Tools of Titans

by Timothy Ferriss

  Most of us, of course, have never taken such vows—but we choose to live like monks anyway, rooting ourselves to a home or a career and using the future as a kind of phony ritual that justifies the present. In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We’d love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.

  Vagabonding is about gaining the courage to loosen your grip on the so-called certainties of this world. Vagabonding is about refusing to exile travel to some other, seemingly more appropriate time of your life. Vagabonding is about taking control of your circumstances instead of passively waiting for them to decide your fate.

  Thus, the question of how and when to start vagabonding is not really a question at all. Vagabonding starts now. Even if the practical reality of travel is still months or years away, vagabonding begins the moment you stop making excuses, start saving money, and begin to look at maps with the narcotic tingle of possibility. From here, the reality of vagabonding comes into sharper focus as you adjust your worldview and begin to embrace the exhilarating uncertainty that true travel promises.

  In this way, vagabonding is not a merely a ritual of getting immunizations and packing suitcases. Rather, it’s the ongoing practice of looking and learning, of facing fears and altering habits, of cultivating a new fascination in people and places. This attitude is not something you can pick up at the airport counter with your boarding pass; it’s a process that starts at home. It’s a process by which you first test the waters that will pull you to wonderful new places.

  * * *

  Earning your freedom, of course, involves work—and work is intrinsic to vagabonding for psychic reasons as much as financial ones.

  To see the psychic importance of work, one need look no further than people who travel the world on family money. Sometimes referred to as “trustafarians,” these folks are among the most visible and least happy wanderers in the travel milieu. Draping themselves in local fashions, they flit from one exotic travel scene to another, compulsively volunteering in local political causes, experimenting with exotic intoxicants, and dabbling in every non-Western religion imaginable. Talk to them, and they’ll tell you they’re searching for something “meaningful.”

  What they’re really looking for, however, is the reason why they started traveling in the first place. Because they never worked for their freedom, their travel experiences have no personal reference—no connection to the rest of their lives. They are spending plenty of time and money on the road, but they never spent enough of themselves to begin with. Thus, their experience of travel has a diminished sense of value.

  Thoreau touched on this same notion in Walden. “Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month,” he posited, “the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this—or the boy who had . . . received a Rodgers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers?”

  At a certain level, the idea that freedom is tied to labor might seem a bit depressing. It shouldn’t be. For all the amazing experiences that await you in distant lands, the “meaningful” part of travel always starts at home, with a personal investment in the wonders to come.

  On a practical level, there are countless ways to earn your travels. On the road, I have met vagabonders of all ages, from all backgrounds, and walks of life. I’ve met secretaries, bankers, and policemen who’ve quit their jobs and are taking a peripatetic pause before starting something new. I’ve met lawyers, stockbrokers, and social workers who have negotiated months off as they take their careers to new locations. I’ve met talented specialists—waiters, web designers, strippers—who find they can fund months of travel on a few weeks of work. I’ve met musicians, truck drivers, and employment counselors who are taking extended time off between gigs. I’ve met semi-retired soldiers and engineers and businessmen who’ve reserved a year or two for travel before dabbling in something else. Some of the most prolific vagabonders I’ve met are seasonal workers—carpenters, park service workers, commercial fishermen—who winter every year in warm and exotic parts of the world. Other folks—teachers, doctors, bartenders, journalists—have opted to take their very careers on the road, alternating work and travel as they see fit. Before I got into writing, a whole slew of “anti-sabbaticals” (landscaping, retail sales, temp work) earned me my vagabonding time.

  “I don’t like work,” says Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.” Marlow wasn’t referring to vagabonding, but the notion still applies. Work is not just an activity that generates funds and creates desire: It’s the vagabonding gestation period, wherein you earn your integrity, start making plans, and get your proverbial act together. Work is a time to dream about travel and write notes to yourself, but it’s also the time tie up your loose ends. Work is when you confront the problems you might otherwise be tempted to run away from. Work is how you settle your financial and emotional debts—so that your travels are not an escape from your real life, but a discovery of your real life.

  * * *

  Now, some of you might think, “That sounds fantastic, but I only get 2 weeks of vacation time per year.”

  The good news is, as citizens of a stable, prosperous democracy, any one of us has the power to create our own free time.

  To actualize this power, we merely need to make strategic use (if only for a few weeks for months) of a time-honored personal freedom technique, popularly known as “quitting.” And, despite its pejorative implication, quitting need not be as reckless as it sounds. Many people are able to create vagabonding time through “constructive quitting”—that is, negotiating with their employers for special sabbaticals and long-term leaves of absence.

  And even leaving your job in a more permanent manner need not be a negative act—especially in an age when work is likely to be defined by job specialization and the fragmentation of tasks. Whereas working a job with the intention of quitting might have been an act of recklessness 100 years ago, it is more and more often becoming an act of common sense in an age of portable skills and diversified employment options. Keeping this in mind, don’t worry that your extended travels might leave you with a “gap” on your résumé. Rather, you should enthusiastically and unapologetically include your vagabonding experience on your résumé when you return. List the job skills travel has taught you: independence, flexibility, negotiation, planning, boldness, self-sufficiency, improvisation. Speak frankly and confidently about your travel experiences—odds are, your next employer will be interested and impressed (and a wee bit envious).

  As Pico Iyer pointed out, the act of quitting “means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting—whether a job or a habit—means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.”

  In this way, quitting should never be seen as the end of something grudging and unpleasant. Rather, it’s a vital step in beginning something new and wonderful.

  “I talk to CEOs all the time, and I say, ‘Listen, the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea. If it wasn’t a crazy idea, it’s not a breakthrough; it’s an incremental improvement. So where inside of your companies are you trying crazy ideas?’ ”

  Spirit animal: Eagle

  * * *

  Peter Diamandis

  Dr. Peter H. Diamandis (TW: @P
eterDiamandis, diamandis.com) has been named one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune magazine. Peter is founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, best known for its $10 million Ansari XPRIZE for private spaceflight. Today the XPRIZE leads the world in designing and operating large-scale global competitions to solve market failures. He is also the co-founder (along with J. Craig Venter and Bob Hariri) and vice chairman of Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI); and the co-founder and executive chairman of Planetary Resources, a company designing spacecraft to prospect near-Earth asteroids for precious materials (seriously). He is the author of books including Bold and Abundance, which have endorsements from Bill Clinton, Eric Schmidt, and Ray Kurzweil, among others.

  Behind the Scenes

  I’ve heard more power players describe Peter as a “force of nature” than any other person, except for Tony Robbins, a friend of Peter’s.

  Peter is one of those guys who, every time you meet them, leave you shaking your head and (productively) asking, “What the fuck am I doing with my life?!” He recently asked me, “What’s your moonshot?” leading me to re-explore many of the questions and concepts in this profile.

  “A problem is a terrible thing to waste.”

  This is highly related to the “scratch your own itch” thread that pops up throughout this book. Peter expands: “I think of problems as gold mines. The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.”

  “When 99% of people doubt you, you’re either gravely wrong or about to make history.”

  “I saw this the other day, and this comes from Scott Belsky [page 359], who was a founder of Behance.”

  “The best way to become a billionaire is to help a billion people.”

  Peter co-founded Singularity University with Ray Kurzweil. In 2008, at their founding conference at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, Google co-founder Larry Page spoke. Among other things, he underscored how he assesses projects:

  “I now have a very simple metric I use: Are you working on something that can change the world? Yes or no? The answer for 99.99999% of people is ‘no.’ I think we need to be training people on how to change the world.”

  Origins of the XPRIZE and “SuperCredibility”

  “The fact of the matter is I read this book, The Spirit of St. Louis, that my good friend Gregg Maryniak gave me . . . and then I thought, ‘Hey, if I can create a prize [Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic to win a prize], maybe I can motivate teams to build private spaceships and that’s the means to get my ass into space.’

  “I start noodling on this as I’m reading the book. 10 million bucks is enough money. I’m going to call it the ‘XPRIZE’ because I had no idea who was going to put up the $10 million. The ‘X’ was going to represent the name of the person who would eventually put up the money, as a variable to be replaced. So, I’m scrambling for it back then, $100 here, $1,000 there, getting the seed money to get this going. I end up in St. Louis where an amazing man, Al Kerth, says, ‘I will help you raise some seed money,’ and he was driven and connected with my passion, my commitment to this.

  “Long story short, over the course of a year and a lot of worn out kneepads, I end up raising a half a million dollars in $10K and $20K checks, and then our fundraising stalls.

  “We make the very bold decision that we’re going to announce this $10 million prize anyway with no money in place . . . [and] how you announce a big bold idea to the world really matters. . . . We all have a line of credibility around ideas. We judge them constantly.

  “If you announce it below the line of credibility, people dismiss it out of hand, and then we have this line of supercredibility. If you announce it above the line of supercredibility, people say, ‘Wow, when’s it going to happen? How can I be involved?’

  “[So, it’s] May of 1996. I have half a million dollars. I decide to spend all of it on this launch event, and we do it under the Arch of St. Louis. On the dais, I don’t have one astronaut, I’ve got 20 astronauts standing on stage with me. I’ve got the head of NASA, the head of the FAA, and the Lindbergh family with me onstage announcing this $10 million prize. Did I have any money? No. Did I have any teams registered to compete? No. But around the world, it was front-page news this $10 million prize was [on]. . . .

  “I’m thinking, ‘Who wouldn’t want to pay $10 million after a person did it? It’s paid only on success.’ The challenge is, 150 CEOs later, over the next 5 years between 1996 and 2001, everyone’s turning me down.

  “I finally meet the Ansari family. There’s a lot more detail here. Listen, the fact of the matter is there were many times at 3 a.m. when I was tempted to give up, and it was only because I was being driven by my own massively transformative purpose that kept me going, and we’re here today having this conversation because I did not give up. I’ll leave it at that.”

  TIM: “I love that story, and I think what I’d love to underscore, as much for myself as anyone else, is that you also had the public accountability. . . .”

  PETER: “I burned my ships, dude.”

  TIM: “Who was the hardest person to convince to be on that stage with you?

  PETER: “Oh, the head of NASA, for sure.”

  TIM: “What was the pitch? How did you convince him?”

  PETER: “The pitch was, ‘Listen, wouldn’t you want entrepreneurs around the world to be working on new technologies so that this is off your balance sheet?’”

  TF: Peter is a master pitchman. I’ve seen some greats, and he’s right at the top. One of the books he recommends for cultivating dealmaking ability is actually a children’s book and a 10-minute read: Stone Soup. “It’s a children’s story that is the best MBA degree you can read. Between [the concept of] supercredibility and Stone Soup, [you have a great foundation]. If you’re an entrepreneur in college or 60 years old and building your 20th company, Stone Soup is so critically important.”

  Morning Routines

  Peter stretches during his morning shower:

  “It’s mostly my lower body, and then I’ll go through a breathing exercise as well, and [an] affirmational mantra. . . . [The breathing exercise] is an accelerated deep breathing just to oxygenate and stretch my lungs. There are two elements that tie very much to human longevity. It’s strange. . . . One is those people who floss and, second, those people who have a higher VO2 max.”

  TF: Peter’s breathing exercise focuses on expanding the lungs with fast, large inhales. His affirmational mantra, which he repeats a number of times, is “I am joy. I am love. I am gratitude. I see, hear, feel, and know that the purpose of my life is to inspire and guide the transformation of humanity on and off the Earth.”

  Peter’s breathing is similar to some of Wim Hof’s exercises (page 41), which I now do in a cold shower (state “priming” per Tony Robbins, page 210), right after my morning meditation.

  As for the flossing-longevity connection, Peter is the first to admit this might be correlation instead of causation: People anal retentive enough to floss regularly probably have other habits that directly contribute to longer life.

  Pre-Bed Routines

  Before bed, Peter always reviews his three “wins of the day.” This is analogous to the 5-Minute Journal p.m. review that I do (page 146).

  On Getting out of Funks

  TIM: “To get out of that 2-day funk [after one of his early startups failed], what does the self-talk look like? I mean, what is the ritual that you use?”

  PETER: “The self-talk, in all honesty, was probably more like 2 weeks than 2 days. It’s going back to ‘Why do I believe this is important?’ It’s, ‘Look how far I’ve taken it so far.’ It’s a matter of reminding yourself what your purpose in life is, right? What you’re here for. If you haven’t connected with what your purpose and mission in life is, then forget anything I’ve said. That is the number-one thing you need to do: Find out what you need to be doing on this
planet, why you were put here, and what wakes you up in the mornings.”

  How to Find Your Driving Purpose or Mission

  Peter recommends Tony Robbins’s Date with Destiny program, which he feels helps people improve their “operating system.” This is how he developed his affirmational mantra. Peter also poses the following three questions:

  “What did you want to do when you were a child, before anybody told you what you were supposed to do? What was it you wanted to become? What did you want to do more than anything else?

  “If Peter Diamandis or Tim Ferriss gave you $1 billion, how would you spend it besides the parties and the Ferraris and so forth? If I asked you to spend $1 billion improving the world, solving a problem, what would you pursue?

  “Where can you put yourself into an environment that gives maximum exposure to new ideas, problems, and people? Exposure to things that capture your ‘shower time’ [those things you can’t stop thinking about in the shower]?” [Peter recommends environments like Singularity University.]

  TF: Still struggling with a sense of purpose or mission? Roughly half a dozen people in this book (e.g., Robert Rodriguez) have suggested the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek.