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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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Shep Gordon American talent manager and film producer
Joseph Campbell many years ago. A couple of the Dalai Lama books. Most recently, Norman Lear’s book.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 6 June 2018 source ↗
Tony Fadell Engineer and designer; led the iPod and iPhone teams at Apple, founder of Nest Labs
I regularly gift the book called In Praise of Shadows .
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 27 January 2020 source ↗
Kevin Systrom American computer programmer and entrepreneur
Yeah, totally. Of course now, all my friends are having kids. I give kids books, but the one I give people that are trying to learn actively is Principles by Ray Dalio. It’s interesting actually. Someone gave me the PDF. It was a PDF before his book. Gave me the PDF and I skimmed over. I was like, “Oh, this is pretty good.” They were like, “No. I seriously think you’re going to love this.” For some reason, I didn’t get around to it for maybe a year-and-a-half, and then I read the actual book, and I was blown away. It’s both a guide to life, a guide to business, and also I think an insight into Ray and someone who’s built an amazing business. If you guys listening don’t know what he does, he runs a hedge fund called Bridgewater and he’s so much more than just a finance thinker, he’s also just a brilliant philosopher. I give that a lot because I think it’s a great guide to life.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 30 April 2019 source ↗
Eric Cressey Strength and conditioning coach; co-founder of Cressey Sports Performance
All right, I'm going to give you two, because they're kind of categories to it. I'd say the first one underneath this health and human performance realm, Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes. It's a Shirley Sahrmann book that I think is landmark. I mean it's decades old, super impactful. Kind of reads like stereo instructions, so you're going to go through a page at a time. But Sahrmann is still a practicing physical therapist at Wash U in St. Louis.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 3 June 2023 source ↗

More from M. Sanjayan

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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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