#779: In Case You Missed It: October 2024 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

Summary

Episode #779: In Case You Missed It: October 2024 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

Release Date: November 22, 2024

Introduction

In Episode #779 of The Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Ferriss presents a comprehensive recap of the podcast's October episodes. This special "in case you missed it" edition serves as a curated buffet of highlights, featuring snippets from conversations with esteemed guests such as Jon Batiste, Dr. Bruce Grayson, and Andrew Roberts. Additionally, Tim includes an insightful excerpt from his solo podcast on productivity tactics. This summary delves into the key discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn from these conversations, providing a valuable overview for both regular listeners and newcomers.

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1. Jon Batiste: Exploring Musical Genius and Innovation

Timestamp: [02:54] - [04:16]

Jon Batiste, an Academy Award and five-time Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and composer, is spotlighted for his innovative work in music. His latest album, Beethoven Blues, reimagines Beethoven's iconic compositions through Batiste's unique blend of jazz, classical, and contemporary elements.

Key Highlights:

• Beethoven Blues Album: Batiste's reinterpretation showcases his ability to bridge classical music with modern genres, offering listeners a fresh perspective on timeless pieces.
• Musical Innovation: Tim praises Batiste for his continuous evolution as an artist, highlighting his contributions to films like Disney Pixar's Soul where he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
• Creative Process: Batiste discusses his approach to composition, emphasizing the importance of spontaneity and emotional authenticity in his music.

Notable Quote:

"His eighth studio album, Beethoven Blues, is set for a November 15 release. ... It's phenomenal. Beethoven Blues marks the first installment in his solo piano series, showcasing Batiste's interpretation of Beethoven's iconic works."
— Tim Ferriss [02:54]

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2. Dr. Bruce Grayson: Unveiling the Mysteries of Near-Death Experiences

Timestamp: [06:57] - [21:52]

Dr. Bruce Grayson, a renowned expert in near-death experiences (NDEs) and author of After, delves into the profound implications these experiences have on our understanding of life and consciousness.

Key Highlights:

• Case Studies: Dr. Grayson shares compelling accounts, including that of Jack, who encountered his nurse Anita during a near-death experience. Remarkably, Anita tragically died in a car accident shortly after Jack's experience, prompting questions about the nature of such phenomena.
• Peak NDEs: The discussion covers "Peak and Darien" cases, where individuals encounter deceased persons unknown to them, challenging conventional explanations of wishful thinking or hallucinations.
• Verification Challenges: Dr. Grayson addresses the difficulty in verifying NDE accounts, especially when they involve third-party confirmations, as in the case of the surgeon attempting to "fly" during his own surgery, which was later corroborated by the attending surgeon's unusual behavior.
• Biological Mechanisms: The conversation touches upon possible biological explanations for NDEs, though Dr. Grayson remains open to exploring phenomena beyond current scientific understanding.

Notable Quotes:

"People don't talk about these things. You seem insane if you talk about things. You got ridiculed. You got referred to a psychiatrist."
— Dr. Bruce Grayson [19:45]

"There is no underlying path. Like the obstacles are the path through which you discover yourself, through which you learn, through which you grow. That is the path."
— Dr. Bruce Grayson [11:17]

Insightful Exchange:

Dr. Grayson: "The belief of this divine logic allows for you to understand that there's a path and you are accounted for in that path."

Speaker 1: "But you can't always know that, especially in crisis."

Dr. Grayson: "There are so many things outside of our sphere of knowledge that on so many levels can't be known."
— [07:19] to [13:20]

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3. Andrew Roberts: Leadership Lessons from Napoleon and Churchill

Timestamp: [21:52] - [32:15]

Andrew Roberts, a historian and New York Times bestselling author, explores the leadership qualities of Napoleon Bonaparte and Winston Churchill, drawing parallels between their strategies and personal traits.

Key Highlights:

• Education and Training: Both Napoleon and Churchill received extensive education in military strategy, which significantly shaped their leadership styles.
• Philosophical Influences: Churchill's voracious reading, including works by Gibbon and Macaulay, informed his oratorical prowess and strategic mindset. Napoleon's literary pursuits and tactical studies enabled his unprecedented military successes.
• Noblesse Oblige: A concept emphasizing duty and responsibility, both leaders embodied this principle, believing in their roles to serve the greater good.
• Versatile Leadership: Roberts highlights Napoleon's ability to adapt to various military scenarios, whether advancing, retreating, defending, or attacking, showcasing his multifaceted command capabilities.
• Inspirational Traits: Unlike Duke of Wellington, who focused on strategic outcomes without engaging the emotional aspect of leadership, Napoleon and Churchill inspired their troops by connecting their missions to larger historical narratives and personal valor.

Notable Quotes:

"They were always at the cutting edge of thinking of the new concepts and at the same time he had very old fashioned views about how to excite the men."
— Andrew Roberts [28:01]

"He really did put in the time thinking about it and reading about it... and he was able to spot the sort of best of the best when it came to modern thinking."
— Andrew Roberts [28:01]

Insightful Discussion:

Tim Ferriss: "Were there particular philosophers or writers that they leaned on in some sense that they found solace in with particular minds?"

Andrew Roberts: "Churchill was influenced by Gibbon and Macaulay... Napoleon was even more literary because he also wrote short stories and books."

Tim Ferriss: "Why do you say [Churchill] the prime exemplar of war leadership?"

Andrew Roberts: "He was able to win whether he was advancing or retreating... his orders of the day, his proclamations... were extraordinary for a soldier."
— [23:37] to [32:15]

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4. Solo Segment: Productivity Tactics – "Make Before You Manage"

Timestamp: [32:15] - [37:12]

In addition to guest segments, Tim Ferriss shares an excerpt from his solo podcast episode on productivity, introducing the mantra "Make Before You Manage." This tactic is designed to help individuals reset, overcome stagnation, and prioritize creative endeavors amid chaos.

Key Highlights:

• The Mantra: "Make before you manage" encourages dedicating time each morning to create something, no matter how small, before addressing daily tasks and problems.
• Psychological Benefits: Engaging in creative activities, even briefly, can set a positive emotional tone, reduce frustration, and reinforce a sense of accomplishment.
• Practical Application: Tim illustrates this with examples like creating a short video, writing an Instagram caption, or drafting an email, emphasizing that even minimal creative output can significantly impact one's mindset.
• Overcoming Firefighting Mode: During periods of constant problem-solving, this approach helps prevent burnout and maintains a connection to personal creativity and purpose.

Notable Quote:

"Make something before plugging holes, fixing things, calling vets, answering text messages... Even token efforts allow me to reassure myself with, 'Hey pal, don't worry, you did produce something today.'"
— Solo Speaker [34:16]

Key Takeaway:

"The psychological difference between zero acts of creation and one act of creation, no matter how small, is really impossible to overstate. It's binary, right? Zero to a little bit. Those are two different worlds."
— Solo Speaker [35:43]

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Conclusion

Episode #779 of The Tim Ferriss Show masterfully encapsulates the essence of October's episodes, offering listeners a rich tapestry of insights from diverse fields. From Jon Batiste's musical innovations and Dr. Bruce Grayson's exploration of near-death experiences to Andrew Roberts' deep dive into historical leadership, Tim provides a multifaceted overview that underscores the show's commitment to deconstructing world-class performers. The inclusion of personal productivity strategies further enriches the episode, delivering actionable advice alongside intellectual discourse. This recap stands as an engaging and informative guide, perfectly tailored for those seeking to grasp the podcast's valuable content without having listened to each individual episode.

Transcript

[Tim Ferriss]

This episode is brought to you by five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers and it's super super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday I send out five Bullet points. Super short of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers have asked me for something and action packed for a very long time because after all the podcast, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free. It's always going to be free and you can learn more at Tim Blog Friday. That's Tim Blog Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with and little known fact I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. 5 Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out. Tim Blog Friday if you listen to this podcast it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can of course easily subscribe anytime. So easy peasy. Again, that's Tim Blog Friday and thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you optimal minimal.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

[Unknown Male Speaker 2]

Can I answer your personal question now?

[Tim Ferriss]

Is the opposite?

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

[Tim Ferriss]

Hello boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers of all different types to tease out the routines, habits and so on that you can apply to your own life. This is a special in between episode which serves as a recap of the episodes from the last month, features a short clip from each conversation in one place so you can jump around get a feel for both the episode and the guest and Then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite. It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together. And for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description probably right below. Wherever you press play in your podcast app or as usual, you can head to Tim Blog Podcast and find all the details there. Please enjoy.

[Unknown Male Speaker 2]

First up, Jon Batiste, an Academy Award winning and five time Grammy award winning singer, songwriter and composer. His new album Beethoven Blues, which showcases Baptiste's interpretations of Beethoven's iconic works, is out now. You can find John on Instagram and Twitter on Batiste.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

What other mantras can you share?

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Oh man, this is deep. You going in?

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

I'm going in. I'm going in. Scuba gear intact.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Tim?

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Yeah, because I believe in the power of mantras. I do. In meditation, in repetition, the ability to in a sense, end up with the mind of no mind to cleanse the palate. I mean, there's so many different ways you can use mantras also, which is why this is deeply interesting to me. It can be a concentration practice, it can be sort of an erasing practice to regain some equilibrium. There's so many different ways to use repetition. It could be drumming too. It doesn't have to be. Could be instrumental. There are so many different ways that you can enter unusual, uncommon states using repetition. So I'm very, very interested in this, which is why I'm asking.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Yes, for sure. So two of the ones that I not for stage, but just more for crisis that I go to is be still and know, which is from the Bible. Be still and know that I am God. It is this idea that I'll give you a practice. So be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know that I. Be still and know that. Be still and know. Be still. Be just this idea. I've sat with that and each phrase has a different meaning, even be still and than breath or room tone. There's messages in that space. There's messages in the crevice. So I've done that and sat in that. And it's changed my entire perspective on a crisis or something that I felt perhaps I was wronged or perhaps there's so many opportunities for us in this life to transmutate darkness into light or even darkness into just into perspective. Another one is thy will be done, which is one of surrender. Now, we believe there's a divine power. There's however you name it Whatever your relationship to it is, we've for the most part had an experience that something beyond explanation, the universe is carrying us in some way. Thy will be done is trusting that there's a divine logic to it all when there's nothing that you can do. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Because the belief of this divine logic allows for you to understand that there's a path and you are accounted for in that path. You are accounted for. There's so much that is allowed for you to be the culmination of so many things has led to you, and there will never be another you. You're the only one. That specificity alone is something that comes to me when I'm in that Thy will be done. It's a revelation of so many other things, which is also allowing for the right thing to occur and for me to be accepting of it versus for me to control it without knowledge of what the true right thing is. So there's so much that you have to cleanse yourself of from believing or from holding onto that's not actually connected to the best outcome. But you can't always know that, especially in crisis.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

It's very hard to know. Many parables are always like this. This happened.

[Tim Ferriss]

Such good news.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Maybe such and such happened. This is terrible. Maybe it just depends on so many things outside of our sphere of knowledge that on so many levels can't be known. When would you be inclined to say to yourself that last mantra? When would you apply that in your life?

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

There's so many things that happen to us with our health. I talk about Sulaika a lot. I love her, as you know.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

She's great. Yeah. Had her on the show.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Yes. And I also borrow a lot of phrases from her. In particular, this idea of being between two kingdoms, this idea of the kingdom of the well, the kingdom of the sick. And we all exist in this in between space. And we have a passport for both, which is something that she created this understanding of that through the way she lives through it, the way she gracefully moves through this time with such grace, with such power, with such clarity. I think about that. I think about how there's a certain surrender that's required of all of us in times when we deal with health challenges, whether it's us or a loved one. And you find yourself in moments where there's literally nothing that you can do to take away pain or to take away the unknown and the anxiety of waiting. So that's an opportunity for a great amount of growth that's an opportunity for a lesson to be instilled in a way that almost nothing else that I can think of affords you the chance for. Thy will be done.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Thy will be done. Yeah. This coach I worked with for a while, he used to say, this is your pop quiz from the universe. When something unexpected would pop up, he'd be like, all right, all that meditation you've been doing, let's see it.

[Tim Ferriss]

Let's see it.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Let's see, bro.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Come on, bro, you've been rehearsing. This is game time. Let's see how it goes.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Tim, you know what I'm saying? When you. In that moment.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Yeah.

[Unknown Male Speaker 4]

Yeah.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

I've had a lot of sympathy for watching you both go through that journey, and I can only imagine what it's like. I mean, I have been, of course, and most people listening have been in a position where they feel powerless to help, or they don't know how to help a loved one, but had a lot of sympathy for a challenging road and also really been in awe of how much growth both of you have exhibited through the challenges and pain and so on. In any case, I just wanted to say that.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Oh, man, it means a lot to hear that. And it feels so much, so much of the time, as odd as it may sound, it feels like a privilege to go through it together. In the way that we have seen it, it's shifted into almost the orientation of blessing. And that's not to say that the difficulties are any easier. Right. It doesn't change the nature of hard things. They're hard. But there's something about life. There's a truth. There's something about going through the fire that is so required and something about suffering that is so essential. This idea that we're meant to run from pain or run from difficult things and find the most leisurely and completely frictionless existence possible is such a lie. It's not just a lie because it's not possible, but if it were possible, that would kill you the most.

[Unknown Male Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

It would rob you in so many ways, which is, of course, easy for me to say, sitting in this comfortable.

[Tim Ferriss]

Chair right now, but in the midst.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Of it, it's sometimes hard to see. At the same time, there was an astrophysicist, Jen, 11, who was on the podcast some time ago, and I'm going to butcher this quote, but it's more the concept for me that has really stuck. She said something along the lines of.

[Tim Ferriss]

I used to look for the underlying.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Path that would help me navigate around obstacles and Then I realized there is no underlying path. Like the obstacles are. The path through which you discover yourself, through which you learn, through which you grow. That is the path.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

That's the path.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Take those away, that's it. And then you're just a free floating essence of comfort. That's just not the human experience.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

And also you're talking about blessings. So I could imagine even an earlier version of me would say, oh, come on now. I mean, I suppose that's helpful, but maybe it's delusional and it's overly optimistic, but it's deeper than that. And I think that misses the mark because given a longer timeframe, given all the unknowns, it could be a blessing, it could be a curse. But you can't know which it is over time. And it depends a lot on your perspective. So you might as well choose a blessing. That is the more enabling perspective. And since you can't know, it's a coin flip. Choose the side of the coin that is most enabling. It seems to me, at least in the abstract, it's easy to say, taxi runs over my foot, we'll see how I do later today.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

But it's that. And it's also, you only will know when you are there. You have to go there to know there. You only know what it can be for you when you're in the fire. Everybody can talk about what they would do when they are there. Right. We can all say, man, if that would have happened to me, I would, you know, slay the dragon. I would, you know, whatever you think you would do most often is not what you would do. And that's not because you're not who you think you are. It's because there's so many other factors you can't know. And for many things in my life that I think about, the things I've learned the most from are when I've embraced the discomfort and realized what I was made of through it.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Let me just sit with that for a second.

[Unknown Male Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Unknown Male Speaker 2]

Next up, Dr. Bruce Grayson, a leading expert in near death experiences and the author of After a Doctor explores what near death experiences reveal about life and beyond. You can learn more about Dr. [e-mail].

[Tim Ferriss]

So I want to zoom in and out from the clinical skeptical side to the hopefully. And I think we'll get to quite a few of these, but examples that.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Could be corroborated in some fashion and.

[Tim Ferriss]

Those may overlap with those that are described as out of body experiences. They might not.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

And we'll probably come back to that.

[Tim Ferriss]

Term as well.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

But could you tell the story of the. Tell me if this is enough of a cue the red mgb.

[Unknown Male Speaker 4]

You know, many people in the Initiative experience say that they encountered deceased loved ones in the experience. And that can easily be explained as wishful thinking, expectation. You know, you think you're dying and you would love to see your grandmother once more, so she comes to you. And there's no way to prove or disprove that. However, in some cases, the person having the near death experience encounters someone who had died, but nobody yet knew they had died. So that can't be dismissed as expectation and wishful thinking. This is not a new phenomenon. Pliny the Elder wrote about a case like this in the first century ad, but we're hearing about a lot of them now. About 12 years ago, I wrote a paper that had 30 different cases from recent years. Jack was one of those. He had an experience, actually. He was in South Africa back in the 70s and he was a young technician at that time and had very serious pneumonia and he immediately stopped breathing, have to be resuscitated. So he was admitted to the hospital with a severe pneumonia. And he had one nurse who was constantly working with him as his primary nurse, a young pretty girl about his age. He flirted a lot with her when he could, and one day she told him she's going to be taking a long weekend off and there'd be other nurses substituting for her. So he wished her well and she went off. And over the weekend while she was gone, he had another respiratory arrest where he couldn't breathe. He had to be resuscitated. And during that time he had a near death experience. And he told me that he was in this beautiful pastoral scene and there out of the woods came his nurse Anita, walking towards him. And he was stunned because he was in this different world. What's she doing there? So he said, you know, what are you doing here? And she said, you know, Jack, you can't stay here with me. I want you to go back and I want you to find my parents and tell them that I love them very much and I'm sorry I wrecked the red mgb. He didn't know what to make of that. But she turned around and went back into the woods. And then he woke up later in his hospital bed. Now he tells me that back in the 70s there were very few MGBs in South Africa and he had never seen one. When the first nurse came into his room, he started to tell her about his experience and seeing his nurse Anita she got very upset and ran out of the room. It turned out that she had taken the weekend off to celebrate her 21st birthday and her parents had surprised her with the gift of a red mgb. She got very excited, hopped in the car and took off for a test drive and crashed into a telephone pole and died instantly just a few hours before his near death experience. I don't see any way he could have known or wanted or expected her to have an accident and die. And certainly in a way he could have known how she died and yet he did. And we've got lots of other cases like this. They're called Peak and Darien cases based on a book that was published in the 1800s with cases like these where people encounter deceased individuals who were not known to be dead. Yeah, I don't know how to explain those.

[Tim Ferriss]

Now, just to put my skeptics hat.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

On, I could say, well, if I.

[Tim Ferriss]

Were Jack, was it Jack?

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Let's just say it's Jack.

[Tim Ferriss]

That would make one hell of a story if there wasn't a third party to sort of independently verify it with.

[Unknown Male Speaker 4]

Right.

[Tim Ferriss]

But there are other cases and for.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

People listening, we're going to come back.

[Tim Ferriss]

To some of the common questions.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

I would say forms of discussion around.

[Tim Ferriss]

These related to possible biological mechanisms or lack thereof.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

We're going to come back to that in a second. But there are then cases that are.

[Tim Ferriss]

Seemingly characteristically quite different and perhaps can.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Be, and I'd be curious to know.

[Tim Ferriss]

If this has been done or not, but verified with third parties.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

And one that comes to mind that I've heard you discuss is related to the surgeon flapping like a bird.

[Tim Ferriss]

And I was hoping that you could give a description of that particular case study before we get to that. How many near death experiences have you documented, studied or otherwise read about, put into the archives yourself? How many instances would you say you.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Have encountered in one way or another?

[Unknown Male Speaker 4]

I've got slightly more than a thousand in my database at the University of Virginia where we have validated as much as we can that they were in fact close to death and this is what happened to them. I've talked to many more people about their near death experience that I haven't included because I wasn't confident that they really fit the criteria for being in the study. But it's really much more common than you might think it was because people don't talk about these things. You mentioned people wanting the publicity of this. That is actually maybe more true now. But back in the 70s and 80s, nobody wanted to talk about these things. You seem insane if you talk about things. You got ridiculed. You got referred to a psychiatrist. You were called crazy. You were shunned by people you knew, both materialists and religious folks. They didn't want to hear about these things. So people did not talk about these events.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

And what of this surgeon, flapping like a bird?

[Unknown Male Speaker 4]

Yeah, this was a fellow, al, in his mid-50s, who was a van driver. And he was out on his rounds one day and he had chest pain and he knew enough to stop his rounds and drive to the. To the emergency room. And they did some evaluations and found that he had four arteries to his heart that were blocked. And they rushed him to the emergency room for urgent quadruple bypass surgery. So he's lying on the table, fully unconscious, the drapes over and so forth. And he tells me that in the middle of the operation, he rose up out of his body and looked down and saw the surgeons operating on. And he saw the chief surgeon, who he hadn't met before, flapping his arms like he was trying to fly. And he demonstrated for me. At that point, I laughed. I thought, this is obviously hallucination. Doctors don't do that. But he insisted that I check with the doctor. He said, this really happened. Ask him. So he told me lots of other things about his near death experience, but that's the one that I was able to verify. So I talked to a surgeon who actually had been trained in Japan, and he said, well, yes, I did do that. I have a habit of letting my assistants start the procedure while I put on my sterile gown and gloves and wash my hands and so forth. And I go into the operating room and watch them for a while because I don't want to risk touching anything with my sterile hands. Now I point things out to them with my elbows. And he pointed things out just the way Al was saying he was trying to fly. I don't know any other doctor that's done that. I've been a doctor for more than 50 years and I've never seen anyone do that. So it's kind of an idiosyncratic thing. Is there any way Al could have seen that? Well, he was totally anesthetized. He had. His heart was open. I don't think there's any way he could have seen that. And yet he did.

[Unknown Male Speaker 2]

Next up, Andrew Roberts, historian and New York Times bestselling author of 20 books, including Napoleon A Life, Walking with Destiny, and most recently, Conflict the Evolution of warfare from 1945 to Gaza, co authored with General David Petraeus. You can find Andrew on Twitter.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Andrew, would you mind speaking to the importance of steady nerves or self control in crisis? It seems that that's something that recurs. And the reason I'm asking about it is this would be, I suppose, a sub question. How much of it do you think is nature versus nurture also. But feel free to take that in any direction you'd like.

[Andrew Roberts]

Both Napoleon and Churchill were educated in war. They both went to military colleges. So as their level of command grew, as they grew older, the sense of responsibilities they had, the number of men essentially that they were controlling, increased exponentially. So they had the intellectual background, they had the training as well. And as young men in both cases, they thought a lot about war, about Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great and so on. They had a egotism to look at it in the negative way, but a self confidence to look at it in a positive way that gave them the ability to take these shatteringly important decisions. So I think it's much more nurture than the nature. And in both cases, as far as they were concerned, there was a sort of holy fire that they both had. There was not holy in a religious sense, obviously, because neither of them were at all religious, but in a sort of deeper spiritual sense, a belief that what they were doing was so good and right and proper and had to be done, that they were not kept up awake at night over even the death of friends. Death of friends that they were responsible.

[Tim Ferriss]

For, that they were responsible for.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

In the cases of Churchill and Napoleon, we could bring up other names, or I suppose I'm using the royal we here, you could bring up other names.

[Tim Ferriss]

Were there particular philosophers or writers that.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

They found particularly instructive, who they leaned on in some sense that they found solace in with a particular minds?

[Andrew Roberts]

Well, certainly Churchill did because he was a huge reader. He was a massive autodidact. He never went to university. And so therefore when he was a young subaltern in India in his early 20s, he sat down and read the great philosophers as well as writers. And he was particularly influenced by Gibbon and Macaulay, the two great 19th century historians, English historians. And that affected his writing style and of course later his oratorical style, but also his outlook on life, philosophical outlook on life. With regards to Napoleon, he was even more literary really, because he also wrote short stories and books and so on. And so he was very much affected by what he read again as a young man. And in both cases they were reading so much that it slightly cut them off from their Contemporaries. Napoleon didn't have many friends when he was in his early 20s. And Churchill, when the other people were off sleeping in the midday heat of India, his colleagues and comrades, he'd be sitting there reading Schopenhauer and Gibbon and Macaulay and so on.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

How did Gibbon and Macaulay inform his philosophical leanings?

[Andrew Roberts]

They made him into what was called at the time a Whig. We don't have them today, obviously, but they were in modern sense, I suppose, liberal conservatives who believed in noblesse oblige, in the importance.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

What is that?

[Andrew Roberts]

I'm sorry? Noblesse oblige. It's almost a medieval concept where your duty, if you have privilege, is to work for the greater good of the community, to protect widows and orphans, to. It's sort of like the nightly chivalric concept that you get from the Middle Ages. And they very much believed in that. And so did Churchill.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Let me ask about Napoleon. So I know shockingly little about Napoleon, I'm embarrassed to admit, and I do want to ask more about Churchill as well, but you've described him as the prime exemplar of war leadership. Why do you say that?

[Andrew Roberts]

There are lots of military leaders who can do a lot of things, but he was the only one that I can think of who could do all of them. Of course, it helps if you're winning. In the last three years of his military career, he was losing. But even then, even when he had far fewer troops, when he was retreating, when he was defending Paris in the 1814 campaign, for example, he was still able to win five victories in seven days in the 1814 campaign. That's two years after the retreat from Moscow. It's quite extraordinary capacity. And he was able to win whether he was advancing or retreating, whether he was defending a town or attacking it, whether he was attacking on the right or left flank, or sometimes straight through the center, as at Austerlitz, he had that capacity, that mind for military conquest. But also, of course, the greatness that was required completely to revolutionize French society. People think that the French Revolution revolutionized society, the clues in the name, as it were. But in fact the long lasting things that actually dragged France into the 19th century were things like the Code Napoleon, which were not a revolutionary concept, they were a Napoleonic concept.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

This may seem like a lazy question, but since I'm operating from a deficit here with respect to knowledge of Napoleon, what do you think it was that allowed him to be a decathlete of war, as it were, being good at all of these different facets? And I think of how we might analyze different athletes and what allows them to exercise the capabilities we see sort of breaking it down into its component parts. But how would you describe what enabled him to do that where others were unable?

[Andrew Roberts]

It was inspiration but also perspiration. He really did put in the time thinking about it and reading about it. By it I mean warfare. And of course he'd been educated in it. He read the key books. There's a guy called the Comte de Gilbert who in central 1972 wrote a book about strategy and tactics and he 30 years later put these into operation. And so he was able to spot the sort of best of the best when it came to modern thinking. And to, or in this case 30 year old thinking. In fact, that didn't matter because the weapons of war hadn't changed in the intervening period. And he was able to put those thoughts and ideas into practical use. The classic example being the core system. And when what was it called? It's called the core system. It's basically C O R E C O R P S And what he did with them was to create mini armies essentially which were able to march separately but converge and concentrate for the battle. And so one of your corps would engage the enemy and then he would use the other corps to out maneuver and envelop the enemy. Sometimes double envelop the enemy. It was a brilliant concept. And actually the allies didn't start beating Napoleon until they had also adopted the core system. He was always at the cutting edge of thinking of the new concepts and at the same time he had very old fashioned views about how to excite the men. And he, I mean victory obviously is the best thing when it comes to exciting. Exactly. Nothing much works better than that. But as I say, he was still winning at the end of his career. But he had this belief that to appeal to the soul was the way to electrify the men. And so he was able to do that. And some people who he was against, Duke of Wellington, the British general being the classic example who won the battle of Waterloo against him, who wasn't interested in electrifying the soul of the men at all. He rather despised his ordinary soldiers. But nonetheless you're talking about Wellington or the Duke of Wellington. He had some sort of choice, negative remarks about his, about his own soldiers and he was a rather sort of stuffy aristocrat, but they loved him because he cared about how many of them died in battle, you know, and he never lost the battle as well, which is a very useful thing in a commander. Needless to say, but he didn't try. He didn't go out. He would think it beneath him to go out and try to inspire the men. Whereas Napoleon, his choice of hat and his gray coat and his way of taking off medal his own medals and giving them to soldiers on the battlefield. And his orders of the day, his proclamations before the battle of the pyramids in 1799, he said, 40 centuries look down upon you. And this is an extraordinary thing for a soldier, you know, in Egypt, far away from home, he looks up at the pyramids and thinks, yeah, he's placing the events of that day in the long historical parabola. And Churchill did that too, by the way, of course, to a great degree. In about 10% of all of the speeches that Churchill gave in 1940, there's some reference to history or the past. He too would summon up the idea that, yes, Britain is on its own. Britain and the British Commonwealth are on their own. And this, of course, was in the period before America and Russia were in the war. But we've been in terrible straits before. Look at Sir Francis Drake, look at Admiral Nelson and so on. And we came through those and won. He also brought up the First World War a lot. So yes, he too drew on history. And people knew that because he'd written history books and written biographies, including the biography of his great ancestor, the 1st Duke of Marlborough, who was with Wellington, the best soldier that Britain ever produced. People trusted his view of history.

[Unknown Male Speaker 2]

And now an excerpt from Tim's solo podcast episode Productivity Tactics. Two approaches I personally use to reset, get unstuck and focus on the right things.

[Unknown Male Speaker 5]

A few years ago, a creature died in the walls of my home. It was disgusting. Now, to be precise, it gave up the ghost in the heating system. So the death fumes were conveniently pushed directly into my bedroom. My ex girlfriend and I discovered this around 11pm as we tucked into bed, hoping for a good night's sleep. We could turn off the heat and freeze, that was one option. Or we could bathe in the stench of what I assumed was a raccoon carcass. And the whole thing made my eyes itch. It was horrible. I imagined it downing its last meal. Pig entrails, moldy socks, fermented beans, who knows, before defiantly jamming its bloated body into my H Vac. Don't worry, we are getting to some kind of lesson here. But the kamikaze raccoon was just the first surprise guest, the opening act in short order. My dog then got horribly sick. Unrelated to raccoon Overdue paperwork started piling up, popping out of nowhere and onboarding a bunch of new contractors ran into trouble. Then I pulled out of a parking spot and scraped the entire side of my car and the car next to me. Later that same afternoon, all these Christmas presents I had ordered somehow had run out of stock and were auto canceled. So I was sent scrambling and on and on it went. More and more clowns piling into the clown car for a shit show that lasted three to four weeks. It was just a 15 car pileup of nonsense. There are the rare times when I feel like I'm in the zone. And those are great, those are fantastic. Then there are times when I ask myself how in holy hell have I become the janitor of a mountain of bullshit? That happens more than you might think. Put another way, sometimes you are the boxer and sometimes you are the punching bag. We all get our turn as the punching bag. It doesn't matter who you are. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how successful you become. You've always grabbed a number at the deli counter of just wait. Eventually you're going to get your ass kicked by the universe. Now during these periods of firefighting, let's just call it, when stuff is popping up this whack a mole, I get fidgety and frustrated. I feel like I'm treading water and patience wear is very thin has never been my strong suit. That's true, especially with myself. And my instinct is to try to fix things as quickly as possible. And that's all well and good, but I've realized that from a place of what the fuck. I often rush and create more problems. This is particularly bad. Catastrophic. Sometimes when I try to sprint immediately upon waking up, the mantra that has saved me and saved me during that three to four week period I mentioned was very simple. And it's this. Make before you manage, make before you manage. That's it. What this means is each morning before plugging holes, fixing things, calling vets, answering text messages, delegating or yanking out dead raccoons, answering a million text messages, this mantra was a reminder to make something. You should read Paul Graham's essays and listen to Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art commencement speech for more on all of this. But back to any given day and make before you manage. Even the most time sensitive items can usually wait 60 minutes. And by make something I mean anything.

[Tim Ferriss]

It could be anything at all.

[Unknown Male Speaker 5]

You just need to feel like you've pushed a millimeter ahead in some creative direction. For me personally, even a 90 second video of calligraphy could set a better emotional tone for the entire day, helping me to be more calm as I handle problems as I execute all the rest of the stuff later. Or maybe I attempt to jumpstart my writing with an Instagram caption or an email to a friend to take the pressure off. It's practically nothing, but it's enough. Even token efforts allow me to reassure myself with, hey pal, don't worry, you did produce something today. And the psychological difference between zero acts of creation and one act of creation, no matter how small, is really impossible to overstate. It's binary, right? Zero to a little bit. Those are two different worlds. If you're lucky, sometimes that one idea, that one sentence or one shitty first draft can turn into something bigger. And that happens when you catch the wave. But the point is to be able to say to yourself, even for five minutes, hark, I am a creator, not just a janitor of bullshit. Here's proof that I can and will do more than just manage the minutia of life. And I think, at least personally, I do need that reinforcement. We all spend time on the struggle bus. Happens to everybody. At the very least, this mantra has helped me to find a window seat when it's my turn. So as a reminder, when in doubt, try it out. Make before you manage.

[Tim Ferriss]

And now, here are the bios for all the guests. This isn't just any episode. This one turned out really, really special. And I really encourage everybody to listen to this once as audio only. If you are listening to this without any video, but also go to YouTube.com Tim Ferriss 2 Rs 2s's to see the video. We recorded this episode in the recording studio designed by Jimi Hendrix, where he slept. The acoustics, the surroundings, everything is gorgeous. And my guest was in the flow. We happen to mesh really well together and it's one of those episodes that I will remember for many years. My guest Jean Baptiste is a five time Grammy Award winning and Academy Award winning singer, songwriter and composer. I met him ages and ages ago, back when he was a mere incredible, incredible musician, composer, et cetera. But I've been able to watch him become the Marquis Lights Jean Baptiste and it has been a thrill to watch. We talk about it all. His eighth studio album, Beethoven Blues is set for a November 15 release. When we are sitting in Jimi Hendrix's studio, there are pianos, guitars, you name it. And we don't just talk, we walk around. And he uses music to answer some of my questions. It's phenomenal Beethoven Blues marks the first installment in his solo piano series, showcasing Baptiste's interpretation of Beethoven's iconic works. Reimagined and that is an understatement. You're going to hear a lot of it in this episode towards the last 25%, so buckle up and stick around. Beethoven Blues follows Baptiste's studio album World Music Radio, which received five Grammy nominations and including Album of the Year. As a composer, he scored Jason Reitman's Saturday Night, now in theaters. The film depicts the chaotic 90 minutes before Saturday Night Live's very first broadcast in 1975, underscored by Baptiste's blending of jazz, classical and contemporary elements. He composed and produced the music live on set, capturing the intensity of the show's debut. He also appears in the film as Billy Preston, the show's first musical guest, and certainly he has lived that out himself. Additionally, Baptiste composed and performed music for the Disney Pixar film Soul, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. You can find [e-mail] that's J O n B a T I s t e.com on Instagram and socials at Johnbatiste and boy oh boy, I love this. I really think you guys are in for a treat. Stick around, listen to the whole thing. Watch it a second time on video at YouTube.com Tim Ferriss My guest today is Bruce Grayson, MD. He is the Chester F. Carlson Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences and Director Emeritus of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, where.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

He has practiced and taught psychiatry and.

[Tim Ferriss]

Carried out research since 1995. He's also a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric association, and his most.

[Unknown Male Speaker 3]

Recent book is After a Doctor Explores.

[Tim Ferriss]

What Near Death Experiences Reveal about life and Beyond. He has studied documented more than a thousand near death experiences, and what made him appealing to me as a guest with this incredibly unusual terrain is that he was raised with a secular, what we could call rational, materialist worldview. Today's Guest Andrew Roberts Andrew Roberts has written 20 books which have been translated into 28 languages and have won 13 literary prizes. These include Masters and Commanders, the Storm of War, A New History of the Second World War, Napoleon A Life, Churchill, Walking with Destiny, George iii, the Life and Reign of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch, and most recently, the Evolution of warfare from 1945 to Gaza, which he co authored with General David Petraeus. Lord Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and a Visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King's College London. He is also a member of the House of Lords. You can find all things andrew@andrew roberts.net online and he is also on X the Artist Formerly Known as [e-mail] arobertsandrew hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off and that is five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between 1 and a half and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech training tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange, esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short. A little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. Something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim Blog Friday, type that into your browser. Tim Blog Slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.