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Anyone else read it? Although actually living a 4 hour work week seems like a pipe dream even when following the advice in the book to the letter, it does offer some valuable and straight-forward philosophies towards time management. I'm wondering if anyone here has "made it" with a 4 (or 10, or 2, or 8, etc.) hour work week here..
Read the Amazon customer reviews. Sometimes the customer reviews there are decent doses of reality (unlike CNN comments, which are doses of fruit-loops).
Unless you managing a sizable stock portfolio, four hours isn't going to go very far. I guess if you lived in your own trailer and had enough room to grow your own food you could scrap by on 4 hours a day, but you'll be very very poor. Is that the type of life you want?
I never read it and wouldn't waste my time on such nonsense type books. I'm a successful entrepreneur and I've worked in both the corporate environment for many years as well as owning a few of my own companies.
Before starting my own company, I NEVER read any self-help type books or other books on being successful in business. I certainly wouldn't read any nonsense about working 4 hours a week and being truly successful or wealthy.
The most successful people that I know all have one thing in common and that is they are EXTREMELY hard workers. Not just intelligent people but hard workers. In fact, the education part isn't the most important part to me. I know a few people that only finished high school and are multimillionaires. But they worked VERY hard for their money.
When I first started my businesses I was working up to 17 hours a day. Each and every day. 7 days a week for years on end. People thought I was crazy. Friends told me I was going to get a heart attack. My (now wife who was then my girlfriend for many years) also didn't understand it at the time. I joke now that I worked about 15 years of a traditional 40 hour week in 5 years which was essentially true. I worked many 120 hour weeks back then.
Probably one of the most satisfying moments for me (besides the birth of my kids) was when my wife turned to me and said, "Earl Lee, now I realize all that hard work and dedication was worth it".
People see success stories and think it was "overnight success" but what they don't realize is "overnight success" usually takes about 10-20 years of hard work.
For me there aren't many short-cuts in life of becoming wealthy short of winning the lottery or having a trust fund or happening to sell a start up to Google or Facebook. Books like "4 hour work week" will always be nonsense to me.
I think that's the biggest problem of the General X and Y group. They all want to become millionaires overnight without putting in many years/decades of hard work. They all want it NOW without putting in the blood, sweat and tears of an actual career. Pathetic to me.
I've read it, obviously 4 hours isn't realistic but it does have some good ideas in there. And it's not focused on making yourself wealthy, it's more about how to gain more time for yourself, stop working for the man, etc. As a gen Y member I work full time but honestly am not willing to work 80 hour weeks for some company who doesn't give a rat's a** about me and would lay me off if they felt my salary got too large, needed to cut costs, etc. So earlyretirement and I have different goals - or rather different dreams.
This book I don't treat like the Bible like some, read it once and it was fine but it's more about the lifestyle we want. Once I start my own business I'll be happy to work like crazy but it'll be on my terms and I'd prefer a work/life balance while being frugal to get my way to early retirement. If that means I can never buy a ferrari so be it - I'm more than happy to spend my retirement in a foreign country with a low cost of living.
The best thing I gleaned from it was the power of using cheap overseas labor to do some work. People don't realize the types of tasks that outsourced labor can do electronically.
I never read it and wouldn't waste my time on such nonsense type books. I'm a successful entrepreneur and I've worked in both the corporate environment for many years as well as owning a few of my own companies.
Before starting my own company, I NEVER read any self-help type books or other books on being successful in business. I certainly wouldn't read any nonsense about working 4 hours a week and being truly successful or wealthy.
The most successful people that I know all have one thing in common and that is they are EXTREMELY hard workers. Not just intelligent people but hard workers. In fact, the education part isn't the most important part to me. I know a few people that only finished high school and are multimillionaires. But they worked VERY hard for their money.
When I first started my businesses I was working up to 17 hours a day. Each and every day. 7 days a week for years on end. People thought I was crazy. Friends told me I was going to get a heart attack. My (now wife who was then my girlfriend for many years) also didn't understand it at the time. I joke now that I worked about 15 years of a traditional 40 hour week in 5 years which was essentially true. I worked many 120 hour weeks back then.
Probably one of the most satisfying moments for me (besides the birth of my kids) was when my wife turned to me and said, "Earl Lee, now I realize all that hard work and dedication was worth it".
People see success stories and think it was "overnight success" but what they don't realize is "overnight success" usually takes about 10-20 years of hard work.
For me there aren't many short-cuts in life of becoming wealthy short of winning the lottery or having a trust fund or happening to sell a start up to Google or Facebook. Books like "4 hour work week" will always be nonsense to me.
I think that's the biggest problem of the General X and Y group. They all want to become millionaires overnight without putting in many years/decades of hard work. They all want it NOW without putting in the blood, sweat and tears of an actual career. Pathetic to me.
When I was recently working Hurricane sandy I worked 16-18 hours/day 7 days a week for 3 months...
I agree with that part... But the book had some gems in it...
Like I paid less than $100 to farm out HOURS of transcribing documents...
Freeing me up for the work that had to be done by me.
Believe it or not that wouldn't of been done without the book.
It helped me look at constructive use of time, and how it IS worth it to pay for some things rather than doing it all yourself.
There's other little gems in it... I just disagree with the 'hook'
Anyone else read it? Although actually living a 4 hour work week seems like a pipe dream even when following the advice in the book to the letter, it does offer some valuable and straight-forward philosophies towards time management. I'm wondering if anyone here has "made it" with a 4 (or 10, or 2, or 8, etc.) hour work week here..
I read the book. It's mostly a scam. Blogger Penelope Trunk has written several posts about how his book is a scam. The main thing he does is play fast and loose with the definition of "work". What almost everyone else would consider work, Tim Ferriss does not.
It promises something for nothing. Which doesn't exist. I'm a truck driver, all those ideas about outsourcing and missing meetings and working from a remote location I could never imply anyway. Only I can drive my truck, maybe white collar people can apply some of these principles but I can't.
I know several people that are self made and well off financially, some millionaires. They all worked hard to get where they're at and it didn't happen over night either.
Just like not every boy that picks up a football is meant to play in the NFL not everyone who dreams if being wealthy is meant to be wealthy and nor will they be. The US has this obsession with money, wealth and material possessions, and many believed they are entitled to it and want it now. Which is why people like Tim Ferris can write a book like this and be successful. See, people that write books like these or came up with the MLM in the 90's they're the ones who make/made the money, the people that bought into it didn't
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Sometimes the customer reviews there are decent doses of reality (unlike CNN comments, which are doses of fruit-loops).
