Tools Of Titans By Tim Ferriss

[Siim Land]

Tools of Titans is the newest book by Tim Ferriss. It's based on over 200 interviews he has had on his podcast and is a collection of habits, tricks and techniques of all of the greatest guests on the show.

The secret to their great performance isn't superpowers but a set of rules and routines that allow them to achieve what others can't. Some of them include meditation, skipping breakfast, intense concentration skills and persistence.

I've made a video reviewing the first preview chapter of the book and will cover the rest of the book in the future as well. Check it out.
 

 
 

[The Monk]

@Siim Land Good job man Keep up the job work!  I think you get yourself a  sub.

[Ozisoki]

I will buy this book for sure.

I wanted to discuss here though my mixed views about one of the major premises on which the book is built. I am wondering what do you guys think about it. Maybe you will help me sort out my cognitive dissonance re this topic.

Principle 1 says "Success, however you may define it, is achievable if you collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits".

What this really means to me is that you must understand the recipe created by another person and follow that recipe in your life, then you will have the result of the other person. First of all, I think this is not entirely true: the quality of the implementation will be a factor of many things not solely your intention, therefore the quality of the outcome will be variable. Anyway, let's suppose that you are in total control of every internal and external circumstance of life, able to do a perfect implementation and get the same result as the guy you copied the recipe from.

I have a massive resistance towards employing this methodology although I do think it is incredibly useful and may also work. It seems so foreign and uncreative to me to follow someone else's manuscript, recipe or guidebook. I takes the creation and thinking process out of my hands and puts it into somebody else's. I am also capped by the imagination of the guy I am copying, whereas I feel I would not be capped not following a recipe. I also have the impression (maybe wrongly) that what made these guys so successful in the 1st place is that they were not following the recipe of someone else, but created something singular and 4 standard deviations different from what everyone else was doing.

On the other hand, it seems so crazy to have the opportunity to get the recipe of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk ... and all those other billionaires and titans and not use it. If I am able to reproduce the mental processes of Elon Musk and become like him and achieve what he has, is it necessarily a bad thing that I copied it from someone else? If I have the result, does it really matter if it's 100% my original thinking and mental output or if it's 20%?

Anyway, I think that the problem with this line of reasoning is that it's overly black or white, this or that. I can profit tremendously from following the principles of someone else and creating the precise recipe myself based on those principles.

I wanted to share this with you guys as it's quite confusing to hold 2 opposing opinions something at the same time and wanted to know your lines of reasoning.

Check out this article on the mental model of Elon Musk and topic re originality vs copying on The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce