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The four hour work week is a myth and a lie. Not only is it highly implausible, but if you ever do achieve a four hour work week, you’ll probably want to get rid of it.
We’ll get into the reasoning of my sentiments in a minute, but first I’d like to say a few things…
Now that we’ve got that out of the way… Why is the Four Hour Workweek (4HWW for short) a lie? Well, there’s two reasons. Number one, it’s come to the attention of quite a few people (Penelope included) that Tim Ferriss really defines “work” as something you don’t want to do. Mandatory, unpleasant, tedious, repetitive tasks that you’d rather defer or delegate to someone else. This is quite a narrow definition of work. I would be more inclined to say Tim’s definition of work is more synonymous with a chore.
So that’s the first reason. The second reason is this… The definition most people have is that work is totally wrong. It’s more in line with slavery, toiling and punishment. Work is seen as something you have to do to pay your dues. How many times did you hear your mom or dad say as a kid “I worked hard to buy/make/microwave this food and you better eat it!” We’re brought up with our parents making us think that work is some kind of grueling sacrifice they’ve done to “give us a better life.” (The intended message may have been to instill respect for hard work, but usually the outcome is feeling guilty for being born.)
Since work is seen as such a must — something we must do to pay the bills and to survive — we don’t realize that it’s not required that we see work as something other than a chore. Just because we’re born with a bad definition of something doesn’t mean we have to keep it. Work is more than just a chore, at least to me.
Work is giving yourself. It’s creative self-expression. It’s opening your heart and providing value to others. It’s exchanging a part of yourself with someone else. It’s a possibility for you to make a difference in the world.
Seeing work as just something to do to get by is like slapping yourself in the face.
Here’s why I just can’t slap myself anymore:
And that’s really the biggest problem with seeing work as menial labor. By defining work as such, you incarcerate yourself in a narrow field of possibilities of what work could be. Yes, work can be tedious. Doing your taxes, filing receipts, stapling, responding to email, and doing repetitive tasks can be pretty damn boring. There’s no way to trick yourself into believing otherwise. (Non-resistance to the tedium, however, can make it a lot less painful.) But despite the tedium, work can be much more than that. The work you do can be the gift of what you leave behind on this earth when you’re gone. It can be the difference you make in other peoples lives.
When you expand your definition of what work is to a mutually beneficial exchange of value, it becomes more of a blessing and an opportunity.
This is the way I’ve started to think about work; I ask myself, “With the work you do today, how can you create the biggest positive impact in other people’s lives, while fulfilling your own dreams at the same time?”
And if I have work to do that is truly boring (like figuring out how much taxes I owe) I ask myself, “I know this work isn’t what I’d absolutely love to do, but since it must be done, by not resisting it, can I make it less painful?”
I also have to be careful to distinguish between work that must be done (like taxes) and things that seem required, but really aren’t. For example, it might be a good idea for me to spend some time every day networking, but if it doesn’t feel authentic, it would be a waste of time. If I really felt like creating, rather than connecting, I should honor that feeling. When I express myself authentically, I naturally have a greater impact then when I force myself to do something because I think it would be a good idea.
When you start to see work as play, as giving yourself to the world, as being an agent of change, you completely shatter the perception of work as a burden.
Because that’s where all this seeking to escape from work comes from (which is really what the 4HWW is about). Whether it be counting down the days to your yearly two week vacation, setting up a four hour workweek or creating passive income; whether it be the desire to retire early, win the lottery or strike it rich, it’s all in the effort to escape from the obligation of spending your life in a state of endless resistance to doing chores. It’s like we’re six years old again, fighting with mom about cleaning up all the stuff we’ve crammed under our bed. Not much has changed, huh?
But when work becomes something reverent to you, you no longer to seek escape from it. Besides, imagine if you really did find that elusive escape. Would it really solve all your problems? Sure, you’d have a lot of free time, but is that really what you’re looking for? Just free time?
I think it’s something more than that. I think it’s the lack of purpose, the lack of depth in our work that leads us to chase ideas like a four hour workweek and autopilot income.
No amount of freedom of time will quench your desire to make a difference, to live with purpose.
As Rolf Potts represents in his awesome book, Vagabonding, you can only live so long sipping martinis on a beach. Sooner or later, you’ll be bored. You’ll want to actually do something that matters.
(Note: I did learn a lot from The Four Hour Workweek. I think Tim has some great ideas, like mini retirements, following a low information diet, etc. I also think he did an awesome job pointing out the stupidity of “work for work’s sake.” However, I do think the central idea of the achievement of a four hour workweek solving all of your problems is misleading. Tim defines work as something you really despise, and I just think that’s confusing things more, rather than bringing clarity to the situation. I guess it’s all about semantics, though, right? As Clinton said during the Monica Lewinski case, “Please define sexual relations.”)
Despite all the head-drilling society does to make you think work equates slavery, there are many possibilities for work to be a joy. Here are a few people I know that are working hard to give light to the possibilities of doing what you love and making a living at it:
Oh and there’s my book, Reclaim Your Dreams, too. That enough?
It's painfully obvious to anyone who's read the book that Tim doesn't, and never has worked a four hour work week. His tale starts with 15 hour days launching his BrainQuicken business.
People get too hung up on the title though. The real message of the book is using your time more productively and building a better lifestyle for yourself.
Beyond the message, I think the real value of Tim's book is not as a practical guide to living a four hour work week, but just in getting the conversation started. Tim barely scuffles along the surface of most of the topics he addresses, but he helps people get to a state of at least being aware of what the issues are.
I you are correct. Also, I think the reason the concept of the 4-hour work week touches a nerve with people is that there are sooooooo many bad managers and bosses out there. When you're getting dumped on, it doesn't really make you want to do the tedious tasks for the greater good of the organization.
Another reason that the title affects people is that people want more control over their time. Under the currect industrial-age work model, you have to stay at work whether there is work to do or not, which sucks. I telecommute and have a great boss. I am more than willing to go that extra mile, because on the days when I have less to do, my extra time is mine.
Brian, I haven't read the book, but your description brings Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad to mind—it gets you thinking about it but doesn't do much beyond that.
Is that accurate you think?
This is really funny. We were just having a conversation about how lame Tim Ferris is last night. One of my buddies made the point that if you put this book in the hands of the wrong person, it can literally ruin their life!
Thanks for the timely post, Jonathan.
There's a line in this post that I wanted to focus on: "Once you’ve figured out how to monetize your passion".
This is a large assumption. First it might not be possible to make money from your passion. Secondly, the actual amount of money might not meet your needs.
So the alternative: working at something you aren't necessarily passionate about, but pays the bills and supports your lifestyle, is a valid tradeoff.
The key is to balance the stress you get from working at a job you dislike, against the stress you get from having a much smaller paycheck (or none at all). Find the balance that works for you.
@RyanHealy - Anything "in the hands of the wrong person" can ruin their life. I'm sure you'd agree we could say the same about a lot of the advice BC publishes. So why, again, is Tim Ferris lame? Oh- I agree him winning that championship on a technicality was lame, but let's talk about the business side...
@JonathanMead - I'm glad you mentioned what you *did* learn from the book, I think anyone who reads it thinking they can cut down their "work" to 4 hrs/wk is the "wrong person". As Brian mentioned, 4HWW book was more to get people to think out of the box.
Your post seems to be more of a focus on how to define work, which makes sense, but the controversial title definitely helps!
Cheers!
@Ryan Healy
There was actually someone on Tim Ferriss's message board the other day who'd sort of gotten the wrong idea and decided to liberate--without telling his boss. Fortunately the people on the message board had some sense and he was responsive.
@Scott Messinger - The key is to balance the stress you get from working at a job you dislike, against the stress you get from having a much smaller paycheck (or none at all). Find the balance that works for you.
Thanks for bringing this up. Many people have interests that cannot generate money and will never make money. Also many people have no interest in the tasks being offered employers that do earn money. What folks like Jonathan Mead forget is that not everyone can get excited about the work employers are offering them to do for a salary. Most jobs offered by employers today are tedious, few are interesting and even less are fulfilling. This also doesn’t include employer’s efforts to make formally “enjoyable” jobs into “miserable” jobs through the last 20 years (so they can save money on salaries).
I think the current "40-70 hour work week" is great for people who want to "make a difference" and "be on the team", the world needs these kinds of people. But what no one mentions is how other large groups of people have no place in the "40-70 hour work week" lifestyle. These people will never have the right personality or interest no matter how hard they try. In the end it amounts to “acting” for 40-70 hours a week just to stay employed. Even actors are allowed to “get out of character”, but not the poor office deweller, he has to be “on” Monday through Friday. But, how else are these people going to earn a living? Sure there are some alternative arrangements such as consulting or starting your own business, but let’s be real and understand that a large portion of the population is NOT suited for pretty much the only available lifestyle choice that has health insurance.
For example: I could do my current job in less than 40-70 hours, but I have to be "on call" to justify my salary and benefits. Fine you say, just become a consultant. Well the company could just as easily pay someone who is more desperate for a job and willing to take less money to do the stuff I don't want to do (and the employer will let me go in the process). Employees can't set the terms of employment unless they bring something truly unique to the employment table. But without proper work experiences the majority of employees cannot develop such skills to barter with over their entire career. So what happens is that people "take what they can get" and then build on the "skills development path" that was "offered" to them by their employer.
I would argue that 99% of "skills development paths" being offered by employers are soul stealing and death dealing tasks (bad for physical health). If you get lucky or know someone you can find an employer offering "skills development paths" that are pleasant and fulfilling. But I like to point out, that those opportunities are not abundant and there will always be more qualified applicants than there are positions. So, most will have to take a job doing something they hate, and then build up their skills to get pay increases which exceed or meet inflation for 20-50 years.
Many times you have to be offered a “first opportunity” to expand and grow upon. Many people never get their “break” despite trying and genuinely having the ability to do that thing they are chasing after. Maybe Jonathan Mead is still young enough or “talented” enough to have a shot at garnering a “break” from a good employer. At some point we will all be over the hill and past the age where someone is willing to give us a shot. It’s not about being safe or lazy; it’s all about an employer giving the “first opportunity”. There are plenty of folks who blew their “chance” and “wasted” the opportunity, but there are 100 times more people who NEVER got a “chance” and really didn’t have an opportunity to waste in the first place. There are more crappy jobs out there than there are good jobs out there. Getting a good one is just another type of “lottery” (albeit more like Horse racing than the lotto, where you need to study and know the rules to have a chance at winning).
@ Brian: I'm not really hung up on the title, I understand the reasoning for Tim's choice. I do however, think Tim's definition of work is poor. The more we define work as a chore or something to get rid of, the more we get entangled in the mess of bouncing between loving and hating it. I think when we define work as *just* a chore, we do a disservice to not only the notion of work, but to ourselves. I could define volunteering to build homes in a 3rd world country as "work." I could define writing this article work. And I could also define doing graphic design as work. But none of those things would be a chore to me. They would be done joyfully.
@ Scott: I think it's possible to monetize your passion, if you're smart about it. Also, most people don't just have one passion. I know I don't. I have many. Keeping that in mind, monetizing your passion is a matter of: skill level + marketing + market demand. If you can find that sweet spot, you should have no trouble monetizing.
But it's not really just about doing what you absolutely *love* for a living. It's about realizing that even if you're doing work that's not expressing your creativity or isn't your deepest passion, it can still be joyful, if you're doing it with purpose.
@ boohoo: I see the point of your argument. But the whole problem with this is seeing things through the employee mindset. Seeing *employers* as the ones that dictate opportunities. If you develop your proficiency to a stellar level, *you* can dictate the opportunities. Whether that by negotiating with an employer, or through being self-employed.
@Jonathan Mead - Seeing *employers* as the ones that dictate opportunities. If you develop your proficiency to a stellar level, *you* can dictate the opportunities. Whether that by negotiating with an employer, or through being self-employed.
This is where we disagree. "Self validation" is not good enough to secure contract work or full-time employment. Only proof through "paid employment" validates produced work. Its like when an employer asks to see you last pay stub in order to confirm a job offer. Many companies withdraw offers from people who refuse to comply with the pay stub request. Thats not to say it doesn't happen. But that was the point of my post, to point out the "likley" vs. "unlikely"
I agree with the gist of this post. And disagree with some of the posters who say that a 40-70 hour work week is automatically miserable or that there isn't full time work out there that people can enjoy. True if my passion is watching TV and eating cheetos, probably not going to get a paying gig for that. But Jonathan really hits the nail on the head when he mentions that he is passionate about many things. Does your job have to inspire you every single day? Of course not. But it IS possible to find a full time, cubicle-style job where you enjoy 70% (or more) of what you do.
And I think that's what's important here, and what Jonathan is trying to stress. Is that instead of trying to reduce the hours we work at a crappy job, we should be trying to find a job that inspires us, at least some of the time. It doesn't have to be the #1 thing we would pick to do, but you can find an organization that you believe in or a boss who you trust and respect and who respects you and a role where you see yourself adding value and get satisfaction from that. Anyone who us unhappy 50% or more of the time at their job should get out there and find something else. I do think it's possible. It's even possible to make your current job more enjoyable. But people don't think outside the box. They think either 40 hour drudge job, or 4 hour a week impossible entrepreneurial dream job that may not actually make them money. People need to find something inbetween that works for them.
@Miles - "True if my passion is watching TV and eating cheetos, probably not going to get a paying gig for that"
Once again this goes back to the issue of "skills development paths" being offered by employers. If you have a bad job, but have not been exposed to "other" ways of earning money, guess what your passion will be? (i.e. watching TV and eating cheetos, because you don't know anything else). People end up in jobs they hate for most of their careers because no one exposed them to other ways of earning money or gave them a chance for exposure. Second, without true full-time work exposure they cannot accurately assess "what they need to do next" to get that "passion" based career going. Last, without proper "external validation" they will not be able to get other employers to utilize their newly founded skills imbued with passion.
First you have to see and peripherally experience something you want to do, FIRST HAND. For example: a admin at a local city finds out that being a City planner is an interesting job, but would never really know how City Planners do their job unless she worked for them directly. On the other hand, if she is an admin at an insurance company her "experience" will result in less exposure to the field she is better suited for. Thus ending in an “automatically miserable” experience without recourse for alternative career exploration.
Second someone has to externally “validate” the experience. For example: a person goes to school and studies web design. They have been building their own sites for years and have a sizable portfolio. However they have no professional experience and they have never worked in an office setting or in any professional capacity. So the employer shoehorns them into web site maintenance and IT type tasks leaving the interesting design portion to “established” designers with “validated” successes. The problem here is that no one professionally “validated” their work, which may not be good enough to be a designer. The employer made the decision on how to employ those skill sets, however it’s not their role to get that person into design, they hired them as a pseudo IT person.
Third someone has to pay for services based on the previously “validated” experience. For example: A relatively talented photographer has put together a nice portfolio, but has never worked in the industry. So he sends out unsolicited request for publication opportunities or even directly sends in his work. However a season photographer with “validated” experienced uses the same methods and receives paid contract work. Assuming both are doing “equal” work the one not having “validated” will not likely get contract “paying” jobs.
Great post and a lot of great comments. Two thoughts:
1) The best thing Tim's book did was help people realize that there is more ways to work than the typical 9-5 job. I agree 4-hours is unrealistic, but to Jonathan's point, ideas like mini-retirements and working to automate at least one source of income can be powerful.
2) I do project management, but my passion is comedy (stand-up, improv, sketch). But just because my job title doesn't say comedian, doesn't mean I can't work to incorporate my passion into my job through trainings, or how I send email, or what I do to build up my team. While that won't be the case for every passion, you can be creative and find ways that you can combine both "work" and "passion."
The premise of your rant is the same thing you rant about - semantics. You can't call one person a liar based on YOUR definition of work when they have defined work the same way the entire time. It's especially ridiculous to then define work as the very thing that his definition allows.
Oh, forget it. Enjoy your own semantic circular logic.
I truly think the author of this blog has taken the entire book for only its title. To borrow the cliché, you cannot judge a book by its cover.
Yes, Tim did a smart thing by creating a controversial title. Consequently, he also had many readers who presumably did what this reviewer has done by taking the book to be merely another “work sucks, be free” ranting.
In no place do I see where the book undermines the value of hard work. Its true focus appears to be around the premise of *defining* “work”, thus allowing and encouraging you to, in fact, do MORE work!
For Tim, he gets his personal value from learning new things and setting new goals to accomplish, as many of us do. There is no more anything wrong with his selection of non-”work” related goals than there is the selection of nearly all-work related goals from a highly driven business individual.
I don’t find that Tim discriminates or solely targets those who do not wish to venture deep into the business world.
What Tim suggests is to not simply do “Work for work’s sake” (W4W) thereby increasing your efficiency and ability to accomplish even more work, whether that work be learning to build massive corporations or learning to speak fluent Yiddish in Yidland (that’s where it comes from, right?)
Does Tim only work 4 hours per week? NO! He’s accomplished more than most anyone I know, and by his own admission, he is technically a workaholic. I know I just lost somebody in that statement, so let me explain. Tim’s ‘work’ is to learn something efficiently and achieve massive goals he sets for himself. His drive to find the most efficient path to accomplish these goals proves the near “addiction” of accomplishing goals. Thefore, New Rich = Efficient Workaholic. With me now? Good.
I feel that where one can gain even more respect for Tim is that instead of suggesting that one simply “do what you love and watch the money follow”, as many books do, this presents a balanced perspective. It offers the reader the option to be more efficient at anything (love it or hate it), thus being able to do more of what they love. It also awakens the mind with the questions that we all must face.
Is this worth the time I’m giving it?
Is my LIFE going where I WANT it to go?
With due respect to the reviewer, as I understand that everyone will have their own personal opinion, I will also offer my own opinion. If the primary message you got from this book was to be lazy or that work is evil, my guess is that this struck a nerve in your own work life or you simply did not read it thoroughly.
If you like your 9-5 just as it is, don’t want to travel more or do anything extra that would require more time in your life, don’t need more time with the family, don’t want to be more efficient and accomplish more in your workplace, etc, then do not worry about taking heed to the concepts in this book. I honestly can’t speak against anyone in this situation, because if you feel that way about where you’re at in life right now, you are a blessed individual. As for myself, I am always looking to add more value to my life and to each of my work projects.
I encourage anyone to read this book and re-define “work” to something you enjoy. Find the time to live your dreams and goals, making them what you work on whilst balancing your life the way you want it!
Whether you who hate your job and get the urge to burn the building down by filling the water machine with gasoline, or you simply just want to free up an extra day or two to play with the kids, learn a new language, or become the pogo stick champion of Montana, this book will help you.
Just $0.02 from someone whose quality of work was superb, but whose sole life definition slowly became stemmed from “busyness”, not from accomplishment. Thanks Tim, for being one of the influential pieces in the puzzle of finding more peace and real satsifaction from life itself!
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