My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 2 – How My Fairy Tale Became Reality

This is a true story. I read the book over two years ago and worked like a dog to put his ideas into action. Now, I reveal exactly how it went down in my Five Part Series on the legendary Four Hour Work Week…

New to this blog series? Be sure to read Part 1 first here: My Four Hour Work Week Story Part One.

Reading Books and Chasing Fairy Tales

I started my first business in college. I sold used books on Amazon.com at a markup and made a pretty decent monthly income. I was never going to get rich selling books online, but I learned a lot about building a business and built the confidence I needed to do it again the right way.

After I sold my first business and liquidated the inventory, I knew I wanted to do something totally different. Most importantly, I did NOT want a massive inventory to hold me down. At the rate I was going with bookselling, I would eventually need a massive warehouse with forklifts and a shipping center. Forget it!

That’s when I stumbled upon marketing.

To make a very long story very short, I went from Amazon third-party seller to independent web marketing consultant in a matter of months. At some point, the consulting started taking off and I realized that I really had something to offer. I worked for several years in this capacity and things were going quite well.

Then two books suddenly changed my life: The E-Myth and, of course, The Four Hour Work Week.

• The E-Myth basically taught me that building a business is very different from being self-employed and that most people confuse these two — including me.

• The Four Hour Work Week taught me that building a business is great but so is having a life and that you really can choose to do it the right way if you begin with the end in mind.

These two books made me an entrepreneur. I suddenly understood the difference and realized I had to do things differently if I really wanted to succeed. I had to create a business that did not really solely on me for things to get done or for customers to be happy. I had to start making moves and taking chances if I really wanted to create something big and move beyond my profitable but small local market.

Although both of these books set me on the right path, I have to give far more credit to The Four Hour Work Week for one very essential ingredient, the burning desire to achieve a very clear goal…

You see, after I read 4HWW I set an incredibly tangible goal for myself: to build a business that could run without me while I went globe-trotting to faraway lands. Less than 2 years after I read Tim’s book, my goal became a reality and — as Tim puts it in The Four Hour Work Week — “my life has been a near fairy-tale since.”

A Fairy Tale Turned Real

The reason I give so much credit to Tim’s book for helping me build a thriving business is simple: the 4HWW inspired me to get out of a life I did not want to live and into a life I really really really wanted to live. Travel, freedom, independence, laptop mobility — I daydreamed about these elements constantly. I wanted them so bad, I would do whatever it would take to make it happen.

But here’s the real kicker… Not only did I now have something to work for that I really really really wanted — I was then living a life that I knew I absolutely did NOT want. Going through the motions in a dead-end relationship. Sleepwalking in a boring job. Living in a dreadful setting. All of it made me work that much harder just to get out.

And that’s exactly what I did.

After teaching 30-40 hours per week at the college, I would regularly spend an additional 30-40 hours per week building my business. 12 hour days became the norm. Weekends were a thing of the past. All-nighers happened more often than I’d like to admit.

But I was doing two very important things…

1. I was building a business with my goal in mind.
I knew that the point was to work less, so I was constantly moving in that direction. Yes, in the beginning the hours were long and the work was intense. But I always understood that those kinds of hours would eventually be a choice and not a mandatory process.

2. I was working towards a goal that I wanted more than anything else.
I would get so excited about my goal that the hard work rarely mattered. I knew that eventually I would arrive and it would be so worth it. And it was.

How My Dream Became a Reality

As my business started to grow, I suddenly realized that everything was about to happen as planned. The business revenue was increasing steadily. I was now working with over 10 outsourcers. I had even gone from a full-time instructor at the college to a very part-timer, teaching just one class on Friday mornings. I didn’t even need the teaching money anymore. I just did it to keep my foot in the door and to keep the fires burning towards my ultimate goal.

That’s when I started making real plans and taking dramatic action, much of it based on Tim’s detailed advice in The Four Hour Work Week.

First, I sold nearly everything I no longer needed in my condo. Then, I went paperless and setup a remote office to receive all mail and personal phone calls using EarthClassMail.com and PhoneTag.com — two services I highly recommend.

Then, I started making plans for my first relocation in Berlin, Germany. I already had a few contacts there, knew a little German, and had a fairly good idea of what to expect. I also planned a brief stop-off in Dublin for a week or two to disconnect from my “old life” and begin my journey into this new and exciting world.

Living a Dream and Dreaming Something New

In March 2009 I left SFO airport and headed first for Dublin and then to Berlin. The feeling I had the day I boarded the plane in San Francisco was unimaginable. Freedom and independence, plus a chance to recreate my life as a laptop entrepreneur — all of it was so unbelievable!

While living in Berlin, my business continued to grow. I have to admit: there were plenty of times, especially in the beginning, when I didn’t know what to expect. But month-by-month everything was happening right on schedule.

I spent a lot of time in Berlin just meeting new people, studying German, exploring the city and, well… not working. I could have been building the business, expanding, and working on new projects, but this time was so important for me to disconnect.

Now that I had achieved my goal, things began slowly changing. I suddenly realized that moving to Berlin was just the first step in a much bigger experience and that it was time to start taking full control and moving towards even bigger goals.

And that’s when things started to change again…

In the next installment of this series, I’ll look at some of the problems I encountered with my new 4HWW lifestyle and how I solved them to create my own systems in my very own way. Stay tuned…

10 Responses to “My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 2 – How My Fairy Tale Became Reality”

Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments

1. Stephanie says:

   January 26, 2010 at 1:16 pm

   Great post! You talk alot about discipline. Can you explain some tools or tips you have found to be very useful? Did you meet any people in Berlin that changed your life?
2. Jason Clegg says:

   January 26, 2010 at 1:28 pm

   Thanks, Steph! Well of course I met you there, my love.

   I plan to talk more about the people I met and some of the life-changing experiences I had in the follow-up tomorrow. And discipline is definitely part of it. I’ll be looking next at some of the major pitfalls in 4HWW lifestyle management.

   Stay tuned…
3. Stephanie says:

   January 26, 2010 at 2:23 pm

   I am looking forward to hearing the pitfalls. Not that I am skeptical, but I think it is misleading a bit. You have to put in extra hours to obtain the 4 hours.

   Lastly, do you think it is possible to grow or sustain your living on 4 hours a week?

   Another question I have, Is it possible for any career or profession to obtain the 4HWW?
4. Jason Clegg says:

   January 26, 2010 at 3:47 pm

   Yes, I agree. Some people may get the wrong idea and think that a 4HWW will happen overnight. The truth is it takes LOTS of work to build a successful business. In my opinion, the secret lies in *how* you organize everything including your day-to-day workflow.

   I do think it’s possible to grow/sustain a very comfortable living on 4 hours per week IF you are disciplined. Personally, I prefer 3-6 months of more consistent work followed by 3-6 months of less work or “mini-retirement” as Tim Ferriss calls it.

   As for any profession… I think it depends. The “four hour” goal is unrealistic for MANY professions. But reducing your overall work time is possible for virtually everyone and anyone who wants to spend more time focusing on the right things.

   It’s all about priorities.
5. Asia says:

   January 26, 2010 at 4:37 pm

   Woot! I’m so glad your’e writing about this. Tell all, man. I’m PSYCHED!
6. Jason Clegg says:

   January 26, 2010 at 4:41 pm

   Thanks! Look for more to come in the next three installments…
7. Ruth - Web Career Girl says:

   January 27, 2010 at 8:06 am

   Wow, what a fantastic series of posts! I am really looking forward to reading the rest. Very inspiring but I also like the realistic way you’re looking at the 4HWW concept.
8. Julian Palei says:

   January 28, 2010 at 6:37 am

   Fantastic story Jase…I really felt your energy whilst reading it! I share the same dreams you do.

   Look forward to the next installment!
9. Jason Clegg says:

   January 28, 2010 at 10:49 am

   Thanks, Ruth & Julian. More to come!

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