Tim Ferriss's new understanding of self-improvement

Photo from Tim Ferriss’ Flickr

This article floored me – https://link.medium.com/wpo525Elabb

Of all people, it seemed that Tim Ferriss had things figured out. He worked hard but found it rewarding; his work led to successes which led to rich life experiences; and he stayed grounded in humility with a spiritual practice. Nothing suggested he'd be struggling, but he was, and it was comforting to hear.

Learning that people you look up to also suffer shows we're all more alike than our success and public standing shows. It gives us permission to take some pressure off ourselves which is what everyone needs most in times of struggle.

Successful people honestly sharing their struggles is the greatest gift they can give, 1000x more valuable than how they achieved their successes.

Tim Ferriss did a great service by talking candidly about his struggles, but it's wrong to conclude that self-improvement was a factor or cause of those struggles. No, that was simply the path he took to better understanding himself.

As someone who's focused a lot on self-improvement and productivity I can relate to the positive feelings as you add more tricks and hacks to your toolkit, and how it's never enough. But characterizing self-improvement as "noise" or a "distraction" implies that Tim Ferriss or I could have avoided all that if only someone had told us it won't make us happy. That's like saying that a drug addict could have skipped all that life-destroying behavior if only someone had told them drugs were bad, or that someone simply forgot to tell the workaholic that money can't buy happiness. Everyone knows these things, but only a few people understand them.

Understanding can't come before experience.

We all have our own paths to understanding ourselves. Working too much, or obsessing with productivity and self-improvement are not the worst ones either since they're rooted in virtues. The risk is never realizing they're the means, not the ends.

The gift then, from Tim Ferriss, is a story from a fellow traveller on the trail, not telling you to turn around, but rather that there's something up ahead worth knowing.