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 ​The Way, the meditation app I use most often. Be sure to see their offer in the P.S. There’s a bonus P.P.S., too.

Voice-to-text app I’m enjoying

​Wispr Flow. From the homepage: “Effortless voice dictation in every application: 3x faster than typing, AI commands and auto-edits.” This came highly recommended by two friends, so I decided to give it a shot. Thus far, it’s far superior to other voice dictation that I’ve tried. For real prose, I continue to believe that deep thinking is the limiter and not any word-per-minute typing rate, but this is a great tool for banging out quick emails and messages.

Writing rules I’m considering

“Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing and His Daily Creative Routine” by Maria Popova.
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For my personal reorientation towards book writing, I bolded a few as reminders:

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
​4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!​
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
​7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
​8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
​9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.​
​10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
​11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Song and lyrics I’m revisiting

“A Thousand Kisses Deep” by Leonard Cohen. This one is worth reading a few times… and then a few times more. Listen on YouTube here.

What I’m watching

​“Ep. 1 Ponyo is Here” (10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki). Hayao Miyazaki has been called “the Walt Disney of Japan,” but he has said the comparison isn’t accurate because Walt Disney was a business person, and he sees himself as “just a director.” Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli has produced four of Japan's top-five most successful animated blockbusters, including my favorite movie, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke, which beat The Lost World: Jurassic Park when they both hit the big screens in Japan. This episodic series from NHK, the BBC of Japan, chronicles “the creative process of the legendary Japanese filmmaker. He is shown as a passionate artisan, a steadfast trailblazer, and a father butting heads with his son.”

Quote I’m pondering

“When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”​
— Haruki Murakami

You can complement this edition of 5-Bullet Friday with my brand-new interview with 2x Olympic Archery Medalist Jake Kaminski.
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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

P.S. Deal of the Week — ​​The Way​ meditation training program. 10 minutes a day might just change your life…

I’ve explored a lot of meditation practices over the years. My current hands-down favorite, and the easiest way to get back in the habit, is ​The Way​, taught by Zen Master Henry Shukman. Using the app for just 10–20 minutes a day has reduced my anxiety more than I would have thought possible with any app. Try it for a week, and I think you’ll notice something similar. Here are 30 sessions for free​. ​
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The Way​ leads you down a single, long-term path that covers all the key areas of a deep and fulfilling meditation practice. It’s an easy and calming way to find more ease and calm. There’s no overwhelming menu of stuff and meditation du jour, just Henry taking you on a logical progression of lessons, one manageable bite at a time. You’ll be learning skills you can actually take into your daily life. Henry’s sessions will become something you look forward to. He’s appeared on my podcast twice and is always a listener favorite. I recently chose to invest in The Way, given all the above, and I’ve been working with Henry and his team to make the app as good as humanly possible. I’ve probably sent a hundred notes on the product, and they’ve been improving it each and every week.
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​Subscribers to 5-Bullet Friday can try 30 sessions for free, no credit card required. Just go to TheWayApp.com/Tim​. Try it for a week, and I think you’ll be more than pleasantly surprised.

P.P.S.

​Check out this incredible Indigenous craftwork. This gorgeous booklet, which you can view online, is the result of a collaboration between yours truly and LALO Tequila. Each bottle is one of a kind and comes from the creative mind and inspired hands of a single Wixárika craftsman or craftswoman. The Wixárika people are one of the oldest known Indigenous groups still using peyote (hikuri) in a traditional context. This Lalo collaboration has already put more than $100,000 USD into the betterment of Wixárika communities, whose sacred lands are under threat from mining companies and other commercial interests. While the bottles are not for sale, I encourage you to learn more about this collaboration by clicking here.