96 Tim Ferriss Quotes That Will Help Level Up Both Your Life And Career

Today’s Tim Ferriss quotes will have you re-thinking how you operate in life and in your career.

His most famous book, The 4-Hour Workweek, which became a worldwide blockbuster, inspired many people from around the world to stop living mediocre and start designing their lives, become more productive by doing less and many other things.

Nowadays, he runs The Tim Ferriss Show, which covers topics ranging from personal and character development, to morning routines and meditation habits of celebrities, CEOs and sports professionals.

On occasion, he also covers posts about writing, venture capital, metaphysics and even acting/movies.

Tim Ferriss Quotes On Productivity

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

2. “Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.”

3. “Focus on being productive instead of being busy.”

4. 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.”

5. If you let pride stop you, you will hate life.”

6. “Someday is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.”

7. “Focus on impact, not approval.”

8. “The most important actions are never comfortable.”

9. “The key of not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities.”

10. “Remember – boredom is the enemy, not some abstract failure.”

11. “True freedom is much more than having enough income and time to do what you want.”

12. “If you don’t have time, the truth is you don’t have priorities.”

13. “There are two components that are fundamental to enjoy life and feel good about yourself: continual learning and service.”

14. “Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now.”

15. “The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.”

16. “I want to measure twice and cut once; therefore the vast majority of my important work is deciding what to work on.”

17. “One can steal ideas but no one can steal execution or passion.”

18. “Life is too short to be small.”

19. “Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.”

20. “I do not equate productivity to happiness. For most people, happiness in life is a massive amount of achievement plus a massive amount of appreciation; and you need both of those things.”

Motivational Tim Ferriss Quotes

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

22. “I was an all American in wrestling in high school. Was a national champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999; and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes which includes my 8+ years as a CEO of a Sports Nutrition company.”

23. “Age doesn’t matter. An open mind does.”

24. “People will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”

25. “Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life, what you do, when you do it, where you do it and with whom you do it.”

26. “If you’re wasting time having fun, you’re not wasting time.”

27. “It’s better to design an ideal lifestyle and then fill in the gaps with high output, streamlined work, than to fill the calendar with as much as possible and hop an acceptable lifestyle will be the byproduct.”

28. “If you’re confused about life, you’re not alone.

There are almost seven billion of us.

This isn’t a problem, of course, once you realize that life is neither a problem to be solved nor a game to be won.

If you are too intent on making the pieces of a nonexistent puzzle fit, you miss out on all the real fun.

The heaviness of success-chasing can be replaced with a serendipitous lightness when you recognize that the only rules and limits are this we set for ourselves.”

29. “Most people fail not because they lack the skills or aptitude to reach their goal. But because they simply don’t believe they can reach it.”

30. “Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress – stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.”

31. “If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are subpar, this is the time to ask, what if I did the opposite? Don’t follow a model that doesn’t work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.”

32. “Think BIG and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.”

33. “We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a month.”

34. “No hurry, no pause.”

35. “I take notes like some people take drugs.”

36. “Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?”

37. “Be bold and don’t worry about what people think. They don’t do it that often anyway.”

38. “Give vulnerability a shot. Give discomfort its due. Because I think he or she who is willing to be the most uncomfortable is not only the bravest, but rises the fastest.”

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

40. “An entrepreneur isn’t someone who owns a business. It’s someone who makes things happen.”

Tim Ferriss Quotes Worth Pondering

41. “Don’t dismiss people, don’t be a dick, and don’t rush. Play the long game.”

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

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

44. “Life would be boring if we all followed exactly the same rules.”

45. “Most people are fast to stop you before you get started, but hesitate to get in the way if you’re moving.”

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

47. “Learn the art of the pitch and of messaging.”

48. “Many a false step was made by standing still.”

49. “Many of our strengths in excess become or create glaring weaknesses.”

50. “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.”

51. “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”

52. “To do the impossible, you need to ignore the popular.”

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

54. “Do I choose the stairs or the elevator when deciding to move to another table in life?”

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

56. “For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams dreams they’re being held from.”

57. “Each delegated task must be both time-consuming and well-defined. If you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off and assign your VA to do that for you, it doesn’t improve the order of the universe.”

58. “The way we measure productivity is flawed. People checking their Blackberry over dinner is not the measure of productivity.”

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

60. “If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort.”

61. “Have fun and laugh at yourself whenever possible.”

62. “99% of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals.”

63. “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”

64. “You have to schedule creative time and defend it with your life.”

65. “If someone’s criticism is completely unfounded on data, then I don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.”

66. “Think big but ensure payday comes every day.”

67. “I’m not a big believer in long-term planning and far-off goals. In fact, I generally set 3-month and 6-month dreaminess. The variables change too much and in-the-future distance becomes an excuse for postponing action.”

68. “Most people can do absolutely awe-inspiring things. Sometimes they just need a little nudge.”

69. “Sometimes you need to go on a low-information diet.”

Other Tim Ferriss Quotes To Live By

70. “It’s totally fine if you feel nervous and stammer a bit. If you give actionable, clear advice, people will forgive it all.”

71. “I really feel like knife skills – not just in the kitchen, but in life – are really critical.”

72. “Reality is negotiable.”

73. “The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending.”

74. “The most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop. You choose to be happy and then you work at it. It’s just like building muscles.”

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

76. “Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.”

77. “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.”

78. “If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.”

79. “The way that you become world-class is by asking better questions.”

80. “Perfection is an impossible destination.”

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

82. “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.”

83. “People really do think they have to choose between high stress and high rewards jobs, and low stress and low reward jobs.”

84. “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.”

85. “The blind quest for cash is a fool’s errand.”

86. “Big things are coming.”

87. “Learn to be difficult when it counts.”

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

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

90. “There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone.”

91. “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.”

92. “Most people are good at a handful of things and utterly miserable at most.”

93. “I think time management as a label encourages people to view each 24-hour period as a slot to which they should pack as much as possible.”

94. “I am a human guinea pig and a professional dilettante.”

95. “When you get specific with your fears, you rob them of their power.”

96. “Personally, I now aim for one month of overseas relocation or high intensity learning (tango, fighting, whatever) for every two months of work projects.”

Tim Ferriss is one of my most favorite people and have definitely helped me in becoming more efficient in my career and how to really create meaningful experiences with travel.

Which one of these Tim Ferriss quotes were your favorite? Drop them below in the comments.