“Albert grunted. ‘Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?’
Mort thought for a moment.
‘No,’ he said eventually, ‘what?’
There was silence.
Then Albert straightened up and said, ‘Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve ’em right.’”
—TERRY PRATCHETT, MORT
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has said that “The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.”
The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, elite athletes, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized one or two strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them. . . . Everyone is fighting a battle [and has fought battles] you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles.
On my coffee table at home, I have a piece of driftwood. Its sole purpose is to display a quote by Anaïs Nin, which I see every day:
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
You are the author of your own life, and it’s never too late to replace the stories you tell yourself and the world. It’s never too late to begin a new chapter, add a surprise twist, or change genres entirely.
Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something—the book you’re writing, the album, the movie—and staying there for a long, long time.
The quote I’d put on that billboard belongs to my friend and former Navy SEAL, Richard Machowicz: “Not Dead, Can’t Quit.”
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
–OSCAR WILDE
A few days later, as the fog of failure began to lift, I remember having a rare time alone in my room (I usually shared it with my brother). As I sat in the silence, another thought pierced through my sadness. “I took the shot.” It was invigorating, even exciting. “Hey, when all the chips were on the line, you didn’t leave your future up to others, YOU TOOK YOUR SHOT.” Instantly I felt free and in control. I knew from then on that I could have the courage to fail on my own terms. From that moment, I decided that if I was going to succeed or fail, it was going to be up to me. I was changed forever.
When I’m anxious or nervous about something, I ask myself, what’s the worst that can happen. Usually, the answer is, “You can die.” Then I answer back, “I’d rather die doing something I feel is great and amazing rather than be safe and comfortable living a life I hate.”
You don’t find the time to do something; you make the time to do things.
Courage was more important than confidence. When you are operating out of courage, you are saying that no matter how you feel about yourself or your opportunities or the outcome, you are going to take a risk and take a step toward what you want. You are not waiting for the confidence to mysteriously arrive. I now believe that confidence is achieved through repeated success at any endeavor. The more you practice doing something, the better you will get at it, and your confidence will grow over time.
One piece of advice I think they should ignore is the value of being a “people person.” No one cares if you are a people person. Have a point of view, and share it meaningfully, thoughtfully, and with conviction.
“Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know.”
NAVAL RAVIKANT
Suffering is a moment of clarity, when you can no longer deny the truth of a situation and are forced into uncomfortable change. I’m lucky that I didn’t get everything I wanted in my life, or I’d be happy with my first good job, my college sweetheart, my college town. Being poor when young led to making money when old. Losing faith in my bosses and elders made me independent and an adult. Almost getting into the wrong marriage helped me recognize and enter the right one. Falling sick made me focus on my health. It goes on and on. Inside suffering is the seed of change.
Ignore the unfairness—there is no fair. Play the hand that you’re dealt to the best of your ability. People are highly consistent, so you will eventually get what you deserve and so will they. In the end, everyone gets the same judgment: death.
Don’t be intimidated by anything. In the vast majority of the professions and vocations, the people who succeed are not any cleverer than you. The adult world is not full of gods, just people who have acquired skills and habits that work for them. And specialize—the great human achievement is to specialize as a producer of goods or services so that you can diversify as a consumer.
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”
–NIELS BOHR
“What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems . . . there’s no law of physics preventing them.”
–MICHIO KAKU
“It’s not how well you play the game, it’s deciding what game you want to play.”—Kwame Appiah.
The Buddhist novelist George Saunders said in an interview that he has an image of people’s “nectar in decaying containers.” That image haunts me. When I think of it on a given morning, it allows me to see the Buddha nature flowing through all these lovely, flawed, living, and slowly dying creatures we encounter every day. My three-year-old daughter’s three-year-old self is so temporary. Buddhists observe that we’re all on fire. It’s so beautiful to sometimes tune in and see the flickering.
“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”
–HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE
Advice to ignore: A little part of me dies every time someone tells me they’ve taken a job as a “steppingstone” to something else, when they clearly aren’t invested in it. You have one life to live. Time is valuable. If you’re using steppingstones, you’re also likely relying on someone else’s path or definition of success. Make your own.
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”
It’s a cliché that everyone hates to eat their vegetables, but during the last five years, I developed many creative ways to prepare them that are tasty. Now it’s easy to eat a lot of them. Every day, I eat a bowl of veggie soup, drink veggie juice, and eat pâté made out of the post-juicing pulp mixed with garlic, lemon juice, kale, spinach, and avocado. I serve it on bananas and other fruits so it looks like sushi. But my favorite concoction, which I created three years ago, is a medley of cabbage, onion, avocado, and pear. It’s incredibly delicious, extremely healthy, and fast to prepare. This dish also gave me a deep insight about eating: there was no way to make food better than this. I felt pride and a surge of energy, realizing that I actually ate the best in the world. Nobody could eat better than I, but only as good as I.
In Japanese, there is a term, “forest bathing,” where you take a walk under the trees and the coolness, the smell, and the silence wash over you.
“The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.” [Quote attributed to Neale Donald Walsch] I wear it on my wrist every day as a constant reminder to myself to live in a place of gratitude.
“BE HERE NOW”
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
–HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Whenever I’m feeling like I need to prioritize what I’m doing or overthinking a particular situation that is making me anxious, I try to remember this great exchange in the film Bridge of Spies. Tom Hanks, who plays a lawyer, asks his client, who is being accused of being a spy, “Aren’t you worried?” His answer: “Would it help?” I always think, “Would it help?” That is the pivotal question that I ask myself every day. If you put everything through that prism, it is a remarkably effective way to cut through the clutter.
I started working as an actor when I was six. I quit at 19 to go to college, but when I tried to get back into it, I couldn’t get a job. I spent a year auditioning and failing. It was painful. I had visions of never getting to do it again, which genuinely terrified me.
I did a lot of thinking. What exactly was I scared of? What would I be missing if I never got another acting job? I never really liked the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, so it wasn’t that. At that time, I’d never even cared all that much what other people thought of the movies and shows I got to be in. Mostly, I just loved doing it. I loved the creative process itself, and I realized I couldn’t let my ability to be creative depend on somebody else deciding to hire me. I had to take matters into my own hands.
I think moving away from my hometown was one of the most fruitful things I ever did. We can’t help but define ourselves in terms of how others see us. So being around nothing but new people allowed me to define myself anew. I’ve since moved back, but the growth I got out of living away was huge.
“Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”
–RALPH CHARELL
What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
It happened in 1979. Long time ago, 38 years ago, when my wife Elaine and I bought a house with a playroom at the bottom of the garden, which I could turn into a study. I had been laboring until then to write my PhD, to write my first book, completely without success. I used to dream of going off to a mountain retreat or a little cottage in the countryside, and it suddenly occurred to me: “Here’s a house with a room at the bottom of the garden, and maybe there I will find peace and isolation.” It worked like a dream, and it was in that room that I completed my doctorate and wrote my first five books. It completely changed my life. Expensive, but worth every penny.
在花园下面造一间工作室。
Second, stay flexible and be open to opportunities as they come your way. Most of the successful people I know did not know exactly what they wanted to do coming right out of college, and they changed their focus over the course of their careers. Be open to what the world brings your way. Don’t be afraid to change jobs or careers, no matter how much time you have already put into something. There is no urgency to have it all figured out. And feeling like you have it all figured out can make you stuck and close-minded to change.
The books I give most now are children’s books, since I’m going to more and more parties for kids (I have a two-and-a-half- and a four-year-old). I think of the ones I loved as a kid—ones that stuck in my head. One is The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone.
I remember laughing at Grover, who is the narrator, freaking out about turning the pages because there is a monster at the end—but I kept turning the pages—and he freaked out more: “YOU TURNED THE PAGE??? STOP TURNING PAGES???” And I’m not sure if I was trying to be brave for him or I just knew everything was going to be okay, but I kept turning the pages and reading this book until the last page where it’s revealed—HE is the monster at the end of the book! Lovable furry old Grover! I think that book taught me that there is nothing to be afraid of.
“Genius is only a superior power of seeing.”
–JOHN RUSKIN
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
–RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Do what you love, do it in a way that you love, and pour your heart and soul into every moment of it.
A core operating principle is that there is no better investment than in my own learning process, and so I only engage in partnerships that will challenge and improve me.
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”—Warren Buffett
“It is very important what not to do.”—Iggy Pop
“Knowledge is the beginning of practice; doing is the completion of knowing.”—Wang Yangming
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I pretend that my family has died in a horrific accident. Honestly, that’s what I do. It’s probably weirder than a lot of people’s answers in this book, but it’s absolutely what drives me. I go to a very dark place, really feel it, feel that pain in my heart, and then realize no matter what I’m dealing with right now, that it’s not even in the same universe of something like that. Then I become grateful for losing that client, missing that opportunity, getting made fun of, etc.
“Excellence is the next five minutes. . . . Forget the long term. Make the next five minutes rock!”
TOM PETERS
In short, the best student wins, whether at age 21 or 51 or 101.
My two cents: Excellence is the next five minutes or nothing at all. It’s the quality of your next five-minute conversation. It’s the quality of, yes, your next email. Forget the long term. Make the next five minutes rock!
Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander. I read this at age 13, and it basically told me that life is tough and like a jungle, and that life rewards the rhinos who charge hard at their goals and never give up. And above all, not to follow the cows of life who drift aimlessly and suck purpose and joy out of the journey. I give it often to people I think would love or need it.
Failure means struggle, and it is struggle that has always developed my strength.
I started my first business with $200. I bought an ad in the back of Rolling Stone magazine advertising a catalog of budget travel guides by mail for $1. Neither the catalog nor the book inventory existed. If I hadn’t gotten enough orders I would have returned the money [from any orders], but it all worked out by bootstrapping. I learned far more about business from that $200 than from a debt-inducing MBA.
Don’t try to find your passion. Instead master some skill, interest, or knowledge that others find valuable. It almost doesn’t matter what it is at the start. You don’t have to love it, you just have to be the best at it. Once you master it, you’ll be rewarded with new opportunities that will allow you to move away from tasks you dislike and toward those that you enjoy. If you continue to optimize your mastery, you’ll eventually arrive at your passion.
Always take jobs for which you are not qualified; that way you will inevitably learn something.
[When I’m] overwhelmed: Ask, “What is the worst thing that could happen?” Fear of the unknown is generally far worse than fear of something specific. If it’s not the death of yourself or those you are responsible for, there’s probably some reasonable set of options you should consider calmly and thoughtfully.
“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.”
–FRANK WILCZEK
American theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner
The second is a quote from a very special man, Christopher Carmichael, “You are 99 years old, you are on your deathbed, and you have a chance to come back to right now: what would you do?” I have used this one many times when faced with difficult questions.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I simply try to ground, and to ground you need to touch something real. This can be by swimming—water is real; by meditating—your heart is real; by being in contact with an animal—animals are real; or by enjoying a delicious meal by yourself under the sun. I love being alone with food. By eating slowly and putting so many intentions into my food, I have started to develop a stronger sense of taste than I used to have. So when I eat, I tend to get very emotional with the taste of the food. These types of little, real moments get you out of your head.
“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”
–JAMES CAMERON
“I lived the first 33 years of my life actively trying to avoid failure. More recently, I’ve worried less about failing and more about not risking failure enough, because I’m reasonably sure that there’s not a failure I can’t survive.”
FRANKLIN LEONARD
“The great majority of that which gives you angst never happens, so you must evict it. Don’t let it live rent-free in your brain.”
PETER GUBER
The seminal change in the business from then to now is that a young person should view the career pyramid differently rather than traditionally. Put the point at the bottom where you are now (at the start of your career) and conceive your future as an expanding opportunity horizon where you can move laterally across the spectrum in search of an ever-widening set of career opportunities. Reinvent yourself regularly. See your world as an ever-increasing set of realities and seize the day.
“Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.”
–MAE WEST
Success should not be measured by financial gain; true success is doing something you love for a living. Learn every aspect of your chosen field or craft, as it will give you an advantage over any competitors, and set you up for more—often better—job opportunities.
Physical tells are far less consistent and reliable than we’re taught to believe, and to truly excel at the [poker] game it’s far more important to have a solid understanding of the mathematical theory behind the game.
A. H. Almaas: “Ultimately, your gift to the world is being who you are. It is both your gift and your fulfillment.”
Don’t worry about making money. Don’t stress about having a plan. Don’t think about networking or setting yourself up for the next thing. Try as hard as you possibly can to find something you love, because the depressing reality is that most people never find a career that they’re truly passionate about. For many people, the real world is a slog and they live for the weekends. It will never get easier than right now to recklessly pursue your passion. Do it.
And later in life that’s a story I told Arthur Godfrey, Jackie Gleason, others, and they said, “You learn the secret of this business, which is there’s no secret. Be yourself.” So what I did that day, I wasn’t conceiving this, carried through me for 60 years, which is, be yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask a question, don’t be afraid to sound stupid.
My billboard would say, “Everything is figure-out-able.” I learned this as a kid from my mom, and it’s fueled every aspect of my career and life. It still does to this day.
The meaning is simple: No matter what challenge or obstacle you face, whether it’s personal, professional, or global, there’s a path ahead. It’s all figure-out-able. You’ll find a way or make a way, if you’re willing to be relentless, stay nimble, and keep taking action. It’s especially useful to remember when things go wrong, because rather than wasting time or energy on the problem, you shift immediately to brainstorming solutions. I honestly believe it’s one of the most practical and powerful beliefs you can adopt.
And the last is the number 30,000. When I was 24, I came across a website that says most people live for about 30,000 days—and I was shocked to find that I was already 8,000 days down. So you have to make every day count.
“You can do so much in ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into ten-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.”
–INGVAR KAMPRAD
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” –Rabbi Hillel
“Boxing is a sport of self-control. You must understand fear so you can manipulate it. Fear is like fire. You can make it work for you: it can warm you in the winter, cook your food when you’re hungry, give you light when you are in the dark, and produce energy. Let it go out of control and it can hurt you, even kill you. . . . Fear is a friend of exceptional people.”
–CUS D’AMATO
“No one is qualified to tell you how you experience the world.” I find this helps people think for themselves more than anything else I’ve come across. I’m not really sure why. I should credit my friend Tom for the quote.
Back in the day, I recall being so confident that I could defend myself, or any person, that I didn’t feel the need to look for trouble, and I was actually happy to let someone (i.e., a pseudo tough guy) think I was afraid of him. It was not the case, but the point is that I realized ability alone was sufficient; I did not need to demonstrate it.
As for advice to ignore: Too often, I hear people effectively given advice that is consistent with sunk cost fallacies. I certainly heard it a lot. “You’ve spent X years learning Y, you can’t just up and leave and now do Z,” they say. I think this is flawed advice because it weighs too heavily the time behind you, which can’t be changed, and largely discounts the time in front of you, which is completely malleable.
Work harder than everyone else. Of course, that is easy when you love your job. But you might not love your first, or second, or even third job. That doesn’t matter. Work harder than everyone else. In order to get the job you love or start the company you want, you have to build your résumé, your reputation, and your bank account. The best way to do that: Outwork them all.
How I dealt with fear back then was a colossal failure. What I should have done instead was realize that fear is not a sign of personal weakness, but rather a natural state of discomfort that occurs whenever you’re out of your comfort zone. It’s there not to sabotage you, but to help you come alive, be more focused, and put you into the present moment and a heightened state of excitement and awareness. If you push the fear away, the only version of fear available to you will be its crazy, irrational, or contorted version. If you’re willing to feel it, and merge with it, its energy and wisdom will appear.
Nobody really knows what the world and the job market will look like in 2040, hence nobody knows what to teach young people today. Consequently, it is likely that most of what you currently learn at school will be irrelevant by the time you are 40.
So what should you focus on? My best advice is to focus on personal resilience and emotional intelligence. Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. In the first part of life you built a stable identity and acquired personal and professional skills; in the second part of life you relied on your identity and skills to navigate the world, earn a living, and contribute to society. By 2040, this traditional model will become obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives and to reinvent themselves again and again. The world of 2040 will be a very different world from today, and an extremely hectic world. The pace of change is likely to accelerate even further. So people will need the ability to learn all the time and to reinvent themselves repeatedly—even at age 60.
Excellence is the next five minutes, improvement is the next five minutes, happiness is the next five minutes.
The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. 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 crystal-clear, I’ve deliberately included two sections in this book (pages 197 and 616) that will make you think: “Wow, Tim Ferriss is a mess. How the hell does he ever get anything done?” Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles. Take solace in that.
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