5-Bullet Friday

Hi All!

Here is your weekly dose of 5-Bullet Friday, a list of what I’m pondering and exploring.

This edition is brought to you by Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, my go-to source for creatine, which I use mostly for cognitive support. Be sure to see their offer in the P.S.

Wild mini-documentary I’m watching

“World’s Hardest Flash - Adam Ondra Climbs 5.15 (9a+) First Try.” I’m finally getting back into basic rock climbing after elbow surgery, and I love it. I’m watching tutorials to progress from V3/V4 to higher grades, but I also love mini-docs about beyond-insane feats of athleticism. This one is worth watching, even if you’ll never touch a climbing wall.
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​Adam Ondra, the Czech phenom widely considered the best rock climber alive, sets out to do something no human had ever done: climb a 5.15a route on his very first try, without having laid hands on the rock. This video tracks it and has guest appearances from Alex Honnold, Chris Sharma, and others.
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The preparation ritual alone is worth the price of admission: coached by former World Champion Patxi Usobiaga, he visualizes every single move from the ground, twitching through the sequence like he’s downloading it into his nervous system. It’s a masterclass in mental rehearsal that applies far beyond climbing. The footage comes from the Reel Rock team—directed by Peter Mortimer of Sender Films, Josh Lowell of Big UP Productions, and Zachary Barr—the crew behind many of the most popular climbing films of the last two decades.
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If you want to take that inspiration into the gym, pair it with “BIGGEST MISTAKES Coach Louis Sees at Every Grade (V0–V9+)” from Hannah Morris Bouldering, featuring coach Louis Parkinson of Catalyst Climbing—one of the clearest breakdowns I’ve seen of common errors. It was immediately helpful to me.

What I’m listening to for laughs and relaxation

​F*ck That: An Honest Meditation by Jason Headley. NSFW, so put on some headphones if you’re at the office or in public. Pair it with comedian Des Bishop’s bit on mindfulness. One friend’s wife had literally never meditated until I sent this to her. Said husband had been suggesting meditation for years and was pissed that I made it happen with this absurd audio. The whole thing was hilarious, as you’ll understand if you listen.

What I’m adding to my coffee while traveling

​MCT Oil Powder. I only add MCT oil powder to coffee while fasted. These days, that means drinking it well before my first meal around 2–3pm. Here’s why I used MCT oil at all:
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MCTs are readily converted into ketones, which the brain can use as an alternative fuel source. One study in people with Alzheimer’s disease found that MCT supplementation doubled the brain’s consumption of ketones, and a six-month randomized trial in people with mild cognitive impairment found improvements in several measures of cognition. That said, the evidence is still mixed, and a 2024 systematic review concluded that current evidence is insufficient to recommend MCTs as a treatment for Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment. Personally, I cycle on and off of MCT (and any exogenous ketones) for weeks at a time, and when I’m on-cycle, I only consume the equivalent of 1–2 tablespoons of liquid MCT each morning, 3–4x per week. Warning: high potential for disaster pants if you’re not accustomed to MCT + caffeine, so best to be near a bathroom.
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To further explore this topic, listen to my podcast episodes with Dr. Tommy Wood and Dr. Dominic D’Agostino.

What I’m reading

“We’re Living in a Tick Nightmare. It’s Time to Go to War.” (The New York Times) Alternate link. This is a sobering piece on why tick-borne disease is exploding across the Eastern U.S. and why the author thinks we should treat it the way we once treated malaria: as a public problem with a public solution, not a personal one solved by tucking your pants into your socks. It also gets into alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), the tick-borne red-meat/mammalian-product allergy, which can be fatal. This is something I’ve seen in my family, and I myself have had Lyme disease twice from growing up on Long Island.​
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​Here is an excerpt that could be from a horror movie:
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​The lone star tick, especially, seems as if it crawled out of a horror flick. With its aggressive approach to hunting and unusually long, barbed mouthparts designed to anchor into our flesh, it resembles a miniature version of the alien in the ‘Predator’ movies. Unlike most other ticks, which take a let’s-see-what-comes-along approach, the lone star will pursue you for several yards. It’s fast, able to crawl up a leg in seconds and is one of the relatively few tick species whose larvae bite humans: Step on a cluster of lone star babies and you will soon find hundreds of poppy-seed-size vampires coating your ankle. They can even push through your socks.​
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​Another excerpt—with a statistic difficult to fathom in 2026:
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​In the 1930s, malaria afflicted 30 percent of the people living in the Southeastern United States. The government undertook an ambitious campaign to fight it, and in less than a decade, public health workers dug thousands of miles of ditches, drained half a million acres of swampy mosquito breeding grounds and sprayed four million homes with insecticides.
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It worked. Death rates from malaria plummeted, and the disease was eliminated from the country by 1951. As Rachel Carson documented in her 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” that effort led to its own cascading ecological and health crises: mosquitoes developed resistance to the insecticide DDT, which also had disastrous effects on wildlife and proved toxic to humans.

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Question for scientists or others in the know:​
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If we treated ticks as we have treated malaria-carrying mosquitoes—in an all-out war of eradication—what might it look like if we wanted to minimize collateral damage and avoid novel chemicals?
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Does anyone out there have good technologies or approaches that might scale?
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Please let me know by tagging me with @tferriss on X, including a #ticks hashtag, so I can find you.

Quote I’m pondering

“A writer—and, I believe, generally all persons—must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
​— Jorge Luis Borges​
(Click to share on X.)

You can complement this edition of 5-Bullet Friday with my brand-new episode on a topic many of you are likely exploring right now: reinvention. The episode covers how to shed an identity that no longer fits, decide on a new chapter, navigate uncertainty, and commit to what’s next.
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And, as always, please give me feedback on X. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know. Just send a tweet to @tferriss and put #5BulletFriday at the end so I can find it.
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Have a wonderful weekend, all.
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Much love to you and yours,
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Tim

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