#836: The 4-Hour Workweek Principles — 13 Mistakes to Avoid, The Art of Mini-Retirements, and Navigating the Dizziness of Freedom

32:13Whether you're aware of it or not, this clutter creates indecision and distractions, consuming attention and making unfettered happiness a real chore. It is impossible to realize how distracting all the crap is, whether porcelain dolls, sports cars, or ragged t-shirts, until you get rid of it. Prior to my 15-month trip, I was stressed about how to fit all of my belongings into a 14-by-10-foot rental storage space. Then I realized a few things. I would never re-read the business magazines I'd saved. I wore the same five shirts and four pairs of pants 90 % of the time. It was about time for new furniture, and I never used the outdoor grill or lawn furniture.

33:07Even getting rid of things I never used proved to be like a capitalist short circuit. It was hard to toss things I had once thought were valuable enough to spend money on. The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die. I hadn't exercised my throwing-out muscles in some time. It was a struggle to put nice Christmas clothing I'd never worn into the go-pile and just as hard to separate myself from worn and ragged clothing I had for sentimental reasons. Once I'd passed through the first few tough decisions, though, the momentum had been built, and it was a breeze.

33:52I donated all of the seldom-worn clothing to Goodwill. The furniture took less than ten hours to offload using Craigslist, and though I was paid less than fifty percent of the retail prices for some and nothing for others, who cared? I'd used and abused them for five years and would get a new set when I landed back in the U.S. I gave the grill and lawn furniture to my friend who lit up like a kid at Christmas. I had made his month. It felt wonderful, and I had an extra$300 in pocket change to cover at least a few weeks of rent abroad. I created 40 % more space in my apartment and hadn't even grazed the surface.

34:35It wasn't the extra physical space that I felt most. It was the extra mental space. It was as if I had twenty mental applications running simultaneously before, and now I had just one or two. My thinking was clearer, and I was much, much happier. I asked every vagabond interviewee in this audiobook what their one recommendation would be for first-time extended travelers. The answer was unanimous. Take less with you. The overpacking impulse is hard to resist. The solution is to set what I call a settling fund. Rather than pack for all contingencies, I bring the absolute minimum and allocate$100 to$300 for purchasing things after I arrive and as I travel.

35:30I no longer take toiletries or more than a week's worth of clothing. It's a blast. Finding shaving cream or a dress shirt overseas can produce an adventure in and of itself. Pack as if you were coming back in one week. Here are the bare essentials listed in order of importance. 1. One week of clothing appropriate to the season, including one semi-formal shirt and a pair of pants or skirt for customs. Think T-shirts, one pair of shorts, and a multi-purpose pair of jeans. 2. Backup photocopies or scanned copies of all important documents, health insurance, passport, visa, credit cards, debit cards, etc.

36:183. Debit cards, credit cards, and$200 worth of small bills in local currency. Traveler's checks are not accepted in most places and are a hassle. 4. Small cable bike lock for securing luggage while in transit or in hostels A small padlock for lockers, if needed 5. Electronic dictionaries for target languages Book versions are too slow to be of use in conversation And small grammar guides or texts 6. One broad strokes travel guide That's it!

37:04Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Not to be a salty old dog, but in the early 2000s, back in the day when I was running my own e-commerce business, the tools were atrocious. They tried hard, but man, was it bad. You had to cobble all sorts of stuff together. I could only dream of a platform like Shopify. Shopify is the e-commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. And now 10 % of all e-commerce in the US is on Shopify. Now back to the early 2000s, then nobody even thought of AI. Who could have predicted even in the last 24 months, the magic that is now possible with AI?

37:44Shopify has been ahead of the curve and they are packed with helpful AI tools that will accelerate everything, write product descriptions, page headlines, even enhance your product photography. Best of all, Shopify expertly handles everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash Tim. One more time, shopify.com slash Tim. Hey folks, Tim here. My best-selling card game, Coyote, which I made with the amazing team at Exploding Kittens, just won the Pop Insider Best Geeky Game of 2025, and also Best Stocking Filler in the Made for Mums Toy Awards 2025.

38:30It is on sale everywhere. It's cheap. It's fast to learn. It has 4.8 stars out of five. People are loving it. CoyoteGame.com will take you to all the retailers, but you can find it everywhere. It is a game of thinking fast and laughing faster. Thinks charades, meets hot potato meets a bunch of brain fun. It's good for your head. It's perfect for families with kids age 10 plus or adults who are kids at heart or don't take themselves too seriously. A lot of adults love this game. And as I said, it's available everywhere. Amazon, Walmart, Target, 8 ,000 plus retail locations, you name it. So please check it out.

39:07I loved making it. People are really enjoying it. It has 300 or 400 million plus social views of gameplay online. And try it, enjoy it this holiday season. Check it out, coyotegame.com. One more time, that's coyotegame.com or anywhere you buy your games. Now, back to the episode.

39:28The Bora Bora Dealmaker. Baffin Island, Nunavut. Josh Steinitz, founder of NileProject.com, stood at the edge of the world and stared in amazement. He dug his boots into the six feet of sea ice, and the unicorns danced. Ten narwhals, rare cousins of the beluga, came to the surface and pointed their six-foot-plus spiral tusks toward the heavens. The pod of three-thousand-pound whales then fell into the depths once again. The narwhals are deep divers, more than three-thousand feet in some cases, so Josh had at least twenty minutes until their reappearance. It seemed appropriate that he was with the narwhals.

40:24Their name came from Old Norse and referred to their mottled white and blue skin. Noveler. Corpse man. He smiled, as he had done often in the last few years. Josh himself was a dead man walking. One year after graduating from college, Josh found out that he had oral squamous carcinoma. Cancer. He had plans to be a management consultant. He had plans to be lots of things. Suddenly none of it mattered. Less than half of those who suffered from this particular type of cancer survived. The Reaper didn't discriminate and came without warning. It became clear that the biggest risk in life wasn't making mistakes, but regret.

41:20Missing out on things. He could never go back and recapture years spent doing something he disliked. Two years later and cancer-free, Josh set off on an indefinite global walkabout, covering expenses as a freelance writer. He later became the co-founder of a website that provides customized itineraries to would-be vagabonds. His executive status didn't lessen his mobile addiction. He was as comfortable cutting deals from the overwater bungalows of Bora Bora as he was in the log cabins of the Swiss Alps. He once took a call from a client while at Camp Muir on Mount Rainier. The client needed to confirm some sales numbers and asked Josh about all the wind in the background.

42:12Josh's answer, I'm standing at 10 ,000 feet on a glacier and this afternoon the wind is whipping us down the mountain. The client said he'd let Josh get back to what he was doing. Another client called Josh while he was leaving a Balinese temple and heard the gongs in the background. The client asked Josh if he was in church. Josh wasn't quite sure what to say. All that came out was, yes? Back among the narwhals, Josh had a few minutes before heading to base camp to avoid polar bears. 24-hour daylight meant that he had much to share with his friends back in the land of cubicles. He sat down on the ice and produced his satellite phone and laptop from a waterproof bag.

43:01He began his email in the usual way. I know you're all sick of seeing me have so much fun, but guess where I am? Q &A. Questions and Actions. It is fatal to know too much at the outcome. Boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is over-certain of his plot, Paul Theroux. to the ends of the earth. If this is your first time considering a commitment to the mobile lifestyle and long-term adventuring, I envy you. Making the jump and entering the new worlds that await is like upgrading your role in life from passenger to pilot. The bulk of this Q &A will focus on the precise steps that you should take and the countdown timeline you can use when preparing for your first mini-retirement.

44:00Most steps can be eliminated or condensed once you get one trip under your belt. Some of the steps are one-time events, after which subsequent mini-retirements will require a maximum of two to three weeks of preparation. It now takes me three afternoons. Grab a pencil and paper. This will be fun. 1. Take an asset and cash flow snapshot. Set two sheets of paper on a table. Use one to record all assets and corresponding values, including bank accounts, retirement accounts, stocks, bonds, home, and so forth. On the second, draw a line down the middle and write down all incoming cash flow, salary, muse income, investment income, etc., and outgoing expenses, mortgage, rent, car payments, etc.

44:54What can you eliminate that is either seldom used or that creates stress or distraction without adding a lot of value? 2. Fear set a one-year mini-retirement in a dream location in Europe. Use the questions from Chapter 3 to evaluate your worst-case scenario fears and evaluate the real potential consequences. Except in rare cases, most will be avoidable and the rest will be reversible. 3. Choose a location for your actual mini-retirement. Where to start? This is the big question. There are two options that I advocate. A. Choose a starting point and then wander until you find your second home. This is what I did with a one-way ticket to London, vagabonding throughout Europe until I fell in love with Berlin, where I remained for three months.

45:51b. Scout a region and then settle in your favorite spot. This is what I did with a tour of Central and South America, where I spent one to four weeks in each of several cities, after which I returned to my favorite, Buenos Aires, for six months. It is possible to take a mini-retirement in your own country, but the transformative effect is hampered if you are surrounded by people who carry the same socially reinforced baggage. I recommend choosing an overseas location that will seem foreign, but that isn't dangerous. I box, race motorcycles, and do all sorts of macho things, but I draw the line at favelas, Brazilian shantytowns.

46:38See the movie City of God, Cidade de Deus, to get a taste of how fun these are. Civilians with machine guns, pedestrians with machetes and social strife. Cheap is good, but bullet holes are bad. Check the U.S. Department of State for travel warnings before booking tickets. Travel.state.gov. Here are just a few of my favorite starting points. Feel free to choose other locations. The most lifestyle for the dollar is stressed. Argentina, Buenos Aires, Cordova China, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei Japan, Tokyo, Osaka England, London Ireland, Galway Thailand, Bangkok, Chiang Mai Germany, Berlin, Munich Norway, Oslo Australia, Sydney New Zealand, Queenstown Italy, Rome, Milan, Florence, Spain, Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, and Holland, Amsterdam.

47:48In all of these places, it is possible to live well while spending little. I spend less in Tokyo than in California because I know it well. Hip, recently gentrified artist areas, not unlike the Brooklyn of ten years ago, can be found in almost all cities. The one place I can't seem to find a decent lunch for less than$20 U.S.? London. Here are a few exotic places I don't recommend for vagabonding virgins, though veterans can make them all work. All countries in Africa, the Middle East, or Central and South America, excepting Costa Rica and Argentina, Mexico City, and Mexican border areas are also a bit too kidnap-happy to make it onto my favorites list.

48:374. Prepare for your trip. Here's the countdown. 3 months out. Eliminate. Get used to minimalism before the departure. Here are the questions to ask and act upon, even if you never plan to leave. What is the 20 % of my belongings that I use 80 % of the time? Eliminate the other 80 % in clothing, magazines, books, and all else. be ruthless. You can always repurchase things you can't live without. Which belongings create stress in my life? This could relate to maintenance costs, money and energy, insurance, monthly expenses, time consumption, or simple distraction. Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate.

49:28If you sell even a few expensive items, it could finance a good portion of your mini-retirement. Don't rule out the car and home. It's always possible to purchase either upon your return, often losing no money in the process. Check current health insurance coverage for extended overseas travel. Get the wheels in motion to rent, swap, or sell your home. Renting out is most recommended by serial vagabonds, or end your apartment lease and move all belongings into storage. In all cases where doubts crop up, ask yourself, if I had a gun to my head and had to do it, how would I do it? It's not as hard as you think.

50:11Two months out. Automate. After eliminating the excess, contact companies, including suppliers, that bill you regularly and set up auto-payment with credit cards that have reward points. Telling them that you will be traveling the world for a year often persuades them to accept credit cards rather than chase you around the planet like Carmen Sandiego. For the credit card companies themselves and others that refuse, arrange automatic debit from your checking account. Set up online banking and bill payment. Set up all companies that won't take credit cards or automatic debit as online payees. Set these scheduled checks for$15 to$20 more than expected when dealing with utilities and other variable expenses.

51:01This will cover miscellaneous fees, prevent time-consuming billing problems, and accrue as a credit. Cancel paper, bank, and credit card statement delivery. Get bank-issued credit cards for all checking accounts, generally one for business and one for personal, and set the cash advances to zero dollars to minimize abuse potential. Leave these cards at home, as they are just for emergency overdraft protection. Give a trusted member of your family and or your accountant power of attorney, which gives that person authority to sign documents, tax filings and checks, for example, in your name. This is a serious step and should not be taken with those you do not trust.

51:47In this case, it helps because your accountant can then sign tax documents or checks in your name instead of consuming hours and days of your time with faxes, scanners, and expensive international FedExing of documents. Nothing screws up foreign fund faster than having to sign original documents when faxes are unacceptable. One month out. Speak to the manager of your local post office and have all mail forwarded to a friend, family member, or personal assistant, who will be paid$100 to$200 per month to email you brief descriptions of all non-junk mail each Monday. There are also services like earthclassmail.com, which will receive, scan, and email all of your non-junk mail to you as PDFs.

52:37Get all required and recommended immunizations and vaccinations for your target region. Check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cdc.gov forward slash travel. Note that proof of immunizations is sometimes required to pass through foreign customs. Set up a trial account with GoToMyPC or similar remote access software and take a dry run to ensure that there are no technological glitches. This would be used if you leave your computer at home or in someone else's home while traveling. This step can be skipped if you bring your computer, but that is like a recovering heroin addict bringing a bag of opium to rehab.

53:22Don't tempt yourself to kill time instead of rediscovering it. If resellers or distributors still send you checks, the fulfillment house should handle customer checks at this point, do one of three things. Give the resellers direct bank deposit information, ideal, have the fulfillment house handle these checks, second choice, or have the resellers pay via PayPal or mail checks to one of the people you are trusting with power of attorney, far third. In the last case, give the person with power of attorney deposit slips so he or she can sign or stamp and mail in the checks. It is convenient to become a member of a large bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, Citibank, etc., with branches near the person assisting you so that they can drop off the deposits while running other errands.

54:18No need to move all accounts to this bank if you don't want to, just open a single new account that is used solely for these deposits. Two weeks out. Scan all identification, health insurance, and credit debit cards into a computer from which you can print multiple copies, several to be left with family members and several to be taken with you in separate bags. Email the scanned file to yourself so that you can access it while abroad if you lose the paper copies. If you are an entrepreneur, downgrade your cell phone to the cheapest plan and set up a voicemail greeting that states, I am currently overseas on business.

55:00Please do not leave a voicemail as I will not be checking it while gone. Please send me an email at blank at blank dot com if the matter is important. Thank you for your understanding. Then, set up email autoresponders that indicate responses could take up to seven days, or whatever you decide for frequency, due to international business travel. Find an apartment for your ultimate mini-retirement destination, or reserve a hostel or hotel at your starting point for three to four days. Reserving an apartment before you arrive is riskier and will be much more expensive than using the latter three to four days to find an apartment.

55:43I recommend hostels for the starting point if possible, not for cost considerations, but because the staff and fellow travelers are more knowledgeable and helpful with relocations. Get foreign medical evacuation insurance if needed for peace of mind. This tends to be redundant if you are in a developed country and can buy local insurance to augment your own, which I do, and it is useless if you are a 10-hour flight from civilization. I had evacuation insurance in Panama as it's a 2-hour flight from Miami, but I didn't bother elsewhere. Don't freak out about this. It's just as true if you're in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the U.S.

56:27One week out. Decide on a schedule for routine batched tasks such as email, online banking, etc. to eliminate excuses for senseless pseudo-work procrastinating. I suggest Monday mornings for checking email and online banking. The first and third Mondays of the month can be used for checking credit cards and making other online payments, such as affiliates. These promises to yourself will be the hardest to keep, so make a commitment now and expect serious withdrawal cravings. Save important documents, including the scan of your identification, insurance, and credit debit cards, to a small, handheld storage device that plugs into a computer USB port.

57:15Move all things out of your home or apartment into storage. Pack a single, small backpack and carry-on bag for the adventure, and move in briefly with a family member or friend. Two days out Put remaining automobiles into storage or a friend's garage. Put fuel stabilizer like Stabil in the gas tanks. Disconnect the negative leads from batteries to prevent drain. And put the vehicles on jack stands to prevent tire and shock damage. Cancel all auto insurance except for theft coverage. Upon arrival Assuming you have not booked an apartment in advance. First morning and afternoon after check-in Take a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the city, followed by a bike tour of potential apartment neighborhoods.

58:06First, late afternoon or evening Purchase an unlocked cell phone with a SIM card that can be recharged with simple prepaid cards. Unlocked means that it is recharged with prepaid cards instead of being on a monthly payment plan with a single carrier such as O2 or Vodafone. This also means that the same phone can be used with carriers in other countries, assuming the frequency is the same, with a simple switch of the SIM memory card for$10 to$30 US in most cases. Some US-compatible quad-band phones can use SIM cards. Email apartment owners or brokers on craigslist.com and online versions of local newspapers for viewings over the next two days.

58:54Second and third days Find and book an apartment for one month. Don't commit to more than one month until you've slept there. I once prepaid two months only to find that the busiest bus stop downtown was on the other side of my bedroom wall. Move-in day Get settled and purchase local health insurance. Ask hostile owners and other locals what insurance they use. Resolve not to buy souvenirs or other take-home items until two weeks prior to departure. One week later Eliminate all the extra crap you brought but won't use often. Either give it to someone who needs it more, mail it back to the U.S., or throw it out.

59:4015. Filling the Void. Adding Life After Subtracting Work. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass. Anne Lamott, bird by bird. There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. Bill Watterson, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip. King's Cross, London I stumbled into the deli across the cobblestone street and ordered a prosciutto sandwich. It was 10.30 a.m. now, the fifth time I'd checked the time, and the twentieth time I'd asked myself, what the bleep am I going to do today?

1:00:28The best answer I had come up with so far was, get a sandwich. Thirty minutes earlier, I had woken up without an alarm clock for the first time in four years, fresh off arriving from JFK the night before. I had so been looking forward to it, awakening to musical birdsong outside, sitting up in bed with a smile, smelling the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and stretching out overhead like a cat in the shade of a Spanish villa. Magnificent. It turned out more like this. Bolt upright as if blasted with a foghorn, grab clock, curse, jump out of bed in underwear to check email, remember that I was forbidden to do so, curse again, look for my host and former classmate, realize that he was off to work like the rest of the world, and proceed to have a panic attack.

1:01:25I spent the rest of the day in a haze, wandering from museum to botanical garden to museum, as if on rinse and repeat, avoiding internet cafes with some vague sense of guilt. I needed a to-do list to feel productive and so put down things like eat dinner. This was going to be a lot harder than I had thought. Postpartum depression. It's normal. Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. Anatole Franz, author of The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard. I've got more money and time than I ever dreamed possible. Why am I depressed? It's a good question, with a good answer.

1:02:17Just be glad you're figuring this out now and not at the end of life. The retired and ultra-rich are often unfulfilled and neurotic for the same reason. Too much idle time. But wait a second. Isn't more time what we're after? Isn't that what this book is all about? No. Not at all. Too much free time is no more than fertilizer for self-doubt and assorted mental tail-chasing. Subtracting the bad does not create the good. It leaves a vacuum. Decreasing income-driven work isn't the end goal. Living more and becoming more is. In the beginning, the external fantasies will be enough, and there is nothing wrong with this.

1:03:03I cannot overemphasize the importance of this period. Go nuts and live your dreams. This is not superficial or selfish. It is critical to stop repressing yourself and get out of the postponement habit. Let's suppose you decide to dip your toe in dreams like relocating to the Caribbean for island hopping or taking a safari in the Serengeti. It will be wonderful and unforgettable, and you should do it. There will come a time, however, be it three weeks or three years later, when you won't be able to drink another piña colada or photograph another damn red-assed baboon. Self-criticism and existential panic attacks start around this time.

1:03:51But this is what I always wanted. How can I be bored? Don't freak out and fuel the fire. This is normal among all high performers who downshift after working hard for a long time. The smarter and more goal-oriented you are, the tougher these growing pains will be. Learning to replace the perception of time famine with appreciation of time abundance is like going from triple espressos to decaf. But there's more. Retirees get depressed for a second reason, and you will too. Social isolation. Offices are good for some things. Free bad coffee and complaining thereof. Gossip and commiserating. Stupid video clips via email with even stupider comments.

1:04:41And meetings that accomplish nothing but kill a few hours with a few laughs. The job itself might be a dead end, but it's the web of human interactions, the social environment, that keeps us there. Once liberated, this automatic tribal unit disappears, which makes the voices in your head louder. Don't be afraid of the existential or social challenges. Freedom is like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting enough to keep things interesting at all times. Once you have learned the basics, though, it becomes clear that to be even a half decent player requires some serious practice.

1:05:23Don't fret. The greatest rewards are to come, and you're ten feet from the finish line. Frustrations and doubts. You're not alone. People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive. Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth. Once you eliminate the nine to five and the rubber hits the road, it's not all roses and white sand bliss, though much of it can be. Without the distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions, such as what does it all mean, become harder to fend off for a later time.

1:06:09In a sea of infinite options, decisions also become harder. What the hell should I do with my life? It's like senior year in college all over again. Like all innovators ahead of the curve, you will have frightening moments of doubt. Once past the kid-in-a-candy-store phase, the comparative impulse will creep in. The rest of the world will continue with its 9-to-5 grind, and you'll begin to question your decision to step off the treadmill. Common doubts and self-flagellation include the following. 1. Am I really doing this to be more free and lead a better life, or am I just lazy? 2. Did I quit the rat race because it's bad, or just because I couldn't hack it?

1:06:57Did I just cop out? 3. Is this as good as it gets? Perhaps I was better off when I was following orders and ignorant of the possibilities. It was easier, at least. 4. Am I really successful? Or just kidding myself? 5. Have I lowered my standards to make myself a winner? Are my friends, who are now making twice as much as three years ago, really on the right track? 6. Why am I not happy? I can do anything and I'm still not happy. Do I even deserve it? Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what it is. Outdated comparisons using the more is better and money as success mindsets that got us into trouble to begin with.

1:07:48Even so, there is a more profound observation to be made. These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it. Think of a time when you felt 100 % alive and undistracted, in the zone. Chances are that it was when you were completely focused in the moment on something external, someone or something else. Sports and sex are two great examples. Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear. Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist famous for proposing Maslow's hierarchy of needs, would term this goal a peak experience.

1:08:45In the process of searching for a new focus, it is almost inevitable that the big questions will creep in. There is pressure from pseudo-philosophers everywhere to cast aside the impertinent and answer the eternal. Two popular examples are, what is the meaning of life, and what is the point of it all? There are many more, ranging from the introspective to the ontological, but I have one answer for almost all of them. I don't answer them at all. I'm no nihilist. In fact, I've spent more than a decade investigating the mind and concept of meaning. a quest that has taken me from the neuroscience laboratories of top universities to the halls of religious institutions worldwide.

1:09:31The conclusion after it all is surprising. I am 100 % convinced that most big questions we feel compelled to face, handed down through centuries of overthinking and mistranslation, use terms so undefined as to make attempting to answer them a complete waste of time. There is a place for cones and rhetorical meditative questions, but these tools are optional and outside the scope of this audiobook. Most questions without answers are just poorly worded. This isn't depressing. It's liberating. Consider the question of questions. What is the meaning of life? If pressed, I have but one response. It is the characteristic state or condition of a living organism.

1:10:26But that's just a definition, the questioner will retort. That's not what I mean at all. What do you mean, then? Until the question is clear, each term in it defined, there is no point in answering it. The meaning of life question is unanswerable without further elaboration. Before spending time on a stress-inducing question, big or otherwise, ensure that the answer is yes to the following two questions. 1. Have I decided on a single meaning for each term in this question? 2. Can the answer to this question be acted upon to improve things? What is the meaning of life? Fails the first and thus the second.

1:11:14Questions about things beyond your sphere of influence, like, what if the train is late tomorrow, fail the second, and should thus be ignored. These are not worthwhile questions. If you can't define it or act upon it, forget it. If you take just this point from this audiobook, it will put you in the top 1 % of performers in the world and keep most philosophical distress out of your life. Sharpening your logical and practical mental toolbox is not being an atheist or unspiritual. It's not being crass and it's not being superficial. It's being smart and putting your effort where it can make the biggest difference for yourself and others.

1:12:01The point of it all. Drumroll, please. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. Victor E. Frankel, Holocaust survivor, author of Man's Search for Meaning I believe that life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself. Each person will have his or her own vehicles for both, and those vehicles will change over time. For some, the answer will be working with orphans, and for others, it will be composing music. I have a personal answer to both. To love, be loved, and never stop learning.

1:12:49But I don't expect that to be universal. Some criticize a focus on self-love and enjoyment as selfish or hedonistic, but it's neither. Enjoying life and helping others, or feeling good about yourself and increasing the greater good, are no more mutually exclusive than being agnostic and leading a moral life. One does not preclude the other. Let's assume we agree on this. It still leaves the question, what can I do with my time to enjoy life and feel good about myself? I can't offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens of fulfilled N.R. I've interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental, continual learning and service.

1:13:37Learning Unlimited, Sharpening the Saw Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages. Dave Barry To live is to learn. I see no other option. This is why I felt compelled to quit or be fired from jobs within the first six months or so. The learning curve flattens out and I get bored. Though you can upgrade your brain domestically, traveling and relocating provides unique conditions that make progress much faster. The different surroundings act as a counterpoint and mirror for your own prejudices, making weaknesses that much easier to fix.

1:14:27I rarely travel somewhere without deciding first how I'll obsess on a specific skill. Here are a few examples. Connemara, Ireland Gaelic-Irish Irish flute and hurling The fastest field sport in the world Imagine a mix of lacrosse and rugby Played with axe handles Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Brazilian Portuguese and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Berlin, Germany German and locking A form of upright breakdancing I tend to focus on language acquisition and one kinesthetic skill, sometimes finding the latter after landing overseas. The most successful serial vagabonds tend to blend the mental and the physical. Notice that I often transport a skill I practice domestically, martial arts, to other countries where they are also practiced.

1:15:23Instant social life and camaraderie. It need not be a competitive sport. It could be hiking, chess, or almost anything that keeps your nose out of a textbook and you out of your apartment. Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan. Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking. Quite aside from the fact that it is impossible to understand a culture without understanding its language, acquiring a new language makes you aware of your own language, your own thoughts.

1:16:07The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated. Thousands of theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that, one, adults can learn languages much faster than children when constant 9-to-5 work is removed, and that, two, it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months. It is beyond the scope of this audiobook to explain applied linguistics and the 80-20 of language learning, but resources and complete how-to guides can be found under language at 4hourblog.com.

1:17:01I learned six languages after failing Spanish in high school, and you can do the same with the right tools. Gain a language and you gain a second lens through which to question and understand the world. Cursing at people when you go home is fun, too. Don't miss the chance to double your life experience. Service for the right reasons. To save the whales or kill them and feed the children. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike. Oscar Wilde. One would expect me to mention service in this chapter, and here it is. like all before it, the twist is a bit different.

1:17:47Service, to me, is simple. Doing something that improves life besides your own. This is not the same as philanthropy. Philanthropy is the altruistic concern for the well-being of mankind, human life. Human life has long been focused on the exclusion of the environment and the rest of the food chain, hence our current race to imminent extinction. Serves us right. The world does not exist solely for the betterment and multiplication of mankind. Before I start chaining myself to trees and saving the dart frogs, though, I should take my own advice. Do not become a cause snob. How can you help starving children in Africa when there are starving children in Los Angeles?

1:18:37How can you save the whales when homeless people are freezing to death? How does doing volunteer research on coral destruction help those people who need help now? Children, please. Everything out there needs help, so don't get baited into my cause can beat up your cause arguments with no right answer. There are no qualitative or quantitative comparisons that make sense. The truth is this. Those thousands of lives you save could contribute to a famine that kills millions, or that one bush in Bolivia that you protect could hold the cure for cancer. The downstream effects are unknown. Do your best and hope for the best.

1:19:21If you're improving the world, however you define that, consider your job well done. Service isn't limited to saving lives or the environment either. it can also improve life. If you are a musician and put a smile on the faces of thousands or millions, I view that as service. If you are a mentor and change the life of one child for the better, the world has been improved. Improving the quality of life in the world is in no fashion inferior to adding more lives. Service is an attitude. Find the cause or vehicle that interests you most and make no apologies. Q &A. Questions and actions. Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas.

1:20:15Paula Poundstone. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive. Thich Nhat Hanh. But I can't just travel, learn languages, or fight for one cause for the rest of my life. Of course you can't. That's not my suggestion at all. These are just good life hubs, starting points that lead to opportunities and experiences that otherwise wouldn't be found. There is no right answer to the question, what should I do with my life? Forget should altogether. The next step, and that's all it is, is pursuing something.

1:21:02It matters little what that seems fun or rewarding. Don't be in a rush to jump into a full-time, long-term commitment. Take time to find something that calls to you, not just the first acceptable form of surrogate work. That calling will, in turn, lead you to something else. Here is a good sequence for getting started that dozens of NR have used with success. 1. Revisit Ground Zero. Do nothing. Before we can escape the goblins of the mind, we need to face them. Principle among them is speed addiction. It is hard to recalibrate your internal clock without taking a break from constant overstimulation.

1:21:50Travel and the impulse to see a million things can exacerbate this. Slowing down doesn't mean accomplishing less. It means cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of being rushed. Consider attending a short silence retreat of three to seven days, during which all media and speaking is prohibited. Learn to turn down the static of the mind so you can appreciate more before doing more.

1:22:462. Make an anonymous donation to the service organization of your choice. This helps to get the juices flowing and disassociate feeling good about service with getting credit for it. It feels even better when it's pure. Here are some good sites to get started. Charity Navigator. CharityNavigator.org

1:23:13you select. Create a personalized page of favorites and compare them side by side, all free of charge. Firstgiving. Firstgiving.com allows you to create an online fundraising page. Donations can be made through your personal URL. I have used Firstgiving in coordination with a non-profit called Room to Read to build schools in both Nepal and Vietnam, with more countries pending. If you specifically want to help animals, for example, you can click on a related link and access websites for hundreds of different animal charities and then decide which one you want to donate to. The UK version of the website is justgiving.com.

1:24:043. Take a learning mini-retirement in combination with local volunteering. Take a mini-retirement, six months or more if possible, to focus on learning and serving. The longer duration will permit a language focus which in turn enables more meaningful interaction and contribution through volunteering. For the duration of this trip, note self-criticisms and negative self-talk in a journal. Whenever upset or anxious, ask why at least three times and put the answers down on paper. Describing these doubts in writing reduces their impact twofold. First, it's often the ambiguous nature of self-doubt that hurts most.

1:24:50Defining and exploring it in writing, just as with forcing colleagues to email, demands clarity of thought, after which most concerns are found to be baseless. Second, recording these concerns seems to somehow remove them from your head. But where to go and what to do? There is no one right answer to either. Use the following questions and resources to brainstorm. What makes you most angry about the state of the world? What are you most afraid of for the next generation, whether you have children or not? What makes you happiest in your life? How can you help others have the same. There is no need to limit yourself to one location.

1:25:37Remember Robin, who traveled through South America for a year with her husband and seven-year-old son? The three of them spent one to two months doing volunteer work in each location, including building wheelchairs in Banos, Ecuador, rehabilitating exotic animals in the Bolivian rainforest, and shepherding leatherback sea turtles in Suriname. How about doing archaeological excavation in Jordan, or tsunami relief on the islands of Thailand? These are just two of the dozens of foreign relocation and volunteering case studies in each issue of Verge magazine. Reader-tested resources include Hands-On Disaster Response, H-O-D-R.org, Project Hope, Project Hope.org, Relief International, RI.org International Relief Teams, IRTeams.org Airline Ambassadors International, AirlineAMB.org Ambassadors for Children, AmbassadorsforChildren.org Relief Riders International, ReliefRidersInternational.com Habitat for Humanity Global Village Program, Habitat.org Planeta.

1:26:57Global listings for practical ecotourism. Planeta.com. 4. Revisit and reset dreamlines. Following the mini-retirement, revisit the dreamlines set in definition and reset them as needed. The following questions will help. What are you good at? What could you be the best at? What makes you happy? What excites you? What makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself? What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life? Can you repeat this or further develop it? What do you enjoy sharing or experiencing with other people? 5. Based on the outcomes of steps 1 through 4, consider testing new part - or full-time vocations.

1:27:50Full-time work isn't bad, if it's what you'd rather be doing. This is where we distinguish work from a vocation. If you have created a muse or cut your hours down to next to nothing, consider testing a part-time or full-time vocation, a true calling or dream occupation. This is what I did with this audiobook. I can now tell people I'm a writer rather than giving them the two-hour drug dealer explanation. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? Perhaps it's time to sign up for space camp, or intern as an assistant to a marine biologist. Recapturing the excitement of childhood isn't impossible.

1:28:32In fact, it's required. There are no more chains or excuses to hold you back.

1:28:4216. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. and that's a big mistake. Frank Wilczek, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics. Ho imperato ce niente e impossibile, e ance ce quasi niente e facile. I've learned that nothing is impossible and that almost nothing is easy. Articolo 31, Italian Rap Group, Un Orlo Mistakes are the name of the game in lifestyle design. It requires fighting impulse after impulse from the old world of retirement-based life deferral. Here are the slip-ups you will make. Don't get frustrated. It's all part of the process.

1:29:361. Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work's sake. W4W Please re-listen to the introduction and next chapter of this audiobook whenever you feel yourself falling into this trap. Everyone does it, but many get stuck and never get out. 2. Micromanaging and emailing to fill time. Set the responsibilities, problem scenarios, and rules, and limits of autonomous decision-making. Then stop for the sanity of everyone involved. 3. Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handle. 4. Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more than once, or with non-crisis problems.

1:30:29Give them if-then rules for solving all but the largest problems. Give them the freedom to act without your input. Set the limits in writing, and then emphasize in writing that you will not respond to help with problems that are covered by these rules. In my particular case, all outsourcers have at their discretion the ability to fix any problem that will cost less than$400. At the end of each month or quarter, depending on the outsourcer, I review how their decisions have affected profit and adjust the rules accordingly, often adding new rules based on their good decisions and creative solutions.

1:31:125. Chasing customers, particularly unqualified or international prospects, when you have sufficient cash flow to finance your non-financial pursuits. 6. Answering email that will not result in a sale or that can be answered by a FAC or autoresponder 7. Working where you live, sleep, or should relax Separate your environments Designate a single space for work and solely work, or you will never be able to escape it 8. Not performing a thorough 80-20 analysis every 2-4 weeks for your business and personal life 9. Striving for endless perfection rather than great or simply good enough, whether in your personal or professional life Recognize that this is often just another W4W excuse.

1:32:10Most endeavors are like learning to speak a foreign language. To be correct, 95 % of the time requires six months of concentrated effort, whereas to be correct, 98 % of the time requires 20 to 30 years. Focus on great for a few things and good enough for the rest. Perfection is a good ideal and direction to have, but recognize it for what it is, an impossible destination. 10. Blowing minutiae and small problems out of proportion as an excuse to work. 11. Making non-time-sensitive issues urgent in order to justify work. How many times do I have to say it? Focus on life outside of your bank accounts, as scary as that void can be in the initial stages.

1:33:04If you cannot find meaning in your life, it is your responsibility as a human being to create it, whether that is fulfilling dreams or finding work that gives you purpose and self-worth. Ideally, a combination of both. 12. Viewing one product, job, or project as the end-all and be-all of your existence. Life is too short to waste, but it is also too long to be a pessimist or nihilist. Whatever you're doing now is just a stepping stone to the next project or adventure. Any rut you get into is one you can get yourself out of. Doubts are no more than a signal for action of some type. When in doubt or overwhelmed, take a break and 80-20 both business and personal activities and relationships.

1:33:5913. Ignoring the social rewards of life. Surround yourself with smiling, positive people who have absolutely nothing to do with work. Create your muses alone if you must, but do not live your life alone. Happiness shared in the form of friendships and love is happiness multiplied. Hey 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.

1:34:42Easy 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. And 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.

1:35:22If 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. I asked millions of you about Gusto on social media, and I've never seen such overwhelmingly positive responses. It was kind of bonkers, honestly, because I've done this dozens of times. And it makes sense. More than 400 ,000 small businesses already trust Gusto, and it's been named the number one payroll software by G2 for fall 2025. If you're a small business owner looking to simplify payroll and HR tasks, because why would you want to spend more time on those things?

1:35:59Gusto could be the game changer that you need. Gusto is the all-in-one payroll benefits and HR platform designed specifically for small businesses. They automatically file federal, state, and local payroll taxes, handle W-2s and 1099s, what a pain in the ass all those can be, and offer straightforward health benefits and 401k options for nearly any budget. Now is the perfect time to choose Gusto to take care of your team and stay compliant. So go to gusto.com slash Tim to see why 9 out of 10 Gusto customers recommend Gusto. Listeners get three months free once they run their first payroll. Again, that's G-U-S-T-O dot com slash Tim.

1:36:37Terms and conditions apply. Creatine isn't just for muscle. It's essential daily fuel for your brain, your body, and long-term performance. For me, I have Alzheimer's and dementia risk in my family. the cognitive benefits are the reason I take creatine every single day. And today's episode sponsor, Momentus, is the gold standard in creatine. There's a lot of BS floating around, but I choose them. Why? Because they source CreaPure creatine, the purest, most effective creatine monohydrate available. So if you've been curious about creatine, this is your moment to get back on track or try it for the first time.

1:37:12Momentus is also now introducing the Momentus creatine chews. Each chew delivers one gram of pure CreaPure creatine monohydrate. I was skeptical of these chews. I was like, I'm never going to use these. It turns out that I use them all the time. They're super convenient and they are NSF certified for sports. So you get the gold standard purity without all the mess. Head to livemomentus.com and use code Tim for up to 35 % off of your first order.

1:37:45Thank you.