My invisible mentors are better than yours
Like an athlete mentions their favorite players whose moves they first copy and later improve upon, let me tell you about my invisible mentors.
Derek is my favorite thinker. He loves a different point of view.
He has a wacky and weird collection of past identities that makes it impossible to fit him into a neat little box. Including musician, circus performer, computer programmer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and writer.
I’m not religious, but I wish I had a WWJD bracelet with a D in place of the J. So I could ask myself — “What would Derek do?”
He started a (profitable) multi-million dollar business called CDBaby and sold it after ten years. Then he proceeded to donate the $25 million to music education.
He’s written four incredible books, but I find myself revisiting his latest, “How to live” at least once per year. In it, he presents 27 conflicting answers to that question, and somehow manages to convince me that each one is correct.
He marches to the beat of his own drum and seems to have attained the ever-elusive state of having enough.
His pithy ideas are the perfect combination of simple, unique, clear, and fascinating.
Even though I’m just one of his college-football-stadium-sized fan base, he replies to every single email he receives.
I aspire to think, write, and live as well as he does.
Naval’s ideas have taken the internet world by storm in recent years.
His tweet thread “How to get rich without getting lucky” is the most concise lesson on ethical wealth generation I’ve ever come across.
His podcast is a collection of three minute episodes further explaining the tweets. I’ve listened to them dozens of times.
And all of his ideas are absolutely free. Making them way better than any of those internet gurus who sell their courses for thousands of dollars. Trust me, I’ve been burned by a few.
He is a world class entrepreneur who decided to exit the game entirely to become a philosopher instead.
I admire his ability to break down complex ideas into precise language that only an idiot couldn’t grasp.
He’s your guru’s favorite guru.
He taught me that what you work on and who you work with are way more important than how hard you work. He also taught me the power of leverage (how fewer inputs can give you more outputs).
He hasn’t written a book himself, but someone took the time to put together a Naval’s-greatest-hits volume called, “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” which has become my definitive guide to wealth and happiness.
I aspire to think, write, and live as well as he does.
Nassim is a genius and he knows it.
He rubs plenty of people the wrong way and engages in Twitter fights for the pure entertainment of it.
He was a reluctant financial trader for decades before accumulating what he calls “f*** you money” that enabled him to pursue his true calling — philosophy.
He’s a financial wizard who has written a five book series called “The Incerto” which focuses on randomness and probability in life and in the markets.
I’m rereading his first book “Fooled by Randomness” and it never fails to get me to reconsider every mainstream idea I’ve believed all while making me pause often while I laugh hysterically.
He taught me that success and failure aren’t completely random, but a lot more random than we think.
I love his no nonsense ability to sniff out frauds who are otherwise praised by society.
I aspire to think, write, and live as well as he does.
I gotta include at least one dead guy here, right?
Tony (he won’t mind me calling him that since he’s dead) was a psychotherapist and a Jesuit priest with an attitude.
Start with his most popular book, “Awareness” to get a good idea of his philosophy.
He taught me how clear sighted love is. And how fear is nothing but a sign of ignorance.
He also brought to my awareness just how clever society is at brainwashing us into adopting beliefs that were never ours.
He made me realize that I’d been sleepwalking through life for far too long, but at any moment, I have the ability to wake up!
I aspire to think, write, and live as well as he did.
I would be remiss if I did not include Tim because he introduced me to everyone above.
I’m forever grateful to my dad for that fateful spring day in 2017 where he plopped what I thought was a phone book on my bed and told me to read it.
Thankfully it wasn’t what I thought, it was actually Tim’s latest book at the time, “Tools of Titans”.
I’ve been hooked ever since.
He has released 695 episodes of his podcast — The Tim Ferriss Show and I’ve listened to at least 495 of them.
*Side note — podcasts are a strange phenomenon because I’ve had Tim’s voice playing in my headphones for hundreds of hours so it feels like we’re best friends, yet he has no idea I exist.
He is the ultimate experimenter and teacher who hopes his students become better than he ever could.
He is the best question asker I know and I often find myself repeating his questions as I go about my daily life.
He became post-economic many years ago (a nicer way of saying he has f*** you money) and now spends his time continuing to interview world class performers from all walks of life.
I’m sure he subconsciously nudged me into moving to Austin, Texas where he currently resides. I still haven’t run into him at a coffee shop, but (fingers crossed) once I do, I’ll give him the kindest gesture of gratitude one man can give another — a slight head nod.
I aspire to think, write, and live as well as he does.
(I’ve tried to be as succinct as possible while writing these words as I sip my morning topo chico. But I can’t help but get misty-eyed as I reflect back on the impact each of these invisible mentors has had on me.)
Who are your invisible mentors?
Likes give these words life.
I love this, in particular, the way you shared your own personal experience about what you’ve learned from each of these invisible mentors
Strongly agree with this whole concept. My main motivation for writing is to continue the pattern of influence that shaped me. The most important mentors in my life are the authors whose works have resonated with me, more than anyone I’ve met in person.
Taleb and Ferriss are also big influences for me. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy your writing so much. I guess I should check out the others too.
My mentors also include:
Thoreau
David Foster Wallace
Joseph Conrad
Yuval Noah Harari
James Clear
Steven Covey
Stephen King
Malcolm Gladwell
Jordan Peterson