#723: In Case You Missed It: January 2024 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

22:43And then that's who the customers are and where they are. And I was like, they want Imgur. That was the most popular product at the time. That was all over it. So basically, cold emailed Alan, just Alan at Imgur.com. I was like, hey, I want to promote you. $7 per deal. You get free money. There's no cost to you. And then I was like, well, I can get this posted on Reddit. And I even cold emailed the founders of Reddit and was able to get them to give me free ads. How did you do that? Just like you asked. Why would they give you free ads? I don't really know, actually. That's bullshit. What was the pitch, though?

23:13The pitch was twofold. One, I said I knew someone they knew. So I worked with Chris Smoke when I started previous companies. He knew Chris slow. That's the word. Chris Smoke's slow. So when you're sending an email, it's a really strong subject line or any messages referred by blah. At least you're going to get an open reply. And by the way, don't bullshit that because you'll get fact-checked. I just got someone fact-checked with me, like Jordan Harbinger. You know Jordan Harbinger? Yeah. He's a good buddy of mine. He fact-checked someone who messaged him like, hey, Noah Kagan's working with me and Jordan messages me.

23:41Of course, immediately. Yeah. I was like, no, I'm not. Yeah. It was a little bit more than that. Basically, I said, hey, I'd love to just treat you to lunch and share more what I'm working on. And so I took into Pork Store Cafe in Haight. And I just shared what I was working on and said, I'm doing this idea for software deals. I want to focus on Reddit. I'm a huge Redditor. I've been to Reddit since 2006. It's with Imgur. I'd love to see if you can give me free ads. There wasn't a bigger ask than that. Again, we come back full circle. It's because I like asking. I practice asking. Everyone can ask.

24:06He's like, sure. Crazy part of that story. Fast forward about six months. I asked him again and he's like,$10 ,000. But I highly appreciate Chris and Reddit for giving me that free. It was they were just getting their ad platform out. So it was a good chance. And that was a good chance for them. To showcase something or have a case study. That it worked well. So I launched it. I was like, if I can do 200 sales, this is obviously a little bit bigger than what I'm encouraging others. If I can get 200 sales within a very short time, this is it. And let me just break down the website. I paid$48 to a guy named Muhammad, who I can still recommend to people, to help me put a PayPal button on AppSumo.com.

24:43And I spent$12 on AppSumo.com. Which, I know, I should have maybe done even not the website. But that PayPal button, people would, and I post on Reddit, hey, I've got a deal on Imgur Pro. Instead of$24, it's$12. And I gave Alan$7 immediately. That first$12 sale was the best, dude. Yeah. That was so sweet. And I remember, and this is the thing, people were like, well, how do I scale? I emailed the codes for every 200 person. You know what my backend was? Gmail. I got the PayPal notification. And then I sent him an email saying, thank you so much. Here's your code for Imgur Pro. What other deals do you want me to get?

25:14And that is what's led now to like a 100 person team. And we have all these crazy products. We've launched on so many different things from AppSumo. We have, I think, a 20, 25-person engineering team. It started with literally manual Gmail codes. And so the concept there is just so fucking basic. I didn't let all these other things get in the way. Yeah, and also that super primitive back end that you're talking about, highly manual, but high touch with the customer. Yes, yes. Gives you a lot of really valuable input. And even though we've been talking about the word scale is kind of a four-letter word.

25:49In one of the very first episodes of Masters of Scale that Reid Hoffman did, he interviewed Brian Chesky of Airbnb. And it's a great episode. And one of the key tenets in the beginning for Airbnb was do things that don't scale. And those things tended to be highly manual, helping people take photographs of their places. And what they learned then led to a lot of what we've seen.

26:18Next up, Dr. Andy Galpin, professor of kinesiology and co-director of the Center for Sports Performance at California State University Fullerton and host of the new podcast, Perform.

26:36Last year slash this year, do you have a plan for supplementation? What I have done over the last, say, nine months, which has, and this is going to sound like a shameless plug because I'm involved with these guys, but probably what I would do this ski season is I would have a never-ending supply of Maui Nui venison sticks, like the unsweetened, like no additional sugar. And that has proven for me to be just about the easiest way to get nutrient-dense 30 grams of protein in the morning. I can just throw those in my ski jacket, too. So that will probably take the place of eggs. Yeah. Also just for convenience.

27:11In terms of supplementation, I would say last year, I kept it pretty simple. I would say I was taking magnesium, some electrolytes, generally magnesium in the morning. And then I went back and forth on creatine. I know that there are so many different benefits to creatine. I was cognizant of not wanting to carry too much weight, like additional water weight, if I was going to retain a lot more water. Oh. so use that intermittently I would often use that around cross training so if I was kind of going to the gym athletic greens again this can sound like a plug but I've been using that stuff since 2000 whatever 9, 10 in supplementation we could say I could be brief here if you'd like but absolutely making sure magnesium is there magnesium is released in sweat at very low quantities but it's still enough when you sweat the amount that you're potentially also with skiing I'm going to sweat my ass off I'll be working.

28:06So you want to make sure that that stuff is high. Creatine is great. If you're going to use it, I wouldn't use it the way you did. I would use it or don't. So having it on certain days or not is probably not... Make it daily or not. Yeah, because it takes a chronic effect for it to really start to matter unless you're going a really high dosage. So I wouldn't be super concerned about the water retention aspect of it. Might even be a plus. Yeah, I was going to say, we're having a good problem with that anyways, right? Any recommendation, if you try it and it doesn't work, you don't like it. And what are we talking about?

28:36It's like five grams a day or what are we? That's the number. That's the standard. That's what everyone throws out. But I would say the same thing of like. Like the protein. Yeah. Yeah. Like why? Candidly for guys our size, it's fine. I'm probably going higher. I'm also never measuring creatine to be totally honest. Like I'm just taking big scoops and throwing it in there. Yeah. Like seeing what happens. There's actually really interesting data on the more recent stuff. the more interesting stuff on creatine is around bone health, brain health, and overall even like mood. Brain health is no joke.

29:05Yeah, but that's been 10 to 20 grams a day. I have experimented with that chronically and just looking at verbal, I mean, it's recall. Yeah. And also just like verbal acuity and stuff in podcasts. I mean, I've looked at this somewhat and it's end of one. It's just self-reporting, but for me, it's pretty noticeable. You don't have to do end of one. There's data. Yeah. There's tons of it out there. Nothing's perfect, but there's actually another review article just this week came out also on pre-tina brain health. So whether you're looking at dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stuff like that, there's no perfect answer there, but you can see the data.

29:39Anything else you'd add to the list? The rest of it would be dependent upon your labs and your physiology, what we knew there. You could throw in, you're never going to be hurt for the most part adding vitamin D. It's a very common one. You're going to be out in the sun all day. Well, half of my face will be out in the sun all day. There'll be significant sun blockage I hope. So, yeah, I did supplement with D last year. Yeah. And fish oil? I also supplemented with fish oil. Yeah. Could be placebo, who knows? There's probably literature out there on this, but I found it to seemingly help with sleep quite a bit.

30:14Those would be the standard kind of, without knowing anything about you, you throw in that cocktail, you're talking about things that are fairly cheap. Yeah. Again, relatively. Yeah. They have very little cross-reaction. unlike minerals yeah unlike even high doses vitamins you're playing a game there that you may want to be a bit careful of but things like vitamin D and things like omega 3 meaning just unintended side unintended yeah side effects yeah yeah you don't know what problem you're solving really and so you're just sort of throwing stuff in there that can technically happen with anything even vitamin D and heavy metals can be concerned there but it's a very rare thing so most of the time like you're fine I feel comfortable saying like most people can jump on that train for all those and be totally fine.

31:04Last but not least, Chris Beresford-Hill, Chief Creative Officer of the Americas at BBDO Worldwide.

31:15So who is David and what does this mean and any other lessons learned or principles? So David is the worldwide chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO. I worked for him for eight years and I've kind of not shy of saying he was the best boss I ever had. He was the best boss I ever had because he was very clear and he was very consistent and that's what you need in leadership. And so you could show him a bunch of work and he would tell you what he liked and what he chose right away. And that was that. And he didn't need to split hairs. He would come give you his response And he knew that he would make a bigger impact in this giant company by going around and saying, I think this is the most right thing, the most creative thing, the most interesting thing.

31:58And just go and do that and not be afraid to make decisions, create progress. And by the way, you know, if he picked something that was wrong, whoop-dee-doo, we'd have to go back and do it again. Or maybe we had one that wasn't as good as it could have been. But he never inhibited progress. He always facilitated progress by doing that. Meaning sort of catalyzing some type of forward motion. Exactly. He never would say, let me take this back. Let me think about it. Or let's pull more people into it. He would just give you these gut reads. And it always gave you permission to go forward. And it really taught that someone who's really pushing everyone and keeping everyone in motion just happens to always be at the center of so much.

32:37And that's why for that eight years, I mean, the agency was one of the most awarded in the world. And there was my little corner of the universe, but there was all these other corners. and he just amplified himself by empowering his people and saying a lot of yes, sometimes a no, but he was always game to move forward. Were you able to emulate that at the time in some small way or is that something that you were only able to implement later as you had more and more direct reports? I used it. I used it then because BBO at that time was David's place. So David said to do it. David said, let's go.

33:13I don't think we ever got a look at an org chart or reporting structure. I don't think we ever knew that that carried muster, but a lot of us loved the decisions he was making. And so enough of us would constantly say, that's what David wants. And so whether or not that was be all end all, it became be all end all. And so we were all emboldened to make moves. I myself couldn't, there wasn't much I could do with it at the time. In terms of making your own decisions. No, no. I was kind of probably working through my own process, but it was invaluable later because you do see people that in a high creative role, you've really got to make things happen.

33:49And you will see some people in very senior roles that really gild the lily and that really obsess over - Such a great expression. It is. And by the way, the gilding the lily of someone who's looking at a two minute case study for an award show and changing the mix on the music eight times. And you're like, listen, it doesn't really matter. And there's times to craft the hell out of it, but there's also this step back. And I think in our industry and in creativity, fast decisions are really stepping back, you know, as opposed to getting in the weeds. Can you say more about that? What I'd like to hear you riff on a little bit is how you think about fast decisions.

34:26This is a source of constant fascination for me. It's something I revisit a lot. To what extent do I prioritize speed and just catalyzing things happening versus honing, minimizing mistakes? I think that's what it comes down to for a lot of people. It's like, what error rate are you willing to accept? Right? Is it 10 %? I know it's hard to track these things, but is it like you're willing to accept a kind of breakage of making the wrong call 10 % of the time because the speed net over time is just a huge competitive advantage and good for what you're doing? That's a long question, but with a fair amount of lead up, how do you think about that?

35:04I remember that at the end of the day, it's subjective. It's not mathematics. It's not mathematical. And so I've learned to trust myself. And I've learned that if you AB something too long, you're lost. So I think the more I get stuck in something, the more I realize I need to make a fast decision. Because I don't think obsession, when you're really deciding go, no go, good idea, bad idea, excited about this, not excited about this. I don't think time is your friend. I think time slows everything down. It takes the energy out of it. So I think sometimes you just got to let it fly. And then by the way, you can correct and you can change as you go.

35:45I mean, I've approved ads that wound up being completely different ads that we're really proud of. So that's the other thing is that nothing is totally fixed. It also strikes me that there are so many things, just pulling from my own experience, that get worse with time and more deliberation, like deals and just deal structures, negotiating often, in my experience, it's like the longer it takes, the more that is a harbinger of pain to come, right? Or just a bad, wasteful outcome that ends up stalling out. There are so many things like that where it's like, okay, if there isn't some speed to this, likely the outcome is going to be worse.

36:24For sure. Time kills all deals. Yeah. For sure. And it kills momentum and it kills energy and it takes people. So if you've got people going, if you need to take something offline for yourself, just know that their muscles are going to cool. They're going to take a break and they're going to restart. And many times, the wrong decision can become the right decision.

36:47And now here are the bios for all the guests. My guest today is a guest who is very relevant for me personally right now, Greg McKeown. And he is relevant because he is easily one of my favorite thinkers on all things related to effectiveness, efficiency, and at the end of the day, quality of life and keeping your priority or priorities top of mind so that you are laser focused to do what really matters, the high leverage things, which are sometimes the small things done with relentless focus that deliver incredibly, incredibly important outcomes. So let's get to it. This is a walk and Talk with Greg McKeown.

37:31And overall, it is about how to find your purpose and master essentialism in 2024 or in the new year, if you're listening to this later. And the Walk and Talk format is something I wanted to experiment with because, let's face it, most of us sit too much. And if we consider sitting the new smoking on some level with its health implications, and I want to give credit to Kelly Starrett, who is also a multiple-time podcast guest for, I believe, coining that expression, we should get out and walk more. Part of what makes us human, part of what enabled our brains to become these incredible machines they have become, which are powered on less electricity than a light bulb, by the way, is walking.

38:09The fact that we perambulate, the fact that we walk historically much of the day. And I wanted to also contend with some back issues that I have that are exacerbated by extended sitting. And many different health issues are correlated to extended sitting. So this is a direct oppositional approach to perhaps the YouTube build TV show approach, which is this is audio only. And when I'm recording this, I am out walking. I have a high fidelity headset on and Greg is doing the same. We are doing something good for our bodies while we are having a fun and productive conversation. And my suggestion to everyone listening is if you can, do a walk and listen.

38:57There is no reason for you to be parked in front of a laptop watching a video contributing to your own physical demise hour by hour if you can be out walking around listening to this, also doing something good for your body and therefore for your entire life. So get out, try a walk and listen while we walk and talk. You can be part of the conversation and that's enough preamble on the format. But I really feel strongly that this is something I'm going to do more of. I loved doing it. And my hope is that you will join us in walking more. It is the cure all for so many things. Greg McKeown, who is he?

39:38You can find him on Twitter at Gregory McKeown, spelled M-C-K-E-O-W-N. Greg is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, mega bestsellers, Essentialism, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which is a book I've read many times, and then I've reread my Kindle highlights probably 15, 20 times. And his second book, Effortless, subtitle, Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. Together, they've sold more than 2 million copies in 37 languages. He's also a speaker, host of the Greg McKeown podcast, and founder of the Essentialism Academy with students from 96 countries. More than 175 ,000 people have also signed up to his One Minute Wednesday newsletter.

40:22He is currently doing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge, and he is, as I mentioned, easily one of my favorite thinkers on many, many, many, many, many different areas. and he is intensely practical. Originally from London, England, Greg and his wife, Anna, are parents to four children. You can find everything Greg at gregmckeon.com.

40:45My guest is Nolan Williams, MD. You can find him on Twitter at Nolan Rye, R-Y Williams. And Nolan is an associate professor within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab. And we're going to go deep into a lot related to brain stimulation. He has a broad background in clinical neuroscience and is triple board certified in general neurology, general psychiatry, and behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. Themes of his work include examining spaced learning theory and neurostimulation techniques, development and mechanistic understanding of rapid acting antidepressants and identifying objective biomarkers that predict neuromodulation responses in treatment-resistant neuropsychiatric conditions.

41:35That is a long way of saying that he specializes in looking at, I would say, and these are my words, of course, cutting-edge treatments and new technologies that can be applied to treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders, let's just say. So treatment-resistant depression, things that are notoriously difficult to address like OCD. There are many others. Nolan's work resulted in an FDA clearance for the world's first non-invasive rapid-acting neuromodulation approach for treatment-resistant depression. And I've tested this myself, and we get into this in the conversation. He has published papers in BRAIN, American Journal of Psychiatry, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

42:21Results from his studies have gained attention in science and the New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch. He received two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards, the General L. Clareman Award, and the National Institute of Mental Health Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists. Again, you can find him on Twitter or X at Nolan Rye Williams. We'll link to this in the show notes as well. And you can find him online at nolanrwilliams.com.

42:52Noah Kagan. Tim Ferriss. It's been a minute. Nice to see you. Great to see you. Our last rodeo from an audio perspective was ages ago. Number 75 on the podcast, now close to 700 episodes. Wow. Yeah. And at that time, it was how Facebook's number 30 employee quickly built four businesses and gained 40 pounds with weight training. I feel like my headlines have deteriorated over time. They've become very sort of pedantic and pedestrian and descriptive. That is better copy. So I need to, I need to work on that copy. Maybe you drafted that copy yourself, actually, for all I know, that could have been the case.

43:33We have a lot to talk about, but for people who don't have any context, could you give a little self intro? Great to see you first off. Yeah. Great to see you too. Great to see you. Now we're at$8 million businesses, which was pretty amazing. I was number 30 at Facebook, number four at Mint.com. I was a cubicle monkey at Intel for a very brief moment, which sucked, which led me to this entrepreneurship journey. And then I've started so many different businesses that failed. Some worked, and now I help run AppSumo.com, number one site online for software deals. We do about$80 million a year, which is unreal.

44:00It started bootstrapped in a weekend. I couldn't believe it when I saw that. I can't believe it. I remember day one of AppSumo, effectively, back in the day. It's been crazy, and you were a big help with it. You were a super big help with getting it going. So thank you. You're welcome. YouTube channel has done pretty well. A million subs. Got a book, Million Dollar Weekend, coming out to help people. Very similar complimentary for our work week. And we're here today.

44:27Andy Galpin. Who is Andy? Andy Galpin is a tenured full professor at California State University, Fullerton, where he is also co-director of the Center for Sport Performance and founder director of the Biochemistry and Molecular Exercise Physiology Laboratory. He is a human performance scientist with a PhD in human bioenergetics and more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and presentations. It turns out he has done research, his team has done research on many things that have been on this show. I didn't realize some of it in advance. Dr. Galpin has worked with elite athletes, including all-stars, all-pros and MVPs, Cy Young and major winners, Olympic gold medalists and world titleists and contenders across many, many different sports.

45:07That includes MMA. So for instance, UFC, MLB, NBA, PGA, NFL, all the acronyms, Olympics, boxing, military special forces, and much more. He is also a co-founder of Biomolecular Athlete, Vitality Blueprint, Absolute Rest, and Rapid Health and Performance. You can find all things Andy Galpin at andygalpin.com, and you can find him on Twitter and Instagram at Dr. Andy Galpin, spelled G-A-L-P-I-N.

45:37The guest, Chris Beresford Hill, is best known as a creative leader in advertising. He's an ad man. He's a very, very good ad man. He started off as an unpaid intern. The journey is wild. His techniques, highly effective, but he's not just an ad man. This conversation is really about coming up with good ideas. How do you come up with original and good ideas that not not only can say sell product, but also change narratives, change stories, change the stories people tell, change culture on some level. And I loved this conversation. So let me get to the bio and then I will give some teasers. Chris Bairdsford Hill is one of the most sought after creative leaders in advertising and has led brands with a combined market cap of over$1 trillion.

46:23He was recently named chief creative officer of the Americas BBDO. Previously, Chris served as North America president and chief creative officer at Ogilvy and chief creative officer at TBWA, Chayette Day. His work for clients like Guinness, Mountain Dew, Dove, Workday, Adidas, FedEx, McDonald's, HBO, and Foot Locker have driven sales while putting dent after dent into pop culture. But it's not just these huge brands. We also get into the early stories of how cold email to Mark Cuban changed the game for him completely. So we do talk about the super scrappy, bootstrapped, very, very novice days when he made a mark and slowly built his trajectory up to the stratosphere.

47:04Back to the bio. Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over. They even have, and I didn't even realize this was a thing, five campaigns in the permanent collection at MoMA. He has been named to Adweek's list of best creatives, Adweek's Creative 100, Business Insider's Most Creative People in Advertising, and the ad age 40 under 40 back when he was under 40. And you can find Chris Beretsford Hill on LinkedIn. That is the best place to connect. And we'll link to that in the show notes at tim.blog slash podcast, but it is linkedin.com slash I N slash Chris Beretsford Hill, B E R E S F O R D L I L L.

47:43Hey 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.

48:26And 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.