Learning From the Best
Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss
My coffee cup rating:
[out of a possible 5 cups]
☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️
I love getting into people’s minds and finding out what makes them tick. Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss has scratched that itch for me. It’s not so much a book as a collection of curated interviews from some of the best-known professionals of today. He’s assembled an all-star lineup from all walks of life including authors, celebrities, athletes, musicians, and entrepreneurs. Tim’s cast a pretty wide net here, making this book relevant to just about everyone.
The core conversation is essentially a set of questions field tested by Tim to produce the best value for his readers. Even though the thought of reading answers to the same questions may seem like a boring premise, Tim has done a great job of curating the conversations to keep them insightful, valuable, and entertaining.
Some of the questions include:
What book(s) have most influenced your life?
If you have been looking for book recommendations, this questions alone is worth the price of admission.
What advice would you give college students about to enter the real world?
Still being a youngster in my career, this question really resonated with me. I enjoyed reading the various answers to this question which got me thinking a lot about what paths to take and avoid moving forward.
The two questions that I think surfaced the most was around failure and saying no. In fact, Tim included conversations he had with leaders that respectfully declined to be in the book, which ironically, got them into it. I feel like this candidness will help a lot of people better structure their no process. Another great surprise in the book for me was the quote collections sprinkled throughout. I’m a big quote junkie so this was a great unexpected addition.
Here are a few of my favorites from the book:
“Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. ”
“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”
“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”
This book has taken about a year for me to complete, taking it slow and digesting one or two interviews at a time. This is where the book really shines. You can pick it up anytime and glean value from it. I plan on revisiting this book a later on in the future, and I’m sure it will be just as valuable the second time. It will have a permanent place on my bookshelf.