#807: In Case You Missed It: March 2025 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

0:00Hey folks, Tim here. Before we get started, just a quick heads up. My new card game, Coyote, which I made with the amazing people at Exploding Kittens is now a national bestseller. Things are going completely bananas. It just launched everywhere. Amazon, Walmart, Target, 8 ,000 plus retail locations, anywhere you can buy games. So check it out. See some videos of gameplay at coyotegame.com. 300 million social views so far of gameplay. It's kind of mind-blowing. It takes just minutes to learn. I guarantee you'll have a lot of laughs. This has been in the works for two years. Please enjoy it. Check it out.

0:34Coyotegame.com. Now back to the episode. This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday. my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers. And it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short of the coolest things I found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time.

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2:26Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seen an appropriate time. I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.

2:44Hello boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types to tease out the routines, habits, and so on that you can apply to your own life. This is a special in-between episode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from the last month. It features a short clip from each conversation in one place, so you can jump around, get a feel for both the episode and the guest, and then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite.

3:13It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together, and for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description, probably right below wherever you press play in your podcast app. Or as usual, you can head to tim.blog slash podcast and find all the details there. Please enjoy. First up, Craig Maude, a writer, photographer, and walker living in Tokyo and Kamakura, Japan, and the author of Things Become Other Things and Kisa by Kisa. You can find Craig on Instagram and X at Craig Maude. This excerpt comes from Tim's first interview with Craig. 2009 hike to Nepal. Is that enough of a cue?

3:57Can you tell this story? Yeah, that's an inflection point. I just got like goosebumps actually. So I really struggled with alcohol in my twenties. My teenage years, I didn't touch anything. I was militantly straight edge ish. And basically looking back now, I realized I had such a strong impulse to make sure I could get to whatever the next place was. Anything I saw that could hold me back, which included falling in love or doing drugs or anything like that, that was like a retarding agent. As a teenager, I was like, immediately I was like, okay, I don't need this. And I got to Japan and it was like, oh, this is a place to reinvent myself.

4:33And I started drinking because as you do, because people drink so much here. And it turns out that I can drink a lot. I can have 15, 20 drinks, not throw up. I black out, sure. But there's something in my genes that allows me to just drink. And then after two or three drinks, something activates where it's just all we live for is more drink. And I think for most of my 20s, because I had such a low sense of self-worth, because of where I came from, because I felt this abundance of people around me that I didn't feel I had. And I didn't know how to ratchet that up. And I had this desire to produce culture or to produce art, to produce literature at a level that I didn't know how to, and I didn't know how to bridge that gap.

5:18And what I ended up doing was, because I didn't have mentors, because I didn't have archetypes near me, I just drank like a fish. And I played a lot of music because that was one thing I did have mastery over. And I played a lot of music and I played a lot of that blacked out. I'm really lucky I didn't die. I mean, it would be one of these things were many, many mornings of my life. I've woken up and it's just been checking, is my face okay? Did I break my skull open or something like that? And I was madly in love. I fell madly, madly in love. I was 26, 27 years old. And I had the most incredible love connection I'd ever felt, this otherworldly sense of being in love with this person.

5:58and we connected so intensely and immediately went on a 40-day trip. Like a week after meeting, a 40-day trip through Tibet. We went to Tibet. I was possessed by a spirit. I spoke in tongues. Wait, hold on. We hiked up to a glacier. I mean, we can't really skip over getting possessed by spirits. I mean, it was... Yeah, there was... We stayed at this one little hotel in Laza that had not always been a hotel. You know, it was this old structure. And woke up the next morning and my girlfriend was being very strange. She was being very weird. And I was like, what's going on? She's like, I'll tell you when we get outside.

6:47I was like, what? You'll tell me when we get outside? Like, what's this about? And we go outside and she goes, okay, last night we have to get out of there. Because last night I woke up in the middle of the night. You were on your side of the bed cradling something that was not there. You were speaking in Tibetan. I couldn't get you to wake up. And I was trying to speak to you in English, trying to speak to you in Japanese. You wouldn't respond. And I finally crawled over on your side of the bed. And I kind of took the air that you were holding. And I turned you on your side. And you were able to calm down and go to sleep.

7:25And I was like, oh my god. I had this vision slash dream of this woman in white standing in the doorway at the foot of the bed the night before. And I don't know what was happening. And even now, I'm like full body goosebumps right now. God, this is like straight out of paranormal activity or something. I'm just like, oh, God. It was so bizarre. And you have to imagine, I don't know if you've ever been in love to this degree where it just feels like everything in the world is fated. Everything is a sign that you need to be together, that this is magic. Like, like only these things can possibly happen because you're connected.

7:59You're together. We both bought, I remember we like pulled out our books on the first day of the trip. We had both brought the stranger by Camus. You know, it was like, it was like, oh my God, we're faded. I went back to the hotel and I went to the manager and I was like, Hey, uh, I don't think we could stay here tonight. He's like, oh, what's wrong? And I was like, well, you know, I was kind of possessed. Saw this. He's like, did you see the woman? And I was like, yeah, he's like, he's like, oh, oh yeah. Yeah. We know what's going on with that. Here, we'll take you to the dream reader. And so I was like, what?

8:30You'll take me to the dream? So I ended up, I'll try to truncate this because it can kind of get a little bit long. I mean, I'm not sure anybody listening wants you to truncate this particular story. So go wherever you want. One of the workers there, the manager's like, okay, take him to the dream reader. And I'm thinking, okay, this is a scam. I'm getting scammed. Something that's weird is going on. And he takes us and we go to the outskirts of Laza. So we go to this really kind of weird apartment block that was just made of concrete. It was maybe two or three stories tall. And he takes us to this room on the third floor.

9:05And there's a line of people, a line of Tibetans waiting at this door. And they were all waiting to have their dreams read. So it was like, okay, this is bizarre. So we wait, we stand in line, we go inside, we sit down inside. The most beautiful, I don't know how old she was. She was anywhere between 15 and a thousand years old. She was just this creature of just the most bizarre light walks out. It was like being in the Matrix. The scene in the Matrix where they're with the spoon and the bending, and you're in this random apartment, the TV's on. It was like that situation. She comes over, brings some yak buttermilk tea, some cookies, because someone's in the dream reader room, and we're waiting for them to get out.

9:42And then our term comes up. I go in there. You go into this room. It's all candles, Dalai Lama photos, all this stuff. You feel like you're in this really holy space. and the guy from the hotel interprets for us. I tell her the dream. I tell her what happened. And she gives me this blessing, puts a white wreath around my neck, gives me this little satchel of seeds and tells me to put them under my pillow when I sleep and then writes me a prayer. And she says, okay, here's these three pieces of paper. You have to take them to these three temples and they will burn them for you tonight. They'll know what to do.

10:11Just tell them the dream reader sent you and you'll be okay. You'll be fine. Everything will be good. And I was like, no one's asking me for money you know and the guy the hotel guy's like oh you can like leave a tip if you want or whatever and like you know it was like two dollars or something i like put two dollars in a little thingy and then we go to the temples and like it ended up becoming this incredible adventure this connects with a lot of my walking as well you know it's like having experiences like this i think informed this sense of like just give yourself up to what the day could potentially give to you and so i ended up going to all these temples i would have never gone to i went to the Dream Readers apartment, which was like the most bizarre, beautiful place I went to in all of Tibet in that entire trip.

10:50We went to these temples, met these monks, say, hey, can you burn this for me? Oh, yes, of course. Absolutely. Give them like a dollar, 50 cents or whatever. The whole thing cost nothing. It was clearly not a scam. It was clearly this thing that a lot of locals were participating in. And it was magic. It was just pure magic. So anyway, things like that were happening with this woman. And I screwed it up because of my drinking. I ruined the relationship. She punched me in the face at one point, very rightfully so. And she was like, hey, I can't be with someone like you. This happened on that trip?

11:23Not on that trip. That happened a couple months later. We ended up staying together for about three months. And basically, I mean, it was about 10 years worth of lifetimes in three months. twice as bright. But losing her was probably the biggest psychic damage I'd ever encountered in my life as an adult. And I remember just lying in my tiny apartment in Tokyo, my six mat tatami room apartment in Tokyo. It was three in the morning. I wanted to die. It was rock, rock, rock bottom. This isn't like a rich role story. I didn't get up and run 40 miles or anything like that. But I was like, I'm going to start running.

12:02And I went out and I ran like 5K at three in the morning through the streets of Tokyo. And I was like, that felt good. And I was like, okay, I need to stop drinking. And to stop drinking, I'm going to run this marathon in November. I think it was like July when this happened. And I just started preparing for that. These were actually the first steps for me to deliberately address this lack of self-worth that I've been carrying around for all of my adult life. And that had, I think, driven me to drink the way I drank. to give into whatever those genetic impulses were and to start to go, okay, we're going to run.

12:34We're going to be someone who runs. A lot of this is also very Atomic Habits style stuff. It's like, who are you going to be and how are you going to set yourself up to be successful? I'm going to be a person who runs. I'm going to be a person who doesn't drink. I'm going to be a person who charges a lot. So I was, at this time, with the publishing company thing, we were producing these books that were winning awards and making absolutely no money. And so I was consulting, doing web design consulting and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, I'm going to start charging absurd amounts of money for my time.

13:04The worst that can happen is people reject. And they started accepting it. And I was like, oh, little by little. All these stupid little steps from the time I was basically 27 to 30. These were the most important years of tiny little steps. My time is more valuable. I'm going to be a person who runs. I'm going to be a person who can take care of himself. I still drank, even though I tried to not drink, but I started lowering it. It took me about four full years to completely get off the sauce in a really dangerous way. And part of it culminated in going to Nepal and climbing up to Annapurta base camp.

13:42And that was after we had broken up and I felt like all the magic of my life was done. I felt like there was no way for me to experience magic again. I felt like she, and again, it's this totally irrational sense of scarcity. The amount of scarcity I felt as an adult in my 20s is just shocking. It was this fathomless sense of scarcity. The money's not going to be there. The love isn't going to be there. The support isn't going to be there. And then when I lost her, I was like, I'm never going to have anyone who will ever love me like this person loved me. And I'm never going to be able to create like I created with this person.

14:14And I had to start proving to myself that that wasn't true. And I climbed up. I was like, okay, I'm just going to go to Nepal and And I'm going to climb up Annapurna, go to Basecamp.

14:27And now, Ev Williams, the co-founder of the new social network, Mosey, and the co-founder of Blogger, Medium, and Twitter. You can learn more about Mosey at mosey.app. Metaphorically speaking, the billboard question, right? So if you were going to put a message on a billboard, it could say anything, it could be an image, anything at all that you would want a lot of people to see and understand, what might you put on that? I love this question. I might overthink it.

15:04And understand. So we can assume they'll understand. The and understand I threw on there with a little creative flourish, it may complicate your thinking. I'm going to build on that. And thinking about this, what comes to mind, first of all, is the category is something that will help people heal, you know, just be their whole and true selves. Because I think that's where all our problems come from is the lack of that. And as much as I care about climate, I think the key to solving climate is to heal ourselves, to heal culture, to heal the planet. And so I start with the self. and then my mind goes to, what's a big fundamental truth that we want everyone, let's pretend if they read it, they'll actually get it and know it.

15:51Then I think there's a little bit of tension between the most fundamental truths and how actionable they are. So if we said, we are all one, which I believe, it's like, okay, we're all one. The universe is one big thing. We're all connected. What do I do with that? Maybe if you really ponder that and meditate on that a long time, it will actually do you some good. But then if you move toward the spectrum of usefulness, of what's a fundamental truth that's more useful, you might have some Buddhist saying, all of our suffering comes from our thoughts or our inability to accept reality, which is a little bit more useful.

16:29But maybe for the masses, still not very actionable. And then you could move to feel your feelings, which I think would do a tremendous amount of good if people adopt, oh, feel your feelings. It's a little bit easier to imagine that. Like so much of our suffering. And I say this as someone who told their first therapist, I don't understand the point of feelings. I was like, they are just a nuisance and get in the way. So it took me a long time to appreciate that and the avoidance that so many of us go through. And then one step further might be stop drinking alcohol for six months and see how you feel.

17:12Not tonight, though. It's fine. We're in a bar. Not tonight. Nice. Starting tomorrow. Starting tomorrow. So following up just on the feeling your feelings, you said for a long time, and you said this to your first therapist, right? They're just a nuisance. I'd like to know how to rid myself of these irritations. What changed? How did you end up going on to team feelings? So, I mean, it was a long, long process. I mean, the therapy helped, the psychedelics helped, meditation, growth, learning, reading books, having friends, stopping drinking, actually, just for six months. And I've gone through a lot.

17:50I've done a lot of work, particularly in the last couple of years. That's been just super, super important. Just a note on alcohol. Look, I'm going to have some drinks tonight. I do enjoy drinking.

18:03But just a PSA for people because ketamine is in the air. Ketamine is probably in a few people's pockets here. They're both dissociative anesthetics. So if you want to feel your feelings, it's a good idea not to engage with those things excessively. And if you have a history of alcohol overuse, I would also stay away from any at-home ketamine. But in terms of books or types of therapy, did you find, if there are people in the audience who are like, yeah, you know what, actually that makes sense to me, but I've never been able to find a handhold to get started. Is there any advice you might give?

18:37Probably the best thing I've ever done in that realm is Hoffman. Have you done Hoffman? Hoffman, I haven't done Hoffman, but quite a few of my friends have. So there's this thing called the Hoffman process. It's 20 years of therapy in a week in terms of the effect. I mean, I've got much more out of it than I ever got in therapy. It's a week-long retreat. There's a few different places. The main one's in Petaluma, California. You hand over your phone. You go and do some exercises with 36 strangers and yourself for a week, and you come out a new person. So I've spoken, well, not directly. I've more listened, but had a conversation on this podcast where the Hoffman process came up, and a lot of listeners have gone to the Hoffman process, and I get letters literally every week from people who are thanking me for not really the proper credit because there's someone else who brought it up for the Hoffman process.

19:38I'm very curious. You mentioned the strangers. Part of the reason I haven't gone is I'm like, I don't want to air all of my dirty laundry in front of 20 strangers. I don't know these people. And I know you're also, I think it's fair to say, pretty introverted. I would say I am. even though I'm on stage, like, safely speaking into the darkness. Was that an issue at all for you, or how did you get past that? It wasn't easy, but it's just in the context of it, it just feels very safe. One of the fascinating things is, as strangers, you are not allowed to say your last name or what you do in the real world when you get there.

20:18So you connect with people. And I realized after a few days, I relied so much on people knowing who I was or what I did, that it was this veil between me and other humans. So you get to know people at such a deep level without really knowing any of the normal things that we would say, you meet someone here, what do you do? Where do you live? And that, it just feels incredibly safe. But the process is, they've been doing it for 50 some years. It's very evolved. It's very well done. You take any of it out of context, it sounds weird. Like, I knew nothing going in. And about five people brought it up to me in random conversations over a week.

20:59And I was like, okay, this is a message. I'm going to go sign up for this thing. Show up. I had no idea. And then you just dive in. And it's incredible. Yeah, from what I can tell, it's somewhat like Fight Club. It's like first rule of Fight Club is don't talk about Fight Club. You're not going to find much detail on the Hoffman process. this also ties into a question I was planning on asking anyway which is, are there any habits or beliefs that have really positively impacted your life in the last handful of years? It could also be 10 years ago but you've talked about doing a lot of work in the last handful of years any new habits, beliefs, tools anything come to mind that have been really helpful?

21:43yes but i feel like they're the ones that everybody knows it's just i mean sometimes the fundamentals are worth a review it is exercise exercise and meditation i dabbled in for a long time and then i got much more serious a couple years ago about both and really really dramatic life improvement why did you get more serious about them you just wake up one day and you're like today's a new day or was there a breaking point? It was early COVID. I was like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm going to turn 50 and I need to work a hell of a lot harder to be in shape than I was. So I just started doing it.

22:24I was at home. I had the time. So I did that. Although that's increased and, you know, because you get the positive reward cycle and it feels great. And meditation, I've always found super valuable. And I just last year on January 2nd, 2024, I had meditated the day before. I was like, I could meditate every single day this year. And it was just that sort of psychological hook that you find motivating, even though it's arbitrary. And I was like, yes, I'm going to meditate every single day in 2024. That's a goal. And I don't normally set goals like that. But I was like, OK, let's see what happens.

23:04And my teacher says, you can't boil water if you keep turning off the flame. And so the consistency of meditation, I underestimated what dramatic difference that makes and how fast you can drop in if you do it every single day. What type of meditation did you decide on? Just mindfulness, meditation, breath, and awareness. Not TM, just... Just like an open monitoring, feel what you feel, see what you see? Yeah. Are you noting things or are you just observing? Sometimes noting. And I know you like to know about products. You know about this product. But I was using The Way. You've probably talked about that before.

23:43The Way is a meditation app. I hadn't used a meditation app for years. I started using The Way. Kevin sent it to me, actually, when it was still in beta. And I started doing that around that time. Yeah, The Way is fantastic. Yeah, Henry Schuchman, just an incredible guy. I mean, we'll hope to meet him in person someday.