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  • MALE SPEAKER: So about five years ago, I had the pleasure

  • of introducing a new author to an Authors at Google talk.

  • And this author's name was Tim Ferriss.

  • He had a new book that had just come out called "The

  • 4-Hour Workweek." It was a surprise hit.

  • And it spent about four years on the bestseller list.

  • Not too long after, he had a second book called "The 4-Hour

  • Body," which was a little bit more about hacking the body,

  • weight loss, nutrition.

  • A lot of people I know here at Google have

  • lost a bunch of weight.

  • I myself have lost about 20 pounds doing that.

  • So I'm very excited to have Tim here for his new book,

  • "The 4-Hour Chef." It's a book that starts with cooking and

  • then goes into food in general.

  • It's also a bit of a primer on approaching any topic and

  • learning it and learning it towards mastery.

  • And Tim's here to talk about the book, but

  • also about other topics.

  • And we'll have a lot of time for Q&A.

  • And so I'm very excited to have Tim here today.

  • Please join me in welcoming him.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Thank you, kind sir.

  • Trevor was subjected to some of my experimentation also

  • throughout this book with respect to food, which in the

  • beginning was not very pleasant at all.

  • MALE SPEAKER: [INAUDIBLE]

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: So it's been fun to visit Google as many

  • times as I have.

  • And certainly in the first visit, I had a lot more hair

  • and many fewer book sales.

  • But this book is perhaps the most exciting

  • to me of all three.

  • So I'll start off with a very dramatic trailer that I think

  • gives a basic sort of overview.

  • And then we'll jump into the presentation, which I'll try

  • to keep really short, or as short as I can.

  • And then a bunch of Q&A, because that's when I

  • have the most fun.

  • So let's do the trailer first.

  • [VIDEO PLAYBACK]

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: All right.

  • So the presentation's all downhill from here.

  • That was courtesy of Adam Patch.

  • Adam Patch directed and did the post on that.

  • There are a few things that came up in that video that

  • will reappear through the presentation.

  • It was all filmed in Seattle, at Delve Kitchen.

  • So if anyone's interested in molecular gastronomy, things

  • like that, Chris Young, who used to run the experimental

  • kitchen for The Fat Duck in London when it became number

  • one ranked in the world, helped with all of that, as

  • well as with the science section.

  • But let's start at the beginning.

  • So "The 4-Hour Chef, Accelerated Learning for

  • Accelerated Times--" this book of the three has the most

  • confusing title and subtitle combination, I think.

  • And that is because for the last four or five years, my

  • readers have been asking me for a book on accelerated

  • learning, mostly because of my talk about smart drugs and

  • language acquisition and things like that.

  • The problem is, writing a book on learning without a good

  • context is really boring to read and even

  • more boring to write.

  • So I ultimately chanced upon thinking of

  • cooking for a few reasons.

  • The first was it was a skill that I had

  • quit many times before.

  • I had failed at it many, many times before, despite trying,

  • much like swimming, which was covered in "The 4-Hour Body."

  • Secondly was--

  • I think as many people feel these days in a digital

  • world-- there's a certain sense of angst that I felt

  • every time I closed my laptop.

  • I'd accomplished a lot of work, but I had nothing

  • physical to show for it.

  • And I really wanted to reclaim my manual literacy and build

  • physical things.

  • And I thought that would be woodworking.

  • But there's always an excuse not to go to Oakland to do it.

  • And I didn't want some crappy bird house in my

  • living room, anyway.

  • And I saw my girlfriend cooking one night, and I said,

  • that can be my dojo.

  • That can be where I learn to use my thumbs for something

  • besides the space bar.

  • And it turned out to be really life-altering for me to

  • reclaim that part of myself.

  • And lastly, because food involves all five senses, you

  • can really use it to create sort of a Spidey sense in all

  • of those senses, which is pretty wild.

  • And it transfers to almost everything else.

  • And this shot, this opening shot here that you guys can

  • see, it's two pictures, identical pictures.

  • This is the entranceway to Alinea Restaurant in Chicago,

  • which at the time I wrote the book was number one

  • ranked in the US.

  • And I spent three days there.

  • And in Alinea Restaurant, they test every assumption

  • possible, every convention possible.

  • You get menus at the end instead of at the beginning.

  • When you walk in, no one greets you.

  • It's this red hallway, completely soundproof.

  • Until you get to the end, nothing happens.

  • Then motion sensors open a hidden door, and people greet

  • you by name.

  • Everything's been tested, including the business model.

  • And I encourage people to look at Next Restaurant for how

  • they sell out their entire season for the restaurant in,

  • in some cases, 10 to 30 seconds online.

  • It's very, very cool.

  • The guiding tenet when looking at sports performance, when

  • looking at work performance, when looking at learning

  • performance is this.

  • So "whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,

  • it's time to pause and reflect." And my job over the

  • last five years, but certainly something I've obsessed on for

  • 15-plus years, is finding the anomalies, finding the

  • freaks-- you know, the people who are really good at what

  • they do despite having poor raw materials or very informal

  • training or no training at all.

  • [VIDEO PLAYBACK]

  • This is to give people-- how many people have seen this

  • video before?

  • A handful.

  • OK.

  • This is in South Africa.

  • This is just to give you an idea of what I do to myself in

  • the name of experimentation.

  • I had been effectively told-- this is the

  • side of my right leg.

  • I'm recording this with a Flip camera, in Cape Town at one of

  • the top sports science institutes.

  • And I had been told, in effect, through Navigenics and

  • other types of DNA testing that I lacked the ability to

  • produce fast twitch muscle fiber properly.

  • So this genetic determinism was very depressing.

  • But that didn't square with my experience

  • in sports, for instance.

  • I'd been an All-American in high school in wrestling.

  • So I decided to skip all of the theory and just remove

  • samples from my leg.

  • And the way it works with a biopsy is they insert a hollow

  • tube, slightly larger than a pen, into your leg, apply

  • suction, pull the tissue in, and then rotate

  • it to cut it out.

  • And I'm not going to run this for very much longer.

  • But last time I showed this, I actually did it at a lunch

  • meeting, which was my Long Island

  • sophistication coming out.

  • In any case, I'm not going to go too deep

  • into the results here.

  • -All right.

  • Who wants to sign up?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: All right.

  • I'll come to this in a second.

  • The punch line to that is that something along the lines of

  • more than 40% of my muscle fiber was in fact fast twitch

  • muscle fiber, type IIa, which is fully trainable.

  • So the raw materials you start with, perhaps the skills that

  • you've put on the shelf because you couldn't master

  • them or couldn't even get started learning them, do not

  • seal your fate.

  • And the way you get around that fate, the way you sort of

  • head-fake what you think are your limitations, is by

  • testing assumptions.

  • This is another shot from Alinea Restaurant.

  • And this is one of the last courses.

  • This has been plated by Grant Achatz.

  • So chef Grant Achatz, A-C-H-A-T-Z, is really worth

  • taking a look at.

  • And I look at him very closely in the Professional

  • section of the book.

  • But when Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who's a very,

  • very, very world-class chef, who runs many restaurants

  • including ABC Kitchen in New York City, was asked, who do

  • you fear among your colleagues, it didn't take him

  • more than a split second to say Grant Achatz.

  • He does things I can't understand.

  • I don't understand how he creates the things he creates.

  • For instance, they wanted to test plating.

  • Why don't we have bigger plates?

  • Well, they couldn't fit a 4-foot-diameter plate through

  • the doorways to and from the kitchen.

  • So instead, they found a special, effectively

  • food-grade latex from a sex shop in Paris and imported it

  • to create tablecloths where they could use the entire

  • table as a plate.

  • And on the right-hand side, you see a dark chocolate

  • pinata that is shattered on the table and releases all

  • this liquid nitrogen and crazy stuff, which is just awesome.

  • And it tasted good.

  • A lot of these food-as-theater shows end up producing really

  • crappy food.

  • But Alinea does not have crappy food.

  • This is an example of transfer.

  • When you start to think creatively about food--

  • because I was an anti-cook my entire life.

  • Even a few weeks prior to starting research for this

  • book, I had two friends who are very good cooks come over

  • to help cook dinner.

  • They said, grab the wine and we'll talk about

  • business, catch up.

  • They came over, and I had mustard and white wine in my

  • fridge, including some, like, biohazard unidentifiable food.

  • And they asked me where my olive oil was.

  • And I said, olive oil.

  • Olive oil.

  • Oh, it's in the freezer.

  • It's in the freezer.

  • Why is your olive oil in the freezer?

  • I really was starting from ground zero.

  • And when you start to think about food creatively,

  • anything creatively, it transfers.

  • So this was about halfway through my meal at Alinea.

  • We had been stuck in design gridlock on the cover.

  • And it just came to me after one of their more inventive

  • dishes that the cover could be something like this on the

  • left, which I sketched out.

  • And then it turned into the final cover.

  • So even if you hate cooking, hopefully you love food.

  • And taking even a week to experiment with all of those

  • senses in the kitchen, even if you stop after that week, will

  • take a lot of your life that is currently in black and

  • white and turn it into high def, which is a really cool

  • effect that is persistent.

  • This is something you saw in the trailer.

  • This is one of my old friends when I inhaled something

  • through nasal inhalation.

  • This is vasopressin, which is an antidiuretic hormone.

  • It's prescribed as desmopressin to kids in some

  • cases who bed-wet past a certain age.

  • I used it starting freshman year in college to ace Chinese

  • character quizzes.

  • And it has very interesting applications

  • to short-term memory.

  • So I would take two shots and flip through a book almost as

  • quickly as I could turn the pages and score a 95 to 100%.

  • It was pretty cool.

  • Now, as you might imagine, snorting antidiuretic hormone

  • is not the best long-term strategy.

  • And pretty quickly thereafter, headaches set in and all sorts

  • of issues, because I was testing a whole slew of other

  • drugs at the same time.

  • And I started to focus on method.

  • I didn't continue with-- well, that's not entirely true.

  • I'm still interested in the drugs.

  • We can get to that if you guys want.

  • But the point being there are actual methods, recipes, that

  • the world's fastest learners use to learn what they learn,

  • whether that's Daniel Tammet in the UK, who learned

  • Icelandic in seven days well enough to be interviewed on

  • TV, whether that's Ed Cooke, who plays a pretty big part in

  • the book, who trained Joshua Foer from zero to national

  • memory champion in the US, which was chronicled in

  • "Moonwalking with Einstein." There is a

  • method to this stuff.

  • Tango, fighting, marksmanship, cooking, languages--

  • there are methods.

  • And this was the common method that I distilled from many of

  • these different experts--

  • DiSSS.

  • This is an acronym, of course.

  • And it stands for Deconstruction, Selection,

  • Sequencing, and Stakes.

  • And I'm going to breeze through this pretty quickly.

  • I'll give a few examples of what I mean, then a few

  • take-aways, and then we can jump into Q&A.

  • But this is the basic process.

  • Deconstruction is taking something very big and

  • intimidating, like learning how to swim.

  • I couldn't swim until three years ago.

  • And I grew up on Long Island.

  • How embarrassing is that?

  • But I was deathly afraid of swimming.

  • I'd had a couple of semi-drowning experiences,

  • have trouble with my left lung.

  • So I took swimming and broke it down into, OK, what are the

  • arms doing in freestyle?

  • What are the legs doing in freestyle?

  • Learning to swim is too big, just like learning a language.

  • And then, what are my failure points, my

  • personal failure points?

  • Why haven't I learned this already?

  • So for me, it was every time I went in to try to take a

  • class, I would be given a kickboard.

  • And they would say, all right.

  • Do a couple laps.

  • And then we'll get you started.

  • And I would flail around like a drowning monkey.

  • And I wouldn't move.

  • And I would just be embarrassed, exhausted.

  • And I would quit.

  • So it's like, all right.

  • How would I learn to swim if I had to avoid kicking?

  • And it gives you a specificity to then look for the answers.

  • And through a friend of mine named Chris Sacca-- who some

  • of you may know--

  • a very astute investor, who was terrible at swimming and

  • then completed an Iron Man, I found total immersion method,

  • which, guess what?

  • Doesn't really use kicking.

  • So deconstruction is taking something really big and

  • making it more tackleable.

  • Selection is a common thread through all of the books that

  • I've written.

  • This is the 80/20 analysis.

  • So what are the 20% of tools, activities, approaches,

  • coaches, whatever it might be that will get you 80% or more

  • of the outcomes, the results that you want?

  • This is really easily applied to languages.

  • Like most people, when I studied Spanish in junior high

  • and whatnot, I was terrible.

  • I couldn't string a basic conversation together for 30

  • seconds after three years of studying.

  • And I concluded I was bad at languages.

  • No.

  • Not so.

  • I just had things all mixed up.

  • If you instead look to someone like Michel Thomas--

  • M-I-C-H-E-L Thomas, his original audio recordings, who

  • was a Holocaust survivor, then an

  • intelligence officer in Europe--

  • you could acquire the basics of Spanish grammar in two or

  • three days.

  • And then if you used flash cards, like vis-ed.com, V-I-S,

  • hyphen, E-D dot com, which are high-frequency word lists and

  • flash cards, you could become functionally fluent in a

  • language like Spanish in 8 to 12 weeks without that much

  • difficulty.

  • And I say that now because I've applied this to Japanese,

  • Mandarin Chinese, German, Spanish, and so on.

  • It's very replicable.

  • OK.

  • Sequencing--

  • this is something that I don't think has been addressed very

  • well by other books.

  • And there aren't really many books on accelerated learning

  • to begin with.

  • Sequencing is kind of the secret sauce.

  • So a friend of mine, for instance, Josh Waitzkin--

  • does anyone know that name?

  • He was the basis for a book and a movie called "Searching

  • for Bobby Fischer." He's one of the most incredible chess

  • players in the world.

  • He opted out of the scene after all of the attention

  • from "Searching for Bobby Fischer."

  • But the way he was originally taught chess by his first

  • really formal coach was backwards.

  • He learned from the end game first.

  • So instead of starting with openings, which everyone does,

  • he began with pawn and king versus pawn, to learn flexible

  • principles and techniques that could apply everywhere.

  • And as a result, his rate of progress was much faster.

  • When I learned tango in Argentina--

  • which was a complete accident--

  • but from my first class to the world championships was five

  • and a half months.

  • And part of the reason I was able to make that rate of

  • progress is because I looked at how to play with the

  • sequencing.

  • And I learned the female role first.

  • I learned how to follow before I learned how to lead.

  • And it allowed me to progress much, much faster.

  • There are a lot of very good coaches who had also focused

  • on sequencing.

  • Stan Utley, who is a very well-known short-game-- ie

  • putting and whatnot-- golf coach, says people come to me

  • all the time.

  • They say, how's my form?

  • How's my form?

  • Can you correct my form?

  • He's like, your form is fine.

  • You're just moving the pieces out of order.

  • So playing with sequencing is really important.

  • And then stakes is also very neglected.

  • One of my friends, AJ Jacobs, writes for "Esquire." He's a

  • hysterical, hysterical writer, a very good writer too.

  • "The Year of Living Biblically"

  • is one of my favorites.

  • But when he was trying to lose weight-- so he's a Jewish guy.

  • He gave one of his friends a check to the KKK for

  • $1,000 in his name.

  • And he said, if I do not hit my weight-loss goal, I want

  • you to mail this to the KKK.

  • That is what we call an incentive.

  • So for most people, they're like, oh, I'd love to learn to

  • play the guitar.

  • I'd love to lose weight.

  • But if you fail at those things, nothing happens.

  • You don't get fired from trying to learn the guitar.

  • You just don't do it.

  • So an easy way to create stakes--

  • betting pools with friends are one way.

  • But you could also go to stickk.com.

  • I have no affiliation with it--

  • S-T-I-C-K-K dot com.

  • It was originally set up by or conceived of by a Yale

  • professor as a commitment store.

  • Here's how it works.

  • Take an amount of money that would be painful to lose,

  • because you'll work a lot harder to avoid the stick than

  • you will to get the carrot.

  • Put in some money.

  • It goes into escrow.

  • Then you choose your goal.

  • Let's just say it's guitar twice a week.

  • Great.

  • Then you choose your most merciless

  • friend to be the referee.

  • And if you don't--

  • oh no.

  • What happened?

  • [FEEDBACK]

  • Man.

  • Tech support?

  • "Eyes Wide Shut," anyone?

  • OK.

  • So we'll have to reclaim the screen somehow.

  • I'm not sure.

  • I didn't touch anything.

  • I can also riff without it, but it would be

  • nice to get that back.

  • Where the hell was I?

  • Oh.

  • All right.

  • So escrow.

  • Then you choose an anti-charity.

  • So you have your merciless friend who is going to referee

  • and confirm or deny that you did what you said you were

  • going to do.

  • And then you choose an anti-charity.

  • Currently the most effective anti-charity is the George W

  • Bush Congressional Library.

  • Right below that--

  • this is from the stats.

  • I'm not taking a position.

  • I'm just saying.

  • Right below that you have pro-choice,

  • pro-life, duh, duh, duh.

  • So whatever nonprofit you would rather nuke than give

  • money to, choose that.

  • And then if your friend or another referee says you

  • didn't follow directions, guess what?

  • That money goes to that nonprofit in your name on the

  • record forever.

  • You will perform miracles.

  • People who have no instruction whatsoever,

  • it's just like, no.

  • I'm not even going to tell you how to lose weight.

  • But you have to lose weight or this will go to the KKK.

  • Man, miraculous.

  • So how many people here would like to, let's say, learn to

  • play guitar?

  • I think that's pretty common.

  • I would.

  • Anybody?

  • So go on YouTube and search Axis of Awesome.

  • So the Axis--

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Yeah, right?

  • So Axis of Awesome is a comedy troupe.

  • It's a musical comedy troupe.

  • And they will play almost every popular pop song that

  • you can imagine using four or five chords.

  • So guess what?

  • Those four or five chords are your minimal effective dose.

  • That is where you should invest your time to have early

  • wins and get the most positive feedback possible, as well as

  • getting 80% or more of the outputs that you would want,

  • especially in that beginning novice stage.

  • From a sequencing standpoint--

  • I'm just kind of making this up as we go along until we get

  • visuals, if we get them.

  • It's not a big deal if we don't.

  • In the case of, let's say, cookbooks--

  • and I want people to believe they can become world class in

  • almost any skill within six months if they apply

  • themselves properly.

  • And by learning how to learn, you also by default

  • learn how to teach.

  • So you can teach your kids and whatnot.

  • One of the ways that you'll notice this has been taught

  • indirectly through the book is fixing some of the common

  • problems with cookbooks.

  • Many how-to books in general are written to be convenient

  • for the author to write, not a logical

  • progression for the reader.

  • So why do people quit cooking?

  • Let's say, knife skills, a really, really common reason

  • for people quitting.

  • Why?

  • Because they're introduced too early.

  • So there are ways to postpone it at a point when the student

  • will be ready.

  • Additionally, I don't care about why people pick

  • cookbooks up.

  • I care about why they put them down.

  • And what I did right from the outset before even starting

  • writing is I polled my Facebook and Twitter followers

  • to identify the five or six most common

  • reasons people quit.

  • So what do we have?

  • Shopping, too much cleanup, too much

  • expensive gear, et cetera.

  • And it's very important when you're trying to lose fat or

  • whether you're trying to learn something quickly to only

  • adopt one new behavior at a time.

  • So if you guys take anything away from this, let it be,

  • well, first, 80/20.

  • And then secondly, one behavior at a time.

  • So if you look at, let's say, the research that BJ Fogg has

  • done the persuasion lab at Stanford--

  • or really anywhere else.

  • If you try to take, for instance, people who are over

  • the age of 50 and teach them to quit smoking by texting,

  • your failure rate's going to be sky high.

  • Because you're trying to teach them two new habits, texting

  • and quitting smoking.

  • Yay.

  • When most people try to learn to cook, what are

  • they in fact doing?

  • Just ignore this.

  • Ignore this.

  • They're not trying to adopt one new behavior.

  • They're trying to adopt grocery shopping.

  • And of course they don't know where anything is, because

  • they never do it, so it takes them an hour

  • longer than it should.

  • Then prep time.

  • Pain in the ass, especially if you don't know knife skills.

  • Then cooking, then cleanup.

  • Of course everybody gives up.

  • Of course.

  • That's like I've never lost weight before.

  • I want to lose weight.

  • Great.

  • I'm going to go to the gym seven times a week.

  • I'm going to change all my meals.

  • I'm going to get the most expensive personal

  • trainer I can find.

  • And then add two more to that.

  • Of course it fails.

  • So a side note-- if you want to lose fat quickly, 30 grams

  • within 30 minutes of waking up is the first

  • change you should make.

  • That's how my dad started.

  • He went from 5 pounds of average fat loss per month to

  • 17.85 in the first month and then lost a total of

  • more than 90 pounds.

  • So just a protein shake first thing when you wake up.

  • Don't even change your meals.

  • If you have a lot of weight to lose, don't exercise for the

  • first 8 to 12 weeks.

  • The grammar of any language--

  • this is the 80/20 of language learning.

  • There's a fascinating guy--

  • I talk about him briefly in "The 4-Hour Chef"--

  • named Cardinal Mezzofanti.

  • Anyone heard this name before?

  • All right.

  • So Cardinal Mezzofanti is a hyperpolyglot.

  • By some accounts, he spoke 72 languages.

  • He's been tested pretty well in at least 32.

  • There's actually a book about a lot of this stuff called

  • "Babel No More," I believe it is, which is outstanding.

  • The way that he learned these languages without using really

  • any written materials to speak of was he would have native

  • speakers translate the Lord's Prayer into

  • their native language.

  • And in that tiny little Lord's Prayer, he could pick out

  • almost all of the most important grammatical

  • constructions in the entire language.

  • I actually ended up doing the same

  • thing, but with 13 sentences.

  • So in effect, just to make language, because it's so

  • intimidating to people, graspable--

  • if you can translate these 13 sentences, you have enough

  • grammar to have a pretty long conversation assuming that you

  • then add in the words you need.

  • And if you study something called the linkword mnemonic--

  • there are different types of mnemonics-- the linkword

  • mnemonic by Gruneberg, G-R-U-N-E-B-E-R-G, you can

  • learn 200 to 300 words a day without too much trouble.

  • And if you consider you need about 1,200 words to seem

  • fluent, like a week or two, you're off to the races.

  • I'm not kidding.

  • This is my Muppet face, as my girlfriend calls it.

  • And this is to illustrate the minimal effective dose in

  • terms of gear.

  • So one of the things that I always found very frustrating

  • about cooking, they'd be like, OK, you ready, excited?

  • You're enthusiastic?

  • Let's kill that enthusiasm, because you have to buy $4,000

  • worth of stuff.

  • And you don't even know if you're going to keep cooking.

  • But have fun spending that money.

  • And that's like, oh, you want to try cycling?

  • Here, buy this $4,000 Tour de France--

  • it just makes no sense.

  • So if you look at a few of the things I have here, this is

  • about all you need to cook really well.

  • For part of the research, I went to the Oberoi Grand in

  • Kolkata, India.

  • And that was one of the best chefs in the country.

  • He did all of his prep with a $20 Victorinox knife and two

  • stainless steel pans.

  • You could buy all of that for $35, $40 in the US.

  • Here you have a microplane on the left-hand side.

  • You have the Rada Cutlery cleaver, which is a $9 to $12

  • knife which is perfect for learning knife skills.

  • Do not spend a fortune on knives until you've decided

  • you're actually going to continue cooking.

  • Then you have that blue towel, which I found through Tom

  • Colicchio's gang.

  • That is a surgical, lint-free huck towel.

  • It's not designed for cooking.

  • It's designed for hospitals.

  • They're about $1 apiece.

  • They are gold.

  • They can be used for a million different things.

  • Then you see that little vegetable peeler.

  • That is a Kuhn Rikon vegetable peeler.

  • The Star peeler was the original version.

  • A guy named Joe Ades sold millions of them in Union

  • Square in New York City.

  • Find videos of him online.

  • It's amazing.

  • Then a couple of silicon spatulas.

  • A probe thermometer, super critical.

  • If you never want to undercook or overcook food ever again,

  • just get a probe thermometer.

  • When in doubt, cook it to 140 and you're fine.

  • There are a couple of exceptions.

  • Then a Peltex, which is like a slotted fish spatula.

  • And then a cast-iron Dutch oven.

  • That's pretty much all you need.

  • And you could start with a lot less.

  • On the right-hand side--

  • any coffee geeks?

  • There's got be at least one or two.

  • All right.

  • So I spent a few days with Stephen Morrissey, who was the

  • 2008 World Barista Champion, works at Intelligentsia Coffee

  • now, also helped design the coffee program at Eleven

  • Madison Park, which has become a big selling point for Eleven

  • Madison Park.

  • So here are some of the things we tested.

  • I'm not going to go through each one.

  • But if you want to make a really amazing cup of coffee

  • and you don't want to get too down, stuck in the weeds,

  • here's my recommendation.

  • For one or two people, all you need is an AeroPress.

  • It was designed by a mechanical engineer out of

  • Stanford who also developed the Aerobie, the Aerobie, that

  • Frisbee, same guy.

  • AeroPress.

  • And then get, obviously, good coffee.

  • Get a conical burr grinder, which does

  • not have to be expensive.

  • You could get a Hario hand grinder or a Porlex.

  • They're probably $20, $30 a piece.

  • And then 12 grams of freshly ground coffee to

  • 200 grams of water.

  • And the water should be between 175 and 180 degrees

  • Fahrenheit.

  • And you're done.

  • That's all you need to know for the basics.

  • You can get in the weeds, but that will produce one of the

  • best cups of coffee you've ever had in your life.

  • Anti-Griddle--

  • this is just a point I want to make about home versus

  • professional chef.

  • Professional chefs need fancy gear in some cases, because

  • they have to produce 100, 200, 300 of the same dish a night.

  • And they have to be extremely consistent.

  • At home, you can create the same thing but use a

  • super-ghetto MacGyver approach.

  • So there's something called the Anti-Griddle, which is

  • manufactured by a company called PolyScience.

  • And it's used at Alinea.

  • It's a surface that can be lowered to about negative 40

  • Fahrenheit.

  • And you can make all sorts of crazy stuff.

  • The way they did the recipe testing before the

  • Anti-Griddle existed, and the way that you can replicate the

  • results at home without spending $2,000, is using a

  • block of dry ice and a baking sheet on top.

  • Or you could use the back of a metal spatula.

  • And then you can make these things, for instance.

  • Take a few minutes.

  • These are like those peppermint Girl Scout cookies,

  • those super crack addict cookies.

  • They're like that, but even more addictive.

  • And you can make them in about five minutes.

  • But you can do this at home and replicate a lot of the

  • things that would cost $5,000 to $10,000

  • with just a few dollars.

  • This is one of the last points I'm going to make.

  • And that is the approach is the same.

  • This process, this blueprint for

  • meta-learning, applies to tango.

  • That was my instructor for a whole host of reasons in

  • Argentina when I was competing, named--

  • not the woman, although that would've been nice.

  • Gabriel Misse, on the left-hand side, Gabriel Misse,

  • M-I-S-S-E. If you ever want to go to Argentina or take tango

  • classes, look for that guy.

  • He's one of the few tango instructors whom the old

  • guard, like the old-school milongueros, really love, as

  • well as the new guard, like [SPANISH]

  • guys, they all love him.

  • Here's me, on the floor.

  • What am I doing?

  • I'm practicing the motion of sauteing, on my knees with dry

  • beans in a skillet.

  • I'm not cooking.

  • The most stressful way to learn new skills is to try to

  • learn them while you're under pressure to produce a meal.

  • So this is an example of no-stakes practice.

  • Like practicing cutting skills with a lettuce knife, for

  • instance, which is pretty much exactly the same shape as a

  • chef's knife, but you can't cut yourself.

  • On the right-hand side here, if we want to talk

  • about guns, we can.

  • But I'm not going to go too nuts.

  • This is an M&P .45, Smith & Wesson.

  • That is the real gun.

  • Then above it, we have a pellet gun and a BB gun, both

  • manufactured by Smith & Wesson, that are replicas of

  • the same thing, which allowed me to practice at home so I

  • could then transfer all those results to

  • the range, or zombies.

  • So no-stakes practice and transfer--

  • the process is the same for all these skills.

  • And of course, last but not least, simplify.

  • Learning does not have to be complicated.

  • Cooking does not have to be complicated.

  • And what I noticed--

  • I mentioned this earlier-- is at the very highest levels,

  • when I met the best of the best, they kept things really

  • simple for me.

  • They didn't say, no, you can't do it.

  • They didn't say, no, it'll take a lifetime to

  • become a good cook.

  • They said, look.

  • If you want to dedicate your life to it, you have

  • to do what I do.

  • But to be one of the most amazing home cooks out there

  • does not take very much time at all.

  • It does not have to be complicated.

  • That is a Gurkha regiment kukri knife, for those people

  • wondering, a Nepalese knife used to chop

  • people's heads off.

  • That is related to simplification because the act

  • of deciding to simplify--

  • decision is related to incision.

  • Decision is removing possibilities, applying

  • positive constraints, like the 80/20 analysis.

  • So I'll end with one example of simplicity.

  • This is an ash cake.

  • So these are cakes.

  • They're like scones made from acorn flour, cooked directly

  • on a bed of coals.

  • And this was done in the Santa Cruz mountains, with an

  • incredible guy named Cliff Hodges, who actually has

  • engineering degrees from MIT, but runs a company called

  • Adventure Out in Santa Cruz.

  • You guys should all check it out.

  • Made these, brush off some of the ash.

  • The most delicious scones I'd had in years.

  • And it was done right on a bed of coals in the mountains.

  • So find the elegance in the chaos and simplify to the

  • extent possible.

  • And that is the end of my presentation.

  • Thank you.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: So I would love to do Q&A. That's when I

  • have the most fun.

  • So the mic is right over here.

  • If anyone has any questions, I would love to hear them.

  • And they don't have to be related to anything in this

  • presentation.

  • Yeah.

  • I think we're just going to [? have this ?] because they

  • want to record the questions.

  • AUDIENCE: Have you applied the DSSS thing to coding?

  • And if so, what do you start with in terms of sequencing?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: I have not spent a lot of time tackling

  • coding, just because I've spent most of my time in the

  • natural languages.

  • But I did have a very fun experience with

  • Chad Fowler, who--

  • I guess it was RailsConf, among other things, that he

  • used to run--

  • where he taught me the basics of Ruby using analogies from

  • Hindi, which he speaks.

  • And the way I would start is by looking at--

  • from the deconstruction step, I would look for people who

  • have had the fastest rate of progress in a

  • short period of time.

  • So rather than trying to emulate the best coders--

  • so for instance, I remember once I asked a friend of mine,

  • Daniel Burka--

  • I think he's here right now, in fact--

  • about the basics of CSS.

  • And he's like, all this stuff is second nature to me.

  • I don't remember the problems that I had in the beginning.

  • So looking for people, let's say in the world of swimming,

  • instead of Michael Phelps, you'd look at someone like

  • Shinji Takeuchi.

  • But in coding, I would be looking for people who have

  • made tremendous progress in a short period of time.

  • And that could be by contacting someone like Code

  • Academy and asking them for case studies.

  • There are a number of different

  • approaches I could take.

  • But I haven't delved too deeply into programming.

  • The reason this book took me so long to write partially is

  • I didn't have the contacts and resources that I have now to

  • meet the people I wanted to meet.

  • But it's also because I'd tried other frameworks that

  • always fell through with different subjects.

  • And this is the only one that has held up so far.

  • So I think it could apply.

  • AUDIENCE: So in short, find someone that's an expert at it

  • and kind of ask them what the end sequence--

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Or model them.

  • There's a list of 10 to 15 questions in the

  • Deconstruction section that I recommend running through,

  • whether as a thought exercise in using Google, let's say to

  • just do searches, which can really be all you need, or

  • whether you're actually reaching out

  • to people in person.

  • That list of questions helps break down where the

  • Archimedes levers might be where you can accelerate your

  • progress compared to, let's say, a

  • conventional CS training.

  • Yeah?

  • AUDIENCE: Hi.

  • So your book is self-published on Amazon, right, and not in

  • bookstores?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: It is the first major book through

  • Amazon Publishing.

  • So it's not self-published.

  • This is a confusing aspect of it because

  • Amazon has so many options.

  • Amazon Publishing is based in New York and competes directly

  • with all of the other major publishers.

  • So they sign authors and provide advances and do all of

  • that stuff, which is why there's been such a strong

  • response, positive and negative.

  • So it's being boycotted at retail by all of Barnes &

  • Noble and a lot of indies.

  • But there are some stores, like Hastings and a handful of

  • indies throughout the country, that do carry it.

  • AUDIENCE: OK.

  • And so what were your business decisions for that?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: The business decisions were for me that I

  • like experimenting.

  • I mean, I'm sort of an experimentalist.

  • And I'd done the traditional model twice.

  • I know what's involved.

  • I know how to do it well.

  • It's just not very interesting anymore.

  • And I wanted to try something new.

  • And Amazon has direct access to all of its customers.

  • When you think of traditional publishing,

  • they are B2B companies.

  • So you'll have the VP of sales at an

  • imprint of Simon & Schuster.

  • They sell to the head category buyer at Barnes & Noble or

  • Books-A-Million.

  • They do not have any relationship

  • with their end users.

  • And I wanted to see what could be done through Amazon, given

  • that it's a completely new landscape, and just try

  • something different.

  • So we'll find out very shortly the results of that.

  • But it's been fun.

  • I mean, it's allowed me to do things very aggressively that

  • I otherwise probably would not have even thought to do, like

  • partnering with BitTorrent to provide hundreds of megabytes

  • of extra content and video and whatnot.

  • It's forced me to improvise.

  • And I just enjoy that.

  • That's kind of what gets me excited.

  • AUDIENCE: Thanks.

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Thank you.

  • AUDIENCE: So one of my favorite things about your

  • other books are that you find these universally accepted

  • truths, and you affirm some of them and negate others.

  • So in "The 4-Hour Body," you kind of negated the idea that

  • calories in equals calorie out.

  • But you affirmed the idea that a high protein intake's

  • important to muscle growth.

  • During this book, what are some of your favorite truths

  • that you found that you affirmed and

  • some that you negated?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: That's a good question.

  • I want to talk about the calories in,

  • calories out for a second.

  • So even in "The 4-Hour Body" when I ate whatever it was,

  • like 7,000 calories in 12 hours, people were

  • like, ah, that's BS.

  • So I wanted to do that again in this book.

  • So just two quick examples.

  • One was I connected with some competitive eaters, like the

  • number two ranked guy in the world and a few others, and

  • had a Vermonster-eating competition with a

  • bodybuilder.

  • So the Vermonster is this thing from Ben & Jerry's.

  • It's 14,000 calories, 500 grams of fat, ice cream,

  • bananas, brownies, cookies.

  • It's just beyond beyond excess.

  • And so we ate that in 20 minutes or so.

  • And so I did that first.

  • And then the very next day--

  • oh, and the competition was to see who could finish it the

  • fastest and who could gain the most weight simultaneously.

  • The next day I did--

  • and I measured my body fat beforehand, with an ultrasound

  • analyzer that the Yankees use.

  • The next day, I did a New York City food marathon.

  • So I wanted to try this idea of a food marathon, which was

  • 26.2 iconic dishes.

  • The 0.2 is cookies.

  • 26.2 iconic dishes--

  • I like cookies--

  • in 26 locations in 24 hours, all walked.

  • And so I did both of those.

  • That was probably another 12,000 to 15,000 calories.

  • And then I had lower body fat the next day, using all the

  • stuff in "The 4-Hour Body," like the

  • alpha lipoic acid [? one. ?]

  • Some of the things that were fascinating to look at in this

  • book, things that were maybe refuted or shown to be not

  • complete, shown to be incomplete-- like searing a

  • steak, for instance.

  • If you want the perfect sear on a steak, you're producing

  • this Maillard reaction.

  • And part of what you need for that is low moisture.

  • And what you usually hear is, OK, you get the steak to room

  • temperature.

  • Then you sear it and cook it and whatnot.

  • Well, one of the best ways to get that perfect sear is

  • actually to put the steak uncovered in the freezer for

  • 45 minutes.

  • Because it's the driest environment that you have in

  • your house.

  • It's like Antarctica.

  • So it will evaporate all the surface moisture content.

  • Then you sear it.

  • And then you put it in the oven at 200 degrees and just

  • let it rock until you hit 135 degrees.

  • And you'll have the best steak you've ever had in your life.

  • It's amazing.

  • So just different ways of sequencing things like that.

  • In the world of learning, there's so many myths, and

  • partially because those myths are very profitable to

  • commercialize.

  • So the idea that children learn languages faster than

  • adults so you should mimic how children

  • learn language is nonsense.

  • Like, have you talked to a three-year-old recently?

  • They have a lot of work to do.

  • I'm sorry, kid.

  • Not good enough.

  • So the idea that someone who already has an L1 native

  • language needs to learn the way a baby learns is

  • ridiculous.

  • And you could use 8 to 12 weeks, but there are companies

  • like Rosetta Stone that capitalize on the fact that

  • it's perceived as complex.

  • So it's like, oh, you think it's complex?

  • Great.

  • We have three or four sets that cost $200, $300, $400

  • apiece that we can sell you.

  • In learning, there are so many myths.

  • In cooking, I would say some of the myths relate to--

  • not even myths, but just gaps.

  • I have never seen a systematic way of learning flavors like

  • you might learn foreign vocabulary.

  • I've never seen it.

  • I tried to find it.

  • So it's like how do you actually learn to be able to

  • recall and identify flavor is really, really tricky.

  • So I reached out to this group of researchers at--

  • I think it's the Monell Sensory Research Institute.

  • And they pointed out a few things to me.

  • For instance, there are not only taste receptors in the

  • mouth but in the throat, in the stomach, even

  • in the small intestine.

  • And there were a few flavors like cloves, for whatever

  • reason, that I couldn't peg.

  • I just couldn't remember them.

  • Basil was another.

  • So what I ended up doing was crushing them, steeping them

  • like tea, drinking it like a wine snob and aerating it and

  • all that, and then swallowing it.

  • And as soon as I used all of these taste receptors, it was

  • just like [SNAP]

  • done.

  • Those would be a few that come to mind.

  • AUDIENCE: Thank you.

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Yeah, thanks.

  • AUDIENCE: I've heard you on podcasts and

  • YouTube things as guests.

  • Do you have any plans or have you ever thought about doing

  • your own podcast or YouTube channel or anything?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Yeah.

  • I've thought about podcasts instead of a YouTube channel.

  • I've thought about it.

  • But I'm very wary of creating a monster that I have to feed.

  • If I enjoy it, like, oh, this is awesome, every week or

  • every day doing a podcast, having amazing guests, I think

  • it would be fun until I decided that I wanted to take

  • a break and then had to perhaps face the backlash.

  • But I really enjoy Joe Rogan Podcast.

  • I've been on The Joe Rogan Podcast twice,

  • three hours each time.

  • And it just gives you-- it doesn't have to

  • be three hours long.

  • But it gives you an opportunity to reach a depth

  • of discussion that you just can't do if it's three minutes

  • on "The Today Show."

  • So I have thought about the podcast.

  • I've thought about the podcast a lot, especially because this

  • silly thing that Kevin Rose and I have done for a couple

  • of years now called "The Random Show," which is kind of

  • like whatever we want to do-- it's this really silly random

  • discussion that we do via video--

  • has ended up being pretty well received.

  • So I've thought about the podcast, but

  • nothing concrete yet.

  • AUDIENCE: Thanks.

  • AUDIENCE: So one of your books, "4-Hour Body," you had

  • mentioned something about--

  • you're measuring a lot of things, which is great, and

  • trying to make decisions based on that and coming up with

  • simple rules of thumb.

  • But for example, something like don't drink milk because

  • it has low glycemic index but somehow it

  • raises insulin a lot.

  • But that's the protein in milk, from what I understand,

  • that, like all protein, actually raises insulin too.

  • But on one side, you recommend something like, oh, eat, say,

  • steak or something like that, because that's good.

  • But that's also going to raise insulin.

  • So some of those, you could mix the signals.

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Well, no.

  • It's a good point.

  • I mean, whenever you're dealing with multivariate

  • testing, whether it's a website or your body, it's

  • extremely easy-- you have to be cautious about number one,

  • isolating nutrients and drawing conclusions on those

  • nutrients, like beta carotene in the '80s, which produced a

  • lot of side effects when people started

  • ingesting it in isolation.

  • Because at the time, science could only measure a few of

  • the things in those whole foods and not the others.

  • And those cofactors ended up being very important.

  • In the case of milk--

  • particularly skim milk.

  • So I have fewer issues with, let's say, whole-fat milk.

  • But if you're looking at the glycemic load, glycemic impact

  • of a meal, milk will tend to be on the lower end of the

  • range, but it's highly insulinogenic.

  • When you get into trouble in particular is when you have

  • high insulin combined with processed carbohydrates and,

  • let's say, trans-fatty acids is when you get into pretty

  • well-established territory for causing damage.

  • If you eat a fatty rib eye, depending on your rate of

  • ingestion, it shouldn't spike your blood glucose much.

  • So if your insulin, which is a storage hormone, is relatively

  • high, but you're not spiking your

  • glucose at the same time--

  • which that would not do, as contrasted with, let's say,

  • whey protein isolate--

  • then you should be OK.

  • But I would say--

  • just to lay out my general approach, if we're talking

  • about physical testing-- would be look at PubMed and clinical

  • research when possible to identify experiments that I

  • can do quickly on myself.

  • Track predominately one metric, ideally

  • no more than two.

  • And if it produces a magnitude of result that is interesting

  • for n equals 1, like subject equals 1 study, or for even

  • shorter studies--

  • I'm sorry, for, let's say, limited studies of 5 to 10, 15

  • people, you can produce a study that is

  • statistically valid.

  • If the magnitude of change is high enough, the p value will

  • be less than 0.05.

  • If it turns out safe and does something interesting, I'll

  • then test it on, let's say, 20 to 100 of my followers, which

  • we just did.

  • There will be some data coming out probably next week.

  • We tested the slow-carb diet on more than 1,000 people and

  • had them track five or six different habits so we could

  • actually correlate what produces the

  • fastest rate of fat loss.

  • And then I'll subject that to my friends who are either

  • scientists--

  • like I'm involved with funding some studies at UCSF in Adam

  • Gazzaley's neuroimaging lab right now.

  • But the challenges, of course--

  • there are so many studies that if ever completed with

  • actionable results will take 5, 10, 15 years.

  • But people want to make decisions now.

  • And I think that whether that's how you respond to

  • caffeine withdrawal and ways that you can facilitate that

  • or otherwise, there are some pretty--

  • I think-- reliable ways to self-experiment.

  • But it's challenging.

  • It's always challenging.

  • AUDIENCE: In a book about learning and everything, I

  • know you're big on supplements and nutrition and exercise.

  • Do you have any recommendations for creating a

  • good healthy mind and everything for retaining all

  • this stuff that you're picking up?

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: So supplements or things for a

  • healthy mind.

  • Yeah, I do have some recommendations.

  • It depends on how far you want to push it.

  • I'm pretty aggressive, so I've tried everything.

  • Like modafinil--

  • I'm like, eh, it's all right.

  • But there's some really crazy stuff you can do if you want

  • to get really aggressive.

  • That's Provigil, very popular amongst

  • CEOs in Silicon Valley.

  • But the starting point is nutrition.

  • That 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up

  • will actually really facilitate mental performance,

  • as well, throughout the day.

  • Secondly, a very cheap neurological insurance policy

  • is 5 grams of creatine monohydrate per day.

  • This is particularly true if you're a vegetarian.

  • That has been shown-- and this is in clinical research-- to

  • be very promising treatment for minimizing the symptoms of

  • or in fact delaying the onset of neurodegenerative diseases

  • like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, et cetera.

  • So 5 grams of creatine monohydrate, which will also

  • make the gym more interesting.

  • There are things you can get aggressive with, like deprenyl

  • and whatnot.

  • But I would suggest staying away from any of the

  • prescription dementia drugs, because I don't see there

  • being a real reason to.

  • There are some over-the-counter things you

  • can use that are very--

  • and I'm no doctor, nor do I play one on the internet.

  • So caveat emptor.

  • Do your own homework.

  • But for instance, there are a couple of combinations, like

  • artichoke extract and forskolin, which you can get

  • at GNC, which when combined do some pretty amazing

  • things for the brain.

  • I would just make sure you budget 10 to 12 hours to sleep

  • that night, because you're going to need it.

  • And then whenever you're consuming anything that might

  • increase mental performance, like let's say the racetam

  • class of smart drugs-- so piracetam is kind of the

  • granddaddy of this racetam class of smart drugs.

  • Then you have phenylpiracetam, which is popular among

  • biathletes because it increases cold tolerance and

  • is also very stimulatory.

  • If you use something like that-- and this is true for

  • sports nutrition or any type of supplements.

  • This doesn't apply just to this crazy stuff that I do.

  • If it is improving your performance by burning your

  • fuel faster, you have to replenish that fuel.

  • And a lot of people skip that part of the equation.

  • And they end up having really bad side effects or just

  • feeling tired.

  • So if you take something like phenylpiracetam, you want to

  • combine it with a choline supplementation.

  • And if you want something with high choline content, like

  • whole eggs.

  • Get whole eggs from a very good source

  • and consume the yolks.

  • I can go on and on about it.

  • But I would say in general, high protein intake.

  • And if you're looking to increase consolidation and

  • retention, take a look at lucid dreaming and how you can

  • increase your percentage of REM sleep.

  • So sleep, like the inactive phase in the learning process,

  • is very important.

  • And there are people who've experimented with things like

  • huperzine A or galantamine.

  • I wouldn't recommend galantamine, necessarily.

  • There's some pretty gnarly side effects.

  • But huperzine A, which is an acetylcholinesterase

  • inhibitor, by some accounts increased REM sleep.

  • So you can actually end up accelerating, let's say, your

  • retention of foreign vocabulary,

  • which is pretty cool.

  • There are also flotation tanks around the Bay Area, like

  • sensory deprivation tanks, which have some really cool

  • applications for accelerating stuff like that

  • which require no drugs.

  • Maybe a plus.

  • So those are a couple of ideas.

  • AUDIENCE: Awesome.

  • Thank you.

  • Appreciate it.

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Of course.

  • MALE SPEAKER: Let's all thank Tim for coming.

  • TIMOTHY FERRISS: Thanks for coming out, everybody.

  • [APPLAUSE]

MALE SPEAKER: So about five years ago, I had the pleasure

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