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#595: In Case You Missed It: April 2022 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

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Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers of all different types, to tease out the routines, habits, and so on that you can apply to your own life. This is a special in-between episode, which serves as a recap. of the episodes from the last month. Features a short clip from each conversation in one place. So you can jump around, get a feel for both the episode and the guest, and then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite. It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together, and for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description probably right below where we

Press play in your podcast app, or as usual, you can head to Tim.blog slash podcast and find all the details there. Please enjoy. First up. Terry Cruz.

Actor and author of the new memoir. Tough. My journey. To true power. Well, you know, in our house we call it D Day.

It was the day everything changed and I've gone public a lot about My pornography addiction. Then there's a lot of people who who say you could never really be addicted to pornography or whatever and and it's always been said that, but All I knew is I couldn't stop.

That's all I knew. For me it was a numbing device. It was something that I went to when I was sad, when I was happy. And I always went back to it and it left me unfulfilled and I had to get more Just to get a feeling of fulfillment, but then I would be left empty again. So

It just it was a cycle I couldn't stop. But it was also a secret. That I held from my family and my wife and The whole thing and My wife finally confronted me on it.

And let me tell you what was what was so wild and really, really strange. The question I was asking was Why doesn't she believe me? But the question I should have been asking was why did I lie?

Yeah. You know I mean, like think about that. It's it's all in the context is the same. And I'm sitting here lying and wondering why she won't believe me. It's all outfocused. It was all her. It was the responsibility was on her. in order to but make me right. Like you should believe me.

Because I'm telling you This, but I was lying. I was lying, I don't do this. No, I got no problem. I don't do any of this. And why didn't she believe me? But once it switched into why am I lying?

All of a sudden. It went inward. All of a sudden I had to ask myself The questions I had been avoiding. For years and years and years.

And it was like, hey man. You have an issue. Why aren't you doing something about it? And like I said, and I would pull out that Card of excuses and

This and I would say, well, you know, I'm I'm a man and you know, men, we need to we I have a high sex drive and this kind of stuff. And I'll pull out that card and then my wife declined it. That Credit card was done. It was expired. And she was out. And you know what? Chum.

What's so crazy is that I was like Fine. Bye. Leave. I'm Terry Cruz. I can get any woman I want. In fact

I will. And you know what, uh you know, this is a normal thing in Hollywood, you know, divorce is It's pretty normal and It's not a big deal. In fact, my career won't suffer. Nobody cares if I lose my family. Hollywood certainly doesn't. And then I listened to myself.

Like that. And I went, who are you? I didn't like that guy. And I started to have internal conversations. With myself and I was like man

This is not. Who you say you are. And I realized I was two different people. You know, when you have a double life. And when I say double life, what I mean is

I was more concerned With the image. I was more concerned with the image of Terry Cruz. Rather than who Terry Cruz really was. And it was two different people.

And Once I started to Try to put them together. My world crumbled. Everything that I knew, everything that I I was around, everything that I thought I stood for

I thought I was like, Yeah, you know, women are equal and the whole thing, but Nothing in my behavior. would do that or even said that. And in fact, I thought I was more valuable. than all the women in my life simply because I was a man.

Simply because of the culture. I was in I grew up in black culture, hip hop culture. And sports culture. And there was a lot of misogyny. It was a lot of you're the man, dog. Hey man, you better get your girl in line. These kind of words, it was looked at as like, yo, man, you know, you control your wife.

Or your girl. You actually owned her. I remember In the NFL going to the strip club and We be

In the club and with all the the guys and the whole thing and the girls be up there on stage and One of'em would come down and actually want to talk to the players and I would look at Her like, okay, you know, she start talking, you know, I got I gotta get do this for my kids and then and you're like stop stop stop stop stop. You're ruining The experience.

Because you're becoming a human being right before my eyes. I like you to be a picture. I want you to be a doll. A A mannequin. Firm. But once you open that can of worms

It's literally like a domino effect. Like everything started to fall on itself. I went through a huge, huge just And then uh I gotta say this because In my culture.

When I grew up Therapy was looked at as ridiculous. And Where I grew up it was like You know, you can't cure crazy.

That was the term. It was like if you're crazy, you can't cure it. My father being an alcoholic, I remember him going to He went to a s psychologist one time. And I remember I was probably around twelve, thirteen years old and I'm like, wow, I think you know my p my dad's finally gonna get some help and

The whole thing and uh Dude, it was crazy because uh Uh like a week later, the psychologist killed himself. It was on the front page of the newspaper. My God. And I went That don't work. You know, my my whole mindset was like, huh?

Did my father kill him? Like, you know, did he g did he say something that made this guy jump off a bridge? And the guy literally jumped off a bridge. And I was like, what? That doesn't work. And so I had in my mind that all this therapy stuff is mumble jumbo. And so there was a block, there was a resistance to that.

And I finally saw a counselor who said, You need to go to this place and get some therapy. And I was like, Oh no, you know And I remember and my wife said, Look You know what? If you don't do this You know, there's no hope of us ever

coming back together'cause we had split up. At that time. And so I went and I said, All right, I'll I'll give it a shot. And I'm sitting in there c in this Room with these people and Carrie, may I interject for one second?

Oh yeah, just w one question. So did did you guys sort of split at that point or things on ice because of how you handled the situation? D Day in that conversation or was it the subject matter like the addiction itself and other things I guess I'm asking, was it what you did or was it

How you handled What you did. Or something else. It was what I did because what happened was I confessed. to a

Infidelity that happened ten years earlier. As a result of this addiction. Because you know I I I went to a massage parlor and got a hand job and I vowed I would never ever tell anybody. You know, it was one of them things, but I was

It was at the beginning of my career. I was I was in Vancouver. I was by myself. I thought I would never be there. I thought I'd never do something like that, but you know, it was wild because it I found myself in those circumstances and I did it. But I thought I would never tell. I was like, I'm taking this secret to the grave, man. This is never ever Coming out, but my wife

constantly she was like no you did something she said just something you're not telling me And again, I was lying. The whole time. And She could feel that, you know I mean you could feel when your significant other is not telling you the truth.

And it was just there was something she didn't know. And when I told her. I remember just It came out and I remember she's going, That's it. Like Wow.

You know, who am I living with? Like she had no idea. And that was the thing because I was I had put an image in front of her. And I and then what was so crazy is that she was married to this image. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't r it wasn't there's no honesty in the relationship because you have to cover a lie with another lie.

And then it just keeps continuing to grow. I mean we were Getting farther and farther apart. is what was happening. And she was she knew it. She felt it. And That was the D-Day moment.

And she said, I'm out. She's like, that's it. You can't come home. You have to show me that you want this, that you want actually wanna do something. And I like I said in the beginning, I was like I I'm fine. And then I realized I was like you know what?

'Cause the whole thing was It was about her. And it's little bitty questions. It was just like man You know, maybe it's me. A realization that hit me that it was me.

It was. Next up Tony Fidel Of iPod, iPhone, and Nest Fame.

And author of the new book Build An unorthodox guide Worth making.

Yeah. Could you tell us? What you learned from Steve Jobs about taking vacations. How did Steve Jobs take vacations? Well I don't know of all of his vacations. I know of the vacations he took while we were we were together at Apple for for ten years and What was really happening was you know, Steve would go on vacation and in my early days there I would be like, Yes, he's going on vacation. It's great. We're you know, we're not gonna have to hear from a first seven or fourteen days or whatever the case may be.

Well that dream met reality and the reality was very different. It turned out that Steve, you know, he would go on vacation. He would usually vacation at one or two places and he'd go to the same places all the time. That's what he liked, and that's all good. And He would go silent for the first kind of Twore, forty eight hours.

He would be gone. He would be in transit. He would be You know, with his family, what have you. For those first forty eight hours you wouldn't hear anything, maybe seventy two. But somewhere right after that. You started

Getting calls. Wasn't emails. It was calls from Steve. And Steve. Would be on vacation and he would be pondering where the next product, the next direction for Apple, new technologies, things he's reading. He used that vacation as a time to kind of expand his thinking and get outside of the Apple day to day and the projects that we all knew and loved. Or maybe there was this couple of things to improve on the projects we were working on. But

He would start thinking about, Oh, let's go buy a music company or should we go and do this other kind of product or what technology will it take to do this?'Cause he's also reading. he's reading or he's listening to others saying different technologies. So he would be calling going You would be like Google for him. You're like, hey, what is the latest on this? And you're like, uh, okay, Steve, here's what we know. I don't know that. I can go get back to you. It's like, Oh, let me know when you know. Send me an email on that.

And then fifteen minutes later he might call back with a different idea. So it was literally while he was on vacation during Reasonable hours. This wasn't crazy hours. But You might hear from him on vacation five or six times, depending on what he was thinking about at that time per day. Could be as much as a maybe zero per day, but

Sooner or later along that vacation, he would call you and like want to brainstorm something or want a piece of knowledge or want to know the latest about something that was related to some idea he had in his head. And so You loved it because you got to talk to him about all kinds of things that weren't the day to day. But if at other times you were like Okay, Steve, you need to be on vacation. And then two is How much work are we going to have when you come back?

Besides the the incredible mountain of work we're already on top of, or trying to get on top of. Why did you lead with that and why right? This particular chapter because flashing back again to our first conversation, which I encourage people to read, I'm gonna try to Not overlap.

Back at General Magic. You had a certain, let's say, approach. to work, which sucks. High volume, high intensity, kind of ten out of ten. And uh

That seems to have changed over time. And just for people who have no idea what general magic is, I just want to say And tell me if this is off base, but it's kind of like Yodoworski's Dune in a sense where if it people don't understand that, that was an attempt at making Dune, which failed, but The talent that was assembled ended up being this incredible Diaspora of

Technical innovation that then spread all over the place. See like Geiger, you know, creating Alien and so on. So General Magic was somewhat like that, I would say, the genesis of a lot of amazing careers. It's a great analogy. Yeah, great analogy. Ha.

So Why did you lead with that story? in that chapter and why even write that chapter? I went through that personal struggle. You know, and I think a lot of people do of I need to work

harder than everyone else and spend more time working. So I was working eighty, a hundred, a hundred and ten hours a week kind of thing because That's what I thought needed to happen. I thought I needed to prove myself through the number of hours, through the amount of work that I could get done. And I was also really passionate and kind of like you know you're a kid in the candy store. Like for me, I'm a geek, right? I'm like, Oh, I can do this, I can do that, and I get to work on this, and the more hours I got.

At there I could go and work. And learn. from all of these great people around me. So I one thing I had to learn How to do the work. And the other one is doing the work.

And learning how to do it at a professional level like my heroes around me would do. So there was a lot of learning. And you know, when you go to school, you go to school But you're also doing your studying and all the other stuff. So it was a little bit more than going to a university, but your first jobs are really like that. You spend a lot of time. But you also start to learn

How to be productive. Okay, and what being productive means And doing a great job versus just being there a lot of hours. And so that's where it all hit for me.

I will say this, I was undiagnosed ADD, ADHD, at that time frame. I was in general magic. Ultimately, a couple of years later, then I actually figured out what was going on. So I was trying to do my work. and perform at a professional level, learn the work, and I had ADHD across all of it. So if you know anything about writing code, Writing code and being in the details. And if your mind's always going Oh my God, it made everything harder.

So it was all of those things compounded. And so that that chapter's really about Here's where I was. Maybe your experiencing a lot of this yourself. And here's where a more balanced approach. Now it's not your typical work light daily balance. But here's a way to do it to be high performing, do amazing things, but to also give yourself

the right amount per day. As well as per year of time off. In time to think. And realize that when you get to go away from a certain activity you're doing every time.

you might be actually be able to think about it more clearly. And come up with the answers more clearly if you're away from it as opposed to into it. All the time. Next up Donald Hoffman

Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences. At the University of California. Irvine. Like a lot of people, I was exposed to your TED talk, Do we see reality as it is?

And was struck by the desktop interface metaphor. Could you please just explain that in brief and then we can take that in a a number of of any directions. The question is how shall we understand our perceptions and their relationship to reality. Most of us

Just Assume that we know the answer. Our perceptions show us reality. Not all of it, but when I see the moon, there really is a moon. And of course I don't see everything about the moon, but I see what I need to see.

When I see a carrot. I I'm seeing the truth. I'm seeing the the correct shape, the correct color. The correct Wait if I pick it up. And of course I'm not seeing as molecular structure, so there are things I don't see, but but I'm seeing truly if

Incompletely. And The interface theory of perception Takes a different tack on on what perception is. It it says If we take

Evolution by natural selection seriously. We can ask a technical question. Would Evolution by natural selection shape sensory systems. Two

Tell truths about The physical world around us. Or whatever the world might be around us. That's the technical question. What is the probability? That natural selection would shape sensory systems to report.

true properties of objective reality. And You can show through theorems and simulations. So my graduate students working with me on this Brian Marion, Justin Mark, and others. So my colleague Shaitan Prakash, when you sing and I have been have worked on this

Robert Pratner, a number of us have worked on this and The simulations and the mathematics. All agree. The probability is zero. That natural selection

Wood shape. Any sensory system. Of any organism. True properties of objective reality.

That's precisely zero. And one Intuition about that is that Fitness payoff functions.

We can go into this later on if you want. Fitness payoff functions Almost surely. Have no information. About objective reality. They are not so called homomorphisms of

structures in objective reality. And so If we're tuned to fitness. And the fitness payoffs literally are not homomorphisms of structures in reality. Then there's no way that our perceptions can be homomorphic. To reality.

The structures of reality. So what then We take Evolution of a natural selection seriously, and I think we should Not because

I'm claiming it's the final story. But it's the best story we have. Science. Always To us.

Credit. Gets new theories. And what we thought was the The final theory a hundred and twenty years ago. We now look back on it, you know Newton was great, but we have much better theories today. And so I have the same view about all of our scientific theories that we have today.

The reason I take them seriously is not because I think they're the final word. It's just that we have as human beings no better theories. So we have to take our our current theories Seriously. And so if we take evolution of a natural selection seriously Of course, as scientists we're gonna eventually try to show its limitations.

Right. What it says in its current form Is That the probability is zero that our senses have shaped us to see the truth about the world around us. So what have they shaped us to do? Well, the the answer for within evolutionary theory

It's it's all about fitness. Our sensory systems Have shaped us. To Guide adaptive behavior.

So that we can s live long enough to reproduce. Basically. So Bombayrot. Put that in a

metaphor that's easier to understand is to say that Natural selection didn't shape us to see the truth, but it shaped us with sensory systems that are like a user interface to the truth. So you know, right now We're both sitting in front of

Laptops. And We're able to I mean I've got Gigabytes of of memory and all the circuitry inside my laptop, I have no idea.

About is it the truth of that? I mean I I I know the words. I'm not a you I'm not a engineer of that type. So I don't really n I if I had to toggle voltages inside my computer to do this video with you It wouldn't happen. So if I actually knew the truth and I had to actually Toggle all the bits and bytes and so forth and voltages in the computer

to make this video happen and you had to do it, it wouldn't happen. We have a very simple dumbedowser interface that lets us control the complexity of the computer without having any expertise in what's really going on inside. And that's what evolution did for us. It gave us simple user interface.

That lets us stay alive long enough to reproduce, to interact with reality in the ways that we need to interact with it to stay alive and reproduce. Without Having any idea what that reality is. You don't have a need to know, so you don't know. And that's just the way it is. Very few of us know exactly how the the desktop interface on our computer works.

When you Drag an icon to the trash can. To delete a file. There's a lot of stuff going on inside there that's involved in dragging you in in deleting the file. We're blissfully ignorant.

has done it it makes us blissfully ignorant about the nature of reality. And gives us icons that all allow us to control reality. So To be very, very clear. Space and time.

Wh Typically think of as fundamental reality. It's just the format of our three D desktop. We have a instead of a flat desktop, we have a three D Space time desktop.

And objects in three D are merely the icons in our desktop. They're Not Pointers to objective reality in any sense. There's the colors, the shapes The positions that we see have nothing to do with true colors and shapes and objective reality. They're just a nice format that evolution gave us. And it that format's gonna vary from species to species.

Next up Technologist and serial entrepreneur Kevin Rose I 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 scripts before. 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 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 on to called Fierce Intimacy.

That's one of his books. Yes, fierce intimacy and it's it's great. He reads his own audio book, so 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

Rate 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 this 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.

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 the conversation. I I'm like, finally, you know, like I like a therapist takes out 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 and fifty pages, something like that. Yeah, it's pretty 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 like 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.

Yeah, I have I think I probably have to be a little bit more. 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 The 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. 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. Yes.

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, 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 have things 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 a 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. We'll 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 af you know,'cause my father 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. Next. AJ Jacobs Best selling writer and author of the new book.

The puzzler One man's quest to solve the most baffling puzzles ever. From crosswords to jigsaws. to the meaning of life.

What does a jigsaw puzzle championship look like? I was totally surprised,'cause I always think of it as a a relaxing meditative. So it's like m you know, a meditation competition or a or a napping comp. competition, but I found out about it because I was Googling. First of all, one of the m first facts about Jake Saws is that Hugh Jackman is a huge fan. He spent about ten minutes of maybe fifteen on uh our podcast, he and I together talking about jigsaw puzzles. So yes, huge jigsaw puzzle fan.

But one of the other results, uh, this was right before the pandemic, uh was that there was a World championship in Spain And it listed all of the countries that were competing and they were Tons of them. There were forty countries, Mexico, Japan, Uganda, but no USA. So On a whim, I fill out the form and figure that'll be the first of this long process.

To qualify. I get back an email the next day. UR Team USA. And I'm like oh my, that's not good. The next day the next day, no due diligence at all. No It was a disaster. Uh yeah. And I as I said, I didn't love Jake's I thought they were I was a snob.

I thought they were too easy, they were not sophisticated. So I was like, Oh God. So I recruited my family. to be it's a four person team and we flew to Spain and You have eight hours To finish four giant jigsaw puzzles. And I'm sorry.

I apologize to my fellow Americans. Because we came in second to last. We beat one of the Spanish hometown teams. So that's something. Despite us. The humiliation? I loved it. Because it was just so fascinating for so many reasons. First

Just being able to see people At the top. Uh So no even if Jigsaw is you think is a silly A silly pastime seeing anyone.

And you know this, you've interviewed that's sort of the premise. You interview the top people of every category and you're gonna learn something from them. And these people, their hands move so fast. We Finished one puzzle. Of the four in six and a half hours. The Russian team, these women, four women from Siberia finished

in just over four hours, the whole thing. The hands were moving so fast and there were rumors of doping, but uh not not confirmed. Another part I loved was just meeting people from all over the world united by this weird obsession. I talk about jigsaw diplomacy. I actually I felt I was a little ahead of the curve because I have a paragraph in the book that about how much I hate Putin. This was long long before Ukraine. Yeah.

Before it was cool. And I say, but I can't hate these people because I'm here in face to face and they're humans. And you know, I am hoping that they're one of the some of the millions who oppose what Putin is doing now. But it was sort of uh what I call jigsaw diplomacy. So it was a wonderful experience and also learning Like in everything, there are strategies. You think oh it's just putting together. And the strategies are sometimes surprising. You don't always everyone's like, Oh, do the edges first. No, not necessarily.

Some puzzles, if they are very colorful, you do the colors first. Sometimes you focus on shapes. If you're hit with the sky, like a huge expanse of blue. You've got to sort them by shapes. So this one has two outies and one innie. This one so It was just wonderful to see the nuances. of this delightful and ridiculous competition. It was one of my favorite experiences.

I have a number of questions about this. The first is how do you Delegate. Or divide and conquer as a team because I can imagine If four people were just let loose having no strategy trying to put together jigsaw puzzle it might take longer than just one person trying to do it if you don't have some type of plan going into it.

And second I'm just curious, did you notice any sponsors? I'm just wondering what kind of Financial support is offered to the world jigsaw. Puzzle championships. Guessing it's not BMW.

I just I'm just curious. I know. Maybe not, yeah, but This was right before the Covid when jigsaws experienced a boom. during COVID, not seen since the Great Depression. So they became harder to get than Clorox wipes. So maybe now. They could be sponsored by VNV. But then yes, it was

The only sponsor was the puzzle company itself, Ravensburger, sadly. So I didn't make a huge amount of money on it. But Yeah, well I feel it's a little bit. You finished. No, it's a thing. So for strategies like yeah, what do you do as a team? Well, you're absolutely right. That was the secret that the Russians had. They told me

It's all about division of labor, like in many endeavors. So there was one woman who specialized in Sorting colours? Another with sort of shapes, another sorted what was good at the um the edges. And And another was really good at

The Trial and error. Because you I often am you know, I'm f afraid to put something down if I don't think she was like No. Just do it.

Just be okay with failing. You know, she put things she try it. No, next one? No. Next one, yes. So uh yeah, it was fascinating to see the And and I found that as a theme throughout puzzle solving. I went to this one event That was sort of the Iron Man triathlon for nerds.

It was called a puzzle hunt. And it was at MIT two thousand people, like real rocket scientists, and they Come together for seventy two hours and solve the hardest craziest, most baffling, nonsensical puzzles. That involve like

Advanced calculus and Justin Bieber's tour schedule and just the most random things you can think of. And you need 50 people on a team. The teams are fifty people because you needed specialists. And all these areas. So yes, sort of a diversification and uh having Different people do different things is a big

theme, I think, in Puzzles and Life. Next. Bo Shao Co founder.

And Chairman of Evolve. A philanthropic investment firm. The way we met was in part Around

the discussion of Inner journey. And Turning the eye. And attention.

Inward. Right. We we didn't meet at a business networking event. We weren't doing a joint venture together. We met in a very Personal context. How did that start for you? How did that process and I know process is a broad term, but

When did that become a priority and how did it become a priority for you? First, I would say that I had no interest. in any kind of inner work. for a long, long time. In fact I would look down on people who go to retreats or meditations, one, and say what the hell are these people doing? They have Better things to do in life.

I was sort of a little bit more. I found almost disgusting, despicable back then. Actually. So so I had no interest. But Life I think has a way of

If one pays attention, I guess. To Send little reminders. So the first reminder I got was hey, you know, I was still the same me with some of the same kind of patterns of behavior, same level of happiness and joy.

that I had before this big success. Yeah looking back I realised that. Compared to the life I have today. The life back then was more of a black white television and today's more colorful television.

It's hard to describe the difference. If I w only watched black and white television all my life. The reason I use this example was'cause I grew up with a nine inch Black and white television.

Which felt totally fine. For all my life. And without having seen a eighty inch Yeah, color television. The nine inch black and white load.

Completely adequate and comfortable. And I think that's where I was Back then. My life didn't have a lot of color, didn't have joy, I never cried really, I never laughed, never smiled really. I never even felt long with it.

Interesting. I felt alone. But not lonely. But I think some of these things showed up a little bit, like oh I've sort of start wondering, what am I missing? There's a little little little things I think, but very small.

On that alone, I don't think I would have Embarked on the journey. Another reminder was how different my life was was Jenny, my wife. versus with other people. And also I see how she behaves.

with other people in a way that's sort of beyond my comprehension. I remember like one time she was We were having dinner with a friend. And The friends start talking about how he lost his father.

And then my wife just stood up. And went to hug him. And I was dumbfunded. It never would occur to me to do it.

She's telling a story, I'm listening But I was not in touch with the emotional content of the story. And my wife clearly was. And she is one of the most empathetic person alive. But I know.

So some part of me started wondering what's going on, what am I missing? And also I noticed that I could work with people for a decade and not become friends with them. But she would then go to dinner with their significant other the four of us will go to Dinner or lunch.

And then she becomes friends with them. An army. Even though I've known them for ten years and she knows them for like one day. So that sort of started sound like You know, there am I missing something? Is friendship something I value?

Because Up until a few years ago. I didn't consider myself as having friends. But I've always told myself I don't need friends. I wanna ask actually just a follow up there. Why did you not consider yourself to have friends? Is it because you viewed

getting close to people as Having little upside and a lot of potential downside. Why did you see things that way? It was not a rational decision. I think deep down, if I were to answer honestly Is because

I think I don't deserve a friend. And uh Um I think I thought And there's still a part of me probably still thinks

That There's something wrong with me. And I don't deserve any fence. That nobody will really take an interest. In my feelings and in what I have to say.

Unless what I have to say is useful. So when I'm in a position, I'm a board member, investor Or somebody who could educate or whatever. Or help. Then I feel comfortable.

Like this relationship has substance. But if it's simply a friendship A part of me Doesn't understand it. Like

but doesn't feel that why would you or other people Take an interest in The inside of me. And uh I didn't have that trust. Uh of course has to do this has a lot to do with

How I was brought up. And I'm still in the process of Understanding and feeling fully. But I've told myself for the longest time that I don't need any friends. The deeper down, you know, realization

happen much more slowly. And I think it's still happening as we speak. It's a continuous journey of discovery. And being free. From those patterns I developed.

So that's the second thing that you know, terms of friendship and relationship with other people I see myself with Jenny in a different way, I see Jenny with other people in a different way. That's sort of got me thinking a little bit. Is it okay for continue on this right? Absolutely. Right. And a third, which I think is probably the biggest one.

Uh I couldn't Avoid looking at was being a father. I was a terrible father. You know, for a while on

on the Chinese Twitter way more. I was a was a very reasonably popular and a lot of people followed me. And My model, I guess whatever I wrote. But under my name was

A perfect husband, but a so so father. And I think I was giving myself too much credit. I don't think I was a so so father. I think I was a terrible father looking back. I didn't know how to be one. I knew how to be a teacher. I knew how to be a disant

Plenary? But I didn't know how to be a father. The way I understand it now. And uh I didn't know how to spend time with them.

I did not know how to give them love and attention. I didn't know how to Give them support when they need it. Emotional support in particular when they need it. And I'm also just

Did not enjoy being a father. I remember And my wife will remind me to go spend time with my kids when it's eight o'clock at night or something like that before they go to bed. Before they went to bed. And my thought the time was why should I? And I felt some kind of resentment.

being called to do my job. It was really funny thinking back, but back then I really didn't enjoy it. And that got me thinking a little bit, hey, there's something missing here. that you know, people talk about being a father being enjoyable, but I really didn't enjoy it. And also I know that I knew

that I was doing something wrong because I was Repeating. some of the mistakes that my father made. That was sort of shocking.

Because You would imagine that you would never do what was done to you that he didn't like. But I was repeating the same thing. And if my

Wife didn't stop me? I would have been worse, far worse. So one of the things that my father, for example, did to me is if he got really angry. he would threaten to throw me out of the hole. And I

Did that. to my son. And that was very traumatic for him. He still remembers it today. Even for like Two seconds.

Closing the door on him. It was so bad. But I didn't know what else to do. That was all I knew. When I get desperate as a father, when something happens outside of my control, I got desperate.

So I guess I resorted to what worked. Because From a short term perspective. What my father did to me worked. I became obedient.

Thank you for sharing, Bill. I'm really glad that we're having this conversation. I think it's going to be Meaningful. to a lot of people. And

I'd love to Here. As you began Observing these behaviors as Perhaps Jenny called things to your attention.

And you decided to Try to change or at least become more aware. What are some of the things that you found helpful? What are some of the tools or modalities that end up being helpful because I would imagine

Yeah. in the beginning certainly I had this experience myself It's hard to know where to begin, right? And

It's kinda like a chimpanzee with a mirror or something. Like you're looking behind the mirror, you're like, Am I supposed to see something over here or am I supposed to see something over here over there? And I would just love to hear because I know that you have teste many, many, many different things. What are some of say the tools, modalities, or otherwise that you have found to be personally helpful. I definitely try many different things. I in some ways I'm I like you, Tim, that I when I get on something I really that's important, then I would want to get to the bottom of it. I want to learn the best.

I'll farm the best. First of all, I would say that there are three components to Being a good parent that I've learned. And these are Not necessarily

They might be orthogonal to each other, meaning they're you know. Being good at one component doesn't mean you're saying gonna be good at the second component. So the three components in my view Is one is Understanding

What's going on inside of our children's heads. And what's going on in their biology. You know, psychology. And The amazing thing is we are

Children are so different from us. We assume that They should have executive control of their body or of their mind or their actions. But the reality is For example, for a boy, there are f prefrontal cortex.

doesn't fully develop until they're in their twenties. So when there are twelve Expecting them to behave In a disciplined way. Is simply not right.

So understanding what's going on inside of them is hugely, hugely important. From a developmental perspective, you mean. From a developmental perspective, both from a physical neurobiology as well from a psychological development perspective. And there's huge amount of sci out there.

Unfortunately. hasn't been made available and accessible. to parents, which is one of the things one of our companies is working on. And a second. Is

As parents. Why do we get triggered? Why did I get triggered in certain ways? My reactive patterns. Which were usually formed very early on in my own childhood. maybe my own insecurity gets reflected in certain things.

And then that's why you get triggered. So, for example if a parent always wish they went to the best schools and they were f the feeding down on themselves for not having gone to the best schools. They're probably gonna be more demanding of the child. And if the child has bad grades, they probably tend to be more triggered.

So There's all sorts of things we need to understand of our own self and our own childhood. that would enable us to be a better parent. And so in some ways I went into a lot of these workshops thinking that I just need to learn a tool or trick.

Or some kind of way, like positive discipline or whatever it is. To be a better parent. And to a certain extent those tools and modalities help. But foundational wise I needed to be become a better person, quote unquote, in some ways.

To be a better parent. And that has to do or everything to do with our inner journey. As an independent person and has nothing to do with us being a parent actually. This it's just that's something that it's really really foundational.

And then the third is What's in the relational field. Between a parent and a child. and becoming aware of that relational field any moment in time. is really critical because when a relational field is not right.

No amount of teaching. on the rational side and analytical side will help. Because The kid's brain is underdeveloped. So when they don't feel safe and connected.

They can listen. When a typical parent sees a child children not listening. maybe their reaction is try to say things more clearly. You know, repeat things. It doesn't really help. And what's needed is for the children to feel safe and connected.

And then they will listen a hundred times better. So these three components, understanding the the children inside of them, understanding ourselves, understanding the relational field, for me that's the foundation. Then on top of them foundation there are lots of tools. That's actually very useful. I find it that to be so important.

It's shocking to me that Now looking back that Being a parent is probably the most important job. In one's life. There's nothing more important.

It's probably the most difficult job. And we are least prepared for. In our lives. We go to school for Teaching math. We go to

G get driving license to get a driver's license so we can drive. But to be a parent. There's practically no preparation. Last but not least.

Tom Morello Of Rage Against the Machine fame. Yeah. If you had to teach someone guitar in three months, what would the curriculum be? Uh I was a guitar teacher for a while during my um semi homeless days and uh

Uh what I taught the the lesson that I learned. When I took those bad guitar lessons where they wanted me to do the boring stuff, I applied that when teaching you know brand new guitar players. In the first guitar lesson with every student um I would teach them. to write a song. They would write a song in that first guitar lesson and try to like smash that barrier between there's these mythical gods who make music and then there's you who one day might hope to, you know, touch their shoes. Like you're a songwriter today. I'm gonna teach you two chords, you decide what order they go in and how long you play each one. Boom, you've written a song. Like l you and the Beatles now are both songwriters. You know? And there's a I would see in them this kind like

Like Holy crap, like I can write something tomorrow, you might write another one. And that's what I'd give them as their homework. Like you write another one for next time. And then we'll you're gonna have a catalogue of six songs in the first three weeks of your playing guitar. And we can work on the other stuff along the way, but And then it's called playing guitar, and that sort of enthusiasm comes from early successes.

What are the biggest wastes of time that you see novices making like diligent ones. Yeah. Yeah. Uh What are the wrong things to focus on? Well, it's it depends on what you want to do and who you want to be because there's there's a uh I believe there's a clear delineation between musicians. An artists. And if you

Like I said, when you start playing guitar, what you wanna do is you wanna sound like you're so You're trying to be a musician. I'm sh I love Angus Young. I wanna Play Angus Young songs at some point. Are you going to go beyond You have to make a determination. And many people are delighted and content to be able to learn and play their favorite songs and

jam along with the radio, but if you have a vision that goes beyond Yeah, you know. aping the technique of your favorites, then you have to take a different step. And that is a step into risk and a step into the unknown to say, this is what has come before, now I'm gonna write my own song. I'm gonna take a risk that people are gonna hate those songs. And I'm gonna take a risk of putting myself out there.

Check it out, I can play Van Halen. It's like, hey, check it out. I wrote this song. that includes my Van Halen influence and this, that, and the other. And here it is. That's the only way that you know art grows and it's as an artist that's the only way Yeah. What would you say?

I guess maybe that's the answer, but the follow up to that would be if If you're saying Teaching a ninth grader or tenth grader. Really talented. And they're like, I wanna be a creator. I wanna be an artist. And they get up there and they just bow. Yeah. Yeah.

Cricket, maybe booing. Everyone. What would you tell them before or after that. Yeah. Well I tell them first of all you the th you're bombing with one thing you have in common is with everyone ever I'd say name the five artists who you love the most. And I would Ensure them that all of them have bombed as bad or worse as they just did then. And then it's a matter of sort of continu You know, maybe there's a lot of like you know, basement. you know, m music heroes. You have to play with other people. That helps you in a way. You have to play in front of other people. That helps you in ways. And that you do that over time and you will amass a You'll you will have the opportunity to discover who you are as a musician and or as an artist.

What books, if any, have you gifted the most to other people? Uh the well certainly the one book that I've gifted the most in my life was uh book that I first read when I was fifteen and I reread it almost yearly. It's a book called Watership Down. Uh It's uh you know, I've read books that have been

You know, more serious political tomes in my time, but the Heroism, courage, and friendship exhibit in that book among a number of rabbits. And it's it is the single most breathtakingly exciting book that I've ever read as well. Water Ship Down.

Richard Adams, a strong endorsement for that book right there. Do you have a quote or quotes that you live your life by or think of often? Hm. Uh Um And we can come back to the side. Sure. No no no. I'm gonna I gonna have something for you.

There is a quote from um written by Joe Strummer of The Clash. I I wrote this down and put it on my refrigerator as a You know, as a youth. uh it says uh

Are you taking over? Or are you taking orders? Are you going backwards? Or are you going forwards? And I would look at that in my refrigerator and I would try to answer those four questions for myself every day.

That is good. And now here are the bios for all the guests. My guest today. is Terry Cruz. You can find him on Twitter and social at Terry Cruz. Terry can do it all.

Author. Action movie hero, sitcom star. Children's Book Illustrator, Advertising Pitch Man, Playable Video Game Character, Talent Shoast. High-end furniture designer, and human rights activist, the list goes on and on. Terry's new memoir is Tough, subtitled My Journey to True Power. In it, he chronicles the story of how he went from being a six year old boy with a goofy, toothless smile. To being utterly selfish and angry.

To a man who can finally acknowledge his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities and use his experiences to help motivate those around him. And uh Terror story is Fascinating, incredible. Hurt. breaking in some respects, gut wrenching.

It is a story that I've learned a lot from, and I think also a story that you can learn. A lot from. But let's finish the bio before we dive into the conversation. Terry has starred as a series regular in three consecutive TV series that have surpassed the coveted one hundred episode mark, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Are We There Yet, and Everybody Hates Chris. Terry is set to star in Tales of the Walking Dead and hosts NBC's top rated Alternative series America's Got Talent and its spin-offs AGT Champions and AGT Extreme. Cruz recently added yet another title.

children's book illustrator, which I mentioned earlier, to his resume for his first of a kind augmented reality book, Come Find Me. Terry's crew? is his latest children's lit entry, a graphic novel set to be released in late 2020. Terry's crew provides insight into his childhood in Michigan and what it was like trying to find his place. In twenty twenty one, Terry and his wife, Rebecca King Cruz released an exclusive audible audio book. stronger together, sharing the staggering ups and downs of their relationship and how they have weathered the myriad crises that have rocked their marriage. Cruz, a lifelong artist, which we dug deeply into in my first conversation with him, released his furniture collection with Bernhard Designs in twenty seventeen, which premiered at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York and was awarded the prestigious Best of Neocon twenty seventeen. Always drawing and sketching alongside his many day jobs

And that is many, many day jobs, Cruz joined the ranks of a number of other design world heavyweights, including Eve Bahar, as a contributor to Bernhardt's portfolio. Again, you can find him on social, on Twitter at Terry Cruz, Instagram, Terry Cruz, and on Facebook, real Terry Cruz. My guest today is a fan favorite. It is his second appearance. Tony Fidel. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram at T Fidel F A D E L L

Who is Tony Fidel? Tony is an active investor and entrepreneur with a thirty plus year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people's lives. You'll recognize quite a few of them. So Stick around, pay attention. Is a principal at Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology. He is continuing to help bring technology out of the lab and into our lives. Currently, FutureShape is coaching 200 plus startups innovating game changing technologies. He began his career in Silicon Valley General Magic. The most influential startup. nobody has heard of. We talk about general magic at length.

In our first. conversation. So check that out if you want that chapter. We cover it a little bit in this one just so you have context. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest. The company that pioneer the Internet of Things and created the Nest Learning Thermostat. Tony was the SVP of Apple's iPod division and led the team that created the first eighteen generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career, Tony has authored more than three hundred Patents. That is a whole

Lot of patents. In May twenty sixteen, time named the Nest Learning Thermostat The iPod and the iPhone is three of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time. His new book. Which we dig into at some length. Because it is tactical and practical and very rich in detail.

Build subtitle and unorthodox guide to making things worth. Making You can find him online, future shapelc dot com. You can find him on Twitter. Instagram. And

All over the place, of course. Easiest handle is at T Fidel, T F A D E L L. My guest today is Donald Hoffman. H O F F M A N Donald received a PhD in computational psychology from MIT and is a professor emeritus of cognitive sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is an author of more than one hundred and twenty scientific papers and three books.

including The Case Against Reality, subtitled Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association. the Trollant Research Award of the US. National Academy of Sciences, and many other awards. His writing has appeared in Scientific American News Scientist Elliott Review of Books and Edge, and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, Ars Technica, National Public Radio, Discover Magazine, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. His TED talk. Titled Do We See Reality As It Is, has almost four million views. That might be higher, might be past four or five, who knows by now, by the time you listen to this. And uh you can find him on Twitter at Donald D. Hoffman.

My guest today, one of my favorites, one of your favorites, AJ Jacobs. AJ Jacobs is a best selling author, journalist, and human guinea pig. Now All of you long term listeners will know I do not apply that term, that label lightly, but in this case it applies. He has written four New York Times bestsellers, including One of my favorites, The Year of Living Biblically, for which he followed all of the rules of the Bible as literally as possible, including, I should mention, stoning adulterers. You'll have to read it to get that. And thanks a thousand for which he went around the world and thanked every person who had even the smallest role in making his

Morning cup of coffee possible. I thought about this morning as I had my coffee. He has given four TED Talks with a combined 10 million plus views. He contributes to MPR in the New York Times and wrote the article My Outsourced Life, which was featured in the Four Hour Work Week. What a title. Four hour work week, who wrote that? Sounds like an infomercial. He was once the answer to one down in the New York Times crossword puzzle. You can find my two thousand sixteen, good lord, that's a long time ago, interview with AJ, where we cover a lot of backstory, a lot of our Shared converging paths in life at Tim.blog slash AJ. You can find him online, ajacobs.com website for the new book.

is the puzzler book. Dot com And we'll link to all the social as well, but it tends to be AJ Jacobs on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera.

My guest today is Bo Shao. EO Last name S H. A Oh.

Bo Shao is a co-founder and the chairman of Evolve, a philanthropic investment firm composed of a foundation. Vol Foundation. and an impact investment firm Evolve Ventures with initial capital of one hundred million from the Shao family, Evolve aims to support organizations that relieve inner suffering and facilitate inner transformation. Both story is pretty wild. So let's jump into a little backstory. And we're going to go in reverse chronological order.

Prior to Evolve, Bo was a founding partner of Matrix China, a leading technology venture capital firm in China, which manages more than seven billion dollars and has funded more than five hundred companies, fifty plus of which have become unicorns, that means valued at more than one billion USD. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded five companies that have either gone public or become leaders in their respective. Industries. Bo was born in China and was the winner of more than a dozen national mathematics competitions during high school. For those who don't know what that means, it is a huge, huge deal and a very significant feat. I'm gonna leave the rest of his bio.

to our conversation and we will dig in very, very quickly. The website for Evolve is Evolve. BF. As in Venture.

Fund venture. Foundation. So Evolve VF D

Tom So my guest tonight is a revolutionary, and I mean that literally. His musical talents have resulted in the sale of more than 25 million albums and garnered two Grammys. Rolling Stone has recognized him as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and yet he's only had two formal guitar lessons. He's a founding member of Rage Against the Machine, Audio Slave, The Night Watchman, and Prophets of Rage.

Please welcome to the stage, musician, singer, songwriter, and author. Tom Morello. 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. 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

I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.