Brad Feld

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The Wonderfulness of Tim Ferriss and Naval Ravikant

Feb 08, 2021

On my run yesterday, I listened to Tim Ferriss interview Naval Ravikant on Happiness, Reducing Anxiety, Crypto Stablecoins, and Crypto Strategy.

I know both Tim and Naval. I have a mostly virtual relationship with each of them (I think I’ve been in the same physical space with Tim twice and never with Naval), but they are two people I’ve learned a lot from over the past decade.

When I run, I listen to one of four things.

  • Nothing
  • Podcasts
  • Audible Books (mostly science fiction)
  • Music, but generally my long time standards (Pink Floyd, Boston, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rush)

I go through phases, and I’m in a Podcast / Audible phase. I’m a little bored of Diamond Age (I’m halfway through in a slow spot), so I fired up a random Tim Ferriss podcast. I noticed he’d done one recently with Naval, so that was it.

The crypto stuff was good, but I was much more intrigued by everything else. I’m a big fan of Richard Feynman, so when Naval started rolling out Feynman quotes, he had me. There was a ton of wonderful in the back and forth between Tim and Naval, and when Naval got on a roll on a topic, the running just vanished into the background.

A fun sleeper idea in the middle of things was that Naval, who has over a million followers, doesn’t follow anyone on Twitter. I only use Twitter to broadcast things these days, so I think I’ll try that hack for a while and see if it works.

I haven’t been blogging much lately – on purpose. I’ve been trying to reset a few things in my writing and decided to go inward for a few months, starting around my birthday. I believe the reset has happened and listening to Naval and Tim helped reinforce a few things I’ve been playing around with now that I’m 55 years old.

Tim / Naval – thanks. I enjoyed listening to y’all.