Pod Insights The Tim Ferriss Show #207: Tools of Titans: Brené Brown Distilled and Other Goodies About this episode Dr. Brené Brown (@BreneBrown https://twitter.com/BreneBrown) is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Brené's 2010 TEDx Houston talk, The Power of Vulnerability http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en, has been viewed more than 31 million times and is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world.
She has spent the past 13 years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Brené http://www.brenebrown.com/ is the author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers: Daring Greatly http://www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592407331/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 and The Gifts of Imperfection, http://www.amazon.com/The-Gifts-Imperfection-Supposed-Embrace/dp/159285849X/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 and Rising Strong http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Strong-Bren-Brown/dp/0812995821/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20.
This episode turned into a therapy session of sorts for me because I felt like I needed a lot of help related to topics she has explored. I thought I would give you a sample of some of the highlights -- the things I applied to my own life and have revisited many times since. It's really a sample of a small profile in my new book Tools of Titans http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1328683788/offsitoftimfe-20.
Please enjoy this distilled collection of highlights from Dr. Brené Brown. Be sure to stay tuned for a surprise at the end!
Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible http://audible.com/tim. I have used Audible http://audible.com/tim for years, and I love audiobooks. I have two to recommend:
The Graveyard Book http://www.audible.com/pd/Teens/The-Graveyard-Book-Full-Cast-Production-Audiobook/B00LXHQO22/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 by Neil Gaiman Vagabonding http://www.audible.com/pd/Travel-Adventure/Vagabonding-Audiobook/B00GCHWZHG/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20 by Rolf Potts All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is go to Audible.com/Tim http://audible.com/tim. Choose one of the above books, or choose any of the endless options they offer. That could be a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or even a class. It's that easy. Go to†Audible.com/Tim http://audible.com/tim and get started today. Enjoy.
This podcast is also brought to you by MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim. Have you ever wanted to be as powerful as a mullet-wearing ninja from the '80s, or as sleek as a black panther in the Amazon? Of course you have, and that is where MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim comes in. I've spent the last six months wearing underwear from these guys http://meundies.com/tim24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I've ever owned. Their materials are 2x softer than cotton, as evaluated using the Kawabata method. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim http://meundies.com/tim to see my current faves (some are awesomely ridiculous, like the camo).
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?
0:08 Speaker 01 No, this is inappropriate time.
0:12 Speaker 00 I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
0:23 Tim Ferriss? This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I have used for years. I love audiobooks, and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's amazing, you will thank me, The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life and formed the basis for a lot of what became The Four Hour Work Week. So, all you need to do to get your free 30-day trial is go to audible.com/tim, and you can choose one of those two books, or you can choose from more great options than you can possibly imagine. So that could be a book, that could be a magazine, that could be a
1:08 Tim Ferriss? newspaper, it could be a class, it's that easy. Go to audible.com/tim, that's audible.com/tim, and grab a book. Enjoy.
1:21 Tim Ferriss? This episode is brought to you by MeUndies. If I'm not going commando, I'm in MeUndies. I have been testing these underwear for three to four months now, pretty much every day, and in fact, throughout a bunch of my other underwear this morning. And on the road, in the house, they are extremely comfortable, they look good, feel good, they are made of micro modal, two times softer than cotton, as scientifically tested using the Kawabata method. Sounds very fancy, of course. And I get a lot of compliments from ladies for these. You don't get diaper butt, you don't get the tired elastic band, they look great, and they have underwear for both men and women. Check out meundies.com/tim, and you can see everything I've been wearing. The ridiculous, the sublime, everything in between,
2:05 Tim Ferriss? including my favorite, which is called out, and I would be remiss If I didn't mention their lounge pants. This is a new thing and I've been wearing their lounge pants when I record podcasts. I've been wearing them out and about when I'm walking the dog, meeting people for coffee. And they are extremely comfortable, though they're made from the same material as the underwear. But some of them, like the blue ones I have, have pockets so you can walk about without seeming like you're off of your meds and completely crazy. So that is awesome. And if you're not happy with the first pair you try on, I assume that refers to the underwear, they'll refund you completely and you can keep the pair you tried on for free. But if you're that kind of person, you should be ashamed because that's disgusting. MeUndies.com/Tim, check it out.
2:52 Tim Ferriss? Was gibt neues? My friends on the internet, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it's my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all types, tease out the habits, routines, tactics, tools, favorite books, et cetera, that you can use. In this episode, we are going to do a highlight reel and invite back one of our guests, who was a huge surprise hit, Brené Brown, Dr. Brené Brown, on Twitter @BrenéBrown, BrenéBrown.com, is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Brené's 2010 TEDx Houston Talk, "The Power of Vulnerability," probably don't associate that with me, but maybe you will by the end of this, has been viewed more than 31 million
3:34 Tim Ferriss? times and is one of the top five most viewed TED Talks in the world. She's spent the past 13 years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Brené is the New York Times bestselling author of Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection, and Rising Strong. So this episode turned into a therapy session of sorts for me because I felt like I needed a lot of help related to topics she has explored. And I thought I would give you a sample of some of the highlights, the things that I applied to my own life and have revisited many, many times since. And it includes my commentary. This is really a sample of a small profile in Tools of Titans, which is my new book, ToolsOfTitans.com, you should check it out. And that book does not have an audio
4:20 Tim Ferriss? There are too many illustrations, exercises, all sorts of stuff throughout the book for that to be feasible right now, but I want to tease it. I want to give you a little Scooby snack, so hopefully you get the text that is the hardcover or Kindle edition for yourself and all of your loved ones that you care about. Don't leave them stranded, folks. That would be so callous and selfish of you. So, please enjoy this distilled collection of highlights from Dr. Brené Brown, and there are some other goodies that follow that, but I will leave that a surprise for you to experience. So, please enjoy this round
5:00 Tim Ferriss? two episode of Highlights, action-packed with Dr. Brené Brown.
5:09 Tim Ferriss? Afraid and brave can coexist.
5:13 Brené Brown? You know, 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.
5:26 Tim Ferriss? My commentary. This reminded me of Customato, who was Mike Tyson's legendary first coach, and was just a treasure trove of one-liners, but he used to tell his athletes the following before big fights. Quote, "The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but 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." And he, in fact, coached Tyson to the point, and Tyson, I believe, used to, in fact, get extremely sick before his fights, much like Dean Martin before big performances or any performances, up until the very end, Dean Martin would, in fact, vomit backstage. But Tyson would start off
6:11 Tim Ferriss? very afraid, in effect, and work himself up to the point that gradually, by the time he proceeded to the ring, he believed he was himself a god. Now, I'm not recommending that necessarily, but the point being, the hero and the coward feel the same thing. It's what they do with that fear that makes them different.
6:32 Tim Ferriss? Give discomfort its due. Do you have any ask or request for all the people listening?
6:41 Brené Brown? I would just say, keep being part of the conversation about these tougher, about these tougher topics, about vulnerability, about shame, about being brave. Just lean into some discomfort, because I think these, what's the seemingly impossible problems that we have around race and homophobia and the environment,
7:09 Brené Brown? and just the lack of love sometimes are not going to be solved in a comfortable way. We can't, we've got to, you know, you have to choose comfort or courage. You just can't have both. So I guess my ask would be more of a big metaphysical ask that, give vulnerability a shot, you know, and give discomfort its due. Because I think there is a really strong relationship between your willingness, he or she who's willing to be the most uncomfortable is not only the bravest, but rises the fastest.
7:44 Tim Ferriss? My commentary. For what it is worth, because thousands of people have highlighted this. One of the most common Kindle highlights from the Four Hour Work Week is actually very complimentary to this. And it is, quote, "A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have." And in fact, when I am perhaps vacillating between to-do items or wondering what the most important thing is on my to-do list, it is generally that which makes me the most uncomfortable.
8:21 Tim Ferriss? When I had the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort? Brene actually flew under the radar for a very long time until she came across Theodore Roosevelt's Teddy's famous arena quote. And I'm just going to give you a piece of it here. And that is, 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." And there's more to it, of course. She decided at that point to teach as a public figure, to step out of, not the shadows necessarily, but the corners into the light, despite hurtful online comments and attacks.
9:07 Brené Brown? In that moment, what I realized is, you know what? I do want to live a brave life. I do want to live in the arena. And if you're going to live in the arena, the only guarantee is you will get your ass kicked. And the second thing is that daring greatly is being vulnerable. So when you ask yourself, did I dare greatly today? The big question I ask is, did I, when I had the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort?
9:37 Tim Ferriss? My commentary. This is a great question also for daily review. For instance, as part of the PM review, using something like the Five Minute Journal or other evening journaling.
9:51 Tim Ferriss? How that translates to more than 30 million video views.
9:55 Brené Brown? I went to the TED event and I experimented. I really kind of put myself out there. I talked about my own breakdown, spiritual awakening. I talked about having to go to therapy and how much I really hated that. I kind of thought it was bullshit, but like I had to do it. And I really put myself out there. And I remember driving home and thinking, I will never do that again.
10:20 Tim Ferriss? She then watched the popularity of her video absolutely explode, now totaling more than 31 million views on ted.com and YouTube.
10:29 Brené Brown? And so if I look back, so my learning, my takeaway from that experience was this.
10:37 Brené Brown? If I'm not a little bit nauseous when I'm done, I probably did not show up like I should have shown up.
10:51 Tim Ferriss? One of her rules for public speaking: house lights.
10:55 Brené Brown? So when I rehearse, in the traditional way we think about rehearsing, it's about what I'm gonna say and what I'm gonna say it and how I'm gonna say it. And so if I do that, what ends up happening, and I've tried a couple of times, I get so like prefrontal cortex, I get so wrapped up in, "Oh, wasn't I supposed to pause here? And wasn't I supposed to do this there?" That I am not, I'm not connecting. And so for me, it is use images as the arc, understand what image, every image means to me, and what I want to wrap around that image, and then require that the house lights are on so I can see people's faces.
11:39 Tim Ferriss? That's a good rule. That's a really good rule.
11:42 Brené Brown? Yeah, so that thing where they're, you know, and I rarely, rarely allow any of my presentations to be videotaped.
11:50 Brené Brown? Very, very rarely, because, one, if they're taping you, you have to be super hot under the lights and the audience has to be dark. And then it's performance, not connection, for me.
12:05 Tim Ferriss? Shame versus guilt.
12:07 Brené Brown? And shame and guilt are very different. Shame is, I am a bad person. Guilt is, I did something bad. So you go out on Thursday night, you get wasted, you're so hungover on Friday, you sleep through your alarm clock, you miss a really important meeting, you get to work late on Friday and your self-talk is, "Jesus, I'm a loser. I'm an idiot. I'm such a loser." That's shame. If you get to work on Friday, same scenario, and your self-talk is, "Dude, I cannot believe I did that. That was such a lame thing to do. That was such a stupid thing to do." The difference is, shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior.
12:48 Tim Ferriss? To be trusted, be vulnerable.
12:51 Brené Brown? It's interesting that you talk about, you know, daily practices because I think vulnerability is a daily practice. And for a lot of us, you know, at least for me, when it, when it was new, it was about trying on new ways of being and kind of testing it out. One of the things that emerged from the data is this, this idea of trust and the relationship between trust and vulnerability. And people always ask me, you gain trust first and then you're vulnerable with people. But the truth is, you can't really earn trust over time with people without being somewhat vulnerable.
13:27 Tim Ferriss? My commentary. You should also check out, you can find all these episodes at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast, but Gabby Reese's advice to go first, as well as Neil Strauss's pre-interview approach, which I cover in the text version and hopefully soon, the audio version of Tools of Titans. So check that out.
13:49 Tim Ferriss? Who do you think of when you hear the word "successful"?
13:54 Brené Brown? You know what's so weird? I don't picture anybody. I, I picture the word redefine. That, that is such a, that has been such a dangerous word in my research, the word "successful",
14:06 Tim Ferriss? Yep.
14:06 Brené Brown? or success.
14:07 Tim Ferriss? I agree.
14:08 Brené Brown? That I don't even use it anymore. Because what does that mean? Like, okay, so I am the CEO of this company. I make a shit ton of money. This is my title. This is the influence and power I have. I'm on my fourth marriage and no relationship with my adult children.
14:27 Tim Ferriss? Right.
14:28 Brené Brown? So I, I think when I hear the word "successful," my answer is be clear that your ladder is leaning against the right building.
14:39 Tim Ferriss? Do you have any advice or what advice would you give to your 30-year-old self?
14:44 Brené Brown? It's okay to be afraid. You don't have to be so scary when you're scared.
14:50 Tim Ferriss? Huh. Meaning what? Put on, put on airs of confidence and overconfidence?
14:55 Brené Brown? Yes. Yes. Like the 30s are so exhausting. It's like the age of, yeah, and it is, it's the age of perfecting, proving, pretending. And there's some liberation that can't, you know, for me that came in my 40s. There was a breakdown, of course, but followed by some liberation that came in my 40s. So I would just say, stop hustling.
15:18 Tim Ferriss? And now we have a bonus for those of you who may be interested. This is the first chapter of Tools of Titans. Contains some good quotes, some of my favorites. It contains some background on me that you may not be familiar with, as well as some concepts and so on that you can apply without even reading the book. If you're one of those bad people who's not gonna even consider it. So let's jump right into it. We'll start with some quotes. Quote, "Out on the edge, you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. Big, undreamed-of things. The people on the edge see them first." Kurt Vonnegut. Quote, "Routine in an intelligent man is a sign of ambition." End quote. W. H. Auden.
16:00 Tim Ferriss? "I am a compulsive note taker. To wit, I've recorded nearly every workout since age 18 or so. Roughly eight feet of shell space in my home is occupied by spine upon spine of notebook upon notebook. That, mind you, is just one subject. It extends to dozens. Some people would call that OCD. A lot of my friends do. And many would consider it a manic wild goose chase. But I view it simply. It is the collection of my life's recipes. My goal is to learn things once so that I can use them forever. For example, let's say I stumble upon a picture of myself from June 5, 2007, and I think, I really wish I looked like that again. Well, no problem. I crack open a dusty volume from 2007, review
16:41 Tim Ferriss? the eight weeks of training and food logs preceding June 5, repeat them, and voila, I end up looking nearly the same." As my younger self, minus the hair, probably. It's not always that easy, but it often is. Tools of Titans, like my other books, is a compendium of recipes for high performance that I gathered for my own use. This is very important. It was to scratch my own itch. There's one big difference, though. I never planned on publishing this one. As I write this, I'm sitting in a cafe in Paris overlooking the Luxembourg Garden, just off of Rue Saint Jacques. Rue Saint Jacques is likely the oldest road in Paris, and it has a very rich literary history. Victor Hugo lived a few blocks from where I'm sitting. Gertrude Stein drank coffee.
17:25 Tim Ferriss? F. Scott Fitzgerald socialized within a stone's throw. Hemingway himself wandered up and down the sidewalks, his books percolating in his mind, wine, no doubt, percolating in his blood. I came to France to take a break from everything. Everything. And by that, I mean no social media, no email, no social commitments, no set plans, except for one project. The month had been sent aside to review all of the lessons I'd learned from nearly 200 world-class performers I'd interviewed on The Tim Ferriss Show, my podcast, which is now more than 100 million downloads. The guests included chess prodigies, movie stars, four-star generals, pro athletes, and hedge fund managers, just to name a few. It's a broad spectrum, and it was a motley crew.
18:09 Tim Ferriss? More than a handful of them had since become collaborators in business and creative projects spanning from investments to indie film. And as a result, I'd absorbed a lot of their wisdom outside of our recordings, whether over workouts, wine-infused jam sessions, text message exchanges, dinners, or late-night phone calls. And in every case, I'd gotten to know them well beyond the superficial headlines in the media. My life had already improved in every area as a result of the lessons I could remember, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of the jams were still lodged in thousands upon thousands of pages of transcripts, and I literally mean 10,000-plus pages of transcripts and hand-scribbled notes because of all that I'd learned outside of the recordings. And more than anything, I longed for the chance to distill everything into a playbook.
18:54 Tim Ferriss? So I'd set aside an entire month for review, and if I'm being honest, lots of chocolate croissants, to put together the ultimate Cliff Notes for myself. It would be the notebook to end all notebooks, something that could help me in minutes and be read for a lifetime. That was the lofty goal. At least, and I wasn't sure what the result would be exactly. But within weeks of starting, the experience exceeded all expectations. No matter the situation I found myself in, something in this book, meaning Tools of Titans, was able to help. Now, when I'm feeling stuck, trapped, desperate, angry, conflicted, or simply unclear, the first thing I do is flip through these pages with a strong cup of coffee in hand. And so far, the needed medicine has popped out within about 20 minutes
19:39 Tim Ferriss? of revisiting these friends who will now become your friends. You need a reassuring pat on the back? There's someone for that. An unapologetic slap in the face? Plenty of people for that, too. Someone to explain why your fears are unfounded or why your excuses are bullshit? Done. Plenty of people to help. There are a lot of powerful quotes, but this book is much more than a compilation of quotes. It is a toolkit for changing your life. Because there are many books full of interviews. This is different because I don't view myself as an interviewer. I view myself as an experimenter. If I can't test something or replicate results in the messy reality of everyday life, I'm just not interested. Everything in these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life in some fashion. I've used dozens of these tactics and philosophies
20:24 Tim Ferriss? in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration. They work when you need them most. Some applications are obvious at first glance, while others are subtle and will provoke something like a "holy shit, now I get it!" realization weeks later, while you're daydreaming in the shower or about to fall asleep. Many of the one-liners teach volumes. Some summarize excellence in an entire field in one sentence. As Josh Waitzkin, chess prodigy and the inspiration behind Searching for Bobby Fischer, might put it, "These bite-sized learnings are a way to, quote, 'learn the macro from the micro,' end quote." The process of piecing them together was revelatory for me.
21:07 Tim Ferriss? If I thought I saw The Matrix before, I was mistaken or I was only seeing 10% of it. Still, even that 10%, these islands of notes on individual mentors had already changed my life and helped me 10x my results. But after revisiting more than 100 minds as part of the same fabric, things got very interesting very quickly. For the movie nerds among you, it's like the end of The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects. The red doorknob, the fucking Kobayashi coffee cup. How did I not notice that it was right in front of me the whole time? Well, that's how I felt. And some piecing together patterns that sometimes occurred a year and a half, two years apart. To help you see the same, I've done my best to weave patterns together throughout the book, noting where guests have complimentary habits, beliefs, and recommendations.
21:51 Tim Ferriss? The completed jigsaw puzzle is much greater than the sum of its parts. So what makes these people different? Well, we'll start with a quote. Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers. And that is Pierre Marc Gaston de Levis. Or Levy, I don't know how to pronounce the French. Despite my time in Paris, I've been trying. These world-class performers do not have superpowers. Very, very important. The rules they've crafted for themselves allow the bending of reality to such an extent that it may seem that way, but they've learned how to do this, and so can you. These rules are often simply uncommon habits and bigger questions. In a surprising number of cases, the power is in the absurd.
22:32 Tim Ferriss? The more absurd, the more impossible seeming the question, the more profound the answers. Take, for instance, a question that serial billionaire Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and others. If you have a 10-year plan of how to get somewhere, you should ask, why can't you do this in six months? Okay, so back to me. For purposes of illustration, I might reword that, and I often do to myself. What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next six months if you had a gun against your head? Now, let's pause for a second. Do I expect you to take 10 seconds to ponder this and then magically accomplish 10 years' worth of dreams in the next few months? No, I don't expect that. But I do expect that the question will productively break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities.
23:17 Tim Ferriss? In other words, the normal systems that you have in place, the social rules that you've forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks, all of your assumptions that you've carried with you, they don't work when answering a question like this. You're forced to shed artificial constraints. And you realize that you've had the ability to renegotiate reality all along. In many cases, and you'll come up with a list of different options, maybe 90% of them are completely worthless, but it is the 10% that could completely change your life and business. All of this just takes practice. My suggestion is that you spend real time with the questions you'll find the most ridiculous in this book. 30 minutes of stream of consciousness journaling, which I detail more on page 224, could change your life completely.
24:02 Tim Ferriss? On top of that, while the world is a gold mine, you need to go digging in other people's heads to unearth riches. Questions are your pickaxes and competitive advantage. This book will give you an arsenal of questions to choose from. "Performance Enhancing Details," that's the subheading. And when organizing all of this material for myself, I didn't want an onerous 37-step program or something like that. I wanted low-hanging fruit with immediate returns. Think of bite-sized rules within these pages as PEDs. That usually stands for performance-enhancing drugs, but here it stands for performance-enhancing details. They can be added to any training regimen, so just think different careers, personal
24:43 Tim Ferriss? preferences, unique responsibilities, et cetera, to pour gasoline on the fire of progress. So whether you have a mortgage and a bunch of kids, or no mortgage and no kids, all of these, or many of them, can be applied to your unique situation. And fortunately, 10x results don't always require 10x effort. Big changes can come in very, very small packages to dramatically change things for you. You don't necessarily need to run 100-mile race, get a PhD, or completely reinvent yourself. It's the small things, the very small things, done consistently, that are the big things. For instance, practicing red teaming once per quarter, as say, a General Stanley McChrystal or a Mark Andreessen might more often.
25:23 Tim Ferriss? You could listen to Tara Brock's guided meditations, like Maria Popova does, and credits it with changing her life. Specifically, 2010 Smile Meditation by Tara Brock, which you can find online for free. Strategic fasting or exogenous ketones. These are things that do not take a lot of effort whatsoever, and you can test them very quickly. You could test them tomorrow. You could test them this week. And then you throw a lot against the wall and you figure out quickly what works for you. Tool here, as in Tools of Titans, is defined very broadly in this book. It includes routines, books, common self-talk, supplements, favorite questions, and a lot more. What do these people have in common?
26:04 Tim Ferriss? Well, in this book, you'll naturally look for common habits and recommendations, and you should do that. Here are a few patterns, some of them odder than others. More than 80% of the interviewees have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice. So we talk about a lot of different options. A surprising number of males, not females, over 45, never eat breakfast or eat just one meal per day. That includes Laird Hamilton, the undisputed king of big wave surfing, General Stanley McChrystal, and so on. There are probably a dozen or more examples of that. Many use the Chili Pad device for cooling at bedtime to find their optimal sleeping temperature.
26:44 Tim Ferriss? Rave reviews of books like Sapiens, Poor Charlie's Almanack, Influence, and Man's Search for Meaning, among others. And there are some very, very odd documentaries that pop up repeatedly as a favorite, including many I had never heard of. Here's a new one. The habit of listening to a single song on repeat for focus, almost like an external mantra. Nearly everyone has done some form of spec work. They've completed projects on their own time and dime, then submitted them to prospective buyers. The belief, of course, philosophies and foundational beliefs are tools, that failure is not durable, or variants thereof, Robert Rodriguez. Robert Rodriguez is a good example of that.
27:28 Tim Ferriss? And almost every guest has been able to take obvious weaknesses, weaknesses, they've been told their weaknesses, and turn them into huge competitive advantages. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be one example. Dan Carlin, who is the creator of my favorite podcast, Hardcore History, would even say, "Copyright your faults." And he goes into the entire story of how he did that in radio leading up to podcasting. Now, of course, I will try to help you connect all of these dots, spot these types of patterns. But that's less than half of the value of everything that we'll discuss. Some of the most encouraging workarounds are found in the outliers. It's very important to look for the outliers and not throw out the baby with the bathwater just because they seem odd.
28:10 Tim Ferriss? I want you to look for the black sheep who fit your unique idiosyncrasies. Keep an eye out for the non-traditional paths like Shay Carl's journey from manual laborer to YouTube star to co-founder of a startup sold for nearly a billion dollars. The variation is the consistency, as a software engineer might say. That's not a bug, that's a feature. So borrow liberally, combine uniquely, and create your own bespoke blueprint. That is how this works. All right, now, the following that I'm going to read is specific to the book, but it's not specific to the book. It actually applies to a lot more. So first of all, this book is a buffet, and here's how to get the most of it. It's a 704-page book, but I don't expect anyone to read the entire thing.
28:54 Tim Ferriss? And in fact, if you were to only read 100 pages and pick your favorites and dip in and dip out, which is how it's designed, like a chooser in an adventure book, I would be thrilled. So, rule number one, skip liberally. I want you to skip anything that doesn't grab you. It should be fun to read, and you shouldn't suffer through anything. If you hate shrimp, don't eat the goddamn shrimp in the buffet. Skip it. And my goal is for each reader to like 50% of the book, love 25% of the book, and never forget 10%. Here's why. For the millions who've heard the podcast and the dozens who proofread this book, that split was completely different for every person. It blew me away. I've had multiple guests in this book, people who are the best at what they do, proofread the exact same profile for me, answering the question of which 10% would
29:39 Tim Ferriss? you absolutely keep and which 10% would you absolutely cut? And oftentimes, the 10% must-keep of one Titan was exactly the must-cut of someone else. So this is not one-size-fits-all. I expect you to discard plenty, so you should read what you enjoy. Rule number two, and this applies to a lot more than this book. Skip, but do so intelligently.
30:02 Tim Ferriss? Okay, so take a brief mental note of anything you skip. Perhaps put a little dot in the corner of the page or highlight the headline. Could it be that skipping and glossing over precisely these topics or questions has created blind spots, bottlenecks, and unresolved issues in your life? That was certainly true for me. When I looked at what I was habitually skipping, it reminded me of a question from Tara Brock, which relayed the question of a mystic who said, "There's really only one question worth asking. What is it that you are unwilling to feel?" Okay? If you decide to flip past something, note it, return to it later at some point, and ask, "Why did I skip this?" For instance, did it offend you? Did it seem beneath you? Seemed too difficult? And did you arrive at that by thinking it through yourself? Or is it a reflection of biases inherited
30:47 Tim Ferriss? from your parents, family, friends, and others? Very often, our so-called beliefs are not our own at all. This type of practice is how you create yourself instead of seeking to discover yourself. There is value in the latter, this discovery, but it's mostly past tense. It's a rear-view mirror. Looking out the windshield is how you get where you want to go. Now, just remember two principles. And this applies to much more than this book. I was recently standing in Place Louis Aragon. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but I'll give it a shot. It's a shaded outdoor nook on the River Seine having a picnic with writing students from the Paris American Academy. One woman pulled me aside, glass of wine in hand,
31:29 Tim Ferriss? and asked what I hope to convey in this book at its core. Now, seconds later, we were pulled back into the fray as the attendees were taking turns talking about the circuitous paths that brought them there that day. Nearly everyone had a story of wanting to come to Paris for years, in some cases, 30 or 40 years, but assuming it was impossible. And I listened to their stories, and I was struck by a few things. I pulled out a scrap of paper and I jotted down my answer to her question. And remember that was, "What did I hope to convey in this book at the core?" And I decided that I wanted to convey the following. Two principles. Number one, success, however you define that, is achievable if you collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits.
32:13 Tim Ferriss? Someone else has done your version of success before, and often many have done something similar. But, you might ask, what about a first, like colonizing Mars? Well, that is not an out. There are still recipes. Look at empire-building of other types. Look at the biggest decisions in the life of Robert Moses, for instance. If you read The Power Broker, another fantastic book. Or simply find someone who stepped up to do great things that were deemed impossible at the time, like Walt Disney. Many of the people in the book actually have done a lot of reading on Walt Disney, like Mark Andreessen, even if they're at the cutting edge of technology today, which Walt Disney was in his time. There is shared DNA that you can borrow. Principle number two. The superheroes that you have in your mind, those might be idols, icons, titans, billionaires,
32:57 Tim Ferriss? whoever, are nearly all walking flaws who've maximized one or two strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures, and I really want to remedy the problem of people romanticizing those folks you might see on magazine covers and putting them on a pedestal. You don't succeed because you have no weaknesses. You succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them. To make this excruciatingly crystal clear, I've deliberately included two sections in this book, on pages 197 and 616, that will make you think to yourself, wow, Tim Ferriss is a mess. How the hell does he ever get anything done?
33:40 Tim Ferriss? Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so I wanted to tell you about some of mine, and what my down days look like, my bad days, and some of my darkest periods, and how I get out of them. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles, so take solace in that. Now, the next section is on format. I'm not going to talk a lot about it because it's really more relevant when you're going through the text, but there's a lot of humor. I point out a lot of patterns and there's a lot of original material. The book is comprised of three sections: healthy, wealthy, and wise. It's a nod to Ben Franklin and on top of that, it's actually a very, very clean way to organize the advice from all these people. Of course, there's tremendous overlap across the sections as all of these are interdependent.
34:23 Tim Ferriss? In fact, you could think of the three as a tripod upon which life is balanced. One needs all three: healthy, wealthy, and wise, right? Health, wealth, and wisdom to have any sustained success or happiness. And wealthy, in the context of this book, also means a lot more than money. It extends to abundance and time, relationships, and more. My original intention with The Four Hour Work Week, The Four Hour Body, and The Four Hour Chef was to create a trilogy themed, like I mentioned, after Ben Franklin's famous quote, "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Even though I don't really wake up that early. People constantly ask me, "What would you put in The Four Hour Work Week if you were to write it again? How would you update it?" And they ask me the same thing for The Four Hour Body and The Four Hour Chef.
35:05 Tim Ferriss? Tools of Titans is, in effect, my answers for all three. So you could think of Tools of Titans as the follow-up, the sequel to all three books at once. Okay, we're wrapping up shortly here. So my send-off to you, the three tools that allow all the rest, and I'm going to do a little trial run of acting as audiobook narrator in this one with trying to voice different characters. We'll see how that goes. All right, here we go. So Siddhartha by Herman Hess is recommended by many, many yeses in this book. There's one takeaway that Naval Ravikant, who is one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley, quietly dominating many aspects of that entire game,
35:50 Tim Ferriss? and really a philosopher-king in his own domain in a lot of respects. He would never say that, but I will. He is reinforced with me several times. By the way, side note, when my Jamie Foxx episode won Podcast of the Year in 2015, second place was Naval Ravikant, a name that almost nobody knew, just based on the caliber and quality of the content that he talked about and discussed and shared in that episode. So he's an incredible guy. But he's reinforced with me personally several times on our long walks. A story and the protagonist Siddhartha, a monk who looks like a beggar, is that he's come to the city and he falls in love with a famous courtesan named Kamala.
36:33 Tim Ferriss? He attempts to court her and she asks, "What do you have?" A well-known merchant similarly asks, "What can you give that you have learned?" His answer is the same in both cases, so I've included the latter story here. Siddhartha ultimately acquires all that he wants. Okay, that's, that's critical. He starts off with very, very humble beginnings. Now, here we go, let's try this out. All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you who's talking first. Here's the merchant.
37:02 Speaker 00 If you are without possessions, how can you give?
37:06 Tim Ferriss? Siddhartha. Everyone gives what he has. The soldier gives strength, the merchant gives goods, the teacher instruction, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.
37:15 Speaker 00 Well, very well, and what can you give? What have you learned that you can give?
37:20 Tim Ferriss? I can think, I can wait, I can fast.
37:24 Speaker 00 Is that all?
37:26 Tim Ferriss? I think that is all.
37:28 Speaker 00 And what use are they? For instance, fasting, what good is that?
37:32 Tim Ferriss? I don't know why I'm making him from New Jersey, but that's okay. It is of great value, sir. If a man has nothing to eat, fasting is the most intelligent thing he can do. For instance, if Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would have had to seek some kind of work today, either from you or elsewhere, for hunger would have driven him. But as it is, Siddhartha can wait calmly. He's not impatient, he's not in need, he can ward off hunger for a long time and laugh at it. Okay, that's the end of that exchange. And back to Tim here. I think of Siddhartha's answers often in the following terms. I can think. What does that mean? Because you'll recall, he was asked, "What can he give? What can he teach? What can he give?" I can think, I can wait, I can fast. All right. I can think.
38:17 Tim Ferriss? This means having good rules for decision making and having good questions you can ask yourself and others. I can wait. This to me means being able to play the long game, plan long term, and not misallocate your resources. I can fast. This means to me, being able to withstand difficulties and disaster. It means training yourself to be uncommonly resilient and to have a high pain tolerance. This book will help you to develop all three of these things in spades. I created Tools of Titans because it's the book that I've wanted my entire life. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
38:58 Tim Ferriss? And I close off with Pura Vida from the land of Costa Rica, of course. Pura Vida, signed. Tim Ferriss, Paris, France. So, thank you for listening to that, folks. And I suggest, I implore, I would so much enjoy if you check out Tools of Titans. It is available everywhere. You can find sample chapters at toolsoftitans.com, including the foreword by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Please consider it for yourself and for those you care about. It is extremely, extremely extensive and easy to read. It's fun. It's the first book that I've enjoyed writing. So, there you have it. Toolsoftitans.com. It's also available at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Amazon, iBooks, IndieBound, Indigo, everywhere.
39:41 Tim Ferriss? So, as always, and until next time, guys, thank you for listening. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared.
40:26 Tim Ferriss? With my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by MeUndies. If I'm not going commando, I'm in MeUndies. I have been testing these underwear for three to four months now, pretty much every day. And in fact, threw out a bunch of my other underwear this morning. And on the road, in the house, they are extremely comfortable. They look good, feel good. They are made of micro modal, two times softer than cotton, as scientifically tested
41:11 Tim Ferriss? using the Kaabata method. Sounds very fancy, of course. And I get a lot of compliments from ladies for these. You don't get diaper butt, you don't get the tired elastic band. They look great and they have underwear for both men and women. Check out meundies.com/tim and you can see everything I've been wearing. They're ridiculous, the sublime, everything in between, including my favorite, which is called out. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention their lounge pants. This is a new thing and I've been wearing their lounge pants when I record podcasts. I've been wearing them out and about when I'm walking the dog, meeting people for coffee. And they are extremely comfortable, though they're made from the same material as the
41:52 Tim Ferriss? underwear, but some of them, like the blue ones I have, have pockets so you can walk about without seeming like you're off of your meds and completely crazy. So that is awesome. And if you're not happy with the first pair you try on, I assume that refers to the underwear, they'll refund you completely and you can keep the pair you tried on for free. But if you're that kind of person, you should be ashamed because that's disgusting. MeUndies.com/tim, check it out.
42:17 Tim Ferriss? This episode is brought to you by Audible, which I've used for years. I love audiobooks, and I have two to recommend right off the bat. Number one is perhaps my favorite audiobook of all time, and that is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The only audiobook I've wanted to immediately listen to a second time as soon as I finished. It's amazing, you will thank me, The Graveyard Book. The second is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which had a huge impact on my life and formed the basis for a lot of what became The Four Hour Work Week. So, all you need to do to get your free 30-day trial is go to audible.com/tim, and you can choose one of those two books, or you can choose from more great options than you can possibly imagine.
43:00 Tim Ferriss? So that could be a book, that could be a magazine, that could be a newspaper, it could be a class. It's that easy. Go to audible.com/tim. That's audible.com/tim, and grab a book. Enjoy.
Previous #206: Testing the "Impossible": 17 Questions That Changed My Life Next #208: Ezra Klein -- From College Blogger to Political Powerhouse Page updated September 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
