Tim Ferriss — “Tired and wired”
If you’ve ever laid down in bed exhausted, then felt wired and been unable to sleep, cortisol might be a factor. To mitigate this “tired and wired” phenomenon, as well as reduce glucose levels, before bed, I take phosphatidylserine and N-acetyl cysteine (NAC). For me, this also has a noticeable impact on lowering anxiety the following day.
Books and documentaries to explore
- Pavel Tsatsouline: Psych by Dr. Judd Biasiotto — to learn how to turn your mind on and off at controlled moments.
- Chris Sacca: I Seem to Be a Verb by Buckminster Fuller.
- Alexis Ohanian: Without Their Permission.
- Tony Robbins: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
- The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
- Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon.
- Iacocca: An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca and William Novak.
- The Second Law by P. W. Atkins.
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.
- Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera.
- Daily Rituals by Mason Currey.
- Diaries of Henry David Thoreau.
- On the Shortness of Life by Seneca.
Podcast episodes to listen to
- Matt Mullenweg
- Noah Kagan
- Wim Hof
Articles to read
Peter Attia — What does success mean?
Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”?
Success is: Do your kids remember you for being the best dad? Not the dad who gave them everything, but will they be able to tell you anything one day? Will they be able to call you out of the blue, any day, no matter what? Are you the first person they want to ask for advice? And at the same time, can you hit it out of the park in whatever it is you decide to do, as a lawyer, as a doctor, as a stockbroker, as a whatever?
Peter Thiel — Speed and delegated decisions
Reid’s first principle is speed — a note on the chief of staff role:
We agreed I was going to make judgment calls on a range of issues on his behalf without checking with him. He told me, “In order to move fast, I expect you’ll make some foot faults. I’m okay with an error rate of 10 to 20%—times when I should have made a different decision in a given situation—if it means you can move fast.” I felt empowered to make decisions with this ratio in mind, and it was incredibly liberating.
Scott Adams — The logic of the double or triple threat
Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix… At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%. If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that too. It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.
Justin Boreta — Quotes to live by
Be the silence that listens.
— Tara Brach
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
— Hunter S. Thompson
Tim Ferriss — How to Earn Your Freedom
Too long to add all. Revisit page 297.
…Most of us, of course, have never taken such vows—but we choose to live like monks anyway, rooting ourselves to a home or a career and using the future as a kind of phony ritual that justifies the present. In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.”…
Sebastian Junger — Be prepared to fail
His message at a high school commencement:
You guys are programmed to succeed. The hardest thing you’re ever going to do in your life is fail at something, and if you don’t start failing at things, you will not live a full life. You’ll be living a cautious life on a path that you know is pretty much guaranteed to more or less work. That’s not getting the most out of this amazing world we live in. You have to do the hardest thing that you have not been prepared for in this school or any school: You have to be prepared to fail. That’s how you’re going to expand yourself and grow. As you work through that process of failure and learning, you will really deepen the human being you’re capable of being.
Brené Brown — Courage over comfort
When I had the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort?
Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena”:
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.
Tim Ferriss — Am I hunting antelope or field mice?
A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing and eating a field mouse. But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So a lion that spent its day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can’t live on field mice. A lion needs antelope. Antelope are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. A lion can live a long and happy life on a diet of antelope. The distinction is important. Are you spending all your time and exhausting all your energy catching field mice? In the short term it might give you a nice, rewarding feeling. But in the long run you’re going to die. So ask yourself at the end of the day, “Did I spend today chasing mice or hunting antelope?”