Holy schnikes!
At the end of October, The Tim Ferriss Show shot past 100,000,000 downloads. What does that mean? Here’s an official quote from Libsyn:
“Congratulations to Tim for crossing the 100-million download mark. At Libsyn, we have been hosting podcasts for more than 12 years, and we currently host well over 28,000 podcasts, including a high percentage of the blockbuster hits on iTunes,” said Rob Walch, Vice President of Podcaster Relations at Libsyn. “Tim’s podcast is the first business-interview format podcast in our history to cross the 100,000,000 download mark.”
This is wild.
As some of you know, my podcast–The Tim Ferriss Show–was started on a whim. It was intended as a break between big book projects. “I’ll do six episodes to get better at interviewing” was the grand goal.
In the first episode and after two bottles of wine, Kevin Rose nicknamed the show TimTimTalkTalk (damn you, KevKev). And the next morning, after reviewing my ridiculously slurred and iffy questions (e.g. “If you were a breakfast cereal, which would you be?”), I let out a long sigh. I’d always hated the sound of my own voice, but this was worse than expected. TERRIBLE. The podcast experiment wouldn’t last a month.
Or so I thought.
Now, here we are, 100M downloads later, on the cusp of 200 episodes, and growing faster every month. 100M excludes YouTube and other substantial ancillary views/listens. As of this writing, The Tim Ferriss Show has been in the iTunes top-100 list for 934 consecutive days.
I can say one thing for certain — I’ve only made it this far because of YOU.
Your amazing feedback, support, questions, and comments are what kept this podcast alive. Amidst self-doubt (similar to this) and many mistakes, I’ve wanted to throw in the towel more than once. But, through thick and thin, you’ve been there, telling my monkey mind to chill the fuck out, to take a deep breath, to go to sleep and fight another day.
Many, many thanks. To celebrate, I’m gathering the top-100 most prolific commenters from this blog’s comments, and you guys will be getting some thank-you goodies 🙂
Once again, thank you all so much for listening to this podcast. It means the world to me and keeps me going.
You guys rock.
Here’s to many more adventures ahead!
- Tim
P.S. If curious, here are my top-5 most popular episodes to date, in ranked order.
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration.)
you’re welcome. Thank you for being my self-improvement curator
You took the podcast industry by storm because you understand what it takes to master any skill. You walk the walk better than anyone and people listen to you because of it.
Amazing!!! Congratulations! Listening to you has changed the way I work.
Awesome stuff Tim!
Now the election is done, It may be interesting (to me anyway) to have Scott Adams and Robert Cialdini on to discuss “Influence” and what they did and how they did it (through the campaign) and how we can use it for the betterment of ourselves.
As an Australian I’d love to hear from the listeners what their thoughts are on the Trump victory.
Scott was scarily accurate in his prediction that Trump would win and he’d been saying it for some time.
Love listening to your podcast! You’ve done an incredible job bringing thoughtful and intelligent people and have them open up about themselves and their process.
Congratulations on crossing this benchmark Tim!
Tim, congratulations! You rock!
Congrats Tim! Thanks for all the great work you do! Best, John R.
“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” M.Angelou
Tim, you give me (and your audience) courage and you remind us that we all have potential! Courage to try to be true to myself despite the expectations of others and despite the fears I have…
PS. if you didn´t mention that Japanese grammar is similar to Turkish grammar I would never have gathered the courage to actually chase my high school dream to learn Japanese. Yes, it will take a year or two, but the decision and action is there because of you, and only that is enough to state that there is no other podcast host even slightly close to you. Thank you! I love you!
What an achievement Tim! You’ve outdone yourself this time in the podcast world. “The first business-interview format podcast in our history to cross the 100,000,000 download mark.”? That’s Insane!
You’ve always been an inspiration and north star on becoming a meta-learner. I’ll go back to revise 4-hour principles every now and then when I get stuck on learning something.
Audio format contents are my fave. I save podcasts in thumb drive and I listen to it in the car while driving. That’s my hack to never get bored when driving 🙂
My personal favourites are the ones where you interview Noah Kagan, Tony Robbins and Ramit Sethi. Oh and of course, the man, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
p/s: I’m totally getting Tools of Titans as well, looking forward to checking out the plethora of tools you mention in that book. Keep putting out good work, cheers!
Tim, you are most welcome. I was introduced to your work over the holidays two years ago when the topic of kettle bells came up. Specifically, your interview with Pavel. Mind Blown. My only regret is that I did not encounter 4HWW sooner. I experimented w/ SCD after 4 Hour Body and recently purchased 4 Hour Chef. Hat tip for featuring an excerpt recently on the podcast, it worked. You commonly refer to true fans from Kevin Kelly and you certainly have one here. Most importantly, today I am healthier, wealthier and wiser than I have been in my life after being exposed to your work and that of your guests. Jocko, McChrystal, Arnold, Ramit, Jimmy Chin, Noah, 5 Minute Journal….the list goes on.
With gratitude,
Teddy P
Father of 2
Grand Rapids, MI
Congratulations, Tim! I consider you/podcast/books 1 of the 5 people I most associate with, so thank you for greatly increasing that average. The questions you ask usually create actionable answers. Keep you the incredible work and adding so much value!
Congrats Tim on Crossing the 100MM Download Threshold. Given the guests you have coming up, I suspect 200MM is very close on the horizon.
While I knew of you from The Four Hour Workweek, I hadn’t engaged with your work since reading that book. 9 months ago is when I got into your Podcast.
It was one of the first podcasts I had ever listened to in my life.
It was during a week when I was under the weather and just couldn’t stare at a laptop screen anymore, when a close friend of mine shared with me your episode (taken from a keynote) on Networking. It got me really intrigued.
Then I went on a binge listening to your interviews with Alex Ohanian of Reddit, Josh Waitzkin, Chris Sacca, Ed Catmull, Mike Shinoda…, etc. until I ran out of all the interviews that caught my eye.
With my thumb tired from trying refresh the new episode feed constantly, with no success, it was apparent that I’d have to space out my Podcast listening in weekly chunks, or go into the wild world of non-Tim Ferriss podcast shows.
Since limiting myself isn’t really my style, I went very wide and sampled everything, eventually settling on following other interviewers like yourself including James Altucher, Sophia Amoruso and Stephen Dubner as my other weekly fixes in between Tim Ferriss episodes. Also had a great month of listening to all that Hardcore History had to offer.
Overall, 9 months later, The Tim Ferriss Show also led me down interesting rabbit holes, such as:
(1) After picking up Josh’s book The Art of Learning, which in conjunction with your tips on Meditation, led me on two 100+ day streaks of daily meditation this year. My mental stability has improved tremendously because of this.
(2) After learning about your interest in writing, it got me into experimenting writing myself, eventually having some of the pieces I wrote on Medium being republished in the Observer and Business Insider.
One of those pieces helped us raise money from Tony Hsieh (the CEO of Zappos). Indirectly, your impact on the venture capital world lives on 🙂
(3) With almost a year of gorging on podcasts like a bear in a fish barrel (and infecting my Co-Founder with the podcast bug as well) we decided to launch our own show as a form of content marketing for our company, in this case focused on long-form interviews with corporate leaders (think the CMO of Macy’s, the CEO of L’Oréal, or the President of Procter & Gamble) to service an audience of young professionals who aspire to climb the corporate ladder and lead a big company like that some day.
We’re 10 episodes in (with two released publicly), using a simple conference line to record every interview! At worst, if no one listens to it, it’s been a really fun way to get to know some interesting people.
Here’s to the next 100MM, congrats Tim!
Daniel
Thanks for everything you do, Tim. I look forward to listening to your podcast every weekend with a nice cigar and some tea. I’ve leaned so much from you and all your interesting guests. Your podcast has honestly had such a positive impact on my life and made me a better person. Keep on keepin’ on. Can’t wait for Tools of Titans!
Congratulations! Since I probably downloaded you a million times I think they came up short on the numbers…lol….I knew I was listening too much when I dreamed in Tim-voice one night. You have come a long way. Thanks for letting us come along.
Congratulations Tim. 🙂
Tim for me there was life before I discovered Tim Ferriss and then there is life after I discovered Tim Ferriss.
We stand on the shoulders of giants and I’ve always taken an interest in the greats like Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins and Stephen Covey but I can honestly say that none of them have sparked the flame in me like you have!
You have forced me to grow into a better man (I’m reading Seneca and Victor Frankl’s Mans search for meaning for Christs sake) and I am eating and exercising better than I have ever in my life, I can’t turn off my brain for all of the exciting ideas that I’m now having and in general I genuinely feel as if I’m making a meaningful difference in the world the likes of which I’ve never felt before.
You truly are Morpheus in the Matrix and you have given me the red pill and now I can’t go back – thank you for the incredible inspiration you provide. I feel very blessed to be part of your tribe.
A true fan.
Love you broham. We’ve spent many days and nights together and we’ve never met. Thank you for being you.
Congratulations! Really looking forward to a systematic analysis of all your interviews and the habits that rose to the surface in Tools of Titans.
Cheers, Ben.
Orayt! Probably contributed 100 downloads in that 100M downloads haha
Tim,
I remember searching your name on itunes each week just to find the podcasts you were a guest on. Any brand new morsel of information out of the interview was worth a listen. When you started your own show, I was stoked and I still am. Thanks for the quality content.
Can’t wait for Tools of Titans!
Congrats Tim! Literally, one of the main things I look forward to listening to each week.
Hi Tim,
Many many congratulations to you on your another accidental success, I guess😉. But, all members of this tribe know that it is no accident that your podcast got 100 million downloads. For me, the best part of about listening to your podcast is not only the way you interview each guest and provided us an opportunity for a Q&A with the guest but also your maturity in the approach of interviewing guest over the course of time. I believe this is the single most reason why a lot of people who are part of this tribe love you so much is because you have always described us your approach to life as ‘Just Try’. If you fail, dust off, learn from your mistakes, ask better questions, and then try hard again (in a smart methodological manner – 80/20 & DEAL, where possible).
As your podcast series is nearing the cusp of 200, I think I have only missed listening to 6-7 of them (I think I am being lazy). In this journey of listening to all your podcast, the part I love the most is seeing how you have gone through ups and downs:
1. You getting nervous in your first interview, getting drunk half way through and making fool out of yourselves.
2. As you were in the investing mode (as part of alternative to Stanford MBA), your interview with top notch people in Silicon Valley: Reed Hoffman, Mark Andreessen, Peter Diamandis, Naval Ravikant, and others.
3. Your exit from investing in start-up came to a halt past your conversation with Naval on do what makes you happy deep inside (something along this line). Of course there was an overflow of capital in the start-up realm.
4. Past the investing mode, your interview inclining more towards creative realm and you started your journey of podcast in the LA area with Arnold S, Jamie Foxx, Edward Norton, Arnold S, Seth Rogen, and other creative people like writers.
5. In between your journey of up & downs, your relentless focus on physical & mental optimization (Podcast with): Kelly Starrett, Chris Sommer, Pavel T, Charles P., Dom Augustino, Patrick A, Peter Attia, and Easter Island podcast.
5. Did I forgot to mention, your drunk dialing podcast and Vlog. Obession with Neil Strauuss’ writing approach.
For me your best podcast: Derek Sivers, Laird Hamilton, Matt Mullenweg, Brene Brown, Chris Young, and Alan De Botton.
This is probably the second time I have ever commented on your blog because of one particular podcast that changed my thought process and approach – ‘Be An Ordinary Genius’. Something Alan B mentions at the near the end of the podcast about a woman in Switzerland and her approach to life as being an ordinary genius. So, I never thought of making comments on your blog. Plus, one of the tribe members/family of this group always asked the question I had in mind.
I lived in Silicon Valley for couple of years and with my background in data analytics, the impressive thing for me is your balanced approach of using KPIs to push high quality content (I think Google needs to learn this from you to make their search engine better for the entire humanity – really, I mean it).
Last but not the least, thank you very very much for your guidance and mentor ship on how to have a good head on shoulders to look at life positively.
Rohit Goshai
Thanks for making my drives to work educational! Although I have not yet achieved the 4HWW I have strategies in place and genuinely enjoy the success stories of others.
My mind is a roller costed full of ideas that seem like certain wins at the time but somehow I manage to fall off the tracks as the realism of life and it’s restrictions set in. I guess this is a direct reflection of my true motivation to see the project through so I still believe that perfect idea will present itself and I will get it across the line. Thanks for the constant reminders that it can happen!
Cheers. Killing it.
Tim,
Congratulations! Thanks for always striving to share valuable information with us and tools that empower us to do great things. You’re able to break down information in a way that is interesting and easy to understand, no matter how difficult the subject may be. I’ve used many of the tools to improve my career and personal life (as I always strive to refine myself). Keep on being awesome!
Congrats, Tim! I really appreciate you sticking with it. I’ve learned a lot listening to the podcast. What makes your show stand out is the questions you ask. To be honest, your voice is a bit annoying at times, but the questions you ask are SO DAMN INTERESTING that I forget about it. 😉
TIM, it’s a fantastic achievement one guest at a time. Listening to your skill at work today, second Tony Robbins podcast, his soliloquy for about half an hour, he was rolling and you did not interrupt. Great instincts my friend. Wishing you yet wilder successes / excesses.
Thanks for many interesting hours of podcasts I listen to while driving!
Congrats Tim – 100 million is quite the feat.
What started as an experiment (as your works always do) has ended up to have perhaps even more influence than your books – you’re a modern day Napoleon Hill!
Loving all your work from New Zealand, pumped for Tools of Titans!
Outstanding, long may your success continue. Many thanks for shaking up my business and my life, and setting me on a more positive, fulfilling, and profitable path.
Congratulations Tim
I hope my goodie bag has potatoes
Lots of em 😀
Congratulations Tim!
Fantastic achievement. I’ve gained much from your long form blog, books & podcasts since stumbling on the 4HWW in 2009 in a Life hacker article.
How things have changed over this period. Keep producing this great material from which so may of us benefit.
Hi Tim,
First of all, I believe that you are my THINK TWIN!
I was also born in 1977 and we are just a few months apart. I have been a voracious reader since the age of 3 and geek out on attention to detail. I relish deep conversations vs shallow ‘hi/hellos’ and am a deep thinker.
When ‘The 4 hour work week’ was released I had an infant to take care of. I noticed the press gushing over you but never got around to reading it… till early this year. I wanted to kick myself in the rear for this horrendous delay. If only I had read it earlier, I would have been sooooo much kinder to myself, and parenting would have been so much smoother. Effective vs. Efficiency – man you have nailed that down. Now I can clearly look back at all the foolish things I did and all that wasted energy.
I used to listen to Entrepreneurs on Fire everyday. In that John Lee Dumas promote your podcast with the Governator. That peaked my curiosity and I downloaded it. I then fell in love with the person you are and the long format of interviews.
You are the twin brother that I wish I had.
I am now going to explain (in detail) what your ‘influence’ has been in my life –
1. You have actually validated a lot of my feelings, beliefs and values. When I first started to hear you, my gut reaction was… Man, he thinks and talks LIKE ME! (I am INFJ). So it was sheer joy and relief to know that there are others who think like you.
2. When I hear you on the headphones, in my mind IT FEELS LIKE I AM HEARING MYSELF SPEAK! It is Virtual Reality – in a very surreal way!
3. When I first got to know that you have a book club, I was surprised (since in my mind, only Oprah owned that). Then I read that Zuckerberg also had one. That was it. I said, I have read enough books on my own to recommend some. I too opened a book club and recommended books to people I knew. Even made a presentation to that effect on ‘Book time vs. TV time’ ending with Jim Rohn’s quote (Successful people have libraries, the rest have big screen TV’s).
4. Decision on Decisions. You had mentioned in your podcast that there will be both good decisions and bad decisions. So we should not whip ourselves for making bad ones. That is part of the game. That was so cool! I realized that I was delaying decisions in some aspects because I was trying to prevent a bad decision. Once I accepted that there will be some bad decisions, no matter how much I plan, I was free to make decisions quickly and not over analyze them ( I have received the criticism that I think too much 🙂
5. Investing in Startups vs Stanford. Stanford was love at first sight when I visited its campus a decade ago. Its gorgeous palm trees and its vibe, mesmerized me. I distinctly remember plucking and eating oranges and then going up the clock tower for a full campus view. That time I felt it would be lovely to do a course there in the future.
When you said that you decided to use the ‘set aside tuition money’ for practical use, I did the same! I invested money in a couple of networking organizations to meet people and grow my business – the practical way! I dubbed it my LIVE MBA. I also reminded myself that I should not regret it, if the money I invested, didn’t give back all the returns.
6. I quit a 12 year IT career to start my business 2 years back, so it is very reassuring to hear others think wayyyyyyy wayyyyyyyy wayyyyyyy bigger. It makes you want to up your thinking too. I can truly correlate the big thinking of the guests to their corresponding big actions and results.
7. I have various interests that I am passionate about, and invest time on them. So I am happy to see that you too extol the virtue of wearing multiple hats to keep variety going on in life.
8. I personally love love love the depth and details of languages, so it thrills me to the bones, when you get down to wordsmithing :-)) I have been an avid Toastmaster in previous years.
9. I had bought the ‘Influence’ book on my own last year, and it was in my book shelf for 6 months. When I heard Scott Adams say that he does not know of any highly successful person who has not read it, that got me to act. That very night I dusted it off the shelf and started reading it. Since then I have read it twice. It is profound!
I can now dissect certain human behaviors and responses as they occur in front of me.
10. I bought the Immutable Laws of Marketing. It is brilliant. I am using it in very practical ways for my business.
11. I heard you say, you buy and recommend what YOU like and therefore you sell according to your taste. So it convinces me that I should stick to my taste in my work, and the ‘tribe’ will arrive in time.
12. I loved the sound advice of learn the ‘1000 most commonly used words’ of any language and then you will have a decent command on it. I can now see clearly why I failed miserably at my traditional aproach to learn Spanish 🙂
13. You biggest contribution in my life has been that – you have consistently PUT WORDS – to the FEELINGS I used to or currently have. For example when I had quit corporate America 4 years back, I hunkered down to reboot my life. In that process I cut down unnecessary expenses, unnecessary social activities, lived very simply, didn’t buy new clothes unless absolutely essential, immersed myself in reading autobiographies, business books etc. because deep down I felt that I just had to do what it takes to reinvent myself.
In that process, I received a lot of flak for it. I was being judged for not keeping up with the Jonses. I knew I would never feel truly happy if I didn’t strip the outer layer and looked inwards. It was much much easier to live with bare minimum than lead a pretend existence. That was one of the best decisions I have ever taken. So a couple of years later, when you talked about stoicism and ‘practicing poverty’, in the podcast, I was ecstatic! For you had just explained what I had FELT was the right thing to do! I was on cloud 9 that day!!
14. You have helped me to take more frequent actions, than I used to do earlier. In my mind, you are a moral support who says, dissect the problem and make intelligent decisions which you can act on.
15. You have been vulnerable at times on the show, and I think we accept our flaws more graciously.
16. When I listen to you, I literally feel that I am in the room with you and the guest. I imagine that there is a third couch on the side, where I am listening intently to a deep conversation. It is like I am transported to your interview room – Star Trek style 🙂
17. I have heard very deep and very interesting details about various and diverse industries, which in no way I would have access to, on my own. It truly broadens my mind to the level of effort each of the guests have made in their respective fields.
18. I read Mindless Eating recommended by Ramit Sethi on your show. It is a fantastic book!
19. My most profound quote is , ‘You are the average of the 5 people you most associate with’ – Jim Rohn. I first heard about it through Scott Dinsmore, when I used to follow his Live your Legend blog. I distinctly remember that day in 2011. and I suddenly snapped up in my chair and paid attention. I was like, truly, who am I around with? Who is influencing me? That quote began my journey on self exploration. The more I dig deep, the truer that quote has been. It ties to – man is a social animal, so subconsciously we adapt to those around us – to live in harmony.
The other quote Scott educated me with was – ‘If your environment is not suiting you, change it’. That too was a huge game changer for me.
When I heard you mention that you will put the ‘average of 5 people’ quote on a billboard, and that WHERE YOU LIVE is a neglected component of having a friendly environment, I personally connected very well with you on that. I too could 100% confirm that as a truth, which has played out well for me.
20. I love, love, love the intense details that you put out. It is so cool to hear them versus superficial advice.
22. I too like to tune out from time to time and feel energized in being cut off from the everyday life. When I see you plan your vacation or be device free on Saturdays, it is very reaffirming!
23. Your podcast is like a mental muscle workout. When I walk and listen, I come back home totally refreshed and energized. My brain cells feel stretched, expanded and well developed.
24. I have now associated your podcast with walking. So even on days I don’t feel like walking, I do. The draw of listening to your podcast makes me step out, and it now a habit. I also tell my husband whatever cool things that I have heard that day. So indirectly, he is listening to you too!
25. Loved the Derk Sivers episode that advised us to measure our work or productivity in years and not in months. Stack up our output one over the other.
I too have a book to recommend to you. ‘The One Thing’ – By Gary Keller
It is absolutely fabulous! Focus and time blocking beautifully intertwined.
Even though I listen to or read about a lot of other thought leaders -such as Tony Robbins, Oprah, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Stephen Covey, Bob Proctor etc.. what excites me most is that there is FINALLY, a fascinatingly intelligent guy, who communicates brilliantly, and IS OF MY AGE!
Thank you is not enough to describe my joy. I am extremely grateful that a human being like you is around who is geeky and fun at the same time!
I have used a lot of ‘I’s in this thank you note as I wanted you to fully realize, that each one us – have profoundly benefited from your contribution – in our OWN unique way.
I have put your name in my vision board – in the list of people that I want to meet. I am sure that we will cross paths soon 🙂
I think it is time for me to sign off.I believe that I have exceeded the word count of your longest blog post!
Has this post been prolific enough?? Hahaha!
Thanks Tim for being my ‘think twin’ and we will meet soon!
Preeti
Hi Tim,
First of all, I believe that you are my THINK TWIN!
I was also born in 1977 and we are just a few months apart. I have been a voracious reader since the age of 3 and geek out on attention to detail. I relish deep conversations vs shallow ‘hi/hellos’ and am a deep thinker.
When ‘The 4 hour work week’ was released I had an infant to take care of. I noticed the press gushing over you but never got around to reading it… till early this year. I wanted to kick myself in the rear for this horrendous delay. If only I had read it earlier, I would have been sooooo much kinder to myself, and parenting would have been so much smoother. Effective vs. Efficiency – man you have nailed that down. Now I can clearly look back at all the foolish things I did and all that wasted energy.
I used to listen to Entrepreneurs on Fire everyday. In that John Lee Dumas promote your podcast with the Governator. That peaked my curiosity and I downloaded it. I then fell in love with the person you are and the long format of interviews.
You are the twin brother that I wish I had.
I am now going to explain (in detail) what your ‘influence’ has been in my life –
1. You have actually validated a lot of my feelings, beliefs and values. When I first started to hear you, my gut reaction was… Man, he thinks and talks LIKE ME! (I am INFJ). So it was sheer joy and relief to know that there are others who think like you.
2. When I hear you on the headphones, in my mind IT FEELS LIKE I AM HEARING MYSELF SPEAK! It is Virtual Reality – in a very surreal way!
3. When I first got to know that you have a book club, I was surprised (since in my mind, only Oprah owned that). Then I read that Zuckerberg also had one. That was it. I said, I have read enough books on my own to recommend some. I too opened a book club and recommended books to people I knew. Even made a presentation to that effect on ‘Book time vs. TV time’ ending with Jim Rohn’s quote (Successful people have libraries, the rest have big screen TV’s).
4. Decision on Decisions. You had mentioned in your podcast that there will be both good decisions and bad decisions. So we should not whip ourselves for making bad ones. That is part of the game. That was so cool! I realized that I was delaying decisions in some aspects because I was trying to prevent a bad decision. Once I accepted that there will be some bad decisions, no matter how much I plan, I was free to make decisions quickly and not over analyze them ( I have received the criticism that I think too much 🙂
5. Investing in Startups vs Stanford. Stanford was love at first sight when I visited its campus a decade ago. Its gorgeous palm trees and its vibe, mesmerized me. I distinctly remember plucking and eating oranges and then going up the clock tower for a full campus view. That time I felt it would be lovely to do a course there in the future.
When you said that you decided to use the ‘set aside tuition money’ for practical use, I did the same! I invested money in a couple of networking organizations to meet people and grow my business – the practical way! I dubbed it my LIVE MBA. I also reminded myself that I should not regret it, if the money I invested, didn’t give back all the returns.
6. I quit a 12 year IT career to start my business 2 years back, so it is very reassuring to hear others think wayyyyyyy wayyyyyyyy wayyyyyyy bigger. It makes you want to up your thinking too. I can truly correlate the big thinking of the guests to their corresponding big actions and results.
7. I have various interests that I am passionate about, and invest time on them. So I am happy to see that you too extol the virtue of wearing multiple hats to keep variety going on in life.
8. I personally love love love the depth and details of languages, so it thrills me to the bones, when you get down to wordsmithing :-)) I have been an avid Toastmaster in previous years.
9. I had bought the ‘Influence’ book on my own last year, and it was in my book shelf for 6 months. When I heard Scott Adams say that he does not know of any highly successful person who has not read it, that got me to act. That very night I dusted it off the shelf and started reading it. Since then I have read it twice. It is profound!
I can now dissect certain human behaviors and responses as they occur in front of me.
10. I bought the Immutable Laws of Marketing. It is brilliant. I am using it in very practical ways for my business.
11. I heard you say, you buy and recommend what YOU like and therefore you sell according to your taste. So it convinces me that I should stick to my taste in my work, and the ‘tribe’ will arrive in time.
12. I loved the sound advice of learn the ‘1000 most commonly used words’ of any language and then you will have a decent command on it. I can now see clearly why I failed miserably at my traditional aproach to learn Spanish 🙂
13. You biggest contribution in my life has been that – you have consistently PUT WORDS – to the FEELINGS I used to or currently have. For example when I had quit corporate America 4 years back, I hunkered down to reboot my life. In that process I cut down unnecessary expenses, unnecessary social activities, lived very simply, didn’t buy new clothes unless absolutely essential, immersed myself in reading autobiographies, business books etc. because deep down I felt that I just had to do what it takes to reinvent myself.
In that process, I received a lot of flak for it. I was being judged for not keeping up with the Jonses. I knew I would never feel truly happy if I didn’t strip the outer layer and looked inwards. It was much much easier to live with bare minimum than lead a pretend existence. That was one of the best decisions I have ever taken. So a couple of years later, when you talked about stoicism and ‘practicing poverty’, in the podcast, I was ecstatic! For you had just explained what I had FELT was the right thing to do! I was on cloud 9 that day!!
14. You have helped me to take more frequent actions, than I used to do earlier. In my mind, you are a moral support who says, dissect the problem and make intelligent decisions which you can act on.
15. You have been vulnerable at times on the show, and I think we accept our flaws more graciously.
16. When I listen to you, I literally feel that I am in the room with you and the guest. I imagine that there is a third couch on the side, where I am listening intently to a deep conversation. It is like I am transported to your interview room – Star Trek style 🙂
17. I have heard very deep and very interesting details about various and diverse industries, which in no way I would have access to, on my own. It truly broadens my mind to the level of effort each of the guests have made in their respective fields.
18. I read Mindless Eating recommended by Ramit Sethi on your show. It is a fantastic book!
19. My most profound quote is , ‘You are the average of the 5 people you most associate with’ – Jim Rohn. I first heard about it through Scott Dinsmore, when I used to follow his Live your Legend blog. I distinctly remember that day in 2011. and I suddenly snapped up in my chair and paid attention. I was like, truly, who am I around with? Who is influencing me? That quote began my journey on self exploration. The more I dig deep, the truer that quote has been. It ties to – man is a social animal, so subconsciously we adapt to those around us – to live in harmony.
The other quote Scott educated me with was – ‘If your environment is not suiting you, change it’. That too was a huge game changer for me.
When I heard you mention that you will put the ‘average of 5 people’ quote on a billboard, and that WHERE YOU LIVE is a neglected component of having a friendly environment, I personally connected very well with you on that. I too could 100% confirm that as a truth, which has played out well for me.
20. I love, love, love the intense details that you put out. It is so cool to hear them versus superficial advice.
22. I too like to tune out from time to time and feel energized in being cut off from the everyday life. When I see you plan your vacation or be device free on Saturdays, it is very reaffirming!
23. Your podcast is like a mental muscle workout. When I walk and listen, I come back home totally refreshed and energized. My brain cells feel stretched, expanded and well developed.
24. I have now associated your podcast with walking. So even on days I don’t feel like walking, I do. The draw of listening to your podcast makes me step out, and it now a habit. I also tell my husband whatever cool things that I have heard that day. So indirectly, he is listening to you too!
25. Loved the Derk Sivers episode that advised us to measure our work or productivity in years and not in months. Stack up our output one over the other.
I too have a book to recommend to you. ‘The One Thing’ – By Gary Keller
It is absolutely fabulous! Focus and time blocking beautifully intertwined.
Even though I listen to or read about a lot of other thought leaders -such as Tony Robbins, Oprah, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Stephen Covey, Bob Proctor etc.. what excites me most is that there is FINALLY, a fascinatingly intelligent guy, who communicates brilliantly, and IS OF MY AGE!
Thank you is not enough to describe my joy. I am extremely grateful that a human being like you is around who is geeky and fun at the same time!
I have used a lot of ‘I’s in this thank you note as I wanted you to fully realize, that each one us – have profoundly benefited from your contribution – in our OWN unique way.
I have put your name in my vision board – in the list of people that I want to meet. I am sure that we will cross paths soon 🙂
I think it is time for me to sign off.I believe that I have exceeded the word count of your longest blog post!
Has this post been prolific enough?? Hahaha!
Thanks Tim for being my ‘think twin’ and we will meet soon!
Preeti
You are music to our ears!
Thank you so much Tim!
You’ve opened up an entire world of possibilities with your books for all us.
Regarding your podcast… There’re Gold nuggets every time I listen to it!
Nothing wrong with your voice by the way… We love the pace..
Cheers!
Congratulations Tim.
This is the only podcast I listen to regularly (ok, maybe hardcore history is the second one but frequency is far from regular).The thing I like the most? Episodes I thought are not for me ( not a sports fan) yet I found a lot of useful wisdom there so please just keep them coming.
Cheers
Congratulations and thank you for all of your work!
Tim – CONGRATS! You deserve it. Thanks for all the awesome content. I can’t even relate how much you’ve helped and inspired me. Here’s to 200M!
Love the show and the books. Thanks for making all this available to us. Here’s to our continued success!
Tim, your material has helped me improve in every facet of my life. Thank you for the work that you do and the inspiration that you provide.
Congrats man! I just found your podcast this week and have been binge listening. A lot of good stuff, I’m happy to hear you’re able to reach so many people! Keep em coming!
Congrats. I love the show. It has made a huge difference in my life.
The only podcast I keep on recommending friends and family over and over again. I heard many trying to copy you, but they don’t make it all the way. Looking forward to the new book as well as another 200 episodes of the podcast!! Thanks!
Amazing! Congratulations, I can honestly say your podcast has expanded my life and beliefs, my views on limits and what to do and where to take my life. You’re a fuckn’ legend in the making Tim!
Congratulations Tim, I’m really happy for you — you’ve more than deserved it!
More than that, thank you. The people and insights you’ve shared have been life-changing, and I personally can’t thank you enough. Looking forward to many more guests and the 1 billion download mark 🙂 😉
I believe doubts and fears are just signals for us to re-examine our current path and check-in with ourselves. That being said, I’m grateful that you (Tim) have decided to keep going strong with the podcast. I’ve benefited immensely from them. Thank you!
Congrats on 100 million!!!
Another metric that would be interesting is re-listens. Your podcast is the only podcast that I reference like my favorite books.
– Do I want to re-think my strength training? – Re-listen to Pavel and Christopher Sommer
– Need a good meditation session? Tony Robbins part 2
– Do I feel like I’m not kicking enough ass? Jocko.
I don’t know if this is measurable, but it’s similar to how many highlights on kindle. Re-reads or Re-listens = quality. Thanks Tim for rolling out high quality content on a regular basis.
Cheers,
Drew
Thank you Tim for being persistent in this endeavor. Your conversations have turned my drive time as a home health physical therapist into pure gold. It’s even motivated me in starting my own PT podcast a year ago which has opened more opportunities than I could’ve ever imagined.
My next goal is to get your mother on my podcast to chat PT. 😉
Thanks a lot, Tim. Your work is greatly appreciated by me…and millions of others.
I can’t tell you how many times I have name dropped your guests and friends — Jaime Foxx, Cal Fussman, Josh Waitzkin and others — as if I had talked to them myself. Your interview style and long-form format not only puts your guests at ease, it brings your audience into the event. Only podcast I’ve heard able to do just that. Kudos to you on continuing to push the envelope on giving us all the tools and knowledge to be better versions of ourselves. Rock on.
Man, congratulations and thanks a lot for all podcasts. It has influenced several big changes in my life big time.
Here’s to the next 200 ones.
Cheers.
Jorge
A flowchart how to live rich life. On surface it seemed contradictory where at one time you listen to most ambitious and passionate souls like Peter Thiel and Jamie Fox and then on other time you furnish your ears with the musings of stoicism from Seneca and Epictetus but if you dive deep then you realise the life lies in the extremes. I am staunch Atheist but if I were religious, the first person I would have remembered in my prayers, It would have been Tim.
I’m currently in my grad year to get a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Technology on the East Coast of Canada, with the option to spend the next two years getting my engineering degree (Electrical) in Ontario. My education started in vocational school, afterwards I hopped into the technologist program with advanced standing.
Many people say: “you can’t go wrong with getting more education”. I seem to doubt this quote at times.
The question I keep asking myself: “Is going back and getting more education worth it”?
My answer to this question changes week by week. I’d like some valid input as to whether continuing education is worth it, where as there are many other ideas and interests I could pursue If I were to end my college education here. I still have great interest in learning more about electrical, but have other things that potentially EXITE my vision for the future.
Any helpful feedback is great, thanks
Congrats. I have always been a GaryVee guy and a friend introduced me to your pod and my life has changed. Gary taught me to hussle and you gave me so much insight and I can relate to you as a person. Then I got a hold of Four Hour Body and you have absolutely changed my life forever. I have stopped working to focus on my diet. I play poker professionally and feel like I am at only a fraction of where my mental and physical game should be. I can’t stop reading chapters, learning and experimenting. I used to work at a Mexican restaurant and realized I at Optimal slow carb meals once a day so I’m all about it and excited to burn weight off. THANK YOU AND CONGRATS!
Congratulations on 100 million downloads!!! Tim,
I actually stumbled upon your podcast about a year ago when i was just getting started listening podcasts and i have to say that your podcast is the one that i listen without fail it has always gave me insights that were practical such as Naval Ravikant’s mindfulness walking meditation and I highly recommend the book Sapiens. I actually read all your books Because of the podcast and i think that you should keep doing it for many more years.
I actually have a 30 minute commute to college every day and i always put on your podcast when I’m driving so that I’m learning even when driving. I also sometimes put on Hardcore History( heard it from the Jocko interview) when I’m feeling a bit down on my life and I hear about the horrible things about World War 1 and i instantly am more grateful to be living in this day and age.
Thanks for all the work that your putting out for free and I’m so stoked for your next book..
Congratulations Tim! Never giving up got you to this point! Thank you for all you valuable life lessons told in your podcasts ans posts. I have learned so much from you and I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t stumble upon you online. I don’t remember exaclty how I found you but your newest post when I first found you was the one where you ate like space food for a week if I remember? Or like military food? I” not sure, my first thoughtwas this guy’s crazy lol and moved on to the rest of my internet surfing. A few days later I came back and went through your other posts and I realized why you did it. I have learned so many habits and thoughts since then. Your books have deeply changed me aswell. My favorite podcasts would have to be Jamee Foxx, Arnold Shwazzernager, Jon Fravreau, Navy Seal! Sorry if my English is not well (I would’ve spelled Shwazzernager wrong even if my english was well) Best of all too you and keep doing your thing!
Congratulations to you, Tim. I’ve been listening in for a while now and your interviews and the inbetween-isodes are full of very useful information.
Thanks for the great content Tim, it’s the highlight of my week. Super inspiring and action-oriented.
How has your approach to interview prep and research changes since you’ve started?
Thanks Tim for the great podcast. I have listened to “every” episode and started way back when you launched the first one with Kevin Rose…It has definitely impacted my life for the good! I greatly appreciate you and all the value you have given to and added to my life!
Well deserved Tim and congrats – the podcasts and line up of guests has been second to none! A great mix of knowledge share and fun along the way.
Some of my personal favourites – Pavel Tsatsouline (a part 2 would be great with Pavel), Jon Favreau and Arnie.
Keep up the amazing work (and guests) and really looking forward to the new book.
I met you through the book “work four hours a week” and I always go with you! Thank you so much for sharing so many good content! Hug from Brazil!
Congrats on breaking the record Mr. Ferriss. I loved hearing you and Gladwell together. My two favorite authors.
Can you feel the way listeners relate to you? After reading the 4 Hour Body, I would be going about my day, a question would pop in my head, and I would try to recall which friend I should ask. I’d think..shit..which friend is really into that weird carb diet? Shit, shit, shit why can’t I remember? He loves kettlebells and butts…who is it? After realizing it was you, I would get so pissed I couldn’t call you because you’re not a friend and we’ve never met. I remember my feelings about a situation more than I remember names or concrete facts and in those moments, I was feeling..a friend…a male friend..he makes me laugh..I like drinking with him.
Oh, wait, we’ve never drank together.
I hope you take this as the compliment it’s meant to be and not as if I’m the future catalyst for your first Lifetime Movie Special.
Can you feel this is the way your listeners and viewers categorize/feel about you? If so, how does feel?
Two parts Galileo, one part Barbara Walters, and a dash of Tony Robbins..Tim Ferris, the weird friend you never knew you wanted.
Congratulations. And also thank you for giving an inspiration. Now you stretch the limit of what is possible for me.
Tim,
Congrats, and thanks for the top-100 email! Despite not seeing it till now and missing the deadline I’m pretty stoked. Initially I thought it was a (albeit sophisticated / well targeted) phishing attempt, in part because I don’t think I’ve even left more than 30 or so comments total, which -to me- sounds like every other “long-term” follower of 2 or more years.
I enjoyed the market-testing psychology in the form, where the user gets 2 options to choose from. I’m sure 100 top commenters make for a decent sample size of your target group, and their selections (where money is at stake) should be a pretty good demand gauge for Tools of Titans.
Based on your track record so far and the fact that the 92Y event sold out so quickly, my guess is, this book is very likely going to become another bestseller.
Congrats! Félicitations!
100,000,000 downloads? Congrats!
Here’s one for you: I signed up and downloaded the free 4hrchf audio. I saw that I was not supposed to share the link and so I PURCHASED 9-11 of your chef books (have amazon receipts for which I speak) -Today as i listen to the workweek audio I look in work week book INDEX (terrible) and can not find the expense comparison Berlin and Buenos Aires. Wish i had a search-able something PDF of your books. Support? Stay well. -Thomas