Tools of Titans

What’s it about?: A series of interviews with more than a hundred “world-class performers.” Most, if not all, have appeared on his podcast. Tim Ferriss sits down with famous actors, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, researchers, Special Ops commanders, people from diverse backgrounds, and gets their advice on how to be successful. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote the foreword.

My opinion: I don’t normally place much value in these kinds of books as “how to” guides per se, but the good ones contain some useful low level information. Some of the ideas might apply to you, or not. Even if you go into it thinking about just one tool you could use to make your workday flow more smoothly, or just one habit to pick up, you could find something that clicks. Plus I like Tim Ferriss, because he is a great interviewer. Not a good interviewer, but a great one. He learns something from every person he interviews and works with, and when he sits down with them, it feels like a conversation between friends. And, he shares it with us in this book.

My personal favourite interview would have to be with Mike Shinoda, frontman and emcee of Linkin Park and Fort Minor. Ferriss is a fan, and their discussion spanned all manner of topics: Shinoda’s love of film and storytelling, his struggle with record label executives trying to change him and Linkin Park in their early days, media accusations of them being a manufactured group, and how he only agreed to print and email interviews, were all fascinating to me.

The interview with Ryan Holiday is also cool. He and Ferriss talk about the canvas strategy, which Holiday also wrote about in Ego Is the Enemy. Tony Robbins discusses modelling the behaviours and habits of those already doing what you aim to do, which is often very true when you’re young and starting out.

Ferriss finds many common threads between people he talks to. Things like listening to a single song on repeat for focus, completing projects in their own time, reading (or listening to audiobooks), or the philosophy of turning weakness into advantage, to name just a few. One that stands out the most to me, only because it reinforces something I already know:

Not eating breakfast, or eating very little of it. Laird Hamilton and General Stanley McChrystal are great examples.

Which sounds weird, but I have long held that sitting down to eat a pile of calories first thing in the morning is ridiculous, completely arbitrary, and a hassle at best. I used to eat breakfast, and when I stopped, I realised that “kickstarting my metabolism” had no impact on how hungry I was in the middle of the day. And yet… and yet… everyone around me insists that I eat breakfast, because the human body is a car, apparently. Except it isn’t. There is no need to jumpstart anything, and most of what we eat is going to kill us anyway, according to this article I didn’t read and just skimmed through.

Don’t get me wrong: I do like sitting down for a leisurely breakfast on the weekend, or on a day where I’m not in a hurry to do anything. I enjoy things like pancakes, or scrambled eggs and chorizo, but other than that, cramming breakfast down my throat is something I can’t force myself to do. So, no breakfast for me. A bran muffin and a cup of coffee is about as far as I’d go in the early hours of the morning if I really felt the need, but other than that, like so many things, breakfast is just a meme.

I’m getting distracted, but Tools of Titans is a good book to have. I can’t say if you would enjoy reading the whole thing start-to-finish, because I haven’t done so myself. I’ve just opened it up and turned to a particular person I’m interested in reading on a particular day, and that approach has definitely worked for me. I can’t say whether the information in it is relevant to you, but there are interesting stories and discussions. Whether it’s someone you already respect and admire, or a new topic of interest, there might just be something for everyone.