Episode · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2025-05-29
Books mentioned on #813: Q&A with Tim — Three Life Commandments, 4-Hour Workweek Exercises I Still Use, The Art and Joy of Inefficiency, Stoicism Revisited, and Much More
Welcome back to another in-between-isode, with one of my favorite formats: the good old-fashioned Q&A. Sponsors: Monarch Money track, budget, plan, and do more with your money: MonarchMoney.
Tim Ferriss recommended Awareness by Anthony De Mello, Gold, and I don't want to talk about it by Terrence Real, and discussed Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde and The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Awareness
Awareness by Anthony De Mello is a profound guide to personal growth, spiritual awakening, and self-observation, encouraging readers to break free from conditioned thinking and societal expectations.
Recommended“Developing awareness right here's the book I'm reading yet again. Anthony Dlo awareness look at meditation practice basically put some of these safety nets in place”
Where to get it
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Gold
Gold by Rumi, translated by Haleh Liza Gafori, is an exquisite collection of poetry capturing the profound mystical insights of the great Persian master through vibrant contemporary translations.
Recommended“There are books of poetry that really I think transmit a lot of sophism. They also have commentary and so on. I will say that Hallelua Gapori's translations of Roomie, there's one collection called Gold, I think is a great entry point.”
Where to get it
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I don't want to talk about it
Terrence Real's book "I Don't Want to Talk About It" explores male depression and covert forms of the condition masked by busyness and workaholism.
Recommended“The first thing that came to mind, and maybe it's because I just had a podcast with Terry Real, but is the book I don't want to talk about it, which is about ostensibly male depression, but I think it can apply to women as well. Covert depression that is masked by different types of busyiness or addictive behavior, including”
Where to get it
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Trickster Makes This World
Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde is a captivating exploration of trickster mythology across various global cultures, examining how boundary-walking figures drive cultural innovation and human progress.
Discussed“Coyote also, if you read Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde, it's a book about trickster mythology across different cultures. And coyote in that book is described as a boundary walker. And I think of myself that way or that resonated with me.”
Where to get it
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The Neverending Story
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende is a classic fantasy novel that follows a young boy who is drawn into a magical and perilous world through the pages of a mysterious book.
Discussed“Well, I'll tell you because I loved the original. The book is amazing. The movie I thought was incredibly well done and I actually rewatched it two years ago. The never- ending story, as a lot of you know because it's come up in the writing.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (8) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“And then there are some that I think have stood the test of time which relate to later questions on 4-hour work week and what I still use from that book.”
“Fiction, I don't speedread fiction. You know, I'm listening to Midnight's Children by Salman Rushy right now, which is one of the books, if not the book that really put him on the map. A beautiful pros, amazing voice performance.”
“Put another way straight out of the 4-hour work week. Right? What you do is more important than how you do anything. I really still stick by that.”
“And I think asking those types of questions is part of the reason that the 4-hour work week, which is published in 2007 for God's sake, the pleosene era, uh it was revised in 2009, fine still completely out of date in so many ways to be one of Amazon's most highlighted to I think it was top 10 highlighted”
“And I think it's Dennis McKenna who said also that by and large these profound I think it was in his book the brotherhood of the screaming abyss which is great title about his largely autobiographical experiences with his brother Terrence over time but psychedelics are really an intense experience of the present”
“What tool or tools from the 4-hour work week do you personally come back to most often? All right. This is quite fun to answer because I started off I was like definitely 8020 and Parkinson's law and fear setting”
“So streamlining all of that involves what? Defining what we want, eliminating everything that doesn't contribute, and then taking the critical few that remain, automating as much as possible. It's like this is this is going to sound familiar to anyone who's who's read the 4-hour work week. So, I still use a ton from that book.”
“So, you know, picking up books like this one, haven't read it yet, but Running Toward mystery, The Adventure of an Unconventional Life, there are many, many, many different inputs that I look to outside of Stoicism, as valuable as it is.”