Having been "around the block" more than a few times, I didn't expect the contents of Timothy Ferriss' book The 4-hour work week to make it possible for me, or anyone, to earn a living spending that little time per week on their business. But then, many books in this niche do much the same: tout exaggerated claims or impossible feats. So my approach was to simply glean what I could from the pages.
The beginning of the book is more motivational than useful, giving a look at the author's history and snippets of successes and failures. His sense of humor was entertaining, and I liked that he gave out more bits of his defeats and missteps than trying to spout about how great and smart he is. What caught my interest was his tactics in the martial arts field. Mr. Ferriss claims to have won a tournament not by great martial arts skill, but by pushing his opponents out of the ring and forcing the judges to declare him the winner on technical grounds. He even admits to losing excessive weight to enable him to enter lower weight classes. This is not unknown in the sports world, but he went down two weight classes. This foreshadows business techniques described later in the book that may stretch the readers capability to follow his lead on such shaky ethical ground. But it is to his credit that me mentions it, for good or ill.
Before getting to the meat of the book, Mr. Ferriss takes the reader through a mental excercise course in which he lays out his philosophy. Many of the ideas are not new, but he does it in an entertaining way and includes a good number of motivational stories. Thinking smarter, make-work is ineffecient, scaling down to the bare essentials, having more is not necessarily living better are just a few of the ideas presented. This section of the book might ware on the patience of those who have read books along the same vein, and may be skipped with little loss to the reader.
The meat of the book covers running a small business that can scale up easily. Several examples are carried through over a number of the business areas that are discussed, from initial idea, test marketing, production, staffing, and stepping aside when necessary. One example in the book is an American who gets the idea to sell French made shirts when he is often asked where he got his shirts. He researchers the costs of having the shirts shipped over from France, test markets the concept to prove the ideas viability, and even offers a satisfaction guarantee of 200%. Here is a spot where I don't think Mr. Ferriss stresses the negative sides to some approaches. A 200% satisfaction guarantee could be very costly, especially for a small business.
A few internet posts I've read blasted the author, his book, and his aggressive personal style, but overall I think there is enough good in the book to justify Mr. Ferriss' efforts. Granted readers surely will not be able to run their businesses with only 4-hours of effort a week, but there are numerous ideas that can be explored and exploited with the right mind-set, and the compilations of books and web sites that offer virtual assistants, web hosting, web site analytics, credit card handling, etc. definitely provide the small business owner (or wannabe) the tools to help run a business effectively.
The 4-hour Workweek was more than a four hour read for me (I'm a slow reader), but worth the time. One suggestion is to be open minded and remember that not every technique is for every person or his/her business.
Copyright © 2011 Daniel Dunleavy
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