86Thousand400: Tim Ferris

The Worst Case: A sleeping bag and oatmeal

- "One of the many life skills that you want to learn at a fairly young age is the skill of being ultra-thrifty, minimal kind of little wisp that's travelling through time...in the sense of learning how little you actually need to live, not just in survival mode, but in contented mode...That gives you the confidence to take a risk, because you say, "What's the worst that can happen? Well, the worst that can happen is that I'd have a backpack and a sleeping bag, and I'd be eating oatmeal. And I'd be fine.'"

Is this what I so feared?

- Here are a few of the things I've done repeatedly for 3 to 14 days at a time to stimulate losing all my money:

- Sleeping in a sleeping bag, whether on my living room floor or outside

- Wearing cheap white shirts and a single pair of jeans for the entire 3 to 14 days

- Using couchsurfing.com or a similar service to live in hosts homes for free, even if in your own city

- Eating only A) instant oatmeal and/or B rice and beans

- Drinking only water and cheap instant coffee or tea

- Cooking everything using a kettle. (Camping device)

- Fasting, consuming nothing but water and perhaps coconut oil or powdered MCT oil

- Accessing the internet only at libraries

- Oddly, you might observe that you are happier after this experiment in bare-bones simplicity. I often find this to be the case

- Once you've realised it requires a monthly or quarterly reminder - how independent your well-being is from having an excess of money, it become easier to take "risks" and say "no" to things that seem too lucrative to pass up.

- There is more freedom to be gained from practicing poverty than chasing wealth. Suffer a little regularly and you often cease to suffer.

Whitney Cummings (LA based comedian, actor, writer, and producer)

It's all material

- Tim recently spotted a T-shirt in Manhattan that read BAD DECISIONS MAKE GOOD STORIES. Look for the silver lining, or at least consider sharing the dark lining. It may pay for your Lexus

What pissed you off?

- 'If you think about something more than three times a week, you have to write about it.'

Equine therapy

- Equine therapy is so fascinating because of what comes up, the way that we relate to horses says so much about how we try to run businesses, marriages, relationships. It's a metaphor for everything, because the way you do anything is the way you do everything

Damn, that Neil Gaiman's good

- Whitney and Tim both love Neil Gaiman's "Make Good Art" commencement speech which he gave at Philadelphia's University of the Arts. Tim's wa

tched the video a dozen times on YouTube during rough periods. Their mutual favourite portion is "The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right." And, yes, I know I've mentioned this before. It bears repeating

Bryan Callen (World class comic and prolific actor)

What would you say in a college commencement speech?

- Well, I would say that if you are searching for status, and if you are doing things because there's an audience for it, you're probably barking up the wrong tree.

- I would say, 'Listen to yourself.' Follow your bliss, and Joseph Campbell, to bring it back around, said, 'There is great security in insecurity.' We are wired and programmed to do what's safe and what's sensible. I don't think that's the way to go. I think you do things because they are just things you have to do, or because it's a calling, or because you're idealistic enough to think that you can make a difference in the world

- I think you should try to slay dragons. I don't care how big the opponent is. We read about and admire the people who did things that were basically considered to be impossible. That's what makes the world a better place to live

Alain de Botton (Practical philosopher. His books described as a "philosophy for everyday life." Include Essays in Love, Status Anxiety, The Architecture of Happiness, The News: A User's Manual, and Art as Therapy. In 2008, Alain helped start The School of Life in London, a social enterprise determined to make learning the therapy relevant in modern culture)

"When people seem like they are mean, they're almost never mean. They're anxious"