Reviewing The 4 Hour Work Week Over Great Specialty Coffee & Camaraderie
The club met again. This time in the almost rustic, yet elegant specialty cafe Bucolico! The place was a find and so was the book we had chosen. I always say I´m a bit more human after my first coffee and this place served well to staying human. We were four — distinct geographies, stories, memories and experiences. There´s something unique about expats — they have no home anymore and yet you discover ´home´momentarily with each other and at times in strange new finds like this place today! Soon. the thoughts flew in - coagulating the table and percolating everything around.
We knew , as always, we would take the context and make it our own. So here goes the disclaimer — this piece centers around the (in)famous 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris, however the reflections and opinions are our own.
The best part about the book is that its all about questioning the normal. Einstein once said — “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” and this makes you think and question your accepted notion of reality. The starting quote makes you think — ¨People don’t want to be millionaires — they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy.¨
And the answer to how to experience that can be summarized into the 4 step DEAL:
- D efine — What is your dream life? What do you really want?
- E liminate — what is non-essential & unimportant.
- A utomate — what can be automated after 1 & 2
- L iberate — Liberate yourself of time and space, dated thinking and expectations
Simple as that sounds, that is exactly what it took to challenge the very dates concept of 9–5 at your desk work lives with much misery and limited motivation at times. Granted, the book fares a tad idealistic at times, however, as the club put it — it might have been the bible for today´s new liberated life, at the very least the precursor to digital nomadic living. The book is filled with resources for every step and live examples of unhappy millionaires to the ´new, happy, liberated rich´. The book also highlights the importance of a holistic life of passion, people and experiences with its live your life by :´to love, be loved and never stop learning´ approach.
Define: They say knowing what you want is often half the battle won and hence step 1 is a great start! Once you have this, define the time and budget you´d need for that and more often than not, you´ll find the number surprisingly achievable. And if not, you´re not hustling enough! Tim also introduces the concept of the worst case scenario — what happens if the worse case turns out out to be an actual scenario? Funnily enough, the scaries don´t tend to be that daunting anymore and that gives you courage for the next steps.
Eliminate: This rule is all about prioritizing — the golden rule of Pareto — the 80:20 principle. 80% of the world´s wealth is held by 20% of the population. 80% of the most life changing decisions are made in 20% of the time. 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of the activities at hand.
Perfection does not lie in doing more everyday. Perfection lies in that moment when you cannot take anything else away. Amplify your productivity, know what counts, find your 20% and try to eliminate the rest! Ferris suggests two lists instead of one — the TODO list and the NOT TO DO List. He also seems to be a big proponent of the ´Low Information Diet´ of being selectively ignorant. His thoughts on ´eliminating choices´ and ´ensuring the needful´ deserve a mention. A special mention also goes for Parkinson´s Law of work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion, which can be used to set crisp deliverable based deadlines. Step 2 tremendously challenges the all prevalent belief system of ¨work for work¨ in many cultures.
Automate: I once watched a great video from Vishen Lakhiani of Mindvalley talking about attaching a cost an hour of your life and if a task seems less than that cost, outsource it! Ferris picks examples of successful individuals herein who have automated and outsourced everything from business functionalities to dating with often better benefits and peace of mind. This is also a tool intensive process and thankfully from bots to remote work centers, we have got help here.
Liberation: This is about liberating yourself from constraints that keep you from living the dream life — eliminate time and location and you have the ultimate liberation of ¨work from wherever, whenever¨ as long as the work is done. Granted this takes a leadership of modern , liberated entrepreneurs with the new mindset as well but the transition just got easier post Covid.
More than factual constraints, this step challenges a lot of mental constraints we have been conditioned to and that´s where the hustle genome come in. This book advocates the idea of asking for forgiveness over permission. Leave fear for good and take control over your own life. The average man is a conformist and most people are too scared to quite the mediocre. Complex is not always difficult and there always will be options!
Once you´re done with steps 1–4, its time to add some ¨life¨ to living, with the new found time and liberation. Easier said than done. Choices don´t always equate happiness and this is a generational problem.
How many times have you stared at a wall and wondered ´Why am I not entirely happy in a paper perfect life?´. I once heard an absolutely brilliant quote by Blaise Pascal who said — “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” I speak for many when I say some of us are scared of the concept of ´free time´. Because the opposite of happiness is not sadness or unhappiness — it is boredom (and often overthinking). And its easier to avoid boredom by filling in time with To-do lists.We are a bit hypocritical as a generation that seeks adventure while most of us suffer from ADD — Adventure Deficit Disorder. This doesn´t particularly refer to our travel plans, though the idea of mini retirements has its appeal and relevance. It refers to patterns of avoidance , inertia and inaction at times. The thing we definitely need to do is often the one that we are the most scared of.
So what does it take to follow ´adventure´? That´s a thought worth pondering over. The quick, unanimous, albeit idealistic answer ? Find something bigger and let it consume you. I don´t have an answer for the life purpose question yet and I doubt a lot of us do. However, I deeply resonated with Frankl´s Man Search For Meaning and his statement(also referenced in this book): ¨What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.¨
Do Exciting Things — That´s Where There Is More Excitement & Less Competition. You can tell that this has been written by an entrepreneur when the text reads follow where your adrenalin takes you and go for that seemly unrealistic goal, not only because that often where you find flow and happiness, but also because that´s where you have less competition. So push, question, do the exciting and seemingly impossible!
If the only true limits are the ones we set on ourselves, what are the ones you need to drop right now?
What would you do if today was the last day of your life?
Did you wake up excited to start today?
When you asked ´How are you?´, did you take the time to hear the reply?
These questions and many more are what kept this one a riveting read to think and muse over a perfect Sunday afternoon.
