018 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Kevin Kelly part2

what technology wants book

Plant medicine

Lsd & drug use

Cool tools catalog

Maltusian theory, future of humanity & demography

Amish community

Technology free day

Longnow foundation & website

Adventures of Bunko short graphic novel by Daniel Pink

Shantaram book

Man on wire movie

King of khan movie

Discovering and inventing something is the same thing

You do not have to do everything, you can hire others

https://castbox.fm/episode/Ep-26%3A-Kevin-Kelly-(Part-2)---WIRED-Co-Founder%2C-Polymath%2C-Most-Interesting-Man-In-The-World--id1059468-id51930434?country=us

017 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Kevin Kelly

Package ideas into books, magazines, websites

learn to be thrifty

content mode for living

little is enough for living

how to figure out your unique capabilities? (my opinion: try lots of things, discover what you can do well)

1st come up with ideas

2nd actively kill ideas

3rd use those ideas that manage to survive

optimize your strength

countdown clock to death is very effective

setting 6 month deadline

5 year plans

https://castbox.fm/episode/Ep-25%3A-Kevin-Kelly---WIRED-Co-Founder%2C-Polymath%2C-Most-Interesting-Man-In-The-World-id1059468-id51930433?country=ru

html css lessons

016 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Kevin Rose

Lime disease

Microbiom & gut

There are more bacteria in your body than your cells

Your brain on porn documentary

No booze no masturbation challenge

Headspace & calm meditation app

meditation - mindfulness practice

guided meditation in sam harriss website

antifragile, black swan books

Jesus's son short stories

sup app for fotoshoot

email list collection
https://ru.player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/ep-24-kevin-rose-gut-bacteria-meditation-startups-and-more

015 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Ed Catmull

Ignorance is bliss, what you do not know cannot hurt you

It is better to be roughly correct, than precisely wrong

Artists learn to see, not draw

The great teaching company lectures, he listened to all of them

Joseph Campbell storytelling

war chest

Tudors and stuarts ttc history lecture

Wrath of the khans

Apathana meditation

Trans meditation

https://ru.player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/ep-22-ed-catmull-president-of-pixar-on-steve-jobs-stories-and-lessons-learned

014 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Mike Shinoda

Every child is an artist, but the problem is to stay an artist when you grow up - Picasso

Passion was driving their activity, not money or fame

Ninja scrolls movie

Myazaki Hayao movies are great Meditation

https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/ep-21-mike-shinoda-of-linkin-park-on-music-creativity-selling-60-million-albums

013 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Dan Carlin

Hardcore history podcast

Pick a subject, do research

Claiming territory in new market

Find your unique voice during process

Always be yourself

Write as if you are writing to your friends

athlete who passed his prime

Build your product around what you do well

Do not trust to opinions of experts...everything is possible...this was the case with Dan's podcast monetization

Working with niche:
Do not be afraid to do what you are not qualified to do

https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/ep-20-dan-carlin-hardcore-history-building-podcasts-creativity-and-more

012 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, James Altucher

Gratitude and abundance are the same things

You are average 5 people around you

Key to entrepreneurship & success is to reduce risks

Improve yourself 1% a week

Sleep at least 8 hours for good health, it is essential for rejuvenating brain & body

Be vaguely correct instead of being precisely wrong

Nasim Taleb

News is the worst form of junk food you inject yourself

Fiction writers are the best writers

While reading, new ideas come to his mind & he starts writing

Learn to say no, time is more valuable than money, saying no gives you time

Time is non-renewable resource

Money magnifies all your qualities

Every tomorrow is defined by what you do today

Middle class is slowly diminishing

Industry gatekeepers are going away: you can publish your book

Big corporations will not hire you anymore, you have to build your own business

Your writing should be entertaining and educational

In your writing show your vulnerability, your pain points and write how you resolved this problem, never give advice on what to do

4hww book's objective is to give people tools for maximizing their per hour output/productivity power of no book summary

In valley of failure we saw our seeds of success

https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/ep-18-james-altucher-on-saying-no-failing-better-business-building-and-more

011 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast

Neil Strauss

Neil’s writing process:
1st draft for yourself
2nd draft for the reader
3rd draft for the haters

Give your writing for proof reading, and present polished work to audience

People learn through metaphors

Not accepting norms will change the world

010 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast

Sam Harris

Guided mindfulness meditation helps to calm brain and become more conscious

It is so hard to notice that you became lost in thoughts


Self-consciousness is an illusion

009 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast

Rhonda Patrick

Micronutrients

Vitamin K in dark leafy plants

If you want better cognitive performance move a lot physically

Fasting and less ejaculation lengthens life time of males

Take micronutrients to prevent future illnesses

Focus and get your micronutrients for good health, this is low hanging fruit

In diet, absence of harmful things does not guarantee presence of useful things, therefore develop habit of taking micronutrients

30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up and fistful of greens in every meal is great

008 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast

Chase Jarvis
Creativity is a new literacy
Hacker mentality - develop it in yourself

Once you are great at your craft, the rest is vision, hack the system

Negotiation is an essential life skill

Being great at your craft is a requirement

Learn to position yourself in marketplace

Be great at telling your story, storytelling is a great influence tool, packaging story is mission critical find ways to hack the system

How do you differentiate yourself in market place? be different, not better...zig when everybody is zagging

There are no more gate keepers like magazines & publishing houses...there is internet

Take ideas from other spheres, industries to be great at your skill

Be different not better

22 laws of marketing book

blue ocean strategy book

business model generation book

share your work, austin cleon book

smartcuts, kevin kelly

polymaths vs hyperspecialists

specialization is for insects -Isaac Azimov, be polymath!!!

Kickstarter

Indiegogo

Youtube

Patreon

It is permissible to be polymath

If you spread yourself too thin vs. if you have predisposition with right tools, you can become good pretty quickly

What did you start saying no to for reaching your goals?

Set limits to number of activities to be able to reach your goals 20 % customer make 80% of your income

007 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast

Stephen Dubner

Freakonomics book coauthor

Storytelling is very important skill

1st come up with as many ideas as it is possible 

2nd kill all of them 

3rd take those ideas that did not die and use them

Thinking fast and slow book

Correlation vs. Causation 

Daniel refuted stories, experts may not understand your idea, thus do not rely on their expertise, question their & your own assumptions 

Test assumptions 

Uncover biases 

Become a better thinker

You are yourself in all circumstances 

People try to replicate other successful people by reading their biographies, that is common bias among many people

Freakonomics principles & rules 

Train to think in objective way 

Put away your moral compass at considering all kinds of issue or while thinking 

Be curious like a child

Writings is crystallizing your thoughts, clearing thinking

 

7up series documentary - sociology, decision making, nurture vs. nature 

Clothes you wear influences your thinking & behavior

Levels of the game McPhee book 

006 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast

6 formulas for more output and less overwhelm 

1. Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be in front of computer screen. 

2. Make a cup of tea and sit down with pen & paper. 

3. Write down 3-5 things that are making you anxious/uncomfortable, the stuff you delay all the time. Most important tasks= most uncomfortable tasks 

4. Ask yourself: 

a) If this is the only thing I accomplish, will I be satisfied with this day? 

b) Will this task ease or knock off other important tasks, is it force multiplier? 

5. Choose only those tasks that have positive response, no more than 3 tasks. 

6. Block out time and work on only ONE of these tasks. Eliminate distractions & focus on task at hand. 

7. If you get distracted or procrastinate, then calmly return to task at hand & finish it. 

If everything is important, then nothing is important. 

What you do is far more important than how you do it. 

Doing something well does not make it important.  

Being busy is a form of laziness & indiscriminate action. 

Do not underestimate yourself, overestimate the world.

005 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss show podcast, Jason Silva

Brain games national geographic documentary

Epiphany addict - realizing something great, new discovery

shots of awe/search in youtube

Festival of dangerous ideas

Learn to get into flow state by Steven Kotler

Discover your talents and passions

Dopamine – how to manipulate it for our advantage

cognitive ecstasy wonder junkie

Set, setting & environment dictate your emotions

Do activities that take you into flow state

I worried about many hardships and most of them did not happen - Mark Twain

Enemy Dostoyevsky double

Memento movie

Matrix movie

Inception movie

Joseph Cambell’s Hero's journey book
https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/episode-5-jason-silva

004 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss Show Podcast, Ryan Holiday

Philosophy is used for solving practical problems

You do not control the world around you, you only control your response to the world around you

Stoicism - operating system for making better decisions in your life

Real problem is to think that you need money for surviving

Enjoy wealth but do not think that it is key for your survival, practice voluntary poverty

Make riches serve you, not you serving to riches

The problem is not having riches, but riches having you

Tucker Max
Robert Green

Find a mentor whom you can use as a ruler to compare yourself

Jack Canfield
chicken soup for the soul

Fog of war documentary

Wall of Sound documentary

How to be a good writer?
Live interesting life, do something interesting and write about it....write only when you have something to say...unless do not write at all

If you do 1 or 2 things you will feel busy, if you do 4 or 5 things you are not that busy and things help each other

To write one book is hard, but the more you write, the easier it gets


Ryan runs everyday

Top 2 3 books
Sarah Bagwell how to live book
Ulysses s. Grant biography book
The fish that ate the whale book

Pharnam Street Shane parish blog

Maker vs Manager schedule

Paul graham essays

To be rich you need either make lots of money or limit your wants & desires

Keep your identity small, be able to live for small salary, do not develop expensive habits, otherwise when you get poor it will be difficult to live

Learn and practice financial management, save money for difficult days

Human action, technology are creating climate change and super storms

Being greedy when others are fearful, being fearful when others are greedy - Warren Buffet

Sub-reddits are great source of info

Survivorship bias

War of Art S. Pressfield book
Meditations Marcus Aurelius book
Robert Green book

Learn to read people

Gladiator movie

Shown of the dead movie

https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/episode-4-ryan-holiday

003 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss Show podcast, Kelly Starret and Justin Mager

One should sleep 8+ hours per night

Quantified self-tools

Observing deep sleep

Blood testing, one blood test is a snapshot, and continuous tests give chart and explain our internal processes

Folic acid and methylation

Better information - better decisions

Heart rate variability exercises (HRV)

Listen to yourself, to your body for improving health and life quality

Observe yourself, read people, it is easy to read people by their emotions & movements

If you know yourself, you know others

If you wake up and have no erection...then you have health issue

Sitting and office work is very bad, similar to smoking and killing yourself slowly

Improve your cognitive performance by fixing your diet, posture

To improve your thinking, mental performance, improve your physical performance, it is cheap & effective

Sleep hygiene:

Pitch dark room

It should be a little bit cold

Taking away chair at school will have major impact in health improvement of children, work in office

While working, avoid sitting for long hours

Think critically, use technology to optimize our potential

https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/episode-3-kelly-starrett-and-dr-justin-mager

002 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss Show podcast, Josh Waitskin

Playing simultaneous chess games is like juggling balls

Constantly be learning

Cognitive biases: sunk cost fallacy, confirmation bias, false constructs

20/80 analysis

What rules people following that are not required that I can exploit?

Who is good at skill, who shouldn't be?

Questions you ask yourself and your internal dialogue defines your thinking

Meditation is a very powerful tool at self improvement, you start seeing yourself from side to meditate sit cross legged in comfortable position, follow and return to your breath

Journaling is another useful tool for self improvement

Cultivate habit of relaxing and working, turning on and turning off set and practice morning and evening routines

Dao de Jing
Shantaram

Collect & ask questions to yourself, they define your thinking

Ghandi Lao tzu
Buddha

https://ja.player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/episode-2-joshua-waitzkin

001 cliff notes from Tim Ferriss Show podcast

Kevin Rose

To make good investments, observe leaders, opinion makers and look for social trends

Be curious about everything

Be in good shape, do workouts

Annual letters of Warren Buffett

Barbell approach to investing - 20 % highly speculative investment & 80 % highly conservative & income guaranteed investment - do not gamble more than you can afford to lose

Phillip Rosedale

When one has no fear, he starts to think big Meditation practice

4hww is about maximizing productivity & per hour output

Food Inc documentary

Tell the truth, make fun of yourself before someone else will make fun of you laugh

Learn to catch a wave and use it to make profit

Practice gardening and farming as hobby when you start a business, focus on your product

https://player.fm/series/the-tim-ferriss-show-1578275/episode-1-kevin-rose

The Story of Stuff

        From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. http://storyofstuff.org

How to learn, retain and use vast amount of information in short time

Do you read a lot? I do. Once I read so much that I felt as if I live in a bubble of my imagination that I formed from reading too much. And there was one problem in this situation. It was not the bubble that I have formed, it was memory. I could not remember most of things I read before. I mean I was able to remember big ideas, but I could not remember details so I could use these ideas in life. It was partially due to too much social media information I have been consuming, just recently I started following information diet and feeling little bit better. However I am still not good enough at following my own advice. I need follow what I advised myself. So anyways, this post is about how to learn more in shorter time and be able to use it.

Do you feel this? You read a book or learn something, but what you have learned stays unused. It stays in notebooks or files you have created. It stays as notes you have taken during learning process. I feel very disappointed for not being able to use what I have learned. I mean what we learn does not reach operational level; a reflex point at which you can use gained knowledge. What would you do if you could learn something in shorter time and be able to use it quite decently? I wish I could reach such a level. There are numerous ideas I wish I could do if I had such ability.

Our inability to use what we learn is practically very hard to pinpoint from vast amount of factors and address it. Partially it is our faulty memories, partially it is our irregular schedules, and partially it is non-systematic approach to learning process and not knowing how our memories work. So, to address this situation I read a lot about learning process, how our memories work and found ideas that may help us. This list of ideas may help us to learn more and be able to use gained knowledge if only we will be consistent in our efforts. So let’s begin to learn these ideas.

Be passionate. Make yourself extremely interested in topic to remember more of it. Ask questions. Focus on what you are learning. I know, we all do that, what we are learning is interesting and important but often we may turn on our autopilot and wonder in our imagination or go thought a list of tasks we need to do. To comprehend information well, make yourself interested in it, ask questions, reflect about what you are learning.

Use Pareto principle. Focus and learn 20 % of information that you will use 80 % of time. The only issue with this idea is to find out which 20 % that forms what you are learning. After finding that information, focus on it. Ask yourself or experts in that subject, what information or concepts are the most frequently used. If you look at language use, there are words that you will use once in every 3-5 hours, there are words that you will use once in every 2-3 days, words that you will use once a week, and words that you will use once a month.  You can ignore words that you will use once in 3-4 months. You do not need to learn them because such words are very situational. I think there is a similar situation in other domains also. Learn the 20 % to use 80 % of time.

Take good notes. Attentively take notes of key ideas from start. Review, simplify and compress notes with various memory techniques such as chunking, mnemonic, acronyms and images. Good notes are simple, short and can be reviewed very quickly. Ideal notes will be in a form of flash cards that you can review in daily basis.

Use Feynman technique. (Need to read this amazing person’s books and watch his interviews) So, Feynman technique works in the following way:

1. Select the topic and study it.
2. After studying, explain the idea in simple language so that a little kid can understand it. While doing this, find out problem areas that you cannot explain or describe well. These areas are the things you did not understand properly.
3. Study the target ideas you did not understand until you will be able to explain them.
4. Repeat the process and explain the idea(s)

Once you will be able to explain what you have learned, you can be sure that you have mastered the concept. By the way Feynman technique used with teaching process accelerates your learning and information retaining process. I often try to tell my friends what I am learning. This helps me a lot.

Connect ideas and experience. Link all ideas and concepts with your experience. There more you connect what you are learning with your life experience, the easier you will remember what you are learning. Just a bunch of concepts that exist in a form of text is hard to remember in comparison with ideas that you can relate to as experience.

Visualize ideas you have learned. Imagine key concepts in strange, funny and unusual pictures. This takes time to do, but it is much less time than rote memorization process. Just take one idea or concept, imagine it in funny situation or make it funny by adding something, link it with another concept as a story. By this way you will remember more. Watch the video below and you will understand power of visualization.

Practice spaced repetition. We all forget everything we learn, it is natural process. The forgetting process was studied by HermanEbbinghaus. With help of this study, he discovered a forgetting curve – how fast people forget what they learn. To remember more of what you have learned, practice spaced repetition. What I understood is that you can pull back to your memory most of things if you repeat them often during certain periods. To ease the process, use spaced repetition apps. There are many of them: Anki, Quizlet, Cram, Anymemo etc. My favorite one is Anki, it is good, simple and desktop software is easy to use for creating flashcards. 

Review what you learned. Test your memory by remembering what you have learned. List, describe and explain the ideas you have learned. Just check how much you could retain in your operational memory. The more you can remember the better, since you can use gained knowledge in practice, this is the goal of learning – acquiring knowledge and being able to use it in our life.

Practice healthy habits. Eat healthy food, do workouts everyday and sleep enough (at least 7 hours). Nutritious food gives necessary chemical elements that will improve your cognitive performance. 40-60 minutes of workout made of aerobics, calisthenics and strengths training also help you to maintain your brain in peak performance. Sleep is essential for memory transfer; neural activity produces toxic metabolic waste. Active brain produces more of such waste; sleep helps us to clear that toxic waste out. This last paragraph needs sources and I was lazy to cite them. You can search them by yourself, if you are interested. So far these are my findings. I sensed good changes when I used these principles in my study process. However, I need to be more disciplined to get good results.

The Tao of Seneca: Practical Letters from a Stoic Master, Volume 1, book review

The Tao of Seneca: Practical Letters from aStoic Master, Volume 1

ASIN: B01AIXJ0U

How strongly I recommend it: 10/10

Go to Amazon or Audible pages for more details and reviews.

About the book

The Tao of Seneca (volumes 1-3) is a collection of letters written through the words of Seneca to his friend Lucillius.  All three volumes are introductory books to Stoic philosophy. The book contains numerous advice that can be applied to your life. In addition to this, the book is written in eloquent language that makes it a pleasant read. Many people in the past and at present read Seneca’s letters, among them Thomas Jefferson, NFL coaches, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and many others. Stoicism is practical operating system for thriving in high-stress environments, says Tim Ferriss. Actually, I learned about the book from his blog, where Tim included all three volumes into his book club section. Having read the 1^st volume, I can say that it makes you to reconsider your thinking process and values, change your attitude to life. The book contains numerous amount of ideas, for this reason I am sharing only those ideas that resonated with me in a form of bullet points. By this way it will be very practical for any person who wants to learn these ideas and review them from time to time. By the way, you can download all three volumes for free in Tim’s blog where he shared them. Thank you Mr. Tim Ferriss for sharing these amazing books with the world!

Here is a sample letter from the book read by Tim Ferriss in his podcast, listen to it and feel the taste of the book.

Book notes and key lessons I have learned

Wisdom

• No one is able to borrow or buy a sound mind.
• Submit yourself to reason, if reason will be your ruler, you will become ruler of many.
• Instead of reading many books, read, reread and digest few master thinkers’ books.
• Serving to philosophy (thinking) is freedom, serving to desires and emotions is a slavery.
• Wisdom is always desiring the same things and always refusing the same things.
• The best ideas a property of all people.

Thinking

• We suffer more in our imagination than in reality.
• We have a habit of imagining, exaggerating and anticipating suffering and pain.
• Believe in what you prefer to believe, and do not harass your soul.
• We agree too quickly with other’s opinions but do not test ideas that cause our fears.

Self-improvement

• Strive and be persistent at improving yourself everyday by studying, training and changing yourself.
• Inwardly strive to excellence and self-improvement, on your exterior conform to society.
• Find mentors according to whom you can improve yourself, you cannot fix crooked without a ruler.
• Your greatest obstacle and trouble is you, where ever you go, you take this burden with yourself. Thus improve yourself instead of trying to escaping from yourself.
• Men complain about their hardships but not about their laziness and foolishness.

Gratitude 

• Every day wake up with joy and gladness, because you are alive.
• He who accepts voluntary poverty (minimalist and voluntary content life) is rich.
• Be grateful to be rich, otherwise you will be poor even if all the wealth of the world belongs to you.
• Your wealth does not matter if it is bad in your own eyes.

Wealth

• No man is born rich, as nature gives to newborn only milk and rags.
• To be rich, have what is necessary and then have what is enough.
• It is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more that is poor. Be content and you will be rich.
• Live according to nature and you will be rich. Live according to opinion and you will be poor.
• He who needs riches least enjoys it most.
• Hunger costs a little, greed costs a lot.

Friends

• Judge a person before making him your friend, only after that trust him. Many people do the opposite.
• To make a friend loyal, regard him as loyal, and he will become loyal friend to you.
• Evaluating a person by clothes or riches is like evaluating a horse by its saddle, look at person’s soul and character instead of his possessions.
• Be friends with poverty so fortune cannot catch you off guard.
• Wise man is self-sufficient, though he wants to have friends.

Social status

• Every king descends from a race of slaves, and every slave has had kings among his ancestors.

Fear and hardships

• Practice fear setting on regular basis.
• Repeatedly practice voluntary poverty and the worst case scenarios and ask yourself: “Is this what I am afraid of?”
• While fortune is kind, fortify yourself against her violence by facing your fears.
• Regular experience of fear will make tough decisions easier, whether it is quitting job, starting business, changing career or anything else.

Time and life

• Nothing is ours except time.
• Largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.
• Certain moments are torn from us, some are gently removed, and others glide beyond our reach.
• The most disgraceful loss of time is due to carelessness.
• You cannot lengthen your life, but you always can live noble and content life, no matter how long you will live.
• Live everyday as a separate whole life, so you will live numerous lives, not one life.
• Keep resolutions you have made instead of coming up with new ones
• The only chain that is binding us to life is the love of life.
• While we are postponing, life speeds by.

Death

• Young and old should look directly in the face of death; there is no rule by which death takes people’s lives.
• Death does not come suddenly, you die every day. Every day that has passed is in death’s hand.
• You do not know where death is awaiting you, so be ready for it everywhere.

Ideas on how to read the book

This book is so dense with ideas that it needs to be consumed by small bites. Instead of swallowing it, read or listen to one or two letters per day, this is the advice of Tim Ferriss. Pause in places where you need to think through ideas. Reflect on where you can apply ideas in your life. Review key ideas on regular basis so you can instill them into your life.