#245: The Magic, Misdirection, and Mindset of David Blaine
The Tim Ferriss Show
How My Mother Introduced Me to Chess
My mother had a boyfriend at the time, who's now my godfather. And he taught me chess when I was really young. So it's like the first tricks I started doing with cards were simple mathematical tricks. And so I started to really want to learn different things and I started working on it. That was the love of math. I think the love of science, logic, chess. Yeah, I think it's all very, yeah.
David Blaine (@davidblaine) is an American magician, illusionist, and endurance artist. He is best known for his high-profile feats of endurance and has set and broken several world records. A while back, he taught a group of TEDMED attendees and me how to hold our breath for longer than Harry Houdini's lifelong record of three minutes and thirty seconds -- which still pales in comparison to David's own record of just over seventeen minutes. This episode comes from the premiere of my new television show Fearless. If you want to watch the entire first episode, you can see it for free at att.net/fearless. (To watch all episodes, please visit DIRECTV. Don't worry if you've seen it or plan on seeing it because we recorded three hours of material and only one was used for the show. This episode is almost all bonus content that you won't see on the show. Please enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This episode is brought to you by Exo Protein. These guys are making protein bars using cricket protein powder. Before you look disgusted, I bet they taste better than any protein bar you've ever had before! With recipes that were developed by a three-Michelin-star chef, the bars are paleo-friendly, with no gluten, no grains, no soy, no dairy, and they won't spike your glycemic response. In fact, they're less processed than any other protein bars you'll be able to find. Exo Protein is offering a deep discount to Tim Ferriss Show listeners if you go to ExoProtein.com/Tim, you can try a sampler pack with all of the most popular flavors for less than $10. This is a startup with limited inventory that sells out all the time, so act fast! This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now — this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you’ll be disappointed.
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