A Masterclass in Riding the Waves of Life — “The School for Good and Evil” Creator Soman Chainani

Tim Ferriss and Soman Chainani play a card-based 'Four by Four' format covering things Soman is excited about, has changed his mind about, finds absurd, and people to follow. Soman explains his creative philosophy of 'following the flow', letting the next book decide itself rather than chasing money, and why he gives ideas away to test whether only he can execute them. He opens up about how clinical ketamine therapy and Internal Family Systems work changed his life after a numb, emotionally walled-off childhood, and shares his 'double' concept of treating your better self as the real you. The conversation also ranges across his goat-farm life in St. Louis with his farmer partner, cross-collar dating, couples' private language, hookup culture, mental allergies, and author recommendations.

• Soman spent a year and a half mapping out a 'Game of Thrones version of Neverland' fairy-tale fantasy, wrote two chapters, then abandoned it overnight because it felt like chasing the easy money instead of the right idea.
  00:06:49
• DC Comics hired Soman to write a 20-page short story; after six months it fizzled before printing, which he saw as the universe confirming that mercenary jobs done 'not 100 percent like me' always fall apart, at least ten times in his 20s and 30s.
  00:19:43
• Soman reveals he never did drugs growing up, then during COVID after reading The Body Keeps the Score he Googled 'ketamine treatment New York City' and started clinical IV ketamine therapy that he says changed his life and let him avoid antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds.
  00:58:34
• The intake doctor's three candidate questions, emotional numbness, a volatile childhood where emotions weren't welcome, and 'Do you know how to have fun?', made Soman cry in the office because no one had asked it the right way.
  01:00:46
• Soman shares his 'double' idea: flipping shadow-self psychology so that you assume you are the shadow and a better, fully capable version of yourself is waiting to take over your life.
  01:08:20
• His first experience of the 'double' came backstage at The Kelly Clarkson Show post-lockdown, where rising panic was overtaken by a calm presence saying 'We've got this,' and he ended up chill enough to crack a sex joke with David Duchovny.
  01:11:04
• On cross-collar dating: after 22 years dating lawyers, bankers, and accountants in New York ('two clouds in the sky'), Soman moved to a St. Louis goat-and-cattle farm for his partner, framing it through Hinduism as sky energy (Shakti) pairing with Earth energy.
  01:31:45
• Tim recounts nearly dying of anaphylaxis from eggplant in a San Francisco restaurant, then 'like an engineer' going back the next day to replicate it, when his throat closed to the size of a coffee straw with no ambulance, EpiPen, or Benadryl available.
  01:47:31

• When School for Good and Evil launched, there were eight other magic-school books that year (including ones tied to Glee's Chris Colfer and Mattel's Ever After High), but Soman wasn't worried because his was 'so weird' and uniquely his.
  00:14:51
• Soman's 'Your bull might be gay' story: his partner's farm runs ~100 cattle with one bull impregnating 60 heifers a year; a sweet new bull seemed to ignore the females but had secretly gotten them all pregnant, becoming a motto for catastrophizing.
  00:22:20
• Christopher Marley (@christophermarleystudio) is an ex-supermodel turned artist who makes art from reclaimed preserved animals, beetles, butterflies, snakes, sourced from remote Amazon tribes; none are killed for the art.
  00:34:25
• Mike Regula (R-E-G-U-L-A), an ex-Navy SEAL, moved to Austin to start Course of Action (OneCOA), using SEAL concepts to help men reconnect with what they want, individually and in groups.
  00:48:41
• Soman three times hosted YALLFest's 'SmackDown' show in Charleston, a variety act opening with an eight-song, six-costume-change dance number, doing it every two years so the off-year host's disaster makes him the returning hero.
  00:51:22
• Soman's ketamine boosters run every ~10 weeks, alone, in total silence with no music, visuals, or post-session therapist; the active session lasts exactly one hour.
  01:05:09
• Soman calls the Netflix series Quarterback (following Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota in 2022) his greatest source of spiritual revelation, treating the QB receiving plays through his helmet as the perfect metaphor for following the flow.
  01:14:19
• Soman's three go-to book recommendations: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (immersive world), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara ('emotional hijack'), and Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (like a Taylor Swift album in prose).
  01:25:43
• Soman notes both he and Taylor Swift moved to Missouri for '6'5" aggressively masculine, athletic men,' citing Swift/Travis Kelce as the model cross-collar couple where each cheerleads the other.
  01:36:06
• Soman flags Anna Koppelman, 23-year-old daughter of Billions creator Brian Koppelman, as a standout standup comedian and writer he compares to Miranda July.
  01:53:58