This is a follow-up to the first post on Four Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss, which can be found [here].
As I drove through the mountains between Fort Apache and Phoenix for the first half of this audiobook, I literally did a fist pump as the narrator described my own principles back to me. I also wondered if he wasn’t a long lost brother?
Then, everyone warned me that Timothy Ferriss is an #$*hole. In real life and in writing. I laughed. Of COURSE someone I admire for being straight-forward and decisive is generally perceived as a jerk.
Overall
I really don’t have an opinion on him, though. To each his own. My own “hyper-efficiency” leaves me prone to treat people rudely and since my number one goal in life currently (and until death) is to be truly present with people and to connect deeply with others, I am suspicious of many of his processes. Anything that takes the humanity out of an experience is dangerous.
Other than that, Ferriss and I are on the same page about many things. I nearly gave myself whiplash nodding as he spoke about how people use their children as excuses. I do not plan to make my children, whenever they come into my life, an excuse to avoid living (or traveling).
Takeaways
I practiced many of the exercises described in the book that I had not already considered. This included gazing, eliminating multi-tasking and distractions, and a total media embargo. (Can we all agree that The NBA Playoffs are so NOT “media”?) I found the gazing so compelling that I read “The Power of Eye Contact” in the middle of it all. I’ve already “sneezed” the book onto other people who are passing it around like a bowl of candy on Halloween. Beg, borrow, steal it if you have to. Oh and don’t judge me if my eye contact lingers fondly on your own.
The book itself is suited for a very specific group of people. The kind of work I do, the kind of work I love, is time-consuming and creative. It can be disciplined and it can be simplified, but it cannot be put on cruise control for alternate pursuits, such as world travel.
The work I do can be mobile, though, and I will make it so now while I have the time and energy to do so.
Final Thoughts
I finally finished 4HWW last weekend while driving to California. And by finish I of course mean fast forwarded through a ridiculously large amount of content that was of little use to me. You see, the author himself follows the same ruthless rule of reading that I do: if it does not engage, interest or benefit me, I put the book down. In this case, I stopped the CD and switched over to a much more compelling book by the name of Social Intelligence. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for months. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?
This is not a book about making friends. It’s a book about making your time work for you.
Thanks, Tim, for the permission to stop reading er listening to your book in advance. It really helps with the guilt.