Performance-enhancing book: Tim Ferriss' Tools of Titans

Just as with fiction I tend to fall down the rabbit hole, I get excited when I find a good resource covering one of my more "real" areas of obsession.

I find a new font of inspiration and information and sort of suck them dry like a vampire, until I have consumed everything they have to say and grown stronger. Hmm, perhaps more of a parasite.

Tim Ferriss and trusty steed Laura keep me inspired and happy through each and every commute.

Unflattering self-depictions aside, recent examples include the financial freedom blog of Mr Money Mustache (nearly 500 posts, worked through gluttonously and chronologically) and the 100-odd hours of The Minimalists' podcasts so far released.

Eventually, I find, I absorb the message. I'm converted. I get it. I know the Minimalists' stories and catchphrases so well I listen to them more like a soothing old bedtime story now than a source of excitement. I've done the projects, joined the cult.

But a slightly different case is the Tim Ferriss Show,  the podcast in which optimisation junkie Ferriss conducts long-form interviews with the world's top performers across myriad fields, deconstructing their habits and back-stories in an effort to find out what habits lead to success.

Ferriss is also author of business classic The Four-Hour Workweek, health hacker bible The Four-Hour Body and learning-method deconstruction The Four-Hour Chef. He is so adored it's sometimes hard to tell who's more star-struck, him or his famous guests. (Imagine my delight, incidentally, when finally my nerd prayers were answered this week and Ferriss bowed to fan pressure to interview Mr Money Mustache in the latest episode).

This show never gets old and never runs out. You never learn it all. It's the personal development equivalent of a gold mine that runs to the other side of the earth. You could never hope to read all the books recommended, follow up all the little side routes and innovations you hear about. I've read two of the books, bits of the others and listened to more than 200 hours of interviews and yet feel I've barely scratched the surface.

I have the books on Kindle, but am planning to buck my own minimalist trends and buy them in hard copy to keep for more easy and frequent referencing. And throughout the interviews, there are certainly common themes, but there is far more variation than there is repetition, and the recurrences are, in themselves, fascinating.

This was the reasoning behind the book, an attempt by Ferriss to capture and distill the best of all his interviews thus far, and draw the connections between them. I approached it with greedy anticipation, having bought it for myself as a Christmas present (though I had to get it on Kindle, the city bookstores having sold out).

It's a diamond-hard read without an ounce of fat, and includes plenty of new material and insight into Ferriss' personal struggles. But a word of warning: don't bother if you're not seriously into personal challenges and life-hacking. Otherwise it will quickly overwhelm. Even a medium-level devotee such as I found many of the concepts covered (it is divided into sections Healthy, Wealthy and Wise) too advanced for me, at least in terms of finance, exercise, diet and biomedical science. But even if you skim over parts, that, he says, is the way he intends the book to be read. More like a buffet than a three-course meal (my words, not his).

And it's endlessly stimulating. I love knowing there is always more out there to learn, about people, the capacity of an individual mind and body to reach extreme performance. It's humorous and fast-paced, and at 700-odd pages, you can skim the parts you're not up for yet without feeling like you're not getting bang for your buck.

Cool features include a comprehensive reading list from each interviewee, and a cartooned spirit animal for each based on how they imagine themselves. My advice is get it in hard copy, devour it for fun, then go back and drill down.

Happy nerding!