Jim Collins and Ed Zschau

In this curated double feature marking the Tim Ferriss Show's 10th anniversary and one billion downloads, Tim revisits two of his favorite mentors. Jim Collins explains the daily spreadsheet he has kept for over 30 years tracking creative hours against a 1,000-hour annual minimum, plus his concepts of the 20 Mile March, the personal Hedgehog, and the 'bug book' for studying yourself objectively. Ed Zschau traces his path from competitive figure skating in Omaha through philosophy and physics at Princeton, an accidental teaching career at Stanford, running companies, and serving two terms in Congress where he helped cut the capital gains tax. Both guests return again and again to themes of commitment, preparation, optimism, and being useful rather than merely successful. Ed closes by reciting the lyrics to his Simplex-algorithm dance song and the 'My Way' farewell he sang to his students.

• Collins reveals his core discipline: over every rolling 365-day cycle for 30+ years, his total creative hours must exceed 1,000, no matter what.
  00:14:35
• Collins describes his daily +2/+1/0/-1/-2 emotional scoring system, done in real time before bed, which he later sorts to find what produces his best and worst days.
  00:16:09
• Collins explains the 'bug book' from mentor Michelle Myers: study yourself like a bug with dispassionate scientific objectivity to discover what you're encoded for.
  00:29:40
• Collins shares Peter Drucker's mic-drop advice: stop asking whether you'll survive or be successful, and instead ask how to be useful.
  00:32:46
• Zschau reveals that breaking his leg in a rugby game disqualified him from Navy OCS, which redirected his entire life into Stanford's MBA program and teaching.
  00:59:14
• Zschau recounts how his task force diagnosed the 50% capital gains tax as the chief barrier to risk capital, leading to the 1978 cut from 50% to 28%.
  01:14:25
• Zschau reveals that in the last couple of weeks he volunteered to become interim president of Sierra Nevada College on Lake Tahoe.
  01:42:35
• Zschau explains his tradition of teaching through song, including a mathematically correct Simplex-algorithm dance and the 'My Way' farewell to students.
  01:55:53

• The podcast recently hit its 10-year anniversary and passed one billion downloads, which prompted Tim to curate these 'super combo' episodes.
  00:05:09
• Collins and his wife Joanne bet everything on the Built to Last research, down to under $10,000, calling it their 'Thelma and Louise moment.'
  00:09:20
• Collins learned the '50/30/20' time allocation (50% creative work, 30% teaching, 20% other) from respected academics he admired.
  00:11:24
• Collins got engaged to his wife four days after their first date and has been married 38 years.
  00:21:18
• Zschau began figure skating around age 7 in Omaha and once told his mother proudly that he 'only fell 40 times.'
  00:38:37
• In a survey of 1,600 of Zschau's Princeton students, 160 of the first 400 respondents had founded companies, and 95% of founders credited his course.
  00:48:06
• Zschau chose Princeton over schools offering scholarships because Princeton only offered him a dining-hall busboy job, signaling it was the toughest school.
  00:57:08
• In 1961 a plane crash killed the U.S. world figure skating team en route to the championships in Brussels, wiping out a generation Zschau had trained alongside.
  00:57:39
• Zschau self-imposed a maximum three-term limit in Congress to create urgency and freedom, and ultimately served only two terms.
  01:18:39
• Zschau lost the 1986 U.S. Senate race to incumbent Alan Cranston by roughly a percentage point, a loss he now considers fortunate.
  01:20:13