#865: The Most Incredible Transformation I’ve Ever Seen — Jerzy Gregorek on Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Coaching, and the Power of Micro-Progressions

Summary

The Tim Ferriss Show - Episode #865

“The Most Incredible Transformation I’ve Ever Seen — Jerzy Gregorek on Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Coaching, and the Power of Micro-Progressions”

Release Date: May 14, 2026
Guests: Jerzy Gregorek, Olympic Weightlifting Coach & Creator of The Happy Body
Host: Tim Ferriss

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Episode Overview

Tim Ferriss sits down with legendary coach Jerzy Gregorek to deconstruct an extraordinary transformation: the story of Taejin Park, a young man with both cerebral palsy and autism, who vastly transcended expectations via years of training, coaching, and holistic development. The episode explores the power of “micro-progressions” in coaching, how physical training can unlock cognitive potential in unexpected ways, and how Jerzy’s methods might be applied far beyond this single case—to countless others with cerebral palsy or developmental disabilities. The conversation is both deeply practical and profoundly moving—a masterclass in human development and hope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background on Jerzy and the Scope of Transformation

• Jerzy Gregorek is a four-time world weightlifting champion and creator of The Happy Body program.
• The transformation at the center of this episode is documented in the short film Prisoner No More (available here).
  • Highlights Taejin Park’s journey from near-total physical and communicative limitation to physical independence, college courses, and intellectual engagement.
• Notable quote (Tim, 01:31):
  “I have wanted to have this conversation for more than 10 years … because this transformation blew my mind.”

2. Taejin’s Baselines and Progression: Before & After

• Physical:
  • Bench Press: Started unable to lift a 15lb bar; progressed to benching 170lbs at a bodyweight of ~140lbs.

    Jerzy: “He became stronger than his father and his father couldn’t believe [it].” (06:51)

  • Movement & Independence: At the outset, frequent falls, complete physical dependence. After years: walking normally, tying his own shoelaces, dressing himself, using the restroom independently.
• Cognitive and Social:
  • Math: Initially could count to 10 but could not subtract or add basic numbers; after five years, passed 57 college credits, writes essays in English.
  • Language: Began nearly nonverbal except for basic needs; after a year, had his first real conversation.

    Jerzy: “After about probably a year, [his father] said, we had a first conversation after a year of training.” (08:36)

  • Poetry: Progressed to memorizing and parsing poetry—analyzing emotional tone, metaphor, and more complex abstract reasoning.

3. Why Traditional Therapies Didn’t Work

• Standard therapy (e.g., treadmill work) focused on maintaining or simply not worsening deficits, rather than maximizing human potential or individualized growth.

  • Jerzy: “The mission [in PT] is to return the person to where they were before… With cerebral palsy, that’s not the case… They have to progress the same way as athletes.” (12:03)

• Societal tendency toward excessive protection and “comfort,” not challenge or progressive independence.
• Difference between recovery (medical paradigm) and progress (athletic paradigm).

  • Jerzy: “The focus is not athletic… the focus is to comfort them. Not really improve them.” (13:47)

4. Principles of Jerzy’s Coaching: Micro-Progessions & Meeting People Where They Are

• Micro-Progressions:
  • Break every challenge into the smallest achievable increment; e.g., adding a few pounds to a bar, lowering box squats by an inch at a time.
  • Demands extreme patience—but avoids injury, discouragement, or regression.

  • Jerzy: “You meet people where they are… Everyone can improve, but it’s about knowing the starting point.” (24:51)

• No “No Pain No Gain”:
  • Rejects the idea that growth requires suffering; progress comes from consistency, not brutality.
  • Notable anecdote: When Tim’s friend pushed too hard, Jerzy admonished, “You are wasting both of our time.”
• Work with Family:
  • Taught Taejin’s parents to be patient and not rush to do things for him, thus fostering autonomy.

  • Jerzy: “[It was] a torture for the father” to watch Taejin struggle, “but I had to teach [his parents] to be patient.” (21:09)

• Comprehensive Development:
  • Brain and body trained in parallel; progress in physical strength and flexibility correlated with advances in math, language, social skills, and emotional range.

5. Building Motivation, Meaning, & Emotional Growth

• Celebration and Memory: Created rituals for acknowledging milestones (e.g., certificate dinners for PRs), thereby constructing “history” and positive emotional associations.

  • Jerzy: “He didn’t have history… I wanted to create memory.” (27:42)

• Assignments combating negativity: Each time Taejin expressed dislike (for the sun, the police, people), Jerzy had him write about the positive roles these things serve.
• Responsibility & Adulthood as Motivation: Promised Taejin more autonomy (e.g., quitting piano, choosing to stop training) only once he achieved milestones—such as jumping onto an 18” box.

  • Jerzy: “He was committed… the energy generated in him… was like the energy in me when I wanted to go to the Olympics.” (33:22)

6. Cognitive Progress – Math, Logic, and Language

• Gradual, deliberate practice: From counting to 15, 20… to arithmetic, then logic problems, and full academic curricula.
  • Jerzy brought in math and English tutors as Taejin advanced.

  • Jerzy: “He started, at 25, actually elementary school… After two years, he passed the whole elementary school. Then high school.” (37:09)

• Use of poetry and philosophy not only for language but to build empathy, abstract thinking, and social imagination.
  • Example: Assigning new essays on the definition of a “hero,” challenging prior assumptions (Genghis Khan) and rewriting based on new understanding (a Korean admiral).

  • Jerzy: “He wrote about Genghis Khan. I said, is Genghis Khan a hero? That created a philosophical approach…” (44:04)

7. Belief, Confidence, and Agency

• Confidence developed by doing, not by theoretical affirmation.

  • Tim: “You need to do things to develop the history of doing things so that you have confidence.” (50:43)

• Jerzy’s view: Progress in body and mind tracks to the cultivation of neural pathways, not merely self-esteem platitudes.

  • Jerzy: “I show the mind, the brain, as something that needs to find the way forward and find the way around those patches that were dead… I created the challenges, the hard choices every time, everywhere.” (51:09)

8. Towards a Replicable Model – Future of Cerebral Palsy Coaching

• Jerzy and Tim discuss expanding this approach:
  • Pilot Research Study concept:
    • Work with a small group of people with CP (5/year, scaling up over 5 years) with detailed tracking and coaching by a multidisciplinary team.
    • Record and adapt: Identify baseline abilities in flexibility, strength, math, language, philosophy/beliefs, and psychology—then tailor micro-progression pathways.
    • Resource and recruiting call at Tim Blog CP for academics, therapists, potential donors, volunteers.

  • Jerzy: “I believe that this replicability is possible. We need to test it. We need to explore…” (59:56)

• Aim: distill Jerzy’s underlying principles into a shareable “core curriculum” for trainers, therapists, and educators.

  • Tim: “You could end up with something like a core curriculum of principles… really exciting to think about.” (62:12)

9. Broadening the Lens: Implications Beyond Cerebral Palsy

• The holistic, progressive, athletic method may help not just CP but conditions like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and developmental delays.

  • Jerzy: “For me… it is cerebral palsy or not. If it’s chronic fatigue, it can happen, if it’s fibromyalgia, the progress can happen.” (55:34)

• Jerzy emphasizes athletic alignment: more than care, people need active progress toward their potential.

  • Jerzy: “We have to create a place where it’s athletically aligned with athleticism and not care only... as soon as we care or we exercise without mission or purpose or goals… we can exercise for 10 years and never change.” (67:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "He became stronger than his father and his father couldn't believe [it].” — Jerzy (06:51)
• “We didn’t change them… [the client] changed himself. We are facilitators…” — Jerzy (65:52)
• “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” — The Gregoreks’ coaching mantra, highlighted throughout.
• “His brain was virgin, so nothing was there. I wanted to create history in his mind, create memory.” — Jerzy (27:42)
• “If we have the right approach…we can create the happiness in these three people who were worrying all the time… Now they don’t have to worry anymore that [Taejin] is completely independent.” — Jerzy (69:50)

"What happens when a doctor's prognosis becomes a life sentence and one person refuses to serve it?" — Tim, quoting the Prisoner No More documentary.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Background & Jerzy’s Credentials: 01:31–05:00
• Taejin’s Starting Point, Bench Press, Conversation Ability: 05:03–09:22
• Societal Approach vs. Athletic Approach: 11:53–14:37
• Prior Physical Therapy Limitations: 18:34–20:23
• Motor Independence Milestones (Squatting, Dressing): 20:26–22:29
• Microprogressions Explained & Family Dynamics: 24:51–27:42
• Celebrations and Memory Building: 27:42–29:16
• The “Adult” Milestone (18” box jump): 32:04–34:33
• Cognitive Training and Math Progression: 35:45–40:37
• Emotional Range & Confronting Negativity: 40:37–42:30
• Philosophy and Defining Heroes: 42:53–45:16
• Building Logic with Poetry: 47:39–49:25
• Meta-Lesson: Confidence from Action: 50:58–51:09
• Plans for Replicable Model & Research: 54:11–62:12
• Broader Applicability and Final Reflections: 65:52–71:15

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Core Takeaways

• Every human has untapped potential for progress, no matter the starting point.
• Micro-progressions—tiny, consistent steps—are the key to sustainable, injury-free transformation, both physical and cognitive.
• Coaching must encompass the full spectrum: strength, intellect, emotion, and belief—and must engage family as collaborators.
• Patience, challenge, and structure can turn “lifelong sentences” into breakthrough stories.
• Jerzy’s method is ripe for rigorous study and broader application—potentially changing lives on a mass scale.

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Action Steps & Resources

• Watch the documentary: tim.blog/hardchoices
• Learn about the research project/join or support: tim.blog/cp
• Explore The Happy Body Program: thehappybody.com

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This episode is a rich source of actionable inspiration and offers hope beyond clinical boundaries—anyone interested in neuroplasticity, coaching, overcoming limits, or simply witnessing the heights of human possibility will find it essential listening.

Transcript

[A]

Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show. And I'm going to keep my intro very, very short. There are a few things you're going to want to pay attention to. This blew my mind. I think it will also blow your mind. Two things. Tim Blog HardChoices that is the video mini documentary of prison no more. This is about the transformation that you're about to learn about. You gotta watch it. It's very short and it almost defies or seems to defy explanation. But there is a method to it. Tim Blog Hardchoices that's link number one. The second is if you are interested in supporting or being a part of the cerebral palsy research, go to Tim Blog CP and fill out the Google form. So two more times the mini doc. Tim Blog Hardchoices Definitely check it out. And after the episode, if you're interested in the cerebral palsy research, supporting it, being a part of it in any way. Tim Blog CP at this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake. Can I ask you a personal question?

[B]

Now it is the inappropriate time.

[A]

What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton,

[B]

ferrous soul.

[A]

Jersey, nice to see you as always.

[B]

Pleasure.

[A]

Good to be here. I always love spending time with you and I have wanted to have this conversation for doing the math more than 10 years because you told me of this transformation that we're going to be discussing in detail a long time ago. It blew my mind to the extent that you may not remember this. I wanted to try to figure out a way to hire a long form journalist to write an entire long form magazine piece on this. And it turned out that a much better format is film. And certainly in this conversation we'll talk about it. But not to bury the lead for people who don't have any context. Jersey and I have known each other quite a long time and Jerzy's appeared on the podcast before alongside Naval Ravikov who also has worked with Jerzy. And Jerzy's a four time world weightlifting champion, co founder of UCLA's weightlifting team, co creator with his wife Aniela, the lovely Aniela of the Happy Body program. There's a lot more to his story. We get into it in depth in the first conversation. This time around we're going to talk about a very, very specific transformation that people might not associate with weightlifting when they envision lifting weights in the gym. And that is just how far reaching coaching transformation can be. And I'm gonna read a definition first of cerebral palsy cp. This is from the AI answer on Google, but you'll see some version of this in most places. So cerebral palsy is a group of permanent disorders affecting movement, posture and muscle tone caused by abnormal brain development or damage to the developing brain, usually before birth, sometimes it's during birth. It is the most common motor disability in children resulting in non progressive limitations. I'm just highlighting a few words here. Permanent non progressive limitations meaning the brain injury does not change over time on muscle coordination and balance. Now I'm going to compare that with a lead into the doc which I'm making available for free on YouTube which is called Prisoner no More. We'll have more to say about that. It is quite short, easy to watch, about 30 minutes to my memory. And here's the description. What happens when a doctor's prognosis becomes a life sentence and one person refuses to serve it? Prisoner no More follows Taejin Park. And I recognize that is not probably the perfect pronunciation for Korean, but Tajin Park, a young man diagnosed with cerebral palsy who dismantled every physical limitation medical science predicted for him through a leap, athletic training under Olympic strength coach Jersey Gregorek and an uncompromising commitment to identity transformation. Taejin's story redefines what the human body and mind are capable of. And that's directed by Jeff Wolf and we will come back to that as well. But let's hop into an actual conversation here and begin with Jersey, if you wouldn't mind just some before and afters and then we'll go into the entire chronology of it and everything else. But maybe we could just touch on a few like bench press, what he could do before to Jin and what he could do after. Math, language. Where would you like to start?

[B]

Let's start from bench press, I guess. Okay, so the first day he I loaded the bar £15 and he couldn't lift. He couldn't take it off the rack, right? He couldn't unrack it, just only £15. So I have this wooden bar, Olympic wooden bar that I used to coach children 4 year olds, 5. I remember my daughter was doing snatches when she was three years old. It's three pounds. But I put the three pounds on and he lifted three pounds. So I thought okay, good, lift three. So let's see if he can lift eight. So I added five pounds and he did. Surprised me the difference. And then I loaded another five on it. Was 13 and he did came back to 15 pounds. He barely lift that. Lift it. But he did. So dad gave me the insight right away that he is going to progress fast. So I asked for his father to come to the gym and I told him you have to be here and you have to watch every session with him because something is going to happen here. I already get that feelings that something good is going to happen.

[A]

So I don't want to spoil the story. We're going to get into microprogressions and certainly the importance of the bench press, which you identified really early on. What did he get to as his sort of maximum working weight in the bench press?

[B]

He got to 170.

[A]

What body weight?

[B]

I think around 140. So he passed his body weight. He became stronger than his father and his father couldn't believe. But as the father was watching it for years and he said at one point, he said, I'm really getting what the micro progression is. It's an amazing thing. That was really something.

[A]

So another layer to this story that makes it all the more amazing and inspirational and mind boggling is that Taejin also is autistic. If I'm correct. Right. While you're helping him to build confidence and competence physically, you're also working on a lot of other things. And I'm sure we'll get into many of them. But could you just tell us a bit more about his conversational ability before and after?

[B]

What the father told me that he was conversational with Tajan was time to go to bed or time to eat. And there were some probably more because he could count to 1 to 10 but he wouldn't know what is 3 minus 2. So the math. What I noticed that he needs to work on the math because I asked him to do five squats and he did six or four, sometimes five. I said to Jen I wanted five and so that was five and it was six. Right. So he was missing. And that gave me the idea that he needs to work on his math. So I started asking him simple questions. What is 3 plus 2? 35 and up to 10 he was okay. But after 10 didn't know what is the 5 plus 7? The substruction didn't know at all. So that was the beginning of the map. When it came to English and any conversation, he couldn't have any conversation. So the father, after about probably a year he said we had a first conversation after a year of training. Yes. We actually talk about something. So that was amazing. Yeah.

[A]

How long did you train With Tajin, almost five years. Okay, so at the end of five years with math, where was he at the end of five years?

[B]

Well, he's in community college. He passed 57 units, so he is waiting for another three units to finish 60 and go to San Jose State. So you can imagine what his math is in English. He writes essays.

[A]

It's just let that sink in, people. It is so wild. And you'll see this in the video. So to not just converse about concrete objects, the mug in front of us or something to the left of us, the dog on the floor. But you had him memorize poetry so you could discuss things like emotional tone, metaphor, getting into much more complicated terrain. And honestly, the more I learn about this and the more I revisit it, because this is not the first time we've talked about this. And I just rewatched the documentary earlier today in which I did the voiceover for. And I got really emotional watching it, to be honest. So I want to talk about the how to, because there's so many, so many pieces to this. Maybe what we should talk about is why previous approaches hadn't worked. Right. How are people with cerebral palsy generally treated by society? Why do they have these deficiencies? The lazy explanation is, well, they had this brain damage or abnormal brain development, and that's that. It's a sentence. And then Dajin had worked with physical therapists before meeting you, so why didn't he make progress? I mean, those are two different questions. But I'll let you start with maybe how you view the environment and society as implicated in the development for people with cerebral palsy. And this applies to many other places, by the way. It's not limited to cerebral palsy. But for instance, we were talking about community college and to Jim when he decided to go back to school, which didn't start with college, of course, and there were a lot of pressures to put him into a special program. And you were like, no, no special program. He has to be around normal kids. So I'm leading into it a little bit. But would you like to say a bit more about that?

[B]

Well, you know, I come from Olympic weightlifting, as you know, so athletics focus always on progress and reaching records, breaking records, and that's what the athletes are about. But when you think about physical therapists, chiropractors, doctors, we call them, really, in weightlifting recoverers. So helping us to recover, acupuncture, massage and all of this is when we do the training, we need recovery. So the recovery is that system that helps us to recover the body for the next day and do the next day something a little bit more than before and create the progress. When physical therapies approach, let's say somebody that is after surgery or has problems, the mission is to return to person, to where the person was before. And the same with doctors, make them healthy again. But with Tajan, that's not the case because or cerebral palsy people, because they are already that and they cannot return anywhere. So they have to progress the same way as athletes. Forward more, you know, either stronger, faster, what is five plus seven? Or write a line, memorize the poem and you know, belief system that you talked before a little bit. And triggers here too, because he hated the son, the son and he hated police and he hated mother, he hated father. And that came out during our process of coaching. So that I had to address too. So all the philosophy was also the part of it. There was poetry, philosophy, there was math, and it was English. But coming back to what you said about the whole community that works with cerebral policy, I think that the focus is not athletic focus. The focus is to comfort them so not really improve them, not to improve them. So they are improving just to comfort them. So they have the safety life and they are okay. I guess that's probably the difference here.

[A]

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[B]

And he hated it.

[A]

He threw him into a plan, but it wasn't a progression. I don't know if that's fair to say. I mean, maybe, maybe there was some minimal progression to it, but.

[B]

Yeah, maybe some progression of a treadmill. But treadmill after a while creates exhaustion, tiredness, and the brain actually becomes depleted. Instead of getting the power, getting the strength, getting more energy, we're talking about resting energy. And when that resting energy can be improved, that resting energy can keep the person awake. He was very lethargic at the beginning.

[A]

Yeah, he would sleep in the car.

[B]

He would sleep whenever he had. No, never was awakened in the car. When he was in the room, he would usually sleep because he was not engaged with people. So he was sleeping.

[A]

And so the bench press seems like it was one of the kind of key components to increasing resting energy.

[B]

Yes. Bench press squats, back squat, back squat. And then eventually the back squat was a big challenge because he couldn't sit down. He was very stiff. Because he was stiff, he would fall on daily basis. He was bruised all over the body and he walked awkwardly. Usually father held his hand. And when they were walking and he was just walking very to the left, to the back, awkwardly, that created a challenge. The challenge for the squatting was that he was not able to squat down. He was able to bend, which is

[A]

why his parents also took him to the basket, taking care of everything.

[B]

He was looking for the box or the chair, you remember the box that I use. So he was not able to sit on a 20 inch box because he was bending forward and looking for the box. So that was about, I guess at the beginning, about 1 inch, 23 inches. When it came to 16 inches, I noticed that he is nicely squatting down and also was able to turn. At the beginning, he was not able to turn. So when I noticed that, I told the dad, he's ready to go to the restroom on his own and ready for the other things in the restroom. And that was the beginning of the first, really independence for Tajan. He was able to dress himself. The other thing was to tie the shoelaces. So at certain point I saw that he has this issues and his shoelaces were untied and the father ran to tie his shoes. I said, no, no, no, he can do that and so, okay, so father sat. We were outside of near our lunges in our house. And so he bent and he tried to die. And the father was looking piercing, you know, I said, relax, like he's going to be okay. And I created this atmosphere facilitated for Tajan so he could relax and he could actually make it happen. It was about 20 minutes before he actually made it. But it was a torture for the father. I started really seeing how the parents are with him, that I had to teach the father, the mother, to be patient, to wait until he does something not to do for him. So that was also element that was needed to be fixed.

[A]

It's also looking at it through a very sympathetic lens. I can understand how all three of them have been struggling and working hard to do the best they can over. How old was Tijin when you met him?

[B]

25.

[A]

25.

[B]

They were intense.

[A]

So 25 years of conditioning and habits. So it takes time for everybody involved to do this.

[B]

They were ticking bomb. They were so intense with him. And he was so, I would say so fast to respond. And his also walk was that way. He tried to walk fast because he believed then walking fast he will be normal. But I slowed down everything. I taught him how to walk, and it was the torture for him, but said kill and toe and heel. After about two, three years, he started walking normally. Heel and toe. And, you know, I've had videos. I sent you videos of it. It just was just amazing to watch that hand, to walk with soft arms because his arms were really up and really contracted. Yeah. And control. Extremely control. And then everything started being more soft and relaxed and. And he started walking like, you know, like a normal person. What the father wanted came to my. One of my birthdays and it was just amazing to see him. After about four years, people were just. Yeah. Puzzled. And I was, you know, it was just like, is it the same person really? What happened to Tajan? He's just like, amazing.

[A]

So I'd love to highlight a few of the ingredients that were critical for the recipe that led to that. Because a friend of mine, I'll name him because it's funny, he'll get a good laugh out of it. I remember I introduced my friend Mike to you, and Mike has very. Is a multitude of issues with his hips. He has one titanium hip. And I remember I introduced the two.

[B]

You.

[A]

He came over and you guys trained, you laid out a program for him and he was unable to squat properly to a certain depth. So you meet people where they are. Everybody can improve, but it's about knowing the starting point. You're famous for saying this. And so you gave him a certain depth. And I remember he did that for maybe a week, and then he was feeling good, so he decided to do it five inches deeper or something like that. And he came back and met with you, and your response was, you are wasting both of our time. Because the microprogressions are a key component to progressing without injury. And also, I know that you feel like the no pain, no gain approach to training is a myth, or that belief undergirding training. So I want to mention just a few other things, and they're, of course, all in line with your most famous mantra of hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. Hard doesn't necessarily mean painful. Right. But it does mean hard or difficult. But I want to mention a few of them here because it's so comprehensive. We'll come back to this, but car spotting, right? So Tajin was so lethargic, as we already noted, that he was typically sleeping. But after six months or so, you asked his father if he noticed anything new, and he remarked that Tajin had noticed a car on the way over. So you started to give him assignments to remember the cars that he spotted, the color, the makeup, whether the driver was male or female. And you got an inkling of his potential for math because he started memorizing the license plates, which is just incredible. Then negativity, this sort of negative affect. You already mentioned him hating the sun, hating the police, hating this, that, or the other thing at certain points, hating the workout, which maybe we'll come back to, because I thought it was very clever how you responded to that with, well, once you're an adult, you can decide if you want to quit the training. And you had.

[B]

That was a trick.

[A]

Yeah, it was a trick. And you had hurdles for hitting that. You also gave him assignments, though, to come back to the negativity, having dialogues and asking him questions, to see the world more objectively. So assignments to have him write in English and explain why the sun and the police might be important for our existence, the use of celebrations. So I might ask you about this, but having certain milestones for him where you would give him a certificate, and then I think it was later on, going to restaurants with his family and giving it to him in front of him. But also because his life, I suppose, seemed so, perhaps to him, uneventful up to that point, like nothing was happening. Maybe you could speak a little bit to that and then I'll jump into some of These others, well, you know,

[B]

his brain was virgin, so nothing was there. So he didn't have history. So he couldn't really talk about whatever he was doing. He was not doing anything. So I right.

[A]

There's no content.

[B]

I wanted to create, you know, history in his mind, create something memory about something. One of the things was to give him certificates for the breaking records. So whenever he broke the record, then we printed diploma, and I asked father to set up a dinner celebration. And every time the record was broken in the squat or bench press, we went for a dinner. During this dinner, we gave him diploma. And some other people came, and it was the celebration. And the gen was started liking. This was like a star. And after about a year, I saw him. He started talking about this celebration. He talked about mav, he talked about poems. And so all of it started becoming his memory, his history. It was very important. And he also start liking breaking records. He got crazy on jumping up the box. But that came because, you know, he wanted to be an adult. So.

[A]

Okay, so we're gonna. We're gonna get to the right. The adulthood that might come up immediately. I also just want to give credit where credit is due to the parents. And I don't know to what extent is both parents or the father. But driving twice a week, how long was the commute each way?

[B]

So they were coming twice a week, about one hour and a half, driving one way. So they had to have at least four hours to come. Father was devoted, very kind, devoted and stoic. You know, he was there all the time, and you couldn't really see any irritation in him at all. Loved his son. That was very clear. So he was coming every time. When he couldn't come, his mother brought him in, but it was for them four hours drive. And I discussed that with Tejen, and I told Tajan how devoted was his father. Eventually, when we started having conversation, philosophical conversation, appreciative conversation, I tried to pass on him the appreciation of his father, enlarged the imagination about his father. If the father was not committed to that for five years, to bring his son twice a week and every time spend four hours and the money. Then I told Tajan, you wouldn't be who you are today. He help you to become what you are. Tejan, you know, was interesting. He was just sometimes look and you could see that he was thinking about something. Sometimes he liked the most joy that I saw in him. He was breaking the records and some videos are there. It was so joyous. That is like when you see children sometimes very Joyous in that moment that nothing else happens. And it was ecstatic. It was so pleasurable to see.

[A]

Yeah. Or like an athlete winning gold at the Olympics on the platform.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Let's talk as promised, about responsibility in adulthood, which was a crafty strategy on your part. Could you speak to that?

[B]

He didn't want to play piano first

[A]

and then because his. He had been required to take piano.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So father told him to play piano and he didn't. I said he didn't like to come to the workout and training. He didn't like the training.

[A]

So he didn't like the piano and he didn't like the training.

[B]

Yeah. And he said, I want to stop the piano. And I said, well, you know, you're not another, you cannot do it. You know, somebody needs to decide for you. But when you become another, you can stop the piano. You don't have to come here for the training. I said, well, you know, and what is the adult? Right. So we started discussing. Yes. What do you think? And discussing what is really an adult. So I said, well, you know, adult is independent. What does it mean? Independent? Right. So working, making money, living somewhere separately and so on and so on. But then I said, what the result of Think that we can consider you an adult if you jump on an 18 inch box. So he was jumping at that time, around 11:12 box.

[A]

11:12 inches?

[B]

Yeah. He got so excited and he thought that he can conquer it very quickly. And he was on a mission with this box. I tell you now, he was like the energy that was generated in him. Wow. This is the same energy like in me when I wanted to go to Olympics, right. I would run to the forest, you know, 2am Whatever was needed to do, I would do and I would do with lots of energy and then it's just commitment. And so he was committed. He wanted to jump, but I knew that six inches, it will take two years because my progression is there. He was not going to do it easily, but you know, we were on and we were on and on and then he came to, I think about like 17 something inches. He was so excited. And then we ended up with some problems and he had to heal his back because it's not so simple to just jump on 18. He was a huge challenge for him

[A]

when people watch the documentary and I would have mentioned this in the introduction, but I made a short link. Doesn't sound short, but easy to remember link that'll point you straight to it on YouTube. If you just go to Tim blog hardchoices if you go to Tim Blog hardchoices, it'll take you straight to the doc. But when you watch the doc and you look at Tigen's before, what his motion motor control walking looked like before, and imagine him jumping onto a 17 inch box, it is unimaginable when you look at the starting point, really just incredible. Now I want to hear you explain another development that I think is just so compelling and that is related to math. So he starts memorizing license plate numbers. You're also working with him on repetitions and building up some of that arithmetic muscle. How did he go from that to doing math five to six hours a day and having that fire lit with him?

[B]

Well, it was progressive, but.

[A]

It was progressive. But that's why I'm asking how did he get there?

[B]

So first I started really working on the counting. So he had to count from until 20 or 30.

[A]

I just want to pause to just let people have that sink in for a second. Math five to six hours a day, which again we're going to talk about the journey, like Most people on 20 cups of coffee a day could not do five to six hours of math a day.

[B]

I asked him about accounting. First was the counting that he couldn't count to 20. So I said, okay, let's count to 15. Can you count to 15? So we counted to 15. When he got to 15, I said, you go home and you start learning to count to 20. So he came back and I tested him. Did you count to 20? Yeah. So okay, count. So he counted. So then I add the addition. How much is five plus seven? He wouldn't know. So homework going homework. You learn how much is 5 by 6, 7, 8, 9, all the calculation up to 20 for the adding, then subtraction, division, multiplication, all of it until you know the number 10 or 20, then counting to 30, 40, 50, 100. And when we got there, I told that he needs a tutor. We need a tutor. Math tutor and English tutor. He needs both. So they hired people to help. So I was testing, of course, but he had these tutors. So I think that it was an amazing addition to work on his brain. And I noticed the same story with other cerebral palsy people that I have difficulties with math. Some of them that I saw that they, I had good English, but math looks like difficulties. So eventually when he progressed with energy with bench press, came to the certain point within a year that he could press about £100 and that gave him enough energy that he could go to his computer and spent hours on the computer to study his elementary school. He started actually elementary school. And you know, because he was not in elementary school, so he was 25 years old, 26. So he joined this program, elementary school program. And he started, you know, working through it on his own. And after two years he passed the whole elementary school. Then he started high school. Another two years and he passed normal high school. I know like a normal. The same program as other people do. And father said Tajin is like on fire. He's like, it's 2:00am and he's still on his computer. And he started like 8pm and at 2am he's on his computer and he doesn't want to stop or something in him awakened and powerful. And at the same time he started noticing that who he was as a person, that actually he was a person and he was Cerebel palsy. And that generated a lot of negativity in him, a lot of resentment to his father and mother. And then he started really talking that he hates his mother and he hated everything at that time. Yeah.

[A]

What did you notice in. And just to flash forward, right. I mean, his father's reported that he's living an independent existence, taking care of his own needs, planning his own days, orders uber rise to get to his classes, manages his own paperwork. So that's the after. What did you notice in terms of how did you cultivate this? If you did. I don't know if you did this deliberately or if it was a byproduct of everything else but emotional range or facial expressions. Did any of those, did any of that change over the course of the training?

[B]

Emotionally, he was blank, the same for a long time.

[A]

You mean in whatever circumstances?

[B]

Yeah. But at certain point he started being negative and expressing his negativity and then he made these moves and couldn't see where he was. I was looking for where he was, but I addressed negativity as something that needed to be fixed. So whenever he said that he hated something, I challenge it. Challenge it in a way. Why is it good? Right. He was negative, but. And then why police is good, why the son is good, why the father is good, why the mother is good. So expanding and expanding imagination for him to facilitate this so he could find in his mind actually acceptance, that actually is a good thing, is a huge shift in his psych. Believing and liking people. You never like me. I was just like, I don't like you. And he says, I don't like you.

[A]

How long did he say that for?

[B]

All the time. He's never liked me.

[A]

So he'll celebrate and give you five for your training.

[B]

But still, I don't know, even today, if he likes, probably not. You know, I created a lot of hard choices for him, so he went out. You know, eventually he will. He will come to this point that he may be like, what have you done? Maybe, but not really me.

[A]

Oh, wow, that's kind of amazing. Well, you know what? As long as you don't care about the credit, you're doing good work in the world.

[B]

Not really. I was not, you know, there to shine.

[A]

Of course, of course. Could you talk about helping him or asking him to identify heroes a bit? That also stuck out to me. Could you provide a little bit of context to people on that piece of the puzzle?

[B]

Yeah. He was already in elementary school, and he was writing an essay about a hero.

[A]

That was an assignment.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And he wrote it from school, not from you?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, from school. Because he already had that tutor, English tutorial. So he was always proud that when he did something, he was bringing something and reading me. He read it. So he wrote about Genghis Khan. And I said, okay. So is Genghis Khan a hero? Yeah. Okay. So I said, well, why? He is a hero. He talk a little bit. And I said, so who is a hero? That created a philosophical approach. So we ended up that the hero is really risking their own life for others to save others. But that's not Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was not that. He was a conqueror, but he was not a hero. And then at the same time, I watched this movie about Admiral, actually Korean admiral, about 300 Japanese ships were coming to Korea to conquer them. And he. With one ship and 12, he stood up to them. And actually, the 12 ships, the people didn't want to fight, wanted to surrender. He said, no. And he fought and he fought. And these other 12 ships joined him eventually. And the whole armada, Japanese armada, turned back. And I said, that is you here. And I said, that is your hero from Korea. And you are going to rewrite this essay. But it's too late. I said, it's not too late. You're going to go to your teacher. You tell the teacher why Genghis Khan was not a hero and you want to rewrite the essay. Okay. I said, okay, you go and do it. And he did. And he rewrote the essay. The teacher agreed.

[A]

I can see why he might not like you.

[B]

It's fair.

[A]

Yeah, it's pretty fair.

[B]

It was very quick, you know, think about. I was coaching him. I understand the purpose she was jumping, she was lifting. And at the same time we did poetry, math, English. Right. All of it together. And it was quick.

[A]

Yeah. Hard teachers.

[B]

Why he wouldn't like me, I don't know. Yeah, well, there's. There are many reasons. But you know, one day he was. He wanted to step on the six inch box, I remember. And he tries to step and he would not.

[A]

And this is the one foot up,

[B]

just stepping one foot and like on a stair, right. It was like he, it was. I don't know. And like I couldn't make it. So I grabbed his shirt and pull him.

[A]

I've seen the video.

[B]

And after about two times I left him and he was jumping on this box like one after another. Stepping one, one, one and so fast. Just amazing. What the brain is getting a little bit help and suddenly the door opens up and the progression is huge and fast. It's amazing. I tell you what, I was watching what I learned during this process. Wow.

[A]

Even to this day I know that modern science has come to a greater appreciation of brain plasticity and the malleability and adaptability. And of course, just as the. Let's call it, broadly speaking, this is a simplification, but the control center for the entire body. Right. The brain's job is to keep the body alive. So they're dance partners. There is just so much room for improvement. And a lot of the science that I've supported has been related to this. But this was the first time I'd ever seen such an amazing transformation in someone with cerebral palsy that was so clearly and well documented also. And I want to talk about next steps in a little bit to try to expand this into a study. But before we get there, can you speak to training logic? So I think that was after about two years of already training with him, but working on his thought process using poetry. Why did you do that?

[B]

He couldn't really read the lines of poetry and understand the feelings, emotions behind. Then I started really doing the math and seeing whether he can think logically. So I tested him. If A is B and B is C, so is A is also C. And playing these games and slowly he started not only being logical in I asked him about writing something about what is logic and give me the example. And so he would bring me was there logic or not? So we tested that and then added them up. But the most difficult for him was to read a line of poetry and know the metaphor. Not really what really happened, but what was the meaning of the line.

[A]

The words, not just the words.

[B]

Yeah, and every line. So when I asked him to recite, to remember and recite a poem, he would recite the poem. And then we analyze the poem, every line after line after line. And what is the meaning? What is the feeling of the light? And that was an amazing possibility for him to learn the language and the feelings behind the language, the emotions. At the beginning, he didn't have any clue about the feelings, what the actually written words express when it comes to feelings.

[A]

When I think about your entire coaching experience with Tajin, I'm struck by how many different levers you were able to help him pull. But one, that sort of meta lesson that pops out to me, and I'd love for you to correct this, if I'm not thinking about it the right way, is that he didn't respond to people in conversation, didn't have much of a response, in part. And I'm projecting here, because he didn't have the belief that he could. He had no history to support the belief that he could. And then with physical movement, similar. And you gave the example, I mean, this is a very fast example, but of grabbing the shirt and kind of forcing him to do it. And then within a few repetitions, you let go and he's doing it on his own. And of course, there's the progression over time. But even with the poetry and how you gave him assignments to practice public speaking, without that, he wouldn't have had the confidence to then speak, say, within the more complicated context of school with classmates and things like that, I have to imagine. But I sometimes have listeners or readers ask me, what can I read to develop more confidence? And I'm like, well, you can try to read to develop more confidence, but really you're not going to fool yourself. You need to do things to develop the history of doing things so that you have confidence. Does that resonate? Or would you add or reframe that somehow?

[B]

Yeah, of course. What you say it's a certain perspective, but I would like to tell you about my perspective.

[A]

Yeah, that's what I'm asking.

[B]

I show the mind, the brain, as something that needs to find the way forward and find the way around those patches that were dead. And I saw it everywhere. I saw it in math. When you cannot know what is two plus two, that is four. And you struggle for me, the child struggles to find out what is two plus two. Eventually the child knows. So there are certain connections already, and then to plus 3 and so on. So development of MAV is so crucial here. Very important that when I am not there. He can practice actually the mav. And by practicing the mav, we overcome this many steps, the steps of progression and micro progression. And also that challenge. How's this plasticity of the brain? That plasticity, you know, like I thought, okay, I make him strong, doesn't mean that something else is going to happen. Or maybe I will not make him strong because the mouth is not developed. So I saw the connection between the squat, the bench, the numbers, the words and beliefs and philosophy. I saw connections everywhere. And I created the challenges, the hard choices every time, everywhere. For me, you know, bench pressing going from £100 to 102 was not different than to know what is 15 plus 17. If I know what is 15 plus 17 is another thing that when it happens, something happened in the brain that was not there before. And I started facilitating all this development of the brain that would be challenged, develop from different perspective. And I think that eventually the research needs to be done. I try to understand what I've done because I've never really worked with person like that. So I try to understand too what happened there, how did it happen, and whether there is possibility even to replicate this and help so many people. Tajan's progress is amazing, crazy, amazing, magical. And if that could be replicable, wow, we could help a lot of people.

[A]

Well, let's talk about it, because before we start recording, I was trying to get an idea of the rough number of cerebral palsy diagnoses in the US and you're based in Northern California, so I wanted to get an ID in California. These are real back of the napkin, rough Internet responses, but it seems like, let's call it roughly 1 million diagnoses in the US potentially. And then that could be occurrence and not diagnoses, but somewhere between 100,000 and 120,000 in California alone. So this is a non trivial condition. It's very prevalent. And if you could develop a method through doing research, develop a method that you mentioned could be replicated, could be taught to physical therapists, then this could have a tremendous impact on a wide scale. And maybe we could talk about what some of your thoughts are. And I'm going to create a web form for people who want to potentially indicate interest in certain facets of this. But what might the program look like? How many patients would you have? What would it look like in practice to do a research project to determine if you can formulate a method that would be replicable or a template, maybe with a little bit of tweaking here and there, that physical therapists could use or others.

[B]

Meantime, I had some experience with other several policy people. And, you know, my approach is one that I believe that everybody can improve. So it really doesn't matter. For me, it is cerebral palsy or not. If it's chronic fatigue, it can happen. If it's fibromyalgia, the progress can happen. So with cerebral policy, when we think about cerebral policy, people, they have different conditions, different beginnings. The most important is to find where is the beginning, where to start is one the major thing. Because usually I think that we want too much, it's not going to happen. So we need to find this very tiny thing. You remember, Joel, in Hawaii, you helped me to go and coach her. She was 18 at that time, and she couldn't control her head and arms and legs. So her mother would hold her and I would try to find out where is the beginning with her. And she has, you know, hands like this and was moving and. And I found out that I pointed to one place, I took a bow very close to her, like about an inch from her, you know, arm and then fingers and asked her to touch it. And she struggled and struggle. And we found a way where actually she could touch it. And she was so happy when she touched. Oh, I have to send you these videos. It's just you can cry when you can see things like this and her joy when she was doing it. So also the math. I found out that her mind was very good with stories. She could talk about some things and she loved the stories to listen to stories. But her math was not really different than the dance. It was like she could only count from one to 10. And then adding, you know, two plus five, she would. And then we would start with that. So I see the math is major part of that method. The physical is, of course, the beginning. The beginning is how strong they are and how flexible they are. Flexibility is the main point here because the awkwardness comes from both. One thing that the brain, the mind cannot control those places. But those places also the parts of the body became that way. So that's why awkwardness is coming in. So the physical and the physical improvement of the physical becomes challenging because they can injure themselves, they can be in pain. And they have those two who will facilitate. They will need to know how to start, how to use the microprocession, how to write everything down. Like, Tejan knew all his numbers. He knew how to measure the time of five or ten jumps. And he would write all the jumps and brought to me to the gym what he did his homework was numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. Not only the numbers of counting, but also the numbers of measure. Right.

[A]

So just to hop in for a second, I would love to help. Of course, that's part of the reason we're doing this conversation, is to help facilitate, trying to create some type of template that can be applied to a lot of people with cerebral palsy. So the short link, not to bury the lead, the short link will just be Tim blog cp. And we'll have a web form for people who may want to help from an academic perspective, ideally in Northern California, somewhere within near driving distance, since you would want to be there. I think the thought is maybe twice a week with these different folks, something like that.

[B]

Yeah, I see that about maybe five Cerebral Policy people and meeting them twice a week, let's say Tuesday and Friday and for one year, and then add another five. So now it's 10, another five. And do it for five years. Record everything, see how it works. Bring therapists or others that could actually watch, observe and learn. And I believe that this replicability is possible. We need to test it. We need to explore whether. How is it really possible? What can we actually do when we have this 25 people? It could be that it was because I was there, but I don't want to say that it was because of me. Everything happened. It could be that perfect storm happened. I was a math teacher. I'm a poet, I'm a weightlifter. So all of it happened that I was this one person facilitating that. But when we do research, we don't have to have one person. We can have math people, English and philosophers, and we can have trainers. We can create a center. And in that center, we can think about how we can progress, how we can improve, and document everything in details the same way. As I was saying, microprogression is an amazing power.

[A]

What strikes me also that with the right people involved and with the right consistency, and, I mean, you might need a faculty member to agree to spearhead it. And then there would be fundraising, which is pretty straightforward to figure out. And then they would have postdocs or people underneath them would help with recruitment, although I don't think that'll be a problem after this podcast. Patient recruitment, and then making the trains run on time. But I could see a path, as I'm sure you've thought about this much more than I have, but where you could end up with something like a core curriculum of principles that you're teaching and maybe you're recording video modules to explain these things. To practitioners where it's like micro progressions, finding a place to start. What are different ways to find a place to start? And then perhaps there are certain things that won't apply to everyone. So for instance, we didn't talk about. We don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but Tae Jin was kind of crumpled to the right side, right? So you had a ball hanging from the ceiling that you would have him reach up to touch to help correct that. So there might be core curriculum and principles, and then sort of ancillary principles and techniques that can be applied on a case by case basis. But then you end up with this core curriculum that people can learn remotely or something like that. I mean, it's really exciting to think about.

[B]

I think that at this point, I see that we can assess these people from five perspectives. I think the physical perspective, where they are physically and where is the flexibility, where is the strength. Math perspective, language perspective, philosophy perspective, beliefs perspective, where they are so easily, we can take the psychology and then psychologists and develop certain ways of assessing them. Were our beliefs right in math is very clear, right in the language, we need probably English teachers. And they will create very quickly curriculum to find out where is the level of that. And then once we have says, okay, we have physical problem, that is 80% math is only, you know, 3% is not, you know, the person is really good at math in English as well. But we can have also that math is not there at all and walking is good. So there are all possibilities how we can assess from this five perspective these people. But we need to also explore and experience them. Not only one person to Jan, because it's just only one person. Now we need to see can we actually do a five? Can we actually deliver what we delivered?

[A]

I mean, this is the scientific method, right? And you have such a fantastic starting point. It's an n of 1. Although you've worked with more than one person with cerebral palsy at this point. But let me just give the URL out again. So for people who might be interested, this is if you are at Stanford or UCSF or San Jose State or someplace that might be able to help with this type of research. If you are in a financial position and would like to support this type of research, go to Tim Blog cp or if you have other resources you want to bring to bear on this in some way, Tim Blog the letters CP standing for cerebral Palsy. So Tim Blog CP and just fill out the web form. I'm incredibly excited about this. We covered a Lot in our first conversation. We've covered a lot in this conversation. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention or cover that we haven't gotten to already today?

[B]

Another question? Yeah, well, yeah, we covered a lot, but I think one of the most important thing is that people can get help. And if we have the right approach, we can facilitate, create that. Of course they change, we didn't change them. So we have to remember that we are facilitators. We are not really coaches that created the powerful human being that actually powerful human being created themselves. We have to create a place where it's athletically aligned with athleticism and not care only we know. I see that as soon as we care or we exercise without mission or purpose or goals, then we can exercise for 10 years and never change. So I saw these people, thousands of these people. It doesn't apply only to cerebral palsy because it applies everywhere else. But with cerebral palsy, it's very interesting because they have this situation in the mind, in the brain that actually we could work with. These are the patches in the brain that we can create. The peripheral nervous system that actually goes around. We can create that mind, that plasticity of the mind, we can create. I have a strong feeling that this is possible. I always believe that it can be done. I just created challenges, constant challenges with the gen that could deliver the results. The change that I wanted, it has to be always the where are you going with it? So for me, he had to walk straight, he had to walk soft. And for me, I would not sleep until I would get it. So we need devoted people. We need people that are devoted to this, to these people to help them. Not just physical therapists that want us to make money and go home. This is a huge challenge. These people, extremely challenging. And we need to also challenge them. And by the creating this challenge, we can create amazing thing, actually. So it is not something that somebody has cancer and it will get worse. That's not the situation here. This is a very unique situation. We said about PASI people that we have the situation that somebody is and somebody doesn't change for worse. Somebody is like that can change for a worse too, because life happens. But because people are like that, we have very clear slate to begin with. We are not dealing with ill people, sick people. We're just dealing with people who mechanically something happened to their brain. And that can create for us a really great beginning. And it could be that with almost any cerebral palsy, something like this return to. I wouldn't say they Cannot return because many of them, they are just that way. So they cannot return anywhere. But they can't improve and become like Tajin, become the gen that is going to college from the person that was only waiting for food and sleep and couldn't go to toilet and was lethargic all the time. The life was like that for him. And that life would be like that, right? If nothing happened, what actually we did, he would be that person and the parent. Here's the parents. The parents. I saw happy parents. But after three, four years, they actually, they were like a ticking bomb. You said about intensity between these three people, right? But about three, four years I saw them happy. First time happy. And that is enough, you know, to fight for, right? To give everything, whatever you have to create the happiness in these three people who were worrying all the time what will happen if they die, what will happen if something happened. Now they don't have to worry anymore that Jen is completely independent. He is in college, for Christ's sake. Just imagine that. And a lot of that. I believe 100% that can happen with everyone.

[A]

The happy body Micro progressions mean your philosophies and philosophy might scare people off. Your principles can be applied to so many different things that you and Anyela have developed over the years. Really want to make this research project happen. So folks, if you're interested in any way helping with that in whatever capacity, you go to Tim Blog cp and then also want to mention just like the way that you and Aniela coach can be applied most certainly to many different conditions, many different circumstances, all circumstances in some sense. I want to give a shout out to Jeff Wolf, the director of Prisoner no More. I always ask everybody before I talk to them or do anything with them, what would make it truly a home run. And he just mentioned the bigger opportunity is to position Prisoner no More not just as a standalone short, but as a proof of concept for a larger series. The vision is a slate under the same umbrella. So you could have Prisoner no More for alcoholism, Prisoner no More for Fill in the Blank, which I think is also very exciting. So I really, really hope people, you gotta watch it. You gotta see what we're talking about. Visually, it'll just a lot of you are gonna cry. I'm gonna tell you in advance, but it's good cry. So check it out. Tim Blog hardchoices in honor of Hard Choices. Easy life. Easy choices, Hard Life. So Tim Blog hardchoices Check it out. You can find the Happy body and more on Jersey and Daniela's [e-mail] and I'll link to everything in the show notes as usual at Tim Blog Podcast. So if you're like, that's a lot to remember, don't worry about it. Just go to Tim Blog Podcast and search Jersey. Not spelled like New Jersey, but spelled J, E, R, Z, Y. And trust me, there's only one Jersey on my website. It's Jersey Gregorek Jersey. Thank you so much for the time. It's always great to see you.

[B]

Thank you, Tim.

[A]

Everybody, thanks for listening. We'll grab a bite to eat tonight with the whole gang and everybody who has tuned in. As always, I appreciate you. Till next time, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others and to yourself. But not just comfort. Don't just make yourself feel better. Don't just eat that cheeseburger and watch reality TV on Netflix. Challenge yourself wherever you happen to be. You can make progress. You can make amazing progress. You just need to find the right starting point. And for that reason, check out thehappybody.com, listen to my first conversation with Jersey on the podcast as well. Until next time, thanks for tuning in. 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 5 Bold 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 found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles and reading books I'm reading albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech 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 Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. So our place reached out to me as a potential sponsor and the first thing I did was look at the reviews of their products and said, send me one. And that is the Titanium Always Pan Pro and the Claim is that it's the first non stick pan with zero coating. So that means zero forever chemicals and durability that'll last forever. I was very skeptical, I was very busy so I said, you know what, I want to test this thing quickly. I'm going to test it with two things. I'm going to test it with scrambled eggs in the morning and then I'm going to test it with a stake sear. And it worked perfectly in both cases. And the design is really clever. It does combine the best qualities of stainless steel, cast iron and non stick into one product. And now Our Place is having their biggest sale of the season. Save between 10% and 40% site wide. Now through April 12th, head to fromourplace.com Tim to see why more than a million people have made the switch to Our Place kitchenware. And with their 100 day risk free trial and free returns, you can shop with total confidence. Shop our place's biggest sale of the season and head to fromourplace.com Tim Readers of the Four Hour Workweek know that I love automation. I do not like decision fatigue. I don't like doing things repeatedly. Anywhere I can set it and forget it is a win and gives me more time for the things I enjoy doing. That is why I'm such a fan of today's sponsor, Matic. As in Automatic M A T Icy as their tagline goes, the world's most advanced floor cleaner. Frankly, it does a lot more than that and they've got a lot of cool things coming. But it's the closest thing to a house that cleans itself. To quote Wired magazine quote, this is the best robot vacuum we've tested and it scored a rare 10 out of 10. Matic learns your home and runs quietly in the background. It's very, very quiet. I've been testing it myself. It vacuums, mops, docks itself and doesn't strangle itself on charging cables or get wedged under your couch. It's pretty amazing. And people with kids and dogs have been telling me all about it. I put out a note on social asking how people liked it, if they liked it, and the response was kind of mind blowing. Not only because the comments were overwhelmingly, exuberantly positive, but my phone blew up. I got texts from nearly a dozen friends telling me how much they love their Matic. So that was a first. So to quote another media outlet, the Verge writes, this wall E like bot fixes the stuff every other robot vacuum gets wrong. And there are tons of people involved with this who I respect a lot. We've got Silicon Valley legend Naval Rabicat and Shopify CEO Toby Lutke. They love theirs. And as I mentioned, they're investors. And my friend Kevin Rose has been raving all about it. The list goes on and on. Let's check it out, see what all the buzz is about. Go to maticrobots.com Tim that's M A T I C robots. Com. Maticrobots.com Tim Today and experience the closest thing to a house that cleans itself. New customers get free bags for a year. One more time, Maticrobots. Com Tim.