The Book that is Becoming my Morning Mentor
Or, an exercise in allowing myself to profit
Warning: Do not grab this book if you are looking for a quick read. It is not that. The girth alone(684 pages) is enough to prove otherwise.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links that will compensate me for your purchase should you make one. I recommend nothing lightly and this book highly.
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss is a book containing hundreds of interviews with some of the most accomplished individuals of our day. Carrying this book with you — which I don’t recommend — is like having an army of mentors by your side at all times.
As mentioned in my warning, this is not a quick read. It is best purchased if you are preparing to undergo a quest on which the outcome is uncertain but you remain committed to despite potentially humiliating failures. Since I have begun reading from a random selection of the interviews I have remained all the more committed to my quest of becoming a full-time writer and gained greater confidence along the way.
In the traditional sense of a real-life mentor I’ve known personally, I’ve had two. One that I’m still in touch with. There have been many more that I have been too uncomfortable to ask for their help. Even hinting at things that will benefit me is something that feels too self-serving. This has held me back and I need to improve upon it. This is a big part of the reason I am recommending this book. It is something that I recommend so highly and confidently that I have no guilt in gaining a personal profit from somebody purchasing through my link. Go ahead and click on that. See how bad I feel(honestly, I’m just drawing attention to it in order to make fun of myself and cut into how awkward this feels).
One at a time, with intention.
When I first got this book over a year ago I read through many of the interviews highlighting nuggets that inspired me and sometimes discovering individuals that I would look further into on my own. Although I may have already heard of or been familiar with some of these individuals, Tools of Titans is responsible for much of their impact on my life. Some of these figures include the likes of Seth Godin, James Altucher, Eric Weinstein, Paulo Cohelo, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, and Josh Waitzkin to name a few.
The insights that this book provides are so valuable that they are worth being reflected upon again and again. More importantly, they should be. This is the reason I have begun limiting myself to reading from only one of these mentors each morning. Some of them are a few pages long with complex information that requires digestion while others are quick and simple. Invariably, I find something of value that I determine to implement into my life. I write a series of notes from each reading in the morning and review notes from earlier in the week. Thinking about these things on a regular basis has aided me in applying them to my life.
If I’m honest, I think I originally got this book for superficial reasons. I have been called well-read and that feeds my ego. I take pride in saying something like, “oh, that reminds me of something I read from blah blah blah who said, ‘you should really listen to this guy that is quoting me right now. He clearly knows a thing or two about a thing or two.’”
At the time, I told myself the book would help me improve myself but it — at least at a subconscious level —I think it was more to add to the list of things I could say to sound smart. Like this nugget from Eric Weinstein:
“Better to be in an expanding world and not quite in exactly the right field, than to be in a contracting world where peoples’ worst behavior comes out.” Eric Weinstein in Tools of Titans
Despite the witty rhetoric I was arming myself with, I was applying little of what I was learning to my life. This is why I want to impress upon you one more time that you should only purchase this book as a companion as you embark upon something that will be challenging for you. In my working towards becoming a full-time writer it has provided me with inspiration when I’m discouraged, a kick in the ass when I’m lazy, and confidence when I doubt myself. Don’t use this book, as I once did, for intellectual masturbation. Don’t buy any book for that reason. Improve for a reason and contribute to the world.
If you want to do that, this book can help.
