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

by Timothy Ferriss

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? The worst recommendation is to keep your ideas and data secret until you have a paper describing these results accepted in a journal. Anytime I have a crazy idea or see an unexpected result, I talk about it with my colleagues to see if they have seen anything similar and whether they think my idea is crazy. This is the fun of science. Multiple scientists with different experiences and expertise can collaborate and get to the right answer much faster than a single scientist.

“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

One book I’ve returned to throughout my life, so much so that it’s now filled with underlining and notes, is The Doctor and the Soul by Viktor E. Frankl. A psychiatrist who emerged alive after six years in a concentration camp, Frankl’s work is based on our search for meaning in life as a very personal task. This book helped me embrace hard choices and keep imagining a better future.

Then, one day, I told one of my clients who blamed her husband for everything to take 100 percent responsibility for her part in their interactions. “This way,” I said, “you will be free of trying to control him, and you will be able to find constructive solutions in your relationship.” When she left, I realized that the same advice could help me as well. Taking 100 percent personal responsibility would help me to stop blaming or complaining and achieve a sense of flow. It would also give me the clarity in any conversation to locate the right words to help a person to accept a hard choice.

It means: I Am Responsible For Calming Down People. Sometimes it helps me to teach what I need to learn myself. I never take it off. It reminds me many times a day what the letters stand for and lets me feel its goodness. Sometimes while reacting to an irritation, I notice the bracelet and stop myself before I get to the point where I’ll be sorry. Then, I experience glimpses of flow.

If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” Nothing truly meaningful or lasting has ever been created in a short period of time. If you learn the story behind any great success, you realize how many years went by and how many hard choices were made to achieve it. Reaching for more is not only an act of ambition, it also comes from passion and love. Nothing is achieved because of easy choices. I believe that people can endure any hardship if it is sensible and constructive. Hard choices means never retiring, because the brain has to be engaged in finding new solutions in the moment, not just remembering old formulas. Hard choices make us wiser, smarter, stronger, and wealthier, and easy choices reverse our progress, focusing our energies on comfort or entertainment. In every difficult moment ask yourself, “What is a hard choice and what is an easy choice?” and you will know instantly what is right.