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The Benefits Of Becoming Fluent In A Foreign Tongue Are As Underestimated As The Difficulty Is Overestimated. Thousands Of Theoretical Linguists Will Disagree, But I Know From Research And Personal Experimentation With More Than A Dozen Languages That (1) Adults Can Learn Languages Much Faster Than Children When Constant 9-5 Work Is Removed And That (2) It Is Possible To Become Conversationally Fluent In Any Language In Six Months Or Less. At Four Hours Per Day, Six Months Can Be Whittled Down To Less Than Three Months.

-Tim Ferriss

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The Benefits Of Becoming

Tim Ferriss

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The Benefits Of Becoming Fluent In A Foreign Tongue Are As Underestimated As The Difficulty Is Overestimated. Thousands Of Theoretical Linguists Will Disagree, But I Know From Research And Personal Experimentation With More Than A Dozen Languages That (1) Adults Can Learn Languages Much Faster Than Children When Constant 9-5 Work Is Removed And That (2) It Is Possible To Become Conversationally Fluent In Any Language In Six Months Or Less. At Four Hours Per Day, Six Months Can Be Whittled Down To Less Than Three Months.

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Being Busy Is A Form Of Laziness - Lazy Thinking And Indiscriminate Action. Being Busy Is Most Often Used As A Guise For Avoiding The Few Critically Important But Uncomfortable Actions.

There Are No Statues Erected To Critics.

If You Spend Your Time, Worth $20-25 Per Hour, Doing Something That Someone Else Will Do For $10 Per Hour, It's Simply A Poor Use Of Resources.

Never Check Email First Thing In The Morning. Instead, Complete Your Most Important Task Before 11:00 A.m. To Avoid Using Lunch Or Reading Email As A Postponement Excuse.

Focus On Being Productive Instead Of Busy.

Productive Work

I Encourage Active Skepticism - When People Are Being Skeptical Because They're Trying To Identify The Best Course Of Action. They're Trying To Identify The Next Step For Themselves Or Other People.

Doing Something Unimportant Well Does Not Make It Important.

It Is Predicated On The Assumption That You Dislike What You Are Doing During The Most Physically Capable Years Of Your Life. This Is A Nonstarter—nothing Can Justify That Sacrifice.

I Have Plenty Of Money To Do What I Want To Do, And I Have The Relationships.

There Are Two Types Of Mistakes: Mistakes Of Ambition And Mistakes Of Sloth.

Remember—boredom Is The Enemy, Not Some Abstract "failure.

Avoid Results-by Volume Approach, Instead Focus On Few Critically Important But Uncomfortable Actions.

I'm Not A Fan Of Idleness, Except In Small Doses.

The Brain Is Where Most People Really Screw Up.

There Are Two Components That Are Fundamental To Enjoy Life And Feel Good About Yourself: Continual Learning And Service.

Reality Is Negotiable.

Poisonous People Do Not Deserve Your Time. To Think Otherwise Is Masochistic.

At Least Three Time Per Day At Scheduled Times, He Had To Ask Himself The Following Question: Am I Being Productive Or Just Active? Charney Captured The Essence Of This With Less-abstract Wording: Am I Inventing Things To Do To Avoid The Important? He Eliminated All Of The Activities He Used As Crutches And Began To Focus On Demonstrating Results Instead Of Showing Dedication. Dedication Is Often Just Meaningless Work In Disguise. Be Ruthless And Cut The Fat.

I'm Not A Big Believer In Long-term Planning And Far-off Goals. In Fact, I Generally Set 3-month And 6-month Dreamlines. The Variables Change Too Much And In-the-future Distance Becomes An Excuse For Postponing Action.

Everything That Works In Sales Has Been Done Already. Just Keep Track Of The Crap That You Buy, Or The Awesome Stuff That You Buy, And Decide What Was The Trigger, And Then Just Sell To People Like You. It's Really That Easy - And That's What I Do.

The Best Way To Improve Mental Performance, Is To Improve Physical Performance

There Are Certain Things I Will Automate, But When It Comes To Quality Control, I Want To Keep A Very Close Eye.

I Do My Best Writing Between 10 P.m. And 5 A.m.. Almost Every Friend I Have Who Is A Consistently Productive Writer, Does Their Best Writing Between 10 P.m. And 8 A.m. My Quota Is Two Crappy Pages Per Day. I Keep It Really Low So I'm Not So Intimidated That I Never Get Started. I Will Do The Gathering Of Interviews And Research Throughout The Day. I'll Get All My Notes And Materials Together And Then I'll Do The Synthesis Between 10 P.m. To Bed, Which Is Usually 4 Or 5 A.m.

It's Very Easy To Confuse Confident Motion With Being Productive - And They're Not The Same Thing. Productive To Me Means Measurable Outcomes That Apply To My Most Important To-dos That Positively Affect My Life. That's It.

Lack Of Time Is Actually Lack Of Priorities.

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Exercise Is Overrated.

Compile Your To-do List For Tomorrow No Later Than This Evening.

If You Don't Have Time, You Don't Have Priorities.

Personally, I Now Aim For One Month Of Overseas Relocation Or High-intensity Learning (tango, Fighting, Whatever) For Every Two Months Of Work Projects.

If You Are Insecure, Guess What? The Rest Of The World Is, Too.

Self Confidence

The Key To Having More Time Is Doing Less, And There Are Two Paths To Get There, Both Of Which Should Be Used Together: (1) Define A Short To-do List And (2) Define A Not-to-do List.

Doing The Unrealistic Is Easier Than Doing The Realistic.

For The Employee, The Goal Is To Have Full Access To Necessary Information And As Much Independent Decision-making Ability As Possible. For The Entrepreneur, The Goal Is To Grant As Much Information And Independent Decision-making Ability To Employees Or Contractors As Possible.

A Goal Without Real Consequences Is Wishful Thinking. Good Follow-through Doesn't Depend On The Right Intentions. It Depends On The Right Incentives.

You Can Enjoy Stargazing Just By Going Out And Learning A Couple Constellations With Your Kids.

The Universe Doesn't Conspire Against You, But It Doesn't Go Out Of Its Way To Line Up The Pins Either. Conditions Are Never Perfect.

The Fishing Is Best Where The Fewest Go And The Collective Insecurity Of The World Makes It Easy For People To Hit Home Runs While Everyone Is Aiming For Base Hits.

A Friend Of Mine, Derek Simmons, Who's Been On The Podcast, Said, "if More Information Were The Answer, We'd All Be Billionaires With Perfect Dads." It Comes Down To Motivation And Incentives. If It Isn't A Punishment Or A Reward, Then It's Just Talk.

The Truth Is That Since The First Book, I Have Wanted To Emulate Benjamin Franklin And Put Together A Healthy, Wealthy And Wise Trilogy And So Healthy Was 'the 4-hour Body,' Wealthy Was 'the 4-hour Workweek' And Then Wise Is 'the 4-hour Chef.'

Most People Are Good At A Handful Of Things And Utterly Miserable At Most.

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Slow Down And Remember This: Most Things Make No Difference. Being Busy Is A Form Of Mental Laziness-lazy Thinking And Indiscriminate Action.

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The Way We Measure Productivity Is Flawed. People Checking Their Blackberry Over Dinner Is Not The Measure Of Productivity.

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The Golden Years Become Lower-middle-class Life Revisited. That's A Bittersweet Ending.

The Most Important Actions Are Never Comfortable.

What We Fear Doing Most Is Usually What We Most Need To Do.

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Being Efficient Without Regard To Effectiveness Is The Default Mode Of The Universe.

World Barista Champions Use The Aeropress To Make Coffee On The Folding Tray Tables Of Airplanes.

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It Isn't Enough To Think Outside The Box. Thinking Is Passive. Get Used To Acting Outside The Box.

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In All Cases Where Doubt Crops Up, Ask Yourself, "if I Had A Gun To My Head And Had To Do It, How Would I Do It?" It's Not As Hard As You Think.

Happiness Has A Very Short Half-life.

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There Is A Direct Correlation Between Am Increased Sphere Of Comfort And Getting What You Want.

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If You See Distraction Externally, You End Up Creating An Internally Distracted State.

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What You Do Is Infinitely More Important Than How You Do It.

4 Hour Work Week

You Can Lose Money And Make It Back, You Can't Do That With Time.

This Is Not My Phrase, But If You're Stuck In The Past, Then You're Depressed. If You're Stuck In The Future, Then You're Anxious.

Work Is An Activity That Is Financially-driven Or One That You'd Like To Do Less Of.

Are You Better Off Than You Were One Year Ago, One Month Ago, Or One Week Ago? If Not, Things Will Not Improve By Themselves.

I Value Self-discipline, But Creating Systems That Make It Next To Impossible To Misbehave Is More Reliable Than Self-control.

Most People Are Fast To Stop You Before You Get Started But Hesitate To Get In The Way If You're Moving.

Awareness, Even At A Subconscious Level, Beats Fancy Checklists Without It, Track Or You Will Fail.

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I'll Repeat Something You Might Consider Tattooing On Your Forehead: What We Fear Doing Most Is Usually What We Most Need To Do.

The Manifesto Of The Dealmaker Is Simple: Reality Is Negotiable.

The Problem With New Year's Resolutions - And Resolutions To 'get In Better Shape' In General, Which Are Very Amorphous - Is That People Try To Adopt Too Many Behavioral Changes At Once. It Doesn't Work. I Don't Care If You're A World-class Ceo - You'll Quit.

Unbeknownst To Most Fun-loving Bipeds, Not All Stress Is Bad. Indeed, The New Rich Don't Aim To Eliminate All Stress. Not In The Least.

Luxury, To Me, Is Not Owning A Lot Of Stuff. Luxury, To Me, Is Feeling Unrushed.

I Open Each Class With An Explanation Of The Singular Importance Of Being A "dealmaker." The Manifesto Of The Dealmaker Is Simple: Reality Is Negotiable.

Requiring A Lot Of Time Does Not Make A Task Important.

If We Define Risk As 'the Likelihood Of An Irreversible Negative Outcome,' Inaction Is The Greatest Risk Of All.

The Best Way To Counter-attack A Hater Is To Make It Blatantly Obvious That Their Attack Has Had No Impact On You.

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Information Is Useless If It Is Not Applied To Something Important Or If You Will Forget It Before You Have A Chance To Apply It.

The Downstream Effects Are Unknown. Do Your Best And Hope For The Best. If You're Improving The World-however You Define That-consider Your Job Well Done.

When You Elevate The Heels More So Than You Elevate The Sole Of The Foot, You Trigger A Cascade Of Compensations In The Knees And Hips That Cause Tight Hip Flexors, And Then Those Hip Flexors Cause Lower-back Pain.

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Just A Few Words On Time Management: Forget All About It.

One Can Steal Ideas, But No One Can Steal Execution Or Passion.

Black And White

I Think About Willpower Almost Never. I Realize For Myself, Trying To Be More Disciplined Is Pretty Nebulous And It's Often A Slippery Target. For Me, I've Just Thought About Incentives.

You Don't Have To Travel, But I Find Extended Travel To Be A Helpful Tool For Reexamining Yourself And The Constraints You've Artificially Placed On Your Life. It's Easy To Believe Everything Has To Be Done One Way If You're Always In One Place Around The Same People.

Don't Suffer Fools Or You'll Become One.

Effectiveness Is Doing The Things That Get You Closer To Your Goals. Efficiency Is Performing A Given Task (whether Important Or Not) In The Most Economical Manner Possible. Being Efficient Without Regard To Effectiveness Is The Default Mode Of The Universe.

It's Lonely At The Top. Ninety-nine Percent Of People In The World Are Convinced They Are Incapable Of Achieving Great Things, So They Aim For The Mediocre. The Level Of Competition Is Thus Fiercest For "realistic" Goals, Paradoxically Making Them The Most Time-consuming And Energy Consuming. It Is Easier To Raise $10,000,000 Than It Is $1,000,000. It Is Easier To Pick Up The One Perfect 10 In The Bar Than The Five 8s.

I Take Notes Like Some People Take Drugs.

Personal Branding Is About Managing Your Name - Even If You Don't Own A Business - In A World Of Misinformation, Disinformation, And Semi-permanent Google Records. Going On A Date? Chances Are That Your "blind" Date Has Googled Your Name. Going To A Job Interview? Ditto.

Short, Sweet, And To The Point. Clear Writing, And Therefore Clear Commands, Comes From Clear Thinking. Think Simple.

The First Thing I Would Do For Anyone Who's Trying To Lose Body Fat, For Instance, Would Be To Remove Foods From The House That He Or She Would Consume During Lapses Of Self-control.

I've Seen The Promised Land, And There Is Good News. You Can Have It All.

People Will Choose Unhappiness Over Uncertainty.

Writing Is Thought Crystalized On A Piece Of Paper, Which Can Then Be Reviewed.

Focus On Impact, Not Approval. If You Believe You Can Change The World, Which I Hope You Do, Do What You Believe Is Right And Expect Resistance And Expect Attackers. Keep Calm And Carry On!

Nothing Can Match The Wonderment That Comes From Staring Up Into The Star-filled Canopy Above And Realizing That You Are A Part Of That Creation.

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I Gauge Success In Years, Not Weeks. The Weekend Box-office Approach To Book Launches Is Short Sighted And Encourages Crappy Books.

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Pacifists Become Militants. Freedom Fighters Become Tyrants. Blessings Become Curses. Help Becomes Hindrance. More Becomes Less.

Companies That Start By Redesigning The Economics Of An Industry Often Finish By Redesigning The Whole Industry-and Owning It.

Perfection Is An Impossible Destination

The Least-crowded Channel For Meeting High Profile Bloggers Is In Person. Email Is The Most Difficult, The Most Crowded... I'm A Top 1,000 Blogger, Not A Top 100 Blogger, And I Get Hundreds Of Pitches By Email Every Week. Most Of Them I Don't Even See Because My Assistant Declines Them.

In A Digital World, There Are Numerous Technologies That We Are Attached To That Create Infinite Interruption.

I Think Time Management As A Label Encourages People To View Each 24-hour Period As A Slot In Which They Should Pack As Much As Possible.

People Don't Want To Be Millionaires - They Want To Experience What They Believe Only Millions Can Buy.

The Way That You Become World-class Is... By Asking Good Questions.

I Started Using Twitter About Year After Its Very Early Adoption And Ended Up Investing In It Around That Same Time. I'm Involved With The Tech Scene And Companies Ranging From Facebook, Stumbleupon And Twitter.

People Are Fond Of Using The Its Not What You Know, Its Who You Know Adage As An Excuse For Inaction, As If All Successful People Are Born With Powerful Friends. Nonsense.

Think Big And Don't Listen To People Who Tell You It Can't Be Done. Life's Too Short To Think Small.

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I Always Point People To The Article '1,000 True Fans' By Kevin Kelly. If You Choose Your Thousand Ideal Customers Or Readers Properly And Find The Single Author Blog That Targets That Audience, You Never Have To Do Any More Marketing. You're Done. That Is A Lesson That Very Few Product Developers And Marketers Have Learned, And It's Unfortunate.

I Have Scary Eyes. I Look Like The Guy In 'american History X,' Yes. I Remember Coming Home From School And Asking My Mum If I Could Get An Eye Transplant, And Of Course She Declined.

When You Try To Do Something Big Its Hard To Fail Completely.

There Is An Infinite Selection Of Things That I Could Test In Life, So I Generally Will Look For A Critical Mass Of Word That Comes Back To Me. At This Point I Have Hundreds Of Friends Who Are The Best At What They Do, Arguably Number One In The Country Or In The World. I Will Oftentimes Just Kind Of Throw A Volley Out To People, Ask Them What They're Obsessing On Or What They Find Interesting That's On The Fringe. If The Same Answer Comes Back A Few Times, I'm Like, "okay."

The Fishing Is Best Where The Fewest Go. There Is Just Less Competition For Bigger Goals.

For Most People, Life Would Be Boring Without Meaningful Work.

By Using Money As The Scapegoat And Work As Our All-consuming Routine, We Are Able To Conveniently Disallow Ourselves To Do Otherwise: 'john, I'd Love To Talk About The Gaping Void I Feel In My Life, The Hopelessness That Hits Me Like A Punch In The Eye Every Time I Start My Computer In The Morning, But I Have So Much Work To Do! I've Got At Least Three Hours Of Unimportant Email To Reply To Before Calling Prospects Who Said 'no' Yesterday. Gotta Run!

Learn To Be Difficult When It Counts. In School As In Life, Having A Reputation For Being Assertive Will Help You Receive Preferential Treatment Without Having To Beg Or Fight For It Every Time.

It's Not Enough To Have The Right Answers. You Have To Have The Right Questions.

Being Selective-doing Less-is The Path Of The Productive. Focus On The Important Few And Ignore The Rest.

Do Not Overestimate The Competition And Underestimate Yourself. You Are Better Than You Think.

Self Confidence

Uncertainty And The Prospect Of Failure Can Be Very Scary Noises In The Shadows. Most People Will Choose Unhappiness Over Uncertainty.

If The Challenge We Face Doesn't Scare Us, Then It's Probably Not That Important.

$1,000,000 In The Bank Isn't The Fantasy. The Fantasy Is The Lifestyle Of Complete Freedom It Supposedly Allows.

Being Able To Quit Things That Don't Work Is Integral To Being A Winner

As Far As Income Goes, There Are Three Currencies In The World; Most People Ignore Two. The Three Currencies Are Time, Income And Mobility, In Descending Order Of Importance. Most People Focus Exclusively On Income.

I'm Often Asked How I Define "success." It's An Overused Term, But I Fundamentally View This Elusive Beast As A Combination Of Two Things - Achievement And Appreciation. One Isn't Enough: Achievement Without Appreciation Makes You Ambitious But Miserable. Appreciation Without Achievement Makes You Unambitious But Happy.

The Blind Quest For Cash Is A Fool's Errand.

People Frequently Fail When They Try To Do Everything At Once. They Approach A Massive Project And Quickly Get Discouraged. Taking Small, But High-value Steps Takes Less Time, And You Learn More In The Long Run.

The Commonsense Rules Of The "real World" Are A Fragile Collection Of Socially Reinforced Illusions.

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Money Doesn't Change You; It Reveals Who You Are When You No Longer Have To Be Nice.

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