The 4 Hour Work Week Is Nonsense - Here's why...
Preface
I have to preface this by saying that I never finished reading 4HWW.
Why? Because I couldn't get past the "me-me-me" in the introduction.
It's kinda funny that when reading the Derek Sivers review (link) that he mentioned this as one of his notes;
"When someone goes into too long of a story, say, "I don't want the story. Just tell me what we need to do."
That was exactly what I wanted Ferris to do, but I gave up.
Maybe I'll revisit the book sometime when I can...
In the meantime, here are my thoughts on why the 4HWW is nonsense:
How Is It Nonsense? You've Never Read The Book!
True, but like I mentioned above, I've read the Derek Sivers book review, and I think I've seen the book referenced enough by people to have a strong basis for formulating that opinion.
Let Me Explain
I believe The Four Hour Work concept itself is flawed.
If you could create a 4 hour work week, why not make it 8 hours and double your income?
That's still only 1 day per week, and you can spend the other 6 doing whatever the hell you want.
Wouldn't that be something?
Better yet, why not do 2 X 8 hour work days per week and make 4X the amount?
Why stop at 4 hours?
But it's a book about outsourcing and being free!
Okay, I hear you!
Tim's book was meant to open people's eyes to the benefits of outsourcing and being your own boss.
Rather in this case, being THE boss right?
You're not really a solopreneur if everything you're doing is being outsourced are you?
That's being a new kind of boss.
A kind of boss that sounds far better than "working for the man", being in the "rat race", or climbing "the corporate ladder".
But what about control?
How Much Control Are You Giving Up Outsourcing Your Business?
"Be neither the boss nor employee, but the owner. To own the trains, and have someone else ensure they run on time."
Having someone else ensure the workings of your business is still being a boss.
It may be a different kind of boss (an absent one?) but a boss nonetheless.
Having some else run your business is outsourcing, no matter which way you try to cut it.
I don't like outsourcing.
Why?
Where's Your Control?
Not having control is a big bug bear of mine.
Having someone else run your business for you sounds great!
But only if you trust them to do it right, keep things running smoothly, and don't feel anxiety about not knowing what's happening with it.
Control is also one of the key things mentioned in another book that I recommend; The Millionaire Fastlane (by MJ DeMarco).
While the title may sound just as "salesy" it's an excellent read. Just ask @the50
Anyway, a review of that book is for another time, let's get back to Ferris...
Did You Know He Already Built a Business AND THEN Outsourced Most of The Work?
If this page on biography.com is correct, that's exactly what happened.
Overworked and underpaid, Ferriss started his own nutritional supplement company, BodyQUICK, which turned into a highly successful yet time-consuming venture.
After traveling to London, Ferriss had a breakdown and ultimately decided to streamline his business, hiring virtual assistants and becoming more efficient with his email usage.
He also became a globetrotter, traveling to locales like Ireland and Germany and ending up in Argentina.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't 4HWW teach you to start an outsourced business? Rather than outsource your already existing one?
If so, please let me know what Tim's book teaches you about finding a need for a business.
Like I said, I haven't read it!
This is probably why I should give it another go.
A Few More Things
While making sure I wasn't being a complete ass by making this post, I done some research and found this article on BI.
Some key quotes:
- "Take a close look at those who advocate the passive income lifestyle. They work their butts off and sell the idea for the big bucks."
- "According to Scott Dinsmore, Tim Ferriss, the author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," works a minimum of 60 hours a week."
So here we have a double-edged sword, is it "Do as I say, not as I do"?
Or, someone selling a dream, rather than the truth?
I don't like people that do that.
Can You Imagine?
If you've read this far, let me ask you this:
Can You Imagine Any These People Working a "4 Hour Work Week"?
- Richard Branson
- Warren Buffet
- Grant Cardone ( @grantcardone )
- Peter Diamandis
- Elon Musk
- Donald Trump (whatever your opinion of him)
Just a small sample to make my point, the list could be far longer.
Still Want a 4 Hour Work Week?
All hope is not lost!
If you still want a 4 hour work week? I have the answer; become a politician!
Think about it, you get a bunch of assistants, your speeches are written for you, you get to travel, and you can claim
the majority of things back on expenses.
There's your 4 hour work week!
I'm not even sure if I'm joking here.
One Final Thought
I don't want to sound like I'm being one sided, or going off on a rant so I'll say one more thing:
I'm sure Tim Ferris had good intentions with the 4HWW, and I'm also sure there is plenty in the book that is useful.
Read Derek Sivers' book review here, there is some great stuff in his notes.
I'm not saying the book doesn't contain valuable, and more importantly actionable advice, just that the 4HWW concept is flawed.
Can it be done? I don't doubt that it can be done.
But if you can do it, why not scale it up?
Why stop there?
Will you feel secure/comfortable having your business run by somebody else?
How many great business people follow the same path?
And lastly,
Should you?
That's All Folks!
I hope I've made my point as clear as possible.
(I'm not always the best at doing so, but I'm working on it).
If you have any comments or questions? Please feel free to leave them below.
Thanks for viewing!
This post was originally intended to be a comment in reply to the @the-traveller's excellent post on the 4HWW which can be found here.
Cheers for the mention!
My post was intended to avoid having the same discussion over and over with friends who had much the same objections as you without reading it. I agree that the setup of the book is a bit clunky and could have been written better.
For me the main take-away of this book was that we have a lot of assumptions about our working life that cease to be true.
It particularly resonated with me at the time I read it because I had made my mind up to go travel and gave up a well paying job to do it. I lived in Geneva making double the salary of my peers in Belgium, lived in a very scenic place but I was not particularly happy or satisfied.
This book was very helpful to question some assumptions about life.
For me at least it worked, and I know many friends who are effectively living a 4 hour work week and can afford a good lifestyle. Is it for everyone? Probably not, you have to make some concious choices.
I have not have had a 9-5 job since 2010. I have travelled all over the world mostly being paid well for it. When I was employed I was paid a pretty decent wage in the UK, and lived in Spain where my cost of living was 40-50% less. Geo arbitrage. (btw probably worked effectively 4-6 days a month effectively on average)
Since 4 year I am freelancing, I made a concious choice to earn less and have more free time.
Have not calculated it, because there are ups and downs but I probably worked 8 weeks a year, in Greenland, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brazil and all over Europe. So yeah probably 8 hour workweek.
The thing to realize is that the world is increasingly non-linear. You have limited time on this planet.
The 4 hour work week is about thinking how to get the maximum output for the minimum input.
Outsourcing is one leverage tool to achieve that, technology and communications another. Check out my article on finding leverage in your life
Smart design (in the engineering sense not the interioir decorator sense) of the variables in your lifestyle to optimize for your unique intentions can help to achieve that.
We are largely programmed by society that you "have to grind" and "work" to make a living.
Sorry that is simply less and less true. Is it easy? Of course not! Is it possible? Much more than you think probably and getting easier each passing year.
Excellent response as always @the-traveller.
I hope I've done a good enough job separating the 4HWW concept from the substance in the book?
Like I said; there is great stuff in there if you look at the notes from Derek Sivers.
I want to talk about time and leverage more in a future article. I think that is also an area where 4HWW is lacking. You don't always need to hire outsourcers in order to leverage time. You just need to make a product that does.
I'll probably do that article next. The entrepreneur related ones take me a while longer to put together because I like to make sure they're properly sourced and that I'm not using any "guru speak".
Specifically the 4 Hour moniker is something he says later on he regrets. It was a result of a title A/B test and has been haunting him. Bit of a two edged sword, it obviously helped sales but it does the book a disservice. As Tim stated, he is not opposed to hard work, but feels that the work that you do should have a big impact. A lot of people are just "punching their ticket" as they say, going through the motions to justify their salary. If you look at most people's work, there is a lot of ineffective nonsense we have accepted as "work" which actually does not really contribute to results.
Tim Ferriss is no particular genius in that he did not invent most of these concepts, but his books are a great work of curation in that he has concepts that he tested which together form an impressive toolkit.
Will that toolkit work for you? Only if you apply it and start experimenting and find out.
The book is not really only about outsourcing. There are quite a lot of other techniques.
For proper case studies of people doing applying these concepts in real life:
The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau is a much better example driven book.
http://100startup.com/
and another thing :)
The billionaire types would be the first to apply these techniques, else it would be totally impossible to become billionaires. Of course it also requires a kind of relentless focus. The 4 HWW asks: becoming a millionaire by working yourself to death ? What for really? Why not earn less, spend less and have a high quality life....
Haha! I read about that a/b test thing somewhere. Might have been in one of his blog post where he talked about it.
It's actually great marketing, but it obviously leaves a bad taste in some people's mouths.
"Will that toolkit work for you? Only if you apply it and start experimenting and find out."
That's a great point, taking action is the key. There's another post in that topic alone...
The $100 Startup is pretty good too! I've been tempted for a long time to do a challenge where I start from literally $0 and work my way up based around some of those principles.
In regards to the billionaires, I guess what I meant by that is could you imagine; Musk, Buffet, Trump, Whoever else only doing a 4 hour work week? I can't.
Delegating parts of their businesses to the right people though? Of course they do. A better book from that point of view will probably be Tim's newest book (I say probably because that's on my to-read list), or something like "the effective executive" which is interestingly one of Ferris' top 5 books. (I wonder where he got some of his ideas from?)
"Why not earn less, spend less and have a high quality life...."
I guess my version would be:
Why not earn more, spend less and have a high quality life?
I'll cover the "earn more" part soon too.
He just used that catchy title and it caught on. You made sound points in this post
Thanks very much @jetblake!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by TranshumanTees from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.