Over more than a decade of interviewing successful people, Tim Ferriss has noticed two specific traits that he says most of them have in common.
They practice some type of meditation regularly, he says — and they’re good at saying “no.”
Ferriss is well-acquainted with success as an early investor in tech companies like Facebook, Uber and Twitter, and as the author of multiple New York Times bestselling books. He’s interviewed hundreds of successful people — from fellow entrepreneurs and investors to athletes, entertainers and mental health experts — on “The Tim Ferriss Show,” a podcast he launched in 2014.
Practicing both skills — meditation and saying “no” when necessary — can help improve your ability to focus, says Ferriss, a bestselling author, investor and entrepreneur. Most successful people are able to “train themselves and the people around them to understand certain priorities during certain periods of time, and those are all learnable skills, in my opinion,” he says.
“That means internal and external distractions are blocked off,” Ferriss adds.
