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:
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
- Some comedians don’t want to do therapy
- 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
- Dogs, just like people, can be a mirror to ourselves
