The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Update - Timothy Ferriss [145]
As the recession and economy worsened, my business picked up because it was counter-cyclical—anything that helps people find jobs is in huge demand in a poor economy. I’ve since helped scores of laid-off bankers and other financiers find work elsewhere. However, I was also starting to work a lot more because I was effectively trading time for money … so over the fall I started to work on my original product idea—my interview guide—and released it to great success later in 2008.
It has gone on to free up a ton of time, double my revenues, and put the majority of my income on autopilot. If I didn’t do any further work from this point onward, I could make 2–3x my previous monthly income simply by writing once or twice a week for my site (4–5 hours) and doing limited consulting on the side (10 hours). So you could say I’ve increased my income almost 3x while reducing my hours 6x-9x and making myself completely mobile.
I admit that often I do “work” more than this, but it’s all on related educational projects that I want to work on, not anything that I have to work on. And if I don’t feel like working one week, I can reduce my hours to the 5–15 hour range and spend my time on learning languages, sports, or traveling to exotic destinations.
This setup allowed me to take an amazing trip to China, Singapore, Thailand, and Korea in December-January and get in some ridiculous adventures. I’ll be moving to Asia in a few months and after that, traveling the world indefinitely while running my business from coffee shops.
Incidentally, I met up with a lot of customers in Asia who thought this was the coolest thing ever!
Your book has changed my life and infinitely improved my lifestyle, and I just wanted to thank you for everything.
—B. DECHESARE
WHO SAYS KIDS HOLD YOU BACK?
My first action was to think “what is the worst that can happen on a scale of 1–10” if I quit my well-paid, very secure government job? The power of this thought process is incredible.
I quit my job, sold my house, and went camping for three months with two kids under two and a half and a pregnant wife (mini-retirement). We (very slowly) drove the SE coast of Australia from Sydney to Adelaide.
With the complete clarity of mind that comes from being in a field with your family with no immediate worries, I put into action a plan that I had been tinkering with for 12 months. I bought a wireless Internet dongle and created an info product for electrical engineers, and wrote some software to go with it.
Managed this by (a) going on info diet, (b) working 9 p.m.-midnight in a campsite with no other distractions, (c) outsourcing everything that I would find difficult or time consuming (like the tricky programming stuff and the illustrations for my book).
After about four weeks I had an automated informational website that had replaced ½ of my full-time income—requiring > four hours per week to maintain.
The original plan was to arrive in Adelaide and get a J.O.B. But with my passive income, I decided to simply grow my new business and am currently very close to replacing 100% of my previous income. It feels f&*#ing brilliant.
Now we plan to travel the world slowly until the kids are ready for primary school…
Who says kids hold you back?! —FINN
WORKING REMOTELY
One month and one year ago, I read 4HWW on the recommendation of my sister’s boyfriend after I had been talking for months about changing my life drastically and moving to Argentina to learn Castellano. After reading the book I stopped talking about my dreams and immediately started setting short-term and long-term goals. I bought a notebook to track my monthly goals and tasks. I did lots of research on potential remote working situations and I started telling