The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

By Tim Ferriss

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This book has 38 recommendations

James Altucher (Founder/StockPickr)

Here are some of the guests and some of their books, in no particular order. I recommend all of the below books. If I didn't like a book, I wouldn't have them on the show.

Bryan Callen (Co-Host/The Fighter and the Kid)

I probably have recommended The Art of Learning and The 4-Hour Body, I'm not kidding, more than any other books.

Jack Canfield (Co-author/The Success Principles)

It's about time this book was written. It is a long-overdue manifesto for the mobile lifestyle, and Tim Ferriss is the ideal ambassador. This will be huge.

Stewart Friedman (Director/Wharton Work/Life Integration Project)

This is a whole new ball game. Highly recommended.

Michael E. Gerber (Founder/E-Myth Worldwide)

The 4-Hour Workweek is a new way of solving a very old problem: just how can we work to live and prevent our lives from being all about work? A world of infinite options awaits those who would read this book and be inspired by it!

Mike Maples (Founding Executive/Tivoli)

If you want to live life on your own terms, this is your blueprint.

Charles L. Brock (CEO/Brock Capital Group)

Part scientist and part adventure hunter, Tim Ferriss has created a road map for an entirely new world. I devoured this book in one sitting–I have seen nothing like it.

Tim Draper (Founder/Draper Fisher Jurvetson)

With this kind of time management and focus on the important things in life, people should be able to get 15 times as much done in a normal work week.

Tracy Osborn (Founder/Wedding Lovely)

The 4 Hour Work Week is by Tim Ferriss is a book I return to over and over to remind myself why I chose the life that I have. It was key in helping me leave my job eight years ago and jump on the entrepreneurship path.

Gunhee Park (Co-Founder/Populum)

While I don’t necessary agree with the theme of actually working “4 hours per week”, The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss is another book that’s encouraged me to quit my job and pursue something on my own. I like the author’s message of finding ways to take your life back, without putting in 50-60 hour workweeks for your corporate job.

Cristina Riesen (Founder/We Are Play Lab)

First, a word on career paths. In time, I realised that career paths are like one-way streets. Magic happens in unexplored territories. Plus life is how you choose to live every moment, every day. So today, rather than building a career, I prefer to make lateral moves in life, working with great people and being part of ambitious projects impacting the world. There are a few books that got me here: [...] Tim Ferriss " The 4-Hour Workweek", "The 4-Hour Chef", "Tools of Titans".

Ola Olusoga (Co-founder/Populum)

For business, I've read Influence by Robert Cialdini 3 times, and Traction by Gabriel Weinberg twice, so if number of times read indicates favor, then those are it. There are a whole bunch of others, like The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, Confession of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, and Running Lean by Ash Maurya, that I've also enjoyed and recommend to people.

Joel Gascoigne (Co-founder/Buffer)

This is one of the most practical books I've ever read. It is packed with so much information and actual resources to get you on your journey with creating passive income and if you desire, traveling. It really opened my mind to a lot of productivity improvements I could make.

I would also say that The 4-hour Work Week helped me to dream about the idea of traveling while working. I read it 4 years ago, and in that time I have traveled the world and lived in 4 different continents. It's been one of the best experiences of my life so far, especially when I've spent months rather than weeks or days in a place.

Mike Benkovich (Founder/Anatomonics)

It's impossible to understate the impact this book had on me. In my opinion it's a modern classic!

I was working as a web developer when I first read it. The book showed me that it's possible to make a living outside of the usual trappings. A few months later I quit my job and haven't had another one since.

Andrea Loubier (CEO/MailBird)

Will be interesting to learn more about automation too, as I'm always looking for ways to optimize my time, similar to the popular 4 Hour Work Week book by Tim Ferris. Automate and optimize your time.

Mehdi Kajbaf (Co-Founder/Matboard and More)

Great book, and the main idea I got from that was cut the bullshit, focus on what actually matters, ie. “just because something takes a long time, doesn’t make it important” and “doing something well, doesn’t make it important”. Lots to learn from that book but that’s the jist of it I think. Be brutally honest with yourself about what matters.

Fabrice Grinda (Serial Entrepreneur, Investor)

I don’t buy the premise, but the tips are great.

Marvin Liao (Partner/500 Startups)

SUCH a hard question to answer because there are so MANY favorite books of mine. For Business, i'd say either 80/20 Principle (Koch) or 4 Hour Work Week (Ferriss) for the principles it teaches on how to optimize work & life.

Jesper Bylund (Co-Founder/BlankPage)

But I’d start with some easy classics that get you excited about what you can do in the world: Rich Dad, Poor Dad & The 4 Hour Workweek I think are excellent places to begin.

Marc Montagne (Co-Founder/Toolwatch.io)

My favorite business book, and I won't be very original here, is probably The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. There are few books that have had such a wide impact and while I don't think I could apply everything, I always get something out of reading again this book.

Lewis Smith (Entrepreneur & Developer/BodyTracker)

"The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss inspired us to quit our jobs, travel the world and start our own businesses. I haven't re-read since, and I don't think much of the practical advice has aged well. But in terms of opening your mind to ideas, it is world class.

Vincent Pugliese (Author & Professional Photographer)

Question: What books would you recommend to young people to be prepared for the future workplaces?

Answer: So many! So many by Seth Godin (Linchpin, The Icarus Deception, Purple Cow) Essentialism by Greg McKeown, Deep Work by Cal Newport, The Choice by Og Mandino, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, No More Dreaded Mondays and 48 Days To The Work You Love by Dan Miller, The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran, Will It Fly by Pat Flynn, The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews, QBQ by John Miller, The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Wow, there are so many more, but that’s a start.

John Doherty (Founder/Credo)

It opened my eyes to a different lifestyle from the normal.

Lex Na Wei Ming (CEO/Bountie.io)

I have always been a huge fan of his, started out reading his 4 Hour Work Week and now his latest, Tribe of Mentors.

Dean Roller (Founder/Bliss Bean Bags)

This is probably cliche, however the Four Hour Work Week read many years ago had a huge impact on me. The insights and examples in that book made it easy for me to start a side business while still working a full time job.

Marin Gerov (Co-Founder/DULO)

Talking of Tim Ferriss, his series (The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef) have been extremely good resources for improving work, health, and learning.

Cliff Hartono (CEO/Jasri Partners)

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris was a very inspiring book for me when I was still working at an investment bank. I wasn’t very satisfied with my own growth at the time. The 4-hour Workweek book changed my perspective on success, work and lifestyle. I never completely applied all his tips and tactics, but his philosophies were invaluable. One of my favourite lines in his book is “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” Such a simple and powerful idea - yet few do it well.

Chelsea Frank (Founder/Life and Limb Gel)

I read everything with an open mind, often challenging myself by choosing books with an odd perspective or religious/spiritual views. These books do not reflect my personal feelings but are books that helped shape my perspective on life, love, and happiness.

Liam Martin (Co-founder & CMO/Time Doctor & Staff.com)

Read the books in this order: Marx: Capital, Peter Thiel: Zero to One, Eric Ries: Lean Startup, Tim Ferriss: 4 Hour Work Week, Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

If you read the books in that order you'll have the theoretical framework to get great in business, the application to make it happen, the opportunity to figure out how to get that first business up and running and the context to understand that it isn't all that important in the first place.

Pedro Cortés (Independent Designer)

For business ,definitely The 4-Hour Workweek as it keeps you in check to constantly evaluate what things I should be paying the most attention to get the best results while reminding me the life of freedom I could have while working for myself.

Katie Keith (Operations Director/Barn2 Media)

My favourite business book is The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. I don't agree with everything in this book, but am inspired by his approach to working smart rather than working hard. I love how he has raised awareness of the fact that by working in a clever, strategic way, you can escape the 9-5 and build a business around your lifestyle.

Nick Loper (Chief Side Hustler/Side Hustle Nation)

A classic with some radical ideas about what you can really do with your time once you harness the 80/20 rule.

Andrew Youderian (Founder/eCommerceFuel)

It's very cliche, but the 4-Hour Work Week was published in 2007 right when I was leaving the corporate world, and definitely played a role in my starting my own company.

Cody McLain (CEO/SupportNinja)

Need I say more? The difference with my relationship with this book is that I started a multi-national, multi-million dollar company called SupportNinja as a result of reading this book. now my company services some of the biggest tech brands in silicon valley and it all started with the ideas given to me with this book.

Jules Schroeder (Founder of Unconventional Life)

Showed me what was possible in working online and remotely back when I first started over 10 years ago. It gave me permission to think way bigger and outlined a non-conventional approach to business.

Adam Johnston (CEO & Co-Founder/Last Call Trivia)

Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek came to me a couple years into starting Last Call Trivia, and about that time my business partner and I were separately moving all over the country every few months trying to set up branches of our new company. This book taught me to create a business that works on its own as much as possible and gave me the confidence that traveling and building a business remotely was not as far from the norm as it sounded at the time.

Sa El (Co-Founder/Simply Insurance)

This book will help you understand that business in the traditional sense isn't the only answer, it shows you that if you plan out what you want and need, and put a number on it, you can live financially free with almost no effort once the hard work is put into it.

Dmitry Dragilev (Founder/JustReachOut & PR That Converts)

The 4-Hour Workweek got me thinking a lot about working, and I only work 25 hours a week now, and I’ve been on this crusade to work less and less and less and be much more productive. I earn the most I’ve ever earned in my entire career, and it’s all due to books like [this], I think.

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The 4-Hour Workweek book summary

Amazon description

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.

This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:

How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”

The new expanded edition of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek includes:

More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point
Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal
How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times
The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either

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The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

This book has 38 recommendations

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