My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 5 – Beyond a Four Hour Work Week

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 the first four installments here:

• Part One: What is a 4HWW?
• Part Two: How My Fairy Tale Became Reality
• Part Three: Not Working is Really Not Working
• Part Four: Making the 4HWW Lifestyle Work

Uncharted Waters in Santorini, Greece

There’s no doubt in my mind that The Four Hour Work Week made me a better entrepreneur and helped me achieve a much higher degree of success than ever before. These days I work smarter and much more efficiently thanks to many of the core ideas in the book.

The funny thing about goal-setting is when you get really good at it, it actually starts happening. It’s the most exhilarating feeling to find yourself in a place you always hoped to be and then realize that it all happened because you made it happen. Truly awesome!

Then again, once you achieve a goal and quietly cross it of the proverbial list, a strange feeling comes over you. And that’s exactly what happened to me when I found myself on Santorini island in Greece during the last days of September 2009.

It was a very happy but very odd time. My business was doing great. I had more freedom than I could ever imagine. And every day was filled with endless opportunity. Life was very good. But something was missing.

And that’s when it dawned on me… The Four Hour Work Week model had served me well but it was time to move on to bigger and better things.

This is exactly when I knew that my life as an entrepreneur hinged upon three questions. I didn’t know I was asking these questions before I read The Four Hour Work Week but I definitely knew I was asking them now.

How Should You Grow Your Business?

With things going incredibly well with my web marketing services, I started wondering about taking on more. Originally, I wanted to keep things simple. Now I wanted to set the bar higher and keep growing.

There were two primary ways I wanted to grow my business: 1) expanding the marketing services by offering more to my quickly growing client-base and 2) increasing my visibility online with websites like JasonClegg.com and social networks.

This was a major departure from my “quiet web business” model of 2005-2009 but I was very excited about it — this is always a good sign when setting any new goal!

I think anyone who reads The Four Hour Work Week, puts the ideas into action, and finds success will also eventually end up on this position too. It’s exciting to think about growing a business (or starting a new business) from this position because you have already built up so much leverage, experience, and confidence to go in a new or a much bigger direction.

Plus, if you do it right, your existing business should be running smoothly without too much input from you. This allows for so much more freedom the “second time around” and an ability to make smarter, even more fulfilling decisions.

What Kind of Day-to-Day Life Do You Really Want?

Lifestyle is what it’s all about. Now that I had achieved my initial goals — traveling the world, working on my own schedule, and living freely — it was time to head back to the drawing board.

One of the biggest changes that took place in my life around this time in late 2009 was a new relationship. I never expected to find love during my travels in Europe, but it definitely happened and I knew instantly that this was one very important part of my equation.

Obviously, there’s nothing in The Four Hour Work Week about love life, but for me this really is something I always wanted. I don’t believe we should rely upon others to make us happy, but I do believe that intimate relationships, friendships, and family do contribute a great deal to personal happiness.

I also knew that a life of constant vagabonding and globe-trotting was not really my idea of long-term fulfillment. Coming home to the US with a great partner was a fantastic close to that chapter of my life. Today, we’re both working on building our lives and planning our future together. This is an exciting next step for me!

When is Your Next Mini-Retirement?

Travel is something I really value, so I knew that leaving Europe and coming back to the States would not mark the end of world exploration. This time, I just want to do it differently and with another person. There are plenty of examples in The Four Hour Work Week of families and couples traveling together, so I always knew this was a possibility. What I didn’t know was how much more exciting it could be.

Now I’m also thinking about mini-retirements in a very different way. Living in Malibu is like being on vacation every day. Plus, exploring the US is something I’d like to do much more since I’ve still visited far more countries than states.

Back to the Future – Back to Basics

Regardless of how I choose to shape my future beyond The Four Hour Work Week, I know that it always comes back to the fundamental points and lessons learned:

• Stay focused with priorities in business and personal life.
• Look for new ways to apply the 80/20 rule.
• Set new goals, keep working at them, and bring them to life!

One of the greatest rules in business is this: If you’re not growing, you’re dying. It’s a bit extreme but there’s a lot of truth behind it. And it applies just as much to the personal realm as it does to entrepreneurship.

Writing this 4HWW blog series has been a great experience for me. Looking back, I am very proud of what I’ve overcome to get here and what I’ve learned along the way. But I intend to keep setting the bar higher. I hope you do the same.