A few months ago, Timothy Ferriss, a self-help author, threw himself a party in San Francisco, where he lives. Officially, it was not a celebration for his most recent book, “The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman,” which came out in December and is already in its eleventh printing. In the book, Ferriss tells his readers, “Hack yourself,” and presents them with hundreds of “scientific rules for redesigning the human body”: bathing in ice to lose weight, eating organic almond butter on celery sticks to treat insomnia. Nor was the party meant to mark the enduring success of his first book, “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich,” which is still on the Times’ business best-seller list after four years. That book counsels readers to limit their newspaper reading to the headlines visible from vending machines and to outsource the management of their calendars and finances to a remote personal assistant in Bangalore.
几个月以前，《励志自助》的作者Ferris参加了一个旧金山的聚会，当然，旧金山也是他自己的城市。官方的讲，这并不是一个为了庆祝他12月刚刚出版的新书《每天锻炼四小时：一份关于如何拥有完美体型、性生活的指南》的庆典，虽然这本书刚出版几个月已经再版11次了。在书里面，Ferris在书里告诉自己的读者要对自己狠一点，之后告诉他了他们很多有关于人类身体的“科学原则”：比如在冰里沐浴来减肥，用芹菜蘸有机杏仁黄油吃来治疗失眠。同时，这也不是为了表勋他自己的另外一本畅销书《每周锻炼四小时：逃离朝九晚五成为新富》，这本书历经四年依然是时代周刊评选的畅销书。这本书倡导读者去限制自己阅读报纸的深度，保持只阅读那些能够在自动售货机内看清的头条，同时将自己的日程交给一个远在Bangalore的助理来打理。

As Ferriss took the stage at the Broadway Studios, a club on a seedy strip in North Beach, he explained that the party was intended to encourage cross-pollination among members of the many social and business spheres he inhabits. “Everyone here is extremely awesome in their own way, but we all have our own echo chambers,” Ferriss announced over a microphone, as his guests milled around the dance floor, drinking cocktails with names like Sex Machine and Übermensch. Ferriss went on, “Everyone here rocks, and I want you to go out of your comfort zone and talk to someone you don’t know.”
当Ferris正式走上Broadway Studio位于北岸破败一隅俱乐部的讲台的时候，他解释说：今天这个聚会是为了能够让那些来自于不同领域的我的读者能够互相交流。我们当中的每一个人都在自己的领域里非常出色，但是我们都有自己的局限。Ferris通过一个麦克风完成演讲，而他的宾客们都围聚在舞台的周围，喝着名为做爱机器或者超人的鸡尾酒。Ferris接着说，我们这里的每个人都很让人震撼，所以我希望你们能够逼迫自己离开自己的舒适区域，去和那些并不认识的人交流。

I didn’t know anyone, so I went out of my comfort zone to talk to a young man named Courtney Reum, who told me that he had left a job at Goldman Sachs to start a company that makes and sells Veev—an organic, kosher, gluten-free, carbon-neutral açai（非英文） liquor, bottled in recycled glass, with labels printed with soy inks. I also met Tracy Reifkind, a fitness instructor, who is featured in “The 4-Hour Body”; she recounted losing more than a hundred pounds by swinging kettlebells, a technique endorsed by Ferriss, and told me, “I’m the Jazzercise of kettlebells.” There was Mike Geary, who has a Web site called , which mints money; he lives in Vail, Colorado, and begins every day by checking the ski report. I discovered that Reid Mihalko, who runs a sex-advice Web site called What Tim Ferriss does for stuff, I do for sex”—has incredibly warm hands.
其实我一个人都不认识，于是我决定离开自己的舒适区域去外面和一个叫做Courtney Reum的人聊了起来。他说他刚刚离开高盛自己创办了一家公司，从事Veev的销售，Veev是一种无碳，无淀粉，适合犹太人的有机巴西饮料，这种装在可回收的瓶子里，使用黄豆颜料书写标签。我也遇到了Tracy Reifkind，一个健康咨询师，她在每天锻炼4小时里非常有名；她跟我描述了她使用壶铃（哑铃的一种）减掉了100磅的战绩，这是一种Ferris非常推崇的方式，她告诉我她是使用壶铃的爵士风运动者。还有一位叫做Mike Geary的男士，他拥有一个叫做的网站，这个网站印刷钱币；他住在Colorado的Vail，每天的第一件事就是看看滑雪新闻。同时也还有一位叫做Mihalko男士，他的手非常的烫，他运营着一个售卖情趣用品的网站，他说：“Ferris为不知名的东西所做的事情，我为性生活而做”。

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