The Top 7 Business Books - The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
The Top 7 Business Books -
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
It's about time this book was written. It is a long-overdue manifesto for the mobile lifestyle, and Tim Ferriss is the ideal ambassador. This will be huge, Jack Canfield, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul The book that has caught the imagination of overworked America, Sunday Telegraph This is a whole new ball game. Highly recommended. -- Dr. Stewart D. Friedman, Adviser to Jack Welch and Former Vice President Al Gore on Work/Family Issues, Director of the Work/Life Integration Project, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Stunning and amazing. From mini-retirements to outsourcing your life, it's all here. Whether you're a wage slave or a Fortune 500 CEO, this book will change your life! -- Phil Town, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of "Rule #1 The 4-Hour Workweek is a new way of solving a very old problem: just how can we work to live and prevent our lives from being all about work? A world of infinite options awaits those who would read this book and be inspired by it! -- Michael E. Gerber, Founder & Chairman of E-Myth Worldwide and the World's #1 Small Business Guru About the Author Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and one of Forbes’s “Names You Need to Know.” He is an early-stage tech investor/advisor (Uber, Facebook, Alibaba, and more) and the author of three #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef. The Observer and other media have called Tim “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his 100M-plus-download podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show.
Important Lessons I Learned from The 4-Hour Work Week
Lesson 1: It is possible to work WAY less than we do and to simultaneously make WAY more money.
A subtitle for this lesson would be No More Excuses. Tim does such a great way of explaining to us that there is no need to work ourselves to the bone until we retire at age 65 after having worked miserably from a cubicle for most of our lives. We can have the lives we want NOW and it’s time for all of us to stop making excuses.
The older I get the clearer it is that so much of us (myself included) excuse our way out of so many opportunities and end up missing out on those things we actually desire for our lives. If you want to accomplish something in your business or life, there is ALWAYS a way to get it done.
Live life NOW with no excuses and no regrets!
Tim does an incredible job of providing resources that eliminate our excuses that are so easy to make. Tim provides affordable and free resources for services and travel and products that will allow you to really make anything you want to experience a reality.
Lesson 2: The goal isn’t to have more money.
I don’t picture myself with money sitting in my hands and get excited. What excites me is picturing what I’ll be able to experience and how I’ll be able to LIVE when I have more money. Honing in on that end goal (whatever that is for YOU) is the key.
What do you want your business and life to look like 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years in the future? Fulfilled desires are the things we want, not the actual physical money sitting in our hands.
Lesson 3: We do not have to be slaves to our email.
Tim talks about this a lot in The 4-Hour Work Week. It was a process for him, but over time he was able to get to the point where he only checks his email once a week. ONCE A WEEK, PEOPLE! When I read this, I was like, WHAT THE WHAAAAT?!
For years I have been an absolute slave to my email inbox, so the idea of no longer being an email-slave inspired me to make changes. I have recently started checking my email only a couple times a day, which is a huge change from before.
Also, I no longer check email from my phone because honestly there’s never a need for it. I can get everything accomplished that I need to by checking in twice a day on my computer.
This new habit has spilled over into my social media check-ins. I peek into Instagram once a day (if that) and Facebook twice a week. Do you have any idea how much time and energy this opens up?
Lesson 4: Go on a low information diet.
This point is controversial but when I read his thoughts on how little information Tim chooses to consume, it resonated with me in a really huge way. The only time I’ve watched the news in my adult life is when I visit my parents (and even then I completely tune it out).
I don’t log into Facebook unless I have a group I need to visit. I don’t consume any news that can potentially produce fear or worry or confusion.
As Tim states: “Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals and outside of your influence.” I 100% agree with this and choose to fill my mind with information that is only productive and beneficial.
Some of you might argue that I need to educate myself. I need to know what’s going on in the world! And although Tim addresses this much more eloquently, I’ll say that there is nothing I need to know that doesn’t eventually come to me. Important news has a way of finding us.
Lesson 5: Outsourcing/delegating is important for opening up space.
Tim talks about how we should consistently evaluate our daily and weekly tasks to see if there are things we can start outsourcing. If you wanted to, you could outsource basically every single thing you do.
Hold onto the things you want to be doing and get rid of the rest. This is a process, but it’s something to evaluate regularly.
Lesson 6: Focus on the 20%.
We’ve all heard about the 80/20 rule, which basically tells us that 20% of what we do accounts for 80% of the results we get. Tim recommends we ask ourselves two questions:
- Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?
- Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?
Focusing on the important tasks helps us to reduce our work load tremendously. The key is knowing what your goals are and doing only the tasks and projects that support those goals. Everything else can be ignored.
Lesson 7: You fill the amount of time designated for each task.
This principle has a name known as Parkinson’s Law which states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you have one task to complete and you set out to finish it in 10 hours, it’ll take 10 hours to complete.
If you set out to finish that same task in 1 hour, it’ll take 1 hour to complete. Aim for the shorter time of completion in order to open up space for the good things you want in your life.
Thank you, Tim Ferriss, for the inspiration and for writing such a great book that helps us all to live more fulfilling lives and run more efficient businesses!