“My tardiness in answering your letter was not resulting from press of enterprise. Don’t take heed to that type of excuse; I’m at liberty, and so is anybody else who needs to be at liberty. No man is on the mercy of affairs. He will get entangled in them of his personal accord, after which flatters himself that being busy is a proof of happiness.”
— Seneca
“I used to be all the time ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a advantage. It was a disguise.”
— Anaïs Nin
For me, 2025 will probably be a 12 months of delivery new issues. There’s heaps within the hopper.
Right this moment, I’m happy to announce my first guide in additional than seven years.
It’s been within the works for a very long time and is presently 500+ pages. This time round, I’ll be doing issues very in a different way.
The guide, tentatively titled THE NO BOOK, is a blueprint for learn how to get every thing you need by saying no to every thing you don’t. Don’t let the title mislead you; it’s most likely essentially the most life-affirming guide I’ve ever written.
It particulars the precise methods, philosophies, word-for-word scripts, tech, and extra that I and others use to create focus, calm, and that means in a world of overwhelming noise.
THE NO BOOK incorporates the entire greatest tips and instruments that I’ve collected during the last 15 years, along with these of world-class performers. A lot of my associates make cameos, and I’m sharing particulars that I’ve saved intently guarded till now. In the event you’ve needed to understand how my life and enterprise work with solely three full-time workers, this may present you.
What else is totally different about this guide?
– Although I drafted the bones years in the past, I introduced in an in depth buddy as a co-writer and co-experimenter. That is my first time ever collaborating on a guide, and it’s been an incredible and hilarious journey. I’m thrilled with the outcomes, and I’ve by no means seen something fairly prefer it.
– In contrast to my final 5 books, we’re going to first launch this one serially, one chapter or a handful of chapters at a time.
– We can even create a neighborhood for early readers, who will be capable to learn and experiment collectively, assist each other, and supply us with suggestions on the guide. We wish folks to alter their lives with this guide, and for that, studying isn’t sufficient. It have to be utilized, and we really feel that the neighborhood, mixed with serial launch, will assist produce actual motion with actual outcomes.
– The plan might change. Consistent with the theme of the guide, if the neighborhood or serial launch flip into extra headache than enjoyable, or extra emergency brake than accelerator, we’ll renegotiate and check out one thing else.
– To learn THE NO BOOK first and get different exclusives, you simply must subscribe to my free 5-Bullet Friday e-newsletter. That’s the place the magic will occur. It’s simple to unsubscribe anytime.
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Now, I don’t need to give too many spoilers, and the precise timeline will probably be introduced quickly, however I received’t go away you with no pattern.
Two chapters are arising tout de suite.
However first, what of that collaborator?
Properly, he made an look in The 4-Hour Physique after I force-fed him into gaining muscle, however he’s higher often called the ten-time New York Occasions best-selling writer of The Sport, The Grime, Emergency, and others. He’s written liner notes for Nirvana and obtained hate mail from Phil Collins. He did a decade-long tour of obligation at The New York Occasions, wrote cowl tales for Rolling Stone, and virtually received killed by an ax-wielding polyamorous lunatic in The Reality. He and I even have the identical haircut.
Most related right here, he busted my balls for not ending this guide sooner, and that’s how we ended up right here.
So why don’t I let him inform the story in his phrases?
INTRODUCTION
By Neil Strauss
The aim of life is to make good selections.
And selections are the only factor on this planet. They simply encompass a single selection between two phrases: sure or no.
Via this binary selection, very similar to the way in which a pc builds digital worlds out of 0s and 1s, we create our future.
These two choices, nonetheless, usually are not created equal. There’s only a tiny sliver of the world that now we have the time to expertise. So, we’re known as to filter via the practically infinite spectrum of all that’s out there to us… and say no to virtually every thing. The extra we are able to say no to the issues that don’t serve us, the extra we live our objective.
And I’m failing at my life objective.
I say sure to fucking every thing.
For this reason I made a decision to assist write this guide. Not simply that can assist you however to assist me reclaim my life.
After I was attempting to resolve what to share on this introduction, I known as Tim for his ideas.
“Are you able to consider a current instance the place you stated sure to one thing you shouldn’t have?” he requested.
My ex-wife was sitting subsequent to me and it took her 1.5 seconds to provide you with an instance: “Janet’s costume occasion tonight.”
All of us most likely have a Janet in our lives. She is so pushy and protracted, within the kindest and most enthusiastic method, that I’ve hassle saying no to her. To her, a sure is a legally binding settlement. A possibly is a sure. And a no is the start of a guilt journey that ends once you fold and say possibly—which she then takes to imply sure, making it a legally binding settlement.
“So simply cancel,” Tim correctly instructed.
“I can’t,” I replied unwisely.
“See?” Ingrid gloated. “I relaxation my case.”
Her case was certainly rested. On my responsible conscience.
I grew up in a house the place saying no wasn’t an choice. A no would get you a stern lecture, an extended grounding, or worst of all, a withdrawal of affection. In order an grownup, I turned existentially terrified that each no would include some type of blowback, reminiscent of dropping a friendship, a possibility, or somebody’s good will. And now I give my time—and my life—away, typically to individuals who have been publicly shitty to me. They name this trauma bonding. It’s my specialty.
Not like Tim.
Tim is the grasp of no. As I write this in mid-October 2023, his textual content messages have an auto-response that reads:
I’m touring abroad till Nov 7. In case your textual content is pressing, please attain out to somebody on my group. In any other case, please resend your textual content after Nov 7 if it nonetheless applies. Since catching up could be unimaginable, I’ll be deleting all messages upon my return and ranging from scratch. Thanks.
Deleting three weeks price of messages! That’s boss-level no.
It’s mainly saying: The message you despatched me is your precedence, not robotically mine.
It’s a screaming sure to life.
It’s actually an act of braveness to not fear about how each single one who receives that textual content goes to react to being deleted. And that is only a small, on a regular basis instance of Tim’s time mastery. Right here’s how unimaginable Tim is at saying no at a world-record stage:
5 years in the past, he known as to inform me he was writing a guide on learn how to say no. He needed me to contribute an essay to it.
I didn’t have time to assist out. So in fact I shut it down with these 4 phrases: “Sure, I’ll do it!”
I didn’t need Tim to be mad at me or cease asking me to contribute to his books or abandon me as a buddy and speak shit about me to Naval Ravikant.
Afterward, I spent per week writing a chapter for his undertaking, and grumbling about how I ought to be spending the time working by myself guide. In spite of everything, folks pleasers like me reside in fixed resentment. We blame different folks’s requests for our unhealthy selections.
I completed the essay and despatched it to Tim, as did many others. Tim despatched some follow-up questions, simply to take up extra of our time and ensure we regretted our choice, then he did one thing unimaginable:
He stated no… to the entire guide!
He has so completely mastered the artwork that he truly stated no to the guide on no. After which went on to return the biggest guide advance he’d ever been given.
Wow, that was a formidable act of self-preservation. Whereas it could take you 5 days to learn a guide, it may well take him three years to put in writing and analysis it. That’s three years of his life he gained again with a single no.
There was only one drawback: I wanted the guide. As did so many others. It’s a warfare zone out right here. Our gadgets and apps, even a few of our residence home equipment, are consistently finding out us, figuring out learn how to focus extra of our consideration on their enterprise fashions. Below the guise of serving to us, they drown us in inboxes, notifications, and alerts, synced to telephones, tablets, watches, even our vehicles. And should you don’t reply to the Janets of the world inside fifteen minutes, you get the inevitable “Are you okay?” or “Are you upset at me?” message. And even worse, the insidious “???”
Whether or not the problem is the telephone, different folks, or our personal compulsions, most of us need assistance saying no to what doesn’t matter and drains our life vitality. So, I reached out and informed Tim that if he didn’t need to end the guide, I might.
On the situation that he may cancel the entire endeavor anytime he favored with one no, he finally despatched me a 72,000-word Scrivener file of his notes, ideas, writings, and picked up info. I then set about organizing it right into a guide that will assist myself and others reside a extra significant, related, purpose-driven life by following the trail of no.
However merely meting out rejections isn’t the aim. You want wonderful issues price defending. The trail of no can also be the trail of selective yesses. This guide is a information to discovering the vital few among the many trivial many.
It’s about discovering the large yesses in our lives. Just some. These could also be folks, companions, initiatives, locations, and passions—yesses so extremely fulfilling that they permit us to say no to every thing else. Actually, you solely must get just a few massive yesses proper to reside a deeply profitable and joyful life.
The guide that follows was put collectively by the 2 of us from Tim’s notes and experiences; additional discussions and analysis; numerous hilarious video calls; and contributions from different gurus of no, a few of whom truly stated no to us. We’ve included their rejections within the guide as templates. Except in any other case said, each chapter and first-person anecdote that follows is from Tim’s perspective.
Hopefully by the top of this information, we are able to all be taught that there’s a freeway to happiness. And the borders that hold us on it, that stop us from straying into the abyss of meaninglessness, are paved with the phrase no.
TORSCHLUSSPANIK
By Tim Ferriss
I first realized I had an issue when every thing was going proper for me.
The day was Might 2, 2007, simply after 5:30 p.m. in New York, after I obtained a telephone name I’ll always remember. My editor at Random Home needed to tell me that my debut guide, The 4-Hour Workweek, had hit The New York Occasions bestseller listing.
As her phrases sunk in, I staggered backward and collapsed towards the wall in shock, gratitude, and reduction. In a single day, I used to be reworked from a man begging folks to reply his emails to somebody on the opposite aspect. Every kind of requests and presents poured in. Talking gigs, interviews, consulting, partnerships, model offers—it was a tsunami.
Flattered, unprepared, and afraid this is likely to be my solely quarter-hour of fame, I stated “sure” to just about every thing, particularly something six, 9, or twelve months off within the distance. My calendar appeared like pristine water, clear as crystal for a quick lull. Then I needed to pay the piper.
Not often in the identical place for greater than per week, I felt extra like Willy Loman in Loss of life of a Salesman than a jet-setting rock star. My assistants and I had been getting hammered with a whole lot, then hundreds, of emails per day. 90% of the time, I had no concept how folks received my non-public electronic mail addresses. We had been drowning.
The irony was that my techniques labored nice. It was pure operator error.
Within the deluge, I had slipped from a mindset of JOMO (Pleasure of Lacking Out) and following my very own priorities, to a mindset of FOMO (Concern of Lacking Out) and reactively greedy at shiny objects and glossy folks. I used to be succumbing to what the Germans name Torschlusspanik: actually, “door-closing panic.”
The time period comes from the time of walled medieval cities, when the gates would shut at night time—and any resident left exterior could be compelled to fend for themselves. Getting via these doorways usually meant survival.
In survival mode, I panicked. I ended following my very own guidelines. As soon as I made the primary exception, the sport was misplaced. It was demise by a thousand paper cuts.
So, what the hell occurred? Why didn’t I see it coming?
These habits are fashioned early and embed themselves deeply. I come from a household stuffed with pretty and conflict-avoidant of us. This isn’t true for everybody within the prolonged clan, however it’s sufficient for my default to be people-pleasing. Or, extra precisely, people-fearing—a distinction we’ll dive into later.
Earlier than the publication of my guide, with little inbound, the consequences of people-pleasing had been negligible. I got here up with wild plans, went out trying to find alternatives, cold-emailed folks to pitch concepts, and knocked issues off my to-do listing. After the success of the guide, with 1000x extra inbound, the consequences of people-pleasing had been catastrophic. The underlying worry and guilt got here out in full power and wreaked havoc. I used to be being emailed and known as by a Genghis Khan military of variations of myself (shock, bitch!), and I didn’t have a playbook. Saying sure to different folks’s priorities made mine vanish like sand via my fingers.
It took some time to unwind and determine that I used to be doing all of it improper.
Twelve months later, I had stemmed portion of the blood loss. It was solely attainable as a result of I had discovered an enormous YES that allowed me to focus and say no to at the least 50% of the noise:
Startups.
I used the guide’s recognition with technologists to start investing in and advising startups, and I quickly moved to San Francisco to be within the middle of the motion. The timing was good, and I had unimaginable luck (Shopify, Fb, Twitter, Uber, Alibaba, and extra).
One afternoon, I discovered myself within the workplace of a CEO and buddy. His firm would later change into one of many fastest-growing startups in historical past. That day, he was calm as ordinary, regardless of the chaos and noise of Market Road just a few flooring beneath. As soon as we’d caught up on the newest developments, the dialog meandered into productiveness techniques, and I requested how he considered managing electronic mail. He spun his laptop computer round on his desk to point out me his Gmail account. As soon as my eyes adjusted, I stood there slack-jawed, fixated on one factor:
84,000+ unread electronic mail.
Smiling at my shock, he stated, “Inbox zero is a fallacy.”
Utterly unfazed, he went on to clarify just a few insurance policies he had. He ignored 99% of what got here in. For a lot of what remained, his reply was a brief, “Not up my alley. Thanks.”
If 10 totally different however interesting folks requested him to seize dinner, he would invite these 10 folks to a bunch dinner and kill many birds with one stone.
If he needed to protect political capital however lower contact with sure folks, he’d do the “gradual fade”: He may first reply to them in 5 days, then 10 days, after which 20 days. “They are going to cease asking,” he famous.
Clearly, there have been ranges to filtering, after which there have been ranges to filtering. I took {a photograph} of his 84,000 unread depend as a reminder.
Proper after that assembly, I created a digital swipe file known as “well mannered declines” in Evernote, a product made by one other startup I suggested. Beginning that week in 2009, if anybody stated no in a method that struck me as elegant or intelligent, I saved it. If a rejection by some means made me really feel good, I saved it. If somebody had nice insurance policies on their contact kind, I saved it. If I got here throughout a trick, device, or philosophical reset for saying no—whether or not over a meal, by way of electronic mail, or on the airport—I saved it.
This guide incorporates the highlights from that swipe file.
It’s taken me an embarrassingly very long time to implement the recommendation right here, however I’ve discovered guidelines, techniques, and instruments that make life so much simpler. After all, these methods apply to coping with different folks, together with strangers, unfastened ties, and household. However in addition they apply to managing ourselves, particularly these glitches in our psychological working system that act towards our greatest pursuits.
I’ve additionally discovered methods to idiot-proof issues and convey the lifeboat nearer, such that once you do slip into overcommitting (it’ll occur), it’s one step to restoration as an alternative of ten.
This guide was initially written like my different books (i.e., Tim exams every thing, writes about what works, then publishes), till I known as Neil to see how a rewrite was approaching a tough draft.
“Hey, Tim, I’m in Copenhagen,” he screamed over a cacophony of background noise. “I’m at this convention I agreed to talk at, however now I’m internet hosting the entire thing, and it’s been taking on all my time.”
“That’s not good. I hope they’re paying you nicely.”
“They’re not paying me something.” He paused and sighed. “And also you’re not going to imagine this, however I informed the man operating the convention he may keep at my home when he’s in LA subsequent month.”
“You what?! Has this guide been working for you in any respect?”
He stammered a response, and we each got here to appreciate that for a die-hard folks pleaser, info and templates aren’t sufficient. As my buddy Derek Sivers places it, “If extra info had been the reply, then we’d all be billionaires with good abs.”
So, we rebuilt the guide from the bottom up as a each day, step-by-step expertise with readings, workout routines, and a whole plan that’s relentlessly action-focused.
The primary check topic was Neil. As he went via these workout routines and steps, he added his personal experiences, notes, and struggles. Afterward, seeing the eventual transformation, it’s clear that should you do the work, this guide actually, actually works. The guide is designed to satisfy you the place you’re in your no journey and take you additional than you suppose attainable.
And in contrast to most self-help applications, there isn’t any set of one-size-fits-all guidelines. Via these readings and workout routines, you’ll choose up a toolkit that’s uniquely your personal, tailor-made to your particular targets, challenges, strengths, and weaknesses. Some chapters received’t be for you, however some will probably be particularly for you.
The No E book is a Trojan Horse for turning into higher at decision-making writ giant. Choice-making is your life.
All the pieces from a job supply to a wedding proposal is a sure to 1 factor and a no to a whole lot of hundreds of different alternatives. It’s simple—the common default—to get pulled into the quicksand of half-hearted yesses and promiscuous overcommitment, ending up pressured and reactive, questioning the place your time has gone.
The No E book re-examines how we navigate our finite path. It should assist you to construct a benevolent phalanx—a protecting wall of troops—that guard your targets, your relationships, and extra, making every thing extra easeful.
As you get deeper into this guide, you’ll start to appreciate that the way you deal with no mirrors the way you deal with virtually every thing in life. Dramatically altering your nos will dramatically change your life.
If Neil can repair his Copenhagen debacle and do a 180—which he did—the sky is the restrict.
So let’s begin constructing you some wings.
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