Transcript

Tim Ferriss Reveals the #1 Trait ALL Great Leaders Share

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 24 min · 14,218 words · 132 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Tim Ferriss Reveals the #1 Trait ALL Great Leaders Share", an episode of Ryan Hawk published August 3, 2025 (1 h 24 min, about 14,218 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Zorba the Greek, Tribe of Mentors, Tools of Titans, Azamandius, AngelList.

What this episode is about

Tim Ferriss discusses the crucial trait shared by all great leaders: the importance of not taking oneself too seriously. He emphasizes the difference between effectiveness and efficiency, the value of personal interests in interviewing top performers, and reflects on his upbringing as a foundation for sustained excellence.

Key takeaways

  • Taking yourself too seriously risks morphing your persona into an unrecognizable mask.
  • Effective action trumps mere efficiency; doing things well doesn’t inherently make them meaningful.
  • Curiosity, not connections, is the true superpower of talent scouts and influencers alike.
  • Your upbringing shapes you, but it’s the way you engage with it that truly defines success.
  • Books were my childhood currency; the remainder table became my treasure trove of curiosity.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Tools of Titans, Tribe of Mentors, International Journal of the History of Sport, Billions
  2. – 20:00: Azamandius, Zorba the Greek, Percy Shelley
  3. – 30:00: Billions, Gary Keller
  4. – 40:00: The Anxious Generation
  5. – 1:10:00: Tribe of Mentors
  6. – 1:20:00: Billions

Notable quotes from "Tim Ferriss Reveals the #1 Trait ALL Great Leaders Share"

  • So, I was rereading Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors, and the last line in the acknowledgement section of Tools of Titans, you dedicate the book to your parents for quote guiding and consoling.
    about Tribe of Mentors · at
  • That fed a lifelong interest in things that are outside of the norm, maybe off menu. That's how I bought a book called The World of Fishes. I still remember this huge…
    about International Journal of the History of Sport · at
  • Fouian bargain of being too serious. So for instance, I would say that Zorba the Greek, if you tend to be a little too serious, you want more play in your life, read Zorba the…
    about Zorba the Greek · at
  • Incredibly valuable and better absorbed through fiction. Okay, here we go. And I'm This is Azimandius by Percy Shelly.
    about Percy Shelley · at
  • The Anxious Generation, the book by Jonathan Hay.
    about The Anxious Generation · at
  • Jirro from Jirro Dreams of Sushi is going to have a lot in common with the LeBron James of the world, with the Hugh Jackman's of the world, with the General Mcristals of the world. a lot. And.
    about Jiro Dreams of Sushi · at
  • Field. Great. Let's try it. Uber was turned down by every possible investor you can think of. It went out. So I was also I think the first adviser to angel list which Naval…
    about AngelList · at
  • We recorded actually in the office where he wrote Billions. This is while Billions is still going on. And he said to me, the reason I bring this up is he said to me, Follow your curiosity.
    about Billions · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Percy Shelley — Person · Referenced author/poet (source of quoted poem) · 1 mention · first at
    Ferriss reads and interprets Shelley’s poem 'Ozymandias' to argue against hubris and over-identification with legacy, reinforcing the theme of not taking oneself too seriously.
  • Frank Mundus — Person · Referenced real-world figure (anecdote anchor) · 1 mention · first at
    Appears in a childhood story illustrating Ferriss’s mother fostering curiosity; Mundus is cited as the real-life inspiration for the shark hunter in Jaws.
    Which freaked me out, as it did an entire nation, of course. But my mom found out somehow that the basis for the crazy shark hunter who takes them out on the boat in Jaws is…
  • Gary Keller — Person · Referenced author (framework source) · 1 mention · first at
    Cited for the focusing question from 'The ONE Thing' as part of Ferriss’s approach to effectiveness and prioritization.
    Types of things which people can all find for free. And if you choose and this also to give credit where credit is due you know Gary Keller the one thing you know what is the one thing if done and I'm paraphrasing here what is the one thing.
  • Wright Brothers — Person · Referenced historical exemplars · 1 mention · first at
    Invoked to support the argument that curiosity and access to books in childhood can shape extraordinary achievement; tied to discussion of parenting and curiosity.
    Who I ended up becoming or maybe just fed what I already was. It's impossible to say. It made me think of actually the Wright brothers dad, Bishop Wright. I read McClla's book. I reread it every year. It's one of my favorites.

Books & papers

  • Zorba the Greek — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at
    Recommended by Tim Ferriss for those who tend to be too serious, as it offers a philosophical yet hilarious perspective on life.
  • Tribe of Mentors — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned alongside Tools of Titans as a book Tim Ferriss was rereading, indicating its significance in his personal and professional development.
  • Tools of Titans — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a book Tim Ferriss was rereading, highlighting its impact on his thinking and the acknowledgment section dedicated to his parents.
    So, I was rereading Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors, and the last line in the acknowledgement section of Tools of Titans, you dedicate the book to your parents for quote guiding and consoling.
  • Azamandius — Book · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a poem by Percy Shelley that Tim Ferriss recommends for its philosophical insights on the transient nature of power and legacy.
    And if you want an even shorter read, you should read a poem. I think it's simply called Azimandius, but there may be a slightly longer version of the title. Oz Y M A N D I.
  • The Anxious Generation — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Cited by Tim Ferriss in the context of discussing the negative impacts of digital overuse and the importance of in-person social interactions.
  • International Journal of the History of Sport — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a book from Tim Ferriss's childhood that fueled his interest in marine biology, illustrating the impact of early reading habits.

Companies & orgs

  • AngelList — Company · Case study · 2 mentions
    Mentioned as another early investment by Tim Ferriss, highlighting his involvement in the startup ecosystem and his relationship with Naval Ravikant.

Media & podcasts

  • Jiro Dreams of Sushi — Media · Referenced work · 2 mentions
    Mentioned in the context of Tim Ferriss's interest in Japanese culture and his approach to seeking out niche talent and expertise.
  • Billions — Media · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in passing as a show written by Brian Koppelman, a friend of Tim Ferriss, highlighting their shared interests and connections.

Full transcript with timestamps

It's very risky to take yourself too seriously. And the risk there is that the mask you wear often becomes the person you are.

Bestseller list sold billions of books and podcasts, billions of listeners. You've often said if you looked at my typical day, everyone would be surprised. I'll just go back way back to the 4-hour work week. I would draw attention to two parts of that book. One would be effectiveness versus efficiency. Effectiveness is doing the right things. Efficiency is doing things well, but doing something well does not make it important. People don't have a shortage of productivity advice. If more information were the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with six-pack abs.

I'd love to go into the idea of podcasting. I I would put you like on the Mount Rushmore or or one of the founding fathers. What is your overall philosophy when it comes to interviewing worldass performers?

Rule number one is scratch your own itch. Like it's an audience of one to start. I have done more homework than 99.9999% of people who have ever interviewed you.

From a leadership perspective, you have proven to be a talent scout. How do you do that?

Oo, yeah, that's a good question. Just follow your own interest. This might sound controversial, but you don't need a huge network. So, I was rereading Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors, and the last line in the acknowledgement section of Tools of Titans, you dedicate the book to your parents for quote guiding and consoling you through it all. And I think like when you look at people who have sustained excellence over time, you look at their upbringing. Sometimes they have these perfect childhoods or they overcame terrible ones. I'm curious to like go a little bit deeper like what was it like? What are Tim Ferrris's parents like? The type of people that would raise someone like you who has gone on to leave such a positive dent in the world and is currently in the process of still doing it.

Sure. Yeah, we can unpack that. So, I'll say that my parents are, last I checked, human. So they have each a couple of superpowers perhaps and they definitely have super weaknesses just like everybody else. So my childhood was I wouldn't say it was a paragon of perfection nor was it me getting put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree. It wasn't either of those things. Man, I had some some terrible things happen to me as a kid. I don't know if we want to get into that, but it wasn't at the hands of my parents. So, the question that you asked, I think leads me by hook or crook in one direction, which is curiosity. So, what my mom did in particular, we didn't have a lot of money. We weren't dirt poor, but we didn't have a lot of money. So, if we had budget for anything, this is another thing my mom in particular did, right?

no new bike, no BB gun, no buy whatever the other kids had, but she said, "If you want to read books, we will always have a budget." And so we would figure it out. And one of the strategies was to take me to the bookstore to the remainder table, right? So the remainder table are books that the bookstore can't sell basically or they want to get rid of it. They want to get rid of these copies at a discount. And so you go to the remainder table. As an author, that's where you don't want your books to end up.

But as a kid, I was like, "Wow, this is just like a secret Santa from the universe in a sense because I couldn't choose what was on that table." But because the only place I could quote unquote spend money, it wasn't my money, but my my parents' money was on books. I got really and my brother also got really excited about books. So there's a trick. And I still remember to this day some of the books that I bought as a little kid. Again, I'm using the bought in quotation marks wasn't my cash. And that fed a lifelong interest in things that are outside of the norm, maybe off menu. That's how I bought a book called The World of Fishes. I still remember this huge illustrated hardcover book of fish and sharks and that fueled this desire to become a marine biologist and that lasted for a super long time and on top of that if I became interested so let's take this example in marine biology and as a little boy of course I'm into

sharks and piranhas and anything that can kill a human for whatever reason at least boys I can't speak to girls cuz I'm not one but they tend to go that direction.

Yeah. Hulk smash, destruction. And I saw I remember seeing Jaws as a kid, which freaked me out, as it did an entire nation, of course. But my mom found out somehow that the basis for the crazy shark hunter who takes them out on the boat in Jaws is actually at the time a real guy named Frank Mundus who lived out at the end of Long Island. And my mom reached out to him, asked him if he'd be willing to meet a kid. And we drove out there and met Frank Mundus and looked at all these scars. He had this huge scar up and down one arm. And I was like, "Mr. Mundus, Mr. Mundus, is that from a shark?" And he's like, "No, it's from a roller skating accident when I was a kid." And even then, as a kid, I was like, "Bro, just lie to me." I was like, "That's such a lint out of a story." But my mom was good at finding lowcost or nocost options for helping me and my brother explore whatever we happen to be interested in.

So there's no memorizing 1 to 10 in French to perform for dinner guests. Uh there are other people in my extended family who've done that their kids, right? They'll be like, "Learn the piano cuz I want to show you off kind of thing." My parents never did that. They they tried to expose me to a lot. So they did a friend of the family was piano player and they gave me a few shots at it and I was like I don't think this is for me. I kind of regret that now but at the time it just didn't light me up. So, for instance, in the world or the realm of marine biology, my mom would after we had we ate a lot of chicken legs and TV dinners. And after we would have say chicken legs, we'd have all these bones with little bits and scraps of meat on them. And my mom, this wasn't all the time, but every once in a while, we'd go out to the bay onto a pier and tie string to the chicken legs with a flashlight and just drop it

off the side and pull up crabs and just look at them. Just check them out. and then feed the chicken bones to all of the marine life underneath. So, I would say those are two things that come to mind that I think really shaped who I ended up becoming or maybe just fed what I already was. It's impossible to say. It made me think of actually the Wright brothers dad, Bishop Wright. I read McClla's book. I reread it every year. It's one of my favorites.

That is an excellent book. Yeah. Yeah. And those three actually the brothers and their sister Katherine that were surrounded by books and their dad really encouraged curiosity and reading. And it feels like as a parent myself, you know, one of the my my youngest daughter Charlie, we um like wrote this little mini book together called and I and I titled it Curious Charlie because of the power of curiosity, right? And it feels like look, not that that's led to all of what you've accomplished, but it's it's it's part of the foundation. I would think of of like how do we foster curiosity not only in kids but to but to maintain that as you get older feels like a super important thing to do.

It certainly would be something I don't yet have kids that I know of at least. So when when I do enter that chapter, it's just what I love to do. It's what

I love to try to transmit. I always thought I was going to ultimately be a teacher, like a nth grade teacher specifically. We could talk about the reasons for that.

Well, I'll just give it briefly. Around early high school, I had a number of influences that pushed me in a very very good direction, but a lot of my friends didn't have that. And and my mentors, let's just call them, I think it might be an overstatement, but like martial arts teachers and things like that. one particular math teacher. I got lucky in a lot of respects and my friends didn't and they ended up oding, going to jail, dying in DUI accidents, things like that. So, for a very long time, I always thought, you know what, at some point, I'm going to go back and try to be the intervention. right around like 9th grade. It's where kids are getting old enough that they can really do some damage if they start veering off and they're about to make a lot of decisions that will start to set them on a particular trajectory.

And it would be great to be basically the equivalent of those influences I had for kids around that age. But I I suspect I love teaching. I mean, anything that I learn, I can teach better typically than how I learned it. I just love that challenge. So, I think I I think I'll really enjoy being a dad. TBD, you talk about that quite a bit or I feel like more more recently. Where where are you at? Like I know there's some steps that have to happen before that becomes a reality. It feels like it's on the the forefront of your mind at least from someone who's a listener of your show.

Yeah, I mean I'm you know practicing the baby making. I enjoy the practice. Uh and I am uh looking to looking to figure out a few other elements obviously and I I've been in some fantastic long-term relationships before that just didn't work out for whatever reason or another. still close to those people and have had, you know, two relationships that were five or six years each. And uh dating someone right now is wonderful. I'm not going to get into the specifics cuz, you know, the internet's a wild place. So, I like to keep privacy private, but uh I I'm on the path, you know, on on the path. So, here's the thing, right? as you or anyone listening will know. I mean, this is going to sound super duh obvious, but like it's not hard to have kids. Like the mechanics of doing it if you're lucky enough to have intact biology and your partner does as well. Like that's not the challenge. The challenge is figuring

out who you can have a very long conversation with as a partner, who you can problem solve with, who can handle things if you're not there. god forbid something happens and who you can fight cleanly with over time, right? I mean, these are some of the outstanding questions and that's just not everyone. And we'll see. We'll see. But I'm I'm optimistic. I'm not too worried about it in the sense that I mean, there are moments when I'm just like, "Oh my god, what am I doing with my life?" But then there are also moments when I'm like, "Robert Dairo got somebody pregnant when he was 78 or whatever." Like, I've got I've got a little breathing room. I don't have to freak out. This is fine. I I think it's going to be just another cool chapter. I mean, it's similar like when you got Molly and like to hear how into having a dog and training and the the companionship like a child just a whole another level. And so I think as

someone who, you know, obviously follows your work, I'm excited for that chapter. I think it's going to be fun to hear you, you know, talk through how you're approaching all the different stages and it'll be super super interesting for us.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, man. I'll have to make sure that if I make some wise cracks, I don't get child protective services called on me because, you know, I'll I'll occasionally I'm a bit of a goofy trickster of sorts, which kind of feeds into some of the current projects, but that is always very very close beneath the surface. A lot of it doesn't always get showcased publicly, but my friends see it a lot. And so I'll say things like, "Yeah, you really got to get the size of the cage right, you know, and you know, the foot paddles for the water, you really need to make sure their little hands fit them properly." I mean, I say that stuff just joking around. And people take it seriously, so I have to be very careful.

Wise cracks that I make. No, we take ourselves too ser like the output, what we're trying to do to help other people. I think it's good to take that seriously, but the rest, especially ourselves, like, let's enjoy this thing, man. Let's laugh. Let's have fun. I feel like that's one of the biggest parts of you is you you actually hear a lot of laughter in your voice. We we are it's already happening through the first however many minutes. And that's a a common theme listening to your show is it feels like you genuinely are having a good time. You're laughing a lot. There's probably lots of smiling.

I don't think we should just breeze past that. I think that's a real thing that we can learn from. That's also a I don't want to say new pattern. But for a long time, I felt like to be taken seriously, you need to present yourself as being serious. And the risk there is that the mask you wear often becomes the person you are.

So you have to be very careful what you pretend to be. And could add more to that if we want to dig into it. But Roomy's quote, I'll paraphrase of be suspicious of what you want. That's another good that's that's one that also is a good compliment to what I'm talking about. But when you present yourself as serious, you tend to be more serious. And it's this kind of recursive feedback loop. And it's very risky to take yourself too seriously. You can get a lot of incredible work done, but there are going to be many circumstances where the best solution is to laugh at yourself. Or even if it's and and this is not to make light of anything tragic, but there are situations where you can you can you can cry or you can laugh.

Maybe it's a bit of both, but the fundamental absurdity of this human condition is kind of hilarious. Sometimes it's tragically comic, but there there's a lot that is is paradoxical. There's a lot that is just straight up absurd. So furthermore, I would say if you're tempted to take your work too too seriously, you're going to burn out before you get most of it done. And for that reason, I'd say in the last 10 years, and there are many reasons for this, but I read more fiction and more poetry. People are going to be like, what? that sheds light on some of the absurdities and also the Fouian bargain of being too serious. So for instance, I would say that Zorba the Greek, if you tend to be a little too serious, you want more play in your life, read Zorba the Greek. It is just an incredible, incredible, hilarious and also deeply philosophical book.

And if you want an even shorter read, you should read a poem. I think it's simply called Azimandius, but there may be a slightly longer version of the title. Uh, Oz Y M A N D I A S. And actually, you know what? If you give me a second, let me pull it up. How about that?

Yeah. Not to be that guy. Be that guy. But because for decades, I was a non-fiction purist. Maybe maybe maybe you feel similarly but for a very long time it was like look if I if I if I want to read stuff that's made up I can make it up myself. I want stuff that's valuable actionable non-fiction non-fiction non-fiction non-fiction right that was it and

there came a point when I realized a lot of what you're hoping to gain through non-fiction actually is conveyed and better remembered through fiction. Mhm.

So if you want to learn about say leadership like there's certain fictional books they may be historical fiction they may not be at all. Maybe it's something like Ender Game. Maybe it's something else that actually really convey some core principles that are incredibly valuable and better absorbed through fiction. Okay, here we go. And I'm This is Azimandius by Percy Shelly. I bet no one listening to this thought this was coming. Sorry guys, but there's a point to it. So, here's here's the here's the poem. And Percy has a middle name that I can't can't pronounce, but Percy Shelly Azamandius. And I'm I'm not someone who has ever recited poetry, so bear with me. This is going to be pretty sterile, but here we go. I met a traveler from an antique land who said, quote, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them on the sand. Half sunk a shattered visage lies whose frown and wrinkled lip and

sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed and on the pedestal these words appear. This is the key part. My name is Azymandas, king of kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair. Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away. What's the point of all this? All right. The point is there was this figure at some point in history based on this poem. Of course, Azamandius, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty in despair. I'm sure some of the pharaohs felt this way. I'm sure Alexander the Great felt this way.

One of the greatest conquerors the world has ever known. And yet, how many people can name Alexander the Great's full name? one in 10,000, one in 100,000. So if you feel like I need to do X, I must answer these email which lead up to this project lead which lead up to this year because all of the better known folks I've listened to and the biographies I've read of these amazing icons, Steve Jobs or whoever talk about legacy. So I must be very serious serious serious. Just read Azamandius once a month or so. It's which is which is not to say there isn't meaning. It's not to say we can't find meaning and we need meaning as meaning making creatures. But if you start to take yourself too seriously, that is also the start of some type of inevitable burnout or hubris.

In my opinion, you just have to be very conscious of it. And sometimes you might even allow it. You'll be like, "Oh, that's interesting. Okay, sure. I'll let this go for a while." But be aware of what's happening.

It leads me to think about the difference between Buffett and Charlie Munger have talked about this, but the internal and external scorecards of life

and you've, you know, I guess like won the championship of of certainly the external one, but you'd have to tell me about the internal one. I'm just curious about early Tim versus today Tim of how you viewed the two scoreboards of life. The intrinsic, the internal one, your purpose, your core values, your

critical behaviors that make those true, the external, which is bestseller list, sold billions of books and podcasts, billions of listeners, all that stuff. How do you balance out the two now that you've experienced all of the fame and adulation from all of that great work? Yeah, I appreciate the kind words too. I will say that here's what's the most fundamental change is probably and I don't have perfect self-awareness so who the hell knows on some level but I strongly suspect the biggest change is that let's just say from childhood because money was tight in my house and you would hear these things around the house constantly. Wouldn't it be nice? Oh, money doesn't grow on trees. You need money to make money.

It's about who you know, not what you know. This unfair system. And if we only had money, all of these problems would go away. And money can solve a lot of problems, but not all problems. And uh I struggled with as many in my family have depression for a very long time. still occasionally have to have to, you know, deal with the the black dog and pet on the head and manage that, but have figured out a number of tools that really really help in that regard. And for decades the feeling was when I cross X finish line whatever that dollar amount is or whatever the annual income is then finally right I can unbburden myself of all of these problems and what you find is there are money problems that get solved by money but when you run through that finish time.

A lot of things don't automatically resolve themselves and those could be insecurities, those could be a fear of death. Uh, fortunately, that's not one that I particularly grapple with, but it it could take a million different forms. Everybody's got something. And then you realize, okay, if I'm going to if I choose to look at these things closely and work on them, I'm going to need a different set of tools besides the almighty dollar and or fame, even less useful. Very, very uh damaging in a lot of respects. Fame and money are like alcohol or power. They just amplify whatever is underneath the surface.

They're non- selective like psychedelics, let's just say. So if if you have certain insecurities or paranoia or you're distrusting, all of those are going to be amplified. If you're generous, good news. That's also going to be the case. If you're a micro ass, you're going to become a mega ass when these things get added to the mix. So uh that that is all to say that let's just look at the last 10 or 15 years. It's still important to me to have some external scoreboards. I'm very competitive. I mean I grew up as a competitive athlete.

Uh although I was very very small till about sixth grade. So around sixth grade was when I could finally function as an athlete in more sports. But sports were really a backbone for me. Loved competing. I happened to be good at competing. Like the differential between what I could do in practice and what I could do in competition either didn't really exist for me or I was better in competition.

And which meant I wasn't necessarily, if you looked at the tale of the tape, better than a lot of the people I competed against, but a lot of them deteriorated. they they lost a couple of points in competition, whereas I just kind of stayed the same.

And then with the you know the out the dollar outcomes and like startup investing and this and that, it's like yeah, it's nice to have some goals, right? If I launch anything, I have very very very ambitious goals because they're energizing, right? They're very energizing to have and I enjoy pursuing really really ambitious goals. But I now have the understanding that you're playing the game because the game is fun

and I shouldn't expect much to change. Maybe I have some interesting opportunities pop up or some new doors open. But really, it's about thinking about your daily experience and what is energy in versus energy out because life is a is a succession of days. And that doesn't mean squeezing the most out of every minute. I think I had probably excessive focus on that type of effectiveness and efficiency. And I've I've allowed deliberately more slack in the system

now in a million different ways because I mean you've you've competed at at a high level in sports. It's like you need recovery phases or de loing phases. And I think about that in every possible arena of life now. And like sometimes you need a de loing phase from your primary relationship. Like take take a week to go with the boys on a hiking trip or something. It's like, you know, like humans were weird and messy and it's 100% true. What are some other ways you create more slack? Because like you think of Tim Ferrris and you're like the productivity guy, the you know he's gonna help me with some potentially hacks. I don't even know if you want to use that anymore, but that's kind of fourhour work weekish type stuff. What are ways that you create slack in your days now? Because you've often said if you looked at my typical day, everyone would be surprised like because you know I'm not like

yeah perfectly efficient all the time. And I'm like no, I still know Tim is a human. He's messy and probably has flaws like all of us and so sometimes he wants to watch Netflix, you know, like that's that's what we do, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. So, I would say that maybe as a setting of the table, I'll I'll just go back way back to the 4-hour work week, which came out in 2007 initially, back when I had reasonably full head of hair still. Anyway, one of the key pieces of that book, if I were to perhaps say I would draw attention to two parts of that book that don't always get enough attention. One would be effectiveness versus efficiency. That'd be number one. So 8020 analysis, but there's there's a lot more to it because you could do an 8020 analysis.

paro principle applied to the wrong things. So the definition step in the exercises in the book is is arguably the most important where effectiveness is doing the right things, efficiency is doing things well, but doing something well does not make it important.

And like my god, we could spend hours just talking about that. So the reason that's relevant is that you and I both have the same amount of time every day as Bezos or you know the presidents and prime ministers and these people who seem to have lived a lifetime in each week. same amount of time and some of them are not harried running around and there's some great biographies of various leaders who during say World War II like they had to sleep a lot of the time rest because they were sick and yet with a few hours a day they could command forces and determine strategies that were high leverage and winning strategies and the older I get and the more energy is at a premium, right?

The more surgical I try to be with really thinking hard upfront. And now upfront could be at the beginning the beginning of each day. It could be at the beginning of a week. It could be at the beginning of a year. I do my hardest thinking at the beginning of the year, which by the way for you could start today. Doesn't need to be gen one. You don't have to be like, "Ah, too bad. I'll wait. I need to wait another five or six months before I do this. No, you can do it right now. Just choose your have your new year start now. Uh so past year reviews, these types of things which people can all find for free. And if you choose and this this also to to give credit where credit is due you know Gary Keller the one thing you know what is the one thing if done and I'm paraphrasing here what is the one thing that if done would make everything else easier or relevant right that question as a focusing question and not letting

yourself off the hook I'll just choose two or three no one asking that like a dog with a bone, a broken record, choose your metaphor until you get an a really good answer and then I'll look I'll I'll borrow liberally of course everybody borrows liberally but David Allen getting things done like what is the next physical action right so if you have something really big and amorphous it's like okay the next big thing that could change everything like for me I'm thinking about possibly making an animated feature film, right?

Well, that's super ambitious. I don't know. The first thing about producing such a thing and that has been on my list for a while, but that is too big. It's like, all right, well, what's the next physical action? Probably calling someone to learn more about it. Maybe it's getting on chat GPT and walking around for 2 hours talking to it. Next action, right? Today or this week. Get it in the calendar. There you go. So that's that's I'd say necessary to cover because this effectiveness versus efficiency. I'm relentlessly focused on effectiveness. I'm not these days. I used to be relentlessly focused on efficiency.

I still try to be efficient but filling every 10 minutes. I mean there are some people who are very very very very successful and uh they'll apply heristics to their time that will make them crazy and anxious and easily pissed off. And I did that for a long time where it's like okay this is my value per hour right and there's math in the 4-hour work week for this. So, the idea if I ended up having to go to the post office or to mail something or go to the grocery store to buy something and there's a really long line, that could that could really throw you off balance and make you irritated. I don't think that's a great way to live. If you're choosing your targets well,

having to spend an extra 20 minutes at the grocery store should not throw off hours of your day. like the the system's too fragile. U so you know what that's that's a huge mouthful. So so let me let me pause for a second but I will say what that means is if my targets are good number one I can prioritize self-care PT training zone 2 which I find as boring as death but nonetheless super important for a lot of reasons. So that that is a a direct byproduct of embracing effectiveness over efficiency. Uh the effective executive by Peter Ducker recommend to everybody. That is an amazing read. I haven't mentioned it in a really long time.

and fiction reading poetry uh meditating not just say using an app like the way, which I I am involved with, but that's because I used it for a bunch and just fell in love with how Henry Shookman approaches training people in these cumulative skills that transfer outside of meditation. Let me give a piece of uh advice for folks who might just feel rushed, right? Like there's never enough time. For me, one of the easiest things to do to train your nervous system to calm down in the morning, take 10 minutes with your cup of coffee to read some fiction or read some poetry or to or to meditate for 10 minutes so that you prove to yourself that you do not have to do a front flip out of bed and land in a full sprint. That is unnecessary.

There's so many historic examples of people who have done a thousand times more than you or I.

Yeah. And they have spent the first few hours I mean study Winston Churchill I think as one as one of many many examples. You don't need to do that but you need to prove to yourself that you don't need to do that. So taking 10 minutes in the morning to do something like read or meditate has such an incredible payoff on your psycho emotional health and quality of life. Um so I could give you many many other examples on a macro level. Let's say planning that year and blocking out weekl long trips, long weekends with close friends and I book those all in advance. So, I have the sunk cost working in my favor, but like next week I'm like I'm gonna be gone for a week off of computers and phones. Y

uh and that has been planned 6 months in advance. Yep. Get on the counter and block it. One of the other projects, you have a million things to choose from. And so when I talked with your team about your latest project, I was uh you you see these guys. What do you when you see this? So, I'm holding up for audio the uh Tim's new cart game. this new game you created called Coyote. Uh tell me more about this. Like of all the million different projects that are pitched to you or that you could do, you decided to do this. What what made you choose this?

Yeah, I decided to make a game. Yeah. And it is definitely not financially driven.

You can do well in games if you have a mega mega gigantic hit and it goes for years much like in book publishing or say music, right? If you end up in the top 1% of 1%, sure you can have a decent annuity. But it's hard. It's hard to do that. So why would I create a game? There are a few reasons cuz I'm sure this is WTF for a lot of folks. Every few years I like to do something completely off menu. And keep in mind, you can do a lot when you're moonlighting at night on the weekends. Maybe you block out half a day once a week. You can get a lot done if you are being surgical with how you approach things. And what I have realized and this is deeply personal but it's also borne out in data and polling.

People don't have a shortage of productivity advice. And as my friend Derek Civers has said before, you know, if if more information were the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with six-pack abs, right? This is not this is not more information is not the not the issue. So, if I look at my audience, if I look at my own life, what's the issue? We've kind of already talked about it. It's it's it's taking some of the steam out of the system, a little pressure out of the tires and actually recovering and enjoying what you have worked and what you are working so hard for with what for me it's play and social bonds right just like people say it's the economy stupid um I think you can go one level higher and say it's the relationship stupid right you look at the countries that are us happiest in the world. Fundamentally, it almost always boils down to social ties. And what I've noticed in my audience and

what The Atlantic has written about is effectively social in-person interactions for certain age groups are down something like 70% in the last 10 years. This is very dangerous. If you look at also the increases in anxiety and diagnosed cases of depression etc. The Anxious Generation, the book by Jonathan Hay. We're not evolved to stare at a screen 18 in away all day, all the time. This is not what we're evolved for. And for instance, I had this birthday gathering not too long ago. It's been going for 30 plus years. My oldest friends flew in.

They don't really care and I don't really care about my birthday, per se. It's just a reunion every year. And so many of the guys said, "This is my favorite weekend of the year." And they love their families. They love their kids. And I'm sure if I pressed them, they'd be like, "Yeah, of course I care about Christmas more than with my family more than your birthday." But how much joy it brought them and how nurturing it is for me and how long that lasts, but putting something like that together sounds like a heavy lift. So I wanted to create I also have tons of games in my house. I have my original Dungeons and Dragons stuff that I had when I was a kid, which kind of like saved me in a lot of ways, uh, which we can talk about, but I want to create a super fast, easy tolearn game that is a light lift.

Uh, because when I when I started thinking about maybe making a game because I saw how certain games were so fun for me and my friends to play, it was never something that took an hour to learn and hours to play. It was always something like for instance poetry for for Neanderthalss by Exploding Kittens. That was one of many games that my friends wanted to play again and again after a few glasses of wine at dinner. We only have 45 minutes. Let's just say and I thought to myself, okay, well, of all the games that we've been testing, this one really hit. Who made this?

Exploding Kittens. Who are these people? Oh, okay. It's uh Matthew who started the oat bill and this guy called Alon Lee. Well, maybe I should start listening to some podcasts. There's one called How to Think Like a Game Designer. So, I was listening to that podcast by Justin Garry and then I interviewed Alain Lee and lo and behold, right, here we go. Right, this thing Coyote now has uh 300 million plus game play views on social, which is bananas. It's kind of blown past all of their other games. And exploding kids is one of the most successful game makers in the world. Uh as a as a indie also like what they do is pretty amazing. It's not a huge company, but they're really agile. And that's about it. Now, I will say that making a game like Coyote also for me in terms of choosing projects, like you said, I could choose a thousand different things.

What I'm always looking for is a good answer to the question for any project I consider. How can I win even if I fail? And what that means is like how I started angel investing way back in the day, which again was like off hours. You don't have to burn the ships. You don't have to quit your job. Like you can do so much during lunch break and after hours or on the weekends to prove that something can work. And that's fundamental to how I choose things. And how I choose projects is based on the relationships I'll build and the the skills and knowledge that I will acquire that can transfer beyond that project if that project fails by the external metrics that we talked about earlier, right? So in the case of say 4-hour chef, my one book that really underperformed to my expectation anyway, it was boycotted by a bunch of retailers cuz it was it was coming out through Amazon publishing and there were many

other contributing factors. But one of the experiments for that book was using these relatively new things in 2012, but focusing on podcasts for the launch, right? And doing that allowed me to figure out that I wanted to start a podcast. And then what did I do? I gave myself a graceful exit. I told my audience, I'm going to try this thing for like 6 to 10 episodes. And at the very least, I'm hoping that it will get me closer to my friends. I'll meet a few new people. And I will get better at interviewing, asking questions, and conversation, which is the backbone of all of my writing anyway. When I do research for my books, that's core. So, even if I stop this in 10 episodes, it's a win. Even if nobody listens after 10 episodes, it is quote unquote failed.

But I have won. And similarly with Coyote, I'm like, "All right, Alan Lee, he worked on the Xbox, on Halo. He's he's worked on every type of game you can imagine. His track record is bananas. He's created entirely new genres of games." and we hit it off. I was like, "All right." Kind of borrowing from Naval Ravakan who's I think he says something like, "If you wouldn't work with someone for a lifetime, don't work with them for 5 minutes." Now, that's obviously quite extreme, but I I do think about this. I'm like, if you're going to really pursue a business relationship, I mean, that could last longer than most marriages, at least in the US. So, pay attention.

and we had similar quirky ridiculous senses of humor and I was like, "Okay, cool. This seems like a great investment." And even if this game never gets published, just the process of learning about every aspect of this and getting closer with Alain and its team, absolutely worth it. And it just happened to work. So after 2 years, you know, we finally, well, I guess it was about a year ago, finally hit on an idea that that I felt I could work with and uh here we are. So that's the the long and the short of it. But people do not have a shortage of screens, digital, and isolation, and the illusion of these parasocial relationships. Everyone's on the verge or already overdosing on those things.

And there's a there are heavy prices to be paid for that. I think in person, social, analog, you just need at least some dose of that to offset the rest. I'm not saying digital is automatically poison, but too much of it sure is in my opinion. And I'm saying that as someone who lived in Silicon Valley for 20 years and invests in tech.

I love the fact that you brought up that you met him on your podcast. Outside of my immediate family, I think some of the coolest moments and greatest opportunities and best relationships started here. We had a a semi-long conversation and got deep and continued on. And it feels like you've done a lot of that. And I'd love to go into the idea of podcasting and interviewing since to some group of people that's that's what you're most known for and others it's writing and soon soon to be games and who knows what else.

investing. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. So, I I I would put you like on the Mount Rushmore or or one of the founding fathers. Maybe not quite as early as Mark Marin or Joe Rogan or Terry Gross or Dan Carlin, but but pretty early. Um pretty pretty early, like a lot of things, which we can also talk about. I'm curious though, when you just think of podcasting in general, and you've talked a little bit about this on your show recently, what are some of the things that you still currently love about it? And then what are some of the things that you're like, I don't like that it's headed in this direction?

What I I've used podcasting for workshopping. I used my blog this way beforehand. Sort of testing the waters with different areas and expertise and so on to see if I like it. Is it energy in and to also see how my audience responds. So back in the day, I used the blog for this and I would put up posts and I'd be like, let's see what happens here. And if people want some really fun uh sort of archival stories, go check out the first blog post that Ryan Holidayiday wrote on stoicism on Tim. Blog that helped kind of launch the whole thing, right? And then Ryan has just done he's he's done such an amazing job and now that's the podcast. So, I use the podcast. The podcast is a great excuse for me to talk to people I want to talk to anyway

to ask the questions that I would ask them over dinner anyway. Every once in a while, we could talk about the things that I'm not a huge fan of in the ecosystem, which doesn't make them bad. It's like if you're allergic to peanuts doesn't mean that peanuts are evil. It just means that you're allergic to peanuts. Uh I I do not want to for instance create a fixed location television studio. Part of the appeal we can easily forget why the reasons that drove us to make an important decision in the first place. And one of the drivers for creating a podcast was the freedom that it provided in terms of being anywhere with a mic. I could record a podcast as long as I got a decent mic to whoever was on the other end.

And for that reason also because of some of the privacy concerns and a I suspect a lot of folks who are going for video natively uh are either better at it. I mean there are many different possibilities. They're better at it than I am. I don't think I am intrinsically a video person. Second, they haven't seen some of the taxes that you pay for facial recognition that is really wide. There are a lot of taxes people can check out. I think it's titled 11 reasons not to become famous, which will be a an eye openener for a lot of people. That's a blog post. And for that reason, I'm continuing to do what I do. I have some insurance because of when I started in in the sense that I have a certain critical mass of loyal listeners and that is enough to certainly to sustain the podcast as an independent business that does not burn money and the audience is still very big but Rogan to his credit he's figured out a

lot he was really the first. I think it's very fair to say he was the first who really figured out that YouTube could be used as a growth driver for podcasts. And he is so he's a virtuoso of of of entertainment and performing on camera. He's he is absolutely topnotch at doing everything related to the production that he's created. And that can take a lot of forms, right? He created his separate clips channel and has done so many things really really well. And he had first mover advantage, right? There was a long time uh to flash back where you had let's just say when I launched the 4-Hour chef, so this is 2 years before I launched my podcast. You had Rogan, you had Maron, you had Nerdist, you had Adam Corolla, a handful of others, and they were kind of all in a pelon. they were all seemingly roughly in the same orbit with respect to audience size. And then I would say a handful of years later, and this

directly correlates to the rise of video and YouTube and a lot of converging trends. Joe is good at this. Joe is also very good at kind of peeking around corners to see where things are going. He's very good at it. and he had first mover advantage and then he he just executed on it. So that is all to say that is not a game I think particularly at this point in time that would be easy for me to execute on. It is not what I see as the sort of surgical high lever focus going back to our sort of definition in 8020 analysis. What do you want? Be suspicious of what you want Remy right. Why? Why? Why? Okay, if you come up with an answer as to what you want, ask why a few times. Why does that matter? So what? Then what? And figure it out. Because there are always trade-offs.

And you may be signing up for a ride that you're going to want to get off of halfway. And if you're strapped to that roller coaster, nope, you are not getting off the ride. So to that extent I think since I've seen some of the side effects of a lot of public exposure which you know death threats, stalking, having to escalate stuff to FBI, people saying they're going to show up at a live event, shoot me. Uh just go down the list like audience uh members, readers saying if you don't help me in 48 hours, I'm going to kill myself. These types of things are actually all common for anyone who has a big enough audience. You don't need to say anything controversial. You don't need to do anything controversial. It is purely a function of size. And I'll just give people the basic picture that I paint in the 11 reasons not to become famous. If you have a small village, you're going to have one village idiot,

right? Like one crazy person. Let's just say that's a village of 200 people. All right? Then you bump that out to a thousand. You're going to have at least a handful. Now, as it gets larger, let's just say my audience is twice the size of New York City every month, something like that, even in including all the burrows. Then how many how many crazy people are there in New York City? A whole hell of a lot. You could fill a lot of buses with those crazy people. I mean, many many many buses. And they're all online. They all have a voice and uh some of them are actually very very clever, right? They have buggy software but they're very clever. So you don't need you can't dodge this by just behaving well. It's a function of audience size and it's a function of recognizability and how easy you are to find or recognize on the street. So, this is not to say don't pursue any of these things, but it is to say if you are successful

at this game that you've chosen, you will need to deal with these things. And I'm in a private WhatsApp group with a lot of uh it's not a lot, but it's a few dozen very big creators. Some the some of uh which are much much bigger than I am. But everybody's got I would say at least a few million folks following them on a monthly basis. Literally everybody deals with this stuff. Some of them need full-time private security and yada yada yada yada. Every single person is dealing with something like this.

Is it Are you Do you have security with you a lot? No, I just have concealed carry in Texas. Is it But when you go out like whether you're in Texas or California or New York, are you recognized constantly?

Uh, depends on where I am certainly, but you mentioned California, New York. Yeah. If I'm trying to go to a coffee shop in Manhattan or Brooklyn or San Francisco or Austin,

yeah, generally speaking, I'm not going to be able to work there, right? I won't be able to just relax and read the book for an hour or two, which is which is not to say that I don't enjoy these interactions. I do because my my listeners and this is another reason why I've chosen to continue what I'm doing on some level long form often very in some cases very complicated subjects. I might go very like I have an interview in the next week or two where I'm going to go incredibly deep probably two or three hours with a scientist. It's going to be very useful but it's going to get technical and I'm not going to dumb it down. and I'll try to simplify to explain things or get him to do that.

But the nature of the interviews, so let's just take an interview like that means that the people who are going to get through it are generally going to be on some level patient. They're going to be very curious. They are going to be well educated, whether that's through school or self-education, right? And those people are typically awesome to interact with. like they're great. I love meeting my listeners. I love meeting my readers. But if you just want to chill out and read a book and you have four or five of those interactions while you're trying to read the book, it just makes it hard to read the book, right? So, uh, so that's a thing. Uh, but as I have deprioritized playing the game of video, um, that has decreased a bit. So, some folks have been like, "Wow, Tim's been really quiet for the last x number of years."

And it's like, "Yeah, that's not accidental." Yeah. Yeah. If you mean by quiet, you're seeing my face less on your al algorithmically driven feed,

then yes, that's a very deliberate kind of uh design lifestyle design decision.

One of the things that feels like you've worked really hard at to get to become world class is interviewing. something I'm fascinated to study. I feel like when I listen to your show, I'm thinking as much about I wonder why he followed up instead of moving on. I need to deconstruct that process of how it all works. I am curious to learn just to start high level your overall philosophy on how you approach interviews, how you prepare for them, how you let serendipity happen and whether to say let me stick to kind of my premeating notes versus actually we're going way over here. What is your overall philosophy when it comes to interviewing world-class performers?

Rule number one is scratch your own edge. Uh, and for me, for me, right, scratch your own edge. Interview the people you want to talk to genuinely. Whenever I have been tempted to stray from that because it's an A-list celebrity or whoever it might be, it may get a lot of downloads because of name recognition and the YouTube algo has anointed this person as helpful to them to serve up, right? Let's just be very clear on the value capture by platforms. I say that as someone who invested early in Facebook and Twitter and a lot of these companies.

Uh if you're using it for free, you are the product. Uh so I've went I've been tempted at points to stray from that. And who knows, maybe I'll I every once in a while you can break your rules as long as you know what your rules are in the first place. But I would say that and you've done this for a long time as well. Though I have to imagine this is true for you at least a lot of the time. A game a game like this if you want to play the long game requires endurance. And at least for me to have endurance you need energy. To have energy you can't be dragging your feet to the recording mic for very long. You will run out of batteries. And when you run out of batteries, you're going to run out of enthusiasm. Then you're going to take a break, then you're going to decrease frequency, and then before you know it, you've quit your podcast.

So for me, which is also why I look at video and I'm like, well, I I I know what a lot of these people are doing

and my team has analyzed it and I have the WhatsApp group where they're talking about the various tools and strategies they're using. These are people who are as good as it gets, but I don't have love of the game, that particular game.

And for that reason, I'm not going to have the endurance. Even if I hire people and ain't nothing in this life for free, they're going to be tradeoffs. So for instance, if I don't want to purs if I don't want to have really sensationalist clickbaity head headlines on videos with crazy images because those will perform best. You know, beware ye who enter here, right? You're kind of sailing off into the dragons in the ocean on the old maps. Um, so, uh, for me that that scratch your own itch, even if you're just recording some episodes for yourself, even if they quote unquote underperform for a bit, right? I've had I've had interviews on some weird esoteric subjects. And uh, my goal with that is the same goal, this also applies to kind of rules that I had with my blog. And it was very helpful once I was able to put this into a short phrase as a guiding compass point which was my goal is not to have 100% of my audience like

any episode. In fact, I don't want that. But I do want 10% of my audience to love each episode or each blog post. Love where they're like, "Oh my god, this was written for me. How did Tim know I needed this right now? Oh my god, my friend, my friends Toby and Lauren need to read this or listen to this. Boom. 10%. And that gives you a lot of creative latitude and it gives you permission to scratch your own itch because the personal is the most universal. So I would say that's that's the first that comes to mind and almost everything is downstream of that. all of the questions in your prep process. You've said before that you have tons of notes that you you like to have notes leading up to it. Is that just born strictly out of that curiosity of wow, I I get to talk to Jamie Fox or Arnold Schwarzenegger or whoever else. These are the questions for me like it's an audience of one to start and yes, it

would be nice if it helps other people, but it's really about my curiosity and obsessions and chasing that down.

Yeah. I I would say a lot of it is going to be personal curiosity. when you're contending with, let's just take those two examples. So Jamie Fox and Arnold Schwarzenegger, their first appearances on the podcast, because I think they've both been on two or three times. And when they were first on my podcast, this was still at a point where it it was it was at a point where and when A-list celebrities didn't really do podcasts, right? Maybe there were a few exceptions every once in a while, but very very rarely did A-listers go on podcasts. They were still using a more traditional the publicists were using a more traditional playbook.

So to get Arnold and Jamie on the show, even though I knew basically their right-hand man or someone who's a f a real true friend and close in their orbit, probably took a year and a half to get them both ultimately scheduled and on the show in a case like that because I I could feel that those were possible inflection moments and I could probably recruit say Apple to help promote it and the turn style and so on which back in the day was a big deal. I wanted to add a few different layers of preparation and that entailed letting each of them know very early in the interview. I have done more homework than 99.9999% of people who have ever interviewed you.

Even though you've been interviewed hundreds or thousands of times, maybe I'm the most prepared. So, I would almost always come in with a question that related to their third grade teacher or something like that or one line in the Arnold Schwarzenegger bio or autobio that other people I knew hadn't paid attention to because it kind of tied into German and I wanted to hear him speak in German because I've never heard him speak in German and I grew up on Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

I wanted to start somewhere that no one else had started. I will always let interviewees know where I'm going to start. Also, almost always will let people know because I don't want them to stumble out of the gate. I want them to feel confident and at ease when we get started. So, very frequently, uh, I will let them know where we're starting or depending on the guest, I will ask them upfront, often well in advance, like, "What are two or three of your greatest hits stories?" And what I mean by that is any story that seems to stick with people or that you've heard a lot of positive feedback regarding, right? Just like any stories, maybe it's one thing from your book three books ago that people constantly refer to. What is that thing? Because we want to have the biggest funnel at the beginning of the show to pull people in because this is going to be a wide-ranging, detailed, sometimes in the

weeds conversation. let's start with something that you know works. And they're like,"Great, here are two or three cues." Often I'll say, "Don't tell me the story. Just give me a cue that I can use to prompt you cuz I don't want to hear it in advance. I want it to be fresh." And bada bing, bada boom, you know, they get like nothing but net three-pointer right out of the gate. The the audience gets something awesome right out of the gate. And then then we're both already warmed up by the time that gets wrapped and then we can get into whatever we want to get into.

And one of the things I'm asked regularly is of 600, however many people, what is what is the the one thing, you know, and obviously there isn't one thing, you know, that they all have in common are the high performers. But if they really push me and I'm like, "All right, okay. One thing, you know what it really is?" And and I'm like, "I'm about to let you down. Okay, just let you know." They're like, "What? Okay, what is it? I go, nobody

apply toilet paper. Like, nobody nobody knows what they're doing. Like, we're we are all figuring it out as we go. And you have a line from Tribe of Mentors, the superheroes you have in your mind are nearly all walking flaws who've maximized one or two strengths. And I actually think that is a very inspiring quote. I think it's inspiring to know that nobody has this thing figured out. We're all figuring it out as we go. You kind of do that out in public regularly. Figure out a bunch of other bunch of stuff through asking questions and chasing down your curiosity. But I feel like that is something I again reading from your work that I found as well is we're all pretty messy humans that maybe have maximized or worked on one or two strengths that have helped us get to where we are.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, uh, I would say to build on what you said, looking across all the interviews I've done, a lot of these, let's say, world class performers are willing to experiment. I mean they they they don't typically view risk or failure in the same way that a lot of erans do or even like very high level B players. And that doesn't mean they're delusional. It just means that these words are subject to individual definition. And you can see that in areas where you might not expect like General Stanley Mcristel, right? you listen to that was also a big get way back in the day. The first conversation I had with him.

People push at the edges, right? They'll they'll question assumptions which is incredibly hard to do within or at least there are consequences to doing that within the within the realm of say the military although his started very early on when there were not lives at stake and so on. But you see it with writers, you see it with filmmakers, you see it with athletes, you see it with anybody you can pull out of the hat of the guests that I've had on. I'd say very very typically they view risk and failure very differently. Right? I I I think some of them view say a risk similarly to how I would tend to look at it which is the the probability of an irreversible negative outcome right otherwise like just view it try to view it if you can the way that I view it which is like all right life's a series of 6 to 12 month projects sometimes they're shorter sometimes they're longer and then within that I'm constantly

running two week experiments four-week experiments that's But if you're a scientist, as long as you design the study, i.e. the project and experiments, well, you're just getting feedback, right? You thought you were like X is going to drive Y and maybe you have a goal on top of it, right? 10% per week or whatever. Okay, great. Try it out. If it doesn't work, try something else. And then on the so the the risk side, you can really I do not view myself as a risk taker at all. Like I think about risk mitigation all the time. A lot like Richard Branson. That was a big moment for me when he was on the show cuz I read Losing Your Virginity way back in the day right out of college. I was like, who is this mad man? This is amazing.

that I would go to Virgin Records back when that existed on Market Street in San Francisco. I just like the whole thing was so surreal. And in any case, when he launched uh Virgin Atlantic with these airlines, it's like he negotiated so many ways to cap the downside. I think it was Boeing at the time, but he had the craziest terms that he negotiated. And people are like, "Oh, this Maverick, he's crazy. He risks everything at every turn." 's like, "No, no, no, no, no." When you actually ignore the headlines and look at what he did as a negotiator, his downside was really well capped and there's a lot of upside potential and not a lot of downside potential. And it's like, okay, like that's that's always how I'm approach almost always how I'm approaching things. I mean, I'm very hypervigilant by nature. And uh when I'm which is why that picking things based on what you'll learn and the relationships you'll develop is so

key right? It's like when I invested in Twitter and Facebook, uh which was like well before they IPOed but not super super early, I thought they were overpriced. I was like this I'm not going to make money on these. But by getting into these deals, I bought I bought equity from employees. Uh these are hot companies. So, this is my marketing budget, right? Like, I'm going to put money into this. I'm not going to make any money back. I'm going to lose this money, but by being in these deals, it'll help me get other deals, and I'm also get to learn A, B, and C, and how secondary markets work and blah blah blah blah blah blah. So, for me, the assumption was I'm going to lose all this. But there are different angles on this, different upsides. Um, and I would say a lot of the people I've interviewed have a similar way of approaching things. like Arnold Wenegger. A lot of people don't realize

he was a millionaire through real estate before he ever had his his big break in acting. So, he was able to say no to stuff that if people had looked at his English and his acting at that point, they were like, "You have no right to say no to these bit parts." But he was like, "No, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. I want the big parts and I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no." The only reason he could do that is because he built a safety net through the real estate investing. I mean, the guy is he's he's very very very sharp.

Yeah. And uh when you pull back the curtain and look at a lot of these successes, you realize just how well they've created different safety nets often times which takes the form of and not not to beat a dead horse but like doing stuff at night or on the weekends

until you've proven to yourself sufficiently like okay we have we have I I have enough here to believe that it's got legs and then then they're like okay maybe I'll try full-time writing for 6 months and be really serious about it and here's the idea and then if not, you know, I could always go bartend or do whatever to get back on my feet and, you know, rent out my futon on Airbnb or whatever. And then like life goes on, you know, I'm it's not it's not terminal like I'm going to well I mean I guess life is always terminal, but you get the idea. Like this is not going to be a a fatal move where I lose the game of chess of life and then

you know close curtain. It's like no no you'll be fine. Yeah. Tim, to close, I think from a leadership perspective, you have proven to be a talent scout, whether it's investing early in tons of companies. Look, look them up. They're all over. You mentioned a few of them. Or, and you mentioned a few of these as well, the people you've had on your show before they're known or at least known at the as they are now. And a lot of it started with your show. Even Naval, I had not heard of him till you. Or Derek Civers, same Josh Weightskin, Ryan Holiday, General Mcrist, Jaco, all these people I've been fortunate to have on my show as well after I've learned about him from you quite frankly and I'm sure tons of podcasters who are lucky enough to have some of those people started from you. I think from a leadership perspective, we all need to work on this skill of being a talent scout, of seeing

talent early. Mhm. Tough question maybe, but how do you do that? How have you gotten so good at seeing this potential, this really high ceiling for people before others have seen it?

Oo, yeah, that's a good question. I would say few things come to mind. One is is coming back to this sort of surgical focus. This is another reason why you don't have to rush around all the time. You do not need to have a huge network. This might sound controversial, but you don't need a huge network. Turns out that anyone who is incredibly incredibly good at what they do, top 1%, they know people who are similar in other fields. So, it's like the super A+ players tend to know other A+ players.

Mhm. You'd be surprised, right? So, it's like if I spend time with I'm making this up. I this is so don't please people don't reach out to Eric but let's just say Eric Cressy who is like one of the top shoulder arm like upper extremity he's he's a he's a full stack kind of performance coach. Uh but if you're a major major league baseball team and you have a pitcher who needs to fix their elbow or wrist or something with prehab and rehab, he's your guy, right? Period. Full stop. uh he's gonna he I guarantee you he's going to know a bunch of people who are A+ in other fields, right? Even though that is very very niche and same thing for you might not think someone who's at the top of their game as a fiction writer who writes novels would know someone like a Rick Rubin, but turns out they do, right? So, the first is if if you want to get to know a lot of world-class performers, if you're like,

I need to start with Tom Cruz, you're going to lose. Like, you're never going to get to them, right? So, seek out the people who are really good at anything. Japanese knife making, woodworking, doesn't matter. Because guess what? Also, if your goal is to learn, not just acquire business cards for some very unclear goal that you have in the future, which is why like be suspicious of what you want. Why? Why? And then what? Why does that matter? So what? Jirro from Jirro Dreams of Sushi is going to have a lot in common with the LeBron James of the world, with the Hugh Jackman's of the world, with the General Mcristals of the world. a lot. And and guess what? Like Jiro's brother, who's also amazing, his younger brother, actually went and and uh I used to live in Japan as an exchange student. That was my first time out of the US when I was 15, which is crazy. But I was like, "All right, Jurro is going to be

impossible, right? This doc just came out. Never going to get a seat in this like eight-seater or whatever it is. But guess who's neglected and probably knows a whole hell of a lot of the secret sauce is his younger brother. So, let's just go eat at his younger brother's restaurant. Went to his younger brother brother's restaurant. Did it super early right before people got out of work. And there were just a handful of people in the restaurant. Sat at the bar so I could talk to them and I still speak Japanese and just was able to have the most amazing conversation with this guy for an hour. And it's like you could have done the same thing. Bring somebody who speaks Japanese and figure it out.

And so I would say that's that's part of it is is looking for niche talent instead of what you perceive to be really really broad talent. And then I would say intimately related to that and I'm glad this is coming up again, but it's like follow just follow your own interest, right? and and don't feel like you need to impress somebody with a field that is quote unquote respectable or in the mainstream or anything like that. Uh because how are you going to be able to decipher the B minus from B+ from A minus from A+ players in that field? Are you going to have the ability to do that? So just like with investing, it's like you look at all the biggest hits that I've had, right? first first I think I was the first adviser to Shopify but when they had like 10 employees, right? Why did I figure that out? Well, it's because I was revising the 4-hour work week in 2009 looking for an e-commerce solution that

was better than all the stuff I had tried. I knew the problem points. I knew the pain. I asked my readers and they were like, "You should check out this little thing called Shopify." And then I checked out Shopify. I was like, "Oh, this is different." And then at a conference, met Toby, the CEO, still the CEO. And off we go, right? I knew I knew the product space. I knew the pain points. And you know, Uber being one of the first three advisers to Uber, it's like, why did I know that? Well, it actually came out of an earlier failure of a startup that didn't make me anything. But I got to know Garrett Camp, who then was the co-founder of Uber. And taxis in San Francisco were terrible. I had been stood up by taxis and missed flights before. I was like, "Yeah, I understand the painoint." Sure.

What's the downside? I get to hang out with somebody I already really like who I think is a genius and uh I'm going to learn a bunch about an entirely new field. Great. Let's try it. Uber was turned down by every possible investor you can think of. It went out. So I was also I think I think the first adviser to angel list which Naval Rabicon started and at one point Uber went out on Angel List to like hundreds of investors and everybody except for maybe one or two said no. They were like this is for the 1% heck bro this that or the other thing completely missing the fact that it's we're not looking at the current total addressable market for black cars. Like this is going to fundamentally expand the pie. In any case, I didn't have some crystal ball. I was just trying to solve some pain in my personal ass. Like literally, uh, Duolingo, same thing, right? Duallingingo. And so I would say like stick with what you know and it's

very hard to go wrong and use exploring what you know as a way to just step out one lane to something that's adjacent. Okay, cool. Build your confidence, figure it out, and then do one adjacent. And if you just keep doing that, you you will get better at spotting talent. So hopefully that's helpful. But that's that's how I I think

I was lucky uh Tim to um go hang out with our our mutual friend Brian Compliment in uh New York City.

Great guy. Uh we uh we recorded actually in the office where he wrote Billions. This is while Billions is still going on. And he said to me, the reason I bring this up is he said to me, "Follow your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor." Do that. And I like I like your chances. And it it seems like Tim that's like been the through point,

the through line of this entire conversations of following your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor. And if you do that, it's just weird the way the world works out. The weird how good things seem to keep happening. Good opportunities seem to keep coming your way if you're chasing down your curiosity obsessions with great rigor. It's really cool how that works.

Yeah, totally. I mean, the obsession part is important. Again, coming back to the energy

Yes. piece as the base of the pyramid. And uh Brian's amazing. He's a close friend. Uh he was the first person, I don't know if we've talked about this publicly, he was the first person within the world of entertainment to approach me after a bunch of just smoke up the ass conversations with Hollywood people. He was the first person to approach me. Met with him in New York City with David, his writing partner, who who basically said, "Yeah, we would love to do something with you with the 4-hour work week. I assume you'd want to write it or be a co-writer." the first person to actually ask me what would you do with it if you wanted to do something on film and I was like oh okay this is different and these guys are actually operators who did Rounders and all these other

movies and television shows so Brian I just want to point out also so Brian's right he's absolutely right and Brian is also not just curious but he's he's voracious about knowledge and skills and the right relationships right so Our approaches are very very similar. I think he has crazy batteries. I don't know what that guy I don't know what's in his genetic code. I don't know what he eats for breakfast, but like that dude's energy levels are nuts. I don't really understand how that works. It's another way that I choose startup founders to invest in. By the way, when you're just like, "What is going on here? This person doesn't ever seem to get tired." I'm like, "Yeah, they're going to need that for the road ahead."

So, probably doing the right thing. We went and passed football around his office like kind of a low ceiling like throwing sidearm football for like 10 minutes just just talking afterwards. He It was the best. It was like one of the coolest days ever.

Tim, this is a good place to end uh at least round one. I I really really appreciate this, man. Thank you on behalf of all podcasters for what you've kind of laid the the the groundwork for all of us, man. It's been so much fun. And thank you for sending me this and having your team send me Coyote. This is really cool. I love that you're expanding into this game market. I know it's hard, but I'm not surprised that it's already crushing it. So, I'd encourage people to to get it.

Thanks, man. I'll say I'll say I'll say just a few more things. So, I forgot to put the

the button in Brian Copelman, which is for 20 or 30 years he has done transcendental meditation 20 minutes twice a day without fail and also something called morning pages. So, people can check that out. Uh but coming back to injecting slack in the system and uh check out check out coyote guys. This is like micro doing joy with family and friends. Young kids can play it. They'll actually probably beat a lot of the adults. And it's like there's there's no shortage of serious stuff out there. You need something else to offset that so you can get the truly serious work done.

And also just enjoy this. As far as we know, one way ticket, don't let it pass you by. So check out Coyote guys. You can find it everywhere. And uh thanks so much for having me. you're very good at what you do.

I appreciate that. It means a lot coming from you and I would love to continue this dialogue as we both progress, man.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, man. Uh yeah, really nice to connect and to everybody listening, thanks for listening.

Thanks, man.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Tim Ferriss Reveals the #1 Trait ALL Great Leaders Share"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Tim Ferriss (Host).

What is "Tim Ferriss Reveals the #1 Trait ALL Great Leaders Share" about?

Tim Ferriss discusses the crucial trait shared by all great leaders: the importance of not taking oneself too seriously. He emphasizes the difference between effectiveness and efficiency, the value of personal interests in interviewing top performers, and reflects on his upbringing as a foundation for sustained excellence.

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Zorba the Greek, Tribe of Mentors, Tools of Titans, Azamandius, AngelList, Percy Shelley. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Tim Ferriss Reveals the #1 Trait ALL Great Leaders Share"?

The episode runs 1 h 24 min; the transcript is about 14,218 words in 132 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.