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

by Timothy Ferriss

For the curious and impatient among you, here are a few books (of many) that came up a lot: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger

The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, elite athletes, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized one or two strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them. . . . Everyone is fighting a battle [and has fought battles] you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles.

The more surprising part of all of this is . . . Tribe of Mentors changes with you. As time passes and life unfolds, things you initially swatted away like a distraction can reveal depth and become unimaginably important.

“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.

You are the author of your own life, and it’s never too late to replace the stories you tell yourself and the world. It’s never too late to begin a new chapter, add a surprise twist, or change genres entirely. What would it look like if it were easy? Here’s to picking up the pen with a smile. Big things are coming. . . .

Paul Stamets’ Host Defense MyCommunity mushroom complex is the most incredible immunity supplement I have ever taken (and I have taken a lot of them!).

I have had so many spectacular failures, but looking back, I can see how each of them led me a little closer to doing what I actually wanted to do.

The important thing is to learn from each failure and try not to repeat it.

And at the top of that list is sleep. I need eight to nine hours of sleep to function properly, and I’ve started guarding my sleep time mercilessly.

My obsession with sleep has improved my life immeasurably.

don’t be afraid to fail.

Get out into the real dirt world and start failing.

Adversity. Everybody spends their life trying to avoid it. Me too. But the best things that ever happened to me came during the times when the shit hit the fan and I had nothing and nobody to help me. Who are you really? What do you really want? Get out there and fail and find out.

I just wrote a book called The Knowledge about my favorite failure and guess what? It failed too. In all truth, when my third novel (which, like the first two, never got published) crashed ignominiously, I was driving a cab in New York City. I’d been trying to get published for about 15 years at that point. I decided to give up and move to Hollywood, to see if I could find work writing for the movies. Don’t ask me what movies I wrote. I will never tell. And if you find out by other means, BE WARNED! Don’t see ’em. But working in “the industry” made me a pro and paved the way for whatever successes finally did come.

The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We’re like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. I always say, “If you want to become a billionaire, invent something that will allow people to indulge their own Resistance.”

If I had “succeeded” at making partner, right on schedule, I might still be miserably negotiating corporate transactions 16 hours a day. It’s not that I’d never thought about what else I might like to do other than law, but until I had the time and space to think about life outside the hermetic culture of a law practice, I couldn’t figure out what I really wanted to do.

Of course, I’m not saying that the smart, driven college student in your question should spend ten years in finance before striking out creatively! But they should be planning how they’re going to make ends meet. That way, the time that they do spend with their creative projects—whether it’s 30 minutes or ten hours a day—can be all about focus, flow, and occasional glimpses of joy.

It’s almost more difficult to think of a time when an apparent failure didn’t set me up for later success. Failure is inextricably connected to any major success I’ve ever had.

The quote I’d put on that billboard belongs to my friend and former Navy SEAL, Richard Machowicz: “Not Dead, Can’t Quit.”

And I love people who love suffering. It took three times for my best friend Jeff Gum to make it through BUD/S, going through “Hell Week” with viral gastroenteritis and rhabdomyolysis. The day he finished ten years as a Navy SEAL, I asked him what the best moment was, and he said it was having everything go wrong and watching the instructors try everything they could to make him quit.

Since I read Joseph Campbell’s line “follow your bliss,” it has become my true north. It helps me in those moments when I’m staring off in the shower for hours looking like someone put me under hypnosis. Thinking of what makes me happy doesn’t give me the same clarity as thinking about what gives me bliss. For me, it’s the freedom I feel on top of a mountain or the breeze I feel laying on a catamaran net halfway around the world. Bliss is the highest peak of what brings you joy. If happiness is just above the status quo, bliss is what makes you feel most alive. Expect it will take courage to follow your bliss, and expect it will suck at times. Expect you’re going to have to take risks for it. Expect others won’t necessarily understand. And also expect that what gives you bliss today may not be what does tomorrow. Just follow it all over again.

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” –Steve Jobs Co-founder and former CEO of Apple

The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel. I have read hundreds of personal development books, but this is the one that clearly showed me how to visualize, contemplate, and focus on what it was I truly wanted. It revealed to me that we only get what we desire most, and to apply myself with a laserlike focus upon a goal, task, or project. That in order to “have” you must “do,” and in order to “do” you must “be”—and this process is immediate. Although it takes time for these desires to manifest in our material world, you must see the thing you desire as completed, finished, and real, now. The better you can do this, the more you can accomplish. I have bought several copies of this book and distributed it to family and friends. I also reread it probably once a month to keep my vision clear.

As I sat in the silence, another thought pierced through my sadness. “I took the shot.” It was invigorating, even exciting. “Hey, when all the chips were on the line, you didn’t leave your future up to others, YOU TOOK YOUR SHOT.” Instantly I felt free and in control. I knew from then on that I could have the courage to fail on my own terms. From that moment, I decided that if I was going to succeed or fail, it was going to be up to me. I was changed forever.

“God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson I love this quote because it is all about defeating fear. Every great and extraordinary accomplishment in this world was done through courage. Hell, you don’t even get to be born unless your mother has the courage to have you. I repeat this phrase when I’m anxious or nervous about something. I ask myself, what’s the worst that can happen. Usually, the answer is, “You can die.” Then I answer back, “I’d rather die doing something I feel is great and amazing rather than be safe and comfortable living a life I hate.” I talk to myself a lot, and this quote helps me sort out my fears and deal with them. The more you run from your fears, the bigger they get, but the more you go into them, the more they tend to vanish like a mirage.

Ignore any advice that tells you you are going to miss something. Every mistake I have ever made in business, marriage, and personal conduct was because I thought if I didn’t do or get this now, it was never going to happen. It’s like most clubs in LA. The trick is to keep the line long at the door, while the club itself is empty. The “aura of exclusivity” is really code for “bad atmosphere.” To do what you desire to do, you have all you need.

“Work hard to beat the competition.” The truth is that competition is the opposite of creativity. If I am working hard to beat the competition, it actually prevents me from thinking creatively to make all concepts of competition obsolete. As a football player, I was told to work hard to compete against the other team, some perceived future threat (new draftees, age, or injury), and even my current teammates. As an actor, you are told to look a certain way or do things you don’t agree with in order to “compete.” This competitive mindset destroys people. It’s the scorched-earth way of thinking, and everyone is burned. The truth is that you need the success of everyone in your field in order to achieve your own success. Creativity operates differently. You work hard because you’re inspired to, not because you have to. Work becomes fun, and you have energy for days because this life is not a “young man’s game.” It is an “inspired person’s game.” The keys belong to whoever is inspired, and no specific age, sex, gender, or cultural background has a monopoly on inspiration. When you’re creative, you render competition obsolete, because there is only one you, and no one can do things exactly the way you do. Never worry about the competition. When you’re creative, you can, in fact, cheer others on with the full knowledge that their success will undoubtedly be your own.

One wrong person in your circle can destroy your whole future. It’s that important.

Make the time to do the things you want to do and then do them.

When you are operating out of courage, you are saying that no matter how you feel about yourself or your opportunities or the outcome, you are going to take a risk and take a step toward what you want.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? I do not believe in work-life balance. I believe that if you view your work as a calling, it is a labor of love rather than laborious. When your work is a calling, you are not approaching the amount of hours you are working with a sense of dread or counting the minutes until the weekend. Your calling can become a life-affirming engagement that can provide its own balance and spiritual nourishment. Ironically, it takes hard work to achieve this.

When you are in your 20s and 30s and want to have a remarkable, fulfilling career, you must work hard. If you don’t work harder than everyone else, you will not get ahead. Further, if you are looking for work-life balance in your 20s or 30s, you are likely in the wrong career. If you are doing something you love, you don’t want work-life balance.

Total Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti. A rationalist’s guide to the perils of the human mind. The “spiritual” book that I keep returning to. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. A history of the human species, with observations, frameworks, and mental models that will have you looking at history and your fellow humans differently. 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.

I’m lucky that I didn’t get everything I wanted in my life, or I’d be happy with my first good job, my college sweetheart, my college town. Being poor when young led to making money when old. Losing faith in my bosses and elders made me independent and an adult. Almost getting into the wrong marriage helped me recognize and enter the right one. Falling sick made me focus on my health. It goes on and on. Inside suffering is the seed of change.

If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? “Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” Desire is a driver, a motivator. In fact, a sincere and uncompromising desire, placed above everything else, is nearly always fulfilled. But every judgment, every preference, every setback spawns its own desire and soon we drown in them. Each one a problem to be solved, and we suffer until it’s fulfilled. Happiness, or at least peace, is the sense that nothing is missing in this moment. No desires running amok. It’s okay to have a desire. But pick a big one and pick it carefully. Drop the small ones.

What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? 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. Do everything you were going to do, but with less angst, less suffering, less emotion. Everything takes time. Ignore: The news. Complainers, angry people, high-conflict people. Anyone trying to scare you about a danger that isn’t clear and present. Don’t do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know. Ignore the unfairness—there is no fair. Play the hand that you’re dealt to the best of your ability. People are highly consistent, so you will eventually get what you deserve and so will they. In the end, everyone gets the same judgment: death.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? “You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older. The only way to truly learn something is by doing it. Yes, listen to guidance. But don’t wait.

I say no to nearly everything. I make a lot fewer short-term compromises.

In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life? The habit of listening to books as I fall asleep.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do? I sleep. Or rather, I nap. There’s no conundrum that a 20-minute nap can’t help me unpack. It’s like a refresh button for my mind. I wake up clearer and more able to make the “gut” decision because I’ve stopped thinking. Whatever I’m feeling when I wake up is the feeling I go forward with.

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” –Niels Bohr Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner

The Fountainhead was a major influence when I wrote a long blog post about why I think Elon Musk is so successful. To me, he’s like Roark—he’s tremendous at reasoning from first principles. In the post, I call this being a “chef” (someone who experiments with ingredients and comes up with a new recipe). Musk is unusually cheflike. Most of us spend most of our lives being like Keating, or what I call a “cook” (someone who follows someone else’s recipe). We’d all be happier and more successful if we could learn to be chefs more often—which just takes some self-awareness of the times we’re being a cook and an epiphany that it’s not actually as scary as it seems to reason independently and act on it.

“Why is Elon able to do what he’s doing?” That’s what led me to explore all these ideas around reasoning from first principles (being a “chef” who comes up with a recipe) versus reasoning by analogy (being a “cook” who follows someone else’s recipe).

But a cheap lesson—don’t get daunted out of shooting for something you want, especially by potentially unfounded assumptions.

What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? My first year out of college, I started a small test prep company (tutoring for SAT, ACT, etc.). Over the next nine years, I put a large portion of my time into growing that company. Early on, my co-founder and I realized it was an advantage to be two single dudes in our 20s with no real financial obligations, so we decided to keep our lifestyles at the same level even as the company grew. After a good year, instead of giving ourselves a $25,000 raise each, we’d keep our salaries in the same place and hire a $50,000 employee. After a great year, we’d keep our salaries where they were and hire three or four new employees. I can credit my co-founder mostly for this, as he’s the more disciplined one of the two of us, but it turned out to be a good strategy. By the time I turned 30, the company had 20 employees and was generating probably ten times the revenue it would have been generating had we kept upping our salaries each year. We traded the fun of having fancy lifestyles in our 20s for being far more free people at the age of 30. This freedom is what led me to start Wait But Why and become a full-time writer.

As I detailed in my TED Talk, I think we all have two main characters in our heads: a rational decision-maker (the adult in your head) and an instant gratification monkey (the child in your head who doesn’t care about consequences and just wants to maximize the ease and pleasure of the current moment). For me, these two are in a constant battle, and the monkey usually wins. But I’ve found that if I turn life into a yin-yang situation—e.g., “work till 6 today, then no work till tomorrow”—it’s much easier to control the monkey in the work period. Knowing he has something fun to look forward to later makes him much more likely to cooperate. In my old system, the monkey was in a constant state of rebellion against a system that never really gave him any dedicated time.

For some people, they want one thing specifically—like someone who needs to be a singer-songwriter to be happy—but most of us leave college pretty torn about the kind of work we want to do most. For those people, I’d recommend thinking hard about the CEO question and experimenting in your 20s to see what it feels like on both sides.

The Deathbed Test pushes me to do two things: Make sure I’m dedicating my time to the right people with the question, “Is this someone I might be thinking about when I’m on my deathbed?” Make sure I’m spending enough high-quality time with the people I care about most with the question, “If I were on my deathbed today, would I be happy with the amount of time I spent with this person?” An alternative is thinking about other people’s deathbeds—“If X person were on their deathbed today, how would I feel about the amount of quality time I’ve spent with them?” The people who matter most are always in competition for your time with both your work and with other people, and the Deathbed Test can be a good reminder that the only way to dedicate the proper amount of time to your key people is by saying no to a lot of other stuff and a lot of other people.

“I used to resent obstacles along the path, thinking, ‘If only that hadn’t happened life would be so good.’ Then I suddenly realized, life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path.” Janna Levin TW/IG: @jannalevin jannalevin.com

In 2015, 100 years after Einstein first proposes their existence, a massive billion-dollar experimental undertaking records gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes over a billion years ago, waves emitted long before humans emerged on the Earth. We discourage failure and by doing so we subtly discourage success.