Review of Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
Wisdom and Glenn Beck should not belong in the same sentence... or so I thought. I first heard of the name Glenn Beck in high school where my impression was that he was a crazy man with backwards views. Maybe he actually is, but that doesn't matter. (I've never watched or listened to any of his stuff.) The point is that wisdom can be extracted from anyone, even Glenn Beck, when you're a master of wisdom extraction like Tim Ferriss. He was featured in the Wisdom section of the book.
In his latest book, Tools of Titans (released yesterday), Tim deconstructed the tactics, routines, and habits of world-class performers in various fields. Glenn Beck was one such person he interviewed. After skimming over Beck's Wikipedia article, I don't think I agree with him on much, but I can't deny that he had an interesting life story that we could all learn from. In fact, an old friend of Tim, who was mixed-race, Brown University educated, and very liberal recommended him to interview Beck without hesitation.
One day while hosting a radio show, Beck had an insanity attack where he brutally criticized himself for being a dumbass for 15 minutes. He expected that his career was ruined due to his tantrum, but instead, his popularity skyrocketed. He learned that in a world where everything was engineered to perfection, sometimes people appreciated authenticity.
This closely parallels how Trump ran his campaign. Perhaps Beck was anti-Trump because he saw Trump as a threat stealing his own spotlight. Beck wanted to be the center of attention being the crazy maniac and he was starting to have nightmares of Trump gently whispering in his ear, "You're fired!"
Tim ended the chapter with Beck's guiding quote, which you probably won't expect:
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson
The lessons I learned here:
- It's possible to learn wisdom from a lunatic.
- Maybe the lunatic isn't as stupid as your friends claim him to be.
- Be authentic.
- It's always possible to succeed no matter how much you think you have failed.
- Question the perceptions of yourself, your friends, and authorities. Everyone is full of bullshit no matter how much they claim to be guided by rational thought.
Thanks for reading! If you gained anything valuable from this post, please follow me @limitless
Also buy Tim's book, Tools of Titans! (click here)
Resteemed, Definitely going to look out for the book... I love lunatic knowledge!
What was your overall opinion of the book, would you recommend it? I learned quite a lot from his book The 4 Hour Work Week.
It's better than 4 Hour Work Week for me at least. There are profiles of ~100 top performers as well as reprints of some of his best blog posts and a few guest articles from people who he interviewed. I would use it as a reference guide to keep around rather than reading linearly.
The point I'm trying to convey here is that if he could extract so much wisdom from even Glenn Beck, then imagine what you can get out of the other 100 people who you may perceive as far wiser than Beck. (I'm assuming that even fans of Glenn Beck don't perceive him as a fountain of wisdom.) There are people who Tim has interviewed who are truly fountains of wisdom, like Naval Ravikant, Sebastian Junger, and Jocko Willink for example.
One of my favorites!