In recent years, podcasts have become increasingly popular and the topics covered vary greatly. There is a large number of podcasts that discuss the subject of productivity and efficiency like the Tim Ferriss Show.
The Tim Ferriss Show is a weekly podcast hosted by, well, Tim Ferriss of course! We have already mentioned this entrepreneur and best-selling author in our “10 Productivity Influencers You Should Know” article. His podcast is also ranked #1 business podcast on iTunes and has been nominated for Best Podcast of the Year on several occasions. If you are looking to boost your productivity and personal and professional development skills, then I strongly recommend it!
To help you gain time, which is somewhat our leitmotiv at Julie Desk, I have selected 5 episodes of this podcast that I think you should listen to. They cover a range of topics such as leadership, time-management and efficiency, personal and professional development, just to name a few.
1. Naval Ravikant on Happiness Hacks and the 5 Chimps Theory
Naval Ravikant is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList and an investor in a large number of companies. His areas of interest vary from start-ups tips to Artificial Intelligence and even conflict resolution. In this episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, he shares his definition to the concept of happiness, his views on Artificial Intelligence start-ups today, his current reading list and his best ways to be more efficient. The two things he wants people to remember from this podcast and to apply to their daily lives are:
“Happiness is choice, it is a skill and you can dedicate yourself to learning that skill and making that choice “
“Learning how to break habits is one very important meta-skill that can serve you in life almost better than anything else”
Naval’s first guest appearance on the Tim Ferriss Show was nominated for ‘Best Podcast of the Year’ in 2015.
2. Jocko Willink on Discipline, Leadership and Overcoming Doubt
Jocko Willink is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert and an ex-US Navy SEAL. Since retiring from the Navy, he has co-founded Echelon Front, a leadership and management consulting company and written Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win. His main objective is to teach people to learn to rely on discipline for whatever they want to achieve in life. He discusses his life at war, explains the difference between motivation and self-discipline and how the self-discipline acquired during all those years at war has helped him achieve more in everyday life. Finally, he shares advice on how it could be applied to regular people, especially those involved in creative jobs.
3. How to 10X Your Results, One Tiny Tweak at a Time
This episode is almost like a self-improvement consulting session between Tim Ferriss and journalist Joel Stein who is looking for advice to make a change in 5 areas of his life. Tim discusses how applying Wilfred Pareto’s 80/20 rule in each area of your life can be helpful to “separate the critical few from the trivial many“. He shares tips on the best ways to measure self-improvement and provides tools for people who wish to cut down the use of emails. Tim also believes that accumulating apps and tools on your smartphone could actually be more harmful than helpful towards your productivity.
4. How Facebook’s #30 Employee Quickly Built 4 Businesses and Gained 40 Pounds with Weight Training
Noah Kagan is the founder of SumoMe, the leading service that offers the best tools to help you grow traffic on your website. He was one of the first 50 employees at Facebook, has worked at Mint and has developed numerous businesses including a Taco venture. In this episode, he discusses how little things such as good bedding, good nutrition and the state of your bills in your wallet can be important for your overall well-being (and therefore overall efficiency). His principal business rules for an optimized efficiency include:
- Define simple rules that you have to follow. ex: publish 1 blog post weekly or make 1 sales calls every week
- Do regular check-ins with your team to follow everyone’s progress ( you can do them daily or weekly)
- When you are feeling rushed, just focus on one goal at the time.
Warning: This episode contains explicit language 😉
5. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Psychological Warfare (And Much More)
The world-renowned actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is a stranger to no one. Besides his huge acting career, he is the former Governor of California and his interests include politics, meditation, psychological books and bodybuilding (of course). He is the author of 6 books on bodybuilding. In this episode, Tim Ferriss interviews Arnold about everything from his most lucrative movie to gaining success in real estate before his acting career took off. Arnold discusses his experience in the junior bodybuilding competition, how to skillfully influence people through the art of psychological warfare and the importance that this has played in all of his successes. He also wrote the foreword for Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of Titans.
Next week, I will be sharing 5 more episodes! As this is a random and personal selection, do feel free to complete the list and share with us your favorites episodes from the podcast!