The 4 Hour Workweek

Tim Ferris is one of our favorite writers and bloggers here

at 12'. And his first book, "4-Hour Work Week" brings a
new perspective on how to face work in our lives and the
future. The book tells us about Tim's experiments, his
results, and his progress. In 4-Hour Work Week, Tim
coined the term lifestyle design, to state that you have the
ability to design your own lifestyle. Tim questions the
traditional model of retirement and believes that you do
not have to wait to retire to create your lifestyle. Whether
it's to travel the world, get away from a monotonous job,
make big bucks or just work less and live better, there are
more efficient ways to handle your work and your
productivity.

Time + Mobility = New Wealth

True wealth comes from time, from mobility and not just
from money. Those who are able to understand this and
master the two new currencies of wealth are called by Tim
as the "new rich." A dream life is often much cheaper than
you think. Your dreams can be things like travel around
the world, learn something incredible or take time for
your hobbies and they are not things that only
millionaires do.
 These things are also available to the new rich, and it does
not cost millions to enjoy them. This is one of the main
truths of the book: people do not necessarily want to be
millionaires, but to experience things that only millions
can buy. The book is focused on having a "new rich"
lifestyle, without having a million dollars and with time
and mobility. Of course, you probably will not be able to
replicate each of the practices he recommends to have the
same results, but he proposes that instead of waiting
passively for things to happen, you become a dealmaker, a
person capable of creating new opportunities. You need to
write your own rules and always dream high.

To become a dealmaker, you need to understand the

framework proposed by Tim. It is based on the acronym
"DEAL". The four pillars of the DEAL are:

 Definition: Replace the premises that block you;

 Elimination: Forget time management. Learn to ignore
what does not matter and save time doing it;
 Automation: Learn how to make money on autopilot.
 Liberation: Create your independence of location and
work from anywhere; Often people stop to think how the
rich and successful have arrived there but the full stories
are not always told.

People like to believe that the ladder to success is long and

slow, but that is just the reality that the world expects. For
Tim, people do not become successful by luck or by having
a repeatable formula but by having a DEAL attitude.

D for Definition

Being the new rich is the exact opposite of what many

people think. Being rich new does not mean working to
buy things you do not need. It means not delaying your
dreams by a potential barrier. The new rich man has a
mindset to accomplish, now. And DEAL's first step is
Definition. It is based on reprogramming your way of
facing life and having a new self-image and attitude. In
order to define yourself, you will need to develop new
approaches to your life. Here they are:

Do it Now

He never allows himself to leave for tomorrow what he

can do today. He does the right things now, always
coming out of his comfort zone. The new rich man has the
courage to take action quickly and overcome his
limitations, leaving aside the well-adjusted mindset.

If a well-to-do person dreams of working when they want,

the new rich person dreams of having people working for
him. While the pensioner dreams of retiring young, the
new rich thinks of having constant adventures and mini-
retirements planned during their lifetime, but their focus
 is never on the idea of doing nothing. He is motivated by
the idea of doing something. If the affluent thinks of
selling the company and thus making a hefty cash, the
new rich thinks of having money constantly and leaves the
idea of a major liquidity event in the background.

For Tim, being financially wealthy and living like a

millionaire are very different things. The value of money
should be weighed with your ability to choose what you
want to do when you want to do it, where to do it, and
with whom to do it. Often, freedom is worth more than
the financial asset itself. You do not want just the money.
You want to be able to control your destiny in the first
place.

Flee from the Conventional

Most people opt for conventional solutions to solve a

problem. But to have different results than 99% of people
have, you have to do differently from them. For this, you
need to rethink some aspects of life and develop this
opposite approach. Some of the aspects cited by Tim are:

 Understand the Myth of Retirement: The idea of

retiring pretty much reinforces that people do not like
what they do and want to stop it. If people dream about
retirement, it says they are spending their youth and their
most valuable years doing something they do not like.
 Doing less is different from being
lazy: Contemporary society tends to value sacrifices, in
many cases, more than results. The new rich are measured
only by their results and if a great result can be achieved
with less effort, why not.
 Permission is not required: You should not expect
people's approval to start something new and challenging.
As long as you do not cause significant problems, it is
better to do something and ask for forgiveness, than to ask
permission for everything you are going to do.
 Focus on your strengths: Developing what you are
already good at creates a multiplying effect on your
results. Spending your time just trying to improve your
weaknesses yields small, incremental results. Play to
develop your best sides.
 Make time to do what you want: Tim's idea at Work 4
hours a week is not that you have more time to rest, but
more active time to do what you love, want and dream
about.
 Money alone does not solve all: More money does
not always improve your life. We tend to believe we do not
do things for money, but the great truth is we want to
avoid the real cause of our attitude.
 Understand your relative income: How much you
earn does not matter. What really matters is your
relationship between your time and your money. If you
work 4 hours a month and earn $ 4,000, you're twice as
 rich as the guy who works 240 hours a month and earns $
120,000.
 Stress can be a good thing: If it takes you out of the
comfort zone and causes you to grow and develop,
embrace stress instead of avoiding it.

Overcome Your Fears

To have a clear definition, you need to overcome your

fears and move on. Many people become paralyzed when
they encounter their fears, and this leaves them stagnant.
You need to understand what your biggest fears are and
ask yourself: what's the worst thing that could happen?
With a tip-of-the-tongue answer, it's time to create a plan
to recover if the fears materialize. For each fear, it is also
important to list the benefit of overcoming it. With this
plan in hand, you understand the impacts that moving can
have on your life and then it's time to ask yourself: what
result would I have if I had been doing the exact same
thing for 50 years as I do today?

Define Your New Reality

The way we define ourselves is treacherous and leads us to

believe that we can only have one part, not the whole.
Most people look for mediocre results, which curiously
increases competition for mediocre things and creates the
opportunity for those who want to do incredible things.
Therefore, there is less competition to do amazing things
than mediocre things. Most people fall into the trap of
"I'm going to raise $ 1 million, and after that, I'll do what I
want." You do not want to be one of them, and so you
need to know what you really want. You have to dream
and create daring, unreal goals that go against the grain of
what you do now.

In this new reality, you need to plan where you will be in

the next 6 and 12 months. Take two sheets of paper, one
where you map out your 6-month plans and one where
you map out your 12-month plans. In each of them, write
down the 5 things you dream to have, 5 things you dream
to be and 5 things you dream to do. When you have all 15,
check the 4 that would change everything. Calculate the
monthly cost of each of these things. Add up all the
expenses and take a 30% slack up to avoid surprises.

Now that you know the monthly cost of these 4 things,

divide the result by 30. That's your daily revenue goal.
From it, you know how much money you need to make
per day to be able to realize them. Now write the first 3
steps for each of the 4 dreams of your 6-month plan and
make the first step for each of them now. Now. Without
thinking, just do it. Begin your plan to conquer your
dreams.

“E” for Elimination

To take full advantage of your time and channel it in
pursuit of your dreams and thus become a new rich, the
next step is to focus on eliminating waste. Being efficient
is not the most important. Being able to get things done as
quickly as possible is not an advantage because
unimportant tasks take time even if you are efficient at
accomplishing them. It is important to have focus.

Focus on What Matters

Your time is best spent on important tasks, tasks that will

bring you closer to your goals. To focus on the important
things, use the Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20
rule: In most situations, 20% of the work produces 80% of
the results. The rest of the work tends to have very few
results. Focus on tasks that have the greatest impact. Ask
yourself: What are the 20% of things that cause 80% of
my problems? What are the 20% of things that result in
80% of my results? This focus is so important in the
choice of tasks that you will use it in relation to the
sources of information that you consume. Tim
recommends that you never see the news, if something is
important, people will tell you and you will find out for
yourself. You need to redefine your brain to get used to it,
and it suggests that you take a few days without any
contact with television, books or surfing the internet.
Focus on a consumption of small amount information that
is really relevant to you.

Avoid Time Wasters

You need to get rid of silly emails, unnecessary phone

calls, meetings, etc. Turn off your notifications and check
email a few times a day. Meetings, for example, are black
holes where time and energy disappear, and most of them
are completely unnecessary. A meeting is only appropriate
when a decision needs to be made, and many people have
to participate. If this is the case, set a fixed time and start
the meeting reminding everyone of the reason for it. Also,
never go into meetings where you do not need to. And if
the meeting succeeds without you, skip all the next ones
on the same subject. In the office, the same goes for
hallway conversations with colleagues. Focus on the
necessary subject. Every time someone approaches you,
do not ask, "How are you?" And "What can I do for you?".
It is also worth telling people in advance that you are in a
hurry.

“A” for Automation

If you seek to earn a living by working just a few hours a

week, you need an automatic source of income. You have
to make other people work for you and get them to invest
their time and not you to invest yours.
Outsource Your Life

Today, it is fairly easy to set up a business that can run

without much involvement from you. Hence, you can use
outsourcing companies to scale up your operational
capability. There are many companies that specialize in
manufacturing products for resale, shipping products to
customers, packaging customization, technical support,
customer service, sales, among other things. But even
more complex and evolving tasks can be outsourced.
Virtual assistants from India, for example, are extremely
inexpensive and offer high-quality services. A virtual
assistant can do almost everything you normally would do
yourself. By creating a business in which each task is
outsourced to a specialist, you can make your involvement
almost completely unnecessary. However, before hiring
an assistant, keep in mind that you should first try to
eliminate, then try to automate. Only the remainder
should be delegated, otherwise, you waste your time and
money.

Also, delegated tasks need to be time-consuming tasks

that you can define with extreme clarity. If the task is too
short or you can not pinpoint the expected results, it
might be best not to delegate. To hire an assistant, also
make sure he communicates well, ask for constant
updates at the beginning to know how things are going,
have clear timelines and priorities.

Find New Ideas and Opportunities

With more time on the agenda, it's time to try out new
ideas and create new revenue streams. For this, the first
thing you need is a product. You can also sell a product
that is already in the market, and this is very easy, but the
potential profits are much smaller. Creating your own
product is much easier than most people think. But before
you choose a product and start making it, you need to
know if your potential customer base is large enough for
you to actually earn money. To test the marketplace, offer
your hypothetical product to real customers. The easiest
way to do this test is to create a virtual store in which,
when people click to buy, it shows a message that the
product is out of stock and an apology. This serves to
mark out people's interest in the product. It is also
important to get the email from all interested parties
because when the product is available, you can try to sell
to them again. You can also test a product by buying ad
campaigns on Google. Create multiple ads for your
product, see which leads more people to buy and so you
discover how much you would need to spend on
marketing to sell a unit of your product.
“L” for Liberation

Once you have a lucrative product, the challenge is to get

out of the equation. This will give you the independence to
live the life you dreamed with mobility.

Manage Through Absence

To achieve this liberation, you need to learn how to do

each business process in detail so that you can later hire
outsourcing companies that can assimilate your
knowledge and execute it. This will give you redundancy,
and you will not depend solely on your suppliers. In
addition, you need to ensure communication between all
your virtual employees. You need to give them the
autonomy to make low-risk decisions without consulting
you for maximum automation.

Run From the Office

If you still have a job and want to be remote, you need to

be able to plan your new work model. And that may mean
resigning, and you can not be afraid. So, know that: A
resignation is not permanent. There are always other
options if you change your mind; Paying the bills is not
that difficult. Even if it is, there is always a way for you to
reduce your fixed costs; Your resume will not get any
worse. If you are resigning to do something you believe,
your resume will become more interesting (you probably
will not need it, though).

Travel the World

The concept of holidays for people is usually a short trip,

one or two weeks to an exotic place. For Tim, you should
think about the 20 to 30 years of retirement that you
would have and divide them throughout our lives at 6-
month intervals. The idea of a vacation is not to get away
from your life but rather to have a lifestyle where you have
small retirements and really know the world, contrary to
the traditional view of just visiting cities and leaving.

More Life With Less Work

If you can overcome your personal settings, eliminate the

unnecessary, put your revenues on autopilot and create
the freedom to work from wherever you want, you can get
lost. You might be asking "why did I do this?" The more
time you have, the more introspective you become, and
the more you turn to yourself. Do not let the extra time in
your life become just free time, but rather time in which
you do something that fulfills you and brings you closer to
your dreams.

Final Notes:
Forget the conventional, the work routine from 9am to
5pm and its long career toward retirement. You need to
redefine yourself to live the now, to know that it is
possible to draw from scratch the lifestyle you want to
live. Escape from mediocrity if you do not want to have a
mediocre life, focus on doing amazing things, after all,
there is less competition at the top.

12min tip: If you liked this microbook, you will also like
our microbook of The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind!
Check it!