Despite the dozens of case studies I’ve put on this blog, and the hundreds elsewhere, one knee-jerk objection always crops up: “That might work for a single 30-something guy, but what about families? I have a mortgage, kids, and…”
Georges St. Pierre, better known to fight fans worldwide as “GSP,” is currently the UFC Welterweight Champion.
His publicly stated goal is to retire as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and, at a record of 23-2, ESPN currently ranks him as the #3 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. I think he’ll get there.
His intellect–and consistency–is what separates him from the brawlers. He has a scientific approach to winning.
This isn’t limited to training. He considers nutrition a critical part of his fight prep, just as important as being in the cage. In this respect, 2009 marked an inflection point. That year, after successfully defending his Welterweight title in his second fight against BJ Penn, GSP hired Dr. John Berardi of Precision Nutrition to help him gain lean muscle tissue and improve his recovery abilities. Berardi, in charge of the nutrient science, recommended that GSP hire Jennifer Nickel and Rosario “Ross” Gurreri, two chefs in the Montreal area who worked at Cavalli and Bice restaurants, for his meal preparation.
In the next 8 weeks, GSP gained approximately 12 pounds of lean muscle and bulked up to 195 pounds. His upgraded speed and power helped him to dominate every subsequent opponent, posting a 5-0 record since 2009.
This post will walk you through how GSP ate during his 2009 transformation… Read More
Many of you have been asking me for the audiobook version of The 4-Hour Chef. Now that I control the rights, I’d like to offer it to you… for free.
The offer is at the end of this post, but first…
Who should join me?
I’ll record a lot myself, but I’d like to involve other voice actors for small bits and pieces.
Who would you vote for? Here are some of my favorites. If you like any other them, please Tweet at them using the following format:
“Request! @[insert name] Please narrate a piece of The 4-Hour Chef audiobook! http://amzn.to/LQjLlm @tferriss is a fan.”
For instance:
“Request! @SamuelLJackson Please narrate a piece of The 4-Hour Chef audiobook! http://amzn.to/LQjLlm @tferriss is a fan.”
Here are a few I think would be incredible, even for just a few lines:
- Samuel L. Jackson – @SamuelLJackson
- Patton Oswalt (played “Remy” in Ratatouille) – @PattonOswalt
- Ben Stiller – @RedHourBen
- Morgan Freeman – I’m unsure which Twitter account is real, if any.
- Chuck Norris – Not on Twitter?
- Tony Robbins – @TonyRobbins
- Neil Gaiman – @NeilHimself
- Brad Garrett (played “Gusteau” in Ratatouille) – Not on Twitter?
Who am I missing? Any requests?
The Offer
Here’s the offer, good only until tomorrow (Saturday) at 10AM PST (1pm EST):
- Or… if you buy three (3) hardcover copies of The 4-Hour Body (BODY), you’ll get both the audiobook for free and my $299 CreativeLIVE course described here for free. Just purchase the 3 books on Amazon and fill out this form.
- Give extra books to close friends and family who can use them. Challenge them to join the current DietBet.
NOTE: If you already bought three books this week through the last promo, you’re automatically getting the audiobook Otherwise, alas, only new orders count.
What will it be like?
I’ve never had a chance to make an audiobook myself and intend to make this one VERY fun and unusual. It will necessarily omit the recipes and be abridged, but there’s a lot of room for creativity.
Completing it could take a few months, but it will be well worth it. If you buy The 4-Hour Body with this promotion, you’ll get the audiobook (free) at least a month before anyone else.
If I think up more cool opportunities, you’ll be the first people to hear about it.
Ricardo Arias – 410 pounds to 211.6 pounds, for a loss of 198.4 pounds. But is he an anomaly? Sidenote: the black pants in the after pic (56 portly-long/60+ inch waist) fit him tightly at 410.
How many “how-to” books actually get read?
Historically, no one has known. Now, it’s possible to get an idea by looking at how many digital highlights a book has, and perhaps Amazon will someday provide data on how many people finish Kindle editions.
Taking it a step further: how many of the books actually get used?
This is tricky. Patients routinely ignore prescribed drugs, estimated to result in 125,000 deaths a year from cardiovascular disease alone, so it’s hard to imagine books are better followed. But how to know for sure?
The answer is: you have to track it.
When The 4-Hour Body (4HB) was published, it was met with sharp criticism, including:
- It’s impossible to lose more than 2 pounds of fat per week!
- It’s impossible to gain 20+ pounds of muscle in a month!
- It’s impossible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time!
Fortunately, the “impossible” (circling the globe, breaking the 4-minute mile, reaching the moon, etc.) needs just one exception to be proven possible.
Since late 2010, new research and publications have supported many of the 4HB chapters that started with self-experiments (e.g. The New York Times and “brown fat,” cold exposure for fat loss, etc.). For all chapters, readers have outpaced my successes with their own. Here are several 100+ pound case studies.
But, the skeptics will rightly ask: Does it work for the general public, not just a handful of standouts?
This post will cover the first wide-scale distributed studies of The 4-Hour Body, which involved 3,500 people over 4 weeks. I’ll also include a few individual examples and measurements.
Here’s our rough table of contents:
- Case Study: 200 Pounds Lost
- The 4-Hour Body – Summary of Results with 3,500 People
- The Winner of The 4-Week Challenge: Female Before-and-After
- An Opportunity: Win Money By Losing Weight… Read More
In this long overdue episode, join me and Kevin Rose as we catch up on topics ranging from start-ups and new projects to meditation and funny business. Thanks to Glenn for the videography. This is actually Episode 19, but Kevin wanted it to be 20, so there you have it.
One wish-list item: If any of you are involved in comic books or animation, I’d love to shadow a true master or even intern/work at A) a comic publisher alongside pencilers, or B) at an animation studio at some point in 2013. I have some wild ideas I’d like to explore later, and I’m happy to be a gopher (i.e. “Go fer coffee”) for a while. Please leave a comment or feel free to email my assistant (see contact page on this blog).
Casey Fenton founded Couchsurfing.org, which connects millions of travelers with free accommodation around the world. (Photo by Alexandra Liss)
I met Alexandra Liss on a rainy day last September, outside of one of my favorite Thai restaurants in San Francisco.
Alex had just returned from six months abroad, traveling through 21 countries for free while shooting her full-length documentary, One Couch at a Time. She was wrapping up the film and had requested an interview with me.
Startups that are part of this “sharing economy” — like TaskRabbit, AirBNB, Uber, and Sidecar — have given us unprecedented access to incredible experiences and resources, allowing many people to completely upgrade their lifestyles. By capitalizing on underused resources and new technology, people can live many strata above their income. In Alex’s case, she was able to raise $8,000 through Kickstarter to crowdfund her travel and the making of her film. She also lived rent-free during those six months, staying with more than 80 different strangers she’d met through Couchsurfing.org.
In this post, Alex shares exactly how she’s managed to become a couchsurfing guru, and the steps you can take to travel the world on next to no budget… Read More
At first glance, this post appear to be about martial arts, as it’s written by Ryan Hall.
Ryan is a new friend and a phenom. He’s IBJJF Mundial (world) and No-Gi Mundial champion in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), with more than 300 career victories and 275+ submissions to his credit. Looking past his fight record, this letter and post is about the dangers of hero worship. Whether you aim to lead others or follow the best leaders, there are important lessons here.
Even if you skip the martial arts-specific references, this is worth reading. No time now? Bookmark it and make time later.
Enter Ryan Hall
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1- Table of Contents
2- Foreword
3- An Open Letter to the Martial Arts Community
5- My Story
8- Hero Worship and The Martial Arts
9- You May Think You Know Your Coach, But You Probably Don’t
12- Innocence and Trust Capitalized on for Manipulation
15- Martial Arts as a Means of Generating a Cult Following
Growing up on Long Island, I watched deer struggle across our land with arrows stuck in them. Deer died on our property because bow hunters couldn’t get the job done or simply didn’t care. Then there were the beer cans littered on the side of the road, next to trucks outfitted with hunting racks. It all disgusted me.
Then… I met Steve Rinella.
He didn’t fit my stereotype. For instance, he applies physics terms to skinning. And most relevant to my 4-Hour Chef food quest, as he put it: “There are far better chefs out there than me. There are far better hunters out there, too. But there aren’t many who can combine the two like I do.”
He is a master of turning the wild into “ingredients” people recognize. In 2004, he prepared a three-day, 45-course banquet from Escoffier’s landmark 1903 classic, Le Guide Culinaire.
By “prepare,” I mean that he foraged, killed, or otherwise procured every ingredient from the outdoors… then re-created the feast himself, which took more than a week. This experiment was chronicled in his first book, The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine. He started trapping for income in rural Michigan when he was 10. Now 38, he writes for a living, and his work is as likely to be seen in The New York Times as in Field and Stream.
Thanks to his incredible teaching ability (and respect for the game he hunts), Steve was my guide in most of the “WILD” section of The 4-Hour Chef.
Now, you can see him in action.
This Sunday at 9pm ET/PT, Steve and I will be on the debut episode of his show, aptly called “MeatEater.” It chronicles a life-changing week-long trip we took to remote Alaska, were we lived on the edge of a river bank, hunting, foraging, and defending camp from grizzly bears.
Here are a few trailers, followed by instructions on how to watch it live.
FAQ
- How do I get the Sportsman Channel?
Click here and look on the right-hand side of the screen, where you’ll find a Sportsman Channel Finder. Type in your zipcode in the box and click “GO.” Follow the instructions in the pop up window.
- What is the cost (or range of cost) for getting Sportsman Channel? Can I test drive it?
On DirectTV, Dish, Verizon FIOS, or ATT U-Verse, the cost for the package can range from an additional $5 a month up to $15 or so, but non-satellite cable providers like Comcast vary from market to market. Be sure to connect with them to get accurate pricing.
That said, the packages almost always come with more than just one channel, so the cost could be spread out over additional channels. For example, you get channels like FOX Movie Channel, the National Geographic Channel, VH1 Classic, PBS Kids, and E! along with Sportsman Channel on Direct TV’s Choice Xtra package.
Worst-case scenario: you can always order and cancel the next day if you’re not happy, and your cable/satellite provider will usually fully credit the amount or prorate, which would end up costing you less than $1 for a day or two. I’m not recommending you screw your cable company, but if you’d like to take the channel(s) for a test drive, there you go.
- Is it available on Roku or AppleTV?
Sportsman Channel is not currently on Roku or AppleTV.
- Any plans to be available for download anywhere like iTunes?
“We’re working on getting all episodes of MeatEater up on iTunes, but it’s probably 3-6 months away. It will be available on DVD in April 2013.As of right now, the episode won’t be available on iTunes, but stay tuned to themeateater.com or www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater for updates.”
Smiling with the Hario hand grinder. Combine with the AeroPress below, and you can make world-class coffee on an airplane meal tray.
I dislike shopping, but I do love finding the perfect gift.
Finding that gift, though, gets harder with time. Those damn adults seem to already have everything. That includes me.
More salt and pepper shakers? Nah. Alternate versions of the shirts I got last year? No, thank you. In the eternal quest to eliminate clutter, I now give Santa a not-to-buy list instead of a wish list.
If you’re having trouble thinking up killer (in the good sense) gifts, here are 11 goods that deliver.
Prices are estimates, I advise two of them thanks to obsessions (#1 and #10), and all of them have either changed my life or saved my ass. OK, almost all. A few were thrown in purely for fun…
I first used CLEAR card in 2007. It’s one of my secret weapons, and I never travel without it.
Hate the feeling of arriving at the airport and wondering if the security lines will take 5 minutes or 45 minutes…maybe longer? CLEAR allows you to skip security lines completely at enrolled airports (San Francisco, DFW, Denver, and more).
Now, I am never anxious going to airport. Uber takes 15 minutes from my door to check-in kiosk (eliminating parking), and I know CLEAR can get me through security in 5 minutes or less. Last time I timed myself during SFO rush hour, I was 25 minutes faster than the first-class line and more than an hour faster than the economy line… all with an economy ticket. Gift cards can be e-mailed or printed, and kids under 18 traveling with you go through the CLEAR lane for free.
I have collected knives since taking pack trips through the Teton mountain range as a teenager.
This Kershaw knife with “open-assist” (basically a side-opening switchblade) is the most all-around convenient and useful knife I own. Fixed blade knives are awesome, and I own many, but the balance and utility of this Kershaw blade makes it my go-to default at home or on the road.
Be sure to get it with the serrated edge. Be sure not to leave it in your carry-on luggage. The TSA will make a frowny face otherwise.
#3 – Three Books, Three Eras
The Education of Cyrus (Cyropaedia) by Xenophon –
This was written a few years ago…in the 4th century BC. If you like Seneca or my other philosophical favorites, you’ll like this one. It was introduced to me by Wofford College president Ben Dunlap, one of the best teachers I’ve ever met in my life. For those interested, here’s his unreal Wikipedia entry. He embodies many of the lessons taught in The Education of Cyrus, as is clear in own his TED talk on lifelong learning and passion (the last 5 minutes are gold, if you need to skip around).
Levels of the Game by John McPhee –
John McPhee is probably my favorite non-fiction writer of all-time. He’s written about everything from oranges to hardwood canoes, and he transforms every subject into page-turning fascination. In Levels of the Game, published in 1979, McPhee writes his first book on tennis. I’m not a tennis player, but I loved this short, 149-page book. The critics got it right: “This may be the high point of American sports journalism.” (The New York Times) “McPhee has produced what is probably the best tennis book ever written.” (Life)
The 4-Hour Chef by Some Long Islander –
Writing The 4-Hour Chef changed how I look at learning, passion, and creativity forever. In 2007, if I’d had the contacts I do now, I would have written this book before The 4-Hour Workweek. Accelerated learning is the foundation for everything I enjoy, and it’s the force multiplier for everything in my previous two books.
Sidenote: If you’d like to explore the gear in the first 150 pages of the book, I’ve put it all here.
Simple: An Amazon Prime membership gives me free 2-day shipping on almost everything Amazon.com, as well as 1,000s of free streaming movies and TV shows. To watch them on my TV, I just need the Roku box, which I also bought for my parents. It’s dead simple to use.
The most inspiring and life-affirming TV series I’ve watched using Prime/Roku combo is the British Channel 4′s Escape to River Cottage with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. If you’ve ever fantasized about escaping the city to live in the country and live off the land, you will love this series.
For this beauty, more than 300 reviewer said something like this: “I have a drip coffee machine, a french press and a Krups espresso maker, and they are all officially retired thanks to the Aeropress.”
If you combine it with a hand grinder and a non-stabby pocket thermometer, you can make the best coffee of your life on a plane flight…on the meal tray of a middle seat. I’m not kidding. Baristas often travel with an AeroPress for this reason exactly, and it takes less time to clean than a butter knife. Winning.
Extra trivia: The AeroPress was invented by the same rogue Stanford mechanical engineer who created the Aerobie toy craze.
I am always asked about protein powders, often related to my “30 within 30″ recommendation of consuming 30 grams (g) of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. My dad, as one example, went from 5 pounds of average monthly fat loss to 17.85 pounds/month in the first month of adopting this habit.
But what to use?
For the last several months, I’ve used BioTrust low-carb protein powder, and I plan to continue doing so. It contains just 4g net carbs per serving, mixes easily with a spoon, and I find the combination of undenatured whey protein isolate, micellar casein, and other proteins easy to digest but filling enough to act as a (small) meal replacement. This is an unusual combo, and I regularly keep six or so jars at home, and I travel with two jars. During book launch, I used the “30 within 30″ rule to sustain immune function while sleeping 2-3 hours per night at hotels around the country.
Be forewarned: I love the product, but like many companies, BioTrust has frequent e-mail follow-up for their related nutritional products. I’m allergic to e-mail and in elimination mode, so I opted out of this.
I have hated flossing my entire life. Each year, I got a lecture from the dentist, and each year, I’d attempt flossing for 2-3 days and throw in the towel. No longer.
Using the WaterPik in combination with the free Lift app got me to floss consistently for the first time. Now, I look forward to it. Weird.
This free download saved my sanity. It is my small gift for you.
As a writer, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve copied something important to the clipboard, gotten distracted, then copied something else…losing hours of work! Damnation! At the very least, such mistakes meant frustration and feeling like a sad keyboard monkey.
Jumpcut appears on your toolbar and saves around 40 items you’ve copied to your clipboard. You won’t realize how time-saving (even life-changing) this is until you start using it. There are positive side-effects, too. Know all those temporary text files you use for notetaking for later in the day or whenever? Forgettaboutit — Jumpcut to the rescue. Special thanks to Maneesh Sethi for introducing me to this tool.
Finally, a way for you to shop for your Danish Zenvo ST1 (limited to 15 in the world) online!
Ah, the conveniences of the Internet. No more shlepping down to your local Lamborghini dealership or waiting for helicopter catalogs. You can max out your AMEX black card here with one click, and that perfect X-mas gift will depreciate in 30 minutes more than the value of my current house. Enjoy!
Readers have been asking me for a box of physical goodies for years. So, my Lords and Ladies, I have created one with the start-up Quarterly.
Every three months — 4 times a year — you’ll get a box full of my favorite things, my newest and favorite obsessions. Through my global travels, my guinea pig self-experiments, my extensive product testing, and adventures/misadventures, I’ll find the coolest gems to share with you and pick the best for the box.
Tim Ferriss not your thing? A little too Ferrissy for ya’? Well, then… get off my lawn! But seriously, there are other cool folks to choose from, including Veronica Belmont, Mark Frauenfelder, Tina Roth Eisenberg (swissmiss), Jason Kottke, and Megan Collins. For gifting, you have the option of sending the gift confirmation directly (and immediately) to the recipient, or sending it to yourself so you can print or forward it as you see fit.
And Most Important of All…
#11 – What You Already Have – Priceless
The holiday season shouldn’t be all about stuff. It should be about connecting with others and reconnecting with yourself. Don’t get me wrong: I like toys and encourage you to play. Just don’t get so lost in the X-Box that you skip a proper year-in-review introspection.
Looking back on the year, looking ahead to the next, ask yourself:
- What and who am I grateful for?
- What and who should I be more grateful for?
Remember that if you don’t appreciate what you have now, nothing you get (e.g. house, jet, business, spouse, whatever) will make you happier, much less fulfilled. There’s more to life than increasing its speed and size. Drive both without focus and your life will end up resembling the Exxon Valdez: unwieldy and hard to control.
In the new year, what will you remove from your life? What will you learn and teach? What will you simplify?
Just as I recommend these questions, I’m asking them myself.
Happy holidays, all!
Wishing you and yours the most joyous of holiday seasons,
Mike Del Ponte co-founded Soma, which raised more than $100,000 on Kickstarter using virtual assistants and free apps.
I first met Mike Del Ponte two years ago when he was running marketing at BranchOut, a startup I advise.
Before joining BranchOut, Mike had explored a variety of career paths, including preparing for the priesthood at Yale Divinity School and serving as a peacemaker in the West Bank.
Earlier this year, Mike came to me with a new product idea called Soma. Soma is, in its simplest form, a high-end competitor to Brita water filters. It combines Apple-inspired design (e.g. sleek glass carafe) with a subscription service that delivers the world’s first compostable water filter to your door. From form to function, from funding model to revenue model, Mike was eager to disrupt a sleepy but enormous market: water. I became an advisor.
To launch Soma on Kickstarter (and raise $100,000+ in just nine days), Mike and his team used some of the techniques that helped BranchOut grow to 25 million users in just 16 months.
You can replicate what he did.
This post includes all of their email templates, spreadsheets, open-source code to build landing pages, and even a custom dashboard Soma’s co-founder/hacker Zach Allia built to monitor their Kickstarter data, social media, and press.
This post is as close to copy-and-paste Kickstarter success as you will find. And even if you have no interest in Kickstarter, Mike’s approach is a blueprint for launching nearly any product online for maximal impact and minimal cost.
Otherwise, alas, only new orders count.
