The 4-Hour Workweek: The D Principle

The mainstream expectation of working life is to work hard during your 20s or 30s with 40 hours per week in-front of office desks until you reach your retirement age of say 60. Then you start to live life. But what if you could sample a mini-retirement on your deferred-life plan before working 40 years for it?

Timothy Ferriss published his book ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ to teach people how to escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the New Rich using his DEAL principle: Definition, Elimination, Automation and Liberation. Who are the New Rich? The New Rich are those who have abandoned the deferred-life plan and created luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility.

What separates the New Rich (NR), those who create options, from the Deferrers (D), those who save it all for the end only to find that life has passed them by? The Definition of goals.

D: To work for yourself.

NR: Will have others work for you.

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").

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 only that which excites you.

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.

D: To be the boss instead of the employee; to be in charge.

NR: To be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner. To own the trains so to speak and have someone else run them on time.

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?

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.

D: To reach the big pay-off, whether IPO, acquisition, retirement, or some other pot of gold.

NR: To think big but ensure payday comes every day: cash flow first, big payday second.

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). 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.

Ferriss believes that you don’t need a million dollars to live a million-dollar lifestyle. What you need to live the life of luxury are flexibility and mobility. It’s these two things that will allow you to live a life that enables you to do whatever you want, whenever you want. By redefining your goals, you will have a clearer perspective on how and what you should aim for in order to live the life you want.

Reference:

Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek