October 24, 2023 • 35 mins
You know I’m all about giving access to the people, strategies, and tools that can change your life for the better, and as I was reflecting on how important access to time is, I remembered this powerful discussion with Tim Ferriss, author of the 4 Hour Workweek. And you might be thinking, 4 hour workweek? In what world? But don’t overlook the suggestions that he has for taking back control of your time! The holiday season is already approaching, and don’t you want to be able to spend it with the people who matter most to you?
Check out this all new episode of That Moment with Daymond John for award-winning entrepreneur Tim Ferriss’ takes on:
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How to not just get in the same room as the people you want to associate with, but how to actually approach and talk to them
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How to take advantage of opportunities in the moment and think quickly
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How to not just overcome failure but use it to your advantage
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How to get scrappy and creative to achieve the goals that you’re striving to achieve
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And more!
Host: Daymond John
Producers: Beau Dozier & Shanelle Collins; Ted Kingsbery, Chauncey Bell, & Taryn Loftus
For more info on how to take your life and business to the next level, check out DaymondJohn.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had to do a bunch of very unorthodox things
to try to get it out into people's hands. So
one and there's there's an expression you hear sometimes in publishing,
which is the hardest place to sell a book is
in a bookstore.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Why because there are a million other books.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
And I started reaching out to other people with large
retail footprints, and so we did sort of a shock
in all campaign in New York City, specifically around all
the other publishers to fire a warning shot. So I
was actually at a deficit deficit.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
What if I told you there was more to the
story behind game changing events? Get ready for my new podcast,
That Moment with Damon John will jump into the personal
stories of some of the most influential people on the planet,
from business mobiles and celebrities to athletes and artisan.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
You got me the shots, Damon John and I have
the pleasure of bringing my buddy on. And my buddy's
name is Tim Ferriss. I don't think he needs any introduction,
but I'm going to actually read a couple of points
because I do know many of the things that Tim
has done and is still doing. But I want to
make sure that that I really put in perspective because
there's so many things. So Tim of course is an author,
(01:18):
an entrepreneur, an angel, investor, and also really a human
guinea pig. And I think that Tim exercises the power broke,
whether you know when he is looking in vetting deals
or whether he is actually physically becoming a human guinea
pig for something, or he's putting out his book.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
And information, or he's just out there learning.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
So I learned from Tim a lot, and I just
want to basically introduce Tim Ferriss.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
You know, Tim, I'm great, right, thank you, thanks for
being here with me.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So now you know, the first thing I want to
talk about is basically, you know when you came out
and you decided to come out with the four hour, right,
you know, we all the theory of the power broke
is the fact that we don't utilize money to accomplish
your job. And I don't care if you're working at
(02:09):
you know what Ford. You know, it's about ingenuity and
it's about thinking, but it's not about the actual dollars.
The dollars will come, but being creative. Why would somebody
give you a book deal because I'm told that you
got turned down by twenty six twenty seven authors. I
got turned down by twenty seven banks. I guess that's
the lucky number. What was the challenge of, you know,
(02:30):
getting a book deal and getting it out there.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well, the first problem, if you want to look at
it as a problem, was that I never wanted to
write a book. So there was an accidental career and
I had a few students I was just guest lecturing
at the time recommend that I write a book.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And I was like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've
ever heard.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I can't write, don't want to write anything longer than
an email. I'm not going to do it. And when
the notes started coming together from this class and a
few friends of mine were like, you should just make
this book.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You have all of this material that you could turn
into something.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I tried to put it together and eventually got introduced
to a couple of the right people, which, by the way,
actually I'm going to take a backstep. So the person
who introduced me to my agent was Jack Canfield, who
was co creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And
I think this is probably most relevant to the power
of Brooke. The way I met him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
People are always asking me, how do you meet your mentor?
But you send him an email and ask them to
be your mentor. I'm like, no, that's not what you do.
Because they have enough of a job. They don't need
another full time job, especially an unpaid one.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Was I had just moved to Silicon Valley years prior,
didn't know anyone, didn't have any money. I was driving
my mom's hand me down minivan, which was like pot
it was horrible, not good for dating. And I decided
to volunteer for a startup nonprofit that held events, and
so I busted my ass as a volunteer, kept on
taking on more responsibility, and kept on asking for more,
(03:51):
for more, for more, and eventually they were like, all right, well,
this guy's a go getter. We don't have many of
those among the volunteers because they think it's volunteer work.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
They don't have to work hard. And I was invited
to one.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Of their board meetings and they choose me to lead
the next major event.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
The important thing here was that I got to invite.
I got to choose and invite the panelists and the speakers.
So I invited Jack Canfield, co creator of chicken Suit
for the Soul, one hundred million plus books sold, the
guy who created the pet Rock, co founder of Electronic Arts,
the founder of Cliff Bar, all these people that I
wanted to meet, right so, I had no money, no connections.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The only thing I had was time. That was it.
So flash forward a few years.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
I want I want to I want to stop right
there for one second, because you know you bring up
a very valuable point. You know that you went and
you wanted to be mentored or you want to be
some you know, in an environment, and you know I
know that you and I and many of us mentor people,
but a lot of people don't realize what's in it
for the mentor where everybody comes in their pitches. I need,
I need, I need, and you know then my pitch
(04:55):
as well, you need. So I need to sleep less
to help you.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
I need to do that.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
And then, so you know your theory was let me
go and contrive, you let me also go. And you
know I'm going to get up before everybody. I'm going
to go to bed after everybody, and I'm going to
become a rock star there and I'm going to add
value and that value will then return to.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Me right, and at the time I had to borrow
that credibility. So in the beginning, I had no background.
I hadn't been on the cover of any magazines or
anything like that. So I worked with this nonprofit that
did bring in media. So they as an organization had
people from Forbes and you know, whether it was the
tech crunch of the day, whatever would show up and
(05:34):
that's why the panelists wanted to cut. And so flash
forward many years later and I never buged Jack and
never asked him to mentor me. Just every once in
a while if I had a real life decision question
and it was not frequent, I would send it to him.
And eventually many years later and we're still friends. But
he's like, you should make this a book, And before
I knew it, he's like, I'm interesting you to this person,
this person, this person, this person. All right, So that's
(05:56):
how I'm at the agent who's at the time a
brand new agent.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
He was a superstar editor, but a brand new agent.
So he also is in a situation.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Where he had, uh, you know, no resources, no reputation
as a as an agent. And then we went out
to sell the book together and it got turned down
violently by almost everybody.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It wasn't just a polite no, thank you, It was
this is garbage. Who is this idiot to tell me
how old is he? Again? To tell me A?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
B and C?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
People were very, very offended.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
In some cases, which is still kind of mystifying me,
but asks something.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know, with all those turndowns by what you would
say would be individuals who know the world, they know
the pulse, and they're telling you it's crap.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Now there's the fine line of we are in love
with our products. Yeah, where too, in level.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
We're not taking reality in the hand. Was there a
way that you were measuring it going, No, I'm taking
the pulse here or there, and I know I'm wanted
some because we have to be realistic.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Not all entrepreneurs are people going to get a you
know for sure not going to get.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
A f R.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Right.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
What point did you say this is not an L,
it's an A or even a B.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah? What gave me confidence? I think there were two things.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So the first was I'd been testing this material on
live classes for years and I always did feedback forms,
and I knew what people responded best to.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I knew how to hit a pulse.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The people who were in a position to buy my
book were not my target audience, and so it didn't
register for them, you know, they didn't have the same
pain points.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Maybe so, but it was demoralizing.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I mean, twenty plus rejections and not mild rejections. It
was really kind of demoralized. I was, and I started
to doubt myself a little bit here and there, but
I believed in the value of the content because it
was the true story of my experience and what had
worked for me. And I'd written the book, well what
I'd written at that point, at least basically as an
email to two friends and two very specific friends with
(08:01):
very specific problems.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And we had one meeting left.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I remember because I went to New York, flew to
New York to go to these in person meetings with
my agent.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It was just like no, no, no, no, goodbye no.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And this sounds like straight out of a movie, but
it's true. The last meeting was with Crown, and the
Crown is an imprint basically subdivision of Random House, and
I was just thinking to myself, well, this is the
last meeting, so hopefully I'm gonna be the.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Most polished right number one, and we had the meeting.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
We had the meeting, and you can kind of feel
a meeting if it's working or not, and it was
it wasn't working. And so I'm sitting there and people
are getting it, like intellectually, they're like, Okay, I get it,
but they weren't having the visceral response. And at the time,
there's a guy named Steve Ross who was in charge of.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Saying yes or no. He was the guy, and he
was way down at the end.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
It was one of those kind of like death star
meetings they do it at CAAA and all these places
where they bring in like thirty people and I'm like,
I don't even know who. I can't remember the people's names.
And I remember that towards the very end, Steve was like,
is there anything else you'd like to say before we
We kind of cut and then we can follow up
with you as one of those like don't call us,
we'll call you kind of like lead ups.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And I was like, oh God, here comes number thirty
or whatever. And I just I told him.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I was like absolutely, I said, I don't half asked anything.
And this is paraphrase, but it's just like if you
look at my records, whether it's in sports, whether it's
in tango, whether it's in anything, like, I will do
anything required. I will kill myself if necessary to make
this book a bestseller. And it will be a bestseller.
You guys should buy it. And he was just like,
(09:33):
that's ballsy, and.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And that's that.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Later, I had no idea like how the decision making
process went. But then about a year or two later,
the word came back to me. They're like, heah, was
that last thing you said? Word came back to me.
(10:09):
They're like, yeah, it was that last thing you said.
It was that that was the end of the meetings.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
How fast did they go to you know, contract or
or or let's start writing, let's start putting it together.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
After that, you know, once they also got at a
very good price, right, So it's it's a balance of factors, right,
But they're like, all right, this guy seems crazy enough.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
You know, we're managing our expectations. We're not paying a
lot for it, and this guy is a workhorse.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Probably right right, And they're like, yeah, we place bets
all the time, like all right, sure, like this guy
seems crazy enough. And it took just a couple of weeks,
you know, within a couple of weeks it was it
was time to write.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Well, you know what, and and honestly I never heard
the details of that story, but it has all the
It has all the personality to a traditional power broke theme,
which is number one, Uh, you didn't overburden the potential
mentor whoever it was. Now Number two is you know
that person and it happened with that potential mentor as
(11:04):
well as at the end of this this part of
your life, the decision making person said he's going to
do it with.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
Or without me, and I want to be part of
the ride.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
I think also that as being turned down by twenty
seven you know, publishers, I think that there's a couple
of things here. You had proof of concept and that's
what made you believe that you can go because you
had already tested it. I also think that a couple
other things. There's one there's one thing. I believe if
everybody loves it, you get the lowest common denominator, I believe.
(11:35):
So I think that it's that.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Or they're lying you and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
A hard note is at least better than maybe I'm
saying maybe I'll call you back.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah right, all right.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
So so I think that that all exercises exactly what
I tried to tell people, and we share to share
with people as the power broke, and then now we
have the book. It's it's it's somebody believed in you
now and know oh the other one I like. The
point is you know that asient that nobody was working with,
that you found and you became partners with. When I
(12:07):
found my partners, they were you know, in you know
my partners who ended up helped me distribute clothes. They
were number twenty thirty forty in the business. I noticed
that everybody likes to go to number one and two.
I want to go to number twenty. Who wants to
be number one or two exactly all right? Because they
have the connections, they have the pipeline. They just don't
have the product and or the grit of the newer position.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
And that's what you found.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So now all of a sudden, I'm Tim Ferris. I
have a potential book deal. I threw my joints on
the table and said that I'm going to make this
happen one way or another. You and I know that
publishing houses do not put a lot of money out
to promote things, especially if they got it on a deal. Okay, now,
all of a sudden, you have this book deal that
(12:53):
you really told them that you were going to change
the world and become a best seller, which is one
of the hardest things to do, especially at the time
when books were starting a plummet. They give you a deal,
the deal, they don't give you a lot of money,
and even when they give you a lot of money,
they barely do any marketing. Right now, you have to
go out and market this book, and you have to
deliver on your word.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
What happens? How does that happen?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
So I remember very very clearly, it was get this right.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It was December twenty sixth, two thousand and six, so
the book was slated to come out April. And I've
been thinking about this for a while with what I realized,
Like you said, publishers tend to put money behind books.
They've already put money into right, and they hadn't put
any money into mind, really, and so it's my job
to try to figure out how to market.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
But I didn't have free reian.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I didn't have a full hand of options because the
publisher didn't want me meddling with a lot of stuff.
They're like, no, no, no, we might do stuff with print,
we might do stuff with this.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
We might do stuff with that.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And what that left me was online, and online is
obviously a big category.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Keep in mind was end of two thousand and six
getting to this. Twitter was just coming out.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
It was it was baby what was out at that time,
So it would have been to Google.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Obviously, you've ad words and things like that. Facebook, you
had Twitter, which was very nascent.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
My Space was sort of.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, and there were but there was kind of word
on the street that like bloggers, bloggers were interesting, who
are these blogger people? And so I realized that if
online is the only sandbox I can plan, I should
probably figure out what the hell blogs and bloggers are.
And it's embarrassing to say it at this point, but
(14:40):
so I went online. I remember after Christmas and like,
I really need to figure this out. Everything I thought
I was going to do, I'm not allowed to do. Apparently,
So I searched, you know, most influential bloggers and technicoty
came up at the time. A few things, a few
a number of different things came up, and I saw
a summit. There was this uh some type of oh no, see, yes,
that's right, consumer electronic shows in Vegas. And to my mind,
(15:03):
because I used to do I used to have to
sell mass data storage systems when I graduated from school.
The first job I had was like boiler room selling
storage aery networks. So I made a lot of cold
calls and a lot of cold emails, and I realized, okay, well,
what is the hardest way to get a hold of
a blogger. The most crowded way is probably email, and
they're getting tons of email. Second most crowded would be phone, right,
(15:25):
but they don't just put their phone on the Internet
for the most part, unless unless Robert Scovel, who ended
up being very instrumental. And then the least crowded is
in person. And that's so I decided that I was
going to try to track down how do I find
groups like herds of bloggers in one place. And I
looked at CS and I bought a ticket to Vegas,
and I never went to CEES. I ended up going
(15:46):
to I started asking around effectively, like where can I
meet bloggers? Where could I ask bloggers questions? And they said, oh,
you should go to the you should go to the lounge.
Seagates sponsoring a lounge called the blog House h A
U S And it's free booze and free Wi Fi
for bloggers.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I was like perfect, And so I go to this blog.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
House and tip for people always be nice, be nice,
and this is this, this is where it's gonna get
really that becomes really crucial.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So I walk in. There's there's a woman who's who's helping.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
People get situated and sign in and checking their wristbands.
And I was, you know, I was very nice or
I didn't know anybody, and sat down and just what
I would. I would sit in on conversations and I'd
basically just say, hey, guys, I'm first time cees. I
don't know anything. Do you mind if I just eave todrop?
I would buy around a drinks but it's free. I'll
get you some drinks and they're like, yeah, okay, whatever.
(16:38):
And I just did that over and over and over again,
and it turned out later, you know, because I was
I was kind of lost, like baby in the woods,
and I was speaking with this woman Mariam, who was
helping people check in, and everybody wanted at that time,
to talk to this guy named Robert Scobel, who was
just he was a big deal. He was the guy
like if you wanted somebody to talk about you or
anything you were doing, he was the guy. But everyone
(17:00):
was on top of him. I mean everyone was just,
you know, clamoring to get a hold of this guy.
And I felt like that was not the right way
to talk to him. I didn't want to be one
of twenty people trying to get his attention. And it
turned out lo and behold.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I brought this up to this woman who was helping
me check in and she was his wife, and so
she's like, oh, you no, no problem, you can be Robert.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
He's really easy to talk to, no problem.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And so just like wait until they're done doing their thing,
So like, hang out, I have nothing else to do.
Hang out for another hour and a half, two hours,
three hours, whatever it was. And she made the introduction,
and that a very small mention from Robert is one
of the critical things that started the entire snowball. And
(17:45):
I took my experience to see yes, because I felt
like it was positive. There weren't any big results yet
because the book hadn't come out, but I was like,
this seems to be working somehow, like I'm getting that
sixth sense that things are starting to gel. And because
I was very honest, I didn't try to impress anybody.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
This is another thing.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I didn't try to impress anybody with what I knew
about tech or anything. I would be the first person
if they're like Ruby on Rails and I'd be like,
I'm sorry, I'm deep in the ignorance pool here, like
I'm drowning.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
What is Ruby on Rails? I'm sorry, guys.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And it was so uncommon that people would do that
and admit when they didn't know something that people would
then start asking me questions like what are you doing
here while I'm working on my first book? Okay, what's
your book about? And I would just let them kind
of draw it out of me. I wouldn't pitch. I
wouldn't go into full pitch mode because that's just like
it's just like trying to go on dates. You can't
just suddenly give a woman a five minute pitch like
(18:31):
it doesn't work, Like desperation doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It doesn't work. And so I went to south By Southwest.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And managed to like Finagle Beg and plead and negotiate
and go through many, many different people to try to
get a speaking spot, and they're like.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And Hugh who Hugh four is, who runs south By
Southwest Interactive is now a good friend. But at the time,
like he must have been so irritated because like keptain trying,
keptain Training's.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Like no, no, no, no no. And then they had
a cancelation. I think I should last minute cancelation.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
They're like, okay, you can go into the sponsored room
or people are gonna be like eating and drinking, like
non ideal. Right, but you'll be in the Adobe I
think it was the Adobe such and such room.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And you'll have a half hour an hour.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
And when I gave that presentation and I and I
didn't have a place to stay.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
All the hotels were sold out. All those memories are
coming back now.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I stayed no, I know, I don't know, I'm gonna
get tear up here. So I stayed at a friend's house.
And you know, love this, and I was so nervous
about giving my presentation. He had three chuahas, all all
of different personalities, different sizes, and I went into the
garage and the dogs camis I thought I was going
to go get food, and I gave my presentation of
these chiuahuas over and over and over again, and and
(19:43):
of course, well I assume they couldn't understand a word
I was saying. But if I was boring, like if
I didn't move around, if I wasn't engaging, they would
take off. And if I was like doing this kind
of stuff and like, you know, do you have really
tony robbins at them and keeping that engage, then they
sat there kind of like you mesmerized.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah, no exactly what they're like,
I don't know. Whatever he's doing, it looks like it's.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Exciting, so I'll watch and and I went. I gave
this presentation. The tech failed. I remember that I had
a whole presentation and like the laptop, like the internet
connection was dead.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
And I was like, okay, I guess Scott, I'm just
gonna have to wing it.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And but I'd rehearsed so much, gave this presentation, and
that was just that's that's where it took off.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, well, first of all, I think I think the
most important thing that I don't know if everybody else
is gonna learn, But I have two hot dogs and
two chihuahua song gonna start doing.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
My opinions no matter what. But I think the valuable.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Thing that you mentioned in the story a couple of things.
First of all, what you said about the bloggers is going,
you know, at them the normal traditional route. You know,
individuals who are in the space, they are approached a
million times. And I had the same problem with music
artists and producers. I can go down and try to
find them at a conference when they're getting nine thousand
cards something like that.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
You know what I did.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I started trying to find a way to meet them
in clubs and hang out at the studio, because you know,
a music artist is not waking up till two o'clock
in the afternoon because they aren't performing on in the.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Studio all night. So I tried to do that. Of course.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
I think also one of the most important things you
said is be nice everybody. You know, Mary Kay made
a statement years ago. Of course, everybody's walking around with
an invisible sign on them saying make me feel important, right,
And many people think that this whole thing of walking
around with yeah, I need to speak to the man.
I think that's that's not probably gonna get you as
(21:35):
far as speaking to the wife or the daughter of
the kids. And many times even her shark tank something
will a product I'll have, it'll air.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
I'll call all.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
My big to do guys, Hey, I want to do
a deal with you, and they'll go, yeah whatever. Let
them be home in the bed with their wife watching
TV and some chips and that product. Then air she goes,
oh my god, I would use that. My phone lights
up the next stay. So the most trusted advisors of
individuals are the people they love and make sure you're nice,
(22:07):
and especially even if they don't love them, and they
trust them like their secretaries or their doctors. These are
the people that can say, hey, this is a good
guy or this is a great girl. So I love
those stories and that's absolutely the most amazing thing. And
I think that one of the last things are is
your transparency. Don't walk in the room like you know everything,
because when you're talking to very seasoned people, there's a
(22:31):
certain code and or language that we speak. Not that
it's hidden, but there's certain things you would say that
can pick up that we know that you're lying or
you don't know what you're talking, right now a sudden
you have the book deal, you meet the bloggers the book.
You know, where does the book end up in life?
Speaker 5 (22:47):
At that point?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You know?
Speaker 5 (22:48):
And just give us the basically the what grade did
you get on that book?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Well, you know the book was hard to write. I
still find writing really difficult and book launches, and I
constrained what I spent. Also, I could have spent more
and I chose not to. I kept my expense is
really tight. I mean I was like five to ten
grand and that's mostly just flying around trying to find people.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
But part of the reason I.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Kept it tight is it made it required that my
thinking was more precise, and it required that my thinking
was unorthodox. Right, So even if you can afford more,
whether it's time, money, whatever, it doesn't mean you should
use it because you don't want all of that margin
for error. Necessarily want to force the hard thinking. So
(23:38):
when the book came out, I remember I was killing
myself for this book launch. And I should also point
out that the point of the Four Hour Week and
all the case studies in it is that you control
this currency called time, and you can allocate it to
things that either give you the most pleasure of the
highest leverage, right, And in this case, I knew the
book was going to give me the most leverage if
(24:00):
executed well. So I was just killing myself, you know,
kind of after doing an eighty twenty analysis.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I'm like, this is where my time is best spent.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And I did h I don't know if you I'm
sure you're blind on satellite radio tours before, where you
just walk in and you do like forty radio shows
in a row. It's exhausting.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's exhausting. Forty radio shows in a row. It's exhausting.
(24:40):
And I was towards the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
This was a Wednesday, I'm pretty sure it was a Wednesday,
and I was just demolished. And I got a call
from my editor and I was like, hey, yeah, there,
how's it gone.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I'm dead.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I'm really beat, Like I don't know if my brain's
gonna be very helpful it now. She's like, well, hi there,
mister New York Times best selling author. And I was like, okay, curse.
I was just like I got I was like, Heather,
please don't fuck with me right now. I'm so tired.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Please don't.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And she's like, no, you hit the list like you are,
you're on the extended list, but you hit the list,
and I was just like ah, and you know, I
just kind of leaned back against the wall and fell down,
and I was like kind of sitting there with my
head in my hands, and I was like, wow, you know,
I'd wanted it, but like on some level didn't think
it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And so the first book.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Just explodes and goes ballistic, I mean, goes completely nuts
and hits the New York Times list, stays on the
New York Times list for four about four and a
half years, unbroken. Every week hits number one, gets translated
into now forty something odd languages, and still still sits
around like two hundred on Amazon now.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
And it is amazing, you know, I go on after that,
you go and do the four hour Body yep, correct,
and again bang right out of there. Now, all of
a sudden, you know, you decide to do exactly what
you do best. You start to look at the next
best oportun tunities where the trend and or the people
are going, because you know, you know, as they say you,
(26:05):
you know you want to be where it's going to be.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Not yeah, it's at now, right, you go do a deal, right,
and what happens with this this book deal?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
You go to do? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So yeah, exactly like Wayne Gretzky, Right, you want you
want to go to where the puck is going to be,
not where it is. And I noticed a trend where
with the four hour workweek, the percentage of digital sales
ebooks was about i'd say six percent in the first
month or two, because the kindle was also just becoming
a thing, right, and then for the for our body
(26:35):
it was about twenty five thirty percent. And I could
just I could see where the trend was going and
where consumption was going of printed material.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So I had an opportunity to be the first major
book acquired by Amazon Publishing, which is not self publishing.
So Amazon was was and did launch Amazon Publishing, which
would pay advances, recruit authors, and compete head to head
against the Big six you know those assimon is shues, through's,
the random houses and everything.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And I had a chance to be.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
The first, right, and I like being first. There are
a lot of risks with that. You take a lot
of arrows. If anything's going to go wrong, you're gonna
feel it. But I just I love doing it. It's one
of those things that's what gets me excited. And I
was like, you know, like, if that's a wave no
one served before, I want to try that.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And so decided to partner with Amazon. And it was huge.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
News went out New York Times, everything, and I expected
there to be some blowbacks, right, expected there to be
some issues, but man, where there are a lot of issues.
Barnes and Noble somewhat expected.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
It.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Boycotted the book.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
So no, the biggest, the biggest guys.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, the big the big guy, like the big guy.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And then a ton of other folks in the UK,
Canada followed suit, and then the indies followed suit. And
then what I didn't expect was the big box guys
who were also afraid of Amazon for related but different reasons. Cosco, Target,
Walmart all boycott of the book. So now you're in
a situation. I was in a situation where it's like, Okay,
(28:07):
my entire reputation the last three years of my life
and I put about three years into each book. It
hinges on getting this to as many people as possible.
And I have effectively zero retail distribution right now. What
And I had to do a bunch of very unorthodox
things to try to get it out into people's hands.
(28:29):
So one, and there's an expression you hear sometimes in publishing,
which is the hardest place to sell a book is
in a bookstore. Why because there are a million other books.
And I started reaching out to other people with large
retail footprints, and Panera Bread was.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
One of them.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And it turned out I had a lot of fans
at Panera and.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
As a benefit of the.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
First book, and so we did sort of a shock
and hall campaign in New York City, specifically around all
the other publishers to like fire a warning shot. And
so the book distribution through Panera was done primarily in
New York. But it was for the pr benefit, right right,
because there wasn't planned to do the whole thing Nationho. Well,
I talk at this point for our chef, right, So
(29:14):
we're doing for our chef. And we launched it with
a secret menu also at Panera where people could get
slow carb items, which means no bread. At Panera, it
means bread. So we did all this simultaneously. I also
so I had to think about basically going back to
square one, because it's as if I have almost as
if I have no money, because I have no retail
(29:36):
distribution at all.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So it's like, oh, you.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Didn't have it's not that you didn't have any money.
You were actually negative. You had enemies. Yeah, I had enemies, right, right,
you had money.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Even if I had money, I couldn't buy my way
into placement at the end cap in Barnsdoba.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
What wouldn't happen, right exactly. So I was actually at
a deficit. So we did a bunch of really interesting things.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We also basically at the same time, I took over Panera,
negotiated really well, and took over a portion of the
taxi cabs in New York City to run a trailer
for the book. And simultaneous with that did something which
costs really no money at the time, got in touch
with BitTorrent. And BitTorrent, for those people who don't know,
I mean, it's a it's a peer to peer file
(30:16):
file sharing network. Basically, they wouldn't like that description very much,
but where you can find almost anything, and and they
wanted to establish themselves. And this is where you have
to figure out what other people want. I know, you
know this, but it's like it can't just be the
I need I need. Like you said, what does what
do other people want? And I sought out people like
Bittor because they wanted to establish themselves as a way
(30:38):
for legitimate artists or producers to spread.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Content to new fans.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
And I was like, I can be your poster boy,
right and I will basically in the same pitch I
gave to Crown right when I sold my first book.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I was like, I will, I will do everything.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
I'm going hard.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I'll go hard because this I need this, so I
will do everything I can to put you guys on
the map. With like mainstream media as a legit admit
source of distribution. So did a big partnership with them.
A ton of content given away for free email gates,
which means we got email addresses for people who signed
up to get these things for free. Long story short,
it was the entire Torrent bundle. So if you see
(31:14):
a four hour chef bundle, you can still find it
was downloaded. I think more than two and a half
million times, and it became at the end of the
day when we looked at it in retrospect like the
number five I think most downloaded Torrent of the entire
year ahead of some of the biggest musicians you've heard of,
And all of these things helped drive it to you know,
(31:35):
number one, Wall Street Journal hit the list, stay there,
sat there for a while. And would I have sold
more books if I had full retail rollout, probably?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Would it have forced me to be as innovative? Probably not.
Do I regret having made the decision.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Though, And that's it.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
And I think you are the epitome and you sum
it all up. I mean, you know, the lessons the
takeaways from there are two things. Number one is, uh,
you know, people believe that that after they get to
a certain stage and life, for if they get to
that certain stage life, they're not going to have roadblocks
and obstacles. So whether you're Steve Jobs who is fired
(32:12):
or at Apple, or your Bill Gates and the government
is coming after you for this to try to try
to choke you, or your Donald Trump and you.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
Leverage too much of your properties or.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Your damon John And after Foobo goes, they go, oh,
that was just a bad people don't like bagga jeans. No,
it's never gonna happen again. Don't think that it's ever
going to stop. Actually, the more successful you become.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You just trade up. Get yeah, you just trade up.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
Exactly, You just trade up the haters.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
But on the also, what you also have really showed
me and everybody who's watching is at whatever level you get,
you have to roll up your sleeves and you have
to dig in deep, and you yourself have to do
it if you think you're going to allocate it to
everybody else, and the whole idea about being a boss
and the owners to sit home and do this and
that I don't believe that success is going to follow that,
(33:03):
and you've proved it and shown it, so you go
ahead and break all the records, and of course the
book goes off to doing really really impressive numbers and
it's still out there, and you know, I just want
to sum this all.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Up because, first of all, here's where I find you amazing.
I find the fact that you find.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
New and viable veins to go out there and push
your agenda as well as enriched people's lives. Because if
you really look at not only how you've gotten there,
what you've put out is probably the most valuable thing
that we have in our lives. There's only three things
that really can help us in life or hurt us.
(33:46):
And it's time. It's your health, and it's your nutrition,
and they're all married together. And if any one of
those three fall, you can't be successful. And I'm not
talking about success is necessarily going to be money. You
can't have a productive life as a father and mother,
a child, you know, a loved one, and or you
(34:06):
can't have success.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
So, first of all, that's valuable.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
And I really urge everybody who's watching this to please
please read the books, and I am a huge fan
of it. I'm just gonna summ it up with some
of the other things that Tim has done, and this
is going to be very very short, but Tim is
an investor and advisor in things such as you may
have heard of him Facebook, Shopify, Uber ever know, angel List, Twitter,
(34:29):
and the list goes on. I will list everything and
every way that you can really check out Tim's materials
and I'm a big fan of his. Thank you, Tim
for hanging out with me, and I really did learn things.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
I'm a student of life man.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Thank you. This is great. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
That Moment with Damon John is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite show, and don't forget
to subscribe to and rate the show.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
And of course you can all connect with me on
any of my social media platforms.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
At the Shark Daymon spelt like Raymond, but what a
d
I had to do a bunch of very unorthodox things
to try to get it out into people's hands. So
one and there's there's an expression you hear sometimes in publishing,
which is the hardest place to sell a book is
in a bookstore.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Why because there are a million other books.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
And I started reaching out to other people with large
retail footprints, and so we did sort of a shock
in all campaign in New York City, specifically around all
the other publishers to fire a warning shot. So I
was actually at a deficit deficit.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
What if I told you there was more to the
story behind game changing events? Get ready for my new podcast,
That Moment with Damon John will jump into the personal
stories of some of the most influential people on the planet,
from business mobiles and celebrities to athletes and artisan.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
You got me the shots, Damon John and I have
the pleasure of bringing my buddy on. And my buddy's
name is Tim Ferriss. I don't think he needs any introduction,
but I'm going to actually read a couple of points
because I do know many of the things that Tim
has done and is still doing. But I want to
make sure that that I really put in perspective because
there's so many things. So Tim of course is an author,
(01:18):
an entrepreneur, an angel, investor, and also really a human
guinea pig. And I think that Tim exercises the power broke,
whether you know when he is looking in vetting deals
or whether he is actually physically becoming a human guinea
pig for something, or he's putting out his book.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
And information, or he's just out there learning.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
So I learned from Tim a lot, and I just
want to basically introduce Tim Ferriss.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
You know, Tim, I'm great, right, thank you, thanks for
being here with me.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So now you know, the first thing I want to
talk about is basically, you know when you came out
and you decided to come out with the four hour, right,
you know, we all the theory of the power broke
is the fact that we don't utilize money to accomplish
your job. And I don't care if you're working at
(02:09):
you know what Ford. You know, it's about ingenuity and
it's about thinking, but it's not about the actual dollars.
The dollars will come, but being creative. Why would somebody
give you a book deal because I'm told that you
got turned down by twenty six twenty seven authors. I
got turned down by twenty seven banks. I guess that's
the lucky number. What was the challenge of, you know,
(02:30):
getting a book deal and getting it out there.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well, the first problem, if you want to look at
it as a problem, was that I never wanted to
write a book. So there was an accidental career and
I had a few students I was just guest lecturing
at the time recommend that I write a book.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And I was like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've
ever heard.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I can't write, don't want to write anything longer than
an email. I'm not going to do it. And when
the notes started coming together from this class and a
few friends of mine were like, you should just make
this book.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You have all of this material that you could turn
into something.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I tried to put it together and eventually got introduced
to a couple of the right people, which, by the way,
actually I'm going to take a backstep. So the person
who introduced me to my agent was Jack Canfield, who
was co creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And
I think this is probably most relevant to the power
of Brooke. The way I met him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
People are always asking me, how do you meet your mentor?
But you send him an email and ask them to
be your mentor. I'm like, no, that's not what you do.
Because they have enough of a job. They don't need
another full time job, especially an unpaid one.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Was I had just moved to Silicon Valley years prior,
didn't know anyone, didn't have any money. I was driving
my mom's hand me down minivan, which was like pot
it was horrible, not good for dating. And I decided
to volunteer for a startup nonprofit that held events, and
so I busted my ass as a volunteer, kept on
taking on more responsibility, and kept on asking for more,
(03:51):
for more, for more, and eventually they were like, all right, well,
this guy's a go getter. We don't have many of
those among the volunteers because they think it's volunteer work.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
They don't have to work hard. And I was invited
to one.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Of their board meetings and they choose me to lead
the next major event.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
The important thing here was that I got to invite.
I got to choose and invite the panelists and the speakers.
So I invited Jack Canfield, co creator of chicken Suit
for the Soul, one hundred million plus books sold, the
guy who created the pet Rock, co founder of Electronic Arts,
the founder of Cliff Bar, all these people that I
wanted to meet, right so, I had no money, no connections.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The only thing I had was time. That was it.
So flash forward a few years.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
I want I want to I want to stop right
there for one second, because you know you bring up
a very valuable point. You know that you went and
you wanted to be mentored or you want to be
some you know, in an environment, and you know I
know that you and I and many of us mentor people,
but a lot of people don't realize what's in it
for the mentor where everybody comes in their pitches. I need,
I need, I need, and you know then my pitch
(04:55):
as well, you need. So I need to sleep less
to help you.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
I need to do that.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
And then, so you know your theory was let me
go and contrive, you let me also go. And you
know I'm going to get up before everybody. I'm going
to go to bed after everybody, and I'm going to
become a rock star there and I'm going to add
value and that value will then return to.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Me right, and at the time I had to borrow
that credibility. So in the beginning, I had no background.
I hadn't been on the cover of any magazines or
anything like that. So I worked with this nonprofit that
did bring in media. So they as an organization had
people from Forbes and you know, whether it was the
tech crunch of the day, whatever would show up and
(05:34):
that's why the panelists wanted to cut. And so flash
forward many years later and I never buged Jack and
never asked him to mentor me. Just every once in
a while if I had a real life decision question
and it was not frequent, I would send it to him.
And eventually many years later and we're still friends. But
he's like, you should make this a book, And before
I knew it, he's like, I'm interesting you to this person,
this person, this person, this person. All right, So that's
(05:56):
how I'm at the agent who's at the time a
brand new agent.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
He was a superstar editor, but a brand new agent.
So he also is in a situation.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Where he had, uh, you know, no resources, no reputation
as a as an agent. And then we went out
to sell the book together and it got turned down
violently by almost everybody.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It wasn't just a polite no, thank you, It was
this is garbage. Who is this idiot to tell me
how old is he? Again? To tell me A?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
B and C?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
People were very, very offended.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
In some cases, which is still kind of mystifying me,
but asks something.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know, with all those turndowns by what you would
say would be individuals who know the world, they know
the pulse, and they're telling you it's crap.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Now there's the fine line of we are in love
with our products. Yeah, where too, in level.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
We're not taking reality in the hand. Was there a
way that you were measuring it going, No, I'm taking
the pulse here or there, and I know I'm wanted
some because we have to be realistic.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Not all entrepreneurs are people going to get a you
know for sure not going to get.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
A f R.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Right.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
What point did you say this is not an L,
it's an A or even a B.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah? What gave me confidence? I think there were two things.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So the first was I'd been testing this material on
live classes for years and I always did feedback forms,
and I knew what people responded best to.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I knew how to hit a pulse.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The people who were in a position to buy my
book were not my target audience, and so it didn't
register for them, you know, they didn't have the same
pain points.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Maybe so, but it was demoralizing.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I mean, twenty plus rejections and not mild rejections. It
was really kind of demoralized. I was, and I started
to doubt myself a little bit here and there, but
I believed in the value of the content because it
was the true story of my experience and what had
worked for me. And I'd written the book, well what
I'd written at that point, at least basically as an
email to two friends and two very specific friends with
(08:01):
very specific problems.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
And we had one meeting left.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I remember because I went to New York, flew to
New York to go to these in person meetings with
my agent.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It was just like no, no, no, no, goodbye no.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And this sounds like straight out of a movie, but
it's true. The last meeting was with Crown, and the
Crown is an imprint basically subdivision of Random House, and
I was just thinking to myself, well, this is the
last meeting, so hopefully I'm gonna be the.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Most polished right number one, and we had the meeting.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
We had the meeting, and you can kind of feel
a meeting if it's working or not, and it was
it wasn't working. And so I'm sitting there and people
are getting it, like intellectually, they're like, Okay, I get it,
but they weren't having the visceral response. And at the time,
there's a guy named Steve Ross who was in charge of.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Saying yes or no. He was the guy, and he
was way down at the end.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
It was one of those kind of like death star
meetings they do it at CAAA and all these places
where they bring in like thirty people and I'm like,
I don't even know who. I can't remember the people's names.
And I remember that towards the very end, Steve was like,
is there anything else you'd like to say before we
We kind of cut and then we can follow up
with you as one of those like don't call us,
we'll call you kind of like lead ups.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And I was like, oh God, here comes number thirty
or whatever. And I just I told him.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I was like absolutely, I said, I don't half asked anything.
And this is paraphrase, but it's just like if you
look at my records, whether it's in sports, whether it's
in tango, whether it's in anything, like, I will do
anything required. I will kill myself if necessary to make
this book a bestseller. And it will be a bestseller.
You guys should buy it. And he was just like,
(09:33):
that's ballsy, and.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And that's that.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Later, I had no idea like how the decision making
process went. But then about a year or two later,
the word came back to me. They're like, heah, was
that last thing you said? Word came back to me.
(10:09):
They're like, yeah, it was that last thing you said.
It was that that was the end of the meetings.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
How fast did they go to you know, contract or
or or let's start writing, let's start putting it together.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
After that, you know, once they also got at a
very good price, right, So it's it's a balance of factors, right,
But they're like, all right, this guy seems crazy enough.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
You know, we're managing our expectations. We're not paying a
lot for it, and this guy is a workhorse.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Probably right right, And they're like, yeah, we place bets
all the time, like all right, sure, like this guy
seems crazy enough. And it took just a couple of weeks,
you know, within a couple of weeks it was it
was time to write.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Well, you know what, and and honestly I never heard
the details of that story, but it has all the
It has all the personality to a traditional power broke theme,
which is number one, Uh, you didn't overburden the potential
mentor whoever it was. Now Number two is you know
that person and it happened with that potential mentor as
(11:04):
well as at the end of this this part of
your life, the decision making person said he's going to
do it with.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
Or without me, and I want to be part of
the ride.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
I think also that as being turned down by twenty
seven you know, publishers, I think that there's a couple
of things here. You had proof of concept and that's
what made you believe that you can go because you
had already tested it. I also think that a couple
other things. There's one there's one thing. I believe if
everybody loves it, you get the lowest common denominator, I believe.
(11:35):
So I think that it's that.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Or they're lying you and you know, and.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
A hard note is at least better than maybe I'm
saying maybe I'll call you back.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah right, all right.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
So so I think that that all exercises exactly what
I tried to tell people, and we share to share
with people as the power broke, and then now we
have the book. It's it's it's somebody believed in you
now and know oh the other one I like. The
point is you know that asient that nobody was working with,
that you found and you became partners with. When I
(12:07):
found my partners, they were you know, in you know
my partners who ended up helped me distribute clothes. They
were number twenty thirty forty in the business. I noticed
that everybody likes to go to number one and two.
I want to go to number twenty. Who wants to
be number one or two exactly all right? Because they
have the connections, they have the pipeline. They just don't
have the product and or the grit of the newer position.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
And that's what you found.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So now all of a sudden, I'm Tim Ferris. I
have a potential book deal. I threw my joints on
the table and said that I'm going to make this
happen one way or another. You and I know that
publishing houses do not put a lot of money out
to promote things, especially if they got it on a deal. Okay, now,
all of a sudden, you have this book deal that
(12:53):
you really told them that you were going to change
the world and become a best seller, which is one
of the hardest things to do, especially at the time
when books were starting a plummet. They give you a deal,
the deal, they don't give you a lot of money,
and even when they give you a lot of money,
they barely do any marketing. Right now, you have to
go out and market this book, and you have to
deliver on your word.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
What happens? How does that happen?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
So I remember very very clearly, it was get this right.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It was December twenty sixth, two thousand and six, so
the book was slated to come out April. And I've
been thinking about this for a while with what I realized,
Like you said, publishers tend to put money behind books.
They've already put money into right, and they hadn't put
any money into mind, really, and so it's my job
to try to figure out how to market.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
But I didn't have free reian.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I didn't have a full hand of options because the
publisher didn't want me meddling with a lot of stuff.
They're like, no, no, no, we might do stuff with print,
we might do stuff with this.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
We might do stuff with that.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And what that left me was online, and online is
obviously a big category.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Keep in mind was end of two thousand and six
getting to this. Twitter was just coming out.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
It was it was baby what was out at that time,
So it would have been to Google.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Obviously, you've ad words and things like that. Facebook, you
had Twitter, which was very nascent.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
My Space was sort of.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, and there were but there was kind of word
on the street that like bloggers, bloggers were interesting, who
are these blogger people? And so I realized that if
online is the only sandbox I can plan, I should
probably figure out what the hell blogs and bloggers are.
And it's embarrassing to say it at this point, but
(14:40):
so I went online. I remember after Christmas and like,
I really need to figure this out. Everything I thought
I was going to do, I'm not allowed to do. Apparently,
So I searched, you know, most influential bloggers and technicoty
came up at the time. A few things, a few
a number of different things came up, and I saw
a summit. There was this uh some type of oh no, see, yes,
that's right, consumer electronic shows in Vegas. And to my mind,
(15:03):
because I used to do I used to have to
sell mass data storage systems when I graduated from school.
The first job I had was like boiler room selling
storage aery networks. So I made a lot of cold
calls and a lot of cold emails, and I realized, okay, well,
what is the hardest way to get a hold of
a blogger. The most crowded way is probably email, and
they're getting tons of email. Second most crowded would be phone, right,
(15:25):
but they don't just put their phone on the Internet
for the most part, unless unless Robert Scovel, who ended
up being very instrumental. And then the least crowded is
in person. And that's so I decided that I was
going to try to track down how do I find
groups like herds of bloggers in one place. And I
looked at CS and I bought a ticket to Vegas,
and I never went to CEES. I ended up going
(15:46):
to I started asking around effectively, like where can I
meet bloggers? Where could I ask bloggers questions? And they said, oh,
you should go to the you should go to the lounge.
Seagates sponsoring a lounge called the blog House h A
U S And it's free booze and free Wi Fi
for bloggers.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I was like perfect, And so I go to this blog.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
House and tip for people always be nice, be nice,
and this is this, this is where it's gonna get
really that becomes really crucial.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So I walk in. There's there's a woman who's who's helping.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
People get situated and sign in and checking their wristbands.
And I was, you know, I was very nice or
I didn't know anybody, and sat down and just what
I would. I would sit in on conversations and I'd
basically just say, hey, guys, I'm first time cees. I
don't know anything. Do you mind if I just eave todrop?
I would buy around a drinks but it's free. I'll
get you some drinks and they're like, yeah, okay, whatever.
(16:38):
And I just did that over and over and over again,
and it turned out later, you know, because I was
I was kind of lost, like baby in the woods,
and I was speaking with this woman Mariam, who was
helping people check in, and everybody wanted at that time,
to talk to this guy named Robert Scobel, who was
just he was a big deal. He was the guy
like if you wanted somebody to talk about you or
anything you were doing, he was the guy. But everyone
(17:00):
was on top of him. I mean everyone was just,
you know, clamoring to get a hold of this guy.
And I felt like that was not the right way
to talk to him. I didn't want to be one
of twenty people trying to get his attention. And it
turned out lo and behold.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I brought this up to this woman who was helping
me check in and she was his wife, and so
she's like, oh, you no, no problem, you can be Robert.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
He's really easy to talk to, no problem.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And so just like wait until they're done doing their thing,
So like, hang out, I have nothing else to do.
Hang out for another hour and a half, two hours,
three hours, whatever it was. And she made the introduction,
and that a very small mention from Robert is one
of the critical things that started the entire snowball. And
(17:45):
I took my experience to see yes, because I felt
like it was positive. There weren't any big results yet
because the book hadn't come out, but I was like,
this seems to be working somehow, like I'm getting that
sixth sense that things are starting to gel. And because
I was very honest, I didn't try to impress anybody.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
This is another thing.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I didn't try to impress anybody with what I knew
about tech or anything. I would be the first person
if they're like Ruby on Rails and I'd be like,
I'm sorry, I'm deep in the ignorance pool here, like
I'm drowning.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
What is Ruby on Rails? I'm sorry, guys.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And it was so uncommon that people would do that
and admit when they didn't know something that people would
then start asking me questions like what are you doing
here while I'm working on my first book? Okay, what's
your book about? And I would just let them kind
of draw it out of me. I wouldn't pitch. I
wouldn't go into full pitch mode because that's just like
it's just like trying to go on dates. You can't
just suddenly give a woman a five minute pitch like
(18:31):
it doesn't work, Like desperation doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It doesn't work. And so I went to south By Southwest.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And managed to like Finagle Beg and plead and negotiate
and go through many, many different people to try to
get a speaking spot, and they're like.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And Hugh who Hugh four is, who runs south By
Southwest Interactive is now a good friend. But at the time,
like he must have been so irritated because like keptain trying,
keptain Training's.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Like no, no, no, no no. And then they had
a cancelation. I think I should last minute cancelation.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
They're like, okay, you can go into the sponsored room
or people are gonna be like eating and drinking, like
non ideal. Right, but you'll be in the Adobe I
think it was the Adobe such and such room.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And you'll have a half hour an hour.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
And when I gave that presentation and I and I
didn't have a place to stay.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
All the hotels were sold out. All those memories are
coming back now.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I stayed no, I know, I don't know, I'm gonna
get tear up here. So I stayed at a friend's house.
And you know, love this, and I was so nervous
about giving my presentation. He had three chuahas, all all
of different personalities, different sizes, and I went into the
garage and the dogs camis I thought I was going
to go get food, and I gave my presentation of
these chiuahuas over and over and over again, and and
(19:43):
of course, well I assume they couldn't understand a word
I was saying. But if I was boring, like if
I didn't move around, if I wasn't engaging, they would
take off. And if I was like doing this kind
of stuff and like, you know, do you have really
tony robbins at them and keeping that engage, then they
sat there kind of like you mesmerized.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah, no exactly what they're like,
I don't know. Whatever he's doing, it looks like it's.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Exciting, so I'll watch and and I went. I gave
this presentation. The tech failed. I remember that I had
a whole presentation and like the laptop, like the internet
connection was dead.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
And I was like, okay, I guess Scott, I'm just
gonna have to wing it.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
And but I'd rehearsed so much, gave this presentation, and
that was just that's that's where it took off.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, well, first of all, I think I think the
most important thing that I don't know if everybody else
is gonna learn, But I have two hot dogs and
two chihuahua song gonna start doing.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
My opinions no matter what. But I think the valuable.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Thing that you mentioned in the story a couple of things.
First of all, what you said about the bloggers is going,
you know, at them the normal traditional route. You know,
individuals who are in the space, they are approached a
million times. And I had the same problem with music
artists and producers. I can go down and try to
find them at a conference when they're getting nine thousand
cards something like that.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
You know what I did.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
I started trying to find a way to meet them
in clubs and hang out at the studio, because you know,
a music artist is not waking up till two o'clock
in the afternoon because they aren't performing on in the.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Studio all night. So I tried to do that. Of course.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
I think also one of the most important things you
said is be nice everybody. You know, Mary Kay made
a statement years ago. Of course, everybody's walking around with
an invisible sign on them saying make me feel important, right,
And many people think that this whole thing of walking
around with yeah, I need to speak to the man.
I think that's that's not probably gonna get you as
(21:35):
far as speaking to the wife or the daughter of
the kids. And many times even her shark tank something
will a product I'll have, it'll air.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
I'll call all.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
My big to do guys, Hey, I want to do
a deal with you, and they'll go, yeah whatever. Let
them be home in the bed with their wife watching
TV and some chips and that product. Then air she goes,
oh my god, I would use that. My phone lights
up the next stay. So the most trusted advisors of
individuals are the people they love and make sure you're nice,
(22:07):
and especially even if they don't love them, and they
trust them like their secretaries or their doctors. These are
the people that can say, hey, this is a good
guy or this is a great girl. So I love
those stories and that's absolutely the most amazing thing. And
I think that one of the last things are is
your transparency. Don't walk in the room like you know everything,
because when you're talking to very seasoned people, there's a
(22:31):
certain code and or language that we speak. Not that
it's hidden, but there's certain things you would say that
can pick up that we know that you're lying or
you don't know what you're talking, right now a sudden
you have the book deal, you meet the bloggers the book.
You know, where does the book end up in life?
Speaker 5 (22:47):
At that point?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You know?
Speaker 5 (22:48):
And just give us the basically the what grade did
you get on that book?
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Well, you know the book was hard to write. I
still find writing really difficult and book launches, and I
constrained what I spent. Also, I could have spent more
and I chose not to. I kept my expense is
really tight. I mean I was like five to ten
grand and that's mostly just flying around trying to find people.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
But part of the reason I.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Kept it tight is it made it required that my
thinking was more precise, and it required that my thinking
was unorthodox. Right, So even if you can afford more,
whether it's time, money, whatever, it doesn't mean you should
use it because you don't want all of that margin
for error. Necessarily want to force the hard thinking. So
(23:38):
when the book came out, I remember I was killing
myself for this book launch. And I should also point
out that the point of the Four Hour Week and
all the case studies in it is that you control
this currency called time, and you can allocate it to
things that either give you the most pleasure of the
highest leverage, right, And in this case, I knew the
book was going to give me the most leverage if
(24:00):
executed well. So I was just killing myself, you know,
kind of after doing an eighty twenty analysis.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I'm like, this is where my time is best spent.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And I did h I don't know if you I'm
sure you're blind on satellite radio tours before, where you
just walk in and you do like forty radio shows
in a row. It's exhausting.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's exhausting. Forty radio shows in a row. It's exhausting.
(24:40):
And I was towards the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
This was a Wednesday, I'm pretty sure it was a Wednesday,
and I was just demolished. And I got a call
from my editor and I was like, hey, yeah, there,
how's it gone.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I'm dead.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I'm really beat, Like I don't know if my brain's
gonna be very helpful it now. She's like, well, hi there,
mister New York Times best selling author. And I was like, okay, curse.
I was just like I got I was like, Heather,
please don't fuck with me right now. I'm so tired.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Please don't.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And she's like, no, you hit the list like you are,
you're on the extended list, but you hit the list,
and I was just like ah, and you know, I
just kind of leaned back against the wall and fell down,
and I was like kind of sitting there with my
head in my hands, and I was like, wow, you know,
I'd wanted it, but like on some level didn't think
it was gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And so the first book.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Just explodes and goes ballistic, I mean, goes completely nuts
and hits the New York Times list, stays on the
New York Times list for four about four and a
half years, unbroken. Every week hits number one, gets translated
into now forty something odd languages, and still still sits
around like two hundred on Amazon now.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
And it is amazing, you know, I go on after that,
you go and do the four hour Body yep, correct,
and again bang right out of there. Now, all of
a sudden, you know, you decide to do exactly what
you do best. You start to look at the next
best oportun tunities where the trend and or the people
are going, because you know, you know, as they say you,
(26:05):
you know you want to be where it's going to be.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Not yeah, it's at now, right, you go do a deal, right,
and what happens with this this book deal?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
You go to do? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So yeah, exactly like Wayne Gretzky, Right, you want you
want to go to where the puck is going to be,
not where it is. And I noticed a trend where
with the four hour workweek, the percentage of digital sales
ebooks was about i'd say six percent in the first
month or two, because the kindle was also just becoming
a thing, right, and then for the for our body
(26:35):
it was about twenty five thirty percent. And I could
just I could see where the trend was going and
where consumption was going of printed material.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So I had an opportunity to be the first major
book acquired by Amazon Publishing, which is not self publishing.
So Amazon was was and did launch Amazon Publishing, which
would pay advances, recruit authors, and compete head to head
against the Big six you know those assimon is shues, through's,
the random houses and everything.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And I had a chance to be.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
The first, right, and I like being first. There are
a lot of risks with that. You take a lot
of arrows. If anything's going to go wrong, you're gonna
feel it. But I just I love doing it. It's one
of those things that's what gets me excited. And I
was like, you know, like, if that's a wave no
one served before, I want to try that.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And so decided to partner with Amazon. And it was huge.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
News went out New York Times, everything, and I expected
there to be some blowbacks, right, expected there to be
some issues, but man, where there are a lot of issues.
Barnes and Noble somewhat expected.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
It.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Boycotted the book.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
So no, the biggest, the biggest guys.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, the big the big guy, like the big guy.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
And then a ton of other folks in the UK,
Canada followed suit, and then the indies followed suit. And
then what I didn't expect was the big box guys
who were also afraid of Amazon for related but different reasons. Cosco, Target,
Walmart all boycott of the book. So now you're in
a situation. I was in a situation where it's like, Okay,
(28:07):
my entire reputation the last three years of my life
and I put about three years into each book. It
hinges on getting this to as many people as possible.
And I have effectively zero retail distribution right now. What
And I had to do a bunch of very unorthodox
things to try to get it out into people's hands.
(28:29):
So one, and there's an expression you hear sometimes in publishing,
which is the hardest place to sell a book is
in a bookstore. Why because there are a million other books.
And I started reaching out to other people with large
retail footprints, and Panera Bread was.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
One of them.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And it turned out I had a lot of fans
at Panera and.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
As a benefit of the.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
First book, and so we did sort of a shock
and hall campaign in New York City, specifically around all
the other publishers to like fire a warning shot. And
so the book distribution through Panera was done primarily in
New York. But it was for the pr benefit, right right,
because there wasn't planned to do the whole thing Nationho. Well,
I talk at this point for our chef, right, So
(29:14):
we're doing for our chef. And we launched it with
a secret menu also at Panera where people could get
slow carb items, which means no bread. At Panera, it
means bread. So we did all this simultaneously. I also
so I had to think about basically going back to
square one, because it's as if I have almost as
if I have no money, because I have no retail
(29:36):
distribution at all.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
So it's like, oh, you.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Didn't have it's not that you didn't have any money.
You were actually negative. You had enemies. Yeah, I had enemies, right, right,
you had money.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Even if I had money, I couldn't buy my way
into placement at the end cap in Barnsdoba.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
What wouldn't happen, right exactly. So I was actually at
a deficit. So we did a bunch of really interesting things.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We also basically at the same time, I took over Panera,
negotiated really well, and took over a portion of the
taxi cabs in New York City to run a trailer
for the book. And simultaneous with that did something which
costs really no money at the time, got in touch
with BitTorrent. And BitTorrent, for those people who don't know,
I mean, it's a it's a peer to peer file
(30:16):
file sharing network. Basically, they wouldn't like that description very much,
but where you can find almost anything, and and they
wanted to establish themselves. And this is where you have
to figure out what other people want. I know, you
know this, but it's like it can't just be the
I need I need. Like you said, what does what
do other people want? And I sought out people like
Bittor because they wanted to establish themselves as a way
(30:38):
for legitimate artists or producers to spread.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Content to new fans.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
And I was like, I can be your poster boy,
right and I will basically in the same pitch I
gave to Crown right when I sold my first book.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I was like, I will, I will do everything.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
I'm going hard.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I'll go hard because this I need this, so I
will do everything I can to put you guys on
the map. With like mainstream media as a legit admit
source of distribution. So did a big partnership with them.
A ton of content given away for free email gates,
which means we got email addresses for people who signed
up to get these things for free. Long story short,
it was the entire Torrent bundle. So if you see
(31:14):
a four hour chef bundle, you can still find it
was downloaded. I think more than two and a half
million times, and it became at the end of the
day when we looked at it in retrospect like the
number five I think most downloaded Torrent of the entire
year ahead of some of the biggest musicians you've heard of,
And all of these things helped drive it to you know,
(31:35):
number one, Wall Street Journal hit the list, stay there,
sat there for a while. And would I have sold
more books if I had full retail rollout, probably?
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Would it have forced me to be as innovative? Probably not.
Do I regret having made the decision.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Though, And that's it.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
And I think you are the epitome and you sum
it all up. I mean, you know, the lessons the
takeaways from there are two things. Number one is, uh,
you know, people believe that that after they get to
a certain stage and life, for if they get to
that certain stage life, they're not going to have roadblocks
and obstacles. So whether you're Steve Jobs who is fired
(32:12):
or at Apple, or your Bill Gates and the government
is coming after you for this to try to try
to choke you, or your Donald Trump and you.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
Leverage too much of your properties or.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Your damon John And after Foobo goes, they go, oh,
that was just a bad people don't like bagga jeans. No,
it's never gonna happen again. Don't think that it's ever
going to stop. Actually, the more successful you become.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You just trade up. Get yeah, you just trade up.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
Exactly, You just trade up the haters.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
But on the also, what you also have really showed
me and everybody who's watching is at whatever level you get,
you have to roll up your sleeves and you have
to dig in deep, and you yourself have to do
it if you think you're going to allocate it to
everybody else, and the whole idea about being a boss
and the owners to sit home and do this and
that I don't believe that success is going to follow that,
(33:03):
and you've proved it and shown it, so you go
ahead and break all the records, and of course the
book goes off to doing really really impressive numbers and
it's still out there, and you know, I just want
to sum this all.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Up because, first of all, here's where I find you amazing.
I find the fact that you find.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
New and viable veins to go out there and push
your agenda as well as enriched people's lives. Because if
you really look at not only how you've gotten there,
what you've put out is probably the most valuable thing
that we have in our lives. There's only three things
that really can help us in life or hurt us.
(33:46):
And it's time. It's your health, and it's your nutrition,
and they're all married together. And if any one of
those three fall, you can't be successful. And I'm not
talking about success is necessarily going to be money. You
can't have a productive life as a father and mother,
a child, you know, a loved one, and or you
(34:06):
can't have success.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
So, first of all, that's valuable.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
And I really urge everybody who's watching this to please
please read the books, and I am a huge fan
of it. I'm just gonna summ it up with some
of the other things that Tim has done, and this
is going to be very very short, but Tim is
an investor and advisor in things such as you may
have heard of him Facebook, Shopify, Uber ever know, angel List, Twitter,
(34:29):
and the list goes on. I will list everything and
every way that you can really check out Tim's materials
and I'm a big fan of his. Thank you, Tim
for hanging out with me, and I really did learn things.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
I'm a student of life man.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Thank you. This is great. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
That Moment with Damon John is a production of the
Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite show, and don't forget
to subscribe to and rate the show.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
And of course you can all connect with me on
any of my social media platforms.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
At the Shark Daymon spelt like Raymond, but what a
d
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