Tim Ferriss Quotes
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Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.
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Most people are good at a handful of things and utterly miserable at most.
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By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It's the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.
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Changing the world doesn't require much money. Again, think in terms of empowerment and not charity. How much were Gandhi's teachers paid? How much did it cost to give Dr. Martin Luther King the books that catalyzed his mind and actions?
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People feel personally slighted if you don't respond to them in 30 seconds and treat email as instant messenger.
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Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.
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Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W's you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it.
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There is an infinite selection of things that I could test in life, so I generally will look for a critical mass of word that comes back to me. At this point I have hundreds of friends who are the best at what they do, arguably number one in the country or in the world. I will oftentimes just kind of throw a volley out to people, ask them what they're obsessing on or what they find interesting that's on the fringe. If the same answer comes back a few times, I'm like, "Okay."
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I think willpower is very valuable.
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The commonsense rules of the "real world" are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.
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If you let pride stop you, you will hate life.
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I do my best writing between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.. Almost every friend I have who is a consistently productive writer, does their best writing between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. My quota is two crappy pages per day. I keep it really low so I'm not so intimidated that I never get started. I will do the gathering of interviews and research throughout the day. I'll get all my notes and materials together and then I'll do the synthesis between 10 p.m. to bed, which is usually 4 or 5 a.m.
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Be bold and don't worry about what people think. They don't do it that often anyway.
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One of the bigger misconceptions of learning is that many skills take a lifetime to get world-class at, or 10,000 hours to become world-class at.
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By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently disallow ourselves to do otherwise: 'John, I'd love to talk about the gaping void I feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do! I've got at least three hours of unimportant email to reply to before calling prospects who said 'no' yesterday. Gotta run!
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Rather than spend my life on data entry and typing, I also take photos on my iPhone of business cards, wine labels, menus, or anything I want to have searchable on-the-run.
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I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.
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Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you're moving.
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Focus on impact, not approval. If you believe you can change the world, which I hope you do, do what you believe is right and expect resistance and expect attackers. Keep calm and carry on!
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Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear.
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Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.
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Every time I find myself stressed out, it's because I do things primarily driven by growth.
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World barista champions use the AeroPress to make coffee on the folding tray tables of airplanes.
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I value self-discipline, but creating systems that make it next to impossible to misbehave is more reliable than self-control.