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The 4 Hour Work Week

My Thoughts

  • This book seems like an interesting read at first sight, I recently started reading it but I have to say, the things that this book says it offers are quite tempting for sure.
    • The promising of working 4 hours a week in a society crying about 70-90hrs weekly is a tempting ask
    • The idea of micro-retirements seems quite interesting to me as well, something I do look forward to figuring out and implementing in my life as well.

First & Foremost

DO NOT READ this book unless you want a new way of living. - The objective of the book is to create freedom of time and place for you. - This book is for you if you are sick of the standard set of options and are prepared to enter a world of infinite options.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - New Rich - people who have abandoned the old idea of working till 60s to have enough money to retire, and now are creating luxury in the present life. - Lifestyle Design - is the art and science used by the NRs to build luxurious life. - You don't have to hate reality, just learn how to bend it at your will. - Life doesn't have to be hard, most people have convinced themselves that it has to be, but it really isn't like that. - What is your goal? Is it to earn money? become a millionaire? - OR is to experience the things and moments that money could by? - If the goal is to do the second, why wait till you are old? Why wait till you get the first Million to start living?

  • ASK Yourself
    • How do your decisions change if retirement isn't an option?
    • Is it really necessary to work like a slave to live like a millionaire?
    • What if you could use a mini-retirement to sample your deferred life plan reward before working 40 years for it?
  • What's stopping you from living like that?
    • Time famine? Creeping Dread? A tolerable and comfortable existence doing something unfulfilling?
    • This book is not about
      • saving, it's about choosing between enjoying today or money later.
      • Your dream job, it's about freeing time and automating income
The DEAL framework
  • Provides the three luxury lifestyle providing ingredients:
    1. Time
    2. Income
    3. Mobility
Definition
  • focuses on enlightening you and removing mis-guides and incorrect assumptions about concepts such as relative wealth and eustress.
Elimination (time)
  • The focus here is to increase your per-hour returns and eliminate the notion of obsolete time management
Automation (income)
  • Put cash flow on autopilot using geographic arbitrage, outsourcing, and rules of nondecision.
Liberation (mobility)
  • Concepts of mini-retirements are introduced here.
  • This is not about cheap travel, it is about forever breaking the bonds that confine you in a single location.

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.

D is for Definition

Reality is merely an illusion; albeit a very persistent one. - The goal is - not to work when you want, but to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect. (minimum effective load) - Not to buy all the things you want to buy, but to do all the things you want to be. - Not to wait for the big payday, IPO, 15 years returns, but to get cash-flow everyday as first priority, big payday second. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - (The Freedom Multiplier by Tim Ferris) - Money Multiplication depends on the number of W's you control in life - What you do? - When you do? - Where you do it? - With Whom you do it? - The real power is the ability to choose, options. - Paradoxically, you can make more money, a lot more by doing half of what you are doing right now. - There are always lateral options. Once you choose to settle for second in your life, that's what your life become.

Rules that change the Rules

Everything popular is Wrong. I can't give you a formula to success, but I can give one for failure, 'try to please everybody all the time'

  • Don't think of ethics if the rules allow, Sports evolve when sacred animals are hunted and when basic assumptions are tested.
  • The difference between being stupid and challenging the Status Quo
    • Don't fix it if it isn't broken
    • Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
Fundamental differentiators to keep in mind
  • Retirement is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance
    • It is nothing but a hedge against the absolute worst case scenario
    • It is flawed if seen as an end goal or final redemption destination. Why?
      • One week into retirement and you will be so damn bored that you will want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes ( I will prefer bike rides tho)
      • Your purchasing power lower's by 2-4% per year, retirement is not sustainable
      • Retirement is predicted on the idea that you are going to spend most of your physically capable years doing something you do not like to save money for when you won't be physically capable.
  • Interest and Energy are Cyclical
    • It's horrendous, premature aging fueled by triple bypass frappuccinos and impossible workloads, result? 30 yrs looking a cross between donald trump and another old sad guy.
    • Alternating periods of rest and activity are crucial for you to survive, let alone thrive.
    • By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable.
  • Less is not Laziness
    • Sadly, our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.
    • Let's re-define laziness:
    • To endure a non-ideal existence, to let circumstance or others decide life for you, or to amass a fortune while passing through life like a spectator from an office window.
    • The Focus should be on being productive instead of being busy.
  • The Timing is Never Right
    • Someday is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.
    • Pros and Cons list is equally bad, if it's important to you and if you want to do it eventually, just do it! and correct the course along the way.
  • Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission
    • If it isn't going to devastate and cause a fatal event to people around you, try it and then justify it.
    • If the potential damage is moderate or in any way reversible, don't give people the chance to say no.
    • People and You always assume it worse than how it is going to end up. Think about a situation you thought you were completely fucked in, and ask youself, how did it end up? You got out of the mess and are still alive right?
    • Get good at being a troublemaker and then saying sorry when you really screw up.
  • Emphasize Strengths, Don't Fix Weaknesses
    • It is far far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strength instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor.
    • The choice you have is between multiplying your results by improving your strengths or increasing incrementally by fixing weaknesses.
      • At best you would end up becoming mediocre.
  • Things in Excess become the opposite
    • Too much of anything, and things take on the characteristic of their opposite.
    • The above is true in all possessions, including time.
    • Lifestyle Design is thus not interested in creating an excess of idle time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time.
      • Positive use of free time? -- Doing what you want as opposed to what you feel obligated to do.
  • Money Alone is Not the Solution
    • It's Laziness, "If only I had more money" is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment.
      • READ THAT AGAIN
    • The Problem is More than Money
      • Busy yourself with the routing of pretending it's the fix all, you artfully end up creating a distraction that prevents you from seeing how pointless everything is. Deep down, you know it's all an illusion, but with everyone participating in the same game of make-believe, it's easy to forget.
  • Relative income is more important than absolute income
    • Absolute income depends entirely on one parameter - the currency
    • Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time.
      • This is the real measurement for the new Rich (NRs)
  • Distress is Bad, Eustress is Good
    • Not all stress is bad. Distress is.
    • Distress refers to the harmful stimuli that makes you weaker, less confident and less able.
    • Eu (Greek for "healthy") -- Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are eustress.
    • People who avoid all criticism fail.
      • It's destructive criticism that we need to avoid, not all criticisms.
    • There is no progress without eustress, the more eustress we can create or apply to our lives, the sooner we will actualise our dreams.
  • pg 37

Keywords, New Words & Concepts

A
B
C
D
  • Dross - Something regarded as worthless, rubbish
  • Deferrer - Those who save it all at the end, to find that life has passed them by.
E
  • Eu-stress - Positive form of stress having beneficial effects on health, motivation, performance & emotional well being.
F
  • Fetter - chain/manacle used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around ankle.
G
H
I
J
K
  • Karooshi
    • japanese term for 'sudden death/disability' caused due to overwork
L
  • LD - The Lifestyle Design
M
N
  • NR - The New Rich
O
P
Q
R
  • Relative Wealth - It's not about whether you earn Rs/$ X anymore, it's about how much you earn per hour.
    • At the end of the day time is our biggest asset.
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z