“Tribe of Mentors” Review

First time trying this book review business out.

I have become a rather big fan of Tim Ferriss, his books and podcast. Naturally, his new book “Tribe of Mentors” was right at the top of my holiday list and is my first book 2018.

In the intro, Tim writes about finding himself in a bit of a life crisis turning 40. The questions he was asking himself certainly hit home for me as I have been experiencing a quarter-life crisis of my own this past year. He talks about questioning his goals and motivations, how he can be kinder to himself, and what he may have missed out on due to underplanning or overplanning. Thinking about his goals and desires, he decides to email out a list of 11 questions to his “tribe of mentors.” When I first read that the whole book was a variety of people answering the same questions, I was a little turned off. I am glad I got over that brief hesitation, because the rest of the pages were filled with so many ideas, tactics, books, quotes, and mental exercises that I made a note or highlight on most of them.

Ferriss describes the book as a “create your own adventure” book. Many of the profiles and answers were impressive, some did not resonate, but at least 20% really hit home for me. At the onset, I thought I would skip some of the profiles if the person did not pique my interest. After reading the first 10 or so profiles, I realized I was definitely going to be reading every page. I thought I wouldn’t be interested in some of them, but a couple mentors really surprised me and I was hooked.

While there are so many highlights, I want to sum up my main takeaways.

1) “Life is 25% finding yourself and 75% creating yourself” – Time and time again, the reader is reminded that you have the power to control the story of your life. So many of the limits put on us by others and by ourselves are made up. So many of the mentors in this book made drastic changes in their lives, professionally and personally. It is a nice reminder that we are the authors of our lives. At the same time, we can’t sit idly by and wait for life to happen to us, we have to make life happen. This can be a tad intimidating, but leads right into the next lesson…

2) “Focus on the next 5 minutes.” –  Over the last year, I have made a lot of changes in my life and I have put a lot of pressure on myself to “figure everything out.” The idea of “figuring everything out” is wildly overwhelming and often leads to frustration and inertia. Tim encourages all of us to plan, but focus on what is right in front of us. We can’t think our way out of a situation. The only way out is to take one step at a time. We can’t change the past, however, we can control how we approach any situation in the next 5 minutes, we can choose to be happy in the next 5 minutes. When we have this perspective, it is comforting that we can recover from any misstep. I am already reflecting on times that I didn’t “get what I want” that led to a far better opportunity down the road. Comedian Patton Oswalt wrote, “my favorite failure is every time I ever ate it onstage as a comedian. Because I woke up the next day and the world hadn’t ended.” Amen.

3) “Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.” – Oh man, this one punched me in the face. Tim writes this in the introduction, but I am reminded of it constantly throughout the book. Often, “What should I do with my life?” is an awful question (and one I have said to myself, and others, many times… admit it, we all have). It is way too broad and gets you out of that “focus on the next 5 minutes” mindset. It is massively overwhelming to consider how you are going to lay the building blocks that make up your lifetime. In addition, we all know those blocks are going to move, disappear, slide, and more blocks will show up when you least need more blocks. This may appear at odds with creating the life you want to lead and not letting life happen to you. However, if you do you best to focus on making the next 5 minutes the best you can, and you are actively taking steps to create the life you want to live right now, then you will be better prepared to go with the flow when the building blocks of life don’t line up exactly according to plan (which they certainly will).

I am confident someone else will have a different take than me, and I think that is the beauty of a book like this (and any book in general for that matter). After reading 140 different takes on the same high level questions, I am reminded that there is no “right way” to go through life. Success means different things to different folks. While this is a liberating notion, I feel like it lights a little fire under my butt to do the things I want to accomplish, be the person I want to be, and live the life I want to live. We all have the power to write the next chapter of our lives even if it seems out of context with the rest of the story so far.

Dream big and start small.

Final Take: 4/5 Stars. If you have not dabbled in the Tim Ferriss collection, I would recommend starting with last years book, “Tools of Titans.”