How to Stop Letting Money Run Your Life | Tim Ferriss

Key Takeaways

We have a bunch of friends, not going to name names, but they've already earned the last dollar they will ever spend in their life. And so now they're trading great hours for useless dollars, which is like such a wake-up call of a bad trade to make. Once you have the power to get whatever it is that you want, then the priority shifts to wanting the right [ __ ] Sean, you want to kick things off? Uh yeah, where to start? It's so funny. I did a pod with Tim I don't know, last year or something like that, and I hyper prepared for it because I was like, oh my god, it's Tim Ferriss. This is the guy This is the reason I did a podcast in the first place. I wanted to be a Tim Ferriss. That was a That was a That was part of the North Star. This time I had the exact opposite opinion. I was like, I don't have any agenda coming into this, meaning like I just want to know what's up. I want to know what's new, what's exciting, what are you nerding out about? I just kind of want to hear what's going on. Like what is Tim Ferriss up to nowadays? And I have your game here. And actually you told me about this even when we were doing that last podcast. You said, I just spent a few days with one of the world's best game designers. I didn't realize that was our mutual friend Elon. And uh Yeah. He's the man. He came on this podcast too recently. He's the man. So you went and did a You went and made a game with him. May- Maybe just I don't know. Let's start there. Why did you Why did you make a game? Yeah. Two years in the making, believe it or not. So I grew up with D&D. I still have all my original modules Dungeons & Dragons and played a lot of video games. And as I was looking at what to potentially experiment with next cuz every few years I try something that's very much off menu or unrelated to what I'm currently doing, right? So there was the first book and then the angel investing was sort of a waiting into identity diversification so I wouldn't get pigeonholed in one place as a business author, for instance. And then the podcast after Four Hour Chef. And there have been a number of other examples. Some work out, some don't. In the case of the game, this came about I think pretty naturally because as I was kind of late to therapy in life, but better late than never, I guess. And when people do a lot of therapy or they do psychedelic experiences or when they've just had a couple of glasses of wine with friends, at a certain point, what comes up a lot is, yeah, you know, I just take stuff so seriously and it's so heavy and I'm constantly doing A, B, or C. I just need to have like more play, more play, more play. And it's And if I look back at the books I've written, it's like, yeah, okay, productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, learning. There is a serious tinge to it, if that makes sense. But I feel like analog, getting off of screens, and play is more important than ever. And trying to find something that's a lighter lift than Dungeons & Dragons seemed like a fun challenge. And I love Elon Lee. The guy is such a polymath of epic proportions. He worked on the first Xbox, Halo, has created entire genres of gaming, has not just one hit, but it has a track record of creating hit after hit after hit with tabletop games. And love the guy. He's just a sweet, soulful, awesome, hilarious guy. So to be able to develop a friendship with him, I was like, all right, if I'm choosing projects as I usually do based on skills I'll develop, knowledge I'll learn, and relationships I'll build that could translate outside of that project cuz a lot of projects are going to fail. So if it's setting it up in a how do you win even if you lose, I was like, this seems like a very good bet. It's something that's kind of near and dear to me, something I want more of in my life. So if you're going to make a game, what do you have to do? You have to play a lot of games. So it's also a way of just forcing myself to get off of laptops and phones, spend time with my friends. And uh here we are. It's uh It's It's landing in like 8,000 retail locations, Walmart, Target, everywhere. It's been exclusive to Walmart for a few months, has been a best seller, 300 million plus social views of gameplay, which is nuts. And uh we'll see. By the way, you in 2014, you had a guy working with you named Charlie Hoehn that I've talked to a little bit. Charlie's really cool. Yeah, Charlie's great. And I remember he wrote a blog post on play. Yeah. Do you remember that? >> I do. I absolutely do. Yeah. And the whole point of the blog post, I was like, these guys are idiots. They don't know how to have fun. You can't just go out and play. And then as I've gotten older and I take things way more serious, I it's very strange that I have empathy for that now and I feel that where I'm like, oh my god, like I need to go out and have fun and just like not everything needs to make money or not everything needs to have a purpose or be an ice plunge that helps me optimize my morning. I just need to do stuff just because it's fun. That's what I used to do. Oh, totally. And it's I mean, all of I shouldn't say all, but a lot of the sort of socially reinforced drivers and behaviors and so on are around this They're orbiting around this emotional valence of taking things seriously. And there's a place for that. There are a lot of places for that. But what I've also realized, if if you're serious all the time, you're going to burn out or implode or just wear yourself out before you get the truly serious stuff done, right? So it's like right now I'm dealing with family medical crises that I don't want to get into, but I'm dealing with that. There's a bunch of hairy [ __ ] going on. And obviously the state of the world is pretty exciting, to put it one way. And having some type of recreation, play for play's sake with social interaction, right? It doesn't have to be a game It doesn't have to be a card game or a tabletop game. Could be playing tennis. Could be anything. Watching UFC with your friends. Doesn't It doesn't really matter, right? I think as a psychological release valve and as a way to recharge your batteries so that you can get back into fully charged and resilient is super, super, super important. So for all those reasons, and frankly, it's like, look, I want to have a family. I want to do all that. It's a my top priority. And there are certain things you want to practice before you need to have them. Right? And I feel like getting back into exploring some of the things that made me so happy and gave me so much joy as a kid makes some sense. And the older I get, the more I realize how reliable a lot of that stuff is, right? I wanted to be a comic book penciler forever. And just getting into digital painting on an iPad and taking walking through some tutorials on YouTube with Procreate. It's like, oh wow, how did I forget about this? This is just so nourishing for me. Is this going to be like a good money maker for you? Like is this a good business decision in addition to a good kind of life fun creative quest that you went on, a creative side quest? I think it could be if it's successful, a nice little annuity that rolls in that is reasonably passive if it hits escape velocity. Uh if I were just trying to make money, this is not the way to do it. Like a low-priced physical product that is shipped from overseas, particularly with tariffs and everything, like this is not If you If you're trying to make your riches, I I would put this kind of in the same category as like streaming music on Spotify or writing books. Do you care about making money? Like are you motivated for more? Not really. What When did that Do you remember when that happened where you're like, I have my cup is full? Yeah, it was probably when I had my first one or two real startup exits. Which was what? That's That's uh Shopify? What What was the Where were the first >> Uh the first few hits that were meaningful were like Shopify, Uber, both of which were were were sizable, right? For me, for me. It's not like Look, I'm not going to be subsidizing a presidential campaign or buy buy a mega yacht, but I don't I don't want to do any of this stuff. >> Are you comfortable saying publicly a number where you're like, you know, I don't I'm not motivated by more? Cuz a lot of people will listen to this pod and they're like, when will I ever feel like that? And And I'll give you an easy pass if you don't want to say that number. Yeah, I don't want to say it. What I will say is that the number for most people will move. And I think that's both unsurprising and dangerous. So a lot of my friends were like, once I have 5 million, I'm going to create a woodworking shop in Oregon and just do the things I really enjoy doing. And then they get to five and then it goes to 10, then it goes to 50, then it goes to 100, then it goes It just keeps going. In part because they haven't developed other gears and other interests. The only thing they know how to do well, where they feel confident, and furthermore, they have their self-worth wrapped up in is putting points on the scoreboard in the in the form of money. And that's why I think identity diversification and trying other things where you can feel good about yourself and sharp progress, whether that's piano, archery, uh any number of other things, doing complete off-menu weird stuff like making a board game or a card game. It is also insurance against having a fixed gear cycle a fixed gear psychology, right? That is a risky, risky, risky place to be. And uh for me, I've I've I think I'm maybe fortunate in that I was raised in a family that didn't have a lot of money. We were always looking for interesting adventures that that didn't cost very much. And as I've gotten older, when I block out, say, a week to do stuff with my friends, uh these are my very old friends in some cases and some of them do not have or make much money. And that's totally fine. I mean, I pay for stuff or in some cases, not always. But, the stuff that we actually want to do together is some type of activity, right? It's doing wilderness training in the Rockies, which I'm doing in 2 weeks. It's going on a ski trip. It doesn't have to be to Niseko in Japan. You can do it you can go to Colorado. You to whatever. It doesn't need to be crazy. Or it could be backcountry skiing where you're touring, in which case you have many more options. Does not have to be expensive. And the stuff that we talk about, the WhatsApp groups that started for an event that are still active are always some activity like that. So, the stuff that I spent my money on is stuff like that. It's like I'm not afraid to spend money. I don't think money is evil. I think it's a great tool. Um, but it took me a while to psychologically get comfortable with a bunch of other gears. It wasn't the number, right? Like I passed my number and I felt like I needed more. I didn't have a fixed number, but I felt like I needed more to have some degree of psychological safety and then everything will be okay, right? And then my problems will go away. And then you realize that's [ __ ] Like money solves money problems. Like you got plenty of work to [music] do.