Tools of Titans – Tim Ferriss
If you haven’t heard of Tim Ferriss before, maybe you’ve heard of The 4 Hour Work Week. This book is what really helped Tim make a big splash in the world. And he’s used that momentum to publish another 3 books, start a highly successful podcast and interview some of the greatest minds in today’s times.
Tim doesn’t claim to be a motivational person, but rather an experimenter. He’s on a life long quest to make his life, his body, and his environment 5x, 10x, 100x better. And the really cool thing is, he shares pretty much everything with you so you can learn along the way. Needless to say, I’m a fan.
Now Tim has been writing content, interviewing gurus and publishing great stuff for years upon years. As of this writing his podcast has 247 episodes. With each podcast being roughly an hour or so long, it would take you a little over 10 days straight to listen to them all. BUT… in typical Tim fashion, he provided a condensed summary of all the major lessons learned from those podcasts in his book Tools of Titans.
I’ve been reading through this 650 page monster and have to chuckle at myself because half of what I’ve read so far is now underlined or highlighted. Here’s some of what I’ve highlighted:
Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook) says he asks potential hires “What problem do you face every day that nobody has solved yet?” :::> This sounds like a question to ask a bunch of people which could lead to starting a new business.
James Altucher (Hedge Fund Manager) writes down 10 ideas each morning. This gives your brain extra muscle to be creative at a moment’s notice. If you’re struggling to come up with 10 ideas, it’s because you’re trying to hard and putting too much pressure on yourself. “Perfectionism is the ENEMY of the idea muscle.” What kinds of ideas should you brainstorm you ask? Here’s some:
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10 old ideas you can make new
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10 ridiculous things you could invent
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10 books you can write
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10 people you can send ideas to
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10 industries where you can remove the middleman
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10 things you learned yesterday
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10 things you were interested in when you were a kid
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Etc
Seth Godin gives some really good parenting advice: “If you spend 2 hours a day without an electronic device, looking your kid in the eye, talking to them and solving interesting problems, you will raise a different kid than someone who doesn’t do that.” He also says “I think we need to teach kids two things: 1) how to lead, and 2) how to solve interesting problems.”
Matt Mullenweg (lead developer of WordPress) tries his best to remain calm under pressure. One of his main life motto’s is “getting upset won’t help things.” Matt is also known for using “polyphasic sleep” during the year that he wrote the code for WordPress. This means he would take a 20-30 minute nap every 4 hours. This allowed him to only sleep 2 hours a day instead of the normal 8. If you want try this please learn more about it before starting.
Derek Sivers () says that people who claim to be “busy,” are simply people who are not in control of their time or their life. He also believes that if something isn’t a “hell yes then it’s a No.” So the next time your about to commit your time to something, scrutinize the request and if it’s not a hell yea, then pass.