Harvard Enterprise College (HBS) reached out final yr to create a case examine on my entrepreneurial journey, which tracks me from childhood to the present day. The case examine, titled “Tim Ferriss: What Would possibly This Look Like If It Had been Simple?” is roughly 40 pages, and you should purchase it for $11.95 right here. I don’t earn a penny. The entire expertise culminated in two lessons at HBS in Professor Satchu’s “Founder Mindset” course.
Following one of many lessons, pupil Jay Bhandari interviewed me for the “Between Two Lessons” sequence at The Harbus, a publication by Harvard Enterprise College college students, who kindly gave permission to share it with you right here.
I hope you discover one thing under helpful.
In a Q&A along with your followers, you talked in regards to the worth of identification diversification. This strategy is antithetical to recommendation we frequently get to commit and give attention to a site. How do you reconcile these two competing philosophies?
I feel they complement one another reasonably than compete. Identification diversification merely means cultivating a number of, impartial areas of development in your life the place you’ll be able to chart progress. That is engineered in order that your self-worth isn’t completely depending on one factor, such because the common ups and downs of your individual startup. Being overinvested will get a whole lot of media play and X threads, however there’s a nasty survivorship bias at work. I’ve seen dozens of founders implode as a result of their “startup as self-worth” metrics went sideways for a number of months. I favor an strategy with extra margin of security, and it’s completely appropriate with area mastery. As an example, you possibly can very properly spend 40 to 80 hours per week in your startup, however if you happen to complement that with indoor mountaineering, weight coaching, chess membership, or one thing else that has its personal metrics for development, even when new rules or a competitor tank your startup for a brief stretch, you’ll be able to nonetheless offset the blow with progress exterior of the workplace. It’s low-cost psychological insurance coverage. I consider identification diversification as an enormous aggressive benefit in video games that depend upon endurance. On the highest ranges, that’s just about every little thing. If Michael Jordan might afford to play copious quantities of golf and poker, you’ll be able to afford to have aspect pursuits.
Is there something about your life you want you had targeted on sooner? In the event you might spend time with 28-year-old you, what would you inform him?
To my youthful self: meditate twice every day—10 minutes is lots—and get accelerated TMS as quickly because it’s prepared for showtime. See my different solutions for elaboration. I’d most likely additionally share an embroidered quote I purchased at a thrift store in Marfa, Texas: “Immediately is the tomorrow you nervous about yesterday.”
What do you assume younger formidable individuals are over- and under-indexed on?
I feel HBS college students are over-indexed on shopping for the implicit funding banking and administration consulting pitch of one thing like “get broad publicity to industries after which you’ll be able to choose your lane and do something!” In the event you’re non-technical and keep in both of these for quite a lot of years, the percentages of you leaving to begin your individual startup (exterior of finance or consulting) is roughly the identical because the chance of a five- to 10-year entrepreneur becoming a member of funding banking or consulting. In different phrases, low. I’ve seen this play out 100+ occasions. Certain, there are some exceptions, however I wouldn’t wager on being one in all them except you’ve dedicated to an exit plan earlier than you enter these video games. And if you wish to be an edge case, discover and examine at the least 5 to 10 edge instances you possibly can emulate earlier than you settle for the job. In the event you can’t discover them, that tells you one thing.
Many within the HBS, Kind-A crowd are not any stranger to emphasize, anxiousness, and melancholy. What are suggestions, mantras, and techniques you’ve developed for managing your psychological well being if you’re actively in a darkish place?
To be clear, I’m not a physician and don’t play one on the web. The “actively in a darkish place” makes this a really dicey query. That stated, having spent a while in darkish locations, particularly in school, I’ll share a number of issues that I’ve seen work. Please do your individual homework and converse along with your medical professionals.
For acute suicidal ideation, I might name the 988 helpline first and doubtlessly take into account a sequence of ketamine infusions/injections per the protocols prompt by John Krystal, MD, professor of neuroscience at Yale College. Ketamine might be very addictive, and I’ve seen folks unravel their lives with it, however in harmful self-harm circumstances, it may be a life-saving intervention. It successfully pauses the incessant thought loops driving the desperation. For extra of my ideas on suicide, together with my description of a detailed brush in 1999, learn tim.weblog/suicide.
If we’re speaking about common prevention and self-care, I might extremely counsel every day chilly publicity (e.g., I do 3–5 minutes in a 40–45° F tub every day) and quick meditation periods 2x/every day (e.g., Transcendental Meditation for 20 minutes twice a day or The Manner App with Henry Shukman for 2 10-minute periods). I sometimes meditate instantly upon waking after which once more earlier than dinner or mattress. That is lower than half-hour a day. Do your pre-hab, and also you’ll want much less rehab.
If in case you have a historical past of trauma, see tim.weblog/trauma for a listing of assets that I and designer Debbie Millman have discovered efficient. Set off warning: it’s not a enjoyable learn, nevertheless it is perhaps useful for some. Your mileage might range.
For treatment-resistant melancholy, I might take into account accelerated TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), à la the SAINT protocol co-developed by Dr. Nolan Williams at Stanford College. BrainsWay and MagVenture each make compelling units with completely different approaches. I firmly consider TMS and different types of mind stimulation can have near-immediate and sturdy results that rival the results of psychedelics in outcomes. I say that as somebody who’s funded a whole lot of the science associated to psychedelics since 2015 by my non-profit, Saisei Basis.
As soon as authorized, and assuming you don’t have any household historical past of schizophrenia, borderline persona dysfunction, psychosis, and so forth., I would counsel investigating numerous psychedelic-assisted therapies for melancholy (e.g., psilocybin) on a once-annual cadence, however there are extra identified dangers than with mind stimulation like TMS. As an example, and I’ve seen this firsthand, combining ayahuasca and SSRIs will increase the chance of serotonin syndrome, which might be life-threatening in extreme instances. Regard any of those compounds with the identical respect you’d deal with main neurosurgery. For extra schooling on the science, functions, and potential mechanisms of motion, I counsel the analysis of Dr. Gül Dolen and Dr. Nolan Williams, in addition to the Netflix miniseries based mostly on Michael Pollan’s guide of the identical title, How you can Change Your Thoughts. The MDMA and psilocybin/mushroom episodes are notably sturdy.
Final however not least, don’t ignore weight loss plan. Learn up on “metabolic psychiatry” and Dr. Chris Palmer, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical College. Ketosis and different interventions can produce almost miraculous outcomes for a lot of psychiatric situations, together with these which are strongly contraindicated with psychedelics, like schizophrenia.
In the event you have been beginning over at the moment in 2025 and have been in your late twenties, what would you be doing?
I might be on the lookout for fast-growing industries which are unsexy and below the radar, and I’d intention to hitch a startup of fewer than 100 folks, the place I’d be capable to watch deal-makers making offers and making selections. In distinction, if you happen to’re making an attempt to create an AI startup like everybody else, it’s going to be a crabs in a bucket state of affairs for 99% of the folks concerned. Certain, you is perhaps the tremendous crab 1%, however I usually favor much less crowded areas, the place you’ll be able to sometimes get extra common interplay with the A+ gamers.
Let’s take luck out of the image. What expertise, habits, mantras, or areas of non-public development would you most attribute your success to?
Enjoying the lengthy recreation and never being in a rush. I select tasks and a whole lot of investments based mostly on the training, ability growth, and relationships that can transcend them. In the event you permit such issues to snowball over time, ultimately the crucial mass makes success nearly inevitable. This may sound hand-wavy, however you’ll be able to strategy it systematically. Go to tim.weblog/mba or Google “Tim Ferriss real-world MBA” for some angel-investing examples of how I’ve utilized this. This isn’t the one strategy I’ve seen work for “success” (harmful phrase, that!), nevertheless it appears replicable.
In the event you might put a message on a billboard that reaches HBS college students, what would it not be?
I might borrow from Dr. BJ Miller, a hospice doctor who’s helped hundreds of individuals to navigate loss of life, whose reply was “Don’t consider every little thing that you simply assume.”
Reprinted with permission from The Harbus Information Company. All rights reserved.
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