Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 22

The Random Show, Mega-Holiday Edition — 2023 Resolutions and New Tools, Extensive Bullshitting, Booze and Ethanol Alternatives, The “Yearly Delete,” A Million Sidebars, Ayahuasca Revisited, Recapping the COCKPUNCH Saga, and Much More (#645)

Illustration via 99designs

Technologist, serial entrepreneur, world-class investor, self-experimenter, and all-around wild and crazy guy Kevin Rose (@KevinRose) rejoins me for another episode of The Random Show.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the conversation on YouTube here.

Brought to you by GiveWell.org charity research and effective giving , Athletic Greens all-in-one supplement, and Allform premium, modular furniture.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#645: The Random Show, Mega-Holiday Edition — 2023 Resolutions and New Tools, Extensive Bullshitting, Booze and Ethanol Alternatives, The “Yearly Delete,” A Million Sidebars, Ayahuasca Revisited, Recapping the COCKPUNCH Saga, and Much More

This episode is brought to you by GiveWell.org! For over ten years, GiveWell.org has helped donors find the charities and projects that save and improve lives most per dollar. GiveWell spends over 20,000 hours each year researching charitable organizations and only recommends a few of the highest-impact, evidence-backed charities they’ve found. In total, more than 50,000 people have used GiveWell to donate as effectively as possible.

This year, support the charities that save and improve lives most, with GiveWell. Any of my listeners who become new GiveWell donors will have their first donation matched up to $250 when you go to GiveWell.org and select “PODCAST” and “Tim Ferriss” at checkout.

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

This episode is brought to you by Allform! If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about Helix Sleep mattresses, which I’ve been using since 2017. They also launched a company called Allform that makes premium, customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door—at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. You can pick your fabric (and they’re all spill, stain, and scratch resistant), the sofa color, the color of the legs, and the sofa size and shape to make sure it’s perfect for you and your home.

Allform arrives in just 3–7 days, and you can assemble it yourself in a few minutes—no tools needed. To find your perfect sofa and receive 20% off all orders, check out Allform.com/Tim.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEThe Mascot The Big Reveal: The Legend of CØCKPUNCH — Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss on Tim’s New and Extremely Bizarre Art Project | The Tim Ferriss Show #636 CØCKPUNCH

#1005 | OpenSea Ensō | Wikipedia Ouroboros | Wikipedia CØCKPUNCH: #1: The Seventh Scribe | Apple Podcasts Before-and-After Photos of How Presidents Have Aged in Office | Reader’s Digest Fight Club | Prime Video The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson | Amazon Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill | Amazon The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham | Amazon The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko | Amazon Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money — That The Poor And Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki | Amazon The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale | Amazon Trust and Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others by Stephen M.R. Covey | Amazon 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson | Amazon The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone | Amazon Queen Harry Potter Complete Boxed Set by J.K. Rowling | Amazon About Lockdown Mode | Apple Support What an Ayahuasca Retreat Showed Me about My Life | Vox Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (Resources) | Tim Ferriss Master Magician David Blaine — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss | The Tim Ferriss Show #546 KISSSHOW NOTES

Editor’s note: timestamps will be added after the holidays!

Welcome to The Random Show #4,732 (or so)!Tasty grapes and hard ketones.Exogenous keytones — or diabetic horse urine?Banana, ketone, tequila, ayahuasca, TV.Kevin’s fear of flying vs. my fear of heights.Health tracking devices vs. The Quantified Scientist.The Peloton Rower.Skiing.Making Olympic-level picklesport pals on the internet.Archery, armor, and kettlebells.Meditation retreats.I’m canceled! You’re canceled! We’re all canceled!Kevin’s back in the coding saddle again.The joy of unstuffing.Living rich instead of dying rich.Pondering the ethics and implications of AI-generated art.A Cockpunch colloquy.How much have I made from The 4-Hour Workweek?Building NFT communities for the long haul.Apple lockdown mode.Am I done with ayahuasca?Parting thoughts.PEOPLE MENTIONEDBill and Will Harlan Chase Jarvis Peter Attia The Crypt-Keeper Darya Rose Dominic D’Agostino Dan Harris Jack Kornfield Henry Shukman Sam Harris James Clear Neil Gaiman Chris Sacca Marie Kondo Scrooge McDuck John Stuart Mill Jonathan Haidt Chris Hutchins Bill Perkins Vincent van Gogh Mike Shinoda Dan Carlin General Subutai Theodore Roosevelt Addison Kowalski Ken Burns Adam Gazzaley Brenden Mulligan Divergence Harri Divergence Arran Barack Obama Steve Ross Benjamin Graham Michael Jackson Harry Potter David Blaine Paul Stanley

The post The Random Show, Mega-Holiday Edition — 2023 Resolutions and New Tools, Extensive Bullshitting, Booze and Ethanol Alternatives, The “Yearly Delete,” A Million Sidebars, Ayahuasca Revisited, Recapping the COCKPUNCH Saga, and Much More (#645) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

2 likes · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 23, 2022 08:11

Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality (#644)

Illustration via 99designs

“Shared anger is thrilling, and that’s part of what’s driving us off a cliff as a country.”
— Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt (@jonhaidt) is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Jonathan received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. His research examines the intuitive foundations of morality and how morality varies across cultural and political divisions. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis and the New York Times bestsellers The Righteous Mind and The Coddling of the American Mind (with Greg Lukianoff).

He has given four TED Talks, and in 2019 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 2018 Jonathan has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. He is currently writing two books: Kids in Space: Why Teen Mental Health Is Collapsingand Life after Babel: Adapting to a World We Can No Longer Share.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#644: Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 3.8% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than fifteen times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov.

It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 3.8% interest on your savings. And when you open an account today, you’ll get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.

This episode is brought to you by Vuori Clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.

Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at VuoriClothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you’ll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the #1 overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

Want to hear an episode with someone who was once Jonathan Haidt’s intellectual enemy, but later became a friend? Listen to my most recent conversation with Sam Harris in which we discussed cleaning and reassembling the gun of mindfulness, navigating time and in-between spaces on different psychedelics, new insights about fear, worthwhile nonprofits, the most important four-word sentence you can be asking in abundance right now, and much more.

#433: Sam Harris on Psychedelics, How to Cope During a Pandemic, Taming Anxiety, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Jonathan Haidt:

Website | Twitter

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt | Amazon The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt | Amazon The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt | Amazon All Minus One: The Illustrated Ideas of John Stuart Mill | Heterodox Academy After Babel | Jon Haidt | Substack Heterodox Academy Perspectives | The Constructive Dialogue Institute When Adults Step Back, Kids Step Up. | Let Grow Jonathan Haidt | TED Talks Bhubaneswar | Incredible India Jonathan Haidt on the Pandemic and America’s Polarization | The Atlantic Ethnography: Challenges and Opportunities | Evidence-Based Nursing What Is Female Genital Mutilation? 7 Questions Answered | UNICEF What About “Female Genital Mutilation?” And Why Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place by Richard A. Shweder | Daedalus Henry Crown Fellowship | The Aspen Institute Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell | The Orwell Foundation Moral Relativism | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Moral Monism vs. Moral Pluralism | Reddit Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich | Amazon Moral Foundations Theory Anthropocentrism | Wikipedia Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion by Jonathan Haidt | Edge Response to Jonathan Haidt | Sam Harris Emergence | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Roop Kanwar: Last Known Case of Sati In India & Its Relevance Today | Feminism In India The Bhagavad Gita | Amazon The Rise and Fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, “the Romanian Fuehrer” | FEE Stories Jonathan Haidt: Gratitude to Psychedelics | LondonReal Michael Pollan — Exploring the Frontiers of Psychedelics | The Tim Ferriss Show #365 How Psychedelics Can Transform End-Of-Life Care | Slate The Alice in Wonderland Omnibus by Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel | Amazon Is Individualism vs. Collectivism the New Left vs. Right? | FEE Stories Y Combinator Keep Your Identity Small | Paul Graham The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs | Amazon A.J. Jacobs — How to Be Less Furious and More Curious | The Tim Ferriss Show #588 Who Are Ashkenazi Jews? | My Jewish Learning Who Are Sephardic Jews? | My Jewish Learning Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) | Pennebaker Conglomerates, Inc.The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris | Amazon The Pleasure of Changing My Mind | Sam Harris Evolving Minds | Making Sense with Sam Harris #31 Safe Space | Making Sense with Sam Harris #137 A Conversation with Jonathan Haidt | Making Sense with Sam Harris #204 Complex Dynamic Systems Theory | Wikipedia How Facebook Ruined Comments (at Least for Me) | Time Life After Babel (Overview) | Jonathan Haidt Epistemology | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)The Halloween Costume Controversy at Yale’s Silliman College | The Atlantic The Moral Spectrum: When Freedom’s Just Another Word for Comfortable Homogeneity | The Humanist Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid | The Atlantic NYT Opinion Editor Resigns after Outrage over Tom Cotton Op-Ed | Politico Chicago, Where Fun Comes to Die | The New Yorker The Best Anti-Fragility Speech Ever Came From a Surprising Source | FEE Stories Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase — The Art of Relentless Focus, Preparing for Full-Contact Entrepreneurship, Critical Forks in the Path, Handling Haters, The Wisdom of Paul Graham, Epigenetic Reprogramming, and Much More | The Tim Ferriss Show #627 A Timeline of the George Floyd Protests | The New York Times Coinbase is a Mission-Focused Company | Coinbase Netflix to Staff: Quit If You Can’t Work on Content You Disagree With | Business Insider Building the University of Austin | UATX The Boy Who Cried Wolf | Aesop’s ABC Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science – Heterodox Academy | Heterodox Academy On Liberty by John Stuart Mill | Amazon Buddhism | National Geographic Society Stoicism Resources and Recommendations | Tim Ferriss Daryl Davis | A Black Man’s Odyssey in the KKK Part One | The Jordan Harbinger Show #539 Daryl Davis | A Black Man’s Odyssey in the KKK Part Two | The Jordan Harbinger Show #540 The Set-Point Theory of Happiness | Changing Minds BSPAGB 3110 – Work, Wisdom, and Happiness at New York University | Coursicle NYU Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari | Amazon Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Amazon Religion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement, and Health | Pew Research Center Does Getting Married Really Make You Happier? | Institute for Family Studies The Study of Suicide by Émile Durkheim | ThoughtCo.Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger | Amazon Where Millennials End and Generation Z Begins | Pew Research Center NYU’s Jonathan Haidt Explains the Problem with Gen Z | Vox Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow by Lenore Skenazy | Amazon Here’s Why Fortnite Is the Best New Social Network | Fast Company Dead Poets Society | Prime Video Cauliflower Ear | Cleveland Clinic Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice | Heterodox Academy The Power of Myth — The Hero’s Adventure with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers | The Tim Ferriss Show #456 The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) | Amazon Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius and Gregory Hays | Amazon The Enchiridion by Epictetus | Amazon The Dhammapada | Amazon What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? | American Psychological AssociationSHOW NOTES

Editor’s Note: Timestamps will be added shortly.

Richard Shweder.Making sense of assertions in anthropology.Why I invited Jon on the show.Moral relativism.How an emergentist views human rights violations.A turning point: why Jon almost never gets angry anymore.Taking LSD for the first time.My own transformative experience was happening simultaneously.Were my politics influenced or altered by this experience?What being a Jewish atheist means to Jon.From feud to friendship with Sam Harris.Complex dynamical system.How safe spaces and character cancellation took over colleges.Why did the University of Chicago initially resist this trend?What makes businesses more resilient against this trend than colleges?The University of Austin: a catalyst for academic reform?The aim of Jon’s Heterodox Academy.Distilling John Stuart Mill — the patron saint of viewpoint diversity.Aging out of anger and the disarming power of Daryl Davis.How to get smarter, stronger, and more sociable.After Babbel.What the holy and hitched can impart about happiness for the secular and single.What’s happening to Gen Z?Jon and his wife’s free-range parenting style for fostering independence.Group sports vs. individualist sports.A tough coach or teacher tests limits and taps potential.Developing intellectual antifragility.Jon’s billboard.Revisiting practical philosophies when times get tough.Parting thoughts.MORE JONATHAN HAIDT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I don’t get mad. I look at systems and I always think, ‘How can we make them better?'”
— Jonathan Haidt

“If I see someone oppressing a whole society or acting in that monstrous way, not for any morally legitimate reason, I think we need to take action.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“I’ve really come to see that a functioning society, it needs a Progressive wing pushing for change and it needs a Conservative wing saying, ‘Slow down,’ tapping on the brakes. William F. Buckley stands athwart history, yelling, ‘Stop.’ You need both in a healthy society.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“Our left is not Liberal. Our right is not Conservative. We’re a mess. But societies need those two impulses.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“What I’ve learned from studying morality is, in a polarization spiral or a culture war, the harder you hit your enemy, the stronger they get. And so you don’t win by punching them really hard. You can never destroy them.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“‘Heterodox’ means there should be a variety of ways of thinking. We need that in order to be successful.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“You really need to seek out criticism. You need to seek out people who differ from you, and then, actually, you’ll get smarter.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“Shared anger is thrilling, and that’s part of what’s driving us off a cliff as a country.”
— Jonathan Haidt

“You get stronger by challenging yourself, by exposing yourself to threats and dangers within limits that you then surmount, and we have to do this with kids.”
— Jonathan Haidt

PEOPLE MENTIONEDGreg Lukianoff Richard Shweder H.G. Wells George Orwell Herodotus Barbara Ehrenreich Sam Harris David Wiggins William Shakespeare Kurt Vonnegut Ronald Reagan Nicolae Ceaușescu Michael Pollan Krishna Arjuna Émile Durkheim Charles Darwin William F. Buckley Jr.Paul Graham A.J. Jacobs James W. Pennebaker Rush Limbaugh Glenn Beck David Sloan Wilson Barack Obama Nicholas Christakis Erika Christakis James Bennet Robert Zimmer Brian Armstrong George Floyd Mitch Daniels Pano Kanelos John Tomasi Nick Rosenkranz John Stuart Mill Dave Cicirelli Daryl Davis Dale Carnegie Sigmund Freud Johann Hari Nassim Nicholas Taleb Sebastian Junger Jean Twenge Lenore Skenazy Caroline Mehl Seng-ts’an Joseph Campbell Marcus Aurelius Gregory Hays Epictetus Buddha

The post Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality (#644) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 21, 2022 05:59

The AI Art Competition Beginneth!

Credit: @blockheim

Inspired by the incredible work I saw from @blockheim here, I am launching an AI art competition!

The prizes: three winners will get $2,000 USD each. I’ve been going deep on AI-generated art, my mind is blown, and I want to feed the creative fire.

No purchase of any kind is required. Here are the deadlines and rules…

Deadline for submission is 10 p.m. ET, Tuesday, Dec 20th, 2022. The competition starts now.No purchase is necessary. Mentioning this twice so people get it.You can use any AI tools or combination of tools that you like, including DALL·E 2 (@OpenAI), Midjourney (@midjourney), Stable Diffusion (@StableDiffusion), Lexica (@LexicaArt,) NightCafe Studio (@NightcafeStudio), etc. You are also allowed to do manual touch-ups and fine-tuning. IMPORTANT: You *must* use Loom (@loom) or other tech to capture your full process.The artwork must include at least one COCKPUNCH

character and specific properties/traits from that character. To avoid intellectual property headaches, it must be based on either (a) COCKPUNCH NFTs that you personally own, or (b) some COCKPUNCH NFTs I own, and you can include one, many, or anything in between.

Below are the token IDs of mine that you can use for this competition, and each linked page includes “properties”:

Wizard – 345, 436
Berserker – 289, 336
Cleric – 367, 343
High Elf – 171, 237
Forest Elf – 487, 176, 40
Master of Blades – 493, 100
Shaman – 133, 144
Pirate – 259, 115

If you’d like higher-res images, as well as preserved aspect ratio, you can use cockpunch.com/pfp.

To submit your final art, you must follow @cockpunch on Twitter, post your image(s) on Twitter with tag @cockpunch and #AI, and you must include a link to your process video or blog post, including prompts used, etc. After the deadline, my magic elves will choose winners within a week, and we’ll announce them on Twitter! Selections will be based on quality, creativity, presentation of process, and more. Process is important. People should at least be able to *attempt* to replicate what you did. We will also retweet some of our favorite “honorable mentions” to highlight cool work.The winners will receive their $2K USD via wire transfer. Terms: void where prohibited, must be at least 18 years of age, you are responsible for any and all taxes, no minotaurs allowed, etc. If you include your own COCKPUNCH NFT(s) in your art, we will need to authenticate that you are the owner before awarding any prizes. Last but not least, you will get bonus credit for multiple submissions and early submissions, so don’t wait until the last minute. Two 8-0ut-of-10 submissions will beat one 9-out-of-10 submission.

And…. I think that’s it for now! I’m very excited to see what sublime and ridiculous art emerges!

Best of luck to everyone, and sending warmest wishes to you and yours,

Tim

The post The AI Art Competition Beginneth! appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 16, 2022 13:08

Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art That Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility

Illustration via 99designs

“I do not stand by watercoolers and complain about bosses. I quit jobs and start my own companies. As a creative person, if I’m going to complain about how the business works, then I will go and become my own businessman.”
— Todd McFarlane

Todd McFarlane (@Todd_McFarlane) is an Emmy- and Grammy-winning director/producer and creator of one of the world’s best-selling comic books, Spawn. He is best known to many comic book fans for his work as the artist on The Amazing Spider-Man, for which he co-created Marvel’s top villain, Venom.

Todd is the CEO of Todd McFarlane Productions, McFarlane Toys (one of the US’s top action-figure manufacturers), and McFarlane Films. He is also a co-founder of Image Comics, which debuted Spawn in 1992, selling 1.7 million copies of the first issue. In 1997, Spawn was made into an Emmy Award-winning animated series on HBO and a live-action feature film that grossed over $100 million. In 2019, Todd made history with Spawn #301, earning the Guinness World Record for longest-running creator-owned superhero comic book series.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the video on YouTube here.

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 800M+ users, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business .

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#643: Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art that Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 800 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.

More than a store, Shopify grows with you. And they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/Tim for a FREE TRIAL and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features.

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

Want to hear round one with Todd McFarlane? Listen to our conversation in which we discussed the art of compelling storytelling, meeting deadlines, Todd’s voluminous library of rejection letters, how the industry status quo led to the founding of Image Comic Books, the happy accident that brought Venom to life, spaghetti webbing, competitive bladdering, and much more.

#639: Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Todd McFarlane:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Spawn | Image Comics The Amazing Spider-Man | Marvel Todd McFarlane’s Spawn | HBO Spawn | Prime Video Spawn #301 | Image Comics Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline | The Tim Ferriss Show #639 How Stan Lee Changed Spawn Creator Todd McFarlane’s Life When He Was 16 | CBC Radio The Comic Book Greats With Todd McFarlane and Stan Lee Part 1 | YouTube The Comic Book Greats With Todd McFarlane and Stan Lee Part 2 | YouTube The SNL/Shatner ‘Get A Life’ Video | Boing Boing Here’s Every Stan Lee MCU Movie Cameo, Ranked | MovieWeb Iron Man | Prime Video Stan Lee | Hollywood Walk of Fame Todd McFarlane Talks About His Stan Lee Photos and Interviews Robert Kirkman | Comics Beat Reenacting Stan Lee’s ‘Thor’ Movie Cameo | Todd McFarlane, Instagram The Very First Image Comics Meeting | Todd McFarlane, Instagram Join the Dance Party! | Teletubbies Star Wars What It’s like to Be a Digital Toy Sculptor at McFarlane Toys | SYFY Wire Todd McFarlane: The Art of Making Action Figures Toy Fair 2000 | TV Days McFarlane Toys Office Tour: Todd McFarlane on How and Why He Makes Toys | SYFY Wire Steve Jobs iPhone 2007 Presentation | YouTube Play Reimagined | Toy Fair Toys”R”Us A Nightmare on Elm Street | Prime Video The Terminator | Prime Video The Matrix | Prime Video 1994 in Tech: A Rabbit Hole into the World Wide Web | Fourteen East Coca-Cola is the Strongest Brand in the US, With a Brand Strength of 93.3 | New World Report The Story behind Mark McGwire’s 70th HR Ball and How Much It Sold for Is Wild | BarDown Quite a Pair: McFarlane Adds Bonds Ball to Mac’s | ESPN More Than Meets the Eye | Transformers The Home Of The Players | NHLPA NHL | McFarlane Toys Todd McFarlane’s Spawn | Emmy Awards DC Multiverse | McFarlane Toys Cirque du Soleil Ranking the Chicago Bulls’ Six NBA Championship Wins | Sportskeeda Hot Topic Todd McFarlane | Grammy Awards Do the Evolution (Official Video) | Pearl Jam Solutions That Empower Media Creators | Avid Technology Splash Racquetball Scene | YouTube How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area | Codus Operandi SDCC 2022 Interview: Spawn Creator Todd McFarlane | Screen Rant The Rise and Fall of Orange County Int’l Raceway | NHRA Why NHRA Funny Cars Are Called Funny Cars | Autoweek Spawn Funny Car | Toddfather Talk Batman/Spawn | DC Doom | Prime Video Gunslinger Spawn | Image Comics Braveheart | Prime VideoSHOW NOTES[05:58] The wit, wisdom, and work ethic of Stan Lee.[29:50] Todd’s four corners: video games, TV, movies, and toys.[41:46] Learning the art of toycrafting and beating the industry at its own game.[49:11] Dumb luck at Toy Fair.[1:03:31] Toy marketing and distribution circa 1994.[1:10:51] The play Todd made with a $3 million baseball.[1:18:08] Todd gets in a hockey fight.[1:24:12] Bringing Spawn to TV.[1:27:57] Being the dumbest guy in the room can win you Emmy awards.[1:31:17] Cancellation.[1:32:38] Todd is bilingual — in art and business.[1:38:50] How Todd finds time to create while managing his businesses.[1:43:49] Brand matters.[1:49:44] Making a music video, winning another Emmy, and almost killing Eddie Vedder.[1:56:33] The momentum of success.[1:59:15] The surface area of (dumb) luck.[2:01:07] Building worlds that will endure.[2:08:13] Building characters who will outlive their creator.[2:15:13] Today will not be perfect, so lower the bar and dance if you want to.[2:24:45] Is Todd’s wife married to a monster?[2:30:50] Be the second person.[2:35:48] Parting thoughts.MORE TODD MCFARLANE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Build a Cadillac and sell it at Ford Motor prices, and you can sell that all day long because people understand value.”
— Todd McFarlane

“I do not stand by watercoolers and complain about bosses. I quit jobs and start my own companies. As a creative person, if I’m going to complain about how the business works, then I will then go and become my own businessman.”
— Todd McFarlane

“I’ve got plenty of people who’ve said nice things about me for plenty of years. I’m over me. Nobody’s more bored of Todd than me.”
— Todd McFarlane

“I consider creations to be creative children. Every parent has the same wish. You always want your children to outlive you.”
— Todd McFarlane

“I get up every day, and I don’t have high expectations of anything, not even with humanity. I’m not a religious person, but I do have a personal prayer, and it’s this simple, every day: ‘Today will not be perfect.'”
— Todd McFarlane

“Assume today’s not going to be perfect and assume human beings are flawed, and you will have a pretty good life. Because guess what happens? Some days, nobody cuts you off, nobody cuts in line, and nobody writes you a bad email. And it’s a pretty good day. It’s a pretty good day because discomfort didn’t come. Not that you won the lottery, not that your team won the championship. You just didn’t have a lot of aggravation. You didn’t get sued today. Cool. It’s a good day.”
— Todd McFarlane

“You know who woke up on the planet today with eight billion people and said, ‘I’m going to make Todd’s life better today?’ There was only one human being — one — and that was me.”
— Todd McFarlane

“There’s never been anybody in history that’s ever changed anything on any level and was liked by everybody. Get over it. Get over people liking you. Just figure out what your goal is.”
— Todd McFarlane

“If you’ve never been the first one on a dance floor, you’re probably not built to be an entrepreneur. Let me just put that there because that means you give a shit about the rest of the people in that room.”
— Todd McFarlane

PEOPLE MENTIONEDSpawn Spider-Man Venom Stan Lee Fantastic Four Iron Man Hulk Doctor Strange Black Panther X-Men Walt Disney Thor Batman Robin Joan Boocock Lee Steve Nash Wayne Gretzky Superman Steve Jobs Don Newton Freddy Krueger The Terminator Tom Jones Mark McGwire Roger Maris Sammy Sosa Barry Bonds Aaron Judge Pavel Bure Mario Lemieux Wanda Kolomyjec Phil Jackson Michael Jordan Scottie Pippen Wonder Woman Eddie Vedder Madonna John Candy Jason Roberts The Kardashians Jerry Siegel Joe Shuster Mickey Mouse Cal Ripken Jr.Benito Mussolini

The post Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art That Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility for Your Life, and Why Creators Need to Smash Limits (#643) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 16, 2022 01:11

Steven Pressfield on Going from Truck Driver to Bestselling Novelist, Overcoming Self-Sabotage, Building Momentum, Dancing with the Muse, Turning Pro, and Letting Your Underground River Flow (#642)

“Sometimes people will ask me, ‘What do you do between books?’ And my answer to that is ‘There should never be ‘between books.””
— Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield (@SPressfield) was 52 years old before his first novel was published. Since then, he has written the million-sellers Gates of Fire and The War of Art, as well as The Legend of Bagger Vance, A Man at Arms, and many others. His newest book, the memoir GOVT CHEESE, is about those years before that first publication. It is coming out on December 30th, and you can pre-order signed copies here.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by MasterClass online video lessons taught by 180+ of the world’s best, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#642: Steven Pressfield on Going from Truck Driver to Bestselling Novelist, Overcoming Self-Sabotage, Building Momentum, Dancing with the Muse, Turning Pro, and Letting Your Underground River Flow

This episode is brought to you by MasterClass! With MasterClass, you can learn from the world’s best minds—anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. With more than 180 classes from a range of world-class instructors, that thing you’ve always wanted to do is closer than you think.

MasterClass’s cinema-quality lessons give you unparalleled access to renowned instructors, who share everything from how to execute specific techniques to insights about their craft that can be translated across many fields and disciplines. This holiday, give one annual membership and get one free! Go to Masterclass.Com/Ferriss today.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

For a limited time, Eight Sleep is offering my listeners up to $450 off their Sleep Fit Holiday Bundle, which includes my personal favorite, the Pod 3 Cover. Go to EightSleep.com/Tim to get the exclusive holiday savings. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. That’s EightSleep.com/Tim

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

Would you like to hear the last time Steven was on the show? Have a listen to our conversation in which we discussed cat role models, halfway house theories, working world self-sabotage, overcoming 30 years of abject failure to become a successfully prolific writer, the hero’s journey versus the artist’s journey, shadow careers, tailoring a routine to fit one’s own creative process, and much more.

#501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Steven Pressfield:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Govt Cheese: A Memoir by Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield | Amazon The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield | Amazon The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life by Steven Pressfield | Amazon A Man at Arms: A Novel by Steven Pressfield | Amazon Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey | The Tim Ferriss Show #501 Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl G. Jung | Amazon Hidden Brain How to Start a War by Tim Ferriss | Grails by PROOF Collective The Big Reveal: The Legend of CØCKPUNCH — Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss on Tim’s New and Extremely Bizarre Art Project | The Tim Ferriss Show #636 Announcing My New Fiction Podcast Series | The Tim Ferriss Show #640 A Game of Thrones Series by George R.R. Martin | Amazon Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee | Amazon Top Gun: Maverick | Prime Video The Right Stuff | Prime Video The German ‘Lightning War’ Strategy Of WW2 | Imperial War Museums Writing Wednesdays: Finishing and Starting | Steven Pressfield The Warrior Ethos by Steven Pressfield | Amazon Steven Pressfield: Conquering Resistance | Rich Roll In the Wilderness Pt. 1 | Steven Pressfield, Instagram In the Wilderness Pt. 2 | Steven Pressfield, Instagram In the Wilderness Pt. 3 | Steven Pressfield, Instagram The Odyssey by Homer | Amazon Camus and Absurdity | Philosophy Talk Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr | Amazon What is the Highest Land Speed That One Can Achieve in the USA? | Richland Library WTF Happened to Government Cheese? | ViceSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: timestamps will be added shortly.

Ambition in a halfway house.Evanescent dreams.Helpful self-delusions.What’s in a name?Trimming fiction’s fat beyond the first draft.The Paul Rink method of maintaining Blitzkrieg momentum.Other pearls of Paul Rink perspicacity.A transition from aspiring fiction writer to prolific author.A hint from Hemingway.Positive self-delusion.Writing fiction isn’t self-indulgence. It’s an obligation.How does writing fiction fit into my life? Is it a top priority?Why Steven wrote Govt Cheese.A pivotal slap in the face.Seeking home from the wilderness.Banishing depression by finding profundity in the absurd.The novelty of absurdity isn’t necessarily negative.Icing on the camera.Two years I spent in the wilderness without a compass.Richard Rohr’s vessel.Handling the voltage.What was it like for Steven to write this memoir?The origin of the title Govt Cheese.What you, dear listener, should know about this book.Parting thoughts.MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Sometimes people will ask me, ‘What do you do between books?’ And my answer to that is ‘There should never be ‘between books.””

— Steven Pressfield

“When we have an idea, we are pregnant with that idea. And that idea has a life of its own. It wants to be born. And if we don’t let it be born, we’ll pay the price one way or another.”

— Steven Pressfield

“Any time something is brand new, it seems absurd.”

— Steven Pressfield

“Writing is about delivering a load and its sustenance. You hope it’s sustenance, right? It’s a load of surplus food, of gvt cheese, that’s going to go on people’s tables.”

— Steven Pressfield

PEOPLE MENTIONEDCarl Jung Mahatma Gandhi Telamon of Arcadia Daenerys Targaryen Brienne of Tarth F. Scott Fitzgerald Paul Rink Seth Godin Leo Tolstoy Fyodor Dostoevsky Jim Mattis Saddam Hussein Rich Roll Homer Odysseus Albert Camus Christopher Columbus Richard Rohr Bruce Springsteen Twyla Tharp Stephen King

The post Steven Pressfield on Going from Truck Driver to Bestselling Novelist, Overcoming Self-Sabotage, Building Momentum, Dancing with the Muse, Turning Pro, and Letting Your Underground River Flow (#642) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

2 likes · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 13, 2022 13:59

Roland Griffiths, PhD — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude (#641)

“I would’ve claimed to be pretty awake prior to the cancer diagnosis. I’m much more awake now. There’s no reason that we can’t all wake up. That’s the overarching message that I want to broadcast is ‘Join me in the celebration, the appreciation of this miracle that we all find ourselves in.’”
— Roland Griffiths, PhD

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a very meaningful episode to me. It is probably the most significant interview that I’ve recorded in the last year, and it is with one of my favorite people and one of my favorite scientists in the world: Roland Griffiths, PhD.

Roland has recently been diagnosed with what is very likely terminal stage-four cancer. If you’ve ever found yourself inspired by someone who walks the walk, this episode is worth listening to. In facing mortality and potentially facing death, what Roland has done and is doing, the perspective he is finding, and the tools he is using, are nothing short of awe inspiring. His example is beyond words, and I wanted to share that with all of you.

I hope you find it as deeply enriching and valuable as I did. It is a very tender conversation at points, a very funny conversation, and in many ways, a very profound conversation.

The Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, Professorship Fund in Psychedelic Research on Secular Spirituality and Well-Being:

To learn more about Roland’s very ambitious project to establish a world-class psychedelic research program—in perpetuity—to advance human flourishing and well-being, please visit GriffithsFund.org.

Currently, Roland has received pledges totaling about $14M. This means that he is $6M short of the $20M target, sufficient to support the full research program. To donate, please visit GriffithsFund.org and click “Donate.”

For more information about establishing a major gift, please contact Mike DeVito, the Senior Associate Director of Development at [email protected] or call him at (443) 278-3174. Donors who contribute $1000 or more and who do not choose to remain anonymous will be acknowledged on the website.

Roland Griffiths, PhD, short bio:

Roland Griffiths, PhD, is a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at Johns Hopkins University, and founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Center on Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs.

His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute on Health, and he is author of over 400 scientific publications. He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and numerous pharmaceutical companies. Roland has conducted extensive research with sedative-hypnotics, caffeine, and novel mood-altering drugs.

In 1994 Roland started a regular meditation practice that made him curious about certain altered states of consciousness that prompted him in 1999 to initiate the first study in decades to rigorously evaluate the effects of a high dose of a classic psychedelic drug (psilocybin) in healthy psychedelic-naïve participants. Subsequent studies with psilocybin have been conducted in healthy volunteers, in beginning and long-term meditators, and in religious leaders. Therapeutic studies with psilocybin include treatment of psychological distress in cancer patients, cigarette smoking addiction, major depression, anorexia nervosa, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Other studies have examined non-psychedelic drugs that produce altered states of consciousness having similarities to psilocybin. Brain imaging studies have examined pharmacological and neural mechanisms of action of psilocybin.

Roland’s research group has also conducted a series of survey studies characterizing various naturally-occurring and psychedelic-occasioned transformative experiences including: mystical-type experiences, psychologically challenging experiences, near-death experiences (NDEs), Entity and God-encounter experiences, and experiences to which reduced anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders are attributed.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#641: Roland Griffiths, PhD — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude

Want to hear another episode with someone who’s explored altered states of consciousness with and without psychedelic compounds? Have a listen to my conversation with Stan Grof, in which we discuss the takeaways from guiding 4,500+ LSD sessions, the place and role of wounded healers, limitations and uses of traditional psychoanalysis and talk therapy, the similarities found between holotropic breathwork and MDMA, what humanity most needs to overcome, and much more.

#347: Stan Grof, Lessons from ~4,500 LSD Sessions and Beyond

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

“I don’t know what happens [after death]. But what I do know is that this gift we’ve been given to be these sentient creatures, walking around, being aware that we’re aware with just a little bit of contemplation, a miracle is not an inappropriate descriptor of where we find ourselves. How this has come about and why we’ve been gifted with this opportunity is unknown to us, but it should be a source of incredible gratitude and joy and celebration.”
— Roland Griffiths

“What’s interesting to me now in where I find myself with this terminal cancer diagnosis, and reflecting on how I’m managing that personally, and as we’ve discussed, the sense is that I have a sense of equipoise and balance, curiosity, wonder, gratitude—a sense of celebration for the preciousness of life. … How do you account for that? One might think that a terminal diagnosis would be devastating. I can’t possibly know how to account for how I’ve managed that diagnosis over these first eight months, but what I would highly suspect is that it has a lot to do with my long history of meditation practice, and it’s informed by some of the experiences that I’ve had with psychedelics. So with regard to the meditation, there’s a real training of the nature of mind—watching one’s mind de-identifying from the voice in the head and making optimal choices about how one wants to proceed in one’s life.”
— Roland Griffiths

“Peculiarly, my experience has been one of celebration, and my wife has joined me in that. I deeply want to share that with people because there’s no reason that we all shouldn’t be celebrating. It’s taken me a terminal cancer diagnosis to fully awake to that. I would’ve claimed to be pretty awake prior to the cancer diagnosis. I’m much more awake now. There’s no reason that we can’t all wake up. That’s the overarching message that I want to broadcast is ‘Join me in the celebration, the appreciation, of this miracle that we all find ourselves in.‘”
— Roland Griffiths

“It really is this invitation to face what initially appears to be the dark side of things, the most frightening things. I would have to say terminal cancer diagnosis might well qualify as emblematic of such an experience. Perhaps psychedelic experiences that had negative, valenced qualities to them, and how I learned to navigate those, could have been very important to me in how I came to find myself navigating the diagnosis.”
— Roland Griffiths

“Every day I wake up is Thanksgiving.”
— Roland Griffiths

“When you start paying attention to that voice [in your head] and realizing it’s not you, then all of a sudden the game starts changing.”
— Roland Griffiths

“A picture of the guru sat there. I was looking at this picture, and all of a sudden, the eyes became alive. I was looking into the picture, and I was looking into these eyes that were looking right back at me. And as I looked more closely, I realized I was looking in my own eyes. And with that understanding—and this wouldn’t be commonly held within the tradition—I recognized that I was the guru, that I was no different than the guru, that the guru was just a mirror of who you are. And with that kind of understanding, I was able to join the community in reverence to the guru because it was in reverence to this deeper interconnectedness that the guru was reflecting back. And I was able to pranam, bow, in front of the guru because I was bowing to myself. And so that shifted a frame of reference that allowed me to engage in that community. And then I started more serious daily meditation practices that I have continued ever since.”
— Roland Griffiths

“Science itself is entirely open-ended and agnostic. All it’s trying to do is find out what’s true.”
— Roland Griffiths

“The fun of science is you can follow your hunches.”
— Roland Griffiths

PEOPLE MENTIONEDStewart Brand Ken Kesey B.F. Skinner Molly Ferriss Paul Santo Jack Henningfield Charles Robert (Bob) Schuster Robert Jesse Rick Strassman Austin Powers Michael Bogenschutz Bart Hoebel Alexander Shulgin William Richards Mary Cosimano Richard P. Feynman William James Sam Harris Godzilla Matt Mullenweg B. Alan Wallace Dalai Lama Tara Brach Jonathan Foust Jessica Dibb Richard Alpert / Ram Dass Jesus David Presti David B. Yaden Martin E.P. Seligman

The post Roland Griffiths, PhD — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude (#641) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 08, 2022 11:15

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude (#641)

“I would’ve claimed to be pretty awake prior to the cancer diagnosis. I’m much more awake now. There’s no reason that we can’t all wake up. That’s the overarching message that I want to broadcast is ‘Join me in the celebration, the appreciation of this miracle that we all find ourselves in.’”
— Roland Griffiths, Ph.D.

Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show. This is a very meaningful episode to me. It is probably the most significant interview that I’ve recorded in the last year, and it is with one of my favorite people and one of my favorite scientists in the world: Roland Griffiths, PhD.

Roland has recently been diagnosed with what is very likely terminal stage-four cancer. If you’ve ever found yourself inspired by someone who walks the walk, this episode is worth listening to. In facing mortality and potentially facing death, what Roland has done and is doing, the perspective he is finding, and the tools he is using, are nothing short of awe inspiring. His example is beyond words, and I wanted to share that with all of you.

I hope you find it as deeply enriching and valuable as I did. It is a very tender conversation at points, a very funny conversation, and in many ways, a very profound conversation.

To learn more about Roland’s very ambitious project to establish a world-class psychedelic research program—in perpetuity—to advance human flourishing and well-being, please visit GriffithsFund.org.

Currently, Roland has received pledges totaling about $14M. This means that he is $6M short of the $20M target, sufficient to support the full research program. To donate, please visit GriffithsFund.org and click “Donate.”

For more information about establishing a major gift, please contact Mike DeVito, the Senior Associate Director of Development at [email protected] or call him at (443) 278-3174. Donors who contribute $1000 or more and who do not choose to remain anonymous will be acknowledged on the website.

Here is Roland’s bio:

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at Johns Hopkins University, and founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Center on Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. His principal research focus in both clinical and preclinical laboratories has been on the behavioral and subjective effects of mood-altering drugs.

His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute on Health, and he is author of over 400 scientific publications. He has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and numerous pharmaceutical companies. Roland has conducted extensive research with sedative-hypnotics, caffeine, and novel mood-altering drugs.

In 1994 Roland started a regular meditation practice that made him curious about certain altered states of consciousness that prompted him in 1999 to initiate the first study in decades to rigorously evaluate the effects of a high dose of a classic psychedelic drug (psilocybin) in healthy psychedelic-naïve participants. Subsequent studies with psilocybin have been conducted in healthy volunteers, in beginning and long-term meditators, and in religious leaders. Therapeutic studies with psilocybin include treatment of psychological distress in cancer patients, cigarette smoking addiction, major depression, anorexia nervosa, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Other studies have examined non-psychedelic drugs that produce altered states of consciousness having similarities to psilocybin. Brain imaging studies have examined pharmacological and neural mechanisms of action of psilocybin.

Roland’s research group has also conducted a series of survey studies characterizing various naturally-occurring and psychedelic-occasioned transformative experiences including: mystical-type experiences, psychologically challenging experiences, near-death experiences (NDEs), Entity and God-encounter experiences, and experiences to which reduced anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders are attributed.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#641: Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude

Want to hear another episode with someone who’s explored altered states of consciousness with and without psychedelic compounds? Have a listen to my conversation with Stan Grof in which we discuss the takeaways from guiding 4,500+ LSD sessions, the place and role of wounded healers, limitations and uses of traditional psychoanalysis and talk therapy, the similarities found between holotropic breathwork and MDMA, what humanity most needs to overcome, and much more.

#347: Stan Grof, Lessons from ~4,500 LSD Sessions and Beyond

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Editor’s note: timestamps will be added shortly.

Roland’s earliest personal experience with psychedelics.Meditation and interest in altered states of consciousness.What is phenomenology?Why early attempts at meditation failed, and what made Roland revisit the practice.Roland’s work with sedative-hypnotics in the late ’70s.Connoisseurs of puff topography.When Roland realized the voice in his head wasn’t his.From meditation to scientific exploration of psychedelics.Entheogens vs. psychedelics.Roland’s initial reluctance to experiment with psychedelics.Sasha Shulgin, PiHKAL, and TiHKAL.Bill Richards.Challenges of the psychedelic trial process.The results of Roland’s first major psychedelic study.Pre-existing literature on mystical experiences.Roland’s more recent psychedelic experiences.Why isn’t Roland devastated by his terminal diagnosis?Ego dissolution and anxiety reduction.The real purpose of this conversation.A rundown of Roland’s diagnosis and how he’s coping with it.“Every day is Thanksgiving.”Gratitude meditation, liver embolization, and other mortality navigations.Satcitananda.Eliciting 5-MeO “placebo” experiences without psychedelics.How does Roland relate to death?How loved ones can be supportive of someone coping with a terminal diagnosis.Belief changes associated with psychedelic use.Thoughts from the crossroads of the quantum, the paranormal, and the psychedelic.The endowed professorship and its foreseeable areas of research.David Yaden.Is there a contingency if Usona ceases to exist?Roland’s current prognosis.Roland’s parting thoughts of gratitude and the road ahead.MORE ROLAND GRIFFITHS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I don’t know what happens [after death]. But what I do know is that this gift we’ve been given to be these sentient creatures, walking around, being aware that we’re aware with just a little bit of contemplation, a miracle is not an inappropriate descriptor of where we find ourselves. How this has come about and why we’ve been gifted with this opportunity is unknown to us, but it should be a source of incredible gratitude and joy and celebration.”

— Roland Griffiths

“What’s interesting to me now in where I find myself with this terminal cancer diagnosis, and reflecting on how I’m managing that personally, and as we’ve discussed, the sense is that I have a sense of equipoise and balance, curiosity, wonder, gratitude — a sense of celebration for the preciousness of life. … How do you account for that? One might think that a terminal diagnosis would be devastating. I can’t possibly know how to account for how I’ve managed that diagnosis over these first eight months, but what I would highly suspect is that it has a lot to do with my long history of meditation practice, and it’s informed by some of the experiences that I’ve had with psychedelics. So with regard to the meditation, there’s a real training of the nature of mind — watching one’s mind de-identifying from the voice in the head and making optimal choices about how one wants to proceed in one’s life.”

— Roland Griffiths

“Peculiarly, my experience has been one of celebration, and my wife has joined me in that. I deeply want to share that with people because there’s no reason that we all shouldn’t be celebrating. It’s taken me a terminal cancer diagnosis to fully awake to that. I would’ve claimed to be pretty awake prior to the cancer diagnosis. I’m much more awake now. There’s no reason that we can’t all wake up. That’s the overarching message that I want to broadcast is: join me in the celebration, the appreciation of this miracle that we all find ourselves in.”

— Roland Griffiths

“It really is this invitation to face what initially appears to be the dark side of things, the most frightening things. I would have to say terminal cancer diagnosis might well qualify as emblematic of such an experience. Perhaps psychedelic experiences that had negative, valenced qualities to them, and how I learned to navigate those, could have been very important to me in how I came to find myself navigating the diagnosis.”

— Roland Griffiths

“Every day I wake up is Thanksgiving.”

— Roland Griffiths

“When you start paying attention to that voice [in your head] and realizing it’s not you, then all of a sudden the game starts changing.”

— Roland Griffiths

“A picture of the guru sat there. I was looking at this picture, and all of a sudden, the eyes became alive. I was looking into the picture, and I was looking into these eyes that were looking right back at me. And as I looked more closely, I realized I was looking in my own eyes. And with that understanding, and this wouldn’t be commonly held within the tradition, I recognized that I was the guru, that I was no different than the guru, that the guru was just a mirror of who you are. And with that kind of understanding, I was able to join the community in reverence to the guru because it was in reverence to this deeper interconnectedness that the guru was reflecting back. And I was able to pranam, bow, in front of the guru because I was bowing to myself. And so that shifted a frame of reference that allowed me to engage in that community. And then I started more serious daily meditation practices that I have continued ever since.”

— Roland Griffiths

“Science itself is entirely open-ended and agnostic. All it’s trying to do is find out what’s true.”

— Roland Griffiths

“The fun of science is you can follow your hunches.”

— Roland Griffiths

PEOPLE MENTIONEDStewart Brand Ken Kesey B.F. Skinner Molly Ferriss Paul Santo Jack Henningfield Charles Robert (Bob) Schuster Robert Jesse Rick Strassman Austin Powers Michael Bogenschutz Bart Hoebel Alexander Shulgin William Richards Mary Cosimano Richard P. Feynman William James Sam Harris Godzilla Matt Mullenweg B. Alan Wallace Dalai Lama Tara Brach Jonathan Foust Jessica Dibb Richard Alpert / Ram Dass Jesus David Presti David B. Yaden Martin E.P. Seligman

The post Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude (#641) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 08, 2022 11:15

Announcing My New Fiction Podcast Series (Plus: A 50-Second Trailer) (#640)

This is a rare day!

I’m launching a new podcast for the first time in many years, and it’s scripted fiction. Even if you hate the name, I think most of you will enjoy the 50-second trailer. This podcast (and more) is intended to add a bit of laughter and levity to a world dominated by doomscrolling and pessimism.

Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Some background, plus Steven Pressfield on “going big”…

I’ve long wanted to do an experiment with fiction and art, resurrecting those old passions. I just couldn’t find the right vehicle. The conventional options didn’t work. Then, in early 2021, the author Steven Pressfield said the following to me:

[Going big] doesn’t mean it necessarily has to be 800 pages long, but just a big idea. An idea that’s kind of a scary idea, that you say to yourself, ‘When I show this to people, they’re going to look at me and go, ‘What happened to you, Tim? Are you okay?’ That’s what I mean by big.

Shortly thereafter, I began dreaming bigger, dreaming stranger, and allowing myself to grab a few glasses of wine at night, sketch out the truly bat-shit crazy ideas, and go fully off-menu.

This podcast is part of “going big” for the fun of it, and it’s part of a much broader art project. I hope you subscribe and stick around to see how things unfold. There are surprises in store…

More can be found at, you guessed it, cockpunch.com.

P.S. The very next episode of The Tim Ferriss Show will feature an incredible interview—also a very powerful and moving interview—with one of my favorite people on the planet.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#640: Announcing My New Fiction Podcast Series (Plus: A 50-Second Trailer)

Want to hear an episode with the person who inspired me to go big? Listen to my conversation with author Steven Pressfield, in which we discussed feline role models, halfway-house theories, eclectic resumes, self-sabotage, writing a first novel in his 50s, the artist’s journey, little successes that lead to big results, and much more.

#501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s JourneySELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

You can listen to the CØCKPUNCH podcast on:

Apple Podcasts Spotify Pocket Casts Overcast Castbox Stitcher Amazon Music RadioPublic The Legend of CØCKPUNCH

Saisei Foundation COCKPUNCH Twitter COCKPUNCH Instagram THE SEVENTH SCRIBE Twitter The Big Reveal: The Legend of CØCKPUNCH — Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss on Tim’s New and Extremely Bizarre Art Project (The Tim Ferriss Show podcast)

The post Announcing My New Fiction Podcast Series (Plus: A 50-Second Trailer) (#640) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

2 likes · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on December 05, 2022 14:11

Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline (#639)

Illustration via 99designs

“Change is part of the human condition. And yet every day you run into systems that are crushingly holding on to status quo, are holding on to yesterday. And for those of us who are wired to think about tomorrow, we become the rebels, we become the outcasts, we become the people who are rocking the boat.”
— Todd McFarlane

Todd McFarlane (@Todd_McFarlane) is an Emmy- and Grammy-winning director/producer and creator of one of the world’s best-selling comic books, Spawn. He is best known to many comic book fans for his work as the artist on The Amazing Spider-Man, for which he co-created Marvel’s top villain, Venom.

Todd is the CEO of Todd McFarlane Productions, McFarlane Toys (one of the US’s top action-figure manufacturers), and McFarlane Films. He is also a co-founder of Image Comics, which debuted Spawn in 1992, selling 1.7 million copies of the first issue. In 1997, Spawn was made into an Emmy Award-winning animated series on HBO and a live-action feature film that grossed over $100 million. In 2019, Todd made history with Spawn #301, earning the Guinness World Record for longest-running creator-owned superhero comic book series.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by MasterClass online video lessons taught by 180+ of the world’s best, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#639: Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline

This episode is brought to you by MasterClass! With MasterClass, you can learn from the world’s best minds—anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. With more than 180 classes from a range of world-class instructors, that thing you’ve always wanted to do is closer than you think.

MasterClass’s cinema-quality lessons give you unparalleled access to renowned instructors, who share everything from how to execute specific techniques to insights about their craft that can be translated across many fields and disciplines. This holiday, give one annual membership and get one free! Go to Masterclass.Com/Ferriss today.

This episode is brought to you by Vuori Clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.

Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at VuoriClothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you’ll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the #1 overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk-free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

Want to hear an episode about someone else who overcame early failures to ultimately excel in their creative vision? Listen to my conversation with author Steven Pressfield in which we discussed feline role models, halfway house theories, eclectic resumes, self-sabotage, writing a first novel in his 50s, the artist’s journey, little successes that lead to big results, and much more.

#501: Steven Pressfield — How to Overcome Self-Sabotage and Resistance, Routines for Little Successes, and The Hero’s Journey vs. The Artist’s Journey

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Todd McFarlane:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Spawn | Image Comics The Amazing Spider-Man | Marvel Todd McFarlane’s Spawn | HBO Spawn | Prime Video Spawn #301 | Image Comics Incredible Hulk #340 | Marvel Legendary Artist Todd McFarlane Talks Baseball and Toys | SI Kids A Selection from 350 Rejection Letters | Todd McFarlane, Facebook Frank Miller Batman Reading Order | Comic Book Herald 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley | Amazon 300 | Prime Video Sin City Volume 1: The Hard Goodbye by Frank Miller | Amazon Sin City – Recut, Extended, Unrated | Prime Video How Frank Miller Brought Daredevil Out of the Shadows and Into Comic-Book History | Mashable Batman/Spawn: DC Comics Crossover Coming in December 2022! | Bloody Disgusting Marvel, Jack Kirby Estate Settlement Brings End to High-Stakes Battle | The Hollywood Reporter Todd McFarlane: Comics | Marvel Todd McFarlane and His Ever-Increasing Guinness Record | Comics Beat Comics Code History: The Seal of Approval | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund The Atlas Era: Before Marvel Became Marvel | Marvel Comics Bogeyman: A Look Back At ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ | Comics Alliance Comic History: Bullseye Kills Elektra (Daredevil #181) │ RNS Entertainment Why Did Todd McFarlane Leave Marvel Comics? | Comic Book Legends Revealed #482 Andre Agassi: “Image Is Everything,” Canon (1990) | YouTube 1992 United States Men’s Olympic Basketball Team | Wikipedia Coyote 1-16 | Steve Englehart Infinity, Inc. | Wikipedia The Rejected Todd McFarlane Version of a G.I. Joe Classic | CBR Todd McFarlane Draws Batman: Year Two — Batman’s Got a Gun! | Cartoonist Kayfabe Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 300 | Marvel Database Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 320 | Marvel Database Venom Through History: A Look at the Origins and Past Iterations of the Lethal Protector | Los Angeles Times Comic Legends: The Secret Origin of Spider-Man’s Spaghetti Webbing! | CBR Historical Components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average | Wikipedia 5 Iconic Airlines That No Longer Exist | Investopedia Kmart | WikipediaSHOW NOTES

Editor’s note: Timestamps will be added shortly.

Baseball.Rejection letters.Compelling storytelling and meeting deadlines.Deadlines pre-Internet vs. deadlines today.How industry status quo led to the founding of Image Comic Books.The Comics Code and the last straw.The Marvel Dream Team exodus.How is Todd’s camel bladder a competitive advantage?Career bouncing and double-shifting as a penciler and inker.The happy accident of Venom.De-Rockwelling the company icon and inventing “spaghetti webbing.”Bucking the status quo to become the status quo.Parting thoughts and a promise for round two.MORE TODD MCFARLANE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“You never want to have a conversation with anybody where two plus two equals giraffe.”
— Todd McFarlane

“When I was trying to break into comic books, in all those years leading up to breaking in, I was reading everything I could get my hands on about our industry. And what I found was I was coming across a common theme. And the common theme was that everybody, no matter how big your standing had been in our industry, eventually got pushed out against their will, and in some cases got the short end of creative and financial sticks.”
— Todd McFarlane

“When I got my first job in comic books, three weeks before I graduated, I went in with my eyes wide open. And so I knew what the game was, and I go, ‘Okay, their job is to exploit me as much as possible. Can I do the same in reverse at the same time?'”
— Todd McFarlane

“Change is part of the human condition. And yet every day you run into systems that are crushingly holding on to status quo, are holding on to yesterday. And for those of us who are wired to think about tomorrow, we become the rebels, we become the outcasts, we become the people who are rocking the boat.”
— Todd McFarlane

“Sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me, and there’s nobody that hates Todd more than Todd.”
— Todd McFarlane

“If anybody is under the age of 30ish listening, I’m going to give you a bit of a golden rule. If anybody asks you to do something, especially somebody in authority, always say ‘Yes’ even if you’re not going to do it. It’s just way easier. You get out of the room faster. No confrontation. Just nod your head ‘Yes’ in agreement and go do whatever the hell you want.”
— Todd McFarlane

PEOPLE MENTIONEDSpawn Spider-Man Venom Grey Hulk Wolverine Frank Miller Batman Daredevil Jim Lee Jack Kirby Iron Man Stan Lee Fredric Wertham Joseph McCarthy Deadpool Cable Juggernaut Bullseye Elektra Rob Liefeld Erik Larsen Andre Agassi Jim Valentino Terry Stewart Earvin Magic Johnson Larry Bird Whilce Portacio Marc Silvestri Bob McFarlane Benito Mussolini Tom DeFalco Steve Englehart Coyote Don Newton G.I. Joe Larry Hama Dick Giordano James Gordon Dennis O’Neil Jim Salicrup Bob Harras David Michelinie Jim Shooter Norman Rockwell Charlie Brown Eddie Vedder

The post Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline (#639) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on November 30, 2022 06:15

Stephen Wolfram — Personal Productivity Systems, Richard Feynman Stories, Computational Thinking as a Superpower, Perceiving a Branching Universe, and The Ruliad… The Biggest Object in Metascience (#637)

“I realized I’d been working more than 12 hours a day, every day, for basically all of the last 50 years. And I’m having a good time, and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to mostly do things that add energy to me rather than taking it away.”
— Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram (@stephen_wolfram) is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; the originator of the Wolfram Physics Project; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of more than four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking, and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions, and innovations in science, technology, and business.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Tommy John premium underwear, Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and ButcherBox premium meats delivered to your door.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#637: Stephen Wolfram — Personal Productivity Systems, Richard Feynman Stories, Computational Thinking as a Superpower, Perceiving a Branching Universe, and The Ruliad... The Biggest Object in Metascience

This episode is brought to you by Tommy John premium underwear! For men, Tommy John offers six different styles so you can find the one that suits you best. Their line of men’s briefs and boxers is one of my top choices for all-day comfort. I tested their Second Skin Mid-Length Boxer Brief and the Cool Cotton Trunk.

Shop Tommy John’s Black Friday sale going on right now, and get thirty percent off sitewide at TommyJohn.com/Tim. See the website for details.

This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox! ButcherBox makes it easy for you to get high-quality, humanely raised meat that you can trust. They deliver delicious, 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef; free-range organic chicken; heritage-breed pork, and wild-caught seafood directly to your door.

This Black Friday, your search for amazing deals on high-quality protein ends with ButcherBox. ButcherBox is offering my listeners one of their best steak deals: Free Rib Eyes for a Year, plus $20 off. Get two, 10 oz rib eyes FREE in every box for a whole year when you join, plus an additional $20 off! Sign up today at butcherbox.com/Tim and use code TIM to get Free Rib Eyes for a Year, plus $20 off.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

For a limited time, Eight Sleep is offering my listeners up to $450 off their Sleep Fit Holiday Bundle, which includes my personal favorite, the Pod 3 Cover. Go to EightSleep.com/Tim to get the exclusive holiday savings. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. That’s EightSleep.com/Tim

Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of the universe and examines the role of consciousness? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman here, in which we discuss how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, the science of consciousness, and much more wild stuff.

#585: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Stephen Wolfram:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Editor’s note: Timestamps will be added shortly.

How Stephen collects information for his vast personal archives.When a situation warrants building a matrix.Science sometimes makes us look far back to move incrementally forward.Befriending the computational.How technology helps us navigate natural language.How Stephen chose subjects for his book Idea Makers.On spending time with Richard Feynman.Thoughts on Srinivasa Ramanujan.When Stephen started solving science problems with computers.Heresies today, gospels tomorrow.Ruminations on the ruliad.What is time?What constitutes consciousness?Personal infrastructure and productivity.Maintaining energy in the midst of a busy life.Avoiding once-inevitable sickness after air travel.Making time count — in sickness and in health.Parting thoughts.MORE STEPHEN WOLFRAM QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Even very simple programs can do very complicated things. That was something I didn’t expect. It was a violation of my intuition. It took me a couple of years to come to terms with the fact that that was possible.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“A big part of what I’ve spent my life doing is building this kind of computational language, which [allows us to] represent [something] computationally in a precise way … a human could read it and say, ‘Oh, I know what that means.’ But also we have the extra boost from the fact that a computer can read it too, and then the computer can help us to get further.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“To what extent can we translate the things we think we care about into something which can be represented computationally?”

— Stephen Wolfram

“The thing to understand about translation, ultimately, is the destination mind isn’t built the same way the source mind is necessarily built.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“There’s a certain art to doing a good computer experiment, but you can discover things that you never thought were there, and they inform your intuition and allow you to build things up. It’s this thing that comes from nowhere. Because it’s just coming, not from the natural world, but the computational world. You’re just turning over this rock in the computational world and suddenly you discover that there’s this whole crazy thing going on underneath it.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“I think I can finally say I think I actually understand quantum mechanics. And it’s just this idea of the branching mind perceiving the branching universe. I hadn’t seen that coming at all. And it’s a bizarre idea that turns out, I think, to unlock how that works.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“You can attribute different rules to the operation of the universe, but they’re convertible, in the same way as your computer can be made to run a spreadsheet rather than a word processor.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“You were asking about different human languages. That’s an example of being in different places in rulial space. So you can imagine two languages where the way of thinking about the world is very similar, they kind of correspond to nearby places in rulial space, where it’s pretty easy to translate, to travel from one to the other. Whereas very different sorts of views of the world are further away in rulial space. And that’s just a way of perhaps conceptualizing what this thing is about.”

— Stephen Wolfram

“I realized I’d been working more than 12 hours a day, every day, for basically all of the last 50 years. And I’m having a good time, and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to mostly do things that add energy to me rather than taking it away.”

— Stephen Wolfram

PEOPLE MENTIONEDSherlock Holmes Richard P. Feynman Steve Jobs Ada Lovelace Srinivasa Ramanujan Arthur C. Clarke Albert Einstein Isaac Newton Nicolaus Copernicus Carlo Rovelli

The post Stephen Wolfram — Personal Productivity Systems, Richard Feynman Stories, Computational Thinking as a Superpower, Perceiving a Branching Universe, and The Ruliad… The Biggest Object in Metascience (#637) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on November 24, 2022 08:12

Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 22

December 23, 2022

The Random Show, Mega-Holiday Edition — 2023 Resolutions and New Tools, Extensive Bullshitting, Booze and Ethanol Alternatives, The “Yearly Delete,” A Million Sidebars, Ayahuasca Revisited, Recapping the COCKPUNCH Saga, and Much More (#645)

December 21, 2022

Jonathan Haidt — The Coddling of the American Mind, How to Become Intellectually Antifragile, and How to Lose Anger by Studying Morality (#644)

December 16, 2022

The AI Art Competition Beginneth!

Todd McFarlane, Iconic Comic Book Artist — Lessons from Stan Lee, How to Make Art That Outlives You, How to Compete with Corporate Giants and Win (While Having Fun), Dealmaking Strategies, War Stories from Wall Street and Lawyer Land, Taking Responsibility

December 13, 2022

Steven Pressfield on Going from Truck Driver to Bestselling Novelist, Overcoming Self-Sabotage, Building Momentum, Dancing with the Muse, Turning Pro, and Letting Your Underground River Flow (#642)

December 8, 2022

Roland Griffiths, PhD — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude (#641)

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. — Life’s Ultimate Glide Path, An Unexpected Stage IV Diagnosis, Facing Death, How Meditation and Psychedelics Can Help, and The Art of Living a Life of Gratitude (#641)

December 5, 2022

Announcing My New Fiction Podcast Series (Plus: A 50-Second Trailer) (#640)

November 30, 2022

Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline (#639)

November 24, 2022

Stephen Wolfram — Personal Productivity Systems, Richard Feynman Stories, Computational Thinking as a Superpower, Perceiving a Branching Universe, and The Ruliad… The Biggest Object in Metascience (#637)

Timothy Ferriss's Blog