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The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Can It Be Replicated?
I like the ideas in this book alot. There are lots of thoughtful suggestions especially in time management. I don't know if anyone can duplicate the author's success though as most of his accomplishments are due to his tenacious approach to living which is admirable.
Rating:  - Great Read, wish this was available years ago
Love the way its written, straight to the point, no messing around.
Great information.
Ive recommended it to my friends who are stuck in 9 to 5
Pete
Rating: - You're going to wonder why I gave it four stars, but here goes:
If you're a doctor or lawyer, forget it.
If you're a nurse or a bus driver, this isn't for you.
If you do manual labor, don't even bother picking up this book.
Manager at a retail store? HAHAHA think again.
Elected official? Well, they don't really do much work anyway, LOL
As you may have gleaned from the title (and read in the other reviews) the author advocates, what would be for most Americans, a complete and utter lifestyle change - Shrink your work hours down as far as possible and enjoy the rest of the time you have left doing other things that you like or want. As you can imagine someone whose main job is say, driving a city bus for a living, won't be able to pull this off at all unless they own their own business or quit their current job to find another one (which may be impractical.)
Next thing you need to ask yourself is if you can do your job from home or if your job offers telecommuting as an option. So if you're an accountant at a major accounting firm, you may as well stop reading here as well. If it does offer telecommuting and you can also do your work in less time at home than you would at the office, then great, you're in business.
Are you an entrepreneur or other aspiring millionaire? If you've read The Millionaire Next Door which is a study of actual millionaires, you know that the average millionaire works 40-50 hours a week over the course of 20 years to accumulate that million, which is defined as what you own subtract what you owe. So hard research lets you know that there is a small possibility that you, the entrepreneur, can pull off getting down to 4 hours a week. However, there is something to be said for being as efficient as possible in your work and cutting your hours as much as possible through whatever means are available to you.
So, how many people can actually take advantage of the information in this book and attempt to bring their hours all the way down? Sad to say that it's not too many. The reason I say this is that a great many people don't have the discipline to stick with a savings plan (putting 10% of their income aside for their retirement) and setting up your life so that you don't have to work is an extreme amount of work for the few people who can do it and be successful at it.
So, if so few people can actually use this book, why am I giving it four stars?
1: I just used 6 and only 6 vacation days to end up with 2 four days weekends followed by a five day weekend (I read this on the way home) followed by a six day weekend. This also included two 5 day trips (one to DC and one to LA, both from NYC) for which I only paid $800 in total. I'm a HUGE fan of creative vacationing, though I will admit that I contacted the Smithsonian this evening to find out if they really let people visit their islands. That's interesting.
2: I had a professor in college who had 330 days off each year. He taught ONE class twice a week and is being paid full-time for it. He does have a PhD and years of experience though. . .
3: Teachers work until 3PM and have entire summers off.
4: In Spain, siesta is two hours every day. Work still gets done.
5: France is known for taking the summer off. Work still gets done.
So, if you are among the very few people (this of course requires you to take a hard look at your situation) who have both the ability and the inclination to work less hours or you can set yourself up to do so and still like what you do for work (after all, some people just like to work) then by all means take the time out to do it and have fun. I'd just skip the actions suggested in this book that cause you to alienate yourself from other people.
If not, I think you should check out First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently focus on making your life and your job as fulfilling as possible.
In either case, have fun! :)
Rating: - Success Both Professional and Personal!
Every entrepreneur, business owner or any professional of any kind should read this book. As a companion to my own book, "The Expert's Edge," it will put the whole picture together.... success that is both professional and personal!
Rating: - Outside the box
I have read many books that promised "The Holy Grail", and I had not expected all that much when I started this one. However, I was surprised to see that I really liked the approach. The suggestions were creative, sound, without any pressure to purchase more from the author to be successful.
I particularly liked his notion that we don't have to subscribe to the idea that we need to do the same thing over and over again for the rest of our lives. We can get involved in one activity, get good at it, make money with it, take a mini-retirement, and then look for something else to do. I personally have done just that for the last 10 years, have learned lots of new stuff, got involved in lots of new things, and every time I mention my own path to others, the reaction is always: oh, a jack/jill of all trades! I find such reactions an insult to my effort of being good at what I do, and the author of this book did a fine job encouraging and motivating me that this is a great way to live, make a living, and turn it into a lifestyle.
I am not quite at the 4 hour work week yet by any means, but I got lots of ideas on how to get there. I had already been thinking along those lines, and the suggestions this book offers are helping me tremendously along the way to speed up the process. It's just a different way of thinking, and I love how he demonstrates what is possible. As they say in neuro-linguistic programming: when one person is able to do something, it means the rest of us will eventually be able to do the same if they put their mind to it. The book definitely encourages and helps me to put my mind to this way of carving out a lifestyle.
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