Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

Buy on amazon to follow along my highlights

Some times people think they can only do things if they have millions, but that’s not always the case.

‌People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy.Read more‌

NR = New Rich = Their currency is time and mobility

LD = Lifestyle design

D = Deferrers  = those who save it all for the end

W4W = Work for work

‌The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility. This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).Read more‌

People is always preparing for “retirement” at 60 or somewhere in the future instead of enjoying what they have and can do today. (Read Seneca on the shortness of life for some extra ideas about this same theme)

‌Life doesn’t have to be so damn hard. It really doesn’t. Most people, my past self included, have spent too much time convincing themselves that life has to be hard, a resignation to 9-to-5 drudgery in exchange for (sometimes) relaxing weekends and the occasional keep-it-short-or-get-fired vacation.Read more‌

To become a NR follow the DEAL process

Time, money and mobility are the main ingredients  of for a luxury LD (lifestyle design)

Step 1: Definition

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. —ALBERT EINSTEINRead more

Differences between the New Rich (options) and the Deferrer (those who save it all for the end)

What separates the New Rich, characterized by options, from the Deferrers (D), those who save it all for the end only to find that life has passed them by?Read more

D: To work for yourself. NR: To have others work for you.Read more

D: To work when you want to. NR: To prevent work for work’s sake, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect (“minimum effective load”).Read more

D: To work when you want to. NR: To prevent work for work’s sake, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect (“minimum effective load”).Read more

D: To retire early or young. NR: To distribute recovery periods and adventures (mini-retirements) throughout life on a regular basis and recognize that inactivity is not the goal. Doing that which excites you is.Read more

D: To buy all the things you want to have. NR: To do all the things you want to do, and be all the things you want to be. If this includes some tools and gadgets, so be it, but they are either means to an end or bonuses, not the focus.Read more

D: To make a ton of money. NR: To make a ton of money with specific reasons and defined dreams to chase, timelines and steps included. What are you working for?Read more

D: To have more. NR: To have more quality and less clutter. To have huge financial reserves but recognize that most material wants are justifications for spending time on the things that don’t really matter, including buying things and preparing to buy things. You spent two weeks negotiating your new Infiniti with the dealership and got $10,000 off? That’s great. Does your life have a purpose? Are you contributing anything useful to this world, or just shuffling papers, banging on a keyboard, and coming home to a drunken existence on the weekends?Read more

D: To reach the big pay-off, whether IPO, acquisition, retirement, or other pot of gold. NR: To think big but ensure payday comes every day: cash flow first, big payday second.Read more

D: To have freedom from doing that which you dislike. NR: To have freedom from doing that which you dislike, but also the freedom and resolve to pursue your dreams without reverting to work for work’s sake (W4W). After years of repetitive work, you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near extinction. The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.Read more

Being rich and to live like a millionaire are two very different things

Freedom multiplier

Money on its own is not practical - Money + W’s is practical

Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. I call this the “freedom multiplier.”Read more

What’s the point of making $500K/Y if we are working the whole time?

Using this as our criterion, the 80-hour-per-week, $500,000-per-year investment banker is less “powerful” than the employed NR who works ¼ the hours for $40,000, but has complete freedom of when, where, and how to live.Read more

What’s power?

Options—the ability to choose—is real power.Read more

Get options, control your W’s

Fundamental rules for the NR

1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance.Read more

Why do I want to retire if what I do brings me excitement? Boredom is the enemy

2. Interest and Energy Are Cyclical.Read more

Work and Rest

3. Less Is Not Laziness.Read more

Produce meaningful results in the few hours of work instead of focusing on being “busy”

Focus on being productive instead of busy.Read more

4. The Timing Is Never Right.Read more

“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.

5. Ask for Forgiveness, Not PermissionRead more

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitant to get in the way if you’re moving. Get good at being a troublemaker and saying sorry when you really screw up.

6. Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses.Read more

Focus on what you are good at - The choice is between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that will, at best, become mediocre. Focus on better use of your best weapons instead of constant repair.

7. Things in Excess Become Their Opposite.Read more

Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.

8. Money Alone Is Not the Solution.Read more

Adding more money is not the answer, is laziness.

“If only I had more money” is the easiest way to postpone the intense self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment— now and not later. By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently disallow ourselves the time to do otherwise:

9. Relative Income Is More Important Than Absolute Income.Read more

Absolute vs Relative income. Always look at income relatively!

Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time, usually hours. The whole “per year” concept is arbitrary and makes it easy to trick yourself.Read more

Let’s look at the real trade. Jane Doe makes $100,000 per year, $2,000 for each of 50 weeks per year, and works 80 hours per week. Jane Doe thus makes $25 per hour. John Doe makes $50,000 per year, $1,000 for each of 50 weeks per year, but works 10 hours per week and hence makes $100 per hour.Read more

10. Distress Is Bad, Eustress Is Good.Read more

Do things and surround yourself with people that  push you and give you excitement.

Eustress, on the other hand, is a word most of you have probably never heard. Eu-, a Greek prefix for “healthy,” is used in the same sense in the word “euphoria.” Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress—stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.Read more

Conquering Fear = Defining Fear

Conquering Fear = Defining FearRead more

There isn’t as much risk as we think on doing what we want, and worst case scenario we can always go back to the previous situation easily.

This all equated to a significant realization: There was practically no risk, only huge life-changing upside potential, and I could resume my previous course without any more effort than I was already putting forth.Read more

6. What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically—to postpone action?Read more

Uncovering Fear Disguised as Optimism

Uncovering Fear Disguised as OptimismRead more

Optimistic denial - “I won’t quit because I know I’ll make more money after X”

A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.

As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.Read more

Fear comes in many forms, and we usually don’t call it by its four-letter name. Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial. Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will improve with time or increases in income.Read more

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Maxims for RevolutionistsRead more

Is easier to do the unrealistic than the realistic - the adrenaline infusion helps with it

Doing the Unrealistic Is Easier Than Doing the RealisticRead more

Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal.Read more

People thing they want happiness, no! They want excitement!

Let’s assume we have 10 goals and we achieve them—what is the desired outcome that makes all the effort worthwhile? The most common response is what I also would have suggested five years ago: happiness. I no longer believe this is a good answer. HappinessRead more

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.Read more

The big question is: “What would excite me”

Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure.”Read more

Dreamlining = Focus on achievable goals and steps

Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most would consider dreams. It is much like goal-setting but differs in several fundamental respects: 1. The goals shift from ambiguous wants to defined steps. 2. The goals have to be unrealistic to be effective. 3. It focuses on activities that will fill the vacuum created when work is removed. Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things and not just owning enviable things.Read more

Samuel Beckett, a personal hero of mine: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’Read more

Comfort challenge

The most important actions are never comfortable.Read more

To have an uncommon lifestyle, you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others.Read more

From this chapter forward, I’ll take you through progressively more uncomfortable exercises, simple and small.Read more

Learn to Eye Gaze (2 days)Read more

For the next two days, practice gazing into the eyes of others—whether people you pass on the street or conversational partners—until they break contact.Read more

Step 2: Elimination  (will bring you time)

Step II: E is for EliminationRead more

Forget about time management and results by volume – we don’t have to work all the time, the idea is to not work all the time and get time to do the things that excite us. The steps in Elimination will help us increase productivity and gain more time to do what we want.

For employees:

They need to Liberate themselves from the office environment before they can work ten hours a week, for example, because the expectation in that environment is that you will be in constant motion from 9–5.Read more

increase your valueRead more

For entrepreneurs:

The entrepreneur’s goals are less complex, as he or she is generally the direct beneficiary of increased profit. The goal is to decrease the amount of work you perform while increasing revenue. This will set the stage for replacing yourself with Automation, which in turn permits Liberation.Read more

Effective vs Efficient

Effectiveness = doing the things that get you closer to your goals.

Efficiency = performing a given task in the most economical manner possible.

Being Effective vs. Being Efficient Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe.Read more

Here are two truisms to keep in mind: 1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.Read more

From this moment forward, remember this: What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it. Efficiency is still important, but it is useless unless applied to the right things.Read more

Pareto: 80/20 principle

Pareto’s Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. Alternative ways to phrase this, depending on the context, include: 80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes.Read more

80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time. 80% of company profits come from 20% of the products and customers. 80% of all stock market gains are realized by 20% of the investors and 20% of an individual portfolio.Read more

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.Read more

Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline. If I give you 24 hours to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials. If I give you a week to complete the same task, it’s six days of making a mountain out of a molehill. If I give you two months, God forbid, it becomes a mental monster. The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.Read more

Approaches for increasing productivity

1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20).Read more

2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law).Read more

The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.Read more

If you haven’t identified the mission-critical tasks and set aggressive start and end times for their completion, the unimportant becomes the important. Even if you know what’s critical, without deadlines that create focus, the minor tasks forced upon you (or invented, in the case of the entrepreneur) will swell to consume time until another bit of minutiae jumps in to replace it, leaving you at the end of the day with nothing accomplished.Read more

Most inputs are useless and time is wasted in proportion to the amount that is available.Read more

Q& A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS

1. If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?Read more

2. If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do?Read more

3. If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing ⅘ of different time-consuming activities, what would you remove?Read more

4. What are the top-three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I’ve been productive?Read more

5. Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your enjoyment and propel you forward, and which 20% cause 80% of your depression, anger, and second-guessing?Read more

Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic.Read more

6. Learn to ask, “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?”Read more

7. Put a Post-it on your computer screen or set an Outlook reminder to alert you at least three times daily with the question: Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important?Read more

8. Do not multitask. I’m going to tell you what you already know. Trying to brush your teeth, talk on the phone, and answer e-mail at the same time just doesn’t work. Eating while doing online research and instant messaging? Ditto.Read more

9. Use Parkinson’s Law on a Macro and Micro Level. Use Parkinson’s Law to accomplish more in less time. Shorten schedules and deadlines to necessitate focused action instead of deliberation and procrastination.Read more

On a weekly and daily macro level, attempt to take Monday and/or Friday off, as well as leave work at 4 P.M.Read more

On a micro task level, limit the number of items on your to-do list and use impossibly short deadlines to force immediate action while ignoring minutiae.Read more

Comfort challenge

COMFORT CHALLENGE Learn to Propose (2 Days) Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions.Read more

Offer a solution. Stop the back-and-forth and make a decision. Practice this in both personal and professional environments.

The Low-Information Diet  Read more

Cultivate selective ignorance - information consumes our attention!

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. —HERBERT SIMON, recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics8 and the A.M. Turing Award, the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”Read more

Problems, as a rule, solve themselves or disappear if you remove yourself as an information bottleneck and empower others.Read more

It is imperative that you learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. Most are all three.Read more

Lifestyle design is based on massive action—output. Increased output necessitates decreased input.Read more

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn’t at least two of the four.Read more

From an actionable information standpoint, I consume a maximum of one-third of one industry magazine (Response magazine) and one business magazine (Inc.) per month, for a grand total of approximately four hours. That’s it for results-oriented reading. I read an hour of fiction prior to bed for relaxation.Read more

I let other dependable people synthesize hundreds of hours and thousands of pages of media for me. It was like having dozens of personal information assistants, and I didn’t have to pay them a single cent.Read more

what if you need to learn to do something your friends haven’t done? Like, say, sell a book to the world’s largest publisher as a first-time author? Funny you should ask. There are two approaches I used:Read more

1. I picked one book out of dozens based on reader reviews and the fact that the authors had actually done what I wanted to do. If the task is how-to in nature, I only read accounts that are “how I did it” and autobiographical. No speculators or wannabes are worth the time.Read more

2. Using the book to generate intelligent and specific questions, I contacted 10 of the top authors and agents in the world via e-mail and phone, with a response rate of 80%.Read more

I only read the sections of the book that were relevant to immediate next steps, which took less than two hours. To develop a template e-mail and call script took approximately four hours, and the actual e-mails and phone calls took less than an hour. This personal contact approach is not only more effective and more efficient than all-you-can-eat info buffets, it also provided me with the major league alliances and mentors necessary to sell this book. Rediscover the power of the forgotten skill called “talking.” It works. Once again, less is more.Read more

Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS

1. Go on an immediate one-week media fast.Read more

No newspapers, magazines, audiobooks, or nonmusic radio. Music is permitted at all times. No news websites whatsoever (cnn.com, drudgereport.com, msn.com,10 etc.). No television at all, except for one hour of pleasure viewing each evening. No reading books, except for this book and one hour of fiction11 pleasure reading prior to bed. No web surfing at the desk unless it is necessary to complete a work task for that day.Read more

2. Develop the habit of asking yourself, “Will I definitely use this information for something immediate and important?” It’s not enough to use information for “something”—it needs to be immediate and important. If “no” on either count, don’t consume it. Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.Read more

“just-in-time” information instead of “just-in-case” information.

Focus on what digerati Kathy Sierra calls “just-in-time” information instead of “just-in-case” information.Read more

3. Practice the art of nonfinishing.Read more

This is another one that took me a long time to learn. Starting something doesn’t automatically justify finishing it.Read more

Comfort challenge

Get Phone Numbers (2 Days) Being sure to maintain eye contact, ask for the phone numbers of at least two (the more you attempt, the less stressful it will be) attractive members of the opposite sex on each day.Read more

Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal Read more

Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate. —DAVE BARRY, Pulitzer Prize–winning American humoristRead more

Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.Read more

Doing the important and ignoring the trivial is hard because so much of the world seems to conspire to force crap upon you. Fortunately, a few simple routine changes make bothering you much more painful than leaving you in peace.Read more

For our purposes, an interruption is anything that prevents the start-to-finish completion of a critical task, and there are three principal offenders:Read more

1. Time wasters: those things that can be ignored with little or no consequence. Common time wasters include meetings, discussions, phone calls, web surfing, and e-mail that are unimportant.Read more

2. Time consumers: repetitive tasks or requests that need to be completed but often interrupt high-level work.Read more

3. Empowerment failures: instances where someone needs approval to make something small happen.Read more

Time Wasters: Become an Ignoramus The best defense is a good offense. —DAN GABLE, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and the most successful coach in history; personal record: 299–6–3, with 182 pins Time wasters are the easiest to eliminate and deflect. It is a matter of limiting access and funneling all communication toward immediate action.Read more

First, limit e-mail consumption and production.Read more

MOVE TO ONCE-PER-DAY as quickly as possible. Emergencies are seldom that. People are poor judges of importance and inflate minutiae to fill time and feel important.Read more

2. If someone does call your cell phone, it is presumably urgent and should be treated as such. Do not allow them to consume time otherwise.Read more

Don’t encourage people to chitchat and don’t let them chitchat. Get them to the point immediately.Read more

The third step is to master the art of refusal and avoiding meetings.Read more

Once it is clear that remaining on task is your policy and not subject to change, they will accept it and move on with life. Hard feelings pass. Don’t suffer fools or you’ll become one.Read more

It is your job to train those around you to be effective and efficient. No one else will do it for you. Here are a few recommendations:Read more

1. Decide that, given the non-urgent nature of most issues, you will steer people toward the following means of communication, in order of preference: e-mail, phone, and in-person meetings. If someone proposes a meeting, request an e-mail instead and then use the phone as your fallback offer if need be.Read more

3. Meetings should only be held to make decisions about a predefined situation, not to define the problem. If someone proposes that you meet with them or “set a time to talk on the phone,” ask that person to send you an e-mail with an agenda to define the purpose: That sounds doable. So I can best prepare, can you please send me an e-mail with an agenda? That is, the topics and questions we’ll need to address? That would be great. Thanks in advance.Read more

4. Speaking of 30 minutes, if you absolutely cannot stop a meeting or call from happening, define the end time.Read more

5. The cubicle is your temple—don’t permit casual visitors.Read more

6. Use the Puppy Dog Close to help your superiors and others develop the no-meeting habit.Read more

The cost- and time-effective solution, therefore, is to wait until you have a larger order, an approach called “batching.” Batching is also the solution to our distracting but necessary time consumers, those repetitive tasks that interrupt the most important.Read more

Empowerment failure refers to being unable to accomplish a task without first obtaining permission or information.Read more

Empower others to act without interrupting you.Read more

SET THE RULES in your favor: Limit access to your time, force people to define their requests before spending time with them, and batch routine menial tasks to prevent postponement of more important projects. Do not let people interrupt you. Read more

1. Create systems to limit your availability via e-mail and phone and deflect inappropriate contact.Read more

Batch activities to limit setup cost and provide more time for dreamline milestones.Read more

3. Set or request autonomous rules and guidelines with occasional review of results.Read more

Remember, profit is only profitable to the extent that you can use it. For that you need time.Read more

Comfort challenge

Revisit the Terrible Twos (2 Days) For the next two days, do as all good two-year-olds do and say “no” to all requests.Read more

Step III: A is for Automation (will bring you money)

Step III: A is for AutomationRead more

Fun things happen when you earn dollars, live on pesos, and compensate in rupees, but that’s just the beginning.Read more

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it. —MALCOLM X, Malcolm X SpeaksRead more

most critical of NR skills: remote management and communication.Read more

If I can do it better than an assistant, why should I pay them at all? Because the goal is to free your time to focus on bigger and better things.Read more

Eliminate before you delegate. Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else’s time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash.Read more

Principle number one is to refine rules and processes before adding people. Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production; using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.Read more

“What should you delegate?”

Golden Rule #1: Each delegated task must be both time-consuming and well-defined. If you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off and assign your VA to do that for you, it doesn’t improve the order of the universe.Read more

Golden Rule #2: On a lighter note, have some fun with it. Have someone in Bangalore or Shanghai send e-mails to friends as your personal concierge to set lunch dates or similar basics.Read more

First, per-hour cost is not the ultimate determinant of cost. Look at per-task cost.Read more

Commit to memory the following—never use the new hire. Prohibit small-operation VAs from subcontracting work to untested freelancers without your written permission.Read more

1. Never use debit cards for online transactions or with remote assistants. Reversing unauthorized credit card charges, particularly with American Express, is painless and near instantaneous.Read more

2. If your VA will be accessing websites on your behalf, create a new unique login and password to be used on those sites.Read more

Ask foreign VAs to rephrase tasks to confirm understanding before getting started.Read more

3. I gave him a license to waste time. This brings us again to damage control. Request a status update after a few hours of work on a task to ensure that the task is both understood and achievable.Read more

4. I set the deadline a week in advance.Read more

WHAT DOES A good VA task e-mail look like? The following example was recently sent to an Indian VA whose results have been nothing short of spectacular:Read more

How do you assemble a business and coordinate all its parts without lifting a finger? How do you automate cash deposits in your bank account while avoiding the most common problems? It begins with understanding the options, the art of dodging information flow, and what we will call “muses.”Read more

Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS 1. Get an assistant—even if you don’t need one.Read more

2. Start small but think big.Read more

Look at your to-do list—what has been sitting on it the longest? Each time you are interrupted or change tasks, ask, “Could a VA do this?” Examine pain points—what causes you the most frustration and boredom?Read more

3. Identify your top five time-consuming non-work tasks and five personal tasks you could assign for sheer fun.Read more

4. Keep in sync: scheduling and calendarsRead more

Comfort challenge

COMFORT CHALLENGE Use the Criticism Sandwich (2 Days and Weekly)Read more

Income Autopilot - FINDING THE MUSE Read more

This chapter is not for people who want to run businesses but for those who want to own businesses and spend no time on them.Read more

People can’t believe that most of the ultrasuccessful companies in the world do not manufacture their own products, answer their own phones, ship their own products, or service their own customers. There are hundreds of companies that exist to pretend to work for someone else and handle these functions, providing rentable infrastructure to anyone who knows where to find them.Read more

Our goal is simple: to create an automated vehicle for generating cash without consuming time. That’s it.22 I will call this vehicle a “muse” whenever possible to separate it from the ambiguous term “business,” which can refer to a lemonade stand or a Fortune 10 oil conglomerate—our objective is more limited and thus requires a more precise label.Read more

It is critical that you decide how you will sell and distribute your product before you commit to a product in the first place. The more middlemen are involved, the higher your margins must be to maintain profitability for all the links in the chain.Read more

Creating demand is hard. Filling demand is much easier.

Creating demand is hard. Filling demand is much easier. Don’t create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market—define your customers—then find or develop a product for them.Read more

Be a member of your target market and don’t speculate what others need or will be willing to buy.Read more

Start Small, Think BigRead more

It is said that if everyone is your customer, then no one is your customer. If you start off aiming to sell a product to dog- or car-lovers, stop. It’s expensive to advertise to such a broad market, and you are competing with too many products and too much free information. If you focus on how to train German shepherds or a restoration product for antique Fords, on the other hand, the market and competition shrink, making it less expensive to reach your customers and easier to charge premium pricing.Read more

It is more profitable to be a big fish in a small pond than a small undefined fish in a big pond.Read more

Ask yourself the following questions to find profitable niches. Read more

1. Which social, industry, and professional groups do you belong to, have you belonged to, or do you understand, whether dentists, engineers, rock climbers, recreational cyclists, car restoration aficionados, dancers, or other?Read more

2. Which of the groups you identified have their own magazines?Read more

Step Two: Brainstorm (Do Not Invest In) ProductsRead more

Pick the two markets that you are most familiar with that have their own magazines with full-page advertising that costs less than $5,000. There should be no fewer than 15,000 readers. This is the fun part. Now we get to brainstorm or find products with these two markets in mind.Read more

The Main Benefit Should Be Encapsulated in One Sentence. People can dislike you—and you often sell more by offending some—but they should never misunderstand you.Read more

It Should Cost the Customer $50–200.Read more

1. Higher pricing means that we can sell fewer units—and thus manage fewer customers—and fulfill our dreamlines. It’s faster. 2. Higher pricing attracts lower-maintenance customers (better credit, fewer complaints/questions, fewer returns, etc.). It’s less headache. This is HUGE. 3. Higher pricing also creates higher profit margins. It’s safer.Read more

Price high and then justify.Read more

It Should Take No More Than 3 to 4 Weeks to Manufacture.Read more

It Should Be Fully Explainable in a Good Online FAQ.Read more

Choose a product that you can fully explain in a good online FAQ. If not, the task of travelling and otherwise forgetting about work becomes very difficult or you end up spending a fortune on call center operators.Read more

“How does one obtain a good muse product that satisfies them?” There are three options we’ll cover in ascending order of recommendation.Read more

Option One: Resell a ProductRead more

Option Two: License a ProductRead more

Option Three: Create a ProductRead more

Information products are low-cost, fast to manufacture, and time-consuming for competitors to duplicate.Read more

But I’m Not an Expert!

First, “expert” in the context of selling product means that you know more about the topic than the purchaser. No more. It is not necessary to be the best—just better than a small target number of your prospective customers.Read more

Expert status can be created in less than four weeks

Second, expert status can be created in less than four weeks if you understand basic credibility indicators. It’s important to learn how the PR pros phrase resume points and position their clients. See the boxed text later in this chapter to learn how.Read more

Use the following questions to brainstorm potential how-to or informational products that can be sold to your markets using your expertise or borrowed expertise.Read more

Digital delivery is perfectly acceptable—in some cases, ideal—if you can create a high enough perceived value.Read more

1. How can you tailor a general skill for your market—what I call “niching down”—or add to what is being sold successfully in your target magazines? Think narrow and deep rather than broad.Read more

2. What skills are you interested in that you—and others in your markets—would pay to learn? Become an expert in this skill for yourself and then create a product to teach the same.Read more

3. What experts could you interview and record to create a sellable audio CD? These people do not need to be the best, but just better than most. Offer them a digital master copy of the interview to do with or sell as they like (this is often enough) and/or offer them a small up-front or ongoing royalty payment.Read more

4. Do you have a failure-to-success story that could be turned into a how-to product for others? Consider problems you’ve overcome in the past, both professional and personal.Read more

Being perceived as an expert vs being one

First and foremost, there is a difference between being perceived as an expert and being one. In the context of business, the former is what sells product and the latter, relative to your “minimal customer base,” is what creates good products and prevents returns. It is possible to know all there is to know about a subject—medicine, for example—but if you don’t have M.D. at the end of your name, few will listen. The M.D. is what I term a “credibility indicator.” The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators, whether acronyms or affiliations, is often the most successful in the marketplace, even if other candidates have more in-depth knowledge. This is a matter of superior positioning, not deception.Read more

“Expert” is nebulous media-speak and so overused as to be indefinable.Read more

In modern PR terms, proof of expertise in most fields is shown with group affiliations, client lists, writing credentials, and media mentions, not IQ points or Ph.D.s.Read more

Comfort challenge

COMFORT CHALLENGE Find Yoda (3 Days) Call at least one potential superstar mentor per day for three days.Read more

Income Autopilot II TESTING THE MUSE

To get an accurate indicator of commercial viability, don’t ask people if they would buy—ask them to buy. The response to the second is the only one that matters.Read more

Step Three: Micro-Test Your ProductsRead more

Comfort challenge

COMFORT CHALLENGE Rejecting First Offers and Walking Away (3 Days)Read more

Income Autopilot III MBA—MANAGEMENT BY ABSENCE

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. —WARREN G. BENNIS,Read more

Starting with the end in mind—an organizational map of what the eventual business will look like—is not new.Read more

Removing Yourself from the Equation: When and HowRead more

1. Contract outsourcing companies53 that specialize in one function vs. freelancers whenever possible so that if someone is fired, quits, or doesn’t perform, you can replace them without interrupting your business.Read more

2. Ensure that all outsourcers are willing to communicate among themselves to solve problems, and give them written permission to make most inexpensive decisions without consulting you first (I started at less than $100 and moved to $400 after two months).Read more

The Art of Undecision: Fewer Options = More RevenueRead more

Henry Ford once said, referring to his Model-T, the bestselling car of all time,56 “The customer can have any color he wants, so long as it’s black.”Read more

He understood something that businesspeople seem to have forgotten: Serving the customer (“customer service”) is not becoming a personal concierge and catering to their every whim and want. Customer service is providing an excellent product at an acceptable price and solving legitimate problems (lost packages, replacements, refunds, etc.) in the fastest manner possible. That’s it.Read more

The more options you offer the customer, the more indecision you create and the fewer orders you receive—it is a disservice all around.Read more

1. Offer one or two purchase options (“basic” and “premium,” for example) and no more. 2. Do not offer multiple shipping options. Offer one fast method instead and charge a premium. 3. Do not offer overnight or expedited shipping (it is possible to refer them to a reseller who does, as is true with all of these points), as these shipping methods will produce hundreds of anxious phone calls. 4. Eliminate phone orders completely and direct all prospects to online ordering. This seems outrageous until you realize that success stories like Amazon.com have depended on it as a fundamental cost-saver to survive and thrive. 5. Do not offer international shipments. Spending 10 minutes per order filling out customs forms and then dealing with customer complaints when the product costs 20–100% more with tariffs and duties is about as fun as headbutting a curb. It’s about as profitable, too.Read more

Offering something for free is the best way to attract time-eaters and spend money on those unwilling to return the favor.Read more

Make your customer base an exclusive club, and treat the members well once they’ve been accepted.Read more

Lose-win is the new win-win. Stand out and reap the rewards.Read more

How to Look Fortune 500 in 45 Minutes

1. Don’t be the CEO or founder.Read more

2. Put multiple e-mail and phone contacts on the website.Read more

3. Set up an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) remote receptionistRead more

4. Do not provide home addresses.Read more

Comfort challenge

COMFORT CHALLENGE Relax in Public (2 days) This is the last ComfortRead more

Step IV: L is for Liberation (will bring you movility)

Step IV: L is for LiberationRead more

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. —ROBERT FROST, American poet and winner of four Pulitzer PrizesRead more

Being bound to one place will be the new defining feature of middle class. The New Rich are defined by a more elusive power than simple cash—unrestricted mobility.Read more

getting what you want often depends more on when you ask for it than how you ask for it.Read more

While entrepreneurs have the most trouble with Automation, since they fear giving up control, employees get stuck on Liberation because they fear taking control. Resolve to grab the reins—the rest of your life depends on it.Read more

Questions and actions

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAWRead more

1. If you had a heart attack, and assuming your boss were sympathetic, how could you work remotely for four weeks?Read more

6. Practice the art of getting past “no” before proposing. Go to farmers’ markets to negotiate prices, ask for free first-class upgrades, ask for compensation if you encounter poor service in restaurants, and otherwise ask for the world and practice using the following magic questions when people refuse to give it to you. “What would I need to do to [desired outcome]?” “Under what circumstances would you [desired outcome]?” “Have you ever made an exception?” “I’m sure you’ve made an exception before, haven’t you?” (If no for either of the last two, ask, “Why not?” If yes, ask, “Why?”)Read more

If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. —CHINESE PROVERBRead more

Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn’t make it productive or worthwhile.Read more

Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.Read more

There are several principal phobias that keep people on sinking ships, and there are simple rebuttals for all of them.

1. Quitting is permanent.Read more

2. I won’t be able to pay the bills.Read more

Don’t be melodramatic when there is no needRead more

3. Health insurance and retirement accounts disappear if I quit.Read more

4. It will ruin my resume.Read more

“I had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do [exotic and envy-producing experience] and couldn’t turn it down. I figured that, with [20–40] years of work to go, what’s the rush?”Read more

There are two types of mistakes: mistakes of ambition and mistakes of sloth.Read more

Here are a few exercises to help you realize just how natural job changes are and how simple the transition can be. 1. First, a familiar reality check: Are you more likely to find what you want in your current job or somewhere else? 2. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? 3. Take a sick day and post your resume on the major job sites.Read more

In the world of action and negotiation, there is one principle that governs all others: The person who has more options has more power. Don’t wait until you need options to search for them.Read more

4. If you run or own a company, imagine that you have just been sued and must declare bankruptcy.Read more

Mini-Retirements EMBRACING THE MOBILE LIFESTYLE

Mini-Retirements EMBRACING THE MOBILE LIFESTYLERead more

There is more to life than increasing its speed. —MOHANDAS GANDHIRead more

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. —CHARLES KURALT, CBS news reporterRead more

The alternative to binge travel—the mini-retirement—entails relocating to one place for one to six months before going home or moving to another locale.Read more

Rather than seeking to see the world through photo ops between foreign-but-familiar hotels, we aim to experience it at a speed that lets it change us.Read more

True freedom is much more than having enough income and time to do what you want. It is quite possible—actually the rule rather than the exception—to have financial and time freedom but still be caught in the throes of the rat race.Read more

Learn to slow down. Get lost intentionally. Observe how you judge both yourself and those around you. Chances are that it’s been a while. Take at least two months to disincorporate old habits and rediscover yourself without the reminder of a looming return flight.Read more

economic argument for mini-retirementsRead more

Four-Week Total for Luxury LivingRead more

Buenos Aires: $1533.20,Read more

Berlin: $1180,Read more

I asked every vagabond interviewee in this book what their one recommendation would be for first-time extended travelers. The answer was unanimous: Take less with you.Read more

Questions and actions

It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is overcertain of his plot. —PAUL THEROUX, To the Ends of the EarthRead more

1. Take an asset and cash-flow snapshot.Read more

2. Fear-set a one-year mini-retirement inRead more

3. Choose a location for your actual mini-retirement. Where to start?Read more

Cheap is good, but bullet holes are bad.Read more

Filling the Void ADDING LIFE AFTER SUBTRACTING WORK

Decreasing income-driven work isn’t the end goal. Living more—and becoming more—is.Read more

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. —JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Power of MythRead more

Most of this can be overcome as soon as we recognize it for what it is: outdated comparisons using the more-is-better and money-as-success mind-sets that got us into trouble to begin with.Read more

If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow,81 these doubts disappear.Read more

I am 100% convinced that most big questions we feel compelled to face—handed down through centuries of overthinking and mistranslation—use terms so undefined as to make attempting to answer them a complete waste of time.82 This isn’t depressing. It’s liberating.Read more

Before spending time on a stress-inducing question

Before spending time on a stress-inducing question, big or otherwise, ensure that the answer is “yes” to the following two questions: 1. Have I decided on a single meaning for each term in this question? 2. Can an answer to this question be acted upon to improve things?Read more

These are not worthwhile questions. If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.Read more

Sharpening your logical and practical mental toolbox is not being an atheist or unspiritual. It’s not being crass and it’s not being superficial. It’s being smart and putting your effort where it can make the biggest difference for yourself and others.Read more

I believe that life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself.Read more

I can’t offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens of fulfilled NR I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.Read more

Learning Unlimited: Sharpening the SawRead more

It need not be a competitive sport—it could be hiking, chess, or almost anything that keeps your nose out of a textbook and you out of your apartment.Read more

Service for the Right Reasons:Read more

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike.      —OSCAR WILDERead more

Service to me is simple: doing something that improves life besides your own.Read more

Do not become a cause snob.Read more

Do your best and hope for the best. If you’re improving the world—however you define that—consider your job well done.Read more

Service is an attitude. Find the cause or vehicle that interests you most and make no apologies.Read more

Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONSRead more

1. Revisit ground zero: Do nothing.Read more

Slowing down doesn’t mean accomplishing less; it means cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of being rushed.Read more

2. Make an anonymous donation to the service organization of your choice.Read more

3. Take a learning mini-retirement in combination with local volunteeringRead more

4. Revisit and reset dreamlines.Read more

5. Based on the outcomes of steps 1–4, consider testing new part- or full-time vocations.Read more

The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

1. Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work’s sake (W4W)Read more

2. Micromanaging and e-mailing to fill timeRead more

3. Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handleRead more

4. Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more than once,Read more

5. Chasing customers, particularly unqualified or international prospects, when you have sufficient cash flow to finance your nonfinancial pursuitsRead more

6. Answering e-mail that will not result in a sale or that can be answered by a FAQ or auto-responderRead more

7. Working where you live, sleep, or should relaxRead more

8. Not performing a thorough 80/20 analysis every two to four weeks for your business and personal lifeRead more

9. Striving for endless perfection rather than great or simply good enough, whether in your personal or professional lifeRead more

Focus on great for a few things and good enough for the rest.Read more

10. Blowing minutiae and small problems out of proportion as an excuse to workRead more

11. Making non-time-sensitive issues urgent in order to justify workRead more

12. Viewing one product, job, or project as the end-all and be-all of your existenceRead more

Life is too short to waste, but it is also too long to be a pessimist or nihilist.Read more

13. Ignoring the social rewards of lifeRead more

Create your muses alone if you must, but do not live your life alone. Happiness shared in the form of friendships and love is happiness multiplied.Read more

There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.      —SENECARead more

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. —STEVE JOBS,Read more

So be bold and don’t worry about what people think. They don’t do it that often anyway.Read more

blinders and put things in perspective. Even when you’re not traveling the world, develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things, whether important tasks or true peak experiences.Read more

Favorite reads of 2008

Zorba the greek https://www.amazon.com/Zorba-Greek-Nikos-Kazantzakis-ebook/dp/B00WVMP6ZY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1510183950&sr=1-1&keywords=zorba+the+greek

Seneca: Letters from a Stoic: https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Stoic-Epistulae-Lucilium-Illustrated-ebook/dp/B00OVA77JW/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1510183500&sr=1-3&keywords=Seneca%3A+Letters+from+a+Stoic

Notes extracted and edited with Kintrospect