Book Review | The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

I follow a lot of people online who have raved about and other who have hated the 4 hour workweek. People who love it will claim that it was the catalyst for them starting an entrepreneurial journey or a remote lifestyle. Detractors say that it’s not practical advice for the average person (try telling your boss you’re working remote next week see how it goes) or that it’s more marketing hype than truth.

As with much of life the truth is somewhere in the middle. Can you go from Chipotle cashier to working remotely on your SAAS business in 6 months? Gonna be tough. Do a lot of the claims seem outlandish or too good to be true – yes.

However, I haven’t heard of anyone who took the advice and has had bad results (part of a larger problem that deserves its own discussion of how most readers of self help / business books myself included don’t implement much of what they learn and instead just read more self help / business books). And there’s a reason that it’s the most highlighted book on Amazon.

It can be uncomfortable to hear about all the things you could be doing to succeed or achieve the things you want (especially when the author is telling you he’s done it and kind of sounds like an asshole bragging about it). When I was younger I would freak out at my parents and other people who would try to give me advice – even when they were really nice about it.

While some of this book seems like slimy marketing hype, I’m going to ignore those parts and assume based on the countless hours of Tim Ferriss content I’ve consumed that he’s a good guy who means well and is trying to empower people to think outside the box and design better lives for themselves.

This is one where I don’t recommend the audiobook (I’ll be picking up a physical copy to page through later) because there’s so much content that you can’t implement right away. It’s also frustrating to hear him plug four hour blog (that no longer exists – now tim.blog and is difficult to navigate) and other technology solutions that don’t exist or are obsolete (is blackberry still in business?)

Pick up a copy.
Check your ego.
Learn what you can.
Implement what you learn.
???
Profit (probably).