Episode · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2026-11-11
Books mentioned on #889: Q&A with Tim — How to Get Unstuck, Resilience in Hard Times, Tools for Brain Health, Finding Inner Peace, Optimism as a Learnable Skill, and More
This episode is the second half of my recent live Q&A. I cover what I’m doing to try to prevent Alzheimer’s, how to change when you can see exactly what’s keeping you stuck, staying hopeful as current
Tim Ferriss recommended The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch, The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker, Hard Times by Studs Terkel, The Happy Body by Jerzy Gregorek, Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson and others, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Diana Chapman and others, and Awareness by Anthony De Mello, and discussed Atomic Habits by James Clear, The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, and Outlive by Peter Attia and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Atomic Habits
Discussed“And Atomic Habits, you know, I mentioned it once before. There's a reason it sold 25 million, 30 million copies.”
Where to get it
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The 4-Hour Workweek
Discussed“Probably more defining and elimination as described in the 4-hour work week. But you don't need to read the 4-hour work week.”
Where to get it
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The 80/20 Principle
Recommended“You could buy books like the 8020 principle by Richard Kosh. There are many different options.”
Where to get it
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The Effective Executive
Recommended“I have already recommended the effective executive by Peter Ducker. These are evergreen topics that are going to increase in importance.”
Where to get it
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Hard Times
Recommended“I'm reading a book right now called Hard Times by Studs Turkal. So Studs Turkl is amazing. Won the Purprise. This is an old book hard times an oral history of the Great Depression.”
Where to get it
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Outlive
Discussed“And I think, you know, Peter Tia does a good job of describing these in his book outlive. But in my family, all the males die of heart attacks.”
Where to get it
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The Happy Body
Recommended“If you do that plus some of the ab exercises from the happy body, for instance, laying on your back with your legs straight up in the air and then reaching up again with your legs locked.”
Where to get it
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Crucial Conversations
Recommended“But I would not come to that conclusion until you have improved your ability to communicate as much as possible. Crucial conversations. I mentioned it twice already.”
Where to get it
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The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
Recommended“The 15 commitments of conscious leadership also very much related to this topic and even though it has been used within the world of fast growing tech for instance a sauna I think it was a sauna many start tech startups have all of their managers employees read these books”
Where to get it
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Awareness
Recommended“Speaking of awareness, check it out. Awareness by Anthony Dlo. The book I've gifted more than a hundred times probably at this point and that I have read probably 15 to 20 times myself.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (6) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Genesis
“If you have not looked into the Genesis story, it's actually a good read.”
Passing The 4-Hour Workweek
“Hey Tim, I've been a big fan since the 4-hour work week. I have all the books and was in a test group for Coyote.”
Plugged The 4-hour Chef
“I'm sure you can find it on Pirate Bay or something. But the meta section of the 4-hour chef, which focuses on accelerated learning, is the most important section in that book.”
Passing The Quantified Self
“That's J. Tim, your name came up when Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly spoke in the ferry building last week. That's in San Francisco to launch Gary's new book, The Quantified Self.”
Plugged The 4-Hour Body
“This returns to a very old topic which I unpacked at length in the 4-hour body. So there is that, but I'll give you the TLDDR”
Passing Conscious loving
“I'm pretty sure it's a sauna and dustin movitz it applies to relationships and any relationships and a lot of it's based on the work of gay and katy hrix if you want to look up for instance conscious loving and other books that they have penned, but the 15 commitments of conscious leadership kind of gets to the point”