The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Three Point Summary | Notes on big ideas from intriguing books
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Tim Ferriss is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcaster. He wrote 5 #1 NYT/WSJ bestsellers, was an early investor in Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Duolingo, Shopify, and hosts one of the highest rated podcasts in the world.
The Four-Hour Workweek was one of his first big hits. It details “lifestyle design”—habits and ways of thinking you can adopt to maximize the quality of your life in a number of areas.
I believe that life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself.
Timothy Ferriss
Thinking Big, Meaningful Work, & Creative Pursuits
The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”
The only rules and limits are those we set for ourselves.
People who avoid all criticism fail.
“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.
Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal.
If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
The Disease of Being Perpetually Busy
Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.
Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.
Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn’t make it productive or worthwhile.
Lifestyle Design Principles
Simplicity requires ruthlessness. Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your enjoyment and propel you forward, and which 20% cause 80% of your depression, anger, and second-guessing?
Do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker.
It is imperative that you learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. Most are all three.
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
Once you realize that you can turn off the noise without the world ending, you’re liberated in a way that few people ever know.
The goal (of Lifestyle Design) is to free your time to focus on bigger and better things.
Bonus: Travel & Language Learning
Ferriss is a language learning nerd and fluent in Spanish, like myself. He includes a quote from author Dave Barry: “Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.”
Language learning deserves special mention. It is, bar none, the best thing you can do to hone clear thinking.
Acquiring a new language makes you aware of your own language: your own thoughts. The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated.
Gain a language and you gain a second lens through which to question and understand the world. Cursing at people when you go home is fun, too. Don’t miss the chance to double your life experience.