I'd say that the major difference between me and Tim Ferris is that I just don't care enough. It's interesting that thinking about that started to bring back the "because I'm a piece of shit" internal monologue which has mercifully been relatively off-line for the past day or so. [1] Oh, right-- big dose of David Wong, who really isn't safe for a fair number of people.

There's a sort of "you're just not good enough" motivation-forcing which seems to work backwards for me. It does not help to be told that if I was thinking right, then I wouldn't care how I was feeling.

I don't think Tim Ferris is evil in general, though I don't think his story of hacking the rules for making weight for a martial arts tournament reflects well on him. Aside from unfairness to the other contestants, he was cheating the audience because he could just shove the other players instead of doing something worth looking at.

[1] I seem to be making progress on that-- not only has the monologue been off-line a fair amount in the past few days, and it's been less intense and running for much less time when it's started. I've gotten more done with less stress.

I've thrown so many different things at the problem that it's hard to tell (for purposes of giving advice) what's made the difference, but I'll start by recommending Transforming Negative Self-Talk and The Gaslight Effect. The latter is about emotional abuse in general.