Some are more realistic than others. Similar to The 4HWW, most of these books make generalities, but lack the nuts-and-bolts.
How can you tango dance on a beach in Argentina when Akshay, your virtual assistant, is also busy tango dancing on a beach in Argentina” The end chapter on service comes off unsettlingly as a last-minute tack-on by editors suddenly faced with a manuscript of stunning superficiality and self-absorption. Most people in 9-5 jobs are getting about 3-4 hours of genuine WORK done a day. Well that’s about what I do, but I just do it in a concentrated effort and don’t get sidetracked by other things. There are details in this but more details would have been helpful. This book can give a glimmer of hope, to those that need or want it. He gets fired from his first job at an ice cream store because he’s so much smarter than the owner. He gets fired from several more jobs and realizes he’s a sociopath and can’t work with others.
Don’t waste yours. I think this idea of Life Style Design is a great one.
Nobody cares about your business as much as you do. By page 16, I had lost respect for the author, when he quotes himself in a discussion with an employer: “I ask him in the most tactful way possible why we are doing it like retards.” In the next paragraph we discover he’s made his money by starting a dietary supplement company. Living in a money-based instead of a community-based society is hard. However, people often rush to judge those who either HAVE money or WANT to have money as automatically immoral or bad people. What makes this book different, and worth purchasing, is the repurposing of these techniques. Ferriss doesn’t tell you how to make a successful small business; he shows you how to build a small business that you can hand off to others to manage, allowing you to follow your “dream lines”.
Can you get far more accomplished in far less time” Absolutely, and I’m convinced anyone reading this book will find at least a few treasures they can take back to the job to make themselves and the organization better, smarter, and more effective.
And much of what he draws on isn’t acknowledged. He provides so little information on each aspect of his ideas that I doubt that very many readers can really implement what he recommends.
And extreme feelings about a book, either extreme love or extreme hate, tend to motivate one to share that view with the world. What I found amazing was, most of the 1-star reviews were reviews of positive reviews, not the book, even though they claimed to be reviews of the book. He hit on something here. I enthusiastically and TOTALLY agree with him on the point that we can live free lives today and not defer retirement.
Some days I work 6 hours especially when I’m in the new phase of a project, but that’s about my max. Receipt Scanner As Seen On Tv.