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I’ve been aware of Tim Ferriss for a few years, and a fan for a few months.
When I saw his flagship book, The 4 Hour Workweek, during my quarantine stockpiling run at Pegasus Books in Wellington, New Zealand (dope place I might add), I knew I had to pick it up.
The 4 Hour Workweek
by Tim Ferriss
Summary
The 4 Hour Workweek is a step-by-step guide on how the new generation of wanderlusting entrepreneurs are ditching the confines of their office to design their lives around freedom, time, and fun.
Highlights
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Retirement planning should be viewed as worst-case-scenario life insurance
I love this point. It’s exactly why I personally choose to focus my investing goals on taxable accounts, rather than 401Ks.
Many people disagree with me on this, but I care much more about maximizing my freedom while I’m young than padding my safety net for when I’m 60. -
Forgiveness > Permission
“Most people are fast to stop you before you get started, but hesitant to get in the way once you’re moving”
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“Distress” vs. “Eustress”
Stress is not an inherently bad thing. Our society feasts on pessimism, so most of us have only heard of the negative variant: “distress.”
Stress also has a positive form: “eustress.”
Distress makes you weaker, and eustress makes you stronger. By minimizing the former, and maximizing the latter, you can shift a lot of negative energy into a motivational force to improve yourself. -
“Efficient” vs. “Effective”
Efficient: Performing a specific task in the most economical manner possible.
Effective: Doing the things that get you closer to your goals.
99% of people go to work with a focus on efficiency, and completely disregard effectiveness.
Don’t fall into this trap.
Keep your ultimate goals at the front of your mind in everything you do.
That means if you are working at a 9-5 job, you need to be viewing it a means toward financial freedom–NOT a provider of beer money. Like Robert Kiyosaki preached in his own personal finance classic, you need to transition your active income into passive income as soon as possible. -
The importance of a low-information diet.
I’ve always been a proponent of cutting out the noise of the click-driven news media.
Tim agrees. Here are a few great quotes from him on the topic:
“Ignorance may be bliss, but it is also practical”
“Increased output necessitates decreased input”
“Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. Look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me it wasn’t at least two of the four.” -
The importance of non-finishing
Starting something doesn’t automatically justify finishing.
“If you are reading an article that sucks, put it down, and don’t pick it back up. If you’re full after half a plate of ribs, put the damn fork down and don’t order dessert.”
“More is not better, and stopping something is often 10x better than finishing it.”
The Verdict:
The 4 Hour Workweek is a brilliant look into the mind of one man who has walked the path of dreamer to multi-millionaire, and has had a ridiculous amount of fun in the process.
It lays out a no-bullshit process for how you can design a life focused on location-independence, and tosses in boatload of mindset tweaks that will make you a happier, more productive human being.
Tim dives so deep into so many subjects that you are bound to run into a chapter or two that may not apply to your life. Accept this, and skim these sections. Sooner or later, he’ll circle back around to a topic that punches you in the face with relatability.
It’s a must-read for anyone looking to make the most of their life in the digital age.
Read it.
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Happy reading!
-Ben
