Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

by Timothy Ferriss

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

It’s a short reminder that success can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations we are willing to have, and by the number of uncomfortable actions we are willing to take.

Everything by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. Genome, The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, The Rational Optimist—they’re all great.

“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”

The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.

desire to learn

Cultivate that desire by reading what you want, not what you’re “supposed to.”

Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop.

Advice: Follow your intellectual curiosity over whatever is “hot” right now. If your curiosity ever leads you to a place where society eventually wants to go, you’ll get paid extremely well.

Ignore: The news. Complainers, angry people, high-conflict people. Anyone trying to scare you about a danger that isn’t clear and present.

Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself.

Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older.

tedious ceremonies to please tedious people,

The adult world is not full of gods, just people who have acquired skills and habits that work for them.

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

“What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems . . . there’s no law of physics preventing them.”

to separate having ambition from being ambitious, or accessing hustle without becoming a hustler.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”