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  • This is how today's society thinks your life should look. You have go to school for the

  • first 20 years of your life.

  • Then you have to find a high paying job that you'll work for the next 40 years.

  • And after that, you can retire and finally enjoy your life for the last 20 years.

  • If you're lucky to live that long of course. This is basically the life plan.

  • Work hard now, so that someday in the future you can kick back, relax and enjoy when you

  • have the money. The 40 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path.

  • But is this the only way?

  • Not at all. Today we're going to challenge this notion by summarizing one of my favorite books.

  • The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I would recommend this book to anyone with aspirations

  • to have more freedom in their life. Many people think that the point of this book is to work

  • just four hours per week, sit on the beach and sip pina coladas.

  • Well that's not really the end goal, because you'd get so bored doing that.

  • There's only so many you can drink before you want to do some type of work again. This

  • book is about working smarter and not harder.

  • It's telling us that we can accomplish a lot more if we manage our time more effectively. Although,

  • if you're doing something you're truly passionate about, you're inevitably going to work hard anyways.

  • In fact, probably much harder than you would working a job you don't care about. So the

  • real objective of this book is to help you avoid doing what you dislike, and to also

  • have the freedom to pursue your dreams. So let's first talk about retirement and why

  • it sucks. If you're currently working a 9-5 job in exchange for occasionally relaxing

  • weekends, you might think that retirement is the end goal.

  • A light at the end of the tunnel, as you finally have the freedom to enjoy yourself. However

  • relying on retirement should be nothing more than the absolute worst case scenario.

  • If you think it's going to be great when you retire, then I have to tell you something

  • right now; it's not going to be great, your current job straight up sucks and you're wasting

  • the best years of your life. I mean, who the hell wants to wait until he's an old man,

  • before he starts living life on his own terms? Let me add that over 50% of people, over the age

  • of 65, have some sort of disability.

  • So those last 20 years of your life, are basically a coin flip.

  • You're not really free if you're old, sick and fragile. A good question to ask yourself

  • is this: What would you do if retirement wasn't an option?

  • How do your priorities change? It really makes you think. Do you keep working at a shitty

  • job for the rest of your life?

  • Or do you find a different one?

  • Maybe you start your own business?

  • You'll have to find the answer to that question yourself. Another problem with retirement is

  • that one week into it, you'll be so damn bored.

  • Suddenly you have 8 extra hours in a day, but nothing to fill this empty void.

  • You'll probably want to look for a new job or start a company.

  • Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of waiting, doesn't it? I'm not saying don't plan

  • for the worst case.

  • But don't mistake retirement for the end-goal.

  • This next concept changed the way on how I view money.

  • I found out that a dollar, can sometimes be worth more than just a dollar.

  • Let me explain what I mean by looking at this fifth grade math problem. This is Jane.

  • Jane makes 100,000 dollars a year. And this is Mike. He makes 50,000 dollars a year.

  • This clearly makes Jane twice as rich as Mike.

  • However this is only measured in yearly or absolute income.

  • Now let's take a look at this from a relative income standpoint. Jane makes 100,000 dollars

  • a year and works about 50 weeks per year, which means she makes 2,000 dollars a week.

  • Due to her demanding job, she also works 80 hours per week.

  • If we do some quick math, we learn that Jane earns 25 dollars an hour.

  • Not bad. Mike makes 50,000 dollars a year and he also works 50 weeks per year, which means

  • he makes around 1,000 dollars a week.

  • But here's a twist.

  • Mike only works 20 hours per week.

  • This means Mike makes 50 dollars an hour and, in relative income, he's actually 2 times

  • richer than Jane. But it gets even more interesting.

  • Jane works in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America.

  • Her cost of living there is around 80,000 dollars per year, which means she doesn't

  • save that much of her income.

  • But she also can't leave the city, because she has to be physically present there, to

  • do her job. However Mike makes his money online.

  • He's not tied to any city or country.

  • He can live anywhere he chooses to.

  • And he chose to live in Thailand, where his cost of living is about 15,000 dollars per

  • year. This makes Mike in relative income, even richer.

  • He has complete freedom to choose when, where and how to live. When we look at yearly or

  • absolute income, Jane is richer than Mike. But that's because absolute income doesn't take

  • anything else into analysis.

  • It's just a raw number of how much someone makes per year. In relative income however,

  • we look at the money earned per hour and how much freedom someone has.

  • By freedom I mean; controlling what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with

  • whom you do it. So in this case, 50,000 dollars per year, is worth more than 100,000 dollars

  • per year.

  • This is what I meant when I said that a dollar is sometimes worth more than a dollar. Sure,

  • Jane has more yearly income than Mike, but who has it better, really? Another important

  • idea in this book is to avoid work for work's sake. Some people are really good at being busy.

  • They shuffle papers and check email all day long.

  • When you meet them on a Friday night, they're so proud of it as well.

  • They say: "I worked 70 hours this week! Hmp!",

  • just to make themselves feel like they've accomplished more than the other person.

  • And yet they seem to get nothing important done.

  • They are busy and even efficient, but they're busy with the wrong things. You don't want

  • to be like them. A lot of people work at a job where they could finish their work in

  • 4 hours.

  • But because their employer thinks they have to work for 8 hours, a completely arbitrary

  • number, they become extremely good at deceiving themselves and others that they are productive.

  • Otherwise they could get fired from their job or wouldn't get paid.

  • And the same problem applies to self-employed people.

  • Instead of doing 4 hours of quality work, they're busy for 8 hours, but accomplish the

  • same amount. In today's world, doing less is considered laziness. But that's simply not

  • true. Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater importance,

  • is NOT laziness.

  • This is hard for most to accept, because our culture praises being busy, instead of being

  • productive. In the book Tim talks about efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is performing

  • a given task, whether important or not, in the best way possible. Effectiveness is doing

  • the right things, which get you closer to your goals. For example: The best door-to-door

  • salesman in the world is efficient.

  • Refined and excellent selling without wasting any time.

  • But he's completely ineffective.

  • He would sell much more of his product using a different method, such as e-mail or any

  • other type of advertising.Efficiency is important, but it's useless unless it's applied to the

  • right things. So first be effective, then be efficient. I've already made a video talking

  • about the Pareto's Law, but I'll go over it briefly. The Pareto's Law states this: 80700:08:51,800 --> 00:08:55,860 of consequences come from 20% of causes.

  • This means that 20% of your efforts produce 80% of your results. But the inverse is also true.

  • Which means that if you want the last 20% of results, you'll have to put in 80% more

  • effort. So, what you want to do is to identify those 20% that produce 80%.

  • You then want to focus on the 20% and become efficient at them.

  • Eliminate the other 80% which produce only 20% of value. There is no point in spending

  • your time on them.

  • If we eliminate the things that don't produce a lot of results, we could then use that extra

  • time, to focus on the 20% that produces the most results. Just by applying the Pareto's

  • law you can cut your workload by shit ton. Now if you want to free up even more of your time,

  • there's a next step to it.

  • And it's called outsourcing. So let's say you have an online business and you make 50 dollars

  • an hour.

  • However your lawn needs mowing and you really don't feel like doing it.

  • You could: A.)

  • mow the lawn yourself, but it's going to take 1 hour of your time, or B.)

  • pay someone else to do it for you, for 20 dollars. Since you don't want to mow the lawn

  • and your hour is worth 50 dollars, paying someone 20 dollars for 1 hour of work is a

  • good trade-off for you.

  • You basically buy yourself extra time. Now you might be thinking; I know I can do a better

  • job than the guy I hired, so why shouldn't I do the job myself?

  • Again the point is to free your time to focus on bigger and more important things.

  • You can always do something more cheaply and get it done the way you want it done, by doing

  • it yourself.

  • However this doesn't mean you want to spend your time doing it.

  • If you spend your time, worth 50 dollars an hour, doing something that someone else is

  • willing to do for 20 dollars, it's simply a poor use of resources.

  • That's assuming you dislike mowing lawns.

  • If you get enjoyment out of it, then go ahead and do it yourself. However you should never

  • outsource something that can be eliminated in the first place. Don't forget the Pareto's

  • law we just talked about. So it's better to focus on doing the tasks only YOU can do.

  • Let others do the easier tasks for you.

  • When you look at millionaires, they all have personal drivers, chefs and maids. Someone

  • could say they are lazy, but really, they're simply using their resources more effectively

  • by outsourcing tasks that are not important to them. Since they basically buy more time,

  • they can now focus on the 20% of things that will make them even more money.

  • Or they could spend more time with their families, whichever they choose. So the basic idea here

  • is to get in to the habit of outsourcing unimportant things and to buy yourself time so you can

  • focus on the things that are important to you. Now we'll discuss the last and most important

  • topic in this book.

  • Why are a lot of millionaires and old retired people, depressed and unfulfilled with their

  • lives? Both the retired and ultra-rich are often depressed and neurotic for the same

  • reason: too much idle time. But wait a second...

  • Isn't more time what we're after?

  • Isn't what this book is all about?

  • No, not at all.

  • When you remove all the bad and unimportant things in life, you are not left with everything good.

  • Sunshine and rainbows isn't what remains.

  • Far from it. You're actually left with an empty void.

  • So doing nothing isn't the goal.

  • Doing what excites you and brings you joy is. If you free yourself from your job, but

  • you haven't filled the void with anything non-business, like a hobby, you're just going

  • to continue to work to keep yourself busy.

  • Otherwise you'll be bored out of your mind. Knowing how to spend your free time is also something

  • that needs developing.

  • It's not something we're automatically good at. The media might tell you that sipping a

  • cocktail on a sandy beach will get rid of all your life problems.

  • Sure, you can do that for some time. However there will come a stage, whether it's two

  • weeks or two years later, when you won't be able to see another beach and drink another

  • cocktail ever again. You'll be over it. So what should you do with your free time?

  • Well Tim says: to live is to learn.

  • You want to continuously challenge yourself, not be idle. Start playing a sport, learn a

  • new language or play an instrument. Read more books, focus on improving yourself and your

  • relationships with other people. Basically, try out different things and see which hobbies

  • you like or enjoy.

  • You could also start making an impact in the world.

  • Help out your local community, donate to charity or create a company that shoots rockets into

  • space. Always keep on improving yourself and do what excites you.

  • Thank you for watching the video till the end, I hope you enjoyed it.

  • Make sure to leave a like and subscribe.

  • Now if you would like me to make more free videos, then consider supporting this channel. There's

  • a link in description where you can buy me a coffee.

  • Every coffee counts as it helps me improve the rate at which I make videos.

  • Again, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video, that will

  • make you better than yesterday.

This is how today's society thinks your life should look. You have go to school for the

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