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

by Timothy Ferriss

“Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Big, undreamed-of things—the people on the edge see them first.” —Kurt Vonnegut

“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.” —W.H. Auden

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” —Pierre-Marc-Gaston

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.

This type of practice is how you create yourself, instead of seeking to discover yourself. There is value in the latter, but it’s mostly past-tense: It’s a rearview mirror. Looking out the windshield is how you get where you want to go.

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

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

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

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

information without emotion isn’t retained.

“von Restorff effect” and “primacy and recency effect”

Alexis Ohanian (page 194), likes to ask potential hires, “What’s your spirit animal?”

“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.

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” —Lao Tzu

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” —J. Krishnamurti

“In the end, winning is sleeping better.” —Jodie Foster

“I’m not the strongest. I’m not the fastest. But I’m really good at suffering.”

What would you put on a billboard? “No one owes you anything.”

“You’re not responsible for the hand of cards you were dealt. You’re responsible for maxing out what you were given.”

There is also evidence to suggest—skipping the scientific detail—that fasts of 3 days or longer can effectively “reboot” your immune system via stem cell–based regeneration. Dom suggests a 5-day fast 2 to 3 times per year.

I now aim for a 3-day fast once per month and a 5- to 7-day fast once per quarter.

“Breathe, motherfucker! ” —Wim’s answer to “What would you put on a billboard?”

“Let go of what’s not working and really assess what is working and ‘what can I be excited about?’ It’s not that bad things don’t happen to me. I don’t label a lot of things good/bad. [Instead, I ask] can I evolve from this? What do I want now? Where is my center now?”

As Tony Robbins would say, “The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life.”

When we ended the episode, I asked my usual “Where should people check you out?” Justin’s answer was, “My honest parting comment is not to check me out, just fucking look in the mirror and check yourself out. My aspiration is to go underground and be a ghost.”

“What you put in your mouth is a stressor, and what you say—what comes out of your mouth—is also a stressor.”

magnesium is probably one of the best anti-aging minerals.”

I take 2 g of magnesium threonate at the last meal before going to bed, and I use various forms of chelates like magnesium glycerophosphate from GabaMag [made by Trilogy Nutritional Supplements].”

when you’re a leader, people are going to mimic your behavior, at a minimum. . . . It’s a guarantee. So here’s the key piece of advice, this is all he said: ‘Calm is contagious.’”

Be first, because—not all times, but most times—it comes in your favor.

They’re ready, but you have to go first, because now we’re being trained in this world [to opt out]—nobody’s going first anymore.”

“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”

So the energy goes into the pot, and everybody rolls.”

“A Lonely Place Is an Unmotivated Place”

Advice for Your 30-Year-Old Self? GABBY: “Not to take anything personally, but also don’t hold yourself back. I think this is a trait of a female more than of a male. We have a tendency sometimes to sit on our talents and potential because we don’t want to offend anyone or be singled out. . . . I heard a great story. I had a coach once, who was an assistant coach to the men’s USA volleyball team. One game [they needed one point], and the coach looked straight at Karch Kiraly and said, ‘I need you to put this ball away and for you to win this game,’ and it was like, boom—‘Okay.’ And then Karch did it. “[Then the same coach] was coaching women at a very high level, and he did the same thing to the athlete who was ‘the one.’ It didn’t work because . . . [it’s] a singling-out that we [women] have a hard time with, instead of understanding that you can be singled out . . . for the greater good.” LAIRD: “Stop drinking now. Stop drinking right now and patent all your ideas . . . and exercise compassion every day.”

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” —Lao Tzu

Now, that’s all easy to say intellectually and even poetically. But when you actually experience that you’re part of this larger system, one of the things that you become aware of is that your ego—your personal identity—is not that big a part of you. “What I learned was—and this is from my own personal experience in 1961—‘Jim Fadiman’ is a subset of me, and the me is very, very large and a lot smarter and knows a lot more than ‘Jim Fadiman.’”

“In a very deep way, and it isn’t the giggles of marijuana. It’s the laughter of ‘how could I have forgotten who I really am?’ And then, much later in the day, when they’re reintegrating and finding that they are surprisingly still in the same body they came in with . . . one person said very beautifully, ‘I was back in the prison of all of the things that hold me back, but I could see that the door was locked from the inside.’”

“A good sitter is someone you trust. A great sitter is someone who loves you and you trust. A superlative sitter is someone who doesn’t have any agenda of their own. They don’t want you to see a certain thing. They don’t want you to be a certain way. They don’t want you to discover a certain thing.” With or without psychedelics, sounds like good criteria for close friends, too.

“If you get the answer, you should hang up the phone.”

“Hold the gold.”

“Don’t systematically shorten your kids’ heel cords (Achilles) with bad shoes. It results in crappy ankle range of motion in the future. Get your kids Vans, Chuck Taylors, or similar shoes. Have them in flat shoes or barefoot as much as possible.”

“When you make it, the job gets harder.”

‘You could be the next Muhammad Ali. Do you wanna do that?’ Evander said he had to ask his mom. He went home, he came back and said, ‘I wanna do that.’ The coach said, ‘Okay. Is that a dream or a goal? Because there’s a difference.’ “I’d never heard it said that way, but it stuck with me. So much so that I’ve said it to my kid now: ‘Is that a dream, or a goal? Because a dream is something you fantasize about that will probably never happen. A goal is something you set a plan for, work toward, and achieve. I always looked at my stuff that way. The people who were successful models to me were people who had structured goals and then put a plan in place to get to those things. I think that’s what impressed me about Arnold [Schwarzenegger]. It’s what impressed me about my father-in-law [Vince McMahon].”

“So at another lull in the conversation, I say, ‘We’re gonna run, Floyd. I don’t wanna be in your way,’ and he says, ‘Hunter, I’m telling you: I’m just chilling, watching the game.’ I said, ‘You’re not wound up about this at all?’ and he goes, ‘Why would I be wound up? I’m either ready or I’m not. Worrying about it right now ain’t gonna change a damn thing. Right? Whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen. I’ve either done everything I can to be ready for this, or I haven’t.’”

Whitney Cummings (page 477) told me something similar, on big standup specials: “My work isn’t done tonight. My work was done 3 months ago, and I just have to show up.”

“There are a lot of things that he said to me then that I find myself telling the young guys now. . . . For example, if you don’t do something well, don’t do it unless you want to spend the time to improve it. Still, to this day, I see a lot of guys do stuff in the ring and think, ‘He doesn’t do that well, but he does it all the time.’ You shouldn’t do that.” TF: This led me to ask myself, usually during my quarterly 80/20 reviews of stress points, etc., “What am I continuing to do myself that I’m not good at?” Improve it, eliminate it, or delegate it.

“I’ve learned an important trick: To develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight.”

“The opposite of play isn’t work. It’s depression.”

Tetris as Therapy Have trouble getting to sleep? Try 10 minutes of Tetris. Recent research has demonstrated that Tetris—or Candy Crush Saga or Bejeweled—can help overwrite negative visualization, which has applications for addiction (such as overeating), preventing PTSD, and, in my case, onset insomnia. As Jane explains, due to the visually intensive, problem-solving characteristics of these games: “You see visual flashbacks [e.g., the blocks falling or the pieces swapping]. They occupy the visual processing center of your brain so that you cannot imagine the thing that you’re craving [or obsessing over, which are also highly visual]. This effect can last 3 or 4 hours. It also turns out that if you play Tetris after witnessing a traumatic event [ideally within 6 hours, but it’s been demonstrated at 24 hours], it prevents