The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Update - Timothy Ferriss [121]
How about doing archaeological excavation in Jordan or tsunami relief on the islands of Thailand? These are just two of the dozens of foreign relocation and volunteering case studies in each issue of Verge Magazine (www.vergemagazine.com). Reader-tested resources include:
Hands on Disaster Response: www.hodr.org
Project Hope: www.projecthope.org
Relief International: www.ri.org
International Relief Teams: www.irteams.org
Airline Ambassadors International: www.airlineamb.org
Ambassadors for Children:
www.ambassadorsforchildren.org
Relief Riders International:
www.reliefridersinternational.com
Habitat for Humanity Global Village Program:
www.habitat.org
Planeta: Global Listings for Practical Ecotourism:
www.planeta.com
4. Revisit and reset dreamlines.
Following the mini-retirement, revisit the dreamlines set in Definition and reset them as needed. The following questions will help:
What are you good at?
What could you be the best at?
What makes you happy?
What excites you?
What makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself?
What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life? Can you repeat this or further develop it?
What do you enjoy sharing or experiencing with other people?
5. Based on the outcomes of steps 1–4, consider testing new part- or full-time vocations.
Full-time work isn’t bad if it’s what you’d rather be doing. This is where we distinguish “work” from a “vocation.”
If you have created a muse or cut your hours down to next to nothing, consider testing a part-time or full-time vocation: a true calling or dream occupation. This is what I did with this book. I can now tell people I’m a writer rather than giving them the two-hour drug dealer explanation. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? Perhaps it’s time to sign up for Space Camp or intern as an assistant to a marine biologist.
Recapturing the excitement of childhood isn’t impossible. In fact, it’s required. There are no more chains—or excuses—to hold you back.
81. Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist famous for proposing “Mas-low’s Hierarchy of Needs,” would term this goal a “peak experience.”
82. There is a place for koans and rhetorical meditative questions, but these tools are optional and outside the scope of this book. Most questions without answers are just poorly worded.
83. Ellen Bialystok and Kenji Hakuta, In Other Words: The Science and Psychology of Second-Language Acquisition (Basic Books, 1995).
The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes
If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.
—FRANK WILCZEK, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics
Ho imparato che niente e impossibile, e anche che quasi niente e facile … (I’ve learned that nothing is impossible, and that almost nothing is easy …)
—ARTICOLO 31 (Italian rap group), “Un Urlo”
Mistake are the name of the game in lifestyle design. It requires fighting impulse after impulse from the old world of retirement-based life deferral. Here are the slipups you will make. Don’t get frustrated. It’s all part of the process.
1. Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work’s sake (W4W) Please reread the introduction and next chapter of this book whenever you feel yourself falling into this trap. Everyone does it, but many get stuck and never get out.
2. Micromanaging and e-mailing to fill time Set the responsibilities, problem scenarios and rules, and limits of autonomous decision-making—then stop, for the sanity of everyone involved.
3. Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handle
4. Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more than once, or with noncrisis problems Give them if-then rules for solving all but the largest problems. Give them the freedom to act without your input, set the limits in writing, and then emphasize in writing that you will not respond to help with problems that are covered by these rules. In my particular