Tools of Titans. Tim Ferris

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What do I love about: Tools of Titans?

Tim’s Tools of Titans is a collection of short inspirations from successful people in different spheres of life. His caliber of interviewees range from individuals in sports to business moguls, serial entrepreneurs, writers, and technology aficionados. I particularly love this piece for its quotes and short precinct messages. The routines shared by these leaders are very helpful and I am glad to have imbibed them into my daily routine. The most common issues I found across all interviewees were their approach to FEAR, GOAL SETTING, and HEALTH. I am glad to say that the biggest new quirk I got from reading this gigamous (my way of expressing huge) book was the concept of PSYCHEDELICS – A concept that helps you experience Transcendence. I am glad to share my notes below and you can download a copy of the book anytime from this site.

What do I not love about: Tools of Titans?

Zilch.

Who should read: Tools of Titans?

If you are looking for a personal development book that puts it all together whether it is health, entrepreneurship, wisdom, goal setting etc. Name it and this book covers it.

Who should not read: Tools of Titans?

This book is quite huge and so people may find it very tiring.

Notes from Tools of Titans?

Part 1: On Health

Part 2: On Wealth

• If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success. James Cameron
• If you found yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly. Colonel David Hackworth
• Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.
• My goal is not to fail fast. My goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing.
• I wasn’t there to compete, I was there to win. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• Its not what you know but rather what you do consistently.
• The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exist on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That is the moment you may be starting to get it right.
• Don’t overestimate the world and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
• Everyone is interesting. If you’re ever bored in a conversation, the problem’s with you, not the other person.
• Life is always happening for us not to us.
• Stressed is the achiever word for “FEAR”.
• If you let your learning lead to KNOWLEDGE, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to ACTION, you become wealthy.
• Losers react, LEADERS anticipate.
• HOPE is not a STRATEGY. LUCK is not a FACTOR. FEAR is not an OPTION.
• Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.
• TRUST and ATTENTION- these are the scarce items in a post-scarcity world.
• LOSERS have GOALS WINNERS have SYSTEMS.
• Do not be afraid to do something you are not qualified to do.
• Success does not need to be complicated. Just start by making 1,000 people extremely happy.
• When you complain, nobody wants to help you.
• If you spend your time focusing on the things that are wrong, and that is what you express and project to people you know, you don’t become a source of growth, you become a source of destruction for people.
• Money is a great servant but a horrible master.
• My parents always taught me that my day job would never make me rich. It’d be my homework.
• Five days a week, I read my goals before I go to sleep and when I wake up. There are 10 goals around health, family, business etc with expiration dates, and I update them every 6 months
• I don’t care if you’re my brother- if we go play football, I’m gonna try to crack your head. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. It doesn’t mean that I don’t respect you.
• Frustration is a matter of expectation.
• Great men have always shown themselves as ready to obey as they afterwards proved able to command. Lord Mahon
• The biggest mistakes you can make is to accept the norms of your time.
• Be open to whatever comes next. John Cage.
• No matter what the situation maybe, the right course of action is always compassion and love.
• Be the silence that listens. Tara Beach.
• A problem is a terrible thing to waste.
• When 99% of people doubt you, you’re either gravely wrong or about to make history.
• The best way to become a billionaire is to help a billion people.
• The wisdom of life consist in the elimination of non-essentials- Lin Yutang.
• Discipline equals freedom. Jocko Willink.
• The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Richard P. Feyman.
• Make your peace with the fact that saying ‘NO’ often requires trading popularity for respect.
• 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.

Part 3: On Wisdom

• The struggle ends when the gratitude begins. Neale Donald Walsch
• There is no way to happiness-happiness is the way. Thich Nhat Hanh
• What you seek is seeking you. Rumi
• Life is a continual process of arrival into who we are.
• If you are looking for a formula for greatness, the closest we will ever get, I think, is this: consistency driven by a deep love of the work”.
• The culture of news is the culture without nuance. Better to have and not need, than to need and not have.
• The future is already here-it’s just unevenly distributed. William Gibson
• If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. Omar N. Bradley
• The purpose of LIFE is a LIFE of purpose.
• You can tell the true character of a man by how his dog and his kids react to him.
• If you don’t believe in God, you should believe in the technology that is immortal.
• 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.
• I usually know when I’m on to something when I’m a little bit afraid of it. I go: WOW, I could mess this up.
• 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 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”
• Secrets are a buffer to intimacy.
• Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
• Many a false step was made by standing still. Fortune Cookie
• Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
• Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself : “ Is this the condition that I feared”.
• What we FEAR doing most is usually what we most need to do.
• Productivity is for robots. What humans are going to be really good at is asking questions, being creative, and experiences”.
• There is more freedom to be gained by practicing poverty than chasing wealth. Suffer a little regularly and you often cease to suffer.
• If something offends you, look inward…..That’s a sign that there’s something there”
• My definition of love is being willing to die for someone who you yourself want to kill. That in my experience is kind of the deal.
• Happiness is wanting what you have.
• When people seem like they are mean, they’re almost never mean. They’re anxious.
• Listening is about being present, not just being quiet.
• The world is changed by your EXAMPLE not by your OPINION.
• ROBUSTNESS is when you care about the few who like your work than the multitude who hates it(artist); FRAGILITY is when you care more about the few who hate your work than the multitude who loves it(politician). Choose to be ROBUST.
• Cynicism is a disease that robs people of the gift of life.
• People who regularly fight with others will eventually fight with you. I’m not interested in anything that’s unsustainable or even hard to sustain including difficult relationships.
• If you can’t see yourself working with somebody for life, don’t work with them for a day.
• Free education is abundant, all over the internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.
• What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.
• Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody else (Buddhist saying).
• Desire is suffering. Budha
• We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffet spends a year deciding and a day acting. That acts last decades.
• A person’s success in life is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.
• The HERO uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the COWARD runs. It’s the same thing- FEAR- but it’s what you do with it that matters.
• Whenever you find yourself on the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain
• They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds. Mexican proverb.
• Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu.
• You must want to be a butterfly so badly, you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
• Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.