36: Thanksgiving with Tim Ferriss

Grumpy Old Geeks. Two old farts, a microphone, and the internet. What could go wrong?

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks episode 36, the Thanksgiving special. The whole double. Yes, we had a good old buddy, not a good old buddy, I think we're from Alabama. No offense to our listeners in Alabama. My buddy Tim Ferriss came on the show this week and had a chat with us.

Super nice guy. It was an awesome time. Really enjoyed it. Got to hang out with this dude at some point. Got a bottle of wine, Tim, whenever you're ready. If you want to impress Tim, get a good Malbec. He's a Malbec guy. As am I, so we agree on wines. Excellent. It was a really fun conversation, so that's about it for this week. We hope you enjoy it, and we'll see you after the break.

Yeah, everybody have a good Thanksgiving. We'll see you soon. Now, listen in.

Welcome, our guest. So today we're here with Mr. Tim Ferriss, old buddy of mine from the old days back in San Francisco. I think we met right before your first book launch. Yeah, we did. Absolutely. I think it was through MJ Kim. Is that right? That's right. That's right. Yeah. Because your first book release party was at her birthday party, wasn't it?

At her birthday party. Which was super confusing for everybody, but yes, it was. Yeah, and I got to see you before that at the Ignite Talk, that first Ignite Talk you did. Right. The Ignite Talk at Web 2.0 back in the day.

I think that was the Web 2.0, Ignite, that I wasn't aware was actually a competition for the big stage, so we did the drunken Ignite presentation for five minutes in front of a crowd of beer-drinking programmers of maybe, whatever, 150 people.

And then they're like, congratulations. So tomorrow, I'm like, tomorrow what? And they go, you get to talk in front of 3,000 people. And I pooped my pampers and then had to prepare for it. Oh, I think you're probably used to it by now. You've gotten the hang of it. I've done a bit more. It's funny to watch that very initial Ignite Talk, which is on YouTube, because I pace at like speedwalking speed back and forth the entire time I'm talking.

It's pretty hilarious. I'm so nervous, and it's so obvious. Yeah, that was fun times. That was right before pretty much everybody that we know kind of blew up. Kevin Rose blew up after that, and God, all those guys. Yeah, it's been a wild journey, man, for sure.

So now you're doing TV. Yeah. What's up with that? Who would have thunk it? Well, TV is something that I've been fascinated by for many years. But I had some very souring experiences trying to get involved with television.

Generally speaking, not always. Generally speaking, I have a lot of trouble with the kind of duplicitous nature of a lot of entertainment. And I'm too Asperger's-y to just communicate with that crowd very well, which usually ends up biting me.

So the reason I'm doing TV now as opposed to earlier is because this is really the first time that I found a team I gelled with and also felt like I had the leverage to get the creative controls and approvals that would ensure that it wouldn't become the real wives of Orange County lifestyle edition with Tim Ferriss or something like that.

Yeah, I definitely felt that – I'd watched your first episode earlier today because it's online for free, of course, which is a smart move as well. It definitely felt like you had control of this. This was definitely an authentic you production as opposed to you getting shoehorned into something you didn't want to do.

Yeah, yeah, I know, and I appreciate that. It's very difficult to make reality TV that is actually reality. And I'm in the middle of production still. We've done eight episodes. We have five more. And it is fucking punishing.

It is really, really, really difficult because if you think about it, it's like, okay, cool. Like you'll just do your thing. We'll film it and then we'll take out all the epiphanies and cool stuff and make an amazing show. Well, there are a few challenges. The first is that a half-hour show is actually 21 minutes, 20 seconds or something like that.

It is really, really short. The second is that it turns out you can't just film all the time and then crush post-production by sending them 50 hours of footage. They can't even watch it all. So there's a lot of pre-planning that has to go into this stuff.

And it's meant really, really long days for everyone involved because we are having to capture a lot of footage and then kind of curate it before we send it to post-production. Since we're editing maybe three or four episodes at a time as we are filming simultaneously.

So, yeah, it's wild, man. It's quite something else. But I'm really happy with how the episodes are coming so far. Yeah, it's cool. And this isn't your first one. You did the – was it for Discovery the first time around? It was for History Channel. Oh, History Channel. That's right. I did a pilot with a very similar thesis, right?

Because this is kind of – I mean, you know this. This is kind of what I do anyway. So, you know, this is just the natural course of all the weird experimentation that I do. And I was always kicking myself for not catching any of the – or very few of the experiments on video for, say, the four-hour body.

And did the pilot with History Channel back in the day for Japanese horseback archery, the Yabusame. And that was an hour-long show, which means 40 minutes roughly. And it went well. But that was a situation that really gave me sort of a once-bitten, twice-shy feeling about television because at the end of the day, if there was any type of creative debate –

and at that point, I had no leverage because that was actually filmed before the four-hour workweek really hit it big. At the end of the day, it was, hey, listen, you're fucking talent and we're the producers. So sit down and shut up and we'll pat your head and let us make all the decisions about creative, which is a nightmare for me.

This time around, I'm a co-executive producer and I'm also working with a production company, ZPZ or 0.0, which makes really good gritty verite stuff like Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. I was going to say, isn't that Anthony Bourdain's team?

Yeah, it's Anthony Bourdain's team. So I actually did the deal with Turner, broadcasting first, and then found a production company. And the way it usually works is the production company will find talent, sign them to a really onerous hold agreement, and then go to the broadcast networks or the broadcaster of some type, the network, sell it.

And then they own the relationship with the distributor and therefore all the power. And that's just not at all what I wanted to do. So it was really unorthodox. I mean, I don't have an agent, don't have a manager, just a really good lawyer. And so far that has worked out.

We'll see where it goes. Oh, less fees to split too. Exactly. Yeah, fewer miles to feed. I've got to say, though, I was a little surprised that you decided to go to kind of, well, not that that network is particularly your normal, broadcast TV network, but I was a little surprised because you seem to have based most of your career so far on kind of just going straight, direct, internet, et cetera, et cetera.

Yep. What was your thought process about deciding to go ahead and just go, all right, I'm going to go on major broadcast TV? Yeah, no, it's a great question. I debated this back and forth a lot because I felt like I could probably go on Kickstarter and raise enough to bootstrap a pretty sweet series.

And I'd also done the trailers, the book trailers before as kind of a warm-up to production. And I was really happy with how this turned out and met a lot of people who could be part of the team. Ultimately, I decided a few things.

Number one is that living in San Francisco or New York City or Los Angeles, any major coastal city, let's say, it's very easy to believe that everyone has an iPhone and everyone uses Netflix or Roku or something like that.

But the reality is at least for, I would say, and I think obviously technology advancing exponentially as it is, this could be overestimated. But at least for the next, say, two years, broadcast television, whether that's network or cable, is very powerful.

It's an extremely effective Archimedes lever if you hit it big, right? So it's even more, I would say, polarized, not polarized, extreme than the world of books. Books are very hits-driven, and a handful of books out of the many, many tens or hundreds of thousands published will generate the vast majority of revenue.

In the TV world, I think the polar opposites are even more extreme, where TV is really not going to help me much at all unless it is a really big hit. So this is a spin at the roulette table in a major way, right? Because even moderately successful TV really doesn't have the penetration and distribution that will affect everything else that I'm doing.

However, if it pops, like, say, at No Reservations or Mythbusters or anything like that, I don't expect it to be Duck Dynasty or anything. But if it pops, which is a hilarious show, by the way, if it pops, then it could really be the domino that topples many others and facilitates all these other areas of my life.

But just to add on to the debate that I had internally, I also felt it would be smart to work with a world-class production company at length on a series as an education.

So as a perhaps first step towards later doing more myself to really view this as a graduate program. It's almost like a paid internship. It's a paid internship where I get to check stuff off my bucket list, which is pretty sweet.

So that's all. No, I think that's a really smart way to go about it, too. Because I think what we're seeing so often now is so many people are rushing off to Kickstarter and then finding themselves in waters that they can't even imagine. They're just in over their head immediately. So you're going about it with a great team around you and doing, like, the best possible production you can ever do.

And then if you want to go back later and do it yourself, you know all the pitfalls. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I know a lot of – I will know a lot of people as well. And the fact of the matter is, holy shit, I had no fucking idea how goddamn complicated putting together good TV is.

I mean it is so involved and there are so many spinning plates. It is mind-boggling. Especially if you're doing something really masochistic and insane like trying to do 13 episodes in 13 weeks straight, which is just – That's ridiculous.

Suicide mission. Particularly when you're doing stupid shit like jumping off buildings and trying to learn parkour. And then you're like, oh, let me roll, like, those two dozen injuries into the next episode. And let me go do Brazilian jiu-jitsu and get my head choked off 14 times in the first day and then get my ribs torn to pieces.

Yeah, I am really beat up. So when you were scheduling the shows, did you factor in injuries as you placed the episodes or is that something for season two now that you've kind of learned your lesson? You know, I did actually factor them in. So the way that we filmed, it tends to go in a cycle of like very, very physical and high injury potential to slightly physical and more mental where there's less injury potential, although you could maybe die.

And some of them like rally car racing is a little bit physical or drumming is a little bit physical, but you're probably not going to maim yourself. Then very highly mental stuff, so like learning languages is one episode or building a business.

We're doing an episode on building a business. And what I underestimated, I guess, was how long injuries would persist. You know, like my legs are still destroyed from the first episode, which was parkour.

That was the first one we filmed. But I got so maimed that the first episode that's getting broadcast is the drumming. Yeah, man. I can't believe you did parkour. You're not a spring chicken anymore, you know? I'm not a spring chicken, yeah.

And like in retrospect, I'm like, huh. You know, maybe like 36-year-old dude who has messed up joints to begin with, who's way too heavy really to be jumping off high walls, like shouldn't try to be James Bond.

You know, like maybe that's the way it should go, but no regrets. And the other thing is the point of the show is not to create a Tim Ferriss highlight reel. So there's plenty of me screwing up, face planting, and not all of these episodes have storybook endings, which is exactly kind of how I wanted it to be, if that makes sense.

It's because I want other people to believe they can replicate a lot of this stuff, which I believe. Yeah, actually, I think that's why you made a really good choice going with the drumming episode as your first episode, too. Because, well, first off, you've got the whole music element and the rock star thing, and, you know, you got to wear snakeskin pants, which who can complain about that?

But it was actually cool because when I started to watch it as a musician myself and working within the industry, I was like, there's no fucking way this guy's going to learn how to play drums without knowing a note of music in a week. And you did learn, but not really. Like, you couldn't do the fills, but you got enough.

Like, as you've always said, you kind of do that 80% focus. And you got enough to be able to get through the song. But it was great to fucking watch, and I couldn't actually believe it, and I was cheering for you at the end. No, I appreciate that. And you know what I would love to do, although it's, like, so difficult to do this with multiple cameras, is to put up the whole song because I actually nailed probably, like, 60% of the fills.

Right. And I left out some of the gnarlier stuff, but that was a stressful episode. I just, the editing on it was fantastic because the cuts to Stuart Copeland, especially when he, you know, he went off.

And I just remember, because I was a huge police fan, and, you know, he hated Sting about, like, getting in his face in the middle of shows. And he warned you about that, and then you had a guy climbing on your kit while you were trying to play. Yeah, I was going to ask, was that actually filmed in order, or was that, like, a setup after? Because it was so perfect.

Oh, no, no, no. That was absolutely true to reality. No scripting, no nothing. It's like he, you know, Stuart warned me, and then exactly that happened. I did not expect Kelly, the lead singer, to get up on the drum kit. That was extremely nerve-wracking, particularly, I'm not sure if you could actually pick it out, but when you're holding the groove, like, you need your snare drum.

And he put his foot right on the snare drum, and it was just like, no, kid, what are you going to do? And I was like, ah, this is, I'm not this good, bro. I'm not this good. Well, you could have given him a little stick to the hi-hats, and he might have gotten down. Yeah, exactly. A little sack tap would probably fix that.

Yeah, there's a, you know, the only, you know, what's so tough for me is having these episodes cut down to 21 and a half minutes, because this could easily, easily have been, you know, an hour-long show, a 40-minute show, and it would have, there's so many good scenes.

But that's, you know, that's the challenge with any kind of editing, whether it's a book, you know, I cut 250 pages from my last book. You really have to, like, sacrifice some of your children, which is really painful, but, of course, part of the process. That's also the good part about the current, you know, kind of state of thing in the Internet age, because while you can make a 21-minute TV for broadcast, you know, edit, and you can do your book for kind of mass consumption, I mean, you kind of did this with your books anyways.

You then released, you know, further versions that had expanded content and all the stuff that you had to cut out. There's, you know, that's the opportunity afforded nowadays with the kind of deals that you can make and the Internet. So you can do, you know, the 40-minute version, and here's all the extra footage that we shot that we thought was really, really great.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's primarily a post-production constraint at this point. But, yeah, I'm hoping at some point that we'll be able to put up a ton of extra stuff, because there's so much. Okay, so I got a quick question. Why HLN? Okay, so, yeah, this is a very good question, because most people are like, HLN, isn't that all court stuff?

It's the Nancy Grace channel. Yeah, like, what's up with that? So HLN, I had the chance, or I should say the opportunity, to work with a couple of different channels. The HLN option came around because of this big initiative from Turner, which is called Upwave.

And Upwave is this sort of wellness programming that is transmedia. So it's very much web-based. They have a lot of web content. And then they have a corresponding block of television, which is, I believe, this sort of 7.30 to, like, 9 o'clock or whatever on Sundays.

And they initially contacted me because they wanted me to be part of this Upwave launch, which starts this Sunday, December 1st.

So the benefits, I'm not going to name the other channels that I could work with, but the benefit of HLN, as an example, as part of the Turner Broadcasting family, is that I get the marketing muscle and dollars from Turner, a very large parent company, as opposed to, let's say, an isolated, smaller cable network.

And I also get the ability to promote the show and myself through other Turner channels like CNN. And I just felt like they would do a very proper job of promoting the show, particularly if it were part of a larger block of programming and perhaps even considered the sort of anchor tenant for that block.

So those are many of the reasons, also because Turner was willing to help me craft a deal that I could live with. And many other places are really kind of polishing brass on the Titanic and very draconian with their contracts.

And I was just not willing to sign 99% of what I've seen up to this point. And I'm sure, Brian, that you can comment on this. But if you look at some of these music contracts, it's like, what, a seven-album deal? Are you kidding me? Or we own the broadcaster or, in the case of music, the distributor or the label will own 360-degree merchandising rights?

I can't sign that stuff. Yeah, the music deals out there are draconian. And it's kind of what you were saying earlier is you've got a little bit of juice now, so you can do that. These young kids out there, these little garage bands that are just getting started, they don't have that. So they're kind of sucked into signing these sorts of deals.

And it's good that you were in a position to be able to get out of that with your TV version. Yeah, and I think that the threshold for gaining leverage is increasingly lower. When I hear about this, I believe, maybe you can comment on this, didn't Macklemore come out of nowhere?

And I mean, I believe they were sort of outside the traditional construct. But there are other examples, of course. I mean, if companies that do, say, really well on Kickstarter and then are able to craft deals with, say, traditional book publishers that they never would have been able to craft beforehand, even though they've only sold, say, 5,000 or 10,000 copies.

So I think the threshold for social proof that then allows you to negotiate perhaps nontraditional deals is lower, which is really, really exciting to me at least. Yeah, and obviously, because the entire media world has become so fractured now, you don't need the same amount of people.

You know, it's kind of like a million fans 10 years ago is about the same as 10,000 now. You get your 10,000, and you're pretty good. And you're looking good to labels and other people. Yep. Yeah, I mean, sort of the long tail of fractured markets.

Definitely. Yeah, agreed. Okay, so speaking of this change in media, tell me about your book club. What the hell is that all about? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the book club. So this is something I've toyed around with for a long time, primarily because when I was researching, say, the 4-Hour Body and the 4-Hour Chef, so looking at kind of physical manipulation on one hand and accelerated learning or cooking on the other,

it was extremely frustrating to me that I would ask, say, 10 top chefs for their top three books. If they could only have three books on a desert island for cooking for the rest of their lives, what would they choose? And there were always these consensus items. Be like, okay, there's this crazy book that you should get.

It's your first purchase. And I would go to buy it, and it would be out of print. Right. And I would find a copy for like $150 somewhere and buy it, and lo and behold, it's a great book. But the problem there, among others, is that I want to recommend it to my readers, and I can't.

I just can't get it. There's nowhere to get it. It's out of print, yeah. And there's nobody that owns, whoever owns the rights, whoever knows who even that is anymore, probably isn't really thinking about it or concerned or care. Right, exactly. So this happened over and over and over and over and over again.

And I got really annoyed. And so if I had a bunch of wine with someone and it came up, I'd be like, you know what? This is fucking ridiculous. I should just hunt down these rights, buy them, and print the fucker myself. And I kept on saying it. I kept on saying it. I kept on saying it. And then I had that experience with audiobooks, because I like to take long walks and listen to audiobooks to decompress, or on airplane rides, sometimes I listen to audiobooks.

And I couldn't find audiobook versions of some of my favorite books or books that had been recommended. And again, I started bitching and moaning about it. And so eventually I realized, well, hold on a second. You know, I have a million plus readers per month on the blog. I am advising this company quarterly.

So I have this box that goes out every three months with physical goodies. And I could be the author's entire marketing and PR department wrapped into one if they give me their, or sell me, their audio rights or e-book rights. And I started thinking about it, and I approached Rolf Potts, who's the author of Vagabonding, and he's become a friend of mine.

His book hugely impacted my life. I traveled with it around the world for almost, I'd say, 15 to 18 months in 2004, 2005. So it really affected all of the lessons that led to the four-hour work week. And so I chatted with Rolf, and I was like, hey, man, like, what would you think about his audiobook hadn't been produced by the publisher after 10 years?

You know, that was just sitting there. I was like, well, why don't you negotiate with the publisher, get them to revert your audiobook rights since they haven't done anything with it. And like, I'll craft an awesome deal with you, create the audiobook, you can narrate it, ideally. And it'll drive sales of all of the formats of your book.

And so he decided to do that as an experiment with his book launching this book club. And lo and behold, I actually haven't talked about any of the results, so I'll give you a sneak peek, is, you know, the audiobook's done extremely well. I mean, thousands of copies, and beyond that, the print edition, I didn't even link to the print edition in my blog post announcing it.

The print edition went from like 9,000 on Amazon to, I think, 300 or 400 at the highest, which is really high on Amazon. Nice. Really high. And it's stuck there for quite a while. And I think it's now at around 3,000, but that's the print edition.

The audiobook at one point was, among audiobooks on Audible, it was right between the two Hunger Games. And so Rolf has ended up doing a ton of media, and that type of exposure and increase in sales can like, you know, double the advance you get for your next book, and certainly improve your income.

So I think that this will continue to evolve, but as it stands right now, I've acquired a few books that have had a huge impact on me, and it's basically taking books that I think never got the attention they deserve that have had a huge impact on me and sharing them with my audience.

That's it. And I think it will evolve. For instance, my ability to send out physical books could also be hugely attractive to people. So this is also something I haven't said, but I'll give away one of the items in the quarterly box coming out, which is a signed copy from Rolf of Vagabonding.

Oh, excellent. Excellent. I just signed up for your quarterly package. Awesome. Yeah, it's really cool. There's a nameplate on the inside with like a world map and his signature. It's pretty rad. And that's something you can't get anywhere, right? It's not something you can buy.

But it's also, to the author, that's 2,000 physical books that just got shipped out. That's a big deal. And two people like podcasters, two people like magazine editors, two people like founders of tech companies like Twitter, you know?

And like, it's a really good audience for these guys. And many of these authors like super cool in most, I mean, the ones up to this point are guys. So like really cool dudes, very, very focused on the craft of writing. And they're not weird like me.

They're not like super interested in marketing and PR. They just want to write good shit. And it's fun for me to support that and introduce my readers to it. No, I'm really happy about it. Because yeah, Vagabonding has had a huge influence on me as well. Everything I own fits in my car.

I can travel from anywhere in the country within like 72 hours. It's great. So I was really happy to see that that was the first book. And I'm glad you're doing it because there are a bunch of books out there that you just can't get, you know? Well, there are two really interesting things that I find about this concept.

And the first one is the concept of the kind of curatorial aspect or the editorial voice that we seem to be losing in internet culture. I mean, we all kind of know that the Amazon suggestion engines or Spotify suggestion engines, those are just horrible. So you're kind of bringing a curatorial thing to this because you've obviously got, you know, you're following and you're a lifestyle kind of guru sort of guy.

And anything that you suggest is probably going to be of interest to most of your followers. So you've got that going on, which is great. And then the second thing is totally the intellectual properties thing because we're seeing that getting trampled left, right, and center. But the forgotten story about IP rights right now is that there are so many things that are just kind of forgotten about completely and nobody knows who actually owns them anymore.

So that's a really interesting thing that you're going down and finding these things and tracking them down and going, hey, this is great. Let's reintroduce it to the world and let's make sure that this person gets protected and get these rights back. Yeah, exactly. And it's become a free-for-all. And I'm sure this is true in music.

Oh, it's exactly the same. Particularly with like merchandise rights and things like that because there are bands that are still out there. Even just like, because I'm 40 now, like bands from when I grew up, like Love and Rockets and things like that, who the music is still owned by a label, but nobody owns the merchandising rights anymore.

So people are just like printing up free-for-alls and the band's not making the scent because nobody's coming around to go, hey, let's make sure that this doesn't happen. Yeah. No, it's what's happening in the world of book publishing is that the publishers are trying to retroactively add addenda to their contracts to include digital rights, for instance.

And it's messy. It's really, really ugly. And the authors kind of get screwed. It's a really shitty deal. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. The content makers get screwed? I've never heard of that before. I know. Imagine that. And what you end up seeing also is that most publishers, almost all, do nothing effective from a marketing and PR standpoint.

So what will happen is the audiobook rights get sold, and then they just sit there. And the people who publish the audiobooks simply cross their fingers and assume that one out of 100 books will do extremely well, probably because the author kills himself trying to make it so.

And then they just kind of sit back and let Amazon and iTunes do the rest, which I think is pathetic. So that's been a very big issue. And in any case, yeah, I could lament the State of the Union all night long.

But the fact of the matter is, I'm super excited about this. I don't think it's going to be, at least initially, I don't think it's going to be a big moneymaker. But it's just like I'm so jazzed about it that I just, I don't particularly care. Hey, man, if you break even, keep doing it.

It's awesome. Yeah. And I'm really, I mean, I'm like excited just thinking about the next one. I can't, I can't yet say what it is, but there's a, there's some really fun ones coming. Okay. Now you got to tell me, how the hell did you get Neil Gaiman to do part of your audiobook?

Oh, dude. I got such a nerd boner when I heard that. I'm like, holy shit, this is so cool. Yeah. I got, so I actually got the files when I was at, I think I was at South by Southwest, I want to say. It was some time ago that I got them.

Was it South by Southwest? I was in Austin for some reason. I can't imagine that it wasn't South by. In any case, I like got up and literally danced around my hotel room, like yelling and screaming. I was like, what the fuck? What the fuck? I was like dancing around like an idiot because I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fanboy.

I mean, since the Sandman days. And that was just his writing. And then of course I started listening to the audiobooks and I was like, oh my God, this guy is like the best narrator of all time. He's incredible. Yeah, he, I mean, he grew into that so well. His first books were a little sketchy, but man, he has embraced it and he is hands down the best author reader in the world.

Yeah. I mean, Graveyard Book is one of my favorite books of all time as the audiobook read by him. It's amazing. So the way I got that, it was, so I put up a post on the blog saying, hey guys, you know, I'm going to be doing an audiobook. I would, I would, it would really be awesome if I could get any of these following people to narrate a guest chapter or something like that.

Here's a draft of a tweet you can put out, which would be like, hey, at Samuel Jackson, you know, like he's totally sweet. If you could narrate a chapter of Tim at T Ferris's book, like Link, right? And we had, we had maybe eight to 10 people up there.

And at one point my girlfriend's like, hey, did you see this thing on Twitter with Neil Gaiman? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And one of my readers pinged him and he responded with, sure, I'm in. And I was like, wait a second, wait a second. He's probably drunk.

Like, I think he's probably totally drunk because I don't think he realizes what he just did. And then I pinged him on Twitter, didn't hear back and sent his assistant, you know, I tracked down his assistant's email and sent his assistant an email and didn't hear back and kind of gave up hope.

I was like, oh, oh man, what a head fake. Oh, geez. And then got a response from his assistant, also got a response from Neil on Twitter and then kept on going back and forth trying to make it happen. And eventually I get this email from his assistant.

She's like, hey, send over the files ASAP. Like, can you just send what you want Neil to read ASAP? And I sent it over and literally, I think it was like 24 hours later, she's like, hey, turned out that Neil was already in an audiobook session. Here you go. Here are the files. And that's when I was like, what?

What? Oh my God. And they were so awesome. I mean, really exactly what you would hope out of, you know, Neil and his crew. It was just fantastic to deal with them. And sometimes, I don't know if you've ever had this happen, but you have the kind of heroes with clay feet experience where you meet someone, you really idolize and you're like, wow, what a dick, you know?

Yep. Yep. Far too often. Yes. And, uh, and, uh, it was, uh, I mean, they were just awesome. They were just awesome. Um, my favorite part of that chapter, by the way, and for those people listening to this who don't know what the hell we're talking about, I, I, I recorded, uh, an audiobook version of the four hour chef, you know, about 70% of the, of the book, because it's so, uh, there are a thousand, like a thousand plus photographs, uh, and give it away for free.

So you can find that out there on the internet on. Yeah. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. Cool. And if you listen really carefully to, uh, one of Neil's chapters, he's trying really hard to use American pronunciation of words like basil instead of basil and, you know, so much.

And he's reading this thing and he's killing it. I mean, it's just like a one take wonder. And he's maybe like three pages in and he says herbs instead of herbs. And he, and he, he goes, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, herbs. And there's, there's this awkward pause and he goes, oh, fuck off. You're getting the British pronunciation.

And then he keeps on going. I was like, oh my fucking God, that is amazing. Like have to keep that in. No, I think I spit up my water when I heard that I was laughing so hard. Uh, he's so good, man. Yeah. I'm not, we could, I could just talk about him for the next hour.

But, uh, if you want, if anyone's not familiar with Neil Gaiman, I think it's just at Neil himself on Twitter. Yeah. We, we, we, we've, we're huge fans on the show and we've covered his books multiple times. Just like the consummate artist on, in so many formats.

It's in so many genres. It's really cool. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about quantified self and like what's coming up. Cause I'm a huge Fitbit fan. Brian uses the moves app. We're, we're, we're trackers. You know, I've, I mean, I've, I've clocked about 4,000 miles on my Fitbit so far.

Holy crap. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've had since the Fitbit one, I'm, I'm the first Fitbit, not the Fitbit, the new Fitbit one, whatever. I've had one, I've had one since the get go and I've never taken it off. So, and, and, and the four hour body is what really hooked me on, on, onto your stuff too. I mean, I'd read the four hour work week, but it was when you did the four hour body and the whole idea of, of, you know, like biology hacking is so appealing to me.

I think it's because you, I mean, I'd read that you were also a, you also briefly were considering neuroscience in college as a, did I, and then I got out of it too. So yeah, I've gotten back into that, by the way, we could maybe talk about that as it relates to quantified self, but I'd love to, yeah, let's, let's jump into it, man.

I love talking about this stuff. What do you think, what do you think is coming next? Because we're starting to see all these watches come out. I mean, everybody's doing, you know, everybody's trying to come out with these products now. What do you, what's your take on them? Do you think they work?

Are they good enough? What do you think? Uh, well, you know, I think that, um, accelerometers are useful. Uh, I think that, uh, what's coming next, I'm actually involved with a startup. Uh, they haven't, they're not public yet, so I can't announce anything, but, uh, they're working on an approach to tracking biomarkers, usually, usually measured through the blood.

Is this the patch you've been talking about? Exactly. When the hell is that coming? You said it was coming this year. We're almost out of time. Come on, man. Yeah. It's no big surprise. I'm like, oh, biotech and a delay. Imagine that. Uh, so yeah, it's like a nicotine patch that would then give you a 24 seven readout of say 20 biomarkers

on your iPhone, uh, huge, obviously, uh, huge target, uh, very ambitious, highly prone to failure. But I think that's where we're going. I think that you'll, where the, the real value lies is in converting in two things, converting in data that is currently gathered invasively, i.e.

through like urinalysis or blood measurement, although urinalysis isn't, isn't, isn't terribly invasive. Uh, and, and converting that into continual monitoring so that people can trend. Uh, so the accelerometer data is, uh, can be useful in many different applications, whether that's say Fitbit or, uh, even driving behavior.

Uh, for instance, so I'm involved in, uh, uh, with a startup that is developing, uh, sort of car related accelerometer data to, to modify your driving behaviors and incentivize different, uh, driving behaviors.

Uh, which I think is by the way, I'm kind of a missing piece in a lot of the QS is, is not just measuring, but incentivizing the proper behavior. So I could see we've gone into, we've definitely gone into that for sure. Yeah, I think that could be really, really cool. Uh, but secondly, so turning invasive, meaning usually blood drawn into non-invasive is going to be a huge quantum leap forward.

Uh, and, uh, Scanadu is doing, doing some interesting stuff in that realm, uh, as it relates to creating the Star Trek tricorder, uh, uh, effectively. And I've, and I've spent time with those guys. They're pretty sharp. Uh, the second is taking data and turning it into actionable information for the masses.

That is a very gnarly problem, uh, because you could do something, for instance, like I did and take a Dexcom seven continuous glucose monitor and implant it in your side, like a type one diabetic and get this, you know, reams of data off of a transmitter that you have on your side and put it into an Excel spreadsheet on, you know, a PC because the, the software is so bad.

Uh, but 99 out of a hundred people are never going to even attempt that. Uh, and, uh, so, so I think one of the biggest challenges is, uh, making the, the information actionable, right?

Without totally bastardizing the science. And, uh, I'm, I'm definitely keeping my eyes open. I think a lot of people are developing self-tracking devices that will probably get regulated out of existence. Uh, one, one type in particular, uh, is brain stimulation.

Uh, and that's actually why I'm back in the neuroscience world, uh, because I'm spending time or have been spending time. This is just a few months ago before, uh, TV at UCSF at one of the, at the Sandler Neuroscience Lab with, uh, and a fantastic team, uh, called the Gazzali Lab looking at something called, uh, transcranial direct current stimulation and, uh, TDCS for short.

And that involves, can you guys hear me okay? Oh yeah. Yeah. That, that involves taking, uh, you know, two electrodes and anode and a cathode and putting it on your, putting them on your scalp so that you, you basically, uh, sort of, uh, cross hemispherely, uh, induce a current that is intended to, uh, in most cases, improve performance.

And there, there are military, uh, applications to this. And some studies have been done looking at first person shooter games where you do a very short duration TDCS and take someone from like 30% accuracy to 80% accuracy. I mean, it's insane. Um, and, uh, let me, let me ask you a question really quick about this because this is all getting like super crazy, kind of weirdly invasive.

And, and you're obviously involved with a lot of these companies at a startup level. What, and I, but, and I don't think I've ever heard your take on this, or at least I haven't read it yet. Where do you, you feel, where are you on the line on privacy issues and security issues with this sort of stuff? Because a lot of these apps, and we talk about this a lot on our podcast, scare the crap out of us in terms of, we don't know where our information is going.

We know it's not really being held very securely. We don't know who it's being sold to. And, and this, this is where we start to get in a really gray area where even me as a geek who is totally geeking out on everything that you're saying is also starting to get really paranoid and freaked out. Well, just, just, and I have talked about paranoia before, uh, let me get my bug out bag.

Uh, but the, uh, so here's, here's my position specifically as it relates to the TDCS. I think it's very premature to, to go to Kickstarter and create devices that allow people to self stimulate their brains with electricity.

I think it's that, I think it's very, but people already have done that, which is kind of another weird issue that I have with Kickstarter right now, which is anybody can do anything the hell they want. No, they can. And well, not quite, but I mean, because, because the TDCS really just involves using a nine volt battery.

It's very easy to trick yourself into believing, well, nine volt battery doesn't seem like much of a charge. Therefore I can apply it to my brain without injuring myself or damaging anything. And that's just not very true. It's kind of like candles, not candles, not very hot or it's not very large flame.

So therefore I can apply it to my eyeball. Like that's the, it's, it's just not a very, uh, prudent idea. Yeah, but come on, who, who as kids did not stick a nine volt battery on their tongue? You know, we were, we were doing brain, brain activity back then. Tongue, tongue is not quite, uh, quite the brain though.

Yeah, it's close. It's a little, it's close. But understood. So on the privacy side, uh, I, I get very nervous about this kind of stuff. I mean, to the extent that particularly with genetic data, uh, and how it might be used to decline health insurance, for instance, uh, I think that's absolutely coming and it's probably already being done.

Uh, so when, uh, when I was writing the four hour body, this part didn't make it into the book because unfortunately, like the, the genetic information is really hard to use proactively as an individual, but it's really easy to have it used against you currently. Does that make sense?

So you get your 23 and me data and you're like, oh great. I'm predisposed to Parkinson's. That sucks. And then you don't know what to do. Uh, whereas the insurance companies know to block you. Exactly. So that, that is problematic for me. So I actually, uh, basically, basically looked at how terrorists, uh, like not launder money, but, uh, use prepaid debit cards and stuff like that to preserve anonymity.

And I did, uh, a number of genetic tests with like celebrity names, like Michael Jackson, uh, because I didn't want my name to be associated. Uh, so I, I, I'm, I'm quite, uh, I'm aggressive in self-experimentation, but in certain instances, very private with the data.

Uh, a lot of what I do is so public that it doesn't make any sense for me to try to hide it, like, uh, injuries and surgeries and things like that. Right. But the genetics, I think, uh, have further reaching implications than many people realize. Uh, for instance, um, you know, there, there are people out there like Sergey Brin who were like, oh, here's my genome.

And, uh, you know, I was talking to a scientist at NASA who at one point helped design customized biological weaponry, meaning like if you want to kill a, you know, like Russian plutocrat, like, okay, well, let's figure out he has a predisposition to disease X.

Great. Like we can help trigger that by blowing like molybdenum into his face at a crowded rally. And like that shit is real. That is not, that is not science fiction. And, you know, maybe you don't see yourself as target for that kind of thing. My position is why risk it?

Like there are weird people out there and crazy people out there. And, uh, so I try to keep a lot of that private and I think it's a good policy to do so. Yeah. It's actually, uh, have you been watching that new show, Almost Human, the new JJ Abrams show? Oh, no, I haven't.

Okay. So all these cops get inoculated for a certain suite of, uh, biological, uh, agents in the, in the environment, in the, in the near future. And, and the criminals actually created a bio agent that just went after cops because they all had those markers, you know, it's that kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. That stuff's coming. It's probably already. It's, you know, it's kind of the same thing. So it's, it's, it's interesting that, you know, you're keeping it to yourself and that's a good thing. And I'm, I'm just, when we're talking about it, does 23, does 23 and me have like a really good security data policy? Because I mean, they've got, they're cross-referencing you with people who might, you know, uh, like celebrities you might be related to and ancestors and all this stuff.

It's like, who, like, where do they draw the line with privacy? You know, these, these public companies that are actually, they get your blood, they sequence you and then do this suite of cross, like big data tests. And it's like, well, what if I don't want that? You know, then I, I particularly get worried with these kinds of more startup and younger companies.

And this would even count. It's like, if these companies happen to unfortunately go under for any reason, that stuff gets sold off as assets. Yep. They own the data and that terrifies me. And we're getting into a very strange world with this sort of stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Totally agreed. Um, so I, I mean, I'm in a different place than many folks in so much as, you know, so much of my life is whether I like it or not very public. So I'm kind of past the point of no return. So I, I actually, in some respects take much more precaution and then in other respects take no precaution at all.

Cause I'm like, ah, like it's, it's already out there in so many places that it's, it's, it's un, it's ineffective for me to, to try to do anything. What I would say, uh, this is getting into, uh, let's delve, let's delve into paranoia for a bit. All right. So the, welcome to grumpy old geeks, bring it on.

I do think, I do think that if you are trying to avoid problems related to privacy, sometimes you cannot prevent your data from being released, uh, or found. But what you can do is you can cede incorrect information.

So I think that deliberate disinformation is oftentimes more effective than trying to get, trying to keep your stuff from getting released. Yeah. Rather than cover your tracks, flood the marketplace. That's correct. Yep. Yeah. So, yep. You would definitely get along with one of our previous guests, uh, Dr. David Teeter, who was, uh, in the spook world.

He's, he's, he's, he's pretty good at that stuff. Actually, actually, we talked about him. He's, uh, he's the Soma guy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, we'll cut this a little bit out, but, uh, he's, uh, he, he was a spook for a long time and he's like, yeah, just, just flood the, flood the waves with information.

And they, there's no way that they can parse through it. Yeah, yeah, create noise. Absolutely. Okay. So I have a question from the audience for you. Yeah. The audience being my 22 year old little brother. All right.

I, he's, I, I gave him your first book. I mean, he's 22 now. So whenever the four hour, uh, work week came out, he was, he got one of the first copies. Nice. Uh, he just graduated from, uh, the university of Wisconsin. He had a major in physics and a minor in Japanese. Oh, cool.

So now he's a medical physicist, but he's also into dance. He's been dancing for like 15 years. Like he goes to classes three times a week. So he has a question about tango and how you got to, uh, the level that you got to so quickly. Yeah.

So he's like, uh, how did you advance to the world cup in Argentine tango so quickly? Was it through raw practice or was it some technicality? Like what you did in your sumo competitions or the, and, and as a corollary, is it possible to apply the metal learning you discuss in the four hour chef to somatic or physical skills such as dance?

Okay. Uh, yeah, let me talk about that. So it wasn't because of a technicality. Um, and the technicality I took advantage of was actually in a Chinese kickboxing, but I was nicknamed sumo because I was pushing people out of the ring. Um, but coming back to the tango, the, the way that I progressed in tango as quickly as I did, uh, which was, I guess, around six months from first class to, to world championships was, uh, and I didn't win that.

I mean, I made it to the semis, which I thought was pretty good, but the, the way I went about doing that was, uh, number one, questioning the conventional ordering of how one learns tango as a male, typically you start off obviously learning all of the male role and steps and whatnot.

I actually learned the female role first, uh, hypothesizing that that would then allow me to lead. It would teach me how to lead much more effectively, oddly enough. Right. So I had a female teacher first who taught me the female role. And then after that only moved to practicing the male role, uh, which seems really weird, but it's actually very common, uh, in old art, in old tango in Argentina for like men to dance together.

So, uh, that is first unorthodox thing that I did. The second unorthodox thing, uh, that I did was I reviewed competition video and then took classes with the people who were competing.

And I tried to discern a few things. Number one, what did the best competitors have in common technically when I watched their competition footage? Second, what are they teaching explicitly that they claim is important? And what, what are the, what are the techniques that I see in competition that they are not teaching?

In other words, the stuff that's important that they rely on, that they're not aware is what they rely on. Does that make, does that make sense? Absolutely. Okay. And then I focused on, I focused on those things as my competitive advantage. And so it turned out, it turned out that things like very long linear steps and varying your speed, even in something that's, uh, supposedly like a hundred percent slow, having like a small acceleration and then slowing down again.

Uh, those were two aspects of the top competitors that were, that, that were not taught explicitly. So I, I made a point of learning those things. So next, when I came down to practice, uh, I videotaped almost, I would, I would practice, practice, practice.

And then if I had an epiphany or if there was a certain technique that I wanted to review and practice later, uh, I would take these classes during the day. I would videotape it and then I would, uh, I would go home. Um, I would categorize these techniques into different folders on my computer.

So you would have, uh, Oh God, I'm just trying to think. You might have some type of like an, in, in the, in the road, like in the road, okay. Is it or in road, okay. As they say is a specific type of spin. So there might be like five or six different types of that spin that I wanted to group together and practice.

Boom. So that's one folder. And, uh, then I would create a, to practice list, uh, in a notepad for going out that night and, uh, practicing, you know, sparring basically. So you're taking a class where everything is very tightly controlled and you're doing drilling, but the real test is going out to a dance hall and trying to lead a woman you don't know in a move that is brand new to you.

And that is fucking embarrassing, uh, uh, but that is when the, the real, real learning occurs, right? I mean, it's the same thing for language. It's, you can sit in a room all you want. It's getting out in the street and being surrounded by it. That's when your brain kicks in. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So it's, so it's, it's like, uh, it's like doing drills on a piece of paper for grammar and language versus going out and like talking to someone after two drinks. It's, it's completely different. And the, uh, so that is how I practice. And then I would kind of score myself on these various things that I'd set out to practice that evening.

And that would give me a, to practice list for the next class, the following morning or afternoon. Uh, so it's very methodical about how I approached it. Extremely, extremely methodical. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. I think that will definitely answer his question.

Thank you. So in short, you know, does the, does the meta learning from the four hour chef apply to physical or somatic skills? Absolutely. A hundred percent. Okay. Wow. That was really good. Cause I was actually, I was wondering about that, that myself, because you did kind of jump like straight to, you know, you talk exactly about how you won the kickboxing.

And then when it came to tango, there wasn't really kind of a deep explanation and that, that, that you've just filled that gap. So thank you very much. Yeah, of course. My pleasure. Oh man. Oh, I actually want to go back and hit on some of your previous work, your best hits as it were, um, as well.

Uh, cause I, I went back and it's been a long time since I've looked at the four hour work week. And I was just wondering what your thoughts are now, cause how many years on now, like you talk a lot about how, okay, let's just avoid our email for a while. I don't think anybody can anymore. In fact, it's part of the job that for a lot of people that they have to check and be available 24 seven.

What are your thoughts on some of the, the, the concepts that you laid out and how they may or may not apply anymore? Uh, well, I, I would actually, I would challenge the, uh, the assumption that people have to be available 24 seven.

I think it's a common belief. I think it's common behavior. Uh, but, uh, I'll give you a perfect, like a very personal example. I mean, the costs, the financial cost of me going completely AWOL. It has never been higher, right?

The opportunity cost has never been higher for me. Uh, I'm, you're, you're dicking around with us for an hour. So there you go. I know a gajillion dollars. Yeah, right. So the, no, but this, I mean, there's not everything is obviously financially driven.

I mean, this is fun for me also, but, uh, the, the, the, the point being before the four hour work week implementing what I recommended, despite the fact that I was running a company and got plenty of email was relative to now much, much easier for me.

Uh, so it has never been harder, uh, and more important. I think those two go together for me to implement this stuff. Uh, that having been said, uh, I think it was about six months ago. It may have been a bit before that, uh, my brain, it's all a blur at this point, but I took, I took four weeks off of computers, phones, and calendars in Indonesia.

I mean, literally nothing, I mean, completely off the grid and had to create systems as kind of outlined in the four hour work week to ensure that things, number one, not only would they not collapse while I was gone, but then when I got back, the systems would, would persist so that they would actually continue to add value in terms of automation and simplifying things.

Uh, so I, I, I, I would say that, um, the principles in the four hour work week are as relevant, probably more important than even in 2007 or 2009 when the revised edition was put out. Uh, I'm sure a handful of the URLs in the book could probably be updated, but aside from that, I think the, the, the general principles and tactics are, are, uh, even more relevant now

that people feel much more so than in 2007 that they, they can't be offline for an hour. I mean, it's, it's incredible how much pressure people feel to constantly be connected. And I think that continual, uh, feeding of cortisol release and the, the continual exposure to blue light late at night, which interrupts sleep is really fucking people up.

I mean, I think that. Well, the interesting thing is I, I think it's really causing problems for a lot of people in kind of our generation. I look at the, the kids right now, they don't want to be disconnected ever. Like a lot of us, like we were like, Oh my God, I need to get away from this.

The next generation just seems to be like sucked right onto that teat. And I'm terrified to see what happens with them when they, when they finally burn out, it's going to be scary. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm curious to see even just from a very basic, uh, visual development standpoint, like how many of these, uh, kids are just going to be extremely nearsighted because they're constantly looking at an iPhone or a smartphone or a screen of some type that's eight inches from their face.

Oh God. I have, I have nieces and nephews and a bunch of friends that have babies and they're basically, I mean, they're being raised on iPads. Yeah. The kids love that. Babies love that stuff. And that's, that's going to be really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed, man. Totally agreed. So, yeah, I think Brian's point was that we're in the service industry.

So we're, we're always, we always need to be on call. So how do you kind of mitigate that? And although for today, what I did was I told my, my client who I'm on a deadline with, that's due in three days and get email from literally every four minutes. I'm like, I'm going to be gone for four hours.

And, and the strangest thing happened. Uh, I haven't gotten an email from her and she said, okay. So, you know, I, I mean, I think a lot of it is, is you do have kind of have to set your own boundaries and then people will kind of respect it. But there does just seem to be a, the reason I brought it up is I see the acceleration and how everybody has this fear of like not being around anymore.

And, and there's gotta be something that we can do culturally to kind of pull it back. And maybe you're all right. Maybe the principles still do apply. We just had kind of have to man up and sack up a little bit more to, to put our foot down and put them into play. Yeah, I think that, uh, I'll, I'll recommend a few resources. There's a, there's a free PDF out there, uh, basically a white paper written by, uh, a CEO called breaking the time barrier and break, breaking the time barrier is about specifically,

uh, either improving or breaking out of the dollars per hour model that many people get stuck in. Uh, and, uh, you know, service industries are service businesses, uh, are very challenging. I mean, product businesses are as well, but in different ways.

So I think breaking the time barrier is worth a read. Um, secondly, I would say that, uh, the, the e-myth revisited would be a longer treatment on working kind of on the business as opposed to in the business. Uh, there are ways to convert service business into a product business.

Um, there are ways to move from say a per hour, uh, model to a, uh, retainer model and set the conditions such that you do not get emails every four minutes, for instance. Uh, so I think there, there are, I would be really interested in that because I've actually been my personal business.

I've been running as a retainer model for 15 years and I'm getting massive push from all my clients to switch to an hourly model. Yeah. I think, I think things are turning that way right now. So that, that's really intriguing to me that you think that it can still go that direction. Oh, definitely.

Yeah. Without a doubt. And I think ultimately it comes down to number one, demonstrating enough value that it's, it's, it's more cost, more painful and expensive for them to reject your retainer model than to, uh, leave and seek a, uh, let me rephrase that.

It is cheaper for them and better for them to stay with you with a retainer model as opposed to choose a competitor, uh, or force you to use a, uh, dollar per hour, uh, compensation model. Uh, secondly is, uh, I, I, it's very important to curate your, your customer base and it sounds like a fantastic problem to have, but, uh, no, that's, that's beyond true in my experience.

I agree with that a hundred percent. It's very challenging to initially fire a customer, particularly if they generate a good amount of revenue for the business. Uh, but I just remember how much my life changed when I did that with wholesalers and immediately like the insomnia that I had, the like self-flagellating, the anger that I carried around with me all the time, just vaporized because I got rid of these two assholes basically who are constantly berating me, wanted to negotiate everything after terms had been settled.

I mean, just the, the real, exactly the type of people you do not want to spend time with. And, uh, I think that you can be very assertive in setting your own terms, assuming, you know, that you're, you're very compelling versus the competition.

Um, and again, I'll just mention the breaking the time barrier PDF, I think is, is definitely worth a read. Right. Cool. Yeah. We actually talked about firing clients in our last episode, people who, people who don't have the same sense of humor you have, you probably should never work with. Yeah.

That simplifies things dramatically. Well, especially in the world of social media, when you try and make a joke at four in the morning after you've been working for 20 hours and they don't get the joke and want to fire you. Well, you know what, if they don't get the joke, you shouldn't be working with them. So I know you got to run.

I just want to do a little bit of follow-up real quick with the honey, the honey experiment that you posted. Okay. I've been doing this religiously until last night when I was so tired. I, we put out our new doesn't have legs podcast and I was done at like one in the morning and, uh, went up to bed, got in bed and I'm like, oh shit, man, I forgot my honey.

Uh, okay. We'll do an experiment and see if it, see if it works. I tell you what, at four o'clock in the morning, I was wide awake. I couldn't go back to sleep. I slept like shit the rest of the night. Ever since I started the honey, I have slept perfectly through the night. I don't wake up once and I wake up refreshed.

So I am, I am 100% on board with that. It's, and it's a delicious little, uh, little cocktail. Yeah. I mean, I started with the, the apple cider vinegar and the honey and the cup of hot water and, and I've actually just pulled it back to just a tablespoon of honey and it works exactly the same.

It's more delicious if you do it with the vinegar and it helps. You fall asleep a little bit faster because you have the nice little warm, uh, warm, warmth in your tummy. But man, just the honey itself has been amazing. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, I've, I've really been enjoying it and I actually need to, I'm in, in New York now.

I need to go restock tomorrow for the next couple of days. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's really nice. And I was thinking, you know, it might be really tasty to put a little bit of lemon in there as well. Kind of make it taste like a hot toddy a bit.

Ooh, that's a good, yeah, good call. Yeah. Hot toddy is my favorite cold cure. Can't go wrong with that. Oh, delicious. Yes. So good to hear, man. Yeah. I've all, I, you know, I've, I've had sleep issues continually and it's always nice when you find something that, that eases that pain, makes it a little easier to get to sleep or stay asleep.

Yeah. It's the staying asleep. I'm a four o'clock waker upper every night and then you wake up and it's, it's just exactly that time when your brain is thinking about everything you've done wrong in your life and you sit there for like five hours going, Oh Jesus, will it end soon? Yeah.

It's a sleep is man. Sleep is really just the crux issue for so many people. Uh, and I think, you know, one thing that's helped me also quite a bit is using a program that's free called flux. I don't know if you've ever run into this, but it, yeah, we've covered it.

We've actually reviewed that on the show. That's my go-to. I love that. Yeah. Flux is fantastic. Uh, so I think all those things in combination are super, super helpful. Cool, man. Well, thanks for taking the time out. I know you got to get back to your family. Turkey day's coming up. Got to prep. Yeah. Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

And, uh, this is fun. This is fun. So to be, to be continued, uh, and, uh, you know, people can see that episode that you mentioned, the free episode of, uh, the Tim Ferriss experiment at, uh, well, many places. iTunes is actually probably the highest resolution, but you can also go to, uh, YouTube or just upwave.com slash TFX.

So yeah, we'll have basically. We'll have basically everything in the show notes and, uh, we're, we're, we're pretty good with research. If you, you, you know me for long enough that I'm, I'm Mr. Fucking research. So I love it. I love it. Well, guys, it was really nice talking to you, man. I'd love to have you on again.

And in the near future, it'd be great. We can definitely expand on a lot of this stuff and have a great Thanksgiving. Thanks very much, guys. You too. So I will, uh, I'll let you go. Have a good night. All right, man. Have a good one. Okay. Bye.

We'll see you on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Grumpy Old Geeks or email them at podcast at Grumpy Old Geeks.com. Have a good week. Okay. Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer.

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