The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
July 30th, 2010
4Hour, Anywhere, Escape, Join, Live, Rich, Workweek Posted in Self Help | 5 Comments 
Product Description
What do you do? Tim Ferriss has trouble answering the question. Depending on when you ask this
controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer:
“I race motorcycles in Europe.”
“I ski in the Andes.”
“I scuba dive in Panama.”
“I dance tango in Buenos Aires.”
He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the “deferred-life plan” and instead mastered the new currencies—time and mobility—to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now.
Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world. Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:
• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent “mini-retirements”
• What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income
• How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it’s beyond repair
• What automated cash-flow “muses” are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks
• How to cultivate selective ignorance—and create time—with a low-information diet
• What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are
• How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50–80% off
• How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office
You can have it all—really.
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
July 30th, 2010 at 6:24 am
Well,
Where to begin? I actually had fun reading this book, to be honest. It is, if nothing else, a bit inspirational and motivational. To the author’s credit he has (and I have emphasized this before) come up with a catchy title and gimick to sell you a book–good for him. What’s inside, though, are things that you can find better handled by other authors in other books.
In the first part of the book one can’t help notice what a great guy the author is. We notice this becasuse he tells us. We are to believe that he has gone through the Hero’s Journey and back again before his late 20′s. Now, dear reader, he has distilled the fruits of his vast experience and wisdom into this little gem. Read it, and you will never have to work again. Just be sure to purchase with the 8 minute ab workout.
We get a lesson on the Pareto Principle. If you have never heard of the Pareto Priciple before (otherwise known as the 80/20 rule) you should go back to junior high. BTW, Brian Tracy has discussed this principle and its implications ad nauseum. The author would have us believe that he personally redicovered in some forgotton tome (probably while motorcycle kung-fu rock climbing in Bora Bora–between kendo lessons) and was just about the first to ever apply it to his life.
Later in the book we get some basic info (all easily found in more detail in other books) about starting a web business, outsourcing your workload, etc.
I can appreciate some of this as I had a web business for several years. This section of the book is an interesting read, but little more. If anything, maybe it will inspire someone else to get started on their own enterprise. And that’s perfectly fine. If the author accomplishes this, then good. After all, I don’t necessarily think that he’s a bad guy, just a shameless self promoter and a bit of a charlatan.
Authors such as Ferriss are common: someone falls a** backwards into a relatively easy existence and then decides that they are experts and proceeds to seel their “secret” to success to everyone else–which helps them get REALLY successful. But here’s the deal: One hit wonders are not experts. When you’ve started 4 or 5 businesses and grown each of them to the point where they are self sufficient, THEN you can call yourself an expert. Striking it lucky one time in stocks, real estate during a bubble, or starting one business do not constitute experience.
In the end, I think that the author does his readers a bit of a disservice by telling them that work is not necessary to be financially successful. I have known both success and failure. I have seen others go, literally, from rags to riches (and sometimes back again). Over the years I guess I have given this subject some thought. My conclusion is that you will not get there (wherever “there” may be for you) by working four hours per week. Vision, hard work, and persistence are the 3 main “secret” ingredients for success. Just as exercise and eating right are necessary to be in shape. But telling people this doesn’t sell books.
P.S. Can’t help noticing how many 5 star reviews there are for this book from people who have only written one review. Hmmm…
Rating: 3 / 5
July 30th, 2010 at 7:21 am
First, I have to say that I was very enthusiastic about the first part of this book, as Tim suggests that people should consider other ways of living their life instead of working hard toward an eventual retirement. But later I realized after reading the book that the “live your life now, don’t wait until later” concept is not new, and has been preached by everyone from philosophers to life coaches for decades now. [...].
Second, while the advice he has for people who already have a business is good (automating certain administrative tasks, checking e-mail less frequently even if you think your world might end if you do that), the ideas he dishes out to would-be entrepreneurs is much more troubling. Specifically product development, which he labels “finding a muse”, could mislead some people into believing that you can make an instant-business every month with the help of affiliate marketers, drop shippers, and faking credibility (just check the forums on the book’s website). Many things he suggests doing just contributes to the amount of crap we see every day on the internet and in infomercials, and probably isn’t a very rewarding way for an entrepreneur to live their life or make their money. It’s the equivalent of a how-to-become a 21st century snake oil salesman.
Finally, I know there is a lot of criticism about his ideas on outsourcing tasks, but we live in an outsourced world. The shirt your wearing was made in Indonesia, your fruits and vegetables were picked by migrant workers from Mexico, and your computer that you’re reading this from right now was manufactured in China. Adjusted for the cost of living, the Indonesians, Chinese, and Indians make a good amount of money doing what they do to live the “middle-class” versions of their lives in their respective countries, just as you do mundane tasks and get paid much less than corporate shareholders to live the middle-class life in your own country. So don’t talk about outsourcing as if it’s a bad thing, cause if I can pay Jimmy down the street to mow my lawn for less than a landscaping service, he’s gonna get that ten dollars so I can have the extra cash to buy Tim’s book and waste time writing a bad review of it on Amazon.
Rating: 2 / 5
July 30th, 2010 at 8:34 am
Reading this book is not a total waste of time and money, but pretty close. If you must, I recommend getting this one from the local library to at least eliminate the financial loss.
To be fair, the first 100 pages is a readable autobiographical reminder of an often preached but rarely practiced warning. Life is short. Do not spend every day in a job you hate to buy things you do not need. The author recommends reading Walden. Thoreau, the classic American minimalist, covered all the same material far more eloquently 150 years ago. So why not read Thoreau instead? Good question.
The rest of the book is essentially a money making plan for white collar workers who hate their jobs. If Mr. Ferriss had restricted this book to a discussion of how to eliminate unproductive efforts from the workplace and shorten the workweek for everyone, he could have written a much briefer and significant book. Instead, he starts with the premise that regular jobs are bad and instead you should start an online company that sells anything that will make money and then outsource every function so that you, as the owner, will not have to do anything.
I have two major concerns at this point:
1. If you are as smart and well-prepared as Mr. Ferris, there is money to be made using his strategy. But the same could be said for the stock market, real estate, or various other methods by which many people lose their shirts.
2. If everyone outsources their work, who is left to do the work? If all the farmers, doctors, and garbage collectors followed the advice in this book, eventually, we would all be starving, sick, and sitting in our own waste. The jet-set lifestyle enjoyed by the author only works because others are actually willing to work. Until robots can run the world, the ethical implication is that it is OK for some people to work, just not Mr. Ferriss or his readers.
Finally, throughout the book Mr. Ferris keeps referring to the New Rich. Despite all his attempts at creating a new paradigm, it appears that the only difference between the New Rich and the Old Rich is that the old rich are capitalists that actually produce things that society needs, such as railroads and software, while the new rich sell things like unregulated nutritional supplements.
Rating: 1 / 5
July 30th, 2010 at 11:19 am
For someone who is promoting the “four hour week” he sure could have cut out the filler from his book and reduced it to four pages or so.
I didn’t enjoy this book. It’s a highly immature and unrealistic approach to life. In summary: set up a website, get someone else to run it, and go enjoy all the free time this will create for you.
I would have liked if this book had of promoted the concept of personal responsibility more. In other words: YOU are responsible for your own happiness. Only YOU choose the emotions you feel. There are plenty of unhappy people out there, and blaming the job they chose is a cop out. They’ll probably be unhappy whatever they do.
Also, I’ve been running a number of websites for a few years (trying to create financial freedom for myself) and I can tell you it is not easy. Nearly all commercial websites fail. His system will not work for 99% of people. Basically he got lucky. He forgets to mention that part.
The books extremely shallow “screw the world!” attitude to life is quite disapointing. An example: he became (although it sounds like BS) a world fighting champion in FOUR WEEKS by taking advantage of a loop hole in the sport. First, what’s the point of being a world champion in something if you don’t know how to do it? I wouldn’t be satisfied having a trophy for something I knew nothing about. Second, I don’t actually believe him. A lot of his stories sound like the fantasies of a teenager.
There are other routes to happiness that don’t involve being a snake oil sales man. If you really want to find inner peace and happiness: help others, take responsibility for your own feelings and actions, exercise your body and brain, and then maybe consider starting a part-time business.
Rating: 1 / 5
July 30th, 2010 at 11:34 am
If your goal is to learn how to manipulate people (and fool yourself) this book is for you. In Chapter 2 the author brags about ‘winning’ the gold medal at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championship in 1999 by forcing opponents off the mat and thereby winning by default. Preview of things to come.
Chapter 4 – Here’s a useful tip that he mentions more than once: “…things often cost much, much less than expected.” ? Oh yes? His Aston Marin DB9 only costs $2,003.10 per month, he tells us. Now doesn’t that information just transform your life? Whew, one worry off of my list. Expect more of the same as you read on.
Chapter 5 is titled The End of Time Management. The first sentence reads “Just a few words on time management: Forget all about it.” The remainder of the chapter continues to provide basic time management tools presented, or rather spun, to sound like a revolutionary approach.
As for creating a new lifestyle, well this book applies if you already have money to burn and resources to fall back on and can afford to receive the pink slip that will surely come your way if you deal with people – particularly managers – as the author suggests.
This book is just another ‘slight of hand’ of the sort he brags of throughout. He’s hood-winked us all and is laughing all the way to the bank.
I agree completely with a previous reviewer who nailed it nicely: a get-rich-quick scheme for the shallow.
It is mandatory to award at least one star in order to submit this review and it pains me to award even that much.
Rating: 1 / 5