Tim Ferriss: Currently I’m listening to “Circulation” by Beats Antique and “Black Out the Sun” by Sevendust, depending on whether I need flow or a jumpstart.
Personally, I take this repetitive Monk-ish behavior a step further.
On a book deadline, I pick 1 or 2 albums and 1 or 2 movies for late-night writing sessions, as I do my best work between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Polling the most prolific authors I know, more than 90% do their best work when others are sleeping, whether they start after 10 p.m. or wake up well before 6 a.m. Personally, I’ll play a movie on mute in the background to avoid feeling isolated, and listen to 1 or 2 albums per session, repeating both the movie and the music over and over. This means that I’ve “seen” some movies literally 100-plus times, as I might play a single film 3 to 6 times per night. Toward the end of a session, when I’m getting tired, I’ll also switch from default “flow” music to default “wake-up” music. Here is my filmography and discography for all of my books:
The 4-Hour Workweek
Films: The Bourne Identity, Shaun of the Dead
“Flow” album: Gran Hotel Buenos Aires by Federico Aubele
“Wake-up” album: One-X by Three Days Grace
The 4-Hour Body
Films: Casino Royale, Snatch
“Flow” album: Luciano Essential Mix (2009, Ibiza) featuring DeadMau5
“Wake-up” album: Cold Day Memory by Sevendust
The 4-Hour Chef
Films: Babe (Yes, the pig movie. It was the first thing that popped up for free under Amazon Prime. I watched it once as a joke and it stuck. “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” Gets me every time.)
“Flow” album: “Just Jammin’” extended single track by Gramatik
“Wake-up” album: Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin
Tools of Titans
Films: None! I was traveling and used people-watching at late-night cafés in Paris and elsewhere as my “movie.”
“Flow” album: I Choose Noise by Hybrid
“Wake-up” album: Over the Under by Down
* * *
Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey (TW: @jack) is the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, the founder and CEO of Square, and a board member of The Walt Disney Company. He received the “Innovator of the Year Award” in 2012 from the Wall Street Journal and was named one of the “top 35 innovators under 35” by MIT Technology Review in 2008.
✸ What book or books have you gifted most to other people?
The Old Man and the Sea, Leaves of Grass (first edition).
✸ If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say?
“Breathe.”
✸ Do you have any quotes that you live you life by or think of often?
“I know nothing.”
✸ What is the worst advice you see or hear given in your trade?
“Fail fast!”
✸ What is something you believe that other people think is crazy?
We’re born with everything we’ll ever need.
✸ Three people or sources you’ve learned from—or followed closely—in the last year?
Wim Hof, Rick Rubin, Rick Owens
✸ What are your favorite episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show?
Rick Rubin and Wim Hof
✸ What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made?
Taking the time to walk to work every day (5 miles, 1 hour 15 minutes)
“There are only four stories: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power, and the journey. Every single book that is in the bookstore deals with these four archetypes, these four themes.”
“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”
* * *
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho (FB/TW: @paulocoelho, paulocoelhoblog.com) has long been one of my writing inspirations. His books, of near universal appeal, include The Alchemist and his most recent, The Spy, and have been translated into more than 70 languages. He is staggeringly consistent as a writer and averages one book every 2 years. As I type this, I am under the pressure of deadlines and often feel as Kurt Vonnegut did: “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” There is much to learn from Paulo.
Back Story
Few people realize that The Alchemist, which has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, was originally published by a small Brazilian publisher to the tune of 900 copies. They declined to reprint it! It wasn’t until after his subsequent novel Brida that The Alchemist was revived and took off.
Paulo was born in Brazil but now lives in Geneva, Switzerland, where he recorded the audio for my podcast.
What Does Your Morning and Daily Routine Look Like?
“I sit down, of course. I have the book inside of me, and I start procrastinating. In the morning, I check my emails, I check news, I check everything that I could check just to postpone, for the moment, sitting and facing myself. For 3 hours, I’m trying to tell myself, ‘No, no, no. Later, later, later,’ and then, one moment, I say—just not to lose face in front of myself—‘I’m going to sit, and I’m going to write for half an hour.’ And I do. Of course, this half an hour becomes 10 hours in a row. That’s why I write my books very quickly, because I cannot stop. . . . [But] I cannot stop [procrastinating]. Probably, this is my inner ritual. I have to feel guilty about not writing for 3 hours or 4 hours. Then, when I’m there, I start writing and it’s nonstop. . . .
“A successful writing day is a day that I suffer in the morning, and I have fun in the evening, fun by writing. [I should] not describe this as fun. It’s also painful . . . I’m in a kind of trance. When I go to bed after 10 hours of working, well, the adrenaline is still circulating in my blood. It takes hours to sleep. There is this notepad by my side, and I take notes, but I take notes only to take them out from my head. They will be useless the next day. I never use notes that I take . . . and this has happened since I wrote my first book, The Pilgrimage. I cannot change this process. I wish I could sit and write and not feel guilty for 4 or 5 hours during the day. It is impossible.”
TF: Even the best in the world struggle. I need to relearn this lesson often. For most writers who didn’t start off as journalists (e.g., Malcolm Gladwell, Neil Strauss), writing is hard and continues to be hard. What makes it easier? Knowing that many of the “greats” are going through the same thing. It’s reassuring to know that someone at the top of their game—who has seemingly beaten all of the odds—still has the daily struggle.
✸ What are the most common mistakes or weaknesses of first-time novelists?
“Keep it simple. Trust your reader. He or she has a lot of imagination. Don’t try to describe things. Give a hint, and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination. That’s why I am so reluctant to sell the rights of my books for movies because there, you have everything. The [viewer] does not need to think. However, if I say like in Aleph, at the very beginning, ‘I am in my house in the Pyrenees, and there is an oak there.’ I don’t need to explain my house in the Pyrenees. I only needed to put in the elements that are important: the oak, myself, and the person that I’m talking to. That’s all. . . . Trust your reader. Understand that he or she can fill the empty spaces. Don’t over-explain.”
✸ How do you capture ideas that might help your writing?
“I strongly encourage writers not to think about writing every time they do something. Forget notebooks. Forget taking notes. Let what is important remain. What’s not important goes away. When you sit down to write, there is this process of purging, this process of cleansing, where only the important things remain. It’s much easier than taking notes and overloading yourself with information.”
✸ What do you find helpful when you are stuck or stagnated?
“There is only one thing. When I feel stagnated, I promise myself that [even] if I don’t feel
inspired, I need to move forward. I need to have discipline. . . . In the middle of a book, there I am: I don’t know how to continue the story, even if it’s a nonfiction story. But then, I say, ‘You, book, are fighting with me. Okay. I’m going to sit here, and I’m not going to leave you alone until I find my way out of this crossroads.’ It may take 10 minutes. It may take 10 hours. But if you don’t have enough discipline, you don’t move forward. . . .”
TF: Several people in this book, including yours truly, have found Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird a lifeline during book-related crises of faith. One friend was on the verge of returning his advance to the publisher and calling it quits. Instead, I loaned him my copy of Bird by Bird. He regained his confidence, and his book became a New York Times bestseller.
✸ Do you have a team, or researchers, who help you?
“I don’t have researchers, no. No, no . . . If you overload your book with a lot of research, you’re going to be very boring to yourself and to your readers. Books are not here to show how intelligent and cultivated you are. Books are out there to show your heart, to show your soul, and to tell your fans, readers: You are not alone.”
Writing Prompts from Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed (FB: CherylStrayed.Author, TW: @CherylStrayed, cherylstrayed.com) is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough, and Torch. Cheryl’s essays have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, The Sun magazine, Tin House, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
* * *
Every writer in this book has a slightly different process, but they all start with the same thing: a blank page.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a writer (I never did), putting thoughts on paper is the best way to A) develop ideas, and B) review and improve your thinking. The benefits of even 30 minutes a week of scribbling can transfer to everything else that you do.
The following bullets are writing prompts that Cheryl has suggested when asked for assignment ideas for students who’ve read Wild. They are brilliant and make fantastic jumping-off points for any type of journaling or writing, whether Morning Pages (page 224), a blog post, the beginning of a novel, a letter to a friend, a diary entry, a screenplay, or a too-fast-too-soon Tinder message.
Try one for two pages of longhand writing. Go for uninterrupted flow, and don’t stop to edit. Step one is to generate without judging. Chances are that you’ll surprise yourself.
Write about a time when you realized you were mistaken.
Write about a lesson you learned the hard way.
Write about a time you were inappropriately dressed for the occasion.
Write about something you lost that you’ll never get back.
Write about a time when you knew you’d done the right thing.
Write about something you don’t remember.
Write about your darkest teacher.
Write about a memory of a physical injury.
Write about when you knew it was over.
Write about being loved.
Write about what you were really thinking.
Write about how you found your way back.
Write about the kindness of strangers.
Write about why you could not do it.
Write about why you did.
Spirit animal: Jaguar
* * *
Ed Cooke
Ed Cooke (TW: @tedcooke, memrise.com) is the CEO of Memrise and a certified Grandmaster of Memory. This means he’s able to memorize and recite: A) a 1,000-digit number within an hour, B) a shuffled pack of cards within a few of minutes, and C) 10 packs of shuffled cards within an hour. Perhaps more impressive, he can quickly train others to do the same. In 2010, he was interviewed by a journalist named Joshua Foer. Under Ed’s Yoda-like tutelage, in 2011, Joshua became the very next American Memory Champion. It took less than a year for Ed to transform a novice into world-class. The result was Foer’s book Moonwalking with Einstein.
On the Magic of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Goethe is really cool. . . . At the age of 25, he writes a novel, which is extraordinarily brilliant [The Sorrows of Young Werther], about the troubles of young Goethe. It’s this wonderful story of a young man who falls in love, and it doesn’t really work out so well. . . . Goethe wrote this book by locking himself in a hotel room for 3 months, imagining his five best friends on different chairs, and then discussing with his imaginary friends different possibilities of plot and so on and so forth. This is an example, by the way, of that spatial separation I was talking about. [TF: Humans naturally remember faces, people, and locations/spaces well, so you can use them to construct mnemonic devices like the “memory palace” technique, for example.] In one’s own mind, we’re somehow inherently boxed in and constricted, and by imagining in different spatial locations and then iterating an idea—or novel, in this case—through perspectives, he was able to give himself five perspectives separated out, and give himself a multidimensional playground for creating a work of art . . . which, by the way, is an awesome technique.”
TF: We don’t need in-person mentors as often as we think. Every day, using people from this book, I will ask myself questions like “What would Matt Mullenweg do?” or “What would Jocko say?”
Feeling like a Loser (As We All Do Sometimes)
“When I was at school, I would lose a debating competition or discover that I was a loser in a more general sense. I had what I call, in a way, a ‘mind hack.’ I’d be sitting on the loo or something and I’d just think, ‘Oh, everything feels terrible and awful. It’s all gone to shit.’ Then I’d [consider], ‘But if you think about it, the stars are really far away,’ then you try to imagine the world from the stars. Then you sort of zoom in and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s this tiny little character there for a fragment of time worrying about X.’”
TF: This is similar to the “star therapy” that BJ Miller describes on page 401. I use a combination of both each night before bed.
✸ Book recommendations
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell
The Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts
Maxims and Reflections by Goethe: “I was traveling around the world at the age of 18, which is what people in England do between high school and university. In my coat, I had Goethe’s aphorisms, his short little thoughts in my pocket. I read and reread this book. . . . It’s actually had quite a fundamental [impact] on my life because these are his little snippets of wisdom on almost any imaginable topic, and all of them are brilliant. There are things like, ‘The company of women is schooling in good manners,’ or ‘Boldness has genius, power, and magic.’ Ones you don’t remember in their precise form, but which nonetheless act as little micro filters for interpreting reality.”
Touching the Rock by John Hull. This is about a man’s slow descent into blindness over 20 years. “He’s a kind of theologian, but he has these wonderful reflections on how he came to enjoy the world [as a blind man]. One go-to example is that rain is the best thing for blind people, because you can hear the world in three dimensions. The pattering of the raindrops on the roofs, the pavement, the lampposts, and the buildings, gives you—because of the echo—a sense of 3-D space, where most of the time your 3-D space only goes a couple of yards in front of you, and otherwise is just the void.”
“Looking somebody in the eye . . . is often the antidote for what is ailing us.”
Spirit animal: Sloth
* * *
Amanda Palmer
Amanda Palmer (TW: @amandapalmer, amandapalmer.net) first rose to prominence as one half of the internationally acclaimed punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. Her surprise hit TED presentation, “The Art of Asking,” has been viewed more than 8 m
illion times. She followed up with a book expanding on the lessons, titled The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. I read it and upgraded my life in an afternoon of asking for help.
“Just Take on the Pain, and Wear It as a Shirt”
Amanda explains how she got the nickname and stage name “Amanda Fucking Palmer”:
“It was one of those things where Ben [Folds, producer of her first solo album] had someone who was a friend of a current enemy, who referred to me—every time she referred to me—as ‘Amanda Fucking Palmer.’ And so Ben, because we were working on a record in Nashville together for a month, as a joke, started calling me ‘AFP.’ . . . You lose your mind in the studio, and everything devolves into toilet humor instantly. That just became the running studio joke, and that was Ben’s pet name for me, and I thought it was funny enough that I started using it myself. Then it just sort of turned into a thing. I don’t even know how it turned into a thing, but I think that’s a good nickname. . . . It lands on you, and then it sticks like glue.”
TIM: “I love it. So you disarmed the insult by adopting it completely.”
AMANDA: “Which kind of is my life philosophy.”
TIM: “I love that.”
Tools of Titans Page 52