Saturday, August 6, 2016

Review of Instaread Summary of "The 4-Hour Workweek Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich" by Timothy Ferriss



Review of

Instaread Summary of The 4-Hour Workweek Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss 

Five out of five stars

 My opinion of this summary was low until I reached the author’s style section. Here is Ferriss’ definition of the “New Rich.”
‘The “New Rich” are an emerging class of people who reject the Western cultural notion that one must endure decades in a nine-to-five job before finally getting to enjoy life only during retirement.’
 He then amplifies on this point in key takeaway 2.
“The New Rich do not believe that money is the only measure of wealth. Instead, they measure their net worth in the time and freedom available to them.”
 The descriptions are very idealistic, suitable for a self-help book that uses unrealistic arguments. Most people dream of working for themselves, but that is a reality that the circumstances of their life will make difficult to impossible. Since there seemed to be no critical analysis of this in the summary, my opinion dropped as I read through it.
 However, all was made well when I read the author’s style section. There was the very telling segment:
“It is worth noting that some of Ferriss’ suggestions for how to attain the lifestyle of the New Rich could be viewed as unethical or unscrupulous. For example, he suggests intentionally dialing back one’s in-office productivity to contrast with how well one works remotely. He also encourages calling in sick and then ramping up productivity as a means to demonstrate how much better one operates outside the office.”
 These approaches presupposes that your supervisor is not smart enough to recognize these tactics. Only a fool would make that assumption. This is a case where the book is of dubious value while the author of the summary accurately recognizes the dubious tactics executed by Ferriss. 

This book was made available for free for review purposes.

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