Timothy Ferriss - Zitate und Weisheiten

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 6 months?”

“What might you do to accomplish your 10-year goals in the next 6 months, if you had a gun against your head?” Now, let’s pause. 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. But I do expect that the question will productively break your mind, like a butterfly shattering a chrysalis to emerge with new capabilities. The “normal” systems you have in place, the social rules you’ve forced upon yourself, the standard frameworks—they don’t work when answering a question like this. You are forced to shed artificial constraints, like shedding a skin, to realize that you had the ability to renegotiate your reality all along. It just takes practice.

Perhaps it’s skipping and glossing over precisely these topics or questions that has created blind spots, bottlenecks, and unresolved issues in your life? That was certainly true for me.

Very often, “our” beliefs are not our own.

You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them.

I think of Siddhartha’s answers often and in the following terms: “I can think” → Having good rules for decision-making, and having good questions you can ask yourself and others. “I can wait” → Being able to plan long-term, play the long game, and not misallocate your resources. “I can fast” → Being able to withstand difficulties and disaster. Training yourself to be uncommonly resilient and have a high pain tolerance.

Amelia loves doing training runs in the rain and cold, as she knows her competition is probably opting out. This is an example of “rehearsing the worst-case scenario” to become more resilient

“You’re not responsible for the hand of cards you were dealt. You’re responsible for maxing out what you were given.”

Tony Robbins would say, “The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life.”

“Success is: Do your kids remember you for being the best dad? Not the dad who gave them everything, but will they be able to tell you anything one day? Will they able to call you out of the blue, any day, no matter what? Are you the first person they want to ask for advice? And at the same time, can you hit it out of the park in whatever it is you decide to do, as a lawyer, as a doctor, as a stockbroker, as a whatever?”

“WE’RE NOT AN OBJECT, WE’RE A PROCESS”

“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”

“Kids don’t do what you say. They do what they see. How you live your life is their example.”

“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” —Archilochus

‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’” TF: Marc has another guiding tenet: “Smart people should make things.” He says: “If you just have those two principles—that’s a pretty good way to orient.”

“Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

“‘Far more money has been lost by investors trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.’—Peter Lynch”

I could save up enough to put down money for an apartment building. I realized in the 1970s that the inflation rate was very high and therefore an investment like that is unbeatable. Buildings that I would buy for $500K within the year were $800K and I put only maybe $100K down, so you made 300% on your money…. I quickly developed and traded up my buildings and bought more apartment buildings and office buildings on Main Street down in Santa Monica and so on…. I benefited from [a magic decade] and I became a millionaire from my real estate investments. That was before my career took off in show business and acting, which was after Conan the Barbarian.”

“In negotiation, he who cares the least wins.”

“IF [MORE] INFORMATION WAS THE ANSWER, THEN WE’D ALL BE BILLIONAIRES WITH PERFECT ABS.”

“HOW TO THRIVE IN AN UNKNOWABLE FUTURE? CHOOSE THE PLAN WITH THE MOST OPTIONS. THE BEST PLAN IS THE ONE THAT LETS YOU CHANGE YOUR PLANS.”

‘We are whatever we pretend to be.’”

Realized—once again—that manic-depressive symptoms are just part of entrepreneurship.

What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.

Don’t overestimate the world and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

“When you can write well, you can think well.”

“You know something I can say, you asked about what we look for in candidates: clarity of writing. I think clarity of writing indicates clarity of thinking.”

“Mastery doesn’t come from an infographic. What you know doesn’t mean shit. What do you do consistently?”

As Tony recounted, Buffett told him, “Investing in yourself is the most important investment you’ll ever make in your life…. There’s no financial investment that’ll ever match it, because if you develop more skill, more ability, more insight, more capacity, that’s what’s going to really provide economic freedom…. It’s those skill sets that really make that happen.”

Jim Rohn famously said, “If you let your learning lead to knowledge, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action, you become wealthy.”

“The quality of your life is the quality of your questions.” Questions determine your focus.

Ben Franklin’s excellent advice: “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

“What is the ultimate quantification of success? For me, it’s not how much time you spend doing what you love. It’s how little time you spend doing what you hate. And this woman spent all day, every day doing what she loved.”

“Once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts [nebulous worries, jitters, and preoccupations] on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes.”

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” (Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.)

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”—Thomas Edison

So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months? Sometimes, you have to actually go through the complex, 10-year trajectory. But it’s at least worth asking whether that’s the story you’re telling yourself, or whether that’s the reality.”

“What problem do you face every day that nobody has solved yet?” or “What is a great company no one has started?”

“The blog post I point people to the most is called ‘First, Ten,’ and it is a simple theory of marketing that says: tell ten people, show ten people, share it with ten people; ten people who already trust you and already like you. If they don’t tell anybody else, it’s not that good and you should start over. If they do tell other people, you’re on your way.”

If you spend 2 hours a day without an electronic device, looking your kid in the eye, talking to them and solving interesting problems, you will raise a different kid than someone who doesn’t do that. That’s one of the reasons why I cook dinner every night. Because what a wonderful, semi-distracted environment in which the kid can tell you the truth. For you to have low-stakes but superimportant conversations with someone who’s important to you.”

Master of Arts in Creative Writing—$12K/year How could you spend (or sacrifice) $12K a year to become a world-class creative writer? If you make $75K per year, this could mean that you join a writers’ group and negotiate Mondays off work (to focus on drafting a novel or screenplay) in exchange for a $10–15K salary cut.

THE SIX ELEMENTS OF HUMOR Scott believes there are six elements of humor: naughty, clever, cute, bizarre, mean, and recognizable. You have to have at least two dimensions to succeed.

“The second part of my blogging system is a sort of R&D for writing. I write on a variety of topics and see which ones get the best response. I also write in different ‘voices.’ I have my humorously self-deprecating voice, my angry voice, my thoughtful voice, my analytical voice, my half-crazy voice, my offensive voice, and so on. Readers do a good job of telling me what works and what doesn’t.

This bodily reaction—an involuntary half-chuckle, a rush of adrenaline, a surge of endorphins, a sharp change of emotions, etc.—can act as a metal detector for good material. It takes practice, but it works.

When you launch a new product, the first question to ask yourself is not “How is this new product better than the competition?” but “First what?” In other words, what category is this new product first in?

“CREATIVITY IS AN INFINITE RESOURCE. THE MORE YOU SPEND, THE MORE YOU HAVE.”

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If you understand principles, you can create tactics. If you are dependent on perishable tactics, you are always at a disadvantage. This is why Ramit studies behavioral psychology and the elements of persuasion that appear hardwired. One of his most-gifted books is Age of Propaganda by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, and his favorite copywriting book is an oldie: The Robert Collier Letter Book, originally published in 1931.

He was [commenting on] the difference between someone who isn’t a billionaire and a billionaire…. He said, ‘The biggest mistake you can make is to accept the norms of your time.’ Not accepting norms is where you innovate, whether it’s with technology, with books, with anything. So, not accepting the norm is the secret to really big success and changing the world.”

“A PROBLEM IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE.” This is highly related to the “scratch your own itch” thread that pops up throughout this book. Peter expands: “I think of problems as gold mines. The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.”

Money can always be regenerated. Time and reputation cannot.

“[At the end of life,] you can let a lot of the rules that govern our daily lives fly out the window. Because you realize that we’re walking around in systems in society, and much of what consumes most of our days is not some natural order. We’re all navigating some superstructure that we humans created.”

‘Those who work much, do not work hard.’ I love that.”

“You can tell the true character of a man by how his dog and his kids react to him.”

“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

bad decisions make good stories.

Louis C.K. says, ‘If you think about something more than three times a week, you have to write about it.’”

A QUESTION CAL SUGGESTS ASKING PEOPLE MORE OFTEN “What are some of the choices you’ve made that made you who you are?”

“There are only four stories: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power, and the journey. Every single book that is in the bookstore deals with these four archetypes, these four themes.”

What are the most common mistakes or weaknesses of first-time novelists? “Keep it simple. Trust your reader. He or she has a lot of imagination. Don’t try to describe things. Give a hint, and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination. That’s why I am so reluctant to sell the rights of my books for movies because there, you have everything. The [viewer] does not need to think. However, if I say like in Aleph, at the very beginning, ‘I am in my house in the Pyrenees, and there is an oak there.’ I don’t need to explain my house in the Pyrenees. I only needed to put in the elements that are important: the oak, myself, and the person that I’m talking to. That’s all…. Trust your reader. Understand that he or she can fill the empty spaces. Don’t over-explain.”

Honor those who seek the truth, beware of those who’ve found it’ [adapted from Voltaire]. A reminder that the path never ends and that absolutely nobody has this shit figured out.”

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”—Mark Twain.

“Cynicism is a disease that robs people of the gift of life.”

As Oscar Wilde is thought to have said, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken”:

Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else (Buddhist saying).

I’m telling you, the best thing to do is give people questions they’re not expecting.”

In medias res literally means “into the middle things” in Latin and refers to beginning a story (chapter, novel, movie, video game, whatever) in the middle or at the end of the narrative. I’ve done this with all of my previous books.

Josh has no social media, does no interviews (except my podcast, for which he often says to me, “You fuck!”), and avoids nearly all meetings and phone calls. He minimizes input to maximize output, much like Rick Rubin. Josh says: “I cultivate empty space as a way of life for the creative process.”

TF: I often share exact under-the-hood details of how I’ve built the podcast, put together Kickstarter campaigns, etc. I do this because of two core beliefs. Belief #1—It’s rarely a zero-sum game (if someone wins, someone else must lose), and the more I help people with details, the more detailed help I receive. Belief #2—If it is competitive, I’m simply offering people the details of my game. My attention to detail will scare off half of the people who would have tried; 40% will try it and be worse than me; 10% will try it and be better than me, but … see Belief #1. That 10% will often reach out to teach me what they’ve learned, as they’re grateful for my own transparency.

One of Josh’s favorite writers, Hemingway, had a practice of ending his writing sessions mid-flow and mid-sentence. This way, he knew exactly where to start the next day, and he could reliably both end and start his sessions with confidence.

Inbox land is the land of the lost, and we all become lost.

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

Jack Ma, founder of China’s Alibaba Group, is worth an estimated $20 to $30 billion, and he explains the secret of his success this way: “There were three reasons why we survived: We had no money, we had no technology, and we had no plan. Every dollar, we used very carefully.”

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” —Pablo Picasso