Mini Summary
Tools of Titans is a great book about habits, routines, lessons learned and experiences of top performers. It has become part of my list of books I would recommend to family, friends and colleagues. However, be warned! It has over 600 pages.
My key lessons from the second part "Wealthy" of Tools of Titans:
- Be your very own weird self! Your friend, family and colleagues like you when you are just your edgy self.
- Don't be afraid to show your scars, your failures, your loses or your shortcomings. That's who you are! Nobody is perfect. Be proud of all aspects of yourself.
- Busy = out of control! Recalibrate your system, priorities and rules!
- Let your mind work on specific problems and issues overnight. Try it!
- Use the power of affirmations. Write down what you want 15 times a day!
- Don't be afraid to ask for the things you want in life. Be proactive! People won't be mad at you!
- Not accepting the norms of our time is where innovation starts! Which norms do you not accept?
- Do what you want to do in life now! Don't save it up for some time in future!
For more details see my RAW BOOK SUMMARY with my key takeaways below.
about the author
Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur, investor and #1 New York Times best-selling author (e.g. The 4-Hour Workweek). He is a master of what he termed "lifestyle design" and collects the practices and routines from the world's top performers.
RAW BOOK SUMMARY
Chris Sacca // early-stage investor, ex-Google employee and guest on Shark Tank, pp. 164
- "I think authenticity is one of the most lacking things out there these days. [...] Weirdness is why we adore our friends.... Weirdness is what bonds us to our colleagues. Weirdness is what sets us apart, gets us hired. Be your unapologetically weird self. In fact, being weird may even find you the ultimate happiness." Scott Adams
Derek Sivers // entrepreneur and author, pp. 185
- Check out his book summary page of more than 200+ books: sivers.org/books
- "'Busy', to me, seems to imply 'out of control.'Like, 'Oh my God, I'm so busy. I don't have any time for this shit!' To me that sounds like a person who's got no control over their life." Derek Sivers
Morgan Spurlock // filmmaker, pp. 221
- "'You can't be afraid to show your scars.' That's who you are, and he said you have to continue to stay true to that. I think that was some of the best advice I ever got." Morgan Spurlock
Reid Hoffman // co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, pp. 229
- Right after dinner, Reid puts issues and problems that he wants his mind to work on during the night into a notebook
- "Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious." Thomas Edison
Peter Thiel // serial entrepreneur, billionaire investor and author of Zero to One, pp. 232
- Some of the questions that Peter will ask to new hires are:
- What problem do you face every day that nobody has solved yet?
- What is a great company no one has started?
- What is something few people agree with you on?
Scott Adams // creator of the Dilbert comic strip and author, pp. 261
- "Losers have goals. Winners have systems." Scott Adams
- Affirmations: "All you do is you pick a goal and you write it down 15 times a day in some specific sentence form, like 'I, Scott Adams, will become an astronaut,' for example. And you do that every day." Scott Adams
Tracy Dinunzio // entrepreneur, pp. 313
- "When you complain, nobody wants to help you" Stephen Hawking
- "If you spend your time focusing on the things that are wrong, and that's what you express and project to people you know, you don't become a source of growth for people, you become a source of destruction for people." Tracy Dinunzio
Noah Kagan // employee #30 at Facebook and entrepreneur, pp. 325
- The coffee challenge: Ask for a 10% discount on your next coffee orders!
- "[...] In business and in life - you don't have to be on the extreme, but you have to ask for things, and you have to put yourself out there." Noah Kagan
- He was also part of the Start a Business episode of the Tim Ferriss Experiement
Neil Strauss // NYT bestseller author and serial entrepreneur, pp. 347
- "'The biggest mistake you can make is to accept the norms of your time.' Not accepting norms is where you innovate, whether it's with technology, with books, with anything. So, not accepting the norm is the secret to really big success and changing the world." Neil Strauss
Rolf Potts // world traveller and author, pp. 362
- "[We] choose to live like monks anyway, rooting ourselves to a home or a career and using the future as a kind of phony ritual that justifies the present. In this way, we end up spending [...] "the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it."" Tim Ferriss
- See also the viedo below for a short introduction into the idea of Vagabonding
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