The 4-Hour Workweek: My Story & Why You Need this Book

This post is part of the series on The 4-hour Workweek book review.

“The 4-Hour Workweek is a new way of solving a very old problem: just how can we work to live and prevent our lives from being all about work? A world of infinite options awaits those who would read this book and be inspired by it!”
–Michael E. Gerber
Founder & Chairman of E-Myth Worldwide and the World’s #1 Small Business Guru

Chapters: My Story and Why You Need This Book
Page: 5-12

The author jokingly says that he will answer, “I’m a drug dealer” if someone asks him what does he do. If he is going to describe his job, only a thorough self-description can represent that. He lives a lifestyle of the New Rich (NR), what other believes that only a drug dealer can live that kind of life.

He says that people don’t want to be millionaires. They just want to experience what they believe can only be done if you had a million dollar in the bank. He raises the question “How can one achieve the millionaire lifestyle of complete freedom without first having $1 million?”

Timothy goes on about how this book is so different from other personal finance books:

• it won’t be elaborating the problem: people hate their jobs, earning not enough to live the desired lifestyle etc.
• it is not about saving , or compromising the present spending for enjoyment later. The goal is fun and profit.
• it is not about finding your “dream job”. The objective is to free time and automate income.

The answer can be found in the book, which consist of the DEAL.

D for Definition
This section explain the overall lifestyle design recipe, which is the fundamental before adding the other 3 ingredients

E for Elimination
This section provides the first of the three luxury lifestyle design ingredients: time.

A for Automation
This section provides the second ingredient of luxury lifestyle design: income.

L for Liberation
This section provides the third ingredient of luxury lifestyle design: mobility.

My View

The lifestyle of the New Rich, according to the author, possess the three most important elements: time, income and mobility. Prior to reading this book, most other self motivation and personal finance books preach about having the sufficient nest egg, only then you will get out of rat race. The 4-Hour Workweek includes the 3rd element – mobility. You can be anywhere you like, but still get your job done, and your income earned.

I certainly desire a lifestyle that allow me to do whatever I like to do, wherever I want to be with automated income streams that require minimum maintenance. If this can be achieved, we don’t have to wait until the day we actually have a million dollars to live the millionaire lifestyle. By the way, if the millionaire live a very frugal life and boring job, it might not excite you. Me neither. I want money. I want a lot of free time. I also want the freedom to move around. I want it all now. And I don’t want to wait until 20 years later to have these freedom. Don’t you desire the same too?

I probably have some money, but certainly not enough to retire now.

I probably have some free time. It is enough for me to blog, to take care of my son 8 hours a day, to work on several music production projects a year, to produce my 3rd solo album, to provide financial service to my clients, and some other self-entertaining activities. But it is certainly not enough to have the maximum fun (I missed my PS2 for months).

I probably have the flexibility to travel. But my vacation budget is not much.

I’m going to dig out the secret from this book.

Previous 4-hour Workweek Posts

If you missed my previous post about The 4-Hour Workweek, here is the list:
The 4-Hour Workweek: Doubters Read This {Book Review}

In short, this is one of the few books that hook me to read on just after the first chapter. I will be writing a series of the concept and ideas presented in this book on every Thursday. Stay tuned. If you can’t wait any longer, get your own copy of The 4-hour Workweek on Amazon.

(This book can’t be found in Malaysia, none at Popular Bookstores, MPH, Times nor Borders. If you really managed to get a copy of this book anywhere in Malaysia, please share with us in the comment.)

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