To Dine For with Kate Sullivan

KATE SULLIVAN: On a corner in the East Village, is a Tuscan American gem of a restaurant.

It's where I'm meeting a trailblazing author and entrepreneur.

Tim, it's so nice to meet you.

TIM FERRISS: It's nice to meet you too.

KATE: Tim Ferriss is taking me to his favorite restaurant to eat what he loves and find out why he loves it.

TIM: I come here often for the mushrooms.

KATE: Just for the mushrooms.

Then, we're diving into his incredible career.

Were you surprised for the reaction?

TIM: Oh, yeah, I wasn't ready, nor was I remotely prepared for any of it.

KATE: Because it really changed your life.

TIM: Oh, yeah.

KATE: And hearing how his success in investing led to the freedom most of us only dream of.

TIM: Everything professional is scratching my own itch.

KATE: And why he believes his greatest contribution is not a book he writes or a company he creates, but a movement he believes in.

TIM: Changing the national conversation and the international conversation around these things should ultimately, over time, affect millions.

KATE: What's better in life than a bottle of wine, great food, and an amazing conversation?

My name is Kate Sullivan, and I am the host of To Dine For .

I'm a journalist, a foodie, and traveler with an appetite for the stories of people who are hungry for more: dreamers, visionaries, artists: those who hustle hard in the direction they love.

I travel with them to their favorite restaurant to hear how they did it.

This show is a toast to them and their American Dream.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... (Music and chatter) MAN: During the weekends, we do like a grill.

(Clatter of chess board) MAN #2: You know you have bragging rights in the hood.

I'm like, "My guy won the game."

(Clatter of chess piece and men yelling and cheering) FEMALE ANNOUNCER: At American National, we honor the "do"-ers and the dreamers: The people who gets things done and keep the world moving.

Our local agents are honored to serve your community, because it's their community, too.

American National.

KATE: Hello everyone.

Today, I'm in the East Village of New York City on my way into restaurant Hearth .

A local favorite.

The person who chose this as their absolute favorite restaurant is a trailblazer in the world of personal development, an angel investor, a philanthropist, and an author.

I can't wait for you to meet Tim Ferriss.

Tim, it's so nice to meet you.

TIM: It's nice to meet you, too.

KATE: How's your day going?

TIM: Oh, it's great.

KATE: Fantastic.

TIM: There's no more rain.

KATE: In a New York City neighborhood known for living on the cutting edge of trend.

Tucked quaintly on a corner is a respite of a place serving something on the simpler side.

MARCO CANORA: We don't chase trends.

We do simple, thoughtful things.

That's it.

KATE: The vibe at Hearth is distinctly human.

Here, hospitality means honoring guests with the kind of welcome that never goes out of style.

MARCO: We really believe in the core simple values of like, making people feel welcome and making them feel appreciated, and making them feel seen.

And these are old tenets of what it means to be human and to be kind.

KATE: And when it comes to the kitchen, Hearth has relied on the same basic recipe for over 20 years of success.

Start with the highest quality ingredients, keep it simple and always serve straight from the heart.

MARCO: There's a huge focus on raw materials.

We're shopping at the Greenmarket four days a week.

It's like old school.

We get our delivery from our local grass-fed beef guy once a week, and we try to really procure the closest, most healthful ingredients in every category.

I want people to leave here feeling not only physiologically nourished, but also emotionally nourished.

KATE: Today, we are treated to several seasonal specialties from the Hearth kitchen, starting with the Campo Rosso green salad with shaved spring vegetables.

Then, the spectacular homemade buckwheat gemelli with roasted cauliflower and fresh parsley, along with a side of local hen of the woods mushrooms roasted with grass-fed butter and fresh thyme, and finally, locally sourced duck breast with confit carrots, morels and cardamom ginger jus.

MARCO: (talking to Tim) It's very nice to see you.

TIM: Great to see you, man.

KATE: Thank you very much.

KATE: It is the perfect place to sit down with entrepreneur, investor and lifelong seeker Tim Ferriss, who has followed his insatiable curiosity and unique sensibility to carve out his own deeply personal corner in this world.

KATE: Thank you for introducing me to Hearth .

I am really curious, though.

Here we are in the middle of New York.

Of all the restaurants here, why did you choose Hearth as your favorite?

TIM: This is an ingredient first restaurant.

So, what you put in is in large part responsible for what you get out.

So, it is a sophisticated but very elegant way to approach doing the least necessary, not the most possible, to amazing ingredients.

And that's, I suppose, a metaphor for what I strive for in a way, the fewest moving pieces, the cleanest solution to a problem.

KATE: I'm getting it now.

I'm getting it now.

Okay.

TIM: And it's very familial or comforting in the warmth of the restaurant itself.

That is part of what I want to get out of a meal or a bonding with friends or family.

I still have a lot of family in New York.

KATE: Isn't it funny how so often it's about how a restaurant makes us feel, more than the food?

TIM: Totally.

I think that's true for almost everything.

Ultimately, it's all... KATE: ...It's all about feelings.

TIM: ...down to feeling.... KATE: It's all about emotions.

TIM: There he is.

The man of the hour.

KATE: Thank you.

Wow.

MARCO: How are you?

TIM: I'm doing great!

MARCO: We got a nice lunch for you guys.

Enjoy.

MARCO: It's very nice to see you.

TIM: Great to see you, man.

KATE: Thank you very much.

Being in New York City is always a bit of a homecoming for Tim.

He grew up on Long Island in East Hampton, New York, an only child and self-described townee who bused tables at local restaurants, trained as a competitive wrestler and read every book he could get his hands on.

Tell me a little bit about how you grew up.

And, um, were there any unwritten rules in your home that shaped you?

TIM: My family really valued hard work and academics very highly.

We didn't have much in terms of resources, so if we went to the bookstore, we'd go to the remainder desk and get the books that were 30 or 40 percent off.

But that became the outlet.

My mom at one point, I remember said, she's like, "We don't have budget for this, this, this, or this, but if it's books, we'll figure out a way."

And so... (laughs) KATE: That said a lot.

TIM: That was my only kind of get out of jail free card in terms of spending.

Furthermore, now that I've never said this out loud, but... you don't get to pick what's on the remainder table, right?

It's whatever didn't sell.

KATE: Remainder.

TIM: So, I ended up getting exposed to all sorts of things, I never would have actively sought out.

That's how I got into marine biology.

I wanted to be a marine biologist for a really long time.

And, it was great.

It was great for forging a sense of agency.

That became kind of the ticket out of Long Island, in a sense was academics.

KATE: Tim transferred from his public high school on Long Island to Saint Paul's, an elite boarding school in New Hampshire.

He then spent a year as an exchange student in Japan before focusing on getting into college, setting his sights on Princeton University.

TIM: The guidance counselor at Saint Paul's, when I gave him my, my "reach" schools and my "I think I can get in" schools and then my "back up" schools, he effectively said, "Yeah, there's no way you're going to get into those first two tiers, so you should take your, your "backup" schools and make those your "stretch" schools."

KATE: Oh, my gosh.

You got into Princeton.

TIM: Well, I got into Princeton because I didn't follow that advice.

Now, what I figured out with the guidance counselor was that his metric, what he wants to show off is how many students, what percentage of his students got into their first-choice schools?

What's the easiest way to do that?

KATE: Oh.

Wow.

TIM: Oh, you make the easier to get into schools their first pick.

KATE: You know, this isn't a critical moment.

You know, in your... TIM: Super critical.

KATE: ..in your high school to college experience... TIM: In my life, yeah.

KATE: And you figured it out.

TIM: I figured that part out.

But it wasn't until someone I'll give him credit, Reverend Richard Greenleaf, who was my resident advisor on my floor, said to me, "That's ridiculous.

Like, you should apply."

KATE: Yeah.

TIM: And...here we are.

But it could have played out very differently.

KATE: At Princeton, Tim chased every curiosity from illustration and foreign languages to neuroscience and psychology.

He settled on a major in East Asian Studies, but it was a class in entrepreneurship that would guide the path of his life.

TIM: Ah, there...look at this.

KATE: Food keeps coming.

MARCO: Duck with morels.

KATE: Oh, the mushrooms with morels.

Oh, that's beautiful, beautiful.

Thank you.

TIM: Thank you.

KATE: I'm so excited.

TIM: I come here often for the mushrooms.

KATE: Just for the mushrooms?

TIM: Yeah, the mushrooms.

And look, I love duck, especially if you're in New York upstate Long Island, Hudson Valley have amazing duck.

KATE: You talked about the remainder table and how that fueled your natural curiosity, which I think is pretty obvious when you look at kind of the arc of your career, just how insatiably curious you are.

You go to Princeton, you major in East Asian Studies, which sounds like one of the books you grabbed off the remainder table.

TIM: (laughs) Yeah.

KATE: What did you want to do when you left college?

Who did you want to be at that moment?

TIM: It changed a lot.

I would say changed a lot from when I got to college and when I left college, I took a course called High Tech Entrepreneurship, Electrical Engineering 491 by a professor named Ed Hsiao.

And he single-handedly changed my trajectory.

I knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but ultimately, a few guest speakers and his influence steered me towards Northern California, Silicon Valley.

KATE: So, the first few jobs out of college, can you detail a little bit about your quick success?

Because most people, to achieve some sort of financial base, some sort of financial success, it can take decades.

For you, it was a short amount of time.

TIM: Shorter, yeah.

KATE: Yeah, shorter, right?

Can you talk a little bit about your first few jobs and really what established your financial success so early?

TIM: One of the guest speakers, Thomas Isakovich, had this company, trueSan.

It was storage area networks and mass data storage.

And so, I did my final project on that company as a way to ingratiate myself and hopefully develop some relationships.

Ultimately, got turned down for a job and I kept trying, kept trying, kept trying.

And I sent yet another email.

I think it was like the 30th email or something to Tom.

I said, "I'm going to be in Silicon Valley anyway, like next Tuesday or something.

Is there any chance I can meet you Tuesday or Wednesday?"

That wasn't true, I'll be honest.

And... (chuckles) KATE: You were setting yourself up for success.

TIM: Trying to set myself up.

And he said, "Okay, I can meet you for 15 minutes on Wednesday."

KATE: Fifteen minutes is not a lot of time.

TIM: It's not a lot of time.

Bought a ticket, flew to San Francisco, didn't have enough money to stay in a hotel, so I lived in the upper level in a bunk bed in a kickboxing gym, finally met him and he just sat down and said, "You're not going to stop bothering me until I give you some kind of job.

Is that, roughly right?"

And I was like, "Yeah, probably."

And he goes, "Great, you're in sales."

And so, that's how I got my first job.

KATE: You got the job.

TIM: But that taught me a lot that entire process, even though that company ultimately imploded, taught me a lot about high level sales.

I studied negotiation.

And those are core fundamental skills.

Life is a negotiation.

You're always trying to sell your ideas or yourself.

KATE: Okay, so you have an idea.

You're like, I have these sales skills.

I have a base set of skills that are really employable, but I'm going to do my own thing.

And what is the thing you go and do?

TIM: So, the thing I go and do is sports nutrition.

And before I went to East Asian Studies as a major at Princeton, I was actually neuroscience within psychology and was very interested in the chemistry.

I was also a competitive athlete, and at that time I started cobbling together products to help with reaction speed because I was doing mostly fight sports, I was competing in judo and kickboxing, and things like that.

And it was really effective, but my dorm room started looking kind of like...a meth lab.

(Kate laughs) I was worried about attracting too much attention.

I wasn't selling, it was all for me, you know, like...all right...let's, let's time out on this project.

KATE: Yeah.

TIM: And then, I started looking at entrepreneurial opportunities, how I might start my own company.

But as I was looking at...this is how it started-- looking at my own credit card statements because my take home at that point, I mean, once I was unemployed, it was zero, you know, I ate at Jack in the Box across the street, quite a bit, you know.

KATE: You're not having duck from the Hudson Valley... TIM: Not having duck.

No, no, no, no, I'm not.

I wasn't having duck in and nice, nice mushrooms and looked at my credit card statements to try to identify where am I spending more than I should relative to my income.

And it was all sports nutrition for competition.

And so that began the brainstorming process of trying to effectively replicate what I was doing in college for niche sports.

KATE: Really interesting.

So, you looked at how you were spending your own money as a great indicator of how others might spend their money and build a business around it?

TIM: Mm-hm.

That's, that's been I would say the core of everything I've done.

KATE: Isn't that... TIM: ...everything professional is scratching my own itch.

KATE: Tim's company was called BrainQUICKEN an online shop selling nutritional supplements that launched in 2001 and was acquired by a London conglomerate in 2009.

Along the way, the relentless entrepreneurial grind led to total burnout, and out of personal necessity, Tim began to test out new solutions for efficiency and productivity things like hiring virtual assistants, living more cost effectively in foreign countries, and working remotely.

Ultimately, these life experiments led to a groundbreaking book in 2007 called "The 4-Hour Workweek."

When the book 4-Hour Workweek came out, it really changed the game for so many people.

It was trailblazing, it was revolutionary.

It had such an impact.

And I was wondering, can you explain what your intention was when you wrote that book?

TIM: The core thesis is not everyone should work four hours a week.

The core thesis is you can dramatically increase your per hour output, if you use a few frameworks.

And...once you do that, you have a number of options.

You can either reduce your working hours.

It's easier if you're an entrepreneur, or you can just work the same amount or even more hours and just get ten times more done, which is how a lot of the earliest endorsers of the book, like Mark Andres a legendary technologist and investor-- in a New York Times piece, was featured as a fan of the book.

But he doesn't want to work four hours a week, he wants to work as much as possible.

He just wants to be as effective as possible.

KATE: But isn't it interesting, so many years before COVID, you wrote this book that really tapped into something that has become very apparent in the past five years?

TIM: Yeah.

KATE: And that is that people feel like there's a more efficient way to work.

Right?

And you were talking about it so many years back then.

Were you ready?

And were you surprised for the reaction that... TIM: Oh, yeah...I wasn't ready, nor was I remotely prepared for any of it... KATE: Because it really changed your life.

TIM: Oh, yeah.

KATE: "The 4-Hour Workweek" stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for four years.

It has been translated into 40 languages and sold more than two million copies.

The enormous success of this book catapulted Tim into the role of productivity guru.

Intriguing a new round of startup founders, which led to advisory positions and various opportunities as an angel investor with several key startups, including early stakes in Uber and Shopify.

You were an early investor to Uber.

TIM: I was an early investor.

I was actually an advisor to Uber before they raised money.

So, for the advising, I got equity in return.

Got sweat equity.

And that was true for Shopify.

First Advisors.

Shopify when they had 10 or 11 employees and then other companies.

Clear, the biometrics company, bunch, bunch of different companies.

KATE: But specifically, Uber paid off handsomely.

Is that not, true?

TIM: It did.

It did.

Yeah, I...Uber was, was certainly a number one.

I was very fortunate with my timing when I started angel investing and putting myself in a position to have informational advantage.

But yes, Uber would be almost certainly number one.

The angel investing, though, really gave me complete freedom in a way and constitutes the majority of my net worth.

KATE: Your angel investing really gave you freedom.

When you had that freedom and you felt that freedom, what did you want to do with it?

TIM: About to have money for the first time that would allow me to do philanthropic or charitable work in a really meaningful way.

I don't want to be wasteful.

I want to treat it the same way I would treat startup investing or any business.

I want to be really lean, really laser focused.

I looked for something uncrowded that I thought would be very high leverage where I had some unique advantage in terms of being able to move the needle.

KATE: And what was that?

TIM: That was, mostly related to science in psychedelic assisted therapies for mental health, which was...uh, very much in its nascent stages.

KATE: And why was that so important to you?

TIM: Because it saved my life, and I've seen it save many other people's lives.

KATE: When you say it saved your life.

How so?

TIM: Well, I had a close brush with suicide in college and...got very close.

And I was incredibly lucky, that's the only word I can use, that I was snapped out of it by a few chance happenings, but it could have very easily gone in a different direction.

I mean, I had a date on the calendar, when it was going to happen.

And...ultimately, more than traditional talk therapy, more than any other modality, it was psychedelic assisted therapies that course corrected.

And I used to have, let's call it three to four.

And this is very much genetic predisposition, but three to form minimum major depressive episodes a year ranging in weeks to months.

It's a lot of time as a percentage, to now, I would say it's one every two or three years.

And it's impossible to overstate how different those two lives are.

KATE: You mean, your life before psychedelics and your life after... TIM: Yes, and there are risks.

They're not panaceas.

They're not indicated for everything.

There are potential downsides.

But I wanted to further our understanding of these things, because changing the national conversation and the international conversation around these things are playing a part in that, or many other people who are involved, should ultimately, over time, affect millions and millions of people with so-called untreatable conditions or intractable conditions.

KATE: Since 2015, Tim has donated generously to furthering the research of psychedelic modalities for mental health, including contributions to the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College in London.

He has also used his platform to expand conversations around mental health, including a 2017 TED talk about embracing stoicism and meditation to deal with his own fears and depression.

At the same time, he also poured his energy into his own media brand, building on the success of the "The 4-Hour Workweek" with two more bestsellers, "The 4-Hour Body," and "The 4-Hour Chef."

And later, "Tools of Titans" and "Tribe of Mentors," books that curated and tested out the best practices that he received from interviewing countless guests on his incredibly popular podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, that launched in 2014 and recently reached an epic milestone.

Congratulations on 10 years of your podcast.

TIM: Thank you.

KATE: Okay, one billion downloads.

That's absolutely amazing.

And it's so interesting because again, we're going back to high school you, who is pursuing your own curiosity with these fascinating interviews.

You're one of a few people, I think, in this country who could really probably get anyone on your podcast.

Not anyone, but mostly anyone.

TIM: A lot of, a lot of interesting folks.

KATE: Yeah.

I'm just wondering from all of the amazing innovators that you've interviewed, what have you learned about innovation and thinking differently?

TIM: What I've learned, I would say about innovation in general, and that could be Marco, here.

That could be a technologist working on the most esoteric bleeding edge technology.

It doesn't matter.

They question whatever the so-called best practices are, they question whatever the so-called rules are.

Oh, if you have such and such a restaurant, you have to do this.

The people have to dress this way.

If you want to have A, B and C accolades, you must do this, this and this.

They're very skeptical of those things.

KATE: Skepticism.

TIM: It's a skepticism, not a cynicism.

So, it's a skepticism and a willingness to ask dumb questions.

KATE: Mm-hm.

TIM: And you could be asking yourself or you could be asking other people, like, but why do you do it that way?

But why do it?

But why do you do it that way?

KATE: Keep asking why?

TIM: There's no there, there most of the time.

And they're very experimental.

And it reinforces them, the ability to see things that other people have neglected or perhaps not even seen in front of them because they've been so locked into rules they haven't questioned.

KATE: You have been a part of this, this idea that we've gone from the American dream to the modern American dream.

You know, it used to be that the American dream was having the white picket fence, and um, doing better than your parents did.

Right?

But the modern American dream is so complex and nuanced.

But it has a couple of tenets that are part of it, and that is, you know, living a life that is truly your own something authentically, efficiently using your time.

And I feel like your body of work has really contributed to the modern American dream.

So, I'd ask you, how would you define the modern American dream?

TIM: I think the American dream 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and the modern American dream, have one core thing in common, and that's self-determination, the ability to change your station in life.

And I still think, and I've traveled all over the world, the U.S. has a ton of problems, a ton of problems.

But if you want to rise from nothing to something unbelievable, build companies and so on, this is the place.

Like this is still this is still the place to do it.

People don't move here for more freedom from other countries.

They move here for more opportunity.

KATE: What is that quote?

Um, "A well examined life...." TIM: Oh, "The unexamined life, is not worth living."

KATE: The unexamined life is not worth living.

I feel like that quote, like, embodies you and everything you've done.

You have, you examine life from every angle, in every category.

TIM: Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

And, I'm glad you mentioned that quote, because I would, I would take it a step further and I would say, the unexamined life is not living.

Like, you're running on scripts that you didn't choose.

So, you're effectively like ChatGPT responding to prompts.

So, if you want to self-author, you have to examine, especially those beliefs.

Sometimes, it takes a while to identify them, but the payoff is so huge.

So that's...that's my guiding, guiding light these days.

KATE: I feel that...I really do.

I really feel that.

I've enjoyed this so much.

Thank you for your time, for your talent, for this delicious food, it's so good.

KATE: Thank you to Tim Ferriss for sharing his own unique and dynamic American dream story.

From entrepreneur to angel investor to thought leader, his work and books have helped millions redefine what work means to them, how to live more efficiently, shorter hours, more flexibility, more freedom.

The question however, remains, when you achieve that elusive freedom, what will you do with it?

How will you help others?

What will you do with your one precious life?

And how could you speed up the path to do it now?

KATE: If you would like to know more about the guests, the restaurants, and the inspiring stories of success, please visit ToDineForTV.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ToDineForTV.

We also have a podcast.

To Dine For , The Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan is made possible by... (Music and chatter) MAN: During the weekends, we do like a grill.

(Clatter of chess board) MAN #2: You know you have bragging rights in the hood.

I'm like, "My guy won the game."

(Clatter of chess piece and men yelling and cheering) FEMALE ANNOUNCER: At American National, we honor the "do"-ers and the dreamers: The people who gets things done and keep the world moving.

Our local agents are honored to serve your community, because it's their community, too.

American National.