Is the new Tim Ferriss book any good? Review of ‘Tools for Titans’
I was skeptical of Tools of Titans.
When Tim first described his newest project to us, I couldn’t envision a leap from “4 Hour ______” to a book based on his podcast interviews. I was worried it would just be a compilation that didn’t have the same soul of his earlier stuff.
Boy, was I wrong. It’s a fantastic read.
For the last week, I’ve been waking up early because I was excited to read a few chapters. The way it’s written reminds me of the glory days of blogging when I could fire up Google Reader and get super information dense and highly personal posts about health, business, and finance.
I’ve been reading the book with my iPad in hand, adding products to my Amazon cart and taking notes to ensure I can put all these ideas into action.
For a lot of you, that’s enough of an endorsement… just go buy it here.
Tim has taken dozens of 60+ minute interviews with some of the most successful and interesting folks around and boiled them down into 2–6 page action-packed sections that are full of instantly usable thoughts and ideas. This book speaks my love language — no wasted words yet all the emotion, it’s straight to the point yet feels like a smart friend is having a conversation with you.
The book is divided into three sections:
Healthy
Professional atheletes, decorated researchers, and world-famous doctors share their best insights, tricks, and tips. I’m growing quite the dad-bod, and it’s been about 4 years since I last did the slow carb diet and lost almost 30 lbs. I’ve been learning and planning about how to lose it back again—this book has pushed me over the edge to get serious about it again. I’m excited to try out the mix of a 3 day fast and keto diet described in Dominic D’Agistino’s chapter.
Wealthy
Most of the business books you get are one good big idea in the first chapter followed by a couple hundred pages to prove that point, and maybe a couple memorable stories. This section is high impact and actionable ideas, advice, and tools for taking your business and financial life to the next level.
Wise
Learning how to learn is probably the best investment you can make in yourself. This is where Tim’s experience and almost psychotic attention to detail kick in. I really appreciate getting to see the way he approaches problems and challenges.
My Predictions as to what this book will do:
- Keto diets and Fasting are going to become a big thing
- You’ll start seeing tons of people on 4 hour walks on Friday and Saturdays (you’ll find out why).
- American type-As will get into meditating and in a real way
I’m seeing many of the ideas from this book start to bubble up in some of the circles that I follow—but after reading this book I think it’s going to be a widely read book and going to rocket these ideas into mainstream adoption.
In closing
The book seemed way too big. My first thought was that I’d get bored after 100 or so pages—that was not the case at all. I love the way Tim freely projects his inner psychotic, big-picture, perfectionist, hard-driving, self-doubting, and self-motivated emotions into his books. The contrast between great ideas from high-performers and his inner dialog is super motivating and useful.
Tools for Titans, by Tim Ferriss
