Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss was a really good book with the subtitle The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers.

The book is split into into Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise sections and along with the wisdom and recommendations from well over a hundred people, Ferriss includes his own thoughts and highlights where ideas from one person intersect with another. This is the type of book that could be revisited many times over and the concepts and recommendations I found particularly of note, and then resources mentioned, are the following...

Within the Healthy section is the import of exercising, however briefly, first thing when you wake and mentioned a few times is the health benefit of both cold and heat exposure, like via a sauna, and the remarkable sounding exercise of AcroYoga.

Ferriss notes that more than 80% of the people featured in Tools of Titans have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice and noted multiple times in the book are Transcendental and Vipassana Meditation. Additionally on the subject of mental heath was the notion of if you can't make yourself happy, try to make others happy, or even just wish for specific people to be happy, and see the impact it has on you. Also mentioned was the idea of going first, being willing to make the opening friendly interaction with strangers, and if depressed, to express gratitude, and remember that you're not alone and are better than you think.

One thing I found particularly interesting from the book is the notion of writing morning pages, and the related idea of doing regular work before you worry about doing good work. Additional ideas around this are if stuck on something, to be willing to produce just one word at first if that's all that can be done, or if stuck at the beginning with something to start it in the middle. Also interesting was the story about how IBM developed their sales force by intentionally setting quotas low so people wouldn't be intimidated.

A recurring idea from the book was about spending your time doing the things you choose to do, rather than what people want you to do, in a way it's the difference between spending your time on offense or on defense. A notion from the book is we're only here a short time on earth, like monkeys on a spinning rock. Related to the idea of how to spend your time is you should either be saying Hell Yes or No to things, with the result of that you shouldn't be lamenting how busy you are as you're doing things you want to do. I also liked the concept that you shouldn't wait for inspiration and then act, just act and then inspiration has a chance of coming.

Also interesting was the concept of nerds at night, what people do outside of work and 1,000 true fans, getting a dedicated following. In terms of what one should be doing, an interesting idea from Tools of Titans was think small, be great at something thin. Related to this is the idea of picking what you're spending time on and are after, is it hunting mice or chasing antelope?

If things don't go well, it's noted that you shouldn't get upset about things, rather think about whether it happened for a reason and what can you learn from it. When something happens that's bad, it's ok to say "good" and move on, and when stuck on something, go around, try a different way. There are three options in life with any situation, change it, accept it, or leave it. Also, one should be willing to live poor, it's not that hard if you don't have people to support and your well being doesn't really require money.

About things to do at the of the day was the idea of writing at the end, noting what you're thankful for and happy about and taking notes before bed on what happened to you. Additionally, a couple of very tangible things from the book related to sleep are usage of the ChiliPad for cooling at bedtime and Sleep With Me podcast to fall asleep to.

Books of interest noted - haven't read

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha by Seung Sahn
Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers
Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story by Dan Harris
Joy on Demand: The Art of Discovering the Happiness Within by Chade-Meng Tan
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

The Artist's Way Morning Pages Journal: A Companion Volume to the Artist's Way by Julie Cameron
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
Levels of the Game by John McPhee
I Seem to be a Verb by Buckminster Fuller
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

Books of interest noted - have read

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Show Your Work by Auston Kleon
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyman by Richard Feynman

Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
Not Fade Away by Peter Barton and Laurence Shames
How to Get Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Other resources of interest

1,000 True Fans and Cool Tools by Kevin Kelly
Inviting Mara to Tea poem by Rumi
The Shortness of Life by Seneca on the site Brain Pickings
Don Wildman profile for Esquire

The Tim Ferriss Show podcast
Derek Sivers podcast with Ferriss
Hardcore history with Dan Carlin podcast
Neil Gaiman University of the Arts commencement speech

"Start Something That Matters" by Blake Mycoskie

In his book Start Something That Matters, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie provides a solid business book by guy who appears to genuinely believe in helping others.

TOMS is known for it's One for One practice of giving away a pair of shoe (often via Shoe Drops to needy children) for each pair ordered and Mycoskie in the book provides an interesting tale of his background and thoughts about succeeding in business while also doing good.

He began starting companies at 19 and TOMS came out of a trip to Argentina in which Mycoskie saw both huge numbers of children without shoes and a local shoe that he felt could be adapted and sold in the US. The combination of this philanthropic goal with the intent of a for-profit shoe company turned into what the company is today.

In terms of content in the book, Mycoskie provides some solid ideas for success and references examples of their utilization both by himself and others. Method Products is noted as company which (just like TOMS) uses the power of an authentic story to build towards success and the casual dining chain Chipotle brought up as a company founded and run around simple ideas executed on well. Additionally, Charity: water is noted as being a philanthropic organization that's done great work in part due to it's incredibly open and transparent approach to where donations are spent.

Also noted as important by Mycoskie are the ideas of facing ones fears (with him referencing Tim Ferriss writing about worst case scenarios not being that bad) and the huge import of employee trust and morale. The idea from Mycoskie was that the better a company's employees feel about their jobs, the better business will be... which follows very much in line with the idea I've long felt that how employees treat customers is a reflection on how they're treated by management.

A couple of other things mentioned that Mycoskie didn't devote as many words to, but still seemed of import were writing down ideas as they come to you and living simply... with owning as little as possible. Both solid concepts within what was an excellent book by someone doing good work.

"The Art of Non-Conformity" by Chris Guillebeau

After learning about it from The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (which I enjoyed quite a bit), recently finished reading The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau.



Really solid book by Guillebeau that has some excellent stuff around living and working and some of the things that stood out to me (which I may be restating for my own use) are the following:

The often harmful idea of working to live

Concept from Guillebeau is that too many people view work as a have-to-endure slog to achieve some distant future goal of then enjoying life. The opposing view he trumpets is that life short and someone should think of how they want to live and start doing that.

The often excellent idea of taking a different tack

Direction given in the book prologue is to "think for yourself instead of following the crowd" and follow on idea that it ok to dream of unrealistic things... even if they don't come to pass (and they could), usually no harm done. To this point, Guillebeau writes about the concept of worst case scenario planning and whether said worst case really enough to not do something considered (with this same idea in the Ferriss book).

Approaches to a work

Guillebeau notes that regardless of whether someone works for a boss or is self-employed, their best job security is own competence. As someone who has done well with self-employment, he describes it as self-reliance and notes that many businesses can be started very cheaply (and may not make someone rich, but perhaps enough to make a living)... an idea which almost certainly led to Guillebeau's recently released The $100 Startup book. In relation to working for others, he writes about someone hiring a boss rather than being hired by a company. Even if not taken as far as in the book example, there's still something of heft there around someone targeting the type of work desired to do.

Recommendations of additional resources to check out

People, books and websites noted by Guillebeau include the Anne Lamott book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, the Seth Godin blog (or his website), the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, Zen Habits by Leo Babauta, and Guillebeau's own Art of Non-Conformity website (which includes his "A Brief Guide to World Domination" document that led to the book).

Really a solid book overall from Guillebeau and an interesting life he's created for himself with his writing, speaking and teaching... all stemming from an unconventional approach towards his work and time. A final thing I found of interest was an anecdote told in the book Postscript about someone unsubscribing from Guillebeau's blog and leaving a "thanks for everything, but I need to go it alone now" note. Interesting story that to me hits on a point about how-to and self-help type books... just ruminating on them is good and well, but the import of action and forward movement (even if the destination not known) can't be overstated.

"The Man Who Quit Money" by Mark Sundeen

Finished a few days ago reading The Man Who Quit Money and found it a thought-provoking book. It's written by Mark Sundeen and a biography of Daniel Suelo, an old acquittance of Sundeen's who lives in Moab, Utah and hasn't earned or spent any money since 2000.



I learned of the book after reading Sundeen's ridiculously captivating piece "Why Noah Went to the Woods" for Outside Magazine and unfortunately missed seeing Sundeen (along with Suelo) at a recent book signing here in the Bay Area (and he's since moved on to my old college towns of Eugene and Bellingham).

The book itself moved quickly in telling Suelo's life story up to now and had a number of things in it that stood out as interesting both on their own and in common with ideas from other solid books I've read.

Suelo is someone who at many points of his life prior to quitting money dealt with depression and struggled to find his place in the world. As such, this seemingly dramatic life decision was simply one that made sense to him within his interpretation of the world and how he wanted to live. A refrain that comes up repeatedly in the book is that he’s happy living in the immediate and as complete free will doesn't exist (we all die eventually), this is his way of having what free will he can. A concept I kept thinking of while reading was his living way outside of the norm echoed an idea from Tim Ferriss in his book The 4-Hour Workweek (which I reviewed earlier this week). Concept from Ferriss was a good way to make big life changes is to think in terms of worst case scenarios… and if the worst case scenario isn’t that cataclysmic (and it’s usually not), then maybe the big change should be moved forward with.

Also of interest to me from Suelo was his relationship with his community, his family and religion. One knee jerk response to the notion of a guy living without money would be that he must be a hermit, someone estranged from the outside world and especially those he grew up with. Reality of his life is this could hardly be further from the truth. He’s very community oriented and has a close relationship with his parents and siblings. Suelo has an appreciation of how we was raised and the decision to step away from money based on his beliefs is not entirely dissimilar to decisions his parents have made based on their principles.

One aspect of his relationship with his parents is religion, something also important overall in Suelo’s life overall. He was raised a fundamentalist Christian and it’s interesting reading in the book about his struggle in college and early adulthood to figure out whether religion would play the same front and center role in his life that it has for his parents. Suelo went to India to study eastern religions and while there found a reconnection with the beliefs of his parents and teachings of Christianity, but not necessarily with the leadership of organized Christian religion. Additionally, he talks in the book of wanting to live like Jesus and (closely related to this) there’s the notion of living as if heaven was not simply a pearly gate after-death finish line, but a place to live in here on earth. It’s an interesting idea that echoes almost exactly one expressed by Rob Bell in his book Love Wins (which I wrote about a year ago).

Last thing to mention that stood out from the book was something that helped drive Suelo to his life change decision, the concept of money and debt. Going back to the Ferriss book, he wrote in there of how he avoids investments over which he has no control (pretty much the entire stock market for most everyone) and Suelo takes this a step further in the Sundeen book to talk about the illusion of wealth and its negative consequences. This idea around money being the basis of debt and obligation is definitely an interesting one and whether or not the system one day collapses (as some predict), there’s something to the idea (from Suelo and many others) that there’s more compelling and meaningful drivers of behavior than money.

Neil Gaiman Commencement Address & Wisdom Imparted

I came across recently a commencement address by writer Neil Gaiman to graduates from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and it's pretty remarkable wisdom from Gaiman that echoes some themes I've been seeing from other writers recently.

The speech transcript is posted on the University website and video from the graduation speech is below...



It's completely worth watching or reading and to grossly paraphrase/generalize/pick fruit from Gaiman's address, below are the three concepts from it that stood out most to me...

1. When you know what you want to do, should just start doing that thing... and you'll both figure out your path (concept from Gaiman of walking towards his goal represented as a mountain) and improve as you go along. For Gaiman, it was writing, but could be anything for anyone. This idea of spending time on and living in pursuit of something that personally resonates brought to mind the same (or at least similar) principle expressed in both the James Altucher book I Was Blind But Now I See and Mark Sundeen The Man Who Quit Money biography of Daniel Suelo.

2. It's often best to not know the rules of the thing you're trying to accomplish as the rules can be the restrictions on your ability to reach the goal. Concept reminded me of Tim Ferriss writing in his book The 4-Hour Work Week about setting less realistic goals so you'll be more excited and motivated to reach them.

3. You may well copy others in the beginning of your efforts, but continually try to find your own voice and unique thing that you can contribute. This idea echoed very much a recent missive from singer/songwriter Ben Folds.

Gaiman himself is an interesting guy (biography details on both his website and Wikipedia page) who initially trained as a journalist and has done significant writing in the mediums of comic books/graphic novels, traditional books, theater and film.

"The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss

I recently finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss... good book, solid basic ideas and a seemingly endless number of additional resources. For the purpose of this post, will focus on the basic ideas from the book, but I could see revisiting it to spend more time on the resources (including the four hour week blog) and specifics.



Granted, it could be said that someones life situation not the same as that of Ferriss so they don't have the freedoms he does, but a lot of basic concepts from the book applicable to all. Additionally, a reader wouldn’t have to go all-in to get something out of the book - can pick and choose actions or do things incrementally.

The ideas from the book that most resonated with me are noted below… with them paraphrased and separated into strategies, tactics and things in between (categorization done by myself in a fairly arbitrary manner that could be quibbled with):

Strategies

1. Life doesn't have to be a slog that you toil at until the promised land of retirement. Excellent parable told in the book of the Mexican fisherman who lives fully, but the investment-type guy wants him to build an empire so he can one day retire and then live fully.
2. Inactivity is not the goal, doing what excites you is. For away motivated people… goal is to not be bored.
3. Aim to be the owner of a business rather than boss or employee.
4. Leaving a job (especially one you don’t like) doesn't have the horrible worst case scenario outcomes one might think. The worst case scenario from most risk taking is usually something still recoverable from.
5. Mini-retirements can be the way to live…. and they’re both possible to do whilst raising kids and usually cheaper to do outside of the US.
6. Let financial investing be driven by things you can control (public stock gains or losses being outside of your control).

Strategies / tactics

1. Being "productive" (especially in relation to work) often means just making yourself busy (and especially, making yourself look busy). Don't do work for work's sake.
2. Should develop an almost maniacal focus on the 80/20 (or higher) rule in determining where to allocate time and resources. Part of this means being willing to miss out of things time spent on the 20% would have brought. This principle also relates to author James Altucher's notion of spending time on things and with people that lift you up or enrich in some way.
3. Retirement planning is like life insurance, worst case scenario planning. It's still good to do, but shouldn't be treated as a goal.
4. The timing to do new (and scary) things is never right; you just have to do it anyways.
5. When setting a goal, set it towards something that would excite you rather than something you see as achievable. It’s often easier to reach an unrealistic goal because you're willing to work harder in pursuit of it.
6. Ask for forgiveness when doing new things, not permission.
7. Emphasize your strengths rather than getting caught up in trying to fix weaknesses.
8. When thinking of a product or service to sell, think critically on what people would buy. Also keep in mind the principle (which I’ve been seeing come up time and time again lately) of the power of niche.
9. Eliminate and automate to live a life more free from clutter… and when you travel, travel light.

Tactics

1. When it comes to work, avoid as much as possible having meetings.
2. Once your business up and running, you as the owner don't have to be terribly hands on. Empower others to fix problems - any loss in income or profit will e more than made up by your time now being free. Do this by creating systems and structures around availability and responsiveness.
3. Don’t let yourself become a slave to e-mail and voice mail… check both at set intervals.
4. Outsource tasks to someone else (perhaps in a low cost country) when the price you pay is less than the value of your time.
5. Be willing to let the hassle customers leave your business.

Lots of solid material in the book and I'd definitely recommend it.

"Drop Dead Healthy" by A.J. Jacobs

I finished a few days ago Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection
by A.J. Jacobs and found that it combined together solid information with humor and heart (literal reference not intended).



Jacobs previously wrote The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (about reading the encyclopedia) and The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible so this latest effort was very much in line with his style of books.

If the goal of Drop Dead Healthy to provide both entertainment and information, the first achieved through Jacobs being both a funny writer and including content about his family (wife, kids, grandfather Theodore Kheel, Aunt Marti). From an learnings/wisdom perspective, below are the things which stood out to me from the Jacobs book (derived over the course of two years consulting with health experts and using his body as a guinea pig)...

Overarching premise - True, stuff can still kill you regardless of your actions, but that shouldn't be used as a cop-out for not trying to be (at least moderately) healthy.

Body / Exercise:
- High intensity interval training for exercise - slow cadence weight training the same idea
- Don't worry about stretching - doesn't accomplish much
- An in-home treadmill an excellent thing to have - can build a computer station into it using stacks and a plank of some sort
- Walking as much as possible (wear a pedometer) - literally running errands
- Barefoot running can be good, but for all people nor at all times - Jacobs does 25% of running without shoes

Body / Other:
- Book recommendation - The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss
- Breath through the stomach (particularly while exercising) - exhale and flatten stomach, push stomach out on the inhale
- Take care of your hands - Greg Irwin YouTube Finger Fitness videos
- Walk right - Helping your back by walking with upright posture, leaning forward and breathing from stomach
- Wear headphones to reduce noise - Bose Quiet Comfort and SureFire Ear Pro Defender both good
- Develop the habit of massaging your own shoulders, arms, hands
- Wear sunscreen and brush/floss teeth well

Eating:
- Small portion sizes for food
- No fish high in mercury (Marlin, Swordfish or others high on food chain), less sugar, less salt
- Chewing food thoroughly
- Lots of fruits and produce - organic better
- Drink enough water - doesn't have to be the famous 8 glasses a day, but you shouldn't get thirsty
- Protein for breakfast - egg whites, quinoa and walnuts all are good

Lifestyle / Activities:
- Don't drink to excess and don't smoke
- Be safe - smoke detectors, helmets, put knives away from kid areas, no-slip decals for tab, drive carefully
- Hand washing - not anti-bacterial soap
- Avoid using products with BPA - and don't microwave in plastic
- Get enough sleep - A good way to go to sleep is simple math problems like counting backwards by 3s

Lifestyle / Approach:
- Live a fulfilling and social life
- Meditation as a partial cure for pain, and acupuncture
- Think of things in a positive light - note sensations like pain or unhappiness and then move on
- Stay active mentally - do things that challenge your brain like crossword puzzles
- Holding hands as therapeutic

So... there's a bunch of content listed out and this could of course been done by someone without it being a several hundred page book, but Jacobs really does craft an entertaining yarn around being healthy. Good book and definitely recommended.

Book Review - "Trust Agents" by Chris Brogan & Julien Smith

Finished reading "Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust" and found it to be a solid read with lots of things to check out.



It's written by Julien Smith and Chris Brogan (who is probably the more well known of the two as a result of his blog and associated Social Media evangelism). I heard about the book from the Dec 2009 BusinessWeek story "Beware Social Media Snake Oil" and found him to have a lot of interesting things to say.

Social Media as a category is a fascinating growth area (for both business and interpersonal communication) and I've written about and linked to a good amount of content on it... much of that consolidated into this blog post from a few weeks ago. Linked within there was four or five magazine articles and three different books that deal at least a bit with Social Media... one by Jeff Jarvis, one Sarah Lacy and one Scott Rosenberg.

Back to "Trust Agents" itself, though... having already said that it's a good read for someone interesting in Social Media, there's probably also value is detailing the things I found of most interest and websites from the book I want to check out.

So... stuff of note (you know, to me, so some of this is straight out of the book and some my ideas as a result of content in the book):

Intro - The aforementioned Chris Brogan blog.

Chapter One: Trust, Social Capital, and Media
- Idea of a Trust Agent building a portfolio of themselves through their online interactions... a very real and complete resume of sorts.
- Things to consider around blogging... usage of Word Press as a hosting service a step above Blogger, usage of Copy Blogger for writing and both LinkedIn Answers & LinkedIn Reading List for Social Media content, commenting on other blogs.

Chapter Two: Make Your Own Game
- The Four Hour Workweek blog by Tim Ferriss and how he both wrote a bestselling book of the same name and basically created the category of Lifestyle Design from scratch.
- Links and comments are basically a form of currency is building a personal brand on the web.
- The Guy Kawasaki blog.
- Hacking as a way of doing something different... and better. Much easier to hack work when at a small firm than large corporation.
- Affiliate Marketing site Commission Junction.

Chapter Three: One of Us
- Quality of website / blog gives a powerful impression of someone.
- Importance of being human in online communications.
- the Guy Kawasaki website Alltop... featuring tons and tons of content in different areas.
- Concept of searching the web (possibly using Technorati or Google Blogsearch) for groups interested in the things you're interesting in.
- Yet again, the idea of comments on other's blogs as a valuable form of currency. Site to check out around comments is BackType.

Chapter Four: Archimedes Effect
- Chapter is about the idea of leverage... in both time utilization and accomplishment.
- Idea of RSS Reader usage, such as Google Reader.
- The seemingly non-profit focused website Drupal as well as the Chris Brogan launched parenting site Dad-O-Matic.

Chapter Five: Agent Zero
- No, not a Gilbert Arenas (he of the Agent Zero nickname) reference.
- The idea seems to be a restating of the Trust Agent concept... someone who uses the web to make connections, between people, companies and ideas.
- Links, links, links and... links.
- Dynamic usage of LinkedIn.

Chapter Six: Human Artist
- As stated before, have to be human on the web.
- If hoping for a response from someone you're reaching out to... first make a connection, then look at being a part of their world by commenting, then perhaps reach out in a short manner with your specific question.
- Keep your connections live by regular touches.

Chapter Seven: Build an Army & Chapter Eight: The Trust Agent
- Getting into summarizing the prior chapters, but still valuable... thinking about the idea of Make Your Own Game and what future businesses (and categories of business) are to be built.
- If it's important to you, there's value in it... and probably others as well. Good principle to think about when looking at where to invest time and energy.

-----

Intent in this blog post wasn't to provide a Cliff Notes version of the book, but rather to create a record of what I felt of import from it and the links it pointed to. Really an interesting topic this Social Media thing and quite frankly, someone else would likely have different ideas that stand out to them from reading the book.

Highly recommend to anyone interested in the topic.

Best Buy Articles in BusinessWeek

Couple of interesting pieces on electronics retailer Best Buy from BusinessWeek.

The first was from the start of December and titled "Why Tech Bows to Best Buy." As could be inferred from said headline, it's about the current dominance in it's category and how that translates to increased control in relationships with suppliers.

Best Buy certainly must have done some things right to enjoy this position, but along with their success, it's also helped that competitors such as Comp USA and more recently Circuit City have shuttered their doors (again, though... leads to a chicken and egg type question as perhaps moves by Best Buy helped take down the other retailers).

Getting at what they've done right, the second BW Best Buy piece of note was a December 2006 cover story titled "Smashing The Clock. No schedules, No mandatory meetings, Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace."



As the story was from three years ago, I was curious to see what the current usage of this ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) program may be and how it seems to be doing. Well, a Google search later seems to indicate that the usage is there and it seems to be a success. I found this May 2008 post from the Tim Ferriss blog (he of the bestselling book "The Four Hour Workweek") and more recently, this June 2009 post on the blog Free Pursuits.

Additionally, the two Best Buy employees behind the ROWE program have since written a book and been spun off from Best Buy into a new consulting venture, CultureRx) to spread this management practice.

Interesting stuff.