Everything Tim Ferriss has recommended in 5-Bullet Friday — 2,122 books, articles, quotes, films, products and more, gathered from 480 issues since 2015. Browse by category, sort by what the community values or how often Tim has returned to it, and spend your 25 votes on what matters most to you. Each item's note is quoted from Tim's own words in the newsletter.
The Fantastic Mr. Feynman. This is my favorite documentary of one of my favorite people, Richard Feynman. His lectures and books—such as “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character—have greatly inspired many of my best decisions in life. He also inspired me to teach. I hope you enjoy the film as much as I did. Whether you like bongo drums, safe cracking, or physics, there is something for everyone.— Tim Ferriss
ChatGPT on your desktop. Function: “Chat about email, screenshots, files, and anything on your screen.” The main reason I installed it was to create a keyboard shortcut, much like you might use Spotlight on Mac: “Option + Space opens ChatGPT from any screen on your desktop.” This allows me to quickly query ChatGPT for anything. It’s a lot faster than going to a separate new tab for Google. Separately, I will be testing Runway’s Gen-3 Alpha Text-to-Video. Watch their mind-blowing two-minute video here. You might want to consider keeping, per Ethan Mollick’s suggestion, an AI “impossibility list— Tim Ferriss
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Want to get out of the news cycle? To stretch your mind with both profound beauty and discomfort? Try Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, selected by The Atlantic as one of the great American novels of the past 100 years. It’s not often that you come across endorsements like the following from Michael Herr: “A classic American novel of regeneration through violence. McCarthy can only be compared to our greatest writers, with Melville and Faulkner, and this is his masterpiece.” It is easily one of the most gorgeous and brutal books I’ve ever read. The prose is — Tim Ferriss
“A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.” —
“A Postmortem on My Response to Covid” (SamHarris.org, YouTube) by Sam Harris on the Making Sense podcast. This might seem like an out-of-date posting, but it isn’t. This is a world-class example of how a very smart person does a postmortem on their own thinking, and I think it’s worth studying. Excellent poker players might do postgame analysis of their decision-making in similar fashion. Consider this a meta-skill that applies to practically everything.— Tim Ferriss
Prophetic’s Morpheus-1. I have not tried this product, but my interest in lucid dreaming goes back to my high-school wrestling days, when I used it for performance enhancement. Here’s the one-liner about Morpheus-1: “The world’s first multi-modal generative ultrasonic transformer designed to induce and stabilize lucid dreams.” Has anyone used this device or something like it? If so, please let me know your results on X/Twitter @tferriss with #lucid.— Tim Ferriss
“Singularity (Original)” (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music) by Stephan Bodzin.— Tim Ferriss
“Chimpanzees seen self-medicating with healing plants when sick or injured” (Washington Post). Thanks to Dr. Mark Plotkin of Amazon Conservation Team for sharing this. Alternate link. From the article: The team observed two chimpanzee communities in the Budongo Forest for four months each. They tracked what the great apes ate and analyzed components of 13 plant species that seemed wholly unappetizing to a chimpanzee, such as bark and resin, to determine whether the materials had healing effects. … Those struggling the most with parasites—something the scientists ascertained through testing the— Tim Ferriss
“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” ― , Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage
The Bear by Andrew Krivak. Thank you to CK and TS for recommending this parable. I ended up devouring it over 3–4 evenings. The prose is gorgeous—the author has been a National Book Award in Fiction finalist—and it’ll take around 20 pages for your brain to get accustomed to its unusual weaving. I’ve pared down the description on purpose, but here’s a taste: “In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. … The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmo— Tim Ferriss
Generation K-Pop (YouTube), directed by Mahyar Goudarzi (@good.artsy). I first watched this documentary on a plane, and I’ve since only found a YouTube version in German. Fear not, my non-German-speaking friends: to watch with English subtitles, first turn on the German subtitles, and then change them to English (or another language of your choice). Here is a step-by-step video on how to turn on English subtitles. >From the description [Google-translated from German]: “Korean pop music, or K-Pop for short, captivates an entire generation worldwide. … The hub is the South Korean capital Seoul, — Tim Ferriss
FDA advisors voted against MDMA therapy – researchers are still fighting for it (BBC) by Rachel Nuwer. There is a make-it-or-break-it moment unfolding right now for psychedelic medicines. By August 11, the FDA will decide whether or not to approve MDMA therapy as a treatment for PTSD. This is decades in the making and will have ripple effects for the broader future of psychedelics in the US. The data clearly show that the FDA should approve, but it’s been thrown into confusion by an advisory committee almost entirely without knowledge of these compounds. Longtime readers know I’ve spent 10+ ye— Tim Ferriss
“Clean My Wounds” (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music) by Corrosion Of Conformity.— Tim Ferriss
“Those who seek liberation for themselves alone cannot become fully enlightened. Though it may be said that one who is not already liberated cannot liberate others, the very process of forgetting oneself to help others is itself liberating. Therefore, those who seek to benefit themselves alone actually harm themselves by doing so, while those who help others also help themselves by doing so.” — (1275–1351)
A grain of salt. From Wikipedia: “The phrase is thought to come from Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, regarding the discovery of a recipe written by the Pontic king Mithridates to make someone immune to poison. One of the ingredients in the recipe was a grain of salt. Threats involving poison were thus to be taken ‘with a grain of salt,’ and therefore less seriously.”— Tim Ferriss
“Elephants call each other by name, study finds.” From the article: “A team of international researchers used an artificial intelligence algorithm to analyze the calls of two wild herds of African savanna elephants in Kenya. The research ‘not only shows that elephants use specific vocalizations for each individual, but that they recognise and react to a call addressed to them while ignoring those addressed to others,’ the lead study author, Michael Pardo, said.” Related: “How AI is decoding the animal kingdom.”— Tim Ferriss
“The most brutal sport in the world | Calcio Storico.” Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.— Tim Ferriss
“Who Runs the Best U.S. Schools? It May Be the Defense Department.” by Sarah Mervosh (New York Times). Alternate link if trouble with the above. >From the article, and bolding is mine: While the achievement of U.S. students overall has stagnated over the last decade, the military’s schools have made gains on the national test since 2013. And even as the country’s lowest-performing students—in the bottom 25th percentile—have slipped further behind, the Defense Department’s lowest-performing students have improved in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade reading. “If the Department of Defense schoo— Tim Ferriss
Stephen Fry on living the artistic life. The link will take you to 1:24:33. This particular segment caused me to think deeply. I’m not sure I totally agree with the premise, but that’s part of the magic that makes it good to chew on.— Tim Ferriss
The Well of Being: A Children’s Book for Adults by Jean-Pierre Weill. This was introduced to me by one of the most thoughtful, present, and playful couples I know. They have also infused the raising of their daughters with a similar ethos. From the book description: “The Well of Being, from Jean-Pierre Weill, is an illustrated inquiry into the art of happiness and what it means to be radically alive in our daily moments. Images and a graceful philosophic text invite us to awaken from our constructed stories that we may return to this world and live in the present. The book opens with a perenni— Tim Ferriss
“Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” —
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 11 In A, K. 331 - III. Alla Turca. This piece will be familiar to many of you, but it takes on a special flair in this performance by concert violinist Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Mozart composed it at the ripe old age of 27.— Tim Ferriss
“Gut Microbiota in Anxiety and Depression: Unveiling the Relationships and Management Options.” Something must be in the air, as several people have sent me this in the past few months. Thanks to each and every person. Here are a few snippets of many that stuck out to me: Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species were found to be capable of reducing depression to a large extent. The points mentioned above suggest that gut microbiota has a role in developing anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are gut–brain axis disorders that can be treated with the help of the gut microbiota, which— Tim Ferriss
The Most Complete Puncher EVER - Naoya Inoue 井上尚弥. Inoue is one of my favorite boxers to watch. His accuracy is lethal, and his bodyweight-to-power ratio defies belief. Exhibit A: his short right hand.— Tim Ferriss
“The Secret To Hosting A Party For The Ages.” This short piece is hilarious and tactical in equal measure. It was originally published in Vogue in 1930 by Elsa Maxwell, whom George Bernard Shaw described as “the eighth wonder of the world.” Hat tip to Sriram Krishnan for mentioning this in his X thread about curating private WhatsApp groups. Miss Maxwell had a way with words: I have often been moved to sudden inward unholy laughter when, upon entering salon or ballroom, I first catch sight of the harassed and anguished face of an unhappy hostess, so obviously suffering at being trapped by her — Tim Ferriss
“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons—the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.” —
“Can psychedelics treat people with a severe brain injury?” by Jonathan Moens for National Geographic. (Alternate link.) This is a deeply researched and deeply moving piece. It underscores some of the hopes and gaps related to treating “disorders of consciousness.” Coverage of psychedelics tends to overstate how much we understand, and this is a good counterbalance with open questions. Here is an excerpt: At the heart of this scientific initiative is the notion of brain “complexity.” In neuroscience, complexity is a measure of how diverse and unpredictable brain activity is. Brain activity tha— Tim Ferriss
“Wounded orangutan seen using plant as medicine.” (BBC) This isn’t a trivial observation. For more, see “Active self-treatment of a facial wound with a biologically active plant by a male Sumatran orangutan.” Hat tip to Dr. Mark Plotkin of Amazon Conservation Team (ACT).— Tim Ferriss
Jerry Seinfeld’s Recent Duke Commencement Speech. There is some really powerful stuff hidden between the jokes. There are 3–4 concepts (e.g., fascination over passion) that made me pause and rewind, which I suspect will be very helpful as I navigate my next chapters. If you want to skip some of the local references in the beginning, I suggest starting here, which will take you to 2:50. Also… how good does Jerry look at 70?!? I want whatever he’s taking.— Tim Ferriss
“Hearing is be-leafing: Students invent quieter leaf blower.” These brilliant undergrad engineers at Johns Hopkins might just save my sanity. Their invention could be on the market within two years, and in Austin, where nearly every citizen has OLD (obsessive leaf-blowing disorder), I’ll consider it a godsend. Fingers crossed.— Tim Ferriss
“It is the nature of man to build the most complicated cage of rules and regulations in which to trap himself, and then, with equal ingenuity and zest, to bend his brain to the problem of wriggling triumphantly out again. Lent was a challenge; the game was to ferret out the loopholes.” — in Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society (Kudos to author Steve Hendricks, as I found this quote in The Oldest Cure in the World: Adventures in the Art and Science of Fasting.)
“Fashion’s Desert Graveyard” by John Bartlett for National Geographic. From the article: Between 2000 and 2014, clothing production doubled and consumers began buying 60 percent more clothes and wearing them for half as long as they once did. … Duty-free ports encourage economic activity, as goods are imported and often reexported without the usual taxes and fees. The duty-free port was established in Iquique in 1975 to help generate jobs and improve an ailing local economy. Chile became one of the world’s largest importers of used clothes, which transformed Iquique. As fast fashion exploded, — Tim Ferriss
Croton lechleri. From Wikipedia: Croton lechleri is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, that is native to northwestern South America. It is commonly known as sangre de grado (Peruvian Spanish), sangre de drago (Ecuadorian Spanish) or sangre de grada (Bolivian Spanish). They refer to this tree’s (and several related species’) thick red latex. The latex has medicinal properties and is used by local peoples as a liquid bandage applied to seal wounds, as it dries quickly to form a protective skin-like barrier. Its use by Native people has led to scientific study and o— Tim Ferriss
Fight-corner motivation by Teddy Atlas, renowned boxing coach. The most relevant part is linked directly, it lasts less than a minute, and Bradley ended up winning the fight with a 9th-round TKO.— Tim Ferriss
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” —
David Mamet’s Writing Memo. Even if you don’t give a shit about writing, you’ll enjoy reading this outraged and brilliant five-page memo from David Mamet. He curses like a sailor and imparts the wisdom of a sage. David won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow. Here are two excerpts from his excellent memo to the writing staff of the TV show The Unit. I preserved the CAPS of his writing for the second part for proper impact: Question: What is drama? Drama, again, is the quest of the hero to overcome those things which prevent him fr— Tim Ferriss
Nick Gray’s blind date adventures in Japan. Fellow Austinite Nick Gray came up with this brilliant idea, which he posted on Twitter/X: “I want to do a blind date and go to Tokyo next weekend. If you’re a woman with a passport who likes sushi and Japanese food and can ride a bike in a big city… let’s go. I’ll pay for everything but in return you have to film stupid videos of me for my socials.” One could apply after reading this Google doc, which he included. Here is his latest moving update at the time of this newsletter. You can learn more about the woman who joined the blind date here, and t— Tim Ferriss
“Are You Hunting Antelope or Field Mice?” I often ask myself this, and I lifted it from the most unlikely of sources. Read this in two minutes for context, and don’t freak out because of the first few paragraphs. Strong metaphors can come from all places.— Tim Ferriss
“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” —
Live 10th Anniversary Random Show with Kevin Rose! This week is officially the podcast’s 10-year anniversary, and there is no better way to commemorate such a wild milestone than with Kevin Rose, a little tequila, and a huge thank-you to my dear listeners! Kevin was my very first guest for episode one way back in April 2014. Feels like both yesterday and lifetimes ago. Last night, the platform River helped you all run parties around the world in more than 180 cities! More than 4,000 people RSVP’d. I was able to join about 40 cities via Zoom for quick hellos and drinks (huge thanks to Rae and A— Tim Ferriss
RAY. “Autofocus” for your voice! Check out this cool demo on YouTube. If it delivers even 50% of the features, it’ll be one to watch. The description: “RAY is the first microphone with our new sensor-based AURA technology to dynamically adapt your levels and tone according to your distance to the microphone. It’s like autofocus but for your voice. Instead of making perfectly sharp pictures, you’re getting perfectly balanced recordings.” Has anyone used this? If so, what are the pros and cons? Please let me know at @tferriss on Twitter with #RAY. I’m considering sending this to remote podcast g— Tim Ferriss
“How a Hater Accelerated My Startup’s Timeline By a Year, Overnight” by Niels Hoven. This is a wonderful story of how an online attack backfired and ended up 10xing positive attention to a startup. I love when karma lands in the right place at the right time. Mentava is one of my few investments in the edtech space; another is NoRedInk. To get on the waitlist for Mentava’s software before it opens to the public, just go here: mentava.com.— Tim Ferriss
“Keynote by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.” This entire video is worth watching. If you’re short on time, click here to hear one of my favorite moments, punctuated with a very deliberate and uncomfortable pause. Great food for thought.— Tim Ferriss
“101 Additional Advices” by Kevin Kelly. Regular readers know that I consider Kevin one candidate for the real-world most interesting man in the world. He turns 73 in a few days, and I always read his short, bulleted lists of advice.— Tim Ferriss
“We spend our entire lives trying to tell stories about ourselves—they’re the essence of memory. It is how we make living in this unfeeling accidental universe tolerable. That we call such a tendency ‘the narrative fallacy’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t also touch upon some aspect of the truth.” — , author of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
Harder: “Happy” (Spotify, YouTube) by Daughters of Mara. This was sent to me by the one and only drumming monster Dave Elitch, whose savant-level percussion you’ll hear. Shawn Zuzek, lead singer of Daughters of Mara, offers some additional context on the song: “How do you find the balance between moments of feeling fully crushed and truly letting go? … ‘Happy’ is incredibly personal to me. It’s about a very specific person and a very specific place in time, but I think a lot of us can identify with trying to fight despair with progress and resilience and even grace. Life is hard and letting go— Tim Ferriss
“The STRONGEST Hobby Lifter Ever - Lifting Legends”— Tim Ferriss
Braun All-in-One Style Kit. Every once in a while, innovations come around that solve problems with a “Why didn’t someone think of this earlier?” effect. Luggage on wheels is one example. For me, this Braun trimmer is another. I have TONS of clippers. Why? Because I lose the plastic attachments for different lengths, then I’m screwed and need a new set. This superior Braun design is an all-in-one solution that uses a radial dial allowing 40 length settings in 0.02″ steps. I love it.— Tim Ferriss
Special Ops: Lioness. I am a huge fan of Taylor Sheridan, who co-created Yellowstone ) and created its prequels 1883 ) and 1923 ). I was introduced to his writing through Sicario, for which he was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay. He has the ability to weave deep character development and brutal reflections of reality into edge-of-your-seat story arcs that keep you watching. Here’s a portion of the official description: “Special Ops: Lioness is based on a real-life program and follows Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a rough-around-the-edges but passion— Tim Ferriss
“Food from Thin Air” by Sarah Kuta. Teaser: “It sounds like science fiction, but Johns Hopkins scientists are making food from air. The revolutionary project could someday help feed soldiers in rugged, hard-to-reach places or sustain victims of natural disasters until normal supply chain operations can resume.”— Tim Ferriss
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. — Walt Whitman, as recommended to me by Maria Popova, who invited me to read this poem alo
Momentum Dash. You can see my screen at this link and the message I had for myself when I was working on Tools of Titans back in 2016. Momentum Dash is outstanding, but you’ll likely end up paying for it. My close friend found a free alternative with basic functionality, and it gets the bare-bones job done: New Tab Random Quote.— Tim Ferriss
Suno and Udio. Here’s one of many prompts from Suno: “Heavy metal song about panicked polar bears that eat too much edible cannabis on New Year’s Eve.” It produced two song variations about 90 seconds later, and the quality was unbelievable. This AI-music arms race is heating up fast, and it’s also straining under the explosive demand. When I tried to use Suno for this bullet, it was freezing and producing errors, so I tried a competitor named Udio for the first time. I was up and running in seconds. >From coverage in Tom’s Guide: “The brainchild of former Google DeepMind engineers, the [Udio]— Tim Ferriss
“The New Yorker Who Cracked the U.K.’s Premier Quiz Show” by David Segal for The New York Times.— Tim Ferriss
Track a flight in real time on iMessage, on iPhone or Mac. If you are looking to quickly get info on your flight or that of a loved one, all it takes is a text. No Googling required. Just text yourself (or someone else) the flight number with no spaces (e.g., UA8181), and you can easily track it inside iMessage. Tap on the auto-generated link (right-click on laptop), and time, gate, and more will automagically appear in a preview pop-up. See this screenshot for the exact steps. Hat tip to Loni!— Tim Ferriss
“I sometimes wonder whether conspiracy theories are an attempt to re-enchant the world in a distorted way. It’s like religion knocking on the door and trying to come back in a strange and distorted form. A sense of mystery beyond our own understanding of the world. If you ever talk to conspiracy theorists, that’s the sense you get from them. A sort of almost romantic sense of awe that there is this dark mysterious thing that a rational thing could never penetrate.” —
“A stealth attack came close to compromising the world’s computers.” Alternate link. From the article: “On March 29th Andres Freund, an engineer at Microsoft, published a short detective story. In recent weeks he had noticed that SSH—a system to log on securely to another device over the internet—was running about 500 milliseconds more slowly than expected.” As one tweet put it, “The xz backdoor was initially caught by a software engineer at Microsoft. He noticed 500ms lag and thought something was suspicious. This is the Silver Back Gorilla of nerds. The internet final boss.” Or as The New Yo— Tim Ferriss
Felix culpa. “Felix culpa is a Latin phrase that comes from the words felix, meaning ‘happy,’ ‘lucky,’ or ‘blessed,’ and culpa, meaning ‘fault’ or ‘fall.’ In the Catholic tradition, the phrase is most often translated ‘happy fault,’ as in the Catholic Exsultet. Other translations include ‘blessed fall’ or ‘fortunate fall.’” More broadly and put another way in Oxford Languages: “an apparent error or disaster with happy consequences.”— Tim Ferriss