Bestselling Author Reveals His Top Secret to a Happier, More Successful Life—Especially If You're Feeling Stuck

A single-minded focus is not necessarily the best path to success and happiness, according to Tim Ferriss .

Pursuing a variety of passions and side projects can help you live more happily and unlock new career opportunities, says the investor, bestselling author and podcaster. "Identity diversification," as Ferriss calls it, is something he's recommended to every startup founder he's invested with over nearly two decades, he says.

New hobbies and interests aren't just distractions, he says: They're new things for you to be passionate about, helping your mental health and adding more purpose to your life. Identity diversification can be helpful for "anyone who's feeling stuck or anyone who's feeling fatigued, maybe anxious," Ferriss says.

The advice may seem counterintuitive coming from Ferriss — an early investor in companies like Uber, Facebook and Twitter — who also says that intense focus boosts productivity and is a common trait of successful people .

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But the two pieces of advice aren't mutually exclusive, he explains: The most successful people develop multiple interests and passions, and then schedule their time accordingly so they can give each one a proper amount of individual focus, when appropriate.

People with "self-complexity" — defining themselves by having multiple interests or roles — are more likely than others to be resilient when facing setbacks, according to the American Psychological Association . This isn't a new concept: The more passions you have, the more easily you'll handle disappointment in one area, because it won't feel like the only thing that defines you, psychologist Patricia W. Linville wrote in the academic journal Social Cognition in 1985.

Engaging in a variety of hobbies and passions can help you manage stress, making you happier and more fulfilled overall, psychology researchers found in 2015.

'It's fine to start small'

When you only measure your success based on one facet of your life, like your job — a particularly prevalent mindset among startup founders , Ferriss notes — any setback becomes more likely to trigger an extreme negative reaction that could make it harder to overcome that obstacle.

"It's OK to fail temporarily," Ferriss says. "But the [people] who really implode and fail completely are very often the ones who don't embrace and kind of engineer some type of identity diversification."

Having varied interests and passions can provide you with "professional insurance [and] psychological insurance," Ferriss says. He's applied the logic to his own career — focusing on building and monetizing his podcast, for example, while recovering from investing burnout .

For anyone who's feeling stuck and anxious, and is looking for new hobbies to explore, Ferriss recommends starting with something easy — like seeking out a local game night, or finding a chess partner. You could take an online class, learn a new skill or even hit the gym — and it's fine to start small, he says.

The amount of time you spend on new pursuits "doesn't need to be a lot," says Ferriss, adding: "It just needs to be consistent. Like, a couple times a week — one time a week, even — so that you have some type of way to make progress in an area that is not your primary lane."

Ferriss' own love of board games led him to connect with game designer Elan Lee, co-creator of the card game Exploding Kittens, to develop a card game called Coyote , he says. The game launched in Walmart stores in March — it'll become available in Target and Amazon in July — and while it's sold well so far, Ferriss' greater takeaway is that creating a game brought him a new source of unexpected fulfillment, he says.

He might've never explored the possibility of creating a game if he'd "simply put blinders on and continued on the podcast path until you can no longer bleed the stone," he says.

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