#603: In Case You Missed It: May 2022 Recap of "The Tim Ferriss Show"

Tim Ferriss (0:06)

Can I ask you a personal question?

Morgan Fallon (0:08)

Now is the appropriate time.

Tim Ferriss (0:24)

Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types to tease out the routines, habits, and so on that you can apply to your own life.

This is a special in-between episode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from the last month. It features a short clip from each conversation in one place so you can jump around, get a feel for both the episode and the guest, and then you can always dig deeper by going to one of those episodes. View this episode as a buffet to whet your appetite. It's a lot of fun. We had fun putting it together. And for the full list of the guests featured today, see the episode's description probably right below where we press play in your podcast app.

Or as usual, you can head to tim.blog slash podcast and find all the details there. Please enjoy.

Tim Ferriss (1:14)

First up, Edward O. Thorp.

Edward was one of the world's best Blackjack players and investors, and his hedge funds were profitable every year for 29 years. He is the author of Beat the Dealer, Beat the Market, and A Man for All Markets, From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market.

Tim Ferriss (1:42)

Now, I wanna take a step back just for people who are listening and say that there are many reasons that I wanted to have this conversation with you. And it is not specifically related to gambling in the sense that what most, there are many things that interest me about your life and your thinking. And my hope is that for people listening, they get a window into at least two things. One would be your methods of thinking, frameworks for thinking, how you think about thinking, and then also your personal approach to health and fitness.

Because as people may have picked up with some of the references, could you tell everyone listening what your age is as we speak today?

Edward O. Thorp (2:28)

I'm 89

Tim Ferriss (2:30)

And for those people who can't see video, you look like you're in your 60s.

And I am just beyond excited to hop right into that. So we're gonna jump around quite a bit. We won't do this exactly chronologically, but could you perhaps describe your approach to health and fitness? And you could tackle that starting wherever you like. Is it just that you were given the right parents and out of the box have tremendous genetics? Is there more to it? How would you begin to unpack this?

Edward O. Thorp (3:03)

I kind of wandered into health and fitness by accident initially, just like I've wandered into blackjack and roulette. I'm curious and always looking for things to understand. I like the idea of self-improvement too. So I was walking behind the student co-op one night when I was about 20 and heard a bunch of clanking. And I looked down in the basement and there were some fairly burly guys down there pumping iron. And I walked in and I said, you know, this is a waste of time. This is ridiculous. So one of them said to me, I'll bet you a milkshake that if you work out with us for a year, just one hour an evening, three evenings a week, you'll double your strength in a set of exercises that they describe.

So I said, I don't believe it. Let's try it. So I went down and the four exercises were the squat with a barbell on a rack, the military overhead press, the bench press and deadlift. It wasn't deadlift, it was something else.

I forget the fourth one at the moment, but I'll think of it.

Tim Ferriss (4:10)

Yeah, clean and jerk maybe, who knows? Or a bent row.

Edward O. Thorp (4:13)

It was something along those lines.

Tim Ferriss (4:15)

But a compound exercise like the others.

Edward O. Thorp (4:18)

Yeah, so there was a fourth exercise. So anyhow, what happened was, I was a, I wouldn't say 98 pound weak link, but maybe 150 pound weak link.

And at the end of a year, I could military press 185, which was at least double what I started with.

I could bench press 375

I could do 15 at 325

And I could, yeah, I could squat with 375 I could do sets.

Forget what the other one was. Wish I could remember it. In any case, I was astounded that all this came to pass. So made me pay attention to strength at least.