The 4 Hour Work Week

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The 4 Hour Work Week

by

An 8020CEO Point of View

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Overview

GLEANED INSIGHTS

According to the author, it's depressing to see how most people put-off doing what they really want to do into the distant future simply because they believe that their goals would require a significant investment of time and/or money which they would be unable to afford in the present with all their ongoing liabilities. The fact is most of these people are usually far from the truth and in most cases, a proper investigation would reveal that one can experience the life one wants to by paying far less than what one has imagined. 

Ferriss points out the genesis of this defeating mental attitude into the unconscious belief of most deferrers that they need to own or buy what millionaires have, in order to live like them. Hence they dream of becoming millionaires before they can get down to living a desirable life. So in a way they veer off the course right at the beginning and then continue living lives of quiet desperation. 

This is why Ferriss asks his readers to begin with defining their objectives. Now doesn't this sound like one of those annual meetings in the business world where employers/employees are supposed to formulate their goals for the coming year? Thankfully it's not. Ferriss asks readers to define what they really want. 

When the surface of the life-goals of the average Joe or Jane are scratched we all find that Joe is saving for that post-retirement round-the-world-trip or that Jane has surrendered to spending a third of her life in the workplace she dreads so that she can accumulate enough money to live comfortably through her twilight years (unfortunately continuing inflation ensures that both Joe and Jane's goals are always out of reach, at least in most cases). 

Both Joe & Jane are classic "deferrers", living a life of what Ferriss calls "negative optimism" in which people keep doing things they don't like by simply clinging on to the belief that matters would improve if they kept on with the routine. It's quite like hoping to find that mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the big difference being that the rainbow is beautiful while a major portion of life spent in drudgery is not. Real life shows that the quality of the average person's life remains the same unless drastic changes are forced through providence or self-initiative. Ferriss favors the latter approach. He urges readers to clearly understand and define what they want their lives to be and then plunge into achieving it now. 
 

KK2: Elimination

Once the reader has clearly defined goals in sight, he is urged to start eliminating unnecessary activities and focus on doing things that are most important or critical. The Pareto principle plays the single-most influential role throughout the book and the author emphasizes on paring down all activities that are unnecessary (80%), to focus on doing the activities that bring the maximum desired returns (20%). His prescription ranges from going on an information diet (drastically reducing the frequency of checking emails) and outsourcing all mechanical/menial tasks, to dropping projects and clients that are not profitable enough.

Profitability is calculated not only in terms of money but also time spent in earning it. When he says profitability, Ferriss is tying it up with relative income which he states is more important than absolute income. The latter being the total amount of money earned over a period of time (annually) and the former, the amount of money earned in a given unit of time (hourly).

Ferriss gives the example of Jane Doe who earns $100,000 annually and John Doe who makes $50,000. Apparently John makes less than Jane but then Ferriss informs that John works 10 hours per week compared to Jane's grueling 80 hour weeks. So if you calculate hourly income, John earns four times more. However Ferriss does add that you should make sure that your relative income is substantial enough to help achieve your goals.

Among the core goals that the book drives towards is having enough time and money to do what one really desires. This according to Tim Ferriss, can be achieved by building a business that is self-sustaining, in other words, a business that can generate a satisfactory income without the owner being around (say for 80% of the time).

This section of the book reads like a concentrated dose of effective business management strategies. Ferriss suggests developing a business that can easily take to automation. And he does not leave it at that but goes the whole hog explaining in a step-by-step manner how to go about getting workable ideas for a self-sustaining business, to testing the potential of the chosen product/service before jumping in, to hiring and managing virtual assistants for the best results.

Ferriss cites his own examples, beginning from his early attempts at entrepreneurship when he was chained to his business for over 80 hours a week, to the present in which he has hundreds of people carrying out the mechanical but necessary tasks required to keep his business running profitably, while he is free to do whatever strikes his fancy managing his business remotely from any part of the world.

The aim, Ferris states, is to design the operations of business in such a manner that each worker carries out a specified set of instructions which ideally should fall within his/her area of specialization. Ferris urges the aspiring New Rich to leverage that dollar value difference and outsource work to virtual assistants in countries India. This section is filled with many examples, as well as lists of resources for building an automated business. 

Successful automation would lead to entry into the 4-Hour Workweek stage. But Ferriss doesn't stop here as the first three steps are more like preparing the stage to make way for a consistently fulfilling life, in other words, 'Liberation'.
 

 KK4: Liberation

An important requirement for freedom is liberation from the confines of office space or specific geographical location. Once the process of automation is successfully underway it will become easier to achieve liberation than it would have been otherwise. Liberation is necessary in order to do all the things that one wants to do, whether it is climbing peaks, living in a tropical paradise or kickboxing in China as the author has done. Mobility allows one to make the best of the economic advantages available around the world in a way similar to outsourcing. Once again Ferriss goes through all the steps that would help achieve liberation for both business owners, as well as those who have jobs. Once work has been drastically reduced Ferriss goes on to offer solid advice on how one can fill up the void through meaningful activities.

That is Timothy Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek. The particular D-E-A-L sequence is tailored better to the interests of business owners or entrepreneurs. Job holders would make a smoother transition following D-E-L-A, which is obvious considering the fact that after D (Defining) and E (Elimination), they cannot move on to A (Automation), as they are working for someone else and would need to go through L (Liberation), before setting up their own self-sustainable business and finally working towards A.

Though the book promises a life which on first impression can only belong to a favored few, the strength of The 4-Hour Workweek comes from the fact that Ferriss' philosophy stems from an intelligent and brutally honest observation of the life of the average human being or to be more specific, someone in the so called rat-race.

I doubt there will be many people, including critics of the book, who don't identify with a number of concerns put forward in the book. The book is not only a how-to-guide but also a philosophical one. To Ferriss' credit he attacks problems from multiple directions thus becoming accessible to a vast majority of readers. Moreover he is not a modern-day snake oil salesman, unlike a lot of modern pop-philosophers trying to peddle esoteric ideas without practically proving their efficacy. Ferriss shows how he has achieved his results and how his readers can duplicate his process.

For me reading The 4-Hour Workweek felt like I was being guided by a favorite teacher through all the steps that were required to solve that complicated problem.  As I mentioned before the book has its failings. The ideas presented in the book may not work equally well for everyone and yes some of them do sound exaggerated at times, (the book wouldn’t have been half as entertaining without that!) but then if you really think about the arguments put forward you will see that this book distills the fears-motivations-miseries nexus that rules the life of the regular Joe and it does come up with some sincere suggestions on how to break this nexus. Overall, The 4-Hour Workweek is a refreshing take on how to live a more satisfying and productive life.

Conclusion