[yuriko_boyko]

I think you miss the point of the four hour work week. The spirit of the book is delegation of things you don't want to do. Tim writes in the book that before an 80/20 analysis you will have to try a lot of things and see what sticks. Considering the fact that Tim writes about proactively researching the market and creating new categories if possible and to test various marketing tools and product ideas it's not the four hour work week mindset that's the problem. It's the people who just read the title and not the book that are hurting its big ideas.

[jan_Inkepa]

The titular four hour workweek was enabled by selling "herbal supplements" online IIRC. I don't regard that as aspirational. (Though I'm aware people need money to live, and you know, do what you gotta do I guess...but...).

[bergstromm466]

Yeah it seems Tim’s journey was about faking it till he ‘made’ it: selling supplements > selling book (about selling supplements + outsourcing) > angel investing

[andi999]

The male Kardashian life cycle.

[rpkoven]

Do you think his podcast is interesting though?

[bergstromm466]

Sometimes. I think I’ve only listened to a few (like 2 or 3). For me most of it falls under the category of ‘magical voluntarism’. It surprised me in his conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté (who I’m a big fan of) how he was scared to really open up and be honest/real.

[yuriko_boyko]

The book isn't for people who aspire to something greater than passive income and free time. In this case I'd say you're not the target audience.

[jfengel]

My recollection of Four Hour Work Week was that the core of it was dropshipping.

I don't really need to outsource most of my daily activities, which was the rest of the book. The big win of the book was to serve as a middleman, but that kind of rent-seeking quickly fills up the niches.

If he's saying "discover a brand new market and develop it before everybody else does", yeah, that's pretty much what we're all doing on HN. It takes a lot more than four hours per week until you find it, and very few people find it. The rest of us labor 80 hour weeks in our startups, or give up and work merely 40 hours.

[yuriko_boyko]

The drop shipping part I recall was part of 5 options he outlines and discusses the pros and cons and roi of. And the discover a brand new market and develop a product was another. The core really was just streamlining your inbound and focusing on creating a great product overpriced for luxury markets so you have customers that pay well enough and can be managed by one person.

It's really no secret that Tim himself worked 100 hour weeks for an year before he could streamline his company, he says so himself.

The best idea I took was that of not banking on retirement and constantly upskilling. And the hypothetical questions like if you had 6 months to complete your 5 year plan what would you do. Makes a man think creatively.

[rpkoven]

I think you are right. It’s how people ran with the book that is a little cringe