As a self-proclaimed meta-learner Tim Ferriss is on a mission to “deconstruct world class performance” and empower his audience to replicate it in their own business and personal lives.
On The Tim Ferris Show the author of The 4-Hour Work Week has a knack for asking his guests pertinent questions that get right into the guiding forces behind their business decisions. Episodes are chock full of productivity hacks that will set off light bulbs in the heads of any CEO or entrepreneur, whether B2B or B2C.
The appeal of this #1 ranked business podcast is evident: he offers actionable insights improving your business, all wrapped in casual conversation that never feel forced or stilted.
In a recent episode Ferriss talks shop with Matt Mullenweg, the developer of the free and open source WordPress software platform that “powers more than 22% of the entire web.” In this conversational interview Mullenweg offers pointers on how he runs a “distributed team of 300 plus employees across the world.” He discusses how not restricting the hiring of his programmers to Silicon Valley opens his company to a vastly larger talent pool.
Mullenweg also delves into the culture of openness and transparency at Automattic (the owner of Wordpress, among others), dissecting the several stages of their hiring process to ensure each candidate is a fit. Also plugging P2 software, Mullenweg explains how his company uses it to communicate internally over personal messaging and emailing, creating a footprint of what every employee has worked on for all to see.
If you’re new to the podcast zag back to an episode with Ramit Sethi, who built his personal finance blog ‘I Will Teach You To Be Rich’ to a readership of over 500,000 per month. Here both Ferriss and Sethi discuss the virtues of blogging generous amounts of free content, how to properly craft a marketing email, as well as choosing a price point for your products then shamelessly asking for the sale.
If you’re looking to expand your outlook on what can be achieved through enterprise, listen to the powerhouse episode with Peter Diamandis. Labelled one of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” by Fortune Magazine, Diamandis is the Chairman and CEO of ‘The X-PRIZE Foundation’, best known for awarding a $10 million dollar prize to a team that made private space flight a reality.
As with all of Tim’s guests the conversations flow freely. In one part of the podcast with Diamandis, Ferriss asks him to compare the character traits of his colleagues and business associates Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. This serves as the perfect opportunity for any CEO listening to take inventory of similarities they might share with these modern day industry giants.
Later Diamandis and Ferriss talk about crowdsourcing as a new and viable form of raising capital, something many inspired start-ups may consider. In a candid moment Tim asks Peter for advice on goal setting, and Peter challenges him to go past investing in innovations that only have an incremental impact on humanity, and to think bigger where the playing field is smaller.
The Tim Ferriss Show is a must-listen for any executive. Where a how-to book on entrepreneurship feels like a one-way conversation, this podcast allows us to feel like more than just a fly on the wall with Ferriss asking all the right questions.
