My personnal summary test h1

The 4-Hour Work Week teaches techniques to increase your time and financial freedom giving you more lifestyle options. By automating a passive income and liberating yourself from unproductive tasks you can live the lifestyle of the ‘new rich’ – one defined by having, doing and being what you want. The author, Tim Ferriss, is an absolute genius and someone every entrepreneur or internet marketer should look up to.

First and Foremost

My Story and Why You Need This Book

Much of what I recommend will seem impossible and even offensive to basic common sense—I expect that. Resolve now to test the concepts as an exercise in lateral thinking. If you try it, you’ll see just how deep the rabbit hole goes, and you won’t ever go back.

Here is the step-by-step process you’ll use to reinvent yourself:

  1. D for Definition turns misguided common sense upside down and introduces the rules and objectives of the new game.
  2. E for Elimination kills the obsolete notion of time management once and for all.
  3. A for Automation puts cash flow on autopilot using geographic arbitrage, outsourcing, and rules of nondecision.
  4. L for Liberation is the mobile manifesto for the globally inclined.

Step I: D is for Definition

"Reality is merely an illusion,albeit a very persistent one." — Albert Einstein

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. I call this the “freedom multiplier. Options—the ability to choose—is real power. This book is all about how to see and create those options with the least effort and cost. It just so happens, paradoxically, that you can make more money—a lot more money—by doing half of what you are doing now.

The following rules are the fundamental differentiators to keep in mind throughout this book.

  1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance. Retirement planning is like life insurance. It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario: in this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive.
  2. Interest and Energy Are Cyclical. Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly. The NR aims to distribute “miniretirements” throughout life instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for the fool’s gold of retirement. By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable.
  3. Less Is Not Laziness. Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.
  4. The Timing is Never Right. For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up all the pins either.
  5. Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission. If it isn’t going to devastate those around you, try it and then justify it. People—whether parents, partners, or bosses—deny things on an emotional basis that they can learn to accept after the fact. If the potential damage is moderate or in any way reversible, don’t give people the chance to say no.
  6. Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses. It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become 3 mediocre.
  7. Things in Excess Become Their Opposite. Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want. This is true of possessions and even time.
  8. Money Alone Is Not the Solution. There is much to be said for the power of money as currency (I’m a fan myself), but adding more of it just isn’t the answer as often as we’d like to think.
  9. Relative Income Is More Important Than Absolute Income. Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time, usually hours.
  10. Distress Is Bad, Eustress Is Good. Distress refers to harmful stimuli that make you weaker, less confident, and less able. Destructive criticism, abusive bosses, and smashing your face on a curb are examples of this. Eustress, is positive. Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress—stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

Fear comes in many forms, and we usually don’t call it by its four-letter name. Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial. Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will improve with time or increases in income.

If you are nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of fear of the unknown, here is your antidote:

  1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering.
  2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily?
  3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable scenarios?
  4. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?
  5. What are you putting off out of fear?
  6. What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically—to postpone action?
  7. What are you waiting for?