Internet Business Success, Entrepreneurship, & Lifestyle Design
Hi there! Welcome to my website. I'm NOT some get rich quick big shot. I'm just a self-made guy who worked hard to get where I am today. The goal of my website is to teach you how to...
Outsourcing is nothing new. People have been using this little trick of the business trade for hundreds if not thousands of years. But in our era, outsourcing is now more accessible than ever. The Internet and wide-reach of technology in general has made it so much easier to tap labor forces across the globe in a matter of minutes with little effort.
I didn’t write this to try and prove to you that outsourcing works. I know it works and, hopefully, so do you.
I wrote this post to offer a nice overview on the topic so you can get a better idea of where you might stand with your own business. If you’re not already outsourcing tasks in your operations, I think this article will turn you on to the idea and encourage you to take action today. If you’re already an outsourcer, I hope this article encourages you to reflect on new ideas to improve your existing system. Maybe you need to outsource less. More likely, maybe you need to outsource more. Give it a read and see what you think.
The easy answer to our first question is EVERYONE. In fact, even if you’re not a business owner, you probably already have experience with some form of outsourcing. Do you pay someone to mow your lawn? Do you take your weekly laundry to your local dry cleaner? Are you paying a paperboy to toss the Daily News on your doorstep? All of these are examples of (more…)
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:
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.
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.
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!
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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… (more…)
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:
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.
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… (more…)
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.
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.
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… (more…)
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