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Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#91

It gave me the dream to work remotely from abroad. I'm relatively poor and working a lot, but almost 2 years in Japan now.

Do you just use a self-sponsored visa? I jump back and fourth but work for a US based company on salary. Curious if I could do the same?

I'm on a cultural visa and am learning a martial art under the guidance of a teacher. I pay taxes in the origin country, but it's not optimal. If you have enough money, found a company, then you won't have any problems and can renew easily.

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#92
post #38

For a lot of people, 4WW was a "think and grow rich" kind of pressure cooker. Sure, you may be able to do with if you combine the highly marketable skills of being a certain kind of programmer with a low-rent country. Those folks are corner cases. The main beneficiary of the book was Ferriss, who's just selling the dream, like a lot of people in the "information business".

While he probably indeed was the single biggest beneficiary of his book Tim Ferriss likely also helped a lot of people to change their respective lives for the better. Who cares if you're not "living the dream" as long as you're doing better than before? 4HWW can be a real eye-opener in many respects and it's certainly not just about selling cheap info products while making use of cost of living arbitrage. In fact, F…

The best conmen are the ones who fool themselves. In a sense, his sincerity is beside the point. But if he really was sincere, why did he title his book The 4HWW unless it was to sensationalize his work, and draw more attention to himself, and make more money. Tim has other aspects of a conman, and it's not just the way he practices martial arts. Rebecca Mead wrote a great profile about him here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/better-faster-s...

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#93

I have lived the 4 hour work week for the last 2 years. I created a course online and earned half a million dollars from it in the first year alone, after spending 3 months creating it (I was 29 when I created it). Many of the ideas from that book (4hww) were ideas that came naturally to me prior to reading that book. I think anyone who considers themselves resourceful (particularly with utilizing Google search) woul…

I'm working on launching a course this year, was wondering if you'd be willing to share more details. Do you have an email we can contact you @?

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#94
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, was it a video course or some ebook? How did you do the marketing?

It was a video course. Without divulging too much, I Googled around and found some sites that had massive audiences that were similar to the audience I was targeting with my course. I contacted them and they cut me a deal to distribute my course to their audience. That brought in tens of thousands of students in the first year alone.

How much was your course priced at and what was the split like?

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#95

No, but my grandfather owned a successful restaurant. Invested all the profits into real estate. Built an empire of 5mil+ as a Mexican immigrant. Towards the end, he had everything pretty automated by people he hired. Property managers for the rentals and a mix of family and a good restaurant manager for the restaurant. He would just come in on Sundays to count the money/accounting. Side note. Our entire family has b…

What specifically did they fight over? If it can be assumed that your family is rational and reasonable, why does it sound implied that somebody felt they deserved or were owed money from your grandfather, just because they were family?

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#96
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While he probably indeed was the single biggest beneficiary of his book Tim Ferriss likely also helped a lot of people to change their respective lives for the better. Who cares if you're not "living the dream" as long as you're doing better than before? 4HWW can be a real eye-opener in many respects and it's certainly not just about selling cheap info products while making use of cost of living arbitrage. In fact, F…

The best conmen are the ones who fool themselves. In a sense, his sincerity is beside the point. But if he really was sincere, why did he title his book The 4HWW unless it was to sensationalize his work, and draw more attention to himself, and make more money. Tim has other aspects of a conman, and it's not just the way he practices martial arts. Rebecca Mead wrote a great profile about him here: http://www.newyorker…

> The 4HWW unless it was to sensationalize his work, and draw more attention to himself, and make more money.

It's called 'marketing'. That title was specifically chosen for its performance in a Google AdWords experimental run, which is a commonly recommended approach for testing MVPs.

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#97
post #12

The book is about being "the new rich". The new rich is not about having a billion dollars in your bank. Its about having enough money and most importantly the time and brain space to enjoy your time. In the book Tim, emphasises that burning through 90 hour work weeks are pointless if you are not able to enjoy the $$$ it will bring in. Rather spend some money to reduce your workload and focus on things that excite yo…

I just started reading this book yesterday, and today I see this thread on HN. What are the odds...

Tim's method is to approach maximum joy in life. Although money is not everything, I don't think joy is either. I tend to think of life as an optimization problem of 2 variables: joy and meaning, sometimes you need to do something unpleasant, yet meaningful.

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#99
Yes. The book sent me in a treacherous path and it wasn't easy but today I can say I'm working remote, 3 hours/day (minimum though) and earning a good living. Problem is, I am ambitious and end up working the whole deal, and investing every bit of earnings while preparing for the future. But happily. Still, I can say this book sent me on the path.

Re: Ask HN: Is Anyone Living “The 4-Hour Work Week”?

#100

I work one hour or two every morning to pay the bills. I spend an additional 3-4 hours working on things I want to see happen in the world. The hardest part is self-discipline, so I cut out all social media (no reddit outside of work-related stuff and limit HN). No movies and no porn surfing. No internet at home helps me stay on track. When I need internet I walk to the coffee shop with a to-do list.

Where in your schedule does answering this thread fit in?
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