Tim Ferriss Interview: How to Overcome Fear, Practice Self Love & Build a Writing Routine

it was not easy for me. And so on. There were probably six or seven things that hit in a short amount of time, and yeah. I decided to take a year off and try a few different jobs to try to figure out what I wanted to do, because I knew it wasn't investment banking. I knew it wasn't management consulting. But those are the only two industries that really recruited, and some other finance types, at Princeton. So I took a gap year, which ended up being a dangerous decision in many ways because I ended up living in an apartment a few miles from campus with two of my friends who had graduated the year before.

They'd go to work and then I'm home alone trying to work on this thesis which isn't working. And probably most of us at this age, and I don't know if this was true for you... I just remember that at that point in my life I already felt terribly behind. Yes. Terribly behind. Yeah. So I felt terribly behind, and then the class I went to Princeton with graduated, so they left. And ultimately, and I won't go over everything, I mean, for people who want all the details, you can find the chapter on Tools Titans or the blog post.

So, I mean, absolutely if someone is in a really bad place, get some professional help, number one. Number two, if you just have a tendency and are afraid of getting to a dangerous place, you can read this blog post, which contains some practical thoughts on suicide. But giving the short version, I felt completely trapped. I felt that each option was a terrible option and that yes, at the same time, I had a lot going for me. I had a healthy family, I was at Princeton despite all the problems. And that if she couldn't be happy in these circumstances, she would never be happy.

So I'd be better off and everyone would be better off if I could erase my

self

. And these thoughts bounced around for a while. And I... I started sleeping in very late, going to bed very late, which is a trigger that I've noticed that a lot of people with depression go to bed very late. It ends up creating a vicious cycle that can further isolate you because your type of chronobiology is so changed that you're not interacting with many people. And I remember one day walking through a Barnes and Noble. I mean it was in Lawrenceville at that time in the dirty Jers.

And wandering around and looking at various books on the tables, etc. And I came across a book that was very similar to Kevorkian. It was a practical guide related to suicide. And it was crazy, because I remember feeling really relieved. It was like it was a sign. This is exactly what I needed. And I sat down and for the first time in months I was really excited, because now I had made a decision. And I went straight into planning mode. So I figured out all the different scenarios. I figured out how to mitigate a number of different things that I didn't want to happen, how to try to disguise it to make it look like an accident, all of these things.

And it was basically on the calendar. And I remember where I was when I decided exactly. And then the luck part is really luck. I mean, the lucky part was that I had gone to the Firestone Library, which is the great library in Princeton, to try and find another book. Because I'm doing research and I'm obsessive compulsive about getting the details right. So it's like, okay. Well I really need to do my homework on how to do this correctly. And there was a book in the Firestone Library, but another student had already checked it out, which in it

self

tells you a lot.

So I requested the book, right? And the way they notify you when the book arrives is by sending you a postcard. I had forgotten to update my address. So the card went to my parents' house and my mom received it. So my mom calls and her voice cracks and she's trying to control herself, and she asked me about it. And I was able to tap pretty quickly and I was like, oh, you don't have to worry, mom. That was just for a friend of mine who goes to Rutgers. His library is not that extensive, so I ordered it for him.

He is

writing

a thesis on it. But I like to totally lie, in other words, and cover it up. But it was at that moment… Did she know? Have you ever talked to her about it? Oh well, certainly now she knows. Yes. I should have let my mom know about the TED Talk topic. I kind of forgot it was going to be shown in theaters and my mom and brother went to see it and I didn't tell them, partly because I threw out the TED talk I was going to do a week before TED because I felt a moral obligation to talk about it. these things.

And furthermore, to talk about the actual tools and

routine

s etc. that I've looked at over time as being very, very helpful in keeping me off the brink. Good? And I realized after having that conversation with my mom, it was like a slap in the face in the best possible way. And she snapped me out of my delusion, which was that I could somehow get away with not destroying the lives of the people I

love

d. Like, there's no way to do that. And I remember someone said that committing suicide is like taking all the pain you feel, multiplying it by 10, and then imposing it on everyone you

love

the most.

And that's the only reason I'm here. I did not update an address. It's crazy, right? So from then on I was like, oh wow. Well. I don't want to leave that kind of thing to chance anymore. And that became a study for me. And I mean a year and a half ago, I had my whole genome sequenced, and for a long time I stayed away from a lot of genome sequences, because I didn't want to give myself excuses or labels that I could use as a place of blame, if that makes sense. . It totally does. Good?

I mean, thank goodness when I was a little kid, for example, that the ADHD label and prescriptions weren't all the rage, because I would have been heavily medicated and I wasn't. Now, there is a place for medication. I don't mean there isn't. But I avoided genome sequencing or interpretation for a long time, and eventually I thought, you know, this is bullshit. For example, you should accept the realities and be informed at least instead of just doing the ostrich head

routine

in the arena. Yes. So I went through the two or three hour call with some doctors to interpret all of this.

And I expected some things, like 8BO34. Hence my predisposition to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Very obvious if you just look at the family history. And I also expected to see something related to depression or manic depression, and I anticipated that I would see a bias and then somehow, which I didn't want, it would give me permission to get depressed more often or something. how that. Absolutely. I was very worried about that. And the doctors were a little bit surprised, because they said there's really only a few things that we want to point out. And the last one was this kind of sliding scale of predisposition, manic depression.

Now, it's like a spinal tap. It's like one for ten, you're an eleven. And I just started laughing. I was like yeah, I'm not surprised. But it had the opposite effect to what I expected. It was a huge burden that he took off me, because I no longer felt like he was making me miserable. I was like no, this is my code. This is my code. Like, my software just has a bug. And so it allowed me to sort of stop blaming myself, and it was really liberating in that way. So I'm very glad I did.

I mean, having been your friend and knowing you for 10 years, I can say that from an outside perspective, which I haven't told you before, I've seen a difference in you in the past like two years, I would. say. Very, very different. That seems remarkably not just how old we are, you know what I mean. Isn't it just the hair and beard? It's not just the hair and beard. It's not that we're getting older and hopefully getting wiser. And, I don't know, I was thinking about that as I was getting ready for us to have this talk today.

There is a different level of ease in you. And when I say soft, I mean it in a really beautiful way where I feel like I can be closer to you as your friend than maybe some of the days before. Thank you. You are welcome. Yeah, it's only been in the last two years, especially in the last year, I would say, that I've realized a few things. And we could get into how, but we'll get into some pretty fringe and cutting-edge stuff pretty quickly. Go where you want. If we do it. But I realized that, for example, you know, I've spent most of my life, and this is not meant to be depressing.

It's just that it is what it is. Yes. For many, due to many different factors and some really horrible things that happened to me as a child, not from my parents. I've spent a lot of my life really angry and using anger and rage, much of it directed at myself, as fuel to become a competitor. Because the only, well, the only way I felt validated or valuable was to win. Period. That's all. I was an instrument to win and compete, and I only felt good in relation to other people if I could somehow take more pain, work harder to be number one.

And it was more of a relief from not feeling bad about myself for a fraction of a day than the joy of winning, if that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. And so, for my entire life I have been completely brutal to myself. And I realized through several different means, you know, one that anyone can read, that it's actually a book called Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. What, terrible title. I love Tara Brach, but it's a very, very helpful introduction to thinking about the potential idea that if you really want to help people or if you really want to love people, you can't do it if you hate yourself.

You just can't do it completely. You can not. I don't think it's possible. So the last few years have been, and especially the last one or two years, a process of asking different questions. And one of the questions, there are many different questions, but one of the most important, which is at the beginning of this book. And the reason the book exists in a way is: what would it look like if it was easy? Things are pretty hard, or can be, and there is so much uncertainty in the world that for Type A personalities, or people who have been hurt and become very competitive as a result...

Or very driven. Or very motivated. Good? And driven, we generally use it as a very complementary descriptor. But, you know, a horse that's being whipped to run faster until he dies on the track is also being driven. Yes. And that's not always a good thing, and very often it's a bad thing. That question of what would this be like if it were easy is a deceptively leveraged question. Because you start looking for elegance and ease rather than the path of complexity that allows you to absorb and tolerate the most pain, which some people, myself included for a long time, saw as an indicator of doing the right thing.

And sometimes for me, of strength. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, yeah. No. I can red line longer than all of you. Yeah. It's like, wait a second. Yes. What, what are we talking about…? Yes. And this is good? What's that? And there, don't get me wrong, there is strength and there are advantages to having stamina, but only when you're enduring things worth enduring, rather than just making your life painful. Long answer, long monologue. But I do think it's very important to talk about the darkness, the failures, and the hard times. And when I

interview

people I always try to bring that up.

Because it's so easy, like you said, to listen to an

interview

or see someone on the cover of a magazine and think to yourself, “Wow, I really wish I could do something like that. But I am me and they are them, and they have it figured out." And they are superhuman. Yes. "And they always wake up at 6 in the morning with a mental karate chop to conquer the day without insecurities." And that's just bullshit. Is not true. And I can tell you with firsthand knowledge that I meet some of the most awesome people I've ever met in the world who have become my friends, we all have our demons.

So I want to… I make a real conscious effort to talk about it so that people can try to create a safety net against self-destruction and certainly at least against self-flagellation and berating. And I've read something recently that has really caught my attention and I've been repeating it to myself a lot, which was by Gertrude Stein recently, something that she wrote. And it was, to paraphrase, very simple. It is related to the golden rule. So, for those people who need a refresher, "do with others what you would like them to do with you." Alright. His point is that it has to work both ways.

So do to yourself what you would do to others. So if the voice in your head is a voice and tone that you would never use with the people you care about the most, don't use it on yourself and train yourself not to use that voice. It is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. And there's a lot involved in doing that, and I think for some people certainly working with a trauma specialist is vitally important. I've become very interested in the somatic aspects of that. There are some great books by people like Peter Levine, for example.

And, you know, for others, I think there's a place for drug-assisted therapy, perhaps in the form of, say, MDMA, which is now being studied for use in PTSD and veterans ofreturning war shows incredible promise. Or some of these other compounds that I've been interested in for decades, like psilocybin, which I'm supporting through research at Johns Hopkins and other places because it has tremendous, tremendous applications for things like chronic treatment-resistant depression. So we'll see. Still quite a work in progress. As we all are. But I'm very happy that you're talking about it and it's a focus. And obviously myself and millions of other people are really happy you're here.

Yes me too. So I'm going to change gear. Yeah, let's talk about some light stuff. It won't necessarily be light, but we'll take it a bit uphill. Tell me about the first time you experienced the death of a pet. Oh God. Here we go. It's a joke. No, I want to talk about

fear

and risk, because I think you have such fresh and wholesome perspectives to share on this. First, let's start with the definition of risk. How do you define risk? You know, this is an important question because I've realized that a lot of the knots that we get tied up in and a lot of the anxiety that we feel is actually due to the use of words that aren't very well defined, like success: “I just want to. succeed".

Well, you'd better have a very clear definition of what that is if it's going to be one of your main obsessions. young lady or Yes. Happiness. That is also slippery. And the risk is another. The risk for me is the probability of an irreversible negative result. If that is all. That's all. Defined that way, there are actually very few serious risks. And I choose to take very few serious risks. People might see me as a risk taker. I don't think of myself that way at all. Well, I think part of that is because of a

practice

, which I want to talk to you about right now, about setting

fear

versus setting goals.

You know, one of the things I hear from so many people all the time, especially when I ask, you know, put something on Instagram or I'll do a Facebook Live or whatever we're doing. It's like, “Oh my gosh, Marie. I can't get over my fear of this." And we've done episodes of MarieTV on worst case scenarios and best case scenarios, but I think people can't listen to this enough. So I would love to talk about what it is to establish fear. And I'm going to put a pin in this that I want to get to

practice

, which I love.

We were talking about this off camera earlier with my team. The value of eating oats, just oats, for a week or two, and connecting all of these things. Yes that's fine. So establishing fear is a slightly modified exercise that I borrowed from various people who died thousands of years ago. Lots of people have used it effectively over a long period of time, and I really coded it in a way that I could use it on a pad of paper to make it an exercise that I still do, I would say at least. once a quarter. I do this exercise all the time.

But first, let me talk about goal setting. So people are familiar with goal setting. And it has to be specific, measurable, et cetera, or you don't have a goal at all. At best, you have a moving target. So it has to be very, very highly specific. And unless your goals are specific, you won't reach them. Likewise, unless your fears are very specifically defined, you won't be able to

overcome

them. A critically important point that I reiterate to myself all the time. And it doesn't matter how good the car is, if you're pointing in the right direction, if you have the emergency brake on.

And the emergency brake is metaphorically speaking those fears that prevent you from taking that first step. The exercise itself is based on many

writing

s by Stoic philosophers. Seneca the Younger specifically, who I'm a huge fan of. To the extent that I produced a free e-book that has several volumes and hundreds of pages with illustrations. Like, oh yeah. Why not do that in my spare time? Oh Lord. But I gave it away for free so people can find it. The Tao of Seneca is something that people can find for free. There is no trick. Is not paid.

No cross selling, whatever. It's free because I found it very useful. Yes. And establishing fear is part of that. And I mention Seneca specifically because there is a letter that he writes to one of his students, one of his protégés is called Luchilias. And they are really practical. People think about philosophy and they're like, ugh, throw up. Like, I remember those conversations in college or high school. Like, well, it depends on what it is. And how, oh. For now. We are not talking about that kind of philosophy. We are talking about really pragmatic letters from Seneca to his students saying: “Oh, dear Luchilias.

I heard so-and-so talks bad about you behind your back in the Senate and makes it really difficult because there's A, B, and C going on. That's how I could handle that." They are really tactical. And one of his letters was about festivals and fasts, I think that's the name of the letter. And in it, Seneca talks about making yourself immune to most types of difficulties by practicing difficulties. So even if he has a good amount of money, for example, or a good amount of comfort, let's say. Practice discomfort, and there are different ways to do it.

So it says more or less, you know, set aside a certain number of days each month during which you'll eat the cheapest food, wear the dirtiest, coarsest clothes, all the while wondering, is this the condition you've been dreading? This is really important. And a modern version of this could be, for example, something that one of my friends and mentors, Kevin Kelly, does. Kevin Kelly, the most interesting man in the real world. I mean, he has an Amish beard, but he's a tech futurist. He

build

s his own houses, travels a few months a year with all his family.

The boy does everything. He is really fascinating. And he'll, let's say, take a backpack and sleep on the floor or sleep outside for a week straight and eat oatmeal and realize that far from being a huge burden and a mess, it's actually very liberating and feels great, feel light. . And that if you took things away from him, he can still be happy. He can still do the things that bring him the most joy. What does that mean then in terms of people listening? And we'll get to the configuration of fear, but this is part of it as practice.

You could, for example, like my faithful Bulgarian over there, you could, you must like Steve Jobs too, say wear the same type of T-shirt for a week or two at a time. Or one or two jeans also for one of two straight. I do it out of laziness. Yes. And some people listening may say, "Oh, but that's it, people will notice that I'm wearing the same things." They'll think I sleep in my clothes. Good. Good. Cato, who is also a very famous Stoic, used to deliberately, and he was a Lawgiver, wear clothes of an out-of-fashion color, like a robe of the wrong color.

That in the days of the Romans, “Oh, God. purple robe”, or “blue robe”. What is he thinking? And he was barefoot, which wasn't something everyone did. And he would be ridiculed. And he did it very, very on purpose so that he would learn to be ashamed of only the things that are worth being ashamed of. And that's not clothes. That's not going barefoot. You and I were, you know, chatting about this a bit. Like the internet has turned like the Civil War on my facial hair. A lot of people hate this crazy Ming the Merciless skin I've put up.

And the fact is, a big reason I do it is precisely to train myself to ignore that. I love it. Yeah. I mean, the fact is, I think I probably look better without it. But I'm doing it and I'm doing it in a very public way, right? On TV to train me not to care, because it doesn't matter. And when you train yourself in the little things, you have a chance to be brave when you need to be brave for the big things. You can't wait for big things. You have to practice on little things. I always think of it as a fitness metaphor because, you know, I was like a girl at Gold's Gym at 14 or 15 and it's like you can't just walk into Gold's Gym and start lifting a bunch of weights.

It's like you have to

build

for it. You have to build for it. Same metaphor. It's like you couldn't run a marathon normally from the start. Move forward and you will have a much better chance of being successful and strong. Yes. And it's true with anything. Good? Public speaking. It is true with negotiation. It's like, oh, you're going to get into a big deal for a deal that could change your life or ruin your life, and that's when you're going to practice what you read in the book? You're crazy? No. Go to Starbucks and ask for a 10% discount every day for the next week at a different coffee shop.

You will be rejected half the time. And how to start there. If you know? Which is something I should give Noah Kagan all the credit for. That's something a lot of people do, which is a great exercise. Alright. So we've already talked about the worst case trial. This is important. Alright. That is a part of this exercise called fear establishment. And establishing fear is very, very simple, and there are several ways to do it. One of the ways that you can do that, and that I do quite often, is that you take the decision or the action that you're considering that maybe you've been putting off and that makes you feel really uncomfortable.

It could be asking someone out, it could be ending a relationship, it could be quitting a job, starting a company, taking your first trip abroad. It could be anything. Your first vacation in 10 years. Alright? It could be anything that is making you feel really uncomfortable or that you are considering to be scared in some way. Just like setting goals, we are now talking about setting fears. And on top of a sheet of paper, you take a sheet of paper. Let's say this is a sheet of paper. And at the top you just put, you know, what if I give dot dot? and complete what you are considering.

Start a company. Start a company. What happens if I open a company? Alright. And then you make three columns. One two three. The first column, you get really detailed with all the worst things that could happen. The company fails. Not specific enough. Ask so what, so what, so what? Let's get to the heart of the matter. Alright? I can't pay my rent, my boyfriend or girlfriend is leaving me because suddenly I'm not contributing enough to the household. My children, I cannot afford their education. I can't pay for his medical care. Good. Alright? I quit my job and then I can't go back to that industry.

Whatever it is, write it all down. But it has to be specific. And you can leave as many bullets as you want. Really just a brain dump. Could be 40, could be 10, could be 20. At least 10. Okay? So that's the worst case column. Then, in the second column, this is prevention. Alright, the first column is define, the second column is prevent. What are the things you could do or could ask someone else to help you do? Anything I can do to decrease the probability of even 1% of these things happening? Alright. Well, you could look into food subsidies. You could look into educational scholarships.

You might consider working for a gig economy service like TaskRabbit. You could look at Uber driving. You might look –– then all of a sudden these remedies or preventative measures start showing up. Specific again. It has to be specific. So, for each of those worst case scenarios, write down one or more things you could do to decrease the likelihood of that happening. There is almost always something. Alright. Boom. You make that list. Then in the last column you have repair. What does this mean? Alright. For each of these worst case scenarios, what is something you could do to repair even 1% damage or just temporarily recover?

What could you do? Could you move into a friend's guest room? Could you, as much as you hate it, take a temporary job as a waiter? Whatever. Good. What could you do to temporarily recover, to work things out, or reverse the damage? You perform the same exercise and, bullet by bullet. Once you've done that, don't rush it. This will usually take at least half an hour. And it will be the best time you may have ever had. And I've used this for just about every major turning point in my life, whether it's the first long ride I ever took, which was four weeks initially.

My first vacation in 2004. Four weeks in London to redesign my entire business and get out of a bottleneck, or close it. What then turned into 18 months of travel, but I didn't decide to take the four weeks, step back to the 30,000 foot view for six to nine months. I was so terrified to do it. And it was just scary, scary, scary. And a bunch of really hazy shadow puppet-like shapes. It wasn't clear at all, so I couldn't do anything about it. I just knew it wouldn't work. It wouldn't work because this would happen, because I would lose a letter from the IRS and then they would audit me and I would have to go back to the US and it would be a huge disaster.

Or my roommate would move out and then I wouldn't pay his part of the rent and then all my stuff would go into storage because like all this stuff I wasn't really unpacking in a useful way. And then I did this exercise and realized, wait a minute. If I'm thinking about the risklike the probability of an irreversible negative outcome, all of these things that just occurred to me are either preventable or fixable. What the hell am I doing? And it was like a week later I bought a ticket and left. If I hadn't done that, I would probably still be running that business and be miserable.

The four hour work week would never have happened and so on. I want to take it from there, because the four-hour work week: I'm going to switch to writing now. Yes. Let's do it. For people who don't know, I don't know who the hell doesn't know. You've been living under a rock. You just celebrated the tenth anniversary. It was a box office success. It was on the best-seller list for four years. For five years in a row. For five years in a row. Curse! Translated into 35 languages. And here's the thing folks, I need you all to hear this, rejected 25? 27. 27.

At least 27 times. 27 people rejected that son of a bitch. You can, it's like, and then you see what a monster it turns into. Not even very well, in some cases. Actually? Was he rude in some cases? Some of them were so rude. But it's not, so he has to feel a little good now. Like, just a little. Only a little? Ooh, that's great. It's great. Well ok. Just, you know, because that happens to all of us. Save those. Save those rejection letters. Today I was talking to someone on my team. We were practicing, we were doing like a call-in show, which we're doing now and I love it.

It's a lot of fun. We haven't cast one yet, but I can't wait. And someone on my team who's also a writer, says, "Marie," she's legitimately saying that she feels bad about herself because she got all these rejection letters. And I got your stat, JK Rowling. I'm like you know? All of us. All of us. If you ever expect to be anybody, you actually want to rack up those rejections. Let's stack them. Chicken Soup for the Soul, over a hundred rejections. Yes. They have now sold hundreds of millions of copies. Yes. It's a good thing. You go down the list.

You want to start eating rejection letters for breakfast. You're like, this is good. Yes, and you can also use it as fuel. And, you know, I think about Alexis Ohanian, who is one of the co-founders of Reddit. And in the early days, Reddit was starting to grow and they had a meeting at Yahoo to discuss some sort of corporate development/maybe acquisition, who knows. And this snooty SVP of blah blah blah at Yahoo looked at all the numbers and said, “Wow, yeah. This is like a rounding error for Yahoo." So, Alexis went back to the office and did a big "you're a rounding error, Yahoo" impression.

And put it on the wall to make people angry. And motivated. And motivated. Yes. No, more than once I've taken those really nice things that people have said to me and said it's like fuck your fuel. You know what I mean? I'm like, the Jersey in me comes out. I'm like, "Oh, really? Ah, okay. Is that what you think? Watch this one." And I'm like I take it and eat it for breakfast, sometimes they're like vitamins to me. use it use it And me, just as a quick side note because I don't think this is something I've mentioned publicly before.

For the four-hour chef. I was attacked by someone at the New York Times. And I removed this little bit of sound from the attack card. I think it was an opinion piece that said, it was meant to be like a sniper joke because it was in the context of a much bigger article, but it said something like Tim Ferriss can not only walk on land, but like walk on it. water, or something. And I just took that and then put it on the inside flap of the book and chalked it up to the guy who attacked me.

Alright. So in any case, yes. Many, many, many rejections. So how has your writing process changed over the years? And you know I'm asking this very selfishly, because I'm writing a book for the first time in over 10 years. Yes. Do you have it? Has. It has changed a lot. Have you noticed any patterns in terms of dos and don'ts that you could pass on to a sister? Sure. So a few. Some. A lot of it goes back to the question I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, what would this be like, or what would this be like if it was easy?

And there are several questions that I will put below that. And really the goal when you answer a question like that, which I always do in a journal of some sort, is to drive you crazy. What I mean by going crazy is that the more absurd, the better. Well. Like really going crazy. Nothing is off limits. And I'll ask hypothetical questions that are really ridiculous. For example, if you had to write this entire book in two weeks, if you had to, with a gun to your head, what would you do? If you had to do it, which you never would, but if you had to hire a ghostwriter to do this, what instructions would you give them?

Good? If I had to write this book with money or dictate it all, and couldn't touch a keyboard, what would I do? And I start to add all these constraints to the questions and try to figure it out, okay. Take away the keyboard, how do I finish this book in two weeks? Uh oh. Good? Or whatever. I start by adding all these really non-arbitrary, but hard constraints and then respond with just a handy stream of consciousness. And inevitably, somewhere, 90% will go straight to the trash. But there's going to be something where you go, that's okay. That is interesting.

That's enormously leveraged and that's something we can use. And then you try and go crazy, that really worked. And now you've shaved hundreds of hours or, you know, hundreds of self-flagellations from the experience. So the first thing would be to ask that question very routinely. When I was writing Tribe of Mentors and when I have written, the only two books that I have enjoyed writing are the last two books. So I've changed my approach a bit. That would be one. The second is to have a rock-solid daily routine where you don't have to think about logistics.

Yes. So my routine with, for example, Tribe of Mentors, was… my faithful Bulgarian can tell you. Hello. It's off camera. He is here. It was very, very boringly uniform. So he wakes up, 20 minutes of meditation, he jumps in the pool. And for this you need not a pool, but some kind of physical exercise. Jump in the pool, do 20 laps, take last night's paper I printed out to edit by hand. He goes into a sauna, for example. It could be any number of things. And there were some types of exercise that would vary. It could be that instead of saying swim, I'm going to do a set of kettlebell swings just to fire up my nervous system.

Bum Bum. The same tea, the same breakfast, a bit of daily. Good? So maybe what would this look like if it were easy today with this given component of the book? So work, work and work. Biking to a lunch, having the exact same lunch every day. It sounds boring, but useful. Mediterranean wraps. We can talk about it if you want. And then the same restaurants at night. Maybe two or three just so you don't completely die of boredom. But buy a lot of tequila for the people who work in those restaurants, because I'm going to want to stay late and I want them to love me.

Yes. So go to the same restaurant. And let's say the first nine days of writing a book, you go to the same restaurant for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then the same restaurant, a different restaurant, but the same restaurant for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And buy alcohol for everyone. And you just bought yourself the golden ticket, because if the restaurant is closing and you say, hey, can we just relax while you guys are counting the bills and cleaning and changing the silverware for an hour? They are like hell, yes. Stay here. They're pretty sure, yeah. Stay as long as you want.

So there's that piece. And I've also realized that it's very, very important to me, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, to have another human around so I don't go crazy over Cocoa Puffs in my own head. Oh yeah. This is a mistake that I have made, that I was making recently. I have talked about it. We had one or two shows. I was like oh my gosh. I am a hugely collaborative human being and have an amazing team that I am always interacting with. But I made some mistakes like going into the cave, which is good because it limits distractions, but I went too far.

Yes. You know, too far. And I was like I was in the middle of the ocean. What the hell is going on? Yes. There is such a thing as too much time in your own head. Yes. Especially this head. Like, there's a lot going on. And it looks less like the Iraq War than it did about three years ago, but it's still a hip neighborhood there. And I would say other tips that have helped me a lot, the treadmill desk has helped me tremendously. Are there any small gadgets? I can google this, but I'm only interested because it's fun.

We are having the conversation. I was thinking if I could take him to the gym. Because I don't have a treadmill at home, but I do go to gyms. I'm sure there's some gimmick. Yes. What could I bring. Which you could then put on top of a treadmill. Because they have those guide rails on the sides, you could almost certainly put something on top of it and then put the laptop on top of it. Almost sure. And you know what? My ass is going to be really tight when I do that. It simply is. Sorry people.

It's win-win. Yes, treadmill desk. I have also realized other things in my process, that it is not the same for everything, that I do my best synthesis or prose writing in the afternoon or at night, but I can do the hard work, that is, the dissemination, the research, data collection earlier. on day. Interesting. But I don't do synthesis and real prose well in the morning. So I like to break things up in that sense. Also in terms of fuel, coffee is not my friend. I've realized that as a fast caffeine metabolizer, if I have a cup of coffee, I'll be exhausted 20 minutes later.

Yes. And then it turns into 12 cups of coffee a day. I'm a slow metabolizer so I'm lucky. Oh, you're on a cruise. Yes I am. In my case, I'm going to become a restless, anxious mess because once I have one, I'll fall below my baseline. I'll be worse than when I started. Josh is like that too. And I'll need cup after cup after cup. So I buy both oolong, if people are interested, there is a brand called Ito-En, which is very popular in Japan. And you can buy boxes of these on Amazon Prime. So I'm going to buy boxes and boxes of green tea and oolong tea, which I alternate.

And I've got them stocked up and ready to rock and roll. And a Soda Jet. Love me my carbonated water. And those are some of the approaches. In terms of actual writing, what I figured out for myself, and learned quite early on, but continued to develop the way I approach it, is to treat each chapter like a magazine article in the sense that there's a beginning, a middle, an end, and is valuable as a stand-alone piece so it doesn't necessarily depend on other chapters. What this allows you to do is write out of order. So if you get stuck, you have modular pieces, and you can pause and continue working on something else so you don't panic if you're frozen on a certain chapter for a week.

That's actually –– yes. Which can really scare you. Because then because you're like, wait a minute. Have I covered this yet? Did I talk about this? Have I set this up enough that I can put this in this place sequentially? So give it enough: Give each chapter enough independent context so that you're referring as little as possible to other parts of the book. You can, but there must be enough context that the person doesn't have to go back and read that chapter. So by doing that, you also create a really curious benefit that I underestimated at first, which is that your readers can read the book, they can read the chapters out of order.

And this allows a much higher percentage of people to complete the entire book. Because if they're dragging a certain chapter, in the introduction, which I usually call, you know, how to use this book chapter, so they'll actually read it, and it says skip. This is meant to be, you know, a buffet. And if for some reason something doesn't grab your attention, pause and skip to another chapter. And you'll get a much higher conversion from consumption to action on readers if you approach it that way. So that's another point of emphasis that I've really paid attention to over time.

I love it. Yes. Very, very useful, at least for me. I feel like you just answered like two or three of my questions, but I'm going to ask one of these because I know everyone is interested. I'm not at this stage yet and, you know, I think the marketing and promotion stage of almost anything, I love it because it feels like an art to me and it's just a great joy for me. Oh, here's another writing tip. Yes. Ban yourself from working in marketing until you're done with your book. I am a winner! Absolutely... You know what I mean?

Because it's so much hotter and so much brighter and sexier to think about all these amazing launch plans. And writers will do anything to avoid writing. At the end of the day. It's like, “Oh my gosh. These flowers look terrible. I cannot write if these flowers are withering." distracting distracting You know, my shoes are so dirty. Really, it will be very distracting if I don't clean myshoes. The energy will not be good. Good. And it's anything and everything you can do to procrastinate, you will. Absolutely. I'm actually really proud of myself because I've told everyone and inside I'm like, you know, it's quarantined.

That's not… I'm not even going to touch that until. But I'm curious about anyone watching, because one of the questions we get a lot is how, you know, blah blah blah. So I'm curious if there are any high or low level things you've noticed that just changed. Because you're a monster when it comes to this. To everyone watching, part of the reason Tim Ferriss is so successful, I mean, there are many, many things we could talk about, but it's like you've been creating such high-quality, prolific content for a long time. . You take care of your audience.

Many times my friends joke that "You know, Marie, can you tell me how to do what you do, but not with hard work?" I'm like no. No. It's all, really it's all hard work. That's all. But with that said, some changes when it comes to marketing and promotion that you've seen in the books. Well, I'll answer that by looking at the latest releases. And I'll talk about some things that have changed, but my tendency is to look at things that haven't changed. Excellent. Because the –– let's say you want to learn how to draw. Alright? You can use a crayon, you can use a pencil, you can use a pen, you can use finger paint.

Coal. Coal. You could think of all those tools that I just mentioned as different types of, for example, social networks, but at the end of the day you have to know how to draw. Yeah. So, for example, in the world of social media, that might really be investing in learning how to write copy, how to write, period. Forget the copy. Learn to communicate with words on paper or on a computer. Oh yeah. Good? And reading a book like Cialdini's on persuasion. and influence. Good? We talk about this all the time. I don't mean to hijack this, but I have something called The Copy Cure.

Because I noticed a lot of my B-Schoolers, super smart, with a lot of integrity. Their copy fell far short of what they needed to be successful. Then yes. And if you want to improve, find, say, a continuing education class at a local college with a writing professor. Yes. And it doesn't have to be purely, it can be. I have many books ready on copywriting or advertising. You know, Ogilvy in advertising. Amazing. Killer. I mean, there are so many that I would recommend. But in the end it is thinking on paper. So I encourage you to also learn to write period.

Take a class. It could be creative writing, it could be nonfiction, it doesn't matter. It could be creative nonfiction. That is one of the best investments you can make. So there's… there's skills like writing and copywriting that translate into any tool. There are skills like storytelling. So if I read, say, I think I might get the title wrong. I always tear it apart. But the Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell. Yes. Get a better understanding of the story arc and the hero's journey so he can tell stories that are remembered. Study that. Study oral traditions.

Watch some of the most popular TED talks and forget about the procedures and focus on examining the personal stories, how they are used. Because that's the glue that holds everything else together. These are things that then, whether it's Instagram, Snapchat, the blank social tool, or the tool that's going to be around three years from now after half of them are dead, you'll be able to jump right in and earn. Yes. Or do it right. So I would say first and foremost try to invest in the skills and learn the principles that are most timeless, because then you are infinitely adaptable.

That's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say, which is really important, is that in a world where word of mouth can either kill you or make you, this is your marketing. Yes ok? When people ask me what you're doing to market the book, I say 90% is in the writing of the book. doing something It's no accident, for example, that in this book there are these quotes that are some of my favorite quotes that I'm using as a reminder to myself, because ultimately every book I write is a book that I couldn't find for myself.

Yes. But these are also tailor-made for sharing. Yes. And people will share them. And every single person there, no doubt to their benefit, also has their social handle listed. Well, that makes things easier, doesn't it? Yes. And it goes on and on and on. But at the end of the day, you can play with a system. You can: You can cheat or game almost any existing system, but that will be very short-lived if the product or service doesn't stand on its own. Absolutely. So it's never been, in a way, easier to market something without marketing if you create a great service or product.

So that should be the focus. I see so many people trying to put a tuxedo on overalls pulling out a mediocre at best, say, book. Yes. And then they want to dress it up and cover it in gold and sell it like Willy Wonka's golden ticket. And within a week people are like this is garbage. Absolutely. And so it's more of a responsibility than anything else. So I would also say to everyone who says I want to write a book. You, however? Really? Because it is, A, if it can't be your number one or number two priority, ideally the number one priority, for a year, will be more of a liability than a help to you.

And as for things that change, one of the questions I ask myself before every release, there are a number of questions. One is what is becoming less important or impactful and what is becoming more important. So for the four-hour work week, for example, there were these things called blogs. Brand new. What are blogs? Oh my God. And television was losing importance in many ways and impact. But it was highly valued by the editors. Meanwhile, blogs were very neglected and skyrocketing in importance, and are still important, by the way. So I ended up doubling down and putting everything in focus on the blogs.

For, say, the Four-Hour Chef, the answer was podcasts. Podcasts were right at this tipping point and moved the majority, I would say, of the books that were sold for the four-hour Chef. I am constantly looking at what becomes more important, what becomes less important, and also what is out of date. So for Tools of Titans, for example, I did a bunch of billboards. Because? Because everyone said that billboards are dead. Yes. What happens when everyone says billboards are dead? There is more supply than demand, and prices drop a lot. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, you know, it's priced low enough, almost everything is a good deal.

So if I can get a bargain price on a certain medium that may indeed be effective to some extent but is out of fashion, I'll buy whatever I can get. Also, how much fun is it? There's the fun factor that I'm going to do a billboard. You've earned it at this point. Totally yes. Absolutely. So there are absolutely things that I do in every book when I write them, so I don't go completely crazy just for fun. So there are some questions that I ask everyone, you know, 130, 140 people in Tribe Mentors, that's just me. Yes. It's really just for me.

Like, what's an absurdity? What is an absurd thing or behavior that you love? Yes. Well, my answer is there. Yeah, because you get the craziest shit and you realize, wow. Everybody... He's a weirdo! Crazy. Yes. So, and that's very reassuring. Yeah. You know, just like knowing that people are going through hard times. And there are a lot of deep, meaningful, deep questions, hopefully, and certainly answers in the book. But that's like the fiber of knowledge. It requires some digestion. So there has to be some levity to get people over it. And especially when writing a book, which is never easy, getting these little Scooby Snacks from these ridiculous answers that were so funny made the process a little easier.

Let the stress out. It was a stress release valve, up to a point. And in launches, the same. I will do stupid, ridiculous and absurd things so as not to get burned. You'll never make things really serious if you're serious all the time. Yes. You will turn off. So look at what's underrated. And in terms of any release and, this is another constant, I would say it's a very big mistake that I see as far as I'm concerned is trying to create something that appeals to everyone or to market something to everyone. Who is going to read your book?

Everyone is going to read my book. Well, there are a number of problems with that. Number one is that if you try to do something that everyone likes, you're going to do something that nobody is going to love. Period. The next one is when you get to the point where you're marketing and doing PR, how affordable is marketing to everyone? It is not. It's very, very, very, very completely useless, A. And even if you try, it's going to break the bank. So instead, I encourage everyone to read, and I say this every time I talk about pitching.

I want to mention this. 1000 true fans, which is an article by Kevin Kelly. If you are able to identify the 1000 prospective fans that you think may become your superfans, your true fans, they will become your most powerful unpaid marketing force and will recruit, for example, casual fans for you. But to achieve that, you have to create something that's so fine-tuned, so personalized to those 1,000 people that once they try it, they'll buy anything you make forever, because it's so right, hand in hand. for them. And if that means, by the way, that they're all 23-year-old Italian-American emo dyslexics, awesome.

Yes, excellent. Don't be ashamed of that. Don't apologize for the lack of diversity of your 1000 true fans. Fuck it. I'm sorry. No, there isn't… we can say what we want here. No. It's like you need to have a very clear picture of who you're creating something for. And ideally, you are them and they are you. Good? Yes. In fact, that was one of my favorite pieces, because I want to talk about this now, Tribe of Mentors. There is one, is it Tim Urban? Oh yeah. Yes. Probably yes. that he began to write. that he began to write.

So I thought this was really helpful because a lot of people like oh my gosh. I have so many people in my audience. And they're so, you know, and I can struggle with that as well because I understand, especially at this point, the diversity of my audience. People who are 7 and 77 years old and all 195 countries. I loved it, Tim Urban's advice. It's like I imagine, to paraphrase, that there's only a stadium full of me. Yes. And I'm going to write this book or create this thing for myself, and I'm going to love it. Yes Yes. Exactly.

It's… that's what he said. Because I know exactly what they're going to laugh at. Yes. I know exactly what his strange interests are. Yes. And it turns out that your strange interests, as unique as you think you are, are actually shared by a lot of people. And, you know, Kevin has made this point before, I mean, even if your interest is one in a million like the weirdest sexual fetish you can conceive of, one in a million still means you have a whole city full of people in the world. they are on the same thing. Yes.

I always find that when I talk about... because I love horror movies, zombies and other things. "Oh my god. Me too." I got an email the other day, it's like, "Can we do a haunted house together? We could do a whole thing." There are tons of us. Oh yeah. Yeah. So accept your weird self because there are actually thousands or millions of other people who like the same thing. And as a case study for the four-hour work week, I scrapped the first few chapters I wrote because they sounded too pompous and Princetonian. It's just ridiculous. Awful.

So I scrapped it. And then I tried to do it again and the first few chapters were really three terrible kooks. So I threw it out. Because I was trying to write a book for a lot of people in both cases. And then I sat down. I took maybe two, just to be conservative, maybe two glasses of wine, and I opened the word processor and started writing an email to two of my close friends, one who was stuck in a job he hated but felt like he couldn't leave and one who was stuck in a company of his own making and felt like he couldn't leave.

He was in a prison of his own making. And so I typed like, "Hello, so-and-so." And I had like a paragraph or two preamble, and then I started writing the first chapter and then the second chapter as an email to these guys that I knew too well so I could be myself. If I wanted to curse, I could curse. But I'm not going to do it all the time. Yes. If I want to be funny, they're going to have my sense of humor. Good. They will get it. And that's when I finally got to write the book.

And it turns out that although my initial target market, and the target market is not. It is an entry point. This is something really important. My original target market for easy writing and also really focused marketing was, say, 25-40 year old tech-savvy men in a handful of major cities who were very focused ontechnology. And then as soon as it got a foothold and started to spread out in that demographic and psychographic, then 25- to 40-year-old women who are tech-savvy in the same spaces. Boom. She then she faded into it and then she bled in both directions in terms of age, and then she went international, and now she's in about 40-something languages.

And it never would have happened if she hadn't been so focused in the beginning. It would never have happened. If you try to boil the ocean all at once, it doesn't work. Curse. Alright. So let's move on. Now we are in Tribe of Mentors, which is wonderful. I'm so glad you did. Now that you're well warmed up, I think I've warmed you up. Yes, I am agile. I want to hear his answer to one of the questions he sent to all of us. Let's do it. So, in the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has improved your life the most?

So for everyone watching, when you get this book, this is one of the questions that many of us "mentors" have answered. Yes. I would say for me it's a consistent morning practice before I take my phone out of airplane mode to sit down and do a meditation practice for, say, 20 minutes. And he stayed initially taking a maybe three-day transcendental meditation class when he was going through a very, very difficult time. And Chase Jarvis, who is an amazing and highly successful commercial photographer, has worked on every big brand you can imagine and is also a very good CEO.

Both him and Rick Rubin, who is like the most legendary music producer of all time. Just look at his discography. It's crazy. He's like Johnny Cash, Eminem, Jay-Z, Metallica. You know, the list is absurd. It's like all the ones you've heard of. And he also told me at one point, because he was having a very difficult time and was very hurt, he said, have you ever considered TM? And I am like mantra. As if you paid them to give you a mantra. it's a cult. Like, I don't want to be part of a cult and so on.

They're like, no, it's actually very secular. And I know there's a little bit of weird stuff, but you can just ignore it. It's like the first hour of the talk. Just ignore it. What do you have to lose? And I was going through such a difficult period at one point that I was like, you know, that's a good point. So I did that and that kick started the meditation. And then I experimented with other things like Headspace, which I have no personal interest in. So you start with 10 minutes a day for 10 days as a proof of concept.

And the way that I encourage people to think about meditation, because it can sound very woowoo and it certainly repelled me for a long time, is that you're sitting, let's say, on a couch to practice observing your thoughts, feelings, and emotions over a period of time. very short of time. time, so that for the rest of the day you are less emotionally reactive. What this means is that you are rehearsing. You're training. It's like going to the gym. So let's say you're training for a sport. Alright? You are an athlete in X. You go to the gym to do squats, to do this, this and this so that when you get on the field of play you can perform better.

It is exactly the same. You are rehearsing and training for your day. And then when you come across something that would normally trigger you, whether it's a certain type of email, whether it's an employee having a habit that drives you crazy, or you're behind on your schedule and then the line at Starbucks is longer what would you like. Whatever it is, the things that would normally cause you to hurt yourself a lot, explode, or scold yourself or other people, you'll start catching them before you have the reaction. And then you say, “Okay, half a second of breath.

Let me choose my response instead of being held hostage to these loops and triggers that we all have." So that's been enormously, enormously helpful to me. And there are many different entry points. You know, I mentioned TM. That is one way. It is not the only way. Headspace, I think, is a fantastic option for people. Ten minutes a day for 10 days, which is free, or you can listen to a guided mediation. There are many good ones out there. Sam Harris, who is also here, has some great guided meditations. Tara Brach also has some amazing really hypnotic guided meditations.

Yes we have one. We have one for free. You can google Marie Forleo Free Download. They are ten minutes, it is, because it has been, in a similar way, it has been absolutely fundamental in my life. I mean, everything. Yes. So as a matter of habit, I'd say that's one. Last five years, I mean, I'm cheating a little bit because this is older, but I'm re-embracing two-handed kettlebell swings as the go-to. You just hit everything and in five minutes twice a week with something that takes up so much floor space, you're all set. It's really profitable, just an amazing, amazing exercise.

And I know I'm giving more than one. I'm cheating a bit. In terms of belief, this is really new, but I would say that you have to find a way to love yourself in order to love other people completely. That is just the state of reality. There's really no way around it. So that for me, and I think for a lot of people, is just the number one priority. And I think it's Sharon Salzberg, who's one of five people credited with bringing Buddhist meditation practices to the West, she said, and I think she's very close to you here as well.

And her expression is put on your oxygen mask first. Before helping others, put on your own oxygen mask. And I think I've neglected it for a long time. So yes. Those are my answers. What do you hope people get out of this? I hope you get a renewed sense of hope and optimism, because not only are you learning the exact routines and tools and apps and supplements and everything you can use today that has helped people produce massive successes, but you're also learning exactly how they got rid of failures and dark periods. And you need both.

Nothing drives me crazier than motivating people who don't offer specific tools. That drives me crazy. It's like you're getting people really excited about getting on a plane. Be like, “No, pilot. I got this." And they don't have any training on an airplane. What are you doing? That's crazy. Yeah. That's dangerous. No no no. I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to be like, “Yeah, man. I'll figure it out and manifest it all. Let me quit my job and put my whole family at risk and then start a company I haven't even thought of." No no.

Time's up. Don't do that. You need the training and the tools, kid. Yeah. Like, no, no. You need a seatbelt. And so I love spotting the patterns as well. That's another thing that people are going to get out of this is they'll be able to, there's absolutely, there's at least 10 people in this book for anyone they identify with who have the same set of strengths and weaknesses and personality quirks So they can just copy and paste right into their lives So that's really what I hope And in all these books, I What I most look forward to is hearing the stories of people who get better results than the people in the book.

Yes. And, I mean, you were… some people may now know this, but you are a… you were a role model in the Four Hour Corps. Some people say, “Marie. Is that you?" I'm like, "Yeah, because my brother called me and said, hey, can you help me with my book? Of course I can help you with your book. Yeah, so you're in that book. And I remember on Four-Hour Body, I remember when it first came out, people were crazy. This guy is crazy. Like, those things are so extreme, like you can never do this, this, this, or this.

Although I documented everything. Yes. And now for each of those chapters, whether it's on fat loss, on the topic of orgasm, or marathon training, the vertical jump. It doesn't matter. For every chapter, I have dozens of people who have not only replicated what I did, but have made it even better. That is the best. Yes. That's the exciting part. Really is. Because my goal with any of these is to make myself, and I think any good personal trainer should aim to make themselves obsolete as quickly as possible. And that's my goal here. It's like I don't want to be a guru of any kind that people turn to for answers, but I'm happy to give you better questions and tools so you can figure things out on your own later.

Exactly. Okay, before I finish with the last question I want to ask you, before we let you go, it's not on your list, but I'm curious because you're such a voracious learner and you're so… and always… – I always love it. hear what you're doing next. What are you working on to improve now? Whether mentally, emotionally, whatever. What is something that is really blowing a little wind on your lap, so to speak? Because I know you, you know. It's one of your favorite things. We'll see. I love to roll up the skirt. marilyn monroe Yes. We can do a photo session later.

We'll see. There are many things. I would say, not to sound like a broken record, but to honestly acknowledge the incredible relief, ease, and productivity that comes with being even a little kinder to yourself. It's so remarkable and so dramatic. And frankly, a good place to start is a morning gratitude list. And I do this regularly in my journal. Just write down three things every morning, maybe before, I do it before I have breakfast with tea, usually. Write a person for whom you are grateful. I often do, just to avoid any pattern where I'm like my family and my girlfriend.

And to avoid always using the same people, think of someone from your story who really helped you like in high school, in elementary school, in college, wherever that was. And then, secondly, whatever comes to your mind. And then I always make the third one very small. And I actually took this from Tony Robbins. Something really small like the yellow cup I'm using for my tea or the tea itself. Or the sunlight coming in. Yes. Sunlight or like a bird chilling outside. Something really small. And what this trains you to do is put on a lens for the day that allows you to selectively see more of the positive.

So I think a lot of people who focus on achievement and success in a certain field have a tendency, which has its place, to look at the 100 things they did and ignore the 98 that went well and just say okay. Good things take care of themselves. Let me focus on the two where I made mistakes. After the match. Let's do it. And the fact is that this is a very new realization. Good things don't really take care of themselves. You have to farm those. You have to practice them. Or they will leave. Yes. If you only focus on fixing the negative, what is left is a void.

Not everything high fives, smiles and rainbows. You have to cultivate the positive. So that's one. Another thing that excites me and interests me a lot, and I think it multiplies almost every year. And this might be a bit off. So I'm not a doctor or a lawyer so please do your own homework. Don't break any laws, kids. Don't do this at home. Explore the applications of plants and compounds that have been used in traditional ceremonial contexts on nearly every continent in the world that would normally be called psychedelic. I believe there are powerful, deep, wide-ranging applications and potentially safe applications in supervised environments.

So that's something I'm spending a lot of time on. And I'm really taking, for example, all the attention that I've put into technology investment in startups for almost 10 years. Yes, ten years. Wow. In scientific research related to a better understanding of the mechanisms in action and subjection to, for example, double-blind studies. Apps to say PTSD and treatment resistant depression. Other things that excite me are honest programming. And this is something I did. Earlier you mentioned Tim Urban. He wrote an article, long before I met him, that was recommended to me by a friend who just lost his father unexpectedly.

Young boy, very sad. And it was an article, it's an article, that everyone can find for free called "The Tail End" by Tim Urban on his Wait But Why site. And at the end he points out, and I think I'm doing it right, but by the time you graduate from high school, it might be college, but by the time you graduate from high school or college, you'll have spent 80% or more of the Total number of hours you will spend with your parents before they die. And when I read that, and he presents it in visual form, and he hit me real hard.

So I started, this is a few years ago, blocking off two to four weeks every six months to take my family on a trip somewhere. And it has become our relationships have never been better. And what's so beautiful about that, and I recognize that not everyone can take four weeks off every six months, but maybe it's a long weekend. It doesn't have to be really incredibly complicated or expensive. And we collaborate and brainstorm locations and what we could do in those locations, and we put together these dream lists. And so, not only would you get the ride, but you would also get the anticipation of theexperience throughout the year.

Because there is something coming in no more than six months. And it's been, I would have to say, at least as a family, by far, and in my relationships with my family, the best investment I've probably ever made in my life is to commit to doing that. And that's something that makes me excited, because I'm taking my whole family to Japan on the 25th anniversary of my first real trip abroad, which is one year in Japan. freaking out Talk about culture shock. And finally it changed my life. And introduce my mom, dad and brother to my Japanese mom, dad and brother for the first time.

I'm so excited to do that and experience that and see my parents' faces, my brother's face when they meet the extreme weirdness that is Japan. It's so amazing, but it's so strange. Or remembering, for example, that I took my parents and my brother to Iceland because my mother had always wanted to see the Northern Lights. She had never seen the northern lights. And like the look on her face on one particularly lucky night, that was just spectacular. Like a grand finale fireworks display. It was so ethereal and otherworldly. Priceless. Yes. I mean, it's… Absolutely. No one can say for sure why we're here, but I'd say he's a contender.

He is pretty close. So certainly that's something that's really exciting. I adore you. I love you. Congratulations on this. To everyone, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. It's been super fun, and we won't wait 10 years until we do it again. Thanks for coming. Thank you dear. I love you. Yes, I love you too. Now Tim and I would love to hear from you. So today I want to hear your answer to one of Tim's questions. So, in the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has improved his life the most? Let us know in the comments below.

Now, as always, the best conversations happen after the episode in the magical land of MarieForleo.com, so head over there and leave a comment now. And while you're there, if you're not already, become an MF Insider and sign up for our email list. You'll get exclusive access to a piece of audio I created called How To Get What You Want, plus you'll get exclusive content, special goodies, and some updates from me that I just don't share anywhere else. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams, because the world needs that special gift that only you have.

Thank you very much for watching and see you next time on MarieTV. School B is coming up. Want in? For more information on free training, visit JoinBSchool.com. If I'm thinking of risk as the probability of an irreversible negative outcome, all of these things that just occurred to me are either preventable or fixable. What the hell am I doing? And it was like a week later I bought a ticket and left. If I hadn't done that I would probably still be running that business and be miserable and the four hour work week would never have happened and so on.