档案精选：蒂姆·费里斯谈可能性、导师与DISS学习框架

我的一些创业项目，比如Reputation.com，通过网页上的直接响应广告取得了巨大成功。

And a number of my startups, like reputation.com, had done tremendously well with direct response advertising off of the web.

所以，这可能比你原本想听的要长一些，但公司就是这样起步的，最终，出于必要，我发展出了许多自动化和提高效率的技巧——如果你愿意这么看的话，是一些系统。到了2004年，我肯定你也经历过，那时我在财务上非常成功，但却极度痛苦。

And so so anyway, that's that's a longer answer perhaps than was was intended, but that's how the company got up and running, and eventually, you developed a lot of the automation and productivity hacks, if you wanna look at them that way, systems out of necessity, because I got to a point in 2004, and I'm sure you've been there before, where I was doing really well financially, and I was completely miserable.

我是说，真的非常痛苦，毁掉了我的人际关系，当时的一位长期女友也因为我就只知道工作而和我分手了。

I mean, just utterly miserable and destroying my relationships, and a long term girlfriend at the time broke up with me because all I did was work.

她怎么说的？

What did she say?

她是直接走人了，还是要求你多花点时间陪她？

Did she just walk out, or did she insist on more time from you?

她给了我一些东西，你知道，我到现在还留着，那看起来像一块奖牌，但实际上是个可以在Target买到的那种三格照片架，

She gave me, you know, I actually still have this, she gave me what looks like a plaque of sorts, although it's actually one of those photo holders that you could get at Target that have the three panes, and

它们

they

可以展开立在壁炉架上，上面有一张我的照片拼贴，还有许多彩纸，画的是我提着公文包狂奔，文件从包里飞出来，下面写着：‘工作时间下午五点结束！’，后面还加了三个感叹号。你知道，这背后是爱。

fold out to stay standing on top of a mantle or whatnot, and it had a, this is incredible, I had a collage made of a photograph of my head, and then a bunch of construction paper, and it was me running with a briefcase with papers flying out of it, and underneath, it said, Business hours end at 5PM, with an exclamation point, or three after it, and you know that it was love.

很有创意。

Very creative.

这很有创意，但本质上是一封绝交信，或者说是伪装成温柔提醒的最后通牒，我当时根本没有意识到，因为我那时完全沉浸在工作中。她离开了，老实说，我当时极度缺乏自我认知，现在可能在某些方面依然如此，所以我完全没想到她会不愿意和一个每天从早上7点工作到晚上9点的人维持亲密关系。

It was very creative, but it effectively a Dear John letter, or it was an ultimatum in disguise that I didn't recognize at the time, because I had my head so far up my And she left, and honestly, I lacked so much self awareness at the time, and I probably still do in some ways, that it came as a complete surprise that she would not want to be in an intimate relationship with someone who worked from like 7AM to 9PM.

我能理解这确实是个问题。

I can see that could be a problem.

我的意思是，你显然受到了很大影响。

I mean, you were obviously affected by this.

你有没有试图挽回她？

Did you try to win her back?

你有没有说你要减少工作时间？

Did you say I'm gonna cut down my hours?

没有。

No.

我后来试图挽回她。

I tried to win her back later.

这有点可悲又可笑。

This is is somewhat tragically amusing.

于是我开始了转变或重新评估，这可以说是《四小时工作制》的开端：买了一张单程票去伦敦，计划花三到四周时间，要么重新设计业务并抽身而出，要么直接关闭它。

So I started the transformation or the reassessment that is sort of the beginning of the four hour work week, which was buying this one way ticket to London to just kinda spec out three to four weeks to either redesign the business and extricate myself, or shut it down.

这就是目标，而且

That was the objective, and

你当时能解决这个问题吗？

Could you have solved it

到那时，我甚至没把它当成一个选项。

at this point?

当时，这甚至根本没出现在我的考虑范围内。

At that point, probably, it wasn't even in my mind as an option.

如果你想知道现实是否可协商，以及可能性是否受限于你自己的信念，我当时认定这公司卖不掉，所以根本没考虑过这个选项，但后来发现这完全是无根据的。当我后来在2007年之后开始大量进行天使投资和顾问工作时，我才意识到，天啊，这根本没必要这么复杂。

If you wanna talk about reality being negotiable and the possibilities and being limited by your own beliefs, I assumed it couldn't be sold, so I didn't even look at that option, which ended up being completely unfounded, and as soon as I started doing a lot of angel investing and advising much later, 2007 plus, I realized, holy This doesn't have to be so damn complicated.

我可以卖掉它，而我确实在2009年卖掉了公司，比我能想象的要容易得多。

I can sell this, and I sold the company in 2009, which was much easier than I could have possibly imagined.

你能

Can you

告诉我2009年你卖了多少钱吗？

tell me what in 2009, what did you sell it for?

是的。

Yeah.

我不会公开谈论售价。

I don't talk publicly about the sales price.

那笔钱还不足以让我们退休或躺平。

It wasn't enough to We retire or fall with

不会告诉任何人。

won't tell anyone.

对，没错。

Yeah, right.

不。

No.

那是一笔可观的收入，但还不足以让我退休，前提是我相信退休这个概念；不过这笔钱确实很可观，反映了对公司收入的一个不错倍数。

It was a decent chunk of change, but not enough to say retire on if I believed in the concept of retirement, but it was a comfortable chunk of change that reflected a nice multiple on revenue.

关于这次出售，总还有更长的故事。

There's always a longer story related to the sales.

这次出售，你听好了。

The sale well, check this out.

所以这次出售，想想这个时间点。

So the sale, think about the timing of this.

所以，关于出售的谈判，我猜是从2008年初到年中开始的，时间上我可能记不太准，但当时有不少投资方，也就是那些准备出资收购公司的人，都来自伦敦。

So the the conversation for the sale started, I'm guessing, early to mid two thousand eight, and I might be screwing up the timing, but a number of the financiers who were who were putting money into purchasing purchasing the company were based in London.

好吧，那我们现在遇到什么问题了？

Alright, so what do we run into now?

所以，这笔交易中，英镑兑美元的汇率非常关键。

So we have a pound sterling dollar conversion rate that's very important to this transaction.

那么2008年和2009年还发生了什么？

So what else happened in 2008, 2009?

一切都崩溃了。

Everything collapsed.

整个世界都崩溃了，突然间，这笔交易岌岌可危，因为他们已经资不抵债。

The whole world collapses, and all of a sudden, the deal is in jeopardy because they're upside down.

这笔交易突然变得比他们预期的贵了两到三倍。

The deal is suddenly two, three x more expensive than they anticipated.

所以我们不得不做了一系列非常规的操作，比如在某个阶段进行部分付款，并附带一张有条件的本票，条件是汇率达到某个特定水平，诸如此类的疯狂安排，这是一次很好的锻炼。

So we had to do a bunch of really unorthodox stuff, meaning a partial payment at one point with a promissory note contingent upon the certain triggers like the exchange rate reaching a certain parity and all this crazy stuff, which was a great exercise.

最终结果还不错，谢天谢地，但是

It ended up panning out, thankfully, but

你害怕吗？

Were you scared?

我的意思是，这类谈判对我来说是最让人压力山大的。

I mean, because those types of negotiations, for me, I find to be the most stressful.

当然了。

Oh, of course.

这非常有压力，但不完全是由于财务原因，我相信听这段话的人中有一些能理解。

It was very stressful, not entirely for financial reasons, and I'm sure there are people listening to this who can understand.

在很多方面，这已经成了我的孩子，但我却再也不想花时间在它身上了。

This had become my baby in so many ways, and it was a baby that I didn't want to spend any more time with.

尽管如此，我为建设它投入了这么多年的生命，因此在某种程度上，我对它有一种非理性的依恋，希望它能得到妥善处理，而被困在这种悬而未决的状态中，让我感到极其压力和不适。

There was that, but nonetheless, I had dedicated so many years of my life to building it that I had an irrational, on some level, attachment to seeing it taken care of, and being caught in this limbo was very, very stressful and uncomfortable for me.

你对任何人发过火吗？

Did you get angry at anybody?

你看起来不像是容易生气的人。

You don't seem like an angry sort of guy.

在这期间，你有没有冲着谁大喊大叫？

Did you scream scream at at anybody anybody in in the the middle middle of of this?

这个？

This?

没有，我没有。

No, I didn't.

我没有对任何人大喊大叫，因为这可能听起来有点奇怪，但我面对灾难性情况时表现得非常好。

I didn't scream at anybody because, and maybe this is odd, but I deal with catastrophic circumstances very, very well.

我从未参过军，但我一直觉得自己在高压战斗环境中反而可能表现得不错。

So I was never in the military, but I always thought I might actually operate well in a sort of high stress combat environment.

我经历过车祸。

I've been around car accidents.

我亲眼见过有人在我面前被肢解，而我依然能够冷静应对。

I've seen people just get dismembered in front of me, and I've been able to respond.

这是训练的结果。

Training.

我在灾难面前能做出非常出色的反应。

I'm able to respond really well in disasters.

我不会生气。

I don't get angry.

我会生气的是那些微不足道的小事——我知道这些事都是因为人类愚蠢、不负责任，或者没能按时交付工作，这些真的能让我发疯。

Where I get angry is with the really small stuff that I know result is of human beings being idiots, or being irresponsible, or not delivering things on deadline drive me absolutely insane.

然后我正在努力改善这一点，但我对那些能力出众却表现得像无能之辈的人有着极度的不耐烦。

And then I've I'm trying to get better at that, but I have such an extreme level of impatience for people who are competent, but behave as if they were incompetent.

这才是让我生气的地方。

That's what I get upset about.

那些才华横溢却总是拖延交付的人让我非常愤怒。

Very talented people who deliver stuff habitually late makes me so angry.

也许这种反应对刺激来说有些过激，但

It's disproportionate perhaps to the stimulus, but

那你怎么做呢？

Well, what do you do?

你会对他们大喊大叫吗？

Do you yell at them?

你会解雇他们吗？

Do you fire them?

你通常怎么处理？

What do you do?

我解雇他们。

I fire them.

我通常不会大喊大叫，因为那没什么用，只会制造更多问题，但我确实会生气。

I don't yell typically because it doesn't get you anywhere, and it just causes more problems, but I get upset.

我确实会生气。

I do get upset.

我只是想说，你明明知道的。

I'm just like, you knew this.

你答应过要做另一件事，可结果呢？我们却面临一大堆问题，都是因为你没做你承诺要做的事。

You promised this other thing, and yet here we are with a number of large problems that were created because you didn't do what you said you were going to do.

这是不可接受的。

That's unacceptable.

让我们从行业层面谈谈这个问题吧，因为你接触过好几个行业，那里有很多聪明能干的人，但整个行业结构支离破碎、近乎无能，很难不让这些聪明人变得无能。

Well, let's talk about this on an industry level because you've dealt with several industries that are filled with intelligent, competent people, but the industries themselves are so fractured and incompetent almost structurally that it's hard not to turn these intelligent people into incompetent people.

我说的是出版业和电视业。

And I'm talking about both publishing and television.

所以你对脑速记进行了自我实验。

So brain Quicken, you experimented on yourself.

你开发了《每周工作四小时》中的所有技巧，我相信大家都读过这本书，但如果你还没读，我强烈推荐大家去读，因为它对于打造每周工作四小时的生活方式非常有用——而你实际上已经把脑速记变成了你自己的每周工作四小时的工作。

You developed all of the techniques in the four Hour Workweek, which I'm sure everyone's read it, but if you haven't, I really encourage people to read it because it's incredibly useful for creating a four Hour Workweek, which you successfully essentially turned brain Quicken into for you was it'd be that that was your four hour work week job.

然后，简单说一下

And then Well, just a quick

关于这一点，有个有趣的小插曲。

funny side note on that.

在我们为这本书考虑的所有标题中，最初的十几个标题之一是‘每周工作两小时’，但我的出版商认为这太不切实际了。

Of all the titles we were considering for the book, so the original one of the original sort of 12 titles or so was the two hour work week, and my publisher thought that was too unrealistic,

所以

so

我们最终决定以‘每周工作四小时’作为测试标题。

we settled on testing the four hour work week.

是的。

Yeah.

你知道吗，曾经有人问我，什么或者不。

You know, somebody once asked me what or no.

我可能以前写过这个。

I might have written about this once.

我说你可能会，我只是在猜测。

I said you would have I was just guessing.

我说，如果你能的话，你可能会把它叫做零小时工作周，但那并不现实。

I said you probably would have called it the zero hour work week if you could, but that wouldn't have been realistic.

所以通过测试，你发现四小时才是合适的数字。

So you through testing, know you figured out four was, like, the right number.

因为你知道，人们不想工作。

Because, you know, people don't wanna work.

人们想要的是零小时工作周。

Like people want a zero hour work week.

另一点是，我在2005年时，每周花两个小时，确切地说是两个小时，处理所有Brain Quicken相关的事情。

Well, the other thing is that I was in 2005 spending two hours, literally two hours a week, managing all Brain Quicken related stuff.

这完全是另一个关于测试标题之类话题的讨论。

That's a whole separate conversation on testing titles and whatnot.

但你的测试方法是针对《选择你自己》吗？因为我的初始标题是《选择你自己时代》，但我遇到了一个奇怪的问题——我根本说不出‘时代’这个词。

But did your testing technique for choose yourself because my initial title was the choose yourself era, and I had this weird problem where I couldn't say the word era.

听起来像‘错误’，或者有位编辑说，这听起来像一本关于人类学的书。

It sounded like error, or it sounded like you know, one editor said, he says a book about anthropology.

说到塔克·马克斯，他说：‘你为什么不拿《挑选你自己》来做测试呢？’

So speaking of Tucker Max, he said, why don't you test it against pick yourself?

但我也不太喜欢《挑选你自己》，因为听起来像‘挖鼻孔’。

And I didn't really like pick yourself either because, like, pick your nose.

所以我说，好吧。

So I said, okay.

我们就用蒂姆·费里斯的方法吧。

Let's just do Tim Ferriss's technique.

于是我们测试了《选择你自己》《挑选你自己》《选择你自己时代》，还有另外十个标题，然后同样方法测试了副标题，最终才确定了书名和副标题。

So we did choose yourself, pick yourself, the choose yourself era, and then like 10 other titles, and then we did the same thing with subtitles, and that's how we came up with the title and the subtitle.

谢谢你的建议。

So thank you for the idea.

当然。

Of course.

是的。

Yeah.

相信直觉很好，但你应该用数据来验证。

It's great to trust your gut, but you should verify with numbers.

我根本不相信自己的直觉。

I don't trust my gut at all.

你知道，我以前是日间交易员，还管理过对冲基金，我很快意识到我的直觉里充满了各种有害细菌，所以我完全依赖软件，根本不会相信自己的直觉。

You know, I'm a former day trader by profession, and I ran a hedge fund, and I quickly learned my gut is filled with all sorts of toxic bacteria, and I totally needed to rely only on software, so I I didn't trust my gut at all.

我的直觉总是错的。

My gut was always wrong.

但我把你带偏了。

But I took you off course.

你之前提到过电视出版这个领域，在那里，即使是非常有能力的人，有时也会被逼入困境，无法发挥出最佳水平。

You were talking about publishing TV where otherwise very competent people sometimes are cornered or put into a position where they can't do their best work

说得对，因为我们都知道出版界有很多很痛苦的人，但这并不是他们的错。

to put it Right, because we both know very sore people in publishing, and it's not their fault.

所以我不想责怪任何人。

So I don't wanna blame anybody.

但你知道，你的一点特别之处是，你经常重新塑造自己。

But, you know, one thing about you is that you reinvent yourself quite a bit.

你说BrainQuicken是你的孩子，但后来你决定，你知道吗？

So you say BrainQuicken was your baby, but at some point, you decided, you know what?

我不但要销售这些营养保健品，而且我以前从来没做过。

I'm also gonna not only am I gonna sell these nutraceuticals, but heck, I've never done it before.

我还要写一本书。

I'm gonna write a book.

你真的去做了，从你经营BrainQuicken开始，是什么让你决定，全世界的人都需要听到你对这件事的看法？

And you went ahead and did it, like, from, you know, why you're running brain quick, and why did you decide you're gonna, that everybody in the world needs to hear what you have to say about this?

写书需要一定的自信。

You have to have a certain ego to write a book.

说实话，我真希望我能为此感到自豪。

Well, I wish I could take credit for it, honestly.

我其实是个不情愿的写作者。

I was a reluctant writer.

我在本科期间的毕业论文差点要了我的命。

My senior thesis during undergrad almost killed me.

我确实休学了一年，部分原因就是为了专心完成这件事，因为我坚信自己永远也写不完它；毕业后我向自己发誓，再也不会写任何比邮件更长的东西了，显然这个誓言并没有实现。

I actually took a year off away from school partially just to work on this thing because I was convinced I would never finish it, and I vowed to myself after graduating that I would never write anything longer than an email ever again, which clearly has not panned out.

但这本书的形成方式是，首先，我是个强迫性记笔记的人，也许可以称之为‘过度书写症’，如果你愿意给它一个诊断的话。

But the way the book came together was, number one, I mean, I'm a compulsive notetaker, so hypergraphia maybe, if you wanna give it a diagnosis.

我有几十本笔记本。

I dozens and dozens of notebooks.

我随时随地都在做笔记。

I take notes all the time.

我随时都在做笔记，无论何时何地，要找到我手里没笔或没东西可写几乎是不可能的。在优化BrainQuicken、把自己从瓶颈中解放出来并建立系统的过程中，我收集了所有关于这些学习、策略和不同实验的笔记。

I record notes, and it's very, very, very hard to find me at any time, anywhere without a pen or something to write with handy, and I collected all of my notes on these learnings and tactics and different tests and so on as I was streamlining BrainQuicken and removing myself from it as a bottleneck and putting systems in place.

所以我有大量这些笔记。

So I had all these notes.

同时，从大约2003年开始——请记住，我是在2000年或2001年左右创办这家公司的。

Simultaneously, beginning in, I want to say, 2003 or so, so keeping in mind that I started the company, I guess, 2000, 2001.

从2003年起，我一位前教授，一位了不起的人，名叫埃德·绍（Ed Shau，拼写是Z-S-C-H-A-U），他曾是国会议员，也是竞技花样滑冰选手，他曾经参加过

Starting in 2003, one of my former professors, a great guy named Ed Shau, Z S C H A U, had been a congressman, competitive figure skater, had taken At

同一时期。

the same time.

别介意。

No offense.

是的，他真是，

Yeah, he's,

我不是在开玩笑。

I'm not kidding.

这个人是世界上最有趣的人。

This guy is, he is the world's most interesting man.

他教过一门我选修的课，叫高科技创业，从2003年左右开始，他邀请我每年回来一两次，讲讲自筹资金或精益创业，而不是风险投资。

He taught a class that I took called high-tech entrepreneurship, and starting in 2003, I believe, he invited me to come back once or twice a year to talk about self funding or bootstrapping as opposed to venture backing.

我去听这些课的时候，必须准备内容，于是我开始测试许多后来成为《四小时工作周》一书部分内容的材料，但我从未打算写这本书。

And I was going to these classes, and I had to come up with content, so I started testing a lot of the material that would later become parts of the book, The four Hour Workweek, but I never had any intention to write the book.

上完这些课后，我会发送电子邮件反馈表。

After all these classes, I would send email feedback forms.

我想获得反馈。

I wanted to get feedback.

我该如何改进？

How could I improve it?

你最喜欢什么？

What did you like most?

你最不喜欢什么？

What did you like least?

等等，只是为了下次更好地授课。

Etcetera, just to teach the class more effectively next time.

有一回，有个学生——你要记住，这是普林斯顿。

And at one point, one of the students This is Princeton you gotta keep in mind.

那里有很多爱讽刺的人，也有很多自命不凡的人，我敢肯定我当年在那里时，甚至之后，也多少有点这样，但关键是，有位学生在其他评论或补充意见中写道：我不明白你为什么要给50个学生上课。

There are a lot of snarky people there and a lot of pompous people there, and I'm sure I was probably a bit of both when I was there and maybe afterwards, but the point being, a student gave some feedback in the other comments or any additional comments, which was, I don't understand why you're teaching a class of 50 students.

你为什么不干脆写本书，一劳永逸呢？

Why don't you just write a book and be done with it?

我认为这其实并不是一个认真的建议。

And I don't think that was actually a serious recommendation.

听起来这有点像在甩脸色。

Nobel sounds like a little bit of an F you there.

我觉得这很可能就是，但不管怎样，它在我心里种下了一颗种子。我原本根本不想写书，但有一晚我熬到很晚，大概是2004年或2005年，开始翻阅书籍和书稿提案，研究出版流程。

I think it actually probably was, and nonetheless, it planted this seed, and I had no desire to write a book, but I was up late one night, and this was probably 2004, 2005, and I started looking at books, and book proposals, and book publishing.

我想：嘿，你知道吗？

Was like, You know what?

我有几个小时的空闲时间。

I have a couple hours to kill.

让我喝杯葡萄酒，然后看看这个。

Let me just have a glass of wine, and I'm gonna check this out.

于是我开始摆弄起来，翻看我的笔记，构思书名。

So I started messing around with it, and looking back at my notes, and just coming up with book titles.

我喜欢标题。

I like headlines.

是的。

Yeah.

我从事直接回应营销多年。

I did direct response for years.

我想，你知道吗？

I'm like, you know what?

让我想想，章节标题会是什么样？

Let me just like, what would chapter headlines?

哦，这真的很好笑。

Oh, this is really funny.

这时候 probably 已经有点醉了。

Probably a little drunk at this point.

比如，我会给这本书起什么名字？

Like, what would I call the book?

blah blah blah。

Blah blah blah.

纯粹就是个娱乐练习。

Very, very much just an exercise in fun.

它本来没打算做成任何东西。

It wasn't intended to be anything.

然后有一次，我给杰克·坎菲尔德发了条消息，我们之前有过一些断断续续的哲学式交流。

And then at one point, I sent Jack Canfield a note, and we had had this very intermittent sort of philosophical exchange.

我会联系他，向他请教一些关于生活或哲学抉择的切实建议。

I would contact him for asking him for very real advice on some life decision or philosophical decision that I needed to make.

那通常不是什么特别具体的事情，也不是介绍之类的，我问了他其中一个问题，然后在邮件末尾说：嘿，有学生建议我写一本关于 blah, blah, blah 的书。

It was very seldom something super specific or an introduction or whatever, and I asked him one of these questions, and then at the end of the email, was like, Hey, you know, student recommended I write a book about blah, blah, blah.

我设计了一个封面和封底。

I mocked up a cover and a back cover.

挺搞笑的。

Pretty hilarious.

你觉得怎么样？

What do you think?

他几乎立刻就说：你绝对应该这么做。

And pretty much right out of the gate, he said, Well, you should totally do it.

我能想象它出现在《福克斯与朋友们》上。

I could see it on Fox and Friends.

你知道你该去联系的人是这个、这个、这个人。

You know you should talk to is this person, this person, this person.

还没等我反应过来，事情就有点曝光了——如果这说法成立的话，我不确定这么说对不对——他还帮我引荐了几位潜在的经纪人，但他们都拒绝了。

And before I knew it, the cat was kinda out of the bag, if that's even an expression, don't know if it sounds right, and he'd made introductions to a couple of potential agents, all of whom said no.

为什么他们都说不呢？

Number of gave him Why did good as say no?

其实我根本没打算卖这本书，但他们还是问：‘原因是什么？’

Well, I wasn't even trying to sell the thing, but they were like, What were some of the reasons?

这本书没法归入一个明确的类别。

This doesn't fit into a clean category.

我不知道该把它归到哪一类。

I don't know where this would be slotted.

这不是出版商想要的东西。

This isn't what publishers are looking for.

这些都是你在出版、电视和电影行业常听到的套话。

All the same kind of routine lines that you hear in both publishing and television and movies.

都是老生常谈。

It's just the same stuff.

尽管他们拒绝了我，但有些人给了我很好的建议，我很感激。

A number of them gave me good advice, even though they said no, which I appreciated.

说‘不’没关系，但我很感激其中一些人给我的建议，后来我最终签了史蒂夫·汉塞尔曼，那时他刚成为一名经纪人，之前曾是超级编辑，曾在他作为编辑的职业生涯中签下许多非常出色的书籍，比如《用户手册》和一大批大热作品。

Saying no is fine, but I do appreciate some parting advice, which a number of them gave me, and then I ended up signing with Steve Hanselman, who was just becoming an agent at that time and had been a superstar editor, and had acquired a bunch of really fantastic books in his previous career as an editor, like you, the owner's manual, and a bunch of really big winners.

这就是整个事情的开端。

So that's how the whole thing got started.

我从未打算写这本书。

I was never intending to write the book.

我并没有勇气就这样一头扎进深水区。

There was no courage on my part in jumping into the deep end that way.

我其实是被推动的，不是被逼的，但非常偶然地开始尝试推销一本书。

I was sort of goaded, not goaded, but spurred along and very inadvertently ended up trying to sell a book.

到这个时候，你已经有书名了吗？还是说你还没做测试？

At this point, did you have the title, or had you done that testing yet?

没有，我还没做测试。

No, I hadn't done the testing yet.

这个书名——这可能也是我被拒绝的另一个原因。

The title this is probably another reason I was turned down.

它最初的名字糟透了。

It had a horrible original title.

天哪。

Oh my god.

我很庆幸它没被采用。

And I'm so glad it didn't pan out.

它叫《生活方式投机》。

It was called Lifestyle Hustling.

我的意思是，这对我来说简直是无法想象的最差书名。

I mean, this is, like, the worst imaginable title for me.

我后来想出了更糟的书名来测试，但是

I came up with far worse titles to test later, but

是的，比如那个‘靠贩毒赚钱’的标题。

Yeah, was like the drug dealing one, drug dealing for fun and profit.

在提案阶段，书名最初是《生活方式投机》，后来当书被卖出去时，标题改成了《靠贩毒赚钱》，这在很多方面都有问题，但我还是喜欢那个标题。

Drug dealing, oh, so it was Lifestyle Hustling at the very beginning at the proposal stage, and then I think when it got sold, it had drug dealing for fun and profit, which is problematic on many levels, but I still like that title.

我其实还是挺喜欢那个标题的。

I actually, I still like that title.

我觉得我本来还是能让它成立的，但它不可能像《四小时工作周》那样传播得那么广。

I still think I could have made it work, but it wouldn't have spread as far and wide as the four hour work week.

天哪，那你现在怎么还能做跟这个标题有关的任何事情呢？

Oh my god, so how can you now do something that has that title in whatever form?

比如你能做什么？

Like what can you do?

比如用这个标题做播客，或者出一份补充报告？

Like a podcast with that title or a supplementing report?

是的。

Yeah.

我的意思是，我可以推出一个新的营养保健品系列。

I mean, I could do a new nutraceutical line.

就叫《直接疗愈，为乐而 Bravo》。

It's just called Direct Healing for Fun and Bravo.

认真的，现在这里可以买到这些原料。

Seriously, actually, right now, here's where you can buy the ingredients.

这里告诉你如何包装它们。

Here's how you can package them.

这里告诉我如何使用谷歌广告、脸书广告或ClickBank来打造一个信息产品并销售它。

Here's how I would use Google Ads or Facebook Ads or ClickBank to to put together an info product and sell it.

比如，从零开始，就像‘大脑加速器’套装一样。

Like, here's how from scratch, you know, brain Quicken in a box.

为乐趣和利润做毒品交易和毒品处理。

Drug dealing drug handling for fun and profit.

很多人都向我索要过这个。

I've had a lot of people ask me for that.

责任风险实在是太高了。

The liability is just so off the charts.

我当时就说，是的。

I was like, yeah.

不可能的，老兄。

There's no way, man.

你只能靠自己了。

You're kinda on your own.

对不起。

I'm sorry.

说得通。

Fair enough.

我们只是在头脑风暴。

We're we're just brainstorming.

不行。

No.

不行。

No.

不行。

No.

不行。

No.

我喜欢头脑风暴，但我觉得既然我已经反复提到过那个标题，现在肯定已经有上百人用它了，所以咱们继续下一个吧。

I love brainstorming, but I'd say since I've also talked about that title so much, I'd be amazed if there aren't a 100 squatters all over it at this point, so on to the next thing.

好的。

Okay.

所以你写了那本书。

So you did the book.

你把它卖出去了。

You sold it.

它成了畅销书。

It became a bestseller.

然后对于《我们的身体》，我觉得你开始逐渐明确自己的核心理念了，这其实并不是关于四小时工作周或者减掉大量体重——这些你在《四小时身体》里已经提过，也不是关于如何学习——这些你在《四小时大厨》里也讲过。

And then for Our Body, I feel like you're starting to figure out what your core message is, which is really, again, not necessarily about, you know, four hour work weeks or losing a lot of weight, which you cover in the four Hour Body among other things, or, you know, learning how to learn what you cover in the four hour chef.

但关键是，我们要质疑那些看似不可能的事，它们真的不可能吗？

But, again, it's this idea that let's let's question the impossible, and is it really impossible?

如果不是，我们该如何克服它？

And if not, how can we get through it?

而且看起来，你正越来越接近这个核心理念。

And it seems like you can start you get closer and closer to that core message.

对，完全正确。

Right, absolutely.

因为《四小时工作周》之后，我完全可以选择写《四小时工作周D》之类的续集，那会是轻而易举的捷径，但到那时——我想大概是2008年或2009年——当我开始考虑另一个主题方向时，我已经厌倦了在每一次采访中反复谈论电子邮件自动回复之类的话题，所以我决定彻底转向，做一件完全不同于商业领域的事情。

Because The four Hour Body, I could have very easily done The four Hour Workweek Part D or whatever, and that would have been the layup and the easier path, but I really did not, by that point, and this is, I'd say, 2008 or so, 2009, when I'm starting to think about perhaps another set of subject matter, and I was so sick of talking about email autoresponders and so on ad nauseam in every interview that I wanted to take a complete lateral move and do something entirely aside from business.

所以你写了一本关于性高潮的书？

So you wrote a book about orgasms?

所以我写了一本书，其中包含两章关于女性性高潮的内容，顺便提一句，这本书因此被好市多下架了。但《四小时身体》其实反映的是我早在《四小时工作周》之前十多年就痴迷的主题，所以非常契合。

So I wrote a book including two chapters on female orgasm, which got the book pulled out of Costco as a side note, but The four Hour Body really represented an obsession of mine that predated the four Hour Workweek stuff by ten plus years, so it was very appropriate.

问题是，即使《四小时工作周》已经卖出了四十多种语言版本，销量达数百万册，要让零售商接受《四小时身体》仍然非常困难——他们说：‘我们知道你在商业领域做过什么，但老兄，这根本不是同一个类别。’

The question was, and even after the four Hour Workweek, this is a book that sold into 40 plus languages, millions of copies or whatever, it was a hard sell to make The four Hour Body work with retailers and everything like, Well, we know what you did in business, but hey, man, that's not even the same category.

这本书肯定会失败。

This thing is gonna fail.

你知道这本书会太厚。

You know that the book is gonna be too big.

你知道健身和健康这类内容在国际上卖不动。

You know that fitness and health and all that, they don't sell internationally.

这些根本卖不出去。

You can't sell those.

它们翻译起来效果很差，诸如此类，但我不是说这些反馈来自出版商。

They don't translate well, on and on and on, and I'm not saying that was feedback from the publisher.

这些反馈来自一些成功的作者，他们甚至会一口喷出饮料，说：‘什么？’

This is feedback from, in some cases, successful authors who literally would spit up their drinks and be like, What?

有多长？

It's how long?

是精装本吗？

It's a hardcover?

什么？

It's what?

这永远卖不出去。

That's never gonna sell.

他们从来不会把那些放进推荐位， blah, blah, blah。

They never slot those in blah, blah, blah.

永远，永远，永远不可能，不可能，不可能。

Never, never, never impossible, impossible, impossible.

问题是，你测试过这些东西吗？

It's like, have you tested these things?

你有什么证据支持这一点？

What evidence do you have for that?

是吗？

Oh, really?

这很有趣。

That's interesting.

你看过什么数据？

What data have you seen?

你有什么证据支持这一点？

What evidence do you have for that?

你看到了什么数据？

What data did you see?

嗯，不会的，我会问他们这个问题，但他们只会一脸茫然。

Well, no, I would ask them this, and it would just be a blank stare.

他们会说：不，大家都懂这个。

They would be like, No, well, everybody knows that.

我当时想：真的吗？

I was like, Really?

他们怎么知道的？

How do they know that?

因为他们反复这么说，就信以为真了，这通常是他们的回答。

Because they repeat it so often they believe it to be true, and that's typically the answer.

所以，是的，《四小时工作周》最终在销量上远远超过了《四小时工作周》，并且持续了很长时间，甚至到现在可能还在超越《四小时工作周》。

So yeah, the four Hour Body ended up outselling the four Hour Workweek by a large margin and for a long period of time, and it might still even be outselling The four Hour Workweek.

这真的很有意思。

That's really interesting.

我之前不知道《四小时工作周》卖得这么多，《四小时工作周》到底卖了多少本？

Did not know that coming into this, that The four Hour Body had out so how many copies did The four Hour Workweek sell?

天哪。

Oh, boy.

我得去查一下具体数字。

You know, I'd have to check on numbers.

我以前每周都密切关注这些数据。

I used to be on top of this on, like, a weekly basis.

《四小时工作周》肯定卖了数百万本，但我也不确定。

Four hour work mean, it's gotta be in the millions, but I don't even know.

我根本说不上来确切的数字。

I couldn't even begin to tell you what the exact numbers are.

因为我觉得，《四小时工作周》真正触及到了一些具有历史意义的东西，就像我们在2008年、2009年看到的那样，那是公司主义的终结。

Because I feel like with the four hour work week, you were really touching into something that was impactful in a historical way in the sense that, you know, what we saw in 2008, 2009 was the death of corporatism.

这种认为如果你对朝九晚五的工作忠诚，公司就会对你忠诚的想法。

This idea that if you're loyal to your nine to five job, the corporation's going to be loyal to you.

因此，大约一百年前取代了家庭纽带的这种联系，如今正在消亡。

So that whole connection that had essentially replaced the family connection a hundred years ago was now dying.

所以人们实际上需要弄清楚如何实现每周工作四小时。

So people actually needed to figure out how to work a four hour workweek.

因此，我认为从社会影响的角度来看，这是一本非常有力量的书，它引发了关于工作本质的巨大思维革命。

And so I felt in terms of societal impact, that was a very powerful book, it triggered a huge revolution in thinking about essentially work.

《每周工作四小时》很棒。

The four Hour Body is great.

它让我惊讶的是，销量竟然没有超过《每周工作四小时》。

It just surprised me it's no more than the four Hour Workweek.

到目前为止，总销量还没有超过，但要记住，《每周工作四小时》早了好几年，而且后来还出了修订版和扩充更新版，里面充满了案例研究，我其实正考虑专门写一本只收录案例研究的书，我觉得那会非常棒。

Not in total at this point, keeping in mind that the four Hour Workweek had a head start by many years, three years, and then there was the revised edition, the expanded and updated edition of The Four Hour Workweek, was full of case studies, which I'm thinking of actually I'm thinking of doing a completely separate book just of case studies, which I think would be just amazing.

绝对应该这么做，因为世界也已经变了。

Totally should because the world has changed too.

比如，现在你真的可以创建一个

Like, now you really can create a

四小时的生意，你知道的，现在太容易了。

four hour business, you know, that It's so easy now.

太容易了。

It's so easy.

很容易，而且和十年前不一样了。

It's easy, and it's different than it was ten years ago.

完全不一样了。

It's totally different.

我的意思是，别误会我。

I mean, now don't get me wrong.

我认为《四小时工作周》中的原则，尤其是扩展和更新版中的工具，仍然有效，但还有其他工具和方法。

I think the principles, even the tools in the four Hour Workweek, especially the expanded and updated edition, still work, but there are other tools and other approaches.

比如，我帮助过一些公司和个人开展Kickstarter活动，这些公司现在每月的销售额达到了50万美元，甚至高达100万美元。

I mean, for instance, I've helped a number of companies and people with Kickstarter campaigns, and these are companies that are now doing, in some cases, $500,000 a month or a million dollars a month in sales.

Kickstarter 当时根本不存在，类似的选项，比如 Indiegogo，或者使用 Celery 这样的工具进行预售活动——不直接扣款，而是以有组织且合法的方式进行。

Kickstarter just didn't exist, and the similar options, whether it's Indiegogo or using things like Celery to do preorder campaigns where you're not charging credit cards but doing it in an organized legal fashion.

不仅如此，运用《四小时工作周》中那些灵活原则——比如八十比二十的帕金森定律、许多系统思维——所能创建的业务范围也极其广泛。

Not only that, but the scope of businesses that can be created by using the flexible principles in the four hour workweek, you know, eightytwenty Parkinson's, a lot of the systems thinking, is so far ranging.

人们一想到公司。

People think company.

他们想到的是产品。

They think product.

等等。

It's like, wait.

等等。

Wait.

等等。

Wait.

等等。

Wait.

等等。

Wait.

我认识一些演员，他们用这种方式规划了自己的职业生涯。

I know actors who have used this for their careers.

我认识一些律师，他们也用过这种方法。

I know lawyers who have used this.

我认识一些设计师，他们用过这种方法。

I know designers who have used this.

我认识一些YouTube网红，他们用过这种方法。

I know YouTube stars who have used this.

我的意思是，它的应用范围太广了。

I mean, it's so far reaching.

所以，我觉得向人们展示这些各种可能性的全貌，会非常有趣。

And so to show people the spectrum of all of those options, I think, would be really fun.

这很有趣，因为《四小时工作周》确实如此。

Well, it's interesting because the four hour workweek, you're right.

每一个原则，比如你书中反复提到的二八法则，这些规则和原则都非常有价值。

Every principle and, like, the eighty twenty rule you refer to, you know, throughout your books and throughout a lot of different things, all of these rules and principles, though, are incredibly valuable.

但目前特别的是，你可以把这些内容整理成一部‘四小时工作法百科’，涵盖所有可以启动的商业类型，以及人们具体如何操作，真正做到即插即用。

But right now in particular, it's like taking those you can almost make like a four hour pedia of all the different types of businesses that can be started and and exactly how, like plug and play, exactly how people can do it.

我觉得这会是个绝佳的点子。

Think that would be an incredible idea.

是的。

Yeah.

不，我同意。

No, I agree.

我同意。

I agree.

所以你一直在幻想实施四小时工作制。

So you fantasize about doing four hour work week.

那你打算给它起个什么名字？

What would you even call it?

你不能把它叫做八小时工作周。

You can't call it the eight hour work week.

你得想一个真正好的标题。

You have to come up with a really good title here.

是的。

Yeah.

我会想个好标题，但我们现在先叫它‘不’吧。

I'm gonna come up with a good title, but let's call it no.

我不会给它起任何名字。

I wouldn't call it anything.

我告诉你，这里还有一个对人们可能有帮助的出版小贴士。

I'll tell you, because people here's another sort of publishing tip that people might find helpful.

如果你拥有受众，或者人们在关注你接下来要做什么，我认为你应该养成在某些情况下使用误导性信息的习惯。

If you have an audience or you're being watched for what you're going to do next, you should get into the habit, in my opinion, of using red herrings in some cases.

在《四小时工作周》之后，我深刻意识到，当别人侵占你的知识产权、侵犯你的知识产权，使用你的照片和商标来销售与你毫无关联的产品时，会有多么痛苦，这些都可能对你造成极大的损害。

So after the four hour workweek, I became very acutely aware of how painful it can be to have people squat on your intellectual property or infringe on your intellectual property, and use your photographs, and use your trademarks to sell stuff that you have no association with, many things that could be very damaging to you.

这一直是一场持续的斗争。

That's been an ongoing battle.

所以，通常当我出版《四小时工作周》之前，我会先发一篇帖子，宣布我接下来的新项目是什么，因为我想要整合资源、寻找采访对象等等，但我没有使用真实标题，因为我知道人们会立刻去Twitter上行动。

So typically, for instance, when I published The four Hour Body, prior to that, I put up a post announcing what the new project was going to be because I wanted to marshal resources and find interviewees and so on, but I didn't use the real title because I knew that people would immediately go to Twitter.

他们会立刻去Instagram（如果当时有的话），抢注用户名和网址，试图抢占这些资源，以便日后勒索我，或者只是在将来通过搜索吸引流量，从而用广告盈利。

They would immediately go to Instagram, had it existed at the time, grab handles and grab URLs to try to swat on them to extort money from me later, or to simply attract traffic from searches at a later point in time so they can monetize it with advertising.

这种不道德的行为是自动发生的，非常普遍。

There's just a lot of unethical behavior that is automatic.

它会在成百上千的人身上被触发。

It's triggered in hundreds and thousands of people.

当你提前透露你打算做什么，而你又没有事先 securing 所有可能的变体时，情况就会这样。

When you give people advance notice about what you're going to do if you haven't already secured every possible imaginable permutation.

为了省去这些麻烦，当我宣布时，我把它叫做《成为超人》之类的名字，因为我希望提供一个虚假的线索来误导他们。

And to save myself that labor, when I announced it, I called it, I think, becoming superhuman or something like that, because I wanted to provide them with fodder as a false lead.

所以当你推出《四小时工作周》之后，是不是突然间每个人都开始注册《四小时投资者》、《四小时》……我不知道，总统？

So once you put out four Hour Body, did suddenly everybody start registering the four Hour Investor, the four Hour, I don't know, president?

我不知道。

I don't know.

所有不同的情况。

All the different Yeah.

各种变体。

Permutations

我的意思是，人们已经试过并这样做了。

mean, people have tried that and done that.

最终，我已经为'四小时'作为前缀注册了商标，所以必然会出现一些持续性的状况，我就不详细说了，但我讨厌事情发展到这一步，但几乎所有人都将面临法律上的清算。

Ultimately, I've registered trademarks for four hour as a prefix, so there is going to have to be, and there is some ongoing stuff that I won't bore you with, but I hate that it comes down to this, but there is gonna be a legal reckoning for almost all of these people.

有些战斗值得打，有些不值得，但不幸的是，也有一些战斗你必须打，以维护你的知识产权。

There are fights worth fighting, and then there are fights not worth fighting, but there are also battles you have to fight to maintain your intellectual property rights, unfortunately.

天啊，我几乎现在就想注册'三个半小时工作周'了。

Man, I almost feel like registering the three and a half hour work week right now.

你知道吗？

You know?

你可以去试试。

You can go for it.

如果你去的话，我免费送给你。

I'll give it to you for free if you go

为了这个，我非常感激。

for I appreciate that.

我想跟大家说一点。

I would just say this, guys.

你可以蹭别人的顺风车。

It's like you can ride on someone else's coattails.

这很懒惰，我觉得不道德。

It's intellectually lazy, and I find unethical.

你应该试着创造一些有价值的东西。

It's like try to create something of value.

如果你离开这个世界时没有创造过任何原创的价值，我认为这一生就是被浪费和挥霍了。

If you leave this planet without creating something original of value, I view that life as having being wasted and squandered.

同样地，我们每个人都会遇到批评者，要关注那些真正理解你的人，而不是那些不理解你的人。如果你在犹豫自己该站在支持者还是反对者的一边，不妨去看看《料理鼠王》，听听结尾处安东尼·埃戈的那段演讲，那是对古斯特餐厅的最终评价。

Along the same lines, we all have critics, focus on the people who get it, not the people who don't get it, and if you're trying to decide sort of which side of the fence to fall on as a supporter or detractor, just watch Ratatouille and listen to the Anton Ego speech at the end, which is the final review of Gusteau's restaurant.

但基本上，他说，我们批评家认定为垃圾的作品，其价值甚至还不如我们称之为垃圾的东西。

But basically, he says, the piece of work that we critics designate as garbage is worth less than what we're designating as garbage.

你可以选择去创造有价值的东西，或者传播你发现的其他有价值的事物，从而增加你为宇宙带来的善果；或者你也可以不断挑剔他人，散布恶意和毒液，但归根结底，这其实对任何人都没有好处。

You can either focus on building something of value or propagating other things of value that you find, therefore, sort of increasing the karmic value you add to the universe, or you can nip at people's heels and sort of spread vitriol and spit acid, which net net really does no good for anyone.

我强烈建议你曾经写过一篇关于这个话题的文章，我经常引用，因为当任何人努力展现自我时，迟早都会遇到那些只是靠蹭热度而来的批评，这会让人非常痛苦。

And I highly recommend you wrote a post on this once, which I've referred to because it's it's at some point, it gets painful for anybody who's trying to put themselves out there, and they start to get just criticisms that are are riding those coattails.

他们批评你，纯粹只是为了蹭你的热度。几年前你写过一篇关于如何应对喷子的精彩文章，我觉得非常棒。

They're they're criticizing for no other reason than riding their coattails, and you wrote a very good post a few years ago about dealing with the haters that I thought was very good.

是的。

Yeah.

如何应对喷子，这篇文章引用了科林·鲍威尔、一些斯多葛学派哲人，以及全球顶尖体育经纪人的话。

How to deal with haters, and it pulls from quotes from Colin Powell and some of the stoics and some of the top sports agents in the world.

只是想指出，如果你一切都做对了，工作表现优异，那么关于你的言论中，有90%都会带有一些负面色彩。

Just to point out that if you're doing everything right, if you're doing your job well, 90% of what's said about you will have some negative tinge to it.

我的意思是，这听起来难以置信又荒谬，而这正是匿名性和互联网的本质。

I mean, it sounds unbelievable and outrageous, and that's just the nature of anonymity and the internet.

要应对这一点，你必须在哲学上和策略上武装自己，以应对这种环境。

And to contend with that, you have to arm yourself philosophically and tactically to contend with that type of landscape.

这非常、非常艰难。

It's very, very tough.

有时候，那些讨厌的人会让你沮丧，这确实很

There are times when the turkeys get you down, and it's it's very

诱人。

tempting.

有些人会比较幸运。

Some will be some will be lucky.

有些人会恰好触动你与生俱来或源于其他因素的那些按钮，从而只是运气好。

Some will hit the right buttons that were in you from birth or, you know, from whatever, and they'll just get lucky.

如果有一千个人批评你，而你盯着所有人看，那么这千人之中总会有一个听起来像你妈妈在对你大喊大叫，那就会很痛苦。

If if a thousand people criticize you and you're looking at all of them, one of those thousand is gonna seem like your mother yelling at you, and that's gonna be painful.

是的

Yeah.

这会触发某种反应。

It'll trigger something.

所以，我的意思是，这篇文章讲的是如何应对喷子，或者七个应对喷子的原则，类似这样的内容。

So, I mean, I think the post is just how to deal with haters or seven principles on how to deal with haters, something like that.

如果你在谷歌上搜索，它会立刻弹出来，就是我的名字加上‘如何应对喷子’，这是一套实用的工具包，给那些想要创造价值、但又不会天真乐观的人使用——你要明白，每一个支持你的人背后，都会有一个对立阵营的人在猛烈攻击你，他们只是想用言语和情绪把你钉在长矛上，你必须习惯这一点。

If you search on Google, it'll pop right up, just my name and how to deal with haters, and it's just a pragmatic toolkit for people who want to create value, but who are not going to be Pollyanna ish about it, recognize you're going to have, for every supporter you have, someone in the opposite camp who's charging at you who just verbally and emotionally wants to put you on a spear, and you have to get accustomed to that.

即使你是非营利组织，天啊，你也会看到一些难以置信的东西。

Even if you're a nonprofit, for God's sake, I mean, it's like you see some unbelievable stuff.

而且，你刚才提到了那个几乎人人都心照不宣的问题：蒂姆·费里斯其实并不只工作四小时。

Well, and you had you had the common almost the elephant in the room, Tim Ferriss doesn't really work four hours.

他是我认识的最努力的人。

He's the hardest working guy I know.

所以，人们对你这种批评很奇怪——批评你没有只工作四小时，尽管这根本不是你书里的主旨。

So people I would see that criticism of you, which is oddly a criticism that you didn't work four hours, even though that's not really what your book's about.

你的书是关于建立这些系统的。

Your book is about putting these systems in place.

所以，如果你有一个像BrainQuicken这样的企业，你可以有三十六小时、三十八小时，或者任何时间去做你喜欢的事情。

So if you have a business like BrainQuicken, you can have thirty six hours to do things you enjoy or thirty eight hours or whatever.

是的。

Yeah.

不。

No.

没错。

Exactly.

然后我认为，首先，我根本不会主动去寻找负面信息，因为也有很多积极的内容。

And then I think that I very first of all, don't go looking for the negative stuff, and there's plenty of positive stuff too.

我不会主动去寻找负面信息。

I don't go looking for the negative.

我认为这是一种坏习惯。

I think that's a bad habit.

我几乎从不回应那些负面评论，尤其是当它们来自那些连最基本研究都没做的人时。

I very rarely respond to the negative, particularly if it reflects someone who hasn't done even a modicum of research.

如果他们没读过这本书，却仅凭书名来批评我，那就根本没什么好谈的。

If they haven't read the book and they're criticizing me based off of the title, there's really no nothing to be talked about.

我认为生活中一个普遍的原则是：你无法用道理说服一个人放弃一个他从未通过理性思考而形成的观点。

A general principle in life, I think, is that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

这说得通吗？

Does that make sense?

这纯属白费口舌。

It's a waste of breath.

这是浪费时间。

It's a waste of time.

完全同意。

Totally agree.

我还想补充一点，那就是我所谓的‘24小时规则’：如果你回应了这些喷子，那就等于让这个问题又延续了24小时，而不是让它自然消亡。

And one thing I will add to that is what I call the twenty four hour rule, which is that if you do respond to the haters like that, then you've kept the issue alive for another twenty four hours instead of just letting it die.

是的

Yeah.

断绝其氧气，而且根据非常具体的搜索引擎规则，你不想通过引起关注来为某些内容增加谷歌权重。

Starving it of oxygen, also for just very specific search engine rules, you do not wanna add Google juice to something by drawing attention to it.

有很多人会写一些充满恶意、荒谬且毫无实质内容的关于我的文章，仅仅因为他们希望我回应并为他们的网站带来流量，但我从不回应这些事。

And there are many people who will write really hateful, ridiculous kind of articles about me that are devoid of content just because they want me to respond and send traffic to their sites, and I just never respond to those things.

最终他们吸引到的都是充满恶意的人访问他们的网站，这本身就是对他们的一种惩罚。

And they end up attracting people who are hateful to their sites, which is their own form of punishment.

那些观众会转而反对你

That audience is going to turn on you

这实际上是一个非常非常好的观点，至少

at the very That's least a very good point, actually, to

对于那些没听说过《每周工作四小时》的人来说

those people that haven't heard The Four Hour Workweek.

《每周工作四小时》之所以受到对冲基金经理、一些世界顶级风险投资人的公开赞扬——我指的是在《纽约时报》这样的媒体上——并不是因为他们想每周只工作四小时，而是因为他们想最大化自己每小时的产出

The reason that Four Hour Workweek has been praised by hedge fund managers, some of the top venture capitalists in the world very publicly, I mean, in the New York Times, and these types of people, not because they want to work four hours a week, but because they want to maximize their per hour output.

这就是这本书的主旨。

That is the point of the book.

你最大化每小时的产出，然后如何使用这套新工具就由你自己决定了。

You maximize your per hour output, and then what you choose to do with that new toolkit is up to you.

就我而言，我不想一辈子无所事事地盯着墙看油漆干涸，所以我现在有这个资本，可以随心所欲地安排自己的时间，我选择像写博客这样的事情。

And in my case, I don't wanna sit around and stare at the wall watching paint dry for the rest of my life, so I have the luxury at this point of doing with my time, whatever I want to do with my time, and I choose things like writing on the blog.

我非常喜欢做这件事。

I love doing it.

我喜欢与我的观众互动。

I love interacting with my audience.

或者我会花大量时间去实验和尝试为人们捕捉这些内容，因为我首先把自己视为一名教师。

Or I spent a ton of time on experimenting and trying to capture that for people, because I view myself as a teacher, first and foremost.

我一直都想当老师。

I always wanted to teach.

我原本以为会是在九年级或十年级教书，但最终却是通过书籍和博客来实现的。

I thought it was going be ninth or tenth grade, but instead it ended up being via books and the blog.

我们来谈谈这一点，因为你经常提到，写作——很多作者其实也这么说——写一本书是非常不愉快的经历。

So let's talk about that, because you've also said often, writing, and a lot of authors say this actually, writing a book is a very unpleasant experience.

你习惯于走出去做各种事情，但写书时，你必须几乎每天数小时坐在电脑前，将脑力活动输入到电脑中。

So you're used to going out there and doing things in the world, and when you write a book, have to essentially spend a year or two or more sitting behind a computer for hours a day doing brain activity into this computer.

这很痛苦。

It's painful.

是的，确实很痛苦。

Yeah, it is painful.

这是一个非常孤立的过程。

It's a very isolating process.

对我来说，这就像被单独监禁，但也不总是令人不快。

I mean, for me, it's like being in solitary confinement, and it's not always unpleasant.

偶尔会有那么几个小时，你捕捉到了灵感的火花，状态绝佳，写出了一些最出色的内容，妙趣横生，甚至让自己笑出声。

There are rare moments where you bottle the lightning, and you have just a streak of a few hours where you're really on fire, and you're putting together some of your best stuff, and it's funny, and you're making yourself laugh.

我非常喜欢这些时刻，但它们并不构成写作过程中大部分的时间。

And I love those moments, but they do not constitute the majority of the time spent writing.

尤其是你的书，你的书几乎像是精心包装的作品。

Particularly with your books, your books are almost like they're packaged books.

《四小时厨师》是一件艺术品。

Four Hour Chef is a work of art.

整本书都美得令人惊叹。

It's just a beautiful book all around.

里面有多少张照片？七百张还是八百张？

Is this, 700 or 800 photos in there?

照片有多少张？

How many photos were

照片？

in photos?

有一千多张照片。

I there are a thousand plus photographs.

实际上，为了自讨苦吃，我可能亲自拍摄了其中百分之二十到三十的照片，大概百分之二十吧，就是为了学习摄影，回头想想，这真是个愚蠢又自虐的决定。

I did I actually, just to be a glutton for punishment, probably took 20 to 30% of those myself, probably, yeah, 20%, just to try to learn photography, which was, in retrospect, kind of a foolish masochistic decision.

我玩得很开心，但额外的工作太多了，而且这本书里有几百幅插图。

I had fun, but it was too much additional work, and it has a few 100 illustrations.

所以对我来说，写这本书的部分目的就是创造一个美丽的实体物件，而这并不意外地非常具有挑战性。

So that book, part of the point of that book for me was to create a beautiful physical object, which not surprisingly is very challenging to do.

这个过程真的非常复杂，但写作本身，我大部分时候都觉得痛苦。

It's really involved, but the act of writing I find painful most of the time.

作为作家，如果你是独自写作，没有合著者，就会有一些时刻，你是建筑师，正在设计大教堂，那是一个非常鼓舞人心、令人兴奋的阶段。

There are the moments where you, because as a writer, if you're a solo writer, if you don't have a co author, there are times when you are the architect, where you're designing the cathedral, and it's this really inspiring, exciting period.

但绝大多数时候，你只是个砌砖工，那是一种非常艰苦的体力劳动。

The vast majority of the time, you're the bricklayer, and that is really tough grunt work.

当然，到了最后，你可以看着这个 hopefully 美丽而实用的结构，多年甚至几十年后回望时感到自豪，但这个过程非常艰难。

And then there's, of course, at the end, you can look upon this hopefully beautiful structure that's highly functional and admire it for, look back with pride on it for years and decades ideally, but it's a very tough process.

现在我要说的是，你不一定，或者我也不一定根据快乐与痛苦的比例来选择项目。

Now, what I would say is you don't necessarily choose, or I don't necessarily choose my projects based on the ratio of pleasure to pain.

这听起来可能有点奇怪，但我认为经历痛苦是有价值的，我会主动给自己引入痛苦，比如做我不愿做的艰苦锻炼，或者在我根本不想冥想的时候去冥想——那正是我最需要冥想的时候。

This might sound weird, but I think there's value from going through pain, and I voluntarily introduce pain to my life in the form of unpleasant workouts or meditating when I really don't wanna meditate, when it's the last thing I want to do, that's when I most need to meditate.

我记得我

And I remember I

有人曾经告诉我，如果你没有三十分钟来冥想，那你需要三个小时。

was told once, if you don't have thirty minutes to meditate, you need three hours.

这实际上和甘地的一句名言很相似。

That's similar to a quote from Gandhi actually.

所以甘地告诉他的所有顾问，我每天需要一小时来冥想，他的顾问说：‘甘地，你不可能有一小时。’

So Gandhi told all of his advisors, I need an hour a day to meditate, and his advisor said, you know, no, Gandhi.

然后甘地对他们说：‘好吧，那我现在需要两小时来冥想。’

You don't have an hour, and then Gandhi said to them, okay.

现在我需要两小时来冥想。

Now I need two hours to meditate.

是的，完全正确，完全正确。

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

这和写作的关系在于，我喜欢扩展自己舒适行动的范围，而只有通过在困难情境中主动承受不适和痛苦，才能做到这一点。

So the way that relates to writing is I enjoy expanding my sphere of comfortable action, and you only do that by subjecting yourself to discomfort and pain in challenging situations.

我认为，当你取得哪怕是最基本的成功时，比如你提到的，拥有一份朝九晚五的工作，就存在变得安逸和自满的真正危险，这非常危险。

I think there's a real danger when you have even the barest level of success, like you said, when you have a nine to five job, and there's the risk of becoming comfortable and complacent, that is a very dangerous place.

坐在这个位置上真的很危险。

It's a really dangerous place to sit.

我想知道，这是否就是让你走出所谓的‘四小时类型’的原因。

And I wonder if that's what got you out of the, let's call it, the four hour genre.

你从‘四小时厨师’转变为实际上做一档电视节目。

Like, you you went from four hour chef to essentially doing a TV show.

是的。

Yeah.

顺便说一句，这档节目并不叫‘四小时电视节目’。

Which, by the way, isn't called the four hour TV show.

不是。

No.

确实不叫。

It's not.

它叫做蒂姆·费里斯实验，实际上关于这个实验的最新进展，我们可以讨论很多方面，但我真的很高兴自己在最近几周启动了播客——我原本计划做这个已经一年多，可能快两年了。顺便说一句，非常感谢你提供的关于播客的诸多建议。

And it's it's called Tim Ferriss experiment, and I'll and actually, the latest update on that, we can talk about all sorts of aspects of this, but I'm really happy that I started the podcast in the last few weeks, which I'd been hoping to do for more than a year, probably two years, and thank you for a lot of your advice related to the podcast, by the way.

由于特纳广播公司内部的一些问题，电视节目的发布再次被推迟，目前还没有确定的播出日期。

Because of some internal issues at Turner Broadcasting, the the launch of the TV show has yet again been delayed and postponed with no particular sort of launch date in its place.

所以它现在是

So it's

我知道我非常沮丧，因为我只看过了斯图尔特·科佩兰的那一集。

been I know I've been very upset because I wanted to I only was able to see the Stewart Copeland episode.

我其实特别想看扑克那一集。

I wanted to see the poker episode, actually.

扑克那一集太棒了。

The poker episode is awesome.

我正在拼命努力，所以任何曾好心提供过节目支持的人，我都在拼尽全力。

I am working tirelessly, so any of you who were kind enough to offer support with the show in any way, I am fighting my ass off.

我和很多人想要的都是同样的东西。

The people and I want a lot of the same things.

这其实只是如何分配资源的问题，我就不详述特纳团队中所有希望这部剧播出的人所面临的那些内部琐事了。

It's really just a matter of figuring out how to allocate resources, and just I won't bore you with all the internal sort of stuff that all the people on the Turner team who want to see this show get out in the open as well.

大公司很难搞。

Big companies are hard.

大公司非常具有挑战性，不仅当你从外部与它们打交道时如此，而且它们资源极其丰富。

Big companies are just very challenging, not only if you're dealing, interacting with them from the outside, and they're very resource rich.

与大公司合作有其理由，但它们是非常复杂的政治实体。

There are reasons to work with big companies, but they're very challenging political animals.

让我给你一个想法。

Let me give you an idea.

让我给你一个建议。

Let me give you an idea to do.

如果你上了头条新闻、True TV或者任何有线电视第187频道，你只会获得一万名观众。

If you end up on headline news or True TV or any of these channels on, you know, channel one hundred eighty seven on cable, you're gonna have 10,000 viewers.

所以你应该这么做，你有一个庞大的博客，就告诉他们：每集5美元，我来卖。

So what what what you should do, you have a huge blog, just tell them you'll sell for $5 an episode.

学路易·C的做法，每集卖5美元。

Do a Louis CK, sell for $5 an episode every episode.

我是买家，我认识的每个人都会是买家，你的所有读者都会成为买家。

I'm a buyer, everybody I know is gonna be a buyer, all your readers are gonna be buyers.

他们就是靠这个赚钱的。

That's how they're gonna make their money on this.

是的，我正在做这件事。

Yeah, I'm working on it.

我正在做这件事。

I'm working on it.

我正在努力寻找一种让它可行的方法。

I'm really working hard to figure out a way to make it work.

所以我依然充满信心，我之所以保持信心，是因为当人们来找我询问书籍相关问题时，90%甚至更多的情况下，问题都集中在营销和公关上。

So I remain confident, and part of the reason I remain confident, I'll tell you, is when people come to me to ask about books, 90% of the time, if not more, the questions are all related to marketing and PR.

我不希望人们低估这些方面的重要性，但营销和公关的潜力取决于产品本身。我花了大量时间在这档节目、这些集数、讲师、课程、工具以及所有这些内容上，我知道它一定能找到归属。

And I don't want people to discount the value of those things, but the marketing and PR potential is decided by the product, and I spent so much freaking time on this show and these episodes and the teachers and the lessons and the tools and all this stuff, I know it can find a home.

我知道这个产品本身就能说话。

I know the product can speak for itself.

这就是为什么我并没有完全慌乱，我觉得对于书籍，或者任何类型的内容，你都必须首先专注于内容本身，尤其是在这个拥有社交媒体、这些阿基米德爱好者和再传播平台的世界里。

That's why I'm not freaking out completely, and I feel like with books, for instance, or any type of content, you have to focus on the content first and foremost, especially in a world that has social media available as these Archimedes lovers and rebroadcast platforms.

如果你有一个真正优秀的产品，并且能正确挑选出你的第一千名粉丝并精准定位，每个人都应该读一读凯文·凯利的《一千个铁杆粉丝》。

If you have a really good product and you can pick your thousand first fans properly and target them, and everybody should read 1,000 true fans by Kevin Kelly.

并不是每个人都同意这一点。

Not everyone agrees with it.

但我认为这简直是天才之作。

I happen to think it's genius.

它是一篇非常短的文章。

It's a very short piece.

如果你只能选一篇关于营销的文章来读，我认为这就是唯一你需要读的。

It's the only thing I think you'd probably ever need to read about marketing if you had to pick one thing.

你完全可以拥有一个极其成功的产品，这一点也适用于博客文章。

You can have a enormously successful product, and this goes for blog posts as well.

一篇好的博客文章，我很想听听你的想法，因为就我的博客而言，确实有几篇文章让整个博客脱颖而出。

One good blog post, I'd love to hear your thoughts, because I know for my blog at least, there have been a handful of posts that made the blog.

我只是投入了时间、情感或其他东西到这些文章里，而实际上，一篇博客文章就可能彻底改变你的人生。

They just, like, I put the time, or the emotion, or whatever into the posts, and literally one blog post can change your life completely.

我非常坚信这一点。

I really strongly believe that.

这确实很对，但这也稍微符合二八法则。

That's very true, but it's a little bit of the eighty twenty rule.

比如，你20%的文章会获得博客80%到90%的流量。

So, like, 20% of your posts will get 80 or 90% of the traffic to your blog.

有时候很难提前预知哪些文章会火。

It's hard to know sometimes in advance.

我喜欢写我那些非常个人化的故事，我觉得那是我写得最好的内容，但它们未必是最受欢迎的文章。

I love writing, for instance, my very personal stories, and I think that's my best writing, but that's not necessarily the most popular post.

所以我写作是为了获得这种创意出口，同时我也会写一些我知道很有价值、能带来大量流量的文章。

So I I write for so I can get this kind of creative outlet, but I'll also write these other posts that I know have a lot of value and and will get a lot of traffic and so on.