Timothy Ferriss Quotes & Sayings

Sooner or later, parents have to take responsibility for putting their kids into a system that is indebting them and teaching them to be cogs in an economy that doesn't want cogs anymore. Parents get to decide . . . [and] from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., those kids are getting homeschooled. And they're either getting home-schooled and watching The Flintstones, or they're getting homeschooled and learning something useful. — Timothy Ferriss

Stay humble or get humbled. — Timothy Ferriss

It's amazing how someone's IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them. The first month cost perhaps $200 more than if I had been micromanaging. — Timothy Ferriss

If you stress-test the boundaries and experiment with the "impossibles," you'll quickly discover that most limitations are a fragile collection of socially reinforced rules you can choose to break at any time. — Timothy Ferriss

I use [Palumbo's] protein powder, by Species Nutrition. Every morning, I roll downstairs and: 2 scoops of whey protein [Isolyze], ice, a bunch of powdered Starbucks coffee, some macadamia nut oil, and I make a shake. That's the start. — Timothy Ferriss

Focus on being productive instead of busy. — Timothy Ferriss

You won't believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better. — Timothy Ferriss

Most of my readers think I'm obsessed with time management, but they haven't seen the other - much more legitimate, much more extreme - obsession. I've recorded almost every workout I've done since age 18. Since 2004, I've been tracking everything from complete lipid panels, insulin, and hemoglobin A1c, to IGF-1 and free testosterone. — Timothy Ferriss

People really do think they have to choose between high stress and high reward jobs, and low stress and low reward jobs. — Timothy Ferriss

You are only as young as the last time you changed your mind.' - Timothy Leary. — Timothy Ferriss

As author P. J. O'Rourke puts it: Veal is a very young beef and, like a very young girlfriend, it's cute but boring and expensive. — Timothy Ferriss

Learn to slow down. Get lost intentionally. Observe how you judge both yourself and those around you. — Timothy Ferriss

The least-crowded channel for meeting high profile bloggers is in person. Email is the most difficult, the most crowded ... I'm a top 1,000 blogger, not a top 100 blogger, and I get hundreds of pitches by email every week. Most of them I don't even see because my assistant declines them. — Timothy Ferriss

The most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It's just like building muscles. — Timothy Ferriss

It is possible to become world-class, enter the top 5% of performers in the world, in almost any subject within 6-12 months, or even 6-12 weeks. — Timothy Ferriss

I tend to split my activities into fun, income and legacy. The number of things in that finance bucket is pretty few and far between and doesn't consume much time at all. — Timothy Ferriss

Lack of time is actually lack of priorities. Take — Timothy Ferriss

No one owes you anything. — Timothy Ferriss

I'm not a fan of idleness, except in small doses. — Timothy Ferriss

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. - BILL WATTERSON, — Timothy Ferriss

all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. — Timothy Ferriss

I'm often asked how I define "success." It's an overused term, but I fundamentally view this elusive beast as a combination of two things - achievement and appreciation. One isn't enough:
Achievement without appreciation makes you ambitious but miserable.
Appreciation without achievement makes you unambitious but happy. — Timothy Ferriss

Miller, BJ: "'Don't believe everything you think. — Timothy Ferriss

something like, "You're totally right. I never thought about that. — Timothy Ferriss

(1) Define a to-do list and (2) define a not-to-do list. In general terms, there are but two questions: — Timothy Ferriss

Parkinson's Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It — Timothy Ferriss

Work is an activity that is financially-driven or one that you'd like to do less of. — Timothy Ferriss

I work hard, but in spurts. — Timothy Ferriss

World barista champions use the AeroPress to make coffee on the folding tray tables of airplanes. — Timothy Ferriss

CREATIVITY IS AN INFINITE RESOURCE. THE MORE YOU SPEND, THE MORE YOU HAVE." This — Timothy Ferriss

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. — Timothy Ferriss

Strauss, Neil: "'The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.' - Norman Vincent Peale — Timothy Ferriss

Lazy: A Manifesto — Timothy Ferriss

Being able to quit things that don't work is integral to being a winner — Timothy Ferriss

People, even good people, will unknowingly abuse your time to the extent that you let them. Set good rules for all involved to minimize back-and-forth and meaningless communication. — Timothy Ferriss

There are a lot of things that can be learned from the darker corners of athletics. You have doctors who view bodybuilders as cavalier amateurs of science. And then you have the bodybuilders who view the doctors as too conservative to do anything interesting. So I've tried to become the middleman for putting some of those pieces together. — Timothy Ferriss

So I think, every day, it's something to reflect on and think about 'How do I become less competitive in order that I can become more successful? — Timothy Ferriss

if we move beyond the education bubble that we're living in today, the future will be one in which people can speak about these things more clearly. — Timothy Ferriss

-It is possible to vastly compress most learning. In a surprising number of cases, it is possible to do something in 1-10 months that is assumed to take 1-10 years.
-The more you compress things, the more physical limiters become a bottleneck. All learning is physically limited. The brain is dependent on finite quantities of neurotransmitters, memories require REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep for consolidation, etc. The learning graph is not unlike the stress-recovery-hyperadaptation curves of weight training.
-The more extreme your ambition, just as in sports, the more you need performance enhancement via unusual schedules, diet, drugs, etc.
-Most important: due to the bipolar nature of the learning process, you can forecast setbacks. If you don't, you increase the likelihood of losing morale and quitting before the inflection point. — Timothy Ferriss

SCOTTY: She's all yours, sir. All systems automated and ready. A chimpanzee and two trainees could run her! CAPTAIN KIRK: Thank you, Mr. Scott. I'll try not to take that personally. - STAR TREK — Timothy Ferriss

The stars will never align — Timothy Ferriss

Online I see people committing 'social media suicide' all the time by one of two ways. Firstly by responding to all criticism, meaning you're never going to find time to complete important milestones of your own, and by responding to things that don't warrant a response. This lends more credibility by driving traffic. — Timothy Ferriss

BLAMING IDIOTS FOR interruptions is like blaming clowns for scaring children - they can't help it. It's their nature. Then again, I had (who am I kidding - and have), on occasion, been known to create interruptions out of thin air. If you're anything like me, that makes us both occasional idiots. Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse. This is infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and routines to follow. — Timothy Ferriss

Career specialists can't externalize what they've internalized. Second nature is hard to teach. — Timothy Ferriss

Many a false step was made by standing still. — Timothy Ferriss

Work wherever and whenever you want, but get your work done. — Timothy Ferriss

As chef Mehdi Chellaoui says, "I use lemon like I use salt." Mario Batali would agree: if something is missing, it's probably acid. — Timothy Ferriss

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike. - OSCAR WILDE — Timothy Ferriss

May all of your creations have just the right flavor, — Timothy Ferriss

everything changes. Snow becomes water. It's beautiful because it changes. Things are fleeting. It felt so beautiful to be part of this weird world in that moment. I felt part of the world again, rather than removed from it. It — Timothy Ferriss

don't label a lot of things good/bad. [Instead, I ask] can I evolve from this? What do I want now? — Timothy Ferriss

If you walk into any bookstore, you can look at the newsstands and see which magazines are nationally-distributed, and you recognize certain names. Same with television. With the blogsphere, however, you actually have to dig, and know how to use multiple tools to figure out whom you should be speaking to. — Timothy Ferriss

To be functionally fluent in a language, for instance, in most cases you need about 1,200 words. To acquire a total of vocabulary words, if you really train someone well they can acquire 200 to 300 words a day, which means that in a week they can acquire the vocabulary necessary to speak a language. — Timothy Ferriss

Having a size 9 foot is fantastic because almost all of the shoe companies do their prototyping in size 9, so if you visit a place like Nike headquarters, you can try every sort of wacky, out-there model. — Timothy Ferriss

Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend. Most people aren't lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre. — Timothy Ferriss

It's very easy to confuse confident motion with being productive - and they're not the same thing. Productive to me means measurable outcomes that apply to my most important to-dos that positively affect my life. That's it. — Timothy Ferriss

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. — Timothy Ferriss

The question you should be asking isn't, "What do I want?" or "What are my goals?" but "What would excite me? — Timothy Ferriss

Food became for me a way of becoming self-sufficient with my hands, to regain manual literacy, which I think has been lost on our generation and certainly younger generations. Very few people can actually make things with their hands and do things with their hands. — Timothy Ferriss

If you don't give young men a good and useful group to belong to, they will create a bad group to belong to. But one way or another, they're going to create a group, and they're going to find something, an adversary, where they can demonstrate their prowess and their unity. — Timothy Ferriss

Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages. - DAVE BARRY — Timothy Ferriss

Lifestyle Design is thus not interested in creating an excess of idle time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time, defined simply as doing what you want as opposed to what you feel obligated to do. — Timothy Ferriss

How has being "realistic" or "responsible" kept you from the life you want? How has doing what you "should" resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done something else? — Timothy Ferriss

If you start out with a little telescope observing the stars and you keep at it over the years, as I have, it's kind of a dream to one day have an observatory where you can always go and use the telescope conveniently. — Timothy Ferriss

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk.' Think — Timothy Ferriss

the most important thing was that they have an answer. A) It shows the courage to be able to address it, and B) it shows self-awareness that 'I might be top peer-rated and have this great career, but there's somebody out there, and here's what they'd probably say. . . .' They'd say I was self-serving at one time, or I appear too good on paper, or I'm lazy on these types of physical training, or whatever the case may be. Show me that, if you identify it, you're working on it. I don't care what you think about it. I just want to know that you're aware of how other people view you. — Timothy Ferriss

We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training." - Archilochus — Timothy Ferriss

The Conquest of Happiness — Timothy Ferriss

Each delegated task must be both time-consuming and well-defined. If you're running around like a chicken with its head cut off and assign your VA to do that for you, it doesn't improve the order of the universe. — Timothy Ferriss

Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your enjoyment and propel you forward, and which 20% cause 80% of your depression, anger, and second-guessing? — Timothy Ferriss

Cooking practice can be expensive and impractical. If you have the time, you can practice your tennis serve a thousand times a day for a few dollars. Making a thousand omelets a day? That's a different story. — Timothy Ferriss

If something offends you, look inward. . . . That's a sign that there's something there. — Timothy Ferriss

When I left the U.S. for the first time, I spent my first year abroad in Japan. That culture shock and abundance of new stimuli combined with a lack of guidance forced me to develop my own approaches to learning and juggling. — Timothy Ferriss

take things like playfulness and purposelessness very seriously. . . . This is not meant to be light, but I think I would have somehow encouraged myself to let go a little bit more and hang in there and not pretend to know where this is all going. You don't need to know where it's all going. — Timothy Ferriss

Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan. — Timothy Ferriss

Fasting essentially slows (sometimes stops) rapidly dividing cells and triggers an 'energetic crisis' that makes cancer cells selectively vulnerable to chemo and radiation." There — Timothy Ferriss

When you try to do something big its hard to fail completely. — Timothy Ferriss

Law 11: "No" simply means begin again at one level higher. — Timothy Ferriss

Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time, usually hours. — Timothy Ferriss

Case - a tolerable and comfortable existence doing something unfulfilling. The last is most common and most insidious. — Timothy Ferriss

All those artists and writers who bemoan how hard the work is, and oh, how tedious the creative process, and oh, what a tortured genius they are. Don't buy into it. . . . As if difficulty and struggle and torture somehow confer seriousness upon your chosen work. Doing great work simply because you love it, sounds, in our culture, somehow flimsy, and that's a failing of our culture, not of the choice of work that artists make." This — Timothy Ferriss

Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don't want. — Timothy Ferriss

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. — Timothy Ferriss

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. — Timothy Ferriss

The best way to counter-attack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you. — Timothy Ferriss

Simple works, complex fails. — Timothy Ferriss

In cooking - as in business and war - hope for the best but plan for the worst. — Timothy Ferriss

out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don't really need - we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called "lifestyle," travel becomes just another accessory - a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase in the same way we buy clothing and furniture. Not — Timothy Ferriss

The truth is that since the first book, I have wanted to emulate Benjamin Franklin and put together a healthy, wealthy and wise trilogy and so healthy was 'The 4-Hour Body,' wealthy was 'The 4-Hour Workweek' and then wise is 'The 4-Hour Chef.' — Timothy Ferriss

There has never been a better time for testing the uncommon. — Timothy Ferriss

There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh, it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything," and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyway." Either way, nothing happens. - YVON CHOUINARD,7 founder of Patagonia — Timothy Ferriss

Rather than spend my life on data entry and typing, I also take photos on my iPhone of business cards, wine labels, menus, or anything I want to have searchable on-the-run. — Timothy Ferriss

Throw it all up on the wall and see what sticks. — Timothy Ferriss

Sometimes having no experience is a huge advantage. Age doesn't matter; an open mind does. — Timothy Ferriss

I might seem biased, but I use Evernote every day. It came to me through my readers, who I'd asked for software recommendations via Twitter and Facebook. For seemingly every function, the answer was 'Man, you have to use Evernote.' — Timothy Ferriss

The biggest misconception about work is that you need to spend the majority of your time doing it. — Timothy Ferriss

Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action. — Timothy Ferriss

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. - WARREN G. BENNIS, — Timothy Ferriss

Fasting before chemotherapy is definitely something that should be implemented in our oncology wards, — Timothy Ferriss

Far from being a reason not to travel and seek adventure, children are perhaps the best reason of all to do both. — Timothy Ferriss