Tim Ferriss

The first one is a very well-known and popular one: The Tim Ferriss Show is a long-form interview show with a single guest per episode. It provides profound insights on a wide range of topics and areas of life (given the guests' diverse backgrounds). In Tim Ferriss' own words the show's aim is to deconstruct world-class performers and tease out their tactics, tools, and routines: https://tim.blog/podcast/

Revolutions is an in-depth history podcast about, well, revolutions: https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/
So far, it has covered - amongst others, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Springtime of the Peoples (1848) and the Mexican Revolution. The current season is about the Russian Revolution.

Another amazing history podcast is 'The History of England', which provides meticulous detail on England's long and colourful history: https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/

For folks interested in how far a publisher will go for a journalist, I recommend reading the story about Michael Pollan when he wanted to publish an article about opium.

Summary:

- first publisher said: you can't publish this b/c you could go to prison and we could get in trouble financially

- second publisher: you are going to publish this. If you go to prison, we will support your family financially for the entire time you are in prison. If you lose your house, we will buy them a new house.

You can read about it here: https://tim.blog/2021/06/30/michael-pollan-this-is-your-mind-on-plants-transcript/#:~:text=me%2E-,In,here%2E%E2%80%9D

People talk a LOT about defending free speech but this story has always stuck out to me as what that really means.

This came up in the Tim Ferris interview with Jim Collins [0].

Collins has a notion called the "Hedgehog Concept". Which is the same as you're noting, but a bit more concise.

- What you love to do

- What you are encoded for (not just good at)

- What you can be paid to do

I think the reframing of the 2nd bullet is important. There's a difference being good at something and being encoded for something. You can be good at math, but relative to someone encoded for math, you're going to face significantly more friction.

This is a hard question and requires a high degree of self-honesty, but I believe it is the crucial differentiator in identifying your "purpose".

0. https://tim.blog/2019/02/20/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-jim-collins-361/

I've been following this somewhat because I learned about Tock, a Chicago startup founded by one of the Co-Founders/Owners of the Alinea restaurant. [1]

Their founder Nick Kokonas is quite interesting and seems to have a bit of an ongoing fight with OpenTable, Tock even built a tool where restaurants can analyze if they're paying too much for OpenTable's services [2].

If it interests you, check out his interview on Tim Ferris' podcast, it's well worth the listen. [3]

[1] https://www.exploretock.com/join/
[2] https://medium.com/tock/weve-built-a-website-to-check-if-you-are-overpaying-for-opentable-there-s-a-40-chance-you-are-b5fe1c8c81aa
[3] https://tim.blog/2018/10/18/nick-kokonas/

The term complaining is overloaded. What you describe is actively doing something to make the problem go away.

The "no complaint challenge" [0] linked from the article gives a pretty good definition of the type of complaining the author talks about:

I defined “complaining” for myself as follows: describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem.

So "the teacher is just showing us YouTube videos, what a waste of time" is a complaint while "the teacher is just showing us YouTube videos, I'll go talk to whomever is in charge so he stops doing that" is not.

[0]: https://tim.blog/2007/09/18/real-mind-control-the-21-day-no-complaint-experiment/

Thank you! I searched for "UC Davis protocol for shoulder" and found Dr. Keith Baars at UC Davis and his research on tendons:

[Tim Ferriss podcast re Baars' work at

https://tim.blog/2025/02/27/dr-keith-baar-transcript/

and "dastratman" has produced an excellent summary of Baars' and Ferriss' discussions:

https://hackmd.io/@dastratman/rygQhSmhke
]

I searched your old HN posts and found that you've explained this before to HN denizens! Thank you, thank you so much!

FWIW I've never been able to throw w/o shoulder pain and, now that you mention it, I may make it my goal to build up to that!