NOTES ON THIS TALK FOR ANYONE WHO DIDNT HAVE TIME TO WATCH IT ALL
I have attention deficit disorder so try to improve my focus by watching talks and making notes :)
Tim Ferriss talk at Google -
1) Tim lives by ancient Stoic Philosophy
Put himself into positions which helps him overcome trivial egoic concerns i.e. what others think about him. Try to overcome all the superficial stuff
Practice what you fear
‘We do not rise to the level of our hopes. We fall to the level of our training’
2) Monkey Brain
Internal dialogue, like a naughty kid
Journal regularly - helps capture the monkey mind/insecurities down onto paper. Gives them an expression so they don’t express themselves through his day/life
Journaling helps imprison the monkey mind
To be able to control life/destiny - Need to identify where we are being overly reactive and wasting our energy/power
Gratitude is critical - Develop this habit into your everyday life
Focus is the largest distinguishing factor in the top 1% of performers
3) Contemplate death/negativity
Helps put the context of your life and the time you have into perspective. Remember you’re just human.
Always try to be the weakest person the room at something.
It doesn’t matter if you lose. As long as you’re progressing in the right direction
Practice your focus - Decide in advance what you will give your attention and focus to
Have fun and keep it simple
4) Commonalities in Successful people
Over 80% of top performers meditate daily
Males - Many over 50-year-old men skip breakfast
Preserve your decision making ‘budget’ - don’t waste your energy/focus on deciding what to have for breakfast, what to wear etc
Save your focus/energy for your priorities and creative pursuits
Have routines you stick too
Ask yourself what the worst case scenario? Always budget for the downside
Take risks by first considering worst case scenarios and then make plans to minimize these things from happening
If worst care happens, can you get back to where you are asap?
Most ‘risky’ things are reversible
5) Long-term goals
Treat life as 2-week experiments and 6-month projects
When we place 5-10 year goals we do so from our current thinking and paradigm. We may be capable of more. But we undersell ourselves due to our current programming
We tend to make our goals easy and too achievable
Doors close which you don’t expect. But doors open which you didn’t consider or know about
6) Tims ‘board of directors’
Benjamin Franklin
Richard Feynmon - Physicist
Marcus Aurelius - Had to make life-death decisions
Decide on constant progression for best results
7) Human Longevity
Performance over longevity
Life span extending methods usually compromise performance
Semi-long fasts to purge precancerous cells
By 40 everyone has precancerous cellsÂ
Experience ketosis/fasting for extended periods - 2-3 days a month
Hyperbaric oxygen
Take exogenous ketones (mix in powder and drink)
Metformin extends lifespan
8) Insomnia
Replace coffee with tea (decaf)
Meditation every morning
Read fiction before bed, takes you out of logical mode into storytelling mode
Use Flux to change light emissions from laptop/screens
Microdose psilocybin (James Fadiman podcast)
9) General advice
‘Never attribute to malice, what you can attribute to incompetence and busy-ness’
We start as a chess piece (pawn). We then become the best chess piece on the board. Then the player and then the person who designs the game. Once we reach this level we can ‘change the game’.
Be happy with what you have. Reflect on how fortunate you are. Without this mindset, you’ll never be happy/fulfilled
Achievement is only one side of the equation
Humans are social creatures. Spend more time in groups. Mixed groups. Males spend more time in small groups of only men. Very therapeutic
Humans have very little physical contact. Damaging to society and humans
10) Tims goals
Top performers have the ability to learn quickly and able to teach others
Tims wants to create an army of people who are expert learners, very high level, top 1% meta learners.
Who can easily learn and get good at almost anything and then teach others.