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| The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich | 
 enlarge | Author: Timothy Ferriss
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $10.99
You Save: $8.96 (45%)
New (52) Used (32) Collectible (3) from $10.22
Avg. Customer Rating:  724 reviews
Sales Rank: 40
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307353133
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.1
EAN: 9780307353139
ASIN: 0307353133
Publication Date: April 24, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW !!! SAME DAY TRACKING NUMBER SHIPPING!!!!
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| Customer Reviews:
 For Sale: One Bridge in Brooklyn --EZ Payments June 12, 2007
120 out of 127 found this review helpful
Well,
Where to begin? I actually had fun reading this book, to be honest. It is, if nothing else, a bit inspirational and motivational. To the author's credit he has (and I have emphasized this before) come up with a catchy title and gimick to sell you a book--good for him. What's inside, though, are things that you can find better handled by other authors in other books.
In the first part of the book one can't help notice what a great guy the author is. We notice this becasuse he tells us. We are to believe that he has gone through the Hero's Journey and back again before his late 20's. Now, dear reader, he has distilled the fruits of his vast experience and wisdom into this little gem. Read it, and you will never have to work again. Just be sure to purchase with the 8 minute ab workout.
We get a lesson on the Pareto Principle. If you have never heard of the Pareto Priciple before (otherwise known as the 80/20 rule) you should go back to junior high. BTW, Brian Tracy has discussed this principle and its implications ad nauseum. The author would have us believe that he personally redicovered in some forgotton tome (probably while motorcycle kung-fu rock climbing in Bora Bora--between kendo lessons) and was just about the first to ever apply it to his life.
Later in the book we get some basic info (all easily found in more detail in other books) about starting a web business, outsourcing your workload, etc.
I can appreciate some of this as I had a web business for several years. This section of the book is an interesting read, but little more. If anything, maybe it will inspire someone else to get started on their own enterprise. And that's perfectly fine. If the author accomplishes this, then good. After all, I don't necessarily think that he's a bad guy, just a shameless self promoter and a bit of a charlatan.
Authors such as Ferriss are common: someone falls a** backwards into a relatively easy existence and then decides that they are experts and proceeds to seel their "secret" to success to everyone else--which helps them get REALLY successful. But here's the deal: One hit wonders are not experts. When you've started 4 or 5 businesses and grown each of them to the point where they are self sufficient, THEN you can call yourself an expert. Striking it lucky one time in stocks, real estate during a bubble, or starting one business do not constitute experience.
In the end, I think that the author does his readers a bit of a disservice by telling them that work is not necessary to be financially successful. I have known both success and failure. I have seen others go, literally, from rags to riches (and sometimes back again). Over the years I guess I have given this subject some thought. My conclusion is that you will not get there (wherever "there" may be for you) by working four hours per week. Vision, hard work, and persistence are the 3 main "secret" ingredients for success. Just as exercise and eating right are necessary to be in shape. But telling people this doesn't sell books.
P.S. Can't help noticing how many 5 star reviews there are for this book from people who have only written one review. Hmmm...
 Heed my warning - this book is a waste of time and money. January 9, 2008
118 out of 139 found this review helpful
Let me save you some time and money - here's this book in a nutshell...
A punk know it all kid fails first grade because he refuses to learn the ABCs. He gets fired from his first job at an ice cream store because he's so much smarter than the owner. He get fired from several more jobs and realizes he's a sociopath and can't work with others. So he sets out on several get rich quick schemes and finally succeeds in concocting a nutritional supplement for narcissistic body builders looking for a short cut. It turns into a real business and he starts making a lot of money. But the Peter Principle sets in and he ends up in way over his head. He's a least smart enough to realize this and outsources every part of the business that require brains. Low and behold - now all he has to do is cash the checks - thus the 4 hour work week.
So now he sets out to become a jet setting, tango dancing, champion cage fighter. I'm not kidding! This is what he claims. Well, at least he admits that he won the cage fighting championship by cheating. And that is essentially the theme of this book - cheat and lie your way to doing nothing.
The book is just ridiculous - some examples: to test your confidence, lie down on the floor in a public place or cruise the mall and ask hot chicks for their phone numbers. If your married, just throw the numbers away. Ask your boss if you can start working from home. If you follow Tim's instructions and your boss refuses to let you work from home - just quit your job, you're meant to be an entrepreneur - brilliant! Hire a personal assistant from India even if you don't need one. Use your PA to apologize to your wife for you. What?
So all you have to do is follow his blueprint and you can make millions working four hours a week!
Don't waste your time or money December 5, 2007
84 out of 99 found this review helpful
If your goal is to learn how to manipulate people (and fool yourself) this book is for you. In Chapter 2 the author brags about 'winning' the gold medal at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championship in 1999 by forcing opponents off the mat and thereby winning by default. Preview of things to come.
Chapter 4 - Here's a useful tip that he mentions more than once: "...things often cost much, much less than expected." ? Oh yes? His Aston Marin DB9 only costs $2,003.10 per month, he tells us. Now doesn't that information just transform your life? Whew, one worry off of my list. Expect more of the same as you read on.
Chapter 5 is titled The End of Time Management. The first sentence reads "Just a few words on time management: Forget all about it." The remainder of the chapter continues to provide basic time management tools presented, or rather spun, to sound like a revolutionary approach.
As for creating a new lifestyle, well this book applies if you already have money to burn and resources to fall back on and can afford to receive the pink slip that will surely come your way if you deal with people - particularly managers - as the author suggests.
This book is just another 'slight of hand' of the sort he brags of throughout. He's hood-winked us all and is laughing all the way to the bank.
I agree completely with a previous reviewer who nailed it nicely: a get-rich-quick scheme for the shallow.
It is mandatory to award at least one star in order to submit this review and it pains me to award even that much.
Immature, unrealistic approach to the world December 9, 2007
76 out of 84 found this review helpful
For someone who is promoting the "four hour week" he sure could have cut out the filler from his book and reduced it to four pages or so.
I didn't enjoy this book. It's a highly immature and unrealistic approach to life. In summary: set up a website, get someone else to run it, and go enjoy all the free time this will create for you.
I would have liked if this book had of promoted the concept of personal responsibility more. In other words: YOU are responsible for your own happiness. Only YOU choose the emotions you feel. There are plenty of unhappy people out there, and blaming the job they chose is a cop out. They'll probably be unhappy whatever they do.
Also, I've been running a number of websites for a few years (trying to create financial freedom for myself) and I can tell you it is not easy. Nearly all commercial websites fail. His system will not work for 99% of people. Basically he got lucky. He forgets to mention that part.
The books extremely shallow "screw the world!" attitude to life is quite disapointing. An example: he became (although it sounds like BS) a world fighting champion in FOUR WEEKS by taking advantage of a loop hole in the sport. First, what's the point of being a world champion in something if you don't know how to do it? I wouldn't be satisfied having a trophy for something I knew nothing about. Second, I don't actually believe him. A lot of his stories sound like the fantasies of a teenager.
There are other routes to happiness that don't involve being a snake oil sales man. If you really want to find inner peace and happiness: help others, take responsibility for your own feelings and actions, exercise your body and brain, and then maybe consider starting a part-time business.
A disappointing book January 28, 2008
73 out of 87 found this review helpful
Be advised that the author is a jerk. Yes, as he says, he did win "the gold medal at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championships." But he did it by exploiting two loopholes in the rules.
1. "Weigh-ins were on the day prior to competition." So under medical supervision he lost 28 pounds, qualifying to fight three levels below his actual weight. Then he "hyperhydrated back to 193 pounds" to beat those "poor little guys." If you were ever bullied by sixth graders when you were in the second grade, you've met his sort.
Since he knew almost nothing about kickboxing, even that would not have let him win, so he exploited another loophole.
2. By the rules, if his opponent "falls off the elevated platform three times in a single round," he wins on a technicality. So his sole technique for getting the prize was shoving guys weighing almost thirty pounds less than himself off the platform. No skill, no talent, and no long, arduous training. Guys who'd disciplined and sacrificed themselves for years to have a chance at winning that gold medal didn't just so this jerk could check off yet another box on his "How Great I Am" resume.
This book is misstitled. The subtitle should be: "Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, Join the New Rich, and Become the World's Biggest Jerk." Don't buy it. He'll probably use your money to set a Guiness Book record for "The most kittens strangled in one minute."
--Michael W. Perry, Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings
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