The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Ask yourself if it is necessary to work forty hours; ask yourself if you should work your whole life to provide for a few lean, relaxing years at the end of it. Timothy Ferriss comes back with some surprising answers in "The 4-Hour Workweek". Take mini-retirements throughout your career, or the fact that 10% of your customers will create 90% of your headaches, so get rid of them! Outsource everything and follow your passions around the globe. He has done it, and in a way that works for Tim Ferriss, and he tells you exactly how he did it. Sure, Mr. Ferriss is young and brash, a 30-year-old with all the answers, and judging by some of the venom in the 1-star reviews, he rubbed a few people the wrong way. But that's fine, if you disagree with Ferriss just continue your forty hours chained to a desk, and those who grasp what Ferriss is telling them will be scuba diving in Tahiti while web sites fill their bank accounts. The beauty of modern technology is that it is smart and barely needs us, and can work basically unsupervised. By synthesizing a way to exploit computers and globalization Timothy Ferriss is a part of the future, and the stalwarts from the past are not going to like it. If you read Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat", or his new "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" you might begin to see Ferriss as a part of the solution. Tim Ferriss' carbon footprint is probably quite minimal as he uses existing infrastructure to produce his products rather than building factories and warehousing. Now he is living on a beach somewhere in the tropics using no electricity, "off the grid" and being lambasted for it by people living in 5000-square-foot McMansions.

To directly answer some of the outsourcing criticisms: outsourcing your labor to where it is cheaper, "Chindia" as Friedman calls it, is not exporting slave labor. The reason GM sold more cars in China last year than it did in the U.S. is because of the sweatshops that pay $2 a day. That may sound bad, but it's more than double the amount the same young lady could make breaking her back in the fields. Now she can take that money and get an education, feed her family, or join the middle class and buy a GM product. The new middle class of Chindia is the salvation of American manufacturing.

There is no way a book like this could rate 1-star, as it challenges all of the assumptions that make up your life, the use of your time, working through to retirement, and retirement itself, a very important subject for millions of Baby Boomers. Sometimes it hurts to question all of those rules that you have lived your life by, but it is healthy to do so. So read the book, take a couple of its points on board, or dive in and join Ferriss in some exotic locale base jumping off cliffs while the automated market works for you. And remember, all of these current free market experts, the 80-hour-week guys who have been operating without oversight for so long are the same guys who just crashed our economy into a brick wall at 100mph. The 80-hour-week guys got it all wrong, maybe "The 4-Hour Workweek" guy has some better ideas.

What an interesting book. I have to say that I bought this as I was intrigued by the title and the strong claim as I am sure most people must be - A triumph of copywriting for a start!

I also have to say I have got my money's worth from it already - some of the references in the book reminded me to take some actions on outsourcing that I when actioned made me significant savings in time and money.

And frankly some of these lessons or reminders in my case were the best bits about the book for me. I wish I had read this many years ago when I was single and "footloose and fancy free", unlike now with kids in school and a number of demanding businesses that root me to the spot.

The reminders worked to re-kindle some of my needs to re-focus certain areas of my life and time plus to try and push out time wasters and distractions.

The rest of the book was fun to read but will not help me until maybe later in life now when I can once again roam the world to my heart's content and setup businesses to enable that to happen on automatic pilot - as the heart of the book suggests is the way to go!

I have been lucky to do many of the things suggested in the book like travel and live many of my dreams already but for most of us this book points to some extraordinary things we could if we just asked "why not" and got on with living our dreams rather than holding back. If you are in a dead end job and have nothing to lose then why hold back and look at ways to live your dreams?

If I my kids were in their 20's I would hand them this and tell them to get on with it - start a business that is totally focused on delivering what you need financially without preventing you doing what you want, when you want and where you want...a great way to fund round the world travel and to drop out of the stereotypical view of life after university!

That could lead to a life lived like that forever or maybe just a spell of total freedom financed by the right type of business. Frankly some of these ideas are discussed in my own books "So you want to be an entrepreneur" i.e. "create a business that works for you and not the other way around"

On the flip side, for many of us in middle age this is less likely to be the tonic we hope for as we have the need for stability and a routine we have to stick too - think school holidays!

However, it still makes for great reading and real world advice on how to achieve the lifestyle - the only thing it can't really help you with is creating a business to finance the idea. But hey if the book lights your fire for travel and freedom you will work something out.

In summary, it's a fun book with real insights and it covers ground for those wanting to become "time rich" now rather than waiting until they retire to achieve all their goals in life while having the time do them.

Hi, I want this book to be selled in Spanish in Amazon.com
Timothy Ferris was some days ago in Madrid launching the book in its spanish version. Can we get some of those book in Amazon.com?

A true 4 hour work week is probably a myth for most people, but this book will definitely help you cut down on the wasteful activity that chews up your time through out the day. I have to agree being a remote worker myself that if you can work that arrangement, you can be just as productive from anywhere with cell coverage and a broadband connection in half the time of an office arrangement. This of course affords you more personal time to do the fun stuff in life. The discussion around setting up muse seems pretty good and Tim offers a ton of information and references on how to do it. Will definitely try it and see how it goes.

This book covers one of the most important things in life that everyone should do before they die. Change their mindset. We grow up "programmed" to believe that there are a set of rules that we must live by to be happy. Tim does a good job redefining the path to being happy. I have read numerous of other "how to succeed" and business books and can tell you that Tim has done his homework. There is a lot of information in here, so I'd recommend going through the book a couple of times.