My notes on Tools of Titans

I just finished the big tome of a book, titled "Tools of Titans" by Tim Ferriss. If you're into self help books, you cannot avoid reading his books. This book is a series of summary from all his 200+ podcasts (each 2 hrs+ long) condensed into one big compendium, divided into 3 broad sections of health, wealth and wise. As a financial blogger, you might think I'll dive straight into the wealth part, but I read it from cover to cover. I think I do take in a lot of tips and pointers from the health section, and am currently practicing some of them.

This is the first time I did two rounds of reading plus note taking, because there's so much new information inside that you not only have to read it, but study it. So after every section, I'll re-read again while taking notes. The following are my notes. I'm sharing not because you don't have to read the book, but more to interest and perhaps excite you to read that book for yourself.

I highlighted the ones that resonate with me more strongly. I really really like the last highlight.


Healthy:

1. "I can think, I can wait and I can fast" ~ Siddhartha

2. "I'm not the strongest. I'm not the fastest. But I'm really good at suffering". Using sauna training as a replacement for high altitude simulation tents. 4 times a week - Amelia Boone

3. "When in doubt, work on the deficiencies you're most embarrassed by". Having one single decision to commit yourself to a long term goal and not a series of smaller intermediate goals. Just show up, do the work and go home - blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. - Christopher Sommer

4. Ketosis for health and longevity, fasting (5-day) 2 to 3 times a year for purging precancerous cells - Dominic D'Agostino

5. Cold is a great purifying force - Wim Hof

6. Don't eat breakfast. Be careful of blood test results as they are snapshots in time. If over 40 and don't smoke, there is 80% chance you'll still die from the major 4: heart disease, strokes, cancer and neurodegenerative disease. High intensity heavy strength training is the way to losing weight, not running. - Peter Attia

7. "A good strength coach should get a female, no matter what her body fat is, to be able to do 12 chin ups in 12 weeks. Do increase pull up numbers, start doing half the reps you're capable of in repeated sets throughout the day. Accumulate reps with 15 min between sets. For maximal strength training, do not exceed 5 reps per set. "Calm is contagious" - Charles Poliquin

8. Practice going first - once you start, others will reciprocate, but be the first. Exercise with a group because a lonely place is an unmotivated place. Find your own tribe to exercise. Weighing sacrifices based on individual - the same thing can be a 80% cost to one, yet a 35% cost to another. - Gabby Reece

9. Almost all that you need to know about psychedelic is here - James Fadiman

10. Use of flotation isolation tank as a meditation substitute. Taking Ayahuasca without proper guidance can be like playing psychological Russian roulette. Ibogaine is one of the few psychedelics that can kill you. - Dan Engle

11. For men, whether you have morning boner can be a simple but excellent indicator of sleep quality, hormonal health, circadian rhythm timing and more. Campfire squat test - squatting all the way down to the ground with your feet and knees together - can be an indicator of whether you have full hip/ankle range of motion. Go 'Zero drop' for you kids - meaning get shoes that are flat for them, like kids Vans, Chuck Taylors - so that you don't systematically shorten your kids' heel cords with bad shoes - Kelly Starrett

12. "Kids don't do what you say. They do what they see. How you live your life is their example". To overcome jet lag, do some exercise for 15 mins at any time when you get to the hotel. Dream or a goal - questions to see if you have a plan to convert your dreams to goals. "To develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight."  - Paul Levesque (Triple H)

13. Playing Tetris for 10 mins can help in overwriting negative visualisation, like onset insomnia, flashbacks or post traumatic stress disorder. Never publicly criticise others, or you'll rule out future allies. - Jane McGonigal

14. He hires people based on what gets them excited in the morning, rather than a list of resume check boxes. Adam Gazzaley

15. 5 tools to sleep better - 1) Decompress the spine, 2) Chilipad, 3) Honey + apple cider vinegar, 4) visual overwriting using Tetris (10 min) or short uplifting episodic tv like Escape to river cottage season 1, 5) using sleep mask and white noise machine. 5 morning rituals to help win the day - 1) Make your bed, 2) meditate, 3) Do 5 to 10 reps of something, 4) preparing tea, 5) Gratitude exercise. Meditation - 1) use an app like headspace or calm, 2) transcendental meditation. Need to commit to at least a 7 day cycle of daily meditation with about 10 mins minimally. 99% of meditation time is letting the mud settle, only 1% matters - Tim Ferriss

16. 3 meditation tips: 1) Do it with a buddy, 2) Do less than you can so that it will not be a burden (do 3 mins if you can do 5), 3) Take one mindful breath a day. Two important exercises - "Just note gone" (be aware of something being gone and mentally note that it had gone) and "Joy of loving-kindness" (wishing random people to be happy) - Chade-Meng Tan

Wealthy:

1. When the going gets tough, say to yourself that "tonight, I will be in my bed". Cultivate a beginner's mind. Focus on the story, not just the numbers. - Chris Sacca

2. Charge a higher price for your products/services, then work hard to provide that value. Don't fetishize failure. To see your passion, ask yourself what you do in your free time - aka "Nerds at night" test. Set up a 'red team' to argue for the other side of any proposal. Have strong views, but hold them loosely - contradictory statement but the idea is to change when the facts change. Two rules to live by: be so good they can't ignore you and smart people should make things. People who are on pedestals are just like us, don't overestimate them. - Marc Andreesen

3. Don't be there to compete, be there to win. In negotiation, he who cares the least wins. Never audition, create your own unique niche and start your own category - Arnold Schwarzenegger

4. To thrive in an unknowable future, choose the plan with the most options and one that allows you to change your plans. When you start out, say yes to everything, because you never know when the next big break will come from. After you have some success, if it's not a 'hell, yes!', then it's a 'no'. If you're busy, you're out of control. Don't use 100% effort to gain 100% gains at the expense of a more stressful journey. Instead, working at 80% effort makes the journey less stressful, more enjoyable and maybe get 80% of the gains. The extra 20% gains is not worth it. Personalise your website and email and stand out among the rest of the people with bureaucratic and 'professional' responses. - Derek Sivers

5. The bar is set so low that if you give a lot of damns, you'll stand out. Let silence do the work when expressing skepticism - Alexis Ohanian

6. "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 exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right." - by Neil Gaiman.

7. Busyness is a form of laziness. Being busy is often using as a front to avoid a few important and uncomfortable actions. - Tim Ferriss

8. One push up rule for exercise. Set the bar so low that there's no excuse not to do it. Oftentimes, you'll exceed it - a 'system' way of looking, instead of 'process' based. - Matt Mullengweg

9. Quality of your life is the quality of your questions - questions determine your focus. Too much focus on 'me' results in suffering. State -> story -> strategy: If you're not in prime state, you'll focus on problems not solutions. Prime your state by doing 4-10 push ups or getting 20 mins of sun exposure, or just some more sleep. Sometimes the way out is just to fix your biochemistry, aka changing your state. - Tony Robbins

10. When in doubt about your next creative project, follow what angers you. “You realize that you will never be the best-looking person in the room. You’ll never be the smartest person in the room. You’ll never be the most educated, the most well-versed. You can never compete on those levels. But what you can always compete on, the true egalitarian aspect to success, is hard work. You can always work harder than the next guy.” The ultimate quantification of success is not how much time you spend doing what you love, but how little time you spend doing what you hate. - Casey Neistat

11. You can't be afraid to show your scars, because that's who you are and you have to stay true to that - Morgan Spurlock

12. "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" - Ludwig Wittgenstein. Give the mind an overnight task and let your subconscious work on a problem. To move fast, expect an error rate of 10 to 20%. If you need more time to think and decide, then it should be a better decision by 10 to 20%. Seek a single good reason for doing something, rather than a blended reasons. If there is one single good reason, all the other reasons can fit in between the good one - Reid Hoffman

13. There is no need to wait: if you have a 10 year plan, ask yourself why you can't do it in 6 months. Failure is massively over-rated and failure is always a tragedy. Competition can take you away from actually being successful because you're so mired in the daily fight that you didn't improve on what can bring you to your own success. Don't win the competition but lose your fight. - Peter Thiel

14. Be a meaningful specific rather than a wandering generality - be sure to say no if it doesn't align with your mission. If you get enough bad ideas, then some good ones will have to show you. Don't always look for something to push uphill, even if you can do it. Look for something to push downhill, and you'll use less effort for greater results.- Seth Godin

15. If you can't get 10 good ideas, get 20 ideas. Avoid newspaper - many productive people also do that. You don't owe an explanation to everyone when you say no - James Altucher

16. How to create a real world MBA by deconstructing it first principle - Tim Ferriss

17. 6 elements of humor - 1) Naughty, 2) Clever, 3) Cute, 4) Bizarre, 5) Mean and 6) Recognizable. You need at least 2 dimensions to succeed. Focus on systems not goals. Systems thinking means you're thinking of what skills or relationships you can develop that is transferable. Goals thinking is binary pass/fail with no consolation prize. Practice affirmations, it works. To be extraordinary, either become the best at one specific thing or become very good at two or more things. The latter is easier because not a lot of people have that rare combination of skills. - Scott Adams

18. Saying yes can sometimes lead to wildly unexpected doors to huge payout - Shaun White

19. In the world of ideas, if you can name an issue, you get to own the issue - that's the Law of Category. Create your own category and own that unique niche - Tim Ferriss

20. Creativity is infinite resource - the more you spend the more you have. If someone ever says yes quickly, you didn't ask for enough. Go for premium straight away. Amplify your strengths rather than fixing your weakness. “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” by Heinlein - Chase Jarvis

21. Don't be afraid to do what you're not qualified to do. - Dan Carlin

22. Have 1000 true fans who would buy anything you make - they are your source of income and also your chief marketing force. If you understand principles you can create tactics. Give away 98% of your materials for free, but charge 10 to 100 times on ultra premium stuff and over deliver. Ramit Sethi

23. How to raise $100k in 10 day in kickstarter - Tim Ferriss

24. Asking the dumb question can be the smartest thing you can do. How to interview someone properly. - Alex Blumberg

25. What artist do is that they learn to see - Ed Catmull

26. When you complain, nobody wants to help you because you become a source of destruction rather than a source of growth for people. Pick the right audience to suck in front of, so that you can practice for the really important one. We just need 1 good break - Tracy Dinunzio

27. Rule of 3 and 10: everything thing starts to break down every time you triple in size. You start with 1, then at 3, it starts to break down. You adjust and when you grow up to 10, things break down again at 30,then 100, then 300 and so on. - Phil Libin

28. Take the coffee challenge - just ask for 10% off for your next few coffees as a training to put yourself out there and ask for things. Don't find time, schedule time. - Noah Kagan

29. Canvas strategy -Be an anteambulo and clear path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself. Finding the direction that someone successful had already intended to head and help them to pack , freeing them up to focus on their strengths. Make them look better than they are. Be lesser, do more. Don't let your ego prevent you from being humble. Be the canvas that shapes the painting. - Tim Ferriss

30. First edit for yourself, then edit for your fans, and lastly edit for your haters. In interviews, be vulnerable first to get vulnerability from your subjects. - Neil Strauss

31. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs—the rest of us just show up and get to work' by Chuck Close.

32. 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. When 'no' simply means begin again at a higher level. - Peter Diamandis

33. If you find that you are telling yourself you are making so much money, then it's a warning sign that you're doing the wrong thing. Being in a good mood is essential for creative work. - B.J. Novak

34. How to say 'no' when it matters most and overcoming fear of missing out. "The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" - Lin Yutang. - Tim Ferriss

Wise:

1. "There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way" - Thich Nhat Hanh

2. Stargazing as a therapy - when you're struggling with anything, just look up and ponder the night sky for a minute. Sometimes we don't need to give advice, people just want to know that you're listening empathically to them. Knowing that you're listening is good enough. - BJ Miller

3. Choose what to focus on. "The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time and does not exaggerate the value of the husk" - Henry David Thoreau. Do not mistake signs of productivity, like a full schedule or being busy, with actual work produced. "Write to please just one person" - Kurt Vonnegut.  - Maria Popova

4. Discipline equals freedom. If you want to be tougher, be tougher - you just immediately make the decision to be tougher. Take extreme ownership. - Jocko Willink

5. There is a calming effect in acting instead of waiting. Disaster though causes casualties and much hurt, can be unifying as well. It flattens and makes men equal. Ask yourself: what would you die for? - Sebastian Junger

6. Creating a 'red' team - ask people who are not wedded to a plan and ask them how they would disrupt and defeat the plan. Always have 3 people you're always watching - one more senior to you that you want to emulate, another is a peer who you think is better than you, and the last is a subordinate doing a better job that you did in the past. This accelerates your learning process. - General Stanley McChrystal and Chris Fussell

7. Work will work when nothing else will work. Memento mori - always remember that you are going to die. -  Shay Carl

8. Don't follow your passion - that's bad advice. The biggest predictor o job satisfaction is mentally engaging, meaningful work. We have 80,000 work hours in our life. Spending 5% - about 2 working years - to think about what we want to do is worth it. - WIll Macaskill

9. Dickens process - a way to examine limiting beliefs. Write down top 2 to 3 limiting beliefs across each tense. What has each belief cost you and your loved ones in the past? What is each belief costing you and your loved ones in the present? What will it cost you and your loved ones in the next 1,3,5 and 10 years? Use affirmations to re-wire beliefs. -  Tim Ferriss

10. Don't care about what the world thinks, then you shift all the weight of the world away from your shoulders to everyone else. They will be the one who will be worried, but no longer you. If you care what the world thinks of you, you are the one who is worried, not them. Then you'll truly be free. - Kevin Costner

11. When talking to people about the future, ask if they have children. The fate of civilisation in the abstract is harder than worrying about what sorts of experiences your children are going to have in the future. Important of self transcendence. - Sam Harriss

12. Pride can be a tool - fear of failure (leading to humiliation and disappointment) can be greater than the fear of doing things. Injury is not that bad; to not do something because of the possibility of getting injured is a terrible excuse -  Caroline Paul

13. To conquer your fear, first define it. Then realise that it is at best temporary. The outcome is permanent but the setbacks is temporary, so the risk reward is in your favour. What we fear doing most is what we most need to do. - Tim Ferriss

14. Sit, sit. Walk, walk. Don't wobble. In a world of distraction, single-tasking is a superpower. Don't get ideas first then write - you write in order to think. Don't always measure productivity - think in terms of extreme performance or extreme satisfaction. - Kevin Kelly

15. “Our life is frittered 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. Live a day in the worst case possible, in order to realise that the worst is nothing to fear about. There is freedom from practicing poverty. Suffer a little regularly and you often cease to suffer - Tim Ferriss.

16. Perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis. Don't aim to please all people, and don't be afraid of people not liking you. Bad decisions make good stories - so look for silver linings. Comedians become comedians so they can control why people laugh at them. Being on stage, the material you had is only 10% - the rest is just how comfortable you are. - Whitney Cummings

17. Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained otherwise. A successful person must ultimately be at peace as well. Learn to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster. - Alain De Botton

18. Make lazy your manifesto! Don't let busyness serve as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness. Don't let it cover up some fear or let you excuse yourself for living a meaningful life. Saying you're busy makes you feel important and sought-after. Idleness is indispensable to the brain - for making unexpected connections. Life is too short to be busy - Tim Kreider

19. Aim for the heart, not the head. Once you get the heart, you can go to the head. Once you have both the heart and the head, you gain a pathway to the soul. 'The good shit sticks'. - Cal Fussman

20. Alternating sauna and ice bath works wonder. 20 mins of sun in the morning is good. To get unstuck, make your task laughably small, like write one word in the song by tmr. If you can do one small task, it builds up - so the point is to start. The beginning is 'heart work', not 'head work'. - Rick Rubin

21. To handle procrastination, make yourself feel guilty, then start and never stop. Even if you don't feel inspired, just have the discipline to move on. When writing, you're not there to show how cultivated or intelligent you are. You're writing to show your heart, your soul and to tell your fans and readers that you're not alone - Paulo Coelho

22. Every writer begins with a blank page. There is a bullet list of questions to begin writing something - Cheryl Strayed

23. Just take on the pain and wear it as a shirt. To resolve conflict, just say less.- Amanda Palmer

24. Focus on 2000 to 3000 people - general fame is overrated, you just need to be famous to the 2000 to 3000 people you handpicked. In general, consensus is how we bully people into pretending there's nothing to see. If you change your words, you change your world - come up with your own words and let pop culture catch up to you. Be a high agency person - someone who will get around whoever it is that told you that you can't do something. When doing deep creative work, use a string of vulgarities as a mantra. The theory is that when you say something that is prohibited to us (like spewing vulgarities), your brain goes into a different mode of inhabiting unsafe space, making you  more creative and 'different'. We only talk about learning disabilities, but we have to wonder about teaching disabilities also. - Eric Weinstein

25. Blind belief in yourself - Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

26. Life is a full contact sport. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. 8 ways here to deal with haters - Tim Ferriss

27. Find out why someone would disrupt you. Be curious. Ask questions about them to understand. "Those who are offended easily should be offended more often" - Mae West - Margaret Cho

28. Be yourself - it's much less work just to be so. Hot chillies, shallots and lemon - his 3 building blocks to have in his kitchen. To look for recipes, choose the one that describes even things to the most minute of details - those are the doers, people who had actually gone through it. - Andrew Zimmern

29. Cynicism is a disease that robs people of the gift of life. Believe in yourself and dream bigger. - Rainn Wilson

30. Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop. Work at it - it's like muscles. First rule of handling conflict is not to hang around with people who are constantly engaging in conflict. Sooner or later they will come to you. You always have 3 options in life for any situations - change it, accept it or leave it. Do not wish you would change but not change it, wish you would leave but not leave it etc.  5 chimps theory - you can predict the mood and behaviour of any chimps by looking at the 5 chimps they hang out with. Honest is a core foundational value. Tell people what you want to achieve, and be embarrassed into doing it. Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts - be enlightened from moment to moment. All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. Praise specifically, criticize generally. “What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” “My one repeated learning in life: ‘There are no adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.” - Naval Ravikant

31. Be willing to fail or succeed on who you really are. Don't ever try to be anything else. Know what your principles are, not your interest. Even if the world goes over the cliff, you're not going to change your principles. - Glen Beck

32. Inviting Mara to tea - a way to recognise negative emotions and inviting them in, by saying 'I see you', instead of suppressing them away. - Tara Brach

33. 2 rules for the kitchen and life : 1) Set a high standard on everything - don't serve things you wouldn't want to eat. 2) When things get busy, instead of plowing ahead, step back and come up with a plan.. The difference between home cooks and pro is acidity level. Add a bit of lemon and everything is elevated. Passion is over-rated. Passion comes from a combination of being open and curious, and of really going all in when you find something that you're interested in. - Sam Kass

34. If you want to be taken seriously, then take things seriously.- Edward Norton

35. Don't work for the awards, let the awards work for you. Love yourself before you can love others. - Richard Betts

36. In Art, everyone is equal, but in life, they are completely unequal (Art is socialism but life is capitalism). Only emotion endures. When questioning people for answers, sometimes the silence speaks louder than words.  When interviewing people, ask questions that throws them off - ask questions that people are not expecting. Don't bow to the gatekeepers because there are no gatekeepers - you are the gatekeepers. Don't waste time on marketing, just try to get better. - Mike Birbiglia

37. The jar of awesomeness - whenever something good or exciting or joyful happens, jot it down on a slip of paper, and put into a physical jar. You thought you will remember all the good things that happened to you, but you won't. Good for cultivating gratefulness. - Tim Ferriss

38. To start a book or chapter, start in the middle. Once you don't start at the beginning, your life just gets so much simpler. Have zero intellectual insecurities - keep asking dumb questions. - Malcolm Gladwell

39. Don't be afraid to try because you're intimidated or scared - the world cares less about you than you think they do. - Stephen J. Dubner

40. Empty space is a way of life for creative process. Learning the macro from the micro - focus on very small part to internalise powerful macro principles that apply everywhere. Share all the details and don't be afraid of letting your competitors know your secrets - if you're studying my game, you’re entering my game and I'll be better at it than you. Why? It's rarely a zero sum game, and the more you help people with details, the more detailed help you get. Plus, your attention to detail will scare off 50% of people who tried, 40% of those who tried will be worse than me, and 10% will try and be better than me, but they will return and teach you what they've learnt out of gratitude. End training sessions on a good 'rep' and leave your writing sessions half way mid sentence so that you always know where to start and end the session with confidence. Do interval trainings and meditations together to cultivate the art of turning it off and on. Embrace your eccentricity and build on it. For the steepest learning growth, pick the top competitors and learn from your failure. The importance of language - don't have unproductive language about whether something is good or bad before we can do certain things. Otherwise we'll be reliant on external conditions to be perfect in order to work. You can have a beautiful rainy day to work on too - Josh Waitzkin

41. Have a deloading phase - a phase where there is a planned reduction in volume or intensity when exercising so that it prepares the body for increased demand in the future. Works for life as well. Deloading blocks must be scheduled and defended more strongly than your business commitments! Create slack, because no one will give it to you. - Tim Ferriss

42. A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversation he is willing to have. Ask yourself: when i had the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort? To be trusted, be vulnerable first. - Brene Brown

43. To be jaded is almost like being dead. Nothing impresses you anymore. Be a skeptic, don't be a cynic - Jason SIlva

44. 17 questions that changed your life. Worth a re-read again - Tim Ferriss

45. There's nothing on the other side of fear, so don't be nervous for no reason. You are either great or you don't exist. - Jamie Foxx

46. When you start something new, ask yourself if it's an itch or a burn? If it's just an itch, it's not sufficient. You really have to want it badly for it to work. Beware of self limiting beliefs that is preventing you from getting the things you want, which is just outside your comfort zone. - Bryan Johnson

47. You don't find time, you make time. If it's truly important, schedule it. If it's not in your calendar, it isn't real. -  Brian Koppelman

48. "They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds". Practical notes on suicide. - Tim Ferriss

49. Treat everything like an experiment, do it like nobody is ever going to see it. You might free yourself from limitations. Turns weakness into strengths and bugs into features. In the ashes of failure, there is always some lessons you can apply to make your future success, so failure is not durable. Your present failure might be your future success. You don't need to know, but trust that you can perform when you're there. At your best performance, you really don't know what happened. Even the pros don't know. Never be upset about anything, because if you have a positive attitude, you'll ask what you can learn from this set back. If something didn't go according to plan, it might be for a good reason - Robert Rodriguez

50. If bad things happen, say 'Good'. You'll accept the reality and focus on the solution instead of dwelling on the problem. If you can still say 'good', you're still alive and breathing, so get up, recalibrate and re-engage. -  Tim Ferriss

51. You must want to be a butterfly so badly, you are willing to give up being a caterpillar. - Sekou Andrews