Hanoi toddler and b-boy, from a trip Ma.tt and I took in 2009. (Photo: Matt Mullenweg)
The next post will be an interview on writing process with the inimitable Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and Aleph, among many others. His work been translated into 71 languages.
In the meantime, I’d like make a few offers and provide a few updates, as well as a few reading links:
1) Would you like to be in The 4-Hour Chef? I’d love for you to be.
Amazingly, it hit both #1 and #2 (for Kindle version) in cookbooks on Amazon when it was announced, and I think it could be bigger than the last two books. If you’ve had success on The Slow-Carb Diet™, have any before/after pics, and would like to be featured in the book, please click here!
2) Random articles from around the web that readers of this blog might enjoy (or find amusing):
3) The winner of the free roundtrip anywhere in the world, a prize from the Christmas Countdown experiment (intermittent fasting, plus training), is Daniel Kislyuk! There were some fantastic self-trackers, but Daniel gave constant status updates and then wrapped up with a summary post. Daniel, please keep an eye on your e-mail for a note from Amy.
Surprise + Joy = Elation. That’s my new Emotional Equation of the day. Wow, I’m elated by the response to my guest blog and how many insightful entries were submitted. Thank you so much for diving into the deep end of the emotional swimming hole with me. It seems like this book is made for these times. The more externally chaotic the world, the more we yearn for some kind of internal logic.
There were 7 entries (of the first 100 submitted, although I did read every single one of the almost 500) that deserved extra recognition. I will give an Honorable Mention to Divya (1/19 at 7:03 am), Eric Sigfried (1/19 at 8:52 am), Marcus (1/19 at 9:18 am), Susan Dupre (1/19 at 10:19 am) and Ryan (1/19 at 10:50 am).
We have a runner-up whose dissection and use of the Anxiety Balance Sheet impressed me, and that’s Ryan Riegner (1/19 at 9:22 am). Ryan, I believe you live in the NYC area and I’ll be there from Feb 19-25 for a book launch party and media tour. I would like to invite you out to a meal with me while I’m in town. This wasn’t planned to be an extra prize, but your response deserves it. And, our winner is Diego Velasquez (1/19 at 7:54 am) who will be flying out to SF to stay at our luxurious Hotel Vitale for a couple of nights and spend a day learning what it means to be a Chief Emotions Officer. For those who’d like to continue to learn more about Emotional Equations, check out our DIY contest on the Emotional Equations Facebook page, as it gives you another shot at a trip to SF and dinner with me.
Thanks once again for the phenomenal efforts and I hope you enjoy the book if you read it!
Chip Conley is the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, which he began at age 26 and built to more than 30 properties in California alone. In 2010, Joie de Vivre was awarded the #1 customer service award in the U.S. by Market Metrix (Upper Upscale hotel category).
Conley has also been named the “Most Innovative CEO” in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times, and I’m proud to call him a friend.
We’ve shared many glasses of wine together. He doesn’t know what I’m about to tell you, but it’s true (Hi, Chip!). When we first met, and after reading his first book on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I wondered “Is this Chip dude for real? Implementing self-actualization in a company?!?” My curiosity drove me to visit a few of his hotels, including Hotel Vitale, where I eventually concluded: these are the happiest employees I’ve ever met.
He has figured out what makes people tick.
The following post is a guest post by Chip and based on his new book, Emotional Equations. Be sure to read to the end, as there is a chance to win an expense-paid trip to SF to spend an entire day training with him.
Deal-making? Empire building? Self-fulfillment? He’s your guy.
This post might seem odd, as it starts with a random sequence from a random skill. There are three reasons for this:
1) I like to expose readers to things they’ve never explored.
2) The best long-term policy for keeping a blog fun to read (and write) is to cover things that subsets of your readers love, not things that everyone merely likes.
3) I think all of you should know how to respond to a real physical attack.
Keeping these in mind, I hope you enjoy a lil’ taste of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, often nicknamed “human chess.”
If it’s not your thing, I still suggest you skip to the end, where you can see the free (and short) video series I did with Dave Camarillo on defending against real-world attacks of various types. I had these videos up at one time in 2007, but the code became corrupted, so I’m updating them here.
One of the last videos is of me getting thrown on my head, or heels-over-head, repeatedly.
Enter Dave Camarillo
Since the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) came to prominence in 2005, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) has been the most sought-after skill-set in the marital arts world. There are many world-class athletes, but there are only a few world-class teachers. Dave Camarillo, who’s coached UFC fighters like Cain Velasquez, is one of them… Read More
Happy New Year, all! I’ll be putting up a “Lessons learned in 2011″ post soon. In the meantime, here is a taste of things to come.
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I can come across as anal retentive, even severely Monk-ish. One reason for the madness: with rare exceptions, I’ve come to believe that how we do anything is how we do everything.
I’m not alone.
The following is a short excerpt from The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, also reprinted by Tehelka magazine in India. In it, we learn the logic of David Lee Roth’s famous obsession with brown M&M’s:
Listening to the radio, I heard the story behind rocker David Lee Roth’s notorious insistence that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause specifying that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage, but with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band. And at least once, Van Halen followed through, peremptorily cancelling a show in Colorado when Roth found some brown M&M’s in his dressing room. This turned out to be, however, not another example of the insane demands of power-mad celebrities but an ingenious ruse.
As Roth explained in his memoir, Crazy from the Heat, “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, thirdlevel markets.
We’d pull up with nine 18-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move thegear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.” So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be article 126, the no-brown-M&M’s clause. “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl,” he wrote, “well, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error… Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” These weren’t trifles, the radio story pointed out. The mistakes could be lifethreatening. In Colorado, the band found the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and the staging would have fallen through the arena
Do you have any similar tests that you’ve found helpful in business, hiring, life, or love?
Kevin Rose and I go deep on a few subjects in this longer-format episode of “Foundation,” on which he’s interviewed many of my favorite entrepreneurs and investors, including Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square) and Chris Sacca (Lowercase Capital), among others.
I had a great time, as should be clear from the wine and laughter. It’s quite different from The Random Show and more of a Larry King-like format… but with more cursing.
Wine tends to attract a lot of snobs who use bad French to ruin things.
Done at the dinner table, a brutal technique called “hyperdecanting” will appall that muppet with the popped collar on his polo shirt. It will also make your wine delicious, and make you a hero to everyone who wants to punch him in his smug little face. [cue 0:24]
On a practical level, you can outgun most faux-sommeliers (see what I did there?) with a little brute force. To do this, you first need to understand a bit about aeration.
When in Rome
Generally speaking, letting your wine “breathe” makes it taste better. Just like in our gluten-free kitten pancakes (see pg. 147*), a little air goes a long way… Read More
It’s rated 12+ for “Mild alcohol, tobacco, or drug use or references” and “mild profanity or crude humor.” Fun stuff, in other words. Let me know in the comments what you think of things, and don’t miss the exploding cow. The Android version is coming soon.
Two related notes, one for the book, the other for a free round-trip ticket:
Pavel Tsatsouline is a former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor, currently a subject matter expert to the US Navy SEALs and the US Secret Service. In 2001, Pavel’s and John Du Cane introduced the Russian kettlebell to the West.
Dan John is a former nationally-ranked discus thrower and Olympic lifter–as well as Fulbright Scholar–with more than four decades in the iron game.
T-shirt: Lance Armstrong to Pavel.
Enter Dan and Pavel
Years ago, my friend Dr. Jim Wright said something that got burned into my brain: “Consistency and moderation over intensity.”
Not nearly as sexy as “Do or Die!” or some other juvenile T-shirt slogan, but you could not think of a better set of directions for durable performance.
You are about to meet a man who embodies this maxim. He is a US military special operator whose name I shall withhold due to the nature of his duty.
Let us call him “Victor.”
I met this quiet professional at one of our RKC military kettlebell courses. He was capable of a strict pullup with 160 pounds of extra weight, at a bodyweight of 195 pounds (and one-arm chins, naturally). He could close Iron Mind’s iconic #2.5 Captains of Crush hand gripper, 237.5 pounds strong, for three reps. And he had run over ten ultramarathons, from 50 to 100 miles!… Read More
For those of you waiting on the iOS version of the free 4-Hour Chef teaser app, and for anyone who’d like a cheat day experiment this weekend, I offer the following: Tobacco-infused Tequila Hot Chocolate.
It’s absurd, decadent, and more delicious than you can imagine. Here’s the kicker: I usually hate tequila, so this was a revelation.
PLEASE NOTE: This is intended as a really fun DIY project and a rocking cheat drink, not as a time-saving cocktail. There are times for efficiency, and there are times to explore and enjoy life unhurried.
This is the latter, and it’s for FUN. Notice the last part of the subtitle for The 4-Hour Chef, which is “The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life.”
“There is more to life than increasing its speed,” as Mahatma Gandhi once said.
If you choose to tackle this challenge, share your experience in the comments!
Enter The Aviary
This spectacular drink was taught to me by Craig Schoettler, the executive chef at The Aviary in Chicago, without a doubt the most awe-inspiring “bar-less cocktail kitchen” in the world.
To set the scene: There are 30+ types of ice, and the customers are prevented from harassing the bartenders by a cage barricade. Perhaps you’d like an Old Fashioned served in an ice dinosaur egg? It’s prepared with a syringe, and you drink it after shattering the bourbon-filled casing with a miniature slingshot attached to the glass. Or how about a botanical-infused whiskey that changes colors like a chameleon over the course of 30 minutes? They have that, too.
Of course, you’d expect nothing less from the owners, who also run Alinea, the highest-ranked restaurant in the United States. Bartending through the lens of world-class chefs is otherworldly… Read More
A first look at the beta-cover of The 4-Hour Chef. Let me know what you think.
The magic elves and I have been hard at work on an early Christmas gift for you all. In fact, there are quite a few goodies in this post, including 50 free Kindle Fire devices!
I’ve been keeping things under wraps, but there is one big surprise. For the last 5 years, the most frequent request from blog readers has been a guide to mental performance. In other words, answering the question: how do you deconstruct and learn any skill?
Well, I’ve been listening all along, and that book is here!
Here’s the complete title: The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life. Intended to be “the cookbook for people who don’t buy cookbooks,” The 4-Hour Chef will use food as a vehicle to teach the art and science of meta-learning–the skill of learning skills. Whether you want to learn a new instrument or a new sport (or anything in between), you’ll have a field-tested and research-backed blueprint. In addition to insight from world-class chefs, we’ll have an unreal cast of characters helping you to multiply your learning potential.
For a limited time, to celebrate the announcement, you can pre-order The 4-Hour Chef for 50-80% off. Instead of $30 for print, you can reserve a copy for $15. Instead of $22 for Kindle, you can get it for $5.99.
You can cancel anytime up to ship date, so there is no downside, only locked-in savings.
Sidenote…
Why might you buy the physical book, even in addition to the Kindle? Three reasons:
1) It will be gorgeous, a wonderful tactile experience, and truly unlike any cookbook you’ve ever seen.
2) I’ll be thinking up bonuses for people who buy the print edition early.
3) It would really help me out. Inexplicably, The New York Times excludes all advice/how-to books from their e-book bestseller list, so only the print edition counts towards the bestseller list. Silly, but there you have it!
See the full book description, sneak-peek photos, and more here.
A Christmas Countdown Experiment: The 4-Hour Chef Teaser
Next, I present to you the first Kindle Fire book teaser and app!
100% free and titled “A Christmas Countdown Experiment: The 4-Hour Chef Teaser,” it includes a seven-day Christmas countdown advent calendar, with unusual tips that allow you to enjoy wine, cookies, and all the other holiday vices… while losing fat.
From strategic yo-yo dieting and tequila hot chocolate, to exploding cows and tattoos, it’s full of surprises. Here’s are a few screenshots and the introduction video, followed by the download link… Read More
