Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Tim Ferriss (Pt 1) on Biohacking Basics and Rewiring Your Money Mindset
Tue, 03 Dec 2024
This week, Money Rehab is guest-hosted by investor and entrepreneur Tracy DiNunzio. Today, you’ll hear part one of Tracy’s conversation with Tim Ferriss— the godfather of podcasts, 5x New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, investor (early Uber, Facebook, Shopify— and Tradesy!). In this episode, Tim unpacks why he’s abstaining from alcohol…and more, separates fact from fiction when it comes to biohacking, and shares how to identify and repair toxic money mindsets. Tomorrow, you’ll hear the second part of their conversation where Tim shares the daily routine he’s optimized for wellness and productivity, health hacks on a budget, and reveals his latest venture: finding a wife. For more on Tim, click here. For Tracy’s episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, click here.
Chapter 1: Who is Tracy DiNunzio and why is she guest hosting?
Hi, it's not Nicole Lappin. This is Tracy DiNunzio. And if you listened to yesterday's episode, you know that I'm here guest hosting for our dear Nicole while she's on maternity leave. My guest today is Tim Ferriss. A man who needs no introduction, but I'm going to give him one anyway. Tim is a world-renowned expert on self-improvement and self-actualization.
Chapter 2: What is Tim Ferriss known for?
He's spent a lifetime studying and teaching the habits and mindsets of the world's most successful people. Tim has built, invested in, and advised huge tech companies like Uber, Facebook, and Shopify. He's written five number one New York Times bestsellers.
He's had his own TV show, and he's probably best known for his podcast, which has over a billion downloads, and where he's interviewed everybody from Jerry Seinfeld to Tony Robbins to the dude from My Octopus Teacher. Tim brings free, practical education into the lives of tens of millions of people across the globe.
I've been lucky to call Tim a friend and a mentor and an investor for over a decade now, and I feel lucky to know the very generous man behind the impressive resume. Tim and I got together in New York and talked for so long that we needed to split this episode into two parts. So today you'll hear Tim talk about the biggest lessons he's learned from that star-studded guest lineup over the years.
Why he thinks money is just a story that we tell ourselves and how to tell yourself a better one. And he'll separate fact from fiction when it comes to biohacking. Tomorrow you'll hear Tim talk about so much more. We'll get his current daily routine and then we'll go really deep on relationships and money and who Tim is dating and where he's finding matches now.
But for now, let's start with part one. Tim Ferriss, welcome to Money Rehab.
Thank you. Nice to see you.
It's so good to see you, my old friend. I am so excited to have you here, especially right now, because I don't know if you realize this, but we are almost exactly 10 years out from when you had me on your podcast on the Tim Ferriss Show.
Back in the day. I know.
It flew, right?
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Chapter 3: Why is Tim abstaining from alcohol?
Every once in a while, I will abstain for anywhere from a week to a month from anything that I think has become impulsive or oversaturated in my life as a behavior.
So what other things are giving up?
I find it easier to abstain from multiple things at a time. I feel like the incremental cost of each additional abstinence is lower. So if you're going to abstain, I like doing more than one at a time. I mean, I'm not sure we want to get into this right now.
No, we do. We want to get into it.
No booze, no masturbating, and no coffee for the next month.
Which is the hardest? No booze.
Just based on my response, I'll let you guess.
Which is the most difficult. Really? Really? But there's benefits to that, I believe.
To the most biblical abstinence. Yeah, there are a lot of benefits. I just feel like anything that has become a coping mechanism for when you feel something you don't want to feel, which could be feeling... It could be feeling stressed. It could be feeling rushed. It could be feeling on edge.
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Chapter 4: What is biohacking and how does it relate to wellness?
Yeah.
One degree here or there makes a big difference.
You've had conversations with hundreds and hundreds of the world's top performers. What are one or two of the biggest unlocks from guests that you've had in your years podcasting?
In the 10 years?
Just pick out the top ones. No offense.
Give me one or three. I would say off the top of my head, a few that come to mind. would be, and it's very, I'm going to make a meta observation about this first one, which is 70 to 80% of the people I've interviewed have some type of meditation practice. It can take many different forms. It could be some type of repetitive exercise.
It could be some type of seated meditation, but it also raises the question for anyone who's studying successes in quotation marks. I think this is a very important
stress test and that is or at least a skeptical stance you should take which is is this what made them successful or did they start doing this after they were successful okay it's very easy to get those mixed up yes narrative fallacy narrative fallacy it's very easy to mix those up so i don't really know the answer okay i don't know if it's possible to know the answer but suffice to say that very high percentage have some type of meditation practice which has been
a great motivator for me to do the basics, right? Like meditate 10 minutes twice a day is what I'm doing right now.
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Chapter 5: How do toxic money mindsets affect us?
Yeah. And that's one observation. I would say as it relates to this audience, Seth Godin, and I'm paraphrasing here, he is very wise. Mm-hmm. and leads a very unorthodox life that he's crafted through deep thinking and is a very present husband and father. I really admire him a lot. And he has said something along the lines of money is a story, right?
Past a certain point, money is a story that you tell yourself. So come up with a story that you can live with. I think that's really important.
What does he mean by that?
Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab.
Money is and can be an abstraction of sorts. Be very hard to survive by eating your money, right? You're using it in exchange for other things. And so some people want success. Okay, what is that? And so if you don't like define that very carefully for yourself, what does success mean? then you're going to wander in a lot of unproductive directions. This is true with power.
I know I just want to be powerful. I want to be free. Okay, what does free mean? So I think definition of terms is really important. And with money, When we define it, it's really telling the story of what money means to you, what it signifies, what it enables or disables. What is the story you're telling yourself?
So for instance, when I was younger, I didn't grow up, my family didn't have a lot of money. So the story that I heard effectively, because we were operating from a really scarce mindset because we didn't have money. And it was never said this directly, but like, if you have money, all your problems go away, right? It's like, wouldn't it be nice if we had money?
Yes.
How you relate to it will determine whether you feel like you have enough or not enough, will determine whether you feel successful or not successful, how much of a role it plays in your life overall compared to other things, family, personal interests, friendships. Where does money fit into the lineup?
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Chapter 6: What are the benefits of abstaining from indulgences?
can relate to right feel it fear of death mortality okay fine i get it like you're looking for something to exist beyond you okay fine yeah totally then there's the i i'm not gonna i'm not gonna give money to charity just yet because if i just compound and then when i'm much older or dead it'll be such a bigger number i'll be able to have so much more impact
so much more generous that I need to hold on to my money right now.
I call bullshit. I call 100% bullshit. That is just people who are rich and stingy wanting to be richer. That's it. Full stop. Because the problems are also compounding just like capital. So you could intervene with less money now to help bend the arc of history with respect to certain problems.
Versus 20 years from now, I think, at least for me, it's important to have some identity diversification by maintaining some other deep interests so that you don't paint yourself into a corner where you have one path for self-validation and that is more money. That is a really bad position to be in.
So Tim, what was it like for you? Did you have a number where you were like, this will be enough? Have you made enough?
Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I've made enough. Number one, I don't really have a super high burn lifestyle. I'm not cheap. Maybe I'm cheap with certain things. You're minimalist. Yeah, I'm minimalist. Everything I'm wearing right now, except for the shoes, I got for free. I'm not flashing a lot of fancy brand identity.
Yeah, you also rolled in here wearing shorts.
Yeah, I came in wearing shorts, which I also got for free. There is that. You can take the boy out of Long Island, but maybe not the Long Island out of... I've got plenty of clothes. I've got more than enough clothing. I don't feel like I need more money. I'm very fortunate in that way. If you look at some of the decisions I've made over the last handful of years, they are clear indicators of
that I have come to that realization. In the sense that, for instance, before we started recording, and maybe some of it was included, who knows, but we were chatting about recording and how impressive this entire studio is and how my recording studio basically fits in my backpack.
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Chapter 7: How do successful people view money?
And the first key is to be aware that's what you're doing. And that the goal for me is not first and foremost to get good at the game, meaning whatever game I've subconsciously or accidentally ended up in is to choose the right game.
Tim, this is good. I want you to say it again slowly. Anything beyond your basic needs is a game?
Is a game. There are rules that you're implicitly or explicitly agreeing to. There are conditions for winning or not winning. And these are all stories that you tell yourself, probably in a peer group. And you don't have to play the game. There might be costs to not playing that game, but you don't have to play that game. It's not a matter of life and death.
And I think much of my time is spent thinking about the games I want to play and what games am I playing right now that may not be serving me. which is very closely tied to what stories am I telling myself, right? What thoughts am I taking to be true, i.e. beliefs? And you can come up with a lot of interesting workarounds or alternatives once you start poking at that stuff.
And for instance, if you happen to live in, I'll give some coastal examples because they're just easy. If you choose to live in, say, L.A., what's the game a lot of people are playing in L.A.? It's the fame game, right? If you're in New York, what's one game that a lot of people are playing in New York? It's the money game. Go to D.C. Okay. What game are people playing there? The power game.
And then there are many other games. There are a million other games.
You can play with yourself, like internal games.
Yeah, there's tons of that. I would just say if you had to make a parody, like a Seinfeld episode, that's too dated, but if you had to make an episode that was like a parody of your friend group... What would be the games that your friend group are playing? Because chances are you're playing the same games, right?
It's like, what would a Larry David Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, pick your, I'm going on the string of Larry David from Seinfeld to Larry David. We get the idea. If you're going to make a 30 minute parody.
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Chapter 8: What are the games we play in life and how do they affect us?
Yeah, exactly. For me, having some type of sports component has always been really important because you things can take away your money very easily like this is fortune meaning the fates yes chance yes can do really gnarly things to your money and if you have all your eggs in that basket i i think it makes you fragile so for me
So if my business or my podcast or whatever isn't doing as well as I would like it to do, you can measure that a bunch of different ways. If I had a good day, like I came here from archery, right? If I had a good day doing archery and I'm taking it really seriously, it's still a good day. And that makes me more... anti-fragile, right? It makes me more resilient.
So I try to have at least a few of those kind of interests that are not to get too fancy, but like uncorrelated, right? This is a show about money, right? You can talk about uncorrelated investments. You can also talk about it with identities and you can talk about it with interests.
It's like a diversified portfolio of your identity. So you're not overly committed to one thing. And if it goes bust, you go bust.
Yeah.
Do you think there was any area that as you were building your money, your fame, your career that you neglected?
Oh, sure. Yeah. There have been times, certainly when I was neglecting self-care, sleep, consuming too many stimulants to stay up, maybe drinking too much. It could be anything like that when you are just running on fumes, when you've pushed it too hard. Yeah.
Yeah.
something's got to give yes and that might be time with your friends it might be time with your significant other might be time with your family it might be getting to the gym or doing some type of exercise might be your diet right maybe you're stressed out so instead of having reaching for a glass of wine you reach for a bag of chips it's the same thing yeah totally different tool same job so what happens to tim ferris when you're not taking care of yourself
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