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

by Timothy Ferriss

Malcolm Gladwell,

Shay Carl’s

Borrow liberally, combine uniquely, and create your own bespoke blueprint.

Success, however you define it, is achievable if you collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits.

Robert Moses (read The Power Broker),

The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths.

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise.

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

Daily Rituals,

Siddhartha

“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.

House of Leaves by

Hydrolyzed gelatin + beet root powder:

needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves.

Heat Is the New Black “Hyperthermic conditioning”

“Two 20-minute sauna sessions at 80°C (176°F) separated by a 30-minute cooling period elevated growth hormone levels two-fold over baseline.

Precision Xtra by Abbott. This can measure both glucose and

Quest Nutrition MCT Oil Powder and Quest Nutrition Coconut Oil Powder

Kettle & Fire Bone Broth—2 to 3 times per week

The Prophet by

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu:

“The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life.”

10% Happier by Dan

Mistakes Were Made

“The most important thing I’ve learned about nutrition is you need to deserve your carbs .

Vita Vibe MP12 ultra-light mini-parallettes that

“Lift heavy, not hard.”

“Anything more than 5 reps is bodybuilding. . . . If you want to be strong, you want to keep your reps at 5 and under.”

you are training for strength, you want to try and avoid the burn altogether. ...

decide beforehand that you’re going to rest from one set to the next for a certain number of breaths (i.e., you get to do 5, 10, 30, or however many in between). This is going to discipline you to slow your breathing and stop overtaxing your nervous system. This control will help your endurance, even before biochemical adaptations.

Psych by Dr. Judd Biasiotto.

Fresh-squeezed turmeric root, chaga mushroom, liquid pepper extract, raw honey, apple cider vinegar, and water (dilute to taste). Laird sometimes combines the turmeric with KeVita kombucha to reduce any residual bitterness.

The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide

Everyone can benefit from something that looks like the cow stretch (also sometimes called “cat-camel” in yoga classes). It’s a low-level static stretch that gets you into this extension pattern, and out of the other pattern of sitting in the rounded flexion position.

Spend as much time in a lunge as you can. [TF: One simple way to check this box prior to workouts is Eric Cressey’s “walking Spiderman” exercise. I touch my inside elbow to the ground before switching sides. This is also a game-changer for hip flexibility in AcroYoga.]

‘Smash’ your gut (i.e., roll on it) for downregulation before bed with a medicine ball. [TF: This really works as a sleep aid. My favorite tool was actually designed by Kelly, the MobilityWOD Supernova (1...

Internal shoulder rotation is so crucial. Doing the Burgener warmup will help show you if you have full inte...

The softest mattress you can get your hands on is ideal, but avoid those made solely of memory foam, as it locks you into extension.

Lie on a bed at a mattress store for 5 minutes. If you have to cross your feet, your bed is too hard. [TF: Kelly found a Stearns and Foster model works well for him.]

If you need to put a pillow under your legs to put you into flexion, then you need a softer bed. You should also f...

(he only drinks Mariage Frères Marco Polo black tea)

My go-to tranquilizer beverage is simple: 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg brand) and 1 tablespoon honey, stirred into 1 cup of hot water. This was taught to me by the late and great Seth Roberts, PhD. Some of his readers also noticed large and immediate strength improvements in exercise after a few days of using this pre-bed cocktail.

refrigerator that often does the trick (bolding mine): “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They

To be answered in the morning:

“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” —Archilochus

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.” —Abraham Lincoln

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” —James Cameron

browser. He also co-founded Netscape, which later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. He then co-founded Loudcloud, which sold as Opsware to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. He’s considered one of the founding fathers of the modern Internet, alongside pioneers like Tim Berners-Lee, who launched the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and early HTML standards.