Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers

by Timothy Ferriss

When Arnold’s movie career first began to gel, he was inundated with new opportunities and options. For the first time, he felt overly worried and anxious, due to pressures he’d never felt before. By sheer coincidence, he met a Transcendental Meditation teacher at the beach. “He says, ‘Oh, Arnold, it is not uncommon. It is very common. A lot of people go through this. This is why people use Transcendental Meditation as one way of dealing with the problem.’ He was very good in selling it, because he didn’t say that it was the only answer. He said it’s just one of many.” The man encouraged Arnold to go to Westwood, in L.A., to take a class the following Thursday. “I went up there, took a class, and I went home after that and tried it. I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to give it a shot.’ I did 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night, and I would say within 14 days, 3 weeks, I got to the point where I could really disconnect my mind and stay and find a few seconds of this connection and rejuvenate the mind and learn how to focus more and to calm down. I saw the effect right away. I was much more calm about all of the challenges that were facing me. I continued doing that for a year. By that time, I felt that, ‘I think I have mastered this. I think that now I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore.’ “Even today, I still benefit from that because I don’t merge and bring things together and see everything as one big problem. I take them one challenge at a time. When I go and I study...