13 Tactics of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
Over the past three years, I’ve been fortunate enough to interview over 200 world-class performers on my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which recently passed 200,000,000 downloads.
The guests included chess prodigies, movie stars, four-star generals, pro athletes, and hedge fund managers. It was a motley crew.
More than a handful of them have since become collaborators in business and creative projects, spanning from investments to indie film.
As a result, I’d absorbed a lot of their wisdom outside of our recordings, whether over workouts, wine-infused jam sessions, text message exchanges, dinners, or late-night phone calls.
My life had already improved in every area as a result of the lessons I could remember. But that was the tip of the iceberg. The majority of the gems were still lodged in thousands of pages of transcripts and hand-scribbled notes. More than anything, I longed for the chance to distill everything into a playbook.
The result was my book: Tools of Titans, the distilled tools, tactics, and “inside baseball” from super celebs (Jamie Foxx, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.) and athletes (icons of powerlifting, gymnastics, surfing, etc.) to legendary Special Operations commanders and black-market biochemists.
I define “Tool” broadly: routines, books, common self-talk, supplements, favorite questions, and much more.
Here are 13 tools I picked up along the way:
1. Overcoming jet lag
Paul Levesque (more popularly known as Triple H): 14-time world champion in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
During his peak travel period, Paul traveled over 260 days per year, performing in a different city each night. Here is one of his rules:
“When I landed, I would check into the hotel. The second we checked in, I’d ask them: ‘Is the gym open? Can I go train?’ Even if it was to get on a bike and ride for 15 minutes to reset things. I learned early that it seemed any time I did that, I didn’t get jet lag.”
2. If you can’t generate 10 ideas, generate 20
James Altucher: American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, and best-selling author
James recommends the habit of writing down 10 ideas each morning in a waiter’s pad or tiny notebook. This exercise is for developing your “idea muscle” and confidence for creativity on demand, so regular practice is more important than the topics:
“What if [you] just can’t come up with 10 ideas? Here’s the magic trick: If you can’t come up with 10 ideas, come up with 20 ideas … You are putting too much pressure on yourself. Perfectionism is the ENEMY of the idea muscle … it’s your brain trying to protect you from harm, from coming up with an idea that is embarrassing and stupid and could cause you to suffer pain. The way you shut [this] off is by forcing [the brain] to come up with bad ideas.”
3. ChiliPad
Dr. Kelly Starrett: author of the New York Times bestseller, Becoming a Supple Leopard.
This was first introduced to me by Kelly and Rick Rubin (see below).
Let’s paint a familiar scene. A man and a woman are sleeping in bed under the same set of sheets and blankets. The woman’s temperature is running at roughly 700°F, giving off the heat of a pizza oven. The guy gets sweaty and kicks one leg out and on top of the sheets. Then he gets cold 10 minutes later and puts the leg underneath, repeating this cycle ad nauseam. He might even yank the covers like a child, upsetting the woman. It’s a huge headache for everybody. Sleep temperature is highly individualized.
The ChiliPad allows you to put an extremely thin — almost imperceptibly thin — sheet underneath your normal sheets that circulates water through a bedside contraption at a very precise temperature of your choosing. There are versions with two zones, so two people side by side can choose different numbers.
Maybe your magic sleeping temperature is 55°F. Or 61°F, or 75°F? If you’re cold, you can increase the temperature of the ChiliPad underneath you instead of throwing a thick blanket on top that’s going to make your partner sweat to death. It can modulate between 55 and 110°F. Experiment and find your silver bullet.
Several of my close friends in Silicon Valley sheepishly admitted that, of all the advice I’ve ever given in my books and podcasts, the ChiliPad had the biggest impact on their quality of life.
4. The cleansing power of cold
Rick Rubin: called “the most important [music] producer of the last 20 years” by MTV.
“Often, exercise will make me feel better, meditating will make me feel better, but the ice bath is the greatest of all. It’s just magic — sauna, ice, back and forth. By the end of the fourth, or fifth, or sixth round of being in an ice tub, there is nothing in the world that bothers you.”
5. Take the coffee challenge
Noah Kagan: Chief Sumo (founder) at SumoMe.
For would-be entrepreneurs (he calls them “wantrapreneurs”), or entrepreneurs who’ve grown a little too comfortable, Noah has a recommendation — ask for 10% off of your next few coffees.
“Go up to the counter and order coffee. If you don’t drink coffee, order tea. If you don’t drink tea, order water. I don’t care. Then just ask for 10% off … The coffee challenge sounds kind of silly, but the whole point is that — in business and in life — you don’t have to be on the extreme, but you have to ask for things, and you have to put yourself out there.”
6. Stargazing as therapy
BJ Miller: palliative care physician at the University of California at San Francisco and an advisor to the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco
“When you are struggling with just about anything, look up. Just ponder the night sky for a minute and realize that we’re all on the same planet at the same time. As far as we can tell, we’re the only planet with life like ours on it anywhere nearby. Then you start looking at the stars, and you realize that the light hitting your eye is ancient, [some of the] stars that you’re seeing, they no longer exist by the time that the light gets to you.
Just mulling the bare-naked facts of the cosmos is enough to thrill me, awe me, freak me out, and kind of put all my neurotic anxieties in their proper place. A lot of people — when you’re standing at the edge of your horizon, at death’s door, you can be much more in tune with the cosmos.”
7. Treat life as a series of experiments
Derek Sivers: founder, CD Baby.
“My recommendation is to do little tests. Try a few months of living the life you think you want, but leave yourself an exit plan, being open to the big chance that you might not like it after actually trying it … The best book about this subject is Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. His recommendation is to talk to a few people who are currently where you think you want to be and ask them for the pros and cons. Then trust their opinion since they’re right in it, not just remembering or imagining.”
8. Learning from your future self
Shay Carl: SHAYTARD on YouTube (nearly 3 BILLION views).
“Think about how old you are right now and think about being a 10-year-older version of yourself. Then think, ‘What would I probably tell myself as an older version of myself?’”
9. Ask the dumb question everyone else is afraid to ask
Alex Blumberg: CEO and cofounder of Gimlet Media, makers of Reply All, StartUp, Mystery Show, and many other blockbuster podcasts.
“Often, there’s a very basic, very dumb question at the center of a story that no one’s asking. One of the biggest stories I ever did, ‘The Giant Pool of Money,’ was predicated on just such a dumb question: ‘Why are the banks loaning money to people who can’t possibly pay it back?’ Asking the right dumb question is often the smartest thing you can do.”
10. “Any time I’m telling myself, ‘But I’m making so much money,’ that’s a warning sign that I’m doing the wrong thing.”
B.J. Novak: actor, writer, director, and executive producer of “The Office”
Looking back at his career, B.J. noticed that he could have stalled in a number of places. Instead, he became very well known for “The Office” and other mega-successes. How did he repeatedly choose the right fork in the road? He attributes a lot of it to heeding the above rule of thumb.
If you find yourself saying, “But I’m making so much money” about a job or project, pay attention. “But I’m making so much money,” or “But I’m making good money” is a warning sign that you’re probably not on the right track or, at least, that you shouldn’t stay there for long. Money can always be regenerated. Time and reputation cannot.
11. Quality questions create a quality life
Tony Robbins: the world’s most famous performance coach.
Tony sometimes phrases this as, “The quality of your life is the quality of your questions.” Questions determine your focus. Most people — and I’m certainly guilty of this at times — spend their lives focusing on negativity (e.g., “How could he say that to me?!”) and therefore the wrong priorities.
12. “Two is one and one is none.”
Jocko Willink: co-founder, Echelon Front, and co-author the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win.
This is a common expression among SEALs. Jocko explains: “It just means, ‘Have a backup.’” If you have two of something, you will break or lose one and end up with one remaining; if you have one, you will break or lose it and be screwed.
One of my favorite Franz Kafka quotes is related: “Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have.” Where can you eliminate “single points of failure” in your life or business?
Jocko adds, “And don’t just have backup gear — have a backup plan to handle likely contingencies.”
13. Don’t attribute to malice that which can be explained otherwise
Alain de Botton: author, How Proust Can Change Your Life, Essays in Love, Status Anxiety, The Architecture of Happiness, The News: A User’s Manual, and Art as Therapy.
“Wasn’t it Bill Clinton who said that when dealing with anyone who’s upset, he always asks, ‘Has this person slept? Have they eaten? Is somebody else bugging them?’ He goes through this simple checklist … When we’re handling babies and the baby is kicking and crying, we almost never once say, ‘That baby’s out to get me’ or ‘She’s got evil intentions.’”
BONUS: Want to Win Every Day?
If so, here are 5 things to do right after you roll out of bed. It’s a checklist that will help you win the morning — so you can win your day, and your life.
