How to Become World-class at Anything: An Interview with Tim Ferriss

We all want to feel more like directors in our lives and less like spectators. We want to be the boss, not the victim. What if a cookbook could help you do that, to take back control of your life?

I recently had the opportunity to interview best-selling author Tim Ferris, and we chatted about this very idea.

Chef Tim

In this exclusive Q&A, Tim and I talk about his new book, The 4-Hour Chef, which is about a lot more than cooking.

Listen to the interview

Click here to download the MP3.

About The 4-Hour Chef

This isn’t just another cookbook. It’s a guide to taking control of what matters most to you, a blueprint for becoming the jefe of your own story.

Spread throughout The 4-Hour Chef (in addition to the 1500+ photos and 500+ pages of content) is the idea of meta learning and the process by which someone becomes “world-class” at anything (including cooking).

Tim is renowned for cracking the code on seemingly complex processes and breaking them down. He did it with his previous two books (both NY Times Best Sellers) by tackling issues of time management and weight loss. And now, he’s teaching us how to cook.

But this is just another rodeo for Mr. Ferriss. Long before his success as an author, he was mastering Japanese by reading comic books, becoming a kickboxing champ in China, and going toe to toe with the world’s best tango dancers in Argentina.

Interview highlights

Here’s what we talked about:

• How Tim approaches learning, cooking, writing, and other stuff
• Why being born premature (and having other weaknesses) has helped him become who he is
• What his greatest flaws are, how he’s not superhuman, and why failure is no excuse to quit
• Why he doesn’t write for just one genre and what he’s learning from releasing a book only on Amazon
• A bunch more stuff

The secret to becoming world class

Like I said before, this book is about a lot more than cooking. It’s about how we learn to do things we’ve never been good at, how we overcome insecurities and succeed at endeavors that have always intimidated us.

In The 4-Hour Chef, Tim breaks down his approach to rapid skill acquisition and shows how you can replicate the process for anything you want to learn.

So… what’s the secret to becoming world class at anything?

“The way that you become world-class is… by asking good questions.” —Tim Ferriss (Click here to tweet that.)

 The best way to master a craft is to be insatiably curious — at least that’s what works for Tim.

Access to an exclusive Q&A with Tim

Want to hear more from Tim? Here’s a cool opportunity he’s offering you just for listening to this interview. If you buy three hard copies of his new book (one for yourself and a couple for friends), you’ll get access to an exclusive Q&A with him after the book launch.

Here’s how it works:

1. Buy three print copies of The 4-Hour Chef.
2. Email the receipt to 3books(AT)4hourchef.com.
3. You’ll then receive an invitation to an exclusive, two-hour, live Q&A with Tim Ferriss, where you can ask him anything you want.

Pretty cool, right? Of course, if you aren’t interested in the Q&A, you can just buy one copy of the book. It’s currently on sale in the Kindle store.

Whether or not you buy, I hope you enjoy the interview. Feel free to download it and share with friends. Here’s to you becoming world-class at your dream.

What’s something that you’d like to be world-class at? Share in the comments.

Disclosure: The above Amazon links are affiliate links, which means I make a small commission off of your purchase (at no extra cost to you). Please know that I only recommend products I believe in, and this is a simple way you can give back to the blog without it really costing you anything.