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

by Timothy Ferriss

“I strongly encourage writers not to think about writing every time they do something. Forget notebooks. Forget taking notes. Let what is important remain. What’s not important goes away. When you sit down to write, there is this process of purging, this process of cleansing, where only the important things remain. It’s much easier than taking notes and overloading yourself with information.”

* What do you find helpful when you are stuck or stagnated? “There is only one thing. When I feel stagnated, I promise myself that [even] if I don’t feel inspired, I need to move forward. I need to have discipline. . .

Do you have a team, or researchers, who help you? “I don’t have researchers, no. No, no . . . If you overload your book with a lot of research, you’re going to be very boring to yourself and to your readers. Books are not here to show how intelligent and cultivated you are. Books are out there to show your heart, to show your soul, and to tell your fans, readers: You are not alone.”

Try one for two pages of longhand writing. Go for uninterrupted flow, and don’t stop to edit. Step one is to generate without judging. Chances are that you’ll surprise yourself. Write about a time when you realized you were mistaken. Write about a lesson you learned the hard way. Write about a time you were inappropriately dressed for the occasion. Write about something you lost that you’ll never get back. Write about a time when you knew you’d done the right thing. Write about something you don’t remember. Write about your darkest teacher. Write about a memory of a physical injury. Write about when you knew it was over. Write about being loved. Write about what you were really thinking. Write about how you found your way back.

Write about the kindness of strangers. Write about why you could not do it. Write about why you did.

I’d be sitting on the loo or something and I’d just think, ‘Oh, everything feels terrible and awful. It’s all gone to shit.’ Then I’d [consider], ‘But if you think about it, the stars are really far away,’ then you try to imagine the world from the stars. Then you sort of zoom in and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s this tiny little character there for a fragment of time worrying about X.’”

‘Boldness has genius, power, and magic.’

“Looking somebody in the eye . . . is often the antidote for what is ailing us.”

TIM: “I love it. So you disarmed the insult by adopting it completely.” AMANDA: “Which kind of is my life philosophy.” TIM: “I love that.” AMANDA: “No, really. Just take on the pain, and wear it as a shirt.” TF: This is precisely why I regularly refer to myself a “professional dilettante” when I’m being interviewed by someone who views me as a dabbling generalist (which I probably am). By preemptively using the language of a critic, I remove some of their potential weapons.

‘Say less.’ That’s it. Just say less.”

* Any quotes you live by, or think of often? “‘Honor those who seek the truth, beware of those who’ve found it’ [adapted from Voltaire]. A reminder that the path never ends and that absolutely nobody has this shit figured out.”

“General fame is overrated. You want to be famous to 2,000 to 3,000 people you handpick.” I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is that you don’t need or want mainstream fame. It brings more liabilities than benefits. However, if you’re known and respected by 2–3K high-caliber people (e.g., the live TED audience), you can do anything and everything you want in life. It provides maximal upside and minimal downside.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” —Mark Twain.

one of my favorite quotes is from Ludwig Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”

Eric said “high-agency person” in passing, and I asked him to elaborate: “When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something? So, how am I going to get past this bouncer who told me that I can’t come into this nightclub? How am I going to start a business when my credit is terrible and I have no experience?”

“I use a weird technique. I use ‘coprolalia’—

ERIC: “You know the strings of obscenities that Tourette’s patients involuntarily utter? [That’s coprolalia.] So, I find that when we use words that are prohibited to us, it tells our brain that we are inhabiting unsafe space. It’s a bit of a sign that you’re going into a different mode. . . . When I’m going to do deep work, very often, it has a very powerful, aggressive energy to it. It’s not easy to be around. It’s very exacting, and I think I would probably look very autistic to people who know me to be social, were they ever to see me in work mode.”

This odd technique does seem to quickly produce a slightly altered state. Try it—write down a precise sequence of curse words that takes 7 to 10 seconds to read. Then, before a creative work session of some type, read it quickly and loudly like you’re casting a spell or about to go postal. Eric also finds late nights, around 3 a.m., to be ideal for deep creative work. ERIC: “When the phone stops ringing, when you have no FOMO [fear of missing out] because everybody’s asleep. It’s a Monday night, and it’s just you and an expanse of whiteboard. That’s when the magic happens.”

OLD HABITS DIE HARD—THE WATCH SMILE “In almost every advertisement for wristwatches, the watches are set to 10:10. [Until you see] that, you can’t really believe that it’s true. But afterwards, you realize that the world has just pulled one over on you, because 10:10 looks like a smile to watch advertisers.” TIM: “Oh, I guess it’s very symmetrical, isn’t it?” ERIC: “Yeah. But what’s funny is that the wisdom has crept in to the point that sometimes you’ll see digital watch ads, and they’ll still be set to 10:10, even though it doesn’t look like a smile.”

“We label those kids ‘learning disabled’ to cover up from the fact that the economics of teaching require that one central actor, the teacher, be able to lead a room of 20 or more people in lockstep. Well, that’s not a good model. I want to get as many of my dangerous [in a good way] kids out of that idiom, whether it requires dropping out of high school, dropping out of college. But not for no purpose. Drop into something. Start creating, building. Join a lab. Skip college.”

ERIC’S “MORNING ROUTINE” “Each morning is basically a struggle against a new day, which I view as a series of opponents who must be defeated. I’m not a morning person. So every morning I get out of bed, I’m just astounded that I’ve done it. . . . It was Julian Schwinger, the great Harvard physicist, I think, who was asked if he would teach the 9:00 a.m. quantum mechanics course, and he stopped for a second. The person asking said, ‘Well, what’s the problem, Professor Schwinger?’ and he answered, ‘I don’t know if I can stay up that late.’”

PARTING ADVICE? “What I would really like is for those of you who have been told that you’re learning disabled, or you’re not good at math, or that you’re terrible at music, or something like that, to seek out unconventional ways of proving that wrong. Believe not only in yourselves, but that there are [ways, tools, methods] powerful enough to make things that look very difficult much easier than you ever imagined.”

“Doesn’t it take a lot of time to polish the script?” to which Evan responded with a smile: “You can always de-fuck the script later.”

The

important thing was to brainstorm freely and not self-edit. T...

EVAN: “I would say the biggest thing we learned from [Judd] is ‘Don’t keep stuff to yourself.’ You’re surrounded by smart people. Bring them in. Get other people’s opinions. Share it with them. And most importantly, emotion is what matters. It’s an emotional journey. . . .”

EVAN: “To picture Stephen King writing his first book and then being like: ‘Man, I’m stumped. I’m gonna go be something else.’ You just keep going.” SETH: “Blind belief in yourself.”

#1—It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do.

Even if your objective is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, you only need to find, cultivate, and thrill your first 1,000 diehard true fans (page 292). These people become your strongest marketing force, and the rest takes care of itself. The millions or billions who don’t get it don’t matter. Focus on the few who do. They are your Archimedes lever.

#2—10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it...

“Oh, I have 1,000 readers now. That means that 100 are going to respond like assholes. Not because I’m bad, not because they’re bad, but because that’s how the math works.” If you anticipate it, it will throw you off less. On top of that, I assume that 1% of my fans are completely batshit crazy, just like the general population, which helps me handle the far scarier stuff. If you (wrongly) assume that everyone is going to respond with smiles and high-fives, you are going to get slapped, you’ll respond impulsively, and you’ll triple the damage. And you are not exempt from Crazy Town just because you cover non-offensive material.

Anticipate, don’t react.

#3—When in doubt, starve it of oxygen. Here are my three primary responses to online criticism: Starve it of oxygen (ignore it)—90% Pour gasoline on it (promote it)—8% Engage with trolls after too much wine (and really regret it)—2%

It’s very, very hard to stay silent, and it’s very, very important to have that self-control. Rewatch the “Hoooold! Hooooooold!” scene from Braveheart.

For me, doing this 8% to 10% of the time accomplishes two things: It shows that I’m open to criticism, and it shows that I don’t take myself too seriously. Both of these things tend to decrease the number of real haters who come out of the woodwork.

#4—If you respond, don’t over-apologize.

Some version of “I see you” will diffuse at least 80% of people who appear to be haters or would-be haters. They’ll even sometimes do an about-face and become your strongest proponents. Just present the facts or wish them luck, and let them come to their own conclusions. I often use something along the lines of, “Thanks for the feedback. I’m always trying to improve. In the meantime, I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

#5—You can’t reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into.

#6—“Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. You’ll avoid the tough decisions, and you’ll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted.”—Colin Powell

#7—“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”—Epictetus

Cato of ancient Rome, who Seneca believed to be the perfect Stoic, practiced Epictetus’s maxim by wearing darker robes than was customary and by wearing no tunic. He expected to be ridiculed and he was. He did this to train himself to only be ashamed of those things that are truly worth being ashamed of. To do anything remotely interesting, you need to train yourself to handle—or even enjoy—criticism.

#8—“Living well is the best revenge.”—George Herbert

During a tough period several years ago, Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan fame sent me the following aphorism, which was perfect timing and perfectly put: “Robustness is when you care more about the few who like your work than the multitude who hates it (artists); fragility is when you care more about the few who hate your work than the multitude who loves it (politicians).” Choose to be robust.

“I really love the user-friendly quality of the word ‘fuck.’ ”

TF: This is pure genius. Sometimes, the best way to defuse or defeat attackers is to ask short questions and keep them talking. Even a simple, “Why do you say that?” “Why do you ask?” or “Why would you say something like that?” can do the trick.

“Those who are offended easily should be offended more often”—Mae West.

The Most Important Thing Is to Be You, Not Your Inner Actor

‘Episode one is how you’re going to have to be. . . .’”

ANDREW: “Episode one, moment one. You can never take that back. . .

‘Don’t do it, because if you do that, you’re going to have to come up with those lines all the time. You’re going to be someone you’re not. . . .’