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

by Timothy Ferriss

1. What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? 2. What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)? My readers love specifics like brand and model, where you found it, etc. 3. How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? 4. If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it—metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions—what would it say and why? It could be a few words or a paragraph. (If helpful, it can be someone else’s quote: Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?) 5. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.) 6. What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? 7. In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life? 8. What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? 9. What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? 10. In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)? What new realizations and/or approaches helped? Any other tips? 11. When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focu...

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my 5-Bullet Friday newsletter (tim.blog/friday), a free newsletter in which I share the five coolest or most useful things (books, articles, gadgets, foods, supplements, apps, quotes, etc.) I’ve discovered that week.

SAMIN NOSRAT

endings don’t have to be failures, especially when you choose to end a project or shut down a business.

I need eight to nine hours of sleep to function properly, and I’ve started guarding my sleep time mercilessly.

I’ve recorded all sorts of goals, both big and small, over the last ten or so years.

When I take the time to articulate what it is that I hope to achieve, it’s simple to refer to the list and see whether saying yes to an opportunity will take me toward or away from achieving that goal.

I try to get out of my head and into my body.

STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Get out into the real dirt world and start failing. Why do I say that? Because the goal is to connect with your own self, your own soul. 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.

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.”

Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something

a course called “Money and You,” devised around the ideas of Buckminster Fuller.

“You have to lift off the back foot while taking a step forward, or you will not be able to move ahead.”