Ep 27: Kevin Kelly (Part 3) - WIRED Co-Founder, Polymath, Most Interesting Man In The World?

Tim Ferriss (0:00)

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If you didn't catch the first two parts, you might want to do that before venturing in. But if not, no fear.

We answer a lot of questions. It's a conversation. You can pretty much dip in and dip out as you like. So if you don't mind your stories as more of a jigsaw puzzle, then by all means, keep on listening.

So without further ado, please enjoy part three, the final part of The Tim Ferriss Show with Kevin Kelly. And thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_2 (2:22)

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

Tim Ferriss (2:42)

I'd love to perhaps jump into some rapid fire questions. And they don't have to even be rapid. Just some fire questions. The questions will be rapid. The answers can be as short or as long as you'd like.

What book or books do you gift or have gifted the most to other people outside of your own books?

Kevin Kelly (3:04)

There is a short graphic novel by Daniel Pink called Junco.

It's career council advice. It's aimed at young people. It's a graphic novel. It's a cartoon, basically. It's aimed at young people as trying to teach them how to become indispensable.

I've given that away to young people because it's, for me, the best summary. Again, it's not like how to become successful. It's how to become indispensable. That's right.

Tim Ferriss (3:35)

It's Adventures of Johnny Bunco or something like that.

That's right. I have that on my bookshelf back in San Francisco, in fact.

Kevin Kelly (3:43)

Yeah. If you know a young person who is just starting out, hand them that book. It's very easy for them to read. It's a graphic novel. It's non-threatening. It's fun.

It'll give them five great principles for starting out and helping them orient themselves as they start working in the working life.

Tim Ferriss (4:04)

For someone who's facing a lot of the same questions, let's just say, so you have graduates asking the, what should I do? Why am I here? What am I good at? If we fast forward to say, for the sake of argument, mid-30s, people in middle age hitting that particular point, are there any books that you would recommend they read?

Kevin Kelly (4:22)

Well, there is a book that I'm recommending by Cal Newport. It's called So Good They Can't Annore You. This changed my mind because I had bought into the new age California dogma of follow your bliss, you know, money will follow.

And he makes a really good argument and convinced me that's actually not very good advice, that what you really want to do is to master something and to use your mastering of something as a way to get to your passion.