The Best Quotes From ‘Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers’

Tim Ferriss is a man obsessed with experimentation and improvement. His book, “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” changed my life and everything I’ve read of his since then has been outstanding. I particularly enjoyed ‘Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers‘ which delivered exactly what it promised. Here are the best quotes from that book.

*  “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”

* It’s the small things, done consistently, that are the big things

* You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them.

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* “Kids don’t do what you say. They do what they see. How you live your life is their example.”

* Done consistently, my reward for meditating is getting 30% to 50% more done in a day with 50% less stress.

* “Whether you are raising money, pitching your product to customers, selling the company, or recruiting employees, never forget that underneath all the math and the MBA bullshit talk, we are all still emotionally driven human beings. We want to attach ourselves to narratives. We don’t act because of equations. We follow our beliefs. We get behind leaders who stir our feelings. In the early days of your venture, if you find someone diving too deep into the numbers, that means they are struggling to find a reason to deeply care about you.”

* “If [more] information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

* When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to try to think all the big thoughts, the world-changing, massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill someone enough to make them tell all their friends about you.

* The reason you’re suffering is you’re focused on yourself.

* Sometimes, you think you have to figure out your life’s purpose, but you really just need some macadamia nuts and a cold f*cking shower.

* “Trust and attention—these are the scarce items in a post-scarcity world.”

* If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

* “If you’re looking for a formula for greatness, the closest we’ll ever get, I think, is this: Consistency driven by a deep love of the work.”

* “The future is already here—it’s just unevenly distributed.”—William Gibson

* ‘Think about how old you are right now and think about being a 10-year-older version of yourself. Then think, ‘What would I probably tell myself as an older version of myself?’

* After you feel the acute pain of your current handicapping beliefs, you formulate 2 to 3 replacement beliefs to use moving forward.

* “Being an entrepreneur is being willing to do a job that nobody else wants to do, [in order] to be able to live the rest of your life doing whatever you want to do.”

* “On one level, wisdom is nothing more than the ability to take your own advice. It’s actually very easy to give people good advice. It’s very hard to follow the advice that you know is good. . . . If someone came to me with my list of problems, I would be able to sort that person out very easily.”

* “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”

* EXPLAINING HER EARLY SUCCESS AS A STREET PERFORMER: “I treated every single patron like a ten-second love affair.”

* “And also, it’s not about being good; it’s about being great. Because what I find, the older I get, is that a lot of people are good, and a lot of people are smart, and a lot of people are clever. But not a lot of people give you their soul when they perform.”

* It’s never been easier to be a “creator,” and it’s never been harder to stand out. Good isn’t good enough.

* “What can you do that will be remembered in 200 to 400 years?”

* If you can’t seem to make yourself happy, do little things to make other people happy. This is a very effective magic trick. Focus on others instead of yourself. Buy coffee for the person behind you in line (I do this a lot), compliment a stranger, volunteer at a soup kitchen, help a classroom on DonorsChoose.org, buy a round of drinks for the line cooks and servers at your favorite restaurant, etc. The little things have a big emotional payback…

* When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person who comes to mind and why? What is something you believe that other people think is insane? What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift? What is your favorite documentary or movie? What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last 6 months? What are your morning rituals? What do the first 60 minutes of your day look like? What obsessions do you explore on the evenings or weekends? What topic would you speak about if you were asked to give a TED talk on something outside of your main area of expertise? What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made? Could be an investment of money, time, energy, other resource. How did you decide to make the investment? Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often? What is the worst advice you see or hear being dispensed in your world? If you could have one gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say? What advice would you give to your 20-, 25-, or 30-year-old self? And please place where you were at the time, and what you were doing. How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Or, do you have a favorite failure of yours? What is something really weird or unsettling that happens to you on a regular basis? What have you changed your mind about in the last few years? Why? What do you believe is true, even though you can’t prove it? Any ask or request for my audience? Last parting words?