Tools of Titans - Tim Ferris

O primeiro livro que li do Tim Ferriss foi o The 4-hour Work Week (um livro incrível que recomendo a qualquer pessoa). O que me chamou à atenção no autor, para além do sucesso que alcançou em várias áreas (é investidor, autor e apresentador de um dos podcasts mais conhecidos do mundo), foi a sua capacidade de descobrir padrões, de experimentar diversas técnicas e, acima de tudo, a capacidade de simplificar processos complexos.

O livro teve um impacto tão grande em mim que, para além de o recomendar a toda a gente, resolvi pesquisar tudo o que encontrei sobre o autor. Como resultado, deparei-me com este livro, que resume os temas mais importantes debatidos no seu podcast, onde entrevistou algumas das pessoas mais bem-sucedidas nas mais diversas áreas. Tal como o nome indica, Tools of Titans, aborda dicas, técnicas e hábitos destas pessoas.

https://youtu.be/iPE2_iCCo0w

Julho, 2020

Este livro é uma compilação de receitas que Tim Ferriss recolheu para uso próprio e que o permitem estar no seu melhor. Estas lições foram retiradas de cerca de 200 pessoas de elite das mais diversas áreas e foram exploradas e utilizadas, de alguma forma, na vida do autor.

Os entrevistados não têm super poderes, mas criaram regras para as sua vida que os permitem atingir coisas fantásticas. Estas regras são muitas vezes hábitos pouco comuns e perguntas de qualidade.

As “ferramentas” descritas neste livro incluem: rotinas, livros, diálogo interno, suplementação, perguntas favoritas, entre outras.

É possível encontrar nas entrevistas hábitos e recomendações comuns:

• Mais de 80% dos entrevistados praticam diariamente mindfulness ou meditação;
• Um grande número de homens (mas não de mulheres) com mais de 45 anos não come pequeno-almoço, ou come muito pouco;
• Muitos usam chillipad na altura de dormir;
• Livros recomendados: Sapiens, Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Influence, e Man’s Search for Meaning;
• Ouvir a mesma música repetidamente para a concentração;
• Quase todos desenvolveram, de alguma forma, os seus projetos durante o seu tempo livre e investindo o seu próprio dinheiro;
• A crença de que “o falhanço não é permanente”;
• Quase todos os convidados tornaram “fraquezas” em vantagem competitivas.

Lembra-te destes dois princípios:

1 – Sucesso, independentemente da forma que o definas, é possível de alcançar se recolheres crenças e hábitos comprovados. Já alguém alcançou a tua definição de sucesso antes e, frequentemente, muitos já alcançaram algo parecido. Mesmo para coisas que nunca foram feitas há receitas que se podem copiar

2 – Aqueles que consideras super-heróis são, quase todos, pessoas com muitas falhas que maximizaram um ou dois pontos fortes. Os humanos são imperfeitos. Não são bem-sucedidos porque não têm fraquezas, mas porque encontraram pontos fortes únicos e focaram-se em desenvolver hábitos à volta deles.

Este livro tem três partes: Saúde, Riqueza, e Sabedoria, sendo que estas estão interrelacionadas entre si (a riqueza refere-se a abundancia em termos de tempo, relações, entre outras e não apenas a dinheiro)

Julho, 2020

Estes excertos estão presentes na primeira parte do livro, que aborda temas relacionados com a Saúde.

Como mencionado num artigo anterior, este livro é uma coleção de ideias retiradas do podcast de Tim Ferriss. Neste programa foram entrevistadas centenas (se não milhares) de pessoas e, como tal, o livro está dividido por entrevistas. Neste artigo o nome do entrevistado aparece a negrito e a informação abaixo diz respeito à sua participação no podcast.

Amelia Boone 

 “I’m not the strongest. I’m not the fastest. But  I’m really good at suffering.”

What would you put on a billboard?

“No one owes you anything.”

Rhonda Patrick

“Two 20-minute sauna sessions at 80ºC (176ºF) separated by a 30-minute cooling period elevated growth hormone levels two-fold over baseline. Whereas, two 15-minute dry-heat sessions at 100ºC (212ºF) separated by a 30-minute cooling period resulted in a five-fold increase in growth hormone... The growth hormone effects generally persist for a couple hours post-sauna.”

Christopher Sommer

“If you want to be a stud later, you have to be a pud now.”

“You’re not responsible for the hand of cards you were dealt. You’re responsible for maxing out what you were given.”

Dominic D’Agostino 

WHY CONSIDER FASTING?

“If you don’t have cancer and you do a therapeutic fast 1 to 3 times per year, you could purge any precancerous cells that may be living in your body.”

“There is also evidence to suggest – skipping the scientific detail – that fasts of 3 days or longer can effectively “reboot” you immune system via stem cell – based regeneration. Dom suggests a 5-day fast 2 to 3 times per year.” – Tim Ferriss

Joe de Sena 

Do you have any quotes you live your life by or think of often?

“It could always be worse.”

WIM “THE ICEMAN”

“Breathe, motherfucker!” – Wim’s answer to “What would you put on a billboard?”

He is the creator of the Wim Hof Method and hols more than 20 world records.

COLD IS A GREAT PURIFYING FORCE

“It can improve immune function, increase fat loss (partially by increasing levels of the hormone adiponectin), and dramatically elevate mood.” – Tim Ferriss

“Simply make the last 30 to 60 seconds of your shower pure cold.” – Tim Ferriss

Jason Nemer

What do you believe that other people think is insane?

“That you can trust people. You can trust a lot of people. You don’t have to live in fear of strangers. Strangers are just people you haven’t flown yet. It seems crazy to me that, in many cultures, we teach our children to fear and not talk to strangers.”

“I assume the best in people. I assume that I can trust them until they prove me wrong. When you do this practice enough, trusting is like a muscle that you flex.”

What would you put on a billboard?

“Play” Play more. I feel like people are so serious, and it doesn’t take much for people to drop back into the wisdom of a childlike playfulness. If I had to prescribe two things to improve health and happiness in the world, it’d be movement and play. Because you can’t really play without moving, so they’re interwined.”

PETER ATTIA 

“There is value in exercise, though, and I think that the most important type of exercise, especially in terms of bang for your buck, is going to be really high-intensity, heavy strength training. Strength training aids everything from glucose disposal and metabolic health to mitochondrial density and orthopaedic stability.”

PAVEL TSATSOULINE 

BASIC TENETS FOR STRENGTH 

“Strength is the mother quality of all physical qualities.”

“Strength is a skill, and, as such, it must be practiced.”

“If you are training for strength, you want to try and avoid the burn altogether. The burn is your enemy.”

“Training is something that should be enjoyed.”

LAIRD HAMILTON, GABBY REECE & BRIAN MACKENZIE

TF: People are nicer than they look, but you have to go first.

THE INSPIRATION OF DON WILDMAN

GABBY: “The other thing Don does that’s very genius... is he solicits people to be in his group because no man can really do it alone. So he always has these guys around him, most of them quite a bit younger.”

“A LONELY PLACE IS AN UNMOTIVATED PLACE”

LAIRD: “All you flexible people should go bang some iron, and all you big weight lifters should go do some yoga...”

JAMES FADIMAN 

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” – Lao Tzun

KELLY STARRETT 

“IF YOU CAN’D BREATHE, YOU DON’T KNOW THY POSITION.”

“ONE TACTIC FOR CHRONIC PAIN – USE A CLOSE COUSIN OF THE MOVEMENT THAT INJURED YOU”

PAUL LEVESQUE (TRIPLE H)

“Kids don’t do what you say. They do what they see. How you live your life is their example.”

IS THAT A DREAM OR A GOAL?

“Because a dream is something you fantasize about that will probably never happen. A goal is something you set a plan for, work toward, and achieve.”

“The people who were successful models to me were people who had structured goals and then put a plan in place to get to those things.”

Julho, 2020 

JANE McGONIGAL

TETRIS AS THERAPY

TF: "Have trouble getting to sleep? Try 10 minutes of Tetris. Recent research has demonstrated that Tetris – or Candy Crush Saga or Bejeweled – can help overwrite negative visualization, which has applications for addiction (such as overeating), preventing PTSD, and, in my case, onset insomnia."

Do you have any quotes that you live your life by or think of often?

“When it comes to the future, it’s far more important to be imaginative than to be right” by Alvin Toffler

What is something you believe that other people think is crazy?

“That you should never publicly criticize anyone or anything unless it is a matter of morals or ethics”

ADAM GAZZALEY

HOW HE HIRES FOR COVETED SPOTS IN HIS LAB

“That’s usually where I start: ‘What do you think about that really gets you excited?’ Because I’m more interested in what drives someone and motivates them and makes them want to get out of the bed in the morning than a list of classic résumé check-boxes.”

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

TF: "Since 2008, Adam has hosted a party for diverse friends of his (usually 40 to 80 people) the first Friday of every month, called First Friday."

Favourite documentary

TF: "Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series inspired Adam to become a scientist, which is true for many of the top-tier scientists I’ve met and interviewed. (TF: Neil deGrasse Tyson has a revised version of Cosmos that is also spectacular.)"

5 MORNING RITUALS THAT HELP ME WIN THE DAY

#1 – Make your Bed

#2 – Meditate (10 to 20 minutes)

#3 – Do 5 to 10 Reps of something

#4 – Prepare “Titanium Tea”

#5 – Morning Pages or 5-minute Journal (5 to 10 minutes)

MIND TRAINING 101

“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” – Archilochus

The Most Consistent Pattern of All

TF: "More than 80% of the world-class performers I’ve interviewed have some form of daily meditation or mindfulness practice. Both can be thought of as “cultivating a present-state awareness that helps you to be nonreactive.”"

The Buffet of Options

TF: "If I could only choose one physical exercise for the body, it would probably be the hex-bar deadlift or two-handed kettlebell swing. If I could only choose one exercise for the mind, it would be 10 to 20 minutes of meditation at least once daily."

THREE TIPS FROM A GOOGLE PIONEER

My Two favourite Exercises from Meng, in His Own Words

• Just Note Gone

“With “Just Note Gone” we train the mind to notice that something previously experienced is no more. For example, at the end of a breath, notice that the breath is over.”

• Loving-Kindness and the Happiest Day in 7 Years

“I tell the audience members to each identify two human beings in the room and just think, “I wish for this person to be happy, and I wish for that person to be happy.” That is it. I remind them to not do or say anything, just think – this is an entirely thinking exercise.”

COACH SOMMER – THE SINGLE DECISION 

“Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence was easy everyone would do it. In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals.”

“Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process. This is especially important because you are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all to brief moments of triumph at the end.”

“If the commitment is to a long-term goal and not to a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to. Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than having to make small decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way. This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal. The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.”

Agosto, 2020

CHRIS SACA 

ARE YOU PLAYING OFFENSE OR DEFENSE?

“Generally, what all of this comes down to is whether you are on offense or defense. I think that as you survey the challenges in your lives, it’s just: Which of those did you assign yourself, and which of those are you doing to please someone else? Your inbox is a to-do list to which anyone in the world can add an action item. I needed to get out of my inbox and back to my own to-do list.”

MARC ANDREESSEN

“STRONG VIEWS, LOOSELY HELD”

TF: "People everywhere hate changing their minds, but you need to be able to adapt in light of new information."

DON’T OVERESTIMATE THE PEOPLE ON PEDESTALS

“Get inside the heads of the people who made things in the past and what they were actually like, and then realize that they’re not that different from you. At the time they got started, they were kind of just like you... so there’s nothing stopping any of the rest of us from doing the same thing”

“... everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were no smarter than you.”

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

“My confidence came from my vision.... I am a big believer that if you have a very clear vision of where you want to go, then the rest of it is much easier. Because you always know why you are training 5 hours a day, you always know why you are pushing and going through the pain barrier, and why you have to eat ore, and why you have to struggle more, and why you have to be more disciplined.”

DEREK SIVERS 

BEHIND THE SCENES

TF: "He read Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins when he was 18, and changed his life."

“IF (MORE) INFORMATION WAS THE ANSWER, THEN WE’D ALL BE BILLIONAIRES WITH PERFECT ABS.”

TF: "It’s not what you know, it’s what you do consistently."

“HOW TO THRIVE IN AN UNKNOWABLE FUTURE? CHOOSE THE PLAN WITH THE MOST OPTIONS. THE BEST PLAN IS THE ONE THAT LETS YOU CHANGE YOUR PLANS.”

FOR PEOPLE STARTING OUT – SAY “YES”

“When you’re earlier in your career, I think the best strategy is to just say ‘yes’ to everything. Every little gig. You just never know what are the lottery tickets.”

DON’T BE A DONKEY

“Well, I meet a lot of 30-year-olds who are trying to pursue many different directions at once, but not making progress in any, right?”

“The solution is to think long-term. To realize that you can do one of these things for a few years, and then do another one for a few years, and then another. You’ve probably heard the fable, I think it’s ‘Buridan’s ass’, about a donkey who is standing halfway between a pile of hay and a bucket of water.”

“So, my advice to my 30-year-old self is, don’t be a donkey. You can do everything you want to do. You just need foresight and patience.”

ONCE YOU HAVE SOME SUCCESS – IF IT’S NOT A “HELL, YES!” IT’S A “NO”

“Because most of us say yes to too much stuff, and then, we let these little, mediocre things fill our lives.”

“BUSY”= OUT OF CONTROL

“Every time people contact me, they say, ‘Look, I know you must be incredibly busy...’ and I always think, ‘No, I’m not.’ Because I’m in control of my time.”

TF: "Lack of time is lack of priorities."

“PRODUCTIVITY” TRICKS FOR THE NEUROTIC...

The Point

TF: "... here’s my 8-step process for maximizing efficacy (doing the right things):

1. Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen, Email is the mind-killer.
2. Make a cup of tea (I like pu-erh) and sit down with a pen/pencil and paper.
3. Write down the 3 to 5 things – and no more – that are making you the most anxious or uncomfortable. They’re often things that have been punted from one day’s to-do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Most important usually equals most uncomfortable, with some chance of rejection or conflict.
4. For each item, ask yourself: “If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?” “Will moving this forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later?” Put another way: “What, if done, will make all of the rest easier or irrelevant?”
5. Look only at the items you’ve answered “yes” to for at least one of these questions.
6. Block out at 2 to 3 hours to focus on ONE of them for today. Let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. It will still be there tomorrow.
7. TO BE CLEAR: Block out at 2 to 3 HOURS to focus on ONE of them for today. This is ONE BLOCK OF TIME. Cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work. No phone calls or social media allowed.
8. If you get distracted or start procrastinating, don’t freak out and downward-spiral; just gently come back to your ONE to-do."

MATT MULLENWEG 

“Everyone is interesting. If you’re ever bored in a conversation, the problem’s with you, not the other person.”

“When you can write well, you can think well.”

DON’T BE A DOG-THINK “WHAT IF?”

“... we would always think: ‘Okay if we do X today, what does that result in tomorrow, a year from now, ten years from now? ... is the dog chasing the car. What does the dog do if he catches the car? He doesn’t have a plan for it.”

TONY ROBBINS

“I DIDN’T SURVIVE, I PREPARED.”

Nelson Mandela’s answer when Tony asked him, “Sir, how did you survive all those years in prison?”

IS THERE A QUOTE THAT GUIDES YOUR LIFE?

“It’s a belief: Life is always happening for us, not to us. It’s our job to find out where the benefit is. If we do, life is magnificent.”

SHORT AND SWEET

“’Stressed’ is the achiever word for ‘fear’.”

“Losers react, leaders anticipate.”

“Mastery doesn’t come from an infographic. What you know doesn’t mean shit. What do you do consistently?”

THE BEST INVESTMENT HE’S EVER MADE?

TF: "As Tony recounted, Buffett told him, 'Investing in yourself is the most important investment you’ll ever make in your life....'"

Jim Rohn: “If you let your learning lead to knowledge, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action, you become wealthy.”

QUALITY QUESTIONS CREATE A QUALITY LIFE

“The quality of your life is the quality of your questions.” Questions determine your focus.

A FOCUS ON “ME” = SUFFERING

“The reason you’re suffering is you’re focused on yourself.”

“Suffering comes from three thought patterns: loss, less, never.”

STATE -> STORY -> STRATEGY

TF: "Tony believes that, in a lowered emotional state, we only see the problems, not solutions.

To fix this, he encourages you to “prime” your state first. The biochemistry will help you proactively tell yourself an enabling story. Only then do you think on strategy, as you’ll see the options instead of dead ends."

CASEY NEISTAT 

PHILOSOPHY AND DAILY ROUTINE

“You realize that you will never be the best-looking person in the room.... But what you can always compete on, the true egalitarian aspect to success, is hard work. You can always work harder than the next guy.”

“What is the ultimate quantification of success? For me, it’s not how much time you spend doing what you love. It’s how little time you spend doing what you hate.”

REID HOFFMAN 

IT DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE HARD

“I have to come to learn that part of the business strategy is to solve the simplest, easiest, and most valuable problem.”

TF: "In doing an 80/20 analysis of your activities (simply put: determining which 20% of activities/tasks produce 80% of the results you want), you typically end up with a short list. Make “easy” your next criterion. Which of these highest-value activities is the easiest for me to do? You can build an entire career on 80/20 analysis and asking this question."

PETER THIEL

What do you wish you had known about business 20 years ago?

“... I wish I would have known that there was no need to wait.... So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”

You studied philosophy...

“... but I think the fundamental philosophical question is one that’s important for all of us, and it’s always this question of ‘What do people agree merely by convention, and what is the truth?’... We always need to ask: Is this true? And this is always what I get at with this indirect question: ‘Tell me something that’s true that very few people agree with you on.’”

SETH GODIN 

“Trust and attention – these are the scarce items in a post-scarcity world.”

IF YOU GENERATE ENOUGH BAD IDEAS, A FEW GOOD ONES TEND TO SHOW UP

“MONEY IS A STORY...”

“Once you have enough for beans and rice and taking care of your family and a few other things, money is a story. You can tell yourself any story you want about money, and it’s better to tell yourself a story about money that you can happily live with.”

TO CREATE SOMETHING GREAT (OR EVENTUALLY HUGE), START EXTREMELY SMALL

“My suggestion is, whenever possible, ask yourself: What’s the smallest possible footprint I can get away with? What is the smallest possible project that is worth my time? What is the smallest group of people who I could make a difference for, or to? Because smallest is achievable. Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you’ve really screwed up.”

JAMES ALTUCHER 

IF YOU CAN’T GENERATE 10 IDEAS, GENERATE 20

TF: "James recommends the habit of writing down 10 ideas each morning..."

“I (then) divide my paper into two columns. On one column is the list of ideas. On the other column is the list of FIRST STEPS.”

Agosto, 2020

SCOTT ADAMS

“SYSTEMS” VERSUS “GOALS”

TF- "Scott helped me refocus, to use his language, on “systems” instead of “goals”. This involves choosing projects and habits that, even if they result in “failures” in the eyes of the outside world, give you transferable skills or relationships. In other words, you choose options that allow you to inevitably “succeed” over time, as you build assets that carry over to subsequent projects."

ON THE ODD EFFECTIVENESS OF AFFIRMATIONS

“But you can use these affirmations, presumably – this is just a hypothesis – to focus your mind and your memory on a very specific thing. And that would allow you to notice things in your environment that might have already been there. It’s just that your filter was set to ignore, and then you just tune it through this memory and repetition trick until it widens a little bit to allow some extra stuff in.”

SHAUN WHITE

“I say, ‘At the end of the day, who cares? What’s the big deal? I’m here, I’m going to try my best, and I’m going to go home, and my family’s there....”

CHASE JARVIS

“I don’t create art to get high-dollar projects, I do high-dollar projects so I can create more art.”

“CREATIVITY IS AN INFINITE RESOURCE. THE MORE YOU SPEND, THE MORE YOU HAVE.”

This was Chase paraphrasing a quote from Maya Angelou and discussing how creativity and meditation are similar.

AMPLIFY YOUR STRENGTHS RATHER THAN FIX YOUR WEAKNESSES

“The point is thinking about ‘What is the unique mojo that I bring, and how can I try and amplify that?’”

DAN CARLIN

ON NOT DOING WHAT YOU’RE QUALIFIED TO DO

“If I’ve learned anything from podcasting, it’s don’t be afraid to do something you’re not qualified to do.”

RAMIT SETHI

1,000 TRUE FANS

“(‘1,000 True Fans’ by Kevin Kelly) was one of the seminal articles that inspired me to really build amazing material, rather than jus recycling what else was out there. I knew that if I had 1,000 true fans, then not only would I be able to live doing the things I wanted, but I would be able to turn that into 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 – and that is exactly what happened.”

ALEX BLUMBERG 

“Occasionally, a good idea comes to you first, if you’re lucky. Usually, it only comes after a lot of bad ideas.”

IN GENERAL – ASK THE DUMB QUESTION EVERYONE ELSE IS AFRAID TO ASK

“Asking the right dumb question is often the smartest thing you can do.”

Setembro, 2020

ED CATMUL

WE ALL BEGIN WITH SUCK

IF YOU CAN’T READ IT, TRY LISTENING TO IT

TO BECOME NA ARTIST, LEARN TO SEE

“It comes from what I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of art on the part of most people. Because they think of art as learning to draw or learning a certain kind of self-expression. But in fact, what artists do is they learn to see.”

TRACY DiNUNZIO

“WHEN YOU COMPLAIN, NOBODY WANTS TO HELP YOU”

“If you spend your time focusing on the things that are wrong and that’s what you express and project to people you know, you don’t become a source of growth for people, you become a source of destruction for people.”

“… I just decided to put myself on a ‘complaining diet’, where I said ‘Not only am I not going to say anything negative about the situation I’m in, but I’m not going to let myself think anything negative about it.’”

“… not only did replacing those thoughts helped me start moving my life in a better direction, where I wasn’t obsessing about what was wrong… it also made me not feel physical pain as much, which is very liberating and kind of necessary if you want to do anything.”

CHRIS YOUNG 

What would you put on a billboard?

“’It all worked out anyway’”, placed outside oh his high school.

“THE INTERESTING JOBS ARE THE ONES THAT YOU MAKE UP.”

“Do things that you’re interested in, and if you do them really well, you’re going to find a way to temper them with some good business opportunity.”

HOLD THE STANDARD

“’If it’s not ready, we’re not going to send it out, and just hope they don’t notice that it’s not that good. We’ll fix it. We’ll do something else, but don’t try to slip by something that you know is below the standard.’”

DAYMOND JOHN 

“If you can go out there and start making noise and making sales, people will find you…. You can make up your own opinions, but you cannot make up your own facts. Sales cure all.”

Do you have any quotes that you live your life by or think of often?

“Money is a great servant but a horrible master.”

NOAH KAGAN 

DON’T TRY AND FIND ME. SCHEDULE TIME.

On Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, Noah schedules nothing but “Learning”.

KASKADE

PUT THE BIG STONES IN FIRST

“What’s really important here is how can I fill the bucket with the things that are really important to me?”

LUIS VON AHN 

“Frustration is a matter of expectation.”

THE CANVAS STRATEGY

“It’s about providing the support so that others can be good.”

“Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself.”

“That’s the other effect of this attitude: It reduces your ego at a critical time in your career, letting you absorb everything you can without the obstructions that block others vision and progress.”

“Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room – until you change that with results.”

“That’s what the canvas strategy is about – helping yourself by helping others. Making a concerted effort to trade your short-term gratification for a longer-term payoff.”

JUSTIN BORETA 

What is the worst advice you see or hear given in your trade or area of expertise?

“Like Chuck Close says ‘Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.’”

SCOTT BELSKY 

What would you put on a billboard?

“’It’s not about ideas, it’s about making ideas happen.’”

“Truth is, young creative minds don’t need more ideas, they need to take more responsibility with the ideas they’ve already got.”

HOW TO EARN YOUR FREEDOM 

“In reality, long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics – age, ideology, income – and everything to do with personal outlook.”

“This deliberate way of walking through the world has always been intrinsic to a time-honored, quietly available travel tradition known as “vagabonding”.”

“Vagabonding involves taking an extended time-out from your normal life – 6 weeks, 4 months, 2 years – to travel the world on your own terms.”

“Vagabonding is an attitude – a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word.”

“… it’s the ongoing practice of looking and learning, of facing fears and altering habits, of cultivating a new fascination in people and places.”

PETER DIAMANDIS

“A PROBLEM IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE.”

Peter expands: “I think of problems as gold mines. The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.”

SOPHIA AMORUSO 

JUMPING AND BUILDING A PLANE ON THE WAY DOWN

“I like to make promises that I’m not sure I can keep and then figure out how to keep them. I think you can will things into happening by just committing to them sometimes.”

B.J. NOVAK 

“I CONSIDER BEING IN A GOOD MOOD THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF MY CREATIVE PROCESS.”

 “I find that being in a good mood for creative work is worth the hours it takes to get in a good mood.”

HOW TO SAY “NO” WHEN IT MATTERS MOST

The Road to No

To become “successful” you have to say “yes” to a lot of experiments. To learn what you’re best at, or what you’re most passionate about, you have to throw a lot against the wall.

Once your life shifts from pitching outbound to defending against inbound, however, you have to ruthlessly say “no” as your default.

To develop your edge initially, you learn to set priorities; to maintain your edge, you need to defend against the priorities of others.

Once you reach a decent level of professional success, lack of opportunity won’t kill you. It’s drowning in “kinda cool” commitments that will sink the ship.

Outubro, 2020