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The Tim Ferriss Show

#471: Adam Grant — How to Remember Anything

The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig

Lifestyle Design, Business, The 4-hour Workweek, Productivity, Timothy Ferriss Show, Startups, Tim Ferris, Entrepreneurship, Longform Interviews, Tools Of Titans, Timothy Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Ferriss

4.617.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Adam Grant — How to Remember Anything | Brought to you by "5-Bullet Friday"

Please enjoy this special episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, featuring the superhuman Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) and his podcast with TED, WorkLife.

Many of you have heard my interview with Adam, which was one of the most popular interviews of 2019. I titled that podcast “The Man Who Does Everything” because Adam seems to accomplish more than the next 10 people combined, and he has built systems and habits that allow him to do this. 

Adam is an expert in how we can find motivation and meaning, and lead more generous and creative lives. He is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of four books that have been translated into 35 languages: Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. His TED talks have been viewed more than 20 million times. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NBA, and the Gates Foundation. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers, is one of Fortune’s 40 under 40, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He’s received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. It goes on and on. The good news is that this isn’t all freakish genes and good luck; Adam uses uncommon tools and strategies for getting all of this done. You can find our previous episode about this at tim.blog/adamgrant

In Adam’s WorkLife podcast, he takes you inside the minds of some of the world’s most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck; put another way, how do you make work actually work for you? 

Adam and I share an intense interest in just how far—and easily—you can train your memory to do things that seem impossible, and I wanted to share with you an episode from Adam’s podcast titled “How to remember anything.” It is highly tactical.

One last thing—for legal reasons, we didn’t have the flexibility to remove any mid-roll ads, so... Accenture, this one’s on me.

Please enjoy the episode! You can subscribe to WorkLife with Adam Grant wherever you get your podcasts.

*

This episode is brought to you by “5-Bullet Friday,” my very own email newsletter, which every Friday features five bullet points of cool things I’ve found that week, including apps, books, documentaries, gadgets, albums, articles, TV shows, new hacks or tricks, and—of course—all sorts of weird stuff I’ve dug up from around the world. 

It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and you can subscribe now at tim.blog/friday.

***

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Well hello boys and girls, ladies and gents. This is Tim Ferris and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers of all different types to tease out their routines habits influences books techniques tactics etc that you can use or apply to your own life.

0:17.0

This episode is going to be different and I have a surprise for you. Many of you have heard my interview with the superhuman Adam Grant which was one of the most popular interviews of 2019.

0:28.2

I titled that podcast the man who does everything because Adam seems to accomplish more than the next 10 people combined his colleagues are kind of mystified by it.

0:37.7

He has built systems and habits that allow him to do this. That's the important part. So it's not just that he came out of the womb with these abilities. He trained these abilities and he has systems.

0:49.2

He and I share an intense interest in just how far and easily you can train your memory to do things that seem completely impossible. That's what this episode will focus on. So it's going to be very very tactical, very practical.

1:02.7

For those who don't know Adam, Adam is an expert in how we can find motivation and meaning and lead more generous and creative lives.

1:08.7

He is an organizational psychologist at Wharton where he's been the top rated professor for seven straight years.

1:14.7

He is the number one New York Times bestselling author for books that have been translated into 35 or so languages given take originals option B and power moves.

1:23.7

His TED Talks have been viewed more than 20 million times. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the MBA and the Gates Foundation just to give you an idea of the spectrum.

1:32.2

He's been recognized as one of the world's 10 most influential management thinkers is one of Fortune's 40 under 40 and a world economic forum young global leader.

1:40.2

He's received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. It just goes on and on.

1:47.2

The good news is that like I said, this isn't all freakish jeans and good luck. Adam uses uncommon tools and strategies for getting all this done.

1:56.2

You can find our previous episode about a lot of this at Tim.log slash Adam Grant. Adam now has his own podcast with Ted called Work Life in which he takes you inside the minds of some of the world's most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck put another way.

2:13.2

How do you make work actually work for you to that end? I wanted to share an episode of Adam's podcast that I really enjoyed titled How to Remember Anything.

2:22.2

It is highly tactical and you can just listen to the first five minutes to get an example of just how incredible you can hone your memory with the proper approach and tools.

2:32.2

One last thing for legal reasons we didn't have the flexibility to remove any mid-roll ads. So Accenture, this one is on me. You're most welcome.

2:40.2

And to those listening, please enjoy the episode you can subscribe to Work Life with Adam Grant wherever you get your podcasts.

2:47.2

This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers.

2:59.2

And it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox every Friday. I send out five bullet points, super short of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self experiments, hacks, tricks,

3:14.2

and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers have asked me for something short and action packed for a very long time because after all the podcasts, the books, they can be quite long.

3:27.2

And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free. It's always going to be free and you can learn more at Tim.Blog forward slash Friday. That's Tim.Blog forward slash Friday.

3:41.2

I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with. And little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun.

...

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