Tim Ferriss quotes:

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.

I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.

I discourage passive skepticism, which is the armchair variety where people sit back and criticize without ever subjecting their theories or themselves to real field testing.

It isn't enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.

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.

Writing is thought crystalized on a piece of paper, which can then be reviewed.

Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should Work is not all of life. Your co-workers shouldn't be your only friends. Schedule life and defend it just as you would an important business meeting. Never tell yourself "I'll just get it done this weekend."

I value self-discipline, but creating systems that make it next to impossible to misbehave is more reliable than self-control.

Rather than spend my life on data entry and typing, I also take photos on my iPhone of business cards, wine labels, menus, or anything I want to have searchable on-the-run.

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.

Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear.

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.

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness-lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

You can enjoy stargazing just by going out and learning a couple constellations with your kids.

There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye.

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.

One can steal ideas, but no one can steal execution or passion.

Awareness, even at a subconscious level, beats fancy checklists without it, track or you will fail.

It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice is between multiplication of results using strenths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become mediocre. Focus on better use of your best weapons instead of constant repair.

Being called a huckster and a charlatan started several years ago, so that's something I'm accustomed to. In most cases, it doesn't bother me.

The way we measure productivity is flawed. People checking their BlackBerry over dinner is not the measure of productivity.

There are a lot of things that can be learned from the darker corners of athletics. You have doctors who view bodybuilders as cavalier amateurs of science. And then you have the bodybuilders who view the doctors as too conservative to do anything interesting. So I've tried to become the middleman for putting some of those pieces together.

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.

Everyone is going to binge on a diet, for instance, so plan for it, schedule it, and contain the damage.

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.

World barista champions use the AeroPress to make coffee on the folding tray tables of airplanes.

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.

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.

I have plenty of money to do what I want to do, and I have the relationships.

But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker."

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.

Changing the world doesn't require much money. Again, think in terms of empowerment and not charity. How much were Gandhi's teachers paid? How much did it cost to give Dr. Martin Luther King the books that catalyzed his mind and actions?

There are tons of things in your home and life that you don't use, need, or even particularly want. They just came into your life as impulsive flotsam and jetsam and never found a good exit. Whether you're aware of it or not, this clutter creates indecision and distractions...

Just a few words on time management: forget all about it.

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.

I gauge success in years, not weeks. The weekend box-office approach to book launches is short sighted and encourages crappy books.

If you don't have time, the truth is, you don't have priorities. Think harder; don't work harder.

If you let pride stop you, you will hate life

Just because you are embarrassed to admit that you're still living the consequences of bad decisions made 5, 10, 20 years ago shouldn't stop you from making good decisions now. If you let pride stop you, you will hate life 5, 10, and 20 years from now for the same reasons.

The best way to counter-attack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you.

Having a size 9 foot is fantastic because almost all of the shoe companies do their prototyping in size 9, so if you visit a place like Nike headquarters, you can try every sort of wacky, out-there model.

Just as modern man consumes both too many calories and calories of no nutritional value, information workers eat data both in excess and from the wrong sources.

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other: 1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson's Law). The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

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.

If it's important to you and you want to do it 'eventually', just do it and correct course along the way.

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!

Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

Seemingly unrelated [things] that are in fact really related, that's the stuff I like to talk about. Like dancing, language learning, swimming, three-pointers...

Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.

Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.

The reason I was successful in launching my first book with bloggers is this: I assumed that I should spend as much time on a blogger with a million-person readership as I would pitching an editor of a publication with a million person subscription-base.

A recession is very bad for publicly traded companies, but it's the best time for startups. When you have massive layoffs, there's more competition for available jobs, which means that an entrepreneur can hire freelancers at a lower cost.

Life is too short to be small.

Think big and don't listen to people who tell you it can't be done. Life's too short to think small.

People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

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.

Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.

Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Being selective-doing less-is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.

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 less is not being lazy. Don't give in to a culture that values personal sacrifice over personal productivity.

But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn't making you stronger, they're making you weaker.

Focus on being productive instead of busy.

Fun things happen when you earn dollars, live on pesos, and compensate in rupees.

Simplicity requires ruthlessness.

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.

Get good at being a troublemaker and saying sorry when you really screw up

If only I had more money is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment - now and not later.

Many a false step was made by standing still.

Every time I find myself stressed out, it's because I do things primarily driven by growth.

A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.

Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most would consider dreams.

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.

Online I see people committing 'social media suicide' all the time by one of two ways. Firstly by responding to all criticism, meaning you're never going to find time to complete important milestones of your own, and by responding to things that don't warrant a response. This lends more credibility by driving traffic.

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.'

For uncommon solutions, you have to look in uncommon places.

I didn't even like white wine. Then I tasted it and bought a case. It was the first case of any wine I'd ever bought.

That's precisely the question everyone should be asking-why the hell not? - Why not you, why not now...

I'm not averse to making a lot of money. But where does that end? I hang out with people with hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that the standard by which I should measure myself? Where does that take you if you're in my business? I think it takes you to pretty dark, corrupt places.

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.

Learn the art of the pitch and of messaging.

I still feel there are much smarter self-promoters out there than me. I am very methodical about my messaging, and I know how to gain attention very quickly.

The best entrepreneurs I've ever met are all good communicators. It's perhaps one of the very few unifying factors.

$1,000,000 in the bank isn't the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.

A goal without real consequences is wishful thinking. Good follow-through doesn't depend on the right intentions. It depends on the right incentives.

After decades of hauling telescopes around in the back of vans and going up to high altitude locations and so forth, I did finally build an observatory, here on Sonoma mountain.

Age doesn't matter. An open mind does.

Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly.

An entrepreneur isn't someone who owns a business, it's someone who makes things happen.

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.

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.

At its core, I don't view Facebook as a social network. I think it could become the driver's license of the Internet. And beyond that, it can become the pipes and the plumbing upon what most of the Internet is built. I think it's very well positioned.

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.

Avoid results-by volume approach, instead focus on few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

Be bold and don't worry about what people think. They don't do it that often anyway.

Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It's about building a system to replace yourself.

Being able to quit things that don't work is integral to being a winner

Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.

Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. Enter the world of elimination.

But if it's tolerable mediocrity, and you're like, 'Well, you know it could be worse. At least I'm getting paid.' Then you wind up in a job that is slowly killing your soul and you're allowing that to happen. Comfort can be a very, very dangerous thing.

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!

By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It's the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.

Companies that start by redesigning the economics of an industry often finish by redesigning the whole industry-and owning it.

Compile your to-do list for tomorrow no later than this evening.

Converting your own passions into a job is the fastest method for eliminating any passion you once had.

Creating demand is hard. Filling demand is easier. Don't create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market - define your customers - then find or develop a product for them.

Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.

Doing something unimportant well does not make it important,

Doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic.

Don't follow a model that doesn't work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn't matter how good a cook you are.

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.

Emphasize strengths, don't fix weaknesses.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your "passion" or your "bliss," I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement. This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn't, "What do I want?" or "What are my goals?" but "What would excite me?"

Exercise is overrated.

Fear is your friend. It is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn't do, more often than not it shows you what you should do.

Food became for me a way of becoming self-sufficient with my hands, to regain manual literacy, which I think has been lost on our generation and certainly younger generations. Very few people can actually make things with their hands and do things with their hands.