On Masters of Scale, we talk a lot about how businesses grow. But we also talk about how people grow: How key decisions (and happy accidents) can shape your future, and how your setbacks can actually set you up for success. On this special Graduation Episode, guest host Jordan Harbinger teams up with Reid Hoffman to share advice that will help you navigate choices in your career, with insights from Instagram's Kevin Systrom, Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, Spotify's Daniel Ek, and more. 

Get more from Jordan Harbinger: https://www.jordanharbinger.com/

Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.com/jordan-harbinger-10-new-rules-for-big-career-changes/

Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dlirtX

This week’s conversation is about artificial intelligence and interplanetary travel. Its about content creation, thinking from first principles, and death progress units. Its about brain machine interfaces and why it is crucial that you be a chef and not a cook. 

My guest is Tim Urban, along with his business partner Andrew Finn. Tim is the most entertaining writer I’ve come across in years, who explains complicated and interesting topics to his millions of dedicated readers on the website “Wait, But Why.” As an example, Tim’s last post on Elon Musk’s neurlink venture is 40,000 words long, roughly the length of a short book. It explains almost all of human progress and our potential future using drawings and cartoons. Its impossible to stop reading.

While this conversation is wildly entertaining, it is also chock full of metaphors and lessons that will be useful to anyone doing creative work or building a company. I hope this leaves you as energized as it left me. I called this episode Grand Theft Life because that is the name that Tim and Andrew give to their worldview, which I think will change the way you behave, too. Please enjoy my conversation with Tim Urban.

For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/urban

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.

To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier.

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Books Referenced

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Links Referenced

The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce

Wait But Why

Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future

Wait But Hi

YouTube Channel  Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Show Notes

1:50 – (First question) –  Explaining his concept of planets 1, 2, 3 and 4 and understanding the human colossus

5:46 – Tim’s favorite idea of the human knowledge compounding

7:52 – Die Progress Units (DPU)

9:45 – Different stages of AI and the positives and negatives of each stage

14;04 – What happens when AI gains breadth and general intelligence

16:23 – The idea of a cook vs a chef and how Tim had the chance to interview Elon Musk

17:48 – Why you should reason from first principles instead of reasoning by analogies

25:19 – Why it’s possible to turn a cook into a chef

30:08 – Why being a chef is the safer route in a world with AI and what Tim has changed in himself as to why.

31:22 – Looking at the discovery process

            34:39 – Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies\

40:01 – Being the person who creates the metaphor vs being the people who simply using them

            43:41 – YouTube Channel  Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

44:54 – Most fun that Tim has had researching a topic

46:08 – Musk model for attaining your goals

53:43 – Why not caring what people think is one of the world’s best superpowers, grand theft life

56:50 – Neuralink – what is it and how did Tim come to research it

1:02:38 – Elon Musk’s concerns about AI

1:14:28 – What then if the Neuralink concept works out

1:18:02 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Tim

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub

Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

"Don't count on motivation; count on discipline." - Jocko Willink Jocko Willink (@jockowillink) is one of the scariest human beings imaginable. He is a lean 230 pounds. He is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert who used to tap out 20 Navy SEALs per workout. He is a legend in the Special Operations world. His eyes look through you more than at you. Jocko spent 20 years in the US Navy and commanded SEAL Team 3's task unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated special operations unit in the Iraq War. Upon returning to the US, Jocko served as the officer in charge of training for all West Coast SEAL teams, designing and implementing some of the most challenging and realistic -- and perhaps psychotic -- combat training in the world (his words, not mine). After retiring from the Navy, he co-founded Echelon Front, a leadership and management consulting company and authored the number one New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win. Jocko did his first interview ever with me (find it here), and it took the Internet by storm. Now he joins us for round two to answer the questions you've been asking. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This episode is brought to you by Headspace, the world's most popular meditation app (with more than 4,000,000 users). It's used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it. Try Headspace's free Take10 program-- 10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It's like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn't need to be complicated or expensive, and it's had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free for a few days and see what I mean. This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it's all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams. Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they'll show you -- for free -- exactly the portfolio they'd put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim.

***

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!

For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.

Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.

For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.

Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.

Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.

Follow Tim:

Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss

Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss

Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss

YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss

“True behavior change is really identity change.”

James Clear

What stands in the way of becoming the person you aspire to be?

Maybe it's circumstances. Access or opportunity. For many its bad habits, exacerbated by the unsuccessful war waged to replace them with good habits — a rinse and repeat process that generally leads to failure and discouragement.

Why is it so hard to overcome negative patterns?

Today's guest contends the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system.

Evolving from stuck and unsatisfied into the person you wish to become is equal parts art and science. Science helps explain the root causes of our behaviors and how to modify them. But the application of said principles into practice is very much an art.

Today we explore the often misunderstood terrain of behavior change with author James Clear, a man who has spent the better part of his career attempting to understand and master the art and science of human habit formation and decision-making,

A regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies, James’ work is used by teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. He has been featured in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Time, and on CBS This Morning. His website jamesclear.com receives millions of visitors each month. Hundreds of thousands subscribe to his popular e-mail newsletter. And over 10,000 leaders, managers, coaches, and teachers have built better habits in life and work via his Habits Academy online program.

James recently penned Atomic Habits, a New York Times bestselling deep dive into evidence-based self-improvement. A comprehensive primer on what actually works when it comes to behavior change, it zeroes in on the transformative power of making small changes. Packed with implementable takeaways (including many strategies I have myself employed with great success), it's a must read for anyone looking to take their life to the next level.

This is a highly practical conversation that explores the psychology and neuroscience behind behavior change.

Specific topics include the problem with goals. We discuss the relationship between overly ambitious goals and failure — why most people make the mistake of optimizing for the finish line when we should instead focus on getting to the starting line.

James explains why establishing systems are critical; and why focus should be placed on practice over performance.

We also cover why it's important to move beyond temporal, emotional drivers like motivation into practical action. Why you're more likely to act yourself into feeling rather than feel yourself into action.

Or, as I like to say, mood follows action.

My biggest takeaway from this exchange is James’ compelling dissertation on why we are best served by concentrating on identity. In other words, long-term results are best derived not from achieving the goals we set for ourselves, but instead by slowly adopting and inhabiting the daily practices and characteristics of the person we aspire to become.

Powerful and potentially game-changing, this conversation will reframe how you contemplate and act upon your ambitions. So break out the pen and paper and please enjoy

Peace + Plants,

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Jim Kwik (@jimkwik) is the CEO of Kwik Learning with 22 years of experience teaching speed-reading, memory improvement, and optimal brain performance to top politicians, actors, CEOs, industry shakers, and world leaders.

What We Discuss with Jim Kwik:

• What accidental -- and often negative -- self-talk does to program your brain and keep you from achieving your true potential.
• How you can learn more in less time and apply it as a force multiplier to improve your life.
• Why forgetfulness is more of a glitch in attention rather than retention.
• How to hack your long term memory.
• The three supervillains of the modern online lifestyle that hold your brain back from being the best it can be.
• And much more...

Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!

Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!

Full show notes and resources can be found here.

Just when I start to think I’m using my time well and getting a lot done in my life, I meet someone like Barbara Oakley.

Barbara is a true polymath. She was a captain in the U.S. Army, a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers, a radio operator in the South Pole, an engineer, university professor, researcher and the author of 8 books.

Oh, and she is also the creator and instructor of Learning to Learn, the most popular Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) ever(!), with over one million enrolled students.

In this fascinating interview, we cover many aspects of learning, including how to make it stick so we remember more and forget less, how to be more efficient so we learn more quickly, and how to remove that barriers that get in the way of effective learning.

Specifically, Barbara covers:

• How she changed her brain from hating math and science to loving it so much she now teaches engineering to college students
• What neuroscience can tell us about how to learn more effectively
• The two modes of your brain and how that impacts what and how you learn
• Why backing off can sometimes be the best thing you can do when learning something new
• How to “chunk” your learning so new knowledge is woven into prior knowledge making it easily accessible
• The best ways to develop new patterns of learning in our brains
• How to practice a skill so you can blast through plateaus and improve more quickly
• Her favorite tactic for dealing with procrastination so you can spend more time learning
• The activities she recommends that rapidly increase neural connections like fertilizer on the brain
• Whether memorization has a place in learning anymore, or simply a barrier to true understanding
• The truth about “learning types” and how identifying as a visual or auditory learner might be setting yourself up for failure.

...and a whole lot more.

If you want to be the most efficient learner you can be, and have more fun doing it, you won’t want to miss this discussion.

GO PREMIUM: Support the podcast, get ad-free episodes, transcripts, and so much more: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-premium/