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Living the Four Hour Work Week

- A Cautionary Tale

This (detailed) post describes my journey over the past 18 months from full-time employee to entrepreneur, and how I created multiple streams of passive income during that time.

If you want to make money doing what you love, I hope my experiences will help you. Additionally, I will be warning of some of the unforeseen dangers of living life on your own terms. By analysing my actions, I hope that you'll avoid making the same mistakes I did!

Since I was first given a copy by my girlfriend in December 2009, Tim Ferris' smash hit "The Four Hour Work Week" has been one of my life-sculpting bibles. It's totally transformed my attitude to work - and it's totally reshaped the way I make money.

I've read the bloody thing cover to cover at least 5 times. My copy is covered in scribbles and highlighting, and you'll be thrilled to know that its primary "home" is in my downstairs toilet. Needless to say, I've studied the book in some depth and implemented many of its principles.

If you haven't read it - you really should - but here's a quick summary:

Basically, by creating a shit-load of passive income - and outsourcing all the "boring" elements of your work - you can massively free up your time and end up actually "working" a mere fraction of the hours of most people.

If you work for someone else, you'll learn how to "remotely work" - which is where you tell / ask your boss to let you work from home, subsequently become more productive, and then end up working a whole lot less.

Ferris' target is to work a mere 4 hours per week. The rest of the time, he's off cavorting around the world, learning new skills and generally having an awesome time.

Sounds incredible, right? As a self-confessed lazy bastard, I figured that THIS was the life for me.

Well, after kick-starting my new approach to life just days after reading it for the first time - and writing now after enjoying several months of "time freedom", I've realised that the Four Hour Work Week (4HWW) might not be for me.

And it might not be for you, either.

Here's some of my insights from my journey over the past 18 months, which may put some of the otherwise utopian-sounding claims made in the book in perspective.

I've (nearly) made the 4HWW a reality - and it's not been quite as fun or liberating as you would probably imagine.

My Quick Story

Here's a quick overview of how I made the Four Hour Work Week possible for me, at the ripe old age of 26. If you want to start generating passive income, I hope my experiences will help…

- At the time of reading 4HWW, I was working in sales for a small advertising company. Although the recession was just starting to kick-in, I was earning a great basic salary, had just closed a £200,000 deal ( = lots of commission) and my job basically involved taking attractive people out for expensive food and getting them drunk.

Yep, it could've been a lot worse… But I wasn't happy. I had no passion for advertising (quite the opposite - I found a lot of it exploitative and ultimately unnecessary), so I was incongruent with what I was doing and wanted out.

Cue The Four Hour Work Week.

- After reading the book, I did something very rare (for me). I immediately committed to making this freedom-filled lifestyle a reality. Straight away. I took action!

I started to make calls to people I knew, trying to initiate a shorter working week with new, smaller companies. By chance (or a gift from the universe??) a start-up company needed a high-level salesperson, but couldn't afford to hire somebody full-time. I offered to work part-time (3 days a week) for a low "day rate", but with extraordinarily generous commission payments for high performance.

Basically, if I was good, I'd make a fortune. If I was not, I'd go bankrupt.

By Christmas Eve 2009, I had taken a "huge risk" by quitting my "safe" job, but I was now down to a Three Day Work Week. Not bad going - with one decision, I'd given up 40% of my working hours. Boom.

- Next, I started work on my "Muse". According to Ferris, a muse is an "automated vehicle for generating cash without consuming time".

So, in English: a muse is a product or service you create which will bring you in passive income.

As my passion laid in all things personal development, I figured I'd try and create something in this niche that might appeal to younger people, and encourage them to start playing with ideas from NLP and the like. My idea was a website where I could give away free content, and make money from products sold by somebody else, keeping things nice and simple.

I researched a number of website-building programs, before finally settling on Site Build It!

SBI promised to help me build a simple, income-generating website without any technical knowledge - and would also help with boring things like keyword research, search engine optimisation, and the like.

SBI is like a degree in online-marketing, so I jumped in at the deep end and created this site! (Note - for newbies looking to make money online, I'd highly recommend SBI as it gives you a complete A-Z in what to do...)

- After several months, I began to generate my first trickles of passive income from Personal Development Planet. Additionally, I closed some big deals in my part-time selling job. For three consecutive months I earned £15,000 + working part-time. Life was amazing!

- Encouraged by these results, in November 2009 I decided to quit my sales job and work on my "Muse" full-time. My awesome, inspiring life coach Tim Brownson really helped to give me the balls to do so - I was a little nervous, to say the least, but I went for it with his help.

- In February 2010, I created my second Muse, another SBI site called Binaural Beats Geek.

After applying the 80/20 principle to this site ("Pareto's 80/20 Law" is discussed in detail in The Four Hour Work Week), I realised that 80% of my online income was coming from sales of binaural beats and isochronic tones (MP3s to help clear your mind and meditate).

As such, I decided to set up a site specifically to give great content about binaurals, and sell them on a larger scale.

Within a couple of months, I was earning nearly a thousand dollars per month from this venture alone.

- In April 2010, I started a new blog - PD Planet - as a way to communicate about personal development more "in my own voice". Although it makes a couple of hundred dollars per month, I have no financial goals for this site - I'm doing it more for fun and enjoyment than cash.

- Since May 2010, my online passive earnings have topped the $1000 mark - and are continuing to rise, without me having to work on them at all - and I've made additional income from the odd bits of sales freelancing, or NLP / sales training.

So, in short, for the past couple of months I have been earning a sustainable, full-time income, from working about one or two days per week.

- In my new-found free time, I've explored London, spent a healthy amount of time reading, attended a number of NLP courses, been to yoga, played basketball, meditated, played video games, been to Vegas, and basically lived life on an absolute whim.

Whatever I wanted to do, I've done.

And this, my friend, is where things have started to go wrong…

Problems with The Four Hour Work Week

Now you've seen how I created a 4HWW, I want to let you know about some of the challenges I've experienced with this lifestyle, and explain why living life like this isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be.

(1) Doing nothing isn't much fun at all, after a while

I can't believe I'm saying this, but being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want isn't the most spiritually liberating way to live. It's far to easy to "take another day off", and live life like you're still at university - taking things VERY easy and not pushing yourself.

Recently, I've been involved in a near-constant inner battle to "do more with my life". When money is coming in, and you don't "have" to work, it's really easy to just float around wasting time. It's easy to put off the things you "should" be doing. And it's really easy to justify procrastination along the lines of "I've earned the right to do what I want".

Although Ferriss admittedly recommends in 4HWW that you spend your free time travelling the globe doing lots of cool new stuff, and fulfilling your dreams, I haven't really been enamoured by this lifestyle as I've been doing loads of NLP courses in the UK; plus my friends, family and woman are here. I don't wanna ditch all of them just because I can. As such, I've been wasting an opportunity by letting time slip by.

(2) Living like this is quite exclusive.

I don't mean "exclusive" in the VIP sense, I mean that it's possible you'll feel quite 'excluded' with this lifestyle.

When your friends are all heading off to offices for 50 hours + per week; and you're able to get up late, sit around in your dressing gown and work when you feel like, compassion from your buddies for any kind of discontent whatsoever you experience is typically low!

They're unlikely to get what you do for a living, and may even begrudge you for your new-found freedom. Whichever way you look at it, this isn't the nicest way to exist.

(3) Hard work is truly important for Excellence

Now, I really can't believe I'm saying this, as six months ago I was preaching that work is a way to make money - nothing else - and as such when you're earning as much cash as you want, you should stop and do something else. Rather than working hard all your life and then retiring, why not retire now and enjoy your retirement for ever??

I really thought I was onto something with this idea, but now I am truly beginning to see the benefits of hard graft.

In short, nobody becomes excellent at anything without immense time and effort. It's hard to even become good at something without putting in the time.

And what's the point of living an average life? It's just not fun to be lazy and average. Not for me, at least.

As Jay Z says, "I'd rather die enormous than live dormant".

Even the new hip-hop superstar Drake is sold on the benefits of hard work... "They always tell me nobody's working as hard as you... And even though I laugh it off, man, it's probably true"

And I'll finish my hip-hop-half-hour with a quote from Diddy: "You get out what you put into it... You gotta work for greatness. You gotta work hard just to be good!"

I can see that I've been slipping. And living the 4HWW has definitely taken away from my efforts - and results.

Key Learnings and Action Points

Over the past few months I've learned several important lessons, which I hope you can benefit from.

First, only do work that you're passionate about. Find out what you love to do, and do more of that. I started on this path, but I got distracted by illusory "freedom". Now I'm going to focus again on what I really, really would love to do. I'd recommend you do the same. If you can't find a way to earn money doing what you love, start volunteering, or create your own company / product / service. The only person stopping you doing this is you.

Secondly, hard work is truly good for the soul. Sitting around chilling does not build character. It encourages negative states of mind. Work hard. Work as hard as you can. Fulfil your dreams. Being lazy does not equal happiness, I promise!

Thirdly, it's totally possible for YOU to create passive income streams. I really mean that. You just have to start. Pick something you're passionate about, and start taking action. Keep your eyes open to the results you get, and change up your approach, and you cannot fail to succeed. Honestly - it takes work, but it's so much easier than I had imagined. Procrastination stopped me from taking action for years. Don't wait until you're "ready". That day will never come. Start today.

Use Site Build It! if you want to learn how to build a website. Or follow-through on any of the ideas circling around your head. Pick one and go for it!

Fourthly, total time freedom is not all I had it cracked up to be. Sure, I don't want to go back to working for someone full-time. But, conversely, I don't want to be that lazy guy who makes money on the internet and then does nothing productive with his days.

A New Approach

So, I've decided to make a few changes. For a start, I'm opening up to idea of more hard work.

That means more articles for my websites, selling courses for the best NLP company in the UK, and starting a new marketing / media company.

Sure, I'll lose some of my free time; but in its place I'll be busy doing things that I really want to do. I love writing, selling awesome products, and being a busy entrepreneur.

So, my one day work week is more likely to shoot up to a six day work week. And I couldn't be happier.

By working harder, I reckon I'll express myself more fully… and get much better results.

And for me, that really means a more enjoyable experience of life.

PS - it's worth reiterating here that I totally recommend you read The Four Hour Work Week. It's packed full of inspiring stories and strategies which will help you to start making passive income, even if you never considered yourself an entrepreneur before. Get it!

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