The Tim Ferriss Show

#552: Aisha Tyler — How to Use Pain, Comedy, and Practice for Creativity (Repost)

Dec 7, 2021

Aisha Tyler is an accomplished director, actor, comedian, and author, known for her work on shows like Archer and Friends. In this engaging discussion, she shares her journey through creativity, emphasizing the importance of embracing failure as a path to success. Aisha reflects on her unique childhood and the insights gained from overcoming challenges. She also explores the balance between work and rest, the dynamics of stand-up comedy, and the significance of authentic self-expression in a competitive landscape, encouraging listeners to take creative risks.

02:24:30

Episode guests

Aisha Tyler

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

4min

Embracing Creativity and Overcoming Fear

6min

Lessons from a Resilient Childhood

17min

Navigating Ambitions and Artistic Pursuits

10min

The Challenges of Stand-Up Comedy

21min

The Journey of Creative Authenticity

23min

The Filmmaker's Organic Journey

27min

Confronting Fear: The Journey to Creative Empowerment

2min

The Balance of Work and Rest

8min

10.

Exploring Fitness: From Pistols to Personal Bests in Rowing

2min

11.

Exploring Glutathione: Anecdotes and Self-Experimentation in Supplementation

2min

12.

Crafting the Perfect Morning Workout Routine

3min

13.

Creativity, Resilience, and Embracing Failure

17min

14.

Embracing Imperfection in Creativity and Nutritional Insights

4min

Aisha Tyler (@aishatyler) is an award-winning director, actor, comedian, bestselling author, podcaster, and activist. Whether you do any type of creative work, want to be too complex to categorize, or want to overcome rejection and beat the odds, this one has something for you.

Aisha voices superspy Lana Kane on F/X’s Emmy award-winning animated comedy series Archer, which won four back-to-back Television Critics’ Choice Awards. She is a regular on the hit CBS show Criminal Minds, for which she has also directed. Aisha continues to host the CW’s hit improv show, Whose Line Is It Anyway, and she launched a line of bottled cocktails she created, Courage + Stone, in the summer of 2018.

Aisha was a co-host for seven seasons of CBS’s Emmy-winning daytime show The Talk. She is also well-remembered for her character arc on Friends, and she was the first African-American to have a long-standing role on the show. Her feature film debut, the thriller AXIS, premiered 2017, and the won the Outstanding Achievement in Feature Filmmaking award at the 2017 Newport Beach Film Festival, then had a theatrical run at Arclight Hollywood, Landmark NYC and Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, Texas.

A San Francisco native, Aisha graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Government and Environmental Policy. An avid gamer and passionate advocate (and occasional adversary) of the gaming community, Aisha’s voice can be heard in the video games Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, and Watch Dogs. Aisha is a bourbon and hard rock fan, a snowboarder, and a sci-fi obsessive.

Enjoy!

This episode originally aired in 2018. You can find the show notes here: https://tim.blog/2018/07/16/aisha-tyler/

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.