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

by Timothy Ferriss

THE UPSIDE OF DISASTER “What’s very fortunate, beautiful, wonderful, and also, in a weird way, tragic about modern society, is that crisis has been removed. When you reintroduce a crisis like in the Blitz in London or an earthquake that I wrote about in Avezzano, Italy, early in the 20th century, [things change]. In Avezzano, something like 95% of the population was killed. I’m going from memory, but unbelievable casualty, just like a nuclear strike…. People had to rely on each other, so everyone—upper-class people, lower-class people, peasants, and nobility—sort of crouched around the same campfires. One of the survivors said, ‘The earthquake gave us what the law promises but does not, in fact, deliver, which is the equality of all men.’” “That feeling of ‘us,’ it buffers many people from their psychological demons.” —Sebastian discussing why unifying disasters and crisis, like 9/11 or the World War II Blitz bombings on London, often results in dramatic decreases in suicide, violent crime, mental illness symptoms, etc.