Tim Ferriss: If You're Not Happy With What You Have, You Might Never Be Happy
Tim Ferriss has plenty of sound advice for someone undertaking the grueling physical and psychological endurance test that is the miracle of modern air travel.
To avoid jet lag, book your flight on a Dreamliner if at all possible. Newer aircraft have improved pressure systems, which means the altitude takes less of a toll. Use TSA Precheck and Global Entry to evade the sock-footed Forced March of Doom, but arrive ludicrously early anyway and spend a few hours working in the airport lounge to avoid unnecessary stress. Hydrate. Use a zinc spray to bolster your immune system. Squirt saline into your nostrils. Pop one gram of vitamin C every hour and lysine every few hours for the duration of your trip. If you must check baggage containing expensive equipment, consider packing a starter pistol as well and register it at check-in so the airline authorities are extra attentive to your stuff and won’t misplace it. Hydrate some more. And at your soonest opportunity after arriving on terra firma, hop on a stationary bike for 10 minutes of vigorous pedaling.
I have followed approximately zero percent of this program when I arrive bleary-eyed and a few minutes late at a Santa Monica steakhouse for an audience with the superman of self-improvement. Fortunately, as he rises to greet me -- clad in a reddish V-neck T-shirt and blue sweatpants by Rhone (a sponsor of his podcast) and a pair of flip-flops by Havaianas (not a sponsor) -- it’s clear he’s in good enough shape for both of us. Ferriss, 39, is the picture of vitality, a walking, talking, admirably cut advertisement for the outer limits of human potential. The wildly successful author, podcaster, blogger, tango master and angel investor offers me a firm handshake and a ready smile. Having just come from a photo shoot, he’s lugging a giant gym bag and a backpack, which he admits make him feel a little like Bruce Banner -- better known as the Incredible Hulk, one of his preschool idols.
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Ferriss, who lives in San Francisco, is in Los Angeles for the week to tape a new TV series, Fear(less) with Tim Ferriss, essentially a televised version of his popular podcast. It will premiere on DirecTV sometime in 2017. This will be Ferriss’ second run at television. His first, The Tim Ferriss Experiment, featured the host striving to master a new field every week (parkour, tactical shooting, rally car driving, speaking Tagalog, drumming, etc.). Turner Broadcasting shot 13 episodes only to shelve the series before it aired following a back-office shakeup. Ferriss eventually got the digital rights and put the show on iTunes, where it topped the nonfiction series charts for weeks.
Meanwhile, he has also begun the laborious process of promoting a book, Tools of Titans, a 704-page bid to extend the streak of best-sellers that began with The 4-Hour Workweek, the 2007 publishing supernova that collected 26 rejections before finally finding its way to bookshelves. He followed it up with The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Chef. This new book is “a toolkit for changing your life.” It’s a compendium of actionable wisdom -- “field-tested beliefs and habits” -- most of them gleaned from more than 200 interviews he conducted for the podcast, featuring everyone from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to actor-musician Jamie Foxx.
The book is, frankly, a firehose of advice. So much advice that no one person could possibly find it all manageable, let alone
