Podcast appearances and mentions of Tim Ferriss

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur in today's uncertain world? How do you balance risk, decision-making, and curiosity? We're sharing an episode from The Founder Mindset with Reza Satchu, the new podcast from Harvard Business School Foundry about what it truly takes to be a founder now. Hosted by Harvard Business School senior lecturer Reza Satchu, the show features intimate conversations with some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, including Reese Witherspoon, Kevin O'Leary, Galen Weston, and more. Satchu himself has built multiple high-profile companies and mentored thousands of students and founders as they start and scale ventures, and he pushes his guests to break down exactly how they commit, decide, and build for impact. In this episode, Tim Ferriss—entrepreneur, investor, bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, and host of one of the world's most influential podcasts—reflects on experimentation, calibrated risk-taking, decision-making under uncertainty, and why curiosity and learning have shaped nearly every chapter of his career. Listen to more episodes of The Founder Mindset with Reza Satchu, follow the podcast here: https://play.megaphone.fm/zbmkcqmbqhymul1logpega

In this wide-ranging Q&A, Tim explores reinvention, enduring skills for the age of AI, friendship, mental health, fitness, language learning, privacy, cognitive longevity, and more.This episode is brought to you by:Gusto simple and easy payroll, HR, and benefits platform used by 400,000+ businesses: Gusto.com/TimMomentous high-quality creatine for cognitive and muscular support: LiveMomentous.com/TimHelix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/TimWealthfront high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/TimNew clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB, which creates a conflict of interest. Individual experiences and outcomes will differ. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services 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.Timestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:00:24] How to go from hyper-optimized to grounded.[00:03:45] Reinvention in your late 40s: there are more than two options.[00:07:45] Five meta-skills for the age of AI.[00:16:06] Post-sabbatical rules that re-focused this podcast.[00:21:05] Why male friendship is built shoulder-to-shoulder, not face-to-face.[00:25:04] Love for women authors.[00:25:24] SAINT, TMS, and Ampa's one-day brain reset.[00:27:32] How to build a fanbase by being your authentically weird self.[00:28:50] My “something is better than nothing” workout routine.[00:30:33] Staying fit in mind and soul via the past-year review.[00:31:12] The 4-Hour Body workout routines I still follow.[00:35:46] Spotting the future titan hiding in an average teen.[00:37:01] Vacation, burnout, or an outgrown life? Take a mini-retirement.[00:41:18] Guiding kids through our digital dystopia.[00:43:45] Does AI kill language learning? What does a new language really give you?[00:53:36] Muted movies as late-night writing company.[00:54:13] Best sub-$100 buy: seven seasons of wholesome Pawnee.[00:55:34] Why two hours of walking fixes almost everything.[00:57:21] Sleep, unsexily solved: less water, more sun, more exhaustion.[00:59:16] Privacy as the new luxury in the age of shrinking fame.[01:02:35] Luxuries worth overspending on: massage, easy travel, and health.[01:07:24] The best defense against cognitive decline: exercise, exercise, exercise.[01:11:11] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey friends, Chase here. Every summer, I revisit conversations from the archive that have stood the test of time. Not because I'm nostalgic, but because the best ideas don't expire. They deepen. This is another installment of Summer School—the set of episodes I personally return to the most when I'm stuck and need something true to lean on. This one with Ryan Holiday is high on that list. I've gone back to it multiple times this year alone. Ryan is a legend—author, media strategist, New York Times bestselling writer, and the person who brought Stoic philosophy into popular culture for a generation of creatives and entrepreneurs. This conversation is from 2017, before he'd fully hit the stride we know him for now. He'd already published something like six books in five years. He was already a force. And yet you can hear, in this episode, exactly where his work was headed. What stands out isn't just marketing tactics. It's framing. Good marketing isn't only writing good copy or taking a nice product photo. It's making work that starts a discussion. It's asking better questions before you begin. And it's using your own mindset—perception, action, will—to keep going when the creative path gets hard. Those tools were spot on then. They're truer now. Nobody cares what you're thinking about doing. Talk about your ideas after you've started them and then show people what you've done. Summer School: Ryan Holiday on Stoicism, Marketing, and Creating Work That Lasts Ryan dropped out of college at 19 to work with Robert Greene, became director of marketing at American Apparel, and later built Brass Check, advising clients like Google, Tim Ferriss, and Tony Robbins. Then he did something that looked, on paper, like career suicide: he wrote Trust Me, I'm Lying—a book about how marketers, companies, and politicians manufacture and manipulate attention online. Instead of burning his marketing career down, it opened writing as a profession. He began identifying as a writer first—keeping a hand in marketing so he wouldn't only comment from the sidelines. That tension runs through the whole episode: how information spreads, what it means to compete for attention, and how to build work that doesn't disappear after the launch week. At the center is Perennial Seller—the art of making and marketing work that lasts. Not the fidget-spinner hit. Not the trend piece. The Original Pantry Cafe that never closes. The book that sells more copies year after year because it solves a real problem. The boot that gets better the longer you wear it. If you're a creator, entrepreneur, or leader trying to make something that matters—and survive the noise long enough for it to land—this episode is still one of the sharpest in the archive. What You'll Hear in This Episode Why Ryan left New York for a cattle ranch outside Austin—and how distance, physical work, and humility made him better at the cerebral work How Trust Me, I'm Lying mapped the attention economy years before "fake news" became a daily phrase Why modern marketing is less about perfect product shots and more about starting conversations A practical crash course in Stoicism: perception, action, and will Ego vs. confidence—and how to market without marketing to yourself Austin Kleon's line: you can't be the noun without doing the verb What makes a perennial seller—and why industries obsess over "new" while most of their money comes from what lasts The "other 50%": craft gets you in the door; packaging, positioning, relationships, and community finish the race Two questions before every project: Who is this for? What does this do for them? Three Stoic Disciplines for Creatives Ryan's version of Stoicism is deliberately practical. Not academic debate—the art of living. Philosophy for the role you're already in: photographer, founder, writer, leader. He walks through three disciplines: 1. Perception How do you look at the situation? Someone is rude. Your company is in trouble. Your work isn't getting seen. Do you decide it's unfair, impossible, purely negative—or do you look for what you can actually use? The Stoics' move: there's no inherent good or bad—there's how we look at things. We don't control most of what happens to us. We do control the last crucial part: what we tell ourselves it means. Marcus Aurelius did that work through writing—Meditations as a private practice of catching your own mind in the act. 2. Action Seeing differently isn't enough. What do you do with the information? Ryan's favorite cut: Casey Neistat telling someone pitching a business idea, essentially—don't tell me the idea. Tell me when you've started it, then show me what you've made. Thinking about running a marathon doesn't count. Starting does. This is the discipline that kills the fantasy. Ideas are cheap. Execution is the only proof. 3. Will How do you handle the moments when life kicks your ass and you can't reverse them? Ryan tells the Edison story: factory on fire, son shell-shocked, Edison telling him to get his mother—she'll never see a fire like this again. Even what you can't control can still transform you. Hardship is often the filter that keeps everyone who doesn't want it as badly as you do from finishing. If it were easy, there'd be more amateurs—and less value. Perennial Seller (and the Other 50%) The face-palm insight behind Perennial Seller: the New York Times bestseller list doesn't track perennial sellers—yet a huge share of publishing income comes from books that came out years or decades ago. Industry attention chases "new." Durable value often lives elsewhere. Ryan's frame for durable work is almost annoyingly clear: This is a blank that does blank for blank. Who is it for—really? Not "everyone" or "smart people." Actual humans. Where they live. What they do. What does it do for them? His editor's line: it's not what a book is—it's what a book does. Then comes Chase's "other 50%," which Ryan amplifies: making the thing is a marathon. Finishing it doesn't mean you've won. There's a second marathon waiting—marketing, packaging, relationships, platform, the bridge from your desk into someone else's life. "If you build it, they will come" has killed a lot of great work. You're not just competing with peers who launched this week. You're competing with time-tested work that already lives on Netflix, in bookstores, in cultural memory. Title, cover, logo, copy, collaborators—these aren't afterthoughts. They're part of the creative expression. Books have covers because people judge them. Your work does too. And if you're already hunting for shortcuts before you've started? That's a signal. Principles over formulas. The shortcuts get exploited the moment they work for everyone. Timecodes So You Can Jump Around 00:00 – Welcome and why this episode is part of Summer School 04:52 – Ryan Holiday joins; life on a ranch outside Austin 09:14 – From renegade marketer to writer: Trust Me, I'm Lying and how attention spreads 15:05 – Why marketing today means starting a discussion 16:58 – Stoicism as a practical art of living 21:54 – Discipline one: perception 25:34 – Discipline two: action (start it, then show it) 28:47 – Discipline three: will (Edison's fire and transforming hardship) 31:36 – Ego vs. confidence; marketing without marketing to yourself 37:01 – Fall in love with the verb, not the noun 40:14 – Perennial Seller: the art of making work that lasts 47:08 – "This is a blank that does blank for blank" 51:07 – Habits of people who make great work (editors, collaborators, objectivity) 54:47 – The other 50%: craft plus packaging, relationships, and community 01:04:35 – Frameworks: Who is this for? What does this do? 01:19:05 – Daily Stoic, memento mori, and closing thoughts Why This Conversation Still Matters In 2017, Ryan was already describing an attention landscape where your best work competes with cats, outrage, porn, fake news, and infinite other options in the feed. That landscape didn't calm down. It accelerated. What still cuts through is the opposite of trend-chasing: work built on timeless problems, principles that survive platform changes, and the humility to keep doing the verb while everyone else celebrates the noun. When I'm stuck—when the world feels noisy and my own next project feels either too precious or too thin—I come back to this episode for the same reminders: Control how you see it. Take action. Let the hard parts transform you. Ask who it's for and what it does. Don't confuse finishing the making with finishing the work. Fall in love with the craft more than the identity. And don't wait until you feel safe to do the honest version of the thing. That's why it's Summer School material. The platforms changed. The books multiplied. The stakes got louder. The questions held. Keep Going Deeper If this conversation resonates: Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lasts The Obstacle Is the Way Ego Is the Enemy Trust Me, I'm Lying Daily Stoic: dailystoic.com Ryan online: ryanholiday.net Follow Ryan: Website | X/Twitter | Facebook Questions to Reflect On Am I still stuck in "thinking about" the project—or have I started something I can show? Where am I treating a hard situation as a verdict, instead of as information I can act on? Am I marketing to an audience—or marketing to myself? Have I fallen in love with the noun (author, founder, photographer) more than the verb? If I had to fill in "This is a ___ that does ___ for ___," could I do it clearly—today? Where have I finished the making and abandoned the second marathon: positioning, packaging, relationships, community? Am I building on timeless problems—or on platforms and tactics that may not survive the next cycle? The Core Idea Work that lasts isn't the work that wins the news cycle. It's the work that keeps solving something real for someone specific—long after the launch adrenaline fades. Ryan's invitation in this conversation is both simple and demanding: sharpen your perception, take action before you announce, let difficulty refine you, kill the ego that wants applause without evidence, and build for durability instead of novelty. If there's one lesson worth carrying forward from this Summer School session, it's this: Make something that starts a conversation—and lasts long enough to deserve one.

#735: Cody Berman failed at more than 30 side hustles — from a disc golf manufacturing company to sweaty bike deliveries in the Australian heat — before three of them got him to financial independence at 25. Cody is the bestselling author of Retire by 30, who reached financial independence at 25 by stacking income from real estate, digital products, and the stock market. In this episode, we discuss: How a nest-egg approach to financial independence differs from a cash-flow one A simple framework for sorting any side hustle into one of four types Why calculating real rental cash flow means more than rent minus mortgage Why the gap between what you earn and spend matters more than your returns How a failed side hustle can still hand you a skill that pays off later Why rebuilding an old idea from scratch can prove your skills weren't luck How to know when a side hustle needs more time versus when to quit Whether you're juggling five side hustles or just starting your first one, this episode will help you figure out which ones are actually worth your time — and which ones to let go of. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS Note: Timestamps may vary slightly depending on dynamic ad placements. (00:00) Meet Cody Berman (03:27) Two paths to FI (05:51) Big piles feel scary (07:09) Cody's FI numbers (08:12) Hustling on the train (11:58) The side hustle graveyard (14:56) Four side hustle types (19:47) The rich own assets (37:17) Biking Uber Eats in Australia (44:20) Skills are future currency (45:33) AI makes doers stronger (52:36) The gap is everything (58:54) Valentine's printables pay off (1:07:54) House hacking slashes costs (1:12:45) Life after FI

In this episode of Business Coaching Secrets, Karl Bryan is joined by Rode Dog to answer real-world business coaching questions about partnerships, pricing strategies, conquering client fears, AI's future impact, and the core importance of relationships in business. From raising prices at legacy companies to selling identity upgrades to clients, Karl lays out actionable frameworks and mindset shifts for coaches who want to win high-paying clients, build trust, and create lasting success. Key Topics Covered Should You Bring in a Business Partner? Karl draws from personal experience, discussing successful and challenging partnerships. Essential questions: Why do you need a partner? Partnerships require complementary skills, clear rules, and a foundation of hard work 03:39. A $300k business may not need a partner—elbow grease could be the answer 05:41. Raising Prices and Navigating Client Fears Framework for raising prices in longstanding businesses: research market rates, increase new client pricing immediately, and give loyal clients a reason-framed, phased-in increase 07:15. Use stories, reason frames, and personalized communication when increasing pricing to loyal clientele 09:01. Highlighted a powerful pricing truth: you can increase prices 10% and lose up to 33% of clients and still earn the same, but with less to manage, resulting in less stress 12:45. Overcoming Prospect Fear in Sales The real reason a prospect doesn't buy is rarely price—it's fear: fear they're not enough, or fear of failure 14:02. Sell "money at a discount" by using clear ROI math and visuals; meet fear head-on with empathy and step-by-step guidance 14:23. 80% of your sales approach should keep you in an equal frame (not intimidating or unattainable), with a touch of humility and relatability 19:11. Identity Upgrades: The Secret to Selling The highest-level clients buy identity upgrades, not just utility or features 21:05. Use language, stories, and branding to help clients see themselves at a higher level (e.g., "the new rich," "the millionaire maker") 22:25. Embracing the AI Revolution—Why Human Connection Still Wins The "Paperclip Principle" warns of AI gone awry when given the wrong instructions 28:36. Relationships, not technology, remain at the core of long-term business success—even as AI changes the landscape 33:33. Karl predicts that live events and face-to-face client engagement will become more vital as AI becomes ubiquitous 34:18. Moment of Zen: Seeking Peace Over Happiness Seek peace, not just fleeting happiness. Peace comes from full ownership, acceptance of pain, uncertainty, and constant effort 41:24. True intelligence is not just "getting what you want," but wanting the right things (margin over mere revenue) 43:02. Notable Quotes "Partnerships can be great if done and managed correctly, but the hardest ship to steer is a partnership." — Karl Bryan 03:39 "If you increase your prices by 10%, you could lose 33% of your clients and still be at the same number—with significantly less to do." — Karl Bryan 12:55 "When a prospect doesn't buy… it's fear… fear they're not enough, frankly." — Karl Bryan 14:02 "Stop trying to be seen everywhere and start becoming the person people feel lucky to have encountered. That's internal, not external." — Karl Bryan 21:05 "Your network is your net worth—and that will never change." — Karl Bryan 33:33 "Make the goal not happiness… Peace is a better, higher-level frame." — Karl Bryan 44:52 Actionable Takeaways Ask "Why" Before Partnership: Before bringing in a partner, clarify what's missing—do they provide complementary skills, network, or capital? If not, reconsider the need for a partnership, especially in sub-seven-figure businesses. Raise Prices Confidently: Research what others charge, upgrade new client pricing first, and communicate price increases to existing clients with context and empathy. Use a phased approach for loyal clients, offering a grace period or value-adds to smooth transitions. Lean Into Client Fear: When a client hesitates, recognize fear is behind most objections. Build trust with ROI guarantees, step-by-step processes, and relatable stories—position coaching as a low-risk identity upgrade. Sell Identity, Not Just Results: Use branding, language, and your own story to help prospects see themselves evolving. Identity-based selling attracts ambitious, high-paying clients. Human Touch Wins in AI Era: Invest in client relationships, live events, and genuine connections—they'll be the differentiator as automation accelerates. Aim for Peace, Not Fleeting Happiness: Adopt a frame of "nothing to prove, nothing to hide." Take full ownership of outcomes, knowing pain and uncertainty are inevitable. Peace—not happiness—is the real goal. Resources Mentioned Profit Acceleration Software (by Karl Bryan) – For instantly modeling ROI and client value. Focused.com – Daily emails, strategies, and community for business coaches. Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek – Example of identity-based selling. Books/Tools: Networking Groups: BNI, local chambers Operating Systems: McDonald's-style structured pricing If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe, share with a fellow coach, and leave a review. See you next week on Business Coaching Secrets! Ready to elevate your coaching business? Don't wait! Listen to this episode now and make strides towards your goals. Visit Focused.com for more information on Profit Acceleration Software™ and join our community of thriving coaches. Get a demo at https://go.focused.com/profit-acceleration

Mary Sanders Ferriss Cavicchi, founder of Ferriss and Company, returns to Soul Sessions to talk about stewarding Jackson landmarks like Campbell's Bakery and Hal & Mal's, restoring the Kennington Mansion in Belhaven, and mentoring the next generation of designers through Downtown Jackson Partners' Urban Design Studio. She traces her love of historic preservation back to Babalu at Duling School and a mentorship with the late Bill Latham. The conversation covers what makes a small space feel intentional rather than just big, why Hal & Mal's still unifies Jackson across generations, and what's next for her firm — including work for the restaurant Josette, opening in Fondren this fall. TRANSCRIPT: https://www.visitjackson.com/blog/soul-sessions-mary-sanders-ferriss-cavicchi

Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he runs the Huberman Lab. He is the author of Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body.This episode is brought to you by:ProLon science-backed Fasting Mimicking Diet that helps activate cellular renewal through fasting, while still eating nourishing mealsEight Sleep Pod Cover 5 sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heatingMomentous high-quality creatine for cognitive and muscular supportHelix Sleep premium mattressesTimestamps:00:00:00 — Who is Dr. Andrew Huberman?00:02:03 — Dean Potter, The Dark Wizard, and the physics of raw energy.00:04:11 — Why competition destroys performance.00:05:45 — Laird Hamilton, tow-in surfing, and the lure of big waves.00:06:27 — Training with Dorian Yates.00:18:29 — The full weekly split that keeps building strength at 50.00:21:00 — Neck training.00:25:56 — AssaultBike vs. Airdyne.00:31:12 — Revisiting MDMA and psychedelics.00:48:06 — Inducing plasticity is only half the job.00:53:17 — The one-day protocol that cut my anxiety by 90%.01:00:27 — Cortisol as the master key.01:03:26 — Peptides demystified: GLP-1s, growth hormone, and BPC-157.01:14:44 — The Enhanced Games, the Deca burrito, and the honesty problem.01:17:56 — Pinealon, epitalon, and the hunt for more REM sleep.01:25:02 — Why women, not gym bros, are the real peptide market.01:35:52 — Why "no reported side effects" is a trap.01:43:48 — Stem cells, cartilage regrowth, and mining the body for medicine.01:46:37 — AI, wearables, and the race to write to the nervous system.01:54:12 — The MIT mask that puts you to sleep in six minutes.01:56:09 — Inside Andrew's new operating manual, Protocols.02:03:30 — Navigating grief and remapping loss.02:04:40 — Shut up, suit up, show up.02:08:03 — Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How can organic writing and leaning into the pivot help your stories stand out? And how can you pitch a story as a discovery writer if you genuinely don't know what's going to happen next. Steven James gives his writing tips after more than 20 years as an author. In the intro, Better Than Free in an Age of AI [Kevin Kelly on Tim Ferriss; Kevin Kelly on The Creative Penn]; Future Vision XPrize; A Different Kind of Bucket List. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Steven James is the multi-award-winning and international bestselling author of 21 novels across thrillers, YA, and science fiction, with more than a million copies sold, as well as the author of non-fiction craft books for writers, a writing teacher, and the host of The Story Blender podcast. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How to lean into organic writing, and what to focus on instead of plot How characters unfold on the page, and why an attitude beats a background Producing an outline for an agent or publisher when you genuinely don't know what happens next Don't pitch the plot, pitch the pivot The four choices you have in every scene, and why logic plus surprise is the engine of story Faith, moral clarity and big questions You can find Steven at StevenJames.net. Transcript of the interview with Steven James Jo: Steven James is the multi-award-winning and international bestselling author of 21 novels across thrillers, YA, and science fiction, with more than a million copies sold, as well as the author of non-fiction craft books for writers, a writing teacher, and the host of The Story Blender Podcast. So welcome to the show, Steven. Steven: Thanks for having me, Jo. Good to be here. Jo: Great to have you on the show. First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Steven: Oh, gosh. Well, the thing is, when I was a kid, I fell in love with stories. My uncle would always, whenever we got together for the holidays—Christmas, New Year's and so on—he would take my sister, my brother and myself into a corner of the room while the other adults had coffee, and we would just sit there, and he would get this look in his eye and he'd say, “I'm going to tell you a story.” We were transported to another world. We were swashbuckling with pirates, or facing down a grizzly bear in Alaska, or flying over the desert on a flying carpet, or whatever. I fell in love with imagination and stories and everything. So I started reading as much as I could, mostly short stories. They had a programme at our library called the paperback book exchange, where you bring a paperback book and you leave it, and you can take any one of the paperback books that they had. You could keep it as long as you wanted. If you wanted it for your life, that's fine, or you could just bring it back as soon as you finished reading it. Anyway, I went crazy over the summers reading short stories, mainly. As I got older, I was like, “I think I want to be a storyteller.” So I actually got my master's degree in storytelling. Then I started to travel and tell stories, but I had three little daughters at home, and I was like, “I don't want to be gone 300 days a year when they are growing up.” So I ended up starting to write stories instead of travel, and then it just kind of shifted in that direction. That was in '97. Oh my goodness, that's long. '97, '98. So then I started to write books, and then eventually in 2007, I think, my first novel came out. Now, mainly, I've been writing novels ever since. Jo: It's so interesting. Was it a job, storytelling? Is that what you did before you became a book writer? Or did you have a different job? Steven: I mostly would go to events, conferences, schools and so on, and do a family-friendly storytelling show. So I would tell personal stories, some folktales reimagined. I would go to different events around the country. Mostly it was that. Then I started to shift. I wrote for magazines for a while—80 different magazines I wrote for over those years, a couple of hundred different articles, stories. I was like, “I'm just going to try to make a living telling stories.” So the shift has gone back and forth between actually telling stories and writing stories, but these days, I don't know. I'm still speaking. I'm still out there teaching. Jo: That's so interesting, because it's obviously a completely different thing to tell a story in person than it is to write a story. So when you decided to shift that way, what did you have to learn and unlearn? Because your thoughts on the page are so different to when you can make eye contact with an audience. Steven: That's a good point. I kind of started by telling stories back when I was in college, so I sort of moved from telling to writing. And you're right, there's so much that's lost, whether it's eye contact or pauses. On a printed page, there's always the same amount of space between every word—a space. But when you tell stories, obviously you pause for effect in different places, different areas, and so it's quite different. So if I have an idea for a story, I usually have to decide, is this going to be written or told? And then I do it in that medium. Then if I want to, let's say, tell a written story, I almost have to relearn it, or retell it very differently. You have gestures, body language. All of those things are obviously lost in text, so they are very different. I think for me it's been good, because when I tell stories, I hear different characters speaking, so that when I write, usually dialogue comes fast to me. I can hear what people are saying. I don't always know where they are. I don't always know the setting. I don't even know the scene necessarily, but I can hear the dialogue. Then it also helps me to step into the characters, like when I'm writing different points of view, so that I think I can do a good job of getting into that character's mind, as if I were that person. I think some of that comes from just telling stories. Jo: You've taught so many writers over the years, and it's interesting you said that you hear characters' dialogue. I see visual film in my mind. I don't hear any voice at all. It's all silent. I struggle with dialogue, but I do great world building. Do you find that this really is different by the author? I feel like we fall into these different groups. Steven: Yes, I do. I kind of feel like that's very true as far as what comes first, whether it's a description of a place, whether it's the action. I mean, basically a story has dialogue, narration—or we call it sometimes exposition—and description. Those three things. Every story has those three things, and those are the three that we use to tell a story, a novel. So some people tend to drift into one or the other as sort of their default setting: dialogue, description, or action. That's true. I think also something else that's interesting about writers is they tend to fall into either the camp of being a wordsmith or a storyteller. Not everyone, but I feel like some people are wordsmiths, where I read what they're writing, and I'm like, “Man, this is so powerful, evocative,” whatever. Maybe there's no story there. It's just really interesting writing. Other people just are natural storytellers, and they have to really work on the wordsmithing. I think that's me. I'm more naturally just a storyteller, but it takes me a long time to get the descriptions to where I want them, to choose exactly the right word. That takes me more effort. Some people have to build up the storytelling muscles. I have to build up the wordsmithing muscles. Jo: Well, part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is because you talk about this thing called organic writing in your book Story Trumps Structure, which is out now in a second edition. I call it discovery writing, so similar to you. But most people in the writing community seem to obsess about plotting and planning. So talk about your process of organic writing. You say in the book, “Trust the fluidity of the process.” Tell us more about that. Steven: Well, I remember in high school even, when my teacher got up front and he kind of got this very almost wise look on his face, and he goes, “A story is something with a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I'm sitting there in high school like, “Well, so does a bratwurst. What are you talking about here?” A description of a chair has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The sentence, “Preheat the oven to 450 degrees,” has a beginning, a middle, and an end. My view is that saying a story is something that has three acts is like saying that a pizza is something with three toppings. It might have three. It might have one. It might have five. So the idea for me is not to worry about structure, trying to tick off the boxes of a template, a formula you find online, a fill-in-the-blanks kind of a thing. But instead, to actually look at what lies at the heart of the story—the character, the tension, the struggle, the pursuit, the pivots and plot twists, and the payoff at the end. As you develop those aspects of the story, I feel like you need to worry less and less about following a formula. The more you understand what lies at the heart of a story, I feel like the less you need to plot and the less you need to write by the seat of your pants. A lot of people say, “Oh, you write by the seat of…” No, I don't write by the seat of my pants, because I know what a story contains, so I know that in a certain scene a character will make certain choices that are unpredictable but that escalate the tension, and different things like that. I'm a huge proponent of discovery, as you say, or organic writing. I won't get the quote exactly right, but Ray Bradbury said something along the lines of, “Plot is the tracks left in the snow after your characters have run by on their incredible destinations. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through.” So he's saying plot is not what precedes action. After the action, you have plot. So the whole idea of trying to plot out a story before you write it is going about writing exactly backwards. Plot doesn't precede action. It's the result. So I always tell people, “Don't worry so much about the plot. I want you to look at the pursuit.” A plotter might say, “Well, what should happen?” And they'll just come up with something. But an organic writer—a pursuit-based question would be, what does the character want? Now, when I know what the character wants, I will know what should happen. So literally, it will lead me to the story. Focusing on plot will not necessarily lead you to the story. It might lead you down the wrong track. Jo: Then in terms of your actual writing process— Do you start writing without knowing the ending? Do you write in order? Is the organic side also in the process? Steven: I've never started a book where I know how it will end. So I usually start with either a character that's fascinating or, in some cases, a premise, a question. Then as I write, I explore the possibilities of where it might go. I've tried to outline a scene—like one scene, not a whole book—and it never works. I can't even outline one scene. I've tried, and I'm like, okay, that's… What I end up with is completely different from it, so it's just a waste of time and effort for me to try to outline or plot out a story. I'm much more interested in the pathway the characters will take as they face obstacles and setbacks in their pursuit. As the struggles and the tension develop, what choices will they make? That's how the story will unfold for me. Jo: I'm similar. Then I also wonder— Do you do character sheets and character bios, or do the characters also unfold organically? Steven: Absolutely, I don't do any of the sheets and bios and stuff. The characters really come to me as I write. I begin to get to know them. I always tell people, a character with an attitude is more interesting than a character with a background. So a lot of people will spend a lot of time on, like, where's this character gone to college, and what's their first pet's name, all that stuff. I'm not trying to dump on that idea. I get that that can be helpful. But I'm like, how would I know that until I've spent time with them? Then once I begin to spend time with them, I'm writing and I'm like, “Nah, this doesn't seem like what that character would really say or do,” so I have to go back and rejigger the story to hopefully make it fit with that character. Then I like to give the characters some sort of attitude. I'm not talking about a negative or judgy attitude, but an attitude about something that is unique or different, and that makes them not a template character, not an archetype or whatever, but unique. Sort of this constellation of unique traits, characteristics, maybe wounds, flaws and so on, that create a character where you're like, “This is a character like none I've ever seen before. I want to spend time with this character.” Jo: Then you're spending time with the character by writing what's happening, as opposed to writing loads of stuff beforehand and then starting to write. You're actually finding all of this out during the process of writing. Steven: Yes, and I think it's kind of like getting to know someone. If I were to say, “Okay, I'm going to write down Jo's bio,” or whatever—okay, I'm making stuff up, because I don't know you super well. If we were to spend time together, hang out, whatever, talk, over the course of time I would start to know, oh, she likes this, she doesn't like that. This is important to her. This is what she would weep or pound the table over—whatever, all of the things that come with time. It's like a friendship in real life to me. So I can't sit down and tell you what a character in real life would think and say and do if I don't know them, but the more time I spend with them, then the more I'm able to predict that accurately. I think the mistake a lot of people make is they think, “I'm going to get to know this character with a background,” and then they start writing it, and instead of looking at the context, they look back at the—I don't know what you call it—the background or something like that. I always feel like what you mentioned earlier is, like, hold it loosely in your hand. Trust the fluidity of the process. As you're writing, you have an instinct. “Ah, I think this character would say this or do this.” So trust that. Trust that instinct. Trust that moment in the story, instead of trying to go back to an outline, back to a character description, or whatever it might be. So I'm a big proponent of looking at the context—not just what happened, but what is the result? So looking at the impetus and the implication of the choices and the activities. When something occurs, what would the character naturally say or do or think or respond? Then what would that cause? What's the implication that that would have on the rest of the story, on the rest of the characters? So, really trying to keep your finger on the pulse of the story, and adapt as you move forward through it. Jo: I love all of that, but I also am very aware that you've been in traditional publishing for over 20 years, and one of the things with agents and publishers is that they often ask for an outline. So how do you manage that? Or how did you more earlier in your career, because I imagine they just trust you now. Earlier in your career, or people listening who want to pitch but they write in this organic way, how do we deal with that kind of thing? Steven: Well, okay, so there's two good questions. One is about producing an outline for an agent or editor or publisher and so on. The other is how to pitch a story. So the first: I would write the premise down, and maybe a paragraph or two, and then where I think it might go. Basically, I would focus on the questions that the characters will face, maybe the moral dilemmas, the sacrifices they have to make, the world they live in. I kind of know that stuff, and I can write a couple of paragraphs about that. But beyond that, I just don't know what's going to happen, so I can't really provide more. I'm looking at my shelf at the books that I've done, and mostly that's what I've done is kind of a couple of paragraphs focusing on the premise and the problem, the struggle, and so on like that. As far as pitching a story, I always tell people, “Don't pitch the plot, pitch the pivot.” I think that there's a screenwriter—I think that he talks about this a little bit. I've not read the book Save the Cat, but people have told me, “Oh, he kind of brings this up in that book.” The idea is to pitch the irony instead of what occurs. So sometimes when I tell people to pitch, or I give them ideas, one process that you can use is: when, must, before, or else. So, when this occurs, this character must do something before this, or else. So you have the character, you have the struggle, you have the inciting incident, you have the stakes, and you have the countdown. It works well for thrillers. So for instance, like Jaws. When a man-eating shark starts eating people in a small seaside village, the sheriff must stop him before more people die and the town loses its economy. So there you have when, must, before, or else. Now, no one's going to buy the story based on that, because there's no irony, there's no pivot. It's just a description of the plot, and that's what most people pitch. So I always tell people, pitch the part of the story that you wouldn't expect. So for instance, in there you might pitch: when a shark starts eating people in a small seaside village, the only one who can stop him is afraid of the water. Now you're like, “Oh, well, that's interesting. How does that happen? What happens there?” With my book Broker of Lies, the pitch was something like, when a high-level Pentagon redactor ends up on the run, he must stop a terrorist attack before he's neutralised by the people he trusts the most. So the pivot is that the people he trusts at the Pentagon the most are actually trying to neutralise him because he's on the run, and all that kind of stuff. So why would they be trying to do that? Well, that's interesting. So it's always looking for the irony, the pivot. Why is this character the last one in the world who would ever be equipped to tackle this problem or face this issue? So that's one way to do a pitch. Obviously there's lots of them, but I think your goal with a pitch is to get them to say, “Tell me more.” It's not necessarily to summarise the whole story. Jo: That's great advice. So you teach writers—I first saw you at ThrillerFest, I think it was 2012—and you do events, you run writing retreats. So you work with a lot of authors, and I wondered, what are the challenges that you see from authors with, say, five books? So not the beginner authors, because obviously there's a lot of challenges. But those who, let's say they've got the three to five books, things are going all right, but they're like, “How do I get to the next level?” What are the craft issues, or the business issues as well, that mid-list authors face? Steven: Well, business, I'm not the guy to ask. I could try to answer that, but I mean, basically: meet your deadlines and write something amazing. Try to be easy to work with, but also stand up for what you wrote as far as working with editors. It's sort of a fine line you have to walk. The one thing that over the last few years I've really noticed in a lot of writers who are in that space is that they don't have many pivots. They tend to write predictable stories, and that's why they tend to stay where they're at—whether it's because they're following an outline or a plot formula or whatever it is. So when I talk about a pivot, I mean a moment in the story where something happens that's both unexpected and inevitable. For instance, if you're reading a story, you want things to make sense. You want them to be logical. That's one thing. But you don't want them to be too predictable. If it's too predictable, it's boring. It's like, I'm not interested. So we also want surprises. We want these two things. We want logic, and we want surprise. When those two things meet and you have a moment in the story where it's like, “I didn't see that coming, but that totally makes sense,” that's what we want, and we want that in every scene. I feel like a lot of authors don't have that in every scene. Now, you might say, “Well, every scene?” Well, yes, because basically those two factors, logic and surprise, can only meet in four different ways. You could have something that's very logical but has no surprises. That's going to be boring. It's going to be too predictable. We don't want that. You could have something that is very surprising but not logical. It makes no sense. A lot of stuff is surprising, but that's not what we want, because it's unbelievable, and it's like, what is going on here? You could have something that has neither logic nor surprise, which obviously we don't want that. The only other option is to have a moment that is both logical and surprising. So you have a choice in every scene. You have four choices, actually. You can have it be predictable and boring. You can have it be nonsensical. You can have it be unbelievable. Or you can have a pivot. So I find myself trying to really coach people on pivots. They'll say, “Oh, well, do I need it in every scene?” I'm like, “You can choose, but do you want it to be predictable or boring or nonsensical, or do you want it to really drive the story forward?” I think it's because people have been taught structure and plot and three acts and all this kind of stuff, but they haven't been taught this idea—even though it's not something I made up. Aristotle, in Poetics, thousands of years ago, put it a little bit differently, but he said, “The reversal of the situation”—what I call the pivot—”is the moment at which the action veers around to its opposite”—that would be what I call surprise—”subject always to a rule of probability or necessity”—which is the logic. So he's basically saying the same thing in just a little bit different language, but you have these three factors. You have logic, you have surprise, and you have them come together in a specific moment. I don't know why it's not taught more. I have never found anyone who teaches pivots. I have not found any books, so I wrote a book recently about how to use pivots. It's so central, and I think great storytellers naturally do it. You'll read a book, or you'll maybe watch a show, and you're like, “Oh, I didn't see that coming. That totally makes sense.” I don't see anyone else out there really focusing on teaching that. So that's a huge thing for me, really, to help people move up in their writing, elevate it to a different level. Jo: Is that Delve, Pivot, Propel? Steven: Yes. That book came out a couple years ago. We just re-released it. I updated it some, but it talks pretty much in depth about pivots and how to actually use those to propel the stories forward. Jo: Maybe you could just give us one tip on how to do that, because going back to the organic writing—let's say I've been organically writing, and every time a character has a decision to make, I think at that point about what I want to write and I write it. Are you suggesting that we go back in the edit and look at the end of every scene and redo it? Because I can't imagine that I would get this right every time. I would need to do that in an edit, I think. Steven: I think for me, when I'm writing, I'm always asking myself a series of questions. One is, what would the character naturally do? I want to make it believable and natural. Let them do it. I want to escalate the tension, so I'll ask myself, “How can I make things worse?” Then I'll always ask myself, how can I add a pivot to this scene? So as I'm writing a scene—again, I don't know how it will end when I start it—but if I use the first idea that comes to mind, probably a lot of readers would guess that as well, because it's the first idea that comes to mind. It's probably logical and probably predictable. That's why most stories end up being too predictable. It's because we go with the first idea that maybe we had. So I try to discard that. Maybe the second idea, just discard it. Then I start thinking, okay, now if I've discarded the obvious, what is going on? What's below the surface? So to answer your question, I'm looking for what isn't what it appears to be, or who isn't who they appear to be, or a surprising way to bring together plot threads that I didn't see related before. So it's always looking for the unexpected, the surprise, because most of the time that is what we're missing. Now, if you have a great surprise, then you have to lean into making it believable. So you've got to move into that idea of, well, what would the character naturally do? You can't just have him do something ridiculous and then say, “Oh, it's for my twist.” No, you can't do that. You've got to play fair. So it has to be believable, causally related, logical, and surprising. That's what you're shooting for. Those are the questions going through my mind. So as I'm working on a scene, I'm like, “How could I end this?” Or include something that people won't see coming right away. The best ideas always come to me then. It's so interesting. A lot of people will say, “Oh, don't write organically,” or, quote, “by the seat of your pants,” whatever they'll say, “because then you might write yourself into a corner.” I'm like, “Yes, absolutely write yourself into a corner. That's what I'm trying to do in every scene.” And then you write yourself out of a corner in a way that's logical and surprising. The best twists I've ever come up with have been when I'm in a corner. So why would I warn people against going to the place where the best ideas await them? That just seems mean. Why would I do that? No, I want you to have the best possible ideas. So yes, look for corners, write yourself into them, and then write yourself out of them in a way that's both logical and surprising. Jo: I guess also it needs to be genre specific. We write mainly thrillers, and there is this fine line, isn't there? I love Stephen King, but one of the most unbelievable endings is Under the Dome. I still remember feeling betrayed. I don't know if you've read that one, but— Steven: Oh, no. Jo: I was like, “I'm sorry, you've just changed genre in the last chapter of the book. What is going on here?” Steven: That's actually interesting. The fourth question I ask… So I ask, what would the character naturally do? How can I make things worse? How can I add a pivot? But the fourth question is, what promises have I made that I have not yet kept? So genre, to me, is a promise. You build up a promise in your writing at the beginning of the book, and then I feel like as we write, we have to honour that. So if we bring something up that's super interesting, bring it back or whatever. Keep your promises. Keep your narrative promises. It's true of really any genre. Let's say you're writing a romance. You want to respect the conventions, but not fall into the clichés. So there's going to be a moment where the lovers meet, right? They haven't met before. I don't know what they call it, a meet cute or a cute meet. I think they call it a meet cute, I guess. Jo: Yes. They do. Steven: Anyway. So they're going to meet, right? And you're like, “Oh, I'll just have them meet.” Well, try to do it in a way we haven't seen before. Add something else to the scene. Add a third element, as my friend Bob Dugoni likes to say. Add something a little bit that we're like, “Huh, I've never seen that before.” We know they're going to meet, but let them meet in a way that we don't anticipate, that we can't predict right away, that isn't exactly by the numbers, and then you're going to be on the right track. Jo: So then, talking about reader expectations and genre, I wondered if I could also ask you about your Christian faith, because many people listening are people of faith, and some people want to write a Christian book. Other people want to bring their faith into, say, a mainstream type thriller in an authentic way. So how do you balance your faith and your writing? Because I think you have some series that are more sort of Christian than others. Steven: It's interesting. When my first novel came out—The Pawn, like a chess piece, The Pawn—back almost 20 years ago. Gosh, 20 years ago. Nineteen. But anyway, when it came out, someone wrote to me and said, “Is this a Christian book?” I'm like, “What would make a book not Christian?” I'm like, maybe if it has a lot of idolatry, or witchcraft, or maybe sexuality or graphic violence. Then I'm like, oh, wait, that's… No, that's the Old Testament. So it's interesting, because people have asked me similar questions over the years. My books are not sermons in disguise. I'm trying to write great stories that anyone of any background or faith will enjoy. I always ask big questions. I let my characters wrestle with questions that matter, I think. Do my choices matter? Is there hope? Is there a God? Is there no God? Do I have free will? Can I find forgiveness? Can I offer forgiveness? Can I extend it, or whatever? So I always try to base the stories on something deeper. I do believe that there is good and there's evil in the world. That's part of my worldview. So when people talk about moral ambiguity, I don't want to write or read something that's morally ambiguous. I want moral complexity, but I also want moral clarity. So whenever you write, the question is, what are you justifying and what are you condemning? And if you're justifying something that's morally—I would say wrong, actually—then I don't feel like that's the kind of book I would want to write. So I want to write stories that explore good and evil, that explore our world, human nature, in an honest way. I feel like when you write honest stories, people, no matter what their background or whatever faith, then they will connect with it. I think a lot of people, if they start off with an agenda—whatever that agenda might be, let's say it is a Christian agenda, like I want people to trust in Jesus, let's say—so they write a story. Well, what you're doing, you're actually starting your story with an answer, and drama is not built on answers, it's built on questions. So you're actually diminishing the amount of tension. You're also diminishing the possibility of a pivot, because we all get where you're going. It's predictable, but there's probably no surprise. You're diminishing the payoff at the end, because we're like, “I saw that coming. I exactly knew where you were going with this.” So instead, I don't start with an answer. I always start with a question, or in some cases a moral dilemma, like, what's more important, protecting the innocent or telling the truth? That's interesting to me. If I had to choose between the two, would I tell the truth or would I protect the innocent? It's interesting, because people might come down on different sides of it. They might say, “Oh, you should always tell the truth,” or they say, “You always should protect the innocent.” I'm like, okay, well, let's explore it. Let's literally ask the question. So I come from a certain worldview, but I've written characters who have very different worldviews from me. I'm always just trying to be honest with the character, ask big questions, tell a story that examines human nature and sort of the paradoxes of the human condition in a way that will resonate with really whoever the readers might be. Jo: And of course that worldview is part of your author voice and part of what readers come to you for. I also notice that you have some pretty diverse different series. How do you manage that diversity of series under your one brand? Do you find your readers move from one to the other, or do you have different readerships? Steven: You mentioned the B word—brand. That's what publishers are always telling me: “What's your brand?” I'm like, “I don't know. You tell me what my brand is.” I've done fantasy, science fiction, conspiracy. I've done spies and police procedurals and crime and suspense, thrills, whatever. So I would say the one thing that really ties all my stories together is probably just suspense. They are stories with suspense. Some are more high concept thrillers, some are more dark fantasy, but they're built around suspense. So I guess that would be intelligent suspense, maybe, if I was trying to come up with a brand. Something like that. Because I don't want them to be dumbed down. They're not dumbed down stories, so they're a little bit more complex than you might find in other places, but always built around the idea of suspense. Suspense to me is basically—my definition is apprehension born of concern. So we're concerned about a character, and we're apprehensive because there's peril around the bend, or right in front of them. So I want the readers to really care about a character, and then try to build the story and the suspense around that empathy or sympathy that we have for the character. Jo: I think it's really interesting, because again, you mentioned 2007—we're coming up on 20 years since first published. The publishing industry has changed a lot. So what do you think has changed most in publishing for you, and what are your thoughts on routes to market for new authors these days? Or even established authors who are finding that things have changed, which they obviously have. Steven: Well, I'm not a marketer, I'm not a businessman. I'm just a storyteller at heart. So I just keep writing stories that I would be intrigued with reading, stories that I feel like are resonant. Then I look for publishers for those. I've been to a variety of different publishers over the last decade. I've done some different types of stories. I feel like you have to just write the story instead of trying to write for a specific market trend or something like that. So I might not make as much as some of my friends, I might not sell as many books, but I feel like I have to write certain stories if they grab ahold of me. There's a Native American—I think the Pawnee tribe, anyway, in the United States—but they were saying that all the stories that exist are out there already, and when one finds you, it's your job to share it with the world. I think that's kind of interesting. Sometimes—maybe it's just true for you, I don't know, Jo—but it's like a story will grab hold of me, or an idea, and I'm like, “I can't shake it.” That's a story that I want to tell the world. I would say that stories are becoming shorter, dumber. People are trying to write faster. They're trying to write several books a year, and as a result of that, some of the quality has gone down. This is all unfortunate. I'm still sort of a dinosaur. I still tend to write longer, complex stories. But people have shorter attention spans and whatever, and they're not reading as much. The structure of stories, I think, is changing slightly, where people will have to spend more time on a hook to really grab the attention of the readers. Then there might be a longer slow period, or more info dumping, which I'm not a fan of. So they kind of look like, “I want to get readers hooked at the beginning, and then get them to flip pages.” So I tend to set up my stories a little bit differently than that. So I'm not the best guy to ask about marketing and sales and stuff like that. I feel like, write a story that will not let you go. And if you do that, I feel like that's the kind of story that will resonate with readers, because there's a deep honesty to it. You care, you're passionate about it. It's not just something you're trying to spin out just to sell books. That's my view. Jo: I guess I also feel that writers are doing other things. So you have non-fiction, you have your podcast, you do events. I see you sell books direct from your website. It's like the business expands into multiple streams of income, so that the art doesn't have to pay all the bills. Steven: That's interesting. I do love to teach writing at conferences, events, and speak at different things. So I guess if you think about it that way, my brand might be just story, or storytelling, or something like that. Really trying to get out there, and whether it's speaking or writing, just tell a great story. So it's so interesting when I work with publishers and they'll ask, “What's your brand?” Basically it's like, “What's your box?” is really what they're asking. What box can we stick you in that will make it easy for us to package you and sell you? I know myself, and just a lot of authors that I know, we don't think in a box. Every one of my stories is not boxy. It's not the same. They're different. I know a lot of authors like that too. So it's unfortunate. I get it, that it's part of them trying to market and sell the books. I understand that, but I think being honest, genuine with the story, doing the very best you can, writing a worthy book, and then letting them come up with a way to categorise it, is probably the best bet. I don't know. Jo: We're almost out of time, but this is obviously a podcast, and you have a podcast. So tell us about The Story Blender Podcast and what people might find over there. Steven: Yes, I appreciate it. Basically, I interview some of the leading writers and storytellers in the world every week, and the goal is for great storytellers to share the secrets of great storytelling. So I basically pick their brains, kind of like what you were doing with me today, and find out what projects they're working on, and really just try to get insights into storytelling. So it's tons of fun. I've been doing it now for a number of years, and I guess I've interviewed over 250 different authors and writers from around the world, and so I always enjoy it. It's a ton of fun. It's The Story Blender, and people can find it anywhere. Jo: So where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Steven: Probably the best place is StevenJames.net. I think I'm on different socials @readstevenjames, so you can look me up there—Facebook, Instagram, X, and so on. I think they're all under readstevenjames. Check out the website, drop me a note. I always enjoy hearing from readers. Jo: Well, thanks so much for your time, Steven. That was great. Steven: Thanks, Jo. I appreciate it. Good luck. The post Organic Writing And The Power Of The Pivot In Fiction With Steven James first appeared on The Creative Penn.

In this edition of The Random Show, Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose reunite over tequila to talk Zen retreats, learning to rock climb at (almost) 50, mortality and grief, why you should stop saying "one day," AI predictions , and much more. Please enjoy!This episode is brought to you by:Incogni, which removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)Wealthfront high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/Tim New clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB, which creates a conflict of interest. Individual experiences and outcomes will differ. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services 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.Timestamps[00:00:00] Start.[00:00:24] A tequila toast, and getting "taxed" by alcohol as you age.[00:02:18] Toaster at 15: a late-night health scare.[00:06:01] Losing Om Malik, and finding out on retreat.[00:08:03] Matt Mullenweg, Antarctica, and gratitude.[00:09:34] Coming to terms with our limited time on Earth.[00:14:37] Five days of silence and the koan "Mu."[00:15:20] Kevin's micro-insight and a plug for The Way.[00:27:25] Rock climbing after 40, and a Yosemite goal.[00:29:18] Michael Eckert and finger-strength training.[00:30:40] The Nug, Abrahangs, and a travel training kit.[00:32:57] Free Solo and climbing with a fear of heights.[00:37:53] The Blade Itself, and a friend lost in a plane crash.[00:39:19] A2 protein and Pioneer Pastures.[00:40:34] Maui Nui venison and the nitrate question.[00:43:48] deltaG ketones: what they are and the catch.[00:45:42] Ketones, dementia, and verbal fluidity.[00:46:29] Pre-grieving a parent's decline.[00:48:33] Training not to die: the one bike I can stand and the Norwegian 4×4.[00:51:10] Something beats nothing: saunas, treadmills, and Duolingo chess.[00:53:04] The MM120 anxiety study — and a small-world surprise.[00:56:17] Psilocybin, LSD, and dementia case reports.[01:01:28] Neutonic toothpicks and Kevin's AI-powered home.[01:06:12] Spooky AI personalization and investment autopsies.[01:17:38] Values cards, contractual bonds, and dark information.[01:23:25] 360 reviews and child-rearing.[01:24:54] Wispr Flow, Shokz, and my recording rig.[01:29:32] The "big three" and where AI goes next.[01:44:40] Let your winners run; buy the company, not the product.[01:51:08] Digg's relaunch, 5-Bullet Friday, and parting thoughts.*DISCLAIMER FROM TIM FERRISS: I am not an investment adviser. Nor is Kevin Rose. All opinions are mine alone. Or his. There are risks involved in placing any investment in securities or in Bitcoin or in cryptocurrencies or in anything. None of the information presented herein is intended to form the basis of any offer or recommendation or have any regard to the investment objectives, financial situation, or needs of any specific person, and that includes you, my dear listener or reader. Everything you're going to hear is for informational entertainment purposes only.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nobody trusts vanilla. In this episode, Igor reveals one of his most counterintuitive list-building strategies: deliberately picking fights with big names like Grant Cardone, Gary Vee, Tim Ferriss, and Russell Brunson. Taking a public stand, even a polarizing one, is what separates influential marketers from forgettable ones. Igor breaks down why opinions build credibility, how to express what you stand for without confrontation, and how to turn newsworthy moments and even angry subscriber replies into engagement gold.

Nobody trusts vanilla. In this episode, Igor reveals one of his most counterintuitive list-building strategies: deliberately picking fights with big names like Grant Cardone, Gary Vee, Tim Ferriss, and Russell Brunson. Taking a public stand, even a polarizing one, is what separates influential marketers from forgettable ones. Igor breaks down why opinions build credibility, how to express what you stand for without confrontation, and how to turn newsworthy moments and even angry subscriber replies into engagement gold.

After more than a decade of releasing this show on Mondays, I'm moving it to Wednesdays, and this is the first episode of the new time slot.  On the one hand, this might sound like nothing at all, but it's also a big deal, for you and for me, and in this episode, I explain why I'm making the change, and past guests give some tips on sustainable creativity for the long term. Joanna Penn is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, short stories and travel memoir under J.F. Penn and also writes non-fiction for authors and hosts The Creative Penn Podcast. Why the podcast is moving to Wednesdays (1) Take time out to question what you're doing (2) Learn to pivot if you want to keep going long term(3) Set a sustainable pace, and don't build reader expectations you can't deliver on (4) Don't try to do it all, and try to identify the fear that might be driving your choices (5) Question what still serves you, especially as things continue to change(6) Consider different approaches to creativity. It doesn't have to be every day, or every week(7) Creative humans evolve. Build a body of work for the long term. You can find the backlist episodes at TheCreativePenn.com/podcast, just click into the episode to find the transcript. Why The Podcast Is Moving To Wednesdays, And 7 Tips for Sustainable Creativity Here's my big news! After more than a decade of releasing this show on Mondays, I'm moving it to Wednesdays, and this is the first episode of the new time slot. On the one hand, this might sound like nothing at all, but it's also a big deal, for you and for me! I know many of you have a routine of listening to the show during a certain thing on a Monday, so I'm sorry to have to disrupt that, and I hope I don't lose you along the way — although I guess you could just save the episode for Monday! For me, it's a much bigger deal, because a Monday show has meant I have often recorded the intro and edited and scheduled the episode over the weekend. The main reason is that I need to record in the mornings when I have energy and when the house is less noisy, since Jonathan is often on the phone since he works from home as well. So I would prepare the episode on Fridays, and I type out this intro before reading it, and source the news and my thoughts and all that — and then I'd record it Saturday morning, or Sunday morning if Saturday was busy — and so recently, I have felt like something has to change.  Moving the show to a Wednesday means that I can prep on Monday and Tuesday, which is perfect. Its so funny because I agonised over this, in the same way I agonised over changing the theme tune a few years back. Some of you may remember that — and it also turned out to not be a big deal at all. We build things up in our minds and then sometimes the problem can be solved in a different way. So instead of going to ad hoc episodes, or once every two weeks, I hope that moving to Wednesday makes the show more sustainable again, because let's face it, there's a lot going on, and if I did a show every 2 weeks, I might have to make them longer to get through everything! So, same show, just on Wednesdays from now on. And this change underscores what today's episode is about: sustainable creativity over the long term. How do you keep writing, and publishing, and podcasting — and creating for years — and I am now at two decades — without burning out, and without becoming a slave to the algorithm, or the market, or even your own audience's expectations? The goal is not to just survive this year's release schedule, or to keep feeding the machine until you crumble under the speed of it all. The goal is to still be creating, and still be enjoying it, next month, next year, in five years, in 10 years, in 20, in 30. Who knows how many years we all have left — but for sure, we are NOT machines, we are not AI — and we cannot churn it out – and what is the point of that anyway?  So in today's show, I'll share some thoughts and tips from me and also other authors from the show on this topic, and you can find the full episodes in the backlist, and links as ever in the show notes on TheCreativePenn.com/podcast  (1) Take time out to question what you're doing In early 2024, The Tim Ferriss Show, one of the biggest podcasts in the world, hit its ten-year anniversary with over a billion downloads and over 750 episodes, and Tim decided to take a sabbatical. He paused the show for four months and seriously questioned whether to continue. Not because it was failing, it was hugely profitable and he enjoyed talking to people, but because the landscape had changed.  Podcasting had gone from a wide-open space in 2014 to a saturated market, and his question wasn't “can I keep competing?” It was “is this still the game I want to play?” Just a little note here, I started The Creative Penn Podcast in 2009 when there were even fewer shows so I know a lot about a changing podcast market! After four months, Tim came back from what he called a sabbatical with a blog post on My New Rules for Podcasting — To Keep Things Interesting. He starts with the sheer number of podcasts, saying, “Having a good show is no longer good enough. Having a great show is no longer good enough. If you want to survive in the mindshare of listeners, you need differentiation.” I think this is true for us as authors as well as podcasters, or YouTubers, or social media, or anything. But the good news is that your differentiation can be you. Regular listeners will know that I have questioned ending the show over the years, worried that I was no longer useful, or that my voice no longer mattered when there are so many podcasts on similar topics. But after your wonderful feedback, and the fact that the show still gets a lot of downloads every week, and the growth in my Patreon Community, I don't worry about that anymore. It's unlikely that any of us will have a podcast as big as Tim Ferriss's or sell as many books as The Four Hour Work Week, but that's OK, because we are not Tim. I am Jo Penn and you're here because you find my take on the publishing industry is still useful in some way. When it's not anymore, you will go elsewhere, and I find myself at peace with that. Back to Tim's article — he asks some questions of himself, including:If I get to do this for another decade, or had to do this for another decade, what new rules might I create to keep it interesting? Of course, we all have different ideas of what this means for us. And I have already implemented one of these rules, which is that I interview people on topics I find interesting. I frequently get pitched by more famous authors and bigger names, but most of the time I turn them down, and choose to talk to people who are not famous but are more interested in serving you, my audience, because that is the point of this show. I also have people on that I enjoy talking to, because checking in with my friends while you listen in, can be useful too, since my friends are often authors who've been in the industry a while now. I have to make the interviews time that I find interesting or useful or fulfilling as well. But the point is to stop and take time to consider what might need to change, even if you are really successful. You cannot be a slave to the algorithm, to the media, to your audience, for the long term. You have to put some circuit breakers in sometimes. It's the old adage about the small business. You have to work ON in the business, not just IN the business, which means you need to step away. This does sometimes mean that you have to get away physically. I had this realisation while we were in Bruges in Belgium talking to Jonathan about what changes I could make because I just felt a lack of freedom — and freedom is my highest value, so I really need to honour that. So, the first question for you is: If you feel like you need a change, if your routines are becoming too much, or your workload is too much, or you are eating into time you need for rest and recovery or family or whatever you need, can you schedule time out to have a think about what you need and how things can change? You don't need to burn it all down. You might find the answer is just moving the show from a Monday to a Wednesday! (2) Learn to pivot if you want to keep going long term I love talking to authors who have been doing this career for a long time, and in December 2025 in episode 839, I talked to Jennifer Probst, the New York Times bestselling romance author of more than sixty books, about why some authors build decades-long careers while others vanish after one breakout. Jennifer has been through the indie gold rush, the fallout, traditional deals, Kickstarter, all of it, and I asked her how she thinks about how everything keeps changing, and we start with marketing but it goes much further than that. Writing Free: Romance Author Jennifer Probst On A Long-Term Author Career *** Jo: In terms of how we do marketing, TikTok is still a thing, and we can see maybe generative AI search coming on the horizon and agentic buying. A decade ago it might have been different, more Facebook ads or whatever. Then before that it might have been something else. So there's always things changing along the way. Jennifer: Yes, there definitely is. It is a very oversaturated market. They talk about, I don't know, 2010 to 2016 maybe, as the gold rush, because that was where you could make a lot of money as an indie. Then we saw the total fallout of so many different things. I feel like I've gone through so many ups and downs in the industry. I do love it because the longer you're around, the more you learn how to pivot. If you want this career, you learn how to write differently or do whatever you need to do to keep going, in different aspects, with the changes. To me, that makes the industry exciting. Again, perspective is a big thing. But I have had to take a year to kind of rebuild when I was out of contract with a lot of things. I've had to say, “Okay, what do you see on the horizon now? Where is the new foundation? Where do you wanna restart?” Sometimes it takes a year or two of, “Maybe I won't be making big income and I cut back,” but then you're back in it, because it takes a while to write a few new books, or write under a pen name, or however you want to pivot your way back into the industry. Or, like you were saying, diversifying. I did a lot of non-fiction stuff because that's a big calling for me, so I put that into the primary for a while. I think it's important for authors to maybe not just have one thing. When that one thing goes away, you're scrambling. It's good to have a couple of different things like, “Well, okay, this genre is dead or this thing is dead or this isn't making money. Let me go to this for a little while until I see new things on the horizon.” *** I love that from Jennifer, because there are always new things on the horizon, and we try new things and we pivot, and we bring in other streams of income as some drop off, and we go again and we keep creating. Authors with longevity are authors who pivot over their careers. They may lament the end of one era, but they don't stop, they find a new way forward. (3) Set a sustainable pace, and don't build reader expectations you can't deliver on Kevin J. Anderson is one of the most productive writers alive, with hundreds of books, most of which he writes with dictation while out hiking, and he has been on this show many times. In January 2025, in episode 791, we talked about building a long-term author business, and how authors need to be careful about setting reader expectations around pace of releases. Building A Long Term Author Business, Dictation, Kickstarter, and Short Story Collections With Kevin J Anderson Kevin: Now, again, we get back to the longevity of a career. It is exhausting to write lots of books a year, and most people can't keep doing that for 20 years or 30 years. That's one of the reasons, especially indie authors, where readers expect you to write several books a year. Some indie authors I know are writing a book a month. I couldn't do that for any long period. Well, I couldn't do that probably for a single year. You start building expectations, and when you fail to meet those expectations, they will leave you very quickly. That's why you should have Plan Bs. If you really, really can't stand writing your steampunk vampire romance series after book number 29, well, make sure that you have some other series you're starting and building up. Well, Hugh Howey's got several series that are going. Michael Anderle has all kinds of series, and Craig Martelle has all kinds of series. You don't just put all your eggs in one basket. You need to have Plan B and Plan C, to circle around to what I started with. *** Whatever cadence you choose, for your books, your email newsletters, or or your podcast, or your social media, choose a pace you can still be keeping up in a decade, because this is a long term career, and longevity in the market is one of the most important things. It's better to pace yourself than burn out. (4) Don't try to do it all, and try to identify the fear that might be driving your choices I couldn't do an episode on sustainability without Becca Syme! Becca is an author coach who has worked with thousands of writers, she is the creator of the Better-Faster Academy and the Quit books, and the QuitCast podcast — and In January 2023, in episode 668, at the end of our conversation about intuitive writing and marketing, I asked her what authors who sustain long careers have in common. Intuitive Writing And Book Marketing With Becca Syme *** Joanna: So in terms of sustainability, let's talk about that. You coach writers every day, you see writers on every spectrum of every personality type, and people who write differently and release differently and publish differently. So what do you see as your recommendations or, I guess, commonalities for authors who want this sustainable career as a writer for the long term in order not to burn out? What are you seeing in terms of the best way to be sustainable in a creative career? Becca: Conquering the fear that we have that we're not going to get what we want out of the career, like 100%. Because the fear is the thing that's driving us to burn ourselves out. The fear that if I don't do it this way, I'm not going to make money. If I don't do it this way, I'm not going to have a long career. I'm going to miss out on something if I don't do absolutely everything. And then I think the most important knowledge that we can have is that everyone in this industry who's a nonfiction person, including me, is giving you a perspective on how author life can be done. Every single one of us, not the perspective on how it should be done in order to have success. And if we could just change our expectations of how we look at the people who are helping us who are being good, helpful people who are very sure that their way is the correct way and who should be, again, because like all experts, they've had success doing what they are doing. But the downside is from someone whose job is to sit with authors for 45 minutes at a time, all day, every day, I see the outcome of the people who have tried to “do it all,” in quotes, with capital letters, and who are burned out because they were doing everything out of a fear place. And I think one of the best things that can happen in our — and what burnout often does is it forces us to reckon with the fact that we were doing all of this because we were afraid. My book isn't going to sell, I'm not going to be able to do this, I have this dream that I'm holding on to and what happens if it doesn't manifest itself. Then we make a lot of our decisions about how much to take on based on fear, and we don't know it. Because we don't realize that our brains are wired for survival, and so anytime fear kicks in, your brain is like, well, we have to do that because if you're afraid of it, then that must mean that we need it in order to survive. And we don't. We will survive if our books don't sell. We have to calm that fear and answer the question. Like, what will happen if in five years, I have not sold more than $1,000 on every book that I am writing? Like if each of the individual books that I write have not made more than $1,000. And I have to reckon with what might happen if that happens, because if I don't, that fear is going to drive me to burnout over and over and over and over again. That is why we're making so many of our decisions, including: do I pay for this class or conference? Do I pay for this book? Do I spend money on this advertising? Do I hire this expert consultant? So many of us are making those choices out of fear and we don't realize it. And that's why when we do our public live coaching, and whenever I'm at a conference, I'm always listening for, “but what are you afraid is not going to happen? Or what are you afraid is going to happen?” Because if we don't deconstruct that part of yourself and calm your survival mechanism down, you're going to continue over and over again to make those decisions out of fear. Then you're going to not listen to your intuition because you think it's risky to listen to it. And so I really think, and some of this might include therapy for some of us, I'm just going to acknowledge some of us have trauma around not getting what we want or around not actualizing our desires, and we can't just talk ourselves into letting the fear go. But some of us do just need to consistently confront the fear and make a plan for what happens and then act in spite of that fear because we are not making good decisions when we are in survival mode. *** Becca is very wise, and also pretty hardcore! So if you feel like you are trying to do it all, and you are on the edge of burning out, can you identify the fear beneath it? (5) Question what still serves you, especially as things continue to change Sometimes we keep doing things the same way, even when things have changed. What is lost if we give things up? What is gained? And what kind of game do you want to play? In episode 845, Claire Taylor, humour and mystery author, owner of FFS Media, certified Enneagram coach, talks about how social media has changed and why she gave it up. Leaving Social Media, Writing Iconic Characters, and Building Trust With Claire Taylor *** Joanna: One thing I know will have perked up people's ears is: “I left social media.” Tell us a bit more about that. Claire: This was a move that I could feel coming for a while. I didn't like what social media did to my attention. Even when I wasn't on it, there was almost a hangover from having been on it. My attention didn't feel as sharp and focused as it used to be, back before social media became what it is now. So I started asking myself some questions: What is lost if I leave? What is gained if I leave? And what is social media actually doing for me today? Because sometimes we hold on to what it used to do for us, and we keep trying to squeeze more and more of that out of it. But it has changed so much. There are almost no places with sufficient organic reach anymore. It's all pay-to-play, and the cost of pay-to-play keeps going up. I looked at the numbers for my business. My Kickstarter was a great place to analyse that because they track so many traffic sources so clearly. I could see exactly how much I was getting from social media when I advertised and promoted my projects there. Then I asked: can I let that go in order to get my attention back and make my life feel more settled? And I decided: yes, I can. That's worth more to me. Joanna: There are some things money can't buy. Sometimes it really isn't about the money. I like your question: what is lost and what is gained? You also said it's all pay-to-play and there's no organic reach. I do think there is some organic reach for some people who don't pay, but those people are very good at playing the game of whatever the platform wants. So, TikTok for example—you might not have to pay money yet, but you do have to play their game. You have to pay with your time instead of money. I agree with you. I don't think there's anywhere you can literally just post something and know it will reliably reach the people who follow you. Claire: Right. Exactly. TikTok currently, if you really play the game, will sometimes “pick” you, right? But that “pick me” energy is not really my jam. And we can see the trend—this “organic” thing doesn't last. It's organic for now. You can play the game for now, but TikTok would be crazy not to change things so they make more money. So eventually everything becomes pay-to-play. TikTok is fun, but for me it's addictive. I took it off my phone years ago because I would do the infinite scroll. There's so much candy there. Then I'd wake up the next morning and notice my mood just wasn't where I wanted it to be. My energy was low. I really saw a correlation between how much I scrolled and how flat I felt afterwards. So I realised: I'm not the person to pay-to-play or to play the game here. I'm not even convinced that the pay-to-play on certain social media networks is being tracked in a reliable, accountable way anymore. Who is holding them accountable for those numbers? You can sort of see correlation in your sales, but still, I just became more and more sceptical. In the end, it just wasn't for me. My life is so much better on a daily basis without it. That's definitely a decision I have not regretted for a second. **** To be clear, we're not saying you should give up social media, but it's about questioning how things make you feel, and what you can sustain and how you want to spend your time. I did question once again whether to give up this show entirely, but it is an important part of my creative body of work, and quite frankly, I reach more people with the podcast than I do with my books, and I still love talking to people, and I learn, and it underpins my business. I don't do much social media though. I learn about AI things on X and I do post photos and things on Instagram but I don't do much else. You have to decide what is right for you, but also, what is right for you might change over time. If we have a long term career, or a long term anything, things will change, and we will need to move on sometimes, or at least question whether it is still working in the way it used to. (6) Consider different approaches to creativity. It doesn't have to be every day, or every week.  In April 2026, in episode 858, I talked to Sara Rosett, USA Today bestselling mystery author and co-host of the Wish I'd Known Then podcast, about low-key marketing, and a more seasonal approach, or phased approach to podcasting as well as writing. Special Editions, Seasonal Podcasts, and the Art of Low-Key Book Marketing with Sara Rosett *** Jo: Although I must say I had forgotten about your Mystery Books podcast and going to seasonal. I also had my second podcast, Books and Travel, which is now on a kind of hiatus, but going to a seasonal approach is actually really interesting. Do you find that listeners come back to that podcast? Sara: Yes, and it surprises me because I've always thought you have to be weekly with a podcast to gain any traction at all, which I think is the best way to do it. You can build an audience quickly then, but I just knew I couldn't sustain that. So when I set out, I started with maybe seven to ten episodes and I did them each year — each year has had a season — and I do five to ten episodes. Readers find it, and I have highlighted specific books. I think maybe they're searching for a podcast about the Thursday Murder Club or something like that. They find it that way, and I get downloads, just steady downloads throughout the year, and I don't do much. I do some Pinterest pins for that, and that's about all I do. This is one of those things — it's the kind of low-key marketing that's low threshold, but it does work. I think if your readers are looking for stuff to listen to about the topic you write about, it could be a good way to do some low-cost, long-tail marketing. I love it. I keep doing it because I love it. Jo: That just seems more sustainable to me. I didn't like doing everything every day or every single week. Sara: Me either. I like switching it up, and I do enjoy the different phases of writing. I like the research and then I like doing the — well, I don't like the drafting that much, but once I get a draft done, I like the editing. And then when it comes time to promote it or do a special edition or whatever, I enjoy that part. Finding whatever I'm going to use for the interior photos and stuff — just things like that. I enjoy each phase and I like switching it out. Jo: I think that's really good. Some people think this writer's life is you write new words every single day and you manage your ads every single day. That seems to be what some people do, but that's certainly not us, is it? Sara: No. And that's great if you want to do that. I just don't want to. And I think we've come to the point now where each person can do this as they want. Hopefully people don't feel the pressure to meet these self-imposed deadlines or parameters that don't exist. There's no rules for writing or publishing. You can do whatever you want. *** I am definitely a seasonal creator, I don't write every day. I never have. I binge write when a book emerges, or binge create. As I record this I am working on the treatment and trailer for what is now called Cathedral Zero, a positive futurist sci-fi feature film that I am entering in the FutureVision X Prize in the next week or so, and then I will move to the next project. I also love Kickstarter launches for this reason. They feel much more sustainable because it's such a focused marketing push. My Books and Travel Podcast is still on hiatus, but I may still resurrect that at some point. I still feel the pull of it. And of course, this show remains weekly, but the Wednesday shift will hopefully help keep it this way. I can't see me going seasonal with this, but never say never! The main thing is to consider seasonality, or consider phased approaches to your work, rather than trying to do exactly the same thing week in week out. (7) Creative humans evolve. Build a body of work for the long term. Roz Morris first came on this podcast in 2011, and in March 2026, in episode 853 we talked about her memoir, discovery writing, and slow, sustainable book marketing. Roz is an award-nominated literary author and former bestselling ghostwriter, an editor and I always appreciate her perspective as she has been doing this far longer than I have. **** JOANNA: Do you still actively choose indie for a particular reason? ROZ: I do. I really like building my own body of work, and I'm now experienced enough to know what I do well, what I need advice with, and help with. I mean, we don't do all this completely by ourselves, do we? We bring in experts who will give us the right feedback if we're doing a new genre or a genre that's new to us. I choose indie because I like the control. Because I began in traditional publishing—I was making books for other people—I just learned all the trades and how to do everything to a professional standard. I love being able to apply that to my own work. I also love the way I can decide what I'm going to write next. If I was traditionally published, I would have to do something that fitted with whatever the publisher would want of me, and that isn't necessarily where my muse is taking me or what I've become interested in. I think creative humans evolve throughout their lives. They become interested in different things, different themes, different ways of expressing themselves. I began by thinking I would just write novels, and now I've found myself writing memoirs as well. That shift would have been difficult if someone else was having to make me fit into their marketing plans or what their imprint was known for. But because I've built my own audience, I can just bring them with me and say, “You might like this. It's still me. I'm just doing something different.” **** Inspiring words from Roz there — “It's still me, I'm just doing something different.” And indeed, I am a very different Jo from the new author who started this podcast back in March 2009. I have evolved and this show has evolved and this is not the end, it is a new phase. It's funny because it's just a shift of two days, but it also breaks a habit, for you listening and for me creating. It changes a time slot, and that itself can be a way to change energy, to change direction, to shift what matters and how we do things.  So that's what I want to leave you with today. A question around how shifting something, even something small, might make a big difference to your creative body of work, the quality of time you have for yourself or your family, and I'd love to know what you think about today's episode and what we covered, as well as your thoughts on the Wednesday shift.  Please leave a comment on the show notes, or the YouTube channel, or email me. I will see you next Wednesday, so happy writing and I'll see you next time!The post Why The Podcast Is Moving To Wednesdays, And 7 Tips for Sustainable Creativity first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Today on Getting Unstuck Hi, I'm Jeff Ikler, host of the Cultivating Curiosity podcast. This summer, I'm periodically releasing mini-episodes of "Cultivating Curiosity." In about 10 minutes, I'll dive deeper into a key point from a previously broadcast evergreen episode. The content in these mini-episodes is designed to be readily applicable to your life or work. At some point during the summer of 2019, I was walking in our nearby forest preserve, listening to a podcast with Tim Ferriss in conversation with Seth Godin. Tim Ferriss always asks his guests during the wrap-up what they're reading that they find fascinating—books that have truly impacted them. Without hesitation, Seth Godin replied, The Art of Possibility. I thought, if Seth Godin found the book worthwhile, I had to look into it. The authors of the book are Benjamin Zander, who at the time was the Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and served on the Faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston. That's an important distinction, as you will hear. And Rosamund Stone Zander was a family therapist and a landscape painter. Sadly, Roz died in September 2023 in a tragic accident. The idea The book's central premise is that life is a story and we are its author. Many of the circumstances that block us from leading a deeply satisfying life are assumptions and interpretations of our own making. We can, therefore, write better ones. Supporting that idea are 12 practices, which, if followed, promise to transform our thinking and the way we walk through life. The book, then, and this is important, is not a self-improvement book that results in merely tweaking our undesirable habits or making only incremental changes. The 12 practices are powerfully disruptive. Not surprisingly, because Roz was a psychotherapist, the practices call for a completely different way of looking at the world and our behavior. I purchased the audio version of the book because the authors narrated it and Ben infused it with rich musical examples. If I had been asked to write a back cover blurb, I might have offered something very erudite like, "I was blown away by it." It sits on my bookshelf with only a few other titles that I can grab in case of disaster. At the time, I thought I had little hope of securing Ben and Roz as guests on our fledgling show, but they could not have been more gracious in their response and participation. Episode 100, which I'll link in the show notes, has become one of my top 5 downloaded episodes out of more than 400, and for good reason. I'm going to feature two of the practices in this mini-episode: One is "It's all invented," which is really the capstone practice, and Two, Giving an A. In both cases, the authors will explain the practice in an excerpt from the original interview, followed by my brief commentary. It's all invented. Here is Roz touching on "It's all invented." Everything we do or say is really embedded in an interpretation, and we don't notice that, and when slide back and forth between the interpretation and what we say is real, and most of the time we are saying that what we, how we are interpreting things is reality, and that's how you get Republicans, Democrats, and all sorts of people in conflict because they don't make that distinction, so we are saying everything that you do and talk about, aside from something that everybody agrees is just happened or is true, is a story, and if you, if everything is a story, you can retell the story, and it'll make a different life for you. Enormous power of realizing that, and then saying, "Okay, let me just take the same circumstances I've just dealt with and make up a new story about it that helps, that is enlivening to me and enlivening to you and enlivening to everybody else. This practice has always taught me that I have the power to reframe and interpret what I've seen or heard about something, whether it's external or internal to me, so that whatever it is becomes more meaningful. I don't see this as putting a glossy coat of paint on something. It's challenging me to look at an aspect of life for what can be gleaned from it. This practice definitely calls for me to pause, step back, and refrain from immediate judgment. And that's not always easy because it runs counter to how our brains seek immediate clarity. As an exercise, take a situation and see if you can look at it differently so that it is, as Roz suggests, more enlivening. Sometimes you might have to do this through gritted teeth, but remember, you are the author of the story. Give yourself an "A." OK, here is the second practice: Giving an A. We'll hear from both Ben and Roz in this excerpt. The giving of the, which was Ross's idea, came out of my class, and the reason is that the students were living under such fear of competition and failure, and so I, we came up with this idea, Ross came up with the idea, and I practiced it, which is giving the A the beginning of the year before they've done anything. This is right in the very first class, they get the grade. The condition is there to write a letter at the beginning of the year describing who they will have become by the end of the year, and that to justify this thing, and so they're describing themselves at their very best at being successful and effective and wonderful musicians and people, and that's the person I teach when I go into the class, so that there became a way of approaching all teaching or conducting, I walk into an orchestra and give everybody an a instantaneously before we've begun, and the orchestra players feel that sense of confidence, of trust, of joy, of shared love of the music, and it creates an atmosphere. Oh, and then very important, if they make a mistake, we go, how fascinating. That has to be seen. How fascinating. I encourage people to go out and try that on the golf course, because what we do is we live under such fear of failure that we become very cautious and anxious, fearful, and looking all the time to see if other people are making the mistakes, and so it's not an atmosphere of risk taking and joy, and if you create an atmosphere of risk taking and joy, then, and everybody who makes a mistake gets to say, "How fascinating, then you've got a chance to people to learn more effectively, giving something here about transformation, because if we don't give an A and hope they'll live up to it, right, you see them as an A, and that means that I, or Ben, as the teacher or therapist, or whoever's given the giving the A has to do the work themselves, that becomes the relationship of an A. It isn't just the student that we hope to help along, because they feel loved and everything, and now they, they're not afraid. It is the relationship that changes, and that is the transformation. So, teachers transformed, students transform in the process, and transformation means that you're living in a different world, you're living in a world that doesn't operate by the same physics as the world we live in. It's very hard for people to get that the A is not a judgment Giving an A is my favorite of the twelve practices because, as Roz pointed out, it carries responsibility for both the giver and the receiver. We can give anyone an A, and that calls for us to see and treat them differently because our intent is that the A becomes, to quote from the book, "a possibility for the receiver to live into." I saw immediate application in my lifelong vocation of education. The key, as the authors point out in the book, is for the receiver to "place themselves in the future, looking back, and to report on all the insights they acquired and milestones they attained during the year as if those accomplishments were already in the past. Everything must be written in the past tense. Phrases such as I hope or I intend or I will must not appear." As an exercise, give a server in a restaurant an A the minute you sit down. How might doing so impact your behavior toward them? The key point here is that you're not trying to get the server to live up to a standard you've set, but to have them look more carefully at their own behavior and how they want to conduct themselves. Connect / Referenced Book: The Art of Possibility Benjamin Zander Center Video: Ben's TED Talk Video: Ben on "Giving an A" Rosamund Stone Zander Book: Pathways to Possibility Original episode: Creating a Life of Possibility: "How Fascinating!"

What happens when the thing you're most afraid of is also the thing that gives your life the most meaning?Matt Bromley chases storms for a living. Literally.He tracks weather systems forming across the globe, and when the wave looks big enough, he flies in, straps on an inflation vest, and paddles into waves three to seven storeys tall.Besides getting all the titles you can imagine in the Big Surfer World - Matt spent almost 20 years learning how to work with fear instead of around it to unlock more of his potential in this life.In this episode, Matt takes us inside the mind of someone whose "office" can genuinely kill him — and the mental training that makes that survivable, and even purposeful. We talk about:

Guy Oseary (@guyoseary) has been spotting talent before anyone else could see it for nearly four decades. Under his leadership at Maverick Records, Maverick sold more than 100 million albums. Guy has managed some of the biggest names in music, including Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and U2, and was named Variety's Music Mogul of the Year in 2022. He executive produced Twilight, which became one of the most successful franchises in movie history, generating more than $3.5B. Guy was also an early investor in Vita Coco and co-founded A-Grade Investments and then Sound Ventures, now with nearly $2 billion under management. At A-Grade, his hits included Airbnb, Uber, and Spotify. Sound Ventures launched with less than $100M and has since had 86 exits and 26 IPOs.This episode is brought to you by:Momentous high-quality creatine for cognitive and muscular support: https://livemomentous.com/TimAG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/TimTimestamps[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:01] How a West Hollywood balcony became a backstage pass.[00:03:51] A knife on Pico Boulevard and the snap decision to switch schools.[00:05:54] Faking a Beverly Hills address to get inside another world.[00:08:10] Wise Guy Records: a 15-year-old builds a portfolio out of nothing.[00:10:09] Guy's alternative terms when Bernie Brillstein offered $25,000.[00:11:34] The one moment that confirmed Guy was on the right path.[00:12:29] Freddy DeMann enters the picture and Guy proves himself with Ice-T's crew.[00:15:07] A desk at Maverick Records in exchange for no salary.[00:17:08] Chasing Hole and Rage Against the Machine — and losing both.[00:23:34] Candlebox in five minutes: seeing thousands in a room of 30.[00:24:11] Why "magic" beats everything else.[00:26:37] Signing Alanis off a single song, and stopping Muse mid-audition.[00:31:59] The real Alanis story: "Perfect," Joni Mitchell, and a 30-million-selling debut.[00:35:24] What Madonna taught Guy about thinking without walls.[00:38:50] From bands to Twilight: the power of a blank canvas.[00:45:30] How Guy got into investing, and the IdeaLab bet that wiped him out before the crash.[00:54:31] Why Guy is known as a great curator of people.[00:58:32] The three-month window that caught OpenAI and Anthropic.[01:06:07] AI music and the battle to ensure human musicians get paid.[01:09:30] How Spotify solved the problems Napster couldn't overcome.[01:14:50] SpaceX and Bitcoin: the ones that got away.[01:17:32] The rewards, rigors, and responsibilities of back-to-back touring.[01:21:44] Why Guy never stops to celebrate.[01:24:45] Splitting with Ashton Kutcher after 20 years.[01:27:30] Final thoughts on Guy's first podcast.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For more than 40 years, David Allen has worked with individuals and organizations around the world to help them stay clear, focused, and productive—without burning out. He is the author of the mega-bestseller Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Subscribe to David's Substack at davidallen.substack.com.This episode was originally published in September 2019. Show notes: https://tim.blog/2019/09/03/david-allen-getting-things-done/This episode is brought to you by:Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/timEight Sleep Pod Cover 5 sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: EightSleep.com/TimAG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/Tim5-Bullet Friday, my very own free email newsletter: https://tim.blog/fridayTimestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:03:12] As David once told Chase Jarvis: "Your mind is made for having ideas, not for holding ideas." What did he mean by this?[00:06:06] What are the first questions and exercises David presents when he begins coaching high-functioning but overwhelmed people?[00:08:28] What are the consequences of breaking an agreement with yourself, why are you most likely to break such an agreement, and what are your options for recovering from a broken agreement?[00:11:35] David's best tips for renegotiating an agreement when the need arises.[00:17:01] Where does David keep his backlog?[00:18:25] What are the pros and cons of keeping track of information in digital versus analog format?[00:20:00] As a teenager, what did David want to be when he grew up?[00:24:08] What did David's college and career path look like, and how did it steer him toward understanding models for navigating life's complexities?[00:25:48] What David can piece together from Berkeley, 1968 and the long list of careers that followed — leading to the formation of the principles detailed in GTD.[00:30:32] What mentors does David credit as being instrumental in his creation of GTD?[00:33:09] What are next action decisions, and how do they differ from what people generally put on their to-do lists?[00:36:24] The capture list, the two-minute rule, and emptying the in-basket.[00:37:22] Top-down versus bottom-up systems and understanding the hierarchy of priorities.[00:43:02] What led to the Allens' relocation to Amsterdam, and what quality of life improvements have he and his wife noticed since moving there?[00:48:29] How long did it take for the Allens to go from thinking about the possibility of moving from Ojai to Amsterdam to actually going through with it?[00:50:50] What does David consider his most fruitful — though seemingly counterintuitive — life decision?[00:55:34] One of David's mentors in Berkeley claimed to have extra-sensory abilities. Did David ever experience evidence of this in person?[00:56:58] David shares a particularly difficult period of time in his life, what led to it, and what happened in its aftermath.[01:01:21] What does the word "spiritual" mean to David?[01:02:14] What does David's meditation practice look like these days — and what does he recommend for someone who wants to start meditating?[01:02:58] What was David's biggest takeaway from the time he spent in a mental institution?[01:04:05] Does David ever feel overwhelmed or unfocused? If so, how does he deal with it?[01:05:02] Are there any new beliefs, behaviors, or habits that have materially improved David's life in the last handful of years?[01:06:19] Books (aside from his own) that David has gifted or recommended most to others.[01:07:13] What are David's bedtime and morning routines, and how much sleep does he get every night?[01:08:48] Is there anything about GTD David wishes more adherents would heed? Does anything important get commonly missed?[01:10:25] What are the steps of the GTD weekly review? Does David recommend doing it at any particular day or time?[01:12:40] Are there certain categories of things to which David simply says "No" as a default?[01:14:00] How does David filter unpleasant people out of his life?[01:14:52] Why GTD is intended as a force for freedom and creativity, not a yawnworthy paean to rigid structure — as Brad Keywell, Howard Stern, Will Smith, and Robert Downey, Jr. can testify.[01:18:58] Is the GTD weekly review inherently a solo process, or can it involve someone's group, staff, or family?[01:19:38] What does David use to organize his email?[01:20:58] Does David use any particular app or program for pulling material like articles or references from the Web?[01:22:13] Are there any quotes by which David tries to live his life?[01:22:48] What would David's billboard say?[01:23:16] Does David still have hope that people will do something with the space created by GTD to answer life's bigger questions?[01:25:35] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is the co-founder of East Rock Capital, a multibillion-dollar multi-family investment office he launched in 2006. He is also Chairman of the Sohn Conference Foundation, which funds pediatric cancer research.This episode was originally published in February 2019. Show notes: https://tim.blog/2019/02/28/graham-duncan/This episode is brought to you by:Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/timEight Sleep Pod Cover 5 sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: EightSleep.com/TimAG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/Tim5-Bullet Friday, my very own free email newsletter: https://tim.blog/friday*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Coca is to cocaine what potatoes are to vodka" — Dr. Andrew Weil and Wade Davis on the health benefits, sacred history, and unjust prohibition of the most misunderstood plant on Earth.Dr. Andrew Weil is a pioneer in integrative medicine and founder of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, where he holds the Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair and serves as Clinical Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health.Wade Davis is an ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. From 2014 to 2024 he served as Professor of Anthropology and BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia, and from 2000 to 2013 as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society.Connect with the Beneficial Plant Research Association (BPRA): Website (scroll down to donate) | Coca Leaf Research | Coca Leaf Documentary | Coca Leaf RetreatThis episode is brought to you by:Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)Maui Nui Venison​ delicious, nutrient-dense, and responsible red meat: https://mauinuivenison.com/tim5-Bullet Friday, my very own free email newsletter: https://tim.blog/fridayTimestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:38] When coca tea cured my brutal altitude sickness in Chile.[00:04:01] Andy meets coca, 1965: the Andes' master medicine for gut, energy, mood, metabolism.[00:06:20] 14 alkaloids, one scapegoat.[00:07:11] The paradox: one remedy for both diarrhea and constipation.[00:11:37] 8,000 years, zero addiction — and the 1975 study no one wanted to run.[00:13:11] Eradication began 60 years before there was a cocaine problem.[00:16:27] Two nations inside Peru: alcohol versus coca.[00:17:05] The 1950 UN commission that dictated coca policy by pseudoscience, fear, and racism.[00:18:10] Filed beside fentanyl and heroin; 250,000 families and the price of peace.[00:20:03] What coca actually feels like: milder than half a coffee, no crash, no withdrawal.[00:24:19] Decoupling the leaf from the cartels; why crop substitution is a fantasy.[00:25:54] Domesticated three times; the accident of Schedule II.[00:27:49] The sacred leaf: k'intu, cruceta, Pachamama, runakuna.[00:31:11] Hayo in the Sierra Nevada, and Latin America's most-denied gift.[00:32:53] The wedge in the door: demand, the FDA, and an entrepreneur's gold mine.[00:40:22] The story coca deserves — a film, green powders, and one good study.[00:43:12] Monkey mind, the tax of consciousness, and an 84th birthday on coca.[00:47:35] Who to fund: McCurdy and the hunt for legal leaves.[00:49:17] Could coca treat cocaine addiction? Cost, and NIDA's timing.[00:53:18] "Green cocaine" at the airport: coca is to cocaine as potatoes are to vodka.[00:56:58] A 24-hour ritual run powered entirely by coca.[00:59:07] Why two men gave their careers to one leaf — and the pharmaceutical body count.[01:06:22] America's legal cocaine capital, and Coke's secret recipe.[01:09:08] No accident: the hideous prose behind laws we still obey.[01:15:42] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Kevin Kane, CEO of American Binary, a pioneer in the field of enterprise post-quantum network security joins us to talk about the looming threat of Q-Day. Together, we tackle urgent questions surrounding the looming quantum threat, the vulnerabilities in our global financial systems, and how quantum computing could reshape cybersecurity as we know it.Kevin dives deep into why his company was founded to protect critical infrastructure from future quantum attacks and explains their journey in developing NSA-standard post-quantum encryption. From the psychology of innovation to the global stakes of unpreparedness, Kevin shares thought-provoking insights on courage, resilience, and the human side of tech entrepreneurship.Get ready for a conversation that spans from cutting-edge cryptography to geopolitics, the nature of leadership, and the importance of family—while reminding us all why the race for secure networks is about more than technology; it's about civilization's survival.LinksKevin's LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamkevinpkane/Watch on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYLaWYyh37wTime Stamps00:00 American Binary's founding and cryptography focus04:27 Post quantum encryption explained09:16 Tim Ferriss immersion strategy12:46 Talking about financial success13:36 Hypothetical security breach scenario16:57 Market chaos and trading shifts21:27 Ensuring safe tech development27:21 Driven by long-term passion31:03 Military experience and personal resolve32:48 Enterprise VPN with quantum encryption36:34 Impact of Parenthood on Perspective38:21 Understanding motives of leadership

You ask AI what’s the best brand of supplement, how to handle a tricky conversation, or whether to take the job. But what about your own inner wisdom? When was the last time you paused and asked yourself first? I’m not picking on AI or telling you not to use it. However, it’s important to tune into your inner wisdom, so it doesn’t slip into the background from lack of use. It’s like use it or lose it baby. Why We’re Outsourcing More Decisions Than Ever People have always looked outside themselves for guidance to experts, religious leaders, therapists, coaches, and even psychics, and astrologers. That’s nothing new. But AI has changed the speed of that outsourcing dramatically. Author, entrepreneur, and podcast host Tim Ferriss recently shared a transparent peak into his business. His book sales dropped over 40% in 2025 and a jaw-dropping 50% again so far in 2026. His explanation? People are skipping how-to books and long- form YouTube videos in favor of instant AI answers. This isn’t just a publishing problem. It’s a signal. We are increasingly moving away from anything that takes time. For decades we’ve had drive-through coffee, apps for finding love, and now there’s telehealth calls. But what are we missing when we skip just sitting with something and taking our time with it? Are we handing over big life decisions to something that compiles other people’s experiences rather than relying on your own? The Hidden Cost of Decision Fatigue Research suggests the average adult makes 35,000 decisions every single day. Just ordering a coffee involves cup size, hot or cold, caffeine, sweetener, milk type, and flavorings. No wonder we’re exhausted! Decision fatigue is real, and that overload pushes many of us to skip the natural process of seeking inner guidance, especially for big issues. When you’re depleted, it makes sense to look for something to ease the burden. AI is right there, fast and seemingly limitless. But that speed has a cost in terms of trusting yourself and your own inner knowing. Information and Inner Wisdom Are Not the Same This is the heart of the matter. Information is fast, external, and tells you what other people know. AI gather this information and can deliver it in seconds. On the other hand, inner wisdom is personal, earned through your lived experience, and requires time, awareness, and reflection to emerge. That is something AI will NEVER provide. For thousands of years, wisdom required effort. People took on apprenticeships, learned religious or spiritual practices, spent time in self-reflection, experienced trial and error and these paths often took years. But today, information arrives instantly. The question is are you trading the slow accumulation of wisdom for the quick hit of information? And what might you have lost as a result? 4 Things AI Cannot Do For You AI is a genuinely powerful tool for brainstorming, research, and saving time. But there are things it simply cannot tell you: Which opportunity feels right for your life Whether a relationship is for your highest good What your soul is nudging you toward What you truly want in your heart of hearts The danger isn’t that AI will replace your intuition. The danger is that you’ll skip it even after gathering information to make your final decision. This will eventually erode trust in yourself over time. A Personal Story About Self-Trust At the end of my corporate career, I took a layoff package instead of taking a position in another division of General Foods. That place was draining me of my life force. In fact, I had a recurring dream that ended one night with coming home from a business trip to find my apartment emptied out. The only thing remaining was a burned-out neon clock that had stopped working. This same clock was in my real life office. Finally, I understood I was burned out, time was up, and so I walked away. Leaving with a seven-month package, I had no plan except talking to vendors, peers, and marketing executives. I had my astrology chart done and read What Color Is Your Parachute? which was a popular self-help book on finding work you love. None of it told me what would come next. Looking back, what I find interesting is that I didn’t discover my next chapter because I found the answer. My future unfolded because I gave it room to emerge. Within six months, former colleagues started calling asking for freelance help. That became a twelve-year career freelancing for big marketing agencies with brands like AT&T, Chase Bank, and Jack Daniels. The work was on my own terms, often just four days a week. My father joked with his friends that I was semi-retired because of that schedule. That’s the difference between information and wisdom. Information shows us possibilities. Wisdom helps you recognize which possibility is right for you. And the more you connect with your intuition, the more you trust yourself because of it. Midlife Wisdom Is Powerful By midlife, you have decades of experience. You’ve survived heartbreaks, celebrated successes, made mistakes, and recognized patterns. You’ve honed your intuition through living, day by day and have built trust in yourself. Yet, most women seriously underestimate how important and valuable that truly is. I worked with a 61-year-old client who had been job hunting for a year. Convinced that ageism was closing every door, her beliefs were crowding out the value of her own qualifications and experience. After the first session working on shifting those beliefs, she recognized how much she’d been doubting herself. She chose to stop focusing on what others thought of her and rely on her own earned wisdom. Seven days later she had three interviews. Within two months she landed exactly the job she wanted. It wasn’t her circumstances that changed, but her relationship to her own inner wisdom. How to Use Both AI and Your Inner Wisdom You don’t have to choose between AI and intuition. Use them based on what each one does best: Use AI to gather information Use your mind to analyze the possibilities Use your heart to understand what things mean Use your intuition for personalized guidance of the highest nature Over the next few weeks, when something comes up, consider turning inward first. You may already know your next step. But even if you tune in after you gather information, that slowing down will help you know what is for your highest good. Key Takeaways AI provides information; only you can access your inner wisdom Decision fatigue makes it tempting to outsource even deeply personal decisions Your accumulated life experience is a resource no tool can replicate Slowing down creates the space for wisdom to emerge Trusting yourself is a practice that builds over time Frequently Asked Questions – Inner Wisdom Vs. AI What is inner wisdom and how is it different from information? Inner wisdom is the personal knowing that comes from lived experience, reflection, and self-awareness. Information is external knowledge that can be quickly retrieved from sources like AI. Wisdom is earned; information is accessed. Can AI help with personal decisions? AI can help you research options, brainstorm possibilities, and organize your thinking. But it cannot tell you what feels right for your specific life, values, or soul path. That discernment comes from within. How do I access my inner wisdom? Start by slowing down. Ask yourself: What do I already know? What feels true to me? What would I do if no one else’s opinion were available? Write down what comes up. Many people find insights arrive in quiet moments — in the shower, on a walk, or during meditation. Why do women in midlife struggle to trust their own inner wisdom? Many spiritually aware women in midlife believe they need one more course, certification, or expert opinion before they can trust themselves. In reality, decades of lived experience have already built a deep well of wisdom — it simply needs to be accessed and trusted. What is the risk of relying too heavily on AI? The risk isn’t that AI will replace your intuition. The risk is that the habit of seeking instant external answers means you stop pausing long enough to hear your own inner guidance at all. The post Is There A Risk Relying On AI Vs. Your Own Intuition? appeared first on Intuitive Edge.

Healthcare pioneer Rushika Fernandopulle joins us to discuss his new venture Liza and why this is the perfect moment to build new primary care models from the bottom up. Rushika argues that “shareholder value” has usurped the needs of patients in US healthcare, and that fundamental rethinking, not optimizing or tweaking at the edges, is needed. Rushika shares the ‘build principles' for Liza:Backload constraints - don't frontload them. First show that a new approach works, then figure out the business modelTake cues from conscious capitalism: the purpose of a business is to create good in the world, not to optimize shareholder value Figure out the right thing to do, not a business that fits how healthcare is brokenRushika argues that AI invites us to rethink healthcare based on abundance, not scarcity:“We've built our whole economy, all our processes with this assumption of scarcity, that there were a scarce number of human brains who could do things, right? Doctors, teachers, et cetera. And now all of a sudden that assumption has gone away. So we need to rethink from scratch how we build these systems. So that's what we're trying to do at Liza. Like, what if we started from scratch?”Relevant LinksMore information on LIZA HealthThe book Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey et alPodcast episode where Tim Ferris and Jerry Colonna talk about sabbaticalsArticle by Sara Riggare about living with Parkinson's and her image of blue and red dotsAbout Our GuestRushika Fernandopulle is a practicing physician who is the CEO of Liza Health, a startup building a new AI-enabled platform for Primary Care. He was the co-founder and CEO of Iora Health, an early innovator in Primary Care redesign which was acquired by Amazon in 2023. Prior to this, Rushika was the first Executive Director of the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement and Managing Director of the Clinical Initiatives Center at the Advisory Board Company. He is a member of the Schweitzer, Ashoka, Aspen, and Salzburg Global Fellowships, on faculty at Harvard Medical School. He serves on the boards of the Asian American Foundation, Families USA, and Premera Blue Cross, and is a member of the Lancet Commission for Person Centered Care. He earned his A.B., M.D., and M.P.P. from Harvard University, and completed his clinical training at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts General Hospital.SourceConnect With UsFor more information on The Other 80 please visit our website - www.theother80.com. To connect with our team, please email claudia@theother80.com and follow us on twitter @claudiawilliams and LinkedInSubscribe to The Other 80 on YouTube so you never miss our video extras or special video episodes!

Anthropic FABLE 5 and MYTHOS 5 Communiqué d'Anthropic https://x.com/AnthropicAI/status/2065597531644743999?s=20 Anthropic Walks Back Policy That Could Have ‘Sabotaged' AI Researchers Using Claude https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-responds-to-backlash-on-claudes-secret-sabotage-on-ai-research/ Anthropic Reverses Course on Hidden AI Restrictions Following Developer Backlash https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-responds-to-backlash-on-claudes-secret-sabotage-on-ai-research/ Open Source New report raises concerns over Russian propaganda spread by Europe's flagship AI company Mistral | Euronews WWDC WWDC 2026: Everything Revealed in 13 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnxUuOYMB0o Apple introduces Siri AI, a profoundly more capable and personal assistant https://nr.apple.com/Dj1J2Y9Nr4 Child Safety Committed to building a safe and trusted platform for kids. https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ Pourquoi Siri AI n'arrivera pas en Europe https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-delayed-in-eu-for-ios-27-and-ipados-27/ Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? Sales Trends, My Personal Data, and What It Might Mean for the Future by Tim Ferris https://tim.blog/2026/06/12/has-ai-already-killed-nonfiction/ Culture fragmenté / The World Cup paradox - How the rules of both entertainment and soft power are being rewritten https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/10/the-world-cup-paradoxINSPIRATION#EVENT :: Niptech Explore - Olivier Clerc 30.06 à Lausanne https://boutique.cah.ch/products/niptech-presente-au-dela-des-4-accords-tolteques-avec-olivier-clerc #PODCAST :: The most rational take on AI you'll hear this year Lenny's Podcast with Benedikt Evans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD3vLtWhT5A #PODCAST :: Jacques Besson sur les Les Ataprods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xyjsEbmk8U #INTERVIEW :: Elon Musk of 2007 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyCOvT1Y5YQ #BOOK :: The Law of Light by Lars Muhl https://a.co/d/0bBpcpjd #QUOTE :: “Change is either your great ally, or your great enemy.” #quote @RealJayAbraham Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Sebastian Mallaby (@scmallaby) is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the author of six books, including More Money Than God, The Power Law, The Man Who Knew, and The World's Banker. His latest book is The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.This episode is brought to you by:Eight Sleep Pod Cover 5 sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: EightSleep.com/TimAG1 Pro all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/TimWealthfront high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/Tim Wealthfront disclaimer: New clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB, which creates a conflict of interest. Individual experiences and outcomes will differ. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services 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.*Timestamps[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:11] The twinkly eyed polymath who became Sebastian's next book.[00:06:55] Picking the next book project the way a great VC picks a startup.[00:09:41] Why God keeps crashing the superintelligence party.[00:11:13] Shane Legg's grainy 2009 prophecy — and the nervous giggle.[00:13:11] Ilya Sutskever burns an effigy.[00:13:54] Demis at 4 a.m., hunting God's algorithm.[00:18:43] Super-abundance, Mad Max, and the China shock lesson.[00:22:39] The kitchen debate with Geoff Hinton that flipped Sebastian.[00:24:06] Why a zero-percent chance of doom is indefensible.[00:24:52] Will Washington seize the labs? The Mythos wake-up call.[00:27:18] Anthropic's bull case, bear case, and a dead parent's letter.[00:33:24] Where Sebastian and Benedict Evans part ways.[00:38:16] Is the SaaS apocalypse overdone? One word: Palantir.[00:39:53] The AI friend you'll never switch.[00:41:56] Does Google win consumer AI by default?[00:44:45] Four cities, eight days: China actually talks safety.[00:47:28] A Cold War non-proliferation playbook for AI.[00:49:45] Did the chip export controls actually work?[00:51:49] Burned doves: why Washington swears China won't talk.[00:54:56] "By 2028, the race is over" — one lab boss' bet.[00:59:11] Inside Hikvision: toddlers, sensors, and US sanctions.[01:01:07] Bill Gurley's Uber bet: venture capital perfected.[01:05:18] Luke Nosek bear-hugs DeepMind into existence.[01:10:52] Thiel's heresy: never invest by committee.[01:11:59] How Founders Fund nearly fumbled the deal of the century.[01:14:30] Selling to Google for $650M: a secret British heist?[01:16:41] The Traitorous Eight, gardening leave, and the UK's to-do list.[01:20:55] Ender's Game: "That's really how I see myself."[01:23:42] Too dumb for Gödel, Escher, Bach? Maybe an LLM can help.[01:25:19] If not Demis or Sam, then Dario.[01:26:04] My royalties cliff — and what dropped in late 2022.[01:27:47] Lila Sciences and the labs that run themselves.[01:31:13] Sebastian's billboard: "Prepare your mind."[01:35:14] The one thing Sebastian will never outsource to AI.[01:40:09] Parting thoughts.For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlie Hoehn is a marketing strategist, bestselling author, and expert on book publishing who has worked with some of the world's most successful authors, including Tim Ferriss, Codie Sanchez, and Ramit Sethi. After overcoming debilitating anxiety through the power of play, Charlie wrote "Play It Away: A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety," which became a viral sensation and helped countless people reclaim their mental health. In this conversation, they explore: — How burnout led Charlie to rethink work through play — Why exercise works better when it feels like play, not effort — The common mistake authors make when identifying their ideal reader — How to involve readers as co-creators before a book is launched — The idea that a book should be able to sell itself after the first 10,000 copies And more. You can learn more about Charlie's work at author.inc. --- Charlie Hoehn helps authors, creators, and entrepreneurs scale their impact through high-performance author marketing and business strategy. With which he teaches how to build, launch, and sell books—often helping non-fiction writers reach bestseller status. You can learn more at charliehoehn.com --- Interview Links: — Charlie's website: https://www.charliehoehn.com and https://www.author.inc

Join Michael at his Mt. Shasta Summer Retreat, July 30 - August 2! Sign up by June 14 to receive Early Bird Savings! Click here: https://events.agapelive.com/mt-shasta-summer-retreat/  Today, Michael welcomes Dr. Paul Conti. Dr. Paul Conti is a celebrity-endorsed psychiatrist, renowned author, and President of Pacific Premier Group PC, a comprehensive mental health clinic providing therapy, coaching, and consulting services to individuals, families, and businesses in the United States and abroad. He has been featured on leading podcasts with hosts including Tim Ferriss, Andrew Huberman, and Mel Robbins. In his latest book, What's Going Right , Dr. Conti offers a paradigm-shifting approach to mental health, highlighting the brain's "generative drive"—the innate force that fuels creativity, connection, purpose, and resilience. Rather than focusing on what's wrong, he provides practical tools for cultivating peace, contentment, emotional well-being, and ultimately, a more joyful life. Conversation Highlights include: -Mental health is not a matter of being either healthy or broken, but an ongoing practice that requires the same care, attention, and maintenance as physical health. -A powerful shift in perspective reveals how focusing exclusively on "what's wrong" creates blind spots, while beginning with "what's going right" opens the door to honest self-awareness and lasting change. -An exploration of the three core human drives—assertion, pleasure, and the generative drive—and why creating goodness, meaning, and contribution is essential for a fulfilling life. -The importance of approaching yourself with compassionate curiosity rather than shame, criticism, or fear when uncovering patterns that no longer serve your well-being. -Why cynicism often develops as protection against disappointment, yet ultimately blocks connection, joy, trust, and the ability to recognize goodness in life. -A practical framework for understanding the structure and function of self, offering a roadmap for personal growth, emotional healing, and greater resilience. -A discussion on meditation as a pathway to mental clarity, emotional regulation, inner peace, and a healthier relationship with your thoughts. -Insight into how recurring challenges—especially in relationships—can reveal unconscious patterns that become opportunities for deeper self-understanding and transformation. -The concept of life narrative and how many people unconsciously define themselves by failures and disappointments while overlooking their resilience, strength, and successes. Next, Michael closes the episode with a guided meditation centered on empowering questions that activate possibility, shift perception, and invite the mind to discover evidence of abundance, health, and goodness.

Max Levchin (@mlevchin) is a serial entrepreneur and investor in 100+ startups. He's the founder and CEO of Affirm, the payment network powering consumer purchases and merchant growth. An original PayPal co-founder, Max served as CTO until its 2002 acquisition by eBay.This episode is brought to you by:ProLon: science-backed Fasting Mimicking Diet that helps activate cellular renewal through fasting, while still eating nourishing meals: ProlonLife.com/TimMonarch track, budget, plan, and do more with your money: Monarch.com/Tim Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/timTimestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:50] The Ronin line that rewired how Max makes every decision.[00:06:09] Paprika-style brain-computer interfaces.[00:09:09] PayPal's founders lived inside a Neal Stephenson novel.[00:19:21] Transformation via Neuromancer and Snow Crash.[00:23:40] The book that found Max his wife.[00:29:24] The real secret to a great marriage.[00:38:29] What's worth tracking, and what's not.[00:44:13] A scrawny kid, a clarinet, and a Kyiv velodrome.[00:46:55] What going all-out on a bike actually gives you.[00:51:02] The mantra by which Max rides.[00:53:02] A Soviet kid's fear of socialism.[01:02:48] Making a profit without destroying society.[01:04:31] What is Affirm, and why did every banker say it would fail?[01:20:18] Why the best mathematicians eschew the lending industry.[01:23:50] Does agentic commerce break Affirm, or supercharge it?[01:28:01] A PhD-level financial advisor in everyone's pocket.[01:29:58] How close are we to buying anything through one AI chat?[01:36:32] Improving your coffee: cheap, intermediate, and Bugatti options.[01:44:33] The books every first-time founder should actually read.[01:48:08] Claude Shannon, Ed Thorp, and the joy of playful genius.[01:51:00] Why physical books still beat every digital reading experience.[01:51:44] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I don't end many podcasts by inviting someone to come hang out at the farm, but this was one of those conversations. In this episode, I sit down with Patrick Engasser, a bestselling author, speaker, and coach who's built and led a seven-figure sales team…all while being blind since birth.  This isn't a “feel good” story. This is a wake-up call. We talk about what it actually takes to succeed when the odds aren't in your favor, how to stay aware of opportunities most people completely miss, and why building the right systems is the difference between being stuck and having real freedom. Patrick also shares powerful perspective shifts around adversity- how the very thing you think is holding you back might actually be your greatest advantage. And yeah…we even get into guide dogs.  If you've been waiting for the “right time” or better circumstances… this episode will challenge that hard.   Find Patrick at www.TalkwithPatrick.com  If I Can Do It, You Can Do It!: Inspiration for Eliminating Excuses, Overcoming Challenges, and Succeeding in Business and Life by Patrick Engasser https://amzn.to/4cIg1VH    Things mentioned in the show: 10X is Easier than 2X by Dan Sullivan https://amzn.to/4mErRok  4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss https://amzn.to/4cB3XFF  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey https://amzn.to/489fc72  Goals: How to Get the Most Out of Your Life by Zig Ziglar https://amzn.to/4twO7mY  The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer https://amzn.to/4cX7rUk    --- Click here to change your life- http://eepurl.com/gy5T3T   Hit me up for a one-on-one brainstorming session- https://militaryimagesproject.com/products/brainstorming-session-1-hour    Check out my Linktree for different ways to rock your world! https://linktr.ee/ruggeddad    Check out the sweet Hyper X mic I'm using. https://amzn.to/41AF4px    Check out my best-selling books: Rapid Skill Development 101- https://amzn.to/3J0oDJ0 Streams of Income with Ryan Reger- https://amzn.to/3SDhDHg Strangest Secret Challenge- https://amzn.to/3xiJmVO This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link and buy one of the products on this page, I may receive a commission (at no extra cost to you!) This doesn't affect our opinions or our reviews. Everything we do is to benefit you as the reader, so all of our reviews are as honest and unbiased as possible. #passiveincome #sidehustle #cryptocurrency #richlife

What does it take to be a founder? In this episode of The Founder Mindset, produced by Harvard Business School Foundry and hosted by Senior Lecturer Reza Satchu, Satchu sits down with writer, podcaster, and investor Tim Ferriss to discuss his blueprint for nimble decision-making and actionable success.

Entrepreneur, author, and podcaster Tim Ferriss joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage founders. Plus, Tim shares the inspiration behind his latest venture, Coyote—a 10-minute card game that encourages time spent with friends and family.First, Lauryn from San Francisco asks about the best way to scale her biodegradable ear plugs in two very different directions. Then Emily from Kansas City weighs whether DTC or wholesale is where to focus her accessory brand after Taylor Swift wore one of her rings and sales exploded. And finally, Kimberly in Woolwich, Maine wonders how to incentivize her customers to pre-order her high-quality, sustainable, clothing. Thank you to the founders of GOB, EB & Co, and K. Becker Designs for being a part of our show.If you'd like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you'd like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to listen to Tim Ferriss's founding story as told by Tim on the show in 2020. This episode was produced by Noor Gill with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com and on Substack.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jake Becraft is the CEO and co-founder of Strand Therapeutics, a company building one of the most advanced programmable genetic medicine platforms in biotechnology. Under his leadership, Strand is redefining what RNA medicines can do by enabling cell-selective targeting and therapeutic payload delivery inside the body, unlocking a new class of precision genetic therapies.This episode is brought to you by:Helix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/Tim (20% off any purchase) Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of In Demand, Asia and Kim continue their two-part series on SaaS marketing channels with a rapid-fire breakdown of the most common growth channels available to SaaS companies. They cover everything from word of mouth, SEO, and social ads to conferences, partnerships, PLG, engineering as marketing, ABM, and community building. Throughout the episode, Asia explains which channels tend to work best, where founders waste money, and why context always matters more than trends or generic advice. This episode is a practical guide to evaluating marketing channels, understanding the tradeoffs behind each one, and avoiding the trap of searching for a universal “best” growth strategy. Got a question you'd like Asia to unpack on the podcast? Record a voicemail here. Links:  DemandMaven Subscribe to The Work by DemandMaven on Substack Link to Part One The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling Chapters (00:00:05) - In Demand: How to Troubleshoot Growth for Saa(00:00:27) - Choosing the Best Marketing Channels for SaaS(00:02:02) - Asia' Lightning Round(00:02:27) - Is Word of Mouth the best channel for sales?(00:04:03) - Organic Search: The Most Sustainable Channel for SaaS(00:07:04) - Is Organic Social Social Good for Business?(00:08:45) - What are Social and Display Ad Networks?(00:10:29) - What is Content Marketing?(00:11:55) - How to Integrate Email Marketing with Your Inbound Marketing(00:13:52) - Affiliate Marketing: Types of Channels, and How to Use(00:16:05) - Offline Ad Strategy: Social Media vs Traditional Media(00:19:51) - Do I Need to Invest in a Marketplace?(00:21:37) - Top 5 Channels for Product Led Growth(00:22:49) - "Engineering as Marketing"(00:26:38) - Speech Engagements(00:32:40) - Cold Outreach: The Low-Cost Channel(00:38:46) - Does Viral Marketing Impact SaaS Sales?(00:40:36) - Tim Ferriss on Community Building(00:42:36) - Partnerships: What are they and how do they work?(00:48:56) - What is Unconventional PR and Regular PR for SaaS(00:51:44) - How to Get Strategic with Your Channels

Dr. Becky Kennedy is the founder and CEO of Good Inside, a parenting movement that overturns a lot of conventional, modern parenting practices to empower parents to become sturdy, confident leaders and raise sturdy, confident kids. She is the author of the bestselling book Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, a chart-topping podcast, a TED talk with more than 5 million views on the power of repair.This episode is brought to you by:Monarch track, budget, plan, and do more with your money: Monarch.com/Tim Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/tim*This episode was originally published in December 2024. Show notes and links: https://tim.blog/2024/12/27/dr-becky-kennedy-good-inside/TIMESTAMPS:[00:00:00] Start.[00:01:55] The power of repair.[00:04:50] "It's never your fault when I yell at you."[00:08:55] What does it mean to be a "good" parent?[00:10:32] Activating curiosity over judgment.[00:13:33] Alternatives to saying "Good job" as a confidence builder.[00:20:50] Making kids happy vs. building capability.[00:24:18] A pilot metaphor for sturdy leadership.[00:29:30] Role confusion.[00:32:04] Defining boundaries.[00:35:07] How parenting becomes a two-way mirror for growth.[00:40:09] The MGI (Most Generous Interpretation) approach.[00:42:52] Biggest challenges in parenting.[00:46:52] Recommended reading for someone with kids in their life.[00:52:11] Advisable prerequisites for singles who aim to build a family.[00:56:18] Setting boundaries with grandparents and dealing with different parenting styles.[01:01:42] Handling frustration when a child is pushing your buttons.[01:09:58] Lessons learned from working with eating disorders.[01:13:26] Managing troublemaker behavior.[01:17:38] Bad influence intervention.[01:22:52] Cultivating resilience in "deeply feeling" kids (DFKs).[01:28:58] The trials and errors that birthed Good Inside.[01:32:53] "Our words are not our wishes. Our words are our fears."[01:40:07] Billboard messages and mantras.[01:48:00] Fan-favorite scripts on saying no, boundaries, and repair.[01:51:15] The tennis court metaphor for boundaries.[01:55:45] Resources and parting thoughts.For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this final episode of our rerun of our January series on The Anatomy of a Breakthrough, we arrive at strategy - not as hustle, force, or rigid self-improvement, but as a creative, embodied collaboration with your own life.Throughout the month, we've explored how real change unfolds when state comes first, story begins to soften, and strategy is allowed to emerge from alignment rather than pressure. In this episode, we bring it all together.Drawing on the wisdom of thinkers, artists, and teachers such as Buckminster Fuller, Vincent van Gogh, James Clear, Tim Ferriss, Shunryū Suzuki, Hugh Laurie, Millard Fuller, and contemporary author Jordan Gruber, Ashley weaves a deeply neurodivergent-affirming exploration of how meaningful change actually takes shape.We'll explore:Why strategy works best when it builds the new rather than fights the oldHow small, sustainable actions quietly create upward spiralsWhy confidence often follows action - not the other way aroundHow embodied knowledge can return when we meet ourselves in the right stateWhat it means to design a strategy that truly fits your nervous systemThe episode closes with a deeply nourishing Yoga Nidra, inviting your nervous system into a state of rest, receptivity, and neuroplasticity - a place where new patterns can gently take root.If you're tired of forcing change, waiting for motivation, or feeling like strategy has to be punishing to be effective, this episode offers a kinder, wiser way forward.✨ You're allowed to edit your life. You're allowed to begin again. And you're allowed to take one small step at a time.Our Sponsors:

TO LEARN MORE:        www.CrossFitEdwardsville.com        www.Facebook.com/CrossFitEdwardsville       TikTok: @crossfitedwardsville       Instagram: @crossfitedwardsville         Twitter: @cfedwardsville         YouTube: CrossFit Edwardsville   TO GET STARTED AT CFE:      Book a No-Sweat Conversation with a coach, using this scheduler:           https://crossfitedwardsville.com/intro/     You can also find the link to schedule on our website.   While this show is educational & entertaining in nature, it does not replace or supplant professional medical guidance from your own physician. Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, please first consult with your doctor. 

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. 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.This episode is brought to you by:Eight Sleep Pod Cover 5 sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: EightSleep.com/TimAG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/TimWealthfront high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/Tim Wealthfront disclaimer: New clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB, which creates a conflict of interest. Individual experiences and outcomes will differ. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services 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.DISCLAIMER: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.Timestamps:[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.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rob and Neil have been doing this a long time, long enough to get bored with the safe version of things. This conversation started as a Friday-at-5 PM debrief between two guys who've spent years making diabetes content, and it ended up going somewhere worth sharing. They talk about the trap of waiting until you've "figured it out" before helping anyone and why being in the middle of something is actually more useful than standing on the other side of it. Neil makes the case that saying "I'm proud of you" to someone still in the fight might be the most underrated thing a diabetes creator can do. Rob shares what hydration, sleep consistency, and the Steph Curry shooter's mentality have to do with managing blood sugars. Both of them are honest about the fact that none of this is ever really mastered. There's also a surprisingly vulnerable cure conversation. Neil opens up about what happened when he recorded a podcast episode with Katie Beth, one of the 10 participants in the Eladon trial who are now insulin independent and why it wrecked him in a way he didn't expect. Neither Rob nor Neil is putting all their chips on a timeline, but something has shifted: for the first time in 34 years, Neil feels like the house needs to be in order. They also get into the business side of being a diabetes creator, the AI spam in the inbox, the economics of running a mission-driven podcast, why both of them have turned down deals they could have taken, and why the audience is just too small to make the math work unless you actually care about the people in it. It's candid, it's funny, and it's the kind of conversation that only happens when two people have been in the same weird niche long enough to just say the thing. Chapters: 00:00 Intro: Why this episode exists and who Neil is 02:04 Friday at 5 PM and the Tim Ferriss random episode format 03:42 Why there aren't enough guys doing diabetes content 05:21 The mastery trap: waiting until you've figured it out 07:02 The CDC educator who Good Will Hunting'd Neil on camera 09:24 "I'm proud of you" — the most underrated thing to say 13:50 Hydration, diet soda, and what Rob's mom figured out by 65 19:45 Neil is running the NYC Marathon again (breaking news) 20:13 Sleep consistency vs. sleep duration — the stat that'll surprise you 25:41 James Clear, LeBron, and the cost of keeping options open 28:43 400+ episodes and what consistency actually looks like 33:11 The Eladon trial, Katie Beth, and why Neil finally felt hope 38:20 Steve Jobs, saying no, and the current era of tech 44:36 Glow Glucose Gummies and how Neil thinks about brand deals 49:17 The real economics of running a diabetes-focused business Resources: Neil Greathouse Instagram Your Best T1D Year Website

The four virtues serve as a compass for how to act, who to be, and how to respond in any situation.  Have we found anything better?

TO LEARN MORE:        www.CrossFitEdwardsville.com        www.Facebook.com/CrossFitEdwardsville       TikTok: @crossfitedwardsville       Instagram: @crossfitedwardsville         Twitter: @cfedwardsville         YouTube: CrossFit Edwardsville   TO GET STARTED AT CFE:      Book a No-Sweat Conversation with a coach, using this scheduler:           https://crossfitedwardsville.com/intro/     You can also find the link to schedule on our website.   While this show is educational & entertaining in nature, it does not replace or supplant professional medical guidance from your own physician. Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, please first consult with your doctor. 

Attention researcher Dr Gloria Mark (Attention Span), bestselling author Oliver Burkeman (Meditations for Mortals) and book strategist Charlie Hoehn (Play It Away) on designing your day around peak focus, embracing imperfection in creative work and bringing play back to the page. You'll learn The four states of attention every writer should know. Two daily peak focus windows, and a simple method to find your own. The reframe that gives writers permission — most writing isn't flow. How the success of one bestselling book can paralyse the next. A quantity-over-quality method that satisfies the inner perfectionist. Why free writing isn't a warm-up but the engine of the next draft. A counterintuitive trick for handling interruptions when you're trying to write. What play deprivation quietly does to creative output. A small experiment with play that resets your relationship to work. Why fighting your own nature as a writer is a losing game.   Resources & Links Dr Gloria Mark Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Dr Gloria Mark Chronotype (Sleep Foundation) Morningness Eveningness Questionnaire Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Yohaku no bi: The Beauty of Empty Space Gloria's website Gloria's newsletter Oliver Burkeman Meditations for Mortals Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals The Imperfectionist (newsletter) Deep Freewriting by Stephen Lloyd Webber ILYS software Charlie Hoehn Play It Away The Power of Play | Charlie Hoehn | TEDxSantoDomingo Charlie's website Author Alliance Original Episode Links Dr Gloria Mark's original episode Oliver Burkeman's original episode  Charlie Hoehn's original episode   About the Guests Gloria Mark is Chancellor's Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology and studies the impact of digital media on people's lives. She has published over 200 articles, and in 2017 was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy, which recognises leaders in the field of human-computer interaction. She has presented her work at SXSW and the Aspen Ideas Festival, and her research has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNN, The Guardian, the Dax Shepard show, the Dave Asprey show and many others. She is the author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, 'This Column Will Change Your Life.' His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. His latest book is Meditations for Mortals. Charlie Hoehn is a three-time New York Times bestselling editor, five-time author, and the founder of Author Alliance. For three years, Charlie was Tim Ferriss' Director of Special Projects and first full-time hire. Together, they launched The 4-Hour Body to #1 New York Times, #1 Barnes & Noble, and #1 Amazon overall. Previously, he was Head of Multimedia for Scribe Media, where he produced over 500 videos and 300 podcast episodes. He is a keynote speaker who has presented to groups at Microsoft, PepsiCo, the Pentagon, U.S. Military, Stanford, TEDx and HEC Paris. His ideas on work-play integration have been featured on NPR's TED Radio Hour, Fast Company, Forbes, Financial Times, Huberman Lab, Chase Jarvis Live, TEDx, and many others. For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.For free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com.*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

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. You can watch the documentary Prisoner No More, directed by Jeff Wolfe and produced by WolfePrideProductions.com, for free here: tim.blog/hardchoices. To fill out the form on Cerebral Palsy Research Project, visit tim.blog/cp.This episode is brought to you by:Matic the intelligent robot vacuum and mop that navigates obstacles and needs no babysitting: MaticRobots.com/TimOur Place's Titanium Always Pan® Pro using nonstick technology that's coating-free and made without PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals”: FromOurPlace.com/TimTimestamps[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.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I've unfortunately committed every single one of these…The bad deal I knew was bad, but bought anyway. The strategy I abandoned three months in because something shinier came along. The numbers I cooked because I didn't want my mentor to tell me I was wrong.In this episode, Cam Cathcart and I go through the 7 Deadly Sins of Real Estate Investing. These are the mistakes that kill portfolios, waste years, and keep people broke even when the market is working in their favor.Sin 1: Lusting after shiny strategiesSin 2: Gluttony for educationSin 3: Greed for impossible returnsSin 4: Sloth in deal flowSin 5: Wrath towards the marketSin 6: Envy of other investorsSin 7: Pride in your bad mathGo to my Instagram @BeardyBrandon and DM me, TRACKER for the exact habit tracker I use every day, or DM me 3DC to get into my free three-day deal analysis challenge. Both are free and hit your inbox automatically.BOOKS MENTIONED:The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss → https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307465357

What if the book sitting on your nightstand right now could change the entire trajectory of your business, your confidence, and your life? Not in some theoretical way, but in a real, tangible, somebody-booked-a-one-way-ticket-to-Buenos-Aires kind of way. That's exactly what this episode is about. In this conversation, I got to sit down with my good friend Nick Hutchison, bestselling author of "Rise of the Reader," keynote speaker, and founder of Book Thinkers, a company that helps authors promote and market their books so they actually get read. Nick built Book Thinkers from scratch after discovering the power of personal development books during a summer internship. He went from being the guy with a 0% homework average in AP Calculus to building a full-time team that serves hundreds of authors a year. His mission is simple but powerful: more books in more hands, changing more lives. This episode matters because we're living in a world that's actively working against your focus. Doom scrolling, short-form content, algorithmic addiction, all of it is chipping away at our ability to think deeply and grow intentionally. Nick and I went deep on why books are more important now than ever, and what you can actually do about it. One of the biggest things we talked about is the IQ drop happening in Gen Z, and it's not because they're less capable. It's because attention spans are shrinking. Nick shared a study showing that Gen Z is the first generation in human history to have a lower average IQ and reading comprehension than the generation before them. That's a wake-up call. Long-form reading builds your brain in a way that a 15-second video just can't. If you want to stay sharp, stay competitive, and keep growing, books are your edge. We also got into the power of implementing what you learn. Nick shared how reading Tim Ferriss's "The 4-Hour Work Week" literally inspired him to book a one-way ticket to Argentina with no contacts, no Spanish, and no plan. He got ripped off by a taxi driver and showed up to an Airbnb the building had never heard of. But five weeks later, he was making friends, learning Spanish, and becoming a more confident, self-reliant human. That's what books do when you actually act on them. The knowledge is cool, but the action is everything. Napoleon Hill said it best and Nick quoted it on air, action is the real measure of intelligence. We also talked about why writing a book might be the single best thing you can do as an entrepreneur. Not because it'll make you famous overnight, but because it's your best business card. It generates leads. It builds credibility. It can land you in rooms you never expected. Nick shared an incredible story about how a founder in Cairo, Egypt tracked him down on LinkedIn after reading "Rise of the Reader," offered him equity in a company, and brought him on as an advisor for a brand new AI reading platform called Sinai.ai. All because of a book. That's the long game playing out in real time. And speaking of real time, Nick is hosting Book Thinkers Live 2026 on July 11th and 12th in Boston on the Boston University campus. Over 400 authors are expected to attend and the speaker lineup includes legends like Jim Kwik and Rory Vaden. If you're an aspiring author or a published one who wants to actually use your book to build a business and make a real impact, this is the room to be in. And here's the kicker, Happy Hustlers can grab a free general admission ticket using the code HAPPY at checkout on https://www.bookthinkers.com/. Yeah, free. Go do it. Look, whether you're trying to write your first book, market the one you already have, or just reclaim your attention span from the algorithm, this episode has something for you. Nick is the real deal, genuinely humble, wildly knowledgeable, and someone who walks his talk every single day. Go listen to the full episode at https://caryjack.com/podcastin/. And while you're at it, grab that free ticket to Book Thinkers Live. Books change lives. This one just might change yours. What does Happy Hustlin' mean to you? Enjoy the passage of time. I think that's what happy hustlin' is all about. Connect with Nickhttps://www.facebook.com/BookThinkers/https://www.instagram.com/bookthinkers/https://x.com/bookthinkershttps://www.youtube.com/bookthinkershttps://www.linkedin.com/company/bookthinkers/ Find Nick on this website: https://www.bookthinkers.com/ Connect with Cary!https://www.instagram.com/caryjack/https://www.facebook.com/SirCaryJackhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/cary-jack-kendzior/https://twitter.com/thehappyhustlehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFDNsD59tLxv2JfEuSsNMOQ/featured Get a copy of his new book, https://www.thehappyhustle.com/book Sign up for The Journey: 10 Days To Become a Happy Hustler Online Course @ https://thehappyhustle.com/thejourney/ Apply to the Montana Mastermind Epic Camping Adventure @ https://thehappyhustle.com/mastermind/ “It's time to Happy Hustle, a blissfully balanced life you love, full of passion, purpose, and positive impact!” Episode Sponsors: If you're feeling stressed, not sleeping great, or your energy's been kinda meh lately—let me put you on to something that's been a total game-changer for me: Magnesium Breakthrough by BiOptimizers. This ain't your average magnesium—it's got all 7 essential forms that your body needs to chill out, sleep deeper, and feel more balanced. I take it every night and legit notice the difference the next day. No more waking up groggy or tossing and turning all night If you're ready to sleep like a baby, calm your nervous system, and optimize your recovery, go grab yours now at https://www.bioptimizers.com/happy and use code HAPPY10 for 10% OFF. =================================================================== My Green Mattress If you've been waking up with back pain, feeling stiff, or just not getting that deep, quality sleep. This might be what you're missing: My Green Mattress. It's made with clean, non-toxic, and eco-friendly materials, so you're not just sleeping better, you're sleeping healthier too. The comfort and support are on another level, and you can really feel the difference night after night. 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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 four long-time listener favorites—Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow, and Diana Chapman.This episode is brought to you by:Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: https://incogni.com/tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)Helix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/Tim: https://helixsleep.com/tim for 27% off sitewide***Connect with David Yarrow: Website | Instagram | Twitter | FacebookDavid's previous appearance on this show: David Yarrow on Art, Markets, Business, and Combining It All | The Tim Ferriss Show #443Connect with Claire Hughes Johnson: LinkedIn | TwitterClaire's book: Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company BuildingClaire'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 #724Connect with Diana Chapman: Website | LinkedIn | InstagramDiana's book: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success, co-authored with Jim Dethmer and Kaley KlempDiana'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 #536Connect with Anne Lamott: Substack | Twitter | Facebook | InstagramAnne's new book: Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, co-authored with Neal AllenAnne's previous appearance on this show: Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer | The Tim Ferriss Show #522*Timestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:20] David Yarrow: British photographer in America and an unconventional divorcé.[00:02:32] The anti-remarriage thesis: why staying single was the boldest simplification of all.[00:03:19] The unlikely happy ending: ex-spouses who became best friends.[00:04:58] The friend audit.[00:06:07] Energy as a luxury brand.[00:06:34] No agent, no problem: the art of the direct “no.”[00:07:39] Claire Hughes Johnson: COO, author, and self-described bad simplifier.[00:07:59] The switch from default yes to default no.[00:08:39] Root cause analysis on the “yes” problem: earning love through usefulness.[00:09:21] Arthur Brooks' flip: think people, not tasks.[00:10:35] Mission clarity: knowing exactly why you said yes before you walk in the door.[00:11:16] The “retention exercise”: how Claire negotiated sleep and workouts into her job description.[00:16:45] Diana Chapman: Conscious Leadership disruptor, professional fear-finder.[00:17:07] The “whole body yes”: simplicity lives where your inner and outer worlds agree.[00:17:41] Decision #1: Evicting “should” from the vocabulary entirely.[00:19:15] Decision #2: The relationship contract — same rules, dramatically less drama.[00:20:37] The No-Blame Zone: signs on the wall, accountability in the air.[00:24:02] Curiosity over righteousness, feelings over suppression, play over seriousness.[00:26:29] How play unlocked a hard conversation.[00:27:56] Decision #3: Holding two truths — your work matters and the world will survive without you.[00:30:32] Anne Lamott: 21 books, one husband, and a very heavy 60th birthday.[00:31:00] Ditching the six-plate act: reclaiming the inner goofball.[00:32:18] “The point is not to try harder, but to resist less.”[00:33:18] The belly breath: watching your hand rise as an act of radical simplicity.[00:33:41] Ram Dass' heart-nostrils: expanding the spiritual core.[00:33:59] The third third: borrowed time, intentional days, and tossing boxes out of the plane.For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.This episode is brought to you by:Matic the intelligent robot vacuum and mop that navigates obstacles and needs no babysitting: MaticRobots.com/TimAG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: DrinkAG1.com/TimEight Sleep Pod Cover 5 sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: EightSleep.com/Tim Helix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/TimTimestamps[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:21] What's the “AI personal IPO” that just quietly happened across Silicon Valley?[00:05:28] Tens to hundreds of millions per researcher: What top AI pay packages actually look like.[00:06:44] The compute ceiling: Why Korean memory fabs are the unlikely bottleneck throttling every AI lab on earth.[00:11:11] From zero to $30B run rate: The fastest revenue ramps in the history of capitalism.[00:17:24] The dot-com survival rate was one in 100. Buckle up, AI founders.[00:20:35] Your value-maximizing window: Why the next 12–18 months may be as good as it gets.[00:21:32] Durable advantage — and why the AI market is an oligopoly (for now).[00:24:12] Exit options for AI founders: labs, hyperscalers, vertical players, and the underrated merger of equals.[00:28:11] Math, biology, and intuitive leaps: Elad's pre-investing background.[00:29:42] Elad's revisionist genesis story.[00:30:50] Go where the cluster is: 91% of global AI private market cap lives in a 10×10 mile square.[00:33:20] The accidental investor: Patrick Collison walks, Airbnb intros, and deals that just happened.[00:34:37] Want money? Ask for advice. Want advice? Ask for money.[00:35:00] The High Growth Handbook: Tactical guide, not bedtime reading.[00:35:41] Market first, team second — with a Perplexity-and-Anduril asterisk.[00:37:43] Smoke in the distance: AlexNet and the transformative GPT-3 moment.[00:45:15] AI cold-reading: Feeding photos to the model and getting eerily accurate personality reads.[00:48:56] Has Elad ever done a retrospective on his own investing?[00:52:13] Power laws are terrifying: 10 companies, 80% of returns, two decades.[00:55:53] Avoiding science projects, and how SPACs accidentally saved hard tech investing.[00:59:20] The one-belief framework: Coinbase = crypto index. Stripe = e-commerce index. That's the whole memo.[01:00:54] Due diligence theater vs. the one question that actually matters.[01:02:13] The four-year vest is a relic: How venture capital ate growth investing.[01:07:16] Boards as in-laws: You can't fire them, so choose wisely.[01:09:47] “Valuation is temporary. Control is forever.” — Naval Ravikant, as quoted by Elad, as relayed to you.[01:11:30] How great companies actually grew: toolbars, name-targeted ads, and billions in distribution spend.[01:15:36] Selling software vs. selling labor hours: The real shift generative AI made.[01:18:40] Spotting a great market: regulatory shifts, technology shifts, and Hashi getting bought by IBM.[01:21:28] Fake TAM, real TAM, and the Coke CEO who realized he wasn't in the soda business.[01:22:47] Right now, consensus is just correct. Save the contrarianism for later.[01:25:15] Market entry vs. market disruption: SpaceX launched rockets, then disrupted the internet.[01:26:16] How Elad learns: X, papers, 20-minute calls with the right people — and four AI models running in parallel.[01:27:15] Deep dive: ADHD, autism, and why diagnostic rates soared without more people actually having it.[01:33:40] Longevity for realists: sleep, creatine, and maybe rapamycin when the real drugs arrive.[01:40:30] Ibogaine, anesthesia, and the next frontier of bioelectric medicine.[01:45:15] Elad's first-ever 10-year plan — and why making one changes everything.[01:46:53] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cathy Lanier is the Chief Security Officer of the National Football League, where she oversees security across the league office and all 32 clubs. Before the NFL, she served as Chief of Police of Washington, D.C., from 2007 to 2016 — the first woman in the role and the longest-serving chief in the force's history — where her strategies helped cut violent crime by 21 percent even as the city's population grew 15 percent.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/timHelix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/TimWealthfront high-yield cash account: Wealthfront.com/Tim Wealthfront disclaimer: New clients get 3.30% base APY from program banks + additional 0.75% boost for 3 months on your uninvested cash (max $150k balance). Terms and conditions apply. The Cash Account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“WFB”) member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The base APY as of 1/30/26 is representative, can change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss, a non-client, receives compensation from WFB for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of WFB, which creates a conflict of interest. Individual experiences and outcomes will differ. Instant withdrawals may be limited by your receiving firm and other factors. Investment advisory services 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.TIMESTAMPS:[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.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.