2025-05-01 22:22:35
This time around, we have a bit of a different format, featuring the book that started it all for me, The 4-Hour Workweek. Readers and listeners often ask me what I would change or update, but an equally interesting question is: what wouldn’t I change? What stands the test of time and hasn’t lost any potency? This episode features two of the most important chapters from the audiobook of The 4-Hour Workweek. The chapters push you to defend your scarce attention—one by saying no to people, the other by saying no to excess information.
The chapter is narrated by the great voice actor Ray Porter. If you are interested in checking out the rest of the audiobook, which is produced and copyrighted by Blackstone Publishing, you can find it on Audible, Apple, Google, Spotify, Downpour.com, or wherever you find your favorite audiobooks.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform.
This episode is brought to you by David Protein Bars, with 28g of protein, 150 calories, and 0g of sugar; Our Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro, using nonstick technology that’s coating-free and made without PFAS, otherwise known as “Forever Chemicals”; and AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement.
This episode is brought to you by David Protein Bars! I’m always on the hunt for protein sources that don’t require sacrifices in taste or nutrition. That’s why I love the protein bars from this episode’s sponsor, David. With David protein bars, you get the fewest calories for the most protein, ever. David has 28g of protein, 150 calories, and 0g of sugar. I was first introduced to David by my friend Peter Attia, MD, who is their Chief Science Officer. Many of you know of Peter, and he does his due diligence. And David tastes great. Their bars come in six delicious flavors, all worth trying, and I’ll often throw them in my bag for protein on the go. And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show who buy four boxes get a fifth box for free. Try them for yourself at DavidProtein.com/Tim.
This episode is brought to you by Our Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro! Many nonstick pans can release harmful “forever chemicals”—PFAS—into your food, your home, and, ultimately, your body. Teflon is a prime example—it is *the* forever chemical that most companies are still using. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to major health issues like gut microbiome disruption, testosterone dysregulation, and more, which have been correlated to chronic disease in the long term. This is why I use the Titanium Always Pan Pro from today’s sponsor, Our Place. It’s the first nonstick pan with zero coating. This means zero “forever chemicals” and a durability that will last a lifetime. That’s right—no degradation over time like traditional nonstick pans.
Now, Our Place has expanded their lineup and launched the Titanium Pro Cookware Set—a completely toxin-free, high-performance set designed to last a lifetime. It’s built on the success of the Titanium Always Pan Pro. Now, you can cook everything with the same health-first, long-lasting design. Listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can now get 10% off the Titanium Pro Cookware Set. Just visit FromOurPlace.com/Tim and use code TIM at checkout. With a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and free returns, there’s zero risk in test-driving a great upgrade to your kitchen.
This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.
Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.
Want to hear another episode that features content straight from The 4-Hour Workweek? Listen here for the chapter preceding this one that includes tools and frameworks that I use to this day, including Pareto’s Law and Parkinson’s Law.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
The post The 4-Hour Workweek Tools That Still Work — The Art of Refusal and The Low-Information Diet (#809) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
2025-04-24 21:58:09
“Nietzsche said ‘amor fati’ is how he’s going to live his life henceforth. Everything he’s going to say yes to. He will be a yes-sayer, is what he says. This is an affirmative stance towards reality where, even if things are bad or uncomfortable or horrible, we’re going to affirm reality as it is and not idealize it into something that it’s not. It’s very common for people to do, even when they’re not religious, to think of reality as though it owes you something. But to affirm reality fully is to accept the good, the bad. It’s not to rationalize about it and try to make excuses for it or frame your suffering in a way where it makes it go away. To truly affirm life and reality is just to be in it and to have life itself be enough, truly.”
— Stephen West
Stephen West (@iamstephenwest) is a father, husband, and host of the Philosophize This! podcast. He attempts to explain, translate, and humanize philosophy in a way that doesn’t ever aim to tell people what to think but to invite them to better understand their own thoughts by exploring alternatives.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
This episode is brought to you by Gusto simple and easy payroll, HR, and benefits platform used by 400,000+ businesses; Momentous high-quality supplements; and Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating.
This episode is brought to you by Gusto! I asked millions of you about Gusto on social media, and I’ve never seen such overwhelmingly positive responses. More than 400,000 small businesses already trust Gusto, and it’s been named the #1 Payroll Software by G2 for Winter 2025. If you’re a small business owner looking to simplify payroll and HR tasks, Gusto could be the game-changer you need. Gusto is an all-in-one payroll, benefits, and HR platform designed specifically for small businesses. Gusto automatically files federal, state, and local payroll taxes, handles W-2s and 1099s, and offers straightforward health benefits and 401(k) options for nearly any budget. With an intuitive interface and features like time tracking, onboarding tools, and direct access to certified HR experts, Gusto saves time and eliminates headaches so you can focus on what matters—growing your business. As a special offer to listeners, new customers get Gusto free for their first 3 months. This is the perfect time to choose Gusto to take care of your team and stay compliant. See for yourself why 9 out of 10 businesses recommend it. Get started now! Terms apply at Gusto.com/terms.
This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I’ve suffered for decades, tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling them back on, and repeating ad nauseam. But a few years ago, I started using the Pod Cover, and it has transformed my sleep. Eight Sleep has launched their newest generation of the Pod: Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates, automatically. With the best temperature performance to date, Pod 4 Ultra ensures you and your partner stay cool in the heat and cozy warm in the cold. Plus, it automatically tracks your sleep time, snoring, sleep stages, and HRV, all with high precision. For example, their heart rate tracking is at an incredible 99% accuracy.
Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable Base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame to add custom positions for the best sleeping experience. Plus, it automatically reduces your snoring when detected. Add it easily to any bed.
And now, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra for a limited time! Click here to claim this deal and unlock your full potential through optimal sleep.
This episode is brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).
Their products are third-party tested (Informed-Sport and/or NSF certified), so you can trust that what is on the label is in the bottle and nothing else. Use code TIM at checkout and enjoy 35% off your first subscription order or 14% off your first one-time purchase! And not to worry, my non-US friends, Momentous ships internationally and has you covered.
Want to hear another podcast episode focusing on philosophy and the nature of reality? Listen to my conversation with Galileo’s Error author Philip Goff, in which we discussed panpsychism, quantum consciousness, Integrated Information Theory, mystical traditions within Christianity and Islam, psychedelics and numinous experiences, the matter of matter, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Website | Patreon | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
“Why do we need old men yelling at each other about unverifiable speculation? Why do you need philosophy? And what that point misses is that philosophy is how we got to the point where we’re looking at the world in the way we do now.”
— Stephen West
“I don’t give advice, because if a person is asking for advice, typically, they’re not the person that really takes the advice, so it’s almost always a waste of your time. But if you’re the one that genuinely takes advice, and it’s ironically me giving you advice to be the one that takes advice—if you can do that, if you can manage that, then you won’t need advice here in six months; you’ll be the one giving it.”
— Stephen West
“The highest level of abstraction in any field is going to be philosophy. If you’re somebody well-educated in a field, at the top of your field, in order to make progress in that field, you have to subvert the existing set of protocols and assumptions, axiomatically, that are going on in that field. To move the field forward, you have to be doing philosophy.”
— Stephen West
“I really do sacrifice efficiency for meaning pretty often.”
— Stephen West
“You don’t need to be a genius; you just need to be saying something that resonates with other people.”
— Stephen West
“Simon Blackburn … describes philosophy as conceptual engineering. It’s a great metaphor. If an engineer looks at a bridge and they know about the raw materials of the bridge and they know how they connect to other parts of the bridge and everything, if you can show an engineer one bridge, a particular bridge, and he’d be like, ‘Well, it holds weight over here, but if we put weight over on this side, it’s going to all start crumbling down.’ Philosophers do this with world views.”
— Stephen West
“A way I’ve heard [philosophy] described is it’s the disruption of common sense. I mean, what is looking at the world at all? It’s an approximation. We are works in progress. I look at the world one way for a while, and everybody knows what it’s like to change the way that you see everything in the world. I just think that philosophy is the method of doing that.”
— Stephen West
“Nietzsche said ‘amor fati’ is how he’s going to live his life henceforth. Everything he’s going to say yes to. He will be a yes-sayer, is what he says. This is an affirmative stance towards reality where, even if things are bad or uncomfortable or horrible, we’re going to affirm reality as it is and not idealize it into something that it’s not. It’s very common for people to do, even when they’re not religious, to think of reality as though it owes you something. But to affirm reality fully is to accept the good, the bad. It’s not to rationalize about it and to try to make excuses for it or frame your suffering in a way where it makes it go away. To truly affirm life and reality is just to be in it and to have life itself be enough, truly.”
— Stephen West
The post Stephen West — From High School Dropout to Hit Podcast, and from Stocking Groceries to Reading Philosophy for a Living (#808) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
2025-04-18 00:46:36
“I’ve developed a pretty good playbook around what I would call provocation marketing. When you have a really provocative feature that you know people are going to feel emotional about one way or the other and they’re going to talk about it, you’re on to something.”
— Rich Barton
Rich Barton (@Rich_Barton) is the co-founder and co-executive chairman of Zillow, a company transforming how people buy, sell, rent, and finance homes. Rich has been a member of Zillow’s board since its inception in 2004 and has served as both its CEO and executive chairman.
Before Zillow, Rich founded Expedia within Microsoft in 1994 and successfully spun the company off as a public company in 1999. He served as president, CEO, and board director of Expedia and later co-founded and served as non-executive chairman of Glassdoor. Rich was a venture partner at Benchmark Capital and continues to be a board director for Qurate, Stanford Board of Trustees, and Zillow Group.
Rich has been married to Sarah since 1993 and has three grown, kick-ass children, who couldn’t be more awesome and different. He loves to snowboard, surf, play tennis, golf, hike, and fish with his family and friends and has to spend an increasing amount of time keeping strong and fit in order to be so active.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
This episode is brought to you by Ramp easy-to-use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and more; Cresset prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs; and Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business.
This episode is brought to you by Ramp! Ramp is corporate card- and spend-management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp has already saved more than 25,000 customers—including other podcast sponsors like Shopify and Eight Sleep—more than 10 million hours and more than $1 billion through better financial management of their corporate spending.
With Ramp, you’re able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting, allowing you to close your books 8x faster on average. Your employees will no longer need to spend hours submitting expense reports. In less than 15 minutes, you can get started issuing virtual and physical cards and making payments, whether you have 5 employees or 5,000. Businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% on total card spending and related expenses in the first year. And now, you can get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com/Tim.
This episode is brought to you by Cresset Family Office! Listeners have heard me talk about “making before you manage” for years. And for me—as a writer and entrepreneur—I definitely gravitate toward making. So it’s important that I find the right people who are great at managing. That’s why I trust this episode’s sponsor, Cresset Family Office.
Cresset is a prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs. They handle the complex financial planning, uncertain tax strategies, timely exit planning, bill pay and wires, and all the other parts of wealth management that would otherwise pull me away from doing what I love most: making things, mastering skills, and spending time with the people I care about. Experience the freedom of focusing on what matters to you with the support of a top wealth management team. Schedule a call today at cressetcapital.com/Tim to see how Cresset can help streamline your financial plans and grow your wealth.
I’m a client of Cresset. There are no material conflicts other than this paid testimonial. All investing involves risk, including loss of principal.
This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.
Go to shopify.com/Tim to sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/Tim.
Want to hear an episode with someone who’s worked closely with Rich Barton? Listen to my conversation with Benchmark’s Bill Gurley, in which we discussed sell-side analysts versus buy-side analysts, financial models, repurposing good ideas for alternative applications, the conviction of network effects, undervalued competitive advantages, cultivating anti-tribalism, America’s future, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
“Great organizations encourage innovation, encourage big-idea people to take big swings and do not punish them when it doesn’t work out according to plan.”
— Rich Barton
“Power to the people, baby. You build magic stuff for masses of consumers that they want to talk about with their friends, unprompted on the sidelines of the soccer game or what have you.”
— Rich Barton
“[Almost] all of my mistakes as a leader have been leaving the pitcher on the mound too long hoping that the arm would get better.”
— Rich Barton
“If you’re not happy with the performance of this person, I guarantee you the person isn’t happy either. Therefore, you can increase love in the world by releasing that person to find where that person belongs.”
— Rich Barton
“I’ve developed a pretty good playbook around what I would call provocation marketing. When you have a really provocative feature that you know people are going to feel emotional about one way or the other and they’re going to talk about it, you’re on to something.”
— Rich Barton
The post How Rich Barton Built Expedia and Zillow from $0 to $35B — Audacious Goals, Provocation Marketing, Scrabble for Naming, and Powerful Daily Rituals (#806) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
2025-04-10 22:29:13
“Panpsychism is the view that consciousness goes all the way down to the fundamental building blocks of reality.”
— Philip Goff
Philip Goff (@Philip_Goff) is a professor of philosophy at Durham University. His main research focus is consciousness, but he is interested in many questions about the nature of reality. He is most known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. Fifteen years ago, panpsychism was laughed at, if it was thought of at all. Goff has led a movement that has made panpsychism a mainstream position, taught to undergraduates and widely discussed in academic journals.
Goff is the author of Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness and Why? The Purpose of the Universe. He has published 50 academic articles and has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Aeon and the Times Literary Supplement.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
This episode is brought to you by Our Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro using nonstick technology that’s coating-free and made without PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals”; AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement; and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.
This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.
Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.
This episode is brought to you by Our Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro! Many nonstick pans can release harmful “forever chemicals”—PFAS—into your food, your home, and, ultimately, your body. Teflon is a prime example—it is *the* forever chemical that most companies are still using. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to major health issues like gut microbiome disruption, testosterone dysregulation, and more, which have been correlated to chronic disease in the long term. This is why I use the Titanium Always Pan Pro from today’s sponsor, Our Place. It’s the first nonstick pan with zero coating. This means zero “forever chemicals” and a durability that will last a lifetime. That’s right—no degradation over time like traditional nonstick pans.
Now, Our Place has expanded their lineup and launched the Titanium Pro Cookware Set—a completely toxin-free, high-performance set designed to last a lifetime. It’s built on the success of the Titanium Always Pan Pro. Now, you can cook everything with the same health-first, long-lasting design. Listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show can now get 10% off the Titanium Pro Cookware Set. Just visit FromOurPlace.com/Tim and use code TIM at checkout. With a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and free returns, there’s zero risk in test-driving a great upgrade to your kitchen.
This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the best overall mattress of 2024 by Forbes, Fortune, and Wired magazines and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders at HelixSleep.com/Tim.
Want to hear how writer and producer Michael Schur brought philosophy to prime time with his critically acclaimed NBC comedy The Good Place? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discuss how performing live comedy is like Roman gladiator combat, the F = ma of sitcom writing, rare-book collecting, what qualifies the legitimacy of a philosopher, two philosophers Michael would choose to have on speed dial for his own personal instruction, worthwhile failures, why we should all strive to better understand ethics, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Website | Mind Chat (Podcast) | Twitter | Bluesky
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
“Panpsychism is the view that consciousness goes all the way down to the fundamental building blocks of reality.”
— Philip Goff
“Don’t start from ‘What do I want?’ Start from ‘How can I contribute?’ I think happiness flows from that.”
— Philip Goff
“The way the word ‘consciousness’ is standardly used, I think in both science and philosophy, it just means subjective experience. Your consciousness is just what it’s like to be you.”
— Philip Goff
“I’m not here saying, ‘Oh, this is the one true faith you’ve got to believe.’ … I’m interested in different experiments in living, and I think there’s a way of engaging religion that perhaps not everyone is fully aware of.”
— Philip Goff
“Physical science doesn’t really tell us what matter is … ultimately, at base, physics just gives us mathematical structure. And so in a sense, physics doesn’t care what matter is, it doesn’t care what physical reality is, it just cares what its mathematical structure is.”
— Philip Goff
“We don’t know if we can get consciousness out of physics, but we know we can get physics out of consciousness.”
— Philip Goff
[On the integrated information theory:] “The proposal is that at the exact moment when a system has more integrated information in the whole than in the parts, that’s when the lights come on. That’s when you get consciousness.”
— Philip Goff
The post Philip Goff — Exploring Consciousness and Non-Ordinary Religion, Galileo’s Error, Panpsychism, Heretical Ideas, and Therapeutic Belief (#805) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
2025-04-10 00:30:40
David Whyte (davidwhyte.com) is the author of twelve books of poetry and five books of prose. He holds a degree in marine zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading expeditions in the Andes, Amazon, and Himalayas. He has also hosted a live online series, Three Sundays, every other month since 2020.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with David for an interview a few months ago, and he proved as wonderful in person as he is on the page. During our conversation, he read from his most recent work, Consolations II. Now, I have a dog-eared hardcover copy by my bedside. It’s indispensable. No matter the challenge, dream, mystery, or feeling of stuckness, he has a poem or essay within that will help you.
I’ve recently been rereading one of his essays in particular, and David kindly agreed to allow me to share it with you here. I’ve bolded some of my favorite parts. If a sentence is bolded and underlined, I found it particularly impactful.
is the mask that truth wears when we refuse to stop and uncover its face: the disembodied state I feel when I pretend to put things right by worrying about them instead of conversing with them. Anxiety is my ever-present excuse for not truly resting into the body or the breath or a world where I might find out the truth. Anxiety is the temporary helper going by the name of worry, who, when turned into our constant live-in companion, becomes our formidable jailor.
In the midst of anxiety we always haunt the body like an unhappy ghost from the past instead of living in it as a live anticipation of our future: anxiety creates the ghost-like sense of living timidly in our mortal frames so that we begin living in the world in the same way: as a troubled guest; a guest who does not believe they deserve the rest and hospitality that the body, the breath or the world can offer. Anxiety is the mind refusing to be consoled and nourished either by the body itself, or the beauty of the world that this body inhabits: anxiety is an extended state of denial; the refusal to put right something that needs to be put right, because putting it right often means feeling real anguish, a real sense of the unknown and the need to change at a fundamental level.
Anxiety always tells us we are somehow just about to be injured by reality, by another or by the body itself: that nothing is to be trusted fully: our continued nervousness wasting the body’s powers by keeping up a heightened but unsustainable level of alertness. Nervousness loves further nervousness to confirm its fears; on the Internet I will find everything I need to feed my anxiety because anxiety is what makes me click as much as curiosity. Anxiety is difficult to shed because anxiety always refuses rest and rest is where the answer to anxiety lies. Rest feels as if we are letting down our guard and refusing to defend what we instinctively feel must be constantly defended to the last. Rest feels like a traitorous activity ignoring the fears that have come to make up our identity, anxiety is a dead end exactly because it refuses to look for real consolation.
Temporary worry is useful to us and allows us to identify and innumerate what has not yet been fully answered or done and therefore outlines what is important to us and what we care about: constant worry always goes over and over the same territory and becomes, in the refusal to move on, the anxiety that cripples: anxiety is the illusory state of non-attention where we imagine that the very worrying itself is a way of paying deeper attention, but anxiousness actually becomes our unconscious way of refusing to go any deeper with the very things we are spending our days, worrying about.
Constant anxiety is an unconscious defence against what is calling us to a deeper understanding. Ever-present anxiety actually covers over and prevents me from feeling fully what is praying on my mind. Constant anxiety is our constant way of not paying attention. Anxiety is the trembling surface identity that finds the full measure of our anguish too painful to bear, constant fretting is our way of turning away from and attempting to make a life free from the necessities of heartbreak. Anxiety is our greatest defence against the vulnerabilities of intimacy and a real understanding of others. Allowing our hearts to actually break might be the first step in freeing ourselves from anxiety.
Anxiety is a way of being temporarily absent that almost always turns into a permanent exile. The exile that anxiety creates is most grievously felt in the way we both live in our bodies and don’t live in our bodies at the same time. In order not to feel the full measure of my heartbreak, I refuse to let my body breathe in its own, easy natural way, I refuse to let myself feel I am in the right place at the right time; I refuse almost every invitational aspect of the world and see it only through the inverted telescope of my worries, where everything is made smaller, harder to see and harder to understand. My defence against a painful reality is to live in an unreal body in an unreal, besieged kind of time, and often in an unreal place; a place I don’t care about; I disallow myself the ability to stop and rest and the spacious silence needed for a full, easy, coming to ground in a new understanding.
In an anxious state I actually do not wish to understand, I only wish to worry: and in my worries, everything feels as if it is squeezed through the narrow aperture of my anxious body, causing it to tremble, to constrict and to hide inside that rheumatic constriction. I hurry from one thing to another, never actually landing, never feeling there is enough time, never making time to feel fully what is occurring both inside and outside my body. Anxiety, when I am lost, is often the only merciful way I can find to turn away from the pain the world caused me, is causing me and will cause me.
Anxiety is both my protection and the sure indication of my deepest vulnerabilities, all at the same time. What seems completely wrong with my life, with the world and with the time in which I live, is often my greatest, manufactured, defence against being fully part of this body, this world and this time. What I worry about and fret about for my children’s future is often what keeps me from helping them into that future. What I worry about and what I am anxious about keeps me in an insulated, busy state of mind that stops me feeling the true depth and vulnerability of how much I care, how much I want to make a difference and how much I feel powerless to do it. Anxiety is my temporary ally and my daily saviour from the abiding pain of real heartbreak. I am not anxious because I worry so much as I am anxious because I do not want to feel the full vulnerability of being visible and touchable in a difficult world.
Our anxiety is constantly calibrated by the sense of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, inhabiting one moment while thinking about another, thinking one thing while doing another, trying to live in another abstracted, ideal body while forgetting to eat or breathe in this one. Loss of weight and loss of the breath are two abiding symptoms of anxiety. Gaining weight and breathing in a laboured way are also magnified by the abstractions of anxiety. Anxiety is my way of not fully feeling the vulnerability of my body, and my world.
Constant fretting is my refuge but also, often the source of my loneliness, doubling as it does as a defence by keeping people at a distance. Anxiety begins in helpless worry, and then becomes a means of protection against our own ability to help others, a state which provides me with distance from my real, foundational sorrow, by keeping an equal distance from the grief of others. I worry but other people’s worries do not count.
Anxiety is a way of feeling constantly besieged and therefore allows me to be helpless to do anything about what lies beyond my walls. When I see everything as impinging on my life, I find it hard to have a sense of humour about the fundamentally amusing absurdities of every human life; when I see everything as an ecological threat, I find it difficult to live with the blessings of birdsong or the beauties of a passing cloud scape. When I worry constantly about the imperfections of my relationship, I keep my love at an equally constant distance. Anxiety is my ongoing excuse for not being intimate, anxiety is how I keep what I am worrying about from coming too close, anxiety enables me to stay well clear of my heartache.
Over time, constant anxiety is a form of amnesia, a forgetting and an absence. Anxiety becomes my beloved abstraction where I can keep myself in suspension, when I am afraid of getting to the bottom of things and allowing myself a true understanding. Emotional immobility is the state in which we find ourselves when we have lost sight of the silent, pivotal centre from which to speak, to take action or to harvest the wisdom of the spacious, the timely and the timeless.
Our vulnerability to constant worry is produced by a dynamic of the mind whose chief evolutionary task is actually to make us more anxious: to worry, to fret, and out of that worry and fret, to get things done, and out of getting things done, to survive; constant anxiety always in the end raises even the tiniest little threat to the level of existential survival. Anxiety makes every little thing a matter of life and death.
The cure for anxiety is almost always found in some kind of radical simplification, a simplification that slowly opens up a very physical, rested experience of timelessness. Often the heart of our simplification is the freeing realisation that we can do nothing about the worry except to let it go. From this place we learn not to leave our worries behind but to consciously worry only for brief necessary periods when worry is needed as a way of paying deeper attention. To briefly, consciously, worry in a way that brings things to a proper harvest of presence is always far more helpful than days of vague anxiety.
One of the greatest gifts we can give to our friends, our partners, our children or our colleagues might be to forsake anxiety: to realise how much we use our worrying as a barrier to our becoming and a protection against real intimacy, real friendship and real engagement with our work. One of our greatest gifts as a provider might be to stop all the worrying about those we are providing for; to provide something else, something that is more difficult to give but something they might actually want—a deeper, more rested, and invitational sense of presence and the gift of timelessness in that presence.
Luckily, all of our great contemplative traditions tell us that the way out of anxiety is always very close and abides just beneath the very surface of our worries, waiting for us to drop down into the body again to a better place. Every meditational tradition of mindfulness in the world tells us that our doorway to freedom is as simple and as close as learning to take the next breath; to take that breath as fully as possible, and then to learn how to give it easily back into the world. In breath and out breath, when taken and when given and when completed without a controlling, worrying thought is an instant doorway to release from anxiety. A mindful easing away from the restless, bullying, fretful mind, into the restful, invitational calmness of easy breathing is always the foundation from which we will re-inhabit the mind in a more spacious, generous, less worrisome way.
Anxiety and all the ways we feel the tremulous symptoms of anxiety tell us just how far away we are from inhabiting a real sense of the timeless. Anxiety is not an answer to a problem we are worrying about but the measure of our distance from the place where the answer lies. Our ability to escape from anxiety is found in our ability to do the simplest thing and to do it well: to breathe and to live easily in our breathing. This truth is too simple for the anxious mind to believe, therefore it is best to breathe in silence first and tell ourselves that we’ll get to curing our anxiety later. Anxiety cannot cure itself, the cure arrives while we are giving ourselves a real sense of rest. Anxiety is often created by trying to remember everything and keep it straight in our harried minds. No wonder then, that the cure for anxiety is found in learning to forget the very sense of self that first felt the fateful need to worry.
From Consolations II by David Whyte. ©2024 David Whyte & Many Rivers Press. All rights reserved. Shared with permission. www.davidwhyte.com.
P.S. David also happens to be good friends with past podcast guest Henry Shukman, one of only a few dozen masters in the world authorized to teach Sanbo Zen. If you’d like an extra dose of calm, I recommend checking out Henry’s app, The Way. It has changed my life. I’ve been using it daily, often twice a day, and it’s lowered my anxiety more than I thought possible. For 30 free sessions, just visit thewayapp.com/Tim. No credit card required.
The post How to Heal the Anxious Self — David Whyte appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
2025-04-03 22:59:15
“Living is reliving.”
— Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez (@rodriguez) is a film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and composer.
While a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1991, Rodriguez wrote the script to his first feature film while sequestered at a drug research facility as a paid subject in a clinical experiment. That paycheck covered the cost of shooting his $7,000 film El Mariachi, which won the coveted Audience Award at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and became the lowest budget movie ever released by a major studio. Rodriguez wrote about these experiences in Rebel Without a Crew, a perennial guide for the independent filmmaker.
Rodriguez went on to write, produce, direct, and edit a series of successful films including Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, the Spy Kids franchise, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Frank Miller’s Sin City, and We Can Be Heroes and collaborated with director James Cameron on the film adaptation of Alita: Battle Angel. His films have grossed more than $1.5B at the box office.
In 2000, Rodriguez founded Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas. He recently directed the Lady Gaga/Ariana Grande video “Rain on Me” and episodes of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett and launched Brass Knuckle Films, an investable action film slate. If you’ve ever wanted to pitch Robert Rodriguez a film idea or get profit participation in action films and sequels, he’ll tell you all about it.
Please enjoy!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
This episode is brought to you by Cresset prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs; AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement; and Wealthfront high-yield cash account.
This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.
Right now, you’ll get a 1-year supply of Vitamin D free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit DrinkAG1.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive your 1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive daily, foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole-body health.
This episode is brought to you by Cresset Family Office! Listeners have heard me talk about “making before you manage” for years. And for me—as a writer and entrepreneur—I definitely gravitate toward making. So it’s important that I find the right people who are great at managing. That’s why I trust this episode’s sponsor, Cresset Family Office.
Cresset is a prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs. They handle the complex financial planning, uncertain tax strategies, timely exit planning, bill pay and wires, and all the other parts of wealth management that would otherwise pull me away from doing what I love most: making things, mastering skills, and spending time with the people I care about. Experience the freedom of focusing on what matters to you with the support of a top wealth management team. Schedule a call today at cressetcapital.com/Tim to see how Cresset can help streamline your financial plans and grow your wealth.
I’m a client of Cresset. There are no material conflicts other than this paid testimonial. All investing involves risk, including loss of principal.
This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is a financial services platform that offers services to help you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 4.00% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Brokerage Cash Account from its network of partner banks. That’s nearly ten times more interest than a savings account at a bank, according to FDIC.gov as of 03/17/2025 (Wealthfront’s 4.00% APY vs. 0.41% average savings rate). It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 4.00% APY interest on your short term cash until you’re ready to invest. And when new clients open an account today, they can get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Terms & Conditions apply. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.
APY as of 03/17/2025 and is subject to change. Tim Ferriss receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage. See full disclosures here.
Want to hear the first time Robert Rodriguez was on the show? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed journaling as a crucial component of personal and professional life, keeping crew morale high during a project, how applied creativity dissolves the separation between work and play, the legendary financing of El Mariachi, overcoming budgetary and technological constraints, maintaining momentum when lack of resources is no longer a creative driver, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Twitter | Instagram | Threads | Facebook
The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
“A lot of times, when you can do anything, you can’t do anything.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“Two of my biggest movies came directly from a movie that you would consider a failure. … Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“You’re not ready for anything life has thrown at you, but you become ready on the spot. Why is it that we think art and life should not be the same?”
— Robert Rodriguez
“You used to ask me, ‘How do you get so much done?’ It’s like I set the bridge on fire and then I run across. Otherwise, it’s not enough at stake. If you have a way out … you’ll take the escape route.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“They say knowing is half the battle. What’s the other half? Not knowing. I think that’s more important. That’s where the magic is. You don’t know what the other half is.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“Creative spirit … doesn’t have hands. It’s waiting for you to get off your ass and pick up the pen, and then it can help take over. … That’s why I say always take action. Don’t wait to be inspired. Action first, inspiration second.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“Living is reliving.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“Don’t just parent; partner.”
— Robert Rodriguez
“I don’t take any job, any assignment, unless it’s going to involve my children, because life is so good that way. You’re checking all the boxes. You’re preparing them for life. You’re learning from them, they’re learning from you, and it’s family time.”
— Robert Rodriguez
The post Robert Rodriguez, The Wizard of Cinema Returns — The “Fear-Forward” Way of Life, How to Overcome Self-Doubt, Learning to Love Limitations, and Counter-Intuitive Parenting That Works (#804) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
