I'm currently listening to Tim Ferriss on the Shawn Ryan Show. I forget how much Tim has influenced my life and my thinking.

I think one of the reasons why a) remote work culture, b) fitness, c) diet, and d) self-help as a culture for men has exploded so much over the past few years is because of him and his books. I remember feeling trapped during the pandemic, extremely overweight, feeling lost and overwhelmed, and newly broken up. I remember the sense of helplessness I felt thinking that the world as I knew it was the way my life was going to be forever. I remember the sense of loneliness that I felt come to life as a real monster and hanging onto my back, choking my breath like a monkey hanging onto my neck.

And then I found The Four Hour Workweek.

That book changed my entire life. Coming from a family of business owners who, for 30-some odd years, never deviated from the way they conducted their affairs, who regressed from the world into their business, who viewed their stores as a third child when their two sons never got another sibling, I found it extremely liberating. Especially since during the pandemic I was thinking THE EXACT SAME THING as what Tim Ferriss was talking about. I was asking myself, "Why can't it be the way that I'm thinking? Why are some people able to live a liberated life and others are doomed to be stuck? Why is the world this way?"

In my dispair, I was asking myself the "why". Tim Ferriss showed me the "how". Looking back, I seem to have stumbled upon existentialism without even knowing it. Ironically, reading Dostoyevsky was hell because I found it so boring and the characters so irritating. Perhaps I should read Kierkegaard. But I digress.

This isn't a love letter to Tim. My wife would be furious. Rather, it's an exploration (or, at least, an admiration) of what happens when you receive the right information at the right moment in the right way. I consumed the book as an audiobook, and I would listen to it in the car, on walks, and on runs (I got into running during the pandemic after listening to Jordan Peterson and Jocko Willinck's incredible series of podcasts: another piece of info that came to me at just the right time). What he said just made sense, and it was was exactly what I needed to know in order to approach the problems I didn't know I had. Whenever I had some free time, I started thinking about the problem in my head and architecting them on a notepad using the solutions in The Four Hour Workweek based on my life. I would literally fantasize about how I could escape the corporate hell I was in and feel... free. And now, years out from that time, I'm running a business on my own. It's challenging, but the challenge is rewarding. It's stressful, but a better stress than the corporate life I had. And it's hard, but I can feel happy BECAUSE it's hard.

I'm very grateful to Tim Ferriss for putting this book out, along with all the other books he's written. I think my main takeaway was this: rather than having this solution implemented once and moving on, I think that people need to ruminate on the things that they want and figure out the right way to get them. Once you find something, anything, that makes sense, implement it. Use it as a framework. Others have gone through what you're going through now. At least you have their wisdom.

I'm not sure if he will ever read this, but if he does, I just want to say thanks Tim. You showed us how to deal with the monkeys. You're the man.

Let's get after it today and revisit our thoughts tomorrow.

Vivek.