4 Hour Work Week

When someone in the family purchases a Kindle book, it gets charged to my credit card. I can see what everyone is buying. When a charge came through for “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” by Timothy Ferriss, I knew DH had purchased it and maybe I should read it so I could understand if behaviors changed due to reading this book.

The basic idea of the book is for you to Define what you want, Eliminate junk in your life, Automate everything (meaning outsource all real work), and getting Liberated from time in the office or your business to do the things you defined that you want to do. He offers a blueprint to how to become one of the New Rich. It seemed that there was an assumption that you are unhappy with your life and that you’ve never had an adventure. His methods seems a bit unethical in places too e.g. his checklist on how to become an “expert” was dubious.

Am I too old for this book? Is this a twenty-something book? I thought it could be helpful for a young person who didn’t know how to set goals.

“More is not better, and stopping something is often 10 times better than finishing it. Develop the habit of nonfinishing that which is boring or unproductive…” I made the note “…like this book?”

“Who is causing me stress disproportionate to the time I spend with them? What will happen if I simply stop interacting with these people?”  Um, I can’t exactly stop interacting with my kids.

“I believe that life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself.” This sums up the wildly selfish attitude through this book. The idea of outsoucing all of the work, while making all of the money reminded me of the recent Occupy Movement where Ferriss is one of the 1% and everyone making his money is the 99%. Someone has to do the actual work that makes his business run. All of those outsourced people do real work for him to make his money.

Reading this book jogged my memory about someone I know who used this method. A couple years ago, I remember getting x’s automated email message “I only check my email at 10am and 4pm” and some of the work methods x applied. I didn’t think about it at the time. A few months later, I had a question regarding a subject x purported to be an expert in so I emailed a question. I never got an answer. Hmmm. After reading this book, I realized that my question did not contribute to x’s financial bottomline so there was no reason to reply to me. A few months ago, I made a client referral to x and from that I at least got a thank you. I now know that since I helped x’s financial bottomline, I was granted an email response.

I’m community minded: let’s see what we can collaborate on. Perhaps we have information that can help one another. This 4HWW does not dovetail with this philosophy.

The New Rich become bored or discontent with all their extra time and ask “What can I do with my time to enjoy life and feel good about myself?” Ferriss offers that “there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.” I counter that perhaps if you did meaningful work in the first place, where service IS the work, there would be less discontent.

The best thing I saw in the book: “Don’t create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market –  define your customer – then find or develop a product for them.” Business 101, but a message worth repeating.