The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.
- ISBN13: 9780307465351
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
More than 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content.
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
•How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
•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… More >>
Tagged with: 4Hour • Content. • CuttingEdge • Expanded • Over • Pages • Updated • Workweek
Filed under: Books
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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
The first edition of this book changed the way I handle business. I’ve spent far too much time focusing on trivial tasks that don’t produce money or enjoyment. I got stuck into quicksand without even realizing it. I’ve read a lot of books in my time, and many of them have made a profound impact, but nothing quite like this one. Timothy has a unique ability to show us how to get around the roadblocks we walk past every day but never truly see.
This expanded and updated edition adds a great deal of useful content, including:
* 50 or so tips and case studies from real people who have read the book and doubled income, overcame common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the core of the original (and this) book as a starting point.
* Real-world templates for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or things like getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal.
* Fully revised resources that provide the latest tools and tricks, high-tech shortcuts, etc. for making you more efficient so that you can work less.
While I am not sure I have mastered all of Mr Ferris’ action steps to automating my life, he’s opened my eyes to the need to create income streams that don’t require ME to be involved in the equation. Growing up as a Bricks and Mortar Retail brat, and now as a doctor, it is hard for me to envision an enterprise I would create that didn’t revolve around me. This book, does exactly that. Its application can allow you the ability to envision automating parts of your existing business and life in general that may be holding you back from doing all that you want to do.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is another life-changing book I read recently that I strongly recommend. If you’re interested in self-improvement and seeing things from a new perspective, it’s a worthy read.
Rating: 5 / 5
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
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
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