So, I Finally Got Around to Reading The 4-Hour Workweek
Basically, it tells you to start a profitable business and live off the profits. It will change your life! Hardly a revolutionizing idea?
Ever since I started browsing the web different guides and gurus have promised to change my life. I just have to pay a price ending in 7 for their product. Tim Ferriss’ The 4-hour workweek is probably the #1 “life changing book” being recommended online. I finally got around to reading now.
If you haven’t read it, the book is about how you can escape the 9–5 grind. With just four hours of work each week, you can spend the rest of your time living the life of your dreams. An enticing idea indeed. Through the book Ferriss shows you how he did it, and teaches how you can do it yourself. The essential lesson from the book can be summarized in this simple process:
Start a profitable business → Hire cheap labor to do the work → Live off the profits
Assuming that you are able to start a profitable business, nobody would doubt this formula. Of course, a simple one-line wouldn’t sell many books. The whole process is therefore packaged into the “DEAL”-framework; definition, elimination, automation and liberation.
Since there is no single way to start a profitable business, the framework is mainly a sales technique to increase credibility and the reader’s belief in what the book sells. Ferriss also admits that his productive “superpower” is sales and marketing. Funny, right?
Reduce your hours by don’t defining work as work
Ferriss seems to have his own definition of “work”. His definition seems to be limited to repetitive tasks related to handling orders and customer support. Any marketing activities, producing a podcast and continually promoting the lifestyle his book sells on social media does not seem to be included in his definition of work. If marketing was included in the definition, I can only assume that he works more than four hours. Especially seeing as podcast #606 lasts for 3,5 hours.
You are probably better off just starting
You can get many takeaways from The 4-hour workweek. It does describe different techniques and tools for automating and scaling your personal business, even if you are traditionally employed. Still, I was left relatively underwhelmed, considering all the hype about this being a life-changing book.
At the end of the day, I would argue that there are no books or formulas that can give you a shortcut to success. You have to try and fail, to find out what works for you as a person, your product and your business.
Learning by doing is probably the most productive activity. After all, Thomas Edison found a lot of ways not to make a lightbulb work, but he only needed one idea to make it light up.
