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ADI IGNATIUS: Hi, everyone. It\u2019s Adi Ignatius, editor at large at \u30cf\u30fc\u30d0\u30fc\u30c9\u30fb\u30d3\u30b8\u30cd\u30b9\u30fb\u30ec\u30d3\u30e5\u30fc<\/em> and co host of \u30a2\u30a4\u30c7\u30a2\u30ad\u30e3\u30b9\u30c8\u3002<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m dropping into your feed today to let you know about a show from our friends at Harvard Business School. It\u2019s called The Founder Mindset<\/em>, and it\u2019s hosted by serial founder and Harvard Business School senior lecturer, Reza Satchu.<\/p>\n The show is a masterclass in what it really takes to be a successful founder. In each episode, Reza sits down with some of the world\u2019s most successful entrepreneurs, including Reese Witherspoon, Kevin O\u2019Leary, Galen Weston and more, and pushes them to break down exactly how they commit, decide, and build for impact.<\/p>\n Today we\u2019re sharing Reza\u2019s recent conversation with Tim Ferris, the entrepreneur, investor, best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em> and host of one of the world\u2019s most influential podcasts. You\u2019ll hear Tim reflect on experimentation, his approach to calibrated risk-taking, and how he makes decisions under uncertainty.<\/p>\n Plus, he\u2019ll explain why curiosity and learning have shaped nearly every chapter of his career. Now, before you give it a listen, make sure to follow The Founder Mindset<\/em> with Reza Satchu wherever you get your podcast.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: I, from the very beginning, have been hypervigilant about minimizing losses.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: He is actually someone who is calculating risk at all times and who isn\u2019t paralyzed by that risk.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Most things aren\u2019t going to work out. In the world of building companies, nobody cares.<\/p>\n NARRATOR: This is The Founder Mindset with Reza Satchu.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Every year at Harvard Business School, hundreds of students compete to gain entrance into my class. One of the most popular courses on campus, The Founder Mindset. For those who make the cut, I take them on a journey, challenging them to take risks, make commitments, and most importantly, learn judgment.<\/p>\n One of the most popular aspects of the course are the guests we bring in, outstanding entrepreneurs who\u2019ve had a truly profound impact on the world. Now, I\u2019m sharing my conversations with some of these founders on our show. I\u2019m Reza Satchu, and this is The Founder Mindset.<\/p>\n NARRATOR: What does it take to be a founder? Tim Ferriss turned experimentation into a competitive advantage, authoring multiple number one New York Times bestsellers, launching one of the world\u2019s most influential podcasts and investing early in companies like Uber, Facebook, Shopify, and Duolingo. His playbook isn\u2019t about reckless bets. It\u2019s about calibrated risk, smart experiments, and learning faster than the competition.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Tim Ferris, welcome to The Founder Mindset.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Thanks For having me.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: So most people, they look at you and they think, \u201cWow, what a remarkable story, how many things you\u2019ve done.\u201d You must take so much risk, and therefore there\u2019s some combination of risk management or luck that has allowed you to do all of these things very well. What\u2019s your reaction to that?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: There\u2019s certainly a luck component, but I get a bit frustrated with anyone who attributes all of their outcomes to hard work or 100% to luck. I mean, I think it\u2019s rarely 100% one or the other. There\u2019s a luck factor. I would say on the risk side, I, from the very beginning, coming from a family without a ton of money where money was always an issue, have been hypervigilant about minimizing losses. I really don\u2019t view myself as a risk-taker.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: It\u2019s such a remarkable thing because most people would look at your life and they\u2019d say, \u201cThis fellow has done so many things that are different that he must have sought a tremendous amount of risk.\u201d And so this concept that this is not you jumping off a cliff in the shark-infested waters in the middle of a hurricane, it is not that. It is actually someone who is calculating risk at all times and who isn\u2019t paralyzed by that risk.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, and I think I\u2019ve by luck, certainly by the grace of timing in some cases, benefited from the angel investing. When you are trying to think systematically about investing, you have to interrogate your own thinking and be willing to change your own thinking, recognize what type of bets are recoverable versus irrecoverable. So I think if anything, and maybe this would be unexpected, but the angel investing has made me more bold in running more experiments. I just realized most things aren\u2019t going to work out, but you don\u2019t need to get a lot of things right to have an amazing life and build an amazing business.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, one of the things around risk calibration is ultimately what you\u2019re trying to figure out is, okay, what\u2019s my downside and what\u2019s my upside? Now, human psychology is such that people tend to overestimate their downside. And so, one of the things you talk about is we need to define our fears as opposed to what everyone here at Harvard Business School is doing, which is defining their goals. Tell me why the concept of defining your fears is so important to actually calibrating risk.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: So the fear setting exercise which you\u2019re describing, people can find it for free online. It was important to me personally because I grew up in a family with all sorts of mental health challenges, addiction, overdoses, depression, you name it, and struggled with a lot of that myself. And I would get into these ruminative loops that catastrophized. So to try to turn down the volume on that came to fear setting through Stoic philosophy and found it incredibly helpful just for peace of mind.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Was the concept that once you defined your fear, you were able to realize that you could manage through it?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. Yeah. It\u2019s a lot like goal setting. You want specific, measurable, realistic timeline, blah, blah, blah. It\u2019s applying the same thing to what could be a nebulous cloud of concerns and anxiety. And I would imagine if you were to ask a lot of the students in your sections, \u201cWhat are your fears? Do this exercise,\u201d they might come up blank.<\/p>\n But if I were to say, \u201cWhat\u2019s the thing that you would do if you knew you could not fail?\u201d What would that be? And it doesn\u2019t have to be from the menu of options that\u2019s coming straight out of the class. It could be anything. Maybe it\u2019s being a screenwriter. Who the hell knows? What is that thing? And then since you\u2019re not already committed to that, you\u2019ve told yourself, \u201cI can\u2019t do that,\u201d for some set of reasons. So let\u2019s interrogate those reasons.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: So is that the assumption? So when you explore these new things, is that how you\u2019re approaching it?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, it is.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: You deciding you want to be a tango dancer. There\u2019s obviously risk that that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, sure.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Okay. But your definition is something different.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. I mean, the risk for me is largely, I mean, I could expand on this, but the probability of an irreversible negative outcome. And most of the risk I think that students at a place like HBS would fear is some type of reputational hit, being judged by others.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, they\u2019re looking left and right.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Right. And the fact of the matter is most people aren\u2019t thinking about you at all.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Correct.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: They\u2019re thinking about themselves that way.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Correct.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Understanding that theoretically is very different from screwing around with tango and doing that for six months and then doing this, that, and the other thing and realizing very few things matter. And if they don\u2019t work out, that\u2019s fine. You just keep experimenting. And as long as you have engineered for yourself a timeline so that you know when you\u2019ll decide if this is pass\/fail, and if it\u2019s fail, move on to the next thing. As long as you\u2019ve done that and you don\u2019t keep it open-ended, I think it\u2019s very hard to fail in the long term. If, if you are choosing your projects for maximizing learning and developing relationships that transcend that given project or startup, whatever, I just think it\u2019s a lot harder to lose long-term than people realize.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: So it must be true that you have confidence in your ability to see things that others don\u2019t see.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: I have confidence in my ability to wade into waters that I think are plausibly interesting without worrying too much about it.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Now I have a phrase which is served me well in my founder journey, which is if in doubt, act. Now what people think that means, they sort of say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s nonsense. Meaning you don\u2019t know what to do and you\u2019re just going to make an action?\u201d No, no, no. What most people do is when they\u2019re in doubt, they just stay the course, but they don\u2019t make an active decision to stay the course. They\u2019re like deer in headlights. So my point is you may want to stay the course, but you\u2019re making an active decision in your mind, I\u2019m staying the course so I can test my judgment. Okay. What are the frameworks that you have in place to enable you to make rapid decisions under uncertainty that are risk calibrated, but that need to be done timely?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, I would say it\u2019s more a rule, a policy than a framework. But for me, the cognitive load of having lots of pending decisions is worse than making some mistakes.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah, right.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Unless this is a clear one-way door, meaning irreversible, that\u2019s very, very, it\u2019s going to be very expensive\/punishing if it\u2019s a problem, just make a decision. I don\u2019t need to think about where I\u2019m going to sit on a flight for very long. I don\u2019t need to think about hotel. Worst case it\u2019s a crabby hotel and I can\u2019t sleep. That\u2019s fine. I\u2019ll get over it.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: It saves time for the things that matter.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And also, I mean, this is true with, it applies\u2026 I keep bringing up the angel investing because I think it\u2019s a microcosm of the macro in the sense that how you make decisions around bet sizing. So if I\u2019m making very big bets for me, then I\u2019m almost certainly going to take longer to make those decisions. But if I\u2019ve made a decision in advance, like a meta decision that in a certain area, there\u2019s no way that I can predict who\u2019s going to be the winner. So I\u2019m just going to spray and pray and it\u2019s going to be 25K, 50K, it\u2019s not worth me doing four calls with that founder. It\u2019s like, unless there are clear disqualifiers, I should just get some chips on the table. And you can do that with a lot of categories of decisions.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah. Well, it\u2019s interesting because what you\u2019re arguing, where some set of decisions, you just make them because you\u2019re trying to save time. But also it strikes me that what you\u2019re also saying is there\u2019s value to making decisions.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, there\u2019s value to making decisions where I would take a step further for as much as possible in my life. And I do see this across hundreds of people I\u2019ve interviewed. The more you can make default and automatic, the better. So that could be intermittent fasting. I know we\u2019re both doing that.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: One, the health around it is so positive, but two, it\u2019s just a set of rules that are very easy to follow so I don\u2019t have to think about it that much.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: It\u2019s the simplicity of that that works. And Tony Robbins has said that, \u201cComplexity is the enemy of execution.\u201d I think that\u2019s really, really true because if you look at what I try to do, at least with the books, and I do this with the podcast too, but I\u2019m thinking about practical behavioral change.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: One thing you talked about where I think we have a disconnect is you talk about how valuable options are to you. Now, of course, every option has a value, no question. Okay. I\u2019ll take the other side of it and say that we live in a society where generally speaking, people overvalue options and undervalue commitment.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: I would agree with that.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: And so what you see is a decline in marriage, a decline in home ownership, a decline in people going to church. And certainly at HBS where I see it most acutely is in them making decisions around their career paths that are completely inconsistent with the impact that they want to have and the learning that they want to have, but it enables them to preserve all options. Okay.<\/p>\n And so I call it the curse of optionality. And so effectively, you never actually see what you\u2019re capable of when you commit. So my argument is commitment\u2019s actually a superpower, not a sacrifice. And yes, by definition, commitment means you are cutting off some options. But I\u2019m curious whether that resonates with you and how do you think about that in terms of maximizing options?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS:Yeah, I think they\u2019re totally compatible. There is definitely, and I do think this is partially a product of my childhood and feeling trapped in certain ways and dealing with a bunch of horrible stuff that I was like, I don\u2019t like the feeling of being trapped. So having optionality is something that gives me peace of mind. But for me, optionality does not mean anything and everything for undefined periods of time.<\/p>\n And even if I am, for instance, looking for feedback with split testing on say the title and subtitle of The 4-Hour Workweek, where I tested it through Google AdWords, did all this stuff in bookstores with a clicker to determine what cover I picked up more than others. But here\u2019s the takeaway from that is I had already decided on six to 10 titles of subtitles that I felt good about, and then it was choosing among those six to 10. I was not going into the ether and asking, \u201cWhat should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: So you had a frame of reference.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: A frame of reference.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. And then also you can actually run a lot of experiments in parallel. So you don\u2019t have to have any superimposed mutual exclusivity where it\u2019s like, okay, I\u2019m only going to do this startup for X period of time. And then if it doesn\u2019t work, then I\u2019m going to try my hand at writing.<\/p>\n One of your students came to me with this dilemma. And I was like, \u201cWell, based on what you\u2019re telling me about the scope of the writing, it sounds like something you could do in the evenings and on the weekend. So you can do both. I mean, you\u2019re going to really have to figure out self-care because you\u2019ll be burning the candle at both ends. But if you\u2019re signing up for this entrepreneurial journey, I mean, you\u2019re kind of signing up for burning the candle at both ends no matter what.\u201d So you can run those things in parallel, but if there\u2019s no through line, I think you have a problem.<\/p>\n So if you have True North, which for me would be learning skills, developing relationships with the assumption that even if something fails per se, like The 4-Hour Chef, my third book, was boycotted by just about everybody because it came out through Amazon Publishing and it scared the sh\u2013 out of everybody in the publishing world. A team I worked with on that, Houghton Mifflin, HMH, I ended up working with for my next two books. And ended up working with for six weeks.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, this is your point around the cost of, it\u2019s not irreversible failure, meaning what happens in these situations is even when you fail, you learn a fair amount. You have a commitment to a mindset. How do you think you\u2019re able to not just see things differently, but to trust the process or the mindset? And is it really around the experimentation?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: I mean, that\u2019s part of it, but I can try to flesh it out. So I would say also I need to give credit to a teacher of mine, actually taught at HBS for a longtime, named Ed Zschau.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: He was at Princeton.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: He was a Princeton for high-tech entrepreneurship, ELE 491. I still have all my notes.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: It\u2019s good to see that a teacher can still have long-term impact.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, I\u2019m still in touch with Ed. And he, I think, modeled for me. He was the first person I came across in real life who on some level was an exemplar of what I wanted to do. So former congressman for Silicon Valley, former competitive figure skating athlete, ended up teaching computer science at Stanford because no one else\u2026 I think somebody had bailed last minute and he\u2019s like, \u201cSure, I\u2019ll try to teach this thing,\u201d called computer science way back in the day. He\u2019s taken a number of companies public, focused on teaching, and continues to do all these different things.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: So tons of learning.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: He wasn\u2019t a specialist looking to be top 1%, one domain. If you\u2019re in the top 25% of two things that are rarely combined and you put those together, could be computer science plus law degree, it could be, who knows? Suddenly you can be the one person who is the go-to source for a very, very narrow specialty.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Such a keen insight. So for you, the idea that you could be good at multiple things felt like a life better lived than being excellent at one thing.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: I think it\u2019s a safer and more competitively advantageous approach from most people. If you want to try to be in the NBA and go up against LeBron James, good luck. I mean, it\u2019s very few people who are going to be able to do that. If you want to be the top 1% in concert cello players or the top 1% in fill in the blank, any one thing, it\u2019s incredibly difficult to, I think, have the company building potential or the impact possibility that you can have by combining, say, being in the top 25% of two things that are rarely combined.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: By putting those together, I guess what you\u2019re arguing is effectively you\u2019re in the top 1% of whatever those two things are.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. And also for me, if you look at my chronology, this is a way of getting to your question. It might look like I\u2019m hopping around a lot, and I suppose I am, but it\u2019s not because I just get bored and then look for the next thing. It\u2019s often because I feel like I started in the blue ocean where maybe I could count cards with a single deck blackjack table. And then suddenly it gets really crowded and all of a sudden that strategy doesn\u2019t work. The deck is stacked against me. And at that point I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t fetishize hard games. I like easy games.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah, sure. Why not? So if you think about blue\u2026 I mean, you have found blue oceans in the past. Where do we see blue oceans going forward?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Oh, boy, it\u2019s really personal. I think there are blue oceans everywhere. For instance, I think that a few years ago, everything had Web3 in its deck if it was a startup. And then for a while it was VR, then it was AR. Now it\u2019s AI. Everybody sprinkles a little pixie dust of AI in their deck.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Evaluations go immediately up.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, and things are completely bananas. So I would say it\u2019s not chasing that for me. I mean, I\u2019ve placed a few bets in the sector, but I look for things that once were sexy that are no longer sexy, which is why I started building my email list 10 years ago or whatever it was, when everyone\u2019s like, \u201cEmail\u2019s dead.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d Email\u2019s dead until people have to get a job. And then email is alive and well.<\/p>\n So I think you can excavate and reinvigorate the old in addition to looking for the new. I think there\u2019s going to be a lot of pushback to digital overwhelm. And I\u2019m curious what forms that\u2019ll take. How might you bet on that?<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: If I think about for you, what the next 10 years looks like, what would be fun, impactful? Where are you going to lean into your set of superpowers that you have and what are we solving for? What does that look like?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: I\u2019m not totally sure. In part, and maybe this is a cop out, but whenever I feel like I have a reliable five-year plan, I feel like to have such a-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: You immediately want to change it.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Well, I feel like to have something that I feel I could execute perfectly, I\u2019m operating so well within my sphere of comfort that I\u2019m just not aiming high enough.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Correct.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: But I would say for-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Because what you\u2019re minimizing is what you might learn in that five-year journey, which might actually change.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. Yeah. And the conditions change very quickly too. So I would say something that I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about, and that\u2019s part of the reason I came in yesterday and had a dinner with a bunch of biotech folks, is how I might use my audience now that the technology is available for this to do distributed scientific studies.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah, that\u2019s very interesting.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: So how could I do that? I would need to obviously figure out how to shield myself in the hyperlitigious world of the United States.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Is this around the longevity trend or just broadly speaking?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Could be just about anything. I mean, for instance, if I wanted to take a plausible vagus nerve stimulator that could ostensibly have these various effects, okay, well, including say boosting HRV, heart rate variability. Well, could I give people instructions for how to assemble this thing? This is where I have to cover my ass in the U.S. Then ship them an Oura Ring or a WHOOP Band, something like that, and have a potentially, and this is available now, but an at-home self blood draw kit. I just did this the other week. I\u2019d never seen it. It\u2019s remarkable. Just stick it on your shoulder and drain it into a vial, and then you\u2019ve got your sample. And held people accountable. So we\u2019re using quantifiable metrics instead of self-reporting.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: And it\u2019s highly customized potentially.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. You could really, with an N that is large enough, if you have enough people participating, you could potentially parse some really, really interesting signals from that. And that\u2019s the kind of thing that it\u2019s like if I went to go through academic channels for that, which I\u2019ve done for 10 plus years, 15 years, it takes forever.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Here you\u2019re leveraging potentially your listeners.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. And there are good reasons why it takes a long time to do certain things, like IRB and human ethics and all of that. I get it. But I\u2019m not giving anyone the next thalidomide. We\u2019d be dealing with something that has pretty good side effect profile. And one of the biggest challenges for any scientific study is subject recruitment. They might recruit 20 people, and honestly, it\u2019ll take them a year and a half to do it. But I can do that in minutes.<\/p>\n I also recognize limitations of something like I\u2019m describing. Very hard to placebo control, blah, blah, blah. But correlations, if they\u2019re strong enough, still like smoking and cancer as an example, can be informing.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: In some ways you\u2019re trying to simplify your life, but you\u2019re also trying to do hard things.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. This one I would like to do because if I can do it, it provides\u2026 And this is where I get the most payoff maybe, is doing something that inspires other people to try different things. So if I could do that, and maybe it leads to a publication where it\u2019s like it\u2019d be pretty nice to be the co-author of a study. I\u2019ve never done that. And I would want other people with audiences to start to think about. It\u2019s like, okay, let\u2019s read about cystic fibrosis. Let\u2019s read about this. Let\u2019s read about Genzyme. Let\u2019s study a couple of case studies so you understand what you could do with your audience besides shilling the latest tchotchke. You could actually-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Have a meaningful impact.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: \u2026 have a huge impact. Because you could recruit very specific demographics, psychographics profiles. And to do that through normal academic channels is very, very difficult.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Okay. So this is a pretty exciting initiative. I mean, if this is something where I could imagine, I have a thesis that most people want to live a life of impact where they\u2019re having a positive impact on the people they care about, and that can be as broad as the world. Does that resonate with you?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, it resonates. It definitely resonates. I mean, I would say that if I can leave the world, hopefully maybe a handful of people better off than they were beforehand, great. How many people at all of Harvard can tell me Alexander the Great\u2019s full name? Probably two or three. So the greatest conqueror the world\u2019s ever known. So I don\u2019t harbor any illusions or delusions of having people remember my name.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, I think this also speaks to your point where it probably frees you from the shackles of thinking about what everyone is thinking about you.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: It does that. And also to give credit where credit is due, I think about this a lot. Seth Godin, I have tremendous respect for. And he said, in effect, it\u2019s easy to hide behind the big. Solve world hunger, impact a billion people, whatever it might be. But he said, \u201cYou can\u2019t hide behind the small.\u201d So if it\u2019s like, okay, you want to impact a billion people? Go out next week and impact 10 people and tell me exactly what you did.<\/p>\n So I tend to, maybe assume is not the right word, but in my experience, if you start small and that allows you to go to bias towards action as opposed to just patting yourself on the back for these big grand dreams, then it\u2019s like Jane Goodall didn\u2019t start out as Jane Goodall and Marky Likes.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: She spent decades in\u2013<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: In the field doing stuff that nobody gave a sh\u2013 about. If you are able to prove something out on a smaller scale, I feel like you can very often push that into some type of scale. Feel free to think big, but act small next week.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yes, correct. Well, look, I think there\u2019s no question that schools like Harvard, everyone has big dreams. And to your point, there\u2019s often a disconnect between their actions. And the problem with life, what happens is a lot of people see it as sort of a series of building blocks. They\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, well, if I make this amount of money or if I achieve this set of career, if I do this, then I\u2019ll get to that phase where I\u2019ll impact tons of people.\u201d And it\u2019s frankly, to your point, it\u2019s much easier to do that along the way. And the probability of successive that you\u2019ll do it with more is much greater if you do it along the way.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. I also think that it\u2019s easy to imagine that you yourself making a decision right now will be the same you yourself in five years, and that\u2019s rarely the case. So for instance, I also think there\u2019s safety masquerading as preserving optionality. And I mean, I know this will be right in your wheelhouse, but if people are going to management consulting or iBank and they\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m going to get this breadth of experience around multiple sectors-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, they definitely convince themselves.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: \u2026 and after four or five years, then I\u2019m going to start my startup.\u201d I have seen that happen exactly zero times.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, so I\u2019ve heard that 1,000 times, and I\u2019ve seen it about the same number of times.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Because the you five years later is going to have a Porsche gathering dust.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Correct.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: You\u2019re going to be keeping up with the Joneses or vacationing in Ibiza or whatever nonsense.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Second home, whatever it is. It\u2019s like-<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: And suddenly just to feed this monster that you\u2019ve created and stay in the esteem of your colleagues-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: It\u2019s a trap. It\u2019s just a trap.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: \u2026 are you going to start your bakery then? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: So what advice would you give the students you met today? They are here at Harvard and suddenly what they\u2019re seeing is the world is changing pretty dramatically. The jobs that they thought were available to them are declining, even consulting jobs. Private equity is a far more institutionalized, less interesting business than it was 20 years ago. The number of people going into banking is going down.<\/p>\n And of course you\u2019ve got this AI that is apparently going to change everything and we\u2019re trying to solve for hopefully this one trait called judgment, which hopefully is the differentiator for human beings. So given these seismic shifts, which both may create opportunity and turmoil, what would be the advice that you would give to these students?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. And look, I hope I don\u2019t come off as a cantankerous ass because I guess I\u2019m pretty salty, but I would say a few things. And this is speaking as someone who has a lot of friends who went to very good business schools and so on, that in the world of building companies, nobody cares about your business degree. And if you behave and interact with people as if you are entitled to something, you\u2019re going to have a very hard slog of things.<\/p>\n So on the other hand, if you take what you\u2019ve learned here and you use that as the payoff and then are willing, I think, to do what a lot of people are not willing to do. And this extends outside of HBS too. I think that if you are willing to really have hat in hand and do menial stuff, and yet you still have this fancy degree, people are going to pay attention to that. If you fit the-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Well, they\u2019ll pay attention precisely because it\u2019s so differentiated.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Exactly. Whereas if you fit the image that most people have, no offense, of an HBS red, you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: But what you\u2019re precisely saying is that at the core, a founder has to think differently, has to be different. In order to go operate in the extraordinary world, you need to be different. And so the idea here is what you got to present and do things that are different.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, totally. And also I would say it\u2019s like you can read all the books on boxing or soccer that you want. You could be a PhD in soccer, but until you get out on the field, you\u2019re going to realize it\u2019s a different thing. And so you got to get out there and take your lumps. And it doesn\u2019t have to be just this march of misery. I mean, there\u2019s a lot that you can enjoy along the way. But I feel like if you do the unexpected, which could be starting a podcast in 2014 or whatever, by the way, a lot of people told me, \u201cIt\u2019s too late, that ship has sailed.\u201d<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Is that right?<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah. A lot of people who had podcasts were like, \u201cOh, it\u2019s too crowded.\u201d I was in 2014. But it could be doing something like that. It could also just be doing what people do not expect, which might be they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, this guy\u2019s going to be a pompous know-it-all.\u201d And you\u2019re just like, \u201cHey, I\u2019ll get the coffee. I\u2019ll do this. Just clean the shoes,\u201d whatever.<\/p>\n What I\u2019ve seen amongst founders at least is intelligence is table stakes. It\u2019s reliability, rolling up your sleeves, no job too big or too small. And if you just do what people would not expect in a positive sense, you can really squeeze a lot out of what you learned at a place like HBS because the lessons are good, but you still got to get on the field.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Correct. Exactly. It\u2019s the opposite of what you think, which is you\u2019re nowhere. You\u2019ve got to go back to the bottom and actually do the work.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Another piece of advice I would give to students, and this is advice that I give to myself, I don\u2019t give other people advice that I wouldn\u2019t or haven\u2019t given myself. And advice, it\u2019s like take or leave it. Everybody\u2019s different.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Absolutely.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: But I\u2019m suspicious whenever there\u2019s too much of a consensus about anything.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Hence your point, go do weird things.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Go do weird things. Yeah. Especially now, it\u2019s not going to get easier unless you train the muscle of doing that. And you realize that if you fall through the ice or one leg goes through the ice, you can get back out. You\u2019ll figure it out. But after four years at McKinsey, are you going to be more or less inclined to take some harebrained risk? Less by far. So there\u2019s certain types of weirdness that if you embrace early, develop, cultivate the habit of exploring those strange corners, which is like-<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: I mean, I define weird\u2026 It\u2019s interesting. When I hear you say weirdness, it\u2019s almost like be curious. Just be curious about the things that seem unusual to others.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, be curious. And also it\u2019s okay to have high conviction in yourself. You got to test that. But it\u2019s like if you can beat your head against a wall trying to push forward a bad or mediocre idea because you view yourself as a contrarian and everyone tells you, \u201cIt\u2019s not going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah. At some point.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: And you\u2019ve read all the amazing stories of these founders who built multi-billion dollar companies after everyone said, \u201cNo.\u201d Just because people are saying, \u201cNo,\u201d does not mean your idea is good. So if you label yourself a contrarian, that\u2019s very dangerous because actually what you\u2019re saying is, \u201cI\u2019m a conformist, but I\u2019m just going to do the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Yeah. You know what, Tim? So what I\u2019d say to you, I\u2019m very grateful for you coming here. And I think that part of that gratitude comes from, if I define your life, it\u2019s something I try to inspire my students, which is seek adventure. Go seek some adventure, trust your curiosity, trust your judgment, learn as much as you can.<\/p>\n In many ways you\u2019ve benefited from what I call exponential learning, and precisely because you took those first steps of trusting your judgment. And I view judgment as a muscle, but it\u2019s not linear. And so you\u2019ve got the benefit of this exponential learning. And at the end of the day, the good of that is that it enables you to hopefully impact a few people a little bit better. And I think today you impacted a lot of people.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Oh, thanks.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: Thank you for being here.<\/p>\n TIM FERRISS: Yeah, thanks for having me.<\/p>\n REZA SATCHU: You\u2019ve been listening to The Founder Mindset<\/em> with Reza Satchu.<\/p>\n ADI IGNATIUS: Adi here again. I hope you enjoyed that episode of The Founder Mindset<\/em> with Reza Satchu. You can follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We\u2019ll be back with a regular \u30a2\u30a4\u30c7\u30a2\u30ad\u30e3\u30b9\u30c8 <\/em>episode on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Tim #Ferriss #Experiments #Risk #Freedom<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ADI IGNATIUS: Hi, everyone. It\u2019s Adi Ignatius, editor at large at Harvard Business Review and co host of IdeaCast. I\u2019m dropping into your feed today to let you know about a show from our friends at Harvard Business School. It\u2019s called The Founder Mindset, and it\u2019s hosted by serial founder and Harvard Business School senior lecturer, Reza Satchu. The show is a masterclass in what it really takes to be a successful founder. In each episode, Reza sits down with some of the world\u2019s most successful entrepreneurs, including Reese Witherspoon, Kevin O\u2019Leary, Galen Weston and more, and pushes them to break down exactly how they commit, decide, and build for […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n