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

by Timothy Ferriss

“I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”— Mark Twain “He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.” —Seneca

“The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.” —Neale Donald Walsch “There is no way to happiness—happiness is the way.” —Thich Nhat Hanh “What you seek is seeking you.” —Rumi

“If you’re looking for a formula for greatness, the closest we’ll ever get, I think, is this: Consistency driven by a deep love of the work.”

“Life is a continual process of arrival into who we are.”

“Why put in the effort to explain why it isn’t a fit, if they haven’t done the homework to determine if it is a fit?”

Those who are sloppy during the honeymoon (at the beginning) only get worse later.

“Maybe appearing on CNN for two minutes will make your grandmother proud, but if the travel and the preparation and the logistics eat up 20 hours of your time so that your writing suffers [and] you will ultimately not be proud of the result, then maybe it’s not worth it. Often I think the paradox is that accepting the requests you receive is at the expense of the quality of the very work—the reason for those requests in the first place—and that’s what you always have to protect.”

“Thoreau writes, ‘The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.’ Think of what a beautiful metaphor this is for not mistaking the husk—the outer accoutrements of productivity like busyness, or a full calendar, or a clever auto-responder—not mistaking those for the kernel, the core and substance of the actual work produced. And he then says, ‘Those who work much, do not work hard.’ I love that.” “Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue—but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.”

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win.

“My mantra is a very simple one, and that’s ‘Discipline equals freedom.’”

“TWO IS ONE AND ONE IS NONE.” This is a common expression among SEALs. Jocko explains: “It just means, ‘Have a backup.’”

“I think that in order to truly experience the light and the bright, you have to see the darkness. I think if you shield yourself from the darkness, you’ll not appreciate—and fully understand—the beauty of life.”

All of the interviewees in this book have methods for achievement. Most who’ve been successful for decades also have methods to cultivate gratitude. Remembering his friends who made the ultimate sacrifice in war, Jocko is truly grateful for every sunrise, every smile, every laugh, every breath. He also deliberately and regularly exposes himself to the stories of those who have been subjected to horror, misfortune, and darkness. If you’re open to reading a “dark” book to help put things in perspective, If This Is a Man and The Truce (often combined into one volume) by Primo Levi are two of my favorites. They were recommended to me by the illusionist David Blaine, who has Levi’s concentration camp number tattooed on his arm. When I asked him, “What did you learn from the book?” he answered: “Everything.”

WHAT MAKES A GOOD COMMANDER? “The immediate answer that comes to mind is ‘humility.’ Because you’ve got to be humble, and you’ve got to be coachable…. Later, when I was running training, we would fire a couple leaders from every SEAL Team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability to shoot a weapon, it wasn’t because they weren’t in good physical shape, it wasn’t because they were unsafe. It was almost always a question of their ability to listen, open their mind, and see that, maybe, there’s a better way to do things. That is from a lack of humility…. “We put these guys through very realistic and challenging training, to say the least. If there are any guys who went through training when I was running it, right now they’re chuckling because it was very realistic. In fact, it was borderline psychotic. We put so much pressure on these guys and overwhelmed them. A good leader would come back and say [something like one of the following], ‘I lost it, I didn’t control it. I didn’t do a good job. I didn’t see what was happening. I got too absorbed in this little tiny tactical situation that was right in front of me.’ Either they’d make those criticisms about themselves, or they’d ask, ‘What did I do wrong?’ And when you told them, they’d nod their head, pull out their notebook, and take notes. That right there, that’s a guy who’s going to make it, who’s going to get it right. The arrogant guys, who lacked humility, they couldn’t tak...

“The special forces guys were the opposite [of those in the non-elite divisions]. As soon as they heard they were about to experience an overwhelming attack, their cortisol levels dropped. They got super calm. The reason their cortisol levels dropped was because it was stressful for them to wait for the unknown, but as soon as they knew they were going to be attacked, they had a plan of action. They started filling sandbags. They started cleaning their rifles. They started stockpiling their ammo, getting the plasma bags ready, whatever they do before an attack. All of that busyness gave them a sense of mastery and control that actually made them feel less anxious than just waiting around on an average day in a dangerous place.”

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.

“You guys are programmed to succeed. The hardest thing you’re ever going to do in your life is fail at something, and if you don’t start failing at things, you will not live a full life. You’ll be living a cautious life on a path that you know is pretty much guaranteed to more or less work. That’s not getting the most out of this amazing world we live in. You have to do the hardest thing that you have not been prepared for in this school or any school: You have to be prepared to fail. That’s how you’re going to expand yourself and grow. As you work through that process of failure and learning, you will really deepen into the human being you’re capable of being.”

“The world is this continually unfolding set of possibilities and opportunities, and the tricky thing about life is, on the one hand having the courage to enter into things that are unfamiliar, but also having the wisdom to stop exploring when you’ve found something worth sticking around for. That is true of a place, of a person, of a vocation. Balancing those two things—the courage of exploring and the commitment to staying—and getting the ratio right is very hard. I think my 70-year-old self would say: ‘Be careful that you don’t err on one side or the other, because you have an ill-conceived idea of who you are.’”

“The future is already here—it’s just unevenly distributed.”—William Gibson “If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”—Omar N. Bradley

If you do nothing else, here’s a 60-second precaution: Put tape or a cover over your laptop camera (and perhaps your phone) when you’re not using it.

Don’t plug in any USB device that you don’t trust! There are even e-cigarettes that charge over USB that carry malware. If you wish to charge something, it’s safer to use a USB charger/adapter [for a wall outlet] rather than your computer.

If a website is delivering images, video, or audio to your computer, that means in most cases you can download it directly, even if the site attempts to stop you. In Chrome (similar tools exist in Firefox and Safari), you can go to View → Developer → Developer Tools, click on the Network tab, refresh the page, and see all content going across. You can then right-click any file, such as an image that the site wouldn’t otherwise let you download, and click Copy Link Address to get the direct URL. The Elements tab is also particularly useful. [TF: You can also use this to easily copy and paste good quotes that some sites like to prevent you from copy and pasting.] ► Using the same Developer Tools, if a site is ever trying to force you to sign up, fill out a form you don’t want to fill out, or otherwise cover the page with obtrusive windows or darkening the page, you can use the Elements tab in the Developer Tools (mentioned above), right-click on any element in the tab, and click Remove. Don’t worry, if you remove the wrong thing, you can simply refresh the page and try again! You are only affecting the page on your own computer, but this can be a useful tool to adjust a page to your liking. ► Google Reverse Image Search is a surprisingly useful tool if you’re ever trying to perform reconnaissance, or just learn where an image came from or where else it might be used on the Internet. Simply browse to Google Images and drag and drop the image onto the page.

“THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS A LIFE OF PURPOSE.”

which is that you should have a running list of three people that you’re always watching: someone senior to you that you want to emulate, a peer who you think is better at the job than you are and who you respect, and someone subordinate who’s doing the job you did—one, two, or three years ago—better than you did it. If you just have those three individuals that you’re constantly measuring yourself off of, and you’re constantly learning from them, you’re going to be exponentially better than you are.”

“What are three tests or practices from the military that civilians could use to help develop mental toughness?”: STAN: “The first is to push yourself harder than you believe you’re capable of. You’ll find new depth inside yourself. The second is to put yourself in groups who share difficulties, discomfort. We used to call it ‘shared privation.’ You’ll find that when you have been through that kind of difficult environment, that you feel more strongly about that which you’re committed to. And finally, create some fear and make individuals overcome it.”

“You can tell the true character of a man by how his dog and his kids react to him.”

“If you don’t believe in God, you should believe in the technology that’s going to make us immortal.”

first computer at age 27. He was a manual laborer

‘The secrets to life are hidden behind the word “cliché.”’

‘What would I probably tell myself as an older version of myself?’ That is the wisdom that I think you found in that exercise…. [If you do this exercise and then start living the answers,] I think you’re going to grow exponentially faster than you would have otherwise.”

Our natural inclination is toward addiction and toward the things that are easy. It’s easy to drink alcohol and take away the pain. It’s easy to not wake up in the morning and exercise. It’s easy to go through the drive-through and buy a Big Mac, right? What are you willing to do that is hard? I remember my Grandpa saying, ‘Work will work when nothing else will work.’”

Just by sitting up straight, putting a smile on my face, and faking it until you make it, you actually do feel better. There’s real power in this.”

The effects of “acting” more upbeat seemed to last at least 2 to 3 hours.

“To me, the definition of success is being cool with your parents, your grandparents [if still alive], and your kids. Being able to navigate the difficult task of dealing with each other as human beings.”

Shay constantly reminds himself of the shortness of life and inevitability of death. I also build memento mori (reminders of death) into my schedule, whether reading Seneca and other stoicism, spending time with hospice caretakers, visiting graveyards (e.g., Omaha Beach), or placing the memoirs of the recently deceased cover-out in my living room.

“If you earn $68K per year, then globally speaking, you are the 1%.”

Will MacAskill (TW: @WILLMACASKILL, WILLIAMMACASKILL.COM) is an associate professor of philosophy at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Just 29 years old, he is likely the youngest associate (i.e., tenured) professor of philosophy in the world. Will is the author of Doing Good Better and a co-founder of the “effective altruism” movement. He has pledged to donate everything he earns over ~$36K per year to whatever charities he believes will be most effective. He has also co-founded two well-known nonprofits: 80,000 Hours, which provides research and advice on how you can best make a difference through your career, and Giving What We Can, which encourages people to commit to give at least 10% of their income to the most effective charities. Between them, they have raised more than $450 million in lifetime pledged donations, and are in the top 1% of nonprofits in terms of growth.

Will introduced me to GiveWell.org, a site that conducts in-depth research to determine how much nonprofits and foundations actually accomplish (in terms of lives saved, lives improved, etc.) per dollar spent. This avoids the problem of most other charity “rankers,” which look at low admin and overhead costs as a flawed proxy for “efficient.” Of course, if a charity is doing the wrong things, being financially lean means nothing, hence Will’s quote. It’s all about real-world results.

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

“One is emphasizing that you have 80,000 working hours in the course of your life.

“Being an entrepreneur is being willing to do a job that nobody else wants to do, to be able to live the rest of your life doing whatever you want to do.” “I usually know when I’m on to something when I’m a little bit afraid of it. I go: ‘Wow, I could mess this up.’”

“On one level, wisdom is nothing more than the ability to take your own advice. It’s actually very easy to give people good advice. It’s very hard to follow the advice that you know is good…. If someone came to me with my list of problems, I would be able to sort that person out very easily.”

“If she [my daughter] does not try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in her adult life, I will worry that she may have missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience … a life without drugs is neither foreseeable nor, I think, desirable.”

“SECRETS ARE A BUFFER TO INTIMACY”

‘Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.’

“Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared?”: “… By cautioning girls away from these experiences, we are not protecting them. We are woefully under-preparing them for life.”

“Many a false step was made by standing still.” —Fortune cookie “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” —Yoda, from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” —Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister

Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?’” —Seneca