#586: The Random Show with Kevin Rose — Current Books, Men's Groups, Tuna Helper, the Latest in NFTs, Fierce Intimacy, and More

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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I answer your personal question? No, it is seen. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal entercell. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, and Kevin Rose. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show, but

This episode is A random show episode. Kevin, nice to see ya. Dude, good to see you, brother. Been too long. It has been.

A little while. And As I'm sitting here, you know, I'm holding This eighty dollar mic. In a probably what is a stand that cost

fifteen cents to manufacture. And we were laughing a little bit. before recording because you mentioned that you had a family plan with some piece of software instead of the business plan because it saves you like three dollars a month. Right. I always a lot. Yeah, I was wondering like where are you

Unreasonably cheap or sensitive. Because I still have a bunch of stupid completely outdated behaviors around saving like I mean literally

A dollar here, a dollar there, twenty dollars here, twenty dollars there, and I was like Uh and the reason I'm holding this mic is because my cable is too short. To have Power and this mic. In this confined space at the same time. So

After six hundred episodes, maybe it's time for me to invest in a better rig. Yeah, I mean you have uh you have budget for that, I would imagine. I do have everything Of all the things that I should put a little little coin into, that would be one. Is there anything that you're pr you're stupidly frugal about? Oh, dude, there's a ton of things. Like This is the weird thing is I think it comes down from like

being raised with not a lot of cash and then having a little bit more disposable income as you get older. And When you think about like one of the things I did is I signed up for the uh the Spotify couples plan. Cause there's there's like a a five pack or something in the the family plan, but there's a there's a special couples plan. Where it's just two people. And so

I did that because it saved me like three dollars a month. But the other thing though that sucks is like then you can't tie. any other accounts to any other devices. So like for example, I have My Sonos is my account. And my wife's account is in her Tesla and then in my Tesla's my account. And so like I'll be driving around and like It'll get switched off because somebody

turns on the Sonos or something like that. And it's all because I don't want to spend an extra four dollars so I can have those extra couple of accounts. I just want to point out for people who missed it. Two individual Teslas. But at least you're saving those three dollars a month. Right, exactly. Yeah. Saving the three bucks. Old habits die hard. Old habits die hard, man. I mean we don't have the expensive Teslas. We have we have the the inexpensive ones. It's okay. You're allowed. Where

We were to eat Oh, we had a lot of TV dinners growing up. Oh yeah, same. We did not have a lot of money and And I became very sensitive to

wasting food so I would say if I look back At the food poisoning or anything bordering on food poisoning that I've had in the last two years, I'd say at least fifty percent of it is self-inflicted, and it's from Saving not wanting to throw away food. And then like forgetting about

Some equivalent of like chicken tenders or something that I got a takeout and then I eat it like four days past the expiration date. And then uh I'm floored for two or three days. So stupid. Yeah, so stupid. I used to love Denty Moor Beef Stew. We did a lot of tuna helper at my house, which was odd because the the the hamburger helper was way better than that damn tuna helper. That's not terrible. I've never even heard of tuna helper. There was tuna helper back in the day. I hope they discontinued it because it was Absolutely horrible. Oh, tuna's better for him than hamburger or something. So it was it was always when dad was cooking. When mom was when mom was cooking, it was like a good meal when dad when dad had to like step into the kitchen, like out came the tuna helper or dentymore beef stew or you know, whatever that was in the cans. Oh, what a mess. All right. So we'll segue from outdated behaviors. We could we could do a whole episode on those. Where would you like to start? I could kick it off if you want with a bunch of books, because I've been doing a lot of reading.

Awesome. Let's start with books and there's there's a little something for everybody here because I have been reading A lot. And in some cases it's more of a show and tell than reading. So I'll I'll show you the cover of one that I think you'll particularly like. This is a book called Visions of Japan.

And the subtitle is Kawasai, that's K A W A S E Hasui H A S U I Kawasai Hasui's Masterpieces. So I'll just show the cover here. Awesome. It's a beautiful collection of wood block prints. And some people will recognize, for instance of at least one piece of art by Hokusai, who has the very famous piece of

These almost fractal like waves coming over From left to right these Ormen in boats. that are coming into these huge waves. And a lot of people would recognize this particular image. Kawa says style is very different.

specializes mostly in landscape trees and uses snow to tremendous effect. So the assistance he had ultimately in his workshop or helping with The development of the wood blocks. the complexity of the snow. And I was

Introduced to this particular artist through Maria Popova. Who created brain picker, brain pickings, which is now called the Marginalian, which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but so it goes. It's a newsletter and a site that has millions and millions of subscribers now. She's been on the podcast a few times. Started as a casual email to I want to say Six friends at a time and has grown into this behemoth. She's an incredible writer.

and prolific, prolific writer. And she had a post. on Kawasaihasui. So that's number one. And it's it's almost all visual, as you can see here. It has beautiful pieces from every era. every chapter of his life and every possible season and

condition in Japan. So this brought back a lot of wonderful memories. So as a coffee table book, something that's easy to dip in and out of that you don't have to read start to finish, that's one. I also recently finished A book called A moral man or a moral man, depending on how you read it, and I I know that is deliberate, so it's one word A M O R A L M A N

Which was recommended to me by Mark Plotkin. Dr. Mark Plotkin, who is an ethno Botanists. And Expert. Primarily in Central and South American

medicinal plants, but has a fantastic podcast where he goes into one plant or set of plants per episode. Mm. These aren't like psychedelic, these are like full medicinal like They're they're both. So there's some psychedelics, he he knows those very, very well. But he'll do an entire episode on tobacco, then an entire episode on cannabis, then an entire episode which will include

Help. and the history of of hemp in the United States. He'll do an entire episode on coca, an entire episode on wine, for instance, and it goes back and covers The entire History from

sort of day one of human history as we have it recorded. Fascinating show. Really fun. Really, really fun. I w I want to hear that tobacco one. I I wish tobacco was better for you. And I say that because I don't I've never smoked at all. Yeah. But I have had a tobacco infused cocktail one time. Oh my God, dude, those are amazing. Like the the It's strong.

I was at this restaurant in San Francisco and they had taken tobacco leaves And they infused it in this bourbon. And they're not supposed to do this. It's like totally legal. Yeah. And so I I ordered I'm like that sounds interesting, like tobacco infused and then they're like, No, no, no, like it's real tobacco leaves, are you cool with that? And I'm like, Well I'm not smoking it, I guess. But I then I later read, you know, obviously any form of like getting tobacco in you is bad for you. And so I drank it.

And one cocktail. And I stand up Yeah. I felt like my feet were sinking into the ground. I almost fell over. I was buzzed like super high. I was like Oh my God. If you never do nicotine and then you hit that nicotine, it's real. It can knock you on your ass. And just safety notes.

Oh there's an entire book. It's very academic and dense, so I don't recommend it necessarily, but there's an entire book, and I'm gonna come back to it, Moral Man. But there's a book called something like Tobacco use in South American shamanism and it's an older book. I want to say it was published in the seventies or eighties. The author has a name along the lines of like Johan or Johan Wilbert, I wanna say. I've read this entire book. And uh Tobacco use.

Is highly prevalent. Across most of the Amazon. It's consumed in different ways. This is true in North America as well. And If you look at it different ways, what do you mean by consumed in different ways? Like what are the different like there's oral different means there's there's smoking, but there are many different ways of smoking. There are snuffs, so you could you have insuflation, so inhaling.

You have Blowing tobacco either smoke or ground tobacco. Into the anus. That's one. You have He's being serious. I'm being totally serious. You have

drinking of tobacco juice, which is is the one I I wanted to mention. As In addition to several others very dangerous, a number of people have died in the last few years in South America as Let's just call it psychedelic tourists who have

ingested tobacco juice. I mean you can end up with tachycardia and then heart attacks and all sorts of issues. It's very dangerous. You can die of nicotine poisoning. So you need to be extremely cautious about it. Have you tried any of these? I have stayed away. I have experienced sort of insuflation a lot of people

now it's trendy. I think it's actually too trendy in the sense that it can do quite a bit of damage if you're over using it, but people listening may recognize a word called Happy. Or hape, some people say it with the hape, like the Brazilian pronunciation, because they don't want it to sound like rapey, uh rape, but

It is a pulverized tobacco often mixed with other things that people will blow into their own nostrils. So there's a V shaped joined a pair of tubing and you stick one into in your mouth And you've already compressed some version of tobacco into the other side and then you blow it into your nostril and it shoots up into your sinuses.

When you say mixed with other things, what is it typically mixed with? It really depends on it's like a It's like a cocktail. It depends on who you're purchasing it from, which tribe. A lot of these are of dubious origin in the sense that many psychedelic or psychedelic related paraphernalia and compounds. Are

spun a yarn of this incredible history of indigenous use, whereas For instance. Toad. So Sometimes referred to as Buffo. The molecule in question is five M E O

DMT, five methoxy DMT. There's this entire story now. versions of a story spun about indigenous use and there seems to be no compelling evidence that there's actual indigenous use. Of The Ufalus Toad.

goes by a number of other Latin names, but the Sonora Desert Toad. There seems to be no compelling evidence that this specific toad was used as a source of five M E O by any indigenous group. And in fact it was Ken Nelson. An amateur biochemist who is

who ultimately through trial and error developed Smoked. venom from Bufo Avario as one means of consuming five MUDMT. Now 5 MO DMT is found in other things. It's found in other plant species, many plant species in different types of tree nuts, for instance, something called Yopal. There are many different sources, but I guess the point I wanna make, which is a long answer to your question, is that

A lot of these tobacco cocktails that that are being sold to blow up your own nostril. Or nostrals. I don't think have any basis in indigenous news. But Sometimes it's mixed with things that are not psychotropic. I advise

generally against this. I mean there are potential uses, blah, blah, blah. But I know people who, just as you can with cigarettes, become addicted to a pay But because There in Venice. And you know, doing like a yogawaska retreat and everyone's talking about how highly evolved they are by blowing it up their nostrils instead of smoking it.

suddenly it's socially reinforced. And then you have you have people who are going through like an entire canister of this stuff every week because they're addicted to nicotine. Well, and it's it's still they've still proven that this is like bad for the heart and like causes cancer. Like this different delivery mechanism doesn't Get around that in any way, right? Yeah, I mean you can you can definitely do plenty of damage. I don't know. There may in fact B medical applications. I am not.

well enough versed in sort of contemporary medical applications of nicotine. I I know that they're There are almost certainly potential medical applications. Which would be administered in some way. That is not smoking. Right. Because like lung cancer. I know that lung cancer will kill you. Let's be clear. Yeah. I had read something around a study that was done on the nicotine patches and it was more around heart health and there being some potential negative effects around that, but I know a lot of

The biohacker community, at least a a few people that I bumped into They like the nicotine patches. They'll they'll slap one on and it's a nice little booster, you know, you take it with your coffee in the morning and it's like you do a whale or something like that. Oh, it'll it'll light you up. And it will also Put you on the ground. I mean I've experienced A number of times. It's not my like go to of Tuesday wake me up or anything. And I remember doing it with someone who

at the time with someone who who was using it probably I don't know. fifteen times a week, somewhere somewhere in that range, like twice a day. And he had a really high tolerance and he packed My

Tube. with and he's also like mid two hundreds probably in body weight. So he packed this tube and I blew it up my nostril. And I immediately broke out into like a cold sweat, room is spinning and I needed to lay on my back for like 45 minutes. It was awful. It was absolutely terrible. So don't take it lightly. This is a detour we took off of Mark Plotkin. Check out his podcast, Planet of the Gods. He also wrote a book called

Either the or a shaman's apprentice, which is very, very good about his adventures in places like Suriname. really knows his stuff. He was a protege. of an incredible sort of father of ethnobotany in the United States called Richard Evan Schaltes, who was at Harvard. I've had Mark on the on the podcast before, fascinating guy. Also runs a nonprofit called the Amazon conservation team, which does really interesting work. in helping indigenous communities in particular not only to secure their land as protected, but also to monitor it using

you know, raspberry pie and technology and so on, because you can't enforce the boundaries and prevent poachers and illegal logging and so on. There's not really much value to A place being protected. If it makes any sense. But Mark recommended this book. A moral man by a guy named Derek Delgau. So Derek Delgau, D E L G A U D I O I recognized because there's a one man show that he did

Or it was available on Hulu. It was performed in New York City. With Storytelling sleight of hand kind of stage. mentalism, although a lot of it was just like brute force, incredible memorization.

Called In and of Itself. So if anyone hasn't seen Derek Delgautio's show, In and of Itself, Kevin, you would love this. It's Awesome. It's so good. So Derek Delgadio, in and of itself, I recognize the one man show, and a moral man goes into his entire Life story. Of growing up with a single mom and then learning about magic, ultimately becoming a card mechanic in illegal

games like high stakes card games and the whole story is really good. I was very impressed with the writing. So that's one. And then the last one I'll mention is a novel. It's called Ka, just KA by John Crowley. And it is a long book. It's pr I would guess I read it on Kindle, but probably four to five hundred pages about A single crow who basically Um, I don't think I'll give away too much here by saying it's reincarnated over and over and over again and develops the ability to communicate with humans.

And It's a cool book. I will warn you in advance that it takes literally a hundred pages probably to get warmed up to the point where you're like, Oh, this is actually now interesting. So there's no a lot of setup involved. So be forewarned. But John Crowley is interesting to me because he wrote a book, another book that takes about a hundred pages to get warmed up with, called Little Big little comma big. And that is one of the best novels I've ever read in my life. It it leaves you in a

Altered state for at least left me and I know uh several other people in an altered state for a few weeks after you read this book. Wow. Wait w which one was that called I'm taking notes here where you send it. It's so good. Little big. Little big. And I think the an alternate subtitle or a sometimes included subtitle is like the Fairy's Parliament or something like that. But The pro tip with Little Big, it's so good. It it is

I just I'm telling people in advance, it's like some heavy lifting in the beginning because you have to establish a bunch of context. Once you get to The talking fish. you'll know that you're about to turn a corner into the really wild, fascinating stuff. But there is a family tree.

in the beginning of The paperback edition, which was given to me as gift by my brother, and I put it down. I tried to read it and put it down like three times. And I'm just like, why did my brother? Give this to me. Like it's not that interesting in the beginning. And then when it finally turns the corner, you're like Oh my god, this is one of the best. Books I've ever

Read and wow. So you're back in. You you gave up reading new books for a while. Well I gave up This is like a technical point that I think is worth underscoring. I gave up and I still I'm giving up reading new books

meaning books that are published In This year. But I am reading books. So I'm reading books, but John Crowley's book, Little Big, as well as Ka, these were published many years ago. And the reason I made that decision and policy is because I get deluged with

Like dozens of books a week that I don't request that get sent to me and then people want you to plug. I get the same thing, you get them in the mail and And sometimes they're friends, right? It uh very often they're friends. I mean that's like I've done six hundred episodes, so it's like Of those six hundred people, how many of them write continuously and have books coming out a lot, right? So I can't accommodate all of them, even if I can Have one of them on the podcast.

If all I did was read one out of every 10 books sent to me, I would never have time to do anything else. So there's this blog post I wrote quite a while back called, I think it's the like The one finding the one decision that removes a thousand decisions, something like that. If people search it, they can find it. If they go to Tim.blog forward slash new books. They'll see it because we uh I send that now to people so it doesn't feel Like a personalized.

Don't send them books all in December and expect it to happen. Well, I actually put I put something at the beginning of it, which was like this has been extended indefinitely. So basically, if you're about to send me a book that is like sent in any new year, like forget about it. Right. So It's gonna be a tough sell. But those are some of the books that I've been enjoying and I will probably go into I think John Crowley has a A collection of three part series. That is

Egypt or A E Egypt spelled with an A E. So I may dig into that next, but I think the book that kind of mesmerized the most people that I'm aware of is the the little big. And I left something out. So in the beginning there's a There's a family tree. Do yourself a huge favor and take a photograph of that or shit's gonna get really confusing. So take a take a photograph, even if it's on Kindle, like take your phone out and take a photograph of the family tree because you're gonna wanna refer back to it.

Fantastic book. So That is some of my information diet at the moment. I've got one book to mention.

So Go for it. Peter Tia, mutual friend, obviously been on your show a bunch, turned me on. He actually had an episode the of his podcast, the Peter Tia Drive, where he interviewed Terry Reel. Which is um this fantastic therapist mainly focused on actually male therapy and issues around that males run into. And

I got invited to join a men's group with Terry, actually. I've never done one of these. I don't know if you've done men script before you've done men scripts with a yeah it's it's really interesting. Yeah, so I hadn't either, and I was invited to join one of these men's groups and Essentially. It is

Picture eight people over Zoom. Terry's there as well. So you have your therapist in the room. And I I'd never done any type of group therapy thing before. I'd done individual therapy and couples therapy, but never group. And He kicks it off by saying, Okay, we're gonna go around the room and we're gonna spend everyone gets Ten minutes.

It is Tell me what's on your mind. What's going on. And there's none of this bullshit like, well, I took my kids out and all that's like, no, no, no. What is it hitting you? At a deep level. that you are struggling with. And he calls you on your bullshit like if it's such generic answers. 'Cause everybody has their shit, right? Like their thing that they're they're struggling with, like

My spouse did this or You know, like it there could be a any slew of different things that you're running into, you know, like right now for me It's my mom's dealing with cancer, right? So I like that was the thing that I went into. And You spend those first ten, fifteen minutes

And it's really eye opening and and they put you in a group of like appears that when you look around the room, you're kind of in a in a similar stage in life. And you have these really deep conversations and one person can be, you know, got caught shooting on their wife or whatever it may be. And You realize instantly, like, oh my God, like so many people actually struggle with the same things that I struggle with every single day.

in my head, which is nice. It's refreshing. And then the people that are having the most pain for that particular session, he do this a couple of times a month. It's a two hour long session. He'll go deep with those people. So say, Okay, you're the two people today we're gonna go deep with. And then you just watch.

As he dissects and just ninjas around and gets them Oftentimes to tears by the end of it. And really, really goes in deep into some of these issues that these men are bringing up. And I had never really thought about doing that, and it was really a really beautiful thing.

And you're very supportive. They always say, Does anyone want to comment on what this person just said? And it's never about judging them or saying, Well, I think you're doing this wrong. It's more like This is how this landed on me.

Is that a rule that was established in up front? It is a rule. Th there's There's no opinions. You can yeah, what are the rules? You comment on how it landed on you and how you see it through your lens, but this is only applicable to you. You can say general supportive things like I thought you were really courageous for saying that, thank you for sharing it with me, things like that.

You can always pass at any time. So if anything makes you uncomfortable You can always pass. There is one hundred percent What happens in this room stays in this room. We're talking about some very

crazy topics here that maybe some people haven't disclosed that to their even closest friends or partners, right? There's all kinds of issues that I heard came up where I was just like, I I can't believe we're talking about this, but it's nice. It's nice to know that other men are struggling with the stuff. And so That was fantastic and I've been doing that for a few months now. And it's led me to just

I don't know, there were some great insights in there. that I just came away with. But then it led me actually to Terry's books as well, because you know, these are qu quite expensive kind of groups as Terry's a pretty sought after type of individual therapist. And so he has this book that he turned us onto called Fierce Intimacy. That's one of his books. Yes, fierce intimacy and it's it's great. He reads his own audio books, it's on Audible. And it's how to communicate with love and respect even when you argue.

And this has been just a game changer for me when it comes to How I can Relate how I can Prevent self sabotaging habits. Just how to deal with your partner.

In a way that is constructive in moving forward. And not judging and being able to know when to let information in. And take it in and digest it and let it hit your stuff like internally. And when to know that the other person is just venting and act actually is coming More from them, and it's okay to put a wall up sometimes.

And block that information because It's where they're coming from and it shouldn't land and hit you in the wrong way. It's such a beautiful simple framework. That I absolutely love it. And the other thing I love about him

Is he was kind of the pioneer in the space. He's not a therapist that just sits there and listens to both sides and be like it sounds like what you're saying is this. He takes sides. And therapy. He's like he's like no, that's fucking wrong. Like you're doing this like She's right here. Or you know, like the and so you hear a lot of that happening in this conversation. And I I'm like, finally, you know, like I like a therapist takes sense because sometimes I know I know I'm right sometimes, you know. So so I just found this guy to be really refreshing and probably people that are Some people are laughing because they know this is a really popular person. I first I had heard of him was uh six months ago, but he's a very famous therapist. But anyway, highly recommend Fierce Intimacy. Darry and I both listened to it, my wife and I both listened to it.

And it's already improved the way that we communicate with each other, the way we have conversations. the way we let information flow in and and actually land on us. So I'd put it in there in terms of books to recommend. How long is that book? I did it on Audible, so I think it was like seven hours or something like that. Yeah, so it's probably like two hundred fifty pages, something like that. Yeah, something there. Pretty easy. Do you think you have found it helpful because

You are also in the group or is it do you think it's effective as a standalone? The book. Absolutely,'cause Daria listened to w not being in the group, obviously, and she found it effective as a standalone. As well.

And the reason I like it is it it just doesn't dance around This like we always have to be head over heels in love. It's like y every single day that you wake up One person might be up, one person might be down. And it's always about finding your way back to that middle safe like comfort zone.

And relationships are nothing but You have these moments of beautiful things and bliss happening. But largely it's about The other points, right? And how you get back to those states. Yeah. Yeah. And returning back to that state of health and understanding in how to both know that you're on the same team and have the same goals in mind and working with a framework that that supports that. So

I don't know, I really loved it. I've s really struggled. I've listened to a couple other relationship books Because you know, I'm always trying to improve. I've been married nine years now and Darry and I are in a really good place now, but you know me, Tim, we've had these conversations like a one on one. There's bumps with all these relationships, right? Yeah. And it's like, um, you know, Darry and I d did couples therapy for a bit, especially when you introduce kids into the equation. My God, that changes everything. And so it's like this is the first time I read a book where I was like this this is speaking to me and working. So

One third. That's a big deal. I Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront, you may have heard of it, pioneer the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as RoboAdvising, and they currently oversee$27 billion of assets for their clients.

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One more time, go to wealthfront.com slash Tim to get started today. Yeah. You know, I have I think I probably have On one hand.

Like an unfair judgment all I've seen. It's so it's not totally unfaded. Like some men's groups are like all right, we're gonna go in the woods and like wear furs and bang on drums and like yell and scream and I'm like uh Not sure that's the medicine I need right now. And then, you know, I've had some misgivings at different points, but the

It kind of Meta commentary. That I would make and this has been a conversation and it's a a conversation I've had actually with Quite a few.

Women. Because I've just observed. That Women I think are in general, again I'm painting with a broad brush, but better at

kind of social cohesion. And gathering And that type of communal Intimacy?

And there are very few places, you know, outside of like a sports team or the bar or fill in the blank option C where men have those communal experiences. But if you look back at our Just

history, right? If we look back hundreds of years, thousands of years, that was an inbuilt feature. of different communities. And I think that society at large ends up in a very precarious Volatile. situation.

when men, especially younger men, don't have that, right? It's like, okay, if you have somebody who is feeling alienated, who is pumped full of hormones, like let's just say like kind of sixteen to Twenty two, right? with no sense of social belonging. And a lot of physiologically

driven or at least informed aggression. Like that is A significant societal problem. Right. And I have thought about that. The other thing uh too I'll add on top of that is, you know, traditionally

When you think about men getting together and shooting the shit. It is that bar setting, it is that sports game, it whatever it may be. And it's very high level, right? Like at that point you're just like ah how things are like uh, you know, wife's doing this, blah, blah. You don't have the permission really Like in in my group I was like

My mom had her cancer return. I'm going to miss her when she's gone. Because I'm her little boy. I will miss the feeling of my head on her shoulder. Stuff that I'm just just like so deep and intimate to me because I love her so deeply. Yeah. You don't get that over a a beer necessarily to be able to go and to see other men around the table doing the same thing because we all at that point. Have set the ground rules, it's a safe space.

We can just really, really let it out. And lots of tears come. And one of the things Terry always says that's really interesting During it. People will start to cry, men will start to cry and tears will start to cry and he goes What are those tears saying?

What are those tears saying right now? Give me more. Give me a more open that door a little bit further than you're comfortable opening up. Like you yeah, I triggered something. Here come the tears. Unpack that further. And then it just goes from there and it's deeper and deeper layers. And it's release, man. I mean, you know how this is psychedelics help with this a lot.

when I did hi my high dose mushroom experience and I was sobbing after you know,'cause my father had passed away. It gave me that permission to let that stuff go. And it's a very special thing when when you can do it because it's it's so healthy. I'd love to actually ask you,'cause you can probably correct or At least in form.

my initial impression. So I listened to that episode. on Peter's podcast, or I listened to the first half. So maybe I I didn't give it enough time, but I listened to the first half. And Other people I know have listened to that episode and immediately bought a bunch of books.

So I may be peculiar in this way, but I listened to the first half and he seemed my impression was that Terry had a real Axe to grind maybe. On masculine strength, if this makes any sense. So we talked a lot about

Like toxic masculinity, okay, fine. Talked about sort of the counterparts to that. And it seems like he didn't grow up with, say, a kinda healthy.

interaction with exemplars of male strength, right? Didn't seem to have this like the sports background. Like he mentions his dad wanted him to be this like jocular athlet and he wasn't that But I came away feeling that he had Maybe Very partial.

View. Of masculine strength. And I think it's I do feel like it is a mistake. And it's also kind of conformist Group think to automatically like exise

male strength from like the topics that we can discuss is important. I do think there's a place for that. Um so I'd be I'd just be curious to hear your thoughts because my impression in listening to the first half, I was like, oh wow, this guy's like rah rah Kind of. feminine energy, the future is feminine, that's fine. But if it's to the exclusion of trying to cultivate strength in men, even if that does look on some level traditional, even cross culturally, I mean, we see certain sort of typified behaviors, not saying they're all good, like all things in excess can become

sort of the opposite of what we're aiming for. How would you speak to that? Because uh that was that turned me off and it probably says more about me than About Terry? No, it's actually it's it's funny you should mention that because when I listen to that episode I immediately thought I don't want to go any further here. It wasn't necessarily

For me either, but I trust Peter, right? And I know that Peter I know that Peter's a very masculine dude. Yeah. I mean I watch videos of him shooting his bow out of his house like into the backyard from the center of his house. I'm like, who shoots bows in their house into the backyard? Like he just he's crazy. Like yeah. So Peter is as masculine as they come and I listened to that episode I think we unfairly got a very small slice of what Terry's all about. And when I listened to this book, I was like oh thank thank God in some sense. Like I'm I'm so I'm glad it's it's much more

It seemed a little one sided there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. All right. That's helpful. I felt the same thing you did, dude. I absolutely felt the same thing you did. I was like, Okay, is this like I'm not gonna say what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm worried. Yeah, and you know, I I think also, you know, for those people who are interested, you can kinda look at Mark Andreessen's commentary on the current thing, right? He is a lot of thoughts on the current thing and quotation marks. And I don't want to speak for for Mark, but I used to start every presentation I did with a quote from Mark Twain. And in this case I do think it's actually verified. I know it's like Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and like

You know, Gandhi and Groucho Marks get like ninety percent of all quotes on the internet, but uh or May West, but the The quote was And I think I'm getting this right. You know, whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. And just to identify like how much of what I'm actually

Not just saying, but believing. are conclusions I've come to from like first principles are actually following some kind of logical Process. Or from direct experience. And how much of it is just

Conditioning. How much of it is a subconscious or conscious fear response because I see people getting Yeah, having gasoline poured on them and being lit on fire on the internet. Metaphorically speaking, whenever they voice the opposite.

And uh I think it's very, very important to pay attention. to that, not just with respect to You know, where we segue from with With Terry.

But it's like whenever you're too in line. with kind of what the majority are saying. Like it might be true, but very often We're absorbing beliefs or perspectives or positions that really aren't We haven't earned, if that makes sense. Like we haven't earned this position.

I mean the same goes true for food. Like you're like oh shit, I'm eating McDonald's, everyone else is eating McDonalds, maybe this isn't the best thing for my body. Yeah, that's just certainly one way to Yeah that would be that would be one example. Speaking of herd behavior. This I'll I'll go the other direction. Should I talk about my first ever NFT? Oh dude, I'm so excited. You've just you've jumped in. Yeah, I jumped in and you know

I hesitated partially because as as you know, since you're irresponsible for sort of pulling my attention. Yeah, I've been tracking this stuff for a while. Right, and and thankfully you got me off my ass'cause you're like, hey I'm gonna be doing this thing. Don't tell anybody.

Now we can talk about it. It's gonna be called Grails. And Do you want to be part of it? And do you want to explain just very briefly what Grills was

Yeah. And then I can hop into it. Yeah, absolutely. And for those that are listening that have no interest in NFTs or read the headlines out there Rest assured that I can tell you that I too, being so deep in NFTs, believe that there's a lot of hype in the sector. Like there's a lot Of anyone armed with Photoshop right now.

can publish an NFT to the blockchain. And that means that there's gonna be a lot to kind of like sort through and sift through to find the gyms. And I but as an underlying fundamental technology, it is a sound one. And that there's proven scarcity. There's durability of the asset, meaning it doesn't degrade w with time. You can transfer it. I mean, there's a there's a bunch of great things about it that m it will be around forever, I have no doubt.

Now that said There was a lot of hype going on into the world of NFTs here, and there still is. six or so months ago, and I thought to myself, like, let's create an NFT project and call it Grails. And the reason it it was called Grails, it was Indiana Jones and you know the holy grail where he has to choose that cup, you know, that very f very famous episode there, I'll choose wisely. And if you choose the wrong one, you like you turned and shriveled up and died, right? So the thinking there was that so much a attention at that time was on Flipping NFTs. Oh, I'm gonna grab this one I'm gonna sell buy it for five grand, sell it for a hundred, you know. Also, I'm just gonna interject for a second. Also, some people refer to what they might consider like the blue chip.

NFTs as Grail NFTs. There's also that use of the word. Yeah. Continue. That's right. Yeah, so the thinking there was okay, let's Put the emphasis back on the art.

And l allow people to look and consider each individual piece. And then they have to make a decision. So Twenty artists Twenty anonymous artists. All up on the site.

As a member of my little group called the Proof Collective, you got to choose one. So you could go in there and just pick one that you wanted. And then we would do the grand reveal. And so afterwards. we would reveal who the artists were a hundred percent of the sale. of the NFT and the royalties went directly to the artist, so I did not profit at all.

And um you were kind enough to say I'm gonna be one of those artists that people have to guess, uh, if it's me or not. Yeah. So there are 20, basically imagine you go to a website, there are twenty thumbnails of different types of artwork. Most If not all. Artists who are established.

did something that was non-identifiable. A lot of them did something completely different. stylistically so that you wouldn't know it was them. And Then people were guessing. Right. So there's a lot of speculation in various Discords and so on about

Who might be the artist behind which piece. And when you initially offer it to me, and and I'll I'll skip to the punchline real quick, if people want to see this. uh what the output was. I can go to Tim.blog slash NFT and I'll just forward to a page on OpenC where you can see what this looks like. But I bounced around a whole bunch of ideas and then I realized, wait a second.

About A year ago, a bit over a year ago. I wrote A short story and I've never published fiction. Anywhere.

So I've never had A fiction. blog posts that I can remember. I've never Published any fiction in book form. I've never

had a magazine article that was fiction. And I decided to Take that. Let's say fourteen hundred words. And the name of the piece is How to Start a War.

come back to why it's called that, because this was written, keep in mind, more than a year ago. So it has nothing to do with the current conflict, but how to start a war. It's 1400 or so words. and decided to make that the background of this piece and then to layer images on top of it. So Ended up. Thinking On my own and then along with this designer, Lisa Quine.

about how to create something that would actually make a nice, say, poster in a frame on a wall or a print. I needed some parameters. I needed some constraints. I was like, okay, let me not like blue sky this totally. It has to look decent on a wall. If someone put this up on a wall. Mm-hmm.

It's called How to Start a War because it is based on a real experience I had, which I'll let people read the piece who want to read the piece. So the only place you can find this first published fiction piece by me is as this NFT. That's the only place you can find it. And It's an easy read, but the way it starts

Is With someone handing me a business card and saying, If you want to start a war, call me. And then it like the whole thing goes down a pretty deep rabbit hole. And most of it is A composite, but

True to life, which made it. Pretty easy to write. And That's it. I mean that's how It started and uh it's been really a fun experience for me. So thank you, Kevin, for getting me off my ass. All the proceeds from this NFT go to my foundation, so they'll end up funding uh scientific research and other initiatives related to primarily mental health, possibly longevity and life extension or health span extension, but predominantly mental health.

And uh I feel really good about it. So it's been a fun Little experiment and a chance to also kinda understand how some of the plumbing works. You know what I mean? It's like if you want to There's a point, you can only read so many books about like playing soccer, and then you gotta get out there and actually kick a ball around, right? Like you're not gonna really have a feel for it until you start screwing around with the actual mechanics and plumbing and having to do things. And you've had some good success, man. One sold for fifteen ETH, which is the current prices is around fifty K. Um, you know, you've had a bunch of good secondary sales.

People were pretty pumped. Yeah, it's uh and it's it was fun to also have the reveal. So I I think a lot of people minted And Yeah, ultimately I I hope that there will be uh some durable value because it's not only my first NFT, but it's my first

published fiction piece. So you kinda get a two for one. So we'll see. Let me ask you a question. This is meant to be cut out if you don't like it. But a lot of people are actually adding utility to their NFTs, meaning that like If you own this original Tim Ferris piece, something you do in the future, like let's say you do another NFT drop. You get some extra special rights or maybe they come to one of your Live shows, they get to do a meet and greet, like

Have you had any thoughts around like maybe offering some perks to people that own and hold your NFT? Yeah. I have. I have thought about this. You're not gonna like my answer then. I don't wanna do it. Yeah, yeah. So th well this leads me to a question for you actually. So I decided I wanna underpromise and

over deliver or At least not under deliver. So as it stands. Never promise and never deliver. Under or just never promise. Never promise and never deliver. Never promise and therefore you don't have to deliver. I wanted it to have To the extent that it can again, uh, this is not investment advice. All this stuff could go to zero. Who the fuck knows? But I wanted there to be intrinsic value as a first.

And There is, I think, to the extent that there can be. I did not want to make any additional promises. And uh, you know, I asked you a while back, and I'd love to talk about it on the show if you're open to it. I have a friend, I'm not gonna mention the name, but This friend has started Different projects. In web three.

N FTEs. And has made these Promises. that are kind of ongoing promises. And then the value of whatever he has.

Created. is tied to the ongoing delivery. Of more and more things. And it's ended up being a huge stressor for him because he feels like A I have to do this forever. B, I can't figure out how to extricate myself. B if I don't do that

then when the music stops, like the last people left holding these NFTs will just lose all their money. Uh so he has tremendous guilt. also and stress around that. I'd love to just hear how you think about this. And maybe common mistakes that you see people make

Because it does seem like more and more promises are being made. And so when you launch a project Now. And again, this comes back to the Mark Twain thing. Whenever you side find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. So but I've talked to

Yet different friends were like hey man, if you launch a project now, like it's table stakes. You have to do. This, this, this, this, this, this private community. This. Events.

Access. Q and A's. And I'm like, well, hold on a second. Like I'm not convinced everybody can or will deliver those things. And if the table stakes just keep getting larger and larger and larger, like that is not Ultimately

scalable indefinitely, right? Things are gonna break. People are gonna lose money. Yeah. How do you think about This kind of stuff. What you're describing is what's becoming a pretty normal thing in the N F T world where it's it's called utility N F T, where yeah it's not just about the artwork.

So many people have heard the name of Beeple or any other, you know, the bigger X copy, the bigger NFT artist, and like that's pretty straightforward. It's a JPEG, it looks great, you collect it, you hang it on your wall, done deal, you're never getting anything else, but it is a piece of art, right? Yep. So the utility NFT world is one where When you do buy the NFT, it comes with additional unlocks and those can be both online, offline. Um, they could be things like with the Bored Apes when they had their token that they launched you, so you got some ape token that came along with it, that had some liquidity to it. It could be a whole slew of different things.

So It is a slippery slope. And it is something I would certainly it's buyer beware for sure, unless they are taking it serious enough to build a real team around it and considering it a business. Like what we do at Proof with the Proof Collective Membership is

It's very much a business for us. It's a corporation. We have employees. We have payroll. We have all of that. And it is a new type of of media company that we're building from the ground up. So I can imagine one is put on the shoulders of an individual. Like if it was just you doing it a a Tim NFT where you have to manage a Discord and do meetups and all of that, like that sounds horrible, right? Yeah. And the other thing too is you do have to think about end of life for these particular utility NFTs. So I think the ones that You're right in that you can imagine a world where if you have a utility NFT and it ends at three years

You know, what happens to the price at two years and six months? Do people start bailing out and dri and then who's the buyer? And if there's any buyers at all, it just plummets in value and people lose all this money. So Our solution and when I came up with it. With the proof collective. Again. This is like what Tim's NFT. I'm not telling you to go buy this. First of all, they're they're outrageous right now. So thousand memberships.

The current price is three hundred thousand dollars for membership. That's amazing. But we set a three year limit on this actual on the benefits. We're four months into a three year membership. So what happens at year two? To this insanely like, you know, crazy assets. So We figured out that there's two things that happen and for us one We're working with well, we will be working with a very well known NFT artist to convert and swap out the artwork.

From a membership. Card. Into a real Piece of art. So

At a thousand you can do that. You can make them scarce and rare and you can make them actually individually collectible. And we're gonna have to pay this artist because the one that I'm thinking at that we're talking to It's gonna be A very expensive, like million dollar plus kind of check to to write to go and have the Csarist do something really unique. But then when it expires

And that swap happens at the last day, you're like, Okay, I have value here'cause this is a real Art N F T and then of course At the very end, you do things like There's a season two, maybe they get a half discount off into the next season or whatever it may be. So there's ways to mitigate some of that. There's no

perfect solution, but I think That is the best that I've come up with to date is really making it something that can stand on its own even when membership goes away or the the benefits go away. I think super smart. I when you described that to me, it was the first time I had Heard. of that type of Kind of time bound.

Conversion. Event? Super clever. It's very clever and it I think it highlights also how, as you said, If you're going to participate in anything. That has a value predicated on future

deliverables and roadmaps, make sure that you do the diligence to evaluate. the team behind it. Yeah. Like I really make sure you do that because Holy speculation, Batman. Like there's a lot. of action in the space and you need to Yeah. If you don't have a good way to assess

Teams or if you don't have an approach to that, then Don't do it. A lot of people talk about something called FUD and they don't like it. It's this fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And in the NFT world, they'll be like, Don't spread FUD, don't spread FUD. But I'm actually of the opposite end of the spectrum and that I believe FUD is actually a good thing. Like we need to have fear, uncertainty, and doubt in each of these projects and properly evaluate them. Like there's multiple fears when it comes to NFTs raising money. If there's a a fear around the use of proceeds, what what are they gonna do? Are they gonna disappear after they receive the money? There's fears around execution risk. Are they gonna actually deliver on their promises? There's market fears.

Crypto is very lumpy. Does this drop in value by half? Like you need to really evaluate these things. And make sure there's a credible team behind them. Before you go into'em. And also Pointing out risks is not

Fud. So FUD, just to use this in a in a context where I have exposure to it. So fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Usually when I've run into it in tech. So my first job out of college was selling storage area networks, fiber channel in competition against network appliance and EMC and so on. And the bigger companies would use fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but it wasn't always based on fact. If we were close to winning an account.

they would say, Well, hey They're a startup, yes, they have funding, but how long do you think they're gonna be around? You just don't know. Like they might be around in five years, but they might be out of business. What happens to your service contract? Who manages the the upkeep if you have issues with the firmware, what's going to happen when you need to swap it out if they run out of funding. Right. So that type of Intimidation through uncertainty is kind of one

But If we are Off certain Coastline. In South Africa

And there are seals in the water and it's full of great white sharks. And I'm like, Maybe you don't want to go in there because there are a lot of great white sharks. If your response is, Stop selling me FUD, man, everything's gonna be okay. Then you might just have your arms bitten off. Right. There's actually like a factual. Yeah, and you're gonna bleed out at this point. Yeah. You're gonna oh yeah, you're gonna bleed out. It's it's not a good not a good situation. Very hard to swim with no arms. So I will say that Not to get all I'm surprised I'm so amped up. I haven't had that much caffeine today. I'm feeling feeling pretty good. That

You need to be very cautious to quote Warren Buffett,'cause you can't really lose quoting Warren Buffett, so why not? Don't ask a barber if you need a haircut. If someone has a vested interest in something And they're telling you everything's gonna be all right because their wallet is gonna take a hit if it doesn't. Go up and to the right.

They are not an unbiased source. Of information. And you know, a lot of what's happening in the NFT world, just to mention it real briefly, like there's a story I heard long time ago. It was actually an anecdote that this guy told. This pretty shady cat. This guy who was involved in infomercials, and I happen to be like sitting around a table and he was telling the story to someone else. This was way back in like early two thousands, and he was telling it like this grand lesson that he was like bestowing upon his

children and I was like, Oh wow, this guy's really unethical and he told this long story about This guy who caught this amazing tuna fish and he can't it and he sold it and then it sold for ten dollars and then it sold for a hundred dollars and then like sold for a thousand and then ten thousand and then like a hundred thousand and then one day somebody who owned this like hundred thousand dollar can of tuna fish opened it and it was totally rotten. And so he reached out. to the person who sold it to him and was like, hey, you sold me this tuna fish, it's totally rotten. And the guy said, That tuna fish isn't for eating. That tuna fish is for selling. And like but I think there's a lot of that going on, right? It's like the greater fool theory of investing. It's like all right, well as long as I can find someone who does even less diligence than I did

It'll all work out. And yeah, you you gotta be careful. Well especially the other thing too, and and something I'm trying to figure out'cause I'm I am building in the space is There are a lot of projects that are coming out and they're Serving very large audiences. Like the reason why the the proof collective stuff where we only did a thousand is because I don't think I could handle more than a thousand people with the type of stuff that we want to do on that side. Some of these other projects not to interrupt but uh I will again because apparently that's my thing today. And you have

Like company building. Experience. But managing expectations and inbound and requests and complaints from ten thousand people. That is a lot.

to actually handle well. Yeah. Right. And so that's kind of like we have another project that's coming up that is ten thousand people big, but the way that we're doing it is completely different than what's been done to date because what Basically what happens is is when you promise Ten thousand people the world. And you have a budget of X.

And you divide up that budget. And you send them You make do on your you good on your promise and you send them something in the mail. They get like an engraved pin in like a hat. There's not a whole lot of budget to go around to all these people. So the way that we we treat things is we actually in this next project, We kinda do it almost like the uh airline miles way that you get different status based on

your engagement with the community, how long you hold the NFT for So that we can put out different tiers. Based on how you actually have committed to the community We call it it's it's a long story, but it's the project's called Moonbirds and it's called Nesting, but you actually lock up your asset

And you unlock additional benefits as time goes on. So It's a way to divide and conquer versus trying to promise. These massive benefits to the entire world, if that makes sense. So do the people who hold moon birds Commit To

I don't wanna say uh uh I mean it's not a vesting schedule, like nesting period in advance. Is that something they commit to? Had or is it just however long They hold it and each day they can decide if they want to buy or sell. Or I guess sell in this guess. Yeah, when they lock it up at the contract level, it prevents it from being sold. I see. Okay, so they do decide up front.

Yeah, but they can they can back out in two seconds at any time they want. It just stops their continuous streak and and their their status level, basically. Okay. Got it. That's interesting. Then it allows me to carve it out. Cause like if you think about like let's just say you did a NFT to ten thousand of your fans. You could say, Okay, well, the people that have actually been with me for let's just say you did this years ago You can say the people that were with me for the last three years and have stuck with me and been a members for that long, I will do that private dinner with you'cause it's gonna be twenty five or something. You know what I mean? It's like it allows you to like to segment things. I have this private Facebook group.

for people who supported my Subscription. podcast kind of alternative business model years ago. And that's still around and it's a much smaller group. Of people.

So I could see possibly doing something along those lines. I don't want to mention the name, but I think you will agree. The the potential name that I've been What Coming up with ideas for for like the last two years.

for this NFT project is pretty phenomenal. I think you'll you'll agree. You have a top top five PFP name in your in in your repertoire there. Like Tim has it as idea for a big NFT drop that is It's powerful. It would be very hard for people not to write about it and I expect at least seventy percent of the internet would uh Go. Oh my, oh my, oh, oh, how could how could he, how could he? I'd give you a ten percent chance of being canceled with that one going on.

It's a a Tim after two glasses of wine NFT project. Tim after four or five glasses of wine. And uh there is part of me that is like, do I want this to be the most dominant feature of my Wikipedia page? Maybe not. Maybe not. Right. If that's my current activities, I don't know. I don't know. I do think it would be Ultimately. Hilarious. It would be

largely absurdity focused. So we'll see if that ever happens. I don't know if it'll ever happen. I want to see I'm actually super not though, man. It's like you well You're Yeah, why not? You have nothing to l well, you do have a lot to lose. If you I can't cancel it you know, Well I mean the you know the nice part is What would canceling look like for an NFT project that upsets some people? Like what does that what does that really look like, right? I guess you have like for you, it's like

Lots of noise. People stop listening to your podcast or something. I mean, really? Like if if you've been listening to the podcast long enough or listening to these random shows long enough, if you're still listening We've had ample opportunity to talk about any number of things that might cause somebody to get their knickers in a twist. Yeah, I mean you literally talked about anal tobacco earlier today. Like that was anal administration of tobacco. We've talked about You know when I took that like thirty day uh no what was it? It was like no booze, no

Masturbating experiment with and talked about like my you know, hey, before you go on this Porn fast, here's some recommendations. I like this isn't exactly family programming. So I feel well depends on your family, I guess. I don't know. But uh God, I'm definitely putting two and a helper in the name of this episode. Um So Now I know you You have some pretty cool

Stuff coming up. Very cool stuff coming up. And you've been working so hard. I mean, I think it's just hilarious that like the less You need to work the harder you seem to work. Have you observed this? I mean honestly.

You know, it's it's it's funny, um Have you ever met Bill Harlan or no? Do you do you him in all Harlan Estate, the wines? Are we talking about I know Will, yeah, that's why I was getting confused. Yeah, you never met his dad, Bill. Yeah.

I may have met Bill at I can never pronounce this word. It's too fancy for me coming from Long Island. Is it promenatory? Promontory, yeah. Promontory. Jesus, I can never say that word. Yeah, the why not. I'm yeah, I may have met Bill When we did a site vizet.

Ages ago. I may have. But let's just assume not for the purposes of this conversation. So for people that don't know, Harlan Estate is one of the most premier culty wines in Napa Valley. It's insanely sought after multi-year wait list just to get access to an allocation. I've been very simple. It's like the moon birds of wine, basically.

Right. The moon birds like the NFT. Exactly. Very very hard to get. So I've been very lucky to be on that board and it's given me exposure to just a world that I would normally never have any insight into. And they have properties too as well, like uh Meadowwood and the restaurant at Meadowwood, which is the three Michelin Star restaurants. So they have A bunch of different things that I always learn about at these board meetings, uh learn from and hopefully help on the tech side a little bit in in helping them form their thinking around new ways to

embrace current tech. So One of the things that he said to me at a dinner just like a a week ago We were at this dinner and Bill's in his eighties now. And we're talking about NFTs. and how they're applicable potentially to the wine world in some really interesting ways there.

Which I believe will absolutely happen. And he goes, I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, Kevin, I get it. He goes, When you see these markets And you see it before anyone else. He goes, you push in really hard. And you get the outsized rewards. And for him, that was real estate in Napa Valley.

And he goes then You sit around and you wait until you see the next one. And it might be a decade or longer until you see this next big moment. When it's time to push your chips in again. And for me

I have been sitting around waiting since web two, two thousand four. And granted I was really active in web two and g there was mobile and there was a few other amazing things that happened. VR was stupid. But then um You are really doubling down on the VR stupid thing, huh It'll it'll it'll eventually get to the right size and and price that people will like it. Um But but I think I I think that I had a big fight with one of your your other guests, Adam Gazali. He told me the VR was gonna take off like five years ago and I we bet A bottle of Habiki thirty when it was a lot.

Less expensive and he still hasn't sent me the bottle Habiki thirty. So it's just gonna keep getting more expensive anyway. Oh yeah, it's getting more expensive. It's like five X to price, I said. So Adam cough it up, man. So Anyway, the long story short is well give you a great example. I was working on on the Moon Birds project till midnight last night and I woke up naturally, and this is weird for me. At six AM, got out of bed and started working again. Because there is this excitement, there's this blue ocean, there is so much that can be done in the space. That it it's like Tim, it's like when you came to the NFT conference with me and we were sharing a a a a room and you were sleeping on the couch, which was awesome, it's hilarious. You wanted it to bed, I would not let you in the bed. That's the true story. Fucking freezing. It got uh just just a side note. So it was so fucking cold. This is in Marfa, Texas, got down to like forty degrees at night.

And I'm sleeping on the couch with a towel on top of me. It doesn't even cover like the lower half of my legs. Shivering. Dying and I'm like, Kevin, are you sure there are any blankets? He's like, No, man, no extra blankets. And then the last day I'm like what's that huge drawer On the other side of the bed, pull it out. Comforters. Galore everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Sorry sorry about that. But um So but anyway, when we were there, you and I were both feeling it. We're getting up early talking about NFT and like and and it's not just about

The hype cycle, it's about this, there's a new technology that is just taking shape. And yes, it'll be many years before it's fully realized. But this is when you want to start paying attention. It's when there's the most risk, of course. But early investors. You embrace risk'cause that's where the most upside is, right?

So that's what's exciting about it. Yeah, I would also say To Reinforce that. I mean it, you know, Marfa definitely had the feeling like, okay, we're on the beach in Northern California, and this is kind of the first burning man. I got it had that feeling. Or South by South West, like two thousand seven seven. Where interactive was just like the redheaded stepchild. Sorry, trigger warning for redhead stepchildren.

Stepchild of South South by nobody cared. You know, I it's like nobody cared about interactive and now it is just is uh not to uh make this like the Andreason themed show, but like Software Eating the World, right? Now Interactive is like the glue that holds everything together. And I'm not saying that's gonna be the case with NFTs necessarily, but you definitely had that and it's more for me of like a physiological feeling. You're like, Okay, we're in a really small group.

There are a lot of very smart people here who have decided this is what they want to dedicate all their time to. So if you agree with some investors who would take the position that like what the nerds do on the weekends now is what everybody will be doing in like five years or ten years. Dixon said that right. Dixon, maybe. Yeah. And it's like okay. I do think there's something to that. And There is just this fee this like electric feeling.

Which is is hard to put words to, but it is. It's kind of a physiological response for me. And I talked about this a little bit in the podcast with Dixon and Naval, but That's definitely true for this. And I would also say It is

Risky. To What are the kids the cool kids saying? Ape into whale into a position like if if you yeah. Yeah, if you Just take half your net worth

And You're not sure how you're gonna make your mortgage payment and you push all those chips into something that's hugely speculative. That's risky, but I don't view that as intelligent risk taking. That's just foolish.

and has tremendous downside potential, but I do think you can begin to Place little bets and think about mitigating downside, right? Right now we're in a phase where there are opportunities. For like five X, 10 X, 100X investments. I know a lot of people have become spoiled over COVID where they're like

started trading on Robinhood and this, that, and the other thing, and they're like, Oh, if it's less than a thousand percent a year, like I'm not interested. I'm gonna look for the next best thing. And it's I think that's gonna burn a lot of people, but You can then start to think about Actually studying some of these older investors and and learning about portfolio construction and really taking

A risk intelligent approach to playing only with chips you can afford to lose. And I think you get smarter that way. Oh absolutely.

Because if you go into it and you're like High risk, high reward, baby. And you use that as a smokescreen to cover up your complete lack of due diligence to cover up the fact that you have no understanding of the technology to cover up the fact that you didn't do any homework on the team behind X, Y, and Z that you saw trending on Twitter because you think that you're gonna make a fast buck.

You're just gonna lose your money. Sooner or later, you will lose your money. But I'm also seeing people who are really taking this as an opportunity to basically like go to grad school. Right? They're like okay.

I'm gonna play with just enough. And to everybody I mean, I don't know if you agree with this or not, but from my perspective, you know, like I waited Whatever it was, a year and a half after we start talking about N F T is to launch my first N F T. Why? Because I don't think you need to rush. I do not think you need to rush. Like it is so early.

It is still so early. If anything, now is the time to dabble and just Have the foundational knowledge so that when you're ready to have an informed decision and push in and do something, you aren't starting from zero. So You know, I oftentimes tell people they're like, How do I get started M T? and I'm like, Okay, it's easy. You have to learn how to use MetaMask and you have to learn how to send an one ETH to that wallet or

$200 with an E to that wallet. You have to learn how to safeguard your secret phrase. Like there's some foundational knowledge that's going to be essential for this world. And now's the time to start, even if you don't want to spend anything on NFTs. Now's the time to get that base knowledge down. So when you're ready, you can pull the trigger.

I was just laughing because I went to this conference recently. Yeah, I'm thinking about you and just how cutting as you are with all these things and so Neck deep and everything and able to look around corners and I was at this conference,'cause you have you know, I haven't been to conferences in forever. With the exception of the Marfa thing, but that wasn't really a conference, right? That was just tiny.

bullshitting and talking about the uh the potential amazing future that we have ahead of us with respect to these technologies. But I went to like a conference conference. And uh I was going to these sessions and going to these dinners and everybody was asking me Yeah. You'll appreciate this. It's gonna sound weird to a lot of people listening, but

Everyone had like their new big project. Like, Yeah, my new big project. And then and so they'd be like, So They like look at my name badge and they'd be like oh Tim Fleuris. Podcast. Okay. You have podcasts. And I'd be like, ah, it's an interview podcast. And they'd be like looking over my shoulder for like another finance person to talk to. And then be like, all right, this guy, this guy's boring. And then they'd be like and and they'd be like, So what's your new big project? What's what's your gigantic new project you're focused on? And the best thing I could come up with In part because I didn't really want to talk to these people, but it's kinda true. I was like

I'm mostly trying to figure out how to talk to animals right now. Yeah. What? What? And then they'd like they'd be like, Oh, that's uh that's that's fascinating. And then they'd like walk off with their little hors d'oeuvre and like glass of champers to find somebody else to like give a TED talk to. But Yeah, I feel like I'm kinda going the opposite direction. Like I've become super fascinated and I have been fascinated by like animal tracking specifically.

Leave putting aside like the animal communication piece, that's a whole separate Can of worms. But By tracking it. One of the oldest human skills. Imagineable. I mean it's also an animal skill, of course, but it's like okay.

Who are the best trackers in the world? Like if you need to track it, what a fun hobby. Yeah. So I've become I've been reading book after book after book and As one would expect, there's a lot of horse shit and a boatload of charlatans who claim to be like, Oh, I was trained by Whatever, a such and such scout from such and such tribe, and you're like, Okay, there's no way for me to possibly verify that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I have you know, it could just be ghost stories this person is telling me. But there are still folks who are exceptionally good. So that's something I'm leaning into. So if anybody has any thoughts on that where you can actually verify these people, know what they do, hit me up on Twitter at T Ferris, T F E R R I S. Anything else you'd like to mention, Kevin, before we

Cut out'cause I know we're coming up on time. Yeah, I mean, uh I guess the only thing is I'm at Kevin Rose. If you want to follow my adventures on Twitter or mostly around all things crypto and NFTs, Moonbirds is our new launch, it's coming out. You most likely are just gonna have to find it in the secondary market because it's been insanely oversubscribed. But it should be a really fun utility NFT that you should check out. Yeah. Oh, it's good to see you, brother.

Yeah, I'll be along for the moon bird ride. So uh I'm excited about that. I really appreciate that you're always willing to be like the first monkey shot into space, at least between the two of us with stuff like this. So then I get to I get to recept it. Yeah, that's awesome. So th so thank you for that. Cool, you made it in the space. Okay, let's let's see what that capsule does. Let's see how the return goes. Yeah, it goes, exactly. I'm I'm so excited for you, man. I'll just say real quickly in passing, and I've said this to you before, but it's so fun. For me. To see

uh like a playing field and a sport and a set of technologies that is so perfectly suited to like all of the circles that overlap to form the Venn diagram that is Kevin Rose. Like like you said, it's been a long time since I've seen you this excited about something where This is All you're doing. I mean I mean, of course you have family and you're a good dad. You've good husband, you're doing all of that. You're not neglecting everything else, but You are on fire right now. And it's so fun to watch. It just makes me it makes me happy to see you so excited about something.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm telling you, this is the way it's always been for me, and I'm sure you can relate, is when you find something that you like really personally love, like you really getting up at six doesn't matter because it doesn't feel like you're working at all, you know? Yeah. Yeah, you have you have bigger batteries. It lasts longer. Exactly. Good for you, man. Well, it's good to see you, brother. And thanks for taking in the

Time to jam. Yeah, let's hang in person soon. Let's do it. And uh folks, we'll have links to various resources and so on in the show notes as usual. Tim.blog slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Okay, bye.

Take care. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then

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