4 hour workweek pdf download

Simply click any of the direct download buttons below for instant access. If you prefer to read online this book by Timothy Ferriss, then press the ebook reader icon instead. A review of The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, a flawed-but-worthwhile book on business and succeeding in a hostile world. The 4-Hour Workweek. Fast Download speed and ads Free!

The 4-Hour Workweek is a step-by-step guide to getting rid of the misery of an organizational job, starting a business to finance your dream lifestyle and living like a millionaire, without really being one. Follow a simple step-by-step process to revitalize yourself, build the best work, build a business, and live a luxurious life that requires time and dynamism. The new rich NR are those who create beautiful styles using time and movement by delaying their lifestyle.

Author : Timothy Ferriss. Publisher : Crown. Rating : 4. Offers techniques and strategies for increasing income while cutting work time in half, and includes advice for leading a more fulfilling life. Get BOOK. The 4-Hour Work Week. As they paddle back to shore after an awesome session, his clients get ahold of themselves and regain their composure. They set foot on shore, and reality sinks its fangs in: "I would, but I can't really throw it all away. The Power of Pessimism: Defining the Nightmare Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

To try or not to try? Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not. Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows.

Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty. For years, I set goals, made resolutions to change direction, and nothing came of either.

I was just as insecure and scared as the rest of the world. The simple solution came to me accidentally four years ago. I had no time and was working myself to death. I had started my own company, only to realize it would be nearly impossible to sell. I felt trapped and stupid at the same time.

Dodging Bullets 41 I should be able to figure this out, I thought. Why am I such an idiot? Why can't I make this work?! Buckle up and stop being such a insert expletive! What's wrong with me? The truth was, nothing was wrong with me. I hadn't reached my limit; I'd reached the limit of my business model at the time. It wasn't the driver, it was the vehicle. Critical mistakes in its infancy would never let me sell it.

I could hire magic elves and connect my brain to a supercomputer—it didn't matter. My little baby had some serious birth defects. The question then became, How do I free myself from this Frankenstein while making it self-sustaining?

How do I pry myself from the tentacles of workaholism and the fear that it would fall to pieces without my hour days? How do I escape this self-made prison? A trip, I decided. A sabbatical year around the world. So I took the trip, right? Well, I'll get to that. First, I felt it prudent to dance around with my shame, embarrassment, and anger for six months, all the while playing an endless loop of reasons why my cop-out fantasy trip could never work.

One of my more productive periods, for sure. Then, one day, in my bliss of envisioning how bad my future suf- fering would be, I hit upon a gem of an idea. It was surely a highlight of my "don't happy, be worry" phase: Why don't I decide exactly what my nightmare would be—the worst thing that could possibly happen as a result of my trip? Well, my business could fail while I'm overseas, for sure.

Proba- bly would. A legal warning letter would accidentally not get for- warded and I would get sued. My business would be shut down, and inventory would spoil on the shelves while I'm picking my toes in solitary misery on some cold shore in Ireland.

Crying in the rain, I imagine. God, life is a cruel, hard bitch. In my undying quest to make myself miserable, I accidentally began to backpedal. As soon as I cut through the vague unease and ambiguous anxiety by defining my nightmare, the worst-case scenario, I wasn't as worried about taking a trip. Suddenly, I started thinking of simple steps I could take to salvage my remaining resources and get back on track if all hell struck at once.

I could always take a temporary bartending job to pay the rent if I had to. I could sell some furniture and cut back on eating out. I could steal lunch money from the kindergarteners who passed by my apartment every morning. The options were many. I realized it wouldn't be that hard to get back to where I was, let alone survive. None of these things would be fatal—not even close. Mere panty pinches on the journey of life. I realized that on a scale of I-IO, i being nothing and 10 being permanently life-changing, my so-called worst-case scenario might have a temporary impact of 3 or 4.

Keep in mind that this is the one-in-a-million disaster nightmare. On the other hand, if I realized my best- case scenario, or even a probable-case scenario, it would easily have a permanent 9 or 10 positive life-changing effect. This all equated to a significant realization: There was practically no risk, only huge life-changing upside potential, and I could resume my previous course without any more effort than I was already putting forth. That is when I made the decision to take the trip and bought a one-way ticket to Europe.

I started planning my adventures and eliminating my physical and psychological baggage. None of my dis- asters came to pass, and my life has been a near fairy tale since. The business did better than ever, and I practically forgot about it as it financed my travels around the world in style for 15 months.

Uncovering Fear Disguised as Optimism There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh, it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything," and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyway. 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. This seems valid and is a tempting hallucination when a job is boring or uninspiring instead of pure hell.

Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization. Do you really think it will improve or is it wishful thinking and an excuse for inaction? If you were confident in improvement, 6. Generally not. This is fear of the unknown disguised as optimism. Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago? If not, things will not improve by themselves.

If you are kidding yourself, it is time to stop and plan for a jump. Nine to five for your working lifetime of years is a long-ass time if the rescue doesn't come. About months of solid work. How many do you have to go? It's probably time to cut your losses. Someone Call the Mattre D' You have comfort. You don't have luxury. And don't tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money.

It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort. There are hundreds of cars circling a parking lot, and someone pulls out of a spot 10 feet from the entrance just as you reach his or her bumper. Another Christmas miracle! Other times, the timing could be better.

The phone rings during sex and seems to ring for a half hour. The UPS guy shows up 10 minutes later. Bad timing can spoil the fun. Jean-Marc Hachey landed in West Africa as a volunteer, with high hopes of lending a helping hand. In that sense, his timing was great. He arrived in Ghana in the early s, in the middle of a coup d'etat, at the peak of hyperinflation, and just in time for the worst drought in a decade.

For these same reasons, some people would consider his timing quite poor from a more selfish survival standpoint. Dodging Bullets 45 He had also missed the memo. The national menu had changed, and they were out of luxuries like bread and clean water. He would be surviving for four months on a slushlike concoction of corn meal and spinach. Not what most of us would order at the movie theater. After two weeks of adjusting to the breakfast, lunch, and dinner Mush a la Ghana , he had no desire to escape.

The most basic of foods and good friends proved to be the only real necessities, and what would seem like a disaster from the outside was the most life-affirming epiphany he'd ever experienced: The worst really wasn't that bad. To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren't as serious as you make them out to be.

Now 48, Jean-Marc lives in a nice home in Ontario, but could live without it. He has cash, but could fall into poverty tomorrow and it wouldn't matter. Some of his fondest memories still include nothing but friends and gruel. He is dedicated to creating special moments for himself and his family and is utterly unconcerned with retirement.

He's already lived 20 years of partial retirement in perfect health. Don't save it all for the end. There is every reason not to.

Write down your answers, and keep in mind that thinking a lot will not prove as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page.

Write and do not edit—aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears, and "what-ifs" pop up as you consider the big changes you can—or need—to make? Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life? What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of i-io? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?

What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it's easier than you imagine. How could you get things back under control? What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and per- manent, of more probable scenarios? Now that you've defined the nightmare, what are the more probable or definite positive outcomes, whether internal confidence, self-esteem, etc.

What would the impact of these more-likely outcomes be on a scale of ? How likely is it that you could produce at least a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off? If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? Imagine this scenario and run through questions above. If you quit your job to test other options, how could you later get back on the same career track if you absolutely had to?

What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that con- versation, whatever the action might be—it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I'll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice. What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically— to postpone action?

Don't only evaluate the potential downside of action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction. If you don't pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years? How will you feel having allowed circumstance to impose itself upon you and having allowed ten more years of your finite life to pass doing what you know will not fulfill you?

What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the previously rejected concept of good timing, the answer is simple: You're afraid, just like the rest of the world. Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and re- pairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

What other choice did I have? They formed a circle around me, and, while the names differed, the question was one and the same: "What's the challenge? My lecture at Princeton University had just ended with excitement and enthusiasm. At the same time, I knew that most students would go out and promptly do the opposite of what I preached. Most of them would be putting in hour weeks as high-paid coffee fetchers unless I showed that the principles from class could actually be applied.

System Reset 49 Hence the challenge. I was offering a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world to anyone who could complete an undefined "challenge" in the most impressive fashion possible. Results plus style. I told them to meet me after class if interested, and here they were, nearly 20 out of 60 students. The task was designed to test their comfort zones while forcing them to use some of the tactics I teach.

It was simplicity itself: Contact three seemingly impossible-to-reach people—J. Salinger, I don't care—and get at least one to reply to three questions. Of 20 students, all frothing at the mouth to win a free spin across the globe, how many completed the challenge? Not a one. There were many excuses: "It's not that easy to get someone to Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up.

According to the rules I had set, if someone had sent me no more than an illegible one-paragraph response, I would have been obli- gated to give them the prize. This result both fascinated and de- pressed me.

The following year, the outcome was quite different. I told the above cautionary tale and 6 out of 17 finished the chal- lenge in less than 48 hours. Was the second class better?

In fact, there were more capable students in the first class, but they did nothing. Firepower up the wazoo and no trigger finger. The second group just embraced what I told them before they started, which was It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time-and energy-consuming.

It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s. If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason. Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribu- lations that go along with any goal.

Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel.

If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your ef- fort. I'll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands, but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio. If I choose the latter because it is "realis- tic," I won't have the enthusiasm to jump even the smallest hurdle to accomplish it.

With beautiful, crystal-clear Greek waters and deli- cious wine on the brain, I'm prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their difficulty of achievement on a scale of appears to be a 10 and a 2 respectively, Columbus is more likely to fall through. System Reset 51 The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecu- rity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits.

There is just less competition for bigger goals. Doing big things begins with asking for them properly. What Do You Want? I don't know what I want. If you ask me what I want to do in the next five months for language learning, on the other hand, I do know.

It's a matter of specificity. Forget about it. To rephrase the question, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Let's assume we have 10 goals and we achieve them—what is the desired outcome that makes all the effort worthwhile? The most common response is what I also would have suggested five years ago: happiness. I no longer believe this is a good answer. Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse.

There is a more precise alternative that reflects what I believe the actual objective is. Bear with me. What is the opposite of happiness? Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is—here's the clincher—boredom. Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase.

It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your "passion" or your "bliss," I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement. This brings us full circle. Life isn't like the movies. If you're five years old and say you want to be an astronaut, your parents tell you that you can be anything you want to be. It's harm- less, like telling a child that Santa Claus exists.

If you're 25 and an- nounce you want to start a new circus, the response is different: Be realistic; become a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor, have babies, and raise them to repeat the cycle.

If you do manage to ignore the doubters and start your own business, for example, ADD doesn't disappear. It just takes a dif- ferent form. It was to be an auto- mated source of cash flow. If you look at my chronology, it is obvi- ous that this didn't happen until a meltdown forced it, despite the requisite income.

The goal wasn't specific enough. I hadn't defined alternate activities that would replace the initial workload. Therefore, I just continued working, even though there was no fi- nancial need.

I needed to feel productive and had no other vehicles. This is how most people work until death: "I'll just work until I have X dollars and then do what I want. This is when both employees and entrepreneurs become fat men inredBMWs. I simply looked at those who were years ahead of me on the same track, whether a director of sales or an entrepreneur in the same industry, and it scared the hell out of me.

It was such an acute phobia, and such a perfect metaphor for the sum of all fears, that it became a pattern interrupt between myself and fellow lifestyle designer and entrepreneur Douglas Price.

Doug and I traveled parallel paths for nearly five years, facing the same challenges and self-doubt and thus keeping a close psychological eye on each other. Our down periods seem to alternate, making us a good team. Whenever one of us began to set our sights lower, lose faith, or "accept reality," the other would chime in via phone or e-mail like an AA sponsor: "Dude, are you turning into the bald fat man in the red BMW convertible?

The worst that could happen wasn't crashing and burning, it was accept- ing terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo. Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract "failure. In some form or another, it is the same process used by the most impressive NR I have met around the world: dreamlining. Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most would consider dreams. The goals shift from ambiguous wants to defined steps.

The goals have to be unrealistic to be effective. It focuses on activities that will fill the vacuum created when work is removed. Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things and not just owning enviable things. Now it's your turn to think big. The harder it is, the more you need it. To save time, I recommend using the automatic calculators and forms at www. Refer to the model worksheet on page 57 as you complete the following steps: 1.

What would you do if there were no way you could fail? If you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world? Create two timelines—6 months and 12 months—and list up to five things you dream of having including, but not limited to, material wants: house, car, clothing, etc.

Do not limit yourself, and do not concern yourself with how these things will be accomplished. For now, it's unim- portant. This is an exercise in reversing repression. Be sure not to judge or fool yourself.

If you really want a Fer- rari, don't put down solving world hunger out of guilt. For some, the dream will be fame, for others fortune or prestige. All people have their vices and insecurities. If something will improve your feeling of self-worth, put it down.

I have a racing motorcycle, and quite apart from the fact that I love speed, it just makes me feel like a cool dude. There is nothing wrong with that. Put it all down. Drawing a blank? For all their bitching about what's holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they're being held from. This is particularly true with the "doing" category. In that case, consider these questions: a. What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day?

Don't rush—think about it for a few minutes. If still blocked, fill in the five "doing" spots with the following: one place to visit one thing to do before you die a memory of a lifetime one thing to do daily one thing to do weekly one thing you've always wanted to learn 3.

What does "being" entail doing? Convert each "being" into a "doing" to make it actionable. Iden- tify an action that would characterize this state of being or a task that would mean you had achieved it.

People find it easier to brainstorm "being" first, but this column is just a temporary holding spot for "doing" actions. What are the four dreams that would change it all? Repeat the process with the month timeline if desired. If financeable, what is the cost per month for each of the four dreams rent, mortgage, payment plan installments, etc. Start thinking of income and expense in terms of monthly cash flow— dollars in and dollars out—instead of grand totals.

Things often cost much, much less than expected. For some of these costs, the Tools and Tricks at the end of Chapter 14 will help. This is how to do it: First, total each of the col- umns A, B, and C, counting only the four selected dreams. Some of these column totals could be zero, which is fine. Next, add your total monthly expenses x 1. This grand total is your TMI and the target to keep in mind for the rest of the book.

I find it easier to work with a daily goal. Online calculators on our companion site do all the work for you and make this step a cinch. Go Board from s 2. Personal assistant 3. Poft bullet-point job IN I. Questions to five 2. Jiave minute 4. Take testdrive 3 OF: 5. Choose top 1 for 10 hrs- per Week 4. Send intern recruitment e-mail to 5. OF: 2.

System Reset 59 Chances are that the figure is lower than expected, and it often decreases over time as you trade more and more "having" for once-in-a-lifetime "doing. Even if the total is intimidating, don't fret in the least.

Determine three steps for each of the four dreams in just the 6- month timeline and take the first step now. I'm not a big believer in long-term planning and far-off goals. In fact, I generally set 3- month and 6-month dreamlines.

The variables change too much and in-the-future distance becomes an excuse for postponing action. The objective of this exercise isn't, therefore, to outline every step from start to finish, but to define the end goal, the required vehicle to achieve them TMI, TDI , and build momentum with critical first steps.

From that point, it's a matter of freeing time and generating the TMI, which the following chapters cover. First, let's focus on those critical first steps. Define three steps for each dream that will get you closer to its actualization.

Set actions—simple, well-defined actions—for now, tomorrow complete before 11 A. Once you have three steps for each of the four goals, complete the three actions in the "now" column. Do it now. Each should be simple enough to do in five minutes or less. If not, rachet it down.

If it's the middle of the night and you can't call someone, do something else now, such as send an e-mail, and set the call for first thing tomorrow. If the next stage is some form of research, get in touch with someone who knows the answer instead of spending too much time in books or online, which can turn into paralysis by analysis.

It's not hard. Other options include setting a meeting or phone call with a trainer, mentor, or salesperson to build momentum. Can you schedule a private class or a commitment that you'll feel bad about canceling? Use guilt to your advantage. Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now! Fortunately, it is possible to condition yourself to discomfort and overcome it. I've trained myself to propose solutions instead of ask for them, to elicit desired responses instead of react, and to be assertive without burning bridges.

To have an uncommon lifestyle, you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others. From this chapter forward, I'll take you through progressively more uncomfortable exercises, simple and small. Some of the exer- cises will appear deceptively easy and even irrelevant such as the next until you try them. Look at it as a game and expect some butter- flies and sweat—that's the whole point. For most of these exercises, the duration is two days.

Mark the exercise of the day on your calen- dar so you don't forget, and don't attempt more than one Comfort Challenge at a time. Remember: There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want. Here we go. It involves gazing into the eyes of each partner for three minutes at a time. If you go to such an event, it becomes clear how uncomfortable most people are doing this. For the next two days, practice gazing into the eyes of others— whether people you pass on the street or conversational partners— until they break contact.

Hints: i. Focus on one eye and be sure to blink occasionally so you don't look like a psychopath or get your ass kicked. In conversation, maintain eye contact when you are speaking. It's easy to do while listening. Practice with people bigger or more confident than yourself. If a passerby asks you what the hell you're staring at, just smile and respond, "Sorry about that. I thought you were an old friend of mine. It is not daily increase but daily decrease.

The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. In the strictest sense, you shouldn't be trying to do more in each day, trying to fill every second with a work fidget of some type. It took me a long time to figure this out.

I used to be very fond of the results-by-volume approach. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

The options are almost limitless for creating "busyness": You could call a few hundred unqualified sales leads, reorganize your Outlook contacts, walk across the office to request documents you don't really need, or fuss with your BlackBerry for a few hours when you should be prioritizing.