‘4-Hour Workweek’ author Tim Ferriss explains how learning to swim in his 30s changed his life

Tim Ferriss, best known as the author of “The 4-Hour Workweek,” has built a career around dissecting the techniques of the world’s elite performers and packaging them in a way anyone can use.

He’s worked with experts to learn Brazlian Jiu-Jitsu, how to race a rally car, and how to become conversational in a language in just three months.

The skill he’s most proud of learning, however, is long-distance swimming, Ferriss tells Business Insider.

In 2008, at the age of 31, he not only overcame a lifelong fear of drowning, but became a practiced swimmer.

With the right teacher, in about a week he went from not being able to swim to swimming 40 laps at a time. A few months later, he could swim a mile in open water.

He says the experience was “mind-blowing” and changed his perspective on how skills could be learned. It forced him to ask himself, “If I thought this was impossible, what other things do I think are impossible that are completely achievable?”

Read Business Insider.