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The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

At the time, having a 9-5 job and hoping to one day retire was the paradigm that I was operating from. It's what I was sold by society, and I didn't know any better. The 4 Hour Work Week really opened me up and shifted my way of thinking. I was deeply inspired by Tim Ferriss' lifestyle of having the ability to travel the world and focus on doing the things he loved, while only having to work 4 hours a week.  How is this possible?  Isn't that a dream come true for most people?  It's definitely a reality, and I've been very fortunate and having achieved it for certain stages of my life years after reading the book.

(Click here to watch the video on YouTube)

The book is all about how to “Escape the 9 to 5, live anywhere, and join the new rich.”

Most people spend their entire lives WORKING and looking forward to retirement, which is when they'll finally get the opportunity to travel and be free to do the things they really want in life. Whereas Tim believes that retirement isn't the goal, but rather we should LIVE and ENJOY our lives today.

That'd be great, except most people live in the cultural hypnosis that we need to work 40+ hours per week to be successful and wealthy. Or that we need to go to college or university and then afterwards find a job and work until we're 60 until retirement.

Instead, Tim Ferriss proposes that “the New Rich aims to distribute ‘mini-retirements' throughout life instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for the fool's gold of retirement.“  When he says “mini-retirements”, he means taking the time to do the things that are IMPORTANT to you – whether it be travel or learning a new skill or hobby (tango, fighting, whatever).

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.”

In The 4 Hour Work Week, Tim talks a lot about focusing on being productive instead of busy. Most people allow meaningless tasks and chores to consume all of their time and energy. Instead, there's a better solution: Outsourcing.

The concept of outsourcing, which is talked about in the chapter Outsourcing Life was an intriguing one to me. Instead of doing all of those time-consuming tasks yourself, what if you could get someone else to do them for you? Wouldn't that be nice. The idea of outsourcing is to hire other people to take care of those things for you, so that you have more free time. And who doesn't want more free time?

Hiring a virtual assistant from India, Phillipines, or anywhere else in the world for as little as $3/hour, can do the following for you:

• Scheduling interviews and meetings
• Web research
• Following up on appointments, errands, and tasks
• Online purchases
• Creation of legal documents
• Website maintenance (web design, publishing, uploading files) that doesn't require a professional designer
• Monitoring, editing, and publishing comments for online discussions
• Posting job vacancies on the web
• Document creation
• Proofreading and editing documents for spelling and formatting
• Online research for updating blogs
• Updating the database for Customer Relationship Management Software
• Updating invoices and receiving payments
• Voicemail transcription

… And basically whatever else you can possibly think of.

In fact, Tim Ferriss even outsourced his dating life and has different assistants to handle practically every aspect of his business. To me, this was fascinating at the time and a huge game-changer. There were tons of things that I did for business that wasn't directly related to making profit, but had to get done. I started to think, “What if I could focus my time and attention on the things that MATTER and are IMPORTANT to me, and the things that actually produce the RESULTS, rather than consuming all my time with all this other nonsense?”  That made a lot of sense to me.

Since reading The 4 Hour Work Week, over the years I've had several virtual assistants that I've hired from websites such as oDesk.com.  I've had virtual assistants from India and the Philippines (I currently employ a VA from the Phillipines and it's worked out beautifully) for as little as $2-3/hour.  I also use websites such as Fiverr.com to leverage myself and get many tasks done for my business for only $5.  This has allowed me to leverage myself in so many ways and have my internet businesses run on auto-pilot, making me a consistent passive income.  And with this consistent passive income, I've been able to have the freedom to travel to and live in different countries around the world, while only being required to work less than 4 hours a week.

Another thing that I really liked about The 4 Hour Work Week is the “How To” approach with everything. Almost every chapter of the book is concluded with a “Comfort Challenge” or “Questions & Actions”, or a variety of different resources. This makes the advice and information easily applicable and very practical. You can put things into action immediately.

In fact, Tim tells you in-detail almost how to do everything.

An important section of the book is on creating Automated Income, which is how to create and set up a product to sell online which can generate passive income while you're asleep. And Tim actually goes through the simple process with you, showing you how you can do it for yourself.

Imagine being able to quit your job, have an automated income and cashflow managed by virtual assistants, giving you the freedom and time to do whatever it is that you want in life. Sounds really cool, huh?

That's the life of Tim Ferriss. He travels the world, is a New York Times bestselling author, speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, and has been a world record holder in tango, a national champion in Chinese kickboxing, and an actor on a hit television series in Hong Kong. And he's only thirty years old.

The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss is an outstanding book. There's a lot of ideas and aspects that I got from the book that I was able to apply to my own life that has made me more effective and productive, freeing up a lot more time and also ways to generate automated income for myself.

Here is a cool summary of The Four Hour Work Week with Tim Ferriss that I found on YouTube:

(Click here to watch the video on YouTube)

The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss is a must-read for anyone that is looking to achieve a lifestyle of freedom.  I couldn't imagine going through life without this book, and I'm so grateful for the opportunities it's provided for me in my life. The book will really open up your mind to the possibilities in your life and give you some practical steps on how you can get more from your life.  You can get your copy at Amazon.com by clicking here.

The post Tim Ferriss – The 4 Hour Work Week Book Review appeared first on Project Life Mastery.

I realized that I could experience so much more joy, happiness, and passion in my life.  And whenever I feel I could have MORE of something in my life, I always seek out books and resources that can provide that for me.  This book has shifted my focus in a major way and I was blown away by the impact it's had on my life.

Since reading The Practice of Happiness, I've felt EXTRAORDINARY each day.  Its simple principles and lessons really opened my mind and changed the way I think.  A lot of it is stuff I would say to myself, “I already know that!”, but there is a major difference between knowing and DOING.

John Kehoe shares his profound knowledge and experiences traveling the world – to India, South America, Asia – and shares all the lessons and secrets that he learned on his path to happiness, along with following some of the worlds greatest spiritual leaders.

John reveals a powerful lesson that he learned from someone along his journey, which is “the secret to happiness”.

And ultimately, what it comes down to is…

“If you want to be happy… be happy.”

And it's as simple as that!  Happiness is a choice.

If you want to be happy, look at your life and find reasons to be happy. And if you want to be unhappy, you can find many reasons to be unhappy and focus on them.

Happiness exists within.

And YOU are the catalyst of your own happiness.

Each moment of your life is an opportunity to experience happiness, joy, gratitude, or passion.  Each moment, each day is to be celebrated and honored.

Another profound concept from The Practice of Happiness, is…

“We can never be happy in the past or future, we can only be happy right now.”

John Kehoe talks about how NOW is where our life happens.

It is a mistake to put off being happy.  And most of us live under the illusion that “one day I will be happy”, which is a lie that we tell ourselves. The truth is, for every desire you fulfill, more desires will come and take its place.

Happiness comes from embracing the journey and appreciating our life here and now.

Another powerful belief I got from John Kehoe in the Practice of Happiness, is to operate on the premise that ehings are going to work out, and they usually do.  To trust life and trust the process.  Believe that everything will happen for a reason and is there to serve us.

The book is also full of many inspirational, thought-provoking quotes, such as:

“Life will always support you when you surrender to the mystery of it.”

“It is not until the later stages of our life that we look back and see that everything had a purpose and meaning” ~ Joseph Campbell

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.” ~ teachings of Don Juan

“The opportunity to become who we want lies in this very moments behaviour.” ~ David Reynolds

“Unless ye become as little children ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” ~ The Bible

“Nothing is more therepeutic than a good laugh.” ~ Dr. Bernard Jensen

“Our life is a constant journey. Our journey consists of constant ups and downs, hope and fear, but it is a good journey.” ~ Chogyam Trungpa

These are just some of the few quotes that I wrote down from the book.

It's an incredible book – a quick read, but something that will stick with you for awhile.

I highly recommend The Practice of Happiness by John Kehoe.

I love reading, and will continue on sharing reviews of the other books and programs that I'm reading on a continual basis.  This will be an important part of the blog!

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