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

Timothy Ferriss (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (956 customer reviews)

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The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content. The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content. 4.8 out of 5 stars (997)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"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, Co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul®, 100+ million copies sold

"This is a whole new ball game.  Highly recommended."
—Dr. Stewart D. Friedman, Adviser to Jack Welch and Former Vice President Al Gore on Work/Family Issues Director of the Work/Life Integration Project, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"Stunning and amazing. From mini-retirements to outsourcing your life,
it's all here. Whether you're a wage slave or a Fortune 500 CEO, this
book will change your life!"
—Phil Town, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Rule #1

"The 4-Hour Workweek is a new way of solving a very old problem: just how can we work to live and prevent our lives from being all about work?  A world of infinite options awaits those who would read this book and be inspired by it!"  
—Michael E. Gerber, Founder & Chairman of E-Myth Worldwide and the World's #1 Small Business Guru

“Timothy has packed more lives into his 29 years than Steve Jobs has in his 51.”
—Tom Foremski, Journalist and Publisher of SiliconValleyWatcher.com

“Thanks to Tim Ferriss, I have more time in my life to travel, spend time with family and write book blurbs. This is a dazzling and highly useful
work.”
—A.J. Jacobs, Editor-at-Large, Esquire Magazine, Author of The Know-It-All

"If you want to live life on your own terms, this is your blueprint."
—Mike Maples, Co-founder of Motive Communications (IPO to $260M market cap), Founding Executive of Tivoli (sold to IBM for $750M)

"Tim is Indiana Jones for the digital age. I've already used his advice to go spearfishing on remote islands and ski ... --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Description

What do you do? Tim Ferriss has trouble answering the question. Depending on when you ask this
controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer:

“I race motorcycles in Europe.”
“I ski in the Andes.”
“I scuba dive in Panama.”
“I dance tango in Buenos Aires.”

He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the “deferred-life plan” and instead mastered the new currencies—time and mobility—to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now.

Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world. Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:

• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"
• What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income
• How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it’s beyond repair
• What automated cash-flow “muses” are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks
• How to cultivate selective ignorance—and create time—with a low-information diet
• What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are
• How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50–80% off
• How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office

You can have it all—really.
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Crown Archetype; 1st, First Edition edition (April 24, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307353133
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307353139
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (956 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
    #18 in  Books > Business & Investing > Job Hunting & Careers
    #12 in  Books > Business & Investing > Business Life > Motivation & Self-Improvement
    #42 in  Books > Health, Mind & Body > Self-Help > Success

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More About the Author

Timothy Ferriss
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Customer Reviews

956 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (956 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2,018 of 2,208 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars For Sale: One Bridge in Brooklyn --EZ Payments, June 12, 2007
By Student (Northridge) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Hardcover)
Well,

Where to begin? I actually had fun reading this book, to be honest. It is, if nothing else, a bit inspirational and motivational. To the author's credit he has (and I have emphasized this before) come up with a catchy title and gimick to sell you a book--good for him. What's inside, though, are things that you can find better handled by other authors in other books.

In the first part of the book one can't help notice what a great guy the author is. We notice this becasuse he tells us. We are to believe that he has gone through the Hero's Journey and back again before his late 20's. Now, dear reader, he has distilled the fruits of his vast experience and wisdom into this little gem. Read it, and you will never have to work again. Just be sure to purchase with the 8 minute ab workout.

We get a lesson on the Pareto Principle. If you have never heard of the Pareto Priciple before (otherwise known as the 80/20 rule) you should go back to junior high. BTW, Brian Tracy has discussed this principle and its implications ad nauseum. The author would have us believe that he personally redicovered in some forgotton tome (probably while motorcycle kung-fu rock climbing in Bora Bora--between kendo lessons) and was just about the first to ever apply it to his life.

Later in the book we get some basic info (all easily found in more detail in other books) about starting a web business, outsourcing your workload, etc.

I can appreciate some of this as I had a web business for several years. This section of the book is an interesting read, but little more. If anything, maybe it will inspire someone else to get started on their own enterprise. And that's perfectly fine. If the author accomplishes this, then good. After all, I don't necessarily think that he's a bad guy, just a shameless self promoter and a bit of a charlatan.

Authors such as Ferriss are common: someone falls a** backwards into a relatively easy existence and then decides that they are experts and proceeds to seel their "secret" to success to everyone else--which helps them get REALLY successful. But here's the deal: One hit wonders are not experts. When you've started 4 or 5 businesses and grown each of them to the point where they are self sufficient, THEN you can call yourself an expert. Striking it lucky one time in stocks, real estate during a bubble, or starting one business do not constitute experience.

In the end, I think that the author does his readers a bit of a disservice by telling them that work is not necessary to be financially successful. I have known both success and failure. I have seen others go, literally, from rags to riches (and sometimes back again). Over the years I guess I have given this subject some thought. My conclusion is that you will not get there (wherever "there" may be for you) by working four hours per week. Vision, hard work, and persistence are the 3 main "secret" ingredients for success. Just as exercise and eating right are necessary to be in shape. But telling people this doesn't sell books.

P.S. Can't help noticing how many 5 star reviews there are for this book from people who have only written one review. Hmmm...

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498 of 584 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars 21st Century Snake-Oil Salesman, May 15, 2007
This review is from: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Hardcover)
First, I have to say that I was very enthusiastic about the first part of this book, as Tim suggests that people should consider other ways of living their life instead of working hard toward an eventual retirement. But later I realized after reading the book that the "live your life now, don't wait until later" concept is not new, and has been preached by everyone from philosophers to life coaches for decades now. [...].

Second, while the advice he has for people who already have a business is good (automating certain administrative tasks, checking e-mail less frequently even if you think your world might end if you do that), the ideas he dishes out to would-be entrepreneurs is much more troubling. Specifically product development, which he labels "finding a muse", could mislead some people into believing that you can make an instant-business every month with the help of affiliate marketers, drop shippers, and faking credibility (just check the forums on the book's website). Many things he suggests doing just contributes to the amount of crap we see every day on the internet and in infomercials, and probably isn't a very rewarding way for an entrepreneur to live their life or make their money. It's the equivalent of a how-to-become a 21st century snake oil salesman.

Finally, I know there is a lot of criticism about his ideas on outsourcing tasks, but we live in an outsourced world. The shirt your wearing was made in Indonesia, your fruits and vegetables were picked by migrant workers from Mexico, and your computer that you're reading this from right now was manufactured in China. Adjusted for the cost of living, the Indonesians, Chinese, and Indians make a good amount of money doing what they do to live the "middle-class" versions of their lives in their respective countries, just as you do mundane tasks and get paid much less than corporate shareholders to live the middle-class life in your own country. So don't talk about outsourcing as if it's a bad thing, cause if I can pay Jimmy down the street to mow my lawn for less than a landscaping service, he's gonna get that ten dollars so I can have the extra cash to buy Tim's book and waste time writing a bad review of it on Amazon.
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3,092 of 3,664 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Get-rich-quick guide for the shallow, May 11, 2007
This review is from: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Hardcover)
Reading this book is not a total waste of time and money, but pretty close. If you must, I recommend getting this one from the local library to at least eliminate the financial loss.

To be fair, the first 100 pages is a readable autobiographical reminder of an often preached but rarely practiced warning. Life is short. Do not spend every day in a job you hate to buy things you do not need. The author recommends reading Walden. Thoreau, the classic American minimalist, covered all the same material far more eloquently 150 years ago. So why not read Thoreau instead? Good question.

The rest of the book is essentially a money making plan for white collar workers who hate their jobs. If Mr. Ferriss had restricted this book to a discussion of how to eliminate unproductive efforts from the workplace and shorten the workweek for everyone, he could have written a much briefer and significant book. Instead, he starts with the premise that regular jobs are bad and instead you should start an online company that sells anything that will make money and then outsource every function so that you, as the owner, will not have to do anything.

I have two major concerns at this point:

1. If you are as smart and well-prepared as Mr. Ferris, there is money to be made using his strategy. But the same could be said for the stock market, real estate, or various other methods by which many people lose their shirts.

2. If everyone outsources their work, who is left to do the work? If all the farmers, doctors, and garbage collectors followed the advice in this book, eventually, we would all be starving, sick, and sitting in our own waste. The jet-set lifestyle enjoyed by the author only works because others are actually willing to work. Until robots can run the world, the ethical implication is that it is OK for some people to work, just not Mr. Ferriss or his readers.

Finally, throughout the book Mr. Ferris keeps referring to the New Rich. Despite all his attempts at creating a new paradigm, it appears that the only difference between the New Rich and the Old Rich is that the old rich are capitalists that actually produce things that society needs, such as railroads and software, while the new rich sell things like unregulated nutritional supplements.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Glean what you can apply in your own life
Like the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, this book caters to those who dream to escape the drudgery of the daily grind and make an easy living. Read more
Published 4 days ago by mukundtn

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Theory, Not Sure it ALL Practical
Tim has a zest and flair for living, no doubt. He has done - or at least written about - what we all would like to do: work as little as possible, and spend the rest of your time... Read more
Published 26 days ago by Jim

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting ideas but some very fishy ideas as well
First of all, I would like to mention that the good part of this book is that if you have a product idea, the author removes some of the mental blocks in terms of starting your... Read more
Published 1 month ago by checkit

5.0 out of 5 stars This IS a realistic path
The Four Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
by Timothy Ferriss Review by Master Coach Sherry Prindle

More practical than you might... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sherry Prindle

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Changing
This book has changed the way I view life and what I want to do with it. If you want to leverage a career that allows you to what you want, where you want, when you want, then... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Tony

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 hour review
Enjoyed the book. It was inspirational and opened the box around my thinking. The author's idea of building self perpetuating businesses that take care of themselves is a great... Read more
Published 1 month ago by James F. Murray

5.0 out of 5 stars Tim is a Genius
I agree with the many, many 5-star reviews. This book is terrific. What I'm most impressed with is that Tim takes all conventional thinking and questions it unveiling its... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Liquessence

1.0 out of 5 stars No How in this To
Read the ad blurbs under product info. That's the book only more pages by the author. Wonder how much he made blurbing himself and his rock and roll lifestyle?
Published 2 months ago by Zutron

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking outside the box
I love this for it's ability to show readers another way in life. What an interesting man with an interesting story with a message.
Published 2 months ago by J. Daubney

5.0 out of 5 stars A revelation!
For everyone who likes to do whatever he likes with his life: thís is what no one teaches you at school. Read more
Published 2 months ago by F. Goossens

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