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Real Adriatic Store - The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
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List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $13.57
Your Save: $ 6.38 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Crown
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.1
EAN: 9780307353139
ISBN: 0307353133
Label: Crown
Manufacturer: Crown
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2007-04-24
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: 2007-04-24
Studio: Crown
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Overall tricky and a let down
Comment: I lost my faith in the author only a few pages into the book. He grabbed my attention early on by saying he became the National Chinese kickboxing champion with only 4 weeks of preparation. I assumed this meant that he must have amazing ability and be able to learn new skills very fast. Being an athlete myself, I was impressed and wanted to learn more.
But then he explained how he did it: By exploiting the loopholes he found in the rules. He did not even try to legitimately fight his opponents, instead he just pushed them out of the ring or something.
I'm a cross country skier, and was a high school champion. If some huckster like Tim managed to win that race by somehow not putting forth any real effort, while the rest of us put in hundreds of hours of training each year, I don't think many of us would respect him. I don't think Tim could get away with this kind of trick in many sports. If he can repeat it in another sport that doesn't have loopholes, I will reconsider listening to what he says. Otherwise, I have to conclude that he took me for a ride early on in the book.
This book seems to largely be built around the 'compelling' personality of the author, and if you take that part away the rest of the book becomes unimpressive, even unnecessary. The advice he gave in the book is not unique. There are dozens of other authors who say the same or similar things as Tim, but don't have to trick you into reading their book.
I agree with what Tim is promoting - a life doing what you want, when you want. But for me, even that life will lose meaning if I don't base it on integrity.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking even if not practical for some.
Comment: This book is certainly worth a read although it is more of a manifesto from a bit of a self-obsessed, vaguely doubtful character. Because most people lack the freedom (kids, family, etc.) needed to put many of these ideas into action most can only read it and reflect. However if combined with some other ideas the book can be helpful.
First of all the net:
1. Don't think in terms of limits and think big. Less fear, more positive visualization. (Not much new there.)
2. Apply the 80/20 rule to clients and activities. Don't manage time but eliminate all but the high-impact efforts. Don't check email all day. Batch activities to be done at certain times. (Practical advice. Email, the Internet and social networking can easily eat up 1/2 day of what could have been productive time.)
3. Outsource everything you can.
4. Design a product you can sell online for $200 and a big enough margin to generate major profits. (There are lots of details and resources on how to do this.)
What the book really is useful for is developing interests and hobbies more effectively into sideline businesses. By applying the 4HWW methods to one or two of these it could make a positive difference.
On the other hand if you actually enjoy your work and it's knowledge intensive the book is less valuable. It is possible to divide up some areas into projects that might lend themselves to the 4HWW approach but it takes some extra effort to figure it out. We're working on a system that combines the GTD and 4HWW ideas into something that works well and is extensible (at least for us and our line of work where we have many projects.)
The book can be read in an hour or two; great plane reading. Take your notes on the last page and tear it out so you can leave the book in the seat back for the next guy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Simplistic at best
Comment: Let me start by saying I'm an entrepreneur, running a profitable internet startup.
The author neglects to mention that the vast majority of people who've achieved a 4 hour work week got there after years of working 70 hour work weeks.
The author's sexism was insufferable. He assumes all his readers are men, and there are many "in jokes" at women's expense. I put the book down when I got to the line: "practice picking up girls in order to build your confidence - even if you're married". Now there's some really bad advice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as great as it's made out to be
Comment: I really have to wonder if the author has honestly spent enough time on anything to really gauge whether or not he has truly been successful using his mantra. Any new thing, if marketed correctly, will take off, but sooner or later depending on how much of a commodity it is, will fizzle out and die. Outsourcing is fantastic in theory - but does it really work? More than likely only for really huge corporations who can take a hit - the reason why? Nobody cares about your business as much as you do. Well ok, if you're only working 4 hours a week, maybe you don't really care too much about it either!!! Honestly, this dude has shown us how to make bucks while working only 4 hours a day - write some arb book with a catchy title, market it, put on an air of success and Bob's your uncle, he's rich. And you're probably not - rich or working a 4 hour day:) Guys, let's get real here - let's look at the real business people, they did not do it on 4 hours a day, in a hammock with a cocktail, nor did they do it writing some book about it. I bet in 5 years time, he'll be onto the next "big thing". Save your $$.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great tips and strategies but title misleading
Comment: Great strategies for optimizing, streamlining, and minimizing the amount time spent producing results. This book is for the business person who wants to produce, produce, produce. The tips in this book give a good framework for defining what you do and why you do it and progress to give the reader the tools for getting maximum results with minimum effort.
While it's a catchy title, don't think that your goal has to be to only work 4 hours a week. In fact, you can still "work" as much as you want to. But you will come to find that this book will help you redefine what it is you call "work" and what it is you call "life" and will even help you merge the two.
This is the first author that I have read that has embraced the new wave of technology and has seamlessly incorporated traditional business goals and metrics with high technology to create an endless capacity of productivity and scalability. The first 100% mobile business model realized.
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