First, the two apps–

Freedom from the Internet

If you’re looking to block your computer from web access for a set period of time, you need Freedom. This handy little application will completely block you from the Internet anytime you turn it on. Simply open the app, set the number of minutes (from 1 minute all the way up to 480), and turn it on. Presto! No more web access for you, buddy. (Mac AND PC versions available for this app.)

Self Control from Your Mindless Web Surfing

If you’re looking to block only particular websites, I highly recommend Steve Lambert’s “SelfControl.” Turn this app on and you can designate exactly which websites you want blocked. Create a running list so anytime you turn it on, the same sites are blocked. Enter the number of minutes you need a little self control, activate, and ba-bing! No more annoying little sites like Facebook, Twitter, or email access. (Mac only.)

The makers of the Freedom app also recently released a new app which I have not yet tried out called Anti-Social which basically does the same thing as SelfControl but is available for Mac AND PC.

Why Get Away from the Web?

This point might be obvious for some and completely missed by others, so let’s unpack it. If you do any kind of work on the Internet (which includes virtually all of us these days), chances are extremely high that you spend a great deal of your computer time surfing aimlessly and getting lost in the high tide of websites, email, and social media.

Whether you want to believe me or not, you simply do NOT need to check your email, Facebook, and all your other little accounts 1723 times per day. It’s NOT doing you any good.

BUT…

Quite frankly, it’s really really really HARD to stay away. I don’t know about you, but the second I sit down and pop up my laptop screen I’m racing off to about 1,326,028 websites, email accounts, and god only knows what. All it takes is one little thought in a different direction and click, click, click, and suddenly I’m watching random videos on YouTube about how to blow bubbles in my beer.

UNLESS…

I make a point of activating Freedom if I want to stay off the web completely or SelfControl if I want to do focused work online.

Neither of these applications are expensive. Freedom is just $10 and Anti-Social is $15. SelfControl is free. And just think of how quickly this tiny little investment will translate into income-producing work time.

There’s a time for silly websites and random web-browsing. But if you can get a little help from these applications, you’ll be far more likely to know when it’s time to get some work done and when it’s time to play.

No related posts.

Why Relocate Your Life and Your Business?

Relocation has been at the center of my lifestyle-design and business-building strategy since my first journey to Berlin in early 2009. Much of this was inspired by the well-known business book, The Four Hour Work Week.

A Four Hour Work Week? Are You Kidding?

Not really up to speed on all this 4HWW (Four Hour Work Week) mumbo jumbo? Take a gander at my 4HWW Series articles here…

4HWW Part One
4HWW Part Two
4HWW Part Three
4HWW Part Four
4HWW Part Five

I once read that the best ways to power up your motivation is this…

1. Back yourself into a corner.
2. Do everything in your power to get out.

I believe this is exactly why I managed to go from a $37,000 per year college instructor to a six-figure Internet Business owner in just a few years.

To go from zero to 60 required serious motivation, and I had it. No doubt about it. But here’s the real key: to muster super-high levels of motivation requires LOTS of reasons to succeed. It can’t be *just* about money or *just* about travel. And it can’t be *just* about prestige or status. You’ve got to find LOTS of reasons and they MUST be very real to your mind, body, and soul.

Maybe that last line sounds a bit hokey, but I’m quite serious.

If your reasons for doing something big don’t resonate on a mental, emotional, and spiritual/higher level, then you’re simply NOT going to make it happen. Again, I’m talking about doing something BIG, something life-changing. The reason most people never take action to achieve something big is because they don’t really want to do it. Why not? They don’t have enough reasons.

Before I read the 4HWW, I already had a desire to start building a business. In fact, I already had a business. It just wasn’t exactly running like a machine. The ideas behind The Four Hour Work Week resonated with me in many powerful ways and on many meaningful levels. I wanted to travel more. I wanted to meet different people from around the world. I wanted to experience different types of cultures, cuisines, and ways of life. And most of all — I wanted to live a better life. I wanted to work smarter not harder.

To put it all in one simple statement: I knew the rat-race sucked and I didn’t want to spend my life doing it.

Relocate, Renew, Recharge

Before I get too far astray in this blog-sized novel, let’s get back to what’s happening right now. As I write this, I’m sitting on an AeroMexico flight to Costa Rica. My girlfriend is sitting next to me playing on her iPad while I’m over here struggling to speak Spanish with the flight attendant pouring my coffee. Life is good. Pura vida!

What is it about travel that inspires us so much? It’s two things: Time and Freedom.

Think about it. Why are vacations so damn wonderful? Time and Freedom. And why do most people in modern cultures look forward to retirement so much? Time and Freedom. Remember childhood? What was so great about the playground, school recess, and summer vacation? Time and Freedom.

This is exactly why I love relocation so much. In a nutshell, relocation is traveling to a new place to live, work, and play. But for me it’s really a chance to recapture the true spirit of things and get back to the basics.

Mini Retirement v. Relocation Recalibration

My last relocation in early 2009 to Berlin, Germany, was more of a 4HWW mini-retirement. I went there to get away from work and to learn more about myself. But this time my purpose is much different. One of the best things about relocation is the process you go through right before you leave. It works like this: First, you unpack your current life. Then, you pack up your new life and hit the road. Somewhere in between you get rid of 80% of the crap you don’t really need. When it’s all finished, you feel a great sense of relief, clarity, and lightness. It’s probably one of the most therapeutic things you could ever do for yourself.

This time around instead of a mini-retirement, I’m looking at this journey as more of a “Relocation Recalibration.” Instead of avoiding work, I’m going to reclaim more balance between work-and-play. For my business and personal life, I’m looking to do one very important thing — focus on what’s really important in life and ignore everything else.

As Stephen Covey once put it — “Begin with the end in mind.” The path will unfold before you…

No related posts.

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.

No related posts.

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 three installments here:

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

The Entrepreneurship Recipe

Entrepreneurship is about three things – building wealth, designing your lifestyle, and creating more freedom. This is my greatest lesson from all of my efforts to adopt principles from The Four Hour Work Week and to make them work for me.

When I started applying the 4HWW principles, I had no idea what to expect but the practice was incredibly powerful. I learned a lot about what it takes to build a thriving business (and NOT a self-employment venture), and I learned even more about myself and my goals.

While living in Berlin and traveling around Europe, I had a unique opportunity to start over and begin thinking about designing my lifestyle in exactly the way I wanted. Living abroad was completely new, as was having a company cruise along without constant input from me — aside from the occasional “putting out fires” work.

But this was the mere tip of the iceberg.

Creative Lifestyle Design v. Copy-and-Paste

Don’t get me wrong – all of Tim’s suggestions are awesome but, as he points out himself, they’re mere starting points to get you moving in your own direction.

The hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur is just getting off the ground and building your business into something viable and stable. But the part of the equation most people miss is that entrepreneurship is a complete picture — YOU are the entrepreneur. YOUR efforts and YOUR goals are the machine. The fuel is YOUR vision, not someone else’s ideas.

Some claim that Tim Ferriss coined the term “lifestyle design.” Whether that’s true or not, lifestyle design is the single biggest reason behind the success of The Four Hour Work Week and all of Tim’s popularity (or unpopularity, as the case may be).

For so long, entrepreneurship and business development was about suits, ties, and briefcases. Now it’s about world travel, nomadic living, and mini-retirements. That’s something you can sink your teeth into!

But it’s not all about lifestyle and “running amok like a rock star.” It’s also about generating a comfortable income and increasing the degree of freedom you experience in life. This is the three-ingredient recipe that I have derived from my experiments and experiences in the last few years — wealth, lifestyle, freedom.

Most people seem to miss a very crucial point in The Four Hour Work Week book. Very early on in the text, Ferriss unpacks his acronym DEAL… Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation. As Wikipedia reminds us…

“Definition means to figure out what a person wants, get over fears, see past society’s “expectations,” and figure out what it will really cost to get where a person wants to go.”

In creating your own lifestyle, the last thing you should ever do is expect someone else’s ideas to make you happy…

Being Anti-Social Defining Your Happiness

One of my biggest critiques of Tim Ferriss is his disdain for social networking. He almost isolates himself from the rest of the world with gatekeepers, low information diets, and all the rest. To be honest, and to be fair, I’m not really up-to-speed on how Tim’s handling Facebook, Twitter, and BBC reports these days but his original message was to avoid all of it as much as possible.

During the early periods of my 4HWW developments, I did exactly the same. Let me tell you, the results were absolutely amazing!

But there’s a line to draw somewhere…

If it makes you happy to stay up-to-date on the latest news or to peruse social networks as leisure activity, then do it! Tim’s right: we all need a little info-break periodically. But I’m not so sure that cutting yourself off from the rest of the world will actually make you happier. That’s your call.

Again, this is about making it work for you. Take the advice in The Four Hour Work Week with a grain of salt and find ways to make Tim’s suggestions work for YOU. Instead of keeping your social media applications running all day, set a time in the day to check and update them. Instead of checking your email constantly, use a program like Self Control or Freedom to get off the web for extended periods to write for your blog or do another landscape painting. Whatever. Just realize that too much of anything probably isn’t going to enhance the quality of your life.

Write Your Own Four Hour Work Week Story

I’m very happy to see Tim Ferriss releasing a new edition of The Four Hour Work Week. Hopefully more people will be inspired to think about starting their own business and stop depending on questionable corporations to do it all for us.

But what I’d really like to see more of is entrepreneurs creating their own visions for how they plan to build wealth, create lifestyle, and increase freedom.

If you haven’t already, go out and read The Four Hour Work Week. When you’re done, start writing your own entrepreneurship story.

In the final installment of this series, I’ll discuss how to move beyond The Four Hour Work Week to keep building wealth, expanding your freedom, and designing exactly the kind of lifestyle you really want! Stay tuned…

No related posts.

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 two installments here:

• My Four Hour Work Week Story Part One

• My Four Hour Work Week Story Part Two

Live from Berlin – An Entrepreneur without a Job

Living in Berlin was everything I hoped for and more! I got an apartment. I took German language classes at a local school. I met plenty of Germans and fellow ex-pats. I took side trips to some of my favorite European destinations. I even met my girlfriend there. We both lived in Berlin and came back to the US together at the beginning of October 2009. In short, I had a blast!

But my original plan to go abroad and work just four hours per week or so came with some major problems…

First, there were general business issues.
When problems come up and you’re the guy on top, you have to solve them – especially when your business systems are fairly new. I’ve been in business for a long time, but this was the first time I had many other people working “for me” that I had to manage. This stuff simply could not wait if I expected to keep the trains running.

Of course, a true 4HWW business eliminates as many “people problems” as possible by not dealing with people at all, but my business is marketing services and people are essential to what we do.

Then, there were my issues.
Not working is not as easy as it sounds, people. Believe you me. After I got to Berlin, I spent the first month or so just aimlessly exploring, meeting new people, and frittering away the days. At a certain point, that got a bit boring. The language classes helped but not working at all was challenging. Still, it was very good for me to experience this. I got to let a lot out of my system and I’m a stronger person now because of it.

Problems with the Four Hour Work Week Philosophy

A four hour work week is possible, but it really should NOT be the end goal. If you’re an entrepreneur, you really should enjoy building a successful business. IMHO, you should enjoy doing it over and over again. Working should be something you enjoy, not something you’re trying to avoid…

But I do believe in working smart, not hard.

One of the key points in The Four Hour Work Week is learning how to delegate. Every business owner needs to learn how to delegate tasks to others to free up his or her time to focus on really critical things: marketing, new products, networking, etc.

At the end of the day, this is the real message of Tim Ferriss’ book: work smart and not hard as an entrepreneur so you can focus on the top priorities and stop wasting your time on frivolous #&!@.

The 4HWW = An 80/20 Case Study

What it all boils down to is this: The Four Hour Work Week is basically an expanded case study on Pareto’s Principle (aka Pareto’s Law) or the 80/20 rule.

The 80/20 rule says you should always look to maximize results by understanding where most of your results originate. As Tim Ferriss puts it…

• What 20% of your customers cause 80% of your problems?
• Or, what 20% of your customers generate 80% of your profit, etc etc?

That’s the message folks. To be a great entrepreneur in an era of information overload, you have to learn how to 80/20 everything — your email, your contacts, your personal life, and especially your daily business-building work.

As we all know, many of the examples in Tim’s book are a bit ridiculous. Stephanie was also keen to point out that getting in touch with Tim Ferriss is a bit like trying to contact the gatekeeper to heaven. There’s definitely something a bit disconcerting about someone so impersonal in his networking style.

But I do believe a lot of the examples and suggestions inside the book should be considered more of a bootcamp style regimen than a framework for the rest of your life. Try out the 4HWW suggestions, put them into action, and then do what works for you.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll show you exactly how I modified The Four Hour Work Week model to work for me and how you might do the same! Stay tuned…

No related posts.

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…

No related posts.

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…

Although most of my writings here at JasonClegg.com tend to cover entrepreneurship and Internet Business topics, I consider these “lifestyle design” issues (a term coined by Ferriss) extremely important.  How we approach our work is almost as important as the very work we do since it defines how we live in this very strange post-office world.  So, enough s’plaining — on with the story!

The Four Hour Work Week Plus Overtime

Tim Ferriss recently released his new updated and expanded version of his immensely popular Four Hour Work Week, which got me thinking about my own experience with this compelling piece of business nonfiction.  Tim released the first version of 4HWW back in April of 2007, nearly 3 years ago.  I picked up a hardcopy and then an audio copy sometime during the summer of 2007 when the book was really starting to take off.  And I’ll tell you what, folks — no single book or “business idea” has shaped my thinking as much before or since.

That said, I think Ferriss’ ideas have been perverted, twisted, and misunderstood by tons of people — this includes some of his biggest fans as well as some of his greatest critics.

The whole “Four Hour Work Week” phenomenon reminds me a lot of “The Secret” — that magical video that got millions of people doing creative visualization à la Shakti Gawain and “pretend driving” Ferraris and Lamborghinis in their bedrooms just before dozing off to sleep at night.

Don’t get me wrong: I think “The Secret” was great.  But let’s face it, success and prosperity does not happen by day-dreaming in your bubble-bath.

Likewise, achieving a Four Hour Work Week is not for the faint of heart (or the lazy, for that matter).  Here’s the deal: I want to come clean on my own experience with the 4HWW concept and explore some of the details of this idea.  My intention is not to suggest that you should do what I did nor is it to make Ferriss look like a superhero or a demon.  I simply want to take an honest look at the ideas behind what I consider to be one of the most influential books of early 21st century business culture…

What is a Four Hour Work Week?

One of the most misunderstood ideas behind Ferriss’ 4HWW concept is the most obvious: How the #$!@ can anyone work just 4 hours per week? Look people, just because the book is called Four Hour Work Week does not mean that you’re supposed to (or that we’re all supposed to) work only 4 hours per week.  This is just a catchy title and, perhaps more importantly, a play on what we’re used to seeing… “the forty hour work week.”

Now, I do understand that if a book title insists on itself then the contents of the book should deliver.  Agreed.  In fact, Tim Ferriss’s book does an excellent job of showing exactly how to achieve a 4HWW.  Is everybody going to do it?  Definitely not.  It takes tremendous discipline and dedication to do it, a few ingredients most of us lack.

But IMHO, the most important thing to understand about this book is that work time is often frivolously wasted on pointless activities instead of groundbreaking, critical work.  A 4HWW is a work week with clear priorities and plans of action, not dilly-dallying and screwing off on the web.  (After all, isn’t this what most of us are up to on the web throughout a typical work day?)

And, of course, a 4HWW is not intended to necessarily be just that.  What if you’re an attorney working 80+ hours per week?  It would be absolutely amazing to read Tim’s book and go from 80 hrs to just 60 or 40 or even 20!  Whatever your situation, the 4HWW prescription is completely relative.

Achieving the goal that works best for you takes work.  This is the other misleading part of Tim’s writing.  I don’t think he misleads, but I think mass popularity of the book and its ideas misleads.  You have to put in effort to make something happen.  You can’t just expect your transformation to happen overnight or without a little pain and a little extra time.

The hardest part for most (definitely for me) is replacing work with something else.  As you’ll see in my persona 4HWW story to come, a lot of people who get started with Tim’s ideas are actually going to enter a period of more work and time exerted than before.  This is necessary to get through the initial period and make your desired change a reality.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll reveal all of the details from my very exciting experience with the Four Hour Work Week including exactly how I implemented Tim’s ideas into my own business and went from a 60 hour+ work week as a business owner and college instructor to an on-my-own-time successful entrepreneur.  Stay tuned…

In the meantime, please share any of your thoughts on the Four Hour Work Week and your personal experiences below.

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The only problem with January is it can become more like an endless cycle than a legitimate chance to start over and get some renewal. It that my “New Year’s Resolutions” for example are pretty much the same things year after year: get healthier, be happier, and make more money. No problems there.

But this is a bit annoying. Every year I’m rehashing the same goals. The good news is that I’m super clear about the things I value as the years go by. These things don’t change too much. The bad news is that I must be doing something wrong. Why else would I be drawing out this same exact list every time the calendar flips over?

Values are the Foundations of Goals

Obviously, I value health, happiness, and wealth. Every year, I’m concentrating on these parts of my life and finding things I don’t like and beginning the year with some goals of improving them. So what’s wrong with that? I thought you’d never ask…

The big problem here is specificity. Healthy, happy, wealthy. That sounds great and all, but how exactly does one define healthy? What does it mean to be happy? And wealthy? My ideas about all three of these things are changing all the time.

It’s a great idea to build resolutions around values — you pretty much have to do it that way if you hope to have any success at all. It’s not a great idea, though, simply to list your values as goals. Values aren’t goals. Values provide the foundation to build goals. Goals are something altogether different.

What the $#@#! is a Goal?

A goal is something you seek out that, generally speaking, has a very tangible thing going on. Usually, a goal has a “Point A to Point B” nature to it. You start somewhere without this thing you’re after and then eventually — after some effort and pushing — you end up with the thing in your possession (or something damn close to it).

For example, let’s start with something one might value and build a specific goal out of it. Let’s say I value travel. I really do, so this is a perfect example. If I want to create a goal out of traveling, then I’ll need to set an objective that I can start moving towards. Maybe my goal will be to take a trip around-the-world from Los Angeles, California across the continents and back again in the span of one year. Now we’re talkin’ goals folks!

We can break this goal down even more so we can see exactly what needs to happen in order to bring the goal to life, or to manifest it into reality. Money, time, logistics — all of these elements will need to be addressed for this to work out. If the trip will take one year, then you’ll need some way to get away from work or to manage your work remotely. If you’re going to hop from one country to the next until you make your way from one end of the globe to another, you’re going to need to plan flights, hotels, and all the other arrangements that go into good trip planning. And, of course, you’re going to need a wad of cash to make it all happen.

Things seem to get more complicated at this stage of goal-setting and goal-planning, but actually the point is to make things easier. Before, the goal was just a fantasy in your mind. But once you start unpacking it, you begin to see what’s really required. This is the essential part of reaching your goals: understanding exactly what needs to happen for the dream to transpire.

Setting Goals for 2010

All right, back to my confused list of values. So I know that every year I come back to health, happiness, and wealth again and again. This year, for 2010, I’m going to come at this in a new way. I’m going to get incredibly specific about my goal setting. With my three value areas in mind, I am approaching 2010 with very detailed goals that will fulfill my desire for greater sense of health and fitness, overall happiness, and more financial security.

Goal #1: Financial Breakthrough
Target: $1 Million in Total Business Revenue
Deadline: December 31, 2010
My first goal is primarily financial in nature, but also has a lot to do with my overall happiness. Anytime somebody tells me money can’t make you happy, I cringe. I know money itself doesn’t create happiness, but I also know that it can and does go a long way towards empowering me and positioning me to have a more enjoyable, fulfilling, and thus happier lifestyle.

2009 was the best year for my entrepreneurship projects so far. Total sales revenue far exceeded my expectations for the year, especially after bringing on board a salesperson to help with the daily customer service workload, phone calls, and order processing.

2010 is going to be even better! I have numerous new product launches we’re going to take underway, and I’m tremendously excited about each and every one of them. Plus, I have some great new ideas for marketing and promotions to help reach out more to my existing client base, attract new customers, and improve education around our products and services.

As I continue offering more streamlined Internet Marketing services, I have found it increasingly important to educate clientele. Unfortunately, lots of web marketing firms are just in it for the quick buck and will often sell products and services that don’t really benefit clients. My goal for 2010 is to increase the overall size of our marketing clientele and business-base by adding more services — each of which will add tremendous amounts of value at an affordable price to the client’s online marketing efforts.

My objective is to increase the size of my business to reach the $1 million mark by the end of the year. I am quite confident that I can achieve this goal, but I realize it’s going to take some solid effort and some major action.

Goal #2: Physical Fitness & Mental Clarity
Target: Learn to Surf and Paddle Board
Deadline: December 31, 2010 (results much sooner, of course)
Now that I’m living on the beach in Malibu, it’s time to start attacking one of my long desired personal goals — learning to surf. I’m going to start by learning to paddle board. It’s winter now, and this will be a great way to improve my balance, get comfortable on the water, and get used to manipulating a board on the ocean.

I’ve attempted surfing a few times at a very young age but never with much success. From what I can tell, this is a sport that’s going to require lots of effort and discipline if I expect to excel. But I think it will contribute to my overall health and happiness by providing a nice outlet from work and life. Plus, I’m a huge fan of the marine life, so it will be great to spend more time closer to nature.

2010 – The Year for Business and Lifestyle Design

I hope you’ll take the time now to plan out some similar goals for yourself in the coming year. I’ve chosen two goals here simply because I want to really focus on my values while also staying true to the two things I like writing about and talking about on this website — success in entrepreneurship and personal lifestyle design.

Being successful in business isn’t just about making money and owning assets – it’s also about creating exactly the kind of life you want to have. But creating takes time and effort. It also requires planning. Setting goals for the coming year is the perfect way to start planting your seeds now so you can make the most of the year ahead!

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