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How I Built The Tim Ferriss Show to 700+ Million Downloads — An Immersive Explanation of All Aspects and Key Decisions (Featuring Chris Hutchins) (#538)

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Chris Hutchins (@hutchins) is an avid life hacker and financial optimizer. He’s the host of All the Hacks podcast and the Head of New Product Strategy at Wealthfront.

Previously, Chris was co-founder and CEO of Grove (acquired by Wealthfront), co-founder of Milk (acquired by Google), and a partner at Google Ventures, where he focused on seed and early stage investments.

Chris reached out with many questions about podcasting. He had already read much of what I had written and listened to several interviews, and this is intended to be an updated guide to all things podcasting.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 770M+ users, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses. More on all three below.

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#538: How I Built The Tim Ferriss Show to 700+ Million Downloads — An Immersive Explanation of All Aspects and Key Decisions (Featuring Chris Hutchins)

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually 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.

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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.

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

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Want to hear one of my favorite conversations with a fascinating polymath? Listen to this episode with Kevin Kelly, in which we discuss population implosions, The Long Now Foundation, organizational methods for learning, and much more!

#25: Kevin Kelly - WIRED Co-Founder, Polymath, Most Interesting Man In The WorldSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Chris Hutchins:

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Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

Who is Chris Hutchins, and how many episodes of his new podcast, All the Hacks, does he have under his belt thus far?A few choice pieces of advice anyone should consider when aspiring to start a podcast: you don’t have to commit forever, only do this if you’d do it for free, and don’t worry about how big (or small) your audience is.Don’t commit to forever, but start with a reasonable number of episodes to aim for (I chose six). If you don’t love the direction it’s going, change direction until you do. Choose a game you can win.Expect technical SNAFUs. Always have a backup plan. Better: have several. “Two is one, and one is none.”Is it still early in the days of podcasting and ripe with opportunity, or is it too crowded and people should consider new mediums for content?Why did Chris want to start a podcast, and what has made it worthwhile to continue?Gear I use and why most of my podcast conversations are done remotely.How many technical difficulties would I endure before just rescheduling an interview? What precautions do I take to make this less likely?An easy way to test if your remote guest’s proper external mic is selected.I once advised podcasters against recording on video, but I’ve obviously changed my tune. What are the pros and cons?How different did my operation look when I was just getting started, and how has it evolved over time with the addition of metrics for monetization and staff to assist with production?What Chris has considered when weighing the rewards of monetization versus its costs, and my two cents’ worth on sponsorship best practices and options available. (Bonus: why my books aren’t available in paperback.)Can’t get big-name guests? Prioritize getting good guests even if they’re not household names. People like good content more than they like bad content with a fancy name (and you’ll probably like not having to get through a phalanx of publicists and lawyers and managers for a year to get that “famous” but potentially less interesting guest).How I’ve found guests from the very beginning.Chris asked me to listen to some of his podcast episodes and give my honest feedback. Here are my thoughts on his interview with Leigh Rowan (note: not a household name, but an incredible guest who brought his A game).You may not be able to “fix” a bad guest no matter how well-practiced you are as an interviewer. But you can always record long and edit liberally.Questions I ask and conversations I’ll have with guests to put them at ease and get them to a place where they can trust the process.Why I find Twitter to be an excellent, low-risk way to source guests. But there are right ways and wrong ways to go about it.Illustrating the importance of technical redundancy, Chris confesses that he had to re-record the interview with Leigh Rowan from scratch. At least it was a lesson learned on day one.The value of reading transcripts (and, perhaps more painfully, audience feedback on social media) of your interviews early on in order to improve, as well as other methods of soliciting torture from select friends for personal development.Why becoming a better interviewer is really becoming your best self as an interviewer. Remember: what’s worked for Joe Rogan or James Lipton or Larry King may not work for you.How long do I spend on prep prior to an interview? What are some helpful shortcuts and processes to squeeze the most juice out of this time?Have I ever done too much research before an interview — to the point that the ensuing conversation was devoid of any meaningful surprises? How might I avoid such a scenario?What might cause me to push pause on publishing an interview, and how do I break the news diplomatically to the guest? What efforts can be made to salvage something useful from the experience for both parties?Do I always read a guest’s new book before I interview them?Have I ever had to pause during an interview to regroup and replan its direction? Do I have a way to afford a guest the same opportunity? What steps do I take to make sure the guest and I sound as good as possible?Chris says I understand my audience well. How did I build that understanding, and what did I learn about relating to an audience from Wait But Why‘s Tim Urban?Tip: How to avoid getting your AirPods case mixed up with a significant other/family member/roommate who lives with you.Do I pay attention to number of podcast downloads and other listener-quantifying metrics? What would motivate extra scrutiny of those numbers? Bonus: a Kevin Rose-approved Chartable tip.Why you probably want to funnel your listeners to your own website instead of something like a Facebook page that uses algorithims you can’t control.Is growth as important as creating good content? What are the most effective ways to grow an audience that will find that good content?Is there a point to putting audio-only content on a video platform like YouTube? While growth has no magic bullet and the tools are forever changing, here are some evergreen references that might help you find the anchor that will work for your needs.Want to be of the best service to yourself and your audience? Stop trying to please all of the people all of the time. Find the cadence, content, and and frequency that fulfills you first.Someone might tune in to your podcast for a certain guest, but if they come back, it’s because of you. This being said, is it necessary to go out of your way to remind listeners that you exist in every episode?How can you make your good question a great question while making your guest sound even smarter and get your listeners personally invested in the conversation?Speaking of which, what is one of Chris’ best investments?How (and why) did I make the transition from being “The 4-Hour Guy” to the host of The Tim Ferriss Show (rather than starting something like The 4-Hour Podcast)?You have a personal brand (even if you’ve never tried to build one). But how do you know what it entails?To eliminate the bother of selling ads and securing sponsors, is it worth it to join a podcast network that promises to take care of monetization for you (for a hefty cut)?How do I handle a follow-up question if I’ve thought of it well past the point it would make sense to fit it into the conversation?Do I have any tactics for getting introductions to potential guests from other people in my existing network?A question you can ask to improve your interviewing prowess (courtesy of Adam Grant).What kind of processes do I go through when I reassess the direction of the podcast after reaching a preestablished milestone?The time-saving power of batching recording sessions.Parting thoughts.PEOPLE MENTIONEDKevin Rose Rolf Potts Joe Rogan Marc Maron Morgan Housel Edward Norton Ramit Sethi Edwin Catmull Leigh Rowan Sam Harris Esther Perel Hugh Jackman Donald Trump Oprah Winfrey James Lipton Larry King Arnold Schwarzenegger Walter Isaacson Benjamin Franklin Leonardo da Vinci Tim Urban LeBron James Andrew Chen Jordan B. Peterson Kevin Kelly Joe Saul-Sehy Balaji Srinivasan Warren Buffett Dale Carnegie Daniel Burka Josh Waitzkin Andy Rachleff Dax Shepard Andrew Zimmern Adam Grant Molly Ferriss Stewart Brand

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Published on October 14, 2021 07:19

How Animals Discover and Use Medicines

Photo by Stelio Puccinelli on Unsplash

This guest post from Dr. Mark Plotkin (@DocMarkPlotkin) features an excerpt from his book Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets. I loved the chapter on how animals use medicinal plants so much that I published the audio version on the podcast. If you prefer the audio version, narrated by Mark, click here.

Mark is an ethnobotanist who serves as president of the Amazon Conservation Team, which has partnered with ~80 tribes to map and improve management and protection of ~100 million acres of ancestral rainforests. He is best known to the general public as the author of the book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, one of the most popular books ever written about the rainforest. His most recent book is The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know. You can find my first interview with Mark at tim.blog/markplotkin.

Mark is also the host of the Plants of the Gods podcast, through which you can learn about everything from hallucinogenic snuffs to the diverse formulations of curare (a plant mixture which relaxes the muscles of the body and leads to asphyxiation), and much, much more.

Enjoy!

Enter Mark…

Biologists studying animals in the wild are typically discouraged from giving their study animal names so as not to anthropomorphize them; in other words, not to think of them as friends or pets. Jane Goodall — one of the greatest field biologists of all time — has always disagreed. I overheard a discussion between her and another biologist in the early 1980s. The zoologist asked her, “Why do you give your chimps names? Is that really scientific?”

Without missing a beat, Jane asked him, “Do you have a dog?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Does your dog have a personality,” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Well,” said Jane, “I bet my chimps have at least as much personality as your dog!”

Many years later — when I was studying the history of wine as medicine in the ancient world — I mentioned the project to Jane. “You know that drinking alcohol wasn’t invented by humans, don’t you? Chimps periodically get drunk on fermented marula fruit, as do elephants and baboons and other species as well!”

As an ethnobotanist who studies how indigenous peoples find and use medicinal plants of the rainforest, this was a revelation. Could some of this medicinal plant wisdom been first learned of from the Animal Kingdom?

In the summer of 1980, I had the opportunity to wander in the once great rainforests of eastern Brazil. The early European explorers were awestruck by the beauty and diversity of these tropical forests, which stretched in an enormous unbroken arc from the easternmost tip of Brazil hundreds of miles south into what is now Paraguay and northern Argentina. However, what remains is a fragment of what once was: small, isolated pockets of forest, home to a handful of species: more than 96 percent of the original forest cover has been destroyed. And as I wandered through those distant patches of jungle, the sounds of trucks, bulldozers, radios, and human voices surrounded me on all sides, a constant reminder that our civilization was in the final throes of obliterating the little that was left.

The forest itself seemed almost empty; the large terrestrial mammals like the jaguar and the peccary that characterize the South American rainforest had been hunted out so thoroughly that I saw not even a pair of footprints. The haunting calls of the toucans and the piercing screeches of the macaws had long been stilled. Of course, these spectacular animals were not the only components that had been eliminated from these forests. In the course of preparing for my trip, I had combed through the early accounts of the first European explorers who had ventured into these jungles almost 500 years earlier; their reports were filled with tales of the tribal warriors who once dominated this complex landscape. Though the jungle had been reduced by over 90 percent of its original range, tribes like the Botocudos and the Tupinikin had been completely exterminated long before my arrival.

What is the medical legacy of these indigenous peoples, and the once great forests in which they thrived? All the commercial medicines derived from the rainforests of Africa, Asia, and the Americas were initially extracted from plants observed in use by local tribespeople. No major medical compound has ever been developed from an eastern Brazilian rainforest plant, and that is undoubtedly because the Botocudos and other tribes were obliterated before any ethnobotanical studies were ever carried out.

Without indigenous people to guide us, how best to determine which plants merit laboratory investigation? Of the 16 parks and protected areas in the country of Suriname in the northeast Amazon, for example, 12 have no indigenous peoples living within the boundaries or nearby, a situation increasingly common in the tropics. If we are to find the new and useful compounds that do occur in the plants, how best to proceed?

American aviators preparing to fly over the jungles of Indochina during the Second World War were taught that the best way to survive if shot down was to “eat what the monkeys eat.” While the overarching value of this advice was probably psychological (some monkeys have chambered stomachs capable of digesting leaves that would poison and possibly kill a human), this recommendation may ironically prove more beneficial for medicinal purposes. For we are learning that rainforest animals also know and use plants for therapeutic purposes. A most extraordinary example comes from research on an endangered species of primate in these same rainforests of eastern Brazil.

In the early 1980s, Karen Strier, then a Harvard graduate student in biological anthropology, traveled to the eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais to conduct research on muriquis (also known as woolly spider monkeys), the largest and most apelike of the New World monkeys. Strier’s studies soon led her to some surprising conclusions. The diet of muriquis proved much higher in tannins than those of other monkeys. Because tannins comprise about 50 percent of the anti-dysentery drug Entero‐Vioform, the Harvard scientist wondered if the primates were modifying their diets to kill parasites or control the diarrhea that often accompanies parasite infestation. Subsequent investigation revealed that the muriquis in this forest were completely free of parasites — highly unusual for a rainforest primate. And several of these plants are identical to (or closely related to) species taken by Amazonian Indians to control parasites.

Prior to the onset of the breeding season, Strier noted that the muriqui’s diet consisted primarily of the leaves of two tree species rich in antimicrobial compounds. During that same time of year, the muriquis visit the “monkey’s ear” tree (so named because of the shape of the fruits) to feed. As a general rule, when monkeys find trees laden with edible fruit, they gorge themselves until little remains. Yet Strier wrote that the muriquis consumed a small portion of the fruits before departing, “as if they only need a taste to be satisfied.” Once back at Harvard, she learned that these fruits are rich in stimasterol, a chemical employed in the manufacture of progesterone, which is itself used in birth control pills. Plant hormones can affect animal fertility. Did the monkeys of this forest discover the birth control pills tens of thousands of years before their human cousins did?

Primatologist Dr. Ken Glander of Duke University has spent decades studying the howler monkeys of Central America and reached conclusions that parallel those of Karen Strier. Glander hypothesizes that the howler monkeys eat a selection of plants that allows them to determine the sex of their offspring! He has noted that female howlers consume certain plants before and after copulation that they do not eat at any other time. Over two decades of study, Glander found that some howlers bore only male offspring, while others produced only females, an outcome unlikely due to chance. “Female” sperm (those that carry an X chromosome) do better than “male” sperm (which carry a Y chromosome) in an acidic environment-and vice versa. Could female howlers be controlling the chemistry of their reproductive tract and, if so, why? Glander suggests that plant-derived estrogen-like chemicals may be responsible. He noted that males in a monkey troop often pass more of their genes to the next generation than females are able to do. This would explain why it is often advantageous for a female to produce more males or, if there already exists an overabundance of males, why female offspring are preferable.

The study of how animals use plants for medicinal purposes is termed “zoopharmacognosy” — but our observation of this phenomenon is, without question, an ancient practice. Who has not watched a dog swallow grass to induce vomiting when the animal has eaten something unhealthy it wishes to regurgitate? In a thought-provoking research paper, the brilliant ecologist Dr. Dan Janzen of the University of Pennsylvania wrote, “I would like to ask if plant-eating vertebrates may consume plants on occasion as a way of writing their own prescriptions.” And sometimes animals teach us by their wisdom, other times by their mistakes.

Fatal culinary errors made by North American cows in the early part of the 20th century, for example, led to the development of several blockbuster drugs. One Saturday afternoon in February 1933 in the middle of a howling blizzard, a Wisconsin farmer appeared in the office of chemist Dr. Karl Link carrying a bucket of blood. The man had driven almost two hundred miles from his farm near Deer Park to seek help from the state veterinarian headquartered at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was the weekend, however, and the vet’s office was closed, so the desperate farmer wandered into the first building he found where the door was not locked: the biochemistry building. The blood in the bucket he carried would not clot. Several of his cows had recently hemorrhaged to death, and now his bull was oozing blood from his nose. He had been feeding his herd with the only forage he had on hand: spoiled sweet clover.

This hemorrhagic disease had first been reported in the 1920s from both North Dakota and Alberta, Canada. While specialists determined that feeding the animals spoiled sweet clover was the cause of this malady, they were not able to cure it, nor were they able to isolate the compound in the clover that caused the problem. Their recommendations: destroy the spoiled forage and transfuse healthy blood into the hemorrhagic cattle, the same advice offered by Link. Unfortunately, however, the farmer lacked an alternative fodder to feed his herd, and he was unable to perform blood transfusions in rural Wisconsin during the Depression.

Troubled by his inability to assist, Link mentioned the problem to German postdoctoral student Eugene Schoeffel. Schoeffel, an educated and idealistic fellow fond of quoting Goethe and Shakespeare, undertook the spoiled clover conundrum as a personal crusade. He and his colleagues analyzed the clover for seven years before identifying and isolating the cause of its lethality: a chemical they named dicumarol. They correctly hypothesized that if too much caused a hemorrhage, a minuscule amount might prove to be a useful anticoagulant. Today, dicumarol (and its synthetic analogues) are commonly employed in humans as anticoagulants, particularly for the prevention and treatment of pulmonary embolism and venous thrombosis.

The clover analysis serves as an example of a single species yielding a multitude of products. Noticing that one of the synthetic analogues seemed to induce particularly severe bleeding in rodents, Link proposed testing it as a rat poison, thinking it might lack the obvious dangers of more toxic rodenticides like strychnine. Research on this compound was bankrolled by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation — acronym: WARF; when proved effective, it was named warfarin (despite the bellicose connotations, the name came from the acronym of the alumni group!).

In early 1951, an army inductee tried to commit suicide by eating warfarin. He failed to kill himself but did manage to induce a classic case of hemorrhagic sweet clover syndrome. The unhappy soldier was successfully treated with transfusions of normal blood and coagulants. This bizarre incident led to studies and eventual approval of warfarin (renamed Coumadin) as an anticoagulant for human patients. How many cardiac patients realize that their physicians are prescribing rat poison for their ills?

Yet another aspect of animal behavior has led us to other therapeutic leads. A surprisingly wide variety of creatures ingest and store toxic natural compounds in their own bodies. They do this not for therapeutic reasons, but to employ the poisons for their own purposes, either to equip themselves with the ability to deliver a poisonous bite, or to deter predators from eating them. This is the case with the poisonous pufferfish.

A deadly nerve poison, tetrodotoxin, occurs in dozens of pufferfish species. These fish concentrate the poison in their internal organs. Though the logical correlation is that humans would go to great lengths to avoid these toxic denizens of the deep, pufferfish are considered a delicacy in Japan. Chefs must undergo special training and then be licensed by the federal government before being permitted to prepare this sought-after delicacy. Despite the rigorous preparation, accidents do happen: every few years, a restaurant customer is poisoned. The result: general numbness, loss of muscle control, and, unless treated, death. Intrigued by the numbness typical of tetrodotoxin envenomation, Japanese physicians have used it as a treatment for pain caused by migraines or menstrual cramps.

Scientists were surprised to find that the deadly bite of the blue-ringed octopus contained tetrodotoxin. Was it possible that the pufferfish and the octopus were creating the same poison? They found that neither the fish nor the octopus was capable of producing the poison — a bacterium known as Vibrio manufactured it. The fish and the mollusk were ingesting the microbe and then storing the poison in their internal organs to deter predators. In a way, the puffer and the octopus had done our research for us — of the millions of microbes in the sea, they had found one of the deadliest (with potent medical applications) and brought it to our attention, albeit in a most fatal fashion.

The method of filching a poison from another species and using it for protection has helped us understand how dart poison frogs become toxic. Tropical American dart frogs contain myriad fascinating chemical compounds. Until recently, however, we were unable to determine how the frogs made the poison. When raised in captivity, these amphibians often failed to produce the same toxins. Specimens captured in the wild and placed in captivity may keep their alkaloids. But their progeny possess fewer or none of these alkaloids.

Hawaii produced an even stranger phenomenon. Poison dart frogs were released in the Manoa Valley on the island of Oahu in 1932. When the descendants of these amphibian immigrants were tested in the lab 50 years after the original introduction, scientists found two of the same types of alkaloids that occur in the original species, which is native to Panama. Another type of alkaloid found in the Panamanian specimens was absent. And scientists found an entirely new alkaloid in the Hawaiian frog that does not occur in the Panamanian version! What is going on here?

Poison dart frog authority Dr. John Daly hypothesized that: (1) the amphibians make the alkaloids themselves; (2) they made the alkaloids from something that they consumed; or (3) they collected and stored the compounds from a component of their diet, much as the pufferfish does with tetrodotoxin.

The answer to Daly’s hypothesis seems to be a combination of all three. Some of the compounds (or their precursors) are found in poisonous insects eaten by the frog: alkaloids are taken in and stored from beetles, ants, and millipedes. But it was not just a question of ingesting and sequestering any and all alkaloids: when ants containing two different alkaloids were fed to the frogs, the little amphibians stored only one alkaloid in their skin and apparently excreted the other. And, in some instances, the frogs were observed seeking out and consuming particular species of insects that harbored compounds that the frogs typically stored in their own skin. As with the octopus and the pufferfish, these little frogs were finding new and useful chemicals in nature long before we did.

In terms of intentionally using plants for medicinal purposes, the great apes of Africa represent the most sophisticated members of the animal kingdom. Harvard primatologist Dr. Richard Wrangham observed chimpanzees in Uganda’s Kibale Forest consuming a tropical daisy called Aspilia in the early 1980s. While chimps devour many plants in their largely vegetarian diet, Wrangham made note of the unusual behavior surrounding consumption of this species: the leaves of Aspilia were carefully chosen and then swallowed. Furthermore, the primates’ faces appeared to indicate severe distaste, like a child taking castor oil. Because chimps, like people, are prone to parasitic infections, Wrangham hypothesized that the monkeys were consuming these leaves for medicinal (rather than nutritional) purposes.

Wrangham brought Aspilia specimens to the lab for analysis and received startling results: the plant contained a novel compound (which they named thiarubrine) that proved to have potent antibiotic, fungicidal, and vermicidal properties. Curiously, they also learned that this plant and related species are widely employed by African peoples for a panoply of medicinal uses: from treating cuts to cystitis to gonorrhea. This in turn raised another issue: was it the use of this plant by the chimps that led people to experiment with it in the first place?

Ethnobotanists — scientists like myself who study people’s use of local plants — have long wondered how a culture learns which species harbor medicinal qualities. While the process of trial and error clearly plays a significant role in this process, might not the plants employed by animals offer a natural starting place for experimentation?

The thiarubrine story had a bizarre footnote: when scientists retested Aspilia in the lab, they only found thiarubrine in the roots of the plant, which the chimps do not eat. African, European, Japanese, and American research teams have repeatedly confirmed that the primates consume only leaves. Why, then, are parasite-ridden chimps eating the leaves? Primatologist Dr. Michael Huffman, an American scientist who lives in Japan and works in Tanzania, found the answer in an ingenious bit of field research. Huffman and his colleagues found that the chimps’ droppings often contained both Aspilia leaves and intestinal worms that had been impaled on stiff tiny hairs (known as trichomes) on the leaf surface. Though the chimps were taking the leaves as “medicine,” it was not a chemical that killed the parasite, but a physical remedy that simply scraped out and impaled the offending organism. Huffman christened this process the “Velcro effect.” Because of this research, however, scientists had indeed discovered a new antibiotic.

Huffman, who was inspired to choose a career in primatology by his childhood fascination with H. A. Rey’s Curious George, eventually collected concrete evidence that the chimps were employing other plants as chemical medicines rather than just botanical Velcro. Huffman has focused much of his field research in the Mahale region of Tanzania along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, close to where the explorer Henry Morton Stanley found Dr. David Livingstone more than a century ago (and about 100 miles north of Jane Goodall’s famous site at Gombe Stream). There, Huffman’s guide and mentor is Mohamedi Seifu Kalunde, a soft-spoken elder of the local WaTongwe tribe. Kalunde is both a skilled naturalist and a renowned herbalist. Kalunde and Huffman were tracking a sick female chimp in November 1987 when the chimp stopped in front of a Vernonia bush of the daisy family, tore off a branch, and began peeling the bark. 10 years later, Huffman still vividly recalls the events that transpired: “Mohamedi said, ‘That is very strange. I don’t know why she is eating that because it is very bitter.’ I asked, ‘Do they eat it a lot?’ and he said ‘No.’ Then I asked him if his people made use of it and he said, ‘Yes. We take it for stomach problems.’” Vernonia represents one of the most important and widely used medicinal plants of the African continent. In Ethiopia, it is valued as a treatment for malaria; people in South Africa value it for amoebic dysentery. Tribespeople in the Congo use it for diarrhea, and the Angolans utilize it for upset stomach. In Kitongwe, the language of Huffman’s guide and mentor, Kalunde, the name for Vernonia is “njonso,” which means both “bitter leaf” and “the real medicine.”

As they watched the sick chimp, she finished peeling the bark and began chewing on the stem. She did not swallow it, however, but spit out the chewed remains, only ingesting the bitter sap. Huffman doubts the sap is an “acquired taste” consumed for gustatory purposes — the flavor is exceptionally foul. (Jane Goodall once performed an intriguing experiment, which probably has some bearing on Huffman’s observation: when she gave sick chimps bananas laced with the antibiotic tetracycline, they readily devoured them. However, when she offered the same drug-laden fruits to healthy chimps, they refused them.) Huffman and Kalunde continued to follow the sick chimp, which made a rapid recovery. Prior to consuming the plant sap, the chimp was suffering from constipation, malaise, and lack of appetite. A day later, she had made a spectacular recovery: the researchers had trouble keeping her in sight as she began climbing ridges at a rapid clip.

Of course, a single observation of a single sick chimp cannot be considered convincing proof in and of itself. Yet in December 1991, the research team made similar observations that added credence to their theory. Huffman and Kalunde observed another sick chimp eating Vernonia and managed to test their hypothesis. As they tracked the chimp, they collected samples of her droppings for laboratory analysis. At the time of the first collection, the stools contained 130 nematode eggs per gram. Less than 24 hours later, the egg level was reduced to 15 per gram and the chimp had resumed hunting, an energy-intensive exercise that she appeared unable to perform the day before. When the researchers calculated exactly how much of the plant the animal had ingested, they found that her dosage was almost identical to that taken by ailing tribespeople. The period of recovery — 24 hours — was identical for both people and chimps. And though the plant was common and available year-round, chimps tended to consume it only during the rainy season, when parasite infections are most prevalent.

Working with Japanese colleagues, Huffman had the plant chemically analyzed. Lab works revealed two types of chemical compounds that accounted for the plant’s medicinal use. The plants are rich in sesquiterpene lactones, chemicals found in many botanical species and known to have antihelminthic (anti-worm), anti-amoebic, and antibiotic properties. New sesquiterpene lactones found in these plants demonstrated significant activity against leishmaniasis (a common and disfiguring tropical disease) as well as the deadly drug-resistant falciparum version of malaria.

Appropriately, the first commercial use of these Vernonia extracts may be for animals rather than people. Huffman has been collaborating with colleagues in both Denmark and Tanzania to determine the efficacy of Vernonia extracts in killing a nematode known by the scientific name Osteophagostum stephanostomum (another instance in which the name is longer than the creature itself!). These nematodes (and their close relatives) cause significant loss of livestock, particularly in the tropical world. Current treatments, while effective, are often expensive by Third World standards, and therefore inaccessible. The quality of livestock husbandry in the tropics could be vastly improved by providing farmers with a plant they can grow and use to kill parasites and effectively.

Even if developed successfully, Vernonia would not represent the first example of a useful tropical plant finding its way into the medicine cabinet of the veterinarian rather than the physician. The fruit of the betel palm is the stimulant of choice in many parts of Asia, where local peoples chew it wrapped in a leaf of a local pepper vine. Alkaloids in the fruit provide a chemical stimulus, and some claim that betel is as addictive as tobacco. Several decades ago, chemists isolated an alkaloid from the palm, which they called “arecoline” because the scientific name for the palm genus is Areca. Although initially used by physicians as a human vermifuge (an antiparasitic agent), arecoline was eventually judged too toxic for our own species and it’s currently employed as a treatment for parasites in animals.

Animals often prove “tougher” than humans do; they don’t suffer the side effects some drugs cause in people. Few animals live as long as our species, so they theoretically won’t incur the deleterious effects that may result from taking a drug for many decades.

Hence, many of the drugs (both natural and synthetic) currently in development will be used for animals instead of people (or for both). The magnitude of the veterinary market is enormous, encompassing everything from domestic dogs and cats to zoo animals to cattle, pigs, sheep, and horses that serve as the bases for agricultural operations all over the world. The annual global annual value of veterinary drugs is estimated to be more than 29 billion dollars.

But some plants harbor compounds potentially useful both for human and veterinary medicine. Fig trees dominate some tropical forests, where their fruits serve as major dietary components for both birds and primates. Chimps use the trees for medicinal purposes as well as food. In western Amazon, the sap of one species is so highly valued as a cure for parasitic infections that it is bottled and sold commercially. The leaves of an African species are eaten by chimps in Tanzania probably because they contain proteolytic (protein-destroying) enzymes that kill nematodes, chimpanzees’ most common intestinal parasites. The young leaves — which the chimps eat — contain 600 percent more of the antiparasitic agent than do the older fig leaves, proving in this instance that these primates know their medicinal plants!

Fig sap is also consumed medicinally by another large mammal: the elephant. Presumably these pachyderms value it for its antiparasitic nature, much as local peoples use the plant. But fig trees aren’t the only medicinal plant consumed by the elephants. In the early 1940s, scientists observed Asian elephants devouring the fruits of legume Entada scheffleri before embarking on lengthy treks, leading researchers to hypothesize that the plant may serve as either a stimulant or a painkiller (or could it merely be pachyderm carbo-loading?). For example, a World Wildlife Fund ecologist spent much of 1975 tracking and observing a pregnant elephant in Tsavo Park in southern Kenya. The elephant had a standard routine of covering about three miles a day in search of edible plants. One day, the mother-to-be walked almost 20 miles and devoured an entire tree of the borage (forget-me-not) family. The scientist never observed this creature consume this species before or after this particular incident. Four days later, the elephant gave birth.

While this is not proof of cause and effect, the scientist soon stumbled across a most extraordinary parallel: pregnant women in Kenya prepare and consume a tea of the bark and leaves of this species to induce either labor or abortion! When Michael Huffman related this story to his colleague Kalunde, the Kenyan replied that his grandmother had taught him that WaTongwe women had employed this plant for the same purpose in the past. Huffman noted that the WaTongwe live in southwestern Tanzania, more than one hundred miles south of Tsavo, implying that the custom was probably the case in more than one elephant individual or population.

According to Huffman, Mohamedi learned most of what he knows about medicinal plants from his late grandfather, who gleaned insight into the potential utility of the flora by observing the behavior of the local fauna. Kalunde related the tale of a sick African crested porcupine that dug up and consumed the roots of a local plant known as “mulengelele.” The little creature soon recovered from bouts of diarrhea and lethargy, often the symptoms of a parasite infestation. Kalunde claimed that this led the WaTongwe to begin employing mulengelele to treat parasite infestations among themselves. Huffman cautions that this story may be merely an “interesting teaching device” to pass important information down from one generation to another and adds that medicinal plant use has never before been reported in porcupines. Can we afford to dismiss this as an allegorical tale for transmitting information to children and grandchildren, or should mulengelele be investigated in the lab?

This episode parallels an unforgettable experience I had in the northeast Amazon with a remarkable tribal group known as the Maroons. When slaves were brought to the Amazon in the 17th and 18th centuries, many managed to escape from captivity into the rainforest. There they coalesced into tribal societies very much patterned on the African cultures from which they had been captured and enslaved. They were warriors perhaps by nature but certainly by necessity, as they represented a severe threat to the plantation economy of the local colonies. (As long as there was a “home” in the forest for runaway slaves, servants on the plantation were that much more likely to take up arms and/or escape.) In Brazil, the Maroons managed to organize themselves into the city-state known as Palmares, which was eventually razed to the ground by white plantation owners and their henchmen. In Suriname, however, the Maroons were never conquered, and there these unique African-American cultures continue to thrive.

From an ethnobotanical perspective, the Maroons are endlessly intriguing in that they have an origin in and a relationship with the forest different from that of the local Amerindians. For example, they employ some plants for medicinal purposes that the Amerindians do not use. Because the Native Americans have lived in the forest for thousands of years and the Maroons have only been there several hundred years, it is tempting to assume that the latter know much less about the forest because they are relatively recent arrivals. I came to find out that such is not always the case.

I was visiting the capital of Paramaribo, sitting on the terrace of a bar overlooking the muddy brown Suriname River that flows gently past the city. With me was Chris Healy, an American raised in Suriname, who is an expert on Maroon art and culture. We were speaking about people, plants, and animals of the forest when he told me an exceedingly peculiar tale about the tapir, the largest mammal of the Amazon rainforest. According to Chris, the Maroons claim that tapirs eat the stems of the nekoe plant, defecate into forest streams, and eat the fish that rise to the surface, stunned by compounds in the plants. In fact, nekoe (known elsewhere in Latin America as barbasco or timbo) contains chemicals known as rotenoids that interfere with fishes’ ability to intake oxygen, causing them to float to the surface if nekoe has been added to the water in which they swim. Local peoples (both Amerindians and Maroons) take advantage of this phenomenon by throwing crushed nekoe stems into the river and catching the fish that rise to the surface. This plant serves as the source of rotenone, which is used as a biodegradable pesticide by organic gardeners and was valued by American soldiers during the Second World War to kill mites that had infested their clothing.

Thinking that the Native Americans know more about forest and its creatures than the Maroons do, I queried several Amerindian colleagues about tapirs and nekoe, but they steadfastly denied any connection between the two. However, several Maroons that I interviewed told me that tapirs consume nekoe, defecate the remains in forest streams, and so on. Does this mean that the Maroons learned of the fish-stunning capabilities of nekoe by observing tapirs? Or is this merely something on the order of a fanciful tale concocted to teach youngsters about the value of the vine, much as Huffman suggests may have been the case with the mulengelele and the African crested porcupine?

One of the reasons to suspect that the Maroons may well have learned from the tapirs is that so much more evidence of animal use of medicinal plants has come to light since scientists began searching for it over the course of the past few decades. As mentioned, chimps are the best documented group in terms of plant use for medicinal purposes. (It may be argued that their utilization of healing plants is somehow not particularly representative of the animal kingdom as a whole because these primates are so closely related to us: our DNA is more than 95 percent identical to that of chimps; chimps are more closely related to us than they are to the other great apes, gorillas and orangutans). The great apes are known to employ over 30 species of plants for medicinal purposes. This may well represent what scientists term an “artifact of collection,” meaning that the most attractive and conspicuous animals receive the most attention, hence we conclude that these species use more medicinal plants than other creatures.

In fact, the more we look, the more we find. Even the literature contains a long and extensive list of animals (mostly mammals, probably for reasons noted above) consuming botanicals for purposes that are presumably therapeutic. A recent paper in Science magazine by Jacobus de Roode noted that fruit flies lay their eggs in high ethanol foods (like the fermented marula fruits so beloved by Jane Goodall’s chimps) to deter predation by wasps. Wood ants add antimicrobial resins from pine trees to deter microbial growth much as the ancient Greeks added terebinth resin to wine to prevent spoilage. And sparrows and finches have been found to add cigarette butts to their nests to deter mite infestations, because nicotine is an effective insect repellant.

Yet another example is pigs, who are notoriously prone to parasite worm infestations. Wild boars in both India and Mexico often consume plants with known antihelminthic properties: pigweed in India and pomegranate roots in Mexico.

Yet, there is an unusual twist to this pig story. In India, local people extract and utilize a worm-killing medicine from the pigweed roots. But though pomegranate root bark is known to contain an alkaloid that kills tapeworms, neither the pig nor the pomegranate is native to Mexico: the Spanish conquistadors brought both to the New World. The pigs nonetheless selectively seek out and consume the roots of this tree as their ancestors once did in the Old World.

In the course of his decades of research on tropical plants and animals, the aforementioned ecologist Dan Janzen unearthed a paper published in 1939 that noted that the Asian two-horned rhino was observed eating so much of the tannin-rich bark of the red mangrove that its urine was stained bright orange. Tannins are a major component of some over-the-counter antidiarrheal preparations such as Entero‐Vioform. Janzen has noted that the concentration of tannins in the bladder of the rhino necessary to change the color of its urine was undoubtedly sufficient to have an impact on parasites in the creature’s bladder or urinary tract.

These animal-plant interactions have also been observed outside the tropics. Dr. Shawn Sigstedt, a laconic, Harvard-trained ethnobotanist, has focused his studies on the plants, animals, and peoples of American West. Sigstedt’s favorite plants are a small genus of herbs known as Ligusticum, but he is not the only one captivated by this somewhat nondescript little plant. When bears encounter the plant, they exhibit peculiar behavior: Ligusticum functions as an ursine catnip. Sigstedt once observed Ligusticum roots thrown into a brown-bear zoo enclosure, and a brawl ensued. The victor carried the roots to a corner of the cage, chewed them up, spit them out, and rubbed them all over his face and body. Both grizzlies and polar bears have proven similarly enamored of this little plant.

The Navajos of northern Arizona taught Sigstedt that the name for Ligusticum in their language translated into English means “bear medicine.” These tribal peoples value this plant as a treatment for many different ailments, treatments whose effectiveness is borne out by chemical analysis that documented the presence of compounds that are anticoagulant and antibacterial, as well as other chemicals that may combat both fungi and insect vermin. To the Navajos, the bear is a sacred creature; in their creation tales, these animals are considered experts in the use of medicines.

Sigstedt was a bit surprised that his findings were considered so astonishing when he began reporting them in the late 1980s. “After all,” he said, “deer and elk have long been known to chew aspen bark that contains compounds similar to aspirin. Why should bears be any less adept at using plants than these creatures?” He also feels that people’s amazement upon discovering that bears were using these plants may have more to do with our perception and categorization. “We tend to place a somewhat artificial barrier between food and medicine where an accurate description is probably better described as a complex mosaic.”

This epicurean animal behavior noted by Sigstedt has also been observed in tropical America. Coatimundis, long-nosed relatives of the raccoon, have been observed rubbing the resin of a tropical relative of myrrh into their fur, presumably to kill or repel lice, mosquitoes, ticks, or other noxious vermin. The capuchin monkeys of tropical America have similar practices but are known to utilize a wider variety of plant species. Capuchins have been observed rubbing eight different plants into their fur. Of these, four (Hymenaea, Piper, Protium, and Virola) rank among the most common medicinal plants used by tribal peoples of the Amazon, and at least two of these are used by the Native Americans to treat skin problems.

Capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica massage a mixture of Hymenaea resin and rainwater into their fur. The Suriname Maroons collect this same dried resin and make it into a tea to treat diarrhea or burn it to keep away flying insects. Laboratory analysis has revealed that this resin harbors compounds that repel insects, and anthropologists have observed these monkeys rubbing four other plant species into their fur as well. Peasants in the region use three related species to repel insects or treat skin problems. And the Trio peoples who live just south of the Maroons in the northeast Amazon have repeatedly told me they watch and learn medicinal species by observing the primates in their rainforest home.

As I said, birds appear to be making use of plants as both medicines and pesticides. Investigators were puzzled as to why penguins had almost no parasites or other harmful microorganisms in their digestive tract. Further field study revealed that the penguins were consuming blue-green algae on a regular basis, and these marine organisms are often loaded with potent chemical compounds.

Birds most definitely use plants for non-food purposes, which could conceivably lead us to new and useful compounds. Hawks have long been known to place sprigs of green leaves in their nests. Birders now note that hawks select only the live branches of certain tree species and replace the dead or dying leaves in their nests with fresh material every few days. The red-tailed hawk uses the leaves of the cottonwood and quaking aspen, while the bald eagle chooses sedge and the needles of the white pine. In a classic study of this phenomenon, Dr. Bradley McDonald and his colleagues found that seven species of raptors (hawks and their relatives) were using over 12 species of plants. Though other scientists have advanced hypotheses to explain this behavior, from camouflaging the nest to advertising nest occupancy, McDonald’s group tested these plants in the lab and found that all effectively repel insects (in this case, houseflies, although they suggest that these leaves are also noxious to other vermin like mites as well as bacteria). Because these birds are carnivores, the adults regularly carry dead or dying creatures to the nest to feed their offspring. The blood and decomposing flesh of these prey items attract a steady stream of insects and bacteria that have the capacity to weaken and kill the young birds. By using the green plants that they do, the adult raptors protect their offspring in what is probably the first-known ornithological case of preventative medicine and maybe even antibiotics.

Compared to the trees of the temperate forest, the chemical composition of rainforest tree leaves is relatively unstudied. In MacDonald’s study, he noted that antibacterial compounds had already been isolated from the leaves of one of these plant species before he began his study. Similar investigations of whether tropical birds employ local leaves for repellent and/or antibacterial purposes are now under way. But Neil Rettig, the foremost authority on the world’s largest eagle, the Amazonian harpy, has already observed these magnificent creatures applying live branches of the giant Mora tree in their nests in a similar fashion. And what might be an insect repellent for the birds might conceivably one day prove to be a safe and effective insect repellent or antibiotic for us.

If we can find new painkillers from frogs, new stimulants from porcupines, new antiparasitics from penguins, new antibiotics from chimps, and new contraceptives from wooly spider monkeys, what else might be out there, in the forest, on the prairie, or inside the coral reef, being used by local species and awaiting our discovery of its benefit to our own species? What might have already been lost? When the Portuguese first arrived on the eastern shores of Brazil almost 500 years ago, the population of muriqui monkeys probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Now their population has been reduced to a few hundred individuals, and more than 90 percent of their once magnificent rainforests has been destroyed.

Who knows what we lost, either in terms of the actual chemicals, the species that produced them, or the primate knowledge of how to use them — not only for their benefit but, potentially, for ours as well?

Excerpted and adapted from Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets by Mark J. Plotkin. Copyright © 2000 by Mark J. Plotkin. Excerpted by permission of Viking Adult, an imprint of Penguin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Published on October 13, 2021 07:15

The Hidden Knowledge of Animals — Mark Plotkin on Nature’s Medicine Cabinet (#537)

Mark Plotkin, smiling, holds up a toad, Bufo marinus, in his hand while standing in lush grass somewhere in Suriname.

Bufo marinus from Suriname Credit: Mark J. Plotkin

“The study of how animals use plants for medicinal purposes is termed ‘zoopharmacognosy,’ but our observation of this phenomenon is, without question, an ancient practice. Who has not watched a dog swallow grass to induce vomiting when the animal has eaten something unhealthy it wishes to regurgitate?”
— Dr. Mark Plotkin

This special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show features Dr. Mark Plotkin (@DocMarkPlotkin) .

Mark is an ethnobotanist who serves as president of the Amazon Conservation Team, which has partnered with ~80 tribes to map and improve management and protection of ~100 million acres of ancestral rainforests. He is best known to the general public as the author of the book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, one of the most popular books ever written about the rainforest. His most recent book is The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know. You can find my first interview with Mark at tim.blog/MarkPlotkin.

He is also the host of the Plants of the Gods podcast, through which you can learn about everything from hallucinogenic snuffs to the diverse formulations of curare (a plant mixture which relaxes the muscles of the body and leads to asphyxiation), and much, much more.

Today’s episode focuses on how animals use medicinal plants, and it has some wild stories featuring cows, penguins, pigs, frogs, and everything in between. It’s pulled from a chapter in Mark’s book Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets. I loved the chapter, and I asked Mark if he’d be willing to record it in audio to share it with you all. He agreed and here we are.

Please enjoy!

If you prefer to read the chapter, you can find the full text here.

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

Brought to you by BlockFi crypto platform and UCAN endurance products powered by SuperStarch®. More on both below.

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear my first conversation with Dr. Mark Plotkin? Lend your ears to our discussion about Richard Evans Schultes as a “trickster” in the shamanic tradition, how a shaman in the northeastern part of the Amazon cured Mark’s foot pain instantly when no one else could, the “holes” in Western medicine’s understanding, hallucinogenic frogs, the risks of ayahuasca and other Amazon-derived hallucinogens, and much more.

#469: Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ethnobotany, Real vs. Fake Shamans, Hallucinogens, and the Dalai Lamas of South AmericaSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Dr. Mark Plotkin:

Website | Plants of the Gods Podcast

Amazon Conservation Team | Twitter | Facebook

Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest by Mark J. Plotkin | Amazon The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know by Mark J. Plotkin | Amazon Plants of the Gods — Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ayahuasca, Shamanic Knowledge, the Curse and Blessing of Coca, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #508 Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ethnobotany, Real vs. Fake Shamans, Hallucinogens, and the Dalai Lamas of South America | The Tim Ferriss Show #469 Dr. Jane Goodall — The Legend, The Lessons, The Hope | The Tim Ferriss Show #421 How the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis Explains Our Taste for Liquor | The Atlantic Aimoré (Botocudo) | Wikipedia Tupiniquim | Wikipedia What Monkeys Chew to Choose Their Children’s Sex | New Scientist Animal Heal Thyself | National Wildlife Federation What Is Applied Zoopharmacognosy? | Caroline Ingraham Complications in Interpreting the Chemical Defenses of Trees Against Tropical Arboreal Plant-Eating Vertebrates by D.H. Janzen | Smithsonian Institution Sweet Clover Poisoning | Iowa Beef Center The Clot Thickens | Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, & Letters Puffer Fish Sushi: How Fugu Kills You | Delishably Tetrodotoxin in Octopus | The Malacological Society of London All About the Poison Dart Frog: Weird and Wonderful Facts | Blue Planet Aquarium Dart Frogs in Palolo Valley | Oahu Realty Frogs’ Unusual Diet for Longer Life: A Medley of Toxins | The New York Times Aspilia spp. Leaves: A Puzzle in the Feeding Behavior of Wild Chimpanzees by R.W. Wrangham and T. Nishida | Primates Current Evidence for Self-Medication in Primates: A Multidisciplinary Perspective by Michael A. Huffman | American Journal of Physical Anthropology Animal Self-Medication and Ethno-Medicine: Exploration and Exploitation of the Medicinal Properties of Plants by Michael A. Huffman | Proceedings of the Nutrition Society Curious George Classic Collection by H.A. Rey | Amazon Tongwe in Tanzania | Joshua Project The Self-Medicating Animal | The New York Times Arecoline | Wikipedia Love the Fig | The New Yorker Elephants Might Be Able to Self-Medicate to Induce Labor | Gizmodo Self-Medicative Behavior in the African Great Apes: An Evolutionary Perspective into the Origins of Human Traditional Medicine by Michael A. Huffman | BioScience Maroons | Minority Rights Group Shamans vs. Synthetics | The Scientist Magazine Self-Medication in Animals by Jacobus de Roode | Science The Origins and Ancient History of Wine | University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Birds Use Cigarette Butts for Chemical Warfare against Ticks | New Scientist Amaranth | Wikipedia CMC Biology Professor Says Bears Self-Medicate | Steamboat Pilot & Today Coatimundi (Coati): Species Profile | Spruce Pets Anointing Variation across Wild Capuchin Populations: A Review of Material Preferences, Bout Frequency and Anointing Sociality in Cebus and Sapajus | American Journal of Primatology Possible Insect Repellent Function of Green Leaves Placed on Nests by Hawks by Bradley A. McDonald et al. | Ripon College Hatching Synchrony, Green Branch Collecting, and Prey Use by Nesting Harpy Eagles (Harpia Harpyja) | The Wilson Journal of OrnithologySUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHYAcosta, William. Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees: A Close-up Look at Chemical Warfare and Signals in Animals and Plants . Addison-Wesley, 1997.Cowen, Ron. “Medicine on the Wild Side.” Science News, vol. 138, no. 18, 1990, p. 280., https://doi.org/10.2307/3974722.Engel, Cindy. Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn from Them . Phoenix, 2003.Huffman, Michael A. “Animal Self-Medication and Ethno-Medicine: Exploration and Exploitation of the Medicinal Properties of Plants.” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 62, no. 2, 2003, pp. 371–381., https://doi.org/10.1079/pns2003257.Huffman, Michael A. “Current Evidence for Self-Medication in Primates: A Multidisciplinary Perspective.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 104, no. S25, 1997, pp. 171–200., https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(1997)25+%3C171::AID-AJPA7%3E3.0.CO;2-7.Ingraham, Caroline. Animal Self-Medication: How Animals Heal Themselves Using Essential Oils, Herbs and Minerals . Ingraham Trading Ltd, 2019.Link, K. P. “The Discovery of Dicumarol and Its Sequels.” Circulation, vol. 19, no. 1, 1959, pp. 97–107., https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.19.1.97.Montgomery, Sy. Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas . Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009.Plotkin, Mark J. Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets . Penguin Books, 2001.Strier, Karen B. Faces in the Forest: The Endangered Muriqui Monkeys of Brazil . Harvard University Press, 1999.Strier, Karen B. Primate Behavioral Ecology . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.SHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

Why Dr. Jane Goodall — contrary to the policy of many other field biologists — names the chimps she studies, and why human beings might be later to the party of medicinal plant wisdom than some of the species with whom we share the wildernesses of the world.All the commercial medicines derived from the rainforests of Africa, Asia, and the Americas were initially extracted from plants observed in use by local tribespeople. Without indigenous people to guide us, how can we best determine which plants merit laboratory investigation? Look to the animals.The mariqui monkeys of Brazil seem to understand that eating certain plants will keep them free of parasites, and other plants act as birth control.Female howler monkeys in Central America appear to control whether their offspring will be male or female by plants they choose to eat around time of copulation.On zoopharmacognosy, barfing dogs, and how bleeding cattle led to the development of several blockbuster drugs.Some animals (like the pufferfish) ingest and store toxic compounds to use in their own defense. Some sushi lovers roll the dice anyway.Why do Ugandan chimpanzees seek out the Aspilia daisy? Did the local humans learn to use it for its medicinal properties by observing these chimps?Even if animals lead us to discover compounds too toxic for humans, they’re often a boon to the veterinarian’s medicine bag.Some plants harbor compounds potentially useful both for human and veterinary medicine: consider the noble fig.Pregnant elephants and Kenyan women know a thing or two about the borage tree.Do sick African crested porcupines really use a root called mulengelele to expel parasites? Are fish stunned by nekoe stems excreted by tapirs? Or are these just folk tales?Do we conclude that chimpanzees use medicinal plants more than other creatures because they’re what we’re most attracted to observing? If this is the case, what have we been missing?Have these animal-plant interactions only been observed in the tropics?How coatimundis and capuchins vex vermin.Even birds do it.Parting thoughts on what may come from further study, and a lament over what’s already been lost.MORE MARK PLOTKIN QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE

“American aviators preparing to fly over the jungles of Indochina during the Second World War were taught that the best way to survive if shot down was to ‘eat what the monkeys eat.’ While the overarching value of this advice was probably psychological (some monkeys have chambered stomachs capable of digesting leaves that would poison and possibly kill a human), this recommendation may ironically prove more beneficial for medicinal purposes.”
— Dr. Mark Plotkin

“If we can find new painkillers from frogs, new stimulants from porcupines, new antiparasitics from penguins, new antibiotics from chimps, and new contraceptives from wooly spider monkeys, what else might be out there, in the forest, on the prairie, or inside the coral reef, being used by local species and awaiting our discovery of its benefit to our own species?”
— Dr. Mark Plotkin

“When the Portuguese first arrived on the eastern shores of Brazil almost 500 years ago, the population of muriqui monkeys probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Now their population has been reduced to a few hundred individuals, and more than 90 percent of their once magnificent rainforests has been destroyed. Who knows what we lost, either in terms of the actual chemicals, the species that produced them, or the primate knowledge of how to use them, not only for their benefit but, potentially, for ours as well?”
— Dr. Mark Plotkin

“Though pomegranate root bark is known to contain an alkaloid that kills tapeworms, neither the pig nor the pomegranate is native to Mexico; the Spanish conquistadors brought both to the New World. The pigs nonetheless selectively seek out and consume the roots of this tree as their ancestors once did in the Old World.”
— Dr. Mark Plotkin

“The study of how animals use plants for medicinal purposes is termed ‘zoopharmacognosy, but our observation of this phenomenon is, without question, an ancient practice. Who has not watched a dog swallow grass to induce vomiting when the animal has eaten something unhealthy it wishes to regurgitate?”
— Dr. Mark Plotkin

PEOPLE MENTIONEDJane Goodall Karen Strier Kenneth Earl Glander Daniel Janzen Karl Paul Link Eugene Wilhelm Schoeffel Johann Wolfgang von Goethe William Shakespeare John Daly Richard W. Wrangham Michael A. Huffman H.A. Rey Henry Morton Stanley David Livingstone Holly Dublin Jacobus de Roode Shawn Sigstedt Neil Rettig

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Published on October 12, 2021 13:09

Diana Chapman — How to Get Unstuck, Do “The Work,” Take Radical Responsibility, and Reduce Drama in Your Life (#536)

Illustration via 99designs

“Anything other than a ‘whole-body yes’ is a no.”
— Diana Chapman

Diana Chapman is a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and a co-author of the book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Her passion is to help organizational leaders and their teams eliminate drama in the workplace and beyond. She has worked with more than 1,000 CEOs and is a well-respected facilitator for the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), working with their forums and chapters worldwide.

She has been a speaker at TEDx, Mindful Leadership Summit, Wisdom 2.0, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and more.

When Diana is not with her clients, she can often be found gardening at her suburban homestead in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. She lives there with her husband of over 30 years.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Tonal smart home gym, and BlockFi crypto platform. More on all three below.

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

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This episode is brought to you by BlockFi! BlockFi is building a bridge between cryptocurrencies and traditional financial and wealth-management products. I became excited enough about this company that I ended up becoming an investor.

Their BlockFi Rewards Visa® Signature Credit Card provides an easy way to earn more Bitcoin because you can earn 3.5% in Bitcoin back on all purchases in your first 3 months and 1.5% forever after, with no annual fee. BlockFi also lets you easily buy or sell cryptocurrencies. For a limited time, you can earn a crypto bonus of $15–$250 in value when you open a new account. Get started today at BlockFi.com/Tim and use code TIM at sign up.

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost.

Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world’s most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the most advanced strength studio on the market today. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and AI learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using AI, and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.

Try Tonal , the world’s smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don’t love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM100 at checkout.

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear an episode with Diana’s Conscious Leadership Group Co-Founder? Listen to my conversation with Jim Dethmer, in which we discuss coping with stressful and disturbing thoughts, avoiding drama-based conflict in close relationships, becoming emotionally literate, accepting radical responsibility, co-commitment over codependence, and much more.

#434: Jim Dethmer — How to Shift from Victim Consciousness, Reduce Drama, Practice Candor, Be Fully Alive, and More15 COMMITMENTS REMINDERS QUESTIONS

Step 1 Download one of these two reminder apps
Mind Jogger (iOS) Download
Randomly RemindMe (Android) Download

Step 2 Set one or more reminders from the 15 Commitments Questions list below
Mind Jogger: open the app and click the plus “+” sign to set a reminder.
Randomly RemindMe: view the tutorial here.

Step 3 Decide how often you want the app to notify you (be honest!)
Make an agreement with yourself that when the reminder pops up, you’ll check in with yourself and consider the question with your head, heart, and body. You can add your name to the beginning of each question to personalize it or not. We recommend asking the question between three to seven times a day.

Step 4 Switch to new question/s
When you’re naturally integrating the question/s into your daily practice, change the question/s to build more awareness in other areas. Consider starting with one question for a week, starting at the top of the list, and then replace it with a question from the next commitment the following week.

15 Commitments Questions

General
Where are you? Are you above or below the line?

Commitment 1
Are you taking 100% responsibility right now? (no more and no less) Are you blaming or complaining about anyone or anything?

Commitment 2
Are you wanting to be right about anything right now?

Commitment 3
What feeling/s are you feeling right now? Where do you feel them in your body?

Commitment 4
Is there anything that you’re concealing right now from anyone? Do you have any withholds right now?
Are you willing to tell the complete truth right now?

Commitment 5
Are you gossiping instead of communicating directly to the person with whom you have an issue?
Are you asking others to communicate their issues directly?

Commitment 6
Do you have a whole body yes to what you’re doing right now? Are there any agreements that are not clear, that you’ve broken, or someone has broken with you?

Commitment 7
What do you appreciate right now? Who do you appreciate right now? Consider sharing it with them right now.

Commitment 8
Are you in your zone of genius, excellence, competence, or incompetence right now?

Commitment 9
How can you get into a state of play right now? How can you rest for at least 30 seconds right now?

Commitment 10
How could you see the opposite of a story you’re believing right now?

Commitment 11
Are you willing to source your approval, control, and security from within right now?

Commitment 12
Are you experiencing enough of everything right now, especially time? Reminder: Keep your attention out of the past and future.

Commitment 13
Are you willing to see everyone and everything in front of you as an ally right now? How are they
perfectly suited for your learning and growth?

Commitment 14
How can you create a win-for-all right now with no compromise?

Commitment 15
What do you see as missing around you? Are you willing to be that right now?

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with the Conscious Leadership Group:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp | Amazon Q&A with Diana Chapman on Conscious Leadership | Criteo Hendricks Institute Karpman Drama Triangle | Wikipedia Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss | Amazon Jim Dethmer — How to Shift from Victim Consciousness, Reduce Drama, Practice Candor, Be Fully Alive, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #434 Mind Those Q’s | Think Shift Whole Body Yes | The Conscious Leadership Group Miracle (2004) | Prime Video The Work of Byron Katie Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide | Tim Ferriss Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month | Tim Ferriss Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione | Amazon Mind Jogger for iOS | LeStro’s Apps How to Assess Self-Awareness in a Hiring Interview | Conscious Leadership Group Blog The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks | Amazon Conscious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment by Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks | Amazon The Genius Zone: The Breakthrough Process to End Negative Thinking and Live in True Creativity by Gay Hendricks | AmazonSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

What gift from Diana’s brother-in-law turned her from a scrapbooking stay-at-home mom into someone who inspires self-made billionaires like Dustin Moskovitz?What is the Drama Triangle, why is it called this, and how might someone use it?What is the whole-body yes (or no), and how can it serve us?Diana guides us through an experience designed to help us pay better attention to our whole-body yes (or no).An inventory of observations I made during this exercise, and how Diana recommends using this inventory.How might someone who mutes their desire to celebrate as a way to protect against disappointment foster more playfulness in their life? As an aside, is this playfulness intrinsic to Diana, or did she have to develop it?Diana’s business partner says she has a “black belt in practicing candor” and knows how to apply loving pressure. How did one of her best-remembered voicemail messages illustrate this?How does Diana think about loving pressure, and how does she recommend bringing it into a relationship?In what way might you apply loving pressure to a person or group of people you don’t know very well?How does Diana guide someone through the kind of introspection that leads to life-changing perspective shifts? In what ways does she use Byron Katie’s “turnarounds” as a valuable part of her toolkit?Diana guides me through a turnaround.An aside: A turnaround isn’t designed to invalidate the inspected belief (because parts of it might serve a purpose), but to identify and embrace alternatives.Processing the belief on an intellectual level is just part of the equation. Here’s why introducing the somatic into the picture is crucial, and what Diana suggests to do if you’re having trouble with this step.Who is the witness, and how do they figure into this process?Walking the line.What it means to welcome the opportunity of learning from the experience (even if it’s not the preferred experience).This isn’t necessarily the best tool to use if you’re dysregulated in the moment. Here are some other suggestions.What risks have Diana and her husband Matt been willing to take in order to keep the relationship alive and vital, growing, and intimate? Who initiated the first difficult conversation necessary for change to happen?During this time, how did Diana figure out who she needed to be?How can a couple in such a position be prepared to navigate these kinds of decision points together?Examples of commitments as outlined in The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.What is the Mind Jogger app, and how does Diana use it with the commitments?How assessing self-awareness in a hiring interview can be applied to situations that have nothing to do with a job hunt.Books most gifted.Parting thoughts.MORE DIANA CHAPMAN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I feel pretty heartbroken these days about the drama that is happening amongst us. And I’m actually grateful for the heartbreak because it’s helping me connect more with love. “
— Diana Chapman

“I have a preference for a lot more play and creativity and togetherness and curiosity that I find when we drop the drama.”
— Diana Chapman

“If we start to drop into the body and pay attention, it’s got a lot of guidance for us, as does our emotions, as does our intellect.”
— Diana Chapman

“Anything other than a whole-body yes is a no.”
— Diana Chapman

“One of the easiest, quickest forms of play is to exaggerate where you’re at. So make wherever you’re at bigger.”
— Diana Chapman

“Don’t have any expectations.”
— Diana Chapman

PEOPLE MENTIONEDDustin Moskovitz Gay Hendricks Katie Hendricks Stephen Karpman Jim Dethmer Byron Katie Matt Chapman

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Published on October 06, 2021 07:41

General Stanley McChrystal — Mastering Risk: A User’s Guide (#535)

Artist's rendering of General Stanley McChrystal.

Illustration via 99designs

“The idea that we want to mitigate risk to zero before we act is really common and really costly.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

General Stanley McChrystal (@stanmcchrystal) was called “one of America’s greatest warriors” by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Having held leadership and staff positions in the Army Special Forces, Army Rangers, 82nd Airborne Division, the XVIII Army Airborne Corp, and the Joint Staff, McChrystal became commander of JSOC in 2003, responsible for leading the nation’s deployed military counterterrorism efforts around the globe. His leadership is credited with the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein and the 2006 locating and killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In June 2009, McChrystal received his fourth star and assumed command of all international forces in Afghanistan.

General McChrystal founded the McChrystal Group in January 2011, an advisory services firm that helps businesses challenge the hierarchical “command and control” approach to organizational management.

He is a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he teaches a course on leadership, and he is the author of the bestselling leadership books My Share of the Task: A Memoir; Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World; and Leaders: Myth and Reality. His new book is Risk: A User’s Guide. He is also the co-host (with former Navy SEAL Chris Fussell) of the No Turning Back podcast, where they explore the future of leadership and teams with the world’s most consequential leaders.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by Kettle & Fire high quality, tasty, and conveniently packaged bone broths; Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating; and ShipStation shipping software. More on all three below.

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#535: General Stanley McChrystal — Mastering Risk: A User's Guide

This episode is brought to you by Kettle & Fire! Kettle & Fire makes one of the highest quality, tastiest, and most conveniently packaged bone broths on the market, and I have a huge collection of their broths on my kitchen counter for easy access. I’ve been a fan ever since 2015, when podcast guest and ketogenesis expert Dr. Dominic D’Agostino introduced me to the company. Their products fit me and my lifestyle extremely well: bone broth is a great ‘one-stop shop’ for low-carb, high-protein nutrition, and bone broth makes an excellent lower-calorie breakfast that requires no prep.

It’s one of the simplest ways to get many of the nutrients I need, and I simply feel better when broth is a regular part of my diet. You can save 25% off your order by going to KettleAndFire.com/Tim and using code TIM at checkout.

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Tim Ferriss Show listeners get to try ShipStation free for 60 days by using promo code TIM. There’s no risk, and you can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in TIM!

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And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM.

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear the first time General Stanley McChrystal joined me on the show? Listen in on our conversation in which we discussed his exercise regimen, why he only eats one meal per day, the development of mental toughness, tactical and psychological lessons of combat, self-talk before and after difficult engagements, favorite books and documentaries, and much more.

#86: General Stan McChrystal on Eating One Meal Per Day, Special Ops, and Mental ToughnessSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with General Stanley McChrystal:

McChrystal Group | Twitter

Risk: A User’s Guide by Stanley McChrystal and Anna Butrico | Amazon Leaders: Myth and Reality by Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone | Amazon Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell | Amazon My Share of the Task: A Memoir by Stanley McChrystal | Amazon No Turning Back Podcast Serve America. Together.General Stan McChrystal on Anti-War Americans, Pushing Your Limits, and The Three Military Tests You Should Take | The Tim Ferriss Show #88 General Stan McChrystal on Eating One Meal Per Day, Special Ops, and Mental Toughness | The Tim Ferriss Show #86 Stanley McChrystal: ‘I Think I Am at Peace’ | Financial Times We Now Know Why Biden Was in a Hurry to Exit Afghanistan | Slate Taliban Official: Strict Punishment, Executions Will Return | AP News Chanel No. 5 Perfume: Is It Worth the Hype? | Byrdie Voting Rights Act (1965) | Our Documents Disney’s Snow White: The Risk That Changed Filmmaking Forever | Den of Geek Amazon’s Jeff Bezos on the Fire Phone: ‘We’re Working on Much Bigger Failures Right Now’ | Geek Wire Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color | Fandom Annie Duke | No Turning Back Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke | Amazon Isoroku Yamamoto 5 Things You Might Not Know About the Battle of Midway | History Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich | Amazon Remember the Alamo | The Alamo Did 300 Spartans Really Hold Thermopylae? | ThoughtCo.1 Samuel 17: David and Goliath | Bible Gateway After Dropping ‘Don’t Be Evil,’ Google Looks for New Words to Justify Its Military Projects | Document Journal Leadership 101: Narrow Your Say-Do Gap | Entrepreneur How Did Hitler Happen? | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans Truth Tobacco Industry Documents | UCSF Social Media Is Broken. A New Report Offers 25 Ways to Fix It | MIT Sloan ‘Crimson Contagion 2019’ Simulation Warned of Pandemic Implications in US | NBC Chicago COVID-19: Failures of Leadership, National and Global | The BMJ 3 Lessons from US COVID-19 Pandemic Response Failures | Vox What You Should Know About ‘Bitskrieg: The New Challenge of Cyberwarfare’ | Military Times What Is Red Teaming? | WhatIs.com Millennium Challenge: The Real Story of a Corrupted Military Exercise and its Legacy | War on the Rocks Seven Solutions to Climate Change That Need to Happen Now | Positive News Guide to the After Action Review | Center for Evidence-Based Management What Was It like Being Interviewed by Admiral Rickover When You Volunteered for Nuclear Submarine Duty as an Officer? | Quora Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman | Amazon 10 Facts: The Emancipation Proclamation | American Battlefield TrustSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

What are Stan’s views of the current and developing events in Afghanistan?How does Stan define risk, and why did he decide to write an entire book on the subject?How did Stan go about organizing and formatting Risk: A User’s Guide to teach people to systematically think about risk in a smarter, more informed way?Stan’s book Leaders: Myth and Reality studied 13 leaders — from Coco Chanel to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to Walt Disney. Do any stand out as particularly deft in navigating their way around risk?When considering risk, it’s important to separate the decision from the outcome (in other words, just because the outcome doesn’t turn out as hoped doesn’t necessarily mean the wrong decision was made).On narrative as a risk control factor.The risks presented by propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation.How COVID-19 illustrated (and continues to illustrate) the failure of our system’s response to what should have been an easily mitigated risk.Does Stan feel as if our system has improved as a result of this failure to be better prepared for future catastrophes? If not, what will it take to fix it?What is red teaming?What threats are we not taking seriously enough as a society?The four tests leaders and teams can use to evaluate their communication.How does someone train themselves to be more resilient to receiving candid communication — and less afraid to share it?What Stan’s looking for when gauging someone’s ability to assess risk under pressure, and how this might be applied in a civilian setting.Other people Stan considers to be excellent at navigating risk.Parting thoughts.MORE GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“The idea that we want to mitigate risk to zero before we act is really common and really costly.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

“Acting with risk is really about reducing your vulnerabilities.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

“Threat times vulnerability equals risk.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

“If we’re unable to have the normal political debate to make processes work without doing huge pendulum swings to one side or the other, then the machine isn’t working right.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

“As long as the American government and society are working, we will get dinged up with threats that will come, but we will always be able to respond. When the system isn’t working, I think we are fundamentally vulnerable to COVID-19, to potential foreign aggression, to terrorism, cybersecurity—you pick any number of threats.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

“When we are ignorant, we are vulnerable. When we are ignorant as a society, we are societally vulnerable.”
— General Stanley McChrystal

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

PEOPLE MENTIONEDRobert Gates Saddam Hussein Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Coco Chanel Walt Disney Ralph Lauren Martin Luther King, Jr.Jim Clark George Wallace John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Jeff Bezos Davy Crockett Roy O. Disney Annie Duke Ben Mezrich William Barret “Buck” Travis Sam Houston Adolf Hitler Paul Van Riper Hyman G. Rickover Daniel Kahneman Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant

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Published on September 30, 2021 06:14

Michael Dell, Founder of Dell — Early Failures, Battling Carl Icahn, Learning from the Competition, and How to Play Nice But Win (#534)

Illustration via 99designs

“You learn a lot more from your customers than you do from the competition.”
— Michael Dell

Michael Dell (@MichaelDell) is chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies, an innovator and technology leader providing the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT, and protect their most important information. He is the author of Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader.

Michael is an honorary member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and is an executive committee member of the International Business Council. In 1999, he and his wife, Susan Dell, established the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.

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#534: Michael Dell, Founder of Dell — Early Failures, Battling Carl Icahn, Learning from the Competition, and How to Play Nice But Win

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost.

Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world’s most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the most advanced strength studio on the market today. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and AI learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using AI, and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.

Try Tonal , the world’s smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don’t love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM100 at checkout.

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, to my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear another episode with an innovator who understands the value of failure? Listen in on my conversation with Sir James Dyson in which we discuss what it means to think like an engineer, how many tries it took to get a working prototype of his famous Dyson vacuum, the trials and tribulations of funding research and development, why invention is more about persistence than brilliance, experience as baggage that can get in the way, and much more.

#530: Sir James Dyson — Founder of Dyson and Master Inventor on How to Turn the Mundane into MagicSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Michael Dell:

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader by Michael Dell | Amazon Michael & Susan Dell Foundation The Gamblers Behind Tech’s Biggest Deal Ever | Fortune Tech Time Warp: Michael Dell Launches His Empire from a Dorm Room | Smarter MSP The Houston Post | Texas State Historical Association Direct From Dell: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry by Michael Dell and Catherine Fredman | Amazon 1988 Summer Olympics | Wikipedia An Overview of Dell’s Supply Chain Strategy | Dynamic Inventory Just in Time (JIT) Inventory | Investopedia The Abyss | Prime Video The Terminator | Prime Video Terminator 2: Judgment Day | Prime Video Grit Scale | Angela Duckworth 8 Signs You’re an Introvert | Verywell Mind Dell’s Big Bet: Computer Company Founder Gambling He Can Shake Up Industry Again | Austin American-Statesman Dell’s Public Journey From Private Equity Buyout To VMware Share Swap | CRN Report: Michael Dell, Silver Lake Partners to Keep Majority Stake in VMware After Spinoff | GovCon Wire Tracking Stock | Investopedia What Causes Stuttering and Is There a Cure? | Scientific American Dell’s Direct Model to Success | Gaebler VenturesSHOW NOTESHow does meatloaf figure prominently in the story of Michael’s life? [05:28]Who is Carl Icahn? [06:57]Where did the title Play Nice But Win originate? [07:53]Does playing nice make it harder to negotiate or compete against people who don’t live by such a code? [09:02]How did Michael make $18,000 selling newspaper subscriptions at age 17? What tactics did he employ to gain an edge that wouldn’t normally occur to most 17-year-olds? [10:26]During this time, were there any entrepreneurial heroes Michael looked up to? [15:07]Michael wrote his first book, Direct From Dell, in 1998. What does he feel more comfortable discussing now that he may have hesitated to share back then? [16:16]Memorable mistakes and failures — how Michael felt about them in the moment, and how they drove him to adapt. [18:03]Is the ability to be more vulnerable something that comes with age? [21:54]What considerations are especially stressful for a CEO of Michael’s stature when things don’t go according to plan, and what has gotten him through the particularly tough times? [23:15]As an introvert, how does Michael navigate his high-profile vocation? [26:23]In retrospect, would Michael have handled his company’s unsustainable early hypergrowth differently? [28:05]Michael explains what happened when Dell walked back from being publically traded to privately held — and then public once again. [29:49]What is a tracking stock? [34:16]What were the risks of going private, and how did Michael think about mitigating them? [37:28]How was the decision to go public again made? [39:12]Who was particularly helpful during the take private chapter of this experience? [41:02]The most worthwhile investments Michael has made. [42:05]How does Michael think about competition while remaining true to his Play Nice But Win ethos? [43:51]What are some common mistakes Michael sees when companies engage in a direct-to-consumer business model? [45:47]As busy as Michael already is, why did he dedicate the time and energy to write Play Nice But Win? What does he hope the reader will take away from it? [50:10]Parting thoughts. [52:17]MORE MICHAEL DELL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Failure is a key ingredient in any success.”
— Michael Dell

“You learn a lot more from your customers than you do from the competition.”
— Michael Dell

“I believe fundamentally that organizations like ours and others will be successful if they solve the future problems that customers have. If they don’t, they’ll just go out of business.”
— Michael Dell

“I have this belief that a lot of human potential is left unrealized because people are afraid to fail.”
— Michael Dell

PEOPLE MENTIONEDSusan Dell Meat Loaf Carl Icahn Charles Schwab Ted Turner Frederick W. Smith William G. McGowan Bill Gates Steve Jobs James Cameron Winston Churchill Jamie Dimon Egon Durban

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Published on September 28, 2021 06:04

Michael Dell, Founder of Dell — How to Play Nice But Win (#534)

Illustration via 99designs

“You learn a lot more from your customers than you do from the competition.”
— Michael Dell

Michael Dell (@MichaelDell) is chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies, an innovator and technology leader providing the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT, and protect their most important information. He is the author of Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader.

Michael is an honorary member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and is an executive committee member of the International Business Council. In 1999, he and his wife, Susan Dell, established the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.

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#534: Michael Dell, Founder of Dell — How to Play Nice But Winhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/f336032e-7386-404a-b5fe-6d748e484384.mp3 Download

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost.

Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world’s most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the most advanced strength studio on the market today. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and AI learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using AI, and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.

Try Tonal , the world’s smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don’t love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM100 at checkout.

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, to my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear another episode with an innovator who understands the value of failure? Listen in on my conversation with Sir James Dyson in which we discuss what it means to think like an engineer, how many tries it took to get a working prototype of his famous Dyson vacuum, the trials and tribulations of funding research and development, why invention is more about persistence than brilliance, experience as baggage that can get in the way, and much more.

#530: Sir James Dyson — Founder of Dyson and Master Inventor on How to Turn the Mundane into Magichttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/f42248b4-a289-4893-89a8-a0872c8c17db.mp3 DownloadSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Michael Dell:

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader by Michael Dell | Amazon Michael & Susan Dell Foundation The Gamblers Behind Tech’s Biggest Deal Ever | Fortune Tech Time Warp: Michael Dell Launches His Empire from a Dorm Room | Smarter MSP The Houston Post | Texas State Historical Association Direct From Dell: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry by Michael Dell and Catherine Fredman | Amazon 1988 Summer Olympics | Wikipedia An Overview of Dell’s Supply Chain Strategy | Dynamic Inventory Just in Time (JIT) Inventory | Investopedia The Abyss | Prime Video The Terminator | Prime Video Terminator 2: Judgment Day | Prime Video Grit Scale | Angela Duckworth 8 Signs You’re an Introvert | Verywell Mind Dell’s Big Bet: Computer Company Founder Gambling He Can Shake Up Industry Again | Austin American-Statesman Dell’s Public Journey From Private Equity Buyout To VMware Share Swap | CRN Report: Michael Dell, Silver Lake Partners to Keep Majority Stake in VMware After Spinoff | GovCon Wire Tracking Stock | Investopedia What Causes Stuttering and Is There a Cure? | Scientific American Dell’s Direct Model to Success | Gaebler VenturesSHOW NOTESHow does meatloaf figure prominently in the story of Michael’s life? [05:28]Who is Carl Icahn? [06:57]Where did the title Play Nice But Win originate? [07:53]Does playing nice make it harder to negotiate or compete against people who don’t live by such a code? [09:02]How did Michael make $18,000 selling newspaper subscriptions at age 17? What tactics did he employ to gain an edge that wouldn’t normally occur to most 17-year-olds? [10:26]During this time, were there any entrepreneurial heroes Michael looked up to? [15:07]Michael wrote his first book, Direct From Dell, in 1998. What does he feel more comfortable discussing now that he may have hesitated to share back then? [16:16]Memorable mistakes and failures — how Michael felt about them in the moment, and how they drove him to adapt. [18:03]Is the ability to be more vulnerable something that comes with age? [21:54]What considerations are especially stressful for a CEO of Michael’s stature when things don’t go according to plan, and what has gotten him through the particularly tough times? [23:15]As an introvert, how does Michael navigate his high-profile vocation? [26:23]In retrospect, would Michael have handled his company’s unsustainable early hypergrowth differently? [28:05]Michael explains what happened when Dell walked back from being publically traded to privately held — and then public once again. [29:49]What is a tracking stock? [34:16]What were the risks of going private, and how did Michael think about mitigating them? [37:28]How was the decision to go public again made? [39:12]Who was particularly helpful during the take private chapter of this experience? [41:02]The most worthwhile investments Michael has made. [42:05]How does Michael think about competition while remaining true to his Play Nice But Win ethos? [43:51]What are some common mistakes Michael sees when companies engage in a direct-to-consumer business model? [45:47]As busy as Michael already is, why did he dedicate the time and energy to write Play Nice But Win? What does he hope the reader will take away from it? [50:10]Parting thoughts. [52:17]MORE MICHAEL DELL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Failure is a key ingredient in any success.”
— Michael Dell

“You learn a lot more from your customers than you do from the competition.”
— Michael Dell

“I believe fundamentally that organizations like ours and others will be successful if they solve the future problems that customers have. If they don’t, they’ll just go out of business.”
— Michael Dell

“I have this belief that a lot of human potential is left unrealized because people are afraid to fail.”
— Michael Dell

PEOPLE MENTIONEDSusan Dell Meat Loaf Carl Icahn Charles Schwab Ted Turner Frederick W. Smith William G. McGowan Bill Gates Steve Jobs James Cameron Winston Churchill Jamie Dimon Egon Durban

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Published on September 28, 2021 06:04

Paul Conti, MD — How Trauma Works and How to Heal from It (#533)

Illustration via 99designs

“We can feel helpless and the world can seem hopeless. And that’s not the case.”
— Paul Conti, MD

Paul Conti, MD is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatry training at Stanford and at Harvard, where he was appointed chief resident and then served on the medical faculty before moving to Portland and founding a clinic.

Dr. Conti specializes in complex assessment and problem-solving, as well as both health and performance optimization, serving patients and clients throughout the United States and internationally, including the executive leadership of large corporations. His new book is Trauma, the Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel, BlockFi crypto platform, and Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement. More on all three below.

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#533: Paul Conti, MD — How Trauma Works and How to Heal from Ithttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/63afb0e8-7ece-4dcd-b13f-c2d14a5f9c9d.mp3 Download

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear another episode that outlines effective paradigms for dealing with trauma and addiction? Listen to my conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté, in which we discuss investigating the causes rather than the consequences of addiction, the therapeutic value of psychedelics (including the right way and the wrong way to experience ayahuasca), why some powerful modalities aren’t for everyone, and much more.

#298: Dr. Gabor Maté — New Paradigms, Ayahuasca, and Redefining Addictionhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/a0c1eace-43ca-4a95-8076-0f33ab872641.mp3 DownloadSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Dr. Paul Conti:

Website

Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It by Paul Conti, MD | Amazon Delivering Quality Mental Health Solutions | Pacific Premier Group Types of Trauma | Your Experiences Matter Trauma Symptom Inventory | Wikipedia My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse (Includes Extensive Resource List) | The Tim Ferriss Show #464 The Bridge to Recovery Dr. Gabor Maté — New Paradigms, Ayahuasca, and Redefining Addiction | The Tim Ferriss Show #298 What Is Internal Family Systems? | IFS Institute Richard Schwartz — IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs, and Finding Inner Peace for Our Many Parts | The Tim Ferriss Show #492 What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)? | American Psychological Association What Is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)? | Verywell Mind The World’s Largest Psychedelic Research Center | The Tim Ferriss Show #385 What Is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)? | EMDR Institute Hypervigilance Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment | Healthline WWII Post Traumatic Stress | The National WWII Museum Selective Abstraction | Wikipedia Understanding the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon | Healthline What Is the Salience Bias? | The Decision Lab What Is Learned Helplessness and Why Does it Happen? | Verywell Mind MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy | MAPS Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (Resources) | Tim Ferriss Marcus Raichle on the Default Mode Network | VPRO Labyrint TV Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Symptoms and Causes | Mayo Clinic Psychedelics as Antidepressants | Scientific American What Is Hypermnesia? | Psychology Dictionary Chlorpromazine | Drugs.com Lithium | Drugs.com Should We All Take a Bit of Lithium? | The New York Times Trazodone | Drugs.com Dopamine Receptor D2 | Wikipedia Diathesis–Stress Model | APA Dictionary of Psychology National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk | AmazonSHOW NOTESHow did Paul end up in psychiatry? [06:29]Who wrote the foreword to Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic? [10:18]What is Paul’s personal history with trauma? [11:07]How does Paul suggest people think about and define the word “trauma?” How do certain subsets of trauma differ from one another? [16:54]How might someone take the first step in dealing with trauma that places itself in the forefront and makes it difficult to focus on anything else? [19:20]What does Paul think of the current state of trauma treatment? In what ways does it fail, and how can it be improved? [26:16]If we’re not doing a good job in the US, where can the most effective trauma treatment be found? [28:39]What does it take to really unearth the causes (and ideal treatment) of trauma beyond applying the imperfect trauma symptom inventory? [30:08]The good, the bad, and the ugly within the skill set of treating trauma. [32:45]“We shouldn’t ask why the addiction, we should ask why the pain.” -Dr. Gabor Maté [38:36]Modalities, frameworks, and tools that Paul has found to be particularly helpful in working with individuals who have trauma in their background. [41:29]Antidotes for hypervigilance. [46:34]What most helped Paul come to terms with his brother’s death by suicide, and how did it set the course for him to start medical school at age 25? [54:42]What is the basic structure of Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic? [1:00:09]Paul shares his favorite story from the book. [1:04:00]What is selective abstraction? [1:07:01]How might trauma promote learned helplessness that can push someone toward further trauma and even death? [1:09:47]What does Paul think about the use (and potential for abuse) of psychedelics in treating trauma? [1:12:39]With a number of arrows in the quiver, as Paul says, how does he prioritize options when treating someone for trauma? Might empathogens be included among these options? [1:19:12]An instance when Paul might prescribe an anti-psychotic (and what he finds objectionable about this name). [1:26:31]How can chlorpromazine (Thorazine) be helpful in these cases? [1:29:34]The most helpful way to approach lithium as a treatment. [1:33:11]What about trazodone? Does it carry any addictive or psychological risks? [1:37:21]Dopamine as a currency of distress. [1:40:09]What is a diathesis–stress model? [1:40:47]Credible resources recommended for listeners interested in learning more about trauma. [1:43:09]Parting thoughts. [1:45:25]MORE PAUL CONTI QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Dopamine is like a currency. People say, ‘What does dopamine do?’ It’s like saying, ‘What does a dollar do?’ It depends on where we’re spending it.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“We can feel helpless and the world can seem hopeless. And that’s not the case.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“If you’re not getting help the first, second, third time, keep trying. There’s help there to be had.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“Vicarious trauma comes from, really, this wonderful fact that we can be empathic and empathically attuned to other people and we can feel what they’re feeling. That’s a wonderful thing that we can do that for one another, but it also makes us so susceptible to other people’s suffering and pain.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“We’ve evolved a system that purveys mental healthcare largely without attention to the actual human being. And this is a huge problem.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“If we just take symptoms, we will get it wrong.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“A person should be able to talk about what’s going on inside of them because it’s burying those unhealthy seeds, so to speak, that then compounds original trauma into something that can end up being far, far worse with a whole cascade of problems.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“There’s so much that gets compounded when the original trauma gets pushed outside of consciousness and outside of communication.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“More pain and suffering means people are more likely to repeat maladaptive patterns that lead them to more trauma.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

“If trauma arouses shame, then the trauma itself immediately alters our perception mechanisms that we can use to understand the trauma and navigate our way through it.”
— Dr. Paul Conti

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

PEOPLE MENTIONEDPeter Attia Lady Gaga Gabor Maté Leah Lagos Bessel van der Kolk

View more on Timothy Ferriss's website »

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Published on September 22, 2021 07:23

Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project — How to Navigate Hard Conversations, the Subtle Art of Apologizing, and a Powerful 60-Day Challenge (#532)

Illustration via 99designs

“The first negotiation is really a negotiation with yourself to move from being focused on what I’m right about and you’re wrong about to getting curious about why we see this so differently.”
— Sheila Heen

Sheila Heen is a New York Times best-selling author, founder of Triad Consulting Group, and a deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School, where she has been a member of the faculty for 25 years. Sheila specializes in particularly difficult negotiations, where emotions run high and relationships become strained. She often works with executive teams, helping them to resolve conflict, repair professional relationships, and make sound decisions together. In the public sector, she has provided training for the New England Organ Bank, the Singapore Supreme Court, the Obama White House, and theologians struggling with disagreement over the nature of truth and God.

Sheila is co-author of the New York Times bestsellers Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most and Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (even when it’s off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and, frankly, you’re not in the mood). She has written for the Harvard Business Review and the New York Times—as a guest expert and contributor to the “Modern Love” column—and she has appeared on NPR, Fox News, CNBC’s Power Lunch, and shows as diverse as Oprah and The G. Gordon Liddy Show. She has spoken at the Global Leadership Summit, the Nordic Business Forum, the Smithsonian, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Sheila is a graduate of Occidental College and Harvard Law School. She is schooled in negotiation daily by her three children.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 750M users, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Public Goods high-quality everyday essentials. More on all three below.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#532: Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project — How to Navigate Hard Conversations, the Subtle Art of Apologizing, and a Powerful 60-Day Challengehttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/b182b402-07f6-4d58-89a8-539b81f7406f.mp3 Download

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

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear another episode with someone who understands the value of resisting the victim mindset? Listen to my conversation with Jim Dethmer, in which we discuss coping with stressful and disturbing thoughts, avoiding drama-based conflict in close relationships, becoming emotionally literate, accepting radical responsibility, cocommitment over codependence, and much more.

#434: Jim Dethmer — How to Shift from Victim Consciousness, Reduce Drama, Practice Candor, Be Fully Alive, and Morehttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/69f8a609-c098-40d9-bc09-e8ae89361f1f.mp3 DownloadSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Sheila Heen:

Triad Consulting Group Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen | Amazon Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen | Amazon Harvard Memorial Church | Harvard University Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton | Amazon Occidental College Harvard Negotiation Project | Harvard Law School Dysregulation: Definition, Symptoms, Traits, Causes, Treatment | Verywell Mind The 6 Things That Predict Divorce | The Gottman Institute Anne Lamott on Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer | The Tim Ferriss Show #522 Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) | Investopedia Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations by William Ury | Amazon Ladder of Inference | Wikipedia Moving from Blame to Joint Contribution | Global Leadership Network 11 Expert Tips to Stop Being a People Pleaser (with Science) | Science of People Study Shows Evidence of Severe and Lingering Symptoms in Some after Treatment for Lyme Disease | Johns Hopkins Medicine Imago Relationships What is Internal Family Systems? | IFS Institute The And Stance: How and Why | Likability Matters, Coursera What is “Parts” Therapy? Internal Family Systems Explained | Integrative Psychotherapy Mental Health Blog Richard Schwartz — IFS, Psychedelic Experiences without Drugs, and Finding Inner Peace for Our Many Parts | The Tim Ferriss Show #492 Sheila Heen: How to Use Others’ Feedback to Learn and Grow | TEDx Talks Sheila Heen: Blame Absorbing vs. Blame Shifting | Thought Capital Jim Dethmer — How to Shift from Victim Consciousness, Reduce Drama, Practice Candor, Be Fully Alive, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #434 Karpman Drama Triangle | Wikipedia The Conscious Leadership Group Rashomon (English Subtitled) | Prime Video Shattered Glass | Prime Video Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | Prime VideoSHOW NOTESWho was Roger Fisher? [06:35]How did Sheila enter the scene with respect to negotiation and conflict resolution, and what did she love about it? [09:13]Sheila shares the story about the time she went to renew her passport in Los Angeles and how it informed her contribution to Difficult Conversations. [11:28]What are the three categories of difficult conversations, and what is the underlying structure they have in common? [16:13]How understanding the underlying structure of these three conversations helps you find your way if one doesn’t go as planned. [25:36]How can we convey genuine curiosity in these conversations without unintentionally coming off as condescending? What if this isn’t the first time this conversation has happened and it’s getting heated? [28:25]Sometimes the person with whom you’re conversing is just seeing things from a vastly different perspective. Sheila shares a personal story. [38:13]When a disconnect like this seems evident, how can each party come to a better understanding of where the other is coming from? [41:45]What is a statement against interest, and how can it be used? [46:28]A good apology versus a bad apology: what’s the difference? [48:37]Rewriting the scripts for bad apologies — particularly when each party has very different ideas about conflict resolution and resilience. [58:00]What does it mean to “give voice to the parts?” [1:15:39]What are first, second, and third position skills, and what does it mean to step into the third position? [1:16:51]The importance of setting expectations about — and learning over time — how the people in your life behave (this includes you). [1:21:22]What would Sheila’s best self say to her business partner and co-author in the midst of collaborating on a book’s third edition after a flare-up? [1:22:35]In personal and professional relationships, we often have feedback for the other about how we think they need to change. But what if we present obstacles as shared problems? [1:28:09]Blame-absorbers versus blame-shifters. [1:30:05]Heroes, villains, and victims. [1:34:21]Parting thoughts. [1:43:08]Additional post-game thoughts from Sheila about the question that plays like background music to many difficult conversations, how to avoid making every difficult conversation a spring cleaning when your relationship simply needs some light spot-dusting, and a 60-day experiment. [1:46:27]MORE SHEILA HEEN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Some people have trouble with some conversations, and the same conversation is easy for someone else. And it’s partly because of whatever the story is that you tell about yourself and who you are trying to be.”
— Sheila Heen

“The first negotiation is really a negotiation with yourself to move from being focused on what I’m right about and you’re wrong about to getting curious about why we see this so differently.”
— Sheila Heen

“Part of what I’m listening for in a difficult conversation is I’m just trying to understand what do you see and how do you interpret it? We each have implicit rules about how the world is supposed to work. Do we have different implicit rules here? Then it helps me to put those puzzle pieces on the table and try to fit them together, understanding that some of them just won’t fit. And that’s okay.”
— Sheila Heen

“It’s not just that we have difficult conversations in our most important relationships; those conversations are the relationship. That if we find a way to have them productively or constructively, then the relationship will thrive, whether it’s a personal or professional relationship, and/or is where we start to disengage because you just don’t get it and you won’t listen, and the relationship starts to fray.”
— Sheila Heen

“‘What am I missing?” is actually a great question, partly because they’re going to be so thrilled to be able to tell you. They’re going to take that invitation, but genuinely they can see things that you can’t.”
— Sheila Heen

PEOPLE MENTIONEDRoger Fisher Bruce Patton Douglas Stone John Gottman Anne Lamott John Richardson Donald Schön Chris Argyris Matt Mullenweg Harville Hendrix Helen LaKelly Hunt Stacy Heen Lennon Richard C. Schwartz Jim Dethmer Akira Kurosawa Stephen Glass

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Published on September 09, 2021 12:33

Henry Shukman — Zen, Tools for Awakening, Ayahuasca vs. Meditation, Intro to Koans, and Using Wounds as the Doorway (#531)

Illustration via 99designs

“There’s something about deep wounding that can be a pathway to deep, deep love. It’s a very beautiful thing when the wound becomes the doorway.”
— Henry Shukman

Henry Shukman (@mountaincloudzencenter) teaches mindfulness and awakening practices to a wide range of students from all traditions and walks of life. Henry is an appointed teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage and is the Guiding Teacher of Mountain Cloud Zen Center. He has an MA from Cambridge and an MLitt from St Andrews and has written several award-winning books of poetry and fiction.

Henry’s essays have been published in The New York Times, Outside, and Tricycle, and his poems have been published in The New Republic, The Guardian, The Sunday Times (UK), and London Review of Books. He has taught meditation at Google, Harvard Business School, UBS, Esalen Institute, Colorado College, United World College, and many other venues. He has written of his own journey in his memoir One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir.

Henry has also recently created a new meditation program, Original Love, which aims to provide a broad, inclusive path of growth through meditation.

Please enjoy!

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

Brought to you by Allform premium, modular furniture; Pique Tea premium tea crystals (pu’er, etc.); and You Need A Budget cult favorite budgeting app. More on all three below.

Listen onApple Podcasts [image error]Listen onSpotify [image error]Listen onOvercast#531: Henry Shukman — Zen, Tools for Awakening, Ayahuasca vs. Meditation, Intro to Koans, and Using Wounds as the Doorwayhttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/6d188631-fd52-4c0a-940f-a0e2701ce913.mp3 Download

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

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Want to hear another episode with someone who relies on Zen to get things done? Have a listen to my conversation with Zen Habits’ Leo Babauta in which we discuss uncertainty training, embracing the suck, habit breaking and forming, standing out from the competition in a crowded arena, unschooling, and much more.

#488: Leo Babauta on Zen Habits, Antifragility, Contentment, and Unschoolinghttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/c62bd9af-f4f6-4bb9-8022-754a79ef46df.mp3 DownloadSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Henry Shukman:

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A New Approach to the Ancient Path of Awakening | Original Love One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir by Henry Shukman | Amazon Other Books by Henry Shukman | Amazon Atopic Dermatitis (Eczema) Symptoms and Causes | Mayo Clinic The Cold War | MI5 The Official Secrets Acts and Official Secrecy | House of Commons Library Transcendental Meditation Beatles in India: 1968 Visit to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Ashram | Rolling Stone Waking Up with Sam Harris App Dhyāna in Buddhism | Wikipedia Jhana Meditation | The Contemplative Life Kundalini Awakening: What It Is + 15 Signs You’re Having One | Mindbodygreen What Is Somatic Therapy? | Verywell Mind Keiretsu | Investopedia Why I Wrote a Book about Why I Stopped Writing Books, Part 1 of 2 by Henry Shukman | Mountain Cloud Zen Center Why I Wrote a Book about Why I Stopped Writing Books, Part 2 of 2 by Henry Shukman | Mountain Cloud Zen Center Tramp Stamps Are Making a Comeback | Vice J.D. Salinger and a Zen Koan by Henry Shukman | Tricycle: The Buddhist Review An Insight Meditation Center | Spirit Rock What Is Zen Buddhism and How Do You Practice It? | Lion’s Roar Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg | Amazon Becoming the Mountains and Rivers | Lion’s Roar Zazen Meditation: Benefits, Practice, and More | Healthline Nonduality: Defining the Undefinable | Deconstructing Yourself What Is A Zen Koan? History And Interpretation Of Koans | Being Zen How to Practice Zen Koans | Lion’s Roar 15 of the Deepest Zen Koans | Wisdom Pills The Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness | Lion’s Roar Message from Henry: Mu Ichi Motsu | Mountain Cloud Zen Center Samadhi: How to Attain It, Stages, and More | Mindbodygreen Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan | Prime Video What is Dokusan? | Lion’s Roar What an Ayahuasca Retreat Showed Me about My Life | Vox Dennis McKenna — The Depths of Ayahuasca: 500+ Sessions, Fundamentals, Advanced Topics, Science, Churches, Learnings, Warnings, and Beyond | The Tim Ferriss Show #523 Kenshō | Wikipedia Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (Resources) | Tim Ferriss Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman | Amazon About Holotropic Breathwork | Grof Transpersonal Training Vipassana Meditation | Dhamma.org The Random Show — Life-Extension Misadventures, Blockchain/Crypto Investing, NFT Experiments, Dogecoin, Zen Buddhism, and Weathering Sharp Elbows | The Tim Ferriss Show #527 Immersive Art Experiences | Meow WolfSHOW NOTESWhy did Henry once identify with Typhon, the mythological beast who lived under the volcano Etna, and how did this lead to his first foray into meditation? [06:13]How examining the deep wound that results from childhood trauma has the potential to become a doorway to deep love (and what so often stops this from occurring). [09:51]What was Henry’s introduction into the world of meditation? [15:19]What does Henry mean by the term “awakening?” [16:40]Is awakening a repeatable phenomenon, or is it something that only needs to occur once? Henry conveys how Zen master Yamada Koun described it, and shares his own first experience. [20:02]Was Henry under the influence of any substances when this happened? In retrospect, what does he think brought it on? [32:12]Was Henry later able to replicate this state of awakening at will, or control it in any way? [36:17]How experimenting with jhana meditation brought Henry to a state similar to what he’d experienced the very first time, and why he thinks this may have happened. [38:10]What happened during the year following that first experience? [40:33]In Henry’s experience, how might an awakening be distinguished from what a psychiatrist with a DSM desk reference might categorize as a psychotic episode? [43:41]Why the modern Western embrace of Eastern spirituality isn’t without its hazards. [46:36]Why awakening doesn’t require us to become hermits and live away from the world, and what Henry learned while roaming the countryside as a teen being mentored by an “old school tramp.” [49:38]What is Zen and how did Henry find it? [54:16]How long was Henry’s first Zazen meditation, and why does he think it moved him so powerfully? [1:01:25]What is a koan? You’re probably familiar with at least one (even if you don’t know how to answer it). [1:02:46]What is nonduality, how do koans guide us toward it, and is the increasing awareness of awakening in the Western world akin to transcending the geocentric worldview that prevailed before Galileo and Copernicus? [1:05:14]Has Henry found it common for Zen practice newcomers to experience a nondual awakening early on? While a psychedelic compound is almost guaranteed to give someone at least a glimpse of this state, how might someone be prompted toward an awakening without it? Additionally, why does Henry consider the term “non-ordinary consciousness” — when applied to an awakened mind — a misnomer? [1:07:59]How awakening can be a “marvelous kind of loss.” [1:15:48]What is Henry’s new program, Original Love, all about? [1:17:59]What does “Mu ichi motsu; muju zo” mean, and can “Koan” be roughly translated as “Over the precipice of nonsense?” [1:20:31]Under what circumstances did Henry make the decision to consume ayahuasca for the first time, and how similar/dissimilar was his experience to koan-induced awakening? How did a later ayahuasca outing under much different circumstances compare? [1:28:24]We ponder how a psychedelic experience might differ from an awakening on a neurochemical level, how each can be useful for exploring different facets of what we perceive as “reality,” and where caution should be exercised. [1:38:46]Has Henry ever witnessed someone having a bad experience through Zen that required special aftercare? [1:43:38]How Zen can be a rewarding journey even without a destination. [1:44:42]Revisiting Original Love: it’s a program, a course, and an upcoming book. [1:46:36]Parting thoughts. [1:47:54]MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“There’s something about deep wounding that can be a pathway to deep, deep love. It’s a very beautiful thing when the wound becomes the doorway. I think there’s always that potential with a wound, but so much of the time we tend to accrete protection over a wound and sort of stay away from a wound and avoid it and live as if it weren’t there.”
— Henry Shukman

“There’s another dimension, another aspect, another face of our experience of this very moment in which we are totally part of everything.”
— Henry Shukman

“In awakening, one thing vanishes, that sense of self, and another thing appears, which is what that sense of self was occluding.”
— Henry Shukman

“All space had disappeared. There was no distance anywhere. I felt like my nose was pressing against the end of time. My nose was touching the furthest reaches of the universe because it was all just here. It was one reality without space, without time.”
— Henry Shukman

“I knew that I had found the answer, but I hadn’t even been asking a question.”
— Henry Shukman

“I felt that I had found sort of the answer to life, which I hadn’t been looking for and wasn’t interested in. But now it was like I knew I could die and my life had been fulfilled.”
— Henry Shukman

[On his first experience with Zazen meditation] “It’s not like I had some marvelous enlightenment experience right then, but I did have a sense in that first sit that this was a way of contacting life.”
— Henry Shukman

“The first thing to say about koans is they are not riddles to be solved, and our mind wants to make them that.”
— Henry Shukman

“I suppose I still am a bit of a troubled soul, but I’m a happy one.”
— Henry Shukman

“It’s not like it’s ‘Awakening or bust.’ That’s a wrong mindset.”
— Henry Shukman

“In any level of any zone of practice, love is usually the thing, somehow or other, that triggers the transformation that opens up things.”
— Henry Shukman

“It’s like love to find that we’re part of everything. It’s like love to find that this nothing—no thing—is producing everything, generating everything, infinite generosity. That’s like love.”
— Henry Shukman

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

PEOPLE MENTIONEDKevin Rose Typhon Harold Shukman Ann Shukman David Shukman James Bond Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Sam Harris Yamada Koun Sigmund Freud Ryoun Yamada Roshi Wu Weiye Du Fu Li Po Jack Kerouac Allen Ginsberg Gary Snyder J.D. Salinger Jerry Seinfeld Hugh Jackman Paramahansa Yogananda Steve Jobs D.H. Lawrence Natalie Goldberg Eihei Dogen Galileo Galilei Nicolaus Copernicus Layman Pang Borat Sagdiyev Ruben Habito Roshi Dennis McKenna

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Published on September 08, 2021 06:27

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