#706: In Case You Missed It: October 2023 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

22:01And again, it happened in my own little ethos, but look what's going on in the world. You know, we're driven by this tension between the two sides of it. And obviously, the people who are driven by greed, ego, and power, every morning they wake up and they're thinking about how they could be better. Us, you know, on the side of the love, peace and love and stuff like that, we get it on the face. We look at the sun, we meditate and we're a little more slow to react at that. So I guess we have to be a little more organized. If I'm understanding you correctly, I mean, it sounds like you're suggesting maybe defaulting to trusting people and expecting sometimes you're going to get punched in the face, but that's just the tax you pay for being optimistic.

22:43Or are there other ways that you protect the fundamentals? No, I would say at the end, there's more success than failure. But the failure are more touching than the wind of trust because it's usually attached to deception. So I'm talking more about the deception. You know, you're in business, you win, you lose, you make good decisions, you do bad decisions. That's part of it. Nobody's perfect. And nobody's perfect in the choice of who you work with, who you trust or not. It's part of doing business. It's more deep than that, what I'm saying. So this is why I guess as much honest conversation at the beginning to establish, not the contract.

23:21This is why in my contract, I always not put just the legal part. I always start the first page by the assumption, the spirit of how a deal is done. Because my wish that if there's conflict, before going on the legal battle, you look at what the spirit of the deal was. and if you have sensitive people, intelligent people, they will relate to this foundation version, the word of the legal things. And that's actually a page in the document that has the contract. It's a page in the contract. It's a page in the contract where the first page is not about legal stuff. It's about the philosophy, the spirit of why we're doing the dream.

23:59What had brought us to that deal? What is the spirit of the deal? Okay, I made a mistake to forget that. Sometime, and this was the most chaotic thing, because I'm telling you, it's like, if you're not attached to the spirit and it's just legal, we're living in a country, not America, especially in the States, hitting me will make me happy, making mistakes and not clear. It's much more difficult for a person to deny the spirit if it's been written down. Absolutely. The naive say, it's not what I say. Because when you try to bring the spirit in an oral conversation, they will always find a way to justify that it's not what they say.

24:38But to write the thing, it's very difficult for them. Then it's betrayal. Understand? Then you know it's a betrayal. It's not a misunderstanding. Is that first page, I'm very interested in this, is it almost just like regular text? Like it's paragraphs or is it bullets? It's understanding that we desire to conquer Planet March. We will do everything. You know, it's like very poetic sometimes, very philosophic. It's very mission-oriented. You know, we all do document in business a mission and vision. Why are we not putting those principles right in the contract when two parties do things? Because this has become a new mission.

25:20This is built on new value. And I think this is, I believe, an antidote against persecution or a legal process. Yeah, that's very smart. Well, I've not been that smart all the time because I'm in some case that I forgot to put it or my family office, I forgot to put it. But now I'm telling you, this will be for no on. Even with experience, I did forget to put it because I guess I even trusted more than I believe that I should not put it in it. and that became the biggest betrayal in business I ever did. So now it's there forever.

26:01Next up, Rich Paul, power broker and superstar agent behind LeBron James and Draymond Green.

26:12You said in a GQ interview, which had a great title, so Rich Paul Power Broker of the Year, that the biggest obstacle or one of the biggest obstacles for young players in learning how to become a pro or be a pro is establishing infrastructure. What do you mean by infrastructure? Most guys, that's athletes especially, they've come from an environment to where everyone along the way has made it about them. And so if you have the mentality that it's only about me, then you're not going to value other people and what their capabilities are, what their expertise is. But if you're a walking corporation, we can't name one corporation that does not have infrastructure.

26:51Organization. They have an organizational chart. They have people that do certain things and there's clarity within that infrastructure. But it comes with the cost. And so most athletes don't want to do what? They don't want to pay anybody to do anything because along the way, everyone has did things for them for free. But it wasn't really for free. It was to be able to be standing there next to them at a time where there was actually something to gain. So I'll sacrifice this now when you're an amateur to be able to stand next to you to get some crumbs or whatever the case when you become a pro.

27:31And whatever their aspirations were, if it was to hang out, the girls, to travel, whatever it is, the money, whatever it was. But you see what they did. But basically, you created something that ultimately became your own demise because up front, you taught them wrong. You taught them, oh, I'm doing this out of love. I'm going to pick you up. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. All to turn it around on them when they start making money and say, remember when I did this or I did that? Well, that's not fair to the player. And it's also not fair to yourself. What the conversation should be like is, look, I understand you don't have the ability to pay for anything.

28:10And if you're a parent, I'm doing it out of love. I love you. You're my kid. But if you're somebody else, just be honest with it. Hey, look, I'm going to do all I can to help you get to where you need to go. Once you get there, if there's an opportunity for me, then I'm going to do all I can to position myself to where if you give me that opportunity, I can then be of value to you. Very simple. Yeah. When free isn't free, right? It's an unclear prepayment for things to come later. That's when it seems like things can get extremely messy. How do you help them when they say sign with you or even just start to develop a relationship with you to take the first steps for building out infrastructure?

28:54What are some of the first steps that you might recommend? I would say checks and balances, really getting the proper financial team in place. and that's everybody from a CPA to the guy who manages your investment portfolio or the company that manages your investment portfolio, really having somebody monitor that because that's a very fragile thing there. But at the same time, deciding what it is that you want. I like to live a certain way now that I understand better on how to live. And so if you are a single man with no family. Do you really need a 20 ,000 square foot home? Probably not. You're not going to be home half the time.

29:38Do you really need to fly private? Probably not. So there's different ways to go about it. But what's most important, should you hire a chef? Yes, you should. Should you take a shortcut on that? No, you shouldn't. Do you know the difference between a chef and a cook? You should find that out because this is very important. Your chef should then go and sit with your nutritionist on your team and figure out you should do all the testing, everything you need because your body ultimately is the engine that keeps you running. That's how you make your money. What are some of the key ingredients for sort of emotional support and stability?

30:16I'm just imagining young athletes who are suddenly in the limelight. They have all the temptations. They have a lot of pressure. there must be, and I know a few professional athletes who've gone through these periods, periods that are very challenging. And certainly after retirement or the end of their playing years, some very challenging times. What have you seen in terms of the best ways to support? That could be from your side, it could be other ingredients, player health on that side of the ledger. Nowadays, I think there needs to be someone that players need to talk to and be open-minded to have enough therapists to get stuff off their chest because they deal with a lot.

30:53They deal with a lot. I think it's also important for players to not feel entitled to do things. Oftentimes, they feel like they have to take on all of this onus to do something for other people, and that's not real. Because when it comes down to it, if you ask probably 80 % of the players that aren't in the position they used to be in and ask them who can do for them, it's not going to be many, if any, for that matter. Meaning people who are willing to help them? Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then how are they positioning themselves to where when the ball stops, it's not about just having a ton of money.

31:28Like, how can I do something else? How can I be perceived while playing as someone who can transition and do something else? There's this idea that I made a lot of money, I don't have to do nothing else. Well, that's not true because you made a lot of money, but you didn't diversify your portfolio. Unless your money is making money for you and you live a lifestyle in which your 8 % or your 10 % or whatever it is return each year is able to pay your bills and your taxes on your home and stuff like that, then you got to go to work. You have to go to work. And it's a big difference when you've made$50 million this year and then next year you made nothing.

32:09It's just tough.

32:14last but not least a special episode all about coffee featuring ethnobotanist and author of tales of a shaman's apprentice dr mark plotkin

32:29about the same time that coffee was being introduced into south america the Dutch East India Company began importing large shipments of coffee from Java, then in the Dutch East Indies, now part of Indonesia, into Holland in the year 1711. And, as had happened in the Muslim Middle East, demand for coffee soared in Christian Europe. Artists, writers, and composers began singing the praises of coffee, sometimes literally. Johann Sebastian Bach composed the Coffee Cantata, one of his most beloved pieces. As part of the libretto, he wrote, quote, How sweet coffee tastes, lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter than muscatel wine.

33:18Henri de Balzac, the famous French playwright and author, penned an essay entitled The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee. I believe Balzac provided the best explanation as why artists fell so deeply in love with Mocha Java. Quote, Once coffee hits your system, ideas quickly march into motion, like the battalions of a great army. End of quote. This underscores a point I've been emphasizing throughout the Plants of the Gods podcast series, that these substances are ideogens, not just hallucinogens. Ideogens, they help create new ideas and concepts. To repeat Balzac's quote, since it is so fundamental, once coffee hits your system, ideas quickly march into motion like the battalions of a great army.

34:11Much of Balzac's prodigious output was turbocharged by his coffee consumption. According to some reports, the Frenchman was downing 50 cups a day. His death at the age of 51 might in some part be due to his coffee addiction. After all, one must wonder how the poor man ever got to sleep. Yet his countryman, the philosopher Voltaire, was even more addicted and more prolific. The author of over 20 ,000 letters, 2 ,000 books and pamphlets, he was said to have consumed as many as 72 cups of coffee a day. To understand why coffee had an even more profound impact in Europe than it did in the Middle East, two topics merit a bit of discussion.

34:54The first is potable water. As the human species began to relinquish the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, people began to live together in greater numbers and in greater proximity than ever before. With no understanding of hygiene or the germ theory of disease, one's pristine water sources like streams, rivers, and lakes became ever more polluted, if not just outright toxic and poisonous. This at least partially explains why beer was invented at the same time and in the same place as agriculture, the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia about 8 ,000 years ago in what is now Iraq. Because the preparation of beer, and later coffee, involves boiled water, microorganisms were reduced or killed.

35:44And because beer and wine were alcoholic, microorganisms were reduced or eliminated. hence beer, wine, and coffee were much safer to drink than water. Prior to the advent of coffee in Europe, and given the absence of the Islamic prohibition of alcohol, many Europeans drank the equivalent of near beer all day long. The result was a population which lived and worked in what was essentially a constant state of mild befuddlement. The advent of coffee proved to be a revelation. Thanks to the caffeine, coffee, in moderation at least, enhances alertness, concentration, cognition, and productivity. In the words of Anthony Wilde, they, quote, exchanged a state of permanent inebriation for a state of permanent caffeination.

36:40I love that quote. Not only was coffee safe to drink, but consumers could think more clearly and work better, harder, and longer hours. The increasing availability of coffee, and the growing number of coffee houses in which it was consumed, and new ideas were proposed and debated, has been hailed as, quote, a brain explosion, not unlike what most certainly happened when our pre-human ancestors first consumed magic mushrooms, fermented fruits, and coffee beans in East Africa. As had been the case in the Muslim world, coffee houses became wildly popular and proved to be a meeting of the minds and different classes and cultures with endless conversations literally fueled by a botanical stimulant.

37:29And now here are the bios for all the guests. My guest today doesn't really need an introduction, but I'll lead into it this way. And I'm going to keep my preamble short. The world's greatest bodybuilder, the world's highest paid movie star, the leader of the world's sixth largest economy. These are all the same person. It sounds like the setup to a joke, but this is no joke. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And for those who don't know, he is an Austrian born bodybuilder, actor, businessman, philanthropist, bestselling author, and politician. He served as the 38th governor of California. His new book, Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life, is out October 10th, and his daily newsletter, that's email newsletter, Pump Club, recently passed 500 ,000 subscribers and is growing quickly as a positive corner of the internet.

38:19Schwarzenegger has made it his mission to give back since his time in the governor's house. He's been working heavily to combat climate change, antisemitism, ensure fair voting practices, help youth work with veterans, and inspire healthy living, among other things. Now, if you want, in addition to all of that, some footage of his incredible accuracy with killing flies, his shepherding of various animals around the property, including pigs and dogs, you can go to my YouTube channel. That's youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. You can find him on social at Schwarzenegger. That's on Twitter, Instagram.

38:55TikTok is at Arnold Schnitzel on YouTube, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The website for the book is Be usefulbook.com. And the newsletter is arnoldspumpclub.com.

39:10Today, we have a repeat guest and good Lord, did his last episode do well. It did spectacularly well. You guys loved it. So back by popular demand is Morgan Housel. You can find him on Twitter at Morgan Housel, H-O-U-S-E-L. He is a partner at the Collaborative Fund. His book, The Psychology of Money, which we really dug into in depth last time, has sold more than 3 million copies and has been translated into 53 languages. Didn't even know there were that many languages. I'm kidding, of course. He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and winner of the New York Times Sydney Award.

39:45I might be jealous. I might be jealous. In 2022, MarketWatch named him one of the 50 most influential people in markets. Good friend to have. He serves on the board of directors at Markell. Morgan's new book is same as ever, subtitle, A Guide to What Never Changes. You can find my first, and as I mentioned before, widely popular interview and very tactically dense interview with Morgan at tim.blog slash Morgan Housel.

40:13Going meta, very briefly, for those who have not listened to the show, this is a show about deconstructing world-class performers across many different disciplines to tease out the habits, routines, frameworks, et cetera, that you can borrow and apply to your own lives. And sometimes you find gems in the most unusual of places. And today's guest may be an example of that. Apollo Robbins. Apollo Robbins is often referred to as the gentleman thief. He first made national news when he pickpocketed the Secret Service while entertaining a former U.S. president. And we will get into that story. Forbes has called Robbins, quote, an artful manipulator of awareness, end quote, and Wired has written that, quote, he could steal the wallet of a man who knew he was going to have his pocket picked, end quote.

41:02And that is an understatement, a vast understatement. And if you want to get an idea of what that looks like, you can also check out the video that we took for this podcast on my YouTube channel at youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. So listen to the audio, but definitely also check out some of the visuals. Robbins' entertainment credentials include the Warner Brothers film Focus with Will Smith and Margot Robbie, along with appearances in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the TNT series Leverage. He was a producer and co-host for National Geographic's Brain Games, which was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Informational Series.

41:37Robbins applied his expertise in magic and misdirection beyond entertainment, pulling back the curtain to show how the principles behind these illusions can enhance strategic thinking and decision making. And we get into how much of what he has cultivated can transfer to other areas. And that really at its core is what this podcast is about, to train you to see those hidden threads or those through lines. His contributions to attention and perception research have been published in Scientific American Mind and Nature Reviews Neuroscience. He has delivered lectures at Harvard Kennedy School, MIT Sloan School of Management, and the Society of Neuroscience.

42:15He has been profiled by The New Yorker, which is an amazing profile, and featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Robin's TED Talk, The Art of Misdirection, is ranked in the 20 most-watched TED Talks of all time and has been hailed by the TED editors as a revelation in the flaws of human perception. You can find all things Apollo Robbins at ApolloRobbins.com, and you can find him on Twitter at ApolloRobbins.

42:46My guest today is Rich Paul. Rich Paul is the CEO and founder of Clutch Sports Group, the powerhouse agency representing some of the biggest athletes across major professional sports. Paul founded Clutch Sports in 2012 in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, where he forged a unique and personal approach to representing top NBA talent, putting athletes first and empowering them to build careers and brands on and off the court. And some of his numbers are just unbelievable. And we get into stories from negotiations and much more in this conversation. In 2019, Clutch Sports partnered with United Talent Agency, otherwise known as UTA.

43:26Paul serves as UTA's head of sports and is an agency partner. And he was appointed to UTA's board of directors in 2020. In 2019, Paul was also named GQ's power broker of the year and dubbed the kingmaker on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In 2021, Time recognized Clutch Sports on its first-ever list of the Time 100 most influential companies, and Variety recently named Paul to their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry. Paul is also credited with driving the reversal of the so-called Rich Paul Rule, which would have banned agents without a college degree from representing NCAA student-athletes.

44:04In 2021, Paul and three former Nike executives formed a company called Adopt, a creative agency focused on sport, wellness, nutrition, tech, and other consumer-facing products. In 2022, Paul joined the board of trustees of LACMA and the board of directors of Funko and Designer Brands. And this year, in 2023, he joined the board of directors of Live Nation. He's also a minority partner of the Spring Hill Company. His latest book is Lucky Me, A Memoir of Changing the Odds. You can find him on Instagram at Rich Paul and on Twitter at Rich Paul 4. That is the number 4.

44:42My guest today has been in the works for a long time. I'm thrilled to have him. And if I'm not mistaken, this is his first long-form podcast ever, Guy Laliberté, who is the founder of Cirque du Soleil, One Drop Foundation, and Lune Rouge. If I'm pronouncing that correctly, my apologies for the French, which I do not speak. He was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential personalities in the world and has been recognized as one of the most creative and innovative minds by Condé Nast. An artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Guy is a three-time winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, which included World Entrepreneur of the Year.

45:20He is a Knight of the National Order of Quebec and an inductee of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. Guy has been granted the insignia of the Order of Canada, the highest distinction in the country, and in 2010 received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Guy now dedicates his time to his company, Lune Rouge, and his international non-profit, One Drop Foundation, which aims to ensure sustainable access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for communities everywhere through innovative partnerships, creativity, and the power of art. This is a wild conversation full of a lot of unbelievable stories, and we take a few minutes to warm up, but definitely stick around.

45:58There's a lot to learn. There are many, many negotiation tactics, philosophical tenets, and more that you can pick up from this conversation. You can find him on Instagram at GuyLalibertéDJ and you can find his new projects, which are brand new projects and they will contain descriptions of some different projects that we allude to at the end of the conversation and that is fruggs, F-R-O-O-O-G-S.com, and you can get to the English with slash E-N. So fruggs.com slash E-N.

46:37This is going to be a slightly different episode. This time around, we have a special edition featuring my friend, Dr. Mark Plotkin, famed ethnobotanist. Mark takes over my duties as host for this episode and shares an episode of his Plants of the Gods podcast. But you are hearing it before anyone else. You are hearing it before even his own podcast subscribers. So this is a Tim Ferriss Show exclusive. But let's back up. Who is Dr. Mark Plotkin? Mark, you can find him online on Twitter at DocDoc. Mark Plotkin is an ethnobotanist who serves as president of the Amazon Conservation Team, which has partnered with roughly 80 tribes to map and improve management and protection of roughly 100 million acres of ancestral rainforests.

47:23He is best known to the general public as the author of the book Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, one of the most popular books ever written about the rainforest. His most recent book is The Amazon, What Everyone Needs to Know. And you can find my interview with Mark where we dig into his history, his mentors, including Richard Evans Schultes, the legendary Richard Evans Schultes, and so on, at tim.blog slash markplotkin. This episode, however, this tightly packed episode explores all things coffee, which is the most widely consumed mind altering plant product in the world. And it gets into all different aspects of coffee, many of which I think will surprise you.

48:06Hey, guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off. And that is five bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.

48:50And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.