDD1K4A
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/8874d9bc0bd94a09b548275b63e399f

Tim’s comments on the below: Everyone loves a good steampunk samurai…
Original tweet by @flamesbria02: https://twitter.com/flamesbria02/status/1605162558683746306
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/27959b7fe1ff42828bae5e43fa301949

Tim’s comments on the below: This one is very good for including detailed gauntlets, which seemed to be one of the hardest parts of the assignment.
Original tweet by @FromInfinityTV: https://twitter.com/FromInfinityTV/status/1604899487088246784
Process video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-G1cZLMM1Y

Tim’s comments on the below: Great combo of AI and manual tweaking. Too fast to replicate, but it was still worth including.
Original tweet by @Singularifica: https://twitter.com/Singularifica/status/1605090514167943168 [Editor note: This tweet is no longer available.]
Process video: https://www.loom.com/share/ec460d28935b4ac3a93389958332db4e

Tim’s comments on the below: Funny “boomerang” story; great “let me go off menu” experiments. Cityscapes, coliseums, etc.
Original tweet by @DanSchoonmaker: https://twitter.com/DanSchoonmaker/status/1605331136783204355
Process blog post: https://www.schoon.me/blog/cockpunch-ai-art

Screenshot of prompts by @shmichael_eth: https://twitter.com/shmichael_eth/status/1604612837036490752/photo/2

The post So You Love (or Hate) AI Art… Here’s the Same Recommendation appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.