Why Your Greatest Strengths Create Your Weaknesses | Tim Ferriss

Key Takeaways

You did something funny. One of the first times we hung out. I asked you, it's very similar to what Sean just said about how you had a very specific reason about something. I said, uh, you know, that's a cool dog leash. And you're like, oh, this dog leash. You see this dog leash? It's made of horsehair and it's perfect because it has doesn't have any allergen. I don't there's like a you had a very specific reason for like something like relatively small and I was like, uh, that's exhausting. Have you had to tell yourself sometimes like I need to be but it's hard the reason you are where you are is because you are so precise and so exact which I don't think a lot of people know this like I've worked with you and I've quoted you on like in the hustle before and I think I messed up in a pastifree and you got on me and you're like no I said it this way and I was like you're totally right and you're this is why you are so who you are is because you are so precise and also that can wear you out sometimes. >> Yeah. Yeah. It can be exhausting. I mean, I have, I think, a certain unusual endurance for that type of thing. And I mean, I'll read legal documents that three or four lawyers have combed over and like within 30 seconds I'll spot stuff. It's just I have an eye for that, which is a blessing and a curse, right? it will go like if I walk into a room and something I remember this is going to be this isn't really selling it but I remember at one point did this renovation in a bathroom and I walked in and my girlfriend at the time loved how everything turned out and I walked in and I was like mirrors off center and she's like what are you talking about like how you can't even tell that it's I was standing like 15 ft away and I was like no it's an eighth of an inch too far to the left and then shame we measured in was an eighth of an inch too far to the left. But it's so the downside is that kind of stuff can drive you crazy and exhaust you. You also caught me with the dog training that would have been right in my like obsessive period of trying to figure out dog training with my first first dog as an adult. So yeah, I would have had a reason for everything. And uh and what might be unexpected for folks is like I actually as a kid and certainly with my friends if I just had a gathering of friends uh 5 days ago like a couple of my oldest friends like I'm a goofy [ __ ] but it doesn't come out that much and uh I subconsciously or consciously don't let it come out a whole lot. And when I've asked, for instance, something I've done with friends in the past is uh we we don't do a whole lot of New Year's resolutions and stuff like that, but occasionally for New Year's resolutions and also if there's a word to focus on for the year, we'll be like, "Okay, we get to assign each other those things, right? Like, I'll give you a New Year's resolution, you give me one, you give me a word to focus on, I'll give you one." >> And two, one of my friends was just like, "Gofy, that's your word for the next year." He's like, "I see that side of you. Nobody really sees that side of you." He's like for you, for not just other people, but especially for you, you need to do more of that. And so I have really tried to block out time, especially weeks with friends or a long weekend with friends. That's one of the first things I do every year is I block that out. I reserve something, I pay for it, and I'm just like, you guys just have to show up. And it's a sunk cost. It's the right kind of sunk cost, right? Uh, so I do think about this and yes, the precision and the anal retentiveness and all that can be exhausting. You know, at least what I like about you is you don't do the uh Elon Musk thing where he's like, "You don't want to be me. It's painful being me." Right. He like almost like martyrs it up where he's like, >> you know, >> Yeah. He like looks off into the distance and pauses dramatically and then just sort of, you know, really hams it up about that stuff or a more balanced thing. It's like, well, it really serves me in this way >> and it's not fully true. I also do these other things and I'm working on that. It's like a I don't know, just a much more human way to deal with it. Um, >> yeah. Yeah, it's a useful tool. I mean, it's like a really sharp knife, but imagine if you had a really sharp knife that was all blade, no handle, right? It's like if you squeeze that too tightly, you're going to hurt yourself. And I feel like that's true with a lot of superpowers. Like when you find somebody who seems to have a strong power, whether that's nature, nurture, or some combination, the the biggest weaknesses or the biggest curses are typically sitting right next to it or just the other side of the same coin. They're they're typically very very closely related. What do you think was your superpower? Because uh you you for anyone listening, I I assume you're definitely still a big deal for the 20somes, but when Sean and I were 20somes, you were the guy. You still are the guy. You inspired all of us to do this. Uh and it sounds funny to say it because what you were doing now or then is so common now. But it was it was so weird that when you wrote you wrote some of these things that were like, "Oh, that's so obvious." >> You taught all of us how to do it and you sort of coined a lot of the terms. You invented a lot of the stuff. What do you think was your superpower to um if you had to pick one that allowed you to kind of be I mean you're you Tim Ferrris is like a noun that we you're the Tim Ferrris of this. I mean that allowed you to become that. >> I think there are a few things. I mean, one that comes to mind is uh I was born premature. I had a lot of health issues as a kid. So, when my mom put me into say kitty wrestling, I couldn't thermorreulate. I would overheat. Uh and that's still true to this day. So, I started trying to experiment with different ways to train, different ways to compete. Didn't do that seriously until maybe like 12 or 13. But wrestling has weight cutting. So you sort of have an inbuilt experimentation at a certain point. And then I was like, "Oh, okay. Well, how can I weight cut more effectively? I need to figure out how to lose water weight. Okay, the things that you do to help with water loss are called diuretics. What are the risks of diuretics? Okay, let's figure out is there anything over the counter that I, as a high school student, can get that acts as a potassium speric diuretic?" Blah, blah, blah. By the way, guys, don't do that. Terrible for your body. But I I think that that experimentation became a habit really early on. And then for for instance, for the 4-hour work week, I mean, I wrote and tossed a lot of that book multiple times. And the only way I was finally able to write it and feel good about it was to sit down and write it as if I was writing an email to two very specific friends. One friend who felt trapped in a job that he didn't like, which was like a finance job, and he was had golded handcuffs basically. I mean, at the time it wasn't a lot of money for a recent grad. It was it was not bad. and he felt like he was he knew he was going down a path that he didn't want to travel but he couldn't extricate himself. And then the other one was a friend who had started his own business and felt the same way. He's like, I've created this thing. I can't just quit like an employee. Now what? Now what do I do? And I sat down and basically wrote the book as if I'd had two glasses of wine and was emailing two friends, which meant like all the warts, all the worries, all the petty concerns and the weirdness that they would be familiar with, they would know all of that about me, I just put it out there. And I think that that contributed another another I think that contributed a lot, frankly. Like the personal being the most universal. If you're writing and you try to sound smart, you're you're almost I mean I I think it can be a huge handicap like big possibility of dead on arrival is high for something like that. Um so embracing your weird self I think can go a long way. And then the last piece is I'm I am naturally very very very curious and I do have that tolerance for monotony and repetition that a lot of folks have trouble with whether that's language learning archery or just in the early days before aura before Whoop before any of this like my patience with doing something like trying to find a first generation continuous glucose monitor which was in the 4-hour body which came out 2010. So I probably started messing around in 2008 2009. As far as I know I may have been the first non-diabetic to use one of those and then to deal with all the pain and frustration using this basically beeper side holster to like capture data, export the data and comb through it. It was so manual but for whatever reason that kind of stuff doesn't bother me. So, I was I was able to run experiments I think other people would find torturous. And then I'll just add one more thing. And look, I'm guessing to the best of of my ability, right? It's hard to say exactly why things turned out the way they turned out. The last one is I do think I'm pretty good at identifying trends and also identifying trends that are going to converge in interesting ways. I don't know why that's the case, but I I do think that I'm pretty good at it. Being in Silicon Valley, uh well to my generation certainly like relatively early getting there in 2000 and staying through 2017 also allowed me to just have a very very very high density of serendipity and seeing technology. Even if you're not a venture capitalist or an angel investor, it's like if you live right there in the switch box, it's in the air, right? you just hear conversations, you bump into randos at cocktail parties or whatever. So you you if you're really paying attention and taking notes, you can sometimes figure things out. So I'd say those are a few that come to mind.