Do You Really Want A 4 Hour Work Week?
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 12:56 PM 
About a year ago I heard about the book The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. First I was skeptical, then intrigued, and finally I read it. You should look beyond the sensational title (he claims he originally wanted to call it Drug Dealing For Fun And Profits) and get the gist of it. Look through the hype and listen to some good advice. That is if this is what you really want. Is it? It seems like a dream to do little work and live life as you want it most of the time. For me it proved to be not exactly what I wanted, or more precisely not anymore.
Let me explain. As I read the book I thought to myself - this is kind of the way I live my life. I have built my businesses as systems that work without me for long periods of time. I did that starting in 1993 and from 1996 I have been living a very fulfilling life doing stuff I like. And I like to do lots of things: business, technology, photography, cooking, wine, magic, mentalism and TV consulting to name a few. For years my family and I divided our time between two countries, living half of the year abroad, while my businesses were still running and providing for us the means to do it. So reading the book made me feel quite satisfied. Here I was living the life of the "new rich" as Tim called it. I have made the decision a long time ago that my time was more valuable right now and used it to enjoy life and do what excited me.
Recently Tim has released his updated version of the book and I started reading it. This got me thinking and I realized I did not want to do this anymore. I did not want to "not work" so much and so hard. You see, I have being doing it for the past 15 years and it was and still is a great way to live. Don't get me wrong, I would not want to start a 9 to 5 job. Waht I do want is to do something I can sink my teeth into and commit myself to in a different manner than what you can do when you are jumping from one subject to the other. What I want to do is build my personal brand. I did do a couple of things very seriously and achieved a lot in them, but in none did I commit myself fully and publicly. I think I wanted to keep my "freedom" a little too much. Now I think I am ready for a different approach. I want to put myself out there and today's tools allow you to do it like never before.
Here is where Gary Vaynerchuk comes into the picture (though he is not aware of it - yet ;). I stumbled upon him because I love wine. He is a character doing exactly what I am talking about: being fully out there, using the tools available and committing himself to it. You might not like his style or even him personally (I think he is great and full of energy) but you have to respect his openness, commitment and drive. He has built a personal brand and went in the opposite direction from The 4 Hour Work Week (although he seems to be trying to go in different directions now and I am wondering how long before he has to have someone else replace him in WineLibrary TV). He does not outsource everything, instead he works hours upon hours every day building and keeping his personal brand. Now I'm not sure I want to go to such extremes and its still hard for me to decide what field should I build my personal brand in (maybe I should just follow him and do the wine thing here in Hungary - hey Gary care to help me do WineLibrary TV here in Hungary?), but I know I want to be more out there, more exposed, interacting with others online and offline, instead of doing it all from behind the scenes.
I realize that most would love to have the opportunity to do just what I have been doing for a large part of my adult life, but I give you this to consider: will you be truely happy doing the 4 Hour Work Week lifestyle?
I think for me its time for a change. What would you do?
Reader Comments (7)
Shalom,
I am reading "The 4 Hour Work Week" since a few days. So it's interesting that you come up with this topic right now.
I thinks Ferris' concept is great and really works. But I am with you. For me work should be passion and not only money machine.
Greetz
Mathias
Hi Mathias,
Glad to hear we are on the same wavelength :)
Haim
Hy Haim!
I"m glad reading this article in your blog, what i've just discovered. Nice!
bests
Hi Kolos,
Thanks for your kind comment.
Keep reading :)
Haim
Cool, I actually learned a lot from this post.
You make some great points, Haim. It's important to really look at what it is that makes YOU happy and not just follow the path of another person. For some people it's a 4 hour work week, for others, something very different. I don't normally push my own stuff in other people's comments but your post is very much related to one I did last week called, "How Lifestyle Design Could Make you Really Unhappy and 5 Ways to Design a Happier Life". I look at some of the science of happiness and how it relates to Tim Ferriss' stuff. You can find it at http://www.nunomad.com/blog/how-lifestyle-design-could-make-you-really-unhappy-5-ways-to-design-a-happier-life/
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