5-Bullet Friday

Hi All!

Here is your weekly dose of 5-Bullet Friday, a list of what I’m pondering and exploring. And a call to action, my friends!

What I’m playing, and a wee little favor…

​COYOTE! This has been my obsession for two years. COYOTE is a fast, casual card game I created with the amazing Exploding Kittens team. Here’s a video demo. I worked really hard on every aspect of the game (concept, mechanics, cards, characters, art, etc.)!

You can finally buy it everywhere, including Amazon, Target, Walmart, and 8,000+ retail locations worldwide. It’s been a huge hit with hundreds of test families, my friends, and at conferences around the world. It now produces guaranteed laughs with kids, adults, tipsy people, serious people, you name it. Freeing your inner trickster is a lot of fun.
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If you’ve benefited from my podcast, newsletter, books, or anything at all, please grab a copy or two! It costs only $10–$12 and provides hours upon hours of fun. It takes minutes to learn and 10 minutes to play. It’s also designed to be a good workout for your brain, but that’s another podcast…
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​You can see COYOTE in action in these two YouTube videos:​
​“How to Play COYOTE — Tim Ferriss Live Demo and Meltdowns!” This is a live, unrehearsed demo I did with real people and real games. It turned out better than I ever could have imagined. Check it out.
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​“Competitive Gesturing” on Smosh Games’ amazing channel (8.2M subscribers). The description reads “Can a fart be a question? Find out today!” This made me laugh so hard that I almost got kicked out of a coffee shop.

Song I’m enjoying

“Jardines” (YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify) by Chancha Via Circuito, ft. Lido Pimienta.

What I’m reading and loving

This is one of the most incredible things I’ve found in a while. As a kid, I wanted to be a comic-book penciler for more than a decade. Frank Miller’s Sin City: Hard Goodbye Curator’s Collection (Amazon, AbeBooks) shows you the original art pages with pencil lines, rubber cement, smudges, and more. You actually feel like you’re sitting in Frank’s seat as he made it! A little pricey but well worth it for the unique experience.

Article I’m reading

“The Death of Partying in the U.S.A.—and Why It Matters” by Derek Thompson. Here’s one choice excerpt:
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​Between 2003 and 2024, the amount of time that Americans spent attending or hosting a social event declined by 50 percent.

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The death of the party fits into a broader social phenomenon that I called “The Anti-Social Century” in a cover story for The Atlantic. At a time of surging anxiety and mental distress, Americans spend more time alone today than in any period in recorded history.​
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​<Cough> Ahem, so Coyote…

Quote I’m considering putting on my wall

“Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.”
​― Byrd Gibbens​
(Click here to share on X.)
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Also included by legendary comedian George Carlin in his book Napalm & Silly Putty.

You can complement this edition of 5-Bullet Friday with my brand-new podcast with Elan Lee, co-founder of Exploding Kittens, in which we tell the behind-the-scenes story of making COYOTE, including early misses, finding the right idea, developing it, navigating mass retail, and much, much more. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to get a product on the shelves of something like Walmart and Target, or simply create a game, this podcast covers it all.
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Also, don’t miss the P.S.
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Have a wonderful weekend, all.
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Much love to you and yours,
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Tim

P.S.

Want to join me and a few curious people at a secret Hollywood mansion party in early September? No purchase or goat sacrifices required. Just listen to this for details…

​P.P.S. ​