THIS POST REWARDS GOOD COMMENTS! Some books stick, some impact your life profoundly. I recommend this book often to people, often they don't read it...
I find people have some preconceptions that make them suspicious of this book, and yes it has its faults.
So in order to avoid having the same conversation over and over,
I am going to write this article and be done with it.
A simple link will hopefully suffice in the future ...
Source Wikipedia
Why all the hate and doubt? Well, ole Tim did not exactly help himself...
- First of all, there is the title, sounds like a scammy telemarketing product...
- Second of all the writing , it is not exactly great literature and it was the first book written by a guy who swore after his thesis never to write anything longer than an email. (He has gotten a lot better lately, and each book is longer than the next...)
- Third, on the surface it seems to outline yet another get rich quick scheme...
- Fourth, Tim is a master at self promotion and used all means fair or foul to get his book in the spotlight. That screams scam artist for many people...
- Fifth, the assumption is that you to convert yourself to a hippie digital nomad type to benefit from this book...
Yup, these arguments are all true and you can perceive the book like this and give up on it.
I perceive it like this:
The world we live in is increasingly non-linear.
Effort no longer is directly related to rewards.
The 4 HWW is simply a great toolset to identify and benefit from non-linear rewards
This nonlinearity is driven by many things, I explore the reasons in other articles here and here and here and no doubt many more to come...
In short, a non-linear world means everything is increasingly unfair!
This means you can get a massive reward for relatively little effort.
The core idea of this book is how to maximize per hour output by recognizing non-linear effort/reward situations!
In other words: leverage in your personal life and career
Honest effort is not necessarily going to receive an linear / honest compensation.
Some people get exceptional rewards because they were smart enough to recognize leverage opportunities
(Whales anyone? )
You can be upset about his, or learn from it... this non-linear world is not going away, in fact it will only increase to be more and more unfair.
I am guessing that is why you are here on Steemit.com right?
Who wouldn't want one of those juicy 1,000.00 SBD articles for an hour's worth of work, admit it...
That is what this book is about, not working 4 hours a week and ANYONE can use these principles in ANY activity, they are very profound.
10x your income per hour is perfectly feasible, not necessarily easy, but it can be achieved.
That gives you options in life:
Work 10 times less for the same income = stereotypical dream to have the digital nomad life-style
Work half the time, get 5 times more done, spend more time with your family and become your business's most valuable employee
Work the same amount of time, 10 x your income = become a very successful executive or business owner
Work an insane amount of time 10x per hour income = start-up model, high risk/high reward
That is all possible, I have seen many individuals succeed at converting their humdrum 9 to 5 life to a 4HWW model.
This books is about recognizing non-linear opportunities and tools.
To be able to use them you need to challenge your assumptions about how life, society and business works, and you will need to be willing to experiment to benefit from these disproportionate returns.
The 4HWW gets more important with time, because of the other side of the coin in a non-linear world: see here why
For years we expected that there exists a linear relationship between our effort and the payoffs.
That is increasingly less true and we have to examine those assumptions closely:
Plodding along, putting in your time in a 9-5 generic job is less and less likely to have an honest compensation.
Technological progress, abundance and globalisation are all going to attack the "safe" jobs.
And with it the assumptions we all have about how life is supposed to work:
eg.
Work 40 years and enjoy retirement?
Buy a nice house, pay off the mortgage and sell with a nice profit?
Follow established food recommendations and stay healthy ? (food pyramid)
Go to college and get a good paying job that pays back your tuition cost in the long run?
Put in your time, climb that corporate ladder and eventually get promoted to executive management where you'll earn the big bucks?
The tools to get non-linear rewards however are more accessible than ever!
Technological progress, abundance and globalisation at the same time also have made non-linear methods and tools more and more accessible than ever:
- Amazon FBA, online shops, e-commerce opportunities are growing exponentially
- Virtual Assistants, freelancing (upwork.com etc) allow you to reach people who do excellent work for low cost
- running a remote workforce is going to become the norm, scaling your business has been easier than ever
- Amazon AWS, Google cloud etc. completely take away any capital investment in servers etc.
- Steemit.com and no doubt others make it possible to get paid for your content
- the traditional gatekeepers (editors, agents, banks, corporate buyers, universities) are losing their grip in an increasingly decentralised world with Kindle, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook available to create your audience.
There are some life altering concepts in this book I will cover in-depth in other posts ( it has been pointed out to me, my posts get a bit long... :) )
Derek Sivers does fantastic book reviews : here is his if you think mine sucks ! :) Derek himself by the way had a very similar path to Tim, read his adventure with CDbaby.com .
https://sivers.org/book/4HourWorkWeek
Here is another overview you might also enjoy:
http://www.deconstructingexcellence.com/the-4-hour-workweek-summary/
Are you on the right side of these trends? Or are they going to erode your income until there is nothing left...
To be continued...
COMMENT CHALÑLENGE on this post! 3 guaranteed prizes of 5.00 SBD!
If the post goes over 15.00 SBD author share I will GIVE AWAY ALL of it to divide up among constructive comments made.
(You must have upvoted the post to build the pot for everyone though)
GUARANTEED 1 prize ( 5.00 SBD) for someone's personal 4 HWW story
Is Tim Ferris your god, have you read the book already and gotten great results? Let us know, if you have explained it already in a previous post, give a short description and a link!
GUARANTEED 1 Prize (5.00 SBD) For an intelligent commenter who tells me why they think
4 HWW is a total scam and overhyped a constructive argument and intelligent comment will get you potentially 5.00 SBD
GUARANTEED 1 Prize (5.00 SBD or several ) Miscellaneous
EITHER point me out other Steemians who are living the 4 HWW right now! Bonus if you leave them a comment. with a link to this post.
OR a resteem with a good reply why you are re-steeming will also be eligible!
OR good links to similar books and sources...
OR a request to ask me to review and explain a particular concept of the 4 HWW