The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [17]
Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (www.fourhourbody.com/almanac) This book contains most of the talks and lectures of Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. It has sold nearly 50,000 copies without any advertising or bookstore placement.
Munger’s Worldly Wisdom (www.fourhourbody.com/munger) This transcribed speech, given by Charlie Munger at USC Business School, discusses the 80–90 important mental models that cover 90% of the decisions he makes.
End of Chapter Notes
3. In this case, the “4-Hour Body” is quite literal.
4. These “mental models” are often referred to as heuristics or analytical frameworks.
5. For example, proper conversion of T4 thyroid hormone to the more thermogenically active T3.
6. Genes alone cannot account for the diversity of characteristics we see around us. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is now thought to be responsible for much of the diversity, and there is good news: just as you can turn genes on and off, you can influence mRNA dramatically with environment—even shut down certain processes entirely through interference.
7. Protein, for one, provokes a greater thermic effect of food (TEF) than either carbohydrate or fat—in simple terms, in digestion a higher percentage of protein calories are “lost” as heat vs. carbohydrates or fat. This has led some scientists to suggest that the 4 calories per gram assumed for protein should be downgraded 20% to 3.2 calories per gram.
GROUND ZERO—
Getting Started and Swaraj
At the individual level Swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for dispassionate self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification and growing self-reliance.… It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.
—Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, June 28, 1928, p. 772
THE HARAJUKU MOMENT
The Decision to Become a Complete Human
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
—Bene Gesserit “Litany Against Fear,” from Frank Herbert’s Dune
For most of us, the how-to books on our shelves represent a growing to-do list, not advice we’ve followed.
Several of the better-known tech CEOs in San Francisco have asked me at different times for an identical favor: an index card with bullet-point instructions for losing abdominal fat. Each of them made it clear: “Just tell me exactly what to do and I’ll do it.”
I gave them all of the necessary tactical advice on one 3×5 card, knowing in advance what the outcome would be. The success rate was impressive … 0%.
People suck at following advice. Even the most effective people in the world are terrible at it. There are two reasons:
1. Most people have an insufficient reason for action. The pain isn’t painful enough. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have. There has been no “Harajuku Moment.”
2. There are no reminders. No consistent tracking = no awareness = no behavioral change. Consistent tracking, even if you have no knowledge of fat-loss or exercise, will often beat advice from world-class trainers.
But what is this all-important “Harajuku Moment”?
It’s an epiphany that turns a nice-to-have into a must-have. There is no point in getting started until it happens. It applies to fat-loss as much as strength gain, to endurance as much as sex. No matter how many bullet points and recipes I provide, you will need a Harajuku Moment to fuel the change itself.
Chad Fowler knows this.
Chad, CTO of InfoEther, Inc., spends much of his time solving hard problems for customers in the Ruby computer language. He is also co-organizer of the annual RubyConf and RailsConf conferences, where I first met him. Our second meeting was in Boulder, Colorado, where he used his natural language experience with Hindi to teach a knuckle-dragger (me) the primitive basics of Ruby.
Chad is an incredible teacher, gifted