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 - Revolutionary Approach to Work and Life, Focus on What You Do Best, and Eliminate, Automate, or Outsource the Rest!Timothy Ferris shows people how to create their dream lives right now, rather than someday when they are "retired." Tim uses outsourcing, geographic arbitrage, and performance/productivity principles to transform his life from 80 hour workweeks to 4 hour workweeks, while making as much per month as he used to make in one year. The four big ideas to take and use from this book are: eliminate unnecessary and unimportant work from your life; automate anything that can be automated; use technological tools to work anywhere; and outsource work to others who can do the same task better, faster, and cheaper than you. I like how he applies the 80-20 rule not just to tasks, but to people and customers. Learning how to say "no" to the trivial allows you to say "yes" to the vital. You can transform services and information into products that automate themselves. If there is basic information that you always tell people, just write it, record it, or video it one time. It's as simple as making a website to pull your niche customers in, rather than making calls all day to push something on your market segment. Life is good when you earn in dollars and pay in pesos. If your work is related to computers or technology, you can just as easily type on your laptop on a beach as in a desk. I used this technique during a full-time school year to visit over 40 cities. Outsourcing your work is not about "taking advantage" of poor people. It's allowing each person to do what they do best. If you have a legal problem, do you apply to a law school and spend 4 years to get a license? Or do you just hire a lawyer? If you have to mow a lawn, do you go out and buy a new lawn mower? It's the same principle for most things in life. Are you treading water or swimming ahead? When you fall of a boat, you have to tread water or else you will drown. But, if all you do is tread water and stay in place, you will eventually drown. You have to swim ahead and move forward to get to your destination. In life, take three weeks to three months to learn how to tread the water, and then systemize, delegate, or outsource that task so you can focus on swimming ahead. There is no glory, no honor, and no reason to waste your most precious resource--your time--in anything that does not make you grow in life. Time is the great equalizer. We all have the same amount of time. It is what we do with our time that makes our lives so different. Are you spending your time treading water or swimming ahead? Rating:  - Join the new rich!Hey, I won a martial arts trophy not with skill but through trickery and manipulation of the rules. Am I ashamed of what I did? Not a bit -- in my book, I brag about how clever I was. I figured out how to beat the system and did it without breaking a sweat. All those Wall Street millionaires figured out how to do it too. You can join them and set yourself free! I'll show you how. It's real easy and won't take you more than 4 hours a week. Since its publication in April 2007 at the height of the financial bubble, more than 80% of the almost 800 reviews have given this book at least 4 stars. It's Nov. 2008 and amazingly this meretricious claptrap is still getting the same ratings. And people wonder how we got into the mess we are in today. Rating: - A Must Read for any Business OwnerThis book has changed my working life. Even though I love running my own business it was taking up a lot of time away from my family. This book helped me to review my work processes and vastly reduce my number of work hours and at the same time increasing my the output I got from those hours. This has also become a great reference book, when I feel my work hours are creeping up I read certain sections to regain my focus. Rating:  - It's worth the money :)I had so much fun reading the book and i thoroughly enjoyed it.It's worth the money. Rating:  - Okey,I like the book and it is worth the money. But there is a but... The 4-hour workweek. Would not we all like to have it like that! I can not read it without getting a feeling that the authors way to his own 4-hour week is making money by living on others dream of a no work and earning money. The book does not come up with any not earlier written subjects but still it is quite entertaining and some real tips to your lifestyle design can be found. Buy it but it is in no way a bible to the subject but rather a small ignition to your own new lifestyle. It surely more helps the person who may caught up in the squirrel wheel of the business world rather than the CEO which it is flirting with. It does not reach 4 out of 5 because to me it has a tone of that "serious work" is not cool, which I do not like. 3/5 for this kind of "self development" kind of book is not bad though. Best Regards Chris
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