140: Kevin Kelly | Wisdom, Tim Ferriss & Serendipity

🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/kevin-kelly/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ryanfhogg/

The following podcast is with Kevin Kelly.

He’s an eclectic fella with a broad array of experiences and interests, but most notably, he is the co-founder of Wired magazine, an og futurist, the photographer behind vanishing Asia, author of many many books… but most importantly to me, he wrote of one of the most viral blog posts of all time, ‘1000 true fans’.

Plus, he just published Excellent Advice For Living – a wonderful book of aphorisms.

Kevin Kelly has done at this stage probably 100’s of podcasts, I feel like I’ve listened to most of them, but while I cannot confirm this to be 100% true, I think this podcast can exist as evergreen material Kevin has not spoken publicly about before. 

We go top to bottom the role of serendipity in Kevins life. I ask him point blank what Tim Ferriss has done for him. Kevin opens up and then digs deep on the importance of communication and I even get Kevin to react to a Norm Macdonald quote at the end.

-----

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:37 – Serendipity In Kevins Life & Travel Experiences
• 24:52 – ‘Be A Good Ancestor’ – Kevin Kelly
• 28:15 – What’s It Like Being Famous In China?
• 34:02 – What Has Tim Ferriss Done For You?
• 42:32 – Kevins Favourite Aphorism From The Book
• 46:32 – Kevins Advice On Elite Communication + Behind The Scenes On The Podcast Tour
• 57:22 – Kevin Reacting To A Norm Macdonald Quote + Reflecting On Mortality

🍻☕: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ryanhogg

Curious Things Mentioned During The Episode

• Unsolicited Advice From Kevin Kelly
• Nassim Taleb
• Bed Of Procrustes
• Tim Ferriss
• Thomas Erikson On Communication

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The following podcast is with a man who Tim Ferriss suggested might be the most interesting person in the world. He's an eclectic fella with a broad array of experiences and interests, but most notably, he's the co-founder of Wide Magazine, an OG futurist, the photographer behind Vanishing Asia, author of many, many books, but most importantly to me, he wrote one of the most viral blog posts of all time, 1000 True Fans. Kevin has done at this stage probably hundreds of podcasts, and I feel like I've listened to most of them, but while I cannot confirm this to be 100% true, I think this podcast will exist as evergreen material for which Kevin has not spoken publicly about before. We go top to bottom on the role of serendipity in Kevin's life. I ask him point blank what Tim Ferris has done for him. Kevin opens up and then digs deep on the importance of communication, and I even get Kevin to react to a Norm MacDonald quote at the end. So there's plenty for all who listen to a curious worldview in this one. So spread the love and share it with someone, with one of your mates who listens to podcasts. And of course, you all know the drill. Pump that good juice into the algorithm. Because while it took me five hours to put this together, it will only take you five seconds to review. So swipe up them phones right now, before the podcast begins. Swipe up the phones so you can do it while you're listening. Go to your podcast player and pump that good juice into the algorithm. Five stars across the board. Alright, you're all legends. Kevin's a legend. Without any further ado, here is Kevin Kelly. Kevin, three aphorisms. One from you, one from Nastim Taleb, and one from Sarin Kierkegaard. Uh, yourself. Any believable prediction will be wrong because the future will not be reasonable. Taleb, how can you predict a future of infinite possibilities based off a finite experience of the past? And then Kierkegaard, life can be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. So you have a famously eclectic range of experiences. In 2015, Tim Ferris suggested that you might be the most interesting man in the world. Starting from the very beginning, I wonder how you reflect on the role that serendipity has played in your life.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

I call it luck. And I have been incredibly lucky and very, very blessed. And I would say a lot of where I am is because I've been lucky. Other people that I've met have worked harder, are smarter, are more enthusiastic, or more creative, um, but may not have gone as well. And that's because they weren't as lucky as I have been. So serendipity is a huge factor in our individual lives. The role of luck and chance and chaos and um, you know, just the that lucky and unlucky accidents. And I think it has less importance in certain things like technological development and evolution. But at the level of individual species, and it's particularly individuals of those species, it's incredibly powerful and makes a huge difference. And so, um, you know, part of luck is what you're born with, your genes, who your parents are. Um, so we don't have a lot of choices about that, but we have all can improve in whatever it is, whatever dimension we care to, we can improve in that wherever we start. And so um that's what I um say is yes, the serendipity has a huge role in our lives, um, but it's not the entire thing. Um we still have an incredible amount of control over many other things, and those things we have control over make a huge difference to us.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Perhaps you could recall a moment where you were standing not necessarily even at a crossroads, but you were just taken out by some total chance, luck, randomness, chaos, and it completely rediverted your life.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

I would say um Yeah, like um I um I don't know about you, but you know, I think meeting my wife was completely un in un inevitable or non-inevitable, and not at all. It was it was completely luck, and I was very, very lucky in that, and that has sort of taken my life in a very different way than I was ever imagining. I married someone from Taiwan, she's Chinese, our kids are bilingual. That was not on my bingo card. That was definitely nothing, even though I had spent years in it. It was like the idea of it was just, I don't know, it was strange to me as a young person. So um that was one I think um uh you know um there were there were things that I saw and witnessed and experienced in my travels that I arrived at without knowledge, without foreplan, without um any idea that that they would um unfold, and they were very, very informative, including being at the first Kumela, well the first one I attended in the in the early 70s, which I I kind of I don't know, I arrived with without knowing what it was, why it wasn't. It was this 13 million people on a beach. It was it was like the the precursor to Burning Man in many ways. And um so that was like pure luck, pure chance, um looking back. And I think there I think there's a lot of things that that that happened that divert us in in new ways that we're not even aware of at that time that it's doing that. So we go and look back and say, oh yeah, that was a major thing. But at the time it didn't feel like that was going to be a major thing, it was just another event that that set us in a certain direction, but it didn't seem as big. And I think I think there weren't a lot of of things where I was aware at the time that it was taking one direction. I had a religious conversion experience in Jerusalem on Easter. Absolutely. I the day before I was I wasn't even thinking about it. I was was not even I was not even it was not even even remotely possible, and that happened, and that was something that definitely set my life in a in a different course that I could not have imagined and again I was not planning to do.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

When you think about uh life can be under sort of backwards, but it must be forwards. Does it feel like it was a random walk for you? Did random bits of luck pull you in certain directions? Yeah, I I do.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

I I I I I think um I think I I could imagine my life having gone very, very many, very, very different ways with different decisions that I made and different encounters. I don't I don't feel uh fated. I don't feel my life has been fated in any way. I feel much more that it's been invented and created, constructed rather than given. And so, um yeah, so that's um I know other but there are other people who feel very much that they're destined to to do what they're doing. I don't have those kind of feelings like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Um this wasn't planned, but since you brought it up, I mean um your religious conversion is a part of the religious conversion now a belief in almost destiny that your your agency was almost taken out of it? Um could even coming to the religious experience in itself be one of these pivotal moments of serendipity.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

I you know, I think it also I I I think we have at least I I'm again uh for my own life. I know I don't feel that that was uh inevitable or des that it was destiny um that there was anything necessarily inherently inevitable about it. I I don't think it works at that level, and I don't feel that way. That's not how I feel about it. Um I think it was um I that there were it was based on choices that I made or didn't make and um things that I encountered and didn't and so um you know the the reason why I was in Jerusalem at all was because I was in Iran working and there was Khalini was a revolution which you know sent me out of the country and so there's just so many things that I just don't believe would have converged in that way. Um and so emotionally I don't feel that way, and logically I don't feel that way.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I wonder if you could uh open up on that brief tidbit you gave some giant pre-burning man, 13 million people on a beach in India. Yeah, I presume it's India. I could be wrong there, but I mean what what is that?

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Yeah, yeah. So the Kum Mela is this festival, is Kum Mela is a festival in Hindi, and Kum is like big, or I'm not really sure what the Khum actually. Oh, that's amazing. It's translated as big festival. Yeah, it's big, big, big festival. And um it happened every twelve years. Um and every twelve years they would rotate four different um locations. And um when they gather, the pilgrims come all over and they they're all around the river, um, Ganges, and so they bathe in the Ganges like a baptism. And they get extra points for for bathing in the river on these very particular auspicious days. And um so I was there for one that was on this riverbank in what was at the time called Allahabad, um, which was kind of like a huge riverbank of the Ganges, and it was like empty, and like Burning Man, it was kind of like a blank playa, but it was a huge, huge wide river conjunction. And um 13 million people showed up and they and they were making this instant city, mostly themselves, carrying their own gear, which was basically blankets and their little cooking pots and firewood, even, on the trains coming in and making this instant city, and then they would set up a little bit of there would be some camps, they were called camps, set up by the gurus or sadhus who had followings, and they would teach, or they would do other things, and it was also the time when all the holy men of India, the sadhus and the Nagas, would come together. Basically, they'd ride hobo, like they'd ride their rail hopping, they'd get they'd arrive there because they didn't have any money, but they'd all appear there together, so there was kind of um a sense of um what's the word, spectacle. And um uh over and originally when I was first going there, 13 million million people was the largest congru congregation of humans for a festival like that had ever happened. Um but since that time, actually, um at that time it was mostly kind of very poor peasants or incredibly devout Hindus who would arrive. But since that time, and actually, see the last 10 years or 15 years, it's become Burning Man, in a sense that the middle class Indians are going to it, and there's huge, so come a huge city, an instant city, with like almost like a fairground kind of uh atmosphere where huge temporary structures set up, um classes, even video, and everybody and their brother who's a teacher is there, and you walk around and you gawk. And um then you bathe on the on the morning, and they and that bathing thing is this its own operation. And it's grown to be like 50 million people. So I was uh the recent ones, it's like 50 million people. And here's the thing, okay, here's here's the thing, is that there's 50 million people, and as to my best knowledge, there was not a single toilet. Unlike Burning Man, there were there were not rows of pot of porties. There were there was like I I I couldn't figure this out. I had on our camp, we had some you know composting toilets, but um I don't know where they were going. And so that's a lot of sewage. So um that is the Kumela.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Best not to think about it too much, I suspect.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Exactly. That's the Kumela. And um it's there are now mini versions of it every four years instead of just 12 years because it's become this thing. Um and again, there's four different cities where they um would have them. Uh, and so it's now um, like Burning Man in India, something that kind of normal people would like to go to once in their life.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Sounds absolutely incredible. What were the series of events that led you there serendipitously in the first place?

SPEAKER_02 14:05

I was in India photographing um for almost a year, and I was um going on a train, I was taking a train around India, and I'd heard about this from one of a traveler or something, and actually, and and and actually only on the first time around, only stayed three days, and I didn't I didn't know anything about it, so and I I didn't have a tent or anything, I was actually sleeping at the railway station because there was no on this vast plane, there were no hotels, and I didn't know that I would that you have to camp. I didn't know anything, but so I was sleeping at the railway station, and um and on the third day I noticed I had jaundice in my eyes, and turned out that I, as I suspected, I had hepatitis, and so I had to leave. I didn't actually see that much of the first three after three days. I had to to go, you know, somewhere. I went to the went to Calcutta, went to the Salvation Army, where I laid in bed for a month. But that initial three days was enough to give me an idea of um what it was, and later on I do go back um to it more recently um just to experience this um when they all go into the to the river together at once, they m it's like they make a sound. It's like it's like a like an exhalation. It's just really eerie. That that is audible from far away. And um it just gives me the goop goosebumps thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Wow, it sounds incredible. Of uh all the countries you photographed for Vanishing Asia, is there you can't have a favorite, or maybe you can, but is there one that particularly stands out just for the photographic bounty?

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Well, well, i India by far was the most colorful, photogenic, particularly when I was first photographing there because people were still in their native costumes, so to speak. There were a lot of otherness. Um there was a huge variety of things to see, and um the Indians were very accommodating generally to this strange thing called a camera that most of them had never even seen. Wow. I mean, they might have been aware of it, but I was often the only person with a camera within a hundred miles, and so you can think about people with phones today. Well, it was the opposite then. And so um that was the I would say, yeah, that yielded the most photographic stuff. I think um the country that I've been back to the most, I think is Japan. It's not as as photographic in that same sense, although uh it there's a different kind of beauty there for them, it's not there's the details, it's the lovely designs that they're doing. The lines almost the lines, right, exactly. Um so but I spent a lot of time recently, uh not my uh in the last decade in China where most of my fans are, and um they're it's not as photographic, but it's definitely as educational in terms of confronting things that are done differently, and um you know there it's very rich ancient ways of doing things. They're not maybe as exotic to a Westerner as India has been. Um but if you want to if you want to have a encounter with the other, then China will do it, particularly on the outside of the east coast of of China and Beijing. If you go into the hinterland, um you absolutely can have encounters with the other.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

And by the other you mean untouched by the West or tones and technology.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Other than what, yeah, other than your life as you s normally experience it. In the cities in in China, they're they're far similar to ours and far more advanced in that sense in urban life. And so um you won't see a much difference there, but if you go into the hinterlands, into the mountains of Guanxi, or go into Yunnan, or even Tibet, you will begin to to see kind of a different way of doing things, and that's what I meant by the other a slightly different design choice, a different um sense of what's the what's the norm.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

What about uh Kijistan and Mongolia? For the photographic bill.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yes, so the surprise to me about Mongolia, most uh countries have tried to eliminate their nomads. They've had active campaigns, including China, and and they have a place inner Mongolia, and they've they've completely moved the nomads uh into settled life. But Mongolia has escaped that trap and they are actually catering to the several million nomads still today. And that kind of their kind of nomad of is a s it's not like a wandering hunter-gatherer tribe. It's basically seasonal ranching. They basically have two ranch sites. They'll have a winter ranch and a summer ranch, and and they'll set up their yurt or gur in the winter grounds, which are generally lower, and then they'll move their herds and their house up to the summer location, and they actually have permanent like locations that I come back to all the time, and so they're kind of moving back and forth between that, and they're way out away from other buildings, and so the challenge that they have is uh medical and school, and one of the ways that they do is they send their kids to um boarding schools, even elementary schools, so they will come back once a week or maybe once a month, and they'll come back on motorcycles, they use motorcycles to pick them up, and that also gives them access to medical stuff. So that's so so I contend that the you know the number one technology that has transformed the developing world has been the cell phone, the mobile phone. But the second one that's unrecognized is the motorcycle, cheap motorcycles. It has completely revolutionized the developing world because you can do things where you don't need roads. You can you can get by on a trail and you can load up those cycles with incredible loads and then you can hire them out. There's there's m moto taxis that that do ride sharing, and so they're incredibly powerful in terms of of um e equalizing the field for those in the very rural areas of the developing country.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Are you familiar with Charlie Walker? I'm not. Incredible fella in his mid thirties. Has done many super um high stakes adventure type um you wouldn't even call it travel, but just experiences. One of them was he rode his bike around the world, took him four years. Um a bicycle. Yep, uh two-wheeler. Um engine. Not an engine, exactly. He had to pedal. Right. Um and he he actually made that same observation um about uh particularly just on the step, but just how underappreciated the influence of the motorbike was. And he actually he he gave a really interesting sort of add-on to that anecdote that um what it's done is simultaneously kind of slowly destroy the horse culture in what is you know, if you're a nomadic person, you still have a bunch of horses, but you don't you don't rely on the horse the same way that traditionally you might have. But as well, it means less people can do the same amount of herding work, and so it's sort of um uh is bad for the labor market in these nomadic communities, and then as well, you can do it drunk. And so um yeah. So apparently it's much easier to ride a motorbike, you know, drunk than a horse, bottle of vodka deep than a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Yeah, I I never would have thought of that. Um like the second, third, fourth order consequential things really interesting insight for a lot of places with horse, but most of the developing world is not horse culture, and horses for them were incredibly expensive, and that's the that was the issue was was, you know, unless you have free grass like Mongolia has, um incredibly expensive proposition that very few people could afford. Um and most people could afford$300 for a Chinese-made motorcycle. I mean that's how that's how much they were costing.$300. It was like that is an incredible bargain.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Seriously. Yeah, yeah. No wonder. Yeah. Um did you ever rub up against much alcoholism in your travels? Probably.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

I'm not an alcohol drinker. Do you think that left an impression? I'm not an alcohol drinker. I I found it very easy to refuse alcohol, even in places where it was mandatory drinking, you know. Um I just you can say, well, my it's my liver, whatever it is, you know. There's but anyway, so um uh I I'm not a drinker and I kind of avoided anybody who was drunk. But I don't I don't I don't know. I don't I don't I don't I I wasn't overwhelmed by it, so I noticed it, but I didn't really pay much attention to it.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Uh you have an aphorism about the book about everyone should leave something behind for the future generation. Yeah. Be a good ancestor. Do you think uh for your ancestors? Be a good ancestor. Be a good ancestor, okay. Um for you, is that Vanishing Asia?

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Um uh not necessarily. I think that's more of a vanity project. That was for me. I was it was an audience of one. I made that book for myself. I mean, literally. I and and and I think I'm the person who enjoys that book the most, those books. Um once I made one copy, I thought that's all we really need, but I'm just it's easier just to make a bunch of others for others, but it was really made for me. I I think being a good ancestor is when I was 17 in my backyard, New Jersey, I planted an acorn seedling, and I said, I'd like this to grow up to be a huge oak, and I'm gonna come back and visit it in 50 years. And I did. I went back uh for my 50th high school reunion to New Jersey, went to the same house that I grew up in, and I there was this huge, magnificent oak tree, and I planted that, and I was thinking ahead, and that is probably much more my my legacy than the books will be, was this was this oak tree that I planted.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah. Oh, that's pretty epic, but nonetheless, I mean, um I'm sure there's a lot more that you're gonna leave behind, or at least than a tree.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

I'm leaving everything behind. Okay. So so um what is worthwhile? I I I did a study of time capsules at one point for for long now. We were thinking about time capsules, and um it's really amazing because most time capsules, first of all, um 95% of time capsules are completely lost track of within five years after they're buried. Five years after they're buried, nobody remembers burying it, nobody remembers where it is, they're lost. And occasionally uh one is found and someone opens it, and I've been around one of those openings of the fairly big one at the San Francisco airport, and it was incredibly, incredibly disappointing because the things that you think are interesting are not interesting to people in the future, and they're interested in all the things that you would not find interesting. Yeah. And so it's really kind of hard to gauge what it is that future generations will find valuable about, say, my own work. It's really hard to tell.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

That's full circle on your opening aphorism. Any believable prediction will be wrong because the future uh will not be reasonable.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Right, and and that's what it is. A time capsule is a kind of prediction. You're trying you're trying to predict what people are gonna be interested in.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Um I'm just cautious of the time. I don't want to be too self-indulgent. Um, since we're gonna be able to do that. Well run, we'll keep going since I've been so tardy. Okay, thank you. Um you you commented before that most of your fans are in China. Yes. Um what is what what what is that like, but more so how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Well, I I I again I was very lucky in having my first book translated into Chinese in it much much later than when it appeared in English. When my first book came out, it was basically ignored in here. It just didn't make any sense. People didn't kind of understand it in the high level. It was talking about distributed systems and decentralization and how an art an artificial life and artificial intelligence, and it just did not connect. But the Chinese it was translated in Chinese maybe in the 2000s, so like ten years later, and it was the perfect time in China because it was very influential for those original internet digital guys who were reading it and being inspired by it, like Jack Ma, and they would talk about it and say to other entrepreneurs, you have to read this. And so it became the thing to read. And um people still find it very useful in China, even though I'm told it was it was crowdsourced translated. So the translation is not necessarily the best, but despite that, um people find it interesting enough in China to keep recommending it, and now I have all these other books that are also translated into Chinese, and so I have a I have a very outsized reputation in China that I don't deserve. I was kind of like the Alvin Toffler of China. You know, Alvin Toffler wrote basically one very influential book, Future Shock, which you know everybody associates with futurism, and I'm that I'm the Alvin Toffler of China.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Nice. And what's it do you have any deeper relationship with the Chinese beyond that? Uh it's it's a weird question of frame, but I just don't think I've ever met someone who has um who has any type of relationship beyond just a personal one with individual Chinese people. Yeah. You understand what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Well, of course, my wife is Chinese, her parents grew up in China, so I have in-laws in China, and um my kids are bilingual. I I understand some Chinese. Um so and I and so what it would I my main business became going to China every couple months, doing a tour of China, giving talks about technology, and I would meet all kinds of Chinese from the highest levels of the government down to kids who were trying to um do a startup to and I we'd have dinner with them. So I got many, many, many, many, many conversations in many places in China. And also I was traveling, in addition to those official things, I would travel into the remote parts of China way beyond what any of them themselves had ever experienced. Right. And I could talk about that. So I was very much like felt like on the ground, and until COVID, I felt very confident that I had a feel for the pulse of China. But in since COVID and since the kind there's been a realignment in the highest levels of the politics, I don't feel like I have a pulse on China anymore. But pre-COVID, I was there so often talking to so many people at so many levels, including many, many, many young people, that I felt um very, very at home and very comfortable and very much um like I was part of their experiment. Even though I wasn't, you know, officially doing anything, and um uh I don't quite feel that way in the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

So with the change in tone towards China or thinking about China or the cultural relationship between the US and Australia and China with your bilingual children, how would you feel if they were to take up a job in Shanghai, you know, in Shuangzhou?

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Well, my my my my daughters did. My oldest daughter was working in Shanghai for a while, and um our second daughter did do some work in in China. Um they're back in well, they're they're out of China, but that was that they gave it a try, I think. Um I think they um I I think I'm not sure why they didn't stay, but um I I think it was China can be a a tough place to to kind of make it until you get to a certain level, and they never got to that level and felt that they wanted to do something else.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

And by level you mean status or language?

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Oh not so much, yeah, maybe language. I think I think to I I I think they didn't have the they could ha they had the basics, but they didn't have the vocabulary to do anything sophisticated. Right. So you have to kind of be there to pick up the the shop talk and the slang and and and they didn't really get there.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Uh-huh. Change of uh direction here, Kevin. So me, like presumably hundreds of thousands of others, maybe even more, discovered you because of Tim Ferris and a thousand true fans, the very super viral blog post. What has Tim Ferris done for you? My gosh.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Um Tim Ferris has made that has made that blog post very, very famous, but um I've I haven't turned it into a book. I think it's perfectly fine as a little article. Um but I think he has um I think he's put me on the radar of of of many people in the world of entrepreneurs, which I would not have ordinarily connected with because I'm kind of bored with money. I I just I don't find it that interesting. And um and so I think he's he's done that. I think he's given me a very interesting audience or in part because of his interest in in my work and in that um in that piece, which I rewrote for his book. So the original version of it was a little different. Um and and I volunteered actually to he asked me to reprint it, and I said, well, you know, if you can reprint it, I'd rather rewrite it. Um and so so I think he's given me um a great um audience for um for anything I might write in that, although I haven't really pursued that. Although I you could say that this book, The Excellent Advice for Living, is maybe in that same kind of milieu as The Thousand True Fans. It's sort of it's advice for people who want to make things happen. So maybe I could say that he's helped that happen. And actually, actually, as a matter of fact, part of my advice in this book is to prototype your life, to um not make grand plans, but to kind of iterate and move forward. And literally, at times you want to prototype things first. And I do that all the time when I make books. So I made a prototype version of this book where I worked out the design and the size and everything, and this one actually has little doodles, and I made five copies. One went to my agent, one went to uh the publisher, and one went to Tim for feedback. Um so he has actually one of this is the fifth copy. He has actually now a very rare prototype copy of it, which he marked up. And so um so he was helpful in in um in being a reader for for that in the sense of uh you know giving advice. Um so I think he's helped me uh maybe even crystallize um the idea of how to give advice. One of the things he's remarkable at is uh being very, very, very practical and utilitarian about advice. It's not just waving your arms, no, specifically what do you do next? How do you how do you get to that period? W w what is the actual steps? And I think that m maybe helped me in terms of trying to write um things that were useful at that level.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Have you spent time with him outside of interviews? Yes. And what's he like as a bloke?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

He's very um considerate and kind and um uh I I and and in conversation he is exactly the same. So the Tim Ferris that you hear on the podcast is the real Tim Ferris. He's not there's no heirs, there's no he and in person he'll ask exactly the same things, exactly the same style, so there's no there's no persona there. You you I mean, other than his actual persona. So that was a surprise, is oh my gosh, it's the real thing. He's the same in that way. And it's the same kinds of things that he's interested in. So I I would say um um there was no surprises, or there are no surprises.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Look, he is um for me, certainly, and I know for a fact, genuinely thousands, potentially more, hundreds of thousands of others, a a a prototypical uh sort of uh prototypical is that the word archetypal. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe archetypal, but um one to emulate, one to really look up to, one to say, wow, I am completely invested in how you did what you did, and I want to recreate that in my own style, obviously, but nonetheless, um it's an incredible thing.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Yeah, um I th I think I think that is, you know, um, is his is is where he's arrived, is that something that you would really want for yourself? I'm not sure. You know, I mean um he is still figuring out that. It's like, okay, now that he has this level of success, does it answer the basic questions about what he wants to do? You know, now he's been kind of playing around with fiction and his um cock punch stuff, which is really, really great. Um, but he's you know, he wrestles with the thing of like how best should I use my time, what am I here for, and all those kinds of things. And and so um um I, you know, his his lifestyle is desirable in some respects and not necessarily others. And so um, you know, he's still kind of figuring out whether he wants the family or not, and that's a huge thing, or you can be the the forever bachelor, you know, that's uh that's a really big stuff. And so um at one level he's uh should be an inspiration because he's like the only, right? He's not he's in the category of one, he's the only, and he's inventing his own definition of success, and for for that I salute him. Um but everybody else, including you and myself, should be also on our path to be the only. And I think our successes should not look like his successes. That's my only point is that if you should succeed in becoming truly yourself, I think your success will not look like his success. We're kind of basically on or should be on our path to invent a new kind, a new definition of success ourselves. It's it's it's um I would be wary of trying to imitate Tim's success. And I would think more about well, what would uh if you had invented a definition of success, what would that look like?

SPEAKER_01 41:47

In the emulation of Tim, uh for myself, I can only speak for myself, but it does definitely come with the large caveats of it's not a copy, it's just identifying the things you like most. And in a similar vein, Nasim Taleb wrote a book of aphorisms, The Better Procrusties. Um and he has an explicit aphorism regarding that in there, which is just you know, pick what you like about the ones you emulate and forget everything else. Um, you know, uh and it's exactly uh mirrored on what you just said there. I I I don't remember an explicit aphorism from your book that touched on that. Um but then again, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Yeah, well I uh one of my favorite aphorisms in from the book is don't be the best be the only. Don't be the best be the only. If the best is a very narrow, it's occupied, it's only can be one number one. And um it's usually um that means that that definition, that category of success is occupied already, and you want to make something that suits you, your own abilities, talents, life experiences, in a way that, as Tim would say, that things that you find easy other people find hard, and that is um one indication of of you moving towards becoming the only.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

In fact, just as a nice full circle moment regarding that, Tim, when he promoted his podcast with you most recently, quoted um that exact aphorism, uh do not be the best, be the only, and then you retweeted saying that's my favorite aphorism from the entire movie.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Right, it is. Um and uh I think you know I I have a the thing that made you weird as a kid, which is another piece of advice, could be make you great as a an adult if you don't lose it. So, you know, if you really want to be remarkable, you kind of want to you want to strengthen the the that weird the weirdness in you, make it professional in a certain sense. Um as Austin says, you know, um we're where the weird goes pro. And so that little the little oddities, the little differences are become more and more important as we become more connected to each other 24 hours a day with our phones. Right? Around the world, we're all connected, kind of having encountering similar things. And you want to be able to think differently, and that's really hard. And one of the reasons why I like AI, because it helps that. But you have to kind of work at retaining the little differences that most kids have as kids. And um, it tends to get rounded off as we go through the system of education and careers. And um I'm kind of suggesting that my advice is for the kind of people that I have known that are remarkable, they've managed to retain some of that weirdness, the oddity, the little difference over time and kind of leaned into it rather than leaning away from it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Can you give uh an occupy example of that?

SPEAKER_02 45:12

Well, there's a couple of great examples. Um there was um teenage boys who were interested in puppets. Teenage boys interested in puppets, come on. Well, they became Jin Hen Jim Henson and the guys, Kevin, I forget his name, inside of Elmo, and then big Carol in Big Bird. They they became the onies. They they didn't lose that weird thing as kids. They were strange as kids, let me tell you. Teenage boys interested in puppets. You know, and so um they went with it. And um that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Forgive me for being so abrupt, moving on to topics, but I just want to get a time check from you. How much more time can you allow me?

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Uh let's do another 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Okay, let's see if we can pump out a few big ones in 15 minutes. So um holding on to whatever made you special or weird, your interests as a kid, um, can drive you towards not being the best but being the only. But as well, I get the sense that being able to communicate is one of the most important skills one can endow themselves with. And you have this terrific aphorism, calm is contagious. That's a 100%, in my opinion, a form of communication. But I would love to ask you explicitly what advice you can impart regarding communication. What have you seen in your years from elite communicators, communicators, cross-culturals? Yeah, you know, what is it about people that are so good at communicating?

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Yeah. You know, I I I I I think I have been concluding because I've asked the same question to myself. I think I've concluded that empathy plays a huge role in the best communicators. They are they have some gift of putting themselves into behind the eyes, behind the ears of their audience, and they're kind of representing them in their remarks. They're anticipating them in some ways. And um the best communicators I know have that remarkable ability to to sound like they're talking to you because they are actually in you in some ways. They're they're they're imagining, they're they're they're they're they're taking that viewpoint and they're talking to that viewpoint. And so um so rather than thinking that communications is kind of this this high art where you are being the individual and and uniquely different, and your audience will have to keep up with you, whatever, it's it's it's a kind of a switch where you are it's not you're not talking down to them, but you are in some ways empathetic to to them and their their point of view, and their and and so when you talk, you connect with them. And um, if you're trying to persuade them, that's also another degree of empathy where you are trying to to say this is in your interest. And you can say that because you understand exactly what's in their interest. Um, you know, going back to Tim for a moment, the reason why he's so good is that he represents the kind of ex anxieties and the little uncertainties that a normal person would, and he's asking the questions that a normal person wasn't. So that's the kind of empathy in a certain sense. He's empathetic to the kinds of questions because he is himself, the audience. And so um, so I think that's one thing. I would say first is is is empathy, and the second one is is clarity. Um, all the the best communicators that I know really strive on being clear, it's a kind of thinking. They're they're working on the clarity of it, and part of that clarity has related to the third component of communication, which is honesty. Part of the clarity that I've seen great communicators do is that they they're always that they they question what they're about to say, to say, do is that really true? Do I honestly believe that? Is that something that I want to say, or is it just a cliche? Is it just something I've heard? Because the moment you begin to be authentic about it and to say it in a way maybe that hasn't been said before, then that feels like it's authentic and it's coming from you, and then it's something much more interesting. So if you say something that sounds good, I mean, even like literally sounds good, it's the wonderful wonderful words, it's a nice turn of phrase, but isn't actually genuinely something that you believe, um, it doesn't communicate as well. It it doesn't it doesn't connect. And so there is an honesty in the sense of of being coming back to is this authentic in a sense, do I really believe this? Is this as far as I can tell really true? And that also isn't to me an element of the best communicators, which might include, for instance, doubts about something, or you know, I mean you can understand a great communicator is saying, you know, what am I about to tell you, maybe I don't believe, or I changed my mind about, you know, there's some disclosure, something personal. They're making it true in that sense. And and when they do that, you listen, versus they're just repeating something that has beautiful language in it.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

It makes me think of one of the all-time great communicators, Christopher Hitchens. However, there is definitely um moments in some of his religious debates where you actually do feel like he did not necessarily believe what he just said, but he made it sound very nice. And it's like totally whether it's just we're so subconsciously good at like sussing out the yes, maybe that's what it is, that we can immediately be like, wow, okay, that was not what I expect from you. Um anyway, random tangent, but who do you think of uh if I ask you about elite communicators? Who are they?

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Barack Obama, an amazing communicator, even today, when he's not, you know, it's like he's very, very, very good. Um I mean he's almost like a orator at level where he can talk. Um I think of someone like an Adam Savage, a great Adam Savage um Mythbusters. Mythbusters guy who has his own channel. Yes. He's he's a science communicator, he's very, very good, a very kind of a teacher, explainer, storyteller, all mixed in, a communicator, highest, highest level, I I would say. Um you know, a a lot of um people who um authors, of course, can be great communicators even though they may not be able to do it live and in person. Um but you know, a writer like um Malcolm Gladwell, he's a he's a fabulous communicator. Uh Michael Lewis. So those so those that's another form of communication. You know, there's um Richard Dawkins, speaking of the you know, the the atheists and stuff. Incredibly smart and clear and effective in terms of um communicating. So so I have, you know, I have there's lots of people that I admire. I have my my mentor Stuart Brand, um, and I've mentioned other times one of the things I admire about him is that he does not repeat himself. I'm just doing this book tour where I've had you know 120 podcasts, and um I am struggling not to repeat myself, but Stuart does it so well um that uh I'm I'm in awe of it, but it's very inspiring. Uh and the reason is not just because it's boring, but because he forces himself to not repeat himself, he keeps having new ideas about the thing. Right? I mean the the the the point of like talking about a book and not repeating yourself is that you begin to have new ideas, you're forced to go into places to have an idea about the book that you wrote that you didn't have before. And that is very powerful. And so people who communicate, if if they are able to do it without repeating themselves, talking about the same thing, that's another superpower that really increases their effectiveness.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

I listened to you on in preparation for this um on Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferris, Shane Parrish, and Rich Roll. And there was some repetition, but it was mostly on I think it was don't be the best bitty only, uh, because that's clearly something so close to your heart. But largely, oh my god, they were totally different. And if think about what you've spoken about here as well, it's completely unrelated. Well, that's the joy. You know, so is this on you or the podcast hosts? Both. Oh, sorry, I interrupted you. What were you guys?

SPEAKER_02 55:28

I'm saying that that is the joy of doing these, is that they're not a lot of overlap in the favorite ones, not a lot of overlap in what we talk about, and that is you know, it's it's a conversation between the two of us. I am trying not to repeat myself, and of course, you know your audience well and you're taking in some directions of your own interests, and that is just fabulous for me. I just really, really enjoy that. Um, but the you know, going back to don't be the best, be the only, even when I talk about that, I am trying not to repeat myself when I talk about that, and that's also very hard. But if I can, then I'll have a different idea that forces me to have a slightly different idea about it, which is a joy. And, you know, it should your own journey take you to the point where you're having to talk about something again and again, and people who've raised money to do a pitch are in the same boat where they've got to present over and over again, and um most of them usually lapse into a couple of lines that work, and that's the problem, is they work, and you want to stick with them. But Stuart taught me, no, no, no, you actually want to not stick with them. You actually want to try something else that may fail, but that's the only way to get something better.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Yeah, yeah. Fuck, that's true, isn't it? Um you're making me reconsider, Kevin. I give the same pitch about five times a day um demoing my product.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

So uh make it a here's something what I would say. Try to do two out of the three using something new. You don't want to Yeah, exactly. It'll be it it's it's it's it's hard but incredibly rewarding.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Kevin, I really don't want to take advantage of your goodwill and your time, so let's see how quickly we can do these ones. So I wonder whether this quote resonates with you at all. It comes from the final chapter of Norm MacDonald's book. Do you know who that is? Uh no. Doesn't matter. The book is entirely satirical. Okay, so it's a total satire, except for the final chapter, which in the context we only knew retrospectively, he was dying of bowel cancer, no one knew. He knew this was the final piece of work he was ever gonna put out to the world. And so he was a hilarious man, but for one chapter he dropped the facade and said something serious, and is it's it's one of the most real things I've ever read, heard. It's just incredible. This man had uh you talk about elite communicators, put him right on up there on Mount Rushmore. Anyway, among the things he said the following The only thing that an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast. And if you're not careful, it's too late. But of course, the young man will never understand this truth. Does that resonate with you?

SPEAKER_02 58:27

No, even as a young man, I was incredibly aware of my mortality. I had an experience with my religious conversion when I was 29 of living only for six months and rehearsing that um death. So um, yeah, even as I even as a young kid, I was aware of how fast it was coming and really committed to not taking anything time for granted and and being very much aware of and focused on making the best of today. All right, because tomorrow, who knows? And um I have really tried to live like that even as a young man. So I I I kind of would slightly disagree with him that young men are or young people are incapable of that. Because I think you can. Um I think you can carry that with you even when you're young. And um if you do, it's not it's not kind of weird or necessarily um a downer. It's actually, for me, it's a plus because you're celebrating every day. I have a friend Hugh Howie, who right now is writing a great big success because he was the author of the silo series on on um Apple TV, and he talks about celebrating all these little stages along the way because of of making this move a movie, because you never knew if it was going to go any further or not. You could just assumed it was never gonna go any further, and so you'd you'd have victory celebrations and enjoying that each little step because that might be the only and last step. And so I think we can do the same thing with our days, which is celebrate today, because you know, what if today was your last day? What would you do? And I've rehearsed that, I've actually gone through that process, and it's kind of surprising what the answer is, but that left me with really trying to make the most of today. And you know, if it was my last day. And if it was my last day, would I be doing what I'm doing? And the answer should be yes. It should be yes. If it's not, then you want to you might want to think about what it is that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Again, it reminds me of uh the Taleb aphorism, which is a well-calibrated life is when the answer is yes, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:09

Right, right. Yeah. So well-calibrated or the well-examined life, yes. So, so um um you know, as I told others, I have a countdown clock of how many days my insurance table would say I have left to live, which is of course just an average. But um it it does I I I find that kind of focusing to be useful. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:33

That must instill such an urge.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

Yeah, yeah, right. Because it's like, do I want to spend well if I have 5,820 days, do I want to spend it doing this? And the answer should be yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

I wonder why then, Kevin. Why did you say yes to little old me?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Because um uh there is a self-interest in it, and here's here's what I learned, uh, which is um the shortest, the scarcest thing in the world today is our attention. And um uh what I found out is that while their podcasts, maybe like yourself, I have no idea what what the audience is, all I know is that the audience, because it's small, is paying attention. Right? It's they're they're giving you the attention. You may not have many of them, but they're giving your attention, and that attention is what is gonna be best for the book. I've been on some radio shows. I did a whole day yesterday of radio. It was radio day. I'm on these you know radios, and we're like six minutes or two minutes, whatever it is. It's like in between commercials, it's like there's no there's no attention there, really. It's not really worth my time, really. But uh but the publisher set that up. I didn't set it up. Um whereas we're having this conversation, you're asking great questions, you're a good listener, and I'm sure that the people listening to this, whoever the number that might be, they are paying attention. And that is the scarce resource that we can't find anywhere else. It's not in radio and TV. Okay, it's it's in it's in this much more intimate space of a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Well, throughout the entire journey, I've clutched on to a thousand true fans, as has pr presumably thousands of other content creators or anyone trying to do something out there. So um that was you know an incredible contribution. So thank you for that, Kevin, and thank you for the nice words. And we'll end with a question that I try to ask every single guest. If you could listen to a conversation between any two people of history, dead or alive, no language barrier, two people podcast, who is it? Judas and Jesus. Okay, lovely. We haven't had that before. That's a good one. I mean, uh, are they gonna sort it out? Or what led to it? Or is it gonna be yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

It's like uh there's a whole lot more that I'd like to hear about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

Yeah, amazing. Well, look, Kevin, um, thank you very much, mate. You're welcome. Super generous with your team.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

Always a pleasure and a joy. I really again I love your spirit. Thank you for your interest in this work. I'm deeply grateful for the chance to talk about my excellent advice for living. I hope that it connected with some people, and um I'm honored to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Too kind. All of the links will be in the description. Chase.