“Plato would have made a lousy investor.”
– Adam Robinson
This is a special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. The audio is from a live conversation with not one, not two, but three guests: Josh Waitzkin, Ramit Sethi, and Adam Robinson.
Josh Waitzkin is an endlessly fascinating person who gets mentioned a lot on this show for good reason. For the uninitiated, Josh was the basis for the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. He’s perfected the techniques that made him into a chess prodigy and a jiu-jitsu black belt, and he shared them in his book The Art of Learning.
Ramit Sethi (@ramit) is a business expert who has built a huge company from his blog. He’s the best-selling author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich.
Adam Robinson is the trusted outside global macro advisor to the heads of some of the world’s largest hedge funds and family offices. He’s written a best-seller on test preparation, developed artificial intelligence text analysis, been recognized as a chess master, and he’s hilarious.
I hope you enjoy this special edition of the podcast.
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- Listen to it on iTunes.
- Stream by clicking here.
- Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
Want to hear another podcast with Josh Waitzkin? — In this episode, we discuss The Art of Learning, what separates elite performers, and strategies for peak productivity (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet.
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This podcast is also brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audiobooks. I have two to recommend:
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
- Vagabonding by Rolf Potts
All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is go to Audible.com/Tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endless options they offer. That could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or even a class. It’s that easy. Go to Audible.com/Tim and get started today. Enjoy.
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
Selected Links from the Episode
- Connect with Josh:
Website | The Art of Learning Project
- Connect with Ramit:
- Connect with Adam:
- Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
- The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
- I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- What Smart Students Know: Maximum Grades. Optimum Learning. Minimum Time. by Adam Robinson
- The Mask
- Josh uses Evernote to help him slice through complexity.
- Adam’s method of meditation is heart rate variability training.
- Book on HRV: The HeartMath Solution: The Institute of HeartMath’s Revolutionary Program for Engaging the Power of the Heart’s Intelligence
- Adam’s recommended hardware/software to track HRV
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
- The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition by Jalal al-Din Rumi, Coleman Barks, and John Moyne
- Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees
- The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Charles T. Munger
- Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene M. Schwartz
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
- The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture by Vimalakirti
- Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries
Show Notes
- Introductions. [07:06]
- Why Josh has a snaggletooth. [10:35]
- Adam gives us three things he’s learned this year that he considers the keys to success. [11:42]
- Ramit explains the importance of relationships. [14:40]
- What would Ramit like to improve upon in the new year? [16:32]
- What makes a good leader? [17:09]
- Josh has surprisingly close calls with death more often than most, which makes him especially grateful for life as the new year approaches. [19:28]
- Focusing on “the most important question.” [21:29]
- Josh shares his process for overnight digestion of a problem he’s working on and slicing through its complexity. [23:14]
- Adam talks about daily routines. [27:05]
- What makes Adam good at a seemingly unrelated number of skill sets? [32:50]
- How does Adam avoid falling into constructs? [39:57]
- The best question ever. [41:12]
- Decisions Ramit wishes he had made earlier. [43:20]
- Why Ramit loves interacting with haters and belligerent people on the Internet — and how he recommends dealing with them. [47:54]
- Josh on dealing with haters in person. [53:43]
- Why Josh generally eschews publicity. [58:05]
- On influential thinkers and books gifted most often. [1:02:23]
- Ramit on how it’s easy to mistake good advice for bad when it’s received at the wrong time. [1:14:02]
- Adam talks about flying matadors and character development. [1:17:41]
- Josh on making the transition from competitive fighter to receptive nurturer. [1:19:58]
- We talk bad (but common) advice. [1:22:14]
- How much of the self is discovery vs. creation? [1:24:01]
- Ramit talks about the good advice he recently received that “blew up” his whole life. [1:26:06]
- Adam on finding what’s undiscovered among the common. [1:28:00]
People Mentioned
- Bobby Fischer
- Marcelo Garcia
- Max the Jack Russell Terrier
- Astro Teller
- Reid Hoffman
- Ernest Hemingway
- Donald Trump
- Sam Zell
- Plato
- John Katzman
- Joe Bloggs
- Janet Yellen
- Robert Rodriguez
- Chris Sacca
- Robert Cialdini
- Fred Waitzkin
- Rumi
- Gavin de Becker
- Charlie Munger
- Lao Tzu
- Jack Kerouac
- Robert Pirsig
- Robert A. E. Thurman
- Gia-Fu Feng
- Jane English
- Sebastian Junger
- Juan Belmonte
- Heston Blumenthal
- Chris Young
- Nick Gray