Tools of the Titans: A Review

Every so often, I like to let you know about an interesting, helpful book I read. The most recent one is a 650 page behemoth focused on health, wealth, and wisdom.

I pounded all the way through it- read every single page- all 650 of them.

It features all-stars, movie stars, billionaires, millionaires, and a whole bunch of other people I never heard of.

There are some things I really didn’t like, but there are also some super awesome pearls of wisdom.

It is written by none other than Tim Ferriss.

Find out what I said in the podcast.

In this podcast, you will…

• Discover the section of the book that I really didn’t like and thought was kind of weird
• How I was challenged in one area of my health (Hint: This doesn’t involve food or exercise)
• Learn about the mindset tools that I am personally using and some others that I will use in the future, including a meditation podcast that I listen to regularly
• Discover the ‘Jar of Awesome’ and how I want to use it for my family & I
• Learn what my two favorite interviews were within the book and what I gained out of them

Resources Mentioned In This Podcast

The 4 Hour Work Week

The 4 Hour Body

Tim Ferriss’ Podcast

Tools of the Titans

Headspace App

Sam Harris’ Guided Meditation

Tara Brach Guided Meditation

Meditation Minis with Chel Hamilton

Tim Ferriss Interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Tim Ferriss Interview with Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins Podcast

Jim Dahle’s White Coat Investor Blog

Damion Lupo- Get Dirty

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TRANSCRIPT

Dave: Hello, my friends. This is Dave Denniston. And welcome back to the Freedom Formula for Physicians Podcast. Well, I just wanted to say a quick word of thanks. This podcast has been such a journey for me. And been at it over two years. And it’s the kind of thing where you never know who you’re going to meet, who you’re going to impact. And it’s really meant so much to me to talk to so many of you. Words of encouragement you’ve sent to me on email, whether it was a brief note or not, it just means so much for me to hear from you. I know that the impact this is having… Whether your feedback is good or bad or indifferent, I do personally respond to each and every single email. So I’d encourage you, email me, dave@daviddenniston.com. My last name is D-E-N-N-I-S-T-O-N. Let me know your thoughts. Because it really makes this podcast worth it for me. We started out with about 10 listeners. We’re up to over 600 according to my statistics. And we just keep on growing. And so thank you so much for sharing. Thank you so much for helping me spread the word about this podcast, because I love helping physicians just like you.

 

And so today, my friends, I thought I would let you in on some of the reading I’ve been doing. I have been reading through a book. This book is nearly 650 pages big. It’s by a podcasting giant, Tim Ferris. Timothy Ferris. The master of the Four Hour Work Week, the Four Hour Body. He had a new book that came up that of course I had it picked up called Tools of the Titans. Huge book, 650 pages. I have the hardcover version. And there is a lot of stuff in here. So I want to spend a few minutes today just reviewing the book for you because I think it’s worth picking up. And regardless of where you are at, whether it’s health, wealth, or wisdom, this book covers all three of those areas. And for me, the areas I enjoyed the most were wealth and wisdom. I will…like to tell you a little bit about this book. What he did, which is actually pretty genius, is essentially, he took parts of his podcast guests and compiled it into a book in terms of their wisdom. So it’s not a traditional book per se. It’s a lot of quotes. It’s a lot of habits. It’s a lot of routines about what some of these guests he has had on in his podcast do. And so gosh, I might make a book like that myself with all the guests we’ve had on in the podcast. And I’ll say first thing about it is I wish it could have been… Sometimes, it just seems sort of pointless to me, some of the stuff he had in the book, but there were so many different nuggets of wisdom. Maybe just doesn’t appeal to me, and maybe it would appeal to you. But I would say, and he says at the beginning of the book, “Really choose who you want to read and what you want to read and depending upon where you want to work.” For me, I love going from beginning to end. So that’s the way that I read this book, was I read it from beginning to end. I read every single word. And there were parts I didn’t like, but I do want to highlight parts I did like as well.

 

So let’s talk about the health section. So this is the first third of the book. And for me, when I’m really getting active into reading, I will highlight. I will highlight. I will talk through different things and review over it. And as I looked through my book here, as I’m thumbing through it, I did nothing in the health section. So I don’t know if that says something about me or my values, but the stuff in the health section in this book is a little bit definitely different, which is what Tim Ferris brings to the table. He talks about ketogenic diet and ketosis and doing a lot of stuff, like the bulletproof coffee and various supplements, nutrition powders and using coconut oil and stevia and bone broth and all of these different things. And obviously, as I was looking through it, there’s a big financial investment that he emphasizes in health. One of the things that really struck me as I read the book that was something that I have not done is the idea of fasting to get back to a optimal health level. That, in a sense, by fasting, that you can clean out your body. And it’s something that I really have never done. It’s just something that’s never appealed to me. And I know people that do it for religious reasons, people that do it for faith reasons. And it’s just something that I always thought, “Eh. Whatever. I like to eat.” I like to keep [Indiscernible 0:06:00]. As I think about fasting and the health part of this book, a lot of this really isn’t for me, at least at this particular time because I keep myself in pretty good shape overall, not to say I couldn’t do better because I certainly could. But I would really encourage us to think about the idea of fasting. And medically, you would probably know much better than I would about the impacts of it, but I think from a mode of discipline, having the discipline to fast and having…practicing that self-control mechanism is incredibly value.

 

So that was the one big thing that I got from the health section, but again, I did not end up putting anything in there. There’s some stuff about sleep. One of the things that I liked had to do with mind training. So this was on page 150 of it. And here are some suggestions that he suggested for meditation and mind training, which I know with many physicians that are burned out, this could be helpful. So here are some suggestions he had. Number one, use an app like Headspace or Calm. Number two, listen to a guided meditation from Sam Harris or Tara Brach. Now, let me add on to that. One of my favorite things that I do do in terms of mind training is I listen to a podcast called Meditation Minis by Chel Hamilton. It’s very, very quick. Ten minutes. And she really helps to take you away from where you’re at to focus. So I really love Chel’s podcast. And I haven’t listened to Sam Harris or Tara, but [Indiscernible 0:07:51] checking out Chel. He suggests taking a TM course. So I don’t know what exactly that is, but it sounds like it costs $1,000 to do. Suggests trying mantra-based meditations where essentially you repeat a one or two syllable word for 10 to 20 minutes first thing in the morning. But that was pretty cool. Might try that. I tried that in my mind. I did not say it out loud. And I did think it did raise my spirits. I used the word “joy” in my particular case. He said, “Try one or more of Chade-Meng Tan’s suggested exercises, which is a little bit later in this book.

 

So anyhow, check that out and think about meditation if that’s something you haven’t done.

 

[Commercial Break]

 

Dave: Now, the wealthy section of this book, of course, being financial oriented, there is lots of good stuff I had in here. One of my favorite sections, which was a longer one, was an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And what I thought was fascinating about Arnold’s journey that I didn’t know, he got into real estate while he was trying to get his acting career off and going. And as a matter of fact, apparently, he was already a millionaire in real estate by the time he hit it well as an actor. And so he did all kinds of physical labor, which you can imagine. Can you imagine having Arnold working at your yard doing physical labor? And that allowed him the opportunity to work as much as he wanted as an actor or not. And he got into this thing of carving out a niche for him. So as you look at passive income strategies, Arnold put himself in a position early on that I thought was fascinating that I had heard of in my life before. So check out his story in that podcast that Tim did.

 

I also earmarked a section that had Tony Robbins. And his section, I’ve been listening to more and more of Tony’s stuff, which I think was a fantastic part of that. The thing that I really have found for myself to help get me out of funks to get me into good states, as Tony says, has been arming myself with resources. And one of my personal goals is to go to a conference like his, to be around like-minded people. So whether it’s a mastermind, whether it’s in a conference setting, I really want to encourage each of us that we’re not alone and find yourself to go to places where you can be around like-minded folks, people that want to be wealthy, people that want to be healthy, whatever that looks like for you. And obviously, there can be a cost to these things. There can be costs to these courses that we have to be mindful of. But I think taking some of our resources to invest in ourselves is a good thing. And invest in programs that can be helpful. So check out that one with Tony. I thought that was a really good one.

 

So my other just favorite parts of this book is where it is Tim just writing. And one of the things that he talked about was the Law of the Category. So as a physician, when you think about your services and what you offer, being the first person in any category is so powerful. If you look at Jim Dahle and he’s done with the White Coat Investor, he was the first physician to be a blogger in that space. And he is dominating that category. So as you think about investing in something or as you think about launching a product or having a service, what can you be the first in? What can you be the first mover in? I think it’s a fantastic business lesson that Tim brought in that section.

 

Another one of my favorite sections was from Ramit Sethi. And he talks about being obsessed with checklists and that idea of being systematized. And what I find is so helpful is when you can be systematized and you can reproduce yourself, when you own your own practice or you have a side hustle business, then you don’t have to work in that business. You can work on that business. So I want to encourage each and every one of us to try and systematize things more because that allows us to be in the position to supervise rather than having to do the task.

 

Some of the other stuff that I thought was really helpful and could be helpful to physicians had to do with, overall, Tim’s journey in how he became an investor. So he talks about, in this book, his $100,000 MBA. So he was fed up with the cost of schooling. He had went to Princeton. And instead, what he did was he went and invested in venture capital. Being in Silicon Valley, he was in there and could do that. And so he ended up slicing up his money into $25,000 pieces. And he was willing to walk away with nothing except the education component. And as he got in there, he got to be more and more savvy, and he made smart bets with his money. And he looked at it as an education. So if he lost the money, great. If he made money, do more of what worked. And that’s what he did. He lost some. He won some. And he started getting more and more connected with the community. And so I think there’s a great lesson in that, that you got to get your hands dirty. As Damian Lupo, our past podcast guest, had shared with us, that you have to be willing to be active in your future. You have to be willing to invest time and not just money if you really want to understand how things work. And so as you look at being a physician and being in clinical medicine, that is fantastic.

 

And I want to encourage you, that’s just one way to get to where you want to go in terms of your wealth. Look for other alternative strategies. Don’t be afraid to get in there and get dirty and make mistakes. But be willing to part with that money. If you’re not willing to part with it, then don’t use that part of the money. Set aside some money that you are willing to lose and get an education on and be able to move forward, my friends.

 

One of the other sections was the wise section, which I thought was so good. This was probably one of my favorite parts of it. There’s a section that he asked of, “What are your beliefs costing you,” and asked some really good questions. There is a friend he has, Novine, who’s a millionaire many times over. And he talks about how, in a Christmas carol, that Scrooge was forced through the Ghost of Christmas Past to examine his limiting beliefs. And here are several things that Tony Robbins and Novine had put forward. Here are some deep questions that he asked. What has your belief cost you in the past? And what has it caused people that you’ve loved in the past? What have you lost because of this limiting belief? You need to see it, hear it, feel it.

 

Another question he asked is what is this belief costing you and people you care about in the present? So it went from past now to present. And again, in your present, you want to see how a particular belief may be seeing, hearing, feeling it. And third, lastly, how much will this belief cost you and the people you care about 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years from now? And again, he asks you to visualize it, see it, hear it, feel it. And so I thought that was a great way to approach this aspect of how do we be better? How do we overcome some of our own limiting thoughts?

 

The other section, two other sections that really struck me as good ideas that I think we could implement is this idea of “Jar of Awesome. And so here’s what he does. He has a Mason jar on his kitchen that has “Jar of Awesome” in glittering letters. And anything, anytime something really cool happens in a day, something that makes him excited or joyful or there’s doctor’s orders, his doctor’s orders are to write it down on a slip of paper and put it in the Mason jar. “So when something great happens, you think you’ll remember it three months later, but you won’t,” he says. That “Jar of Awesome” creates a record of great things that actually happened. It can be easy to forget when you’re depressed or when you’re seeing the world not through rose colored glasses but through gray colored glasses.

 

And so it’s a way to celebrate. It’s a way to have tremendous impact. And it might sound corny, but I have to tell you, as I’ve journaled myself and put down times that are awesome, it so helps. So what a great way to do it as a family, to go through a “Jar of Awesome”, to have a “Jar of Awesome”, to have the kids put in memories and thoughts of great times in their life. So when they’re down, you can bring back that “Jar of Awesome” to bring them back into good, positive things.

 

The last section that I want to bring up that is personal for me is there’s a whole section on suicide. And as many of you know, I hope you’re not getting tired of me saying it, but Amanda Liu had passed away. And as a matter of fact, had found out that she had committed suicide. And Tim Ferris was someone that had struggled with this. This is on page 16 of the book. And it goes on for about 10 pages. And he had some really good practical suggestions for how to avoid this trap. And so I don’t know if you’re struggling on the inside, but I want to make sure that as much as we can, as valuable as you are as a doctor, we need you. We need you to keep going. And if nothing else, reading this part of this book… My friend, Pamela Wible, also put out a book that I haven’t read on suicide and physicians. And I really want you, if you’re struggling with this, to pick up this book, to read through those 10 pages and finding ways to fight against this. Because we will miss you. You are needed in this world.

 

And so my friends, I want us, as we move forward, to find great resources, to find ways of impacting the world. And for me, for this book, there is some really good stuff in there that I know I can apply. Obviously, there’s a ton of pages in this, and not every one of them will be applicable, but I want you to check it out. I want you to listen to the audio book or to read the physical book as I did because there are Titans in here. There are people that have made billions of dollars, that are healthy, wealthy, wise in these different areas. And I guarantee you there will be something you will learn, something you can pick up, something new that you can apply to your lives.

 

And so my friends, with that, check out Tools of the Titans by Mr. Tim Ferris. Again, I will link it here in the show notes. And just reach out. Hey, if you need anything, you let me know. I would love to hear from you. I would love to know where you’re at in your life and what you are struggling with, where you have wins and where you have successes. Let me know tools and tactics and strategies that work for you with being healthy, wealthy, and wise that we can pass on to the audience.

 

And so you can feel free to email me anytime, dave@daviddenniston.com or reach out to me on the podcast website, www.doctorfreedompodcast.com. For the Freedom Formula for Physicians Podcast, this is Dave Denniston. Thank you so much for listening. Check in again soon. Have a good one.