The 4 hour work week

[Yoda]

So someone recently posted a link to Tim Ferriss' blog which has been fun to follow. I also just started reading the 4 Hour Workweek which is sounding like a how-to-be-a-james-bond of capitalism. Apparently, he started a human performance drug company and outsourced everything for 5k on his credit card. In trying to sell his business he got it to the point that he wasn't involved in the daily running of it and found he made a lot more money that way. (the folks who were going to buy it realized that all they needed was a credit card with $5,000 of room on it... but lost their shirts!)

 

So he spends his time getting first place in tango and martial arts competitions, etc and raking in big money on the side.

 

A law of attraction wiz? A good karma freak? Can anyone do this?

 

I'm only a few pages in but wife Randi just walked in and wished I was reading "how to work 80 hours a week and love every minute of it passionately" book. That's one presupposition Ferriss makes: it's pretty rare to have a megapassion for one's job and that is definitely not what this book is about.

 

I know that this book made a huge impression on webmaster Sean and is partially responsible for his current time in Costa Rica but I think he has a genuine passion about his work too.

 

Anyone read it? It looks like most of it will focus on how to be an autopilot entrepreneur which isn't totally my thing but I'm sure I'll get some good ideas from it.

 

Yoda

[i_am_sam]

Apparently, he started a human performance drug company

 

Sounds like nothing I'd want to be involved with. Guess I'll just stay skint. Maybe not.

Good luck!

 

Your pal

 

S x

[thelerner]

Fascinating book, man and blog. I was just perusing his method of swimming w/ high efficiency. I don't think I can emulate his thought process or lifestyle, but I can pick up a few odd tricks from him.

 

 

 

Michael

[Pietro]

So someone recently posted a link to Tim Ferriss' blog which has been fun to follow. I also just started reading the 4 Hour Workweek which is sounding like a how-to-be-a-james-bond of capitalism. Apparently, he started a human performance drug company and outsourced everything for 5k on his credit card. In trying to sell his business he got it to the point that he wasn't involved in the daily running of it and found he made a lot more money that way. (the folks who were going to buy it realized that all they needed was a credit card with $5,000 of room on it... but lost their shirts!)

 

So he spends his time getting first place in tango and martial arts competitions, etc and raking in big money on the side.

 

A law of attraction wiz? A good karma freak? Can anyone do this?

 

I'm only a few pages in but wife Randi just walked in and wished I was reading "how to work 80 hours a week and love every minute of it passionately" book. That's one presupposition Ferriss makes: it's pretty rare to have a megapassion for one's job and that is definitely not what this book is about.

 

I know that this book made a huge impression on webmaster Sean and is partially responsible for his current time in Costa Rica but I think he has a genuine passion about his work too.

 

Anyone read it? It looks like most of it will focus on how to be an autopilot entrepreneur which isn't totally my thing but I'm sure I'll get some good ideas from it.

 

Yoda

 

 

Read it.

I also made a big mindmap of it, but now I can't find it. If I find it, I'll post it.

 

The key of everything are:

the pareto principle (20/80)

the parkinson law (work expands to fill the time allotted)

how much of the info that we digest we really do not need.

how to set up an online busines,

how to outsource part of your work.

 

 

Once you have learned those things you pretty much have the thing.

 

Here are also a lot of things on which I do not agree with him.

When he says that all there is in life is excitment...

well, my son...

 

When he claims that no one can love his work so you better get over it as soon as possible, ... well again.

 

But in any case I apply him in my daily work.

[freeform]

Read it.

I also made a big mindmap of it, but now I can't find it. If I find it, I'll post it.

 

Should've also made a treasure map to find the mindmap

 

Is this the guy who's a 'champion kickboxer'? - a champion because he completely de-hydrated his body during the weigh-ins so that effectively when it came to the actual fight he was 2 weight divisions above his opponent... and then learnt all the technicalities and loopholes in the rules (such as if you get them out of the ring, they are disqualified - and you win)

 

what an inspiration

 

There are certainly things one can learn from him - such as finding the cracks in a rigid system, getting through the cracks and benefiting...

 

I'd like to read the book even though the guy (if it's the one I'm thinking of) is really not my cup of tea...

[Birch]

I should read the book before commenting BUT

 

;-)

 

Here are a few things (the real list is ten times this one!) I delegate to others that it could be argued I 'ought' to be doing myself (although that would take more skill on my part and I just don't have it - or I don't want to have it):

 

- growing my food (since I cut back on meat I don't have to kill quite as much;-))

- making my clothes (I tried making a t-shirt once - FAIL)

- taking my voice messages - thanks computer

- twice a month, housekeeping - not because I'm a woman that I enjoy scrubbing

- getting me from home to office and back, buses and cabs - what? some people still drive themselves in stinky cars;-)???)

 

As far as I read on his blog, the author had outsourced most of his administration, communications and representation. He also apparently let 'bad things happen'.

 

It seems like mainly he was willing to give up A LOT of control over his persona in exchange for more free time to pursue what he 'really' wanted. It also seemed he moved to a place were the lifestyle was comparatively cheaper (that old excuse;-))

And so things that were previously not permissible to him suddenly became so.

 

Does anyone know if he wrote the book as a confession or as another cash-maker (both?)

[DalTheJigsaw123]

I read half of the book and from what I read, it's quite a helpful one. I intend to finish it soon. Thank you for reminding me!

[Brother K]

I had read his blog off and on for a little while and got the audio book version of it and listened to most of it on a cross country train trip and then bought the book upon my arrival and find it to be one of the books I recommend most to people now. I think everyone should read it, you will get something out it.

[松永道]

Thanks Yoda.

 

Anyone here who practices a neijiaquan knows it's about learning to move and act while using as little energy and effort as possible. Anyone who has applied this to life in general is worth studying.

[mjjbecker]

..

Edited July 6, 2009 by mjjbecker

[Lozen]

I heard of that book from someone who told me he "doesn't do e-mail" so I can either cut-and-paste an attachment repeatedly until it gets through completely (without images) on the limited-character facebook, or I can send an e-mail to his assistant which he might eventually get. The effect this has on his business is that it has lost the human element. And (right or wrong) people are far more likely to forward, photocopy, etc. all of his material.

 

So I guess if someone wants to be a corporation instead of a human being and not have any legitimate contact with the people funding this, it'd be a great idea.

[Pietro]

I heard of that book from someone who told me he "doesn't do e-mail" so I can either cut-and-paste an attachment repeatedly until it gets through completely (without images) on the limited-character facebook, or I can send an e-mail to his assistant which he might eventually get. The effect this has on his business is that it has lost the human element. And (right or wrong) people are far more likely to forward, photocopy, etc. all of his material.

 

So I guess if someone wants to be a corporation instead of a human being and not have any legitimate contact with the people funding this, it'd be a great idea.

 

Having used his sytem in various ways for some time I reached a mixed feeling about it.

 

While on the one side (yours) it is great, I also notice that on the other side is really giving some problems.

FOr example, if I am working with someone who is following this

a.) II never know when I can catch him

b.) I never know if he will do his work or he will decide that it's part of the 80% that is not worth doing

c.) it really ruins your humanity in your working place.

 

Pietro

[Ken]

I am wondering how much "Survivor Bias" is there in what is said in the book. Say you have 10,000 people all wanted to work as little as possible to earn as much as possible, e.g. start a web business (right?) like this guy, now there bounds to be a few who succeeded while the majority failed. So IMO the author was just one of the "lucky" one who made it because he did the right thing at the right time in the right direction and he got to write a book about it. But how many other who tried the same thing and failed ? Too many count i believe.

 

This is not to say that it's all luck and i am sure he is a very intelligent and hard working person but one has to realise that two person endowed with the same intelligence and dedication do not get the same reward.

 

 

 

 

Ripped from Wikipedia for reference:

 

 

Survivorship bias (or "Survivor bias") is a statistical artifact in applications outside of finance, where studies on the remaining population are fallaciously compared with the historic average despite the survivors having unusual properties. Mostly, the unusual property in question is a track record of success (like the successful funds).

For example, the parapsychology researcher Joseph Banks Rhine believed he had identified the few individuals from hundreds of potential subjects who had powers of ESP. His calculations were based on the improbability of these few subjects guessing the Zener cards shown to a partner by chance.

A major criticism which surfaced against his calculations was the possibility of unconscious survivor bias in subject selections. He was accused of failing to take into account the large effective size of his sample (all the people he didn't choose as 'strong telepaths' because they failed at an earlier testing stage). Had he done this he may have seen that from the large sample, one or two individuals will probably achieve the track record of success he had found purely by chance. (Similarly, many investors believe that chance is the main reason that most successful fund managers have the track records they do.)

Writing about the Rhine case, Martin Gardner explained that he didn't think the experimenters had made such obvious mistakes in a statistically naive way, but as a result of subtly disregarding some poor subjects. He said that without trickery of any kind, there would always be some people who had improbable success, if a large enough sample was taken. To illustrate this, he speculates about what would happen if one hundred professors of psychology read Rhine's work and decided to make their own test; he said that survivor bias would winnow out the typical failed experiments, but encourage the lucky successes to continue testing. He thought that the common null hypothesis (of no result) wouldn't be reported, but:

"Eventually, one experimenter remains whose subject has made high scores for six or seven successive sessions. Neither experimenter nor subject is aware of the other ninety-nine projects, and so both have a strong delusion that ESP is operating."

He concludes:

"The experimenter writes an enthusiastic paper, sends it to Rhine who publishes it in his magazine, and the readers are greatly impressed."

Recently, this result of survivor bias has led to cases of "publication bias", and has begun to concern scientific journals. If enough scientists study a phenomenon, some will find statistically significant results by chance, and these are the experiments submitted for publication. To combat this, some editors now call for the submission of 'negative' scientific findings, where "nothing happened."

[Pietro]

I am wondering how much "Survivor Bias" is there in what is said in the book. Say you have 10,000 people all wanted to work as little as possible to earn as much as possible, e.g. start a web business (right?) like this guy, now there bounds to be a few who succeeded while the majority failed. So IMO the author was just one of the "lucky" one who made it because he did the right thing at the right time in the right direction and he got to write a book about it. But how many other who tried the same thing and failed ? Too many count i believe.

 

please don't forget that it's not an all or nothing situation.

 

You don't just suceed or fail. The book present a series of principles that work synergetically well. But then you might get just some of those right, and still have some very good results.

 

Also his point of view is very biased: he starts from the point of view that work is evil, and he want to work as low as possible. I abhor this point of view, and I worked hard to find a job that I would love. So for me 4 hour work week means to do for a maximum of 4 hour a week the boring part of my job. Well, from this point of view, I greatly succeed. But from another point of view, I would 7 days a week. So where will you put me?

[Ken]

Survivor Bias is more prevalent than one might think, that's why i don't trust any of those "motivational book". But that's just me.

 

There is a simple way to meaure how "successful" one apply the principle. Let's call it the Purchase Power Per Hours Week Ratio (PPPHWR) :

 

PPHWR= (Annual Income in thousand dollars unit)/(Actual Work hours per Week)

So I don't know how much that dude that make, but let say 160k/year (maybe underestimation, but more power to him if he makes mor), so his PPHWR=160/4=40. So i would define a sucess as say 10 or above ( quite generous i think).

 

Median GDP/capita is ~47k/year for a US citizen, and let's say one work 40 hours/week. So on average one will have a PPHWR of ~1.18.

 

So this should give a whole spectrum of results for people who applying things learnt from that book.

 

So just tell me your PPHWR and we can say how sucessful you are. I believe you will probably be rated a failure in this scheme. (just put in the "boring" hours you worked and not the time you think you were enjoyin it)

 

 

please don't forget that it's not an all or nothing situation.

 

You don't just suceed or fail. The book present a series of principles that work synergetically well. But then you might get just some of those right, and still have some very good results.

 

Also his point of view is very biased: he starts from the point of view that work is evil, and he want to work as low as possible. I abhor this point of view, and I worked hard to find a job that I would love. So for me 4 hour work week means to do for a maximum of 4 hour a week the boring part of my job. Well, from this point of view, I greatly succeed. But from another point of view, I would 7 days a week. So where will you put me?

Edited May 28, 2009 by Ken