The 30-Day Challenge: No Booze, No Masturbating (NOBNOM)

The short version: I’d like to pay you to not drink or jerk off for 30 days. Sign up here and get your monk on.

Sex is A-OK.

The longer version is below, which includes juicy details, more options for women, and some farewell-porn suggestions…

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You know who you are, you filthy animals.

Secret bookmarks to Pornhub (“Discount airfare” – Ha!), secret folders labeled “Tax Returns” for when wifi fails, bookmarks for animated GIFs in case of slow connections (curtsy to Tumblr), Hotspot Shield for when you’re in countries that ban your cherished images (download it before you fly!)…

Oh, wait. Am I projecting again?

Yes, I’ve admitted it before, and I’ll admit it again: dudes watch porn on the Internet. Shocker, I know. All those guys on the magazine covers? They do it, too.

Less obvious, perhaps, is how dramatically your life can change if you quit porn and masturbation for a short period.

I did this for 30 days recently, and — oddly enough — I found it much easier and more impactful to quit booze for the same 30 days. Just a few of the benefits I experienced included…

• A dramatic surge in free testosterone and sex drive. Dozens of my seemingly healthy male friends, techies in particular, have approached me over the years about chronically low testosterone. There are many potential causes, including late-night blue light, but removing booze and porn appear to open the flood gates. Research (example, example) shows that alcohol reduces testosterone levels. So…should you be dating more? Trying a little harder instead of wanking, watching Battlestar Galactica, and calling it a night? This will help motivate you.
• Increased ability to focus and cognitive endurance. This goes along with increased “T” mentioned above.
• Getting roughly 50-100% more done. When you aren’t nursing hangovers, chewing up 3-4 hours per night with friends, destroying your sleep with booze, or procrastinating with porn (you know who you are) — miracle of miracles — you get more done! A LOT more done. In my mind, this alone easily justifies a 30-day booze and porn fast. You’ll clear off that goddamn to-do list faster than Speedy Gonzales. And remember: sex is still allowed.

Join Me for Another 30 Days

Given how transformative this was for me, I’m inviting you to join me for another 30 days. After that, you can go back to your hedonistic ways. I enjoy porn, but I’ve concluded I can level up by taking breaks.

I’ll refer to our 30-day challenge as NOBNOM (NO Booze, NO Masturbating), as the acronym itself sounds pornographic. We gotta make this sumnabitch memorable.

Next steps are described below.

NOTE: If you don’t masturbate (a lot of women don’t but should), or if you otherwise don’t watch enough porn to care about abstaining, here’s another option:

NOBNOC — No Booze, No Complaining

For this version, please first read “Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment.” Then, join the same NOBNOB challenge page to be part of the community.

Next Steps — Do It Now!

1. STEP 1 – Join the NOBNOM goal page here. This is free, and it will keep you accountable to yourself and others.  This official challenge starts August 1st.  That means you get to go crazy on September 1st.  If you’re reading this another time, you can start whenever.  I’m sure people will still be on the page.

2. STEP 2 – If you’re really serious, up the ante and put some cash on the line. As discussed at length in The 4-Hour Chef, without stakes or consequences, about 70% of you will fail. So… choose not to fail.

Below are two options, and I earn nothing from either. I’d suggest doing both of them, if possible:

• A. Create a betting pool with a few friends or co-workers. Each person commits $100 or whatever (enough to sting if lost, but not enough to bankrupt you) to the pot, and those who complete the full 30 days split the pot. Using this type of betting pool is partially how Tracy Reifkind lost 100+ pounds, so you can definitely use it on NOBNOM.
• B. Get an accountability coach by clicking here. They’ll email you daily to keep you on track, and you get the first week free by using coupon “NOBNOM.” It’s otherwise $14.99 per week, so the month costs you $45. There are two coaches, and they have bandwidth for 200 people. The coaches: one is a former senior staffer from OneTaste (remember the 4-Hour Body orgasm chapters?). The other coach successfully stopped masturbating and is trained in accountability coaching.

3. STEP 3 – If you’d like to participate in 1-3 support meetings and private Q&As, sign up for my e-mail list and you’ll get the invites. I’ll probably host live video chats, 60-minutes long, and I’ll dedicate 15-20 minutes to the AA meeting-type stuff.  The NoFap page on reddit might also be helpful for some of y’all.

And that’s it!

How You Get Paid

I’m putting $1,000 of my own cash on the line, and Lift (which I advise) is putting up $500, for a total of $1,500.

Here’s how you get it:

1) You must complete the 30-day challenge (Aug 1-31, 2014) on the NOBNOM goal page I’ve linked to throughout this post. We’ll audit this.

2) You must put some of your cash on the line, using one of the above listed approaches. It shouldn’t be enough to hurt you, but it needs to be enough to motivate you.

3) You must leave helpful feedback, tips, and/or encouragement for others, on both that page and in the comments below.

After the challenge, the Lift team, my jury of magic elves, and I will choose the three (3) most helpful people, and each will get $500 USD. Bam!

Get excited and get on it.

So, What Are You Waiting For?

If you’ve been feeling less than super-productive, slightly lethargic, or mildly depressed, do this 30-day challenge. If you simply want to level-up your life, do this 30-day challenge.

At the very least, it’ll make you conscious of automatic behaviors.  Things you’ve done for so long that you know nothing else.

If you’re like me, once the fat starts melting off and you’re feeling like a different person, you’ll say to yourself:

“Holy shit, my baseline for the last 10 years [or 5 or 15 or whatever] has been fucked! I totally forgot what it feels like to live clean.”

Perhaps living clean ended for you after high school, or even before, as it did for me. Why not get reacquainted for 30 days?  Chances are that it’s been a while.

Here’s the first step.

A Parting Gift

If you need a last hurrah before 30 days of being a good boy or girl, here are a few options for party time:

• A bottle of 2011 Ménage à Trois red. It’s delicious.
• A viewing of “Momoko and Anjelica,” available through Ze Google. It’s also delicious, and DEFINITELY not suitable for work.
• A chaser of club soda with lots of lime. You might be having lots of these, so get friendly.

Welcome to Thunderdome!  You’ll thank me later.

See you on NOBNOM central.

Pura vida,

Tim

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.