5-Bullet Friday — Mantis, Raising Geniuses, Chopping Up Psychedelics, Grappling Monsters, and Václav Havel

"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that..."  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

5-Bullet Friday   The latest from author and investor Tim Ferriss   Hi All!   Here is your weekly dose of 5-Bullet Friday, a list of what I'm pondering and exploring.   This edition is brought to you by ​The Way, the meditation app I use most often. Be sure to see their offer in the P.S.   Music that's helping me slide into the weekend "Mantis" (Spotify, YouTube) by Janapriyan Levine and Brooklyn Raga Massive, from the album Diamonds on the Deep Pink Ocean.   Documentary I'm watching ​Queen of Chess. From the description: "Hungarian chess prodigy Judit Polgár challenges champion Garry Kasparov [Tim note: Garry had an unmatched 20-year dominance as world #1] and her controlling father over 15 years … to become the greatest female player ever." Watch the trailer here. ​ For a deep dive into the educational philosophy and methods of Judit's father, László Polgár, who trained all three of his daughters to be chess grandmasters, check out Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex review of László's book Raise A Genius!, which Scott had translated into English. Thanks to Ricardo for the recommendations!   Short clip I'm watching "Khabib vs Lex: Training with Khabib." Lex is a serious Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) practitioner and black belt under Rick Migliarese and Phil Migliarese. So what happens when he rolls with one of the greatest of all time? I really appreciate that Lex taped and shared this, and there are a lot of comments that will make you happy you're not underneath Khabib: ​ ​I felt like I was drowning watching this ​ The fact that he doesn't go for the sub, so you don't tap, so you don't reset position, so he can keep mauling you is diabolical lol ​ ​If you like the above video, you may also like "Eddie Bravo speaks on Marcelo Garcia." To put this in perspective, Eddie Bravo is a savant of BJJ mastery and innovation. He famously tapped out Royler Gracie in competition. The above video was recorded after he trained with Marcelo Garcia, 9x world champion in BJJ and submission grappling.   Article I'm reading "Why Do Mind-Altering Drugs Make People Feel Better?" How do you break psychedelic molecules into parts, like cars in a chop shop, and build new ones? This is a thought-provoking New Yorker piece by Clayton Dalton, an ER doc and Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellow. ​ I like that this is a controversial piece. I hope it helps drive the science and conversation forward. ​ On one hand, the "neuroplastogen" approach is often driven by business and financial incentives. If you can remove the hallucinations from psychedelics, your ability to fit within current medical structures (take-home meds, easier insurance reimbursement, etc.) helps you to scale, scale, scale. And if someone can make millions or billions of dollars by sticking to their hypothesis, expect conflicts of interest and a biased path, even with the best of intentions. To quote Charlie Munger: "Show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome." ​ On the other hand, I completely agree with David Olson when he says "If you absolutely need the hallucinogenic effects, then these new compounds are not going to be the revolution in psychiatry that people are hoping they will be." At least, not likely at the scale of millions of patients per year. ​ If I were a betting man, I'd say that the set and setting—and, indeed, the trip content itself—seems to matter for applying psychedelics to certain conditions like PTSD and alcohol-use disorder. Otherwise, we'd all have friends with spontaneous remission of these conditions when using drugs recreationally. Personally, I have never witnessed this being the case, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong. ​ At the same time, I'm funding research into the anti-inflammatory effects of certain psychedelics, which are profound, even at miniscule doses. I do think the "content matters" folks too easily dismiss the incredible physiological changes attributable to these compounds. So to take the opposite stance, I believe that conditions like treatment-resistant depression and chronic anxiety disorder may not always need the trip. It could be that most such cases never need a trip. The jury is out. ​ We can all get attached to the binary extremes. As usual, the truth is more likely somewhere in the middle.   Quote I'm pondering "Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." ​— Václav Havel (1936–2011), Czech writer and statesman, president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003, from Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala. ​(Click to share on X.) You can complement this edition of 5-Bullet Friday with a brand-new Random Show conversation with my close friend Kevin Rose. We cover supplements, optimizing mitochondria, breathing and balance training, cool grip-strength tools, and much, much more. ​ And, as always, please give me feedback on X. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know. Just send a tweet to @tferriss and put #5BulletFriday at the end so I can find it. ​ Have a wonderful weekend, all. ​ Much love to you and yours, ​ Tim ​ P.S. Deal of the Week — The Way​ meditation training program. 10 minutes a day might just change your life... I've explored a lot of meditation practices over the years. My current hands-down favorite, and the easiest way to get back in the habit, is ​The Way​, taught by Zen Master Henry Shukman. Using the app for just 10–20 minutes a day has reduced my anxiety more than I would have thought possible with any app. Try it for a week, and I think you'll notice something similar. Here are 30 sessions for free​. ​ ​ ​ ​ The Way​ leads you down a single, long-term path that covers all the key areas of a deep and fulfilling meditation practice. It's an easy and calming way to find more ease and calm. There's no overwhelming menu of stuff or meditation du jour, just Henry taking you on a logical progression of lessons, one manageable bite at a time. You'll be learning skills you can actually take into your daily life. Henry's sessions will become something you look forward to. He's appeared on my podcast twice and is always a listener favorite. I recently chose to invest in The Way, given all the above, and I've been working with Henry and his team to make the app as good as humanly possible. I've probably sent a hundred notes on the product, and they've been improving it each and every week. ​ ​ ​ ​Now, subscribers to 5-Bullet Friday can try 30 sessions for free, no credit card required. Just go to TheWayApp.com/Tim​. Try it for a week, and I think you'll be more than pleasantly surprised.   Forwarded this message? Sign up here. Join millions of monthly readers. Get exclusive content, private Q&As, giveaways, and more. No spam, ever. Just great stuff.   Sign Up   Listen to The Tim Ferriss Show Podcast The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts  on many occasions.     Podcasts   Apple Podcasts   Overcast   Spotify   Tim's Blog Read Tim's Books     Amazon   Audible  B & N   Tim's Blog Follow Tim: DO NOT REPLY HERE: Due to volume, please do not reply to this email. Sadly we are unable to read 1000+ email replies daily. 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