Tools of Titans
Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferris, is not a book in a conventional sense, it can be considered as an “advice encyclopedia”. It is a compilation of the experiences of highly accomplished people such as millionaires, worth class performers, top athletes, etc. Hence, I cannot give a condensed “Lessons Summary” from the book, I don’t think the book is meant to be read that way.
I started reading very late in my life, I’m 24 at the time of this writing and have only been reading for the past year or so. I only have an interest in non-fiction books and the reason why I started reading was to gain experience from other people’s lives.
The book caught my interest as it was “hundreds of life lessons under a single cover”. Consider how much you’d learn about a person’s life, habits, routines, and advice from his biography, and now imagine the worlds top people and add every person’s lesson as a single chapter.
When I am reading any biography about an individual, I get so entangled - with the norms and biases of that person - that whatever wisdom they put out makes sense, because I feel like a part of the book, a part of the character. On a very contrasting experience, the “condensed-advice” form factor of Tools of Titans made me zoom out from a single tree to have a look at the forest.
Having read so many opinions made me realize how different things work for different people trying to excel in the same field. For example; one advice states that, “It’s a ‘No’ if it is not a ‘Hell Yeah’“, paraphrasing, you should not say yes to anything if it doesn’t excite you to your bones, while another advice told, “Say yes to everything, you only need one big win, maximize your odds”. Both advice come from highly successful people, the thing I learned - unsurprisingly - is what worked for one person would not necessarily work for you - carve your own path, to hell with what others would say.
Another great thing about the “condensed-advice” form factor is that I could distill the common habits and routines all these Titans have and try to make it a part of my life.
I’m trying to figure out how to make this book my go-to encyclopedia or FAQ when I need some wisdom.
The summary
A befitting summary of such a book would be a compilation of all the wisdom that stayed with me.
- “The good shit sticks” - Cal Fussman and Harry Crews
- Cal’s notes and manuals were destroyed by mold, and rather than panicking this is the advice he remembered from Harry Crews - a novelist/author - who’s always under the influence of substances and keeps no journal but can anyway write superb material.
- “You’ll never be the best-looking person in the room, you’ll never be the smartest person in the room, the most educated or 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.” - Casey Neistat
- “If you’re really passionate about an idea or a project, tell 10 people about it - who you think care about you and have your best interest in mind - if they don’t tell other people, realize your idea is not good enough” - Seth Godin
- “Losers have goals, winners have a system” - Scott Adams
- “Specialize in all the things that interest you - not in a single thing that fits the norm of your industry”
- “Specialization is for insects, a human being should be able to change a diaper, butcher a hog, plan an invasion, design a building, build a wall, balance a sheet, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.” - Chase Jarvis
- “You only need 1000 true fans for becoming a successful entrepreneur” - Kevil Kelly
- “You can’t reason someone out of something, they didn’t reason themselves into” - Tim Ferris - Dealing with haters.
- “To get huge good things done, you need to be okay with letting the small bad things happen” - Tim Ferris - 17 Questions that changed my life.
- Tim would give his employee full responsibility for the job and expect the worst case, sometimes it would go bad but the chances of that were tiny, and in the long run, it helped the employee mature and handle the edge cases on their own. He says, “when given responsibilities and placed trust in, people’s IQ seem to be double.”