Timothy Ferriss's Blog

I’ve been revisiting my Kindle highlights of Pattern Breakers, co-authored by legendary angel investor and friend Mike Maples Jr.

Mike was the kind soul who taught me the fundamentals of angel investing back in 2007/2008. He deserves a lot of credit for the wild startup adventures that followed. He’s one of my favorite people in Silicon Valley, a co-founding partner at Floodgate, and has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade.

Of course, Mike’s principles apply to founding or investing in early-stage tech companies, but many of them also apply to evaluating public stocks or creating anything for the wider world.

One simple distinction from Pattern Breakers worth revisiting often is this: interested vs. desperate.

Mike writes: 

[Some of these startups] embraced all the tenets of disciplined entrepreneurship. But, still, something’s missing. They aren’t getting the traction they expected. Why? Because customers are interested in what they have built, but they are not desperate for it. Suddenly you realize that your idea isn’t big enough. You followed the best practices for good execution, yet you’ve encountered the pitfall mentioned earlier in this chapter: settling for a limited upside, the dreaded local maximum.

…

Ultimately, in a start-up, there is a huge cultural difference between finding any number of desperate customers versus zero desperate customers. Many start-ups have a huge theoretical market opportunity but never find a single customer desperate for what they propose to build.

Seeking desperation—a signal for a potentially valuable problem to solve—starts early. One early testing ground is the “implementation prototype”:

Implementation prototype: A focused deliverable that helps you engage potential early believers to identify: What is the most important benefit? Who are the most desperate customers?

To get to the right product and the right business, you have to ask the right questions. Two examples:

In the case of Chegg, the most important question was “What is the limit of someone’s willingness to pay to rent a textbook?” In the case of Okta, it was “What is the most urgent management problem early-adopter cloud customers are trying to solve right now?”

Don’t ask whether people like what you’re planning to make.

People can love or hate what you’re creating, but you don’t want to land in the mild middle.

This applies to writing books, building companies, making crochet socks on Etsy, and a million other projects and paths.

The real name of the game is this: How quickly and clearly can you find your 1,000 True Fans? Sometimes, starting small is what allows you to go big.

The post On The Importance of Desperate Customers appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

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Sami Inkinen (@samiinkinen) is a Finnish-born, Stanford-trained entrepreneur and the founder and CEO/president of Trulia and Virta Health. Virta is on a mission to reverse metabolic disease in one billion people using technology, AI, and nutrition. Previously, Sami held roles at Microsoft, Nokia, and McKinsey & Company, after starting his career at a nuclear power plant in Finland. Sami holds an MS in engineering physics from the Helsinki University of Technology and an MBA from Stanford University.

A world-class endurance athlete, Sami is a triathlon age-group world champion and an 8-hour, 24-minute Ironman finisher, having completed the Hawaii Ironman World Championship seven times.

Sami also founded Fat Chance Row to raise awareness of the dangers of sugar and its connection to diabetes, rowing 2,750 miles from California to Hawaii with his wife—completely unsupported—while breaking a world record in the process.

Please enjoy!

The content of this episode is for informational purposes only. Neither Sami Inkinen nor Tim Ferriss is a medical professional, and nothing discussed here should be taken as medical advice or a substitute for consultation with a qualified healthcare provider.

This episode is brought to you by:

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TranscriptsThis episode (coming soon)All episodesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Sami Inkinen:

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Companies, Products, and Tools Virta Health Abbott Precision Xtra Blood Glucose/Ketone meterChatGPT (OpenAI)CostcoDEXA Body Composition ScanErewhonFord EscapeIridium Satellite PhonesKeto-Mojo Blood Glucose/Ketone meterKetoAir Breath Ketone DeviceMcDonald’sMellow Johnny’s Bike Shop (Austin)StarlinkThrifty Car RentalTruliaUS FoodsWhole Foods MarketYoung Presidents’ Organization (YPO)Sami Inkinen’s Writing“Hacking Your Run: 10% Faster in Four Weeks““Top 5 Tips: Getting and Staying in Shape for Busy Business People““Zero Miles to Go, Divorce Papers Still Untouched” (Fat Chance Row: 2014 California-to-Hawaii)Books The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People by Elad Gil High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood by Danny Trejo with Donal LoguePeopleDominic D’Agostino Elad GilAndy  GroveRobert RodriguezDanny TrejoBill WalshTommy WoodConcepts, Protocols, and Drugs ReferencedArea Deprivation Index (ADI)Fen-PhenGLP-1 Receptor Agonists (Ozempic, etc.)LöylyMASH / MASLDThe Norwegian 4×4 Interval ProtocolRezdiffra (Resmetirom) by Madrigal PharmaceuticalsType 2 DiabetesVO2 MaxPlaces, Institutions, and EventsHelsinki University of Technology (Now Aalto University)IRONMAN World Championship (Kona)McKinsey & CompanyMicrosoftNokiaSports Science Institute of South AfricaStanford Graduate School of BusinessWildflower TriathlonTimestamps[00:00] Start.[01:45] How Sami uses 15 minutes every Sunday to outrun the universe.[03:37] Virta: at a thousand employees and counting.[04:15] The 5 a.m. boot-up: cold lake, core work, and emptying the dishwasher.[06:45] Why mood follows movement before the brain even boots up.[11:54] Saying no to 99% of what “normal people” do.[19:29] The weekly architecture.[20:29] Two direct reports: the case for radical subtraction.[21:09] 553 CEO letters and the case for one scalable habit.[32:36] The text-file life plan.[33:32] The 15-year personal plan Sami stumbled into by accident.[34:30] The four-pillar formula for not cracking in 26 years of founder life.[38:20] What “white Japanese people” and beer steins in saunas have in common.[45:55] Smoke saunas, löyly, and the one Finnish word worth knowing.[48:37] The lean, ten-percent-body-fat triathlete who was quietly going prediabetic.[53:07] Why 93% of American adults are metabolically unhealthy.[56:05] Reversing type 2 diabetes the way Virta actually does it.[1:00:17] Most surprising interventions.[1:03:32] The pancreatic cancer trial that bought patients 35% more time.[1:07:02] The McDonald’s protocol: how to reverse diabetes from the drive-thru.[1:16:00] Why GLP-1 adherence collapses and Virta’s doesn’t.[1:21:10] Vegans, tofu, and the hardest macronutrient to get right.[1:25:27] The dose-response curve that lets perfect stop being the enemy of progress.[1:29:32] VO2 max blocks: how Sami trains an 80+ engine without burning out.[1:41:56] Hacking 10% off your running speed in four weeks.[1:46:09] Progressive overload, specificity, and the case against the long ride.[1:50:07] 45 days, three hours, and a contract to keep a marriage afloat.[1:55:27] The lightning strike in the middle of the Pacific that started a family.[2:01:15] The 36-year-old who bought his first car only because his wife made him.[2:05:40] The book recommendation no one saw coming: Trejo.[2:07:51] The PSA: chronic, progressive, and irreversible — three words Sami refuses.[2:11:40] Parting thoughts.SAMI INKINEN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Structure allows flexibility and spontaneity.”

— Sami Inkinen

“Mood follows movement and motion.”

— Sami Inkinen

“It’s actually very, very easy to let the world run your life as opposed to you running your life.”

— Sami Inkinen

“The biggest secret is saying no to 99 percent of the things that many people consider ‘normal’ so what you care [about] gets done.”

— Sami Inkinen

“The human experience is 100 percent subjective and if you’re not in touch outside of that, it’s just computers and algorithms. And when you really tune into the subjective experience, oftentimes the biggest decisions in life are based on that.”

— Sami Inkinen

“The love language of American capitalism is dollars. And so when you can help someone else to make money, you’re going to be very, very successful.”

— Sami Inkinen

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 5 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 5 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 5 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. Right now, get a FREE Welcome Kit, including Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Flavor Sampler, when you first subscribe. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones!

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The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”), member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The 3.30% Base APY on cash deposits is as of January 30, 2026, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum balance. The overall boosted rate is subject to change if the base rate decreases during the three-month promotional period. Tim Ferriss, who’s not a client, receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, which creates an incentive that results in a conflict of interest. Tim expresses his own opinions and Wealthfront does not endorse, sponsor, or promote them. This ad may not reflect the experience of other Cash Account clients, and similar outcomes are not guaranteed. Investment advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, not bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value. See full disclosures here. 

Want to hear another conversation about ketones, metabolic health, and what your devices might be missing? Listen to my conversation with ketogenic-diet researcher Dr. Dominic D’Agostino, in which we discussed the ketone measurement paradox of feeling sharp at low readings, the carburetor analogy for ketone production versus utilization, metabolic memory and becoming more fat-adapted over time, my 18-day keto experiment, intermittent fasting as a keto on-ramp, the glucose-ketone index sweet spot, post-meal walking and GLUT4 activation, one-week-per-month protocols, low-carb Mediterranean as the 80/20 minimum effective dose, and much more.

The post Sami Inkinen of Virta Health — Reversing Type 2 Diabetes, Rowing 2,750 Miles, and Lessons from Fixing Metabolic Health in 100,000+ People (#866) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Jerzy Gregorek (@TheHappyBody) is a 4x World Weightlifting Champion, co-founder of UCLA’s weightlifting team, and co-creator, with his wife Aniela, of the Happy Body program. 

To fill out the form on Cerebral Palsy Research Project, visit tim.blog/cp.

To watch Prisoner No More for free, click here.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by:

Matic, the intelligent robot vacuum and mop that navigates obstacles and needs no babysitting: MaticRobots.com/Tim Our Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro , using nonstick technology that’s coating-free and made without PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals”: FromOurPlace.com/Tim [image error]Listen onSpotify Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onOvercastThe Most Incredible Transformation I’ve Ever Seen — Jerzy Gregorek on Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Coaching, and the Power of Micro-ProgressionsAdditional podcast platforms

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TranscriptsThis episodeAll episodesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Jerzy Gregorek:

The Happy Body | YouTube

Jerzy’s Previous Appearance:The Lion of Olympic Weightlifting, 62-Year-Old Jerzy Gregorek (Also Featuring: Naval Ravikant) | The Tim Ferriss Show #228Films & Documentaries Prisoner, No More Programs The Happy Body Program Cerebral Palsy Research Project Form BooksThe Happy Body: The Simple Science of Nutrition, Exercise, and Relaxation by Aniela & Jerzy GregorekPeopleAniela GregorekGenghis KhanTae Jin ParkNaval RavikantJeff WolfeAdmiral Yi Sun-SinPlacesSan Jose State UniversityUCLAConceptsAutism Spectrum DisorderBattle of Myeongnyang (1597)Cerebral PalsyExploring Autism Through PoetryExercise Therapy for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue SyndromeExercise Therapy for FibromyalgiaHow to Use Micro-Progressions in the GymThe Myth of “No Pain, No Gain”Neuroplasticity of Brain Networks Through ExerciseWeightlifting and PoetryTimestamps[00:00:00] Start.[00:01:29] The transformation I’ve been chasing for a decade.[00:02:39] When an unstoppable coach meets an immovable cerebral palsy diagnosis.[00:04:35] Three pounds to 170: the bench press that woke a brain up.[00:07:17] Navigating autism and building the basics of communication that sustain higher education.[00:10:41] Treadmills exhaust, athletes progress: why physical therapy stalled where coaching took off.[00:19:00] Lethargy, sleeping in the car, and the quiet power of resting energy.[00:20:22] The 16-inch box that opened the bathroom door — and everything after.[00:24:26] Micro-progressions, certificates, ceremonies, and writing history onto a blank brain.[00:29:16] Parental dedication and appreciation.[00:31:54] The adulthood gambit: quit piano, quit training — if you can stick an 18-inch jump.[00:35:14] License plates as the gateway drug from counting to math five hours a day.[00:40:04] Jerzy’s coaching style doesn’t court approval.[00:42:42] Genghis Khan vs. Admiral Yi Sun-Sin vs. Jerzy vs. Tae Jin.[00:46:35] In search of the science behind such transformations: 25 patients, five years, and a method built to be replicated (interested researchers, visit tim.blog/cp).[01:05:39] Hard choices, easy life — and the call to find your starting point.

Want to hear the last time Jerzy was on the show? Listen to our conversation in which we discussed immigrating from Poland as a political refugee, the importance of flexibility, strength, speed, and posture at any age, winning in small increments, how an accidental introduction to weightlifting reclaimed Jerzy from three years of blackout alcoholism, The Happy Body program, the rusty hinge analogy, the three killers of happiness (sarcasm, complaining, and blaming), poetry as medicine for those who struggle with weight loss, Plato’s chariot allegory, and much more.

The post The Most Incredible Transformation I’ve Ever Seen — Jerzy Gregorek on Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Coaching, and the Power of Micro-Progressions (#865) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

The following is a guest post from Paul Conti, MD, a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatry training at Stanford and at Harvard, where he was appointed chief resident and then served on the medical faculty before moving to Portland and founding a clinic. Dr. Conti specializes in complex assessment and problem-solving as well as both health and performance optimization, serving patients and clients throughout the United States and internationally, including the executive leadership of large corporations.

What follows is an adapted excerpt from his new book What’s Going Right: A Powerful New Method for Optimizing Your Mental Health.

Please enjoy! 

Enter Dr. Paul Conti…

“Paul, I’m finally going to commit myself to a hardcore exercise program. If I don’t do something challenging soon, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the gym. It’s now or never,” my patient Teresa declared. 

It surprised me to hear Teresa make such a powerful statement. She’d been struggling with anxiety and low self-esteem for quite a while, and although she wasn’t suicidal, Teresa had long given up on efforts to make her life better. After failing to experience lasting results from past efforts, she simply didn’t see the point. So when she proudly announced this new resolve, I nodded in cautious agreement. This new exercise program was her revelation, and it reverberated strongly through her life.

She lasted just two weeks.

I’m not one to judge failed expectations when it comes to exercise. Some research estimates that up to 88 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail within two weeks. And while Teresa’s resolution wasn’t for New Year’s, she fell squarely into the majority of that statistic. As she and I discussed why the program hadn’t worked for her, a usual suspect appeared: her new exercise regimen was too much for her busy work schedule. Teresa’s strivings had crashed into the obstinate wall of her reality, and as the weight of making time for weightlifting grew heavier each day, she finally succumbed to excuses not to go. 

First, she told herself, “Today I’ll go after work instead of before, like I’d planned,” and then it was, “Well, I’ll skip today, but I’ll make up for it with an extra-long session on my day off.” She’d succeeded in articulating her strivings and changing some of her behaviors, but there was a lot going on for Teresa that she wasn’t entirely conscious of—namely, some self-sabotaging defense mechanisms and a host of automatic, ingrained negative thoughts that had plagued her for most of her life.

At her first slip-up, Teresa fell back into negative self-talk spirals, repeatedly telling herself things like, “I’m just too lazy. I don’t have enough discipline. I’m hopeless. I’m incapable of change. This is more proof that I need to give up and stop trying. Who am I fooling?”

I’d known Teresa for some time. She was as compassionate and insightful as they come. She’d never speak to a struggling friend the way she talked to herself, and yet the voice in her head was relentless, unhelpful, and unkind.

Sound familiar?

Teresa was accomplished and driven at her work. Her problem wasn’t laziness or a lack of discipline or some cursed inability to change; Teresa’s problem was that she’d aimed too high, thereby setting herself up for failure.

In our first meeting after she’d quit her program, I gave Teresa what might sound like suspect advice. “In the future,” I told her, “it would be a lot better to choose not to do the exercise program in the first place than to continually allow yourself to talk your way out of it. At least that way you’d be making the choice conscious.” I stressed the last part since many of our excuses aren’t fully extracted from the unconscious mind. The negative voices within us and the despair to which they can drive us are resistant to change. They lurk in our unconscious, ready to toss a discouraging word above the surface. That’s why it’s so important that we learn to pull them all the way to the surface so that we can shine the light of consciousness upon them and make healthier decisions for ourselves.

Eventually, Teresa and I explored some bite-sized options for self-care that were better suited for her busy life. After a few compassionate corrections, she regrouped and kicked off her year in a positive manner. She allowed herself to collect smaller wins over time and gradually learned to meet her shortcomings with kinder self-talk. Through our work together, she also learned practical steps for self-inquiry that empowered her to continue to bring those detrimental messages into her conscious awareness.

Self-Inquiry as a Way of Life

Although asking yourself questions is just one aspect of self-inquiry, it’s probably the most available path of self-inquiry in any given moment. Later, I’ll provide a list of questions as a baseline for helpful self-inquiry. But keep in mind that questions are only helpful if they foster your empowerment and agency. It’s also essential that your questions are imbued with compassionate curiosity.

Looking into your unconscious beliefs and behaviors doesn’t help if it just increases your guilt and shame (which typically, in turn, just furthers those unconscious beliefs and behaviors). The point is to be inquisitive, not inquisitorial. Don’t grill, hound, or nag yourself with harsh critiques or demands for justifiable answers. Rather, do your best to ask questions that are friendly, relevant, and productive. 

The question “Why did you screw up again?” comes from a particular mindset and will generate a particular (and likely negative) reply. Questions like “How does this repetitive pattern serve me?” and “What am I missing here?” might address the same issue but from a kinder and more generative angle. Whatever you ask yourself, remember that the best form of self-inquiry is compassionate, curious, honest, and open.

Setting the Stage for Self-Inquiry through Questions

To get the most out of these exercises—to truly be purposeful about self-reflection—consider these guidelines first:

Don’t feel the need to answer every question on the lists below. The goal isn’t to complete the test; it’s to figure out what’s going on within you. Go deeper than your initial answer. Your goal is to pull your unconscious thoughts, struggles, and desires into your consciousness. Rarely does that happen with your first answer. Record your answers in your preferred way. If you like to write, write. If you like to talk, start a voice note. If you draw, draw. Capturing your answers can keep you accountable to yourself and help you witness the path of your ongoing growth.

Now that you’re ready, try these basic self-inquiry questions:

What does it mean for you to feel happy?Where are you at your best in the world?What relationships lift you up and support you?What lingering losses or traumas are you still dealing with?What’s the difference between the “real” you and the version of you most people know?

Additional questions:

What kind of influence are you on your family and friends?What are some of the ways you self-sabotage and get in your own way?What dreams are you currently pushing to the side?What’s going right in your life?What’s most salient in your world right now?

Answer these questions (and any others that come up) with curiosity as opposed to criticism. Don’t confuse being harsh with being honest! When imbued with compassionate curiosity, self-inquiry empowers you to take stock of yourself, which in turn allows you to make desired life adjustments.

Explore Your Conscious and Unconscious Mind

When it comes to your thoughts (structure of self), become compassionately curious about yourself and ask:

What’s going on in my unconscious mind?Is there something potent I’m not currently aware of that’s influencing my thoughts and behaviors? If so, what is it?Am I aware of it at times but not at others? If so, why?Am I ever aware of that unconscious stuff other than when I’m actively contemplating it? If not, how might I become more conscious of it?How much am I truly conscious of?What are the things that I’m most commonly aware of?What do I habitually turn over in my mind and ruminate on?How does this serve me?Where else might I better focus my mind?Is there any subject or memory that I’m trying to get away from or pushing back down into my unconscious mind? If so, what is it?What are my typical defense mechanisms?What are my patterns of self-protection?How do they serve me?How might they be holding me back?Does my character structure (the way I relate and react to others) feel right?Are my interactions with others in line with who I want to be?What interpersonal predispositions are at the forefront for me right now?Am I more or less distrustful than usual? If so, why?Am I more or less outgoing? More or less emotional than usual?Who am I right now?How do I feel like myself in this moment?Is there something fundamental about myself that I want to change? If so,what is it?How much in touch with myself am I these days?

Let’s use Teresa as an illustration: Much of her negative self-talk was unconscious. It’s hard to make much headway in the dark, so part of our work together involved making Teresa more conscious of all the self-sabotaging things she was telling herself after her understandable failure to follow through with her exercise program.

Recall that defense mechanisms are mostly unconscious, too. We can guess that Teresa’s ongoing rationalizations for not going to the gym (for example, “I’ll go after work instead”) were a way to protect her from immediate disappointment and self-criticism, but they didn’t do much to address one of Teresa’s fundamental issues: She’d set a goal she had no chance of following through with.

In some ways, this wasn’t in line with her character structure, as Teresa was quite adept at making and meeting reasonable goals at work. She was dependable, insightful, and compassionate, as well, which made her harsh self-talk (“I’m too lazy; I’ll never be able to change”) all the more notable.

What does it mean when our “outer” behaviors (that is, toward others, our job, our friends, and so on) don’t align with our inner life? Teresa’s I—that is, her sense of self—had been struggling with anxiety and self-esteem for some time. In response, Teresa chose to do something that was bound to fail. Why? In the process of self-inquiry, what useful information about herself might Teresa learn?

Reflect on Your Actions

Once you’ve completed a thorough scan of your mind and thoughts, it’s time to consider your actions—that is, your function of self:

How much of my ongoing issues have to do with a lack of self-awareness?If I were more aware of myself, what would I notice?What are the ways in which I dull my awareness?Why might I be inclined to do so?What defense mechanisms in action are alive for me right now?What are my automatic, go-to responses?Which are unhealthy or are just getting in the way of what I want to achieve?What triggers these reactions from me?What’s most salient for me in the current moment?What do I pay a lot of attention to these days? Why might that be?Am I overly vigilant about certain things—external criticism, for example?Do I see those things where they don’t truly exist or exaggerate them when they do? If so, why?What important information about myself and the world might I be overlooking?How might my salience change to include more positive input?What behaviors are going well for me?What am I doing that bolsters me or is harmful or holding me back?What did I intend to do versus how those actions played out or were receivedby others?What can I learn from that discrepancy?What positive and negative habits am I practicing?What behaviors are new for me?What am I currently striving for?Does what I’m currently trying to achieve line up with what I wanted last week or last month?If not, what might I do to better align them?When it comes to my goals, what’s the big picture?And how do my current behaviors line up with that?

***

No matter how you choose to practice, self-inquiry will regularly provide more information in service of change. Over time, self-inquiry will help you become the best self-driver you can be. The more often you engage in the process while directing compassionate curiosity toward your structure and function of self and your drives, the more you’ll learn and the more natural the practice will become.

The routes to effective self-inquiry vary from person to person. The tools that work for one person won’t work for another. In truth, it’s not so much the tools but how (and how often) you use them. If today’s self-inquiry didn’t provide you with any deep revelations, it doesn’t mean that tomorrow’s won’t. Make self-inquiry a regular part of your life, and you will see change.

From What’s Going Right: A Powerful New Method for Optimizing Your Mental Health by Paul Conti, MD. Hachette Book Group, publisher. ©2025 by Paul Conti. Reprinted with permission.

Photo credit: Patrick Schneider

The post The Practice of Self-Inquiry: 10 Questions for People Who Are Too Hard on Themselves appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Please enjoy this transcript of a special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, featuring four listener favorites—Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman—whom I invited to answer the question What are 1–3 decisions that could dramatically simplify my life in 2026?

Guest information

Books, people, tools, and resources mentioned in the interview

Legal conditions/copyright information

[image error]Listen onSpotify Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onOvercastHow to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman Additional podcast platforms

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

Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!

David Yarrow: My name is David Yarrow. I’m a British photographer that works principally in America. We sell our art through the fine art market around the world, but principally in America. I think the number one thing that I did to simplify my life was not to get remarried after I got divorced at a very young age of maybe 40 years old. My wife had given me the two most important things in my life, my two children. And it would’ve been easy at that stage of enormous self-doubt to jump into a new life with someone else and that could only have made life more complicated. I’ve got massive respect for people to choose to take that path. But for me, I had my family and I didn’t want it to get more complicated. I just hoped that the reasons why we’d separated would, over time, heal as we matured as individuals.

And that, luckily, is exactly what happened. And we’re far better friends. We spend a lot of our lives together now, and we often think about how different it would’ve been if we’d both gone and remarried and started new families. As it is, the four of us now spend an awful lot of time together as a unit. It’s abnormal, probably, for outsiders. But I think because we’ve been through pain and seen from the outside the issues that perhaps others can have when stepchildren are introduced into things, we recognize that it was right for us, not right for everyone, but it’s certainly allowed us both to focus on our jobs and the other parts of our lives without the stress and complications of complicated families. I think complicated families can lead to complicated lives. And I think if you’re single, but you have the mother of your children as close to you as you possibly can, it does allow you to be not selfish, but self-indulgent and appreciative of your goals. And I think it’s led to a far stronger relationship with my children than otherwise would be the case. And if you have a strong relationship with your children, I think it makes it much easier to be productive in other parts of your life. 

That is not to preach to anyone else. I’ve made more mistakes than most people, but I do know that the simplification of my life born out of the decision not to seek comfort in a second marriage was key to the happiness in my life. 

I think another tenet of the simplification of my life, which has been very, very necessary, is to have a perpetual filter in my address book. And specifically in terms of the number of close friends that someone in the late summer of their life can have. And when I was young, I used to believe that it was an asset to have 60 or 70 people that you could call close friends.

I think that’s impossible. It’s almost an oxymoron to say you can have 60 close friends. I think that principle holds true at 30 close friends or 20. I think I probably have now outside my immediate family, seven or eight people that I’d consider very close to. I had a bereavement in the family recently and with my brother, and ultimately, I didn’t want to speak to too many people. It was too emotional. And I just spoke to the people that I was closest to. 

I’m a person that likes to give energy to any relationship, and I think energy is a luxury brand. And like any luxury brand, it’s got to be fairly elusive at times. You need to invest in yourself. And I’ve been very guilty of investing too much in people that perhaps don’t deserve it or won’t reciprocate it. That’s not to be mean, it’s just common sense.

I think in business as well, a corollary of this is I don’t have an agent. I’ve never had an agent. I know there’s very good agents in the world that earn every penny, but I found a lot of them to be slightly financially thirsty and slightly goal hungry when it comes to taking the acclaim. And the lack of an agent has meant that there’s been a lot of direct contact one-to-one with me. Will you do this? Will you do that? And the ability to say no comes with age. I think I was far too willing to say yes to things where every sinew of common sense suggested that was a suboptimal use of time. I think the idea of going out seven nights a week is totally exhausting and it impinges on the two nights where you do have to give good energy. I don’t think I’ll reverse this trend. I might end up with no friends, but I think having 10 friends is the right number for me and it has ultimately simplified my life.

***

Claire Hughes Johnson: Hello, Claire Hughes Johnson here. I’ve spent over 20 years scaling tech companies first at Google, and then as the Chief Operating Officer of Stripe for many years. And I guess I’m best known for writing a book called Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building, and that is how I met Tim.

I’ll be honest, I’m surprised Tim asked me to talk about simplifying my life because that is not something that I think I’m particularly good at. In fact, I think in my interview with Tim, he ended up advising me, and I think the advice he shared was there’s a point in your career when you switch from default yes, which is a great position when you’re trying to meet people and learn new things and build your connections and your network and your career, to default no. And that was one of my big lessons from our conversation. But with that, maybe not confidence-inspiring introduction, I’ll share some thoughts on simplifying my life.

I think the first, actually, thought for me is I needed to understand why I said yes to too many things. And that involved doing some introspection and some work, and yes, getting some help in talk therapy, which is not something I’ve had a lot of success with. But for some reason, I feel like I need to be needed, and that I earn love and affection by saying yes and being of use to people as opposed to just being me. And I’m still working on that. So that’s number one to simplifying your life is why is your life complicated? And mine has always been complicated because I say yes to too many things.

All right. So second lesson is, I think I mostly borrowed this from Arthur Brooks’ book From Strength to Strength, but you’ll find it in a few different “prioritize your life” advice books. And that is, I think we sometimes get too oriented toward tasks, jobs, things we need to do with our time. And if you flip it and think about people, it’s easier to see your priorities. Who are the people that I most want to spend time with? The easiest one for me is my children.

But instead of thinking, well, I want to do this thing, like go see this soccer game or go to my friend’s book event, I think, well, who’s the person involved? And I start the year with who are the most important people in my life to spend time with. And if it’s one of the people on that list, I’m going to say yes, and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. It’s helped me to make sure I’m spending time with the most important people. It’s really easy now when someone asks me to do something that compromises time with my children, I just say no, because they’re the most important. I left an event today early to come home to have dinner with my son. So that’s the people flip.

When I do say yes, I’ll also mention that I’ve learned to be better about understanding, okay, why did I say yes? What’s my goal? What’s my job at this thing that I said yes to? And sometimes you get into a situation, you think, well, I should be networking, I should be meeting people, but maybe I just went to give a talk and I’m going to give a talk and then I’m going to leave. Or I went to meet just one person who I wanted to catch up with and I go and spend time with them and then I can leave. But keeping your eyes on your mission for how you’re spending your time can help not feel so guilty about not doing the other things that might be in front of you with your yes.

The final way that I’ve simplified my life is I’ve built some things into my, again, my calendar and my time, that I think people think of as extracurricular that I’ve realized are just too important to skip. The most notable of those is time to exercise. I am not a big athlete. I wasn’t a super successful athlete in high school. I worked out a little bit in college, but I came to understand that exercise is important to my mental health, and just feeling good in my body and being a confident person and a well-balanced leader, getting sleep is also very important to me and my success.

And once I realized that I wasn’t as effective, certainly when I started at Stripe, I was compromising on sleep, I was compromising on exercise. I didn’t compromise on having dinner with my kids most nights when I wasn’t traveling, but I was compromising myself. And I had this realization that to be the best leader, I needed more sleep and more exercise, and I made it part of my job. And I told Stripe CEO and founder Patrick that I was going to embark on a retention exercise, meaning retain myself at the company, and that meant I was going to come in a little late one or two mornings, leave early one day, and I booked time with a friend to work out. And I just, instead of just doing it on the weekends, I made time during the week to get enough exercise. And I also started to have rules for myself about when I would shut the laptop and get to bed, and that probably did retain me for a few more years. I guess I still work part-time at Stripe, so maybe it’s a long-term retention.

Nobody knows, you don’t know what that thing is for other people, but if you think about if your energy is these scales and on balance — am I getting energy from how I’m spending my life or is it being taken away? Try to measure what it is. It might be spending time with an elderly parent, it might be time with your kids, it might be exercise.

It might be having a deep conversation with someone once a week about a topic that’s not your work. But look for what those things are and track them and then make sure you’re booking time for those things into your calendar as if it’s a job. And don’t be apologetic. Don’t compromise that thing unless it’s an emergency. Really don’t compromise it and book around it. And I think the people who know me really well are surprised at how much I prioritize getting a workout done. And I no longer feel guilty about that. I feel really good that I’ve decided this thing is important to how I live my life and it’s not negotiable.

***

Diana Chapman: Hi, there. This is Diana Chapman, and I am passionate about Conscious Leadership. I’ve spent the last 20 years disrupting many influential leaders around the globe, teaching them that the thing standing between them and their next level of impact is usually themselves and most often their fears. 

So I’ve been asked to talk about decisions I’ve made that have helped simplify my life. And one of the key things I’ve learned is that simple happens when your inner and outer worlds are in agreement.

I call that “a whole body yes,” that every part of me is in alignment inside with what is happening outside. I am congruent. And when that happens, so much complexity drops away. 

I’m excited to share these three decisions I’ve made. And the first one is, I made a decision a decade ago that I would no longer live in any obligation. And what that means is I don’t live any more from a should — I should do this; I should do that — because that’s what a good daughter or a good partner or parent or friend does. Instead, I deeply listen. Is this what wants to happen? Would this serve me and them and my aliveness and the world as a whole? So now my choices come from a deep place of trust and no longer from the fear of disappointing people or breaking habits that you’re supposed to do.

I do want to clarify one thing here. Some people ask, “Does that mean you love all the activities you are a part of with the people you do them with?” And the answer is no. My husband might ask me to go to a concert of one of his favorite musicians, and I might not love that music, but what I would really enjoy is being with him, celebrating one of his favorite musicians, and being in all that joy with the crowd. That I have a whole body yes to, and so I go free of obligation. My inner and outer worlds are in agreement. 

The second decision I made, and this is a biggie, is that I decided that I wanted to create a relationship contract with every person I spend any meaningful amount of time with in my life. It’s very similar to if I asked someone to come play a game with me and I’d say, “Hey, here are the rules of the game, and I want to ask if, based on those rules, you’d be willing to play with me.” And the value of all of us agreeing to a set of rules is that we have so little drama playing the game.

And so I use that same concept with all of my close relationships and I ask all of them, “Would you join me in a way of doing relationship?” I use the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which is based on the book of the same name I co-authored. And these commitments I brought to the business world, but they originally were in my personal life and I started them in my relationship with my husband. And these commitments are ways we agree to do life and then we make clear agreements with each other around how to do those.

So for example, in all of my close relationships, I make an agreement with everyone that we don’t blame each other, that instead we each take a look at how we are co-creating whatever it is we would like to change. That way, we’re in a constant state of learning and growing and no blaming. Gosh, that ends so much drama, and low drama makes a very simple life.

When my family and I agreed that we would end blaming in our home, we literally put signs up around in different rooms with the word “blame” with a circle around it and an X through it. So when anybody blamed, any one of us could point to one of the signs and say, “Reminder, you’re in a no blame zone.” And then the agreement was, rather than blame, we would take responsibility for how we were co-creating the thing that we were complaining about and teach a class.

So an example might look like I blame my family for making a mess in the kitchen and instead I say, “I want to take responsibility. I don’t have clear agreements with you guys about how we keep the kitchen clean, and so I’m co-creating a messy kitchen, so I don’t want to blame anymore. I want to take responsibility for how I have a part to play in this, and rather than blame, I want to clean it up and in this case make some clear agreements so we can permanently end this pattern that recycles over and over again.”

 I had a client who called and was frustrated because his CEO, who he reported to as the COO, was not giving him the feedback he wanted for his professional development. He was blaming. So I said, “Hey, remember we’ve committed to no blame, so now teach me the class. I too want to have my CEO not give me the feedback I want for my professional development, so teach me how do you make sure you don’t get the feedback you want?”

So my client thought for a moment and said, “Okay, here’s some ideas. Here’s how I do it. Step one, when the CEO cancels one-on-one meetings on a regular basis, don’t complain about it, don’t ask them to get rescheduled, and assume other things are more important than you. Two, don’t ask for feedback. Just sit around waiting feeling entitled, but don’t clarify that it’s important to you. Three, when feedback occasionally does come, don’t appreciate it, don’t value it. Instead, in your own mind, dismiss that it’s not particularly valuable feedback, and therefore don’t encourage the person to give you more of it.” So, I said, “Great. If I did those three steps already, I would probably create the exact same issue that you have.” Then my client agreed to go back to the CEO and say to him, “Hey, I want to take responsibility for how I’m not getting the feedback I want.” And he taught the class to his colleague. That’s how it’s played.

Another thing we agree to is to stay deeply in curiosity and not get caught up in being righteous with one another. And if we do notice righteousness, we just gently invite each other to see that in the game we’re playing, that’s considered a, quote, foul and we recommit to coming back to curiosity. 

We also make agreements about letting it be okay to feel our feelings and let the other one have their feelings. A lot of drama comes because we’re trying to control each other’s feelings.

When my son was applying to colleges, he really wanted to go to Berkeley. And the letter came and he and my husband and I were sitting together in a room, and he was rejected. And in that moment he started to cry. And I jumped in and started to say, “It’s fine. It’s fine. You’re going to UCLA. That’s such a great school too.” And my husband interrupted and said, “Sweetheart, let him feel his feelings.” And so, my son let a few tears come through so he could let go of the vision he had of going to Berkeley. Once he did that, which only took about 30 seconds, he was then able to open up and be excited about the opportunity to go to UCLA. I’m so grateful that my husband called out the pattern of how I was trying to control my son’s feelings, really, so that I could control my own. So he asked both my son and me to feel our feelings.

We also make an agreement that we reveal to one another any thoughts we’ve had three or more times so we don’t withhold, because when you withhold, you withdraw, and when you withdraw, things get complex. And then of course, gossip can get started and then you really get complex.

We also agree that we do our best to keep our agreements. We only make agreements that we’re really willing to honor and we do our best to do what we say we’re going to do. 

Another one of my favorite agreements is to play with things when they start to get serious. That’s one of my favorite ones to do with the people around me who are willing to do that because, my goodness, can we move through a lot of complexity quickly if we can play. 40 percent faster, it says that kids learn when they’re playing and I think probably the same thing is true for adults.

I’m really lucky that I have so many people that will play with me when things get serious. My friend Grace is one of them. And one day I get a phone call, and I pick up the phone, and on the other end there’s this very playful voice in a Southern accent, and it said, “Hi, my name is Grace Anne. Is this Diana?” And I said, “Yes, it is.” “Well, Diana, I want to let you know Grace, I’ve learned, is real hurt by something you said the other day. Now, she’s not going to call you and tell you that, she’s kind of prideful, but I’m calling, because I thought maybe you’d like to know and give you a little hint about that.” And I said, “Well, Grace Anne, thank you so much. I’m really grateful.” And she said, “You are welcome.” And she hung up.

So, of course, I picked the phone back up and called Grace. And I said, “Hey, Grace, I want to let you know that I have a sense that you might have been hurt by something I said the other day.” And she said, “Yeah, you know, actually, I was.” And we got to have a conversation about it and move through it and come out on the other end close and connected. And I so appreciated that she didn’t know how to reach out, but through play, she was able to learn — and so was I — how to come back into connection.

A third decision that I made in my life occurred at a time where I was working really hard, more hours than I ought to, because it was compromising my health and wellbeing, which has its own kind of complexity. At that time, I believe that the overwhelm came because I really wanted to be right in a story I had that my work in the world really mattered. And because it really mattered, I had to push myself and drive myself, and that wasn’t working.

So I came to a decision in which I wanted to hold two truths equally, and the two truths for me are my work does really matter. The values I hold, the intentions I have, where I place my attention, all of these have impact on others, and that really matters. At the same time, I choose to hold the belief equally that my work does not matter, that the world would be just fine if I was no longer here. This is a wonderfully brilliant, intelligent world, and it can figure itself out without me.

And holding these two truths together offers me the opportunity to live in congruence, listening to what is mine to do, what is not mine to do. How do I do it in a way that is sustainable? Because living unsustainably creates a tremendous amount of complexity, and it’s the kind of complexity I don’t want to live with any longer.

It is my great hope that some of these ideas inspire some of you and that in trying them on for yourself, you discover there is real liberation and aliveness and joy in the experience of having your inner and outer worlds in agreement. I am wishing you all so very well. Cheers to being human. It is not for the faint of heart. And if we can make it a little simpler, amen.

***

Anne Lamott: Hi, my name is Anne Lamott. I’m the author of 21 books. The last one was called Good Writing, which I wrote with my husband, Neal Allen. At the age of 60, 12 years ago, I woke up feeling a heaviness on my chest, a cellular understanding of how much I had been carrying all these decades that were things my parents had told me about myself that were simply not true. 

My parents were very progressive, but they started seeing me for my achievements at five or six, instead of for the goofy, loving being that we are all underneath the surface. When I decided on the right to be who I truly was, instead of the person I had always agreed and striven to be, i.e., highly successful, endlessly charming, life got a lot more simple.

I had to do the deep dive into the belief that I needed people’s respect and affection to feel of value, to feel that I was a valuable human being. Once I realized that this feeling wasn’t out there, but that it was rather going to be an inside job, my life got much quieter, and I could slow down and actually live it, savor it, breathe it in. Reclaiming the goofball inside helped me reclaim curiosity, which they had stopped grading for by about first grade, and this made everything so much simpler. I no longer had to keep the same six plates spinning in the air so people would think I was fabulous. I discovered that I didn’t have to keep trying so hard all the time in every way.

My Diocesan priest friend, Terry Richey, once told me that the point is not to try harder but to resist less. Hearing this instantly simplified life for me, seeing the folly of the endless trying to achieve, to improve, to impress, whatever, helped me find my way back each day and in every way to one simple thing I wanted to bring my focus and best self to. I was no longer in the frantic, striving, complex world of needing people to validate my parking ticket, because I was affirming my own worth. I could breathe again, and there is no more simple, profound, enriching change we can make than learning to breathe again. To really breathe gives us an umbilical connection to life, to the universe, our own hearts, and our deepest selves.

Two meditation techniques helped me learn to breathe with consciousness. One was simply to put my hand on my belly and inhale slowly all the way down until I could see my hand rise. I ask you, is there anything more simple than breathing into your hand and watching your tummy go up and down, expand and contract?

The other technique was something I learned from Ram Dass, who taught that we could imagine our hearts as having nostrils and experience expanding our heart in this way. The heart is our spiritual core, and it feels just wonderful to make it bigger. 

60 was a significant birthday, because I realized I was starting the third third of my life. Many people I loved deeply had died, and I truly got on a cellular level that we’re all on borrowed time, and it’s good to remind oneself of that. It makes life so much more simple when we stop hitting the snooze button and start being more intentional about how we spend our days and our life force.

I felt like I had been flying around in the little plane of me with all the tense little boxes of no longer meaningful stuff that was so hard to let go of, but that it was keeping me flying too low, metaphorically. So, with the help of wise teachers, I started tossing it out of the airplane and I felt myself begin to rise. Simplicity in life is related to creating spaciousness and greater weightlessness, reclaiming curiosity and spaced outedness, which brings us back into the present moment, the momentous moment, which is home.

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The post The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman (#864) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Many of us feel like we’re drowning in invisible complexity. So I wanted to hit pause and ask a simple question: What are 1–3 decisions that could dramatically simplify my life in 2026? To explore that, I invited five long-time listener favorites: Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman.

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[image error]Listen onSpotify Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onOvercastHow to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman Additional podcast platforms

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Connect with David Yarrow: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

David’s previous appearance on this show: David Yarrow on Art, Markets, Business, and Combining It All | The Tim Ferriss Show #443

Connect with Claire Hughes Johnson: LinkedIn | Twitter

Claire’s book: Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building

Claire’s previous appearance on this show: Claire Hughes Johnson — How to Take Responsibility for Your Life, Create Rules That Work, Stop Being a Victim, Set Strong Boundaries, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #724

Connect with Diana Chapman: Website

Diana’s book: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success, co-authored with Jim Dethmer and Kaley Klemp

Diana’s previous appearance on this show: Diana Chapman — How to Get Unstuck, Do “The Work,” Take Radical Responsibility, and Reduce Drama in Your Life | The Tim Ferriss Show #536

Connect with Anne Lamott: Substack | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Anne’s new book: Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, co-authored with Neal Allen

Anne’s previous appearance on this show: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer | The Tim Ferriss Show #522

*

Timestamps:

Start: 00:00:00
David Yarrow: 00:02:19
Claire Hughes Johnson: 00:07:39
Diana Chapman: 00:16:44
Anne Lamott: 00:30:31

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Want to hear even more strategies for cutting the noise? Check out the first “How to Simplify Your Life” episode, featuring Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck, in which they discussed radical first-principles for living, why simplifying is hard work, making “no” your default answer, building a life around deep peace rather than dopamine, and much more.

The post How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman (#864) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Elad Gil (@eladgil) is CEO of Gil & Co, a multi-stage investment firm, holding company, and operating company working on the world’s most advanced technologies. Elad is a serial entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or advisor to private companies, including AirBnB, Anduril, Coinbase, Figma, Instacart, OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe. He was previously VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter and started mobile at Google. He was the founder and CEO of Mixerlabs and Color. Elad is the author of the bestseller High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People.

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Website | X | Substack | No Priors Podcast

Books High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People by Elad Gil Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel with Blake MastersPodcasts No Priors with Elad Gil & Sarah GuoEssays & Articles “Random Thoughts While Gazing at the Misty AI Frontier” by Elad GilPeopleMarc AndreessenPatrick CollisonDominic D’AgostinoKristen FortneyReid HoffmanVinod KhoslaJohn LennonHoward LotsofYuri MilnerElon MuskChamath PalihapitiyaNaval RavikantChris SaccaNoam ShazeerAravind SrinivasTrae StephensPeter ThielSue WagnerNolan WilliamsCompanies, Organizations, & InstitutionsAbridgeAirbnbAnthropicAndurilAppleBioAge LabsBlackRockByteDanceCharacter.AICoca-ColaCoinbaseColor HealthCursor (Anysphere)DatabricksDecagonGoogle DeepMindGoogle Maven (Project Maven)HashiCorpHarveyInfisicalInstacartLyftMetaMcKinsey & CompanyMicronMistralMixer LabsNeuralinkNewLimitNVIDIAOpenAIOraclePayPalPerplexityScale AISamsung SemiconductorSamsaraSierraSK HynixSnowflakeSpaceXStanford UniversityStarlinkStripeSwiss ReTeslaThomson ReutersTikTokUberxAIY CombinatorTools & ProductsChatGPTClaude / Claude CodeDexcomGeminiGoogle ToolbarSubstackX (formerly Twitter)Concepts & TopicsUrolithin AAlexNetAPOE4 and Alzheimer’s RiskAutophagyGenerative Adversarial Networks (GANs)Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF)GLP-1 Receptor AgonistsGPT-3IbogaineObicetrapibPhotobiomodulation (PBM)Power Law in Venture ReturnsRapamycinSarbanes-Oxley ActSpecial Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC)Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB)Total Addressable Market (TAM)Transformer Architecture / “Attention Is All You Need” (2017)

This episode is brought to you by Matic! Readers of The 4-Hour Workweek know I love automation. Anywhere I can “set it and forget it” is a win and gives me more time for the things I enjoy. That’s why I’m such a fan of Matic. As their tagline goes, “the world’s most advanced floor cleaner.” Matic learns your home and runs quietly in the background, vacuums, mops, docks itself, and doesn’t strangle itself on charging cables or get wedged under your couch. I put out a note on social asking how people liked it, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

The Verge writes, “This WALL-E-like bot fixes the stuff every other robot vacuum gets wrong.” And Wired says it’s “the best robot vacuum we’ve tested, and it scored a rare 10 out of 10.” Both Silicon Valley legend Naval Ravikant and Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke love theirs and are investors, and my friend Kevin Rose has been raving about his. Go to MaticRobots.com/Tim today and experience the closest thing to a house that cleans itself. New customers get free bags for a year.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 5 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 5 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 5 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2025 by Forbes and Wired magazines and best in category by Good Housekeeping, GQ, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering listeners 20% off all mattress orders for a limited time at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. Right now, get a FREE Welcome Kit, including Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Flavor Sampler, when you first subscribe. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones!

The post Elad Gil, Consigliere to Empire Builders — How to Spot Billion-Dollar Companies Before Everyone Else, The Misty AI Frontier, How Coke Beat Pepsi, When Consensus Pays, and Much More (#863) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Cathy Lanier serves as the chief security officer (CSO) for the National Football League (NFL). As the league’s CSO, she supervises all operations and activities of the NFL Security Department—overseeing coordination with the league office and all 32 clubs and working with federal, state, and local law entities to ensure the security of the NFL’s venues, fans, players, staff, and infrastructure. 

Prior to her work at the NFL, Cathy served as chief of police with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) from 2007 to 2016, becoming the first female police chief of the nation’s capital, the first commanding officer of Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism for D.C. Police, and the longest serving chief on the D.C. force. Her innovative strategies were credited with reducing violent crime in Washington by 21 percent from 2007 to 2015, while the city’s population grew by 15 percent. 

Cathy is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s Drug Unit Commanders Academy. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in management from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in national security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by:

Eight Sleep Pod Cover 5  sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating:  EightSleep.com/Tim   Shopify  global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business:  Shopify.com/Tim Helix Sleep premium mattresses:  HelixSleep.com/Tim Wealthfront  high-yield cash account:  Wealthfront.com/Tim  [image error]Listen onSpotify Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onOvercastCathy Lanier, Chief Security Officer of the NFL — From 9th-Grade Dropout to DC's Longest-Serving Police Chief, Protecting the Super Bowl, and Resilience Under Extreme PressureAdditional podcast platforms

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

TranscriptsThis episodeAll episodesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Cathy Lanier:

LinkedIn

Books Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken Alibek and Stephen Handelman Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm GladwellPeopleKen AlibekMarion BarryAdrian FentyMalcolm GladwellHenry KissingerThomas “T.C.” MaslinTimothy McVeighWilliam C. Patrick IIISonya ProctorCharles H. RamseyJocko WillinkCompanies, Institutions, & OrganizationsCenter for Domestic Preparedness (FEMA)FBI National Academy (FBI)Johns Hopkins University (JHU)Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC)National Football League (NFL)Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)Prince George’s Community College (PGCC)Promark PartnersUS Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)Events & Cases1991 Mount Pleasant Riot1993 World Trade Center Bombing1995 Oklahoma City Bombing2001 September 11 (9/11) Attacks2001 Anthrax (Amerithrax) Attacks2026 Super Bowl SecurityTools, Technologies, & Chemical/Biological Agents ReferencedPalm TreoPalmPilotSarinText the Police: 50411 | Metropolitan Police Department of DCVX (Nerve Agent)ConceptsCISM: Certified Information Security ManagerCISSP: Certified Information Systems Security ProfessionalRed TeamingSayre’s LawTimestamps[00:00] Start.[01:38] Cathy Lanier: from Tuxedo to the top.[03:22] Dad vanishes; Mom holds the line (and takes shorthand to the TV).[08:08] Bused into DC: straight-A student turns chronic truant.[10:37] Married at 15, signed over for $100 off child support.[12:54] The baby-in-the-crib wake-up call.[16:37] GED by a single point; secretary by day, waitress by night.[20:18] The Washington Post ad that changed everything.[20:39] 1990 MPD: into the crack cocaine wars.[23:46] Grandma’s gospel: no excuses, damned for doing.[26:23] Mount Pleasant riots: trial by brick, and a better-way epiphany.[33:23] Donny Exum’s nudge — and sergeant at 26.[38:56] Being a woman on the ’90s force: harassment and the 90-day dodge.[49:38] Marion Barry exits, Chuck Ramsey enters.[51:08] Lieutenant: the sweet spot. Captain: the desk (but keep the cuffs).[56:58] 9/11 and the surprise transfer to Special Ops.[58:07] Mentors lend confidence — and a counterterrorism bureau built from scratch.[1:00:14] Live Sarin, VX, and training with bioweapons legends.[1:02:22] Text the 50, get the 411: the tip line gambit.[1:03:36] Cultivating sources: the white Escalade payoff.[1:09:02] Attention to detail: OCD as a superpower.[1:10:43] Teletubby pagers to smartphones — and the Thomas Maslin reckoning.[1:15:14] NFL security: the scope of “everything.”[1:17:10] Red teaming, explained.[1:18:53] NFL vs. MPD: diversity and complexity that goes to 11.[1:21:24] The book club: The Tipping Point and Blink.[1:23:32] Decisions under pressure — and with incomplete information.[1:28:34] Billboard wisdom: it’s not what happens; it’s what you do.[1:30:08] Parting thoughts.CATHY LANIER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“You’re going to be damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You better be damned for doing.”

— Cathy Lanier

“I’m not an excuse person. I don’t make excuses. If I find myself in a bad situation, I did something to get myself here and I’m going to get myself out.”

— Cathy Lanier

“What a mentor does for you is they lend you confidence that you don’t have.”

— Cathy Lanier

“To me, arrest stats are not a good measure of success for a police department.”

— Cathy Lanier

“Effective communication, both verbal and written, is critical for professional success. And it is a skill that develops over time, the listening part of it more importantly than the communicating part.”

— Cathy Lanier

“Bad things happen to everybody. It’s not about the bad decision you made or the bad thing that happened to you; it’s what you do after that.”

— Cathy Lanier

This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. Go to Shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting Shopify.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2025 by Forbes and Wired magazines and best in category by Good Housekeeping, GQ, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering listeners 20% off all mattress orders for a limited time at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 5 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 5 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 5 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is a financial services platform that offers services to help you save and invest your money. Right now, your cash can earn 3.30% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account from its network of program banks. That’s 8 times more interest than a typical savings account at a bank, according to FDIC.gov as of 1/22/2026 (Wealthfront’s 3.30% APY vs. 0.39% average savings rate). Right now, for a limited time, Wealthfront is offering new clients that use my sign-up link an additional 0.75% boost over the base rate for three months, meaning you can get up to 4.05% APY, limited to $150,000 in deposits. Terms & Conditions apply. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started. 

The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”), member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The 3.30% Base APY on cash deposits is as of January 30, 2026, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum balance. The overall boosted rate is subject to change if the base rate decreases during the three-month promotional period. Tim Ferriss, who’s not a client, receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, which creates an incentive that results in a conflict of interest. Tim expresses his own opinions and Wealthfront does not endorse, sponsor, or promote them. This ad may not reflect the experience of other Cash Account clients, and similar outcomes are not guaranteed. Investment advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, not bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value. See full disclosures here. 

Want to hear another episode with the author whose books became required reading for Cathy’s command staff? Listen to my conversation with best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, in which we discussed the ideas behind The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, creative “recipes” for storytelling, his years at The Washington Post, lessons from Revisionist History, taking and organizing notes, the advantages of disadvantages, flaws that turned into strengths, writing in noisy public places, and much more.

The post Cathy Lanier, Chief Security Officer of the NFL — From 9th-Grade Dropout to DC’s Longest-Serving Police Chief, Protecting the Super Bowl, and Resilience Under Extreme Pressure (#862) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Cathy Lanier serves as the chief security officer (CSO) for the National Football League (NFL). As the league’s CSO, she supervises all operations and activities of the NFL Security Department—overseeing coordination with the league office and all 32 clubs and working with federal, state, and local law entities to ensure the security of the NFL’s venues, fans, players, staff, and infrastructure. 

Prior to her work at the NFL, Cathy served as chief of police with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) from 2007 to 2016, becoming the first female police chief of the nation’s capital, the first commanding officer of Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism for D.C. Police, and the longest serving chief on the D.C. force. Her innovative strategies were credited with reducing violent crime in Washington by 21 percent from 2007 to 2015, while the city’s population grew by 15 percent. 

Cathy is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s Drug Unit Commanders Academy. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in management from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in national security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by:

Eight Sleep Pod Cover 5  sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating:  EightSleep.com/Tim   Shopify  global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business:  Shopify.com/Tim Helix Sleep premium mattresses:  HelixSleep.com/Tim Wealthfront  high-yield cash account:  Wealthfront.com/Tim  [image error]Listen onSpotify Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onOvercastCathy Lanier, NFL Chief Security Officer — From Food Stamps to the Super Bowl War RoomAdditional podcast platforms

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

TranscriptsThis episodeAll episodesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Cathy Lanier:

LinkedIn

Books Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken Alibek and Stephen Handelman Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm GladwellPeopleKen AlibekMarion BarryAdrian FentyMalcolm GladwellHenry KissingerThomas “T.C.” MaslinTimothy McVeighWilliam C. Patrick IIISonya ProctorCharles H. RamseyJocko WillinkCompanies, Institutions, & OrganizationsCenter for Domestic Preparedness (FEMA)FBI National Academy (FBI)Johns Hopkins University (JHU)Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC)National Football League (NFL)Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)Nevada National Security Site (NNSS)Prince George’s Community College (PGCC)Promark PartnersUS Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)Events & Cases1991 Mount Pleasant Riot1993 World Trade Center Bombing1995 Oklahoma City Bombing2001 September 11 (9/11) Attacks2001 Anthrax (Amerithrax) Attacks2026 Super Bowl SecurityTools, Technologies, & Chemical/Biological Agents ReferencedPalm TreoPalmPilotSarinText the Police: 50411 | Metropolitan Police Department of DCVX (Nerve Agent)ConceptsCISM: Certified Information Security ManagerCISSP: Certified Information Systems Security ProfessionalRed TeamingSayre’s LawTimestamps[00:00] Start.[01:38] Cathy Lanier: from Tuxedo to the top.[03:22] Dad vanishes; Mom holds the line (and takes shorthand to the TV).[08:08] Bused into DC: straight-A student turns chronic truant.[10:37] Married at 15, signed over for $100 off child support.[12:54] The baby-in-the-crib wake-up call.[16:37] GED by a single point; secretary by day, waitress by night.[20:18] The Washington Post ad that changed everything.[20:39] 1990 MPD: into the crack cocaine wars.[23:46] Grandma’s gospel: no excuses, damned for doing.[26:23] Mount Pleasant riots: trial by brick, and a better-way epiphany.[33:23] Donny Exum’s nudge — and sergeant at 26.[38:56] Being a woman on the ’90s force: harassment and the 90-day dodge.[49:38] Marion Barry exits, Chuck Ramsey enters.[51:08] Lieutenant: the sweet spot. Captain: the desk (but keep the cuffs).[56:58] 9/11 and the surprise transfer to Special Ops.[58:07] Mentors lend confidence — and a counterterrorism bureau built from scratch.[1:00:14] Live Sarin, VX, and training with bioweapons legends.[1:02:22] Text the 50, get the 411: the tip line gambit.[1:03:36] Cultivating sources: the white Escalade payoff.[1:09:02] Attention to detail: OCD as a superpower.[1:10:43] Teletubby pagers to smartphones — and the Thomas Maslin reckoning.[1:15:14] NFL security: the scope of “everything.”[1:17:10] Red teaming, explained.[1:18:53] NFL vs. MPD: diversity and complexity that goes to 11.[1:21:24] The book club: The Tipping Point and Blink.[1:23:32] Decisions under pressure — and with incomplete information.[1:28:34] Billboard wisdom: it’s not what happens; it’s what you do.[1:30:08] Parting thoughts.CATHY LANIER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“You’re going to be damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You better be damned for doing.”

— Cathy Lanier

“I’m not an excuse person. I don’t make excuses. If I find myself in a bad situation, I did something to get myself here and I’m going to get myself out.”

— Cathy Lanier

“What a mentor does for you is they lend you confidence that you don’t have.”

— Cathy Lanier

“To me, arrest stats are not a good measure of success for a police department.”

— Cathy Lanier

“Effective communication, both verbal and written, is critical for professional success. And it is a skill that develops over time, the listening part of it more importantly than the communicating part.”

— Cathy Lanier

“Bad things happen to everybody. It’s not about the bad decision you made or the bad thing that happened to you; it’s what you do after that.”

— Cathy Lanier

This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. Go to Shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting Shopify.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2025 by Forbes and Wired magazines and best in category by Good Housekeeping, GQ, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering listeners 20% off all mattress orders for a limited time at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 5 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 5 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 5 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is a financial services platform that offers services to help you save and invest your money. Right now, your cash can earn 3.30% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account from its network of program banks. That’s 8 times more interest than a typical savings account at a bank, according to FDIC.gov as of 1/22/2026 (Wealthfront’s 3.30% APY vs. 0.39% average savings rate). Right now, for a limited time, Wealthfront is offering new clients that use my sign-up link an additional 0.75% boost over the base rate for three months, meaning you can get up to 4.05% APY, limited to $150,000 in deposits. Terms & Conditions apply. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started. 

The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”), member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The 3.30% Base APY on cash deposits is as of January 30, 2026, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum balance. The overall boosted rate is subject to change if the base rate decreases during the three-month promotional period. Tim Ferriss, who’s not a client, receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, which creates an incentive that results in a conflict of interest. Tim expresses his own opinions and Wealthfront does not endorse, sponsor, or promote them. This ad may not reflect the experience of other Cash Account clients, and similar outcomes are not guaranteed. Investment advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, not bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value. See full disclosures here. 

Want to hear another episode with the author whose books became required reading for Cathy’s command staff? Listen to my conversation with best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, in which we discussed the ideas behind The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, creative “recipes” for storytelling, his years at The Washington Post, lessons from Revisionist History, taking and organizing notes, the advantages of disadvantages, flaws that turned into strengths, writing in noisy public places, and much more.

The post Cathy Lanier, NFL Chief Security Officer — From Food Stamps to the Super Bowl War Room (#862) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. 

This is a shorter episode and by request. Many of you have requested more 4-Hour Workweek Case Studies—conversations with people who have read the book, applied it, and built lives and businesses I never could have imagined.

Brian Dean—today’s guest—has a story that starts exactly where a lot of great stories start: broke, directionless, and eating canned beef stew in his dad’s basement during the 2008 financial crisis.

He picked up a copy of The 4-Hour Workweek and took action. As is nearly always the case, his path wasn’t a straight line, but a series of winding turns, all fed by experiments. Today’s episode covers geoarbitrage, testing assumptions cheaply, building a muse, automating income, and—the chapter almost everyone skips—filling the void. His journey includes failures, two successful exits, and a hard-won answer to the question most people never think to ask: what do you actually do with your freedom once you have it?

But who is Brian? 

Brian Dean is the founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics, both acquired by Semrush, which itself was recently acquired by Adobe for $1.9 billion. 

P.S. A special thank you to Elaine Pofeldt for getting Brian’s story on my radar. Elaine is the author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business and more recently, Tiny Business, Big Money.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by:

Fin , powerful AI Agent for all your customer service: Fin.Ai/Tim Incogni , which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: https://incogni.com/Tim[image error]Listen onSpotify Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onOvercast4-Hour Workweek Success Story, Brian Dean — From Dad’s Basement to Selling Two CompaniesAdditional podcast platforms

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

TranscriptsThis episodeAll episodesSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Brian Dean:

YouTube | LinkedIn

Related ReferencesBrian Dean: I Sold My Company For Millions (Full Story) | YouTubeDinty Moore Beef Stew, 15 Oz (8 Pack) | AmazonGoogle’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List | BacklinkoLegal Sea FoodsSEO in 2020 and Beyond with Brian Dean of Backlinko | The Growth Manifesto PodcastThe Ultimate Guide to Portugal’s Algarve | Our Travel PassportWhat’s Next: The Entrepreneur’s Epilogue and the Paradox of Success — How Entrepreneurs Can Move Forward After an Exit | Yale CaseOne-Person Businesses That Make $1M+ Per Year | The Tim Ferriss Show #318Real 4-Hour Workweek Case Studies — Allen Walton and SpyGuy, The Path to Seven Figures | The Tim Ferriss Show #351How to Generate 8-Figure Revenue at Age 21 (Or Any Age) — Real 4-Hour Workweek Case Studies | The Tim Ferriss Show #354Books Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want.  by Elaine Pofeldt Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat by Michael Masterson Tiny Business, Big Money: Strategies for Creating a High-Revenue Microbusiness by Elaine PofeldtFilms & TV Shows Jerry Springer The Office (US) PeopleSam AltmanAlex CleanthousPaul GrahamNoah KaganMichael MastersonElaine PofeldtMichael ScottJerry SpringerJohn WarrillowCompanies & ToolsAdobeBacklinkoDropboxExploding TopicsGoogle AdSenseGoogle PatentsGoogle TrendsOura RingSemrushWordPressConcepts & Frameworks“Action Produces Information” (Attributed to Paul Graham)Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO“Double Down on What Works” (Noah Kagan Advice)Dreamlining (from The 4-Hour Workweek)Dreamlining Worksheet Excel File (from The 4-Hour Workweek)Due Diligence / Earnout / Vesting (M&A Terms)Exact Match Domain (EMD)“Filling the Void” Chapter (The 4-Hour Workweek)Geoarbitrage (from The 4-Hour Workweek)Google Panda Update (February 2011)Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)Profit and Loss Statement (P&L)Sample Dreamline PDF (from The 4-Hour Workweek)Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Software as a Service (SaaS)TIMESTAMPS[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:53] From PhD pipettes to Dad’s basement to Jerry Springer.[00:04:38] The 4-Hour Workweek finds its dream reader — marginal notes and all.[00:06:04] First product flops, free traffic beckons, and SEO.[00:07:40] The 200-domain AdSense empire.[00:09:40] Dreamlining: From “escape the basement” to “3k a month in Thailand.”[00:11:27] When Google’s Panda update slapped the internet (and Brian’s empire).[00:12:32] Scared straight: Black hat to white hat via a hostel in Spain.[00:17:55] Backlinko is born.[00:19:50] The 200 ranking factors post: 25 hours of patent-digging, a million visitors.[00:22:13] New rule: One post a month, 10x better than anything out there.[00:23:02] Semrush comes knocking to buy his company — Brian ignores the email.[00:24:02] Taking celebratory shots at Legal Sea Foods while wondering where the contract is.[00:25:32] Due diligence hell: Hunting down ghosted freelancers and the contractor commandments.[00:29:25] SEC market-close rules vs. Brian’s 10 p.m. bedtime.[00:30:16] Post-acquisition: Hopping from one treadmill to the next.[00:34:19] Backlinko on autopilot, boredom on full blast, and the chapter everyone skips.[00:35:42] Exploding Topics: The paid newsletter mistake vs. the obvious SaaS play.[00:38:41] Data-driven content and the ChatGPT user stats flywheel.[00:41:00] Noah Kagan’s advice: Double down on what works — then 10x down.[00:42:26] Ready, Fire, Aim — the litmus test for would-be founders.[00:44:06] Startup costs: $500 for Backlinko vs. $90k to acquire Exploding Topics.[00:47:29] How love and a Craigslist apartment scam in Berlin landed Brian in Portugal.[00:48:48] Geoarbitrage still works — just don’t trust the 2007 pricing.[00:50:20] Post-exit stress: Oura Ring at 2x baseline and the Algarve hard reset.[00:52:21] Why founders who launch within a year of selling usually regret it.[00:53:30] Tennis as the ultimate void-filler: Fun, fitness, community, and fresh air in one sport.[00:54:31] The paradox of choice after exit: Structure, identity, and vertigo.[00:56:52] Parting thoughts.BRIAN DEAN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“So, I go to the bookstore to find a book to help me get started. And I basically saw The 4-Hour Workweek, grabbed it, and it just sort of spoke to me … It blew my mind. I read the book. I’m like, ‘Well, I could start a business.’ It was just a crazy, mind-blowing concept that someone who has no experience, was totally broke, could start something, not necessarily be a smash hit, but you could start something.”

— Brian Dean

“I feel like [Ready, Fire, Aim] is almost a litmus test. If you read that book and at the end you don’t do anything, then you’re probably not ready.”

— Brian Dean

“When you sell [your company], there are psychological dangers that can occur. One is that you lose your sense of structure. The other is you lose your sense of purpose and you lose your sense of connection with your team. It all goes away. You have it and then one day you literally don’t.”

— Brian Dean

“Tennis … fills almost all of these boxes or checks all of the boxes and fills this void. It’s amazing because, if you think about it, if you want to have fun, you play video games or watch TV or something. If you want to socialize, you go out drinking. If you want to exercise, you go to the gym. If you want to get fresh air, you go for a walk. Tennis does all of these things in one activity.”

— Brian Dean

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Want to hear an episode with the person who gave Brian his best piece of business advice? Listen to my conversation with serial entrepreneur and AppSumo founder Noah Kagan, in which we discussed launching a million-dollar business in a weekend, the 48-hour money challenge, finding your first customers before you build anything, the LOT (listen, options, transition) sales framework, the “coffee challenge” as a training wheel for asking, geoarbitrage from Austin to Barcelona, why most business ideas die of “idea constipation,” and much more.

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