Inspirational Icons: Tim Ferriss

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Despite the fact that it’s been just over a decade since Tim Ferriss burst onto the self-help scene with The 4-Hour Workweek, he’s already been able to cement his legacy amongst the greatest personal development icons of all time. Thanks to his revolutionary way of looking at work and life, which is not only on full display in his first bestselling book but also in his four other highly acclaimed titles and in 300 episodes of his distinguished podcast, he’s been able to transform how we approach success while inspiring millions of people to break free of the shackles that come from conforming to societal norms.

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Tim Ferriss Profile:

Birth: July 20th, 1977 (age 40)

Occupation: Author, Entrepreneur & Public Speaker

Areas of Focus: Personal Development & Productivity

The Life of Tim Ferriss:

Ever since the likes of Wallace Wattles, Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill helped to popularize the idea of personal development in the early 20th century, the self-help industry has steadily grown into a multibillion-dollar sector. While there’s been a seemingly endless number of inspirational individuals who’ve helped make this possible, by building upon the work of the field’s founding fathers, there’s been only a handful of men and women who’ve risen to become generational icons and truly historic personal development figures. As is the case with Tim Ferriss, it’s been his radical and sometimes rebellious advice about work and creating a meaningful life that’s helped him become one of the most celebrated and recognizable self-help leaders of modern times. Unsurprisingly, like many of the field’s other legends, Ferriss’ path to becoming one of the most world’s most distinguished self-improvement guru was marred with struggle.

It was on July 20th, 1977, when a middle class family from East Hampton, New York, welcomed Ferriss into the world with a sense of gracious relief as some serious health complications nearly claimed his life at birth. Throughout his childhood years, Ferriss and his family lived modestly, with few material luxuries, because his parents struggled to do more than get by. Although these unfavorable circumstances would prove challenging for the young boy, it wasn’t long before he would begin flashing the intellectual brilliance that’s made him a star today.

After attending a secondary boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire, Ferriss was accepted into the prestigious Princeton University and began pursuing a degree in East Asian Studies. While he clearly had a bright ahead of him, this isn’t to say that things went smoothly from this point on. In fact, it was during Ferriss’s senior year when he’d have to overcome a period of suicidal depression that was caused by a number of disheartening events taking place in his life. Not only had some of his closest friends from high school and college recently taken their own lives, but his longtime girlfriend ended their relationship just as he was coming to believe he wouldn’t be able to graduate because he was failing his senior thesis.

Over the course of this tumultuous period of his life, Ferriss became more and more isolated in his apartment and went as far to order a book on suicide. Fortunately, however, the man who’s since been described as a blend of ‘Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk’ forgot to change his delivery address, presumably because of his distressed mental state, and the book was delivered to his family’s house. After receiving a call from his deeply concerned mother, Ferriss would snap out of his delusional mindset and start on the path to recovery. Of the life-changing phone call, he recalls:

I am snapped out of my own delusion by a one-in-a-million accident. It was only then that I realize something: My death wouldn’t just be about me. It would completely destroy the lives of those I cared about most. I imagine my mom, who had no part in creating my thesis mess, suffering until her dying day, blaming herself.”

Upon graduating from Princeton in 2000, Tim Ferriss went to work as a salesman for a data storage company while he simultaneously began building a sports nutritional supplements company called brainQUICKEN. While it didn’t take long for the entrepreneurial venture to become successful, Ferriss was forced to take on the draining stresses that come from working 14 hour days. It was during this time when the now beloved self-help figure began thinking about the true meaning of work and conceptualizing the ideas that became the basis for his most well-known book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

In 2007, Ferriss finally did step onto personal development’s biggest stage after published his groundbreaking masterpiece, The Four Hour Workweek, which quickly found it’s way to the top of nearly all bestsellers lists. Despite the fact that the book’s success is undeniable now, many in the publishing world initially had their doubts as over 25 publishers rejected the title before Crown Publishing Group told him they’d take a gamble, not on his writings but on him as a person, and publish his work. Considering that the book spent more than four years on the New York Times Best Sellers List and has sold more than 1,350,000 copies, in 40+ languages, it’s safe to say that Crown Publishing Group made a good decision. Ferriss recalls asking the publisher what they’d seen in his manuscript that so many others had missed before being told:

Nothing. We can understand why publishers have rejected this work. But we aren’t betting on the book, we are betting on you. We believe you will do anything and everything you can to make the book successful.”

Three years after publishing The Four Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss sold brainQUICKEN to a London-based private equity firm and began focusing full-time on his budding career as a personal development icon. In addition to his blog, which was established around the time of his first book’s publication, Ferriss launched what’s since become one of the world’s most successful podcasts in 2014. During episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show, which has amassed more than 100 million downloads, the deeply passionate Ferriss discusses a broad set of topics, such as learning, fitness, character development, venture capitalism and metaphysics, with an equally diverse set of podcast guests.

Beyond his blog and podcast, Ferriss has followed up The 4-Hour Workweek with four other highly acclaimed titles: The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life, Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers and Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World. Additionally, the man who’s been described as ‘The Superman of Silicon Valley’ regularly invests in and advises a number of promising startup ventures. Over the course of his career as an eminent self-help leader, Ferriss has also worked in television, accumulated a variety of interesting titles and records, such as the Guinness World Record for most Argentinean tango spins in one minute, all the while placing great importance on his philanthropic interests.

Three of His Most Important Teachings:

Although it’s been only a little over a decade since The 4-Hour Workweek became an instant classic of self-help literature, Tim Ferriss has already been able to etch his name amongst history’s greatest inspirational icons by continuously offering the general public a treasure-trove of life-affirming guidance. When considering the fact that his five books together contain over 3,000 pages and his podcast has produced 300 episodes, most of which last well over an hour, it becomes easier to understand how he’s been able to revolutionize the ways we think about success and become the face of the personal development field in such a short amount of time. While his transformational teachings certainly aren’t limited to the following three, they are unquestionably some of his most important:

Work Smarter, Not Harder:

When you want to make money, it’s important to keep things as simple as possible. The harder you make the process, the more likely it is to fail. It was while building his first entrepreneurial venture up from the ground that Tim Ferriss gained firsthand knowledge of how all too many success driven individuals give up what’s really important in life so they’re able to achieve their loftiest ambitions. Subsequently, it was after falling victim to this trap when Ferriss set out to transform the definition of success by turning society’s generally accepted norms and beliefs, which limit our ability to live life to the fullest, upside down. Ultimately, it’s been this desire to help others and himself get to a place where work and success remain important but come second to the joyous and unforgettable experiences we often take for granted, that served as the foundation for Ferriss’ first three book. He reminds us:

The commonsense rules of the ‘real world’ are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.”

Throughout the pages of The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Chef, Ferriss offers a wide variety of life-transforming advice while illuminating numerous practices and strategies that can help us achieve our most meaningful aims without the stresses or long hours. For example, Ferriss’ formula puts great emphasis on setting manageable goals, eliminating distractions and focusing on being productive instead of busy. Additionally, his guidance on following the 80/20 rule and outsourcing mundane tasks that unnecessarily drain our time and energy can assuredly help us become more effective and efficient. Finally, his recommendations to continuously evaluate oursevles and look for ways to improve our processes and procedures can be especially useful for when we set out to achieve the unthinkable. He tells us:

If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are subpar, this is the time to ask, What if I did the opposite? Don’t follow a model that doesn’t work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.”

Model The Masters:

Where as Tim Ferriss’ first three books are jam-packed with ideas for improving effectiveness and efficiency, his last two bestsellers have revolved around the powerful personal development strategy of modeling the masters. By basing Tools of Titans and Tribes of Mentors on what he’s learned while interviewing hundreds of authority figures, coming from a range of different industries and fields, Ferriss has shown how we can improve our lives and accomplish our most ambitious goals by following in the footsteps of the men and women who’ve done it before. He encourages us to:

Look at empire building of other types, look at the biggest decisions in the life of Robert Moses (read The Power Broker), or simply find someone who stepped up to do great things that were deemed impossible at the time (e.g., Walt Disney). There is shared DNA you can borrow.”

While there are a seemingly endless number of more specific ways that we can use modeling to achieve our personal goals, Ferriss additionally shines light on some behavioral habits that are widely shared amongst the world’s best across the full spectrum of professional careers. For example, he tells us that most high-achievers practice some form of mindfulness or meditation on a daily basis and many others condition a state of focus with a particular song that they’ll listen to on repeat when they’re trying to get work done. After surveying 140 individuals who are considered influential figures, in their respective field or industry, for Tribe of Mentors, Ferriss was surprised to learn just how many of them relied upon meditative practices. He says:

Despite the fact that these are people from tennis to surfing to cryptocurrency to fill-in-the-blank, like any field you can possibly imagine – some type of morning mindfulness or meditation practice would span I’d say 90% of the respondents.”

Define Your Fears, Not Your Goals:

Another one of Tim Ferriss’ most well known and life-transforming teachings, which similarly goes against what’s widely believed in society, relates to the practice of goal-setting. It’s because our mental limitations are often the reasons why we’re unable to achieve our goals that the legendary personal development guru tells us we should instead practice what he likes to call ‘fear-setting’. By doing so, he says, we can systematically bust through our limitations and set our sights even higher. He tells us:

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”

Rather than outline the entire ‘fear-setting’ process here, let’s turn our attention to Ferriss’ 2017 Ted Talks during which he talks about the life-changing exercise:

Inspirational Quotes:

“Give vulnerability a shot. Give discomfort its due. Because I think he or she who is willing to be the most uncomfortable is not only the bravest, but rises the fastest.”

“If I want a better-than-average career, I can’t simply ‘go with the flow’ and get it. Most people do just that: they wish for an outcome but make no intention-driven actions toward that outcome. If they would just do something most people would find th they get some version of the outcome they’re looking for. That’s been my secret. Stop wishing and start doing.”

“The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo.”