February 18, 2021

Josh Waitzkin and Tim Ferriss on The Cave Process, Advice from Future Selves, and Training for an Uncertain Future (#498)| The Tim Ferriss Show

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Check out on The Tim Ferriss Show Podcast Page and Episode Notes

Key Takeaways

• Tim Ferriss’ Guiding Questions for New Project Ideas
  • “What assumptions are you making?”
  • “How can you test your assumptions in a cheap, quick way?”
  • “If it takes twice as long and you get half of the rewards, is this still a no-brainer for you?”
• Accepting the connection between genius and eccentricity can be liberating
  • It frees you from the pressure of looking “normal”
  • Your superpower is often next to your wound
• “Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast“
  • Tim has been repeating this mantra to himself a lot recently
  • He applies that to writing, training, decision-making, and other aspects of his life
    • If someone is trying to rush him in making a decision, his automatic answer is no
• “A famous sage said there’s only one important question, and that question is ‘What are you unwilling to feel?’” Tara Brach
  • Meditation helps us face many of the things we have been avoiding
• How Can We Best Prepare for the Future?
• “You have to focus on meta-learning and meta-skills or you will be toast” Tim Ferriss
• Learning how to learn makes you Anti-fragile
  • When there’s a shock to the system (like a pandemic), you’ll be the most adaptable to the changes

Key Books Mentioned

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown
  • Mentioned when discussing the connection between genius and eccentricity
• Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
  • Recommended by Tim when talking about meditation
• Tim said that Josh’s book, The Art of Learning should be required reading to help people prepare for the future
  • The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life, by Tim Ferriss is also a great book on learning
• Tim also recommends reading Nassim Taleb’s books, specifically:
  • The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
  • Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Intro

• Josh Waitzkin is an eight-time US National Chess Champion, a two-time World Champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, and the first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt under nine-time World Champion Marcelo Garcia
  • Josh is the author of The Art of Learning
  • Check these notes from Josh’s previous appearance on The Tim Ferriss Show
• Host: Tim Ferriss (@tferriss)
• In this episode, Tim turns the tables and gets interviewed by Josh on a variety of different topics, including meditation, advice from his future self, and much more

Tim’s Guiding Questions for New Project Ideas

• Tim often gets presented with new book and startup ideas
  • Josh admires Tim’s ability to ask questions that reveal the blind spots and help people see new perspectives
  • Tim has a set of stock questions that he asks when presented with new ideas
• “What assumptions are you making?”
  • This checks how aware they are of their assumptions
  • And how well they thought about the idea
  • A follow-up question is 
    • “How can you test your assumptions in a cheap, quick way?”
• “If it takes twice as long and you get half of the rewards, is this still a no-brainer for you?”
  • Tim often asks this when people ask him for advice on writing a book
  • This allows the person to realize if they are truly motivated to do it, and if the process is intrinsically rewarding
• “Flash-forward three years. The company failed. What is most likely to have gone wrong?”
  • If people are not able to answer that, Tim sees it as a red flag
  • If they answer that, they’ll be able to find blindspots to work on that they were not considering
• Tim does not see himself as a risk-taker but as a risk mitigator
  • He tries to take into account different possibilities
  • He always looks to test his assumptions quickly and cheaply

Genius and Eccentricity

• Most great performers tend to have some dysfunctional characteristics
  • What makes one excel in your career, maybe awkward in their personal life
  • Your superpower is often next to your wound
• Josh’s obsession with not making mistakes playing chess can be painful in his life
  • Now he practices doing some things mediocrely to accept his weaknesses more
• Accepting the connection between genius and eccentricity can be liberating
  • It frees you from the pressure of looking “normal”
• Sometimes there’s the fear that healing one’s personal dysfunctions will lower career performance
  • Some comedians don’t want to do therapy
    • They fear that healing their pain, they’ll lose the wit or cynicism that makes them funny
• Tim thinks that it’s possible to heal your wounds while keeping your superpowers

Efficiency, Control, and Working on Weaknesses

• Tim’s obsession with efficiency in training when he was wrestling caused some shoulder issues
  • Excessive efficiency in the physical realm can be very dangerous
• Now Tim thinks more about how he can change things in his life so that he doesn’t have to think about efficiency or competition
  • They are his strengths but overemphasizing them can make life miserable
• We tend to focus on our strengths because doing so feels good
  • There’s value in developing your strengths, but it’s also critical to work on weaknesses
• Tim also sees his wish to control things as both a strength and a weakness
  • “An obsession with security breeds a sense of insecurity” Tim Ferris
  • Now he puts himself in situations that cannot be controlled (but are still safe) and learning to let go
    • Psychedelic experiences helped him with that

Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast

• “Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast” 
  • Tim has been repeating this mantra to himself a lot recently
  • He applies that to writing, training, decision-making, and other aspects of his life
    • If someone is trying to rush him in making a decision, his automatic answer is no
• He does not interpret this as being more patient
  • Patience is often used as an excuse for complacency or laziness
• Rather, he uses the mantra to cultivate a higher awareness of the moment
  • Without always rushing, you enjoy yourself more
• Martial artist masters embody this
  • They are able to move slower, but still, get there first

Meditation, Feelings, and The Cave Process

• “Many of our compulsive behaviors are to mask or override things that we don’t want to feel” Tim Ferriss
  • Meditation helps us face many of the things we have been avoiding
  • Gabor Mate says that we should not ask ‘why the addiction?’, but ‘why the pain?’
    • The addiction is a consequence of the pain
• “A famous sage said there’s only one important question, and that question is ‘What are you unwilling to feel?’” Tara Brach
• As Tim sat with emptiness more, he found a lot of negative feelings coming up
• To help the people he works with, Josh guides them through “The Cave Process”
  • Sitting in a space empty enough to get away from the reactivity of your daily life
  • This can take many forms
    • You can “disappear from the world” for a few months
    • Journal first thing in the morning is a mini-version of this
    • All forms involve creating some empty space to step away
  • First, he helps people to reach inner stillness
  • Then he guides them to reflect on their lives

Advice From Your Future Self

• Years ago Tim wrote a piece of fiction in which he met his future self and receive his advice
  • He found it to be a really useful exercise
• What Tim’s future self would suggest to him today
• Take more time to have fun and pay attention to enjoy the simple things
  • He has a lot more energy when having fun
  • He struggled with energy fatigue for a long time
  • Focusing too much on responsibilities and obligation has a muting effect on enjoyment
• Tim used to think that when he has kids he’ll change things about himself
  • Now he realized that’s very naive and he needs to make those changes before having kids
  • “You better start becoming the parent you want to be now, before game time” Tim Ferriss
    • He’s not talking about learning to be a parent
    • But being the kind of person he would like to be around his kids

How Can We Best Prepare for the Future?

• “You have to focus on meta-learning and meta-skills or you will be toast” Tim Ferriss
  • Tim recommends Josh’s book The Art of Learning
  • The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life, by Tim Ferriss is also a great book on learning
• Learning how to learn makes you Anti-fragile
  • When there’s a shock to the system (like a pandemic), you’ll be the most adaptable to the changes
• Tim also recommends Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness
  • Understanding probabilistic thinking is hugely important for decision-making
• People tend to focus on the techniques to learn, but learning the underlying principles is much more valuable
• We need to embrace our humanness and learn to do things that machines can’t do

Additional Notes

• Jeff Bezos has been successful at setting a long-time horizon with shareholders
  • While most companies are judged on a quarterly horizon, Amazon was often judged on a 10-20 year time horizon
  • Tim highly recommend reading Amazon’s letters to shareholders

• The attributes Tim looks at before bringing someone his close circle of friends 
  • The most important thing is Tim’s own gut feeling about the person
  • He also looks at their trustworthiness and discretion
  • Now he cares less about what we consider intelligence
• How to avoid mistaking noise for signal when learning from successful people? 
  • Can they repeat the achievements you admire in them?
  • Can they teach the skills they’re admired for?
  • Are they successful “because of” or “in spite of” X?, Sometimes the two are confused
    • Someone might think their business is successful because they are strict with employees,
    • They don’t realize that giving employees more freedom would improve the business
    • In these situations, ask the people close to them
• What Tim learned since getting a dog
  • Dogs, just like people, can be a mirror to ourselves
    • We tend to project our insecurities, fears, and compulsion to others
    • In this way, having a dog can reveal your weaknesses
  • With his dog, Tim also learned to love more unconditionally

Tim Ferriss Show : decision making, future, growth, meditation
Notes By Giorgio Parlato