Harvard Enterprise College (HBS) reached out final 12 months to create a case examine on my entrepreneurial journey, which tracks me from childhood to the present day. The case examine, titled “Tim Ferriss: What Would possibly This Look Like If It Have been Simple?” is roughly 40 pages, and you should purchase it for $11.95 right here. I don’t earn a penny. The entire expertise culminated in two lessons at HBS in Professor Satchu’s “Founder Mindset” course.
Following one of many lessons, pupil Jay Bhandari interviewed me for the “Between Two Courses” collection at The Harbus, a publication by Harvard Enterprise College college students, who kindly gave permission to share it with you right here.
I hope you discover one thing under helpful.
In a Q&A along with your followers, you talked concerning the worth of identification diversification. This method is antithetical to recommendation we frequently get to commit and concentrate on a website. How do you reconcile these two competing philosophies?
I believe they complement one another quite than compete. Identification diversification merely means cultivating a number of, impartial areas of development in your life the place you possibly can chart progress. That is engineered in order that your self-worth isn’t completely depending on one factor, such because the common ups and downs of your individual startup. Being overinvested will get quite a lot of media play and X threads, however there’s a nasty survivorship bias at work. I’ve seen dozens of founders implode as a result of their “startup as self-worth” metrics went sideways for just a few months. I want an method with extra margin of security, and it’s completely suitable with area mastery. As an example, you possibly can very effectively spend 40 to 80 hours per week in your startup, however for those who complement that with indoor mountaineering, weight coaching, chess membership, or one thing else that has its personal metrics for development, even when new laws or a competitor tank your startup for a brief stretch, you possibly can nonetheless offset the blow with progress outdoors of the workplace. It’s low-cost psychological insurance coverage. I consider identification diversification as an enormous aggressive benefit in video games that rely upon endurance. On the highest ranges, that’s just about all the things. If Michael Jordan may afford to play copious quantities of golf and poker, you possibly can afford to have aspect pursuits.
Is there something about your life you want you had centered on sooner? For those who may spend time with 28-year-old you, what would you inform him?
To my youthful self: meditate twice every day—10 minutes is lots—and get accelerated TMS as quickly because it’s prepared for showtime. See my different solutions for elaboration. I’d most likely additionally share an embroidered quote I purchased at a thrift store in Marfa, Texas: “Right this moment is the tomorrow you anxious about yesterday.”
What do you assume younger formidable individuals are over- and under-indexed on?
I believe HBS college students are over-indexed on shopping for the implicit funding banking and administration consulting pitch of one thing like “get broad publicity to industries after which you possibly can choose your lane and do something!” For those who’re non-technical and keep in both of these for quite a lot of years, the chances of you leaving to begin your individual startup (outdoors of finance or consulting) is roughly the identical because the probability of a five- to 10-year entrepreneur becoming a member of funding banking or consulting. In different phrases, low. I’ve seen this play out 100+ occasions. Certain, there are some exceptions, however I wouldn’t wager on being certainly one of them except you’ve dedicated to an exit plan earlier than you enter these video games. And if you wish to be an edge case, discover and examine not less than 5 to 10 edge circumstances you possibly can emulate earlier than you settle for the job. For those who can’t discover them, that tells you one thing.
Many within the HBS, Sort-A crowd aren’t any stranger to emphasize, anxiousness, and melancholy. What are ideas, mantras, and methods you’ve developed for managing your psychological well being once you’re actively in a darkish place?
To be clear, I’m not a physician and don’t play one on the web. The “actively in a darkish place” makes this a really dicey query. That stated, having spent a while in darkish locations, particularly in school, I’ll share just a few issues that I’ve seen work. Please do your individual homework and communicate along with your medical professionals.
For acute suicidal ideation, I might name the 988 helpline first and probably think about a collection of ketamine infusions/injections per the protocols steered by John Krystal, MD, professor of neuroscience at Yale College. Ketamine may be very addictive, and I’ve seen individuals unravel their lives with it, however in harmful self-harm circumstances, it may be a life-saving intervention. It successfully pauses the incessant thought loops driving the desperation. For extra of my ideas on suicide, together with my description of an in depth brush in 1999, learn tim.weblog/suicide.
If we’re speaking about basic prevention and self-care, I might extremely counsel every day chilly publicity (e.g., I do 3–5 minutes in a 40–45° F bathtub every day) and brief meditation periods 2x/every day (e.g., Transcendental Meditation for 20 minutes twice a day or The Method App with Henry Shukman for 2 10-minute periods). I sometimes meditate instantly upon waking after which once more earlier than dinner or mattress. That is lower than half-hour a day. Do your pre-hab, and also you’ll want much less rehab.
When you’ve got a historical past of trauma, see tim.weblog/trauma for a listing of assets that I and designer Debbie Millman have discovered efficient. Set off warning: it’s not a enjoyable learn, however it is likely to be useful for some. Your mileage might range.
For treatment-resistant melancholy, I might think about accelerated TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), à la the SAINT protocol co-developed by Dr. Nolan Williams at Stanford College. BrainsWay and MagVenture each make compelling units with totally different approaches. I firmly consider TMS and different types of mind stimulation can have near-immediate and sturdy results that rival the results of psychedelics in outcomes. I say that as somebody who’s funded quite a lot of the science associated to psychedelics since 2015 via my non-profit, Saisei Basis.
As soon as authorized, and assuming you don’t have any household historical past of schizophrenia, borderline character dysfunction, psychosis, and so forth., I would counsel investigating varied psychedelic-assisted therapies for melancholy (e.g., psilocybin) on a once-annual cadence, however there are extra identified dangers than with mind stimulation like TMS. As an example, and I’ve seen this firsthand, combining ayahuasca and SSRIs will increase the chance of serotonin syndrome, which may be life-threatening in extreme circumstances. Regard any of those compounds with the identical respect you’d deal with main neurosurgery. For extra schooling on the science, purposes, and potential mechanisms of motion, I counsel the analysis of Dr. Gül Dolen and Dr. Nolan Williams, in addition to the Netflix miniseries based mostly on Michael Pollan’s ebook of the identical identify, Easy methods to Change Your Thoughts. The MDMA and psilocybin/mushroom episodes are significantly sturdy.
Final however not least, don’t ignore weight loss plan. Learn up on “metabolic psychiatry” and Dr. Chris Palmer, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical College. Ketosis and different interventions can produce practically miraculous outcomes for a variety of psychiatric situations, together with these which are strongly contraindicated with psychedelics, like schizophrenia.
For those who had been beginning over right now in 2025 and had been in your late twenties, what would you be doing?
I might be on the lookout for fast-growing industries which are unsexy and underneath the radar, and I’d intention to affix a startup of fewer than 100 individuals, the place I’d be capable of watch deal-makers making offers and making selections. In distinction, for those who’re making an attempt to create an AI startup like everybody else, it’s going to be a crabs in a bucket state of affairs for 99% of the individuals concerned. Certain, you is likely to be the tremendous crab 1%, however I typically want much less crowded areas, the place you possibly can sometimes get extra common interplay with the A+ gamers.
Let’s take luck out of the image. What expertise, habits, mantras, or areas of private development would you most attribute your success to?
Enjoying the lengthy sport and never being in a rush. I select initiatives and quite a lot of investments based mostly on the training, talent growth, and relationships that may transcend them. For those who enable such issues to snowball over time, ultimately the vital mass makes success virtually inevitable. This may sound hand-wavy, however you possibly can method it systematically. Go to tim.weblog/mba or Google “Tim Ferriss real-world MBA” for some angel-investing examples of how I’ve utilized this. This isn’t the one method I’ve seen work for “success” (harmful phrase, that!), however it appears replicable.
For those who may put a message on a billboard that reaches HBS college students, what would it not be?
I might borrow from Dr. BJ Miller, a hospice doctor who’s helped 1000’s of individuals to navigate demise, whose reply was “Don’t consider all the things that you simply assume.”
Reprinted with permission from The Harbus Information Company. All rights reserved.
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The Tim Ferriss Present is one of the preferred podcasts on this planet with a couple of billion downloads. It has been chosen for “Better of Apple Podcasts” thrice, it’s typically the #1 interview podcast throughout all of Apple Podcasts, and it has been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many events. To take heed to any of the previous episodes free of charge, try this web page.
