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📍 My reading notes for Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss distills insights from hundreds of interviews with top performers in business, sports, and thought leadership. The book is divided into three sections, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise, each offering practical tips and life lessons.

Ferriss presents actionable advice on morning routines, productivity hacks, and philosophical reflections in a conversational and accessible style. Whether you're looking to improve your health, increase productivity, or find inspiration, Tools of Titans provides a wealth of valuable knowledge. Note serial billionaire Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and others.

If you have a ten year plan of how to get somewhere, you should ask, Why can't you do this in six months? For purposes of illustration here, I might reword that to, What might you do to accomplish your ten year goals in the next six months, if you had a gun against your head? The normal systems you have in place, the social rules you forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks, they don't work when answering a question like this.

Tara Brank's Guided Meditations. Here are a few patterns, some modder than others. More than 80 percent of the interviewees have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice a surprising number of males, not females, over. 45 percent never eat breakfast, or eat only scantiest of fare, E. g. Laird Hamilton, page 92.

Malcolm Gladwell, page 572. General Stanley McChrystal, page 435. Many use the ChilliPad device for cooling at bedtime rave reviews of the books Sapiens, Poor Charlie's Almanac, Influence, and Man's Search for Meaning. Among others, the habit of listening to single songs on repeat for focus. Page 507. Nearly everyone has done some form of spec work, completing projects on their own time and dime.

Then submitting them to prospective buyers, the belief that failure is not durable. See Robert Rodriguez. Page 628, or variants thereof, almost every guest has been able to take obvious weaknesses and turn them into huge competitive advantages. See Arnold Schwarzenegger. Page 176. I'm not the strongest. I'm not the fastest.

But I'm really good at suffering. Three movements everyone should practice. J curl, page 15, shoulder extension. Lift a dowel behind your back, standing. Or sit on the floor and walk your hands backward behind your hips. Thoracic bridge. Elevate your feet enough to feel the bulk of the stretch in the upper back and shoulders, not the lower back.

The feet might be three plus feet off the ground. Ensure you can concentrate on straightening your arms and legs if possible, holding the position and breathing. Jefferson Curl J Curl. Think of this as a controlled, slowly rounded, stiff legged deadlift. Progress slowly and patiently. Do not rush. For this type of loaded mobility work, never allow yourself to strain, grind out reps, or force range of motion.

Smooth, controlled movement is the order of the day. The ultimate goal is bodyweight on a bar, but start with 15 pounds. I currently use only 50 to 60 pounds. The beginning of every primary workout. Width apart. Fig. A think deadlift top position. Two. Tuck your chin tightly against your chest. Keep it tucked for the entire movement.

Three. And slowly bend over one vertebra at a time from the neck down. Fig. B. Keep your arms straight in the bar close to your legs. Lower until you can't stretch any farther. As you become more flexible, stand on a box. I use a rogue plyo box with the goal of passing your wrists below your toes. Keep your legs as perpendicular to the ground as possible and try to not push your hips back until your head is below your waist.

Four. Slowly stand back up, rolling one vertebra at a time. Your chin should be the last thing to come. Up. Fig. See, that's one rep. Repeat for a total of five to ten reps. How can you keep it going without fasting? The short answer is eat a boatload of fat, approximately 1.5 to 2.5 grams per kilogram of body weight N to of carbs and moderate protein, one to 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight each day.

One of the challenges of keto is the amount of fat one needs to consume to maintain it. Roughly 70 to 80% of your total calories need to come from fat. Dom's recipe for keto ice cream Dom's ice cream recipe contains roughly 100 grams of fat or 900 kilo calories of keto goodness. It can save the day. If your dinner is lacking fat, remember to hit 70 to 85% of total calories from fat two cups sour cream.

I like cream rebrand or unsweetened coconut cream, not coconut water. One tablespoon dark chocolate baking cocoa. One two pinches of sea salt. My favorite is flaky Maldon. One two pinches of cinnamon. A small dash of stevia. Dom buys now Foods Organics stevia in bulk. Optional. One third, one half cup blueberries, if Dom hasn't had carbs all day, or if he has worked out.

Stir that all into a thick mousse and stick it in the freezer until it takes on an ice cream like consistency. Once you've removed it and are ready to dig in, you can eat it straight or add toppings. Make whipped cream using heavy cream nearly 100 percent fat and a bit of stevia. Drizzle on one tablespoon of heated coconut oil, especially if the bomb has the blueberries in it, and mix it all in, which produces the mouthfeel of crunchy chocolate chips.

Recommended to watch. The gut is not like Las Vegas. What happens in the gut does not stay in the gut. Presentation by Alessio Fasano. Peter's Path to Meditation. 10 percent Happier by Dan Harris is the book that got Peter meditating regularly. After limited success with open monitoring or mindfulness meditation, he was introduced to transcendental meditation by a friend Dan Loeb, billionaire and founder of Third Point LLC, a 17 billion asset management firm.

For a low carb post workout option, see Goat Way on page 84, Portable Fuel, for loose skin or stretch marks. GoatWay. com There's an herb called Gotu Kola that, I learned this from Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, who was one of my early mentors, will get rid of what we call unnecessary scar tissue, or unnecessary connective tissue.

The truth of the matter, though, is that you will see zero progress for the loose skin for six months. So people say it's not worth it, but I tell people, just keep doing it for six months. And then it's almost like overnight. The Slow Carb Diet Cheat Sheet, the basic rules are simple. All followed six days per week.

Rule number one. Avoid white starchy carbohydrates, or those that can be white. This means all bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, and grains. Yes, including quinoa. If you have to ask, don't eat it. Rule Hashtag 2. Eat the same few meals over and over again, especially for breakfast and lunch. Good news, you already do this.

You're just picking new default meals. If you want to keep it simple, split your plate into thirds. Protein, veggies, and beans, legumes. Rule Hashtag 3. Don't drink calories. Exception. One to two glasses of dry red wine per night is allowed. Although this can cause some peripostmenopausal women to plateau.

Rule number four. Don't eat fruit. Fructose glycerol phosphate more body fat more or less. Avocado and tomatoes are allowed. Rule number five. Whenever possible, measure your progress in body fat percentage, not total pounds. The scale can deceive and derail you. For instance, it's common to gain muscle while simultaneously losing fat on the SED.

And then, rule hashtag six, take one day off per week and go nuts. One arm swing, Turkish get up, TGU, goblet squat, do these three exercises in some form every day, and you are guaranteed to get a great return on your investment. When in doubt, train your grip and your core like. If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. Floating in an isolation tank is the first time that we've been without sensory experience, sensory environmental stimuli since we were conceived. There is no sound, no sight, no temperature gradient, and no gravity.

So all of the brain searching and gating information from the environment is relaxed. Everything that was in the background, kind of behind the curtain, can now be exposed. When done consistently over time, It's essentially like meditation on steroids. It starts to recalibrate the entire neuroendocrine system.

Oftentimes pre verbal healing around traumatic issues that occurred between birth and age four. From a developmental psychological perspective, this is when most of the long term personality traits are formed. The campfire squat test. If you can't squat all the way down to the ground with your feet and knees together, then you are missing full hip and ankle range of motion.

This is the mechanism causing your hip impingement, plantar fasciitis, torn achilles, pulled calf, etc. that is the fucking problem, and you should be obsessing about fixing this. The Keto Frappuccino. I use Palumbo's protein powder by Species Nutrition. Every morning, I roll downstairs and two scoops of whey protein isolize.

Ice, a bunch of powdered Starbucks coffee, some macadamia nut oil. Is that a dream or a goal? Because a dream is something you fantasize about that will probably never happen. A goal is something you set a plan for, work toward, and achieve. Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous by Jim Dator.

Also, when it comes to the future, it's far more important to be imaginative than to be right by AlvinToffler. try. Ten minutes of Tetris. Recent research has demonstrated that Tetris, Or Candy Crush Saga or Bejeweled can help overwrite negative visualization which has applications for addiction such as overeating, preventing PTSD, and in my case, onset insomnia.

They occupy the visual processing center of your brain so that you cannot imagine the thing that you're craving or obsessing over, which are also highly visual, that you should never publicly criticize anyone or anything unless it is a matter of morals or ethics. Thanks. Anything negative you say could at the very least ruin someone's day, or worse, break someone's heart.

Or simply change someone from being a future ally of yours to someone who will never forget that you were unkind or unfairly critical. It's so common today to complain or criticize others work on social media, or dogpile on someone for a perceived offense. I won't do it. It's not my job to be the world's critic, and I'd rather not rule out any future allies.

Humans use only 10 percent of their brains? Not quite. The most complex structure in the entire universe doesn't have just a vacant parking lot waiting for someone to drive in and start building. It's all used all the time, and in complex ways that we don't always understand. Prepare titanium tea. This name was a joke, but it's stuck.

Two to three minutes. I prepare loose leaf tea in a Rishi glass teapot, but you could use a French press. The below combo is excellent for cognition and fat loss, and I use about one flat teaspoon of each. Puerh Aged Black Tea, Dragon Well Green Tea, or other green tea. Turmeric and Ginger Shavings, often also Rishi brand.

Add the hot water to your mixture and let it steep for one to two minutes. Some tea purists will get very upset and say, Dammit Ferris, you should really do your homework, because the steeping temperatures for those teas are all different. Learn And the first steeping should be 15 seconds. This is all true, and I can do the fancy stuff, but when I'm groggy in the morning, I don't give a shit and like my uppers simple.

Explore the complexities of tea on the weekends. Roughly 185 degrees Fahrenheit is fine. Separately, add one of the following to your drinking mug. One to two tablespoons of coconut oil, which is about 60 to 70 percent MCTs, medium chain triglycerides, By weight or one scoop of Quest MCT oil powder, which will give the tea a creamy consistency.

Pour your tea into your mug, stir to mix and enjoy. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss distills insights from hundreds of interviews with top performers in business, sports and thought leadership. The book is divided into three sections, healthy, wealthy, and wise, each offering practical tips and life lessons.

Ferris presents actionable advice on morning routines, productivity hacks, and philosophical reflections in a conversational and accessible style. Whether you're looking to improve your health, increase productivity, or find inspiration, Tools of Titans provides a wealth of valuable knowledge. The five minute journal, 5MJ, to be answered in the morning.

I am grateful for. 1, 2, 3. What would make today great? 1, 2, 3, daily affirmations. I am to be filled in at night. Three amazing things that happen today. 1, 2, 3. This is similar to Peter. Demand us three wins. Practice, see page. How could I have made today better? 1, 2, 3. I ask myself this every morning as I fill out the 5MJ, and I pick my favorite three for that day.

An old relationship that really helped you, or that you valued highly. Oh, an opportunity you have today. Perhaps that's just an opportunity to call one of your parents, or An opportunity to go to work. It doesn't have to be something large. Oh, something great that happened yesterday, whether you experienced or witnessed it.

Something simple near you, or within sight. This was a recommendation from Tony Robbins. The Gratitude points shouldn't all be my career and other abstract items. Temper those with something simple and concrete. A beautiful cloud outside the window. The coffee that you're drinking. The pen that you're using, or whatever it might be.

Meditation allows me to step back and gain a witness perspective, as with psychedelics, so that I'm observing my thoughts instead of being tumbled by them. I can step out of the washing machine and calmly look inside it. Listen to a guided meditation from Sam Harris, page 454, or Tara Brack, page 555.

Maria Popova of brainpickings. org, page 406, listens to the same recording every morning. Tara Brack's Smile guided meditation recording from the summer of 2010. Macro, commit to at least one 7 day cycle. I hate to say it, but I think less is worthless. But what if you think of your to do list, past arguments, or porn for 19.

5 minutes out of 20? Do you get an F in meditation? No. If you spend even a second noticing this wandering and bring your attention back to your mantra, or whatever, that is a successful session. My session's a 99 percent monkey mind, but it's the other 1 percent that matters. Peace. If you're getting frustrated, your standards are too high or your sessions are too long.

His book, Joy on Demand, is one of the most practical books on meditation that I've found. In many of my public talks, I guide a very simple ten second exercise. I tell the audience members to each identify two human beings in the room and just think, I wish for this person to be happy, and I wish for that person to be happy.

That is it. I remind them to not do or say anything, just think. This is an entirely thinking exercise. The entire exercise is just 10 seconds worth of thinking. Everybody emerges from this exercise smiling, happier than 10 seconds before. This is the joy of loving kindness. It turns out that being on the giving end of a kind thought is rewarding in and of itself.

Once an hour, every hour, randomly identify two people walking past your office and secretly wish for each of them to be happy. Jane told me, I hate my job. I hate coming to work every single day. But I attended your talk on Monday, did the homework on Tuesday, and Tuesday was my happiest day in seven years.

Total immersion swimming by Terry Loughlin. My confidence came from my vision. I am a big believer that if you have a very clear vision of where you want to go, then the rest of it is much easier. I felt that I could win it, and that was what I was there for. I wasn't there to compete. I was there to win.

Write down the three to five things, and no more, that are making you the most anxious or uncomfortable. They're often things that have been punted from one day's to do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Most important usually equals most uncomfortable, with some chance of rejection or conflict.

For each item, ask yourself, If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day? Will moving this forward make all the other to dos unimportant or easier to knock off later? Put another way, what, if done, will make all of the rest easier or irrelevant? If you consistently feel the counterproductive need for volume and doing lots of stuff, Put these on a post it note.

Being busy is a form of laziness, lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. Words That Work, written by Republican political strategist Frank Luntz. Hope is not a strategy. Luck is not a factor.

Fear is not an option. I bought the journal. Spiritual Windshield Wipers. Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts, nebulous worries, jitters, and preoccupations on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes. The process matters more than the product. Dan Gable, whose epic rants in the hard to find Doc Competitor Supreme are worth finding.

Language mean the limits of my world. Give the mind an overnight task read jots down problems in a notebook that he wants his mind to work on overnight. Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious. http: TheBusinessProfessor. com Thomas Edison, Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans to Literally Millions of People.

Many guests in this book have done the same. If you only read one article on marketing, make it this one, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. TF, that last Genghis Khan book has been recommended to me by several billionaires. Music for Sleep Justin listens to Max Richter's From Sleep, a composed album with a shortened version on Spotify.

There's an artist called Mute Button that has high quality, long field recordings. The gentle rain sounds plus sleep timer are fantastic. It's not about ideas, it's about making ideas happen. I'd put it on every college campus in the world. In our youth, we are wonderfully creative and idealistic. Truth is, young creative minds don't need more ideas.

They need to take more responsibility with the ideas they've already got. Sierra Club founder John Muir used to express amazement at the well heeled travelers who would visit Yosemite only to rush away after a few hours of sightseeing. Muir called these folks the time poor, people who were so obsessed with tending their material wealth and social standing that they couldn't spare the time to truly experience the splendor of California's Sierra wilderness.

As Thoreau put it, the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Quitting, whether a job or a habit, means taking a turn so as to be sure you're still moving in the direction of your dreams.

In this way, quitting should never be seen as the end of something grudging and unpleasant. Rather, it's a vital step in beginning something new and wonderful. My reading notes for Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss distills insights from hundreds of interviews with top performers in business, sports, and thought leadership.

The book is divided into three sections, healthy, wealthy, and wise, each offering practical tips and life lessons. Ferriss presents actionable advice on morning routines, productivity hacks, and philosophical reflections in a conversational and accessible style. Whether you're looking to improve your health, increase productivity, or find inspiration, Tools of Titans provides a wealth of valuable knowledge.

I talk to CEOs all the time and I say, Listen, the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. If it wasn't a crazy idea, it's not a breakthrough. It's an incremental improvement. So where inside of your companies are you trying crazy ideas? The best way to become a billionaire is to help a billion people.

For One of the books he recommends for cultivating deal making ability is actually a children's book and a 10 minute read, Stone Soup. It's a children's story that is the best MBA degree you can read. Between the concept of super credibility and Stone Soup, you have a great foundation. If you're an entrepreneur in college or 60 years old and building your 20th company, Stone Soup is so critically important.

Morning routines Peter stretches during his morning shower. It's mostly my lower body, and then I'll go through a breathing exercise as well, and an affirmational mantra. The breathing exercise is an accelerated deep breathing just to oxygenate and stretch my lungs. There are two elements that tie very much to human longevity.

It's strange. One is those people who floss, and second, those people who have a higher VO2 max. Singularity University. TF. Still struggling with a sense of purpose or mission. Roughly half a dozen people in this book, e. g., Robert Rodriguez, have suggested the book Start With Why by Simon Sinek. Find the smartest twenty somethings in your company.

I don't care if they're in the mail room or where they are. Give them permission to figure out how they would take down your company. Peter's Laws, his 28 Peter's Laws, have been collected over decades. Here are some of my favorites. Law 2, when given a choice, take both. Law 3, multiple projects lead to multiple successes.

Law 6, when forced to compromise, ask for more. Law 7, if you can't win, change the rules. Law 8, if you can't change the rules, then ignore them. Law 11, no simply means begin again at one level higher. When in doubt, think. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live. The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.

Adopted from Alan Kay. You get what you incentivize. The day before something is a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. BJ's playlist for working morning becomes Eclectic Radio Program, which has commercial free new music from 9am to 12 noon every weekday. Sirius XM35, indie music.

Daily Rituals by Mason Curry for anyone who would enjoy seeing the daily routines of Legendslike. Steve Jobs, Charles Darwin, and Charles Dickens. It is so reassuring to see that everyone has their own system, and how dysfunctional a lot of them are. Small world. I actually produced the audiobook. Version of Daily Rituals.

In excess, most things take on the characteristics of their opposite. Thus, pacifists become militants. Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less. My step two is doing a fear setting exercise on paper, page 463, in which I ask an answer. I am an old man, and I have known a great many troubles, But most of them never happened.

Mark Twain. He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary. Seneca. Don't believe everything that you think. 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. All those artists and writers who bemoan how hard the work is.

And oh, how tedious the creative process, and oh, what a tortured genius they are. Don't buy into it, as if difficulty and struggle and torture somehow confer seriousness upon your chosen work. Doing great work simply because you love it sounds, in our culture, somehow flimsy, and that's a failing of our culture, not of the choice of work that artists make.

Out of more than 4, 600 articles on brain pickings, what are Maria's starting recommendations? The shortness of life. Seneca on busyness and the art of living wide rather than living long. How to find your purpose and do what you love. Nine learnings from nine years of brain pickings. Anything about Alan Watts.

Alan Watts has changed my life. I've written about him quite a bit. You can't blame your boss for not giving you the support you need. Plenty of people will say, It's my boss's fault. No, it's actually your fault. Because you haven't educated him, you haven't influenced him, you haven't explained to him in a manner he understands why you need this support that you need.

That's extreme ownership. Own it all. If you don't give young men a good and useful group to belong to, they will create a bad group to belong to. But one way or another, they're gonna create a group, and they're gonna find something, an adversary, where they can demonstrate their prowess and their unity.

The calming effect of acting instead of waiting, what would your 70 year old self advise your current self? The world is this continually unfolding set of possibilities and opportunities, and the tricky thing about life is, on the one hand, having the courage to enter into things that are unfamiliar, but also having the wisdom to stop exploring when you've found something worth sticking around for.

That is true of a place, of a person, of a vocation. Balancing those two things, the courage of exploring and the commitment to staying, and getting the ratio right is very hard. I think my 70 year old self would say, Be careful that you don't err on one side or the other, because you have an ill conceived idea of who you are, which is that you should have a running list of three people that you're always watching.

Someone senior to you that you want to emulate, a peer who you think is better at the job than you are and who you respect, and someone subordinate who's doing the job you did, one, two, or three years ago, better than you did it. Three practices for mental toughness. Stan, the first is to push yourself harder than you believe you're capable of.

You'll find new depth inside yourself. The second is to put yourself in groups who share difficulties, discomfort. We used to call it shared privation. You'll find that difficult environment, that you feel more strongly about that which you're committed to. And finally, create some fear and make individuals overcome it.

What kind of first of a kind group could you gather if you had a gun to your head? Rereading the Law of Category, page 276, and 1000 True Fans, page 292, might help. Givewell. org, a site that conducts in depth research to determine how much non profits and foundations actually accomplish, in terms of lives saved, lives improved, etc.

Per Dollar Spent. Follow your passion is terrible advice. I think it misconstrues the nature of finding a satisfying career and satisfying job. where the biggest predictor of job satisfaction is mentally engaging work. It's the nature of the job itself. It's not got that much to do with you. It's whether the job provides a lot of variety, gives you good feedback, allows you to exercise autonomy, contributes to the wider world.

Is it actually meaningful? Is it making the world better? And also, is it meaningful? Whether it allows you to exercise a skill that you've developed. Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. This book is a friendly and accessible introduction to mindfulness meditation and includes an eight week guided meditation course.

Will completed this course and it had a significant impact on his life. The Power of Persuasion by Robert Levine. The ability to be convincing, sell ideas and persuade other people is a meta skill that transfers to many areas of your life. This book didn't become that popular, but it's the best book on persuasion that Will has found.

It's much more in depth than other options in the genre. The Dickens Process, sometimes called the Dickens Pattern, is related to A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens. It is one of the exercises I completed over several days at Tony Robbins Unleash the Power within a PW event. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.

In the Dickens process, you're forced to examine limiting beliefs, say, your top two or three handicapping beliefs, across each tense. Tony guides you through each in depth, and I recall answering and visualizing variations of Oh, what has each belief cost you in the past, and what has it cost people you've loved in the past?

What have you lost because of this belief? See it, hear it, feel it. Oh, what is each costing you and people you care about in the present? See it, hear it, feel it. What will each cost you and people you care about 1, years from now? See it. Hear it. Feel it. They find the exception to the rule because no one knows what the future is.

We can make it up. We can convince ourselves it's going to be okay. Or we can remember a past time in which it was okay. That's how people get out of it. When we feel pain in one time zone, meaning past, present, or future, we just switch to another time zone rather than change, because change brings so much uncertainty and so much instability and so much fear to people.

The Dickens process doesn't allow you to dodge any time zones. Perhaps it's time for you to take a temporary break from pursuing goals to find the knots in the garden hose that, once removed, will make everything else better and easier? It's incredible what can happen when you stop driving with the emergency brake on.

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. Many of the guests in this book listen to Sam's guided meditations on SoundCloud or his site.

Just search Sam Harris guided meditations. From Anais Nin, it says, Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. I literally have this on my coffee table so I see it every single day. Two of my favorite lines from Caroline's writing are from her New York Times op ed piece titled, Why do we teach girls that it's cute to be scared?

By cautioning girls away from these experiences, we are not protecting them. We are woefully under preparing them for life. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss distills insights from hundreds of interviews with top performers in business, sports and thought leadership. The book is divided into three sections.

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, each offering practical tips and life lessons. Ferriss presents actionable advice on morning routines, productivity hacks and philosophical reflections in a conversational and accessible style. Whether you're looking to improve your health, increase productivity, or find inspiration, Tools of Titans provides a wealth of valuable knowledge, fear setting, and escaping paralysis.

Many a false step was made by standing still, Fortune Cookie. Named must your fear be before banished it you can. Yoda, from Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back. He had realized something while arcing in slow circles toward the Earth. Risks weren't that scary once you took them. Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister. Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty. Conder questions and actions. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain Write and do not edit.

Aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer. 1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears, and what ifs pop up as you consider the big changes you can, or need to, make? Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life?

What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1 to 10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen? 2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it's easier than you imagine.

How could you get things back under control? 3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable scenarios? Now that you've defined the nightmare, what are the more probable or definite positive outcomes, whether internal, confidence, self esteem, etc., or external? What would the impact of these more likely outcomes be on a scale of 1 to 10?

How likely is it that you could produce at least a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off? 4. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? Imagine this scenario and run through questions 1 to 3 above. If you quit your job to test other options, how could you later get back on the same career track if you absolutely had to?

5. What are you putting off out of fear? Usually what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation. 5. Whatever the action might be, it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I'll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I've heard said, a person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous business people for advice.

6. What is it costing you, financially, emotionally and physically, to postpone action? Don't only. Evaluate the potential downside of action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction. If you don't pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years?

How will you feel having allowed circumstance to impose itself upon you and having allowed ten more years of your finite life to pass doing what you know will not fulfill you? If you telescope out ten years and know with 100 percent certainty, That it is a path of disappointment and regret. And if we define risk as the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome, inaction is the greatest risk of all.

7. What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the BS concept of good, timing the answer is simple. You're afraid, just like the rest of the world. Measure the cost of inaction. Realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps. And develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so.

Action. The Zen mantra is sit, sit. Walk, walk. Don't wobble. It's this idea that when I'm with a person, that's total priority. Anything else is multitasking. No, no, no, no. The people to people, person to person trumps anything else. I have given my dedication to this. If I go to a play or a movie, I am at the movie.

I am not anywhere else. It's a hundred percent. I am going to listen. If I go to a conference, I am going to go to the conference. I actually have a countdown clock that Matt Groening at Futurama was inspired by, and they did a little episode of Futurama about it. I took the actuarial tables for the estimated age of my death, for someone born when I was born, and I worked back the number of days.

I have that showing on my computer how many days. I tell you, nothing concentrates your time like knowing how many days you have left. Now, of course, I'm likely to live longer than that. I'm in good health, etc. But nonetheless, I have 6, 000 something days. It's not very many days to do all the things I want to do.

Truefilms. com. Kevin has reviewed the best documentaries he's seen over decades. Three docs we both love are The King of Kong, Man on Wire, and The State of Mind. Our life is fritted away by detail. Simplify, simplify. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau Walden. Perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis. I think ultimately sometimes when we judge other people. It's just a way to not look at ourselves. A way to feel superior or sanctimonious or whatever. My trauma therapist said every time you meet someone, just in your head say, I love you before you have a conversation with them, and that conversation is going to go a lot better.

I would just assume everybody is doing the best they can with what they have, which is really hard for a lot of us to accept. My reading notes for, Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss. Thee for our work week, the for our body. Tools of Titans the tactics routines and habits of billionaires icons and world class performers Tim Ferriss tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss distills insights from hundreds of interviews with top performers in business sports and Thought leadership the book is divided into three sections Healthy, wealthy, and wise, each offering practical tips and life lessons.

Ferris presents actionable advice on morning routines, productivity hacks, and philosophical reflections in a conversational and accessible style. Whether you're looking to improve your health, increase productivity, or find inspiration, Tools of Titans provides a wealth of valuable knowledge. Happiness is wanting what you have.

We are wired and programmed to do what's safe and what's sensible. I don't think that's the way to go. I think you do things because they are just things you have to do. Or because it's a calling. Or because you're idealistic enough to think that you can make a difference in the world. When people seem like they are mean, they're almost never mean.

They're anxious. Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained otherwise. Wasn't it Bill Clinton who said that when dealing with anyone who's upset? He always asks, Has this person slept? Have they eaten? Is somebody else bugging them? He goes through this simple checklist, When we're handling babies and the baby is kicking and crying, we almost never once say, That baby's out to get me.

Or, She's got evil intentions. Offence versus defence, the more you know what you really want, and where you're really going, the more what everybody else is doing starts to diminish. The moments when your own path is at its most ambiguous, that's when the voices of others, the distracting chaos in which we live, don't expect others to understand you.

To blame someone for not understanding you fully is deeply unfair, because, first of all, we don't understand ourselves, and even if we do understand ourselves. We have such a hard time communicating ourselves to other people. Therefore, to be furious and enraged and bitter that people don't get all of who we are is a really a cruel piece of immaturity.

If you live in America in the 21st century, you've probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It's become the default response when you ask anyone how they're doing. Busy. So busy. Crazy busy. It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint, and the stock response is a kind of congratulation.

That's a good problem to have, or better than the opposite. This frantic, self congratulatory busyness is a distinctly upscale affliction, whose lamented busyness is purely self imposed. Work and obligations they've taken on voluntarily. Classes and activities they've encouraged their kids. Zoologist Conrad Lorenz calls, the rushed existence into which industrialized, commercialized man has precipitated himself and all its attendant afflictions.

Ulcers, hypertension, neuroses, etc. Inexpedient development or evolutionary maladaptation brought on by our ferocious intraspecies competition. He likens us to birds whose alluringly long plumage has rendered them flightless, easy prey. I can't help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn't a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn't matter.

This busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance. A hedge against emptiness. Obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked. In demand every hour of the day. One of my correspondents suggests that what we're all so afraid of is being left alone with ourselves.

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice. It is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body. And deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration.

It is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. Idle dreaming is often the essence of what we do, writes Thomas Pynchon, is a book called Dropping Ashes on the Buddha. It's by Zen master Sung San, who was a Korean Zen monk. I read it when I was maybe 24, and it's a short book, just a series of letters that this really funny, very direct, very no bullshit Korean monk wrote back and forth with his students in the 1970s.

It was one of those, oh my god I think I get it books, especially people who have told me that they are feeling kind of lost and or depressed or directionless. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. You'll avoid the tough decisions, and you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted.

Colin Powell If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid. Epictetus To do anything remotely interesting, you need to train yourself to handle, or even enjoy, criticism. Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw at someone else.

This idea that we're either courageous or chicken shit is just not true, because most of us are afraid and brave at the exact same moment, all day long. Brini, lean into discomfort, because I think these seemingly impossible problems that we have around race and homophobia and the environment, and just the lack of love sometimes, are not going to be solved in a comfortable way.

So I guess my ask would be more of a big metaphysical ask. Give vulnerability a shot. Give discomfort its due. Because I think he or she who is willing to be the most uncomfortable is not only the bravest, but rises the fastest. Roosevelt's famous arena quote. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly.

Who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. Shame versus guilt. Shame is, I am a bad person. Guilt is, I did something bad. Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior. If you stress test the boundaries and experiment with the impossibles, you'll quickly discover that most limitations are a fragile collection of socially reinforced rules you can choose to.

Break it any time. Number one, what if I did the opposite for 48 hours? Number two, what do I spend a silly amount of money on? How might I scratch my own itch? Number three, what would I do have be if I had 10 million dollars? What's my real TMI? What's my real target monthly income? TMI number four, what are the worst things that could happen?

Could I get back here? Number five, if I could only work two hours per week on my business, what would I do? Number six, what if I let them make decisions up to 100? 500? 1, 000? This experience underscored two things for me. One, to get huge good things done, you need to be okay with letting the small bad things happen.

Two, people's IQs seem to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them. Number seven, what's the least crowded channel? Number eight, what if I couldn't pitch my product directly? People don't like being sold products, but we all like being told stories. Work on the latter.

Number nine, what if I created my own real world MBA? 10. Do I need to make it back the way I lost it? Number 11. What if I could only subtract to solve problems? Number 12. What might I put in place to allow me to go off the grid for four to eight weeks with no phone or email? Number 13. Am I hunting antelope or field mice?

A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse. But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So a lion that spent its day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can't live on field mice. A lion needs antelope.

Antelope are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. A lion can live a long and happy life on a diet of antelope. The distinction is important. Are you spending all your time and exhausting all your energy catching field mice?

14. Could it be that everything is fine and complete as is? Number 15. What would this look like if it were easy? Number 16. How can I throw money at this problem? How can I waste money to improve the quality of my life? One of Dan's sayings is, If you've got enough money to solve the problem, you don't have the problem.

In the beginning of your career, you spend time to earn money. Once you hit your stride in any capacity, you should spend money to earn time, as the latter is non renewable. Number 17. No hurry, no pause. I asked Jamie how he teaches confidence to his children, and he said that he asks his daughters to explore their fears with the question, What's on the other side of fear?

His answer is always, nothing. He elaborates, People are nervous for no reason, because no one's gonna come out and slap you or beat you up. When we talk about fear, or a lack of being aggressive, holding someone back, it's in your head. My reading notes for, Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss distills insights from hundreds of interviews with top performers in business, sports, and thought leadership.

The book is divided into three sections. Healthy, wealthy and wise, each offering practical tips and life lessons. Ferris presents actionable advice on morning routines, productivity hacks and philosophical reflections in a conversational and accessible style. Whether you're looking to improve your health, increase productivity or find inspiration, Tools of Titans provides a wealth of valuable knowledge.

Is it an itch or a burn? I have a lot of conversations with people who want to start their own thing, and one of my favorite questions to ask is, Is this an itch, or is it burning? If it is just an itch, it is not sufficient. It gets to this point of how badly you really want it. For me, I burned the boats.

There was no way I was going to get a job. Failure was never an option. I had to make this work. This is a story about a tiger named Mohini that was in captivity in a zoo, who was rescued from an animal sanctuary. Mohini had been confined to a ten by ten foot cage with a concrete floor for five or ten years.

They finally released her into this big pasture. With excitement and anticipation, they released Mohini into her new and expensive environment. But it was too late. The tiger immediately sought refuge in the corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life. She paced and paced in that corner until an area ten by minus ten feet was worn bare of grass.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible. Yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns. What past limitations, real or perceived, are you carrying as baggage? Where in your life are you pacing in a ten by ten foot patch of grass? Is that a dream or a goal? If it isn't on the calendar, it isn't real.

They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds. Mexican proverb. Oh each morning, express heartfelt gratitude to one person you care about, or who's helped, or supported you. Text, message, write, or call. Can't think of anyone? Don't forget, pass teachers, classmates, co workers from early in your career, old bosses, etc.

Oh, 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. Start with why if you go to an actor and say, Hey, I'm a filmmaker and I'm making a low budget movie, and I kind of need your name as a marquee to help sell it.

I can't pay you very much, and it's going to be probably a lot of work, but if you want to be in it, you're thinking about only yourself. And the answer will be, No, get the hell out of here, because all you're talking about is what you do and how you do it. Which is, I make low budget movies. Yeah, so what?

It means you've got no money. Instead, I always start with a why. I go to them and say, I love what you do. I've always been a big fan. I've got a part that you would never get. I believe in creative freedom. I don't work with the studios. I work independently. I'm the boss there. It's just me and my crew.

It's very creative. Ask any of your actor friends. They'll say, go have that experience. Quickly. Robert De Niro did Machete in four days. I'm gonna shoot you out in four days. You'll be on your next movie for six months. You're on my movie for four days, and it's gonna be the most fun you've ever had, and you'll probably get great reviews.

Your performance is gonna be really free, because I'm gonna give you that freedom. That's why I do it. How do I do it? Well, I work very independently. I have very few people on my crew. We all do multiple jobs. We do it with less money, so that we have more freedom. From Jocko Willink. When something is wrong or going bad, you just look at me and say, Good.

Oh, oh, mission got cancelled. Good. We can focus on another one. Oh, didn't get the new high speed gear we wanted? Good. We can keep it simple. Oh, didn't get promoted? Good. More time to get better. Didn't get funded? Good. We own more of the company. Oh, didn't get the job you wanted? Good. Go out, gain more experience, and build a better resume.

O got injured? Good. Needed a break from training. Oh, got tapped out? Good. It's better to tap out in training than to tap out on the street. Oh, got beat? Good. We learned. Oh, unexpected problems? Good. We have the opportunity to figure out a solution. That's it. When things are going bad, don't get all bummed out, don't get startled, don't get frustrated.

No, just look at the issue and say, Good. Now, I don't mean to say something clichéd. I'm not trying to sound like Mr. Smiley Positive Guy. I'm That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won't. But neither will dwelling on the problem. No. Accept reality, but focus on the solution.

Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good. Go forward. And if you are part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout. Finally, to close this up, if you can say the word good, Guess what? It means you're still alive. It means you're still breathing. Here are just a few lines from Sekou's art to set the tone.

The letters I am are all that lies between possible and impossible, which means I'm the only thing between possible and impossible, so every day I choose to do the I'm possible. Don't believe everything you think. Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

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