by

Tim Ferriss

STEP 2 — BIG ROCKS AND THE NOTHING

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Hi Friends,

Here is the second “real” chapter of THE NO BOOK, the book I am currently writing with Neil Strauss. As you’ll see, it’s a STEP comprised of a few pieces of writing.

Please leave your thoughts and results in the blog comments! I deleted all social media apps from my phone, but I will read all of the blog comments here.

And if you missed the first two chapters, the introductions from both me and Neil, you can find them here. You can find the previous step here.

Enjoy!

Tim

CORE CONCEPT: BIG ROCKS AND THE NOTHING

“Is it very painful?” Atreyu asked. “No,” said the second bark troll, the one with the hole in his chest. “You don’t feel a thing. There’s just something missing. And once it gets hold of you, something more is missing every day. Soon there won’t be anything left of us.”
—The Neverending Story

Whenever I’m tempted to re-download Facebook or Instagram to my phone, or any of those messaging apps, I repeat the words from the mid-80s movie War Games in reference to thermonuclear war: “A strange game; the only winning move is not to play.”
—Nick Bilton, Vanity Fair special correspondent and bestselling author

Long ago, Stephen Covey, author of the mega-bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, popularized a parable of the professor, big rocks, pebbles, and sand. He even added water for good measure! Perhaps you’ve read it. It’s a story of priorities. It’s worth retelling here, but I’ve added a few twists of my own. 

On the final day of a college class, a professor brings four objects to the front of the room: a Mason jar, four rocks the size of golf balls, a handful of pebbles, and a big measuring cup full of sand. This professor, Professor Bastian, places the items on his desk and waits for the pre-graduation chatter to die down.

He then asks the students how they’d fit everything into the jar, inviting them to come up. One student puts in the cup of sand and then the pebbles—no rocks fit. Another puts in the pebbles, then the sand, and only two rocks fit. 

The only way to make it all fit, a third figures, is to put in the biggest rocks first. Once the big rocks are in the jar, the pebbles settle around them, then the sand fills in the gaps. After doing this once, however, a healthy pile of sand remained on the table. The student tapped the jar on the table to settle the sand and added more. After repeating this several times, no more could be added, but still: sand remained. 

And that’s the rub. The teacher deliberately made it impossible to fit everything in the jar. He used this exercise as a metaphor for priorities. 

The jar is your life: all the time you have in your calendar. The rocks represent the most important things, the most exciting things, and the big dreams (e.g., launching a business, writing a book, spending time with loved ones, training for a marathon). The pebbles represent things that are still necessary but less exciting (e.g., paying bills, answering emails, running errands, routine work meetings). Last, the sand represents the things that are neither exciting nor mission-critical: all the B.S., the distractions, other people’s priorities, and “would you be open to…” requests that pull you from the big rocks and pebbles. 

In the classic telling of this parable, the sand satisfyingly settles around the rocks and pebbles. Everything fits.

Here’s why I changed it — the sand doesn’t need to fit in your jar, and it never will. It’s a fool’s errand. In the modern digital world, there is more and more sand each year, and if you give it an inch, it will take a foot and ask for more. 

It’s like The Nothing in The Neverending Story, my favorite novel from childhood. In the imaginary world of Fantasia, a land of dreams, The Nothing is a foreboding mist and dark, chaotic storm that expands in every direction, consuming everything. But instead of leaving destruction, it leaves something arguably more disturbing: a void.

The purpose of The Nothing is to make people lose their ability to dream, turning them into empty, controllable beings. If you’ve ever felt “the real world” choking off your childlike wonder, feeding a creeping cynicism, or distracting your dreams into non-existence, that is The Nothing at work.

Sounds exactly like the sand. 

Social media, doom scrolling, “keeping up” with the news, fashionable nihilism, drama-rich friends, requests from loose acquaintances, keeping up with the Joneses, and so on. Sand = The Nothing.  It will fill your jar, crowd out your dreams, and turn them into frustration, cynicism, resentment, or apathy… if you let it. It is the nature of the sand to fill gaps, it is time-sensitive, and there’s only one strategy that’s truly effective for stopping it:

Big rocks worth defending.

That is the only defense against The Nothing. Big rocks placed in your calendar and defended.

If someone looks at lots of empty space in the calendar and sees only a handful of doctors’ appointments, scheduled Zooms, and various unrelated bits and bobs, they’re going to say yes to all sorts of requests and shiny objects. Why wouldn’t they? It’s an attempt to create meaning through the collection of commitments. 

I’ve been there, and it isn’t fun. That scattered feeling is far more anxiety-producing (“distress” = negative stress) than the focused, positive stress (“eustress” = positive stress) of having a bigger, worthwhile goal.

Scheduling big yesses will crowd out the questionable yesses. It is the solve-all.

Beware anything fashionable, as it’s usually sand disguising itself as big rocks. Bestselling author Seth Godin touched on this on my podcast:

“You can’t win while being everywhere,” he said. “Most of the people on Earth have never heard of you or me, and most of the people online have never connected with either of us. It’s a trap, a giant trap. A trap designed to suck our attention and our content away from us and give us very little in return. Maybe a little heart-shaped thing or a button that points up or a trend that makes us feel like we did a good job. This is all a trap. This isn’t what’s causing people to succeed. It’s not causing people to be able to make the impact that they seek.”

So don’t pursue the small masquerading as big. 

But just as important, ensure that your rocks are rocks and not boulders, mountains, or anything too big to fit in the jar. There are many people who set their goals so high and lofty that they aren’t actionable. For example, “solve world peace” or “change the world” goals might sound great at dinner parties, but a better-sized rock is a better next action, whether organizing a specific campaign or event.

Seth advises:“My suggestion is whenever possible, ask yourself what’s the smallest possible footprint I can get away with?… What is the smallest possible project that is worth my time? … What is the smallest group of people who I could make a difference for or to? Because smallest is achievable. Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you’ve really screwed up. We want to pick big because infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide. So, I want to encourage people instead to look for the small.”

To summarize, you want your rocks to be small enough to fit in the jar but big enough that you’re willing to fight for them.

THE NO HALL OF FAME: E.B. White

My tardiness in answering your letter was not due to press of business. Do not listen to that sort of excuse; I am at liberty, and so is anyone else who wishes to be at liberty. No man is at the mercy of affairs. He gets entangled in them of his own accord, and then flatters himself that being busy is a proof of happiness.
— Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 106

In 1956, the writer E.B. White was selected for one of the most prestigious positions the United States had to offer an artist. Best known for the children’s classics Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, White also co-authored the most popular writing instruction book of all time, The Elements of Style. 

In the book, he advises: “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences.” And there are few better examples of following this rule than White’s 1956 response to a letter from President Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, Sherman Adams.

Adams had written to E.B. White and invited him to join the President’s Committee of the Arts and Sciences, to support and advise the president on cultural matters. This hand-picked group would have the ear of the most powerful person in the world.

White, however, did not look forward to traveling to Washington, DC, and participating  in this type of group activity. So, he sat at his desk and typed out the following response:

Dear Mr. Adams,

Thanks for your letter inviting me to join the committee of the Arts and Sciences for Eisenhower.

I must decline, for secret reasons.

Sincerely,

E.B. White

If White could use this to decline an invitation from the President, perhaps you can trot out something similar for at least one friend, relative, or drunk pest you met once at a party.

The lesson from E.B. White’s short and sweet response, and the reason for his entry into the No Hall of Fame, is this: we don’t always need to explain our no’s. 

Our reasons can remain our secret. And if we are worried about how someone will react, remember that a little mystery is often better received than a flurry of excuses and apologies. It also makes our no much less negotiable, as there are fewer facts for someone to refute or try and work around (e.g., “You’re busy until May 15th? No problem. I’ll reach back on May 16th to set something up.”).

Of course, like horror movies and marmite, the “secret reasons” response is not for everyone. I’ll give you three alternatives that E.B. White could just as easily have sent to the White House. They use more empathic language but accomplish the same goal: a short, sweet decline that avoids giving specific reasons.

Each was adapted from three uber-busy but uber-thoughtful folks: HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, financial guru Ramit Sethi, and legendary restaurateur and Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, in that order. These are single lines pulled from longer emails, but they can often stand alone:

  1. My heart says yes, but my schedule says no.
  1. Thanks so much, but I have to pass. I really appreciate you thinking of me.
  1. I thought carefully about this as it’s clearly something I’d enjoy, but am going to decline—with gratitude.

Borrow these and apply as needed to texts and emails, whether turning down a pot-luck dinner that requires you to do all the cooking, a co-worker’s birthday weekend in Cancun that’s out of your budget, or an invitation from the President.

Short often works where long fails.

Missed the first two chapters? Find them here. You can find the previous step here.

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