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

By: Timothy Ferriss

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 13 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

Forget the old concepts of retirement and a deferred life plan. There is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. For living more and working less, this book is the blueprint.

This expanded edition includes dozens of practical tips and case studies from people who have doubled their income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book. Also included are templates for eliminating email and negotiating with bosses and clients, how to apply lifestyle principles in unpredictable economic times, and the latest tools, tricks, and shortcuts for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either.

©2007 2009 by Tim Ferriss (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"It's about time this book was written. It is a long-overdue manifesto for the mobile lifestyle, and Tim Ferriss is the ideal ambassador. This will be huge." (Jack Canfield)

Yech

I am very well off, retired, and very happy (and have a zero hour work week), but I still read lots of self help books (along with many other subjects) to better understand the human condition and what works and what doesn't. I find most self help books (including this one) largely just a updated “How to Win Friends and Influence People" (a good book), but this author seems particularly slimy to me. He describes his technique for winning a fighting competition by dehydrating himself to drop two weight classes then rehydrating before his bouts. Then, instead of actually fighting, he used his weight advantage to push competitors out of the ring, winning on a technicality. He points out this was out of the box thinking and within the rules. Both true, but it was not within the spirit of the rules or of the competition. It saddens me that others may emulate this fellow.

One of things I have learned from the many self-help books I have read, is a large number of them are written by self-absorbed people who just want to get richer. One thing I take from this (and the book Stumbling on Happiness) is, “don’t take advice from anyone you don’t want to be like”. I absolutely do not want to be anything like this author.

Next was a key aspect of book, "what is your goal?" The author recommends using "excitement" as a better goal than "Happiness" as happiness is too vague. Excitement is nice, but it is not happiness. Excitement is easier to understand and measure than happiness, unfortunately excitement is ultimately unfulfilling and hollow. Related to this is the author's idea of “Dream-Lining”. This is a process of mapping out the costs and steps to achieve your dreams. The part about documenting, costing, and steps are very good, but using your dreams as goals tends to be unwise. Dreams are great, but tend not to be the best way of planning one’s life. This is well described in one of my favorite self-help books “Stumbling on Happiness”. This author thus has goals that seem rather foolish to me…like travelling to Europe to go to all the “hottest” night clubs, or shooting lots of automatic weapons, and “winning” companions on technicalities. It is indeed much harder to find what truly makes you happy than what excites you or what you dream about, yet this is truly at the core of every great self help book. This is not that book. He does point out that some people may have moral qualms about taking his advice (like advertising and selling things that don't really exist to see if there is a market, then cancelling the orders if you don't decide to go forward.) I found quite a bit of the advice here to be mildly disgusting. The author also seems to say there are many other techniques he uses that, for obvious reasons, he can't describe (I presume because these techniques are not just immoral, but illegal.)

The best things said in this book are old, like Goethe’s advice to DO IT – START IT NOW. Decide on your goals and document concrete, achievable, steps, then do them.

There is a lot of other technical advice in this book that is now largely obsolete as the technologies and services describe have changed.

The narration was very good.

Cautiously Motivating

The four hour work week by Timothy Ferriss is an extreme and somewhat inspiring book – lots of incredible ideas and a few that would seem to be unwise and very likely to get one fired. He obviously is a smart, motivated person that has an optimistic perspective and wants to live life to the fullest. One theme that resonated throughout his book was not putting life off, not waiting until you are too old to enjoy retirement to retire – in fact he recommends mini retirements throughout your life. He points out so many areas in the modern career that are very unproductive and unnecessary – I think that is essentially how he came up with the title of his book, by eliminating a lot of the routine and unproductive activities in a typical work week, there is not a lot left. Another takeaway was his separation of stuff from substance – focusing on experiences in lieu of toys and objects obtained just to associate a person with affluence. The parts of the book that I found to be the most challenging was when he would go into long discussions on website after website after website, and I figured those would be better suited for a regular book. I will probably re-listen to it again in the future.

The narration by Ray Porter was exceptional, I believe he is one of the best narrators in the business.

good info just not suited for audio

too many links and web addresses for an audio book. makes it hard to follow and much longer then necessary. try a different version maybe.

Step 3: PROFIT!!!

This book reminds me of that episode of South Park where the townspeople's underpants keep disappearing. The gang discovers that it's because there are gnomes breaking in to their houses at night to steal their underpants.

When they ask the gnomes WHY it is that they are stealing people's underpants, we find out that it's all part of the gnomes' master plan:

Step 1: Steal Underpants
Step 2: ????
Step 3: PROFIT!!!

Do you see that big question mark in the middle? 4-hour work week reminds me of the gnomes' master plan that somehow they will turn a bunch of underpants into profit.

According to Ferris, step 1 is finding your own "underpants" to invent/patent and or distribute and sell. Step 2 is a big blurry question mark of spending thousands of dollars on advertising for a product you don't even have yet, just to see if people will buy it. Step 3 is where everything magically works out and all of a sudden you are earning PROFIT!!!

I found very little I could actually apply to my life.

Great ideas

Love this style of book. You can get what you want so stop making excuses.

This is not a book about wealth or business

What would have made The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated) better?

Re-format the presentation and flow. The format is not for audible books at all. There are lists of web addresses, phone numbers, article numbers that are frustrating to listen to and useless while driving. The format of information is usually in numbered lists instead of having a useful name for each topic or section.

Would you ever listen to anything by Timothy Ferriss again?

No. He is in a class of his own - doing the least amount possible in life that will support his gluttony. If you have responsibilities, like children to raise, then most of this will not be applicable. None of this is likely to happen to anyone who buys the book. If any of this is possible for you, then you probably don't need the book. Still not convinced? Borrow a copy, don't pay for it.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator was excellent. I would hire him to do just about anything else besides read off a list of google search results and phone numbers for 13 hours.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated)?

If the information is useful while driving, leave it in. Otherwise, put it on a web site and just refer to it for later reference.

Any additional comments?

The philosophy of this book is more about being as irresponsible as possible than it is about building a legacy that can be passed down. There are some good ideas for simplifying things here and there, but you can get those ideas from reading a free summary of the book.

Snake oil for the Soul

Tim Ferriss is clearly a rich white dude in his 20s- or at least he was when he started writing this book. Ambitious, naive, and energetic, he has all the traits necessary for success, and he makes some good points about achievement and success, and having a positive outlook on life. He gets credit for that. For example, his assertion is correct that instead of striving to earn large amounts of money, we should decide what experiences or things we want out of life, and then work backwards from that to decide how much money we need. Also, the automation of income is truly the way to financial independence, and he's right on the money there.

But his stories quickly get weird, even ridiculous. His accounts of tango contests and global sailing are quaint, but he loses credibility very quickly when he advises the reader on how to win a kickboxing contest: basically, he says game the system. And here is where his age shows. While taking advantage of technicalities in order to earn money might be legal and profitable, he misses the point on kickboxing. Isn't the point of learning to kickbox health, competition, discipline, defense? What value is a trophy if you only got it, as he basically did, though his opponents' forfeit? Did he really master kickboxing? Or did he just create the illusion of being better than his opponents? How deep is the joy one gets out of that? There are a number of assertions out there, in fact, that he never did win any national championship.

If the goal is make people think you're successful, Ferriss is on to something. I hear he made his fortune selling a nutritional supplement that was never proven effective scientifically. Legal? Yes. Profitable? Hella. Does that make him trustworthy? Uh...

Ultimately, happy people are those who enjoy the work they do, not people who spend even just four hours a week being miserable so they can sip mai tais the rest of the time. I want to read the book Tim Ferriss writes when he's 60, and has more perspective than he does now. TED should have waited as long to give him talk.

Read with discernment

I agree with several other reviewers that this book contains some helpful points, but also contains questionable advice and poor ethics.
There seems to be a newly popular mindset of 'the new rich' (whose majority may happen to consist of immature, self-centered, boastful 20-somethings who have made quick fortunes with ecommerce websites, books & ebooks, affiliate marketing, online advertising, etc) that is very popular with young people who are glad to hear that they too can become millionaires with the least amount of effort possible. The mindset seems to be this: For a person to be free and genuine, he must rewrite the rules and mores of society to his own liking, or at least refuse to acknowledge there are any. The actions that flow from this mindset include: Refusing to accept that success takes hard work, cutting corners whenever possible, justifying any means by the ends, behaving and speaking in ways that have always been considered rude and inappropriate, defining success by income, fame, and 'rock-star' status, using shock-value to attract attention and prove courage and independence, and judging maturity, honesty, respect, self-sacrifice, and patience as worn-out, ridiculous principles that no longer apply to the modern world.
In other words, apparently the goal is to live as long as possible as if we are still immature rebellious teenagers who want instant rewards without any responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I too plan to become financially independent, enjoy free time, travel the world, and do what I am passionate about; but I don't agree that the path and mindset promoted in this book is the only way or the best way to get there.

Meh

If everyone lived like this nothing would ever move forward. A bible for anyone who doesn't value actually contributing to society.

The 4-Hour Workweek

Not my cup of tea......couldn't even get through listening to it all. In my opinion so much of this doesn't apply to most of us. If I did some of this stuff he talks about in my position my customers and prospects would quickly find someone else to do business with.