A Masterclass in Riding the Waves of Life — “The School for Good and Evil” Creator Soman Chainani

Tim Ferriss: Soman, good sir. Soman Chainani: Thanks for having me here. This is going to be fun. Tim Ferriss: So nice to see you. And it's hard to believe this is, I think, our first episode in person. Soman Chainani: Yeah, which I think makes it more real, somehow. Tim Ferriss: Makes it more real. Definitely makes it more colorful. But before we  get to the colorful, Soman Chainani, for those who don't know, who are you? Soman Chainani: I think of myself as a specialist in the teenage mind, an

d I access  that by being an author of young adult fantasy, using everything I can about connecting to young  people and lovers of fantasy through novels. So that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years. Tim Ferriss: And for people who might want to dig into that further, any works  you might suggest they start with, or check out, website, anything like that? Soman Chainani: I wrote a series called The School for Good and Evil for 10 years. There's six  books in the series, and Netflix made

a movie out of it that came out last year. And then another  book a little bit for older audiences is called Beats and Beauty, which is going to be a TV show  sometime soon. So those are my two main things. Tim Ferriss: And we'll link to everything in  the show notes for folks. I have explored your writing, and we're looking at some of your  writing, your handwriting on cards of various colors. We have orange neatly lined up in one  row, yellow, and then purple. And this alludes to, in a sense,

your beautiful pursuit of symmetry  and color and also the format of the show. So I had sent you a note about this fun  experimental format, which is five things you're excited about, five things you've changed  your mind about, and then five things that are absurd that you still do, or do, and tweak that  a little bit, and we'll see if we get to all of them. The point is really just to provide a launch  pad for conversation, but I was thinking in terms of naming, Five of Three is not terribly

catchy,  but Four by Four, like the piece of wood, is kind of catchy. So we could do four of each of these  and then add four people you are interested in — Soman Chainani: It works for me. Tim Ferriss: — or following, or who people should know more about. And you so delightfully put out  these cards and offered me dealer's choice. And there are many things we could go to here. Give people some foreshadowing. There's "Intermittent pop star," "Cross-collar dating,"  "Your bull might be gay," "NYC

L.A.," but we're not going to start there. We are going to  start with "Follow the flow," speaking of catchy. So what does "Follow the flow" mean? Soman Chainani: It's interesting because every time I've decided to write a novel, like what  my next book is going to be, and I telegraph this to my agent and my publisher for a couple  of years. When it comes time to write that book, I'll start it, but it never ends up being the  book I write next, ever. And what I realized is that your conscious m

ind can't actually solve  problems. It can execute, it can deliver on the promise of something, but what actually is going  to be the next creative force in your life, the next big decision, has to come to you naturally. So it's this idea of the decision coming to you rather than you making it. And I think, especially  in creative work, where it's so important. Obviously I'm going to be working two or three  years on a novel. My brain will not let me work on something unless it decides it. So I'

ve realized  more and more as time goes on that I am just the manager. I'm the manager of the creativity. I'm  not the actual creator. The elves are the creator. They're going to tell me what to do. They're going  to be the ones who tell you what the next book's going to be. They're the ones who are going to  come up with the chapter titles. They're going to do everything. I just have to show up. Tim Ferriss: I have so many follow-ups. May I dive in? Soman Chainani: Please. Tim Ferriss: All righ

t. So  I aspire to embrace this. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: I am like an over-caffeinated Swiss manufacturing plant manager with OCD and various  other monkish tendencies. So I think the manager is kind of running the asylum, so to speak — Soman Chainani: Yes, yes, yes. Tim Ferriss: — on my side. And that doesn't  mean I don't have moments of inspiration, but I justify this by having a schedule, [foreign  language], and I kick out a certain amount over a certain period of time, whatever

it might be. That  is a superpower that is also a super weakness, in excess. Now on the opposite side of the  spectrum, I saw this post on social media, be careful, folks. It's a jungle out there, but I  did see a post that I thought was kind of funny. And we're sitting here in Austin, there's a lot of  conspirituality here, a lot of aspiring shamanist Earth goddesses running amok, and their male  equivalents. And this post on social said, "A woman who lives in the moment finds out that that  mo

ment is connected to all other moments." And it was like this sad, fake Onion article about not  being able to plan a life. You clearly ship in the sense that you publish books, you are very engaged  with the world. You're not just a ship without a sail, without a rudder, getting blown everywhere,  to and fro. So how do you precipitate, or think about inviting, the muse? Does that make sense? Soman Chainani: Yeah, 100 percent. Tim Ferriss: Because you could  just be waiting for 10, 20 years. Som

an Chainani: 100 percent. I think what ends up  happening is that I know what my conscious mind can do. So for instance, every publisher wants me  to write a fairy tale fantasy next, because School for Good and Evil was my first. It was abnormally  successful. Therefore, I will get paid infinite amount of money, have infinite amount of resources  to write a fairy tale fantasy. I had a fairy tale fantasy that I wanted to do. I wanted to reinvent  Neverland, sort of do a Game of Thrones version of

Neverland. I had the whole thing planned out.  My conscious brain mapped out, over the course of a year and a half, an entire world while I  was writing School for Good and Evil. I would doodle it in notebooks. I had everything.  And then when it came time to write it, I wrote the first two chapters, went to sleep, and  the next day was like, "This is not my next book." And it came from just this feeling of which the  only way I can describe it is there was part of me that is like, "We are not

going to spend  two years following the wrong impulse," which the wrong impulse was money, easy route, the  easy route. And instead, this other idea that I've been noodling around and been trying to  give away to people for the last five years, I had told everyone this idea being like, "Someone  should do this idea. This idea is super important. Someone should do this. It's not me. I can't do  this. This is too hard." I just woke up and was like, "Okay, you know what? That idea, let's try  writi

ng it as a short story instead because that idea is so important, and no one's done it, and  everyone says it can't be done or whatever." So I start working on it, give it to my agent. Tim Ferriss: Can you mention the idea, or is it still under wraps? Soman Chainani: Not yet. Soon, because we're about to take it out. But meanwhile,  my poor agent, he knows that whatever I say, the next thing's going to be, "It's not  going to be the next thing." So I tell him, "I'm just going to try this idea as

a  short story," because we've sold short stories before. He's like, "Okay." While  he comes up with his next fairy tale, he will do his short story. Do the short story. Tim Ferriss: Must appease the talent. Fine, I'll get you your green M&Ms. Soman Chainani: He's just waiting for me to come back with Neverland, Wonderland,  he doesn't care what it is, happily ever after, princess, princesses. So I start working on  this short story, and I start getting into it, and then I feel that feeling. It

's what  I felt with School for Good and Evil, which is I don't care who reads this, I don't  care what happens to this. This is mine. No one's taking it away from me. I am doing this at  the expense of all other things. I don't care. Tim Ferriss: What are the symptoms of that?  Is it that you wake up earlier than normal and that's the first thing you want to  do? Is it that — I'm making things up, of course. Is it a giddy feeling that just  doesn't occur normally in other circumstances? What is

the signature of that feeling? Soman Chainani: It's more like you feel like a cult leader. You're like, "This is the thing." Tim Ferriss: This is the true way. Soman Chainani: Yeah, this is now my church.  People are going to join. I just need to write the thing. It becomes your whole personality. Tim Ferriss: So is it fair to say it's a degree of conviction and confidence that  you couldn't analytically justify? Soman Chainani: No, you can't change — in  fact, it's funny. We took it to my curr

ent publisher, not even 10 pages of it and just the  general thing of the ideas. And I've been with them for 10 years writing fairy tales, and they  were like, the idea of me moving into a different age bracket, and this is not fairy tales at  all. This is far from it as possible. They wouldn't even entertain the idea, wouldn't even  go there. And it still did nothing to shake me whatsoever. I was just like, "Oh," and it's funny  because my parents, my agent, everyone's like, "What are you..." C

learly your second thing should  be to capitalize on that, and nothing in my body will let me do it. So I have been happy as a clam  working on this other thing, and I realized that it comes down to what you want your life to be.  And mine is not getting diminishing returns on the ghost of a past work, even for a lot of money. Tim Ferriss: I remember, I believe it was BJ Novak, who's written a million things,  very talented, very funny comedian also, said whenever he says to himself, "But the mo

ney  is so good," that's a flag. And I'm paraphrasing here, but in this particular case, so I'm  going to prod a little bit, you can refuse, but is it fiction? Nonfiction? Soman Chainani: It's fiction. Tim Ferriss: It's fiction, okay. Soman Chainani: It's a fiction that I would like to happen. So it's a predictive fiction.  And it's so funny because when we announce it, which will be soon enough, all these things that  we're going to talk about today, it's all there. Tim Ferriss: So it's like Th

e Usual Suspects  with "Kobayashi" on the cup. Wait a minute. Soman Chainani: Everything, it's all  going to make sense when we're done. Tim Ferriss: I cannot wait to see how  "Your bull might be gay" fits into this. All right, so it seems like "Follow the  flow" has been checked. Now, that seems to, this is fun. I might have people do this, although  I'm sure a lot will not be as enthused as — you have very nice handwriting, too. So we've pulled  one of the orange cards. Does this purple "Give

stories away" tie back — Soman Chainani: It does. Tim Ferriss: — to what you were saying? Soman Chainani: It's the idea of, I get a lot of big ideas, and I will not write a  book until I've had the idea for at least three years. It has to stay with me for three years  because it's going to take me that long to write, promote, take it out, and I need to be  sure that it's not going to suddenly be a short-term relationship. And it feels also like  it's timeless then. If it lasts three years, it's

made it through most of a presidential  administration. It's made it through all the ups and downs. I feel like it's going to last. And so first thing I do when I get a big idea that I'm really excited about is I  start to tell everybody. I just am like, "Someone should do this." I tell all my  writer friends, I tell anybody. I'm just like, oh, sometimes I'll just have meetings  with Hollywood companies about, I don't know, adapting other work or stuff like that. I'm  doing it really to just be

like, "Someone should do this idea," and sometimes it gets  picked up, and they'll give it to someone else, or there's many times where I've had ideas or  something and someone has done that version of it. But if no one takes it, then  after a few years, sometimes it's so strong that that's when I do it, so — Tim Ferriss: I do know of one other person in my life, friend named Kevin Kelly, I don't know  if you know this name, older gent, has an amazing Amish-style beard, despite the fact that he

is an  incredibly accurate futurist. He's more than that, but he's very good at predicting trends and  upcoming development. He tries to give away all of his ideas, and I don't want to speak for him, but  in a sense, it's in the hopes that other people will do the work of implementing those ideas. Soman Chainani: It's totally selfish. It's not a generous thing at all. It's, "This would  be great. Do it for my entertainment so I can see it realized," because there's only  so many things I'm going

to be able to do. I am jealous of songwriters who, if they have  a great idea, they make their one song. You know what I mean? This is, every time I  have a big idea, it's a couple of years. Tim Ferriss: Now this might seem like a silly  question, but how do you distinguish between ideas that people won't pick up because they're bad  ideas versus ideas people won't pick up because, for whatever reason, you are uniquely suited to  looking through the prism and seeing something they don't see? Yo

u get what I mean? If you were  like, "I'm going to start a waste management company in Tuscaloosa," and people are like,  "I'm not going to do that," that is fundamentally different from what you're describing. Soman Chainani: Yeah, I always say the test is, can someone else do it? So that's when I have the  idea. I'm always like, "Sure, someone else can do this." But then, if they don't and time goes on,  and this is what happened with this idea because when I first had it a few years ago, I t

hought,  "I don't know how to do that. It's too hard. It's just not in my wheelhouse." And as the years  went by, little by little, I started to be like, "Well, what if I could do this? And this plays  to my strengths, and move this around. I start to see the..." Then all of a sudden, you realize  you're ready. You know what I mean? So I think it's about can you do it? Like School for Good  and Evil came out at a time where that year, there were eight other books about magic schools  because it

had been 10 years since Harry Potter, and it felt like 10 years later, the  floodgates opened and everyone was like, now all the narcissists who think they can compete  with J.K. Rowling are ready to show their wares. And agent was frantic, the publisher was nervous,  everyone was nervous, because there were much bigger books. I think Chris Colfer, who was on  Glee, had one. And Mattel was putting one out called Ever After High, which was, Ever After  High, School for Good and Evil, they were so

similar, and I was never worried because I'm like,  mine is so weird. It's so strange. It's just so uniquely me. I just knew there wasn't going to  be, I'm like maybe mine will be a total flop, but whoever reads it will never compare it to  any of those others, and that I was confident in. I just know that I just have a very strange  way of storytelling because it's just mine. I don't know how to follow other people's things. Tim Ferriss: So number one, we'll catch up over dinner about this, bu

t I am actually in a  very similar position right now. I have a writing project, my first book in six  to seven years. I can't talk about it right now. And I tried to fucking give it away  forever, and it didn't work, it didn't work, it didn't work. And then, a few close friends  who knew about it kept asking me for it, who I thought were going to help me do it. And  I was like, fuck, okay, let me take another look at it. And then I took another look at it, and I  was like, oh, I think I'm ready

. I wasn't ready. Soman Chainani: That's it. You weren't ready. Tim Ferriss: I wasn't ready, but now I looked at it and I was like, oh, I think I'm  ready. And that's uncanny, first of all. And oh, God, I can't wait until dinner. Anyway, so  there's that. Second thing that what you said reminded me of is there's a very famous Brazilian  jiu-jitsu competitor named Marcelo Garcia. And last I checked, he's nine-time, maybe 10-time  world champion. And for at least, I would say, the better part of a

decade, and the sport  has evolved a lot, so things may have changed, but he was considered the greatest of all  time. And that was uncontroversial. He was so successful, he was so uniquely himself. Some techniques he pioneered, and he would record a lot of his training footage and practice  footage, sparring footage, even when he was six months away from the world championships. And  he would make it available online. And people found this mystifying because that is very  rarely done. And the

most common response was, "Why would you do that? It allows your competitors  to prepare for you." And his response, and I'm paraphrasing, but it's pretty close because my  friend co-founded a jiu-jitsu school with him, so I got to spend some time around him, was, "This  is my game. If someone wants to step into my game, then I am the best suited…" Soman Chainani: So interesting. Tim Ferriss: "...to win my game." Now there are  a million different ways that could be confusing, but I found it odd

enough that I sat with it. And  in a sense, it's like by giving away your ideas, you're using it selfishly, number one, to get  more ideas than you could shoulder into the world, hopefully, if people pick it up. And then  secondly, you are filtering to what is uniquely your own, where you have this differentiator,  which is also, not to view anything zero sum, but a huge competitive advantage. Soman Chainani: Well, the other thing that was interesting that helped me the most,  and I wish this o

n every young writer, anytime I did something for money, or something that wasn't  100 percent like me, that someone hired me to do, they all fell apart, without fail. None of it ever  came out. So there's not a single thing out there in the world by me that was a mercenary job. I  took them in my 20s and 30s. They never made it there. So I think that was sort of the world kind  of telling — because it happened so many times, at least 10 times. So after that I just learned,  we're not doing this

, even to the point of, I'll get in trouble for talking about this  story, but who cares? DC Comics hired me to do a short story for them. And everyone in  my life, every male thought, "Forget what you've done before. This 20-page thing you're  doing for DC Comics means you've arrived." And I'm like, "Okay, thanks." And so I go through  the process with them. It's a nightmare because they're making changes to the character. They're  just moving things around because it's the DC machine or whatev

er. And I spend six months on  it, obviously doing my own work at the same time, but going through it. The whole time I'm  thinking, "This is getting further and further away from me," to the point of,  okay, I'll take the check and whatever. And then at the last second, it all fizzled. The  editorial didn't approve of this, and moved this, and the whole thing just went poof as it was  about to print. The art was already done, everything. I remember my poor beleaguered agent  was like, "What?" A

nd I was like, "Thank God." That went through the whole, it kept the theme,  that narrative in my life, complete because had that been published, it would've been the first  time. And the fact that it went up completely in smoke on its own accord was, I think, the  universe being like, "You are on a frequency and we will help you when you get off it." So  as long as back to follow the flow, as long as I follow that flow, everything's going to be okay. Tim Ferriss: So "Follow the flow," "Give sto

ries away." At first glance, it might seem like some  kind of poetic artist affect, but it's intensely practical, intensely practical. And so what I'm  going to do, just because this is a new game that we're playing, and I want to take a photograph  from the top when we're done with this of these cards, I'm going to turn this over. Soman Chainani: Perfect. Tim Ferriss: So I feel like we should go to a  different category just for the fun of it. You know what? I feel like I'm burying the lede. So

  "Your bull might be gay," what's the story here? It's in quotation marks, which makes it stand out. Soman Chainani: I told you when when we started, I told you that none of these are euphemisms,  right? None of these are. So this is the story. So I lived in New York for 22 years. I now  live in St. Louis. I moved there for love, for my partner, who is a farmer and  lives on a goat and cattle farm of his own. And I go there every weekend  and spend three or four days there. And so I'm that anno

ying person who drops in every  weekend and has thoughts about what he's been working on all week. So anyway, he's go, I think — Tim Ferriss: The helicopter farmer from the city. Soman Chainani: Who's never been anywhere  near a farm, who has thoughts all the time. Tim Ferriss: Know what you should really do? Soman Chainani: Which he finds very amusing. So he's got over 100 cattle, and he's got these  60 heifers every year that get impregnated by one bull. So there's one bull that does all the 

work. And he keeps a bull for, in this case, he had a bull for four years. And this bull, when  I saw it, I was like, oh, man. Where he walks, the ground shakes, the females part, they  bow their head. It's like The Lion King, right? His balls are the size of coconuts. What  men in Austin, the patriarchy they aspire to here, that religion that I see men here go for, is that  bull. They need to spend time with that bull, and everything will be fine. Tim Ferriss: They need bronze statues of this b

ull. Soman Chainani: And so, when I was with [redacted], he was like, "The  problem is this bull has been here for four years," meaning he's now impregnated not just  the heifers, but their daughters, their sisters, their granddaughters. The cows don't care. So at  some point you need to get a new bull. So he goes and gets this new bull that he's very excited  about, and he comes and brings the bull. And the first thing the bull does when it comes to the  farm is it nuzzles up to me and is reall

y nice to me. And it's just this very sweet bull. And over  the next few weeks, every time I see the bull, he's off picking flowers, or hanging out with this  little orphaned male calf and licking him. And the females are literally just staring at him because  they're all in heat and nothing's happening. And I said, "Your bull might be gay." He's like, and  this is where it gets interesting because this — Tim Ferriss: This is where it gets interesting. Soman Chainani: — is where he's like, "That

's impossible." He's like, "We tested its  sperm. It's very healthy. It's a good bull." And the chance of a bull being gay and not  impregnating these 60 females is, he's like, "It's maybe like 0.05 percent." And I'm like,  in my head, all I'm thinking about is worst case scenario because if that bull is gay, that means  he not only doesn't get these 60 females pregnant, he loses a season. He loses all the money from  the calves that's coming in. It's literally a catastrophic thing that can happ

en to him. And I realize that people entertain worst case scenarios differently. His is, statistically,  this isn't happening, so therefore I'm not going to prepare for it. I'm not going to spend a  dollar preparing for that worst case scenario because statistically, it doesn't make sense. All  I care about in life is the worst case scenario. So to me, the moment I'm like, "That bull is  gay," all I'm doing is finding all the evidence that it's gay and being like, "Here's the action  plan for th

e gay bull. We are getting every female pregnancy tested. You're having the vet come  out, you're checking this sperm again, you're doing this, you're bringing out that fancy machine  that triggers them." I'm spending, in my head, I'm getting him to spend thousands of dollars on this  gay bull to make sure it still gets them pregnant, like artificial insemination, everything. And I realized it's just a different way that we operate. My entire life, and I  told my assistant this on day one, I sai

d, "Your job is to always think of the worst case  scenario and insure against it. That's your only job. Every day, what's the worst thing that  can happen? And make sure it doesn't happen." And [redacted] doesn't think that way because  he says that costs money. It just does. You spend too much money on things that statistically  shouldn't happen. And I thought there's something profound in that. So "Your bull might be gay"  has become the kind of flag-waving motto on the farm because it turns

out the bull was not gay — It secretly got them all pregnant while we weren't watching. That's the funny part. So he was right.  And therefore, he thinks it validates him. But to me, I think I get calmer and more at peace when  that worst case scenario is protected against. Tim Ferriss: So if this is a shorthand, where your  partner, when you're catastrophizing, can say, "Soman, this may be a your-bull-might-be-gay  scenario," are you finding that you can use that experience to recalibrate a lit

tle bit? Do  you need an external source, like your partner, to be like, pat you on the side like a  sort of overexcited horse, and be like, "Everything's going to be okay?" Soman Chainani: I think it's okay. Tim Ferriss: Because you and I are very similar in  this way. I haven't had the gay bull experience, or the thought-to-be-gay bull experience, but you  and I have bonded over this worst case scenario, catastrophizing, which clearly if it had no  utility, we wouldn't use it, but in excess, s

ort of becomes its opposite,  right? It's a helpful tool, and then it becomes a hindrance at a certain point. Soman Chainani: But see, I cheat because I offload it to my assistant. That's his job. I literally am  like, "You are the worst case scenario person." So he's in charge of insuring against those things.  And now that he's been with me a while, in a way, that's become his thing. And he's even more kind  of obsessive about predicting all those things, and it's what makes him so amazing, as

he's risen  in the ranks. And so, in a way, I'm a little lucky that I'm not the one staying awake at night — Tim Ferriss: Outsource some of your worrying. Soman Chainani: 100 percent. I think having  a partner who has the opposite viewpoint, if I was with someone who also had the worst  case scenario, dangerous, it's dangerous, then you're just, who's going to screw  in the light bulb when you're too busy worrying about, insuring against all the other  things that are never going to happen. At

some point, someone has to take care of the basics. Tim Ferriss: The counterbalance. Soman Chainani: Yeah, I think counterbalance. Tim Ferriss: The outsourcing your worry to your assistant, your EA, makes me think of this  chapter, which was an excerpt that I had in my very first book, from A.J. Jacobs. And I  think it was literally called Outsourcing Your Life from originally Esquire, I want to say. And  at one point, he was trying to see how much he could give his virtual assistant at that poi

nt  in India. And at one point he realized — A.J. is amazing. He's written a lot of great books. My  favorite's probably The Year of Living Biblically, but he's written a lot of great books. And he, at one point, was really worried about something, and he just decided as an experiment  to see if he could ask his assistant to worry on his behalf if that would make him feel better. No  real solution, no fixing anything. He's just like, "Would you mind worrying about this on  my behalf?" And, I mea

n, he's a humorist, right, so he does a lot of funny stuff, but  he actually found it therapeutically valuable. Soman Chainani: That's amazing. Tim Ferriss: Just the broad strokes instruction, "Could you worry about this  so I know someone's worrying about it? Like I realize it's not productive, but  could you worry about it on my behalf?" Soman Chainani: This will come back. This will  come back up. Well, it's also funny because I think it's uniquely suited to the young, to  be able to have tha

t mindset. And I told him, I said, "If you can master this thing of thinking  about the worst case scenarios and everything, that's what I did when I was young and  working as an assistant. You're going to be like a mega mogul one day. You just  will, because that's part of your thinking in a way that it isn't for other people.” Tim Ferriss: Yeah, yeah. The Andy Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive kind of thing. Only the  paranoid stay up at night staring at the ceiling, too, but there is that. So

question about the  assistant. What other instructions have you found, or principles make for training  an excellent assistant? And I'm asking because I'm in the process right now of  actually training some new folks on my team. So this is very top of mind for me. Soman Chainani: I think, to me, the most important thing, especially when you  find someone who just has so much talent and capability, like Jun has, is that I don't  give tasks. I give massive projects that are extraordinarily difficu

lt. Tim Ferriss: What would be an example, if you don't mind? Soman Chainani: An example would be like in the case of DC. I was like, "I  don't know anything about DC Comics. What am I writing about? What am I going to do?" Tim Ferriss: "What am I writing about?" Soman Chainani: Yeah, "What am I doing?" Because  in this case it's a general world that I'm just — I don't know anything. Tim Ferriss: Oh, you had to work with their characters? Soman Chainani: Their characters. It's not an original, i

t's working with their  characters. So that's where it all went wrong. Tim Ferriss: Oh, yeah, you were — Soman Chainani: I was headed already. Tim Ferriss: You were already — Soman Chainani: In trouble. So in that case, I was like, "It's not that I'm looking for a  storyline, I'm just looking for, all right, knowing what I'm interested in, give me some  characters from there that are interesting." Tim Ferriss: Good. All right. All right. Soman Chainani: "Give me a world that's interesting. Show

me some things in DC that…" and  so rather than it being like, "Make me a list of this," or something very task-oriented, it'll just  be like, "Show me something." And that's kind of like the bigger thing. And then giving freedom for  him to structure it, him to figure out how he's going to present it, him to have investment in it. The same thing when we did Beasts and Beauty. We were presenting it to the studios to  get a buyer for the TV series. I said, "How do we present this? How do we prese

nt the  book? Come up with whatever you think's the best way." And ultimately he designed this amazing  presentation, and therefore when we sell it, it's easy for me to go to the studio and say,  "Jun has to be a producer on it," because he was the one who led the whole presentation. So  it's that sort of thing. It's like I give very, once in a while, give very few task-oriented  things and more like, "Worry about this for me." Tim Ferriss: All right, I'm going to ask very —  maybe boring, maybe

interesting. We'll see. But certainly mundane, practical questions. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Do you do all your own  inbox management or do you have — Soman Chainani: Yeah, I do all that stuff. Tim Ferriss: You do all your inbox stuff? Soman Chainani: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim Ferriss: Now, is that a manageable inbound volume? You've just figured out policies and maybe  how to hide yourself effectively so that you don't get an inordinate amount of stuff? Soman Chainani: Yeah. I think it's

, if it's scheduling, if it's — I'll  pass all that stuff on to him. Tim Ferriss: Okay. So he will do — Soman Chainani: Yes, yes, yes. Tim Ferriss: He's keeping  the trains running on time. Soman Chainani: 100 percent. 100 percent.  100 percent. But I still manage my own email inbox. I just am sorting stuff over there. Tim Ferriss: What kind of stuff would you say buckets-wise? What kind of stuff  does he handle? Scheduling management? Soman Chainani: Scheduling, school visits,  anything that in

volves a calendar date. And also negotiating. I get asked to speak constantly,  whether it's adults looking for a creative spark at a corporation, or whether it's schools, or  whether it's a book festival. You've been through this. Many, many speaking engagements. Tim Ferriss: You are a far better speaker and presenter than I am. Soman Chainani: I don't know. You know what? If they're teenagers, I feel completely at  home. Adults, sometimes I'm like, "Are your minds frozen? Is there anything I c

an do?" Tim Ferriss: "To chip away at the calcification on your brains?" Soman Chainani: Sometimes I feel that way. So his job is to figure out somehow  subliminally, without making a mess of it, is do they have a budget? It's all that stuff. Tim Ferriss: And you have rules or at least guidelines in place where you're like,  "Hey, this is the lowest hurdle," et cetera. Soman Chainani: Yes, yes, yes. Tim Ferriss: Okay. Your bull might be gay. Well, let's hop to the secret card,  which was a last-

minute addition. And we can chat about any person you  think people should pay attention to or that you're simply paying attention to. Soman Chainani: Have you heard of this guy named Christopher Marley? Tim Ferriss: No. Soman Chainani: He is an artist, but his  canvas only works with preserved animals from strange parts of the Earth. Tim Ferriss: Tell me more. Soman Chainani: He's almost like Indiana Jones.  He works with remote tribes in the Amazon. He'll just go all over the Earth to find ani

mals we've  never seen before, and then makes art out of them. Tim Ferriss: Christopher Marley? Soman Chainani: Christopher Marley. And so I have all of his books, and I saw an exhibition  of his in person, and it was the most inspiring, beautiful thing I have ever seen. Tim Ferriss: That's a strong statement. Soman Chainani: It is. Tim Ferriss: And that's coming from someone who's exposed to art. You're exposed to all that art. Soman Chainani: Art is my life, yeah, but this is because they're r

eal animals. And so the idea  of, I spend my life creating fantasies. And then to see that the real world has more fantastical  things than you'll ever see. And he has so many great ones where you'll see, he'll just make art  out of maybe a thousand butterflies that he's collected. But the colors of the butterflies,  you've never seen stuff like this before. It's almost like when you think of the deep sea  fish that you've never seen before. He's finding this up on land. So the beetles, the snak

es,  the this. But then he has this additional talent of making the most spectacular art out of it  so that it almost looks — if they were fake, it would still be equally impressive. So the fact  that he's going there, making these relationships, getting animals that — convincing these tribes  to hold onto animals that they find for him. The whole thing's insane. And the fact that this  guy isn't the most famous person in the world, to me, is shocking. Tim Ferriss: How did you come across Christ

opher Marley? Soman Chainani: I was in North Carolina taking — we were on a family reunion trip and  we went to the museum with my niece and nephew, who were teenagers. And that was the little fun  thing. And then I bought all his books, I followed him on Instagram, and I just think it's the most — Tim Ferriss: Amazing. All right. Soman Chainani: Yeah. As soon as you start looking  at his art, you're going to be like — and also he has a crazy story, which is, they had a photo  of him up on the w

all. And I was like, "That's him?" He was a supermodel. He was a supermodel,  this rugged supermodel who then, I don't know, used his wealth to then do what he really  wanted to do, which was like be Indiana Jones. Tim Ferriss: That's incredible. Soman Chainani: But the talent is insane, the way he places everything. I almost want  to pause for a second and show you the art. Tim Ferriss: Let's do it.  Yeah, sure. Let me take a look. Soman Chainani: You have to see it  because once you see it you

're going to be like — hold on. You're going  to want to make him your best friend. Tim Ferriss: Oh, wow. Okay.  All right. That's wild. Soman Chainani: That's just one. Tim Ferriss: That is wild. That's wild. Soman Chainani: If you go back to the grade, you'll just see tons of them. Tim Ferriss: Oh, yeah. Okay. So this is @christophermarleystudio, spelled like Bob Marley.  Christophermarleystudio. Almost 60,000 followers. Soman Chainani: It should be 60 million. Tim Ferriss: "All vertebrates ar

e reclaimed specimens. None are killed for art." That was  going to be one of my questions. Okay, yes. All right. All right. This is going to be a thing.  And you're right. If there were a game of match, match the face to this other profession on the  other side in column B, this is not to detract from his work, but I would be like, "Yeah, no." Soman Chainani: No. Tim Ferriss: No way. Maybe he's doing  jeans commercials, maybe he's doing car commercials. But his artwork is incredible. Okay,  we

will definitely link to that. Check it out, folks @christophermarleystudio. All right,  check, check. My next follow on Instagram. see. I thought it was conch and then I was  like, "Oh, wait a second. That's an A." Soman Chainani: Oh, that's an A. Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Coach Alpha. Soman Chainani: Coach Alpha. Tim Ferriss: What or who is Coach Alpha? Soman Chainani: Okay. I realized that I can  only do two jobs in my life. There's only two things I'm good at and there's only one thing  I would like

to do as much as I like writing, and that is I feel like — and it's a  job that should exist, and it doesn't. Generation Alpha, which is teenagers of today — Tim Ferriss: Oh, I didn't know that was a thing. Soman Chainani: Yeah. So after — Tim Ferriss: We've gone back to A. Soman Chainani: Yes, so after Gen Z is Generation  Alpha, and that's like who are teenagers now. They're growing up in an impossible situation  with everything that's happening with the world and the phones getting more addi

ct — it's just  impossible. And when I was a tutor, I was a tutor for 10 years, and what I loved the most was when  — because I could tutor every subject. I was such a nerd in school that I just really could tutor  any subject. And I loved it when a parent just outsourced their entire child's home life to me. But I loved it because I could get to the bottom of what made them tick and what was important, and  starting to really not just help them with school but get them on a better track, like o

ut of their  phone, and stop worrying about what everybody else wanted them to be, including their parents,  and more focusing on who they actually were. The mental health crisis that's affecting almost  all teenagers is this sort of existential dread. And so I would've loved to, if I hadn't become  a writer, and I still feel like this is going to be part of my life somehow, is I would love  to be the Mary Poppins who can go into a house and just be like, "Let's get this on track." I'll  give yo

u an example in a way that parents can't. One kid I met was getting off track because he was  drinking a lot and getting in trouble and all that sort of stuff. And I noticed that every time I  saw him, he was talking about going out, partying, and at the end of the night having wrestling  matches with all his friends and just getting into these physical fights with people. And he  was always beating up on his younger brothers. Every time I saw him they were just always  physical with this thing.

And one day we're trying to solve all the other stuff — Tim Ferriss: The academic stuff. Soman Chainani: Yeah, just everything else.  And I thought to myself — actually I said to him. I said — and his whole goal in life was to be  popular and party and all that stuff. And I said, "I don't know if partying is your goal in reality.  I feel like your real goal is that you want to fight. That's what you actually want to do." What  you really want to do is not drink and hang out with your friends. I

t's you want to drink so you  can beat them up at the end of the night and get into these aggro — every night ended in aggro. And I researched. I said, "There's a UFC gym like four minutes from your house. Go take a class."  16 year old, go take a class. Takes a class, loves it. Is now there three, four times a week,  having the time of his life. Drinking went way down. Everything all got back on track. Got a  job to fund the UFC thing thing. Everything's fine. No more beating up the brothers. H

e  didn't need to. He can beat up anyone — Tim Ferriss: Just needed an outlet. Soman Chainani: Just needed an outlet. But what parent's going to say, "Go fight  after school." It's just, they're not going to do it. And so it's stuff like that where I  just feel like sometimes kids need to be seen for who they are. And in order for us to get  out of this crisis, I think people are like, "Oh, mental health crisis, all these things."  I feel like there needs to be a third party, whether it's even a

s much as teen groups. I was  just thinking about the fact that on any given night, if you're an alcoholic or you have a drug  addiction or whatever, you can just go to an AA meeting and you can have that group experience. And I felt like, why isn't there that for teenagers? This idea that you can just go to  a space and meet other teenagers on a given night and have that kind of place to talk to or  experience. And yes, you can do it online. But I just think the more you get into your phone,  t

he further you often get away from actually who you are and real connection. So I don't  know. I have no formal thoughts on how this should happen. I do miss that part of my old job,  which was going into the house and helping kids. Tim Ferriss: Footnote for people who may  have missed our earlier conversations: well into your writing career, correct me if  I'm wrong, fact check, please, you held onto your tutoring because it gave you a safety net  but also, I guess, the psychological reassuranc

e of knowing that you didn't have to white-knuckle,  desperately make the first buck that came your way through the writing. Is that a fair description?  We don't have to spend too much time on it. Soman Chainani: Yes. Tim Ferriss: But it's important as an example to me because a lot of creatives who  do really well do not burn the ships behind them. They do not block all the exits. They actually  have some type of backup in the form that you did. Soman Chainani: 100 percent, because also it mea

nt  that I could take all the risks in my writing. So even now I know I can do other jobs. I could go  back to tutoring, I could teach at a university, I could work with kids and teenagers in some  way. So I'm happy to take the risk on this book instead of chasing the money because there's no  pressure on it. So I think that's the important thing. I feel like if you're writing with that  desperate white-knuckle, mercenary for money, it increases the chance that what you're  writing is, you're tr

ying to fit a mold. Tim Ferriss: So Coach Alpha, is this a public  attempt to give away an idea? Let's just say you can't get a taker. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Let's just say you don't see it.  Would you ever think of doing — I know this isn't in person, but would you ever think of  doing a series of talks and then pulling from that and putting together a course? Making  lectures available for free? Maybe they're targeted parents, maybe they're targeted kids.  If this for whatever reas

on doesn't get takers, this Coach Alpha, because it also requires — it's  not just an idea that can be executed by anyone. Soman Chainani: Yep. Tim Ferriss: But to underscore something you said, the third-party piece is  really important. I can get not anyone but almost anyone to change behaviors sometimes except  for the people closest to me because, to them, I'm just Tim, and sometimes you can develop  a selective deafness around the people you're closest to. So then when you have a third part

y  who's credible, there's a lot of leverage there. Soman Chainani: Well, even I was thinking about  teenagers. Let's say you have — and I've told parents this many times, and most of the time  they didn't listen, but I gave them the secret, which was, when your kid takes initiative and  does something on their own, like they start making their bed or they start working out  after school, do not mention it. Don't say, "It's great you made the bed," or, "That's so cool  that you're working out."

Do not. Then it's your thing. That means every time they're going to  go make the bed, they're now thinking of your approval and, little by little, it's going to  stop them doing it because it's now become your thing. Leave it. It's their thing. Tim Ferriss: How many kids have you tutored over the years, would you say? Soman Chainani: Oh, God. At least a few hundred. Tim Ferriss: A few hundred? Soman Chainani: Yeah, probably a few hundred. Well, I miss it, but also I got  the connection through

the books. And also what's funny is I started doing writing camps where  I got hosted by writing camps. And there was always a curriculum that they wanted us to teach  or whatever, and I would just go in there and do my own thing. And the first thing I would work on  with each kid is, when you write, you need to know what your characters want, and you need to know at  the deepest basis level. So let's say a character wants to play lacrosse. He wants to be a champion  lacrosse player. That's wher

e most people will stop. But you need to ask, "Well, why does he want  to be a champion lacrosse player? In order to…" Tim Ferriss: Why does he want to  drink? That's not enough. It's because he wants to fight at the end of the night. Soman Chainani: Wants to fight. And why does he want to fight at the end of the day? You have  to keep going down until you hit a base level. Is he trying to save his self-esteem? Is he trying  to prove something to his family? Whatever it is. And then on the secon

d day, after we work on that  with characters, I do that for themselves. So the teenager, I'm like, "What do you want?" In front  of the class, so there's usually 12 people. And that's when you start to get somewhere. Tim Ferriss: Man, I feel like I could use that exercise now. Soman Chainani: But that's how, for college essays — my specialty when I was  tutoring was college essays. I used to go in there and help them come up with the perfect  essay topic. And all I needed was three days with th

em. And I would spend three days asking  that question over and over, and looking at pieces of their life and us talking about it until we  came up with, what do you want and why do you want it? And then making the essay from there. Tim Ferriss: All right, I'll bite. So what's the next step? Once you go through that exercise,  how do you craft the narrative, the essay? How do you put it into essay form? Is it describing  really what you want? Is that the topic of the essay or do you use that as

grist for the mill? Soman Chainani: It becomes the heart of it and then from there you can start to build everything  out. I'm thinking about an essay where — Tim Ferriss: Did you start doing  this before you were working on fiction or did it happen simultaneously? Soman Chainani: Simultaneously. Because as I was working on School for  Good and Evil the thing I had — Tim Ferriss: You had to think about it. Soman Chainani: And also because I had come from film school where they drill into  you, w

hat does your character want? Why do they want it? And I did that every page of that  book, which is why I think it reads quickly, because you just know what everybody wants  at any given moment. And I realized that I'm working with these kids and no one knows what  they want. They follow the flow in the wrong direction because the flow is taking them towards  anxiety and comparison and all the things that the world — if I spent my life on Instagram and  TikTok, I would die because it's just the

wrong inputs to make me find what I want to do. Tim Ferriss: Coach Alpha. I love it. All right. This is needed. This is needed. I was very  fortunate when I was 15, 16 to have a few mentors, male mentors, figures who, by a hook or crook,  were able to help me correct course in a number of ways. If I had not had that input, I think  things could have ended, and I do mean ended in a very terminal way, very differently. Soman Chainani: We should talk about another person on my list, then. Tim Ferr

iss: Let's do it. Soman Chainani: He just moved to Austin. His name  is Mike Regula R-E-G-U-L-A. He is an ex-Navy SEAL and he is here starting a company called Course  of Action, which what I want to do for teenagers, he's doing for men. And it's using basic Navy SEAL  concepts and training to basically get men to, both individually and in groups, look at their  lives and make proactive change to become more connected to what they want. So basically it's  every man who feels like they haven't qu

ite found their way back onto a path or they've lost their  tribe, or anything like that. He's just trying to find a safe space for men to work on, whether  it's the psychological part, the nutrition part, the fitness part, the emotional part, and  in groups. And I think it's just so needed, especially in this world. So I just think  he's someone to look out for. And I think the website is OneCOA. OneCOA, for Course of Action. Tim Ferriss: We'll find it and we'll link to it as well. How did you

find Mike or Course of Action? Soman Chainani: He was introduced to me through — this is the best story. The boy I was in  love with in high school was this kid named Noah, who I was obsessed with. And of course  he's now married with children, everything like that. And everyone knew this story, except  him, and then one day someone finally told him, "You do realize that someone spent most of his  high school career trying to get your attention?" And he just was like, "What?" And so then we  con

nected, became friends, and he's like, "You have to meet Mike," because, I don't know what it  was. Mike was in New York and he just felt like we would bond, and we met, and that was that. Tim Ferriss: That was that. Soman Chainani: He's just a special person.  And I just feel like — we were talking about this. The same way I feel about resuscitating  the teenage mind and soul, he feels about men, because I think he's seen it all,  having been an ex-SEAL, for sure. Tim Ferriss: Check it out. He'

s right here, right  here in my hometown, Mike Regula. And this is actually not the first time I've heard his name.  This rings a bell and I can't place the context. Soman Chainani: Oh, he's  friends with all your friends. Tim Ferriss: Oh, there we go. There you go. That's  probably why I've heard his name. All right, does anything catch your eye that might make for a good  next Scooby Snack, conversationally speaking? We could go to — you know what? Here, how about this? Soman Chainani: Oh, tha

t's a good one. Tim Ferriss: All right, intermittent pop  star. This is in the absurd category. Soman Chainani: That's in the absurd category  because I should not still be doing this, but in 2017 I went to this book festival  for the first time in Charleston called YALLFest, that is like the biggest book  festival for teenagers in the country. Tim Ferriss: No kidding. Soman Chainani: Yeah, about 20,000 kids descend on this thing. Everybody comes there. It's  where new projects are — it's just a

big festival that takes over Charleston. And to get invited,  it means you've officially made it. And all I ever wanted in my career was to get invited  because your publisher can't pitch you. It's like one of these Sun Valley companies — Tim Ferriss: Yeah. You must be invited. Soman Chainani: Must be invited. So I finally  get invited. I'm so excited and I go and it's the best two days of my life. I'm having the  most amazing time. And I go to the final show, called the SmackDown, which they c

harge like $12  to get into. It's 3,000 people in Charleston Music Hall. It's the most beautiful theater. And the  authors participate in this variety show. And I sit there and watch the worst show I've ever seen  in my life. It is an abomination to make 3,000 people sit through that. I was — at the fact that  I had to participate in some little part of it. And I remember having this thing, secretly  thinking, I'm going to take over this show and turn it into my own private pop concert, and it's

  going to be amazing, and it's going to be awesome, and it's going to be like the greatest show on  Earth. I just remember having this thought. It was just like, "This is my fantasy and it's going  to happen." I grew up idolizing — you know this, everyone who knows me knows this, but I should  probably say it. I grew up a huge Madonna fan. That was my pop star growing up. I'm obsessed  with Taylor Swift. I'm obsessed with anyone who can translate whatever their talent is into  some kind of cool

showmanship. And so cut to two years later, they were like, "No one wants to  host this show. Do you want to host it?" And I was like — because I'd earned enough cred to  be like, "Okay." I said, "Sure, as long as I can completely redo it 100 percent my way." Tim Ferriss: How did they think to come to you? Had you planted the seed somehow? Were you  like, "Not a bad show. I could do better," on the way out with a tear in the eye? Soman Chainani: I think I said, "This could be better." Tim Ferri

ss: Love your feedback. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: "I have a few words." Soman Chainani: "This could be better." Tim Ferriss: Got it. So they came to you? Soman Chainani: Came to me. And then I was like,  "We're going to do the variety show. It's going to be all new games and it's going to start with  an eight-song, six-costume-change dance number dedicated to whatever the themes are in YA."  Almost like a version of Billy Crystal's old Oscar thing, but even more extreme. And so I don't

know  what made me do it, but what was interesting is, while we started working on it, and we got a  choreographer, and I don't know how to dance, and I started learning these dance steps.  It was that process of training for it, learning how to dance, learning how to do  choreography, that was so awesome because it got me out of my head. And I started to fall  in love with this process of designing a show, designing things, designing themes. It was a new  way of telling a story from beginning t

o end. How do you entertain an audience of 3,000 people  for 10 minutes? I fell in love with it and had the best time, but then I did it — I think I did  it the next year. I've done it three times. And what I've realized is if I do it every two years  — because it's so much work. It's so much money of my own, it's so much work, so much time. Tim Ferriss: Right. In the red column. Soman Chainani: 100 percent. Just throwing  money on fire. But if I do it every two years, that means the year in bet

ween someone else, some  poor soul has to come and try, and it's inevitably a disaster. So then when I come back, I get — Tim Ferriss: Herald! The hero returns. Soman Chainani: Every two years. Julia Roberts'  strategy was brilliant when she was an actress. The reason she had such longevity is she  always did one movie where she had her hair red and curly and did a romcom, and then she  would do one when she hacked it off and played like Frankenstein's maid. Some crazy, indie weird  thing. But b

ecause she did it every other movie, whenever she came back it was like, "Oh,  thank God. She's back to doing Pretty Woman." And what's been important for me is, it's less  about — I get more than enough attention for the books and everything. I don't need — it's  not a — sure, it is a narcissistic thing. What am I saying? This is such a lie. What a lie.  Terrible. But I think what I enjoy more than the actual performance is the run-up. It's the day  before rehearsals start. I'm always nauseous.

I don't want to do it. I don't want to go through  that whole experience, because it's everything I'm bad at. There's a Japanese word. Have you  heard Misogi? There's a book about this that — Tim Ferriss: I'd have to look it up. Yeah. Soman Chainani: To find happiness. I think Mike was telling me about this. The Japanese  concept that once a year or once every two years you have to do something completely out of  your comfort zone that is an extended journey. And in doing that, you find new rei

nvigoration for  life. And I think that's mine. Every two years, to go into this thing where I don't know how  it's going to end, I don't know if it's going to work because always it's more ambitious and more  interesting. So it's funny because this one was bigger and crazier, I just did it a couple months  ago, than anything that we'd ever done before. And at the party I was like, "There's no  way. There's just — I know myself. I can't top that scale, what we did." And someone  goes, "Well, wha

t are you going to do now? Are you going to sing?" And I was like,  "Haha." And then I thought, huh, well — Tim Ferriss: Ding. Soman Chainani: I doubt that's what it's going to be. But it's always  like, when you think you can't find what the next thing is, it's like, what's the next zone of  discomfort? So that's the silly thing I still do, but I think it's important for me somehow.  I can't really let go of it at this point. Tim Ferriss: It does something for you. Soman Chainani: Yeah, definit

ely. Definitely. Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Well, how would your life be different if it were taken  away? If it were just subtracted? How would your experience the rest of the year be  different? If there's an answer to that. Soman Chainani: Yeah. It wouldn't be as  fun. There's something so energizing about the high-stakes nature of a show. And also my  assistant is this amazing dancer and musician, so he's part of it. I have backup  dancers and he's one of them. So, it's like he's — we're all on this

ride together where  it can end in super embarrassment, because you've got thousands of people with their phones out. Tim Ferriss: Yeah. There's no, "You had to be there." There's, "Let me show you what happened." Soman Chainani: It feels very high stakes and in the moment. So, where writing  is never in the moment really, because you are constantly revising. This  is immediate, and I just think it's awesome. Tim Ferriss: It's also out of  your head, like you mentioned. Soman Chainani: Yes. Yea

h. I always  feel in incredible shape mentally and physically after six weeks of this stuff. Yeah. Tim Ferriss: I'm going to force a segue. We'll see if it's a natural segue, but drugs. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Now, this is in the  yellow, I believe, change your mind — Soman Chainani: Change your mind. Tim Ferriss: — about category. Soman Chainani: So I never did drugs growing up.  I maybe did pot once or twice and found it slowed me down to the point of I never wanted to do it  again.

And just sort of walled that whole thing off as, I don't know, stuff that other people do.  And then, during COVID, I read The Body Keeps the Score. And I had struggled with some things for my  entire life in terms of anxiety and just getting stuck in kind of ruts of feeling. And it was  2021 January where I just remember, talking about follow the flow, I stood up, went to my computer.  I remember being in Miami at my parents' house, Googling "Ketamine treatment, New York City."  I knew nothing

about ketamine, nothing. Tim Ferriss: How was it even in your field? Soman Chainani: I don't know. Tim Ferriss: It just popped into the head. Soman Chainani: I don't know. I just remember going "Ketamine therapy in New York City," calling  up, scheduling the consultation. And a week later, I'm back in New York going to meet the  doctor. And I was like, "I don't know if I'm right for this. I don't want anything  that will mess with my creativity." I said, "The only reason I'm entertaining this i

dea  is because it's in a doctor's office." I said, "I would never do drugs on my own because the  fear surrounding that of what could happen and where it's procured from and all that stuff would  end up infecting the whole experience. And with a doctor's office, I'm entertaining it." I said, "But I don't want it to affect my creativity. I don't want it to..." He's like,  "It's only going to make you more yourself and more creative." But he goes, "These are the three  things that I think make fo

r a good candidate." He's like, "Number one, have you felt emotionally  numb for most of your life?" And at that point in my life, absolutely. I think I was in just  cycles of numbness. Number two was, "Did you have a volatile childhood where emotions were not  particularly welcome?" And I was like, "Check." Tim Ferriss: Check. Soman Chainani: Check. And number three, he goes, "This one's the most important." He's  like, "Do you know how to have fun?" And I said, "No." And I cried. I remember cr

ying in the  office. He's like, "Do you know how to have fun?" And it was the first time anyone had asked  the question in the right way. Because I knew the idea of fun. I knew that I should be having  fun. I knew how to act like I was having fun, but I never felt like I was having fun. And he  goes, "You don't drink?" I said, "No." And he goes — and I meditate. I was that point, four or  five years into meditation. He's like, "You're going to have a very good response to this."  He just instant

ly — and so, I started ketamine treatments. At that time, I think you do six  in 12 days, and then you go back for a booster. In my case, it's every 10 weeks and I still go.  And it changed my life. I mean, it was like, I feel like a totally different person because of  those. Because what it did is it woke up parts of my brain that I did know existed because they  had shut off so early that I didn't know they were there. And then, all of a sudden I started  to get glimpses of what I could be li

ke. And then, it became a question of could I hold  onto that? And little by little over — Some people, I think, get their benefits much  quicker, or they don't get any benefits at all. I mean, it's so individual. In my case,  it was almost like a practice. It was like, every 10 weeks, I'd go learn a million  things, work on those things in between, go back. And it almost became my version of the  deepest therapy. And I think it's become a huge, just, reason for everything. And I think it's  als

o allowed me to follow the flow more than ever, because the whole thing of a ketamine  treatment is it's a sedative. Right? So, it puts your brain in such a relaxed state that  you have no choice but to follow the flow where it goes. And the flow usually leads you closer to  the truth. So, I don't know. I think it's — for someone who was so anti-drugs, it was the biggest  thing that changed my mind about them. Yeah. Tim Ferriss: In those — well, let's see. Just to  establish some basics, with th

e whatever it was, let's call it six sessions in 12 days. So, that  loading phase, let's call it, induction phase, those were IV? Or — Soman Chainani: IV. Tim Ferriss: IV. Soman Chainani: I've never done the micro-dosing and the nasal spray and all that  sort of stuff because, again, I don't want to do anything that is me alone. I will always — Tim Ferriss: That's a great policy. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: I just want to emphasize how good a decision that is. A lot of  friends I know who

have embraced more recreational use have become addicted to ketamine. Soman Chainani: Oh, I'm sure. Tim Ferriss: It has that potential. And you're  also, in a sense, a great candidate/profile because you don't have any history of alcohol use. Some people who have a history of alcohol abuse or just use, extensive use, which  certainly if you go to New York City, and I've spent a lot of time in New York City,  a lot of social life revolves around alcohol. Soman Chainani: 100 percent. Yeah. Tim Fe

rriss: And many people there have switched to ketamine, but it's still a  dissociative anesthetic. So, in those uncontrolled environments, people can find themselves in a  slide that can become very precarious. But in the clinical setting, I also find ketamine to be  incredibly interesting. There's a lot of research people can find on PubMed and elsewhere looking  at the rapid antidepressant effects ketamine and their different types. For people who might be  interested in the potential benefits

and risks and science related to this, I did an episode  with Dr. John Krystal of Yale who did — he was the primary investigator on a lot of the seminal  work investigating ketamine as antidepressant in humans and developed some of the early protocols  with his fellow researchers and scientists. Soman Chainani: Which is tricky because anytime  anybody, I talk to people close to me, they're like, "Do you recommend it?" I'm like, "No." And  I never recommend it to people. I don't think I've ever

recommended it to anyone because I found  it difficult. It's a journey into the deepest core of yourself. It's a lot. It's a lot of work. Tim Ferriss: And the meditation background also serves you, and I would imagine, in a very big  way in terms of navigating some of these recesses. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: What do your boosters look like? Is that a single session? Soman Chainani: Single session. Tim Ferriss: And in those single  sessions, what does the format look like? Soman Chainan

i: It's just — Tim Ferriss: Music? No music? Soman Chainani: Oh, no music. Tim Ferriss: Visuals? Soman Chainani: Nothing. And it's alone. There's  no therapist after. It's just — I do it in silence and I just follow the flow wherever it takes  me. And it usually takes me on a ride to the uncomfortable things that I'm not dealing with  then — it's almost like — the way I describe it is sometimes I feel like what the ketamine's doing  is relaxing your brain, like pathway by pathway. And whenever i

t gets somewhere sticky, that's  shut off, where there's a jam, that's where you're going to have a little moment. Tim Ferriss: That's when the traffic helicopters circle the traffic jam. Soman Chainani: And then you have to — but I just think it's over time because I've been willing to  sort of do the work and sort of be in there with it. It's been a huge thing. And it meant that  I never had to take antidepressants. I never had to take anti-anxiety medication, things that  someone in my profil

e probably would've needed. But instead to go three, four times a year and do  these sessions, I think, and it's also — the great thing about it is it's a short half-life. It's  over so fast. So I think that's what makes it, has been such a huge contributor for me. Tim Ferriss: How long would you say your active session lasts? Soman Chainani: One hour. Tim Ferriss: One hour. Soman Chainani: Exactly one hour. And then, just the process of it getting out of your system,  you coming back up, all th

at stuff is probably another hour and a half. So, by the time you're  in your Uber home, and then you're good to go. Tim Ferriss: Some interesting applications  to treatment-resistant depression and chronic pain also. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: I did six infusions several years  ago, and I came in without any particular acute state of anxiety or depression. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: So, the people working  there, the staff and technicians and MDs and so on were a little mystifie

d. And  I therefore didn't have much in terms of measurable reductions because I wasn't coming  in with something too reduced at that point. Soman Chainani: Yes. Yes. Tim Ferriss: But I left and a few weeks later I realized, "Oh, my God. That mid-back thoracic  pain that I have felt every day for several years, I have not felt in probably a month." Soman Chainani: It's amazing because anything that's coming from a place of stress —  but the thing is, it could return if you don't deal with that,

if you don't deal with that  psychological stress, it might return, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I felt that too. If  I go in with a lot of muscle soreness, I'll come back out and it's almost like it never happened. Tim Ferriss: So, for people who want to learn more, certainly John Krystal, with a K, Krystal,  and Andrew Huberman also recently had an episode related to all things ketamine — Soman Chainani: Oh, interesting. Tim Ferriss: — which I'm sure  involved a lot of due diligence. So, yo

u can check that out. "The double." This is in  the excited about category. What is the double? Soman Chainani: Super excited about.  I've been thinking about this one a lot, which is there's so much work on your shadow  self in psychology. It's always like, "Oh, get control of your shadow self. Your shadow self  is..." And the more I think about it, and the more I've gone through my journeys and all my kind of  evolutions, I'm realizing that most of the time, you are the shadow self. You. It's

you — Tim Ferriss: The primary actor. Soman Chainani: — you are the problem. The better  version of yourself is actually out there. Your double. Right? And so, I think you have to flip  it, and at any given moment, and it's a good exercise to do all day long, just a mental thought  experiment, of what if I'm the shadow and there's a better version of myself, completely independent  human outside that door that could take over this life and completely handle it with no issues. And so, it's been s

omething that, if you look at all my fiction, all my fiction is about  some version of twins, one good, one evil, one this, one that. And it's always — I think it's  that. It's that I'm always trying to figure out, am I who I'm supposed to be? And I  think often psychology will say, "Well, you have to get control of that shadow."  And sometimes I'm like, "Well, no. Maybe I just need to not be here and let the double  be in charge." And so, I think it's something I'll be exploring in everything I

do, because I  think it's such an important concept that we've reversed it and that we shouldn't be afraid of  the shadow, because the shadow is actually — Tim Ferriss: Staring right back at us. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: So when does this thought, this  concept, come up for you? I have a friend who's calm in almost all circumstances, certainly  compared to me, Matt Mullenweg. And there have been times when I have thought to myself,  "What would Matt Mullenweg do?" Almost like a reminde

r bracelet that some people have for  JC and so on. And that has been very helpful. When I'm in a situation, I feel myself on the  verge of becoming dysregulated. Not like "Hulk smash," but just having some type of rumination or  tantrum internally that is not helpful. I'm like, "Pause. What would Matt Mullenweg do?" And I'm  like, "You know how he would handle this is he would do da da da." And then, sometimes I just  do that thing and I'm like, "Well, that wasn't so hard." So I'm curious if th

ere are times  when you feel your lesser self doing something, or I guess in this case, your shadow,  right, doing something where you're like, "What would my double do?" How does it come up? Soman Chainani: It came up first because I was going to be on The Kelly Clarkson Show two years  ago, and I had never been on kind of a TV show like that. And it was live studio audience.  It was straight out of COVID. And I was like, "I'm just — I'm not ready for it.  I just don't know how to do this." Tim

Ferriss: Did you decide to do  that or that came suggested to you? Soman Chainani: Yeah. Yeah. So, the publicist was  like, "We booked you on Kelly." And I was like, "I don't know." Especially after lockdown, and I was  just not ready for, I think one of the first shows that she had people back. And I remember in the  dressing rooms starting to freak out and panic, and I could feel that panic rising. And then, all  of a sudden, I felt this counterforce where I was stressing on my phone. I felt

myself put the phone  down and I just felt some other presence be like, "It's fine. We've got this." And I almost remember  in that moment being like, "Okay." I just felt it. And that was the first time I'd ever felt  something like that. Because I remember sitting on the couch and feeling totally chill.  David Duchovny was next to me. I had grown up watching X-Files. I made a sex joke with him in  the first two seconds of the thing. I was just totally chill. And I just was like, "What?"  I'm li

terally watching myself being like, "What is happening?" And that was the first  time I got a sense of like, "Oh, wait…" Tim Ferriss: The possibility. Soman Chainani: That there's a better version that can handle every situation. And I remember the  other thing that gave me a clue was Tiger Woods. There was a documentary about Tiger Woods on HBO,  and they talked about how his dad taught him kind of techniques to almost hypnotize himself when he  played so that his conscious mind wasn't working

and that's how he dominated all those years. And  I thought, that's it. It's almost like you have to get your conscious brain out of the way because  the double, the real version of yourself that knows how to do everything, is there somewhere.  And the question is, over time, can you make it so they start to integrate? And then, a useful  thing that also helped me start to explore it was I started doing IFS. Do you know this? Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Internal Family Systems. Yeah, I've had the founder

Dick Schwartz on the podcast. Soman Chainani: Oh, no way. So I started doing IFS therapy, exploring those parts, and that's  when you really start to be able to see them in practice and work with them and start to feel more  comfortable letting go. I think IFS was — I think the ketamine treatments plus IFS — Tim Ferriss: Plus Kelly Clarkson. Soman Chainani: — plus that Kelly Clarkson moment  was sort of the secret I think about a few years ago where everything sort of came together. Personally,

do you have thoughts for how you're going to explore that or implement it? Soman Chainani: I think it comes really, it's in therapy and it's in those ketamine  treatments where I think sometimes what I'll do now is if I go in for a booster  or if I go in for IFS, I just think, "Okay. I'm taking myself out of this. Let's see  what comes from the other part of myself." You know what I mean? The part that is the  creative force is the one that has the vision of where I should be going next. The on

e  who knows what next book I should be writing. Tim Ferriss: Oh, light unbidden. Soman Chainani: Yeah. I would like to have a better connection to the thing that is running my  life, which is why we should talk about QBs next. Tim Ferriss: QBs. QBs. Is this quarterbacks? Soman Chainani: It is. And this is so funny. The most spiritual revelations I've ever  had watching a TV show have come watching that Netflix series Quarterback. Tim Ferriss: Oh, I haven't seen it. I've only heard of it. Soman

Chainani: It's amazing. It follows Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins,  and Marcus Mariota for the 2022 season. Tim Ferriss: I feel like I know you pretty  well. How did you end up watching Quarterbacks? Soman Chainani: Taylor started dating  Travis, then I felt like, "Okay." Tim Ferriss: T. Swift is another part. Soman Chainani: Yeah, we'll get there. So, it felt like — okay. I grew up watching a  lot of Dolphins games and I actually love football. I could watch football all day long.  I just never

really got into it because I didn't have a reason. You know what I mean? There was  no team I was rooting for. And the Dolphins always sucked for a long time. So Taylor gave me  more reason, and so I just watched it, because I'd also been hearing good things, and I love  sports talks. I just feel like it's the closest thing I can feel to high-performance stress. Tim Ferriss: You've played a lot of tennis, also, for people who don't have the background. Soman Chainani: So I start watching it and

I realize that this position of being a quarterback  is the greatest metaphor for what life should be because we all think we're the decision makers as  what we were talking about with follow the flow. We think we're the ones in charge of everything  like that. That's not what a quarterback is. The quarterback knows all the possible plays. The  other forces are calling it into his helmet. He's not even able to talk to the coach. He can't  talk back to the coach. It's a one-way system. So literal

ly, it's the universe telling him what the  play is. So he's hearing, "White squall, Madonna, six, wing," whatever. He's like, "Okay. Execute."  Right? So that's it. And I feel like that's what life should be. You're in the flow so much that  the orders are coming from outside. Orders are coming from outside telling you what the play is. You get the play. You go into the huddle. You communicate the play to your whole team. Now,  everybody's on the same page as you. You've got everyone with you n

ow. You go into  the huddle, the ball is snapped to you, and now you have to adjust, because the world's  going to react to your play. And that's where it gets interesting because you have to be so  present and in the moment that you can react to what's going to happen. And to me, that's life.  Everyone's focused so much on deciding the play. Don't focus on deciding the play. Once you feel  a play, execute it, just go, follow it. And if it busts, whatever. You've got a new play coming. And so, e

ach of them had such a great — each of them is so different. Mahomes is just sort of a  physical freak of nature and so smart and able to, on the fly, improvise. And so, he's  very kind of — I think of him as almost pliable. He's very spongy. He can sort  of move and adjust at the last minute, and he's so sort of confident in that ability. Kirk Cousins is more like me where he's not particularly physically adept, but he's brainy  and nerdy. And so, where the other quarterbacks are in the gym doi

ng all their physical training,  he's at biofeedback sessions, because he feels like if he can get his brain to just be calm,  the calmest in the most stressful situations, it'll tell him what to do. Roger Federer was  similar. He said that every tennis player tenses up as they're about to hit the ball because  the pressure of hitting the right shot gets them at the last nanosecond. And his job is to stay  relaxed so he has an extra millisecond of options. And so, it was just something about tha

t show  where I was like, "These guys are learning to not be — they don't call the play, but  they're the executing guys." And I just think that's life. Let the plays come to you.  Let them come through your invisible headset. Don't question it. You can't talk back to it.  Just take the play, and then execute. So there was something about that show. I don't know. Tim Ferriss: I've got to check it out. I've got to check it out. Soman Chainani: It did something to me at a deep level. Tim Ferriss:

All right. We're going to jump straight to T. Swift because knowing very little  about Taylor Swift, but watching, what was it called, Americana, I want to say, the documentary. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Miss Americana. Tim Ferriss: I have a fascination in the  phenomenon of Taylor Swift and the rerecording and the masters. Some of these fascinating decisions  with incredible outcomes. I'm very interested, but I know very little. But I do recall when the  whole football cameo came into Taylor's life

, somebody who is more attuned to all of these  pop phenomena said millions of people, Swifties, are about to become very interested in football.  And that's going to be a curious development. Where does that lead? Okay. So, T. Swift — Soman Chainani: It's funny. I grew up idolizing Madonna and I think one of the reasons  I was so interested in Madonna was some part of me was kind of pre-adapting  her central question of existence to what was going to be my life, which is — Tim Ferriss: Yeah. I

need you to unpack that. Soman Chainani: — you're like, "How is  this sentence going to end?" Which is, as an artist, how do you sustain a career  for a long period of time without it just being a downward diminishing returns? And what I  loved about Madonna was that reinvention and the ability to completely reinvent herself. Tim Ferriss: Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant at doing it. Soman Chainani: And she did it for so long. And then now she's in her close to 70  and in her legacy celebration era. S

he's done, in terms of that part. It's funny because Taylor in a  lot of ways follows the same script, which is each album is a reinvention. To the point of now when  she is on tour, it's the Eras Tour. It's this idea that "You're going to embrace all the different  parts of me, but they're all very different and they go in different directions. And that's part  of my identity now. So do not expect me to stay in the box for the next thing, because that's not  what is happening. And that's not wh

at you want." So, I think it's why when I went to write fairy  tales, I think the fact that I am such a — also, the reason it's in the absurd column is because  I've liked her for so long. And now, I'm so used to comparing myself to her when she wasn't even,  comparing, not myself, but her moves and things, that now that she's so popular, it's almost  more ridiculous when I tell people, well, we did both move to Missouri for 6'5"  aggressively masculine, athletic men. So I do feel like a special

kinship. Tim Ferriss: Maybe your light — maybe your double is Taylor Swift. Soman Chainani: I wondered about that. I had — one of the ketamine treatments was about this. Tim Ferriss: She's like, "I got you, babe." For the Kelly Clarkson, she's  like, "We've done this a million times." Soman Chainani: That would be pretty awesome. Tim Ferriss: Breathe. Soman Chainani: Can she deposit some  of the funds instead of hoarding? But it is this idea of how do you make it so  not staying in the box is y

our thing? Because that was Madonna's thing, and that's what I  want mine to be. And that's why aggressively, I can't be afraid of this next thing when  I'm going out with something so different. Tim Ferriss: I'm so excited for you. This was —  not comparing myself to Taylor Swift, nor to you, different circumstances, different time in life.  But after The 4-Hour Workweek, every pressure, including a lot of internal pressure, but every  expectation and pressure was that I was going to do somethi

ng in the same category, something  with the same brand, which I did obliquely. But The 4-Hour Workweek for fill-in-the-blank, kind  of franchise the whole thing, fine splice it, milk it for all it's worth, do The 3-Hour  Workweek, whatever it might be. But at that point, and you certainly have this optionality, I pause  because the inclination was to rush. And whenever that is the pressure, I tend to hit the brakes. Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: And I'm like, "Wait a second." This  has bou

ght me permission to write another book. This is the time when people are going to be  willing to take a gamble because this first one went so bananas. I can always go back  to The 4-Hour Workweek. Right? That door does not close or it doesn't get locked, at  least. Similarly, if you try this new thing, you'll be welcomed back with open arms. Soman Chainani: It's Julia Roberts with her long, red hair. Tim Ferriss: That's right. Soman Chainani: I'm here to  write more fairy tales for you. Tim Fer

riss: Exactly. And that's when I went to  The 4-Hour Body, totally different category. A lot of people assumed, within publishing, totally  different readership. But I was like, "If this works, if this works, it's not guaranteed to work,  but if it works, then I buy myself permission to do things that are not within this category." Soman Chainani: 100 percent. Tim Ferriss: And I can always go back. I have  the optionality of hitting control Z in a sense, hitting undo, and going back to what I wa

s doing. Soman Chainani: But I also think that what was interesting about The 4-Hour Body is it just  seems so — it's so funny because that anyone would question that, it just seems so  obvious, because you had presented a hack of the work life. So, then for you to  be like, "I'm now presenting a hack of your physical existence," of course. Nothing about it  seemed — did you feel like, "This is obvious?" Tim Ferriss: I did. Soman Chainani: You did. That's the important thing. Tim Ferriss: I did.

Including some of my close friends, like Matt Mullenweg who  I mentioned. He was like, "Yeah. Of course." Soman Chainani: Of course. Tim Ferriss: Because he knew that for all the notes and analysis and so on that I'd  put together interviews I conducted for business, I had, he knew, and there's no reason why  my publishers would know this, although I did tell them — and to their credit, they were  willing to go with The 4-Hour Body, which then took off and became very successful. But he knew  t

hat I had basically all of my workouts recorded since age 16. He knew the extent to which I  had captured data and experimented on myself. And to him, he's very productive. And in Silicon  Valley, he's like, "Yeah. The productivity stuff, that's great." He's like — but for his peer group,  he's like, "They're all incredibly good at that. They're all incredibly good at maximizing per hour  output." He said, "What we're not good at and what we want from you is actually more of the physical  stuff.

" So, all of them personally we're asking me questions about the exercise side. And I was  like, "Okay. The same lens, the same framework, the same principles, they can be applied here." Soman Chainani: That's so interesting because it's what's so obvious. Right? What are people asking you? What do people  ask me? "How do I fix my teenager?" Tim Ferriss: Yeah. Soman Chainani: Okay. So, that's what I'm going to write about. Tim Ferriss: What's just staring you in the face? Soman Chainani: What's

staring you in the face? Tim Ferriss: Yeah. What is just staring you in the face? All right. Should we go to another person? Soman Chainani: Sure. I'm really interested in these two authors who, I just feel like  we're in the age of hyper productivity, the rush of content. Right? So, you have to  put out a book every year. You have to put out content on Instagram all the time, this ubiquity  of — and I find that the people that, especially the authors that we most hold onto, and the ones  that w

e start to get obsessed over, and in a weird ironic way are the most popular on TikTok, are  the ones who release a book every eight years. So, thinking of Donna Tartt as one author and the  other one that sort of goes together with her, her name is Hanya and the last name is Yanagihara. Tim Ferriss: Oh, boy. Soman Chainani: And Donna Tartt wrote Goldfinch,  Secret History. She's only written three books. She writes one every 10 years, and she's due  for exactly 10 years. So she did one at 29, 3

9, 49, and her 59th birthday just passed. So, we  should be seeing one any moment. And then Hanya wrote A Little Life, which — Tim Ferriss: A Little Life. Soman Chainani: — yes. Which I read — Tim Ferriss: Yanagihara. Soman Chainani: Yeah. She's the editor of the  T Magazine for New York Times. And she wrote this book that is the most immersive, committed —  that's what her and Donna do. They spend years and years writing their books and they become these  immersive, complete experiences to the

point of they just consume you because they're so real. And  what I find so interesting is Donna Tartt, there's a whole section of TikTok dedicated to her. A  Little Life, 10 years later, selling, it's number 20 on Amazon, TikTok's obsessed with it. And it's  because of the level of commitment of the work. And that's I think what I aspire to deep down, is  to be able to just be so committed to something that you're able to have the time and freedom  to spend a very long time on it, so that you c

an really create this alternate thing that is  undeniable. It will exist forever because it's that committed. And so, those two authors, I think  are a sign that no matter how addled, or stupid, or short-term thinking, or monkey meme, we get,  it doesn't matter. That stuff still holds because they're the two most popular authors on TikTok. Tim Ferriss: Why do you think they are? And I know that you just explained part of the picture  in your mind, why they are so popular on TikTok, because there

are many dedicated authors,  let's just take as a category of profession, who release books infrequently, who are supremely  good at the craft, who are not popular on TikTok. So what do you think it is about these two, even  if you had to just make stuff up, speculating, what do you think it is about these two  in particular? What else adds to that? Soman Chainani: It goes with  this one. So, this is together. Tim Ferriss: Okay. Levels of feeling. Soman Chainani: Which is together with Sally Ro

oney, who's another author who I'm obsessed  with, these three authors are able to access a certain kind of primal nerve of feeling because  they're so immersed in it, they're just there that it's the intensity of reading it just  feels higher than anything else. Like yes, you can have someone who spent 10 years crafting  this meticulous world and all that sort of stuff, I've read plenty of books like that, but there's  something about the 10 years that is spent doing that work we talked about,

what does the character  want? Why do they want it? Why do they want that? Why do they want that? And they do it for every  character so that when you're reading it, you're just in this emotional soup that is undeniable.  It's just so affecting to everybody who reads it. So there's this category of book that I can  recommend to anybody who comes to me and says, "What book should I read?" I always tell them  Secret History by Donna Tartt, A Little Life by Hanya, Conversations with Friends  by Sal

ly Rooney. Those are my first three recommendations. And it doesn't matter,  man, woman, young, old, it always works out. Tim Ferriss: I have not read any of those three. Soman Chainani: Well, which one should you start with? Tim Ferriss: That's the question, which one should I start with and why? Soman Chainani: Oh, boy, they're all so different. It depends on their mood. A Little Life — Tim Ferriss: Well, you can interrogate my mood then. Soman Chainani: A Little Life is if you are in the mood

to be kind of torn apart. Tim Ferriss: Not right now. Soman Chainani: Yeah. So then I would wait for  that one. That one, it's almost like a hijack. Tim Ferriss: I'm open to that. Soman Chainani: Yeah, it's an emotional hijack. You will disappear. Tim Ferriss: I'm open to that, just not right now. Soman Chainani: Conversations with Friends is the  most accurate depiction of what it's like to be, I don't know this for sure, but I just mean  what I think of what it means to sort of be in a femini

ne state of mind in your 20s. It is  just crystal clear and brilliant writing of the emotions of what it's like to be young. And so  I just think for anyone who has ever been young, when you read it, it takes you back there. It  takes over everything. So I think that one, and you'll tear through it in a day and  a half because you won't be able to stop. Secret History is if you just want great writing  and feel like you're in a different world, because Donna takes her 10 years to meticulously  c

reate a world that the characters feel so real that you're there. So if you're just ready to  go somewhere else and disappear for a while, but without the emotional hijacking, you go to  Donna Tartt. If you want to be emotionally thrown into a well, Hanya, and if you just want the  equivalent of a Taylor Swift album in prose that is much more articulate, you go to Sally Rooney. Tim Ferriss: Conversations with Friends. Perfect, all right. Where should we go next? Now, I'm  enjoying this game beca

use as we flip these over, we get to fewer and fewer options. Soman Chainani: These three — Tim Ferriss: Interrelated? Soman Chainani: Are going to all go together. Tim Ferriss: Okay, so we've got two yellows,  which are changed mind about, "Cross-collar dating," not sure what that is, "Hookups,"  suspect I know what that is, "Couples language." Soman Chainani: Maybe we should start with  cross-collar dating then, because that's sort of the unlocking key. Have you never heard this term? Tim Ferr

iss: I've never heard this term. I know what a cross-collar throw is in judo, but I'm  guessing this is unrelated. Cross-collar dating. Is that like white collar, blue collar? Soman Chainani: Yes. Tim Ferriss: I'm just guessing. Soman Chainani: Yes, yes, yes, it. And it's been popular now, I've just seen  there are a lot of columns about this and things like that, which is also why when I thought when  Taylor started dating Travis, I'm like, "They're going to last forever," because they just wil

l.  Now watch, I'll have to eat my words. But it's similar to what happened to me, which was I lived  in New York for 22 years. I dated every lawyer, accountant, investment banker out there, I went  through it all and it always felt like two clouds in the sky and no one on Earth — we were doing  jobs that a monkey would not understand. Could you explain your job to a monkey? Neither of us,  like, "Oh, I write..." It wasn't going to work. So then when I met [redacted], who literally is  just in t

he Earth, he can tell you when it's going to rain. It felt like it was just such a match  of someone who has Earth energy and someone who has sky energy. Because in Hinduism, that's the  balance. It's not masculine/feminine, it's not male/female, it's sky energy and Earth energy. Tim Ferriss: I'm ashamed and astonished, I've never heard this before. Soman Chainani: So that's the balance you're looking for. And I'm all sky, I'm all what  they call Shakti, which is thunder and lightning, that's me

. So I need somebody who's the guy on  the ground holding the kite before it flies on. And so I just think of, what was I doing? I  should have known from the start. And I think I started to sense it this time around that I  needed to be with someone ultra grounded. And so that's why I think cross-collar dating works  because also you're not in each other's space, there's no competition. You're not competing  for the same thing. You're not measuring each other against each other. Tim Ferriss: Ma

ybe you also have different neuroses. Soman Chainani: That's it. Tim Ferriss: Which is probably good. Soman Chainani: Yeah, he's thinking about, every one of [redacted] neuroses is about, does he  have enough money to sell this group of calves for that? And I'm like, "I'm sure it's fine." That's  my reaction to everything, "I'm sure it's fine," but I can't relate other than be supportive.  And when he comes to watch me do the dance in Charleston, he's just like, "This is a lot." Tim Ferriss: Not

sure what this is, but you do you. Soman Chainani: 100 percent. He calls it the dance of the red shoes, as a metaphor  in general. He's like, "He's off doing his dance of the red shoes. We'll see him when he's done,"  and that could be anything. So I think that's what it is. And whenever I see two lawyers together,  I'm like, "Oh, no, who's going to...?" I don't know. So yeah, something worth looking at. Tim Ferriss: All right. Today I learned cross-collar dating. And now well actually,  look,

I'll ask a self-serving question so I'm back on the singles field, as you know, we've  talked about this privately. So what would that potentially mean for me? Is it more a set  of characteristics? Is it profession? I mean, I have definitely, this is not exactly the same,  but I have had enough perhaps tiptoeing around this to realize probably not a good idea for me  to be with another writer, you know what I mean? Soman Chainani: Agreed. Tim Ferriss: I've taken that parking spot. I think that o

ne is enough. Soman Chainani: Agreed. I think it's as simple as, it's not so much the caller, it's about the  intensity of the commitment to what it is. So for instance, I'm so committed to my writing  career and the entrepreneurship of my life that it is such a huge part of what I do that you want to  find somebody who has that same commitment to what they do that is in a completely different space.  So that's why I look at Taylor and Travis Kelce, because she's the most famous pop star in the 

world, she's always in the number one position. What man is ever going to be able to have that  same level intensity but a football player playing in the same stadium in front of the same amount of  people, and she has to be there rooting for them. Tim Ferriss: It's perfect. Soman Chainani: It's like you're each doing your thing, it's yours. It's not the  other person's, but the other person is there to cheerlead. And I think that to me is the perfect  recipe of where — and I think sometimes wh

en you have, even if it's an investment banker and  a lawyer, they're similar, there's something similar about it. But if you can find something  that's really different so that you can just relax and be a cheerleader and feel almost humble,  like [redacted] coaches basketball and when I go watch the games, it's just fun to watch him coach  basketball because that has nothing to do with my existence. I have nothing to do with it. Tim Ferriss: I didn't know that part, you must love that. I'm just

  thinking of you with the tutoring and also tennis background. You must love it. Soman Chainani: And he comes to me with all his, "This kid this. What do I say to this kid,  this?" And I'm just always asking him questions, I love it. It's my favorite thing. I'm always  asking him more questions about what's happening with the drama behind the scenes. Tim Ferriss: I'm still thinking of the dance of the red shoes. I may use  that with you, that's great. All right, where should we go? Hookups or c

ouples language? Soman Chainani: Well, couples language is a really quick one, but I think it's really interesting  that with couples, I feel like every couple — Tim Ferriss: Oh, this is in the  absurd category, just so people know. Soman Chainani: Because I thought it was just  us, we have our own language at times, words we make up and things that we have that no one else  would understand. And it's almost like animals, we just came up with our own little barks  and things and repeated phrases

and repeated thoughts that are just ours. And then I talked  to other couples and they have it too. And I was talking to a friend about this where he's  like, him and his partner used to, instead of saying the word "program," they used to use  a British accent for it and say "program" or something. And that was how they always said it.  And then they broke up and then the new partner heard about this somehow and started using it  and he felt this irrational sense of anger. Tim Ferriss: Like ave

rsion to it, yeah. Soman Chainani: Yeah, because it's somebody else's language. That's when I thought, "Oh, no,  this is a real thing. This is somehow in our DNA to create this private language with our other  person." [redacted] and I have a million of them, but we use the word "malinky" a lot. Tim Ferriss: Malinkey? Soman Chainani: Malinkey to refer to something  that is on its way to being totally fucked, but has not gotten there. It's circling the drain. Tim Ferriss: Is this an adjective or

a noun? It is a malinky or it is — Soman Chainani: No, it is malinky, it's an adjective. So we use that a lot. A  person could be malinky, a dish that we're trying to cook could be malinky. So it just  comes up. And so we have maybe a hundred of these kind of words. And so nicknames and things,  and so it's just our own little private language. Tim Ferriss: Hookups. Soman Chainani: This is a pretty simple one, but in New York, hookup culture was big and I never  really got into it. I always was

more interested in connections and things like that. And people  are like, "But it's fun, so many hot guys," I mean, New York, Austin is similar, everywhere you  go, everyone's like a supermodel, it's annoying. But the reason that it stopped me was every time  I was like, "Okay, you could go hook up with that guy, whatever." I used to think to myself, "Well,  what's the reason?" And I realized that it was because I was trying to extract something from  them. They had this hotness or this thing o

r this thing that I felt that by hooking up with them,  I would get, right? And that's when I started thinking about the term hookup. What is it?  Hook? It's like you're trying to literally like a fish hook them and get this thing. There's no  connection needed, you're going to dispose of them at some point, you know it's not going to last. Tim Ferriss: You're just going to lean over, breathe in their soul. Soman Chainani: That's it. And I thought to myself — Tim Ferriss: Sell their chi. Soman C

hainani: And in my case, it was obvious  because it felt like I was going after certain kind of guys that had things that I wanted. And I  realized that it was never because I liked them, it was because I wanted to be them or I wanted  this thing that they had physically or something. And it was always like, you just want to extract.  And I thought, "That can't be good for your soul." I just thought that can't be good because what's  going to happen if you mentally go through with it? Yes, you'r

e going to go, you're going to  extract this thing or try to extract it, you're going to fail to extract it and they're going  to leave and you're still not going to have it. Tim Ferriss: I think New York, as you  described it, is just such a hyperkinetic environment that I feel like whether it's  related to hookups or alcohol or other, you need to have some guardrails or I feel like  that environment will sort of eat you alive. Soman Chainani: I think it's funny because  we can move to that one

now that we're here, I lived there for 22 years and I would go to  Florida and go to places that were much slower to relax. But I think with New York and L.A.  what I realized is until you're out of there for an extended period of time, that's when  you finally get to be yourself. Because New York and L.A. and even Chicago and the biggest  city, San Francisco, everything's so reactive. It's too much stimulus to ever process in a way  where you're just alone with your thoughts in a consistent wa

y. So it's not just vacation, but on  a permanent basis. And when I moved to St. Louis, I didn't have any friends there, I was new to the  city, I knew no one, still getting used to it, but it's quiet, not much is happening. And for  the first time in my life, it was just me. And I felt like in those 10 months I had to grow. Tim Ferriss: I got it. So you had a 10-month period where you were there full time? Soman Chainani: Yeah. Tim Ferriss: Got it. Because I was going to say,  the astute listen

er may note that you said I go every weekend earlier, I think that was right. Soman Chainani: To St. Louis? Tim Ferriss: You tell me,  what is your geographic split? Soman Chainani: Okay, so I moved to St. Louis  in end of January of this year. And then I go to New York maybe three or four days a  month. And in those three or four days when I first started going, I felt like, "I'm  home, thank God." And then each time I went, I started to dread it and dread it more. I was  still seeing all my fr

iends, I was getting to do all the fun stuff that I get to do in New  York whenever I go there, the restaurants, the this. But I was just like, I could feel myself  be like, "We're going to war." That's what it feels like when you go into the city again. And I just realized, especially for me, where I'm at my stage where I want to commit to  my art and the things I want to do and connection and relationships, especially with this new  set of tools that I have post ketamine where I feel like I'm

finally getting to connect and  be in the moment and have fun and be present and slow in terms of my experiences, in  New York, it never would've happened. Tim Ferriss: Do you think you'll have an ebb  and flow in that way, you'll have a seasonal relationship to that stuff? Do you think there's  a chance that you do St. Louis for a period and then you have sort of a city period and  then a rural period? Or do you think — Soman Chainani: I think what I'm realizing is  I'm in the creative zone now

where I'm done with School for Good and Evil and fairy tales for  a while, I'm making new work. So for the next two years, that's really where I am, is the making  new work, which involves also making new life, new partner, new city. It's a new chapter totally.  It's a second act, right? It looks nothing like my first act, first act was New York fairy tales,  I'm now doing something totally different in St. Louis and I'm on a goat farm. So new album,  right? So I don't know what will happen whe

n I'm done writing and it's time to promote.  Will it be dance of the red shoes again, let's go to New York and dress up? Tim Ferriss: Of course it will be. Soman Chainani: Of course it will be. I  think it'll be great. I think it'll be great. Tim Ferriss: You see, you have a goat  farm. Goat farm, St. Louis. What is St. Louis like? I haven't spent any time there. Soman Chainani: It's quiet, it's manageable. It's a very family-oriented city. Whenever people  are like, "Oh, I just moved to St. Lo

uis," it's to be near family usually, most of the time. Tim Ferriss: I just feel like, you're not in the outer reaches of the Brooks Range in  Alaska, like a flight from people, you have access to restaurants and things like that. Soman Chainani: Yeah, yeah. Everything's there, restaurants are there. I just think it's a  city that has a lot of potential. It reminds me a little bit of when I first started to come to  Austin eight or nine years ago, I was like, "Oh, this place is going to go crazy

one day when  people find out what's here." St. Louis isn't quite at that level. I feel like it's evolving,  but there's a lot there where people are going to be like, weather's good, people are great,  food's good, easy to get around, no traffic. It just feels like it's a sleepy little city  that people kind of gave up on but I wouldn't be surprised if it has a boom at some point. Tim Ferriss: It's the opposite of a malinky. Soman Chainani: It's opposite of a malinky. Tim Ferriss: Or it is opp

osite of malinky, excuse me, I used it incorrectly. Soman Chainani: It's opposite. Yeah, no, there's a lot to be said about St. Louis. And  also I just haven't met that many people, so I'm excited to start making friends. Tim Ferriss: Speaking of Britishisms, when you're mentioning the shared language of  program, I have no idea, dodgy, dodgy allergies. This is in the absurd category on purple cards. Soman Chainani: This is a good one to end on. I tell everyone I'm allergic to  cranberries and e

ggplant. Am I allergic to cranberries and eggplant? Tim Ferriss: Are you? I don't know. Soman Chainani: I don't know. But I've been  saying it for so long that I am like, is it true? So the question is when we are allergic  to things, and I think this gets to a bigger, more profound question, where did that start? I  know that once upon a time I thought cranberries caused hives or something, and then I ate  cranberries, I don't know, this was probably when I was a teenager and got a bad case of 

hives and therefore have told people ever since, "I can't eat cranberries." But was it because — Tim Ferriss: It could be something else. Soman Chainani: It could be something else, right?  And so this happens, I think, a lot with when we were young, I remember first having peanut  butter and things like that and having weird reactions to it being like, "This makes me feel  weird." But there was no option to stop eating it. There was no, "Don't eat the peanut butter."  It was like, "We'll just

keep giving you peanut butter until one day your system gets used to  it." So I was just thinking about the fact that the way that it's easy to, in your mind, create  these little zones of, "I can't touch eggplant." Tim Ferriss: No-fly zones. Soman Chainani: Once upon a time this thing happened and it makes you start to question,  I don't know, deeper, no-fly zones. So anyway, that was something that crossed my mind of at some  point we need to test the no-fly zones, basically eat cranberry sauc

e and see what happens. Tim Ferriss: So small world, for the record, if you're working in a restaurant, I  tell you I have an eggplant allergy, it's because I ate eggplant my whole life, and  then one day, boom, anaphylaxis, full-blown, like almost died in a restaurant. Soman Chainani: Is that true? Tim Ferriss: In San Francisco. It's true.  And I went in, that wasn't step one, step one was had this dish, had some whatever  it was, swordfish, fine, vegetables, fine, outside of eggplant. Then I h

ad the eggplant and  my tongue got really itchy and I was like, "Huh, that's weird. It feels like an allergic reaction.  I've never had an allergic reaction to eggplant." So being the genius that I am, and I'm saying  that sarcastically, I was like, "Well, I'm going to purchase like an engineer. I want to figure  out, can I replicate the bug?" So I went back the next day, pro-tip, do not do this. If you have a  mild allergic reaction, don't do what I'm about to describe. So I went back and I was

like, "Well,  I'll try it again, and if my tongue gets itchy, I'll go have a slew of testing." But that's not  how allergic reactions work. If you have one allergic reaction that is minor, it can suddenly  step function up to something very serious. And that's exactly what happened. So I ate the  exact same dish, I had the allergic reaction, but this time my throat closed down to the  size of a coffee straw. And it was rush hour, it was in the Mission, certain part of the Mission  in San Franci

sco where there was absolutely no possibility that an ambulance was going to get  to me within 30 minutes, no bodega or anything nearby. I asked the staff, I was like, "Do you  have any Benadryl?" And they're like, "No." "Do you have an EpiPen?" "No." And I was like, "Fuck."  Of all the dumb things that I've done in my life, this is what's going to kill me, really? And I  just sat there. That was all I could do. And I was like, "Well, freaking out isn't going to do  anything," and I was like, "I

guess I'm just going to have to try to breathe very calmly." Soman Chainani: And slowly. Tim Ferriss: And I passed through it, and  therefore I have not had much eggplant. Now I will say I went and had extensive, extensive allergy  testing done at Stanford with all these top docs, and at least with the species of eggplant that  they used for their various sampling and testing, no demonstrable allergy to eggplant,  which raises a bunch of questions. Now, one option is it's a different species of

  eggplant, okay, possibly, who knows? The other, which is scarier, which a very well-known  friend and tech founder who people would recognize brought up, was maybe it is a  pesticide that you are unable to identify. Soman Chainani: Oh, shoot. Tim Ferriss: But that is so psychologically terrifying — Soman Chainani: Yes, yes, yes, because anything can happen. Tim Ferriss: For me to contemplate that I've doubled down on the eggplant. Soman Chainani: See, and this is why dodgy allergies came to my

mind,  because it's like the fundamental — Tim Ferriss: At least I can avoid eggplant. Soman Chainani: Right. To me, when I say dodgy, what I mean is mental allergies in the sense  of the allergy is compounded sometimes by this extra force. So when I was on  a plane and they called out, "Okay, someone has a peanut allergy, therefore, we're not  serving peanuts or cashews," or whatever it was, everyone was like, "Oh, okay," a little  grumbling, but whatever. Next plane, they were like, "Someone

has an alcohol allergy,  we are not serving alcohol," it was like Saigon, like everyone — Tim Ferriss: Mutiny. Soman Chainani: Everyone's racing for the last  helicopter, do you know what I mean? To get off that plane. So it was a sudden thing of, "Okay,  we have to take the allergy seriously, but then this one we're not taking seriously," because it  just comes to me sometimes when I think it's worth looking at the mental stress around the allergy. Tim Ferriss: I agree. And also just asking the

30,000-foot question, which I'm sure very  competent, qualified people have examined, but what is going on with all of these allergies? Soman Chainani: Well, that was the question. That's what I was thinking to myself, when I was  young, I definitely think I had a peanut allergy and it just, I think, got used to the discomfort  and to the point where the body was finally like, "All right, I guess we're doing this," and just  I guess got used to it. And I don't think that was necessarily the rig

ht way to handle it,  but that's what happened before and now it's different. It is interesting to see on the  farm, none of the kids, all the nephews, nobody has allergies, there's something about  that. The farm just has so much going on that — Tim Ferriss: Interesting. Soman Chainani: The first thing I do with the baby, put her in the cow pen. Tim Ferriss: Into the farm you go. All right, there's one more thing I can see over there,  which is one remaining name, I think there's one remaining

maybe, more than one. Soman Chainani: No, there's one that is worth talking about, which is the  daughter of a friend who introduced us, how I first met you. I met you through Brian  Koppelman, the creator of Billions. And I have an eye completely independent of the fact that  obviously I know her and I've seen her grow up, I have my eye on his daughter, Anna, who is 23 and a  standup comedian and writer because she's so good. Tim Ferriss: He has very talented, skilled kids. Soman Chainani: I tu

tored both of them. I did no work with either. Tim Ferriss: Someone will take his customer 15 percent. Soman Chainani: In terms of working with either of them, there was nothing  to be done. These kids came fully formed. Tim Ferriss: Babysitting. Soman Chainani: 100 percent just sat there and talked to the family and had family dinners  and somehow got paid for it. I felt like they were the most incredible kids. Sam is the older one and  will probably be president someday, and Anna is just, she

reminds me of, do you know Miranda July? Tim Ferriss: I do not, great name though. Soman Chainani: Yeah, she is in the early  2000, late '90s, she is just very prolific and still writes and great comedy. Just versatile at  everything involving writing and performing. And that's Anna, I feel like she can write, she can do  standup, she can write novels. It's just the voice is so sharp and interesting and mature that at 23  that I just am like, "What's going to happen?" So I feel like she's one to

one to — Tim Ferriss: To keep an eye on? Soman Chainani: To keep an eye on. I just think  sometimes when I feel like when I was growing up, people were like, "Okay, we don't know what  he's going to do, but he'll do something interesting," because I was just kind of off doing  my dance with the red shoes and I feel like Anna, I feel like the same, something interesting's  going to happen, something interesting is going to happen. So I have my eye on her.  So it's good to end on somebody young.

Tim Ferriss: Up and comer. Soman Chainani: Because that's where I think my brain always is. I'm looking at youth  for talent, ambition, and most of all commitment. Tim Ferriss: What do you think Brian and  his wife have done to foster some of that? Soman Chainani: That's a good question. Tim Ferriss: This could be nature versus nurture, who knows? Maybe they're just thoroughbreds, came  from good stock, but I suspect there's more to it, probably a little bit, certainly at  the very least. What d

o you think? Soman Chainani: I think they encouraged their  ideas. I just feel like when they had ideas, it almost felt like an improv house where if one  was like, "I think I should do this," it would be like, "Yes, and?" Everything was like, "Yes,"  no shooting down ideas. It was just go with it. Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about how, "To  me, the ideal parent sees a kid reaching for an egg on the table, like a toddler," and he's  like, "You stop that kid from dropping the egg because you're afr

aid of the mess and wasting 40  cents on an egg, you're going to lose that toddler seeing this thing explode and leak three different  substances and a yolk and a thing and how did that thing turn into that? And all of a sudden you have  a scientist and a three-year-old. What else can I drop and see what's going to happen?" And so he's  like, "That's it, it's just saying yes and not giving too much direction." And that's what I said  about the kid making the bed, the kid coming to things on his

own terms. Don't comment, let them  evolve. Just look at the photo, no need to add your two cents underneath, you know what I mean? Tim Ferriss: I do. But fun, this has been so much fun. Is there anything else you'd like to  mention? Anything you'd like to point people to? Any closing comments? Anything at all? Soman Chainani: I think it's just so fun to get to have a conversation with such a  deep thinker and to be able to play around, you know what I mean? I never get to do this in  real life.

So I feel like getting to do this is an honor and I'm just very thankful that you had me. Tim Ferriss: What a pleasure, so fun. I'm looking forward to continuing at dinner.  Where can people find you online? Soman Chainani: Best place to find  me is my website, somanchainani.com. S-O-M-A-N-C-H-A-I-N-A-N-I.com. And  then I don't use Twitter anymore, so Instagram's probably where I see messages  and things like that. So SomanC on Instagram. Tim Ferriss: SomanC on Instagram. We'll link to  everyth

ing in the show notes, folks so you can find that at tim.blog/podcast and just search  Soman. There will not be an overwhelming number of entries, S-O-M-A-N. And until next time,  as always, be a bit kinder than is necessary, not only to other people, but to yourself. And  thanks for tuning in everybody. Talk to you soon.