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

by Timothy Ferriss

Hi Tim, Gah. OK. I’ve been battling with this, and here’s the deal: after five intense years of creative output and promotion, interviews about personal journeys and where ideas come from, after years of wrapping up one project one day and jumping right into promoting another the next … I’m taking a step back. I recently maxed out pretty hard, and for the benefit of my work, I gotta take a break. Over the past month, I’ve cancelled contracts and said no to new projects and interviews. I’ve started creating space to explore and doodle again. To sit and do nothing. To wander and waste a day. And for the first time in five years, I’m finally in a place where there is no due date tied to every drawing. No deadline for ideas. And it feels really right. So, while I really want to do this with you—I respect you and your work and am honored that you’d ask me to participate—and as capital S stupid as it is for me professionally not to do it, I’m going to have to say thank you but … I gotta pass. I’m simply not in a place to talk about myself or my work right now. (Crazy for a highly verbal only child to say.) Hopefully we will get a chance to talk somewhere down the line—I promise any thoughts I’ll have for you then will be far more insightful than anything I can share with you right now. I hope the space created by my absence is filled by one of the brilliant people I suggested in my previous email. And really, thank you so much for your interest. I’ll be kicking myself when the b...