Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss has become one of my favourite books before even reading 10% of it. Why?
While I read some reviews criticising Tim for throwing information over pages without too much thought into organising this book, I find this to be the strength of Tools of Titans.
Tools for Titans is a collection of profiles, strategies and tactics uber-successful people employ to achieve amazing results. Each profile is served over 2-3 pages, which I find to be bite-sized chunks perfect for reading first thing in the morning, over a cup of coffee.
While I’m aware that the Internet is already filled with advice, tactics and strategies for productivity, wealth creation and other buzz-word results, and that by reading them all will not advance you towards the achievement of any of your goals, this book is great when used wisely.
- Everyone has their own strategies for success and you can find your own strategies for success by comparing the behaviours and strategies you employed whenever you achieved what you wanted to achieve, to the behaviours and strategies you employed when you didn’t achieve your goals. This simple exercise, very briefly explained, is a contrastive analysis which you can carry out to find your own tactics for success.
- Tools of Titans, just as the cover says, is a collection of “tactics, routines and habits of billionaires, icons and world-class performers” interviewed by Tim Ferriss over the years on his award-winning podcast. Of course, these tactics and habits are highly personal, some unique and some commonly employed by many of his interviewees. While they are certainly easy to (sporadically) replicate by me, you and anybody else, it does not mean that they necessarily produce the same outcome or results that these icons have when employing them. What’s more, even Tim admits that for each piece of advice or strategy mentioned by a multitude of these world-class performers, there’s someone else in the book who does exactly the opposite and still achieves great results (this goes back to 1.).
Here’s how I’m using this book for maximum results, and you should too!
- I am firstly very much aware of my own rules for success
- I also know that I can UPGRADE some of my own rules for success, for even better results.
And therefore, while sipping my morning coffee, I pick a profile or open the book at random. I read a profile or two, and at the very least, I will be left with motivation, inspiration and some interesting ideas. At the very best, I will recognise a way of upgrading one of my own strategies or rules for success, so I will go on, experimenting, to see the results I can produce applying it.
Subscribe to my Tools of Titans twitter list, to see who’s profiles are featured in the book & what they are tweeting about!
