I’m going to assume you are suffering from time famine, creeping dread, or - worse case - a tolerable and comfortable existence doing something unfulfilling. The last is the most common and  most insidious.

Source: The 4-Hour Workweek.

The web defines insidious as:

Alluring but harmful; intended to entrap; working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way.

Source: Google.

Insidious indeed. Deep down I have always felt this way about employment in general. When performing unfulfilling work, your employers pay you off just enough to make you comfortable. Just enough to make you feel you would miss that compensation if you decided to forgo what is ultimately unrewarding work. By the way, I have never felt any ill will towards an employer because of this. They are intelligent enough to get other people to do the work for them and pay them just enough to do it. That’s just smart. And truthfully, sometimes the work is fulfilling. Therefore, the ultimate goal is simple: to become the employer and do only the work that one finds fulfilling.

Odds & Ends

Rex over at the Diary of a Four-Hour-a-Weeker wrote a post about Beginning the Outsourcing Journey. He references an article on 43 Folders which I think should be required reading by all 4-Hour Workweek initiates:

• Part 1: Enlightened Outsourcing - The Psychology
• Part 2: Enlightened Outsourcing - The Practice

This is a great two part series. The first part steps back and discusses one’s feelings about your work, getting help with your work and having people work for you. These sorts of things are not really discussed in The 4-Hour Workweek or are somewhat glossed over. The second part is more tactical, but examples are always helpful! Thanks for sharing the link Rex!

ShareThis

• Diary of a Four-Hour-a-Weeker
• The Four Hour Trial

They are also going to try following the principles of the book and see what happens.  So that’s at least three experiments out there in cyber space for everyone to follow, and I am sure there are more.  I have added these to my Blogroll because I can. If you know of others, let me know.  I will also add them to my links as I come across them.  Just think - a whole virtual community of 4-Hour Workweek bloggers.

I just about finished my first quick reading of The 4-Hour Workweek. I read slowly. My intention is to go back and carefully reread the book applying the principles set forth in the book. What I can say is that Tim Ferriss challenges a lot of assumptions and his overall message is worth hearing, regardless of the outcome of my, or any experiment that uses the book as inspiration. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I very much recommend you get yourself a copy.  You should get that copy by clicking here.

I have already been on fire since I started the book.  In a little over four hours I did the following over the last two days:

• Registered the fourhourworkweekjournal.com domain. I used GoDaddy. They are great for that sort of thing.
• Set up a blog on my web host. I am using Wordpress (see The Famous 5 Minute Install!).
• Tweaked a theme for the site.
• Joined Amazon.com’s affiliate program.
• Enabled site statistics and tracking via Google Analytics.
• Wrote my first post.
• Set up an email host for the journal.
• Set up an RSS feed. 

Obviously I need to outsource this kind of work, but that will have to wait until I have shed the shackles of my 9-5 salaried employee brainwashing and established contact with India. Despite doing everything myself, I still find it amazing what you can accomplish in a short amount of time.  Let’s hope this is just the start!

ShareThis

So I deftly start picking up some great gifts: Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat for my globally aware sister, Kevin Smith’s My Boring Ass Life for a friend who donated a Saturday to help me drink - I mean build a deck - and has completely memorized the screenplay of Jay and Silent Bob, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma for my wife. I have everything I need but of course I continue to browse, and that’s when it catches my eye: The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris.  The cover promises that this book can help me “escape 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich”.  I don’t know what or who the new rich is, but I know instinctively that I definitely want to be one of them. I am sold. I have always had a soft spot for the self improvement genre, I suppose due to an unconscious acknowledgement that I could do better in life. And it comes with such credibility: “The #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller”! I personally don’t know anyone at the Journal, but I am quite sure they know something about great books.

Alas, I have already overspent on gifts this year and being a member of the aforementioned 9-5 crowd, there are certain financial realities. I add up the price of the three gift books and realize that The 4-Hour Work Week is simply a luxury I cannot afford, despite it’s promise to liberate me from this very financial predicament (what irony!). So with a little sadness, I put the book down and make my way to the checkout.  The line is easily 25 people deep so I settle into a catatonic near sleep state staring blindly forward at nothing, the kind of poor micro rest you wrenchingly take advantage of anyway to get a second’s respite from your hectic life and its endless demands (job, kids, money, etc. etc…)…

Cashier: Next

Me: (delay as I awake from my reverie and walk to the counter) Hi

Cashier: You realize that if you buy three books today, you get a fourth one free.

Me: No I didn’t (to myself: if I did, I would have four books with me, wouldn’t I?)

Cashier: Why don’t you grab another book.  You can come right back to me once you have it and you won’t have to wait in line.

Me: Ok!

Clearly, this is a sign! I was meant to read The 4-Hour Work Week. I am now quite sure that this book will transform my life. However, here’s the thing, I have bought and read quite a few self improvement, business leadership type books, and while they are all usually a pleasure to read, I wonder if they have really changed my life that much.  Maybe, I have been able to take some of that mentoring and have made some incremental improvements to my lifestyle. Maybe. But I am still not rich, am I? I am still working 60+ hours a week, I am still totally stressed out! What makes The 4-Hour Work Week any different?

I have decided to find out. In a fit of creativity, it dawned on me to follow any “instructions” in the book seriously and create a journal documenting my trials and tribulations, my successes and failures, my hopes and dreams as I use The 4-Hour Work Week as my blueprint for lifestyle transformation! This being the 21st century, it is only fitting that such a journal be a blog, a blog you find yourself reading right now! So welcome all, wish me luck, and follow along on my quest to join the new rich!

ShareThis