MS
M. Sanjayan

Conservation scientist; chief executive of Conservation International

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Yeah. Tim and I have talked about this a little bit. So, for me, books are all about the moment and the emotion that I’m in and the person I’m giving it to is in. and so, I can’t tell you that there’s one book that has predominated how I give because I love books, and I love to give books. And I carry books around. Even today, I brought two books for you to autograph that I’m giving away. So, there’s an act of giving. And a book is a wonderful way to convey something to another person. Books that I’ve loved giving away, Norman McClain’s A River Runs Through It . I read that book in so many different ways, in so many pieces. It totally influenced my life in terms of fly fishing and finding magic in words and that quiet space. He also wrote that book when he was 71 years old. Kind of only the really big book he wrote. It was at 71. And you think about all of this sort of bullshit about creative genius being in the young and all of that. As you get older, you start appreciating it. If Norman could do it at 71, maybe I could do it not quite at 71 yet. Another book I really liked, a more recent book, is Stanley McChrystal’s Team of Teams . Completely different reason. Just a really clever, smart book about how to organize businesses and enterprises for today’s world. And he takes this experiential army in Afghanistan and brings it over to sort of your life or my life and makes it kind of relevant and meaningful. I found it very influential. I’ve given away quite a few copies of James Nester’s book, The Deep, which you might have read, right. You’ve read his book.

Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 4 February 2018 source ↗

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Andrew Weil Physician; founder of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona
Yes. One is a translation of Lao Tzu by a man named Witter Bynner. It’s called The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu . It’s beautiful translations. And I find those verses which were the sole output of this philosopher to be remarkably right on. Another book that I’ve given out a lot recently is We by Robert Johnson, a Jungian psychoanalyst that’s subtitled The Psychology of Romantic Love . A very short, easily read book about the traps that people get themselves into in romantic relationships. That’s one that I like very much. Jeez, I have a whole bunch out there.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 10 December 2018 source ↗
Katalin Karikó Biochemist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2023
When I was 16 years old, I read the book from Hans Selye. Hans Selye is a Canadian scientist, but he was Hungarian so his book was translated to Hungarian. His mantra was that you have to focus on things that you can change. Many young ones are giving up because they can see that their friends or their colleagues are advancing, and it seems that they do less and somehow, they get higher salary and promoted. I told that if you notice that then you already took away your attention what you can change. Because you cannot change that.
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 2 October 2023 source ↗
Brian Grazer Film and television producer; co-founder of Imagine Entertainment
The book that I gift most to people, because it has had a lasting impact on my psyche, is The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee. I admire Bruce Lee for his physicality, of course, but more so for his deep philosophy, known as “Jeet Kune Do” or “the way of the intercepting fist.” The key element of Jeet Kune Do is its “formless form.” Bruce Lee rejected the rigid rules and structures of Kung Fu and other traditional fighting styles. Instead, he borrowed from several styles to create his own fluid, rapidly efficient technique that was all his. In The Warrior Within, John Little explains how Bruce Lee’s philosophy helped him overcome tremendous challenges and pain to become a man whose originality, intense belief, and commitment I’ve long admired.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, Tribe of Mentors guest post, The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss, 9 September 2019 source ↗
Alice Little Irish-American sex worker and YouTuber
Definitely. I would say the top three books that I tend to give as gifts, the first one would be a book that’s written by Dennis Hoff called The Art of the Pimp . It, literally, talks about his journey, how he ended up getting the Bunny Ranch, and a lot of the intimate details in relationship to sex in Nevada. For anybody that’s interested in what I do, wanting to learn a little bit more about the industry, that is always the first book I give is this is kind of your handbook, as it were, to the world of legal sex in Nevada. The second book that I give out most frequently is to my co-workers. It would be The 48 Laws of Power . A lot of the ladies haven’t had the opportunity or haven’t been exposed to that book. And so, I think that it’s a great tool to get into the hands of women and get that positive thinking going, that energy that that book really tends to encapsulate. And the third book is kind of an interesting one. It’s a book called Memoirs of a Geisha . It speaks as to the life of a woman who ended up being a geisha in Japan during the World War II era who was kind of purchased from her family and unwillingly brought into this very foreign world that could not be any more different than what her life was like. The reason why I tend to recommend this book for other people is that there’s this incredibly beautiful, humanistic element in the way that she describes. The author uses language that is very, very rich and colorful. And it sits you into that time and place where you smell the fish in front of you. You hear the sound of the shamisen that she’s playing. You can really immerse yourself into that world and kind of get a sense of what things were like, at that time.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 3 February 2018 source ↗

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Question What purchase of $100 or less has most improved your life in the last six months? Money & investment
That’s a really hard question for me because I don’t buy a lot of stuff. I’m a total snob when it comes to the stuff I own. And the reason for that is because I travel incessantly. And when I travel, I just have one bag, and I have to take it. So, everything I own has to do like double duty. ... So, I can’t think of something really easy that comes to mind under $100.00 that I could just name. Ice Breaker Underwear.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 4 February 2018 source ↗

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