Harvard Business School (HBS) contacted last year a case study on my business trip, which tracks me from childhood to the current day. The case study, entitled “Tim Ferriss: How would this be easy?“It has approximately 40 pages, and you can buy it for $ 11.95 here. I don’t win a penny. All the experience culminated in two classes in HBS in the course of Professor Satchus “Finder Mindset”.
After one of the classes, the student Jay Bhandari interviewed me for the series “Between two classes” The portA publication of Harvard Business School students, who kindly gave permission to share it here.
I hope you find something useful below.
In a Q&A with his fans, he talked about the value of identity diversification. This approach is antithetic to the tips or that we commit ourselves and focus on a domain. How do these two philosophies of competition reconcile?
I think they complement each other instead of competing. Identity diversification simply means growing multiple independent growth areas in your life where you can draw progress. This is designed so that your Autovorth is not the Dpendondent one thing, like the updating ups and downs of your own startup. Being survived gets a lot of media and threads X, but there is an unpleasant survival bias at work. I have seen Doess of Founders Implosure Drause their “startup as selfvorth” metrics went sideways for a few months. I prefer a more safety margin approach, and is fully compatible with the domain domain. For example, it could either spend 40 to 80 hours a week in its startup, but if it supplements that with inner rock climbing, weight training, chess club or more that has its own metrics for growth, even if the new regulations or a competition are its beginning by a short section, it can still compensate the coup with the progress outside the office. It is cheap psychological insurance. I think of identity diversification as a great competitive advantage in games that depend on resistance. At the highest levels, that is more or less everything. If Michael Jordan could play large amounts of golf and poker, he can afford to have secondary interests.
Is there anything in your life that would you like to focus on Soner? If you could spend time with you, what would you say?
To my youngest self: meditating twice a day -10 minutes is abundant -and get Accelerated tms As soon as it is ready for Showtime. See my other answers for elaboration. It would probably also share an embroidered appointment. Bought in a second -hand store In Marfa, Texas: “Today is the tomorrow that worries you yesterday.”
What do you think young people and friends are overcome?
I think that HBS students are too indexed in the purchase of the investment banking and implicit management tone of something like “Get wide exposure to industries and then you can choose your lane and do anything!” If he is not technical and remains in any of those for more than a few years, the chances of leaving to begin his own startup (out of finance or consulting) is more or less the same as the probability of a five. In other words, bass. I’ve seen this play more than 100 times. Of course, there are some exceptions, but it would not be one of them unless you have committed to an exit plan before entering those games. And if you want to be a case of edge, search and study at least five to 10 edge cases that you can emulate before accepting the work. If you can’t find them, that tells you something.
Many in the multitude of HBS, type A, are not oblivious to stress, anxiety and depression. What are the advice, mantras and systems that you have developed to administer your mental health when actively in a dark place?
To be clear, I am not a doctor and do not play one on the Internet. The “Activey in a dark place” makes this a very incious question. That said, after having spent some time in dark places, especially in the university, I will share some things that I have seen work. Do your own task and talk to your medical professionals.
For an acute suicidal idea, I would call the 988 first and power line would consider a series of ketamine infusions/injections according to the protocols suggested by John Krystal, MDProfessor of Neuroscience at Yale University. Ketamine can be very addictive, and I have seen people unravel their lives with it, but in circumstances of dangerous self -injuries, it can be an intervention that saves lives. It makes an effective pause of the incessant thinking loops that drive despair. For more than my thoughts about suicide, including my description of a nearby brush in 1999, Lea Tim.blog/suicide.
If we are talking about general and self -care prevention, I would suggest highly daily exposure to cold (I do 3–5 minutes in a daily bath of 40–45 ° F) and short meditation sessions 2x/daily (EC, Transcendental meditation For 20 minutes twice a day or The way the application with Henry Shukman For two 10 -minute sessions). Usually, I immediately meditate upon waking and then again before dinner or bed. This is less than 30 minutes a day. Do your pre-hab and you will need less rehabilitation.
If you have a trauma history, see Tim.blog/trauma For a list of resources that I and the designer Debbie Millman have found effective. Activation warning: it is not a fun reading, but it can be useful for some. Your mileage can vary.
For treatment resistant depression, I would consider accelerated TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), to the Saint protocol developed by Dr. Nolan Williams At Stanford University. Brain and Mis Both make convincing devices with different approaches. I firmly believe that TMS and other forms of brain stimulation can have almost imminent and durable effects that rival the effects of psychedelics on the results. I say that some who founded much of the scientific relationship with psychedelics since 2015 through my non -profit organization, Saisei Foundation.
Once legal, and assuming that it has no family history of schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, etc., could suggest investigating several therapies assisted by psychedelic for depression (eg, p., Psilocybin) in a cadence stimulation once annual as TMS. For example, and I have seen this first -hand, combining ayahuasca and ssris Increases risk Or serotonin syndrome, which can be life in severe cases. Consider any of these compounds with the same respect that the main neurosurgery would discuss. To obtain more education on science, applications and possible mechanisms of action, I suggest the investigation of Dr. Gül Dolen and Dr. Nolan Williamsas well as The Netflix miniseries Based on Michael Pollan’s book by the same name, How to change your mind. The episodes of mdma and psilocybin/fungus are particularly strong.
Last but not least, do not ignore the diet. Read about “Metabolic psychiatryAND Dr. Chris PalmerAssistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medicine Faculty. Cetosis and other interventions can produce almost miraculous results for a series of psychiatric conditions, including those that are strongly contraindicated with psychedelics, such as schizophrenia.
If you started today in 2025 and I was twenty years old, what would you be doing?
I would look for rapid growth industries that are not attractive and under the radar, and I would pretend to join a 100 -people ferwer startup, where I can see the creators of agreements making deals and decisions. On the contrary, if you are trying to create a startup like everyone else, it will be a crab in a cubes scenario for 99% of the people involved. Of course, it may be the Super Crab 1%, but I generally prefer less busy spaces, where you can generally obtain a more regular interaction with A+players.
Let’s get the luck from the scene. What skills, habits, mantras or personal growths would more attribute your success?
Playing the long game and not hurry. I choose projects and many investments based on learning, the development of skills and the relationships that transcend them. If you allow such things to be a snowball, any of the critical mass masses success is almost inevitable. This may sound on hand, but can systematically address it. Gonna Tim.blog/mba Or Google “Tim Ferriss Real-World MBA” for some examples of investment angels of how I have applied this. This is not the only approach that I have seen work for “success” (dangerous word, that!), But it seems replicable.
If I could put a message on a billboard that reaches HBS students, what would it be?
I would borrow from Dr. BJ MillerA hospice doctor who has helped thousands of people navigating death, whose response was “don’t believe everything you think.”
Reprinted with permission from Harbus News Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Tim Ferriss’s show It is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has a selected bone for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times, it is from the interview #1 podcast in all Apple’s podcasts, and is a #1 of 400000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the last past episodes, look This page.
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