When I first saw the cover of this book, my first impression was that this book was about being lazy. Four hours a week work? Yeah right. And yet somehow be rich working that little? This is a get-rich-quick scheme, and I don't buy get-rich-quick as I have learned there is no such thing as getting rich quick or easy money! SCAM!
However, this book that's gained mass attention on the media caught my interest, realising that when you dig beneath the surface, it actually is legitimately about working smarter not harder, and outsourcing all the mundane work to cheap assistants in India. This book is endorsed by entrepreneurs who most certainly didn't get rich overnight, so there must be more to this book than meets the eye. I realise that this title is like that of a real-life fairytale for working people working full time office jobs who want to escape the rat race (not me). The title alone along with the silouette of a guy in a hamock would have made it a bestseller. I decided to buy and started reading. At first, I was impressed. Then I got cold feet.
I realise I don't have much positive to say about this fairytale-like title of a book. Firstly, the points he makes about working less and making more is breath of fresh air in a business culture so obsessed with working 80 hour weeks. As someone who detests the popular business notion of working 80-100 hours per week, I was delighted. But I don't think either extreme is good. Perhaps if you're pressed for time and working a full time job with little time leftover for a side business, let alone sleep, family and personal time, it makes sense to work as smart as possible by applying some of the techniques he laid out in this book. These principles can be applied to employment or entrepreneuship, which I would agree with to a point given your work is compatible with working less and making more (definitely not service or trade based work) BUT I also feel that either extreme of working, whether 100 hours per week or four hours per week, is extremely unhealthy and ridiculous.
For the record, the first part of this book talks about the arbitrary nature of the 9-5. He says, '9-5 is arbitrary'. While I do think 9-5 is a little outdated and not a one-size-fits-all, his whole negative attitude towards the 9-5 stinks. You are priveliged if you have the security of a full time job and work is good for everyone and we shouldn't seek to eliminate that. Previous generations fought for '8 hours work, 8 hours recreation and 8 hours rest' with both Saturday and Sunday off. Now most workers probably don't do Monday-Friday, 9-5 to the letter, but it is an improvement from the previous millennium, though admittedly wage growth is slowing down and many people are working longer hours, the implementation of the 40 hour workweek has set a great benchmark for post-industrial revolution workers to enjoy some kind of a work life balance. Do I think everyone needs to work exactly Mon-Fri, 9-5, 48-52 weeks of the year? No. Do I think full time can wean down from 40 hours to 30-35, especially now with advancements in technology? Absolutely. 40 hours down to 4? Not a chance. Even if there were, what makes work so horrible you'd want to do as little as possible? I'd like to see a book realistically titled, 'the four-day workweek' or four and a half days a week with a half day on Friday, because I feel, along with many others, that can be the new normal, along with more flexible working arrangements (for employees who've earned their employer's trust) especially for parents and adventurers. But trying to do as little work as possible will wind you up bored and soft-handed, and that doesn't come free as you'll be hiring an army of assistants to do your work on a low wage while you get drunk off coconut juice and high off a steady cash flow.
My strong objection is Ferriss' anti-retirement attitude, and anti-tradition in general. Retirement funding is NOT 'Worst Case Scenario Insurance' as he notoriously called it. He took the large golden plate of retirement, lifted it up, tossed it and shattered it on the floor in lots of little pieces and renamed it and cheapened it as 'mini-retirements'. Now, that's not the worst thing in the world, but mini-retirements are not retirement. They are simply extended vacations, sabbaticals or adult gap years. If anything, you need to be more prudent about saving for your 'mini'-retirements' now and saving for actual retirement, including saving up the amount you will invest over the course of your 'mini-retirement' for ctual retirement, if that makes sense, unless you have a passive income stream. And that doesn't replace the need to save for actual retirement in the future, which he admits he still does as, again, 'Worst Case Scenario Insurance', but I think that's crap, why not call it Best Case Scenario Investment, as making it to your Golden Years is a privelige and a blessing, even more so when you actually saved properly for it and can enjoy the fruits of your labour in your best years!
Having said that, I agree with not waiting until your Golden Years, which may never come, to do the things you love, namely travel. Hence why he devised the concept of Mini Retirements, 'why wait until you're old and no longer healthy to do the things you love, when you're more likely to enjoy it in your 20's and 30's.' He makes a valid point. But I would go as far as to say that you can have the best of both worlds *cue Hannah Montana*, travel now, perhaps taking several months off at a time if you can and want to, all while building a sizeable nest egg for later. But either extreme of living only for today and not saving for the future, versus hoarding everything but the kitchen sink for the future that might not come, is not great. Not everyone can take long vacations or travel, but working for The Man from age 25 to 65 is not all doom and gloom. I would even say that work is awesome and can enable you pay your bills, invest in your retirement and have a little time and money leftover to enjoy. If you hate your job, you should either change your job or change your attitude, quitting your job to travel the world is not the answer. But I'm all for holidays, even for taking more time off than what the typical 2-4 weeks of annual leave allows if you can do so responsibly, of course!
Now, I don't think any of this whole 'lifestyle redesign' should be attempted at all until Baby Step Three of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover is completed (having no debt except maybe the mortgage and 3-6 months of expenses saved up) because once you're there, you'll likely be in a better position to pay for those flights and virtual assistants, and if (more like when) something happens to you overseas, you're covered by your emergency fund. Just like life jackets on board and airplane, you want a safety cushion to have your back for everyday life AND even more so when you're out adventuring like a mad man. But Ferris himself wrote, 'this book is not about saving money. I want you to have your wine now,' but I object, I think it's important to save money. Save for emergencies, save for retirement (see my last paragraph) and save to make large purchases upfront without whacking it on the plastic or taking out a loan. Speaking of which, ,...
I'm not saying be a miser saving every penny and leaving no money to enjoy, but if you willfully live it up, have your wine now and leave no money to save or invest,well, you can go back to my previous paragraph about retirement. I'm not your mother but I will tell you that you can drink some wine if you want to and use the most critical years of your life - your 20's or even better, your teens, to start investing and let the compound interest work it's magic. There's some element of truth to his point though, but maybe not so pessimistic as that if you're smart about building wealth over decades, not weeks, months or years. Not to mention, you can't trust some 21st-century snake oil salesman and cult leader to make that call. Seek advice from retirement and investment experts.
Also, he said this book is not about getting your dream job, as some study shows that even a dream job, when done for long hours repeatedly, becomes soul destroying, or something like that. That may be true, but welcome to the real world, where work is not always fun even if it's your dream job! I think we should be saving some money and doing fulfilling work, or at least taking pride in work we don't exactly like until we can move on to something more exciting. If you hate your job, change it, don't quit it! Of course, no job is perfect and the best job in the world is still monotonous and tiring, maybe even more demanding and exhausting so than a mediocre job. But I'll my 'dream' job, even if it still sucks like any other job, build a healthy savings balance and nest egg, AND still do plenty of travel in between it all, (having the best of both worlds, enjoying the now and saving for the future) but that's just me. I'm not just gonna jet off and 'replace myself' with an army of underpaid assistants while I dissapear on an island and make myself nauseous over one too many coconuts.
There is hot debate on the media about work life balance, but allow me to silence this debate once and for all; I feel neither extreme is good. Working 100 hours per week is dumb (sorry Elon Musk) and leaves little to no time to enjoy the fruits of your labour and will likely end in burnout. On the other hand, working only four hours a week would make for very soft hands and even pure boredom!
Not to mention this lifestyle is incompatible with non-white collar professions that require physical presence like being a tradie, hospo, retail or healthcare worker, aka some essential jobs for the good of society that someone's gotta do. The 'new rich' are constantly waited on not by servants in a mansion but by flight attendants at 40,000 feet, wait staff at their destination and virtual assistants in third world countries, while they live the good life, sponsored by these presumably overworked and underpaid staff. Okay, there's nothing inherently bad about this, but sounds like a 21st century version of having maids and butlers in your grand mansion. Just an observation, but someone's gotta do the 'dirty work' in enabling this 'new rich' lifestyle. And this book is not for those who are content to still work on the front line, like me. Work conditions could improve for everyday workers, but that's not today's topic of discussion. Point is, 'it's a dirty job but somebody's gotta do it'.
Which brings me to a hot topic in this book about outsourcing, but I object, to a point. I think it's good for a person to save money being self-sufficient, cooking, cleaning and doing admin. I don't think that outsourcing to assistants is appropriate when you are not in the financial position. To outsource tasks is a privilege and you need some money upfront to do that, just like travel, really. It's a known fact that rich people buy time, because time is money, but I also believe if you're paying off debt, saving up an emergency fund or for a big down payment, swallowing your pride and doing tasks yourself to will do you a serious favour in accelerating your savings, or even just to make sure your bills are paid and maybe have some cash leftover to enjoy, because you didn't hire an underpaid assistant to do what you're perfectly capable of doing!
That is, unless it's a task that only a professional can truly do properly and is necessary, like having an accountant help sort your tax, or tradies to renovate your house, not getting virtual slaves in India to do things you're perfectly capable of doing yourself, all in the name of buying back some time! And I would prefer to do personal admin myself because only I can do it 100% my way, it's PERSONAL, and outsourcing relinquishes that control, to the point I'd be spending more time explaining how it's done then actually doing it myself. And even if you can afford to outsource, why not get some sweaty DIY work done, learn a new skill and keep more of your income, not to mention put yourself in the shoes of you'd otherwise be hiring out? That might bring about a degree of respect for undervalued workers who work to support the lifestyle of the top 1%. Not to mention, farming out jobs overseas, while it might help provide decent jobs in developing countries, is terrible for our own economy. But I digress, that's not what the book is about.
For the record, I skipped over the last few chapters that spoke in Biz-glish (business concepts that I don't understand nor are relevant to me) and I can't even tell you what it's about, but I read on the internet that it's about finding your 'muse', something like becoming an expert on something by reading three best selling books on a topic? I feel that being an expert on something worthy to publish a book or course about takes more than knowledge; it takes experience. All the best sellers I read on my kindle speak from personal experience and interest, including this one!
This book is about spending more time on the things you love and less time on the things you don't, not about being lazy, as the author admits. But it still sounds like laziness to me. Work is an essential part of life like eating and sleeping and shouldn't be erased in the name of falling coconuts. I too aspire to the travel lifestyle, even just once a year on vacation, but not to be some crazy digital nomad in a hammock hanging off a coconut tree while profiting off the backs of VA's slaving away in India. Besides, work is good for you, doing tasks yourself and saving money is seriously underrated in a culture so obsessed with buying back time, the opposite of what this book is about. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe this book is a legitimately a waste of time except to write a long article criticizing everything about it. You're welcome.
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