I’m fascinated by the habits of highly successful people. I always find it interesting to see what makes these people tick. I wonder, is there a practice or habit that I can adopt (or quit) that would prove beneficial in my life.

I just finished Tim Ferriss’s new book, “Tools of Titans”. In this tome, he interviews a couple hundred world class performers, artists, businessmen, and women, and athletes to determine “tactics, routines, and habits” that made them successful. After he collects a massive amount of information from these folks he organizes it into three categories. He wants to know what habits made them:
– Healthy
– Wealthy
– Wise

As I mentioned, the book is massive but it is a fairly quick read. In fact, Tim encourages you to skip people or sections which don’t seem relevant to you. And, you will find much that probably won’t (like the encouragement to try psychedelic drugs for further enlightenment!?!)

At several points, I got the feeling like, “Who are these people?”

“For breakfast, I have 3 drops of nectar from an agave plant flown in from the Mojave, 3 ostrich eggs and a cup of hand squeezed almond milk.” Seriously? You have to already be a billionaire to afford the kind of lifestyle practices they advocate. Many of the people in this book are little more than human guinea pigs, playing with their fitness and diet trying to hone in on just the right formula.

I did take away a few helpful practices which I have begun to implement. There were a couple, almost universal denominators that each of the highly successful people interviewed made sure to incorporate into their life. Almost every person:
– Practiced some form of meditation
– Developed a method to read and remember great books
– Engage in some form of physical exercise almost daily

The book thing was low hanging fruit for me. I got that one down. I have really slacked on by exercise over the last couple months. In fact, I am carrying about 20 lbs more than I should be right now. But, it is the first common habit that has had the most impact in my life over the last 3 weeks.

I have developed a new habit of meditation (one that doesn’t require LSD, lol). I will share what I am doing in a subsequent post. It is fair to say I have felt more balanced and emotionally and spiritually centered over this period. What I am doing isn’t particularly mystical and it hasn’t required that much time. Maybe 15 minutes at the most. My resting heart rate has also decreased over this time.

Tools of Titans is a helpful resource to jump start your thinking about what practices you may want to incorporate into your life. Just stay away from the Peyote.

*Image courtesy of bugtiger at FreeDigitalPhotos.net