Tools Of Titans Book Quotes

Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles. Take solace in that.

True Films On TrueFilms.com, Kevin has reviewed the best documentaries he’s seen over decades. The counterpart book series, True Films 3.0, contains the 200 documentaries he feels you should see before you die, and it is available as a PDF on kk.org. Three docs we both love are The King of Kong, Man on Wire, and A State of Mind.

Some people find importance in the photographs of those titanic mushrooms of atomic poison which are periodically exploded over the world's deserts; I find greater importance in one very small mushroom which mysteriously springs up in the shadow of the tool-shed.

In this book, you’ll naturally look for common habits and recommendations, and you should. Here are a few patterns, some odder than others: More than 80% of the interviewees have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice A surprising number of males (not females) over 45 never eat breakfast, or eat only the scantiest of fare (e.g., Laird Hamilton, page 92; Malcolm Gladwell, page 572; General Stanley McChrystal, page 435) Many use the ChiliPad device for cooling at bedtime Rave reviews of the books Sapiens, Poor

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski: “This is a book that you have to hold, because there are parts of it where you need to turn it upside down to read it. There are certain pages where, you are reading it, and it turns in a circle. . . . This is a book that’s an entire sensory experience.

Which philosophers would Alain suggest for practical living? Alain’s list overlaps nearly 100% with my own: Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. * Most-gifted or recommended books? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Essays of Michel de Montaigne. * Favorite documentary The Up series: This ongoing series is filmed in the UK, and revisits the same group of people every 7 years. It started with their 7th birthdays (Seven Up!) and continues up to present day, when they are in their 50s. Subjects were picked from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Alain calls these very undramatic and quietly powerful films “probably the best documentary that exists.” TF: This is also the favorite of Stephen Dubner on page 574. Stephen says, “If you are at all interested in any kind of science or sociology, or human decision-making, or nurture versus nature, it is the best thing ever.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would have said, ‘Appreciate what’s good about this moment. Don’t always think that you’re on a permanent journey. Stop and enjoy the view.’ . . . I always had this assumption that if you appreciate the moment, you’re weakening your resolve to improve your circumstances. That’s not true, but I think when you’re young, it’s sort of associated with that. . . . I had people around me who’d say things like, ‘Oh, a flower, nice.’ A little part of me was thinking, ‘You absolute loser. You’ve taken time to appreciate a flower? Do you not have bigger plans? I mean, this the limit of your ambition?’ and when life’s knocked you around a bit and when you’ve seen a few things, and time has happened and you’ve got some years under your belt, you start to think more highly of modest things like flowers and a pretty sky, or just a morning where nothing’s wrong and everyone’s been pretty nice to everyone else. . . . Fortune can do anything with us. We are very fragile creatures. You only need to tap us or hit us in slightly the wrong place. . . . You only have to push us a little bit, and we crack very easily, whether that’s the pressure of disgrace or physical illness, financial pressure, etc. It doesn’t take very much. So, we do have to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster.

But then I got into Joseph Campbell—The Power of Myth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Joseph Campbell was the first person to really open my eyes to [the] compassionate side of life, or of thought. . . . Campbell was the guy who really kind of put it all together for me, and not in a way I could put my finger on. . . . It made you just glad to be alive, [realizing] how vast this world is, and how similar and how different we are.” * Most-gifted or recommended books? “You’re going to think I’m plugging you, but I probably have recommended The Art of Learning [by Josh Waitzkin, page 577] and The 4-Hour Body, I’m not kidding, more than any other books.” What Would You Say in a College Commencement Speech? “Well, I would say that if you are searching for status, and if you are doing things because there’s an audience for it, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. “I would say, ‘Listen to yourself.’ Follow your bliss, and Joseph Campbell, to bring it back around, said, ‘There is great security in insecurity.’ We are wired and programmed to do what’s safe and what’s sensible. I don’t think that’s the way to go. I think you do things because they are just things you have to do, or because it’s a calling, or because you’re idealistic enough to think that you can make a difference in the world. “I think you should try to slay dragons. I don’t care how big the opponent is. We read about and admire the people who did things that were basically considered to be impossible. That’s what makes the world a better place to live.

a Barnes and Noble with no goal in particular, I chance upon a book about suicide. It’s right there in front of me on a display table. Perhaps this is the “miracle”? I sit down and read the entire book, taking copious notes into a journal, including other books listed in the bibliography.

I’ve given it to, maybe ten of them have actually opened the book and done the exercises. Of those ten, seven have had books, movies, TV shows,

busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness: Obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. All this noise and rush and stress seem contrived to drown out or cover up some fear at the center of our lives.

Still struggling with a sense of purpose or mission? Roughly half a dozen people in this book (e.g., Robert Rodriguez) have suggested the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

Every writer in this book has a slightly different process, but they all start with the same thing: a blank page.

I believe all audio books should be read and recorded by people from Iceland, because they’ve got the best accent.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is recommended by many guests in this book. There is one specific takeaway that Naval Ravikant (page 546) has reinforced with me several times on our long walks over coffee. The protagonist, Siddhartha, a monk who looks like a beggar, has come to the city and falls in love with a famous courtesan named Kamala. He attempts to court her, and she asks, “What do you have?” A well-known merchant similarly asks, “What can you give that you have learned?” His answer is the same in both cases, so I’ve included the latter story here. Siddhartha ultimately acquires all that he wants. Merchant: “. . . If you are without possessions, how can you give?” Siddhartha: “Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.” Merchant: “Very well, and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give?” Siddhartha: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” Merchant: “Is that all?” Siddhartha: “I think that is all.” Merchant: “And of what use are they? For example, fasting, what good is that?” Siddhartha: “It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. If, for instance, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either with you, or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But, as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He is not impatient, he is not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. ” I think of Siddhartha’s answers often and in the following terms: “I can think” → Having good rules for decision-making, and having good questions you can ask yourself and others. “I can wait” → Being able to plan long-term, play the long game, and not misallocate your resources. “I can fast” → Being able to withstand difficulties and disaster. Training yourself to be uncommonly resilient and have a high pain tolerance.

Life’s Little Instruction Book

For People Starting Out—Say “Yes” When Derek was 18, he was living in Boston, attending the Berklee College of Music. “I’m in this band where the bass player, one day in rehearsal, says, ‘Hey man, my agent just offered me this gig—it’s like $ 75 to play at a pig show in Vermont.’ He rolls his eyes, and he says, ‘I’m not gonna do it, do you want the gig?’ I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah, a paying gig?! Oh, my God! Yes!’ So, I took the gig to go up to Burlington, Vermont. “And, I think it was a $ 58 round-trip bus ticket. I get to this pig show, I strap my acoustic guitar on, and I walked around a pig show playing music. I did that for about 3 hours, and took the bus home, and the next day, the booking agent called me up, and said, ‘Hey, yeah, so you did a really good job at the pig show. . . .’ “So many opportunities, and 10 years of stage experience, came from that one piddly little pig show. . . . When you’re earlier in your career, I think the best strategy is to just say ‘yes’ to everything. Every little gig. You just never know what are the lottery tickets.

Most-gifted or recommended books? Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl The Fourth Turning by William Strauss (Also, Generations by William Strauss, which was gifted to Tony by Bill Clinton) Mindset by Carol Dweck (for parenting) As a Man Thinketh by

Derek wrote a book called Reasons and Persons, which Will considers one of the most important books written in the 20th century.

The Power of Myth For screenwriting, Jon recommends The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, which he used to determine if Swingers was structurally correct. He is also a big fan of The Power of Myth, a video interview of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers. “With The Jungle Book, I really am going back and doubling down on the old myths.” TF: We recorded our podcast during the shooting of The Jungle Book, in his production office next to set. Months later, The Jungle Book was the #1 movie in the world and currently has a staggering 95% review average on Rotten Tomatoes. Long-Term Impact Trumps Short-Term Gross “Thanks to video, and later DVD and laser disc, everybody had seen this film [Swingers], and it had become part of our culture. That’s when I learned that it’s not always the movie that does the best [financially] that has the most impact, or is the most rewarding, or does the most for your career, for that matter.” Another Reason to Meditate “In the middle of [a meditation session], the idea for Chef hit me, and I let myself stop, which I don’t usually do, and I took out a pad. I scribbled down like eight pages of ideas and thoughts, [and then I] left it alone. If I look back on it, and read those pages, it really had 80% of the heavy lifting done, as far as what [Chef] was about, who was in it, who the characters were, what other movies to look at, what the tone was, what music I would have in it, what type of food he was making, the idea of the food truck, the Cuban sandwiches, Cuban music . . . so it all sort of grew out from that.

I read about it in Buck Up, Suck Up . . . and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room, written by James Carville and Paul Begala, the political strategists behind Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign “war room.” Here’s the excerpt that stuck with me: Newt Gingrich is one of the most successful political leaders of our time. Yes, we disagreed with virtually everything he did, but this is a book about strategy, not ideology. And we’ve got to give Newt his due. His strategic ability—his relentless focus on capturing the House of Representatives for the Republicans—led to one of the biggest political landslides in American history. Now that he’s in the private sector, Newt uses a brilliant illustration to explain the need to focus on the big things and let the little stuff slide: the analogy of the field mice and the antelope. A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse. But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So a lion that spent its day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can’t live on field mice. A lion needs antelope. Antelope are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. A lion can live a long and happy life on a diet of antelope. The distinction is important. Are you spending all your time and exhausting all your energy catching field mice? In the short term it might give you a nice, rewarding feeling. But in the long run you’re going to die. So ask yourself at the end of the day, “Did I spend today chasing mice or hunting antelope?” Another way I often approach this is to look at my to-do list and ask: “Which one of these, if done, would render all the rest either easier or completely irrelevant?

When you are just starting out, we can be sure of a few fundamental realities: 1) You’re not nearly as good or as important as you think you are; 2) you have an attitude that needs to be readjusted; 3) most of what you think you know or most of what you learned in books or in school is out of date or wrong.

There are only four stories: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power, and the journey. Every single book that is in the bookstore deals with these four archetypes, these four themes.

First of all, if we’re serious all the time, we’ll wear out before we get the truly serious stuff done. Second, if this book were all stern looks and no winks, all productivity and no grab-assing, you’d remember very little. I agree with Tony Robbins (page 210) that information without emotion isn’t retained.

Why Superbad Worked Superbad worked because Seth and Evan wrote about exactly what they were experiencing at the time. Evan explains, “At the time, all we knew was that we really wanted to get laid, we weren’t getting laid, and we weren’t supercool.” It pays to write what you know. Seth started doing standup when he was 13 years old. He adds: “That’s something that came from standup comedy. There’s a comic named Darryl Lenox who still performs, who is great. I remember he saw me perform. . . . I would try to mimic other comedians like Steven Wright or Seinfeld, like, ‘What’s the deal with Krazy Glue?’ and he said: ‘Dude, you’re the only person here who could talk about trying to get a hand job for the first time. . . . Talk about that!’” Lessons from Judd Apatow EVAN: “I would say the biggest thing we learned from [Judd] is ‘Don’t keep stuff to yourself.’ You’re surrounded by smart people. Bring them in. Get other people’s opinions. Share it with them. And most importantly, emotion is what matters. It’s an emotional journey. . . .” SETH: “. . . I remember one time we were filming a scene in Knocked Up and improvising, or maybe it was even 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the direction he screamed at us—because he screams direction from another room a lot, which is hilarious—was, ‘Less semen, more emotion!’ I think that is actually a good note to apply across the board.” TIM: “You also mentioned that every character has to have a wound of some kind.” EVAN: “That’s a big Judd-ism.” TF: Judd recommended they read The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri (Evan: “If you’re a writer, 60% of it is useless and 40% of it is gold.”), which Judd said was Woody Allen’s favorite writing book.

These world-class performers don’t have superpowers. The rules they’ve crafted for themselves allow the bending of reality to such an extent that it may seem that way, but they’ve learned how to do this, and so can you. These “rules” are often uncommon habits and bigger questions. In a surprising number of cases, the power is in the absurd. The more absurd, the more “impossible” the question, the more profound the answers. Take, for instance, a question that serial billionaire Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and others: “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?” For purposes of illustration here, I might reword that to: “What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next 6 months, if you had a gun against your head?” Now, let’s pause. Do I expect you to take 10 seconds to ponder this and then magically accomplish 10 years’ worth of dreams in the next few months? No, I don’t. But I do expect that the question will productively break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities. The “normal” systems you have in place, the social rules you’ve forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks—they don’t work when answering a question like this. You are forced to shed artificial constraints, like shedding a skin, to realize that you had the ability to renegotiate your reality all along. It just takes practice. My suggestion is that you spend real time with the questions you find most ridiculous in this book. Thirty minutes of stream-of-consciousness journaling (page 224) could change your life. On top of that, while the world is a gold mine, you need to go digging in other people’s heads to unearth riches. Questions are your pickaxes and competitive advantage. This book will give you an arsenal to choose from.

* Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”? “The first people who come to mind are the real heroes of Task Unit Bruiser: Marc Lee, first SEAL killed in Iraq. Mike Monsoor, second SEAL killed in Iraq, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after he jumped on a grenade to save three of our other teammates. And finally, Ryan Job, one of my guys [who was] gravely wounded in Iraq, blinded in both eyes, but who made it back to America, was medically retired from the Navy, but who died from complications after the 22nd surgery to repair his wounds. Those guys, those men, those heroes, they lived, and fought, and died like warriors.” * Most-gifted or recommended books? “I think there’s only one book that I’ve ever given and I’ve only given it to a couple people. That’s a book called About Face, by Colonel David H. Hackworth. The other book that I’ve read multiple times is Blood Meridian [by Cormac McCarthy].” * Favorite documentaries? “Restrepo, which I’m sure you’ve seen. [TF: This was co-produced and co-filmed by Sebastian Junger, the next profile.] There is also an hour-long program called ‘A Chance in Hell: The Battle for Ramadi.’” Quick Takes * You walk into a bar. What do you order from the bartender? “Water.” * What does your diet generally look like? “It generally looks like steak.” * What kind of music does Jocko listen to? Two samples: For workouts—Black Flag, My War, side B In general—White Buffalo

The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them. To make this crystal-clear, I’ve deliberately included two sections in this book (pages 197 and 616) that will make you think: “Wow, Tim Ferriss is a mess. How the hell does he ever get anything done?” Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles. Take solace in that.

Follow Your Passion” Is Terrible Advice “I think it misconstrues the nature of finding a satisfying career and satisfying job, where the biggest predictor of job satisfaction is mentally engaging work. It’s the nature of the job itself. It’s not got that much to do with you. . . . It’s whether the job provides a lot of variety, gives you good feedback, allows you to exercise autonomy, contributes to the wider world—Is it actually meaningful? Is it making the world better?—and also, whether it allows you to exercise a skill that you’ve developed.” * Most gifted books for life improvement and general effectiveness Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. This book is a friendly and accessible introduction to mindfulness meditation, and includes an 8-week guided meditation course. Will completed this course, and it had a significant impact on his life. The Power of Persuasion by Robert Levine. The ability to be convincing, sell ideas, and persuade other people is a meta-skill that transfers to many areas of your life. This book didn’t become that popular, but it’s the best book on persuasion that Will has found. It’s much more in-depth than other options in the genre. * Advice to your 20-year-old self? “One is emphasizing that you have 80,000 working hours in the course of your life. It’s incredibly important to work out how best to spend them, and what you’re doing at the moment—20-year-old Will—is just kind of drifting and thinking. [You’re] not spending very much time thinking about this kind of macro optimization. You might be thinking about ‘How can I do my coursework as well as possible?’ and micro optimization, but not really thinking about ‘What are actually my ultimate goals in life, and how can I optimize toward them?’ “An analogy I use is, if you’re going out for dinner, it’s going to take you a couple of hours. You spend 5 minutes working out where to go for dinner. It seems reasonable to spend 5% of your time on how to spend the remaining 95%. If you did that with your career, that would be 4,000 hours, or 2 working years. And actually, I think that’s a pretty legitimate thing to do—spending that length of time trying to work out how should you be spending the rest of your life.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a café in Paris overlooking the Luxembourg Garden, just off of Rue Saint-Jacques. Rue Saint-Jacques is likely the oldest road in Paris, and it has a rich literary history. Victor Hugo lived a few blocks from where I’m sitting. Gertrude Stein drank coffee and F. Scott Fitzgerald socialized within a stone’s throw. Hemingway wandered up and down the sidewalks, his books percolating in his mind, wine no doubt percolating in his blood. I came to France to take a break from everything. No social media, no email, no social commitments, no set plans . . . except one project. The month had been set aside to review all of the lessons I’d learned from nearly 200 world-class performers I’d interviewed on The Tim Ferriss Show, which recently passed 100,000,000 downloads. The guests included chess prodigies, movie stars, four-star generals, pro athletes, and hedge fund managers. It was a motley crew. More than a handful of them had since become collaborators in business and creative projects, spanning from investments to indie film. As a result, I’d absorbed a lot of their wisdom outside of our recordings, whether over workouts, wine-infused jam sessions, text message exchanges, dinners, or late-night phone calls. In every case, I’d gotten to know them well beyond the superficial headlines in the media. My life had already improved in every area as a result of the lessons I could remember. But that was the tip of the iceberg. The majority of the gems were still lodged in thousands of pages of transcripts and hand-scribbled notes. More than anything, I longed for the chance to distill everything into a playbook. So, I’d set aside an entire month for review (and, if I’m being honest, pain au chocolat), to put together the ultimate CliffsNotes for myself. It would be the notebook to end all notebooks. Something that could help me in minutes but be read for a lifetime.

Many of the one-liners teach volumes. Some summarize excellence in an entire field in one sentence. As Josh Waitzkin (page 577), chess prodigy and the inspiration behind Searching for Bobby Fischer, might put it, these bite-sized learnings are a way to “learn the macro from the micro.” The process of piecing them together was revelatory. If I thought I saw “the Matrix” before, I was mistaken, or I was only seeing 10% of it. Still, even that 10%—“ islands” of notes on individual mentors—had already changed my life and helped me 10x my results. But after revisiting more than a hundred minds as part of the same fabric, things got very interesting very quickly. For the movie nerds among you, it was like the end of The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects: “The red door knob! The fucking Kobayashi coffee cup! How did I not notice that?! It was right in front of me the whole time!” To help you see the same, I’ve done my best to weave patterns together throughout the book, noting where guests have complementary habits, beliefs, and recommendations. The completed jigsaw puzzle is much greater than the sum of its parts.

book Psych by Dr. Judd Biasiotto. He

Newt Gingrich is one of the most successful political leaders of our time. Yes, we disagreed with virtually everything he did, but this is a book about strategy, not ideology. And we’ve got to give Newt his due. His strategic ability—his relentless focus on capturing the House of Representatives for the Republicans—led to one of the biggest political landslides in American history. Now that he’s in the private sector, Newt uses a brilliant illustration to explain the need to focus on the big things and let the little stuff slide: the analogy of the field mice and the antelope. A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse. But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So a lion that spent its day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can’t live on field mice. A lion needs antelope. Antelope are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. A lion can live a long and happy life on a diet of antelope. The distinction is important. Are you spending all your time and exhausting all your energy catching field mice? In the short term it might give you a nice, rewarding feeling. But in the long run you’re going to die. So ask yourself at the end of the day, “Did I spend today chasing mice or hunting antelope?” Another way I often approach this is to look at my to-do list and ask: “Which one of these, if done, would render all the rest either easier or completely irrelevant?

Think and Grow Rich, Who Moved My Cheese?, Blue Ocean Strategy, Invisible Selling Machine, The Richest Man in Babylon, and Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. TF: That last Genghis Khan book has been recommended to me by several billionaires.

This is the subject of the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. There’s the instant, unconscious, automatic thinking and then there’s the slower, conscious, rational, deliberate thinking. I’m really, really into the slower thinking, breaking my automatic responses to the things in my life and slowly thinking through a more deliberate response instead. Then for the things in life where an automatic response is useful, I can create a new one consciously. “What if you asked, ‘When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the third person that comes to mind? Why are they actually more successful than the first person that came to mind?

Jay Abraham is one of Daymond John’s (page 323) mentors and the author of Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, which is one of Ramit’s most-gifted books. I often recommend Jay’s work to people who ask about how to structure “JVs,” or joint ventures.

I have recommended Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans” to literally millions of people. Many guests in this book have done the same. “If you only read one article on marketing, make it this one” is my common wording. Here’s a highly simplified synopsis: “Success” need not be complicated. Just start with making 1,000 people extremely, extremely happy.

The biggest mistake you can make is to accept the norms of your time.’ Not accepting norms is where you innovate, whether it’s with technology, with books, with anything. So, not accepting the norm is the secret to really big success and changing the world.

Hot baths can also significantly increase GH over baseline, and both sauna and hot baths have been shown to cause a massive release in prolactin, which plays a role in wound healing. I usually stay in a hot bath or sauna for about 20 minutes, which is long enough to significantly elevate my heart rate. I push a few minutes past dynorphin release, which usually makes one feel dysphoric and want to get out (but *not* to dizziness or lightheadedness). Generally, I’ll listen to an audiobook like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman during the heat, then cool off for 5 to 10 minutes using an ice bath (I put 40 pounds of ice in a large bath to get it to roughly 45°F; more details on page 43) and/or by drinking ice water. I’ll repeat this cycle 2 to 4 times.

Several of my close friends in Silicon Valley sheepishly admitted that, of all the advice I’ve ever given in my books and podcasts, the ChiliPad had the biggest impact on their quality of life. Several others have said the same about honey + ACV, described next.

SETH: “For me, if you are feeling stuck, it’s all about The War of Art and The Art of Possibility. If you are feeling stressed, it’s about Pema. If you need to see a path that is more colored than the one you’re already on, which is pretty Technicolor, then it’s Zig. And if you just want to cry a little, it’s Just Kids, and then Debt is the one that is closest to reading a book. I don’t think many people should listen to Debt ten times.

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, the most-gifted book of several people in this book, as well as in a wonderful short documentary called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

Fifty Shades of Chicken That’s the title of Shaun’s “most-gifted” book. Totally serious. I assumed it would be a complete joke, but it has nearly 700 reviews on Amazon and a 4.8-star average.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield: “Also hard to find on audio. I find Steve’s voice to be fascinating, and even before I knew him, I was fascinated by listening to him speak his own work. The War of Art is one of those books, at least for me when I finally was exposed to it, I said, ‘Why wasn’t I informed? Why did it take this long for this book to land on my desk?’ . . . You need to be clear with yourself about what you are afraid of, why you are afraid, and whether you care enough to dance with that fear because it will never go away.

你早上遇見爛人，你只是遇見爛人；如果你整天都遇到爛人，表示你就是爛人。」在未來，我會記得常在晨間日記寫下「我先」，自我提醒。” Excerpt From: 提摩西．費里斯（Timothy Ferriss）. “人生勝利聖經.” Apple Books.

團隊活動，更有動力 這句話出自萊爾德，也是他生活的最佳寫照。他有一群一起運動的好朋友，大家關係緊密，相處融洽，讓他們充滿向心力的關鍵似乎正是規律的團體運動。如果你跟我一樣，比較在乎運動的方法和內容（例如運動項目和運動計畫等），或許你可以變換思考：「如果得以『對象』作為運動的首要條件呢？如果一定得跟他人一起運動，我會怎麼做？」正是這個思維轉變開啟了我的雙人瑜伽之路。 給家長的教養建議 一九九七年，萊爾德與蓋比結為連理，如今育有三女，親子關係相當融洽，很讓人稱羨。我好幾次觀察到他們家人之間的親密肢體互動洋溢著溫暖，讓周遭的人也感受到幸福。從訪談過程中，我得出下列教養重點。 萊爾德：「對子女的愛能消融各種錯誤，即使是父母的失誤及犯錯。」 蓋比：「我們的態度是兼容並蓄，把他們當作大人[…]” Excerpt From: 提摩西．費里斯（Timothy Ferriss）. “人生勝利聖經.” Apple Books.

詹姆斯形容：「，超然體驗就是感覺或意識到自己不僅與其他人為一體，更與其他事物和生命系統為一體，乃至與呼吸的空氣為一體。從智性的角度來說，這些描述很容易理解，甚至充滿詩意，但當你真正體悟到自己是更大系統的一部分，你會明白自我（個人身分）只是你的一小部分。 「我在一九六一年曾有這樣的體驗，體悟到『詹姆斯．法迪曼』只是整個我的一小部分，而整個我更廣大，更聰明，比『詹姆斯．法迪曼』懂更多。」 研究過程中，他也看見受試者有類似轉變。受試者獲得這些體悟時，通常會笑出聲來。 詹姆斯：「這是很深層的笑，不是吸食大麻後的咯咯笑。這個笑彷彿在說：『我怎麼會忘記真正的自己是誰啊？』之後，當他們發現自己回到身體這個臭皮囊時，有個人描述得很貼切：『我回到監獄，回到這囚禁我的東西，但我知道這[…]” Excerpt From: 提摩西．費里斯（Timothy Ferriss）. “人生勝利聖經.” Apple Books.

擔心完全無濟於事 保羅：「我跟拳王佛洛伊德．梅偉瑟（Floyd Mayweather）有點交情，有一次還陪他走上擂臺，好像是他跟馬爾克斯的比賽吧。那天我想順便看副賽，所以我和我太太提早到場。結果他的人過來跟我說：『佛洛伊德想在出賽前說聲嗨，小聊幾分鐘。』於是我們來到後臺他的休息室，看到他躺在那裡，一派輕鬆地正在看籃球賽轉播。他招呼我們：『嗨，隨便坐。』我們聊了一下，但我無法放很開，畢竟他等下可是要打冠軍賽的。 ” Excerpt From: 提摩西．費里斯（Timothy Ferriss）. “人生勝利聖經.” Apple Books. “我們的對話一安靜下來，我就說：『好了，不打擾你了。等你都好了，我們再回這邊。』可是他說：『喔，你不用閃人啦。繼續坐啊，我聊得很開心。』他整個人放鬆到不行。 「之後我們的對話又安靜下來，我就說：『佛洛伊德，我們還是先走吧。我不想打擾到你。』他說：『大哥，我跟你說，要放鬆看待比賽。』我說：『你不用上緊發條嗎？』他說：『我幹嘛上緊什麼發條？我要嘛準備好了，要嘛沒有，現在瞎操心根本無濟於事嘛？比賽會怎樣就怎樣。我要嘛就是做好了萬全準備，要嘛就是沒有。』」 TF：惠特妮．卡明談到表演時也說過類似的話：「我的工作不是在今晚完成，而是三個月前就完成了。今晚我只需要出場而已。” Excerpt From: 提摩西．費里斯（Timothy Ferriss）. “人生勝利聖經.” Apple Books.

當你發現一個很簡單的事實，人生就會寬廣得多。所謂『生活』周中的種種，都是由才智不如你的人所組成造。你能加以影響，加以改變，打造出其他有益別人的好東西。一旦你有這個領悟，就不再是以前的自己了。” Excerpt From: 提摩西．費里斯（Timothy Ferriss）. “人生勝利聖經.” Apple Books.

What did you want to do when you were a child, before anybody told you what you were supposed to do? What was it you wanted to become? What did you want to do more than anything else? “If Peter Diamandis or Tim Ferriss gave you $1 billion, how would you spend it besides the parties and the Ferraris and so forth? If I asked you to spend $1 billion improving the world, solving a problem, what would you pursue? “Where can you put yourself into an environment that gives maximum exposure to new ideas, problems, and people? Exposure to things that capture your ‘shower time’ [those things you can’t stop thinking about in the shower]?” [Peter recommends environments like Singularity University.] TF: Still struggling with a sense of purpose or mission? Roughly half a dozen people in this book (e.g., Robert Rodriguez) have suggested the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

Chris mentioned several books when he appeared on my podcast, including I Seem to Be a Verb by Buckminster Fuller. 48 hours later, used copies were selling for

* If an introverted hospice patient were to say, “Give me one to three things that I can watch, do, absorb, look at, etc., without human interaction,” what would your answer be? “I guess I’d put a picture book of Mark Rothko paintings in front of them. I would put probably any music by Beethoven into their ears. And I probably would reserve that third thing for staring into space.

TF: Many of the guests in this book listen to Sam’s guided meditations on SoundCloud or his site. Just search “Sam Harris guided meditations.” Per Sam: “People find it very helpful to have somebody’s voice reminding them to not be lost in thought every few seconds.

Peter Drucker and his book The Effective Executive, as well as Alain de Botton’s (page 486) How Proust Can Change Your Life.

He recommended I read the book Words That Work, written by Republican political strategist Frank Luntz. It’s brilliant. Matt added, “If someone likes that book, then I might point them to George Lakoff. He has a great seminal work from the 1980s called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things.” He loves books about framing and language.

One of the books he recommends for cultivating dealmaking ability is actually a children’s book and a 10-minute read: Stone Soup. “It’s a children’s story that is the best MBA degree you can read.

book Psych by Dr. Judd Biasiotto.

Tara by Maria Popova (page 406), who said, “[Tara] has changed my life, perhaps more profoundly than anybody in my life.” I then read Tara’s first book, Radical Acceptance,

A problem is a terrible thing to waste.” This is highly related to the “scratch your own itch” thread that pops up throughout this book. Peter expands: “I think of problems as gold mines. The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.

Book your A list for after your first 10 pitches.

Generally, I’ll listen to an audiobook like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman during the heat, then cool off for 5 to 10 minutes using an ice bath (I put 40 pounds of ice in a large bath to get it to roughly 45°F; more details on page 43) and/or by drinking ice water. I’ll repeat this cycle 2 to 4 times.

Rave reviews of the books Sapiens, Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Influence, and Man’s Search for Meaning, among others