One Thought

There is good stuff in Timothy Ferriss’s anti-job self-help book The 4-Hour Workweek.  Unfortunately, it’s drowned out by the oceans of bad and useless advice that pervade much of the book.  But let’s start with the good.  The first two sections of T4HWW make some very valid points.  Ferriss argues that, for most, the ideal life is much cheaper than it might seem.  He rails against the “deferred life plan”–working a decade (or three) doing something you don’t like to save money for retirement, where you’ll (supposedly) do what you’ve always wanted.  Ferriss gives some good time-management advice as well.  I liked his emphasis on thinking about what you are doing and dropping the things that aren’t important.  That may sound obvious, but many people confuse busyness with productivity.  I liked Ferriss’s “comfort challenges,” which are designed to get readers accustomed to facing their fears.  Ferriss gives some good advice on quitting a bad job, and he might inspire some to do just that.

Now for the bad.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad.  Ferriss projects an overconfidence and arrogance that is sometimes-patronizing and often-irritating (I don’t need to be told that a chapter will “put [me] on the real breakfast of champions”).  Many of his claims are far-fetched.  For example, he confidently states that, by reading his chapter on time management, you will experience “an increase in personal productivity between 100 and 500%.”  Blech.

It’s glaringly obvious that Ferriss is a style-over-substance kind of guy.  He begins T4HWW with a litany of his accomplishments: he’s been a “no-holds-barred cage fighter,” a “Princeton University guest lecturer,” a “Glycemic Index researcher,” an “MTV break-dancer,” a “political asylum activist,” a “TV host in Thailand,” and so on.  The legitimacy of these credentials is unclear, and, perhaps tellingly, Ferriss later gives readers advice on how to embellish their own resumes.  It’s clear that looking good on paper is very important to Ferriss.  Did he write this book to help readers, or merely to add another bullet point to his resume?

If Ferriss’s advice were good, that question might not matter (much).  But most of it isn’t.  The second part of T4HWW–the most-practical, most-specific part–is at its core a get-rich-quick scheme.  Ferriss advises readers to design a product–whatever crap is likely to make money, it seems–and then to have third parties handle the manufacturing, order fulfillment, and customer service.  The idea is to sit back, do (almost) nothing, and watch the checks come in.

Ferriss’s cynicism is alarming.  He doesn’t seem to acknowledge the possibility of making money in a fun and meaningful way, and he certainly doesn’t give advice in that vein.  The guiding principle of T4HWW is to do what it takes to make as much money as possible with as little effort as possible.  Ferriss’s own business is a shining example of this philosophy: he sells a sports supplement (“the world’s first neural accelerator”!) on a website replete with testimonials, “110% guarantees,” and other infomercial-esque gimmicks.  I’ll let you decide how much value you think his business is adding.

So Ferriss is cynical, but does his approach work?  I would guess that, for most people, the answer is no.  Many of Ferriss’s business ideas exploit easily-duplicable arbitrage opportunities.  In chapter 9, Ferriss describes his friend Doug, who resells sound effects libraries on the internet.  Well, “resells” is too strong a word: Doug merely forwards orders to the manufacturers, who then ship directly to his customers.  In another example, Ferriss describes a man who ships shirts from France to the U.S., where he sells them at a (large) profit.

Is it possible to make a lot of money with such an approach?  Yes.  Is it likely?  I doubt it.  If you’re as wily as Ferriss, you might find something that works–but, then again, you could probably also find success in a more-legitimate (and probably more-enjoyable) pursuit.

While I did like Ferriss’s thoughts on handling a bad job, his advice on working remotely is not applicable to the many–if not most–who don’t sit in front of a computer all day.  And even if you’re a computer jockey, I doubt his approach is all it’s cracked up to be.  In a hypothetical example, Ferriss describes a man who works remotely (on his computer) while in Munich during Oktoberfest.  The thing is, Ferriss suggests being substantially more productive outside the office to show your boss that working remotely makes good business sense.  Trying to be extra-productive during Oktoberfest is not my idea of a good time.

I could go on, but I won’t.  Though I did like parts of T4HWW, there’s a lot to dislike about Ferriss’s book.  It would have been better without the 100-page get-rich-quick scheme.  (And had Ferriss toned things down a bit, but let’s not get greedy.)  Nonetheless, there is good content, and the good parts might have a meaningful impact on the right reader. I don’t recommend this book, but you could certainly do worse.