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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: $11.14
You Save: $8.81 (44%)
New (60) Used (30) Collectible (3) from $9.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  773 reviews
Sales Rank: 145
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 some good ideas, but ... June 25, 2007
37 out of 47 found this review helpful
I agree that there are some good ideas here and as there are many, many positive reviews, I'll only point out my gripes to balance things a bit. One problem is that some people can not or do not want to be mobile all the time. Ferriss seems to believe this is the holy grail. Got dogs? Got kids? Not considered here.
Also, I object strongly to the idea that work in and of itself is time wasted. As a previous reviewer mentioned, Ferriss' premise is that people are stuck in boring white collar jobs that they hate. While that may be true for some, many people do work that they believe in, not just to pay the bills.
Further, there seems to be no mention of charity in any of his posts/blogs. I can't imagine being wealthy and only pursuing individual goals such as learning to tango or climbing Mt Fuji exclusively. That would be fun for awhile, but eventually I think that would be a rather empty existence ... I would certainly spend a good deal of my time doing charity work and trying to make the world a better place if I were wealthy and had a lot of time on my hands. But Farriss is young and his book seems to cater to the unattached, many of who are also young. He seems to be a bright fellow, so he may get it eventually.
In short, if you are short on inspiration, feel totally trapped by your job, or just want a few good tips to make your life at the office easier, then this is a good read. Perhaps the 30 hour work week would be a more reasonable goal for most though? The key point that life is short can be easy to forget of course. So enjoy life, but all things in moderation, yes?
clever title, nothing special July 3, 2007
37 out of 42 found this review helpful
This is one of those "new manifesto", "new paradigm" books where everything conventional is wrong. Written from a young and high performing author's point of view.
His ideal lifestyle is living rich, no attachments, travel, and outsource everything. Sounds good to me.
The main methods to accomplish this are to simplify things, reduce workweek to 4 hours, automate a side biz.
Simplifying is nothing new. His book doesn't follow that rule. A full 3/4ths of the book is pure filler. Points are dragged out in long email dialogs and embellished stories.
Reduce work week to 4 hours: not convinced. Supposedly you can outsource everything to India then keep the boss at bay by email and other technology. Meanwhile you "live anywhere" by using your laptop and only contact the boss when you need to show end results. I guess there's nothing wrong with dreaming.
The only real meat in the book is building your automated side biz. This is just building your website, testing it, and outsourcing all tasks. There are many books devoted to this subject, or free on the net.
Conclusion: there's no "New Rich". You have to build your side biz(es) and hopefully you can quite your job. The net is one way to go. Once you become wealthy enough or have everything on autopilot you can travel whenever you want. My advice: just read up on biz/net.
 Brilliant & fun book about being financially independent May 8, 2007
36 out of 46 found this review helpful
This is a brilliant and fun book that I highly recommend.
He advocates many of the same theories as Alexandria Brown and Dan Kennedy -- being an entrepreneur, not trading time for dollars, outsourcing, protecting your time/access, leverage -- but adds that with a new idea of true independence to location and mini-retirements. The premise is to set up your business to such that you can answer your email 1x week, never check your voicemail, outsource almost everything, and live abroad 6 months at a time. And, instead of working like a dog for 30 years so you can retire "someday" - take mini-retirements now.
I do have to disclose that Timothy is a bit of a 29-year old bachelor punk, but I find him very entertaining (similar to Dan Kennedy old crotchety man-ness). :)
Some of his more entertaining tips include forcing yourself to be okay with being uncomfortable by placing calls to celebrities, making eye contact with everyone you meet for 2 days, and laying down on the floor in the middle of Starbucks for 10 seconds.
Some great advice I have already put to use:
-Only check email 2x a day, at noon and 4 pm. Wow, how efficient I become when I keep my mail program closed. And, my business has not yet exploded.
-Stop work at 4 pm. I am spending 4-5 pm in an activity that I would do if I was financially independent. Not sure what those activities are yet -- so far I have spent the time shopping, at happy hour, and reading a book in the park.
-Act as if you could only work 2 hrs a day. Now I am spending the first 2 hours doing the most important work for the day, instead of spending it on email. As such, I am able to get my work for the day done by mid afternoon, if not earlier -- since I do the most important work first.
And re the outsourcing ... if you are a socialist, you may not like this book. If you think that outsourcing takes advantage of people, or if you think unions are great, you may not like this book. This book is for smart, independent, capitalist-minded people, especially those who want to change their life and outsource their business to people who want to work for them (whether they are located in the U.S or overseas).
 Join the New Rich by Old Means -- the Internet Salesman June 26, 2007
34 out of 40 found this review helpful
Do you really want to spend your work life flogging products like vitamin supplements aimed at the workout crowd and bodybuilders? That's apparently what the author did between his trips to exotic locales. He seems highly intelligent and articulate and I feel he could have contributed greatly to the improvement of the world with his Princeton education. But he became a kickboxing champ in Taiwan or someplace and sold tons of "stuff" online. Isn't there more to life than this? My 60-hour job looks pretty good from here because it is helping people move forward into alternate energy. I'm no worldbeater but it's better (to me) than selling sports supplements as the key to a successful life. I wanted to like this book, but found it disconcerting. Sorry.
Directions for Hiding from the Boss, Starting an Automated Internet Business, and Being a Global Vagabond September 10, 2007
34 out of 40 found this review helpful
Did you know that if the trends of the last two centuries hold, everyone's workweek will be four hours by 2407? What will people do with all that free time? It's a good question that this book recommends you consider.
Mr. Ferriss does a favor for those who hate their jobs but cannot find work they like by explaining how you can still draw a salary while working very few hours (by hiding from the boss and using the 80/20 rule -- 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts). His method is deliberately manipulative (possibly fraudulent is another possible description that comes to mind), so you'll have to watch out that you don't get caught or you might have to repay some of that salary.
What do you do while you are hiding from the boss? Mr. Ferriss recommends starting a highly profitable online retail business that's so highly automated it can be operated in only four hours a week. You'll find details of how to do this that matches what I receive in lots of spam e-mails every week.
After you've got half a million a year rolling in by selling expensive items at a high profit margin, Mr. Ferriss provides lots of advice on how to take six-month miniretirements in cheap places around the world (Argentina and Berlin are his favorites). I'm still puzzled by why Berlin can be a cheap place to live. The rest of Germany when I've visited certainly isn't.
The book's come-on explains how Mr. Ferriss has accomplished all kinds of world-class things to boost his credibility. Unfortunately, you'll find that it isn't always classy how Mr. Ferriss does this. For example, he won the Gold Medal at the Chinese Kickboxing National Championships in 1999. He dehydrated himself more than the other competitors did the day before the competitions for the weigh in so that he could compete against men much smaller and lighter than he was, and he then simply used his quickly regained weight the next day to push competitors off the platform (three times off the platform and you are disqualified).
I find several problems with this book:
1. There's almost nothing original in it. You're just reading summaries that might have been written by a $5 an hour researcher in India. And much of what he draws on isn't acknowledged. For instance, he uses some of Dr. Stephen Covey's seven habits as chapter subtitles . . . but never references or credits Dr. Covey once in the book.
2. He provides so little information on each aspect of his ideas that I doubt that very many readers can really implement what he recommends.
3. There's no moral center to the book. Mr. Ferriss comes across as a con man in several ways.
4. He achieves a 4-hour workweek by simply skimming the cream of a business model that any one of two billion literate people can implement at some level. Are we to believe this business model will be highly profitable for the next several years? I doubt it.
5. I've met very few small business people who simply wanted to retail something on the Internet so they could work only four hours a week. Usually, small business people see their businesses and work as a creative activity that energizes them.
I do admire the book's title. It's a real grabber. It's too bad that there's not more substance to go with it.
If you want to learn how to make breakthroughs in personal and organizational productivity that allow you to live the life you want, there are better resources out there such as The E-Myth Manager by Michael E. Gerber, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein, and Photoreading by Paul R. Scheele.
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