{"id":14140,"date":"2026-11-14T02:11:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T06:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-qa-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck-resilience-in-hard-times-tools-for-brain-health-finding-inner-peace-optimism-as-a-learnable-skill-and-more-889\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T02:11:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T06:11:16","slug":"the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-qa-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck-resilience-in-hard-times-tools-for-brain-health-finding-inner-peace-optimism-as-a-learnable-skill-and-more-889","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-qa-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck-resilience-in-hard-times-tools-for-brain-health-finding-inner-peace-optimism-as-a-learnable-skill-and-more-889\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Q&#038;A with Tim \u2014 How to Get Unstuck, Resilience in Hard Times, Tools for Brain Health, Finding Inner Peace, Optimism as a Learnable Skill, and More (#889)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please enjoy this transcript of <a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/11\/12\/qa-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck\/\">part 2 of my recent subscriber Q&amp;A<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/11\/12\/qa-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck\/#:~:text=All%20episodes-,Show%20Notes,-Recommended%20Reading%2C%20Listening\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Books, people, tools, and resources mentioned in the episode<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/11\/12\/qa-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck-transcript\/#legal-conditions-qa-with-tim-getting-unstuck\">Legal conditions and copyright information<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"podcast-player\">\n<div class=\"podcast-player-inner-wrap\">\n<p>Q&amp;A with Tim \u2014 How to Get Unstuck, Resilience in Hard Times, Tools for Brain Health, Finding Inner Peace, Optimism as a Learnable Skill, and More<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.art19.com\/shows\/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba\/episodes\/dff9adf5-703f-4763-992b-c45a1cb5152d\/embed?type=micro\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional podcast platforms<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Listen to this episode on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/889-q-a-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck-resilience-in\/id863897795?i=1000801263299\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/889-q-a-with-tim-how-to-get-unstuck-resilience-in\/id863897795?i=1000801263299\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+AAKebtGz5jU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcastaddict.com\/podcast\/2031148#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Podcast Addict<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/timferriss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pocket Casts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castbox.fm\/channel\/id1059468?country=us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castbox<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/music.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLuu6fDad2eJyWPm9dQfuorm2uuYHBZDCB\">YouTube Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/9814f3cc-1dc5-4003-b816-44a8eb6bf666\/the-tim-ferriss-show\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.com\/podcast\/The-Tim-Ferriss-Show\/B08K58QX5W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Audible<\/a>, or on your favorite podcast platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Next one is from Mary, \u201cI know Alzheimer\u2019s prevention is a big focus for you. Can you give a concise listing of the preventative measures you are taking, including drugs, all therapies, i.e. TMS, hot, cold, et cetera, food and movement?\u201d Mary, you\u2019re in good luck. In fact, I already have a draft of a blog post that is also going to be turned into a podcast where I\u2019m going to go through all of this in excruciating Tim Ferriss detail, but I will give you a few things that come to mind and there will be much more in terms of detail and non-obvious choices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I\u2019m going to preface it by saying that we are in the Dark Ages still with Alzheimer\u2019s and many neurodegenerative diseases. Having shepherded a few relatives through treatments for Alzheimer\u2019s, I will say that it is primitive AF and many of these drugs are a Faustian bargain. In my opinion, I have access to a lot of great researchers and there\u2019s very little consensus on the best way to try to address these things. I would say the only consensus I can point to is that prevention is the name of the game. And these processes, at least as we currently understand them, that culminate in what we would diagnose as say Alzheimer\u2019s start pretty early, 30s, 40s, right. So I won\u2019t get into all the mechanisms of action that I think are most interesting because that\u2019s beside the point, you asked what I\u2019m doing. Some of what I\u2019m doing, sauna a few times a week, 20 minutes, somewhere between 170 and 180 degrees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hotter is not better. You can look at some of Rhonda Patrick\u2019s, Dr. Rhonda Patrick\u2019s coverage of the research. You don\u2019t want to overcook your head. That is going to push you in the wrong direction, not the right direction. Interval training, Dr. Tommy Wood and I talked about this at length. It remains, I think, one of the most interesting interventions that I\u2019ve come across, certainly at least as supported for maintaining hippocampal volume in the brain. And we can talk about the importance of the hippocampus another time. But doing this Norwegian 4\u00d74 training, which is hard, I\u2019m going to warn you, it\u2019s also helpful for VO\u2082 max. And we can talk about how that\u2019s correlated to all sorts of good things, but you\u2019re basically doing four minutes of all out intense exercise. By last minute, you feel like you\u2019re going to die and you\u2019re being chased by wolves, getting to a very high heart rate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I use a heart rate monitor, Morpheus, for tracking all of this. And then you take three minutes off and then you do four again and you do four rounds of that. Okay. Doing this, I think it was three times a week for six months, produced durable changes out five years, if I\u2019m remembering correctly. That is nuts. That is pretty wild. Is that the perfect protocol? Is that what you need? We don\u2019t know, but the evidence so far, at least that\u2019s been documented, supports that. There are other things you can do. Zone 2 training, certainly for mitochondrial health. Urolithin A is a supplement I\u2019ve decided to take also for predominantly mitochondrial health. We don\u2019t have time to dig into that, but I do find the research there pretty compelling. You can buy that on Amazon or online. It\u2019s produced by a company called Timeline. Mitopure is their patented Urolithin A.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there are other things that are light lifts. And again, I\u2019m not saying any of these things cure Alzheimer\u2019s. I think by the time someone\u2019s far gone, it\u2019s pretty much far gone. However, five milligrams of lithium orotate, I do take five milligrams of lithium orotate. That is also OTC, you can get it easily. And listen to my podcast with Tommy Wood, tripling down on dental health, air purifiers, water, creating systems such that your environment and your routines are as supportive as possible. I have become a huge fan of, so in the case of dental health, for instance, using gum or mouthwash that includes xylitol. And don\u2019t have time to get into it right now in great depth, but a blog post and podcast is coming that\u2019s going to be dedicated to this with the enormous grain of salt that I am not in the business of treating disease.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, I am genetically predisposed to Alzheimer\u2019s with APOE3\/4 and other risk factors, so I am throwing the kitchen sink at it or everything in the kitchen sink, I suppose the expression goes. So thanks for the question, Mary. Hopefully that is somewhat helpful, but my blog post and podcast will have a lot more.<\/p>\n<p>This is from, I think a different Susan. \u201cI\u2019ve spent nearly 30 years practicing acupuncture and previously worked as a psychotherapist. I observed that people can desperately want to heal while unconsciously holding under the very patterns that keep them suffering. Have you ever recognized exactly what was keeping you stuck yet found yourself unable to let it go and what finally allowed you to?\u201d Oh yeah, all the time. And just look at anyone\u2019s New Year\u2019s resolutions, mine included. And look, I do the past year review and I\u2019ve got my behavioral engineering and so on, but there\u2019s still things that I can see.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I remember hearing Sam Harris talk about sorting other people\u2019s problems out. It\u2019s like you can sort out other people\u2019s problems in two seconds. Giving advice is easy, but actually moving into the catalyzing stage where you translate good intention to behavior is something else. So psychedelics I\u2019m not going to spend a lot of time on. They do allow you oftentimes to step outside of yourself as the protagonist in your own movie and watch that movie on a screen as someone in the audience. So it can be very helpful for developing an awareness and opening a window of opportunity for rewriting some of the beliefs and patterns that govern your life. But outside of that, IFS, <em>Internal Family Systems<\/em> created by Dick Schwartz, I think is very useful and no drugs required, although it is often implemented in some form in the preparation and integration for say MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. CBT, very helpful, might not be sexy, but in large part originating out of Stoic philosophy. If you have not looked into the genesis story, it\u2019s actually a good read.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, very interesting. DBT, also very interesting. People can look that up if they\u2019d like. And <em>Atomic Habits<\/em>, I mentioned it once before. There\u2019s a reason it sold 25 million, 30 million copies. Good God, non-recurring phenomenon. Good for you, James. And the last two things I would say is that the pain has to be painful enough. Sometimes people just aren\u2019t in enough pain to change. I mean, I\u2019ve seen this with addicts over and over and over again. I\u2019ve sadly had family members who have died from addiction. I\u2019ve had best friends who\u2019ve died from addiction. I\u2019ve had friends who have friends who are currently addicted. Sometimes they have to really hit rock bottom. I hate to say it, but sometimes the pain isn\u2019t painful enough. And then last but not least, I\u2019ll mention fear setting. People can find fear setting, which I\u2019ve talked about quite a bit before. My TED Talk, which has God knows how many views now, I don\u2019t know, many millions, focuses on this exclusively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think tim.blog\/ted will take you to that and you can find it online for free. Don\u2019t have to buy anything. There are many aspects of this fear setting, which is intended to methodically remove different emergency brakes in your life, which are nebulous fears or inhibitions of one type or another. But there\u2019s one aspect of fear setting. It\u2019s the piece that is most neglected and most applies to this question, which is describing in writing the cost of inaction. All right. And so what that looks like, you can take a piece of paper. It\u2019s very straightforward. Grab a piece of paper. I like doing this analog, create three columns. You got one year, three years, 10 years, and then put at the top whatever it is that you would like to change. And then you have cost of inaction. So now you have three columns with three timelines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in each of those columns, you\u2019re just going to write down if nothing changes, if you continue doing what you\u2019re doing or not doing what you\u2019re not doing, what are the costs physically, financially, relationally, whatever it might be, one year from now, three years from now, could be five years, pick your poison, 10 years from now. And chances are, if you get to that stage with something, the picture that it paints that is, let\u2019s just call it nearly inevitable, is not going to be pretty. And that is how you take something that isn\u2019t currently painful enough and you magnify it with a reality-accelerator to make it compelling enough so that you make a change, recognizing that the change involves less pain, likely temporary, less risk, also probably reversible than the status quo. Because we think of risk or downside risks or problems as the byproduct of something we do that is new, but we don\u2019t often take the time to consider the atrocious cost of the status quo and inaction.<\/p>\n<p>Remember the format question I planted? Here\u2019s the question from Jason A. \u201cHey, Tim, I\u2019ve been a big fan since <em>The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em>. I have all the books and was in a test group for Coyote.\u201d Thank you for that. Appreciate it. That was a fun little experiment with the card game. \u201cReally appreciate you and everything you do. Question, I really love the more relaxed and less polished format of The Random Show and the Q&amp;As. Wondering if those are less effort.\u201d Fuck yeah, they\u2019re less effort for me. Okay. \u201cWondering if those are less effort for you compared to the researched intentional guest episodes.\u201d Yes, I put a ton of time into those. \u201cAnd it seems like there are just too many interview format podcasts in the world at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okay. I know I\u2019m interjecting with my own director\u2019s commentary here. \u201cAny chance you would pivot towards a more consistently extemporaneous format in the future?\u201d Yes, I\u2019ve wanted to do this and I have had a number of different thoughts on how I might experiment with it. I\u2019ve done some co-hosting experiments in the past, you might have noticed, where I\u2019ve had say Kevin Kelly on, good friend of mine, and they invite the guest and we both interview them. Did this with Danny Hillis, amazing, amazing, such a fun interview. And for me, those are extemporaneous, more extemporaneous. I think that may not be as obvious to the listener or to the viewer, but that is the case. And I am eager to hear what you would like to see me do. So please add in the comments what formats you would watch or listen to, what you think could be fun for me to experiment with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am very, very interested in this. So of course, as I am doing this in real time, we have a feed of comments. I\u2019d love for you guys to drop in a bunch of comments. But if you want to gestate and come back with a suggestion, you can also shoot me an @reply. Just tag me on X @tferriss, T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, and use #format in that tweet somewhere. All right. So that\u2019s the ask. I would love your input. I would love your thoughts, recommendations for experimental formats. This is something I really would like to do because it\u2019s fun for me to do. It\u2019s lightweight, but I get to exercise my brain more in some respects than a fixed-format interview. I think interview formats are largely dead. I think almost every interview-based format in the world of podcasting, AKA, if we\u2019re looking at the latest vintage television shows on YouTube, are basically islands in the middle of the ocean with a rising water level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s not a question of if they will be consumed. It is just a matter of when with respect to AI and other things. I\u2019ve talked about the canary in the coal mine, which is prescriptive nonfiction in the form of books. I published my sales numbers and so I\u2019m looking at trend lines post introduction of ChatGPT 3.5 in, I believe it was November of 2023. And there are many reasons therefore that I would love to experiment with this and let me know. I would really love to take a stab at it. So keep dragging them in. I will have access to this chat after we stop the live stream and certainly I will be watching the specific tweets that go up with @tferriss and format. So please do let me know.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of questions in translating thought or introspection or brainstorming to action.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>MIDROLL #1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is from Vedant, \u201cHow do you stop being an intellectual collector and start being a builder?\u201d And honestly, I would look at some of the older videos by Casey Neistat, who was a very famous, still is a very famous creator who\u2019s had the longevity of decades at this point. He is very good at verbalizing and giving a rationale for consistently shipping something, whether it\u2019s once a day, once a week, once a month, it can be anything, which relates back to developing a bias towards action with the smallest next-possible action. It doesn\u2019t need to be big, but you\u2019re reconstructing an identity and then the identity will lead you to habitual behaviors and that will lead to more output.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">John T, \u201cAs it pertains to AI, 12 months from now, what will we wish we were doing today that we aren\u2019t?\u201d Probably more defining and elimination as described in <em>The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em>, but you don\u2019t need to read <em>The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em>. You could buy books like The 80\/20 Principle by Richard Koch. There are many different options. I have already recommended The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. These are evergreen topics that are going to increase in importance.<\/p>\n<p>Question from Mitchell, \u201cAs the current events seem to continue to turn darker and darker, how are you staying positive in supporting your own mental health at this time? How are you remaining hopeful? What strategies have you implemented?\u201d Well, I have not had any social media apps outside of YouTube, which I use daily for learning. I\u2019ve not had any social media apps on my phone for probably five years now. I think that is a very simple step that you can experiment with doing a social media cleanse\/fast for one or two months. Trust me, it\u2019s like doing 20 years of therapy. So you can swim upstream against this raging waterfall of bullshit and rage, or you can step out of that and just sit in an inner tube and float down the stream without social media. So in other words, it removes the need to do a lot of things when you remove that input. I would say, related to this, deciding on in your calendar where you\u2019re going to have upside time and downside time. And what I mean by that is you spend an hour or two, it could be on ChatGPT, it could be on YouTube, could be elsewhere, looking for optimistic cases, asking questions about possibility and opportunities in the age of AI, in, fill in the blank, in sector X, whatever it might be. This is upside time. So you are deliberately putting on your optimist hat. Somewhat echoes the thinking hats of Edward de Bono and lateral thinking, but you\u2019re putting on your optimism hat for upside time. This is in your calendar, right? This is dedicated study hall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then downside time is similar. You are proactively setting aside time to look at risks, kind of like strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. You\u2019re going to be focusing on weaknesses, threats, risks, et cetera, with the focus on finding descriptions of what can be done. It\u2019s not just a description of the problem. So I would use, for instance, an LLM as the front end to your YouTube search. And the reason for this is that to the extent possible, you really want to avoid, in my opinion, a passive feed of rage, nihilism and pessimism. And that\u2019s what you get if you go to youtube.com and immediately get pulled into your curated fear, uncertainty and doubt clips and shorts collection. This is how the platforms continue to make you the product. Their customers are advertisers. They\u2019re selling your attention. That is the sole purpose of these platforms from a business model perspective.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do not be fooled. The goal is not to entertain. The goal is not to help. The goal is to keep you on for as long as possible. And we have a heavy human proclivity to spend a lot more time on the things that upset us than things that make us optimistic. So the approach that counterbalances that inclination is having upside time and downside time and calendaring it. I would say two other things for me personally. Look at your past. You made it to where you are right now. There have been recessions, there have been wars, there have been lots of problems, and you somehow figured it out. Sure you had stumbles along the way, you probably had some disasters and you recovered from those things. So I am reading, for instance, and this might seem like it\u2019s in my downside time, but I would actually put it in my upside time, I\u2019m reading a book right now called <em>Hard Times<\/em> by Studs Terkel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So Studs Terkel is amazing, won the Pulitzer Prize. This is an old book, <em>Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression<\/em>. And it is dozens and dozens and dozens of vignettes that have been organized thematically with people who went through the Depression explaining in their own words what happened to them. And you have destitution, but joy. You have people who did better than ever during the worst of times. And they weren\u2019t necessarily bankers, a lot of those went the other way. Jingle writers, for instance. There\u2019s a very, very concrete example of someone who wrote jingles and just had this outpouring of creative productivity during the Depression. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of examples, people of every gender, every race imaginable. And it\u2019s deeply humanizing of something that most of us are really only familiar with in a very passing way. It was a hard period in US history and we\u2019ve seen black and white photos of women sitting on doorsteps with underfed children and we know a thing or two about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe we know about the stock crash and brokers jumping out of windows, et cetera. Okay, fine. But that\u2019s a very cursory glance at what was an incredibly important historic event. And this book just personalizes the whole thing. That\u2019s upside time for me because it highlights again and again and again and again human resilience and how good people are at surviving, recovering and then thriving after the fact. So those are a few. And look, not to sound like a shill for my own books, trust me, I make next to nothing from my books and you don\u2019t have to buy it, I\u2019m sure you can find it on Pirate Bay or something, but the meta section of The 4-Hour Chef, which focuses on accelerated learning, is the most important section in that book. And it\u2019s about 80 pages. The name of the game on some level is having confidence that you can adapt in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s a chicken and the egg situation because as Mike Maples Jr., a very accomplished entrepreneur and investor, told me at one point, \u201cOne of the few things that you\u2019re responsible for with your kids is teaching them to be optimistic because if you teach them to be optimistic, they see options. They feel like they have agency.\u201d So does the optimism come first and then the action or is it action and then the optimism? I think it actually points both ways. The arrow is bidirectional. So reading a book like this, <em>Hard Times<\/em>, makes me more optimistic that I can figure things out. Spending time on meta learning makes me more confident that I can figure things out. Even if I\u2019m test driving the toolkit on something that seems as trivial and unnecessary as rock climbing, as is the case currently, or it could be working on portrait drawing using Procreate and following along with YouTube videos, applying the toolkit. It doesn\u2019t matter where you apply it, it\u2019s the same toolkit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if you\u2019re refining your use of that toolkit on anything, you are getting better at cultivating the metacognition and ability to learn that will give you adaptability in a rapidly changing world, et cetera, et cetera. And then the social media cleanse is in the elimination bucket. It is turning off the torrent of inputs of the trivial many. And look, I have no social media on my phone. Do my friends still send me the dumbest and most entertaining memes on Instagram? Do I get sucked into it? Yes, but I can only go so far because I don\u2019t have the app on my phone. So I can waste a few minutes on some dumb, so many dumb things that I receive every day from my ridiculous friends. And I enjoy it. I\u2019m not going to lie. Look, the internet is built for entertainment, among other things, sure, but I limit the damage to the downside risk of my own human inclinations by taking those apps off my phone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I\u2019ll stop there for now, but those are a few of the things that come to mind.<\/p>\n<p>Question on wabi-sabi is from Eman. I\u2019m probably mispronouncing that. Will handmade work and human connection become more valuable? In other words, human imperfection. Yes, I do think it will. I\u2019m not sure quite how to capitalize on that or what to do with that assumption, but I do think that\u2019s definitely going to be the case.<br \/>I\u2019m going to go for a bit more, and then I\u2019m headed to the gym. Oh, that\u2019s another thing. Yeah, state, remember that? Go to the gym or just work out at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Exercise, folks. Like mind-body separation, that whole Cartesian duality, bunch of nonsense. If you want to feed your brain, you want to feed your mood, you want to be optimistic, fix your state, exercise. So I\u2019m headed straight to the gym after this.<\/p>\n<p>Ox the moron, that\u2019s a good one. Best way to spend five to 10K today to get current on AI. I don\u2019t think you need to spend five to 10K. I would use the tools, create projects. Use the tools to help you use the tools. I guess there are two thoughts on this. So there is a company called Oboe that I am involved with, but it is custom designed for learning. Certainly the frontier models are going to be going after this, but AI for learning, \u201cI want to learn\u2014\u201d You just fill it in. Oboe.com, O-B-O-E.com.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I would type in, \u201cEffectively give me 10 different projects. I am new to AI tools and LLMs. I want to get more familiar with these tools. Give me 10 project based learning opportunities. In other words, 10 projects where I\u2019m creating something, that I could consider for learning how to better use these tools and their various capacities. Each one I should be able to finish in one hour, three hours or less,\u201d whatever your number happens to be. And I would also drop that into Claude, drop it into ChatGPT, let them all compete for best answers, and then you can go from there. I would build things. I would make things. I would try to automate some workflow. Generally, that doesn\u2019t give me a hard on because I think the definition and elimination are more important, but making things. Maybe there\u2019s something beautiful you want to make. I mean, give it the spin that\u2019s actually going to energize you. That is how I would get current on AI, is by doing stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t think you need to spend five to 10K. But whatever the upgraded models are, frankly, even the slower models from six months ago are plenty. Yeah, actually I can\u2019t speak out of school, but I\u2019ve seen some amazing hackers, just to prove a point, use older models to do staggeringly powerful things to say, \u201cHey, we don\u2019t need the latest and greatest to actually move the needle. They\u2019re already here. They have been for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This question on psychedelic experiences, if I\u2019m still interested, if I\u2019m still present. I do still find them useful. I have decreased my frequency dramatically as I\u2019ve had other tools to bring to bear on state and mental health and so on, like neuromodulation. In other words, the accelerated TMS and the ONE-D, O-N-E hyphen D, protocol that I described earlier. But they still have incredible applications. I mean, I do believe that these compounds are still one of the most straightforward, not risk-free, but straightforward ways to elicit some of the greatest adventures that humans can have on this planet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I still believe that. And insights and touching the timeless in ways that perhaps the mystics referred to and experienced via other means. So I do find them deeply fascinating. What\u2019s new on that front, which is the second part of that question, I would say shorter duration. There are shorter duration compounds that may have equal efficacy to, say, MDMA in treating conditions like PTSD without the typically combined dyad psychotherapy. In other words, separating the drug effect from the therapeutic wrapper in some respects. Methylone is one at the forefront right now. I\u2019ve had experience with this. I mean, I\u2019ve known methylone for at least 10, 15 years, but it is effectively the shorter acting, gentler cousin of MDMA. And Transcend Therapeutics, which was co-founded by Kevin Ryan, who I interviewed on the podcast not too long ago. He also co-founded Business Insider and MongoDB and Gilt Groupe and many, many companies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I think that stands a chance of reaching millions of people because it is easier to slot into the preexisting healthcare system on many levels. There are many, many developments in this field. I\u2019ll just give you one more that I think is arguably most interesting to me and I\u2019m funding research that Chuck Nichols is doing on this, but looking at the potent anti-inflammatory effects of various psychedelics at doses that are unbelievably small. So let\u2019s just say\u2014I\u2019ll give you an example. So in the case of mushrooms, let\u2019s talk about dried psilocybe mushrooms. I mean, we could get strain specific, but I\u2019ll keep it simple. If we\u2019re looking at the mushrooms of Terrence McKenna\u2019s day, a heroic dose would be five grams. All right. If you\u2019re taking a microdose of these same mushrooms, it might be 50 to 100 milligrams. What would happen if you took one 1000th of that? Well, psilocybin is actually not the best candidate, but some of these other psychedelics, many of which you would not recognize, or most people wouldn\u2019t, at sub-perceptual but sub, sub, sub-perceptual doses, I mean almost seemingly homeopathic doses, have incredibly potent, multi-mechanism, anti-inflammatory effects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think pet hypothesis is that many of the benefits we see from psychedelics, antidepressant effects and so on, in many, many people, many subjects even in some of these clinical trials, are derived from anti-inflammatory effects on chronic neuro-inflammation. And double clicking on that, that chronic neuro-inflammation is often downstream of an acute infection that you had at one point. It can be caused by many other things, so it\u2019s not to use that as the sole lens through which you explain these things. But those are a few areas that I find currently very interesting.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew, \u201cI tried Hugh Jackman\u2019s trick for becoming extraordinarily jacked, which was to row 2,000 meters in seven minutes.\u201d I want to hear how that went. So Matthew J, please let me know. That\u2019s quite a tease.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew J, that is impossible. Yeah, the 2,000 meters in seven minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hugh Jackman is an elite level athlete. Yeah, you might kill yourself trying to replicate some of what he does.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MIDROLL 2<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a question here from, I apologize if I\u2019m mispronouncing this, but Daniel Taga, MD, not sure how you pronounce it.<\/p>\n<p>But your question here is, okay, Doc here, building Quantified Self 2.0 with metabolomics. I do think metabolomics are incredibly interesting. Starting from a real definition of health. Tim, what would QS 2.0, that\u2019s Quantified Self, I assume, 2.0 have to show you to be worth it? All right. Bookmark, because that\u2019s going to tie in here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Question from Jon C, that\u2019s J-O-N. Tim, your name came up when Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly spoke in the Ferry Building last week, that\u2019s in San Francisco, to launch Gary\u2019s new book, The Quantified Self. I know you were at the very first Quantified Self meetup 18 years ago at Kevin\u2019s house. It\u2019s true. I have a blog post with photos from that. I was still white knuckling a little bit of a faux hawk with my remaining hair at the time. What role has self-quantifying played in your life since then, please? So these tie together. And I will answer Daniel\u2019s question and this question. So what would Quantified Self 2.0 need to show me? It would need to show me, I would say, a filtered high signal version of the lens that I\u2019ve used for myself with Quantified Self. And that is a distilling from data to interpretation to action, and last mile being behavioral change. So where I think we are drowning at the moment is the volume of information, right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is very, very easy to gather an overwhelming amount of data with wearables. Back in the day, it was pretty painful to painstakingly gather this stuff with your own spreadsheets and so on. Now it\u2019s trivial. It is easy to amass an ocean of ones and zeros related to yourself with your Oura Ring, which I use, or your WHOOP Band or whatever it might be, plus add any number of other inputs, right? So much like a lot of books and presentations, we\u2019re not failing from too little information, we\u2019re failing from too much information, I think. So there\u2019s the interpretation layer, and I do think your inputs matter. So the metabolomics and proteomics, I think all of that I think is incredibly interesting. But ultimately what it comes down to\u2014for instance, in the realm of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, there are people who have these very fancy collections of very esoteric biomarkers, and that\u2019s great, and you can watch how they trend, but how does it change the clinical intervention? And the answer is, as it stands right now, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okay, fine. Maybe this is a case of harvest now, decrypt later. So maybe we gather all this stuff on my relatives and it\u2019s too late for them, but five years in the future we have this data so we can do a retroactive analysis with fancy tools, AI, quantum computing, whatever, I don\u2019t think we need quantum computing for that, but to derive some type of directional signal for people now who have better interventions. Okay, fine, but I think that\u2019s kind of a leap as it stands right now. So I\u2019m looking for how something informs action, and that\u2019s not always terribly clear. And then how do you facilitate action? This is the big one, because for healthy normals who are wearing any number of different tools or having various tests done, they get back all this stuff, maybe they\u2019re given an interpretation, maybe it has to get pushed to their primary care physician, and in some cases it\u2019s going to spot something that is really nefarious or a trend line that deserves intervention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I\u2019ll give a simple example. Not to say that hemoglobin A1C is the end all be all, I recognize this, but it\u2019s a simple marker. Well, in some ways not so simple, but it\u2019s an easy one that a lot of, at least Americans will recognize. So hemoglobin A1C is described by many doctors as your three month or so running average of glucose, and it\u2019s used to infer your insulin sensitivity and so on. Because your fasting insulin can swing all over the place, and certainly your insulin can swing all over the place. Ultimately, I do think an OGTT, like most people, if they can afford it, which they can, should get an oral glucose tolerance test where you\u2019re kind of taking blood and measuring things every 30 minutes for two hours. Talk to your doctor. But if you have hemoglobin A1C and you\u2019re looking at your trend line, all right, it\u2019s creeping up. Hemoglobin A1C appears to be going up over three quarters. And if you telescope that out, uh-oh, I\u2019m going to end up being a type two diabetic. We should do something sooner rather than later. What\u2019s the advice?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, you could have a pharmacological intervention. Who knows what that is, right? Put someone on low-dose tirzepatide, maybe somebody thinks that metformin is a good idea, frequently it isn\u2019t, whatever that might be. But for a lot of folks, the answer\u2019s going to be clean up your diet and do more exercise of some type. How do you get those fucking people to do that, especially when the pain isn\u2019t painful enough? They\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019ve got plenty of time. It\u2019s not that bad. I\u2019m still in range.\u201d Even though the trend line would say, \u201cSooner or later, you\u2019re going to be out of range. And if you wait and wait and wait, you\u2019re going to have a much larger problem that is lodged deeply into your physiology that\u2019s going to be problematic.\u201d The behavioral change piece I think is huge, right? And that is currently what\u2019s missing. I\u2019m hoping to do a bunch with that with a company that I probably shouldn\u2019t name, so I won\u2019t get into it, but I am hoping to do a lot on that side since that\u2019s effectively what I do professionally, is focus on behavioral change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s a very, very long answer, but hopefully that\u2019s somewhat helpful. Sorry for, again, the accidental TED Talk. Beware of those ketones, gets you all fired up.<\/p>\n<p>What was Tim like before he took psychedelics? What was the biggest shift? I\u2019m sighing not because it\u2019s a bad question. I\u2019m sighing because I have to keep saying it\u2019s important. I talk more people out of psychedelics than I talk into psychedelics. If your buddy invites you to your first psychedelic experience, which is some rent-a-shaman giving ayahuasca in Topanga Canyon, I would run the other direction. I mean, these are, as my old friend, who sadly passed away, iconic researcher in the field, Roland Griffiths would say, \u201cYou\u2019re using nuclear power. It is very, very powerful. You have to be very careful.\u201d And I would treat these compounds as if you\u2019re considering having spinal surgery or neurosurgery. You would do a lot of homework and you would measure twice and cut once.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With that disclaimer said\u2014I mean, before psychedelics, there were gigantic psychological and emotional icebergs causing incredible problems in my life that I was wholly unaware of. I was also completely unaware of how 17 different problems all related to one or two core problems. So there\u2019s a value in diagnosing or seeing the unseen. And I\u2019m not talking about mechanical elves in this case. That\u2019s a separate Q&amp;A. I\u2019m talking about simply seeing your life and behavior as an objective third party would see it if they had 20\/20 vision, right? That\u2019s incredibly difficult to do in sort of ordinary consensus reality. It\u2019s very, very hard to do. And in that experience, it is very common that you\u2019re able to take off the glasses you didn\u2019t realize you were wearing and inspect the lens and see how it\u2019s affecting everything else. So that\u2019s part one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Part two, aside from the diagnostic capability, is the, I don\u2019t want to say curative, but the therapeutic potential of contending with issues like PTSD, contending with issues like depression. It is not a panacea on any level. It\u2019s contraindicated for lots of people who might have a family history of schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder. The most interesting tool for those types of conditions that I\u2019ve found is metabolic psychiatry, the ketogenic diet effectively, but it doesn\u2019t really need to be 100% ketogenic. Look at what Sami Inkinen is doing. Look at what Chris Palmer\u2019s doing. Dom D\u2019Agostino has also commented on this at great length. I know this is a real pregnant pause.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was able to put down a lot of very, very heavy, exhausting boulders that I didn\u2019t even realize I was carrying. That\u2019s the way I would put it. Life is lighter. Also, let\u2019s say you\u2019re afraid of water and a lot of people are. I didn\u2019t even learn to swim until I was in my 30s, really. I was deathly afraid of drowning. Couldn\u2019t swim even two laps in an Olympic-size swimming pool, not even one lap, half a lap, I guess, if we\u2019re considering back and forth a lap. And if you look at how that\u2019s best overcome, that fear, this is going somewhere, I promise, you might find a great method like Total Immersion swimming, created by a guy named Terry Laughlin, who became a friend. I did his last interview before he passed away. And where they start is not trying to do laps, it\u2019s not swimming in deep water, it\u2019s simply submerging your head as if you were trying to teach an infant how to do survival swimming. Also something very interesting that I\u2019m not going to get into.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So simply dunking your head, dunking your head, dunking your head. And then you might start with studying gliding positions. How do you use the least energy to go the furthest distance? You go to the shallow end and you would practice getting into, say, fuselage right, fuselage left position. No attention to breathing. You\u2019re kicking off the wall, going as far as you can, and then you\u2019re standing up and then you\u2019re rinsing and repeating. And before long, literally within a handful of months, I swam more than a mile open water in the ocean. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s actually an outlier if you practice this technique and this type of repeated exposure. Psychedelics are a very, very unusual form of repeated exposure. And there is such a thing as doing too much psychedelics. I know people who have lost the plot, you can really slip and get lost and you should take that seriously. Spend more time in consensus reality than you do in psychedelic land, or you can end up in a semi-permanent state of <em>Alice in Wonderland<\/em>. It\u2019s not a good idea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what I mean is if, over time, and that could only be once or twice, maybe three times, but what you see, for instance, in some terminal cancer patients is fear extinction of death. That is pretty interesting. They lose their fear of death. Why? Because they already experienced what they subjectively felt to be ego death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s a scary way to put it. That\u2019s how it\u2019s phrased often. Ego dissolution. What does it mean to experience consciousness without any sense of self, without any name, without any perception of time? It\u2019s pretty strange is what it is, but it also ends up being, for a lot of people, very peaceful, even if it\u2019s type two peace, like type two fun. Hard in the moment, then afterwards you\u2019re like, wow, I feel really at peace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have fear of deterioration and things like Alzheimer\u2019s disease, but death, not really so afraid of it. And that\u2019s been true for a long time now. I credit that almost exclusively to psychedelics and it\u2019s hard to put a value on that. It\u2019s such a bizarre thing to even posit. But writ large, it does seem to remove a base layer of anxiety that comes with the awareness that you are going to die. That\u2019s a big one. All right. So I didn\u2019t expect to give such a fucking long answer, but I guess that\u2019s the theme of the evening.<\/p>\n<p>just to reiterate what I said about building, this is Daniel H., number three commenter, meaning like number three ranked with a crown. Claude Code is mind-bendingly good. It can take you from zero to hero or at least reasonably competent. Yeah, it is really remarkable what you can build with these things.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s a question once again with the caveat that I\u2019m not a medical professional, so talk to your doctor. This is actually a variant of this question I get a lot. Val had a question on natural statins for those healthy young fellows with genetically high cholesterol\/heart disease, what do you think?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This returns to a very old topic, which I unpacked at length in <em>The 4-Hour Body<\/em>. So there is that, but I\u2019ll give you the TLDR and that is all natural versus synthetic. All natural does not automatically mean safe. And I do take certain supplements. I do take certain herbs. The challenge with that is there\u2019s very little regulation and very little standardizing. So for instance, if you look at examine.com or other places that have taken 10 off-the-counter or off-the-shelf melatonin supplements and had them analyzed, let\u2019s just say they\u2019re all supposed to be three milligrams. By the way, you can\u2019t even buy melatonin in some countries for pretty good reasons, but forget that part. You have 10 of them analyzed, they all say three milligrams of melatonin. Some have precisely fuck all of melatonin, zero, they contain no melatonin, and some contain up to 20 milligrams of melatonin. That is a problem. If you are making the assumption for the moment that a supplement does something, having that variability on dosing is a bad thing. It is a bad thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, there are many things that are all natural, hemlock, arsenic, that are incredibly dangerous. So if you take ephedrine hydrochloride and then you are like, \u201cWell, I\u2019m going to use Ma Huang instead,\u201d this Chinese\u2014you can still get yourself into a lot of trouble. There are cases where it\u2019s interesting to consider what the mix of various alkaloids and so on does versus in isolation. So you might look at, in the case of psychedelics, iboga versus ibogaine hydrochloride. It\u2019s a worthwhile question. I would just say it needs to be studied with rigorous scientific controls for us to feel confident that we are not fooling ourselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And you can do that, right? So in the case of say ayahuasca, how does ayahuasca differ or how might it differ in its effects versus vaporized N,N-DMT? Since ayahuasca contains N,N-DMT and the way it is commonly explained is ayahuasca contains this N,N-DMT that\u2019s found in the leaf of this plant called the chacruna, and it is not bioavailable when you take it orally, therefore you consume and the ancients figured out as they did, you macerate, smash and combine it with this vine, which contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors and voila, suddenly you absorb it. And at the end of the show, the molecule that did the most action is N,N-DMT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, in a case like that, it turns out that the beta-carbolines in the vine itself, harmine and harmaline and so on, have some really interesting effects of their own. But to come to your specific question on cholesterol, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re talking about red rice extract or other things, but when it comes to mortality, in my family, for instance, which horsemen, which of the four horsemen of death is going to get you? Is it neurodegenerative? Is it cardiovascular? Is it something else? And I think Peter Attia does a good job of describing these in his book Outlive, but in my family, all the males die of heart attacks. That\u2019s basically it. Everyone dies of heart problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if I were to use something that were an herbal supplement, number one, I would need to have it tested and I would need to get multiple batches over a period of several months. So I\u2019d buy one, I\u2019d have it tested. Maybe I wait, maybe I take it, maybe I wait. Another month later, I buy a bottle. Hopefully it\u2019s a different lot number. I have that tested. Do the results come back the same? This is an important question.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I also said though, these organic broad spectrum products, if they haven\u2019t been sufficiently studied, some of them have been, can have unintended off-target effects. So if I\u2019m trying to avoid death, and I\u2019m no spring chicken, I\u2019m 49, I would prefer to take what has the longest history of supportive data with the lowest downside risk. And if you do more sophisticated lipid analysis and so on, look at your genetics. In my case, you can figure out I\u2019m a cholesterol hyper absorber. That\u2019s not true for everyone, but if a doctor of mine says, \u201cWe want to put you on these four medications,\u201d I could look at those medications. You really have to be your own advocate in medicine. And I could say, \u201cWell, which of these medications have been on the market the longest and been studied most rigorously? Which is the most innocuous of the whole lot?\u201d And in this particular case, it ended up being something called ezetimibe, which has been extensively studied, brand name Zetia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the question I posed was, \u201cWell, okay, if the goal moving forward is to be under the curve, it\u2019s sort of like total surface area under the curve of having these values at certain target levels or below certain levels, there\u2019s no immediate rush. I\u2019m not getting triple bypass, quadruple bypass surgery. Is it okay with you if I start with this most innocuous, best studied drug to see if I am a hyper responder?\u201d Answer, \u201cYes.\u201d Tried it. Guess what? I\u2019m a hyper responder. I don\u2019t need to take the other three. So this is how I approach it, but I do like the specificity, repeatability, consistency of certain drugs over their all natural alternatives just because there are so many unknowns in the supplement world or all-natural world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the way, that\u2019s also why I think, broadly speaking, since a lot of people are interested in psychedelics, that something like LSD or a methylone or an MDMA is more interesting from a mainstream healthcare perspective, if we\u2019re talking about mental health, because 50 micrograms is 50 micrograms is 50 micrograms if you have your synthesis dialed. Whereas with ayahuasca, if it\u2019s sort of the shamanic eyeball dose, there are too many variables. Either there\u2019s cook time, there\u2019s concentration, there\u2019s leaves, there\u2019s admixtures. It\u2019s like a cup of ayahuasca is not a cup of ayahuasca is not a cup of ayahuasca, even if you\u2019re doing your best. Now, there are some interesting approaches. Hamilton Morris and I spoke a lot about pharmahuasca and basically trying to replicate the combination using drugs. I\u2019ve never messed around with that personally, but I have seen more people get very destabilized from ayahuasca and underestimating LSD, but that\u2019s a separate problem because it\u2019s not the cool kid on the block right now. It\u2019s old so people underestimate just how potent it is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But in the case of ayahuasca, it\u2019s because people have one or two cups that are really light in terms of consistency and then they\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m an ayahuasca pro,\u201d and they go to South America and they have something that has a consistency of honey and they get destroyed. It\u2019s that inconsistency that I don\u2019t like. So long answer to a short question as per usual this evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tim is a supplement company\u2019s worst nightmare. Yeah, most of the time. It\u2019s also a reason why it was so expensive to build my first company because I actually did all the due diligence and standardizing. It\u2019s much more expensive to try to put in those standard operating procedures than to not. So most people choose the not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How are my teeth so white? That\u2019s a good one, Jennifer. Okay. I have an interesting question since you spoke of dental health. How are your teeth so white? They\u2019re not veneers. I can think of Something About Mary. Or some of these actors you see in Hollywood where you\u2019re like, \u201cGod, that looks unnatural.\u201d Plus they look a little too big. It\u2019s a spooky look. Never say never. Who knows? Maybe they\u2019ll get yellow enough at some point that I\u2019ll choose to bite the bullet. But I attribute this to the xylitol gum and xylitol mouthwashes. I don\u2019t really have any other explanation because I always brush my teeth great. Okay. Upgraded to Sonicare a few years ago just because I\u2019ve had receding gums since I was a little kid. I had surgery when I was a kid actually where they cut out a piece of your palate and graft it onto your gums. Very painful. Don\u2019t want to have that again. And I tend to be a vigorous\u2014I\u2019ve got to throw a little Sean Connery vigorous toothbrusher. So the Sonicare just does a more delicate job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that\u2019s been true for years. And sure, I added in a Waterpik of sorts, although I use a different brand. The only explanation that I have, I don\u2019t use the whitening strips or anything like that. The only variable that is new is the xylitol gum and mouthwash containing xylitol, which I use probably twice a day. And actually I have one I can show you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was recommended by Tommy Wood. See that? It\u2019s called Bite, B-I-T-E, Mouthwash Bits, 124 bits. This will last you forever. And you can hear they are these tiny little\u2014they\u2019re not tablets. They look like tiny candies. And these are great for travel, but I use them at home as well. You basically crunch it up, chew it, break it up into a powder in your mouth, and then you take a tiny swig of water and voila, you have mouthwash that includes xylitol. Swish it around for a minute, spit it out. That\u2019s it. So I have it here. So after a meal, I\u2019ll rinse my mouth, throw one of these in and then spit it out. It doesn\u2019t take any time at all. That\u2019s habit stacking also. Hat tip to all the oldies who set the path. But that\u2019s the only thing I can think of. So thanks for the question and that makes me really happy. I haven\u2019t had anyone say that to me, so I\u2019m thrilled. No white teeth filters on this video.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ll hit a couple of fast ones. Stephanie, \u201cHi Tim, you\u2019re the master of efficiency and maximizing impact. Thanks for all I\u2019ve learned over the years. My question is what is one of your favorite things to keep doing inefficiently?\u201d Long meals, long coffees. I had a two-hour coffee chat today with someone I can\u2019t mention, but nothing for the podcast, just bullshitting, exploring the world via conversation with somebody and reading fiction, certainly. I\u2019m also watching MobLand and stuff. I mean, let\u2019s not kid ourselves. I do like the visual storytelling. I think a new episode is coming out today, so I am excited.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then next question from Mike. \u201cAny thoughts on tech neck, tech neck?\u201d Pointing at my neck. \u201cPrevention, better posture tricks and slowing the inevitable for people who sit at computers a lot.\u201d Yes. I actually have some very simple recommendations for this. One is meditate twice a day. I, after meditating, doing TM in this case, 20 minutes twice a day, sitting in a straight stacked position, not hyperextended, not slouching. After about four weeks of doing that, especially after a few months of doing that, started getting compliments on my posture out of nowhere. People would say, \u201cYou have the best posture. You walk like a dancer.\u201d And I\u2019d say, \u201cWhat?\u201d And it took me a while to figure out that the meditation was the cause. I was strengthening or conditioning two things, right? Motor patterning for holding myself in this balanced, stacked position. I was also training slow twitch muscle fibers, these postural muscles that fall apart if you\u2019re just collapsing. They don\u2019t fall apart, but they certainly don\u2019t do their job if they\u2019re chronically tight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also getting massage once a week. I\u2019ve done that ever since I was poor AF. Look, you can find a Chinese massage place and get a massage for 10, 20 bucks. I don\u2019t want to hear the excuses. You can also use self-massage tools. I\u2019ve got Thera Canes and so on all over the house, Theragun, you name it, all the Theras. Work on your pectoralis minor and make sure your chest is not overly tight. That will also help. And don\u2019t mess around with the chairs, get a good chair, and then do more work on laptop than your phone. And this laptop right now is elevated. Why is it elevated? Because I want to be looking straight. I don\u2019t want to be craning my neck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is what I was going to use, but it was going to be too high. This is a laptop stand. I\u2019m not sure if you can see it. It says Roost. This is my favorite laptop stand. It\u2019s very easy to throw on a backpack or a tote bag or whatever. It\u2019s incredibly easy to travel with. So those are a few tips, but honestly, meditate twice a day for 20 minutes and you will build the posture. It is a habit and it\u2019s also muscular.<\/p>\n<p>Andres, \u201cMinimum effective dose for becoming more flexible.\u201d Look at the gymnastic strength training I mentioned, GST with Coach Chris Sommer. Long story short, it is developing strength in your end ranges, not a lot of passive stretching. So working active flexibility. So I\u2019ll give you an example of what that means. If you were to sit on the floor with your legs extended out in front of you together, toes pointed, so that\u2019s a pike position, and then keeping your back entirely flat, put your fingers on the floor. You can be on your fingertips, walk them forward, and then try to pulse your legs up, keeping them completely straight, quads contracted. They\u2019re called pike pulses. Try to do 20 of those. They are very hard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you do that, plus some of the ab exercises from <em>The Happy Body<\/em>, for instance, laying on your back with your legs straight up in the air and then reaching up, again with your legs locked, in this case, toes pulled back, you\u2019re strengthening in the end range and due to all sorts of things like the Golgi tendon reflex and all sorts of different types of inhibition, your body then learns, I am strong enough to not get injured in a slightly broader range of motion, and you will get more flexible. So developing strength in the end ranges, be very careful with your shoulders. Don\u2019t push it on the shoulders, but for me, that is what has given me the best ROI on flexibility and mobility and active flexibility in the least time.<\/p>\n<p>This is from Handy, Honda? \u201cWhen you were a kid, what was the one mundane thing you couldn\u2019t wait to grow up and do? Not buying a car or something like that, but something small like going out alone in the evening that felt like the ultimate adult privilege.\u201d All right. When I was a busboy working for table scraps, I worked at a lot of restaurants, started when I was 14, cleaning an ice cream shop. I got fired from that one. Different story. But I remember being a busboy at this one restaurant, this is out on Long Island, and all these fancy people from Manhattan would come out on the weekends and visit their fifth homes or whatever. And I had the shitty shift. It was like the late afternoon shift because the best shifts went to the people who\u2019d been there longer, obviously.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there was one experience that salvaged it for me. One in particular, there were a few. And it was that Billy Joel, the iconic musician, would come in a few times a week, sit down, he would have a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, and he tipped $20. And to me, that blew my fucking mind that Billy Joel was rich enough to have a coffee and then tip me $20. It just blew my mind. I mean, I was like one day, \u201cOh my God, imagine if one day I could walk in and have a coffee and tip some kid $20.\u201d That was just the ultimate. What a fantasy. So that\u2019s what comes to mind. That was the ultimate for me, and it\u2019s fun to do when you have the chance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From Tonya in Maine or Tonya, \u201cWhat are your favorite one, two or three birds and why?\u201d Look, I don\u2019t have a lot of time to get into it because I want to run. Red-tailed hawk for a lot of reasons. You can look it up. But also had my first training in falconry with red-tailed hawk, very common in North America. Very good beginner bird for falconry. It will be very forgivable of certain types of mistakes, but it\u2019s not so good. There\u2019s certain birds that will cover your inadequacies so effectively that you don\u2019t improve as a falconer. So red-tailed hawk, hummingbird, many types of hummingbirds. And then you guys can look it up, the superb bird-of-paradise. What a name. Man, wouldn\u2019t you like that on your LinkedIn? The superb bird-of-paradise. Some of you will recognize this bird visually, but not by name if you\u2019ve seen Planet Earth. It has this spectacular electric blue hood basically that it can create the male for this fancy dance that it does after creating a small clearing. So that\u2019s the superb bird-of-paradise.<\/p>\n<p>This is from Andy. \u201cHow do you decide when to keep investing in a friendship versus accepting that it\u2019s become one-sided?\u201d On some level, this is not true all the time, but if you\u2019re asking that question, maybe you have your answer, but I would not come to that conclusion until you have improved your ability to communicate as much as possible. Crucial Conversations, I mentioned it twice already, <em>The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership<\/em> also very much related to this topic. And even though it has been used within the world of fast-growing tech, for instance, Asana, I think it was Asana, many tech startups have all of their managers and employees read these books. I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s Asana and Dustin Moskovitz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It applies to relationships and any relationships, and a lot of it is based on the work of Gay and Katie Hendricks, if you want to look up, for instance, <em>Conscious Loving<\/em> and other books that they have penned. But <em>The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership<\/em> kind of gets to the point quickly and offers you tools that you can use.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then the last question from Matt E. \u201cAre you at peace?\u201d I would say more than ever, more than ever before, I\u2019m feeling pretty good and that\u2019s not a function of finances. I can say that definitively because I\u2019ve been okay, unworried financially for a very long time. Thankfully, I\u2019ve had a lot of good luck, born in the right place in the US, land of opportunity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But that\u2019s not enough. A lot of the tools we\u2019ve already talked about, in my case, it took some heavy lifting, but I would say that I have never been more at peace. I feel great. Very, very excited about the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I know there are going to be some big, big challenges individually and societally. I mean, I have very close relatives who are in terrible shape. I just supported an uncle through hospice. He\u2019s no longer with us. That\u2019s very recent. Shit happens, right? But I have never been more at peace and things can change, but it\u2019s been pretty stable for a number of years now. So I\u2019m very grateful for that. I don\u2019t take it for granted and I wish the same and more for all of you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you for tuning in, guys. I\u2019m going to get to the gym at long last, and it\u2019s always fun to do these. If you haven\u2019t chimed in on format ideas, let me know on Twitter. I will call it Twitter, but on X, @tferriss #format, and I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll have lots of show notes for this episode. So for people who are listening and watching this, by the time you hear or watch this, you can go to tim.blog\/podcast, just search for Q&amp;A and find the latest one and I will stop there for now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you guys so much for tuning in, whether you did it live or you\u2019re doing it asynchronously, as all the cool kids are doing. And until next time, two things, one, if you\u2019re suffering, you\u2019re not alone. There are tools that work, so check out the show notes and look at some of the things that we covered. There are things that actually work pretty consistently. And second, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, sure, of course, but also to yourself. Learn to work on that inner monologue, and to do that, you have to develop awareness. I had very little of it for a long time. Speaking of awareness, check it out. Awareness by Anthony de Mello, the book I\u2019ve gifted more than 100 times probably at this point and that I have read probably 15 to 20 times myself. And with that, goodbye and good night.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 id=\"legal-conditions-qa-with-tim-getting-unstuck\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">DUE TO SOME HEADACHES IN THE PAST, PLEASE NOTE LEGAL CONDITIONS:<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Tim Ferriss owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WHAT YOU\u2019RE WELCOME TO DO:<\/em>\u00a0<em>You are welcome to share the below transcript (up to 500 words but not more) in media articles (e.g.,\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times<em>,\u00a0<\/em>LA Times<em>,\u00a0<\/em>The Guardian<em>), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Medium), and\/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to \u201cThe Tim Ferriss Show\u201d and link back to the tim.blog\/podcast URL. For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript per the above.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED:<\/em>\u00a0<em>No one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use Tim Ferriss\u2019 name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another\u2019s products or services. For the sake of clarity, media outlets are permitted to use photos of Tim Ferriss from\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>the media room on tim.blog<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0or (obviously) license photos of Tim Ferriss from Getty Images, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please enjoy this transcript of part 2 of my recent subscriber Q&amp;A. Books, people, tools, and resources mentioned in the episode Legal conditions and copyright [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}