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by BjoernKW 3239 days ago
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, Ferriss has stated several times that the 4HWW is neither about literally just working 4 hours nor is it necessarily about constantly travelling through low-rent countries (though that certainly can be a beneficial option). It's much more about making efficient use of your time and doing so according to your own standards instead of somebody else's.

Some of the comments here depict him as some kind of snake oil salesman. I think he genuinely wants to teach and help people but that's just my personal opinion.

Consider this though: Who are the real snake oil men here? The one who tries to teach you to live a better life by your own standards or the ones that try to sell you a "> 40 hrs of work per week; consume as much as you can; don't enjoy life until you're too old to actually enjoy it;" lifestyle as the 'proper' way of living your life?
1 comments
blueyes 3239 days ago
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...

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BjoernKW 3238 days ago
> 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.

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